This has been floating around for a while – but I haven’t posted it yet. It’s timely based on the emails I’ve had flying back and forth between my atheist friends and myself today…
It’s magician Penn Teller, renowned atheist, encouraging people who believe in hell to evangelise – and presenting an interesting set of instructions for evangelistic methodology.
“How much do you have to hate somebody not to evangelise…”
Terry Eagleton is a former Catholic Marxist philosopher and academic who wrote a great critique of the God Delusion that even had die hard atheists (eg Jack Marx who at the time was blogging for the SMH and is now at News Ltd) pondering their positions.
He’s now got a book out – called Reason, Faith and Revolution – and it has been reviewed by a NY Times blogger.
While his own take on the book suggests he’s by no means sold on Christianity himself:
“I do not invite such readers to believe in these ideas, any more than I myself in the archangel Gabriel, the infallibility of the pope, the idea that Jesus walked on water, or the claim that he rose up into heaven before the eyes of his disciples.”
And he’s not a fan of “institutionalised religion” which comes in for a pretty stinging rebuke (according to the cover note). Instead he’s trying to empower the left by presenting Christianity as a solid option. So, while offering up the standard criticism of Dawkin’s insistence that religion and science are incompatible he tackles the issue from a social perspective too, here’s a passage from the review (which is worth a read):
“The language of enlightenment has been hijacked in the name of corporate greed, the police state, a politically compromised science, and a permanent war economy,” all in the service, Eagleton contends, of an empty suburbanism that produces ever more things without any care as to whether or not the things produced have true value.
And as for the vaunted triumph of liberalism, what about “the misery wreaked by racism and sexism, the sordid history of colonialism and imperialism, the generation of poverty and famine”? Only by ignoring all this and much more can the claim of human progress at the end of history be maintained: “If ever there was a pious myth and a piece of credulous superstition, it is the liberal-rationalist belief that, a few hiccups apart, we are all steadily en route to a finer world.”
I mentioned the ABC radio’s unique take on the stats released by the Centre for Public Christianity yesterday. Dan has helpfully shared a link to the ABC Radio transcript of the story I was listening to on the world today.
The reaction to the statistics has been somewhat amusing. On the one hand 55% of the “non born again” community don’t believe in the resurrection. Which should be comforting to atheists, Muslims and the liberal church.
The Uniting Church in New South Wales was one of the first organisations to put its own spin on the findings – claiming most of the 45% of (non “born again”) people who believe in the resurrection only believe it in a metaphorical sense.
Many Australians, although certainly not a majority, would see Jesus as metaphorically real, or his resurrection as metaphorically real, but would expect that the bones of Jesus would be found in Palestine.
And that’s my own position.
But I think that the resurrection of Jesus is principally about the continuing reality of Jesus of Nazareth in this world. – Ian Pearson from the Pitt Street Uniting Church…
Hmm, interesting take on things. You’ve got to wonder why this guy is still a “Christian” minister if this is what he thinks. If they found the bones of Jesus in Palestine I’d throw in the Christian towel. Immediately. If it’s all just a metaphor you’ve got to ask “why bother at all?” – Exactly the point Sydney Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen raised…
If he just rose metaphorically, well, it’s Alice in Wonderland sort of stuff, and is not worth worrying about.
I wouldn’t be a Christian if I thought that. Just wouldn’t be worth the trouble.
But that’s not what the New Testament says; that’s not what the evidence says.
The evidence is really talking about a real resurrection from the dead.
The atheists on the other hand. Well. They still kind of miss the point of serving God if you believe in him – which many clearly still do… talk about imposing your value judgments on others…
The world needs to get away from this dependence on an imaginary super person in the sky, and start looking at the problems that we’re encountering in real terms – David Nichols, the president of the Atheist Foundation of Australia
Research released by John Dickson’s Centre for Public Christianity has been given widespread media attention today.
The ABC radio’s idea of “objective” coverage was to give the Atheists a chance to use this as a platform to call for a secular society.
But it’s a pretty interesting statistic when it comes to reaching the “unwashed masses” – it seems almost half of the country’s non-Christians could be considered “low hanging fruit” – believing that Jesus rose from the dead.
This survey did not include those who define themselves as “born again” which possibly means it did include church going liberals, Catholics and others who tick the “Christian” box on the census.
Here’s the SMH story on the stats.
Give your atheist friends a spray with this miracle cure (peppermint breath freshener) and watch their smug superiority melt away…
The cartoonist behind this website is a raving atheist – but mostly a humourous one. Here’s a secular satire that could be extended to Christians who aren’t really prepared to back their beliefs by living recklessly and putting their lives on the line for the cause.
Here are some more good ones.
The obesity one is using data from 2007.
Occasionally nasty parody site Landover Baptist has a great list of tips for how to spot them atheists that needs some converting (sic)…
Here’s a summary of their five tips so that you can dob your local atheist in to police:
Five Tips on How to Spot an Atheist
1. Usually Atheists are pale of skin.
They spend a lot of times indoors, because they are afraid to come outside. They believe the preposterous lie that Christians are trying to kill them, when in fact, all that we really want to do is force a quick conversion or to kindly place them in a maximum security prison for their own protection from devout Christians who may try to kill them.
2. Atheists are overweight.
The stereotypes of typical Atheists are the trim, granola cruncher who jogs and plays racquetball or the vain hedonist, party-goer who worships only her full-length mirror, Recent studies have shown, however, that Atheists have become aware of these signifiers of their lack of faith.
3. Atheists have too many university diplomas!
These folks are chock full of secular knowledge. They toss the Bible aside in favor of so-called, “research” and “theories.”
4. Atheists Deceive!
Atheists go under many different names, but they don’t have the common sense to align themselves yet! Use this to your advantage in reporting them to the police! They call themselves, “humanists, agnostics, secular-humanists, moral relativists, Catholics, free-thinkers, undecided, Unitarians, and more recently, Brights.” It is important to note that anyone who has a post-graduate degree or is interested in getting a post-graduate degree, is suspect! Also be warned, Wiccans , Vegans, Yogists, and readers of science fiction are either Atheists or on the road to becoming an Atheist.
5. Atheists are afraid!
Even though there are as many as 300 active Atheists in the United States, we can safely assume that if recent polls are correct, most Atheists are afraid to come out and say what they don’t believe.
While introducing myself to the iMonk website I came across this great essay on doubt. Particularly Christian doubt. It’s helpful, I think.
A couple of quotes:
These doubts have made me respect my honest, unbelieving friends. To many of them, it isn’t so much the content of Christianity that is ridiculous. It’s the idea that Christians are so certain; so doubtless. They find it untenable that anyone could bury their own doubts so deep that you are as certain as Christians appear to be. Our television and radio preachers, our musicians and booksellers, the glowing testimonial at church, the zealous fanatic at the break table at work–they all say that Christians no longer have the doubts and questions of other people. Only certainties. And for many thoughtful unbelievers, that appears to be lying or delusion, and they would prefer to avoid both.
So do I. I profoundly dislike the unspoken requirement among Christians that we either bury all our doubts out in back of the church, or we restrict them to a list of specific religious questions that can be handled in polite conversations dispensing tidy, palatable answers. Mega-doubts. Nightmarish doubts. “I’m wasting my whole life” doubts are signs one may not be a Christian, and you’ve just made it to the prayer list.
My doubts exist alongside my appetite for God. I believe no one has put forward a more cogent and persuasive critique of theism than Sigmund Freud. Freud’s contention that human beings create a God in the sky out of their longings for a perfect father and their fear of death has the virtue of common sense and realism. As a Christian, I do not doubt that vast tracts of human religiosity can be explained by Freud’s analysis. Yet, Freud is wrong. The Biblical God is not wishful thinking, but the center of the spiritual “appetite” of human beings. Billions of human beings would prefer no God exist. Billions of human beings would like to make God in the image of Santa or Oprah. Yet, Christianity, Judaism (and even Islam) persistently put forward a God who is terrifying to who we are. A just, holy God of judgment. A God of heaven and hell. Not the God of the wishful thinkers, but the God who is a consuming fire.
And it is this God that we long to know. This God who repulses us and damns us. This God who demands the purity of thought and action. A God who demands that we love Him with all that we are and love our fellow persons as His creations. It is this God that we long to know in intimacy. It is this God we long to be accepted by, to trust and to praise. This God is the source of all the notions of beauty, truth and goodness that we find in this universe. C.S. Lewis said that appetite could not prove the existence of food, but I don’t think that speaks for the experience of the starving person.
Ben just sent me a link to this ABC story where Tony Abbott attacked Kevin Rudd for allowing changes to Australia’s aid policy and aid money being used to fund abortions.
The comments thread is telling. These discussions always bring out the rabid atheists who want to accuse Christianity of “holding back society”… I do like it when they put together a coherent argument.
Like this:
“Lets not forget that the bible tells the story of how god drowned every living person except Jonah and his family because he was annoyed with them. So to say the bible condemns murder is a very selective interpretation.”
Sadly comments are closed. So I couldn’t point out that Jonah was the guy eaten by a whale and people were saved at the end of the Jonah story because they repented. Anyway. There’s a lot of stupid Christians in the debate too. But Coloru seems to be a pretty rabid atheist, he says:
“Wakeup! If you cant find god in your own heart and mind then it doesnt exist. The bible isnt going to help.*”
*lack of apostrophes his own.
This again highlights the atheist’s fundamental misunderstanding of the place of the bible in Christian faith. It’s central – not an afterthought. It’s the way we find God. And hands up Christians who can find God in their own heart and mind…
One of the things I do in order to increase my levels of frustration is read annoying things written by atheists who feel intellectually superior to us “unenlightened Christians”.
I spend a lot of time arguing with three of my friends – two of whom are declared atheists – one is a notorious fence sitter.
I often ask myself why I bother. They’re smart guys and as set in their beliefs as I am in mine. I don’t think we’re going to change each other’s minds. I guess there are a few reasons. I like them – so I’d like to see them change their minds – believing as I do that hell is real. I would like to not be scoffed at for having “an imaginary friend”. And I guess there’s the fact that I love an argument. But I think one of the key reasons I do it is to refine and define my thoughts on the criticisms atheism throws at any form of theism – but particularly Christianity. It’s an exercise in apologetics – in defending the faith.
I guess in the face of militant atheism, being championed as it is by leaders with evangelistic zeal, Christians need to make sure they’re putting up a fight for the hearts, minds and souls of the great unreached – the agnostics. Those who haven’t picked a side yet. Those people are being bombarded with teachings from both sides – and I feel like I need to mount a compelling, rational defence of Christianity.
That was all a pretty long preamble to a great reminder that the real “apologetic” winner is relational not rational. The reminder comes courtesy of Tim Chester at the Resurgence.
I inadvertently deleted my link post from yesterday’s google reading – I reposted it, but it didn’t pull in everything I’d highlighted. Of particular interest was the account from a non-practicing Jew of his year of reading through the Bible (only the OT). He blogged the experience. And he’s written a book.
And engaged in an interesting discussion with some people here. It’s worth reading. Especially when he answers the following question/statement from an angry atheist:
“Washington, D.C.: Wow, I find your assertion that everyone should read the Bible as smacking of so much relativism, I can’t believe it. I have read the beginning of the Bible and I found it so silly and laughable that I stopped. I’d really rather the chatters and your readers get caught up on history, science, literature, etc. instead of a book of fables. Would you also push for the teaching of satanic texts? I’m so tired of people acting so high and mighty about their religious preferences. Write an article on the truly important texts that people have never read (Plato, Aristotle, Copernicus, da Vinci, etc.) and I’ll take you seriously.
David Plotz: This seems to me a peculiar criticism. You live in a society that is shaped in every possible way by the Bible. The language you use, the laws you obey (and disobey), the founding principles of your nation, the disputes about abortion, homosexuality, adultery—these and so much else in your world are rooted in the Bible. You don’t have to read it for its truth value. You should read it to understand how your world got the way it is, the way you would read the constitution or Shakespeare.”
“Nonsense. There are so many phenomena that would raise the specter of God or other supernatural forces: faith healers could restore lost vision, the cancers of only good people could go into remission, the dead could return to life, we could find meaningful DNA sequences that could have been placed in our genome only by an intelligent agent, angels could appear in the sky. The fact that no such things have ever been scientifically documented gives us added confidence that we are right to stick with natural explanations for nature.”
From this article arguing that religion and science are essentially mutually exclusive. It makes some interesting points.
But I wonder why the observations of objective witnesses to the life of Jesus who independently confirm four of his five “miracles” don’t count as “scientific documentation”.
“Many religious beliefs can be scientifically tested, at least in principle. Faith-based healing is particularly suited to these tests. Yet time after time it has failed them. After seeing the objects cast off by visitors to Lourdes, Anatole France is said to have remarked, “All those canes, braces and crutches, and not a single glass eye, wooden leg, or toupee!” If God can cure cancer, why is He impotent before missing eyes and limbs? Recent scientific studies of intercessory prayer–when the sick do not know whether they are being prayed for–have not shown the slightest evidence that it works”
The other thing that often annoys me about atheists is this idea that we can somehow fabricate a miracle to test God. That’s not logical. God would, by the very nature of being God, be the one who sets the rules and the tests. Not the other way around.
It’s analogous to the scenario in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where there’s the final revelation that mice are conducting experiments on humans. That idea is preposterous. That’s why it’s funny. We are in no position to demand that a God – a being by nature superior to us – comply to our testing parameters. I can understand how the lack of regular miracles would be frustrating to those wishing to observe God. But I don’t see how it’s a reason to rule out the idea of God.
The other problem with this guy is that he’s trying to accommodate pluralism and religion and religion and science at the same time. He almost rules out the possibility of religion on the basis that more than one religious idea exists. He should perhaps first pull the log out of his own eye before going for that one.
Scientific consensus is less likely than religious – and scientific positions are much more likely to be influenced by an external factor (like funding).
Science allows you to set whatever hypothesis and testing methodology you choose. It has great freedom. This is the problem with science though – you can’t set methodology when you don’t have the authority to do so.
The idea of testing God also falls over because “science” (or its advocates) insist on operating in a closed system – ruling out God and anything supernatural. So you get a statement like this:
“That alleged synthesis requires that with one part of your brain you accept only those things that are tested and supported by agreed-upon evidence, logic, and reason, while with the other part of your brain you accept things that are unsupportable or even falsified. In other words, the price of philosophical harmony is cognitive dissonance. Accepting both science and conventional faith leaves you with a double standard: rational on the origin of blood clotting, irrational on the Resurrection; rational on dinosaurs, irrational on virgin births. Without good cause.”
And this:
“Secular reason includes science, but also embraces moral and political philosophy, mathematics, logic, history, journalism, and social science–every area that requires us to have good reasons for what we believe. Now I am not claiming that all faith is incompatible with science and secular reason–only those faiths whose claims about the nature of the universe flatly contradict scientific observations. Pantheism and some forms of Buddhism seem to pass the test. But the vast majority of the faithful–those 90 percent of Americans who believe in a personal God, most Muslims, Jews, and Hindus, and adherents to hundreds of other faiths–fall into the “incompatible” category.”
I’ve just, for reasons unknown, read an article by Dawkins that made me angry. Dawkins on “Atheists for Jesus”. Dawkins is a tool. Probably a tool of Satan. But really, a tool in the urbandictionary (language warning if you follow that link) sense of the word.
Dawkins is trying to claim Jesus for atheism the same way the homosexual lobby claimed the pejorative “queer” as a label.
He’s reinterpreting everything Jesus had to say about God as just the “cultural norm”. Jesus was apparently a radical who only spoke about God because that was the done thing. Dawkin’s relies on biblical accounts of Jesus’ teaching for his argument – but no doubt dismisses the accounts of his trial, where he was essentially killed for believing that he was God. This is postmodern deconstructionism gone bonkers. Well, it was crazy to begin with. But this is ridiculous.
“I think we owe Jesus the honour of separating his genuinely original and radical ethics from the supernatural nonsense which he inevitably espoused as a man of his time.”
Umm. What?
He basically wants to adopt Jesus because having lots of people acting like Jesus would be good for society. Except of course for the parts where Jesus claims to be God… but of course, those were just the bits where Jesus was being crazy because of the culture he lived in… WHAT? I think if you separate out all the supernatural bits about Jesus you’re left with a guy who’s not very radical at all. He’s a carpenter who hangs out with fishermen and prostitutes. Jesus without a divine aspect is not even an impressive moral teacher.
The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 – 7) which is arguably Jesus’ most admired speech from a secular standpoint (it regularly makes the “best speeches of all time” lists… is pretty rubbish if you remove all the bits that refer to God.
For example if you took out every bit that could be seen to refer to the actions of God, the beatitudes would be reduced to:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
That’s a lot of “blessed” people with no actual “blessing”
And that famous bit about loving your enemies without any reference to God, well, that’s a real moral imperative…
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.“
Taking the God bits out of Jesus’ message leaves us all wanting to be pagan tax collectors – hardly the Utopian society Dawkins is pushing for with his piece of rabid (ill)logic.
Interesting piece in the SMH on Darwin and limitations of Darwinism/new atheism as a worldview by Charles Sturt University Theology Lecturer Tom Frame. Highlight:
“Even his [Dawkin’s] much-publicised atheism lacks commitment and courage. It is a cultural preference rather than a philosophical conviction. Nietzsche and Camus believed the death of God would be revolutionary and terrifying. Jean-Paul Sartre said “atheism is a cruel and long-range affair”. All that Dawkins can offer is a revival of old-fashioned secular humanism, whose hopes and aspirations are summarised in John Lennon’s insipid 1971 composition Imagine.”
And arch-conservative Andrew Bolt on the unfortunate statement from Catch the Fire Ministries. Highlight – the whole string of comments showing why this isn’t a case of being seasoned with salt and loving non-believers.
Best of the interweb: