SE040414
HOW I MET MY SAVIOR
2. The Isms
TITLE SLIDE
Imagine I put two items in front of you: a Jar full of jelly beans, and an IPod. Then, I ask a question:
- Is choosing your worldview, more like guessing the actual number of Jelly Beans in a jar, or more like picking your favorite song from a IPod playlist?
If you’re like most Americans you’d say, it’s like picking your favorite song. If you were here last week, you’d say, no it HAS to be more like guessing the number of Jelly Beans in a Jar. Why? Because truth is ABSOLUTE.
So now we’re ready to evaluate large, worldview options,
which is a way of examining the number of jellybeans they each say is in the jar, to see which gets it right.
Now, you might think, “Man, Rick! You mean, to be intellectually honest I have to test EVERY worldview that’s out there?” I understand there are a million worldviews to consider, Marxism, Materialism, Mormonism, Mary Baker Eddyism!… I get it, it’s overwhelming.
(SLIDE) But that’s why AC3 is here! We will simplify the process! Because if you look at your choices, you see that ALL worldviews fit inside 3 big CATEGORIES. What you’re going to see is that worldviews can be nicely grouped by their common answers to all these key questions:
- What is the nature of God?
- What is the nature of Reality?
- What is the nature of People?
- What is the nature of Morality?
So let’s start with the biggest question of all. What is God like? Because this is where the overarching name for each categories comes from (SLIDE).
- ATHEISM,
- THEISM, and
- PANTHEISM.
(SLIDE) EXAMPLES: show how broad. new age, deism
So what do these groups say about God (SLIDE)?
- ATHEISM – literally means, without God belief. It’s the idea that God is a nothing. God is merely a human idea that corresponds to nothing in reality.
- PANTHEISM – literally this means, Everything God, or ALL God. For Pantheists, there is nothing that is NOT God. Cancer, Trees, Starlight, Granite, Blood, Ideas, Numbers, Everything. The universe is God and God is the universe.
- THEISM – believe in a Personal God who made the universe, but who exists separately from the universe. So:
o Nothing is God
o Everything is God AND
o God is SOMETHING but not EVERYTHING.
(SLIDE) The question of REALITY, flows out of the question of God. What is ultimately REAL?:
- ATHEISM SAYS, ultimate reality is physical. Only Atoms exist. Molecules in Motion, is all that is or was or ever will be.
- PANTHEISM SAYS, ultimate everything is actually One thing, so distinctions in the physical universe are merely an illusion.
- THEISM SAYS, ultimate reality is spiritual, but the created universe is also real. So now reality is both spiritual and physical.
(SLIDE) The next question has to do with humans. What are People?
- ATHEISM says that people are biochemical machines. We are accidental byproducts of the natural laws acting on matter.
- PANTHEISM says that people are God! People are part of the cosmic “ALL” – though we are ignorant of our inherent divinity.
- THEISM says, people are Angel/Apes. That is, we are physical animals, with a spiritual component, a soul that is non-physical and outlives the body.
(SLIDE) The last question has to do morality. Where do right & wrong come from?
- ATHEISM says that Morality is a biological survival mechanism developed over time by chance, with no objective basis.
- PANTHEISM says that since ultimate reality is beyond distinctions, it is also beyond good and evil. The closer you get to the Real, the less you talk about right and wrong, which are ultimately illusions.
- THEISM says, morality is the standard of good and evil, defined ultimately by the character of an all good God. God is the basis of objective moral law.
Now, as you stare down these three big ISMS, don’t be intimidated AC3, because you are basically looking at the only three ways to look at the world! And here you can see graphically that the contrasts on big ideas are so stark, that, if we hold to the law of non-contradiction, we can say if one is probable the others are improbable.
For example:
- If it’s probable that God exists, Atheism, by definition is false
- If it’s likely that God is PERSONAL, then Pantheism, by definition is false.
TESTING THE WORLDVIEWS.
So with the time that remains, let’s put these worldviews to the test. Now some of you think this is ridiculous. You say, “Rick, even if I grant there is a set number of jelly beans in the jar, what are the chances of getting it right? It’s all guess work.” Two things to say to that:
- First, we’re not looking for some kind of undeniable proof. That’s almost impossible even in the areas of science and math. No, what we’re looking to do here is merely determine, which of these is most plausible.
- Second, it’s false to think that religious claims can’t be tested at all. Yes, you can’t test for God, BUT, you CAN test for a CAUSE by looking at its EFFECTS. We do this all the time in science. No one has seen an atom or a quark – we draw reliable conclusions by looking at the effects.
o We can look into our experience and see if a worldview matches reality.
o We can look at it logically and see if it’s coherent, if it makes sense.
(SLIDE) CHALLENGES TO THEISM
I’d like to begin by presenting the challenges to these ISMS. We’ll only scrape the surface of THEISM, but that’ll be our job next week. For now, let’s acknowledge briefly that there are two main challenges to THEISM:
- The PROBLEM OF EVIL
o If it’s true that there is an ALL good, designing, overarching, personal Intelligence separate from the world but Creator of the world, then what explains all the features of the universe that seem purposeless, random, chaotic and evil?
• Defense: freewill introduces evil.
- THE PROBLEM OF MIRACLES and the SUPERNATURAL
o All theistic religions have accounts of God breaking into the world to speak or act – but these contradict known laws of science. So why believe in anything that is beyond the scope of science?
Defense: law of nature is simply a fallible description of the way nature usually behaves. A miracle may be something that violates a lower law, but obeys a higher, as yet undiscovered, law.
For now, we’re going to leave THEISM in suspense (INVESTIGATIONS) and take it up next week. But let’s turn our evaluation onto Pantheism.
(SLIDE) The 2 Fundamental Objections to Pantheism are:
- THE PROBLEM OF MORALS
o New Age, Hinduism says that reality is beyond distinction, and so morality, which makes distinctions between right and wrong, must be illusion.
But try acting in reality as if this is true! You can’t do it.
o In fact, while believing that all morals are an illusion, the good Pantheist must focus relentlessly on what…? Doing good! Why?
Doing good is one of the main means of improving your lot in the next life, and eventually being released from the endless cycle of reincarnation (Samsara) into enlightenment.
- THE PROBLEM OF LOGIC
o Follow this line of thinking inside pantheism:
I am God
God is the Changeless ALL
I need to change my ignorance to realize my God-ness.
• So how can I be changeless and at the same time change to realize that I am changeless?
o This is incoherent at best.
o Here’s another logic problem:
If the Universe is impersonal oneness, then how did it ever cough up personal beings like us? How did we come to be trapped in the physical world of illusion?
• This makes no sense at all. (here Scientology (which is actually pantheistic) offers an explanation: You are ancient aliens, Thetans, who got trapped in the universe you made, for fun.)
• In response, Pantheists will say that rational thought is the problem. Zen masters will take their students through exercises designed to release you from logic… like trying to listen to the sound of one hand clapping, or trying to smell the color nine. Not joking.
• So the problem, we’re told, isn’t logical inconsistency in Pantheism, the problem is logic itself.
o But as we noted last week, to use logical argument to disprove logic, is to cut off the branch you’re sitting on.
So it seems that Pantheism doesn’t fair well under evaluation. But the worldview that’s getting all the press these days, is ATHEISM. So we need to spend more time here.
(SLIDE) The first objection to ATHEISM is
- THE PROBLEM OF EXISTENCE
o The first question of any seeker is simply this, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Julie Andrews had it right didn’t she? “nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could.”
o So to have the amazing, spectacular, huge, complex, Effect like a universe, you have an amazing, spectacular, huge, complex Cause, right?
Here, most Atheists, will say something dismissive, like, we don’t know where the universe came from YET.
• Here the latest multiverse theory is offered to show that, “Something CAN come from NOTHING.”
Next week we’ll talk about evidence from cosmology and philosophy that show a glaring dead end to pure scientism to explain everything.
The second great objections to ATHEISM is similar to PANTHEISM because they both reject objective morality. While the atheist hammers the Christian over the problem of EVIL, what most of them haven’t thought too much about is…
- THE PROBLEM OF GOOD!
o ILLUS: CS Lewis was a committed atheist from the time he was a teenager to his late 20’s as a young philosopher. And he was an atheist because of the problem of evil. But what he came to realize is that the problem of Good was more of a problem for his atheism, than the problem of evil was for Christianity! Here’s how he described it:
My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of “just” and “unjust”? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing the universe with when I called it unjust?
o You see what he’s saying? He’s saying, I can’t have my cake and eat it too. I can’t rail against the unfairness of the universe, using it as an argument against God, and at the same time deny that such a thing as Fairness is even real!
So the problem of EVIL actually BECOMES in a weird twist, and argument for Theism. Because Lewis realized, his indignation at evil was real, and his desires for good weren’t just chemical reactions in his brain.
This problem of GOODNESS is often a major blind spot for atheists, and when Lewis realized it in himself, he became a Theist. But most atheists aren’t that perceptive. Meaning, they don’t realize how often they smuggle in the idea of objective morality into their thinking.
Let me give you a test to prove this. I’ll give you two scenarios and you make a judgment, which one shows true badness:
1. Your white workmate is helping an African-American workmate to unravel a problem in the computer database. You overhear the white worker in his frustration call the African American a dumb N____. She looks up with hurt on her face. You denounce the white worker for being racist and prejudiced and for hurting her feelings.
2. Your other friend at work announces she is getting divorced. She has fallen in love with another man, and although she has two children, she has told her husband she cannot continue to live a lie. Her husband and children are crushed, but she feels she must be true to herself. You charge her with selfishness, lack of loyalty, and willingness to hurt others’ feelings.
Now what judgments would an atheist make? Most would be more willing to call scenario no. 1 wrong, rather than scenario 2. Why? Both situations involve someone hurting the feelings of another. Why is the racist comment evil and the divorce less evil, or not evil at all?
Now, when they actually did this with a group of seekers they gave a follow-up:
"How would people have answered these same questions 30 years ago?"
Everyone at that point agrees that people would have judged divorce as evil 30 years ago and might have even said the racist slur was just a “get over it” kind of thing. But why the difference between today and 30 years ago?
Here’s where Atheists perk up. Of course, moral judgments have changed because morality is not objective, it’s merely a “product of evolution and culture," they say. But now, they were given another question:
- So are you suggesting that using the "N" word was OK, 30 years ago? Or was it wrong, but they just thought it was OK?
This one question is totally crazy-making under atheism! You’re stuck:
- If they say it was really OK to call someone by this name at one time, they are saying racism in the past was OK and that even today it's simply a matter of taste or fashion
- But if they say people only thought it was all right, but REALLY it was wrong – they’re suggesting that a universal standard of right and wrong exists.
They’re stuck. Either position is untenable to an Atheist. What they try to do is affirm both, which is irrational. What that exposes is simply this:
The Atheist has their own unspoken rules which they smuggle into their moral thinking. And this means they are, without thinking about it, appealing to a higher law, a moral law that is absolute and not just a byproduct of evolution.
The point is, atheists, agnostics, post-moderns, secular people all tell you that morals are relative, but then..
- ask them how they feel about female circumcision in Africa, or
- head hunting in New Guinea.
o Suddenly there are moral absolutes.
But why? If morality is a survival trick in the brain, how do you make such judgments? Can you get more tortured logically than this?
- First of all, the whole point of Atheism, is that you have seen through morality. So you’ve gutted it of any FORCE OF OUGHTNESS whatsoever. You can’t say, it’s “Just a survival trick” and then turn around and say you OUGHT to not be a racist.
- Secondly, morality is essentially about compassion and justice and fairness, right? We agree, generally, that’s what’s moral. But how can such ideas arise from the fierce competition of survival of the fittest?
The morals that come from up from the primordial goo should look more like Nazi morality – not help for the weak, but survival for the strong.
CASE STUDY: NAZI
And this is exactly the foundation of Nazi morality. A common idea today is that Nazi’s were some kind of bastardized Christianity and so Hitler and his cronies get thrown on the pile of the damage that Christianity has done. Anyone who reads deep into Hitler knows that he had no affinity, no love and no agreement with Christianity AT ALL.
Instead, history shows one of Hitler’s guiding lights was Friedrich Nietzsche, who famously coined the phrase, “God is Dead.” It was Nietzsche who talked about the superman, freed from what he called the “Slave Morals” of that “Despot of the desert” (God) with his power to make laws.
The true man, was freed from obeisance to higher law. He was a courageous man, a ruthless man, a man who charted his own path, bowed to none but his own gusto and desire, a SUPER man – the UBER MENSCH.
Today if you go to Auschwitz, you will find on a wall a plaque that quotes Hitler as saying:
"I want to raise a generation of young people who are devoid of conscience, imperious, relentless, and cruel."
The old Atheists like Bertrand Russell, Albert Camus and Nietzsche were much more courageous than the new atheists. The new atheists say, nature makes us moral, therefore we OUGHT to do X or Y. But why? They have no answer.
The old atheists knew that the ATHEISTIC WORLDVIEW was consistent only with a radical abdication of meaning, and purpose and goodness. These things are absurdities in a world dislodged from a higher Designer, where only atoms exist.
- (SLIDE) Albert Camus said: “there is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide.”
- (SLIDE) Bertrand Russell said: Such, in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home. That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.
- Nietzsche – first to say, God is dead! And we are his killers.
And so the New Atheists want to pick up the shovel and finish the job. Put God away once and for all. The irony is that they can’t do it without invoking this God, for
- every time they say, good and bad, truth and falsehood, heart and soul,
- every time they shake their bony fingers at Christianity for being hypocritical and false,
o they invoke God.
How so?
- According to their own philosophy the only thing the bad Christian is guilty of is doing what comes naturally; what he is, in fact, biologically and chemically and physically PREDESTINED by immutable laws of nature, to do!
o Only in invoking the miracle of personality, the miracle of choice and freedom and the miracle of objective goodness can the Atheist hold the Christian he despises, in contempt.
And so by seeking to eradicate faith, he calls upon the unseen Law, which he says does not exist!
David Berlinski is a non-Christian, agnostic Jew, who has dared to ask and answer some rather embarrassing questions of these NEW Atheists:
• Has anyone provided a proof of God’s nonexistence? Not even close.
• Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here? Not even close.
• Have the sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life? Not even close.
• Does anything in the sciences or in their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational? Not even in the ballpark.
• Is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt? Dead on.
He saying: wherever else the ultimate truth may lie, it cannot lie in this pack of lies. Neither can it lie in the confusion of Pantheism. But we don’t just want to be LEFT with Theism, by process of elimination. We want to know how strong the case is.
That’s next week.
