I recently finished a manuscript I entitled "Refuting Atheism" and have
decided to share some pre-published information regarding atheism with the
general public. Let me start with point-counterpoint regarding what is
normally know as the "moral argument." Richard Taylor, in a debate with
William Lane Craig, relates a common hypothesis for the origin of the
knowledge of moral obligations.
Is the basis for morality natural or supernatural? It is neither. The
basis
for morality is conventional, which means the rules of morality were
fabricated by human beings over many generations. These rules are: to
abstain from injury, to abstain from lying, theft, assault, killing, and
so
forth. These rules were not the invention of God. No one in this room
imagines that if there were not a God to tell us these things, we would
not
know any better. [i]
Certainly this idea has strong appeal, but is horribly wrong when it comes
to how we ruminate on moral obligations and use them to create our laws.
Normally we discover, by .. What we are to do and then craft our laws to
fit
those innate obligations. Take, for instance, the debate over abortion.
The pro-choice and pro-life do not agree among themselves what is correct
and then craft laws to reflect that. They instead grapple with their own
innate knowledge of the moral law and then attempt to craft laws that
agree
with what is morally correct. Of course both sides disagree, but that is
more a reflection of our inability to properly understand the moral law
and
the fact our moral intuition can sometimes be damaged by our own personal
biases (the desire for ***ual activity devoid of consequences, for
instance). Humanist evolutionist arguments for the non-existence of
knowledge of the "moral law" proves faulty on every turn.
This evolutionist argument is so poor that humanists themselves cannot
remain consistent on this issue. Take, for instance, Paul Kurtz who
suggests out loud, in Forbidden Fruit, that it was immoral for Abraham to
kill Isaac and immoral for God to demand Abraham kill him. Clearly if
Kurtz
had taken his own evolutionist advice, he would have suggested that the
immorality or morality of killing one's son would have depended on the
culture one was in at the time. Clearly we believe killing one's child is
immoral, but that is our culture and someone else may differ in beliefs
from
us. Who are we to suppose, just because we think so, that others, even
God,
are immoral for thinking different?
I surveyed the arguments for the existence or non-existence of the
"soul"
next and suggested there are philosophical and medical evidences for such
an
entities existence and near-death experiences confirm such an existence.
Then, later in discussing the reasonableness of believing in Jesus'
resurrection, I tie these evidences together.
" There is one last salient point I want to add to this debate which
links
the sayings, life, and resurrection of Jesus with the tales of near-death
experiences previously cited. When Jesus communes with the father in an
occurrence often seen as a fulfillment of his promise that he could come
in
power and majesty, he is seen as a being of light. Amazingly, this is
exactly how Jesus and other spiritual beings are seen in near-death
experiences; they are creatures that seemingly are made of nothing but
light. Jesus, in His resurrected body, is able to enter a room and leave
the room, disappearing almost magically, merely by desiring to do so.
Compare this with the experience of Thetus Tenney, and others whose
spiritual movement transcends spatial dimensions. There is no way for
these
disciples to have known what information would come out of near-death
experiences. Yet, for all the primitiveness of the environment in which
these Jews lived, at least compared to modern ideas, they got the
spiritual
nature of humans exactly right!"
I then relate this to the moral argument because people who have NDEs
often
relate a "judgment" occurring of them either from some divine or
semi-divine
being or themselves. This suggests a sort of moral law that is not merely
dependent on our culture's whims but one that transcends cultures - in
essence, an absolutist one.
I junction into an argument on the bias inherent in evolutionist
philosophy
and quote from Richard Dawkins from a debate between him and Francis
Collins, and later quote from Robert Jastrow who expresses his
naturalistic
sentiments in the video The Privileged Planet.
[Dawkins] What I am skeptical about is the idea that whatever wonderful
revelation does come in the science of the future, it will turn out to be
one of the particular historical religions that people happen to have
dreamed up. When we [he and Collins] started out and 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 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.
[Jastrow] Just as I can't believe there was a creator, I can't believe
this all happened by chance which implies there was a creator. You see,
I'm
at a completely hopeless bind and I stay there. Again, I find it hard to
believe that this is all a matter of atoms and molecules and so I try to
fit
into my concept of the world the conclusion that there is a larger force
of
some kind which we can call "god" or you can call it whatever. But I
can't
accept that. I'm what's called a materialist in philosophy. It means
that
I believe the world consists entirely of material substances . . . that's
what my science tells me.
What I do conclude from the discussion of bias is that if you wanted to
craft a theory of how people would act if the Biblical creationist theory
about man's rebellion against god were true, you would find no better
examples of the theory being true then Dawkins and others.
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[i] http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/craig-taylor1.html
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