Silence

David Skinner, UK

Thank you for your response. I appreciate the time you took to state your position. I can’t respond in details on this blog and Bill might decide that this is too long
anyway.

1. You claim that “there is no hard evidence for the existence of God, nor any to support the proposition that supernatural events have occurred throughout history.”
Antony Flew examined the evidence and he concluded, after being a confirmed atheist, that: “there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe.” And “the integrated complexity of life itself – which is far more complex than the physical Universe – can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source.”

Is this kind of evidence not adequate for you? It was for the former atheist, Flew. Or, are you trying to put God in a test tube and unless we can use the empirical method on His existence, the evidence is not valid for you?

What kinds of evidence would you accept for establishing the actions of Nero, Julius Caesar or Jesus Christ in history?

2. You stated: “There is nothing in the scriptures that required a supernatural being’s involvement in their writing.” This is your assertion. You don’t seem to know much about the content of Scriptures for you to make that kind of statement.

What do the Scriptures, primary source evidence, reveal of the nature of God’s omnipotence? God is called Almighty (the Greek, pantokrator) in 2 Cor. 6:18; Rev. 1:8, which means that God possesses all power and authority. This all-powerful and supernatural God states that “all Scripture is breathed out by God” (2 Tim. 3:16 ESV) and “no prophecy [of Scripture] was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (1 Pt. 1:21). This is the same God of the miracles of Christ’s virgin conception and birth, and Christ’s resurrection.

3. Of the “many strange, contradictory” OT stories, you give not one example. Again, your assertion and you blame Bill for making assertions. I noticed that you did not respond to the examples I gave of your methodology (making assertions) in my previous response to you.

4. “Why a supernatural God would have human foibles such as pride and anger.” Again, no examples were given. Thanks for affirming God’s supernatural being, but you cannot get out of your presuppositional naturalism. A supernatural God has supernatural wrath that is a country mile from anything that looks like human anger. There is not space to develop this more fully, but when you experience the wrath of God “against all ungodliness and unrighteousness” by suppressing God’s truth (Rom. 1:18), you’ll know that God’s wrath has no comparison with the anger of human beings.

5. You don’t like some of the OT stories and claim “man created God in his own image.” Could it be more truthful to observe that you are creating god in your own naturalistic image? Your pride that makes the Bible “written by peoples with very limited understanding of the world about them,” is a statement about your own limited understanding of the nature of God.

6. You state that “creation stories in Genesis are either meant to be mythical, or they are plain wrong.” This is your assertion, based on your naturalistic premises, as you do with, “There is nothing unique or special about our Sun or our planet.”

I expected that your naturalism make this kind of statement, but Antony Flew was very honest with the evidence that there is “an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe” and behind the complexity of life itself.

While you want to make the Genesis creation stories mythical, Antony Flew does not. Here’s an excerpt from the Harbermas and Flew interview:

HABERMAS: Then, would you comment on your “openness” to the notion of theistic revelation?

FLEW: Yes. I am open to it, but not enthusiastic about potential revelation from God. On the positive side, for example, I am very much impressed with physicist Gerald Schroeder’s comments on Genesis 1. That this biblical account might be scientifically accurate raises the possibility that it is revelation. www.biola.edu/antonyflew/flew-interview.pdf

7. You ask: “What evidence is there for the existence of God, or for the proposition that humans survive death? I say there is none, but people believe because they want to believe.” Dr. William Lane Craig, who is no dummy and is not a person with “very limited understanding of the world about them,” has written at length on the existence of God: www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/menus/existence.html

That humans survive death is based on the statements of the supernatural God in Scripture and confirmed by Christ’s resurrection from the dead, “If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep [died]” (1 Cor. 15:19-20). There is life after death with Christ for believers (to the thief on the cross, dying beside him, Jesus said, “Today you will be with me in Paradise” – Luke 23:43) or “eternal punishment” for unbelievers (Matt. 25:46).

You stated “that Christianity is childish superstition. The question is the wrong way round” and those who are convinced of the existence of God (for which “there is none” – your assertion) and life after death should be defending their view. Your presuppositions are speaking here and yours is a weak way to squirm out of assertions without defending them.

Spencer Gear, Hervey Bay, Qld.

OK Steven (great first name too…you really DO have Christian roots, don’t you..); Are you aware that a lot of what is dubbed “creationism” is not young earth, does in fact believe planets came out of the big bang theory etc. Many in the mainstream media who seem brain dead to the distinction between embryonic stem cells and other sources of stem cells sometimes call ‘adult’ but actually just non-embryonic stem cells, seem also apparently unable or unwilling to distinguish between 7 24-hour day creationism and the Intelligent Design (ID) people like astrophysicist Hugh Ross or Fritz Schaefer, etc.

Like some in evolution who buy into a punctuated equilibrium these ID people (read them, you’ll like them) do hold to the special creation of man and the Fall in human history..so C. Hitchens isn’t happy with them, but the Christian scholarship on origins, design, miracle, doesn’t have to be as bleak and either/or all-or-nothing as your post above suggests. Read Hugh Ross (Creation Cosmos) for a start. He loves astronomy. I think this is the work that really touched Francis Collins of DNA fame and along with C.S. Lewis and working with those in hospitals who suffer…drew him to the Christian world view and back to commitment to the living Christ.

Joe Whitchurch, USA

We first really need to clear up a major red herring of yours: what do you in fact mean by “hard evidence”? Tell us what exactly you mean by this. The truth is, there is very little of anything in life that is fully established by “hard evidence” Do you believe in such things as truth, love, justice, morality, and fairness Steve? If so, you will have a lousy time coming up with “hard evidence” for them. You don’t even have fool-proof evidence that the computer you are typing on will work tomorrow. You seem to be demanding absolute certainty when in perhaps 99 per cent of the time in life we only expect reasonable probability. Your notions of proof and evidence are simply misleading here.

And you make this wild assertion: “I know that naturalistic origins don’t sit well with Bill and many of his correspondents, but it is the truth, and those who refute it are either ignorant of the mass of evidence available, or are in denial because it shakes their faith to its very foundations. “

Can I respectfully suggest that your arrogance is showing here big time? Are you really telling us that the likes of Antony Flew, who has brilliantly and decisively repudiated naturalism is simply ignorant? With all due respect Steve, Flew has probably penned more books on philosophy than you have even read. Yet all you can glibly do is say such people are lacking in evidence. It was exactly the hard evidence that led Flew to renounce his militant atheism and naturalism. Making such reckless and senseless attacks shows what thin ground atheism is on, and it also demonstrates the incredibly narrow and bigoted worldview atheism in fact is.

You really should not give us any more lectures on evidence until you actually start examining the available evidence in the same spirit of openness and intellectual honesty that atheists like Flew have engaged in.

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

As I mentioned, with your own website you can insult others and pour forth vitriol all you like, attacking the person instead of debating the issues. I am quite happy to allow genuine seekers to interact here, but not those pushing an agenda, with their minds already made up. Your can pursue your ego trip on your site to your heart’s content. I am not interested in scoring cheap points or even in winning arguments, seeking to show people how clever I might be. I am interested in truth. And an interest in truth requires that we follow the argument where it may lead, as Plato urged. Unfortunately most atheists are not interested in letting evidence get in the way of their preconceived ideologies.

Thus I only print your last line here, since it shows so nicely the typical shallow, glib and arrogant responses of atheist fundamentalists.

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

On the face of it this seems a good idea and indeed adult motorists were being humiliated by being lectured on camera and then broadcast nationally. But there are other more ominous initiatives taking place with children’s courts being set up:
www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=489093&in_page_id=1770

The triumph of those attempting to destroy God’s authority and the move to anarchy seems to get closer everyday. This will see a massive retreat on the part of all positions of authority and responsibility, parents, police, teachers, and the elderly aware now going to be led by children.
David Skinner, UK

You asked a number of questions. I’ll tackle the first one to start with, because it’s fundamental to everything else. It’s a big question, and deserves much more space that I can reasonably take up here, so my answer will have to condense years of thought and study into a few paragraphs.

You said:
“1. You say that you were raised a Christian but have moved to understanding that Christianity is a “childish superstition and totally without foundation.” I’m interested in the kinds of reasoning you used to arrive at that conclusion. What evidence caused you to change your mind?”

Christians and other religious believers assert that there is a god. Yet there is no hard evidence for the existence of God, nor any to support the proposition that supernatural events have occurred throughout history. Plenty of philosophical speculation and unsubstantiated stories mind you, but no hard evidence.

There is nothing in the scriptures that required a supernatural being’s involvement in their writing. On the contrary, there many strange, contradictory, and downright puzzling stories, particularly in the Old Testament, that should make any reasonable person question why a supernatural God would have human foibles such as pride and anger. The answer is obvious – man created God in his own image, and the scriptures were written by peoples with very limited understanding of the world about them.

The creation stories in Genesis are either meant to be mythical, or they are plain wrong. I state they are wrong because the last few centuries have unleashed a wealth of human knowledge, based on enormous amounts of incontrovertible evidence, that the origin of the universe and of life itself, has a perfectly naturalistic explanation.

As a simple example, creationist Christians claim that God created the Sun and the planets intact. Science has a different explanation, supported by enormous amounts of physical evidence, and we can see and observe star and planetary information occurring elsewhere in the universe in a process that is increasingly well understood and which occurs over vast periods of time. There is nothing unique or special about our Sun or our planet.

I know that naturalistic origins don’t sit well with Bill and many of his correspondents, but it is the truth, and those who refute it are either ignorant of the mass of evidence available, or are in denial because it shakes their faith to its very foundations. Now I’m well aware that most mainstream Christian denominations have come to accept the scientific evidence and now regard Genesis as myth, but that position seems equally unsatisfactory to me because it leaves a God with very little to actually do.

So, Spencer, you asked what evidence I had that Christianity is childish superstition. The question is the wrong way round. What evidence is there for the existence of God, or for the proposition that humans survive death? I say there is none, but people believe because they want to believe. If some people need religion in their life, I don’t have a problem with that, except when religion is used to vilify and discriminate against others, or to justify inhumane actions, and there has been plenty of that in human history.

Steve Angelino, WA

I understand your emphasis: “it is not our esteem of our selves (self-esteem), but God’s esteem of us (His estimate of us), not our own that matters. Read Ephesians 1,” but I’m not convinced of the “God-esteem” meaning to bolster our self-esteem. As a long-term marriage and family counsellor (30 years), I will not pursue self-esteem emphases because of their lack of empirical support and biblical teaching that is contrary to the elevation of self message.

When I raise issues of self-esteem with believers, verses such as Mark 12: 28-31 are raised: “One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, ‘Of all the commandments, which is the most important? The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

There are not three commands here — only two: First, love the Lord your God; second, love your neighbour. There is no command to love ourselves. Jesus presupposes love of self in this passage.

Jesus’ estimate of our continuing love of ourselves is understood by the apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:28-29, when “he urges husbands to love their wives as you [are loving] your own body.” Paul then states, “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church” (ESV).

One of the marks of the last days will be: “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves . . .” (2 Tim. 3:1). Instead, we are to ” Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves” (Rom. 12:10).

In Matthew 16:24-25, “Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.’”

I do not believe it is possible to deny self and elevate my self-esteem at the same time.

I consider that a better emphasis is in 1 Thessalonians 5:11, “Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”

I have expanded this further in my article, “Self-Esteem: A Christian Response,” at: gear.dyndns.org/~spencer/Counselling/selfesteemachristianresponse.html.

I agree with Bill’s points that “ideas have consequences, and worldviews matter. My main point was that a materialist worldview must lead to some worrying outcomes.” I was leading a parenting group yesterday for parents of out-of-control teens and some asked, “We have learned so much from this course as it has helped us to begin to take authority as parents. What has caused us to get to this point of not knowing how to deal with outrageous behaviour?” We discussed influences of people such as Dr. Benjamin Spock and permissive parenting. Worldviews do have consequences. My counselling work would be so much easier if parents had not been led down the path of “you must allow the child to pursue freedom of choice and not damage his/her self-esteem through parental authority.”

Spencer Gear, Hervey Bay, Qld.

Flew examined the evidence and made an unfounded conclusion. That’s it.

Sammy Jankis, London UK