RE: [asa] Sunday School for Atheists...

Ah, faith vs. reason again, eh? Reminds me of a Yahoo!
Answers posting I read, which I found rather
intriguing; here it is....

As we start, let me ask you this question: What sort
of things must a religion have for it to be good
religion?

How about: Kindness, A religion must teach kindness
that’s important isn’t it.
Love, got to have love. How about Acceptance,
Forgiveness, Eternal Life, 70 Virgins…OK I’m kidding
about that.

But the truth is, those are all valid reasons for
WANTING a religion, but they are not good reasons for
choosing a religion. There is only one thing that you
should use to judge and choose a religion: Do you know
what that is?

Here’s the one thing you should judge a religion by:
It is: Is it TRUE!
Is it true. There’s really nothing else that counts.

You have to test each religion’s claims the same way
you would check out a used car or hire a babysitter

Eternal life is too important to squander on a
religion that cannot stand the same type of tests that
I would ask when screening my child’s babysitter.

Now let’s evaluate a few facts about the various
religions. Even if you know this it’s good review.

Are all religions the same?

All religions are not the same, they all have
different ways to get to God and different gods and
different concepts of what heaven is. Religions like
Islam, Christianity, and Mormonism are exclusive in
that they say everyone else is going to hell or some
bad place like Hell. Hinduism and Buddhism say there
is no Hell or that life is hell and heaven is becoming
nothing. Now it’s true that they have some minor
similarities like they are ALL based on works, but
they are not similar in their core beliefs.
But having said that we need to determine which
religion we should believe in. All religions can’t be
right at the same time. How can I say that? Well it’s
called the law of non-contradiction.
The law of non contradiction says that something can
not be both true and not true at the same time. Or A
cannot be both A and NOT A at the same time.
To prove this I merely provide a quote from an ancient
Arab scholar.

"Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should
be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten
is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned
is not the same as not to be burned." (Avicenna,
Medieval Philosopher) Avicenna, Metaphysics, I;
commenting on Aristotle, Topics I.11.105a4-5

So since all religions seem to contradict each other,
the law of non-contradiction says either all relgions
are wrong, or only religion is right. But no one can
be considered sane who knows this and things they
could ALL be right.

So having said that we must ask: why should someone be
a Christian rather than any other religion? Why not a
Muslim or a Buddhist? Or an Atheist?

So, I’ve come up with 5 key tests. An appropriately
so, we’ll use the acronym TESTS for it. These TESTS
show us both the differences between all religions and
Christianity and show us what we should look for in a
religion before we pick one.

T: Trust Me vs. Verify Me First
All other leaders said: Trust me. Don’t ask for proof
for it shows you are unworthy.
But Jesus said Verify Me. Then trust me. Need proof?
Well I’ll give it to you in just a second. Let us
first look at the second point.

E: E stands for Emotional Blind Faith vs. Rational
Proven Faith

Let’s talk about this with some examples:

Diabetes
Diabetes is a very tough disease. If you have
diabetes, one of the things you have to deal with is
the fact that your body does not produce insulin.
Insulin is needed for your body to process sugar.
There is a way to control diabetes; it’s done by
injecting insulin into your blood to make up for the
lack of insulin. So everyday you have to give yourself
shots of insulin.

If you don’t get the insulin, you will have lots of
side effects and possibly go into a coma and die.

Now let me ask you this. Let’s say you have diabetes?
And one day I meet you just outside Safeway and I tell
you:

Hi my name is Joe Schmoe; I have a cure for diabetes.
Do you want to be cured? And since you are not an
idiot you say yes. Well that’s great, so here’s what
you have to do to be cured of diabetes.
1. You have to pay me $25
2. You have to stop taking your regular diabetes
medicine and give it to me.
3. You cannot tell anybody that you have stopped
taking your medicine.
4. You have to have faith in me
5. You have to take some of these pills that I give
you.

Then I give you these pills. That just so happen to
look like M&M.
M&M’s? No really they’re for diabetes. Trust me.

OK How many of you would give me $25 and stop taking
your diabetes medicine?

But why not? I’m a great guy. I would never rob you
blind and take your $25 and give you 4 M&Ms. How come
you don’t trust me?

How come you don’t have faith in me? How come you
don’t have BLIND faith in me?

Let me ask you this:

Is trust something you give blindly? No
Is faith something you give blindly? Do you blindly
have faith in the first con man that comes to your
door selling you something? No?
Ladies, do you blindly have faith in the first greasy
man who offers to give you a ride in his car? Why not?
Exactly because faith and trust is something others
have to earn. Faith and trust is something that you
develop in others over time and only with Evidence.

Now let me ask you this. Let’s say that you have
diabetes you go to your doctor at the hospital.
The Doctor is wearing a white coat and behind him on
the wall are a whole row of plaques with all his
degrees. He now turns to you and says: OK Mr. Johnson:
We have this new pill that we are trying. It will
allow you to stop having to take insulin shots,
because it will give you the insulin you need orally.
It’s FDA approved after 10 years. So I want you to do
this. I want you to stop taking your insulin shots and
give them to me. Because you can’t take both. Then I
want you to try these pills for the next few days.
Then he charges you 6 times as much as I was going to
charge you. He gives you a bill for whopping $150.

Would you trust him?
Of course, you would? But why?

1. Because he had references that you could trust.
2. Because you know he works for the hospital, you
know he has a reputation to keep.
3. Because he can show you evidence that the pills
work for others.
4. Because you know that if he accidentally hurts you,
you can sue him for millions of dollars.

So in this case are you having blind faith in the
doctor? Absolutely not!
Are you have NO faith in the doctor? Not at all.
You are having some faith in the doctor.

You have faith that he’s not out to make you sicker or
kill you or take all your money for a quack treatment.
You have faith that he isn’t an idiot. You have faith
that he’s not absent minded and isn’t mistaken you for
a pregnant lady? Or you have to have faith that he’s
not secretly having an affair with your wife and is
trying to KILL you. OK you can tell that I’ve been
watching 48 hours.

But you got to the point of having faith in him, after
you had some good experiences with him. You have faith
in him because he earned your trust.
Because the last few times he actually helped you.

Let me ask you this: Once someone earns your trust is
that Blind faith?
No, it is a rational faith based on some solid
evidence. So don’t confuse rational faith with 100%
proof. Rational faith is STILL faith, just like you
STILL had to trust that Doctor with the pills, but it
is Faith based on experience and earned trust. It is
never 100% but it IS rational.

So let me say this very clearly: The opposite of blind
faith is a Rational Faith.

Now ask yourself: if it’s important that you have a
rational faith in someone about your physical health
for something that affects you in the short run? How
much more important is it to have a rational faith in
something that may have eternal consequences?

If it’s important that you NOT blindly trust some
weird guy for a measly 25 dollars, why is it NOT EVEN
more important that you NOT blindly trust someone
about where you are going to go after you die?

You see in life you will run into religious people who
think that religion is to be treated differently than
your wealth or health.

1. They will tell you that you should never blindly
believe a con man who tries to sell you a used car;
but then they will tell you to blindly believe some
strange New Age teacher with a thick Indian accent
like Deepak Chopra. Who says things like: Let me tell
you Life is terminal disease that is sexually
transmitted.
And everyone thinks he’s very wise… it’s supposed to
be a joke.

2. They will tell you that you should never let your
kids talk to strangers; but then they will tell you
that they believe that what their Psychic said to them
last week.

3. They will tell you that you should never buy a used
car without having it check out by a mechanic;
but then they will tell you that these group of guys
with “The Secret” on Oprah are telling the truth. Even
though it’s not a secret and hasn’t worked in the
past. Even that not working part isn’t a secret.

But wait Neil, you say. We have to treat religion and
faith differently from our health? And without faith
it is impossible to please God. Well in that case let
me ask you this. First what KIND of faith is the Bible
talking about?

In India there used to be a cult of Hindus called the
Thagees, the movie Indiana Jones and the Temple of
Doom was made about them. So was the movie Gunga Din
back in the 30’s. The Thagees believed that their
Goddess Kali who is the Hindu Goddess of death
required them to strangle someone to achieve nirvana.

So why are they wrong if all you need is blind faith?
They have more blind faith in Kali than we have in
Jesus. They are willing to go outside their comfort
zone to kill someone. We are afraid to even go out of
our comfort zone to save someone - from hell. Why are
they wrong and you right? What’s the difference? This
by the way is a very powerful example. If you ever
find someone who says you should never try to prove
your faith or judge another person’s faith ask them
why the Thagees whose faith tells them to kill people
are wrong.

Remember Rajneesh, Jim Jones, and David Koresh and all
the religions we just covered?

What is common amongst all the people who followed
these guys? Two words: Blind Faith.

In all this, none of the followers of these men asked
their leaders for proof that God was really talking to
them.
They never asked them proof that they really were God.

They never asked for proof that what the men said was
true.
And if any proof was given to them it was proof that
could be falsified.

You see if you have blind faith, you have no basis for
your faith except for a very strong feeling about it.
And as we know in the case of Jim Jones, Rajneesh and
David Koresh et al, these people had very strong
feelings and were very sincere about their faith. In
fact, many of them were more sincere that we
Christians are in our faith.

But at the end of the day their faith was still what?
Blind.
And at the end of that day their faith did what for
them? It killed them.
And the end of the day their faith did the worst thing
ever. It sent them to hell for all eternity.

So do you agree that you can have blind faith in the
wrong things?

So I have a question I love asking Christians:

If you have Blind faith how do you know that as a
Christian what you believe in isn’t as invalid as what
the followers of Jim Jones believed in?
Are you just lucky that you ended up believing in
Christ?

In fact let me ask you this, is there any case that
you can think of where blind faith is a good thing?

How about in picking the person who baby-sits your
kids?
How about the preacher who says that you shouldn’t go
to the doctor for your diabetes, just stay at home and
pray.
How about the preacher who teaches you new things that
aren’t in the Bible that he claims God told him?

In none of these cases is blind faith a good idea.
Now it is true that blind faith may not always kill
you. But it’s not the way we live our lives is it. It
is not practical and we have learned that it is
dangerous. Remember the opposite of Blind faith is not
NO faith, but Rational Faith.

Rational Faith is faith based on facts, historical
evidence, objective experience, research, logic, and
discernment.
Blind Faith is based on feelings.
Remember feelings are not bad, it’s just that they
should not come first. How many people do you know
that felt they were in love and married the wrong guy?
For crying out loud some women claim to be madly in
Love with Scott Peterson, who is in jail for murdering
his wife and baby son. Tell me that rationality should
not come first and then feelings. Love is not enough,
despite what the Beatles thought.

So we see: Blind Faith is a Bad Idea

Now let me ask you this: We know we should not have
blind faith. We know that if we have blind faith, it
can kill us, or cause us to lose money or be ripped
off.
But can you think of a reason why it’s important to
you why others should not have blind faith? Let me ask
you that again. We’ve seen how blind faith is bad for
us. But is there a good reason besides compassion why
we need to make sure other people don’t have Blind
Faith? After all why do we care what others believe
in? Let them believe what they want. Especially if
they live half way around the world?

Well here’s one reason why we do care what others
believe?
The attacks on 9-11 were are result of OTHER people’s
blind faith.

You see not only is someone else’s blind faith bad for
them, but it can also be very bad for us. In fact, I
would suggest that whenever people have blind faith,
wherever they may live, whatever it may be that they
believe it is very dangerous for everybody else in
this small easy to travel world. Blind faith is
dangerous because it can easily lead to fanaticism.

So our next main point is:
Blind Faith is Dangerous - even when others have it

So let me ask you this? Do you have blind faith in
Christianity? Do you kids have blind faith in
Christianity? How do you know Christianity is true?
How do your kids know that Christianity is true? What
happens when someone in college challenges their
faith? I had a close friend who grew up in an
evangelical church just like this, was a firm
believer. But one day she started dating a person from
another religion and then decided to became that
religions. How will your kids be protected?

If you are here today and NOT a Christian? I have a
tough question for you if you don’t mind? It’s the
same question I’m asking the Christians. Why do you
believe in that other religion or no religion? Is it
blind faith? Is it based on feelings? Haven’t you
known situations where you feelings have misled you
before? How many times did you think you were in love,
and this WAS the one, only to find out that you were
wrong? How many time have you been angry at someone,
only to find out that you had misunderstood the
situation? Are you mistakenly angry at God? Are you
sure you know the whole story?

You see I’m convinced that I can prove to you that
there is only one religion that will stand the test of
time. There is only one religion that will prove
itself to be worthy of your belief. There is only one
religion that is from God and can prove it is from
God.
That is Christianity.

You see unlike ALL the other religions Christianity
isn’t a Blind Faith, it’s a Rational Faith built on a
Logical and Historical Foundation.

It’s just that most people don’t realize this. Not
even most Christians.

How can I say Christianity is Rational? Well rather
easily. There are many reasons. One of them is that
Christ did the silliest thing in the history of any
religion. Do you know what he did?

He made a claim that could be tested.

He claimed to be God, he claimed he would prove this
by rising from the dead.

Contrast this to other leaders who refused to prove
anything.

OK this next part is for Christians since I will quote
the Bible. Non Christians read it for the background.
This is just one of the many verses that are in the
Bible that show this.

In Matthew 9:2-8
Jesus says to the crowd and the skeptics: Anyone can
say your sins are forgiven. But to prove to you that I
have the authority to forgive sins. Get up take your
mat and go home. At this, the man did so. When the
crowd saw this they believed and praised God.

There are lots more verses like this.
So we can see that Blind Faith was refuted by Jesus
OK let’s look at Paul the Apostle:
He says in effect in 1 Corr 15:14
If there is no resurrection of the dead and
if Christ did not physically rise from the dead
then our faith is in vain
and we of all people are idiots to be pitied. (OK I
added the idiots part)

So we see that: Blind Faith was refuted by Paul

In the Old Testament God condemns the Jews for blindly
believing in Idols they themselves had made.
God says: I brought you out of the land of Egypt, I
parted the red sea, I destroyed the Egyptians to show
you I am the Creator of all things and I prophesied
things to you so you could not say that your idols of
wood and metal did them. Yet you blindly follow idols
that you made with your own hands. Then he punished
them by sending in the other nations to destroy and
kill them and take them into exile.
Why because they blindly believed in false gods, never
stopping to ask if the evidence God had provided to
them proved him to be the only God.
Remember too that we were to test the prophets if they
were wrong, we were to stone them.
There’re 100’s of verses that prove this concept.

So we see that Blind Faith is considered un-Godly and
was punished by Him.

Remember: there is no question about Christianity to
which the answer is ever –Just have blind faith. NEVER
say that. Especially never to your kids or to someone
who is curious about Christianity.

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God
who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect
has intended us to forego their use." - Galileo
Galilei

Bertrand Russell an Atheist said this of us:
“Christians would rather die than think. In fact many
do.”
Is that us Christians? I hope not.

Some people say well if we knew God existed for sure
then it wouldn’t be faith. But that doesn’t make
sense.
Remember Abraham and Moses and Enoch met God in person
and so they knew God existed for sure and yet they are
all in Hebrews 11 in the great Hall of Faith as some
of the people with the greatest faith.
Isn’t all faith blind faith? NO
The opposite of Blind Faith is reasoned faith not “No
faith.”
The opposite of Blind Faith is Rational faith.

OK I’ll lay off the Christians, back to everyone now.

OK back to our Tests and differences.
S: The S in TEST stands for Show the way vs. Be the
Way
If you remember, all the other teachers said they came
to show us the way. We have to follow their teachings
to be saved or to achieve nirvana or to become
nothing.
But Jesus – Jesus didn’t come to SHOW the way. Jesus
didn’t come to make sure we LEARN the way. Jesus
didn’t come to LEAD the way . What did he come to do?
He came to BE the way.
Without Jesus there is no Christianity. You can teach
the love of Jesus all day long, but if you don’t have
the death and resurrection you don’t have
Christianity. Without the blood of Christ there IS no
way.
This are not my words, I can show you the string of
early Church fathers who were disciples of St John and
Peter who were at the Council of Jerusalem in AD51 who
all say the same thing as the Gospels.

The next T stands for Told Them vs. Physically
Experienced
The followers of each of the other religions died for
what their leader told them.

But Christianity is different. Yes, all the disciples
suffered greatly for what they believed, and all but
one were killed in horrible violent ways. But here’s
the question: did the apostles die for what they were
told by Jesus and believed? Did they die just for
something Jesus said? Did they die for Jesus’s
teachings?

No they didn’t! They died for what they physically
experienced themselves.

See the difference. In all other religions, the first
followers died for what their prophet or leader told
them. The prophet or leader could have been a con man
or misguided and the followers would not have known
the difference.
But not in Christianity

In all other religions they died for THEIR PROPHET OR
LEADERS’ witness.
In Christianity, the disciples died for the THEIR OWN
witness, that they’d personally seen the Risen Christ.

In all all other religions they died for what they
heard SOMEONE ELSE say.
In Christianity, the disciples died for what they
PERSONALLY saw and touched.

In all other religions they died for what their MASTER
said that he had personally experienced.
In Christianity, the disciples died for what they said
THEY PERSONALLY experienced.

There is a world of difference.

Nobody would be stupid enough to die for a lie that
they themselves had created.

And finally for the last S in TESTS: There only 2
kinds of religions in the world.
Self-Serve and Full serve

All other religions are self-serve. You have to WORK
your way to God. Christianity is the only full serve
religion. God does all the work. There’s nothing you
can do to earn salvation. You can’t be good enough,
kind enough, loving enough. It’s full serve. Why is
this important? Because you can’t control the masses
if you can’t make them work for their salvation. No
one is in control in Christianity it’s between you and
God.

OK so now we see that Christianity claims to be a
rational faith. This is a far different claim than all
other religions (except Atheism of course).

Why is having a faith base on facts and rationality
important? Because your faith should not be based on
Emotions? Why? Because
Emotions can be replaced with new emotions.
Emotions can be replaced with false emotions.
Emotions can be affected by hormones.
Emotions can be affected by circumstances.

BUT facts don’t change. Objective reasons don’t
change. Christianity is built and based on objective
facts. The study of these objective facts is called
Apologetics.

APOLOGETICS
What is that you ask? It’s the 2000 year old tradition
of the early Church that sadly seems to have been
forgotten by many American and European Churches.

What exactly is apologetics?

Apologetics is the evidence and defense of the
Rational Faith of Christianity using Facts, Logic
History, Science, Philosophy, and Reasoning.

It’s the rational compelling reasons why it makes more
reasonable sense to believe in God, to believe in
historical accuracy of the Bible, to believe in Jesus
and not be any other religion or not be an atheist.
It’s reasons why you should be Christian even if you
don’t feel like it. And it’s the primary reasons why
you should remain a Christian even if your feelings
change.

Many Christians blindly believe their beliefs. They
don’t realize that we believe in the Bible because it
is TRUE and can be proven to be historically accurate.
See the resources below.

They don’t realize that we believe in God because we
can PROVE that he exists scientifically historically
and rationally. See “Who is Agent X” at
http://www.acns.com/~nmammen/sermon/TheS...

And most of all they don’t realize that we believe in
Jesus Christ because there is historical evidence
besides the Bible that will stand up in a court of law
to show that compellingly that he existed, physically
died and physically rose from the dead. See
http://www.acns.com/~nmammen/sermon/HIST...

Resources:
Stand to Reason:
www.STR.org
Christian Research Institute:
www.Equip.org

RATIONAL FREE THINKERS WEBSITE
www.rationalfreethinker.com

William Lane Craig’s Website:
www.WilliamLaneCraig.com

Lee Strobel's website
www.LeeStrobel.com

Here are some books and CD’s that cover all this as
well:

• “The Case for Christ” Lee Strobel
• “The Case for a Creator” Lee Strobel
• “I don’t have enough faith to be an Atheist” Norm
Geisler and Frank Turek
• On line Debates by William Lane Craig at
www.williamlanecraig.com

• “Tactics in Defending the Faith” Greg Koukl (CD)
www.str.org
• “The ABC Ambassador Series” Greg Koukl (CD)
www.str.org

Happy Reading
1 month ago
Source(s):
www.rationalfreethinker.com
www.str.org
www.williamlanecraig.com
www.leestrobel.org

--- Dick Fischer <dickfischer@verizon.net> wrote:

> And in California! Fancy that. I think it is
> telling that the article
> ends with this quote"
>
>
>
> "I'm a person that doesn't believe in myths," Hana
> says. "I'd rather
> stick to the evidence."
>
>
>
> Any body got some evidence for Hana?
>
>
>
> Dick Fischer
>
> Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association
>
> Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
>
> <http://www.genesisproclaimed.org/>
> www.genesisproclaimed.org
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
> [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
> Behalf Of John Walley
> Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2007 5:55 PM
> To: '_American Sci Affil'
> Subject: [asa] Sunday School for Atheists...
>
>
>
>
>
>
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1686828,00.html?cnn=yes
>
>
>

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Received on Tue Nov 27 16:59:31 2007