More Proof that Ideas Have Consequences

One thing that I will agree with atheist Christopher Hitchens on is that acting on wrong ideas and philosophies can have tragic consequences. While Hitchens tries to (wrongly) pin the world’s ills on religion, his own philosophy – atheism – is claiming victims right and left, and somtimes in tragic ways when the individual in question thinks through the mechanics of the atheistic faith to its nihilistic conclusions.

One recent example is Jesse Kilgor, a young guy who was raised in a Christian home and someone who was described as smart, articulate, and quick to engage others in thoughtful conversations. Jesse went off to college and encountered a biology teacher who recommended he read Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion. Jesse did. What followed was a spiral that ended up with Jesse taking his own life because he believed Dawkins’ claims about the non-existence of God. You can listen to the full story here.

Obviously, there are many things that bother me about this, but one I keep thinking about: was there no person close to Jesse who could help him intellectually get through the many errors in Dawkins’ arguments about God? No one? Not his pastor, campus minister, anyone?

So many times I get pushback from other Christians on educating the Church on apologetic topics so it can stand ready to help folks like Jesse when the need arises. Instead, I get talk about needing to get people to make friends with one another, serve in areas of the church, etc. The fact is, the church is simply lazy and has evicted the intellect from the Christian faith. The sting of the writer in Hebrews hits home today more than ever: "it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food."(Hebrews 5:11-12)

Could you have helped Jesse overcome the weak arguments that Dawkins and other militant atheists have against God? If he had come to you for help, would you have been able to get him beyond the lies that ultimately led to his death? If not, then do you care enough today to start equipping yourself to live out 1 Peter 3:15: "but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence”

I hope so. Folks like Jesse need you.

Penn on sharing your faith

While I certainly don't agree with Penn Jillette's atheism (see my post against Penn and Teller's episode on the 'Bible is bull$%^&'), I have to say that I have a lot of respect for what he says in the very short video posted below. Evidently, a Christian spoke to him after one of his shows and handed him a Bible. Far from being offended and angry (as our pluralistic culture says you should be - how dare a person try and convince another of their faith?!), Penn has very flattering words for the man in the video and makes some spot-on observations about proselytizing what you believe. I wish every Christian would adhere to what he says.

If I truly believe what I believe - and especially believe that tragic consequences await those who don't embrace the truth that I do - then I should tell everyone I encounter who doesn't share my position.

Give it a listen:

‘Probably’ No God?

Sadly, I haven’t been able to post in a while due to other commitments, although there’s been no lack of material to respond to these days. One of the most ‘interesting’ happenings of late has been the posting of new atheist ads in Britain, following on the heels of the whybelieveinagod.org crowd who put ads up in the US (see my response to them here.) The ads – funded partially by militant atheist Richard Dawkins – read “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Just a short statement, but respectfully I’d say there is a lot of error in it.

First, the term ‘probably’ doesn’t exude much confidence to me. How anxiety free would you feel if your doctor said to you after just having run some tests, “You probably don’t have cancer.” Or how about if you were just about to join a new company, and after shaking hands on the deal, the boss said, “You probably will get a paycheck.” ‘Probably’ isn’t a word that puts people at ease, but that’s what the atheist ads are supposed to do. Al Mohler has a good commentary on this line of thinking here.

The atheists actually expose themselves as agnostics. “A” – no – “theist” god - says “no god”, but they can’t intellectually make that claim because to do so would mean they’d have to have absolute knowledge and/or be everywhere at the same time to ensure God isn’t in another galaxy or something similar. So they actually take on two of God’s attributes – omniscience and omnipresence – to make their claim.

Agnostics can come in two varieties – either they say you can’t know the truth or you don’t know the truth. The first – hard agnosticism – is untenable because to say “you can’t know the truth” is self-defeating: you’re claiming to know a truth (that you can’t know truth). The second – soft agnosticism – is completely acceptable intellectually: I don’t know if God exists.

Their follow up phrase “Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” demonstrates (a) their wrong view of God, and (b) a philosophical mess that needs attention.

The wrong view of God – one who is a tyrant and angry and everyone everywhere - is typical of atheist teaching, with Dawkins himself being a shining example of someone who propounds the error. The Greek philosopher Epicurus was a forerunner in this mindset and taught that two thoughts must be eliminated in man: the fear of God and the fear of death – these two things are what man fears most. Epicurus taught that the goal in life was lasting pleasure and that at death, a person’s atoms simply dissolve and that’s it – no pain, no expectation of judgment, just cessation of life. In this respect, the Britain bus ads take their cue directly from Epicurus.

But it goes deeper than that. Dawkins’ misrepresentation and disdain of God are clearly evident in the ads’ statements. Of God, he writes, “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

If that’s true, then who wouldn’t be terrified of Him? This, however, is not the case, and I refute Dawkins’ wrong portrayal of God in this presentation.

Simply put, the Bible doesn’t say that the brutality of God leads us to repentance and a restored relationship (one that we broke off) – instead it says that the kindness of God leads us to repentance (Rom. 2:4). They also fail to see that in Jesus Christ, God has given us a living, breathing representation of Himself (“For God, who said, " Light shall shine out of darkness," is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” – 2 Cor. 4:6) and I challenge any atheist to provide me a list of the traits they dislike about Jesus as revealed in the Bible.

Second, once you hold God’s funeral as the atheist (or better, agnostic) does, then you have quite an interesting philosophical mess to deal with. Simple things – like being able to distinguish between good and evil – vanish. Think not? Here’s Dawkins again: “Humans have always wondered about the meaning of life...life has no higher purpose than to perpetuate the survival of DNA...life has no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference” (River out of Eden).

Most will recoil at such a thought, but Dawkins has at least followed his philosophy through to its logical end. You see, as C. S. Lewis wrote, you can’t recognize a crooked line unless you know what a straight line looks like. Or, to put it more complexly: If there’s such a thing as evil, you assume there’s such a thing as good. If you assume there’s such a thing as good, you assume there’s such a thing as an absolute and unchanging moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil. If you assume there’s such a thing as an absolute moral law, you must posit an absolute moral law giver, but that would be God – the one whom the atheist is trying to disprove. So now rewind: if there’s not a moral law giver, there’s no moral law. If there’s no moral law, there’s no good. If there’s no good, there’s no evil. Mess #1 to clean up.

Mess #2: As Malcolm Muggeridge the famed English journalist said: when you kill God, someone will have to take his place. This is usually a man or group of men who begin to rule in a sovereign and dictatorial way. Far from providing comfort and anxiety-free living, this fact brings with it much fear and trepidation – one only need look at the statistics from the atheistic regimes such as Stalin, Mao, and others to see the tragic casualties strewn across history from when this happens.

Not only does man become God, but the body becomes the soul and time becomes eternity. Since, without God, pure naturalism only offers death at the end, you have no soul, just a body that’s only temporal. And there’s no eternity – this life is all you have, and further - any hope of seeing loved ones who have died, and of justice finding those who left this life with no punishment received for their crimes is gone. Jean Paul Sarte was right about one thing: whether it’s a day or decade, life doesn’t matter much once you’ve lost eternity, which is why he characterized life as an empty bubble floating on the sea of nothingness. Quite attractive, eh?

So, far from providing a sense of peace and fulfillment, the atheist bus ads bring exactly the opposite. In fact, I start worrying and become anxious when I think that God ‘probably’ doesn’t exist.

But here’s the good news – despite what the militant atheists like Dawkins say, and even honest agnostics who say they’re unsure if God exists – you can indeed know that a Creator God exists. He’s made this plain through what is called ‘general revelation’ – the world He created and His gifts of truth, logic, and reason that are given to every person. For more information on this, see my responses to a couple of questions on gotquestions.org that ask whether you can know God here and here.

And further, you can also know God’s true nature and His love for you through his ‘special revelation’ – His Word and His Son, both of which detail the meaning and purpose He has for your life and the plan He has made for you to enjoy life as it was meant to be.

‘Probably’ no God? No, there is a God and further, it is not arrogant to claim that you know this to be true. This fact, far from bringing fear or worry into a person’s life, instead can ground them and provide them with truth, meaning, and purpose, instead of the doubt, meaninglessness, and lack of purpose which is the offer atheism extends.

This being the case, here's my modified version of Dawkin's bus ad: