Archive for the 'atheism' Category

Live and let live

Published
by
Ken
on May 6, 2008
in atheism and christianity
. 3 Comments

Is it possible when it comes to religion? Mystical Seeker makes some excellent comments about the “discussion” Liberal Pastor and James McGrath are trying to have with “a militant atheist blogger.” But the “live and let live” attitude is one that I, personally, find impossible with some people. Not that I cannot live and let live, but I find their beliefs make it impossible for them.

Some Christians believe that everyone who is not a Christian is going to hell and will burn forever in eternal torment. Furthermore, they are believe that they are commanded by Jesus to go out and make disciples of everyone; i.e. convert everyone to their religion. This is what they believe. Now, how is it possible to let them live and hold their beliefs when it inevitably means that that they will try to convert everyone to their way of thinking? It is impossible for them to live and let live. They must convert the heathens.

Some atheists believe that religion is the cause of much of the problems in the world. They believe that some of those who are trying to convert everyone go too far and do violence and irreparable damage. And they can point to specific examples which cannot be denied. So, they, too, cannot live and let live because they see a danger that must be stopped.

So, how do we tell the fundamentalist and the atheist that they cannot follow their beliefs when we complain that they do not let us follow our own beliefs? How do we curtail the damage done by some while still trying to maintain the live and let live attitude?

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Re: Reasonable Faith

Published
by
Ken
on May 2, 2008
in atheism and christianity
. 0 Comments

A Jesus Creed post (via Through a Glass Darkly) asks an excellent question about faith vs. reason. Here are the 4+1 categories:

(1) Faith requires the renunciation of intelligence. Any elaboration here would detract from my principle point – so I will forbear.

(2) Intellectual integrity requires the renunciation of faith. This is a growing view in our world today. Secular humanism and atheism may not be in ascendancy (Alister McGrath, NT Wright, Tim Keller, and Brian McLaren all make this point in various ways) – but the view has become the de facto operating principle for many; the point of departure. More importantly, the accepted alternatives to atheism or materialism do not usually include orthodox Christian faith.

(3) By the skin of one’s teeth one can hold to both faith and integrity. But within this position there is a constant tension. We bracket off the questions and continue to function – barely. Many stories – both of those who “lost faith” and those who “retained faith” include this approach in the mix.

(4) Intellectual integrity demands faith. A modernistic “evidence that demands a verdict” approach. (Lee Strobel, Josh McDowell, Hugh Ross, …)

I would add a fifth response to this taxonomy:

(5) Intellectual integrity is fully compatible with faith but requires honest interaction. There is no proof - some ambiguity remains. Of course honest grappling with all the questions and issues is somewhat unnerving to many. It seems inevitable that some views will be refined or even abandoned in the process and this prospect causes concern. Perhaps it is not true that everything is clear cut. Nonetheless there is a way forward. Exploring the issues does not lead inevitably to deism or liberalism or apostasy.

First, my little rant. I do not mean to offend anyone who considers herself or himself in Category 4, but I have written about Josh McDowell elsewhere on this blog and I have a difficult time admitting he has intellectual integrity. I find his arguments illogical and his conclusions difficult to embrace. He strikes me as one who has pre-determined the result and tries to make an argument which supports this conclusion even when the argument does not make sense. I find his language in some arguments almost deceitful. He holds a conservative, fundamentalist view of scripture and that is fine. But to masquerade his faulty arguments as logical proof that he is correct is damaging to the Christian faith, in my opinion.

Now that my little tirade is over …

I grew up in a Fundamentalist family and church. Back then, I would have considered myself in Category 4, right along side Josh McDowell. But it was all one-sided. I read Christian literature which bashed evolution but never anything written by anyone holding a different viewpoint. I would have considered myself as reasonably supporting my faith with scientific evidence but, in hindsight, I wasn’t. The “other side” was wrong from the get-go because it did not correspond to our interpretation of the Bible and so there was no point in getting their opinion or listening to them. They listen to someone you know is wrong?!

Senior year in high school, I served my parents’ God with divorce papers and proceeded into Category 2. All religion was poppycock and the only intelligent position was secular and atheistic.

It took me until just before my 40th birthday to realize that there was something missing. And now I’m in Category 5. And RJS describes the situation very well. “Exploring the issues does not lead inevitably to deism or liberalism or apostasy.” True! True!

However, from my parents’ point of view it does because it has lead me away from their point of view and they don’t acknowledge any other as valid. And this is part of the problem. For some people, anything that makes them question what they believe is a heresy. They hold so tightly and desperately to one interpretation and maintain that they must believe what they believe in its entirety. Any deviation in any way would make them question everything.

Yes, what is needed “honest interaction” but both sides need to be willing and able to change. One side cannot be molded to fit the rigid ideas of the other. The result of this is either atheism or fundamentalism and neither is an option for me any more. What is needed is a folding of the two together with the result that the tenets of both evolve together. Kind of like stereo vision. Each eye sees a different scene. There is some overlap but each eye sees some things the other doesn’t. But combined, the resulting image is much more powerful and holds more information than either eye’s separate image.

But I would add that both sides also must realize that it does not hold the possibility of answering all the questions. There are questions that the Bible cannot answer and there are questions that science cannot answer. If everyone would understand this and agree to it, I think a lot of problems would simply vanish.

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Holding God accountable

Published
by
Ken
on May 30, 2007
in atheism, belief, bertrand russell and god
. 2 Comments

Bertrand Russell, in an essay titled Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization?, writes:

… Perhaps we might … ask ourselves whether we have any evidence of purpose in the universe apart from the purposes of living beings on the surface of this planet.

The usual argument of religious people on this subject is roughly as follows: “I and my friends are persons of amazing intelligence and virtue. It is hardly conceivable that so much intelligence and virtue could have come about by change. There must, therefore, be someone at least as intelligent and virtuous as we are who set the cosmic machinery in motion with a view to producing Us.” I am sorry to say that I do not find this argument so impressive as it is found by those who use it. …

Then again, considered as the climax to such a vast process, we do not really seem to me sufficiently marvelous. Of course, I am aware that many divines are far more marvelous than I am, and that I cannot wholly appreciate merits so far transcending my own. Nevertheless, even after making allowances under this head, I cannot but think that Omnipotence operating through all eternity might have produced something better. … So far as scientific evidence goes, the universe has crawled by slow stages to a somewhat result on this earth and is going to crawl by still more pitiful stages to a condition of universal death. If this is to be taken as evidence of purpose, I can only say that the purpose is one that does not appeal to me. I see no reason, therefore, to believe in any sort of God, however vague and however attenuated. (emphasis mine)

And I’ve heard others object on similar grounds with something like: “I just can’t believe in a God who would …” and fill in “condemn millions to Hell” or “let little children suffer” or “allow such evil to exist.”

But, I wonder. Does God have to do what WE want him to or think he should? We try to hold God to some “moral” standard that seems right to us. We accuse God of not acting to eliminate evil — should be easy for him, no? After all, God is an omnipotent, omniscient, awesomely powerful being so he should be able to erase evil from the world!

But … God is an omnipotent, omniscient, awesomely powerful being. What gives us the right to hold him accountable for anything he does or does not do? Russell makes the same claim — “I am aware that many divines are far more marvelous than I am, and that I cannot wholly appreciate merits so far transcending my own” — and then claims to be able to see beyond his own limitations — “Nevertheless, even after making allowances …”

But is seeing beyond our own limitations really possible?

The second line of objection I mentioned above can basically be labeled as double standards. God says one thing and then does another. A God of love condemns people to Hell. A God of love allows suffering and evil. God says “Thou shalt not kill” and then kills. God says not to be jealous and then calls himself a “jealous God.”

Here is one example of a double standard that every single person in the world has taken part in — and in most cases, on both sides.

Little Johnny is five years old. He can’t vote, drink, drive, or serve in the military. He must be in bed by 8:00. He should not swear, fight, yell, hit, be selfish or stubborn, or tell lies — even tiny white lies. He must always be polite, share, say “please” and “thank you.” He must eat all his broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and beans. He should not date, make out, watch porn, or have sex.

Little Johnny’s dad, however can vote, drink, drive, and serve in the military. He does not have to be in bed by 8:00. He can swear, fight, yell, hit, be selfish or stubborn, and tell white lies. He does not always need to polite, share, say “please” and “thank you.” He can throw his broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and beans in the garbage if he wants. He can date, make out, watch porn, and have sex (all on the same night, if he wants).

Is this a double standard? Dad tells Johnny to not lie and then tells white lies to Johnny’s mother about how that dress makes her look. Dad tells Johnny to not be selfish and then misses Johnny’s school play because he was too busy. Dad tells Johnny not to swear and then calls Bush a dumb $%&@#$%&!.

Yes, this is a double standard but Johnny’s dad can get away with it because he’s an adult and he’s Johnny’s dad. Now, I submit to you that the gap between God and us is a tad bigger than that between a parent and child. So, if Johnny’s dad is not held to the same standard that Johnny is, then why should God be held to the same standard that we are?

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What do some Christians have in common with some atheists?

Published
by
Ken
on May 25, 2007
in atheism, christian fundamentalism, christianity and god
. 2 Comments

Q: What do some Christians have in common with some atheists?

A: The assumption that the Christian God is the only God and when you speak of god, even in a general sense, you are speaking of the Christian God.

Why?

Because when some Christians say “there is a God,” they really mean “the Christian God exists and is the only god.” And when some atheists say “there is no god,” they really mean “the Christian God is the only god and does not exist.”

I went through both these stages. As a Fundamentalist while I was growing up, the only God in town was the God taught from the pulpit in my church. I didn’t even consider the possibility of another god. It was unthinkable! Then, starting in my college years, I became disillusioned with God as taught from the pulpit in my childhood church. I said, “that God is a crock of horse pucky; ergo, there is no God” and promptly threw religion — in general and as a whole — out the window because I was still brainwashed into thinking that the only god in town was the god taught from the pulpit in my childhood church.

Years later, I’ve come around to realize that the God as taught from the pulpit in my childhood church can be a crock of horse pucky but that does not mean that there is no God. I need not throw all religion out the window. I need not even throw all of Christianity out the window for there is a huge chunk of Christianity that was not taught from the pulpit in my childhood church.

I like to think that I’ve “grown up.” I no longer express that knee-jerk reaction to one aspect of Christianity which only resulted in a complete purge of everything and everyone who even mentioned the word god. Now, I realize that “Christianity” does not necessarily mean The Christianity I was taught as a child. There are other aspects to Christianity and so the Christian God is not necessarily The God I was taught as a child. I can reject the one without rejecting them all.

I hope that all atheists — and all Christians — will someday come to realize the same thing.

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More on The Blasphemy Challenge

Published
by
Ken
on February 13, 2007
in atheism, belief, christian fundamentalism, christianity, fundamentalism and religion
. 0 Comments

After an anonymous commenter (apparently he or she is not afraid of the Holy Spirit but is afraid if me) called me a moron in response to my post about the The Blasphemy Challenge I decided to do a little more investigating. Yes, I admit that I did not read very much on TBC’s website (tsk tsk). But I went back and viewed their very brief FAQ. Here are some more comments …

Why do you care?

It isn’t just adult Christians who are indoctrinated with the frightening ideology of Christian belief. In fact, most Christians are indoctrinated as children. These children are told that they must believe the following: That 2000 years ago a man died, stayed dead three days, rose from the dead and then flew into the air above the clouds– and right now this man is with them as their invisible companion and savior from Hell, if only they will submit to him. If this bizarre theory were not religious in nature, teaching it to children would probably be considered child abuse.

Personally, I don’t see anything frightening at all about what TBC’s FAQ says Christian children must believe. And this is not all that bizarre when you look at any religious belief. It’s also not at all bizarre when you compare it to the fairy tales and myths that are routinely believed by children. Things like “Santa Claus is watching you to see if you are naughty or nice” and “he knows when you are sleeping”. That is closer to child abuse than the Christian tenets listed above. TBC is missing the whole point — in my opinion. It’s not the Christianity that is the enemy — it’s the Fundamentalism.

How will The Blasphemy Challenge help?

Religious dogma has one chief means of support: Our unwillingness to criticize it in public. If we talked about religion the same way we talk about science, history or other fields involving truth claims, dogma would wither in the light. The Blasphemy Challenge, by addressing a truth claim of Christianity, is intended to provoke this sort of conversation.

A couple points here. First, how is asking people to blaspheme “addressing a truth claim?” The only way to determine that the “truth claim” is false is to demonstrate that the expected outcome does not happen. The only way to demonstrate that the expected outcome does not happen is to wait until all the people who blasphemed are dead and see if they ended up in Hell or not. But, anyone who blasphemed who was not a Christian would be in Hell anyway so there would still be no proof that it was the blasphemy that put them there. So, the only real test would be to have a Christian blaspheme and then see if that peson ended up in Hell. But I doubt that a true believer would want to blaspheme unless, of course, they would be willing to lose their eternal soul in the hopes of saving others. So, clearly this experiment is far from scientifically valid. If only the Bible said that anyone who blasphemes would be immediatley struck by lightning. Now that would be a verifiable result. But, alas, that is not the case.

Second, I think people have been criticizing religious dogma a lot longer than TBC gives them credit. But criticism is very different in the scientific community and in the religious community. If anyone has ever criticized a Christian Fundamentalist you know what I’m talking about. They do not take criticism well and usually it just makes them cling to their beliefs with more tenacity and close their ears and minds more tightly. Pissing off the Fundamentalists is not the way to get them to talk to you. I will guarantee that no “conversation” will be provoked by this.

Is it true that you are targeting young people with this campaign?

Yes. As young people are the most vulnerable to religious indoctrination, we feel it is important to reach them with the concept of challenging the doctrine they are told to unquestioningly believe.

In my opinion, Brian Flemming is as fanatical about being not Fundamentalist as the Fundamentalists are about being Fundamentalist. (Again, I saw the movie and these are my opinions. And these are opinions from someone who was in a situation very very similiar to Flemming’s.) Just because you don’t like Fundamentalism is no reason to trash all religious beliefs. If you don’t like Fundamentalism, then attack Fundamentalism! Don’t attack religion in general.

The FAQ talks about “religious indoctrination” and battling this by “challenging the doctrine” that Fundamentalists preach. But TBC is not about challenging any doctrine. TBC takes one idea out of an entire religion — an idea that it’s impossible to prove is wrong — and tries to base a new “anti-religion” on it. This is “religious indoctrination” of a different kind but it’s still indoctrination. “Don’t believe anything!” is as bad as “Only believe this!”.

Isn’t this just “fundamentalist atheism”?

That is a remarkably stupid question. The Rational Response Squad encourages people to inquire, argue, reason and doubt — not to believe something because they are told to. Free inquiry is the opposite of fundamentalism. The Blasphemy Challenge may be activist in nature, but it is hardly fundamentalist.

Again, I saw the movie and in my opinion the movie was very fundamentalist atheist. I got the impression that the movie was all about throwing out Christianity in its entirety and not about questioning your beliefs. TBC talks about free inquiry but also seems to say that you can’t believe the Christian dogma even if you want to. I’ll give my opinion one more time: It’s not Christianity that’s the enemy — it’s the Fundamentalism. Yet I see TBC attacking Christianity.

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The Blasphemy Challenge

Published
by
Ken
on February 12, 2007
in atheism, christian fundamentalism, christianity, fundamentalism and religion
. 3 Comments

I stumbled upon The Blasphemy Challenge tonight. I saw the movie The God Who Wasn’t There and felt it was very … juvenile. Now I don’t mean this in a condescending way. What I mean is that Brian Flemming is in the same place that I was 20 years ago. I, too, was raised Fundamentalist Christian and made a break from it. And after my break I thought everything that even smelled Christian was hogwash, naive, and just plain stupid. But in that 20 years “away from it all,” I’ve grown to see that I was not rebelling against God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit. I was rebelling against Fundamentalism. And there is a huge difference. I will never rejoin the ranks of the Fundamentalists but I am no longer anti-everything-religious. I hope that Flemming and everyone who participates in the Blasphemy Challenge grow up to see the difference.

And as far as the Blasphemy Challenge goes … what’s the point? If these people are so sure God doesn’t exist then it’s pointless to do this. They might as well be denying The Great Pumpkin.

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God is like a white rock with black dots … sort of

Published
by
Ken
on January 10, 2007
in atheism, christian apologetics, christianity, god, ravi zacharias, religion and religious pluralism
. 3 Comments

A quote I found on Rant Fever (and several other places) from Ravi Zacharias, a Christian apologist:

Atheism comes from, literally, the Greek word a-, ‘the negative’; and theism, the word theos for ‘god’ — ‘negative God’ or ‘there is no God.’ It is affirming the non-existence of God. It affirms a negative. Anyone with an introductory course in philosophy recognizes that it is a logical contradiction. It would be like me saying to you, ‘There is no such thing as a white stone with black dots anywhere in all of the galaxies of this universe.’ The only way I can affirm that is if I have unlimited knowledge of this universe. So to affirm an absolute negative is self-defeating, because what you are saying is, ‘I have infinite knowledge in order to say to you, “There is nobody with infinite knowledge”.’ Atheism, as a system, is self-defeating.

The basic argument is: to prove that a white stone with black dots does not exist you would have to look at every single stone in the entire universe. However, to prove that a white stone with black dots does exist, you simply have to find a single white stone with black dots. Since the negative, the “a-stoneism” so to speak, is impossible (given a human’s limited knowledge and sub-light-speed travel ability) it is a logical contradiction, according to Zacharias.

Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Even though stones are a little different than gods or God the contradiction still seems to hold water in God’s case — saying that God does not exist is equivalent to saying that you definitely know that there is no God anywhere in the universe. But how can you know that if you’ve not been everywhere in the universe?

Ok, let’s ignore the logistical implications of looking for God the same way we look for stones and the philosophical implications of equating a physical object with a non-physical being … or spirit … or whatchamacallit. Instead let’s move to the other half of the argument. If it’s easier to prove a white stone with black dots does exist than it is to prove that it doesn’t then it should be easier to prove that God does exist than it is to prove that He doesn’t, right? I mean, come on. All you have to do is find one — I mean Him! (This will be left as an exercise for the interested reader.)

Now, I’ve heard Zacharias speak. Many years ago I even walked down the isle to re-dedicate my life to God during one of his sermons. (Or was it re-re-dedicate?) And I’ve read some of his books. So, I have a good idea where his arguments tend to end up.

In a nutshell, Zacharias is not a religous pluralist. That is, he believes that Christianity is the one and only true religion and that all other religions are false. He lumps atheism in with religion and so it lies under the “false” category. Fair enough. But Zacharias seems to stop short in his argument about atheism. In my opinion, he doesn’t take it far enough — doesn’t take it to its logical conclusion.

And the logical conclusion is that Zacharias’ argument actually supports religious pluralism! Think about it. If it is a logical contradiction to say that there is no God, then it’s also a logical contradiction to say that there is no God.

Did you notice what I did there? The first ‘God’ implicitly refers to the Christian God of the Bible. The second ‘God’ implicitly refers to Allah of Islam or to Shiva of Hinduism or to … Zacharias’ argument is not specific to his Christian God and so is applicable to the Gods of many religions.

I guess Zacharias is a religious pluralist after all!

Pretty sneaky, sis.

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