A note to atheists before they attempt to refute Christianity

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Jul 18,2009, 11:35PM

A note to atheists before they attempt to refute Christianity

I have taken my share of black eyes in this blog by daring to tell atheists what they (ought to) believe. Who am I, a Christian theist, to inform an atheist what their beliefs are (or ought to be)? While I may not agree entirely (I still hold doggedly that atheism entails a knowledge or belief claim that God does not exist), I still see their point (It's like a New Yorker daring to tell a Londoner the best route to Paddington Station.)

But what is frustrating for an atheist is doubly frustrating for a Christian. Countless times I have seen atheists assume what I as a Christian must believe. And often this assumption reflects what is no doubt a very restricted experience with Christianity. (I base that on the assumption that atheists are not intentionally attempting to misrepresent what Christians believe.)

As a result, atheists who assume what a Christian must believe because they read a few Christian books or attended a church for several years are like self-described travel experts who offer authoritative advice on California vacations because they once stayed at the Super 8 in Pasadena.

So here are my top three pet peeves when it comes to atheist assumptions about Christian beliefs.

First, atheists often assume that Christians are committed to one specific concept of biblical inspiration and inerrancy, namely the kind that can be summarized as follows: "the Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it".

But Christian approaches to scripture run the gamut (both in terms of authority and hermeneutics or intepretation), though this fact surprises many atheists (and distresses many conservative Christians). Some Christians accept the scriptures as God's authoritative word, inspired and inerrant in every propositional affirmation. But others view scripture as inspiring if not inspired, and others go further yet as they adopt various nuanced understandings of scripture's meaning and authority.

Second, atheists commonly assume that Christians are committed to the most restricted conception of salvation, namely that only those who verbally assent to the proposition "Jesus is Lord" will be saved.

But the reality is that some Christians are inclusivists, accepting that many who never hear let alone assent to the proposition "Jesus is Lord" will be saved. And one Christian trajectory (which has existed since at least the third century) is universalistic, affirming that all will be saved.

Finally, atheists assume that Christians are committed to one particular conception of God's action in the world, namely one in which God occasionally overrides (and thereby violates) natural law to actualize a miracle. Again, that is but one view. There are literally dozens of conceptions of God's divine action that range from the view that God causes everything to the view that God causes nothing.

All this is common knowledge among academic theologians, but is rare knowledge indeed among atheists. How should we explain this? In some cases that I know personally this is explained by the fact that certain atheists had a bad experience at church when a youngster or teenager, and never progressed beyond the level of Sunday school theology.

Be that as it may, my earnest appeal to atheists would be this: if you care enough about Christianity to refute it as thoroughly as you purport to do, then don't be content with a mere caricature based on a faded memory of bad Sunday school experiences. Read the full range of academic and popular theology first so as to understand what Christians really believe. And leave the straw man to the Wizard of Oz.

A note to atheists before they attempt to refute Christianity

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Nothing New Under the Sun: The Link between Native Spirituality and the Occult by Jenn Doucette

Rethinking Christian Literature

Most recent comments

1.July 29,2009, 6:43PM

> sorry for the misunderstanding

Sorry I was so dim! I am glad you clarified all that though. I was having trouble reconciling that endorsement with the other opinions you have expressed.

FWIW, I would guess that aepling also took the sarcastic high praise as straightforward high praise. But maybe he knows you better than I do. ;-)

--beetle496

2.July 29,2009, 11:23AM

uh? I answered only to the part of your message addressed to mine, pointing out that *I* was being sarcastic in my one-liner... sorry for the misunderstanding

--gaga

3.July 28,2009, 11:45AM

@gaga — So, to complain about sarcasm… You use sarcasm? My opening rejoinder may have been sarcastic, but that is not a fair characterization of the bulk of my comment.

--beetle496

4.July 27,2009, 5:49PM

sarcasm, meet beetle496; beetle496, he's sarcasm, I hope you 2 will get along.

--gaga

5.July 26,2009, 7:51AM

> this is a perfect comment in this discussion

Yes, perfectly non-responsive.

> Its simple there is a God

It's simple to believe something, merely because one wishes it to be true.

> I believe in him because of evidence I see in my life

Which is, as pointed out before, a tacit admission on your part that you recognize that no one who is not already a believer would find such "evidence" compelling.

> you don't choose to see it

You do not see it either. You only pretend to see it, so much so that you sincerely fool yourself. Your brain is so clever, that this perfect illusion is maintained even while you admit that you have nothing that would be convincing to a Jew, a Muslim, or even someone of a different Christian denomination (let alone an atheist).

Most atheists can no more *choose* to believe in a god than you could choose to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of your garden.

--beetle496

6.July 23,2009, 3:13AM

aepling, this is a perfect comment in this discussion
thanks

--gaga

7.July 22,2009, 8:46PM

To Caffeine, I think you've had too much caffeine. I think I made my point very clear. Its simple there is a God,I believe in him because of evidence I see in my life, not yours, and you don't believe in him because he isn't working in yours, or you don't choose to see it.

Atheists are a modern day Don Quixote. The know in their mind the windmill doesn't exist as a threat, yet they are intent on attacking it, time after time, fruitlessly, until it surrenders. God is more that just a windmill and He won't surrender regardless of your fictitious "evidence", that I believe is invalid or doesn't exist. If the windmill doesn't exist, as you insist, why do you keep attacking it? Keep attacking the windmill, it will provide an outlet for your frustration.

--aepling

8.July 21,2009, 6:30PM

Sacrilicious,

I think we all struggle with cognitive dissonance at certain points. The atheist who believes that morality is a social construction and yet senses in her bones that what the Nazis did to the Jews was an offense in the most objective, absolute and certain sense, faces a very deep cognitive dissonance. Christians face their own range. The obligation we all have is to resolve such dissonance to the best of our ability.

You write: "I assume you believe in original sin, the holy trinity, the incarnation, the bodily resurrection, and some theory of atonement." Very reasonable assumption. I could give a nod to each of these doctrines, appropriately qualified. But that is only the beginning of the discussion.

For one thing, there are some people who claim to be Christian theologians, and yet who appear to hold a theology and metaphysic much closer to atheistic humanism than Christian theism. Do I think those people should be called Christians? No, that's just confusing. But then there are other people who would think that in virtue of my particular views on (some of) the doctrines you list, I should not be called a Christian. So it is very complex.

Here's an example. I accept the doctrine of the atonement, and I accept that in scripture Christ is presented as our substitionary atonement. But I don't accept in a literal, metaphysical way that Christ died for my sins because I believe the claim that one person can literally atone for the sins of another to be incoherent. So I instead understand this scriptural language to be an accommodation to the Hebrews and their way of understanding reconciliation through sacrifice and substitution. As for a theory of atonement, I at present have none. (See chapter five of my book "Faith Lacking Understanding.") Many Christians would share my views, but others would count them heretical.

--RD Rauser

9.July 21,2009, 5:27PM

Prof. Rauser,

I agree that the tone of skeptics such as myself can be disrespectful, which I don't find helpful in the long run. Many are frustrated by the large cultural influence of fundamentalists and the ignorance and hatred shown towards nonbelievers, particularly in the U.S. Atheists have been told they are merely amoral hedonists, or devil-worshipers in disguise, or in denial, etc. The tone is part backlash, and partly a genuine belief that religion is an outdated human construct that is doing much more harm than good. Some also believe a bad idea can be so bad that after a certain point it should be mocked rather than responded to, and nobody can deny that Christianity has been around for a long time with some unsavory events associated with it throughout. It is the approach of this last group that you find yourself on the receiving end of, which I find unfortunate if you wish for an honest discussion. "Hate the sin, love the sinner," after all.

"Countless times I have seen atheists assume what I as a Christian must believe." I assume you believe in original sin, the holy trinity, the incarnation, the bodily resurrection, and some theory of atonement. Maybe I'm wrong to assume, but those are all standard doctrines that almost every mainstream Christian denomination believes in. My home church and college both had statements of faith with very specific doctrinal assertions, and I imagine as a professor you may have had to sign a similar statement. All of these doctrines make claims that I have yet to find are supported by any epistemology.

And while I know my professors were neither stupid nor evil, I do believe there was some cognitive dissonance. I can't know what any individual's personal experience and inner dialogues are, but I am aware that even highly intelligent people can compartmentalize their burdens of proof and interpretations to specific areas. I don't say this out of arrogance but to highlight that consciousness is a complex thing. I am still impressed by the determination of people such as my New Testament professor, who has learned several written languages so he can better understand what he believes to be a message from the source of all reality. My admiration for the person, however, does not preclude me from strongly disagreeing or even attacking them in the market place of ideas.

I hope you will continue to practice humility despite any disrespect real or perceived, and if you choose to do so address the genuine concerns about the value and validity of belief.

--Sacrilicious

10.July 21,2009, 9:58AM

Do you realize that, while you are suggesting atheists to get familiar with the most profound tomes of theology before criticizing christianity, a fellow contributor of yours, 4 pages away, is speaking about Moses leading his people out of Egypt as if it really happened?

--gaga

11.July 21,2009, 7:42AM

>to write off all highly intelligent religious people as either stupid or evil (or hopeless victim to cognitive dissonance).

I don't "write theists off" but they are most certainly victims who suffer from a mild to serious delusion.

In your case you think that the myth and magic of the Bronze Age mixed with Roman Paganism is real when it clearly cannot be so.

--salvage

12.July 21,2009, 4:05AM

"he frustrating thing from my perspective is the way that many secularists, skeptics, atheists, agnostics, seem to write off all highly intelligent religious people as either stupid or evil (or hopeless victim to cognitive dissonance)."

I dare say I never consider them hopeless, or I would never engage them in discussion.

--Caffeine

13.July 20,2009, 7:47PM

Sacrilicious,

Very well stated. Your statement illustrates the intellectual integrity, rigor and humility of many people who reject the Christian worldview. The frustrating thing from my perspective is the way that many secularists, skeptics, atheists, agnostics, seem to write off all highly intelligent religious people as either stupid or evil (or hopeless victim to cognitive dissonance).

--RD Rauser

14.July 20,2009, 2:38PM

Most of the comments here have provided excellent criticism of this article, and I thought I'd add one more voice.

I object to the idea that atheists don't understand the breadth of Christian doctrine and interpretations of Scripture. I attended an evangelical church from infancy until I attended a Christian college, where I spent four years reading a wide variety of ideas, Christian and secular. Plantinga, Wolterstorff, Newbigin were common fare. I also attended a Catholic high school and became quite familiar with Catholic theology after four years.

Am I an expert in philosophy, theology, or biblical historiography? Far, far from it. But I do believe I have studied these topics long enough to make an informed decision about my lack of belief in the divinity of Jesus (the central and essential belief of all forms of Christianity).

I know there are intelligent Christians because I spent my whole life learning from them and appreciating them in varying degrees. My professors contributed greatly to who I am today and properly nurtured my curiosity. And like any honest professor would, the ones I decided to share my lapse of faith with were not judgmental or condescending, but rather supportive and humble. Knowing Christians who practice and believe in a connection with an infinite source of love and power has made me want to be more loving, and knowing hypocritical Christians has made me want to point out injustice and fallacy. These lessons from individuals are independent of any doctrine and have proven to me that my moral compass need not be dictated from either page or pulpit.

I am also not alone in my story. Many of my friends from the same Christian institutions have received similar academic instruction and have either adopted a nebulous theism or agnosticism, or like me have become more affirmative in their disbelief of YHWH and similar gods. I believe this is becoming the norm among college-educated Christians, and mention it merely to refute the suggestion that atheists are simply ignorant

--Sacrilicious

15.July 20,2009, 8:10AM

You're not telling me anything I don't already know. I am well aware of the er... flexibility of your religion and it's nothing special, all religions will twist, turn and contort to fit whatever gaps that present themselves in the moral, political, scientific and other aspects and foundations of society. Mark Twain was likewise aware of this phenomenon:

http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/twain01.htm

Remember man creates gods in their own image. For instance I doubt you think that "God hates fags" as Fred Phelps does. Why? Because you probably not homophobic or insane. Yet Phelps and you read the same book about the same god and come away with radically different interpretations.

So which one of you is right I wonder? Phelps has a pretty strong case that your god does indeed hate the gays, after all he commands their death doesn't he?

See? There's that problem with communication that I mentioned in the thread you're now ignoring; your god either cannot speak with us properly or enjoys schisms and the bloody conflicts that follow. Or was the 30 Year War part of the plan?

As a Christian I assume you believe that your god created the universe and people and has been angry about it ever since. After killing a lot of people by blowing up their cities, sending armies here and there, flooding the whole planet he sacrificed himself to himself to he wouldn't be so angry anymore and / or to give people another way to worship him (why does your god need worship anyway?). You are now waiting for Jesus to come back and destroy the world / kill a lot more people one final time and that will fix all our problems.

--salvage

16.July 19,2009, 11:33PM

aepling,
You are competely free to believe in whatever unproven nonsense you desire. Whether it be the Abrahamic god, the tooth fairy or that aliens abducted you and probed you, you have every right to hold on to your belief in the privacy of your own home, church and brain. When however you bring it into the open and make claims about the natural world, either be prepared to defend it or be prepared to accept the ridicule.

You can't change our minds because you profess you have no evidence
We can't change your mind because you won't listen to evidence.

Your closemindedness is not a tie, its a concession of defeat.

--Caffeine

17.July 19,2009, 8:00PM

Hilarity speaks! Needing evidence is a "handicap?" So you believe in Zeus and Santa Claus, eh? I imagine that your epistemological equipment is rather cluttered with all kinds of nonsense once you are deprived of the handicap of needing evidence in order to form your beliefs.

--Homoousia316

18.July 19,2009, 5:03PM

A lot of pearls have been cast in this blog and the preceeding with no change in attitudes. I see most here responding only to demonstrate their high intellectual capacities without really making a point. The point is this. I believe in God, His Son, and salvation, and the atheists don't. I don't need proof He exists, they do, (a handicap on their part).I don't expect to change their minds and they certainly won't change mine. Nuff said. End of argument. Its a tie. Everybody goes away happy.

--aepling

19.July 19,2009, 2:46PM

I find myself equally frustrated as Ethan. You make a whole post about the misrepresentation of Christianity by atheists, yet you maintain that all the people telling you what they hold is true must be wrong, and they are not "true atheists".
The truth is we are aware of the different permutations of Christianity. We may not all have the depth of knowledge
of a theologian, but we are aware of the differences between protestants and catholics, baptists and eastern orthodox and the slew of calvinist, presbyterian, lutheran, pentecostal, evangelical churches, and even the mormon & LDS groups.

If there is an error we often make is that we assign a particular belief to a person before we confirm that it is a part of his belief system. While that is a tactical error atheist discussioners make, it is founded on the fact that there are almost no doctrinal points that are shared by all who profess christianity, so a 'christian' label tells us almost nothing of one's actual posiiton. The issue is well taken advantage of by several apologists. When an atheist rails against the pope, an evangelical will accuse him of not looking at actual christianity. When he comments on Jack Chick, they pooh-pooh him, pointing at Plantiga or Swinburne.
Yet the fact remains that, all of these unsophisticated notions are part of the beliefs of some Christians. To assume that when we talk about 'christians' and 'christianity' we must be specifically addressing a particular subset of the group that they feel is being strawmanned by our description is as arrogant as presuming to tell atheists what their atheism mean.Many of these christian outlooks have only two things in common apparently, the name 'christian' and the certainty that atheists are wrong.

Some Christians reject the OT, some cherish it, some believe in transubstantiation, in miracles, in speaking in tongues, in doctrines of election and reprobates, etc. We need to address each of them separately, and each have different presuppositions and conclusions. Some even believe it is all a symbolic tale, and yet will answer "Christian" to a question of faith. You are certainly free to claim some, or most of these aren't "true" Christians, but from my viewpoint, you all have equal claim to the term. So if we aren't at a point addressing your particular view of Christianity, either look for some response that does, or wait your turn. There are hundreds of denominations to go through.

Interestingly, if you compare this with the rebuttals we atheists get, its ludicrous. We apparently are either afraid of god, angry at god, or worshipping Satan, despite disbelieving in their existence. Your particular straw-man, that 'atheism means a belief that god doesn't exist' is a step forward because that group is in fact a subset of atheism. The difference is you won't acknowledge this, and are attempting to paint us all with the same brush, in spite of being repeatedly told your error.

Therefore, before you chide atheists from responding to facile and unsophisticated beliefs, you should first go and find the score of faithful that actually hold those positions and inform them that the beliefs they hold are a caricature of christianity as advanced by theologians. If you ever attempt to go to a church and do this, if, say, you go to that church where they attempted to 'exorcise' the gay demon out of that boy and tell them their beliefs never progressed beyond elementary theology, record it for me, I'd be interested in seeing their responses.

--Caffeine

20.July 19,2009, 12:08PM

By way of follow-up, Randy, can you name any well-educated scholarly theologian in history who has outsold Jack T. Chick?

--Homoousia316

21.July 19,2009, 11:55AM

I agree that is frustrating to be stereotyped in discussions of this nature.

I'd also like to point out however, that it is dishonest of Christians to pray for divine intervention, claim a real reciprocal relationship with God, and maintain the veracity of Biblical miracle accounts at church on Sunday only to jettison these beliefs and hide behind the robes of theologians when engaged in discussions with atheists. It is a relatively trivial matter to create a non-refutable philosophical space for a god to occupy. But, the fact that this space exists does not guarantee it is occupied by your particular God. Nor is the necessarily either ineffectual, inattentive, or aloof, being that potentially inhabits this space particularly worthy of attention by either Christian apologists or atheists.

--DStegosaurus

22.July 19,2009, 11:43AM

I love the Christians telling the atheists to read the "full range" of theology before they're qualified to talk about Christianity. What people like you forget is that the vast majority of American Christians are not scholarly, well-educated academic theologians: they are Biblical literalists who don't believe in evolution. The well-educated Christian theologian is a politically impotent, culturally irrelevant tiny minority ensconced in an ocean of proud ignoramuses.

But hey, before you even get to talking about atheism, you really should look into the full spectrum of atheist philosophers, not just Dawkins. Nobody is allowed to talk about atheism unless they read everything ever written by Kai Nielsen, Bertrand Russell, William Rowe, and all of the other "atheologians" whose incredibly well-written, nuanced positions are read by basically nobody but other ivory-tower atheists. Make sense?

--Homoousia316

23.July 19,2009, 11:11AM

Christians, by definition believe Jesus is the risen son of god.
Atheists hold no such belief.
It's as simple as that.

--Marilyn LaCourt

24.July 19,2009, 5:55AM

Point very much taken on the telling others what they believe.

"In some cases that I know personally this is explained by the fact that certain atheists had a bad experience at church when a youngster or teenager, and never progressed beyond the level of Sunday school theology."

I'm sure that's true for the cases you know personally. Speaking only for myself: when I rejected religion as a youngster, it was because I thought the teachers' reasons were wrong. History could explain how it knew what it knew, science could, math could, but religion could not. There were no bad experiences.

--benjdm

25.July 19,2009, 2:41AM

blah, blah, blah. I'm an atheist and I know all this stuff. So "[t]here are literally dozens of conceptions of God's divine action." And you think this helps your case? So you guys can't agree on what the emperor is wearing, but you insist that he's wearing something. He couldn't possibly be naked... Right... (This is just an analogy. In the analogy, the emperor isn't god. The clothes are.)

--AderalApocalyps

26.July 19,2009, 1:23AM

"While I may not agree entirely (I still hold doggedly that atheism entails a knowledge or belief claim that God does not exist), I still see their point"

So you still insist you're right, and atheists are somehow wrong.

"But what is frustrating for an atheist is doubly frustrating for a Christian. Countless times I have seen atheists assume what I as a Christian must believe."

So it's OK when you do it, but not OK when other people do it to you.

But you still hold doggedly to your position. But you don't like it if people hold erroneous views of Christianity.

It looks to me like you don't care about other people's views or opinions.

"And leave the straw man to the Wizard of Oz."

Are you ever going to dump your straw man of atheism?

--Ethan

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