Brother Jeff Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 A good fellow ex-Christian friend of my over on Facebook, Brother Ryan, asked me for a response to this glorious article: http://www.bethinking.org/is-christianity-true/from-atheism-to-christianity-a-personal-journey I am working on it as the Spook of Kryasst who is also somehow magically Him has magically commanded and inspired it, and I have parts 1 & 2 complete and posted live on my glorious website. I would greatly appreciate feedback on it. I was tired, especially when I wrote Part 2 late this evening, so any errors caught would be greatly appreciated as well. I will correct shit as needed as the Lard magically commands it. Glory! Anyway, here are the links to my review so far: Part 1 http://religionisbullshit.me/atheism-christianity-review/ Part 2 http://religionisbullshit.me/atheism-christianity-review-part-2/ I plan on finishing up my review tomorrow as the Lard magically inspires and commands it, when I am not busy watching NFL football. Thanks much for any and all feedback! Glory! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♦ ficino ♦ Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 This guy was emotionally disposed to believe that Christianity was true (crush on a Christian chick... don't tell me he kept his mind independent of his dick/heart). Then he found a Christian rationale that he could live with. A while back the internet floated an account of a female atheist student at Harvard who became a Christian evangelical. She had a Christian boyfriend. I'm not saying emotion is ALL it was in such cases. But C.S.Lewis' arguments as REASONS for belief? I stopped reading early on, after this: "As he rightly points out, we cannot complain about the existence of evil and suffering, and use that as an argument against the existence and goodness of God, unless we first believe that the standard of right and wrong by which we judge and condemn our world is an objective one. Our sense of justice and fairness has to be a true insight into reality, before we can we be justified in getting angry and indignant about all the pain and injustice we see around us. But if this is the case, what explains the existence within us of this inner moral code or compass? According to atheism, human beings and all their thinking processes are simply the accidental by-products of the mindless movement of atoms within an undesigned, random, and purposeless universe. How then can we attach any ultimate meaning or truth to our thoughts and feelings, including our sense of justice? They have, on this view, no more validity or significance than the sound of the wind in the trees." Different problems are confused in here. Deep-sounding but vague qualifiers like "ultimate" disguise how the above begs the question. "Atheism" as presented here is a straw man. And the standard of right and wrong displayed by Bible-God in the Bible is not objective. Lewis wasn't a Calvinist, but his arguments are very much in line with TAG, i.e. that one can't believe or say anything true or meaningful without positing God as a standard. The true biblical character of God the objective standard is well expressed in this joking comment by the scientist whom mwc quotes talking about the Higgs-Boson particle, the so-called "God particle": ""We knew we had the right particle because, despite its very tiny size, it was extremely angry, and it kept demanding we utterly destroy the Amalekites." Brother Jeff, you do a more thorough job of making the above points! I'll read more of your responses later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
directionless Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 Regarding what ficino quoted above, the blogger quotes C.S. Lewis claiming that the problem of evil requires us to assume that an objective standard of evil exists which conflicts with atheism. Of course we must assume the existence of God, objective evil, etc. because that is how a proof by contradiction works. We assume things and then show that those assumptions lead to a contradiction. That's an incredibly dumb argument by C.S. Lewis IMO. Maybe I'm missing some subtleties. Here is a link to wikipedia's better description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil Also, I agree with ficino's suspicion that desire to please a Christian girlfriend or boyfriend plays a role. In college one of my friends switched from atheist to Christian when he met his future wife (who was a Christian). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♦ ficino ♦ Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 Hell, as I said in another post, I first got to thinking about "getting saved" because I had a crush on one of the Christian students who was witnessing to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Jeff Posted September 26, 2014 Author Share Posted September 26, 2014 For anyone who is interested, I finished my response. It took six separate posts! But it was fun to do, and I think it was worthwhile. Glory! http://religionisbullshit.me/atheism-christianity-response/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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