Why pick on religion? Why religion matters to the non-religious

Your cleaner really stepped hugely over the line. It’s fine for her to tell him about Christianity, but deliberately undermining you and your wife’s shared trust with your son is unforgiveable. I hope you’ve let her go.

Two comments already, and no one’s commented yet on the Steve Martin bash? :)

Personally, I think Steve has sold out the last many years with blatant money grabs (particularly embarrassing and insulting have been the Pink Panther remakes), but I give the man a full pass. He can do whatever he wants because of his previous funny work. That’s not even during his “wild and crazy” years, either. There are his various books. His movies like “L.A. Story”, “Roxanne”, “The Three Amigos”, “All of Me”, “Little Shop of Horrors”, “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” and other great comedies. Heck, he was cool in “The Spanish Prisoner”, and never cracked a joke.

Okay, back on to the actual topic: I really liked this article, because this is a common question: “Why do you care so much about what people think? What difference does it make to you?” And like David Annis alluded with his tolerance of Taoism, if it doesn’t affect you, you can let it be. If it affects you and those you love, it *is* worth mentioning. Religion, whether or not you are religious, will affect your life. Part of its mandate is to expand and affect as many people as possible.

Andy

While in general I agree with you, and I think your housekeeper should be fired immediately, your assertion that you try to convince believers that their god doesn’t exist contradicts your reasons to be against religion in the first place:

“These religions encourage their believers to think that they have a monopoly on the truth, that they need to restrict the actions of others based on their beliefs, and that they must convince others to think as they do.”

WE don’t have a monopoly on the truth with our absence of belief. And you’re trying to convince others to believe as you do. As conscientious atheists, don’t you think we have an obligation to live the beliefs that we’re trying to establish? NOT insisting that others believe as we do? I like to hope that my lifestyle, my acceptance of others’ beliefs, and the careful application of rational thought, is enough to help people find a better path. Either through religious belief tempered with rationality and compassion, or by leaving those religious beliefs behind at their own pace and in their own ways.

Religious belief serves a basic and important purpose in peoples’ lives. It can’t simply be cast off without having something to put in its place, which would leave people anchorless and distraught. I think it’s important to help people find the something they can put in its place rather than just pulling the rug out from under them.

I’m sorry about your son. That must have been frightening. I wish you and your family the best!

It is the analyzer in me that likes this, unfortunately regardless of the religion it produces the same reactory types unable to separate that which they feel strongly PASSIONATE about to the realization of the agnostic point of view, which is there is no way they can prove most that they believe. They are not wrong just confused to their emotional feelings and provable information, some story they went by all their life and never got beside themselves to ask, “is this the truth that no man can say isn’t, like the sun is the source of life on this planet”, then research it. I recently engaged in a perception exchange conversation which got to the point of intolerance to a different view which is an imperialistic characteristic of religion. An institutional entity must produce as any entity in some way, this is why they exist to influence the actions of people, by way of its so-called practitioners sponsoring of the entity’s hierarchy and beyond this. Self-Preservation is a chararcteristic shared amongs all entities [corporate, institutions, political, religious], that is why the [religions] are here for thousands of years, it is self-perpetuated and guilty of producing many of the problems they claim they are here to cure humanity of. To make the sale you must expose the preceived problem and have the ability to supply a solution! Unknowing or lack of thinking by most god-knowers belief is not synonymous with behavior, one does not beget the other!

Religious Scripture: Is like a read along pamphlet of a telemarketer, “say these things to get the sale”, but this is the feel-good hustle though there is a lofty principle illustration in these fables but why does it have to come at a fee? Such a fee that I hear of Mega Churches, having “New Member Packets”, that ask for your identification information to possibly perform a credit score check, amount you pay in taxes, home value and income, thats just some! Prophecy……. please, human cycles of existence like clothes & hair trends, those that has happened will happen again!

Coping Mechanism: In human development, I see the child with no worries for they are the responsibility of the parents, as they get to their age of responsibility then they start getting acquainted with worry, with that said, is it hard to conceive of the purpose to invent a personal god that is designed to share your life burdens or relieve you of them totally? As Karl Marx said, “religion is the opiate of the people”. Opiate = opium, plant that cocaine derives from.

Agnostic point of view defined, THE GOD SPECTRUM:

AtheistGod-Knower
The agnostic is a neutral party and states neither end of the spectrum can prove they are CORRECT, why exist in the extremes? I am the judge in this case and I have to dismiss the case due to a lack of EVIDENCE on each side, I can no longer give a decree! Truth without proof is superstition! Term normally used for the god-knower is a Theist, my knowledge of words tells me this word is in close relation to theory and thesis both meaning the same thing, UNPROVEN. Theology, is a theory study, from a etymological perspective not historical origins perspective.

My Theory, if anyone set up philosophical principles and an organizational structure for an agnostic gathering then they would have just created a religion! Some will never study to reach a higher enlightenment so they would be the fickle reactory followers that will be similar to the god-knowers, they’re right and everyone not of their ideology is wrong. Everybody claims the are on the winning team, in this dichotomy there is either the right/good/winners or the wrong/bad/losers, this negatively affects humanity cause we can’t deal justly with these perceptions!

I have not conversed much in this realm lately but this will come to be a bore soon for I run into the same reactory type, they do not read what is before them they just get feed-up and react, I dig seeing how people mind’s work but really….they all work the FN same, bound in religion!

HOWARD’S definition of – Superstition: Giving something power over you that can’t help you nor harm you.

MERRIAM-WEBSTER’S definition of – Superstition: 1a: A belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation
1b: an irrational abject attitude of mind toward the supernatural, nature, or God resulting from superstition
2: a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary

I have no desire to offend or make enemies, life is much better gathering friends along the way I do wish to shock & aw, into a consideration of getting beside yourself to see if you can distinguish between what is provable information and what is perception. Everything is perception and there is NO REALITY, we all function off our perception. Perception is the sum of our experiences, from experience comes knowledge whether we experience a book, classroom or event the result is the same an information upgrade. This is my perception on religion, I do not say any one religion in particular is wrong they all beget a gang mentality which I think the whole of humanity can do without.

Me, birth to 13, under the title of christian, 13-15 questioned the god concept and 15-30 under the title of islam, [Nation of Islam].

Hello Howard.

I read your remarks, which made me wonder about some things:

“Religious Scripture: Is like a read along pamphlet of a telemarketer, “say these things to get the sale”, but this is the feel-good hustle though there is a lofty principle illustration in these fables but why does it have to come at a fee?”

You call the Scriptures (the Holy Bible) “fables.” How do you know this? How can agnosticism permit such a confident claim about the nature of the Scriptures, or anything for that matter?

“The agnostic is a neutral party and states neither end of the spectrum can prove they are CORRECT, why exist in the extremes? I am the judge in this case and I have to dismiss the case due to a lack of EVIDENCE on each side, I can no longer give a decree! Truth without proof is superstition!”

If nothing can be proven, how would we know that? If nothing can be proven why should anyone believe you?

“Everything is perception and there is NO REALITY, we all function off our perception.”

Is there really no reality?

I ask that you consider what the Bible teaches about Jesus Christ:

“For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him”

Colossians 1:16

It is because of this truth that we can know anything truly.

May God bless you.

Michael

Howard,

Thank you for your reply. There are some apparent contradictions in the Scriptures; they are not contradictions at all. Those who lack familiarity with the Scriptures or discernment might see these as contradictions. That does not make them so.

What are the fables you claim the Scriptures contain?

Yes, two plus two does equal four. If someone perceived a different answer, say five, you would perceive, correctly, that he or she was in error. So would most. Therefore, if there be any true, objective knowledge, all perceptions cannot be correct.

Your perception that two plus two equals four is based on abstract mathematical laws and immaterial laws of logic. The Christian can account for such things: They reflect the all-knowing mind of God; mankind has been made in God’s image; and we live in the world God has made, with its natural laws and principles, possessing minds that can perceive, think, and reason. How does your worldview account for such things as abstract laws and the laws of logic?

You profess agnosticism. I understand this to mean that you believe ultimate reality — God, if He exists — is unknowable. In rejecting the possibility of knowing God, an agnostic claims to know something truly about ultimate reality: that God is unknowable. Agnosticism thus ends in contradiction: We cannot truly know if God exists, but if He exists we can truly know something about Him: that He is unknowable.

Has my God distanced Himself from me and the world since the days of old? Absolutely not. He has saved me. He sustains me. He sustains the universe. The sun rises and sets by His decree. Winter changes to spring, spring to summer, summer to fall; since the creation of the world the seasons have changed this way. God has assured believers that the seasons will change this way until the end.

Howard, you, too, undoubtedly expect that winter will yield to spring; that gravity will keep your feet on the ground tomorrow just as it has today; that the laws of physics will operate tomorrow as they have today. Why do you expect this? Is your expectation justified? The empiricist David Hume faced the problem of induction: What reason have we to believe the future will be like the past? One merely begs the question by relying on past experience to prove what future experience will be like.

The Christian has an answer to Hume’s (and all unbelievers’) problem: We know the future will resemble the past because God has so ordained. Genesis 8:22 reads: “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” Reality is knowable because God has established this world and made us in His image with minds that must think His thoughts after Him.

In our heart of hearts, we all know the one true God; but we oppose Him by nature (Romans 1: 18-20: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse..”).

We want to be autonomous. We fear His righteous judgments, as well we should. But we cannot escape Him. We cannot escape the world He has made. Psalm 139 reads, in part:

1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, [a] you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

Howard, I pray that you will know God as I have come to know Him. I, too, ran. He rescued me.

God has revealed Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ, who was with God in the beginning and was God, who died for our sin and is the righteousness of all those who accept Him as Lord and Savior.

From the fifth chapter of Romans:

6For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

May God bless,
Michael

Hey Michael, see ya back at it

Michael wrote – What are the fables you claim the Scriptures contain?

FABLES SECTION: at least by my findings or what I choose to say is truth therefor I shall adopt it as my belief as factual information!

I said scripture meaning all I’ve studied, you choose to fill in the blank for I have study from both bible and Quran since both books were required study material in the nation of islam. Michael wrote – “You call the Scriptures (the Holy Bible) “fables.” How do you know this? How can agnosticism permit such a confident claim about the nature of the Scriptures, or anything for that matter?” There is a saying when speaking in general and someone takes it personally, “throw a rock in a pack of dogs and the only one that holler is the one you hit”.

Noah’s Ark
“This is basically a reworking of the much older “Epic of Gilgamesh”. The idea that there was a worldwide flood is completely unsupported by any kind of evidence. After building the ark, Yahweh [God, Jesus] gave Noah 7 days warning of the flood. There are somewhere between 8 million and 10 million species inhabiting the earth (not including the 30 million different types of insect). Since there was a male and a female of each species on the ark, Noah had just one week to collect polar bears from the North Pole, lions from Africa, spiders from South America and tigers from India and the Far East. Even assuming he could travel around the world at the speed of light, there would have to be an average of 30 animals per second going through the ark’s single door. How did the cone beetle survive the year at sea, bearing in mind it can only survive on a particular type of tree only found in California?” http://www.geocities.com/fuzzyquark/bible_fables.html

Kemetic / Egyptian Origin of Christianity
“The author and scholar Gerald Massey, once a Christian Priest, who began investigating the questions that Christianity’s origins posed for him found the trail leading to the civilization of Kemet / Egypt. As a consequence Massey became a student and investigator of Ancient Kemet / Egypt, subsequently revealed his findings in four major publications – Books of the Beginnings, (2 vols.), The Natural Genesis (2 vols.), Ancient Egypt the Light of the World (2 vols.) and The Lectures (1 vol.)”.

“Massey over the course of twenty or so years presented facts proving Christianity was fabricated upon what was stolen from Kemet / Egypt; and that Christianity was in no respect original or from any god. The following excerpt from the appendix of Ancient Egypt the Light of the World is of the comparative list Massey compiled demonstrating that Christianity is a plagiarized fabrication from its Kemetic / Egyptian origins”. http://www.kemetway.com/massey1.html

There is a book titled, “The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors”, whole book online http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/kersey_graves/16/ , this story existed 15 times before jesus, same story retired actors!

Moses
“There are many mysteries concerning the historical life of Moses. Most of the important questions, concerning the extent of his education in Egypt and his reasons for leaving, have yet to be satisfactorily answered. Moses is credited with giving the Hebrews 10 Commandments, but close examination of their content reveals they were derived from the 42 Admonitions of Maat [negative Confessions], which Moses was exposed to while living in Egypt. There is a growing body of evidence among archaeologists and Old Testament scholars which has lead many to conclude that the exodus was a mythical event, recorded in allegorical form.” page 92 [Browder, A. T. (1992). Nile Valley Contributions to Civilization. Washington D.C: The Institute of Karmic Guidance]

I have experience of being a follower of two religions in my past. Here is how early Greek & Roman homosexual [men for fun and women for reproduction] culture infect the belief to come about later during the Roman empire existence called christianity. Egypt rule was passed through the woman monarchy, later to be fabricated by patriarchy culture so the woman’s divinity ability ended. Even in the PBS special on Islam title “The Empire of Faith”, said “the woman was able to vote 1,200 years before he woman in the west”, of course all this changed once the Mongolians came from the east and slaughtered christians, muslims & jews, the changing period in the Islam for they accepted Islam later and their culture brought caused change. Baghdad, Iraq and Cordoba, Spain were the centers of learning for men, women & children while in its enlighten form which lasted for generations after muhammad.

Misogyny
Man’s inability to procreate without the aid of a woman giving the man the connection and power the woman has with the child, contributed to the misogynistic concept. These phrases I believe to be true but not absolute there is always a percentage of those that do and those that don’t but for the higher percentile I think, “the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world”, “a nation can rise no higher than its woman” and “when you teach a woman you teach a nation, when you teach a man you teach an individual”. The monthly communion in the church is an extension of the misogynistic concept, to create a male savior whom blood was shed to bring about salvation for the entire planet. This is in contrast to the woman’s menstrual cycle’s purpose, the cleansing for the fertility period to begin. The savior male image have some hidden symbolic female attributes.

Later Christian writers extended the misogynistic themes in the Bible with a vengeance. Tertullian, one of the early church fathers, wrote:

“In pain shall you bring forth children, woman, and you shall turn to your husband and he shall rule over you. And do you not know that you are Eve? God’s sentence hangs still over all your sex and His punishment weighs down upon you. You are the devil’s gateway; you are she who first violated the forbidden tree and broke the law of God. It was you who coaxed your way around him whom the devil had not the force to attack. With what ease you shattered that image of God: Man! Because of the death you merited, even the Son of God had to die. . . . Woman, you are the gate to hell.” http://www.seesharppress.com/20reasons.html#numberfifteen

HOLY TRINITY
The Holy Trinity of Egypt consisted of what we call today a nuclear family, father, mother & child, [Kemetic names - Ausar, Aset & Heru = Later came, Greek names - Osiris, Isis & Horus] which would seem easier to comprehend and follow do to its composition. Misogyny, inspired the fathers of the church to destroy that female image in divinity. You stated, “the christian world view is superior”, as though christianity has originated all information EVER presented. Even Einstein’s equations seem to be a christian property if I’m comprehending correctly. Michael wrote, “The Christian can account for such things: They reflect the all-knowing mind of God; mankind has been made in God’s image; and we live in the world God has made, with its natural laws and principles, possessing minds that can perceive, think, and reason. How does your worldview account for such things as abstract laws and the laws of logic?”. All christians have this all-knowing mind of god? You all interface with Bluetooth technology or something, if that is the case why you all stopped interfacing with Bush, pretty messed-up situation we in economically speaking? Star-Trek, Cyborg sect!

GENERAL SECTION
AGNOSTICISM
Definition of Agnosticism which I choose to say is truth therefor I shall adopt it as my belief as factual information! Thomas Henry Huxley, stated, “That it is wrong for a man to say he is certain of the objective truth of a proposition unless he can provide evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what agnosticism asserts and in my opinion, is all that is essential to agnosticism. ["Christianity and Agnosticism," 1889] http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/sn-huxley.html

SEASONS
Yes, god gets the credit for all that which man is lacking knowledge to or just choose to believe such as Michael’s statement, “He sustains me. He sustains the universe. The sun rises and sets by His decree. Winter changes to spring, spring to summer, summer to fall; since the creation of the world the seasons have changed this way. God has assured believers that the seasons will change this way until the end”. I can not say it is so. I was once a god-knower such as yourself and I know plenty of philosophies of the intellectual design argument, philosophy can state a principle worthy practice, state a fact of existence or enforce an unprovable point. Here is a good one, you can have it , “the universe is by intellectual design, creation through chaos & randomness is about as logical as a printing company exploding and in the remains you find a dictionary as part of the result of the explosion”.

If you are a studious studier you can come up with plenty wisdom that will guide generations to come, but can not the bible or Quran be a series of wisdom notes of individuals throughout history? I know of bible codes and the mathematical miracle of the Quran still I see no intervention in human affairs so I choose to exist within an efficiency setting, “if it does not justifies my practice with some type of benefit then it will be cut from the to do list”. Every human being on this earth is trying to do one thing “achieve the desired result in all aspects of life they can, as much as they can”. No body is doing anything for no reason, people tithe and pray hoping that god will improve their condition of life and die without enough money to bury themselves. If they knew no results was coming would they continue, I know of miracles of the human will and that is what I see it as human triumph.

Michael wrote – “The Christian can account for such things: They reflect the all-knowing mind of God; mankind has been made in God’s image; and we live in the world God has made, with its natural laws and principles, possessing minds that can perceive, think, and reason”. With this type thinking all other ideology is inferior and those that embrace them are inferior this is why the pope acted out an apologize for slavery, all religions have this mentality [competition brings this about, institutional survival] as I stated in my first insert in DBS, this is the reason the Gaza strip is a battle front now or is it for the stolen land, stolen cause it suppose to be holy land, yep religion is at the root…at least by my perception.

ORIGIN
Before there was written language man communicated with art and the things man drew on mostly are the things which psychologist say will occupies man’s mental though process mostly throughout his individual tenure on earth, animals he ate and the female or food and sex. Our knowledge evolved to being able to master our environment, agriculture, now we are Sun worshipers cause we know our harvest which is our way of sustaining our life at the time, Sun is the source of our survival. Sun travels in 12 constellations, [12 zodiac signs] hence 12 disciples, winter solstice 12/22,23,24 shortest days of the year 25th day gets longer [death & resurection] and pagan celebrations that predates christmas were done. Christmas was not brought to this country on Plymouth Rock, during the 13 colonies in states like Massachusetts there were laws that stated, ” you will be fined if seen celebrating on this date, your business will be fined if closed on 12/25″, seen as a pagan & forbiden practice.”

PERCEPTION
Michael wrote – “Therefore, if there be any true, objective knowledge, all perceptions cannot be correct”. Prove with evidence on logical and scientific grounds you are correct with these fairy-tales or is this your belief you choose to believe in. Do I just have to believe to perceive this is true?

#1- “He has saved me. He sustains me. He sustains the universe. The sun rises and sets by His decree. Winter changes to spring, spring to summer, summer to fall; since the creation of the world the seasons have changed this way. God has assured believers that the seasons will change this way until the end”.
#2 – “God has revealed Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ, who was with God in the beginning and was God, who died for our sin and is the righteousness of all those who accept Him as Lord and Savior”.

Yep, I was with my father in the beginning to, in his testicles so I guess I was my father to, that makes sense!

In the perception of god-knowers there is no middle spectrum there is only belief or atheist.

Michael I truly dig exchanging with you and you are not wrong for doing you and there is an argument for plenty of things and this can go on, and on, and on, and on, and on. I’m done, until next time I get inspired to write on something. Agnosticism, is a new concept for me so it is like a new toy that I will one day get use to and just live it no need to debate or express it, I’m just building. More [5] of my articles are at Helium.com, search with Howard Fitz.

Two things. Firstly, I have stopped arguing on logical grounds. I think that is a red herring. The problem is with belief itself: belief as a psychological state. It is actually very similar to being in love, except at least with human love there is a real object even if one may still be deluded about their qualities. Your story shows the real dangers of this, in that they are told to evangelize their deluded truth. This is Sam Harris’s argument and his stance that we should not be tolerant of believers. I write on news about research on beliefs and we are entering a phase where one has to be very careful even about the science as it is being filled with Christians – my review of the New Scientist story Born Believers is a perfect example.

I have no respect for believers. One of things I write about in one of my blogs are reviews and comments on the Vatican’s daily newspaper, as it is only published in Italian. I do have to wear protection when I read it. But what moderate, rational humans don’t really see is that this is a war. The Catholic Church was founded as the ghost of the Roman Empire and their expressed aim is universal catholicism – this virus will not stop on its own. Pope Leo stated that it is a spiritual empire – an empire, with generals and troops. One cannot fight a war with mere philosophers – look at what happened to the Greek academies, shut down for good in the name of one state and one religion.

What with public talk of the New World Order finally exposing itself outside conspiracy sites and the propaganda from religions, the days of being free thinkers are going to be numbered. More and more controls are being implemented. We still have the internet :-)

I was a believing conservative orthodox Christian for twenty five years. In the end when I started to separate the psychological, belief and social aspects of my “faith” I realized that there was absolutely no supporting factual evidence for a single supernatural event or being available to me or anyone else. My faith and belief faded rather quickly after holding it up to some rational scrutiny.

Michael, please re-read everything you’ve written here, but replace:
“Bible” or “Scriptures” with “Quran,”
“God” or “He” with “Allah,” and
“Jesus” with “Muhammad (peace be upon him).”

Michael, the same has been said about the Bible: There are conflicts between Biblical stories. The Bible is internally contradictory. There are glaring historical errors in the Bible. http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0922233179/?tag=dbskeptic-20

Judaism has a messiah, who has yet to come to. The Matrix has a messiah: Neo. My point is: “When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” -Stephen F. Roberts

You seem to spent a lot of time being a salesman for Christianity. Don’t you think this world would be a better place if all the time, energy, and other resources ppl spent on pushing religion were put to better use? Is it more important to you that individuals believe in Jesus than that individuals foster well-being? If yes, then you’d be fine w/ ppl believing in Jesus and causing more suffering, such as all the suffering alluded to the article’s last paragraph? Do you think it was good that the author’s proselytizing Christian housekeeper made the author’s son suffer keeping a secret? If so, I’m afraid your sense of morality has been hijacked by dogma. (Either that or you’re psychologically abnormal, like a sociopath, in which case, you should get therapy or imprisonment.)

Andy,

There is no probability if we live in a chance universe; probability would be meaningless. You certainly may choose to reject my worldview in favor of your own. So be it. That is your intellectual right. What I am saying is that laws of logic, moral absolutes, love and other abstract immaterial realities pose no problem for the Christian. His worldview can account for them. The unbeliever’s worldview cannot. The unbeliever is borrowing capital from the Christian worldview when he or she accepts that there are abstract and universal laws of logic.

You want proof that God exists? Look around you. The universe proclaims the glory of God. The Bible reveals the redemptive plan and work of Jesus Christ. Humans embrace such abstract things as love, justice, and beauty. How does the atheist account for these? Christianity holds that God made man in His image and endowed him with moral consciousness and minds whose thoughts correspond to the things He has made.

You wrote the following: “We can have “faith” in probability and statistics. Yes, the sun will rise tomorrow. I have “faith” that it will because I know how the solar system works. And even if I didn’t, I’d have “faith” in a sunrise because it’s happened roughly twelve thousand times on a predictable basis since I was born. I have “faith” in gravity because gravity behaves according to known laws. If you want to call this “faith”, fine. But I argue it’s very different than religious “faith”, that is defined as belief without evidence.”

The distinction you draw between your statistics-based faith and “religious” faith is artificial. Your comments reflect that you assume the uniformity of nature, but outside of the Christian worldview it cannot reasonably be assumed. It makes no difference that the sun has risen trillions of time before; that does not prove what will happen tomorrow. It is circular reasoning to argue that the past instances of the sun rising prove it will rise tomorrow. David Hume described precisely this problem. It is no wonder that Hume’s empiricism led him inexorably to skepticism.

The Christian is not met with the futility of the problem of induction. God sustains the universe according to laws He has established. God’s sovereign control of all things accounts for order and abstract universal laws of logic. His control accounts for the uniformity of nature. The Christian can rest assured that tomorrow will be like today because God has ordained that night and day and heat and cold will continue until the end. Your worldview does not permit this confidence, for in it there is only contingency. You may do an experiment in the laboratory today that ends safely; tomorrow, you may perform that very experiment again under the same conditions but produce an explosion. How can you be certain that will not happen? Your worldview requires faith that things will continue on just as they have, but in a chance universe you cannot be certain of anything. All of science necessarily rests upon the Christian view of the universe!

Faith is not belief without evidence, as you suggest. You have already shown that faith is an inescapable part of human experience. Faith is the precondition of all reasoning.

As to the life, death, and resurrection of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Bible contains eyewitness accounts. The historical accuracy of the Bible has been shown time and time again. The unbeliever may not like this evidence, but it is evidence nevertheless. The unbeliever’s dismissal of it reflects where his presuppositional commitments lie.

Michael

Hello Nina,

The Bible says that of all God’s creatures, only humans are made in His image. In the Christian worldview, mankind’s rebellion against God plunged him into sin. The effects of sin account for all human suffering, be it psycholgical, social, spiritual, moral, and what have you.

In answer to one of your questions, man cannot be all-knowing. Only God is omniscient. Although as finite creatures we cannot know all things, we can know what God has chosen to reveal to us.

I believe that abortion grieves and angers God. The life that is created is His handiwork. God says: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. . .” (Jeremiah 1:5). I also believe that God is merciful and forgives our sins when we confess them and seek His forgiveness. We must humble ourselves, acknowledge our sinfulness, and turn to Him in repentance. “And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18).

God Bless,

Michael

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@Warren (first commenter)  “… It’s fine for her to tell him about Christianity,…”
I don’t think it is ‘fine’ for someone other than the parents to tell a young child about a world view.  How is it ‘fine’ for a cleaning woman to propagandize a child about Christianity?  Is it a safe assumption, by the tone of your remark, that you are a Christian?  Would it be ‘OK’ to tell your young children about Islam, Atheism, Scientology, etc.?
 
@ Howard & Michael   -   A little brevity would go a long way, seriously, your posts sound more like word salads than reasoned theses.
 
 

@Gilgamesh – your response to my comment “It’s fine for her to tell him about Christianity”
Your Response: I don’t think it is ‘fine’ for someone other than the parents to tell a young child about a world view.  How is it ‘fine’ for a cleaning woman to propagandize a child about Christianity?  Is it a safe assumption, by the tone of your remark, that you are a Christian?  Would it be ‘OK’ to tell your young children about Islam, Atheism, Scientology, etc.?”
Gilgamesh, I was not endorsing the proselytizing of one’s child.  However, if the child had questions about religious faith(s), it’s up to the parents to explain the family’s values.  Giving an educated explanation about a faith, e.g. a history of Christianity, Islam, etc. is harmless, as long as the explanation is done in concordance with the parents.  I agree, however, that the general trend towards deception in order to inculcate is inexcusable.
I’m actually a former Roman Catholic; basically I’ve come to terms with the fact that faith and dogma no longer makes sense to me, and hasn’t for awhile.  I’m merely saying that non-believing parents have a special obligation to explain the big faiths and their beliefs, so as to insulate the children from being unwillingly indoctrinated.  Once explained, the child will no longer be as vulnerable to the deceptive practices of such as this nanny.  My apologies if I have repeated myself.