Well, all I can say is, surprise surprise! Most people don’t like harsh fundamentalists, whether they be Bible thumpers or Darwin thumpers, and frankly the atheist movement is not being well served by exalting the kind of angry, self-righteous verbiage that exemplify the work of Dawkins and his ilk. Our culture, our educational system, and our public square would be far better served by respectful, compassion, reasonable discourse on the subject of God, the supernatural, and the origin of the cosmos and life. The alternative is not pretty.

Now, in my original post, I stated in so many words that it was impossible to live according to the tenets of atheism and that atheists who were honest about their lives would admit as such. My sloppiness came in my not clarifying what such a remark meant and why it was not a form of bigotry as some critics have called it. In particular, commenter Martin Freedman took umbrage at my statements, and so I decided that rather than ignore the issue, it would be beneficial for me to response in as polite and as concise a manner as I am able.

First of all, when I say “honest atheists”, I am referring to statements I’ve read by several authors who acknowledge that the logical conclusions of their atheistic beliefs lead them down a moral or ethical path that they are unwilling to take because it provides too bleak or nihilistic a picture to function properly in society. Therefore, their personal sense of love, responsibility, duty, beauty, or purpose in life takes precedence over their basic atheistic philosophy concerning life. I apologize profusely that I’m unable to give you a direct reference — chalk it up to my annoying habit of forgetting to bookmark interesting Web sites I read. At any rate, I appreciate the open-minded willingness on the part of these authors to write about the paradox they encounter as they contemplate the implicit meanings contained within their worldview.

Secondly, when I refer to a “true atheist”, I mean someone who logically and consistently rejects all forms of theist thought whether explicit or implicit. Some people vaguely say they don’t believe in “God” without actually thinking through the ramifications of such a position, or they reject the Judeo-Christian “God” without denying there might be some “higher power” out there. I’m sure we can all agree that such people are probably more precisely called agnostic than atheistic.

So, with those two clarifications out of the way, I want to delve into Martin Freedman’s particular criticisms of my position. He asked me to response to 15 questions he had presented recently, and while I wasn’t able to find quite that many, I tried to do my best in addressing all of the points he raised in several comments. Note that I’m including some of the thread I had engaged in so you can get the proper context. Here it goes.

@Jared: “Martin, how is it that a universe born out of spiritual mind, not dead matter, would not have a moral obligation to follow the spiritual laws established by such a mind?”

This is a loaded question and the best answer is to say can you restate this impartially, without bias, then we can proceed to answer the question.

How can I restate this impartially… OK, if you go down the road of concluding the universe must have been wrought from an incredibly powerful and complex intelligence outside of the bounds of the universe itself, then the next logical question is, what is the intention that this mind has for the humans he/she/it has created (whether directly or through some kind of evolutionary process)? The extent to which this mind cares about our individual actions depends on whether you lean in a deist or a theist direction, but either party would no doubt conclude that if there is purpose to the universe and our place in it, we therefore have a moral imperative to fulfill the purpose for which we were made. Now you could argue that we might have been created to serve no purpose whatsoever, but in light of such a whimsical and inscrutable opinion of the creator, one might as well decide to be an atheist.

@Jared: “BTW, slavery is wrong and many of the people who fought vigorously against slavery over the centuries were Bible-believing Christians.”

And surely you cannot deny that who fought vigorously for slavery over the centuries were Bible-believing Christians? If slavery is wrong it is in spite of what has been said in the bible hence you cannot be a true theist which my point in that inversion of your quote. Regardless this is a diversion from the main point.

Yes, this is somewhat a non-sequitur in the overall scheme of things, but let me just say that anyone can say they believe the Bible and go on to commit all kinds of heinous acts. That proves nothing about whether God exists or the veracity of the historical narrative contained within the Bible. On the other hand, saying that people who fought vigorously against slavery believed the Bible proves nothing either, and I realize that. My point was that there is no inherent justification in saying that if you believe the Bible, you naturally must condone slavery, which was your original proposition.

@Jared: “I’ve already refuted Margin’s argument, and there’s nothing left to respond to.”

You never refuted it in your first response and you have not replied to any of my questions in my second response. How can you claim that you are moral when engage in purely rhetoric with no argument or evidence in support?

This is probably going down another rabbit hole, but let me just say that engaging in pure rhetoric without evidence can only be immoral if you consider arguing based on solid evidence to be moral. Question: how do you come to that conclusion? I can see no biologically-derived reason why arguments must logically be made based on truth claims gleaned from careful analysis of facts, whether it “feels” right or not.

@Jared “The issue is clear: moral laws and spiritual laws require a lawgiver.”

This is your claim, where is your evidence? There is no evidence that the “laws of nature” require a lawgiver, indeed they were primarily found by making no such assumption,so, by extrapolation why should “moral and spiritual laws” - they most probably do not either. With respect the spiritual laws I suggest you consult Buddhists and Taoists etc. who would specifically disagree with you on this point. As for “laws” you appear to be equivocating as human made “laws” - better put as rules to avoid confusion - generally do require some form of rule-giving and human process, on the other hand scientific laws are specifically not rules and are a different category entirely and do no require a lawgiver, similar for your claims over moral and spiritual laws.

Actually, the question of where physical laws come from has become a topic of heated debate within the scientific establishment. The question of why those laws are the way they are or why they are there at all is of prime importance as we continue to discover that these laws seem to be fine-tuned in such a way as to permit organic life as we know it to exist. If you want to just wave your hand and say “the laws are there, and that’s that”, then why is it wrong of theists to wave their hands and say “God is there, and that’s that” without further explanation?

@Jared: “Laws don’t create themselves.”

An empty assertion, where is your evidence for this?

No evidence. Yet there’s no evidence that laws create themselves. We’re both in a philosophical quandary here. I’ve decided which belief makes the most logical sense, and you beg to differ. Fair enough.

@Jared: “The logical picture of a universe that was wrought from a non-material entity outside of the limitations of time and space is that it would be expected to adhere to the rules that were established at the point of creation.”

Why would it be expected to? Now you are using the term “rules” not laws. Could you please not equivocate and be consistent. Many other question but your statement is diversionary and I won’t pursue it further.

By laws I’m not referring to the precise scientific definition of laws as in, the Second Law of Thermodynamics. I’m referring to rules, parameters, boundaries, etc., in the colloquial understanding of such terms.

@Jared: “Any deviation from those rules will produce decay and chaos.”

It is not possible to deviate from scientific laws, that is why they are laws. If you are implying that it is possible to deviate from moral and spiritual laws, then these are not laws.

Again, you misunderstand me. If you drink at the age of 12, you’re breaking the law. If you murder a human being in cold blood, you’re breaking our civil law, and I also say you’re breaking absolute moral law. I could even argue you can “break” physical laws. Jump off a tall cliff without a parachute, and you’ll quickly find out that ignoring the “law” of gravity is rather foolish. Remember, I’m talking colloquially here rather than using strict scientific terminology.

@Jared: “The concept of morality is rendered meaningless in a universe without eternal, conscious significance.”

Again an empty rhetorical claim, where is the logic and/our evidence for this?

Well. if there is no eternal, conscious significance to the universe, then it’s perfectly permissible for you to act in whatever manner you deem necessary to achieve the maximum possible level of personal happiness and fulfillment while you are alive. Such actions are inherently selfish and self-serving in manner, whereas behaving in moral and ethical ways often requires selfless and sacrificial behavior. And before you argue that following the golden rule and having empathy for all living creatures, etc., works out great for atheists, let me just say many people who believe in nothing other than themselves find a lot of “pleasure” in achieving their ambitions on the back of massive human suffering. Such actions, which you personally might find repugnant, nevertheless are logically permissible in a godless universe devoid of lasting meaning or purpose.

@Jared: “Martin, I am going to ask you one, simple, and direct question. I will repost my original paragraph that you took exception to, and I entreat you to explain, in a simple and concise manner, what immoral bigotry is contained within my statement.”

Fine I will but can you reciprocate and do me the courtesy of answering the 15 or so question I have asked you.

First what is bigotry? It is taking an aspect of a person and assigning them as a member of a group (whether they agree with this, chose this or not), then negatively and inaccurately describe an aspect of this group and irrationally asserting that any member, as one has decided, has this characteristic and condemns them, or worse, for it.

I apologize for snipping out your subsequent paragraphs, but in the interests of time, I have to move on. I just want to say I feel I’ve addressed the bigotry claim already by explaining what I meant by the terms “true atheist” and “atheism” in the context of my original post. I’m not trying to lump individuals into some kind of group simply so I can throw stones at them, and I’m sorry my original post was unclear in that regard.

Different atheists have differing moral views most of which are vastly superior to your morality - which was fatally disproved 2500 years ago - and is one of the worst type of moral systems imaginable. The mere fact that you are coming up with these falsehoods is further evidence of the immoral grounds of your worldview.

Again, I’m pressed for time, so I’m skipping some of the context here, but what you are saying here is extremely loaded, biased, and possibly bigoted — which is unfortunate considering you have been trying to criticize me on the same grounds. What possible evidence can you use to show that my particular morality based on the truth claims of the Christian Bible were (a) fatally disproved 2500 years ago (which was before Christ was even born), and (b) one of the worst type of moral systems imaginable (especially when compared to the moral system in vogue at the height of the Roman Empire)?

@Jared: “the commonly understood ‘pop’ view of Western materialistic atheism is a worldview that encompasses the logical conclusions derived from the opinion that there is no god/gods or supernatural order and therefore humans must create their own meaning for existence.”

Oh dear. Now you have changed the subject to “the commonly understood ‘pop’ view of Western materialistic atheism”. Well I and others dispute this is what is commonly understood as atheism. Anyway you have the opportunity to converse with real live “atheists” here and so disabuse yourself of these supposed “pop” views. Further this is a classic way in which one can encourage and spread bigotry and discrimination. Perpetuating common or pop views regardless of the facts. For example, one can hark back to so-called common and pop views of “blacks” in the 20th century (or chose your own example). What is the difference to what you are doing with “atheists” now? None that I can see.

I’m not encouraging bigotry, I’m simply trying to respond to a belief system that is being espoused by a significant bloc within Western society. If you fundamentally disagree with major aspects of this common belief system, that’s fine. I’d be interested to hear your disagreements, actually.

@Jared: “Simply saying ‘I don’t believe God exists’ may strictly qualify the speaker as an atheist, but that doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for discussion about the issues involved.”

For once you are quite correct! And this is the whole point. If you had written your article condemning the “New Atheists” which would include anyone who wholeheartedly agrees with them - not me for one - then this whole thread would have been quite different. You made the equivocation/obfuscation can you now retract your original post and update it in the light of your modification as to whom you are condemning?

This entire post is an update of my original post, and I’ve prominently linked to it from my original post, so hopefully this helps remove any perceived obfuscation in my position. If not, then I really am at a loss on how I could clarify what I’m trying to say any further.

I want to close with one final question which I’d love to hear you answer. In a universe devoid of ultimate meaning, purpose, or significance, how do we evaluate, without resorting to a simplistic appeal to biological group survival, human behavior?

I will, however, post a few random thoughts about various related issues here simply because it’s a good exercise for my poor brain and it might give some of you a bit of food for thought. Bear in mind, however, that I will probably refrain from engaging in extended debate on any of these points going forward. I primarily run this blog to communicate with people who are genuinely interested in the spiritual topics I cover, and also just to have fun. If I’m not having fun — well, it’s not exactly motivating.

Anyway, I wanted to mention a comparison of Reason vs. Reasonableness and how it applies to the ongoing tussle between the “reason” people and the “faith” people. The people who believe in Reason think that scientific theories, mathematical modeling, studies, and an underlying framework of materialist philosophy rooted in a concept of blind (i. e., non-directed) evolution, can explain the nature of reality and of life on earth, the question of why we’re here, what is our destiny, and what we should be doing in the meantime. What the Reason proponents fail to realize is that the notion that any of this can indeed perform these weighty tasks is basically a personal expression of faith. That’s why “secular humanism” is often used as a term of religion to describe this type of worldview: that man is, indeed, the measure of all things and must create for himself meaning and morality in a world that is in and of itself devoid of meaning or morality or ultimate mind at all.

Meanwhile, many people are happy to admit that all humans have faith in and believe in something to explain life and see no problem with accepting the concepts of a supernatural realm and an ultimate personality (or personalities) underlying the origin and possibly the continued execution of the physical universe surrounding us. At this point, Reason in the sense of human philosophical constructs and knowledge isn’t seen as the sole arbiter of truth and instead Reasonableness is what is highly valued. Reasonableness states that what lies outside our grasp as humans with a finite, limited, and flawed perception of reality is nevertheless possible to understand in part. In other words, I can’t necessarily understand God through Reason, but my faith in God is Reasonable. My experiences of His love, His word, His actions, His working through the lives of people around me — I can understand those experiences through my intellect and thus they are Reasonable. I can’t necessarily grasp the minute details and underlying meanings and purposes of every single passage in the Bible and construct an air-tight, 100% logical systematic theology that then will make perfect sense to me for the rest of my life. I don’t need to. I understand enough to know my knowledge is Reasonable — i. e., the historical facts contained within the Bible are plausible and supported by various evidences and the spiritual claims contained within have been borne out to be real and practical as I’ve lived my life according to those precepts. For example, if through the Bible I believe that it’s possible for someone to be supernaturally healed by the power of God, and then I see a close friend of mine be supernaturally healed by the power of God when prayed for, I can verify the Reasonableness of believing that it’s possible to be supernaturally healed by the power of God. Does that mean I understand how such healing works, how to be used by God to pray for it, or why such healing is unpredictable and doesn’t operate in the same manner every time? Not necessarily, but to accept that there are many things in the world I will never know or understand is itself a Reasonable conclusion for someone who recognizes his own limitations.

My Reason doesn’t produce my spiritual life or automatically exclude the possibility that I’ve somehow completely fooled myself and imagined that everything happening supernaturally around me could be easily explained within a materialist/atheist worldview. But my sense of Reasonableness shows that to live my life according to the philosophical tenants of atheism would literally give me absolutely no peace or satisfaction that I’ve discovered a way to live that makes sense of my life’s experiences and my own personality. Rather than square with what I see when I examine the physical world, it would actually undermine my observations. To me, it’s far more Reasonable to believe that there is far more to existence than matter and energy; mind and spirit must come first. It’s far less Reasonable to believe that mind/”spirit” is simply an emergent by-product of mechanical processes operating within the realm of biology.

Of course, I’m excluding any mention here of the actual scientific evidence itself supporting intelligent design in nature and the difficulties of geological and cosmological uniformitarianism. As usual, I find it more interesting to discuss the underlying assumptions behind all of our wrestling with truth and who we are rather than just take a hard look at facts. Humans, most of the time, are unable to look at facts without automatically interpreting the conclusions of the data based on their already-constructed worldview. Scientists who automatically exclude any possibility of supernatural/non-materialist origins behind any known phenomena will “see” how physical processes could have generated such phenomena — even if those explanations are unsatisfying, logically faulty, and can’t be squared with the full extent of the data.

To conclude, my Reason doesn’t lead me to accepting Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, but being a disciple of Jesus is more Reasonable to me than to live as a disciple of Secular Humanism. In other words, despite my snarky post recently about choosing “superstition” over “reason”, what I’m really trying to say is that my belief in God and the supernatural is supported by a position of reasonable knowledge rather than willful ignorance. Just as Intelligent Design scientists expound on the concepts of design in nature not from a position of intellectual poverty (”we don’t know how Darwinian evolution did it, so God did it”), but from a position of intellectual strength (”we do know that Darwinian evolution is incapable of producing such structures and the appearance of design based on what we know of how such processes work”).

Recognizing the limits of concepts is a fundamental aspect of understanding truth. But sometimes it requires courage to face the logical consequences of such truth.

I have many thoughts about the recent exchange I’ve been having lately on this blog and elsewhere. Mostly, I’m appalled by the schoolyard bully tactics and the weasely reluctance to delve into the hard questions. Is this what the new face of atheism has come to? Evade having a coherent reason for one’s own beliefs while insulting anyone who dares ask the simple question: why?

The fact is that it’s impossible to live as a true atheist, and the honest atheists who understand the basic tenants of philosophy understand this. True atheism realizes that the concept of morality is completely meaningless in a universe devoid of supernatural origin, mind over matter, and ultimate purpose. Therefore, a true atheist has to say that reality is one way while simultaneously living as if reality is another way. In a sense, they live like theists while denying the merits of theism.

Atheists claim they can live normal lives, kindly doing charitable works and contributing to society. That’s very true — but they do those things not because of their atheist beliefs. They do them in spite of their atheist beliefs. They act like it matters to be kind and generous, like it matters to live harmoniously within society, like it matters to accomplish good works, like it matters to put the needs of others at the forefront, like it matters to fight for justice and see truth reign over falsehood. Unfortunately for them, they are completely unable to explain why any of this really does matter. The universe doesn’t care. Space-time, matter, energy, laws of physics — they don’t care. They have no reason to support good. I could go murder a million people and rape thousands of women — do the molecules care? Are the chemical reactions within people’s bodies going to be upset?

Atheists constantly live in a paradox. They go on their moral crusades against “religion” and all its supposed evils, while denying the need to explain in any way why such moral crusades are justified. They say they don’t need a “sky-daddy” to scare them into being good (a silly straw man if there ever were one), yet at the same time they don’t have a sensible reason why their own capacity for morality has any merit whatsoever. After all, the dictator controlling the people of his nation considers his capacity for moral judgement to be quite excellent. Everything he does is for the good of the people, according to his own mind.

Please note that I’m not attempting to say atheism is wrong and theism is right (though of course that’s what I believe). What I am attempting to show is that atheists are every bit as hypocritical as the “fundies” they try to oppose and that the very nature of atheism dictates that it’s meaningless, illusionary, and illogical to have any moral opinion on what anyone believes. If I am, as they say, delusional, willfully ignorant, infantile, mentally retarded, etc. — who cares? Let me be so. The universe doesn’t care, so why should an atheist care?

According to atheism, every single human who ever lived before us is dead forever, we will soon be dead, and one day all humanity will be dead along with the entire universe. At the end of time (whatever that means), why does it matter that we’re even here today having a debate about religion, God, atheism, or any of the rest of it?

Why does it matter? Why does anything matter? Why?

But unfortunately, you didn’t actually address my main point, which is that you have no reasonable basis on which to take a moral stance against belief in a supernatural realm or being. In fact, you pretty much ignored the problem of morality entirely, instead linking to an article concerning the group behaviors of monkeys which — interesting though it may be from an ethological perspective — sheds no light on this matter whatsoever.

The only possible way you could attempt to “prove” scientifically that the Christian faith is amoral from an atheist perspective would be to take two groups of people from all nationalities, ethnicities, ages, socioeconomic backgrounds, etc. The only factor not in common would be their spiritual lives — one group would be shown to be living as committed followers of Jesus Christ, the other group committed Darwinian atheists. Observe their behaviors over the course of, say, a year — maybe two years just to be thorough. Then compare various social factors such as altruism, charity, resilience in the face of negative circumstances, the quality of relationship between friends as well as strangers, the sense of peace and well-being (though that’d be hard to assess without a poll which would then bias the results), crime rate, etc. If it could be shown that followers of Jesus were inherently more of a general menace to society and fostered breakdown within various societal groups compared with their atheistic counterparts, then you’d have a good case to make.

As far as I know, such a study has yet to be conducted successfully, primarily because such a study would be impossible. Once people know they’re being studied, they’d modify their behavior to show how their beliefs are superior. The closest you could get would be just to measure existing demographical groups in various regions of the world, although at that point the statistics become mostly unusable. The other problem with such a study is that the actual social behaviors considered “good” are themselves subject to major disagreement. For instance, within the Christian group, abortion and divorce might be generally reviled, leading a woman to carry her baby to term and put it up for adoption, or a couple to stick together and seek marital counseling and spiritual guidance. Whereas in the atheist group, such behavior might be considered perfectly acceptable — even desirable. At which point could there be any possible consensus of which group’s moral compass is the correct one based simply on what “benefits the group” from an evolutionary perspective?

So again I say, you can argue up, down, and sideways that religion is evil, but within your own philosophical framework you can’t construct a coherent case for such a moral judgement. In fact, the very definition of evil itself is up for debate in a world where matter precedes mind rather than the other way around.

One more point I’ll quickly address, though this is a topic better served for another post. You ask me what evidence would prove to me that there is no God. You might as well ask me what evidence would prove to me that my mother who passed away last year never actually existed and was a fabrication of my mind. My relationship with God isn’t based on wishful thinking, it’s based on the fact that I actually am blessed to have a relationship with God. Basically, you must simply dismiss any supernaturally-caused experiences I’ve had or events I’ve witnessed that are reasonably unlikely to occur through sheer chance and coincidence without divine guidance as being simply by-products of a sort of mental illness. It’s unfathomable to you that I might actually be telling the truth. Why? Because nothing like that has happened to you personally yet (or at least you haven’t acknowledged it yet) and you can’t measure God or spiritual substances in a laboratory.

Where does all of this leave us? Back where we started: you are unable to show how belief in God is amoral based on your own worldview. Are you willing to acknowledge this conundrum?

Frankly, if that’s the choice we got, I’ll choose superstition. My rational, logical thought processes don’t make me happy, don’t lead me to a more fulfilled life, don’t give meaning to the world, don’t explain love, joy, peace, beauty, creativity, good, evil, sin, hate, or just about anything else — and they most certainly don’t make me a better human being. I’ll take a non-existent God who loves me and takes care of me and directs my steps every day of my life than an angry, self-righteous, bigoted, fundamentalist atheist hands down.

Thankfully, God DOES exist. That’s even better.

(P. S. And He loves atheists. You just don’t know it yet!)

If evolutionists were forced to adhere to truth in advertising, they’d have to rename random mutation and natural selection to random degradation and natural deselection. (my wording, not DaveScot’s…)

I’ve been saying this for years. The concept of natural selection is a sound one, but insofar as it preserves the basic properties of a pool of similar organisms and deselects any mutated organisms that stray off the ranch. In other words, we may have hundreds of varieties of dog, but they’re all still dogs. And whether natural selection or artificial breeding produces all the different genetic versions of dogs, the dog-ness is always preserved. As for random mutations, despite the protests of evolutionists for years, there are virtually no obvious beneficial mutations recorded by scientists. We’ve seen a tiny handful of dubious changes in microorganisms that seem to increase fitness in an extremely specific environment — witness the rise of “superbugs” that resist antibiotics — but in every case there’s actually a good argument the change resulted in an overall decline in fitness level despite the presence of a particular helpful characteristic.

The story of life is simply not one of benevolent change leading to more and more complexity through the encouragement of selection, but rather one of dangerous change kept in check through the deselection of degraded organisms with diminished fitness levels. The onward and upward mantra of evolution just doesn’t square with the facts on the ground.

The amusing thing about all this is that Dawkins is fighting a loosing battle. Not only does he have to convince a vast majority of the planet that the supernatural is something people invented out of ignorance, lust for power, or both, but he has to convince many of his fellow atheists that choosing not to attack supernatural beliefs is in itself morally weak and harmful to society.

The real concern I have isn’t what materialists are up to, but rather what Christians are up to. We have a real problem with materialism here in our own midst. When the parents are shopping for the latest designer outfits at Nordstrom and the kids are buying the latest XBOX game, one wonders if the question of goo-to-you evolution vs. God-to-you creation even matters.

It certainly does to me.