Category: New Atheists

Book Plunge: Irreligion — Atheists, Agnostics, and Brights

Have the brights got dim? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Unintentionally, Paulos starts off this chapter with a howler.

Given the starkly feeble arguments for God’s existence, one might suspect—that is, if one lived on a different planet—that atheism would be well accepted, perhaps even approved of.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 142). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

Of course, we have seen in this review that Paulos has not even begun to understand the arguments he is critiquing. Given the shoddy nature of his argumentation, one might suspect, if one lived on a different planet, that atheism would not be a position held by people claiming to be intellectuals today. And yet, here we are….

There is an irony in this chapter in that Paulos is writing about why Americans don’t seem to trust atheists. Then he has an issue with the idea that atheists are calling themselves Brights. Could the two possibly be connected in any way whatsoever?

Many atheists have set themselves up as champions of reason and evidence when they are anything but. Paulos has been an excellent example in this book. He does not really look at the evidence probably because in his mind, it is somehow beneath him. This is all silly nonsense believed by people who just can’t handle life and so they make up something to help them cope.

I am a member on Facebook of a group for debating with Jehovah’s Witnesses and we have some atheists in there. Some of them are ex-JWs and they do have a chip on their shoulder. What’s amazing is that atheists in the group have just as much a cult mindset as the theists they condemn.

It is becoming clearer to me that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for an atheist to agree to read a book that disagrees with him. I have normally recommended this book to them. It’s an academic book and it is free on Kindle. How many atheists have I had agree to read it? None.

If you come to me and tell me about a book that challenges my position, I will likely be hunting it down on Amazon as soon as I can. If it costs too much, I will be checking the seminary library and the local library system. If I still can’t find it, I will likely be checking Interlibrary Loan.

Many atheists also engage in groupthink and send out the same old tired arguments, such as Jesus never existing or the canon being decided at the Council of Nicea or most anything else. They will not wrestle with serious arguments against their position. Then they go around and act like they’re better thinkers than everyone else.

Let’s also not forget that America is still a very theistic country and atheists are often seen as wanting to knock that down routinely. I realize many atheists likely have a live and let live attitude and some could even agree that we need to honor the morality that this country was founded on. Too many though think they are brilliant just by virtue of being an atheist.

I consider Paulos such an individual and as I have shown earlier, I have moral concerns with some of the behaviors he has practiced. Simple conclusion. If a large population of people thinks you are the problem, it’s worth considering they might be right.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Irreligion — Pascal’s Wager

Should you take the bet? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

As it turns out, last night I was listening to Playing with Reality on Audible. The author started talking about Pascal and how he got into gambling as a hobby and then started looking at ways to predict outcomes. This became trying to predict the future. Probability theory began right here. Such an example also was Pascal’s Wager, an argument not really understood today.

Paulos writes about it:

1. We can choose to believe God exists, or we can choose not to so believe.
2. If we reject God and act accordingly, we risk everlasting agony and torment if He does exist (what statisticians call a Type I error) but enjoy fleeting earthly delights if He doesn’t.
3. If we accept God and act accordingly, we risk little if He doesn’t exist (what’s called a Type II error) but enjoy endless heavenly bliss if He does.
4. It’s in our self-interest to accept God’s existence.
5. Therefore God exists.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (pp. 133-134). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

The problem Paulos sees is that this could be used for Islam or any other system.

Okay.

And?

People don’t bother to understand Pascal. Pascal is talking to those who are sitting on the fence between Christianity and unbelief. He is only including two positions because those are the two his audience in mind is wrestling with. He says “You’re already playing the game! Might as well bet on the side where you can at least win something!”

Is that an argument Christianity is true? No. Is it an argument for why you should become a Christian? Yes. Of course, he goes deeper than that addressing questions such as if this is fake and other such matters. If all you know about Pascal is just his wager, you really have no business talking about him.

In talking about God’s existing, Paulos goes on to say that:

But forget probability for the moment. Is it even clear what “God is” statements mean? Echoing Bill Clinton, I note that they depend on what the meaning of “is” is. Here, for example, are three possible meanings of “is” involving God: (1) God is complexity; (2) God is omniscient; (3) there is a God. The first “is” is the “is” of identity; it’s symbolized by G = C. The second “is” is the “is” of predication; G has the property omniscience, symbolized by O(G). The third “is” is existential; there is, or there exists, an entity that is God-like, symbolized by ∃xG(x). (It’s not hard to equivocally move back and forth between these meanings of “is” to arrive at quite dubious conclusions. For example, from “God is love,” “Love is blind,” and “My father’s brother is blind,” we might conclude, “There is a God, and he is my uncle.”)

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 136). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

With the final syllogism, it has four terms so it’s invalid right at the start. Let’s still be generous.

God is love.
Love is blind.
God is blind.

This could work, but we have to ask what is love in each sense. The modern phrase means something very different from the biblical usage.

Love is blind.
My father’s uncle is blind.
My father’s uncle is love.

This time, the fallacy is in the form of the argument. Imagine if I said:

Dogs have four legs.
Shiro has four legs.
Shiro is a dog.

He would beg to differ!

On top of that, the real tragedy is that Paulos asks a great question. What does a “God is” statement mean? Unfortunately, he doesn’t explore that question at all. He just throws it out and ignores it.

He then goes on to say that:

The connections among morality, prudence, and religion are complicated and beyond my concerns here. I would like to counter, however, the claim regularly made by religious people that atheists and agnostics are somehow less moral or law-abiding than they. There is absolutely no evidence for this, and I suspect whatever average difference there is along the nebulous dimension of morality has the opposite algebraic sign.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 139). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

Personally, I don’t know people making this claim. That being said, Tom Holland in his Dominion has argued that this is also because we still have a background Christianity. I contend that the further we move away from that, the worse we are going to get. He also cites Japan as an atheistic country as a counter-example, when it is much more complicated than he presents.

There really isn’t much here. He still gives no grounding for goodness whatsoever and he doesn’t bother to understand what he is talking about. Also, considering what he’s said earlier in this book, I don’t think Paulos is the one to talk to us about how to be moral.

Next time, we’ll see what he has to say about “Brights!”

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Irreligion Chapter 10

Do you believe in miracles? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This chapter is on evidences from miracles, prayers, and witnesses. Well, he has certainly done his homework. He has a grand total of TWO miracle claims. Wow. That’s certainly impressive isn’t it?

Let’s suppose I said this to someone like Paulos.

“Today, I am going to examine the case for evolution. My cases are going to be built around Piltdown Man and the Archaeoraptor. Both of these were accepted by some and yet turned out to be frauds. With a history like that, we can obviously say evolutionary theory is a bunch of garbage.”

I suppose a reply to that by someone holding to evolution would be, “But if you’re going to examine evolution, you need to examine all the evidences for it, and not just the ones that you think you can easily show to be frauds. True research requires much more than that.”

They would be absolutely right.

Of course, I’m not trying to argue against evolution with any of that. I have no stance on the issue and I don’t care about it. I am simply saying two cases does not really count since you can pick ones you think you can easily demonstrate to be false and then move on thinking you have done everything.

At any rate, the two stories he chooses are the accounts of a Mother Drexel in 1955 and the Fatima sightings of 1917.

After saying these are what he’s going with, he tries to define a miracle. So far, so good. I do agree with him that a miracle is not just an unlikely event. Paulos is of the position that if someone seemingly being rescued is a miracle, then what happens with those who died? If someone recovering suddenly of a disease is a miracle, is contracting it in the first place also one?

For the former, I would be hesitant to say a miracle had necessarily taken place just because someone survived or was found alive. For the second, if someone has a spontaneous recovery in a religious context after something specific such as prayer, I am inclined to say a miracle has taken place. He asks why it isn’t a miracle if a parapet cracks at 3:06 AM and falls on the head of the only person walking on the street below. (Never mind why are you walking on the street at 3:06 AM?) My answer is sufficient for that.

For the Mother Drexel case, he says two children prayed to her after she died and experienced spontaneous recoveries. He says that such can happen anyway, and that’s true, but that doesn’t demonstrate his point here. Coming up with an alternate explanation does not disprove one explanation or even show the alternate is likely. For Fatima, he says the prophecies were vague. Maybe they were. At any rate, it doesn’t look like he did any real study on the matter and there are plenty of other miracles throughout history and in our present time he could have pointed to.

Then he says this:

In all these cases, believers always have an out in the “God of the gaps,” whose performance of miracles, although consistent with natural laws, exploits the ever-decreasing gaps in our scientific knowledge.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 87). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

But this could be just as easily turned around on Paulos. I could say he has a naturalism of the gaps. If there is a gap in the reasoning, well, we know it can’t be a miracle because miracles don’t happen because naturalism is true. God of the gaps with theism is weak reasoning, but it is just as weak with naturalism.

Of course, he also points to David Hume, completely unaware for instance that umpteen responses and more have been written in reply to Hume. There were plenty Paulos could have looked at, but that would require that he seriously engage with contrary thought, and we just can’t have that. He could have even read the agnostic John Earman.

Tomorrow, we’ll see what he has to say about Jesus and other figures.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Book Plunge: Irreligion Chapter 9

How do you know? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Christian music nowadays is often so terrible with how someone knows that Christianity is true. As important as Easter is, I dread going to a church and having to hear “He Lives.” I can’t imagine the disciples in the first century saying “You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.” A Jesus that lives in your heart would not be a threat to the Roman Empire.

Or consider Toby Mac who sang a song called “Feel It.” How does he know Christianity is true? He feels it. That’s it. This is the kind of nonsense that is being sent out to young Christians and I fear young Christians hearing that will think that’s how you know and then go off to college to be destroyed by an atheist professor.

Not only will they think that Christianity is false, they will think this is what Christianity is. Christianity is all about how you feel. Sadly, most adults in the church will give that exact same kind of mindset to them.

That’s the kind of argument that Paulos is presenting in this chapter. Again, Paulos goes for low-hanging fruit consistently and doesn’t do any real interaction with the material at its best. The only possible exception is the ontological argument and even with that, he doesn’t look at modern defenders of the argument.

I recently had someone contact me asking about the claim that what they experienced in their faith could be explained by brain studies. I said that this isn’t an argument I would use as I would point to the existing of God and the resurrection of Jesus, but I did tell them, “So what if brain studies do show there is a correlation between the two?” If God is behind something, is He always to work in miraculous means?

Generally, that’s the approach I take. Enjoy experiences that are good that come to you, but don’t make them the foundation.

Surprisingly, he says something I agree with:

It’s repellent for atheists or agnostics to personally and aggressively question others’ faith or pejoratively label it as benighted flapdoodle or something worse. Those who do are rightfully seen as arrogant and overbearing.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 79). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

Unfortunately, Paulos often doesn’t follow his advice here. He hasn’t done any real research on the material he is writing on. Where are these academics who say the first cause argument is that “Everything has a cause.”? Part of treating a position respectfully is trying to treat it at its best. It means not giving out trite arguments for atheism like

I’ve often wondered why adherents of a particular religion and its associated figures and narratives claim to be incapable of understanding atheists and agnostics. As has often been noted, they generally have some relevant experience that they can call on. Their religion teaches them to deny the figures, even the God(s), of other faiths and traditions—Zeus, Osiris, Woden, and so on. Atheists and agnostics simply do them one better, extending this denial one God further to make it universal.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 80). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

An argument like this is not against God. It’s against Superman. It’s assuming the God of the Bible is just like the gods on Mount Olympus. People like this do not have the basic understanding of Christian theology necessary to argue against God. Yes, atheists. You need to read Christian theology to argue against Christianity.

My analogy I use for this is to imagine a defense attorney making a closing argument in a case. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. We all agree that there are plenty of people in this room that did not commit the murder. I ask that you just look at my client and go one person further.”

I actually found amazing his use of Ambrose Bierce with The Devil’s Dictionary.

(Relevant is Ambrose Bierce’s definition of “pray”—“to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.”)

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 81). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

I actually found this definition quite amazing. Sometimes, we are asking that and sometimes, the answer can be yes. God does amazing things for we who are unworthy.

Finally, Paulos says

My own feeling derives in part from the realization, mentioned in the preface, that I had when I was ten years old and wrestling with my brother on the floor of my family’s house in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In an important sense, I mused, there was no essential difference between me and not-me; everything was composed of atoms and molecules, and though their patterns differed, the rug below our heads and the brains inside them were made of the same stuff.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 81). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

With this, I wonder why he is an atheist. Why is he not a pantheist? Besides that, has he not thought about any of this since he was ten years old?

Sadly, it looks like he hasn’t.

We’ll continue next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Book Plunge: Irreligion: An Anecdote on Emotional Need

Why don’t I trust John Paulos? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I hated reading this section. I suspect Paulos wrote it to show that he is an understanding guy. If anything, it showed me that he is the exact opposite. It showed me Paulos is willing to engage in lying that intentionally harms others and do so for pure enjoyment.

He starts with talking about being in Thailand in an internet cafe. In the cafe are three girls and they are being coached by another woman who was their English expert. The women are communicating with men online and going from man to man playing someone who is totally lovesick each time.

The women see that Paulos is interested in what they are doing and so he starts explaining to them the phrases that they are using and what they mean. They would say these things to these men and then laugh hysterically and thank Paulos. He kept on helping them to learn what they needed to say to these men.

Am I justifying what these men are doing? Not a bit. These men are being suckered by women overseas and getting their money taken from them. However, I have a much bigger problem with what Paulos is doing. Paulos himself says:

It was great fun helping them dupe farangs on three continents out of their money via a Western Union office down the block. (Perhaps “dupe” is the wrong word since I think the bargain was a fair one and inexpensive at that: a Christmas fantasy for a few dollars.)

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 72). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

Paulos enjoyed this. He knew he was tricking people ouf of money and enjoyed it. Not only that, but these women could have been part of sex trafficking for all we know. Paulos was enabling what they were doing which could mean that he was unknowingly participating in sex trafficking.

Paulos says he tells this story because of how so many people want to believe in God despite what he describes as gaping holes in their arguments. (Unfortunately for Paulos, the gaping holes are all in his understanding of them.) He says these people want to believe in God just like these men overseas want to believe these women desperately love them.

And what of my role, which, despite my rationale above, remains slightly problematic? I was doing the opposite of what I’m attempting to do in this book. I was facilitating an illusion, albeit an emotional one with which I have more sympathy than its religio-intellectual analogue.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 73). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

So Paulos has now written a book where he explicitly talks about coaching women in lying to dupe men out of money, and then he expects us to trust him on anything? Not going to happen here. Paulos is the kind of guy based on this that if he told me it wasn’t raining outside, I would get an umbrella.

I encourage the new atheist movement to distance yourself from people like this who will openly confess to lying to dupe others and enjoy it. Accept him and you have no grounds upon which to condemn the person you view as the lying televangelist. I condemn both of them. Paulos apparently only condemns if it’s the other side.

Have nothing to do with people like this. When someone tells you who they really are, believe them.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Irreligion Chapter 8

Is there a code? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Whoa. What happened to chapters 6 and 7? I actually consider both of those esoteric and really there wasn’t anything on there worth commenting on since I don’t think those are arguments that are really used anyway. When we get to eight, we get to see arguments based on prophecy and Bible Codes. The former in Scripture I take seriously. The latter, I never do.

Now boys and girls, picture this. Suppose you are an atheist and you want to write a chapter in a book about Bible prophecy and how it’s all bunk. If you are an intelligent sort of person, what do you do?

Well, odds are you would consult some scholarship and find out what prophecies are used as the best indicators of appeal to prophecy. Maybe you would go with Isaiah 53 or the 70 weeks of Daniel or with the Olivet Discourse. Maybe you would go with the idea of the Bible predicting Jesus entirely period. You would show how these are not accurate readings of the text and thus demonstrate the Bible has a fallacious record as far as you’re concerned.

Unfortunately, Paulos is not such a man.

Paulos states the argument like this:

1. A holy book makes prophecies.

2. The same book or adherents of it report that these prophecies have come true.

3. The book is indubitable and asserts that God exists.

4. Therefore God exists.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 61). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

He also says the argument from prophecy is held in low esteem by philosophers. Unfortunately, he doesn’t tell us who these philosophers are. Also, were I to use this argument, I would not say it this way. I would say this book got things down extremely accurate centuries in advance and only a being with advance knowledge could do that.

He goes on to talk about how the narrative in Scripture has meaning, but lacks a referent. Then he says

You would think that the obvious irreligious objection would come to almost anyone’s mind when reading a religious tome or holy book. What if you don’t believe the holy book’s presuppositions and narrative claims and simply ask for independent argument or evidence for God’s existence? What if you’re not persuaded by the argument that God exists because His assertion that He exists and discussion of His various exploits appear in this book about Him that believers say He inspired?

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 63). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

First off, this ignores that the argument from prophecy is evidence still. Perhaps it’s not the best, but it is evidence. Second, I would be glad to present the Thomistic arguments, which Paulos never deals with. I guess those didn’t come up in his google search research.

Yet the most amazing part of this section is that Paulos does not cite a single Bible prophecy!

Imagine if I made a claim that I was going to totally destroy the argument for evolution from the fossil record and never once cited the fossil record. Imagine if I said I am going to demonstrate the Book of Mormon is a hoax and never once cited the Book of Mormon. Imagine if I said that I am going to take down the Qur’an and never referenced it one time.

That would be ridiculous.

That is also exactly what Paulos does.

Somehow, some atheists out there will still think he’s done an excellent job. Once again, I remind you of my rule for these kinds of atheists. They honor reason and evidence with their lips, but their heads are far from it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Book Plunge: Irreligion Chapter 4

Do improbable events just happen all the time? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this chapter, Paulos is taking on the anthropic principle. Now as readers know, I’m not really a science guy so I’m not going to try to approach it from that angle. Seeing as he is a mathematician, I am going to try to give Paulos the benefit of the doubt on the math, despite I think I have great reason to distrust him, which we will get to later.

At the start, Paulos says this:

1. The values of physical constants, the matterantimatter imbalance, and various other physical laws are necessary for human beings to exist.

2. Human beings exist.

3. The physics must have been fine-tuned to the constants’ values to make us possible.

4. Therefore the fine-tuner, God, exists.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 28). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

Little problem at the start. For one, this is quite simplistic. Second, does Paulos interact with any scientists who advocate this? No. There are secular scientists as well as Christian ones who have written on this. Where is their work cited? Not here.

He does at least mention Lee Smolin, who hypothesizes a theory of universes breaking off from other universes, a sort of Darwinian theory of a multiverse. The problem is even if this is true, how does this help? I am trying to explain one universe and you are suddenly going to say there are countless universes. It’s like a police officer trying to explain one dead body only to be told that there are 500 more out there and he thinks, “Oh. Well, I guess we can close up and go home then.”

From here, he goes into something called a Doomsday argument. Honestly, I’m looking at this and wondering what this has to do with the price of tea in China. He says that this kind of thinking makes more sense than various end-times scenarios held by many religious people. Perhaps it does, but Paulos assumes that all Christians hold to those kinds of end-times scenarios.

So let’s review. Has Paulos really interacted with the science behind this argument? Not for a moment. Has he looked at the philosophy used by some philosophers as well to explain why our existing in this time and space is unlikely? Of course, he hasn’t. Instead, Paulos has decided to punt to the subject of math and I suspect hope that in the end, none of us will notice that he has not interacted with any of the relevant material on the anthropic principle, and keep in mind I say this as someone who is not scientifically inclined and thus does not use the argument.

Paulos is unfortunately the kind of atheist who likes to do magic where he thinks he can say a few words and wave away a problem with his position. If these kinds of shallow answers seem convincing to him, that tells me more about his atheism than it does about his arguments. Atheists who want to take their worldview seriously should distance themselves from Paulos and encourage other atheists to do the same.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Atheology and the Problem of Evil

What kind of God should deal with evil? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In yesterday’s post, I wrote about a certain idea of God that many evangelistic atheists have. We could describe this as a functional god. This god is meant to explain the universe. This god is meant to be a presence to me in suffering.

When it looks like the universe works scientifically on its own and that there is no emotional presence, then atheism seems rational to these people. Let’s consider another aspect of this. What about evil?

Too often, we theists have been on the defensive end in this area. It is up to us to explain why a good God allows evil. What never seems to go answered is “Why should God be obligated to deal with evil at all, let alone in XYZ manner?” To say that God has to deal with evil is to assume that God has an obligation to us.

Note I am not saying that God will not deal with evil. I am questioning the why He will and the how and when of His doing so. If an atheist says that God needs to deal with evil, they have in mind a certain theology of the God that they think should defeat it, but what is this God like? We need to know.

For instance, why should God have to deal with what we deem to be a problem on our terms? Why should He have to deal with it as a being with unlimited resources in a way that we think is amenable to our limited resources? You need more of an answer than “I want Him to” or “If He really loved us, He would do it this way.” Why?

Could it be that evil really became a problem when we thought the universe was meant to be a place that was just to make us happy and that it was all about us? I get that people have talked about suffering and wondered about it for awhile, but at the same time, they didn’t jump to atheism. Job and his friends never doubted the reality of the deity, but just debated what He was like.

The problem of evil is in many ways asking a question about justice. Will there be any justice in the universe? We often have the saying of justice delayed is not justice denied, and it is true. Just because justice isn’t happening immediately doesn’t mean it’s not happening at all.

A Christian specifically views this world as intentional and while this world is not all about our happiness, it is meant for us to live in. We were made for this place. In a sense, this is our home. Someone else like Richard Dawkins will instead look at the world and say in River Out of Eden.

“In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”

Yet if this is the way the universe is, then why do we have this longing for justice? Why do we cling to ideas of good and evil? Does Dawkins? Not at all. Look at any moral crusade Dawkins goes on, whether he’s right or wrong in it, he certainly thinks he’s going out for something good. He certainly thinks science is a good worth pursuing. He certainly thinks Christianity is damaging to young people.

And this is what we really need to be asking atheists. What is this idea of good that you hold to? What is this idea of evil? We use these terms and speak about them as if we all know what they mean when they really don’t. I, as a classical theist, ask atheists to tell me what they mean by good. If good boils down to what you want and evil to what you don’t want, then you are saying that the universe should bow to your desires and that if God were real, He would do the same. Not much of a god then.

Then, we need to go beyond that and ask what their idea of God is like. Yes. Atheists have an idea of what God would be like if He existed. One such seems to be He would deal with evil in such and such a way in such and such a time. They also think that this is an obligation on His part.

There is another point I would like to make on this and this is in the question of suffering, but that is for another day.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Atheism And The Search For Purpose

Is Atheism looking for meaning? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I am reading through a book for a class now called Bulwarks of Unbelief. I am finding it quite good and the main question being asked is “What made atheism a strong enough possibility that many people now embrace it?” Now some might go the route of Richard Dawkins and say it was Darwin who made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. Is that it? Is it really that we found a scientific explanation for something and then God was out of a job?

That doesn’t really fit since in the medieval period science was being done and none of it was thought to be the end of God. If anything, it was thought to be explaining and upholding God. If anyone was filling in the gaps of our scientific knowledge, it was the Christians. Yet nowhere in this do you see them saying “Does this put God out of a job?”

The writer of the book, Joseph Minich, brings up Marx and how Marx thought man felt alienated from his labor. Now I oppose Marxism through and through, but while I don’t care for the man, that doesn’t mean he was wrong on everything. Could there be a sense of alienation Marx was right to find, but that he had the wrong solution and explanation for?

Consider this as an example. Before I came here to the seminary, I worked at a Wal-Mart in Tennessee. Now when the time came that I left to come here, what happened? Did the store shut down because I was gone and obviously, no one could do the work that I did and so that was it?

Nope. Hire someone else. I was entirely replaceable. This can be in contrast to a time when a son learned his father’s trade and the business was passed on from generation to generation and there was an investment in one’s labor.

Not only this, but while I was there, did I really care about my job? Nope. I hated it. I liked some of the people that I worked with, but I hated the work that I did. I knew I was expendable and that I was underutilized and that my skills were not being used to the best of their ability.

So yes, I do think the alienation is real.

Minich thinks the main culprit here is technology. We have made the world more and more impersonal. As the world becomes more impersonal, we have a harder time seeing a person behind it all. The world seems to function like a machine.

As a divorced man, I do think there is something to the disconnect from society. I notice when I come home, I go to my apartment building and there are several other apartments. Truth be told, I hardly know anyone in my own building. I have hardly ever had guests over to do anything with me. I also suspect that I am not alone in this. Many of you probably know your Facebook friends better than people you see every day.

As a gamer, I also miss a certain time in life. That was the time of what is now known as couch gaming. Yes, I can play games online with several people and that’s fine, but really, nothing beats getting together and playing Goldeneye, Street Fighter, Smash Brothers, and other multi-player games together in person. Now I can play a game with people I know nothing about and have no investment in other than a desire to win.

Now I think technology could be a part of it, but I also think there is something even bigger looming in the background. If there is a sense of alienation from one’s work and then from the society as a whole, what if there is also that sense from the world entire? What if it seems like we have a world that because we have fostered the natural/supernatural divide, seems to work on its own?

What does this give us but a world without purpose? I find this especially interesting since in my study into game theology, I am noting that purpose is something we all long for. When we think we have a quest, a battle, a goal, we can come alive.

Now this post is a sort of thinking out loud, but it does explain to me not just atheism in that sense, but a certain kind of atheism. You probably know the type. Let’s be clear this is not all atheists as I suspect some atheist readers of this blog will be able to hear the description and say “Yes. I know someone like that. I agree with their atheism, but I don’t agree with their other beliefs about it.”

For sake of discussion, let’s refer to these as a sort of evangelistic atheist. These are atheists who think that they have been delivered from the shackles of irrationality and superstition by being embracing atheism. They now think that all theists they meet are ignorant fools who stay cloistered away from anything that goes against them, believe anything without evidence (Constantly thinking faith is belief without evidence), hate science, are sexual prudes entirely, always vote Republican, and that Christianity has done nothing but harm for the world.

These are the people you find in Facebook groups who seem to do nothing all day long but argue against Christians and other theists. I consider it something akin to many that I see on the left who have what is called Trump-Derangement Syndrome. Whatever you think of him, these are people who seem to have their lives more dominated by Trump than any conservatives that I know. As many of my fellow conservatives say, he lives rent-free in their heads.

If you are an atheist who says “I don’t think God exists, but I know that there are many Christians who do and many of them are smart people and have good reasons for what they believe”, then you are not one of the people I am speaking of. You can also say “I do agree that Christianity has done a lot of good for the world and many people are better for being Christians.” You will debate with Christians, but it is never about who is smarter than the other based on worldviews alone.

When I have seen these evangelistic atheists in the past, I have been confused by it. If you really thought this was the way the world was, why are you wasting your time here? Go on vacation regularly and hit the beach. if you think there is ultimate wrong and right, why not just go out every night sleeping around?

If I am correct, the answer now is obvious. These people are still wanting to find some sort of reading, something that they can do in the world, and they have decided they will be evangelists for atheism to set people free from the shackles of theism into the glorious light of science and reason. Dare I say it, this could be considered a cultic form of atheism.

When I have met atheists like this, they are amazingly like the idea of Christians that they always go against. They refuse to read anything that disagrees with them. They have the entire side painted in an us vs. them battle and the other side is just ignorant of the real truth out there. They alone are the sole bearers of freedom and they must deliver the good news. They will often go about their personal experiences of how they were once Christians. They will not investigate any other ideas contrary to what they believe. They also love the fellowship of other like-minded atheists and seem to have a mutual admiration society going on.

When it comes to the Bible, it must always be interpreted literalistically. They will believe anything whatsoever provided it agrees with them without researching it. If anything could make the other side look bad, it is automatically true. If anything makes it look good or at least is neutral to it, it is automatically false.

I suppose I could go on if need be, but I suspect you get the idea. So, why they do it then is they do it to at least give themselves some sense of purpose. They can think that they are accomplishing something. If work doesn’t give fulfillment and pleasure doesn’t, you have to go somewhere else to get ultimate fulfillment.

Part of my study into gaming theology has been that we have a need for quests in order to find fulfillment. We want to be part of a grand story. If my theory is true, why should that be just the case for Christians? It will be just as true for atheists or any other position. Evangelistic atheists get some fulfillment then out of what they do in spreading their gospel of atheism.

This is a theory that for me is just in its opening stages. This post is a sort of thinking out loud. i do invite your opinions on the matter and especially if you are an atheist that would be not an evangelistic atheist and can say “I know some of the atheists you talk about and yes, this does seem to describe them.”

I look forward to hearing from you.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Book Plunge: Atheist Universe Part 3

Is God a loving God? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Okay. I suspect we can wrap up this first chapter today so let’s dig in.

The Bible does indeed say that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). It also says that “Love is not jealous” (1 Corinthians 13:4). Then we are told that “I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God” (Exodus 20:5). “God is love” when He is not torturing billions of non-Christians in Hell or ordering the Israelites to “keep the virgins for yourselves” but massacre all the innocent men, women and male children in the confiscated Promised Land (Numbers 31:18).

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 44). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

I have addressed the question of jealousy in another post. As for Numbers 31, that has also been addressed. Ultimately, Mills just keeps having emotional arguments. It’s basically “God does stuff I don’t like so He doesn’t exist.”

While it is unfair to hold Christianity responsible for perversions of its teachings, it is nonetheless indisputable that, historically, more people have been slaughtered in the name of the Christian religion than for any reason connected to atheism. For 1500 years, the Christian Church systematically operated torture chambers throughout Europe. Torture was the rule, not the exception. Next to the Bible, the most influential and venerated book in Christian history was the Malleus Maleficarum [Hammer of Witches], which was a step-by-step tutorial in how to torture “witches” and “sorcerers.”

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 48). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

It is unfair to hold Christianity responsible for the perversion of its teachings, but I’m going to do it anyway!

Naturally, there is no historical information for any of this. Mills gives no names of these people who were tortured for anything related to atheism. As for the Malleus Maleficarum being the most venerated and influential book in Christianity apart from the Bible, I would love to see the data for that. I would much more expect something like the Summa Theologica, Pilgrim’s Progress, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, The Imitation of Christ, or in our time, Mere Christianity.

Aside from the wholesale extermination of “witches,” the Christian Church fought bitterly throughout its history—and is still fighting today—to impede scientific progress. Galileo, remember, was nearly put to death by the Church for constructing his telescope and discovering the moons of Jupiter.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 48). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

I can’t think of a single medieval historian who would go with this. I recommend again reading Tim O’Neill on this, especially this one. Galileo was not near being put to death for inventing a telescope and discovering Jupiter’s moons. The Catholic Church had its own telescope and heavily invested in astronomy.

The ancient Greeks and Egyptians, for example, made amazing scientific discoveries and wrote detailed scientific analyses that the Christian Church later destroyed and suppressed for centuries.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 49). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Again, it is not said where this happened. The Christian church was the one who was preserving these writings. If they were destroyed, how does Mills know about them? If they were suppressed, when were they no longer suppressed and rediscovered? He also says elsewhere here that the church didn’t allow cadavers to be studied, and again, you can find more on that here.

Ethical disputes between atheists and Christians almost invariably center around malum prohibitum conduct—usually sexual conduct. The atheist would argue that two consenting, unmarried adults who used proper disease and pregnancy prevention could engage in sexual intercourse without being “unethical” or “immoral.” The Christian, however, would necessarily label this sexual tryst as “wrong” because it was prohibited, supposedly, by God.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 54). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

I would say it is wrong for a number of social reasons I have gone into in this blog. It’s not just “God says no.” Mills needs to read some books on Christian ethics where we actually make arguments beyond Scripture says it, I believe it, that settles it. Mills later says he was a Christian for a time, and his mindset is still really the same. His loyalty is all that changed.

I frequently hear this [C. S. Lewis-inspired] reasoning from Christians, but the argument is entirely definitional rather than substantive. Murder, by definition, is an unjustified killing. Of course everyone agrees that an unjustified killing is wrong. We’re simply agreeing that an unjustified killing is unjustified. But what constitutes an unjustified killing? Here, we’ll face heated debate. Is abortion murder or a sometimes-prudent medical procedure? Is euthanasia murder or a humane and compassionate way to end pointless suffering? Is the death penalty a state-sponsored murder, or justice served? Like many Americans, I’m pro-choice, pro-euthanasia and anti-death-penalty, but few Christians agree with these positions. So where’s our “common conscience”? It exists only by wordplay.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 55). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

And that is a great question. What does constitute an unjustified killing? Anotner one is, what does it even mean to say something is justified or unjustified? That already assumes a moral background and an objective idea of good and evil. Looking at his political views, I do find it interesting Mills wants to kill the innocent often, but to let the guilty live. Also, why is it that when “God kills the children” in Numbers 31, that’s awful, but when a mother wants to do it to the child in her womb, that’s her moral right?

Mills is then asked about the Shroud of Turin.

You have cited a perfect illustration of how religious belief absolutely paralyzes the critical reasoning of Christian apologists and Creation “scientists.” Back in 1988, the Shroud was tested in three separate laboratories using radiocarbon dating techniques. All three laboratories, in Arizona, Oxford and Zurich, reported independently that the Shroud dates back only to the Middle Ages. This radiometric timeframe for the Shroud’s origin coincides precisely with the first historical references to the Shroud, which likewise first appear during the Middle Ages. Any rational person would therefore conclude that the Shroud had its origins during the Middle Ages, not during the time of Christ.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 58-59). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

And goes on to say:

For example, a team of Creation “scientists” in Colorado Springs, Colorado, claims that all of the radiocarbon tests performed on the Shroud were inaccurate because the Shroud was once in close proximity to a neighborhood fire!

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 59). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Mills is sadly revealing great ignorance here. The Shroud was involved in a fire and was reconstructed to an extent. The case for the lab tests also has several questions and reading any Shroud expert would tell you this. Finally, Mills says nothing about what really caused the image on the Shroud and not only that, but the other effects of it, like the negative images that couldn’t have been done back in that time.

Mills sadly has become a perfect example of how atheist “reasoning” leads him to reject real study on a subject.

During the early days of Christianity, believers tried to persuade the ruling authorities to establish a legal holiday to commemorate Jesus’ birth. But the governing authorities refused. So the Christians decided that “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” and thereafter celebrated Jesus’ birth on an already-established holiday: the Winter Solstice, December 25th.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 60). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

No information is given on this. Also, the Winter Solstice was not celebrated on December 25th ever. There is no looking at any source talking about the data on the birth of Christ.

Easter is likewise a Christian hijacking of an ancient pagan holiday, the Vernal Equinox, a day when darkness and light are equally divided. Even today, the date of Easter is set each year by calculating the first Sunday after the first full moon after March 21st, the Vernal Equinox.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 61). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

And again, we go the other way. Easter is more based on Passover than anything else. Of course, you can’t count on Mills to actually study this. He just believes whatever he’s read as long as it argues against Christianity.

Christian Fundamentalists have been devilishly successful in their propaganda campaign that all communists are atheists, and all atheists are communists. But these “facts” are altogether erroneous. First, I strongly challenge the assumption that communism is a truly atheistic philosophy. It seems to me that the omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent god of Christianity is simply replaced by the omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent god of the State. Under the communist system, the State is supposedly all-wise, all-good and all-powerful. Communism is therefore just as nutty as religion in its unrealistic, utopian fantasies and pie-in-the-sky promises.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 63). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Communism is a truly atheistic philosophy. They persecuted religion for a reason dynamiting many churches. But hey, they supposedly act religious in what they do, so it’s not atheism, it’s religion.

I would say this is a perversion of atheism, but is it? What in atheism says you cannot do XYZ to your neighbor? All atheism says is there is no God. If there is no God, then how does killing your neighbor go against that? Sure, atheists can be fine and moral people, but is it because they are atheists? Nothing in atheism requires it. I contend still it’s because they have a thoroughly Christian background they don’t realize.

So finally, that’s the end of chapter 1.

We’ll continue next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)