I’ve seen references to CARM on the Fundies Say the Darndest Things website, but never actually went to visit until today and have to say there is a lot of crap there.
Let’s take a look at part of their Questions and Objections to Christianity, specifically how to handle it when an atheist tells you they don’t believe in God. It’s a five part answer and it’s amazing how ineffective it is to me now that I have no stake in Christianity being correct.
The following 5 quotes are their suggested response to “I am an atheist. I don’t believe in God.”
An atheist is defined in two senses: Someone who says he believes there is no God, and someone who simply lacks belief in God. An atheist cannot say he knows there is no God, because he would have to know all things in order to know if there is or isn’t a God. If he says he believes there is no God, ask him why he believes that way, and begin there. If he says he lacks belief in God, then ask what he does believe in, and start there. I always get around to the question of, “How did we get here?” Since creation and evolution are the only options, I have something further to work with.
I’ve got to focus on one sentence first. “An atheist cannot say he knows there is no God, because he would have to know all things in order to know if there is or isn’t a God.” That works both ways. I’ve heard Christians tell me they know there’s a God, most of the time citing faith as the way they know. But faith is not proof.
Yes, I cannot say that I know there is not a God. The most I can say is that based on how I see the world the Christian God does not exist. Yes, I may be surprised when I die and come upon a deity leading me into the afterlife. And it may be Yahweh, although I really doubt it. And if it is Yahweh He is certainly not a deity that I find worth worshiping for all eternity.
And one other problem sentence – “Since creation and evolution are the only options, I have something further to work with”. One word was left out – Christian. The argument is that Christian creation and evolution are the only options. That’s absurd. Every culture has some type of creation myth. Why would you limit your argument to one?
An agnostic says he doesn’t know if there is or isn’t a God. (Usually after saying this I challenge them to explain the prophecies of the Old Testament fulfilled in the New. I state how the Bible is unique that way, and that only God can make prophecies that are 100% accurate. Then I ask him to explain how that could be done if there is no God.)
To me, Old Testament prophecies are a terrible way to argue the validity of the Bible. If a commenter wants to come here and post on the importance of prophecy, go for it. But just because a few things written in the Old Testament sort of came true, it doesn’t make any type of valid claim for Christianity.
If there is no God as you say, then in the end I lose nothing. But if there is a God like I say, in the end you lose everything.
Why does Pascal’s Wager always come up in this? The same argument can be made for every religion that has a version of Heaven and Hell. To the Christian, if there is no Allah as you say then in the end I lose nothing. But if there is an Allah, then you’ll end up in the Islamic version of Hell which from what I understand is much worse than the Christian version.
Why don’t you believe in God? Is there any reason for you to intelligently reject His existence? Or, do you simply desire not to believe in Him?
Flip that. Do you simply desire to believe in Him?
Yes, belief in God gives a safe feeling. It was a nice feeling when I was Christian that I “knew” I was going to Heaven after I died and was not going to simply rot underground. But wanting to believe doesn’t make it so. Just because I believe I will win the lottery doesn’t mean I will.
The belief in God also gives people a sense of control. Random actions injure and kill people all the time. It is understandable that we would like to believe that there is control in this world even when it doesn’t seem so. Again, wanting to believe doesn’t make it so.
The Bible doesn’t attempt to prove that God exists. It simply speaks as though He does. Maybe I can’t prove to you there is a God, but I can introduce Him to you through His Son Jesus Christ, and you can judge for yourself if the Words of Christ in the Bible convince you of His existence.
That’s like saying books on Babar the Elephant don’t attempt to prove that Babar exists, they simply speak as though he does. The Bible is a book. No more, no less. It was written by men, recopied by men, read by men, and interpreted by men. It is not a holy book no matter how important it is to you. Why is it so easy for a Christian to read stories of Zeus, Allah, the Egyptian Gods, or any of the other creation myths that have come out throughout human history and dismiss them as myth but be unable to do the same for the Christian creation myth?
What I think is important, and obviously lacking in the CARM answers, is that some answers don’t make sense once you remove yourself from a Christian world view. During my time as a Christian all of these answers would have made perfect sense to me, it would have frustrated me to have a non-Christian not understand them, and they are all things I could see myself saying to a non-believer. But now that I’m able to look at the world without the Christian mindset overriding my mind I can see how absurd many of these arguments are.
Just stumbled upon your blog. Great post! I’m right there with ya.
Brent (fellow ex-christian)
Comment by Brent — February 22, 2007 @ 5:07 pm
What I find interesting, is if you don’t believe in Christ/Christianity/God, why does it bother you so much? Just drop it and stop worrying about it.
Why do you NEED to concern yourself about whether there is or isn’t a God if it ISN’T an issue to you. If anything, it sounds to me that you have your doubts because you seem to be worrying it like a dog with a bone!
If on the other hand you do have your doubts and like the bible says, you will be judged on your choices, you better be concerned, right? Being judged by a Holy God’s standards and rejecting what He’s offered, should concern you, whether you believe in a God or not. Just because you don’t believe doesn’t make it stop existing.
Personally, I don’t believe there is any gold in China, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any. Maybe someone else has seen it or discovered it, but I don’t believe it, because I haven’t seen it myself. Understand, just because you can’t see a God or have never experienced God, doesn’t mean He isn’t real. By the way, someone who has put their FAITH and TRUST Christ and turned from sin, WILL see changes in their life. Prayers will be answered, lifestyles and desires will change. I know because for 35 years I “accepted and believed” Jesus was my “Lord and saviour” but ultimately I hadn’t repented and turned from my sin and had no real relationship with Christ. This was because I didn’t UNDERSTAND what repentance really was, I only knew about “fire insurance” as preached from the “social gospel” taught by the modern day pastors too afraid to preach the truth and scare away potential members. As an ex-Christian (as you put it) I challenge you to reconsider your lifestyle, because I think you were never truly saved,(by what you’ve written)and were like me a false-convert who called myself a Christian. I talked the walk, but didn’t know the truth. Had I died, on judgement day, I would have been the part of the “goats” who cried “Lord, Lord” or the tares with the wheat…understand? Go to Ray Comfort’s website at http://www.livingwaters.com and listen to Hell’s Best Kept Secret and True and False Conversion. Maybe that will give you an idea of what I mean. Lastly, Please, as someone who truly cares for the lives of those who don’t believe, I ask that you pray that the Holy Spirit will reveal Himself to you. If you can’t do that with an open and honest heart, you won’t get anywhere. But if you truly are seeking for the true answers, then, just do it and see where God leads you. Just remember, on judgement day you WILL face a Holy Judge. His standards are higher then ours. I used to feel the same way, why would I want to worship someone for all eternity. BORRING… now that I have the Holy Spirit within me, I have a completely different view. I WANT to pray and read the bible I WANT to worship Him, I WANT to tell others of the Gospel. It is a burning desire. I dare you to honestly and with all good intentions pray this prayer:
Dear God, whom I hate with all my being precisely because you hate and threaten me with hell, I hate this punishment perhaps even more than I hate you. Or, maybe I should say that I love my comfort even more than I hate you. For that reason I am asking a favor of you. I want you to make me love you, whom I hate even when I ask this and even more because I have to ask this. I am being frank with you because I know it is no use to be otherwise. You know even better than I how much I hate you and that I love only myself. It is no use for me to pretend to be sincere. I most certainly do not love you and do not want to love you. I hate the thought of loving you but that is what I’m asking because I love myself. If you can answer this ‘prayer’ I guess the gift of gratitude will come with it and then I will be able to do what I would not think of doing now—thank you for making me love you whom I hate. Amen.
Good luck and God truly bless your searching. I’d love to hear back from you.
Comment by Christine — July 23, 2007 @ 10:15 pm
Christine –
First, thank you for coming by and having a legitimate comment. I’ve grown tired of the “you’re going to Hell” comments that this site seems to draw. I appreciate that you actually put some thought into what you wrote.
That said, this blog was setup as part of my deconversion. If that’s not something you haven’t gone through, then you cannot understand why it was important to me to write out my thoughts. At the time I setup this blog I still had doubts about Christianity. Now I don’t. And with that I really don’t keep as active on this site as I used to.
22 years of moderate Christianity followed by 30 months of hardcore Christianity was not something that was easy to walk away from. It was something I had to talk about, but not something I could talk about with people I knew since very few would understand. This blog, and a couple forum sites, gave me an outlet to put my thoughts together and get to a point where I believe what I do because of what I think is right rather than a pastor’s interpretation of a book written by hundreds of authors thousands of years ago.
And for the record, currently my only doubt is whether there is a higher power or not. I know, in the same way you know that Christianity is true, that no religion on earth has it totally right. The fact is, nobody will know until they die. And if there isn’t a god then nobody will ever know.
Comment by Is There a God? — July 24, 2007 @ 7:15 am