Tag Archives: Evidence

News

How to defend Christian exclusivism from the challenge of religious pluralism

4 Comments

Recently, I had posted a debate from the Unbelievable radio show, which is broadcast in the UK. The topic of the debate was whether India should pass an anti-conversion law to prevent Christians from trying to convert people to Christianity. Basically, many Hindus in India want Christians to adopt the Hindu notions of polytheism and religious pluralism. They want Christians to accept that Jesus is one incarnation of the divine among many, and they want to outlaw the Christian practice of using speech to convince people to become Christians.

You can listen to the debate here in my original post.

But I wanted to highlight another debate that occurred in the comments of this blog, between me and a Hindu reader, who challenged me for being intolerant because I said that Hinduism was false.

His initial comment is here.

Guys, all religions teach the same things. Its how each religion is interpreted that makes it different. If you follow any religion persistently, it will lead you to a peaceful and happy life.

[…]If one feels happy following Christian rituals, he may follow Christianity; if he feels happy following Hindu rituals, he is good to a Hindu. It all depends on what makes sense to the person. Enforcing or luring someone to another religion is wrong…It should be a personal choice. And no one should oppose a conversion made by personal choice.

[…]To say that someone’s God or method of worship is false or not real is absolute rubbish according to me.

[…]If one says that other’s God or religion is false, he/she is not tolerating the other’s beliefs. And its immoral. Such things lead to religious conflicts.

[…]I believe in Jesus and so in my religion which is Hinduism.

[…]Why convert when a human being’s main aim is to be happy? Every religion has scriptures that tell how to become happy and attain heaven/liberation.

[…]Everyone loves his/her religion. They would not want to hear anything bad about it.

And I replied:

Our view as Christians is that the purpose of religion is not to live a happy life and to be “good”. Our view is that we want to believe what is true and to know God as God really is. We believe that God is a person, with a real personality – likes and dislikes.

What you’re proposing is a Hindu approach to religion, except with Christian symbols and rituals. But Christians don’t care about symbols and rituals much. We are more interested in history, science and propositional logic. We treat religion like… any other area of knowledge. First we discover the truth, then we act on it.

Additionally, you have a Hindu approach to conversion, and you are trying to force that on Christians. You can keep your Hindu approach to yourself, and tolerate the fact that we have a different approach to conversion.

[…]You’re not in a position to know what Christianity teaches, or what Jesus believes, since you haven’t looked into these things at all. You know Hinduism. And you are projecting Hinduism onto other religions. But Hinduism is totally different than Christianity. They conflict in many areas, like cosmology and history. We believe that the universe had a beginning, you think it’s eternal. And science can arbitrate that claim. We are willing to change our beliefs to be in line with what we can test in the external world, using the laws of logic, and the study of science and history.

[…]You write “To say that someone’s God or method of worship is false or not real is absolute rubbish according to me.”, yet you think that Christianity is false, and not real. But I am actually not offended by that at all. You are welcome to think I am wrong. I don’t mind, this is the way that the game plays. Only one of us can be right, and if you were right, I would have to switch over to your view and that would be fine with me.

[…]You write “Everyone loves his/her religion. They would not want to hear anything bad about it.” No that’s your view. You identify Hindusim with India and patriotism and your people and culture. I don’t identify Christianity with anything except truth. I like it because it’s true. And that the only reason I like it.

[…]When I say that Hinduism is false, I am not “talking bad about your religion” any more than I am talking bad about the view that 2 + 2 = 5, when I say that 2 + 2 = 4. It’s not talking bad about an idea to say it is false.

And then he replied:

Do you believe that people who worship idols are devilish or all religions except Christianity are false? If yes then explain me with proper scientific reasoning and provide me a proof in the recent decades that logically explains the above two statements. You need to prove me that what you believe is experimented by scientists and proven by technology.

[…]I believe in all Gods no matter what religion because God is One. For me and this generation of educated Indians, we believe in tolerance and respect for all religions. We believe in co-operating with each other and not pointing flaws in others beliefs until its proven scientifically and attested by scientific authority. And we believe that people’s belief be respected!

Then I replied:

The current best theory of the origin of the universe is called the big bang theory. It states that all the matter, energy, as well as time and space and time, came into being from nothing. It is backed by experimental data from red-shift measurements, cosmic microwave background radiation measurements, and light element abundance measurements, etc. The theory states that the universe began 14.7 billion years ago. Additionally, the universe will not recollapse because measurements of mass density from Maxima and Boomerang show that the universe will expand forever.

The big 3 monotheistic religions agree with the universe coming into being from nothing. Unfortunately, other religions think that the universe is eternal, such as Mormonism and Hinduism. On that basis, I reject Hinduism, which requires that the universe be eternal.

“I believe in all Gods no matter what religion because God is One.” That view (pantheism/polytheism) is called Hinduism. You are a Hindu. Christianity (monotheism) is mutually exclusive with Hinduism, because the teachings are in conflict, (as with the example of cosmology). As a Hindu, you therefore think that Christianity is false. On your definition, you don’t “tolerate” Christianity – you think it’s false. You don’t “respect” Christianity, because you want to force your view (Hinduism) and your view of conversion (don’t tell other people their religion is false) on Christians.

[…]Note: I am ok with you saying that I am wrong and that Christianity is false.

And then we sort of wound things down from there.

Anyway, the point of this exchange is most people in most religions think that the point of religion is to be happy, to have a sense of community and to get along with everyone by never talking about whether religious claims about the external world are true or false. But that view of the purpose of religion is not the Christian view. On the Christian view, the goal is to seek the truth. And part of Christian practice is to defend Christianity in public, and trying to convince other people that Christianity is true.

So, I think that Christians need to be a bit tougher, and recognize when someone who is not a Christian is trying to get them to accept that the purpose of religion is not to seek the truth. That’s their view. That’s not our view. It doesn’t make any sense for someone to say that I am evil for thinking they are wrong, when they are thinking that I am wrong. I think a better way forward is to allow other people to disagree with you, but to keep the disagreement focused on arguments and evidence.

And just because you disagree with someone else, it doesn’t mean you have to be mean to them. In my office, I am friends with Hindus, Muslims, atheists and Jews. We try to outdo one another in good deeds to make our religions look good! And when we debate which religion is true, we use arguments and evidence to attack and defend. What I’ve found is that you get a much stronger friendship when you are comfortable being yourself. I keep telling my co-workers – it’s OK to disagree.

Related posts

Mentoring

Apologetics advocacy

News

Wired Science misleads readers on what Galapagos finches really prove

1 Comment

Here’s the article. (H/T Neil Simpson)

Excerpt:

On one of the Galápagos islands whose finches shaped the theories of a young Charles Darwin, biologists have witnessed that elusive moment when a single species splits in two.

Well, that would be very interesting… if it were true. But whenever I’ve heard these finches mentioned, it turns out that what actually happened is that populations of different kinds of finches increase and decrease in response to changing environmental conditions. No finch’s beak actually changes size! Some finches with beaks more adapted to the environmental conditions survive and leave more offspring than other finches who are not as adapted. When conditions change, the changes in populations reverse themselves and return to equilibrium.

Evolution News explains:

The deeper problem with the Wired Science report is not its perpetuation of the legend of Darwin’s finches, but its false claim that biologists have now “witnessed that elusive moment when a single species splits in two.” This is not what Peter and Rosemary Grant reported in their scientific article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 6

According to the Grants, in 1981 they found an unusually large male medium ground finch (scientific name: G. fortis) on the island of Daphne Major that they labeled 5110. They inferred that it had probably immigrated from the nearby island of Santa Cruz—though they could not be certain. For 28 years, the Grants followed all known descendants of this presumed immigrant, and genetic analysis suggested that after 2002 the descendants of 5110 bred only with each other (and were thus “endogamous”). The inbred group had a distinctive song that may have contributed to its reproductive isolation from other medium ground finches that were in the same area (“sympatric”).

But the Grants did not go so far as to label the inbred descendants a new species. “We treat the endogamous group as an incipient species because it has been reproductively isolated from sympatric G. fortis for three generations and possibly longer.” But an “incipient species” is not the same as a new species. In The Origin of Species, Darwin wrote: “According to my view, varieties are species in the process of formation, or are, as I have called them, incipient species.” 7 But how can we possibly know whether two varieties (or races) are in the process of becoming separate species? Saint Bernards and Chihuahuas are two varieties that cannot interbreed naturally. The Ainu people of northern Japan and the !Kung of southern Africa are separated not only geographically, linguistically, and culturally, but also (for all practical purposes) reproductively. Are dog breeds and human races therefore “incipient species?”

There’s no way we can know, unless we observe varieties becoming separate species at a future date. Designating two reproductively isolated populations “incipient species” is nothing more than a prediction that speciation will eventually occur. It is a far cry from observing the origin of a new species.

Read the rest here. References to peer-reviewed literature are provided.

Mentoring

How I respond to atheists who speculate about unobservable entities

2 Comments

I noticed a new comment to my article explaining how to argue for God from the fine-tuning of the universe.

The commenter wrote this:

Hey, atheist here. Just astounded by your characterisation of the atheist’s response. I’ve never heard any atheist use the argument that humans caused the fine tuning. It doesn’t make sense because humans would still have to exist in some now corrupted timeline where the universe wasn’t fine-tuned.

I have a whole post on my blog dedicated to this topic but I’ll summarise my main arguments.

[SNIP! See below for his 8 points]

Maybe you can integrate these arguments into your post and address them, instead of a straw man?

Mike

This is a pretty good comment, with only a little acceptable snark at the end. I hate it went people write loads and loads of stuff without citing any evidence.

And I wrote this back:

Thanks for your comment. You’ll note that in my piece I cited numerous scientific facts and produced an argument that was logically valid. Now let’s take a look at what you wrote.

And here’s how I replied to his 8 points.

“1. Possibility of a multiverse.”

1) This is a speculation with no scientific evidence. Notice how I appeal to an experimental particle physicist for my conclusion.

“2. Possibility of an oscillating universe”

2) This has been disproved theoretically and observationally. Notice how I cite research papers that do not merely speculate, but are based on observations.

“3. The Vast (to use Dennett’s terminology) majority of the universe does not contain life, so to claim that life is its purpose is merely superimposing your own subjective judgement onto it.

3) This is speculation about God’s motives. You are not in a position to dictate to God how he would have accomplished his goals. If you would like to listen to William Lane Craig speak on these scientific arguments, and listen to Dennett’s LAME response, click here.

“4. Related to 3. Clearly the universe is fine-tuned to make hydrogen, since that is the most abundant substance in the universe. Life seems to be fairly far down in the priorities of the universe. Of course I’m (half) joking, but there is no reason why one natural phenomenon needs a fine tuner any more than any other.”

4) This is speculation about God’s motives. You can feel free to joke about the evidence for and against God. I don’t joke about these issues – I prefer to cite evidence.

“5. The argument flauts its own premises by posing the existence of a creator which doesn’t need a fine-tuned universe. So either the premise is wrong, or we have an infinite regress of fine-tuners.”

5) Fine-tuning is an example of intelligent design such that a selection from a field of possibilities corresponds to an independently specified pattern. I.e. – the subset of functional proteins compared to the set of possible sequences of amino acids. God is not composed of parts so is not fine-tuned.

“6. We have no idea if these constants are even capable of changing. To state that they have been fine tuned without this information is nothing more than speculation.”

6) This is more speculation. Don’t make arguments based on what “we” don’t know. I make arguments based on what we do know. You do the same.

“7. It could be that the state of the universe is unlikely, but not as unlikely as the existence of a fine-tuner. In this case it would just be a big coincidence.”

7) “It could be…” It could be that monkeys will fly out of my butt. Stop speculating about things we cannot know. Let’s see your argument, and the peer-reviewed data to back it up. This is not a game.

“8. Even if the fine-tuning argument were valid, it says nothing about the type of creator that exists, so to go from this deist creator to the Christian God is a huge leap.”

8) The argument is not meant to prove the Christian God. The argument, taken together with a bunch of other scientific arguments, is meant to prove a Creator and Designer of the universe. To prove Christian theism, you make a case for the resurrection and then debate it in public in the university. And then you respond to philosophical objections, such as evil, suffering and the hiddenness of God.

I thought it was a useful example of how to ask people for arguments and evidence, and not take a speculation for an argument.

I find that atheists speculate a lot about unobservable entities in order to escape from good scientific arguments. They speculate about hyper-universes to explain the big bang. They speculate about a multiverse to explain the fine-tuning. They speculate about aliens seeding Earth with life to explain the origin of life. They speculate about as-yet-undiscovered precursor fossils to explain the Cambrian explosion. They speculate about as-yet-undiscovered developmental pathways that use co-option to get around irreducible complexity. And on, and on, and on.

And that suggests to me a question. What sense does it make to build an entire worldview on speculations about things you cannot observe? Or is atheism not about truth, then, but instead about thinking that you are better than other people and throwing off the demands of morality? If the truth is that God exists and that Jesus rose bodily from the dead, then why try to dance around it using speculations? What possible benefit could there be, ultimately, to having blind faith in a religion just to pursue pleasure?

My entire series on how moral values and moral duties cannot be grounded rationally on atheism is here.