Christians and Atheists Seeking the Same Thing?

Christians and Atheists Seeking the Same Thing?

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Evangelical author Skye Jethani makes the insightful observation that some so-called Christians and some atheists have quite a bit in common when it comes to control.  While some atheists (like Hitchens and Dawkins) want control without God, some evangelicals want control over God.  He writes:

“The great irony is that while claiming submission to God, those advocating a life under God are actually seeking control over him through their religiosity. Pray X, sacrifice Y, avoid Z, and God’s blessings are guaranteed. They have reduced God to a predictable, controllable, even contemptible formula. Some evangelicals condemn the atheists for exalting themselves over God without realizing they are guilty of the same sin by other means.”

Tozer said the most important thought you have is the thought you have when you hear the word “God.”  Indeed, many people are worshiping or rejecting a God of their own making.  They have false notions of the one true God–He’s either a finite, moral monster who needs a cause (Dawkins and Hitchens) or a cosmic candyman who owes us if we behave a certain way (the “Word of Faith” believer).  They set up a straw God and then easily knock him over or loose their faith when he falls down and doesn’t come through.  That’s why I often ask people who don’t believe in God, or who are disappointed with God, “What kind of God don’t you believe in?” After they describe their God, the response is often, “I don’t believe in that God either.”

Jethani’s entire article is worth the read here.

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Ethics, a fad?

Recently I posted a book review on “O God” which talks about Oprah’s spirituality. Like most of my apologetics conversations lately, the discussion quickly turned to morality. I find this phenomenon interesting and revealing. Sure, I’m still operating largely on anecdotes and personal experience, but others have attested to my theory.

No, my theory is not that German’s love David Hasselhoff (and they do, or at least some of the old female ones do). My theory is that Atheist’s love to talk about morality.

It’s true! Theists and Christians in particular seem more eager to talk about the Gospel and about sin. But I’m finding more and more atheists wanting to discuss philosophical and scientific approaches to moral systems. Last year I was on the panel for three “God-talks” at UT Arlington, UT Dallas, and Texas A&M where two atheists and two theists discussed the question of God’s existence and the relevance of that question for meaning, morality, origin and destiny. And sure enough, we spent most of the night, at all three venues talking about morality. Intelligent Design was comparatively small, as was the Problem of Evil, and other heavy topics. We instead spent most of our time talking about Objectivist ethics versus Subjectivist or Relativist ethics.

I suspect that atheists are interested in morality for the same reason creationists are interested in carbon dating–this topic could be devastating if you don’t do your homework. Some atheists try to ground ethics in objective moral values. Others bite the bullet and amputate objectivism. Moral relativism however is not an easy option though. If I can take my professor hat off for a moment, I think we have a love-hate relationship with moral relativism. We like parts of it, and dislike part of it. We hate when people are relativistic towards us, but we love to be relativistic towards others. To put it another way, moral relativisism is that girl you date or you’re friends with, but she cheats on you if you marry her. She’s fun to play with for the short-term, but there’s no hope in committment. But kept at arms length one can dance with relativism indefinitely.

Whether one is objectivist or relativist, or something in between, ethics is an inexact science. And digging out the details can take a lifetime. We sometimes have to bite our lip and just admit that some things remain unclear–no matter what side we are on. Some points of debate cannot be clarified very much at all. This means that one can easiy find “weaknesses” in any given system–whatever the sort–because none of these systems achieve the exactitude and precision we expect from math or the natural sciences.

Also, a blog site is not the right way to clarify one’s entire ethical system. But as a concession to those commentors so interested in morality. Below is a revised form of my moral argument for God, which, incidentally is an argument for objectivist ethics. What follows is only an argument, not a fully orbed explanation of Christian ethics.

Chomp away at this. . .

1) Ethics is the stuff of minds (whether minds are properties of brains or immaterial–it does not matter at this point).

2) Nature is not intelligent, does not “intend” or have “purpose”–it operates in non-mind categories. (without a God, it cannot be teleological–ie: have a telos, “end, goal, designed purpose, etc.” this incudes moral purposes/objectives such as virtues, duties, rights, etc.)

3) Yet there seem to exist moral values that non-objectivist systems are at a loss to explain. Negative evidences include: a) the problem of temporal-discrimination (calling slavery “evil” when it was “good” in its time), b) the problem of bi-culturality (people can be members of two conflicting cultures, but all ethic naturalistic systems are incomparable since there is no non-circular grounds of judging between them), c) the problem of the revolutionary (Minority ethical convictions and radicals are always immoral if “good” is a majority opinion), d) the problem of cross-cultural conflict (no culture’s ethics is better than anothers, even Hitler or Mao’s), e) the problem of subjectivism (no one can call anything anyone else does “evil” unless that person defies his/her own ethical system–even if their system is reprehensible), f) the problem of ignorance (even if many or most ethical values are subjective, there still may be objective values yet undiscovered or masked as relative values), Positive evidences include: a) Moral values are experienced by everyone reading this, b) Morality is a cultural universal, c) Our experience of morality is that there are binding rules that we should obey and others should obey even if they never get caught and even if they enjoy the contrary, d) at least some points of morality are not reducible to simple altruism and the Golden rule, e) Morality is a temporal universal (has occurred throughout time), f) our morality becomes objectivist when we are the victim.

4) but if ethics is at all objective (even in part), then the naturalistic fallacy prevents any natural grounding for ethics–ie: in human minds, or in the rest of nature. The naturalistic fallacy, also called the “Is-ought” fallacy suggests that there is some kind of circular or presumptive reasoning whenever a person argues from (non-teleological) nature that a moral ought follows from it. In other words, nature just is or is not. It knows nothing of what “ought” to be.

5) Binding moral values, which exists, requires a grounds for their existence.

6) Binding moral values then have at least some basis outside of nature.

7) This basis must be a mind sufficient to ground objectively binding moral values within our world.

8 ) By the law of conservation (ie: Ockham’s Razor) we need not postulate more than one supernatural mind to ground said ethics, unless the data set demands it.

9) We (the Christian and the Atheist) can agree from our own observations and reasoning that no other God is needed to ground ethics–so polytheism, pantheism, panentheism, deism, animism, henotheism, finite Godism, are unwarranted insertions (we just disagree over whether A God is needed at all to ground ethics).

[10) Goodness is better explained as an attribute of God than as a command of God (since the latter would be undermined by the euthyphro dilemma).]–this is a side note for Divine Command Theorist reading this.

11) Therefore I know God is good because [see #1-10].

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"O God"-Effectively Critiques Oprah-ology.

In the new book “O” God: A Dialogue on Truth and Oprah’s Spirituality. (CA: WND, 2009; 128pg) renowned Christian apologist Josh McDowell and up-and-comer Dave Sterrett offer a brief popular level critique of Oprah Winfrey’s growing and influential religion.To keep the reading light the authors present their apologetic in a story-form dialogue between a young divorced grad-student Lindsey and her PhD friend, a newly converted Christian and former yoga teacher, Avatari. As these two 30 year olds discuss their lives and issues they bat around tenets of Oprah-ology. Naturally, Oprah’s spiritual mentors like Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra surface too. Both friends watch the Oprah show and read “O” Magazine, but Lindsey and Avatari disagree over the “truth” therein. The end result is that Avatari uses apologetics to share her faith with Lindsey, who in turn shares her new found faith with her mother. In the course of this drama the authors progressively unravel the paper-thin veneer of Christian lingo on Oprah’s spirituality then dissect the remaining new-age mysticism underneath.

This book is clearly apologetic, intending to educate and dissuade the reading from Oprah’s spirituality. Key points include arguments for Christian exclusivism (ch1,4), absolute truth (ch5), theism (ch7), the historic Jesus (ch9), the reliability of the New Testament (pg95), and resurrection (ch10), a rebuttal of pantheism (ch7, pg73), notes on the problem of blind faith (pg98), a defense of the moral argument for God (pg86), and a critique of the New Thought, “think-yourself-well” movement (ch6). This book is a great introduction into cultural apologetics. It is accessible, simple, readable and still surprisingly meaty. O God is utterly relevant in culture because it sets its sights on the queen of American culture Oprah Winfrey together with her heir apparent, New Age spirituality. As it turns out, New Age is hardly an heir, but rather a Hindu-esque fog of pantheism. McDowell and Starrett keep the page count down, the plot-line simple, the topics clear, and the overall readability up. A discussion guide is also included should the reader want to incorporate this material into a church study group, home group, or religion class.

As an apologist myself, this book is a helpful addition to my library on Cults, World Religions and Alternative Spirituality. Oprah-ology is nothing new, to those who have studied about pantheism and eastern religions. But this book may surprise people who thought of Oprah as a good Christian girl. Before this book I did not know how non-Christian Oprah’s religion was, nor how openly she admits to anti-Christian beliefs. Oprah is a new-thought, religious pluralist who denies absolute truth, Christian theism, sin, hell, and the Trinity. This book however is not a critique of Oprah—God bless whatever good she offers to the world—but rather a focused response to her skewed beliefs, which take her out of classical Christianity. But neither does O God stop at critiqueing Oprah-ology. O God is evangelistic, tying together rebuttal with affirmation, countering pantheism with Christian theism, finally offering an apologetically polished uniquely beautiful Christian gospel. This book deserves commendation for “calling it like it is.” In a hazy world of gray shades and fuzzy borders, when people turn up sick from moral ambiguity and spiritual banality, O God shines a refreshing bright light while sharpening the surgeon’s scalpel. Soul surgery can now take place.

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The Birch Tree Challenge

I’ve issued a challenge at Plumb Bob Blog, my political/social blog, to progressives and atheists to see which of them can answer cogently. I’m giving away the secret up front: this is about the semantic contortion that leads them to call long-term cohabiting between gays “marriage,” and insist on marital rights and appurtenances that apply thereto. I will describe the challenge here, but for the sake of keeping the discussion in one place ask you to comment over there.

I want you to form an argument that (1) explains why you oppose what I’m about to propose, but (2) cannot immediately be offered back as an argument against gay “marriage” rights.

Any answer that contains an insult will be deleted out of hand, and I will not let the author know. I reserve the right to determine what constitutes an insult.

Here’s the challenge:

I want to marry the birch tree in my front yard. I love it dearly, it has faithfully provided me shade for decades. I want to marry it legally, and I want all the financial and social advantages that appertain to marriage. The Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees equal protection under the laws; the law of my state does not permit me to marry the birch tree the way others marry their spouse of choice, so my Fourteenth Amendment rights have been violated.

Why should I not be granted the right under the law to marry my birch tree?

The challenge is on. I pre-empt two possible answers at the blog, and supply a helpful image of the beloved birch, so again, come on over and take your best shot.

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