Conversation with an Atheist (Continued)

Christians need to be able to defend their faith. That is know as an apologist, who offers arguments in defense of what he/she believes. More than ever, in today’s society we need to be apologists who provides solid arguments in defense of Christ and His Church. This is a continued discussion from my earlier published topic on "Conversation with an Atheist."

... Then I asked her a few key questions: “How can you believe in ‘nothingness’? Do you have any purpose for yourself and children in this temporary life on planet earth? Do you think that it all is just ‘matter and energy’ and ultimately ends in chaos and disorder?”

Her final answers, tragically, were “Life has no ultimate purpose at all. God does not exist! All religions are worthless fantasies!”

(Some prominent Christian leaders (you know who they are), lately have preached that we should not evangelize anyone, and falsely claim that God willed multiple faiths and religions. Such anti-gospel and non-biblical teaching is manifest heresy.)

Christians, who are qualified, should help their brothers and sisters find the truth!

Historical Atheism: C. S. Lewis, a former atheist: My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of “just and unjust”?

?Atheism is the rejection of all belief in a Supernatural Being. It rejects all religions in their belief there is one God who created the universe and has sovereignty over His creation. Atheism?has existed from the beginning of recorded history.

In ancient history, the Greeks called Jews “atheists” because they refused to worship their pagan gods. When the Roman authorities persecuted the Christians, they accused them of “atheism” because their perception of divinity offended the Roman ethos. By failing to give traditional gods their due, people feared that Christians would endanger the state and overturn the fragile order.

Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria?(ca. 30 BCE-45 CE), a devout Jew, made a quintessential distinction between God’s divine essence, which is unknowable or incomprehensible, and His activities, which is discernible by His creative powers in the universe. St. Basil (Epistle 234.1) wrote, “We know God only by His operations (Energeia) but we do not undertake to approach His essence.”

The Christian doctrine of the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, and the Blessed Trinity, has been and still is blasphemous by both Jews and Muslims. Christian dogma is that all human beings are sinful and dependent on God for mercy and redemption. Basic to this religion is the principle that human beings can only make sense of their lives by accepting God’s ordinances or laws.

Atheism?rejects this concept, as well as much of the morality that goes with it. Atheists are convinced that people can make perfectly good sense of their lives as moral beings, without belief in supernatural entities.

Atheism?includes Practical Materialism, which restricts its needs and aspirations to time, matter and space. (Einstein, however, proved that time and space is not constant, by his law of Relativity). Atheistic-Humanism?considers man to be “an end in himself and sole maker, with supreme control of his own history.” This atheistic-humanism is a deliberate rejection of God in the name of “authentic human liberation.”

What Biblical cultures once perceived as the liberation from earlier Roman and Greek pagan gods, the proponents of atheistic-humanism perceive as bondage. They believe that freedom cannot coexist with the God of the Jews, Christians, or Islam. (In fact, it has coexisted for many centuries).

?Our historical beliefs, most of our geographical beliefs, many of our beliefs about matters that concern us in daily life, are accepted on the authority of other human beings, whether we are Christians, Atheists, or Scientists.??--C. S. Lewis

Unlike atheists, agnostics believe that the human mind “cannot know” whether there is a God, an ultimate cause, or anything beyond material phenomena. Another form of contemporary atheism looks for the liberation of man through economic and social emancipation. It holds that religion, by its very nature, thwarts such emancipation by raising hope in a future life, thus both deceiving him and discouraging him from working for a better life on earth.

If we deny God’s existence, we implicitly deny the basic truths that science rests upon, for all things ultimately lead inexorably to His existence. If the One Being?Himself is not our goal, then to the degree He is not our end, an element of disorder, of irrationality, of “nothingness,” is involved in our purpose, and we are bound to create havoc for ourselves and for many others.

Within a cultural social society, this lack of reasoning or belief (trust) in God’s existence may ultimately lead to a situation where people become mere means for the ends of the powerful. They lose their dignity as human beings; as ‘might makes right’ (examples are the former USSR, China, North Korea, and Cuba).

?Atheistic?Authors:?Socrates?and his students (See Xenophon by Christopher Bruell, and The City of Man by Leo Strauss, University of Chicago Press, 1964). David Hume?(1711-76), according to A Short History of Western Atheism?(Pemberton, 1971), argued that given infinite time, nature by chance alone, eventually hit on the order we see around us. Eddington modified Hume’s belief by claiming that: given infinite time, a monkey with a typewriter would eventually type the works of Shakespeare. Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species?(1859) claims that all living creatures, including human beings, have evolved (he was Agnostic, however). Sigmund Freud?claimed all religion was psychopathic. Bertrand Russell’s Religion & Science (Oxford University Press, 1935). Karl Marx?(1850’s), author of Das Capital, co-founders of the Communist system. Friedrich Nietzsche, who finally claimed in 1885 that, “God is Dead.” In addition, Hobbes, Voltaire, Rousseau, Goethe, Shaw, Sartre, and Skinner were unbelievers.

?Randomness does not create order; that is an assumption, not an objective scientific fact. It is a gross fallacy to suppose that quantity can eventually provide quality. The atheistic orientation of the Marxist-Leninist Communist ideology of dictators, such as Stalin, Mao, sanctioned human cruelties and death on a scale never equaled by the Inquisitions?and Crusades, during their darkest periods, or all religious wars combined. The facts are that they slaughtered hundreds of millions during the atheistic communist “Cold War.”

Reasons for atheism today are:

(1) Extreme fundamentalists, who depend on a literal interpretation of Scripture, with over emphasis on fear of God;

(2) False Christians, those sanctimonious hypocrites that go to church on Sunday, and forget everything they learned about love thy neighbor, during the rest of the week;

(3) Secular proponents that claim Progressive-Naturalism is what life is all about, and that all faiths are “myths.”

One must deal with atheists on an individual basis, as personas, and start with ideas that we both can agree with first. Since it rejects or denies the existence of God, atheism is sin against the virtue of religion. This offense can be diminished by virtue of the intentions and the circumstances of the individual. Christians can have more than a little to do with the rise of atheism. To the extent that they are careless about instruction in the faith, or present its teaching falsely, or even fail in their religious, moral, or social personal life. They conceal rather than reveal the true nature of God and of religion.

Practical-Materialism?and Atheistic-Humanism, is usually based on ignorance, which might be refuted, granted with some difficulty, by using commonsense (which is not too common today), and reason. The crucial atheistic response is that they reject belief in God because the concept is incoherent or unintelligible. Christians seek to prove the existence of God by His wondrous works in the Universe and Earth, and His Revelations in the Scripture, especially the Gospels of Christ, with arguments that utilize natural reasoning.

Atheism-Christian Dialogue: The atheist is in bold italics:

Is Christianity?about suffering and death?

Actually, Christianity is about Life, “The Good News,” that Christ came down for our Salvation, to show us the way to Eternal life. Those who preach or over-emphasize suffering, death, hell and damnation, are deluded. Christ taught forgiveness, mercy and love. Christ spoke more about Hell versus Heaven, because He came to show us mercy, and save us from eternal damnation.

?If God exists, how can evil and injustice exist?

The devil?(Satan) and humans by their God-given free will,?created evil and injustice, not God. Since “injustice” exists, then “justice” also exists. We should not expect the Creator to alter the Laws of the Universe that He created, to save us from all acts of evil. Nevertheless, God is quite capable of intervening, as in the case of Moses, whenever He chooses to do so.

?Inconsistencies in the four Gospels? Matthew 13:55, says Mary had four sons. Mark 6:3, states that Mary had four sons (James, Joseph, Jude, and Simon) and sisters.

The answer is that Joseph was much older than Mary and Jewish traditions encouraged many children. Joseph’s first wife died, leaving him alone with his earlier children. Therefore, Jesus had half-brothers and Mary was their stepmother. Anyway, the personal life of Mary and Joseph is not the significant point. Mary was the Immaculate (pure temple) for the Incarnation of Christ.

Different perspectives exist between diverse apostle writings, which should exist in the reporting of complex events by four different writers, decades later. (How many of today’s reporters can get yesterday’s story right?) Since these variations are included in the gospels, it demonstrates that the author didn’t revise it, which adds to its creditability. If all the gospels were in perfect agreement about everything, atheists would say it was “fixed.” Since fallible men wrote the gospels, no one should accept every word of the Bible, literally. (A novice needs a guide to help them understand the sciences, and business, and is essential to accurately understanding the Bible).

?Isn't Evolution?and Creationism?incompatible?

Evolution?at the micro level is a scientific fact; evolution between species was never been proven. One should consider the hierarchies of humans, animals, plants, microorganisms and matter. If anything lower is to mount to a higher plane, two conditions are required: the higher must come down to the lower; i.e., there must be a descent from above; or what is lower must surrender its existence to that which is above it.

Animals are subject to death and fire; the plant must be extracted from its environment.?When these lower things give up their existence, they are taken up into a higher level; i.e., a thinking, willing, feeling, moving, and loving being; and they become part of a much richer existence. They become part of the world of poetry, art, music, science, culture and civilization.?Consider the following: It is only in the act of thinking about something outside the self, that one knows that one is “a thinking self.” The key principle is existence precedes essence. G. K. Chesterton?wrote, “Before we know anything about the particular essence of anything, we know there is an ‘is.’ Before we know self as self, we know that things exist.”

Much of what we think we know is not complete knowledge at all. It is about belief or trust in something or someone. One does not seek what one does not feel that they cannot obtain. Being, reality, thing-ness, unity, truth, and goodness are transcendental. Each of these transcendental elements are interchangeable, or “being” looked at from various viewpoints. The more unified a thing is, the more intelligible and understandable it is. Truth is conformity of the mind with reality. Beauty is the goodness of truth. In the end, that ultimate cause of all things, that ultimate intelligence, is the Mind of God.

We can know God indirectly, by His wondrous Creations, and by His Revelations. ?If man is to be elevated into partnership with the Divine, God must come down to man.?There is a significant difference between man going down to lower creation (animals, plants, matter), and God coming down to man.?These lower things have no personality, no freedom, and no sovereign rights. Only human persons have eternal souls and “rights.”?

Where is the evidence that God exists?

Inductive and deductive reasons for a Supernatural Being includes, the existence of the human consciousness; immutable laws of the universe; and God’s Revelations?in Scripture. Without belief in God, there is no sense for Laws of the Universe and Nature; Existence and Purpose of Life; Human Intelligence and Conscience; and Ethics and Morality. Indeed to explain how there are human beings, with minds, and life itself, one must postulate a Supernatural Creator as a viable option. Consciousness and thinking, and the capacity for Reasoning and Morality, could not have emerged as unplanned, unintended by-products of some kind of “microevolution.”

If God did not exist, right and wrong would simply be a matter of individual opinion and whim. Commonsense suggests that Einstein, Edison, Beethoven, Mozart, Michelangelo and Shakespeare?could not have evolved from “random accidents” in the universe. Causes must be proportional to their effects.

Ironically, modern cosmology seems to support Genesis. For example, Big Bang?theory, and Hubble’s proof that all galaxies?are rapidly moving away from each other, and authors like George Gamow, among others, happen to result from “Creation-Evolution” (evolution of the universe after it was created), an idea that was previously considered contrary to Christian beliefs.

What does “God” mean? “I am who am?" It tells me nothing.

In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, God is not lie Zeus was in an anthropomorphic sense. God is transcendent to the world. Even when, as Christianity says God is (through Jesus Christ) “Incarnate,” He remains, at one and the same, “transcendent.”

What does “Transcendent” and “Incarnate” mean?

God is transcendent (supernatural) because He is superior to the natural order of everything that we know in His universe. The Creator?surpasses the power of all that He created. Christ was Incarnate (took on human form) in order to redeem humankind to save us, He came down to our inferior human level.

?Atheist Response: Christians answer the “intelligibility” problem by saying that the word “God” is given sense by the use of descriptions such as “maker of the universe,” and “first cause.” Anyone, the claim goes, who does not understand such “descriptions” cannot understand the concept of God. These descriptions are as troublesome as is the term “God” itself, for their terms are themselves incoherent. We know not what “eternal,” maker of the universe or neither “first cause” refers to, nor in any way understands what they mean. To say they are a “mystery” is just a way of saying you do not understand them?

It is also true that in the case of physics there is no ban on establishing a causal connection between theoretical entities and ordinary everyday things. No such constant conjunction can be established or coherently asserted between God and the universe, and thus the existence of God is not even indirectly verifiable. There can be no evidential support for God’s eternal existence from what we can observe in the world. God’s existence cannot intelligibly known as an empirical hypothesis. To say instead that there is an intuitive knowledge of a mysterious ultimate reality—a grasp of the “Being” of God—is to make an appeal to something that is not sufficiently clear to be of value.

Christian Response: If atheists do not know what they are searching for—how will they know it when found? It is unclear what it would be like to have, or fail to have, evidence for the existence of God. It is not that these God-seekers have to be able to provide the evidence, for if that were so no search would be necessary. They must be able at least to conceive what would count as reasonable evidence, so that they would have some idea of what to look for, or some idea of how to proceed in their God-seeking. In any case, God always seeks them. Finally, we cannot know the “essence of God.” We know God by His actions, and works, and by His Revelation to us in the bible and gospels, as imperfect humans.

How can one believe Bible stories written centuries ago, by a group of zealots, interested in promoting their own religion?

The Bible has been the key source of belief for billions of people (about a third of the world today are Christians). Do not dismiss it recklessly, thoughtlessly. The Bible is the only book that has prophesied 3,200 times, covering hundreds of different events. All of these prophesied events (100%) actually came true.

?Does God wield evil powers, like wars and despotism?

Again, the free will?of acts of the devil and man—not God, produces evil. God often uses the evil acts of others to create good. Many of these evil events caused ordinary people to do extraordinary good acts during wars. People endured hardships and performed heroic acts of love. More saints exists in the 20th century than during all prior centuries of history.

Where is the absolute proof of God?

If God were provable, beyond all doubt, faith would not be necessary. Scientific reasoning alone cannot provide proof of God, or disprove His existence. God is not an empirical object. (See Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of Practical Reason?and Critique of Judgment by Immanuel Kant, published 1781-1790).

“If there is no God, everything is permitted,” Dostoevsky?wrote in The Brothers Karamazov. Without God, the weak would fall victim to the strong, moral right or wrongs would not exist—and we would experience total chaos. More people died during Atheistic Communism, and abortions than all wars combined.?

Atheism and Secularism are the beliefs (faiths) of today’s society. Therefore, in effect, they constitute an implicit religion; i.e., all who believe that “one should do this, and not do that” represent a system of “religious belief.” They also have their particular doctrines preached in the public marketplace. These convictions constitute a particular kind of religion.

All religions are false and based on myths!

If one asserts that all religions are “untrue,” or based on “myths,” this is an arrogant claim, which implies that they have “special knowledge,” which is superior to all others. The argument fails based on its own irrational logic.

???????If one claims “there is no way to know real truth;” that “no one can determine which beliefs are true and which are false,” why would one accept the believe of a person who cannot determine truth from falsehood? If one starts with faith or trust that God exists, and works backwards, they might find what they are looking for, and most importantly, find real joy in the end. If one asserts that religious faith must remain private, and never become a matter of public policy or discourse, they must define religion. Religion is a set of beliefs that explains: (1) The purpose of life? (2) Why humanity exists? (3) What must one do to have eternal life? Moreover, Atheism represents a kind of “belief,” which constitute an implicit religion: “One should do this, and not do that” is a system of beliefs. Atheists also have particular doctrines preached in the public marketplace. These convictions collectively constitute a very particular kind of religion.

Our most fundamental ideological, philosophical and theological convictions are on beliefs that are difficult to justify to those who do not share them. Some past and present ideological convictions include nationalism, fascism, socialism, communism, atheism, progressive-rationalism, and secularism. It is impossible to leave these convictions behind when we attempt to reason together. Proponents of such ideological views do the very thing they forbid others to do—they cannot leave their sacrosanct beliefs behind.

If one claims “there is no way to know the real truth;” that “no one can determine which beliefs are true and which are false,” why would one accept the believe of such a person who cannot actually determine truth from falsehood?

Faith and reason are compatible! All science begins with “faith” in an idea tested by experimentation. Theology and Science can never be in conflict. God is the author of all creation and every law that governs it. Science and theology is about discovering God. One may not understand and comprehend the purpose of creation, and its laws; nevertheless, if the God is, then His creation and laws cannot be in conflict. If any theory is proven false, then it must be false in theology as well, and vice-versa.

Finally, when I see my Neurologist next month, who will finally determine if my brain is still functioning, I will give the atheist technician a copy of my updated book, which if she reads it, with the title: “Truth & Consequences,” perhaps it might answer questions that are more interesting. Publication is Nov. 25 2022 on Amazon.

See www.fertigbooks.com , and YouTube link: https://youtu.be/KQpqzFQpMSs

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