Tag: Atheist

The Roots of The New Atheist Movement

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism

The Roots of The New Atheist Movement

Where did the new atheist movement originate?  I may not have all the answers to this question but one thing I do know is that you cannot start and organize a movement around a non-belief as some of the new atheists would have people believe. To create a movement, you must have specific beliefs and the emotions that will fuel the movement. The energy of any movement comes from the emotions that drive it. Likewise, every movement is a bearer of particular beliefs and the emotions that are generated by the beliefs as they are put forth by forceful leaders of that movement. So, whatever is driving the new atheist movement is also spreading it. But what is it?

The belief that is driving the new movement is naturalism[1]. Naturalism is a belief system that believes nature is the whole show, and  there is nothing outside of it. Therefore atheists believe that everything must be explained by natural causes. In pure naturalism[2], there is no room for faith in a God or even the belief there might be something more than nature. The truthfulness of naturalism is not a question that science can answer. Therefore it falls into the area of metaphysics and is a question for philosophers and theologians[3].

What about the emotions driving this new movement? This writer believes that much of the new atheist movement has come out of a well of anger and hatred. It reflects the nihilism of the French and Russian Revolution. The movement exists for the main purpose of organizing atheists’ hatred of religion, good or bad. Of course, to the new atheist there is no such thing as good religion; there is only religion and it is bad. One of the marked differences between the new atheists and those of the French and Russian Revolutions comes in understanding the real reason for their anger. During the period that these Revolutions took place, the Catholic and orthodox churches had sided with the rich and were oppressing the poor, i.e., the poor had a reason to be angry. However, the new atheist seems to be made up of white, middle-class, college educated males who are part of the system that suppresses the poor. So, what are they angry about? Could it be that they are angry about a meaningless existence, which they have inherited from their secular education? An education that promised them utopia and that is failing.

Furthermore, it is not beyond belief to see the hand of the Communist Party of America behind a lot of the funding of the new atheist movement. The hard-core socialists still see religion, especially the Christian religion, as their chief enemy and would like to eradicate it around the world. You really need atheists in order to have communism and socialism because you need a people who believe in so-called scientific planning and who have the state as their ultimate concern. That is their benefactor and Savior. Of course, planning by the few, spells non-freedom for the many, for in the end there can only be one planner.

Another reason for this movement and many other deconstructionist movements[4] is rooted deep in our culture, a mega culture in which men have lost their identity and meaning. The old atheist types were not organized, because they had an identity and a strong belief in Western ideology and values. However, in recent decades Western academia has emptied these ideologies and values of any meaning. This has led to an increasing number of people in our culture empty of meaning and purpose. These people are easily attracted to movements, which give their existence meaning and structure. Hollowed out people are easy prey for any ideology and cultic belief. These movements are the devil’s workshop and the people who get involved are, as Lenin called them, “useful idiots” for cult leaders and dictators.

The only practical reason I can see for the new atheist movement is that it has afforded a number of shrewd men the opportunity to get wealthy and gain status in the eyes of their followers, which strangely is one of the things they charge religion with. Of course, when there is money and power to be had, there will always be men willing to spread hate to obtain it, men like Karl Marx and Stalin. Some new atheists will respond that they are not spreading hate or hurting anyone. I will grant you that if you steal a man’s faith that he doesn’t  value or have a need for; you have done little harm or hurt. However, if you destroy a person’s faith that has a weak faith, but needs it, you have done harm. Even some of the new atheists who have told their story of losing their faith, talk about the hurt and the negative emotions they experienced. Like many atheists, the new atheists have hardened their hearts to the pain of others and begin to think of their movement as a bitter pill that will cure people of the disease that is hurting them. That is, faith in God. Like all mass movements of true believers, they believe the end justifies the means.

However, are the new atheists really Angels of light as they claim, delivering a bitter pill or are they really Angels of darkness? I will let one of the old atheist types answer that question. 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 is 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 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.” Need I say more?

[1] Atheism in itself is not a belief. However, the naturalistic and the materialistic philosophy that support it are ideologies and represent worldviews. The minute an atheist starts arguing for his non-belief he has embraced a belief system of naturalism and materialism and the burden of proof shifts to them.

[2] In naturalist world view one could believe in a god, which existed inside nature and had evolved with the universe.

[3]  Werner Heisenberg physicist and Nobel prize winner for physics confirms  this, “If anyone wants to argue from the indubitable fact that the world exists to a cause of this existence, then this assumption does not contradict our scientific knowledge at a single point.  Scientists do not have a single argument or fact with which they would contradict such an assumption, even if it was about a cause which–how could it be otherwise– would evidently have to be sought outside our three-dimensional world” Wermer Heisenberg quoted by Hans Kung Pages 79-80 in “The beginning of All Things: Science and Religion”.

[4] Deconstructionist movements would include the radical gay rights movement, radical feminists, and radical socialism. All of these movements question the traditional moral and family structure of Western culture.

Spaghetti monsters, Unicorns, and God?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism

Spaghetti monsters, Unicorns, and God?

Spaghetti monsters, unicorns, and hobgoblins. If you have ever talked to an atheist I’m sure you’re familiar with some of these fictional creatures that they compare belief in, to a belief in God. They say a belief is just a belief and cannot be proven or disproven unless you have tangible proof. But is this true or is it just some mumble jumble from someone wishing to win an argument?

Atheists say they do not believe in beliefs, but is that true? The truth is they believe in some beliefs and not in others. For example, they cannot see, touch, smell or hear their great, great, great, great grandparents however; they believe that they existed based on the fact that they themselves exist. This is  an inference based on causality; the existence of something that is seen now; can prove that something else (which cannot be seen) did or does exist. The causal inference is based on the law of cause and effect; we can infer some things by experiencing the existence of other things.

If we observe an effect, we know that there must be something equal to or greater than the effect and that cause cannot be just a belief, for beliefs without a corresponding reality can do nothing. The idea of a gun cannot shoot you, nor can an idea of a dog bite you. Yet there is something, so there had to be something to create it, not just an idea or belief. God is not just a belief. Therefore, the law of causality places the belief in God in a completely different order of beliefs than spaghetti monsters and unicorns which have no causality factor. Unless you give spaghetti monsters and unicorns causality power; i.e. the characteristics of God that is, all powerful, all knowing and eternal. Of course, if you did that you would simply be changing the name of God.

Atheists say they don’t believe in beliefs however they themselves believe the most unbelievable things that can be imagined, i.e. they believe that something came from nothing. People who believe that something could come from nothing; could also possibly believe in spaghetti monsters and unicorns. Those who believe in the law of cause and effect cannot believe such nonsense.  Do you know why they believe that something came from nothing? Because one atheistic scientist wrote a book claiming it happened.[1] If this is the kind of faith and gullibility required to be an atheist, then I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist.

Subsequently, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of atheistic scientists and atheists who believe in a multi-verse of 11 dimensions without having one bit of objective evidence to support it. Are these people irrational? What about the atheist that believes in alien life forms? The truth is those atheists believe in all kinds of things that they’re not allergic to. I bet some of them believed in Santa Claus until someone told them that his real name was Saint Nick

I wonder if they believe that in one of those fairytale universes, that there might be flying spaghetti monsters and unicorns. If you can believe in fairytale universes, couldn’t you also believe in the magical creatures that populate those universes?

In reality atheists just want us to accept their opinion (beliefs) as concrete fact, even if they are nonsense. They have no facts; all they have is suppositions and assertions. They fail to see that their belief in materialism and naturalism is no different in kind from other people’s belief in God; the different is their opinions (beliefs) have not fulfilled the law of cause and effect[2]. Therefore, their beliefs in materialism and naturalism are equal to believing in spaghetti monsters and unicorns[3]. Moreover, if they are consistent with their world view (none are) their beliefs are nothing more than a chemical reaction in the brain, which are determined by the law of cause and effect; a principle that they only believe in when it’s convenient and advantageous for their own arguments.

Consider for example, the beliefs of love and reason. You cannot see, touch, hear or taste love. Yet, most normal people and some atheists believe it is real, however, it is a belief that you cannot put under a microscope, so does that make it just an illusion or just a belief?  What about reason itself.  Is it real or just a belief?  There are some atheistic scientists like Sam Harris[4] who do not believe that love, reason or free will, really exist. He believes that they’re just beliefs or allusions. He says that we are just “biochemical puppets”. Yet, reason has taken him and others to the place that they can deny reason.

How do they know they’re right if they can’t trust reason? If atheists believe that we are biochemical puppets or soft machines why do they spend so much time arguing about their beliefs or lack of them? Are they simply programmed to be contentious and contrary? No, the truth is that their ideologies of materialism and naturalism have taken them into fallacious thinking, which has led them into denying the simplest truths of reality. This reminds me of the words of Aristotle. “For as bats’ eyes are to daylight so is our intellectual eye to those truths which are, in their own nature, the most obvious of all.”

 

[1] These atheistic scientists are brilliant men and they know that the law of cause and effect is devastating to their atheism. The idea that something came from nothing was created for the sole reason to skirt the law of cause and effect. Since the time of the big bang theory which basically says that the earth and the universe had a beginning some atheistic scientists have been trying to explain away the law of cause and effect and that the universe had a beginning. Their efforts have led to the nonsense of some claiming that there are multiverse’s and that something can come from nothing.

[2] Materialism and naturalism both have to believe that everything is eternal without begin or end and void of first cause or a prime mover. The only other explanation is that some came out of nothing spontaneously, again no first cause. Both of these ideas seem to contradict the consensus of science that the universe began in what is known as the big bang and deny the law of cause and effect.

[3] Believers have no problem meeting the demands of the law of cause and effect because they start with an uncreated consciousness which is the cause of all things. Spaghetti monsters and unicorns fit in the category of beliefs like, something coming from nothing, which s the spaghetti monster of atheism.

[4] Sam Harris is one of the guru’s of the new atheists’ movement.

Letter to a Young Atheist, a Leap of Faith

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Faith

 Letter to a Young Atheist, a Leap of Faith

 You can doubt everything and everyone. You can even make a scientific argment that we do not exist and everything is an illusion (The Matrix). Sometimes, to believe in God we must first believe in people or at least a person. In some matters, we must trust the word and the experience of others. We all need to remember that our knowledge and experiences are finite; we personally cannot know and experience everything. Because we have not found or experienced something does not mean that, it does not exist; it simply means that I have not experienced it. I personally believe in many things that I have not experienced. I believe in them because I trust that someone else has experienced them and I trust that person’s word or testimony. The big question is whom can we trust and who should we listen to. After surveying a huge number of men living now and throughout history, I believe that Jesus can be trusted. In fact, I have trusted him with my life and eternity. However, it is not just Jesus; the greatest and most loving men I know are followers of Jesus Christ or had great respect for him and his teachings.

The following is a short article I wrote about faith, in the story Jesus is the old man. “In many cases, faith is the most reasonable thing you can embrace.  Let’s say that you were climbing a large mountain and it grew dark.  Now suppose that because of the difficulty of the climb, it would be impossible to retreat off the peak at night.  The problem worsens when you learn from your radio that a storm is coming, which would make the conditions hopeless to survive the night.  As you huddle on the mountain waiting for death, you remember a story told by an old man in the camp the week before.  He had mentioned that there was a hidden outcropping of rocks, which forms a small ledge just below the summit and off the ledge was a small cave that one could go into to escape the weather.  He said it was marked by a small pile of rocks just a short distance below the summit.  However, to reach it you must jump down about ten feet to the outcropping below, which is a large first step.  Now here is the problem.  It is pitch dark, and you have found the marker, but you cannot see the ledge below because it is so dark.  The jump requires a leap of faith-based upon the testimony of the old man.”

In view of the conditions, is the leap reasonable or is more rational to be pessimistic and doubtful, and do nothing?  Would it be logical not to make a choice?  It seems that to both the pessimist (atheist) and the indecisive (agnostic), a leap of faith is not the reasonable thing to do.  Both would have to choose to die on the mountain.  In this case, not to choose is to choose.  It is to choose death over the possibility of life.  What I am saying is that in some circumstances, the reasonable thing to do is to act on faith.  Sometimes reason tells us that it is not time to use reason.  In some cases, moving forward in faith is the most reasonable thing you can do.

Once the disciples of Jesus were listening to the Master, and when they turned around the crowd was walking away murmuring that they just could not believe what the Teacher was saying.  When the Teacher saw the despair on the faces of the disciples, He asked them, “Are you going to leave too?”

Their answer was their leap of faith in the midst of despair.  “Where shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.”

Who Has The Burden of Proof Atheists or believers?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics

The Burden of Proof

I have read a number of articles written by atheists, claiming that the burden of proof about the existence of God lies on the believer. That is believers have the responsibility of  proving the existing of a God. That may be true if the belief in God was a new doctrine that had not been accepted by billions. But, belief in a God is still the predominant world view in the west with atheism being held by a minority.  When a minority says the majority is incorrect, it seems this would shift the burden proof on those making the charge that the majority is wrong. Was the burden of proof in atheistic Russia and China placed on the atheists because unbelief was the acceptable ideology?

When the first Christian missionaries went into the non-Christian world, they seemed to accept that the burden of truth was on them and not on the pagans. Paganism was the established faith and Christians understood that they must prove it false and offer something more to the people. Atheism has failed to do either.

I think the real reason for atheists trying to shift the burden of proof to believers is that they have no evidence or proof for God’s nonexistence. When a man has no evidence against something, he has few options. (1) He can completely ignore the subject and act, as though he is above it and refuse to engage in any debate. (2) He can listen to his opponent and try picking apart his arguments, without ever offering any evidence for his own position. In this, his augments are based and directed at attacking the man’s arguments and the subject is somewhat ignored. (3) He can cleverly build a straw man and change the subject. The later is a favorite of  atheists; they change the debate over the existence of God, to how religion is so bad and corrupt. The constant chatter of atheists about the burden of truth belonging to believers is nothing more than a diversion away from the existence of God debate, to the subject of religion, and this diversion is a clear indication that atheists have no evidence, only quibbles, assertions and suppositions.

I personally believe that faith in God is a positive affirmation, which to a believer is a self-evident truth. Self-evident truths need no evidence, they just are. Does a person have to prove scientifically that the sky is blue? If they did, they could not. The sky being blue is just a part of our human understanding at one level of awareness of reality, i.e. self-evident truth. A person does not have the responsibility or the burden of proof  to justify such beliefs, as though they were in a courtroom and the only evidence which was acceptable, is science. If so, you would need a courtroom to put common sense on trial to determine what constitutes common sense and is not common sense our collective reason? So, in the end reason itself must be put on trial and how would reason defends itself?

Moreover, science itself would have to be put on trial to prove what makes up true science and to prove that it has the ultimate authority to judge. There are many things that science will never have an answer to, like why was the universe created? Why is there something and not nothing? Why some things are the way they are and not some other way. Science alone can never be the final judge of reality. When it claims finality and that its knowledge is absolute, it ceases to be science and becomes something else.

What it comes down to it, if you question what the majority considers to be self-evident truth, you should be prepared to accept the burden of proof.  To expect otherwise is pure folly.

The Amazing New Atheist-Revised With Footnotes

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics

The Amazing New Atheist-Revised With Footnotes

I am truly amazed at people who claim they are atheist and then spent a great deal of their time talking about or even arguing about transcendental concepts like love, justices and truth. Well, not so much about love, but a lot about truth and morality.  If there is no God, are these concept not just empty expressions? Why spent the time and effort to try to convince the theist or for that matter anyone that there is no God?  If there is no God, is not truth just a subjective term that has no real content? All concepts which I call ultimate concepts e.g. love; truth, justice and beauty have their roots in a belief in an absolute or a cosmic order, which reveals these things to humanity.  If you remove the absolute or the ultimate you destroy all the concepts that are built on it. Our founding fathers spoke of these things as self-evident truths[1]. If you reject a cosmic order which reveals truths to mankind you turn truth, justice and beauty into nothing but beliefs and according to atheists beliefs only exist in people’s head and cannot be established in reality. In fact this is one of their favorite arguments against belief in God. It is simple a belief like a belief in a unicorn or spaghetti monster. Is believing in love the same as believing in a unicorn or spaghetti monster.To be consistent with their scientific materialism they would have to say yes. Love is only a biological reaction of chemicals in the brain and has nothing to do with reality or the social construction we humans put on love, i.e. it is an illusion like the belief in God.

 When we are talking about ultimate concepts we are talking about the very foundations of human culture and civilization. To take the idea of a deity or a cosmic order out of the equation would mean make up and necessitate the complete remaking of everything, our language, our culture, values, civilization and in essences the very way we think about everything.  We are talking about the world of Nietzsche, a world, which has gone beyond good and evil, a world of a mad man[2]. When this is understood the question may change from, Is there a God, to can mankind survive as man without the idea of God? By survive, I do not mean maintaining biological life but rather living in a state of freedom and human dignity. I personally think not.  For this reason I believe that atheism is the most dangers and destructive ideology in the world. Of course, many atheists are like Karl Marx who criticized all ideology and at the same time fail to see that he was creating one. The new atheists seem so engrossed in destroying religion and belief in God, that they have neglected to considered what a world would look like without the idea of God?

Some may respond by saying that they feel religion is evil and that they are simply trying to do away with evil and replace it with something better. Well I would have to agree that some religion is evil but not because religion itself is evil but rather because there are evil men in religion.  However, we again run into a similar problem as above.  Without the concept of a God can there be any ground for the concepts of good and evil?  If there is no good and evil how could religion be evil? You might reply, because religion hurts people. My answer is, it has not hurt me, what standard are you using to make that judgment? You might say reason. My question is why is your reason different from billions of other people who believe in God and what makes your reason better than theirs? Moreover, how do you know that it is evil to hurt people? Is it evil when my dentist hurts me to fix a tooth? Was it unreasonable for the Nazis to hit children in the head so they could find a cure for head trauma? They seemed to think it was reasonable. You say, no for those children were humans. Without God is there any different between a lab animal and a human being? If you say, there is a different, on what ground do you justify your opinion?

I have had atheists respond by saying that they can create a new morality based on reason alone, which can replace the morality of religion. Of course, there has been other groups that have believed that, like the Nazis and the Communist. The hypothesis of a human created morality raises some interesting questions? Like who are going to be the Angels that create this new morality; Scientists, philosophers or maybe politicians, all of whom would of necessity have to be atheists in order for the foundation of this new morality to be total free from religion. Even then, would this system of morality be free from religion or just a different type of religion? And who would enforce this new morality, maybe the state? I believe I have seen this kind of morality somewhere. I think this experiment was the very thing tried by the Communist in Russia. They even had a church called the church of scientific atheism.

In view of the above thoughts I would think that if a person really was an atheist they would think long and hard about destroying the ideal of God and the way of thinking that accompanies it. What would a world look like without faith in God? Would the idea of truth and freedom survived in this brave new world?  If history is any commentary they did not do to well in atheistic Russia or China.

Some will say I cannot believe. When people say this they are often saying that their intelligent is keeping them from believing. No, some of the most intelligent people in history have been believers. The truth is that belief in God is as much a matter of the will as the intelligent. So it is not so much a question of your intellect as much as your want too. It is the human ego, which has blinded many to their motives. We all like to think that our beliefs are correct because we all like to think we are smarter than the other guy.

It would be more accurate for many especially those in the educated class to say that they have been conditioned not to believe by a secular education. If honest, the majority of this class would have to say that their minds have been captured by a materialistic liberal world view, which discourages any other way of viewing the world. They are like a man sitting in a room with a multitude of windows that are boarded up except one. Because, they are so occupied with what is going on outside the one window they have forgotten the other ones, which are boarded up. In fact, some are so excited about what they are seeing out of the one window, that they have total ignored the others to point that some actually say they don’t exist or if they do notice them, they quickly ignore them believing they cannot be as important as the one through which they are viewing the world. I challenge these folks to take a look at their conditioning and realize that there are a number of worlds out there other than the materialistic world of science and western Liberalism.

The first step on the road to faith is to ask yourself what is the real reason for you lack of faith[3]. This step many take some hard work but the true God only reveals himself to those that are earnestly seeking Him i.e. those that work at it.  Like many endeavors in life, things may not be equal; it may be harder for some because of their preconditioning to find God. Yet one thing I do know, if you find God too easily you probably have found an idol and not the true God.

[1] The new atheists have little or no knowledge of the concept of natural law and self-evident truth taught in philosophy andtheology. Please note my article “Atheism, Natural Law and Self-evident Truth”. I am not saying that atheist are immoral. I am saying that they don’t know the real reason of why they are moral.

[2] Nietzsche was an atheistic nihilist who preach the death of God. He went mad and died in an insane asylum. He believed that man was evolving into what he called the over man or Superman who through reason alone could live above the old moral codes of religion. His vision was somewhat tainted by two world wars and the moral declension of Western culture. The new atheists believe they are the fulfillment of Nietzsche’s prophecy of the over man. However, they have not reached this state by exceeding the morality of religion, but rather by subverting words and interpreting declension as progress.

[3] Note the article “The making of an Atheist”.

Unbelievable Beliefs

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Faith, Science

Unbelievable Beliefs

Sometimes when I hear people espousing their beliefs, I wonder why anyone would want to believe what some people believe.  The other day I was reading a book in which the author was propounding his atheism and a belief system that reduced everything in life to a chemical reaction in the brain.  To this person, concepts like love, faith, and hope were nothing more than illusions.

After reading a bit of the book, my curiosity (probably one of those illusions) began to cause a number of questions to arise in my biological illusion maker.  My first one was:  Is this guy serious?  The second one was:  Does he live his life on the basis of his beliefs and what does that life look like?  Finally, I came to a question that most interested me:  Why would anyone want to believe such things?

For the life of me, I have not been able to figure out why anyone in his right mind would want to believe such ideas[1].  I guess someone could appeal to truth and claim that science has proven that we are nothing more than biological entities.  However, I believe there are a great number of scientists who would disagree with that proposition.  Besides, if we really are only a bunch of chemicals and our thoughts are nothing more than a chemical reaction, can there be such a thing as truth?  Would not this belief make the concept of truth just one of those empty God words in the final analysis? Just another Illusion?

It seems like to me that if there is no truth, it would be the prudent thing to pick a belief system that would make you happy or at least create an illusion of it.  I once read a book which propounded that the best belief system (illusion) to deal with life and death was Christianity[2].  If you believe you are just a mess of chemicals, you might try Christianity for the pragmatic benefits.  However, if you begin to really believe it, you may find your chemistry being changed.

“I tell you the truth; no one can see the kingdom of God, unless he is born again” (Jesus, the Christ).

[1] This question plagued me to the point that I spent hours thinking about it. I finally put my thoughts down in an article entitled, “The Making of a Fundamentalist Atheist”.

[2]The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker

A Rant Against the New Atheist

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Science

A Rant Against the New Atheist

I have found that many new atheists (not the old type) are not true skeptics[1] and in many ways resemble the true believers they so noisily criticize. The majority seem to be ignorant of the things they criticize and often seem to be just repeating talking points from the Internet. If you refute their arguments, they either ignore your response completely or reciprocate with a whole lot of rhetoric,[2] which is an indicator that they really did not understand their own argument to begin with or that they have ignored your response. In this, they remind of me of many of the religious folks they aggressively attack.

One thing that really irks me is the young, white male, college type, who seems to run on a 100% octane of ego. He knows nothing, or at the very best, little, about religion, theology or science, other than the twisted and shallow information he may get through the net. Even so, he blogs on as though he was an expert on the great philosophical questions of life. Many of these young men are not old enough to be experts on anything. As I reflected on this atheist type, the more this nagging question kept coming to mind: Why would young healthy males spend so much time arguing for their beliefs, if those beliefs had not become a faith (religion)? The word religion is a symbol that stands for one’s ultimate concern, and I believe for many of the new atheists, their ideology of unbelief has become their religion without them even being aware of it.

Many of the new atheist types operate from the presupposition that the only true knowledge comes from science, and yet they know little about it. If they truly understood science, they would know that science is mute and neutral when it comes to the question of God[3]. Where is the scientific argument against the existence of God? The truth is, the atheists have no scientific argument or proof that there is no God. What they have are assumptions and assertions that they arrogate as evidence. The majority need some basic knowledge of epistemology. Then they might have an awareness that large amounts of their knowledge is based on presuppositions that cannot be proven. Of course, the same could be said for the theist. However, astute theists understand the source of their knowledge and therefore, understand that the root of their knowledge is faith. In this acknowledgment, they reflect self-awareness and a basic honesty that many atheists do not have about the foundation of their beliefs.

Here is the source of much of the problematic thinking of the new atheist; he cannot tell the difference between the facts and his opinion or interpretation of the facts. This is a problem that all true believers have, whether religious or nonreligious, and yes, most atheists are true believers and think as true believers do, i.e., one-dimensional and concrete. Atheists are the fundamentalists of the secular minded and therefore, are mirror images of the far right they criticize and hate.

Another thing that irks me is the undercurrent of intellectual snobbery that fills the majority of atheist blogs. Seldom do I read a blog or interact with new atheist types without them inferring someway that they are intellectually superior to believers. Therefore, they write as though the fundamentals and presuppositions of their materialistic worldview have been proven and are now a fact that all educated people believe. The truth is that only a small minority of people believe in materialism and even fewer live it out consistently, which is strange for an ideology that claims to reflect reality (note the facts below) 4 For example, I recently had one writer say he, “could not believe in God because nature was a closed system and was the whole show,” i.e., the only thing that existed. This is like saying there is no God because there is no God and there is no God because I believe there is no God. This is an argument from an unprovable assumption that nature is all there is or that it is the whole show. From a scientific perspective, a scientist can say that we only study nature. However, if they add, because that’s all that exists, they are no longer speaking as scientists but rather as philosophers. It is here that it becomes obvious that what most people consider science has a metaphysical basis that is used to interpret the facts. Sorry, there is no such thing as pure science.

The bottom line is this: I wish the new atheists would stop polluting science by bringing it into the mud puddle of their atheistic apologetics. Science cannot prove or disprove the existence of God Who is outside nature. In fact, at this time science does not even have the knowledge or tools to prove or disprove the existence of God within nature. For all science knows, Zeus may be somewhere out there in the universe. At the very best, scientists can simply say that they have not found Him. Of course, the honest ones would admit that they do not know what they would be looking for if they were looking for him, it or she, which means if they found it they may not recognize it.

Still another thing that irritates me about the new atheists is their constant attacks on organized religion. They seem to be obtuse to the fact that like anything, religion can be good or bad depending on the men who are in it and controlling it. Unfortunately, the more power any human organization has the more prone it is to corruption; this is true for government, religion and even charitable organizations. This is also true for atheism. When government and atheism were mixed in communist Russia and China, it became more corrupt than the religions it was trying to replace. However, the new atheists continue to try to organize themselves, thinking they are going to be the angels of light who save the world from darkness. We have heard that rhetoric before, and it has always led to tyranny.

[1] The majority of the new atheists do not qualify as true skeptics because of their blind faith in science, reason, and human knowledge in general. A true skeptic doubts everything, even their doubts. I have found in my discussions with atheists that I am far more skeptical about things in general than they are.

[2] The rhetoric is usually in the form of rehearsing the tall tale of undirected evolution, which is based on suppositions and assertions only.

[3]  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?:A Searching for a Theory of Everything” by Fay Weldon.

Faith, Science And Human Knowledge

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Faith, Science

Faith, Science And Human Knowledge

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. Heb 11:1-3

I often hear people say that science is based on reason and religion is based on faith. After reflecting on this for while I came to the conclusion that science and religion both have a faith component and a rational one.

First of all, let’s look at the thought process that goes on in science. The first thing we find in the making of any scientific theory is a hunch that something is true. This hunch may come from a number of sources. It may originate in the imagination of the scientist or a scientist may stumble on something by accident, which creates a curiosity. It may come through some tacit awareness, which is beyond explanation. We call this tacit awareness creativity or inspiration. Whatever it is, it is the motivation which moves the scientist to the next step of searching for evidence to  prove his hunch. When he obtains what he thinks is enough evidence; he is moved to publish his belief publicly. It is at this time that his hunch becomes a theory that the Bible calls faith. It is still a hunch, though, he now has somet evidence to support it. However, at this point the evidence is not enough to turn his hunch into fact.

In science, the hunch stage of an idea is called a hypothesis. In layman’s language, a hunch might be called an educated guess based on tacit knowledge, which would necessitate a strong element of faith. At this level of knowledge there may be  little, to no evidence to support the hunch or hypothesis, yet because of the scientists faith they continue on, looking for evidence. If they find enough evidence to support their hunch, then they will publish it for the scientific community to have their hypothesis tested. If the scientific community, through the scientific method, confirms  their belief, then the hypothesis is moved to the status of a theory.

What is a Theory? A theory is “a proposed explanation whose status is still conjecture and subject to experimentation in contrast to a well-established proposition that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact”. One of the problems with the idea of a theory is that it is hard sometimes for many people to determine the difference between a theory, and a fact. The main difference is that a fact has a large degree of certitude and the theory still has a faith element in it, though less than the hypothesis.

¶Over the course of time if a theory maintains its integrity, it will then be referred as a law; e.g. the law of gravity or the law of thermodynamics.  However, some theories may never reach the level of law because of the number of pieces missing in its explanation of the facts, or the failure of scientists to be able to apply the scientific method to the theory. There are a number of theories that the scientific method cannot be applied to, such as Darwinian evolution, which has elements that must be accepted by faith and can never be proven or disproven by empirical evidence. One of these elements is whether or not evolution is directed by a force in or outside of nature, or it is completely undirected and random.

I think it quite self-evident that science, as in all disciplines of human knowledge, has a faith element in it that is very similar to a faith in God. When a person has a real faith in God, which is not inherited from family or culture, you will basically find very similar steps as we saw in science. We see a hunch or hypothesis that there is something more than nature. The hunch may come from pondering one’s thoughts or the incredible sense of awe that comes through observing the wonders of nature, or a tacit revelation which cannot be explained.

¶The next step is for a person to begin to search for God. Now, it is important to note that at this point the hunch is not what the Bible calls faith; it is still only a hunch. However, as the person begins to look for God and the evidence begins to grow, his hunch starts to grow into faith.  His tacit hunch enables him to see more and more of the evidence for God. In this, his hunch becomes the instrument or tool which aids him in his search for God.

¶Sometimes you must believe something in order to see it. For example, scientists believed there were atoms hundreds of years before they could prove their existence. If they rejected everything because they could not see it, they would have never looked for atoms. If they had not believed, they would have never found the atom.

When does a person’s hunch, become faith?  Just like the scientist, a hunch becomes faith when it is confirmed by evidence and when it is publicly published.  In Biblical Christianity this happens when a person confesses Christ publicly by being baptize or immersed into Christ (Gal 3:26, 27)[i]. As the  evidence grows, faith continues to move through the phases of a hypothesis, a theory and then in the certitude of law, which the Bible calls the law of the Spirit of life. This is simpler to the phases of a scientific belief, which is first a hunch, then a theory and then law.

If this is all true why do people believe that science is objective and faith is subjective? First let me point out that the categories of objective and subjective are somewhat artificial. It can be established that all human thought, including science has some subjective elements. The hard and fast difference between science and theology actually came out of the struggle between the philosophers and the natural philosophers. Natural philosophers, whom we now call scientists, wanted to separate themselves from the philosophers who sought the truth by reason alone (in their minds only). The natural philosophers (scientists) believed that the search for truth needed to be proven by observation and experimentation (outside their minds in nature). So, the die was  cast for the different ways of approaching truth. In the course  of time and because of the great successes of science, science won the day and philosophy had to take second place.

But what about theology?  Where does that fit in? Well, on the surface, it appears to be more akin to philosophy than science.  However, Christian theology actually is more akin to science for it has an authority outside of the human mind. That outside authority and source of information is the Scriptures, which the faith community accepts as authoritative.  Furthermore, the faith community has a set of facts that it can observe and use to develop hypotheses and theories. In theology like science, there is a community where these theories can also be published; where they can be questioned and verified. The different between theology and science is the set of facts they are examining. Science looks at the facts of nature and gives a naturalist interpretation of the facts. The theologian looks at scripture and also gives an interpretation. Both science and theology have rules, or laws, to govern their interpretation of the facts.  Science uses the scientific method and theology uses the laws of hermeneutics. Both have laws or principles to limit arbitrary and personal interpretations.

It is self-evident that faith is a key element in the pursuit of all human knowledge. I had a friend tell me he could not even eat his wife’s stew without faith. Not only is faith the beginning of all pursuits of knowledge, it is also the thing that keeps people motivated in their quest for knowledge; once on the road faith turns into hope. It may be the hope of a religious faith or the hope of discovering a new scientific truth, but when analyzed it is simply faith.

[i]  In Gal 3:26, 27 the apostle Paul speaks of faith and baptism as synonymous with one another. In Paul faith is born in an outward action and is more than a subjective thought.

How to Have Faith?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Faith

How to Have Faith?

   I once had a young man tell me that he wished he could believe in God.  As I listened to him, I felt he was looking for a formula or method to create faith. Well, I wish I had a method, but I do not believe there is any scheme for creating faith. If you know of one please let me know.  Faith is a mystery. However, it is not a total mystery.

One thing I do know is that hope is the beginning of faith and without it, faith does not stand a chance. In essence, you must want to believe that there is a God along with all of the implications that come with such a faith, i.e. you must have a will to believe.

If I am right the place to begin for the atheist, or for that matter anyone who is seeking faith, would be to ask oneself “do I really hope that there is a God?” Now, if ones hope is real, it would seem that it would lead to an earnest and diligent search for the true God.  Anything less than this kind of search will never lead to the true God. One of the spiritual laws of the universe is that a half-hearted search will never find the real God.  Unfortunately, this means that most religious folks do not know the true God, for the majority has never searched out God with their whole heart.  The majority have inherited faith from their family or their culture. Now, in itself there is nothing wrong with inheriting your faith. One of the purposes of family is to pass along to the next generation the wisdom of their elders. However, second hand faith may not be good enough to whether the storms of life.

As said above, the true God only reveals himself to those that seek him intensely. A vital part of this seeking is an openness to obey him no matter what the cost. Many who seek him do not find him because they have something in their heart, or in their life that they are not willing to give up. They are like the very religious young man who asked Jesus about God; he was  content until he was told that he had to give up his wealth and follow Jesus. When Jesus told this man that he must sell everything and follow him, Jesus was simply trying to raise the young man’s self-awareness and help him to see the real problem with his faith; he loved his riches more than God.

I believe the truth is that the majority of people actually hope there is no God, at least, not the God, which Jesus spoke about.  However, to justify their ineptness toward this force, they reduce it to something that they can manage, like the God of the Deist or a God that resembles Santa Claus, thus we have religion. In this, religion is unbelief in the form of belief.  Others simply ignore this force and suppress their awareness of it into the recesses of their minds. There it remains until they are forced to think about it because of some unpleasant experience like sickness, death or by the prodding of some babbling seer, which they quickly dismiss as a fanatic.

Then there are the so-called atheists, who are somewhat more honest than the above. These folks cannot play the game of the religious man or the indifferent man; they must justify their rebellion and unbelief by denying the very existence of God. They then can claim reason itself, for their unbelief. Some actually believe that reason alone forces them not to believe in God. In this clever move, they deny any personal responsibility for their unbelief, which is a new twist to the “devil made me do it” excuse. Right, it is no longer the devil; it is now reason. However, in reality, they are like the others, in that they seldom understand the real reason for their indifference and in their case, unbelief. They fail to see that their reason is the handmaiden of their will and it is their will, which hinders faith. Every counselor who works with addicts knows that the will controls reason. It is a myth of the Enlightenment that men can know something by reason alone. I guess they could if they wanted to but the truth is they don’t want to and they do not want to know, that they do not want to know. In this, we see the truth of what the seer says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

All of this would suggest that honesty along with hope would be a key ingredient in one’s search for God, not so much honesty about the existence of God, but honest about oneself and your own search and journey. In this, you must face your authentic self before you can face the true God. The real question is not, does God exist, but rather the question is; why do you not want to do God’s will?

It would seem that the way to faith is to start hoping that there is a God and start living as if there is one. Stop arguing with God and start listening. Ask God to change your will, not your mind, for it not your mind that is hindering faith. The reason you cannot wrap your head around God is because He is either too big or your head is too small.  If it were purely a mind problem, there would be no intelligent believers and there would be no smart addicts.  Therefore, the beginning place of faith is not to question God, but to question yourself. God is not on trial nor is his existence.  No, it is you who is on trial and the question is, “will you find your authentic self”? This is not an easy task for creatures who are prone to believe lies and illusions. Good luck on your journey, it is not easy or comfortable.

 

What, Why or How? On the Limits of Science

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Science

What, Why or How?

On the Limits of Science

 It seems that when you ask a naturalist a ‘what’ or ‘why’ question they usually respond  with a ‘how’ answer in return. Then they assume that they have answered your question.  An example of this practice is to propose the question; what is reason and why is there a concept we call reason? Now, the truth is that the naturalist cannot answer either of these questions. Therefore, they will respond with a lengthy and complex argument of how reason evolved through a process of natural selection[1], which they seem to think is a satisfactory answer.

Evolution in the form of a narrative seems to be the catchall explanation for all of the ‘what’ and ‘why’ questions. This seems to have replaced the ‘God of the gaps’ explanation used by some theist’s. In other words, if you cannot explain the ‘what’ or ‘why’ of something, the answer will be spun as an evolutionary tale; that will be the total explanation and nothing more needs to be said. Spin the tail and the gaps are filled.

However,  is answering any of the ‘what’ and ‘why’ questions with a ‘how’ explanation (or a narrative of its evolution), really an answer? Or is it simply begging the question by explaining how a thing developed. The truth is that evolution created nothing and therefore, it cannot ultimately explain the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of anything.

Some might  appeal to natural selection, however, for natural selection to work, something had to exist to be selected from. You say random mutations created the selections. But do mutations really create anything or do they simply change things. Did not something have to exist first, in order to be changed?  So we have entered the black hole of infinite regression where life came from nonlife and nonlife came from nothing. The theories of natural selection and random mutations is an attempt to answer a how question of how living things change and again it has nothing to do with the ‘what’ and ‘why’ questions.

This way of skirting or begging the questions of what and why is even true of some of the most basic questions of existence. What is man and why does he exist?  The Naturalist will answer invariably by answering the question with a narrative of the evolution of man, which is equal to changing the question from a ‘what’ and ‘why’ question to a ‘how’ question. By Using this method, everything is explained by the process of evolution. The story in itself becomes the evidence.  The truth is that science cannot give us a sufficient answer as to ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of man[2]. They can tell us how our bodies are formed and even what they are formed out of, but this does not answer the questions of what is man or why does he exist. The only way for the naturalist to answer these questions with science is to embrace total reductionism, which of course naturalists and atheists must do to stay consistent with their belief that there is nothing but matter.  Everything must be reduced to lifeless unconscious matter. The only alternative is for the naturalist is to quit asking the why and what question altogether, which is exactly what many of them have done.

The truth is that when it comes to ontological questions[3] science is mute and cannot speak. If its members speak, they must speak from another discipline than science.  Ontological questions are questions of philosophy and religion.

[1] If man needs reason to survive, how did he survive long enough to acquire it?

[2] Science is the study of nature as a closed system. It does not have the tools or language to study things outside of nature.     Therefore, it cannot ultimately answer the why questions without morphing into philosophy.

[3] Ontological questions are questions that deal with the origin and meaning of existence, the study of which belong to the discipline of metaphysics, which is made up of philosophers and theologians.