In my post on Atheist Dogma, the inevitable happened. Those who don't do much reading almost always retreat to David Hume's long refuted statements about miracles. I don't have enough time nor space to go over all his mistakes but I would like to touch on a couple.
Hume says:
There are only two kinds of truths - those that are true by definition and those that are true by empirical confirmation.
However -
This statement by Hume is neither true by definition not is it provable by empirical confirmation. Hume’s statement is not merely false, it is also incoherent.
Hume says:
Mathematical truths are analytic, i.e., Mathematical truth or falsity can be established by examining the statement itself. Mathematical axioms are true by definition; they are inherently true.
However -
Take for example, "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line."
This seems self-evidently true, and yet it cannot be confirmed simply be examining the sentence. So how do we know that it's true? We have to check. We have to make two dots a distance apart, draw a line between them and test the “axiom.” Why does this matter? Because mathematical laws are like scientific laws. We can verify them only be examining the world around us. When we do that however, we make a disturbing discovery. Scientific laws are not verifiable.
No finite number of observations, however large, can be used to derive an unrestricted general conclusion that is logically defensible. This is why Hume nor anyone else can say that miracles cannot / do not happen. Hume insisted that miracles violate laws of nature but Hume’s own skeptical philosophy has shown that there are no known laws of nature that can be stated categorically. Miracles can be dismissed only if scientific laws are necessarily true - if they admit no exceptions. But Hume himself said that is not possible.
Hume says:
1) Natural law is by definition a description of a regular occurrence
2) A miracle is by definition a rare occurrence
3) The evidence for the regular is ALWAYS greater than that for the rare
4) A wise man always based his belief on the greater evidence
5) Therefore a wise man should never believe in miracles
However -
Obviously the evidence for the regular is NOT always greater than for the rare. For example, how about the origin of the universe? That’s just about as rare as an event gets. How about another rare event - life arising from non life. It happened only once but again, I think most would agree that we have a fair bit of evidence running around that it did take place. In fact, virtually every event in history has taken place only once (the first time) and yet we know that it did in fact happen. Even Hume himself should have no trouble believing that he came out of his mother’s womb, yet it happened only once.
Hume’s third point must be considered false. In fact his entire argument is false. Any arguments against miracles must fail because they are based on false philosophical assumptions rather than observational evidence.
Hume says:
1) A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature
2) Firm and unalterable experience has established these laws.
3) A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.
Because Mr. Hume’s conclusion is question begging, I’ll take it from here -
4) Therefore the Second Law of Thermodynamics cannot be violated.
5) Therefore the universe cannot be infinite nor can we have an infinite regress of prior universes.
6) Therefore the universe had a beginning
7) Therefore the universe had a cause
The universe cannot cause itself nor can it precede itself either physically or chronologically
That means that the universe was caused by the working definition of a Miracle.
Now, David Hume presumes to know all experience is uniform against miracles.
However, neither he nor anyone else can make that claim. Many people are convinced that they have experienced a miracle, the greatest of which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This is confirmed on multiple levels and beyond dispute except in the minds of ideologues for whom nothing could change their minds.
However -
1) A miracle is a violation of the know laws of nature.
2) Scientific laws are, on Hume’s own account empirically unverifiable.
3) Thus, "violations" of the known laws of nature are quite possible.
4) Therefore, miracles are possible.
.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Atheists do so adhere to Dogma
Every six months or so, atheists post a flurry of remarks trying to make people believe they don't adhere to dogmatic beliefs. It's always good for a chuckle.
In a kind of “If you can’t beat em - join em” scenario, a shared atheist doctrine resembling very much the themes of religion has been congealing quickly in the last year. Along with atheist conferences and atheist schools of indoctrination popping up, some of them operating on Sunday mornings, that atheism isn’t clearly a faith-based philosophy will, in a short while be an indefensible stance to take. So, to the Dogma of atheism:
1)“Better by far to embrace the hard truth . . .”
Here Carl Sagan is instructing younger atheists what their attitude should be in the face of atheism’s hopelessness.
2)“We must develop expressions of awe and wonder regarding the workings of the Universe.” Carolyn Porco, Richard Dawkins.
This is now standard and expected fair when atheists are describing, to who ever will listen, what awesome individuals they are and how they will turn the next generation in to wonderful individuals as well.
3) All atheists must get out there and begin doing good works.
We’ve heard the now familiar call to all atheists to become good citizens. An example of this tenet can be found in the instruction for all atheists to donate blood during the World Day of Prayer. This demand that you become a good person is in contrast to the standard atheist attitude that was clearly sounded in a recent atheist blog when a young man, lamented, “Can’t I just fuck around and watch tv in the evening if I want to?”
4) No religion tells us what to do.
Only slaves feel enslaved and no one reacts negatively to rules, guidelines and authority more strongly than the immature, self-centred atheist. Simply hearing the word “God” used in a non negative manner makes atheists like Michael Newdow react like cockroaches scurrying from a freshly lit light bulb. Atheists feel stifled and imprisoned by the mere existence of religion.
The next six points of atheist dogma deal with one subject but are voiced in detailed point form because there is no room for misinterpretation in this part of the atheist belief system.
5) Nothing positive regarding God can be mentioned in the presence of children.
It is not science per se, not even evolution as such, but a special brand of anti-God-Darwinism that atheists want to be taught in the schools. A belief in God must be removed from ALL children’s minds. As Richard Dawkins preaches, “Faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the small-pox virus but harder to eradicate.” The real reason that atheists want the exclusive teaching of evolution in schools is not just that atheists see it as being scientific but that they deem it to be anti-religion. Dawkins again, “Religion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness.”
6) Teaching Christianity is harmful, even abusive to children.
Christopher Hitchens writes, “How can we ever know how many children had their psychological and physical lives irreparably maimed by the compulsory inculcation of faith?” The atheist answer? Inculcate all children with atheist beliefs.
7) Christian Children are not the property of their parents.
Daniel Dennett, “How much do we regard children as being the property of their parents? Should [Christian parents] be free to impose their beliefs on their children?”
Again, the atheist answer is to impose atheist beliefs upon not just their children but upon everyone’s children.
8) Atheists know best what children need to learn.
Christopher Hitchens suggests that atheists become the defenders of the world’s children, “Parents don’t literally own their children . . . [Christian parents] ought to be held accountable by outsiders (read atheists, perhaps the drunken Hitchens himself) for their guardianship, which does imply that outsiders have a right to interfere.”
9) Christian parents have no right to teach their children about Jesus.
Psychologist Nicholas Humphrey, “ [Christian] Parents, have no god-given license to enculturate their children in whatever way they choose . . . to bring them up in an atmosphere of dogma . . . or to insist they follow the straight and narrow paths of their own faith.” While totally ignoring a Christian’s God-given mandate to raise up our children in the fear of the Lord, I’ve personally experienced this developing atheist dogma from an atheist blogger. His stated hope is that our children will be taken from us to keep them from being taught about Christianity. This of course implies the hope that someone else will raise our children and teach them the tenets of his faith.
10) Children must be taught a reverence for science.
Well, respect - yes, but reverence?
11) The universe is the single exception to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.
True, no atheist would dare to state h/her beliefs this way. Yet, this is exactly what modern atheists in the field of origins are proposing. I had some goof propose to me just last week that the Steady State still holds promise for fundy atheists. Even though the Borde-Guth-Vilinkin theorem shows conclusively that any expanding universe has a definitive space / time boundary, atheist scientists continue to bring forth proposal after proposal that attempts to circumvent this law.
12) No Miracles!
While the universe came into being by a force that operated outside the Laws of Physics, and while this is a working definition of a miracle, in atheist dogma, No Miracles Are Allowed Or Possible. As Lee Smolin says, “Must all of our scientific understanding of the world really come down to a mythological intelligence . . . [that] wills matter into being? It seems to me that the only possible name for such an observer is God, and that the theory is to be criticized as being unlikely on these grounds.”
13) It is a given that humans would eventually evolve in conditions present on primordial earth.
Atheists believe that against literally impossible odds, it is no accident that our kind of life finds itself on earth.
14) Evolution is such a powerful force that life is now, even as we speak, coming into being on other planets and/or in other universes.
15) Material and natural reality is all that exists.
16) Science has proven that God cannot exist.
Atheist High Priest Dawkins is beginning to bend on this one as even he can no longer deny that the cause of the Big Bang, presents a strong case for a “Deist” type of God. Nevertheless, the majority of hardliners still hold that >
17) Because God cannot be discovered through scientific inquiry, God does not exist.
“Modern science directly implies that the world is organised strictly in accordance with deterministic principles of chance. There are no purposive principles whatsoever in nature. There are no gods and no designing forces rationally detectable.” William Provine.
18) Any knowledge that does not conform to materialism and naturalism will not be allowed into the discussion.
Isn’t that amazing? Atheist scientists actually want to live with an a priori rejection of evidence, if that evidence does not fit the atheist scientist’s world-view. And even if that unacceptable evidence leads to a resolution of a given problem, to the atheist mind, it’s better to do without a resolution to the problem. While remaining slaves to the thinking with which they were born, atheists dare to call themselves free-thinkers. Pure delusion.
19) Reason and scientific inquiry can tell us all that we need to know and all that we can know.
20) Atheists are smarter than anyone who believes in God.
21) There is no “I” to the human animal. We are a mass of cells and neurons that operate according to the Laws of Nature.
As atheist actor Woody Allen stated in his defence after it was discovered that he was having sex with his daughter, “That heart wants what it wants. Who can understand it?”
22) Death is the end.
23) There is no cosmic purpose.
24) There is no Divine justice or reward.
25) Free will is an illusion.
26) Evil and suffering prove that God does not exist.
27) Living by these Beliefs, Tenets and Dogma of the atheist faith is emancipating.
The following individual best describes today’s modern atheist:
S/He is a lonely, intrepid figure, deprived of cosmic hope, abandoned to h/his own wits, navigating h/her way through the heavens, pitting h/herself against the unknown, refusing to accept the tyrannical sovereignty of God, rebelling against the divine decree, and determined to build out of h/his own resources a rival empire devoted to happiness in the here and now.
This of course is Milton’s description of satan in “Paradise Lost.”
In closing, it may need to be explained that any given atheist might say, “I don’t agree that this or that point is dogmatic atheism.” So what? Show me a member of any religion who doesn’t claim the right to disagree on some points.
In a kind of “If you can’t beat em - join em” scenario, a shared atheist doctrine resembling very much the themes of religion has been congealing quickly in the last year. Along with atheist conferences and atheist schools of indoctrination popping up, some of them operating on Sunday mornings, that atheism isn’t clearly a faith-based philosophy will, in a short while be an indefensible stance to take. So, to the Dogma of atheism:
1)“Better by far to embrace the hard truth . . .”
Here Carl Sagan is instructing younger atheists what their attitude should be in the face of atheism’s hopelessness.
2)“We must develop expressions of awe and wonder regarding the workings of the Universe.” Carolyn Porco, Richard Dawkins.
This is now standard and expected fair when atheists are describing, to who ever will listen, what awesome individuals they are and how they will turn the next generation in to wonderful individuals as well.
3) All atheists must get out there and begin doing good works.
We’ve heard the now familiar call to all atheists to become good citizens. An example of this tenet can be found in the instruction for all atheists to donate blood during the World Day of Prayer. This demand that you become a good person is in contrast to the standard atheist attitude that was clearly sounded in a recent atheist blog when a young man, lamented, “Can’t I just fuck around and watch tv in the evening if I want to?”
4) No religion tells us what to do.
Only slaves feel enslaved and no one reacts negatively to rules, guidelines and authority more strongly than the immature, self-centred atheist. Simply hearing the word “God” used in a non negative manner makes atheists like Michael Newdow react like cockroaches scurrying from a freshly lit light bulb. Atheists feel stifled and imprisoned by the mere existence of religion.
The next six points of atheist dogma deal with one subject but are voiced in detailed point form because there is no room for misinterpretation in this part of the atheist belief system.
5) Nothing positive regarding God can be mentioned in the presence of children.
It is not science per se, not even evolution as such, but a special brand of anti-God-Darwinism that atheists want to be taught in the schools. A belief in God must be removed from ALL children’s minds. As Richard Dawkins preaches, “Faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the small-pox virus but harder to eradicate.” The real reason that atheists want the exclusive teaching of evolution in schools is not just that atheists see it as being scientific but that they deem it to be anti-religion. Dawkins again, “Religion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness.”
6) Teaching Christianity is harmful, even abusive to children.
Christopher Hitchens writes, “How can we ever know how many children had their psychological and physical lives irreparably maimed by the compulsory inculcation of faith?” The atheist answer? Inculcate all children with atheist beliefs.
7) Christian Children are not the property of their parents.
Daniel Dennett, “How much do we regard children as being the property of their parents? Should [Christian parents] be free to impose their beliefs on their children?”
Again, the atheist answer is to impose atheist beliefs upon not just their children but upon everyone’s children.
8) Atheists know best what children need to learn.
Christopher Hitchens suggests that atheists become the defenders of the world’s children, “Parents don’t literally own their children . . . [Christian parents] ought to be held accountable by outsiders (read atheists, perhaps the drunken Hitchens himself) for their guardianship, which does imply that outsiders have a right to interfere.”
9) Christian parents have no right to teach their children about Jesus.
Psychologist Nicholas Humphrey, “ [Christian] Parents, have no god-given license to enculturate their children in whatever way they choose . . . to bring them up in an atmosphere of dogma . . . or to insist they follow the straight and narrow paths of their own faith.” While totally ignoring a Christian’s God-given mandate to raise up our children in the fear of the Lord, I’ve personally experienced this developing atheist dogma from an atheist blogger. His stated hope is that our children will be taken from us to keep them from being taught about Christianity. This of course implies the hope that someone else will raise our children and teach them the tenets of his faith.
10) Children must be taught a reverence for science.
Well, respect - yes, but reverence?
11) The universe is the single exception to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.
True, no atheist would dare to state h/her beliefs this way. Yet, this is exactly what modern atheists in the field of origins are proposing. I had some goof propose to me just last week that the Steady State still holds promise for fundy atheists. Even though the Borde-Guth-Vilinkin theorem shows conclusively that any expanding universe has a definitive space / time boundary, atheist scientists continue to bring forth proposal after proposal that attempts to circumvent this law.
12) No Miracles!
While the universe came into being by a force that operated outside the Laws of Physics, and while this is a working definition of a miracle, in atheist dogma, No Miracles Are Allowed Or Possible. As Lee Smolin says, “Must all of our scientific understanding of the world really come down to a mythological intelligence . . . [that] wills matter into being? It seems to me that the only possible name for such an observer is God, and that the theory is to be criticized as being unlikely on these grounds.”
13) It is a given that humans would eventually evolve in conditions present on primordial earth.
Atheists believe that against literally impossible odds, it is no accident that our kind of life finds itself on earth.
14) Evolution is such a powerful force that life is now, even as we speak, coming into being on other planets and/or in other universes.
15) Material and natural reality is all that exists.
16) Science has proven that God cannot exist.
Atheist High Priest Dawkins is beginning to bend on this one as even he can no longer deny that the cause of the Big Bang, presents a strong case for a “Deist” type of God. Nevertheless, the majority of hardliners still hold that >
17) Because God cannot be discovered through scientific inquiry, God does not exist.
“Modern science directly implies that the world is organised strictly in accordance with deterministic principles of chance. There are no purposive principles whatsoever in nature. There are no gods and no designing forces rationally detectable.” William Provine.
18) Any knowledge that does not conform to materialism and naturalism will not be allowed into the discussion.
Isn’t that amazing? Atheist scientists actually want to live with an a priori rejection of evidence, if that evidence does not fit the atheist scientist’s world-view. And even if that unacceptable evidence leads to a resolution of a given problem, to the atheist mind, it’s better to do without a resolution to the problem. While remaining slaves to the thinking with which they were born, atheists dare to call themselves free-thinkers. Pure delusion.
19) Reason and scientific inquiry can tell us all that we need to know and all that we can know.
20) Atheists are smarter than anyone who believes in God.
21) There is no “I” to the human animal. We are a mass of cells and neurons that operate according to the Laws of Nature.
As atheist actor Woody Allen stated in his defence after it was discovered that he was having sex with his daughter, “That heart wants what it wants. Who can understand it?”
22) Death is the end.
23) There is no cosmic purpose.
24) There is no Divine justice or reward.
25) Free will is an illusion.
26) Evil and suffering prove that God does not exist.
27) Living by these Beliefs, Tenets and Dogma of the atheist faith is emancipating.
The following individual best describes today’s modern atheist:
S/He is a lonely, intrepid figure, deprived of cosmic hope, abandoned to h/his own wits, navigating h/her way through the heavens, pitting h/herself against the unknown, refusing to accept the tyrannical sovereignty of God, rebelling against the divine decree, and determined to build out of h/his own resources a rival empire devoted to happiness in the here and now.
This of course is Milton’s description of satan in “Paradise Lost.”
In closing, it may need to be explained that any given atheist might say, “I don’t agree that this or that point is dogmatic atheism.” So what? Show me a member of any religion who doesn’t claim the right to disagree on some points.
A Fascinating Atheist
An atheist blogger has a section titled, “What would it take for you to believe in God?” or something along those lines. He writes, in part:
“. . . the answer really depends on what your definition of a God is. For example, I would not want the Christian God to be real having read the Bible. It is a vengeful, spiteful, angry, jealous, arrogant God who seems more interested in being worshipped like some celebrity, than guiding people down the right path.”
A little bit earlier he said that nothing, absolutely nothing could be done or could happen that would allow him to believe in a Deity, any Deity. Earlier still he acknowledged that some people are simply unable to believe. He even refers to Jesus’ comment, “Even when I rise from the dead, some people won’t believe.”
That’s cool. An atheist who is relatively honest with himself. That’s rare. And, he’s correct. In fact, unless God does the drawing, no one, not one single person will come to salvation in Jesus - John 6:44.
As far as seeing God as angry and vengeful etc. I’ve found that it really depends on which side of the fence that you’re on. As someone who has accepted God’s invitation, I’ve actually never met anyone nicer. If however you reject His offer, well, like the saying goes,
“God will be either your best friend or your worst enemy.”
It sucks to be your Creator’s enemy.
As to the comment about God being interesting in being worshipped, well that’s true. Of course God’s enemies never stop to ask why He would want that. They assume that God is like celebrities whose demand for worship lies in some deficiency within. They can only understand it from the perspective of someone on the outside looking in. The reason that God wants our worship is because that is when we are at our richest, fullest, most at peace, most at rest. When we are right with our Creator we’re firing on all cylinders.
“God wants to be worshipped more than desiring to guide people down the right path?”
Oh my, talk about selective reading. I mean think about that. He came to earth in the knowledge that He would be abused, misunderstood, mistreated, rejected, insulted, betrayed and ultimately have humanity do our absolute worst to Him FOR NO OTHER REASON than to guide us to the right path.
This blogger’s statement is nothing more than the ignorant, petulant ranting of an atheist.
This atheist may be more honest and self-aware than most, but just like all the others, he still doesn’t have a clue.
“. . . the answer really depends on what your definition of a God is. For example, I would not want the Christian God to be real having read the Bible. It is a vengeful, spiteful, angry, jealous, arrogant God who seems more interested in being worshipped like some celebrity, than guiding people down the right path.”
A little bit earlier he said that nothing, absolutely nothing could be done or could happen that would allow him to believe in a Deity, any Deity. Earlier still he acknowledged that some people are simply unable to believe. He even refers to Jesus’ comment, “Even when I rise from the dead, some people won’t believe.”
That’s cool. An atheist who is relatively honest with himself. That’s rare. And, he’s correct. In fact, unless God does the drawing, no one, not one single person will come to salvation in Jesus - John 6:44.
As far as seeing God as angry and vengeful etc. I’ve found that it really depends on which side of the fence that you’re on. As someone who has accepted God’s invitation, I’ve actually never met anyone nicer. If however you reject His offer, well, like the saying goes,
“God will be either your best friend or your worst enemy.”
It sucks to be your Creator’s enemy.
As to the comment about God being interesting in being worshipped, well that’s true. Of course God’s enemies never stop to ask why He would want that. They assume that God is like celebrities whose demand for worship lies in some deficiency within. They can only understand it from the perspective of someone on the outside looking in. The reason that God wants our worship is because that is when we are at our richest, fullest, most at peace, most at rest. When we are right with our Creator we’re firing on all cylinders.
“God wants to be worshipped more than desiring to guide people down the right path?”
Oh my, talk about selective reading. I mean think about that. He came to earth in the knowledge that He would be abused, misunderstood, mistreated, rejected, insulted, betrayed and ultimately have humanity do our absolute worst to Him FOR NO OTHER REASON than to guide us to the right path.
This blogger’s statement is nothing more than the ignorant, petulant ranting of an atheist.
This atheist may be more honest and self-aware than most, but just like all the others, he still doesn’t have a clue.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Atheists and Honesty
“Tell me why i should believe something that makes no sense to me, has no evidence,”
“Why would I believe in God when there is no evidence for His existence.”
These are pretty typical comments from atheists. In fact I had a fine, respectful person ask just a couple days ago, “If it is someday proven that life actually CAN arise from non life, and if it is someday proven that everything actually CAN come from nothing, by nothing, would that be enough for you to quit believing in God?”
I thought about it (not long enough obviously), and said something like, “Yes, that would pretty well wrap it up for me. Although there are a number of issues regarding Jesus that would also need to be cleared up.”
I say now that I didn’t think about it long enough because I would also need to have someone help me believe that ~ seven billion people including myself are mentally ill in the truest meaning of the term. AND I would need to explain away the objective moral standard that we all know exists. I would also need to understand why it is that only Christianity has a workable explanation for the objective moral standard we all recognise. Of course atheists HAVE an explanation for our sense of morality, but it’s as incoherent and convoluted as all the rest of their explanations. I’ll talk about the atheist’s understanding of morality in a bit, but first, here is the Christian argument for the existence of Creator God via the proofs of objective morality.
. If God does not exist, then objective morals, values and obligations do not exist
. We know from our interactions with other people that objective morals, values and obligations DO exist. We know, and we know absolutely when someone does “wrong” to us.
. Because the above premises are true and coherent, the following conclusion is also true: Creator God exists.
Before you get all excited, roll your eyes and wave your arms in the air, just listen. We know at a fundamental level that objective morality exists. Just as physical laws are fully realised in the physical world, objective moral laws are fully realised in Jesus and Father God. As I stated above, our daily interactions with others shows we BELIEVE WITHOUT DOUBT that objective moral order is as real and independent of our recognition as is the natural order of things. Our perceptions of natural and moral laws are givens of our experience.
When confronting Christianity’s arguments for objective morality: Atheists claim that God acts in a capricious and arbitrary manner. That is not true.
. Objective moral Goodness and Obligation are based on God’s character. Therefore, God’s commands are not ARBITRARY, for they are simply the inescapable expression of His Just and Loving nature.
When confronting Christianity’s arguments for objective morality: Atheists claim that objective morality exists independent of God. That is not true.
. There has never been a law without a Law Giver. And since our moral obligations are grounded in the Divine commands, moral values and duties do not exist INDEPENDENT of God.
. What God commands is good.
. What God forbids is wrong, bad, evil, self-destructive.
This is what it means for morality to be objective versus subjective, selective or relative to the situation. Objective Morality is not based on the individual’s character or personality or level of empathy, or that person’s likes or dislikes, sanity or insanity.
- If they want to be honest with themselves, atheists must ask:
. If only the material and the natural exists, what are we to make of the laws of logic and mathematics? Those laws clearly exist regardless of whether we know about them or understand them. However, the Laws of Logic and Mathematics:
Can’t be measured.
Can’t be weighed.
Can’t be observed.
Yet, we are so certain of their existence that we fly to other planets with them. We solve mysteries of the universe with them. We develop an understanding of ourselves with them. These laws are transcendent to us so obviously they did not evolve with us. Yet they exist. How can that be? Unless, those laws were created by a Law Giver, they would not exist. It is no different for the Objective Moral Law. As with the Laws of Logic and Mathematics, Objective Moral Laws are not created, they are discovered.
- If they want to be honest with themselves, another question atheists must ask is, how can objective morality be an evolved instinct when it’s something other than instinct that causes us to choose one of two conflicting “moral” choices, or instincts?
Picture this. You’re walking down the sidewalk and up ahead you observe a young man who has just knocked down an elderly woman. He’s attempting to tear the purse from her arm but she’s hanging on tightly. You have the option to engage one of two instincts or moral choices. You can get out of the road and pretend you didn’t see anything (self-preservation), or you can help the woman by driving off her attacker hopefully before he wrests loose her purse. (altruism).
Neither of these instincts or choices ARE the moral law / obligation. Rather, the thing that helps you to choose which action to take IS the moral law / obligation. C. S. Lewis speaks to this when he says, “You will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. Now this THING that judges between two choices, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be EITHER of the instincts [choices]. You might as well say the sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard. The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys.”
- If they want to be honest with themselves, atheists must ask, “How can we say that morals have evolved into cooperative needs, when that implies survival as an end and cooperation as a means? Darwinism by definition has no end because it is a non intelligent process. And even if survival of our genes is an end, how then do we explain things like the killing of our offspring by the millions, suicide and other high risk behaviours like unprotected sex? Even if we don’t choose the “right” thing to do, even if we convince ourselves - to the degree that we are able to do that - that right and wrong don’t exist, we do “know” right from wrong behaviours and we know them at a fundamental level of awareness. We know that right and wrong exist external to ourselves, i.e., they did not evolve.
- If they want to be honest with themselves, atheists must acknowledge that in order to adhere to things like utilitarian ethical systems they have to abduct meaning from Objective Morality to say that this or that action is “good” or “better” and therefore worth working towards. For without Objective Morality upon which to judge “good” or “better” no such choice can be made.
From the atheist perspective, defining a moral good is the prerogative of the individual. Hitler was working toward a good that he believed in (no I’m not saying Hitler was an atheist - He was a Darwinist). Missionaries are also working toward a perceived good when they set up schools and hospitals. No atheist, naturalist, materialist, Darwinist can logically make any judgements as to the right or wrongness of what other people do. They can only judge whether their own actions are helpful to that individual phenotype.
- If they want to be honest with themselves, atheists must admit that even if we come to know our moral ideas because of genetic or social factors, that doesn’t mean that the Objective Moral Law doesn’t exist outside of and transcendent to ourselves just like the Laws of Logic and Mathematics.
- Finally, if they want to be honest with themselves, atheist need to ask, “Can I think of even one behaviour that is objectively, absolutely wrong or right for all people, in all places and at all times?” If I can, then I must also admit that there is a Moral Law Giver and if I admit that, then I am no longer an atheist.
To be an atheist, you must believe:
That everything came from nothing by nothing
That life can arise spontaneously from non life
That Real Objective Moral Principles arose from nothing.
REMEMBER:
Our “knowing” moral laws is not at all the same as “inventing” moral laws.
Our knowing moral laws does not create the “existence” of moral laws.
Objective Morality exists independently of how we come to know morality.
The existence of Objective Morality is evidence for the existence of an Objective Moral Law Giver.
“Why would I believe in God when there is no evidence for His existence.”
These are pretty typical comments from atheists. In fact I had a fine, respectful person ask just a couple days ago, “If it is someday proven that life actually CAN arise from non life, and if it is someday proven that everything actually CAN come from nothing, by nothing, would that be enough for you to quit believing in God?”
I thought about it (not long enough obviously), and said something like, “Yes, that would pretty well wrap it up for me. Although there are a number of issues regarding Jesus that would also need to be cleared up.”
I say now that I didn’t think about it long enough because I would also need to have someone help me believe that ~ seven billion people including myself are mentally ill in the truest meaning of the term. AND I would need to explain away the objective moral standard that we all know exists. I would also need to understand why it is that only Christianity has a workable explanation for the objective moral standard we all recognise. Of course atheists HAVE an explanation for our sense of morality, but it’s as incoherent and convoluted as all the rest of their explanations. I’ll talk about the atheist’s understanding of morality in a bit, but first, here is the Christian argument for the existence of Creator God via the proofs of objective morality.
. If God does not exist, then objective morals, values and obligations do not exist
. We know from our interactions with other people that objective morals, values and obligations DO exist. We know, and we know absolutely when someone does “wrong” to us.
. Because the above premises are true and coherent, the following conclusion is also true: Creator God exists.
Before you get all excited, roll your eyes and wave your arms in the air, just listen. We know at a fundamental level that objective morality exists. Just as physical laws are fully realised in the physical world, objective moral laws are fully realised in Jesus and Father God. As I stated above, our daily interactions with others shows we BELIEVE WITHOUT DOUBT that objective moral order is as real and independent of our recognition as is the natural order of things. Our perceptions of natural and moral laws are givens of our experience.
When confronting Christianity’s arguments for objective morality: Atheists claim that God acts in a capricious and arbitrary manner. That is not true.
. Objective moral Goodness and Obligation are based on God’s character. Therefore, God’s commands are not ARBITRARY, for they are simply the inescapable expression of His Just and Loving nature.
When confronting Christianity’s arguments for objective morality: Atheists claim that objective morality exists independent of God. That is not true.
. There has never been a law without a Law Giver. And since our moral obligations are grounded in the Divine commands, moral values and duties do not exist INDEPENDENT of God.
. What God commands is good.
. What God forbids is wrong, bad, evil, self-destructive.
This is what it means for morality to be objective versus subjective, selective or relative to the situation. Objective Morality is not based on the individual’s character or personality or level of empathy, or that person’s likes or dislikes, sanity or insanity.
- If they want to be honest with themselves, atheists must ask:
. If only the material and the natural exists, what are we to make of the laws of logic and mathematics? Those laws clearly exist regardless of whether we know about them or understand them. However, the Laws of Logic and Mathematics:
Can’t be measured.
Can’t be weighed.
Can’t be observed.
Yet, we are so certain of their existence that we fly to other planets with them. We solve mysteries of the universe with them. We develop an understanding of ourselves with them. These laws are transcendent to us so obviously they did not evolve with us. Yet they exist. How can that be? Unless, those laws were created by a Law Giver, they would not exist. It is no different for the Objective Moral Law. As with the Laws of Logic and Mathematics, Objective Moral Laws are not created, they are discovered.
- If they want to be honest with themselves, another question atheists must ask is, how can objective morality be an evolved instinct when it’s something other than instinct that causes us to choose one of two conflicting “moral” choices, or instincts?
Picture this. You’re walking down the sidewalk and up ahead you observe a young man who has just knocked down an elderly woman. He’s attempting to tear the purse from her arm but she’s hanging on tightly. You have the option to engage one of two instincts or moral choices. You can get out of the road and pretend you didn’t see anything (self-preservation), or you can help the woman by driving off her attacker hopefully before he wrests loose her purse. (altruism).
Neither of these instincts or choices ARE the moral law / obligation. Rather, the thing that helps you to choose which action to take IS the moral law / obligation. C. S. Lewis speaks to this when he says, “You will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. Now this THING that judges between two choices, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be EITHER of the instincts [choices]. You might as well say the sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard. The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys.”
- If they want to be honest with themselves, atheists must ask, “How can we say that morals have evolved into cooperative needs, when that implies survival as an end and cooperation as a means? Darwinism by definition has no end because it is a non intelligent process. And even if survival of our genes is an end, how then do we explain things like the killing of our offspring by the millions, suicide and other high risk behaviours like unprotected sex? Even if we don’t choose the “right” thing to do, even if we convince ourselves - to the degree that we are able to do that - that right and wrong don’t exist, we do “know” right from wrong behaviours and we know them at a fundamental level of awareness. We know that right and wrong exist external to ourselves, i.e., they did not evolve.
- If they want to be honest with themselves, atheists must acknowledge that in order to adhere to things like utilitarian ethical systems they have to abduct meaning from Objective Morality to say that this or that action is “good” or “better” and therefore worth working towards. For without Objective Morality upon which to judge “good” or “better” no such choice can be made.
From the atheist perspective, defining a moral good is the prerogative of the individual. Hitler was working toward a good that he believed in (no I’m not saying Hitler was an atheist - He was a Darwinist). Missionaries are also working toward a perceived good when they set up schools and hospitals. No atheist, naturalist, materialist, Darwinist can logically make any judgements as to the right or wrongness of what other people do. They can only judge whether their own actions are helpful to that individual phenotype.
- If they want to be honest with themselves, atheists must admit that even if we come to know our moral ideas because of genetic or social factors, that doesn’t mean that the Objective Moral Law doesn’t exist outside of and transcendent to ourselves just like the Laws of Logic and Mathematics.
- Finally, if they want to be honest with themselves, atheist need to ask, “Can I think of even one behaviour that is objectively, absolutely wrong or right for all people, in all places and at all times?” If I can, then I must also admit that there is a Moral Law Giver and if I admit that, then I am no longer an atheist.
To be an atheist, you must believe:
That everything came from nothing by nothing
That life can arise spontaneously from non life
That Real Objective Moral Principles arose from nothing.
REMEMBER:
Our “knowing” moral laws is not at all the same as “inventing” moral laws.
Our knowing moral laws does not create the “existence” of moral laws.
Objective Morality exists independently of how we come to know morality.
The existence of Objective Morality is evidence for the existence of an Objective Moral Law Giver.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
I won’t leave you!
When Jesus asked His disciples if they were going to leave Him like many others were doing at the time, Peter answered, “Where would we go? You alone have the words of eternal life.”
To those men, to me, and to hundreds of millions of others, Jesus is the most important relationship in our lives. In comparison to living with Jesus in our lives, living without Him was a wasteland. That is why, when Jesus was nearing the end of His time on earth, His disciples began to panic. “Where are you going and why can’t we come with you?” To reassure them that all would be well, Jesus said, “I won’t leave you as orphans. After My resurrection and after My ascension I will come to you again in the form of My Spirit.”
We who are in a healed and forgiven relationship with Jesus, aren’t alone. We aren’t without Supernatural help. We who believe in Jesus as our Lord and Saviour have the very Spirit of Creator God residing in and with us. Sadly, you wouldn’t know it by the way many of us act. We worry and suffer from anxiety. We fear the same things that pagans fear. We divorce and remarry and divorce again. We covet and go after the things of the world just as though they’re important to a fulfilling life. So the question is. If we have the very power of Jesus the Christ available to us, why are our lives so shabby? Why do we live as though we are still the weaklings we were before coming to Jesus? Why are we not “More than conquerors” like Paul said we could be? Well, I think it works like this.
First of all, I’m exaggerating to make a point. Most Christians are NOT like this. However, there are just enough to make it seem like ALL Christians are raging hypocrites. Reality is, many Christians DO live victorious lives that stun people like Richard Dawkins as he observes how they handle tragedy. Many of us are emotionally and spiritually light-years from where we were when Jesus entered our lives. Jesus actually HAS made us more than conquerors. The before and after pictures of our lives show dramatic improvement. However, in many cases the critics are correct. Many Christians have settled for a kind of life that is no better than the life that’s had by their secular neighbours. Now, I can ask again, for those who fit the last description, what’s happened?
Is it a case of, “This is as good as God can make me?” Of course not.
Is it a case of, “This as good as I want to become?”
If that’s true then you have a very incomplete understanding of what God can do and has done for you.
I believe that the lack of victory in the lives of some Christians is because God will only change those areas of our lives that we give Him. Jesus is no bully. If we don’t give Him permission to clean up every single area of our lives, He’s not going to force us. If we’re determined to do so, Jesus will allow us to live with the consequences of sin. Far too many Christians can identify communicating with their Creator only when things look grim. For many Christians, it takes something extremely difficult before they remember, “Oh ya! God says He will help me. Jesus says He’ll change me for the better.” And so they settle into lives where:
We’ll come to God for help in our tragedy but we won’t seek His advice regarding our goals
We’ll talk to God about keeping our children safe, but we won’t ask Him to make us the kind of parents that our children need. It’s a kind of, “Change them Lord, not us.”
We’ll ask God for advice about our actions but we want to hang on to our attitudes
We’ll ask God to be close to us on Sunday but forget about Him on Monday
We’ll say Lord please take control over those making my life difficult but let me have control over how I treat them
We’ll say Lord I want You to keep me from physical dangers, but I want the freedom to expose myself to emotional and spiritual dangers.
We’ll say Lord I want you to free me from porn but leave me alone when I lust over the person next door or the person at the office.
No wonder non Christians gag when we're in their presence!
Christianity is not something you just dabble in. You’re either All In or you’re a fraud, a pretender, someone who’s in it for the goodies. And when those goodies don’t arrive, you take off and try something else. Jesus demands all of our lives, all of our thoughts, all of our behaviours. Why? Because
Then and only then will we be living abundantly.
Then and only then will we be living life to the full.
Then and only then will we have a path of living a salvation, of living a faith that is worth sharing with others.
Then and only then will we be on the path to becoming the type of citizens that God wants in His kingdom of Heaven.
We simply cannot be victorious Christians when we attempt to maintain control over ANY portion of our lives. In fact, wanting to not give complete control of our lives to Jesus shows that we have a very incomplete understanding of what our relationship with Jesus is all about.
To those men, to me, and to hundreds of millions of others, Jesus is the most important relationship in our lives. In comparison to living with Jesus in our lives, living without Him was a wasteland. That is why, when Jesus was nearing the end of His time on earth, His disciples began to panic. “Where are you going and why can’t we come with you?” To reassure them that all would be well, Jesus said, “I won’t leave you as orphans. After My resurrection and after My ascension I will come to you again in the form of My Spirit.”
We who are in a healed and forgiven relationship with Jesus, aren’t alone. We aren’t without Supernatural help. We who believe in Jesus as our Lord and Saviour have the very Spirit of Creator God residing in and with us. Sadly, you wouldn’t know it by the way many of us act. We worry and suffer from anxiety. We fear the same things that pagans fear. We divorce and remarry and divorce again. We covet and go after the things of the world just as though they’re important to a fulfilling life. So the question is. If we have the very power of Jesus the Christ available to us, why are our lives so shabby? Why do we live as though we are still the weaklings we were before coming to Jesus? Why are we not “More than conquerors” like Paul said we could be? Well, I think it works like this.
First of all, I’m exaggerating to make a point. Most Christians are NOT like this. However, there are just enough to make it seem like ALL Christians are raging hypocrites. Reality is, many Christians DO live victorious lives that stun people like Richard Dawkins as he observes how they handle tragedy. Many of us are emotionally and spiritually light-years from where we were when Jesus entered our lives. Jesus actually HAS made us more than conquerors. The before and after pictures of our lives show dramatic improvement. However, in many cases the critics are correct. Many Christians have settled for a kind of life that is no better than the life that’s had by their secular neighbours. Now, I can ask again, for those who fit the last description, what’s happened?
Is it a case of, “This is as good as God can make me?” Of course not.
Is it a case of, “This as good as I want to become?”
If that’s true then you have a very incomplete understanding of what God can do and has done for you.
I believe that the lack of victory in the lives of some Christians is because God will only change those areas of our lives that we give Him. Jesus is no bully. If we don’t give Him permission to clean up every single area of our lives, He’s not going to force us. If we’re determined to do so, Jesus will allow us to live with the consequences of sin. Far too many Christians can identify communicating with their Creator only when things look grim. For many Christians, it takes something extremely difficult before they remember, “Oh ya! God says He will help me. Jesus says He’ll change me for the better.” And so they settle into lives where:
We’ll come to God for help in our tragedy but we won’t seek His advice regarding our goals
We’ll talk to God about keeping our children safe, but we won’t ask Him to make us the kind of parents that our children need. It’s a kind of, “Change them Lord, not us.”
We’ll ask God for advice about our actions but we want to hang on to our attitudes
We’ll ask God to be close to us on Sunday but forget about Him on Monday
We’ll say Lord please take control over those making my life difficult but let me have control over how I treat them
We’ll say Lord I want You to keep me from physical dangers, but I want the freedom to expose myself to emotional and spiritual dangers.
We’ll say Lord I want you to free me from porn but leave me alone when I lust over the person next door or the person at the office.
No wonder non Christians gag when we're in their presence!
Christianity is not something you just dabble in. You’re either All In or you’re a fraud, a pretender, someone who’s in it for the goodies. And when those goodies don’t arrive, you take off and try something else. Jesus demands all of our lives, all of our thoughts, all of our behaviours. Why? Because
Then and only then will we be living abundantly.
Then and only then will we be living life to the full.
Then and only then will we have a path of living a salvation, of living a faith that is worth sharing with others.
Then and only then will we be on the path to becoming the type of citizens that God wants in His kingdom of Heaven.
We simply cannot be victorious Christians when we attempt to maintain control over ANY portion of our lives. In fact, wanting to not give complete control of our lives to Jesus shows that we have a very incomplete understanding of what our relationship with Jesus is all about.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Delighting in God’s Love
One distinguishing mark of the love of God, in the small pristine moments when we become aware, is that it always comes to us as something of a surprise. God’s love is so different from any other love we have known. And it’s certainly different from how we love. His love is the only love in the universe that is not rooted in wanting us to fulfill a need in Him. God has no ego needs - and that means He is free to love in a completely unique way. That’s why Jesus prayed that the love He had known with the Father might be experienced by His friends, His disciples, and us, when we come to know Him as Lord and Saviour (John 17:26). The love that exists between the members of the Trinity is better and totally different than anything we have known.
Another surprise is how God’s love steps past our special talents and our hard work and reaches into the broken, messy places of our soul. The children’s book, “Awful Abigail and Why She Changed” speaks to this aspect of God’s love. Abigail, an Innkeeper’s daughter, earns her name by being the kind of little girl who gets into everyone’s hair. One night she is sent to her room, where she watches from her balcony as Mary and Joseph arrive and inquire about staying in her father’s Inn. Once everyone is in bed, Awful Abigail follows a faint light that leads her to the manger. She opens the door and sees Jesus, and the story ends with this wonderful line: “Somehow she knew a dream had come true, and Someone who loved her had found her.”
All of us know moments - or parts of ourselves - we think of as “awful.” No one would want us if s/he knew of this weakness, this sin, this failure. But God is not put off by the messy, broken, sinful, awful aspects of our lives. He pursues us right into the middle of the mess. He does not leave us alone to sanitize the contents - which we are incapable of doing anyway. The real question to ask ourselves is whether we can let ourselves be loved by Him in the “awful” moments of our lives - because the hesitancy is ours, not His.
In the book of Hosea, God talks of wooing Israel, His adulterous bride, into the wilderness. There He will “speak tenderly to her,” and there He will give her vineyards and “a door of hope.” There she will come to know Him not as her owner but - much more intimately - as her husband (see Hosea 2:14-16). The very nature of the relationship will change. And so it is for each of us. The tender, loving words of Jesus, spoken in the wilderness places of our lives, bring us home and bind us to Him as the great Lover of our souls.
Another surprise is how God’s love steps past our special talents and our hard work and reaches into the broken, messy places of our soul. The children’s book, “Awful Abigail and Why She Changed” speaks to this aspect of God’s love. Abigail, an Innkeeper’s daughter, earns her name by being the kind of little girl who gets into everyone’s hair. One night she is sent to her room, where she watches from her balcony as Mary and Joseph arrive and inquire about staying in her father’s Inn. Once everyone is in bed, Awful Abigail follows a faint light that leads her to the manger. She opens the door and sees Jesus, and the story ends with this wonderful line: “Somehow she knew a dream had come true, and Someone who loved her had found her.”
All of us know moments - or parts of ourselves - we think of as “awful.” No one would want us if s/he knew of this weakness, this sin, this failure. But God is not put off by the messy, broken, sinful, awful aspects of our lives. He pursues us right into the middle of the mess. He does not leave us alone to sanitize the contents - which we are incapable of doing anyway. The real question to ask ourselves is whether we can let ourselves be loved by Him in the “awful” moments of our lives - because the hesitancy is ours, not His.
In the book of Hosea, God talks of wooing Israel, His adulterous bride, into the wilderness. There He will “speak tenderly to her,” and there He will give her vineyards and “a door of hope.” There she will come to know Him not as her owner but - much more intimately - as her husband (see Hosea 2:14-16). The very nature of the relationship will change. And so it is for each of us. The tender, loving words of Jesus, spoken in the wilderness places of our lives, bring us home and bind us to Him as the great Lover of our souls.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
“If God is fair, just and love, why . . .
This post is a response to a question from my "Nightmare" post of yesterday. Atheist Missionary was wondering:
“If God is fair, just and love, why does he allow so much suffering to exist in the world and, more to the point, why does he allow so much suffering? Is he a masochist?”
Of course that’s one of the best questions anyone can ask. We could also ask what is the point of evil, or killing your own offspring in Darwinist world of natural selection but that’s not the point of this discussion.
I can’t remember the name of the blog but while visiting I suggested that the suffering we see all around us and sometimes even experience ourselves is by and large the result of who we are. We're quite willing to allow suffering to take place as long as it doesn't enter our front yard. And obviously if you don’t believe in God then it can’t be the fault of anyone but us. Right? Nevertheless, in response to what I said, several atheists said the following:
“Wait a goddamn minute. It is not my fault that some fucknut is living on the street and the litany of other collectivist bullshit you tossed into this debate. I absolutely despise when some whiny Christian tries to gain traction by piggybacking on leftard guiltmongering.”
“Atheists don't believe in a god, so this is a childish response. We obviously think that the problem of evil shows that there is no god, not that a god exists who is the ultimate dickhead. Although, as Charlie pointed out, it is a logical possibility.”
“Humans are limited creatures. We have physical needs -- air, water, food, shelter --and these needs can form the basis for injustices and greed. The world we live in is evidence of the complete lack of a loving and all-powerful god for precisely this reason. There is no logical necessity that a god has to create anything in the first place. If it does, then it certainly doesn't have to create a world where creatures have needs as we do that are finite in nature and so go about fighting for their own survival all of the time against harsh, uncaring laws of nature. The "heaven" you believe in is one example of a world in which physical needs and harsh laws of physics no longer apply, and so injustice and greed are no longer logical. Long story short, this world is evidence against your god because it would be logically possible for your god to create a heaven-like world for us in the first place. The fact that this is not true makes it logically impossible for your god (all-good and all-powerful) to exist.”
“None of what you said matters. If there was a god, then the world this god created reflects its negligence and callousness towards our condition. It's like saying that I should let my toddler run through the house with scissors if he wants to, then blame him if he gets hurt, because I wanted him to be free because I love him so much. It's retarded. Concern for my son's well-being overrides any good that comes from his ability to choose to hurt himself. You're saying that in order for a god to create in the first place, it has to create a world like this one, when it could create a world like heaven to begin with? It's just simply retarded.”
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As you can see, Missionary, you’re not alone. Along with every Christian on the planet, people try to make sense of suffering. Unlike western atheists whose major struggle is coping with people saying, “Merry Christmas” to them, at Christmas time, some people in the world actually have genuine struggles; life and death struggles.
Just to set the stage for my response, can you see that in order for you to criticize God for making the world in a way you disapprove of, at least for the sake of argument, you are allowing God to exist? In order for Him to do something wrong, He would have to exist - Right? Ok. So when I give you my explanation of why things are the way they are, you will also allow God to exist - Right? Ok. I say this because atheists are notorious for jumping back and forth between God exists and No He doesn’t, as their argument requires. To your question, “why does he allow so much suffering?” Before I answer your question I just want to highlight a couple of the above comments.
“Long story short, this world is evidence against your god because it would be logically possible for your god to create a heaven-like world for us in the first place.”
“You're saying that in order for a god to create in the first place, it has to create a world like this one, when it could create a world like heaven to begin with? It's just simply retarded.”
Do you notice anything these comments have in common? Anything? Ok, I’ll point it out. They both allude to the kind of world that God DID provide in the beginning. (Remember, for the sake of argument, you’re allowing God as He is known in the Bible to exist.) We did have a world that was heaven-like. We did have a world without hatred and violence and suffering and evil. Paradise was ours for the taking if we had wanted it. However, in order to have that kind of world we had to allow God to be God. That, as you know from your own life is an intolerable situation. “No Fucking Masters” is the rallying cry of most if not all atheists. Well, again, according to the Bible, God allowed us to choose the kind of world we wanted. If I am hearing you and the other correctly, you're saying, "Well God shouldn't have let us have what we wanted. He should have made me do the right thing just like a robot!" Ya right. You still have the chance to make your world and the world of those who have to live with you better by allowing God to be Lord of your life. Will you do it? No, I didn't think so.
We could have had paradise with God being God. Or we could have death and suffering and hardship with us being god. "We" the human collective chose the latter then and you're still choosing the latter even in the face of how wrong that decision was. Is it because you're an idiot. Mmm, not exactly. The problem is, humans don’t believe that bad things will happen to them. When told of dire consequences:
. We believe that it won’t happen
. We believe that if it does happen it won’t happen to us
. We believe that if it does happen to us it won’t be very bad, and
. We believe that it is does happen to us and it’s really really bad, well, there wasn’t anything we could have done about it anyhow.
Atheists are fond of saying they want love. What they don’t seem to understand is that in order to have real love, we have to have the opportunity to NOT love.
Atheists are fond of saying they want kindness and peace. What they don’t seem to understand is that in order to have real kindness and real peace, we have to have the opportunity to NOT be kind or peaceful.
These things come to us only by freewill choice. Now, I hate it when other people do this, but unless I refer you to one of my other posts, this is going to get way to long. If you go to my March post, “Where Is God When A Little Girl Gets Raped?" you'll see my take on the why of the state of our world in the face of Creator God’s reality. But listen to this next comment. Listen to how convoluted the atheist's argument becomes. According to atheists, the state of the world isn’t God’s fault. It can't be because He doesn’t exist. But, according to atheists, neither is it our fault.
“If there was a god, then the world this god created reflects its negligence and callousness towards our condition.”
Ya, well, there isn’t a God, remember, so the negligence and callousness is our’s to own. There’s nobody else to blame, but that doesn’t stop atheists from blaming anyway. Why? Because atheists force themselves to live with,
“I don’t need God in order to be good. And since I believe that I don’t need God in order to be good then I MUST also believe that I am good.”
That is how atheists arrive, consistently arrive at the conclusion, "All the problems in the world are somebody else’s fault. They can't be my fault because I'm a good person - Hey I know, let’s blame it all on religion!”
============
“and these needs can form the basis for injustices and greed.”
I’ve worked with thousands of people struggling with alcoholism or other drug addictions. Something that I used to hear was, I got drunk because:
I lost my job
My wife left me
I hurt my back
My boss is a jerk and on and on.
Can you see the problem with that? Right, if people got drunk because of these things then everyone would get drunk when they lost their job or spouse or physical health. But most people don’t get drunk when something goes wrong. Who does? Right, alcoholics. You got drunk when you lost your job because you have alcoholism.
Well, it's the same thing with this comment. If that was true that having “needs” caused injustices and greed, then everyone whose needs were met would not be unjust and greedy. But most people are like that. We don't want enough. We want more than enough. It's our human nature, corrupt to the core human nature that causes injustice, shortages, greed, war etc. etc. Again, atheists stand no chance of changing for the better when they have to believe that they’re already good people.
“Wait a goddamn minute. It is not my fault that some fucknut is living on the street and the litany of other collectivist bullshit you tossed into this debate. I absolutely despise when some whiny Christian tries to gain traction by piggybacking on leftard guiltmongering.”
“I am not an evil bastard. I don't sell or buy children. So you can't blame me.”
“I actually don't think it's any particular person's fault at all. Famine is pretty widespread in many parts of the world due to weather patterns, poverty and war. When people refer to the "problem" of evil/suffering it is a problem only for theists like yourself.”
Right, poverty and war aren’t anyone’s fault.
===========
You also wrote: Every movement of every atom happens according to the purpose of God. Please explain what you mean by that sentence. Are you suggesting that everything that happens (i.e. both human actions and natural events) is divinely predestined?
. No, that’s not at all what I mean.
. Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.
I don’t think I’m articulate enough to explain what I mean. It might be easier to explain what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean that God caused an earthquake. Did He know it would happen? Yes. Did He do anything to stop it? Obviously not. Does that mean that God is evil? To say that you would have to know what is good as well as knowing that the good that came out of the earthquake did not out weight the bad that came out of it. Now atheists would have you believe that any difficulty, pain, suffering or what have you is necessarily a bad thing. This is of course ridiculous. I know many people, and I would consider myself to be part of that group, who would not trade that tragedy in our lives for anything. The learning and character growth and acquisition of wisdom and insight that could ONLY come about as a result of our suffering was well worth the cost.
Of course human actions aren’t predestined. God knows what choices we will make but He doesn’t make the choices for us. This is the opposite of the atheist world-view where we are simply driven by our chemical exchanges. In the comments above it seems that atheists would rather be robots than anyone should suffer the discomfort of a hangnail, but in reality they wouldn’t. In fact, even the freedom that atheists have isn’t enough for them.
You know what? Today is not a day that I can explain anything. I feel kind of in a fog or something. If I get on this subject on a good day, I’ll look you up and we can carry on.
============
“There is no logical necessity that a god has to create anything in the first place.”
And there’s about a million, billion, trillion times less reason to expect that something, everything would come into being without the existence of Creator God.
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“If God is fair, just and love, why does he allow so much suffering to exist in the world and, more to the point, why does he allow so much suffering? Is he a masochist?”
Of course that’s one of the best questions anyone can ask. We could also ask what is the point of evil, or killing your own offspring in Darwinist world of natural selection but that’s not the point of this discussion.
I can’t remember the name of the blog but while visiting I suggested that the suffering we see all around us and sometimes even experience ourselves is by and large the result of who we are. We're quite willing to allow suffering to take place as long as it doesn't enter our front yard. And obviously if you don’t believe in God then it can’t be the fault of anyone but us. Right? Nevertheless, in response to what I said, several atheists said the following:
“Wait a goddamn minute. It is not my fault that some fucknut is living on the street and the litany of other collectivist bullshit you tossed into this debate. I absolutely despise when some whiny Christian tries to gain traction by piggybacking on leftard guiltmongering.”
“Atheists don't believe in a god, so this is a childish response. We obviously think that the problem of evil shows that there is no god, not that a god exists who is the ultimate dickhead. Although, as Charlie pointed out, it is a logical possibility.”
“Humans are limited creatures. We have physical needs -- air, water, food, shelter --and these needs can form the basis for injustices and greed. The world we live in is evidence of the complete lack of a loving and all-powerful god for precisely this reason. There is no logical necessity that a god has to create anything in the first place. If it does, then it certainly doesn't have to create a world where creatures have needs as we do that are finite in nature and so go about fighting for their own survival all of the time against harsh, uncaring laws of nature. The "heaven" you believe in is one example of a world in which physical needs and harsh laws of physics no longer apply, and so injustice and greed are no longer logical. Long story short, this world is evidence against your god because it would be logically possible for your god to create a heaven-like world for us in the first place. The fact that this is not true makes it logically impossible for your god (all-good and all-powerful) to exist.”
“None of what you said matters. If there was a god, then the world this god created reflects its negligence and callousness towards our condition. It's like saying that I should let my toddler run through the house with scissors if he wants to, then blame him if he gets hurt, because I wanted him to be free because I love him so much. It's retarded. Concern for my son's well-being overrides any good that comes from his ability to choose to hurt himself. You're saying that in order for a god to create in the first place, it has to create a world like this one, when it could create a world like heaven to begin with? It's just simply retarded.”
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As you can see, Missionary, you’re not alone. Along with every Christian on the planet, people try to make sense of suffering. Unlike western atheists whose major struggle is coping with people saying, “Merry Christmas” to them, at Christmas time, some people in the world actually have genuine struggles; life and death struggles.
Just to set the stage for my response, can you see that in order for you to criticize God for making the world in a way you disapprove of, at least for the sake of argument, you are allowing God to exist? In order for Him to do something wrong, He would have to exist - Right? Ok. So when I give you my explanation of why things are the way they are, you will also allow God to exist - Right? Ok. I say this because atheists are notorious for jumping back and forth between God exists and No He doesn’t, as their argument requires. To your question, “why does he allow so much suffering?” Before I answer your question I just want to highlight a couple of the above comments.
“Long story short, this world is evidence against your god because it would be logically possible for your god to create a heaven-like world for us in the first place.”
“You're saying that in order for a god to create in the first place, it has to create a world like this one, when it could create a world like heaven to begin with? It's just simply retarded.”
Do you notice anything these comments have in common? Anything? Ok, I’ll point it out. They both allude to the kind of world that God DID provide in the beginning. (Remember, for the sake of argument, you’re allowing God as He is known in the Bible to exist.) We did have a world that was heaven-like. We did have a world without hatred and violence and suffering and evil. Paradise was ours for the taking if we had wanted it. However, in order to have that kind of world we had to allow God to be God. That, as you know from your own life is an intolerable situation. “No Fucking Masters” is the rallying cry of most if not all atheists. Well, again, according to the Bible, God allowed us to choose the kind of world we wanted. If I am hearing you and the other correctly, you're saying, "Well God shouldn't have let us have what we wanted. He should have made me do the right thing just like a robot!" Ya right. You still have the chance to make your world and the world of those who have to live with you better by allowing God to be Lord of your life. Will you do it? No, I didn't think so.
We could have had paradise with God being God. Or we could have death and suffering and hardship with us being god. "We" the human collective chose the latter then and you're still choosing the latter even in the face of how wrong that decision was. Is it because you're an idiot. Mmm, not exactly. The problem is, humans don’t believe that bad things will happen to them. When told of dire consequences:
. We believe that it won’t happen
. We believe that if it does happen it won’t happen to us
. We believe that if it does happen to us it won’t be very bad, and
. We believe that it is does happen to us and it’s really really bad, well, there wasn’t anything we could have done about it anyhow.
Atheists are fond of saying they want love. What they don’t seem to understand is that in order to have real love, we have to have the opportunity to NOT love.
Atheists are fond of saying they want kindness and peace. What they don’t seem to understand is that in order to have real kindness and real peace, we have to have the opportunity to NOT be kind or peaceful.
These things come to us only by freewill choice. Now, I hate it when other people do this, but unless I refer you to one of my other posts, this is going to get way to long. If you go to my March post, “Where Is God When A Little Girl Gets Raped?" you'll see my take on the why of the state of our world in the face of Creator God’s reality. But listen to this next comment. Listen to how convoluted the atheist's argument becomes. According to atheists, the state of the world isn’t God’s fault. It can't be because He doesn’t exist. But, according to atheists, neither is it our fault.
“If there was a god, then the world this god created reflects its negligence and callousness towards our condition.”
Ya, well, there isn’t a God, remember, so the negligence and callousness is our’s to own. There’s nobody else to blame, but that doesn’t stop atheists from blaming anyway. Why? Because atheists force themselves to live with,
“I don’t need God in order to be good. And since I believe that I don’t need God in order to be good then I MUST also believe that I am good.”
That is how atheists arrive, consistently arrive at the conclusion, "All the problems in the world are somebody else’s fault. They can't be my fault because I'm a good person - Hey I know, let’s blame it all on religion!”
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“and these needs can form the basis for injustices and greed.”
I’ve worked with thousands of people struggling with alcoholism or other drug addictions. Something that I used to hear was, I got drunk because:
I lost my job
My wife left me
I hurt my back
My boss is a jerk and on and on.
Can you see the problem with that? Right, if people got drunk because of these things then everyone would get drunk when they lost their job or spouse or physical health. But most people don’t get drunk when something goes wrong. Who does? Right, alcoholics. You got drunk when you lost your job because you have alcoholism.
Well, it's the same thing with this comment. If that was true that having “needs” caused injustices and greed, then everyone whose needs were met would not be unjust and greedy. But most people are like that. We don't want enough. We want more than enough. It's our human nature, corrupt to the core human nature that causes injustice, shortages, greed, war etc. etc. Again, atheists stand no chance of changing for the better when they have to believe that they’re already good people.
“Wait a goddamn minute. It is not my fault that some fucknut is living on the street and the litany of other collectivist bullshit you tossed into this debate. I absolutely despise when some whiny Christian tries to gain traction by piggybacking on leftard guiltmongering.”
“I am not an evil bastard. I don't sell or buy children. So you can't blame me.”
“I actually don't think it's any particular person's fault at all. Famine is pretty widespread in many parts of the world due to weather patterns, poverty and war. When people refer to the "problem" of evil/suffering it is a problem only for theists like yourself.”
Right, poverty and war aren’t anyone’s fault.
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You also wrote: Every movement of every atom happens according to the purpose of God. Please explain what you mean by that sentence. Are you suggesting that everything that happens (i.e. both human actions and natural events) is divinely predestined?
. No, that’s not at all what I mean.
. Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.
I don’t think I’m articulate enough to explain what I mean. It might be easier to explain what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean that God caused an earthquake. Did He know it would happen? Yes. Did He do anything to stop it? Obviously not. Does that mean that God is evil? To say that you would have to know what is good as well as knowing that the good that came out of the earthquake did not out weight the bad that came out of it. Now atheists would have you believe that any difficulty, pain, suffering or what have you is necessarily a bad thing. This is of course ridiculous. I know many people, and I would consider myself to be part of that group, who would not trade that tragedy in our lives for anything. The learning and character growth and acquisition of wisdom and insight that could ONLY come about as a result of our suffering was well worth the cost.
Of course human actions aren’t predestined. God knows what choices we will make but He doesn’t make the choices for us. This is the opposite of the atheist world-view where we are simply driven by our chemical exchanges. In the comments above it seems that atheists would rather be robots than anyone should suffer the discomfort of a hangnail, but in reality they wouldn’t. In fact, even the freedom that atheists have isn’t enough for them.
You know what? Today is not a day that I can explain anything. I feel kind of in a fog or something. If I get on this subject on a good day, I’ll look you up and we can carry on.
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“There is no logical necessity that a god has to create anything in the first place.”
And there’s about a million, billion, trillion times less reason to expect that something, everything would come into being without the existence of Creator God.
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