Requiem for a Phantom God

The debate between the theist and the atheist dates back millennia. Yet the crucial question involves not the existence of deity, but what kind of deity might exist. Can we eliminate certain options and leave ourselves free to explore others? In "Requiem for a Phantom God," the author argues that we can. Any consideration of the divine should rule out what C.S. Lewis termed "nonsense." Self-contradictory portraits of God are not only meaningless, but they have the potential to do great harm - and they have over the course of human history.

Requiem for a Phantom God serves as an epitaph for just such a god of nonsense. It identifies the core philosophical problem: the desire of humanity to believe in an all-powerful deity who is at, at the same time, entirely "good." This desire, however, is destined to remain unfulfilled, because these two concepts simply cannot be reconciled. Once humanity realizes this, we can choose the kind of god we wish to believe in: immanent or transcendent ... if, indeed, we wish to put our faith in a god at all. Requiem discusses the abuses and pitfalls of faith, and whether it is possible to speak of a faith that is not blind. It addresses modern and historical examples of religious abuse and suggests they tell us about the doctrines that support them.

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