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Archive for the tag “atheism”

03 Jan 2017

There are No Miracles

The Enlightenment contributed much to Western culture, and spurred an era of unprecedented discovery and development.

It also contributed the concept that reason alone is capable of explaining everything that happens in the world, and that a scientific reason for all phenomena can always be found. Over time, this viewpoint mutated into the idea that there is no place for God in the ‘real’ world. Science can explain everything; there is nothing other than the material world in which we live.

Back in the 19th century, and indeed through most of the 20th century, it seemed that this viewpoint was valid: science continually discovered and described the workings of the universe, both minute and cosmic. It seemed that all of the answers were being discovered, one at a time–and it would be only a matter of time before we had a perfect picture of the universe, how it started and how it works.  Then the old stories of God  creating the universe and regularly intervening in it could be relegated to the realm of myth and fantasy.

But funny things kept happening, despite this rational worldview:

  • in China, a country where atheism had been promoted  for decades and religion had been suppressed, more than 100 million people embraced Christianity in the space of 30 years; reports of miracles abounded
  • Scientists discovered that the more they examined the universe, the more it looked like it had been hand-crafted on purpose
  • Miracles kept happening, and science had no explanation for them.

Now, I’m talking about miracles where experts can’t offer logical explanations–not cases where a statue cries or the image of Jesus appears in a waffle. Below are several cases where medical experts admit there are no plausible explanations for the cures that took place. The most famous of these is probably the story of Marlene Klepees, who was treated at the prestigious Mayo Clinic for cerebral palsy. Now, there is no cure for cerebral palsy. It slowly debilitates and kills its victims. But Marlene was miraculously cured of the affliction after it had reduced her to a quadriplegic. Today she is healthy with no signs of cerebral palsy. If the Mayo Clinic disputed her story, no doubt they would have spoken out, because their reputation is on the line. But they didn’t, because the story is true. To make this story more outlandish to atheistic ears, Marlene received a vision that she would be cured.

 

These are just a few examples of miracles. They’ve been happening everyday since, well, forever. In the Bible, they are referred to as signs and wonders. The Greek word for miracles is signs. Signs point you toward something. Miracles are abundant, and to us, random. They point to the eternal intervening in the material world. And as I said, they are happening everyday.

Like in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Millions of people have gotten sober by following AA’s Twelve Steps. Boiled down into a sentence, you get sober by admitting you are powerless over alcohol and then asking a Higher Power to remove the obsession from your life. And God does. If you are willing, then the insurmountable urge to debilitate and drown yourself with alcohol is taken away.

Sounds too simple to be true, right? But for 80 years that’s how it’s worked. The newly-sober addicts aren’t expected to become Christians, but they are encouraged to develop and maintain “conscious contact” with their higher power.

How does this work? The scientific community has advanced many explanations, because the scientific community usually has many conflicting explanations for anything that involves the human mind. Psychiatrists, behavioral psychologists, anthropologists, and lots of other ologists weigh in on issues from love to altruism to near-death experiences, each with their own explanation. Explanations grounded in science, and conjecture.

They just won’t use the word miracle. But if you’ve ever met a hardcore atheist who is drinking himself to death and then in a matter of weeks has seen his craving for alcohol disappear, you might be forgiven for using the word.

If you start with a pre-existing belief that miracles can’t happen because they don’t match your world view, you will constantly find reasons to ignore, refute or reject evidence of miracles. But they will keep on happening without you.

 

 

 

 

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01 Jan 2017

“But Christians Have Done So much Bad Stuff…”

Yesterday, under the title What Kind of Atheist Are You?, I mentioned the unthinking assumption held by many atheists that somehow science has proven that Christianity is untrue. Actually, physicists and cosmologists are facing the disconcerting challenge of either admitting that the universe appears to have been designed and fine-tuned by a supernatural power, or accepting that their goal of finding a Theory of Everything is futile (because, in their refusal to accept the possibility that God exists, they must believe in multiverses).

Here’s a recent article that explains their conundrum, written by an atheist who acknowledges the astounding level of fine-tuning in the universe while lamenting the fact that “there is no hope of explaining our universe’s features in terms of fundamental causes and principles.” That is “according to the current thinking of many physicists”–all of whom, one would assume, refuse to accept the most obvious conclusion: God made the universe this way, Big Bang and all.

http://harpers.org/archive/2011/12/the-accidental-universe/6/

But people who prefer to believe that there is no God can fall back on any number of other rationales to explain their decision. One that requires the least scientific or biblical knowledge is the well-known litany of abuses, transgressions and mayhem that Christians have carried out in the name of their Lord. Some of the most vocal and popular atheists, such as Dawkins and Hitchens, love this theme.

I will pause to mention that by far the most deadly and horrific crimes against humanity took place in the 20th century in the service of two causes that rejected Christianity: Communism and Nazism (no, Hitler was not a Christian–see note below). Mao and Stalin alone killed many more people in their attempts to forge a pure form of Communism than all Christian despots did over the centuries.

There is certainly a long list of atrocities committed in the name of Christianity, from colonization to religious wars to persecutions. The important thing to remember is that these acts violated the teachings of Jesus. That’s very clear.

The fact that ambitious or misguided kings and clergy perpetrated violent and oppressive acts doesn’t negate the core doctrines of Christianity. Please re-read the Sermon on the Mount if there is any question about this. Jesus would not torture, nor condone torture. So rejecting his teachings because some of his self-professed followers committed crimes is similar to rejecting the concept of democracy because elections in Uganda are rigged, or because Vladimir Putin perpetuates a mockery of democracy in order to retain power.

No one is suggesting that we get rid of democracy because it is so often perverted, tarnished or trampled. Because we “believe” in democracy.

 

Note: The Nazi Minister for Church Affairs, explained “Positive Christianity” as not “dependent upon the Apostle’s Creed“, nor in “faith in Christ as the son of God”, upon which Christianity relied, but rather, as being represented by the Nazi Party, saying “The Fuehrer is the herald of a new revelation”: William L. Shirer (1960). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. London: Secker & Warburg. pp. 238–39

 

 

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31 Dec 2016
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What Kind of Atheist are You?

 

Here are some facts that challenge the conventional wisdom of our secular Western culture:

  1. The total number of Christians in the world continues to grow, and the percentage of the planet’s population that believes in God is projected to continue increasing rapidly for the foreseeable future.

2.The atheist population is declining.

According to the Pew Research Center, the startling truth is that the percentage of the world’s population that is atheist or unaffiliated with any religion is dropping, and will continue to do so. That’s an interesting thought, given the predominance of high-profile opinion leaders in the West who don’t embrace any religion.

But that’s not what this post is about. I’ll include the link to the Pew report at the end of this post, but the real question that intrigues me is: what kind of atheists are in this shrinking pool. Let me list some varieties. See if you can find yourself or someone you know in one of them

SCIENCE HAS DISPROVED CHRISTIANITY–IT’S ALL A BUNCH OF ANCIENT FICTION

You’re probably thinking of the first chapters of Genesis and the account of how the Earth and the heavens were created. It doesn’t coincide with the scientific explanation of the Big Bang and the subsequent formation of the universe as we understand it. You might want to know that many Christian theologians have treated Genesis as an allegorical picture of the cosmos, in which the truth of humankind’s problem–we don’t want to follow God’s will and would rather do what we want–is clearly set out. Augustine back in the 5th century made the argument that the creation stories are allegorical.

But of course many modern Christians insist on treating the Bible literally in every word. Atheists say this traps them into believing the unbelievable in the face of scientific fact.

Ironically, atheists increasingly find themselves trapped in the Origin debate. That’s because the more we know about the Big Bang and the evolution of our solar system, the more it becomes apparent that either a series of improbable coincidences took place, or the universe was “made this way.” For example, if the gravitational or electromagnetic or nuclear forces were even slightly different than they are, the universe could not have formed. Even minute differences would either have led to a dead universe, or one that collapsed before being able to form the building blocks of life.

Scientists recognize that there are far too many improbable coincidences and examples of “fine tuning” of the universe. So they accept the most logical explanation: that an intelligent designer ensured that the various forces and subsequent cosmic events    unfolded as they did in order to produce the universe we live in.

Right? Well, not if you are a scientist who is unable to consider the existence of God. In that case, you come up with the theory of multiverses: that there are actually an infinite number of universes in existence, and we just happen to live in one that turned out this way. The other uncountable (and unobservable) universes probably evolved differently and have very different physical properties. I say probably, because this theory is absolutely untestable. There is no way for us to know if there are other universes. But such eminent physicists as Stephen Hawking subscribe to the idea, because the alternative, which seems so obvious (i.e. all of these amazing coincidences occurred  because they were created to do so) is unacceptable to them

The general public doesn’t follow this issue too closely. Many people just assume that science has all the answers and the Biblical explanations are just ancient myths. They don’t know that the top minds in science are now willing to believe an unprovable, improbable theory for the development of the universe, simply because they are unwilling to believe in a God who can act in supernatural ways. Everything was fine until their research started to show startling evidence of a fine-tuned universe.

Talk about being trapped into believing the unbelievable in the face of scientific fact…

Coming up next…”But Christians have done so much bad stuff…”

But first, the link to that study:

http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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