Category: Atheism

The Myths of Atheism

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism

The Myths of Atheism

Myth #1

Atheists are smarter than believers.  This is a common myth among many non-intellectual atheists and even the sentiment of some of their more intelligent expounder’s.  If this myth is true, we would expect to find those on the higher IQ level to be unbelievers.  However, that is not what we find.  In fact, we find somewhat of the opposite for example; Christopher Langan who many believe to be the smartest man on earth has an IQ of close to 200 and he is a theist.  The philosopher William James who some believe to be the smartest man that ever lived with an IQ of 270 or above, he also was a believer.  Albert Einstein did not believe in a personal God but did believe in a higher power[i].  Then there is Copernicus, Newton and Galileo, Shakespeare and Goethe.  All of these men were estimated to have had very high IQ’s and all were also believers.  The founding fathers of our country were all brilliant men with high IQs and all were either Christians or Deist.  My personal belief is that IQ has little or nothing to do with belief or non-belief in God.  It most likely includes a number of components ranging from genetics to environment.

Myth #2

Most scientists are unbelievers.  A survey of scientists who are members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science was conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press in May and June of 2009 and they found finds that members of this group are, on the whole, much less religious than the general public.1  Indeed, the survey shows that scientists are roughly half as likely as the general public to believe in God or in a higher power. 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 in a higher power, while the poll of the public finds that only 4% of Americans share this view.  This poll was taken in 2007 and may not reflect present figures.

Myth #3

Science disproves religion.  “Science doesn’t draw conclusions about supernatural explanations Do gods exist? Do supernatural entities intervene in human affairs? These questions may be important, but science won’t help you answer them. Questions that deal with supernatural explanations are, by definition, beyond the realm of nature — and hence, also beyond the realm of what can be studied by science.”  Science Dept, University of California at Berkeley

“Science describes and explains the natural world: it does not prove or disprove beliefs about the supernatural.”  American Anthropological Association

“No aspect of science can address supernatural questions…supernatural entities by definition operate outside of natural laws and so [truly] cannot be investigated using methods of experimentation.”  American Association for the Advancement of Science

“Science is not based on faith, nor does it preclude faith.”  American Astronomical Society”

“Theologians may also be interested in the physical world, but in addition they usually believe in a metaphysical or supernatural realm inhabited by souls, spirits, angels, or gods, and this heaven or nirvana is often believed to be the future resting place of all believers after death. Such supernatural constructions are beyond the scope of science.”  National Academy of Sciences

The National Science Teachers Association adds, “Science is precluded from making statements about supernatural forces because these are outside its provenance.”

“Explanations employing no naturalistic or supernatural events, whether or not explicit reference is made to a supernatural being, are outside the realm of science …. all of science, is necessarily silent on religion and neither refutes nor supports the existence of a deity or deities.”  National Association of Biology Teachers.

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.”

When a scientist speaks about religion he is not speaking as a scientist.  He is speaking as a philosopher or a theologian.  For example, when you ask a scientist if there something outside of the natural order?  He may say no, but his answer is not based on science but on presuppositions taken from philosophy.

[i] Einstein faith question has been settled by Max Jammer’s book on “Einstein and Religion, Physics and Theology.”

Do atheists have the moral high ground?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Morality & Ethics

Do atheists have the moral high ground?

Watch the video at the end of the article

“The rationalists’ and atheists’ claim to the moral high ground is based on ignorance of history.  The hallmarks of atheistic regimes were persecution, oppression, brutality, cruelty and mass killings. Atheistic regimes from the start embarked on violence and have been amongst the most evil and bloodthirsty in all human history. The motivation of many of the killings was a hatred of religion.”[1]  John Gray whom himself is not a believe adds, “Yet the mass murders of the twentieth century were not perpetrated by some latter-day version of the Spanish Inquisition.  They were carried out by atheist regimes in the service of Enlightenment ideals of progress.  Stalin and Mao were not believers in original sin.  Even Hitler, who despised Enlightenment values of equality and freedom, shared the Enlightenment faith that a new world could be created by human will.  Each of these tyrants imagined that the human condition could be transformed through the use of science.”[2]  May I add a belief shared by many of the new atheists?

The atheistic response is usually along the line of denying that the atheism was not the true source of the violence.  They attempt to blame the political ideology at the time for the violence.  However, the political ideology of communism and  Marxist economic systems are both grounded in atheism and the belief in the totalitarian statism which seems to go with atheism.

An honest person can already see in the seeds of the new atheist movement the belligerent nature toward believers and the hate of religion that can be a source of violence of the worst kind.  You can see this vindictiveness in many of their blogs, if not in the body of the blog, then in the comments where believers are ridiculed and called about every name in the book.  Richard Dawkins the high priest of the new atheist movement, at a recent Reason Rally, told the crowd to ridicule and mock believers at every opportunity.  What he meant was for his Brown Shirt atheists to find some ill versed Christian and make them look stupid.  Of course, a well versed Christian could do the same to an ill versed atheist.

The New Atheists are no different from their forerunners, they hate religion and religion’s people. They mock Christians for saying that you should love the sinner but hate the sin, exclaiming that it’s impossible.  However, they claim to hate religion, yet love people of faith.  Just more nonsense.

[1] “The Liberal Delusion” by John Marsh.

[2] “Heresies: Against Progress And Other Illusions” By John Gray. Kindle location 553.

 

 

The Atheist Delusion

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism

The Atheist Delusion

The greatest delusion embraced by the atheist is not that there’s no God but rather that they are free from delusions. The belief that you are free of all illusions is the most dangerous delusion of all for it opens the floodgates to the acceptance of unreality in a multitude of forms.

It is evident that the atheist has not experienced God, but how in the world can he deny that others have not experienced God. Seeing that experiencing God is a personal matter that cannot be judged empirically by an outsiders. You cannot get into another man’s mind or body to know how or what he is or has experienced. Yet this is the very thing that an atheist must claim.

We know that human beings experience pain to various degrees and that it is impossible for one to experience the other man’s pain exactly and to the same degree. The same thing is true of our experience of God. People experience God in different ways and to different degrees. Therefore, the atheist claim that there is no God is totally unreasonable and contrary to the experiences of billions of people. The only real claim that they can reasonably make is that they have not experienced God personally. Yet, in their arrogance they go one step further and say that no one has experienced God and if they claim that they then are delusional.

As pointed out the most that the atheist can truly claim is that they have not experienced God. However, even that might be saying too much for they could have experienced God and not recognized it as a God experience. This would be a very likely theorem because of their preconceived biases which could keep them from recognizing a God experience if they had one. The most that an atheist can say is that they have not knowingly experienced God. Of course, many atheist will say that if they have not experienced God because he does not exist or that God in some way is obligated to reveal himself in such a way that his existence would be undeniable. They seldom blame themselves for accepting an ideology or worldview that will not allow them to experience the divine.  It could be that they’re like a blind man who denies the existence of color because he cannot see it or has not experienced it and then blame color itself for their inability to see it.

In the end, the old saying that a man with an argument will never convince the man with an experience is true. The only people who atheists will move to their unbelief is those who have never experienced God and are already in a sense in the atheist or agnostic camp. Atheist will never be able to argue that God does not exist with a man who has experienced God. That would be like telling a man who was rescued from the sea by a person in a lifeboat, that the person did not exist.

Humans come to know things in many ways. We learn through our mind but we also learn through our other senses. In actuality, our minds process the information that we get through our other senses. However, if some sense has been crippled or damaged we may become dead to that sense and no longer be able to experience the world through it. It could be that some knowledge requires more than one sense and channel. I think this is the case with the knowledge of God. The knowledge of God requires the whole man. If any part of the man has been damaged or disabled it becomes increasingly hard for that man to experience God in any meaningful way.

Therefore talking to a hardened atheist is like talking to a handicap man who doesn’t know that he’s handicapped. I once talked to a young atheist who I knew growing up who had been raised in a very dysfunctional family where there was a great deal of brokenness. His parents claimed to be Christians and for whatever reason they could not work through their dysfunction. This environment caused him to become bitter towards his father and also somewhat towards his mother. This bitterness not only hardened him against having a relationship with his father but it also hardened him against having faith in God. Being an intelligent person he had to come up with a rational explanation for his lack of faith. His self justifying mechanism is the source of his unbelief and not his intellect. In many cases reason is the water boy for the will and imagination, and often hinders people from experiencing God, for people use it to justify themselves.

For those seek an experience with God I would suggest a brutal self-examination of one’s life. This kind of self-examination if done truly will open one’s spirit to God. No haughty or prideful man will ever come in to the presence of God. One must make themselves small and God big before having any kind of meaningful experience with him. In my own personal experience with God I have found it easier to connect with him in a quiet place. My quiet place is the mountains or wilderness. But even if it’s at home in your office or in your bedroom it’s got to be quiet. Noise turns off or weakens our senses. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God”.  By pure in heart he meant those that are single-minded. They are like Jacob who wrestled with an angel and refused to give up because he was totally committed to receiving the promise of God. If you seek God hard enough you will find him or should I say He will find you. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matt 7:7-8)

 

 

The New Atheist and the Social Justice Movement

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Postmodernism

The New Atheist and the Social Justice Movement

New Atheists. “These are attitudes masquerading as ideas, emotional commitments disguised as intellectual honesty”.[1]

What is the source of the new atheist movement?  The new atheist movement is an offshoot of the social justice movement which came to the forefront in America after 911.  However, its roots can be traced back to a number of intellectual and political influences.  These influences include social Marxism, postmodernism and critical theory all of which were planted in the United States after World War II by European scholars who migrated here after the war.  A number of movements can be traced to these roots, e.g. the social justice movement, the feminist movement, the gay rights movement and the libertarian[2] movement and yes, the new atheist movement, all of which can be traced to the Frankfurt school in Germany and to what is now called social Marxism.  The thing that all these movements have in common is their hatred of power and authority or should I say someone else’s power and authority.[3]

Postmodernism and critical thinking teach that all power structures are basically oppressive and therefore, need to be destroyed.  These power structures include the family, religion, especially Christianity and government.  Of course, they fail to see that the university itself is a power source linking them to the very thing they criticize.  They also fail to consider that these power structures they are so critical of were part of the systems which allowed and fostered the development of civilization and without these structures, it is doubtful that humankind would have advanced as far as it has.  The parasitical college professors who came up with postmodernism and critical thinking, would not have had the leisure time to develop their theories if it was not for the power structures that they are now condemning.

Postmodernism and modernism both share two basic errors that center in their view of human nature.  One is that human nature is a black slate and the second is that man is basically good.  The blank slate people believe that there is no basic operating system in the human mind.  Therefore, humans are totally controlled by their environment.  The keyword is totally.  In other words, according to this view humanity has no nature.  Everything is socially created by one’s culture and the institutions of that culture[4].  Free will is an allusion and all institutions are created to maintain the power of the ruling class.  Therefore, all institutions are oppressive.

Of course, the glaring question is, how can you have an inherently good nature if you don’t have an operating system that directs your nature into natural goodness?

At this point, we begin to see a divide between modernism and postmodernism.  For the postmodern, man is a blank slate and everything is socially created, if so, then the concept of good and evil can only be a social construct for the benefit of the oppressors.  Of course, religion and Government are the institutions used to foster this construct using the tools of morality and law.  The logic of this is that government and religion being forms of oppression must be destroyed.  This clearly seems to be the case with Carl Marx.  Marx believed that when communism reached its completion or perfection, there would be no need for religion or government to control the people.  Of course, all of this was based on the dubious doctrine of progressive evolution and Nietzsche’s idea that the will to power is the chief motivating force in human beings.  The truth is that human beings are motivated by numerous attitudes and emotions.

It is here that we begin to see the beginning of the social justice movement that in turn gave birth to the new atheist movement.  Both movements are grounded in Marxism and its attacks on religion.  The early Marxists attempt to use the state to destroy religion failed.  So, the new Marxists are attempting to use atheism to create the brave new world of Marxism.  If the new atheists destroy religion, there is no place for atheism to go other than complete communism.  It was atheism that gave rise to Marxism and communism, not the other way around.

One of the seeds of postmodernism is the false belief of modernism, which is that man is basically good and if left alone will evolve into an angelic being,  who can live by pure reason.  In this rational, you can hear the whisper of postmodernism and the noble savage who symbolizes humanity’s innate goodness, which is one of the false narratives and myths of modernism.

Most thoughtful people have come to realize that western civilization is under attack from many sides.  Its institutions are being assaulted by feminists, socialists, Marxists, globalists, the new atheist movement and the Libertarian movement.  All of these leftist movements have a number of things in common.  They are deconstructionists that want to destroy what now exists so it can be replaced with something new.  In this, they want to destroy or change the institution of family, religion and government.  In contrast, you have the conservative movement that believes that these institutions are a part of the natural order and should be maintained.  The conservative movement does not believe these institutions are perfect, and if possible, they should be improved.  However, they do not believe that they can be perfected because human nature at its base level cannot perfect anything.

The bottom line is that the new atheist movement is more of a social movement that has created attitudes and emotions that are the driving force of the movement.  This, of course, is the very opposite of what the new atheists believe about themselves.  They fancy themselves as intellectual and progressive in their social views when, in reality, they are nothing more than the products of cultural and intellectual brainwashing.  They have deified the attitude and emotions of rebellion similar to that of the French Revolution.  They are angry at the human condition because it is a threat to their comfort, ease and pleasure.  They are the adult version of the spoiled child and they feel like victims of a meaningless life.

[1] Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies Hart, David Bentley

[2] The libertarian movement has many different degrees. Here I am talking about the far left that hides in their ranks.

[3] Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault by Stephen Hicks

[4] This includes gender.

Who made God?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, God

 

Who made God?

 When you hear the question, “who made God?” you should notice the first word is always who never what. The Who of the question infers the idea of cause-and-effect. That is that everything must have come from something equal or greater than itself.  We intuitively understand that we are conscious and personal beings, so we infer automatically that if something created us; it must be conscious and personal in the sense of having a personality.

Of course, the answer also depends on one’s definition of God. If you believe that God is simply an idea in someone’s mind, the answer is the person that believes in him made him up. However, if you believe that  God is an infinite being outside of time and space without beginning or end, the answer would be totally different. It would be something like God is the uncreated one without beginning or end and the first cause of all things. So, a reasonable answer to the question who made God? would be, what God are we talking about? This question the atheist cannot answer because they don’t believe in God. To ask a person that believes in an infinite creator the question “who made God?” would be nonsense, because the answer is within  the question and the definition of God.

However, when an atheist asks the question “who made God?” this is a proof that they have an idea or image of God in their minds. You must have an image of something before you can say you don’t believe in it. So, the proper question to the atheist is what god are you talking about? They in turn might say the Christian God or the Jewish god. Now here’s the problem with the majority of atheists whom I’ve talk to, they do not have an inkling of theological knowledge, which means that the God they have an image of is a  figment of their imagination to begin with, i.e. a straw man. In most cases, an intelligent  believer would not believe in the image of the God that most atheist hold in their minds. For the Christian any image of God that an atheist has in their minds is an idol and Christians known that idols do not existence. ” Dear children, keep yourselves from idols”(1 John 5:21).