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6

Published on 6 Comments on “Just show me the evidence”
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Have you ever heard this kind of claim from an atheist:

Unlike you theists, I am open to change.  All you need to do is show me the evidence and I'll confess on the spot that I was wrong.  If you can prove God I will switch sides.  You theists on the other hand obstinately cling on to the God hypothesis no matter what the evidence.  You call this irrationality "faith."

How to respond?

Do we say "No I'm very open to change, I just think the evidence is better on our side"?

That might sound tempting.  After all it has the air of intellectual credibility about it (if, ironically, you don't think about it too long).  And it's the least we could do seeing as the atheist has been so even-handed with "the evidence."  Besides, what hope is there for genuine dialogue if we're not open to change?

Well let's slow down a second.  What kind of openness is being claimed by the atheist?

Doesn't their claim amount to:

I, the neutral observer, will accept  the God hypothesis if and only if naturalistic evidence meets my criteria.  And of course such acceptance will be eternally tentative, since opposing evidence may arise to dis-prove the God hypothesis.

Let me ask some questions about those bolded phrases...

Are you really a neutral observer?  Is the scientific community, religious community or indeed the human race collectively a neutral observer?  How could you ever know?  What tests could you perform to figure out whether, when it comes to God, humanity suppresses the truth?

If you are assessing 'the God hypothesis', are your investigations being carried out in a way proper to the object of your study.  I.e. is God really a 'hypothesis' to be tested?  And if you think he is, the question must be asked, Which god are you talking about?  Because it doesn't sound like the God of the Bible.  If, on the other hand, God is a Self-Revealing Speaker, doesn't "scientific investigation" look very different?  i.e. Wouldn't a proper correspondence to this Object of enquiry entail listening to His Word?

Who gets to decide what is "evidence"?  Does the Bible count?  Does it count on its own terms, or only when filtered through other tests?  What about encountering Christ spiritually through Scripture or worship?  Wouldn't that be quite a  "knock-down" proof - for some even literally!  Is this evidence allowed at the bar?

Even if you are a neutral observer, even if God is a hypothesis that could be tested and even if the evidence you demand is the right kind of evidence - will you really 'become a believer' on the basis of this evidence?  Surely, to be consistent with your methods, you will merely line up with the God-hypothesis-camp until a better hypothesis comes along?  This is nothing like what Christians mean by "faith in God."

Therefore in what sense are you open to change?  Admittedly, you are open to reshaping certain of your views - and that is a very laudable thing. Few ever do it, so such openness is indeed commendable.  But the openness of which you speak is set within a tightly de-limited, pre-established epistemological system (i.e. system of gaining knowledge).

And if that's your definition of "open" then the Christian is at least as open.  If you show me convincing evidence about a pre-millennial return of Christ (to choose an intra-mural Christian dispute of secondary importance) then I hope I'm open enough to change.  I hope I am.  Obviously, people are biased, obstinate, self-justifying fools by nature (the Bible told us that long before science did), so it might be an uphill battle, but allow me to declare my willingness to change.

So there you are.  I'm open.

Of course, at this stage, the atheist says: "That's not openness to change!  That's just redecorating the exact same house."  To which I say, "Pretty much!  But then, a tentative assent to the God-hypothesis is also just re-decoration.  The foundations and structure of your beliefs would remain exactly the same."

You might rate yourself as a De-Facto Theist on Richard Dawkins' scale, but it's your commitments to a naturalistic method of knowledge that are really God for you.

To inflexibly hold pre-commitments about yourself, your object of enquiry, your method of enquiry and your criteria of judgement is to be "open" in only a very limited sense.   But here's the thing... pre-commitments about Me and God and the World and how I know things are absolutely inescapable!  I can't even begin to think without at least a shadow of an opinion on these things.

Which means none of us are very open.  There is no neutral space between the Christian position and the naturalistic position.  There is only conversion - i.e. a radical re-ordering of my view of self and God and the world.

Does this shut down all conversation?  Absolutely not!  This is the beginning of genuine conversation.  Now that we know where we all stand (and both Christians and atheists are regularly deluded about this), real interaction can happen.  How?  I say "Come on over to my house.  Let me show you around.  For a time, come in on my foundations, my vision of God and self and how to know things.  Experience the world from within these commitments.  See if life doesn't make more sense.  See if you don't confess that Jesus really is the deepest Truth"  And, by the same token, you can say to me "Come over to my house.  Allow me to show you the Magic of Reality as I see it.  Experience the world from within these commitments."

There's great hope for fruitful engagement (though this is a real statement of faith, I acknowledge!).  I believe that there is plenty to be said on the other side of an acknowledgement of our radical differences.  But let's be honest enough to state our differences.  It's not a case of simply assessing mutually agreed-upon evidence with the obvious tools for the job.  It's about show-casing different visions of reality.

This doesn't mean we cast stones at each other's "houses" or dig into our entrenched positions.  Instead it's a call to hospitality.  Let's love our neighbours.

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Published on 8 Comments on Commenting on an Atheist Blog [repost]

Still in Africa, back in a couple of days.  Here's one I first posted two years ago...

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I lost some of the best years of my life last month to an atheist blog.

With that in mind, I was amused at the recent furore over comment moderation at richarddawkins.net.  People are surprised at the vitriol spewed forth under pseudonymous cover in the under-belly of RichardDawkins.net?  A forum devoted to one of the most vituperative fundamentalisms going?  Does this shock anyone?

A couple of weeks ago I commented on a well respected and well-read atheist blog and was sworn at and wished dead in the most imaginatively vicious ways.  Compared to the abuses I and other Christians suffered there, the "rat's rectum" comparisons that flew between fellow-atheists at Dawkins' site sound like Pollyanna.

Anyway, I thought I'd try to redeem my experience by reflecting on some things I learnt, and some things I should have:

One reflection on my experience was written during the interchanges: Evangelists and Apologists Note: The six things that have already happened.

Here are some other reflections:

  1. Reason flows from the heart.  These guys raised a banner loud and proud for reason, logic, the scientific method, etc.   But there was nothing particularly reasoned or scientific about their manner of argument.  They were well read intelligent people (PhD students etc) but much of their commenting consisted in caps locked swear words.  "Logic" was their slogan not their method.
  2. They constantly appealed to a logical high-ground without any thought as to whether they were allowed one - being materialists and all!
  3. Pointing out this inconsistency didn't seem to get me anywhere (though you never know how non-commenting readers are responding).
  4. Everyone deals in circularities:
    1. I believe the bible is the word of God because in it God speaks
    2. You believe the scientific method is the arbiter of what's true because it's proved itself effective when judged by science.
  5. Everyone has ultimate authorities which, by the nature of the case, cannot be authenticated by outside sources - ie the scientific method cannot be tested by the scientific method.  One guy admitted that this self-validation hasn't happened yet but that one day science would definitely be able to prove the scientific method by the scientific method.  There's faith for you.  Which leads to...
  6. Everyone is faith based.  We all proceed from assumptions which we take to be true and then move forwards on the basis of them.
  7. I kept getting asked for 'evidence'.  My responses were in three broad categories, first I'd point to Christ risen from the dead, second I'd simply quote Scriptures.  But probably the most effective thing was to say "everything!  Everything reveals the LORD Jesus to you."
  8. Therefore evangelism is the invitation to the unbeliever to step inside the world in which Jesus is LORD and look again.  Basically it's saying: "Let me tell you a story about a triune God, the world He made and the Son who redeems it.  Now look again at the world through the Lens of Jesus.  Now do you see why self-giving love is the greatest thing?  Now do you see why trust and beauty, evil and forgiveness, truth and goodness are real beyond any scientific analysis?  In other words, now you can take seriously the most basic aspects of your human existence and not run against the grain of reality all the time."
  9. In this sense theology is a science.  It begins with self-authenticating premises and moves out in faith to investigate .  This investigation is shaped by the Object of knowedge.  Since the Object of knowledge is the Speaking God, the method is to hear His Word.  The premises of our enquiry after knowledge (e.g. Jesus is LORD, the bible is true etc) are not falsifiable in the way the materialists demand they be.  But then the scientific premises (e.g. that true knowledge is verified by the scientific method etc) aren't falsifiable either.  Premises are the light by which we see.  It's their success in seeing that recommends them.
  10. The failure of "science alone" to see the world was very evident to me.  It didn't seem particularly evident to them.  That Beethoven's 9th was a series of compression waves was certain for them.  That it was "beautiful" was a verdict they couldn't make with anything like the same certainty.
  11. The atheists who commented were very clearly captured by the vision of "the onward march of science", demolishing ignorance and dispelling superstition.  There was clearly a love for scientific progress that had won their hearts.  Nothing less than a greater love could ever displace this.  All their calls for "evidence, evidence" were simply calls for reality to fit into their paradigm - to serve their greatest love.  They need a new paradigm, or better - a new love.
  12. The call for "evidence, evidence" in the sense that they mean is a desire to be confirmed in their self-imposed naturalistic prison.  What counts as 'evidence' for them is only that which can be assessed according to their naturalistic paradigm.  This is simply a refusal from the outset to hear a Voice from above.  Again it is a matter of hard-heartedness, however seriously they wish to be taken intellectually.
  13. My lowest point came in the heat of battle when I fired off a comment justifying my intellectual credibility.  I'm ashamed of what I took pride in at that moment.  I should have borne shame and taken pride in the foolishness of the gospel, allowing Christ to vindicate me.  The cause of the gospel was hindered rather than helped by the assertion of my academic credentials (which weren't that great anyway!).  This is especially so given what I've been arguing above.
  14. Having said all this, I think it was a worth-while exercise.  Many of the commenters were American 'de-converted' evangelicals and knew a lot of bible.  The hurt from previous scars was palpable and I hope that a charitable Christian voice might at least temper some of the "all Christians are bigots" tirades that otherwise spiral on in these forums.
  15. On the other hand, some of the commenters were angry Brits and others who seemed to know very little of Christian things.  All they've heard has been from other atheists.
  16. And of course there were many more who I'm sure just 'listened'.  My time at Speaker's Corner taught me that even as you engage the Muslim apologist in front of you, you're aiming at the wide-eyed apprentices hanging off his coat-tails.  Who knows how the Lord will use these words?
  17. Turning the other cheek hurts but it's powerful.  I trust that (#13 and other lapses notwithstanding) perhaps the most useful aspect of the interchange was the attempt to model Christ in the way I commented.
  18. The absolute hatred for Christians is frighteningly palpable.  The hatred that's there in the comments sections will rise more and more into the public realm, that seems pretty certain to me.  But if we're surprised and outraged let's get a grip - no soldier should act all offended and hurt when the enemy actually shoots bullets at them!
  19. Just as Stephen Fry speaks of descending into the "stinking, sliding, scuttling" floor of the internet, engaging in this kind of way can be the faintest taste of what the LORD Jesus did in descending to a world that hates Him.  (It can be a total waste of time too, but I think there is a time and a place for it).  I spent a few hours in an internet forum.  His whole life He lived and loved and spoke and served among a hatred that literally tore Him apart.  He's the One we proclaim.  His attitude is the attitude we take.  And as we join Him (in big ways and small) in cross-bearing love, we get to know His enduring grace that much more.
  20. There is a time for shaking dust off your feet.  Some need to spend a little longer in the battle.  But probably people like me (who have to be right!) should quit sooner.  :)

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Published on 61 Comments on Stephen Fry offers good advice on depression – by ditching his atheism

It was six years ago yesterday that Stephen Fry wrote a now famous letter to a fan on the subject of depression.  You can read the whole thing here.

In the letter he likens depression to the weather:

Here are some obvious things about the weather:

It's real.
You can't change it by wishing it away.
If it's dark and rainy it really is dark and rainy and you can't alter it.
It might be dark and rainy for two weeks in a row.

BUT

It will be sunny one day.
It isn't under one's control as to when the sun comes out, but come out it will.
One day.

It really is the same with one's moods, I think. The wrong approach is to believe that they are illusions. They are real. Depression, anxiety, listlessness - these are as real as the weather - AND EQUALLY NOT UNDER ONE'S CONTROL. Not one's fault.

BUT

They will pass: they really will.

Spoken like a true believer!  Indeed, spoken like the Christian author Tolkien: "it's only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer."

But Fry isn't a Christian and he doesn't believe that "this shadow" is a passing thing at all.  If Fry was consistent he'd say,

'The sun will come out and then go back in, and then explode and consume the earth in a terrifying fireball.  None of this is under your control.  But everything will, most certainly, get worse.

All the best,

Stephen.'

I really like Fry's letter.  I think it was wonderfully thoughtful and very helpful.  Be he has a choice.  He can have his atheism or he can have an answer to depression.  He can't have both.

And for Christians, surely this is the ground on which to engage atheism: pastoral theology!

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Published on 1 Comment on Easter Saturday – The Rejection of Theism and Atheism

Today is definitely the day to dust off Alan Lewis's wonderful Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Easter Saturday.  As he meditates on Eberhard Jungel's theology, Lewis writes

[Jungel] in effect identifies Easter Saturday, the day of the burial of God, as theology's foundational, defining moment.  For it is this occurrence, as recorded in the Christian narrative, which maximizes the dispute between faith and non-faith.  While the flesh of God's Son lies immured in death, the sharpest controversy divides those who see only that God is gone and finished and those who know that in this palpable absence nonetheless God is yet more present, with life-giving resurrecting power.  Even so, the God who is present in this absence, whose creative power is at work through the powerlessness of this defeat and death, is no more recognizable to the theist than to the atheist.  Faith in God on the day when God is dead is faith of a very different order from the certainties expressed in metaphysics; and it is faith in another God then the distant, immutable, omnipotent deity of theism, that supreme stranger to suffering and death.

Not only, then, is Easter Saturday the day of mutual contradiction between those who believe in God and those who cannot; it is also the day of shared contradiction for those who believe in the absolute God and those who cannot, by the theology of the Crucified One: faith in the life and power of the God who is dead.  To the extent that both of these conflicts are occurring now, with great intensity, at the end of the modern era, means that today is a cultural "Easter Saturday."  And that is the context, where faith hears and opposes both partners in the disputation between theism and atheism, in which theology must work today, and to which the gospel is to be addressed.

We have much in common with atheists.  We too proclaim the death of God.  We too take a long hard look at the world  and conclude there is no magical hope within the created order, nor any comfort in a power that remains outside it.  There is no help from the god who is shut out of the tomb - the god who is defined in opposition to our suffering and death; some power imprisoned by his own majesty.  Our only hope comes from the God who shuts Himself in the tomb.

Happy Saturday.

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Published on 1 Comment on Either God dies or gods die

Adapted from this older post.

Deconversion is essential to the religious liberty of every man, woman and child.  We must deconvert from every god that man has imagined.   If humanity is to be free from the tyrannical rule of God: God must die.  This is the most basic claim of orthodox Christianity.

Christopher Hitchens often made the following kinds of remarks about religion's "permanent, unalterable dictatorship":

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f40TRJl5vvI]

An eternal North Korea is, he says, religion's idea of heaven.  But it's Hitchens' idea of hell (probably ours too!).

But which God is he imagining ruling over this kingdom of heaven?  He's imagining a greedy dictator, a cosmic leech, an almighty sink-hole of need.  Of course, if that were true, eternity would feel like a drain!  Our lives on earth would be bad enough.

This was the tyranny that Dan Barker laboured under - now president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation.  He speaks of his past in evangelical Christianity here:

I was a "doer of the word and not a hearer only." I went to a Christian college, majored in Religion/Philosophy, became ordained and served in a pastoral capacity in three California churches. I personally led many people to Jesus Christ, and encouraged many young people to consider full-time Christian service.

But one day he de-converted to find liberation from this Almighty Surveillance System:

"For my whole life there had been this giant eyeball looking at me, this god, this holy spirit, this church history, and this Bible. And not only everything I did but everything I thought was being judged: Was God pleased? I realized that that wasn't there anymore. It occurred to me, 'I own these thoughts. Nobody knows what I'm thinking right now. There's no fear of hell, no fear of judgment, I don't have to be right or wrong, I can just be me.'" (Source)

Once God was dead, Barker was free.  It was "exhilarating", he said.  You can imagine it was something of a Hallelujah moment.  The death of God always is!  Mischievously, I wonder whether Barker wishes such exultation could go on forever...

It's interesting that Barker had this revelation while out in the beauty of nature and looking up at the 'heavens'.  I mention his location because it's very similar to John Bunyan's de-conversion experience, three centuries earlier.

He too was labouring under the feeling that heaven was a spiritual North Korea.  He felt the "giant eyeball" very keenly and it was a heavy oppression.  But one day he also de-converted from his old religion...

"As I was passing in the field, and that too with some dashes on my conscience . . . suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, "Thy righteousness is in heaven"; and, methought withal, I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God's right hand, there, I say, is my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was a-doing, God could not say of me, He wants [lacks] my righteousness, for that was just before him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, the same yesterday and today for ever (Heb. 13:8)."

"Now did my chains fall from my legs indeed, I was loosed from my affliction and irons, my temptations also fled away, so that from that time, those dreadful scriptures of God left off to trouble me; now also went I home rejoicing for the grace and love of God."

Notice the exhilarating effect of the death of God!  When Bunyan grasps the implications of God the Lamb he finds instant freedom from religious afflictions and even from "those dreadful scriptures of God."  Even Bunyan's language mirrors the de-conversion experiences related so often on today's atheist websites.

I've met many an atheists on the internet - especially those from the kinds of religious environments that Bunyan experienced in the 17th century.  Countless times I've heard de-conversion stories about finding release from a greedy god, from judgementalism, from hypocrisy, from the guilt, shame and fear of their religious upbringing.  I feel their pain.  I also grew up in church.  I also laboured under the tyranny of an imagined god.  I also felt the eye-ball in the sky.  I also found release in de-conversion.

But there's two kinds of de-conversion.  There are two kinds of death-of-God experience.

Bunyan de-converts from a God-of-Demand and finds a God-Who-Is-Giver.  The death of God means, for Bunyan, looking to the cross.  There He sees the LORD Jesus giving Himself utterly - pouring out His life for the world.  There He sees that God is not greedy - God is Giver.  This is the vision that changes him.

Barker de-converts from a God-of-Demand and finds, what?  Only other powers.  Selfish powers.  Uncaring powers.  What lies 'at bottom' in this universe in the atheist vision?  'Blind, pitiless indifference' if you ask Dawkins.  Barker is de-converted towards powers that will only judge and crush us in the end.

His exhilaration can only be short-lived.  He's only traded one tyranny for another.  But with Jesus, the death of God is our salvation.  And it might just make you want to sing "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain." (Revelation 5:12).  That's the song of heaven - because heaven is a celebration of the grace, not the greed, of God.

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Published on 21 Comments on We’ve all got our circularities

I believe the Bible is the word of God because in it God speaks.  This is not an unfortunate circularity.  At the end of the day nothing could convince me it's God's word except that God speaks.  You could tell me it's great history, it's logically coherent and displays incredible internal consistency as a library of books over many centuries.  Great, I believe all those things.  But that doesn't make it God's word.  The only thing that could authenticate the Bible as God's word is if God personally speaks through it.  And at that stage I'm essentially saying that it's God's word because it's God's word.

Or to shift that argument to christology, I believe that Jesus is the Radiance of the Father's glory because in Him I've met the glorious Father.  Yet this Father is met only in the face of the Son.  In other words, I know that Jesus is Lord because I see in Him the kind of Lord that only Jesus reveals.  There is a self-authenticating majesty to Jesus such that I say, along with Lord Byron, "If God's not like Jesus, He ought to be."  Jesus is the kind of God that I believe in - the kind of God that Jesus uniquely reveals.  He's IT.  And I know He's IT because, well, look at Him!  Jesus is Lord because Jesus is Lord.

At this point you'll note how inter-related these two circularities are.  And also the integral role of the Spirit in both.  He brings us God's written word with divine authority, illuminating Christ so that, in Him, we might see and know the Father.

Now "circular arguments" get a bad name.  For one thing it sounds like buying into them will trap you.  Actually, if you find yourself in the right Circle, you'll finally be free.  The Circle of Father, Son and Spirit doesn't limit you.  No these ultimate realities (because they really are ultimate) enable you to move out into the world all the wiser for knowing their Lordship.  With the Spirit-breathed word, and the Lens of the Father's Son... then you can really get somewhere.  From this knowledge you'll find all sorts of other things illuminated by God's Light.

But still, people will cry foul.  "You can't reason in a circle" people will say.  But hang on, we all employ circular reasoning whenever we make claims about ultimate reality.  Didn't your mum ever justify her pronouncements with "Because I'm the mummy"?

It's inevitable that your ultimate ground of authentication must authenticate itself, or it isn't ultimate.

Now this plays out in all sorts of areas.  But think, for instance, of the naturalist assumption that the "natural" realm is best placed to judge any hypothetical "further realm".  If a "further realm" exists, they say, it must play by the rules of naturalism.  This, of course, radically limits the kinds of realms the naturalist would be willing to admit and means that the gods they consider can only be superbeings within the world.

Now the naturalist cannot establish such a priority via naturalism.  It is, by definition, beyond the ability of the natural sciences to pronounce on the existence of realms beyond their scope.  Yet naturalists assume that the "natural" realm is all there is, was, or ever shall be.

Naturalism, they say, is the best explanation of ultimate reality because other explanations fail naturalistic tests.  Or, to put it most simply, naturalism is true (or our best bet) because naturalism says so.

Now let's be clear - belief in naturalism is not a groundless leap of faith.  It's a faith commitment that springs from compelling evidence (true faith always does).  The evidence is this: trusting our own powers of perception and reasoning has produced great success in the natural sciences.  I.e. it works, it explains things, when we move out into the world on its basis things make sense.

But,

1) The Christian does not deny the explanatory power of the naturalistic sciences.  The Christian believes that such sciences have sprung from a broader Christian world-view and rejoice in the fruits of the gospel here.  Christians simply deny that such knowledge is the only or surest knowledge.

In fact,

2) The Christian sees that naturalism is horrifically reductionistic and harmful when seeking to be applied beyond the natural sciences.  As the old saying goes, If all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  To treat human personhood and relationships, ethics and aesthetics, to say nothing of a relationship with God, as a mere interplay of matter and energy is to misunderstand these things greatly.  The explanatory power breaks down here in a catastrophic way.  And yet, these things - love, forgiveness, beauty, goodness etc - are the most precious realities in human existence.

In the discussion between Richard Dawkins and Rowan Williams the other day, Dawkins said he "believed" we would find naturalistic explanations for consciousness - explanations which we do not now possess.  That is a consistent faith position within his world-view.  Naturalism has produced the goods in many spheres of enquiry - he trusts that consciousness will be one more success story for the natural sciences.

Yet all the while an explanation for personal reality presents itself to Dawkins.  One which does not rule out science but underpins it.  And one which accounts for the priority of the personal which is the most blindingly obvious reality which we encounter moment by moment. Nothing else accounts for it like this accounts for it...

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.   (John 1:1-4)

I honestly don't know why Dawkins - or anyone - can't see it.  How can there be darkness when the Light of Christ is so dazzlingly obvious?  But then I would say that.  I'm in the grip of the ultimate Circularity!

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Published on 7 Comments on “A universe with a god would look very different to a universe without one.”

"A universe with a god would look very different to a universe without one.” Richard Dawkins.

It's one of the wisest things Dawkins has ever said. Believers and unbelievers alike should take heed.

Let's tease out some implications of it.

1) Dawkins clearly has a doctrine of "god" in mind as he makes the statement.  The flying spaghetti monster wouldn't affect the kind of universe we inhabit.  But Thor might.  Allah in a different way.  And the triune God, different again.  Therefore it's not a straight binary choice.

2)  I would look different depending on the existence of God or not.  Dawkins seems to imagine two states (a theistic and an atheistic universe) as alternatives lying before him.  And who is the great unmoved mover in this scenario?  Who is the neutral observer, the one enthroned above all worlds?  The scientist!  But no, Dawkins' thought experiment - if it takes the word "God" with any seriousness - is one in which everything must be re-imagined.  If I am a creature, made by the Father's Word, intended for life in communion with God, then everything changes for me.

3) I would look differently depending on the existence of God or not.  If I was a creature of the Word, and if the world  is a creature of the same Word, I would look through the lens of His Word.  I would see all things in relationship to Christ the Creator.  That would simply be good science if the Christian God existed.

But here's something strange...

4) Dawkins ridicules Christian scientists who do actually deliver a different vision of the universe to his own.  Yet how could they do otherwise, if "a universe with a god will look very different"?

Which only makes me think...

5) Dawkins has not entered into his own thought-experiment for even a minute.  Has he really considered the revolution involved in actually reconceiving Self and World and God according to the Christian vision?  Of course not.  To do so would mean repenting of his position as all-seeing Arbiter.  Or in other words:

"Unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."  (Matthew 18:3)

 

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Published on 6 Comments on Christians make the best atheists

Wonderful article by Alastair Roberts on Atheism and Christianity.  Every paragraph's a winner, how about this to whet your appetite:

The target of much atheist protest is the god that secures all meaning and makes sense of the world, the religion that serves as a crutch and underwrites the social order, the faith that inures one to truth and reality and gives birth to dulling and enslaving illusion. This is the god in whom they don’t believe. They might be surprised to find that Christians stand alongside them in attacking this deity: we don’t believe in that god either.

Read the whole thing here.

And Happy New Year!

 

Published on Leave a comment on Atheist converted through online witness

The story of Richard Morgan, converted after a Scottish Pastor braved the underbelly of richarddawkins.net...

it was his interest in evolution that led him to follow Richard Dawkins. Upon finding the author’s actual website, Morgan was excited to communicate with scientists and philosophers who could offer more insight into evolution.

But rather than discussing the nature of evolution in the “oasis of clear thinking,” Morgan was horrified to discover in his first forum that more than half of the people devoted their time saying rude things about believers using extremely foul language.

“I don’t know if you’ve seen ‘The Social Network’ but there’s one point where a girl says to the main character ‘Just stay in your dark room and make snide remarks because that’s what the angry do these days.’”

After witnessing the discussions firsthand, the newly minted evolutionist agreed that the Internet was more a place where people could hide behind their anonymity and say rude things as a kind of therapy.
Still searching for answers however, Morgan continued to be a part of the community, drawn particularly to a discussion on David Robertson’s open letter replying to Dawkins’ first chapter of The God Delusion.

Prompted to write a response to each of Dawkins’ chapters in the book, the Scottish pastor eventually compiled all the letters into a book called The Dawkins Letters.

Criticizing the book in the forums, members began to attack the letters until one day Robertson himself appeared in the discussions and began defending the points he made.

“I don’t know how many hours he must have spent just replying very calmly and politely to people who were sending out the most vilest insults and criticisms,” Morgan recalled. “He just kept coming back and occasionally with a few words of Scripture thrown into his general discourse.”

Unable to understand what was wrong with Robertson, Morgan himself posed a question on the discussion boards asking members why the pastor kept coming back and what result he expected. One of the seasoned and experienced posters on the forum commented, “It’s just another Christian attention seeker.”

“Yes, David Robertson was seeking attention but it wasn’t for David Robertson. We all know for whom he was seeking attention,” expressed the now Christian Morgan.

For several days the attacks continued, until one day someone replied that David Robertson was a liar. But Morgan throughout all of the threads had not noticed this and asked where the pastor had lied, bringing him a bout of criticisms as well.

“I was probably too unintelligent to see where he was a liar,” remembered Morgan.

As time went on, he began to see more and more the brutality and harshness of the chats, recalling one shocking post where the site administrator had published an article about an extremist Russian prophet who tried to commit suicide when his prediction for the date of the end of the world failed to come true.

A couple of posters in response to the story regretted that the fallen prophet had failed in his attempt to put an end to his life. Stunned by the level of inhumanity, Morgan wondered how any civilized person could say they wanted to see anybody die. Writing a protestation to some form of humanity in the forums about his shock and disappointment in the members, one respected member on the site simply replied to his post with an LOL– laugh out loud.

It was then that Morgan realized he did not want to be a part of these people. “I’m not condemning all atheists,” he clarified in the interview. “I’m talking about anonymous atheists on internet discussion boards and the messages they express which are extremely negative, puerile, [and] full of hate…”

Coming back to Robertson’s replies to all the “nastiness and unpleasantness,” which Morgan himself was a part of, composing a piece of music just to insult the pastor, Morgan reread the debates and was impressed at several aspects of Robertson’s participation.

First, his persistence and continual presence in the discussions astounded Morgan. Robertson always came back and sometimes got up two hours earlier in the morning to give adequate response time to the criticisms.

Secondly he defended himself in a robust manner while not hesitating to wish everyone well. He wasn’t the meek and mild kind of Christian who said "I love you all and you’re all nice," but the kind of Christian who stood up for what he believed in.

Printing out over fifty pages of Robertson’s posts, Morgan read through all the posts again and found no lies. What he discovered instead was humility, intelligence, sensitivity, and several references to the Bible.

In his confused state, without God or a community of atheists to turn to, Morgan started to post on The Free Church of Scotland’s forum, which the Scottish pastor was a part of.

Writing to Robertson about how he appreciated his responses and comments, Morgan shared how he couldn’t believe in God. “I’m not an atheist because I want to be an atheist. I’m not a happy atheist. I’m an atheist because I can’t believe in God."

In response to Morgan’s post, Robertson, the “resident fruitcake” at the Dawkins’ forums, asked him two questions which subsequently changed his life: 1) Why don’t you believe in God? 2) What could make you believe in God?

Dismissing the first question as dumb, Robertson’s initial reaction to the second question was “certainly not proof and evidence.”

At that moment, Morgan's instinctive response conjured up to his memory, probably from his previous Mormon days, the verse, “We love because he first loved us.” And in that instant, Morgan understood the expression “amazing grace.”

“I was certain without having any rational explanation that God existed, that he loved me without waiting for me to love him, that he loved me unconditionally without waiting for me to deserve it.”

Whole article here.

Published on Leave a comment on Empty Chair Leaves a Hollow Feeling

Daniel Blanche has some excellent thoughts on the empty chair at the Sheldonian Theatre tonight.

Any temptations to gloat (and I have plenty) surely come from a deep insecurity over the self-evident Lordship of Christ.  An insecurity which philosophical arguments will not assuage but foster.

Go and read Daniel's blog.

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