Tag: agnosticism
-
False If It Helps?
Many people come to believe and embrace Christianity by means of some tragedy or crisis. They’re driven in desperation to look for something that will help them rationalize and file away their grief, and many times, they find Christianity. Many other times, they grab hold of other things, such as drugs, alcohol, other religions, or even a perceived freedom achieved from relinquishing religion. In any case, tragedy has a way of forcing people into a spiral of desperation while their flailing arms are reaching for something outside themselves hoping that thing can withstand the force, and grant stability once again. …
-
[F]utilitarianism
There is a school of thought to which many ethicists subscribe, whose students never seem willing to move on from the lambda-omega-lambdas, and whose parties are always unusually loud and long even after the music has been stopped for years and all the drink has dried up. This troupe of tautological idealogues loves to insist upon its own opinions and swears so should you. In doing so they both establish and undercut their point. These are the Utilitarians.
Utilitarianism is a philosophy of ethics that is summarily defined to say, “the morally right action is the action that produces …
-
Unintelligent Design?
Allow me, for a moment, to explain some of my initial thoughts concerning what denial of God’s existence entails with respect to Design. If you hold that there is no God, and that there is no Design to the universe, there are a few things that follow. If there is no Designer, and if there is no Design, then there are no “designers” and there are no individual “designs.” None, at all, anywhere. I will now proceed to explain the same thing in probably too many ways and in probably too many words.
There is only cause and effect. “Intention” …
-
Apologies to Atheists
It’s not often we as Christians have to apologize to our arch-nemeses, the Atheists. In fact, if we can help it, we never do. We’re prohibited from ceding any ground whatsoever to our enemies, because as the Bible says in verse 4, “so that thou shalt not be seen to be wrong in all thy days, whithersoever thou havest thine ever.” But as with any rulebook, laws can be broken or bent whenever life deems it necessary.
When Richard Dawkins penned his magnum opus, The God Delusion, he never expected his words to be so clearly and thoroughly confirmed as …
-
Stockholm Syndrome And Sympathizing With Sinners
We are an imperfect people. We believe God is perfect, and that He is perfecting us, conforming us to Christ’s image, who is perfect. But until we are perfected, we are sinners. We live in a world with limited privacy, and as such many of our mistakes are in public view. We profess there is a standard by which men should live, and yet sometimes we fail miserably to live by that very standard. Often, those who aren’t Christians are watching our lives, scrutinizing us, to see whether what we profess is true. When we stumble, we’re called out, and …
-
On God’s “Evil” Actions
Probably one of the most common objections to Christianity that we hear is one that relates to the Problem of Evil. While the problem of evil asks, “How can an Omnipotent, Good God exist with evil in the world,” this particular one asks, “How can God be ‘good’ if he has done all these evil things?” Men will object to Christianity saying that God has done evil things. And from this they conclude God either doesn’t exist, or if he does exist he is not worth believing.
We answer the former problem by demonstrating from the Bible that the …
-
Falsificationism And Christianity
Another difficulty with religious language (and hence, Christianity) that non-religious people have concerns itself with “falsifiability,” or the aspect of any claim which states it must, in principle at least, be capable of subjecting to certain scientific criteria by which it can conceivably be proven false, in order to be considered meaningful. Like Verificationism, Falsificationism assumes an empiricist worldview, and so is subject immediately to some of the criticisms of Verificationism, including for instance, the seeming arbitrariness of the foundational principles undergirding it. Falsificationism was articulated as a way to circumvent the problems inherent in Verificationism. While Karl Popper …
-
Verificationism And Christianity
One of the many problems atheists have with Christianity involves the issue of Verificationism. They may say, “I can’t believe Christianity because it can’t be verified,” and some might include, “…scientifically.” Some may even say, “It’s not true unless it can be verified.” Greg Bahnsen has a chapter in Always Ready entitled, “The Problem of Religious Language,” wherein he deals with both Verificationism and Falsificationism. The summary of the problem is that any religious utterance cannot be considered “meaningful” unless it can be checked against real-world data. Any talk of God, for instance, must correspond to something observable in the …
-
Some Questions for Matt Oxley
Matt Oxley describes himself as a “former Christian helping others work through the battle of a lost faith.” One aspect of his mission is “to promote intelligent discussion.” So he won’t mind my probing a bit concerning his claim, “I’m a former Christian.”
Recall Scripture states, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.” (1 John 2.19) Recently a professing Christian cited this verse for Matt. The implication …
-
Without God and Without Hope: An Atheist on the Connecticut School Shootings
Atheist Matt Oxley comments on Christian responses to the shooting in Connecticut as follows:
Despite how angry this makes me, how silly and offensive I find these notions, suddenly I find myself envious of people with some form of a god to comfort them and answer their questions, even if those answers are shallow and ignorant, because I am simply without any answers that can even begin to make sense of this. Answers like this seem almost blissful.
Note that Matt is angry at the application of Christian tenets to tragic events. As I mentioned in my debate with Matt, …