I’ve been listening to a lecture by A.E. Wilder Smith on Time and Creation, available at www.swrb.com (Puritan Videos). In this lecture, Dr. Wilder-Smith says that God created both space and time. My question is this: where was God, and what was he doing, before he created space and time?
I just got through reading The Birmingham News’ article Birmingham’s Larry Taunton touts ‘The Grace Effect’ to counter atheist arguments on al.com. Larry Taunton is either ignorant of history, or he just likes to lie for Jesus. If he had any knowledge of the former Soviet Union and its dissolution, he’d realize that freethought of the kind exhibited by prominent atheists like Hitchens and Dawkins was never evident in the Soviet Union. His “godless” atheist state was actually a form of religious statism, where the government and the Communist Party took the place of God in the public’s pantheon. As soon as the Party lost power, the people packed the new churches, most of them going back to the Russian Orthodox and Catholic churches they’d secretly supported for decades.
In this interview, he says that in the Ukrainian orphanage system, “children are treated as having no value… They are the discarded of society, subject to abuse and suffering.” How is this any different from the foster system in the United States, where as much as 80% of the population are religious?
Taunton also states that this devaluation of human life is “the result of decades of an anti-Christian, godless mindset, where human beings are seen as less valuable than the state.” How is any of this related to the philosophy of modern, humanistic atheism, which has among its most cherished principles, the importance of human rights? When have Dawkins and Hitchens ever promoted a view of the state as more valuable than humanity?
That would be never.
Sure, Hitchens was a Marxist once, but as he got older he renounced that view. Even when he supported Marxism, he didn’t support the Soviet model, with its authoritarian rule and unwavering devotion to the state.
Taunton has urged his fellow Christians to pray for Chris Hitchens. I urge my fellow atheists to think for Larry Taunton, because he shows no inclination toward thinking for himself.
I received this message from my wife’s cousin, following up on his objection to my comments about the absurdity of Christian claims.
You are probably right. I might should have let it go. More than anything else, I just think that relationships are much more important than any belief, be it scientific, religious, or whatever. I value your friendship and I like having you in my family. It just seemed like a really unnecessary attack given the context. …
…there are things I “know” and other things I believe, but to me, it’s all pointless without my friends and family.
I’m glad he realized what a knee-jerk reaction he’d had, but it still frustrates me that he felt like this was an “unnecessary attack.” If this seemed like a cruel attack to him, then he’s led a very sheltered life. As for the necessity of it, I think it would have been intellectually dishonest to have let his wife’s criticism of Flat Earthers stand, just as it was intellectually dishonest for her to criticize them in the first place.
This was a discussion that started on Facebook, and ended up spilling over into an email rant. The Christian in question (Flat Earthers. Wow…) was apparently offended, and her husband, my wife’s cousin, stepped in to defend her honor:
You have made it very clear over the years what you think of Christians, and I respect that your opinions are based on scientific facts. I also can appreciate how silly some things we believe must seem to you; I often have questions of my own. But let me say two things… One: you approach this subject from the point of view of someone who has already made up his mind. I see no room for actual discourse, merely argument. While there is nothing wrong with that, it is hardly the attitude of one who honestly seeks truth. MANY Christians fall into that same category, but some do not (and you know at least two). Two: I don’t expect you to respect my opinions or my wife’s, but I do expect you to refrain from publicly insulting her. You are probably thinking right now, “I didn’t insult her, just her beliefs.” I’m going to assume you know what a load of garbage that is. You turned a humorous response to an amusing post into an all-out attack. Again, if you want to bash Christians from dawn to dusk, I really don’t care, I just think you can do it without hurting a relative in the process. In the end, it is your post on your account, and you can say whatever you want. As for me, I have always enjoyed your sense of humor and respected your logical mind. I do not respect this.
Oh, by the way, the details surrounding a past event are not even close to the details surrounding an ongoing phenomenon. One is considerably easier to prove / disprove than the other. Just a thought.
My response
You know, your brother has used that very same argument. That I’ve ‘made up my mind’ to only believe in things that have a rationalistic explanation. What no Christian has ever given me is an explanation of how, if I were to abandon the filter that a rationalistic mindset offers, I could distinguish between the true supernatural event and the false supernatural event. It’s a quandary. I can’t shut off my skepticism any more than you can turn off your credulity. The things you believe don’t just SEEM silly to me, they ARE silly, when viewed through a framework of the natural world.
No, I did not turn an amusing response into an “all-out attack.” Believe me, if I launched an all-out attack, you’d know it. Your wife (and I’m assuming she can speak for herself in this, and has chosen not to) made a comment about the absurdity of another faith-group’s beliefs, to which I replied that she was not exactly standing on solid ground with regards to belief statements. If she felt like I was insulting her, then I was not. I was pointing out the incongruity of a Christian making fun of absurd claims, an incongruity I still find ironic considering your continued defense of it. If she was insulted by my pointing out what she believes, then maybe it’s time for her to examine her beliefs. Maybe she should also be careful about how she disparages other faith groups for their silly claims. I’m not sure how you being a relative should change that. I’m always respectful of your beliefs, maybe too much so, when we’re together on your territory. I sit quietly while the most ridiculous assertions are bandied about as if they were discussions of what we had for lunch. I stand quietly while the family talks out loud to supposed invisible beings. I go out of my way, believe me, to not cause offense.
In any case, how could I “publicly insult” a Christian by pointing out that they faithfully believe Christian mythology? That’s like saying that I could insult a Wiccan by pointing out that they think they can cast spells by running around naked under a full Moon. It’s a fact of your doctrine that snakes talk and virgins can give birth. You can either dispute that fact or not, but my pointing it out cannot give offense. I thought you were supposed to be proud of the fact that you believe despite all of the evidence. Isn’t that the essence of faith?
If I were to set out to disprove talking snakes, I would go about it the same way I’d disprove the Flat Earther’s Ice Wall. Luckily for me, I don’t have to disprove either, because as faith statements, both are the responsibility of the person making the claim. Also, I don’t argue absurdities. Snakes don’t talk, and there’s no evidence that they’ve ever talked. There is not now, nor has there ever been evidence that the Earth is flat (despite the fact that the Christian scriptures support the Flat Earth hypothesis.)
I think it was Francis Bacon who said that the difference between genius and method was that genius was the speed at which one walks, and method is the direction. I think that you and Chris are two of the smartest people I know. From what I know of Leslie, she’s fairly smart too. Still, nothing keeps your genius from enabling you to run that much faster away from the truth.
I know your first instinct as both a Christian and a husband is to defend Leslie, but I think you should have put a little more thought into just how you were going to do that, and whether it was even necessary.
I’m not sure where this will go. I’m hoping he’ll just drop it, but I probably won’t be that lucky. For the record, I wasn’t “baiting” her, but to mix my metaphors, now I’ve got a tiger by the tail. The worst thing I could do now is to let go.
I was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1969 and I've lived my entire life (so far) on the Central Gulf Coast. I received my Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of South Alabama in 1992. Since 1993, I've worked as a graphic designer. I'm married, with two dogs, six cats and three mortgages. I primarily write about skepticism, free-thought, politics, atheism, separation of church and state, humor, science and my own personal experiences and issues.
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