{"id":579,"date":"2011-01-05T23:27:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-05T23:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/01\/the-case-for-theism-is-a-fraud.html"},"modified":"2011-01-05T23:27:00","modified_gmt":"2011-01-05T23:27:00","slug":"the-case-for-theism-is-a-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/01\/the-case-for-theism-is-a-fraud.html","title":{"rendered":"The Case For Theism Is A “Fraud”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Somehow I missed this when it went viral in the blogosphere. University of Houston professor, Ken Parsons, announced on his blog<\/a> that he was giving up philosophic research into religion.\u00a0\u00a0He discussed his efforts to teach the case for theism:<\/p>\n

I found the arguments so execrably awful and pointless that they bored and disgusted me\u2026. I have to confess that I now regard \u201cthe case for theism\u201d as a fraud and I can no longer take it seriously enough to present it to a class as a respectable philosophical position\u2014no more than I could present intelligent design as a legitimate biological theory. BTW, in saying that I now consider the case for theism to be a fraud, I do not mean to charge that the people making that case are frauds who aim to fool us with claims they know to be empty. No, theistic philosophers and apologists are almost painfully earnest and honest; I don\u2019t think there is a Bernie Madoff in the bunch. I just cannot take their arguments seriously any more, and if you cannot take something seriously, you should not try to devote serious academic attention to it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh boy do I know how he feels.\u00a0 When I have discussions with non-Orthodox rabbinical colleagues about the case for theism, I find myself thinking the same kind of things.\u00a0 I simply can\u2019t believe that otherwise bright and open people really believe in it.\u00a0 And the more complicated their arguments become, the less I find them to be compelling.\u00a0 Either there\u2019s no logical consistency<\/a> or there\u2019s so much gobbledy-gook that I can\u2019t get a handle on what they\u2019re talking about.\u00a0 I can tell that THEY believe in it, I just can\u2019t for the life of me understand how or why.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Somehow I missed this when it went viral in the blogosphere. University of Houston professor, Ken Parsons, announced on his blog that he was giving up philosophic research into religion.\u00a0\u00a0He discussed his efforts to teach the case for theism:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogentries","tag-atheism"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Case For Theism Is A "Fraud"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Somehow I missed this when it went viral in the blogosphere. 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