Posted on 05/21/2007 12:32:22 AM PDT by goldstategop
C.S. Lewis, the former atheist and famous Oxford scholar, once said "Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning...."
There are a myriad of eminent scholars (like Lewis) who understand the folly of atheism. I will list a few others in this second part of my treatise to expose atheists' agenda to ban Christianity from the courts of culture. In my last article I discussed "step 1" of their plan. In this discourse I will address steps 2 & 3.
Step two: target younger generations with atheism
Atheists are making a concerted effort to win the youth of America and the world. Hundreds of web sites and blogs on the Internet seek to convince and convert adolescents, endeavoring to remove any residue of theism from their minds and hearts by packaging atheism as the choice of a new generation. While you think your kids are innocently surfing the Web, secular progressives are intentionally preying on their innocence and naïveté.
What's preposterous is that atheists are now advertising and soliciting on websites particularly created for teens. The London Telegraph noted that, "Groups including Atheists for Human Rights and Atheist Alliance International – ‘Call 1-866-HERETIC' - are setting up summer camps and an internet recruiting campaign."
YouTube, the most popular video site on the Net for young people, is one of their primary avenues for passing off their secularist propaganda. Another antagonistic and self-proclaimed "blasphemous" site even beckons youth to record their anti-Christian beliefs on it.
Even Oxford scientist Richard Dawkins is on personal campaign and militant quest to spread his name, books, and atheism all over the Internet by hoping young people will post his graphics on their MySpace page. Rather than question or critique his methods as slick marketing, young atheists are proud to post his links, follow and defend him like a religious sage, and cite his texts as infallible truth.
Step three: package and promote atheism as reasonable and scientific>/b>
Presenting atheism as scientific fact might be secularists' greatest plan and others point of greatest gullibility, in hope of winning the battle for the ultimate view of reality. And hailed as their chief advocates are men like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, Oxford University's ethologist and evolutionary biologist, with his book, "The God Delusion," atheists' newest "bible" or authoritative text.
So what credentials does a man like Dawkins have to discuss the presence or absence of God? Answer: He's "a scientist." And the fact is anyone in our age who is a naturalist professor or wears a white lab coat can virtually speak upon any issue (even God) and their words are received as gospel – unless of course they are a theist!
What's interesting is that atheists like Dawkins fall into the same snare they accuse of theists. While he might condemn Christians like me for not being educated enough to speak about theism or creation, his own expertise remains outside the realm of antagonism that defines his world crusade. To make dogmatic assertions about the absence of God and not possess expertise in cosmology, astrophysics, or even theology gives him no more of a credible platform than you and me, except to his devoted followers of course. He is an ethologist and evolutionary biologist – since when does that make one an expert on God? (Similarly, Sam Harris has a bachelor's in philosophy – since when does that make one an expert on the universe?)
Dawkins condemns Christians for being narrow minded and non-adaptive to other cultures which believed in Thor or Zeus, yet he is unwavering in disrespecting any other creation authority except Western science. What about the wisdom of African, Middle-Eastern or Far-Eastern sages, shamans, or religious figures? Just because science can explain many things in the natural realm, does that mean it owns the corner market on metaphysics and God?
Is it possible that the scientific worldview is inferior to reveal the truths behind the curtain of creation?
Even Paul Davies, the renown British-born physicist, agnostic, professor of cosmology, quantum field theory, and astrobiology, said to Time, "Science, God, and Man," that no one can rightfully say there is no God. "Agnosticism – reserving judgment about divine purpose – remains as defensible as ever, but atheism – the confident denial of divine purpose – becomes trickier. If you admit that we can't peer behind a curtain, how can you be sure there's nothing there?"
John Horgan, a former senior staff writer for Scientific American and the Director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology, wrote a book titled, "The End of Science." In it he discusses the futility of men like Oxford's Dawkins, Cambridge's Hawking, and others pursuit to discover a "theory of everything." He agrees with Paul Davies in purporting that we must face the limits of science in the twilight of the scientific age, opting that the discovery of ultimate answers about the universe will not rely in rationale and empirical examination but possibly a metaphysical practice. (A striking similarity to the words in the Bible, "By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command...")
Of course for men like Harris, Dawkins, and other atheists, the thought that science cannot provide these ultimate answers must be a horrifying reality to face, as their whole lives depend upon the western-scientific paradigm of reality. Their predicament reminds me of the words of Robert Jastrow, American astronomer, physicist, and cosmologist, from his work, "God and the Astronomers"
The universe has a beginning….This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always accepted the word of the Bible: In the beginning God created heaven and earth….For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
Once again the Bible is proven correct, "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no god.'"
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
in the end it rests on the proposition we can confidently know all of reality and predict it down to the movement of an unseen atom
No it doesn't. We are allowed to simply say "I don't know." We don't have to have an answer, and we don't have to know that there is someone (deity of your choice) who does have all the answers. We're comfortable not having all the answers. Science itself is tentative.
“There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.”
bookmark
There was a time when an atheist’s testimony was inadmissable in an American courtroom.
After all, to whom would he give his oath or affirm that his testimony is true? (Quakers and Mennonites don’t take oaths, and are allowed to “affirm” their testimony under the watchful eyes of God their Father).
As for the antropogenic nature of the universe, this was right out of Satan’s promise to the disobedient Eve that “ye will be as Gods, knowing for yourselves good and evil.”
Neat essay. Thanks for posting it. Interesting point he made — most scientists have no special expertise in theology, so why should we rely on their opinions about God?
When you find an athiest scientist who claims that science conclusively “proves” there is not G-d, ask them: What exactly caused the Big Bang? Where did all the material for the universe come from in the first place? I am not one who takes the Bible literally, but (if anything) scientific theories about creation leave plenty of room to support the existence of G-d.
Also, whenever a scientist claims to have proven something remember this: You can prove anything if you make enough simplifying assumptions.
bump for later...
To believe in God, seems the better road than not.
One may not believe in God and simply turn to dust at the end of life. However, if God speaks to us, and we reject Him, then we could be condemned to an eternity of chaos.
We don’t know everything and even human nature itself is the greatest of all mysteries. How then can we say there is a God?
If we cannot know everything about what we do see, how can one claim to know anything about what we cannot see?
Hank
Thanks.
Great article by a genuine Christian.
1. The religious have always "targeted" younger generations. They have no just complaint if atheists do the same.
2. The atheists are not alone in seeing science and religion as opposed. To borrow a phrase from William F. Buckley, religion (specifically Christianity) has repeatedly stood athwart the path of science yelling "Stop!".
3. When the atheist declares that religion is false, the believer must agree with respect to every religion but one. Would Mr. Norris care to estimate how many religions exist, have existed, or will exist, of which only one - at most one - can be true?
4. While science has made a persuasive case that the past of the universe is finite, that case also shows that the age of the universe is vastly greater than the theologians ever conceived. The claim that the latter have been proved right is ludicrous.
We don’t know everything and even human nature itself is the greatest of all mysteries. How then can we say there is no God?
Neat essay. Thanks for posting it. Interesting point he made — most scientists have no special expertise in theology, so why should we rely on their opinions about God?
___________
Which, of course, begs the question, why would we consider the opinions of religious people who have no special expertise in things scientific?
Make it illegal again and the Church will only grow stronger.
...a number of your points are debatable...
It may be semantics, but I think ‘targeting’ for instruction of youth in moral and ethical behaviours is off kilter...I might agree if, say, Christians were recruiting youth from some other definable path, such as Buddhism or Hinduism, but to simply provide youth with a moral path as opposed to an empty trail hardly deserves the pejorative ‘targeting’
...also, a believer may limit himself to one specific stated belief system, but the concept of deity is as unlimited as the human mind itself...that a Christian can view the pantheism of ancient Rome as a valid belief sysytem is not impossible on its face...I know this, because I believe it...
...also, if religion and science come acropper upon crossing paths, how do you explain the tremendous sceitific acheivements of the United States, an avowedly Christian (or should we merely say religious) society...
“When you find an athiest scientist who claims that science conclusively “proves” there is not G-d, ask them: What exactly caused the Big Bang?”
I’ve heard two good analogies to counter them and their ‘Big Bang’..........
1. If a tornado passes through a plane salvage yard enough times.......it will ‘create’ a usable plane ready for take-off.
2. If you blow up a pile of paint cans enough times......... eventually you’ll ‘create’ a reproduction of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
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