Category: Atheism

The Voice of God

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism

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The Voice of God

Ps 19:1-4

The heavens are telling the glory of God;

and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.

  Day to day pours forth speech,

and night to night declares knowledge.

  There is no speech, nor are there words;

their voice is not heard;

  yet their voice goes out through all the earth,

and their words to the end of the world.

Many today believe that there is no God or if there is, He is distant and aloof.  The first group we call Atheists and the second we call Deists.  However,  in scripture, both Old and New Testaments depict a God that is near. This can be summed up with the words of Saint Paul.

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.  He is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life, breath, and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.  God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ (Acts 17:24-28).

In this section of scripture we see a number of very interesting things.  However, for our discussion we need to focus on the latter half of the section where Paul makes some bold statements concerning the nature of his deity.  He said, “God is not far from each one of us.”  Then he says that we live and move in Him and we have our being in Him” In this Paul set forth a lofty and radical view of the uncreated one i.e. God, a view that is not heeded or believed by many even in the Christian movement.

First, he points out that there are no sacred places in which the deity dwells. The implication is that the God of heaven and earth cannot be contained in anything built by human hands, neither can he be served by any priesthood of men. The coming of Christ has made sacred places and sacred men obsolete.  In Christ, all men and places have been made sacred by the work of Christ.  In this, Christ was the end of all religion as a system of mediation.

What is Paul saying about God?  He surely is implying that the deity is not some impersonal distant deity that has no interest in the affairs of men; to the contrary, he seems to be saying that the God of heaven and earth created humanity with a curiosity and then gave him  clues in nature that would allow man to find Him.  It is in these clues that man hears the voice of God.

What are some of the clues that the deity gives to man? Well, he gave him the sense of awe.  We humans are the  only creatures that have the ability to experience awe and wonder. For that reason, we are the only animal that worships.  The next time you are on a high place and look out over God’s good earth and you have a sense of awe come over you, try to hear the voice of God speaking to you in that experience. It helps to be alone in a very quiet place.  God often speaks in a very soft voice.

The writer of Psalms said “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.  Day after day, they pour forth speech; night after night, they display knowledge.  There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.  Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”  It is obvious, that this man believed that when he sat under the starry sky and looked up that he could hear the voice of God. If you want to give your faith a boost, just look up.  You may hear the stars speak to you of the Creator.

Still, another clue might be mans passion for fairness and justice. It seems that men everywhere want things put right. Could this desire for fairness and justice be the echo of Gods voice?  Could the sense that things are not right be the voice of God?  There is a sense that something is wrong, echoes throughout the scriptures. “All have sinned and are falling short of the glory of God.” This is one reason why people of faith call the scriptures ‘the word of God’, because it has  a ring of truth; a truth that echoes in the human experience.

In his book “Man’s Search for Meaning” Viktor Frankl suggests that in every human being there is an  intrinsic need to have meaning.  Could this inner cry for meaning be the voice of God calling us to find our purpose in him?  Saint Augustine said, “Our souls are restless until they find rest in God”.

In the above Scripture Saint Paul also seems to be saying that the deity with which he is speaking about exists in another dimension, other than we humans.  In fact, He encompasses all the dimensions, for He created them.  Some moderns have criticized Christians for believing that God was up there in sky, but it is obvious that Paul believed God filled the entire space-time continuum and more. The mistake of some is to take literally the metaphoric language of the Bible that speaks of heaven as literally up.

One thing is obvious, if Paul is right about the deity, the deists who believe in an aloof distant God are wrong in their interpretation of God’s nature.  If we live and move in the uncreated one, he surely is aware of every hair on our head as Jesus said.  It also seems that if we are that close to God we should be able to sense his presence. “God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.  For in him we live and move and have our being.”  Paul is inferring that God has revealed Himself, sufficed that men ought to seek Him and if they seek with all their heart they will find the Total Other.  No half hearted search is sufficient, the true God is not easy to find. However, He is self-evident to the pure in heart. “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God”. Therefore, the place to begin your search is to purify your heart.

When a scientist has a  hunch that there is more than meets the eye, they begin to search for the answer. If they do not have the tools for their search they create them.  When they wanted to search the heavens, they created the telescope.  When they wanted to search the microscopic world, they created the microscope.  After creating their tools and collecting their findings, they then passed that knowledge on to their disciples.  Likewise, in man’s search for God, men basically did the same thing.  When men beheld the greatness of creation and its order, it forced them to seek the architect that created such an awesome universe. They then created their tools that could help them find God.

What are those tools? Well, it may surprise you but some of the tools are the telescope and microscopic.  You see, both of these tools of science demonstrated how complex and orderly the universe really is; in that they point to and reveal a designer and a lawgiver. Therefore, in a sense they were both a word and a clue from God that tell us something about God’s greatness. The early natural philosophers (scientists) would say that there are two books which reveal God; the book of nature and the book of Scripture. Scientists study the book of nature. Theologians study the book of Scripture, both books point to the uncreated one.

I personally believe that there is a third book that we could call the book of humanity. If we look at man, we see a creature, which the bible says was created in the image of God. If mankind is created in God’s image and likeness, we then should be able to learn a lot about God from studying man. The author of Ecclesiastes says that God has placed eternity in the hearts of men. He learned this about man by observing and talking to men and woman about their thought world.  He concluded that humanity in general believes in more than what is seen and perceived by their physical senses. They seem to have an intuitive sense that there is something more than the scene. Could it be the sense and vague remembrance that they were created  for the stars or at least another world. Could this be a clue from God? Could it be that, this sense or desire for another place is the thing that is driving modern man’s quest for outer space? Could this other worldliness be a vague remembrance of our origin and purpose? Could this sense, be God drawing us to himself and the stars?

Of course, some will dismiss this as only suggestive and intuitive.  However, can we totally dismiss the intuitive?  I think if we do; we do so at our own peril.  Not long ago I read a book on fear in which the author pointed out that many people had used their intellect to dismiss their fear to their own  ruin.  He pointed to numerous situations where people sensed intuitively they should not be in a place or with a certain person.  Yet, they used their reason to dismiss the fear to their own  demise.  The question is, have many silenced the voice of God with their reason, and therefore missed some of the clues that God has given them? How about you?

 

Burden of Proof

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism

Burden of Proof

What about the burden of Proof?  There seems to be three definitions for what the burden of proof means. There is the philosophical definition that is used in debates where the burden of proof is on the person making a claim for something. Then there is legal definition that varies from country to country. In the United States, the legal burden of truth is on the prosecutor. Then there is, what you might call the agreed-on  burden of truth where two people holding opposite views agree on each taking turns to affirming a proposition with the other taking the negative. The latter form of the burden of truth is what is practiced tacitly in a normal discussion.

It could also be argued that if one is challenging a recognized consensus of a culture or a discipline, the burden of proof would be on the challenger. For instance, if a person challenges a theory of science in which there is a consensus that a theory is correct the burden of proof would be on the one challenging the consensus, e.g. the big-bang theory. The scientific community does not accept that it has the burden of proof to prove to every individual in the culture that what it says is, in fact, the truth. The burden of proof is on the one questioning the consensus.

One fallacy of the skeptic is that many of them seem to believe placing the burden of proof on the believer in some fashion wins the debate, as though the one who has a so-called non-belief has nothing to prove. If the believer makes a positive affirmation, he has no burden of proof until someone questions the truthfulness of his statement. If the questioner offers evidence for his doubt, he also, then shares in the burden of proof in proving his evidence against the affirmation.

Let’s assume that atheism is a non-belief, would it not follow that if you had no obligation to support it or prove it, that it would be equally hard to speak about it in any way negative or positive. This would infer that the atheist, if consistent, should not spend a lot of time talking about a non-belief. Yet, we find them writing books and articles about their non-belief all the time, attempting to support and establish it by an appeal to philosophy and science. How in the world can you support something that does not exist, i.e. an non-belief? One man has said that to claim that atheism is not a belief is like saying anarchy is not really a political position.

Let us again, assume that atheism is a non-belief as the atheist often asserts. What if someone simply asked them if they believe in a God and they responded, “No, I’m an atheist”. The person who questioned them could simply respond naturally by asking the question, “Why are you an atheist?” According to atheism, the right response should be “I don’t have to answer it because atheism is a non-belief.” Who has the burden of proof?

Now if we reverse this line of questioning and have someone ask a believer “Do you believe in a God?” and the believer says, “Yes I do”, this response would then put the burden of proof on the believer, especially if the person in turn asked “Why?” This is an example of the agreed on burden of proof, which is just a part of ordinary conversation.

It would also seem rational if the atheist used science or philosophy  in an attempt to prove his worldview or his atheism. He must accept the burden of proof in regard to his arguments from science or philosophy for he has shifted the burden of proof from his non-belief to those beliefs. So the great emphasis that atheists put on the burden of proof and atheism being a non-belief seems to be a lot of twaddle.

The Death of Religious Freedom?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Atheism, Christ and Culture, Liberalism, Religion

The Death of Religious Freedom?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. 

It is interesting to note that the very first amendment to the Constitution was the amendment guaranteeing religious freedom to all. We are not sure as to why it was the first amendment, but I suspect that it had to do with the idea that the most basic of rights is for a human being to have the right to think what they want about anything and especially their standing with God. It’s obvious that the founding fathers valued religious freedom and thought religion to be important for the general welfare of the nation. I’m not sure the same could be said about their heirs. It seems that Americans take their religion and religious freedom for granted. But should they? I think not, for being free to exercise your religious beliefs is rare in most parts of the world and the majority of people have little rights to exercise their faith as they desire.

In fact, the only places that have true religious freedom are Europe, the United States, and few other countries that have been influenced by Christianity and classic liberalism[1] and have not yet been brought under the spell of atheistic communism. I say this to point out that religious freedom is rare and should be protected from all that would destroy it. It is quite obvious that the common denominator among the nations where people are persecuted for their religious faith and speaking out for freedom are where either the majority is Muslim or the ruling oligarchy is atheist. There is every reason to believe that when the numbers of Muslims or atheists[2] reach a large enough number in any country, the persecution of other religions and beliefs will start begin. In Europe where Muslims number 10% to 20% of the population, people are already being intimidated by threats of death if they speak out against Islam. There’s no reason to think it  won’t happen in our future. In fact, at their present birth rate Muslims will be one of the largest political groups in the country by 2050. Some estimate the number as high as 40 to 50 million.

In atheistic countries in the pass, it has been estimated that as few as 10% were true atheists and party loyalists. Yet, they were able to suppress religious freedom and almost every other ideology that opposed them.  At the present rate of growth the new atheist, a group of atheists who reflect many of the characteristics of the communistic atheist[3] of Russia and China, could easily be 10% of the US population in a short time.

With these forces of atheism and Islam growing in the world, I believe any thoughtful person who values freedom of thought and religion would be somewhat alarmed by the growth of these two ideologies. The only way to counteract this ideology is to make a positive faith affirmation.

[1] I use the expression classic liberalism because new liberal or progressives are somewhat antagonistic toward religion.

[2] There are two types of atheist, the old type which views religion as neutral or a necessary evil and are sometimes even supportive of religion when it is doing good. Then there is the new atheist who despises religion and believes it to be the greatest evil under heaven with them having the obligation to destroy it.

[3] The new atheists are deconstructionist of the most fundamental kind. Like the atheists of the French revolution and the Russian Revolution, they are filled with anger and hatred which flows from their nihilism. Their nihilism has its roots in the failed utopian vision of the ideology. They have the tendency to blame God and religion for the evil in the world and believe that their ideology will usher in a utopia. I believe that this group would suppress religion anyway that they could, this includes violence. Richard Dawkins, one of the founders of the new atheist has already encouraged his followers to mock and ridicule religious people publicly. On 24 March 2012 at 2:55 PM, Richard Dawkins propagated militant atheism at the “Reason Rally” [sic], encouraging his audience to “Mock them [believers], ridicule them in public.” this can be seen on You Tube.

The Making of an Fundamentalist Atheist

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Faith

The Making of a Fundamentalist Atheist

Mark Twain once said ” there are reasons, good reasons and the real reason.” What is the real reason for your faith or lack of it?

I have noticed lately, that there seems to be an increase in the number of atheists I run across.  Most of whom are white educated males.  To be honest, for the life of me, I cannot understand why anyone would want to be an atheist. In fact, I’m always asking them the why question.  In reply, I usually get something along these lines; it is the reasonable position. In reply, I generally respond with another why question. Their answer is often; science has proven it.  My reply is how?   I seldom get any answer, and if I do it is usually an appeal to a pseudoscience. The truth is that there are no scientific arguments against the existence of God.  Science does not make arguments against God’s existence. The question of God’s existence is outside of the realm of scientific inquiry.[1]

I had a few atheists tell me that scientists don’t believe in God, therefore this is proof it’s not reasonable to believe in God. This statement is absolutely false.  Einstein is one of the foremost scientists of the last century, and he was a believer in a deity[2], though he did not seem to like organized religion. Still another great modern scientist who is a believer is Francis Collins lead scientist for the Human Genome Project. The truth is that as far as the hard sciences go, it is about a 50-50 split.[3]  Even if 95% of scientists did not believe in God it would not prove that God did not exist. 95% of scientists believed the sun rotated around the earth before Galileo, they were wrong. In fact, they were the ones that convinced church leaders to censor Galileo. At one time 95% of scientists believed that the empty space in the universe was filled with a substance they called ether, they were wrong. We should be cautious about counting the noses of scientists in determining the truth.

Still, other atheists have said they’re “just trying to follow the truth.” Of course, following the truth is a noble undertaking if there is such a thing as truth. However, without a cosmic order and consciousness can there be any real truth?[4]  If our thoughts and actions are nothing more than the interplay of atoms in our brain, how can there be any truth in the traditional sense? The best that one could hope for is a pragmatic utilitarian view of truth, i.e. whatever works. If this is the case, belief is superior to unbelief because people of faith are happier than unbelievers. Note the book “The Happiness Hypothesis” by Jonathan Haidt.

When everything is said, thought-through atheism is simply a negative faith that cannot be proven.  It is based on suppositions that cannot be proven or disproved.  Atheism can only raise questions about the existence of God, but it can never prove its negative position. When you look at its evidence for its suppositions, they just do not exist.

In view of this, I decided that there must be some other reasons besides ‘reason’ for people embracing this negative faith, so I began to look for an answer.  The following is what I came up with.  Some of my answers border on science and some on psychology. I freely admit that I am biased for faith in a deity. One reason being I believe faith is healthier for the individual and sociality as a whole. I have given evidence to this in previous writings.

Some may feel that it is not ethical to analyze someone’s beliefs, looking for a psychological basis for them.  However, atheists have been doing this for hundreds of years declaring that the believer’s faith came from an emotional need to have a father figure, which believer’s then projected into heaven to watch over them. Note that in Fauerbach’s, “The Essence of Christianity” it is actually when atheists analyze people’s faith in God, that they are simply attempting to look at faith scientifically. They are analyzing it by using the law of cause and effect. I have no problem with that, as long as they apply the same principles to their non-belief, which they seldom do. Of course, this lack of self-examination is an indication that their faith is based more on dogma than reason.

Before looking at what I believe causes people to become atheists. I would like to say that in many ways I do respect the negative faith of many atheists.  Many atheists have more convictions in their world view than many believers have in theirs, and many unbelievers are men of integrity and excellent moral character.  I have a number of friends who are atheists and find them to be good friends. Of course, all this does not prove that atheism is true

What is the root of Atheism?  I do not have all the answers to this question but there is one thing I know atheists are made and not born.[5]  Children by their very nature are mystical and multi-dimensional.  So, what causes people to lose their sense of wonder and of the spiritual?  What causes men to suppress their spiritual nature?

The Christian Factor

One of the main roots of unbelief is Christianity itself, for it teaches that God is a good God.  This is fine for adults; however, as some children grow up, they begin to see that the world is filled with suffering and evil. This causes confusion in the child’s mind which cannot be reconciled with the idea of a good God and a world fill with suffering and evil. For the immature mind, the only way to reconcile the apparent contradiction is by renouncing reality or to deny God. The majority of people do a little of both however, there are some children who choose to deny God.   Of course, the problem of evil and suffering are subjects that much ink has been spent on by theologians and philosophers with less than satisfactory answers.

The best answer that I’ve found is that suffering in itself is not evil but rather it’s a part of a perfect environment to serve God’s purpose of building, growing up, and maturing people.  Suffering in the form of pain serves to warn us when our body is in danger of being permanently hurt or injured. It also warns us that things may be out of order or out of balance biologically and even socially. Therefore, it gives us the opportunity to change and grow.  If you think of suffering in this light, it’s hard to look upon all suffering as evil.  It only becomes evil when you add the human will to the equation. When a human inflicts suffering and pain on another human unnecessarily, it then can become evil.  Even if one continues to look upon suffering as evil this view in itself is not evidence that God does not exist.  It would simply imply that God is not all good and that the God of the Bible is not the true God.

The Environment Factor

 The family environment can also contribute to the loss of faith.  If one is brought up in a home of unbelief or in one of little spirituality, where sacred things are seldom spoken about or totally disregarded, your chances of being an unbeliever are higher than if you were raised in a spiritual atmosphere.  If your early experience of religion is negative for instance, having parents who are religious, but hypocritical, may have a negative impact on you or having a clergyman whom you didn’t like may also contribute to unbelief.  There is some strong evidence that an overbearing father or an abusive father may have a cynical impact on people’s faith.  This seems to be especially true for males. The hostile and negative feelings they have for their father are transferred to their heavenly father.  It’s interesting to note that the apostle Paul tells fathers not to provoke their children to wrath. Could it be that an overbearing father could be the source of much unbelief? In science, this is called psychological transfer.

Many others may lose their faith when they attend a college and fall prey to an atheist professor and a hedonistic environment. Young people are impressionable, and a highly educated professor can surely put doubts in their youthful minds.  However, if they do lose their faith, it will most likely not be the reasoning power or the knowledge of the professor but rather the indoctrination of the environment created by the materialistic university atmosphere. Being spiritual is not cool on most college campuses.  On the other hand, the intellectual ability seems to have little to do with people’s faith position.  Emotions and environment are the biggest players in whether or not one has faith.  After they make a choice of beliefs, then reason is used and intellectual information is compiled to support and justify a position, which is accepted by faith, whether negative or positive.

The worst college environment for making atheists is a religious school where the professors and the majority of the student body live like the devil, but teach morality and religion. This kind of environment creates an emotional doubt which is deadlier to faith than intellectual doubt.  It was in this kind of environment where I began to question my childhood faith. However, in my case, I did not lose my faith in God, but in the institution which claimed to represent Him.  I am thankful for a good friend who pointed out to me the difference between faith in the Great Spirit and human religion. As faith is often misplaced, so it is with doubt. When religion does evil, it should raise doubt in religion, not God.

The problem that often surfaces during the college years is one of the wrong presuppositions. Young people growing up in semi-religious and even very religious homes often have a naïve supposition that religion has all the answers, or at least it ought to. When they attend college, they suddenly realize that it does not and in some cases their faith is shattered. Of course, the truth is that all human knowledge has what I call brackets. Brackets are question marks and contradictions that cannot be understood, at least at this time.  In religion, we call them mysteries, in science, they’re called anomalies and in philosophy they’re paradoxes. Young people of faith need to be taught that faith has its brackets.

In the college environment, there are certain fields of study like psychology, which are still being deeply influenced by Sigmund Freud’s atheism. Atheism seems to be a prerequisite for becoming a psychologist or a psychiatrist in many people’s thinking.  If you select these fields of study it will become harder to maintain your religion; not for intellectual reasons but rather because of the environment which the people in the field create. They create a world without God, and it is difficult to live in their fictional world for very long without damaging your faith.  If you think )  you are immune to this kind of environmental influence stop kidding yourself.  You are living a delusional life. It has been shown repeatedly that many people who are taken hostage in time will begin to sympathize and even convert to their captor’s ideology. When you give yourself over to a materialistic world view, you have been taken captive and most likely, will convert. If you are a College student, my advice to you is to watch out what kind of world you choose to live in. The apostle Paul said, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. (Col 2:8)

On a larger-scale, it is obvious that if you are born in a culture like Russia where atheism is the state philosophy, it is more likely that you will be an atheist. However, even after 70 years of the state trying to eradicate religion, faith still remains strong in Russia.  It has been estimated that as many as 80% of the Russian population believe in God.  This strengthens the position that man by his nature is homo-religious, i.e. by his very nature he is religious.

Biological Factor

Even in the realm of the spiritual-minded, there will be varying degrees of God-consciousness.  A case in point is the scholar and the mystic.  The religious scholar may have a hard time understanding the mystic, and the latter may even question the faith of the scholar. Here within the confines of faith you have the same experience that you see between the atheist and believer. Could the problem be genetic?

I brought this subject up at a meeting of ministers and their wives and as expected I was met with some resistance… So I proposed a little experiment to test my idea. I asked each person to think about their earliest awareness of their God-consciousness and then asked them if theirs was stronger than their siblings.  Without exception, they said theirs was stronger than their siblings. Though the sampling is small about 20 people, it does give some credence to the belief in spiritual intelligence. Of course, like all forms of intelligence, it can be increased or diminished by its use or its lack of use. The lack of use could lead to atheism.

Therefore, it is quite reasonable to believe that some people who are born with the right-brain structure have an advantage in sensing the deity.  This also explains why some believers experience God in different ways and to various degrees.  Does this mean that a person born with small antennas (metaphor) cannot believe in God?  No, it simply means that those folks need to work harder at it or learn to trust other men’s experience of God.  This kind of trust is needed and used in every area of life, why not in the area of faith?   The reason this is hard for the atheist is that people blessed with a high degree of intellectual knowledge seems to believe that it is superior to all other forms of intelligence. In other words, their ego blinds them to the truth.    This seems to be confirmed by Scripture. ” knowledge puffs up and love builds up.”

The Pride Factor

The source of much atheism is human pride.  Many atheists use their atheism as a badge of their intellectual superiority.  This is very similar to the way some religious people use their religiosity to boost their self-esteem. Their religion allows them to think that they are more moral than others. Like the religious person, the atheist’s self-esteem begins to depend on their identification with unbelief and the sense of intellectual superiority it gives them.  In essence, they cling to their unbelief in order to save their souls for without their unbelief; they would be soulless. They would just be a part of the herd without an identity.  They refuse to call themselves agnostic for there is no glory or superiority in saying I don’t know and there are no arguments to be made to show their superiority.  What else can explain their choice of atheism over agnosticism, which is a far more reasonable position than atheism.  This may explain why so many atheists are white, mid-class college-educated males.  A group that is known for their pride, large egos, and loss of identity.

Misunderstanding of the Difference Between Faith and Religion

I have also found that many atheists have a very narrow view of faith and religion. Their view is very similar to the religious fundamentalist, both seem to have a hard time separating faith from religion.  This may be caused by a simple blind spot in the unbeliever’s thinking, but it seems to be dominant in much of their arguments against the existence of God.  I cannot help, however, to notice in their conversations and writings that most of their criticism of belief in God is really a criticism of religion. They fail to see that the hypocrisy of religion does not in itself offer proof that there is no God. It simply proves that there are hypocrites in religion.  Hypocrites play golf, but that does not mean that golf is a bad game, or it’s only terrible when hypocrites play.  The bias of many unbelievers toward religion seems to blind them to the fact that religion is like every other endeavor of mankind; it can be good or evil depending on the nature of the men who are playing the game.

My experience has been that if the person is brought up in a cult or has a fundamentalist view of religion (like most young people), if they lose their faith in their religion or church, they may also become skeptical about God as well. The reason for this is that their faith was in their religion and not in God.  This confusion between God and religion is prevalent in churches that teach they are the one true church.  In these organizations, the church becomes an idol who veils the real God.  I have meant hundreds of individuals that have left these organizations.  Some became atheists,  although they never lose the belief that their former organization totally represents the Christian religion.  So, they believe that if they can show the errors of the church or religion, then they have discredited belief in God.

However, misconduct of some churches and clergy now as in the past confirms that the bible is true.  The scripture in fact teaches that such an organization would arise and bear bad fruit turning people always from Christ and real faith. The apostle Paul warns the church in Acts 20:29-31 “I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock.  Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.” And again in 1 Tim 4:1-3, “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars.  Whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.”  If one is going to judge the Christian faith, it would seem logical to judge it based on the life and teaching of Jesus and not on a group’s behaviors that may or may not be truly following Jesus.

You may be surprised that I am thankful for the atheistic criticism of religion. In many ways, it reflects the Spirit of prophecy as seen in the Scriptures. Jesus and all the prophets criticized religion for its hypocrisy and its empty rituals and traditions.  However, when the critics fail to see the difference between religion and God, they have stepped out on some very dangerous ground. Ground that cannot be defended by reason or science.

Moreover, as demonstrated by the Russian experiment, you cannot get rid of religion much less faith by atheistic education or even force.  If you suppress it in one place, it will break out in another.  You are just simply wasting your time and energy.  However, wasting one’s time is a matter of choice but destroying a person’s faith is a sad undertaking.

An honest unbeliever, Dr. E. Wengraf once confessed,  “Every piece of anti-religious propaganda seems to me a crime.  I surely do not wish it to be prosecuted as a crime, but I consider it immoral and loathsome.  This not because of zeal for my convictions, but because of the simple knowledge,  acquired through long experience, that,  given the same circumstances, a religious man is happier than the irreligious.  In my indifference and skeptical attitude toward all positive faith,  I have often envied other men to whom deep religiosity has given a strong support in all the storms of life.  To uproot the souls of such men is an abject deed.  I abhor any proselytizing.  But still,  I can understand why one who believes firmly in a saving faith tries to convert others.  But I cannot understand a propaganda of unbelief.  We do not have the right to take away from a person his protecting shelter, be it even a shabby hut,  if we are not sure we can offer him a better,  more beautiful house.  But to lure men from the inherited home of their souls, to make them err afterward in the wilderness of hypotheses and philosophical question marks, is either criminal fatalisms or criminal mindlessness.”

The Factor of Evil

Often evil men use religion to cover up their evil, you might say they dress it up with religion. However, evil men also sometimes deny their evil by renouncing God.  In the last century atheists like Stalin and Mao, under the banner of atheistic communism have murdered over 100 million people. I am pointing this out not to count noses but to demonstrate that religion doesn’t kill people and atheism doesn’t kill people; evil people kill people. Immoral people will use any religion or ideology that will justify their evil. However, it is evident that some belief systems, including atheism, are more likely to be used to justify killing, than others. Evil people will also avoid and reject anyone or anything that might bring their evil to light.  The teacher said, ” This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. However, whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”  This helps us to understand why some men choose atheism, though this would represent a small minority.

The Factor of Human Nature

One of the basic causes of atheism is a simple rebellion attitude. Some men by their very nature are rebellious. You could say they were born doubters, doubting all authority.  Their doubting is not grounded in a superior intellect but rather in a rebellious nature and a strong appetite to do their own thing without any outside limitations; this included any limits imposed by a deity. In fact, some men are so rebellious they rebel against the limitations placed on them by nature. In many ways, the whole folly of the human race is in rebelling against God and nature. The atheist wants to expel God and his law from the universe and many in science want to overcome nature as though it was our enemy.

On a more basic level, many men choose atheism simply because they are too lazy and indifferent towards spending time and energy to seek the truth.  I have found this to be the prevalent cause of what you might call shallow atheism. Of course, the same thing could be said of believers that inherited their faith from the culture without putting it through the test of reason.  However, if the truth about God is to be found one would have to expect it to be difficult since learning physics is difficult and knowing an infinite God would even be harder if he did not simplify it somehow.  Of course, he did simplify it by revealing Himself in and through Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

Many of the ideas in this article are the same arguments used by unbelievers to criticize believers. All I have done is simply reversed them.  This demonstrates that atheism is just a faith very similar to any religious belief.  Any psychological argument used to explain away a belief in God can be used to explain atheism. Both atheism and faith in God are based on faith. Both are metaphysical in their nature.  The atheist in many cases is actually more religious than the believer in God.  In any case, the new atheists are organized and are as committed to their non-belief as any fundamentalist religious people.  In the end, the debate is really who’s religion is right.

[1] The US National Academy of Sciences has gone on record with the following statement: ‘Science is a way of knowing about the natural world. It is limited to explaining the natural world through natural causes. Science can say nothing about the supernatural. Whether God exists or not is a question about which science is neutral.” Taken from “Who made God?, Searching For A Theory Of Everything” by  Edgar Andrews.

[2] Einstein did not believe in the traditional view of God held by Jews or Christians. He had a mystical view of God in which he had said more than once; he had a religion of one.

[3] According to the poll, just over half of scientists (51%) believe in some form of deity or higher power; specifically, 33% of scientists say they believe in God, while 18% believe in a universal spirit or higher power. By contrast, 95% of Americans believe in some form of deity or higher power, according to a survey of the general public conducted by the Pew Research Center in July 2006. Specifically, more than eight-in-ten Americans (83%) say they believe in God and 12% believe in a universal spirit or higher power. Finally, the poll of scientists finds that four-in-ten scientists (41%) say they do not believe in God or a higher power, while the poll of the public finds that only 4% of Americans share this view. Pew Research Center for the People & the Press survey, conducted in May and June 2009

[4] Atheism has been pushed into a corner where they are obligated not only to deny the existence of God but also any other ordering principle in the universe, which might infer a deity. However from this position it is impossible to confirm in any reasonable way the concept of truth.

[5] Infants are hard-wired to believe in God, and atheism has to be learned, according to an Oxford University psychologist.  Dr Olivera Petrovich told a University of Western Sydney conference on the psychology of religion that even preschool children constructed theological concepts as part of their understanding of the physical world. Psychologists have debated whether belief in God or atheism was the natural human state…. Dr Petrovich said her findings were based on several studies, particularly one of Japanese children aged four to six, and another of 400 British children aged five to seven from seven different faiths. “Atheism is definitely an acquired position”, she said. The Age, July 2008 by Barnet Zwartz. www theage.com.

What is Religion?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Atheism, Religion

What is Religion?

  In my conversation with people about religion I have found that the term itself is difficult to define with any degree of concreteness. Some have attempted to define the word by limiting it to what people call organized religion but in doing this, they are inferring that there are other meanings. If there is an organized version of religion there must be an unorganized version. I believe if we attempt to define the concept too narrowly we will end up limiting its usage to an unwarranted degree and may subvert some usages of the word. Of course, for some subversion might be their intention.

Let’s begin with how the word is used. It is used to denote a person’s behavior or belief that they are intensely committed to. “John exercises religiously or John’s religion is exercising.” Both expressions work well to relay the idea  that John is extremely committed to exercise; to the point of being fanatical. In this context the word is used to denote excess in something, which it does not deserve it. Exercise is good, but it should not be made your ultimate concern.

Religion can also denote a commitment to an  organization as “John belongs to the Roman Catholic religion” or Dick is  a follower of the Moslem religion. This commitment can go beyond a commitment to an organized religion.  It can be a devotion or commitment to a belief, behavior or lifestyle.  The stoic religious was to practice virtue. This seems to be the way that is used in the Bible. When James says, “Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world” (James 1;27).

From the above, we can gather that the word has various shades of meaning, which is determined by context. Can a non-belief or a negative belief be a person’s religion? Yes, if one is committed to it intensely. e.g. .if one spends an inordinate amount time on it. It could be said to be one’s religion[1]. “John’s religion is playing video games or debunking theism.” The latter is the religion of many of the new atheists.

When the word is used for organized religion you run into another problem of defining the word “organized.” You could say that there is no universal definition of what constitutes an organized religion. For some, a group with a leader is an organization. To others, it may take a written Constitution  with a formal membership to be classified as an organization. You can organize around a man, a group, a belief or an idea. People can organize against a belief or an idea; in this, they organize around their commonly held un-belief, which could be any negative idea. The Protestant religion was formed around a group of non-beliefs. People can belong to certain movements, which are loosely organized and formed around  a set of ideas and led very informally by a group of charismatic  leaders. You see this kind of religion in the New-Age  movement and in the new atheist movement. Both could rightly be called religion but their followers viciously contend that their movements are not a religion. However, just recently the seventh court of appeals has ruled that atheism is a religion[2] and the Supreme Court has ruled prior that secular humanism is a religion for legal purposes[3].

I have found that when people begin to split hairs about what constituted religion, they usually have an agenda. It could be a religious group (usually a cult) that wants to set itself apart from a larger group or an atheists group or individual who does not want to be compared to a faith group. In their spitting of hairs, these groups and individuals actually demonstrate they are very must a part of a religion. If not, they would have no reason to be protesting. Protestantism is a religion when it demands your attention and especially if it is your ultimate concern or an all-consuming interest as some of the new atheist have done,  many of which have been taught  to hate what they call religion to the point they are allergic to the word itself. Get over it you guys, your movement is a religion.

After reading the article my wife said to me, ” you did not answer the question what is religion?” No, I did not. There have been books written on the subject and to some degree they have all failed to encompass the entirety of the subject. To me, the best concrete definition of religion was given by Paul Tillich when  he said religion was ones “ultimate concern.”[4]  So, what is your ultimate concern? When you answer that question, you have found your religion.

[1]  The Supreme Court has held that non-theistic viewpoints can qualify as religious when they “occupy the same place in [a person’s] life as the belief in a traditional deity holds United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163, 187 (1965).

[2]  Note (Kaufman, James v. McCaughtry, Gary) “Without venturing too far into the realm of the philosophical, we have suggested in the past that when a person sincerely holds beliefs dealing with issues of ‘ultimate concern’ that for her occupy a ‘place parallel to that filled by . . . God in traditionally religious persons,’ those beliefs represent her religion.”

“We have already indicated that atheism may be considered, in this specialized sense, a religion. See Reed v. Great Lakes Cos., 330 F.3d 931, 934 (7th Cir. 2003) (‘If we think of religion as taking a position on divinity, then atheism is indeed a form of religion.’)”

[3] Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961)

[4] Paul Tillich, “What is Religion?” and his “Systematic Theology”.

A Parable for Atheists

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Faith, Religion, Salvation, The Resurrection

A Parable for Atheists

In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery? “The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.” “Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?” The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.” The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”

The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.” The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.” The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?” The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.” Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.” To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”

I saw this on the net and had to pass it on. It speaks of the final transformation in the birth of the sons of God into a new creation.”

God Can Exist Even If Atheism Is True

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Atheism

quodlibetalblog's avatarQuodlibetal Blog

It is becoming increasingly more common for atheists to define atheism, not as the denial of the existence of God, but as a lack of belief in the existence of God. As such, these atheists maintain that atheism is merely the lack of any affirmation of the existence of God.

Atheist B. C. Johnson says, “Theists believe in God, while atheists do not have such a belief.  Many theists insist that it is the responsibility of the atheist to offer evidence justifying his lack of belief in God.  But is the theist’s demand rational?  Must the atheist justify his lack of belief in God?   Or does the burden rest with the theist? [B. C. Johnson, The Atheist

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Chaos or Cosmos? An Argument for the Existence of God

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Science

Chaos or Cosmos?

An Argument for the Existence of God

When we observe cultures around the world, we see what seems to be a continuous declension into disorder when things are left alone and in turn a constant reordering of things by human intelligence. We see this tendency in every culture, a disordering and a reordering. Otherwise any culture would soon slip into chaos. Moreover, when I examine my own personal life it is obvious that if I neglect to organize and reorganize my stuff, it will soon fall into disorder, suffer damage and eventually fall apart. I find the same thing is true in my thought life; it seems that I spend a great deal of time keeping my thought world in order. When a person’s thoughts are out of order, we say they have a mental disorder or that they are crazy. Don’t you find it strange that we must continually keep our thoughts ordered? Have you ever asked yourself the question, “Who is the I, which keeps the thoughts of me in order?” It seems that everything that is ordered must have an intelligence to set it into order and maintain it. The ordering does not just happen; it takes consciousness to set it into order.

However, when we look at the quantum world, it seems at first to be chaotic, but we know that there must be something working there, setting it in order, else it would fly apart and we know that out of the chaos of the quantum world comes the cosmos[1] or orderly world and universe. This raises the question, what kind of force keeps it in order and is that force unintelligent or intelligent? The naturalist tells us that the universe simply fell together and that it maintains itself without any intelligence to order it. But is that really what we see going on in the universe, our world and in ourselves?

The problems for naturalism are huge, but one of the biggest dilemmas is showing how order came out of disorder, without the aid of intelligence. This is like saying that reason came out of non-reason. They point to evolution and natural selection as the cause, but natural selection presupposes something to pick from, something which previously existed, something which has already been ordered. Natural selection never can be causal when it comes to ordering things; it always starts with something and develops it. It must start with something that is already ordered. If naturalists start with non-directed or Darwinian evolution, they are starting with a mindless process and are claiming that an irrational process ordered the universe. If this were the case, how could they trust their own reasoning?[2] Why should you trust the well-developed brain of a monkey? Darwin himself had doubts about mans power to reason correctly. He said in a letter to a friend “with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?”[3]

In all areas of life, we see the law or principle of “order coming out of disorder. This raises the question; where does this law come from and what is the force behind it? There can only be two hypotheses that can answer this question. (1) The hypotheses of the naturalist who says basically it just happened, or the law always existed. In other words, it was all an accident or that’s just the way things are. Some in this school go so far as to say that the order we see in the universe is an illusion and it only appears to be orderly. This is no answer but rather the quibble of a man in a corner with no place to run. To me, all the answers of the naturalist seem to be nothing more than begging the question. (2) Then there is the theistic hypothesis that a cosmic order, i.e. God created and ordered the universe[4] and in turn keeps it ordered by his divine power. This is not to say that the forces he used are beyond our discovery. Sometime in the future it is quite feasible that we will understand these forces. However, discovering the “how” will never do away with the cause as many atheists or naturalists would like to think.

[1] The word derives from the Greek term κόσμος (kosmos), literally meaning “order” or “ornament” and metaphorically “world,” and is antithetical to the concept of chaos.

[2]  In The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis wrote, “if minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees”  (page 230).

[3] Darwin’s quota: Letter to William Graham, Down (July 3, 1881), In the life and letters of Charles Darwin including  an Autobiographical Chapter, edited by Francis Darwin (London: John Murry, Albernarle Street, 1887), Vol. 1, 315-316.

[4] To say that God created does not mean he created everything out of nothing instantly. He could have created things fast or slow. Seeing He is outside of time space-time.

 

A Critique of Pure Reason

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Faith, Science

A Critique of Pure Reason

“Come now, let us reason together, “says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool (Isa 1:18).

Let me begin by saying that from a reasonable point of view or from a Christian world view, there is no such thing as pure reason. It is self-evident; that reason is finite and has been polluted by men’s passions and his own finiteness. It has even been shown by computers that mathematics is not as absolute or as perfect as once imagined. As one man has said, “reason is a sick lady, sick with finiteness and sin.”

The awareness of the corruption of reason is so prevalent that science has had to create what is known as the ‘scientific method’ or ‘law’. This would set some limits and critiques on human reasoning, and the human tendency to abuse her. In this, the existence of the scientific method bears witness to the corruption and limits of reason. However, like all laws, the scientific method has its own limits. For example, if taken too rigid it tends to stifle faith and imagination, which are needed for growth in science or any field of study. Of course, lawless people will ignore it and legalistic people will abuse it and misapply it. Even so it remains the best method of keeping people’s thinking reasonable, at least to a degree in science.

I once told a young man that given enough time, reason would chase its own tail. Being a rationalist his reaction was one of amazement mixed with a little anger. I explained to him that when I give a reason for something, I must subsequently give a reason for the reason and then a reason for that reason; this regression would be infinite until I came to the end of reason itself.

We have one of two choices. To follow the regression of reason to the end of reason and accept the nihilism which follows; or follow reason to a first cause. If you are an atheist and denied that the first cause is intelligible, your problem becomes insurmountable, for you would have an irrational force giving birth to rationality .1.  In this, you will inevitably end up denying reason (if you are brave or should I say foolish enough) or making it the first cause and in that you would have made reason a god. Moreover, reason will find its end when it comes up against itself for how can reason explain itself without arguing in circles or chasing its own tail. For example, “I believe in reason, because that is what reason says to believe” or “I believe in reason because my philosophy professor said I should believe in it, and he learned it from Plato, who learned it from reason.”

Are you saying that you do not believe in reason? No, I am simply saying that reason has it limits and be careful not to ask too much of her. She is not infallible and without a proper foundation to reason from, she is like a man trying to ride a wild horse, she can kill you. She is a gift from God and was given as a tool to help us find our way on our journey. If we corrupt her, we do so at our own peril. If we make her into god, we bring the wrath of God upon ourselves. “You shall not have any other gods before you.” We make reason into god when we turn reason into rationalism. The different between reason and rationalism is that reason knows her limits; rationalism does not and in this, rationalism is unreasonable and even stupid.

1.Some have argued that natural selection was the source of reason. However, selection presumes a choice with the options already existing. Therefore, natural selection cannot explain reason. The only out for the naturalist is to claim mutations as the source reason, i.e. a mistake. The question is, can you trust the mind, which is the product of non-directed random mutation? In other words the mutations were not reasonable, but they created reason. Of course, if you are a theist you believe that the deity directs all things as the first cause.