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Atheism: "The game has changed"

Yesterday, during some down time between things at church, I paid a visit to the weblog of Michael Spencer (a.k.a., the internetmonk, or imonk for short). Visiting Internet Monk: Dispatches from the post-evangelical wilderness is always a provocation for me.



One post in particular struck me: Re:Atheism. I encourage you to read Spencer's post, which begins with the Gervais video above. As in much of his work (i.e., The Office and Extras), Ricky is funny and poignant as he discusses God. Like Michael, I think the British funny man captures late-modern atheism very well. Late-modern atheism is not amenable to the kind of apologetical arguments we have traditionally employed. In other words, what was convincing to people when C.S. Lewis was writing, or even to people 15 or 20 years ago, no longer suffices. Too often we give answers to questions nobody is asking. Is it any wonder we're not convincing? I found myself attending to Spencer's corrective to Christians:

"What we’ve said and written is fine. What we’ve lived in our homes, private lives, churches, workplaces and friendships has spoken louder.

"We are the ones who appear to not believe in the God we say is real. We are the ones who seem to be forcing ourselves to believe with bigger shows, bigger celebrities and bigger methods of manipulation.

"You can’t understand why some people just say atheism has about it the beauty of simplicity? You don’t see why Occam’s Razor is so powerful, even among students who have no idea what it means?"
I concur with the Imonk's conclusion, namely that, as regards atheism, or what might more aptly be described as robust, laissez-faire, agnosticism: "The game has changed".