Atheism: Analytic Thinking Results in Qualified Belief, not Disbelief

It has become fashionable to assert that Atheism is simply a lack of belief. Of course position denies the definition of Atheism and skews the meaning of belief. I have included the definitions of these words at the end of the article for reference.

Analytic Thinking Results in Qualified Belief, not Disbelief

Disbelief is the result of "Intuitive″ type of thinking. Intuitive thinking is spontaneous, unreflective thinking which generally results in short, easy, binary answers like "Yes" or "No" to questions.

Belief is the result of "Analytic″ type of thinking. Analytical thinking is careful (suspicious due to skepticism), deliberative and reasoned thinking. Conclusions from this type of thinking result in qualified belief. 

People who initially answer questions in an intuitive mode, which is prone to easy binary answers, will say, "Yes" or "No." But when you engage their analytic traits, they will begin qualifying their response through a process of cognitive thinking or reasoning based upon a body of evidence whether seen or unseen. 

Consequently if an Atheist is going to present an intellectual argument, denying a supreme being or beings, they would be doing so from an analytic perspective which is grounded in qualified belief. Therefore, they too are subject to the same "burden of proof" as those they oppose. Otherwise there is no opposition and their entire argument fails by default. 

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. (Psalm 14: 1)

a·the·ism

noun

1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God.

2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.

be-lief:

 noun

1. something believed; an opinion or conviction: a belief that the earth is flat.

2. confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof: a statement unworthy of belief.

3. confidence; faith; trust: a child's belief in his parents.

dis-belief:

 noun

1. the inability or refusal to believe or to accept something as true.

 February 18, 2016
Author: Brett Kunkle
Stand to Reason Ministries

On Sunday, I returned home from another Berkeley Mission trip, where I intentionally exposed high school students to some of my atheist friends in the Bay Area. For the last six months, we’ve taught apologetics to these high schoolers from Upland Christian Academy. Now it was time for them to “get off the sidelines and into the game” and engage non-Christians with the truth. Of course, my atheist friends are more than happy to oblige, so they meet with our missions teams, challenge them with a short lecture, and then dive into some rigorous dialogue.

Without fail, a couple of our atheist guests will contend, “Religion is the cause of most wars.” This cultural mantra has been uttered so often and with so much force, it has come to be accepted as an undeniable declaration. Prominent atheists like Sam Harris contribute to the chorus of voices, arguing religion is “the most prolific source of violence in our history” (The End of Faith page 27). Richard Dawkins claims, “There’s no doubt that throughout history religious faith has been a major motivator for war and for destruction.”

But as we trained students for this trip, we equipped them with a simple question to expose such claims: “How did you come to that conclusion?” (also known as Columbo Question #2). We simply taught students to recognize when someone makes a claim and then to request their supporting reasons. When our atheist presenters were challenged to provide justification, they could only offer up the Crusades, the Inquisition, 9-11, or vague references to Islamic terrorism. Certainly we recognize religion’s role in these examples, but three or four references cannot support the claim that most wars are caused by religion.

Not only were students able to demonstrate the paucity of evidence for this claim, but we helped them discover that the facts of history show the opposite: religion is the cause of a very small minority of wars. Phillips and Axelrod’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars lays out the simple facts. They examined 5 millennia worth of wars—1,763 total—and found that only 123 (or about 7%) were “religious in nature.” If you remove the 66 wars waged in the name of Islam, it cuts the number down to a little more than 3%. A second scholarly source, The Encyclopedia of War edited by Gordon Martel, confirms this data, concluding that only 6% of the wars listed in its pages can be labelled religious wars. Thirdly, William Cavanaugh’s book, The Myth of Religious Violence, exposes the “wars of religion” claim. And finally, a recent report (2014) from the Institute for Economics and Peace further debunks this myth.

We didn’t stop there. We showed students it gets worse for the atheists’ claim. A strong case can be made that atheism, not religion, and certainly not Christianity, is responsible for a far greater degree of bloodshed. Indeed, R.J. Rummel’s work in Lethal Politics and Death by Government has the secular body count at more than 100 million...in the 20th century alone.

Our students were able to see that a simple examination of the facts relieves religion from blame for most of the world’s wars. In addition, we were able to help cultivate in students a healthy skepticism of atheistic claims. If the skeptic will shout such an unsubstantiated claim so loudly and with so much force, what other skeptical claims might quickly fall apart under rational scrutiny? 

Learning from Young Atheists

Learning from Young Atheists

What Turned Them off Christianity

By: Eric Metaxas|Published: July 1, 2013

 

Have you ever asked a young atheist why he or she doesn’t believe? Well, one researcher did. And the answers may surprise you.

 

It’s something most Christian parents worry about: You send your kids off to college and when they come back, you find they’ve lost their faith. The prospect of this happening is why many parents nudge their kids towards Christian colleges, or at least schools with a strong Christian presence on campus.

But in many ways, the damage has been done long before our children set foot on campus. That’s the message from a recent article in the Atlantic Monthly.

My friend Larry Taunton of the Fixed Point Foundation set out to find out why so many young Christians lose their faith in college. He did this by employing a method I don’t recall being used before: He asked them.

The Fixed Point Foundation asked members of the Secular Students Associations on campuses around the nation to tell them about their “journey to unbelief.” Taunton was not only surprised by the level of response but, more importantly, about the stories he and his colleagues heard.

Instead of would-be Richard Dawkins’, the typical respondent was more like Phil, a student Taunton interviewed. Phil had grown up in church; he had even been the president of his youth group. What drove Phil away wasn’t the lure of secular materialism or even Christian moral teaching. And he was specifically upset when his church changed youth pastors.

Whereas his old youth pastor “knew the Bible” and made Phil “feel smart” about his faith even when he didn’t have all the answers, the new youth pastor taught less and played more.

Phil’s loss of faith coincided with his church’s attempt to ingratiate itself to him instead of challenging him. According to Taunton, Phil’s story “was on the whole typical of the stories we would hear from students across the country.”

These kids had attended church but “the mission and message of their churches was vague,” and manifested itself in offering “superficial answers to life’s difficult questions.” The ministers they respected were those “who took the Bible seriously,” not those who sought to entertain them or be their “buddy.”

Taunton also learned that, for many kids, their journey to unbelief was an emotional, not just an intellectual one.

Taunton’s findings are counter-intuitive. Much of what passes for youth ministry these days is driven by a morbid fear of boring our young charges. As a result, a lot of time is spent trying to devise ways to entertain them.

The rest of the time is spent worrying about whether the Christian message will turn kids off. But as Taunton found, young people, like the not-so-young, respect people with conviction—provided they know what they’re talking about.

Taunton talks about his experiences with the late Christopher Hitchens, who, in their debates, refrained from attacking him. When asked why, Hitchens replied, “Because you believe it.”

I don’t know what that says about Hitchens’ other Christian debate partners, but it is a potent reminder that playing down the truth claims of the Christian faith doesn’t work. People don’t believe those they don’t respect.

Here’s something that one of the students told Larry Taunton; he said, “Christianity is something that if you really believed it, it would change your life and you would want to change [the lives] of others. I haven’t seen too much of that.”

Folks, that’s pretty sobering. This puts the ball in our court. Are we living lives that show our children that we actually believe what we say we believe? And here’s another question—do we actually believe it? I have to say, as a parent I’m taking this very seriously. If possible, join me in reading Taunton’s excellent article. Come to BreakPoint.org  for other resources to equip young adults to contend for the faith.

By What Standard?

A few years ago, a documentary called Collision was made where Douglas Wilson debated Christopher Hitchens on Is Christianity Good for the World? Hundreds of hours of footage was shot and edited down to 90 minutes of solid debate and conversation. The clip you see above didn't make into that 90 minutes. Consider it deleted scenes. This is the first time it's being released, and we have it here for you to learn what it means and looks like to make a defense for your faith.


Notes from Douglas Wilson

Fillet of Faith

Do You Really Believe?
By: Chuck Colson|Published: March 21, 2012

 The militant atheism behind this month’s upcoming “Reason Rally” on the Mall in D.C. isn’t the only flavor of skepticism these days. In fact, instead of blaming people of faith for the woes of the world, some atheists now are actually speaking out on behalf of religion. But their reasons for doing so are as different as one could imagine.

Alain de Botton, the famous British atheist who challenged Richard Dawkins’s “destructive” attacks on religion, says society needs faith. Now there’s a “man-bites-dog” story.

De Botton explained in a recent interview: “[M]y argument is that…religion is full of useful, interesting . . . consoling ideas that could…appeal even to someone who has…no interest in being a believer.”

In his book, Religion for Atheists, de Botton insists that churches and other places of worship are just some of the many elements of religion unbelievers must incorporate into their lives if secularism is to survive. And he’s proving how serious he is by sponsoring an atheist “temple” in London, a place he says is designed “for ‘love, friendship, calm and perspective.’”

Now, love, friendship, calm, and perspective are all fine things, but how do you get the fruits of religion without the religion itself?

Coincidentally, de Botton’s views sound like an echo of another voice here in the States — retired Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong, a man whose views place him squarely outside Christian orthodoxy. Spong took to the airwaves last month to promote his new book, in which he argues that Scripture was never meant to be read literally. Letting go of rigid doctrines like the Virgin Birth and Divinity of Christ, he says, are necessary if Christians hope to “stop the exodus of people from religion.”

In fact, he says, fundamentalists who get distracted by debates over abortion, homosexuality, and birth control are missing the point just as badly as atheists who reject faith completely.

Well, as nice as it seems that some atheists are favorably disposed toward religion, they can’t have it both ways. In fact, another atheist, who is a homosexual rights advocate in Britain, thinks de Botton and Spong’s ideas are both ridiculous. And he’s right! In a recent Spectator column, Matthew Parris calls religious believers to wake up and realize that their “faith is being defended by the wrong people, in the wrong way.” He warns us: “Beware…the patronage of unbelievers. They want your religion as a social institution, filleted of true faith.”

“To those who truly believe,” he writes, “the implicit message beneath ‘never mind if it’s true, religion is good for people’ is insulting.”

According to Parris, the only valid reason to believe the religion of Jesus Christ is if it’s true! And if it is true, he says, “it must have the most profound consequences for a man and for mankind.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Nor could I have more accurately summed up the core message of BreakPoint: The Christian worldview claims to explain and embrace all of reality. It makes hard-and-fast truth claims. And — as another one-time atheist, C. S. Lewis, argued — does not leave us the option of reducing Christ or the Bible to being “good moral teachers.”
No, religion is only “useful” or “consoling” insofar as it is true. And Christianity, unlike others, is both because it is.

Socialist movement in America – 1905

A Case Study in Changing our Nation’s Culture

"The article below is a brief history of how Socialism came to America. Take special note of the infiltration into all areas of society, but most especially the  educational system. This is why our schools need to be entirely overhauled - from curriculum to teaching methods. For it is not the quality of teachers that is in question, but rather the method and content of what they are required to teach." – Ricki Pepin

On September 12, 1905, approximately 100 people  met in a loft over Peck's Restaurant, at 140 Fulton Street, in lower Manhattan. The purpose of the meeting was to strategize the overthrow of the Christian worldview that still pervaded much of American culture and to replace it with the ideas of a then rather unknown writer by the name of Karl  Marx. They called the organization they formed that day the Intercollegiate Socialist Society.

The godfather of the organization was a 27-year-old author named Upton Sinclair. The first
president chosen was the author Jack London,  age 29. Also present was Clarence Darrow, the
attorney.

The strategy of the organization was to infiltrate their ideas into academia by organizing chapters in
as many colleges and universities as possible. And organize they did. Walter Lippmann, later author
and director of the Council on Foreign Relations, was the president of the Harvard chapter. Walter
Reuther, the future president of the United Auto Workers, headed the Wayne State chapter; and
Eugene Debs, who went on to become the five-time Socialist candidate for president, was the leader
at Columbia.

The society grew. The first annual convention was held in 1910, and by 1917 they were active on 61
campuses and a dozen graduate schools. Other early activists included W. E. B. DuBois, who would
become an official of the NAACP and later a Communist Party member, and Victor L. Berger of
Wisconsin, who became the first Socialist elected to Congress.

In 1921, the Intercollegiate Socialist Society took its next organizational step, changing its name to
the League for Industrial Democracy. Its purpose was "education for a new social order based on production
for use and not for profit." Norman Thomas, another perennial Socialist candidate for president, was the
leader behind the scenes. The renamed organization’s first president was Robert Lovett, editor of
the New Republic, and field secretary with Paul Blanshard, who later became an author.

The college chapters of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society now became the Student League for
Industrial Democracy. As members graduated from college, some entered the pulpit, others the
classroom; some wrote textbooks while others into the labor movement in both political parties.
When the New Deal began in 1933, they were prepared. At the time the leak had only 5,652
members that they were in positions of leadership everywhere.

By 1941 John Dewey, the founder of progressive education in the league VP in the 1930s, was its
honorary president, and Reinhold Niebuhr, the  theologian, its treasurer. Dewey had already
organized the Progressive Education Association  and the American Association of University
Professors.

The League for Industrial Democracy was so successful that those who held membership in the
movement or were cooperating with it could have been a list for Who's Who in America: Robert N.
Baldwin, founder of the American Civil Liberties Union; Charles Beard, the historian; Carroll Binder, editor of the  Minneapolis Tribune; Helen Gahagan Douglas, the Congresswoman who was defeated by Richard Nixon for the U.S. Senate;  Felix Frankfurter, Supreme Court Justice; Sidney Hook, the educational social philosopher; Edna St. Vincent Millay, the poet; Henry Morganthau Jr., one of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's most trusted  economic advisers; Walter and Victor Reuther, United Auto Workers; Will Rogers Jr., humorist; Franklin Roosevelt Jr., the president signed; and Arthur Schlesinger Jr., the historian.

The obscure loft in Manhattan where they organized has long been forgotten, but what began there
that night permeates America's institutions and culture, having replaced the Bible-based values of the 19th century with the liberalism based on Marxism.

Consider
To what extent do you feel that you have been influenced by the anti-Christian forces of modern culture? Do you think you have picked up any of the values of the League for Industrial Democracy? Unfortunately, all of us are the products of our own backgrounds. Even after we become Christians we still are influenced by our culture. We need to evaluate our presuppositions against the truth revealed in God's Word.

[Excerpted from - The One Year Book of Christian History,  by E. Michael and Sharon Rusten,
published by Tyndale House, Wheaton IL,  2003. Pages 512-513.                     ISBN 0-8423-5507-3]

Explaining Altruism

By T. M. Moore
Researchers are trying to explain the source of altruistic behavior. Why do human beings do good to one another?

Evolutionary thinkers all the way back to Darwin have struggled to account for this very un-evolutionary behavior. Why should we care when people suffer and die? What causes us to rush all kinds of aid and assistance to people in need? Isn’t survival of the fittest supposed to be our watchword and rallying cry?

As Alice G. Walton explained, writing at The Atlantic website, altruism “doesn't make a whole lot of sense, since we’re all out to preserve ourselves – and our genes. There must be something else going on.”

Something else, indeed, but something which, thus far has defied scientific explanations.
Evolutionists used to believe there was something communal about altruism, that people cared for one another, and even strangers, because it helped ensure the viability of the local gene pool. This theory, pioneered by E. O. Wilson almost a generation ago, had become accepted as a “good enough” explanation for altruism.

Until, that is, Dr. Wilson repudiated his own theory last summer, only to be vilified by many of his peers.

Ms. Walton reports on research with children which demonstrates that altruism may be something inherently human. Children, it seems, are capable of altruistic behavior before they’ve ever even learned the word or have an opportunity to think about what it means or requires of them. “Researchers,” she explains, “have recently demonstrated that altruism and fairness appear to develop, perhaps simultaneously, from an incredibly early age.”

But they still don’t know where the behavior comes from, whether it’s innate – which seems likely, but why? – or learned. Many kids just seem to show generosity and even sacrifice because, well, it’s the thing to do, I guess.

The Biblical view of humankind explains this. We are made in the image of God, and we have the works of His Law written on our hearts. The Law of God instructs us to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are our brother’s keeper, and we know thus just because of the kind of beings we are.
Now evolutionary researchers aren’t likely to accept that opinion. They will continue looking for other explanations for altruistic behavior, but it doesn’t matter. Even if they find a particular altruism gene which incites this kind of behavior, they will still have to explain how such a development fits within an evolutionary life framework.

And that will just require a lot more research.

Sooner or later, as the evidence continues to build across a wide range of disciplines and topics, advocates of an evolutionary worldview are going to have to explain why their view of life explains so little and the Biblical view explains so much.

And that’ll take some serious ‘splainin.

Dwight Eisenhower Believed the Bible

"The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth. The Bible is endorsed by the ages. Our civilization is built upon its words. In no other book is there such a collection of inspired wisdom, reality, and hope."


"It takes no brains to be an atheist. Any stupid person can deny the existence of a supernatural power because man's physical senses cannot detect it. But there cannot be ignored the influence of conscience, the respect we feel for the Moral Law, the mystery of first life…or the marvelous order in which the universe moves about us on this earth. All these evidence the handiwork of the beneficent Deity…That Deity is the God of the Bible and of Jesus Christ, His Son".    -- Dwight Eisenhower

Air Force Apology: Just Plane Wrong

Operation Christmas Child update - The U.S. Air Force wants to promote less of it. Last week, the branch's headquarters apologized for encouraging cadets to help needy children after complaints from an atheist fringe. The Academy had circulated an email asking people to partner with Operation Christmas Child, a longtime project of Samaritan's Purse that sends shoeboxes of gifts to impoverished kids.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation complained, saying the Academy had acted unconstitutionally. Air Force officials immediately cowered, ordering cadets to stop endorsing the program campus-wide and work through the Chaplains Corps instead.

Well, MRFF may be able to bully the Air Force, but that kind of political correctness won't fly with most Americans. Don't let these attacks on religious freedom cripple the important work of Franklin Graham's ministry. Support Operation Christmas Child today! For more on the controversy, tune in to Tony's interview with Dr. Dobson tomorrow. For station listings and times, click over to MyFamilyTalk.com.

From Secularism to Atheism to Socialism to …

The changing landscape of America.

Current events have given us a glimpse into our future. The Occupy Wall Street movement is no exception. Though their message is not cohesive and varies widely, not only among individuals but also by location – one thing is clear. Their underlying message is wealth redistribution through entitlement and regulation, aka Socialism.

Where does this ideology come from? It originates as Secularism, that is to remove God from the public square and from any discussion related to public policy. After a generation or two Atheism becomes the worldview that is dominant I shaping ideology and policy. Out of this the culture is eager to embrace Socialism not realizing or ignoring the natural progression that has been demonstrated and proven many times throughout history.  

Former Atheist Peter Hitchens reminds his readers that Atheism and the political system it spawns – Socialism, comes at a great price to the 99% while catering to the elite.            

Peter Hitchens, brother of outspoken “New Atheist” Christopher Hitchens, is a British journalist and author of the book The Rage Against God, published in 2010. At age fifteen, young Peter set fire to his Bible on the playing field of his Cambridge boarding school and set out on a life of denying the existence of God.

Peter attributes his return to faith to seeing Socialism in practice during his years as a correspondent in Eastern Europe and in Moscow during the collapse of the Soviet Union. In his book, he describes what it was like for the Russian people who were living under the tyranny of godless Communism

 “Soviet citizens all knew life was like this. They knew the daily drudgery of finding anything decent to eat....They knew that if they wanted anesthetics at the dentist, or antibiotics at the hospital, or co-operation from their child’s teacher, or a holiday by the sea, they would need to bribe someone to get them. Even in Moscow, the show city of the Evil Empire, they knew that they dwelt in the suburbs of hell, that in mile after mile of mass-produced housing you would be hard put to find a single family untouched by divorce, that no mother reared her own children, that the schools taught lies, that secret government establishments leaked radiation into air and water. Fresh eggs were an event. ‘No’ meant ‘How much will you pay me?’ Rats were commonplace and played merrily among the trashcans of apartment blocks and in the entrances of railway terminals. Windows were filthy as a matter of course...

 “While most struggled to survive, a secret elite enjoyed great privilege - special living spaces, special hospitals with Western drugs and equipment, special schools in which their children were well taught in English, special waiting rooms in stations and airports, and special lanes along which the Politburo’s giant armored limousines roared at 90 miles an hour, shouldering aside anyone who dared get in the way. The elite had privileged access to good food, foreign travel and books, and the groveling servility of the organs of the state, which oppressed the common people and extorted money from them. This society, promoted by its leaders as an egalitarian utopia, was in truth one of the most unequal societies on earth.” ~ Peter Hitchens

Peter Hitchens describes life in Russia in the early 1990’s as harsh and dangerous. In 1990 there were 6.46 million abortions in the USSR and only 4.85 million live births.

Quote from Peter Hitchens’ book “The Rage Against God : how atheism led me to faith”

New Atheism

The current surge of secular books has re-ignited the age-old ideology that there is no God or Supreme Being. The popular thought that there is no God has gained momentum, giving rise to what is now branded “New Atheism”.

The question is; what is new about New Atheism?

The word Atheist originates from the word Theist. Theist refers to someone who believes in god or gods. As we’re all aware putting the letter a in front of theist is Latin for “no” (Latin: a- "no" + theist) or no belief in god or gods.

It seems that one thing that is “new” about New Atheism is in how they have redefined the term claiming that Atheism is not a belief. It is quite confusing to comprehend how an ideology of not believing, or to not believe in something, is not itself a belief .

I would like to get some thoughts on this topic from different perspectives in hopes that we can better understand the perspective of New Atheism. There are a number of questions that come to mind on this topic but I believe that beginning with some definitions will help keep the discussion focused and alleviate confusion as the discussion progresses.