Tag Archives: Philosophy of Religion

Mentoring

What are some popular philosophical objections to Christian theism?

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Since we’ve been looking at history and science so much recently, I decided to list some philosophical objections to Christian theism.

Here are a few of the most common objections:

Let me just comment on the first two briefly.

First, the problem of evil. You should definitely start by making the atheist define what evil is, ontologically. This is, of course, impossible on an atheistic worldview, since there is no such thing as an objective moral standard or objective moral duties, on atheism. On atheism, there are only two possible sources of moral values and moral duties: 1) individual personal preferences and 2) arbitrary cultural conventions. Neither of these is adequate to ground a robust notion of evil.

Second, for the problem of suffering. People today are pretty sure that God, if he exists at all, would want humans to make themselves happy in any way that they want. This is, of course, a pretty self-serving concept of God. The purpose of life on Christian theism is to know God, and suffering may be necessary to help us do that. Even Jesus suffered. My own view is that suffering is necessary to cause people to desire God more than they desire earthly happiness and comforts.

Third, the hiddenness of God. Check if your objector is already familiar with the standard scientific arguments for the existence of a Creator and Designer, as well as the minimal facts case for the resurrection. There is a lot of evidence available, but it takes a little digging to find it. God is not interested in coercing people’s will by dazzling displays of his power. He is interested in having a relationship with people who are interested in him, and that means people must seek him.

You can find some less common or less interesting objections in my list of arguments for and against Christian theism.

Videos

Peter Atkins explains how to easily reconcile the Big Bang and atheism

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It’s easy! Just watch the video of his debate with William Lane Craig, who responds to Atkins’ explanation.

So, just who is this Peter Atkins, and why is he a good spokesman for atheism?

From his Wikipedia bio.

Peter William Atkins (born August 10, 1940) is an English chemist and a fellow and professor of chemistry at Lincoln College of the University of Oxford. He is a prolific writer of popular chemistry textbooks, including Physical Chemistry, 8th ed. (with Julio de Paula of Haverford College), Inorganic Chemistry, and Molecular Quantum Mechanics, 4th ed. Atkins is also the author of a number of science books for the general public, including Atkins’ Molecules and Galileo’s Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science.

[…]Atkins is a well-known atheist and supporter of many of Richard Dawkins’ ideas. He has written and spoken on issues of humanism, atheism, and what he sees as the incompatibility between science and religion. According to Atkins, whereas religion scorns the power of human comprehension, science respects it.

[…]He was the first Senior Member for the Oxford Secular Society and an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of The Reason Project, a US-based charitable foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. The organisation is led by fellow atheist and author Sam Harris.

Peter Atkins thinks that nothing exists. He thinks he doesn’t exist. He thinks that you don’t exist.

If you watch the debate in full, he also argues that objective morality doesn’t exist, and that moral values and moral obligations are illusory. That’s right: atheists cannot even make rational statements about morality because there is no such thing as an objective moral standard. This is in addition to denying the science of the creation out of nothing.

You can watch the whole debate here, posted by ChristianJR4.

And now you know why atheists like Richard Dawkins run away from debates with Christians like Stephen C. Meyer and William Lane Craig. Because he’s an atheist, and it is very difficult to defend atheism, on the merits. Atheism’s appeal is entirely psychological, not rational.

Consider this quote from an honest, respectable atheist philosopher named Thomas Nagel:

“In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper–namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers.

I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”
(”The Last Word” by Thomas Nagel, Oxford University Press: 1997)

People embrace atheism for entirely psychological reasons, not on the basis of arguments and evidence. If they had the arguments and evidence, then they wouldn’t run from debates like Richard Dawkins does.

Mentoring

Does being a nice person make your religious beliefs true?

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I used to really enjoy listening to Dennis Prager and Michael Medved back when I wasn’t writing all the time. And one of the things I noticed about these two famous Jewish radio talk show hosts is that they believed that the test of whether a religion is true is whether it results in good behavior.

I agree with Dennis and Michael on many topics, but not on this topic. When it comes to religious epistemology, I am solely and completely concerned with only one question. Is it true?

The Pugnacious Irishman posted recently on this topic of whether 1) subjective experiences and “good” works, or 2) correspondence to reality, should be the standard for choosing a religion.

He writes:

For Christian public school teachers, the most interesting opportunities happen in the staff lounge at lunch.

As I sat down to eat lunch on Friday, a few of the teachers were talking about Mormonism.

“My pastor calls Mormonism a cult. That pisses me off. Why doesn’t he just leave them alone? The Mormon kids in my classroom are such nice and dependable kids.”

[…]“You know, I’ve got a better question to ask. Rather than asking, ‘does a certain religion make nice and conscientious followers’ (which is a plus in some ways), a more fundamental question to ask is, ‘is the religion true‘?”

One of the teachers at the table balked, “That can be kind of hard to determine, can’t it?”

“Not necessarily. If a religion makes historical and scientific claims, it can be verified or not. Most of the monotheistic religions make these types of claims, so they can be tested in that regard.”

A religion that is verifiable has a distinct advantage over religions that are not.

[…]It was a good conversation. And that is the fundamental question, isn’t it? A certain religion can produce nice people and still be wholly false. Of course, you need to figure ‘what kind of person it produces’ into the equation–if a certain religion, followed accurately, routinely produced a Charles Manson, that would most definitely be a strike against it–but that isn’t the most fundamental issue. It’s necessary, but not sufficient.

Rather, the most fundamental question you should ask is, “is the religion true?” Asking such a question doesn’t make you intolerant or bigoted.

When it comes to choosing a religion or talking about religion, the first and only rule is to focus on public, testable, propositional truth. The reason why so many Christians struggle to get into the kinds of conversations that Rich gets into is because they are not taking Rich’s approach. Find the claims of a religion that can be tested, then test them.

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