Josh Rosenau on science illiteracy

I've noted before that absolute cluelessness of atheists. They make assertions so vapid-- so easily refuted-- that you wonder what their thought processes really are.

Josh Rosenau, Program Director for the National Center for Science Education, is a particularly clear example.

Rosenau takes issue with the National Science Board's decision to categorize people who disagree with the central claims of evolutionary biology (i.e. materialistic explanations for life), but who have a good fund of knowledge about evolution, scientifically literate.

Rosenau:

It is my contention that one cannot call a person who adopts these views [evolution 'denial']"science literate." And in a chapter aimed at assessing "knowledge and attitudes" regarding science, it is not sufficient to find that someone knows evolutionary biology says humans share common ancestors with other life, or that astronomers say there was a big bang. A person who thinks calling something "a theory" is discrediting is not science literate (having misunderstood key terms and scientific processes). A person who thinks scientists as a community would hide evidence to advance their theological agenda is not science literate (having betrayed a misunderstanding about how scientific claims are evaluated within the scientific community). A person who thinks it is appropriate to set their interpretation over empirical evidence when asked a scientific question is only arguably science literate (having substituted an untestable theological claim for a valid scientific claim; arguably, such a substitution is a value choice, not a matter of science literacy, but either way it is a relevant measure of attitudes toward science).

Science literacy has to be more than abstract knowledge. To be meaningful, it has to be integrated into a person's view of the world in some useful way. Someone who knows that evolutionary biology deals in common ancestry of life, but who rejects that idea is not able to integrate that knowledge, for instance by connecting new discoveries in roundworms and relate them to their own health, let alone to have a coherent understanding of newly discovered fossil hominids, or other new findings directly related to evolution. Such a person necessarily has an incomplete ability to read and understand science reporting such as would be found in Science Times on Tuesday, or to discuss new research findings and their implications for his or her own health with a doctor.

The NSB's decision to distinguish between knowledge of a theory and agreement with it is a good one. To be scientifically literate, a person should understand the claims that a theory makes and the evidence invoked to support/refute the theory. It is certainly possible, and in fact is relatively common, to understand a scientific theory quite well, and to disagree with it. Einstein's disagreement with some interpretations of quantum mechanics doesn't mean that he wasn't scientifically literate in quantum mechanics. One can understand a scientific theory, and disagree with it. There's no inherent contradiction.

There are many Americans, including quite a few scientists, who are quite well-versed in evolutionary biology (Jonathan Wells, Paul Nelson, Richard Sternberg and Casey Luskin come to mind) who don't agree with some of the theory, particularly the materialistic aspects. But they are quite scientifically literate.

What Rosenau is demanding from the NSB is a litmus test. He wants the NSB to classify people who disagree with the mainstream materialist interpretation of evolution as illiterate, not as scientifically knowledgeable people who disagree about the science.

It's Orwellian stuff. What Rosenau is saying is: 'if you don't agree with us, you're stupid'. They should rename the NCSE the NCMI: the National Center for Materialist Indoctrination.

But here's the funny part. If belief, rather than knowledge, is essential for literacy in a topic, then atheists like Rosenau can be labeled theologically illiterate. They don't merely disagree with theology's premise that God exists, they're illiterate about theology. And the only way they can rectify their illiteracy is to... believe in God. It looks like we'll have to be teaching more religion in public schools. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

But no. Rosenau isn't theologically illiterate. He understands enough about religion, I'm sure, to pass. But his argument suggests a rather severe case of logical illiteracy.

That goes with the atheism.

Engineeringism!

Regarding the assertion that science is the best way to ascertain truth, commentor Anonymous said...

I've attended a lecture of Mr. Kroto, where he also came to that quote.

...H. Kroto emphasised that it is not necessary that it'll lead us to the final truth. He explained this statement in a rather different way, however: that, compared to other methods, science just offers better reliability, because: 

Scientific statement must be foolproof and consistent with observations in nature and other fields of science, otherwise it is not a scientific statement. There is no dogma, which says that this is like that just because it is. 

Religious statement, such as God exists ... well ...

There are several ways to understand reality: theology, philosophy, deductive logic, mathematics, science, engineering, humanities, emotion, etc.  Each has its proper place. Some folks, usually scientists, assert the superiority of science for understanding truth.

However, science can only investigate one aspect of truth-- empirically demonstrable facts about nature. Each discipline investigates different aspects of truth. If I want to know about the motion of planets, science (astronomy) is the best. If I want to know who to marry, emotion and humane insight is best. If I want to know ultimate purpose in life, theology is best.

Some disciplines are more basic than others. Philosophy and logic are more fundamental than engineering and science. The reason is that the assumptions on which engineering and science are based are philosophical insights. Inductive and deductive reasoning, for example, are essential to engineering and science, but are not science themselves.

The notion that science is more "foolproof and consistent with observations in nature" is itself not a scientific assertion. It is a philosophical assertion. And if you want "foolproof" and "consistent", don't settle for science. Engineering is much more consistent and foolproof than science.

There's much less debate about the specifications for bridge abutments than there is about string theory. If atheists want certainty, there's a whole hell of a lot more consensus about the internal combustion engine than there is about cosmology. New atheist credo: 'Newton's laws of motion are all we need to understand the meaning of existence'.

But what about dogma? Science is full of it. The scientific method is dogma.

Truth is approached in many ways. Science is a superior way to understand natural processes. But the assertion that science is the only path to truth, or even the major path to truth, is so illogical that it merely excludes that person saying it from serious discussion.

Jerry Coyne can be damn good. Without God.

Jerry Coyne, in USA Today:

As atheists know, you can be good without God

One cold Chicago day last February, I watched a Federal Express delivery man carry an armful of boxes to his truck. In the middle of the icy street, he slipped, scattering the boxes and exposing himself to traffic. Without thinking, I ran into the street, stopped cars, hoisted the man up and helped him recover his load. Pondering this afterward, I realized that my tiny act of altruism had been completely instinctive; there was no time for calculation.

Coyne, predictably, starts off with a peon to himself.

We see the instinctive nature of moral acts and judgments in many ways: in the automatic repugnance we feel when someone such as Bernie Madoff bilks the gullible and trusting, in our disapproval of the person who steals food from the office refrigerator, in our admiration for someone who risks his life to save a drowning child. And although some morality comes from reason and persuasion — we must learn, for example, to share our toys — much of it seems intuitive and inborn.

Coyne seems to be unaware of the 2000 year-old Christian doctrine that the Moral Law is written in our hearts (Romans 2:14-15), regardless of our faith.

Many Americans, including Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health and an evangelical Christian, see instinctive morality as both a gift from God and strong evidence for His existence.

Objective morality must have a source outside of man-- that's what 'objective' means. Subjective morality isn't morality. It's opinion.

Coyne seems to think that the issue is whether morality is instinctual or not. All agree that morality is instinctual. The disagreement is whether it's objective (originated outside of man) or subjective (originated within man).

As a biologist, I see belief in God-given morality as American's [sic] biggest impediment to accepting the fact of evolution.

I see reason as Americans' biggest impediment to accepting the fact of evolution.

"Evolution," many argue, "could never have given us feelings of kindness, altruism and morality. For if we were merely evolved beasts, we would act like beasts. Surely our good behavior, and the moral sentiments that promote it, reflect impulses that God instilled in our soul."

Americans understand that moral law is objective. It is not mere opinion. It is not subjective. It has an Origin outside of man.

So while morality supposedly comes from God, immorality is laid at the door of Charles Darwin, who has been blamed for everything from Nazism to the shootings in Columbine.

Immorality is from man's choice to disobey God. Coyne needs to brush up on Genesis 2.

Darwinism is just another in a long string of man's conceits and mistakes.

Why it couldn't be God

But though both moral and immoral behaviors can be promoted by religions, morality itself — either in individual behavior or social codes — simply cannot come from the will or commands of a God. This has been recognized by philosophers since the time of Plato.

Religious people can appreciate this by considering Plato's question: Do actions become moral simply because they're dictated by God, or are they dictated by God because they are moral?

The Euthyphro dilemma. Coyne's error is to assume that there are only two answers to it.

There is a third answer, the Christian answer:

God is Goodness. His acts are Good because that is Who He is. God is not a moral actor, pincered in a dilemma. The Euthyphro dilemma is a category error. God transcends moral action. He is Goodness.

Coyne seems unaware of this ancient Christian resolution of the Euthyphro dilemma.

It doesn't take much thought to see that the right answer is the second one.

The right answer is the third one, Jerry, the one you don't know.

Why? Because if God commanded us to do something obviously immoral, such as kill our children or steal, it wouldn't automatically become OK. Of course, you can argue that God would never sanction something like that because he's a completely moral being, but then you're still using some idea of morality that is independent of God. Either way, it's clear that even for the faithful, God cannot be the source of morality but at best a transmitter of some human-generated morality.

Coyne is a better biologist than a theologian. In what sense is God "at best a transmitter of some human-generated morality". Like a call-in radio show?

This isn't just philosophical rumination, because God — at least the God of Christians and Jews — repeatedly sanctioned or ordered immoral acts in the Old Testament. These include slavery (Leviticus 25:44-46), genocide (Deuteronomy 7:1-2; 20:16-18), the slaying of adulterers and homosexuals, and the stoning of non-virgin brides (Leviticus 20:10, 20:13, Deuteronomy 22:20-21).

The Israelites were a barbaric people and the Levitical code was God's first step in teaching them His Law. It was a long process. The Prophets pleaded for justice and mercy (why do atheists always quote Leviticus and not Isaiah?).

Finally, God came Himself the set things right.

The mistake atheists make in attributing immorality to God by quoting the historical books of the Pentateuch is that they forget that God created man with free will, and He had to work with very hard hearts and very unruly people.

The Prophets observed that the Israelites were far from God's heart, and that justice and mercy were the core of God's Law. Ultimately, God set it right, Himself.

Was God being moral when, after some children made fun of the prophet Elisha's bald head, he made bears rip 42 of them to pieces (2 Kings 2:23-24)?

The "children" were youths (in Hebrew the same word was used to describe Joseph when he was 28 years old), which in this context means young men, not little kids. There were many of them, a mob, most likely more than just 42. Their mockery of Elisha's baldness is mockery of his status as a prophet (prophets often shaved their head and a shaved head was considered a mark of a prophet). The term "go up" refers to Elijah's (Elisha's teacher) going up to heaven.


This was a gang of young men ganging up on and mocking God's prophet, an old man. The implication was that mob violence against Elisha was in the offing.


Coyne doesn't let Biblical scholarship get in the way of a talking point.

Even in the New Testament, Jesus preaches principles of questionable morality, barring heaven to the wealthy (Matthew 19:24), approving the beating of slaves (Luke 12:47-48), and damning sinners to the torments of hell (Mark 9:47-48). Similar sentiments appear in the Quran.

There are straightforward understandings of these parables and teachings that have nothing to do with Coyne's grammar school interpretations.

Now, few of us see genocide or stoning as moral, so Christians and Jews pass over those parts of the Bible with judicious silence.

Stoning is often discussed by Christians. John 7:53-8:11 is the text. This beautiful pericope is the paradigm for resistance to violent retribution.

But that's just the point. There is something else — some other source of morality — that supersedes biblical commands. When religious people pick and choose their morality from Scripture, they clearly do so based on extrareligious notions of what's moral.

Coyne attacks a caricature. "Religious people" as a rule don't "pick and choose" morality from Scripture. Morality is discerned through conscience, prayer, and thoughtful contemplation of Biblical teaching, in context, including all of the Bible, not just isolated passages out of context.

Ironically, Coyne and other evolutionary biologists protest furiously when people cherry-pick evolutionary writings to make evolution look ridiculous. As a system of thought, both Christianity and Darwinism need to be understood in totality and context.

Further, the idea that morality is divinely inspired doesn't jibe with the fact that religiously based ethics have changed profoundly over time. Slavery was once defended by churches on scriptural grounds; now it's seen as grossly immoral. Mormons barred blacks from the priesthood, also on religious grounds, until church leaders had a convenient "revelation" to the contrary in 1978. Catholics once had a list of books considered immoral to read; they did away with that in 1966. Did these adjustments occur because God changed His mind? No, they came from secular improvements in morality that forced religion to clean up its act.

Slavery was never defensible, and anyone that did defend it was wrong. It was the Christian understanding of man-- as a spiritual being created in God's image-- that ended slavery. Abolition movements-- from the Catholic church to William Wilberforce to the antebellum American abolitionist movement-- were deeply Christian movements.

And it's ironic that Coyne attributes moral progress to the rising secular tide that brought us Nazism and Communism.

...So where does morality come from, if not from God? Two places: evolution and secular reasoning.

"Evolution and secular reasoning" are the source of morality". How did I guess?

Despite the notion that beasts behave bestially, scientists studying our primate relatives, such as chimpanzees, see evolutionary rudiments of morality: behaviors that look for all the world like altruism, sympathy, moral disapproval, sharing — even notions of fairness. This is exactly what we'd expect if human morality, like many other behaviors, is built partly on the genes of our ancestors.

Exactly how is the observation that animals do some kind things (doesn't Coyne have a dog?) inconsistent with Christianity?

And the conditions under which humans evolved are precisely those that would favor the evolution of moral codes: small social groups of big-brained animals. When individuals in a group can get to know, recognize and remember each other, this gives an advantage to genes that make you behave nicely towards others in the group, reward those who cooperate and punish those who cheat. That's how natural selection can build morality.

Natural selection: Struggle for survival. Behave nicely. Survival of the fittest. Reward those who cooperate. Selfish genes. Build morality.

Explains everything. Explains nothing.

Secular reason adds another layer atop these evolved behaviors, helping us extend our moral sentiments far beyond our small group of friends and relatives — even to animals.

What does secular reason (is) have to do with morality (ought)?

Should we be afraid that a morality based on our genes and our brains is somehow inferior to one handed down from above? Not at all. In fact, it's far better, because secular morality has a flexibility and responsiveness to social change that no God-given morality could ever have.

The 20th century was the century of secular morality in Europe.

World War I. World War II. Nazism. Vichy France. Quisling Norway. Communism. The Holocaust. The Holodomor. The Armenian Genocide. Londonistan. The self-immolation, enfeeblement and decline of European civilization.

Discuss.

Secular morality is what pushes religion to improve its own dogma on issues such as slavery and the treatment of women.

One of the reasons for the rapid spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire was the enormously improved status it gave to women. If you want a good example of secular morality's take on women, think Larry Flint and Marquis deSade.

And abolition of slavery was a Christian movement. Name the atheists who ended slavery.

Secular morality is what prevents ethically irrelevant matters — what we eat, read or wear, when we work, or whom we have sex with — from being grouped with matters of genuine moral concern, like rape and child abuse.

This point was made, emphatically, by the Hebrew Prophets 2500 years ago, and was the central point of Christ's ethical teaching.

Secular moralists are finally coming around.

And really, isn't it better to be moral because you've worked out for yourself — in conjunction with your group — the right thing to do, rather than because you want to propitiate a god or avoid punishment in the hereafter?

I'm always comforted when I'm dealing with a guy who makes up his own morals. How about you?

Nor should we worry that a society based on secular morality will degenerate into lawlessness.

Please ignore the 20th century.

That experiment has already been done — in countries such as Sweden and Denmark that are largely filled with non-believers and atheists.

Both nations have 1000-year Christian traditions, and still have Established State Churches.

Notice that Coyne didn't include atheist showcases like North Korea or the Soviet Union as secular morality "experiments".

I can vouch from experience that secular European nations are full of well-behaved and well-meaning citizens, not criminals and sociopaths running amok.

World War I. World War II. Cold War. 20th century secular Europe. Criminals and sociopaths running amok.

Coyne arrived late for his European vacation and missed the bad guys.

In fact, you can make a good case that those countries, with their liberal social views and extensive aid for the sick, old and disadvantaged, are even more moral than America.

Socialism = morality. Until you run out of other people's money.

Clearly, you can be good without God.

Jerry Coyne can be good, by his own lights, without God.

Not me. I can't be good even with God. I think Coyne and I understand "good" in different ways. Jesus told a parable about this, about the publican and the sinner (Luke 18:9-14). I'm a sinner to the core, struggling every day. I ask the Lord for His mercy, and for His strength. I accept His sacrifice for me.

I've learned this much: I can't make it on my own. I'm not even close to good. For a Christian, that's where real morality begins.

Butterfly on Feser's wheel: Jason Rosenhouse

Jason Rosenhouse has mixed it up with Ed Feser on the cosmological arguments.

Bad idea.

Rosenhouse, one of the marginally better educated Darwinists, finds himself utterly outclassed by Feser. Feser is a superb philosopher and is the most lucid writer I have read on Aquinas and the arguments for God's existence. He is a former atheist-turned-Catholic (a man after my own heart). He treats atheism with the disdain it deserves.

I'll try to post quite a bit on this exchange. I'll start now with Rosenhouse's synopsis of his 'dismissal' of the cosmological arguments:

As for the cosmological argument itself, I make no apology for being dismissive.

He should apologize.

First, there is no 'cosmological argument', but rather cosmological arguments. 


Cosmological arguments are a series of deductive demonstrations of the impossibility of infinite regress in a  series of essentially ordered causes. Aquinas' First Way, Second Way, and Third Way are each a cosmological argument.  


Rosenhouse dismisses them because he is ignorant of them, and he's too dumb/lazy/dishonest to learn what the arguments really are. 

Depending on what version you are considering, you can expect to find concepts like causality or probability being used in domains where they do not clearly apply

Cosmological arguments are deductive, not inductive. Probability arguments are not used at all in cosmological arguments.

Probability arguments are used in the teleological argument (Aquinas' Fifth Way). The teleological argument is not one of the cosmological arguments.

Rosenhouse is an idiot.

The argument that 'causality is used in an inappropriate domain' is wrong as well. There is no break or "inappropriate domain" (whatever he means) in the chain of causality in the argument.

... or dubious arguments for why an actual infinity cannot exist,

The argument that an actual infinity of essentially ordered causes cannot exist is not "dubious". The argument is logical, straightforward, and irrefutable (here, about halfway down the post).

...or highly questionable premises about the beginnings of the universe

Aarrghh...! The cosmological argument has nothing to do with the beginning of the universe.

Allow me to repeat, in case I wasn't clear:

The cosmological argument has nothing to do with the beginning of the universe.

Oh, let me put it all in bold:

The cosmological argument has nothing to do with the beginning of the universe.

Aquinas (and Aristotle) presumed an eternal universe. Aquinas (and Aristotle) presumed a universe without beginning. The arguments demonstrate the need for a Prime Mover/First Cause/Necessary Being at every moment in time. Whether time has a beginning or not is irrelevant to the cosmological arguments. They all refer to order of causation in priority, not in time. Cosmological arguments demonstrate the need for a cause here and now, at every moment. The cosmological argument has nothing to do with the Big Bang. (see here again for a more detailed explanation)

or about how everything that began to exist must have had a cause,

That's the conclusion, not the premise, of one of the cosmological arguments, which has never been successfully refuted.

or groundless invocations of the principle of sufficient reason.

The invocations of the principle of sufficient reason (PSR) are not groundless. The PSR-- that anything that happens, happens for a reason-- is the foundation for all reasoning. If things happen without reason, then there is no reason to do science. Why study the evolutionary history of vertebrates if vertebrates could emerge without any reason at all. Just happened. The ultimate Occam's Razor.

Why do any systematic investigation of nature at all, when it's so much simpler to say that nature just happens. Gravity? Gravity just happens. No gravitons, no space time, no non-Euclidean geometry or  Reimann curvature tensor. No need for any reason for gravity. Gravity just happens, whenever, whatever.

Contra Rosenhouse, no invocation of the principle of sufficient reason is "groundless". The intelligibility of nature depends on the PSR. If the PSR can be suspended for the universe, it can be suspended for anything in the universe.

'Oh', you say, 'we have evidence that there are reasons for things in nature'.

No, I reply. If something can happen without reason, then the whole chain of inference falls apart. You can't establish deductive or inductive casual relations if the chain can include 'happened without reason'. Even if you don't know the reason, it is necessary to presume that there is a reason or the causal chain is not a chain. Denial of the PSR is denial of reason. All reason.

The only reason to abandon the PSR is if you're an atheist and logical arguments for God's existence are irrefutable.

Think of what Rosenhouse is doing here: he is trapped by the logic of the cosmological arguments, and needs to deny reason to extricate himself.

You inevitably come so perilously close to assuming what you are trying to prove that you may as well just assume God exists and be done with it.

The cosmological arguments assume only three things:

1) Logic
2) Genuine understanding of the arguments
3) Integrity of individuals critiquing the arguments.

Rosenhouse fails on all three.

American Atheists spokesman claims death threats

Jerry Coyne has a post about alleged death threats against the communications director of American Atheists:

More death threats from religious folks

Yesterday Blair Scott, communications director for American Atheists, was on the FOX News show America Live with Megyn Kelly. You can see the show here; sadly, I can’t watch it in Russia.

As soon as Scott returned home after the show, his inbox began filling up with hate mail and threats. Equally distressing, the Fox News Facebook page was soon inundated with death threats aimed at Scott and atheists in general, comments that are being taken down rapidly (see the report by William Hamby in the Atlanta Examiner).

The American Atheists web page has put up some screenshots of those comments posted on the Fox FB site. Here are the words of some loving Christians, with their real names...

[Coyne has a screenshot of some of the threats]

So much for the beneficence and love of the faithful! And all for the crime of not sharing their superstitions! Now I’m not saying that these areserious threats, presaging murder, but I bet if these folks were given guns, and the law were suspended for one day . . .

Death threats are morally despicable criminal acts. People who make them are not Christians, by definition. They may attend church, take communion, etc, but if you threaten to kill people, you are not in communion  with Christ and you are no Christian. My hope is:

1) The people who made these threats never act on them, nor make them again.
2) They seek forgiveness and penance for this mortal sin.

That said, one needs to approach Scott's claim with caution. There is no independent evidence that any of these emails are from Christians, or are even genuine. There is nothing here that would be called evidence of any probative sort. American Atheists has a history of deceit and criminality. We are asked to take Mr. Scott on his word.

Coyne, as is his wont, makes an assertion so bizarre that you have to wonder if he was sober when he made it:

Perhaps some atheists have issued death threats against religious people, but I don’t know of any, and, at any rate, they must be much rarer than those aimed in the opposite direction.

Well, Jerry, here is richly detailed scholarly documentation of atheist death threats murder of religious people specifically because of their religious beliefs. The number in the 20th century was about 30 million Christians killed because they were Christians. Nearly all were killed by atheist regimes.

As it turns out, there were several members of American Atheists murdered in 1995. Madelyn Murray O'Hair, founder of American Atheists, and two of her children were murdered by David Roland Waters. Waters was a long-time employee of... The 700 Club Liberty University Catholic Charities American Atheists.

O'Hair's estranged son William Murray explained that his mother hired violent atheist criminals because:

  "She got a sense of power out of having men in her employ who had taken human life."

O'Hair is [in]famous for filing the lawsuit that ultimately banned prayer in public schools.

Atheists remind us why we don't like them

From CNN:

Atheist group wants to stop World Trade Center cross

(CNN) -- A group of atheists has filed a lawsuit to stop the display of the World Trade Center cross at a memorial of the 9/11 terror attacks.

The "government enshrinement of the cross was an impermissible mingling of church and state," the American Atheists say in a press statement.

The group says it filed the lawsuit this week in state court in New York and posted a copy of the lawsuit on its website.

The lawsuit names many defendants, including the state of New Jersey, the city of New York , New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

The World Trade Center cross, two intersecting steel beams that held up when the twin towers collapsed on September 11, 2001, is seen as iconic to some.

The cross was moved Saturday from near a church to its new home at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. There was also ceremonial blessing of the cross in a service led by Father Brian Jordan, a Franciscan monk who ministered to workers clearing the area after the 9/11 attacks.

Joe Daniels, 9/11 Memorial president, said Saturday that the cross is "an important part of our commitment to bring back the authentic physical reminders that tell the history of 9/11 in a way nothing else could.

"Its return is a symbol of the progress on the Memorial & Museum that we feel rather than see, reminding us that commemoration is at the heart of our mission."

But the atheist group says the cross sends a symbol of something different.

"The WTC cross has become a Christian icon," said Dave Silverman, president of the atheist group. "It has been blessed by so-called holy men and presented as a reminder that their god, who couldn't be bothered to stop the Muslim terrorists or prevent 3,000 people from being killed in his name, cared only enough to bestow upon us some rubble that resembles a cross. It's a truly ridiculous assertion."

Atheism a hateful totalitarian ideology. Wherever atheism gains power, basic rights are cast aside. Atheists' transparent goal is to use censorship and government force to exterminate Christianity.

The proper legal response to this disgusting lawsuit is to dismiss it with prejudice, and to assess the atheist b*stards who filed it with court costs.

Why I'm a Christian

From time to time I'll post some thoughts on why I became a Christian about 6 years ago.

The short answer to 'why I'm a Christian' is God's grace. He came looking for me, long before I was looking for Him. I'm sure that God speaks to each person in a unique way, because He knows our hearts.  In my life God speaks to me by showing me. When I ask a question in prayer,  His answer usually comes in an act, sometimes several days later, that I see as His reply. It has happened to me so many times now that it no longer surprises me. I'll want His guidance, and He provides it, by showing me the answer.

I had been an atheist/agnostic most of my life. I was raised in a functionally atheist home. My mom dragged me to church on occasions, but it was more social than spiritual.

I liked Ayn Rand for a while in college. Rand's atheism made a lot of sense to me. I liked her comparison between totalitarian thugs and mystic thugs. Reason seemed a fine thing to worship. I was a little uncomfortable with the suspicion that Rand's ideology could lead to a particularly ugly form of repression itself, because it was based in no objective moral code except "A is A" and rational self-interest. I wasn't so sure that that code would end well if widely practiced, but my affection for Objectivism remained.

The portrayal of Howard Roark in the Fountainhead fascinated me. Still does, in a way. I never liked Atlas Shrugged (too strident), and I was never an Objectivist in any formal sense. I never wore an dollar-bill-broach and I didn't smoke. But Rand got me thinking, at a young age. My thoughts took me in a different direction, but I have to thank her at least for that.

I had been a faithful atheist for many years. I liked Christians. I respected Christianity. I didn't think it was nuts, just untrue. Too good to be true. I equated Christian belief with televangelists, who I despised.  I still don't like them, although I seem them a bit more sympathetically than I did. I believed that Darwin explained life and Hawking explained the universe and that science was the reliable path to knowledge.

But I came across a quote from St. Paul. I don't recall where I saw it, or even exactly when, except that it was years ago. I seem to remember that it was in an essay that wasn't particularly religious. The quote struck me as more philosophical than religious when I heard it, but I couldn't get it out of my mind. The quote was:

"What do you have that you did not receive?"

It haunted me. The context was that Paul was chastising the Corinthian Christians for taking pride in their sectarian faith or in their personal abilities (1Cor 4:7). I think that he also meant it in a much more general sense.

I couldn't stop thinking about it.

What did I have that I did not receive? I had always been an ambitious person. My family was poor. We were on welfare for a while when I was a kid. I became a paratrooper in the Army, went to an Ivy League college, got into an Ivy League medical school, became a neurosurgeon. I married a wonderful woman-- the love of my life-- and I had four great kids I love with all my heart.

I was a self-made man. But that line- "What do you have that you did not receive?"-- dogged me.

I couldn't stop thinking about it. Because when I thought about it, I realized how utterly contingent I was. Where I was born, how I was raised, my health and intellect, nearly all of the chance and purpose in my life, was not from me.   My life was largely without my request and without my consent. It could be altered or ended without my consent. Certainly I worked hard, and took opportunities when I found them, but nearly all that I took pride in I received, in a very real sense. My health, my life, my abilities, my circumstances, the good and the bad, were not from me in any essential way.

That is not to say that I didn't take responsibility for myself. I did, and do. But I was overwhelmed with the fact of how little of my life was not received. I was not my own.

I saw that this wasn't a scientific question, in the sense that I could explain things by biology, etc. It was deeper than that. It was a question about ultimate origins, not mechanism. When I thought about mechanism, I saw how shallow that was. Science described things, but didn't explain them, in any ultimate way. The real question was my origin.

I came to see that I was contingent. That just as my life began without my having any say, it could end without my having any say. I came to see that I was not responsible for my existence. My experiences in medicine brought that point home even more intensely: I saw people's lives changed radically in a moment, saved or lost by a power not theirs or ours.

I began to ask the obvious question: if what I have, I received, where did I get it from? What, or Who, gave it to me?

So I began looking.