Book Plunge: Still Unbelievable Part 12

Is there such a thing as necessary evil? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Once again, David Johnson is back, unfortunately. Let’s see how this one goes.

You can suffer without any evil being done. It can simply be the consequence of living in this world. Before sin, suffering was possible. Presumably, falling down a hill would have still left a mark. On the other hand, evil can be done without anyone suffering. One only needs to displease god by acting against his desire. It might make you happy, and benefit people around you. But to god, it is still evil, and must be punished.

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 I see here is there is no clear explanation of what is suffering and what is evil. What is the difference? If all suffering is not an evil, then how can you tell which is which? As I often say when it comes to good and evil, atheists never seem to define their terms.

Johnson says we can have ethics without God. No explanation is given for this. Could we have systems we agree to live by? Sure. (Granted though I don’t think anything could be without God so this is a huge hypothetical) Would they be true systems? On what grounds?

Since evil is both cause and result of sin, it also can’t exist without god. This bears repeating: By Christian formulation, there can be no sin and evil without 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.

Well since there couldn’t be anything in existence without God, then yes. The difference is God did not actualize evil. He did not create the reality. He left it a possibility for us and for the angels, but He didn’t make it real.

I wonder if the Kalam Cosmological Argument applies here. Did evil have a beginning? Or was it always in existence? It is a problem for the Christian either way. If evil had a beginning, then it must have the same beginner as all things with a beginning: god. It does not work to say that one of god’s creatures created evil. One wonders how such a thing would even be possible. A creation might choose evil. But evil would already have to exist for it to be a choice. The other option is to say that evil is as old as god. It is as eternal as good. Can there be good without evil? Can morality be represented by a one-sided coin? If good is the only option, then in what way is it good. Evil is a necessary opposite. Some Christians argue that we can’t know a straight line unless we know what a crooked line is to which we can compare it. If that were the case, then god could not have been always good unless there was always evil for comparison.

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.

Johnson has really mastered the art of muddled thinking. On the first, what does it mean something has to exist to be chosen exactly? Does the future exist to Johnson such that I am choosing it? Johnson is treating evil as if it has a real substance on its own, when Christian thinking has always argued against this and said evil is the absence of good or choosing a lesser good over a greater good.

As for the line about a crooked and straight line, you would think Johnson would go back and look at the most likely source of this quote, C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, to see what he said.

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such a violent reaction against it?… Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if i did that, then my argument against God collapsed too–for the argument depended on saying the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus, in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist – in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless – I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality – namely my idea of justice – was full of sense. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never have known it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.”

Lewis argues the exact opposite way Johnson says Christians argue. I only know that something is wrong, because I know there is some idea of what is right.

As we go on, Johnson does get predictable with one Scriptural citation:

That is because god is not only the personification of good, but of perfection. Yet in Isaiah 45:7, god takes responsibility for evil by saying that it is he who creates darkness and disaster.

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 answered that here.

But Christians tell us that god is perfectly good without the option of evil. He does not avoid doing evil. He cannot do evil. That is very different. Evil is not even an option for the one who is the personification of perfect good. So why would evil be an option for his offsprings? The Christian would say that it is so we could freely choose to love him. But that also makes no sense. God is in some kind of love relationship within the triune godhead: the father, son, and spirit. They all choose to love one another without the possibility of evil hanging over them. So we shouldn’t need it to choose love either.

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.

hmmmm. Let me think about this for half a second.

How about we’re not God? Could that be it? We are not perfect beings who lack nothing. We are limited creatures. God is not limited. God is not in time and does not make choices like we do.

This theodicy of choice is also utterly defeated by the doctrine of heaven. There, we will be like god, perfectly good without the possibility of evil. Yet we will still have our free will intact. Choice offers us no excuse for god allowing the possibility of evil.

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.

Except Heaven is the result of choices. Those who are there are there by choice and are now in a place where they will eternally freely choose the good based on seeing the blessed presence of God. That is not forced. It is chosen.

Not too much later in this chapter, Johnson says:

We have thoroughly explored all the Christian claims that exonerate god for the presence of evil.

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.

Imagine if I wrote about 30 page in a book, and I doubt that this chapter is that long, and I was arguing against position X, be it evolution, Arianism, dispensationalism, old-Earth creationism, anything, and saying “We have thoroughly explored all the claims used to defend this position.”

Yet Johnson thinks he has done this, and without citing ANY scholars that disagree! Amazing!

It is only a rhetorical device to say that god is all good with no possibility of evil.

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.

Again, there is no interaction with church history at this point. Aquinas wrote on this issue, for example You can read that here. Too many atheists seem to raise what they think is an objection, and just stop right there.

In speaking about Eden, Johnson says:

God gave them an order that they couldn’t have possibly understood, or fathomed the consequences. The forbidden fruit imparted the knowledge of good and evil. That means they went out into the world with no real ability to sort right and wrong. They didn’t have the knowledge of good and evil.

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.

Good and evil is a merism. It refers to wisdom in this case. What Adam and Eve were being tempted with was making themselves the center of wisdom.

Everything after here I have already addressed multiple times, but for now, let’s see what’s coming up next. Ah. A chapter on faith and what it is. This should be a train wreck. Who is behind this?

Chapter Eleven Faith: All the Way Down David Johnson Andrew Knight Michael Brady

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.

Well, after this chapter, I guess we can say that some suffering is self-inflicted.

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

 

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Still Unbelievable Part 11

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

Why oh why did these people give David Johnson so many chapters to write?

Let’s get into it:

For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against persons without bodies—the evil rulers of the unseen world, those mighty satanic beings and great evil princes of darkness who rule this world; and against huge numbers of wicked spirits in the spirit world. Eph. 6:12 This passage reads like something out of a dystopian fantasy, or the manifesto of a crazy person. It does not read like something well-adjusted people should take seriously. Christians take this both seriously and literally.

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’m not sure what he means by both seriously and literally. It’s nice to see that he thinks people who are well-adjusted will not take this seriously. In all fairness, I don’t really take Johnson seriously either. Is this really any different from a lot of political language that we can often see from both sides in speaking about the evils of the other side? Not really.

Yet let’s see if Johnson can show that this is all nonsense talk and there is no spiritual warfare going on.

So the first tactic Johnson asks is “Why is the war still going on? Why isn’t the devil defeated already?”

In concluding it, he says:

If god is omnipotent, there is no war. If there is a war, then god is not all powerful. He is limited. The devastating consequences of that idea render the Christian faith position irrecoverable. A limited god is indistinguishable from a powerless one. And a powerless god cannot be trusted to save anyone, not even himself.

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.

Now with my Preterist eschatology, I say for the most part, the devil has been defeated. Why did God wait so long to do it? I think the plan of salvation somehow requires that Jesus be the one to go toe to toe with him and defeat him. Can Johnson show I am wrong? Doubtful. If he cannot, then as long as my case is possible, then Johnson’s case is not demonstrated. If Johnson can show I am wrong somehow, he still has to show there is no good reason whatsoever. Good luck with that one. Remember, he is making the claim so he has the burden of proof.

Why does God just not end things now? For some reason, He wants more people and people only last for a limited time this side of eternity. He wants to get a great multiplicity of people into the kingdom. Again, that’s my answer. It’s up to Johnson to show it is wrong.

On the side of the angels will be Jesus leading the fight as general. He will overtake the strongholds of the god of this world, and physically occupy a physical throne for a literal thousand years. It will be the apocalypse. And for many, it can’t come soon enough.

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.

Apparently, Johnson only knows one kind of eschatology. He does say some Christians hold this view, but he doesn’t take on any other positions. If he wants to knock down this one, go right ahead, though I think most any able dispensationalist even could take Johnson down on this.

Beyond a few passages in a book written by people who believed animals used to talk, what evidence do we have that such a war is raging just behind the scenes, or anywhere else? I have never had a Christian provide me an answer when asked. Let’s see if I can help them out:

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 is another snide remark that Johnson makes thinking it’s a major dig. It’s not. He needs to show that Jews did believe that animals used to talk. Pointing to one serpent in the garden and what would be a miraculous occurrence of a talking donkey is not sufficient.

He then talks about “You shall know them by their fruit.”

Before progressing, I need to pull out a part of this quote for closer examination: A variety that produces delicious fruit never produces an inedible kind. And a tree producing an inedible kind can’t produce what is good. This is not only wrong, but completely wrong. Not every apple on a tree is good. One bad apple does not constitute a bad tree. But it is most wrong when it comes to people. Just because a person does some good things, that does not make them a good person who can do no wrong. And just because a person does some bad things, that does not make them a bad person who can do no good. The very idea is dangerously absurd.

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.

Jesus is speaking to people far more agricultural than Johnson and I are. They know this. Most of us on Planet Earth know that this means that generally, good trees produce good fruit and bad trees produce bad fruit. That Johnson thinks this is a gotcha shows the kind of bad argumentation he has.

There really isn’t much more to be said that hasn’t been said before. Next time, we’ll cover chapter 10. Hopefully, it will be better and….

Chapter Ten Necessary Evil David Johnson

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.

……

Why did I get myself into this?

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

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Still Unbelievable Part 9

Is there a case from suffering? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When we go through this chapter, as per the last chapter from Skydive Phil, I will not be responding to scientific matters seeing as I am not a scientist. There are others who are who can handle that. It is the philosophical and theological matters that interest me. Let’s look at this first point Phil has:

Justin’s first point is the theist has many arguments, the cosmological, the fine tuning, the moral etc. and he suggests the atheist has just this one argument (i.e. the problem of suffering) on their side. So weighing the two sides, the theist comes out on top. Of course this is only true if the theists’ arguments are valid. If they are not, then this is irrelevant. You can have as many bad arguments as you like, they don’t add up to one good argument.

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 is true, but I have found that the authors of this book do not understand a lot of the arguments and do not touch the Thomistic arguments. Thus, I contend I still have several excellent arguments. Phil is also not denying the claim that atheists have one big argument, that of evil.

From here, Phil goes on to talk about morality:

Suppose that morality is subjective and not objective. That would still not stop someone from making statements about moral right or wrong. We can still say a painting is beautiful, even if beauty is subjective. We don’t need objectivity to make reasonable statements, especially if people share our aesthetic instincts. Similarly if people share the same moral instincts (and they do), we can find common ground. Justin writes in very black and white terms as if moral questions are binary, either purely subjective and anything goes, or purely objective. “Anything less than an objective standard makes our moral beliefs a matter of opinion and feelings”. But why should we think this?

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.

So morality is subjective and we can still make statements? If morality is subjective, we are not saying anything about objective reality. We are saying something about our personal preferences and just saying “Other people agree with my personal preferences” doesn’t mean those preferences are right. For instance, if we went back to the Roman Empire, everyone had the “personal preference” that slavery was just fine. Would Phil like to say that back then, slavery was moral?

It’s interesting that right after this he says he found Robert Nozick’s case for vegetarianism convincing. If there is no objective morality, then upon what can such a case be made? Nozick is just stating his personal feelings. In what way could anyone deny that? “I feel like eating mean is wrong.” “No you don’t! You feel like it’s just fine!” The atheist can deny that God exists, but he cannot deny that I think that God exists.

Another confusing statement from Phil is the following:

Literature can also have truthful statements, so the claim that science is the only way to truth is false. ‘The Emperor is the villain in Star Wars’ is a true statement, but not in the same way as ‘The Earth is smaller than the Sun’.

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 am glad he doesn’t hold to scientism, but what does he mean he mean these statements aren’t true in the same way? He doesn’t explain. Both of them are true. It’s not that the Earth is smaller than the sun is more true than the emperor is the villain in Star Wars. They are different fields of truth and we could say one is more important than the other, but they are both true.

Being objective usually refers to depending on something outside of mind, and since God has a mind, it just pushes the problem out further: if morality comes from God, then it is not necessarily objective. To counter this, theists claim that God simply is good. But this is pure assertion. When I think of something that is purely objective, I think of something a machine could measure.

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.

Again, people like Aquinas and others for centuries made a case apart from Scripture that God is good that they got straight from Aristotelian thinking. Phil doesn’t touch these cases at all. He doesn’t bother to define goodness.

Also, none of this can be measured by a machine, so per Phil’s standard, how can it be objective? How would you measure goodness using a machine? How would you measure beauty? How would you measure the idea that all objectivity can be measured by a machine?

My moral instincts told me this was wrong. And here comes the problem for Justin’s argument: If my moral instincts come from God, why do they tell me God is immoral? Justin claims we know objectively that rape is wrong. OK, so why shouldn’t we also say objectively that killing every first-born Egyptian is also wrong?

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.

Because moral instincts are not infallible. This was also something taught for thousands of years. There are some beliefs that Christian thinkers said you can’t not know, in the language of Budziszewski. However, there are some beliefs that you can be mistaken about that are moral.

Also, saying the killing of the firstborn is wrong assumes that God is again, Superman. He’s a big man who is on the same moral plane as we are and has to obey a moral law. He’s not. God does not owe anyone life and can take it whenever He wants to.

Have you noticed that when theists try to convince us of the existence of moral facts, they always use cases such as torture or rape, but never genocide? Surely if there is such a thing as moral facts, genocide is chief among them. And this leads to a contradiction: God commands genocide in the bible, so he must not be the source of our morality. When God asks Abraham to kill his own son as a sacrifice, is this not torture? Ask how you might view a person who forced someone to go through a mock execution of their own child (keep in mind they don’t know it’s not going to happen). Would they be guilty of psychological torture? I certainly think so and the International Red Cross rule #90, forbidding torture and degrading treatment, seems to agree.

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.

There is no interaction with Copan and Flannagan obviously. As for Abraham and Isaac, Isaac was at least a strong teenager by then. Does anyone think he could be taken down by a 100 year-old man? Isaac is shown as a willing sacrifice. Life in the ancient world was a lot tougher than it was for us today. Everyday was about survival.

But God is supposed to be able to predict the future with 100% certainty, so it’s hard to see how free will is consistent with God’s foreknowledge.

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.

Okay. Let’s try a simple idea. God knowing what I would freely choose does not mean that God causes me to choose that. For instance, I did not watch the Super Bowl. Suppose you did and you watched it multiple times because you loved it so much for some reason and you ask me to watch it with you. You know everything that will happen, but it doesn’t mean that you caused it.

In the New Testament we learn that all sins are forgivable except one: Matthew 3 28 Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: 29 But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation: 30 Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit. So we have a God that can forgive murder, torture, rape or even genocide but not blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. Does this really look like a God that favors free will so much that he reluctantly accepts terrible human and animal suffering? I think it’s clear this argument is extremely implausible.

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 reason blasphemy against the Spirit is not forgiven is because it is a lifelong sin in that someone refuses to believe the Spirit. If you do not believe, you cannot be forgiven. It is not a one-time deal. It is something done forever.

1 Samuel 15 is cited as an example of genocide but added with “Why did the animals suffer?” What is assumed is that this is wrong, but he doesn’t tell us why. I am not supporting going out and wanton killing animals, but not all of it is wrong. If hunters didn’t kill the deer population to some extent, for instance, there would be more deaths from traffic accidents involving deer. In this case, the people were not to profit from a holy war at all.

If Jesus is God, does it really make sense for him to ask why he himself has abandoned himself? If Jesus doesn’t know the future how is he able to make predictions and do miracles? It seems he has God’s properties when it’s convenient for the Christian.

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.

Hint. If you are going to argue against the Trinity, try to learn about it first. This is like the anti-evolutionist asking “If people came from apes, why are there still apes?” It has been a traditional Christian position that Jesus gave up access to a lot of His divine attributes except for when they were necessary to His mission.

Next time, we will deal again with David Johnson talking about miracles.

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

 

 

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Still Unbelievable Part 8

Is suffering worse than you think? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So we have another chapter by David Johnson….

Sometimes I wonder why I went into this field….

This time, he’s going to try to convince us that the problem of evil is worse than we think.

One of the best tactics of the Christian is to so confuse the issue with philosophical high-speak that no one can be certain of anything. Making a thing philosophically possible is like saying in the vast world of quantum physics, anything is possible. You don’t have to be a physicist to know that in the part of the world we inhabit, anything is not possible. No matter how confused someone attempts to make you with talk of physics, you know that when you step out of bed, you are not going to fall through a swirling vortex of time-traveling tachyons, and find yourself whisked into another world.

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.

Unfortunately, no example is given of this. Also, I find it marvelous how incredulous and gullible Christians are on the one hand, and then on the other they’re capable of philosophical high-speak. If Johnson is interested, I will back anything I say philosophically. Second, with this example, why do we think that? If the universe is a brute fact and just an accident, why not? Why should I expect the laws of physics to be constant? However, if they are, doesn’t that need an explanation?

This is one of those times when the Christian does not carry the emotional argument. The emotional argument is against them. But it is not just emotional. It is intuitive. god is supposed to be a loving father. If you are a loving father, or have had a loving father, you know that loving fathers do everything in their power to limit the amount of suffering experienced by their children.

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.

Kudos at least on this. Johnson admits this is an emotional argument. That doesn’t make it false, but it should be considered. We also know that the analogy isn’t always true. Sometimes, loving fathers let their children suffer for their betterment or any number of reasons.

A couple of years ago after my divorce I worked at a Wal-Mart and I worked the money center where at times I had to send money orders. One day, a man comes in wanting a money order and as I’m placing it I hear him say “I don’t want to do this.” This is where I go into my ministerial mode and ask about it.

He tells me about a son that he has in Florida (I think it was. The exact state doesn’t really matter.) This son is wasting his life away and needs money constantly to pay for things. The man said he and his wife were spending their savings as a result.

“Then don’t send him the money.”

“Then he’ll go to jail!”

“And it could be the best thing that ever happened to him. Right now, you are rescuing him from the consequences of his actions every time. He’s not going to learn that way and you’re running yourself ragged.” I heard the man on the phone then talking to his son and saying that this was going to be the last time.

Not too long after, the man came running back in on the phone and talking to who I found was his son saying “I’m talking to Nick,” indicating this guy now knew who I was. The man told me he had rushed red lights to get back before the money center closed because his son had told him he had sent the money wrong. I looked at his receipt and told him everything was correct and then told him he had just now worn himself out again over his son and made his son’s problem his own instead.

This loving father needed to let his son fail. He needed to let him suffer.

Also, God is not a “Father” in the same sense to everyone. We all come from Him, but not all are children of Him in the covenant sense. God is also not Superman in that He is not just a big man. He can do things no one else can do, like know the future and right any wrong out there, bring about a resurrected cosmos, and raise the dead.

Next we have a set of questions about the Garden of Eden. Why was anything forbidden? Quite likely because people needed to have the freedom to fail. “Quite likely?! So you don’t know for sure?” Don’t need to. All I need is a possible explanation. The burden is on Johnson to prove his case.

Why was the serpent allowed in? Same reason. Why do we pay for Adam’s sin? I contend you don’t. You will answer for your sin only. You have a sin nature, but you repeat Adam’s sin everyday in your own way.

In talking about the free-will defense, Johnson says:

We have something that functions a lot like free will.

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 puzzle over what this means. Okay. What do we have? Semi free-will? And if we don’t have it, what do we know that does have it so we can know what it is like? Johnson doesn’t explain any of this at all.

Far from a paradise, this earth is a death trap. And it is really good at killing its occupants. But the earth doesn’t just kill us. It makes us suffer. Most of it is water in which we cannot breathe. Large portions of it are too hot and sandy, or too cold and icy. The parts of the surface where we can live are full of sharp edges that are hard and unyielding. Have you seen a human body? It does not hold up well when thrown against sharp, hard, unyielding surfaces. Many of the animals want to kill us. The foliage wants to prick us or poison us. The sky wants to burn us or give us cancer. At higher climates, the thin air wants to suffocate us. In many populated parts of the world, the land wants to starve us. It is a wonder any of us survive. No matter how the Christian argues it, from the fall, to free will, to disease, to nature, God is the sole author of our suffering. And though he could lift it, he is content to watch it unfold before him. The only question that remains is why. Again, Christian answers undersell the problem:

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 strongly suspect Mr. Johnson lives in a building with heating and air conditioning, a refrigerator, a locked door, indoor plumbing, a warm bed, and many fine comforts of life. Not every inch of this planet is a death trap or else we wouldn’t have some nigh 8 billion people on the planet. Somehow, we have survived for several thousand years if not longer.

Some people say that we build up the character of who we will be in eternity:

But why do we need character building for the next life? Is heaven also going to require honesty, hard work, and social responsibility? If it is, what makes anyone think that suffering in this life will prepare us for it?

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 contend that the reason is the degree that we have developed good character is parallel to the degree that we can enjoy God in the next life. We are letting ourselves be made more and more into beings that can enjoy the presence of God. People like Johnson are doing the opposite making themselves into beings that will detest the presence of God.

Paul tells us that god is strong in our weakness. Why would we praise that? Why can’t god be strong when we are strong? The god of the Bible would rather us be timid stutterers so that we can’t take any credit for a powerful speech.

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 shared that quote on my Facebook along with this response:

As someone on the spectrum, I do praise in my weakness. Someone who can easily communicate gets up and speaks to 1,000 people. That’s good. Someone who used to be unable to be understood by those outside his family and had speech therapy does the same? That’s different.
My parents were told growing up that I would never graduate from high school (First on the spectrum in my county to graduate from the public school system), never drive, (I do and have my own car), never go to college (working on a Master’s now), never have a job (I have had several), never get married (divorced now, but pray for remarriage every night), and never live on my own. (I live in my own apartment over 600 miles away from my parents.)
I love advantages I have on the spectrum, such as my memory, math skills, less fazed by emotional arguments, and ability to multi-task.
Are there difficulties? Yes. I have to have someone go with me when I have to do evangelism offline since one-on-one communication is hard. I struggle in relationships with women many times making dating hard. I can’t recognize many social cues. I don’t know what to do in a crowd and groups involving meals fill me with anxiety.
Yet everyday I see myself defying what was said about me and autism and I attribute that to the grace of God in my life. I have my own website, a Patreon for those who want to support my work, and hope to soon have the podcast and YouTube channel up again.
So yes Mr. Johnson. I celebrate how God made me and His grace. If I had been made neurotypical, my life might have been easier in many ways, but it wouldn’t be the example that it is now.
Let’s go with one final quote from the chapter:

From the moment you were born, god knew the kind of filthy, no-good subhuman you would turn out to be. And you deserved every second of suffering you received. You probably deserved even more.

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. If God is holy and just and perfect, then I do. It is grace indeed that we get forgiveness. We did nothing to deserve that. The gospel is not that God loves us because we deserve it. He loves us despite that we don’t deserve it. That is what makes it incredible. If we were all really excellent people, it wouldn’t be a shock that He does. We are all instead traitors to the king and yet He gives it all for us.

Maybe step away from the emotion a bit, Mr. Johnson, and you might start to realize the rational arguments.

Next time, Skydive Phil returns to talk about evil as well.

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

 

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Still Unbelievable Part 7

What’s it like for someone falling away? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this chapter, we return to Sophie and her testimony. I really don’t want to speak ill of her at all. If anything, I have sympathy for her, especially since I think she was sold a false bill of goods on what the Christian experience was to be like. A lot of that will be in the conclusion. For now, let’s see what all she has to say. This one is about the dealbreakers.

With regards human suffering, Lane Craig and other theists on the Unbelievable? show, ultimately concede at some point, that we don’t know why there is so much horrendous suffering in the world but that it must be justified to some extent, as in God must have his reasons, or at the very least, things will be made right in the future. This, of course is conjecture, rather than any type of evidence.

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.

Yet how is this conjecture? If you accept that for the sake of argument there is a God who has the omni traits, then yes, there has to be a good reason why He allows this evil. It is up to the skeptic to show that there is no good reason, and that’s a hard sell to do. Not only this, but what do you gain in the problem of evil if you remove God? The evil is still there. You’ve just removed the solution. How is this a help?

Epicurus puts it best with his idea rejecting the notion of evil with an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God. It can of course apply to suffering too. If God willing to prevent suffering, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
If he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
If he both able and willing? Then why is there suffering?
If he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? No amount of books, explanation, sermons and teaching will ever make theodicy go away for Christianity, nor can it, or the issue would be put to bed by now. It’s a continual stumbling block to belief, which is never truly answered, much less an explanation given as to why it has arisen in the first place. And this brings me to my next deal breaker.

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.

Except it has as even atheists will admit. This is the logical problem of evil and it hasn’t really been used since Plantinga wrote his work on the topic. There are still other versions of the argument from evil, but this one is not really used anymore except on the internet.

With no Satan, hell or human fall, there is no real explanation as to why evil and suffering exist. Even, the free will argument which somewhat relies on these constructs, and states, that if there is no possibility to sin, you cannot have free creatures who liberally come to love you, doesn’t work. This argument, often brought up on the show, completely misses the fact that God can in fact arrange paradise, with free will and exempt from suffering, pain and the devil. It’s called heaven.

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 everyone who is in the blessed presence of God is there by choice. That is a huge distinction and it is one atheists meet regularly. The first time I ever encountered this question was in a systematic theology class when a student asked it and that was over 20 years ago. I thought of the solution then and have spent more time refining it and I still haven’t seen a response to it.

Besides, like human parents, let’s be honest, God could just choose to forgive us. There is no need to murder anyone. It was making less and less sense.

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.

And again, questions like this have already been answered.

The gospels were oral traditions written decades after the death of Jesus with the earliest being Mark dated at around 70CE and ending with the discovery of the empty tomb, and the latest gospel being John, possibly as early as 90CE. They are all of anonymous authorship and certainly the earliest manuscripts didn’t include the title by which we know them today. They do not claim to be authored by eyewitnesses to any of the events they describe. They are not written by people who knew Jesus. We do not have the originals, only copies of copies of copies of copies of copies. They are written in Greek by educated people living in a different country to Palestine. Jesus’ disciples would have spoken Aramaic, were quite possibly illiterate and were living in Palestine. Jesus himself, other than some writing in the sand, leaves no written record (which would have been very helpful), nor did He ask anyone to make notes as they went along. In addition, major events are undocumented by other sources, such as when the graves spill out their dead onto the streets after the resurrection mentioned only in Matthew. If these are in fact gross error or made up, how are we to distinguish what else is or isn’t invented or erroneous in the text?

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.

There’s a lot here and I have written plenty on it elsewhere. Does Sophie know the dates of when other books in the ancient world were written and when the earliest manuscripts are and how far apart the events are from the writing? The Gospels are a goldmine by comparison to most ancient literature.

The books were supposedly anonymous. Are we to think that no one knew who the books came from? Someone delivering the scrolls would say who they were from. We only know who wrote Plutarch because one of his descendants tells us. Other sources are also silent on major events, such as the eruption of Vesuvius and that TWO towns were destroyed in the blast. I plan on doing a series on the Gospels eventually so I will save this for then.

There is a lot of stuff I am going to skip over as I have addressed it elsewhere, but I want to say something about this:

And, it doesn’t even begin to explain why God would prefer to continue hiding when He is apparently desperate to have a relationship with us.

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 is a great reason why I oppose the personal relationship model in that Christianity is about Jesus wanting to have a personal relationship with you. Christianity is about Jesus being king. There is not a lonely God out there who is desperately seeking to find someone to love.

I hope Sophie finds out sometime soon more information than the atheists have sold her. It’s a shame there weren’t better-informed Christians in her life.

Brace yourselves because next time it’s David Johnson again. *Groan*

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: 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 5

Is there design in the universe? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Mills in this chapter is going to take on intelligent design. Since I’m not an advocate of the movement, it really doesn’t matter to me, but I do want to point out bad arguments he makes along the way. Let’s get started.

The most charitable comment available is that the “First Cause” argument begs the question (i.e., If God created the universe, then who created God? If God always existed, then why couldn’t the mass-energy of the universe have always existed?). A less charitable comment might be that the “First Cause” argument reflects ignorance of the scientific method, in that theological philosophizing is offered as a substitute for independent, empirical verification of one’s scientific conclusions.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 83). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Yes. It has already been dealt with. I just wanted to point out he says it again.

Unaware of biological evolution, medieval man considered the complexity of his own anatomy to be evidence of Divine Creation. The wider the gaps in scientific understanding, the greater the historical need for a miracle-working “God of the Gaps.” Why does it rain? God makes it rain. Why does the wind blow? God makes the wind blow. Why is the sky blue? God made the sky blue. Why does the sun shine? God makes the sun shine.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 85). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

I challenge Mills to show me where these medieval men said this. On the contrary, they were constantly trying to find explanations for why the universe worked how it did. They knew ultimately, God was behind it, but they wanted to discover His methodologies as a way to bring glory to Him. This wasn’t God of the Gaps! They were trying to fill in the gaps!

Naturally, Mills will point to the way that nature is destructive as well as beautiful, but medieval men knew this. Modern Christians also know this. Constant theodicies have been written. Even if hypothetically, they all failed, thus far in my reading, Mills has not bothered to interact with a single one of them.

The reality is Mills and the Christian both have something to explain. The problem is Mills puts the onus on the Christian when the Christian has a ready reason available. Either the world fell when Adam and Eve fell, or God created it not perfect knowing that Adam and Eve would fall anyway.

What Mills has to explain is what Chesterton called the problem of pleasure. if the universe is at its root just random chaos, then why do we find such beauty and order in so many places? Wouldn’t we expect to find more chaos instead? Christianity has to explain how evil entered the world, which is part and parcel of the Christian story. Atheism has to explain how beauty, goodness, and order came from the exact opposite via pure accident. (Even assuming those things being objectively real can somehow be explained on atheism.)

Mercifully, this is a short chapter. We won’t be as lucky with the others.

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

Book Plunge: Atheist Universe Part 3

Is God a loving God? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Okay. I suspect we can wrap up this first chapter today so let’s dig in.

The Bible does indeed say that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). It also says that “Love is not jealous” (1 Corinthians 13:4). Then we are told that “I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God” (Exodus 20:5). “God is love” when He is not torturing billions of non-Christians in Hell or ordering the Israelites to “keep the virgins for yourselves” but massacre all the innocent men, women and male children in the confiscated Promised Land (Numbers 31:18).

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 44). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

I have addressed the question of jealousy in another post. As for Numbers 31, that has also been addressed. Ultimately, Mills just keeps having emotional arguments. It’s basically “God does stuff I don’t like so He doesn’t exist.”

While it is unfair to hold Christianity responsible for perversions of its teachings, it is nonetheless indisputable that, historically, more people have been slaughtered in the name of the Christian religion than for any reason connected to atheism. For 1500 years, the Christian Church systematically operated torture chambers throughout Europe. Torture was the rule, not the exception. Next to the Bible, the most influential and venerated book in Christian history was the Malleus Maleficarum [Hammer of Witches], which was a step-by-step tutorial in how to torture “witches” and “sorcerers.”

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 48). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

It is unfair to hold Christianity responsible for the perversion of its teachings, but I’m going to do it anyway!

Naturally, there is no historical information for any of this. Mills gives no names of these people who were tortured for anything related to atheism. As for the Malleus Maleficarum being the most venerated and influential book in Christianity apart from the Bible, I would love to see the data for that. I would much more expect something like the Summa TheologicaPilgrim’s ProgressFoxe’s Book of MartyrsThe Imitation of Christ, or in our time, Mere Christianity.

Aside from the wholesale extermination of “witches,” the Christian Church fought bitterly throughout its history—and is still fighting today—to impede scientific progress. Galileo, remember, was nearly put to death by the Church for constructing his telescope and discovering the moons of Jupiter.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 48). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

I can’t think of a single medieval historian who would go with this. I recommend again reading Tim O’Neill on this, especially this one. Galileo was not near being put to death for inventing a telescope and discovering Jupiter’s moons. The Catholic Church had its own telescope and heavily invested in astronomy.

The ancient Greeks and Egyptians, for example, made amazing scientific discoveries and wrote detailed scientific analyses that the Christian Church later destroyed and suppressed for centuries.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 49). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Again, it is not said where this happened. The Christian church was the one who was preserving these writings. If they were destroyed, how does Mills know about them? If they were suppressed, when were they no longer suppressed and rediscovered? He also says elsewhere here that the church didn’t allow cadavers to be studied, and again, you can find more on that here.

Ethical disputes between atheists and Christians almost invariably center around malum prohibitum conduct—usually sexual conduct. The atheist would argue that two consenting, unmarried adults who used proper disease and pregnancy prevention could engage in sexual intercourse without being “unethical” or “immoral.” The Christian, however, would necessarily label this sexual tryst as “wrong” because it was prohibited, supposedly, by God.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 54). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

I would say it is wrong for a number of social reasons I have gone into in this blog. It’s not just “God says no.” Mills needs to read some books on Christian ethics where we actually make arguments beyond Scripture says it, I believe it, that settles it. Mills later says he was a Christian for a time, and his mindset is still really the same. His loyalty is all that changed.

I frequently hear this [C. S. Lewis-inspired] reasoning from Christians, but the argument is entirely definitional rather than substantive. Murder, by definition, is an unjustified killing. Of course everyone agrees that an unjustified killing is wrong. We’re simply agreeing that an unjustified killing is unjustified. But what constitutes an unjustified killing? Here, we’ll face heated debate. Is abortion murder or a sometimes-prudent medical procedure? Is euthanasia murder or a humane and compassionate way to end pointless suffering? Is the death penalty a state-sponsored murder, or justice served? Like many Americans, I’m pro-choice, pro-euthanasia and anti-death-penalty, but few Christians agree with these positions. So where’s our “common conscience”? It exists only by wordplay.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 55). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

And that is a great question. What does constitute an unjustified killing? Anotner one is, what does it even mean to say something is justified or unjustified? That already assumes a moral background and an objective idea of good and evil. Looking at his political views, I do find it interesting Mills wants to kill the innocent often, but to let the guilty live. Also, why is it that when “God kills the children” in Numbers 31, that’s awful, but when a mother wants to do it to the child in her womb, that’s her moral right?

Mills is then asked about the Shroud of Turin.

You have cited a perfect illustration of how religious belief absolutely paralyzes the critical reasoning of Christian apologists and Creation “scientists.” Back in 1988, the Shroud was tested in three separate laboratories using radiocarbon dating techniques. All three laboratories, in Arizona, Oxford and Zurich, reported independently that the Shroud dates back only to the Middle Ages. This radiometric timeframe for the Shroud’s origin coincides precisely with the first historical references to the Shroud, which likewise first appear during the Middle Ages. Any rational person would therefore conclude that the Shroud had its origins during the Middle Ages, not during the time of Christ.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 58-59). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

And goes on to say:

For example, a team of Creation “scientists” in Colorado Springs, Colorado, claims that all of the radiocarbon tests performed on the Shroud were inaccurate because the Shroud was once in close proximity to a neighborhood fire!

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 59). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Mills is sadly revealing great ignorance here. The Shroud was involved in a fire and was reconstructed to an extent. The case for the lab tests also has several questions and reading any Shroud expert would tell you this. Finally, Mills says nothing about what really caused the image on the Shroud and not only that, but the other effects of it, like the negative images that couldn’t have been done back in that time.

Mills sadly has become a perfect example of how atheist “reasoning” leads him to reject real study on a subject.

During the early days of Christianity, believers tried to persuade the ruling authorities to establish a legal holiday to commemorate Jesus’ birth. But the governing authorities refused. So the Christians decided that “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” and thereafter celebrated Jesus’ birth on an already-established holiday: the Winter Solstice, December 25th.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 60). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

No information is given on this. Also, the Winter Solstice was not celebrated on December 25th ever. There is no looking at any source talking about the data on the birth of Christ.

Easter is likewise a Christian hijacking of an ancient pagan holiday, the Vernal Equinox, a day when darkness and light are equally divided. Even today, the date of Easter is set each year by calculating the first Sunday after the first full moon after March 21st, the Vernal Equinox.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 61). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

And again, we go the other way. Easter is more based on Passover than anything else. Of course, you can’t count on Mills to actually study this. He just believes whatever he’s read as long as it argues against Christianity.

Christian Fundamentalists have been devilishly successful in their propaganda campaign that all communists are atheists, and all atheists are communists. But these “facts” are altogether erroneous. First, I strongly challenge the assumption that communism is a truly atheistic philosophy. It seems to me that the omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent god of Christianity is simply replaced by the omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent god of the State. Under the communist system, the State is supposedly all-wise, all-good and all-powerful. Communism is therefore just as nutty as religion in its unrealistic, utopian fantasies and pie-in-the-sky promises.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 63). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Communism is a truly atheistic philosophy. They persecuted religion for a reason dynamiting many churches. But hey, they supposedly act religious in what they do, so it’s not atheism, it’s religion.

I would say this is a perversion of atheism, but is it? What in atheism says you cannot do XYZ to your neighbor? All atheism says is there is no God. If there is no God, then how does killing your neighbor go against that? Sure, atheists can be fine and moral people, but is it because they are atheists? Nothing in atheism requires it. I contend still it’s because they have a thoroughly Christian background they don’t realize.

So finally, that’s the end of chapter 1.

We’ll continue next time.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Atheist Universe Part 1

Is there any reason in the atheist universe? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I get email subscriptions for Kindle books on sale and I saw David Mills’s Atheist Universe for sale. It sells itself as the thinking person’s answer to Christian fundamentalism. Those who can’t do, obviously teach.

I really strive to be open when I read different books and be as fair as I can. I have said a number of Christian apologetics books are no good. If I see good points in an atheist book, I will point that out. Your book is not automatically good because it’s Christian or bad because it’s not. The same holds in this case.

No. This book has thus far found a number of other reasons to be bad.

The first chapter is an interview Mills had with someone who I didn’t see named. Unfortunately, whoever it was gave a lot of softball questions. On the other hand, Mills could have sought them out for that reason. Who knows?

I wasn’t too long into this book before it was so bad I was sharing the quotes on Facebook.

So let’s start with one question asked. Why don’t you believe in God? In that answer, we find this gem:

Indeed I’ve written three full-length books devoted to thrashing out these arguments myself in great detail. But I now believe that it is a perfectly acceptable philosophical position to dismiss the god idea as being self-evidently ridiculous as Darrow quipped. Christians instantly disregard the Greek gods as being figments of an overactive imagination, and so I view the Christian god in the same way that the Christians view the Greek gods.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 28). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

In this, Mills treats all forms of theism as the same. I reject the Greek gods because none of them are ultimate. They are all dependent beings that depend on something else for their existing and are pretty much just superhuman beings. This is not at all like the deity in all three monotheistic faiths. Mills rejects them because they are gods.

But to answer your question directly, I am an atheist because no more evidence supports the Christian god than supports the Greek or Roman gods. There is no evidence that God—as portrayed by any religion—exists.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 28). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Which is frankly a nonsense statement. You can say there is insufficient evidence for the Christian God. You can say you don’t find it convincing. To say there is no evidence means that all the people out there who believe in the Christian God, including brilliant intellectual minds, do so without any reason whatsoever.

It’s fairly easy to demonstrably prove that the Genesis accounts of Adam and Eve, and Noah’s worldwide deluge, are fables. It’s easier to prove these stories false because, unlike the notion of God, the Creation account and Noah’s flood are scientifically testable. Science may explore human origins and the geologic history of Earth. In this regard, science has incontrovertibly proven that the Book of Genesis is utter mythology. So while, on esoteric philosophical grounds, I hesitate to claim absolute proof of a god’s nonexistence, I will claim proof that the Bible is not “The Word of God” because much of it has been shown by science to be false.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 28-29). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Perhaps if you went with a literalistic YEC interpretation and even then, I know some YECs who I am sure could give Mills a run for his money in a debate.

Remember that the rules of logic dictate that the burden of proof falls upon the affirmative position: that a god does exist.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 29). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Actually, they don’t What is the reality is that whoever makes the claim has the burden to prove it. Suppose I was unable to convince Mills that God exists. It does not follow from that that God does not exist. What follows is I didn’t have good reasons to believe or Mills is not following an argument properly for whatever reason. If I do show up and say “God exists” it is my burden to demonstrate that. If you show up and say “Christianity is false”, it is your burden to show that.

We should recognize that all children are born as atheists. There is no child born with a religious belief.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 29). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Actually, there are studies that have been done that seem to indicate children instinctively find purpose and design in places. Also, children are not born knowing their multiplication tables or the laws of physics. So what?

The interviewer later asks how the universe could have been created without God. The response?

Leaving aside your presumptuous use of the word “created”—that line of reasoning is known as the Aquinas cosmological argument. Thomas Aquinas, who lived during the 13th century, argued that everything needs a cause to account for its existence. Aquinas believed that if we regress backward in time through an unbroken chain of causation, then we would eventually arrive at the cause of the universe itself. Aquinas argued that this “First Cause” could be nothing other than God Himself.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 29-30). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Well, Aquinas didn’t say anything about backward in time. He actually didn’t think the universe having a beginning could be established by reason alone. He even wrote a small book arguing against that notion. Other than that, what could possibly go wrong here with Mills’s argument?

Many of you probably know where this is going and are waiting for it.

This so-called “First Cause” argument, however, is a textbook illustration of ad hoc reasoning. For if “everything needs a cause to account for its existence,” then we are forced to address the question of who or what created God? If God always existed, and therefore needs no causal explanation, then the original premise of the cosmological argument—that everything needs a cause—has been shown to be erroneous: something can exist without a cause. If everything except God requires a cause, then the “First Cause” argument becomes ad hoc [i.e., inconsistent and prejudicially applied] and is thus logically impermissible. If we can suppose that God always existed—and thus requires no causal explanation—then we can suppose instead that the mass-energy comprising our universe always existed and thus requires no causal explanation. Many people, including some atheists and agnostics, misinterpret Big Bang theory as proposing that mass-energy popped into existence ex nihilo [i.e., out of nothing] before the universe began its current expansion. This something-from-nothing belief is not only false, but flagrantly violates the law of the conservation of mass-energy.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 30). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

There is not a single defender of the cosmological argument that has ever put forward such a thing, and by defender, I mean someone who knows the literature well, not Pastor Steve down at your local Baptist Church. Aquinas would want Mills to explain the actualizing of potential in the universe to which Mills would likely give a blank stare and say the typical atheist quip about word salad.  Then, Mills goes and repeats the other false notion about the argument.

But let me summarize by saying that the “First Cause” argument not only begs the question logically and is scientifically bankrupt, it also fails to address which god is supposedly proven existent by the argument! In other words, Zeus or Allah has just as much claim to being the “First Cause” as does Jehovah or Jesus.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 30-31). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

And?

The first cause argument is not meant to prove which God does exist. It’s meant to prove that some God does exist. Mills is faulting an argument for not proving what it was never meant to prove in the first place.

How about beauty and order? How is that explained?

There is some degree of beauty and order within Nature. But each year, Nature also cruelly victimizes millions of perfectly innocent men, women and children through natural disasters:

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 31). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

But is there beauty and order? How does that get explained? Christians have a ready explanation for the cruelty we see. We live in a fallen world. You can think that’s a cop-out, but it is fully consistent and an essential part of the Christian claim on reality.

Christians are masters of selective observation—or “counting the hits and ignoring the misses.” Anything Christians perceive as attractive or orderly is counted as evidence for God’s existence. But anything Nature offers that is grotesque or in disarray is never counted against God’s existence. Any theological conclusions based upon such selective observation are therefore meaningless.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 31). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

It appears there’s only one master here of selective observation. Mills has brought up all the cruelty and said “No God”, but the beauty is not explained at all. He needs to explain both. Christians freely admit the problem of evil and have written numerous theodicies explaining it. Has Mills written something on what Chesterton called “The Problem of Pleasure”?

On another question he says:

Atheism is synonymous with freedom and freedom of thought, which, in my opinion, are highly positive and desirable.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 33). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

It’s hard to say how they are synonymous since some atheists say that on atheism, you have no free-will. You’re just matter in motion and doing what the matter in you has to do. On that, I agree with them. As for my Christianity, I do value freedom of thought and freedom in general and think God provides for both of those.

Then he is asked about a sort of Pascal’s Wager question:

That argument is known as Pascal’s Wager, because it was first articulated by Blaise Pascal, a 17th-century French philosopher. There are several fallacies in the argument. But the most obvious is that the same argument can be applied to any religion—not just to Christianity. For example, I could say that, since we have everything to gain and nothing to lose by converting to Islam, we should all become Muslims. Or since we have everything to gain and nothing to lose by being Hindu, we should all adopt Hinduism. Christians never stop to consider that they are in just as much danger of going to the Muslim hell as I, an atheist, am in danger of going to the Christian hell. Pascal’s Wager is also flawed in its premise that a person has everything to gain, and nothing to lose, by converting to a religion. The fact is that, whether we like it or not, our earthly life is the only life we’re ever going to experience. If we sacrifice this one life in doormat subservience to a nonexistent god, then we have lost everything!

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 33-34). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

It’s a shame this is the one argument Pascal seems to be remembered for the most. Everyone should go and read the whole of Pensees and hear his other thoughts. Not only this, but I don’t understand Mills’s reasoning at the end. How have we lost everything? After all, if atheism is true, you’re not going to be kicking yourself in an afterdeath wishing you had lived differently.

In talking about Christians, he says:

No wonder His followers are so intolerant. They are only following Jesus’ declarations that anyone who disagrees with their religious beliefs deserves eternal incineration.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (pp. 34-35). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Well first off, many Christians like myself don’t believe Hell is a fiery torture chamber. Also, Christian societies are by and large extremely tolerant. Let Mills go to a Muslim country and see how well he does arguing that there is no Allah or arguing in favor of the LGBTQ+ community.

There is more in just this first chapter. When we return to it, we will start looking at the historical Jesus and what Mills has to say.

Brace yourselves.

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