withallyourmind.net

Amy, of Stand to Reason, has an interesting post, New Atheists: Old Arguments…Old Attitude?, in which she points out that the tactics of the New Atheists are not so new after all. She quotes a 1797 work of William Wilberforce describing the atheists of his day:

In our own days, when it is but too clear that infidelity [i.e., skepticism, atheism] increases, it is not in consequence of the reasonings of the infidel writers having been much studied, but from the progress of luxury, and the decay of morals: and, so far as this increase maybe traced at all to the works of skeptical writers, it has been produced, not by argument and discussion, but by sarcasms and points of wit, which have operated on weak minds, or on nominal Christians, by bringing gradually into contempt, opinions which, in their case, had only rested on the basis of blind respect and the prejudices of education. . . . If Revelation were assailed only by reason and argument, it would have little to fear. The literary opposers of Christianity, from Herbert to Hume, have been seldom read. They made some stir in their day: during their brief span of existence they were noisy and noxious; but like the locusts of the east, which for a while obscure the air, and destroy the verdure, they were soon swept away and forgotten.

This just reinforces the adage that there is nothing new under the sun… including athiestic antics.