January 1, 2009 · Comments Off
I ran across this little gem from the Richard Dawkins blog while I was reading Reddit or Digg (can’t remember which): “Atheists in Jail” by Scott Adams (the same one who created Dilbert).
Scott’s comments are a response to some ignorant fundamentalist Christians (note: yes, that is my team) who made the indefensible assertion that atheists are not moral. He rightly says that this clearly is not true: atheists tend to be more law-abiding than Christians. Although they won’t acknowledge this to be a matter of biblical import, Scott & Co. actually understand the Bible better than these moronic Christians do.
Romans 1 teaches that we know God but we suppress the knowledge of him. And being created in his image, it is no surprise that atheists are just as (if not more) moral than Christians. We all naturally know what right and wrong are because we are made in the image of God, and we live in a way that shows that we know who God is and that he has standards that we are to obey. So we should expect that everybody would be moral. They are made in the image of God – and God has a profound sense of right, wrong, and justice, and thus it only makes sense that we all try to be moral.
The real problem with atheists lugging around this argument like it was a dead horse (and it is, and they kicked it to death, and they’ve kept on kicking it) is that the truth of what they’re saying defeats them on two levels.
First, as already noted, Christians can easily turn this around and say, “Ah, you have a morals! That is just one evidence you’re made in the image of God and bear his likeness in your everyday actions.”1 And second, Christians can then quite reasonably argue that while atheists are moral because they bear the image of God, these atheists have no foundation for those morals aside from the existence of God – they have what Ralph Smith has called a “Christian hangover”.
There aren’t any foundational truths that will allow the atheist to argue from the truth of the natural order down to why we should or should not do some particular act. So atheists understand what morality is at a basic level, but have no logical reason to be moral. Understand me clearly here: This does not mean that we might not explain how a sense of morality evolved. Dawkins, Dennett, and others have all made quite capable attempts at this, and these explanations are both creative and plausible given their assumption of the truth of evolutionary theory. But this point must also assume that there is something beyond the natural that makes certain acts absolutely right and others absolutely wrong. There is no way to logically argue that I should not violate this moral conscience that has come about by natural processes. Even if we have practical reasons against murder (i.e., “If you try to kill me, I will kill you, so you shouldn’t try to kill me”), this will not work because it only moves the necessity of an answer one step back. Instead of asking why we should or shouldn’t do a certain act, we are now stuck with answering why we should care about whether we are harmed by our own actions. What happens when I stop caring? The atheist loses their only ground to apathy.
I would be glad to hear attempts to give an atheist foundation for morals, though. Comments?
Notes
1. But one important difference between a Christian and a pagan (atheists in this case) is that Christians have stopped believing the fancy lie that we’re capable of ceasing to sin, even if we are the most moral person on earth. So atheists – even if they are more moral than Christians – are incapable of ceasing to sin. Even in doing the right thing, they’re doing it from a heart of evil that cannot worship God.
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The Demos Critic
Categories: Atheism · Christianity · Culture · Religion
December 24, 2008 · Comments Off
Merry Christmas, everyone! It’s great to spend time with my family celebrating Christmas, and I hope you all are doing the same. And giving lots and lots of gifts. Speaking of which, opponents of Proposition 8 gave a little “gift” to those who supported it.
Website DontBuyFromBigots.com has released a compiled list of individuals and businesses that supported Proposition 8, encouraging people to not “buy from bigots”.
I just have a quick analysis of this idea before I head off to bed to celebrate Jesus-day tomorrow with the relatives. At the very best, this doesn’t seem to me to be consistent. On the one hand, these opponents of Proposition 8 are encouraging people to not buy from people that they view as bigots. This is a good thing; bigotry is not right and should be opposed on all levels. But the temptation with many things is to label those things as bigotry when they really are not. I believe that sites like this are making just such an error, and have very conveniently embraced a bigotry of their own. Bigotry is “stubborn and complete intolerance” (says Dictionary.com) of those whose beliefs differ from ones own. I’m not going to make any argument that all Prop 8 supporters are not bigots. That is no doubt true, and it’s best if Christians are honest and admit that a good portion of the bigots are coming from our own team. But compare true bigotry to, say, the typical Christian. The typical Christian, and what Christians are required to be by scripture, is one who has or is willing to have gay friends, spends time with them, loves them, and also (known to them) believes that homosexual sex (and much more, any sex outside of marriage) is wrong. I am just one such Christian. I love my gay friends, while also (consistently) maintaining that they sin by having homosexual relationships.
Let’s say you have a good friend of the opposite sex and both of you share the same religious views. However, you disagree over whether something is wrong or not – say, speeding, or downloading MP3s. If I walked up to you on the street and you were having a disagreement of said views with your friend, it would be very ludicrous for me to say that you are bigoted against your friend because you happen to disagree with their view on speeding or downloading MP3s. But this is just what websites like this seem to want us to do. They want to call us bigots because we love our friends enough to be honest about what we think about what they’re doing.
Of course, I think that opponents of Proposition 8 are justified in asking everyone to boycott true bigots, those who oppose homosexuality but also hate the people who are homosexual. But there is no way for them to reasonably sort out bigots from non-bigots just by looking at a list of donors.
Thoughts?
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The Demos Critic
Categories: Christianity · Culture · Politics · Religion · Sexuality
Tagged: bigotry, california, christianity, Christians, Proposition 8
December 11, 2008 · Comments Off
The air was hot, and putridly florid. The smell of rot and decay. Each gasping breath seemed only to draw in more of the sickening stench of death. The man to His left had freely pissed himself, and was still jabbering on with insults and taunts, despite his own obvious lack of composure and shame. The man on His right also joined in, depraved even in agony and hopelessness.
In His mouth was the iron and copper taste of blood, mixed with sour wine and dust. He was thirsty, though it seemed strange that He should even register this through His blinding pain: pain that seemed to radiate from His feet, His hands, His head, His back, and fill His heart and mind to bursting. That of Him which was human was crying for release, to end this now, to give up His ghost and be gone from this eternity of torment that had found its way into every waking moment.
Still, this was not the appointed time; there were still hours ahead.
This thought, coupled with the intense effort that it took to draw in each new breath, would have simply broken any other man. He looked through one bruised and swollen eye and saw the people He was dying for, reveling in the collective madness that seems to come so easily to any mob. He is then overcome. He is pain – He is more than pain, He is agony. His is the purest sensation ever felt, extending over every inch, into every synapse in His brain, into every nerve and sensory ending.
In the sixth hour then Darkness overcomes the land; panic and dread reign. All is chaos, and even the Romans know something is very wrong.
In the ninth hour, the Man, in an act of supreme and divine will, screams: a terrible, mighty voice, a voice that pierces into the souls of all who hear it. No one there that day ever forgets that voice.
“Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” – “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
He cried out once more and yielded his spirit.
And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”
Matthew 27:51-54, ESV
Thoughts? Leave a comment or send us an e-mail at thedemoscritic@gmail.com.
Author: Matt Murdock
Categories: Christianity · Culture · Religion
Tagged: Christ, christianity, crucifixion, history
December 9, 2008 · Comments Off
The Southern Gothic writer Flannery O’Connor repeatedly referred to her pattern of violence and negative circumstances inflicted on her seemingly nice characters as dark grace. It was most often the character that you felt was the least deserving of a harsh providence that most often ended up receiving one. What was the purpose of dark grace? Well primarily it made the previously self-righteous victim swallow their pride, gain perspective, and turned their inaction to action. We have grown so comfortable with Victorian pietism in our churches that our idea of grace is pink and fluffy with a cute little bow. Bad things somehow equal sin and grace can only be nice things. If that is the case however, any type of punishment by a parent would by definition be evil. If you are a Christian, you cannot believe that.
But what does this have to do with Barack Obama? What hath Washington D.C. to do with Jerusalem? Well, if you’re a member of the religious right, you probably think the anti-christ has been elected. If you’re a little more honest conservative, you simply believe that the king of schmooze has just been elected. Either way, our already failing system doesn’t show any signs of recovering and Obama just looks to be pressing the gas pedal. We are on the same track as Rome. First toward Empire, then toward fallen Empire. Barack Obama means more steps towards hardships and unconscionable policies for bible believing Christians. But in the grand scheme of things, what does this really mean for Christians? Haven’t we had it easy for a very long time? Haven’t we seen our brothers in other countries endure much harder circumstances to the benefit of their spiritual health? Perhaps the negative aspects of an Obama presidency are just one side of the coin. Maybe it will be better for the health of American to endure the dark grace of Barack Obama?
Thoughts? Leave a comment or send us an e-mail at thedemoscritic@gmail.com.
Author: D. Carl Hoos
Categories: Christianity · Culture · Mr. President · Politics · Religion
Tagged: Barack Obama, Church, economic woes, falling empire, Rome
November 24, 2008 · Comments Off
Coming out of culinary school, I have found that our culture has consistently sacrificed quality for quantity and convenience. At this point, more dishes that may have been something wonderful at some point have been bastardized into vulgar caricatures of their true selves. This transition was slow and easy – in fact, few seem to notice that anything is amiss. But to those who have taken the time to seek out something better, there exists a gaping and ever-present rift between what we are given and what we crave. There is no way to satisfy that craving with the malnourishing and cheaply obtained substitutes.
This degradation of quality, and our willingness to accept simple and easy over satisfying and fulfilling, is just a small part of a societal trend, which has been observed all too clearly by those who have a keen appreciation for anything, and not just food. We have seen popular art, popular food, and popular music all degrade. This is not to say that nothing of value remains, but this is a valid assessment of the cultural climate at large.
All of this degradation is to me a type of what has happened and is continuing to happen to the Church. We no longer love the truth enough to devote ourselves to it. We want our Church in small, inoffensively flavored sermons that only serve to deaden our spiritual palates. At some point in our sanctification, we must develop a taste for the finer spiritual things, or as Paul puts it:
But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh.
- 1st Corinthians 3:1, ESV
This is speaking to the same basic principle behind our cultural trends in food, music, and the arts. We all want the easy to digest, familiar spiritual nourishment we have always had, but this marks us as infants, and as those whose growth has been stunted by complacency. Along this same vein, C.S. Lewis once said:
Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
- C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Like the degradation of our tastes in fine music, art, and food, it is unfortunate that we have not grown more in our desire for Christ, but instead have continued being the “half-hearted creatures” that Lewis spoke of. Culture must and will be conformed to the image of Christ, but how can we honestly say that we serve Christ in this regard when we have abandoned spiritual meat and wine for ethereal comfort food?
Thoughts? Leave a comment or send us an e-mail at thedemoscritic@gmail.com.
Author: Matt Murdock
Categories: Christianity · Culture · Religion
Tagged: Christ, christianity, Culture, food, problems, Religion
November 19, 2008 · Comments Off
The split of positions within the libertarian party is quite telling. One faction is libertarian because they don’t want the moralists telling them what to do. They want freedom from religion in government. The other is libertarian because they don’t want the immoralists telling them what to do. They want freedom from secularism in government. To get to heart of the difference you have to ask an additional question.
The underlying question behind this is “what is freedom”? If a man falls into a large hole, he may still have lots of room to move around, but is he really free? Or conversely, what if you haven’t fallen into the hole at all, but you can see the hole – do you really have the freedom to fall into it or are your freedoms being restricted by avoiding the hole to begin with? Both of these scenarios are in essence where these two stripes of libertarians differ. The former wants the freedom to do whatever he wants. The latter wants the freedom to self-govern without interference. So then, the question is, “Can you really be just a libertarian?” The answer is no. Choose your side. Are you a lawless libertarian or a self-governing libertarian?
Thoughts? Leave a comment or send us an e-mail at thedemoscritic@gmail.com.
Author: D. Carl Hoos
Categories: Politics
Tagged: lawlessness, Libertarianism, liberty, Reason Magazine, self-government
November 17, 2008 · Comments Off
You can think of The Town Crier as a news repository of sorts. Here we will post links to various news stories that have popped up throughout the week and give a brief summary and our take on these stories.
Obama looking to make impact quickly
Although I don’t agree with all of President-Elect Obama’s views on how we should move the country forward, he is one of the few presidents in recent memory that is holding true to his word and doing what he said he wanted to do. Although not officially President until January 20, 2009, the President-Elect is getting a head start on making change.
Team Obama is already reviewing every executive order passed by the Bush Administration in an effort to either keep, repeal, or amend the orders. This is important because executive orders are basically laws that are not approved by Congress and can be potentially harmful to the American public. The sad thing about many of these changes is that they may lead the country into socialism, and that will not work.
Obama team ponders what to do with Gitmo
In the spirit of Team Obama acting quickly to reverse projects implemented by the King George, aides to Obama are also reviewing the curious case of Guantanamo Bay. Used by Bush to hold ‘enemy combatants’, and with George Bush having almost all control over deciding who and who is not an ‘enemy combatant’, the prison has been bad news for the current President because of allegations of abuse to inmates, and because many inmates are there without accusation or even reason to believe that they have definitely done anything wrong.
The only problem that has yet to be resolved is what to do with the 255 inmates currently being held at Guantanamo. There are a couple different options, such as trying the inmates in Federal courts or even setting up an independent National Security Court to try the prisoners.
Time for a New Third Party Republican Party Offshoot
Republicrats. That is where the future of party politics is goings. The Republican National Convention is struggling to show how it is any different from the Democrats. This article describes how the party is supposedly aiming for conservatism while exemplifying very liberal viewpoints. This is what is wrong with the party! Why can’t the party realize what is wrong with itself, that it has to go to its own members and ask them what the party should become?
Thoughts? Leave a comment or send us an e-mail at thedemoscritic@gmail.com.
Author: Theo Fitzpatrick
Categories: Town Crier
Tagged: news, Town Crier
November 8, 2008 · Comments Off
The story:
- Obama made some comments regarding Iran’s nuclear policy.
- Iran called him out and said that his message of “change” had to be actual change and not just change of the appearance of the same old things that Bush has done.
- Obama says: “But I have to reiterate once again that we only have one president at a time. And I want to be very careful that we are sending the right signals to the world as a whole that I am not the president and I won’t be until January 20th.” Translated: “Hey, I don’t want to have to take responsibility for my words until January 20th! Until then, I could make threats to nuke every country in the middle east, or take over their government in a coup, and you have absolutely NO right to take me seriously!”
Seriously. You want to “send the right signals to the world as a whole”? Start talking like you are the President and saying what you will say in office. It’s a joke until you do that, and you won’t succeed at wooing those who actually think about what you’re saying.
Obama has a long hard road ahead of him because although he can talk well and happened upon a very good speech writer very early in his campaign, he isn’t too adept at navigating the channels of politisleaze. Be very careful, Mr. President-Elect. Your job begins before it even starts, as the outside, waiting world is watching what you say and will unfailingly remember that once you actually and formally are entered into office. You cannot say something now and then just say, “Oh, JK, JK” when you get into office. To hold this mindset shows immaturity in your understanding of how to relate to other world leaders. What will you do when you totally botch something while in office? Tell them they shouldn’t take you seriously then for some other arcane reason?
[Source: "Iran Blasts Obama's Nuclear Criticism", CNN.com]
Author: The Demos Critic
Categories: Mr. President · Politics
Tagged: obama, Politics
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