Yes, the title’s humorous.
Anyway, someone made a lengthy response to my “Defending My Secularism” post and I thought I’d go through it here. It is a well-constructed and thought out response.
Check out the previous post’s comment section for his full comment. I’m just responding here.
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MY RESPONSE:
“[On my defense of the first reason I'm not Christian:]
This is pitiful.
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You’ve built an impressive strawman. Apparently, “breathing,” and “thinking” are things that “look cool.” I suggest learning how to accurately rephrase your opponent’s position so that you don’t veer off course after shadows.”
>>I agree that “look cool” was not the best way to put it.
I think you get the idea, though, which is that the Argument From Beauty, Complexity, etc. is just awe at something natural, and nature being complex, cool looking, or effective is not proof of God’s existence.
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“Also, notice how your strawman has distorted your ability to mount an effective counterargument. You claim that Neil’s argument has “no empiricism in it,” yet breathing, thinking and moral actions are all empirically verifiable. What you mean to say is that these cannot empirically prove theism. But empiricism as the sole criterion by which to investigate truth claims has been decisively shown to be self-contradictory. The statement that an argument must be empirically proven in order to be true self-destructs since that statement itself cannot be empirically proven.
I suggest you leave behind the scientism of Dawkins. You would be hard pressed to find philosophers today who accept such a methodology as valid.”
>>Breathing and thinking are empirical, but they do not function as empirical proof for theism. That was my point, that chalking natural phenomenon up to divine creation is not evidence of anything except your willingness to chalk it up to divine creation.
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“The Bible is a collection of books. Perhaps you’d like to offer an argument for the anonymity of particular books within the larger collection called the Bible. Yet questioning the anonymity of books fails to grapple with the content inside. If your critique of the Bible is relegated to attacking the traditional authorship of certain books, then I’ll take that as a tacit admission that you are unable to deal with the actual text so you deal with extra-textual matters such as authorship.
And to say that the Bible is about as historically reliable as Lord of the Rings removes all doubt that you’re entirely ignorant of world history, ANE history, and Roman history, world religions, the philosophy of religion, comparative mythologies, which are all secular disciplines–to say nothing of Christian ones, such as biblical history, church history, and text criticism.
I’d say it’s your atheism that is embarrassingly fundamentalist.”
>>This is something Chris mentioned, too, that I noticed I left out.
I was referring to the New Testament’s authorship – I don’t know much about the Old Testament’s authorship, but I do know a little about its historicitiy, like how it claims a senior citizen packed billions of animals onto one boat with minimal supplies to survive a worldwide flood.
You say I failed to grapple with the content inside the Bible, that I attacked the authorship and historicity because I couldn’t handle the actual content. Actually, my original list of reasons said something like “The Bible is an anonymous text with many bad messages and very little historicity.” My critic was just going after the anonymity part, so I naturally responded only talking about the anonymity, since she didn’t go after the bad messages part, which refers to the actual content.
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Your antipathy towards Christ is revealing an adolescent form of rebellion that you see at private high schools when kids decide to be true revolutionaries and untuck their shirts in between classes to show the establishment that they underestimate the student rebels’ internal push for freedom from tyranny. Time to grow up.
Do you respond this way to your wife? To your girlfriend? “What do you mean you want me to be faithful to you and only you? Do you realize that what you are saying is profoundly self-hateful?”
Since you’re unable to mount an internal critique–which is essential if you’re going to argue against a system on its own grounds–I’m going to give you a few pointers. First, you need to establish a moral inconsistency within the system.
In Christianity, the God of Scripture is the one true God. All the other gods are false gods. It makes sense, then, according to the internal logic within Scripture, that if Christ is the only way to salvation, that he present himself as the only way to salvation.
In this case, Christ’s exclusive claims are profoundly loving, not hateful. If he would’ve said, “Don’t stress it, believe what you want” he would’ve been a deceiver. It would’ve sounded nice to the masses who wanted to continue worshipping idols, but it would’ve ultimately led them to their eternal peril.
>>I am not discussing Christianity’s internal consistency or the validity of its claims, I am just commenting that I find the doctrines of original sin, redemption, etc. to be degrading, as they say humans are essentially born bad (requiring baptism), which I find to be self-hating. You are talking about something besides what we are – you are discussing the validity of his claims, not how degrading those claims are.
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You’ve already been unmasked as an ignoramus when it comes to Scripture, so it shouldn’t come as a shock to readers to see this kind of nonsense from you. Christ referred to his incarnation as “new wineskins” that have come to replace the “old.” He repeatedly made mention of God’s plan of salvation towards Gentiles (non Jews). He resisted the official teachers of Israel countless times, and even described them as the sons of hell. If he wanted to reform Judaism rather than replace it, why did he tell the woman at the well that things were about to change in a drastic way; that soon the true worshipers of God wouldn’t worship at a physical location but would worship wherever they were, all over the world? The examples go on and on.
You’re partially right: love, acceptance and peace come only to those who repent and believe in Jesus Christ. The rest find that they get what they wanted on this earth, final separation from God forever.
Read Christ’s words again: “I didn’t come to bring peace, but a sword.”
>>Jesus was a Jew, as were his followers.
He was supposed to be fulfilling Jewish prophecy, not establishing some new religion. It just so happens that not all Jews accepted him as their messiah, so those who did splintered off into Christianity.
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Writers like David Aikman of Time Magazine have meticulously researched atheist regimes and their devastating consequences. Today, Marxist thought is responsible for cruelty never before seen under any abuse of Christian principles.
It is established by all except the blindest of atheistic sycophants that anti-theism in politics breeds unmitigated cruelty and oppression. So this sword cuts both ways.
And poverty doesn’t merit anyone salvation. Only the perfect life of Christ and his sacrificial death can cancel away our sins and make us righteous. We only gain heaven on his perfect record. Not ours.
>>I don’t know what you are talking about, honestly. That has nothing to do with things like renouncing your possessions, turning the other cheek, meek inheriting the earth, things that I was talking about.
Atheist regimes? Where did that come from? We weren’t discussing that.
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Your devotion to secular humanism is touching. It’s time you looked outside your window. Humanity is fallen, it’s depraved.
[Quotes H.G. Wells for three paragraphs]
Secular humanism is absolutely invalidated by life all around us. In fact, it’s contrary to evolutionary thought. I see that your system, in its denial of the fallenness of humanity, has all but contradicted your adherence to basic evolutionary suppositions.
No true Christian has any platform for which to consider himself worthy to receive salvation. We all understand how deep God had to reach us in our own sinful states in order to apply his redeeming grace. None of us merited it. That’s why it’s grace.
All in all, your reasons, as well as your responses to Neil, are too weak to register on the radar. I would hope that if you reject a system that has been around for thousands of years you would at least familiarize yourself with the best arguments it has to offer, but all I see is a strawman factory excelling at the assembly line. I suggest you take a couple of years to read up on Christianity before you try again.
>>Humanity is depraved, and religion is bigger than ever. Coincidence? lol
I am also not a secular humanist, although I do agree with some humanist principles. So, since your are attacking humanism, your argument isn’t especially relevant.
I am rather familiar with Christianity, having been a Christian for something like 11 years, and having gone to church for about 15.
OK, firstly, this guy seems pissed, damn, man, you’re back for one day and already people are mad at you. Job well done.
Oh yeah, this is hilarious, “like how it claims a senior citizen packed billions of animals onto one boat with minimal supplies to survive a worldwide flood.”
I gonna put that on my blog tonight, as “Favorite Quote of the day”
Thanks for the feedback.
My favorite atheist quote ever is from caseagainstfaith.com, when he says something like
“So what if I think it strange that a deity sacrificed himself to himself to change his own rules.”
I can’t count how many times I’ve used that quote in conversation… lol
Hey have you ever tried to edit the widget at school it doesnt work for i wonder why that is. Ohh well i will just have to put that quote on my blog tonight when i get home
Welcome back from your break! I hope you got some rest and refreshment?
(1) Complexity isn’t a valid argument to prove or even suppose it was a God that created that complexity. Beauty is mostly another subject, although a lot of beauty is specialized complexity. If you don’t tell my wife, I find the sight of two round breasts quite beautiful – I think most people would agree this is because any child I might sire needs a mother as well as a father, and the mother should need to nurse it with milk. Breasts are a life support system for a newborn – it’s logical that a father trying to select a mate would look for signs she might be a good parent. A woman looking for a man should do the same thing. It’s a complex process that a pair of birds might agree amongst themselves and their species what signs “of beauty” represent a good mate, and then show off those things. As a Christian, I don’t believe God cares very much what a peacock looks like.
(2) While again, I believe that God endowed us with lungs to breath in air over a long process of evolution, if a person asks why we have lungs, I don’t think “God” is an answer to that question. That’s giving a name to a larger concept that might hint at an answer, but it’s not an answer.
(3) I agree on original sin – this has always given me a lot of doubt. This is one of the reasons I’m not a Catholic.
(4) Jesus was a Jew, and Jesus was concerned with Judaism according to the Gospel. He remarked that he would save anyone who asked, but he only preached to Hebrews.
(5) This quote “Writers like David Aikman of Time Magazine have meticulously researched atheist regimes and their devastating consequences. Today, Marxist thought is responsible for cruelty never before seen under any abuse of Christian principles.” is so ignorant Angry might have wrote it. Slavery? Christians today are leading the fight against slavery, particular the sexual type. But the fact that God’s approval for slavery is so common in both testaments in the Bible prolonged terrible suffering in America for many decades.
(6) I’m not even sure how to comment, except to say by virtually any measure (outside the environment), the world is improving for the people on it.
Thanks for the well-wishing.
Interesting points, good comment.
Dear humanist and atheist friends,
The idea that man is basically good is and that a teaching to the contrary is self-hating and degrading are both unfortunate and historically inaccurate.
The trends we see in the secularization of western culture and around the world are mostly toward chaos, crime and self indulgence (i.e. recreational sex instead of procreational sex practiced by hedonists and other cultural groups that have been normalized over time).
I think of the BIBLE acronym as Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. Those who ascribe to it fully have only a positive impact on the culture. No harm done even if they are wrong
Perhaps you should altogether stop bothering to argue with Theists and fighting with rational and empirical “arguments” and simply search your mind and soul. The Bible has been proven historically, archeologically and culturally many times over. Unfortunately God categorizes some of you with the comment “They have eyes yet they cannot see”. My prayer is that you’ll find peace, joy and rest in a relationship with the Creator, the one true God.
Best wishes for you and yours on your life and endeavors.
I didn’t say man is basically good, but I think that human and animal nature is basically “good,” if such a term can be used here.
Fighting your own nature, own survival instincts and urges because you think that the way you are naturally is “evil” IS self-hating and degrading.
The bible has not been proved historically or archaeologically by any means; I don’t really know what you mean by proving it culturally (I see from the acronym that you are probably a GZA fan).
I don’t think it’s fair to say that Western culture is becoming secularized; only semi-psychotic conservative fanatics actually believe that; America is still almost all theist.
Actually, very very much wrong has been done by living by the Bible, and very little good has come from it.
Hitchens raises some interesting questions – name one good act done by a Christian that an atheist couldn’t also do and then name one evil act done by a Christian that an atheist wouldn’t do.
No harm done?! What about the Army of God, or Westboro Baptist Church, or Salem or the Crusades or Inquisition or neoconservatism and fundamentalist sociopaths? Christians ravage and mutilate people and destroy tranquility over Bronze Age mythology which says the earth was “created” after the dog was domesticated and there’s “no harm done”?
I find peace, joy, and rest in reality and would probably be constantly terrified if I thought there was a facist, totalitarian dictator in the heavens reading my mind, toying with my life, and just biding his time until he can fuck me up for disobeying some arcane law.
Again, your judging the God by the people.
Oh, p.s., you should totally delete any posts that contain an acronym or i might start a new Crusade
No, I’m not judging God by the people.
I was responding with examples of Christian evil because he said that doing what the Bible says can only lead to good. I was judging based off of the people because it was a discussion about the people.
Gotcha. The Crusades and the other events that you mentioned were certainly not people doing what the Bible says. That was the actions of sinful people trying to justify their actions by hiding behind God. The colonists justified their slaughtering of native americans through religion even though their actions stood in stark contrast to the instructions of Jesus in the Bible.
Seriously, you shouldnt allow acronyms.
Acronyms aren’t that bad when they’re the title of a GZA song. lol
They were doing what the Bible said, that’s that. All Christians tend to twist the Bible’s words until it justifies their politics.
That probably sounds like a generalization, but it’s true. Religion and god are manmade, not the other way around.
Not only does that sound like a generalization, but it is one. In fact, I would venture to say that I could (and have in another post) prove you wrong through myself and my politics. And I could point out just as many tragedies brought about by non-theistic groups that have twisted “ethics” and “morals” to justify their politics. You can see massive oppression of Christians by non-theist governments in North Korea and China and genocide/homocide in Marxist Russia. I would imagine that you would rather me not judge the mindset of all atheists based off of those who acted in depravity. Everyone twists ideas to conform them to their views, that’s the trouble of selfish humanity. The idea is to fight natural bias and allow the Bible to teach, and not teach the Bible. When that takes place, you find real Christianity.
I think “twist” sounded a little too… negative?
Basically, you can find justification for any ideology in the Bible, just as you probably find justification for your ideology, which you consider to be “true” Christianity.
That’s why Christians don’t all think the same; because they all look for something different in the Bible. And it’s easy to find.
But that isnt really a knock to Christianity in specific. Any religious or philosophical or scientific worldview is subject to being used to justify an ideology.
The Bible is easy to find multiple viewpoints if not properly interpreted, just like any other literature. Unless a proper hermaneutic is applied the Bible can be bent and shaped to match any ideal. The proper Bible scholar uses context, language, cultural barriers, literary genre and other issues to find the proper meaning.
However, the layman Christian isn’t a scholar, and the average Christian loves to twist til their heart’s content.
As for your second paragraph, I don’t see it as making much sense since the first worldview (religious) is the only one that really HAS “holy” texts to twist. The second two allow for subjective ideologies not based on some form of holy book or supposed divine influence.