Tag Archives: David Robertson

Podcasts

The Antagonist Atheist debates pastor David Robertson on the New Atheism

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This is a must-hear podcast from Justin Brierley and the Unbelievable radio show. (H/T Dina)

Details:

Mike Lee aka “The Religious Antagonist” is a US atheist who makes YouTube videos mocking Christianity. His videos are popular but his approach earns him both praise and criticism from fellow atheists. David Robertson is Pastor of St Peter’s Free Church, Dundee and director of the Solas Centre for Public Christianity. He often interacts with atheists online and has earned himself the title “the wee flea” for his provocative interactions on the Dawkins website. David and Mike debate whether Mike’s approach is a helpful one. David accuses Mike of emotional atheism and an incoherent view of Christianity. Mike says mocking Christianity is the best way of policing its power in the US.

The MP3 file is here.

Justin Brierley does a great job of moderating this one. If you like the debates with Lawrence Krauss and Peter Atkins, you will LOVE this debate. The debate is 60 minutes long and worth every minute. This debate is suitable for complete beginners to apologetics.

SUMMARY:

Atheist:
– hypocrisy caused him to become an atheist
– why he takes the “antagonistic” approach to atheistic evangelism
– the antagonistic approach is emotionally driven
– the antagonistic approach is not driven by science or evidence

Theist:
– should we be concerned that antagonism provokes violence?

Atheist:
– no the antagonist approach is valid

Moderator:
– what about the video where you ask the homeless man to deny God for $20?

Atheist:
– that’s to show how stupid Christians are that they don’t deny God for money

Theist:
– do you really think it is stupid to deny God for $20?

Atheist:
– it’s common sense for Christians to deny God for $20

Theist:
– so the common sense approach to life is to accept money to insult God?

Atheist:
– anyone who doesn’t take money to insult God is uneducated and ignorant

Theist:
– isn’t there someone who you would refuse to insult for $20

Atheist:
– i would do anything – ANYTHING – that is legal in order to get $20

Theist:
– holy snark

Moderator:
– do you think that your video makes atheism look good?
– do you think that maybe you were udnermining their humanity?

Atheist:
– I didn’t mean to appear smug by insulting poor peopel for not blaspheming God
– it’s stupid to put your relationship with God ahead of your own happiness
– wouldn’t you two insult God for $20?

Theist:
– I would not insult God for a million dollars
– there is more to life than money and the things that money can buy
– the earliest christians were willing to go to their deaths to stay faithful to god
– they refused to confess allegiance to the emperor of rome to save their own lives
– there is a crassness to modern society such that we value money over honor and self-respect

=== BREAK ===

Theist:
– yes there is hypocrisy on the Christian side
– is there any hypocrisy on the atheistic side?

Atheist:
– yes there is hypocrisy on the atheist side

Theist:
– if hypocrisy is ground for rejecting Christianity, then why not reject atheism

Atheist:
– well you can’t compare Christianity and atheism that way

Theist:
– why not? they are both worldviews

Atheist:
– Atheism is just a philosophy not a religion

Theist:
– are you antagonistic to all religions?

Atheist:
– only to religions that have power in the public square

Theist:
– so do you also oppose groups that

Athist:
– only groups that use power that attack human rights?

Theist:
– what are those?

Atheist:
– treat others as you would like to be treated
– we all have a human right not to be judged by others as unequal

Theist:
– well you mock others, would you like it if they mocked you

Atheist:
– yes mocking is a great weapon against preposterous ideas
– it’s good to laugh at others who you disagree with

Theist:
– what about laughing at other ethinic groups and races, is that OK?

Atheist:
– no that’s not OK

Theist:
– so it’s ok to mock Christians, but not ok to mock other religions or races

Atheist:
– it’s not ok to blacks, jews or gays because they are all born that way

Theist:
– why did you quote Jesus as the authority on human rights?

Atheist:
– I wish Christians would act more like Jesus

Theist:
– you mean the Jesus who preaches on Hell and the radical self-sacrifice on the sermon on the mount

Atheist:
– Jesus didn’t really say that mean stuff just the nice stuff

=== SKIPPING ===

Moderator:
– do you think that making fun of people is going to make people change their minds

Atheist:
– well you have to subsitute insults for arguments when you are in the minority
– i am acting heroically when I insult people and laugh at them – it’s a civil rights movement

Moderator:
– what about Martin Luther King? he was in the minority and didn’t insult people

Atheist:
– well I agree with his views on equality, but not the religious underpinings of those views

Theist:
– but his views on equality are grounded in hist Christian worldview

Atheist:
– atheism works best when it is kept at the emotional level
– atheism is better when you speak at the level of the average person, not at the PhD level

Theist:
– you say that atheism doesn’t claim to have the answers
– but people like Dawkins do claim to know how we got here

Atheist:
– well if tomorrow, Christianity were proved true, all atheists would convert
– but if tomorrow, the Big Bang theory were proved true, then Christians would not convert

Theist:
– the Big Bang theory supports the Christian version of origins not atheism
– atheists would absolutely not convert if they found out Christianity is true
– you admitted that atheism is largely driven by emotion
– atheists would not respond to overwhelming evidence if it appeared

Moderator:
– didn’t Christopher Hitchens say that even if he met God face to face he would reject him?
– atheists wouldn’t follow God even if they met him because he represents authority and they don’t want authority

Atheist:
– if God does exist, then I doubt he’s really worth worshiping
– God is the biggest jerk in the universe
– God’s job is to make us all have happy feelings no matter what we do and he’s failing at that
– God’s job is to make the world safe enough for us to ignore him and he’s failing at that
– Heaven is OK if it means being able to drink (alcohol) with your friends and hanging out with people you like
– Hell is OK if “the bad people” end up there

Moderator:
– but what if Heaven is populated by bad people who said yes to Jesus, would you still want to go then?

Atheist:
– that’s one of the things that is wrong with God, that he forgives people who do bad things
– it makes no sense that people who accept God and repent after doing really bad things should go to Heaven
– it makes no sense that people like Christopher Hitchens who spit on God and his moral law should go to Hell

Theist:
–  how can you talk about concepts of justice and goodness as if they are real, on atheism?
– on your view, you have no standing to make judgments about good, evil and justice
– on atheism, good and evil are just arbitrary constructs that vary by place and time between various groups of people
– do you think that objective morality exists – that there are things that are right and wrong?

Atheist:
– i don’t believe  in objective morality, I believe in social construct morality that we define

Theist:
– how can you say that anything is right or wrong if those concepts are arbitrary

Atheist:
– well some things in the Bible are wrong like X and Y

Theist:
– the Bible doesn’t actually say X or say Y
– but you can’t even judge that the Bible is wrong on anything unless you admit there is a real right and wrong
– even Richard Dawkins says that on atheist there “no evil and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference”
– when you make judgments as an atheist, you are saying that your opinions are the standard  that everyone else is accountable to
– that is extraordinarily arrogant

== And so on ==

 

 

Podcasts

Debate on whether atheists can be good without God

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A great debate on whether atheists can make any sense of morality without God grounding objective moral standards. This one should be very good for atheists to listen to.

The MP3 file is here.

This is part two of last week’s discussion about the RichardDawkins.net atheist who converted. Listen to that part first if you want.

I feel a bit bad about this because it is clear that one factor that works to convert people to Christianity is that Christians can exhibit self-sacrificial love to others and atheists are basically at the mercy of their own selfishness. They just cannot behave morally when it goes against their self-interest, and that is SAD. Anyway, I felt badly because I began to worry about whether I have been as loving as possible while explaining Christianity to others.

Here is my entire series of posts explaining why self-sacrificial morality is not rational, if atheism is true.

On a related topic, I think Christians can also distinguish themselves from atheists and other religions in the way that men and women relate romantically. In Christianity, there is the tradition of chivalry, courtship and romantic love. The Christian Bible requires that husbands love their wives to the point of dying for them. This is lacking Islamic cultures, and not required in Hindu cultures.

But this lack of romantic love is also a problem in the feminist West, where women eschew chastity, marriage and children. Instead, women here have empowered the state to act as a replacement for husbands/fathers. The more that the state does for women, the less a really good man can distinguish himself and make himself useful. Men don’t like to share responsibilities with the state.

My most popular posts on that issue are here:

Something to think about.

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Podcasts

What caused an atheist on RichardDawkins.net to become a Christian?

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Here is a very interesting dialog featuring a pastor, an ex-atheist and a fundamentalist atheist. (H/T Two or Three)

Here is the MP3 file.

Check out a summary from Two or Three.

Excerpt:

But what made him convert?  Two things.  First, Robertson asked him two simple questions.  Why are you an atheist?  What would it take to convince you that God is real?  Morgan, who was used to philosophical arguments rather than more personal, emotional arguments, was taken aback.  He realized that he was not open to actually being convinced otherwise.  Second, he remembered the following scripture, which led to his conversion experience, an experience of love which made him a believer:

1 John 4:19
We love Him because He first loved us.

This conversion, and discussion in the interview, bring out a few interesting things that Christians might want to observe in their outreach:

  1. We should pray before posting responses when arguing with unbelievers
  2. Often, simple repetition of the truth of God’s love go around philosophical barriers that opponents have in their mind
  3. We must engage respectfully and kindly (argh!) and consistently
  4. The *experience* of God in genuine conversion is critical

This show was extremely interesting and helpful for understanding how atheists think, and why they become atheists. Don’t forget the testimony of former atheist A. N. Wilson that I wrote about before.