C S Lewis is not a famous atheist, he was a famous Christian who said he was an atheist. Can you list three books written by C S Lewis the famous atheist that were not in fact written by Lewis the Christian? Can you show me any record of C S Lewis being famous and an atheist, at the same time?

You were an atheist. A unfamous atheist. There's lots of them about, as I wrote. There are no famous atheists who are now Christians.

You say you used to be an atheist and now you don't believe in evolution. Can you describe evolution in a way which will demonstrate that you understand it?

Kent Hovind is a joke and so is his spurious reward. I do not know any atheists who support the strawman argument that Hovind challenges “evolutionists” to prove.

Enter the name “Professor Louis Bounoure” in Google and what do we find? Exactly what I'd expect to find, nothing but creation-evolution debate quotes. Famous scientist is he? What does he do, apart from supply quotes?

[actually this is wrong, he supplied just the one quote]

Hovind attributes this: “Evolution is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless.” to Professor Louis Bounoure, supposedly the former president of the Biological Society of 'Strasbourg'. A creationist web site actually gives a reference: The Advocate, March 8, 1984, p. 17

Lie #315. E.T. Babinski actually contacted French authorities. They revealed that Louis Bounoure never served as Director or even a member of the CNRS. He was a professor of biology at the University of Strasbourg. Bounoure was a Christian but did not affirm that Genesis was to be taken to the letter.

The beginning of the quotation, "Evolution is a fairy tale for adults" is not from Bounoure but adapted from Jean Rostand, a member of the Academy of Sciences of the French Academy. Rostand also wrote that "Transformism may be considered as accepted, and no scientist, no philosopher, no longer discusses the fact of evolution." (L'Evolution des Especes [i.e., The Evolution of the Species], Hachette, p. 190).

The end of Bounoure's quotation is from his book, "Determinism and Finality." It runs, "That, by this, evolutionism would appear as a theory without value, is confirmed also pragmatically. A theory must not be required to be true, said Mr. H. Poincare, more or less, it must be required to be useable. Indeed, none of the progress made in biology depends even slightly on a theory, the principles of which are nevertheless filling every year volumes of books, periodicals, and congresses with their discussions and their disagreements."

In other words, Hovind's quote is complete fiction and he is too incompetent and dishonest to correct it or even check up on it.

http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Pier/1766/hovindlies/P.html

Par for the course. Creationists trade these names of “heretical scientists” like they were precious relics.

Martin Willett

http://mwillett.org/

Authority:

Have you found out anything about the great Professor Louis Bounoure yet? Anything else you'd like to quote from such an eminent man?

Old out of context quotations from French Scientists

Anytime you want a debate you know where to come, but you'll have to do a lot better than the spewings of Dr Dino and the old closed mind barb

Martin Willett

http://mwillett.org/

How about these:

Physics: Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Kelvin

Chemistry: Boyle, Dalton, Ramsay

Biology: Ray, linnaeus, Mendel, Pasteur

Geology: Steno, Woodward, Brewster, Agassiz

Asronomy: Kepler, Galileo, Herschel, Maunder

Ahhh, let's throw in some old coots like Leonardo Da Vinci, Francis Bacon, Samuel Morse, William Perry, etc.

If you persist I will offer more.

God bless,

Jack

That Newton chappie didn't believe in relativity you know.

The argument from authority is poor logic, non-scientific and a poor debating tactic.

If I was to give a list of scientists who are atheists and believers in evolution I could probably exceed your mailbox limits with a single message. Most of the scientists who have ever lived are still alive, and most them believe in evolution. It is only through evolution that biology makes sense, evolution is the logic that allows biology to be understood rather than just catalogued.

Reading between the lines of your original message you seem to be a person who has had some problems. You now associate all those problems with “rejecting God” and now project that on to everybody else.

I do have a partially open mind. There are things I will not let in. I will not surrender logic to faith. I will not “experiment” with addictive drugs or dangerous lifestyles. I do not value the open mind as the ultimate Good Thing. I trust my ego.

I hope your lifestyle comes together,

Martin Willett

http://mwillett.org/

Assumption: no famous atheists have become famous Christians.

Conclusion: ergo, atheists never become Christians.

Even if your assumption were true, surely you see the logical fallacy in your conclusion.

My father was an atheist who became a Christian. I can verify that through his family (most of the members of which are not Christians) and my mother, who met him while he was an atheist.

It's generally helpful to your credibility to cite some sort of research or statistic or some evidence corroborating your theory.

~Zoe <><

How illogical! It doesn't follow at all, that's why I have never made such a claim.

I made a statement. It is up to opponents to provide a counter-example. It is the Christians who like to make out that atheists regularly convert to become Christians. My assertion is that these are poor atheists. Your father used to be an atheist, my brother-in-law used to be one too. But I never remember him putting across very much of a case and being very impressive about his atheism. There is no obvious example of anybody who became famous for being an atheist who later became a Christian. The world is full of unimpressive and unfamous people who have had conversions of one sort or another. But where are the famous ex-atheists who were famous before they converted?

Martin Willett

http://mwillett.org/

Funny, that's the overwhelming impression I got from your 'ex-atheist Christians' page. shrugs Oh well.

The assumption you're making now (I love questioning assumptions, don't you?) is that only famous people are vehement in their beliefs. Not every 'impressive' atheist (whatever that means) becomes famous. So what? That says nothing about the firmness of their beliefs. I'm not a famous Christian, but I am a Christian nonetheless.

You didn't know my father, and you don't know every ex-atheist. You can certainly say 'I don't know any Christians who were impressive ex-atheists,' but it is a huge generalization to say that no former-atheist Christians were ever atheists.

Back to C. S. Lewis, whom somebody else mentioned. He was a very strong atheist; he and J. R. R. Tolkien used to debate constantly about it. And please don't say Lewis used his former atheism as a marketing ploy. He didn't, and he didn't need to.

Anyway, thank you for responding, and promptly at that. As a heads-up, I plan to leave comments on your page about The Case for Christ, but I'm afraid I might be a while in getting around to it.

Elyon's strength,

~Zoe <><

Where is this evidence of C.S. Lewis being an atheist? Show me. Show me something that Lewis wrote about his atheism in the present tense. Show me some writings in which he espouses atheism, show me some writing in which he agrees with an atheist or defeats a Christian in debate.

There is plenty of evidence in his writing as a Christian that he claimed to have been an atheist, and a rather silly one at that. There is no evidence anywhere that I am aware of that shows C.S. Lewis was ever a respected and well-known and influential atheist philosopher or writer. His specialism was Medieval and Renaissance Literature, a subject that brought him into contact with J.R.R.Tolkien but did not give him any great insights into the way the universe actually works. My Oxford Dictionary of Quotations offers nothing from Lewis dated before 1942. As an atheist he was a nobody, he left no legacy of atheism except in his Christian writings in which his former atheist self is a handy strawman. Nobody ever became an atheist from reading Lewis, except perhaps in frustration with his transparent allegories in the Narnia series.

Where are the impressive atheists who became famous as cogent atheists who later became Christians? Where are they? I'm fed up with these people who are called ex-atheists who are nothing more than nobodies who become somebody by declaring themselves converted and who can barely defeat their own former selves in debates. C.S. Lewis, Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel can't furnish one atheist book between themselves.

Martin Willett

http://mwillett.org/

I hate repeating myself. But, as it appears necessary, I shall do so.

You assume (whether consciously or not) that one must be at least somewhat 'famous' to be firm in one's beliefs. Lewis wasn't famous as an atheist. So what? What does that prove? Only that he wasn't a famous atheist. The rest is just your assumption.

There's a technical term for publicly accusing a person of a wrong which you cannot prove they committed. It's called libel. You are relying on nothing but your assumptions that because Christian X was not a famous atheist, he wasn't a very good atheist. That's fine, but when you accuse Christian X of exaggerating his former beliefs as a marketing ploy, and you have nothing concrete to back up your claim, that is slander.

If atheism is as airtight a theory as you apparently think it is, you have no need to personally attack its opponents. Please refrain from doing so in the future.

Respectfully submitted,

~Zoe <><

*~Never break the Circle.~*

Where is this idea that you have to be famous to be committed come from? I know of many atheists, dozens, who are committed and, what is far more important, coherent, in their atheist views. None of them have remotely begun to “accept Jesus as their saviour”. It does not happen. I have no experience at all of people with profound and coherent atheist views ever becoming Christians. However, there is a small group of people who emerge from obscurity to claim to be Christians who used to be atheists. Where is the evidence? Some of their Christian friends say “oh yes, he was the quite the atheist you know, but now he's totally different.” I'm sorry but that might do for one or two conversions, but my point is that seems to be the case for all these “ex-atheists”. That is what stinks.

My brother-in-law is an excellent example. I have had hundreds of deep and meaningful conversations with him. But not one about his atheism, he said he was an atheist but he never debated the subject with me and never made out a case for atheism. Now he goes to church and seems to be a Christian. Was he ever an atheist with a coherent view? I can't say. I can confirm he used to identify himself as an atheist and that is exactly how far I can go, and it's really lame.

If somebody wants evidence that I have been an atheist I can provide plenty. But many of these ex-atheists, despite being professional writers, can provide nothing that shows them to have ever been atheists. Not one published word by C.S. Lewis is a defence of atheism. The proof of their atheism seems to consist entirely of hearsay accounts of recollections of conversations by Christians and their own testimony.

Being famous as an atheist would be proof that Lewis was an atheist. He was an obscure academic and sci fi novelist not famous for anything before he became a Christian apologist trumpeting his former atheism. This seems to be the case for all of his ilk. They go from unfamous to famous by public conversion. It seems to be a very Christian way of acting. Who would ever have heard of Saul?

There are no counter-examples. No famous ex-atheists who can clearly demonstrate systematic atheist views defended or propounded with vigour before the day of their (career enhancing) conversion.

Where are C.S. Lewis's, Lee Strobel's and Josh McDowell's atheist friends?

Ex-atheists emerge from nowhere claiming to have had beliefs that they no longer have, beliefs they can provide no evidence for, beliefs that make their writing marketable.

Martin Willett

http://mwillett.org/