Book Plunge: Still Unbelievable Part 4

Does God make sense of morality? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This chapter is by Michael Brady. We will be looking at his explanation for the origins of morality. At the start, he does at least seem to agree that there is objective morality, though I prefer to say objective goodness instead.

Premise Two: Objective moral duties and obligations do exist. Agreed. Or at least it seems so. Unless one is a sociopath, each and every human being has an innate moral sensibility. This intuition that there is right and wrong, equitable and unfair, true and false, and that in all cases the former is better than the latter. Where do these intuitions come from? The theist argues that their creator wrote the moral code upon our hearts; we know right from wrong because we were formed in God’s image.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

It is not a shock that Euthyphro is brought up. As Brady says:

So the Christian God can do nothing that is not good, by definition? Every act, every utterance is a reflection of his perfect goodness? The difficulty in assigning this sort of goodness to the deity worshipped by the Hebrew is that He ordered acts which our internal moral compass tells is wrong. When the God of the Old Testament ordered genocide, ethnic cleansing, infanticide, the murder of pregnant women, marital rape, and the taking of pre-teen girls as war prizes. Does he make such acts good? Suddenly, and counter-intuitively, the proscriptions against murder, theft, and coveting are no longer absolutes. Such acts become merely prohibited until ordered, at which time they become not only good but obligatory? Failure to commit such acts when ordered by God – because they offend our own God-given moral sensibilities – become a sin?  What has happened here?

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Oddly enough, he doesn’t try to press Euthyphro. He says “God does things that I don’t like.” Many of these are thrown out there without any real interaction. Where does God order marital rape for example? I suspect pre-teen girls as war prizes is an interaction with Numbers 31 which I have dealt with here.

This would have been a good time to have brought up the idea of goodness and what it is, but that was not brought up. This is a great weakness in many atheistic, and many theistic, arguments. They never talk about what goodness is. It is assumed that morality is the same thing. All that is moral is good, but not all that is good is moral. You think your favorite food is good, but does that mean you think it is moral?

Brady does get to likely what he thinks is marital rape when he says:

“When you go out to war against your enemies, and the LORD your God gives them into your hand and you take them captive, and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you desire to take her to be your wife, and you bring her home to your house, she shall shave her head and pare her nails. And she shall take off the clothes in which she was captured and shall remain in your house and lament her father and her mother a full month. After that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. But if you no longer delight in her, you shall let her go where she wants. But you shall not sell her for money, nor shall you treat her as a slave, since you have humiliated her.” Deuteronomy 21:10-14 If a modern soldier took a vanquished female captive after a battle, shaved her head, locked her up in his house for a month, and then forced himself on her, he’d be guilty of violation of the laws of war. He’d be correctly accused of kidnapping, false imprisonment, physical and emotional abuse, and rape. He would be keeping a sex slave. If delivered into the hands of the law, he’d be imprisoned and his victim set free. To this and other hard passages, Christians routinely make the relativistic retort, that’s just the way things were in those days. That other tribes’ soldiers just raped women on the battlefield. That in Jewish society unmarried women were destined to poverty or prostitution. Rather than accepting such equivocations as an excuse, why is this not seen as an indictment of Jewish society? Under whose strict rules – and God-given morality – was Jewish culture operating at the time?

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

But it’s not relativistic to say that was the way it was at the time. Brady obviously wouldn’t want the woman killed or he’d complain about that, so what does he want? Her to go and get a job at the local Wal-Mart or sign up for CanaaniteMingle.com and get a guy? If this was a case of rape, why on Earth does the guy wait a month before he does anything. If anything, this is actually looking out for the woman. He is not allowed to sell the woman or treat her like a slave. This woman is brought into the society and cared for.

Unfortunately, much of the chapter is just that. Bringing up things in the Bible the author doesn’t like. There is very little philosophy. At the end, he does say this:

As for naturalistic expressions of the good, we might not be having this dialogue if flourishing wasn’t better than suffering, life better than death, or success better than failure. Perhaps you can’t derive an ought from an is, but this system has been working since the dawn of life on our planet. It seems unlikely the life would endure in any other way, here or on any other planet in universe.   Objective? God-given? Perhaps not. But universal and ubiquitous? Certainly.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

But if we want to say that X is better, we want to know why, and why is it that this applies to human flourishing. There are some who think it would be better if humans went extinct and nature was left to flourish without us. Brady doesn’t give us any idea of what good is. He just assumes it.

The final part also undoes everything. If morality is not objective, then what has this whole chapter been about? One can say it’s universal, but so what? It could also have been universal that the sun went around the Earth at one point. Doesn’t matter.

Brace yourself. Next time we’ll look at a chapter on why the gospel is not good news. It’s going to be a painful ride.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Book Plunge: Still Unbelievable Part 3

What about the cause of the universe? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I will say in his defense that chapters by Skydive Phil tend to be well-researched and better than most other chapters. That’s not saying a lot, but that is something. Unlike many other authors, he does have a copious list of notes for what he says. Seeing as this chapter is largely scientific, as you all should know by now, I will not comment on science as science. However, when we get to philosophical points, I will say something.

So let’s get to one:

When we think of causes though, we always do so in the context of time. We could say all events that have causes have prior moments in time. If the universe had a beginning then there was no prior moment of time and hence we have no right to demand there must be some prior cause. Causality may also be a consequence of the laws of physics and the arrow of time. If we had some state with no space or time, no laws of physics and no arrow of time, are we really in a position to demand there must still be a cause?

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Ah, but this is assuming chronological causation. Now I fully grant that there is time in that A causes B. My hands are typing on this keyboard which is causing letters to pop up and my hands typing were caused by my willing them to type. That is all well and good. Could it be possible for something to be eternal and still have a cause?

Yes.

Imagine a mirror that has been standing for all eternity. In front of this mirror stands a man who is also somehow eternal. This man is eternally looking in the mirror unmoving. The man sees his reflection eternally in the mirror.

Is his reflection caused?

Yes, and yet it is eternal.

Hard to fathom and get your head around? Sure, but it doesn’t change reality.

The point is all of this is in the context of the Kalam and Phil deals with the modern version that is about the origin of the universe. The historical version of it is not.

In Q. 46 and article 2 of the Prima Pars of the Summa Theologica, it is asked if the beginning of the universe is an article of faith. This doesn’t mean blind belief. It means if this is something that is taken on authority revealed from God. Now were people like Phil correct, Aquinas would say “Of course not! Our argument shows the universe has a beginning!”

He does not.

On the contrary, The articles of faith cannot be proved demonstratively, because faith is of things “that appear not” (Hebrews 11:1). But that God is the Creator of the world: hence that the world began, is an article of faith; for we say, “I believe in one God,” etc. And again, Gregory says (Hom. i in Ezech.), that Moses prophesied of the past, saying, “In the beginning God created heaven and earth”: in which words the newness of the world is stated. Therefore the newness of the world is known only by revelation; and therefore it cannot be proved demonstratively.

Ah! But doesn’t he in his first way assume a beginning?

No. He does not. After all, the ways are built on truths that can be known from reason alone. Therefore, Aquinas’s arguments do not depend on the universe having a beginning. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t nor does it mean that were he here today he would hold the same opinion on if the universe had a beginning. We don’t know what he would say today, but we know what he said then.

Phil goes on to say:

What then caused God? Theists must agree that there is something that doesn’t need a cause. And whilst acausal interpretations of quantum mechanics are still on the table it seems they have the advantage over God because at least we know that quantum mechanics actually exist. The theistic response is that only things that begin to exist need causes. As God didn’t begin to exist then he doesn’t need a cause. An obvious question to ask is how do theists know this? It seems to me like a pure assertion. But what if the universe didn’t begin to exist? Then it wouldn’t need a cause and we will not require God.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

From a Thomistic perspective, we know this because God’s nature is to be. His nature is existence itself. What does it mean to be? Look at God. What does it mean to be limited in being? Look at everything else. Saying “What made God?” is like asking “What created existence?” It is by no means an assertion. The great classical theists gave arguments for it. You might think they were wrong, but it was by no means an assertion.

And as for the final part, I have argued that that is just wrong. Saying the universe is eternal does not mean it doesn’t have a cause. Unless the universe contains within itself the principle of its own existing, in other words, it exists somehow by its own power it needs a cause.

From a Thomistic perspective, since the universe is changing, it is limited in its being, and thus needs a cause. My formulation of Kalam in the style of a syllogism goes like this.

That which has passive potential which is actualized depends on something else for its being.
The universe has passive potential which is actualized.
The universe depends on something else for its being.

Passive potential is capacity for change and being actualized means the bringing about of that change. This doesn’t apply to God since He has no passive potential.

When the steady state theory was popular, theologians appealed to passages that describe God’s continual sustaining of creation to make the bible compatible with that too. So it seems that it is not so hard to find passages in the bible whose meaning can be molded to support whatever narrative suits.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

This can be done, unfortunately, but that is not the fault of the Bible, but of modern man. It’s why I reject Concordism. The Bible is not meant to be read as a modern scientific text and Christians and atheists both make this mistake.

As for design arguments:

What about design? Well the problem here is that Justin isn’t just asking us to believe in a designer, but an immaterial one. Whenever we see design by agents we see they are physical, they need external energy to do their design work. We also see that complex creatures capable of design arise after long periods of evolution. We also see that the more complicated a designed object is, the more the number of designers are needed. Think of the Large Hadron Collider, one of the most complex objects on Earth. It wasn’t designed by one person. So if cosmic design is like Earthly design, shouldn’t we presume there are many designers? Design by a single immaterial being that didn’t undergo evolution and doesn’t need any external energy source, doesn’t seem to fit what we know about design at all. Theists merely appeal to the similarities that suit and ignore the ones that don’t.  As an atheist then it seems this type of design is the least plausible of Justin three explanations.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

The problem here is that this is a sort of part to whole fallacy. All designers we see are material designers, therefore all designers are material. That doesn’t follow. It depends on the nature of the designer and again, classical theism argues for a God who is simple since He is not material and has no parts to Him. Were it otherwise, He would need a designer. Whether design arguments work overall, I leave to my friends who are more scientifically inclined.

In a later statement on miracles, Phil says:

If God frequently performs miracles, can we really say  there is so much regularity in the world? We are being asked to believe that God sets up immutable mathematical relationships in the world only to suspend them every time he does a miracle.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

As said in earlier posts on this, not only can we, we have to. If there is no regular order, there is no way to recognize a miracle. Miracles only make sense if there is a regular order where all things being equal, A consistently causes B in C.

There is a whole lot in this chapter I have not replied to because I realize I am not trained in the area to do so. I leave that to the more scientific among you. Next time we look at this book, we’ll discuss morality.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Book Plunge: Still Unbelievable Part 2

Does God make sense of human suffering? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This chapter on human suffering is written by Matthew Taylor. Let’s see how this starts with this quote early on followed by some examples from Francis Collins:

The Christian claim is that their god is the best explanation for our existence. The justification is that everywhere we look, nature is amazing and wondrous and it simply can’t be an accident. All that is must be the product of something greater, and that something can only be the Christian god. Ask any Christian to justify this and you’ll get an answer that attempts to show how science and faith do not conflict or that science confirms the reasons for the faith. Press hard and the reasons sound more wishful thinking than demonstrated conclusion.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Unknown is why something is raised up about science and faith being in a construct. It can easily be that the world is beautiful and amazing and science is a tool that brings out the beauty and wonder of the world. Alas, I suspect that Taylor is just trying to poison the well right at the start.

Naturally, he went with a scientist on the question. If the question is the nature of beauty, a philosopher would have been the better pick, but what do they know I suppose. I would have told Matthew about truth, goodness, and beauty being transcendental and ontological realities and how God is the metaphysical basis for them.

So I guess ask any Christian just isn’t right.

Evidence is a genuine challenge for Christian claims involving their god. The bible makes it clear that faith in an unseen god is something to be respected. A trait that Jesus himself praises when he says to Thomas “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”. John 20:29

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

On the contrary, I love talking about evidence. It is atheists I meet who most often do not. It’s easy to see this when I recommend them books to read and get told no over and over. As for faith, I have my own work on that here. As for the passage in John, as John Dickson says:

It is important to realise that Jesus is not saying, You, Thomas, believe with evidence; but blessed are those who can bring themselves to believe in my resurrection without any evidence! That is often how people perceive the Christian faith—as if it were about believing stuff blindly, without evidence, or even contrary to the evidence. The British atheist A.C. Grayling cited this Thomas story in a Guardian article, arguing that “Faith is a commitment to belief contrary to evidence and reason … [Faith] is ignoble, irresponsible and ignorant.”[29] But “faith” in the Christian tradition, as I pointed out in chapter 2, has more in common with the oldest usage of this English word: “Belief based on evidence, testimony, or authority”. In this famous passage from John’s Gospel, Jesus is not saying people will be blessed if they can learn to believe without any evidence. He is making the distinction between believing on the basis of personal observation and believing on the basis of testimony. Both are forms of evidence. It’s just that personal observation is the way you determine repeatable and directly detectable things, and testimony is how you verify things that are, by definition, beyond your direct detection.

Dickson, John. Is Jesus History? (Questioning Faith) (p. 112). The Good Book Company. Kindle Edition.

In other words, Thomas had enough evidence already with all he had seen over the years and the testimony of the ten there with him. He would have been more blessed if he had trusted the reliable sources he had with him. It is not saying that all evidence is to be avoided.

Taylor after talking some about evolution goes on to say:

So why is it that when the Christians on the Unbelievable? forums are challenged to provide the details of the experiments that can confirm the presence of the Christian god, the questioner is accused of being hostile? This is exactly what Justin does in Chapter Two of his book when he quotes Lawrence Krauss as describing the world’s religions of being in disagreement with science. If the Christian is to remain in step with science, they must be prepared to subject their god to scientific testing. Testing that will, over time, make the Christian god more or less probable. Yet, when the Christian is challenged to do that, the response is that the Christian god can not be tested in a lab and so, as Krauss predicts, the Christian removes their religion from the boundary of science. When the Christian’s response to the question of where is the experimental evidence that supports their god’s existence is variations of “god is outside of nature and can not be tested” then they are at odds with science and they are making claims that science can not support. That being the case, they can not then claim that the arrow of evidence points in the direction of the Christian god. The two positions are contradictory.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

But God is outside of nature and cannot be tested. Science is great at testing the material realm, but if something is not a question of matter in motion, then it is not removing it from science. One can use scientific tools, but the conclusion itself is not scientific. If you want to know if Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, you go to history and not science. If you want to know if Romeo and Juliet survive at the end of Shakespeare’s play, you go to literature and not science. If you want to know if Fermat’s Last Theorem has been solved, you go to mathematics and not science. If you want to know what truth, goodness, and beauty are, you go to philosophy and not science.

Taylor’s main problem here is assuming that if something is not in the realm of science, then it is nonsense, while the idea that if something is not in the realm of science makes it nonsense is itself not in the realm of science. I object to the idea of scientifically testing God because He is not matter in motion and that’s a category fallacy. I don’t object to doing philosophy and metaphysics and I don’t object to using scientific tools to gather data, but the final ground is not science.

That is not a fault of science any more than it’s a fault of literature that it can’t tell us what the speed of light is or a fault of mathematics that it can’t tell you if Babylon conquered Israel. When it comes to the matter of studying, well, matter, science is superior. When it comes to studying other areas, leave it to those areas.

If asked what caused the Big Bang, Taylor says:

The Christian already knows the answer of course, they say the answer is their god. Yet challenge the Christian to explain what was before their god and the response is it’s not a valid question because god is beyond time. The very answer that they reject with reference to the big bang, is the answer they give for their god.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Yes. It is a nonsense question because God is by definition eternal so if you ask “What came before that which is eternal?”, it’s nonsensical. That is not the case with the Big Bang. Even if somehow the universe was eternal, an event is not. The Big Bang is not eternal so it makes sense to ask what was before the Big Bang.

There is a trend in Christian apologetics to claim that this can only be the case because the Christian god created everything to be this way. The process of science can only work because matter interacts and behaves the way it does. If the interactions of particles, chemicals and everything else was arbitrary then science would be impossible. The reason why everything acts the way it does is because of the properties of each particle. The elements hydrogen and oxygen exist the way they do because they can’t exists any other way. of how their atoms are formed. They interact the way they do because their make up means that there is no other way for them to interact.  Why is this the case? Well we don’t know at the moment, could there have been any other way for these particles to exist and interact? We don’t know at the moment. Will we ever know? Maybe, which is why the efforts are being made to find out. Does any of this mean that a god should be invoked as the unexplained explainer? No, because that doesn’t explain anything.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

If it is asked “Does God explain how all of this works?” then yes, just saying God is not sufficient. If God is used to explain why all this works, then yes, God is sufficient. It works because God created the universe to provide for us. We can use science to study the how, but the why, the final cause, is known by theology and philosophy.

What’s more, a supernatural god can create a universe that operates in any way it likes, intervene with miracles whenever it chooses, all without regard to natural laws or consistency. Creation can be reordered, man can be made from mudpies, snakes and donkeys can talk, and the sun can be stopped in the sky in order to create a longer work day. On the other hand, for a natural universe to exist it would have to be bound by a variety of predictable and consistent constraints that serve to make its continued existence possible. All that we know about nature and the universe is knowledge that has been gathered through the scientific process. More than that, the scientific process has only provided details and information on what is natural, science hasn’t provided us with any clues about the existence of anything extra natural or supernatural.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Taylor ignores that in Scripture, the strength of the covenant is based on that natural order. Consider Jeremiah 31:35-36

hus says the Lord,
who gives the sun for light by day
    and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,
who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—
    the Lord of hosts is his name:
36 “If this fixed order departs
    from before me, declares the Lord,
then shall the offspring of Israel cease
    from being a nation before me forever.”

Not only this, but you have to have order in order for there to be miracles. If there is no order and anything could happen at any time, there would be no miracles. The fixed order is not a shock to the Christian. It’s a necessity and the early scientists wanted to study this order to see how God did what He did.

As for leaving evidence, I consider existing itself to be the evidence. Why should there be something rather than nothing at all? Why is there truth, goodness, and beauty in the universe? These are philosophical questions, but they need answers just as much as scientific questions do. We ignore science to our peril, yes. We ignore philosophy to our same peril.

More will be said in later chapters on suffering. It looks more like this chapter was about explaining the universe instead of suffering. Unfortunately, we won’t find much good in many of those chapters.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Still Unbelievable Part 1

How is the church failing? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This book is a response to Justice Brierley’s Unbelievable. This was a popular radio show he did out of the UK where Christians and non-Christians debated, though sometimes Christians debated on an in-house issue. The book has chapters by various skeptics talking about why they still think Christianity is unbelievable.

It starts with the first part of a woman named Sophie who abandoned Christianity. I mainly want to highlight the lessons we can learn from it.

First off, don’t live in a bubble or put your children in one:

I had assumed that it was only with Christians that you could share, connect and be known and that all secular folk had god-shaped holes, with ultimately empty lives, and that they were wracked with guilt and in rebellion to the Almighty. They, of course, knew He existed, they just wanted to live their selfish lives. However, this didn’t’ seem to bare out. My non-theist friends’ lives were no more empty or full than my theist friends’ lives. Some, who clearly stated their atheism, were some of the best parents I’d encountered. They had good, loving family relationship. For the most part, they led pretty wholesome, happy lives and some even confessed to wishing they could believe in a god and had sincerely tried, but not been able.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

Of course, I contend that this is because non-Christians also have a Christian background that they get the way they live from, but it doesn’t matter for now. The point is if we paint the other side as if they are constantly wicked in any way, then we are not preparing our young people. If we assume that people feel a constant emptiness without Jesus, then we are not preparing our young people. Our call to evangelism should not depend on our audience having a certain emotional response which they may or may not have. It should depend on the reality that Jesus is the risen Lord, savior, and King of the universe, and there’s no may or may not about that.

Second, we need to really teach the nature of God living as a Trinity:

My faith doubts were never about if there was a god, but rather what His character was like and what His will was for my life.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

I stress the Trinity because then we properly get a relational God. We learn who Jesus is. We learn who the Holy Spirit is. The problem is we often look at God and then think about what He has to do with us instead of the other way around. I really can’t stand the idea of people trying to find a “will for their life.” You want to know God’s will for your life? Easy. Conform you to the likeness of Christ. That’s it.

Third, while many apologists don’t really want to bother dealing with popular atheists, we really need to.

I recall the disconcerting, but euphoric moments of discovering Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins, whose irreverence and boldness, left me wide-eyed with my hand over my mouth. I encountered those who’d been theists like Dan Barker, John Loftus, Rob Price and Ryan Bell – all who’ve been guests on the Unbelievable? show, as well as others, like Bart Campolo the de-converted son of Tony Campolo, who I’d worked for in the States.

Johnson, David; Knight, Andrew; Atkinson, Ed; Skydivephil; Taylor, Matthew; Brady, Michael; Dumas, Sophie. Still Unbelievable: Why after listening to Christian arguments we are still skeptics . Reason Press. Kindle Edition.

I have read the writings of the new atheists. I have debated both Loftus and Barker. To those who have only heard pablum from the pulpits all their lives, these seem to be the first people who really argue for something. It’s poor argumentation, but if it’s your first time hearing it, you don’t know how to tell that.

Yes. This sword cuts both ways. That’s also why I would encourage churches to also be reading these skeptical authors together and discussing what they have to say. We should not be afraid of what we are hearing. If we have the truth, we need not fear a counter-argument.

There are many more points that can be made, but those will come with later points in the testimony. Next time we look at this book, we will be discussing if God makes sense of human existence.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Book Plunge: Atheist Universe Part 14

Is ID a cult? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It’s time to wrap up this book. The last and longest chapter is on ID. I am not a fan of ID. I don’t use ID. My arguments are metaphysical, but that doesn’t mean that Mills gets a free pass. A lot of it is still the same kind of stuff.

For 2000 years, Christians of all persuasions—both Catholic and Protestant—believed in the Genesis account of Creation. Even Jews and many non-Christians affirmed the teachings of Genesis 1:1—“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth.” Historically, this verse was universally accepted to mean that God literally created the heavens (i.e., the planets, moons, stars and galaxies) and the Earth at the beginning of time. The truth and meaning of this doctrine were unambiguous and undisputed for twenty centuries.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 214). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

As has been pointed out before, Mills gives no sources on this. I have pointed out Kyle Greenwood’s book Since The Beginning. Mills has never read church history at all and has no idea on the history of the interpretation of the doctrine.

While I certainly applaud ID for moving into the 21st century on the study of astronomy,

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 214). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

This has actually been the historical Christian position. The Roman Catholic Church was heavily invested in astronomical studies at the time of Galileo. Christianity historically has encouraged scientific research.

If, as science tells us, the cosmos is roughly 14 billion years old and Earth is 5 billion years old, then Earth is only about one-third the age of the universe as a whole (generally speaking). By analogy, a football game is 60 minutes of playing time. Two-thirds of that time—or the game’s first 40 minutes—would represent the time the cosmos existed before Earth formed. Would it be fair to claim that a touchdown scored during the game’s fortieth minute—or five minutes before the start of the fourth quarter—was scored “in the beginning” of the game? I don’t think that any reasonable person could truthfully answer yes to this question. Neither can anyone honestly assert that the 14-billion-year-old heavens and a 5-billion-year-old Earth were both created together “in the beginning,” as Genesis 1:1 declares.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 215). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Saying Heaven and Earth is not a way of speaking of them as individual entities, but a Hebrew merism to say that everything was created in the beginning.

While disdainfully blaming “liberals” and “liberal theology” for every imaginable evil, ID leaders hypocritically embrace the core tenet of liberal theology—i.e., the belief that Genesis is not to be taken literally.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 215). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Some YECs might agree, though I hope not all would or even most would, but this is not the case at all. Mills, like all fundamentalists, has a hang-up on literalism.

Since I am apparently copying too much from the book as Kindle has informed me, he does state that IDists are embarrassed about their book since they don’t answer questions on Hell. For one thing, not everyone in the ID movement is a Christian. For a second, depending on what the question is, saying “It’s not for us to judge” is not embarrassment, but humility.

The Anthropic Principle is a supremely egotistical manifestation of human self-centeredness, self-delusion and self-importance gone into orbit. ID’s man-centered universe is hauntingly reminiscent of Christianity’s medieval belief in an Earth-centered universe.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 223). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Except the priniciple didn’t come from them. It came long before the ID movement came about. Also, the Earth-centered universe was not an egotistical belief. It was in the outer realms where God was that one wanted to be.

As for talking about irreducible complexity, Mills says that this would also mean divine complexity. Mills, who seems to know so much about historical interpretations, misses that historically, the church has also held to divine simplicity. It’s only been within fairly recent history that that has been seriously questioned.

He says that IDists have glee pointing out errors in historical sketches of human evolution. He responds saying:

We could of course play the same childish game by pointing out that Thomas Aquinas—13th-century architect of ID’s “First Cause” argument— believed that the eyes of a menstruating woman affected a mirror.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 228-229). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

I tried to find where Aquinas says this. I could not. Mills gives no citations again.

Now a lengthy section:

Intelligent Design proponents knew that their original First Cause argument was flawed so they contrived a “patch” in an attempt to salvage the necessity of Jehovah’s existence. They changed their starting premise from “Everything needs a cause” to “Everything that begins to exist needs a cause.” Since God didn’t begin to exist (according to the Bible) and since the universe did begin to exist (according to ID’s total lie about what cosmologists “agree”), ID leaders claim they have delivered scientific proof of God’s existence. There are three transparent blunders with this so-called Kalam argument. First, the argument that God exists and has always existed is a Biblical doctrine. So ID is “proving” God’s eternal existence by constructing an argument that assumes God’s eternal existence based on Scripture. And ID knows that the Bible is true because it’s the Bible. The second problem with the Kalam argument, as we discussed above, is the utterly dishonest claim that “cosmologists agree that the universe arose suddenly out of absolute nothingness.” We can easily see here how one flawed premise quickly requires other flawed and dishonest arguments as supporting props. The third fallacy involves the identity of the god whose existence is allegedly “proven” by the Kalam argument. Why couldn’t the Intelligent Designer be Zeus, or Allah, or Apollo? There is nothing in the Kalam argument that even addresses this question. Yet, without rational explanation, ID worshippers know in their hearts that the intelligent Creator is Jesus’ Father.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 234). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

First off, the Kalam argument opening premise was never changed. Mills is just ignorant of what it was. Second, God’s eternal existing was not assumed based on Scripture but actually argued for by Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Finally, the Kalam argument never by itself attempts to show who the first cause was. It is just pointing out that there is one.

It is both meaningless and slippery to feign that “God is beyond time.” What does this cliché actually mean in a scientific context? I don’t know. Before His Creation of our universe, did God have no mental deliberations, no acts of love to bestow upon His heavenly host, no heavenly chores to discharge, no actions or thoughts of any kind? If God did engage in such thoughts or actions prior to His Creation of our universe, then, theoretically, these thoughts and actions could be enumerated or itemized, at least partially. Even though Craig would self-servingly define these pre-Creation activities as “before time” or “beyond time,” couldn’t these prior events be added to a tallied list of God’s other praiseworthy attributes and actions? Wouldn’t this list of God’s pre-Creation activities—however incomplete it may be—show that an infinite regress of specific events is not only possible but indispensable if God is assumed to be infinitely old as Craig believes? In plain English, Craig claims that something can be infinitely old when it suits his purpose, but something can’t be infinitely old when it doesn’t suit his purpose.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 238-239). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

It’s always amusing when someone says they don’t know what X means, and then go on to tell you what they think the position means. Well, Mr. Mills. Let me explain this. God being eternal means that God is not moving on a timeline. There is no such thing as before or after in the actions of God. We see them that way, but that is because we are in the timeline. God is always eternally doing them. The infinite regress doesn’t apply.

Also, Mills includes Hugh Ross in the ID camp. I reached out to Fazale Rana at Reasons to Believe who did tell me that he would not see himself as an “ID lecturer” as Mills says.

While there was more I had highlighted, most of it I have already dealt with. Mills is sadly the person who thinks he is educated when he instead reveals himself to be a fool in all that he says about Christianity. It’s sad atheists read books like this thinking the author knows what he’s talking about.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Atheist Universe Part 13

Were the Founding Fathers Christians? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Imagine if I was telling you what a group of scientists believed, let’s say a group of 50+, but I did so by only picking out 3 of them. Suppose I went to the National Academy of Sciences, picked out the scientists that were theists, and then said “See? The NAS is a theistic society.” If you think that’s ridiculous, you have an idea of what it’s like to read David Mills on the founding of America.

To the extent that our Founding Fathers had any religious affiliation at all, it was a tepid embracing of the philosophy of Deism, a popular system of thought in the 18th century. Deism is the belief that a supernatural Power originally created the universe but does not currently manage its day-to-day operation or intervene personally into human affairs. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine, among many others, held Deist, rather than Christian, religious beliefs. If one dismisses all preconceived historical inaccuracies and Christian propaganda, then an extraordinary and very revealing fact emerges: The two documents upon which our country was actually founded—i.e., the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States—contain not a single word about Christianity, Christian principles, the Bible or Jesus Christ. Neither is there any mention at all of the Ten Commandments, Heaven, Hell or being saved. Not a word! The phrase “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” was a reference to the Deist Creator, rather than the God of Christianity.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 205). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

For the former, when people want to talk about the founding fathers not being Christian, you can bet dollars to donuts that they will name the same three people every time. Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Benjamin Franklin. MIlls finds it odd that the founding documents don’t mention explicitly Christian language. He gives us no reason why we should think that they would. The Constitution and Declaration were to be for all people, not just Christians.

Yet after saying that these aren’t found in these documents he says:

Witch burning and mandatory church affiliation, among other factors, led the Founding Fathers to establish a “Wall of Separation between Church and State,” allowing, at each citizen’s discretion, freedom of religion or freedom from religion.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 206). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

You know what else isn’t found in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution? The Wall of Separation between Church and State. However, that is something golden that obviously all the founders held. There is no mention on how government funds were used to evangelize the Native Americans in the area of the Louisiana Purchase. There is no mention that the wall mention was made to the Danbury Baptist Church to assure them the government would not infringe upon them. There is no mention that after writing that, the very next Sunday Jefferson let worship services take place in the House of Representatives.

The other thing you can be sure that will be mentioned is the Treaty of Tripoli.

In 1797 the United States ratified the Treaty of Tripoli, which was negotiated by George Washington himself and signed by his successor, John Adams. The treaty declared that “the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” Congress unanimously approved the text of this treaty.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 206). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

In other words, Mills is following the atheistic script accurately. Cite only the information that agrees with you. Ignore the rest. Never mind that it can be questioned if Article 11 where the phrase shows up even belongs in the treaty or not seeing as we have a version in two languages. There is no mention of the Treaty of Paris which uses explicit Christian language right in the intro in speaking of it being in the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity.

Modern-day conservative propaganda about the “Christian birth of our nation” is therefore just as erroneous and self-serving as Christian pronouncements about the birth of our universe. In both cases, “men of God” completely ignore the actual evidence at hand and conjure up a fictitious tale. They then spread the myth, along with fabricated evidence, and repeat the myth so frequently that it is soon accepted uncritically by the citizenry.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 207). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Oh, the irony.

But to be fair, have I provided positive evidence so far? Not too much. However, if you want to see a listing of such quotations with their sources, you can go here. Here are some that you can find there.

    “From the day of the Declaration, the people of the North American union, and of its constituent states, were associated bodies of civilized men and Christians, in a state of nature, but not of anarchy. They were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of the Gospel, which they nearly all acknowledged as the rules of their conduct. They were bound by the principles which they themselves had proclaimed in the declaration. They were bound by all those tender and endearing sympathies, the absence of which, in the British government and nation, towards them, was the primary cause of the distressing conflict in which they had been precipitated by the headlong rashness and unfeeling insolence of their oppressors. They were bound by all the beneficent laws and institutions, which their forefathers had brought with them from their mother country, not as servitudes but as rights. They were bound by habits of hardy industry, by frugal and hospitable manners, by the general sentiments of social equality, by pure and virtuous morals; and lastly they were bound by the grappling-hooks of common suffering under the scourge of oppression.”

————–John Quincy Adams

Letter to Mrs. Jane Mecom:
“I am so far from thinking that God is not to be worshipped, that I have composed and wrote a whole book of devotions for my own use; and I imagine there are few if any in the world so weak as to imagine, that the little good we can do here can merit so vast a reward hereafter.”

————–Benjamin Franklin

“I do hereby appoint THURSDAY, the TWENTY-FIRST of NOVEMBER next, to be a day of Public THANKSGIVING, PRAISE, and PRAYER, throughout this Commonwealth; calling on and requesting the ministers and people of every religious denomination, to meet on that day in their respective sanctuaries, that with unanimity and fervor, we may present our unfeigned praises for all the mercies we have received of our Bountiful Creator, who has continued to us the inestimable blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ, blessings not confined to time, but extended to eternity, who has confirmed to us our federal and State constitutions, which secure the enjoyment of our lives, liberties and property, who continues to bless us with a National Government and Administration, whose wisdom, virtue, and firmness have not been circumvented, corrupted or appalled by the arts, seductions, or threats of foreign or domestic foes, but whose patriotic efforts have uniformly and manifestly resulted from an ardent desire to promote the public welfare and happiness, who has not punished our ungrateful murmurs, discontents and other crimes, as He has those of distant nations, by war and its dire effects; but has preserved to us peace, the greatest of national blessings, who has favored us with a Clergy, (with few exceptions,) whose conduct, is influenced by the mild, benign and benevolent principles of the Gospel; and whose example is a constant admonition to such pastors and professors of Christianity, as are too much under the guidance of passion, prejudice, and worldly delusion, Who has enabled us from unavoidable spoliations to derive permanent benefits, by gradually diminishing our dependence on foreign markets, for necessary supplies; by rapidly increasing our manufactures thereof; and by thus preventing in future the plunder of such property by avaricious nations, who has not visited us, as He has other countries, with plague, pestilence or famine; but has kindly preserved to us a great degree of health, and crowned with plenty the labors of our industrious husbandmen, Who has increased the martial ardor and discipline of our militia, and enables us to smile at the menaces of mighty potentates, Who continues to us the due administration of justice, the full and free exercise of our civil religious rights, and the numerous blessing which have resulted from them, Who has prospered in a remarkable degree our Schools, Academies and Colleges; those inestimable sources of public information and happiness, who has protected so great a portion of the property of our merchants, when exposed to the depredations of perfidious governments, Who has granted success to our enterprising fishermen, prospered our ingenious mechanics, and loaded us with His boundless munificence.”

—- Elbridge Thomas Gerry

I, ——, do profess Faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ his only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine Inspiration.

—– George Read

“We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government, that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by the means of the Bible. For this Divine Book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and those sober and frugal virtues, which constitute the soul of republicanism.”

—– Benjamin Rush

But keep in mind, Mills says this is just fabricating evidence.

I can freely acknowledge that Jefferson, Paine, and Franklin did not hold Christian views, perhaps Franklin was the closest.

Can Mills accept the others?

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Atheist Universe Part 12

Is internet porn a danger? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Up until now, I have considered Mills highly ignorant.

Yet when I got to this chapter, that changed.

Mills has an attitude that is disgraceful to have and highly misogynistic towards women. I do not make such statements lightly. I do intend to back it.

First, why this chapter anyway? Why did he write it? He didn’t just write a chapter about supposedly odd views about sex that Christians have. No. This was about internet porn specifically. This was about men going on the internet with the intention of looking up pictures of women in various stages of undress all the way to completely nude for the purpose of feeding their own lusts and that is okay to Mills. Note I say men specifically since that is the group that Mills focuses on saying girls don’t really have this struggle. Well, they actually do, and a large part of that is because men do as well.

So let’s dive in.

Is there truly a problem of children’s accessing pornography on the internet? And if there is, shouldn’t we, as adults, strive mightily to prevent impressionable children from viewing sexually oriented material intended solely for adults? The answers to these questions are: (1) There is no problem; and (2) We should not strive to “child-proof” the internet.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 193). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Entirely wrong on both counts. It is extremely hard for women to find men today who are not viewing porn. They are the exception, not the rule, and this is changing the way men think about sex and in turn changing the way women are doing sex and thinking about sex. Men are getting more and more the idea that what they see on the screen is how sex is supposed to be an how women are supposed to look.

Those are airbrushed fantasy and put a real woman next to a fantasy and the fantasy will win. I hate saying that because real women I do think are definitely superior because they are real, but fake women can be whatever the man wants them to be. Today, a man’s first sexual encounter won’t be on his wedding night. It will be in front of a computer screen.

Yes. We need to child-proof the internet. Minors are passing around nude pictures of themselves that in any other hands would be considered child pornography and a crime. A number of them have committed suicide after said pictures have leaked. Women are suffering in the Instagram generation where they think they have to look like the women on Facebook.

But this is just the beginning for Mills.

He goes on to talk about how our young men reach sexual maturity in their teen years and then have to wait several years before they can get married. On this, I agree. This is a problem. Our society has set eighteen as if it is some magical number that suddenly makes a boy a man. It doesn’t. There are several boys who are over eighteen and there are several men who are under, though those numbers are greatly increasing on both sides.

So Mills says:

So economic reality, more than anything else, has crafted our perception that teenage males are “harmed” by sexual preoccupation. Today’s male faces a frustrating gap of approximately ten years between the onset of his sexual maturity and the median marital age. Genetically and hormonally, however, today’s teenage male is unchanged from the day when early teenage copulation was the accepted norm. During this extended gap between puberty and marriage, all teenage males masturbate frequently, and the overwhelming majority of them view pornography as well.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 197-198). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

In this, there is very little to disagree. It’s his next part that’s the big problem.

Again I pose the question: If, throughout the entirety of human history, teenage males were not “jeopardized” by full penile-vaginal intercourse with their teenage partners, how then are today’s teenage males “endangered” by mere photographs of women?

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 198). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

And this I declare is incredibly misogynistic. Mills says “If a man was involved in a relationship with a woman where he was spending his life with her and siring children with her and raising a family with her, then how is looking at photographs a problem? That is hardly a one-to-one parallel. The former requires that a man be a man. It requires that he take responsibility for a woman he has pledged loyalty and faithfulness to. It requires that he work to provide for her and the children that they will have.

Pornography does the exact opposite. It requires that a man not be a man. It does not require the man to take any responsibility. It does not require him to be faithful and loyal to anyone. It does not require him to make any effort to provide for a woman or provide children. The woman in pornography is solely there for the gratification of the man. He doesn’t even have to know her name or anything about her. He doesn’t have to risk himself with her at all.

Yet Mills sees these as parallels.

Unbelievable.

This really tells you how Mills sees women.

Pornography causes young men to see women as just bodies and cheapens sex. I am not at all saying women’s bodies are not beautiful. Thank God they are. I am saying you can’t beat the real thing. It is why even as a divorced man I strive to keep myself porn free so that when I remarry, my then wife will know I only have eyes for her and she doesn’t have to compete with a Rolodex of images of nude women in my head.

Another sad fact is that if Mills’s view is true, then yes, there is nothing wrong with any of this. There is nothing wrong with anything. There is also nothing right with anything. Things just are. That’s it.

Thank God the world is not like that.

Thank God women are real and good in their own right and that sex was a gift He created for us to enjoy in the context of a marital relationship.

We don’t want a cheap thing like Mills does.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Book Plunge: Atheist Universe Part 11

What about Hell? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It’s not a shock that someone like Mills goes straight to the topic of Hell. One problem is that Mills consistently holds that if you believe in Hell, you believe in a fiery torture chamber. There are a multitude of different views on the topic. There are some who hold that God just annihilates those who reject Him. My own view can be found here if you are interested.

So Mills really starts his case this way:

Common sense tells us that God would create Hell only if He had a reason to inflict this punishment. In other words, God would not have decided arbitrarily that He would enjoy torturing humans (and fallen angels) and have created a hell on that basis, for this scenario would imply that God behaved sadistically and brought this lake of fire into existence to satisfy his desires to perceive suffering and to hear screams of pain.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 171). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

In all honesty, aside from the torture chamber idea, this seems reasonable enough. So what reasons does Mills give that would be reasons God could create Hell? First, he clarifies his position further saying:

1. God had a reason to create Hell and therefore did so. 2. God had no reason to create Hell, but did so anyway—He just enjoys torturing others. 3. God had no reason to create Hell and therefore did not.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 171-172). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Mills lists three reasons for punishment of any kind:

1. To establish a precedent that will benefit society, by serving as a deterrent to future offenses; 2. To separate the offender from those individuals whose rights he would violate; 3. To correct the offender for his and others’ benefit.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 172). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

To this, I have to say that I highly encourage you to read C.S. Lewis’s essay on a humanitarian theory of punishment. Lewis said that he wrote his essay on behalf of the criminal. The criminal must still be treated as a man and Mills ignores the main reason Lewis gives for punishment. If you’re interested, go ahead and read it, but I will save Lewis’s reason for punishment till the end.

So in talking about deterrence, Mills says the following:

“Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way, which leadeth into life, and few there be that find it.”2 The Christian Church wholeheartedly believes this “Divine” biblical prophecy, which announces that the majority of humanity will follow the wrong road in life and will, as a result, end up in Hell instead of Heaven.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 176-177). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

MIlls doesn’t bother to look at any contrary ideas on how to interpret this verse. I happen to think it is speaking about the immediate response to Jesus, not the universal one. This applies to Jesus’s own life and the response of His immediate hearers.

Speaking of the atonement, Mills says:

So Jesus, in effect, became a victim of His own judgment when dying on the cross as a substitutionary sacrifice—a blood ritual which Jesus offered to Himself so that He could forgive “sin.”

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 180). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

I’ll just say people who don’t have a clue about the Trinity have no business writing a book against Christianity.

A truly benevolent and omnipotent God could simply let bygones be bygones and forgive “sinners” even though they adopted mistaken religious beliefs. If this universal and unconditional forgiveness is impossible for God to bestow, then He is not omnipotent; He is controlled and tossed about by circumstances superseding His authority. If He could forgive all “sinners” unconditionally, but refused, then He is not benevolent.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 181). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

But if God does this, then He is saying that something is greater in the universe than His own goodness and that that must be sacrificed for human happiness. It is a form of idolatry. For MIlls, God is just a superman, a really big man. If a man can do this, well God is just one of us except really big so He can do the same.

There’s not much to say about separation or rehabilitation, but in all of this, Mills misses the one obvious reason why we punish people. It is the one that Lewis looks at the most.

They deserve it.

If you punish someone for deterrence, then you are using them as an object to others. You could punish someone who wasn’t even guilty of something as a lesson to others. If you punish to separate, again, you don’t need to be someone who has done something wrong to do this. A tyrant can take you away from your loved ones. As for rehabilitation, how many times are we hearing people being sent into sensitivity training and things of that sort for perceived wrongs? Again, you don’t have to have done anything objectively wrong. Just thinking you have is enough.

And what if this is the reason for Hell?

That people have done something deserving of punishment and God treats them as people still deserving of punishment?

This never occurs to Mills. He sees punishment in functional terms. If so, then the person becomes a means to an end. In the end, Mills’s case for how unbelievers should be treated is actually inhuman.

Funny how that works out.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Atheist Universe Part 10

What about miracles? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It’s nice to know that Mills at least began this chapter with a joke.

If you have read, even casually, the six preceding chapters of this book, then you have become somewhat of an expert on the arguments for, and against, the Bible’s reliability and Divine inspiration. You are therefore better informed than most Christians on these issues of science and theology. You are also more knowledgeable than 90 percent of the professional clergy in America, who know a lot about preaching the Gospel, but little about proving the Gospel.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 156). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Because nothing says being knowledgable about the material such as refusing to interact with major sources in defense of that material. Sadly, the part about 90% of the clergy could be true. One of my hopes doing this blog is to reverse those numbers.

From here, Mills goes on to talk about the miracles a Christian notices in his daily life.

Foremost among these daily “miracles” is the “comforting presence of the Holy Ghost.” Christians claim that external or scientific proof of God’s existence is for them unnecessary, because the Holy Ghost bears witness in their hearts that He is real and that the Bible is God’s Word. Christians pity the “fools” and “lost souls” who reject religious dogma because these skeptics fail to appreciate and to experience for themselves the self-evident proof that God provides through His “Inner Comforter.”

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 157). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

There’s a reason I’ve never supported Bill Craig’s fifth argument for God. It’s easy to knock down or mock. If Mills ever saw this blog, he can look through other posts of mine where I have told Christians to regularly not base their attitudes on feelings or think that God is speaking to them through feelings.  This is not to say that there are no emotions in our Christian walk, but that they are not the guiding force.

Aside from feeling God’s presence, the most common “miracle of Christian perception” is having one’s prayers answered by God, or otherwise witnessing God’s direct intervention into the natural course of human events. For example, church congregations often pray for the swift recovery of a sick or hospitalized individual. If this bedfast individual later recuperates, the church boastfully attributes his recovery to their miracle-working God. If, instead, the afflicted person dies, this sad outcome is literally never counted as evidence against God’s existence or against God’s ability to answer prayer. The disappointment is stoically accepted as “God’s will” or as a purely natural event irrelevant to theological debate. “It was simply his time to go.”

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 159). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Does Mills expect a universe where every prayer will be answered yes? Just watch Bruce Almighty to see what happens in that case. Sometimes He answers yes and sometimes no. If a miracle does happen though, that does count as evidence of God’s existing. As for evil, I would be glad to talk with Mills about evil any time. I have a number of approaches I use for that, many are on this blog.

However, there are a number of times prayers are answered that I think is not just coincidence. Consider what is happening in the Muslim world as many Muslims are becoming Christians after prayers and visions of Jesus. The thing with events like this is for Mills, every single one of them has to be a coincidence. For me, just one is positive data. Who has more at stake?

Mills refers to John Glenn seeing Earth from space and speaking of its beauty and saying “There has to be a God.”

But I also recall vividly that, at the very moment Glenn uttered his oft-repeated words about a Creator, the Shuttle was flying over Central America, where Hurricane Mitch had just destroyed the infrastructures of five entire nations. Thousands of people had just been killed and hundreds of thousands left homeless. Government officials calculated that it would take 30 years to rebuild. But none of my Christian email correspondents said a thing to me about the carnage and catastrophic damage wrought by the storm, which was raging only 200 miles beneath Glenn and the Shuttle. I hesitate to emphasize the negative. But, here again, Glenn’s “vision of God” was based on selective observation. If Glenn’s family had just been wiped out by the storm, I doubt that he would have voiced such an idyllic view of Nature. So whenever Christians point out to me that many intelligent people believe in God, I agree wholeheartedly. But I, in turn, point out that the empirical observations made by these intelligent individuals, though usually accurate, are frequently selectively employed.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 162). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

But if selective vision is wrong for Glenn, it’s also wrong for Mills. Mills looks at evil and suffering and says “No God.” Glenn sees beauty in the world and says “God.” The question is if atheism can give a basis for beauty and order better than theism can give for evil. We easily can. People went against God and chose lesser goods that in turn caused them to do evil in pursuit of a lesser good over a greater one.

Mills goes on to say about all this that:

Such an undeniably mixed bag would lead an objective observer to conclude that Nature is governed neither by benevolent gods nor by evil demons. Nature simply exists and, irrespective of our desires or best interests, operates through natural law, rather than through mystical or purposeful legerdemain.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 162-163). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Yet Lewis spoke about this years ago. If this was really the case, why would people think of an all-good and all-powerful and all-knowing God? That’s the last kind of God we would expect. That’s probably why so many people for years were polytheists. It made sense.

Suppose that I were standing near Kennedy’s grave at Arlington National Cemetery, and the ground suddenly opened up revealing a coffin. I see the casket opening; and a man who looks exactly like John Kennedy sits up and walks away. Even under these bizarre circumstances, it is still more probable that: (a) I am misperceiving what is occurring, or (b) that someone is playing an ingenious trick, or (c) that I am witnessing the filming of a movie, or (d) that I am dreaming, or (e) that the man I saw was not actually John Kennedy, or (f) that someone has slipped me a hallucinogenic drug, or (g) that I have fallen victim to psychosis or (h) that I am completely fabricating this story. Any of these explanations is infinitely more plausible than the assertion that John Kennedy genuinely rose from the dead. These explanations are more plausible even when I claim to be an eyewitness to the event. Whenever miraculous tales are secondhand or, like Scripture, are handed down from generation to generation, the veracity of the original stories is forever untestable and is thus unworthy of serious consideration. A naturalistic explanation—however far-fetched it seems—is invariably more likely to be accurate than a supernatural explanation.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 164). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

A valid question to ask Mills at this point would be “What would convince you?” If the answer is “nothing”, then Mills’s position is not based on evidence. Were that the case, evidence to the contrary would change his mind. It can be thought believers believe because they have a dogma in favor of miracles, but Chesterton turned this on its head years ago in Orthodoxy.

“The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them.”

And no, in all of this, he doesn’t touch the resurrection. He doesn’t bother interacting with resources like Craig Keener’s Miracles, which was out by then. There is not a single miracle that he really looks at and deals with.

Not a shock.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Atheist Universe Part 9

Can Genesis be reconciled with modern science? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I was pleased to go through this chapter and find that Mills regularly interacted with the Christian scholarship holding the opinion he disagreed with. He cited sources regularly, took them seriously and……yeah. We all know that didn’t happen!

So how does Mills start?

The New Testament books of Matthew and Luke then continue the genealogy from David to Jesus, again specifying the age at which each male descendant “begat” the next generation. Since we have a fixed “historical” time period for Jesus’ birth, creationists thereby calculate that the heavens and Earth were created by God in the year 4004 B.C. Earth, therefore, is only 6000 years old by the biblical chronology.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 137). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

No. Earth is 6,000 years old according to Bishop Ussher’s chronology. We’ve learned a lot about biblical genealogies since then, but what does new information have to do with Mills? It would be awful to read the latest and best scholarship on the matter. One wonders what Mills would think if I judged modern science by the beliefs of scientists 300+ years ago. Sure. Like Biblical scholars and historians, they had some things right, but they had some things wrong as well.

Again also, this term comes up of creationists. At some points, Mills would seem to think someone like me is a creationist, but I sure don’t hold to the Earth being 6,000 years old. Not even all YECs hold 6,000 years as some go for 10,000 years.

He also says some creationists say that if the Earth is this young, then evolution is a fraud. On that, they are right, at least in the macro sense. Macroevolution is definitely a fraud then. The problem is what he says after this:

They echo the sentiments of St. Thomas Aquinas, who believed that any discord between science and Scripture was due to errors of science, rather than errors of Scripture.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 137). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Aquinas wrote around 80 books or so in his lifetime. Mills just throws out a claim and gives no reference whatsoever to it.  To be sure also, I asked some other friends who are also Thomists if they could recognize any such reference. We all knew of no place where Aquinas said this and we also agreed he would be hesitant to disagree with Augustine who said:

“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience.

“Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion [1 Timothy 1.7].” (The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Book 1 Chapter 19 Paragraph 39)

Note this also. There is a reference to that. I don’t pull Mills’s technique of saying “This guy said this. Just trust me on it!” If anyone wants to see what Augustine said, that’s where you go.

One creationist he does interact with is R.L. Wysong. While I don’t agree with Wysong’s claims on the speed of light, granting Mills represents them accurate, a huge thing to grant, I do find it odd that one criticism Mills has is Wysong is a veterinarian. I find this odd because I tried to find Mills’s academic credentials and I couldn’t find any, and yet Mills wants to speak on science, philosophy, history, and Biblical studies, and have us take him seriously.

Moving on, Mills says:

Today, some creationists are abandoning their long-held belief in a 6000-year-old Earth. Why this abrupt reversal of opinion? Were startling new chapters suddenly discovered in the Book of Genesis? Did Moses appear in a miraculous vision, revising his previous chronology, and teaching the geological history of an ancient Earth? No. The change of heart among some creationists is due to the fact that modern scientific research has shown the Genesis chronology to be nothing short of ridiculous.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 142). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Actually, this is false. There had always been discussions on the age of the Earth. It can be granted to Mills that Since the Beginning was not in print when he wrote this book, but the information that Greenwood cites in his work was available. (My copy is back in Tennessee so I am unable to cite the references here.) Mills just assumes that a fundamentalist reading has always been the held reading.

More-liberal-minded creationists, however, strive mightily to disassociate themselves from the conservative Fundamentalists. These non-literalists often refuse to call themselves “creationists,” even though they believe in God as the Almighty Creator of the heavens and the Earth. This non-literalist group believes in an ancient Earth and in macro (large-scale) evolution. They believe that Genesis and modern science may be successfully reconciled. The primary difference between the literalists and the non-literalists is this: The literalists distort science to make it harmonize with Genesis. The non-literalists distort Genesis to make it harmonize with science.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 142-143). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Yet in all of this, Mills has not gone through the text of Genesis. He has not made any attempt to explain how it should be read. All he is saying is “Anyone who doesn’t read it in way X is wrong.” One may disagree with readings of others who do not hold to a YEC position, but one should at least see what they say and how they explain the text.

That is, if one really cares about truth. Mills doesn’t, so not a shock that he doesn’t do this.

Generally speaking, religious-minded individuals know little about science. And science-minded individuals know even less about the Bible. With each camp sadly uninformed about the other, reconciliation seems possible and desirable to both sides. In reality, agreement is possible only by (1) perverting science, as the Fundamentalists do, or by (2) perverting the Book of Genesis, as the non-literalists do.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 143-144). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Yes, everyone. Science-minded individuals, of whom I am sure Mills will include himself, are uninformed about the Bible, but Mills is the exception! He will tell you what the Bible really means! It would be a delight to see what Mills would say in a debate with someone like John Lennox or Hugh Ross.

1. The non-literalists believe that Earth is much older than 6000 years. To rationalize their belief in an ancient Earth, non-literalists claim that the Genesis genealogies contain “errors of omission.” In other words, the genealogies are only partial lists, overlooking many intermediate generations between Adam and Jesus. When Scripture says, for example, that “Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber,” that really means that Salah lived thirty years and begat Eber’s grandfather or great, great, great, grandfather. When the “missing” generations are added to the chronology, the date of Creation drifts further into the past. To me, such a position is absolutely mind-boggling. How can we believe (A) that Genesis is the Inspired, Perfect, Holy, Infallible Word of God, while simultaneously believing (B) that the Genesis genealogies should be disregarded because they contain “errors of omission”? Was God in a forgetful mood when He “inspired” Genesis? Creationist Henry Clarence Thiessen, suggesting that the Genesis genealogies may be overlooked, writes that “a study of the various [other] biblical genealogies indicates that they are incomplete and contain omissions.”

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 144-145). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

After all, the only way you can do a genealogy is the way modern people do. The genealogies do have omissions in them. That’s not because they’re “errors.” It’s because of the way genealogies were done in the past. As said though, Mills is not interested in this kind of thinking or research.

From this, he gets to saying:

So the non-literalist argument goes like this: We believe that the Genesis genealogies may be unreliable since other biblical genealogies are also unreliable.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 145). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

But we aren’t saying they are unreliable. They are reliable for the purpose for which they were written and the time as well. Mills is imposing a modern standard on the genealogies that is foreign to the text.

When viewed in isolation, the Genesis genealogies themselves posit no miraculous events or supernatural Beings. If we cannot interpret these mundane genealogies literally, then we cannot interpret anything in the Bible literally. These same creationists, however, demand that we interpret literally the existence of God, Jesus, the Holy Ghost, the Devil, Angels, Heaven and Hell. All miraculous events portrayed in the Bible are likewise to be interpreted in a strictly literal sense: Jesus literally turned water into wine—literally cast out demons—literally walked on the Sea of Galilee—literally placed a magic curse on a fig tree—literally rose from the dead. Apparently, it’s only the Genesis genealogies that we are supposed to interpret metaphorically.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 147-148). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

But saying the genealogies were done differently is not saying they were metaphorical. No. These were real people in a real time and a real place.

Let us remember that a young Earth was always posited by religious leaders throughout the entire history of Christianity. No medieval priest ever asserted that Genesis described a 4.5-billion-year-old Earth. No ancient church document ever claimed that Adam and Eve lived hundreds of millions of years ago. And no pre-Renaissance missionary ever preached a sermon about “omissions” or “time gaps” in the Genesis genealogies. If creationists now wish to abandon their historical position and acquiesce to an ancient Earth, then I applaud their progress. But it is a farce to maintain that Genesis never really demanded a young Earth since the genealogies were always intended as metaphors.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 148). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Of course, Mills gives no citations for any of this. There is no indication he has looked at church history. There is no mention of creedal statements or anything of the sort. It is just asserted. Also, I contend that no one could tell the age of the Earth from Genesis because that was not the point of Genesis.

Mills then goes on to list other “problems” in the text, such as the existence of unicorns. He lists all the references, but fails to mention that this is just how the KJV translated it. There is no Hebrew word for unicorn. Many translations now speak of it as the auroch instead. What Mills would need to show is that the Hebrew word meant unicorn. This, he does not do.

The same can apply to dragons, which can often refer to a great serpent or a sea monster or even a venomous snake. The word for cockatrice also refers to a serpent. Satyrs most likely refers to hairy goats.

I also find it revealing that, in the newer, modern-language translations of the Bible, these ridiculous passages of Scripture have been dishonestly excised, rewritten or edited beyond recognition from their original translation in the King James. So not only are the Great Pretenders forsaking long-honored and long-held Christian beliefs, but the Bible itself, under their supervision, appears to be experiencing a quiet, behind-the-scenes, Hollywood makeover as well.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 150). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Yes. Because the way the KJV translated it was the way the church for all those years always understood the text.  It would be horrible for Mills to go back and just try to figure out what the original words meant. If you go and look up the words on BlueLetterBible.com, you are doing more research than Mills did.

Because religious doctrines are supposedly ordained of God, the religious adherent cannot easily question the teachings of his chosen church, even when those teachings are provably false. The scientist, on the other hand, is most rewarded when he proves the conventional wisdom wrong and revolutionizes our understanding of the universe.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 155). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

On the contrary, I happen to love it when Christians start questioning the church. Meanwhile, go out as a scientist and start questioning climate change or at least humans causing climate change and see what happens to you. Go out and say “Maybe the Intelligent Design crowd has a point” and see what happens to you. Scientists often have their own groups that do not welcome any questioning. (After Covid, we can speak a lot about any scientist who dared say that Covid was made in a lab.)

Mills is fooling himself if he thinks any majority really likes to be questioned.

The fun continues next time as we talk about miracles.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)