Triablogue: Steve Hays' lies about his perfect moral character

This is my reply to a blog post by Steve Hays at Triablogue, entitled

Why not commit apostasy?

Thursday, November 21, 2019

The primary reason I wouldn't commit apostasy is because the case for Christianity is overwhelming, based on multiple lines of evidence, direct and indirect, public and private.

Sorry, Steve, but you are forgetting your own Calvinism:  The ONLY reason you allegedly find the evidence for Christianity to be overwhelming is because God has foisted irresistable grace upon you.  Consult your own irresistible grace interpretation of 1st Cor. 4:7 and John 6:44.  Your audience would have gotten a bit more honest of an answer had you said that it is only by god's grace that you are capable of appreciating the force of Christian apologetics evidences.  But the answer you gave makes it appear that you are capable of recognizing, on your own, without grace, that Christianity is true, no less than a jury is capable, without divine grace, of appreciating the force of an attorney's argument.

But for now, your attempt to sound as if you can independently vouch for the persuasiveness of the gospels, contradicts your own Calvinistic belief that you can do nothing, at all, except what God has infallibly predestined you to do.  So in your view, the ultimate reason you find Chrstianity persuasive is the same as the reason the atheist finds it unpersuasive:  God predestined us to believe the precise way that we do.  Since that predestination-decree was "infallible" (i.e., incapable of failing, see dictionary) then my espousing atheism, and your espousing Calvinism, were worldview choices that were incapable of failing. 

But either way, a skeptic could just as easily assert the contrary, that they will never convert to Christianity because the evidence is so weak.  That's exactly what I say:   After reviewing the apologetics arguments set forth by the likes of Licona, Habermas and Bill Craig, I feel supremely confident asserting that the hypothesis that Jesus has stayed dead consistently ever since he died on the cross, has far more explanatory scope and power, and is thus more likely, than the supernatural hypothesis that he resurrected.

Of course, you are a Calvinist and thus a presuppositionalist, and you will assert that my denial of theism (and other things like Total Inability) is precisely why I cannot see the power of resurrection evidences. What you are obviously missing is that I don't just opine that Licona, Habermas and Craig are wrong.  I have specific articulable reasons for finding many of their arguments fallacious, or their evidence unpersuasive.  The only fool here is the idiot who thinks Romans 1:20 is the answer to why unbelievers think the gospel is false.  At least I'm not resorting to the words of some 2,000 year old pagan rambler to "explain" why Steve Hays doesn't see the truth of naturalism.

But there are additional considerations:
i) It would be a betrayal of my own generation, as well as younger generations in the pipeline.

Then you cannot fault skeptics if one of their reasons for refusing to apostatize from skepticism is that it would be a "betrayal of my own generation, as well as younger generations in the pipeline."

I care what happens to them.

Skeptics also care what happens to the younger generation of skeptics.  If such care is sufficient to justify your own stability of worldview, why wouldn't it be sufficient to justify my stability of worldview? Is there some law of the universe that says only bible-believing Christians are allowed to make use of convenient excuses?

It would be as if I know the way out of the cave, but I keep that to myself. I refuse to show lost men, women, and children the way out of the cave. I leave them there to die in the dark, leave them there to die of thirst. Even if I personally wanted to commit suicide in the cave, I have a duty to show the lost the way out of the cave, and go back for more.

We skeptics feel the same duty to show the lost the way out of the fundamentalist cave.

ii) As a Christian blogger, I've had enormous exposure to apostates and atheists.

As a skeptical blogger, I've had enormous exposure to Christian apologists.

I find them repellent.

I find Christian apologists repellent.

Even if I lost my faith, I'd far rather continue attending church than spend my time in the social company of apostates and atheists.

But since you couldn't attend church as an atheist being honest about your atheism for very long before the congregation sees you as an "apostate" and wants to kick you out, the only way you could avoid being exposed like that is to lie and pretend you are still a Christian.  being honest with them about your apostasy means you'd bounce around from church to church.  Which would then mean that as an atheist you were trying to subvert 2nd Cor. 6:15 and cause your darkness to have fellowship with their light.  Those churches would have obvious biblical justification to demand that you leave, so, like I said, bounce.  Perhaps you meant that if you became an atheist, you'd prefer to attend liberal churches?

Which is exactly why my argument about certain Christian apologists secretly being atheists, but not daring to admit it, is a powerful consideration.  If Steve Hays actually was an atheist, there is no reason to think he would honestly admit it, as he has invested far too much time and energy into getting others to be dazzled at his intellectual brilliance in accepting Christ and defending the faith. 

But for all we know, you are just another Ted Haggard waiting to be exposed.

The day you admit being an atheist is the day you admit that Christianity is so deceptive, even "smart guys" like you can get hoodwinked by it for decades.  You want the world to believe you are a smart guy.  You are not about to honestly admit it if you seriously become an atheist.  Smart guys don't miss the forest for the trees for decades at a time, remember?

They'd make dreadful company. People who think this life is enough are unbearably shallow, and willfully superficial.

Thanks for confirming that you mistake atheism as being limited to the personas emitted by those select atheists who specialize in bashing Christian fundamentalist.  There is no reason to think you have any real-time experience with atheists who stay away from religious debates.  If you were a "smart guy", you'd know that in real life, most atheists do not simply bash Christianity 24 hours per day.  As you admit, your interactions with atheists have more to do with their online presence as skeptics, and little or none to do with living with them on a day-to-day basis. 

Surely a smart guy like you realizes that you don't get a correct impression of a person simply because you see what they blog about.  Reading their posts doesn't cause you to notice other truths that come from interacting with them in real-time face to face.  But your incessant addiction to blogging has probably caused you to mistake your computer screen for actual human compansionship.  You probably get more pleasure from email than an handshake.

And how many would take a bullet for a friend.

That's a rather useless comparison, you have no fucking clue whether "Christians" would be more willing to die for each other than atheists would be willing to die for each other, especially given Christian apologist J. Warner Wallace's constant dirge that today's Christians are falling away from the faith faster than they did in previous generations. See here.

But in fact the comparison is invalid, as you are assuming that "true" friends would be willing to lay down their lives for each other, when in fact what friendship "must" minimally consist of is horrifically subjective, there is no absolute moral that says one's relationship iwth another cannot be "friends" until they both agree that they would die for each other. 

Two guys meet at Starbucks and become "buddies" who sometimes go out chasing woman at bars together, or hand each other work every now and then.  This qualifies as "friendship" even if it doesn't imply that one would be willing to give up their lives to save the other.  Then we have the man who meets the woman, they have sex, they like each other, but not in the relationship way, so they maintain "fuck buddy" status.  Your bible is not their standard, so if they choose to call their interactions "friendship" despite your automatic resorting to the bible, they are not unreasonable, as once again, "friendship" is highly subjective, and isn't dictated by what the bible says.  It's dictated by how two people feel about each other.  Otherwise, you'd have to say kids cannot be friends with one another, since the interactions with each other that they call "friendship" often do not evince the deep concern for other's lives that implies willingness to die for others.

And since atheists don't believe in an afterlife, their prioritizing their own lives above those of their friends is merely consistent with their beliefs, and represents a harsh truth that a lot of people are guilty of lying about.  We can only wonder how many smooth talking Christians ("I'd die for you") would be proven liars if placed in a situation that put that claim to a real test. 

Have fun pandering to the stupid idiot masses that Christianity facilitates that  deeper camaraderie we all wish for, but then you'll be deluged by an onslaught of Christians who will happily testify to how they were shit-canned as soon as the church found out they didn't believe precisely as the church required.  Friends "in Christ" means exactly that and nothing more:  No longer in Christ?  No longer your friend.  FUCK YOU.  

In fairness, there's the occasional atheist who will take a bullet for a friend, but nothing is dumber than idealistic atheists. That's not an attitude I respect or admire.

Then you are just as ignorant about morality's relationship to atheism as Frank Turek is.  I've already refuted his bullshit thesis that atheism leaves a person with no ability to justify having any specific morals.  I've also refuted his bullshit thesis that there are some morals that cannot be accounted for in purely naturalistic terms (i.e., moral argument for god).  See here.

I'm not talking about friendship evangelism or outreach to unbelievers. I'm talking about the notion that the company of apostates and atheists would ever be an appealing alternative to Christian friendship and fellowship.

Then the fact that atheists can be mature adults and yet derive just as much sense of fulfillment from their interactions with one another, as you allegedly derive from interactions with other Christians, opens the door to the highly probable possibility that atheist have a side to them that doesn't involve promoting gay pride parades or other liberal agendas.  I'm an atheist, and I think male homosexuality is revolting.  The atheists who think atheism automatically means duty to jump on the gay support band wagon are just stupid.  What works for two individuals in the privacy of their own home, obviously doesn't automatically translate into good national policy, because certain things that consenting adults do in private have a nasty habit of bring more and more corruption into being.  If I had my way, I'd enforce the death penalty for the manufacture, distribution or possession of alcoholic beverages and pornography, with profoundly persuasive justifications for the collateral damages that would inevitably ensue.

I'm afraid that you think the asshole atheists you've dealt with online constitute the sum and substance of all that real-time interaction with atheists has to offer. It isn't. It's not like every atheist in the world bashes Christianity.  You might try getting off the computer for once in your life and seek out atheists in real time to see how they interact with you where religion and apologetics are never the issue.  You might be surprised to discover that being a slave of Jesus isn't the only context within which legitimate friendship can emerge.  But alas, you only view this from the Calvinist side, you cannot help but maintain consistency and boo anything that might claim authenticity apart from the imperfect apostle Paul.

Hey Steve, how many times did you enjoy the company of an atheist (i.e., waitress, auto mechanic, librarian, cop, homeless, employer, etc,) without realizing that they were atheists?   You don't know, and you'll never know, but the odds are, you probably had plenty of friendly quick interactions with atheists.

Do you pay attention to Paul as often as atheists pay attention to money, fame, sex, power?  If so, then why doesn't the logic that says those atheists are "worshiping" that stuff, also require that YOU are "worshiping" Paul? 

I'd add that some people who lose their faith regain their faith. So maintaining Christian fellowship wouldn't just be a palliative.

I'd add that some skeptics who become Christians regain their skepticism.  So maintaining fellowship with other skeptics wouldn't just be a palliative.

Sorry Steve, but it appears that it sucked being you a LONG time ago.