Atheists claim that atheism is the default position that people take. Many atheists use this to bolster their philosophy of methodological naturalism in the sciences. But many Christians deny that atheism is the default position. I tend to agree with the atheist, but only to a point. All people are born with a sin nature that denies God, and specifically the Christian God. Technically, Christianity expects that the default worldview of any human being will be anti-Christian, and atheism falls into this category. So, atheism isone of the default positions of man when it comes to a worldview.
However, the atheist is claiming that naturalism is the true worldview. The default position in naturalism, though, is not atheism, as they believe. The default worldview of a person is relative to the culture in which the individual grows up. If the person grows up in an atheist home, and chooses anything other than atheism as their worldview, they have denied their default position in favor of another (be it Hindu, Islam, Christianity, or whatever). However, if a person grows up in a Christian home and remains a Christian, they have stuck with their default position.
As many are likely aware, in one week, there will be a gathering of atheists in Washington, DC. They have dubbed this the "Reason Rally". The idea is to promote the idea that atheism is more reasonable than religion. However, if you read this blog and other blogs like it (see the sidebar), you are also aware that there are many reasons that people believe Christianity is true, and atheism is not. But are the organizers of this event actually promoting "reason"?
If this rally was going to consist of mainly atheist scientists and philosophers offering their reasons and encouraging Christian peers to critique and engage their reasons, I could understand the title of "Reason Rally". Unfortunately, the organizers are doing no such thing. Instead they have chosen to appeal to improper authorities, resist peer review, and encourage an atmosphere of personal attacks- all pointing toward a deliberate rejection of reason and possibly even an intentional redefinition of the word "reason". This all reminds me of my school days...
Its been quite interesting to see how many atheists there are who believe that objective morality exists. Actually, I would say that the majority believe in objective morality. However, objective morality is inconsistent with the atheist worldview; they don't have a foundation for acting in a "moral" way versus an "immoral" way. I'm not saying that atheists can't be moral; they can. I'm just saying that they can't justify it. Here's why.
Morality implies "oughtness". How something ought to behave. That implies that you understand that that thing (that ought to behave in a certain way) was designed to behave in the expected way. Example: A watch ought to keep time. It is designed to keep time; therefore, it ought to. If it were not designed to do anything, it ought (is expected) to do nothing.
Atheism posits that humans and the universe have no design or purpose, period. Therefore, it must be concluded that atheism has no room for moral (among other types of) "oughtness".
Does "oughtness" flow logically from "design" or "expectation"? The atheist might be able to get away from the conclusion above by claiming "oughtness" just implies an expectation. But I would have to question what they base their "expectation" on. If they want to base it on history (rather than design) then, they must determine which parts of history they want to base the expectation on, and I would ask them why they choose those certain parts of history and not others.
Now, some atheists have tried to explain the foundation for their belief in objective morality by pointing to examples in the world. They argue along the lines of "look at society; obviously, murder is wrong" or "obviously, stealing is wrong". They use examples to prove "why". The problem is examples don't prove "why" something is true; they only prove "that" something is true. Atheists still need to provide a reason "why" they ought to act a certain way.
Once again, I'm not saying that atheists can't be moral. I'm saying there is no objective foundation for determining why a certain behavior is moral or immoral in their worldview.
Not only does Christianity explain "why" objective morality exists (it is the very nature of God), but it explains "how" an atheist can be moral, yet believe something completely opposite.
Something that I was thinking about the other day: some people are familiar with Alvin Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism. Basically it states that because people believe false things that help survivability (such as "god", from the naturalist's perspective), evolution does not favor minds that recognize truth, but minds that recognize how to survive- if a belief just happens to be true, it is pure coincidence.
However, I was contemplating the multiverse (or multiple worlds) hypothesis, and it seems that this only compounds the problem. For those uninitiated, multiverse theory states that our universe is not the only universe there is. There are many other universes that do exist; however, our instruments cannot detect them because they are outside our universe. This theory comes in several flavors, but the one I am talking about is the one that is capable of explaining the fine-tuning and design in the universe, along with being an alternative to God as the "banger" that the cosmological argument requires. In order to account for the fine-tuning of the physical constants of the universe, some naturalists posit that there are an infinite (or near infinite) number of universes, each possessing different constants of physics. Ours just happens to be the one that is amenable to advanced life, and that is why we exist to observe the "fine-tuning".
I have come across several people who have told me that right practice (orthopraxy) is more important than right beliefs (orthodoxy). We're all familiar with the phrase "You can talk the 'talk', but can you walk the 'walk'?" In terms of "orthodoxy" and "orthopraxy" it is, "You may have orthodoxy, but do you have orthpraxy?" These same people interpret this to mean that orthopraxy is more important that orthodoxy. I disagree.
Right Living (Orthopraxy) presupposes Right Thinking (Orthodoxy). How one lives is dependent on how one perceives the world. Perception always precedes action. In order for someone to determine that an action is required (or not), a perception must be made. If a person makes the wrong perception, the wrong action may very well follow. Of course, if the right perception is made, the right action may very well follow also. This is not a definite equation because one still has to make a decision based on, not just one perception but, numerous perceptions; and it may not always be clear which of those perceptions should take precedence over the other(s). To make that determination (action), other perceptions must be invoked.
This post originally published in March of '09. I have added links to similar posts.
Its been quite interesting to see how many atheists there are who believe that objective morality exists. Actually, I would say that the majority believe in objective morality. However, objective morality is inconsistent with the atheist worldview; they don't have a foundation for acting in a "moral" way versus an "immoral" way. I'm not saying that atheists can't be moral; they can. I'm just saying that they can't justify it. Here's why.
Morality implies "oughtness". How something ought to behave. That implies that you understand that that thing (that ought to behave in a certain way) was designed to behave in the expected way. Example: A watch ought to keep time. It is designed to keep time; therefore, it ought to. If it were not designed to do anything, it ought (is expected) to do nothing.
This post was written prior to the news above. Please read it with that context in mind:
Harold Camping made worldwide waves last spring when he started being more vocal about his predictions that the Rapture (return of Christ) would happen on May 21, 2011. As many may already be aware, Camping has a history of making failed predictions on Christ's return and the end of the world. The most recent was May 21, 2011. He claimed that he made some calculations based on scripture and came up with this date. Since nothing of apocalyptic levels happened on that day, Camping has explained how his prediction was still accurate and that the world and all unbelievers will be annihilated on October 21, 2011. You can find Camping's official statement here. In his revised "pre"diction Camping claims that Christ returned to earth spiritually back in May.
Many people like to ask questions, and not just basic questions that get us through day-to-day life, but questions that go beyond our basic routines. Questions that examine who we are, why we are here, from where have we come. Questions that are on all our minds, but many fear to ask. Some are afraid they may discover something they do not like; some are afraid they may offend another's answers to the same questions; some do not believe the questions can be answered with any level of confidence; and some do not believe that such questions are even legitimate to ask. Unfortunately, those fears often prevent people from asking the deeper questions, and they either struggle quietly with them or ignore them altogether.
When confronted with deep questions, we are forced to reexamine what we ultimately believe. Often they cause doubt about what we have held dear and what we have dedicated our lives to. These challenges are difficult to overcome, and many times understanding the reasons why truly wrestling with the deeper questions is preferable to not doing so will go a long way to help us overcome our reluctance to enter the struggle. Today I want to discuss three reasons why it is important that every person questions what they believe.
Several years ago, I was having quite a difficult time reconciling my faith with the findings of modern science. The Bible seemed to say one thing, while scientists said the complete opposite (or at least something that wasn't reconcilable). Unfortunately, I was not aware that the problem was that I was trying to reconcile interpretations rather than the raw facts.
People in the Christian community led me to believe that the doctrine of Biblical Inerrency applied to the interpretations, rather than the raw statements of Scripture. Scientists persuaded me believe that their interpretations of the data could not be questioned, rather than the raw data.
Believing these inaccuracies led me to further to believe that my faith was based on emotion, and science was based on reality- the two could not be reconciled. I was in this state of confusion and conflict for quite a few years.
In the last month or so, I have become more of a "fly on the wall" in different scientific groups on Facebook. It has been interesting to take a break from interaction for a while and simply observe it. Something that I have noticed come up quite often is that many Christians, when debating scientific evidence with skeptics, end up telling the skeptics that they do not accept the evidence based on their presuppositions of atheism. That is bad enough, but what is disturbing is that I have also witnessed Christians say this same thing (presupposition of atheism) to Christians who take a different perspective (specifically on the age of the universe or evolution). (I have been a victim of this myself but did not think much of it until I saw it committed against several other Christians in multiple groups by multiple people.) Included in the attacks on both the skeptic and the fellow Christian is (sometimes explicit and sometimes implicit) the claim that presuppositions cannot be set aside. This leads the attacking Christian to feel justified in cutting off discussion and no longer answering questions or challenges to their view, and consigning the questioner to damnation. Today, I want to address the idea that presuppositions cannot be set aside, for if this is false, then the attacker has a false sense of logical security in their decision to be dismissive in the face of challenges they cannot (or will not) address.
Last year Brian Auten of Apologetics 315 published an Essay Series: Is Christianity True? Many apologetics bloggers contributed to the series. My piece was on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As Christians around the world celebrate Christ's resurrection the event reconciles us to the Father, let's not forget that if, in fact, this did not happen in history, our faith is useless (1 Cor 15), and anyone who does not believe it has no hope (John 14:6).Here is the greatly abbreviated case for the historical resurrection of Jesus Christ, as submitted for the essay series:
Two years ago Brian Auten of Apologetics 315 published an Essay Series: Is Christianity True?
Many apologetics bloggers contributed to the series. My piece was on
the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This weekend as Christians around the world
celebrate Christ's resurrection- the event reconciles us to the Father-
let's not forget that if, in fact, this did not happen in history, our
faith is useless (1 Cor 15), and anyone who does not believe it has no
hope (John 14:6). Here is the greatly abbreviated case for the
historical resurrection of Jesus Christ, as submitted for the essay
series:
I want to take a few minutes to discuss the process of elimination regarding everyday life, science, and philosophy.
As most of you know, I work in the Information Technology (IT) department at my company. The other day I was doing some troubleshooting for one of our graphic artists. She called me and said that her monitor had started flickering. She stated that she thought that there was something wrong with the monitor and wanted it replaced. Just to get this on the table now, I was not thrilled with having to replace this specific monitor. It is one of the more expensive ones in the company.
Starting with that thought, I made a list of the possible causes in my head: cables, video card, specific monitor input (it has two), or software on the PC (that could be any range of possibilities). I begin going through some troubleshooting steps to eliminate the possible causes: I reboot the computer; I check (and replace) the cables; I check a different input on the monitor; I try the other output on the video card; check some settings... None of those fixed the problem.
This post originally published in Jan 2009. I have updated it with more information and links several times since then:
Several years ago, I was having quite a difficult time reconciling my faith with the findings of modern science. The Bible seemed to say one thing, while scientists said the complete opposite (or at least something that wasn't reconcilable). Unfortunately, I was not aware that the problem was that I was trying to reconcile interpretations rather than the raw facts.
People in the Christian community led me to believe that the doctrine of Biblical Inerrency applied to the interpretations, rather than the raw statements of Scripture. Scientists persuaded me believe that their interpretations of the data could not be questioned, rather than the raw data.
Believing these inaccuracies led me to further to believe that my faith was based on emotion, and science was based on reality- the two could not be reconciled. I was in this state of confusion and conflict for quite a few years. Would I give up my Christian faith or believe that everything I observed was really an illusion? If I kept my faith, could I live with the ideas that everything I observed was illusory, and that the God I believed in was either not omniscient or was intentionally deceptive? If I rejected my faith, what purpose do I have, and how could I even ground the idea that what I observed was actually real? I was caught between a life with no purpose and no ground for knowing anything, and another life with purpose given by an untrustworthy God and still no ground for knowing anything. Both were a leap of blind faith and neither sounded very appealing.
As the entire world is probably aware by now, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled in late June 2015 that "marriage" does include same-sex couples. The majority opinion (written and presented by Justice Kennedy) includes the recognition that historically "marriage" has been defined as being a union between two individuals of the opposite sex. The opinion describes three cases that the SCOTUS heard and its reasoning for its conclusion that it was time to redefine "marriage."
As a defender of the Christian worldview, which includes objective value and objective morality, I feel that it is necessary to comment on this highly emotional and political issue. I have read and heard several opinion pieces from various sources (my favorites on linked at the end of this article), and I hope to not be redundant with this article's more philosophical approach to critiquing the ruling. I also hope to provide a reasoned and gracious response that, I pray, will speak to the hearts and minds of those caught in the middle of this battle. I want to start with two important recognitions:
One of the major debates in Christianity is the relationship between God's sovereignty and man's free will. Many people interpret the two to be at odds. Each side believes that the other side will result in compromising some essential doctrine of the faith. I wish I were immune to such a debate, but I'm not. I have found myself in the middle of it; not debating for one side or the other, but trying to figure out which side to go with. Chosen But Free: A Balanced View of God's Sovereignty and Free Will is Norman Geisler's attempt to reconcile the two doctrines.
Chapter 1: Ideas Do Have Consequences
This is the third edition. The book itself is only 188 pages in ten chapters. But in addition is another 149 pages worth of 14 appendices. The first few chapters are quite short. In chapter one, Geisler explains that ideas have consequences and that big ideas have big consequences. He provides a couple examples of the consequences of taking God's sovereignty or man's free will to a logical extreme.
As I have mentioned in a couple posts in the past (here and here), it is important that apologists investigate theological questions and details of the Christian worldview. Without such investigation, inconsistency in the worldview that is being defended will easily creep in. Because consistency is a feature of reality, unbelievers will seize the inconsistency as evidence against Christianity as the true worldview. This can have detrimental effects in public places where honest seekers may be listening to and watching conversations. One of the detailed areas of the Christian worldview that must be consistent is God's character (one area of theology). If God's character is found to be inconsistent with what we are defending, then it serves as evidence that we have something wrong (in part or in whole- see the post Is Your View Falsifiable for more on this). Today, I want to focus on God's moral character, specifically His perfect honesty (Numbers 23:19; Titus 1:2; and Hebrews 6:18).
The Challenge
One of the most contentious debates in the Church today focuses on the age of the universe and the length of the days of creation in Genesis 1. One of the most influential arguments against the young-earth creationist position (YEC) is that if nature reveals an ancient age (~13.7 billion years, as the evidence powerfully [and some would say "only"] supports) yet the universe is actually young (6,000-10,000 years) then God has given us a false revelation in His creation; this means that God is ultimately deceiving us and the truth is not found in Him. If a view of God necessitates that He is lying to us, then the god necessitated by that view is NOT the God of the Bible. And if we defend such a view, we are found to be false witnesses of God and the truth is not found in us. This challenge is not one to be taken lightly and it must be addressed.
Tonight Bill Nye and Ken Ham squared off on the topic "Is Creation a Viable Model for Origins In The Scientific Era?" Promoters of this debate have been promoting it as the "Debate of the Decade" and I had even heard the term "Scopes 2." Because I am a Christian and I disagree with Ken Ham's position on the age of the universe (I agree with Bill Nye, in that regard, but disagree with his worldview in general), it seems that I would be rooting for both or neither in the debate. Since I find that holding an incorrect view of reality (even within the confines of the correct general worldview) is damaging to defenses of the general worldview, I decided to watch this debate and offer my thoughts.
First, I want to state that I found that both participants were very respectful of one another so, it made the exchange easy to watch in that respect. What makes a debate more difficult to watch depends on the participants' ability to stay on topic and defend their contentions against critique. While I think that for the most part, they did stay on topic, there was a mix regarding their defense of particular parts of their contentions.
Introduction
Earlier this week an article made it onto CNN's iReport that has caused quite the furor in the Christian and atheist communities. The piece was originally published as a blog post entitled "Why I Raise My Children Without God." In the post the author explains that she has lied to her kids about what happens when they die and what heaven would be like. She asks why parents should tell their kids things that they don't even believe. She follows that up with seven reasons she believes that teaching children about God is wrong and should not be done.
I want to look at this from both an emotional and logical perspective (in that order). I will respond to all of her complaints and include links to other posts that have more detail. I will conclude by providing Christianity as a viable alternative and how satisfactory answers to those complaints can only be found in Christ.
I urge you to read the post in its entirety before continuing with this post. To prepare yourself to authentically answer the challenges, ask yourself these questions:
Atheists claim that atheism is the default position that people take. Many atheists use this to bolster their philosophy of methodological naturalism in the sciences. But many Christians deny that atheism is the default position. I tend to agree with the atheist, but only to a point. All people are born with a sin nature that denies God, and specifically the Christian God. Technically, Christianity expects that the default worldview of any human being will be anti-Christian, and atheism falls into this category. So, atheism is one of the default positions of man when it comes to a worldview. 
