Do Fish Believe In Airplanes?

I wonder if fish believe in airplanes.

Airplanes are simply not part of a fish's universe. Most fish live in the water all of the time, and most airplanes don't go into the water. There are fish who jump out of the water, and there are fish who may have been caught on a fishhook or by a predator and escaped back into the water. But in general, fishes are in the water, and airplanes are in the air.

Now, certain fish might occasionally have a certain kind of encounter with airplanes. For example, on a sunny day a fish who happened to be looking up might, by chance, see on the surface of the water the shadow of an airplane which happened to be flying by. Or, a fish who lives in a place where a seaplane lands might have a more direct experience with an airplane, maybe get to touch its pontoons. An airplane might even enter completely into a fish's realm of experience if it crashes into the ocean. Of course, even a theoretical Very Intelligent Fish (VIF) would not likely be able to explain these experiences very well. A VIF would have to be in the right place at the right time to experience Airplane, and although he might be able to predict some occurrences of Airplane (say, if it was a seaplane that landed at a certain place and time every day, or if the ocean was near an airport with regular takeoffs and landings) he would never be able to make Airplane happen, or truly explain what it was. He would only be able to experience it for himself and report what he experienced to other VIF. There would be varying theories as to what Airplane is, what it means, and how best to experience the mysteries that Airplane brings, but most of what Airplane is would remain a mystery.

Some fish would never in their lifetimes experience Airplane. Maybe they stay deep in the depths of the ocean where sunlight never goes. Or maybe they just don't happen to live in a lagoon where a biplane lands, or near that noisy airport where they could hear the rumbles and see the plus-shaped shadows. I imagine, though, that VIF that believe in Airplane and wanted to experience it might tend to congregate in places where Airplane might be experienced with some regularity.

Or maybe not... after all, we're just talking about worm-sucking fish here.

But fish, even VIF, would be making a mistake to say that airplanes don't exist at all just because they don't exist under the ocean. Airplanes inhabit a realm of existence that fish simply cannot go without help. It would be a very misguided VIF that would claim that because he hadn't ever experienced an airplane (and hadn't even tried) that he had authoritative proof that Airplane is a myth.

Airplane is real.

...And anyone who has had a genuine experience with God can tell you, even though God does not originate in or physically inhabit our realm of existence, God is still real. Occasionally God penetrates into our cosmos, and those who believe in Him sometimes gather (we call it church) to meet with others who believe in Him and to seek out those experiences, but we can't make God do things at our commands, any more than a fish can charter a flight to Disney World.

Maybe there really is not a God. Even after all of the times in my lifetime that I've had experiences with what I believe to be a divine being, and even though I believe that being to be the God described in the Bible, I can't offer you physical proof of his existence. I don't have his autograph, or the jersey he wore when he played basketball in Junior High. He's not from here; He doesn't live here.

Just because airplanes aren't submarines doesn't mean there are no airplanes. And just because God doesn't physically live in the house next door to me doesn't mean there's no God.

Walking Around

Isn't it cool when people walk around?

No, I didn't leave anything out of the sentence. They don't have to be doing anything special to be amazing, juggling chainsaws or doing card tricks or something. Just, walking around.

I have a four-year-old daughter who loves animals. Whenever she sees a creature that she hasn't seen before and it starts to move, she giggles. She gets so excited that the puppy or the turtle or the squirrel is moving! A little while I was walking from room to room, remembered something I had forgotten, paused to decide whether to go get it, and then turned around and went back to get it. When I did that, like a four-year-old watching a kitten walk, I suddenly became conscious of the specialness of it.

Have you ever thought about how many muscles have to work in concert for you to walk across the room? Some quick Googling returns the number 200 from a couple of sources, and I don't doubt it. I think there are only about five muscles in your leg, but what about all of the muscles that are constantly adjusting your spine, toes, feet, and all of the other parts of your body to keep you balanced and moving forward? And I didn't just move forward... I moved forward, stopped, remained balanced for a moment, then turned my whole body and walked in the other direction. At every point in that operation, many muscles were involved in keeping me doing what I wanted to do. At any time, one of those muscles could have done something different, and I would have been lying on the floor (or bashing into a wall or door, or whatever) instead of walking across the room. Mundane, you say? No! It's positively amazing! (Just ask anyone who has ever tried to design a two-legged walking robot!)

Why am I mentioning all this? Because to me, even something as simple as walking points to God. There's no way a system like the human body would have occurred by chance. People who would say "isn't it amazing how Nature designed our bodies like that?" are simply refusing to use the word "God" for the creator and using the word "Nature" instead, which doesn't really make any sense unless you're talking about "Mother Nature" and then you've just tipped your hat to pantheism, not atheism. Then again, I'm the guy who doesn't believe in the existence of atheists, so maybe I'm not the guy to apply those labels. Wait, where was I going with this again?

Oh yeah: your body is amazing. And I'm not just saying that because you are so good-looking, because everybody knows that the people who read this blog are SMOKIN' good looking! But even if you weren't so incredibly attractive, your body would still be an amazing creation by an amazing God. And when you stand up and walk away from whatever you're reading this on, I hope you are reminded of that with every step.

Atheism Friday: Ghosts, Holy and Unholy

photo © 2010 Alex Roe | more info (via: Wylio)Last Friday I mentioned that I don't think "belief in God" is "the main issue" for most atheists. I think there is a much broader belief that has to be there before believing in God is even a possibility at all. But before I tell you what it is, I want to ask you a question: do you believe in spooks? You know, like the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz said he didn't but he really did, and like Scooby Doo definitely does but (at least until more recent versions of the Scooby Doo shows and movies) he has no reason to. Spooks. Ghosts. Spirits. Do you believe they exist?

I don't believe in the ghosts that are usually portrayed on TV and in movies. Ever since I was a kid, as a matter of fact, I've wondered what people were so scared of anyway. I mean, they can go though walls. They're completely immaterial. What are they going to do to me? Stab me with a knife they can't hold? Hit me with a club that falls through their hands? Or will they use a ghost club that is solid to the ghost but goes right through me? Seems like the worst thing they could do is say "boo" and make me jump! The could startle me, but they couldn't really hurt me.

But Christians do believe in spirits. We believe in a realm outside of our physical experience, a "spirit realm" or a "spirit world" or whatever. We believe that this realm is inhabited by creatures called angels and creatures called demons. We also believe that human beings have a toe or two in that world, too... that part of us exists in that plane of reality as surely as part of us exists in the physical plane of reality. We believe this because we find it in the Bible. But the existence of a spirit world cannot be proven or disproven by hard science. Why? Because science is about the physical world. Tryign to prove the existence of a spirit world using a discipline designed to find out about the physical realm is like trying to dance a color or sing a flavor. It can't be done. We can't measure the spirit world with a yardstick.


Is there evidence of a spirit world out there? I think there is. I've heard stories of near-death experiences where people met God and were given choices to make. I've heard stories of people having visions of things they couldn't possibly know any other way. I've heard of other paranormal phenomena, and I'll bet you have too. There is easily enough evidence to convince someone with an open mind that there might be something going on behind the scenes which physical science can't quantify.

Most atheists will explain all of these phenomena away as trickery, hallucinations, or lies. And doubtless, at least some of it is... but there is only one reason to jump to that conclusion: not believing in the existence of a spirit realm at all. Believing that nothing exists except things we can see with our eyes (at least, if we augment them with strong enough microscopes and telescopes). If there is no spirit realm at all, then we have to assume that each of those paranormal occurrences is a trick, a hallucination, or a lie. And so are angels and demons.

And so is God.

Tell me, though. Given the vast number of occurrences of those paranormal experiences throughout the world and down through the centuries of time, what exactly makes it such a compelling case that they are all explainable as something other than paranormal? If one million people claim to have seen an angel, what makes one atheist so positive that he is correct in calling them all liars or idiots? Why would the human mind construct such a variety of fairy tales? What possible purpose could it serve? I think the evidence for there being something outside of the physical world is compelling. Whether each individual occurrence is true or not is not the issue; the issue is whether even one of them is true. If they are all false and there is in fact no spirit realm, then there is also no God. But if even one of them is an authentic brush with the supernatural, then it opens up the possibility of a being who exists outside of this plane of existence.

You don't have to believe in Casper the Friendly Ghost (or Malcolm the Angry Aggressive Ghost, or whatever) to believe in God. But if you don't believe in the supernatural at all, you cannot truly believe in God.

Atheism Friday: Proof God Exists

photo © 2010 Jeffrey Beall | more info (via: Wylio)Not too long ago I read a terrific book about the Christian church world written by a man who was and is an atheist, even though he has spent a great deal of time visiting various churches (read my review here). Now I'm no skilled debater, and I'm sure my chances of actually convincing someone that God exists when they've got their mind made up are slim, but I did have some thoughts while I was reading the book that I wanted to share over the course of the next several Fridays.

So I thought I would really hit the ground running right away. Let's talk about something atheists seem to think nobody has: proof that God exists.

There is a story in the Bible about a man who dies without acknowledging God, and he winds up in Hell. From Hell he is somehow able to talk to Abraham (who is not in Hell, but is in the afterlife), and he asks Abraham to send him back to persuade his brothers that they should turn to God before they die. "If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets," Jesus quotes Abraham as replying, "neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.” (Luke 16:31 ESV) Essentially, Jesus was saying through his story that the testimony of the Scriptures is enough evidence that anyone who hears the message and is open to the truth will be persuaded by them. I never write anyone off, but if someone has his mind made up, if we are to believe this Scripture, it's going to be pretty difficult to sway them.

But I think there is other persuasive evidence. The most comprehensive proof of the existence of God that the Scripture mentions is the world around us. In Romans 1:19-20, the apostle Paul, talking about people who reject God, declares that "...what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse." Paul says that Creation itself is so amazing that it should point anyone who is open to the idea of a creator toward Him. And in fact, the more science discovers about the complexity of living things and of matter and existence in general, the harder you have to work to imagine that it could have all happened by accident. Science has not by any means disproved the existence of God.

In fact, ironically enough, one of the ideas that Science came up with in the twentieth century caused great consternation to Christians who believe that God personally created the cosmos, but it actually had presented a pretty huge obstacle to those who would like to say there is no creator and life developed spontaneously by chance over the course of many billions of years. The "Big Bang" theory says that the cosmos has not been around for an eternity past, but it originated only something like 13.7 billion years ago, which is kind of a tight schedule by evolutionary standards. Scientists also calculate that the conditions needed to create a universe with planets that could support life are pretty exacting; even a very small deviation from what they theorize must have happened would result in a universe devoid of life, or a universe that would collapse back in on itself or otherwise be destroyed long before life could have developed. The Big Bang theory actually points toward the existence of an intelligent designer; if you choose to insist that this designer is not the God of the Bible, that's one thing, but to insist that the designer does not exist actually runs counter to accepted scientific theory.

But let's quit looking at the world around us for a minute, and turn our thoughts inward. Let's examine ourselves. We are creatures that have two interesting features: first, we believe that some things are morally right and some things are morally wrong. And second, the human race has a strange habit of worshiping things. The existence of the idea of morally right things and morally wrong things does not fit with the idea of "survival of the fittest" which would seem to be the obvious way to live; if I want something and it exists, outside of morality, the obvious thing to do is to take it for myself, even if it belongs to someone else. If I do not like someone, if I have no sense of moral right and wrong, the way to make sure that person never irritates me again would be to kill them and eliminate the problem permanently. But somehow we've gotten the idea that some things are "right" and some things are "wrong." With no logical reason for those kinds of ideas to have evolved naturally, the evidence points toward a supernatural source for them.

Down through the centuries, people seem determined to find something to worship. It may be the Hebrew or Christian or Muslim God, or any of a huge variety of other gods and goddesses, but humans seem to really desire contact with something or someone larger and more powerful than themselves. To me, there are only two reasons why this could be: either there is a creator who has intentionally placed this desire within human beings, or we are a flawed and pathetic race, afraid of the knowledge that we might be alone in the universe. Why would human beings, who in general are fiercely independent, have an inborn weakness that makes them desire to place themselves under a deity? I don't buy it. I think God made us with an inborn desire to know Him.

But let's bring this all the way down to a key point. Does God have to prove He exists in order to exist? Could He possibly exist and not leave any clues at all? Of course He could, and if He exists, it doesn't matter if you believe He exists or not. I love this bit from an old Stan Freburg Christmas recording: "I still ain't made up my mind yet about Toledo!" Does Toledo exist, even if Grudge decides he doesn't believe it does? You tell me.

I think the evidence for a creator is actually pretty strong, and the arguments against that evidence are pretty flimsy. Next Friday I want to discuss what I think the real issue is for many atheists... I don't think the existence of God is the real issue. Find out what I think it really is next week!

"I Sold My Soul On eBay" book review - part 2

In part one of this review, I discussed the merits of Hemant Mehta's very interesting book as a book. In this half, I want to address some of the things that I think the churches and people Hemant came into contact with seem to have failed to explain fully to him. I also want to discuss a few things from the book that struck me as not quite fully thought through.

Hemant does not believe in the existence of anything outside of the observable world. It's not just that he does not believe in the Christian God; he does not believe in a "spirit world" of any kind at all. This not only excludes Christian Theology, but it also excludes every world religion which contains deities, angels, life after death, or anything else "supernatural" (something that exists in or originates from a reality outside of our own). It also makes the title of the book a bit of a misnomer (Hemant acknowledges this in the book), since the author doesn't believe that he even has a soul! But the failure to understand the nature of the spirit world described in Christian Theology is the reason Hemant fails to understand a number of things about Christianity itself.

Before I get into that, I wanted to address two topics I brought up in part one: the racial mix of churches, and the animosity that many or most Christians seem to have for atheists. I think there are complexities to both of these things that go a little further beneath the surface than the book delves, and I'd like to briefly look at those to issues and plumb the depths a little more.

I fully agree with Hemant that most Christian churches seem to be, to one extent or another, racially homogenous. I also agree with him that a rich racial mix would be very desirable for any church. What I do not agree with is that this is necessarily a problem with the attitude of the Christians who attend those churches, or that it is due to worship styles that are unwelcoming to certain ethnic groups. Racism does exist, of course, and people certainly do have preferences as far as music, atmosphere, etc. which are culturally based. But particularly in the case of smaller and mid-sized churches, there may be some other factors. Smaller churches tend to attract a very local congregation; in those cases, the makeup of the neighborhood in which the church itself is located likely plays a big part. The racial makeup of the church may simply reflect a bigger issue in society as a whole: people of different racial origin tend to sort of flock together. Those churches may be very willing to accept someone from a different ethnic group, but if he doesn't live in the neighborhood, he may never come to a service.

In contrast, Hemant makes this statement: "Think about this: atheist gatherings are often a mixture of everyone in society. The people represent different ethnicities, ages, sexual identities, and races, Does it surprise you that secular people are leading the way in accepting others, no matter what their individual differences?" I think the idea that atheists seem to be better about this may be partly because, as Hemant mentions earlier in the book, atheist groups tend to be small and scarce. If there is only one atheist group in your town, you will have to attend that group or nothing. If there were atheist meetings on every street corner, as there are churches in some towns in the United States, you might see the same sorts of breakdowns happening in those gatherings.

As far as animosity on the part of Christians against atheists is concerned, I think that it exists in an odd kind of place in the American mind that can hold two completely opposing viewpoints at once and not notice it. I think in general Christians tend to be suspicious and a little bit afraid of atheists because the main times we hear about and from them is when they are doing something that directly assaults religion, such as trying to get "under God" removed from the Pledge of Allegiance or removing a monument or picture of The Ten Commandments from some courtroom. When the news media reports these things, the perception on the part of the person hearing the report is that atheists are a large, aggressive, antagonistic organization which is seeking to eliminate all traces of spirituality from the world. But I also think that most Christians, encountering an actual human being who is an atheist, once they realize he is not going to take their Bible away and burn it right in front of them or try to force them to believe in evolution, will treat that atheist as a human being, with kindness and friendliness. They might try to convince him of their religious beliefs, that's true, but I don't think Christians as a whole seek out atheists in order to cause any kind of harm to them. I think it's a case of being fearful of "atheists" but not of "an atheist."

But let's talk about that "large atheist organization" that Christians may perceive. Hemant seems to say that it does not exist, that atheists tend to be more individualistic about their beliefs and activities, and I believe him that there is no worldwide atheist organization seeking to destroy religion in all its forms. But for a moment, if you are an atheist, consider the Christian concept of a spirit world in which there is a God who is the good guy, a Satan who is the bad guy, and a battle between them over humankind. The thing that God wants most of all in this scenario is the hearts of human beings. The only thing Satan can do to hamper God's plan at all is to turn human beings against God. Assuming that Satan has demonic agents across the globe, and that those demons have ways of influencing human behavior (I'd say most Christians do believe this), then no human organization is necessary for an assault on Christian beliefs to occur. It could occur through demonic forces, with a degree of organization, convincing as many human beings as possible that God does not exist, and giving them ideas of other things to do to undermine Christianity. I think that's where some of the ambivalent attitudes Christians have toward atheists may originate. When atheists do things that get them on the news in a negative light, say for opposing a Christmas display because of its religious nature, not only does it reinforce an us-against-them point of view, and not only does it assault religion directly (as Christians fear atheists will do anyway), but it assaults Christians on a cultural level that sometimes has little do do with their faith. I think atheists would do well to make pains to expose projects they do to help others to the world at large - humanitarian relief contributions to regions affected by hunger or natural disaster, literacy programs in low-income areas, things like that. Atheists might also do well to understand something that Hemant seems to have understood from the beginning: whether or not religious beliefs are true, more often than not they seem to turn people into nicer people. Why would anyone want to destroy something that has a positive effect on people?

I think a major misunderstanding on the side of atheists is to equate God, religion, and Christianity. The three are related, but they are certainly not the same thing, and to go looking for one in the other is going to lead to errors of understanding. For example: even if every Christian on the face of the world was a lying, dishonest, adulterous, murderous child molester, there could still be a God, and He could conceivably still be a Good Guy, even though his supposed "followers" weren't following His example very well. The failings of Christians do not prove the non-existence of God. Likewise, even if every church out there was found to be engaging in embezzlement and forced labor of congregation members, that doesn't prove that Christian beliefs are false. The word "atheist" means someone who does not believe in a god; realistically, you could reject God but still believe in a spirit world. And realistically, you could be an atheist but still accept religion as a positive thing. "God" is an all-powerful individual; "Christianity" is considering yourself a follower of Christ; "religion" is the set of rituals and observances that someone follows as part of their beliefs about spiritual things. So being an atheist visiting different churches is a step toward understanding Christian culture, but if you will not believe in a spirit world, you will not find God.

There were a few things in Hemant's "testimony" of converting to atheism that seem to me intellectually short-sighted at best, and dishonest at worst. For example: either God exists, or God does not exist. Whether I or you believe in Him makes no difference; if there is no god and we imagine one, it doesn't make him real. So saying that you "chose to become an atheist" seems to me to be nonsensical. It's like choosing to not believe in Toledo: whether you believe in it or not, Toledo does exist! So if some god does exist and you "choose" not to believe in him, you've done nothing but make a fool of yourself (at least, that's what the Bible says about it). If you think there is no such thing as a god, don't say you "choose to believe" that way; have the guts to say what you truly think. Say "I realized there was no God and became an atheist." Sure, it's not as live-and-let-live as the other, but it's much more honest.

But I think Hemant's original reasons for becoming an atheist are questionable. Saying that the "strongest argument for atheism" is that people question their parents' religious beliefs around age 14 is both bold and illogical. At age 14, young people are questioning everything. By that logic, there is a strong argument for promiscuity and teen pregnancy, driving recklessly, teen alcohol use, and all sorts of other things that parents of teenagers oppose. Fourteen-year-olds can't even vote for mayor; as a society we have decided that they are not yet ready to fully understand a question that big. How much bigger is the question "does God exist?" I'm not saying that teenagers shouldn't make up their own minds about big questions; I know a lot of very intelligent, responsible teenagers. But having questions in your mind when you are fourteen is proof of only one thing: you are fourteen.

Hemant relates a story about his sister that he says sort of pushed him over the edge from I'm-not-quite-sure to there-is-no-god. During that questioning fourteenth year of his, his sister voluntarily participated in a grueling religious fast which was probably inadvisable for a child of her age, and her parents let her do it. Watching his sister suffer for her religion was the straw that broke the camel's back for him; if his religion would allow that, then God must not exist. This is an example of that muddled thinking I mentioned earlier, where religious rituals determine the existence of God, like whether I own a DVD of Iron Man determines the existence of Hollywood. The existence of the Paryushana fast, the fact that Hemant's parents allowed his sister to participate, the fact that it was very hard for her... those things don't have anything to do with the existence of any god. For something like that to be the deciding factor in whether a person believes in the existence of a god or not is irrational, emotional, and anti-intellectual. If god exists and I drive a red car, God still exists. If God does not exist and I drive a green car, God still does not exist. The set of rituals a believer in a religion follows have no bearing on the existence of the deity they say they are doing them for.

For the next several weeks, I'm going to take Fridays out to address some of the questions people pose about the existence of God. Part of the reason I know about these questions is because I've asked them myself. I've read C. S. Lewis and I've read Lee Strobel and I've read other stuff, but I'm going to really try not to regurgitate anything I've read somewhere else without thinking it through for myself. These issues are too important to gloss over. Please join me over the next few weeks; comments are always welcome (I do moderate them, but only to avoid spam and offensive language, so keep it clean and civil and there won't be a problem); I pretty much always reply to comments on my blog posts, so feel free to debate if you are so inclined.

---

Hemant stopped by and checked out this post and Part 1, and he had a few clarifications to add:

-- Fair point about how, if there's only 1 atheist group, it's more likely to be heterogeneous.

-- I think getting "Under God" out of the Pledge and getting the Ten Commandments out of the courtroom are not assaults on religion (as many Christians perceive). I see it as the government endorsing Christianity over others faiths and no faiths. All the atheist groups want is for the government to stay out of the religion business. Many pastors agree with us when it comes to that. (Also, realize that no atheist group has ever tried to stop a child from praying on their own in a school... or a church from praying on a Sunday. We're only interested when public officials try to force their Christianity on others.) I think that's worth clarifying.

-- You're right that pointing out dickish Christians doesn't prove god doesn't exist. But when soooooo many Christians are hypocrites, anti-gay, anti-women, etc, it's easy to show that believing in god doesn't make you a better person, which is a claim a lot of theists love to make. When my sister was suffering during her fast, that wasn't proof god didn't exist. That was evidence suggesting Jainism isn't always a force for good and maybe I need to rethink what I've always believed.

-- Perhaps saying "I chose to be an atheist" was a bad phrase on my part. But so is "I realized there was no god." I think the appropriate thing to say is "There's no evidence god exists" and leave it at that. If Christians want to claim something exists that we can't see/hear/touch, then the onus is on them to prove it. That's a point I've tried to stress on my blog if not my book.

-- It's true that I began questioning god at 14, and that's an age when many things are called into question. Though, it's unfair to say "there is a strong argument for promiscuity and teen pregnancy, driving recklessly, teen alcohol use, and all sorts of other things that parents of teenagers oppose." I'd love to hear your version of the arguments teens make in favor of those things. I think that's a strawman. Anyway, I began questioning then, but it's not like I stopped reading about religion or questioning faith immediately after that. I've been doing those things ever since. And my atheism simply hasn't wavered. I was right then and I've only had that confirmed ever since. To say that my thinking is invalid because I became an atheist at 14 is unfair. (And I know plenty of Christians in youth groups at that age. Do you say they're being silly because they think they "know Christ" at 14?)

Good points all! Thanks for visiting, Hemant! Don't forget to stop by his own blog, FriendlyAtheist.com!

"I Sold My Soul On eBay" book review - part 1

I Sold My Soul on eBay
By Hemant Mehta

I ran across Hemant Mehta's book I Sold My Soul on eBay recently by chance when searching the Web for something else. The subtitle, "Viewing Faith Through an Atheist's Eyes" piqued my interest. Over the years I have blogged thoughts about atheism from time to time, and as someone who has spent some serious time thinking about whether God exists, I was very interested to find out what this "Hemant" guy had to say (by the way, according to the book, he likes to pronounce it "HE-mint"). I picked up a copy of the book and started to read.

First of all, if you are a Christian who is afraid to read books by atheists because you think you will feel attacked and ridiculed for your beliefs, don't be afraid of this book. Hemant (the book is so informal and conversational that it would feel weird to call him by his last name) is very respectful of religion in general and Christians in particular. He does not back down from what he believes, but neither does he make fun of people who believe something different. He truly comes across as someone you might sit down and have a conversation with, and he invites you to do just that on his blog, FriendlyAtheist.com (his blog posts, though still quite civil, seem to be a little bit more confrontational than the book; then again, on the blog he's discussing current events and can't be expected to not take a side, especially when things get a little crazy). I enjoyed the book immensely; it gave me lots to think about, and it's just an enjoyable read. I think Hemant makes some terrific points, but I think there are a few places where his reasoning falls disappointingly short of the mark.

Hemant's basic story is this: he was raised in a devoutly religious family, although the religion was not Christianity. Around the age of 14, he began to question some of the beliefs he was taught as a child, and eventually decided or realized that he no longer believed in the teachings of his religion and began to consider himself an atheist. After an initial "what does this mean to me?" period, Hemant became something of an atheism activist, starting/participating in/leading a number of atheist organizations. But one day when he was in his early twenties, he began to wonder if there might be something to this Christianity thing; as a person with a very inquisitive mind, he decided to "auction his soul" on eBay, meaning that the winning bidder would get to send him to whatever church the bidder wanted to, for a length of time dependent on the amount of the winning bid. (Proceeds were donated to a charity of Hemant's choice.) The winning bidder sent him to fifteen different churches of varying sizes all over the United States, with a promise to post Hemant's reactions to the church services on the Web site now known as OffTheMap.com. Those church visits became the basis for Hemant's book.

The layout of the book is fairly simple; in the first few chapters Hemant tells the story you just read (obviously, in much better detail than I've provided above) and gives a little background about his beliefs. The next several chapters are descriptions of some of his church visits, starting with some very small churches and ending with some huge megachurches, relating what he saw and heard and felt and providing his personal reactions. At the end, there is a chapter summarizing the good and bad points overall of the churches he visited, and then a chapter entitled "What It Would Take To Convert Me." After Hemant's last chapter there is a "discussion guide" written by another author for any groups who might want to use the book in that fashion.

I enjoyed the book very much. As a complete outsider to Christian churches (at least when he started his church visits) who is also carefully observant and quite intellectual, he has a lot of valuable observations to make about church services in general. Sometimes his comments are funny without being disrespectful... for example, his description of different ways people stand during worship (arms down, one arm up, both arms up, hands clenched, hands open, hands pointing skyward...) gave me a chuckle. Some things he observed have more complex explanations than he seems to realize: he mentions, for example, that most churches have a pretty homogenous racial makeup; I think he's right to wonder if all races would be equally comfortable in those services, but I think there's more to the picture than he realized (I'll go into that in more detail in part 2 of this review tomorrow). Hemant also seems perplexed at the strong degree of animosity that the Christian world seems to have toward the atheist world in general, and I think the reasons for that are even more complicated than the ones for the racial mix in individual churches (again, more detail in part 2). But this is a fairly small book we're talking about, not a detailed scholarly work, and I don't think a full analysis of every side of every issue is the point. I think the point is to give Christian churchgoers a glimpse at what their service might look like to someone who walked in off the street with no prior exposure to Christianity. I think it succeeds admirably at that.

I think the biggest and most valuable takeaway from Hemant's book is to realize that for the most part, Christians don't think very much about what they do or believe, They don't think about how what they do in their services might look to an outsider, and they don't often explain why they do things, even to their own children. I don't think it's the church's job to compromise the messages of the Bible in any way, and I think that churchgoers should feel welcome to express themselves before God in worship in pretty much any way they see fit (well, maybe not folks who endanger others, like those people who play with the snakes). But I also think that churchgoers should be sensitive to how what they do looks to others, and be prepared to provide an explanation for people who have questions about something. In order to do that, Christians are going to have to understand their own rituals and traditions and Theology a lot better than many of them do now! If you are a churchgoing Christian and don't understand something that is done at your church, please speak to your minister and find out the reasons. Hopefully, the explanation will do nothing but deepen your worship experience! And then if a Hemant comes across your path, maybe you can be the one that helps him understand what's going on.

Tomorrow I'll be posting the other half of this book review. I've tried to focus mostly on the book itself in this part; in the other part I'll address some things about Christianity and religion that Hemant touches on in the book that I think merit a closer look. After tomorrow, every Friday for the next several weeks I'll be blogging about various misconceptions about Christianity that occurred to me as I was reading. I hope you come back and enjoy the trip!

I don't believe in atheists II

Several years ago, I blogged that I don't believe in the existence of atheists. I still hold to my theory, partly because of the reasons I mentioned in that blog post, but since then I've obtained evidence to back me up from the Bible. Observe:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
(Romans 1:18-23 ESV)

Did you catch that? The Bible says that everybody knows there is a God. It's obvious, based on the evidence of God's creation - the creation points to a creator. But did you notice the sinister plot that's mentioned? It says that the unrighteous know the truth, but try to suppress it (which is a fool's errand, since according to this Scripture, deep down everybody knows the truth anyway). Don't try to pull this Scripture on one of them, of course, because their folly runs so deep that they certainly won't listen to the clear truth of God's Word, but I have a little bit of logic you could try.

Let's think about science for a moment. Science tells us that everything has a start and a finish. I, for example, was born one day (this occurred nine to ten months after I was conceived), and one day, if the pattern of all of recorded history holds, I can expect to die. Animals are born and die. Science even tells us that planets and stars have a beginning and an ending. Science is all about trying to find a cause and effect for things, because science tells us that everything has a beginning, and everything has a cause.

Now, let's rewind backwards. Let's rewind WAY backwards. I don't care how far you go... go back to the very beginning. Let's say the "Big Bang" theory is correct and the entire cosmos started from a catastrophic explosion. Science tells us that the explosion has a cause. What was the cause? Tell you what, I won't go the obvious route... let's go with space aliens. Let's say they used technology to seed the cosmos, which didn't exist before.

What caused the space aliens?

You can see that this logic is going to go on and on forever, and become more and more outrageous and convoluted, until eventually you give up and come to a brick wall. Everything has a cause, but one thing is the cause of everything. Something started it all in the first place, and that thing did not have a cause. It existed outside of the rules of cause and effect. In fact, it created cause and effect. That thing, whatever form it takes, is the definition of "god."

This argument does not prove the identity of the God of the Bible by any means, but I think the rules of logic point, as clearly as the laws of nature mentioned in the Scripture from Romans, at the existence of God. If someone calls himself or herself an atheist, I would like to submit that either he has not thought his beliefs through to their logical conclusion, or that he is deliberately concealing what he already knows, deep down, to be true.

There IS a God. It's only logical.

Livin' What Jesus Spoke Of

I've known, in my lifetime, people who are antagonistic to Christianity. Maybe they grew up in a Christian church, and for whatever reason, they became disillusioned or angry. Maybe they saw injustices in the world and decided that a benevolent God wouldn't possibly let that kind of thing happen. Or maybe they've thought about it and thought about it, and just decided that if a God does exist, they don't think they care much for him. Often these people have looked quite carefully into the claims of Christianity, either in a search for truth or in order to arm themselves against being embarrassed by a Christian in a discussion about religion. Many of them are quite knowledgeable about the Bible and about what Christians believe.

On the other hand, I've met many, many Christians whose Theological depth barely reaches past about a dozen Scripture verses that they can quote (or misquote) by heart. They may be able to name the books of the Bible, but they certainly haven't read most of them. I'd be interested to know what percentage of the Christian world has read even one single book of the Bible straight through... even 3 John, which is only 15 verses long. I don't have any real statistics, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that even 50 or 60 percent of Christianity has barely even opened a Bible. One of these poorly-read Christians is no match for an opponent who has spent any amount of time studying Christianity.

Among Christians who do actually know something about the Bible and their own belief system, an astounding number disagree on any number of things, even things they consider quite fundamental. You would think that adherents to a faith based on the contents of one single book would be much more unified, but apparently there is a lot of room for interpretation and reading between the lines. So oddly enough, two Christians debating some point of Theology with an atheist might even find more common ground with the atheist than each other.

There is only one thing that can convince someone who is antagonistic to religion of the existence of Christ: a Christian who is truly living out his faith. Two Christians that disagree on speaking in tongues, or faith healing, or transubstantiation, or predestination, or any number of other topics, will react to life situations in almost exactly the same ways when they shut up talking about doctrine and start living like they believe Christ would have them live. Honest-to-goodness Christians who are living their faith and not just talking about it are going to think alike and act alike. We know in our hearts how Jesus meant for us to live. And a life lived for Christ can't be refuted with clever intellectual arguments. A life truly lived for Christ is undeniable. Two Christians who disagree on doctrine but whose lives match because they live for Jesus constitute pretty convincing proof that something unites them. That something is Jesus.

"...By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35 ESV)

Eternal

The new Ben Stein movie Expelled is about how "intelligent design," belief in which is similar to but not the same as belief in Biblical creation (creationism actually falls under the category of intelligent design theories), has been marginalized by the atheistic intellectual elite. Christians believe in intelligent design by a creator we call God. Other religions believe similar things about similar deities. Some people believe that life was placed on Earth by an alien intelligence (I'm serious, and so are they).

The alternative to ID is of course evolution, which says that the things that exist are not the product of a designer but of chance over time. Given enough time, the theory basically goes, the right conditions will eventually occur and life will begin to exist. There may be fits and starts, but we are theorizing that we have plenty and PLENTY of time, here.

Have you noticed that all of those theories have something in common? The common factor is something eternal. For the person of faith, that thing that is eternal is a deity. For the alien theorist, presumably the aliens either have been around forever, or something created them and something created that. For the evolutionist, maybe the universe has been around forever... although sciency types will generally tell you that the Universe started with a Big Bang, but before that bang there was something that went bang. So that something is, for all intents and purposes, eternal. Or maybe they'd say that time is eternal, or the laws of chance are eternal. But something goes on forever.

Now, if you notice, the longer you think about things like this and the further back you go, the more like the Judeo-Christian God it all starts to look. God is eternal and He is the creator of everything. Now, in some aspects things are different... God is not from another planet (He made them all) and He is not mindless and random. But the more closely you examine just about anything, the more God you will see in it.

I wonder who the aliens think created them?

God=dead (or not?)

This discussion got me thinking. When Jesus died on the cross... did God die? Or did Jesus' human nature die and His divine nature live on? If He died, and if He holds the universe together, how come the universe didn't explode? Are Bill Hamilton and Friedrich Nietszche, in a twisted sense that they never intended, correct? As I considered it, I realized that the real question is what you mean when you say "dead." (And no, I'm not going all "meaning of the word is is" on you.) People who don't believe in an afterlife think "dead" means "no longer existing." Those who believe in an afterlife think "dead" means "no longer existing in physical form on the Earth." When Jesus died on the Cross, I agree totally that He no longer existed in physical form on the Earth (His body was still there, of course, but it was inert). But I do not agree that for three days Jesus did not exist. I believe that every human being exists eternally somewhere.

When Nietszche and Hamilton said "God is dead," though, I think they meant something different... they basically meant that the concept of a "god" had been outmoded and was no longer necessary. They weren't talking about a personality at all; they were talking about a philosophical vantage point.

I guess that leaves the question open about the whole universe not exploding thing. Did Jesus somehow, in His divinity, still hold everything together, even though He was dead and preaching to "spirits in prison" (commonly understood to mean that He was in some afterlife holding area called "Paradise.") Or maybe, as some theologians have speculated, maybe Jesus handed the keys to the apartment to God the Father for a few days... "Hey, Dad, I'll be away for the weekend... can you water the plants and feed the parakeet please?" ...and the Father held it all together. This strikes me as something of a fruitless question. The universe still exists, right? What difference does it make if God the Father held it together, or God the Son? SOMEBODY did, and so I'm here and the world is not a disintegrated cloud of dust floating in oblivion somewhere.

The Sun

I was wondering today if The Sun exists. I've heard about it all my life, and I do believe in it I guess, and from time to time I've even felt its presence warming me. But I've started to wonder about this whole flaming-ball-of-gas thing. I mean, the ancient Greeks believed that the sun was really a chariot flying across the sky driven by a Titan in a crown. Ancient Egyptians believed that The Sun was the Eye of Ra. Who am I to go against what they believed? Maybe they were right and I was wrong. It's kind of tough to figure out, though, because even people who believe in The Sun don't agree... the Greeks and Egyptians believed The Sun was male, but I hear the Vikings believed The Sun was a woman.

Besides, what about people who live in caves all their lives? For them The Sun doesn't even exist. I mean, I've always been "taught" that life on planet Earth wouldn't be able to exist at all without The Sun, but those cave people live without The Sun their whole lives and they seem to be doing OK. It seems like people who believe in The Sun without reservation are kind of dogmatic and closed-minded.

What I'm really wondering, though, is whether it really matters whether I believe in The Sun or not. If it exists, it exists whether I believe in it or not. If I believe The Sun is a shiny huge grapefruit, and it's actually a shiny huge pool cue ball, I don't automatically change it into a grapefruit. I guess it would be pretty arrogant of me to think I could make The Sun be whatever I wanted, assuming that it does exist up there somewhere. And I'm not even sure that it's possible to prove that The Sun exists. I mean, if The Sun is a king in a chariot, maybe he would hit me with his scepter if I tried to find him. If it's a flaming ball of gas, I would probably catch on fire if I tried to get too close. I guess all I can do is keep trying to find out things about The Sun and maybe I can figure out what the real truth is. What I "think" doesn't really matter if what I think is not fact. The Sun can't possibly be a grapefruit and an eyeball. I'm going to keep searching for clues until I figure out which one it is.

If You Think It

Why is it that "intellectuals" seem to feel such a need to attack Christianity?

This morning I was listening to a CD of a lighthearted sci-fi story that was produced for radio. Every once in a while in the story, there is a little break where two female androids talk about stuff. Often it is silly stuff, like the time they talked about what sheep dream (an homage to the title of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, the short story that the movie Blade Runner was based on). The music bed behind them is some trancelike techno music, with the ultimate effect being that the clips almost have the feel of subliminal advertising or what some might look at as some kind of mild hypnosis. Generally it's fun stuff, but this morning I was surprised to hear the androids say (I'm paraphrasing; I don't have the CD with me):

If you believe it, it is true. For you. If you believe that Jesus is your savior, He is!

The obvious implication being that Jesus as savior exists only to those who are dumb enough to swallow the whole thing. It's all in your mind. The next break with the androids in it talked about "barking up the wrong intellectual tree," accompanied by the sound of dogs barking. (To be fair, the android breaks seldom seem to have any connection with each other, but I wanted to illustrate the cynical humor present in the breaks.)

My question is this: why was Jesus targeted? Why not Mohammed or Shiva or Zeus or Krishna? Why not The Flying Spaghetti Monster, for goodness sakes? My hope is that it's because Christianity is so prevalent in Western civilization. The humor might be less obvious if the joke was about, say, Quetzalcoatl or Ra. But it does make me wonder if the attacks are because Christianity is a big target, or because of the germ of truth that nags in the back of the mind of those who struggle intellectually against God.

By definition God cannot be understood; He is the creator and we are the creation, thus the reality we live in is within and smaller than the reality He lives in, so His reality is difficult or maybe impossible to figure out unless He reveals it to us. Intellectuals like to figure things out (I ought to know, I'm one of them). Maybe smart folks "attack" God because they want to understand but can't, and it makes them afraid.

Swimming Without God

Help me out God
I need a little something
Turn the brights on
I can't see where we're going cause I don't know
when things'll work out just fine
Or if this road we're on leads us up
Or is leading me on down to my wishing well
Where I might drown
Oh I might drown
'Cause I can't swim without you God
I can't swim without you God

from "Help Me Out God" from the album Karaoke Superstars by Superchick

I was listening to this song the other day and it got me thinking. You know, there are millions of people who live out their lives without God. Some of them actively reject God, some maybe never hear of God, but many of them do "just fine" and, to all outward appearances, lead happy, healthy lives. So it struck me that if this song is literal, that means the songwriter is someone who desperately needs a crutch to lean on... someone who is at best a weakling, and at worst, codependent. No matter if God is real or not; if you "can't make it without God" then all of those millions of atheists and heathens are of stronger mind and character than you.

There are lots of songs like this one out there in Christian music. I think maybe some of them owe a lot to a legacy of similarly codependent "love songs" in the nonreligious realm... "Tell me how am I supposed to live without you, now that I've been lovin' you so long? How am I supposed to live without you? How am I supposed to carry on when all that I've been livin' for is gone?" (thank you, Michael Bolton!) I could probably come up with more examples, but you get the picture. We want to apply those strong, inspiring words to Jesus because we feel like Jesus deserves strong, inspiring words. And He does. But...

A few months ago my father-in-law lost his wife to death. He is in his sixties, and they got married as teenagers. He loves her very, very much. He misses her every day. In fact, he still feels unable to do certain things... drive very far, concentrate for long periods of time, things like that. But you know... as much as he loves her and needs her, he is carrying on. And I think he has a really good shot at living a long life even though she is gone. Some who lose spouses that they are devoted to even go on to remarry and have equally loving relationships with another spouse... I was talking to a friend just a few weeks ago who lost his much-loved first wife to death, but then eventually he met and married a wonderful woman who he is also devoted to. Fact is, well-adjusted human beings are very resilient, and at the risk of sounding callous, I'll state the obvious fact that often we can recover from things we think we can never recover from.

So if songs like "Help Me Out God" have a possible heritage in faulty pop love songs, is there validity in songs like that applied to Christ? That depends on whether those sentiments are Scriptural. I spent an afternoon racking my brain, trying to think of a place in the Gospels, Paul's letters, the Psalms for goodness sake... ANYWHERE that says that once you become a believer in God, after that point your physical survival depends on maintaining your relationship with God. I don't see it. The best I could do was this:

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. -John 15:5 ESV

But the fact is, that doesn't really prove our point. That's Jesus talking, and Jesus isn't interested in any good deeds we perform in our own strength:

We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. -Isaiah 64:6 ESV

In other words, from God's point of view, if He did not initiate your activities, whatever you are doing counts as nothing. Jesus wasn't saying that you would stop breathing if you turned away from God. Although I guess it could be argued that if Jesus turned His back on us, the fabric of the universe might disintegrate:

And he [Christ Jesus] is before all things, and in him all things hold together. - Colossians 1:17 ESV

But now we're going places that the Superchick song isn't going. Clearly we can physically survive without God. We cannot accomplish anything for His Kingdom without His help, but I don't find it in Scripture that we must stay in fellowship with God for our physical or emotional survival. God's people are not weaklings; we are human beings like everyone else, but if we say stuff like "I can't live without God!" we present a picture to the unsaved that we do not want to present... basically, we are saying that we are weaker than they, because they are likely doing just fine without God where we would emotionally fall to pieces without Him holding things together. No wonder atheists often say that Christians are weak-minded. We basically say it ourselves.

Don't get me wrong; I enjoy that Superchick song. And you know, sometimes I feel like I would crack up without God helping me out. And I know that my life has meaning and purpose to it that it would not have if I didn't have Jesus giving me direction and empowering me to do what He has instructed me to do. But from a purely human standpoint, I am as stable physically and emotionally as the next guy. I'm not too weak to function in life without some spiritual "crutch," but I do know a good thing when I see it. If I have the choice to walk five miles to the store or drive in my car, I'd be stupid to walk, especially if I had a load to carry home. I have the option of leading a life without God or living a life with God. It's possible without God; it's better with God.

I choose God.

I don't believe in atheists.

I don't think atheists exist, and I'll tell you why.

To my understanding, some "god" or "gods" appear in every world religion (actually, I think maybe Buddhism is the exception, although I am not a scholar of Buddhism). God is generally thought of as all-powerful, the creator of everything we see around us, the ultimate source of moral guidelines, etc. I think atheists do believe in a god, and I think each of them knows that god's name. Let's examine those "god" identifiers, which I just came up with off the top of my head, in some detail:

All-powerful: Atheists do not believe in one all-powerful being. However, if you asked 100 atheists who is responsible for what happens to human beings, atheists would answer, "themselves." (Or maybe, "chance.")
Creator of everything: On the subject of origins, there is very little choice for atheists but the rickety contraption we refer to as "evolution."
Ultimate source of moral guidelines: The only choices here would be that each individual is responsible for his own morality, or maybe the laws of government or some other body. I suppose you could say that humans have a sense of morality built in, but if you say that you have to presuppose a builder, which an atheist would not do.

Do you see the common thread here? Who makes everything happen? "Human beings." Who created everything? "The human race created itself through the process of evolution." Who is the source of morality? "Human moral codes." In all cases, the finger that should point at God, points at HUMANITY.

I don't believe in atheists. I do believe in and respect agnostics, who at least are honest and brave enough to say "I don't know," but other than that, everyone believes in a god; you can't be "a-" ("not-") theist. For one thing, it is impossible to disprove an intangible "spirit" entity. But more importantly, "atheists" actually ascribe all of the characteristics of "god" to themselves. What does that make them... "me-theists?"

Update: I don't believe in atheists II