Tag Archives: Religion

Polemics

William Lane Craig discusses naturalism and secular humanism in the Washington Post

2 Comments

Dr. William Lane Craig in the liberal Washington Post – explaining his arguments and evidence to an audience that has probably never heard them before.

Excerpt:

The American Humanist Association is promoting a new Web site that is designed to furnish children with a naturalistic or atheistic perspective on science, sexuality, and other topics. The stated goal of the Web site is laudatory: “to encourage curiosity, critical thinking, and tolerance among young people, as well as to provide accurate information regarding a wide range of issues related to humanism, science, culture, and history.”

The problem is that those values have no inherent connection with naturalism, which is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that there is nothing beyond the physical contents of the universe. One doesn’t need to be a naturalist in order to endorse curiosity, critical thinking, tolerance, and the pursuit of accurate information on a wide range of topics.

Ironically, the AHA has been remarkably uncritical in thinking about the truth of naturalism and of humanism in particular.

[…]The problem for the humanist is even worse, however. For humanism is just one form of naturalism. It is a version of naturalism that affirms the objective value of human beings. But why think that if naturalism were true, human beings would have objective moral value? There are three options before us:

  • The theist maintains that objective moral values are grounded in God.
  • The humanist maintains that objective moral values are grounded in human beings.
  • The nihilist maintains that moral values are ungrounded and therefore ultimately subjective and illusory.

The humanist is thus engaged in a struggle on two fronts: on the one side against the theists and on the other side against the nihilists. This is important because it underlines the fact that humanism is not a default position. That is to say, even if the theist were wrong, that would not mean that the humanist is right. For if God does not exist, maybe it is the nihilist who is right. The humanist needs to defeat both the theist and the nihilist. In particular, he must show that in the absence of God, nihilism would not be true.

This is a must-read and a must-forward. Share this far and wide, please.

Dr. Craig has had to debate against secular humanism before. You can see him debate a secular humanist leader named Paul Kurtz on this issue.

Related posts

Videos

The Great Global Warming Swindle Channel 4 documentary

3 Comments

Details:

The film, made by British television producer Martin Durkin, presents scientists, economists, politicians, writers, and others who dispute the scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic global warming.

The film’s basic premise is that the current scientific opinion on the anthropogenic causes of global warming has numerous scientific flaws, and that vested monetary interests in the scientific establishment and the media discourage the public and the scientific community from acknowledging or even debating this. The film asserts that the publicised scientific consensus is the product of a “global warming activist industry” driven by a desire for research funding. Other culprits, according to the film, are Western environmentalists promoting expensive solar and wind power over cheap fossil fuels in Africa, resulting in African countries being held back from industrialising.

The film won best documentary at the 2007 Io Isabella International Film Week.

A number of academics, environmentalists, think-tank consultants and writers are interviewed in the film in support of its various assertions. They include the Canadian environmentalist Patrick Moore, former member of Greenpeace but for the past 21 years a critic of the organisation; Richard Lindzen, professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Patrick Michaels, Research Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia; Nigel Calder, editor of New Scientist from 1962 to 1966; John Christy, professor and director of the Earth System Science Center at University of Alabama; Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute; former British Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson; and Piers Corbyn, a British weather forecaster.

Famous economist Thomas Sowell has written about the documentary in National Review.

He likes it:

Distinguished scientists specializing in climate and climate-related fields talk in plain English and present readily understood graphs showing what a crock the current global-warming hysteria is.

 

[…]There is no question that the globe is warming but it has warmed and cooled before, and is not as warm today as it was some centuries ago, before there were any automobiles and before there was as much burning of fossil fuels as today.

None of the dire things predicted today happened then.

The documentary goes into some of the many factors that have caused the earth to warm and cool for centuries, including changes in activities on the sun, 93 million miles away and wholly beyond the jurisdiction of the Kyoto treaty.

According to these climate scientists, human activities have very little effect on the climate, compared to many other factors, from volcanoes to clouds.

These climate scientists likewise debunk the mathematical models that have been used to hype global-warming hysteria, even though hard evidence stretching back over centuries contradicts these models.

Take a look. I liked this documentary so much that I purchased the DVD of it.

Related posts

News

Poll: More people believe in an afterlife than believe in God

4 Comments

J. Warner Wallace tweeted this study from the Institute of Education at the University of London.

Excerpt:

More people may believe in an afterlife than believe in God, according to a nation-wide survey of Britons born in 1970.

Almost half – 49 per cent – of those surveyed earlier this year by the Institute of Education, University of London believe that there is ‘definitely’ or ‘probably’ life after death. Only 31 per cent have said that they believe in God, either without doubts (13 per cent) or with some doubts (18 per cent).

Researchers at the IOE’s Centre for Longitudinal Studies are canvassing more than 9,000 members of the 1970 British Cohort Study. The study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, is following a group of people born in England, Scotland and Wales in spring 1970. It collects detailed information on many aspects of people’s lives including health, wellbeing, and financial circumstances. The latest survey, at age 42, is being carried out between May and December.

While members of the 1970 cohort have been asked about religion at earlier points in their lives, the current survey is the first to make the important distinction between religious upbringing, affiliation, practice and belief.

An analysis of the first 2,197 responses shows that 32 per cent of interviewees were not brought up in any particular religion, and an equal number said they were raised in the Church of England. Fourteen per cent said they grew up as Christian (no denomination) and ten per cent as Roman Catholic.

However, when asked if they currently see themselves as belonging to a particular religion, 47 per cent said no, followed by 21 per cent who said the Church of England. Fifteen per cent felt they were Christian (no denomination) and seven per cent said they were Roman Catholic.

Seventy-four per cent of respondents reported never or rarely attending religious services, followed by 16 per cent who attend services less than once a month. Seven per cent attend services once a week or more.

I’m pretty sure that you need to have a God there if there is an afterlife, because if there is no God, then there is no grounding for souls that can survive the death of the body. I think that what’s going on here is that people like the idea of having an afterlife, but they don’t like the idea of being accountable to God. That’s why they hold two mutually incompatible beliefs.

I think that this study tells us a very important thing about how people view religion. Somehow, people have gotten the mistaken impression that religion is like choosing what to eat or what to wear. You choose what you like. You choose what makes your family and friends like you. But imagine if doctors, engineers and scientists operated like that. It strikes me as psychotic to choose a religion based on your feelings. Religion, at the minimum, is a set of propositions about the way the world is. To believe in a religion is to accept it as true, and to take on the epistemic and moral obligations – to know true things and to do right things. To anyone who denies that religion is like any other form of knowledge, then you need to prove that. In my own religion, we have testable claims that can be evaluated using the methods of logic, history and science.

You know this study reminds me of a formative experience I had when I was younger. I remember talking to a project manager when I was a brand new software engineer, and her telling me that she had grown up Baptist but it was “too strict” so she became an atheist. Also, God had allowed her to fall off her bicycle when she was young and she chipped her teeth. So she knew there couldn’t possibly be a loving God. But anyway, she asked me if I believed in souls for animals. I surveyed a few philosophers and concluded with J.P. Moreland’s view, that animals don’t have souls. She said that her dog was going to Heaven when she died. I told her, look I would like it if my cockatiel went to Heaven (he is was about 8 then, and is 24 now) but I have to accept what is true. She looked at me like I was crazy to say such a mean thing. I will never forget that conversation. Back then, I had limited exposure to church and didn’t realize that most Christians are exactly like her. We really need to stop with the postmodern, relativism, universalism and get back to reason and evidence.