Atheism vs. Christianity (Pro - Atheist, Con - Christian)

Text note: I am choosing to uniformly use the New Living Translation of the Bible when citing verses in this post. There are varying translations, on a spectrum from what is typically called "word-for-word" to "thought-for-thought" to ones that depart from the structure of the original text to try to capture the meaning in more modern language. I like NLT as being a pretty good balance; I also regularly use and refer to the New International Version, but NLT just a little more readable. When I"m reading secondary works, unless the purpose is to compare verses, it makes me crazy when writers move back and forth between versions - so I will use only NLT in this entry. Argument 1 - Is a combination of the problem of the existence of evil in the world, and of the efficacy of prayer. As noted, there are two arguments embedded in the descriptions given. One is the problem of how evil, pain, suffering, war, disease, etc. can exist in the world if God exists, and the other is why God appears to answer some prayer but not others. On the first point, I do not know if we can find agreement or common ground. Since I have been asked to reply from a Christian perspective, I will; the Christian answer ultimately comes down to only two concepts - sin and free will. God, after making the world, said "Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us." (Gen 1:26 NLT). Later, the created humans allowed themselves to be deceived and chose not only to disobey God, but to then attempt to hide their guilt. Why did God allow this to happen? God created humans with the gift of free will; the freedom to choose, and to choose to love, lie, hate, and kill. Having given humans that gift, God does not violate it; if someone chooses to do evil, and in doing so inflicts harm on others, God respects that freedom as much as He respects the freedom to worship or to serve the poor. One of the things that makes Christianity different from many other religions is the importance placed on human free agency AND human individuality - God cares about each person, and each person is rewarded or judge individually based on the acts and choices of one lifetime. There are no repeats. However, "even though God has the right to show his anger and his power, he is very patient with those on whom his anger falls, who are destined for destruction." (Rom 9:22, NLT) Coming to grips with the messy world that God has allowed us to create means keeping all the strands of God"s character in mind. Yes, God is loving - and in fact personifies love in its purest form - and that love is why He gave us freedom in the first place. God is also Holy - God cannot tolerate sin, evil, or wickedness, and God"s standards of purity are unimaginably high. And God is Just - and will and must punish those who sin. BUT - because of His love, God has also agreed to take the just punishment for sin onto himself, sparing us, provided we accept and sincerely try to follow Him. I addressed the basic issue of prayer in the first posted argument. God knows and will provide what is ultimately good for us, as long as he does not violate the free will of other people. But what God understands as good may be different from what we understand as good, and God also has a longer frame of reference; what is terrible in the short term is far less significant on a timeline where "eternal" is in play. Argument 2 - Religions "Pro" argues that multiplicity of religions argues against the likelihood of God, since God would presumably want to clearly announce himself: "People have been trying to find some form of explanation for their existence. However, no one is quite sure who or where he/she is. If there was a god, we'd expect a definite being who proclaims his existence instead of letting the people take a wild guess." First, God has done an awful lot to directly announce his presence, and communicate it. Personally, as you can see, I have come to find the evidence compelling and convincing - and I don"t think I"m guessing. From the grandeur of creation itself and the physical beauty of the world and the universe to the attempts by God to communicate - including the inspiration and preservation of scripture - He has provided plenty of evidence. As I argued in my first post, the plurality of religions I find to be an argument FOR God. The mere fact that humans have such a deeply instinctive and universal impulse to seek the divine suggests to me a Creator, and the common threads that interweave through the religions of human history suggest vestiges of a common created nature and a common grasp of at least elements of God"s character and message. To the extent that they touch on similar aspects of God, I think that most world religions are trying to approach and understand the same God, and achieving varying degrees of closeness - but that only Christianity has pulled in all the elements of God"s character and successfully incorporated them into a coherent explanation for a messy world and for the problem of how a Holy and Just God can hold us to His standards - with the answer being that "God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God"s glorious standard. Yet God freely and graciously declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins." (Rom 3:21-24, NLT) Argument 3 - Timeline of Religion The proposition is that some form of evolutionary process is leading to a simplification and ultimate irrelevance and extinction of religion. I see the same process in a very different light: that God has been moving forward a plan for the salvation of the world, using imperfect vessels - humans - and has been contending for the future of the world and to get His message out correctly. The overall reduction in the number of faiths is part of the process of distillation - and eventually everyone left on earth will have to choose. When that happens, no one knows - we "do not know the day or the hour." (Matt 25:13, NLT) Rather, "the day of the Lord"s return will come unexpectedly, like a thief in the night. When people are saying, "Everything is peaceful and secure," then disaster will fall on them as suddenly as a pregnant woman"s labor pains begin. And there will be no escape. (1 Thess 5:2-3, NLT) In rebuttal to part of my previous argument, "Pro" argues that "Morality comes from us - we make it. It starts with a few biological sources, such as the basic survival instinct, and behaviors of social species. After that, human philosophy, and assessment of harm versus benefit, establish the remaining nuances of morality...The goals are to maximize benefit and happiness while minimizing harm and misery (which biology primes us to desire). Actions taken can be evaluated towards this goal as moral and immoral, respectively. How do we know not to kill people? Societies break down fairly fast if people run around slaughtering each other. It does not take long to figure out that this is a behavior that gets in the way of society - thus, it is determined to be 'bad'. It is reality based, not supernatural." [7] This argument breaks down quite a bit just looking at the 20th century. It"s always dangerous to make a National Socialist reference ("Godwin"s Law") - but Germany between 1939 and 1945 was a society where the killing of at least some people was seen as a "good" and even necessary by the ruling authority and by many who subscribed to the views propagated by that authority. And in that particular case, the killing of selected and targeted people or groups was not at all a threat to social order - on the contrary, it provided material benefit for many immediately and promised to do so for almost all eventually, and without anarchy or physical threat to the majority. By the logic above, the behavior should have been judged "good" on a reality basis by the society at large. Nonetheless, a large enough number knew it to be wrong that the government deliberately tried to hide its most brutal actions, and a minority of those who knew the truth believed it wrong enough to risk their lives in opposition. I am not using the example to argue that the Christian connections of many of those who resisted is an argument for a higher place for Christianity - there were far too many who kept silent. But I think the case does point out that very many people understood that the senseless killing was wrong even if it brought gain to their society, and enhanced its homogeneity and evident stability. I also submit that there needs to be some external standard by which we judge right and wrong - some absolute to which we repair for comparison when individual desires and social interpretations differ. Though I think there are some things I could add, I'm running out of allocated space (and time!), so I'll have to hand it back over for now.