True Horizon

Materialist Morality

It is my experience that speaking to atheists about morality is like speaking to an Amish recluse about an iPod. If you can imagine how completely frustrating and fruitless such a discussion would be, multiply it by about 1000 and you will get close. I will share some specific details from such a discussion on my next post, but for now I just want to attempt to point out why it is so difficult an endeavor. Sam Harris gives a hint in his Letter To A Christian Nation:

Assertion: {p. 8}

Questions of morality are questions about happiness and suffering. This is why you and I do not have moral obligations toward rocks. To the degree that our actions can affect the experience of other creatures positively or negatively, questions of morality apply.

Response: Notice the premise of Harris’ argument — that morality is about happiness and suffering. If that doesn’t quite sound right to you it’s because your mind does not think in anywhere near the same kinds modes as an atheist like Sam Harris. The reasons for this are philosophical. Sam Harris doesn’t believe in the objective reality of things like you do. That is a loaded concept but it is foundational to the atheistic perspective. In a nutshell, atheism does not allow for the objective reality of truth or morality. Atheism denies that the truth or rightness or goodness of something exists independently of whether or not we believe in it. This is called the “grounding question” by philosophers who try to determine where things like “good” and “right” come from.

Notice that asking if there is such a thing as “good” in and of itself is a different question than asking how we know what is “good.” This issue it crucial to the discussion. Atheists like Harris are content to accept morality as a product of either individual choices (in the most radical form), or cultural consensus (which is more commonly accepted). Because of their belief in a purely mechanistic universe where physically observable matter and energy are the only things that can be real, atheists are relegated to see morality as something that different parties agree to observe through their common evolutionary mission to survive.

OK, let’s grant (I don’t, but play along for a minute) them that evolutionary forces, operating over eons to promote survival, have led us to see some things as helpful to that mission. These things are called “good.” Things that are detrimental to survival are then labeled “bad.” We know good and bad by consensus. Evolution has taught us what they are. But notice that even if this explanation tells us how we know good/bad or right/wrong, it cannot tell us what constitutes actual goodness.

How we know things is called epistemology. What things are is called ontology. Epistemology and ontology are two very different things. As an example, consider the force of gravity. Ontologically, gravity is the impersonal force of attraction that exists between material objects in the universe. But our epistemological understanding about gravity comes from scientific observation and experimentation. The ways we know about gravity are very different from what gravity actually is. But notice that our belief or understanding about gravity has absolutely no impact on whether gravity actually exists. If you stop believing in gravity, you won’t float off into the stratosphere, nor will you be able to step off tall buildings without consequence. Gravity is built into the fabric of the universe — and moral realists believe that morality is no different. (Read on …)

If so, I invite you to watch the following debate (or at least some part of it) between Dr. Frank Turek (of CrossExamined fame)

__________________________

2. Who answers the others’ questions more completely?
3. What points do you think were strong/weak and why?

Please feel free to watch and post comments here about the debate. I will be glad to do my best to answer — or expose my incapability at answering — any comments you might have.

Enjoy …

Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist? from Andrew on Vimeo.

If you think the so-called “new atheists” pose a problem for thinking Christians, I contend that a more difficult problem may exist within Christianity itself. I say that because the insidious nature of the problem has rendered it either invisible or unrecognizable to far too many of us. As proof, I offer two glimpses into the philosophy of one man who represents our faith. The first was uttered during the annual Fall “Praise-a-thon” on TBN:

The apologists - I’m telling you they could make falling off a stool difficult. You’d have to go to college to learn how to fall off a stool if you were an apologist … So, I’m not impressed with the apologist any longer. And I may as well get it out - I used to be one! And God forgive me, and I promise not to ever do it again.

The second (which describes the actions of the exact same man who said this) shows where just such an attitude can lead:

[He] turned to the pastor in the white suit, sitting in the audience and asks innocently, “Do I have a few more moments?” Well, not surprisingly, the pastor agreed. It’s a good thing, because as it turns out, [he] had a whole new doctrinal revelation to tell us about: the doctrine of reverse entrapment. If you’ve never heard of that before, that’s because God just showed it to him right there. Reverse entrapment is when you put a gift to [him] on a credit card and outsmart the lenders who are trying to get rich off your debt. When you put a gift on a credit card, I quote, “something happens in the spirit world.”  Here he tells everyone how to have a credit card breakthrough. Turns out [he] has a way for you to get rid of your mortgage debt. All you have to do is to give him a gift the size of your house payment and God will see that your mortgage gets paid off right away. If you don’t have a house, $500 will do nicely for future debt. [He] assured us that it worked for him.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see why this individual might not appreciate apologetics or the idea of thinking about how one’s faith relates to the real world. Those who might do such a thing would pose a serious threat to his income stream.

This is nothing new. We have always had charlatans among us. But I believe the mindset at work here is one that is more prevalent than we might imagine in the pews (or chairs) of our churches and that it threatens the Christian faith for more practical reasons. Too many of us, when asked why we believe in God, or why we trust in the reliability of the Bible, will respond that we “just have faith.” And I am not throwing stones here — I used to say the same thing. But my point is that such a response is not good enough, not just for worldly reasons, but for Biblical ones.

From the world’s point of view, and as evidenced by the writings of the “new atheists,” thinking people and faithful people represent mutually exclusive categories. Richard Dawkins is well known for asserting that religion is nothing but wishful thinking engaged in by weak people who accept their religion blindly. If you accept his premise, there is no reason to even consider the claims of Chrisianity. They just don’t matter. They are no better than anyone else’s claim to believe in “The Flying Spaghetti Monster” (for some weird reason this is a favorite character among the atheist blogs and websites I have encountered) or leprechauns that hide under your bed. For that reason, any compulsion we might have toward evangelism is thwarted before it begins.

Sure, the evangelistic endeavor could attempt to appeal to felt needs, or guilt, or awe, but if these can’t be grounded in a reality that corresponds to the way the world actually is, our attempts at each of these falls on deaf, or ambivalent, ears. Practically then, apologetics allows reason to get us an audience with those who demand it. If that means we have to “go to college to learn how to fall off a stool,” so be it. Some people need to get pushed off the worldly stool they’ve been sitting on.

Biblically, as someone once said, God doesn’t give us brownie points for being stupid. A little harsh maybe but the point is well taken. Jesus told us to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” It is notable that Jesus didn’t make this line up on the spot. He is quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 … sort of. The Deuteronomy passage actually only includes heart, soul and strength. Jesus added “mind” for some reason. Is that significant? Think about it (no pun intended), the addition doesn’t prove anything but it makes you wonder why he felt the need to modify the Old Testament Scriptures for his more modern audience. Maybe he was anticipating the mindset we are dealing with today.

This example does not stand alone. Peter told us to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” Paul told us to “demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

Apologetics in other words, is not optional … especially when you are dealing with folks whose “new doctrinal revelations” are really self-serving tools to line their own pockets. We ignore apologetics at our own peril. Apologetics can save us from looking silly. Apologetics honors the commands and character of the God we believe in. And if apologetics doesn’t appeal to the charlatans in our midst, maybe that is further confirmation that we need it more than ever.

{picture from: www.democracycellproject.net}

Remember all the bluster about the “separation of church and state” that we are subjected to in the hysteria surrounding: the teaching of Intelligent Design; the mission to keep prayer and (God forbid!) the Bible out of the public schools; the rigid denial of allowing religious views to inform the abortion debate or (God forbid!) have a role in overturning Roe-v-Wade; and on and on and on …

Remember also that this hysteria is invariably brought to us by those on the political left who are: champions of women’s rights, defenders of political correctness, and proponents of a secular culture that abhors any attempt to legislate morality in any way.

Remember all that? Well, check this out …

In Britain, one of the most politically-correct, left-wing societies on planet Earth:

Islamic law has been officially adopted … with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases. The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.

The folly of this move is almost beyond comprehension — especially in a society that prides itself on championing the issues mentioned above. For the record, here are some of the views that may come into play in “Muslim civil cases” considered under Sharia Law:

• Many interpretations of Islamic law hold that women may not have prominent jobs, and thus are forbidden from working in the government. This has been a mainstream view in many Muslim nations in the last century, despite the example of Muhammad’s wife Aisha, who both took part in politics and was a major authority on hadith.
• A woman’s inheritance is different from a man’s, both in quantity and attached obligations. For instance, a daughter’s inheritance is half that of her brothers, Sharia law requires family members females or males to support each others as needed.
• In instances of rape some interpretations of Sharia law require for an allegation to be validated, victims must have four witnesses to the crime or else the victims risk being charged with fornication or adultery making a rejected allegation a potential death sentence for the victim
• Homosexual activity is illicit under sharia, however the prescribed penalties differ from one school of jurisprudence to another. For example some countries allow the death penalty for sodomy though not for other homosexual activities.
• Sharia does not allow freedom of speech on such matters as criticism of Muhammad and that such criticism is considered blasphemy against Muhammad … There is no dispute that anyone who curses Allah is killed and that his curse demands that he be categorized as an unbeliever … The judgment against those who harm Allah and His Prophet is more severe — the death penalty.

That’s enough, I think. You get the point.

It is ironic that the most precious allies of the political left who adopted this policy are those who will suffer the most under its imposition. For that reason it is astounding that this has been allowed in Great Britain. The ideology that brought this to fruition has been led by its own demands to come face-to-face with the logical conclusions of that ideology. The consequences will be dire for a free, democratic society. We can only hope that an eventual realization of that fact will show, to those who are willing to be shown, that ideas have consequences … and that the consequences they will eventually be forced to endure are the result of some very, very bad ideas.

As only The Onion could do it, feel free to chuckle at this one. Story here …

September 5, 2008 |

Can you still call something “Anglican” if the English have abandoned it? Can you still call something “Christian” if it has abandoned Christianity? A couple of recent articles, by Travis Kavulla in National Review  and here compel me to wonder about the Church of England and where it may be headed.

Touted as both a Reformed and Catholic denomination, the Anglican church has a long history as the “Mother Church” that became the religion of the British Empire and spread all over the world. Today it is the third largest Christian denomination (behind Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy) and counts 77 million people in its ranks. Interestingly, it bills itself as a “worldwide, unified communion” of churches — but nothing could be further from the truth.

In England, Anglicanism is officially the state religion where the British government still has a hand in appointing bishops. And, as you can probably imagine, when a politically-correct government meets a miscreant religious bureaucracy, there isn’t much theological independence or orthodoxy allowed. Because the Anglican church is a worldwide church, this serves only to institutionalize a worldwide theological menagerie of nonsense that starts at the top.

The church is headed up by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, the chief bishop and principle leader of the Church of England. And there the nonsense begins. Williams, among other things, can’t understand the tendency among Christians to consider homosexuality unBiblical. On his view:

” … a church that accepts the legitimacy of contraception, the absolute condemnation of same-sex relations of intimacy must rely either on an abstract fundamentalist deployment of a number of very ambiguous biblical texts, or on a problematic and nonscriptural theory about natural complementarity, applied narrowly and crudely to physical differentiation without regard to psychological structures.”

Williams has also argued that theology should have a place in the debate about the nature of civil law. That sounds good. But in February, 2008 Williams suggested that this meant that England should adopt a “parallel jurisdiction” of the civil law for Muslims. Being the official spokesman for the official church of England, and carrying all the moral authority that goes with that position, the British government recently (September 14, 2008) took Williams up on his suggestion and, “quietly (key word) sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.”

As if that weren’t enough, the same day Williams decided it was high time we all apologized to Charles Darwin for doubting him all these years. Said Williams:

“Charles Darwin, 200 years from your birth [in 1809], the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still …”

No, this is not an excerpt from a Monty Python skit.

Meanwhile, over in the American branch of the church, things are no better. The U.S. Episcopal Church (TEC) has shrunk by 10% in the last five years. This is a church that is a poster child for the tendency of a “seeker sensitive” mindset becoming a seeker-centered cave-in to the culture. Morality dies a not-so-slow death when affirmation and self-esteem comprise the cornerstone of your “theology.” As one critic of the TEC, Reverend David Short, puts it, TEC is a church where you can “… come as you are, stay as you are, and we’ll have a big party celebrating who you are.”

This sounds like a far cry from the Biblical call to discipleship and transformation of the heart based on the universal human condition of rebellion against a holy God. The proof is in the pudding:

The TEC is one of the few churches that can boast a bishop who openly disbelieves the divinity of Jesus Christ and a woman priest who is also, she says, a Muslim.

Uh huh.

This is also the church that produced Gene Robinson, bishop of New Hampshire. Mr. Robinson is a gay, divorced, openly partnered man — and serves with the blessing of, you guessed it, Rowan Williams.

So one might wonder if there are any actual promoters of orthodoxy in the Anglican Church.

Yes, there are.

Some 200 congregations have left the American TEC due largely to the Bishop Gene Robinson issue. Fighting tooth and nail, the TEC has done everything in its power to stop the exodus from the American church. This has included changing signature cards on the rebel churches’ bank accounts to stop their ability “to make payroll or pay utility bills” or taking out $2 million lines of credit for the sole purpose of suing the breakaway churches. It is ironic that one of the congregations being sued in this manner is the former parish of George Washington.

Despite all these ethical efforts on the part of TEC, there is no stopping the flight to orthodoxy. More than 1200 Anglicans, including more than 300 bishops from Africa, Latin America, Asia, Europe and American attended a June conference in Jerusalem to organize the separation from the Episcopal Church in alliance with the African branches of the worldwide church — the only congregations that claim to hold to what the Bible actually says.

Funny how things work out. Africa was once the destination to which missionaries from England brought the gospel. As one of the leaders of the African church, Benjamin Nzimbi, Archbishop of Kenya, put it:

When I think about the missionaries coming to Kenya, and the pains they went through — many died, they faced all sorts of challenges, all the while remaining faithful to the Gospel, I cannot think of anything else but to remain in this faith.

“Remaining faithful to the Gospel” — Now there’s a quaint thought. Maybe Archbishop Nzimbi can use that as a recruiting slogan for the missionaries he sends out to the soon-to-be-deceased, secular bureaucracy formerly known as the Church of England.

In my last post I made the assumption that readers know why I say that “life begins at conception.” This may not be the case. It is also wildly controversial in the abortion debate so I thought I would back up the claim. You may note that I am not arguing from the Bible. I am not making a theological case. I am not imposing my morality on others.

What I am doing is following a scientific and philosophical case that is undeniable. It is not my opinion that life begins at conception. I’ll leave it to others to make their points …

Dr. Hymie Gordon, professor of medical genetics and physician at the Mayo Clinic:

… we can now also say that the question of the beginning of life - when life begins - is no longer a question for theological or philosophical dispute. It is an established scientific fact.Theologians and philosophers may go on to debate the meaning of life or purpose of life, but it is an established fact that all life, including human life, begins at the moment of conception … as far as I know, this has never been argued against.

Dr. M. Krieger, The Human Reproductive System:

All organisms, however large and complex they may be when fullgrown, begin life as but a single cell … this is true of the human being, for instance, who begins life as a fertilized ovum.

Dr. B. Patten, Human Embryology:

The formation, maturation and meeting of a male and female sex cell are all preliminary to their actual union in a combined cell, a zygote, which definitely marks the beginning of a new individual.

Dr. Micheline Matthews-Roth, a principal research associate in the Department of Medicine, Harvard University:

So, it is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception, when egg and sperm join to form the zygote, and this developing human always is a member of our species in all stages of its life thereafter.

Dr. Ronan O’Rahilly and Dr, Fabiola Muller, Human Embryology and Teratology, 2nd edition:

It needs to be emphasized that life is continuous, as is also human life, so that the question “When does life begin?” is meaningless in terms of ontogeny. Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.

There are many others but I won’t go on.

My point is this: When you try to argue that you don’t know when life begins, you are not arguing with me — you are arguing with those that write the embryology textbooks the abortionists learned from in medical school.

For a great read that makes the same case, check out Jay Watts (here) and read the comments too. There you will find more evidence like that I provided above.

And while I am at it, I should note that my source for these facts is Francis J. Beckwith’s, Defending Life — a must read for anyone who is interested in, or engaged in, the pro-life cause.

I have a policy to not delve into politics here except when it is unavoidable due to the moral dimension that some political issue brings to the table. In cases like that, I can’t help myself. One of those cases is Barack Obama’s stance on abortion. A quick summary of my view:

When it comes to the abortion issue, Barack Obama is a moral coward.

That ought to be succinct enough. I don’t say things like that lightly so let me explain why I’m saying it now. I’ll start with Obama’s response to Rick Warren at his recent appearance at Saddleback Church in southern California. Here’s the exchange:

WARREN: … Now, let’s deal with abortion; 40 million abortions since Roe v. Wade. As a pastor, I have to deal with this all of the time, all of the pain and all of the conflicts. I know this is a very complex issue. Forty million abortions, at what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?

OBAMA: Well, you know, I think that whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.

What pay grade is he talking about? His current, and lifetime appointed, pay grade as a human being or his potential pay grade as President of the United States of America? I can do no better than my friend Jay at addressing the “pay grade” issue (here) so I won’t. But this is nothing but a spineless diversion from the actual topic in question. Obama knows that if a fetus is a person (i.e. life begins at conception) he cannot defend his pro-abortion view. So instead of confronting that moral question, he punts. Let me just say that his answer to that question was all I needed to come to my “moral coward” assessment. But there is more that I have learned since that has only strengthened my confidence in that assessment. (Read on …)

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you are probably wondering if I’ve been hiding under a rock someplace for the last month or so.

Well … sort of.

I have to apologize for my anemic posting rate but I do have an explanation. In June I began to prepare for a couple of reading/study intensive months that were to follow. I spent most of the month of July and early August in Atlanta training to fly a new airplane (The Boeing 737-800 NG). While living in an airport hotel and getting abused in a flight simulator day after day is a luxury few get to experience, trust me, you’re not missing anything.

More importantly, during the same time and for a couple of weeks after, I continued to prepare for an apologetics training program that I am really excited about. Twenty-nine of us descended on Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, NC for 3 days of training in both the knowledge and presentation of the case for Christianity. We were invited by Dr. Frank Turek, to attend the CrossExamined Instructor Academy (CIA), a program based on his book, I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist. Dr. Turek has turned the material in this book into a presentation/ seminar he gives on college campuses for one reason — 75% of kids who are brought up in the church leave the faith after they leave home.

The reason they leave is that they are inundated by the secular-atheist tilted faculty that dominates most college campuses these days. They hear the arguments these folks give and they are woefully unprepared to deal with them. In short, our kids know that they believe but they don’t know why they believe. This is a problem that must be addressed and, to his credit, Frank Turek knows he cannot do it alone. His goal is to assemble a nationwide team to help. I am trying to engage myself to become a part of that team.

I believe Christianity is worth thinking about. I believe in the Vision of TrueHorizon and I intend to make it a reality. My hope is to become an active part of the The CrossExamined Solution. If you know of a church, school or group that may be interested in a guest speaker who can address these types of issues, please let me know. Better yet, please recommend me or, if you prefer, Frank Turek, to come make the case.

It’s good to be back but we have a lot of work ahead of us.

We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God … (2 Corinthians 10:5)

It’s been a crazy few weeks so I am drastically behind my “desired” posting schedule, but I did want to follow up on my last one with regard to Richard Dawkins’ view of God. Though I touched on the point that Dawkins’ seems woefully unaware of the amount of complexity cosmologists have discovered in makeup of the universe, the second point is more profound. Before I begin, I just want to re-offer the exchange (between Dawkins and Francis Collins) that prompted the whole thing.

In discussing the improbability that there is a Creator who could be responsible for the grand design we find, here are the comments that jumped out at me (and were expertly addressed by Robert Hart in the March issue of Touchstone):

DAWKINS: There could be something incredibly grand and incomprehensible and beyond our present understanding.

COLLINS: That’s God.

DAWKINS: Yes. But it could be any of a billion Gods. It could be God of the Martians or of the inhabitants of Alpha Centauri. The chance of its being a particular God, Yahweh, the God of Jesus, is vanishingly small — at the least, the onus is on you to demonstrate why you think that’s the case … we were talking about the origins of the universe and the physical constants, I provided what I thought were cogent arguments against a supernatural intelligent designer. But it does seem to me to be a worthy idea. Refutable — but nevertheless grand and big enough to be worthy of respect. I don’t see the Olympian gods or Jesus coming down and dying on the Cross as worthy of that grandeur. They strike me as parochial. If there is a God, it’s going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed.

To this, Robert Hart asks, “How is this an argument against the Christian faith?” Good question. In fact, as Hart suggested in the subtitle to his piece, this guy sounds more like St. Augustine than the leading atheist critic of Christianity in the contemporary world! A couple of observations:

1) “The chance of its being a particular God, Yahweh, the God of Jesus, is vanishingly small — at the least, the onus is on you to demonstrate why you think that’s the case.”

Fair enough, Mr. Dawkins. But contrary to the straw-man defenders of a thought-free faith you like to repeatedly argue against, there are some who are doing exactly that. While I disagree about the “vanishingly small” chance that such a God exists, many have provided evidence-based support for the idea that is perfectly consistent with the God described in the Bible. You have dismissed that evidence either because your presuppositions won’t allow you to consider it, or because you don’t like its implications. Whichever of these you base your dismissal of theism on, it rings hollow when you suggest no one has offered it.

2) “I don’t see the Olympian gods or Jesus coming down and dying on the Cross as worthy of that grandeur.”

Of course you don’t! The Olympian gods are nothing but anthropomorphic myths that the educated of Athens never believed in. There is no evidence for their existence and the stories about them sound like the tales in a children’s book. Agreed.

But the evidence that Jesus came down and died on the cross is in no way similar.

We have historical documents, inscriptions and archaeological finds that have confirmed much of what the New Testament says. We have, in those documents, stories that could easily have been refuted by opponents of the apostles, and embarrassing details that no self-respecting myth-maker would include if he/she were “making up” a religion. Finally, we have the writers of those stories going to their deaths in defense of the notion that those facts were not only verifiable through witnesses, but true and therefore worthy of martyrdom.

No, Mr. Dawkins, this is not the kind of pie-in-the-sky god you want to argue against. It is not the kind of god you want to show himself in the way you think he should. Instead, we have historical, scientific and philosophical evidence for an infinite God who made himself finite, suffered the cruelties of this world, and died for a a cause that defines the whole reason for our existence. No, it wasn’t what you would expect.

And that was exactly the point.