David B. Hart muses about a new book featuring fifty essays the "new" atheists. His credulity, so robust when it comes to matters of the Spirit World, has apparently met its match in the Bad Writing of Smug Humanists:
Simple probability, surely, would seem to dictate that a collection of essays by fifty fairly intelligent and zealous atheists would contain at least one logically compelling, deeply informed, morally profound, or conceptually arresting argument for not believing in God.
But why should that be, when no one believes in God based on arguments?
Anyway, reading Hart's piece, which is (simple probability being what it is) only mostly horrible, [1] was at least worth it qua set up for the withering riposte waged by Ars Artia in the first comment:
Any comment I could make about the content of this essay would necessarily be banal (one does not want to join the ranks of Daniel Dennett, et al). I can only acknowledge that the intellectual and spiritual power of David Hart steadies one's spine, so to speak, for the terrible things that already exist and may lie ahead. This essay provides hope. There are still men of faith, courage, and good will on earth. Can they prevail?
NOTES
1. In fairness, I found his enthymematic riffing amusing, even edifying. One must take the sweet with the bitter.
