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Ryan Bell’s year of atheism testimony shows need for apologetics

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// This is being re-posted because Bell has now completed his year living as an atheist, and has come out as an atheist, surprising no one.

Are you interested in knowing how to avoid losing your Christian faith? Well, an episode of the Unbelievable show will give you some clues.

But before we go to the podcast, I want to recap some reasons why people think that God exists.

In addition to these arguments for theism, Christians should be able to make a minimal facts case for the resurrection, one that leverages the early creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7. And some sort of case for the belief that Jesus was divine using only the earliest sources.

In addition to those positive evidences, there would be informed defenses to other questions like the problem of evil, the problem of suffering, religious pluralism, the hiddenness of God, materialist conceptions of mind, consciousness and neuroscience, the justice of eternal damnation,sovereignty and free will, the doctrine of the Incarnation, the doctrine of the Trinity, and so on.

I listed these out so that you can see how many of these positive arguments and defenses that he wrestles with in his deconversion testimony.

The podcast

Details:

Ryan J Bell is a former pastor who has decided to try being an atheist for a year. He explains why and interacts with New Zealand apologist Matt Flannagan.

The MP3 file is here. (We only care about the first 45 minutes)

Matt Flanagan and Justin Brierley do a great job in this debate getting the real issues on the table, although you have to wait until about 20 minutes in. Quick note about Bell. He has a BA in Pastoral Ministry, an MDiv, and a doctorate in Missional Organization. Now I have a suspicion of people with a background like that – my view is that they are more likely to be impractical and/or insulated from real life.

I also noticed that his politics are liberal, and that he is featured on the web site of GLAAD, a gay rights organization, for supporting gay marriage. Why do people support same-sex marriage? I think the most common reason is because they care more about the needs of adults than they care about the needs of children for a mother and a father. That’s where this guy is coming from – he is a people-pleaser, not someone who promotes the needs of children over the needs of adults.

Summary:

At the start of the podcast, we learn that Bell was in the Seventh Day Adventist church, which is strongly invested in young-Earth creationism. Depending on how strict his young Earth view was, this closes off many of the best arguments for theism from science, such as the cosmological argument, the cosmic fine-tuning argument, the stellar habitability argument, the galactic habitability argument, the Cambrian explosion argument, and even the origin of life argument (to a degree). These are the arguments that make theism non-negotiable.

When he started his journey to atheism, he says that he was reading a book called “Religion Without God” by Ronald Dworkin.I was curious to see what view of faith was embraced by this book. Would it be the Biblical view of faith, trust based on evidence? Or the atheist view of faith, belief without evidence? I found an excerpt from the book in the New York Times, which said this:

In the special case of value, however, faith means something more, because our convictions about value are emotional commitments as well and, whatever tests of coherence and internal support they survive, they must feel right in an emotional way as well. They must have a grip on one’s whole personality. Theologians often say that religious faith is a sui generis experience of conviction. Rudolf Otto, in his markedly influential book, The Idea of the Holy, called the experience “numinous” and said it was a kind of “faith-knowledge.” I mean to suggest that convictions of value are also complex, sui generis, emotional experiences. As we will see… when scientists confront the unimaginable vastness of space and the astounding complexity of atomic particles they have an emotional reaction that matches Otto’s description surprisingly well. Indeed many of them use the very term “numinous” to describe what they feel. They find the universe awe-inspiring and deserving of a kind of emotional response that at least borders on trembling.

The excerpt quotes William James, who reduces religion to non-rational emotional experiences. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that view of faith is Biblical at all. Biblical faith is rooted in evidence. So clearly, what is important to this Dworkin is not objective evidence, it’s feelings. And this is what Bell was reading. He was not reading academic books like “Debating Christian Theism” to get the best arguments pro-and-con. He was looking for something that “resonated” with his feelings.

His journey was prompted by a female Episcopal priest friend who was asked by an atheist “what difference does religion make in my life?”. So, the framework of his investigation is set by a question that is not focused on truth, but is instead focused on emotions and life enhancement. Now Christianity might be a real stinker of a worldview for life enhancement, and the Bible warns us not to expect a bed of roses in this life. Christianity is not engineered to make you feel good or to make people like you, especially people like female Episcopal priests and GLAAD.

When talking about atheism, he is not concerned with whether atheism is logically consistent or consistent with objective evidence. He is concerned by whether atheists can have the experience of being moral without God. He sees an atheist who has moral preferences and seems like a good person by our arbitrary social standards, and he finds that as “valid” as religion. He is judging worldviews by whether people have their needs met, not by truth.

He says that as a pastor, his method of evangelizing atheists was to encourage them to “try on faith” “go through the motions” “participate in social justice outreach events”, etc. His goal was that they would “step into the stream of the Christian narrative and discover that it held value and meaning to them, and find that they actually believed it”. So his method of recommending Christianity to others has nothing to do with logic, evidence or truth. He is offering Christianity as life enhancement – not knowledge but a “narrative” – a story. If it makes you feel good, and it makes people like you, then you can “believe” it. He says that he was “a Christian by practice, a Christian by tradition”. Not a Christian by truth. Not a Christian by knowledge. He just picked a flavor of ice cream that tasted right to him, one that pleased his parents, friends and community. And now he has new friends and a new community, and he wants to please them and feel good about himself in this new situation.

He says that the Christian worldview is “a way of approaching reality” and “creating meaning” and “identifying meaning in the experiences we have”. And he says that there are “other ways of experiencing meaning”. He talks a lot about his correspondence with people and reading atheists, but nothing about reading Christian scholars who deal with evidence, like William Lane Craig, Stephen C. Meyer or Mike Licona.

Literal, literal quote: (23:35) “Well I think the only access we have to  the question of God’s existence or not is how we feel. I mean there’s no falsifiable data that says God either exists or doesn’t exist. It’s all within the realm of our personal experience”. “If living as though God exists makes you happy and comforts you, then by all means, go for it”. This attitude is so popular in our churches today, and where does it end? In atheism. I had a fundamentalist woman telling me just last night how this feelings mysticism approach was the right approach to faith, and that the head knowledge approach was bad and offensive.

I’m going to cut off my summary there, but the podcast goes on for 45 minutes. Matt Flannagan is brilliant, and went far beyond what I wanted to say to this guy, but in such a winsome way. I recommend listening to the whole thing, and be clear where this fideistic nonsense ends – in atheism.

My thoughts

This podcast is a great warning against two views: 1) faith is belief without evidence and 2) religion not about truth, but about life enhancement. Three other related stories might also help: the story of Dan Barker, the story of Nathan Pratt and the story of Katy Perry. I think the Christian life requires a commitment to truth above all. If you think that you can get by as a Christian relying on hymn singing, church attending, mysticism and emotional experiences, you have another thing coming. This is a different time and a different place than 50 years ago, when that sort of naivete and emotionalism might have been safe. Now we have many challenges – some intellectual and some not. To stand in this environment, it’s going to take a little more than piety and emotions. 

People today are very much looking for religion to meet their needs. And this is not just in terms of internal feelings, but also peer approval and mystical coincidences. They expect God to give them happy feelings. They expect God to give them peer approval. They expect God to make every crazy unBiblical, unwise selfish plan they invent “work out” by miracle. They feel very constrained by planning and moral boundaries, believing in a “God of love” who is primarily concerned with their desires and feelings, not with rules and duties. Nothing in the Bible supports the idea that a relationship with God is for the purpose of making us feel happy and comfortable. When people realize that they will be happier in this life without having to care what God thinks, they will drop their faith, and there are plenty of non-Christians to cheer them on when they do it.

I would say to all of you reading that if the opinions of others causes you to stumble then meditate on the following passage: 1 Cor 4:1-4 too. There is only one person’s opinion that matters, ultimately.

29 thoughts on “Ryan Bell’s year of atheism testimony shows need for apologetics”

  1. SDAs are strange birds anyway. I had a good friend in high school who was one. At least from my experience, they seem to be biblical literalists, and very legalistic at times. They seem to show very little knowledge of hermeutics, exegesis, or textual history, factors that go hand-in-hand with positive philosophical argumentation.

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  2. This is such a great post. Thank you so much for your analysis and commentary.

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  3. Any exposure to Aquinas’ five ways, WK?

    The argument from motion is pretty impressive in it’s deductive power.

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  4. Don’t forget Hector Avalos, who was a child preacher in a fundamentalist, read cultish, Pentecostal church. He’s a virulent anti-theist now.

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      1. I always thought that a fundamentalist (Christian) was someone who subscribed to the core beliefs (fundamentals) of the faith? A creedist, or mere Christian, like WLC? I fail to see why we fundies (:-)) are getting hit by friendly fire here?

        I don’t view this man as anything close to a fundamentalist. I have never actually met a fundamentalist who was liberal in any sense of the word, not even moderately so. We are far and away at the other end of the spectrum – politically and theologically. I would agree that some fundamentalists are anti-apologetic, but after showing them that it is commanded in Scripture, they have always conceded the point. Perhaps it is because the fundies that I hang around with are rocket engineers?

        Someone, please feel free to help me out here. Other than that issue, I really like this post. Thanks, WK!

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        1. Yes, I’m a fundamentalist in terms of being conservative, too, but when I use the word in this post I mean the pejorative sense of not being grounded in reason and evidence.

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          2. OK, I see now. You could have someone who believes in the fundamentals of the Christian faith, who sincerely believes in the good creeds, but who is a “just believe” Christian. He or she believes all of the right stuff, but does not want to have to think about why the things he or she believes are grounded in reason, logic, and, most importantly, evidence.

            So, in that case, their belief system is correct, but they have no reason to prefer such a belief system over Hinduism, Buddhism, a-theism, etc. They just got lucky and placed their (blind) faith into the one worldview that happened to be true. And, that explains why they have no trouble giving it up. They have no foundation. In an evidential sense, they are anti-fundamentalists, but in a Christian creed sense, they are fundies.

            Thank you, guys – that helps a lot. It is so strange to me: I could NEVER have come from a-theism to the Lord without evidence. It took me two years of investigating to get me to even open the Bible – and that was after, not before, my conversion. In fact, it would be another 6 months before I stepped foot into a church.

            I appreciate this article even more now. Thanks for taking the time to educate me. I guess I only had paid attention to apologetic Christians before.

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          4. Please explain why you say that young earth creation closes off these arguments?

            “Depending on how strict his young Earth view was, this closes off many of the best arguments for theism from science, such as the cosmological argument, the cosmic fine-tuning argument, the stellar habitability argument, the galactic habitability argument, the Cambrian explosion argument, and even the origin of life argument “

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          6. @Historicus

            Its not the evidence is in doubt. But their lack of intellectual rigor and dishonesty.

            Your question is best answered by Wintery Knight. I am not the expert to consult on this matter as I am not well acquainted with those arguments

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          7. What do you mean by “dating”?

            Your post appears to be blaming the young earth creationism of the SDA movement for his slide into atheism. If you read Bell’s account, he was more interested in political causes than the Word of God, which is exactly the opposite of young earth creationism.

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          8. I mean dating concerns prevent many yec christians from grounding their belief in a creator in mainstream science, although there are exceptions. If this clown had been exposed to these mainstream science arguments, he would not as easily fallen prey to the pressure to conform to the culture. But in these anti-intellectual denominations, there is often no evidential foundation. Its all fluffy piety from top to bottom, so naturally he is more vulnerable to peer pressure.

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          9. Is it important that beliefs be grounded in mainstream science? Has mainstream science ever been wrong?

            Is there peer pressure to conform to mainstream scientific interpretations of evidence?

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          10. It is important that beliefs be grounded in mainstream science, but not macro-evolution or global warming or other ideologically-driven flat-Earthism, obviously.

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          11. Since mainstream science has been wrong…, it seems more prudent for Christians to build their foundation upon the Word of God, which is never wrong.

            As Christians we should interpret evidence based on what we know to absolutely true. We know what is absolutely true by what has been revealed from God through His Word and His son.

            Instead of yielding to the peer pressure of interpreting the Bible from the “foundation” of mainstream science, let’s put the Bible as the foundation and build from there.

            Having said that, I’ve enjoyed several of your blog posts, and I think that you see most things with clarity. However, I would encourage you to do research on what YEC really says and not join with the atheists in portraying us as a pejorative. There are hundreds of good articles about the assumptions built into the mainstream science dating of the earth.

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          12. Yes, I understand that your approach is an excellent way to evangelize people who are already fundamentalist evangelical Christians who accept inerrancy, but unfortunately, non-Christians do not accept that the Bible is the Word of God, as we do.

            The bigger problem with your pious view of evangelism is that it’s not Biblical. Jesus appealed to the historicity of his resurrection as evidence to authenticate his claims. That doesn’t fit with your view that we should just tell people that the Bible is the Word of God and then ask them to believe it without any evidence. It sounds so good, but it’s just not what Jesus would do. So, we have to think about what Jesus did and not just do things that sounds good to us when we are standing in church trying to one-up other Christians by sounding pious.

            I don’t view all YECs in a negative way. Ken Ham and Kent Hovind I view in a negative way, and I view Paul Nelson and Marcus Ross in a positive way.

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  6. Posted on WSJ Metaxas article.
    http://www.wsj.com/articles/eric-metaxas-science-increasingly-makes-the-case-for-god-1419544568

    Thanks for putting together these articles / links as I found them interesting and helpful

    =======
    The fine tuning argument is just one of many that when looked at in total (much in the way a jury would consider multiple lines of evidence) points to God as Creator versus nothing / chance. I ran across this list which will make for interesting end of year reading for those interested in probing deeper.

    http://bit.ly/1xfo3wn
    The kalam cosmological argument and the Big Bang theory
    The fine-tuning argument
    The origin of life: the building blocks of life
    The origin of life: biological information
    The sudden origin of phyla in the Cambrian explosion
    Galactic habitable zones and circumstellar habitable zones
    Irreducible complexity in molecular machines
    The creative limits of natural selection and random mutation
    Angus Menuge’s ontological argument from reason
    Alvin Plantinga’s epistemological argument from reason
    William Lane Craig’s moral argument
    The unexpected applicability of mathematics to nature
    Arguments and scientific evidence for non-physical minds
    Hat tip to Wintery Knight blog

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    1. Scott, thank you SO MUCH for linking to me in the comments to the WSJ article. We got hundreds of people who came through to read the articles you linked – about 50 per article on average. I hope it helped people to open their eyes.

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  7. Not sure if my comment is going in the right place or not, WK. If not, sorry in advance.

    As a YEC, I use Kalam supported by Big Bang and the BGV Theorem, teleology, pre-Cambrian explosion of life, lack of transitionary forms in the fossil record, etc, almost every week with a-theists. I have yet to have the subject of dating come up. When dealing with a-theists, I am not going to interrupt common ground with that subject. (I have a ton of respect for OEC’s, but I do think that something a bit more profound is going on in the time domain, and I have serious reservations about the dating methods, from a technical standpoint. I also have theological reservations. Nevertheless, I recognize that I could be 100% wrong on this issue.)

    Personally, I do not see how the Big Bang or pre-Cambrian explosion of life are violated in a younger universe. I do not think that the way that Big Bang points to the universe having a beginning (which is all I need for premise 2 of Kalam) is dependent on the date that the Big Bang occurred on. Same thing for pre-Cambrian explosion of life. There is clearly a sudden explosion of life in the fossil record. So what if our dating methods are off – WAY off?!? That does not eliminate this explosion.

    I might also note that I was an OEC when I came to Christ. Requiring an a-theist to believe in a young earth before coming to Christ is similar to requiring them to understand the details of Molinism to do so. It is confusing the steak for the crackers, IMO. Young earth, old earth, whooped-de-do! Only Jesus saves. :-) Why, I wouldn’t even require those a-theists to give up their Star Trek to become Christians! (I put that one in there for you, WK. :-))

    God bless Ya’ll and Happy New Year!!!

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    1. I think your approach is very good. But I also don’t think that this is what YEC leaders like Ken Ham tell people to do. But yes, if I were a YEC, I would take your approach.

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  8. “There is only one person’s opinion that matters, ultimately” what!?!? You’re a Unitarian now?? ;)

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  9. WK, I really appreciate all you do in this blog. Keep up the solid work!
    As a Seventh day Adventist (SDA) let me just say that I use and agree with all the arguments that WK listed as off limits for YECs!
    Most SDAs (of course there are others who are yec, oec, and even theistic evolutionists) follow the “official view” of the church which is an Old Universe and an Old Earth with a young biosphere. I have no problem accepting the Big Bang as part of my cosmogony. I would call myself a young-Life creationist. See this website for more details on how this works out: http://www.sciencesandscriptures.com/SciencesandScripture%28Dr.ArielARoth%29/WELCOME.html
    So all the arguments at the cosmological level AND biological level (as argued by our YEC brother above) can and should be used by SDAs.
    God bless to all.

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