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WHY WOULD WE REJECT GOD?

8/28/2018

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[Note: One of the frequent contributors to the comments section at Debunking Christianity (where this post was originally published) is named Don Camp. That information is necessary in order to understand the wordplay in it.]

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There are quite a few believers out there who argue that the existence of a Creator is obvious to all, and that the only reason atheists deny this is because they don’t want to submit to his authority. For those in this theistic camp — those who, as one might say, 
don this particular religious attire — God is evident from the world he created. As Romans 1:20 puts it, “his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.” Furthermore, this supposedly explains why belief in some god or other is found in every human society. 

Atheists, however, reject the Creator because they don’t want there to be divine judgement; they want the freedom to do as they please. Thus, they cannot accept the idea of a higher power with moral demands on them. 

It is a simple explanation, one designed to convince believers that they shouldn’t bother listening to the arguments of atheists — for the arguments are merely a cover for the real reason atheists reject God: their disobedience. 

But now, let’s suppose that the two premises of the argument are true — that the existence of a creator is evident from the world around us, and that some of us don’t want to obey a higher authority. Why would anyone in that case argue that there is no creator? If his existence is obvious, after all, then it is also obvious that belief in a creator who makes no moral demands on us — like the god of deism — is a much better alternative than atheism. 

There are deists, and there are members of different religions who believe in gods, yet do not submit to the moral demands of the Christian deity. Why, then, would anyone be an atheist if the evidence for a creator is as obvious as this argument claims it is? ​



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RELIGION AND FALSIFIABILITY

8/14/2018

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Atheists have for a long time pointed out that evil makes the existence of a perfect God at least less likely, and theists of course have attempted to explain why that is not the case. One interesting aspect of this debate is that, given the way theists argue, there cannot possibly be any amount of evil that would make their God less likely. Their answers to the problem of evil aren’t designed to account for a particular amount of pain and suffering, but for whatever pain and suffering there happens to be. 

The free will defense, for example, says that evil is the result of the choices made by fallen human beings (and angels), and that is meant to explain away terrible things no matter how bad they are. The Holocaust, the Black Plague, cancer, atheism — all of these things and more can be blamed on us rather than on the all-powerful being in charge. (The buck has to stop somewhere.) Or consider soul-making theodicies, which argue that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger (and, come to think of it, that even what does kill you makes you stronger). Or the view that it is simply a mystery why God allows pain and suffering, but that there must be some reason which we puny humans are too dumb to understand. None of these explanations attempts to account only for a certain amount of evil, but rather for any amount we might encounter. No matter what evil may befall us, we should remain confident that there is an all-loving God who has a reason for allowing it. 

But it’s not just the problem of evil, of course. The theistic worldview is designed to accommodate any criticism, no matter how factual. God created the world in six days — unless, of course, science has established that it took far longer than that, in which case it wasn’t literally six days. Noah and his family built a floating zoo — unless that’s actually based on the earlier Epic of Gilgamesh and there is zero evidence of a world-wide flood, in which case it’s just a morality tale. And Jesus predicted the coming of the Son of Man within the lifetime of some of those listening to him — only it didn’t happen, therefore he was actually talking about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. No matter what happens or what we find out, the religion remains unscathed. Theists might suppose that's a good thing. Their view can withstand any onslaught. It is unfalsifiable. But unfalsifiability comes at a price. 

A view is falsifiable if it makes an empirical substantive claim — if, in other words, it states that things which can in principle be observed are one way rather than another. An unfalsifiable claim therefore is one that does not say anything about the way the observable world is. It makes no predictions. 
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Consider once again the existence of evil. A theist might be convinced that the current world is a better place because there is a loving God up there. But if God is compatible with any amount of evil, then that’s not the case. If next week an advanced alien civilization were to land on our planet, imprison us all, and begin using us as their food supply, most theists would say it’s all part of God’s plan. (And some would no doubt claim it’s punishment for gay marriage.) The existence of God cannot guarantee such a thing won’t happen. If God’s perfection is compatible with any amount of suffering, then we cannot expect this to be a better world than it would be without God. And if the entire religion is unfalsifiable, we cannot expect anything else to be one way rather than another, so long as we are talking about empirically verifiable matters. 

But didn’t Paul say that if Christ wasn’t raised, then the Christian faith is in vain? And isn’t that a clear case of a falsifiable claim? It certainly appears to be (even if it is one that’s rather difficult to verify). And yet, apologist William Lane Craig famously admitted that, were he to go back in time and see that the resurrection never took place, he would still believe. That seems to be how most Christians feel — never mind that it is absurd, and that it flatly contradicts Paul’s stated view. Ironically, if you want your religion to be unfalsifiable, you have to admit that Jesus might not have been raised from the dead — and that everything else your religion says of an empirical nature might not literally be true. 


[Originally published at Debunking Christianity]




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STEALING FROM GOD: CONCLUSION

8/1/2018

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Having made his case for the truth of Christianity, in the last chapter Turek presents the standard explanation for why people fail to accept it, namely, rebellion against authority. We just don’t want anyone telling us what to do. Turek says that this is true of everyone, including Christians. He even admits that “quite often I don’t want to acknowledge that there is a God and I am not Him.” He doesn’t explain why, in that case, people like him do accept Jesus. Presumably, he thinks that everyone rebels, only that atheists are worse. 

In addition (as is usually the case with such claims), Turek ignores the adherents of other religions. Are some people Hindus or Muslims because they rebel against the real God? Obviously not. Yet that would have to be the case in order for the argument to be correct. 

The rebellion explanation of nonbelief leads to a common justification of hell, namely that it exists for the sake of those who choose to go there. If some individuals “don’t want Jesus now, why would God force them into His presence for all eternity?” But unfortunately for Turek, there is a strong tension between this idea and the claim that hell is punishment for sin, and he has a difficult time avoiding that tension. Immediately after claiming that hell is there because God respects our freedom of choice, he says that it is needed because without it, “murderers, rapists, and child abusers... will never get justice.” But of course that's a different justification for it. And if evildoers are in hell only because they would rather be there, then wouldn’t it be a greater punishment to send them to heaven instead? And are we really to believe that God won’t do anything so harsh as to force them to do something against their will, even though they deserve serious punishment? In addition, of course, such people can convert on their deathbeds. But in that case, how will they ever receive the punishment they deserve? 

The other obvious tension here for people like Turek is that, in addition to claiming that God is merely respecting our wishes, they also want to claim that hell is really, really bad. It is “a place of anguish, regret, mental torment, and weeping and gnashing of teeth.” But if it is so bad for everyone who is there, then how can they also prefer it to the alternative? The only way for that to make sense is if our desire for rebellion is so great that we would rather put up with almost any pain rather than live under someone else's authority. And yet atheists, like other people, subject themselves to authority on a regular basis. No one likes it all the time, but atheists, just as much as theists, submit to the rule of law and put up with regulations from their government rather than rebel. It doesn’t appear, then, that submitting to authority is the worst thing that can happen to an atheist. 

Turek also maintains that, even though it isn’t doing good deeds that gets you into heaven, accepting Jesus does make you a better person: “If we truly come to know Him, then we will do good works.” And he mentions a thought experiment from Dennis Prager to back this up: Suppose, he asks, that you found yourself in a bad part of town late at night and saw several men walk toward you. Would you be relieved if you found out that these men had just come from a Bible-study class? If so, then even if you aren’t a Christian you must admit that Christianity has a “civilizing effect on society.” 

Now, admittedly, people who take the time to go to a Bible-study class are less likely to be criminals. But this doesn’t show that Christianity reduces crime. Not only is it not the case that people who merely happen to be Christian are less likely to be criminals, a similar thought experiment shows that it isn’t the fact that it is a Bible-study class that matters: Suppose instead that the men had just come from an ethics class taught by an atheist professor — or, for that matter, from just about any voluntary class. I think you should feel every bit as relieved. 

As I previously mentioned, Stealing from God came to my attention when one of Turek’s fans strongly recommended I read it. This individual apparently thought its arguments should convince anyone. And he is not alone. David Limbaugh (Rush’s brother, for those who may not know) describes Turek's book as “an unassailable case for the truth of Christianity,” and many others have praised it as well. And yet, as we’ve seen, the book is anything but unassailable. In fact, its arguments are among the weakest I’ve ever read. The fault is not entirely Turek’s, though. After all, defending the indefensible isn’t easy. Turek may have done a worse job than many, but in the final analysis the arguments of more sophisticated apologists are every bit as mistaken. The problem lies with the claims themselves. If Christianity is not only true, but obviously so, as these people maintain, then it shouldn’t be so difficult to demonstrate that fact. That it is so difficult should tell them something. 



[Originally published at Debunking Christianity]

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