Battle 3: Practical foolishness

As the Doubt story is developing, I am finding myself immersed in all kinds of new information. I recently took some time and read Ravi Zacharias's book, The End of Reason, in which he refutes the claims of the new militant atheists led by writers Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. Three years ago, in 2006, Sam Harris wrote a book entitled, "Letter to A Christian Nation", a hostile and bitter diatribe against religion and God. His book openly claims that not only is there no God, but that a country such as America is utterly foolish and will bring about it's own destruction if it continues to believe in him. Harris's biggest claim in the book is that a majority of the conflicts, wars, murders, genocides, and holocausts around the world are a direct result of religious beliefs and the delusional results of belief in an imaginary God. He goes on within the book to use old, recycled arguments that atheists have been pushing (unsuccesfully) for centuries to try and support his angry claims.
There is an issue here that I think Zacharias uncovers beautifully in his book "The End of Reason." Sam Harris is making the claim that staunch religious beliefs and intolerance on the part of the church are the cause of mass suffering and pain the world over. However, if he is to make this claim, then he must consider the alternative. One of the first rules of making philosophical statements about religious beliefs, is that if you deny one religious belief, you have to stop and consider what you are affirming in it's place. So, let's take a look at just how much harm and damage atheism has caused, shall we?
First of all, Harris takes a huge shot at Christianity by claiming that the anti-semitism birthed in midieval Christianity spawned the Holocaust. But as Zacharias asks in his book, "Has Harris read about Hitler's own spiritual journey? Has he read anything about Hitler's dabbling in the occult? Is he aware that Hitler personally presented the writings of Nietzsche to Stalin and Mussolini? Is he ignoring the fact that others who were not Jewish were also slaughtered by Hitler? Did he read Nazi mastermind Adolf Eichmann's last words that refused repentance and denied belief in God? Does he know how many Russians were killed by the Nazi war machine? Does he recall Hitler's words inscribed over one of the gas ovens in Auschwitz - "I want to raise a generation of young people devoid of a conscience, imperious, relentless and cruel"? Does he know that Hitler's point was that the destruction of the weak is a good thing for the survival of the strong and that "nature intended it that way," as is taught by atheistic evolution's tent of natural selection- "the survival of the fittest"? None of these signs of the Holocaust point back to Christianity." In fact they point a pretty damning finger at atheistic belief systems as being the driving force behind the murder of millions during Hitler's chaotic massacre. In fact, two of the other most prolific mass murderers in history, Stalin and Pol Pot, were both professed atheists. Isn't it interesting that when Stalin and Pol Pot do the murdering, it is because they are deranged psychopaths; their atheism has nothing to do with their outrageous hate crimes. However, when a Holocaust is produced from the mind of a crazed ideologue like Hitler, it is the result of 400 years of Christian intolerance of the Jews.
Ravi Zacharias also makes the point that Harris has probably not considered the fact that his own angry writings may end up sowing the seeds for the future slaughter of Christians. Zacharias asks, "Has he paused to think what motivates him to write these things against a group of people? What would he say if two hundred years from now someone says that genocide against Christians can be traced back to the anti-Christian writings of Sam Harris? Atheists can't have it both ways. If the murder of innocents is wrong, it is not because science tells us it is wrong but because every life has intrinsic worth- a postulate that atheism simply cannot deduce."
Another problem is that Harris cannot argue the point that what Hitler did was evil without assigning life a moral framework. Atheists cannot explain why we share a somewhat common morality. If there is no moral law giver, there cannot be a moral law. Therefore (according to atheism), there is no such thing as right and wrong or good and evil. Your morality is your morality, not anyone elses. Yet Harris is quick to present Hitler's Holocaust as wrong. But if he truly believes what he says, who is to say that Hilter was wrong. According to atheistic teaching, morality is objective and therefore Hitler did nothing wrong at all. His actions were moral in his own eyes and that's all that matters. How foolish can you be?!?
Zacharias puts it best when he says,"What is the moral framework Harris adopts on which he has built his entire critique of God? His emotion-laden critique hangs on an argument that says, "I can see no moral framework operating in the world, but what I do see is morally condemnable." In philosophical terms, this is called a mutually exclusive assumption." Harris wants to establish what he views as morally wrong, while claiming that morality does not exist. This is absolute foolishness and has so many wholes in it that it is laughable at best.

Anyways, just some stuff to think about. God Bless.

Battle 2: Doubt

The internship continues on! My next story (and the one that I actually get to write) is one about doubt. When Amber laid the initial story ideas out in front of me, I jumped at the chance to write this one. Doubt is a touchy subject for me and I have had run-in after run-in with it. It is one of those pesky struggles that Christ promised would come in John 16:33. However, as that scripture commands, I must take heart and know that Jesus has overcome the world. In this article, it is up to me to take common doubts and questions that students have and try to find answers worth giving. It is a daunting task, considering that I already know from my own experiences that many of these questions have no legitimate answer. In the end they require total faith... my favorite (I wish you could hear the sarcasm behind that last phrase). Here are my ideas so far. They are not as they will be and will certainly change with the story as it goes.

My first year out of high school, I attended a secular community college. I was unsure of what I would do with my life and my parents thought it foolish to throw money into college if I didn't even have a direction to head in. I signed up for general education courses and started knocking them out with relative ease. Then I hit a class that has changed much of how I view life (whether it was for better or worse has yet to be established). I enrolled in basic philosophy. I come from a background of Christianity, born and raised on a church pew. As I entered the world of critical thinking and philosophical debate, I quickly found myself realizing that my faith was largely without critical defense on my part. I knew what I believed, but I had know idea why. My professor was a young man, maybe in his early thirties. He was well-read and educated to the highest degree, but he also had a charismatic (yet somewhat mellow) personality that just resonated with every student in the class. When it came to philosophical debate, he was like a relentless animal, pushing us to defend our points of view and often playing devil's advocate simply for the sake of making a point. When we began to discuss God, he was incredible at articulating both sides of every argument. He could seamlessly switch between defending God and disproving His existence within a matter of minutes. He knew ever angle, every catch, every argument, and every counter-argument. It was obvious that he had spent much of his young life studying the material. Several times throughout the debate about God, students asked him, "Sean, tell us what you believe. Are you an atheist or do you believe in God?" He always managed to sidestep the question, telling us that he didn't want to introduce any bias to our discussions and assignments by revealing his stance. During the last week of class, one student finally remembered to ask him, "Sean, what do you believe." I'll never forget his answer. He simply looked at us and said, "I don't know." Sean was an agnostic, unable to decide whether or not he truly believed that God existed or not. His extensive research in the field had only served to make him indecisive. He knew all the arguments and all the angles, but in the end did not know what he really believed.

As I look back over my own experiences with doubt and compare them to the questions of current students, I find that the root of the problem. We are looking for arguments instead of answers. In the end, all arguments beget more arguments. All debates create new debates. However, when it comes to doubt, the answers are not in arguments. They are in experience. When you are trying to defend your favorite restaurant to a friend, you can sit and debate with them about it all they want, but you will not be able to sway them until you invite them to come and experience the restaurant with you. Should Christianity and God be any different?

Well... I was going to start tackling the questions that I have gotten from the students, but it is well past 1 in the morning here in Springfield, and I figure I'd better get to bed so that I can wake up for class tomorrow. I will finish this later. Thanks so much guys for sharing in my thoughts. I look forward to hearing any feedback you guys have!

-Dane Mohrmann