Tag Archives: atheism

Pro-Family Atheist

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Atheist Peter Wall is afraid that something like “Brave New World” is on the horizon.

“…I can…see the seeds of legal arguments that may give traction to the idea of removing reproduction from the hands of individuals…If both the mother and the father, both of whom are still required to contribute gametes for successful reproduction,…have no incentive or desire to take responsibility for the fruits of their reproduction, the argument only strengthens that this function be taken from them. It will get even stronger as the universal pre-school movement progresses and the two eventually meet up and create a continuous, state-mandated and state-controlled child-production facility. (I know that sounds crazy, but just keep watching. The historical trend has been going for over 150 years now; we’re closer to the end than the beginning.)”

I don’t know about you, but I’m not used to support for traditional families coming from atheists.

Leap of Faith

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Sean, a buddy of mine and long-timer reader of this blog, made a comment that I think ought to be highlighted. Responding to my post about an atheist’s argument against the veracity of Jesus Christ’s claims, and a mutual friend’s comment, he wrote the following.

"My God isn’t some pie in the sky, and He’ll change your life if you’ll let him."

This gets to the root of why I’m not religious. Everyone says something long these lines. Everyone wants me to make a leap of faith, but no one has been able to give me a reason to leap into their religion over the other ones, without out first making a leap of faith. (I hope that paragraph isn’t too contorted)

Nope, it’s not too contorted. You don’t want to look before you leap, especially since most if not all religions claim to be exclusively true. They can’t all be right. To which should you leap?

I’d like to open this up to discussion. What reasons would you give Sean to have faith? Why is Christianity right while other religions are wrong (or at least less right)? I’m sure Sean will let us know which reasons have been beaten to death and carry no currency with him, so let’s avoid the well-worn apologetical arguments. Perhaps some of you are fomer atheists or agnostics yourselves. What convinced you?

Do You Believe in Jesus?

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I keep a folder of potential blogging material. I recently pulled out the following post I found in a Usenet newsgroup I used to read. It was also cross-posted here.

Suppose a group of people walk up to you on the street and one of them introduces himself as John, the son of God? Those surrounding him say they believe in John and have witnessed miracles he has performed. One of his disciples announces from the crowd that John has healed the lame and cured the sick. He says "our book teaches that the authorities will cause John great suffering and kill him but he will not die! "Do you believe that John is the Son of God? Why? Why not?

Suppose John proceeds to produce a glass filled with a clear liquid seemingly from nowhere. "I shall turn this glass of water into wine" he says and with a gesture the water turns into what appears to be wine. He then says to you "will you believe me now that I am the son of God, worship and serve me as your savior"?.

Would you?

Would you say that this man is a probably a fraud when you have direct evidence that he has apparently performed miracles?

Trickery you say.

If it is so easy not to believe this man and his supporters how is it possible for you to believe in a 2000 year old story based on hearsay evidence. Beware of false Gods? John has warned his people of them too.

None of the events which point to Jesus as the Son of God is current like the evidence for John? Why is the bible, a book, written by humans such a long time ago taken as the gospel truth? It is even quoted by people as the word of God. Why is John’s evidence that you can see with your eyes not believed? Evidence which is stronger than the evidence from a 2000 year old book?

Do you think people that lived in ancient times were more or less gullible than you? What kind of experiences did the average man have 2000 years ago? How long did he live? What did he read? Did he know what caused disease? What a comet was? What planets were? How old the earth really was? Did he know about germs, penguins and dinosaurs? Good nutrition and health care? Did he know a miracle when he heard about it?

Just wondering.

D. Haas

I’ve always found that to be an interesting argument against Christianity. What do you fine folks think?

Scientism

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science_religion.jpgWesley J.Smith, author of several books including Consumer’s Guide to a Brave New World, agrees with me in thinking that when science becomes scientism, it becomes very much like a religion.

The post itself is little more than a link to an article, but the comments are quite interesting. A raving and drooling commenter (who reminds me of someone…) "debates" with Smith. It’s quite amusing.


An Analogical Argument for the Legitimacy of Religious Experiences

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In the course of religious study, it is easy to become very attached to the idea of "seeking out" God. The emphasis is often placed upon logical reasoning and scientific research. There are, however, other ways of finding (or not finding, whichever the case may be) God. I am in particular referring to mystical/religious experiences. In these experiences, the subject believes that God has shown Himself to him/her. No intentional steps need be taken to induce these experiences. In fact, they are quite often unexpected and/or uninvited. These experiences often lead to those who have them to believe that God in some form exists.

Specifically, religious experiences are stated to be analogous to sensory experiences and therefore veridical. The following is an example of a simple argument for God's existence from analogy.

  1. Religious experiences should be considered to be analogous to sense experiences in cognitively relevant aspects and therefore a type of valid perception. (premise)

  2. When one perceives something, one generally has good, though not certain reason to think that the thing perceived objectively exists. (premise)

  3. Someone who is the subject of a religious experience generally has good, though not certain, reason to believe that God exists. (conclusion from premises)

I will concede that the argument as stated is somewhat inadequate. For instance, there are no explanations for why the premises hold. However, I have seen no explanations or contradictions which defeat it to my satisfaction. These weak arguments against the analogical argument for the veridicality of religious experiences are the subject of my criticism.

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