Posts Tagged ‘Daniel Dennett’

The New Atheism, Part One

Posted: March 15, 2009 in Atheism, Creation
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According to an article in Wired the New Atheism differs from the old atheism in mode and mood. New atheism is more aggressive in attacking Christianity. The leaders of New Atheism are Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett and with evangelistic fervor, the new atheists not only reject theism but have gone on the assault. Fox News reported that The American Humanist Association ran a Washington, D. C. $40,000 holiday ad campaign on buses saying, “Why believe in a God? Just be good for goodness’ sake” (Fox News.com Wednesday, November 12, 2008). In reference to his book The God Delusion, Dawkins said: “If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down” (Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, New York; Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008, pg. 28). Here is another sample of Dawkins’ venom:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, blookthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully” (p. 51).

With all its rhetoric, however, the New Atheism does not address the origin of life.

The origin of life is the issue we are wrestling with this in this post. Psalm 33:6 and 9 make a very clear statement about the origin of life for those of us who believe the Bible to be the Word of God: “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. For he spoke, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.”

When I was pastoring Swan Creek Baptist Church, I borrowed a high school biology book from one of the teenagers in our church just to see what they were being taught in our local public school. Her biology textbook clearly pitted evolution against God’s Word:

For thousands of years, most people believed that each separate species of organism had been specially created. This view was set forth in the Bible’s Book of Genesis. From time to time philosophers proposed that the living world changed over centuries, but by the mid-seventeenth century most of the Western World took the word of Genesis literally and believed that animals and plants were created during the six days of the Creation. From about 1750 on, however, many people became convinced that species changed over the ages (Camp, Karen Arms. Biology-A Journey into Life. Saunders College Publishing, page 249).

The biology textbook went on to discuss Charles Darwin, father of the modern theory of evolution, who studied theology and as a young man believed in special creation.

Years of observation and reading, however, presented Darwin with evidence that seem incompatible with the notion of God as the Designer and Creator of living things, and a more logical explanation for the origin of species took shape. Darwin then was appointed naturalists on the Beagle, a British naval ship embarking on five year mapping and collecting expedition. In 1859, Darwin wrote The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. In it he marshaled an impressive array of evidence to support his theory. Not until the 20th Century, however, did most biologists fully accept the idea that
evolution was by means of natural selection (Camp, page 250, 251).

What did Charles Darwin believe was the origin of each species? Let’s hear him on the question.

As many more individuals of each species are born that can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently reoccurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in a manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principles of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form (Darwin, Charles, Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Chicago: Thompson & Thomas, n.d., page 457).

More and more 21st century scientists and scholars are rejecting evolution. Paul Le Moine, a French scholar clearly represents this growing group: “Evolution is a fairy tale for adults” (Lutzer, Erwin W. Twelve Myths Americans Believe Chicago: Moody Press, 1993, page 31).

In Part two, I will discuss the tenets of evolution.

First Book Review of “The Reason for God”

Posted: December 22, 2008 in Apologetics, Book Reviews
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Have you ever struggled with doubt? I mean doubt in God. His goodness, fairness, or love because of the pain you were suffering or the disappointment you were experiencing. James Dobson talks about the awesome “Why?” The first time in your life you seriously questioned God. I was a high school senior taking biology with my educated teacher who taught atheistic evolution, when I felt the sting of the first “Why?” In contrast, my pastor, though godly, was illiterate and a creationist. The biology teacher successfully planted doubts in my mind to the truths I had loosely held most of my life. I will never forget the strange, new feeling of cynicism. I doubted the divine person I, at least, had held in high esteem. The darkness in my soul was like a lost confidence in a mentor because of some scandal or betrayal by a best friend.

In the coming weeks I will review, chapter by chapter, Tim Keller’s book on apologetics subtitled, Belief in an Age of Skepticism. Keller introduces his book with this quote from Darth Vader setting the tone: “I find your lack of faith—disturbing.” In the introduction, Keller shares his own battle with tough questions about Christianity: “What about other religions? What about evil and suffering? How could a loving God judge and punish? Why believe anything at all?” As he studied these issues, Christianity won out.

Keller documents: “the population in America is paradoxically growing both more religious and less religious at once.” He quotes a George Barna report confirming “One in Three Adults Is Unchurched.”  The anti-religion books by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens are increasing in sales.  At same time, members are leaving, dead old-line denominations and going to orthodox churches that demand conversion to Christ. For example, Keller launched his church in New York City, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, in the late 1980s and by 2007 his weekly attendance was over 5,ooo.

Each of the growing groups, skeptics and conservative believers, should look at their doubts. Each group has its doubts and belief systems and needs to deal with the hard questions the other side is proposing. Believers should be able to answer the skeptic’s arguments against Christianity lest they fall prey. I was unequipped to answer the atheistic evolutionary tenets of my biology teacher and I was rocked.

The skeptic should go and do likewise. The cynic who says “There can’t be just one true religion” cannot prove that truth claim empirically and therefore has faith in an indefeasible belief. Keller says to the skeptic that it would “be inconsistent to require more justification for Christian belief than you do for your own.”

Keller declares his thesis: “If you come to recognize the beliefs on which your doubts about Christianity are based, and if you seek as much proof for those beliefs as you seek from Christians for theirs—you will discover that your doubts are not as solid as they first appear.”

In the first half of The Reason for God, Keller confronts seven objections skeptics level against Christianity and the alternative beliefs those objections rest on. On Keller’s website, “The Movement”, which you can access from my blogroll, he has a post entitled Deconstructing Defeater Beliefs: Leading the Secular to Christ. In this post Keller calls the seven objections Defeater beliefs which he describes as “a set of ‘common-sense’ consensus beliefs that automatically make Christianity seem implausible to people. These are what philosophers call ‘defeater beliefs’.  A defeater belief is Belief-A that, if true, means Belief-B can’t be true.” Next week we will review chapter one and the Defeater belief: “There Can’t Be Just One True Religion.”

In the second half of the book, he examines the reasons underlying Christian beliefs. Keller ends his introduction with the example of Thomas. When Jesus confronted “doubting Thomas” he challenged him “to acquiesce in doubt (‘believe’) and yet responded to his request for more evidence.” Jesus gave the skeptic the evidence of His deity in his hands and side. This is Keller’s approach, to give more evidence to the skeptic to win them. Publishers Weekly agrees when it writes that Keller’s book was “written for skeptics and the believers who love them.”

Sometimes I like to read several books at the same time, instead of sitting down and reading right through one book. If that is your modus operandi, then join me in reading through The Reason for God and add your weekly comments.

Comments, anyone?