CrossExamined Blog

On June 28, 2006 Illinois Senator Barack Obama addressed the Call to Renewal’s “Building a Covenant for a New America” conference.  Call to Renewal publishes Sojourners, a magazine of the Christian left that provides sustenance for those committed to the Social Gospel movement, which began in the late 19th century under Walter Rauschenbusch.  Sojourners routinely publishes articles by members of Christianity’s liberal faction such as its founding editor-in-chief Jim Wallis, along with articles by Emergent Church leaders such as Brian McLaren.

Rauschenbusch was greatly influenced by the writings of Charles Sheldon, such as the classic work In His Steps, which gave rise to the modern maxim”What Would Jesus Do?”  While there is nothing inherently wrong with asking such a question, the Social Gospel movement has strayed from evangelical orthodoxy in its focus on social works to the exclusion of foundational Christian doctrines.  A balanced Christian view can be found in the Evangelical Manifesto of May 7, 2008.  See especially page 6:

http://www.anevangelicalmanifesto.com/docs/Evangelical_Manifesto.pdf

It behooves Christian Evangelicals to read Senator Obama’s speech carefully. 

http://obama.senate.gov/speech/060628-call_to_renewal/

About 2/3 of the way through the speech, in a paragraph that begins… “And even if we did have only Christians in our midst…” Senator Obama asks, “Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let’s read our bibles. Folks haven’t been reading their bibles.”

If Senator Obama hadn’t presented this speech three months prior to the publication of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion I would have suggested he borrowed from Dawkins.  He presciently iterates the same misguided rhetoric the New Atheists have now brought into the mainstream.  In any case, his comments make it quite clear that he is among those “folks who haven’t been reading their bibles,” at least not beyond a superficial level.  Sadly, Call to Renewal’s Christian left failed to recognize the blatant error in Barack Obama’s remarks.  As Evangelicals, I suggest we share this speech with any Christian friends who find his candidacy compelling.

George Weigel writing for NewsWeek points out what we’ve known as a scientific fact for decades:  that human life begins at conception and any other suggested point for its beginning is arbitrary:  http://www.newsweek.com/id/155564/output/print.  This is not a matter of religious faith, but cold hard science.

In my opinion, anyone running for President who thinks that such a fact is “above his pay grade” ought not be seeking the highest political pay grade in the world.

The new atheists are a tumescent bunch, unquestionably articulate, yet consummately misguided. Their incendiary rhetoric can’t help but stir the emotions of the majority of America’s religious. Yet why do they ultimately choose to target Christianity above all other religious systems, when radical Islam presents the clear and present danger?

They routinely build a straw man version of Christianity based not upon the Ten Commandments and the morality of the Christ, but rather upon Old Testament Levitical laws that have long since been abrogated. They cannot be so naïve as to believe that Christians condone the murder of back talking children. Yet they must presume their audience is just so naïve, since this is exactly the sort of rhetoric they routinely tout.

In the latest books by avowed atheists, such as Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, Christopher Hitchens’ God is Not Great and Sam Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation, the crux of the problem lies undisturbed. It never seems to surface amongst the pestiferous rhetoric of the atheist leaders.

They call for a secular America that mimics the “least religious societies on earth,” such as Norway, Denmark, Belgium and most of Western Europe, believing that the “end of religion” is an achievable goal. Yet, Western Europe has undergone an unprecedented decline in population that threatens its very existence. Conversely, the Middle East and Africa saw the greatest population growth during the 1990s, in nations that are predominantly Islamic.

The new atheists applaud Western European openness toward matters of gender equality and abortion, yet both of these departures from traditional religious mores have contributed to the dwindling population problem. Sam Harris, in his Letter to a Christian Nation, submits that “seventy percent of the inmates of France’s jails are Muslim.” He obtusely observes that Western European Muslims are generally not atheists, implying that atheists are not part of the “problem.”

However, by not recognizing the real problem, and by diverting attention toward Christianity rather than Islam, neither are they part of the solution. France’s tolerance has permitted their Muslim population to exceed 10%. Their hospitality has already been reciprocated with Islamic car bombings and gang riots. In America, the Muslim population is generally estimated at less than 2% of the population.

The increase in Europe’s Muslim population, along with population decline among European nationals, is changing the demographic climate in the cradle of continental philosophy. Rather than a progressive transformation toward analytic scientism and a consummately secular society, Europe is slowly and methodically regressing by embracing the ancient Mesopotamian culture that has emigrated from the cradle of civilization.

The new atheists aren’t the only ones with an agenda. While Sam Harris wants to see “the end of faith,” Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants to see the end of Israel and the United States. Saudi Arabian oil money is pouring into our nation’s colleges and universities, mosques and Islamic day schools, at an alarming rate. Saudi monies don’t fund new science labs, libraries or gymnasiums, but rather Middle Eastern Studies programs, many of which have become bastions of radical jihadist thought. There is one thing virtually all Muslims have the same opinion upon, radical or otherwise. They agree with Shari’a Law and the emergence of an Islamic caliphate that will rule the entire Middle East and, if possible, the entire globe.

President Bush entered Iraq with the goal of liberating the Iraqis from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, much like President Roosevelt entered Europe to liberate that part of the world from the maniacal control of Adolf Hitler. Our presence in Iraq has two very reasonable purposes: to aid the Iraqis in stabilizing their nation and to keep an eye on their next door neighbor, who unabashedly considers us the “Great Satan.” The new atheists are diverting our attention from America’s real problem by blurring the distinct boundaries between monotheistic religions.

(This is a column posted today on www.TownHall.com)   

I like to strike up conversations with people I meet while traveling. Last Tuesday, on the way back to San Francisco airport, I asked the driver where he was from. “Jordan,” he replied.

In an effort to make a connection, I mentioned that I haven’t gotten to Jordan, but I went to Iran in 2006 and served in Saudi Arabia with the Navy twenty years ago.

“What do you do?” he asked.

“I’m a writer and a speaker. I co-authored a book defending the truth of Christianity called I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.”

“I’m a Christian too,” he said. Then, just as we were pulling into the terminal, he asked, “What do you think about the Iraq war?”

With less than 90 seconds left in the ride, I quickly said, “I think it was the least bad choice we had. Saddam used WMD, invaded Kuwait, and then violated 17 straight UN resolutions and the cease fire. What other choice did we have in a post 9-11 world?”

He didn’t answer the question. Instead, he claimed that Iraq had nothing to with 9-11, and that we just should have gone after the bad guys in Afghanistan. He then said, “Jesus told us to love our enemies.”

Leaving the issue of 9-11 aside, was his inference correct? In light of what Jesus said about loving our enemies, should Christians be pacifists?

I don’t think so. In fact, sometimes the use of force is not only justified, it can be a dereliction of duty not to use force.

First, “loving your enemies,” like “turn the other cheek,” is a command for individuals in personal relationships. It is not a command for governments or for individuals put in grave bodily harm. As individuals we should pray for our enemies and “turn the other cheek” instead of returning insult for insult. Such behavior demonstrates supernatural love aimed at securing the offender’s conversion to Christ. But those commands do not mean that we have no right to personal self defense, nor do they mean that a nation shouldn’t protect its people from other hostile nations.

With regard to self defense, not only does the Old Testament affirm the right to self defense (Ex. 22:2), Jesus himself told his disciples to sell their cloak and buy a sword (Luke 22:36). Jesus later told Peter “put your sword away” so Christ’s sacrifice would go forward and the scriptures would be fulfilled (Mt. 26:54). But the very fact that Jesus told Peter and the other disciples to buy a sword shows that its use for personal protection is appropriate. (By the way, Jesus never condoned the use of the sword as a means of religious conversion. It’s impossible anyway. Genuine conversion, by definition, is freely accepted. It cannot be coerced.)

With regard to war, the New Testament does not order newly baptized soldiers to get out of the military. Instead, John the Baptist told them not to abuse their power and to be content with their pay (Luke 3:14). Soldiers are needed because, as Paul pointed out in Romans 13, governments have a God-given responsibility to use “the sword” to protect their people from harm. In fact, Paul himself accepted military protection when he was in danger (Acts 22:25f), and Jesus affirmed the right of governments to impose capital punishment, saying that such a right was given by God (Jn. 19:11).

Second, “love your enemies” cannot mean that all use of force is prohibited because such an interpretation would contradict the passages just cited and result in absurd conclusions. It would be absurd to say that “love your enemies” means “allow them to kill your family.” How would that be loving to your family?

It would be absurd to say that “love your enemies” prohibits all wars. What about the war against Hitler? Not justified? Please. How would that be loving to the Jews or the countries overrun? (Notice that even my driver friend isn’t against all wars. He thinks that the war in Afghanistan is justified. But if “love your enemies” meant you could never use force, then how can Afghanistan be justified?)

With such an absurd interpretation, we couldn’t even have police protection, a court system, or prisons. Why believe that police can use force but not Armies? There’s not much of a difference. Police use force to protect people from enemies inside a country. Armies use force to protect people from enemies outside a country.

Without the proper use of force, we’d have anarchy, and innocent people would be hurt or killed. That’s why complete pacifism is not only unbiblical, it is a dereliction of duty. Individuals have a responsibility to protect themselves and their families from harm, and governments have a similar responsibility to protect their citizens.

Christians can and should, of course, oppose specific wars that don’t meet what theologians call “just-war theory.” As I mentioned in my last column, I believe the Iraq war is just. But I didn’t get enough time with my driver friend to hear his complete case against the Iraq war. Maybe he knows something I don’t, but it didn’t seem so.

One thing is for certain: Christians contradict scripture and common sense when they say no war or use of force can ever be justified. As terrible as it is, war is sometimes the least bad choice available. In other words, it’s not that Christians are for war; it’s that we’re against the alternative—the oppression and death of the innocent. And in a fallen world like this, sometimes the use of force is necessary to protect the innocent. Without it, we wouldn’t even be able to love our friends.

In my opinion, both presidential candidates have their problems.  But one has more problems than the other.  Here is a column I wrote for Townhall.com:  The Presidency is not an Entry-Level Position.

As CrossExamined.org conducts seminars and debates on college campuses, we owe much to Dr. William Lane Craig.  Dr. Craig is one of Christianity’s best intellectual defenders.  He is the author of several Christian apologetics books and scholarly articles, and has debated topics such as the existence of God, the problem of evil, the reliability of the Bible, and several other questions. 

Dr. Craig is now posting answers to difficult questions on his web site. You can find them here (at this writing, there are 63 such questions).  You owe it to yourself to learn Christian apologetics from this fine scholar and gentleman.

The following is from Christian Philosopher William Lane Craig’s recent article “God is not Dead Yet” in Christianity Today.   I encourage you to read the entire article.  I include this section on the moral argument because of our recent discussion here about how the existence of objective morality requires God– a claim that atheists have yet to refute. 

The moral argument. A number of ethicists, such as Robert Adams, William Alston, Mark Linville, Paul Copan, John Hare, Stephen Evans, and others have defended “divine command” theories of ethics, which support various moral arguments for God’s existence.

One such argument:

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

By objective values and duties, one means values and duties that are valid and binding independent of human opinion. A good many atheists and theists alike concur with premise (1). For given a naturalistic worldview, human beings are just animals, and activity that we count as murder, torture, and rape is natural and morally neutral in the animal kingdom. Moreover, if there is no one to command or prohibit certain actions, how can we have moral obligations or prohibitions?

Premise (2) might seem more disputable, but it will probably come as a surprise to most laypeople to learn that (2) is widely accepted among philosophers. For any argument against objective morals will tend to be based on premises that are less evident than the reality of moral values themselves, as apprehended in our moral experience. Most philosophers therefore do recognize objective moral distinctions.

Nontheists will typically counter the moral argument with a dilemma: Is something good because God wills it, or does God will something because it is good? The first alternative makes good and evil arbitrary, whereas the second makes the good independent of God. Fortunately, the dilemma is a false one. Theists have traditionally taken a third alternative: God wills something because he is good. That is to say, what Plato called “the Good” is the moral nature of God himself. God is by nature loving, kind, impartial, and so on. He is the paradigm of goodness. Therefore, the good is not independent of God.

Moreover, God’s commandments are a necessary expression of his nature. His commands to us are therefore not arbitrary but are necessary reflections of his character. This gives us an adequate foundation for the affirmation of objective moral values and duties.

Some atheists, such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, insist that morality is simply the product of evolution.  Common moral sensibilities (Don’t murder, rape, steal, etc.) help ensure our evolutionary survival.  There are number of problems with this view:

1. Rape may enhance the survival of the species, but does that make rape good?  Should we rape? 

2. Killing the weak and handicapped may help improve the species and its survival (Hitler’s plan).  Does that mean the Holocaust was a good thing?

3. Evolution provides no stable foundation for morality.  If evolution is the source of morality, then what’s to stop morals from evolving (changing) to the point that one day rape, theft and murder are considered moral? 

4. Dawkins and Hitchens confuse epistemology with ontology (how we know something exists with that and what exists).  So even if natural selection or some other chemical process is responsible for us knowing right from wrong, that would not explain why something is right or wrong.  How does a chemical process (natural selection) yield an immaterial moral law?  And why does anyone have a moral obligation to obey a chemical process?  You only have a moral obligation to obey an ultimate personal being (God) who has the authority to put moral obligations on you.  You don’t have a moral obligation to chemistry.

As I mentioned in an earlier post (Atheists Have No Basis for Morality), several atheists at a recent I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist event at UNC Wilmington struggled greatly when I asked them to offer some objective basis for morality from their atheistic worldview.  They kept trying to give tests for how we know something is moral rather than why something is moral.  One atheist said “not harming people” is the standard.  But why is harming people wrong if there is no God?  And what if harming people enhances your survival and that of most others?

Another said, “happiness” is the basis for morality.  After I asked him, “Happiness according to who, Mother Teresa or Hitler?,”  he said, “I need to think about this more,” and then sat down.  This says nothing about the intelligence of these people– there just is no good answer to the question.   Without God there is no basis for objective morals.  It’s just Mother Teresa’s opinion against Hitler’s. 

See also Neil’s post: Does our Morality come from our DNA?

Both political parties have their problems, but I thought this was brilliant. http://www.townhall.com/funnies/cartoonist/MikeShelton/2007/09/1

This column is a column I wrote for www.TownHall.com today. 

At least one lesbian is not happy with me for the case I made last week against same-sex marriage on our TV program.  She wrote me this ALL CAPS e-mail with “VERY JUDGEMENTAL” in the subject line:          

ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE ME AND I AM A CHRISTIAN LESBIAN AND HAVE BEEN FOR ALMOST 20 YEARS. STOP JUDGING AND MOVE ON!!! I AM SO TIRED OF ALL YOU UPTIGHT, DO RIGHT, SINNERS JUDGING PEOPLE. 

I wrote her back asking her why she was judging me for judging. It seemed like a fair question.  After all, if I am not to “judge” her, why is it OK for her to judge me?  And if she’s a Christian, doesn’t she know that God has already judged homosexual behavior as immoral?  I mean, I didn’t make the judgment that homosexual behavior was wrong.  God is the standard of morality, not me.

But the main point is that my lesbian pen pal did what most liberals do when they are faced with arguments they don’t like—they misuse Jesus’ apparent command not to “judge” in order to shut you up.  So if you oppose their behavior or their attempt to get the nation to endorse their immorality (i.e. same-sex marriage), you’re sure to hear “Thou shalt not judge!”  

As with most slogans shouted by the left, the truth is exactly opposite to what they claim. Liberals take the judgment statements of Jesus out of context because they want to avoid any moral condemnation for their own actions, and they don’t want you to notice that they are making judgments too. Let’s take a look at what Jesus actually said:   

Do not judge lest you be judged. ? For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? ? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. (Mt. 7:1-5) 

Notice Jesus isn’t telling us not to judge—Jesus is telling us how to judge.  He actually commands us to take the speck out of our brother’s eye—that involves making a judgment. But he also commands us to stop committing the bigger sins ourselves so we can better help our brother. In other words, when you judge, do so rightly not hypocritically.

Jesus expressed this same idea when he said “stop judging by mere appearances and make a right judgment” (John 7:24). Jesus would never tell us to stop judging– that would be suicide! Just think about how impossible life would be if you didn’t make judgments.  You make hundreds, if not thousands, of judgments every day between good and evil, right and wrong, dangerous choices from safe ones.  You’d be dead already if you didn’t make judgments.  

What does this have to do with politics?  Every law is a judgment about what’s best for society.  Homosexual activists are making a judgment that same-sex marriage would be the best law for society. It’s a wrong judgment as I’ve argued in this column before (Gay Marriage:  Even Liberals Know it’s Bad), but it’s a judgment nonetheless.  So in addition to being self-defeating, the belief that we “ought not judge” is completely impractical and even dangerous.  Making judgments is unavoidable both personally and politically.  If you want to meet a sudden and premature demise, just stop making judgments. 

Unfortunately, liberals are propelling our society toward a premature demise by making the disastrous judgment that we ought not make judgments about their behavior. They, of course, can judge our behavior as immoral when we oppose same-sex marriage or the killing of the unborn. But we are not to judge their behavior.  This is exactly the kind of hypocrisy that Jesus warned against. The passage they quote actually convicts them!

For folks so concerned about the “separation of church and state,” it’s amazing how fast liberals quote the Bible when they think it helps their case. Don’t let them get away with that.  If they believe the Bible when they think it condemns judging (which it doesn’t), then ask them why they don’t believe the Bible when it certainly condemns homosexuality.  If they want to use the Bible as their standard, then they will be judged by that same standard.

The earliest church found to date has been found in Jordan.  Click here.

Are Atheists really just as Moral as Christians?

One of the complaints that I often hear is that “Atheists are just as moral as Christians are”. The response is usually made when I present the Moral Argument. Well I always try to clarify that I never said or meant that atheists ARE immoral, just that they have no rational basis for their morality. And this is partly because we can always argue that expedience is always better, e.g. killing all the weak is actually better for society; stealing when no one will ever find out, will help preserve your genes; lying when you can’t get caught will help you make headway in society (and if YOU are better FOR society than all those other fools, then it will be good for society if YOU get ahead) etc.

On the contrary, Christians say character is based on “What you do when you know that you will never be found out,” regardless of the expediency.

But now suddenly there’s a glitch. Researchers in 4 independent and separate studies have found that conservatives are indeed much more “honest” and “moral” than “progressives.”

In the San Francisco Examiner Commentary - Peter Schweizer claims that “Conservatives are more honest than liberals”. -

He actually phrases it as a question, but the conclusion is that conservatives ARE more honest. (click on the link).

Now as you read it you’ll realize that he’s not talking about atheists or Christians specifically, but if you are out there and are an atheist and not a liberal/progressive, I want to talk to you. I’d be very interested in picking your brain. I don’t run into too many of those (I did once, i.e. a conservative atheist, but he became a Christian within 6 months of me meeting with him on a regular basis and giving him “The Case for Christ”).

As I see it, atheists are a subset of the superset of secular progressives. And while Christians are indeed a subset of conservatives, we all know that they are a majority of them in the United States where these surveys were taken. (Correct me if I am wrong).

Now don’t get me wrong. This doesn’t mean that I will stop trusting my atheist friends. I know them too well. I just had lunch with one of them last week and he’s a guy I’d trust with my life and fortune. I say this lest you think I actually think all atheists are not moral.

But point 1 is that:

It does seem to indicate that there may now be some statistical validity to the fact that if there really is no rational basis for your morality, one tends to be less moral. What say you?

Is this a valid conclusion?

This also lends itself to the second point/question:

1. If it is true that morality is “good,” for society (and I surmise this from even the atheists’ vehement claim that they are also moral – so presumably morality is a plus for society even in their eyes)
2. And it is true that conservatives and Christians are much much more moral than atheists and liberals

Does this not mean that the more GENUINE (and I emphasize that on purpose), the more genuine conservatives and Christians we have, the better for ALL of society?

In which case, shouldn’t even atheists encourage the Christians to continue what they are doing (including evangelizing) so they improve society for all of us?

Just wondering. Naturally next week a new study could come out that refutes these 4 studies, but since that hasn’t happened and we are scientists and philosophers that work with the facts that we have at the moment (and not hope for a future “revelation”), if these studies are true what does this mean? I could be wrong but it does seem to imply something along the lines of the two conclusions I’ve argued for.

Neil Mammen

In a lame attempt to justify same-sex marriage, Google News linked to this story from an LA Times blog.   According to the story, some female albatrosses may be coupling and caring for offspring together after the dead-beat daddy albatross has left.   This animals-do-it argument is seriously put forth by homosexual activists. Yes, some animals engage in homosexual behavior and perhaps even parenting on occasion.  But some animals eat their young too.  Should we do that as well? 

When homosexual activists extol animals as their moral examples, they are looking down rather than up.  The argument is an albatross around their necks.

Hank Hanegraaff, the BibleAnswerman, will join us at CIA on Wednesday night, August 13 for a special Q&A session.  CIA will be held in Charlotte, NC from August 13-15.  The application deadline is June 24.  Click here for details.  Don’t miss this opportunity!

If current Big Bang cosmology is correct (and the evidence is very good that it is) then the entire space-time universe exploded into being out of nothing (see previous posts God and the Astronomers and Who Made God? ).   Therefore, the Cause of the universe would seem to have these attributes:   

·         spaceless because it created space

 ·         timeless because it created time

·         immaterial because it created matter

·         powerful because it created out of nothing

·         intelligent because the creation event and the universe was precisely designed

 ·         personal because it made a choice to convert a state of nothing into something (impersonal forces don’t make choices).

These are the same attributes of the God of the Bible (which is one reason I believe in a the God of the Bible and not a god of mythology like Zeus). 

When I’ve posed this conclusion to atheists, many of them responded by claiming that I was speculating—that we really don’t know what caused the universe (see comments on the posts above). This is exactly the kind of response that Agnostic Astronomer Robert Jastrow said is common for atheists who have their own religion—the religion of science. Jastrow, who once sat in Edwin Hubble’s chair at the Mount Wilson Observatory, wrote this:

There is a kind of religion in science . . . every effect must have its cause; there is no First Cause. . . . This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover. When that happens, the scientist has lost control. If he really examined the implications, he would be traumatized. As usual when faced with trauma, the mind reacts by ignoring the implicationsCin science this is known as Arefusing to speculate@Cor trivializing the origin of the world by calling it the Big Bang, as if the Universe were a firecracker.

The implication of the creation of the universe out of nothing is that there is a Cause outside the universe with the attributes listed above.  That’s not speculation, but following the evidence where it leads.

This is my column that is running today at TownHall.com. I’ll post more on this later because 800 words is not enough to cover this very controversial topic.

Why not legalize same-sex marriage? Who could it possibly hurt? Children and the rest of society. That’s the conclusion of David Blankenhorn, who is anything but an anti-gay “bigot.” He is a life-long, pro-gay, liberal democrat who disagrees with the Bible’s prohibitions against homosexual behavior. Despite this, Blankenhorn makes a powerful case against Same-Sex marriage in his book, The Future of Marriage.

He writes, “Across history and cultures . . . marriage’s single most fundamental idea is that every child needs a mother and a father. Changing marriage to accommodate same-sex couples would nullify this principle in culture and in law.”

How so? The law is a great teacher, and same sex marriage will teach future generations that marriage is not about children but about coupling. When marriage becomes nothing more than coupling, fewer people will get married to have children.

So what? People will still have children, of course, but many more of them out-of wedlock. That’s a disaster for everyone. Children will be hurt because illegitimate parents (there are no illegitimate children) often never form a family, and those that “shack up” break up at a rate two to three times that of married parents. Society will be hurt because illegitimacy starts a chain of negative effects that fall like dominoes—illegitimacy leads to poverty, crime, and higher welfare costs which lead to bigger government, higher taxes, and a slower economy.

Are these just the hysterical cries of an alarmist? No. We can see the connection between same-sex marriage and illegitimacy in Scandinavian countries. Norway, for example, has had de-facto same-sex marriage since the early nineties. In Nordland, the most liberal county of Norway, where they fly “gay” rainbow flags over their churches, out-of-wedlock births have soared—more than 80 percent of women giving birth for the first time, and nearly 70 percent of all children, are born out of wedlock! Across all of Norway, illegitimacy rose from 39 percent to 50 percent in the first decade of same-sex marriage.  

Anthropologist Stanley Kurtz writes, “When we look at Nordland and Nord-Troendelag — the Vermont and Massachusetts of Norway — we are peering as far as we can into the future of marriage in a world where gay marriage is almost totally accepted. What we see is a place where marriage itself has almost totally disappeared.” He asserts that “Scandinavian gay marriage has driven home the message that marriage itself is outdated, and that virtually any family form, including out-of-wedlock parenthood, is acceptable.” But it’s not just Norway. Blankenhorn reports this same trend in other countries. International surveys show that same-sex marriage and the erosion of traditional marriage tend to go together. Traditional marriage is weakest and illegitimacy strongest wherever same-sex marriage is legal.

As we remember those who have paid the ultimate price to defend our country, I think a letter from President Abraham Lincoln will help us feel the impact of what Memorial Day really means to those who have lost loved ones.  On November 21, 1864, President Lincoln wrote these words to Mrs. Lydia Bixby of Boston who had lost five sons in the Civil War:

“I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming.  But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.  I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.”

I doubt anyone ever expressed anything so tragic to a grieving parent in such an eloquent and redeeming way.   Lincoln’s message of sacrifice and redemption parallels that of Christianity—Christ himself was sacrificed on the altar of freedom.  He lived the perfect life and then took our punishment on himself at the Cross.  So as we rightly remember those who selflessly sacrificed themselves for our temporal freedom, let us not forget that Christ selflessly sacrificed Himself for our eternal freedom.  

Following the California Supreme Court decision last week, I posed four questions about Same-Sex Marriage that have generated quite a lot of discussion.  It seems many people are operating on emotion rather than reason on this issue.  Most of us know and like homosexuals, and that can cloud our reasoning.

One of the cloudy areas is the purpose the state endorses marriage. Contrary to what homosexual activists assume, the state doesn’t endorse marriage because people have feelings for one another. The state endorses marriage primarily because of what marriage does for children and in turn society. Society gets nothing positive, and actually gets additional negatives (I’ll explain in another post), by recognizing the relationship of two homosexuals. But the very future of the state and a civilized society depends on committed relationships between heterosexuals. That’s why, regardless of what you think about homosexuality, the two types of relationships should never be legally equated.

I am completing a book on this topic right now, and these short posts may raise more questions than answers.  So for a more detailed response, I thought you might like to hear from a very sound thinker on this topic, Greg Koukl, President of Stand to Reason.  (Greg will be an instructor at our CrossExamined Instructor Academy in August.)  Click here to read his article Same-Sex Marriage:  Challenges and Responses.  I appreciate your feedback on his points.

Now that the California Supreme Court has usurped the will of the people by striking down their democratically-decided law,  there is sure to be a debate over the next few months about the merits of Same-Sex Marriage.   The issue may even make it to the ballot box in November in the form of a California Constitutional Amendment. 

Political process aside, I’d like for you to weigh in on the following four questions:

1.  For what secular purpose does the state endorse traditional marriage (i.e. what benefits does the state experience from traditional marriage)?

2.  What would be the results to society if every adult lived faithfully in traditional marriage?

3.  What would be the results to society if every adult lived faithfully in same-sex marriage?  

4.  In light of your answers above, should the state legally equate heterosexual and homosexual relationships by endorsing same sex marriage?

Sorry if this sounds like a test.  I just want to see how much people have thought through this very controversial issue.

If you have some expertise in the area of Christian Apologetics, we are looking for instructors to help us take I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist to students and churches around the country.  Greg Koukl and Brett Kunkle of Stand to Reason, and Jason Reed of Southern Evangelical Seminary will join me, Frank Turek, in leading the CrossExamined Instructor Academy (CIA), August 13-15 in Charlotte, NC.  Hank Hanegraaff, The Bible Answerman, will join us for a special Q and A on Wednesday night August 13.  This is a great opportunity for you to make an impact through apologetics. But hurry– the application deadline is June 24.  Click here for details.?

Recently I posed a question to our fellow truth seekers who are atheists, and we had a great response and good dialog.

It let us understand a lot of the feelings and reasons for either accepting or not accepting the God of the Christians if He was real.

So here’s another question in the same vein (there maybe some overlap naturally).

Atheists, what kind of God would you accept?

Imagine that a God existed, what characteristics would you require of him before you accepted him as your God and what behavioral change if any would that cause in you?  E.g.

1. He would be more obvious about revealing himself (this I think is a given).

2. He would not send anyone to hell just for not believing he didn’t exist.

3. He would not allow suffering or evil.

4. He would punish bad folks like Hitler or hypocritical Christians with a bolt of lightning on the spot.

5. He would not require anyone to glorify or worship him. 

6. He would not have any rules or regulations that we would have to follow.  etc.  

So what characteristics would you require before you accepted him as your God. If the answer is None, that’s a valid answer too, especially if you say why.

Can God do Anything? Can he create a stone so big that he cannot move it?

Part 1

In a response to one of our readers, I said that God cannot do anything. The reader responded?

“Then what about Miracles.”

In another post an atheist reader said:

“… God can suspend the law of gravity. God can make 2+2=5 if it suits his purpose …..”

But this seems to indicate a misunderstanding of the Christian God.

So let me see if I can clarify the Christian concept of God. I won’t try to speak for the god of any other religion or myth or a god of anyone’s personal creation. Why? Because that is only limited by your imagination.

In addition do understand that what I am about to present to you is Theology. That is, I maybe able to prove some of these concepts to you, but I can’t prove them all. However I do think that they are all rational, logical and self consistent. So take them as information to understand how Christian philosophers and how most of us on this site view God.

1. God cannot do “anything.”

From the writings of the great Christian theologians, thinkers, scientists and philosophers, and from the Bible, we can derive the following of characteristics of the First Cause, uncaused Creator:

God cannot do anything which is not actually possible, for example contrary to the statement above, He cannot make 2+2=5,

He cannot stop being God,

He cannot make a round square in 2 dimensional space,

He cannot make black actually be white,

He cannot paint a door black with red paint bought from Home Depot and no added chemicals and no added activity on his part,

He cannot give someone freedom of choice in an area and then not let them choose in that area.

After all it would seem fallacious and irrational to try to argue that the source of all rationality could be irrational itself.

Here are some more:

He cannot sin,

He cannot cease to exist.

He cannot “not” be God.

He cannot make another God.

He cannot allow anything else to become God.

He cannot be irrational.

He cannot be evil.

He cannot be lonely.

He cannot be unhappy.

He cannot have unmet needs.

He cannot begin to exist.

He cannot forget.

He cannot learn anything new (at least as far as we understand).

The last few imply that He  cannot change his mind (because that would mean he’d learned some new information or remembered something He’d forgotten, He can however have always planned to do something different at a certain point in time, or plan to respond to a certain event in a specific way).

And he certainly cannot create a stone so big that he cannot move it. But we’ll cover that in a second blog.

So if someone asks you if God can do anything. Say “No.”

1. The Miracles in the Bible are not “actually” impossible

As indicated in my blog of April 28^th, Biblical Miracles do not fall into this category because they are not actually “impossible.” They are not irrational. Why do we say that? Well because any miracle or supernatural event recorded in the Bible could have been made to take place if enough technology, equipment or knowledge was available or if an extra-dimensional being was able to manipulate molecules, electrons, quarks or leptons. Look carefully, there are no truly impossible or irrational miracles in the Bible including the creation of the Universe and if an atheist were to suggest that creating matter from nothing is impossible, we’d say “Really, then why do you think it happened accidentally”.

 By the way the feasibility of most of the Biblical miracles (short of creation) through technology is quite an interesting observation when you think about it. I doubt I can claim credit for it though, because, as with most things I think I have discovered, I always end up finding out that some other philosopher or theologian had already written about it 1000-2000 years ago.

An entry on my personal webpage titled “Is the Supernatural Impossible? Goes in to more detail about miracles (click for the link).

Let’s look briefly at the the water into wine miracle. The water was changed into wine most probably at the molecular level. It wasn’t water that was also wine (and while it could have been hypnotism, the passage indicates it wasn’t and anyway hypnotism isn’t “impossible”). He changed the water molecules into actual wine molecules (and very good wine at that). Was it synthetic wine? It probably was. (I say probably because of course he could have also swapped the water for pre-made wine – OK OK using the equivalent of a transporter beam…I’m a geek at heart).

What about dead men walking as in the case of those who came to life, again healing of tissue and reanimation of life (God created life to begin with – a merging of some multi-dimensional elements back to their original 4D ones) are all “possible” rational things. They are just not natural or common.

So we see none of these miracles are actually impossible.

Now it’s worth nothing that impossibility is usually seen best in philosophical or conceptual issues. E.g. making the square root of (-1) = 1. Or making the cube of 5, 124. All of which are rationally impossible.

You see making 1+1 = 3 or 2+2= 5 is not a matter of manipulating molecules. It is dealing with things at a much basic and in a sense a higher level. It’s dealing with things at the point of rationality. Mess with that and everything stops being cohesive, the universe starts to unravel, and you start to violate the very nature of God.

What about changing the laws of Gravity in the example. I would argue that God cannot change or suspend the laws of Gravity without having to then simultaneously attend to all the other effects of there being no Gravity. That’s not to say that he couldn’t also stop every individual thing from flinging out in to space using some other power, but the point is He would have to attend to it.

It’s of value to note that the original comment about Gravity by the atheist at the opening of this blog was said in the context of God being unable to be studied by science because he could change the laws of Gravity and we would not know about it. However, the nature of God being what it is and from the examples in the Biblical miracles, I tend to think that if God did do a miracle he would allow the side effects of the miracle to be apparent such that we could indeed measure it and see that an external agent had acted upon things. I also think that while God could indeed do things that cannot be studied by science, He could just as well do certain things that COULD be studied by science and point to him. So we cannot apriori assume that God did not do so. Maybe God has chosen to be able to be detected by Science. In which case would not science be the best way to detect him?

You cannot merely say that Science cannot prove God. If God wanted to, Science could indeed prove God. And contrary to what some believe, most Christians Theologians and Philosophers think that God HAS indeed chosen to leave his Fingerprint for us to detect. The question we are asking ourselves is “Why is he not more obvious about it?”, for that discussion you’ll have to wait for a future post titled “Why doesn’t God just show himself?” So for now know that the miracles in the Bible at not rationally or logically impossible.

1. But I thought God was Omnipotent

(this section was updated with the definition of Pantocrator on 5/11/08 – I would like to express my appreciation to “db0” who allowed me to bounce these arguments off him and prompted this further expansion, I’m adding this back into the blog to allow people to see most of the argument in one place. )

God IS omnipotent (all powerful) but he is not omni-able (i.e. able to do “any”thing at least not anything irrational). The definition of power should not be confused with capability when it comes to the Christian God. There’s a clear distinction between the two. Christian theologians have long taught that God is all-powerful, not all capable when it comes to irrationality. And if you think about this, we see this as being tied into His character, His personality, His being. If God were to become irrational, it would violate his nature and he would cease to be God. God is a slave to his character (but then so are you).

But you say doesn’t the Bible say that God can do anything? Actually no, it does not. The word used in the Bible for Omni-Potent comes from the Greek word Pantocrator (Pantokrator). Pantocrator means all ruling. Almighty not all-capable. Let me explain.

When the Vulgate Manuscript was created as a translation from the Greek Septuagint (the Old Testament) into Latin, the Greek word Pantocrator was translated into the Latin “omnipotens”, which means having all the power (again note this is still technically correct as it means having power and strength not capability). The word is tied to rulers and ruling not to being all “capable.”

Over the recent years many Christians just started assuming that Omnipotence meant all capable and modern language uses it that way. But the original Greek and Hebrew do not support this. (BTW that’s what we think is infallible, the original Greek and Hebrew autographs written by the apostles and prophets. We don’t think the translations are or the copies are infallible.)

The KJV New Testament Greek Lexicon explains Pantocrator as:

Strong’s Number: 3841

pantokravtwr from (3956) and (2904)?

Transliterated Word TDNT Entry:?Pantokrator

Noun: Masculine?

Definition: he who holds sway over all things, the ruler of all, almighty: God

As you can see Pantocrator does not mean all capable even of irrational things. It just means powerful, mighty and ruler of all.

Hope this helps clarify where we stand.

Neil Mammen

By the way: Any errors in examples or theology are my errors and not those of the owners of this site.

Coming soon:

Part II. The correct response to: Can God create a stone so big that he cannot move it?

If you read the threads of several of the blog entries on this site, you will see both atheists and Christians charging one another with committing “logical fallacies.”  The assumption both sides are making is that there is this objective realm of reason out there that: 1) we all have access to; 2) tells us the truth about the real world; and 3) is something we ought to use correctly if we want to know the truth. I think those are good assumptions.  My question for the atheists is how do you justify these assumptions if there is no God? 

If atheistic materialism is true, it seems to me that reason itself is impossible. For if mental processes are nothing but chemical reactions in the brain, then there is no reason to believe that anything is true (including the theory of materialism). Chemicals can=t evaluate whether or not a theory is true. Chemicals don=t reason, they react.  

This is ironic because atheistsCwho often claim to be champions of truth and reasonChave made truth and reason impossible by their theory of materialism. So even when atheists are right about something, their worldview gives us no reason to believe them because reason itself is impossible in a world governed only by chemical and physical forces. 

Not only is reason impossible in an atheistic world, but the typical atheist assertion that we should rely on reason alone cannot be justified. Why not? Because reason actually requires faith. As J. Budziszewski points out in his book What We Can’t Not Know, AThe motto >Reason Alone!= is nonsense anyway. Reason itself presupposes faith. Why? Because a defense of reason by reason is circular, therefore worthless. Our only guarantee that human reason works is God who made it.@ 

Let=s unpack Budziszewski=s point by considering the source of reason. Our ability to reason can come from one of only two sources: either our ability to reason arose from preexisting intelligence or it did not, in which case it arose from mindless matter. The atheists/Darwinists/materialists believe, by faith, that our minds arose from mindless matter without intelligent intervention. I say “by faith” because it contradicts all scientific observation, which demonstrates that an effect cannot be greater than its cause. You can=t give what you haven=t got, yet atheists believe that dead, unintelligent matter has produced itself into intelligent life. This is like believing that the Library of Congress resulted from an explosion in a printing shop. 

I think it makes much more sense to believe that the human mind is made in the image of the Great MindCGod. In other words, our minds can apprehend truth and can reason about reality because they were built by the Architect of truth, reality, and reason itself.

So I have two questions for atheists:  1) What is the source of this immaterial reality known as reason that we are all presupposing, utilizing in our discussions, and accusing one other of violating on occasion?; and 2) If there is no God and we are nothing but chemicals, why should we trust anything we think, including the thought that there is no God?

So how do Christians respond to this Epicurean question?

Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?”

And especially for Dave the “suffering version of this =:

Either God wants to abolish suffering, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish suffering, and God really wants to do it, why is there suffering in the world?”

{P.S. This was not the blog entry that I’ve been working on. I will post that shortly.}

ALERT: The above blog entry is now posted at: http://www.crossexamined.org/blog/?p=57 Click to go there.

Frank will be back in the US anytime soon, so he’ll be taking back the helm shortly. So as he returns, I’d like to ask our Atheist fellow travelers in search of truth this question: 

Atheist readers, what if you were to suddenly find out tomorrow that the God of the Christian Evangelicals was real?

I.e. that He HAD created the world, had created you, the Bible was true, Jesus had died on the cross for your sins etc etc.

What would you do?  

Now I realize that you may be wont to say: Ah, it won’t happen.

And I agree it won’t happen tomorrow and if you are right and I am wrong, it will NEVER happen.

But do humor me. What if it did happen?

I’m not asking HOW it would happen (see Frank’s earlier blog on this) but IF it happened, how would you react?

What is your response?

Anger? Agreement? Kowtowing to this being? Resigned acceptance, passive aggression, active aggression, resigned damnation? 

Would you fall on your face and worship him? Why or why not?

What would you do?

Do you think a being that creates you automatically deserves your worship? (Note he does not needs it, but desires it.)   

So what would you do if you found out tomorrow that the God of the Bible was real?

Is the Supernatural Impossible?

(Arthur C.) Clarke’s Third Law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

 When I talk to individuals who do not believe in God or even “a god,” often the first objection they provide to me is that it is not possible for supernatural events or miracles to take place. I’d like to look at this in more detail.

To start off this discussion I’d like to introduce two concepts

Concept 1: SAT

Let’s introduce the concept of a group of beings with Arthur C Clarke’s Sufficiently Advanced Technology (SAT). Now I’m not promoting any sort of Erick Von Danikan theology here. Just stating a possibility. I feel comfortable doing this, because if I am discussing the concept of the supernatural with you and you don’t believe in it, then by necessity you must believe in Evolution. So, if it is given that you believe in evolution, you then have to admit that due to existence of billions and billions of stars and years, you must allow that somewhere out there, there is a rational non-zero possibility that there exists a race of advanced beings. Advanced in the sense that their technology is far advanced than ours i.e. they have Sufficiently Advanced Technology. You cannot eliminate them as a possibility. You cannot conclusively say they do not exist. The very fact that you believe in Evolution, forces you to admit that it is indeed statistically POSSIBLE for another race to be out there that started evolving before we did, or that has evolved faster than we did. For you to disagree with this possibility would be for you to have to disagree with evolution. Because it is impossible for you to say that it could ONLY happen once or that it could only happen the way it did happen here on earth. In fact Richard Dawkins recently admitted that this was what he believed happened to create life on earth (thus avoiding abiogenesis, at least for our race).

Concept 2: Multidimensionality

The second concept is the concept of extra-natural dimensions. For “natural” I intend to imply the 4 dimensions that most Atheists maintain are the limits of accepted natural science. Height; Length; Width and Time. Things that are currently physically measurable. I hope this is not a strawman as I’ve had these sort of statements made to me many times by atheists.

However, as I mentioned in my debate at the Commonwealth Club against Eugenie Scott and Eric Rothschild (the Lawyer who won the Dover case against Intelligent Design being mentioned in Schools), if you limit science to only 4 dimensions and any sort of extra dimensional activity as superstitious religious claptrap, you are then making a statement that the few thousand papers and the tens of thousands of attendees at String Theory conferences that postulate almost 26 dimensions are all written and attended by religion freaks.

Physics regularly postulates multidimensionality, and just moments after the Big Bang we can calculate that there were at least 10 dimensions if not 26. All but 4 of the dimensions have disappeared to our senses. But they are possibly out there, and string theory postulates that we can one day interact with them.

So the atheist that says there is nothing else real out there but what we can touch, taste, feel, hear, smell, or measure has just dug himself into a hole. (Not to mention ignored mathematical concepts completely).

Obviously, things that take place outside the realm of the 4 dimensions are not impossible, nor are they inconceivable or limited to religious fundamentalist wackos like me.

The Miracles

So given that introduction to expand the readers horizons and keeping in mind the “Super Intelligent race with Sufficiently Advanced Technology” let’s look at some of the miracles of Jesus and see if they are indeed “impossible”.

Let us start with some of the more generic healings that are claimed to have been done by Jesus. Could some of the healings affected by Jesus have in fact have been achieved by a modern medical doctor with modern technology? For example a blind man could have his corneas removed or vaporized to heal him from glaucoma. A paralytic could be administered to with a bone healing/growing stimulator or a spinal column growth stimulator. A manic could be given a direct infusion of medicines or herbs that would be Prozac or Lithium equivalents.

Of course your next two questions are going to be:

Q1. How did Jesus do this with no apparent equipment or drugs?

Q2. How did Jesus gain access to this technology?

Let’s answer the first one before moving on:

A1. Surely our beings with SAT could create nanobots that were virtually invisible and yet achieve the intended purpose even to the point of being able to administer drugs directly to the location that needed them.

A2. The question about Jesus having access to this technology will be addressed shortly.

Now let us move on to other sorts of miracles.

How about the feeding of the 5000? An individual with “SAT” could seemingly create food out of nothing if he had the technology that allows matter replication/conversion, where the very air molecules are taken and converted into new elements (all you need is lots of energy, perhaps a micro fission unit). Now it’s a given that we today do not have this technology, but one could theorize that one day we may. Think of it as a nanobot food replicator.

The point I am trying to argue is that it IS indeed possible for this to be the case. True, there is no hard evidence that such a race of beings exist, or of their abilities to create a miniature self powered food replicator. But the goal here is not to prove that Jesus did it., but that it is conceptually possible, it is physically possible and it is certainly possible within the realm of logic and science. Whether Jesus really did it or not is a case for a different discussion (and a valid case needs to be made for that as well, we cannot ignore that).

Now you’ll note that I have not yet even delved into the multi-dimensional aspect. So let’s do so. Consider the miracle of Jesus showing up in the locked upper room. The claim is that after the resurrection, the apostles are huddled in the upper room with the doors locked and all of sudden Jesus shows up.

Well it would be peanuts for a multi-dimensional being to hop over the 3 physical dimensions into a 5^th dimension and into the room. The same way a 3D being would hop over a 2D prison (a drawing of a box) and suddenly appear inside the 2D prison. Can’t be done, you say? Physics says it maybe feasible. Ever hear of a wormhole? OK OK you argue no one could survive the journey through the wormhole? Are you sure? Is it impossible? Or just improbable. What if they had a very SAT spaceship or transparent spacesuit? You get the point.

So are miracles impossible?

Obviously, we now see that if you believe in Evolution you must admit it is POSSIBLE for beings with SAT to exist. And if beings with SAT could exist it, is possible that one of them showed up 2000 years ago and we decided to kill him. And this is the answer to Q2 above. “Q2. How did Jesus gain access to this technology?” He could have been a being with SAT.

The question now becomes not “Is it POSSIBLE for Supernatural events to occur?” but “Is it PROBABLE for Supernatural events to occur?” We can agree that it is possible now.

And strangely, the atheist has some common ground with this proposition on the probability issue. When you argue against the probability issue, an atheist is arguing against himself if he argues against this. For we all know that the probability of abiogenesis (life from no life) and evolution are very very very low, yet atheists believe they occurred. So why not this then?

Conclusion

Now I should clarify, I certainly do NOT think Jesus was a being with SAT. I just want to dissuade rational thinking people from assuming that it is NOT possible. I personally think that the science of the Big Bang shows that it is more rational to believe in an extra-dimensional non-mechanistic freewill that is powerful enough to create a universe, knowledgeable enough to fine tune the universe and able to move independently through the multiple dimensions (see  Who was Agent X for the evidence for this). And once we realize that it’s more rational to believe in this first cause, surely we see the obviousness that this first cause would have the ability to manipulate molecules and bring about “supernatural miracles.”

Just some personal thoughts, I could be wrong of course, I have been wrong in the past after all.

Neil Mammen

www.RationalFreeThinker.com

Note: At no point am I postulating that this Being is able to do that which is actually impossible. E.g. making 1+1 = 3. If this confuses you then keep checking this blog, we’ll eventually clarify the difference between what is actually impossible and what is supernatural, in more detail.

Does our Morality come from our DNA?

Frank, is out of town for a week and has honored me by asking me to post a few blogs in his absence. My name is Neil Mammen, I consider myself a pop-apologist. I see my evening job as taking complex apologetic concepts, and simplifying it such that lay people can take timeless truths and rational arguments and use it in their daily discussions around the water cooler or class.

During the day, I design systems, circuits, ASICs and FPGAs as an engineer in Silicon Valley. I’ve done a lot of work in Video and Networking with about 4 startup companies and a few patents in my background. I grew up in Africa and the Middle East speaking Arabic and spent a lot of my younger life traveling and living around the world.

If you wish to read some of my other writings, and see a picture of the most gorgeous woman in the world (my wife) go over to my website www.NoBlindFaith.com or www.RationalFreeThinker.com.

The Background

A few months ago I was lucky enough be able to get one of the few non-student tickets to the Chris Hitchens vs. Jay Richards debate in a very crowded auditorium at Stanford University. Ben Stein of Expelled fame was moderating. Now for the sake of full disclosure I have to disclose that Jay Richards is a friend of mine so it makes sense that I’d be biased towards thinking he decimated Chris in the debate. However, you may find it interesting to note that even the founder of the “Atheists of Silicon Valley” agreed that Jay won the debate that day.

I would summarize the debate as such:

Jay: Here’s the evidence for the existence of God. (Lists the Moral, Telelogical, etc)

Chris: I hate religious people. Ad hominems, ad hominems, ad hominems, Mormons are weird and sick (goes off on some other unrelated issues)

Jay: We are not talking about Mormons? Let me expand on my previous arguments. (expands on it, does not take the ad Hominem bait)

Chris: Ad hominems, ad hominems, ad hominems, I have large sexual organs (seriously but uses the 4 letter words a juvenile would use). Religious people have killed lots of people.

Jay: Actually that’s not true (lists why, then provides more information on the previous arguments).

Chris: I have great sexual abilities, my male organ is humongous (says it the 7^th grade way again). Jay do you actually believe in the Resurrection and the Virgin birth.

Jay: Yes I do.…. By the way do notice who has been throwing out insults and not really answering any of my arguments.

Chris: Why are you whining about me insulting you. More ad homimes. I live for sex and have lots of kids.

And so the debate ended.

Seriously, that was it. OK OK for a more detailed report see the link at the bottom of this entry by a journalist who attended.

The encounter and the Claim

After the debate was over I went over to chat with Jay. He was busy at first talking to some of the organizers. But up on stage were a couple of Chris’s fellow atheists; one was sporting a very faded “Atheist of Silicon Valley” t-shirt (not the founder noted above).

They seemed to be a in a bad mood and it turned out that they felt that Chris had let them down and not dealt with any of the arguments properly. I’m not sure why they were so antagonistic (sour grapes maybe) but they seemed to want to attack everyone after they attacked Chris for being incompetent. Chris of course refused to talk with them and ran off, probably to meet some of his like minded Stanford professors. I wasn’t going to play since I avoid debating with upset people whenever I can help it. What the point of a friendly discussion if it’s neither friendly nor a discussion?

In those cases, I merely ask questions and register their responses. For some reason that seemed to irritate them more.

One of the statements they made was that “morals don’t come from a “god”, they come from our DNA.” My first question was: Wait, if that’s the case then why do we DO “immoral” things.

The retort back was: Don’t interrupt me! I didn’t say that we are slaves to our DNA, did I (as you can see he was a bit touchy).

“Oh”, I said. “Interesting. I’ll have to think about that.”

Let’s think about this

So now I’ve had time to think about it. It doesn’t seem to make sense, nor does it seem rational. Let me see if I can state the problems I’m having.

First, understand that this was said in the context of the standard moral arguments that had already been made. i.e.

1. You can’t say something is actually wrong without an absolute moral standard and
2. You can’t have an absolute moral standard unless there was an absolute moral standard giver.

But

1. The absolute moral standard giver has to be someone who has authority over all mankind, as anything else would merely be a cultural value or a preference and wouldn’t be “actually” wrong.

As I put it:

If there is NO absolute moral standard, why was Hitler wrong?

If there IS an absolute moral standard, why do YOU get to decide what that is and not Hitler?

OK given all that, you can see why an atheist may find DNA as a source of morality appealing.

But here’s the problem I see with the DNA theory: If DNA is the source of our morality then can anyone really say that something is ACTUALLY wrong? Why is slavery wrong? After all, for most of the history of the human race, the majority of the human race and human cultures have felt and believed that slavery was acceptable (as long as THEY weren’t the slaves).

Even Africans have had slaves (and still do in Sudan where I grew up), and from what I understand of Native American cultures, they had slaves of other tribes, so did South Americans. In the Indian subcontinent, the concept of discrimination and pseudo slavery still exists in the caste system. And even if you were to find a few exceptions to the rule, you could not argue that a majority of the civilizations in history thought slavery was immoral. So you would have no basis to imagine that any group had DNA that was prompting them to think slavery was bad.

It wasn’t until the 1800’s when a group of (non-enslaved) Christians decided that slavery was immoral and just as importantly, had ALWAYS been immoral. But this was based on what they claimed was a law from God. These religious freaks were so convicted of this that they convinced William Wilberforce to work to change the British laws and ban slavery. This movement came to the states with Christians and the Quakers agitating for freedom for all mankind and eventually to the birthing of the Republican party and the freeing of the slaves in the US.

Note this later resulted in the Civil Rights movement that allowed me to legally marry my gorgeous wife less than four decades years later.

So the question is: Did everyone’s DNA suddenly change in the late 1800’s? How can one fathom such a physical change? Note it seems to me that it’s not sufficient for a few influential people to “feel” slavery was wrong. DNA is a physical thing, and it’s only passed on by direct physical inheritance. Thus it seems to me that the only way an anti-slavery moral value could be passed on would be to one’s kids. But that concept sounds ludicrous, for that would mean, one person would believe slavery was wrong through some genetic drift or  mutation (an abnormal event) and he would pass that “conviction” down to his offspring. This belief would also have to allow those who believed in slavery being wrong to survive better than the slave owners, and eventually those who believed slavery was wrong would become predominant in the population and they would then change the laws and thus the culture or vice versa. But anyone would imagine that oppressing some other culture and forcing them to work for you can only be economically prosperous and advantageous to having larger families. I.e. if I own slaves and have lots of free labor, I can have more kids and they will be richer than those poor genetic freaks whose DNA has made them think having free slaver labor is somehow immoral. Or even those poor self-righteous religious freaks who think all men have rights from some non-existent God.

 Another Problem

And that’s just one problem. Another problem is seems is that if the moral code is written into our DNA, doesn’t that appear to refute evolution. After all the moral code seems to go expressly against the concept of selfish self preservation and survival of the fittest. Of course one could argue that our DNA has evolved in the last 6000 years of human civilization so now we “need” to be kind, sacrificial and share to survive. But that still doesn’t explain why sacrificing oneself for the sake of others who are not even related to you is of value. After all if as Dawkins has said, the gene is selfish, how selfish can a gene be if it’s willing to die to save the life of other people’s offspring. And how does that gene then get passed on. It would seem that the DNA of the people who survive would be the DNA that says DO NOT sacrifice your life for anybody but your own offspring.

So I’m curious how the DNA argument can stand. I’m open to suggestions. After all I could be wrong and could have missed something.

[For a journalist’s review of the Richards Hitchins debate go here:

I do not know the journalist, but coincidentally the insightful and articulate person he quotes toward the end of the review, with the last name Mammen is indeed my wife.]

David Berlinski, a secular Jew and author of The Devil’s Delusion (a great read, I might add), interviewed himself a couple of years ago here, and had this exchange with himself:

… But why should we take seriously religious beliefs that are lacking in evidence?

DB: We shouldn’t. But asking someone like Richard Dawkins about the evidence for God’s existence is a little like asking a quadruple amputee to run the marathon. The interesting point is elsewhere. There is no argument against religion that is not also an argument against mathematics. Mathematicians are capable of grasping a world of objects that lies beyond space and time ….

… Come again …DB: No need to come again: I got to where I was going the first time. The number four, after all, did not come into existence at a particular time, and it is not going to go out of existence at another time. It is neither here nor there. Nonetheless we are in some sense able to grasp the number by a faculty of our minds. Mathematical intuition is utterly mysterious. So for that matter is the fact that mathematical objects such as a Lie Group or a differentiable manifold have the power to interact with elementary particles or accelerating forces. But these are precisely the claims that theologians have always made as well – that human beings are capable by an exercise of their devotional abilities to come to some understanding of the deity; and the deity, although beyond space and time, is capable of interacting with material objects.

… And this is something that you, a secular Jew, believe? …

DB: What a question! I feel like I’m being interviewed by the Dean at some horrible community college. Do you believe in the university’s mission – that sort of thing. Look, I have no religious convictions and no religious beliefs. What I do believe is that theology is no more an impossible achievement than mathematics. The same rational standards apply. Does the system make sense; does it explain something? Are there deep principles at work. Is it productive? 

You can get Berlinski’s new book here.  Comments anyone?�