Tag: new Atheist
The Bottom Line on Atheism
The Bottom Line on Atheism and The Totally Other
For the last few years I have been trying my best to understand the new atheist movement and all of its ranting and raving against God and religion. Then it dawned on me, that I could not understand them because we were not talking about the same things. The god and religion that they are ranting against is not the God I believe in or the religion I practice.
The majority of them talk about a god that I believed in at one time and a religion I was a part of when I was a young man. However, I no longer believe in that god nor do I practice that religion. It took a number of years on my journey to find The Wholly Other; or should I say for him to find me and to lead me out of the forest of religious idols I was lost and hiding in.
Looking back on my journey it is hard to understand why it took so long to be found by the Lord seeing that “We live and move and have are being in him”[1], though he, himself has no being, for He is being[2], i.e. He does not have existence rather he is existence[3]. Therefore, there really is no way to argue for his existence for he does not exist in the way we think of existence. So, what are we arguing for, or against?[4] I will get back to this later.
I found that not only do the new atheists have a different vision of The Totally Other, they (at least the majority) had a different vision of religion, which is as narrow as their vision of the God symbol. They seem to believe that all religion is the same, which in their minds means that all religion is bad. Of course, it does not take much thought to realize that the word religion is a word that points to a concept which is as deep and broad as the ocean. Therefore, when the new atheists start bashing all religion and lumping it all together it makes me wonder how much real thought they have put into their subject. I have found some so allergic to the word religion that they cannot even admit that religion can be good or bad. This strongly points to the level of maturity of so many in that movement. They take a thumb full of the ocean and believe that they have captured the ocean. I am not saying this in malice but I believe that many these people have some deep problems.
You may have noticed that I have tried to avoid using the word God, the reason being that the word has been so vulgarized and distorted that it has lost any value in helping us to understand the mystery that I refer to as The Wholly Other. The distortion of the God symbol is one of the real problems with religion and atheism.
Religion should help us in our journey to The Totally Other. However, instead of helping it often hinders by giving us false ideas of God, these false images in ancient times were called idols. The problem with idols is that there is no image or thing in reality or in the mind of humanity that can picture The Totally Other. All images of God created by humanity whether in mind or in stone, are idols because they are too small and distort the symbol we use for The Totally Other, i.e. God. The false ideas of God in turn him and him I solicit a false responds e.g. the new atheists.
This means that the atheist that has a pure heart may be closer to having a correct view of God than many believers. That is, if he has no image of God in his mind[5]. You see nothing is better than the something if the something is wrong. This is why I call the something that you cannot image or speak about, The Wholly Other, the uncreated one, I Am or maybe nothingness? I do it to keep people from creating a false image of God that is too small.
Of course, the problem is that for both believer and atheist, religion stands as a mediator between them and The Wholly Other. You see, for the atheist to argue against God he must have an image of that God in his mind. Whatever image he has in his mind is simply an idol. This is the only reason why they can form an argument against it, for no argument can be formed against the Wholly Other for he lies beyond all argument. The majority of men will never get beyond the idols of this world whether they claim to be atheist or theist, i.e. their God is too small. I often wonder how humans could become so corrupt that the scripture would tell us that every imagination of their heart was corrupt, I now know; their God was too small, they were idolaters.
The theist often creates a God in their own image and then projects that image into heaven. The atheist then comes along and says that is not God and they are right. It is an idol that can be manipulated and controlled by man. It is the god of the religious man and the atheist. A god that is created for the opium of the people; or as a tool to control the herd. On the other hand, the deist created an aloof impersonal God that is somewhere out there beyond everything, located in some distant heaven, too aloof to be involved with his creation. Of course, any god that can be herded into some small corner of space and time is just too small to be The Totally Other. It also is an idol.
The high theists of the world know The Wholly Other, since they know, that they know little or nothing of being. They confess that they are quite ignorant of The Total Other. They understand, as Isaiah the prophet also understood; “His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts.” To them the word God is a symbol which stands for the limits of their knowledge. This knowledge calls for humility and they are careful not to over speak on the subject of the deity.
You may ask, “Are you saying we can know nothing of being?” No, I am saying that you can only know what He has revealed to you. How does He reveal Himself? One way is through nature and the study of it, that is science. The study of nature has reviewed how great and powerful the Wholly Other is and how different he is from humanity. This knowledge should create awe and wonder in ones spirit, which is true spiritual worship. Unfortunately, many that study nature end up worshipping nature, failing to see that she is an arrow pointing to that which is beyond her. As the seer says when the prophet points at the moon the majority look at his thumb. For many science and religion has become the study of the thumb.
Some may say that this Wholly Other dwells in a cloud of darkness and mystery. Why does he hide Himself? Why does He not reveal Himself? Well, I do not think He is the problem, I think the trouble lays elsewhere. Could it be that He is so awesome and so glorious that in our present form we cannot approach Him without melting into nothingness. This unapproachableness is pointed out in the bible when God tells Moses, “You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live” (Exodus 33:20).
There is the real possibility that the darkness that hides the Wholly Other is the darkness that is in the human heart. Jesus said, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God”. Now by pure in heart I do not think Jesus is talking about not having impure thoughts e.g. lust, greed, etc. but rather having the right focus of one’s own being. He refers to this as the single eye. “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matt 6:22-23).This may be why children find it easy to see God until their parents or their culture (which includes religion) fill their eyes with darkness and forces them to see the world through dark-colored glasses. It is no wonder Jesus said “unless you convert and become like little children you will in no way, enter the kingdom of God.” So, let’s stop blaming God and the devil for our bad eyes and poor sight. For that matter let’s stop blaming our parents and culture and accept responsibility for the condition of our own heart. Our hearts are filled with darkness because we have made God too small and are about the business of building idols.
Then, there is the Bible. What is the Bible? The Bible is a collection of writings from men who were searching for The Totally Other. It is the history of their journey and their interaction with the Uncreated One. It records their successes and their failures. It shows them as groping, sometimes searching as a lost children would search for their parent and slowly, in due course growing into adolescence. The Bible also reminds us that the story is not over and that adulthood is still away off.
What about the contradictions and mistakes in it? Would you not expect to find a few anomalies and problems in any writings trying to explain The Total Other? It is a book of symbols that point to something that is on the border of human knowledge, known yet unknown. The Bible itself is a symbol which claimed to be both human and divine. The divine part is perfect in doing what it was created for, which is the building of souls as they journeyed towards the Totally Other.
However, there is a consistent theme and a trend that run though the whole of Scriptures, which connects all of its parts, though sometimes overshadowed, it is always there. It is the central symbol of Scriptures and God’s people throughout the ages. We could summarize that one central symbol with the word ‘someone’. Someone is coming, someone is here and someone is coming again.
The someone of Scripture is the Promised One, the Anointed one, the Messiah or Christ. The one who would save the people from their enemies. Their greatest enemies being sin and death. The Scriptures gave clues to help people recognize this someone. It said that he would be extraordinary and different from other men. His words would be different and his life would be different, he would be Other like the One who sent him.
One man has said that it takes extraordinary evidence to prove an extraordinary claim.[6] the scriptures say that the someone in himself is the extraordinary evidence that the Total Other has given to man. This someone is the final and perfect symbol that points to The Total Other. He spoke like no other man and lived like no other man. When he spoke things happened, people were healed, water was changed into wine, storms were stilled and the dead were raised. No man has ever had so many people believe in him and at the same time has had so many hate him and despise his teachings. He truly is the extraordinary man, the someone sent from The Totally Other. This totally other man is still calling people “To come follow me”.
[1] Acts 17:28
[2] When I say He has no being it might be better to say he is super being. We live and move and have our being in Him, but we are not Him.
[3] Existence is beyond our comprehension though we apprehended it through our own existence and the existence of things around us.
[4] When humans argue for or against the idea of God they are arguing for or against a human construct that at best can only point to the One that stands behind it. Therefore we spend a great deal of time arguing about the idea of God. Now it is true that some ideas of God surely are better pointers than others but all fall short of the reality. This is true in science as well, for there is no theory of reality that is reality. The map is not the territory.
[5] It is unlikely that most atheists have no image of God in their minds, because if so, they would have nothing to argue against.
[6] Unfortunately, Carl Sagan did not define what extraordinary evidence would look like. For some skeptics, there would never be any evidence of any kind or enough to prove the existence of God.
JORDAN PETERSON VS CAREER ATHEISTS: THE ANTI-THEISTS STRIKE BACK
Jordan Peterson on the New Atheist
More Nonsense of the New Atheists.
More Nonsense of the New Atheists.
The new atheist claim that they have no burden of proof because atheism is not a belief but rather a non-belief. Right, atheists or no one else can or cannot proof a non-belief. Nor can they argue for or against a non-belief. In fact, you cannot even speak about a non-belief other than simply to say I do not believe. However, I know of only a handful of atheist who refuse to speak about the subject of God and they offer arguments against his existence.
If you are arguing for or against something you are not arguing from a non-belief because that is impossible. Moreover, When arguing against something, the argument “I don’t believe” is insufficient. It is an opinion, not an argument. If you argue you must be argue from some other position or ideology not a non-belief. You cannot as atheists do argue against God and then claim atheism as a non-belief. Atheists must argue against God from either materialism or naturalist ideology which are beliefs. In other words, the minute they open their mouths the burden of proof lies on the one trying to proof their un-belief by the means of other beliefs. In essence, they have to borrow believes from other ideologies to speak against the belief in God. If they don’t want any burden of proof they should simply shut their mouths and not form arguments from materialism, scientism and naturalism.
The Value Of Religion and the Problem With Atheism
In the following video Carl Young present some material that should make the new atheist type rethink the virtue of their constant attacks on religion as though their attacks are in somehow virtuous. Young’s points out that a loss of faith and religion is the reason why so many people today are despond. Young also shows that a loss of faith tends to move a culture towards State-ism and the development and growth of a will for power in the human spirit which results in metal disorders and the totalitarian state.
In a past article I pointed out that atheism is a phenomenal which seems to take place at the end of a civilization and is one of the marks of a decaying culture. It is hard to tell whether atheism is causal or the fruit of atheism. However, either way it is not a positive force in the human community.
God,gods,and fairies
The End of Materialism?
The End of Materialism?
Materialism is a philosophy that teaches the only thing which exists is what science call matter or energy. For the materialist there is no spirit, soul or even consciousness. As a philosophy, it represents the foundational world-view of atheism. Materialism and its birth child of atheism will never be the preeminent world view because it leaves humanity empty and without meaning. Any illusions of meaning it might offer are quickly drained by suffering, the brevity of life and him him death. Of course, there are some who have the intellectual ability to build and maintain a huge bulwark of superficial and peripheral arguments to protect their illusions of meaning. The most that can be said about these arguments is that they divert people’s attention away from reality onto their quibbles, which seems to work fairly well for those who have very little expectations of life. This is one of the biggest problems and dangers of atheism; it has the tendency to hollow out people and diminish their expectations or hopes for the future or life in general, which in turn precipitates an existential crisis that often leads to nihilism.
In his classic book “The Denial of Death”, Ernest Becker points out that humanity denies its death by creating illusions. He claims that one of these delusions is religion, but he acknowledges that it’s just one among many. The most typical method of delusion is simply to force the idea of death to the back of your mind. Most humans are so well-practiced at this deception that they do it with very little effort or consciousness.
In fact, it has been my experience that people of faith think and talk about death more than the non-religious. In this, they demonstrate more of a grasp on reality, at least in this one area, greater than the non-religious. The secular man appears to avoid the issue of death altogether, which seems to be a far deeper form of denial, than trusting in an afterlife.
Of course, you must demonstrate that religion is false, not just flawed, before you can totally dismiss it as a delusion, which Becker doesn’t attempt. However, in his conclusion Becker does demonstrate the utilitarianism of religion and affirms that religion does work well in dealing with the fear of death. This dispels the shallow idea of the new atheist type that says religion poisons everything and intrinsically has no value.
The end of materialism can be seen throughout the west and especially in eastern Europe where we have a preview of its demise in Russia where materialism was forced on the population by an atheistic government for decades, at which point it left the populace hollowed out and empty. The Russian model of materialism demonstrates the unworkable and the destructive nature of materialism and the atheism that follows.
I personally feel that the biggest problem with materialism is that no one can live as though they really believed it. If consistent, the materialist must also be a determinist and deny the free will of man and I have yet to see a man live as though he is a slave to the mindless movement of matter. One of my pragmatic friends put it this way; “I’ve never known a man that didn’t look both ways before crossing a street.” You cannot live a consistent life and be a materialist.
Carl Jung Thoughts on Atheism
In following video, Carl Jung presents some material that should make the new atheist type rethink the virtue of their constant attacks on religion as though virtuous. Jung points out that a loss of faith and religion is the reason why so many people today are despondent. Young also shows that a loss of faith tends to move a culture towards State-ism along with the development and growth of a will for power in the human spirit, which results in mental disorders and the totalitarian state.
In a past article I pointed out that atheism is a phenomenon which seems to take place at the end of a civilization and is one of the marks of a decaying culture. It is hard to tell whether atheism is the cause, or the fruit, of a culture in declension. However, either way it is not a positive force in the human community.
An honest unbeliever, Dr. E. Wengraf does not seem to share the enthusiasm of the new atheist in debunking people’s faith, “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 fatalism or criminal mindlessness.”
The Truth on Religion and Violence
The Truth on Religion and Violence
The following is a reply to a young man on social media who was commenting on a post having to do with faith in God. In the comments, there were a number of posts written by the new atheist type criticizing religion for the violence throughout the world. Some went so far as to say that religion is the cause of most wars and most of the violence around the world. Before beginning let me share with the reader that I don’t make any apologies for religion. When religion does something wrong, it deserves the same criticism as the non-religious.
Let me begin by throwing some mud of my own; have not the ideologies of atheistic communism and liberalism been responsible for killing over two hundred million people since the French revolution? That is more than all the other wars recorded in history. If you take out the wars caused by economics and power-hungry kings, how much is left to blame on religion? The belief that religion is the biggest source of war and violence is an atheist myth and propaganda disseminated by them to prejudice people against religion.
The idea of killing people for abstract ideas and ideology are a modern phenomenon with Muslims being the first to practice it on a large-scale in a religious sense. Even here there are many scholars who point out that the Muslim faith more like resembles a fascist political system rather than a religion. However, even if you count it as a religion it is the only major religion which has violence as a part of its core beliefs. By this, I mean it is the only one whose Scriptures (Koran) preach violence. The Jewish faith and its scripture in the Old Testament have stories of violence in them, but the violence was directed toward a certain ancient nation that no longer exists. There is nothing in the Old Testament scripture that would justify Israel today committing violence against another nation or religion except in self-defense. The other major religions teach love and peace.
You asked me why God has made it so hard to find him. I personally don’t think God has made it hard to find him. I think it is Western culture that has made it tough for people to find him. For example, a materialistic mindset has hardened the hearts of people in the west making it hard for them to see God. To experience God it takes time and effort which men in Western culture are no longer willing to do. They expect to find God the way a person would add up two plus two and get four. Unfortunately, experiencing God is more different than that. Finding God comes by way of subtraction, and not addition.
Our spiritual neglect has reached the point that our so-called Christian civilization is no longer Christian. This hasn’t happened through progress in our education or by growth in our spirituality; it’s happened as a result of total neglect of the spiritual. We have simply ignored God. It was not long ago that anyone who was considered an informed person would have a working knowledge about their religion. Today in general, the educated class is totally ignorant of their culture’s religions. Two years ago, I was sitting at a table with four or five people with PhD’s. To my amazement, I found that I could not carry on an intelligent conversation with any of them about religion, philosophy or science. They were specialists who were only well-versed in their particular field. When it came to religion, they were as ignorant as children. Over the years they’re getting to be quite many; I have given numerous books to intellectuals to read on Christianity and to my best recollection not one of them has read the books. It is people like this that criticize religion on Facebook and other social media. They are as ignorant as rocks when it comes to religion and yet they parade themselves as knowledgeable.
You see, the rejection of religion is not a problem of the intellect. It is a problem of the will or appetite. All this intellectual crap that they parade before the world is just a smokescreen to cover up their indifference and bias towards religion. It is all done to save the appearance that they are honest and sincere. They fail to accept that the basic condition of mankind is one of ignorance, sinfulness and hypocrisy. Their arrogance blinds them to God and it justifies God for turning them over to themselves. They have forgotten God and God has turned them over to be the play thing of their own disgusting selves.
Secular people have even rewritten history exaggerating the depravity of the Greeks and Romans only to justify themselves. We are in many ways the most depraved generation of humanity that has ever lived. As the Scriptures say, “there is no one righteous, no not one; there is no one who seeks God.” As a result the end of western civilization is near. Metaphorically, we are living out the story of Lot in Sodom.
Let me recommend a couple of authors; Joseph Peterson is excellent and can be watched on YouTube. C.S. Lewis is still relative and is a good place to start for someone who is seeking God. Start with his book ‘Mere Christianity’. He is English and I find it easier to listen to him on tape or an audio book, than by reading him. You can get his book and more on YouTube.
Lyle Duell 