Category Archives: Religion

Atheism, Philosophy, Religion

Can Science Answer the Most Important Questions of Life?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Have you ever noticed that the most important questions in life cannot be conclusively answered by the scientific method of empirical observation and experimentation?

We can use science to study the weather, to create wireless communication, to study the respiratory systems of whales, to better see the stars, to learn about soil erosion, to build skyscrapers, and to fly aircraft.

All of these subjects yield themselves to scientific investigation such that mankind can eventually come to know these areas in extraordinary detail and precision.  We just continue collecting data, analyzing data, and testing hypotheses – over and over again until we finally understand.

These subjects are all wonderful, in and of themselves, but they aren’t what’s truly important.  What about God, love, friendship, morality, heaven and hell, human consciousness, the meaning of life, the origin of the universe?  These are the questions that strike us in the middle of the night when a loved one is in the ICU at the hospital, or when we witness the birth of a child, or when we suffer financial ruin, or when we contemplate marrying the person we love, or when we just have some peace and quiet and can immerse ourselves in deep thought.

None of these questions ultimately lend themselves to the scientific method, but they are the most important questions.

My family loves the silly movie Nacho Libre.  In the movie, one of the characters is asked if he believes in God, and he answers, “I don’t believe in God.  I believe in science.”

It is fitting that the movie is a comedy because this response is truly comical.  The person who believes in only science is fundamentally punting on all the major questions of life.  They are saying, in effect, “We are going to limit ourselves to the lesser things of life, the things we can know with a high degree of scientific certainty.”

It’s comical, but it’s also sad.  What impoverished existence – cutting off oneself from the only things that ultimately matter.

Atheism, Religion, Skeptics

Is God a Crutch?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Critics of Christianity and of religion, in general, like to take a page from Sigmund Freud and accuse believers of forming their beliefs for purely psychological reasons.  Freud held that believers are projecting their need for a father figure on God.  God is merely a psychological projection of the ideal father.  God, in other words, is just a crutch for those who can’t face the difficulties of life.  Larry King once asked a Christian pastor if Christianity was a crutch, and the pastor replied, “No, I see it as more of a hospital.  We are all in serious condition and desperately need help!”

Are there psychological reasons for belief in God?  Of course there are.  There are psychological reasons for everything we do and everything we believe, but this fact has nothing to say about whether God really exists.  That, my friends, is an entirely different question.

I may very much want to believe that my wife loves me, for psychological reasons, but does the fact that I have this need prove my wife does not love me?  No.  It just doesn’t follow.  Likewise, I may yearn for a heavenly father, but does my yearning prove he doesn’t exist.  Obviously not.

Christians may have their psychological reasons for wanting God to exist, but atheists have their psychological reasons for wanting God to not exist.  According to Paul Vitz, a psychologist who has extensively studied the psychology of atheism, many atheists don’t believe in God because they have unresolved hatred for their earthly father figure.  I have seen this in my friends who are atheists.  Philosopher J. P. Moreland recounts his experience: “I have spoken on more than 200 college campuses and in more than 40 states in the last 40 years, and it has become apparent to me that atheists regularly have deep-seated, unresolved emotional conflicts with their father figures.”

Moreland continues to explain a second psychological reason for atheism.  “People want to be liberated from traditional morality so they can engage in any sexual behavior that satisfies them without guilt, shame, or condemnation.”  If you are a person who is engaged in all sorts of illicit sexual activity, it is absolutely in your interest to reject God.  A few atheists that have visited this blog have admitted that they enjoy sexual pursuits that Christians would find objectionable.  They argue that what they are doing is harmless, and that any religion which tells them the opposite cannot be true.

There are undoubtedly other reasons for denying God’s existence, but the point is that atheists, like believers, have psychological motives.  We all do.

What do we do with this information?  Well, first of all, we should all look within ourselves and reflect on what our motivations are.  Let’s face them and not deny them.

But let’s all remember that at the end of the day, all of these psychological reasons are not ultimately why we should believe or disbelieve.  Our view of God should be based on solid, rational arguments.  We should all know why we believe what we believe and we should stop accusing those who disagree with us of being completely irrational.  It gets us nowhere.

Debating psychology will never determine whether God exists or not, or whether Jesus was resurrected from the dead.  Psychology can only tell us some of the motives for our beliefs.  While that is interesting, it is not the most important question.

Atheism, Religion

No Surprise: Brit Teens Don't Like God

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Roger Morris, on the Faith Interface blog, analyzes a recent study that finds British teens taking a decidedly negative view of religion.  The reason I say it’s no surprise is that I have interacted with many British adults during my career in the semiconductor industry, and the majority are apathetic or hostile toward religion.  They have clearly passed this on to their children, whom they have set adrift on a sea of moral relativism.

Check out the study and Roger’s analysis.  It’s depressing, but well worth reading.

Atheism, General Apologetics, Miracles, Religion

If Only I Could See a Miracle, I Would Believe

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

If you are a person who says this about Christianity, excuse me for being skeptical.

God performed miracles through Moses, and yet Pharaoh did not believe.

God performed miracles through Elijah, and yet Jezebel did not believe.

Jesus performed numerous miracles that confirmed his power over sickness, weather, and even death.  Ultimately he rose from the dead.  Yet still some who saw these miracles did not believe.

God has provided plenty of evidence that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and rose from the dead.  If you are a person who has heard the gospel message and understood it, but you continue to demand more evidence in the form of miracles, ask yourself if there isn’t another problem.

Is it possible that you just don’t want to believe?  Is it possible that no matter how much evidence you are shown, that no matter how many times God reveals himself to you, that you just will not believe?

If that is the case, search your own heart and figure out why you don’t want to believe.  Where is this barrier of belief coming from?  We can answer your questions about Christianity, but until you deal with your will, our answers will remain unpersuasive.

Atheism, Religion

Does Religion Kill?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

There is no doubt that religious people throughout history have killed people, at least partly because of their religious beliefs.  Even Christians have been guilty.

But many prominent atheists accuse religion, and especially Christianity, of mass killings and argue that if the world could rid itself of religious belief and turn to atheism, we would create a true utopia.  If only we could escape the fairy tales of religion, society would vastly improve and the killing might stop, or at least greatly decrease.

But wait a second.  There have been atheist governments who believed in science and reason, and looked with scorn upon organized religion.  What was their track record?  Instead of guessing what the results might be, let’s look at history.  Following is a book excerpt from The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Bible by Robert J. Hutchinson, that I found at Truthbomb Apologetics:

Religion the greatest danger to world peace? Think again

Contrary to what anti-religious zealots such as [Sam] Harris assert, throughout history far more lives have been snuffed out by faith-hating fanatics than by religious believers.

Historical demographers estimate that, in the 350 years between 1478 and 1834, the Spanish Inquisition was responsible for the execution of between 2,000 (Encyclopedia Britannica) and 32,000 people (Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews, 1987.)

That works out to about ninety-seven people a year- a ghastly number, to be sure, but a far cry from the “millions” routinely cited by secular fundamentalists.

As for the “witch hunts,” another example Harris and others give as irrational religious fanaticism, the British historian Norman Davies estimates 50,000 people, primarily women, were executed as witches over a four-hundred year period-an average of about 125 a year.

Yet as horrible as these examples of religious intolerance may be, they pale in comparison with the single-minded, bloodthirsty, satanic fury unleashed upon the innocent by secular fundamentalists-those militantly atheistic regimes that sought to expunge religious belief and “bourgeois” morality represented intolerable obstacles to social progress.

According to research conducted by the political scientist Rudolph Rummel at the University of Hawaii, the officially atheist states of the Communist bloc committed more acts of genocide than any societies in governments in the twentieth century-communist, socialist, fascist-equals about 170 million.

  • USSR: 61 million people murdered 1917-1987
  • Communist China: 35,2 million people murdered 1949-present
  • Mao’s army: 3.4 million people murdered 1923-1949
  • Nazi Germany: 20 million people murdered 1932-1945
  • Communist Poland: 1.6 million people murdered 1945-1948
  • Communist Cambodia: 2 million people murdered 1975-1979
  • Communist Vietnam: 1.6 million people murdered 1945-1975
  • Communist Yugoslavia: 1 million people murdered 1944-1987
  • Anti-Christian Mexican Revolution: 1.4 million people murdered 1900-1920
  • Turkey:1.8 million people murdered 1900-1918
  • Pakistan: 1.5 million people murdered 1958-1987
  • Japan: 5.9 million people murdered 1936-1945

…Rummel’s conclusion is as shocking as it is inescapable: War wasn’t the most deadly evil to afflict humanity in the twentieth century. Government was! And not just any government, but atheist government.

As a result, ordinary people-whether religious or not-might be forgiven their general skepticism when today’s secular fundamentalists talk about the “intolerance” and “violence” of biblical religion or the people who believe in it.

In terms of raw numbers-which is the only kind of evidence that rationalists such as Harris claim to accept-the evidence is incontrovertible: Freed of any moral restraint, believing that the ends justify the means, scoffing at the notion that they will ever answer to a power higher than themselves, the murderous dictators of atheistic regimes feel little hesitation in committing mass murder if they believe it will advance their more “rational,” more “scientific” social aims.

Now, I don’t believe that an atheistic government is always going to cause this kind of bloodshed, but I think it is time to drop the argument that Christians, in the name of religion, commit mass murder, when the evidence squarely rests on the other side.

Essential Beliefs, Mormonism, Religion

Thoughts On This Past Sunday

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We had The Lord’s Supper this past Sunday.  For the Mormons reading this, the Lord’s Supper is essentially the same as partaking of “The Sacrament”.  It was a wonderful experience!  We started the service by Baptizing several new members/believers and the Spirit of Christ filled the chapel the entire evening.  Some close friends and their children were among those baptized… it brought tears to my eyes!!

Our Pastor shared some thoughts I found to be particularly significant in light of the common Latter Day Saint claim all Christian denominations are in disagreement with one another.  At the beginning of The Lord’s Supper he said:

“This is not Cornerstone’s (our church) table or the Baptist’s table.  This is Christ’s table.  If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, no matter what denomination you belong to, you are welcome to partake.  For we are all one family… all of us who are believer’s in The Lord Jesus Christ.  This is His meal.  Please feel free to partake.”

We, meaning all believer’s no matter what church you attend, are all one family! 

I had a similar experience a few weeks ago while attending a Methodist Church.  I, as a Baptist, was invited to speak to a Sunday School class (sounds like disagreement, huh!!) and decided to attend their service as well.  They were having The Lord’s Supper and, while blessing the bread and juice, the Minister expressed the exact same view.  Knowing I am a member of another denomination he freely gave me The Lord’s Supper with a smile on his face.  It was wonderful!

My being invited to teach Sunday School at a Methodist Church as well as the thoughts shared by both of these ministers are in direct contradiction to the Mormon claim all Christian Denominations are in disagreement and fight against one another.  In my personal experience nothing could be farther from the truth!  The Church I attend does not profess itself to be “God’s only true church on the face of the earth”.  Instead we, as members of  Cornerstone Baptist Church, profess ourselves to be part of Christ’s Global Church…  which consists of all who confess Him as Lord and Savior –  whether they be Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Non-Denominational, etc.  

Many Mormons fail to understand that while the denominations may disagree on minor, non-essential issues, most of us are in agreement on the essentials –The Nature of God, The Nature of Man, Deity of Christ, Salvation By Faith Alone, etc.  These are issues which effect salvation and which unite us all as Christ’s Body of Believers.  Other minor, non-essential issues (whether to partake of The Lord’s Supper Weekly or Monthly, Baptism by immersion or sprinkling, etc) are of no consequence to salvation and thus we grant liberty in these areas.  In contrast, the reason we cannot accept members of the LDS Faith as Christian is precisely because they are in disagreement with us on the essential issues – those which do have an impact on salvation.

As Augustine said…

“In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.”

All praise be to Christ!

Darrell

Atheism, Evolution, Philosophy, Religion, Truth

Can Naturalistic Evolution Yield True Beliefs About Reality?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

Philosopher Ken Samples, in a recent “New Reasons to Believe” (Vol 1 , No 1) publication, argues that naturalistic evolution cannot explain how human beings can have true beliefs about anything.  Naturalistic evolution posits that there only exists the material, natural world around us.

Everything that exists is the result of  random, material processes working over billions of years.  According to naturalists, the ultimate result of those natural processes is the wonder of the human mind.  So why doesn’t this theory make sense?

Samples offers three reasons.  First, “Naturalism postulates a nonrational source for man’s rationality.”  Naturalists believe that nonrational, impersonal, unintelligent, and purposeless processes produced rational, personal, intelligent, and purposeful human minds.

But, as Samples argues, every effect must have a cause greater than itself.  This is exactly the opposite of what the naturalists would have us believe!  The effect of the human mind is orders of magnitude greater than its alleged cause, the matter of which it is composed.  Samples concludes that the naturalist “is assuming a trustworthy reasoning process only to conclude that his reasoning is is ultimately untrustworthy.”

Second, Samples argues that “evolution promotes a species’ survivability, not its true beliefs.”  Natural selection, the primary evolutionary mechanism, only selects for survival.  But having true beliefs about the world is not always required for animal survival.  One can think of examples where an animal’s beliefs about its surrounding environment are irrelevant to its survival.

Human beings survived for thousands of years without knowing about the theory of relativity or quantum mechanics or the DNA double helix.  Are knowledge of the laws of logic and geometric proofs necessary for humans to reproduce?  Our knowledge about the world seems to be complete overkill for evolutionary survival.

Third, Samples reasons that “false beliefs illustrate evolutionary naturalism’s epistemological unreliability.”  Many atheists today argue that mankind’s beliefs about God, morality, and life after death are mere evolutionary vestiges that must have served some survival purpose in the past.

It seems that almost all of humankind, through recorded history, has held that God exists.  Evolutionists admit this, but answer that this belief was necessary in the past, but is no longer necessary.  It is left over from man’s earlier evolutionary stages.

But that means that evolution can produce false beliefs about reality.  Naturalistic evolutionists strongly urge that religious beliefs are false, but they also believe evolution produced these beliefs.  Samples asks:

If evolutionary naturalism can cause a person to believe that which is false (such as religiously oriented beliefs) in order to promote survivability, then what confidence can evolutionists muster that their convictions are reliable, true beliefs?  And if evolution cannot guarantee true beliefs in a person’s mind then how does one know that belief in evolutionary naturalism itself is a true belief about the world?

Maybe naturalism is just evolution’s false belief du jour.  There is no way for evolutionists to know!  Now that is some serious irony.

Christians, on the other hand, are able to easily explain the human mind and its ability to have true beliefs.  A rational, personal, intelligent, and purposeful God is the source of our rational, personal, intelligent, and purposeful human minds.

Samples concludes, “Such conceptual realities as logic, mathematics, knowledge, and truth flow from a supremely intelligent divine mind.”  In this case, the cause more than adequately explains the effect.

Religion, Salvation

Poll Says American Christians Don't Believe Jesus is the Only Way

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My response to this article might surprise some of you.

The article discusses a recent report which indicates that 37% of evangelicals rejected the claim that Jesus is the only way to heaven.  52% of American Christians agreed that religions other than Christianity can lead to eternal life.  But what does this data mean?  Should we moan and groan that Christians don’t understand the teachings of their own faith?  Maybe, but I think there’s another side to the story.

There is no doubt, from the Bible, that absolutely nobody gets to heaven without Christ’s death and resurrection, both of which were necessary to reconcile man with God.  The tougher question is this:  how is Christ’s sacrifice applied to people who never hear the gospel?

I, for one, do not like this line of questioning in a survey or poll because it puts the Christian in an awkward position.  The requirement that every person, whether they’ve heard the gospel or not, put their faith in Christ is a nuanced issue that requires some explanation and does not lend itself to multiple choice answers.  It’s like being asked to describe God in five words or less.  It can’t be done!

The truth is that we aren’t given specific knowledge of which other individuals are going to heaven and which aren’t because we don’t know other people’s hearts and minds.  God doesn’t tell us.  Many Christians act as if we do know, but we just don’t.

The New Testament teaches us that we should believe in Jesus for eternal life, and it says this over and over and over again (read the book of John if you don’t believe me).  So we have this positive command, to believe in Jesus, and it is a clear and plain teaching that the biblical authors wanted to make sure we understood.  Another clear teaching is that those who have heard of Christ and rejected Him are in eternal jeopardy.  We can be sure of these truths.

The New Testament, on the other hand, does not spend a lot of time talking about followers of other world religions who have never heard  of the authentic biblical Jesus.   Theologians have tried to explain what happens to those who never hear, but none of these proposals warrant dogmatism because of the scant biblical evidence.

I know that God wants people to believe in Christ.  I know that those who reject Christ will be separated from God.  The Bible teaches those things clearly, but I don’t know, for sure, what happens when a person is unable to hear or respond to the gospel of Christ.

I believe that many Christians know John 14:6 and they know Romans 10:9, but some pollster calls them and puts them on the spot: “Is Jesus the only way to heaven?”  Polls don’t allow for nuanced answers.  They demand black and white answers, and frankly, I can sympathize with those being asked this difficult question, most of whom are not theologians who study this issue every day.

A much better question to put to Christians would be: “Does the Bible teach that believing in Jesus leads to eternal life?”  I think the vast majority of Christians would answer “yes.”

A follow-up question could be: “Should Christians tell others about Jesus so that they, too, can have eternal life?”  Again, I think a great percentage would say “yes.”

Let’s focus on what we know.