Tag: Religion
The Good News for America
The Good News for America
In a society that is all about comfort, ease, pleasure and feeling good, how can we call a person to suffer and die to themselves and live for others? In other words, what is good about the good news of Christ?
What is the good news of Christ? Is it good health and worldly blessing or is it something different? The gospel is that Christ died for our sins, and that God raised him from the dead, nothing more and nothing less. Why are the death and resurrection of Christ the good news? Well, it is only good news if you recognize that mans greatest enemies are sin and death. If you recognize this, then the gospel of Jesus Christ is the best news in all the world. Let’s take a look at the trouble that the apostle Paul called the law of sin and death.
The literal meaning of sin is, to miss the mark. It was the term in which the spotter, who stood next to the target, would yell back to the archers when an arrow missed the bulls-eye. You sinned; you missed the mark you were aiming at. When the New Testament says you have sinned it is saying that you have missed the mark that God has set for you as a human being created in His likeness. You have missed what it means to be truly human.
What is his likeness? Now the likeness of God is a deep subject, but we can easily grasp some things about it. The Bible tells us that God is love and from this, we can gather when we were created in his image that we were created for love. That is we were created to have a love relationship with God and reflect that image to all around us.
But, how can this be if God is a spirit? How can we love a spirit? That is a tough question for a three dimensional being to comprehend. Even so, one thing I do know is that we can reflect God by loving those that have been created in his image. Human beings are living symbols of the living God. In fact, they are the only thing in all of creation that image’s God. So, to love or hug a person is to hug God. To smile at another human is to smile at God. To do good to another human is to do it to and for God (Matt.25:30-40). It is here we can also see what sin really is. It is doing something to hurt a fellow human created in God’s image or neglecting to do something one ought to do to help a fellow human. It is breaking or being unfaithful to the love relationship we have or should have with our fellow-man. When you act in an unloving way toward your brother, you have sinned. If you break faith with the image of God, you have sinned against God.
Now the next question is what is love? We have seen that God is love, and this is where Jesus comes in. Jesus came here to reveal the father (John 17). He came to teach us what true love looks like. In making known the father he made known what is true love. He did it by living and dying a sacrificial life for others. In this, he lived for God and fulfilled the great commandment “to love God with your whole heart, soul and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” This work of revealing the Father as sacrificial love reached its peak and fulfillment in his death on the cross. As he died, he said, “it is finished.” In this act of dying for others Jesus fulfilled the law of love and opened a new living way of approaching God, not through religion but through love, not just any kind of love but through the kind of love demonstrated by Jesus.
The atonement is God demonstrating his sacrificial love in Christ for his creation. How can the death of Christ be reduced to a payment of a debt, to a broken law? The atonement must be grounded in God’s love, not the law. Love freely given, never demands its pound of flesh as the law does. “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.” In the death of Christ, God deals with the sin problem by covering it with his love; while at the same time demonstrating his love to man by covering over with his love their anger and hatred. “Father forgive them, for they know not, what they do.” In this act of love, he revealed his love, by forgiving freely, mans hatred and anger. (Colossians 1: 21, 22)
In the death of Christ, we also see a revelation or a revealing of man’s nature. Man is angry and filled with hate and a false sense of justice and righteousness. Man needs his pound of flesh. The law is broken, someone must pay; someone must be punished for the law is their God. I find it peculiar that many in the Christian movement have embraced a theory of the atonement which image’s God in exactly the same way as sinful man, strange indeed.
This work of revealing the Father is to be continued by his body, the church. This revealing of the father begins in the church by believers loving one another, just as Christ has loved them. In loving one another as Christ has loved them, they show the world the Father even as Christ showed them the Father. When the church fails to do this, it is missing the mark and is living in sin. When it is living in sin it is living under sin and is walking in the flesh and cannot be pleasing to God. It is a terrible sin to hurt or hinder the work of the church from revealing the Father. This happens whenever a member of the church acts in an unloving manner toward a brother or for that matter, another human being.
We are not alone in this work of revealing the Father to the world. God has put his Spirit in the body of Christ and in each of its members, to help them in this great work of revealing the true God. In truth, this work is the work of God and when he calls us, He calls us to join him in that work, and if we accept that call, we become his fellow workers.
We can gather from all this that we are most human and most godly when we are loving our brothers and honoring the love relationship with God and man. When we fail to do this, we sin. We miss the mark of loving one another, the very reason for which God has created us.
The gospel of Christ is the message that God has forgiven our unloving acts and has taken them on Himself. Furthermore, it tells us if we put our faith in Christ, he will put his divine life in our hearts to help us to become like the Father. When a person believes, they begin to find themselves being transformed into the image of God as their love for God and man grows.
However, the gospel could not be the good news of God unless it addresses the problem of death. In actuality, most people think of death as a problem at the end of one’s life, but when we take a closer look, it is something that affects all of life. It is as the Bible said, the king of terrors that cast a shadowing doom over all of life. It is the shadow of the abyss that robs life of all meaning. In the classic book, the “Denial of Death,” Ernest Becker shows how the fear of death operating on a subconscious level influences and actually controls a lot of our thinking and actions. In view of this, one would have to conclude that to bring one’s life under control you would have to have something to deal with death on a conscious and subconscious level. Well, God gave us this when He raised Jesus from the dead. The message of the resurrection is the best news that mankind has ever heard. It frees us from the fear of death and empowers us to live a life of freedom and meaning.
Of course, we did not need Mr. Becker’s book to tell us about the power of death, for scriptures long go echoed the same thought. The writer of the book of Hebrews says, ” Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death, he might destroy him who holds the power of death-that is, the devil and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death (Heb. 2:14-16). The apostle Paul actually says that death is the catalyst for mans sinning. “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15:56-57). Note that Paul does not say death is the sting of sin but rather that sin is the sting of death. Though Paul does not tell us how death causes us to sin it is plain that he is pointing to the fear of death as the source of much of our sinning. However, he also shares with us the good news that Christ has overcome death in his resurrection. In the resurrection, God has placed us with Christ above sin and death giving us a victory over them in Christ (Eph.2:6). Now, that is good news. LD
The Death of Religious Freedom?
The Death of Religious Freedom?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
It is interesting to note that the very first amendment to the Constitution was the amendment guaranteeing religious freedom to all. We are not sure as to why it was the first amendment, but I suspect that it had to do with the idea that the most basic of rights is for a human being to have the right to think what they want about anything and especially their standing with God. It’s obvious that the founding fathers valued religious freedom and thought religion to be important for the general welfare of the nation. I’m not sure the same could be said about their heirs. It seems that Americans take their religion and religious freedom for granted. But should they? I think not, for being free to exercise your religious beliefs is rare in most parts of the world and the majority of people have little rights to exercise their faith as they desire.
In fact, the only places that have true religious freedom are Europe, the United States, and few other countries that have been influenced by Christianity and classic liberalism[1] and have not yet been brought under the spell of atheistic communism. I say this to point out that religious freedom is rare and should be protected from all that would destroy it. It is quite obvious that the common denominator among the nations where people are persecuted for their religious faith and speaking out for freedom are where either the majority is Muslim or the ruling oligarchy is atheist. There is every reason to believe that when the numbers of Muslims or atheists[2] reach a large enough number in any country, the persecution of other religions and beliefs will start begin. In Europe where Muslims number 10% to 20% of the population, people are already being intimidated by threats of death if they speak out against Islam. There’s no reason to think it won’t happen in our future. In fact, at their present birth rate Muslims will be one of the largest political groups in the country by 2050. Some estimate the number as high as 40 to 50 million.
In atheistic countries in the pass, it has been estimated that as few as 10% were true atheists and party loyalists. Yet, they were able to suppress religious freedom and almost every other ideology that opposed them. At the present rate of growth the new atheist, a group of atheists who reflect many of the characteristics of the communistic atheist[3] of Russia and China, could easily be 10% of the US population in a short time.
With these forces of atheism and Islam growing in the world, I believe any thoughtful person who values freedom of thought and religion would be somewhat alarmed by the growth of these two ideologies. The only way to counteract this ideology is to make a positive faith affirmation.
[1] I use the expression classic liberalism because new liberal or progressives are somewhat antagonistic toward religion.
[2] There are two types of atheist, the old type which views religion as neutral or a necessary evil and are sometimes even supportive of religion when it is doing good. Then there is the new atheist who despises religion and believes it to be the greatest evil under heaven with them having the obligation to destroy it.
[3] The new atheists are deconstructionist of the most fundamental kind. Like the atheists of the French revolution and the Russian Revolution, they are filled with anger and hatred which flows from their nihilism. Their nihilism has its roots in the failed utopian vision of the ideology. They have the tendency to blame God and religion for the evil in the world and believe that their ideology will usher in a utopia. I believe that this group would suppress religion anyway that they could, this includes violence. Richard Dawkins, one of the founders of the new atheist has already encouraged his followers to mock and ridicule religious people publicly. On 24 March 2012 at 2:55 PM, Richard Dawkins propagated militant atheism at the “Reason Rally” [sic], encouraging his audience to “Mock them [believers], ridicule them in public.” this can be seen on You Tube.
What is Religion?
What is Religion?
In my conversation with people about religion I have found that the term itself is difficult to define with any degree of concreteness. Some have attempted to define the word by limiting it to what people call organized religion but in doing this, they are inferring that there are other meanings. If there is an organized version of religion there must be an unorganized version. I believe if we attempt to define the concept too narrowly we will end up limiting its usage to an unwarranted degree and may subvert some usages of the word. Of course, for some subversion might be their intention.
Let’s begin with how the word is used. It is used to denote a person’s behavior or belief that they are intensely committed to. “John exercises religiously or John’s religion is exercising.” Both expressions work well to relay the idea that John is extremely committed to exercise; to the point of being fanatical. In this context the word is used to denote excess in something, which it does not deserve it. Exercise is good, but it should not be made your ultimate concern.
Religion can also denote a commitment to an organization as “John belongs to the Roman Catholic religion” or Dick is a follower of the Moslem religion. This commitment can go beyond a commitment to an organized religion. It can be a devotion or commitment to a belief, behavior or lifestyle. The stoic religious was to practice virtue. This seems to be the way that is used in the Bible. When James says, “Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world” (James 1;27).
From the above, we can gather that the word has various shades of meaning, which is determined by context. Can a non-belief or a negative belief be a person’s religion? Yes, if one is committed to it intensely. e.g. .if one spends an inordinate amount time on it. It could be said to be one’s religion[1]. “John’s religion is playing video games or debunking theism.” The latter is the religion of many of the new atheists.
When the word is used for organized religion you run into another problem of defining the word “organized.” You could say that there is no universal definition of what constitutes an organized religion. For some, a group with a leader is an organization. To others, it may take a written Constitution with a formal membership to be classified as an organization. You can organize around a man, a group, a belief or an idea. People can organize against a belief or an idea; in this, they organize around their commonly held un-belief, which could be any negative idea. The Protestant religion was formed around a group of non-beliefs. People can belong to certain movements, which are loosely organized and formed around a set of ideas and led very informally by a group of charismatic leaders. You see this kind of religion in the New-Age movement and in the new atheist movement. Both could rightly be called religion but their followers viciously contend that their movements are not a religion. However, just recently the seventh court of appeals has ruled that atheism is a religion[2] and the Supreme Court has ruled prior that secular humanism is a religion for legal purposes[3].
I have found that when people begin to split hairs about what constituted religion, they usually have an agenda. It could be a religious group (usually a cult) that wants to set itself apart from a larger group or an atheists group or individual who does not want to be compared to a faith group. In their spitting of hairs, these groups and individuals actually demonstrate they are very must a part of a religion. If not, they would have no reason to be protesting. Protestantism is a religion when it demands your attention and especially if it is your ultimate concern or an all-consuming interest as some of the new atheist have done, many of which have been taught to hate what they call religion to the point they are allergic to the word itself. Get over it you guys, your movement is a religion.
After reading the article my wife said to me, ” you did not answer the question what is religion?” No, I did not. There have been books written on the subject and to some degree they have all failed to encompass the entirety of the subject. To me, the best concrete definition of religion was given by Paul Tillich when he said religion was ones “ultimate concern.”[4] So, what is your ultimate concern? When you answer that question, you have found your religion.
[1] The Supreme Court has held that non-theistic viewpoints can qualify as religious when they “occupy the same place in [a person’s] life as the belief in a traditional deity holds United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163, 187 (1965).
[2] Note (Kaufman, James v. McCaughtry, Gary) “Without venturing too far into the realm of the philosophical, we have suggested in the past that when a person sincerely holds beliefs dealing with issues of ‘ultimate concern’ that for her occupy a ‘place parallel to that filled by . . . God in traditionally religious persons,’ those beliefs represent her religion.”
“We have already indicated that atheism may be considered, in this specialized sense, a religion. See Reed v. Great Lakes Cos., 330 F.3d 931, 934 (7th Cir. 2003) (‘If we think of religion as taking a position on divinity, then atheism is indeed a form of religion.’)”
[3] Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961)
[4] Paul Tillich, “What is Religion?” and his “Systematic Theology”.
I Believe (An essay on science and faith)
Author: Skip Reith
Date: 9/26/2015
I Believe
I believe! These two little words contain a lot of power. These two little words are also misused, misunderstood, abused, and often ridiculed. What do we mean when we say I believe? That is what I will explore today.
Belief is that understanding a person has when they analyze and process all of the facts and information they have on a particular subject. Belief can come from direct observation (I’ve been to New York so I believe it exists); or belief can come from indirect information – that is from an authority on the subject (I’ve never been to Tokyo, but I believe it exists because I have been told by maps and people who have been there that it exists).
One important note before I continue. When I use the term authority here, I am not talking about some governmental organization. I am talking about an expert on the subject whose knowledge, skill, and background gives them a special place in the hierarchy of understanding on the subject. An authoritative source is one step up from an expert. If the authoritative source is a person then that source not only is an expert, but that person also has a breadth and depth of knowledge around the main subject that allows them broad understanding on the subject. If the source is not a person, then the source is complete and detailed. For example, a professional astronomer with 30 years experience is an authority on astronomy. The complete body of written papers and books on astronomy is an authoritative source on the subject. In addition, an authority on the subject is one that other people agree and believe is an authority on the subject. Is possible to think a person is an authority on a subject when they are actually not an expert and may have little knowledge in the subject. (This technique is used all of the time by advertisers. They get a famous person to promote their product. Since people know the authority of the famous person’s specialty, they subconsciously assign authority to this other, advertised subject as well.)
Let’s look at belief in more detail. Belief and knowledge are similar, but not identical. Belief is your understanding of a situation, but you may not be able to prove that understanding to another. Knowledge is a direct understanding of something that you can easily prove. I know one plus one equals two and I can prove it in a number of ways, including demonstrating the summation with two pennies. I know New York exists (or at least it did) because I was there. I cannot prove its existence now because I am not there. I can show evidence of my trip (pictures and souvenirs) but until I go back I can’t definitively prove its existence. So, at the moment I believe that New York exists. My belief in the existence of Tokyo is indirect. My only proof is the maps and pictures I have seen of Tokyo. If someone does not accept the authority of my proofs then they will not believe in Tokyo.
Science is the attempt to quantify beliefs and turn them into provable knowledge while authenticating the proofs. The scientific method (described in my Observation – Applying the Scientific Method to Religion) is a disciplined approach to proving an understanding and turning belief into knowledge. For example, I could apply the scientific method and fly to Tokyo and prove to myself that it exists, turning my belief into knowledge.
The problem with science is that it can only prove physical things. It can prove the existence of matter and the existence of something called gravity, and so on. It can dig out the understanding of how things function and explain the interactions of various objects. Science also has beliefs, but to make it sound more important, scientists call those beliefs theories. The scientific method attempts to prove that the theories are correct and to expand the understanding and details of those theories.
Science cannot prove strictly personal items. It is not possible to weigh love, measure directly satisfaction, or count hate. It is not even possible to directly analyze pain. Scientists try to measure these strictly personal objects, but everything science does with these items is indirect. For example, a doctor may ask you your pain level on a scale of 1 to 10, but that is a subjective measure and not an objective measure. It is impossible for the doctor to measure directly your pain level. The doctor cannot get a scale out and weigh your pain. Even brain scans and EEG measurements do not measure pain they just measure physiological response to nerve stimulation. Your awareness of pain is greater and more personal than the physiological response.
Consider, for example, love. I know that I love my wife, son, step children, grandchild, dog, cats, and so on. I cannot prove that love, except by my actions and that is just indirect. No one could take out a ruler and measure my love. Science cannot apply the scientific method to my love in such a way that others could know definitively my love. Love is completely and utterly personal.
It is impossible for one person to know directly what another person feels. Even if we could hook two people’s brains together, they still could not know each other’s feelings because our emotions, our response to external stimulations, our core being is determined by every experience we have had up to that point. Since no two people follow the same path in life, no two people experience emotions the same way. This puts love in the belief column. Although I KNOW I love my family, I cannot prove it. So ultimately, I can only say I believe in my love.
Others may believe that I do, in fact, love my family. Others experience love themselves, and even though they do not have the same feelings towards my family as I do, they understand that those feelings exist. Sometimes people may not understand why that particular feeling exists (“how is possible that people actually loved Hitler”), but they understand that there is such feelings.
What about stuff that many people may not experience directly? What about, for example, spiritual experiences that many people may never encounter. If something like love cannot be quantized or measured and therefore are not subject to the scientific method, something like spiritual experiences are even further removed from science. If we cannot prove our love to another, when that other person also experiences love, how can we prove spirituality and religious belief to someone who has never undergone that experience? It is at this point that ridicule and disbelief occur.
If a person cannot understand directly a spiritual belief of another and has no indirect proof, then that person is faced with a problem. If the unbeliever (atheist) accepts that the other has had a spiritual experience, then that means the atheist is deficient in some manner. Unless the atheist wants to admit this deficiency (which is rare) they then have to take the second path – trying to prove the other person’s beliefs are false. Yet, spiritual experiences are not something you can measure. It is not possible for the atheist to get out a scale and say “see your belief does not measure up!” The attack on spiritual and religious knowledge must take different approaches.
One approach is the strawman approach. In this approach, the atheist constructs a strawman; that is, they liken the religious belief to some other, more tangible belief, and then attack the strawman. For example, someone could say that the belief in God is like the belief in Santa Claus. Since we all know Santa Claus does not exist, it is obvious that God does not exist. This argument fails on many dimensions.
Santa Claus is a belief children develop because they accepted their parents and adults as an authority on the subject. The adults lied to the children (we hide that fact by calling it a fantasy or a story, but it is still a lie). The children have no other source, so they accept the adult’s authority. They believe in the existence of Santa Claus on authority of the lying adults. Once the children grow old enough to perform an independent validation, they uncover the lie. Their belief changes because they have new facts and data.
An atheist saying that belief in God is like a belief in Santa Claus is actually saying that belief in God is like a belief in a lie that some authority told you. This may hold for children and extremely gullible people, but it does not hold for discerning, open minded adults who have directly experienced God. In addition, the believer has additional proof of God that the believer in Santa Claus does not have. There are corroborating historical documents that validate some of the religious writings. There is the fact that millions of people have died for their belief – something that has not happened over the belief in Santa Claus. More importantly, the belief in God is open to everyone, and everyone can run the religious experiment. That is, each person has the opportunity to follow the authoritative sources on God and see the results for themselves.
The other approach an atheist can try to discredit a religious belief is to claim that science has never proved God exists and they only believe in science. Before I get into what science can and cannot prove I have to address this belief in science. Science has brought a lot of knowledge and understanding to the world. Science has enabled a lot of engineering and technology that brings enhanced medicines, labor saving devices, and so on. (It also enhanced war, pollution, oppression, and other ills, but we don’t need to go there for our current discussion.) So, saying you believe in science seems reasonable. The problem is most people have no idea what they are talking about or what they believe in when they say they believe in science.
First off, almost everything we call science these days is actually engineering. Computers, cell phones, air planes, medicines, surgical procedures, cars, TVs, and on and on are all engineering feats. For the most part, the science on these things is done behind closed doors and people never see the actual science. Most people wouldn’t even know the scientific method if it hit them in the face. So, what people are really saying when they say they believe in science is that they believe in the technology they have and they believe the authoritative sources that they are exposed to who proclaim the greatness of science.
Let’s look at those authoritative sources. In most countries a major part of scientific research is funded by the government. Research gets published in journals, but most people have never even seen a scientific journal, let alone read one. Even though scientists publish, the publication is controlled by a review from scientific peers. The government controls what scientists investigate through funding, and therefore control what scientists understand and believe. I will point out that the government is controlled by politicians and bureaucrats not scientists or even people with a scientific background.
People’s exposure to science first comes about in school. The classes are taught by the teachers, who are managed by administrators, and the whole thing is controlled and regulated by the government. A lot or research and enhanced scientific advances come from universities. Universities get a major part of their funding either directly (through grants) or indirectly (through tuition) that is paid by the government. Other sources of scientific information and “discovery” comes from governmental agencies like NASA, national science foundation, food and drug administration, US department of agriculture, the atomic energy commission and its various follow on agencies, the department of defense, environmental protection agency, national weather service, US geological survey, and on and on.
Some people are exposed to science through things like public television. Public TV gets a majority of their funding from the government. If you perform a review of a lot of “scientific” articles on public media you will find that a lot comes from some governmental source (like NASA). Non-governmental entities, like the Discovery Channel may present “scientific documentaries” but these are often sensationalized stories. Interestingly enough, many of the critics of these documentaries are government funded agencies and government supported public media.
So, when a person says they believe in science, they are really saying that they believe in the government. The government is controlled and run by politicians, and we all know that politicians lie, cheat, twist the truth, hide information, and do whatever they can to remain in power. Since most people have no direct experience with science, then when an atheist says they believe in science what they are saying is that their belief is just like the belief in Santa Claus – it’s based on a lie.
As I have shown, science cannot prove or disprove love. Science cannot measure anything that is personal. Scientists cannot measure thoughts, feelings, ideas, responses, or any of thousands of deeply personal experiences. Yet, we all know these are real. Science cannot answer basic questions like why does the universe exist or what is the meaning of life? While modern science has discovered a huge amount about the physical reality, there is way more to our existence than just the physical.
Science (as people define science, which are the physical and social sciences) cannot, and never will, be able to scientifically prove personal, internal experiences of people. Science is limited. So, when an atheist says they only believe in science, they are also saying that they do not believe in emotions, thoughts, ideals, creativity, art, spirituality, honor, or God. That’s kind of a limited point of view.
When I say I believe in God, I am not saying that I believe that someone once told me God exists and I accept their authority on the subject. I say I believe because I have personal knowledge that I have tested using the scientific method. I have investigated life with and without God. I have researched God, the authoritative writings, and talked with people who I feel are experts on the subject (both for and against). I have weighed all of the evidence and data and I have found that the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of believing that God exists.
I cannot prove God’s existence. I cannot pull out a photograph of God or take out my telescope and show you God. However, I have looked deep inside myself and have found God there, waiting for me. I cannot force you to believe. I can only say that if you run the experiment – that is, if you follow the teachings of an authoritative source on religion and God, then you too may experience God in a way similar to (but not exactly the same as) my experience.
I hope you do. I hope that you run the experiment and prove to yourself the existence of God. However, if you instead try to hide behind science and use science as a shield, you will find that the shield is very small indeed and not much protection against larger truths.
Religious Phobia and Liberalism
Religious Phobia and Liberalism
Many of my atheistic and progressive friends are constantly accusing religious people of being homophobic and of having some other biases. That may be true of some religious folks. However, I have found that many progressives and many who fancy themselves as liberals have their own phobia, i.e., a religious phobia. In other words, they fear religion. Of course, one tends to hate the things that one fears. So I have found that many of my liberal and atheist friends have a dislike that approaches a loathing for religion. This has caused me to do a considerable amount of thinking about where these fears came from and whether they are real or imagined. Of course, a fear is real to the one who has it, but this raises the question of whether or not there is really something in reality on which to base their fear.
I began my research by asking my liberal friends if religion or religious people had done any personal harm to them that would cause them to hate religion. The majority of them said they had received no such hurt. I did find some who said that their parents had made them go to church when they were little. However, this to me seemed to be the normal thing for good parents who believed in their religion to do. Yet, many of my friends felt that this was reason enough for them to reject religion.
I did find some people who told me that they hated religion because religious people are hypocrites. I’ll admit this might be a good reason if we were not all hypocrites. Most human beings are guilty of saying one thing and doing something else. If we all stopped doing everything that hypocrites do, we wouldn’t do much.
My research did lead me to a few books whose authors seem to hate religion. I gathered from these books that the authors hated religion for all of the terrible things that it had done in the past, such as the witch hunts and the Inquisition. Of course, if you were to count noses, you could say that religion has killed its tens of thousands, but atheism and liberalism has killed its millions. It was atheistic communism that killed twenty million of its own people in Russia and even more in China, and it was Western liberalism that spread its philosophy with the sword. It looks to me like it’s not religion that kills people, but it’s people who kill people. If truly analyzed, it is usually people who have a will to power who do the killing, whether religious or not. You will find these people in religion, business, and government and for that matter, virtually in every walk of life.
However, all of the above does not explain the irrational fear and hatred of some people toward religion. I believe the truth is that liberalism as a world view and philosophy itself has a propensity to dislike religion. Liberalism belief in the autonomy of the individual tends to color its views of all authority but especially religious authority. This bias was embodied in the French Revolution, whose motto was “no master, no God.” A quick review of history reveals that at the time of their revolution, the French had reason to fear and hate religion. During that period in their history the church had been captured by the governing class and was being used to oppress the people. However, the hatred and bias of the liberals and progressives of the French Revolution are still with us today. Like all bias and prejudice, these are passed on blindly from generation to generation.
However, much of the dislike of religion comes from the fact that religion tends to cramp the lifestyle of some people. Some people just don’t like the idea of being told that they are going to stand in judgment for their behavior. Jesus hinted at this when He said, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed” John 3:19-21.
It is obvious from the above words of Jesus that a strong anti-religious bias can come from a godless amoral lifestyle. This bias goes much deeper than many liberals would like to admit. This bias comes from a deep-seated prideful rebellion that exists in the human heart, and like all bias it is hard to detect by those possessing it, and like all biases it can be passed on for generations.
My conclusion is that my far left liberal friends have been biased toward religion by the traditions and the propaganda of their own philosophy more than by reason or clear thinking. This is not to say that religion should not be watched. Religion is a power that can be abused, but it is also a power that can be a blessing to people. However, it is irrational to hate all religion because some men have abused it and used it as a means to gain power over others.
“If You Need Religion to Be Good You Are Not Good”
“If You Need Religion to Be Good You Are Not Good”
The statement “if you need religion to be good you are not good” is one of the many convoluted quibbles that the irreligious use to justify themselves, which borders on insanity. It is a meaningless statement and is totally ambiguous. First, because it does not define religion and secondly, because it does not define what goodness is.
The statement also infers that a good person always does the good which they know they ought to do, and that humans know from instinct what is good. Every truly good person knows that they do not always do, what they know is the right thing to do. Every thinking person, who is not allergic to religion, knows that humans learn good from their culture and some kind of religion is a part of every culture.
The quibble assumes that the reader knows the definition of religion; most people do not. This includes the new atheists who fancy themselves as intellectuals. What happens when you define religion as practicing virtue? Let’s replace the word ‘religion’ in the quibble with ‘virtue’, “If you need to practice virtue to be good, you are not good.” It makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?
Consequently the quibble doesn’t define what it means to be good either, and it assumes that everyone knows what constitutes good. The statement assumes that at the very least, some people are inherently good without any training from culture; or devoid of outside instruction and limits being placed on them. In other words, some must be born good and some must be born bad, or all are born good and go bad, or all are born bad and some get better. I do wish that a little quibble could solve this paradox. Alas, it cannot for it is nonsense.
The truth is that if you are self-righteous, you do not need religion to feel righteous because you assume you are righteous (the new atheist). In other words, you lie to yourself, or you have the moral standard of a cockroach.
The statement, “If You Need Religion to Be Good You Are Not Good” is a statement from a self-righteous person making a fallacious underhanded moral judgment on religion and those that practice it. Did I say moral judgment? I thought the biggest sin of the left (atheism being the furthest left you can go) is to make a moral judgment. However, many of them that I know are very judgmental people. They often are a mirror image of the far right fundamentalist that they despise.
Good religion, honesty and reason would teach a person that they are not as good as they think they are. God did not give humanity religion to make men good; he gave it to show us that we are not as good as we think we are. This may be why there are so many self-righteous atheists, because they lack good religion, honest self-awareness and an enlightened moral reasoning. Good religion will always teach people that they are imperfect and in need of improvement.
In this, I am not saying that atheists are not moral people. In fact, the majority that I know seem to be quite moral. However, I don’t know any that were made moral by their atheism. Most inherited their values from their culture as most people do. In contrast, I have seen a number of people who were not moral, become so, through the help of good religion. I have seen huge numbers of people overcome addictions with the help of faith and good religion. I must sadly admit that I have also seen some fairly good people, become very evil through bad religion.
Why Science and Religion Are Compatible
Why Science and Religion Are Compatible
Lyle Duell 