Category: Christianity

Imagine no no religion

I read this other article on the new new atheism. A suggestion that female atheists should take the lead for atheists in order to push a more moderate and tolerant atheism.

Here’s a quote…

I heard two very different arguments at this event. The first was the old line of the New Atheists: Religious people are stupid and religion is poison, so the only way forward is to educate the idiots and flush away the poison. The second was less controversial and less utopian: From this perspective, atheism is just another point of view, deserving of constitutional protection and a fair hearing. Its goal is not a world without religion but a world in which believers and nonbelievers coexist peaceably, and atheists are respected, or at least tolerated.

And here’s a bit of demographic analysis…

“Females predominate in the overwhelming majority of religious groups in the United States, so it makes sense that males would predominate here. But XY types also dominated the rostrum, which saw a parade of white men joining John Lennon in imagining no religion.”

Perhaps this means atheism is actually bad for the survival of the species – who will all these atheists breed with? Atheism is clearly a genetic weakness. No wonder they want to propagate their ideas with evangelistic fervour. Actually, PZ Myers, the guy who killed my blog, has a post about some “science” that suggests that atheism is an undesirable genetic mutation. Cop that atheists.

“However, there must be a deeper psychological reason than short-termist hedonism why so many intelligent people have chosen the maladaptive trait of Atheism. I have recently published a theory trying to explain the phenomenon of ‘Clever Sillies’. Clever Sillies are people whose professional and expert attainments may be at the highest level, while their psychological and social beliefs and behaviours are just silly – I was thinking in particular of the prevalent lunacies of Political Correctness among the ruling elites. In essence, I argue that the root of the problem is that high intelligence often brings with it a tendency to overuse intelligence – even when ‘instinct’ is a better guide to reality.”

The guy who wrote the paper being quoted by PZ has suggested that atheism is a delusion. In that post he spells out why atheism is maladaptive…

The word ‘maladaptive’ has a strict biological sense, and also a more diffuse social meaning. In strict biological terms a maladaptive trait or behaviour is one that reduces relative reproductive success. Basically, something is maladaptive if it reduced the number of viable offspring. By this strict definition Atheism is a highly maladaptive trait, since Atheistic beliefs are associated with choosing to have reduced numbers of children: less than the 2.1 children minimum needed to replace the parents and cover premature deaths.

Back to the point about “peaceful tolerance”… oddly enough, Dawkins (who has previously described faith as the equivalent of a harmful virus) trotted out a similar line in a letter to young atheists I read on the Friendly Atheist today.

Of course we must leave people in peace to practise religion if they so choose. But the rest of us must be left in peace to live our lives without it. The religious want more and more influence over government policy and, if they succeed, our society will be the poorer: less tolerant, less equal, less just, less educated, less rational.

It seems there’s a bit of a philosophical battle raging amongst the atheists – perhaps they’ll start their own denominations.

Here’s another quote, from another Friendly Atheist post, it comes from a media release one atheist organisation wrote to describe a campaign conducted by another atheist organisation.

Last year, the Wisconsin organization, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), displayed a sign in the capitol rotunda which read, “Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.” Seattle Atheists shares [many] opinions with the FFRF regarding the separation of church and state, and about the harm [that] can be done in the cause of religious belief. However, we feel that the message was needlessly provocative and inappropriate for the context of the capitol rotunda.

Pushing for tolerance is all well and good. The problem is pushing for tolerance where the two sides of the issue are binarily opposed. Atheists can harangue Christians for not being prepared to consider the other side of the debate all they like. But until both sides are able to operate holding confidence in personal beliefs in tension with the possibility that the other guys might be right we’re not going to get any closer to this peaceful coexistence.

I’m more and more convinced that’s the key. I’m pretty certain God is there, but I should afford atheists the right to live as though he’s not, and that should cut both ways. Atheists should be prepared to acknowledge that the other guys might be right – despite their interpretation of the evidence.

But so long as leading public atheists trot out talking tips like the one below it’s unlikely that we’ll see that sort of admission.

“To say that God or the spiritual realm exist outside our ordinary plane of existence, and can’t be understood by reason or evidence, makes no sense. If God or the spiritual realm exist and have an effect on this world, we should be able to observe that effect. If they don’t have any effect on this world, their existence is a moot point. “

You know what Christians call the ability to observe the effects God has on the world – we call it science.

Five idiotic lines atheists keep trotting out about the Bible

Sometimes I like to think that I could give up writing about, or talking about, atheism. But that would mean ignoring a bunch of interesting things on the Internet.

I’m drawn to some posts like a moth to a flame. Perhaps it’s because I like argument. Perhaps it’s because I like truth. Each of these points below is probably worthy of several individual posts. But I’m going to condense them for the sake of not boring people who are here for other reasons.

Every time I read an atheist blog I leave feeling frustrated. Mostly because they make the same spurious and generally misinformed claims they accuse Christians (and other theists) of making against them.

While I’m sure many of these claims are true in the experience of the people making them – that doesn’t mean they’re inherently true.

Here goes.

  1. Reading the whole Bible will not necessitate the rejection of God
    I read this one all the time. The latest instance was on this post Contrary to the popular belief held by atheists my life would be a lot easier if I wasn’t convinced God existed. It is in fact possible to read the Bible and gain a deeper appreciation of God. That’s why people go to Bible College and end up in Christian ministry.If an atheist wants to critique the Bible there’s plenty of more rational things they might say. It is possible that the God pictured in the Bible might look like a God you don’t want to worship – assuming you get stuck on the things that happen in the Old Testament. But the Bible does not contain contradictions that make “reasonable” people reject it.I suspect we all approach the Bible with a particular philosophical bias and this is likely to be confirmed.

  2. The Bible was not put together by a bunch of power hungry men seeking to serve their own interests…
    Nor was it consistently reinterpreted and retranslated over time in order to suit agendas. Any such translations have been weeded out and current translations used by major denominations are based on the interpretations of panels of experts in the original languages.If an atheist wants to realistically critique the men who framed the core doctrines of Christianity or picked the books in the Canon the worst that can be said about them was that they were deeply deluded and sort to present a consistent case for their beliefs. To suggest ulterior motives is a gross misrepresentation of any historical facts based entirely on prejudice.If, on the other hand, an atheist wants to make smug dismissals of the text based on their own assumptions that’s fine. But don’t expect your assertion to be accepted as convincing evidence by those of us who have read the Bible…

    I agree that you don’t need to read the entire Bible to know that it is a cobbled together mishmash of myths, biased history, and poetry from an ancient nomadic people that didn’t know much about the universe.

  3. Suggesting that the Bible should be understood in context is not “wiggling” on the Christian’s behalf.
    Nor is it dishonest. It’s the way Christians, orthodox, Bible believing Christians, have been doing things since the early days. Believing that the Bible should be understood in its context is not a new idea. Nor is it “liberal”. In fact, it’s the way Jesus approached the Bible (when quoting the Old Testament).Disagreement over interpretation does not contradict anything the Bible says (in fact the Bible predicts it). Questions of textual interpretation are not simple and it’s likely that there will be some disagreement. If you pull random verses out of their context and present them (or a series of similarly plucked verses) as your proof text it is analogous to a Christian suggesting that Hitler’s eugenics program is the natural outworking of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.

    Christians will continue to claim that I’m taking it out of context, misinterpreting it, or just outright lying. I have seen this happen over and over again with Bible-savvy atheists who were in debates. These people are so made up in their mind that no amount of reason will work.

  4. Christians shouldn’t keep pushing the Bible as though it’s evidence for God
    Why not? If God exists (which Christians believe) then the Bible seems like a natural way for evidence to be provided across multiple generations. This sort of thinking misses the point of Christianity completely. 

  5. Every position atheists take on the Bible is a result of faith, bias and what they’ve been taught
    This by itself does not invalidate their beliefs. That’s how we all come to conclusions and decisions. But to dismiss Christian interpretations of bits of the Bible on the basis of indoctrination while blithely dismissing the whole thing as a fairytale is to create false dichotomy. Just because someone has been “brainwashed” it doesn’t mean what they believe is wrong. And just because someone claims to come at something in an open minded fashion using their own rules of engagement doesn’t make their conclusions correct.

Recanting some more

Mumford and Sons caused me to recant my long held position on folk music – and it turns out they’ve undone another little piece of music snobbery.

Despite the liberal application of the “f” word in their current single – which probably turns off heaps of Christian listeners – it appears that the guys in the band are in fact Christians. And since their songs spend a fair bit of time dealing with Christian stuff I could begrudgingly define their music as Christian music. And we all know how I feel about that.

I looked it up online because I was pretty convinced based on some of the lyrics that the album Sigh No More is at the very least a musical documentation of someone’s dalliance with God, and Christian belief.

I’m intrigued by some of the lyrics from this album. Clearly they’re about a man struggling between the flesh and the spiritual. Here’s a post with a bit of an analysis of the lyrics, and here’s one from someone who couldn’t take all the Jesus talk

Here are some of their lyrics.

Dust Bowl Dance
there will come a time when I will look in your eye
You will pray to the god that you’ve always denied
I’ll go out back and I’ll get my gun
I’ll say you haven’t met me, I am the only son.

White Blank pages
Can you lie next to her
And give her your heart, your heart
As well as your body
And can you lie next to her
And confess your love, your love
As well as your folly
And can you kneel before the king
And say I’m clean, I’m clean

Awake My Soul
In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die
Where you invest your love, you invest your life

Awake my soul, awake my soul
Awake my soul
You were made to meet your maker

Roll Away Your Stone
You told me that I would find a hole
Within the fragile substance of my soul
And I have filled this void with things unreal
And all the while my character it steals

And here are some songs for your listening pleasure.

On atheism, Fox News and Christmas

If I was an atheist and I had to watch this on my news program I’d be really annoyed… Particularly because O’Reilly is fixated on the idea that Christmas is about the baby Jesus – it’s not, it’s about the birth of the Lord Jesus. He grew up and did some stuff. That’s why we care.

It’s in response to this ad from the Humanist society…

The ad has a clever tagline. It’s a shame they can only trot it out once a year. But sadly, that’s not really what humanism is. That’s what secular humanism is. John Calvin has been described as both a Renaissance humanist and a “Christian humanist“.

A Biblical world view

Here’s an infographic of the world if the Old Testament was read completely as a literal and scientific document with the spiritual realm housed in the physical.

From Flickr.

Venn Jesus

Mark Driscoll likes to criticise people’s “zen” Jesus – the hippy who runs around making pithy statements.

I wonder what he’d say about this Venn Jesus.

Vampires and Mormons

Here’s an interesting article suggesting that Twilight is basically an apologetic for Mormon theology.

“Twilight is essentially .an allegory of one gentile seeker’s coming to the fullness of Latter-day Saint faith and life. Bella, though, as Mrs. Meyer’s stand-in, is also a modern American woman who struggles with Edward’s patronizing misogyny and over-protectiveness. Her mind is the only one in the book not open to him, which serves both as an indication of her reverential reserve towards him as God or prophet and her resistance to being totally subject to him. Though devoted to and in love with him, she sounds notes throughout the series that reflect something like feminism.”

Here’s an example of Mormon theology appearing in one of the books.

“A core genealogical belief of Mormons is that Native Americans are the descendants of Abraham through the children of Lehi. But in several articles written in 2002 and 2003, LDS anthropologist Thomas W. Murphy has argued that DNA studies show “no intimate genetic link . . . between ancient Israelites and the indigenous peoples of the Americas—much less within the time frame suggested by the BoMor [Book of Mormon].”

Mrs. Meyer’s answer to this scientific challenge to her faith comes in the climax of Breaking Dawn. The Volturi have come to the Cullens’ Mountain Meadow for a showdown with the “vegetarians” and their allies, and it looks very bad for the latter. What saves them from the vampire-papists is an inversion of the genetics argument against the Book of Mormon revelation: The Cullens are saved by the ex machina appearance of a South American aborigine whose DNA proves that the Mormon vampires are telling the truth. Genetics isn’t the enemy; it’s the savior.”

I suspect Mormon evangelism would work better if they bit their prey and infected them with some sort of terrible disease.

I can’t understand how the religion gains traction anywhere but in the United States where I think it can be explained as a case of misplaced patriotism.

Anyway, here’s a little picture I drew of a Mormon missionary Twilight style. Anybody got a number for Blade?

On blogger envy

I have a confession. Whilst I encourage lots of friends to join me in the blogosphere, I also feel threatened when they do that with moderate, or better, success.

So while I commend Izaac’s UniChurch through Chairs series to you, and direct you to his first column on the Geneva Push website, I do so feeling sinfully envious.

But, I can also finally announce that I have a little column in the Eternity newspaper – and a link on its homepage.

That makes me feel moderately better. I do love how they have a disclaimer.

Has John Piper ruined Twitter?

John Piper ruined Twitter.

This blogger thinks so. He blames Piper for the rise in cringeworthy Christian status updates – particularly on Twitter.

I like the cut of his jib. Piper can get away with it. If you’re following Piper you expect to encounter the real, passionate man that he is. If you’re not that man (or woman) don’t pretend to be.

But then I lost all my normal “friends” on Twitter.

They all turned into little John Pipers. I used to see real tweets from people.  Some would talk about their latest blog posts or posts they found interesting. Others would talk about their recent studies in Scripture or what books they were reading. Many of them were fun and humorous.

Now many of them are just pretentious and therefore obnoxious.

Once the nature and style of Piper’s 140 characters or less were released, people started to mimic him.  Gone are the “fruitless” tweets about how their toddlers did something cute or about the interesting things that happen day-to-day.  It has been replaced with numerous (and annoying) pithy statements and faux-holiness. How do I know these are “faux?”  Because most of you changed over-night. While it takes a lifetime to be sanctified, it only took your Twitter accounts 24 hours.

Amen brother.

But I’ll balance this critique of all the wannabe Pipers with a critique from Piper that made me think a little… When Abraham Piper (John Piper’s son) asked what he should say to a room full of Christian bloggers his father replied:

Tell them that it takes relentless intentionality to keep a Christ-exalting blog from become a clever blog. The temptation to entertain is almost irresistible.

Now. I started this out as a clever blog – being a Christ-exalting blog hasn’t really been my “intention”. Maybe it should be. Though then it would lose its place as an outlet for my cleverness.

John Piper ruined my blog.

How to man hug

Man hugs are pretty awesome. I’ve just been thinking about the furore surrounding the Poe’s Law breach that occured with that Christian Side Hug rap video. It turns out the video was serious – but the origin of the concept was satire.

It used to be that in order for heterosexual males to demonstrate man to man affection they had to engage in play fighting or wrestling. This was a little too subtle. The key to a good, unambiguous piece of man to man affection is to send the right signals during the hug.

This is accomplished using the obligatory three taps, or firm pats, on the back of both parties to the hug. In a group hug – say the hug that comes when celebrating a goal in soccer – these pats are not necessary.

The three pats are said to be non verbal communication for “I’m not gay”… but they are in fact an act of manly testosterone fueled but properly directed aggression.

Here is the rule for hugging expressed in haiku.

Remember fellas
For a successful man hug
Just back slap three times

This easy Japanese poem is the key to more expressive man to man relationships.

That is all.

New York magazine on Keller

If you read the blogs I read you’ll already have seen a link to this profile on Tim Keller in the New York Magazine.

If you don’t read those blogs it’s worth reading.

The journalist seems to have a little bit of trouble reconciling this intelligent, rational, passionate urban preacher man with “conservative” positions on homosexuality and abortion.

“At Redeemer, I tell Keller, you may teach that you should treat your gay, pro-choice, or, for that matter, atheist neighbor with respect, even love, but as a matter of belief, you know that he or she has the misfortune of being wrong. “Well, you know what,” he says, “you can’t teach what we teach—that you must be born again through belief in Jesus Christ—without saying most of the world is wrong.”

Keller on ministry experience

Tim Keller is cool. In a geek-chic kind of way. So when he talks about city ministry being important people get all excited and want to plant churches in the heart of big, pagan cities… just like Keller did.

But Keller has a piece of sage advice for those wanting the best ministry experience to build a platform of longevity on…

Young pastors or seminarians often ask me for advice on what kind of early ministry experience to seek in order to best grow in skill and wisdom as a pastor. They often are surprised when I tell them to consider being a ‘country parson’ — namely, the solo pastor of a small church, many or most of which are in non-urban settings. Let me quickly emphasize the word ‘consider.’ I would never insist that everyone must follow this path. Nevertheless, it is worth thinking about. It was great for me.

Yeah. Preach it brother.

Some will be surprised to hear me say this, since they know my emphasis on ministry in the city. Yes, I believe firmly that the evangelical church has neglected the city. It still is difficult to get Christians and Christian leaders to make the sacrifices necessary to live their lives out in cities. However, the disdain many people have for urban areas is no worse than the condescending attitudes many have toward small towns and small churches.

I’ve said it once (literally), I’ve said it a thousand times (metaphorically)… cutting the teeth of young ministers in regional areas makes sense on both the pragmatic and evangelistic levels.

It’s good for the minister – and it’s good for regional areas.

Rockclimbing is for posers

I agree with Ben.

Rockclimbing is a stupid activity driven by some primal urge to reach high points and uncharted territory.

XKCD expresses the rockclimbing mentality best by lampooning wannabe rockclimbers. It’s all about being seen to be awesome.

I see through your ruse climbers.

And I loved Soph from the fountainside’s comment on Ben’s post.

I reckon Christians want activities that are ‘cool’ to do, but our obedience to Scripture stops us from doing things the world considers ‘cool’ – i.e. going to parties, raves, pubs and bars…pretty much anything to do with alcohol.
So we tend to flock towards activities that have some cool cred without the ‘worldly’ factor. This is why christian people like random things such as rock climbing, board games, bikes, coffee (the holy man’s drug), jazz (the holy man’s version of ‘cool’ music) and BBC dramas (the holy man’s movie choice).

Unbelievable statistics

I’m not sure what to make of these stats from the research on the Jesus All About Life campaign.

Some of these are the same stats I posted the other day – but a report on the research can be found here.

Believer or non-believer, 54% of Australians ranked Jesus as the number one most influential person in history beating Albert Einstein who came in at second place (16%) and Charles Darwin who was ranked third (9%). Research commissioned by www.allaboutlife.com.au revealed Australia is a nation of believers with approximately 5 in 6 (83%) responding that Jesus was a real figure from history.

It’s odd… going by the ongoing discussion over here the one in six people who don’t think Jesus is a real historical figure are gaining a bit of traction while clearly swimming against the tide* of public opinion…

This research gives a great insight into people’s beliefs about Jesus and their faith today. The fact that Jesus is revealed to be the most influential figure in history shows his message is as relevant today as it was 2000 years ago and people still look to him as source of inspiration.

To me, this suggests the JAAL campaign was barking up the wrong tree a little. Jesus doesn’t need an image upgrade. He doesn’t need wishy washy feelgood statements posted online… People think he’s alright.

What he really needs is accurate representation. Because people are much less sold on the facts.

“Of these believers 43% believed Jesus had miraculous powers and he was the son of God. Australia still has faith with 2 in 5 Australians stating they actually practice a religion and only 27% not believing in a God or universal power of any sort.”

*Mmm. Delicious cliche.

Conspiracy, correlation and causation

It looks like climate change is going to scupper one man’s ambition to be the next leader of our country. While Malcolm Turnbull considers this inconvenient truth, some might be thinking “at last, climate change has done something good”…

Some are looking forward to the day that climate change does away with our particular stretch of the Great Barrier Reef so that North Queensland can have waves.

And those who sell air conditioning are rubbing their hands together and counting their pools of money ala Scrooge McDuck.

This whole climate change phenomena has me thinking…

Many of my friends are skeptics. Some of my friends are believers. Most of the skeptics believe that the climate is changing (as it always has) though not because of human intervention. I oscillate between the two positions. I do think it’s funny that we’re worried about how much carbon dioxide is in the world when I always thought the net mass of chemicals everywhere was a constant… anyone who remembers photosynthesis lessons in high school science knows we just need to plant more trees…anyway. I’m not a climate scientist and do not intend to talk about what I don’t know in this post…

I have a theory that there are links there are between a few different philosophical outlooks on life.

I’m wondering about what correlation there is between the following beliefs and climate change.

  • Christianity
  • A “young earth”
  • The effect of sin/the fall on the planet
  • An old earth
  • Atheism

Biblical Christianity suggests that God intervenes in the workings of his creation, that it is under his control (particularly the Psalms) and that sin has tainted the planet as well as its people. There is an obvious link between humanity and any problems with the planet.

Because Atheism rejects the idea that anyone is in control – and must therefore assume that our finely balanced universe is always on the cusp of imploding under its own improbable existence* – atheists should be more concerned about climate change and therefore more ready to jump in and lend an environmental hand even if they’re not convinced by the science. Just in case.

My friends who believe in a young earth should find it heaps easier to believe that humans are partly responsible for what happens to the environment because we’re a more significant part of the planet’s history – and the change is occuring over a much faster period of time if the hockey stick graphs are to be believed. This has to be balanced against the fact that many of them are really good at ignoring scientists anyway.

Answers in Genesis has an article that pretty much sits on the fence, and one that suggests claims of our impending demise are greatly exaggerated

My Christian friends who believe in an old earth probably fall into one of two categories – they’re either the most skeptical of all when it comes to climate change, or they’re died in the wool believers. For the skeptics, the assumption that God’s sovereignty extends to the planet, meets the assumption that humans haven’t been around for long enough to have had a remarkable impact on the planet’s health.

For the Christian “climate change disciple” the idea that humans have wrecked the planet is consistent with the Bible, and the idea that scientists can teach us about how everything works is consistent with the way they understand the world.

I don’t understand atheist climate change skeptics. Where does their justification come from?

Regardless of these philosophical positions the suggestion that Australia should introduce an emissions trading scheme before the rest of the world is just silly. It comes from some sort of cultural aggrandising that suggests that somehow whatever our relatively small nation does will have an impact on the global scene.

From what I understand of the issue – particularly with relation to energy production (a fair bit at that point) – there are two things we could do that would have a major impact.

  1. Stop exporting coal
  2. Start exporting more uranium

I can’t see either of those happening any time soon.

*Not really what atheists think…