Christian vs. atheist, round 1

June 11, 3:37 PMMethodist ExaminerJames-Michael Smith

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"Are you ready?!  Are you ready?!  Let's get it on!!  C'mon!!" 

In the first round of this ongoing discussion, LA Atheist Examiner, Hugh Kramer and Methodist Examiner, James-Michael Smith will each offer their own answer to the question "Whis the main reason you reject the opposing view as a valid worldview?" 

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"What is the main reason you reject theism as a valid worldview?"

Hugh's response:
 
Theism, is belief in the existance of a god or gods. In the West it has a more specifically monotheistic interpretation: belief in the existence of one God viewed as the creative source of the human race and the world who transcends yet is immanent in the world. Still, the monotheistic interpretation is a subcategory of theism. The actual number of gods is immaterial. Hindus, pagans and others who worship multiple gods are theists too.
 
So why do I reject theism as a valid worldview? Well, let's put aside for a moment the good or bad things people claim religion inspires; the killings, the savings, the moral guidance or the skewing thereof, the assertions of superiority of this one over that one and all the other divisive little things theists do in the name of being inclusive for the whole human race. This debate is limited to just the major reason I reject it so let's just examine it's validity as a worldview.
 
At one time it was the best view mankind had to offer. In earliest times people looked at the world and wondered what made the tree give shade, or why a rock chose that particular moment to fall off a ledge, or what gave a fox his cunning. They decided it was because everything, animate or non-animate, has it's own will. The idea that spirits or god-force infuses everything survives in certain cultures such as some American Indian tribes and, if you don't mind stretching the point a teeny-weeny bit, those Star Wars fans who think "The Force" is something real.
 
As humankind's knowledge of the world expanded, religious ideas evolved to encompass what was known and offer explanations for it. Eventually, it was the turn of the monotheistic faiths that so many subscribe to today to come into being and offer their explanations for everything. The process involved in this evolution of ideas is fascinating but not within the scope of this essay to go into further. If you're interested though, Richard Dawkins goes into the subject pretty thoroughly in The God Delusion. For my purpose, I just want to make three points. The first is that humanity's knowledge of the world around it didn't stop expanding when the holy books of the monotheistic faiths were written. The second is that there is absolutely nothing in any of the holy books of any of them that arguably couldn't have been conceived of or known by people living at that time; so a claim of "divine inspiration" or "special knowledge" is definately open to question. I'll explain the third point in my conclusion.
 
The accuracy of the first point should be self-evident. If it's not, you might want to get in your ox-cart, go to the nearest lending-temple and check out a scroll on the history of science and technology. The second point requires a closer look though. The claim of divine inspiration is not unquestionably evident anywhere in the holy books I've read. Take morality for instance. The Golden Rule is common in some form or other in all three of the great monotheistic faiths. It's also common to even older religions that no longer have adherents. So are rules against lying, killing and stealing. Since it should be evident that no society can last long if rules like these aren't followed, isn't it possible that could think of them themselves and see the necessity of enforcing them through law... or maybe even by promising divine reward or punishment by the gods too? If you admit this is possible, then you have to decide which scenario is more plausible; that God(s) inspired and enforce moral laws, or that men thought of them and by claiming that God was on the job would help with the enforcement of them. After all, it's easier to evade a policeman's eye than that of a god watching you and taking notes on your infractions. It's actually irrelevant to the effect the holy rules have as to whether or not the people who wrote them down thought they were divinely inspired. It only matters if you think so.
 
And we needn't examine whether all these rules are truly moral or not; or whether they sometimes contradict what we think is moral today, such as whether it's an unalloyed good to be willing to kill your own child to please God as Abraham and Jepthah were; or whether God was making some profound moral point by sending a bear to kill children who were teasing a bald man. These things may not help the case for God's moral authority but they don't say anything about who wrote the Bible: divinely inspired men or just men. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to be considered seriously. Where is the extraordinary evidence for divine inspiration or special knowledge?
 
Where does Jehovah say, "No, no, no, King Hiram. 3 is not the best value to use for pi when you build my temple. Use 3.14159 and the structure will be more pleasing to me." If God had given the value of pi to five or more decimal places, that would have shown special knowledge unavailable at the time. As it happens, the Egyptians already had calculated pi to two decimal places but the "divinely inspired" Hebrew who wrote about the First Temple wasn't even aware of that. Similarly, wouldn't it be nice if Jesus said, "Hey, I raised Lazarus from the dead but here's a miracle you can perform even when I'm not in town; a cure for cancer." And isn't it too bad that the angel Gabriel never says, "Hey, Mohammed! Here's a real revelation for ya! Mass is just a special state of energy and you can determine the relationship between them with this simple formula, E = M*C (squared)." Unfortunately, there is nothing in any of the holy books that could not plausibly originate from the minds of the people of the time. Even the verses that some claim predict future events, as Deuteronomy 28:64 and Luke 19:43-44 are supposed to do for the Jewish Diaspora, aren't written with the kind of specificity one would expect from an all-knowing deity. If they were, they might read, "66 years after the Savior's birth and again 132 years after it, the Jews will rebel against their Roman overlords, be defeated after terrific struggles and be scattered across the face of the Earth. Not until 1,948 years after the Savior's birth will they have a homeland again." (author's note: most of these examples were taken from or inspired by Sam Harris's wonderful little book, Letter to a Christian Nation. I recommend it for its concise, easy-to-read explanations of most of the critical thinking vs faith arguments.)
 
Finally we come to my third point. Despite the fact none of monotheism's holy books can be unequivocally shown to originate anywhere other than the minds of people of the times they were written, each is claimed to be the repository of absolute truths. The effect of this is a tendency to freeze that time's worldview into dogma and retard the acceptance of any new knowledge that's at odds with it. It skews understanding as people of faith try to pound the square peg of reality into the round hole of their dogma. Almost all the social, material and scientific progress of the world has been held back rather than assisted by theists. It isn't just Galileo's sun-centered view of the solar system or Darwin's theory of evolution that they've rejected and tried to suppress; it's Edward Jenner's smallpox vaccine, Benjamin Franklin's lightning rod, emancipation of women and a whole host of other things. I suppose I've mentioned a couple things I think are wrong with the theistic worldview rather than just one. Even so, they aren't the only reasons I reject theism as a valid worldview. They are, however, a couple of the major ones.

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"What is the main reason you reject atheism as a valid worldview?"

James-Michael's response:

There isn’t one specific reason that I reject atheism; there are many.  Rather than a linear argument against nonbelief being what leads to my faith, it’s more like number of lines of evidence that come together into a sort of web of faith.  But for the purpose of this dialogue I will highlight one reason in particular why I reject atheism as valid: in my opinion, atheism lacks sufficient explanatory power to answer the most fundamental questions of life.

Atheism denies that there is a creator, designer or originator of the universe that is apart from the universe.  This means that the origin of the universe (not to mention our little neck of the galactic woods called biological life) must be explained from within.  The universe either came to being out of nothing, with no reason or purpose behind it, or it has always existed with no explanation necessary for why it does in the first place, or it created itself through an unidentified quantum event involving the inversion or reversal of spacetime (which differs depending on which theoretical physicist one reads).  There are numerous arguments which have put forward to show the implausibility of each of these options—the one I believe carries the most weight would be the Kalam cosmological argument.  But regardless of which particular argument for a theistic, deistic, pantheistic or panentheistic universe is considered the strongest, the argument for an atheistic universe lies at the bottom of the stack when it comes to explanatory power.  

Atheism denies that humanity has any intrinsic teleological purpose.  In an atheistic universe, there is no intrinsic difference, existentially speaking, between people and particles; between mankind and meteorites.  We have no ultimate purpose—just whatever ‘purpose’ we choose to believe we have.  This renders life meaningless—despite some atheists’ claims to the contrary.  Many atheists simply aren’t consistent enough in (or choose cognitive dissonance in order to avoid) following the worldview to its logical conclusions.  Those, like Nietzsche, who have, are often brushed aside as mentally or emotionally troubled, rather than embraced as true models of atheistic thinking.  However, if there is no external supreme creator, then there logically cannot be any objective meaning to existence.  This is inescapable, it seems.  It doesn’t mean atheism is false, of course.  But it does mean that intellectually honest atheists need to live consistent with their worldview and stop trying to embrace intrinsic objective purpose to life.  

Atheism denies an ultimate objective source of Justice and Morality.  Let me be clear at this point in what I’m NOT saying.  I’m not saying atheists aren’t Just or Moral!  Atheists often have a keen sense of Justice and Morality—many times trumping even those who adhere to various religions!  However, I believe this is a case of atheists living better than their worldview.  Notions of Justice and Morality are intrinsic to humanity.  Even though humans have often disagreed as to the CRITERIA in judging whether something is Just or Moral, they have always, at all time, universally recognized the EXISTENCE of these concepts and their binding nature over all humanity.  While there may be differing frameworks of Morality or notions Justice, there is no question that an ultimate, true, objective standard exists among humanity—as  C.S. Lewis thoroughly demonstrated in the opening chapters of “Mere Christianity.”  If atheism is true, then this becomes extremely difficult (I would say impossible) to account for rationally.  

Atheism cannot plausibly explain the near-universal innate tendency toward belief in a god, God, gods, etc. among humanity.  Many evolutionary and anthropological arguments for the existence of religion have been offered, from “religion was created to keep the ruling class in authority” to Freud’s “religion is the projection of inner longings for parental love” to “religion is wishful thinking that gives people a crutch to get through life.”  These arguments usually sound reasonable at first, but I believe they fall apart once actual religious belief among humanity’s various religious worldviews is looked at in greater detail.  

While one can’t “prove” or “disprove” atheism or theism in a scientific sense, at the end of the day, the arguments in favor of theism are much stronger and the explanatory ability of atheism is extremely weak in dealing with humanity’s deepest and most profound questions.