Deeper Waters

Debunking Christianity has “recently” put up a blog using what is called the argument from the scale. The argument claims to be about the size of the universe, but in reality, this is simply a rehash of the Problem of Evil. Why did God create the universe the way he did? Now I want to center on one point though. The idea that the size of the universe disproves God’s existence.

Those interested in seeing the argument can see it here:

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2008/02/argument-from-scale-of-universe-my.html

Now my first thought is, what size does the universe have to be for God to exist? The universe if I’m correct is about 20 billion light years across. Would God exist if it was 15? If it was 10? If it was 25, does that make his existence even less likely? This is a completely arbitrary scale and as such, it has no basis.

But this is seen as if this discovery is news. Why, the people at the time of Christianity didn’t know any better. They thought that the universe was small and that they dwelt at the center of it. Really? Is that what they thought? I would ask my readers to see if they recognize the name Ptolemy.

Ptolemy was the astronomer whose work was the textbook of astronomy for centuries. It was written in the second century and was called the Almagest. Here is what is said in Book 1 and Chapter 5.

“The Earth, in relation to the distance of the fixed stars, has no appreciable size and must be treated as a mathematical point.”

Translation: The universe is a big place and the Earth is just a tiny dot in it.

What follows?

This was known for centuries. The church knew it and taught it. No one ever thought of it as being seen as an argument against Christianity. The size of the universe was no big deal to the people of the past. However, moderns come along and use Christian science that was known for years and make a big deal and try to cover up the fact that the church knew all about this.

Dante would have said the same thing. Earth wasn’t at the center of the universe. Earth was the cosmic dump of the universe. At the center if anything would be God’s throne. It was, in fact, the Enlightenment that made man the center of the universe. (Incidentally, while I believe the sun is the center of the solar system, it’s worth noting it has never been conclusively proven.)

The church did not get their astronomy from the Bible. They got it from Ptolemy. It was when Copernicus came along and the new theory was established that they switched. The Ptolemaic system worked. The Copernican system though was much more simpler and thus, more beautiful.

As for the response to this, it should be noted that the idea of a history of warfare between science and religion is a modern myth first put forward in books like those of Andrew Dickson White called “A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom.” I’ve managed to read the first volume of the set at this point. Right now, schoolwork keeps me from part 2.

Alister McGrath though has argued persuasively that this is not the case. Ingersoll, for instance, has claimed to have a quote of Magellan saying that the church taught that the Earth is flat. They did no such thing. You have to search hard in the medieval period to find a thinker who thought the Earth was flat. It is simply a trick to try to remove the authority of the past and the best way is to convince people they were idiots. They’ll hardly go and read the ancients themselves after all.

It is in fact Christianity that is the basis of science as we have built in a belief that the universe is rational, that it was made for discovery, and that our minds correspond to it. Science cannot prove any of these. It must assume them. As Aquinas would say, it is a lesser science. That doesn’t mean it’s important. It just means it’s less. If there is no theology, there is no basis for science.

Now as for the idea of the size of the universe, I would suggest getting a copy of the Privileged Planet. When I see arguments based on the nature of the universe, I prefer to do something strange and leave that part to the scientists. I figure they could tell me more on why the universe has been around for as long as it has been around and why it’s the size that it is. (by the way, consider G.K. Chesterton’s point that we say we live in a big universe. How do we know? We have no other universe to make size comparisons to. All we know is that it’s bigger than us.)

If anyone is also interested in the trumped up case of Galileo, I definitely recommend getting a copy of Dinesh D’Souza’s work “What’s So Great About Christianity?” and if someone wants to complain about all the evils done by the church (When they acted in an unChristian manner), then I would like to know about the evils of Mao, Stalin, and Pol-Pot. What central tenet of atheism were they violating?

In conclusion, the argument from scale is simply taking something that has been known for years and trying to make an argument out of it simply due to an ignorance of what the ancients believed. I will wager a bet that while they may have had less “knowledge” than us, the ancients were far wiser than us, and we dare not leap off of their giant shoulders.

I listened to a recording done earlier today of Richard Dawkins interviewing Alister McGrath after “The God Delusion” came out. I thought it was an excellent interview with Dawkins asking McGrath questions about evil and violence in religion and why one should believe in God and other such matters.

What got me was the end though.

McGrath said he wanted to ask a question. McGrath told Dawkins that he’d seen that he seemed more angry in his last book than in other books. As a comment to this blog said, it was after 9/11 especially when the publisher said that there is a market for a book on why some people think faith is a delusion.

This was the question I was wanting to ask. I’m so pleased McGrath asked it. Dawkins gave two replies. The first was that he didn’t think that people could do things like the 9/11 bombings if it wasn’t for faith. The second was that he didn’t like the idea of people believing things without evidence.

Mr. Dawkins. I agree on both counts.

And I’m a Christian.

When you complain about faith having people do things that they wouldn’t do without. I agree. In the case of Muslims, this means flying planes into buildings. In the case of Christians though, this can often mean devoting your life to the cause of the poor, being a missionary overseas, selling your possessions and giving to charity, loving your neighbor as yourself, and loving God with a clean and pure heart.

Without my faith, I would not be the man I am today. My faith is integral to who I am and it has made me the man I am today. I am against faith that results in the bombing of buildings. I am against Christian faith when it’s misused to justify things that Christ would never have justified.

When you speak about people believing things without evidence, I agree. Now I believe there are some first principles that are properly basic. These are things you can’t really argue for. You either know them or you don’t. However, there are many things that require evidence. I think the belief that Jesus rose from the dead is one.

Mr. Dawkins. I have a huge complaint with the church today. They don’t think enough. I wish more Christians would come to me and say that they’re doubting. I wish they’d come and ask the hard questions. I’d know that they were thinking about the issues then. I’m tired of Christians that haven’t thought about their faith and all they have is their personal testimony.

I’m sick of shallow Christianity. I’m sick of the Christianity that only takes the Bible and then doesn’t even use anything else. The Bible was written in a context. If you want to understand it, learn what the original words it was written in meant, learn the social context, learn the philosophical undertones, learn what a good theology is, learn church history, etc.

Mr. Dawkins though. In all honesty, those are secondary issues really. I think they’re important, but they’re secondary.

Let’s suppose you wanted me to fly to Oxford. How would I go about finding out how to get there? Would it be best to find out how to get to Atlanta first and just assume the flight would go from there? Not at all. The best way would be to find out how to get to Oxford first and then see if I need to go to Atlanta.

What’s the best way to find out if Christianity is true? It’s not by looking at evolution. Evolution could be the instrumental cause God used. That doesn’t explain the final cause. To say there is a method does not mean that there was no mind behind the method. It is a secondary issue.

It’s not about pointing out hypocrites. There are hypocrites of all belief systems. We’re all inconsistent in some ways and if you want me to be an image of Christianity that’s perfect, I will let you down. There are also unintelligent people in each belief system that don’t ask questions and don’t really think.

And I’d say I know which side you are on in that last part. If I had just read “The God Delusion”, I would have thought I was dealing with a pseudo-intellectual. My notes in the book show that many times. I could not believe the things I was reading were to be put forward as intelligent arguments.

Yet I’m with McGrath. I see something different in “The Blind Watchmaker.” I see that the case is laid own strongly and in a rational manner. Again, I’m not convinced, but my interest is in your work right now and evolution is a secondary matter. I’m interested in why you are an atheist.

If you want to see if Christianity is true, the best place to start is the empty tomb. If the empty tomb is true and Jesus did rise from the dead, then there’s an explanation for everything else. If it is not true, then we don’t really need to deal with the secondary issues as the primary one no longer exists.

My honest thought now is that I pray for Mr. Dawkins every night. Just last night before going to bed I saw the intro to the Devil’s Chaplain, which I plan to read soon, and I saw that it was to his daughter Juliet on her eighteenth birthday. I’ll admit that I was deeply touched by that.

I saw someone who I think honestly thinks they’re doing good by expunging Christianity from the world and wants the best for his daughter who I do not doubt he has a deep love for. This is someone that maybe in another time and place, we would have interacted. Maybe there is someone else like you who has these objections. Maybe there’s someone like me who thinks he has some answers and maybe he will get to speak to you. I hope so. I would love to see a conversion sometime.

And this is something I think we should all keep in mind in apologetics. When I debate someone, I don’t want to just know the subject. I want to know the person I’m debating also. I want to know what makes them tick and what is really keeping them from coming to Christ.

We need to keep that in mind for our side. I talked to our Seminary President about the need to instill confidence some tonight and I thought of something I’d say. “Sir. We are not just teaching apologetics. We are teaching persons apologetics.” We must always keep that first part going. These are persons.

So what am I doing? I’m praying for Richard Dawkins every night. I urge my readers to do the same. Find other great atheists out there. Learn how to answer them, but at the same time, pray for them.

I’ve been having some discussions with a co-worker on secondary doctrine. He found out about a stance he heard that he’s curious about because it disagrees with what he’s always heard, but he is saying that he can understand where I’m coming from and he wants to read the relevant texts before meeting and discussing it. I think that’s an excellent idea.

A concern enters my mind though. I’m a trusted teacher who does know what I’m talking about and is one who agrees with all in the faith that is orthodox. However, to my friend, all that I am saying is new. He’s not prepared to deal with it though. My concern then is, what if I was someone else?

What if I was the Jehovah’s Witness or Mormon knocking on his door instead? What if I was trying to show that he shouldn’t believe in the Trinity? What if I was trying to show that Jesus did say he would visit another little flock and that the Bible predicted the coming of the Book of Mormon?

We are unprepared because we are biblically illiterate. If the most that you have of the Bible is what you picked up in Sunday School, then you are not going to be ready. If you listen to programs of preaching that only tell you about how you should live instead of what the doctrine that you are to believe is, you are not going to be ready.

So I thought of some questions I might ask. I’d just like you to look and see how you do on these. Do you know your Bible well enough to answer these?

#1-How many books are in the Protestant Bible?

#2-Two books of the Bible are named after women. Name them.

#3-Who is seen as the father of each of the great monotheistic faiths?

#4-What is the main identifying event in the life of a Jew in biblical times? (Event in history.)

#5-What is the distinction between Judah and Israel?

#6-What genre of literature do Job and Ecclesiastes belong in?

#7-What kingdom conquered Samaria?

#8-What kingdom conquered Jerusalem?

#9-What year did the temple fall?

#10-Name 7 of the minor prophets.

#11-Name the four gospels

#12-Which gospels have the virgin birth?

#13-Which gospel has the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus?

#14-Other than the resurrection, what miracle of Jesus is in all four gospels?

#15-Show the deity of Christ from the statements of Christ.

#16-Show that Jesus is not the Father from the statements of Christ

#17-What church was the main headquarters of Christianity in Acts?

#18-What two apostles are the key figures in Acts?

#19-Who wrote Romans?

#20-Demonstrate the Trinity from the epistles of Paul

#21-What letter was written to Jews considering returning to Judaism?

#22-Who was Jude?

#23-What genre is Revelation?

#24-Demonstrate salvation by grace through faith using the Scriptures

#25-Demonstrate the bodily resurrection of Christ using the Scriptures

Only you know how you did, but I’ll leave it to you to consider. “Do I need to be better prepared in case the cults knock on my door?”

I could go on and on on this one, but I think enough has been said over the past few days about this work. D’Souza is still right with his quote on this is what happens when you let the biologist out of his lab. Richard Dawkins is very persuasive when writing on biology and knows the subject well, but this time, he tried theology and philosophy, and it just didn’t do well.

Dawkins is writing with passion in this book, no doubt, but I think of the Pauline epistle where it speaks about zeal but not according to knowledge. Unfortunately, that’s what’s going on here. People of weak emotions could be prone though as Dawkins is quite skilled at rhetoric and wanting people to feel a certain way and then make their decisions based on that feeling. (Why I can’t believe Christians do that! It must be false!)

Which is quite sad. I’m reading the Blind Watchmaker now and if I didn’t know better, I would never think the same person was the author of both books. The Blind Watchmaker is cool and reasoned out and while I do not agree with the conclusion as I do see philosophical problems therein, I can understand the case and it’s well-written. I can see how someone would be persuaded by it and while I’m not convinced of evolution, I find this to be an excellent work on it.

So one is left wondering why. Why is Dawkins going out on religion so much? In The Blind Watchmaker, it is clear he is an atheist, but he does not seem to be wanting to remove every ounce of religion from the world. What has happened in those twenty years that has caused the shift in Dawkins?

I don’t know. I can’t say. McGrath though has some thoughts in “The Dawkins Delusion.” McGrath has written on the Twilight of Atheism. (My next read.) He has stated that atheism had a golden age and it is now on its way out. Could all the surge in atheistic books on the market suddenly be the last-ditch effort? Is it the final attack of an army that is going down and thinks it has nothing to lose?

Could it be then that Dawkins is writing to the choir? Is he trying to rally the troops not so much because he thinks the opponent is weak, but because his side is getting weak? Is he wanting to raise up the army because most of them have left their posts? Is he wanting to encourage a side because the opposition is mounting against them?

One might even ask, is Dawkins trying to convince himself? Again, I don’t know. I can’t say. It’s something worth thinking about. The kind of rant is the result of someone thinking more emotionally than rationally. Dawkins breaks all the rules he asks of theists in writing this book. He does not back his case with evidence such as in his definition of faith.

I have heard some Christians say atheist friends gave them this book to help them open their eyes. I’d like to see more Christians read it indeed to open their eyes. I’d like their eyes to be opened to how vociferous the other side is getting and how faulty their arguments are.

In conclusion, I really don’t see this one as a threat. It’s worth talking about though as there are ideas that should be addressed, but if one has familiarity with Christian thought, they shouldn’t have any difficulty approaching this work. Dawkins expected me to put it down an theist. I put it down a stronger theist.

In our last look at the morality Dawkins speaks of, he decides to defend the atheistic mindset by talking about Hitler and Stalin. (Never mind the influence of Sartre in Cambodia or such rulers as Mao and Pol-Pot.) For Hitler, he leaves us with ambiguity. Much time is spent on discussing if Hitler was really a Christian or not.

From those who have read up on him who I have spoken with, Hitler was one who would use Christianity for his own benefit, but he was avowedly against the whole idea. Now if he was an atheist is another question, but I think we can rest assured that Hitler was certainly not a Christian. While he may have made claims to that regard, they were merely that. Claims.

He comes to Stalin though and I’m not that surprised. Stalin only gets a few paragraphs, but there is little doubt that Stalin was handpicked by Lenin for his hatred of all things religious. Stalin was an atheist and atheism has quickly become the worldview of the Soviet Union with Communism driving its economy.

However, Dawkins’s main point seems to be that atheism does not lead to this. Now if he wants to say that if someone is an atheist, that means they have no morality and are the scum of the Earth, then I agree with him. That is not what it means to be an atheist. Many atheists are fine and upstanding people. We have a good friend here who is an atheist who spends much time with us.

In turn, some Christians do great harm to the body of Christ by how they live their lives. Their Christianity is merely nominal and they don’t care who they hurt along the way. While I do not think hypocrisy is a good reason to reject the Christian faith, I think we should all strive to live like Christ to not throw any stumbling block in the way of anyone else.

However, this is the point that needs to be made. Atheism may not necessarily lead to many massacres in history, but it doesn’t contradict them. Someone might say as an atheist you are to respect your fellow human being. Says who? Give me a basis for the moral law that you think we must follow.

Nietzsche was at least honest with his atheism. He made it clear that there’s no point in establishing a moral system. God is gone and we have no eternal reference point any more. We should go on and live our lives our own way and do what we can to be the “Superman” as he would call it. (Who is quite the opposite of the comic book character.)

Now someone might say “What about the Crusades and Inquisitions?” My reply is simple. Were these actions done in accordance with the teachings of Christ or in contradiction? I’m not condemning the whole events by the way. The Inquisition has been made into a nightmare it never was and some Crusades were I’m sure just. It doesn’t mean all were. I’m not approving all and I’m not condemning all.

Where they are condemned though we have to look at the whole situation and ask, “Is this in accordance with the teachings of Christ or not?” Do Christians always live up to that standard of Christ? No. We know that. Those of us who know it well care about it and try to make the necessary change.

However, I do believe that if we do hold to atheism consistently, it can easily lead to the Gulag and other such events. If there is no ultimate meaning, you must make your own. If there is no higher power, why not make yourself that higher power? Who is anyone to say you are wrong? There must be some authority that is appealed to outside of both of you. What is it?

Again, not all atheists are like this, and I believe that’s because of Christianity. Christianity has changed the world so much that the values it brings with us we assume are just basic. The ancient world did not know of these values we take so much for granted. The ancients did not know of the self-evident truths the Constitution speaks of. Christianity brought those realizations about.

Overall, I think Dawkins just skimmed over things too much and did not want to follow the logical conclusions of the ideas that were taught.  My finishing of the section left me with no qualms at all about the position that I still hold.

Dawkins continues and tonight’s entry should be brief as this is simply a rant. Dawkins is complaining about slavery and racism in the Bible and how the Bible seems to approve of these. Dawkins might have a point if someone is unfamiliar with ANE literature. For those of us who know it though, it’s not a problem.

Many of us think back to Civil War slavery. The slavery in ancient times was not like that though. Slaves were capable of being given high positions in a Roman household for instance. In a Hebrew system, a slave could have the option of remaining with his master for life if he chose to.

However, this system did reach its end based on the Bible. I don’t believe the NT Christians set out to end the system because their goal was to spread the gospel and when it spread, you would see the end of slavery. You see some hints of wanting the end of it in the letter to Philemon.

When did it end? The wife of Clovis II was Bathilda. It was through her work mostly that the end came. What was the basis of the end of slavery? It was passages like Galatians 3:28. This taught us that Christ treats all as bearing his image and on the equality of the human race despite race or sex.

It should be noted though that slavery did not just exist in the biblical culture. The other cultures of the time had slaves as well and the slaves under the Hebrew system were treated far better. In fact, it’s not slavery so much as it is a type of employee relationship that was just more binding. People would often willingly go into slavery.

Dawkins seems to think that religion is the force of this. Does he really believe that if they had all become atheists that everyone would have literally beat their swords into plowshares and the slaves would be free and peace would reign on Earth. I would like to see Dawkins back this.

Especially in light of the Gulag Archipelago where Russians were arrested, including leading scientists, and thrown in a hideous prison where many died. I would like to know how in an atheistic regime that Dawkins thinks that religion is somehow the cause of this. Is it a coincidence Dawkins doesn’t mention the Gulag once?

One more note. Dawkins speaks of a common and shared humanity. Could he tell me what this is based on in atheism? In Christianity, it is based on us being in the image of God. In atheism though, what exactly is it that we can say we all have in common? What is to keep us from having Orwell’s Animal Farm.

We will continue more of looking at the God Delusion later.

Before getting to the New Testament though, I will take a moment to answer what was said on my treatment of Dawkins’s treatment of the OT. A reader pointed out that the Bible says Lot was a righteous man.

The point?

Seriously. Because he was a righteous man, everything he did was perfect? Not so. Even the great saints had their failures. The father of the faithful is shown to not be so faithful at times. David, the man after God’s own heart, is one of the most notorious sinners in the Bible. What made them saints though? It’s how they lived their lives overall.

Now though, we need to get to the NT.

Dawkins begins by stating that he does like Jesus. I think it’s hard for someone to come out and say they don’t like the figure presented in the gospels. Even if you think the gospels are made up and nonsense, there is something appealing about the persona of Jesus Christ.

However, Jesus has poor family values apparently, such as telling us we must hate our own parents to be his disciple. Um. Not so Dawkins. Jesus saw for the care of his own mother in John’s gospel on the cross. Peter traveled with his wife. Jesus told us to honor our father and mother. What’s going on?

This is a typical way of speaking in Jewish circles. He speaks in hyperbole to show the level of devotion that must exist in order to be a disciple of Christ. Christ has to come before your family. They are important, but must be secondary. I also think of the definition of Barclay as hatred being to set something at a distance. Your ultimately loyalty must lie to Christ.

Of course, I wasn’t surprised to see Dawkins complain next about original sin and the atonement. McGrath rightly points out in “The Dawkins Delusion” that original sin is not at the heart of Christianity. It is a true doctrine I believe and an important one, but it is not the cornerstone of Christianity.

This blogger is a Traducian who believes that the soul was corrupted in the first sin and that when our parents came together to make us, that their souls somehow formed ours. As one of my professors once said, and I quote, “Your parents didn’t just do it and a soul dropped into your body from Heaven like a gumball machine.”

Now did the atonement involve blood? Yep. Got a problem with it? God takes sin seriously. He takes it so seriously that justice has to be paid. If he just overlooks a violation of his holy standard, he’s not treating himself seriously. He’s denying his nature in order to bring about a good for another, which is not treating himself as the greatest good. Justice and holiness must be satisfied, and the way to do that is the doctrine of the atonement.

That’s why God just can’t forgive as Dawkins ask. (Also, generations of Jews were not to be condemned as Christ-killers. Only that generation killed Christ. If some others want to claim otherwise, let them, but rest assured I will not join them in their condemnation.) I also believe that generation was judged.

Interestingly, Dawkins brings up the Gospel of Judas and treats it as if it has any credibility. There’s a simple way to see why it wasn’t canonical. Read it. I wish more people would do this with these gnostic gospels instead of hearing about these new gospels and thinking there was some conspiracy. Just read them.

Dawkins then says that the idea of “Love your neighbor” meant only to love another Jew. Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that I granted that that’s what the Jewish mindset was. Does this mean that Jesus was of the same mindset. I’m hoping most readers have their minds going where mine went when I first heard this, and that would be to where Jesus answered the question himself. That would be the parable of the Good Samaritan.

In all of the backing of this idea of Dawkins, he never touches that passage. He also never touches where Jesus said to love your enemies. He ends it by speaking about the Jewish prayer that a man would recite thanking God that he was not a Gentile, a slave, or a woman. He was nice enough to leave out Galatians 3:28 where Paul has a statement denouncing that very prayer.

Dawkins then points to modern violence and blames it on religion. I urge the reader to read Dinesh D’Souza’s work “What’s So Great About Christianity?” I found it amazing to hear Dawkins talk about how if you found any place in the world today with intractable enmity and violence, religion would be there. Hmmm. Would that include anti-religious Communists persecuting Christians in China? Who does Dawkins blame for that? Is it the fault of the Christians when they’re being persecuted as well as when they’re supposedly persecuting?

Dawkins again has terrible eisegesis and his sources are far from the best. It would have been good to have seen some citations of orthodox scholars, but one will look in vain. Again though, this is why Christians need to know their Bibles. The ones who don’t know them might find the case convincing.

The ultimate answer to Dawkins on the Bible then is biblical literacy. Let’s make sure we all have it.

Today, I am going to go into Dawkins’s view of the Old Testament. Again, this is what happens when you let the biologist out of the lab. I make it a point to not comment on the science of Dawkins. Why? It’s not my area. It’s not that I don’t care about it, but I know where my strength lies and I prefer to stay there. There are others out there who can and will and do critique Dawkins there.

Fortunately, the Bible is not an area I think I am weak in and I can see the errors Dawkins is making, so let’s dive into his look at the OT.

Dawkins begins with some rants about religious fanatics. Now with these, I agree. Some people are very fanatical so much so that they say things they ought not to say. Unfortunately, Dawkins considers this mainstream and all Christian intellectuals are painted with that brush.

Now Dawkins points to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. The first thing he really criticizes is the treatment of women in that culture. I’d like to point out that the Bible nowhere supports Lot’s offering up of his daughters to appease the crowd. In fact, the biblical culture was revolutionary for its time in raising up the status of women as compared to other ANE law codes.

Dawkins also complains about Lot’s wife who died because she looked back. Now to him, this is a simple matter. Not so in the ancient mindset. It was saying that she wanted to return to that world. It could be by that pause, that she got caught up in the brimstone falling and paid for it with her life.

Now we should all know about what happened with Lot’s daughters next. Why does Dawkins bring this up? If he wants to show this as an example of human depravity in the Bible, then he’s right. This is not affirmed in Scripture. It merely records what happens and shows how depraved the daughters had become by their culture. (Which Dawkins will complain that God destroyed.)

Dawkins compares this to what happened in Judges19. Readers. I urge you to look up the references, but he talks about the man who had his concubine gang-raped till she died and then cut her up and sent her pieces to the twelve tribes of Israel. Dawkins leaves something out. Before this is what is told happened when there was no king and each person did what was right in his own eyes. Again, the reader is pointing to the depravity of the kingdom and most likely using this to support the Davidic dynasty.

Dawkins does not know the difference between the Bible recording history and approving of acts in history.

Dawkins also condemns the deceitfulness on the part of Abraham in lying saying Sarah wasn’t his wife. Unfortunately, it’s the same blunder. It doesn’t mean that this was approved of. The father of the faithful was not always faithful. If he wants to point that out, more power to him.

Now he complains about the testing of Abraham. Dawkins points out that the sacrifice never took place, but he acts like it doesn’t matter. It matters entirely. Also, in Jewish tradition, Isaac was a willing sacrifice. It’s not likely a 115 year-old man will overpower his 16 year-old son.

Dawkins has repeatedly in this chapter talked about apologists who try to allegorize this. I can’t think of who he’s talking about. The apologists I know, including myself, treat this as a historical event. The point was that God did provide a sacrifice. It is a picture to point to the coming Christ.

We now come to the story of Jephthah and his daughter. I do not believe an actual burnt offering took place though. No priest would have allowed it. Instead, it is most likely that the girl went into temple service which is why she mourned not her coming death, but her  never marrying. (even if it was a burnt offering, there’s no record God approved of such a thing.)

Dawkins also complains about the golden calf and God complaining about idolatry. Yes Dawkins. God claims exclusive right to worship. To not worship him when you are in a covenant with him is idolatry. Of course, we can’t expect Dawkins to understand the treaty system of the time.

Dawkins then speaks about the destruction of the Midianites by Israel in Numbers 31. He talks about some of the virgins simply being captured and then assumes, “Oh! It was for sex!” No. They most likely were adopted into Jewish families or went into tabernacle service. Sex is not mentioned in the passage. The reason it was virgins spared is that they could not be behind the sexual seduction of Israel in Numbers 25.

And of course, we have the usual whining about the destruction of the Canaanites. Please understand that this is a specific time and place. Also, understand that God treats sin seriously. He punishes it. It’s amazing that they complain that God doesn’t do anything about evil, but when he does something about evil, they complain. Someone wanting more information on this one is encouraged to go to the Christian-thinktank.

And where would this be without the complaining about the Levitical Law. Sorry Dawkins. Being disobedient to your parents was a lifetime crime that was done by an older child who was living in rebellion. Little kids did not typically get drunk as the parents speak of the child.

As for the man gathering sticks on the Sabbath, this man was showing contempt of the law of God in the theocracy. The law was clear and the man violated it knowing the consequences. You can say you don’t like it, but disrespect for the law could not be allowed. We all know how Israel turned out when it did get away from the law.

Now Dawkins might say that none of us would act like God in the OT. Well, he’s right. I wouldn’t. There’s a simple reason for that.

I’M NOT GOD!

Now does it make a difference that God ordered these attacks? In a word, yes. Of course it would! God can order the taking of life because he is sovereign over life. Note also that the Israelites never went out and conquered the lands of the other nations. In fact, David could have been punished for taking the census because that was his plan.

Dawkins will move on to the NT. We will do the same on another day. I find Dawkins completely lacking in his eisegesis of the OT though. (And he still has given no standard by which to condemn these events.)

For the record, I also want to say Christians should not be caught off-guard by these stories. If you are familiar with your Bible, you should know them already. Maybe the reason so many don’t know how to respond is that they don’t know their Bibles like they should.

This is connected with what will be a later post. Dawkins does speak about the biblical witness to morality in his book, but that’s so badly handled that I want that to have its own post. For now, I want to concentrate on Dawkins’s idea that we don’t need God in order to be moral.

Dawkins begins by talking about mail received by non-Christian organizations from Christian writers. The language is terrible as are the threats of physical violence. I see no reason to think Dawkins is making these up for some who are skeptical. I sadly do believe some could write such things and believe they are doing God a service. Dawkins condemns these letters.

On this, we agree.

Here’s the distinction though as we’ll see when we get to the parts on Scripture. This is in direct contradiction to the claims of Christ. I don’t believe Christ would condone what these people are doing. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying Christ is pleased with the other side either. However, let us not do evil that good may result. (Romans 3:8)

Now Dawkins’s basis for morality is what we would expect. Natural selection. The problem though is that an is does not imply an ought. What happens when I learn there’s nothing outside of myself I am accountable to? Heck. What happens when I learn good does not exist outside of me? What happens when I learn that good and evil are just subjective?

Dawkins goes into moral dilemmas. Please be clear on this people. Moral dilemmas do not destroy absolute morality. If there is no absolute morality, there is no such thing as a moral dilemma. Moral absolutism does not claim that we know the best and right thing to do in every situation. It just claims that there is one.

Dawkins speaks of a study of Hauser and Singer that shows that atheists and religious believers seem to make the same judgments when predicted with these dilemmas. Dawkins proudly says that this seems to be compatible with the view that he and many others hold that you do not need God in order to be good – or evil.

At this point, D’Souza would say “This is what happens when you let the biologist out of the lab.”

I read this and thought “It’s no shock to me.” Here’s why. As a Christian, I believe in the natural law which is rooted in God and is in all of us as we bear his image. You do not need to hold to a religious worldview to know that murder is evil. God places that knowledge in you innately. As soon as you understand what life is and what murder is, you know that murder is evil.

Now Dawkins asks if we really need moral surveillance to be good, and while he’s skeptical, he tells a story of how in Montreal the police went on strike. Chaos had come about by the end of the day. Dawkins simply asks why the fear of God did not stop most people? I would answer it’s because most people don’t have it.

Dawkins later makes the claim that absolute morality is driven by religion. This is not the claim of a natural law believer though. It can be revealed in religion, but the source is God and one does not need a religion to know what is good and what is evil.  Dawkins seems to think that until the Ten Commandments were spoken, no one knew murder was wrong.

And in the end, Dawkins never gives one thing. He never gives an objective basis for good and evil. He simply says that we know what actions are good and what are evil. By what criteria? How does he differentiate? Without an absolute standard of good and evil, we cannot say. The actions are either good in themselves or not good. It’s interesting Dawkins says this while saying that it’s fortunate that morals do not have to be absolute.

Again, this is what happens when you let the biologist out of the lab.

We will be writing more on Dawkins’s book over the next few days, but needless to say, I am not impressed. A poster on a forum I belong to said that with him apparently retiring, that leaves more time for writing books so look out creationists.

Unfortunately, I have yet to see the threat. If books like this keep coming out, my faith will definitely be increased.

I’ve been reading Richard Dawkins’s work “The God Delusion” for the past few days. I’m not going to hold back on some opening thoughts. I have heard people who can argue for the other side. Some of them can appeal to “evidences.” (I say that as I think the evidences are fallacious.) Some of them can make decent cases. From Dawkins, all I get is rhetoric. He can make people feel an emotion, but that’s about it.

Friends. It is really bad to me when I go through a book and see gaping mistakes in the preface about my worldview. Dawkins is a scientist. That is the area he’s best at. However, in this one, he’s trying too much to play philosopher and theologian and quite frankly, it doesn’t work.

As an example, he talks about how he would have read Duns Scotus if Scotus had been open to the possibility that God didn’t exist. Scotus was a medieval. These thinkers made numerous arguments for God’s existence and critiqued each others arguments. They told some their arguments were just wrong. Just look at the debate that came about because of the Ontological Argument. They didn’t just assume God. In fact, they assumed very little and you can find them nitpicking on the tiniest things.

Dawkins also speaks about faith as belief without evidence. I would like him to find me a dictionary of the NT that has that as the definition of faith. It certainly isn’t the definition I believe in and for one who is so big on evidence, one would hope he could find evidence of the meaning of a single word.

Dawkins also speaks of many Christians as afraid of science. I don’t know who he’s talking about. I have no problem with science. Science instead gives me wonder in Christianity. There are even passages in Dawkins’s own work here where he speaks about how the universe does have fine-tuning (Though not design for him naturally) and they leave me in wonder. When he talks about various animals and how they go about reproduction and other interesting habits, I am quite interested. These don’t damage my faith.

In the same way, if evolution was true on the macro level, it would not damage my faith. My faith is built on Jesus Christ rising from the dead. I’m simply skeptical now due to the anti-supernaturalistic bias that I see in science today. (More accurately, that would be scientists today. Science is not anti-supernatural and rests on theology. See Rodney Stark’s “The Victory of Reason.”)

It is quite humorous to see Dawkins try to debunk the Trinity. The statements he thought were nonsensical made sense to me. You see Mr. Dawkins, back then, the writers assumed the listeners were educated in basic Christian beliefs so they didn’t spell out everything and used theological shorthand if need be. Dawkins’s complaint though is that it makes no sense. Maybe Dawkins just needs his consciousness raised by understanding Trinitarianism. (Readers of the book will understand.)

Dawkins also tries to refute proofs for God’s existence. Aquinas is dealt with in just four pages and even then, the arguments aren’t presented accurately. The argument from motion is not a horizontal argument but a vertical one. Dawkins makes it sound like the domino effect where one domino falls because of the one prior etc. I think that argument is valid. I’ve used it myself. However, that is not Aquinas’s argument.

Aquinas’s argument is more like taking a stack of gears all running together. It doesn’t explain the motion of the gears to say that there is simply one big gear at the top. There is something outside of the sequence of gears that is keeping the gears running or as it were, starting them in motion. That something is what we call God.

Consider also Aquinas’s Teleological argument. Aquinas is not dealing with intelligent design as we see it. I have no problem with saying life is fine-tuned, but that deals with what Aristotle calls the efficient cause. Aquinas is dealing with how things function according to a purpose, and that is a final cause, and the explanation of the final cause is God.

Needless to say, even if one doesn’t agree with Aquinas’s proofs, one thing must be said. He was no idiot. You don’t simply dismiss him out of hand in a few pages. Yet Dawkins does, which reveals more to me about Dawkins than it could ever reveal to me about Aquinas.

Dawkins also tries to deal with the argument from beauty by simply saying it doesn’t make sense. I know the argument from beauty. It is one of my favorites and what Dawkins’s writes does not touch my faith in the least. Dawkins. It’s simple. Either beauty is objective and rests on something outside of us or else it is subjective and nothing is truly beautiful. Take your pick. If you choose subjective, then tell me why you think your wife is beautiful when in reality, she isn’t. (Note. I would not be saying she isn’t, but if all is subjective, then that’s the only conclusion. There’s no right and wrong to the question of “Is my wife beautiful?”)

When Dawkins deals with Scripture, he brings up German theologians dismantling the Scripture’s accuracy. Unfortunately, most of us who are educated know about these so-called dismantling attempts and quite frankly, they don’t work. Dawkins think it’s self-evident. I would have preferred to have seen a real argument.

Lastly, I shall deal with his argument of the Ultimate 747 Boeing. Unfortunately, Dawkins says that chance isn’t behind it all, but he never tells me how he avoids chance in his system. Indeed, on pages 168-169, he attributes our being here to luck. I would like to know how that isn’t chance.

Now Dawkins’s argument is that God must be complex. Little problem here. He’s making a category fallacy. God is simple in his being and immaterial. He is not made of parts that one sticks them all together. Had he read Aquinas, he would have known about this. Material thing are put together. God is not. He is pure actuality.

The argument does more damage to Dawkins anyway. Let’s suppose he insists on it and says “If he’s so complex, he needs a designer!” Then we simply say “Very well, the complexities you admit exist here need a designer.” If he backs up at that point then we say, “Okay. God doesn’t need a designer then.” He can’t have it both ways.

The ultimate argument though is no argument as Dawkins does not explain how anything got here other than luck. If he were to approach a philosopher on the topic who was a Christian and devout and educated, he would be easily shown the error of his ways. I find it amazing anyone is persuaded by that argument.  Dawkins may think he’s removed God, but he hasn’t, and he has yet to put a system in that will take his place.

I am a little over halfway through. I hope things get better, but it seems they are only getting worse. These are just my opening thoughts but readers can be assured I will write more later.