The Right to a Secular Government

Atheistic naturalism destroys the possibility of natural rights, which would mean that no person has any inherent rights. The only rights anyone can have are those conferred to them by the people who are in power. Yet proponents of this worldview still argue for a completely secular government void of any reference to God as if it is their right.

So Much for Free Thought

One of the foundational assertions of atheistic naturalism is that everything has a naturalistic cause, and to think outside of that framework would mean you are not a free thinker. Until, of course, you apply that assertion to their thought-life and beliefs, which would imply determinism. So much for free thought

Dawkins' Fideism

"What I can't understand is why you can't see the extraordinary beauty of the idea that life started from nothing." -Richard Dawkins // Absurdity = Truth and Beauty? Looks like Dawkins drinks deeply from the well of fideism that he so frequently derides.

The Difference Between Might-Makes-Right and the Right Being Mighty

“Your claim is without God might makes right, then what's the difference? God says follow me or die. Worship me or burn.”

(A response to a friend)

There is a big difference between might making right and the standard of right being mighty. The difference is this; the atheistic worldview has no ground to claim that the mighty are right or wrong other than a subjective opinion, and the fact that the Christian worldview’s standard for ethics is mighty in no way disqualifies it from being a standard for ethics. In other words, anytime an atheist argues that something is not the way it “ought” to be, they contradict their worldview, because it cannot provide a solid base for what ought to be. Whereas the Christian, no matter how mighty their standard is, is not contradicting their worldview. This type of question tends to be a red herring since it neither alleviates the atheist from their conundrum, nor does it prove that God is not the standard for ethics.

God Bless,

Doug

Are Atheists Free Thinkers?

Atheists often argue that they are free thinkers, but is this acutally the case?

Doug

Empty Deceit and "Christian" Self-help

To the atheist, the conscience is the end product of a long line of evolutionary and social conditioning, so when it bothers them they are not really guilty of anything. As James Sire puts it, they are really only guilty of guilt. This is why we live in a culture of therapy. The goal is to rid ourselves of the feeling of guilt instead of the guilt itself. Unfortunately, we see this being translated into many churches as sin and the cross of Christ are ignored and replaced with a "Christian" self-help regimen. So even under the name of Jesus, empty deceit can hold sway.

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

-Colossians 2:8-

Doug Eaton

"God is Dead" (Understanding Nietzsche)

Ten Arguments Thoughtful Atheists Won’t Use

Awhile back I had written a post called, Pitfalls for Atheists to Avoid.

Below is the link to the latest Apologetics.com radio show covering 10 of those pitfalls and why they are not good arguments.

Ten Arguments Thoughtful Atheists Won’t Use… The Radio Show by Apologetics.com

Doug

The post was also turned into a video blog which you can view below.

Humanism, Freedom, and Chaos - Francis Schaeffer

The humanists push for “freedom,” but having no Christian consensus to contain it, that “freedom” leads to chaos or to slavery under the state (or under an elite). Humanism, with its lack of any final base for values or law, always leads to chaos. It then naturally leads to some form of authoritarianism to control the chaos. Having produced the sickness, humanism gives more of the same kind of medicine for a cure. With its mistaken concept of final reality, it has no intrinsic reason for being interested in the individual, the human being. Its natural interest is the two collectives: the state and the society.

Francis Schaeffer – A Christian Manifesto (1981)

Bad Advice for Atheists

Through countless discussions surrounding atheism, it has become apparent that someone must be feeding bad advice to atheists. Since the following errors are made repeatedly, this partial list has been populated to warn atheists of this underground movement in order for them to avoid these pitfalls. If you are an atheist and hear any of the following advice, realize that if used, it will be harmful to your cause.

1. Assume that because you compare theism to believing in pink unicorns or fairy tales that you have made a good argument.

2. Become hostile and use degrading vulgarities while maintaining that Christianity is an immoral religion.

3. When you are having trouble answering an argument posed by a Christian theist, simply say, “well even if this were true, it doesn’t prove the existence of the ‘Christian’ God.”

4. Assume that simply because you explain a phenomena from a naturalistic perspective that it constitutes an argument which must be true.

5. When arguing against the Christian God, simply say that you only believe in “one less god” than most people, as if that does not require you to defend an atheistic understanding of cosmology, anthropology, ethics, philosophy of history, philosophy of politics, philosophy of science, and epistemology.

6. Make metaphysical statements that suggest that metaphysics are a useless waste of time.

7. Argue that we should only believe things proven by empirical evidence without proving it with empirical evidence.

8. Use logic like it is a universal, transcendent, unchanging reality when atheistic naturalism cannot account for universal, transcendent, unchanging realities.

9. Argue that there is no evidence to believe in the existence of God because all the evidence that is produced fails to pass the rules of evidence which have been constructed from the belief that God does not exist.

10. Argue that human beings are robots, puppets, and machines programmed by natural selection in a closed system of cause and effect, and then argue for free thought and moral agency.

11. Place your ultimate trust in human reason while believing that man’s mind evolved from lower animals such as monkeys and will continue to evolve until we become the monkeys from which the minds of the future will have evolved.

Doug Eaton

The Heavens Declare the Glory of God

The heavens declare the glory of God. Psalm 19:1

When we look at the universe, we wonder at this magnificence. We stand in awe as the massive spheres move perfectly in their orbits. We stand in awe at the power of our sun and realize it pales in comparison to many other stars, let alone the vastness of it all.

There is without a doubt a glory declared by the universe that causes us all to marvel, but we must realize that the glory that is declared is not the glory of the universe; it is the glory of God. The experience we are having is true knowledge of His glory. Now we must not misunderstand this, the passage does not say that the universe is God. In fact, it is clearly distinct from him in this passage, but the Glory that we are experiencing is His.

This is where the natural man steps in and attempts to suppress that truth. Many naturalists say it should be enough for us to marvel at this world and all its complexities without any appeal to God. And this is what we should expect since the natural progression from trading the truth of God for a lie is to begin to worship the creation instead of the creator (Rom. 1:26), and this they do by ascribing the glory that belongs to God to the creation itself.

-Doug-

Crucial Issues for Christians Lecture MP3's

Below are the MP3 downloads of the lectures from the Crucial Issues for Christians Seminar. These lectures can be downloaded by right-clicking the link and selecting, "save target as."

Abortion, Euthanasia, and Embryonic Stem Cell Research - Donald McConnell

The New Atheism - Christopher Neiswonger

Aesthetics and the Christian - Lindsay Brooks

Postmodernism and the Emergent Church - Doug Eaton

Crucial Issues for Christian Seminar

-Click link Below for Larger View-

Below is a flyer for an event put on by Trinity Law School, Trinity Graduate School, and The First Southern Baptist Church of Downey.

Topics include:

- The Sanctity of Life
- The New Atheism
- Aesthetics and the Christian
- Postmodernism and the Emergent Church

Click the link below for the flyer and full information.

Crucial Issues for Christians (Free Event) pdf

Doug

Those Biased Christians

"In one state college an atheist is always appointed to teach the religion course. The administrators claim that if a believer taught it, the course would be biased. When someone suggested, however, that a theist should be allowed to teach an "unbiased" course on atheism, the hoots and howls could be heard all the way to Moscow. The atheists would not extend to believers the same freedoms they claim for themselves."

Robert Morey, The New Atheism and the Erosion of Freedom

On Dawinism's Attempt to Preserve What it Destroys

"Similar self-contradictions are endemic in the literature on evolutionary psychology. A prime example is The Moral Animal, where Robert Wright spends hundreds of pages describing human beings as “robots,” “puppets,” “machines,” and “Swiss Watches” programmed by natural selection. He insists that “biochemistry governs all” and that free will is sheer illusion. He unmasks our noblest moral impulses as survival “stratagems of the genes,” as mere devices “switched on and off in keeping with self—interest.” But then, in a grand leap of faith, Wright insists that we are now free to choose our moral ideals, and he urges us to practice “brotherly love” and “boundless empathy.”

This persistent inner contradiction stems from the fact that evolutionary psychology is essentially a search for a secular morality. Darwinism cut the modern world loose from religious traditions and systems of meaning; the result is a culture adrift in a sea of relativism. Now Darwinism is itself being plumbed as a source of meaning, a cosmic guide for the problems of living. Yet the Darwinist view of human nature is so negative, so counter to traditional notions of humanity dignity, morality, and reason (not to mention common sense), that there is an almost irresistible impulse to take a leap of faith back to those traditional notions, no matter how unsupported by the theory. For who can live with a theory that tells us that “ethics is illusory,” and the ‘morality is merely and adaption put in place to further our reproductive ends,’ in the words of Michael Ruse and E.O Wilson? Who can live with a theory that tells us that if ‘natural selection is both sufficient and true, it is impossible for a genuinely disinterested or “altruistic behoviour pattern to evolve,” in the words of M.T. Ghiselin?"

Nancy Pearcey, “Singer in the Rain,” First Things vol. 106

Naturalism, Miracles, and Cause and Effect

The tendency of present-day Modernism, of course, is to merge everything into nature and to admit of no other causes. What the Modernist needs to prove, therefore, is not simply that natural causes operate uniformly, but that every physical effect must have a physical cause. That, however, he is unable to do, and that, we hold further, no one except an atheist has a right to assert. In our own natures we find that mind influences matter,--we will to walk or run, to play a piano or to lift a weight, and the effect of mind on matter is clearly seen. We do not understand how the result is accomplished, but we know that it is very real. And if God has so arranged it that our wills produce these physical effects, certainly there is no reason for denying that his omnipotent will may produce infinitely greater effects.

Loraine Boettner - Studies in Theology

Trading the Truth of God for a Lie

The heavens declare the glory of God. Psalm 19:1

When we look at the universe, we wonder at this magnificence. We stand in awe as the massive spheres move perfectly in their orbits. We stand in awe at the power of our sun and realize it pales in comparison to many other stars, let alone the vastness of it all.

There is without a doubt a glory declared by the universe that causes us all to marvel, but we must realize that the glory that is declared is not the glory of the universe; it is the glory of God. The experience we are having is true knowledge of His glory. Now we must not misunderstand this, the passage does not say that the universe is God. In fact, it is clearly distinct from Him in this passage, but the Glory that we are experiencing is His.

This is where fallen man steps in and attempts to suppress that truth. Many naturalists say it should be enough for us to marvel at this world and all its complexities without any appeal to God. And this is what we should expect since the natural progression from trading the truth of God for a lie is to begin to worship the creation instead of the creator (Rom. 1:26), and this they do by ascribing the glory that belongs to God to the creation itself.

-Doug-

Sin is the Problem - Ravi Zacharias

I remember one occasion when a businessman, looking back on his life, shared with me his memories of a life morally mangled. He said, "It started with my imagination that reinforced certain wrong desires. Then, having made repeated choices that were clearly wrong, in betrayal after betrayal I convinced myself that what I had indulged in I needed. The more I convinced myself that I needed it, I soon redefined who I was as a person. Now, as I look at what I have become, I can no longer Live with myself. I hate who I am. I am emotionally running, but I do not know where to go."

Knowing who we are and what we need is the starting point of what we will become. Until we understand what the Bible means by sin, our moral definitions will never find solutions. Words and platitudes in themselves have no power to change. Let us never forget that the men who sat enthralled before the strains of Wagner’s music were the same men who built the death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau. The problem is not the absence of education or culture; it is the presence of sin.

Ravi Zacharias – The Real Face of Atheism

If Knowledge, Then God

Here is a link to a great article on the transcendental argument for the existence of God.

The Futility of Non-Christian Thought

Here is one of the opening statements to whet your appetite...

"Epistemological autonomy is the view that the human mind is the final criterion of knowledge. According to this view, common to non-Christian thinkers from Thales to Derrida, the Christian God has to be either non-existent or irrelevant to epistemological concerns. Human categories alone are necessary to determine modality, truth, and value. From a Christian perspective, autonomy is a rebellious attempt to deify human categories or some aspect of creation by attempting to usurp the Creator's functions -- i.e. replacing the Creator with the creature (Rom. 1:25). Nevertheless, the result of this attempt to be epistemologically independent of the Christian God is epistemological futility."

God Bless,

Doug

Christian Theology: A New Team Blog

There is a new team blog I will be participating in. It is simply called Christian Theology. We also have access to a podcasting studio, so once we get things up and running we hope to make some audio and video resources available. It is still in its beginning stages, but to kick things off be sure to check out Chris Neiswonger's new post.

On Atheisms and why they are unthinkable.

God Bless,

Doug