Atheist: Ethics of Thought

This post is my dilemma with the atheistic ethics of thought. Richard Carrier, (link to article in previous post) attempts to present whåt the atheist stands for (or ought to). I will be dealing with several points he makes.

Atheist: Contrary to theological polemic, it is not absurd to say you stand for doubt.

Response: It is quite absurd to say that you stand for doubt. The very statement is self-defeating, because you are using certainty to stand for uncertainty. Are you certain you stand for doubt?

Atheist: It is beyond dispute that whenever there is any outstanding disagreement about any matter of fact, which is not resolved when everyone looks and observes the same things, then the methods of science and logic must be brought to bear to decide the question.

Response: I agree. But we need to think of all methods of science and logic. Typically one believes that turning to science means everything is suddenly in the realm of fact and reason. This is dangerous, because there are many theories, such as macroevolution and natural selection, that have no proof. So, when turning to science, we cannot assume that the only conclusions we will arrive at are unbiased.

Atheist: The values that play the most important role in any person's life are those which stem from the meaning they have found in their lives. It is the standard rhetoric of the religious that only god gives life meaning, but to really believe this one must first believe that human life, thought, happiness, even love, are all in themselves worthless and void of meaning. I think any atheist would agree this is absurd. Even if I were the accidental byproduct of a giant rubber tire machine, the mere fact that I live and know that I live would give my life meaning at once.

Response: There is a difference between relative meaning, and ultimate meaning. When Jesus Christ died and was ressurected, He proved that every part of our existance is infused with meaning. God created us, gave us freewill, and then offered us salvation. As the psalmist says, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. In the figure of Christ, a meaning exists that transcends our circumstances and time.

The meaning Carrier refers to is relative. This relative "meaning" is loosely shaped by one's concept of value, for it is really our goals, hopes, and desires that create it. Being an accidental biproduct of a tire is not too far removed from the evolutionary position. Finding meaning in just being, is not really finding meaning, but inventing it to suit oneself... outside of God, meaning is only an idea based on one's desires.

Carrier: The ultimate meaning of life is to live it.

Response: Then why waste time doubting everything? If you're "just living", then all that matters is what you believe.

Carrier: Everything else we pursue is for some other reason, but we seek happiness for no other reason than to be happy. And though the preacher loves to attack the hedonism which he thinks this entails, in actual fact his own religion is based on the very same principle. For all the goals of religion are sought for some other reason, except the ultimate goal of eternal happiness. For when a preacher says "worship god" and the congregation asks why, and continues to ask the why of every answer he gives, he can only end the interrogation by answering with the same ultimate answer: "because it will make you happy.

Response: My question for Carrier, and anyone who believes the same: Have you reached your ultimate goal of happiness? Is it not ironic that people who spend their energy trying to be happy are the most unhappy? He is wrong about the ultimate reason followers of Christ worship God. It is not to find happiness, but to fulfill our purpose. Inherent in this is joy. (See previous post)

Atheist: [Atheists] seek moral truth not in rules, which are merely man-made expedients devised for those cases when one must act without thinking. They seek it in broader principles. No matter what language or what philosophy an atheist uses when he outlines his moral beliefs, every atheist I have known has always fallen back upon the one concept echoed worldwide, and taught by religious and secular leaders throughout all time: the famous "Golden Rule."

Response: The Christian does not seek moral truth in rules, either, but in Christ, who changes our desires. The problem is not with what we do, but it is in what we want to do. It's fine to say you follow "do unto others as you would have others do unto you," but if someone hurts you, what do you want to do? If you are having a bad day, do you want to be nice to others?

Christ was nailed to a cross, after being beaten, and says "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Remember that it is not enough to change our actions. Our hearts must change... and we cannot change them ourselves.

Summary: This statement-response dialogue I have pieced together is designed to shed some light on the problems in atheism. I recognize that all atheist may not sympathize with Richard Carrier's arguments. I only used his writings (which came to my attention on a post on Memoirs of an Exchristian), because he is the first atheist I have read who attempts to create a stand for atheism... and, in that, I appreciate his work. I find it is much easier to articulate what you are against then what you are for.

Please comment on any of these points; I only ask that you clearly state the view you support, even as you deconstruct the opposing view.

Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free ... I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." (John 8: 31-36)

Christian: Ethics of Thought (2)

This is the continuation of my response to the article What an Athiest Ought to Stand for, by Richard Carrier. Research Material includes (first two are free MP3 download, provide exceptional background for this discussion, please listen!!) The Loss of Truth; Disillusionment Postmodernism and Rebirth; and Biblical Authority and Cultural Relativism.

Also, I have posted additional material (background to the christian perspective) under my "resources" link. (I will be adding more material there shortly). This section focuses on thought about the way the follower of Christ approaches the purpose of life.

Life is infused with meaning. Since we were created by God, in His image, and purposed to exist for his pleasure, every bit of our existence is important. We are most fufilled in exercising our purpose through exultation in Him.

Worship is the submission of all of our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness, nourishment of mind by His truth, purifying of imagination by His beauty, opening of the heart to His love, and submission of will to His purpose. And all this gathered up in adoration is the greatest of human expressions of which we are capable.~ William Temple

This has an invaluable impact on the way we live our lives, and view those around us. It was through believing a lie that death first came into the world. Now arguably the greatest deception in our culture is that we can somehow arrive at unbiased conclusions within ourselves, and thus decipher the purpose of life. When we take an honest look at our history, philosophy has shifted from the questioning "Who is God?" to "Where is God?" to "God is dead."

Now, our society is not questioning, so much as it is raising a clinched fist toward God and shouting "I am God." The conclusions of evolutionists today have been reached through biased testing and research. For what unbiased conclusions can you come to when you have established, without proof, that one possibility is no longer possible? Many of the theories I have read (will post shortly under reference material) go to great lengths to explain our existance, without a Creator, using "reason" to arrive at some of the most unreasonable conclusions.

The follower of Christ stands for truth. Christ teaches us that there is a Reason that exists outside of ourselves, and we find that reason in His compelling nature; all on the side of truth listen to Him. It is this revelation that has moved me to discuss the truth, as Martin Luther stated, in his 95 thesis: "Out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light, the following propositions will be discussed...”

The main point is that the reason for existance is in our Lord, who formed us, and breathed life into us, and gave us His will and love, and has now freed us from the bondage of sin and death.

(My next post with deal with the Atheistic framework of thought based on the article)

Christianity v. Atheism: Ethics of Thought (1)

What an Athiest Ought to Stand for

Biblical Authority and Cultural Relativism

The Loss of Truth

I recently read the article What an Atheist Ought to Stand for by Richard Carrier (first link). This writing came to my attention after reading the blog "Skeptic in Training" ( Memoirs of an Ex-Christian).

The following is an analysis of inherent flaws I find in the atheistic framework, self-defeating principles, which make the foundations Atheism intellectually unsound (even as carried into "secular humanism"). I have compared the beliefs in several points (based on the essay) : 1.The Ethics of Thought 2.The Ethics of Life 3.The Ethic of Ethics

(Initial discussion is based on the first premise)

The Ethics of Thought

Both

The follower of Christ and the atheist alike believe that the human mind is easily decieved, and can easily be led to conclusions that are not rooted in reality.

Christian

For the Christian, the deception is avoided by knowledge of the absolute truth, the word of God. When Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan, He refuted all of Satan's half-truths with Scripture. He first told Jesus to turn the stones into bread. Jesus responds with what God told the Isrealites, Man does not live on bread alone, but by every word of God. Satan then told Jesus to throw himself down from a high place, because the Scripture says that angels with protect him. Christ responds, do not put the Lord your God to the test. And, having no success, Satan finally tells Jesus he will give him all the kingdoms of the world if he agrees to worship him. Jesus tells him to leave, quoting another command, worship the Lord your God and serve him only (Matt 4).

The conclusions Christ teaches here, consistent throughout the Bible, is to rely on word of God as the ultimate Truth. Thus, the Christian is provided with a clear measure of morality and truth that transcends time and culture, not rooted in our shifting mind.

Atheist

“inquiry and doubt are essential checks against deception, self-deception, and error.”

Richard Carrier argues “…I cannot count the number of times I have heard Christians declare this value as a reason to read the Bible, yet blithely ignore it when I ask them to read the Tao Te Ching.”Carrier explains that conclusions and thought-processing for an atheist emphasize guarding against deception and human error. “Logic and proper empiracal method is the only way the whole world can arrive at an agreement on the truth about anything.” Generally, the atheist stands for “values of reason and freethought.”

My Argument

First, the fundamental problem he has encountered is in overestimating the ability we have in our minds to empiracally measure the search for truth. How can we, in ourselves, measure deception, especially self-deception? Can not our own logic, with which we measure, be the workings of deception itself? “inquiry and doubt” with this logic, become the means and the end to a framework with no absolute foundation.

Second, he suggests that Christians exercise a particular bias in solely using the Bible as the absolute basis. Why not the Tao Te Ching? Why not the Qur’an? Why not the Upanishads? Because Truth by definition is exclusive. I know the Bible is true. This also means that I know all that contradicts the Bible is false. If I choose to study every belief in the world as objectively as possible, and then make a conclusion based on the study, it would not change the fact that the Bible alone is the word of God. If you are in a liabrary, looking for a particular book, when you finally find it, do you continue to search every book in the liabrary in order to conclude that you found the one for which you were looking?

Jesus Christ says in John 14:6 "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He is the only way, so I do not need to continue to search for another way.


Thoughts

How does the atheist define logic? I agree that scientific methods and empiracal data have a role in determining factual evidence for the things we can comprehensively understand, but what of that which we cannot comprehensively understand? Creation? Our existance? Our purpose? the origin of morality?

I want to understand how the atheist establishes the principles of right or wrong. How he or she can even belief in a concept of truth. Carrier states “The honest atheist will regard willful ignorance and blind faith as the more dangerous of sins.” How does an atheist even conceive such a thing as sin?

Humanitarianism

This post is a response to some answers I recieved from the previous post If you do not believe in God, what do you believe?

I believe what is right is what a person does and says that leaves others feeling peaceful and joyous on the inside, and that what is wrong hurts the physical and inner selves.

The problem I found is that everyone feels differently. Thus, what is wrong for one, is not wrong for another. So you may say it feels right for everyone to have peace, and someone else can just as easily say it feels right for everyone to suffer. Ironically, they would still be within the moral framework, because their desire is based on feeling. Furthermore, since it would make them feel bad if you tell them that they are"wrong" in what they are doing, it becomes self-defeating to even tell them that. The logical outworking of this belief leads to a recognition that everyone is "right" in whatever they feel, nothing is actually wrong, and it is solely the government that prevents certain expressions of feeling.

I beleive in truth. One doesn't have to beleive in a god/gods to live honestly and ethically.

Okay, if we assume no God/gods, several questions have to be addressed before we can even arrive at lifestyle. From where does the concept of truth even come, then? Who says anything is bad, evil, etc.? If there is no Higher Being who purposed Good, then there is also no Bad (for this is defined by the deviation from Good).

Why do we even speak in terms such as living "honestly" and "ethically"?

Ultimately, it does not even matter if there is no God. If we are seeking a moral center, can we logically find it in ourselves? Why are we even seeking a moral center? There is something greater than ourselves... the real question is what or who is it?

If you do not believe in God, why do you even want to live honestly and ethically?

No, I do not always subscribe solely to what I comprehensively understand. I don't always understand love, patience, tolerance...yet I strive to master these qualities.

How do you master these qualities? What "striving" do you do?

Since we know there are many things in life that we do not understand, why is it so outlandish to recognize God's existance, even though you do not fully understand Him?

Historical documents on what I believe are everywhere. Anything human-related is my "bible". Mankind's history is so very important to learn from, as one can usually spot mistakes and unethical choices in hindsight. We cannot right the wrongs that have been done, so looking forward and making plans for bettering ourselves is even more important.

What is the point of bettering ourselves? I personally believe this concept is impossible, because our problem is not our actions, but our desires. God changes our hearts through belief in Christ; he changes not what we do, but what we want to do. But, without him, is there really a purpose? Are not our lives just our own attempts to survive and succeed in whatever ways we can, using whatever means necessary?

Testing the Bible

This post was inspired by "Memoirs of an exchristian" blog, discussing the historical accuracy of the New Testament Gospels.

I believe the bible is the Word of God, and I believe that Jesus Christ is God who came in the form of man, died on the cross, broke the power of sin and death, and was resurrected. We are not capable of changing our own hearts, our own desires. He saved us from ourselves.

The larger issue I find, is that people require more of the Bible than they do of any other text. When was the last time you asked of your science textbook, who is the team of editors? If you asked this, did you even care to research each of their credentials to decide whether you want to believe was was written? Did you question the original source material of the each chapter they organized? Did you look into when it was published, who published it, etc?

Probably not. Why? You BELIEVE that what was written was factual gleaned UNBIASED by the scholarly people on that particular team. But each person on the board of a collegiate science book, gains the priveledge of having something published, gains the ability to join more science teams, gains and gains... should they not also be scrutinized?

This goes for countless documents that we accept so readily.

I love reason, empirical data, and science. And, as such, I believe the most biased and unreasonable testing has been performed, not in testing the bible so stringently, but in choosing to only test the bible, and little else.

Please feel free to comment on any of these points.

If you do not believe in God, what do you believe?

Do you believe in moral values?

Right and Wrong?

Do you believe in truth?

If so, where, on what, or in whom do you measure this things?

Do you only subscribe to what you can comprehensively understand?

In what you believe, where are the historical documents?

What is your empirical solution for life?

Final Thoughts - Continuation of Response

So, having established the skeptic, not as an honest questioner, but as one who is justifying what he or she hopes is true, the person who poses the question "what is meaningful?" cannot be a skeptic. He does not doubt the existance of meaningfulness; he is only searching for that which embodies what he already knows to exist.

Whether you are a follower of Christ or not, faith sustains our lives. The real question is, in what do you have faith? Faith in Christ results in a deeper sight then one could ever anticipate; not a frenzied gleaning of empirical data to sustain faith, nor ignorantly blind faith, but a real faith that takes a step outside of what we can rationally understand, after which becomes apparent in what we can rationally understand.

Thus, we entrust our ability to learn and to grow to our Creator. What many do not understand is that faith and reason are not opposing, but co-existing concepts. No, they are even closer: faith and reason cleave to each other, for unbiased reason leads to the conclusion that a Reason exists higher than that which we can comprehensively understand. The existance of God would be illogical only if we could logically understand everthing that exists.

When Christ heals those who were blind, they were able to see. But the those who had physical sight, and yet did not follow Him, he calls blind. Hellen Keller was once asked what she felt would be worse than being blind. She responded that it would be worse to be able to see, yet not have vision. It was either G.K. Chesterton or Malcom Muggeridge who stated "we need to see through the eye, not with the eye."

If we focus on what we physically see, our life's work will consist a burial, rather than an uncovering. The Truth, which was revealed in many ways, all pointing to Christ, is desperately buried in the stratus layers of Academia, which, after years of scholarship, will remain fossilized by rhetoric and verbiage. If one brave soul, then attempts to hack through the layers of rock, and frees this Truth from its confinning grave in his own life, his loss is then his gain.

To bring this analogy back to our discussion, the bottom line is the question often reveals more about the questioner than that being questioned. The sediment with which we use to bury the Truth, in pretense of uncovering, says more about the ground one is standing on than about the Truth. A philosopher once said that we must never judge a philosophy by its followers; it's misuse. Another stated that there are five books to the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Christian. Most will never read the first four. Although what the philospher said is fundamentally true. Christianity is hopelessly under attack because of the Christian. Because the Christian is lost in the outworking of each argument, and forgets to go back to the Cross. Therein is our deliverance, and all doubts, all skepticism, and all honest questions should be flung at the indestructable fiber of the Cross.

I will end with one of my favorite poems:

Poem By Francis Thompson

Oh world invisible, we view thee,
Oh world intangible, we touch thee,
Oh world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!
Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air—
Do we ask of the stars in motion,
If they have rumor of thee there?
Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars!—
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.
The angels keep their ancient places;
—Turn but a stone, and start a wing!
’Tis ye, ’tis your estranged faces,
That miss the many-splendoured thing.
But when so sad thou canst not sadder
Cry—and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.
Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry—clinging Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water
Not of Gennesaret, but Thames!

Praise the Lord, He meets us where we are.