Over the years, I have seen a lot of skeptical arguments against the Christian faith. There are plenty of websites written by people who claim to be former Christians who now have made it their life purpose to ‘disprove’ Christianity. What are the similarities between the purpose of these atheist websites and the Christian apologetic endeavor? As I have already said before, in Introducing Apologetics: Cultivating Christian Commitment by James Taylor, Taylor lists three kinds of people who we will encounter. If anything, if we encounter people in these categories, we should see why we need apologetics in the Church. Taylor says when dealing with people, many people may fall into various categories such as:
1. Critics: those with criticisms of the Christian faith who are not open to the possibility of its truth. Critics need to be answered to neutralize the effects of their criticisms on seekers and doubters.
2. Seekers: people who are open to our faith but are prevented from making a commitment primarily because of honest questions about the Christian claims.
3. Doubters: are Christians who find it difficult to believe one or more tenants of the Christian faith with complete confidence. Doubters need to be restored to full Christian conviction by giving them the tools to remove their doubts.
When it comes to evaluating these atheist websites and their criticisms it is clear these people mostly fall under category #1. They are mostly critics. And they are providing the info for people that have become atheists or are possibly seekers and doubters. Some of them clearly want to turn doubters into #1′s and join the fight against eradicating the Christian faith and religion in general. My friend Tom Gilson has written an excellent article called The Strangely Simple World of Internet Atheism.
What are the similarities between the purpose of these atheist websites and the Christian apologetic endeavor?
First, both have issues of confirmation bias. If someone is a critic (see above), and says that God must not exist or that miracles are not possible, in many cases they will seek out evidence that confirms their hypothesis, and dismiss evidence that might challenge or overturn their position. Likewise, if someone presupposes that God does exist, they will seek evidence to support such a claim as well. The one thing I have noticed about atheists (and those that adhere to metaphysical naturalism) is that they are only permitted to look for natural causes. Theists are permitted to look for two kinds of causes-both natural and non-natural.
I don’t want to give the impression that this means there is no objectivity involved here. But in many cases, the bias and starting points are the same. Both parties are looking for evidence for their position and they cite books and articles to back up their points. Also, both sides can tend to dismiss each other when they cite an authority on some given topic because the authority doesn’t share the same worldview or position on the topic.
A small example is needed here: go to any atheist website and you will see the same list for the Jesus mysticism position (e.g, Robert Price, Richard Carrier, Dan Barker, Earl Doherty, etc). When Bart Ehrman came out with his book on the existence of Jesus, this list of mythers and their followers trashed it because it challenged instead of confirming their position on mythicism.
Why Atheist Apologetics?
In regards to this topic there is one thing I have thought about a lot. Theism has a clear teleology which is the belief in or the perception of purposeful development toward an end, as in nature or history. Many atheists adhere to a naturalistic worldview which has no teleology. In other words, humans are a blind cosmic accident who came from a process that has no meaning, no purpose, no goal, no directions. Therefore, teleology has a goal in mind and evolution has been seen to run down dead ends many, many times. As Richard Dawkins says:
Humans have always wondered about the meaning of life…life has no higher purpose than to perpetuate the survival of DNA…life has no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference-Scheff, Liam. 2007. The Dawkins Delusion. Salvo, 2:94.
Sometimes, a non theists’ desire to do apologetics might be driven by the issue that religion is a perceived as harmful to humans and society. In response, there has been enough written about the benefits of Christianity to the world. Jonathan Hill’s What has Christianity Ever Done For Us? or An Atheist Defends Religion by author Bruce Sheiman are good starting points. So we are back to whether we have all the information on this issue.
But what if an atheist thinks they have a moral obligation to do atheist apologetics? We now are back to the issue of how a naturalist might try to ground a moral obligation. A moral duty encompasses both a proposition and a command; both are features of minds. But based on a naturalistic worldview, we only have whatever is there IS right. In other words, the descriptive element is there. But there is prescriptive aspect here which is missing. It is a challenge to make the leap from an ‘is’ to an ‘ought.’
Conclusion
I don’t doubt for one moment think atheist apologetics are going away any time in the near future. In many cases, they are more aggressive than ever. But here’s my point: I ask atheists why they get so much meaning and purpose in trying to disprove Christianity? As I repeat again, by their own worldview, they have no purpose, goals, etc. But now they say they can create their own meaning. However, while skeptics/atheists can say they can create their own meaning, let’s think about this: If they want to claim they are the beacons of rationality and objectivity, they need to admit they have a gaping hole in their worldview and apologetic endeavor. By their own worldview, the universe is deaf and blind to their own meaning that they have created.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Eric. I was an atheist during the 1960s, so people like Madalyn Murray O’Hair and Bertrand Russell were my role models. I had the opportunity to talk with O’Hair in 1969 when I was producer and host of an atheist radio talk show. Russell died a year before I became a theist.
The arguments we used back then are pretty much the same as atheists use now. We were about as angry then as now. However, we were not as evangelistic. We believed Christians were stupid, should be called stupid to their face and told to shut up, but we weren’t focused on trying to convert everyone to atheism. We believed that intelligent people would become atheists eventually because atheism was true. Christians could do whatever they wanted in their neighborhood, but just stay out of mine.
Facing the evidences for theism and the Bible and Christianity were what changed my mind. So many atheists have asked me why I became a Christian that I finally decided to answer them by writing about the process I went through. I recognize many of the names of the atheists who have responded to your post because they have also responded to mine and others. The responses are basically the same from post to post and not much different than how I responded decades ago.
One thing that is different now than in the 1960s is the number of Christian apologists who are writing, publishing, and debating. Not so much in the 60s. Most of the Christian response came from pastors and evangelists who basically preached against us. Not many Christians presented the Gospel in an evidentiary style.
I became a Christian in 1971 because of evidence and it was just a year later that Josh McDowell published his book “Evidence That Demands A Verdict.” I’ve watched the heat turn up since then in the battle for hearts, minds and souls. The more Christian apologists present evidence, the more atheists come against it. The more atheists come against the evidence, the more Christian apologists defend. It’s an interesting adversarial role that is not unlike the ancient legal system that gave us apologia and the early church the apologists.
So, where do we go from here? I believe this is what we have. A two-party system. One side says there is a God; the other side says there is no God. Both cannot be correct. Either there is a God or there is not. Each side chooses based on its view of evidence and belief in that evidence. One will be found correct; the other will be found incorrect. Either we will all face God or we’ll all be no more. If God is true, then I’d prefer facing Him as a believer in Him. If God is not true, then I’ll be no more.
Interestingly, whether I believe in God or not does impact the way I live my life. Having lived as an atheist, I can tell you that I lived it for myself. I used people to get what I wanted. Why should it matter whether I treated people fairly or not. Life was to be lived to the fullest because when I died, I was dead. Having also lived as a theist, I can tell you that believing in the God of the Bible has deeply affected the way I treat others. I believe in loving others as I love myself, including my enemies. I believe in loving my brothers and sisters more than I love myself. I believe in helping the less fortunate and trying to make a difference in the corner of the world. I do that because I believe it is what God wants me to do and that it is the right way to live.
I am not speaking for every atheist and the way they think or live. I don’t know every atheist. However, I knew many atheists when I was an atheist and most of us thought the same and lived the same. It may be different now, but I know what it was like to be an atheist decades ago. I left that life behind, but the memories are strong.
Thanks again for sharing, Eric.
No wonder you became a theist; it sounds as if you developed neither meaningful maturity nor wisdom in your life as an atheist so you found an outside authority and submitted to its seductive parental power as if it made up for this absence. It didn’t then and doesn’t now; it’s a lateral shift at best and not a very good trade, in my opinion. How can you have open, mature, honest, and independent relationships with others now if you never had to develop them yourself then?
Greetings. Your response is exactly what I expected. Ridicule, intimidate, bully. I did it and you do it. It’s what an atheist does. What a Christian does is love their enemies and pray for them.
Slapping these labels – ridicule, intimidate, bully – on my comment doesn’t detract from its truth value; although it may appear to be the diversionary tactic it is to defend your faith, it is really a smear job against me… someone who dares criticize your thesis on the basis that you are attacking what you perceive rather than what is.
I care very deeply about what’s true (as well as how we can know about it) and I respect that more than anyone’s – yours or mine – beliefs about it. THIS is why I’m an atheist and this – respecting what’s true and respecting only those ways we can know anything about it – is why I criticize those who falsely claim all kinds of personal shortcomings to be due to atheism rather than where these criticisms honestly and truthfully belong: with the person who has not improved in these areas.
You are no different and you deserve this criticism for trying to avoid the responsibility you have to be self-correcting in order to be an autonomous and responsible moral agent; instead, you have turned to an external source thinking that does your ‘correcting’ for you. You have borrowed these corrections from religion (ignoring the advice neither a lender nor borrower be because it creates unbalanced power relationships). You don’t own your moral and ethical standards the way atheists do and this means that in relationships you are able to avoid personal responsibility for them… regardless of whether or not the standards when exercised are beneficial or harmful, moral or immoral, ethical or unethical. You have capitulated your moral authority and submitted it instead to a faith-based authority.
As an atheist, I have to account for my standards and be fully responsible for their effects when exercised in the real world. You do not. You can use religion as a shield from this personal responsibility much like the adult child who lives in the basement of their parent’s house wondering why they aren’t treated with the full measure of respect granted to autonomous people who take care of themselves independent of authority care-givers. The fact of the matter is that you are not equivalently autonomous to the atheist who accepts this personal responsibility, which is why I wrote that I think you’ve made a lateral move into theism where you can continue to remain undeveloped. And this is why I wrote that I didn’t think it was an improvement.
You assume incorrectly that my motivation is to ridicule, intimidate, and bully. You are factually wrong. My motivation is to respond to your attack against the character of atheists (of which I am one), your ridiculous categories that you proclaim as if true, supposedly filled with people motivated to “eradicating the Christian faith and religion in general.” I don’t want to eradicate anything; I want people to understand why empowering faith-based belief in anything is guaranteed way to fool one’s self (just as you have fooled yourself into substituting religious parenting to be a stand-in for self-development). In addition, you – like so many religious people – think that maligning the character of others who do not respect your faith-base beliefs for compelling reasons should be exempt from criticism. Breaking that exemption is then portrayed as being a highly negative act intended to cause personal harm. This victim mentality is absolute bunk because you have no compunction .about doing the same to others in the name of piety! You have fooled yourself into believing that maligning atheists magically elevates faith. Your claim to have knowledge of being an atheist – and so you are aware of its asserted-without-compelling-evidence shortcomings – yet utterly fail to differentiate and appreciate where those shortcomings honestly and truthfully resided. My comment points out that it wasn’t in your non belief nor was it corrected by your shift into belief. The end result is a criticism against the central tenet of your post, that we do NOT need any kind of ‘atheist apologetics’. What we need is a lot more honesty and respect for what’s true.
Excuse me? Your reply to my original comment attacked my character as immature and unwise and you think that I’ve smeared your character? I did not attack your character. I simply stated how your reply appeared to me. I shared about my transition from atheist to theist and this was your response:
“No wonder you became a theist; it sounds as if you developed neither meaningful maturity nor wisdom in your life as an atheist so you found an outside authority and submitted to its seductive parental power as if it made up for this absence. It didn’t then and doesn’t now; it’s a lateral shift at best and not a very good trade, in my opinion. How can you have open, mature, honest, and independent relationships with others now if you never had to develop them yourself then?”
I see nothing in your response that addressed evidences – only attacks on my character. It is what I did as an atheist and it’s what almost every atheist I know does when responding to Christians.
You seem quite angry about something. Do you know why you’re so angry? If atheism is true, then why be so upset that I became a theist? Why does that matter so much to you? Could it be that an atheist becoming a theist is a threat to your own belief system?
I certainly do not see myself as a victim. God set me free from sin and death, so being a victim is the last thing I consider myself.
As for accountability, I believe it is reversed. A theist is accountable to the Creator God. An atheist is accountable to no one, if atheism is true. There is no objective truth or morality. Atheists are free to make up their own truth and moral code. There is no authority above the atheist as there is with the theist.
I am not questioning your character. I don’t know you. You did question my character, though you don’t know me.
My point in responding to you was simply that your response was exactly what I expected from an atheist – not necessarily you in particular, but any atheist. After 42 years as a Christian and hundreds of responses from atheists during that time, most of them are the same. I am rarely approached by atheists with any sense of respect from the beginning. I did the same thing. I viewed Christians and other religious people as stupid, immature, foolish, etc. I do not view atheists as being stupid or immature. We can have a meaningful dialog even if we do not agree at the end.
I appreciate your sharing that you did not mean to ridicule, intimidate or bully. I also care deeply about truth. That’s a primary reason why I chose journalism as a life-long career. Using the tools of a journalist i look at evidence and determine to the best of my skills what is true and what is false. Those are the skills I use to investigate the claims of Christianity. Your investigation has led you to a different result. Can we agree on that?
In Christ’s Love and Grace, Mark
“If God is true, then I’d prefer facing Him as a believer in Him. If God is not true, then I’ll be no more.” Are you suggesting that Pascal’s Wager played a role in convincing you?
No, the wager was not something I considered at the time. Thanks for asking!
So for you, the wager is just an after-the-fact nicety?
I don’t give Pascal’s Wager much thought. If I had heard it as an atheist, I don’t think it would have meant anything to me.
Interesting post. As an atheist blogger myself, I have a few thoughts on what you wrote.
First, in respect to bias, I agree with you completely. We all have our own biases, and it is important to acknowledge that. I’ve always thought the best way to deal with it is to know that it might get in the way sometimes and just try to be aware of it. Take extra pains to be critical of people who are making arguments which agree with your views, and take extra pains to consider the merits of arguments against you. It an be hard at times, but if we keep it in mind we can reduce it as much as possible.
As to the question of why I would want to write such a blog, there are a number of reasons, but primarily I think I am right, and I want to talk to tell people why. It would be great to convince people that I am right and have them come over to my way of thinking, but more often than not that isn’t going to happen. I’m also very happy when I have a good conversation with a Christian and one of us walks away from the conversation simply understanding the other person’s position better. This to me is a very attainable goal and the main one I like to keep in mind.
Last thing I’ll mention, in your conclusion you mentioned that our worldview says we can’t have purpose or goals, but you also said that we can create our own purposes and goals. I’m not sure I totally followed your line of thinking there as it seems to be a bit contradictory, but I think what you are getting at is that we can make our own personal goals for ourselves, but in the grand scheme of things (say on a cosmic scale) those goals are meaningless. And I would tend to agree, my goals that various humans do a better job of understand each other is meaningless to a civilization orbiting another star in another galaxy, or to our corner of the cosmos once the earth is swallowed up by a dying sun, or heck, even to a colony of ants right here right now. But I’m fine with that.
Hausdorff, thanks for your comments. You say:
“Last thing I’ll mention, in your conclusion you mentioned that our worldview says we can’t have purpose or goals, but you also said that we can create our own purposes and goals”….
I am saying that you can create your own goals under your worldview. But that certainly doesn’t make it true. You have no choice because by your own worldview you have to project a meaning. From a completely purposeless universe you have now found purpose? You can project a subjective meaning, but that doesn’t mean there is any objective meaning behind it.
Why do Christians think that sitting in church and singing songs is the meaning of life?
What is the purpose in life of all those babies who miscarry?
Steven, can you please answer my questions from the post. Do you have any teleology within your worldview? What moral obligation do you have to do atheist apologetics and convert people to your view?
I’ll answer your question. I’m an atheist. No, I have no teleology in my worldview. But I do have subjective opinions of what is right and wrong, and those opinions drive a lot of my behavior.
Isn’t it virtuous to pursue the truth? And isn’t it virtuous to share the truth, once found? I think it is. There are a lot of people who haven’t thought much about god topics, they have been spoon fed what to think and never done much investigation. If Christians are indeed delusional, isn’t it a virtuous thing to share my knowledge and get them to think about it and perhaps “see the light” of the truth? I know what you’re gonna say: “it’s ironic that you don’t believe in objective morality but you still talk about virtue.” I’m talking about my opinion of virtue.
So, in summary, I do it because I think removing delusion is a good thing. I also do it because I personally don’t like how religion imposes itself onto our government. I also have serious doubts about whether faith is a positive force in the world. And lastly, specifically for the religions of Abraham, I think many of the teachings are immoral.
Try to put yourself in our shoes for a moment. Pretend you live in a world where almost everyone thinks the world is flat and doesn’t question it much. But you found a bunch of evidence that it’s round. Wouldn’t you want to tell everyone and try to enlighten them? To make this analogy more apples-to-apples, imagine that public policy is heavily influenced by flat-earth mentality, that a lot of flat-earthers think you are immoral because you’re not one of them, that flat-earth mentality has played a large role in causing a lot of wars and atrocities, etc.
Frank,
Thanks for your clear and thoughtful answer. Let me ask you some questions:
Have you ever read books like I mentioned here (Jonathan
Hill’s What Has Christianity Ever Done For Us?”) or any other books. Or, is your view of the history of Christianity been formed by popular atheist literature?
Second, so you think God is a delusion? Does this mean your primarily take this position because of book like Dawkin’s The God Delusion? If so, have you ever read the responses to that book? What kind of evidence do you have that there is no God? And what is evidence?
I’ve never read Hill’s book, but I’ve ready a lot of Christian defenses to the accusation that religion is bad for society. I’ve also read and watched a lot of debates on the topic, in which both sides lay out their evidence. So I feel pretty well versed. My view is more positive than some of the new atheists, but I also recognize the bad. I’ve also read some books about historical wars that were not written for the purposes of arguing about religion/faith, but show how much religion/faith is involved in wars that I thought were about something secular. The US civil war, for example, used faith heavily to motivate the soldiers – the church was like a recruiting/propaganda office of the confederacy. Anyway, just an example an example of how religion/faith can play a strong role in human atrocities that are not traditionally considered.
Regarding the delusion, my views are based on similar evidence as listed above. A lot of reading and hearing the arguments from both sides. Watching/reading debates are a great way to get a balanced view, because it prohibits either side from making claims that can easily be shown false; whereas in a book those claims can be made in a vacuum with no one to ridicule them.
Regarding evidence, since this site is christianapologetics.com, I’m assuming we’re talking about the bible. Since the bible is proposing numerous hypotheses about history/existence/morality/purpose/etc., I put the burden of proof on the bible; just like I would for any competing hypothesis. In the interest of not writing a novel here, I can summarize my assessment of the evidence for the supernatural hypotheses proposed by the bible by saying: I don’t think any of it holds up to rational scrutiny. Perhaps if I had grown up being spoon fed dogma, I would be more likely to believe and not be skeptical of fantastical claims. But I wasn’t. I grew up in a secular household, with one parent believing and another not, which I think makes me about as unbiased as you can get to assess the claims of both sides.
One topic that is of particular interest is the resurrection, because your entire religion rests upon the historicity of that event. I wrote a lengthy comment about my opinion of the evidence for the event here, if you’re interested: http://www.christianapologeticsalliance.com/2013/09/10/irony-in-rejecting-eyewitnesses/#comment-1045329497
A friend of mine wrote a similar post on this topic called Keep Your Mitts Off My Meaning. While he is a little harder on atheists than I am in this post, I think he brings up a similar line of thought: http://pspruett.blogspot.com/2007/08/keep-your-mitts-off-my-meaning.html
As he says: “The sad dilemma for the atheist is that if he is right, then there is no right, from morality to meaning. He can lobby and vote and whine all he likes for his cause, but the last thing he can do is sell it as the truth to which all the world should submit.”
I have no problem with atheists having free speech and asking religious believers to examine their beliefs. That is a healthy thing. But I just don’t see the need to exert so much time and energy into trying to convince Christians that nature is all there is and that we are deluded into thinking there are any good theistic arguments.
To be motivated by the assertion that Christianity and religion is just awful for the world doesn’t square up with the facts. Or, to be motivated by personal boredom is certainly not going to work. In the end, the atheist has to borrow from the Christian world view to make sense of their efforts to deconvert people. Also, as I say in my post here called The Realm of Doubt: Why Both Skeptics and Theists Have To Exercise Faith, in order to believe in God demands an act of faith—as does the decision not to believe in him. Neither is based upon absolute certainty, nor can they be. http://chab123.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/the-realm-of-doubt-why-both-skeptics-and-theists-have-to-exercise-faith-2/
“But I just don’t see the need to exert so much time and energy into trying to convince Christians…” But I just gave you all my reasons. There are a lot of them. Boredom was not one of them. I also forgot one: the questions that the bible supposedly answers seem to me to be the most important questions in life (e.g., Where did we come from? Do we have a purpose? What happens after we die? What is virtuous?). In fact, I’m dumbfounded when I talk to people and they haven’t put much thought into these questions. This reason ties into the “pursuit of truth” reason I mentioned.
I never said Christianity is just awful. I said there is good and bad, and I’m not convinced the good outweighs the bad. The facts on both sides are undeniable.
“…the atheist has to borrow from the Christian world view…” I’m assuming you’re talking about objective morality here. I’m talking about my subjective opinions. I thought Christians believed in free will? If I’m not mistaken, even in your world view I’m allowed to have opinions. I’m a moral relativist, btw. Whenever I judge, I’m projecting my own subjective opinion. So I don’t see what I’m borrowing.
Regarding faith, that completely depends on your definition of faith. This is a common argument, on both sides. If you are defining faith as “belief in the absence of evidence”, I completely disagree. I (and I would presume most atheists) believe only to the extent that something can be proven by evidence. If there’s lots of evidence, I think something is highly likely (strong belief); the likelihood is commensurate to the strength of the evidence. If there is little-to-no evidence, you have to say “I don’t know”. If you are defining faith as I have, please show me where I am applying it.
Frank,
More on your comments here:
“So, in summary, I do it because I think removing delusion is a good thing. I also do it because I personally don’t like how religion imposes itself onto our government. I also have serious doubts about whether faith is a positive force in the world. And lastly, specifically for the religions of Abraham, I think many of the teachings are immoral.
Try to put yourself in our shoes for a moment. Pretend you live in a world where almost everyone thinks the world is flat and doesn’t question it much. But you found a bunch of evidence that it’s round. Wouldn’t you want to tell everyone and try to enlighten them?”
Response: I still don’t see why God is a delusion. What evidence do you have that nature is all there is? :
Regarding evidence, well, that depends on what you believe. If you are a deists, I have zero evidence because the claim is unfalsifiable, similar to the way that a childhood invisible friend is unfalsifiable. But likewise, there is zero evidence to support the deist claim, so I don’t know why you would believe it.
If you believe in the bible, then there are a lot of positive claims that can either be proven incorrect or highly unlikely. If you are a literalist, it’s easier to show the bible is incorrect. It flies in the face of almost everything scientists have discovered about astronomy, physics, geology, paleontology, genetics, biology, and chemistry. I can elaborate if you like, but the list is long.
If you discount genesis and call it a parable, then the case becomes a little less strong, as scientifically verifiable biblical claims become fewer. However, there are still factual claims made. Like Jesus’ resurrection, where, in light of all the evidence I think it high irrational to believe he rose from the dead (see the link I gave previously). Even if miracles were possible, the evidence does not warrant that conclusion; that is, unless you really want it to be true. If Jesus was not resurrected, that’s strong evidence because that means Christianity is not true (according to Paul).
You also have biblical inconsistencies and blatant contradictions. All you have to do is read the gospels to see the contradicting accounts of Jesus’ resurrection. From which you can determine that the bible is not 100% historically accurate. So if you believe the bible is inerrant, you have just been proven wrong. If you don’t, then you have to play the game of “well, this is wrong, but that is still right.”
However, if you discount genesis, as well as all the biblical contradictions and scientific claims, then what you have left are ethical claims. First, I think there is an ethical contradiction in the Christian world view. I’m guessing you believe in the following statements: 1) There is objective/universal/constant morality, 2) God is all good, 3) God is all powerful. I could easily point to reprehensible things god has ordered in the bible (e.g., genocide), but that’s a rathole I don’t want to go down. Instead, consider this conundrum: If god is all powerful, he can order you to commit an objectively immoral act. You might say “if he orders it, then it’s good”, but that means that there is no universal morality, because for something to be universal it needs to ALWAYS be the case, not relative. Do you see the problem?
In addition to god’s moral contradictions, I think some of the morality called for in the bible is bad. Examples include: the inferiority of women, specified punishments (Leviticus 20), tacit approval of slavery, tacit approval of rape, god murders (and calls for the murder of) a LOT of men/women/children, human sacrifice (Jesus), condemnation for lack of gullibility, etc. Now, these are all my opinion, I believe them all to be immoral teachings. Therefore, even if you remove all the supernatural claims made in the bible, I would not want to follow it’s teachings.
“…village atheist crowd rant.” That’s because the examples are so easy to point to. To get around the blatant immoral teachings and actions of god you need to do A LOT of interpretation. So much so that, from the layman’s point of view, you might as well just write a new book.
My flat earth analogy purposely did not contain a supernatural element, to attempt to give you an idea of how we feel, because, for us, there are parallels.
The government issue was not evidence against god’s existence; I was explaining to you one of the reasons I’m motivated to “unconvert”, as you requested.
Frank,
Well, your long list is nothing new. Heard these 100 times over. First of all, science once thought that universe was eternal but then the cosmological evidence came into show it has a beginning. Well that ticked all the atheists off
because they knew is sounded what the Bible had been saying all along. I am not a Young Earth Creationist so I don’t need to debate that issue.
Paul says that God’s existence and attributes can be “clearly seen” (Romans 1:18-20) since they have been “shown” to the unbelieving world through “the things that are made” (nature). Notice that Paul never posits that we can view God as a material object. But he does say that people should be able to look at the effects in the world/universe and infer that there are some things that always take intelligence to pull off. For example, we can
debate whether nature and chance can explain things such as the Mathematical Fine-Tuning of the Universe, the Terrestrial Fine-Tuning of Planet Earth, the Biological Fine-Tuning of Complex Life on Earth, or the Informational
Fine-Tuning of the DNA molecule. Of course, all atheists cry foul and say “God of the Gaps” and then offer “nature and chance of the gaps” explanations. But to offer any naturalistic explanation, the laws of nature cannot exist without nature itself existing but the origin of nature cannot be explained scientifically without pre-existing laws. So where do the laws of nature come from that allow you to offer up all your natural explanations?
Furthermore, I am supposed to accept the scenario as put forward in the book An Atheist Defends Religion: Why
Humanity Is Better Off With Religion Than Without It, by Bruce Sheiman. He gives a general outline of how atheists account for how we got here. Human Life = Laws of physics X chance + randomness+ accidents+luck X 3.5 billion yrs. In other words, the laws of physics for our present universe arose by chance (from a multitude of possible universes); the first forms of life developed by chance (arising by primordial soup combinations that resulted from the laws of physics plus accidents); the first concept of life developed purely by chance (genetic
mutations and environmental randomness); and humans evolved by more improbable occurrence.
If you say that this scenario that Sheiman presents is a settled issue (we know this is how we go there and that’s all there is to it), that is simply nonsense and a faith commitment. Bible contradictions? Plenty of resources on those. Let me know if you want me to pass them on. Arguments against miracles? So now we are back to Hume. Plenty of answers to him (see John Earman’s Humes Abject Failure). And Earman is not a Christian. Arguments against the resurrection? We can just go through the naturalistic explanations. Atheists keep trying the same ones over and over (e.g., Hume’s arguments, hallucinations, conspiracy theories, cognitive dissonance, etc). I am aware of all of them and am happy to see which you think holds up the best. In the end, not much would convince a hard core skeptic that Jesus rose from the dead unless he appeared to them. But then
they would probably say they were hallucinating.
Old Testament issues: Once again, we could go over the context of each one you mentioned here and talk about hermeneutics. If you don’t care (like it seems with many atheists), then so be it. I wrote about it here: What Happens When Atheists Don’t Care About Hermeneutics?http://chab123.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/what-happens-when-atheists-dont-care-about-hermeneutics/
You are not a young earther, but you want to bring up the big bang? You are aware that the 6 day creation timeline does not fit the big bang, right? If we went through the scientific claims in genesis, one by one, how many do you think have been validated by modern science vs. those shown to be blatantly wrong? Do you think it’s reasonable to discount genesis as a parable, but then cherry pick one thing in it you think matches modern science and include it as evidence?
Regarding your argument for design. It appears you are appealing to the human ability to recognize design, and therefore infer a designer. Let me ask you a question: do you think a snowflake looks designed? If so, do you think god personally designs every snowflake separately, just like he designed DNA, and the physical constants? By your logic, I’m not sure how you couldn’t.
Regarding your “nature of the gaps”. You are aware that naturalistic theories are born from evidence, right? The definition of “the god of the gaps” is a lack of evidence.
“the origin of nature cannot be explained scientifically without pre-existing laws.” Actually, if you’re talking about the universe, it potentially can. Perhaps you are not up to date on the latest theoretical physics. The latest theories posit that before the big bang there were no laws, and they came into existence at the “bang”.
Regarding Sheiman. I know believers really want to equivocate theism and atheism as both having faith, but to do so is not to understand science. Science cannot tell us anything with absolute certainty, only what is likely and not likely, based on evidence. If I drop this laptop, it is very likely that it will fall at 9.81 m/s2, because we have a lot of evidence to support it. It is very unlikely that anyone has ever risen from the dead, because there is zero hard evidence to support and a mountain of evidence against. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, just very unlikely. My “belief” in anything is commensurate to the amount of supporting evidence. I strongly believe in the speed of Earth’s gravity. Regarding the origin of life, at this point, anything other than “I don’t know” would be disingenuous. Yeah, they have some interesting scientific hypotheses, but they are very rough and lack evidence. So if one only believes in things commensurate with the amount of supporting evidence, you’ll have to explain to me where faith fits in.
Regarding bible contradictions, the only way you can get around the contradictory stories of Jesus’ resurrection is through interpretation, because literally they contradict. Do we agree? If so, no need to send me more interpretation links.
Regarding the resurrection, I’m not talking about competing naturalistic theories, of which there are many. I’m talking about the quality of the evidence supporting the resurrection (http://www.christianapologeticsalliance.com/2013/09/10/irony-in-rejecting-eyewitnesses/#comment-1045329497). If the evidence, which is only in the bible, is of low quality, and extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence, and a resurrection is an extraordinary event, then there is only one rational conclusion to come to. Also, there are resurrections happening all over the new testament, but nobody seems to care about their historicity.
Regarding hermeneutics, if the bible was and is the word of god, don’t you think he would have written it for the masses, in a way that does not require a PhD to interpret? Especially if specific, seemingly immoral, laws are to be disregarded?
You are not a young earther, but you want to bring up the big bang? You are aware that the 6 day creation timeline does not fit the big bang, right? If we went through the scientific claims in genesis, one by one, how many do you think have been validated by modern science vs. those shown to be blatantly wrong? Do you think it’s reasonable to discount genesis as a parable, but then cherry pick one thing in it you think matches modern science and include it as evidence?
Regarding your argument for design. It appears you are appealing to the human ability to recognize design, and therefore infer a designer. Let me ask you a question: do you think a snowflake looks designed? If so, do you think god personally designs every snowflake separately, just like he designed DNA, and the physical constants? By your logic, I’m not sure how you couldn’t.
Regarding your “nature of the gaps”. You are aware that naturalistic theories are born from evidence, right? And that the “the god of the gaps” argument is born from a lack of evidence. I hope you see the difference, otherwise we are really talking past each other.
“the origin of nature cannot be explained scientifically without pre-existing laws.” Actually, if you’re talking about the universe, it potentially can. Perhaps you are not up to date on the latest theoretical physics. The latest theories posit that before the big bang there were no laws, and they came into existence at the “bang”. Just food for thought.
Regarding Sheiman. I know believers really want to equivocate theism and atheism as both having faith, but to do so is not to understand science. Science cannot tell us anything with absolute certainty, only what is likely and not likely, based on evidence. If I drop this laptop, it is very likely that it will fall at 9.81 m/s2, because we have a lot of evidence to support it. It is very unlikely that anyone has ever risen from the dead, because there is zero hard evidence to support and a mountain of evidence against. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, just very unlikely. My “belief” in anything is commensurate to the amount of supporting evidence. I strongly believe in the speed of Earth’s gravity. Regarding the origin of life, at this point, anything other than “I don’t know” would be disingenuous. Yeah, they have some interesting scientific hypotheses, but they are very rough and lack evidence. So, if one only believes in things commensurate with the amount of supporting evidence, you’ll have to explain to me where faith fits in.
Regarding bible’s contradictions, we both agree that the different stories of Jesus’ resurrection literally contradict each other, right? I’m assuming you excuse the contradiction using interpretation.
Regarding the resurrection, I’m not talking about competing naturalistic theories, of which there are many. I’m talking about the quality of the evidence supporting the resurrection (http://www.christianapologeticsalliance.com/2013/09/10/irony-in-rejecting-eyewitnesses/#comment-1045329497) If the evidence, which is only in the bible, is of low quality, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and a resurrection is an extraordinary event, then there is only one rational conclusion to come to. Also, there are resurrections happening all over the new testament, but nobody seems to care about their historicity.
Regarding hermeneutics, I’ve read/watched a lot about how different people use interpretation to disregard what seems like evil/wrong. However, answer me this, if the bible was and is the word of god, don’t you think he would have written it for the masses, in a way that does not require a PhD to interpret? Especially if specific, seemingly immoral, assertions are not to be taken literally?
Also, I’d be very interested in your response to my previous claim that there is a logical contradiction in your world view of objective/universal/constant morality.
Did you really delete my retort? I thought this site wanted an exchange of ideas? Is this really just a platform for inculcation?
Frank, I didn’t delete anything. I have no idea what you are talking about.
Frank, I am one of the comment moderator and I do not think your retort were delete. I checked the bin and spam and cannot locate it.
No retort has being deleted from you Frank.
Ah, that’s good. I sincerely enjoy the open exchange of ideas on this site. Must have been a computer glitch. Fortunately I saved it! See below my response:
Eric, you are not a young earther, but you want to bring up the big bang? You are aware that the 6 day creation story does not fit the big bang, right? If we went through the scientific claims in genesis, one by one, how many do you think have been validated by modern science vs. those shown to be blatantly wrong? Do you think it’s reasonable to discount genesis as a parable, but then cherry pick one thing in it you think matches modern science and include it as evidence?
Regarding your argument for design. It appears you are appealing to the human ability to recognize design, and therefore infer a designer. Let me ask you a question: do you think a snowflake looks designed? If so, do you think god personally designs every snowflake separately, just like he designed DNA? By your logic, I’m not sure how you couldn’t.
Regarding your “nature of the gaps”. You are aware that naturalistic theories are born from evidence, right? And that the “the god of the gaps” argument is born from a lack of evidence.
“…the origin of nature cannot be explained scientifically without pre-existing laws.” Actually, if you’re talking about the universe, it potentially can. The latest theories posit that before the big bang there were no laws, and they came into existence at the “bang”. Just food for thought.
Regarding Sheiman. I know believers really want to equivocate theism and atheism as both having faith, but to do so is not to understand science. Science cannot tell us anything with absolute certainty, only what is likely and not likely, based on evidence. If I drop this laptop, it is very likely that it will fall at 9.81 m/s2, because we have a lot of evidence to support it. It is very unlikely that anyone has ever risen from the dead, because there is zero hard evidence to support and a mountain of evidence against. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, just very unlikely. My “belief” in anything is commensurate to the amount of supporting evidence. Regarding the origin of life, at this point, anything other than “I don’t know” would be disingenuous. Yeah, they have some interesting scientific hypotheses, but they are very rough and lack evidence. So, in summary, if one only believes in things commensurate with the amount of supporting evidence, you’ll have to explain to me where faith fits in.
Regarding bible’s contradictions, we both agree that the different stories of Jesus’ resurrection literally contradict each other, right? I’m assuming you excuse the contradiction using interpretation.
Regarding the resurrection, I’m not talking about competing naturalistic theories, of which there are many. I’m talking about the quality of the evidence supporting the resurrection (see my comment here for more details http://www.christianapologeticsalliance.com/2013/09/10/irony-in-rejecting-eyewitnesses/#comment-1045329497). If the evidence is of low quality, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and a resurrection is an extraordinary event, then there is only one rational conclusion to come to. Also, there are resurrections happening all over the new testament, but nobody seems to care about their historicity.
Regarding hermeneutics, I’ve read/watched a lot about how different people use different interpretations to disregard barbaric statements in the bible. However, answer me this, if the bible was and is the word of god, don’t you think he would have written it for the masses, in a way that does not require a PhD to interpret? Especially if specific, clear, and seemingly immoral assertions are not to be taken literally?
Also, I’d be very interested in your response to my previous claim that there is a logical contradiction in your world view of objective/universal/constant morality if god can break it.
Now I find that response incredibly interesting. You said
“you can create your own goals under your worldview. But that certainly doesn’t make it true.”
I’m honestly not sure what that means. Let’s take a goal I mentioned up above, that atheists and theists can better understand each other’s positions. What would it mean for that goal to be true?
Or more broadly, I am a teacher, so a large part of my purpose in life is to help people understand things. What would it mean for this purpose to be objective?
I’m not entirely sure how objectivity/subjectivity comes into play here. However, if what you are getting at is that in the grand scheme of things, in the very long term, all of this won’t matter. Then yes, I agree. Eventually every human will die and all of this won’t matter anymore. But nevertheless I find these things important.
Hausdorf, take a look at this short post by a friend of mine. It is somewhat similar to my post though he is a little harder on atheists. http://pspruett.blogspot.com/2007/08/keep-your-mitts-off-my-meaning.html
Thanks for the link. Interesting post for sure. I completely agree that there is no objective meaning in life.
As to the idea that this view necessitates a “live and let live” philosophy, I disagree. He is correct that there is no meaning that is objectively better than any other, but once I have my goals and meaning in life, it will affect how I think about other people’s. For example, if my goals include living in a society, it is in my best interest to fight against those who seek to bring society down.
As to his example with the little girl’s tea party, the analogy assumes that there is no harm in religion. The atheist in his story is just ruining her good time and being a jerk. However, suppose the little girl believes her tea party is real and as a result is refusing to drink actual water and is getting dehydrated. Wouldn’t it be a good thing to disabuse her of the notion that her tea party is real? (not good in an objective sense, but good in the sense that we are both humans and we have empathy for her and her parents). I would argue that arguing for atheism is more like that, religion causes harm and the world would be a better place without it. It’s not quite so dire as the little girl who is becoming dehydrated, but it’s also not just ruining someone’s good time.
Hello Eric, you’re undoubtedly right that atheist apologist can also be extremely biased, but they are by no means worse than Evangelical apologists.
“3. Doubters: are Christians who find it difficult to believe one or more
tenants of the Christian faith with complete confidence. Doubters need
to be restored to full Christian conviction by giving them the tools to
remove their doubts.”
I definitely belong to this category and am certain that Biblical inerrancy is wrong.
What concrete steps would you take to “restore” my belief that, while abortion is wrong, it was right for Isrealite soldiers to have murdered babies and pregnant women alike?
Lovely greetings from continental Europe.
Lothars Sohn – Lothar’s son
http://lotharlorraine.wordpress.com
Lothars,
Thanks for your comments. It all depends on what you mean by inerrancy. If you mean Inerrancy as defined by the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy which can be read online, some Christians are confident in their faith and see no need to completely endorse it.
I see Eric ducked Lothar’s question.
That’s apologetics in action.
Always be ready to answer questions that people ask.
Except…..
Steven, no I didn’t duck his question. I simply asked Lothar to define what he means by inerrancy. He can go ahead and read The Chicago Statement online and then tell me. I think that is fair. http://www.bible-researcher.com/chicago1.html?vm=r&s=1
In other words, you didn’t duck the question.
You just didn’t answer it and then played pass-the-parcel apologetics.
Steven,
So basically, let’s just ask Eric a question. Let’ s not define what we mean. Then let’s go ahead and assume Eric is dodging it when he asks for clarification. Makes sense Stephen. I will let Lothar respond, After all, he has the question.
Steven, no I didn’t. Do you think that when they made the statement on inerrancy, they just made it into a sound bite definition? You need to slow down a bit.
Is your browser not correctly displaying which sentence in his comment ends in a question mark?
(Hint: it’s not the one with the word ‘inerrancy’ in it.)
Eric, what Lothar wrote that you failed to answer was this:
What concrete steps would you take to “restore” my belief that, while abortion is wrong, it was right Isrealite [sic] soldiers to have murdered babies and pregnant women alike?
You completely ducked the question, and then, in the exchange that followed, you tried to focus attention on Lothar’s statement about Biblical inerrancy, which was an aside to the actual question. You failed to address the question, and you have thereby left a doubter (Lothar) still in his doubts.
Now, having looked at Lothar’s website, I’m not sure whether his question is serious or not, but unless I have good reason to believe that he’s just trolling, then, as an apologist, I have to try and answer him.
I’m not setting myself up to answer this question, Eric, but if you think Lothar asked you a fair question with a reasonable expectation of an answer, then you as an apologist owe it to him as a doubter to answer the question he asked and not duck that question by focusing on a largely irrelevant side issue.
Robert,
For the record, Lothar has commented on my own blog before and he tends to not respond after I answer his questions. So given my own time is valuable, I wasn’t sure how productive it was for me to answer that question. And furthermore, he didn’t leave a specific text. I assume it could be 1 Sam 15:1-3. I didn’t duck the question on purpose. I saw the inerrancy issue and wanted to see how he was defining it.
I can see that, Eric. I framed my answer the way I did, because after viewing Lothar’s website I had some doubt that his question was serious. You have experience with him (unknown to me), and on the basis of that experience, you chose not to answer. That’s fine, but just looking at the exchange, without knowing the back story, your initial response looked like a dodge. It’s somewhat analogous to my walking in to the middle of a conversation without knowing that I’m in the middle. I think I’m at the beginning of the conversation, and my interpretation of the conversation consequently is different from the interpretation that the people talking have of their own conversation.
BTW, Go Bucks! The score should not have been as close as it was.
Robert,
No worries. I actually just noticed that Frank left another comment here that I never saw. The joy of blogging is that someone can leave a comment 5 days later and then I forget to check. So even though he left it several days ago ,I am going to have to respond to that. Yes, Go Bucks!