Where do we Stand?
Jul 15th, 2008 by Randy Toman
Christopher Hitchens debated Dinesh D’Souza at the Bally in Las Vegas July 10-12 2008. Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris all have written books and are all Atheist carrying forth this new so called “Gospel of Atheism”. Hitchens opened the debate with this;
“I don’t think there is any evidence to make us believe religion makes us better.”
He goes on to say;
”If you look around the world, there are Islamic crazies over here, Christian nuts over there, who all fuel at the same holy gas station.”
How can you defend religion as something good and necessary against those types of argument? You can start by saying what they call themselves as religious people has nothing to do with what they really are. Religion should be first and foremost defined as something were the person is worshiping a deity with the belief that the following of his rules will get that person into a heavenly there after. Men and there conscience lie, rationalize and deceive themselves into thinking they are doing themselves and mankind good.
Moral Philosophers recently have settled on and put forth a Secular Theory of morality. The Rational Choice Theory accordingly say people tend to settle on a moral code that fits their needs and leads, or is likely to lead to their desired outcomes. Rational choice theorists argue that their theory can explain virtually any human behavior, including moral choice. And that the theory goes on to form a workable social contract but does it?
Minette Marrin in her published report July 13, 2008 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/minette_marrin/article4322604.ece raises some interesting points and shows how Britain negotiated away its common moral commitments. “— the abdication both of authority and of personal responsibility that began sometime after the war.” (She is talking about WW2) Jumping from Marrin report to the Rational Choice Theory you can quickly see were morality and social contract is based on having something to lose and without responsibility and authority all is lost. The fact that you have no need that is your responsibility or your authority will lead to nothing.
Now jumping from what I just said to the political arena you see were needs and big government are tied together to make a perverted, evil connection. The bigger the government the more the needs of society are taken away and given to and controlled by government and the worse the social order deteriorates.
Now, to make the last leap, back to the Atheist Christopher Hitchen and his position. Religion is in mans soul, heart, in his physic, he cannot get away from it. He will worship something whether Hitchen wants to believe that or not is not important. What is important is found in History, what religion has done the most for mankind and advanced mankind up the ladder of prosperity. What god had mercy on the people and showed man a social contract that he could form and live by? What god gave man the means to cross over death into a heavenly rest and glory through his son? If Hitchen wants to take that need of God and Jesus Christ away from him self so be it, but I shall not let Him go and continue to need and believe on the Lord and His Christ and my savior. I am a sinner and in need of Him, Lord save this land, to your glory.
Psalm 10:4 King James Bible:
“The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God; God is not in all his thoughts.”
Psalms 11:3 King James Bible
” If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
First off: thank you for your Bible references. For someone like me who doesn’t read the Bible, it helps to know where the quotes come from.
“Men and there conscience lie, rationalize and deceive themselves into thinking they are doing themselves and mankind good.”
Here you are dismissing the views of extremist Christians as not being in line with God’s will. The problem I see with this is that if you were to speak to one of these men, the would tell you that their actions are most definitely the will of God. Now you and I might disagree with these people, but who is to say which version of Christianity is truly the “right” one. Since the first Council of Nicea, Christians have been struggling to unify their views of God into one, coherent narrative. But since then, countless Protestant organizations have split off from the church, believing themselves to be following the TRUE intentions of God. So when you say that “Christian nuts” (to use Hitchens’ term) aren’t following the true meaning of God’s words, whatever they may be, I think it is only fair to ask you what makes you so certain that their faith is flawed and yours is correct.
“Religion is in mans soul, heart, in his physic, he cannot get away from it.”
Man will always seek to understand that which he does not understand. It’s one of the things that make our species so unique. In ancient times, there was much that man didn’t know. He couldn’t comprehend the characteristics of light, or atoms, or sound, or even basic biology (the Egyptians preserved all of a deceased Pharao’s organs, except for his brain. They thought it was useless, and so threw it away). This left a great deal of questions open for questioning. And so religion was formed in the shadow of man’s understanding of the world. If it couldn’t be explained, then clearly it was the work of a higher power. Over time, science has slowly pushed back the shadows of inquiry so that, while not perfect by any means, we could better explain and harness the forces of nature. For example, while a modern scientist would deny that the Earth could be formed in seven days, a man from even 1,000 years ago would be unable to state the same with any confidence. And so we see a shift today where Christian Science is less concerned about proving that the Earth and all its life formed in the manner that the Bible depicts, and have focused instead on how science does not understand the nature of the universe prior to the Big Bang. So religion survives, but only in the place of that which is still not properly understood.
“What god had mercy on the people and showed man a social contract that he could form and live by? What god gave man the means to cross over death into a heavenly rest and glory through his son?”
These questions are your challenge to Hitchens. It appears to me that you are challenging Hitchens’ claims on the basis that they have failed to address these questions. The reason he won’t answer you is that while you have faith that what the Bible says about these questions is true, he sees no historical evidence to back your claims. In his mind, the burden is on you to show that there was a sudden shift in human history, where humanity went from savage beasts to a true civilization because God gave man a social contract. Through archaeology, it is possible to see a very slow transition over thousands of years where humans go from mere animals to a more organized society. So in his mind you need to present some evidence that the idea of a social contract evolving naturally from the human mind is insufficient to explain the observed beginnings of our species to convince him that your challenge is worth answering.
The amazing aspect of humanity is that humans as opposed to animals, have the capacity to reason. DNA is DNA and never changes. A lower form of life cannot “evolve” into a higher form. The law of thermo-dynamics is proof of that–matter is always breaking down, not building itself up. The chances of that happening is so infinitesimal as to be impossible.
One does not need man or science to justify his or her beliefs in a Divine Creator. The bible clearly states that one is to work out their own salvation. This meaning, to either believe or disbelieve in the living Christ and serving Him. That is it, clear and simple. There need be no other arguments. God is not complicated, and is not viewed as such by Christians.
I’m sure that to those who do not believe, various denominations seems like different religions. That is where the mistake lies, these are not different religions, but rather, different groups within the same religion. True, there are some that are not true to the scriptures, but then, they would not be Christians, would they? To say that because one believes in God makes them a Christian, is the most damning folly of all. The demons and devil believe in God and satan knows scripture and used it against Christ when he tried to tempt Him. However, a Christian knows the difference and is not fooled by false doctrines.
Our loyalty is to Jesus Christ and not man. Our God, having rose from the dead, is alive and sits at the right hand of the Father in Heaven. As a philosophy professor of mine once said, “I should think it would be better to die in belief and find out there is no Heaven (I shall have lost nothing) than to die in dis-belief and find out that there is one and I will not partake of it and have lost everything!”
“DNA is DNA and never changes.”
Are you referring to one person’s DNA over the course of his/her life? Because DNA certainly changes from parent to child. You also mustn’t forget about genetic defects such as down syndrome. As for a single lifetime, there is currently evidence that shows that an individual’s DNA can change due to radiation, certain diseases, and even aging.
“A lower form of life cannot “evolve” into a higher form.”
Can a higher form of life “devolve” into a lower form? Could a four-legged bug evolve into a six-legged bug? Which would you say is “higher”? I understand that a Creationist might see two classes of animal: humans, and everything else. Thus, you are uncomfortable with the idea that a monkey might, over thousands of years, evolve into a human. After all, God gave man dominion over all animals, and it would be silly to give such responsibility to just any arbitrary species. But your failure in the eyes of Biology is your assumption that man is indeed “higher” than any other animal. Sure, we all like being human, and our large brains helped us to create technology, which allows us to triumph over nature in ways previously unseen on this planet. But to call humans a “higher form” is to make an assumption provided to you by the Bible. Thusly, your theory of evolution fails to hold any scientific sway.
“The law of thermo-dynamics is proof of that–matter is always breaking down, not building itself up.”
I’m afraid you are displaying your vast misunderstanding of the second law of thermodynamics, which states (in one of its many forms): “In a system, a process can occur only if it increases the total entropy of the universe.” Basically, the law states that no process can occur with 100% efficiency. For example, when you clap your hands, most of the energy goes into creating sound waves, but some of it is wasted by instead creating heat. So if we apply this law to evolution, the more correct conclusion would be that the amount of energy spent on trying to cause genetic change is never greater than or equal to the amount of change actually created.
“The chances of that happening is so infinitesimal as to be impossible.”
The universe is a big place. There are literally countless planets and galaxies out there. It’s a matter of cosmic probability that a species like humans had to appear at least once.
“One does not need man or science to justify his or her beliefs in a Divine Creator.”
This is absolutely true. These beliefs are often held IN SPITE of man and science. People are free to believe what they will, but a man who is not uncomfortable with his ignorance of the universe will never see the need for religion.
“True, there are some that are not true to the scriptures, but then, they would not be Christians, would they?”
And around we go. You refer to those who are “true to the scriptures”, but you do not mention which type of Christianity is in fact the “true” one. Later in this paragraph, you mention how the Devil believes in God, yet is not a Christian. But surely the devil doesn’t think himself to be a Christian, either. When different denominations of Christians take opposing views to the scriptures, surely one of them is wrong if there is only one true interpretation. If every denomination declares its interpretation as correct, then a neutral observer will be unable to find any decisive argument for one or the other.
“As a philosophy professor of mine once said, ‘I should think it would be better to die in belief and find out there is no Heaven (I shall have lost nothing) than to die in dis-belief and find out that there is one and I will not partake of it and have lost everything!’”
From my point of view, it’s just the opposite. With no religion able to conclusively show that THEY are the one true religion, it is far easier to settle for none of them. It would be a tradgedy for a Muslim to die and discover that Christians were right about the afterlife. In the same way, a Christian would be horrified to die and be faced with a Muslim afterlife. Instead, it is much simpler to live life as you will, and accept the consequences of your actions after you die. Besides, a God that would ignore a lifetime of good works just because I would not bow my head to him and send me to Hell for my lack of faith is hardly a God worth following at all.
There is a youtube video by Pat Condell (atheist humorist) that touches on these issues. Pat seems to be unaware of the effect Christianity and the reformation have had on our government. You can see Pat Condell’s video by searching Youtube for “Condell” and “God the Psycho” You can find a video response in youtube by searching on “Is God a Psycho” and “tuxamation” but I think it is better to read the response than watch it.
Reply to Pat Condell’s “God the Psycho”
- Roy Timpe
Pat Condell, I have to applaud your video commentaries on the three major religions of the, “God of the desert.” You are correctly concerned about the threat to Western Civilization of radical Islam combined with our modern “political correctness” attitude. You also have a deep respect for reason and a gift for ridicule.
It is precisely because you have a respect for reason that I’ve decided to make this reply to your, “God the psycho” video diatribe. Now, you have some advantage as an atheist. You have no creed (except of course that you believe there is no God) You never really tell us what type of atheist you are.
There are several types of atheists. There are the collectivist type atheists. This includes those followers of Karl Marx. They think religion was invented by the powerful to keep the masses occupied, so the powerful could steal a bigger slice of the finite pie. They also believed in a Hegelian progression of history that would end in a proletariat utopia where the pie would be infinite. (From each according to his ability to each according to his need and all that) Never mind that their concept of the pie is both finite and infinite, that little bit of self contradiction never occurred to them. Pity nobody pointed it out, it would have made the 20th century a nicer place to live. Then there are the individualist atheists. This would especially include followers of Ayn Rand. They struggle looking for moral absolutes, derived from an empirical epistemology. It is an admirable goal, but their success is as likely as the Marxists finding a pie that is both finite and infinite. Between these two ends of atheist spectrum, there are likely many shades. You never quite tell us where you’re coming from, but my guess is that you’re toward the individualist camp.
Well Pat, just as with atheists, there are many types of Christians. There are Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, Roman Catholic, and Protestant just to name a few. I am not going to attempt to defend every action in church history done in the name of Christ. For example, I will not defend the Crusades. Likewise, I would not expect you to defend every action done in the name of atheism, Stalin’s Gulags, and Pol Pott’s killing fields being two examples.
World views are something like the Geometry we learned about in school. You remember, they started with presuppositions (called axioms, two points determine a line and all that . . . ) and progressed on to theorems like the Pythagorean theorem etc. Well, every world view starts with presuppositions. From that point it progresses on to ideas about morality, government, science etc. The thing that frustrates me about your video diatribes is you give us little information about your presuppositions. You do however, give us an idea about your morality. You are moral. You believe that all people are equal and deserving of fair treatment. You believe in freedom of speech, and other liberties in the tradition of Western civilization.
Let me identify my presuppositions: sola scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia, sola Christus, and Soli Deo gloria. These presuppositions have been in Christianity to some degree since the fist century. They really were crystallized during the reformation that followed Martin Luther’s famous 95 theses in 1517. However, men like John Wycliffe (1320s – 1384 ) and John Huss ( 1369 – 1415) were championing these ideas 150 years or so before Luther. These ideas gave rise to a better understanding of the gospel, sometimes called the doctrines of grace. It is this fruit of the protestant reformation that has made the ideas of equality, and liberty, possible.
My chief complaint to you, is that you, as an atheist, assume and appropriate most of the results of my world view, all the while denigrating where these ideas have come from.
Let’s take science as an example. Before the monotheistic God of Christianity, men had many gods. All these little local gods, as you call them. Now with the monotheistic God as part of his world view, Galileo expects the universe to make sense. He expects it to have been designed by God. When he sees the moons orbiting Jupiter, he jumps to the conclusion that it is the same forces at work that cause our moon to orbit the earth. That conclusion would not be rational, given a pagan world view. How do we know that Jupiter is not governed by a local god altogether different from our local god? For a Christian it is natural to assume the physical laws transcend the entire universe. This assumption is unfounded for the pagan. Galileo is well known for the trouble he had with the Roman church. Johannes Kepler, the German mathematician famous for describing all orbits as conic sections, said, “O God, I am thinking Thy thoughts after Thee.” as he was studying astronomy. Both Kepler and Galileo expected the universe to make sense. They expected there was a rational explanation to the motions of the planets they observed. They believed the living transcendent God designed the universe. Kepler also had the advantage of living in a country that embraced the reformation.
Perhaps there is no greater area of Western Civilization affected by the effects of the reformation than the relationship of the individual to his government. Prior to Jesus, the idea of a servant leader was unknown in Western thought. There were no such things as public servants in Greece and Rome. Today both in the US and the UK we enjoy the effects of John Locke’s ideas on government. The US Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . . “ Thomas Jefferson wrote those words, and the continental congress ratified them, but they were ideas grown out of the effects of the reformation. John Locke observed that the Bible had only one creation account. One Adam and Eve created in God’s image. He observed that there was no second race created to be aristocrats. There was not an aristocrat Adam and a common Adam, there was just one Adam. It follows then that all men are created equal. In 1644 the puritan preacher and scholar Samuel Rutherford published Lex Rex. Rutherford argued against the ideas espoused by Charles I and his ilk. Ideas such as the divine right of kings, and the notion that the king was above the law. Rutherford showed that although the old testament David had been pronounced king by God’s prophet Samuel, David continued to respect Saul as king of Israel, and in fact did not function as king until he (David) had entered into covenants with the people. To Rutherford, and to Locke, this sounded like, “ deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
In the 1600s the puritans were very busy reforming government. They were expanding the application of the rights in the Magna Carta of 1215 to include common men. You know here in the USA we have the 5th amendment to our constitution. It prohibits the government from compelling you to give evidence against yourself. In earlier times you could actually be tortured to give evidence against yourself. I don’t know about you, but I really appreciate the right not to be tortured by a government who wants evidence. I realize it makes the jobs of the police and prosecutors more difficult, but I appreciate that right non the less. Don’t you? Well with Charles I and before, you had the “Star Chamber” They could torture and maim you to get you to give evidence against yourself. These puritans of the 1600s thought that was wrong. When Charles I was forced to reconvene parliament one of their first actions was to abolish the Star Chamber in 1641. They wrote the bill in such a way as to inject the principle of non-self incrimination into both our legal traditions.
You may object and say that Jefferson and Locke were referring to the laws of nature or Nature and Nature’s God, not the Christian God. I ask you has there ever been a people who by merely observing nature have concluded that all men are created equal? To Jefferson and Locke it was self evident. If we were to ask a pagan Roman or Greek. they would say the law of nature supports predation and slavery. They would say, “If we Romans are stronger than our neighbors we will plunder their cities, take their women, and enslave their men. It is the law of nature. Is not the lion stronger than the antelope?” So as far as they were concerned, you may have some liberty as long as you were Roman, but it was not self evident that you were created equal.
Slavery was widespread in the world. The USA learned it from the old world, and it persisted here until 1865. However, your “God of the desert” had much to say about slavery. In Deuteronomy 23:15-16, God commands, “You shall not deliver unto his master a slave that is escaped from his master unto you: he shall dwell with you, in the midst of you, in the place which he shall choose within one of your gates, where it pleases him best: you shalt not oppress him.” This means that it was wrong to return a fugitive slave to his master. Paul in his letter to Philemon asks Philemon to do “ that which is befitting” by granting Philemon’s fugitive slave Onesimus his freedom. The abolitionist movement in the UK and USA was largely made up of Christians who demanded that these pieces of scriptural truth be integrated into Western legal tradition.
It was self evident to M.P. William Wilberforce that all men were created equal, but the concept was not the least bit self evident to our US Chief Justice Roger B. Taney when he decided the Dred Scott case in 1857. Was it self evident that all men are created equal to Nero, Genghis Khan, Joe Stalin, Mao Zedong, or Pol Pott? You see Pat, there is a fundamental moral epistemological problem with observing nature: you can not reason from “is to ought” You can observe what is in nature. You can describe physical laws like net force equals the derivative of momentum with time, but that will never tell you that you ought to treat your neighbor as you want to be treated.
You may want to deny the effects of the reformation and make appeal to the enlightenment. You may want to credit this proliferation of liberty and rights to a secular enlightenment, rather than the puritans and the reformation. Jefferson was after all very much in the secular enlightenment tradition, however, John Locke was Jefferson’s mentor, and John Locke said, “The Holy Scripture is to me, and always will be, the constant guide of my assent; and I will always hearken to it, as containing the infallible truth relating to things of highest concernment…. Where I want the evidence of things, there yet is ground enough for me to believe, because God has said it; and I will presently condemn and quit any opinion of mine, as soon as I am shown that it is contrary to any revelation of the Holy Scripture.” John Locke had a high regard for scripture and considered the Bible to be authoritative.
If you have any further doubt that it is the reformation and its effects that have secured us the blessings of liberty, consider the warning of Pope Martin V to the king of Poland. Martin V wanted to cling to the middle ages. He became Pope one year after the reformer John Huss was executed one hundred years before Martin Luther started the reformation in earnest. Martin V advises the king of Poland, “Know that the interests of the Holy See, and those of your crown, make it a duty to exterminate the Hussites. Remember that these impious persons dare proclaim principles of equality; they maintain that all Christians are brethren and that God has not given to privileged men the right of ruling nations; they hold that Christ came on Earth to abolish slavery; they call the people to liberty, that is to the annihilation of kings and priests. While there is still time, then, turn your force against Bohemia; burn, massacre, make deserts everywhere, for nothing could be more agreeable to God, or more useful to the cause of kings, than the extermination of the Hussites” Pope Martin V correctly saw that the reformation of Christianity advocated by Wycliffe and Huss would undo the medieval world he so loved.
Pat, you enjoy your liberty as a citizen of the U.K. and you are rightly concerned about the threat radical Islam and political correctness pose to those liberties. However, in railing against Christianity, you’re like the proverbial man who saws the tree limb out from under himself. It is the Christian God who blesses you with the liberty of that branch. Since you can not reason from is to ought, it is God alone that supports that branch. He has blessed us with liberty, and it is my hope that he will bless you with much more than liberty. After all Jesus said, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.” John 6:37
For good reading on these topics try:
Defending the Declaration: How the Bible and Christianity Influenced the Writing of the Declaration of Independence by Gary T. Amos
Religion, Reason and Revelation by Gordon H. Clark
Without A Prayer: Ayn Rand and the Close of Her System
by John W. Robbins