‘Why the national curriculum must include the Bible‘.

It’s brilliant, and a strong argument refuting those who contend that the Bible has no place in the Australian education system.

Too often as Christians we save our arguments for preaching to the converted, or simply complain about to each other about the way things are. Scott’s article is an example of a Christian speaking out and raising compelling arguments in the public domain.

In a very different (i.e. lesser) league…

Back in March I wrote an article in response to one of the more ridiculous claims that Richard Dawkins during in his visit. I felt compelled to respond. Here’s the intro to the article:

“One of the more staggering comments made by Richard Dawkins during the recent Q&A debate on ABC1 was in response to the question “Do you wish for or hope for an afterlife?”. Of all the possible atheist responses Dawkins could have chosen, he said:

“When you say – is this it? How much more do you want? This is wonderful!”.

His naivety was staggering. As my friend commented, “Take him to the Congo and see how that statement goes down.” About 1.4 billion people in the world live on less than US $1.25 a day.  Most of the world will go to bed hungry tonight. More children, women and men are held in slavery right now than over the course of the entire trans-Atlantic slave trade. One in 5 women is a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime. More than 2 million children are exploited in the global sex trade. And thatʼs not to mention the struggles in our own nation with mental illness, loneliness, homelessness, domestic violence, cyber-bullying, financial insecurities – insert your own struggles here. Wonderful? Only a wealthy Westerner would consider that ʻthisʼ existence is wonderful.”

I pitched it to a couple of media agencies but it wasn’t accepted. For me, this was a good exercise in responding to the issues of the day – I’m not feeling discouraged that it wasn’t accepted – it was my first attempt! If you’re interested, you can download – “This isn’t wonderful” (PDF).

Advertise here with Beacon Ads

1. If you don’t believe in God, what would it take for you to believe?
2. If you do believe in God, what would it take for you not to believe?

An interesting idea for an online discussion. You can read the (104 at last count) answers here.

And for some (as Jesus himself made clear), no evidence would be good enough:

“I probably won’t believe until I’m either standing in front of the sky fairy in heaven or roasting for all eternity in hell. I believe the chances for either to be infinitismally small. If I did believe in God, I’d be a disthiest.”

Thanks Glen for letting me know about this and for your ever interesting posts!

As a related aside, Andrew makes an interesting observation about the media’s interest in atheism:

“When 2000-3000 atheists turn up in Melbourne for a conference to listen to some talks the media turns up to report on it. When 2000-3000 Christians (plus 1000 children) turn up to Katoomba for a conference to listen to some talks, it is just another Easter (or another one of the 5 conferences that KCC run, some over multiple weekends as 3000 seats are not enough)”.

Advertise here with Beacon Ads

• Reflections on watching ABC1′s Q&A (featuring Richard Dawkins)
• Why I’ve decided online religious debate is a bad idea, and concluding with
• Why debating atheists online is a fruitless pursuit

This afternoon I read Chris Uhlmann’s post ‘God, the Christian socialist and the Mad Monk‘. Uhlmann describes himself as a ‘lapsed Catholic’, but gives a detailed account of the Easter message from the Gospel of Mark. Uhlmann concludes:

“Maybe Mark is saying Christ proved everyone has the capacity to be godlike, if we have the courage to embrace the best of ourselves.”

Obviously I disagree with the conclusion. But it was good to see Jesus getting a mention in the media over Easter.

As usual, the post attracted a number of comments – 46 in fact – not many compared with similar discussions online. What stood out (again) was the people who were commenting. Only 3 or 4 were sympathetic with Uhlmann, the rest, well – here’s a sample:

“I resent the authors sentiment that my rationality bars me from any moral understanding. Is is this arrogance that pushes me to become a so called ‘militant’ atheist.”

and

“When you have absolute proof of there actually being a man in the sky that forgives us all our tresspass, whilst tresspassing on us to fully, completely and without question, submit to “his” will, then and only then, will I even begin to think that you’re not a deluded fool.”

Where are the Christians in these online discussions? I’m assuming not every Christian has read my post on ‘Why debating atheists online is a fruitless pursuit‘!

• Do you comment on posts? Why/why not?
• Are you more likely to comment if you agree with the author, or disagree?

Advertise here with Beacon Ads

1. The website of John Lennox. Talks and resources, including ‘Who created the Creator?‘.
2. Apologetics 315. A resource I frequently return to with recommended books, top 16 apologetics podcasts, quotes, and a basic logic primer.
3. The God Delusion Debate. A debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox. Lennox is brilliant.
4. Reasonable Faith. The site of apologist William Lane Craig – one of the best known apologists of our day. An interesting resource is Craig’s weekly ‘Q and A‘.
5. The website of Lee Strobel. A friend of mine became a Christian after reading the Case for Faith. I read it recently and loved the style – Lee asks all those curly questions about Christianity that Christians often get asked, and documents the answers he receives. This site has links to Lee’s books, a large collection of videos, and a blog (that unfortunately hasn’t been updated since 2008) and newsletter.
6. Centre for Public Christianity. A range of video and print resources on topics including Christianity, the arts, world religions and more. There’s also a selection of resources from John Lennox.

Have you discovered any helpful apologetics resources online?

Advertise here with Beacon Ads

This post isn’t about Peter, but is inspired by Peter. Peter is a journalist and an author, he says in the interview that when students of journalism ask him “What do I need to do to be a journalist?”, he says that “Before you do anything else, read “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell (known best for his novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four‘). He explains this essay is foundational for “writing plainly about the truth”. Curious, I downloaded a copy (PDF) from the Stanford University website.

Orwell explains the problem of modern writing, and modern writing hasn’t changed much since Orwell penned his essay:

“Modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug.”

Orwell’s critique isn’t of writing that is to be read for pleasure, but writing that is used to express important ideas:

“I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought.”

This is an important topic to consider because as Christians, we have a message that is precious and deserves clear expression. While as clay pots we stumble and stutter and our communication will always be stilted, becoming better communicators will be to the benefit of our message.

Orwell offers help to modern writers in their written communication:

“A scrupulous writer, in every sentence he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:

1. What am I trying to say?
2. What words will express it?
3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?
4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

And he will probably ask himself two more:

1. Could I put it more shortly?
2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

Finally, Orwell offers the following rules for avoiding “stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repititions, and humbug and vagueness generally”:

Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech you are used to seeing in print.

Never use a long word where a short one will do.

If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

Never use the passive where you can use the active.

Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Advertise here with Beacon Ads

When I wrote ‘Reflections on watching ABC1′s Q&A with Richard Dawkins‘, I made the mistake of critiquing the content of Dawkins’ argument. This was a mistake, not because I agree with Dawkins (nothing could be further from the truth), but because debating the existence of God, absolute v subjective morality, how the world came into being etc – are not subjects that I desire to discuss on this site. It’s not that I am uninterested in those topics – there’s just a limit to what can be discussed (we won’t be discussing the Premier League either, just to make that clear also!).

For this reason and a couple of others, I concluded that online religious debate isn’t a good idea.

This was met with a varied response. Some accused me of running from debate. Some thought if I start the debate I should stick around to finish it (it would be a 24/7 pursuit to answer all the comments that came in). Others thought I should set the example for how Christians should debate these topics online.

This prompted me to think further about the benefits of online religious debate, and, aided by debate stirred up by Dawkins and Deveny in recent weeks, I’ve read a lot of articles with a goal to observe the type of debate that takes place.

• I’ve kept an eye on a debate on the Thinkers’ Podium website.
• I’ve read two articles by columnist Andrew Bolt – ‘The barbarian of our age‘ (about atheist Catherine Deveny) and ‘No faith in their hatred‘.
• I’ve read Jeremy Halcrow’s post on ‘Atheists and cyber-abuse‘ on the Sydney Anglicans website.
• I’ve read the Sydney Morning Herald’s letters pages on 16 March and 17 March.
• I’ve read a post by religious blogger for The Age, Barney Zwartz, ‘2500 people with nothing to talk about?‘ – that attracted over 650 comments!
• I’ve read another post by Barney, ‘Atheists won’t win friends and influence people‘.
• I’ve read The Australian’s ‘Dawkins preaches to the deluded against the devine‘. Wisely, I think, The Australian didn’t permit comments.

This behavioral observation hasn’t just been a recent endeavour either. I’ve engaged with atheists online several times in the past 6 months – on Twitter, on this website and on others.

My conclusion this week is even more definite than it was last week – I cannot see any benefit to debating with atheists, about religion, online. Primarily, this is because of the attitude of many of the atheists whose opinions I read. Take for example, three letters in the Sydney Morning Herald today:

“When reasoned debate is confronted by unreasonable faith, it is hardly surprising that the standard of the discussion is lowered. But to blame the reasoned debater for that outcome is surely unfair.”

“Let’s put Richard Dawkins’s comment about Steve Fielding in perspective. Dawkins had just sat next to a man – a senator, no less – who weakly and ineloquently confirmed on national television his belief that the earth is about 6000 years old. The real issue here is how anyone espousing such a belief and all that comes with it, particularly someone who makes decisions affecting all of us, escapes with a mere name-calling.”

“Neil Ormerod says ridicule does not pass for reasoned argument when it comes to considering candidates for sainthood, yet considers a reasoned argument to be: ”If medicine can’t yet account for it, it must have been God.” Ridicule is exactly what he should expect.”

The general attitude of atheists towards Christians seems to be “We don’t have to be polite because you’re stupid”. And it’s no surprise that atheists have this attitude when they have a role model like Richard Dawkins. Speaking of former British Prime Minister (and recent Catholic convert), Tony Blair, Dawkins says “I’d like to think we didn’t have a complete idiot for Prime Minister”. As Melanie Phillips contends:

“Indeed, he [Dawkins] seems almost to believe that, since everyone who believes in God is stupid or evil and Christians are stupid and evil because they believe in God, those who oppose him must be Christian and can be treated with contempt.”

My question is this – how can you debate someone who thinks you’re an idiot and that anything you say is utter stupidity? That’s no platform for any meaningful discussion, and yet this is the attitude of many of those atheists I see in debates online.

Of course, not all atheists are like this. But the vast majority of those I have engaged with are angry, rude and dismissive. I can’t see a way of engaging online that doesn’t throw more fuel on the fire, let alone advance the discussion.

I’m writing this post because I want us, as Christians, to carefully consider how we use our time, and how we use technology, and particularly the internet (in this case) to bring glory to God. We need to think very carefully about engaging in these debates online, and it would take a lot of convincing to get me back into the arena.

There are great opportunities for offline debate. For example, John Lennox is compelling when he debates Dawkins in ‘The God Delusion Debate‘ (and I’ve asked the ABC to invite him onto the panel of Q&A when he arrives later this month). Not to mention conversations in person, between believers and non-believers.

I think there’s also opportunity for great discussions between Christians and agnostics, and people from other religions. I even think there is opportunity to have discussions with atheists who aren’t out of the Dawkins/Deveny mold.

But for those who seek only to mock, scoff, deride and ridicule, I think we need to speak less, and instead, take seriously the whole-of-life approach encouraged by Peter in 1 Peter 2:12 -

“Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”

Do you agree with me? Why or why not?

Update (14 April 2010)

• Bruce at the Thinkers’ Podium responds in “Comment Thread Besmirched“.
• Nathan has written a similar post – “Eight things I’ve learned from arguing with atheists online and why I (mostly) can’t be bothered anymore“. The Friendly Atheist has written a response – “A Christian explains why he won’t argue with atheists anymore“.

(Feature image attribution: Magnolia Red)

Advertise here with Beacon Ads

First of all, I didn’t write this post with the intention of converting atheists (I can hear the atheists saying – “well in that case you were very successful!”). This audience for Communicate Jesus is primarily Christians, although atheists (and those of any other faith – don’t take the bait!) are welcome here any time.

Secondly, I’d like to thank all who participated in this debate for doing it in good spirits, without resulting to death threats, foul language and a general hatred for the other. I’ve seen some ugly debates where neither atheists or Christians have acted in a way that would make either atheism or Christianity seem an attractive option for someone looking in on the conversation. Thanks for keeping the debate in good spirits.

However (and thirdly), I’m far from convinced of the value of having these discussions online. There’s a couple of reasons for this -

• The participants have different amounts of time, allowing some to write long responses, others to write shorter responses. The problem comes when the person who wrote the longer response thinks k that the person who wrote the shorter is avoiding the questions! You don’t get to you talk, I listen, I talk you listen conversational style that is necessary for these types of conversations.
• It’s easy to forget that we are all people, and it’s easy to slip into treating one another in a way that we certainly wouldn’t do face to face.
• So much of our communication is non-verbal, and for a topic that is so personal, a conversation that is missing so many of these non-verbal cues (tone, facial expression, etc) is prone to misunderstanding and potentially, hurting those who read. No one wants that.

Fourthly, I’m yet to see much value in these debates. The points raised are never new, the arguments are circular and they never go anywhere. They’re also of interest to a very limited pool of people.

In short, my conclusion is that the nature of the medium makes these conversations nigh on impossible, and highly unfruitful. So I’ve decided not to publish any more atheist/Christian-related comments on that post.

Amidst a lot of debate about morality, evolution, other religions, objective and subjective truth, the age of the earth, how God acts in the Old Testament and more, I’d like you to know this one thing: meeting Jesus changed my life.

As I read about Jesus in the Bible I see a man who is like no other. I see a man with authority over all creation – wind, waves, demons, disease, death – none are a match for Jesus. I see a man who treats all people as they should be treated. I see a man who rebukes the proud, but has compassion on the people who are meek, weak and down-trodden. I see a man who practices what he preaches. I see a man who explains how we ought to relate to God and each other. A man who explains that love is about getting your hands dirty. I see a man whose teaching amazed the crowds, but infuriated the religious leaders. I see a man who said “I have come that you may have life, and have it to the full”. And for all his perfect living and teaching, he was nailed to a cross to suffer the most agonizing death humans could concoct.

And three days later, he rose again.

And the Bible tells me that Jesus wasn’t just any man. Jesus was the son of God. It’s the only conclusion I can come to when I examine his life. And the Bible tells me that this life, death and resurrection were God’s means of providing forgiveness for me, and for you, and for anyone else who will believe it to be true. And boy, do I need forgiveness. I haven’t acknowledge God as God. I haven’t lived rightly under his rule. I haven’t given him the glory he deserves. I haven’t loved others as I’ve loved myself. I know me better than anyone else, and I can tell you – I’m deserving of God’s wrath.

But God doesn’t treat me as I deserve. He is merciful and shows me grace. He sent his son to die in my place. God raised his son from the dead to prove that I too will rise up from the dead – death shall not be the end.

This may sound like a foolish message to you. Richard Dawkins thinks it’s foolish that God would send his son to die on a cross for the sins of the world  – but the truth is, this foolish message is my salvation and gives me unspeakable joy.

This message can be your joy and salvation too.

…

(Title image attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thehappyrobot/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Advertise here with Beacon Ads

On the show’s format…

• I’m impressed by the interactive nature of Q&A. The ABC has done a good job of allowing people to ask questions not just in the audience, but also via SMS and online. They have a Twitter stream set-up, so people from around Australia can share their thoughts, live. Nice work ABC on running a show with this format.
• I think this format for a television show has great possibilities for dialogue, and Twitter is the obvious platform. Tonight, so many people were on Twitter, sharing their views (and most of them weren’t the same as mine!) but the opportunity to interact and offer differing points of view is there. The challenge, is to venture outside our own camps and engage with those of differing points of view. You can see some of the comments made on Twitter during and after the show here.
• I’ve only seen the show twice, and both times I think it was over-represented by politicians. Tonight there was Tony Burke, Steve Fielding and Julie Bishop. I like politics (and am a proud participant in my church’s politics discussion group!) but when you get a couple of politicians together, the debate quickly descends into lots of opponent-gouging, whilst artfully dodging whatever question you are actually asked.

On Richard Dawkins and atheism…

• I was surprised at the level of support Richard Dawkins received from the audience. His comments were warmly received with applause – is this a reflection on Australia becoming more interested in atheism, or was the audience carefully picked to spark some fires? I signed up to join the audience of a future show, but there wasn’t a space to state my religion, so I’m not sure how they would pick the crowd (but notice the Muslims placed in the front row within eye-balling distance of Dawkins!).
• We ought to be concerned at the support that was expressed to Dawkins’ subjective morality – the logical implications of this are frightening. It surprises me that this was received with support. If everyone gets to do what seems right to them, we’re in a whole lot of trouble. Do we really want a world where everyone does what pleases them?
• I’m amazed at Dawkins’ ignorance (feigned or otherwise) at the impact of his words on others. He rubbishes what the Bible says happened when Jesus died on the cross (to the sickening applause from the crowd), ridiculing this truth, and then when confronted about his antagonism says “I’m just telling you Biblical doctrine”. In fact, to any observer it is clear he is not just “telling Biblical doctrine” – the way it is worded, delivered and then packaged with his opinions is all with the obvious intent of having a good laugh at anyone who considers that Jesus dying on the cross was God’s method for redeeming a broken humanity. It will be an interesting day when Richard Dawkins meets the Lord Jesus Christ.
• The similarity between Dawkins and some of his followers is frightening, namely their utter disrespect for anyone who ‘believes’ anything other than atheism and their inability to engage in any form of meaningful debate. For example, here are three tweets sent last night: “The Q&A panel thought Dawkins didn’t respect their views. What’s to respect?! Creationism and (confessed) half formed opinions?”, and “Still staggered by Q&A last night! How can morons like steve fielding and Julie bishop actually represent Australians?”, and “And people wonder why Dawkins is an arrogant prick when he spends half his life getting questions like that from dickheads”. For the record, I’m not saying that every atheist is like this (I have friends who are atheists who are not). But those who follow hard after Dawkins, not surprisingly, start looking like him. It’s not surprising then either, as The Times Online reported recently, when his followers turn on him with the same level of vitriol.
• On a related note, and where I discovered the link to the Times article, check out this interesting experience of my friend, Glen, in his post ‘Commenting on an atheist site‘.
• I was reminded that people on Twitter and in the audience (and Australia in general) have an ignorance about the Bible, and this is falsely informing their opinions about Jesus. It’s like they have decided they don’t like someone, before they have even met them, based purely on second-hand information that is incorrect. This saddens me – if you reject Jesus, that’s your decision, but please meet the real Jesus first.
• Obviously as an atheist, Richard Dawkins doesn’t believe in life after death, that there is anything more than ‘this’. But his reflection that “how much more would you want than this – this is wonderful!” is sadly naive – for the majority of the people in this world, ‘this’ daily existence is miserable – as @nicolieadams said, “take him to the Congo and see how that statement goes down.” 1.4 billion people in the world live on less than US$1.25 per day. Most of the world goes to bed hungry each night. They are not saying to each other “how much more than you want than this – this is wonderful!”.

On the other panelists…

• At first I was disappointed in Tony Burke when Tony Jones asked him for his opinion and he said “”you’ve got me where I didn’t want to be”. However, he spoke up for what he believed in and was more definitive and clear than any of the other panelists about the Christian worldview. He stood up to Dawkin’s bullying and he was reasonably articulate – a pleasant surprise. Thanks Tony Burke for your willingness to speak up for what you believe.
• I was confused about the other panelists (the Rabbi, Julie Bishop, the Professor and Stephen Fielding). None of them really seemed to want to stand up and be counted for what they believe, nor (though I don’t think Stephen Fielding was asked this question), did any of them have anything more than a vague hope that there is something more than ‘this’. The Rabbi explained that (and I’m para-phrasing here) we can hope for nothing more than to do our best and hope for the best. This saddened me – Jesus gives a sure and certain hope in life beyond the grave for all who will put their trust in him.
• A final reflection on Christians and the media. If you are a Christian and are going to be interviewed, you need to be prepared for the questions you are going to get. And you can prepare because the questions are always the same. They’re about creation, teaching creation in schools, does God hate homosexuals, isn’t the God of the OT terrible, wasn’t Jesus just a nice guy, should we teach religion in schools, doesn’t religion teach brainwash people and make them to be intolerant of others. When Steve Fielding was asked about homosexuality, he looked very uncomfortable, explained that he doesn’t hate gays, and that he doesn’t believe the part of the Bible that was (misunderstood) by the person who asked the question in the audience. I don’t doubt that being a Christian in a format like Q&A is extremely difficult, and good on Steve Fielding for going on. But it seemed to be an opportunity squandered by poor preparation, when the questions were never going to be out of the blue. This format provides Christians with great opportunities to speak truth and to clarify misunderstands – I’ve seen Archbishop Peter Jensen do this brilliantly in the past. I’d be keen to see the Archbishop on Q&A sometime!

On a more light-hearted note…

• Finally, it’s been amusing to see the fun that’s been made out of Julie Bishop’s death stare, delivered when an audience member spoke while she was speaking. For example “… and I’m amazed the fire alarm didn’t go off in the studio after Julie Bishop’s stare immolated that audience member.” In fact, a Facebook group has already been started in honour of the stare! It’s been the most popular (#qanda) related topic of discussion since the show!

Over to you…

What were your reflections on the debate?

Advertise here with Beacon Ads

Advertise here with Beacon Ads

In these debates I’ve read lots of reasons why people dismiss God and Christianity, but one particular thread that caught my eye is reflected in comments such as these:

“I have as much belief in the god of the bible as you have in the existence of Odin, Zeus, and the Flying Spaghetti monster.”

“The God invoked by so many Christians is a logical impossibility. Consider the traits of all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving and the concepts of Heaven and Hell. I’m sure you can see the inconsistencies.”

The basic argument that I have heard numerous times is this – believing in God is intellectually stupid, i.e. believing in God is incompatible with having a brain.

I came across the Apologetics 315 website that has a range of debates, book reviews and articles on the topic of the existence of God (along with other apologetics topics). Below are some links to audio files and articles on this topic:

• ‘Does God exist?‘ – William Lane Craig vs George Williamson debate
• ‘5 reasons God exists‘ – William Lane Craig
• The probability of God test (short and detailed)
• The moral argument for God’s existence – William Lane Craig
• Does God exist? – Douglas Groothius
• Does God exist? – Phil Fernandes vs Eddie Tabash debate

I’ve listened to the audio file for only the first debate so far (I’m downloading the others as I write and will work my way through them). In this first debate I learnt a lot – about logic, philosophy, objective moral values, and more.

I was also impressed by the polite yet rigorous debate that Craig and Williamson engaged in. It’s an example that such debates can be conducted with civility – something both Christians and atheists sadly seem to struggle with in these kinds of online debates. It makes me wonder whether conversations (debates, if you will) on these kinds of topics can be had online between unseen people, or if they should only be conducted face to face, where it’s impossible to forget that we are engaging with real people.

You can check out all posts with the tag ‘existence of god’ here.

Of course, the most compelling argument for me is that I have a personal relationship with God himself, made possible by the death of his son, Jesus.

Feature image: sourced from The Telegraph, more stunning space photography at Smashing Magazine.

Advertise here with Beacon Ads