One of the best experiences I had at last year’s Freedom From Religion Foundation convention was listening to this wonderful talk by Anthony Pinn. (Talk begins at 5:40.)
Pinn, growing up outside Buffalo NY, became a preacher in his local church at the ripe young age of 12. Now, there’s nothing an audience of atheists likes better than a story of someone who was devoutly religious and later does an about-face to embrace atheism. (Not an uncommon path, with many possible twists, as you can read in Daniel Dennett and Linda LaScola’s Caught in the Pulpit.) And Pinn gives it to us, hitting all the best notes: being in love with Jesus but also with thinking critically, being surprised to meet theologians who read the Bible as literature rather than as The Word, and ultimately losing his faith entirely while studying at Harvard Divinity School.
But there’s a lot more to his message than a congratulatory triumph of rationality over superstition. Through his life, Pinn has been concerned with the effect that ideas and actions have on real people, especially the African-American community. His mother always reminded him to “move through the world knowing your footsteps matter,” valuable advice no matter what your ontological orientation might be.
This comes out in the Q&A period — often not worth listening to, but in this case it’s the highlight of the presentation. The audience of atheists are looking for yet more self-affirmation, demanding to know why more Blacks haven’t accepted the truth of a secular worldview. Pinn is very frank: naturalism hasn’t yet offered African-Americans a “soft landing.” Too many atheists, he points out, spend a lot of time critiquing religious traditions, and a lot of time patting themselves on the back for being rational and fair-minded, and not nearly enough time constructing something positive, a system of networks and support structures free of the spiritual trappings. It’s a good message for us to hear.
It would have been fantastic to have Anthony at Moving Naturalism Forward. Next time! (Not that there are currently any plans for a next time.)
Tom
I see little evidence (I am not formally trained in it) that the philosophy of knowledge has reached stable uniformly held conclusions.
I looked briefly at your two links and skimmed through them. Some obvious statements. People differ not just in what they believe, but in how they reach conclusions about what is fundamental, about worldview, about the root knowledge and beliefs they hold. For many it is relational and emotional factors primarily which influence them and therefore highly experiential. Faith is a word we could perhaps use to describe our subjective personal value system. My wife heard the Christian gospel preached in a church when at a low time in her life, 30 years ago. She listened, had an uncanny conviction she was being personally addressed, said out loud ‘oh all right then’ and walked to the altar. She is a nurse, not a scientist, and has also seen unexplained healing.
A mixture of personal discontent and failure, plus rationale, convinced me that Christ was who he said he was and I needed him. I was studying applied physics at the time. There is certainly a lot of noise on the ‘belief signal’ that still keeps us both planted in the Christian faith; self-deception, hyperbole, dodgy preachers, etc, but we are holding on overall. The reason in my case is a general overall subjective accord with the hypothesis that God is real and has revealed both himself and the nature of man in the Bible, primarily in Christ. I could go into many details on that, and of course I could be deceiving myself.
Yes what is now called supernatural could some day be explained as clearly as gravity or ohm’s law. I have my doubts, but we cannot logically rule it out as a possibility.
Are we not, as I have said before, necessarily constrained by our own minds and sensory faculties, albeit corporate and technologically assisted? Can one become too high minded and fail to see the obvious? It is not as if all this cerebral activity is making too many unambiguous and stable deductions these days on origins.
FrankL,
Where do you get your morals from FrankL? I seriously doubt you get them from the Bible. If you think that you do it might be a good idea to actually read the Bible in its entirety. If you have and you still think you get your morals from the Bible then how do you account for, I presume, NOT abiding by the majority of the moral examples portrayed and even commanded in it?
I am assuming you don’t abide by the majority of them because if you did you would be a distant outlier and you would not be able to function in most modern societies because you would either be locked up or dead.
The way I account for it, that seems rather obvious, is that you and every other believer that has ever existed “choose” what moral instructions to uphold in the same way humans choose between any other things. And Thank Goodness for that too.
And no, the argument that the NT supercedes the OT just doesn’t do you any favors. People who make that argument must have never read the whole thing, or maybe hope that whoever they are talking to hasn’t. It is arguably nastier in some respects than the OT.
darrelle
‘Unevidenced magical tales’ or ‘superstition over reason’ (in the head article) is not how my own Christian world view was constructed, or that of very many Christians who are high achievers in fields requiring analytic thought. Our conclusions on science of origins are not uniform, but they are often deeply and rationally considered. They are also generally only part of the picture of how analytically minded people came to Christian faith. But one has to wonder why some popular atheists persist with this sort of line against all the evidence. I examined the evidence for the resurrection of Christ. Lord Darling, a former British Chief Justice, and many others from law, history and science have endorsed the resurrection. (I know Richard Dawkins has questioned the Lord Darling one, I think he has been adequately refuted by historians in the judicial system).
I looked at the Bible and its interaction with history, archaeology and the Jewish people. I looked at how the re establishment of the nation of Israel in the end times was prophesied in Isaiah and elsewhere. I assessed its evaluation of humanity, present, and potential. I looked at the claims of Christ, and decided, after CS Lewis, that he was mad, bad or who he said he was. His claims are the most utterly outrageous of any man ever who seemed serious about them. I then decided he was who he said he was. I believe I had rational reasons for doing so. The support community issue mentioned by some here did come into it, because I was in a bad place relationally and Christians seemed the most accepting.
BilB
Presumably you are aware that the Nicene Creed was assembled under Constantine and that it accords very closely indeed with the New Testament?
Also that Alfred the Great had a very high regard for Christian scripture and in particular, as a nation builder, the reconciliation of the righteous demands of law, as defined under Moses, with the mercy of God in Christ?
I may be misunderstanding you but these two moral frameworks are definitely largely Biblical in derivation.
darelle
The New Testament does discuss the meaning, context and purpose of the Sinai Law of Moses of the Old Testament. It is fairly basic Christian theology and well-covered ground. Read Galatians and Hebrews; it is all clearly set out. Romans helps too. You also need to discriminate the difference between ‘Old Testament’ and ‘Old (Sinai) Covenant’.
Again, there is a lot of dismissive and superficial ‘analysis’ by popular atheists here.
Simon,
I would be interested to hear where you get your morals from as well. You imply you have read the entire Bible, and more. Would you claim that you agree with and attempt to uphold the moral prescriptions set forth in the Bible in a comprehensive way? Will you discourse on your favored interpretations of the Bible that rationalize why certain parts should be interpreted this way or that way, in such a way that favors the nicer stuff over the nastier stuff?
There is a lot of dismissive and in depth, and accurate, analysis by popular, and relatively unkown, atheists, agnostics, theists, deists, etc., ranging in time from before Christianity became a growing concern right up to present day that thoroughly invalidates not just Christianity, in general and specifically, but every major religion. Even little old me can demonstrate the flaws in most any religious argument, even from such giants as William Lane Craig or Alvin Plantinga without any help from “popular atheists.”
darelle
Christianity is primarily about the life and love of God being shared with mankind. Without the supernatural life of God it is worthless, probably worse than worthless. Jesus said ‘I am the bread of life’. I would never advocate describing it as just a moral code. That is demand without empowerment, love and friendship. Marriage as subservient slavery, if you like, with us as the bride.
As to specific intellectual attacks on Christianity, if you describe them I will do my best to answer them, if this blog is happy to be the forum for that. Or suggest somewhere else.
Simon,
You have avoided the question nicely, and thrown up a distraction. I never said anything remotely like “Christianity is just a moral code.”
darrelle
@BilB:
The question I asked was “how do we know right from wrong in an atheist world?” and your answer is what? When in doubt, obey Emperor Constantine? When in doubt, obey King Alfred the Great?. Really?
@darrelle:
The question I asked was “how do we know right from wrong in an atheist world?” and you gave no answer. Or was it “choose what moral instructions to uphold in the same way humans choose between any other things.”? Really?
darrelle
OK. Fair comment. I do not obey all of the moral teachings of the Bible as a whole in a comprehensive way, and neither do I aspire to. This is because the New Testament teaches that the Law of Sinai is rendered obsolete by Christ (many places in the NT inc. Galatians, Hebrews in particular) and was a response to the self-justification of the Israelites (Romans 10v1-4). In addition, I fail to keep the moral prescriptions of Jesus himself, so does everybody. The gospel is about grace from God in the face of an impossibly exacting moral demand. I aspire to keep all the teachings of Jesus having understood their context.
Jesus said that the end of law is love, and love cannot be concisely legislated. It is acting in the best interests of others, and God alone has the valid perspective on that. God alone has the ability to do it.
An actual list of Christ’s and the apostle’s teaching on ethics and morals would be fairly lengthy. What are you getting at? Some of Jesus’ teaching was IMO hyperbole to show the futility of righteousness by law. Some was to illustrate his role as redeemer. Most was about underlying attitudes. Some was straightforward morality.
Paul dismissed the Sinai Law of Moses as a whole but clearly endorsed the 10 commandments; they are repeated in closely related form in the NT.
Simon
Your first post declared that theological seminaries often teach cynicism towards the Bible. Yet you also state there is clear archeological and historical evidence in accord with Biblical revelations. If both these statements are true, I wonder how you account for their competence?
Could they simply want to obscure the evidence?
Are they incompetent in updating their knowledge base?
Do they have a different conclusion based on exactly the same data?
Is the evidence for resurrection so dubious as leave the question open or is the evidence genuinely conclusive? (if you rely upon archeology for the last question, some may want you to show the bones of Jesus, not an empty grave).
Your initial statement would seem to indicate that seminaries deliberately lie – especially in the light of what you regard as hard evidence.
Ronald
There are many in seminaries and other Christian institutions who no longer believe. I have talked with some of them in the past. Some never did believe very much and some just fancied the quiet and predictable lifestyle! Seriously, I have heard such people talk. Some analyse the Bible as literature or history and leave it there. Many will agree that it bears some relationship with historical fact but say it has been edited to include misguided or plain fabricated supernatural elements/interpretations.
Faith would be effectively coerced if the rational evidence were totally unambiguous. God will not force the unwilling in this age. For the resurrection, there is lots of stuff on the web, and many good books. Lee Strobel, a crime reporter, did one recently. Some churchmen believe the resurrection was not physical but metaphorical or some such thing. The idea of physical resurrection is obviously unlikely if we use historical precedent and the evidence does depend on personal judgement, but the alternatives to believing it look pretty unlikely to me. There is a debate here:
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-there-historical-evidence-for-the-resurrection-of-jesus-the-craig-ehrman
and a discourse here:
http://www.bible.ca/d-resurrection-evidence-Josh-McDowell.htm
Lest I leave the wrong impression, God is still expecting faith in His Son.
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
(Psalms 2:12)
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
(John 3:16-17)
A somewhat tangential issue perhaps, but what exactly is meant by “humanist”? Is it a synonyme to atheist? If so, then why not use the word atheist? Or is it something else? The word occasionally comes up in atheist/secularist/skeptic circles, but is rarely defined and rather vague. Since Sean uses the word in the blogpost (and it is not in the title of the speech as uploaded on Youtube), presumably he means something particular by it.