Brian J. Sabel from Just Atheists wrote a post that caught my attention.  Since my grandma died, I’ve been thinking about death quite a bit for obvious reasons.  Obviously, my view of death is that we who place faith in Christ go on to eternal reward, while the rest do not.  “[I]t is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment . . .” (Heb 9:27).

I believe that my grandma has gone on to that eternal reward.  Not because I want to believe that since it is a comforting thought for me, but because my grandma placed her faith in Christ.  At the funeral, I could see the fruits of the Spirit in her lives through the stories people told of the lives she touched.  I had no idea how much time she donated freely to good causes.  Even though she was sick, she still donated time and crafts to other sick people.  She was an Eucharistic Minister and traveled to the sick and infirm at homes and hospitals to share the Lord’s Supper with them, and to talk and pray with them.

I could easily get into the debate about faith vs. works here, but suffice it to say that I believe her actions proceeded from her faith and that faith is what saved her, not what she did in this life.  That isn’t the point of my post.  The point is that Brian from Just Atheists believes that this life is all that there is and that view of life elevates life on earth above the religious view.

Many faithful see this as a very bleak way to view our lives. Without the rewards of the afterlife, they say, our lives on earth have no value or meaning. They often view my rejection of a belief in an afterlife as a cynical and nihilistic view which robs humankind of our best qualities. They could not be more wrong. And, in fact, I feel that my view elevates the value of human life beyond the capacity of a religious view.

The finite nature of our lives compels me to believe that each life is unique, valuable, and irreplaceable. When a person dies she is gone and we will never get her back. The consequence of this belief is that I love the people around me very deeply because I recognize how precious they are and how fortunate I am to experience their lives - they could be gone from me so quickly. (source)

Brian actually has a point.  His view elevates the view of this life above how religious often view it.  But the Bible doesn’t teach us to view this life as one of much importance.  The Bible calls this life a “mist” (Jms 4:14).  Like Brian’s astute observation, the Bible affirms that this life can be taken from us at any moment.  Unlike Brian, the Bible states we must build our treasure in heaven (Mt 6:19-20).

Does this mean that the religious should place no importance on this life whatsoever?  Of course not!  There is certainly wisdom in the expression “We don’t inherit this planet from our parents, we borrow it from our children.”  With all of the comparisons to God as the landowner and humans as His stewards in Jesus’ parables, can anyone ever really conclude that we aren’t called to be stewards of this planet?  God commanded us to “be fruitful and multiply,” and in order to do that effectively, we must be good stewards of the resources on this planet.

So there is some importance in this life.  But, unlike the atheist viewpoint, this life is not all that there is.  There is more out there, there is eternal life to be spent in perfect communion with our Creator, and with those that have gone before us in Christ.

Meanwhile, let’s be good stewards of this planet.  When God returns to earth, we’ll have to give an account for it.

Rook Hawkins makes this claim right off the bat:

Cory has written a very interesting blog article in response to my positions.  He has written to his reader’s satisfaction, and although he makes grandiose claims, he should be applauded by known apologists such as Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel for the erudite quality of his response.  But did he really answer the problems or represent my position accurately?  I do not think he did, but that can only be shown after examining the article he has written.   (source, emphasis added)

It is the boldfaced portion that I will address first.  Before I do that, I would like to publicly thank Rook for his compliments and critique on my work.  I consider my writing my craft first, and take it very seriously.  He has also put me in company with men that I admire and thinks that they would appreciate my work.

I would also like to point out that Rook does the old manager’s trick of softening the blow with a compliment before the criticism.

Rook has taken some criticism as a writer from my fellow apologists (such as Frank Walton).  Rook, however, is the best of the RRS writers.  He sticks to his subject matter and he knows his history inside and out.  I can usually tell when people are faking it–a skill everyone who has been in management learns lest they receive an ugly demotion.  I don’t get the faking-it vibe when I read Rook’s writings.  He is someone as passionate about his beliefs as I am about mine.

As for the boldfaced portion of Rook’s opening paragraph, he is absolutely correct.  I will explain why.

When I first started doing apologetics, I had a “save the world” complex.  I believed with all of my heart that I would succeed where others had miserably failed–I would convert people like Rook Hawkins to Christianity with the power of my unflappable argumentation and my passion for the Lord.  Rook would see that and have no choice but to convert, even despite his doubts.

I could only ever see myself winning arguments with atheists, since I had truth and the Lord on my side.

Well, after a while that “save the world” complex faded and I realized a few important things.  First, mankind is truly dead in sin and wants nothing to do with God.  God has chosen the elect and will draw them to Himself–I can only pray that He will see my ministry fit to use for that purpose.  The point isn’t fatalism; the point is that, like the Bible clearly states, God will have mercy and whom He will and harden whom He will, and I can’t change that.  But I can be a part of His plan to draw the elect through this ministry and prayer.

What does any of this have to do with Rook Hawkins?  Well, the reason I write for my audience is that I’m probably not going to convert a hardened skeptic like Rook.  However,Rook’s writings may have planted a seed of doubt in an honest Christian or in someone considering the conversion to Christianity.  It is those hypothetical people that I plan to reach by dialog with Rook, not Rook himself.

Mind you, it isn’t that I don’t want to see Rook pledge his life to Christ.  I think that would be an amazing testament to the drawing power of God the Father, and we could use someone like Rook on the winning team.  It’s just that I think Rook is too firmly entrenched in his beliefs to ever convert.  At best, converting Rook is my “C” priority here.  It’s on the map, but I won’t be disappointed if it doesn’t happen.

I think that both Rook and I are guilty of writing only for our respective audiences, and I think that we have similar motivations–to sway the honest seeker who is still on the fence.  Rook and I both believe that one of our essays may just swing that person onto our side for good.  We’re not really writing for each other–which is unfortunately why we have, so far, talked past each other.

I admit to being out of my element with the historical aspects of the early church and with Hellenistic Greece.  I could use a Christian writer with Rook’s knowledge to help me out here.  But I’ve got a few online articles bookmarked on Hellenistic literature from Christian Think-Tank, and a book by a scholar that I believe Rook will respect (but not agree with) that I’m working through.  A full reply is forthcoming but will take a while.

Liberal scholarship has agreed on one point and one point alone: the Jesus of history is not the Jesus presented in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Rook Hawkins, co-founder and self-styled ancient texts expert of the Rational Response Squad, has utilized this as the starting point for his article, “Which Jesus: A Legend with a Multiple Personality Disorder?” The foundation of this article is a prior article in which Rook examines the genre of the gospels and concludes that they were never intended to be read as biographies. It is with that article that I will start, because if an argument is based on a faulty premise, then its conclusion is nothing more than fruit from a poisoned tree.

Are the gospels ancient biographies or not? Apologist J.P. Holding asserts the fact that they are is “beyond dispute.” Rook disagrees, with the following three objections: Read the rest of this entry »

My good friend Caleb posted an interesting but profoundly misguided entry on his MySpace Blog.  In this entry, Caleb has formally rejected all religious doctrine in favor of sola scriptura.  This is a dangerous view to hold.  People who adhere to extremist views of sola scriptura run the danger of sinking into heresy without realizing it.  Sola scriptura was never framed with the idea of ignoring all of church history or her doctrine.

So what is sola scriptura, then?  Sola scriptura is Latin for “by Scripture alone.”  It is the theological position that the Bible alone is sufficient to establish faith and morals and correct doctrine.  The Roman Catholic position has always been sola verbum Dei, which means “by the Word of God alone.”  Catholics consider Sacred Tradition on par with Scripture, which is rejected by the Protestant Reformers.  Said Martin Luther:

Unless I am convinced by sacred Scripture or by evident reason - I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other - my conscience is held captive by the word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to act against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand! I can do no other. God help me! Amen. Read the rest of this entry »

Rook Hawkins, co-founder and ancient texts expert of the Rational Response Squad, has been writing a lot of stuff lately that I wish I had the time to respond to.  Unfortunately, I have to take the time to pick and choose the projects that mean the most to me.  Rook has written two pieces, “Which Jesus: A Legend with Multiple Personality Disorder” and “On Paul and Identity” that are very long winded and I haven’t enough time on my hands to respond in full.

Fortunately, Frank Walton has responded to the second article as only Frank Walton can, complete with sarcasm and name calling, here.  I’ve said in the past that I don’t endorse the sarcasm and the name calling, and I hope that by linking to Walton’s piece that I don’t send the message that now I’m condoning such behavior.  I’m not.  But the points in Frank’s article really show that Rook has no idea what he’s talking about in regard to the apostle Paul.  I feel that it is important that these claims are answered, and Frank’s article does a good job of addressing Rook’s outrageous claims.

It’s interesting to note that Rook’s arguments in this “new” piece have been set forth already, which is why Frank’s response is from July of 2007.  Rook had created a series of four YouTube videos that allegedly “exposed” Paul as a proto-Gnostic and used the apostle’s letters to build the case that Jesus never existed.  This “new” article is a summary of those videos.

As for the “Which Jesus?”, I will respond to that later this week, hopefully by Friday.

I still believe in the Bible when it tells me that only a fool says that there is no God (Ps 14:1).  Regular readers know that I am no defender of atheism.  Unfortunately, a post by a religious Jew has recently come to my attention as part of my series on refuting Kelly O’Connor of the Rational Response Squad that so badly mischaracterizes atheists that I actually am jumping to their defense in this post.

Religion is defined by its beliefs; atheism is a lack of belief in God.  Already I see the difference between religion and atheism, and why atheism cannot be a religion by definition.  I was skeptical reading this post from the Jewish Philosopher simply because I didn’t feel the subject matter couldn’t sustain a blog post.

As it happens, I was right.  “Atheism is not a religion” is little more than an assertion that Jacob Stein stretches into a blog post.  And its the second blog post that has Kelly angry (part 1).

Before I consider Kelly’s post, I wanted to briefly touch on a few things in Stein’s post.  First, I don’t believe that atheism is an extension of determinism.  I believe that its roots lay in metaphysical naturalism.  To the atheist, all that we see is all that there is.  Stein later will assert that determinism has been refuted by quantum mechanics and that atheists seem to hardly notice.  This just isn’t true.  To my knowledge, atheists don’t believe in determinism in the first place (often criticizing my own Calvinistic theology as deterministic or fatalistic).  This leads me to conclude that atheists lean more to the secular existentialist camp.

Second, his research that he lists in four points is flawed.  In his first point, he is wrong that atheists cannot define “god.”  They define “god” as an all-knowing, all-powerful supernatural being about whom myths and legends are composed.  While Christians and Jews would not include YHWH in such a definition, the atheists do and therefore do not believe in Him.  As I’ve heard it put, “Atheists and theists are the same in their lack of belief in gods,  atheists just go one God further.”

Stein is wrong in his assertion that atheists don’t seem bothered by an intelligent creator.  They emphatically deny such a being, insisting that the Big Bang is all that was necessary to set the universe in motion.  This is partially deterministic, but they don’t ascribe to the philosophy that there is only ever one possible future.  Many believe in human free will, which is why secular existentialism is so attractive to them.

I agree with Stein that atheists are bothered by a personal god who would judge their actions. Read the rest of this entry »

I find it extremely ironic that Kelly O’Connor of the Rational Response Squad takes offense to a Christian making a statement against her philosophical beliefs, but then goes on to write that atheists are under no obligation to respect the beliefs of others.

The proof is in the pudding.  First, Kelly acts offended at this statement from Rev. Marty Fields:

They [atheists] keep writing books, one right after the other, rehashing the same old tired arguments that you heard in your freshman philosophy class. Atheists taking issue with those who believe in God is — of course — nothing new. The only difference is that now — with each new offering — they appear to be getting angrier. … and more desperate. (source)

Kelly responds with the following:

Marty Fields, who will not be addressed as “Reverend” here as I have no reverence for him or his ilk, wrote an op-ed entitled “Angry Atheists”. He starts out by accusing atheists of being philosophical dilettantes, using the “same old tired arguments that you heard in your freshman philosophy class.” Ironic, coming from a proponent of a religion that hasn’t come up with a new argument in 2000 years. I think that tops freshman year philosophy, eh? (source)

I’d say that sounds defensive.  Now the irony:

In debates, Hitchens is respectful of his opponent, just as the example that he cited between Russell and Copleston. He has no obligation to be respectful of their beliefs or opinions, though, and neither do any of us. [emphasis added]

Yet, above, she seems to be angry for Fields not pulling punches when he talks about atheism.

Now the obvious objection here is that Kelly has a point, that Fields doesn’t know what he’s talking about and that is why she is so angry.  Let’s examine Fields’s article, “Angry Atheists,” and see if he knows his stuff.

Contrary to what Kelly states in her article, Fields neither labels The End of Faith as the least offensive of the Four Horsemen’s books nor does he attack Christopher Hitchens personally.  He lists the books in their order of publication.  He labels Hitchens’s book, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, as “both the most visceral and the angriest of all.”  However, he doesn’t label Hitchens as such, nor does he make any character assessments.

I agree that atheism is declining in influence, mostly due to the anger and bitterness that is so evident within their attitudes and words.  However, it is misleading to state that without considering Kelly’s rebuttal: “Atheism is increasing worldwide, a fact easily proven by population studies and surveys.”  This is very true.  Atheism, once representing 10% of the population, now represents 11% of the population–and I only see that number growing in the coming years.  In five to ten years, they may represent 20-30% of the population–or more.

I also agree that atheists are starting to attack religious belief itself, and trying to make belief in God an object of ridicule.  They’re trying to make it a taboo.  Sort of like finding out someone’s super dirty secret and not being able to say that you really think that it’s wrong and that the secret holder should be ashamed.  They try to make religious belief into that super dirty secret and relentlessly try to shame people who adhere to religious beliefs.  The Rational Response Squad itself tries to classify theism as a mental disease or defect.

“Why am I here?”  “Am I significant and valuable?”  “Does life have meaning?”  These are some of the questions that Fields proposes and says that the New Atheists (like the Four Horsemen) either ignore or assume that their idealistic naturalism can answer.  Kelly, in top New Atheist form, also glosses over these questions.  She doesn’t even point us to a resource that attempts to answer these important questions.  She’s busy being angry.

I don’t think that she’s upset about Fields’s lack of knowledge on the subject of atheism.  I don’t think that she’s upset that Fields believes that Jesus is the answer to all of the questions above.  I think that so much of the article was right on target that Kelly has to retreat into defensive mode in order to continue to delude herself into believing two things: 1) that there is no God; and 2) that God isn’t calling her to repentance.

Instead of responding to theists, she should try responding in prayer to the One we speak for.

Tomorrow, I’ll consider part 2 of Kelly’s post, “Damn Right I’m Angry.”  So far, I see no death blows being dealt to Christianity as the hype claimed.  Maybe those are in part 2?

In my newest edition of the Rational Responders Newsletter, they tell us Kelly O’Connor, always ready with the atheist response, has written “the most destructive blow dealt to Christians so far” in her recent post, “Damn Right I’m Angry,” part 1 and part 2.  Kelly addresses two writers, Marty Fields and Jacob Stein, who have the audacity to call atheists angry and bitter.  So I will be taking a closer look at her posts here on the blog, and see how devastating the blow that she dealt really is.

Meanwhile, over on the blog of the inimitable Rook Hawkins, he has written a marvelously long post entitled “Which Jesus: A Legend with a Multiple Personality Disorder.”  The thesis?  In order to believe in a historical Jesus, Christians have to pick and choose which gospel verses to believe while totally ignoring most of the rest.  Once I’m done looking at Kelly’s post, I’ll take a crack at Rook’s post.  We’ll see if our young ancient texts expert is simply misguided or if he’s on to something.

Vjack, the proprietor of Atheist Revolution, continues his series on reading the Bible from cover to cover.  And so I continue my series which critiques his critique of the Bible.  This post finds us on the book of Judges, Ruth, and 1 Samuel.

VJack sympathizes with Gideon when he exclaims,

Please, sir, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, “Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?” But now the LORD has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian. (Jgs 6:13)

VJack wants to know where all of God’s miracles are today.  In a related post, he laments:

The Christian bible is filled with miracles, direct communication between god and man, and tales of god regularly intervening in human affairs. So what happened, Christians? Did this god die, lose interest, go away on a long vacation, what?

A biblical definition of faith in God is loyalty based on past performance, rather than the modern definition of “blind faith.”  That implies that this performance is in the past.  This means that the Christian shouldn’t require God to perform all kinds of miracles in the modern world because He has already done so many.  These are the miracles described in the Bible, especially the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Skeptics like VJack, however, seem to want God to perform miracles on a regular basis just to prove that He’s still there.  I’ve seen this argument many times from many skeptics.  I propose that God doesn’t perform large-scale miracles anymore because it won’t increase the number of His followers, nor will it convince the skeptics–they will simply look for a naturalistic explanation.

It isn’t inexplicable that God would return to Gideon after Gideon’s “groveling and animal sacrifice.”  Before Christ, animal sacrifice was the shedding of blood necessary for forgiveness of sins (Heb 9:22).  Gideon is, as Judge of the nation of Israel, repenting of former sins on behalf of the nation.  Many Bible stories prove that God is pleased by repentance (see the book of Jonah for a great example with the city of Nineveh).

The intensity of the superstition at this time is so great that human sacrifice is also needed to satisfy the bloodthirsty god created by this ancient people. In exchange for god’s help in his military campaign Jephthah sacrifices his own daughter (Judges 11:29-40).

Now this is just taken out of context.  God never asked Jephthah to sacrifice his own daughter; Jephthah spoke a hasty oath, and his daughter’s death was the result of that oath.  He made a vow and kept it–but it should be noted that what he did is in direct violation of Mosaic Law according to Leviticus 18:21 and 20:2-5.

Last of all, is it any surprise that God, who demands obedience, is going to punish people for disobeying his commands?  The commands that VJack objects to are the commands to kill everyone and everything in the land except for the women who haven’t known a man.  There are two reasons for this, and both have to do with preventing corruption.  God wanted to prevent physical corruption, and He wanted to prevent spiritual corruption.

At this point, the Chosen People are chosen on the basis of physical descent, not on the basis of spiritual descent as we are today.  God wanted nothing to make that line unclean.

The second reason was to avoid spiritual corruption, which if we pay attention to the Bible, we see does happen as a direct result of leaving much of those other cultures in tact.  The people turn away from God and worship the other gods, the gods of the people who were spared by them.  God, because He is omniscient, would have foreseen that and that is why He issued such a brutal command.

In a previous post, I made the following claim:

Atheists, agnostics, and skeptics believe that God should still be doing large and visible miracles every day so that we can see and believe that He exists. Most deny any miracles occurred in the past. So I’m left to wonder if it would make any difference if God were to perform a miracle before their eyes. I don’t think that it would; they’d probably run to the comforts of science to try to explain the miracle rather than believing in God. (source)

What I didn’t know is that Hemnant the Friendly Atheist was going to prove my point dramatically in his post, “If a Miracle Came, Would it Convince You?“  Go ahead.  Read the comments.  You’ll see such gems as this:

To convince me that God existed, you’d not only have to show me something I couldn’t explain, you’d have to prove to me that the force behind it was a sentient being. Even then, I’d only know that a powerful being exists who can do things I can’t explain.

And this:

It [rearranging the stars in the sky to spell a message] would not convince me that anything “supernatural” is going on. For all I know, the entity is just a super-advanced extraterrestrial with nothing better to do than supervise my life. Again, for all practical purposes, that’s a god. But it’s not necessarily “supernatural,” and I’m not even sure that’s a meaningful concept in the first place. If you can provide evidence in the natural world for the existence of a supernatural world, can there really be a separation between them? Likewise, I can’t possibly tell you what supernatural evidence would change my mind, because if I could describe it, it wouldn’t be supernatural, now, would it? Even if this being does something that defies all known laws of nature, I will just assume there must be other laws yet unknown, and as a scientist I’d probably try to use this opportunity to learn more about them.

And this:

. . . I categorically deny the very concept of supernatural. That is, if something exists, it is — by definition and by its very existence — natural.

If the stars rearranged themselves, I would look for a natural explaination [sic].

Here is a true skeptic:

Moving stars is certainly impressive. Unfortunately, it only serves as evidence for something that can move stars.

In response to the true skeptic, someone said:

Well, it serves as evidence for something that can move stars and claims to be God. Given that it’s moving stars, I’d take the claim seriously, though I wouldn’t believe it at face value.

Another scientist weighs in:

To that, I’d be convinced if a theist could tell me what they mean by “god”, what predictions could confirm and disconfirm their hypothesis, and hopefully some reason to think that a god could exist. These are pretty basic, fundamental questions, but I don’t think any theist at any point in history has ever met even a single one of these point.

You can’t test the supernatural with natural sciences.  Someone hasn’t done his critical thinking for the day.

Finally, in the “Theology Matters” column:

And as for a miracle that would make me believe? That’s easy. The being in question (supernatural or otherwise) would merely need to change my brain, my thought processes, so that I would believe. I would automatically accept that as proof, wouldn’t I?

Mankind is dead in sin.  We are unable to come to God on our own.  The very work of God is to do just what would prove to this atheist that God exists.  God can and does change the hearts of people to believe in Him.

The logical problem is that God isn’t going to appear in front of this dude and work His heart over.  It is a process that comes by time and discipline.  It occurs over the natural course of a person’s life–God uses His elect and even the non-elect for this work.  His Spirit convicts the person of his sin, and the person becomes willing to repent as a result of God drawing this person to Himself.  This atheist, however, doesn’t want any of that–he wants God to appear in front of him and do that work Himself, right now.  Presumably so that he knows that it is God and not just some “feeling.”

Another fulfillment of Romans 1?  You decide.