Phill Sacre

Tag: atheism

  • Atheism is a spent force

    Atheism is a spent force

    A couple of things have made me think of atheism lately, which has made me realise how much things have changed in the last few years. I used to spend hours online debating atheists – far too much time, if I’m honest. Time which would have been far better spent doing something more productive. (I don’t think any good ever came out of debating atheists on the internet.)

    Some of that debating was done on this blog, and out of curiosity I decided to search for the last time it happened. The last time was back in February 2016, which was when I decided I’d had enough and pulled the plug on it. That’s about eight years ago now. Eight years may not seem like a long time, but with the pace of what’s happening today it’s virtually an eternity. The world is fundamentally different, and it’s a world where atheism just doesn’t seem to belong any more.

    There were a couple of things that made me come to this realisation.

    1: The Life of Brian

    The first thing was watching the classic film, Monty Python’s Life of Brian. I love this film – it’s one of my all-time favourites. I watched it a lot as a student, but I haven’t watched it for a few years. Coming back to the film I felt like I saw it through new eyes. The film is famous for being a satire of religion, but I felt like the critique of religion didn’t really hit the target any more.

    The film is heavily critical of hypocritical moralism. It’s the kind of religion which may have been popular amongst the political and media class back in the 1960s and 70s, but it’s no longer the religion of the elites. In fact, it seemed to me like the film would be more accurately targeted at the new religion of the elites – what we might call “wokeism”.

    The scene which hit me most of all was the scene where one of the characters says he wants to be a woman:

    I know it gets said a lot, but this scene would absolutely never be made in today’s climate! But that in itself is telling. It struck me that what Python thought was utterly impossible happened within a few decades. The idea that a man could actually become a woman is absurd – but instead of mocking the idea, we now have to pretend that it is possible. Now you are mocked (or more likely cancelled) if you are ‘gender-critical’.

    A few years ago I read an article which suggested that the new atheists had morphed into the social justice movement (which became wokeism). It should have been an obvious step: as Dostoevsky once observed, “if God is dead, everything is permitted.” It seems that the new atheists actually paved the way for the insanity which is going on at the moment. The atheist critique of religion, such as the Pythons made in the Life of Brian, is far more applicable to this modern secular religion than it is to Christianity.

    What I find strange is the lack of self-awareness of some modern atheists who don’t realise that the critique they make of religion applies far more to the godless secular “woke” religion than it does to Christianity.

    2: Anti-theist pile ons

    A few days ago, I made a video about why we should stop doing evangelism. For some reason, this video seems to have been picked up on YouTube by a lot of anti-religious types who have been commenting – assuming that I’m an ex-Christian, or something like that. (I presume it’s because they haven’t watched the video but are just reacting to the title. This is a depressingly familiar experience to anyone who posts videos to YouTube.)

    What struck me this time, however, was how much has changed since I was last engaging with anti-religious types. I’m not sure whether the change has been within me, or whether the world has changed. Either way, the atmosphere is different now. Whereas ten or so years ago Christians might have seemed like dinosaurs, now it seems to me that it’s the atheists who are the dinosaurs. They just don’t fit in this world any more. Their arguments have been tried and found wanting; they have nothing to offer a world in the mess that we’re in.

    You can see the way that that people are far more receptive to Christianity looking at what’s happened in the last few years: just to name a handful of examples, Tom Holland’s bestselling book Dominion powerfully made the case that Christianity has made more impact on the Western world than anything else. Jordan Peterson has lectures on books of the Old Testament with millions of views. Several high profile intellectuals have converted to Christianity (e.g. most recently, Ayaan Hirsi Ali – once a member of the new atheist movement). Many public political figures and commentators such as Calvin Robinson and Laurence Fox speak openly about their faith. Many in the freedom movement (such as Eva Vlaardingerbroek) are Christian. I could go on and on.

    Justin Brierley has a whole podcast called The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God which is all about this topic.

    Christianity isn’t something to be embarrassed by any more; many people are much bolder in speaking open about it – and the world is starting to listen. Where once people weren’t open to the Bible or Christianity, now there is renewed interest. Covid, lockdowns, government authoritarianism, the cost of living crisis, war in Ukraine, and so on – everything is falling apart. A lot of people are putting the pieces together and thinking, “well, maybe doing things without God hasn’t worked out so well after all.”

    It just struck me, as I was reading those comments over the last couple of days, these anti-theist types are tone-deaf. They just don’t recognise what is happening in the world, and they have no solutions to offer. All they can do is recycle their tired old cliches about religion. The boot is well and truly on the other foot: once it was Christianity that was on the defensive; now it’s atheism.

    All I wanted to say to these people was: “read the room, guys … do you not see how out of place you look today?” It seems to me that it is the atheists who are now on the wrong side of history.

    Atheism is a spent force

    Twelve years ago, Richard Dawkins did a survey on attitudes to Christianity in the UK. He concluded: “it is clear that faith is a spent force in the UK”.

    Well, a lot can change in twelve years. I would argue that atheism is now a spent force in the UK. Twelve years ago, it was kind of cool to be an atheist – a lot of comedians made jokes about Christianity, for example. It was common to attack Christians on the internet for their ridiculous and outdated beliefs. Now, however – things have changed 180 degrees. Given the madness of what is happening in the world, atheism feels like an irrelevance at best. Even Richard Dawkins himself has changed his tune – described himself recently as a “cultural Christian” and that he’d rather live in a Christian country than an Islamic one.

    When I look back on the debates I used to have about Christianity and atheism, I think I was far too defensive. Christianity doesn’t need defending. As I believe Spurgeon once said: “Defend the Bible? I’d soon as defend a lion!”

    Atheism is the ultimate ‘luxury belief’, a belief which is only possible in a world where things work pretty well. As society collapses deeper into decay and chaos, people realise that Solzhenitsyn’s words are absolutely true: “Men have forgotten God, that’s why all this has happened.” I never needed to defend Christianity from atheists. Rather, I needed to proclaim the truth that, unless we repent and believe in the good news, madness and chaos awaits. That is exactly what we are seeing now.

    My challenge to atheists today is the same as it is for everyone: will you repent of your sins and submit to Christ as Lord today, and find salvation – or will you continue in your wilful unbelief and suffer the consequences?

    In the words of the writer to the Hebrews, which I will finish with:

    How shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?

    Hebrews 2:3
  • Satan’s field day – Podcast 95

    Satan’s field day – Podcast 95

    In this podcast we look at some articles from the past week or so, covering atheism, the problem with tax and the welfare state, the Church of England and the women’s world cup, the war in Ukraine, and the case of Lucy Letby. We finish with a reflection from Mark 5, about Jesus restoring a demon-possessed man.

    Also available as an audio podcast via your favourite podcast provider.

    Links

  • Review: The Atheist Who Didn't Exist

    I’ve just finished reading “The Atheist Who Didn’t Exist” by Andy Bannister. The book is subtitled “or the dreadful consequences of bad arguments”, and that’s a pretty good summary of the book: examining various arguments made by writers such as Richard Dawkins (who else?) and the like to see whether they stand up. The point of the book is not to demonstrate the truth of Christianity per se, just to demonstrate the issues contained within the arguments made by these atheist writers.

    The thing which makes this book stand out for me compared to the multitude of other books which have been written in response to Richard Dawkins and the so-called ‘New Atheists’ (not that they’re particularly new any more, but still): the scope. What this book does is distil a number of arguments and try to deal with the precise objection in each case. In many cases, he presents arguments in a clear and concise way, and they are well illustrated: for example, each chapter starts with an imaginary (and usually humorously absurd) conversation to introduce the topic.

    For me the real strength of the book is its analysis of the logical arguments: Bannister is able to boil an argument down to its precise form and then examine it to see whether it stands up. I’d go as far as to say that this is the best book I’ve read from that perspective (although I haven’t read very many, so that’s not really much of an accolade). But I think too often Christians simply leap to the defensive when someone comes up with questions, rather than saying: “Well, let’s take a step back and look at the question itself. How would that logic work in other situations? Are you being consistent?”

    I would recommend this book to a Christian who wants to be strengthened in their understanding of apologetics, or to an atheist who wants to examine some Christian answers to their objections. I think it would be hard to find a book which examines so many arguments so comprehensively and clearly – it’s very understandable.

    The only downside? The constant footnotes! There are plenty of humorous footnotes throughout the book, but personally I found them something of a distraction. It’s a matter of personal preference, though – you don’t have to read them.

    (Although, my blog is footnoted in one of the footnotes – brownie points to anyone who can name which post. It’s not the reason I read the book though – I haven’t seen a penny of royalties. Not one…)

    One of the problems with the so-called ‘New Atheists’ is that they are strong on rhetoric but weak on actual argument. I hope this book is widely read and helps to illuminate the problems for many people.

  • Evil and the problem of Stephen Fry

    … or do I mean, Stephen Fry and the problem of evil? Either way, one of the links which has been doing the rounds on Twitter today is that of Stephen Fry talking to Gay Byrne about God, and more specifically, about what he would say to God if Fry died and found out he was wrong about his atheism.

    Stephen Fry’s answer focusses on the problem of theodicy, which is a philosophical term meaning the problem of reconciling evil with a good God. (There would be no need to reconcile evil with an evil God, obviously – the problem only exists if we start out by assuming that God is good).

    Now good/evil and atheism are two subjects I’ve written about here quite often (e.g. whether secular society would be a good thing, and godless ethics), so here I’d just like to focus on one thing. Stephen Fry says that a God who allows (say) bone cancer in children would be “evil”.

    My point is simply this: evil is a problem for everyone, not just Christians. Whether you like it or not we live in a world where children do get bone cancer, where parasites exists, where ‘evil’ exists. I would therefore suggest the question is not simply ‘how could God let this happen?’, but rather ‘which worldview best answers the question of evil?’

    Let’s think briefly about atheism. Atheism demands that there be no God, no purpose in the universe – we are simply the result of an accident, some sort of cosmic blip which caused everything that we see. In other words, you and I are nothing, we are simply the product of blind forces acting in accordance with the laws of an uncaring universe. What that means, and this is what Stephen Fry and others seem to have missed, is that bone cancer and parasites (etc) are completely natural. If atheism is true, then we are exactly the way we are intended to be: evolution just dumped us here, in a place where illness and death exist – the universe has no categories of right or wrong, it just simply is.

    As Richard Dawkins famously said:

    The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

    So, my question for Stephen Fry, and others who share his opinion, is – from where does this category of “evil” come from? In the interview, Fry seemed to understand evil to be an objective thing, something which really exists. And yet, that cannot be if atheism is true, if – as Dawkins says – the universe has no design, purpose, etc.

    I believe Fry has essentially contradicted himself in his answer: atheism does not and indeed cannot explain or account for evil. In fact, ironically, I think Fry demonstrates the truthfulness of Christianity in his answer because only the idea of a good God can give rise to the idea of an objective moral good and evil.

    Personally I believe that Christianity is the best explanation that we have for the universe as we perceive it, evil and all. Very, very briefly: (1) evil is an alien intrusion into the world, caused by the Fall (see Genesis 3). This explains why we have a higher ideal for the world than the one we actually see – because creation is not as God originally created it. In other words, illness, death etc are not ‘natural’; (2) despite that, God promises that there is a purpose in all suffering – that “all things” work for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28, see also Genesis 50:20 and elsewhere); (3) One day God promises to end all suffering (Revelation 7:17). To my mind that is a far more convincing and comprehensive answer to the problem of evil than anything atheism could provide.

    The important thing to remember is that all of us have to give account for the world as we see it: it’s not a question of God being on trial, but rather – every view needs to be put on trial. I find it surprising that someone as intelligent as Stephen Fry should be so blind when it comes to critiquing his own views. Is it too much to ask for a little consistency and rigor?

    Post script: I’m nearly finished working my way through Christopher Ash’s excellent commentary on Job. It deals a lot with precisely this question – how a good God can be reconciled with evil. I hope to be writing a review on it soon.

  • Atheism, Values and Sociopaths

    I’ve read a couple of interesting articles over the last week or so, and both of them deal with atheism and values (as in the sense of morality). The first article was entitled “Famous atheists… reveal where they get their values from“. I found this absolutely fascinating: too often, atheists criticise religion without offering an alternative. As I’ve said before, atheism is not a replacement for religion – and so most of the atheists quoted in that article came out with humanism (which I’ve critiqued recently).

    To my mind, one of the weakest points of atheism or humanism is the idea of values and morality: Bob may look at his fellow humans and decide that they are wonderful and that kindness and compassion are values he wants to live his life by. All well and good. On the other hand, John may look at his fellow humans, decide that they’re all worthless and reason that the best way to go about life is to lie, steal and cheat his way to the top. Which one is ‘right’? Well now, herein lies the problem. There is no ‘right’. As Dostoevsky wrote, “If God does not exist, then everything is permitted.”

    This problem is not simply an academic one,  as the other post I’ve read demonstrates: “What sociopaths reveal to us about the existence of God“. The post is based on the video testimony of a former sociopath called David Wood. It highlights the problem atheism or humanism gets itself into when someone disagrees when it comes to morality: what do you do when someone dissents from morality as our culture tends to understand it? What do you do when someone takes atheism and concludes that we’re all a bunch of atoms, and that you might as well have a bit of fun while you’re on this earth – fun which includes killing other people?

    If you read the article and scroll past the video, you’ll see three arguments presented by different people (Elton Trueblood, Immanuel Kant and C.S. Lewis) about the existence of morality. They argue that morality has to exist in an objective sense, otherwise – essentially – life as we know it would not make sense.

    I think most people would say what David Wood thought was wrong – but is that a logical conclusion for those who believe there is no better standard to appeal to, i.e. that there is no objective morality? I think you could argue (to my mind, correctly) that he was simply being a consistent atheist. I’m curious to know if there was an atheist or humanist argument which could have changed his mind. I suspect not.

  • God’s Existence and Kalam

    This academic year, I’ve been taking a class on the Doctrine of God. Last week we were studying God’s eternity, and as part of that we looked at the Kalam Cosmological Argument (William Lane Craig’s formulation of it – that link goes through to his website, where you can watch a short video on the Kalam which is actually quite good. He didn’t come up with the original argument himself, but he did extend it).

    The argument itself is pretty simple. It goes like this:

    1. Everything that began to exist has a cause of its existence
    2. The Universe began to exist
    3. Therefore the universe has a cause of its existence.
    4. Causes are either:
      1. Impersonal (without a will) – a previous physical state of affairs which ‘produces’ the new state of affairs. or…
      2. Personal (a will produces the new state of affairs)
    5. So: The universe is either caused by a 4a) or 4b) cause.
    6. But: 4a) causes are not available to cause the universe because by definition there is no previous physical state of affairs.
    7. Further: This personal cause is – in relation to the universe: Transcendent, incorporeal, omniscient and omnipotent.

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  • Is Atheism Rational?

    … or indeed, irrational? Last week I read a very interesting interview with the Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga called Is Atheism Irrational? I’d recommend reading it – particularly the last section at the end, which I found fascinating.

    It’s to do with the belief in naturalism or materialism – i.e. the belief that the natural world is all there is. Nothing exists apart from the natural world, which obviously rules out God or supernatural beings etc.

    One of the points that Plantinga makes is based on viewing our brains as purely the products of naturalistic evolution.

    The example that he uses is his belief that there is a beer in the fridge. If naturalistic evolution is true, all a belief is is a set of neurophysiological properties, irrespective of whatever the content of that belief actually is. So, the fact that he goes to the fridge to get the beer could have been caused by any ‘belief’ with those same physiological properties. If evolution is true, our ‘beliefs’ don’t have to correspond to the real world as long as they actually work and help us to survive.

    He goes on to say:

    Evolution will select for belief-producing processes that produce beliefs with adaptive neurophysiological properties, but not for belief-producing processes that produce true beliefs. Given materialism and evolution, any particular belief is as likely to be false as true.

    I find that fascinating. You should read the whole interview for more though – it’s not very long.

    On a related note, the other thing which I find interesting about a purely naturalist worldview is that it leads “naturally” (ha ha ha) to something called causal closure. Because nature is all there is, everything which happens has to have had a natural cause. In other words – the universe proceeds pretty much like clockwork, including the things that you and I do. The idea is, if you had godlike knowledge of all the physical forces and atoms and so on – you could predict exactly what would happen throughout the universe at any given time. Our brains are not outside of nature; they are physical objects too – subject to the same laws of nature as the rest of the universe. Why should they be any different?

    This has some interesting consequences:

    • As Plantinga said – can we really call any belief ‘rational’ or not, given that it’s merely a product of physical processes which, if we could understand and map completely, we could predict?
    • It destroys the idea of individual / personal agents. I may think I’m an individual, but actually I’m only the process of forces beyond my control – the universe simply working out its laws of physics. Someone I know who had a degree in philosophy told me that in philosophy these days it’s becoming popular to talk about everything with an impersonal agency.

    It seems interesting to me that what seems to be happening in philosophy these days is so far divorced from the thinking of many of the most vocal atheists of the day. I wonder if there is some cognitive dissonance going on – these are not trivial objections but I don’t think you would hear the likes of Dawkins giving them time of day. Their own personal experience seems to trump the logical consequence of the worldview they advocate.

    I’ve said many times here before, the Christian worldview is the only one which makes any kind of coherent sense of the world as we experience it.

  • Is Atheism enough to sustain a ‘church’?

    According to the news today, the “Sunday Assembly” has split. For those of you who don’t know, the Sunday Assembly is a church-style service, only it’s run by atheists. This is the vision from their website*:

    The Sunday Assembly is a godless congregation that celebrate life. Our motto: live better, help often, wonder more. Our mission: to help everyone find and fulfill their full potential. Our vision: a godless congregation in every town, city and village that wants one.

    Lots of ink was spilled over this when the assembly first started – I didn’t contribute at the time, but having heard this news I have a few thoughts. In particular, I do wonder whether an atheistic assembly is destined for failure.

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  • Is Atheism a replacement for Religion?

    I don’t know if you’ve seen the latest “storm in a Twitter-cup”, but Richard Dawkins has hit the news once again. You can read more about it here and here. Suffice it to say, he’s not made himself a popular man!

    Earlier today, I tweeted this:

    https://twitter.com/phillsacre/status/365807088443736064

    This started a Twitter conversation with few people, and I just wanted to clarify what I meant. Part of the problem is how you define ‘atheism’: many people were quick to point out (both to me personally and in general) that atheism is simply a lack of belief in god or gods: it’s not a system of values. It doesn’t help you to live your life, per se. Its remit is very narrow. (Thus, Richard Dawkins does not speak for atheists, he is not the atheist leader, etc).

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  • Is Secularism ‘neutral’, ‘godless’ – or even possible?

    Image source: Flickr
    Image source: Flickr

    After writing my previous post, I read Gillan’s excellent post over at the God and Politics blog, which I do commend to you. At the bottom of the article, he linked through to an article on the Theos Think Tank website, written by a Christian barrister, entitled “Is Secular Law possible?” I would encourage anyone who has an interest (either positive or negative) in religion in the public sphere to read it. It’s not a short article but it will be well worth your time.

    It basically argues: (1) secularist law – i.e. law which excludes any religious influence – is impossible, but ‘secular’ law (understood correctly) is possible; (2)  secular law is only possible because of Christian foundations in distinguishing between law and morality; (3) secular law is imperative, the idea of limited government logically comes from Christian foundations.

    In these days of alleged ‘militant secularism’, I think it’s high time that these kind of issues got out into the open and were actually discussed rather than simply being assumed. What kind of secular society do we want? I don’t think we want a secular society which can be used as a weapon against religion. To whet your appetite for the article, I’d like to quote from the first section on morality, which puts rather more eloquently what I have said here before:

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