Emerging Pensees
thoughts on God, faith, life, and the emerging church... btw, "pensees" is French for thoughts. get your mind out of the gutter ;)
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Name: Mike Clawson
From: Austin, Texas, United States
About me: A follower of the way of Christ, a "postmodern" Christian, an amateur theologian/ philosopher, a husband, a father, a student, a friend...
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Friendly Atheist Posts Our pals from the Friendly Atheist site are having a field day in the comments section of the Vegas Cohort blog. Mike mentioned that he wishes more Christians (especially thoughtful, peaceful Christians, I would hope) would respond. Any takers? I hope they're not causing you too much trouble Jim. Sorry for sic-ing them on you. The unfortunate truth is that many of the atheists at Hemant's blog are anything but friendly towards Christians. Threats and Bribery Bingo!

The thing I find though is that most Christians who are steeped in Christian sub-culture cannot see from the outside enough to hear how absurd the threats and bribery sound.

Having moved to Utah recently, it had been very enlightening to be on the other side of evangelism. As my Mormon friends and neighbors try the same stunts on me that I used to try on others in the past, I see how truly awful it looked from the other side.

Sigh! OT: There is an emerging church article you might be interested in over at getreligion.org

getreligion.org/?p=3490

The above is a www address, but your site didn't like it as an address. Strange. Mike - What I love about James Choung's new book True Story and his approach to the gospel is that it's not an appeal to either escape ticket to heaven or fear of flames of hell. It's an appeal to a desire for global justice, for a better world for all of us. That way Christianity is neither a threat nor bribery, but rather an invitation to join with God in his mission to restore this world to all the good it's supposed to be. I don't know if that would pass muster with the good folks at Friendly Atheist, but I think it's probably a lot better than the Four Spiritual Laws!

http://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/book.pl/code=3609

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCVcSiUUMhY I came to your blog via your comment about Hemant's book on Amazon. I was so touched by your review as a pastor. It is refreshing to see a Christian treating atheists as people and not fighting or provoke debate. Thank you so much for your open mind to even read the book and I am pleased to see posts linked from Friendlyatheist.com. I hope all people of all religions or non-religions can treat each other as humans, as you have demonstrated. What If God Really Existed? I think the rise of atheism is for the very reasons you mention. For a lot of atheists, Christianity probably would be an ethical downsizing.

This is because Christianity (for many) has turned into beliefism. It has become about what we believe, rather than who we are and what we do. We have become abstract rather than practical. Isn't the heart of many people's rejection of God a desire to be my own final arbiter of what is true, good and beautiful, of what will bring me joy, fulfillment, happiness, peace? Isn't that the original lie - that we can be like gods, judging for ourselves what is best rather than trusting the creator, whose (supposedly) loving heart and good intentions we really can't trust? That we can do better if we carve out some space of our own and do it our way?

Yeah, religion itself can put up added barriers that make it much harder to trust the heart of God. And subjectively most people who reject faith may not experience anything other than that felt revulsion toward God and his followers. But most who cross the divide into faith, look back and say that in hindsight even if experiences with bad religion played a part, there was also some of that "I'm not bowing my knee to anyone and any God that would expect me to is a tyrant" going on as well. Like the characters in Lewis's "The Great Divorce."

I agree with Andrew's comment about the danger of Christianity turning into beliefism - well said.

"a God who condemns people to an eternity of torture for choosing the wrong religion, as an evangelical view of God requires one to believe."

That's the predominant evangelical view, but there's a substantial minority within evangelicalism that is open to an inclusivist view of salvation, along the lines of C.S. Lewis. How much you encounter it, if at all, will depend on the circles in which you walk and/or the books you read, but it's there. "I'm not bowing my knee to anyone and any God that would expect me to is a tyrant"

Karl, did you read the comments on that blog? I didn't get the sense that this is what most of them were saying. They don't think God is a tyrant for expecting us to bow; they think God is a tyrant because (a common reading of) the Bible portrays him as a tyrant - e.g. commanding genocide, sanctioning racism & bigotry, and condemning people to an eternity of torture for choosing the wrong religion.

We're not just talking about letting God decide what is right and wrong when our own selfish motives are involved. We're talking about God sanctioning the systematic extermination of entire races. We're talking about God inflicting eternal conscious torment as a punishment for intellectual disbelief and calling that "just". I can understand that there are times when God's definition of "good" might be somewhat different than my own, but I refuse to believe the hyper-Calvinist view that I am so totally depraved that what appears incurably evil to me is somehow actually a Divine good. If genocide is actually good, then I don't want to be good.

"there's a substantial minority within evangelicalism that is open to an inclusivist view of salvation, along the lines of C.S. Lewis."

I think a lot of evangelicals would argue that to the degree a person holds such a view, that person is no longer an evangelical. C.S. Lewis is a perfect case in point since he was not, by most standards, an evangelical, and most evangelicals I know got really nervous when you started bringing up those parts of his writings.

There are a lot of areas where you can stretch the boundaries of evangelical theology, but when you start suggesting that not every single non-Christian will burn forever in hell, that's when the accusations of being a heretic begin to fly in my personal experience. Mike, I didn't read the comments in that particular thread but I've read enough atheist discussion threads and had enough lengthy discussions with atheist friends to be comfortable posting what I did. My comments don't really hinge on subjectively reported reasons for disbelief, as telling and important as those may be.

Just as you or I might suggest that a conservative evangelical's stated (or even subjectively felt) reasons for rejecting something they don't like about emergent is different from (or secondary to) what's *really* driving their core response on that issue, my experience has been that those objections to a mean and petty sounding OT God aren't the deepest thing about most people's rejection of God. Are they involved? Yes. Might they be what brought about a tipping point? Yes. Do those images of God create a barrier to belief? Yes, often, and they are often at the top of the consciously, subjectively felt-and-cited reasons for rejecting God. But are they the deepest thing about most human beings saying "no thanks" to God? Would removing them automatically make most people immediately change their mind and submit their will and ways to God's? I don't think so. It seeps out here and there, in discussions and life experiences and testimonies of those who have been there, and then crossed over to belief. But no, you aren't likely to find it in an online discussion thread.

Regarding inclusivism, I have a good friend who is an evangelical who wrote a book in which he alluded to his inclusivist position, among other things. He was invited to sign the evangelical manifesto of belief that appeared in CT back in the late 90's, but refused to do so because it was explicitly exclusivist and he (along with several other prominent evangelical thinkers) refused to sign because of their inclusivist beliefs - along the lines of Lewis's. CT printed their letter to the drafters of the document outlining their reasons for not signing. My friend was a finalist for a position at our alma mater a while back and was told by the interview committee that while they believed his position was orthodox (i.e. they accepted him as an evangelical), it would definitely create controversy among their constituencey and within the department.

So yes, you're right - those views make a lot of evangelicals nervous and can get you called a heretic in many evangelical circles. But there's a minority of evangelicals who don't fit that description and I've been a member of at least 2 evangelical churches where it was ok to have that discussion. Just like there are streams within emergent that don't fit the description of other streams within emergent, YMMV depending on where you are, who you are reading and interacting with. Karl, these days I'm more interested in listening to what people tell me about their own reasons for belief or non-belief; not in attempting to psychologize them based on what my theology tells me their reasons must "really" be. To do the latter seems disrespectful, and it bugs me when people to it to me too, so why would it do it to my atheist friends?

Besides which, I can relate to this reason very much. I've long said that if there was anything that was going to drive me away from my faith in God it would be the books of Joshua and Judges. If I couldn't somehow reconcile those parts of the Bible in my own mind, I would be an atheist too. So yes, I believe other atheists when they say that is a big part of why they would reject God if he existed. That sounds nice but are you consistent in that, Mike? When a complementarian says he'd love to let women preach and teach but sadly just thinks the Bible won't permit it, do you accept that at face value as being the sum total of what's motivating him, or do you write/post about the fear and prejudice that drives many complmentarians' views? Is our position on anything ever really as simple as what we'd articulate with a first, subjective response - even if there is truth in that response?

I'm all for listening to people, seeking to learn things from them that I may not have previously known, seeing through their eyes rather than just my own, honoring their statements about what motivates them and treating them the way I'd like to be treated. But I don't think you really lay all of your critical thinking skills aside when reflecting afterward on those conversations any more than I do. There's a decent amount of middle ground between the extremes of "psychologizing them based on what my theology tells me their reasons must really be" and just uncritically accepting everything they say at face value and not thinking further about what light reason and experience (and even humbly held theology) can shed on the topic. "When a complementarian says he'd love to let women preach and teach but sadly just thinks the Bible won't permit it, do you accept that at face value as being the sum total of what's motivating him, or do you write/post about the fear and prejudice that drives many complmentarians' views?"

I don't know. I don't think I've ever heard an honest complementarian say anything like that to me. Most that I know are much more strident in their defense of strict gender roles both in church and in the rest of life. I suppose if a complementarian told me that then I would believe them. At any rate, I don't recall writing anything about their motivations recently anyway, so I really couldn't say for sure whether I've been consistent on this. Perhaps you're thinking of my wife.

As for my atheist friends' motivations, I've just recently come to realize how offensive and condescending and just plain false it feels to them when Christians try to tell them why they "really" don't believe in God, rather than listening to and believing their own reasons. This is a common complaint that I hear from them, especially the ones who used to be Christians and who can't seem to get their family and friends to actually believe their reasons are genuine when they explain why they no longer are. At any rate, how can I expect atheists to listen to me and take my own statements about my beliefs at face value if I won't do the same for them?

So yes, unless I have good reason to think otherwise, I tend to believe what people tell me about their own beliefs and motivations. And that is especially true in an online forum where I don't really know most of the people in person. What right do I have to start telling them that somehow I know better than they do about their own motivations? Without some other kind of context for who they are, I really have no basis to disbelieve what they're telling me. I'm surprised you never encountered that from a complementarian, Mike. I know quite a few well meaning, caring people who fit that description. That was part of my dilemma as I wrestled through the issue myself. Even though I didn't come down on the complementarians' side of the question, it wasn't as simple as stupid dishonest strident misogynists on one side, nice smart caring people on the other.

I agree there's no question that abusive Christianity and some Christian theologies have been reasons for people ceasing or refusing to believe in God.

I think what you say about respecting your friends' statements about their own motivations is right, and the best way to interact with people. Especially on the internet and even in face to face conversation, yes. Good point. Upon later reflection you may or may not conclude that the story you heard from them was the whole story, even if it was a true story. But your private conclusions on the matter had better be shared with care, if at all. "it wasn't as simple as stupid dishonest strident misogynists on one side, nice smart caring people on the other"

I didn't say that. You brought this entirely hypothetical analogy up in the first place. Please don't put words in my mouth. I've recently been thinking about a similar question: "How would you change the way you live if you suddenly stopped believing in God? And this could certainly go both ways - for an atheist - "How would you change the way you live if you suddenly started believing in God."

I've asked a few people the first questions recently and have been somewhat surprised, but more just intrigued, that most people don't seem to think they would change significantly. I think this is worth thinking about... I just re-found your blog via Adam's but have no idea how I found his.

I find your question interesting but have to process before I answer it. I am currently "in transition". I've been a "Christian" for 18 years and am stepping closer to atheism, or at least agnosticism, daily. What a great question, particularly your point Mike, to flip it around and ask evangelicals this. This is something I have thought about often.

I think this would get to the heart of what motivates so many evangelicals. (I speak from experience as a hardcore evangelical for many, many years.)

If God doesn't exist would we still follow Jesus? If we answer yes, I would argue that would make us true followers. If we answer no, I would argue that the underlying motivation of such faith is fear of hell, not love of God and neighbor. Do you do something because it works or do you do something because it is the best way you know to live?

Thanks for sharing and excellent question and post. De-conversion Post Evolution & Theology Exhausting. I don't even have a moment to think about jumping into that one. Good on ya, Mike. John Stackhouse of Regent (Vancouver) has posted some related musings on his blog. You might be interested:

http://stackblog.wordpress.com/

From the comments:

I think you’re exactly right John. Dawkins expresses his astonishment that folks like Collins, Polkinghorne, Peackocke, etc can actually believe, not only in some kind of physicist God who set the whole thing in motion, but in the particular “thought-reading,” prayer-answering God of the Bible and in the details of the Christian religion, “resurrection, forgiveness of sins and all.”

But that’s exactly where he stops - at astonishment. He doesn’t bother to investigate how they might “put it together” or why they might think such a project worthwhile in the first place - two pretty important pieces of the equation to just leave out, in my opinion. Contributing to FriendlyAtheist.com Good job Mike, hang in there! Brian McLaren on Atheism Thanks for the Shout Out Hemant Brian McLaren: I am an atheist Doubt vs. Atheism The leaps you describe sounds like some sort of metaphysical Frogger. That could be fun.

Also, you say, "I wish more non-believers would talk about their lack of belief in these terms."

Heck, I wish more believers would talk about belief and doubt in these terms. How many people have thrown up their defenses against my heresies by claiming to have found the one, true path. Yuck. I believe in God but for all other intents and purposes I identify as agnostic, simply because at this stage in my life I am making an honest admission that I just don't know what I believe about a lot of things. This is a rather recent development, coming out of the previous stage in my life where my line of thinking was, pay lip service to the old faith just to be sure, but also keep an open mind and live your life however you want. Which came out of a rebellion against the restrictive brand of Christianity I was raised in.

I do believe that in general, matters of faith are arational or alogical, in that they lie outside the boundaries of what reason or logic can tell us; in my opinion, any atheist who tells you that the alogical is actually illogical is just as confused as the theist who tells you that the alogical is actually logical.

I believe that when in a larger sense, we can eschew our obsession with pigeonholing every proposition into either logical and illogical, and appreciate that there is so much about the world that is alogical, the lines between the "skeptics" and "believers" will start to blur and we will finally be able to make real, constructive dialog. As an atheist, I hope I have the humility to admit that I can learn something about the beauty and wonder of the world from a book written by ignorant barbarians who dreamed of the day they could smash the heads of their enemies babies against rocks. a book written by ignorant barbarians who dreamed of the day they could smash the heads of their enemies babies against rocks

Almost sounds like Hitchens on cluster bombs. Who would have thought his world view would be influenced by the Psalms?

I've been trying to do some research on the late Marcello Truzzi. He wrote an article in which he pointed out that the only viewpoint that didn't logically require evidence presented to back up the claims were agnostic viewpoints. However fundamentalism holds itself above the standards of logic, nevermind the requirement of objective standards of evidence. Atheist fundamentalism has never held itself to those standards while requiring them of everyone else.

By the way,Truzzi's famous "Extraodinary claims require extraordinary evidence," which was so shamelessly stolen by Carl Sagan was something he later came to see was an error. I'm in the middle of writing a piece about it, which is a blogwhore but a small one. Resurrecting an old post, I know...

There is a sense that one gets from some atheists (emphasis on some) that they really have no sensitivity at all to the strangeness and wonder and mystery and just sheer weirdness of human existence, and thus have no appreciation for the diversity of answers, religious or otherwise, that have been given to try and explain this mystery and wonder. To them, religious people are just foolish, deluded, unintelligent, or brainwashed.

I might be close to this stereotype, though I would modify the second statement. But, to turn it around to a theme I seem to harp on: I think we underestimate the cognitive differences between people. It probably is true that my experiences are fundamentally different from others.

It could very well be that I don't have 'religious experiences.' I would list a particularly enjoyable game of foosball during the middle of a submarine deployment (probably due to the contrast with the misery of the submarine deployment) and listening to Tarkus by ELP while delivering Pennysavers in the rain as religious experiences (plus one or two other music-listening occasions.) Each experience was a kind of super-joy.

When I was a little boy and played with toys or built models, they were almost always of things and things only. I wanted planes that did NOT have a pilot in them, etc. During my life I've managed to advance from completely socially incompetent to socially retarded, but I still don't like being in groups of more than two or three people. All in all, I tend to do very little anthropmorphizing compared to others.

To me, religion consists of scientific claims and ethical systems. To the extent that others are willing to categorize it differently, I might not have the referents to know what the heck they're talking about. Are you able to imagine yourself as one who perceives religion the way I do (and always have)? I know that trying to imagine myself as a religious follower is beyond my limits of empathy and / or imagination.

Assuming that natural atheists or hard atheists or whatever you want to call us have sufficiently different brains (for example, Dawkins was unaffected by Persinger's God Helmet and scored low on a temporal lobe sensitivity test), where do we go from there?

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet)

Heck, does what I'm saying make any sense to you? Why aren't Atheists Republicans? Scientific theories are inherenetly morally neutral, since the universe itself is. Just because things like evolution or gravity are true isn't a reason that we would want to base our lives on emulating them. Basically, I don't accept that the argument "things are this way" implys "things should be this way."

The fact that the universe was created without regard for morality means that it's up to individuals to be moral if we think that that's a desirable quality in the world. If my life began as a coincidental merging of two strands of DNA instead of being micromanaged by a deity interested in choosing the exact time, place, etc., of my birth, then I could just as easily have been any of the other six billion humans on this planet as have been who I am in fact. Because of this, I choose to treat them as close to myself as I am able.

Ideas don't have physical existence. There's really no such thing as democracy. The only scientific principle of government is that the strong can force the weak to do whatever they want. By agreeing to go by the will of the majority, we're uniting the people who want governance against those who don't and saying that democracy is the will of the strong. We do the same thing with morality: we unite against the universe and say that we're going to impose morality upon it since it didn't take care of the job itself.

I doubt moral Christians would express it that way, but I imagine that they have the same basis for their morality. It's pretty easy to get an interpretation out of the Bible that we're only expected to believe in God and that our acts are of no importance in salvation. Even if you're able to find passages that suggest otherwise, in the end the Bible becomes only morally ambiguous. Choosing to be moral, then, is a personal choice made in the absence of necessity because you think that the world will be better if you do. "It's pretty easy to get an interpretation out of the Bible that we're only expected to believe in God and that our acts are of no importance in salvation."

Actually I don't think it's that easy at all, and yet somehow evangelicals have managed to do it. But that's a long and complicated story.

And anyway, the point of my post was not at all to compare atheist and Christian morality. I already know about the basis for my morality. I want to know about yours. Thanks for sharing. If scientific theories could vote, evolution would surely vote Republican.

So would aborted babies, especially those that are painfully murdered in the partial birth procedure....... Dawkins says natural selection favors short-term selfishness over long-term planning and consideration of the interests of others? Is he high?

Just look at what that (Bushite Republican) strategy has done for the success and interests of the US for an obvious counterexample.

If that's the caliber of Dawkins' analysis, I'm glad I haven't bothered to read his book. I think that not many atheists are republican because of all the anti-secular positions held by Republicans. Also, most atheists are socially liberal (supporting gay rights, pro-choice, etc.). Another reason would be that many atheists are scientists and academics, who are already biased towards the left for other reasons.

Another possibility is that conservative atheists tend to hang out in different places, or use different labels. I think that the reason that polls have such wide-ranging results when it comes to numbers of non-theists is because there are so many labels and definitions flying around. If you only limit yourself to people who self-identify as atheists, you will have a severe underestimate of the diversity of non-theists.

Hey, this is completely off topic, but since I'm on your blog... You know how I said something about common ground between skepticism and postmodernism? I just found a great example of why scientists seem to dislike postmodernism. Are they even using the same definition as you?

http://scienceblogs.com/interactions/2007/06/in_which_i_bag_on_postmodernis_1.php

-miller Actually I am a registered Republican and atheist. Albeit a far left republican.

Then again, I was also a level 6 sinner, if you recall.

At this point in time neither are anything to brag about! I hope you guys do realize that "Republican" is just a metaphor (Dawkins metaphor, not mine) for an ethic that promotes "selfishness at the expense of public good, violence, callous indifference to suffering, short term greed at the expense of long term foresight." As such I'm not really interested so much in how you vote as why you don't hold to that kind of ethic, even though, according to Dawkins at least, this is the ethic promoted by evolution. Mike C: I hope you guys do realize that "Republican" is just a metaphor (Dawkins metaphor, not mine) for an ethic that promotes "selfishness at the expense of public good, violence, callous indifference to suffering, short term greed at the expense of long term foresight."

Reminds me of:

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

- John Kenneth Galbraith

Just promise you'll keep using the word that way: if the word means that often enough in "print," we can get the OED to add it as an 'official' definition. ;-)

Miller: Also, most atheists are socially liberal (supporting gay rights, pro-choice, etc.).

Ah, but the real question is why we are. I suppose the fact that these are default positions may have something to do with it (since there's no good reason not to allow them), but it seems like there must be more to it than that. But since I can only speak for myself, I have no idea what that reason is. A couple more points:

Even if short-sighted selfishness were an adaptive strategy (which it isn't always), that's not a reason for atheists to gravitate towards it more than anyone else. The same selection forces that shape an atheist's sense of ethics (and general life strategies) work on the entire species in the same way. Not believing in natural selection doesn't make you exempt from it. ;^)

Secondly, the current Republican trend is largely based on a desire for social conformity and keeping wealth and power in the hands of the wealthy and powerful. Authoritarianism is the opposite of a typical atheist's worldview (eg. "I'm going to trust my own senses and my own brain over any claims anyone makes."). The times when atheists favor a philosophy of short-sighted selfishness, all of the examples I've seen have been a type of Ayn Rand libertarianism, not Bushite "follow the leader, right or wrong." Mike said:

for an ethic that promotes "selfishness at the expense of public good, violence, callous indifference to suffering, short term greed at the expense of long term foresight." As such I'm not really interested so much in how you vote as why you don't hold to that kind of ethic, even though, according to Dawkins at least, this is the ethic promoted by evolution.

Robin says:

Because its not all about *me*.

I was brought up in an atmosphere that I was important but not that important that other people don't matter. Violence is not justification for anything. To have compassion for other peoples plights in life. That it is more satisfying to work for something than to have it handed to you. In other words it would be respect, responsibility, accountability and throw in compassion.

I do, however, think that Dawkins is correct in his assumption. If we take a serious look around we can see that society has become much of what he describes. For me to explain why I think this has happened, I would have to write a book.

In short I would have to say that the books of discipline, self control and respect were thrown out over the generations. And we can thank the psycholigists of the '70's' for starting that trend. Add in the drug world where the impoverished were given a way to make more money selling drugs than working a minimum wage job, which enhanced the idea of a quick and easy buck. Now it has evolved into a sue happy nation. In some respects, too much available media. It used to be the most you knew about was your community. With cable and satellite, you see the world. All things (except drugs) have value if tempered in small doses mixed with reason and rational. Unfortunately people have that tendancy to take things to the extreme. Over time we have developed into very selfish people. Most children are left alone to fend for themselves. They get their values most times through the television. I would explain my thoughts further but as I said it would take up too much room. This is the short version and of course just my opinion. I have to add one other thought to this "super niceness". Some of the christians I know play this role of martyr or doormat. It appears to me that they think they must be this way and even if its to the extent of their own true happiness or contentment because Jesus suffered on the cross for them, so this now is their suffering for God. That turn your other cheek idea. They continue to turn the other cheek time and time again until they become that doormat. And I think that is what Dawkins means by "stupidity." In the end they lose respectability of themselves and others.

I think that most people know that there are times you do have to give up something for the sake of someone else. Or even for your own sake.

But a line has to be drawn eventually. Even if short-sighted selfishness were an adaptive strategy (which it isn't always), that's not a reason for atheists to gravitate towards it more than anyone else. ... Not believing in natural selection doesn't make you exempt from it. ;^)

That's a good point: The Origin of Species isn't a holy book, so there's no reason to value its truth above any other true statements or to mine it for moral guidance. Honestly, the only reason I care about evolution at all is because I can't fathom why people would fight against it. If evolution were accepted, it'd fade into background knowledge like the theory of gravity is. Ironically, the only reason that evolution is such a big deal (to non-biologists) is that people are trying to fight it. :-) What?! Republican as a metaphor for "selfishness at the expense of public good, violence, callous indifference to suffering, short term greed at the expense of long term foresight."? I was going to criticize you for using such an insensitive "metaphor," but since you're crediting it to Dawkins, I guess he deserves the blame.

It reminds me of how Dawkins often says that he only sounds offensive because people are not accustomed to seeing the same sort of debate in religion as they see in politics. The problem with this is that the political debate is not exactly ideal itself. Re: Robin's comment about superniceness and being a doormat - I have seen what you mean about some Christians who let themselves be walked all over or tolerate abuse because they think it's "turning the other cheek". However, I don't think that's what Jesus really meant when he called us to be peacemakers. True peacemaking is not a passive thing, it's an active thing - it's actively resisting violence & oppression but without using more of the same. Truthfully (and I've studied this passage in some depth), when Jesus told people to turn the other cheek, walk the second mile, or give people the shirt off your back, he wasn't just telling them to let themselves be taken advantage of - in the historical/cultural context those suggestions would have been highly subversive ways for the Jews to resist their Roman oppressors and restore dignity to themselves without resorting to violence. In other words, Jesus is more about overcoming evil with good than just letting evil walk all over you.

That's why I think Dawkins term "superniceness" is rather lame. Jesus wasn't just about being "supernice". He was about radical, subversive, world changing love. And love is way harder and more active than simply being "nice" - even "supernice". Greetings fellow "Pensees" blogger! This is my first comment here.

Regarding your post, this question is actually one I attempted to explore in a rather provocative way in my most recent blog post. The ensuing comments and dialog have been exceptionally rich (well, after the initial offense was smoothed over). My Interview for the O Project Interesting Q&A, Mike. :-)

My dialogues with atheists have certainly helped me to refine and improve my own beliefs, and I hope I've done the same for some of them as well.

I'll acknowledge that you have.

I'd like to see genuine a-theists (people who simply lack a belief in God) do more to speak out against the angry and insulting rhetoric of the anti-theists (people who think that all religion is irrational and harmful and want to eradicate it), in the same way that more progressive Christians like myself need to speak against the extremism of Christian fundamentalists.

What about atheists who think that some religion is irrational and harmful and want to eradicate it? As far as I know, I have no problems with your religious beliefs, but I nonetheless feel that I have a moral duty to help lessen the influence of the Pat Robertson types. I'm not so keen on going after the religous liberals, but the truth is that they really do provide cover to the fundamentalists sometimes. When some fundamentalist gets on TV and says that the 80% of Americans who are Christians want the U.S. to do evil deed X, we really need the support of liberals speaking up and saying "no, we don't." Sadly, those voices are too often silent. Miko, I'm all for standing against harmful forms of religion. I do that on a regular basis.

But as for the idea that liberal Christians "provide cover" for the fundamentalists, that's a rather ridiculous myth started by Harris and perpetrated others who aren't really familiar with how the religious world works. In no way have liberal Christians been "providing cover". We've been arguing with the fundamentalists harder than any of you have for the past century or so. The progressive voices are out there and they have long been speaking out against bad forms of religion.

However, it's not our fault that the mainstream media prefers to focus on the extremists of the Religious Right. But just because you don't hear our voices doesn't mean we're not out there. Thankfully Jim Wallis and Sojourners are making some good progress in getting a different voice out there. The recent forum on CNN was a step in the right direction in terms of getting the media to actually recognize that other types of Christians do exist. I wasn't going to bring Harris into it, since he seems to think that the religion is the problem whereas I'm thinking more of individual actions. For example:

We've been arguing with the fundamentalists harder than any of you have for the past century or so.

That's the kind of sentiment that I think borders on the insulting. I'm not denying that you care about things like this, but we've been working hard on them as well. I like your ideas about fostering atheist-theist cooperation in social causes, but I speak from personal experience in saying that there are more than a few religious liberals who don't support that aim. I don't understand why, but there is a sentiment among some Christians that atheists should stay out of these sorts of things, which is what I (but not Harris) mean by "providing cover." I know it's tempting to pin the placement of the "us vs. them" line exclusively on the atheists, but I don't really think that's fair. Sorry Miko, but I really don't know what you mean. I guess I've not encountered that attitude among liberal Christians that I know. Most that I know are more than willing to work together with any allies on shared political and social justice goals, not just other Christians.

And all I meant by my comment was that liberals and fundamentalists have been duking it out in the religious world for decades now. Anyone who has missed that fact is just not paying attention. If atheists want to join that fight too, fine, more power to ya! But don't accuse us of not being in it in the first place. But don't accuse us of not being in it in the first place.

Ah. I see what you think I'm saying now. Unfortunately, I've been using some of the terms that Dawkins, Harris, et al. have adopted recently for years, so I have a different understanding of what I mean by them than what they mean by them. Since they're published and I'm not on that subject, I suppose that I'll have to find new vocabulary. :-)

By providing cover, I'm talking about (amongst other things) a some-vs.-all kind of thing, where my statement that "some members of group X do thing Y" is refuted by someone saying "I don't do thing Y." And then conversation breaks down into "Of course you don't" and thing Y gets forgotten about in the ensuing period.

Some of this is becoming more the fault of extermist atheists who really do mean all or who fail to distinguish between true and good. Unforunately, some of the liberals on both sides are making the same mistake. If we're going to draw lines in the sand, I think that we should draw them based on shared ideologies and goals rather than on metaphysical suppositions, but many people on both sides seem to disagree with me. I see what you're saying now. Thanks for clarifying. I agree that we shouldn't let the important issues get lost in discussion. In fact, "I don't do thing Y" ought to then become the springboard for a new unity of opposition to thing Y. Is there "almost certainly no God"? Hey,

I'm working my way through The God Delusion at posting on it at:

http://michaelkrahn.wordpress.com/richard-dawkins/

There's been quite a response so far... it's tough to keep up with the comments. He phrases it more as a counter to the "irreducible complexity" argument of Intelligent Design proponents. As such, I'd summarize it more like this:

1. According to ID proponents, structures such as the bacterial flagellum and the eye are too complex to have arisen through natural selection.
2. That is, they are so complex that it is highly improbable they could've happened naturally (e.g., "Is it probably that a tornado in a junkyard could assemble a 747?").
3. The more complex a structure or organism, the more improbable it is.

Dawkins extends this by saying:

4. God, being the most complex, is the most improbable being of all.

An additional point is that the rebuttal: "God has eternally existed" is a request for special pleading. If one entity--God--can eternally exist, then why not the universe instead? This would be more parsimonious because it includes one fewer entity and explains just as much. I'm not sure how it is "special pleading" if that has been the standard definition of God all along. It's not like God's eternity and transcendence was some argument cooked up recently in order to respond to Dawkins.

As for the universe eternally existing, that's certainly one possibility. Of course it has the unfortunate problem of not being true - at least according to current scientific knowledge. As far as we can determine, the universe as we know it (that is, space and time and the natural laws of matter and energy that operate within it) did have a definite beginning. And so we are still left with the ultimate questions of "why is there something rather than nothing?", and "how did it get this way?" There are several possible answers to this question, of which God is one. (Multiple universes is another, though whether that is any less speculative and unprovable than the existence of God seems unlikely to me.)

But irregardless, Occam's Razor seems like a rather inadequate tool when we are talking about the nature of ultimate reality. Even everyday experience can easily show that the simplest answer is not always the correct one. Yeah, Occam's Razor may be a useful tool, but it's not a kind of infallible law.

And who says God is even subjest to human logic? There are several possible answers to this question, of which God is one. (Multiple universes is another, though whether that is any less speculative and unprovable than the existence of God seems unlikely to me.)

I sometimes wonder whether the word "exist" even has meaning when applied outside of the context of our universe. Or to philosophical speculations like saying every fundamental particle in our universe is its own universe; unless we can interact with it, I don't even see how a theory like that can mean anything.

But irregardless, Occam's Razor seems like a rather inadequate tool when we are talking about the nature of ultimate reality. Even everyday experience can easily show that the simplest answer is not always the correct one.

I don't think that's the correct interpretation of Occam's Razor. I'd phrase it is "the simplest answer is the one you should go with." Even if it isn't correct, you shouldn't add complexity until you need to because you may be adding in the wrong direction. If the simplest theory isn't correct, it'll eventually break down and need to be complexified. Two thousand years ago, Occam's Razor would have suggested that we accept creationism, but as evidence started building against it, exploring alternatives became simpler than trying to explain all of the inconsistencies.

Have you seen the latest research on the expansion of the universe? New results suggest that 100 billion years from now, space will be accelerating so fast that the light from one galaxy will never reach another one. If there's a species of astronomers at that time, they'll conclude via Occam's Razor that there are no other galaxies and be wrong. However, if they were to speculate on what the other galaxies were like without seeing any evidence of them, they'd likely be even more wrong. My Response to Atheist Questions, Part 6 i applaud your tone in your responses, mike. well done. My Response to Atheist Questions, Part 5 Thank you for pointing out that I was, uh, being a jerk. I'll be coming over here again.

olvlzl No problem olvlzl :) The problem I see with your 5th response is that you are trying to pretend as if Christianity (at least as it pertained to the early church) did not have any exclusive claims on truth and the state of sin in the world. To dismiss these differences, while understandably ecumenical, is to do Christianity a disservice. This is, of course, your problem with the evangelicals and not with me, an atheist. I'm all for ecumenism.

I must also disagree with your idea of "respecting" other beliefs. Surely in your reading you realize that, on the whole, freethinkers don't feel obliged to respect the oft unrespectable beliefs of theists or anyone who makes unfounded claims of the world. While we like people and will befriend just about anybody, don't expect an atheist to shake his head in agreement when another faithhead starts espouting more spittle from his piehole.

All this aside, I've enjoyed and applaud your willingness to discuss these issues in a peaceful way.

Regards,
-MichaelDePaula.com Well, I guess it's a good thing I'm not an evangelical anymore. ;) "more spittle from the piehole"

Mike you should consider re-naming your blog!

I like "espouting" too: very Olde English. Hi, Mike! I came here via Friendly Atheist. As I mentioned in the question I posted in "Ask a Pastor", I'm an atheistic Christian, married to a man who is to be ordained in the UCC. We are both post-modern, for the most part, and spend a great deal of time discussing the very things that came up at Hemant's site.

I want to say that you are commendable for your grace in the face of judgment. One of the largest problems I have with ALL communities (atheist, Christian, Islam, etc.) is that they hold definitions closely and are unwilling to bend. My impetus for writing here is a reaction to the vast number of atheists who told you that you aren't Christian because your beliefs don't match with old church doctrine. I have been told by plenty of people that I'm not a Christian, because I don't believe in the divinity of Christ or in a traditional definition of God, but I'm also not an atheist (or agnostic or any of "free" thinker) because I find value in the words of Jesus and in attending church. All people reject me!! :) While people claim to be freethinking and open, instead they are unwilling to let go of traditional definitions and reject any sort of change or progress.

All of this to say I was repeatedly impressed by your ability to be polite in the face of people who think they understand your faith better than you. You stand out, at least in my meager mind, as a role model to all, regardless of their beliefs. monkeymind said:
"more spittle from the piehole"

Mike you should consider re-naming your blog!

Great idea! I think I will. :) Hey Elizabeth, thanks for dropping by. I'm glad you're enjoying the series.

I can definitely relate to your experiences. Isn't it strange how you can tend to get the same kind of criticisms from both sides of the fence? For some reason both fundamentalists and atheists seem to have a problem with admitting that there can be other kinds of Christians out there besides fundies! Oh no! You really did change your blog title!

Oh man, I somehow feel quilty now... please tell me you're not going to keep it like that! Or I will feel responsible to find a better name. nah, I'm just messin' around. I'll change it back soon. :) Good! :D I think it's even broader than that. Not only are there only fundies as Christians, as you say, but there are only terrorist Muslims, belligerent atheists, etc. So many people who claim to be "free thinking" aren't willing to look beyond the definitions society has handed to them. That's why I asked the question I did of you regarding your personal definition of God. People don't realize that there is more than one way to define that term, and in order to have really good dialogue, terms must be defined so that there is as productive a level of communication as possible.

Wow, I've gotten on my soap box. Sorry! :) My Response to Atheist Questions, Part 4 I'm glad to have found your blog by way of the friendly athiest.

Your response to the hell question was thoughtful and full of grace.

robert gelinas
www.jazztheologian.typepad.com Thanks Robert, welcome. My Response to Atheist Questions, Part 3 Hi,
I've just been reading your responses and I wanted to thank you for them. The nuance and the sensitivity that you bring to your explanations are remarkable.

Here's what I still don't get though. Right now, I am as impressed with you as I would be with someone who was a specialist in Elizabethan literature, say, or Indian poetry or something. I would be able to realise the cultural and historical value of the books they study. I would be able to respect their scholarship of the books, their identification of the important periods, themes, ideas, etc.; the glosses on the important characters; their opinions as to why various trends emerged...yes, and again yes.

But why should I believe it when they then tell me that this literature is in some way, "sacred" or "holy?" From what authoritative stance could they make that statement meaningful to me?

(This is before I question the supernatural entity behind the corpus itself, which selected these texts for our canon, and which was acting firstly on behalf of the characters in the literature and now apparently on mine, because it loves me.)

It is that intervention that crosses the bridge between "these are important human documents and narratives" to "the fact that they are together in this collection makes them divine," whereby divinity confers upon them intrinsic significance and demands my belief in a super-editor who put them all together. We might select any anthology thus, might we not?

Please write to us some more. May I ask you some more questions?

1) If I understand your reading of the Bible as God-inspired rather than God er, dictated, then your reading of it is truly beautiful. However, your further premise of a loving God then presupposes that He meant all of us to know his word. Why distribute it in such a random manner? Why the Israelits--what makes them special? Why didn't he tell the people originally in Brazil, or elsewhere? Indeed, why not tell everyone, everywhere at once?
Or tell all of us, now, at once?

2) Furthermore, given this interpretive reading of the Bible such that it becomes a curriculum rather than, say, a biology text book, and encompassing different genres, authors, disciplines, etc., then of course we can see that the morality we use to decide which bits of it are pertinent to us and which not, and which bits historical rather than metaphorical is already outside these works, and can have no dependence on them. So why not simply revise the curriculum, or at least shift it around so that some of these texts get moved to mythology definitively, some to poetry, some to history etc. That way they could be studied the way we already study all such similar works. This would be a more effective curriculum, I think.

c) I suspect that this would lead us into an investigation of why this particular collection of texts derives authority from more than the sum of its parts, i.e. it is not simply what is in it that is important. I can see that, and even if I couldn't, the existence of theology as a way to know things would at least suggest it. However, the more we do this, the more we trivialise the actual content (meaning that our metanarrative about the narrative is by far more interesting to us, really)and we magnify our interpretive authority (simply by being able to decide, say, that Jesus was real but perhaps Eve wasn't.) Thus the Bible no longer has automatic historical accuracy, or an automatic literal meaning, or an automatice moral dominance, insofar as God sometimes does, or causes to be written about, things of which we are ourselves free to disapprove. Whence, then, its special character?

This is essentially what you yourself do. The question then becomes, since you are already so armed with the outside morality necessary to deconstruct and comment on the Bible, why do you still think the Bible is special, or has some authority over you?

Puzzled atheist Hey Nony Mouse (feel free to share your name with us if you'd like),

Good questions. Thanks for dropping by.

Firstly you asked:

"But why should I believe it when they then tell me that this literature is in some way, "sacred" or "holy?" From what authoritative stance could they make that statement meaningful to me?"

I don't think you have a reason to consider them divinely inspired until you first have a personal encounter with the divine. A friend of mine named Sarah Taylor pointed this out to me a long time ago - the fact that I believe in the Bible because it tells me about the Jesus whom I've encountered and been transformed by in my own life; and not vice versa. That's not to say that the Bible can't sometimes be the vehicle by which you have this encounter with the divine - many people experience God through the words of the Bible - but for the words on the page to have any power or divine significance, there has to be some kind of encounter with the Living Word, Jesus Christ.

Until that happens I don't see why you would view the Bible as anything more than an intriguing collection of ancient literature or any more significant than any other collection. As to your other questions:

"However, your further premise of a loving God then presupposes that He meant all of us to know his word. Why distribute it in such a random manner? Why the Israelits--what makes them special? Why didn't he tell the people originally in Brazil, or elsewhere? Indeed, why not tell everyone, everywhere at once?
Or tell all of us, now, at once?"

How do we know that he hasn't been talking to all those people? Acts 17:24-28 actually tells us that he has been. God has revealed himself to all peoples. But part of his plan is more than revelation. His desire is to rescue the whole world from sin and injustice - and to that end he has been about the business of creating a revolutionary people to carry out this mission. It began with Israel and has now extended to all people who will join in following the Way of Jesus. I'm not always sure why he has chosen this plan, except that I think God generally desires to work in the lives of specific people and particular events. It's what I have in the past called "the scandal of particularity".

You go on to say:

"Furthermore, given this interpretive reading of the Bible such that it becomes a curriculum rather than, say, a biology text book, and encompassing different genres, authors, disciplines, etc., then of course we can see that the morality we use to decide which bits of it are pertinent to us and which not, and which bits historical rather than metaphorical is already outside these works, and can have no dependence on them."

I wouldn't entirely agree. I think that yes, it is possible to understand love and justice apart from the Bible, but there is also the sense in which we can read the Bible and come to understand that the whole text points us to those values. In other words, the text becomes self-interpreting in that we are able to identify which parts of it trump or re-interpret other parts. (So for instance, when Jessu proclaims that love for God and others is the foundation for the entire OT Law, it's pretty clear then that love has become the interpretive lens through which we understand the rest (even though this lens itself is still within the Bible and not some outside authority.


"So why not simply revise the curriculum, or at least shift it around so that some of these texts get moved to mythology definitively, some to poetry, some to history etc. That way they could be studied the way we already study all such similar works. This would be a more effective curriculum, I think."

That's not a bad suggestion since the arrangement of the Bible is just based on somewhat arbitrary traditions anyway. However, I think you might find it rather difficult to do since even within the books of the Bible there is not usually just one genre occurring. For instance, Genesis contains history, geneaology, poetry, and myth. The gospels likewise contain historical biography, symbolic images, apocalyptic prophecies, poetry, fictional parables, etc. Trying to extract and rearrange all these parts would likely only make things even more confusing.


"However, the more we do this, the more we trivialise the actual content (meaning that our metanarrative about the narrative is by far more interesting to us, really)and we magnify our interpretive authority (simply by being able to decide, say, that Jesus was real but perhaps Eve wasn't.) Thus the Bible no longer has automatic historical accuracy, or an automatic literal meaning, or an automatice moral dominance, insofar as God sometimes does, or causes to be written about, things of which we are ourselves free to disapprove. Whence, then, its special character?"

Why does it need all those things in order to be "special" or authoritative? What makes you think that literalness or historical accuracy or unchanging moral commands are more the marks of divine inspiration than a diverse and complex document that reveals an unfolding narrative where our understanding of God and how he wants us to live in the world is constantly developing?

But you're right that the Bible isn't my only "authority". I think God reveals truth to us in many ways. Many Christians have talked about the quadrilateral of scripture, reason, tradition, and experience. Ideally all of these will work in conjunction and help interpret each other. (I've blogged more about how this works here.)

I hope that makes sense and answers your question. Thanks again for asking.

Peace,

-Mike My Response to Atheist Questions, Part 2 My Response to Atheist Questions, Part 1 A Missional Challenge from an Atheist You make a good point about pastors getting paid, I mean, pastors have to eat too, right? :)

I guess I made that comment more because too often I see the pastors of the huge churches living so far above what their flock lives like. It just seems hypocritical to me.

Of course, that's not a new argument, and I am not saying you are like that, but I think it's important for everyone that works for a church to stay grounded.

Growing up Catholic, I learned that priests (and nuns) take a vow of poverty because it helps them better understand what Jesus was trying to teach. By owning nothing, a priest has nothing to loose and, in fact, his faith is probably stronger because of it. Then again, the Vatican does a poor job of acting impoverished, so there are major hypocrisies there too.

As far as the "inward spiritual transformation", I'm not convinced that has to happen through prayer and worship. Personally, I find hard work to be more spiritual than anything else. It's like when I go rock climbing and I get to the top and I feel different somehow. I never could have had that feeling by watching someone else do it or talking about it.

I see your point that studying the Bible can be a big help in that it reminds people about morality - I mean, you have to have a starting point and a guide with anything in life, it's just that I don't place a high priority on those things.

Besides, people may be more open to "radical" ideas after a long, hard day of work. :) I like this. In fact I may end up doing this from time to time for whole Sundays. Except no buses; the members can drive themselves. The money can go to something else, World Vision or Compassion. Not many people would come on those weeks(at least at first) I think, but that may just prove that it's a good idea. But that's a ways off... I'm not a pastor yet.
My church actually does try to do as much service work as we can though, anything from little service evangelism projects to Habitat for Humanity. Of course it's not on this level... and we do still have worship services with music, Bible study, etc, although we do lack a building, which apparently is good. It seems in the end that Dan is asking for an efficient charitable organization with devoted members... the church is to be a bit more than that, I think.

Mike, Richard Wade from Friendly Atheist told me about your site. He mentioned a "project O" that I'm not finding much on so far. Any help there? Hi Nance, welcome to my blog! I can tell we have a lot in common. For instance, I studied Philosophy in college too, and I'm a huge fan of Lewis, Kierkegaard, Rob Bell, and especially NT Wright! (And Matt Groenig too.)

Good point too about the church not merely being an efficient charitable organization. That is definitely part of our calling, but we are also a family, a community. Church is about doing charitable projects together, but it is also about simply sharing life together - sharing meals and fun times and times of worship and times of learning and times of prayer and times for tears and all that.

In other words, Dan's vision is good, we need more of that too, but it's part of an even larger picture.

Though of course the idea of the church as a community (even with a strong missional emphasis) is radically different still from a church that only exists to put on a big show on Sundays and draw a big crowd to pay for their big buildings. I know what Dan is reacting against, and trust me, I've reacted against that approach to church too. Not that I think all megachurches are evil. There are ones (like Mars Hill, or even Saddleback and Willow) who do the serving others part very well, and who prioritize community too as much as they are able. But I have seen enough of the other type (and they're not all just big churches) who are exactly as inward focused as Dan describes.

Anyhow, thanks for stopping by. As for the O Project, go here. Hmmm, re-reading what I just wrote, I think I slightly mis-spoke. I don't want to imply that mission is just a smaller part of some larger purpose of the church. Mission is the larger picture, it is the reason for the church's existence.

However, those other things - like community and spiritual formation - are necessary components as well inasmuch as they enable the mission. A community of people sharing life together who are fixated together on a missional goal will (IMHO) be far more effective at reaching that goal than a random group of people who come together once a week to do service projects. And (again IMHO) people also need to be inwardly formed through teaching and spiritual disciplines so they will have the motivation and knowledge to engage in mission.

So yeah, just to clarify, mission is the big picture, but those other aspects of the church are still necessary insofar as they serve the mission. So what exactly do you think that "the mission" entails? I'm asking just because you use "mission" and "missional" pretty frequently, but I'm new here, so if you could expound, that'd be great.

And yeah, I noticed your book list as well... and some of the movies. You officially have good taste. Good question Nance - in a nutshell I think it's our ongoing participation in the gospel that Jesus proclaimed in Luke 4:18-19

""The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

The mission is increasing love and justice and reconciliation and compassion and generosity and joy in this world; and to proclaim Jesus' victory and Lordship over the powers of violence and greed and oppression and death. It's to bring heaven to earth, as Jesus tells us to pray in the Lord's Prayer.

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  • Fear & Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard



  • Messy Spirituality by Mike Yaconelli



  • God's Politics by Jim Wallis



Articles
  • - What is the Emerging Church?
  • - Recommended Reading for the Emerging Church
  • - Emerging Church Resources
  • - Obama on Faith & Politics
  • - Mars Hill's Directions
  • - Profoundly Disturbed on the 4th of July
  • - 10 Key Values of the Green Party
  • - NT Wright on Penal Substitution
  • - Walter Wink on The Myth of Redemptive Violence
  • - Mark Twain's War Prayer
  • - Rebuttals to Richard Dawkins
  • - Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican

Music

  • U2 - How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb



  • Green Day - American Idiot



  • David Wilcox - Into the Mystery



  • Caedmon's Call - Share the Well



  • Passion: Hymns Ancient and Modern



  • Jake Armerding




  • Tourniquet - Vanishing Lessons


Viewing

  • The Lord of the Rings



  • Star Wars Trilogy



  • Fight Club



  • Garden State



  • Saved!



  • Joan of Arcadia




  • Magnolia



  • Donnie Darko



  • High Fidelity



  • The Mission



  • Futurama



  • The Simpsons


Emerging Churches
  • Mosaic - Los Angeles, CA

  • Vintage Faith Church - Santa Cruz, CA

  • Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler - Chicago, IL

  • Wicker Park Grace - Chicago, IL

  • The Emmaus Community - Chicago Heights, IL

  • Fusion Church - Lake Zurich, IL

  • Life on the Vine - Long Grove, IL

  • Mars Hill - Grandville, MI

  • Waters Edge - Hudsonville, MI

  • Threads Church - Kalamazoo, MI

  • Solomon's Porch - Minneapolis, MN

  • Oasis Madrid - Madrid, Spain

  • Mosaic - Austin, TX

  • Vineyard Community Church - Shoreline, WA

Sunday, January 11, 2009
Friendly Atheist Posts
I've been a little preoccupied this past several weeks with taking care of the kids and editing Julie's book (among other things) to put much up on my blog here. However, I have put up a few things recently at FriendlyAtheist.com. You can check them out if you're interested:

Survival of the Weak and Scrawny

How I Wish More Christians Would Respond

Helping Christians Accept Evolution

Labels: atheism

 
posted by Mike Clawson at 10:02 PM | Permalink | 2 comments
Friday, May 09, 2008
Threats and Bribery
Another good question posted over at the Friendly Atheist blog:
… What method was the worst when people tried to share their faith with you? I know some people hand out pamphlets and other people tell you you’re going to hell on the street corner, all kinds of ‘fun’ things. As a follow up question, how has rude/mean/annoying encounters like that caused you to feel about the Christian faith ? My last question is, what method of sharing faith has made you at least open to talking to the other person about their faith?

I was especially struck by this particular response:

The worst that I have personally experienced involved threats. It was a perfectly well-meaning person who told me, in a concerned voice, that I would go to hell if I don’t accept Jesus as my personal saviour. Well-meaning, but I don’t respond to threats - at all.

So when you tell me that your all-good, all-loving, merciful god will torture me for all eternity if I don’t worship him, not only are you threatening me (and thereby pushing me away), you also aren’t making any sense. If god loves me, why would be punish me for not brown-nosing him? I’ve heard this explained away multiple times, but never in a way that made sense to me.

So if you are to have any hope of converting me, I would recommend an approach that never even mentioned hell. In fact, don’t mention heaven either. The whole idea of doing something just to avoid punishment or get a reward feels morally dishonest to me.

Just to illustrate what I mean, there was one woman who made me seriously consider Christianity as an option (and, though I didn’t convert, I at least looked favourable on the religion until I met someone who dealt with me in the above-mentioned way). She was an older woman and she was having trouble getting onto the bus (you had to go up three steps before getting on, and they were quite large steps too). I held her arm and helped her in. Once sitting, she thanked me and told me in a sweet voice that she would pray for me. That’s human decency. She was kind, thoughtful, and truly grateful for help (whereas I find that most people simply expect help to be given). More than that, she told me that she would pay me back in the only way she could - she would give of her time to do something that, in her belief system, would help me get up a few steps.

I respond to kindness in a way that I will never respond to threats of violence or bribery - and make no mistake, that’s exactly what the whole concept of heaven and hell is to me.


The bold type is my addition because I think that comment illustrates yet again my point that many atheists are motivated by a desire for a higher level of morality, not a lower one. And I agree, believing in God simply based on threats or bribery is morally immature. Of course, I don't personally believe that Heaven or Hell ought to be thought of in these ways in the first place, but let's face it, that's how they are too often presented to non-Christians in our attempts at evangelism.

Labels: atheism

 
posted by Mike Clawson at 1:03 PM | Permalink | 4 comments
Sunday, May 04, 2008
What If God Really Existed?
Hemant re-posted this question from another blog over at Friendly Atheist:

Atheist readers, what if you were to suddenly find out tomorrow that the God of the Christian Evangelicals was real?

I.e. that He HAD created the world, had created you, the Bible was true, Jesus had died on the cross for your sins etc etc.

What would you do?
…
Anger? Agreement? Kowtowing to this being? Resigned acceptance, passive aggression, active aggression, resigned damnation?

Would you fall on your face and worship him? Why or why not?
It's an interesting question (and just as interesting if you turned it around and asked evangelicals what they would do if they were suddenly convinced that atheism were true). I am especially intrigued by many of the responses on Hemant's blog (from those who actually treated it as an honest question and gave an honest answer). I think they illustrate well the reality that many people reject Christianity not just because they don't think it's true, but because they also don't think it is good. In other words, they find the depiction of God in the Bible to be petty and evil, violent and vindictive, and fear that becoming a follower of that God would make them worse individuals, not better. To put it another way, they don't want to become Christians because their morals standards are high and Christianity seems like a step down.

I think it's important for Christians to realize this, that there aren't many people who reject Christianity simply because they want to "sin more" or not be morally accountable to anyone (as the common Christian mythology about atheists often goes... though truth be told I have encountered a few people like that). Rather, many, if not most atheists reject Christianity because they want to "sin" less, and feel that their own moral standards are higher than that of most Christians they know.

Personally, I think this ought to be a wake-up call and a motivation for many Christians to honestly re-evaluate their own view of the Bible and the God of the Bible, and ask whether we ourselves really can worship the God of Joshua, Judges and Deuteronomy - a God that often acts a lot more like Hitler than like Jesus; or if we are okay following a God who condemns people to an eternity of torture for choosing the wrong religion, as an evangelical view of God requires one to believe. It has been questions like this that have motivated me to rethink many of my understandings of scripture, and moved me away from a strictly evangelical view of God (though that's not to say I have all of the answers either - there are still many things about God that unsettle me).

And I think too it ought to be an eye-opener for many Christians to realize that our atheist brothers and sisters are themselves good people who are often seeking to be just and loving individuals as best they know how, and understand that sometimes it is this precise motivation that keeps them from embracing Christianity. I'm not sure Jesus would disapprove.

Labels: atheism

 
posted by Mike Clawson at 5:14 PM | Permalink | 12 comments
Thursday, March 06, 2008
De-conversion Post
I recently contributed to the De-conversion blog.

I started my post with "I might have become an atheist." Go check it out.

Labels: atheism

 
posted by Mike Clawson at 4:59 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Evolution & Theology
I have a new post up at Friendly Atheist about the recent Chicago Tribune Magazine article regarding theistic evolution. Go check it out.

Labels: atheism, evolution, theology

 
posted by Mike Clawson at 11:10 AM | Permalink | 2 comments
Friday, November 23, 2007
Contributing to FriendlyAtheist.com
Recently my atheist friend Hemant Mehta invited me to become an occasional contributor to his blog FriendlyAtheist.com. I've posted my first post, the beginning to a series of "Questions for Atheists". My first question (or two questions rather) in honor of Thanksgiving were "What are you thankful for?" and then "Who are you thankful to?" I'm curious who or what atheists give thanks to for those general life blessings like good health, good fortune, etc. in the absence of belief in a God to thank. If you have any thoughts about this topic I'd encourage you to head over to Hemant's blog and join the conversation. And be sure to check back there regularly for my future posts as well.

Tags: Hemant Mehta, Friendly Atheist, atheism, atheists, Thanksgiving

Labels: atheism

 
posted by Mike Clawson at 1:45 PM | Permalink | 1 comments
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Brian McLaren on Atheism
Brian points out something many Christians have in common with atheists.

Tags: Brian McLaren, atheism

Labels: atheism

 
posted by Mike Clawson at 10:49 AM | Permalink | 0 comments
Friday, September 21, 2007
Thanks for the Shout Out Hemant
Hemant Mehta (the eBay Atheist) was recently interviewed for Beliefnet. In the course of the interview they ask him whether there were any churches he particularly liked. He gave a shout out to us here at Via Christus (though Beliefnet got the name of the town wrong -- UPDATE: they fixed it), and also mentioned my "Ask a Christian Pastor" posts at his blog.

Thanks Hemant!

Labels: atheism

 
posted by Mike Clawson at 10:37 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Monday, August 06, 2007
Brian McLaren: I am an atheist
No, not really. But that's the opening line of a new song/music video Brian has put together for an upcoming CD "Songs for a Revolution" in preparation for his "Everything Must Change Tour". The idea is that he is an atheist in regards to certain false conceptions of God (the god of greed, of violence, of oppression, of exclusion), but still believes in the God of justice, mercy, mystery, beauty, etc...

Here it is from YouTube:


Musically it's not a great song - and I only occasionally appreciate that style of music anyway - but the words are good and thought provoking. I am an atheist towards those kinds of gods too.

Tags: Brian McLaren, atheist, God, emerging church, Everything Must Change, Songs for a Revolution, YouTube

Labels: atheism, emerging church

 
posted by Mike Clawson at 10:02 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Doubt vs. Atheism
A while ago I was listening to an episode of the NPR radio program Speaking of Faith (one of my new favorite podcasts) and it was an interview on the History of Doubt with Jennifer Michael Hecht. At one point the host, Krista Tippett, asks her about her own beliefs, and Hecht replies that while she's not religious, she is also uncomfortable with identifying herself as an atheist either because of the dogmatism and close-mindedness that she notices in those circles as well. Instead she rather identify herself as a "doubter". Here's part of her conversation on the subject:

Ms. Tippett: I have to ask you, do you consider yourself a religious person?

Ms. Hecht: No, I consider myself a doubter. I'm in a difficult position because, having read the documents that I read in order to write this book [Doubt: A History] and having thought them through and written the book, I find that the modern terms atheist, agnostic and believer are so wrong-headed, so misunderstood, and sort of calcifying sections of thought that really need not be calcified, that I really hesitate to align myself with any of them.

Ms. Tippett: OK, tell me what's gone wrong and what you would propose instead.

Ms. Hecht: Well, I like the conversation to be more fluid, and I'm willing to answer the question that you're getting at with more sort of piecemeal terms. I can say that I don't believe that there is any thinking to the universe. I don't believe that there's any overall force that created us, is watching us and gave us a text to follow. I don't think it's particularly useful either to talk about a force that's coursing through all nature and is somehow cohesive. I don't believe in an afterlife, though I can't imagine how anyone could get any evidence whatsoever on that question. So certainly that's one where you say, you know, the force of life and consciousness seems to be material.

On the other hand, I feel that religion has been such a crucial aspect of the human experience and that people who — that I won't align myself with any doctrine which entirely rejects it as, say, bunk or some mass hysteria, foolishness, childishness. Those aspects of atheists' discussion I think are reasonable if you point them at very specific types of religious beliefs, specific moments. But overall, you miss too much of what's really going on in those ways, and that's why I'm so careful about my terms.

Ms. Tippett: I copied down this longish quote from your book. It's just such a beautiful piece of writing and — all right. "That we love and that love, among other possibilities, brings forth life is very strange. The birth of a child can bring extraordinarily religious feelings because it is such a good thing but also because it makes no real sense. Where did this miniature human being come from? Technically, we made it out of nine months' worth of French toast, salad and lamb chops. Technically, our bodies hold tiny, little instructions for how to build human eyes, a language center in the brain, and a human spirit, fussy, joyful or otherwise. But how strange that such a thing as fussy exists and is created thusly." I mean, you're avoiding the word "mystery" there, but the word "strange" is a synonym for mysterious…

Ms. Hecht: Sure. I don't — I…

Ms. Tippett: …in that case, isn't it?

Ms. Hecht: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and it seems that if you have a doctrine, a version of rationalism or a version of atheism that makes it so that you have to be worried about using the word mystery, you've got yourself too constraining a doctrine. And so I think that that's what's been so wonderful about doubters throughout history. They haven't been an all-out turf war against religion. They haven't been afraid — you know, Epicurus says, you know, "It feels good to pray, you might as well." Now, that's an amazing statement for someone who says that there's no one listening, and the idea that we don't have to be against religion or against the idea of mystery. How can you really be against the idea of mystery and have your eyes open at the same time? It doesn't make sense to me.

But mystery, then, doesn't mean I've got to fill in the blanks with, you know, ideas of my own imagination. Though, when people say that they've spent, you know, years in the desert and they've had certain experiences, I think that it's perfectly reasonable to hold those experiences, those feelings. Or, you know, you don't have to go off into the desert, just the feeling of faith, that's an important thing. And I don't think it needs to be dismissed in the kind of panic of, "We've got to control the other side." You know, if we sort of can respect these ideas and say, "Yeah, life is mysterious. It is very strange." Just the fact that, you know, we are these animals who have these kind of thoughts, it's all pretty wondrous, and doubters have celebrated it. And that's the kind of doubt I want to bring into the conversation, because I think we've really backed ourselves into a couple of corners, and it's time to get out.


I wish more non-believers would talk about their lack of belief in these terms. I do know from recent experience that certainly not all atheists are as dogmatic or close minded as the ones she describes here, and yet at the same time, I also know from recent experience that very many are. There is a sense that one gets from some atheists (emphasis on some) that they really have no sensitivity at all to the strangeness and wonder and mystery and just sheer weirdness of human existence, and thus have no appreciation for the diversity of answers, religious or otherwise, that have been given to try and explain this mystery and wonder. To them, religious people are just foolish, deluded, unintelligent, or brainwashed.

I appreciate Hecht's response on the other hand. She seems to be saying "I can't accept belief in these things for myself, but I can understand why others would. The world is a strange place and there is room for all kinds of explanations - just as there is often reason to doubt many of these explanations as well." She seems to imply that both the beliefs and the doubts are good and normal parts of human existence. And I tend to agree with her. As a Christian theist, I have my beliefs - and yet I also have plenty of doubts about my beliefs. And I can see and appreciate why some would choose the atheist explanation instead - though I have just as many doubts and questions about that position as well. To me the sign of maturity is not to claim to have nailed down the one right answer for all people for all time, but rather it is to admit the limitations of one's own knowledge and yet also have the wisdom to choose a path anyway and live in it. We can't stay undecided forever - so we make a leap of faith one way or the other, and choose to get on with our lives according to the implications of which way we chose to leap. However, remaining open to doubt means that it will always be possible to revisit that leap and choose a different path if it becomes necessary. In the meantime however, we move forward as best we can.

More on this later when I finally get around to my review of Harry Potter...

Tags: Speaking of Faith, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Krista Tippet, doubt, faith, atheism, Epicurus, Christian, Harry Potter

Labels: atheism

 
posted by Mike Clawson at 1:07 AM | Permalink | 5 comments
Monday, June 11, 2007
Why aren't Atheists Republicans?
Richard Dawkins had an interesting article called "Atheists for Jesus" in which he argues that atheists ought to embrace Jesus' moral teachings of "super niceness" (yes, it's a really lame term) even while rejecting Jesus' theistic beliefs. However, at one point he admits that the theory of evolution itself has little room for "super niceness" as a positive evolutionary trait. He says:

The theory of natural selection itself seems calculated to foster selfishness at the expense of public good, violence, callous indifference to suffering, short term greed at the expense of long term foresight. If scientific theories could vote, evolution would surely vote Republican.
I think Dawkins is basically right about the social and moral implications of Darwinism (though I think one could probably point to at least a few evolutionary benefits of social cooperation and at least ordinary "niceness" - which Dawkins himself admits later in the article). But the odd thing for me is that most atheists I know (and atheists, I've found, are exceptionally committed to promoting Evolutionary theory) are not "Republicans". They generally (though not universally of course) tend to be very compassionate and morally progressive people. They are often "super nice".

But the question is, why? If science, and evolution in particular is such a strong commitment for atheists, then why aren't they more "Republican"? Why do they uphold moral standards that even Dawkins admits are "just plain dumb". And why does Dawkins himself advocate that people live by these "super nice" moral standards regardless of their "dumbness"? (He never actually says why in the article.)

I'm not really in a position to answer these questions; and I'm certainly not making any accusations about atheists being immoral people - like I said, most I know are very moral - but I want to know why. Why the disconnect between theory and practice? I'm glad there is one, but how do atheists explain it? Any of my atheist readers want to help me out here?

Technorati Tags: Richard Dawkins, evolution, atheism, Republicans

Labels: atheism

 
posted by Mike Clawson at 9:34 PM | Permalink | 15 comments
Sunday, June 10, 2007
My Interview for the O Project
www.oproject.co.ukA while back I blogged about the O Project - an attempt by a British humanist, Hamish MacPherson to bring humanists and religious people together for common goals of making the world a better place. As part of this effort, Hamish is interviewing various atheists and Christians about their experiences in dialoguing with each other, and I just happened to be his first interview (via email). You can read his questions and my responses here.

Technorati Tags: The O Project, humanism

Labels: atheism

 
posted by Mike Clawson at 8:30 PM | Permalink | 6 comments
Monday, June 04, 2007
Is there "almost certainly no God"?
Over on the eBay Atheist blog, Benjamin Ady mentions a pastor who claims that Richard Dawkins and other popular atheist polemicists fail to offer cogent arguments for not believing in God. Not having fully read Dawkins' books (or Harris', Hitchen's or Dennet's for that matter) I can't say with certainty whether or not they do. However, I do know that Dawkin's central argument against the existence of God found in his most recent book, The God Delusion, is not particularly convincing. Based on summaries of this argument I've read online, I'd briefly summarize his logic thusly:

  1. A Creator God would be extremely complex. But…
  2. Darwinian science tells us that complexity develops naturally from simplicity, not vice versa. Therefore…
  3. God must have developed from something less complex and thus isn’t God.
  4. Therefore God almost certainly does not exist.

Of course, the weakness of this particular argument is in point #3. Dawkins seems not to realize that classical theistic belief has always posited that God has eternally existed “outside” the natural order (i.e. apart from both space and, more importantly, time), so rules about how things work within nature (i.e. moving from simplicity to complexity) do not necessarily apply to God. Clearly Dawkins has never peeled back the curtain of this space-time continuum to see whether these laws of evolution hold true “outside” the universe, so on what basis can he claim that “God must have developed from something less complex"? Indeed, if “time”, and therefore “development", only has meaning within the universe (as several atheists have pointed out to me, there was no “time” before the Big Bang) then it is meaningless to talk about something outside the universe “evolving” from simple to complex in the first place.

Either Dawkins is unaware of the classical theistic definition of God, or he deliberately misrepresents it so as to help his argument (since his argument only works if one thinks that God somehow exists “within” his own creation - in which case he is not the theistic God of Christian belief). Either way, this argument is not a very good one.

Technorati Tags: Richard Dawkins, eBay Atheist, The God Delusion

Labels: atheism

 
posted by Mike Clawson at 2:47 PM | Permalink | 5 comments
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
My Response to Atheist Questions, Part 6
My sixth and final response is up. In it I respond to a question about why, since my beliefs changed so much from the conservative mainstream, I don't just give up on my faith altogether.

This whole experience has been fun, but rather time consuming. I think I may need to back off from blogging for a while after this. ;)

Labels: atheism

 
posted by Mike Clawson at 10:37 AM | Permalink | 1 comments
Monday, May 21, 2007
My Response to Atheist Questions, Part 5
And here is Part 5: What I think the Atheist movement gets wrong. (Hint: I think it's something that Christians often get wrong too.)

Labels: atheism

 
posted by Mike Clawson at 12:05 PM | Permalink | 12 comments
Sunday, May 20, 2007
My Response to Atheist Questions, Part 4
Part 4 is up. In this one I respond to a question about whether I think atheists go to Hell.

Labels: atheism

 
posted by Mike Clawson at 11:21 PM | Permalink | 2 comments
Saturday, May 19, 2007
My Response to Atheist Questions, Part 3
The third of my responses is up at Hemant's blog. This one is in response to the questions about how I read the Bible if not always "literally". Interestingly, I'm already starting to get more comments from the more "liberal" Christians (as in classically Modern liberals) than from the atheists there.

Labels: atheism

 
posted by Mike Clawson at 12:51 PM | Permalink | 4 comments
Friday, May 18, 2007
My Response to Atheist Questions, Part 2
My second response to the "Ask a Christian Pastor" questions at Hemant's blog is up. Already it's stirred up a lot of discussion. In it I attempt to answer the question of whether I believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus and how this can be a rational event (and then try to answer the host of additional questions that have sprung from that in the comments).

Again, if you want to talk about my responses specifically, please do so over there.

Technorati Tags: atheism, Christianity, Resurrection

Labels: atheism

 
posted by Mike Clawson at 5:06 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Thursday, May 17, 2007
My Response to Atheist Questions, Part 1
Hemant has put up the first of my responses to the "Ask a Christian Pastor" questions on his blog. In this one I answer those who wanted to know more about the emerging church, how prevalent my views are and how I interact with fundamentalist Christians.

If you'd like to comment specifically on what I said in my response, I'd ask that you'd please do so over at Hemant's blog.

Technorati Tags: Hemant Mehta, atheism, Christianity, eBay Atheist, Friendly Atheist

Labels: atheism

 
posted by Mike Clawson at 11:40 AM | Permalink | 0 comments
Monday, May 14, 2007
A Missional Challenge from an Atheist
At the heart of the Missional Church movement is the idea that the church exists to bless the world - that it is at its best when it is giving itself away (to those in need, to the oppressed, etc.). What has surprised me on several occasions is to find that some atheists seem to get this better than some Christians do. My atheist friend, Dan Harlow, recently issued a challenge to Christians that is essentially a call for the church to live up to our missional purpose. In answering the question of what it would take to convert him to Christianity, he basically says Christians would have to start actually serving the world and not wasting their time on just "doing church". Here is his post (note - this was originally written as a response to some rather aggravating fundamentalists on the Friendly Atheist blog, which explains some of the frustration expressed in his tone):

First, a question:

What is a true Christian and is it possible for anyone to be a true Christian?

Since I try to be open minded, I also think it’s fair to ask myself “What would it take to convert me to faith?” Yes, I am an atheist, but I have very good reasons for being an atheist - some are cynical reasons, others are much more reasonable.

Now, here’s my problem. You see, if any believer was ever going to get me to ever go to church and become a Christian, it would have to be like this:

  1. Every Sunday I would arrive at my hypothetical church.

  2. When I arrived, there would be no building or altar or band. All that would be awaiting me is a fleet of buses.

  3. Standing in the middle of the parking lot would be the pastor holding a hat or large bowl that I would drop my name into.

  4. When all names have been collected, the pastor would draw names from the bowl and assign each person to a bus.

  5. The destination of each bus would be somewhere like an inner city where each person would teach kids how to read, or maybe a senior center to assist with the elderly or the side of a highway to clean up the trash or to the home of someone who needs home repair.

  6. For the entire day (not just an hour or two, but the entire day) each person would be responsible for taking part in this charity work.

  7. At the end of the day the buses would take us back to the parking lot and everyone would go home.

  8. The next week would be the same except that to be allowed on the bus you would have to prove to the pastor holding the hat that you did 10 charitable deeds during the week and not one of them would consist of giving money or preaching the word of God.

  9. If you can then prove you have been useful during the week, you get to also be useful on Sunday.

This is what religion should be doing. Any money raised by the church would go only to pay for the buses, not the pastor. In fact, the pastor would be working right along side everyone else. The only difference is that the pastor and his volunteer staff would spend their week organizing next Sundays activities.

If my idea caught on, imagine what sort of world we would be living in where every day tens of millions of people were helping each other out.

Now, as you can see, I’ve not mentioned God, but I have talked about doing “Gods” work. My idea puts the responsibility of loving my neighbor squarely in my lap.

Unfortunately, my idea will NEVER happen. Why? Well, it’s naive, that’s why. It’s naive because what I’m talking about is HARD TO DO. It’s much easier to talk about God and quote scripture. It’s also easier to worship and praise God then actually do real work. It’s fun to stand around and sing songs, it’s easy to speak in tongues, it’s not hard at all to write a check to the church. But it’s hard to teach someone how to read. It’s not fun to change an adult diaper. It’s back breaking work to fix someones home.

In other words, Jesus (supposedly) set the bar pretty damn high yet all anyone really wants to do is talk about how great Jesus is. Now, I may be an atheist, but I’m 100% certain that Jesus was more interested in people helping each other out than he ever was in people just standing around talking about him.

I ask all the Christians reading this : is going to church and quoting endless lines of scripture more Godly than helping your fellow man?

...


To read the rest of Dan's challenge click here.

Personally I wouldn't structure a church exactly as Dan suggests. For instance, a lot of inward spiritual transformation will probably be necessary in many people before they'd even be willing to spend every Sunday out serving people. Plus I'm not opposed to the idea of pastors getting paid. It takes a lot of time and effort to plan even a weekend worship service - how much more would it take to coordinate all these volunteer activities?

However, I think his larger point is good, and too few churches prioritize this kind of activity at all. And far too many Christians think that the whole point of being a Christian is just to "get saved" and then go to church to so you can learn how to pray, read your Bible, and get other people saved. We forget the whole part where Jesus said to "obey everything I have commanded you" (which included things like serving the poor and oppressed and marginalized).

Anyhow, what do you think of Dan's challenge and ideal church? Thoughts? Comments?

Technorati Tags: Missional Church, atheist, Friendly Atheist

Labels: atheism

 
posted by Mike Clawson at 9:10 PM | Permalink | 6 comments
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