When atheists still don't understand.

After Ann posted her blog entry, "Trying to understand", a response appeared on Oz Atheist's Weblog  titled "Trying to Understand? Try Harder!"

I have decided to provide my own response to his blog entry. Quotations are provided throughout. Oz Atheist's words will be colored red, while my responses will be in black. Ann's comments are in will be cyan. There is a short portion of comments taken from Heterosexual Agnostic (HA) which are in grey. Got all that? Ok, let's proceed...

I will make the direction of my response very clear from the outset. It is basially as follows;
Any attempt on the part of an NRP (Non-Religious Person) to engage in morality discussions is without a logical or moral basis for doing so. My approach follows the line of the well-known "Transcendental Argument". To expand upon this a little, the argument states that if a person doesn't have a belief in the existence of a perfectly moral and just being, i.e. God, who communicates the standards of His morality to His creatures, we human beings, then such persons have no foundation to lay a case for pertaining to morality and ethics because they have no absolute moral or ethical standards that they can point to in order to form any conclusive judgement.

There is of course a lot more to the Transcendental argument than just this, but for the sake of simplicity, we will stick with this basic application of it. As a quick side-note, I would highly recommend to anyone who has not already done so, to search for the Greg Bahnsen vs Gordon Stein debate on the existence of God. In that debate, the late Greg Bahnsen applied the Transcendental argument and showed quite poignantly why atheists really don't have a leg to stand on when they attempt to enter discussions over moral and ethical issues as we have here with the case of abortion and other such things.

Suppose for example, one were to travel to a tropical island with their newly wed for their honeymoon. During the course of their stay there, the couple encounter a tribe of cannibals. To his horror, the husband finds his wife tortured, slaughtered, and eaten, and he himself barely escapes. Can the man claim that such an act was moral or immoral? On the tropical island perhaps cannibalism is a well-accepted practice. Does this make it morally right? Upon what basis can man plead his case ? Some NRPs will respond by saying that morality is relative and that in the case of our cannibals on the tropical island, it was morally right for them whereas in the husband's country it is morally wrong. Others may argue that morality depends upon the larger scale of humanity, i.e. what does the population of the world as a whole consider to be moral? Such suggestions put forward by NRPs may sound convincing on the surface, but in fact there is no logical basis for doing so, and the by-products of such reasoning produce more problems than solutions. Without wishing to go into further detail at this point, we begin quoting Oz Atheist:

"I read all sorts of religious rebuttals online, but don’t normally waste my time responding. I thought I would to this one:

ann_in_grace responded to a letter in her newspaper in which an agnostic had responded to an anti-abortionist letter. You can see the full transcript of the agnostic’s letter, and her response, here http://sveana.blogspot.com/2007/11/trying-to-understand.html."

If you have taken the time to read through my introduction above, you hopefully would by now have your antenna buzzing. Please note, we are interacting with material regarding the topic of abortion. Both Theists and NRPs will readily admit that abortion is an issue of morality and ethics. Although, as I have pointed out, the NRP paints himself into a corner by attempting to interact with an issue that he has no absolute basis for. We will nevertheless examine what he has to say.

"I have responded to her commentary line-by-line, her comments are in italics, followed by my responses.

As she seems to confuse agnostics and atheists I’m going to use the term Non-Religious Person (NRP) to include agnostics, atheists, secular humanists, and any other person who is not religious. The letter was signed Heterosexual agnostic (HA) and then she has a go at atheists?"

It is a common complaint by NRPs that they are mislabelled. Although I could offer some sympathy toward their cries of misrepresentation, one really wonders what all the fuss is about. To begin with, atheists and agnostics are often inconsistent in defining what agnosticism or atheism actually is, so while there may be confusion on the part of the theist, we cannot say that there is absolute clarity from within the NRP camp either. From religioustolerance.org we read:

"Agnosticism is not a religion or complete ethical system. It is simply a belief that we cannot prove either the existence or the non-existence of deity; (i.e. of one or more gods, one or more goddesses, or combinations of the above). Many Agnostics believe that we can never know about the existence of a deity. Others suggest that we cannot know anything about deity or deities at this time with the currently available evidence, but that this could conceivably change in the future.

Atheism is also not a religion or a complete ethical system. It has two main definitions:
The lack of a belief that deity, in the form of one or more supernatural gods or goddesses, exists. American Atheists define an Atheist to be a person who "...does not believe in a god or gods, or other supernatural entities.

The Barnes & Noble Encyclopedia define Atheism as The denial of the existence of God or gods."

For further information on the inconsistent definition of Atheists, please visit http://www.religioustolerance.org/atheist4.htm, and regarding the inconsistent definition of Agnostics here: http://www.religioustolerance.org/agnostic.htm.

We can see quite plainly that atheism has at least two definitions. One being the lack of belief in the existence of God and the other being outright denial of the existence of God. So even atheists themselves do not agree on a single definition. Furthermore, the former definition actually runs very similarly to the definition of an agnostic. From the atheists' side it is a lack of belief, and from the agnostics' side it is a lack of knowledge. But even agnostics, like atheists, are not agreed upon a single definition of agnosticism either. As can be noted from above, some agnostics believe that such knowlege can never be gained, others believe that such knowledge may be gained in the future. Some even suggest that agnosticism is a form of atheism. All of this, along with the aformentioned multiple definitions above, only serves to vindicate Anna's interchanging of the terms agnostic and atheist.

"I feel very glad to see that agnostics care about religion, especially Christianity"

"Some NRPs ‘care’ about religion, in the way that you (I would hope) would ‘care’ about a serial rapist killer wandering your city. Some NRPs ‘care’ that religious dogma can have serious detrimental effects on society. Some NRPs are quite happy for people to be religious and ‘care’ about their freedom/rights to do so, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the NRP’s rights."

An interesting response, and yet, as I noted already, this writer is making appeals to morality and ethics. Firstly, we have the subtle attack on religion by the writer in his grouping it with serial rape and murder. The tactic is commonly used by NRPs to discredit religion by attacking it's moral foundations. An example is where atheists will commonly accuse religion of producing the largest numbers of murders in history, conveniently turning a blind eye to atheistic communism which has not exactly been the darling of model morality. Added to this is the ignorance to the fact that the core teachings of many religions do not vindicate mass murder. The Bible for example is quick to condemn murder in the ten commandments. Many NRPs like to beat the dead horse of mentioning the slaughters in the Old Testament, without bothering to cite the reason for the killings, i.e. dealing with transgression of the law, which even many atheists happily subscribe to when it comes to death penalties for serious crimes. They also seem to overlook the clear teaching of the New Testament which is to present the better and superior covenant in Jesus Christ whereby Christians are commanded to love our enemies, and even turn the other cheek in the face of persecution.

Again we see an appeal to morality and ethics with the phrase "can have serious detrimental effects on society". Again, the writer is making appeals to morality and ethics without having any absolute standard upon which to do so. At least when a Christian makes an ethical statement, such as "abortion is wrong", they have a foundation for doing so because 1) Their world view allows for it 2) Their Holy Book gives moral judgements and standards 3) Their God is described as Righteous, Holy, and Just. Whether you like it or not, all that the NRP can do is give their opinion, but they cannot present their case based upon moral or ethical fact, because their world view is built upon relative conventions, not absolutes.

We see the appeal to freedom and rights. The appeal is made that religious people can exercise their freedom and rights as long as they don't interfere with the NRP's rights. There are several problems with this. First of all, how are you going to define your rights? Which absolute moral standard can you look to? Secondly, why should your rights be more important than the religious person's rights? You might be quick to respond that we have equal rights and that you would not exercise your rights if they interfere with the religious person's rights, but you see that is actually not the case. Let me take an example with gospel preaching. It is not an unlikely scenario that an NRP would tell a religious person to stop preaching the gospel because it intereferred with his rights not to be bombarded with "religious nuts" all the time. But you see, your so-called right to prevent me from preaching the gospel is interferring with my right to preach it. So whose right wins the day? Whose right should be considered as the trump card? From the basic argument that I have presented througout, the gospel preacher has a basis for his preaching the gospel, as his God not only recommends it but commands it of Christians, so it is not merely a desire but a basic need of the Christian, whereas the "right" to not hear the gospel, is not defined in the NRPs worldview because he has no moral absolutes to draw from, and it is after all only a desire not a need. Therefore, the Christian's right to preach the gospel logically surpasses the NRPs desire to not have it preached.

"even though they have no idea what they are talking about as well as no desire to learn"

"Many NRPs have a very good idea what they are talking about; many were religious at one stage; many study the Bible/Koran, often more than a lot of Christians; many NRPs have a desire to learn but want to learn rationally."

Although it is certainly true that many NRPs have studied the Bible/Koran more than a lot of Christians, it does not necessarily guarantee that they have a better understanding of the Christian faith than even the most simple Christians. A person falls into apostasy from the Christian faith not because of any defects of the book, but because an NR worldview suits their rebellious nature and desires. The mention of some NRPs being former religious persons carries little weight as the simple fact is that anybody who has become a Christian in the first place has done so by coming out of the NR worldview. Not only so, it can be argued that the simple reason a lot of NRPs study holy books is little more than to attempt to find contradictions and use their "rational study" to attack them. The term "rational study" is misleading as it overlooks the fact that every human being is prejudiced into a rebellious condition by their sinful nature. This is accounted for and understood in the Christian worldview but NRPs have to overlook this factor by virtue of the fact that their worldview does not account for it.

"Their arguments are very emotional and humanistic, and their shaking their fists to God is so obvious, so well-recognized, that it has become boring."

"Well that’s very nice that you think NRPs are humanistic, here’s one of many quotes about what a humanist is/does:

Humanists believe in solving the social and economic problems of society"

And yet, as I have already pointed out repeatedly, they have no absolute moral or ethical foundation upon which to determine what constitutes right and wrong. What is a social problem? Is gospel preaching a social problem? What is your absolute basis for determining this? Is abortion a social problem ? What is your absolute basis for determining this? Is homosexuality a social problem? What is your absolute basis for determining this? It is all very nice to claim that Humanists believe in solving our problems, but who are they to determine what our problems are? What if the greatest social problem is a rejection of God and His word? What do humanists have to say about that? Of course, they can't even begin to enter into any level of meaningful interaction of these issues because they have no absolute foundation to make any claims one way or the other. It is all a matter of conventions, and as society goes through trends and experiences, these conventions will change. Too bad if you're caught in a time when society got it wrong and had to change their convention well after your generation passed away. In short, humanism is a futile attempt to make the world a better place without ever knowing what a better place actually means.

"NRPs get as emotional as anyone else, particularly when they think someone/some group is trying to impose their views on everyone else (i.e. Christians, in general, want to abolish all abortions). I haven’t seen many NRPs ‘shaking their fist to God’, mainly because we don’t believe in god. Any ‘fist shaking’ is at the people who follow a god, especially those that do bad things because of it."

What if the Christians are right about wanting to abolish all abortions? How are you even going to begin to make any basic statement on the issue when you have nothing to turn to? Is society going to have the same views on abortion as it does now? What if in 50 years from now, society decides that abortion is indeed wrong? What do you have to say about all the abortions that are taking place today? Can you really begin to have any confidence in your position? And who constitutes society anyway? If the Christians are wrong about it, why is secular society divided on the issue?

Regarding NRPs shaking their fist to God, it is exactly what they are doing whether they want to admit it or not. Everyone is born with a sinful, rebellious nature and all the shouts to claim your innocence are not going to change anything. It is rather humourous to note in passing that people often refer to God having as equally as likely existence as a flying spaghetti monster, and yet you don't see people calling themselves a-flyingspaghettimonsterists, or a-purpleunicornists. While NRPs may scorn at the claim to the existence of God, they are defining themselves in having a belief in the non existence of something they consider to be ridiculous.

"Suddenly they think that the term “fundamentalism” is going to be perceived as a pejorative word."

"It is."

It depends upon the audience. Just as with the terms atheist and agnostic.

"Suddenly religion, according to an agnostic, is a social enterprise which can be adjusted to human needs, and the criteria for “natural” are being set dependently on trends and wishes."

"Religion is a social enterprise, always has been always will be (I’m going to throw the burden of proof to the religious people to prove to me that my last statement is false). Religion, particularly the Christian religion, has always adjusted itself to human needs, and dictates of science. The church used to say the sun revolved around the earth, the earth was flat, and they used to burn witches and promote slavery. All these and many more concepts/ideas/decrees have changed over the years. See the current debate in Australia within the Anglican Church to allow women to become Bishops, the more enlightened diocese are voting for it, other not. This is a debate purely within the church. Religion has had to adjust itself to human needs to remain relevant in modern society (some cynics may say the church adjusts itself to get more believers, thus more money)."

Actually, the Christian faith has never changed, because God's word does not change. Man's preferences and concepts do change however. Society changes. Whatever so-called changes you have mentioned, have nothing to do with the Christian faith itself because it was always a problem of man misinterpreting God's word and/or abusing their positions in order to suit their agendas. Such persons who willfully distort God's word and mistreat God's people are not Christians. They are not ambassadors of the Christian faith. Even if they put on a "priestly" garb, and label themselves as a bishop or such, it means absolutely nothing. Such people who engage in these activities are merely an extension of fallen human society and are in dire need of repentence. The bible clearly states that within the church there are genuine believers and there are false believers (wheat and tares). Nothing you have said bears any weight against the true genuine chuch called out by God, the genuine children of God. Rather the burden of proof falls upon you to show that the bible teaches otherwise. You cannot simply make accusations and then assert that the burden of proof falls upon the accused to disprove something which provides no evidence.

"In other words: God needs to get upgraded, He is too dull and old-fashioned, time to rock&roll, right? At least…"

“If the church wants to be a part of society, it has to adjust her view to the modern foundations of values, which means that no one may be excluded.” HA

"Really? Well, it depends what we understand as ‘the church’. And who is giving the definition.
An atheist? And who cares what an atheist thinks about these things? Another atheist, probably, i. e. another God-hating rebel…"

"As per my previous paragraph, many of the churches have in the past, and are currently, adjusting to modern views (for whatever reason). Rock & Roll – hey, you obviously haven’t been to a ‘happy clappy’ church lately, that’s all they do!
What do you understand as ‘the church’? Certainly a lot of different churches can’t seem to define what ‘the church’ is, as evident by the vast number of different ones. Why can’t an NRP give a definition of ‘the church’? You will find that a lot of them have done a lot of research into what a ‘church’ may be."

Well it's pretty clear from your writing that you do not understand what the church is. Contrary to your thought, a church is not a mere gathering place where people come together in the name of God and carry out whatever activities warm their heart. "The Church" refers to the universal organism of the Triune God united, mingled, and incorporated with His reedemed, justified and regenerated elect. It is a Divine-human incorporation. Universally, the church consists of all the members of the Body of Christ, with Christ Himself as the Head, who is before all things. Locally, the church consists of all the genuine believers who reside within a particular locality, regardless of which "meeting hall" they may assemble in. The church in London for example, consists of all genuine believers in Christ who reside in the entire city of London. Likewise, all the genuine believers who live in Phoenix Arizona comprise the Church in Phoenix. Although it may be common practice to refer to "the Baptist church" or "the methodist church" or whatever, it is not by doctrine that a church is defined, by by her locality. Each local church is simply a local expression of the one universal church.

"OK, so far I have been nice and polite and tried to use rational arguments against your statements, but the last bit of the above statement of your’s is downright abusive, divisive, and wrong. Atheists do not ‘hate’ God! We just don’t believe in any gods, end of argument! We are not ‘rebelling’ against anything, unless you are so narrow minded that you think every human being on the planet should bow down to your particular religious way of thinking and belong to your particular church. Sure some NRPs come across sometimes as being a bit argumentative or even derisive, but that is only in response to unqualified claims by religious people, or in some cases (like your ‘God hating rebel’ statement) outright insults or untruths."

First of all, your concept of nice and polite includes the denial of the existence of God. By virtue of the very fact that you deny your Maker, you are anything but nice and polite. Of course you can try to rationalise such behavior and vindicate yourself to make yourself feel good and comfortable about what you're doing but you are only deceiving youself. You also cry foul calling my sister's statement abusive, divisive, and wrong. I hope by the end of reading this document you will come to realise how all your moral appeals to what is right and wrong are meaningless because you have no absolute standard to fall back on. You say her statements are abusive, so what? I do not believe they were and neither does she. On the contrary, we find your denial of the existence of God to be blasphemous and insulting. Since we consider the truth about God to be of higher importance than to make you feel good about yourself while you commit your sin, pardon us if we don't extend an apology to you. You see, you find our statements offensive that we don't, and we find your statements offensive that you don't. We have a reason to complain, you don't, except one man's opinion as a vain cry in the wilderness.

"Rational arguments? Hardly. But convenient, for sure."

"Rational, well thought out, well written, non-emotive (even whilst discussing a very emotive topic) letter. Yes I think Heterosexual agnostic’s (HA) letter certainly was rational and their arguments well put, far more than your response! HA’s letter quite clearly puts their point of view across without actually overly criticizing religion. In fact HA seems happy to accommodate religious views:"

HA may be happy to accommodate views, but don't say He is happy to accommodate religious views, because that is a non-statement. By definition, he considers the possibility of God's existence to be unknowable, thus He is saying that the bible is untrue when it shows God revealing Himself to man. And whether or not he may accommodate certain views which are held by religious people, it is merely for his own personal agenda, so as to fit in with what is convenient for him. The bible does not teach Christians to be politically correct, we are straight up about what we believe and why we believe it. If you have a problem with this then understand, we are only being consistent with what the bible teaches. When we speak the truth concerning biblical teaching, it is an offence to the unregenerate. We don't expect people to like what we have to say. Only God, by His mercy can change the heart.

"I want my children to be educated in a school where the teachers understand that there is a plethora of views and ideas in the world and that everybody has a place in it, no matter what religion or political views they follow."

"unlike some NRPs, and some religions towards others (Islam V Christianity)."

"Religion is for us, another comfort next to a psychologist, a lover, an addiction. Let’s bend it to our needs - because we say so. And if those ‘fundies’ don’t listen - let’s slander them with intolerance and narrow mindedness. That will teach them!"

"I’m assuming you were trying to be sarcastic with these last sentences?

Religion is a comfort for you, how can you say otherwise? I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard religious people say things like “since I’ve found Jesus, I’ve found peace in my life” and other such comments. An addiction? Maybe. Heroin addicts can’t get enough of heroin, some religious people can’t seem to get enough of religious experiences; heroin addicts have been known to commit crimes because of their addiction, religious people have been known to conduct crimes in the name of their religion (the Inquisition, 9/11, etc, etc)."

Two problems I have with what you are saying. Firstly, to be a real Christian and actually follow what the bible teaches is not always comfortable, in fact many times it goes diametrically against what we want to do naturally, yet we would do so for the sake of our Lord and the honour of His name. Secondly, why use the comfort card when NRPs deny God for their own comfort so that they can indulge in their sins without having to consider the consequences? You see, for a Christian, there are consequences for sin, but for an NRP, there's no consequence as long as you don't get caught. Regarding your cheap shot at religion, and I'll just stand up for Christianity because it's the only religion I care to defend anyway, as I have already mentioned, people who engage in those sorts of crimes are very likely not genuine Christians. Simply calling oneself a Christian does not actually make a person a Christian. Nor does going to Sunday services every week.

"Again, I’ve covered the ‘bend it to our needs’, the churches are constantly doing that, look at the rise of evangelical, happy clappy, churches in America and Australia. All that televangelism, rock & roll, clapping and singing, why have they changed like that? To be more like the rest of society. (MTV generation, anyone?)"

Well if you want to stick with your unbiblical definition of church then go ahead, but you're not ever going to understand the true nature of the church with that kind of concept.

"You (as in religious people; I’m generalizing a bit here, but for a large proportion of you I believe I’m correct in thinking this) are intolerant and narrow minded. No matter what arguments are provided you refuse to condone: abortions, gay marriages (in fact homosexuality of any kind), condoms (to millions of people dying of aids in Africa, which could, in large part, be prevented by the use of condoms) and thousands of other points of view."

Here we see a compounded attempt at moral and ethical judgement on your part. You can continue trumpeting your message until the cows come home but you only serve to expose your logical fallacies. Why should your perspective regarding the belief and practice of religious people have any weight? You continue to make moral statements but have no justification for doing so. Why should we believe in your perspective on homosexuality, contraception, abortions, and so on? Do you want to set yourself up as the leader of a new religion whereby we ought to take your point of view? What if we simply do not agree with your point of view? Why does that bother you? Regarding being narrow-minded and intolerant, I believe that shutting out God, who is the source of all truth, is extremely narrow-minded, and trying to force us and other religious people to change our mind about homosexuality, contraception, and abortion without having a single absolute basis for your doing so is extremely intolerant. You are intolerant of the truth. It is as simple as that, and I can point to my absolute standard and be consistent about it. Until you can do the same, don't come crying to us.

"Lastly I’m glad you didn’t send that to the newspaper, I think HA would be very disappointed with your response which doesn’t really argue against any of HA’s statements."

Perhaps you misunderstood the reason why Christians speak out on these matters. We are not doing it to please you. We do so because we care about the truth of God's word. If HA would have been disappointed, so what? We are not out to please him either. Unlike liberal post-modernism where truth no longer matters, the unshakeable Christian faith will not compromise its integrity for the saking of pleasing man. If that is what you were expecting, you have a very distorted view of what the Christian faith is.