Atheism, Evolution, Religion

Strongly Religious Folks Have More Self-Control

1 Comment

This according to research published by Michael McCullough and Brian Willoughby.  Thanks to Wes Milam for bringing this article to my attention in the NY Times.

The researchers found that those who are intrinsically and strongly religious just have more self-control than those who don’t.  They are better able to withstand temptation and are less impulsive.  The non-religious, including extrinsic believers (those just going through the motions of religion) and outright non-believers, are, by comparison, more impulsive and exhibit less self-control.

There is also bad news for those devotees of a vague New Age concept of God as a spiritual force, much like the concept of God that Oprah Winfrey consistently promotes.  Their self-control was also worse than the strongly religious.   

Another interesting sidebar in the article is worth mentioning:

Researchers around the world have repeatedly found that devoutly religious people tend to do better in school, live longer, have more satisfying marriages and be generally happier.

Even though researchers have repeatedly found these things to be true, the media rarely report on such research, and so most of us aren’t aware of these findings, but thanks to the NY Times, now we are!

So religious people do better in school, live longer, have better marriages, are happier, are better able to withstand temptation, are less impulsive, and exhibit better self-control.  So what?  Does this prove any religion true?

Of course not, but it does show one important thing.  Any worldview worth following should work for its adherents.  It should genuinely improve their lives because they are believing in something that more closely conforms to reality. 

Over the long run, a worldview that sees reality more accurately is going to benefit its followers more than one that gets reality wrong.  This study shows that strongly religious worldviews really work for the adherent.  Believing in God, and taking that belief seriously, is a worldview that is good for people in their everyday lives. 

Some critics might claim that the religious are just self-deluded, but they have to explain why this self-delusion persists across all places, times, and peoples.  We find religion in the most primitive to the most advanced societies on earth, all over the earth, and all throughout history.  Where did this powerful delusion originate and why does it persist?  I’ve heard the evolutionary accounts of religious belief, but they are nothing more than bedtime stories without any shred of empirical evidence.  Scientific accounts without any evidence are not persuasive, but this doesn’t stop some scientists from telling these stories anyway.

Those of us who believe in God notice that it seems to be built into us, as if  God Himself placed it there.  When we believe, we are responding to a natural desire to know God that seems to be present in all mankind.  Some of us respond positively to this desire, and some of us negatively.  The research seems to show that those of us who respond positively are better at living life.

Evolution

Business Book Authors Should Avoid Writing About Evolution

Leave a comment

Last time I checked, scientists thought the earth was about 4.5 billion years old.  When I read the following paragraph from a prominent business author, I had trouble with his evolutionary math.  Maybe it’s just me, but you see if you can fit 4.5 billion years into his account of evolution.

It took several billion years on Earth for unicellular life to evolve. And it took another billion years or so for that single-celled life to evolve multi-cellular arrangements–each cell touching a few cells near it to make a living spherical organism. At first, the sphere was the only form multicellular life could take because its cells had to be near one another to coordinate their functions. After another billion years, life eventually evolved the first cellular neuron–a thin strand of tissue–which enabled two cells to communicate over a distance. With that single enabling innovation, the variety of life boomed.

I’m also fairly confident that we’ve discovered life that existed 3.5 billion years ago, so again, I’m struggling…  Does anyone want to defend our heroic champion of evolution?

Creation, Human Nature

How Are Human Beings Different From Other Animals?

17 Comments

I can remember having this debate with my friend, Mike, when I was in college.  He argued that humans are no different from other animals except for our larger brains.  There is nothing we can do that animals can’t do.  Animals just do things in a more primitive and basic fashion.

This always struck me as ridiculous, and I just ran across a quote from Professor Bruce Thornton at Fresno State University which explains the difference well:

 What makes us recognizably human, then, is not what is natural about us but what is unnatural: reason and its projections in language, culture, ritual, and technology, self-awareness, conscious memory, imagination, and the higher emotions; and, most important, values, ethics, morals, and the freedom from nature’s determinism that allows us to choose, whether for good or ill.  Nothing else in nature possesses any of these attributes, despite the wishful thinking of those who believe they are teaching chimps to “talk,” or who consider a monkey digging up termites with a stick to be “using tools,” or who label baboon rump-submission a “social practice,” or who subjectively interpret the behavior of animals to indicate the presence of “self-awareness” ore higher human emotions such as love, grief, regret, guilt, shame, or loyalty.  For every dog that howls over the body of its dead master there is another that, if necessary, will happily eat his corpse.

Well said, professor.

Mormonism

Are We All Children Of God?

4 Comments

One of the central doctrines of Mormonism is that every human being is a spirit child of God.   They teach that we were each born as a spirit child of Heavenly Father and one of His wives.  This teaching is central to the faith as it lays the ground work for further doctrines such as eternal families and eternal progression onto Godhood.  However, does the Bible teach that we are ALL children of God?  I would have to say no. 

 The Bible teaches that when we accept Christ we are adopted in as a child of God.  Being called a child of God is a gift to believers given as a result of what Christ did for us.

John 1:12 says “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” (Emphasis mine)

This verse makes it very clear that it is only those who believe in Christ who are children of God.   Another key verse…

Romans 8:14 “because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God”

It is only those who are led by God that can be called children of God.  You might say, “So what!  This is just a minor difference in doctrine and does not really matter.”  I disagree.  The Bible makes it very clear that to be called a child of God is a GIFT that has been given to us by Christ and that it is only through accepting Him that we can profess to be God’s children.  To say that someone who refuses to follow Jesus Christ is a child of God is a slap in the face to Christ.  It is minimizing Christ’s sacrifice for us.

Darrell

Essential Beliefs, Inerrancy

Is the Doctrine of Inerrancy an Essential Doctrine of Christianity?

9 Comments

I recently posted on the essential doctrines of Christianity, and I left out a doctrine that probably surprised many traditional Christians: inerrancy. 

The reason I left this doctrine out is because I was defining an essential doctrine as one that must be true for salvation.  A person does not have to believe that the Bible is inspired by God, and therefore inerrant, in order to be saved.  Many people have been saved in the history of the world without ever reading a Bible and even knowing what the word inerrant means.

However, the doctrine of inerrancy is an essential doctrine in another way.  If the Bible is not inerrant, then we lose our confidence in the doctrines that must be true for our salvation.  The Bible teaches that Christ is God, that He died on a cross for our sins, and that He was resurrected.  If the Bible has errors in it, then how can we know that these things are true?

Whenever I meet people who deny inerrancy, but they firmly believe Christ died for their sins, I ask them how they know that those verses in the Bible talking about Christ dying for their sins are true.  Maybe those are the very verses that are in error!  I have never heard a reasonable answer to this question.

Inerrancy provides the foundation for our knowing the revelation of God.  If you don’t affirm inerrancy, you can’t be sure of  the very gospel you claim to believe.  Inerrancy is the firm ground we stand on to affirm everything we believe about God.  Take it away, and you have two feet planted firmly in thin air.

Islam

From Islam to Christianity

2 Comments

I just saw a fascinating documentary on Fox, called Escape from Hamas,  about an up-and-coming leader of Hamas becoming disillusioned with the teachings of Hamas and radical Islam.  The documentary tells how he, Mosab Hassan, converted to Christianity and is now living in America and hoping to spread the word about the extremism within Hamas and radical Islam, and the hope that he found in Christ.  It is a riveting documentary that you don’t want to miss.

Fox plans on showing it several more times today and tomorrow, so set your DVR to record it.

Creation

What Do Evangelicals Think About Creation?

8 Comments

Som people believe that if you are an evangelical, then you must believe that God created the earth and the entire universe in a six day period of time, about 6,000 – 10,000 years ago.  In addition, you must believe that the entire universe was also created 6,000 – 10,000 years ago.  This view is known as young-earth creation, and it is certainly popular with many evangelicals.

However, it is not true that this is the only position that evangelicals take.  There are several other positions, such as the literary-framework view, revelatory-day view, alternate-day-age view, and gap theory.

Perhaps the leading contender to the young-earth view, among evangelicals,  is the old-earth or progressive creation view.  Proponents of old-earth creation view the events in Genesis 1 and 2 as real, historical occurrences, but they interpret the “days” in Genesis as long periods of time.  They endorse the findings of geology, astronomy, and physics, which date the earth at about 4.5 billion years old and the entire universe at about 13.8 billion years old.

Some evangelicals dismiss old-earth creation (truth be told, many aren’t even aware of it) because they believe it does not interpret Genesis literally, but that is not the case.  A literal interpretation simply means that a person interprets the meaning of a writing as the original author intended, taking into account the literary style and structure of the writing.

For example, almost all evangelical scholars believe that the events depicted in Genesis were written in the form of historical narrative, and not in the form of mythology or allegory.  Writers of mythology and allegory often provide clear textual queues that indicate those genres.   The text of Genesis, however, reads like a historical narrative.

Many well-known evangelical scholars, who believe that the creation events of Genesis are part of a historical narrative, have interpreted the “days” in Genesis as long periods of time, and not 24-hour days.   It is simply not true to claim that young-earth creationists are the only ones interpreting Genesis literally.  There are several possible literal interpretations of Genesis 1-2, and young-earth creation represents one of those possible interpretations.

There is a further point that needs making.  The age of the earth is not an issue that divides Christian from non-Christian.  It does not determine anyone’s salvation.  All of the views mentioned above assert that God created the universe in a supernatural way and that He created the first human beings in a supernatural way.  So let’s keep these disagreements in perspective.

Intelligent Design

Do Intelligent Design Theorists Really Use the Scientific Method?

3 Comments

A common criticism of ID is that its proponents are not interested in the scientific method and, in fact, are setting out to hinder science and the scientific method by answering “God” whenever a tough scientific problem surfaces.

This criticism, however, is false. Read this  brief article written by an ID proponent to see that they do indeed use the scientific method, just like any other scientist would.

A Christian Apologetics Blog