Materialism as a religion

Perhaps most troubling was that he was serving pretty standard proponent fare. The outrage generated by introducing Christianity into a discussion belies the perception of shared and borrowed material.

That said, my exposé may have also shed light on why he didn’t bring up the subject of NDEs.

As I have said over and over, both here and at Skeptiko, why can't we consider what a person says first instead of dismissing his views because of his ideological position? Why should a Christian be any less able to debate philosophical or scientific subjects than an atheist? Both have ideological baggage. In my ideal world, both ideologies would be erased from our culture and matters both natural and supernatural, physical or non-physical, could be discussed without prejudice. But this ideal world is unlikely in my lifetime so I have to accept that there will be Christian philosophers as well as atheists. Religious scientists doing valuable work alongside their atheist colleagues.

In this case, by all means point out where Koons' religion has directly led him to a certain conclusion but I would expect you to show that a non-Christian could not have arrived at the same conclusion. From what I can see, he has summarised the problems of materialism (as expounded by the 23 philosophers represented in his book) in a way that is religiously neutral. Atheists might not like it because most are ideologically committed to materialism and philosophically opposed to dualism or idealism but that is, again, ideological baggage and, as has been pointed out several times, many of the same problems with materialism have been exposed by an atheist philosopher: Thomas Nagel. Talk about outrage - just look at the reception that book received from his fellow atheists.