Careful Thought

Geek And Poke: Geek & Pokes Little Weekend Thoughts

Technorati Tags: atheism, faith

Tags: atheism, faith

One of the best things to happen to me in the past several years was getting the boot from our last church.  Our views on creation and the age of the earth were too heretical for the fundamentalist church to which we had belonged for eight years.  In the time since then, God has been doing some amazing, and often painful, things in my life.  One of the biggest things is the understanding that the church building we go to on Sunday is not as important as the God we profess.  We tend to get wrapped up in churchy things and pretend that churchiness equates to living a Christ-like life.

So I’ve been trying to understand just who I am as a believer and what that belief means.

Along comes Julie Burchill, a columnist for the UK Guardian.  She describes herself as “a former teen atheist who is now a Christian tryer.”  A turning point in her life came when both parents died within a year of each other.  She recognized that both (presumably believers) were now in a better place and that she should be celebrating their lives, not mourning their death.  Her excellent article takes atheists, muslims, catholics and other traditionalists to task for their hidebound adherence to form over substance.  (Muslims, not surprisingly, have launched the expected bitter verbal attacks.)

As a recovering fundamentalist, I would caution that we shouldn’t out-of-hand discard anything simply because it’s come down to us through the years, but our focus absolutely must be outward.  We need to meet people at their point of need, as Christ did, not where it’s comfortable for us.  Churches tend to organize programs and write checks to handle the uncomfy business of broken lives, rather than getting involved.  That’s a hard thing to learn, and harder to do.

Julie wraps up her article this way:

My favourite vicar, the Reverend Gavin Ashenden of Sussex University, never says, “I am a Christian,” but rather “I’m trying to be a Christian”.  Me too.  Between the darkness that faces me from within and the darkness that faces me from without, it may just prove to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I love it.

Saying, “I am a Christian,” is the same as saying, “I have arrived and am all I need to be.”  Christ knows better.  I hope I do, too.  Meanwhile, I keep trying.

Technorati Tags: atheism, faith, fundamentalism, islam

Tags: atheism, faith, fundamentalism, islam

“Hello, my name is Steve and I’m a functional atheist.”

“Hi, Steve.”

This is from a comment on the Panera Ecclesiology post at InternetMonk:

Most of our luxurious lives take for granted how functionally atheistic they actually are[.]

And Aliasmoi’s spot on about Bonhoeffer — he’ll make you uncomfortable alright (from The Cost of Discipleship): “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.” Or, to put it even more clearly, it is to hear the Gospel preached as follows: “Of course you have sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are and enjoy the consolations of forgiveness.”

The context was a conversation overheard at a restaurant between two men a) griping abut a woman who wouldn’t sleep with them and b) discussing their church preferences.  (Read the original post and all of the comments.)

This one hurt. You can say what you like about the two young men in question, but it goes to the heart of what passes for the Christian walk these days.  How can we claim the name of Christ and still be hip-deep in this kind of behavior?  There’s a passage in Romans that I frequently hear when this topic comes up:

“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?  May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” (Romans 6:1-2, NASB)

As I examine it, though, I don’t think it applies in this context (or at least as I have always interpreted the passage).  It seems to say, ‘Can I sin so that I can get more of God’s grace?’ but the context implies ‘I’m going to sin because I think God’s grace will cover whatever I decide to do.’

That’s functional atheism.  It’s acting as if God did not exist.  We profess to follow Christ, but we act as if there is no cost.  We act as if God’s presence is irrelevant to our actions.  I’m guilty and that makes me a functional atheist as well.  How do we walk when we can’t live up to God’s standard of behavior?

It goes back to the Law in the Old Testament, whose purpose was to show Israel that they couldn’t keep it.  There was and is a need for a force outside of us to make a change in who we are.  That’s called sanctification and it’s the job of the Holy Spirit to work within us to shape our lives into a Christ-like pattern.  As a functional atheist, I fight him every day.  Why?

Technorati Tags: atheism, faith, post-evangelicalism

Tags: atheism, faith, post-evangelicalism

“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’  (Psalm 14:1 NASB)

Technorati Tags: atheism, faith

Tags: atheism, faith

UPDATE:  I just noticed the irony in Humphrey’s statement.  Can an atheist say “god-given license”? 

This is from Dinesh D’Souza’s excellent article at TownHall.com.  (With thanks to Hammerswing for the link.)

Psychologist Nicholas Humphrey argued in a recent lecture that just as Amnesty International works to liberate political prisoners around the world, secular teachers and professors should work to free children from the damaging influence of their parents’ religious instruction. “Parents have no god-given license to enculturate their children in whatever ways they personally choose: no right to limit the horizons of their children’s knowledge, to bring them up in an atmosphere of dogma and superstition, or to insist they follow the straight and narrow paths of their own faith.”

As a parent and as a believer, I would no more send my kids to public school than I would send them fishing in the public sewer.  If you’re a public school teacher or administrator and are tired of these horror stories, then FIX THEM!

Technorati Tags: public schools, atheism, Nicholas Humphrey, school choice

Technorati Tags: atheism, Nicholas Humphrey, public schools, school choice

Tags: atheism, Nicholas Humphrey, public schools, school choice

Thinklings posts this quote from John Gardner about the distinction between good and bad artists (and bloggers):

“[T]he good artists are the people who are, in one way or another, creating, out of deep and honest concern, a vision of life . . . that is worth pursuing. And the bad artists, of whom there are many, are whining or moaning or staring, because it’s fashionable, into the dark abyss.”

- John Gardner, On Moral Fiction

I’ve noticed this self-loathing nihilism especially in many of the blogs on the left, whether the topic is atheism, global warming/whining, the war on terror or whatever the crisis de jour. It’s in their posts and in those they idolize. Here’s a quote from Hunter S. Thompson posted at Homeless on the High Desert:

“We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world-a nation of bullies and b*st*rds who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us… No redeeming social value. Just whores.”

I’m not sure these people have the mindset solely because it’s fashionable, as Gardner suggests, but rather because they truly are looking into a void. They have no hope. This world is not what they want it to be and because they have killed all their gods, they have no hope of a future, better world. It makes sense to ignore the tyranny of a Saddam or to scrabble after an endangered species or to complain about perceived global warming because this fallen world is all they see. Grab whatever meager cold comfort you can, because this is all there is, folks. What a sad existence.

Any suggestion, though, that there is faith-based answer to their black hopelessness is mocked as foolishness. We are deluded, they tell us, believing in something beyond this earth. A wiser man than I had it covered, though:

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor 1:18, NIV)

Technorati Tags: atheism, faith, High Desert, Hunter S. Thompson

Tags: atheism, faith, High Desert, Hunter S. Thompson

The Infidel Guy posts a series of ten arguments against the existence of God. It’s pretty clear that the author (or one of his readers) has spent a lot of time and effort to craft these arguments in a logical “if a and b, then c” structure, but I’m not surprised that he comes to erroneous conclusions because of a fundamental misunderstanding of who God is.

Here are the ten arguments:

1. The Anti-Creation Argument: If X creates Y, then X must exist temporally prior to Y. But nothing could possibly exist temporally prior to time itself (for that would involve existing at a time when there was no time, which is a contradiction). Thus, it is impossible for time to have been created. Time is an essential component of the universe. Therefore, it is impossible for the universe to have been created. It follows that God cannot exist.

The problem with this argument is that it presumes that God is bound by (and in) time. The logic is correct in that nothing physical could exist before itself, but God is outside of the time-space box, so it’s a moot point. The analogy I use is that God Is in a cloud of eternity. Within that cloud is a line of time-space on which we - and the universe - exist, with a beginning and an end.

2. The Transcendent-Personal Argument: In order for God to have created the universe, he must have been transcendent, that is, he must have existed outside space and time. But to be personal implies (among other things) being within space and time. Therefore, it is logically impossible for God to exist.

[It's interesting that this argument uses the assumption that God is outside of space-time, thereby negating argument #1.] I don’t pretend to understand the full nature of God, but it’s clear that He, not bound by time and space, can enter into time and space. Make sense? How many “supernatural” appearances or manifestations of God occur in Scripture? Tons. In the garden, He walked physically with Adam. He later appeared in the physical form of a burning bush. His power was shown physically in a chariot of fire and the parting of the Red Sea and in a talking donkey. Christ himself appeared in human form after his death through a locked door in the upper room. God (Father, Son and Spirit) can certainly enter into His own creation. Continue reading “10 Atheist Arguments”

Technorati Tags: atheism, existence of God, faith

Tags: atheism, existence of God, faith

Mollie at GetReligion has a great piece on the sad status of atheists today. Seems that nobody loves them.

Some people say this country is one White House Bible study away from a Christian theocracy, but President-elect Dwight Eisenhower may have summed up the religious sentiment of the nation best when he said, in 1952, “Our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don’t care what it is.”A new University of Minnesota study, which has received precisely no coverage yet, found that people rank atheists below gays, lesbians, recent immigrants and Muslims in “sharing their vision of American society.” A press release from the University of Minnesota expounds:

Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public. “Atheists, who account for about 3 percent of the U.S. population, offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years,” says Penny Edgell, associate sociology professor and the study’s lead researcher.

[Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje of the San Antonio Express-News wrote a] piece, which came out a few days before the University of Minnesota study was released, [that] describes the difference between atheism and agnosticism and talks about the difficulties of being irreligious in a religious society:

The overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens profess some religious faith, although far fewer attend worship services on a regular basis. The public square has become increasingly dominated by religious (specifically, Christian) rhetoric, from the “values voters” of the 2004 presidential election to hot-button cultural issues that carry a religious edge - abortion, gay rights, stem-cell research, intelligent design, the right to die.

The Minnesota study lead Penny Edgel also argues that

“Today’s atheists play the role that Catholics, Jews and communists have played in the past - they offer a symbolic moral boundary to membership in American society. It seems most Americans believe that diversity is fine, as long as every one shares a common ‘core’ of values that make them trustworthy, and in America, that core has historically been religious,” says Edgell. Many of the study’s respondents associated atheism with an array of moral indiscretions ranging from criminal behavior to rampant materialism and cultural elitism.Edgell believes a fear of moral decline and resulting social disorder is behind the findings. “Americans believe they share more than rules and procedures with their fellow citizens, they share an understanding of right and wrong,” she said. “Our findings seem to rest on a view of atheists as self-interested individuals who are not concerned with the common good.”

I can’t argue with that — though there are certainly whackos and hypocrites within the community of believers. Why hasn’t Brokeback Mountain been more of a financial success? It’s simple - people don’t want their values mocked. Why was there a war over Christmas, and now Easter? For the same reasons. For the past forty years or so religion has been pushed from the schools, from our places of employment, from our government buildings.

Atheists just don’t get it and now people are beginning to fight back in the battle against faith and values.

It was interesting to note the differences in responses during the recent posts on “unschooling” (here, here, and here) between believers (who make up a substantial portion of the homeschooling crowd) and non-believers. Believers certainly made their points, sometimes quite strongly, but the non-believers/atheists tended be so bitterly hate-filled that we ended up moderating comments to keep the language at a PG-13 level.

It seems that believers treat atheists better than atheists treat believers.

Technorati Tags: atheism, faith

Tags: atheism, faith