We now come to my final post on the topic of Ken Ham’s book, How Could a Loving God?, in which he attempts to address the topic of suffering and death. In my first three posts, I gave an overview and critique of Ham’s answer. In a nutshell, the problem with Ham’s YECist answer to the issue of suffering boils down to the following: (A) It wrongly assumes that there was an original “perfect” creation that was screwed up by two literal people 6,000 years ago; (B) It ends up with a theology similar to Job’s friends—i.e. you suffer because you deserve it, and (C) It thinks God’s salvation, therefore, entails God restoring everything back to a Edenic state—salvation is a “getting back to the original.”
Everything about that “answer” is wrong. By the same token, so is the kind of answer of the “health and wealth gospel”—i.e. if you’re suffering (or not rich!), it means you simply don’t have enough faith. Both “answers,” are, in fact, futile attempts to “defend” God (as if He needs someone to defend Him!) and blame people who are going through suffering for their own suffering.
So how can we reconcile the idea of a loving God with the reality of a world in which there are things like earthquakes, tornados, cancer, genocide, abuse, rape, and divorce? What follows is what I have come to conclude about the matter.
The Reality Check of the Book of Job
To cut to the chase, the answer to suffering that the Book of Job provides is not really satisfactory or reassuring. Job loses all his possessions destroyed by a foreign army, his children are killed in a natural disaster, and he himself is the victim of disease. After 35 chapters of his so-called friends telling him that he is to blame for his own suffering and his insistence that God is the one responsible for doing all this to him, and then demanding that God come down and give him an answer as to why, God shows up and basically says, “Yeah, I’m the one responsible! No, I don’t owe you an explanation! When you can take your fishing line, go out into the sea, reel Leviathan in like a marlin, and thus prove you’re on my level, then I’ll owe you an explanation—until then, shut your mouth! I’m God, you’re not. I don’t owe you jack.”
At the same time, though, God does make it quite clear that the answer that Job’s friends were peddling was completely wrong: the reason why suffering happens is not because people “deserve” it. God’s “answer” is simple: Suffering and death happen because suffering and death happen—deal with it. God isn’t in the mood to give you answers.
The Gospel and the New Testament
The answer, though, is given in the life of Jesus and the testimony of the New Testament. But no, the answer is not probably the kind of answer anyone is going to be necessarily happy about, because the answer is really hard.
Unfortunately, it seems too many churches present a version of the Gospel that completely misses everything. The presentation goes something like this: You’re a sinner; you’ve ticked God off, but He still loves you; but the good news is that Jesus came and suffered for you so that you can be happy, find fulfillment, and avoid hell and go to heaven when you die. Well, I think that just really misses the point. Yes, it is something we’ve heard since 2nd grade Sunday School, but it’s not really right.
Well, to cut to the chase, the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus gives us the answer and explanation for suffering in this world. The answer is this: Transformation and salvation only comes through suffering. Resurrection life only comes after, actually through, death. In short, Jesus did not come to save us from suffering. He came, unjustly suffered, died, and then defeated death by resurrection in order to give us the reason for suffering in this world. In the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ, we see suffering and death infused with meaning and purpose.
Suffering, pain, and death are inevitable in this created order. They are a part of God’s original creation. But this created order, God’s original creation, is not the finished product. It is phase one. Phase two is a transformed, sanctified re-creation, and the way to get from phase one to phase two is through suffering and death. “Phase one” is what is being described in Genesis 1-3: creation is good, human beings are created in God’s image, yet they still are sinful and imperfect, and suffering and death are a reality. “Phase two” is promised in Genesis 3:15, where God promises that somehow, through humanity (i.e. the woman’s offspring) He would eventually put an end to suffering and death and “crush the head” of the serpent, and yet in the process of doing that, the heel of the woman’s offspring would be bruised.
This is what Paul is getting at when he discusses the resurrection in I Corinthians 15: Adam (i.e. corruptible humanity) is a man of dust, the natural body that is “sown” (i.e. die) is perishable; but Christ is the Second Adam, and through Him, the natural body that is sown perishable will be resurrected in the power of the imperishable Holy Spirit. The Good News is that in Christ, we will conquer death and be transformed to bear the image of Christ, the man of heaven.
But that Good News is not easy news. It is extremely hard news, because it requires that we respond to suffering, pain and death in faith. The Good News of Christ says, “There is a way to defeat death, but it means taking up your cross, bearing unjust suffering, and following Christ into death. Do you trust Him to take you out the other side?”
Reality Check
To use a biblical allusion, in this life each one of us are bound to be thrown into a fiery furnace or two. That’s what happens in this “Phase one” of this creation. It will happen in your life. No one is immune to suffering, pain, and death. When you really realize that—when you experience your own personal hell at some point in your life—only then will you start to truly understand just how scandalously horrific and insane the Good News of Christ is: it offers the promise to conquer it all, but it demands that you surrender to the pain and offer your life as a sacrifice. It says that in order to be glorified with Christ you must take up a cross and suffer with Him. You must go through the fiery furnace. Whether it burns you up completely or purifies and transforms you is dependent on how you respond to it.
The hard answer the Gospel gives is that suffering and death is the means by which God will bring about something greater. And let me be clear: it isn’t an answer anyone should stand up and applaud and shout out a superficial, “Praise Jesus! Oh, happy day!” It’s an answer that, speaking from personal experience, should make you stop and say, “Oh crap, he really meant that ‘taking up your cross’ thing.”
Now, I doubt I’m ever going to suffer in a concentration camp or anything that horrific. Some people have experienced atrocities I will never be able to really imagine. But over the past ten years, a number of things have happened in my life that have been really hard: my wife’s cancer and chemotherapy during the pregnancy of our son; a bitter divorce and custody battle a little over a year later that dragged out for two more years; then during that same time, getting fired from my job as a Biblical Worldview teacher of eight years because the new headmaster was a YECist zealous acolyte of Ken Ham who found me to be a threat to the faith of the students and said I spoke with the voice of the serpent because I didn’t believe the earth was 6,000 years old. Ever since then, for the past five years, I haven’t had a full-time job, while at the same time being a single-parent, raising a child on the autism spectrum all by myself.
Life has been hard.
So why haven’t I chucked my faith and walked away from Christianity? Well, for one, my study of the Bible has simply convinced that Christianity is true. There have been many times when I would have loved to have chucked it all, but damn it, if I did, I would be turning my back on what I knew to be true. Like Peter, when Jesus asked, “Do you want to leave too?” I’ve found myself saying, “Oh believe me, I’d love to right now! But where would I go? You have the words of eternal life.”
Secondly, as much as I hate to admit it, as I was going through the worst of all that stuff, I realized that on virtually every page of the New Testament, that whole “suffering/take up your cross” thing was staring me in the face. And thus, I was shocked to find that even my suffering and hardship actually served to further convince me of the truth of Christianity—yeah, this is the way it goes, whether I like it or not. There are only two choices: go through the pain in the hope that there will be new life on the other side, or just give up and live the rest of my life in bitterness and living death.
Now although the worst of all that pain is in the past, my life still isn’t easy. But the thing is, I am a better person than I was before all that stuff happened. It could have destroyed me—in fact, my parents have told me that there were a few times they were worried it would. But although major parts of my life have been crucified, some of those parts have gotten a taste of a resurrection that is still to come.
Life still is often a bitch, and yes, there are parts of me that die every day—but what is being raised is a bride. That doesn’t make suffering and pain any less painful in the moment, but I’ve come to realize that it has been because of that suffering that I’ve become a better person. And that is why I still have faith that the process isn’t done yet and that one day I will be truly like Christ.
Someone might ask, “But why didn’t God just create us all perfect from the start? Why did He allow suffering in the first place?” The early Church Father Irenaeus touches upon this in his comments about Adam and Eve. I’ve written a number of posts on his take here:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
But the long and the short of it is this: the reality of life is that maturity and growth come through suffering, and resurrection goes through death first. That’s the formula. In this life, we are not fully what we could be. We may be created in God’s image, but we are not yet truly like God. And, as the heart of the Gospel shows, the way to be transformed from being a mere creature in God’s image to being a re-born child of God involves suffering. Deal with it in faith or die in despair. Those are the only two options. There’s no sugar-coating it.
Anyway, there’s obviously more that can be teased out, but that’s where I am at the moment. That’s how I’ve come to understand the answer to suffering and death.
Not surprisingly, John Walton has written an excellent commentary on Job and it is in the NIV Application series which is even better because you don’t have to a graduate degree to understand this commentary. As you have pointed out, Ham (and many Christians) continue to assent to the pagan view of the cosmos and suffering that the Book of Job rejects.
Again the irony is rich. Ham’s so-called “biblical” view is a reformulation of pagan superstition and in direct contradiction of biblical theology.
“But that Good News is not easy news. It is extremely hard news, because it requires that we respond to suffering, pain and death in faith.”
Very interesting post.
I admit that I didn’t read your five part series on why God allows suffering to begin with, but to me, that is the hardest question for Christians to answer (Maybe that is why it took you five parts to explain it). First, why would a being who is perfect, has existed forever, and needs nothing, decide to create something, in particular, littele “mini-hims”? Loneliness? Boredom? Of course not. The perfect Judeo-Christian God can’t have those human emotions. It must be…” a mystery”.
But once this perfect, all powerful, eternal being did create something, for whatever mysterious reason he chose to do so, why did he give human beings a free will? Why does a perfect being need to be worshiped by inferior beings with a free will? What benefit is a free will to the inferior being if the possession of a free will comes with the risk of a life of toil and sweat and an eternity of torment? Wouldn’t it be in the better interest of the inferior being to not have the option of disobedience? But…”it’s a mystery”.
So, this perfect, eternal, needing-nothing being creates a universe, creates two inferior beings with a free will…and then puts a tree of temptation right smack in the middle of their play area! Why? Did he need to test them? Why does a perfect being need to test an inferior being’s loyalty and obedience? Answer: “It’s a mystery”.
But of course, the perfect being created the universe, created the inferior beings with a free will, and surprise surprise, they are tricked into disobedience….and the perfect being curses his entire creation…a creation he decided to create…knowing that he would in short order curse it. Really? Why did he bother creating it?
But…”it’s a mystery”.
A hundred or so thousand years go by (or a few thousand if you are a YECer), and the perfect being decides he has had enough. So he drowns all the inferior beings except eight. And he knew this would happen when he started this whole project.
Then, after several more thousand years, he decides to send himself, in the form of his son, to die on a cross as a human sacrifice, to atone for the sins of the original inferior beings whom he created with a free will.
Yes, it sounds absolutely crazy. But it’s not. Because…it’s a mystery!
My dear suffering friend, isn’t it much more likely that bad things happen to people just by random chance? A capricious, allegedly perfect supernatural being had nothing to do with the bad events in your life. They just happened. You don’t have to wonder why your “loving heavenly father” didn’t spare you that pain. It just happened. As the saying goes, “life happens”. Isn’t that liberating???
I would encourage you to take a step back, take a fresh look at your supernatural belief system, and ask yourself if you would believe this convoluted supernatural tale if it were not a part of your upbringing and surrounding culture?
Gary my friend, if atheism is true then free will is a myth. If matter is ultimately all there is then you don’t have any more free will than an oak tree. You may *think* you do, and that life has meaning, but that’s just evolution tricking you into believing you’re really the master of your own destiny. As moire than one honest Darwinist has admitted recently, evolution programmed us for survival, not the search for truth. But in that case how can anyone trust their rational faculties at all? The whole scientific process is based upon the assumption that we can trust our minds to discover truth. But if materialism is true that assumption goes right out the proverbial window. No more scientific certainty about *anything* in that case.
So why not be true to your world-view that free will is an illusion? Why do atheists live a lie?
Could it be because of the way *you* were raised? Raised to believe and live as if life has meaning and that some things really are categorically right or wrong? If it were not a part of your upbringing and surrounding culture to act as though life has meaning and purpose, that you actually have free will, would you still believe it?
Just curious.
Pax.
Lee.
Hi Lee. Interesting questions.
Many theists believe that without their gods, life has no meaning or purpose and that there is no justifiable reason for “moral” behavior. I suggest this is a false assumption.
Every human culture on the planet has rules of behavior, even primitive cultures. Where did all these cultures get this habit of having rules of behavior for its members? An invisible deity?
It is interesting to note that most mammals on the planet also have rules of behavior. Most mammals lived in “societies” which we call herds or packs. Why do so many mammals have rules of behavior just like humans? An invisible deity? Many scientists believe that these “herd rules” give these animals an increased chance of survival in our dangerous world, and if they survive, the ability to pass on their DNA, suggesting that “herd rules” otherwise known as “morality” is a byproduct of Darwinian evolution.
Maybe human morality is nothing more than “herd rules”, similar to other mammals. Do elephants, wolves and chimpanzees sit around worrying about issues like a “free will”? I doubt it. They are more concerned about staying alive and enjoying life. I suggest that humans are no different. We just want to live, we want to be safe, and we want to be happy. And our long history of struggle has taught us that cooperative, altruistic behaviors lead to more stable, stronger herds and stronger, more stable herds improve the survival chances of each of the individual members of those herds.
So maybe that is why we have “morality”.
Maybe. But “herd rules” are only good if it’s *your* herd that is on top. Otherwise, if you’re in the Jewish herd being literally eaten alive by the Nazi herd, you (and your herd) are in BIG trouble!
But of course morality doesn’t just look back to past behavior, let’s look at what worked before and do that again. No, morality looks not at what you *have* done in the past but at what you *should* do in the future. And possibly what you *should’ve* done in the past but didn’t.
And saying morality is what’s good for the group simply begs the question as to why I should be concerned with the welfare of the group in the first place? Who says the group should survive? Maybe if the group were all dead I could thrive? You certainly can’t call the survival of the herd “morally good” because that category doesn’t really exist in the materialistic Darwinian scheme. Under materialistic Darwinism you can’t infer values from facts.
I’m supposed to be “moral” because it’s good for the group and what’s good for the group is what’s ultimately best for me. But being overly concerned with what’s best for me is selfish. But of course morality can’t be selfish because morality enjoins us to be unselfish and altruistic.
And of course even if you grant that certain human behaviors have an evolutionary origin, that in itself says nothing about *which* behaviors are morally good or normative. So just saying something works, say the Holocaust, says nothing about whether what works is morally right or not.
Pax.
Lee.
Good morning, Lee.
The behavior of the Nazis was not wrong (“immoral”) because they violated the rules of one particular invisible supernatural being (the Judeo-Christian god), they were immoral because they violated the rules of behavior of the larger herd (the world community).
At one point in human history, the “herd” was the immediate family or clan. Then tribes developed. Then nations developed. At that stage in human development, nation states could behave as they pleased. There were no international rules. We see this in the stories of the Old Testament. Entire nations were wiped out for such petty reasons as someone’s ancestors, 400 years earlier, had refused to allow someone else’s ancestors to trespass on their land!
The Nazi’s were punished because they broke international laws, not the laws of the Judeo-Christian god.
“And saying morality is what’s good for the group simply begs the question as to why I should be concerned with the welfare of the group in the first place?”
Because the group will stigmatize you, expel you, imprison you, or kill you if you violate the group’s rules. There is a very good reason for you to obey the group’s rules: your own survival.
Hi again, Gary.
From a purely atheistic, materialistic, Darwinian standpoint, why should the Nazis have cared (they actually didn’t) about “the rules of behavior of the larger herd (the world community).” The (atheist) Hitler would’ve argued to you that he was only doing what he needed to do to preserve *his* herd (the Aryan German Volk). If atheism is true and there’s no divine Moral Law to appeal to, you can’t fault Hitler and the Nazis for violating “rules of behavior of the larger herd (world community).” You can either have your cake or eat it here, but you can’t have it *and* eat it. If there’s no Moral Law nothing is *really* “immoral.” You might not *like* the Holocaust, but you *can’t* call it “immoral.” It was simply one “herd” looking after it’s own best interests. Another “herd” simply stood in its way. Unfortunate for that herd, but certainly not morally *wrong* in any real sense under the rules of Darwinian materialism.
Certainly the Allies had no *right* in any real sense of the meaning of that word, to prosecute the Nazis; certainly not based upon a higher Moral Law. Yet that’s exactly what they *did.* The Allies appealed, not just to international law, but to a higher Moral Law, which, they argued, gave international law its impetus.
Finally, you write: “There is a very good reason for you to obey the group’s rules: your own survival.” To which I reply, again, that isn’t *morality,* It’s selfishness. *Morality says you ought to behave a certain way because it’s the *right* thing to do, not simply in order to survive.
Pax.
Lee.
moral = good behavior
immoral = bad behavior
Who determines whether a behavior/action is good or bad? Answer: the herd. Germany was a member of an international community (the herd). Germany had signed treaties involving the rules of war. Germany broke those rules and therefore paid the consequences. Germany’s behavior was disgusting, barbaric, and immoral by the standards of the herd (the international community).
Just as Moses’ (alleged) command to slaughter all the Midianite mothers and little boys was not perceived as evil by the ancient Israelites, German Nazis did not perceive their slaughter of six million men, women, and children as evil either. However, we today, using the standards (morality) of all civilized nations in the world today, condemn these acts as both being depraved and immoral.
Bottom line: Which sounds more plausible, folks?
1. Morality is a function of the rules of the group/society, formed by the innate desire of the individuals in that group to survive and reproduce.
or
2. An invisible being who created the universe—only to later come down to earth, disguised as a human, to undergo a human sacrifice to appease the righteous anger of…himself…for the forbidden fruit eating of our ancient ancestors—created these (moral) standards?
One of these explanations sounds sane and reasonable. The other sounds absolutely nuts.
I’d suggest to try and think a bit more deeply and critically. (1) Morality is not a herd instinct or the result of evolutionary forces; (2) Your reading of the biblical story seems rather juvenile.
Hi Joel!
“Morality is not a herd instinct or the result of evolutionary forces”
Is this your opinion or is this an accepted fact? If it is an accepted fact, would you kindly give me a reputable source?
“Your reading of the biblical story seems rather juvenile.”
Most historians doubt that this event (the slaughter of the Mdianite mothers and their little boys) happened, and since I trust majority expert opinion, I accept that position. The disturbing part to me is that neither the author of the book in which this story is told nor any other author in the Hebrew or Christian Scriptures condemns this (alleged) act. It is certainly possible that every author of every book in the Christian Bible was aware that this story was historical fiction, an ancient Jewish folktale, but, what are the odds of that?
I suspect that whoever wrote the book in which this story appears believed that if such an event had occurred, the women and little boys had it coming.
Joel, I would suggest you read the book Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame by Christopher Boehm (ISBN 978-0465020485) and the Article The Case for Chimpanzee Religion (available here https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276915021_The_Case_for_Chimpanzee_Religion_2014)
I haven’t read that yet…perhaps I’ll take a look.
Gary my friend, your thinking is still muddled on some things.
Gary: Who determines whether a behavior/action is good or bad? Answer: the herd. Germany was a member of an international community (the herd).
Lee: Germany claimed it had every right, as a sub-group of that larger herd, to slaughter six million Jews. If there’s no Moral Law it makes no difference whatsoever what the larger herd says. Smaller herds can do whatever they want with impunity. All the larger herd can do is say to the smaller herd “We don’t like what you’ve done.” What they CAN’T DO is call it “evil” or “immoral.” They can sign all the treaties they want. In this case they aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. It’s purely a case of “might makes right.” In this case the Allied herd prevailed over the Axis herd thus was able to force its “herd rules” onto that subjugated herd. Had the Axis herd won, they’d have imposed their “herd rules” on the Allies. Neither could say the other was *wrong* in any real, meaningful sense.
And again, you haven’t answered my question as to why the human herd *should* survive. Who says human beings *should* survive? Under Darwinian materialism there’s nothing that gives us a favored status except we were able to evolve and adapt whereas other species weren’t. That’s neither “good” or “bad,” it just “is.” But you’re trying to have your cake and eat it too. You want atheism to be true, but if atheism is true, life as we know it is nothing but a random, cosmic accident devoid of meaning or purpose. Yet you keep wanting to assign meaning to it by holding onto the outdated ideas of morality.
For example, you keep bringing up the OT “Israelite genocide” and acting as if that was/is somehow evil or immoral. But you can’t say that some things are intrinsically good and others are intrinsically evil if there isn’t a Moral Law. Thus you have no basis to complain about what a moral monster God is in the OT. Moses and the Israelite “herd” were simply doing what they needed to do to survive.
Morality is more than mere survival of the species. As I keep saying, it involves selflessness and altruism.
Gary: Morality is a function of the rules of the group/society, formed by the innate desire of the individuals in that group to survive and reproduce.
Lee: What if a person is a member of more than one society? Say a man who’s an American citizen living in the state of Utah yet also an old-school Mormon. The nation and the state say polygamy is wrong yet his church says polygamy is fine. Which of these different societies determines his morality?
The Allied society said genocide under any circumstances is wrong; the Nazi society said genocide of certain people is acceptable. Which society was right? Neither of them if your view is right and there is no Moral Law.
Pax.
Lee.
“Smaller herds can do whatever they want with impunity.”
Obviously they can’t if the large herd (in this case, the international community) hangs all the leaders responsible for breaking the larger herd’s rules (the rules of war).
“And again, you haven’t answered my question as to why the human herd *should* survive. ”
Because most individual humans want to survive and humans have learned over tens of thousands of years that forming a “herd” is the best way for individuals to survive. It is all about survival, Lee. There is no “should”, only the instinctual drive to survive and prosper.
“You want atheism to be true, but if atheism is true, life as we know it is nothing but a random, cosmic accident devoid of meaning or purpose. Yet you keep wanting to assign meaning to it by holding onto the outdated ideas of morality.”
Atheism is simply the belief that gods, devils, and other supernatural beings do not exist. Atheism does not provide any perspective on how an individual or group can prosper and survive. Secular humanism provides that worldview, not atheism.
“Morality is more than mere survival of the species. As I keep saying, it involves selflessness and altruism.”
That is your definition of that term. I prefer to not use that term because it has implied religious connotations. I prefer to use the term “altruistic behavior”. Humans, like other mammals, exhibit altruistic behaviors? Why? I and many biologists believe that it is a function of natural selection.
“The nation and the state say polygamy is wrong yet his church says polygamy is fine. Which of these different societies determines his morality?”
Whoever carries the bigger stick (the most powerful herd).
Gary, what you’ve described isn’t morality, it’s coercion. Of course the bigger herd with the bigger stick can make the smaller herd fall into line, but, again, coercion isn’t morality. “Morality” is doing or not doing something, something, not because you’re coerced into it, but because *it’s the right thing to do.*
And you say: “Because most individual humans want to survive and humans have learned over tens of thousands of years that forming a “herd” is the best way for individuals to survive. It is all about survival, Lee. There is no “should”, only the instinctual drive to survive and prosper.”
To which I say, just because most humans *want* to survive says nothing about whether that desire is in any sense morally “right” or not. Because individual Germans, esp. when they were bound together as Aryan Nazis, did some pretty horrible things to handicapped Germans, Jews, Slavs, Poles, Gypsies, LGBT, Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc. All in the name of the “survival” of the German herd. You can mince words about how they should’ve taken the best interests of the larger international human herd into account, but when you get into *should* and *ought* you’re headed perilously close to making a *moral* statement..If morality is nothing but “herd instinct” then you have no basis for criticizing Hitler and the Nazis. Their “herd instinct” was different from the Allies? So what?
Under your schema of morality, Germany wasn’t morally wrong in any real sense for slaughtering all of these people, they just got caught by a group of united herds (the Allies) who were more powerful than them and forced them to stop. The only “morality” under that scenario is that of “might makes right.” The Allies were right because they had the might to *make* Germany and the other Axis herds do what they said. But again, that isn’t really “morality.”
As for our fundamentalist LDS polygamist, and the question of who he will he listen to, his Church or his State, which of those two societies will he take his moral cues from? You say “whoever carries the biggest stick (the most powerful herd).” It seems you’ve not studied or thought much about dissenting movements, revolutions or moral reform movements. Many conservative Lutheran Germans in the Third Reich, such as Pastors Martin Niemöller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer resisted the Nazis and their Aryan “Positive Christianity.”
What about moral reformers and activists like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. By your logic, King should’ve taken his moral cues from the larger American, white-controlled society, which clearly had the bigger stick. And yet he, too went up aga8inst impossible odds and challenged the status quo.
And you say: Atheism is simply the belief that gods, devils, and other supernatural beings do not exist. Atheism does not provide any perspective on how an individual or group can prosper and survive. Secular humanism provides that worldview, not atheism.
To which I say, if atheism is true, and no god behind the universe exists, then the worldview of modern secularism is no better or worse than the worldview of the Nazis. Secular humanism may work better for more people but it can’t claim any kind of moral superiority because at its base it’s simply one system among dozens attempting to tell the human herd how it should live. You can’t get morality from secular humanism any more than you can get it from the Old Testament. It’s just another case of “Moses says”/Isaac Asimov says”.
Under atheism there’s no reason to follow Hitler but by the same token there’s also no reason not to follow Hitler. All this talk of “herd mentality” and “big sticks” is just semantics it seems to me.
I hope you see my point.
Pax.
Lee.
Like it or not, my view on this issue is becoming more and more the accepted view of biologists and other scientists. Younger generations of Americans and other western countries trust the scientific view on issues more than they do the view of theologians and preachers. I believe that in time, my view will be the dominant view in our society.
We will have to agree to disagree, Lee.
I simply reject the notion that biology (i.e. descriptions of what “is” in nature) can somehow give rise to morality (i.e. descriptions of “ought”). Morality is not a question that science can address. Appealing to science and “instincts” to explain morality is not convincing at all.
Maybe not to you, Joel, but I urge you to check out what the culture around you is saying, in particular, young people. Attitudes on all issues related to religion in general are dramatically changing. I predict that 100 years from now, the predominant religious identification of most people in the educated western world will be: “non-religious”.
GARY: Like it or not, my view on this issue is becoming more and more the accepted view of biologists and other scientists. Younger generations of Americans and other western countries trust the scientific view on issues more than they do the view of theologians and preachers. I believe that in time, my view will be the dominant view in our society.
LEE: Science doesn’t care about majorities.
As for me, I trust science in the areas science can actually address. As Doc Anderson points out, morality ain’t one of them. For example, science can tell us how to perform abortions, but not whether it’s *morally right* to perform abortions. That’s why we have medical ethics, to help us sort out those kinds of issues. Science can tell us how to split the atom, but not whether it’s morality right to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The idea that science can answer all of life’s questions is scientism, and is just a form of blind faith for intellectuals.
Science can’t address many basic fundamental questions about life. Mechanics, yeah. Purpose? No way! Science can’t tell me whether Jethro Tull or Yes is the better band (it’s Tull btw). It can’t tell me whether red’s a better color than blue, or whether I should risk my life to try and save a drowning man. With regard to the universe it can’t tell me why there’s something rather than nothing.
GARY: Maybe not to you, Joel, but I urge you to check out what the culture around you is saying, in particular, young people. Attitudes on all issues related to religion in general are dramatically changing. I predict that 100 years from now, the predominant religious identification of most people in the educated western world will be: “non-religious”.
LEE: Your argument that because the dominant culture says something is true is not a valid reason for buying into it. The dominant culture in Germany in 1942 said that the Jews were the cause of all of Germany’s ills and must go, one way or another. So culture is not a great barometer of morality.
Or don’t you remember, when you told your parents that all your friends were doing something they didn’t think you should do, your parents asking you “If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it?”
As for the death of religion, maybe in the west. But go to Asia or Africa or Central America. Totally different story.
But as you say, we may have to agree to disagree.
Pax.
Lee.
Ahem…sorry to dispute you, Lee, but the correct answer is Yes. 😉
Yes, I am aware that Christianity is growing in the southern hemisphere. But why? Is it because the peoples of this part of the world are more “open” to the Gospel? Or is it because these mostly poor, struggling, mostly under-educated peoples are replacing one supernatural belief system with another? I predict: Give these people access to a college education, a higher standard of living, and easy access to the internet—and they will follow the path of the West.