Friday, December 21, 2012

New Atheism v. Religion

Communism and New Atheism

Lenin and New Atheism (2)

Lenin and New Atheism (1)

"Do Not Pray For Me"

Why do some people who are supposedly atheists or anti-theists say, "Do not pray for me"?

Well, I used to be an atheist. When I was an atheist, I did not believe in God. Consequently, I did not believe in the effectiveness of prayers. I did not believe that God answers prayers and so I did not believe that prayers can change anything. If someone said that he or she was praying or going to pray for me, I would not care about it because I "knew" that it would change anything.

Then, why do some atheists say, "Do not pray for me" if they supposedly do not believe in God and God's answers to prayers? Well, I think it is because they actually admit that prayers can have some effect and they fear this effect due to some reasons. It may be a kind of irrational fear actually. They may say, "There is no God and so God does not answer prayers." However, there is something inside of them that tells them, "No. God does answers prayers." Since they outwardly deny God, they know that they are wrong with God. This is why they fear Him and fear His answers to prayers.

How to get rid of this fear? "20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Cor. 5:20-21, NIV). The way to get rid of the fear of God and of prayers is to be reconciled to God.

I have been reconciled to God and I have no fears of prayers of other people for me, whatever their prayers may be. Even if somebody is going to curse me in prayers and ask God to do something bad to me, I do not fear it because I know that God will answer only those prayers that are according to His desire. And, of course, if people pray for me in a positive way, I do appreciate it.

Why Does Religion Trigger Some Ex-Cultists?

I noticed that some people are very sensitive to any religious discussions and tend to overreact. This reminds me of what I read in The Fight: A Practical Handbook to Christian Living by John White. I have a Russian version of this book. John White is a Christian and a psychiatrist. He wrote that when somebody had a very negative reaction, he asked, "This affects you. Why?" Since I have only Russian translation, I am not sure about the exact words in the original question. Maybe, he asked, "This triggers you. Why?" Really, why? This is an interesting question.

Several months after I left the cult, I noticed that I was able to use my own critical thinking in most areas and discuss these things without any problems. The only exception was religion. Thinking about religion, I still thought in the same way as I was taught in the cult. It made me feel very bad about religion and any religious discussions. It also gave me feeling that my mind was not fully free. Although I was an atheist at that time, I decided that I need to learn about other religious views. So, I began to study theology. I studied various concepts and views. I really liked to study different concepts of the same teaching, compare them and then make my own conclusions. It helped me to develop my own critical thinking in religious matters and it helped me to reconsider my religious views and get rid of the cult indoctrination. It was a very important part of my cult recovery.

What would be if I had not studied theology and just completely turned away from any religion? I think I would still have been in the same condition as 10 years ago. Any thought about religion, about God or about the Bible would have triggered my memory about the cult, their doctrines and abuses. I would have still think about the Bible through the "glasses" of the cult doctrines. Reading any verse of the Bible, I would have understood it according to the cult interpretation. Thinking about any teaching of the Bible, I would have thought about it according to what I learned in the cult.

I think ex-cult members who just turned away from religion completely may have the same problem. No matter how long they have been out, they may still view religion in the same way as they were taught in their cults. Then, religious discussions trigger their memory of their cults and cause overreaction. This may be the real source of the problem.


Actually, I think it is one of the problems of completely secular approach to cult recovery as well as atheist propaganda to ex-cult members. The religious issues are just neglected and put away instead of being properly addressed. In my opinion, these issues needs to be addressed, which does not mean that ex-cult members should necessary become religious believers. These are two different things.

"It Is Possible To Prove Anything, Using the Bible"

Sometimes I heard people saying that it is possible to prove anything, using the Bible. In principle, it is true if a person ignores basic principles of interpretation of the Bible.

One of these principles is that it is very important to consider the context: the context of the verse, the context of the paragraph, the context of the chapter, the context of the book, and the context of the Bible.

There is an old joke that illustrates the importance of this principle: the Bible says that there is no God. How can it be that the Bible says so? Let's read Psalm 14:1 (NIV): "There is no God." Well, this is only a part of this verse. The whole verse:

"The fool says in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
there is no one who does good."

So, from the context of the verse, it is clear that it is was the fool who says that there is no God. The Bible only quotes the fool's words here.

Now, who is the fool? Modern readers of the Bible may think that the fool is a stupid person. However, in order to understand the meaning of this word it is necessary to consider how this word is used in Psalms and in other Bible books such as Proverbs, checking all the other verses where this word is used. In Psalms and Proverbs, this word is used rather for an immoral person than for a stupid person. The context of Psalms 14:1 also implies that the fool is an immoral and not stupid person.

So, I think this example shows the importance of the context. There are some other frequent errors: http://lemanal.blogspot.com/2008/12/hermeneutical-errors.html

Was Darwin an Atheist?

Was Darwin an atheist? Probably, most people think that he was, but this is not so simple.

"It would surprise many to know that Charles Darwin, the founder of modern evolutionary theory, was not a scientist but a theologian. Darwin only had a divinity degree and no formal training in the sciences." (http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/11-12-2008/106822-darwin_theology_degree-0/)

British Journal for the History of Science published Steve Dilley's article Charles Darwin's use of theology in the Origin of Species:
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8269309&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S000708741100032X
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/05/charles_darwin_theologian_majo046391.html

As it is quite clear from the article's title, the author states that Darwin did use theology in the Origin of Species as a support for his ideas and that it is impossible to understand Darwin's work without understanding his theology.

There is also quite famous testimony of Lady Hope who said that she had visited Darwin several months before he died and that he was fond of reading the Bible and had Christian faith at that time. He even regretted of his evolutionist ideas: http://carm.org/secular-movements/evolution/did-darwin-become-christian-his-deathbed

I am aware that there have been many attempts to deny her testimony. As for me, I do not see anything odd in this testimony. Many people who denied God their whole life become believers in God before their death. Since Darwin was very interested in theology when he was young and he even wanted to be a clergyman, it makes his turn back to God before his death even more possible.

I think it is possible that he did say about his evolution ideas: "I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything, and to my astonishment, the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them." He never publicly denied his ideas, but no one can be really sure that he did not regret about his ideas privately.

The Bible and Oppression

Many people who reject the Bible believe that it supports various kinds of oppression. However, it is actually quite a big question: What comes first: interpretations of the Bible that support oppression or oppression itself.

150 years ago, many American preachers used the Bible to support slavery of the black people. Does the Bible support it? I do not think so. What was the cause and what was the sequence? Did the wrong interpretation of the Bible cause the slavery of the black? Or the slavery of the black existed in the society and then theologians invented a special interpretation of the Bible to support it?

It is interesting to note that the slavery of the black has never existed in Russia. And Russian theologians never taught that the slavery of the black was supported by the Bible.

So, I think that in this case it is quite clear that American theologians just invented interpretation of the Bible in order to support the slavery of the black. It is true though that when societal norms began to change and the slavery was no longer considered as norm, some Christians continued to believe that it was supported by the Bible.

I think it may be the case with all the other kinds of oppression: antisemitism, racism, sexism, heterosexism, and many other. First, such things appeared in the society. Then, the Bible was interpreted in such a way as to justify these things. Later, however, people continued to believe that the Bible supports such things while it was not the case.


If the Bible was used to support slavery, racism, antisemitism, sexism, homophobia, and many other kinds of oppression, it does not mean that the Bible really supports them.

All People Believe in Something

All people believe in something and disbelieve in something. And all people trust someone and distrust someone.

Some people believe in God, some believe in a certain philosophy, some believe in science or in philosophy of science (which is not the same). Philosophies change all the time. In Acts 17, it is written how Paul preached to philosophers in Athens. It is considered that these philosophers were Stoics and Epicureans. These philosophies were very popular at that time. How many people believe in Stoicism and Epicureanism now and how many people believe in Christ now?

Many scientific theories also change over the time. Some of them "proved" to be wrong. Eventually, scientists are human and they make mistakes just like anyone else.

Some people trust politicians, some do not. Some trust Putin, some trust Obama, and so on. I do not trust Putin, but I have to admit that if I believe some people's negative reports about him, it means that I trust them more than him. Probably, I do not fully trust any Russian politician.

Some people trust mass-media, some do not. In fact, not everything reported by mass-media is true. For example, in August 2008, there was a short war between Russia and Georgia in South Ossetia. If you compare the reports of this war from Russian and Western mass-media, you will think that these are reports about two absolutely different wars. It is because these reports are completely different. Who is right and who is wrong? I do not know. I do not know what really took place in South Ossetia and Georgia in August 2008. I have to admit that. I also have to admit that I do not fully know what took place during the latest two wars in Chechnya because there are many different and contradictory reports of those wars. I know much less about the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and many others. I have to admit this. These are just some examples.

Why do some people think that it is reasonable to believe in mass-media, politicians, and so on, but it is unreasonable to believe in God? Why?

On God's Existence (2)

The Bible never "proves" God's existence. It just states God's existence. All the arguments for God's existence strictly speaking are not based on the Bible, though some of them use some ideas from the Bible. Why? I guess it might mean that God does not want to give people evidences of His existence that will satisfy everyone. Why?

Well, there are two kinds of objects of knowledge: things and people. People may learn about things, study them, measure them, make experiments with them, and so on. The knowledge about things can be objective. However, it is not so with people. People may hide their thoughts, feelings, and intentions from one another. They may pretend to be who they are not. They may deceive one another. They decide what to tell others about themselves and what to tell to whom. So, knowledge of a person depends on his or her openness to others. It is different from knowledge of a thing.

Using terminology of Martin Buber, these two kinds of knowledge are described as "I-it" and "I-thou."

I understand that some people believe in impersonal god. An impersonal god might be described as "it." But personal God is not "it." He is "Thou." What a human being may know about God is only what God wants to reveal about Himself. It is one thing to learn about God, and it is another thing to learn God Himself. I do not know how many people would like other people, for example, their friends, to know about them, but never to know them.

When people are studying something, they are in a higher position than the objects of the study. However, when friends are learning about one another, they are in more or less equal position. If people were able just to study God and everything about God as an inanimate object, would not they think that they are higher than God? Would God want to take position lower than a human being who studies Him?

Just as a human being may not be willing to share about himself or herself with enemies, in the same way God may not be willing to reveal Himself and give "sufficient" evidences of His existence to people who already set their mind to disbelieving in Him and denying His existence. I think it is quite logical.

On God's Existence (1)

There are many people in Russia who do not believe that Osama bin Laden ever existed. They do not trust American government and mass-media. And they believe that Osama bin Laden was a fictitious person who was invented in order to justify American war in Afghanistan.

I do not believe in this theory. I believe that Osama bin Laden really existed. However, I do not think I would be able to "prove" to such people that he really existed. Why? It is because all the information about him that I can provide is from mass-media and they believe that it was forged. I am unable to introduce to them living bin Laden because he is dead and only very few people know where his body is now.

In the same way, I am not sure that I would be able to "prove" that Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Napoleon or anyone else ever existed to people who do not believe in their existence.

As far as I know, most people in the Western countries, even atheists, do not deny that Jesus and Muhammad existed. In the Soviet Union, the official doctrine was that they never existed and most people believed in that.

It is not so easy to "prove" existence of a person, a human being, especially, if this person is already dead. It may be impossible to give sufficient evidences to convince some people who do not believe that someone really existed.

If it is hard or even impossible to convince some people that someone, a human being, really existed, will it be easier to "prove" the existence of God, especially, to the most stubborn atheists? In the same way as some people invent their own arguments against bin Laden's existence, atheists invent their own arguments against God's existence.

Voltaire and Christianity

"In one interesting note from history the noted French infidel, Voltaire, who died in 1778, predicted that Christianity would be extinct within 100 years of his time. But instead, within 50 years of his death the Geneva Bible Society used his house and printing presses to print copies of the Bible!" (Evidences of the Christian Faith by Dave Greear, chapter 3: http://campuslight.org/wvu/EvidencesCFaith/Chapter3.html). Christianity is still here, 234 years after Voltaire's death.

Abusive Atheism

Two Stories

Therapeutical & Religious Abuse

Introduction

I was born and grew up in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was an atheist country and I was indoctrinated with their atheist propaganda. I was an atheist until I received Christ in 1991. After that, for 10 years, I was involved in the Bible-based cult. My experience there was very negative. One of the results was that I completely lost my faith in God. So, I made a switch back to atheism. Now, 10 years after I left the cult, I am a Christian, and I do not have problems with believing in God.

So, I had three switches from atheism to Christianity and vice versa. I am well aware that religion may be very abusive. But I also know that atheism may be very abusive too. I do not know what is better. Many people who were in religious cults completely turn away from religion and believe that all religions are abusive. However, it seems that people who experienced abusive atheism may have a similar experience. At least, the fact is that in the countries of the former Soviet Union there are much less atheists than in the Western countries. Only 5 to 10 percent of Russian citizens consider themselves atheists.

So, in a sense, my situation is special because I grew up in the country of abusive atheism and then I was in a group of abusive religion. What would be better for me: to turn away from atheism completely because it may be abusive or to turn away from religion completely because it also may be abusive? I do not think either would be right. I took another way. In one of my blog posts 3 years ago, I wrote (http://lemanal.blogspot.com/2009/04/what-is-faith.html):

"There are two kinds of faith. The first is when you believe just because you follow what somebody tells you to believe. This is the imitative faith, and it is promoted in cults and cultic churches. The second is when you had your own considerations, examined pros and contras, and made your own conclusions. This is the reasonable faith. Actually, the second kind of faith is considered to be higher and more matured. "I realized that I do not want to just follow others. I want to consider and examine everything and make my own conclusions before believing in something. This means that I do not want to have just an imitative faith, but I want to have a reasonable faith."

I think I mostly reached my goal of having a reasonable faith by now.