Why did I sue James Patrick Holding for libel?

All the reasons I sued James Patrick Holding can be found in the First Amended Complaint which I filed with the federal court in Florida.  download here.

After reading it, it won't be hard to guess why Holding played the part of a Pharisee and invoked a technicality to escape having to answer on the merits.  Yes, that's exactly what the god of the bible wants Christians to do; if they can exploit a technical trifle to avoid honestly admitting their slanders, then by all means, do exactly what the corrupt world does, and lawyer up.  Yeah, that's the more honest way to show that you are more honest about the facts than non-Christians. 

 

Cold Case Christianity: How the Philosophy of Infinite Regress Demonstrates the Universe Had a Beginning

This is my reply to a video by J. Warner Wallace:

How the Philosophy of Infinite Regress 

Demonstrates the Universe Had a Beginning (Video)

Posted: 16 Oct 2018 01:05 AM PDT

 In this clip from J. Warner Wallace’s longer talk on the existence of God from cosmological evidence (based on his book, God’s Crime Scene), J. Warner describes how the philosophy of infinite regress demonstrates that time had a beginning and, therefore, ads to the case for a universe with a beginning.

(Wallace is wising up to his inability to prove things: he has disabled comments for this video at YouTube.  Apparently, apologetics has more to do with unobstructed preaching to the choir and less to do with answering critics.  Wallace knows about my counter-apologtics blog, and to my knowledge has done precisely NOTHING to attempt any answers, or interact with me).
 
It wasn't necessary to watch this video, the underlined portion above, showing what Wallace was arguing for, constitutes a logically impossibility, which would remain a fatal flaw regardless of what Wallace had to say about the problems of infinite regression.  Such fatal flaw can be demonstrated by comparing the Christian truth claim with other normative truth claims that are couched in grammatically equivalent terms:

Billy played baseball

Dorothy ate cereral

God created time

Notice: all verbs, and therefore those here (i.e., played, ate, created) presuppose time to already be in existence before the action they describe takes place.  Hence:

There was a time before Billy played baseball.

There was a time before Dorothy ate cereal.

There was a time before God created time (!?)

Since all three sentences are grammatically the same, whatever is logically true of the verbs in the first two, must also be true of the verb in the third.

First, "time before time" is clearly illogical because it is question-begging.  You may as well talk about the water before water.

Second, every biblical description of heaven depicts events there as taking place in no less temporal progression than they do on earth, suggesting that the bible leaves plenty of room for the supposition that God was doing things, one after the other, before creating this universe. If he was, then 'time' also limits god.

Finally, 'time' is not a fundamental component of reality, it is merely a fictional measuring device we invented to record the fluctuating distances between planetary bodies.  That's why at the same moment it is 3 p.m. in California, it's not 3 p.m. in Paris.  There is no such thing as seconds, minutes or hours, the only place they exist is in clocks.  "time" is nothing but a word that we use to help express our contentions about things past, present and future.  The idea that "eternity" is some type of different dimension where God views past and present in some unfathomable all-at-once "now" is pure fundamentalist Christian hocus-pocus, it cannot be sustained from the bible anyway, and is thus a concept worthy of nothing but ridicule.

For all these reasons, the concept of creating time itself is sufficiently incoherent and problematic as to reasonably justify those atheists who laugh at the whole business, who also demand the creationist come up with something slightly less convoluted to 'explain' why a god is 'necessary' to explain reality.

 Of course, Wallace has jumped on the Big Bang bandwagon, and will thus pretend that God's creation of time is a completely different thing from actions we engage in on earth.  Not so.  The force of my rebuttal is contained in the grammatical realities that I pointed out.  If you wish to say God created time, you must either 

a)  accept that this is a logically contradictory idea, or 

b) insist that verbs for god's action are not governed by the grammatical realities that govern the verbs describing human action (but you'd have to justify that, and blind appeal to God being so much more wonderful and unlike anything is not going to suffice), or 

c)  insist that human language is incapable of coherently expressing this wonderful truth, in which case you just admitted that the language of Genesis 1:1 is equally incapable of expressing such alleged wondrous truth.

Cold Case Christianity: Is the Problem of Evil Really a Problem for Christianity? Yes

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Cold Case Christianity: Is the Problem of Evil Really a Problem for Christianity?

Posted: 12 Oct 2018 01:14 AM PDT

I’m honored to train the adults and students at Green Bay Community Church, investigating the reliability of the New Testament Gospels and the nature of truth. Troy Murphy has done a wonderful job assembling a powerful staff at the city’s largest church. GBCC’s youth pastor, Evan Gratz, opened up his youth group to me on Sunday night. As usual, the best part of the time with students was answering questions at the end of the evening. The problem of evil was raised by a teenager who described her recent conversation with an atheist friend. As an atheist myself for most of my life, I resonated with the objection and offered a brief response: If what we believe as Christians is true, evil and suffering are only a problem for atheists. The problem of evil isn’t really a problem for Christianity.

But since what you believe as Christians is false, you are deprived of your fluffy magically wonderful after-world where nothing bad every happens.

I have already critiqued apologist Frank Turek's attempt to show that morality is inconsistent with atheism.

Evil and suffering are typically experienced and understood within the context of one’s life.

Right.  How else?

As an atheist, I hoped for (and expected) a life of approximately ninety years. In the context of this span of time, if I had developed cancer in my forties, I would have been angered by the amount of time stolen from me as I battled the disease.

 That anger would have been the result of you finding out facts about life that were contrary to your subjective desires.  Being angry about it hardly argues that your desires arise out of some objective standard of morality that transcends humanity.

In fact, if I had been diagnosed with a terminal disease at that age, I would have been outraged by the fact it was going to deprive me of fifty percent of the life I expected. When your life is only ninety years long, anything cutting the time short is evil, and any prolonged suffering along the way is unjust and intolerable.

But what if we could live more than ninety short years? What if our lives had a beginning, but no end? How would we see (and respond to) evil, pain and suffering in the context of an eternal life?

Given the incoherent nature of the question, it hardly requires a response.  What if the tooth-fairy gave you a vision showing you what the dark side of the Bermuda Triangle looked like from the Andromeda Galaxy?  How much more time would you spend analyzing the paranormal?

How many of you who can remember the painful vaccinations you received as a child?

How many of you remember Isaiah 13:16-17, where God apparently had a morally good purpose for causing men to rape women?  If the result of the pain is good (i.e., it hurts to get a shot in the arm, but the benefits of better health justify the pain), then under your own logic, because God thought the outcome of men raping women would tend toward some type of greater moral good, this would morally justify his causing rape no less than how we justify causing pain to a child when giving them a flu shot.

If you’re reading this article at the age of thirty, the small period of your life occupied by the pain you experienced during those vaccinations has been long outdistanced by the years you’ve lived since then. As time stretched on from the point of that experience, you were able to place the pain within the larger context of your life.

Correct.  But unfortunately most rape victims cannot do the same as they look back on their having been sexually assaulted.  Trust in the afterlife merely papers over the problem.  No analogy.

You don’t even remember it now. If you have pierced ears, ask yourself a similar question. The pain you experienced at the point of the piercing is nearly forgotten, especially if it has been years since it occurred. Evil, pain and suffering are experienced and understood within the larger context of one’s life.

But not rape and child murder.  You are not doing apologetics, you are warming up an already-Christian audience for the inevitable "God's ways are mysterious but we can be sure he works all things to the good for those that love him" crap.

If the Christian worldview is true, we are eternal beings who will live forever.

 The Christian world view is not true.  Hence, your conclusion doesn't follow.

We get more than ninety years, we get all of eternity.

 Now you are merely resting upon the biblical teaching about "eternal life", when in fact the reasons to reject Christianity thereby also perform the function of showing "eternal life" to have more in common with a 12 year old girl's crush on a Hollywood actor and less to do with actual reality.

Our experience and understanding of pain and evil must be contextualized within eternity, not within our temporal lives.

 Translation:  "If Christianity is not true, there will never be ultimate justice.  You don't like that thought, do you?  Well then, doesn't it feel better to believe in eternal life and a great day of judgment?"

Reminder, the book of Revelation doesn't describe the end as the wicked finally banished, it describes them as continuing to do wicked deeds, continuing unpunished,  while others are in heaven watching:

 8 I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things.
 9 But he said to me, "Do not do that. I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brethren the prophets and of those who heed the words of this book. Worship God."
 10 And he said to me, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.
 11 "Let the one who does wrong, still do wrong; and the one who is filthy, still be filthy; and let the one who is righteous, still practice righteousness; and the one who is holy, still keep himself holy."
 12 "Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done.
 13 "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."
 14 Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city.
 15 Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying.   (Rev. 22:8-15 NAU) 

Wallace continues:

Whatever we experience here in our earthly life, no matter how difficult or painful it may be, must be seen through the lens of forever.

 Then perhaps I can be reasonable to assume you aren't directing this toward atheists.

As our eternal life stretches out beyond our struggles in mortality, our temporal experiences will become an ever-shrinking percentage of our consciousness. The suffering we may have experienced on earth will be long outdistanced by the eternal life we’ve lived since then.

 Yeah right.  What else are you gonna say?  God loves you?  Well, if it sells books, I guess one man has just as much right to sell Jesus as another one does.

Our life with God will be a life without suffering, without pain and without evil. “God will wipe away every tear from (our) eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). It will also be a life where justice is realized, “for the Lord loves justice; he will not forsake his saints,” (Psalm 37:27-28) and He “will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work” (Ecclesiastes 3:17). As our glorious eternal life with God stretches beyond our temporal experience, whatever suffering or injustice we might have experienced here on earth will seem like it occurred in the blink of an eye.

 The only problem being that if we truly do have a spirit that doesn't desire food, water, material possessions or sex, God could have created mankind on earth without bodies, and if he had, about 99% of the sins in this world would have been preempted, all without violating anybody's freewill.  This bit of bad news means you are no longer allowed to hide behind "because god respects our freewill" to "explain" the existence of evil.  And if you think somebody we'll go to heaven and never desire to sin again, then apparently you believe it is indeed possible to create a world in which free creatures authentically love and worship god, but are guaranteed to never sin.  If god can achieve that in heaven, he could have created Adam and Eve with the same constitution of the will, they would never have eaten the forbidden fruit, and sin would have been permanently preempted.  If your doctrine of freewill forces you to leave open the possibility that saved Christians might sin even after they get to heaven, perhaps apologetics isn't your calling.

In the context of the Christian eternal life, pain, suffering and evil can be faced and endured with strength, hope and confidence unavailable in an atheistic worldview.

 The Mormons can boast the same thing about Mormonism.  Under your logic, that would reasonably justify the recently raped and depressed women to go join the Mormons.  Would you encourage this if she asked you?  Or would you bother the nice lady with all of your criticisms of Mormons while this lady is living with unaddressed emotional trauma?

What used to seem so unjust to me is now less egregious.

Perhaps explaining why most Christians don't really give a shit about trying to make the world a better place.  That time can be better spent evangelizing, because somebody soon a giant Jesus will float down from the sky on a galloping horse to make everything all better, amen?

What used to seem so unbearable can now be faced with hope. The problem of evil, from my new Christian perspective, isn’t the same kind of problem it was from my old atheistic perspective, because the problem of evil isn’t really a problem for Christianity.

 Bullshit, your god caused men to rape women, by his own admission.  Search for "Isaiah 13" in one of my articles.

If your god can cause rape on earth, consistent with his allegedly infinite righteousness, then causing rape for people in heaven would also be consistent with said alleged infinite righteousness.  You will say nobody in heaven deserves to be raped, but you already say that about women on earth (don't you?)  And if God is infinitely wise, the spiritually mature person is more likely to accept God's judgments without question, so that the more spiritual you are, the less you care about whether God's ways conform to universal standards of fairness and justice.  If you see god causing a man to rape a woman in heaven, the mark of spiritual maturity is to just shut up and avoid asking "why?", see Romans 9:

 18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.
 19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?"
 20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it?   (Rom. 9:18-20 NAU)

Follow that trail of unquestioning devotion down the road apiece and you wind up becoming an abortion clinic bomber, a hijacker, or some other idiot extremist who cannot be reasoned with, because they are so sure that God's ways are mysterious.

Demolishing Triablogue: Calvinist Steve doesn't like God's ways

This is my reply to an article by Calvinist Steve Hays entitled

Friday, October 05, 2018

Must we earn the right to be heard?

In a recent interview with Christianity Today, Tim Keller said:

    Because the church has got so many of its own skeletons and so much coverup of sexual abuse and so on, I don't know how we can adjudicate…right now we don't have any kind of credibility for a lot of reasons…As the church tries to speak publicly to social issues…we have to do it with repentance. 

    https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/october-web-only/tim-keller-politics-news-midterms-united-states.html

That's true at the level of public perception, which makes it necessary to correct that misperception. I disagree with how Keller frames the issue. Christians don't need to apologize for "the church". I'm not "the church". I don't speak for "the church". And I shouldn't be saddled with what "the church" did before I was born. Moreover, I don't control "the church". I'm just one guy.

Sounds like the kind of reasoning atheists use to accuse the bible-god of injustice for causing later humanity to be infected with original sin that nobody else was responsible for except Adam and Eve.  I'm afraid your western sense of individualism is quite opposite from the earliest detectable Hebrew views set forth in the OT.  We have to wonder what David and Bathsheba's baby was telling itself as God tortured it to death for 7 days because of David's sin, a sin the baby himself obviously wasn't responsible for:

13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.
 14 "However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die."
 15 So Nathan went to his house. Then the LORD struck the child that Uriah's widow bore to David, so that he was very sick.
 16 David therefore inquired of God for the child; and David fasted and went and lay all night on the ground.
 17 The elders of his household stood beside him in order to raise him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them.
 18 Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, "Behold, while the child was still alive, we spoke to him and he did not listen to our voice. How then can we tell him that the child is dead, since he might do himself harm!"
 (2 Sam. 12:13-18 NAU)

 Maybe the baby was telling himself I shouldn't be saddled with what my dad did before I was born.  It's nice to know the one Calvinist on the internet who mistakes his blog for having an actual life, is so caught up in word-games he can't even tell any more when the crap he believes contradicts biblical teaching.

It suffers from a fallacy of personification, as if the church is just one thing, as if the church is identical in time and space, so that whatever was done at one time or place somehow transfers to "the church" at another time or place. 

 It does:

 26 And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
 27 Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it. (1 Cor. 12:26-27 NAU)

Sorry, Steve, but your modern individualist viewpoint is quite contrary to many passages in the bible that presuppose corporate responsibility.  That's tragic because it is Calvinists who would need to specialize in that doctrine, given their belief that Jesus' didn't just die for sinners, but that his death actually saves all for whom it was intended, which is not everybody (i.e., Limited Atonement).

"The church" is an an abstraction. That's a necessary abstraction for ease of reference, but it's becomes an overgeneralization when individual distinctions in time, place, and person are swallowed up by an indiscriminate category.

If you were spiritually mature, you'd care less about linguistic gymnastics and more about obeying 2nd Timothy 2:14.   Don't miss the "solemnly" in that passage, apparently, Paul thinks it VERY important that Christians abstain from wrangling words.  You don't have a choice...which should be music to the ears of a fatalistic hyperCalvinist like you, who believe in a god who predestined you to love the sins that he wanted you to also feel bad about.  You'll excuse me if I think a mean little boy torturing ants is an appropriate analogy to your god and humanity.

I don't speak and act as a representative of "the church". My positions should be evaluated by whether they are right or wrong, true or false, backed by reason and evidence, rather than fallacious guilt-by-association, which is a lazy anti-intellectual shortcut.

 On what other basis did God punish David's baby for sins the baby didn't commit, except the stupid doctrine of original sin which arises out of guilt by association?  Apparently if you had been one of the young boys among the prisoners of war which Moses required death for (Numbers 31:17), you would have said Moses has engaged in fallacious guilt by association.  Sorry, Steve, but your Calvinism is far to cavalier for any smart atheist bible critic like myself to think it the least bit threatening to what I believe.  If God predestined you to do whatever you do, it logically follows he'd want you to praise him for making you do whatever you happen to end up doing.  Only in Calvinism is it "wrong" to praise God for the way his absolute sovereignty actually works.  I think you are looking into a mirror when you accuse others of anti-intellectualism.

You can get out of that by saying the male babies Moses ordered killed had also participated in the previous sexual sin at Peor, but only at the price of opening ancient pedophilia-doors you'll be later wishing you hadn't opened.  That's right Steve, just continue mistaking your blog for real-time human contact, and you'll sink deeper and deeper into that I-run-away-from-challenges-because-I'm-afraid-of-winning delusional mire that you apparently can't clean off the bottom of your shoes.

The situation is rather different with Catholics since they do acquire a corporate identity in a way that Protestants don't. Catholicism is fundamentally and pervasively institutional in a way that the Protestant faith is not,

 And their idea of corporate identity is more biblical than the Protestant version.  It doesn't matter if apostle Paul said divisions are good (1st Cor. 11:19), he also plainly declared, without qualification, that there should be NO divisions in the church (1:10, 12:25).  Jude 1:19 ascribes evil to those who "cause divisions".   I say Paul contradicted himself.  You ready to debate biblical inerrancy?  Or did God predestined you to think that only one reply per person was the foundation of immortality?

so Catholics can't disassociate themselves from what their denomination does in the same way Protestants can disassociate themselves from institutional Protestantism.

 Try reconciling that with Paul's metaphor that the entire body suffers when one member suffers, supra.

Of course, I also forget that as a staunch Calvinist, you believe your thoughts are infallibly predetermined.  I remember Calvinism...what a pile of demented shit that was...we are supposed to believe God predestined us to sin, but we should nevertheless live as if we think he didn't. FUCK YOU.

Carm Darn # 1: Matt Slick forgot to read v. 17

This is my reply to an article by Matt Slick entitled

Why does the Bible say houses will be plundered and wives ravished?

    "Anyone who is found will be thrust through, and anyone who is captured will fall by the sword. 16 Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; Their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished," (Isaiah 13:15-16).

This is simply a prophecy about what will occur.  It is a proclamation about the coming judgment of how Babylon will fall to the Medes.  If someone comments about a coming war and then states that there will be children who will be destroyed, houses plundered, and wives raped, does it mean that the one who is saying it is approving of it?  It just means that the unfortunate reality of war and its horrible consequences are easily known and even predicted.

 I think Matt forgot to read v. 17, here it is:

 17 Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them, Who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold. (Isa. 13:17 NAU)

Here is it in context. It is perfectly clear from the immediate context that God is claiming to "stir up" the Medes to inflict atrocities like rape upon the Babylonians:

 13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, And the earth will be shaken from its place At the fury of the LORD of hosts In the day of His burning anger.
 14 And it will be that like a hunted gazelle, Or like sheep with none to gather them, They will each turn to his own people, And each one flee to his own land.
 15 Anyone who is found will be thrust through, And anyone who is captured will fall by the sword.
 16 Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces Before their eyes; Their houses will be plundered And their wives ravished.
 17 Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them, Who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold.
 18 And their bows will mow down the young men, They will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb, Nor will their eye pity children.
 19 And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans' pride, Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.   (Isa. 13:13-19 NAU)

If this prophecy had instead said God would be "stirring up" the Medes to deliver gifts of food to the Babylonians, the Christian apologists would not see any problem in saying God caused the Medes to do this good work.  So it is clear that the linguistic gymnastics arise solely from the apologist's dislike of the idea that god causes rape, it does not arise from anything in the grammar or the immediate context. We call that superficial method of interpretation eisogesis.

Also, Matt Slick is a Calvinist, so he would have been more honest had he said that God causes people to make all the choices that they do, including the sinful ones, such as rape.  Because of his Calvinism, Slick would not need to read v. 17, God's causing people to sin is too clear from other scriptures, so Slick would simply read that bit of theology into this text even if v. 17 wasn't there.

Cold Case Christianity: Do Atheists Believe in Just One Less God Than Christians?

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled:

Do Atheists Believe in Just One Less God Than Christians?

Posted: 21 Sep 2018 01:13 AM PDT

 As an atheist, I used to challenge my Christian friends with a common objection heard across the Internet today. Although my formulation of the objection differed from time to time, it was a lot like the popular statement attributed to Stephen F. Roberts:

“I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

My point was simple: All of us are atheists to some degree if you really think about it; we just disagree about which gods we reject. Christians are atheistic in their attitude toward, Zeus, Poseidon, Lakshmi, Vishnu, Cheonjiwang, Na Tuk Kong, Achamán, Huixtocihuatl and thousands of other historic gods. When asked, Christians typically offer the same reasons for rejecting these other “deities” that I would have offered for rejecting the God of Christianity. So (as I often claimed), if my believing friends simply approached Yahweh in the same way they approached other mythologies, they would inevitably take the final step toward rationality and reject all false gods.

I avoid that argument because Christianity, despite being false, obviously has more historical support than do the gods of other ancient religions.  You cannot get rid of Christianity quite as easily as you can get rid of Zeus.

This objection is still popular.

That's an unfortunate truth about modern-day culture.  Critical thinking has become an industry because the internet not only enables one to know more truth, it also facilitates ignorance.

I hear it (or read it) frequently in my efforts to make the case for Christianity now that I’m a believer. While there are certainly several valid responses, I’d like to offer one from my experience as a detective and case maker. I think it provides a brief, but rhetorically powerful rejoinder to this misguided, iconic objection.

In every criminal trial, a jury is asked to evaluate the actions of one defendant related to a particular crime. While there are millions of other people in the world who could have committed the crime under consideration (and indeed, millions of these people were actually available to commit the crime), only one has been charged. If the jury becomes convinced this defendant is the perpetrator, they will convict him based on their beliefs. They will convict the accused even though they haven’t examined the actions (or nature) of millions of other potential suspects.

 using the same logic, atheists can be reasonable to look at the evidence for Christianity and draw conclusions thereto, even if they haven't examined every supernaturalism argument in existence.

They’ll render a verdict based on the evidence related to this defendant, in spite of the fact they may be ignorant of the history or actions of several million alternatives.

So, atheists also can be reasonable to "render a verdict based on the evidence related to [god] in spite of the fact they may be ignorant of the history or actions of several million alternatives"

If the evidence is persuasive, the jurors will become true believers in the guilt of this man or woman, even as they reject millions of other options.

Same answer.

As Christians, we are just like the jurors on that trial. We make a decision about Jesus on the basis of the evidence related to Jesus, not the fact there may be many alternative candidates offered by others.

Then you cannot blame atheists for making a decision about 'god' on the basis of the available evidence, not the fact there may be many alternative candidates offered by others.

If the evidence is persuasive, we can reach our decision in good conscience, even if we are completely unfamiliar with other possibilities.

 Ditto the atheist.

Christianity makes claims of exclusivity; if Christianity is true, all other claims about God are false.

Correction, this is conservative Christianity which makes the claim of exclusivity.  It isn't like the liberal Christian inclusivists who believe in many other legitimate paths to God have never seen John 14:6 or the other standard biblical proof-texts that make up the exclusivist's entire reason for processing oxygen.

If the evidence supporting Christianity is convincing to us as the jury, we need look no further. In the end, our decision will be based on the strength (or weakness) of the case for Christianity, just like the decisions made by jurors related to a particular defendant must be based on the strength (or weakness) of the evidence.

And, as usual (and probably because you need to commit this error to sell books), you once again premise Christianity's truth entirely upon where the empirical evidence points...you leave no room in your argument for the biblical fact that there is an invisible subjective convicting of sin by the Holy Spirit that is also a part of, and more important than, the empirical evidence.  If you started pushing the subjective truth that the bible connects to one's ability to determine the truth of Christianity, logic would require that you stop promoting your book sales as obsessively as you do.  God has his part to play, which you cannot play for him, and since he played it for hundreds of years before internet, videos, printing press and electricity, you might consider that there is a genuine possibility you've blinded yourself too all these years:  the bible god, if he exists, thinks it much better for today's Christians to simply preach straight from the bible, plus nothing, and God will be responsible for making anybody sitting in the pews or on the street to become interested.

At the end of a trail, juries are “unbelievers” when it comes to every other potential suspect, because the evidence confirming the guilt of their particular defendant was sufficient. In a similar way, we can be confident “unbelievers” when it comes to every other potential god because the evidence for Christianity is more than sufficient.

Ditto the atheist.  Reasonableness in denying god's existence doesn't require refuting every possible argument for supernaturalism, for the same reason that the reasonableness of believing Jesus rose from the dead doesn't require refuting every possible argument for naturalism.

Frank Turek's attempted excuse/justification for doubt is unbiblical

This is my reply to an email I received from Frank Turek's mailing list:

On Fri, Sep 21, 2018 at 8:04 AM Frank Turek <Frank@crossexamined.org> wrote:

    I want you to know that even though I have delivered hundreds of talks that give evidence beyond the reasonable doubt that Christianity is true, sometimes I still doubt.

    Yes, you read that correctly.

    Doubts drive me to get answers.

Rape can also drive a woman to be more careful about walking home alone in the dark.  That doesn't mean rape is morally good.  So it doesn't matter if you can turn doubt into an opportunity for good, doubt would still be wrong and sinful for biblical reasons. 

Your bible condemns any 'Christian' who doubts:

 6 But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.
 7 For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord,
 8 being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. (Jas. 1:6-8 NAU)

The bible characterizes Christian faith as full assurance: 

  19 Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb;
 20 yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God,
 21 and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform. (Rom. 4:19-21 NAU)

  19 Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus,
 20 by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh,
 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
 22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; (Heb. 10:19-23 NAU)

Maybe its my lack of training in the Greek that caused me to miss the fact that "full" means "99%"?

 Turek continues:

But what if doubts debilitate you rather than drive you?

 Then you should think the biblical description that says you are like a wave of the sea, tossed to and fro, unstable in all your ways, is the more accurate way to characterize the situation (James 1:6-8, supra). Unless of course you deny biblical inerrancy.

My friend Dr. Bobby Conway—whom you may know at the “One Minute Apologist”

Yes.  And he couldn't have chosen a more appropriate title.

—has been there. He’s dealt with doubt from every angle: in his own life and the lives of his congregation (Bobby is also a pastor).

    As he helps those he shepherds, Bobby can help you. That’s why I highly recommend his new online course called DoubtingToward Faith.

If you seriously believed the bible alone is "sufficient" for faith, and if you seriously believed that the Holy Spirit really does positively respond to the prayers of Christians to be delivered from their doubting natures, then you wouldn't be recommending anything to cure Christian doubt, except the bible, and specifically James 1:6-8.   

But maybe I'm mistaken.  Perhaps Turek is an open-theist.   Because God makes mistakes and cannot handle everything at one time, he employs the services of one-minute apologists to take up some of the load?  You are all selling Jesus for profit, friend, there's no nice way to put it.  Capitalism works like this:  Assure somebody they have a problem, then conveniently notify them that you have the solution, on sale.  Act now while supplies last.  And presto, you can earn a living selling Jesus, and teaching people who focus on you that they shouldn't focus on you, but on Jesus.

    This course is an answer to prayer. Just watch this chilling four-minute intro video from Bobby.

 I recommend the reader disregard the video and just read their bible.  This will reduce your ability to cash in on the Christianity problem, and it just sounds more godly to boot.  So it should be clear that my ideas about what's spiritually better for Christians come straight from demonic influence.

Cold Case Christanity: Wallace prepares the babies for war?

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled:

Has the Church Surrendered Its Responsibility to the Academy?

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to train 80 high school students at Crossline Church here in southern California.  These students were capable and willing to engage the tough issues at a high level, and their churches and Christian high schools have embraced the mission.

That would be unwise from a conservative Christian viewpoint.  Today's Christians are already absurdly materialistic far beyond what the NT allows, and it can only be worse with teenagers.  Yet you seem to think it smart to prepare what can only be spiritual babies for spiritual warefare?  Notice what Paul to a bunch of adults who believed his gospel: 

 1 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ.
 2 I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, (1 Cor. 3:1-2 NAU)

 Did you perform any tests to make sure these high-school kids were spiritually ready to start doing real-time battle with demons?  Or did you simply jump for joy when a request for a speaking engagements popped up in your inbox?  I'd say protecting children is more important than earning a fee.

Students have a growing number of opportunities to continue their education in Christian Case Making (Apologetics) at the University level, should they choose to do so. The number of degree programs in apologetics, Christian philosophy or Christian thought is growing every year.

Then you should make a donation to all non-Christians who disagree with your religion.  If it weren't for them, apologetics wouldn't be necessary.   And so apologetics follows the standard business model adopted by all capitalists.  Create a problem, offer to sell the solution at a reasonable price.

Students who begin training with us in high school can continue this training at the university level. While this is certainly encouraging, one thing is certain: The academy will never replace the Church.

That doesn't make sense, the church is not a building, it is the people.  You are in church every time you are around other Christians, even if not on Sunday morning.

We are definitely experiencing a renaissance in Christian apologetics, as evidenced by the number of programs emerging around the country. But I can’t help but wonder if Christian universities have simply recognized an important failing of the Church. These apologetics and philosophy programs aren’t, by and large, professional degree programs, after all. Few, if any, of the graduates from these programs become professional apologists (I’ve met many graduates from these universities who are working as tent-makers in other professions). The degrees they earn in apologetics will help them to think critically and develop a grounded Biblical worldview, but they probably won’t help them pay the bills.

Good point.  Then again, Jesus encouraged his followers to give up their earthly homes, kids and possessions just to make more time to follow him around:

  20 The young man said to Him, "All these things I have kept; what am I still lacking?"
 21 Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."
 22 But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieving; for he was one who owned much property. (Matt. 19:20-22 NAU)

  28 And Jesus said to them, "Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
 29 "And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name's sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life.
 30 "But many who are first will be last; and the last, first. (Matt. 19:28-30 NAU)

It usually escapes the notice of most Christians that on the basis of v. 29, which says salvation involves the condition of giving up one's family and earthly possessions, Jesus was also talking about salvation when he told the rich young ruler that selling all of his things would produce "treasure in heaven". 

It's not sufficiently definitive to be proven absolutely, but Jesus is still a scumbag for encouraging his followers to believe that abandoning their kids to other people just to follow him around more often was morally good.

In this sense, apologetics programs are often more about personal growth than professional preparation.

And it's terrible that some Christians make a profit selling personal growth solutions.

Men and women often seek programs of this nature because there simply isn’t any other place where the case for Christianity is robustly studied, discussed, and evaluated.

You can say that again.  We are winning the war against you. The history of America shows a slow but steady declining of zeal for Jesus.  Amen to that.

They are keenly interested in knowing more, digging deeper, and becoming more articulate so they can share what they believe with others. Gee, doesn’t this sound like something the Church should be offering?

Yes.  But Calvinist Christians will tell you the modern church is slacking so much, because God wanted it to (i.e., his secret will).

I can’t help but wonder if the explosion of apologetics programs at the university level is inversely proportional to the disinterest the Church seems to have in apologetics. As the Church continues to relinquish its responsibility to train Christians, universities are stepping in the gap. The less people receive in the Church, the more they are seeking at the Academy.

I don't see the problem, the Academy is just as full of Christians as the church, so why does it matter what building the kids are sitting in when they receive apologetics instruction?

But here’s my concern. The church ought to be the place where we equip “the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12-13).

 The spiritually mature Christian would be more likely to quote Jesus to ground doctrine, instead of taking chances quoting an obviously lesser authority whom even many Christians, today and in the original church, considered to be heretic.

The university ought to be a place where we can also prepare vocationally. Sadly, many of us graduate from apologetics programs, equipped with the knowledge and wisdom we should be getting in our churches. It’s not too late to reverse the trend. It’s time for the Church to take back its responsibility to equip the saints. It’s time for pastors to recognize their responsibilities as trainers and case makers.

Translation:  it's time for American Christians to purchase books authored by J. Warner Wallace.  You should repent of your sin of capitalism:   "If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content." (1 Tim. 6:8 NAU)

You obviously aren't content to have food and covering.  Neither are 99% of the fools who call themselves Christians.

While the academy may certainly continue to offer these important and valuable programs to those who want to reach higher levels of understanding, every church member ought to receive his or her “BA in Christian Case Making (Apologetics)” while training in the pews.

Not true, your own bible prohibits the idea that everybody has the same spiritual responsibilities:

 7 Yet I wish that all men were even as I myself am. However, each man has his own gift from God, one in this manner, and another in that. (1 Cor. 7:7 NAU)

  27 Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it.
 28 And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.
 29 All are not apostles, are they? All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they? All are not workers of miracles, are they?
 30 All do not have gifts of healings, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they? All do not interpret, do they?   (1 Cor. 12:27-30 NAU)

The Academy shouldn’t replace the Church in this mission. It’s time for the Church to embrace its responsibility to train the family of God so we can all become good Christian Case Makers.

Translation:  it's time for American Christians to purchase books authored by J. Warner Wallace.

Stealing from Sense: Why Frank Turek needs atheism to sell books

This is my reply to an article by Frank Turek entitled:

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Atheists Steal Rights From God

by Frank Turek|10451

Atheist Richard Dawkins has declared, “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good. Nothing but blind pitiless indifference. . . . DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music.”

But Dawkins doesn’t act like he actually believes that. He recently affirmed a woman has the right to choose an abortion and asserted that it would be “immoral” to give birth to a baby with Down syndrome. According to Dawkins, the “right to choose” is a good thing and giving birth to Down syndrome children is a bad thing.

Well, which is it? Is there really good and evil, or are we just moist robots dancing to the music of our DNA?

The latter.  Being mammals, our DNA causes us to instinctively condemn any actions of the members that threaten the survival of the group or otherwise do more to hinder than help survival.   That is, in imperfect fashion, of course.

Atheists like Dawkins are often ardent supporters of rights to abortion, same-sex marriage, taxpayer-provided healthcare, welfare, contraceptives, and several other entitlements. But who says those are rights?

The will of the people after it has been enacted into law.  The "right" doesn't need to be grounded in any objective standard in order to function helpfully in society the way it does.   Curfews are not dictated by any god or natural law, but sometimes the arbitrary imposition of them keeps a damper on things that our authorities believe are counterproductive the survival of the group.

By what objective standard are abortion, same-sex marriage, same-sex adoption, taxpayer-provided healthcare, and the like, moral rights?

None, the standard is the subjective moral opinion that happens to be shared by enough people in the group to become law for the group.  Complaining that morality arises from subjective opinion is about as useful to the debate as complaining that freeways aren't made out of gold.

There isn’t such a standard in the materialistic universe of atheism. So atheists must steal the grounds for objective moral rights from God while arguing that God doesn’t exist.

If the atheist is one of those who believes in 'objective' morals, then, yes.

But for atheists who deny objective morality, then no, you are assuming atheism cannot provide a purely naturalistic explanation for the fact that human beings live in accord with their personal moral opinions.  You are wrong.  Every action that we call moral or immoral ultimate arises from one's personal preferences, which arise from a combination of genetic predisposition and environmental conditioning.  That is a reasonable explanation even if it doesn't indicate that science has finally solved every mystery of the universe.

Now, I am not saying that you have to believe in God to be a good person or that atheists are immoral people.

Then you aren't being biblical. The bible makes atheists immoral by saying pleasing god is impossible unless you believe in him:

 6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. (Heb. 11:6 NAU)

 If atheists cannot please god, then under Christian theology, they have no other category to be placed in except "displeasing to God", i.e., immoral.  Turek continues:

Some atheists live more moral lives than many Christians.

Then in light of Hebrews 11, supra, you are classifying as "moral", that conduct which the bible says is immoral.  Since nothing atheists do pleases God, it follows logically that everything they do is displeasing to god, and any human acts that are displeasing to god, Christians are required to define as "immoral".  I've heard plenty of conservative pastors preach that when the unbeliever feeds her children, this is displeasing to God, because the act wasn't done in faith, and under Romans 14:23, whatever is done without faith, is sin, hence, the unbeliever's feeding of her kids is sinful and thus displeasing to god.

That's the stupid shit mess you land in when you try to take biblical theology seriously.  Become a liberal, and these problems disappear like magic. 

I am also not saying that atheists don’t know morality. Everyone knows basic right and wrong whether they believe in God or not.

Because what we call basic right and wrong ends up being those actions that facilitate life, increase the odds of survival, or protect life from danger.  Murder, rape and stealing threaten the survival of the group, thus naturalistically explaining why mammals hate these things.  No transcendent moral law giver necessary.  You can say the atheist cannot explain the origin of life itself, but abiogenesis is a different topic.

Also, our knowing basic right and wrong is a problem for Christians.  God's morality in the bible goes beyond basic right and wrong.  God doesn't just forbid murder and rape.  He also requires rape victims to marry their attacker for life without possibility of divorce:

 28 "If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered,
 29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days. (Deut. 22:28-29 NAU)

It doesn't matter if there are allowable exceptions to this, the moral of requiring the victim to marry her rapist is still there, and since it was given by God, it presents a problem for the apologist:  Did god put this law into our hearts too?  If not, how do you know?

What is the reason we cringe at the thought of forcing a victim to marry her rapist?  Is it because God put a law in our hearts that says "it is always wrong to force victims to marry their rapists" (thus God is contradicting the crap he said in the OT)?  Or because modern liberal culture has significantly eroded god's morality from our hearts (i.e., your god actually thinks forcing the victim to marry her attacker is morally good)?

By the way, our knowing basic moral right and wrong also means we also "know" that rape is immoral.  That creates a problem for Turek and his theory that basic right and wrong come from the bible god, because the bible god sometimes admits that He causes men to rape women:

 13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, And the earth will be shaken from its place At the fury of the LORD of hosts In the day of His burning anger.
 14 And it will be that like a hunted gazelle, Or like sheep with none to gather them, They will each turn to his own people, And each one flee to his own land.
 15 Anyone who is found will be thrust through, And anyone who is captured will fall by the sword.
 16 Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces Before their eyes; Their houses will be plundered And their wives ravished.
 17 Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them, Who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold.
 18 And their bows will mow down the young men, They will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb, Nor will their eye pity children.
 (Isa. 13:13-18 NAU)

In the context, God is the speaker (i.e, speaking through Isaiah).  Unless Turek wishes to stupidly trifle that it was only Isaiah the human being who was threatening to "stir up" the Medes (which then means one biblical author wasn't inspired in what he wrote) then it is clear that the intent of the author was for the reader to conclude the threat is being spoken by God.  In that case, the phrase where god claims to "stir up" the Medes sit in an immediate context describing how the Medes will commit various but typical ANE wartime atrocities against the Babylonians, including rape.

If the immediate context had been "the Medes will give you gifts", Christians would have no trouble admitting what the passage plainly says: that God is the one who stirred up the Medes to give such gifts. But because the context describes rape and killing of children, then suddenly, Christians start hemming and hawing about whether "stir up" necessarily always means 'cause'. 


Turek continues:

In fact, that’s exactly what the Bible teaches (see Romans 2:14-15).

Occam's Razor forbids multiplying entities unnecessarily, which translates out into a general rule of thumb that says if the more simple explanation can also account for all the data, you should assume the more complex explanation is likely false unless and until it has been shown to be true.

I suspect most people don't appreciate that the explanation for morality that says "god put his laws into our hearts" is always going to be more complex than the "being alive necessarily implies we find morally good all actions that facilitate survival without hurting the group, and we find immoral all those actions that tend to decrease the group's ability to survive" explanation.  The more Christians credit the universe to god, the more infinitely complex the Creator must be, and for that reason the more that theory is sliced away by Occam's Razor...unless somebody can show that the god-explanation is actually true.

Occam's Razor, being a general rule of philosophical thumb, is not infallible, but it doesn't need to be, in order for it to be considered a reasonable guide for deciding which explanatory theories deserve priority at the time when the investigator lacks proof that one specific theory is actually true.  Occam's Razor performs the valuable function of giving us a reason to laugh off the "god did it" explanation and concentrate more on the naturalistic explanations.

What I am saying is that atheists can’t justify morality.

Hogwash.  There is no reason whatsoever to say a person's morality goes any deeper than their genetic predispositions and their environmental conditioning.   

Atheists routinely confuse knowing what’s right with justifying what’s right.They say it’s right to love. I agree, but why is it right to love.

Such atheists are confused, since sometimes to love another is to bring about circumstances that make life or survival more difficult, such as the faithful wife who loves her abusive husband and for that reason allows herself to be abused by him more often than she would if she hated him.

And don't forget that whether it is morally "right" to love, is completely subjective.  The most objectivity we have is to say that a mom must love her child to facilitate that child's healthy thriving, a goal all intelligent mammals naturally aspire to for those in their group. If the mother doesn't naturally love her child, there will be no convincing her by argument that she "should".  Her lack of love testifies that she is lacking the brain chemistry that gives rise to mammalian altruism.

Why are we obligated to do so? The issue isn’t how we know what’s Right, but why an authoritative standard of Rightness exists in the first place.

 That cannot be the issue unless you are just preaching the choir, as atheists, or at least myself, do not agree with you that any such authoritative standard exists.  By "authoritative" I am aware that you mean "objective", thus I disagree since no objective standard exists in the first place.

You may come to know about objective morality in many different ways: from parents, teachers, society, your conscience, etc.

That doesn't make sense, as Turek does not believe "parents, teachers, society, your conscience" are a source of objective morality, since many parents raise their kids so they grow up to be criminals, teachers can corrupt youth by sexual molestation, society prioritizes ceaseless material gain and fame, and if you are a pedophile, then your conscience would be something Turek says doesn't help you recognize objective morality.

Also Turek always trades on the fact that his audience are largely born and raised in the USA and thus adopt the same basic moral code.  So his "conscience" argument seems to make sense.  But his blind appeal to conscience would do nothing if his audience were a bunch of remorseless gangsters or child molesters whose conscience tells them to just take whatever they want from whoever they want.  Turek and his typical audience will insist such social misfits don't count in the moral analysis, but it's not very objective to arbitrarily cast aside some of the evidence.  Yes, most of us think rape and stealing are wrong.  But not all of us.  The more objective procedure would be to factor in the moral view of sociopaths and others who act contrary to social norms.  For it could very well be that we'll find there's only a social norm to speak of solely because of historical circumstance, and that if conditions in history were different, the mass of humanity would continue as they did in the ancient past, and believe that as long as raiding the other clan down the street doesn't create too much of a risk to one's own clan, prepare for war.

And you can know it while denying God exists. But that’s like saying you can know what a book says while denying there’s an author. Of course you can do that, but there would be no book to know unless there was an author! In other words, atheists can know objective morality while denying God exists, but there would be no objective morality unless God exists.

You are just preaching the choir:  atheists obviously know that morality exists (because opinions obviously exist), but what exists is simply opinion, it is not objective, that is, there is no good evidence that our sense of morality comes from something transcending humanity itself.  We refrain from adultery because we personally don't wish to commit that act, and others commit adultery because they personally desire to do this.

If material nature is all that exists, which is what most atheist’s claim, then there is no such thing as an immaterial moral law. 

 Correct.

Therefore, atheists must smuggle a moral standard into their materialistic system to get it to work, whether it’s “human flourishing,” the Golden Rule, doing what’s “best” for the most, etc.

Correct, but I object to the emotive "smuggle" word:  we are not "smuggling" any moral standard into our system that atheism cannot account for.  Rather, we've shown, many times, that the basis for human morality does not go any deeper than genetic predisposition and environmental conditioning.

By the way, Turek, why do you so blindly assume that objective morality is reflected in what "most people" allow or forbid?  Why are you always premising the immorality of rape upon the fact that "most people" think it is immoral?

Is there a bible verse that says whatever the human moral consensus happens to be, is surely the will of God?

How difficult would it be for a smart bible critic like myself to argue, from the assumption that the bible is the word of God, that the criminals in the world are doing what god wants them to do?

Turek, do you ever tell your audiences about 5-Point Calvinism, namely, that version of Protestant orthodoxy that says God wants us to, and causes us to, sin exactly the way we do?  I'm guessing no.  If you brought up such a thing, your followers would probably be shocked to know that a system of theology that makes our sins morally good by crediting them to god, could actually be "biblical".

Such standards don’t exist in a materialistic universe where creatures just “dance” to the music of their DNA.

Correct.

Atheists are caught in a dilemma. If God doesn’t exist, then everything is a matter of human opinion and objective moral rights don’t exist, including all those that atheists support.

I'm not seeing the dilemma here:  characterizing human morality as mere opinion does nothing to handicap moral relativity.  Mere opinions can and do affect and manipulate the world around us no less than physical forces like fire and wind.

If you ask why one atheist being attacked would repel the other atheist attacking him, in an atheist world where everybody's opinion about life is of ultimately equal worth, the answer is that making efforts to stay alive logically already exist in the territory.  You can no more separate efforts to stay alive from a human being, than you can take away the oxygen from H20 and still have water.

Turek will blurt out "what gives you the right to defend yourself?"

Well, the same thing that gives the attacker the "right" to attack...my personal subjective desires.  If I honestly didn't care about my life, yes, I'd probably just stand there and let him kill me.

The "right" we have to defend our lives from attackers in an atheist universe, isn't really a "right" but more correctly an instinctive reaction. For example, even if the entire world agreed that some murderous serial child raper deserved the death penalty, as an organism his heart would continue to beat, and his kidneys and liver would continue ridding his body of poisons right up to the time that they seat him in the electric chair and flip the switch. The status of being alive logically presupposes desire on the living organism's part to continue staying alive.  No fool backs away from a knife attack solely because he thinks God has given him the right to defend himself, or because he thinks God has condemned deadly attacks on civilians; we react by pure instinct.  You will say "because god created us", but intelligent design and abiogenesis are different topics.

If God does exist, then objective moral rights exist.

The bible prevents that conclusion from following necessarily.  Isaiah 13:16-17, God causes men to rape women, in which case God is causing men to violate something Turek refers to as God's "nature".  Your problems are indeed real and imposing.


The consequence would be that the reason we all "know" that rape is wrong is because God has not caused us to rape anybody yet.

But those rights clearly don’t include cutting up babies in the womb, same-sex marriage, and their other invented absolutes contrary to every major religion and natural law.

Abortion is hardly a black and white issue.  No atheist would say it is morally good to cut a baby to death in the womb after 9 months, when birth is 5 minutes away.  The trouble with the abortion issue arises from our naturalistic tendency to more favor life forms that look like us. Nobody has a problem swatting flies, but we start having problems killing deer, we have more problems with killing kittens, and we have big problems with killing the darling three year old girl asleep in her princess-bed.   That's a good explanation why most people see less wrong in having an abortion one day after the egg is fertilized, and why they see more wrong in abortions done after 9 months of pregnancy.  We cannot really relate to that which is nothing more than an egg that was fertilized 5 seconds ago, but we obviously relate to the baby that is 5 minutes away from being born.

 We would never step on baby ducks, but we always step on spiders.  Life has proven that the advanced life forms care more about the life form the more it looks like themselves, and have less concern the less it looks like themselves.  Naturally then, abortion would be contentious, since it is not easy to say at what exact point during the pregnancy that the developing egg starts looking like us.

Now, an atheist might say, “In our country, we have a constitution that the majority approved. We have no need to appeal to God.” True, you don’t have to appeal to God to write laws, but you do have to appeal to God if you want to ground them in anything other than human opinion.

That falsely assumes that grounding morality in human opinion fails to account for the evidence.  It doesn't.  Once again, rapists rape because they personally wish to, and other men refrain from raping because they don't personally wish to rape.  It also seems clear that if we didn't have a justice system, humanity would evince its barbaric nature more clearly.  If people knew that they could gain from hurting others and never be held accountable, they god-damn sure would.  Most legal authorities recognize the value of jail, often fear of jail is the only reason a person will refrain from crime.   It's hard to envision because our society is modern, democratic and civilized, but you might be surprised at the dirty secrets and opinions a person will divulge in private conversation, opinions they'd never let the rest of the world know about.  I'd say amost of the men who decry pre-marital fornication, are lying about how they truly feel, because condemning that activity will make them sound more attractive to the civilized women they wish to be with.

Otherwise, your “rights” are mere preferences that can be voted out of existence at the ballot box or at the whim of an activist judge or dictator.

And I don't see why that is supposed to be some sort of flaw in the atheist view.  The founding of America is little more than a case of the preferences of people being voted in and out of existence or by decree of dictator/judge for 200 years.  So?

Turek will probably argue from subjective feelings again, and argue that if a dictator decided to take away all of your stuff, you'd feel "wronged", and therefore, this feeling of wrong arises from a standard of morality that transcends humanity.  But there is no reason to think such a conclusion need follow.  Some people also feel wronged when deprived of things that they never owned, such as when the neighbor, after 5 years, stops allowing you to borrow her car anytime you need it.  Does that feeling of being wronged come from god?

That’s why our Declaration of Independence grounds our rights in the Creator.

That's just a case of moral assertions being set forth in a founding document of America written by imperfect theists and deists.  It isn't like the document fell from heaven!

It recognizes the fact that even if someone changes the constitution you still have certain rights because they come from God, not man-made law.

Yeah, that document "recognizes" this, but so what?  Other documents "recognize" less human rights.  So what?

However, my point isn’t about how we should put objective God-given rights into human law. My point is, without God there are no objective human rights.

Correct.  The "right" of the American citizen to life is something that imperfect humans long ago thought to put into a document as part of their effort to become free of England.  So?

There is no right to abortion or same-sex marriage.

There are no objective rights, period, so any rights we can legitimately speak of, derive from sources no deeper than what people personally feel and what their leaders enact into law. 

Of course, without God there is no right to life or natural marriage either!

You are, again, preaching to the choir.  Without god there would be no 'objective' rights, but as I've already proven, rights being 'subjective' doesn't admit they are any less instrumental to getting things done.  

In other words, no matter what side of the political aisle you’re on — no matter how passionate you believe in certain causes or rights — without God they aren’t really rights at all.

Correction, they aren't objective rights.  You are blindly assuming that rights aren't rights if they have only a subjective basis. Not true.  This is just as fallacious as saying "you aren't really a man unless you have a car".  You are just arbitrarily narrowing down the list of things that deserve to be called "man", or "rights".  You can enjoy any 'right' that society's leaders say you have the right to exercise.  The fact that such rights arise from ultimately subjective opinion does not take away the level of significance and importance such rights play in the game of life.

You may as well say I don't have a subjective favorite color, because there is no ultimate standard by which a "favorite color" can be judged, except my own personal opinion.  That's foolish, that opinion still exists, and I'm not going to pay less attention to it, or ignore it more, merely because it is, in fact, subjective. 

Human rights amount to no more than your subjective preferences.

Correct.  So what? 

So atheists can believe in and fight for rights to abortion, same-sex marriage, and taxpayer-provided entitlements, but they can’t justify them as truly being rights.

Correction, they cannot justify them as objective rights.  You fallaciously assume that if the right is not "objective", then it doesn't exist.  That's stupid, "you have the right to remain silent" doesn't have an objective basis, it was simply invented and enacted through the 1966 case of Miranda v. Arizona.  But it hardly follows that such subjective right to remain silent isn't "really" a "right". It certainly exists and dramatically impacts the life of the person being arrested, whether you wish to call it an objective right or an orange riddle.  Characterizing subjective rights as "mere opinion" does not stop them from continuing to impact lives as they have been before you were born.

So I don't see the point you have in constantly trivializing rights derived from ultimately subjective origins, as "mere opinion".  It's as if you can get rid of a truth by calling it names.

In fact, to be a consistent atheist — and this is going to sound outrageous, but it’s true — you can’t believe that anyone has ever actually changed the world for the better.

Correction, under atheism, we cannot say that anyone has ever actually changed the world for the objective better.

Objectively good political or moral reform is impossible if atheism is true.

Correct.  Whether raising taxes would be morally good or bad, goes no deeper than the subjective will of the majority.  Did you have a point?

Which means you have to believe that everything Wilberforce, Lincoln, and Martin Luther King did to abolish slavery and racism wasn’t really good; it was just different.

Agreed.  In fact I'd say any reform is ultimately bad because any change in society, short of something like losing half the population, necessarily and always increases its aggregate complexity, slowly but surely moving that society toward inevitable collapse. Moral reform and indeed any reform comes at a long term negative cost, even if it makes life more fun for a few decades.  And reforms usually involve changes in the law, and only a fool denies the reality of the "slippery slope" that materializes thereby.

It means you have to believe that rescuing Jews from the ovens was not objectively better than murdering them.

Correct, it was subjectively better.

It means you have to believe that gay marriage is no better than gay bashing.

Correct, though I could give reasons based on the natural world to show what normative mammalian behavior and human behavior is, and to therefore provide an empirical basis for condemning male homosexuality as a deviation that is counterproductive to our current society.

(Since we’re all just “dancing to our DNA,” the gay basher was just born with the anti-gay gene. You can’t blame him!)

Correction:  holding gay bashers accountable for conduct their genetics caused them to engage in, might not be consonant with science, but is clearly required if we are to have social order (i.e., it just might be that the type of social order we desire to have, it not consistent with scientific truths about human beings).  While the current justice system aspires to the freewill doctrine of criminal and civil accountability, that type of justice system would need to stay in place to prevent society from collapsing even if science conclusively proved that we don't have freewill.  We still lock up insane criminals even if the judicial system finds them "not guilty".
So while we cannot hold people accountable for what they couldn't avoid doing, we'd still have to impose on their freedom to keep order.  Also, motivating criminals to obey the law doesn't require that they have freewill. That's why we have jails.  Fear of jail achieves the social good of preventing the criminal from acting contrary to law, but we also recognize that the fact that the jail changed his behavior, doesn't mean he has freewill.  He is a human being intent on making himself comfortable in life, and so he will naturally obey the law if we put him in a context where he knows his life won't be comfortable should he disobey the law.  That's just a smart insect running away from disaster, that's not freewill.

It means you have to believe that loving people is no better than raping them.

Correction, loving people is not objectively better than raping them...because there are no objective morals that transcend humanity in the first place.  Our emotions tell us different, but read Jeremiah 17:9

You may be thinking, “That’s outrageous! Racism, murder, assault, and rape are objectively wrong, and people do have a right not to be harmed!” I agree. But that’s true only if God exists. In an atheistic universe there is nothing objectively wrong with anything at any time.

No objective moral wrong?  Correct. 

There are no limits. Anything goes.

Not true, there's more to being human than just "made in the image of god'.  We are also physical mammals who instinctively seek group approval, and thus naturally disagree with any behavior that threatens the group's survival.  Guess what?  Racism, murder, assault, and rape generally threaten human survival, while avoiding these activities generally promotes thriving.  The problem-area is how to know when that which facilitates thriving should be viewed as good or bad.  Is having 5 kids good because it makes you happy, or bad because it contributes to overpopulation?

Gee, Turek, why do you suppose bears feel offended when you try to steal their food?  Were bears made in the image of god?  If not, then apparently, one does not need to be made in the image of god, in order to have a basic sense of right and wrong. You will say god created them that way, but again, intelligent design and abiogenesis are different topics.

Which means to be a consistent atheist you have to believe in the outrageous.

It's only outrageous under the objectivist view.  Psychiatrists who regularly deal with those who continually rape and kill, find the behavior unacceptable, of course, but not 'outrageous', just like those who have seen plenty of footage of lions eating gazelles find it less outrageous than the small child who first sees it and cries.  Popular sentiment probably isn't a very wise criteria for deciding what is "outrageous".  You tend to emote about a thing less when you are constantly exposed to it.

If you are mad at me for these comments, then you agree with me in a very important sense. If you don’t like the behaviors and ideas I am advocating here, you are admitting that all behaviors and ideas are not equal — that some are closer to the real objective moral truth than others.

 Already refuted this - no, all behaviors are not equal, but that's because we are mammals with intelligence, and therefore automatically find that actions which threaten survival are to be abhorred more than actions that don't. 

But what is the source of that objective truth?

Objective moral truth constitutes an incoherent concept, as "truth" is what we usually say about conclusions that can be empirically verified apart from personal opinion, while morals are value-judgments arising from our personal subjective preferences.  The concept of "moral truth" is stupid.

Only a fool says "Is it correct to kiss after the 5th date?"
Only a fool says "should 2+2=4?"

It can’t be changeable, fallible human beings like you or me. It can only be God whose unchangeable nature is the ground of all moral value.

God does not have an unchangeable nature, he sometimes regrets his own decisions:

 6 The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
 7 The LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them."    (Gen. 6:6-7 NAU)

 Sorry, Turek, but you don't just say "anthropomorphism!" and pretend the debate is over.  You must justify your inteprretation from the immediate context.  That is, if you think the text is speaking non-literally, you must provide the grammatical and contextual reasons why.  Check out Boyd for a primer.

And since the immediate context of that statement is describing what most Christian scholars take to be real literal history, the assumption that v. 6-7 are talking literally about god, is consistent with the context. When concerns of inerrancy aren't present, the literal interpretation looks like the one the author intended.

Since bible inerancy is very controversial even among those who believe some form of it, I'm not doing anything unreasonable in refusing to make sure my interpretation of the passage harmonizes with the rest of the bible.

That’s why atheists are unwittingly stealing from God whenever they claim a right to anything.

Dream on.

But how do we know that’s the Christian God?  Doesn’t he do evil in the Old Testament?

Yes, unless you are willing to contradict everything you stand for and say that whether rape is objectively immoral depends on who is doing it and why (Isaiah 13:16-17).