Atheistic Evangelism

Today I want to talk a bit about atheistic evangelism. Specifically, the naturalistic atheism. With the presence of the "New Atheists" and many others who follow in their footsteps, it seems that there is a lot more proselytizing of atheism than in previous years. I am quite confused at this phenomenon for three reasons: according to naturalism, first, there is nothing after a person dies; second, everything that happens is determined; third, everything is meaningless and purposeless.

Atheism, Evil and Ultimate Justice

Tomorrow marks the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America. This attack shook the world. It abruptly ended nearly 3000 valuable lives and destroyed countless others. It forced people to recognize evil, ask if justice could ever be served, and challenged our ability to move on.

As a Christian it pains me to see such evil in the world. It hurts worse to see atrocities committed in the name of a religion. Many atheists share my feelings and have even become militant against all forms of religion because of it. They claim that there is no way religion can possibly be true if it causes such needless pain and suffering in the world. I want to take a few moments to discuss evil, justice, and forgiveness in the context of the events from a decade ago within both the Christian and atheist worldviews.

Providing Alternative Explanations

There have been several times that someone provided me a phenomenon that supports a specific worldview. They implied that this support for their worldview demonstrated that my worldview was false. The most recent example that comes to mind is a debate that is inside Christianity. As many, both inside and outside the Church, know, Christians debate the age of the earth/universe, and along side that debate tends to be a lesser known debate about the geographical extent of Noah's Flood (whether the flood was worldwide or localized to a single geographical area).

I currently hold that Noah's Flood was a localized event. (I'm not going to go into a huge defense of this position here because the purpose of this post is just to make a quick point, which Noah's flood being local is not it.) A friend of mine gave me two pieces of evidence that he states can only be explained by a geographically world-wide flood. These two being the large amounts of sediment all over the land and aquatic fossils being found on top of many mountains. He told me that this was evidence that the whole world was covered by water, and further concluded that could only have been Noah's flood (worldwide).

Is Heaven Eternal?

A couple months ago, I was asked to give some quick pointers on responding to a person's issues with the existence of eternal punishment in hell. The answers I provided scratch the surface, but seem good enough to post here because they might get someone thinking about the denial of eternal punishment from both a Scriptural position (for the Christian) and a philosophical position (for the non-Christian). The person who was challenging is not a Christian but is willing to accept that Scripture is the source for orthodox Christian belief. The interesting implication that I point out is what inspired the odd title of this post.

Here is the email that I sent (I've edited it a bit for clarification):

Book Review: The Making of an Atheist

Introduction

The Making of an Atheist by James Spiegel is a short book on the non-rational reasons that people may have for rejecting the existence of God. It was of interest to me because it doesn't address intellectual reasons, but emotional reasons. The book talks about the psychology of atheists. The book is divided into five chapters and is a mere 128 pages, so it makes for a quick read.

Chapter 1: Atheistic Arguments, Errors, and Insights

In the first chapter Spiegel defines what he means when he uses the word "atheist". That being pretty much anyone who does not affirm the existence of God (this would include agnostics). He then discusses some of the reasons that atheists give for refusing to believe that God exists. He explains the moral argument against God, the hypocritical behavior of people within the Church, and answers both. He addresses other issues in the Church, such as intellectual laziness (which has lead to the charge of "god of the gaps" reasoning) and disunity over side issues. He concludes that the Church, itself, gave the atheists the ammunition against God; they just point out the problems. The Church needs to recognize the truth of what has been revealed and do something about it instead of ignoring it.

Book Review: The Word of God and the Mind of Man

Introduction

The Word of God and the Mind of Man by Ronald Nash is a book about Christian epistemology (how we can know what we know). I've been intrigued by discussions of knowledge for quite some time. I was enjoying a philosophy lecture series by Dr. Nash, and while discussing epistemology, he mentioned this book. The book is divided into two parts consisting of a total of twelve chapters. In the first part, Nash provides a case against different religious epistemic systems of the past and present, while in the second part he provides a case for the Christian God being the epistemic foundation for human knowledge.

Chapter 1: Hume's Gap- Divorcing Faith and Knowledge

In Chapter 1 Nash clarifies some misconceptions about David Hume. He explained that Hume's epistemology was not based on an atheistic worldview, but one that held to man's inability to know metaphysical things with any level of certainty. Hume's argument against miracles, was not against miracles happening, but against man having any rational reason for believing that miracles happen. Nash explains that Hume believed that faith was indirectly related to the amount of thinking put into it. In other words, Hume promoted a completely blind faith. He explains that Hume's effect on Christianity (the split between faith and reason) was not from a direct attack on the truth of the worldview, but an attack that emphasized mystery rather than rationality or a balance of the two. Since it was not a direct attack on the truth of Christianity, Christians did not feel the need to defend against Hume's arguments.

Christians Consuming Questionable Media

So many movies and TV shows that promote worldviews that are not inline with Christianity (some blatantly anti-Christian) are coming out these days. I'm a big special effects guy. So any movie or show that will have lots of computer generated graphics tends to lure me. I love to see how accurately the effects are portraying reality. When I see the simulation of physics (movements) and electromagnitism (light) so close to the real world that its difficult to tell the difference, I get really excited. I love to see artistic talent used to imitate reality. I also like to see fictional worlds that contain phenomena that do not exist in reality. The level of design, talent, and time that I see behind this stuff leaves me in awe. I can't help but think of how the Christian worldview is really the only one that can explain the existence of something so arbitrary to survival as creativity, and how that creativity is evidence of the Image of God in every person.