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Austin Cline Has Adversaries?

My, my! Since my post on the threaded conversation between myself and Austin Cline
last week http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/2008/09/threaded-with-austin-cline-
saturday.html , I've discovered that I'm not the only one to have a beef with the
guy.

Read these:

"Shame On Austin Cline";


http://sandefur.typepad.com/freespace/2005/05/shame_on_austin.html

"Response to Austin Cline";http://mikeduran.com/?p=972

"An attack on [C.S.] Lewis from Austin Cline"; [A response by the author of "C. S.
Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason,"]
http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2005/10/attack-on-lewis-from-austin-cline.html

This is the first paragraph of a longer piece: "While I have glimpsed in a few
places atheistic reactions to my assertion that the church itself is producing
atheists, I had yet to see any real formal comment on it until today, when a
member of my forum pointed me to Austin Cline’s entry on it located here. It so
happens that I know of Mr. Cline and have had a little interaction, but for the
record I don’t believe he understands that ‘Anthony Horvath’ is also ’sntjohnny.’
That interaction has a little in common with his entry here. In word, I think he
is again being quite presumptuous, and I’m going to take this opportunity to
respond even though he’ll never likely see it." http://sntjohnny.com/front/austin-
cline-reacts-to-the-church-producing-atheists/64.html

See this exchange of comments between Cline and the original blogger to whom he is
responding, where Cline arrogantly refers to "a housewife and good little kiddies
at home.” http://de-conversion.com/2007/04/06/is-the-rise-of-atheism-and-feminism-
destroying-the-traditional-family/

"Austin Cline of atheism.about.com, argues that fundamentalist atheism does not


exist, because it cannot exist on the grounds that atheism has no fundamental
doctrines, and that fundamentalism is not a personality type."
http://www.powerset.com/explore/semhtml/Fundamentalism?query=others+include+Austin
+Cline But this "fundamentalism" was exactly what I was talking about when I (CEC)
told him atheism, being not only about either a lack of belief in a god, or a
belief in no god (this second of which he disputed,) was about also about "faith"
vs. "reason." That is fundamental.

Faith vs. reason is the fundamental difference between a person who believes no
god exists, and people who believe gods do exist. When you throw in to the mix the
agnostic who has a lack of belief yet does not give up supernaturalism such as tea
leaf readings or ghost hunting, there is a conflict of concepts, which Cline
denied in our thread, even going so far as to say atheism as a belief that nothing
supernatural exists is "limiting" to the idea of atheism. He wants to be "all
inclusive" because of his culturally popular position as a very public blogger for
a major enterprise.

"Austin Cline, in a recent article, has taken issue with one of my posts on
atheism. Cline has “argued” that I unfairly divide all atheists into two “nice,
neat groups”." [His own organization, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, is
arguing with him. Funny how my original argument with him was about how Cline
himself "unfairly" divided atheists into "strong" and "weak" atheists--which I
took umberage with. (CEC)] http://ffrf.org/
Cline does get some support: "I gotta hand it to Austin Cline of
atheism.about.com. He is a class act."
http://killtheafterlife.blogspot.com/2007/04/austin-cline-gives-his-support.html

Dilbert.Blog calls Cline the "Poster Child for Cognitive Dissonance."


http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/08/poster-child-fo.html

It would seem Cline likes to argue with other people,


http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/sep96-r2.html (as he did with me.)

I'm certain there must be many more similar posts, since "Cline" can be found on
192,000 hits, and I'm not going to search them all.

Please send all comments to

mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the sm of the


Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism tm, the educational arm of the Assemblage.
This publication © 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

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