This the second part of my response to a Christian Apologist concerning the argument from nonbelief. The first part of my response can be found here and you will find the article I’m responding to here .
Before I begin I want to say right away that this will be my last response. It has been an interesting exchange but I simply have to move on to new topics. As a final note I did read your latest article and I will address it briefly at the end.
With that out of the way the next section of her article is titled “Do all humans want to believe in God?”
She writes the following:
“Not everyone wants to ask, seek, find or focus on God. Many of the atheists I have encountered have indicated that they would walk away from God if given the choice. Some feel that God has wronged them in some way and rather than forgive Him, they have chosen to reject Him. God gave us free will and allows us to make the decision to ignore and resist Him. Romans 1 also indicates that He lets us live out our desires. Oftentimes, when we’ve reached rock bottom, He is there ready to pick us up and let us shine and be reborn into a new and better life.”
I am very happy to say, that I agree with her on this for the most part. Yes it is true, that not everyone seeks to worship and serve God. But I think a distinction needs to be drawn between belief and worship. I think most Atheists do want to believe in God if he exists, simply because they want their model of reality to match reality as close as possible. If God turns out to be true, we want to know it, so we can mentally assess his existence. Worship on the other hand is a seperate issue and that’s where most outspoken Atheists I know would say that they wouldn’t worship him.
Many Atheists I know feel like they’ve been duped by religion or see the world in such a way, that so many people believe in things, that they think is a lie. They also see how for instance the LGBT community gets backlash often for religious reasons. I’m of course not saying that you do that, but some Christians and Muslims discriminate on religious grounds, which in turn makes many Atheists unsympathetic towards religion itself.
Many Atheists have also read the Bible. This ties in with her next section entitled ” Is God good?” in which she says this:
“Rene indicated that Satan did not bow down to God and that he would not bow down to God without a confirmation that God is good. God is good. God is love (1 John 4:8 and 16). Unlike the pantheist Supreme Being, which is a passive force in the universe, God is an active, personal, loving Lord. The Lord is also unlike the Muslim Allah, who is not equated with love in the Quran. The Christian Lord is the alternative to pure evil, which I have experienced and would never wish on anyone.
“The love of God is one of the great realities of the universe, a pillar upon which the hope of the world rests. But it is a personal, intimate thing, too. God does not love populations. He loves people. He loves not masses, but men. He loves us all with a mighty love that has no beginning and can have no end” (Tozer, 1961, p. 102).”
It is true that 2 requirements need to be met for me to become a Christian: I would have to have propositional knowledge of his existence (or at least a belief in his existence) and I’d need to know what kind of a God he is.
Now I’m a humanist. I base my morality on human well being and to an extend on the well being of the other animals. I often have the feeling that Christians and Atheists have two different Bibles. I have read the Bible from cover to cover. I want to spare you reciting those particular verses but when reading it, I came across things that I simply found to be at odds with my morality. This is not only true for the old Testament but for the new Testament as well. It may be the case though that God gives me sufficient reason for adopting the view that he is indeed good. I am willing to consider it but when reading the Bible, I simply have a hard time believing that his moral values align with mine. It is what it is.
In the last section of hers “What about the other religions?” she states the following:
” “In Christian experience there is a highly satisfying love content that distinguishes it from all other religions and elevates it to heights far beyond even the purest and noblest philosophy. This love content is more than a thing; it is God Himself in the midst of His Church singing over His people. True Christian joy is the heart’s harmonious response to the Lord’s song of love” (Tozer, 1961, p. 102).
Yin and yang, or dualism, is a belief embraced by Eastern faiths. Good and evil are always at odds. Eastern faiths give them an equal footing, while Christianity states one is greater than the other (i.e., good is greater than evil). We know from our own experiences that good is superior to evil. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” This is the case for Christianity – and the Christian Lord, who is love. ”
What Tozer says in this paragraph may or may not be true. Let’s say it is true. This would mean that Christianity is true. That doesn’t mean everyone recognizes it and that is exactly where the argument becomes profound.
The last part of her article doesn’t relate to so much to the argument from nonbelief. All I can say as an Atheist is that I do think that light and love are better than darkness and hate. Where we part ways is her assertion, that God is love.
At last not one final thought about this article of hers. In this article she did offer another solution the argument from nonbelief, namely a final chance at salvation after our death. I must admit, that this is a legitimate solution to it. If one believes that this is the case, then the argument doesn’t apply to you. I don’t know how many Christians (or Theists in general) believe in that, but it is a possible solution to the problem it poses.
Goodbye from yours truly,
Rene von Boenninghausen @Renevelation
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