Theology and Christian Apologetics Archives | CrossExamined.org

Religion Spoils Everything, Jesus Revives the Spoiled

As I drove back to Colorado Springs from Denver today, the fog was so thick I could barely see the car ahead of me, much less the usual splendor of the Rocky Mountains to the west. I was listening to Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, who made some interesting points about the nature of faith. In the ongoing dialogue between theists and atheists that permeates society today, theists are often said to rely on faith while atheists rely on reason in the formation of their respective worldviews. Yet, such a stark dichotomy is too simplistic and out of touch with reality.

Adherents to both views arrive at their beliefs through a combination of faith and reason. Neither the atheist nor the theist relies solely on reason. Both rely on a component of faith. For that matter, there are very few beliefs any of us hold that do not involve faith to some degree. The simple act of driving through a green light requires faith that nearby drivers who are faced with a red light will actually stop.

Oxford biologist and author Richard Dawkins suggests that religious “faith” is a “virus of the mind.” In his 1991 article entitled “Viruses of the Mind,” he states that, “Like some computer viruses, successful mind viruses will tend to be hard for their victims to detect. If you are a victim of one, the chances are that you won’t know it, and may even vigorously deny it.” So, sufferers of the memetic virus of religious faith may not even know they have been affected by an outside agent.

Conversely, the apostle Paul wrote of non-believers that, “their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ.” (2 Cor. 3:14) According to Christianity, Richard Dawkins may have been similarly blinded; a viral virgin infected by a God who disdains his arrogant air of superiority.

But here’s the rub. It wasn’t the fact that faith exists within all of us that beguiled Dr. Keller; it was how each of us expresses our faith that captured his imagination. Think about it. By virtue of our various worldviews, each of us discovers a sense of belonging. Whether you are a Muslim, a Christian, a Hindu or a Freethinker, you will find other people who share your belief system. You will also soon appreciate that there are many more people who disagree with your beliefs and consider them simply wrong. What is common to all of us is the tendency to marginalize those who don’t believe as we do; to consider ourselves better than those who haven’t been similarly enlightened.

In this sense, we can’t help but agree with Christopher Hitchens. Religion does spoil everything. And he certainly made that point clearly in his debate with Frank Turek. Christopher emoted, “Isn’t it as plain as could be that those who commit the most callous, the most cruel, the most brutal, the most indiscriminate atrocities of all, do so precisely because they believe they have divine permission?” In many cases, we must humbly admit, he is correct. However, wasn’t Pol Pot cruel and indiscriminate? Wasn’t Joseph Stalin callous and brutal? Stalin was also indiscriminate. He copiously murdered people of all religions.

Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, suggests that while these men were indeed atheists, it wasn’t their atheism that drove them to commit such atrocities. Stalin’s atheism may not have led him to murder had it not been that his atheism first led him to marginalize the masses. His atheism led to self-supremacy and the marginalization of others, which in turn led to his genocidal acts. In his Contribution to Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Karl Marx described religion as the “opiate of the masses.” Supremacist thoughts would come easily to someone convinced that everyone else is walking around in a metaphorical drug-induced stupor. When it comes to atrocities, all religions, and even atheism, are in a dead heat.

But why is this so? The bottom line is that people are not led to commit atrocities by either religion or atheism, but rather by the insidious seduction of power and the serpentine invasiveness of pride. These lead to a misguided sense of moral superiority. When an individual of one group sees himself as superior to those of another group – as more deserving, more enlightened, more noble – he is bound to subjugate outsiders mentally, verbally and eventually physically.

This process of self-aggrandizement is fueled to an even greater degree when one’s holy book(s) specifically encourage the mindset of supremacy. Consider the writings of Muhammad in The Koran:

You [true believers in Islamic Monotheism, and real followers of Prophet Muhammad] are the best peoples ever raised up for mankind… And had the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians) believed, it would have been better for them. (Surah 3:110)

Verily, those who disbelieve (in the religion of Islam, the Qur’an, and Prophet Muhammad) from among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians)… will abide in the Fire of Hell. They are the worst of creatures. (Surah 98:6)

Is it any wonder that radical Islam seeks the subjugation of outsiders? Their holy book tells them, in no uncertain terms, they truly are superior.

When religion leads people to view others as lower than themselves, then it does spoil everything. Consider these sentiments from Richard Dawkins in his Preface to The God Delusion:

Being an atheist is nothing to be apologetic about. On the contrary, it is something to be proud of, standing tall to face the far horizon, for atheism nearly always indicates a healthy independence of mind and, indeed, a healthy mind. (The God Delusion, p. 3)

The supremacist leanings of Dawkins’ analogy are rather obvious. Atheists have healthy minds, whereas theists have been infected by a virus that causes a form of psychopathology. Sam Harris, in Letter to a Christian Nation, writes:

While believing strongly, without evidence, is considered a mark of madness or stupidity in any other area of our lives, faith in God still holds immense prestige in our society. (Letter to a Christian Nation, p. 67)

The clear implication in Harris’s words is that “faith in God” should not hold prestige, but rather, should be considered a mark of madness or stupidity. Both Harris and Dawkins project an air of superiority by insinuating that the religious, and especially Christians, are ill, mad or stupid. Some people who claim the title “Christian” may indeed deserve these labels, such as those whom Harris claims sent him hostile emails and letters after the publication of his first book, The End of Faith. Yet, hostility from those who disagree with you is par for the course in this day and age. I, too, have received my share of hostile communications from atheists subsequent to my rebuttal of Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation: Counter Point.

So, it would seem the score is tied. Or is it? We’ve considered the writings of leading atheists and the words of Muhammad, the founder of Islam. But what does Christ himself say? While there are self-professed Christians who hold supremacist views, do they come upon these notions through a reliable study of the Bible? Is supremacy consistent with the teachings of Jesus? Consider His words:

If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? (Matthew 5:39, 43, 44, 47)

Jesus commands His followers to love their enemies. And the apostle Paul encourages Christians to:

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. (1 Peter 3:15, 16)

The dictates of Jesus and Paul, when followed by professing Christians, mitigate against superiority and thoughts of supremacy. Christians the world over, who live consistently with the mandates of Jesus Christ, find a joy and a peace they long to share with others… all others… for they realize that they are recipients of grace and mercy. The recognition that they are no more deserving than the next person of that blessed grace leads them to humbly look upon others as greater than themselves. Religion may indeed spoil everything, but Jesus Christ came to redeem the spoiled.

February 1, 2009/by Jonathan McLatchie

Christian Apologetics: Dr. William Lane Craig Answers Your Questions

Theology and Christian Apologetics

As CrossExamined.org conducts seminars and debates on college campuses, we owe much to Dr. William Lane Craig. Dr. Craig is one of Christianity’s best intellectual defenders. He is the author of several Christian apologetics books and scholarly articles, and has debated topics such as the existence of God, the problem of evil, the reliability of the Bible, and several other questions.

Dr. Craig is now posting answers to difficult questions on his web site. You can find them here (at this writing, there are 63 such questions). You owe it to yourself to learn Christian apologetics from this fine scholar and gentleman.

July 12, 2008/by Frank Turek

Why You OUGHT to Judge

Culture CrossExamined, Theology and Christian Apologetics

This column is a column I wrote for www.TownHall.com today.

At least one lesbian is not happy with me for the case I made last week against same-sex marriage on our TV program. She wrote me this ALL CAPS e-mail with “VERY JUDGEMENTAL” in the subject line:

ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE ME AND I AM A CHRISTIAN LESBIAN AND HAVE BEEN FOR ALMOST 20 YEARS. STOP JUDGING AND MOVE ON!!! I AM SO TIRED OF ALL YOU UPTIGHT, DO RIGHT, SINNERS JUDGING PEOPLE.

I wrote her back asking her why she was judging me for judging. It seemed like a fair question. After all, if I am not to “judge” her, why is it OK for her to judge me? And if she’s a Christian, doesn’t she know that God has already judged homosexual behavior as immoral? I mean, I didn’t make the judgment that homosexual behavior was wrong. God is the standard of morality, not me.

But the main point is that my lesbian pen pal did what most liberals do when they are faced with arguments they don’t like—they misuse Jesus’ apparent command not to “judge” in order to shut you up. So if you oppose their behavior or their attempt to get the nation to endorse their immorality (i.e. same-sex marriage), you’re sure to hear “Thou shalt not judge!”

As with most slogans shouted by the left, the truth is exactly opposite to what they claim. Liberals take the judgment statements of Jesus out of context because they want to avoid any moral condemnation for their own actions, and they don’t want you to notice that they are making judgments too. Let’s take a look at what Jesus actually said:

Do not judge lest you be judged. ? For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? ? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. (Mt. 7:1-5)

Notice Jesus isn’t telling us not to judge—Jesus is telling us how to judge. He actually commands us to take the speck out of our brother’s eye—that involves making a judgment. But he also commands us to stop committing the bigger sins ourselves so we can better help our brother. In other words, when you judge, do so rightly not hypocritically.

Jesus expressed this same idea when he said “stop judging by mere appearances and make a right judgment” (John 7:24). Jesus would never tell us to stop judging– that would be suicide! Just think about how impossible life would be if you didn’t make judgments. You make hundreds, if not thousands, of judgments every day between good and evil, right and wrong, dangerous choices from safe ones. You’d be dead already if you didn’t make judgments.

What does this have to do with politics? Every law is a judgment about what’s best for society. Homosexual activists are making a judgment that same-sex marriage would be the best law for society. It’s a wrong judgment as I’ve argued in this column before (Gay Marriage: Even Liberals Know it’s Bad), but it’s a judgment nonetheless. So in addition to being self-defeating, the belief that we “ought not judge” is completely impractical and even dangerous. Making judgments is unavoidable both personally and politically. If you want to meet a sudden and premature demise, just stop making judgments.

Unfortunately, liberals are propelling our society toward a premature demise by making the disastrous judgment that we ought not make judgments about their behavior. They, of course, can judge our behavior as immoral when we oppose same-sex marriage or the killing of the unborn. But we are not to judge their behavior. This is exactly the kind of hypocrisy that Jesus warned against. The passage they quote actually convicts them!

For folks so concerned about the “separation of church and state,” it’s amazing how fast liberals quote the Bible when they think it helps their case. Don’t let them get away with that. If they believe the Bible when they think it condemns judging (which it doesn’t), then ask them why they don’t believe the Bible when it certainly condemns homosexuality. If they want to use the Bible as their standard, then they will be judged by that same standard.

June 16, 2008/by Frank Turek

Are Atheists really just as Moral as Christians?

1. Does Truth Exist?, Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics, Theology and Christian Apologetics

Are Atheists really just as Moral as Christians?

One of the complaints that I often hear is that “Atheists are just as moral as Christians are”. The response is usually made when I present the Moral Argument. Well I always try to clarify that I never said or meant that atheists ARE immoral, just that they have no rational basis for their morality. And this is partly because we can always argue that expedience is always better, e.g. killing all the weak is actually better for society; stealing when no one will ever find out, will help preserve your genes; lying when you can’t get caught will help you make headway in society (and if YOU are better FOR society than all those other fools, then it will be good for society if YOU get ahead) etc.

On the contrary, Christians say character is based on “What you do when you know that you will never be found out,” regardless of the expediency.

But now suddenly there’s a glitch. Researchers in 4 independent and separate studies have found that conservatives are indeed much more “honest” and “moral” than “progressives.”

In the San Francisco Examiner Commentary – Peter Schweizer claims that “Conservatives are more honest than liberals”. –

He actually phrases it as a question, but the conclusion is that conservatives ARE more honest. (click on the link).

Now as you read it you’ll realize that he’s not talking about atheists or Christians specifically, but if you are out there and are an atheist and not a liberal/progressive, I want to talk to you. I’d be very interested in picking your brain. I don’t run into too many of those (I did once, i.e. a conservative atheist, but he became a Christian within 6 months of me meeting with him on a regular basis and giving him “The Case for Christ”).

As I see it, atheists are a subset of the superset of secular progressives. And while Christians are indeed a subset of conservatives, we all know that they are a majority of them in the United States where these surveys were taken. (Correct me if I am wrong).

Now don’t get me wrong. This doesn’t mean that I will stop trusting my atheist friends. I know them too well. I just had lunch with one of them last week and he’s a guy I’d trust with my life and fortune. I say this lest you think I actually think all atheists are not moral.

But point 1 is that:

It does seem to indicate that there may now be some statistical validity to the fact that if there really is no rational basis for your morality, one tends to be less moral. What say you?

Is this a valid conclusion?

This also lends itself to the second point/question:

If it is true that morality is “good,” for society (and I surmise this from even the atheists’ vehement claim that they are also moral – so presumably morality is a plus for society even in their eyes)
And it is true that conservatives and Christians are much much more moral than atheists and liberals

Does this not mean that the more GENUINE (and I emphasize that on purpose), the more genuine conservatives and Christians we have, the better for ALL of society?

In which case, shouldn’t even atheists encourage the Christians to continue what they are doing (including evangelizing) so they improve society for all of us?

Just wondering. Naturally next week a new study could come out that refutes these 4 studies, but since that hasn’t happened and we are scientists and philosophers that work with the facts that we have at the moment (and not hope for a future “revelation”), if these studies are true what does this mean? I could be wrong but it does seem to imply something along the lines of the two conclusions I’ve argued for.

Neil Mammen

June 6, 2008/by Neil Mammen

The Religion in Science

2. Does God Exist?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

If current Big Bang cosmology is correct (and the evidence is very good that it is) then the entire space-time universe exploded into being out of nothing (see previous posts God and the Astronomers and Who Made God? ). Therefore, the Cause of the universe would seem to have these attributes:

· spaceless because it created space

· timeless because it created time

· immaterial because it created matter

· powerful because it created out of nothing

· intelligent because the creation event and the universe was precisely designed

· personal because it made a choice to convert a state of nothing into something (impersonal forces don’t make choices).

These are the same attributes of the God of the Bible (which is one reason I believe in a the God of the Bible and not a god of mythology like Zeus).

When I’ve posed this conclusion to atheists, many of them responded by claiming that I was speculating—that we really don’t know what caused the universe (see comments on the posts above). This is exactly the kind of response that Agnostic Astronomer Robert Jastrow said is common for atheists who have their own religion—the religion of science. Jastrow, who once sat in Edwin Hubble’s chair at the Mount Wilson Observatory, wrote this:

There is a kind of religion in science . . . every effect must have its cause; there is no First Cause. . . . This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover. When that happens, the scientist has lost control. If he really examined the implications, he would be traumatized. As usual when faced with trauma, the mind reacts by ignoring the implicationsCin science this is known as Arefusing to speculate@Cor trivializing the origin of the world by calling it the Big Bang, as if the Universe were a firecracker.

The implication of the creation of the universe out of nothing is that there is a Cause outside the universe with the attributes listed above. That’s not speculation, but following the evidence where it leads.

May 29, 2008/by Frank Turek

CIA: Your Chance to Make an Impact with Christian Apologetics

1. Does Truth Exist?, 2. Does God Exist?, 3. Are Miracles Possible?, 4. Is the NT True?, College Events, Theology and Christian Apologetics

If you have some expertise in the area of Christian Apologetics, we are looking for instructors to help us take I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist to students and churches around the country. Greg Koukl and Brett Kunkle of Stand to Reason, and Jason Reed of Southern Evangelical Seminary will join me, Frank Turek, in leading the CrossExamined Instructor Academy (CIA), August 13-15 in Charlotte, NC. Hank Hanegraaff, The Bible Answerman, will join us for a special Q and A on Wednesday night August 13. This is a great opportunity for you to make an impact through apologetics. But hurry– the application deadline is June 24. Click here for details.?

May 13, 2008/by Frank Turek

Is the Problem of Evil and Suffering Insurmountable?

2. Does God Exist?, Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics, Theology and Christian Apologetics

So how do Christians respond to this Epicurean question?

Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?”

And especially for Dave the “suffering version of this =:

Either God wants to abolish suffering, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish suffering, and God really wants to do it, why is there suffering in the world?”

{P.S. This was not the blog entry that I’ve been working on. I will post that shortly.}

ALERT: The above blog entry is now posted at: http://crossexamined.thehuntercreative.com/?p=57 Click to go there.

May 5, 2008/by Neil Mammen

Who Really Commits the “God of the Gaps” Fallacy?

2. Does God Exist?, Atheism, Theology and Christian Apologetics

The following is adapted from chapter 6 of I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist:

The God-of-the-Gaps fallacy occurs when someone falsely believes that God caused the event when it really was caused by undiscovered natural phenomena. For example, people used to believe that lightning was caused directly by God. There was a gap in our knowledge of nature, so we attributed the effect to God. Darwinists assert that theists are doing the same thing by claiming that God created the universe and life. Are they correct? No, for a number of reasons.

First, when we conclude that intelligence created the first cell or the human brain, it’s not simply because we lack evidence of a natural explanation; it’s also because we have positive, empirically detectable evidence for an intelligent cause. A message (specified complexity) is empirically detectable. When we detect a message like “Take out the garbage, Mom” or 1,000 encyclopedias we know that it must come from an intelligent being because all of our observational experience tells us that messages come only from intelligent beings. Every time we observe a message, it comes from an intelligent being. We couple this data with the fact that we never observe natural laws creating messages, and we know an intelligent being must be the cause. That’s a valid scientific conclusion based on observation and repetition. It’s not an argument from ignorance, nor is it based on any “gap” in our knowledge.

Second, Intelligent Design scientists are open to both natural and intelligent causes. They are not opposed to continued research into a natural explanation for the first life. They’re simply observing that all known natural explanations fail, and all empirically detectable evidence points to an intelligent Designer.

Now, one can question the wisdom of continuing to look for a natural cause of life. William Dembski, who has published extensive research on Intelligent Design, asks, “When does determination [to find a natural cause] become pigheadedness? . . . How long are we to continue a search before we have the right to give up the search and declare not only that continuing the search is vain but also that the very object of the search is nonexistent?” Consider the implications of Dembski’s question. Should we keep looking for a natural cause for phenomena like Mount Rushmore or messages like “Take out the garbage-Mom”? When is the case closed?

Walter Bradley, a coauthor of the seminal work The Mystery of Life’s Origin, believes A there doesn’t seem to be the potential of finding a [natural explanation] for the origin of life. He added, AI think people who believe that life emerged naturalistically need to have a great deal more faith than people who reasonably infer that there’s an Intelligent Designer.” Regardless of whether or not you think we should keep looking for a natural explanation, the main point is that ID scientists are open to both natural and intelligent causes. It just so happens that an intelligent cause best fits the evidence.

Third, the Intelligent Design conclusion is falsifiable. In other words, ID could be disproven if natural laws were someday discovered to create specified complexity. However, the same cannot be said about the Darwinist position. Darwinists don’t allow falsification of their “creation story” because, as we have described, they don’t allow any other creation story to be considered. Their “science” is not tentative or open to correction; it=s more closed-minded than the most dogmatic church doctrine the Darwinists are so apt to criticize.

Finally, it’s actually the Darwinists who are committing a kind of God-of the-Gaps fallacy. Darwin himself was once accused of considering natural selection “an active power or Deity” (see chapter 4 of Origin of Species). But it seems that natural selection actually is the deity or “God of the Gaps” for the Darwinists of today. When they are totally at a loss for how irreducibly complex, information-rich biological systems came into existence, they simply cover their gap in knowledge by claiming that natural selection, time, and chance did it.

The ability of such a mechanism to create information-rich biological systems runs counter to the observational evidence. Mutations that aren’t neutral are nearly always harmful, and time and chance do the Darwinists no good, as we explained in chapter 5. At best, natural selection may be responsible for minor changes in living species, but it cannot explain the origin of the basic forms of life. You need a living thing to start with for any natural selection to take place. Yet, despite the obvious problems with their mechanism, Darwinists insist that Natural Selection covers any gap in their knowledge. Moreover, they willfully ignore the positive, empirically detectable evidence for an intelligent being. This is not science but the dogma of a secular religion. One could say that Darwinists, like the opponents of Galileo, are letting their religion (or at least their philosophy) overrule scientific observations.

Dr. Frank Turek (D.Min.) is an award-winning author and frequent college speaker who hosts a weekly TV show on DirectTV and a radio program that airs on 186 stations around the nation. His books include I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist and Stealing from God: Why atheists need God to make their case

April 17, 2008/by Guest

Forward this Column or Get Stuck on Stupid

College Events, Theology and Christian Apologetics

Dr. Mike Adams is at it again talking about the work we’re doing here at CrossExamined.org: Forward this Column or Get Stuck on Stupid. Thanks Mike for making Christian Apologetics mainstream!

April 15, 2008/by Frank Turek

God and the Astronomers