Alden Swan dot com

Okay, every once in a while I just have to comment on the ridiculous nature of certain atheists’ attempts to appear superior to people who don’t think “faith” is a bad word. I really should just unsubscribe to the Debunking Christianity blog, but it’s like a train wreck — as bad as it is, you just have to watch.

Today John once again promotes his outsider test for faith, “to test their own adopted religious faith from the perspective of an outsider with the same level of skepticism they use to evaluate other religious faiths.”

It’s an interesting challenge, to be sure. I don’t disagree that this proposal has some merit; too many Christians don’t understand why Christianity is a uniquely valid belief, and we should. As Peter wrote, we should be ready to give an answer for our faith (1 Pet. 3:15).

The problem is to do so without accepting without question another belief system in the process, which can potentially “stack the deck” against Christianity. As I’m certain I’ve mentioned before (I don’t have the energy or time to search the archives), it seems that many people who leave Christianity do so because they unquestionably accept certain facets of modernism.  Trying to make Christianity fit into a completely modernist worldview is like fitting the proverbial square peg into a round hole.

All of us in the western world have been raised breathing and eating modernism since we were born; we cannot really conceive of a different way of thinking, and accept without question that our worldview or paradigm is simply “the way things are.”  In reality, modernism is a grid developed through which to view the world. Prior to Descartes, it didn’t exist.  The Bible doesn’t conform to modernist thought, because it was not written by modernists.

This creates issues for doctrines like inerrancy, where writings from an ancient oriental culture are held to modernist standards; it is exactly like forcing a square peg into a round hole.

But, we in the west are all now modernists, whether we like it or not (even so-called post-modernists). What is frustrating for those of us who realize that modernism is not necessarily the way things are is that we can’t even analyze modernism without resorting to modernist methods.

The Problem With Modernism

This creates a problem, as explained by series of philosophers from Hume to Godel (and beyond). Hume began by challenging the core principle of causality. While we can predict based on past events that flipping a switch will turn on the lights, we can never guarantee that this will happen the next time, or prove that it was the switch which caused the lights to come on.

Kant explored this further, discovering that there must be limitations to reason itself, as reason must be limited by the limited categories of the mind. Skipping ahead, Godel showed mathematically that a system can only be substantiated by something outside the system. In other words, we can show that reason is limited and flawed, but we can never prove that it is not. So far, no one has been able to refute the basic challenge issued by Hume.

Modernism is essentially the worldview that says everything can be analyzed objectively and rationally, but cannot prove that it ever works. In other words, you must accept modernism and rationalism by faith.

The Failure of Loftus’ Outsider Test For Faith

The OTF fails because it requires someone to subject a non-modern belief system to a modernist analysis, which cannot be proven to have any validity whatsoever. The only thing it can do is to mislead someone into thinking that modernism is, in fact, the way it is.  Because the square peg cannot fit nicely into this imaginary round hole (a better analogy, perhaps, is trying to stuff the entire universe into a hat), people are left having to choose: a flawed faith in modernism, or Christianity.  It is, of course, a false dichotomy, but as we know, lies are the devil’s only real weapons.

But of course, Stephen Hawking, who has assured us that we no longer have any need to believe in God, also asserts that philosophy is dead. Obviously, Hawking’s reason has met its limitations.

From Cornelius Hunter at Darwin’s God, discussing The Real Conflict Between Science and Religion:

But as Henry Kissinger described academia, the battles are so fierce because the stakes are so small. From the outside the conflict between atheist evolutionists and theist evolutionists is rather meaningless. For the atheists, in spite of all their bluster, are no different than the theists in their religious beliefs. They call themselves atheists, but their convictions about god are as strong as anyone’s. (see examples here and here).

So yes many evolutionists are atheists, but as usual the theology rules. Evolutionists are either theists who hold strong religious convictions or atheists who hold strong religious convictions. Either way the science suffers. I guess you could say there is a conflict between religion and science after all.

Interesting perspective.  But does the science have to suffer?  I’m not necessarily convinced.

He also states (earlier in the post),

… a recent poll showed that a majority of scientists (51%) say they believe in God or a higher power. And that is up from the 42% who responded similarly almost a century ago in 1914.

The problem is not so much that religion conflicts with science as it co-opts science.

Again, interesting perspective – and I’ll let it go at that.

[About the motivational poster:  It's a double-entendre.]

I think about atheism more than probably most people, perhaps because I have friends who are atheists.  I am interested in their motivations and thought processes. I also find some of the philosophical arguments for and against the existence of God somewhat intriguing, although I’m not one to hang my hat on any particular philosophical argument.  For that matter, I don’t think many people do – including many who say they do.  I suspect that on either side of the question, philosophical arguments are often merely comforting myths and bedtime stories, meant to put our minds to rest.  (Real faith, on the other hand, is something much deeper.)   For both of the above reasons, over the past few years I’ve read some of the top-selling atheist books (which I’ve reviewed here occasionally), and I’ve been subscribing to some of the better atheist blogs.

Overall, I’m quite disappointed in the state of modern atheism.

I had expected to find new and fresh thinking – after all, these are the self-proclaimed free-thinkers and intellectuals – but instead have found that there’s very little free-thinking or deep-thinking going on.  An exception would be someone like Bradley Monton, who is perhaps more of a free-thinker than most atheists prefer.  What I typically find are ad-hominems, straw-men (or straw-gods), false appeals to authority, question-begging, hand-waving, red herrings and a lot of bluster.  Much of the time it seems atheists are merely trying to prove to themselves that they haven’t missed something; at least that’s how it often comes across.

Frankly, I’m bored with it.  Real philosophy and theology are so much more interesting.  Unless atheism starts going outside the “why evangelical Christianity and modernism don’t mix” box, it’s pretty much a waste of time (I would tend to agree that they don’t mix, anyway).  Most “de-conversion” stories I’ve read seem to result from failed attempts to rationalize Christianity with modernism, which is in my opinion an exercise in futility.

I have a theory that if many of these deconverts had looked to a pre-modern faith – say, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism or even Anglicanism – they would not have deconverted.  From reading various deconversion “testimonies,” it seems that most issues – when they weren’t simply moral issues – had to do with disillusionment with a Christianity that wanted badly to fit within a rather small modernist box.  Exposure to a Christianity which disregards that box, or at least downplays its importance, may have actually opened their minds rather than closing them to anything spiritual. But, I could be wrong.  If people were highly committed modernists, which many atheists seem to be, perhaps that is barrier enough to any sort of religious influence.

But I digress.

Atheistic arguments that target modern, redacted versions of Christianity are typically uninspiring and unproductive.   Besides being bored with the repetitive atheistic responses, I have no desire to argue for a modernist version of Christianity.  So, you see, I find most of the discussions rather inane.  While some atheist blogs will do what they can to keep the dream alive, I probably won’t even bother to read or comment about them any longer (unless I run across anything out of the ordinary).  If someone says something remarkable, feel free to let me know.

In the meantime, I’ll continue studying and writing on more substantial issues, such as continuing my series examining the differences between Western and Eastern Christianity, as well as tossing in the occasional post on atheism, because sometimes I just can’t help myself.