Atheists, Evidence, and Unreasonable Demands

Yesterday, I tweeted a link to my article "Is There Such a Thing as Rational Faith?" The point of that article was that faith and reason are not contradictory. One reply to that was a tweet by The_Apistevist, who identifies himself as an atheist on Twitter. He asked: "how can belief without evidence be considered rational?" Now, I had never claimed Christianity had no evidence, nor did I argue that one should never seek evidence in matters of faith.  Belief without evidence was his assumption.

Because I've engaged in these kinds of conversations before, I didn't want to retread the evidence for Christianity.  It's well-documented on both the ComeReason.org web site as well as this blog. Most of the time, atheists will simply reject the evidence I offer, stating it doesn't count for some arbitrary reason or another. For example, testimony is evidence, but such is usually dismissed out of hand because the content of that testimony is "religious."

So, I decided to take another route. Is it true that no one should believe anything without evidence other than a person's word? Could such a standard work in the real world? Below is the full conversation with The_Apistevist . You can see how his own criteria quickly devolve into an unworkable position.

the_apistevist: how can belief without evidence be considered rational? December 30, 2015

comereason: What do you mean by evidence? December 30, 2015

the_apistevist: evidence-the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid. December 30, 2015

comereason: My experience is that atheists' definition of evidence shifts when we discuss non-material propositions. December 30, 2015

comereason: Do you believe things other people told you without evidence? December 30, 2015

the_apistevist: no. I demand evidence of a persons claim before deciding whether to believe their claim. December 30, 2015

comereason: Really? Someone tells you they have a PhD and you demand to see it? December 30, 2015

the_apistevist: No one I've talked with so far has claimed to have a Ph.D., but when someone does I'll be sure to ask them to show they have... December 30, 2015

the_apistevist: the alleged Ph.D. December 30, 2015

comereason: Then you are an unreasonable person. December 30, 2015

the_apistevist: I'm unreasonable for asking someone to provide evidence for their claim? LMAO! December 30, 2015

comereason: Why should I believe you're honest right now? You haven't provided me with any evidence of your honesty. December 30, 2015

the_apistevist: how would you like me to provide the evidence of my honesty? December 30, 2015

comereason: There's the rub, eh? How about past history of your interactions with Christians where you changed your mind? December 30, 2015

the_apistevist: if I still had my text messages between one of my friends and myself from when I was a Christian I could show you where I had... December 30, 2015

the_apistevist: an interaction with a Christian where I changed my mind. December 30, 2015

comereason: But without it, I can only take your word for it. By your definition I shouldn't believe you. You have no evidence. December 30, 2015

the_apistevist: You asked me to provide something I couldn't provide. Is there another way I can demonstrate my honesty to you? December 30, 2015

comereason: "He who asserts must prove." it isn't up to me. On this line of thought, you bear the burden of proof. December 30, 2015

the_apistevist: I didn't deny the burden of proof. I'm asking HOW can I demonstrate my honesty to you. December 30, 2015

Of course, at this point, The_Apistevist is caught in an intractable position. I am both demanding evidence AND I'm the one who rules whether or not whatever he offers me counts as evidence. This is exactly the game many Internet atheists play regarding the existence of God. He has no way of satisfying my criteria, so according to his own rules I am justified in stopping the conversation because I cannot believe him when he tells me he is honest.

How would the world worked if everyone took up this position? How could you drive if you couldn't trust other drivers to obey the traffic laws without first demanding evidence? How would commerce work?

I don't believe his claim that he demands evidence for every statement another makes. He simply couldn't function this way. However, he would rather be relegated to an unreasonable position than admit he holds beliefs where he has no evidence other than the word of the person to whom he's speaking. That truly is unreasonable.

Image courtesy Flickr.com/paurlan and licensed via the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 (CC BY 2.0) license.

Answering "Why Does God Hate Me?"

Yesterday, I wrote about an article chronicling how Google searches for God have been changing. While searches for churches have been declining, questions about God's existence and the problem of evil are increasing, making them the first and second most commonly asked questions about God on Google.1 These aren't really that surprising as the culture moves further and further away from its Christian worldview.

While questions one and two were familiar, it is the third most popular search that caught my eye. Over 1900 people a month are asking Google "Why does God hate me?" Looking beyond that specific phrase, Google's AdWords tool reports that "god hates me" is queried 880 times and "does god hate me" 590 times per month. That's over 3300 times each month people are desperate enough to go to Google and search for an answer as to why God hasn't helped them out of their problems.

These searches about the person's problematic lives are not only due to event-driven factors. The New York Times article I referred to above also notes that the most common search term to complete the phrase "Why did God make me ___?" is the word "ugly" by a wide margin.2 So, either difficult times or difficult features of one's life can prompt people to search for resolution as to why their lives are not easier than they are currently.

God Doesn't Hate You and He Proved It

First, let me say to those who are asking this question that God doesn't hate you. He really doesn't. I know exactly how it feels when life is crashing all around you and you see a glimmer of hope that somehow vanishes into thin air. You can get bitter very quickly. You see no way to escape and you become frightened. Perhaps you've prayed for a miracle, for that's all you can fathom to alleviate your suffering, but that miracle never comes.

In such situations, it's easy to turn and blame God for not rescuing you. After all, he has the power to do so. What would it cost him? But I think you know such a view is a little too easy, a little simplistic. God is not a genie in a bottle to be summoned when life gets hard. Such a God is unworthy of worship; he becomes the slave of the petitioner. Instead, God desires that you know him. Sometimes he uses the difficult times of our lives to get our attention. It was C.S. Lewis who said "Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world."3

You may ask "but how can I even trust God when he allows me to hurt so much?" That's a fair question, one that deserves a thoughtful answer. One of the ways you can tell how much a person values another is by counting what it costs him or her. In marriage, a person will sacrifice his time, his comfort and his finances for the sake of his spouse. A man who is unwilling to sacrifice his desires for his wife is selfish and a cad.

What could a relationship cost an all-powerful God? Quite a bit, actually. In order to reconcile you to himself, God sacrificed his own dear son who was crucified on a cross. As a father, I know that this is the ultimate cost; I would much rather die myself than give up my innocent child to be put to death for the sake of someone else. That means a lot. It shows that God is serious. How serious will you be about getting to know him?

Even Though God Loves You, He Won't Rescue You from All Your Troubles

I don't really fault those who seek to blame God for difficult circumstances in their lives. Many people today simply don't know enough about God to have a clear picture of him. Pain is never a pleasant thing but as I said above God is not going to come to the rescue of everyone who is in a bad situation. Any father who bails his child out of all their difficulties spoils the child and diminishes his own role. If God is shouting to us in our pain, perhaps we should look to see what we can learn from our situation. Do we place a higher value on looks than on the character of the person we should strive to be? Did we ignore God while success was easy or perhaps ignore his commands on how to live? Or did we simply ignore God until times got tough?

Every story is different, but I guarantee God wouldn't allow you to go through this period of pain unless there was a reason, even if that reason is to learn how to endure. Corrie Ten Boom had to suffer the loss of her family and the horrors of the Nazi Concentration camp Ravensbruck for saving lives of Jewish refugees. She was doing good and yet she still suffered greatly for her actions.4 She said even there she found a purpose for her suffering while in the barracks, claiming "in darkness God's truth shines most clear."5

God doesn't hate you. He gave up everything for you and wants you to draw closer to him. If you would like to do so, simply use this form to get in contact with us. We would love to hear from you.

References

1. Stephens-Davidowitz, Seth. "Googling for God." The New York Times. The New York Times, 19 Sept. 2015. Web. 29 Sept. 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/opinion/sunday/seth-stephens-davidowitz-googling-for-god.html?emc=edit_th_20150920&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=60141341&_r=1.
2. Stephens-Davidowitz, 2015.
3. C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001). 91. Print.
4. "Corrie Ten Boom." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 18 Aug. 2015. Web. 30 Sept. 2015. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10006914.
5. Ten Boom, Corrie, John L. Sherrill, and Elizabeth Sherrill. The Hiding Place. Washington Depot, CT: Chosen, 1971. 183. Print.

Atheists and Unreasonable Objections

Most apologists are well aware of the command in 1 Peter 3:15 to "always be prepared to give a defense to those who ask for the hope that is within you." In fact, they will point to it as an example of God commanding Christians to engage with an unbelieving world. Yet, I've seen Christians think that in order to be faithful to 1 Peter 3:15, we must field every objections thrown at us, regardless of what it is. But there are some objections that are themselves unreasonable, and part of offering a defense is calling out the objector who offers frivolous complaints.

As an example of what I mean, let's look at an article I published last week entitled "Why Would a Loving God Allow the Earthquake in Nepal?" The article explained why plate tectonics, the movements which cause earthquakes, are crucial to support life on earth. One commenter on the post offered the following objection:

What a pile of drivel. So this god isnt to blame for all the deaths from quakes because they are necessary to stop the earth becoming desolate lol.

So this omnipotent god couldnt make a planet without plate tectonics?

The only reason we need a magnetic fields protection is because this god is slinging cosmic rays everywhere.

This god cant control biodiversity, chemical balance ,raise mountains from the sea(bible claims he can) without the use of earthquakes ? lol

If this omnipotent god cant create a world that works well without the need to kill thousands of people every year then its a very poor god indeed.

One will quickly notice that the objector doesn't doubt that plate tectonics do all the necessary things I said they did. His objection boils down to simply, "Surely, God cold have done it some other way!" Really? Exactly what way would this person suggest? Does he have another model that he would like to offer?

Perhaps he is arguing that if God exists, then no one should ever die from any natural accident. Natural laws should never endanger human lives. But, the implications of that are staggering. If no one should be harmed because of natural processes, then what do we do about the law of gravity? No one should fall off a cliff and nothing should ever fall on anyone. Is that a reasonable model? What "other way" is there for these kinds of calamities? His objection boils down to either repealing the law of gravity (which means that life on earth is again impossible) or human beings themselves become indestructible. That second choice was exactly what God did not want to happen, because people were in a state of sin. He never wanted a sinful human being to live in his sinful condition for all of eternity (see Genesis 3:22-24.)

Gainsaying Is Never a Path to the Truth

The primary issue I have with objections like this, and I see such objections all the time, both online and in personal conversations, is they aren't honest. The person asking isn't really looking for an answer; he is simply taking a contrary opinion to the evidence offered already. He was simply doing what is known as gainsaying, taking up a contrary position to discount my evidence instead of interacting with it. It means he ignored the evidence presented and complained that he didn't like the conclusions that followed.

Gainsaying is not thinking. It's simply negating whatever you don't like. I find it interesting that certain atheists will fall into what I call the outrageous objection such as the one above ("if God can do anything, then I want the world to look like this…"). But if one upholds reason as a central virtue, then such tactics should strike him or her as repugnant.  It proves that one isn't open to following the evidence wherever it leads. In fact, offering unreasonable objections isn't a sign of free-thinking, but of closed-mindedness. 1 Peter 3:15 doesn't say that the Christian has to answer every objection, no matter if it's a good or bad. We are commanded to defend the reality of the resurrected Jesus and the reasonableness of the Christian worldview. Because Christianity places a very high value on reason, it is appropriate to identify an unreasonable objection and demand that the objector offer something more concrete. By so doing, you demonstrate how much you value reason yourself.

You Can't Be an Atheist Without a Belief

It all started with a tweet.

Yesterday, I tweeted:

Since I don't follow football, I'm playoff agnostic. Unlike today's atheists, it means I don't know who's going; not "playoffs don't exist."
— Lenny Esposito (@comereason) January 5, 2015

The idea was to provide an example of the distinction between the terms agnostic and atheist. As I said before, this idea that one can be both an atheist and an agnostic makes no sense. Of course, not everyone who identifies as an atheist or as an agnostic believes that one can be an "agnostic atheist," but the concept has become more and more popular, even though it’s nonsense. My tweet was what I thought a simple way to demonstrate that.

Then the atheists responded.

One tweeted:

@comereason @HatefulAtheist @Dragonblaze | Gnosis - Greek for knowledge. Theism - belief in a personal God. Prefix "a" = without.
— NikD (@_NIKD_) January 5, 2015

Uh, sure. But that doesn’t solve the problem. Breaking down the prefix of the words does nothing to show how an atheist can also be an agnostic. The "without" of agnosticism doesn’t mean "without a positive belief in," it means "without any beliefs for or against." It means you either don’t know or cannot know. Either way, one cannot be an atheist and hold that God does not exist.

Philosophers understand that claiming to have any kind of knowledge about a thing, you must hold to some beliefs about that thing. Using my football example, if I claim to know that  Team X will not make it to the Superbowl, that knowledge must be predicated on the belief that they will not be victorious in the conference final against Team Y, or something like that. If I have a belief it is either that they will win or they will lose. Knowledge requires that I have some kind of belief. Therefore, if one holds no beliefs, such as my neutrality regarding football playoffs, then one cannot make a claim to know about them.

Give that background, I received this response:

@comereason Atheism is about not believing claims, not about making claims
— Foxy (@atheist_fox) January 5, 2015

What followed was an extended Twitter conversation where I tried to show how knowledge requires belief. Feel free to read it. I think a lot of this confusion stems from how many "atheists on the street" mis-define knowledge and belief. They seem to confuse knowledge with facts and belief with feeling.Thus I had one atheist tell me:

@atheist_fox @comereason Simply put...belief is an assumption with little merit, not needing things like facts and truth.
— Leefeller Guy (@Leefellerguy) January 5, 2015

That's confused. If you believe that your team will win the Conference finals, you may hold that belief based on their previous record, the analysis of the opposing team, and other factors. You may know know they will will, but you can certainly believe so, based on the facts.

Yet, some people persist in mis-defining agnosticism, atheism, knowledge, and belief. It’s why one atheist actually said:

@VoloDiscere @atheist_fox @weakSquare @comereason I don't know if I have any beliefs. Hard to think of one.
— Brian Biscieglia (@BrianBiscieglia) January 5, 2015

To which I replied: "You believe that you don't have any beliefs! That's at least one."

Did Christianity Dominate Through Violence?

Yesterday, I began to examine a particular charge made by an atheist that "Christianity did not become a major religion by the quality of its truth, but by the quantity of its violence." This charge is not new; claims of Christian domination are common, with some offering the Crusades and others pointing to colonialism as examples of how Christianity sought to dominate the world. However, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, neither of those examples are evidence for spreading Christianity through violence.

Missionary Christianity — The Spread of Love

When Christianity first began as a persecuted faith in the Roman period, the thing that attracted pagans to Christianity is their selflessness and their love. An anonymous second century letter exists, addressed to Diognetus, where the writer gives a clear description of how Christians are seen:

Yet, although they live in Greek and barbarian cities alike, as each man's lot has been cast, and follow the customs of the country in clothing and food and other matters of daily living, at the same time they give proof of the remarkable and admittedly extraordinary constitution of their own commonwealth. They live in their own countries, but only as aliens…They marry, like everyone else, and they beget children, but they do not cast out their offspring. They share their board with each other, but not their marriage bed… They obey the established laws, but in their own lives they go far beyond what the laws require. They love all men, and by all men are persecuted. They are unknown, and still they are condemned; they are put to death, and yet they are brought to life. They are poor, and yet they make many rich; they are completely destitute, and yet they enjoy complete abundance.  They are dishonored, and in their very dishonor are glorified; they are defamed, and are vindicated. They are reviled, and yet they bless; when they are affronted, they still pay due respect. When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; undergoing punishment, they rejoice because they are brought to life.1

This unwavering dedication in the face of the persecution that I wrote about in my last post is the evidence that the Christians' "quality of truth" was lived out.

Colonization and the Crusades

The spread of Christianity through missionary efforts providing the love of Christ did not end when Constantine converted. Augustine of Hippo, one of the smartest men in history, converted to Christianity because he was seeking wisdom.2 Other leaders of western thought, such as Tertullian, Origen, and Justin Martyr also converted on the strength of Christianity's truth claims.

The living out of Christian love had a huge impact as well. The Eastern churches began monasteries to what are now Russia and the Slavic states, where the people converted not by sword, but by their embracing of the local peoples. In the west, saints like Patrick, who was enslaved by the pagan Irish for six years, came back and showed his love to them, leading to the nation's conversion.

Of course there are examples of attempts at forced conversions by rulers such as Charlemagne or the Spanish Inquisition. But these are political power plays that sought to co-opt Christianity for their own ends. Christianity had a mandate from its founder to "make disciples of all nations," but Jesus forbade the use of the sword as the means to accomplish that task. These are the exceptions in the history of Christendom and they only occur after Christianity has become dominant within the culture, not before.

The Crusades are a unique matter. While they did contain a lot of heinous actions on both sides, one must remember they were never an attempt to conquer or convert anyone. Paul F. Crawford I his excellent "Four Myths About the Crusades" shows clearly that the Crusades were launched as a response to Islamic attacks on Christians in the Middle East. Christians were protecting their lands against invaders, not invading themselves.

The fact that Christianity grew through the missionary's sweat and not the soldier's boot is a well-known fact of history. By asserting that violence spread the Christian faith, Michael Sherlock hopes to with a wave of his hand erase some 2000 years of history. It's a claim that defies credulity. But there's one more piece of evidence that Sherlock fails to consider: the fact that even today the fastest growing religion in the world is Christianity and I know of no armies conquering ion the sign of the cross. We'll look more at that next time.

References

1. "An Anonymous Brief for Christianity Presented To Diognetus." Christian Classics Ethereal Library. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/richardson/fathers.x.i.ii.html Accessed 4/6/2014.
2. In his Confessions, Book III, Chapter IV, Augustine writes, "In the ordinary course of study I came upon a certain book of Cicero's, whose language almost all admire, though not his heart. This particular book of his contains an exhortation to philosophy and was called Hortensius. Now it was this book which quite definitely changed my whole attitude and turned my prayers toward thee, O Lord, and gave me new hope and new desires." See "Augustine: Account of His Own Conversion" from the Medieval Sourcebook web site. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/aug-conv.asp

Answering Memes: Christianity Spread Through Violence (to Christians!)

Every once in a while I see an Internet meme that begs for comment. Memes are those individual images with a quip or slogan that supposedly provides amazing insight in a single thought. (For past posts, see here, here, and here.) Atheists believe these memes offer devastating blows against Christianity, but most are flat out wrong when it comes to the facts. They rely on shock value and an audience predisposed to agree with them without ever really thinking about the claim the meme makes. Still, some will capture misconceptions held by a wider group of people, so I like to address them from time to time to dispel the myths.

The latest shrill to emerge is a meme from atheist Michael Sherlock and makes the claim "Christianity did not become a major religion by the quality of its truth, but by the quantity of its violence." Really? I mean, really?? Is Sherlock such a poor detective of history that he can do no investigating at all? There are three areas where this meme goes horribly wrong, each of which is actually a feather in the cap of Christianity. Therefore I'd like to look at all three. I'll begin with the first, Christianity's growth during its first centuries.

Early Christianity—The Blood of the Martyrs

The first substantial growth of Christianity comes in the first three centuries after Jesus' crucifixion. From a band of a few dozen disciples on the day of Pentecost to the Diocletian persecution ending in AD 311, Christianity grew exponentially. Much of this growth was in spite of heavy persecution of Christians by the Jews and later the Romans as Christians expanded across the Roman Empire. Roman historian Tacitus writes that Nero is famous for having Christians covered in animal skins and set before wild beasts or rolled in pitch and set aflame to light his evening chariot rides.1

During the Diocletian persecution, Eusebius reports upside down crucifixion, being burned alive, Christians having each limb fastened to bent branches and then releasing the branches and tearing the Christians to pieces.2 In between, Christians faced many difficulties throughout the empire and martyrdom was commonplace, yet the believers continued to add to their ranks. This dichotomy was so evident it caused the church father Tertullian to famously state:

Kill us, torture us, condemn us, grind us to dust; your injustice is the proof that we are innocent. Therefore God suffers that we thus suffer; for but very lately, in condemning a Christian woman to the leno rather than to the leo3 you made confession that a taint on our purity is considered among us something more terrible than any punishment and any death. Nor does your cruelty, however exquisite, avail you; it is rather a temptation to us. The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.4

Christianity had grown so much during its times of pain and death that just two years after the Diocletian persecution, Constantine issued the Edict of Milan and gave Christianity protected status and the right to worship God as they saw fit.5

So, Christianity in its formative years did grow during violent times. Unlike what the meme implies, though, the violence was against the Christians themselves. But perhaps such an elementary deduction has eluded Sherlock. Perhaps he had only trained his spyglass on the time after Christianity was established as a world religion. Tomorrow, I'll look at the spread of Christianity from the fifth through the 19th centuries.

References

1. Tacitus. Annals, Book XV. The Internet Classics Archive. http://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/annals.11.xv.html Accessed 6/5/2014.

2. Eusebius. Church History (Book VIII, Chapters 7 and 8). New Advent Web site. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250108.htm Accessed 6/5/2014.

3. This is a pun in Latin. Leno would be a pimp. Tertullian is saying the Romans testify to Christian virtuousness because they inflict a greater punishment in forcing Christians to be prostitutes rather than feeding them to lions.

4. Tertullian. Apology. Chapter 50. New Advent Web site.  http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0301.htm Accessed 6/5/2014.

5. Wright, David F."313 The Edict of Milan." Christianity Today. Issue 28, 1990. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/1990/issue28/2809.html Accessed 6/5/2014

Christians Cannot be Intellectual Slackers

C. S. Lewis had a great quote when talking about the followers of Christ. He said, "God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers. If you are thinking of being a Christian, I warn you: you are embarking on something that is going to take the whole of you, brains and all."

I completely agree. Christians today have accepted the secular world's idea that somehow faith and reason inhabit separate spheres. The two are sitting on opposite ends of a spectrum and the more one applies tools such as logic and philosophy to his or her beliefs, the less and less they will be considered faithful or pleasing to God. A bumper sticker that used to be fairly popular summed up this kind of attitude: "God said it, I believe it, that settles it."

But nowhere in scripture are we commanded to approach our beliefs blindly. In fact, we are commanded to do just the opposite. When Jesus was asked what the most important commandment was he replied, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength" (Mark 12:30). Tellingly, although Jesus was quoting Deuteronomy 6:5, He added the phrase "and with all your mind." Jesus said that loving God must include developing the life of the mind.

This makes a lot of sense, given how Jesus identified Himself. In John 14:6 He said, "I am the Way the truth and the Life." Well, if we think about Jesus as truth, then we should be applying reason and logic to our beliefs. Logic is simply a tool that we use to find truth.

Part of our difficulty in seeing logic and critical thinking as ways we can better love God may be because we think that such tasks are only human enterprises, while Jesus is divine. Logic means works, while He is grace. But if Jesus is truth and we can use logic to discern truth, then we can use logic to see the reality of Jesus.

You may be surprised to find that out that the implementation of logic is actually found throughout the Bible and especially in the New Testament. Jesus used logic and argumentation many times. For example, just before He gave the command to love God with your mind, the Sadducees tried to test Him with a question about a woman who was married and widowed seven times. They used a technique in logic known as reductio ad absurdum to show that their views on the afterlife were correct. However, Jesus capably destroyed their argument and chided them, saying "Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?" He then give the command that we must love God with all our minds.

The Sadducees were unprepared. They hadn't done their homework and as a result had a mistaken view of God. As faithful followers of Christ, let us not shy away from some of the harder work of learning and developing our minds so we can more completely love our God with all that we are.

2013 Top Ten Apologetics Tweets

One of the ways I leverage social media is to expose people to the wider views and issues that are being written about online.  So, I use my Twitter and Facebook accounts to post interesting links or to start conversations about things that matter. (Not exclusively, mind you. If you follow me you may also get some personal updates or a proud photo of a family member.)

Below are the top ten read articles I linked to with an apologetic or cultural focus. It's interesting to see just what resonates with folks out there as well as what was hot in the news this year. Some of both are reflected below.

1. Why do they always ask about rape and incest? http://bit.ly/Pr1jWM
2. Roger Ebert Reviews a Tragedy: His Search for God http://bit.ly/Zlw5QB
3. Supreme Court Decisions Cannot Define Morality http://bit.ly/12lwAtD
4. The knockout game: reporting more hype than truth. http://bit.ly/18fF27Y
5. Triumph of the vulgarians http://lat.ms/1aRYlyx
6. A Tale of Two Hitchens http://bit.ly/1aXsmg0
7. The Culture of Memes and Why It’s Ruining the World http://bit.ly/18VYVyY
8. Family Says They Did Tip Gay Server, Didn't Leave Note http://bit.ly/1aRd0y4
9. A Whole New Meaning to Sex-Crazed http://bit.ly/1hEJbFd
10. Devastating Arguments Against Christianity (Courtesy of the Internet)  http://bit.ly/16fDcRa

2013 Top Ten Apologetics Blog Posts

We're once again highlighting the top ten blog posts for the year. The blog continues to grow in popularity with over 10,000 readers per month visiting the blog alone.  Add that to our www.ComeReason.org web site and we see over 370,000 hits from nearly every country on earth.

Below are the top ten unique articles or content for 2013. There are a couple of podcasts that were also featured on the blog and would have made it to this list, but I will cover those in a separate post. Questions on the reliability of the Bible, the problem of moral grounding, and even a word of encouragement from J.P. Moreland all resonated with readers. The top post tackles an objection we hear all too often: religion is the cause of so many wars throughout history.

All ten posts are linked below. Which was your favorite?

1. Does Religion Cause War?
2. How Can God be Without Beginning or End?
3. Bible Contradictions - Why Responding "Show Me Some" Doesn't Work
4. Debunking 'Bible Secrets' Television Shows
5. Worldview Definitions: The Problem with Postmodernism
6. J.P. Moreland to Young Christians: "Don't let anybody bully you"
7. Do You Need Religion to Have Morals?
8. The Big Bang is Not the Enemy of Theology
9. How Teaching Answers Fails Christian Students
10. Why are Christians so obsessed with homosexuality?

Would Torture be Good if God is Evil?

Recently on my Facebook page, I was presented with this video from philosophy professor Stephen Darwall of Yale University who argues that one cannot hold to a view that morality comes from God.Because Darwall is a professor of philosophy, his arguments are more cogent than most, but I believe he gets the basis for good and bad wrong. In the following discussion with an atheist friend, I show how God's goodness is grounded in His nature, and also answer the question "Could there be such a thing as an evil God?" To see the complete thread, click here.

Lenny: This is an interesting video, Bernie. I appreciate that it is a thoughtful look at morality. However, the Divine Command Theory espoused here is not the same as the beliefs that I or historic Christendom has held. I don't believe that a value is good simply because God says so. That runs smack dab into the Euthyphro dilemma.

I believe that goodness is intrinsic to God - that is it is part of His nature. God tells us what is good because God is good. As a parallel, human beings are by nature communicative. We don;t choose to think using words and language, we do so because it is part of our nature to do so. So, there is a difference between the explanation above,which relies on God making proclamations that could be made another way and God making proclamations because they correspond to His nature.

For a counter-argument, this video by an atheist does a great job in describing the problems with rooting morality in a human framework. Check it out:
Moral Nihilist: The Intellectually Honest Atheist

Bernie: RE: "God tells us what is good because God is good. "

So that means that "good" is defined by "God" or more specifically defined by God's nature, correct? If so, makes me wonder where God got his nature from; and could it have been any different, and if so, then that different would have been the new "good?"

Lenny: I would word it more like good is that which corresponds to God's nature.

Bernie: So IF it were God's nature to be mean, then that would be considered "good?"

Lenny: That's Stephen Law's argument, but it begins to become confused. First, if we understand what evil is (a privation of the good), then we must realize that good can exist wholly apart from evil, but evil cannot exist apart from the good. That is, a wholly malevolent being who is also self-existent (as the term God is understood) cannot exist. Evil can only exist as a measure against the good, just like a dent cannot exist by itself but must be considered a defect in the original shape of another object. You can have a fender with no dents, but you cannot have a dent with no fender!

Secondly, William Lane Craig makes the point that If God is God, then he would be a being worthy of our worship. however, an evil anti-god is no such being.

Lastly, if an evil anti-god created the universe and his goal was to perpetuate evil, how would we then know what we're doing is evil? if we are following our telos, our purpose, then is such a thing even considered evil at all? You can see that positing a malevolent god starts to have some serious issues associated with it. I can't make any sense out of it based on objection #1 alone.

Bernie: RE: "That is, a wholly malevolent being who is also self-existent (as the term God is understood) cannot exist."

But you said the nature of God, whatever it is, is good. So if a god had an attribute of what we consider to be bad now, it would then be considered good, because it was the god's nature.

Lenny: Right. So the phrase "mean god" is akin to "square circle" since the word mean holds a moral value already.

Bernie: So if it would have turned-out that god thought torture was fun, we would all call that good, correct? Because, that is his nature, which defines good. Is that what you are claiming?

Lenny: No, for two reasons. First you are using a word like torture that carries moral weight. For example, would you say that a person is torturing a tree by picking off its apples? Of course not! The tree has a purpose - it provides food. To consume the fruit of the tree is neither torture nor cannibalism, but recognizing the value the fruit of the tree provides.

Moral values and duties are not arbitrary nor independent of the design of the one acting or of the thing being acted upon. Capricious morality (where God simply determines what's right and wrong by fiat) is more closely associated with Islamic concept of God than the Christian one.

Atheists, Pink Unicorns, and God

I've written before about atheist Internet memes, these static images with a slogan or question are meant to quickly prove the atheists' point that belief in God is just so ridiculous it can be this easily disproven. But such attempts usually backfire, showing the poster as the one who really doesn't know the arguments in question, or even the subject matter of the meme itself.

I stumbled across one just the other day that truly underscores my point. A group of atheists who manage a couple of pages on Facebook page look to be responsible for the image to your right. The meme is meant to answer the Christian demand that if atheists want to state a proposition like "God does not exist" or "God is a fictitious being" then they should be able to provide arguments and evidence for their position.

Many atheists have responded to the demand by saying that one cannot prove a universal negative. They say it's like trying to prove that invisible pink unicorns don't exist. As the meme says "prove to me the Invisible Pink Unicorn doesn't exist and I'll use your method."

OK, let's give this a try:

1. The property of color is defined as a visible property.
2. An object that has a visible property must be at least visible in that property.
3. An invisible object is defined as an object that is not visible (e.g. lacking any visible property.)
4. The Invisible Pink Unicorn has the property of color (namely the color pink.)
5. The Invisible Pink Unicorn lacks any visible property.
6. Therefore, The Invisible Pink Unicorn is visible (from 1,2 and 4)
7. Therefore, The Invisible Pink Unicorn is not visible (from 3 and 5)

As my argument shows, belief in an invisible pink unicorn requires believing in a contradiction, that it is visible and invisible at the same time. Any belief that entails a contradictory belief cannot possibly be true, so this serves as definitive proof that invisible pink unicorns cannot exist anywhere. This means that one can prove a universal negative; it is impossible for an invisible pink unicorn to be real.

So, now the burden rests on the atheist to disprove God in like manner. Remember, the meme says if I prove it, they will use my method. Now, of course many will try to offer arguments that are either invalid or unsound. But offering just any argument doesn't do the trick. A sound argument must support its conclusion with its premises, just as I did above. I made sure I defined my terms and I didn't make any leaps in assumption when laying out my premises. Therefore, my conclusion necessarily follows.

I was able to show that a universal negative can be proven and I was able to meet the atheists' challenge. What are the odds that they will give a serious attempt to actually act on their words and use my method?

Do You Need Religion to Have Morals?

I recently had a friend who posted a picture to a social media site. It was an Internet meme, one of those quick little quips that have become so popular online. This one had symbols from all the larger faith systems (and a couple of lesser ones as well) with text that read "You don't need religion to have morals. If you can't determine right from wrong, then you lack empathy, not religion." Is this right?

My first reaction to the post is that it reminds me of the objection I always hear when discussing moral grounding with atheists. I argue that the only way objective moral values and duties can exist is if they are grounded in God. In other words, in order for morals to be prescriptive (that is, how we should act), they must come from a lawgiver that is above humanity.

Now, most atheists misunderstand this argument and retort that even though they don't believe in God, they are moral people. But that isn't what I was trying to say.  I can freely admit that relatively speaking there are many atheists who act more uprightly than some people of faith. The question isn't if adherents to one faith (or no faith) are behaving morally. The question is how can a moral prescription such as "Thou shalt not commit adultery" be binding at all times for all people unless there is an authority higher than man who prescribes it?

And that's the real problem with this meme. Sure, we may all agree that things like torturing small children for no other purpose than one's own entertainment is wrong.  That's because the law of God is written on the hearts of all men (ref. Rom 2:15). However, the sticky part comes in when we consider moral laws like the prohibition against adultery. Is adultery wrong even if your spouse has already been cheating on you? Is adultery wrong if you both agree to be "swingers"? What if someone has enough empathy to make sure his or her spouse never finds out about the affair? Is it wrong then? Jesus placed an even higher demand on moral purity when he said that if you lust after a woman in your heart you are as guilty as if you committed adultery with her. Is that a lack of empathy?

There are other moral questions that become hopelessly confused when we rely on ourselves as the yardstick for morality. The famous Heinz dilemma is a good example:

Heinz's wife was near death, and her only hope was a drug that had been discovered by a pharmacist who was selling it for an exorbitant price. The drug cost $20,000 to make, and the pharmacist was selling it for $200,000. Heinz could only raise $50,000 and insurance wouldn't make up the difference. He offered what he had to the pharmacist, and when his offer was rejected, Heinz said he would pay the rest later. Still the pharmacist refused. In desperation, Heinz considered stealing the drug. Would it be wrong for him to do that?

One I've used before is should we harvest organs from a living inmate on death row if we can save the lives of five young individuals who are upstanding citizens? What if they are all brilliant scientists close to a cure for cancer and the inmate is a child-killer? Should we take his organs then? Right and wrong are sometimes not as clear as we like.

Above all, though, the biggest problem with the meme is that it assumes too little about morality. It ignores that recognizing and properly acknowledging God as our creator is itself a moral act. In fact, it is the first and most important of all our moral requirements – to love God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. If we are not doing this then we are being immoral, we are not behaving as we ought to behave. Therefore it is impossible to be completely morally upright and shun God if God does indeed exist and as the source of the Good He deserves our worship.

Because God must exist in order to ground moral law, then one can't ignore God and still claim morality. Morality requires God's existence; since He exists it follows that one has not properly determined right from wrong if he is not recognizing Him as God. Thus, it is impossible to be irreligious and completely moral together.

Can Religion Offer a Better Answer than Science?

Internet memes, those single images overlaid with a quote or quip, are all popping up all over social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter. Some are funny, some make one reflect, but those hoping to prove a point can often be inadequate to the task.

One such meme that's becoming more frequent is the challenge New Atheist Sam Harris offered theists during his 2007 debate against Rabbi David Wolpe. Harris asked, "I would challenge anyone here to think of a question upon which we once had a scientific answer, however inadequate, but for which now the best answer is a religious one."1

Many people have read the challenge and chat boards are filled with comments from people who simply cannot think of a single question that qualifies. Some atheists have crowed about the inability of theists to do so.  Has history only gone from the religious to the scientific? Is there no question that can meet Sam Harris' charge?

Astronomer Robert Jastrow thought of one. Science had assumed that the universe had always existed. It was infinite and eternal. This was so ingrained into the scientific thinking of the day that Einstein adjusted the calculation of his General Theory of Relativity to only show a steady state universe.2After the Big Bang model was proposed, vehement arguments ensued about the whether the universe had a beginning. After its beginning was confirmed, Jastrow told Christianity Today "Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover. That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact."3

There you go.  Sam Harris' challenge is met. However, some may object to this answer, saying that it was actually science and not religion that proved the universe had a beginning. I would argue that point, but let's lay it aside for a moment. Is there another question that relies only on religiously-obtained knowledge to provide a better answer than science?

Let's try this one: "Can we clone a human being?"

A question like this really asks two things: it asks if humanity is capability of performing the task and it questions the prudence in performing it. For the first part, the cloning of large mammals from adult cells was not possible prior to the creation of Dolly the sheep in 1996. Through the discovery of somatic-cell nuclear transfer it became possible to clone sheep, monkeys, and even human beings. We didn't have the science, so the answer to "Can we clone a human being?" was "No, it's not scientifically possible." But now that it is possible4, we must turn to the second implication of the question, whether it is prudent to do so.

To answer to this part of the question, we find that science is woefully inadequate to the task. This is because science deals with the what, the why, and the how of natural processes. In other words, it only worries about function. It cannot deal with the questions that focus on the ought, the good, or the right. Science can tell us the best way to transplant a kidney is by using a living donor. However, it is totally impotent to tell us whether the living donor should be restricted to volunteers or enlarged to include, say, convicted murders who haven't given consent. This is a moral question, and such questions surround our scientific advances routinely.

Similarly, science says we can clone a human being. The possibility is there for science to use cloning as way to create spare parts for people, allowing for transplants that wouldn't be rejected.5But most nations have outlawed people even attempting to do so. The ability to clone humans is now not limited by the procedure, but by its moral implications and the concept of human worth and dignity. The answer to "Can I clone a human being?" is still "no" but the reasons for that answer are informed by religious values and not by scientific ones.

To decide to clone people on only the scientific response to this question would be barbaric. As Baruch Cohen explains, the Nazi experimented by freezing holocaust victims and the data they obtained is the only controlled scientific data we have on hypothermia.6But because it gives us scientific answers surely doesn't mean we should duplicate it.

It should be evident that science alone cannot answer all the questions humanity has.  It cannot even answer all the questions it raises though its own discoveries. Questions about God, the purpose of man, the ethics of cloning or transplantation, and even how we gather our scientific data must come from somewhere other than science. Religious and moral beliefs are necessary, not only because they can answer these questions, but because without them science can become a monster acting on whatever capability it discovers.

It isn't sceince but virtue that measures the enlightenment of a society.

References

1.Padilla, Steve. "Rabbi, atheist debate with passion, humor". Los Angeles Times. 12/29/2007.
<http://articles.latimes.com/2007/dec/29/local/me-beliefs29> Accessed 4/10/2013.

2.Dr. Sean M. Carroll writes that the Constant's "original role, to allow static homogeneous solutions to Einstein's equations in the presence of matter, turned out to be unnecessary when the expansion of the universe was discovered." See "The Cosmological Constant" by Sean M. Carroll  Living Reviews in Relativity.  Vol 4.(2001) 1. Accessed online at http://relativity.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrr-2001-1/fulltext.html 4/10/2013.

3."A Scientist Caught Between Two Faiths: Interview With Robert Jastrow," Christianity Today. August 6, 1982. Cited in Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jastrow Accessed 4/10/2013.

4."In November 2001, scientists from Advanced Cell Technologies (ACT), a biotechnology company in Massachusetts, announced that they had cloned the first human embryos for the purpose of advancing therapeutic research."
"Cloning Fact Sheet". Human Genome Project Information.
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/cloning.shtml Last modified 5/11/2009. Accessed 4/10/2013.

5."Scientists hope that one day therapeutic cloning can be used to generate tissues and organs for transplants. To do this, DNA would be extracted from the person in need of a transplant and inserted into an enucleated egg. After the egg containing the patient's DNA starts to divide, embryonic stem cells that can be transformed into any type of tissue would be harvested. " (Cloning Fact Sheet, 2009).

6.Cohen, Baruch C. "The Ethics Of Using Medical Data From Nazi Experiments". Jewish Law Articles.
<http://www.jlaw.com/Articles/NaziMedEx.html> Accessed 4/10/2013.

Top Ten Neglected Books for Apologists - #2 Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible

"If the Bible is God's word, then why are there so many contradictions in it?" This question, or one of its variations, has been heard many times by those seeking to share their faith. Sometimes a questioner will pose a specific example, such as "how many angels were at the empty tomb?" or "Did God or Satan cause King David to sin?" Other times, they will have gathered a long list of objections (usually one that has made the rounds across the Internet) and say "See, look at all these!" How can just one person answer the myriad of supposed contradictions floating around today?

The fact of the matter is not only can one man answer these, but one man prepared the definitive response—and he did it back in 1874! John W. Haley made it his goal to address every known discrepancy or alleged biblical contradiction he could find after seeing a pamphlet circulating in a local parish listing several supposed self-contradictions. Haley didn't simply dismiss this pamphlet as the work of disgruntled skeptics, but he took the objections seriously, writing "I have been impressed with the fact that the so-called 'discrepancies' of the Bible have failed to receive due consideration by evangelical authors. The literature of the subject is comparatively meager and antiquated."[1] So Haley set out to survey much of the scholarly theological writings and treatments of the various texts. He then catalogued them, put them into short, very accessible language, and published them in what I consider a masterpiece: Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible.

Haley's efforts are still invaluable today. He breaks down discrepancies into one of three major categories: doctrinal discrepancies, ethical discrepancies, and historical discrepancies; the listings for each is exhaustive. He also created an index to find discrepancies by specific Bible verse. He handles the responses skillfully, with an easy-to-understand manner. He covers almost every objection that seems to surface in Facebook comments or YouTube pundits who want to topple the Bible's authority.  And he did it 150 years before these "problems" ever crossed the minds of our current slate of Internet atheists.

However, Haley saw the importance of not merely answering the charge of contradiction, but he sought to to explore why such discrepancies exist in the first place. The first three chapters of the book deal with why God would even allow such discrepancies in His word and why they can actually be advantageous to the serious Bible student. His comments in the introductions show his mind and heart for apologetics:

"Some persons may, perchance, question the wisdom of publishing a work in which the difficulties of scripture are brought together and set forth so plainly. They may think it better to suppress, as far as may be, the knowledge of these things. The author does not sympathize with any such timid policy. He counts it the duty of the Christian scholar to look difficulties and objections squarely in the face. Nothing is to be gained by overlooking, evading, or shrinking from them. Truth has no cause to fear scrutiny, however rigid and searching. Besides, the enemies of the Bible will not be silent, even if its friends should hold their peace. It should be remembered that the following "discrepancies" are not now published for the first time. They are gathered from books and pamphlets which are already extensively circulated. The poison demands an antidote. The remedy should be carried wherever the disease has made its blighting way."[2]

In reading first sentence above, I find many churches and youth group leaders hold a similar opinion in wanting to "shield" their sheep from the existence of the wolves.  As Haley noted, it is far better to know of the wolves and how to defend yourself against them, than to pretend they don't exist.

Given the publishing date, the contents for Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible are available for free online. However, I recommend purchasing the book and keeping it handy as a reference. This is one of the really superb hidden treasures that Christians have forgotten, and I hope he will be rediscovered soon.

References

1. Haley, John W.. Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible Grand Rapids: Baker Book House 1986. Preface.
2. Ibid.

10 Commandments of Social Networking

This evening, my friend @BrendanStark came up with his "10 Commandments of Social Networking" which I thought were very appropriate. Even in an apologetic context, these will help you to be a better witness and open more doors of conversation with those you hope to reach.  Comment below and let me know what other commandments we should be obeying while living the digital life.


10. Thou shalt not abuse "friends" with MLM/home business sales.

9. Don't use your social networks as a confessional.

8. Don't lie.

7. Don't be a troll.

6. Don't steal another person's name with any "fake" accounts.

5. Take a sabbath break from the Internet.

4. Don't make an idol out of a celebrity (or your fans/followers a la @ladygaga).

3. Show some love. RT once in a while.

2. Don't be online "friends" with people who can screw up your marriage.

1. Use an internal filter. Think before posting things that will embarrass God, you, your family, or your friends.

Image courtesy sman5612 and licensed via the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0) License.