Religious Implications of Atheism
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Language: English
This is a translation from Russian into English of the book Религиозные Аспекты Атеизма: Атеизм, Ислам и Христианство на языке Метафизики. Translated by the author.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture marked KJV comes from the King James Version.
Scripture marked LXX (in Greek) comes from the Biblia Graeca IVXTA LXX Interpretes (Septuaginta).
Praise for the Religious Implications of Atheism
A very good and timely book! Today, many people who seek God or hesitate in thought, especially observing the position, behavior and lifestyle of the Church hierarchy of various confessions, unfortunate people, easily fall under the influence of atheistic propaganda. This book is a wonderful answer and refutation of this propaganda, written by a very good and competent theologian. Comments are intelligible and well-grounded, easy and interesting to read! I recommend to everyone!
–Sergey N. Kurtalidi,
historian, theologian (Athens)
The format of this book is very interesting—a discussion within a discussion. I hope that the questions posed by the author will resonate with readers, and a discussion will emerge that expands and complements this debate. The book is written in good language, easy to read and interesting. The density of thought is high. I also want to note that the author’s proposal to read selectively interested topics makes sense. The book is made so that it can be read in arbitrary parts, and not just sequentially. The book touches upon not only theological and philosophical aspects, but also publicistic and historical prospects.
–Yaroslav Taran,
poet, writer, editor-in-chief of the portal “Air Castle” (St. Petersburg)
Foreword by Ronald Kirk
Atheism except by the grace of God is hardwired into mankind’s spiritual DNA. The original sin made us think we were clever. Our thoughts were equal to the Creator’s thoughts, or superior. So rather than judge ourselves by God’s Word as we ought, we routinely choose to judge God by our fallen, humanistic standards. Thus, practical if not philosophical atheism prevails in the world. We know God, but we naturally and universally suppress the truth in unrighteousness to our own hurt (Rom. 1:18).
Thanks to God our Savior for His grace, for not leaving us in that condition! He is wont to save His creatures, those whom He created in His own image. Yet He also makes us partners, however minor, in the redemption of His people. Therefore, knowing what we are up against is central to the calling of the Great Commission to make Christ’s disciples.
To offer a bit of an aid in this quest, after Cornelius Van Til and Rousas J. Rushdoony, I am a presuppositional apologist. Referencing the debate between Hamza Tzortzis and Lawrence Krauss from this book, the reason they cannot agree is that they operate on entirely different premises, literally completely different universes. One universe is finite and acts according to fixed Law. The other, according to Krauss, is a multi-verse of infinite members capable of absolutely any character. Ultimate contingency. Anything can and like does happen. Empirical arguments such as are common in evangelical apologetics depend on a common ground that does not really exist, unless one is willing to assume a Biblical perspective at least for the sake of argument.
In the documentary movie, The Principle, Krauss admits what NASA has found—a plane field of ancient extensive microwave energy resulting from creation propagates on the equator of the Earth. His only response is that sure, it exists in this universe, but likely not in the rest of the multi-verse. In other words, his scientific, materialistic answer is that he must base his answer speculatively on the supposition of a reality of his imagination alone! He merely begs the question: how is this scientific?
The materialist’s problem is a deep one. Cosmologist Paul Steinhardt, one of the architects of the Big Bang theory, and of the theory of inflation—that tiny fraction of a second when chaos becomes order—has second thoughts. About a decade ago Steinhardt reversed his original view as an impossibility due to a probability of one in a googolplex [ten to the power of 10 100]. In other words, something caused Steinhardt, on this point, to abandon the notion of ultimate contingency in favor of a creationist universe of law. [1]
A fluid and inconsistent view of reality is the most common practice among the supposedly rational materialists. With Jean Paul Sartre, knowledge of reality is impossible, but since we live in this world with all its laws, meaning and consequences, we take a leap of faith to accept it—though not the God of this reality. In so suppressing the knowledge of God in unrighteousness (cf. Rom. 1:18), they give themselves license to make themselves god.
Closer to home, an elderly friend, a brilliant died-in-the-wool scientific materialist, admitted that he had no rational basis for his beliefs regarding origins, law, love, meaning, self-sacrifice—which he himself lived—etc. Yet he insisted we Christians are irrational. There is no ground of argument with such a person. He will always have a response to any empirical evidence. When I mentioned Steinhardt’s reversal with reference to the odds against inflation, he answered it is only zeros. I asked in return if I could borrow a thousand dollars, since I could repay with my own idea of zeroes. Even he had to smile at that. What was so frustrating was that he lived a more consistently Christian life than many Christians I know.
Jesus said, we know a tree by its fruit. This is the basis of a Biblical epistemology. What are the consequences of practical atheism? What are the consequences of the Biblical view of all things? The atheistic model cannot predict meaning, love, etc. Ultimate contingency holds inherently, if consistent, zero meaning, zero law, zero morality. Materialistic environmentalists assume a moral superiority of non-human nature over humanity. On what rational ground? How is there any basis of judgment without a fixed law?
On the other hand, the Biblical model, when one is willing to assume the presupposition for the sake of argument, even as a purely scientific model, does an infinitely better job of predicting nature, human conduct, etc. Again, with Van Til and Rushdoony, my apologetic is presuppositional. God never defends His existence or His Ways. Rather He merely declares them. Likewise, the Bible never defends God’s existence or His Ways. Apostle Paul merely asserts that we ought not to say to the Potter, why do You make us thus? (Rom. 9:20–21)
I pray the reader of Religious Implications of Atheism: Atheism, Islam, and Christianity in the Language of Metaphysics, particularly the atheist, honestly consider the power of the original sin in all of us, and its clear, rational remedy—the grace of God, ready to be found if we only grope for it (cf. Acts 17:27).
Ronald W. Kirk
Student of God’s Ways
Сhief editor of Nordskog Publishing
(мanuscript review and theology)
[Ronald Kirk has walked with Christ for over forty-seven years. He devoted himself to the lifelong endeavor of bridging the proverbial gap between theology and practice in every area of life. God honored this conviction with a thoroughly Biblical philosophy, method, and content for education proved over twenty-five years of practical development, including highly successful classroom application kindergarten through high school and beyond—regardless of native ability or previous educational experience. A Providential view of history allows making the best use of the lessons of history, from the consequence of choices—godly or humanistic, with their good or evil results]
Acknowledgments
First of all, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to everyone who, in one way or another, by deed, word, thought, contributed to the publication of this book. I would especially like to thank Ronald W. Kirk who kindly agreed to write the Foreword. It is perfectly natural to give thanks for the good, and similar acknowledgments occur in many books.
However, one of the paradoxical features of Christianity is the commandment to love enemies. Christians pray, among other things, for those who hate and offend them. This book examines aspects of atheism, which, not only in words, but sometimes in deeds, is at war with the religious worldview. Therefore, often atheism does not cause positive emotions in religious people, just as it does not cause positive emotions, for example, fly larvaes.
Nevertheless, I would like to draw attention to the fact that even completely unsightly fly larvae can be of great benefit. They can clear trophic ulcers, wounds and bedsores from infection several times faster than traditional therapy. In some cases, using fly larvae to fight infection is much safer, more effective and cheaper than antibacterial drugs. Fly larvae eat only dead tissue, without touching healthy ones. Thus, they cleanse the wound and promote its healing much better than antibiotics.
Likewise, atheists can expose and criticize only dead and sick areas of religions. The healthy part of religions is too tough for atheists. If a human had a personal metaphysical experience of “touching other worlds,” then he will never forgott this experience, and atheists will never be able to convince him. In addition, atheists will never say that the biblical commandments are bad and must be fought against. On the contrary, the moral code of the builder of communism was copied from the biblical commandments, since atheists could not think of anything better.
Of course, delusions and superstitions within religion have always been criticized by religious people, trying to separate the human from the divine. However, their voice was often too weak to reverse negative tendencies. Atheists approached religions with a heavy hammer of criticism, and began to test the strength of all religious foundations. In many things, the atheists were deluded themselves, and their blows did not reach the target. On the other hand, the problems that atheists rightly pointed out were already criticized by religious people long before the atheists. The atheists just once again drew attention to them and contributed to their wide discussion.
Thus, it is worth to thank the atheists for their unsightly “fly larvae work”. It is worth thanking them here and now, and not only thanking them, but also pitying them, because they do not understand what they are deprived of (Ps. 39:4).
Introduction
“We want to know in order to live. And to live means, on the other hand, to live not in blindness and darkness, but in the light of knowledge . . . And in the last depth of our being, we feel that the light of knowledge and the highest good of life we are looking for are two sides of the same principle.”
– S. L. Frank [2]
From time immemorial, people have argued about the criteria of truth, about the meaning of human life and about the nature of things. Usually this was expressed in religious disputes. About two hundred years ago, atheism arose in Christian Europe, and began to take part in these disputes. Many books have been written on these topics. Nevertheless, a book is a monologue of one author. A more complete picture is obtained when different colors and contrast are present in it. Therefore, it is advisable to conduct dialogues, trialogues, disputes, in which representatives of different points of view argue. For two hundred years, there have already been thousands of disputes on the topic “Religion and Atheism”, in which, as a rule, representatives of Christianity or Islam speak about religion. The titles of these disputes can vary widely. For example, there might be a title “Religion and Science”, “Religion and Evolution”, “I don’t believe!” etc. However, the essence is the same everywhere and the arguments for each side are approximately the same. It is like a children’s carousel where you can change animal figures. You can exchange horses for donkeys, camels, giraffes, etc., but the rotation mechanism and trajectory will be the same. Therefore, the disputes of the twenty-first century, in fact, differ little from the disputes of the nineteenth century. For two centuries, almost nothing has changed. Perhaps, it is impossible to reach a consensus between religions and atheism through disputes, controversies, and discussions.
Therefore, we will try to consider the discussed problems alone, in creative silence, that is, we will present our views in the genre of Plato’s Dialogues. However, it would not be correct to analyze the dispute between atheists and believers in a completely abstract way, without reference to specific individuals. It is not very nice to argue with fictitious opponents and refute the arguments of marginal anonymous (as atheists often do). Therefore, we will comment on one specific dispute here, by the example of which we will try to reveal the essence of all similar disputes. This is a debate between a prominent representative of Atheism and a well-known representative of Islam. In addition, we will comment on their polemic from the point of view of Christianity. Thus, three points of view will be presented here, and the problems discussed will be shown as if in “three-dimensional”.
Debate video source:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=uSwJuOPG4FI
Title:
The Big Debates: Islam or Atheism—Which Makes More Sense?
London, March 9, 2013
Participants:
Professor Lawrence Maxwell Krauss is a renowned cosmologist and popularizer of science, founder of the Faculty of Earth and Space Studies and honorary director of the “Origins” project at the University of Arizona (USA), author of about three hundred scientific publications and nine books, including international bestsellers “The Physics of Star Trek” and “A Universe from Nothing: why there is something rather than nothing”.
Hamza Andreas Tzortzis is a student of the organization “Islamic Thought”, author, lecturer, employee of the Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA).
00:00:24: Introduction – Timothy Yusuf Chambers (Moderator)
00:06:30: Opening Remarks – Hamza Tzortzis
00:32:02: Opening Remarks – Lawrence Krauss
00:59:33: Rebuttal – Hamza Tzortzis
01:14:28: Rebuttal – Lawrence Krauss
01:22:43: Summary Discussion
01:42:07: Question & Answer Session
02:06:00: Closing Remarks – Lawrence Krauss
02:07:50: Closing Remarks – Hamza Tzortzis
Below we will alternate our comments with quotes from the debates, highlighting them in different fonts. For this, we transcribed the video into text. For the sake of brevity, we have skipped irrelevant parts of the discussion. The timestamps are indicated in square brackets.
Debates and Comments
[00:00:58–00:03:03] Moderator: I start by praising God, the Compassionate, the Merciful . . . Peace be upon whole gathering! . . . Welcome and thank you very much for attending. This that I hope will be a seminal debate between two respected speakers on the left and the right. That is all about. It is about a debate and it is about of come together and been truth to each other . . . Tonight’s challenging debates in title “Islam or Atheism: Which Makes More Sense?” is not happening in a vacuum, quantum and otherwise. It is taking place within a context of the world full of human beings looking for answers, in a world similarly full of Western promise, a world full of information hub by the IT. However, IT and we seem fail to adequately answer the most fundamental questions about life, our existence . . .
Comment 1
In general, everything he said correctly, however, the formulations are not quite clear. Any instrument cannot measure meaning, and one cannot say where it is more and where it is less. The meaning is either there or not. It would be more correct to say, “Islam or Atheism: what gives a person the meaning of life?”
It is also not clear what “Western priorities” are meant? For the last two hundred years, the West has been dominated by secular, that is, atheistic priorities. Fundamental questions, which from time immemorial have occupied the best minds of humankind: “How to find the truth?”, “How to distinguish between good and evil?” and so on, previously were solved in a metaphysical or religious context. The atheistic worldview directed the search vector to purely material aspects. Only that which can be verified by experiment began to be considered true. In general, instead of asking, “Where is the truth?” the priority was given to the question: “What is more useful?” Instead of metaphysical moral truths, the priority was given to the question, “How to become successful and avoid failures,” etc. Information technology has nothing to do with it. This is just a technical tool that does not answer any questions. However, if people replace live interpersonal relationships only with dry transmission of information, then some metaphysical qualia [3] disappear from these relationships.
The poet Yevgeny Baratynsky well expressed this general tendency back in 1842 in the following verses:
“The century walks along its iron path;
In the hearts of self-interest, and a common dream
Hour by hour vital and useful
Clearer, shamelessly busy.
Disappeared in the light of enlightenment
Poetry, childish dreams
And generations are not worried about it,
They are devoted to industrial cares”. [4]
On metaphysics
Here we will often talk about metaphysics. Therefore, it is worth noting that the term “metaphysics” arose quite accidentally. In in the seventies BC Andronicus from the island of Rhodes systematized the works of Aristotle and arranged them thematically. At the beginning, treatises related to the laws of nature (Gr. φύσης) were collected, and after them (Gr. µετά τα φυσικά), works of a philosophical nature were placed.
Despite the fact that metaphysics often talks about God and immaterial entities, it cannot be equated with religion. Aristotle did not write about religion. He simply divided the realm of reality, which can be cognized by rational and experimental methods (physics) and the realm of reality, which can only be spoken about in the language of philosophy (metaphysics). Thus, he was well aware that the methods of physics (and other rational sciences) have a limited field of application, with their help it is possible to study only part of reality.
Aristotle laid the foundations of physics (as a systematic science) and he also laid the foundations of metaphysics (as a separate field of knowledge). So if physicists ridicule metaphysics, they ridicule the founder of physics.
Moderator: Which is, of course, the main core area, we gone be addressing tonight in this auditorium in London . . .
I remember, you know, spending a large part of my life asking myself, “Why am I here? Who created me? Do I have a purpose?” Do we be certain about any of these questions?
Comment 2
Of course, these questions concern humanity throughout all its history. Exactly these metaphysical questions are underlying any religion. In search of answers to these questions, people look at these debates [5] and others like them.
Therefore, it would be logical to ask prof. Krauss, an cosmologist-atheist, how from the “quantum fog” or from the “Big Bang” to go to a person interested in the issues of being and the meaning of life, his own higher destiny. Evolution cannot be involved in this, since these questions are purely metaphysical and have nothing to do with natural selection or adaptation for the sake of survival. No animals ask such questions in principle, and they have nothing like this even in embryonic form. Unfortunately, the participants in the debate did not even come close to this important topic at all.
Comment 3
The Same “Dimension” of Atheism and Religion
This is perhaps the first religious aspect of atheism to pay attention too. In physics, the concept of dimension plays an important role. One can somehow compare and contrast values of only one dimension. It is impossible, for example, to compare mass and temperature, something triangular and something bright. The same is in the field of human thought and creativity. Nobody will have a debate on the topic: “Mathematics or Music—Which Makes More Sense?” “Chess or Swimming—Which Makes More Sense?” There has never been a debate on the topic: “Atheism or Architecture—Which Makes More Sense?” or something similar. However, the debate on the topic: “Atheism vs Religion” happen very often. Moreover, they happen in the same way as the debates between different religions.
Attempts are sometimes made to bring atheism to a “common denominator” with religions, considering it as a worldview. However, the worldview is an attribute of religion. Therefore, Krauss avoids the term, preferring to emphasize a “common sense”. Nevertheless, no matter how one characterizes atheism; common sense and whatever else and all the same can be found in any religion. Thus, the very fact of the debate between religions and atheism speaks of their equal conditional “dimension”—this is one area of the human spirit.
Moderator: Once I asked a bishop, “What is the purpose of life?” And he said to me, “Go and do a theology degree.” I am not telling you to do theology degree, I am asking you to sit here in the debate for two hours with my two honorable guests over here.
Comment 4
Of course, the bishop should not have rejected the person who asked difficult questions in such a way and put on him a burden that he could not bear. However, in theory, the bishop is right. In short, they may be misunderstood. Moreover, even a two-hour lecture will not help much. Jesus Christ taught the apostles for over three years, but they still did not understand much. Theological education takes much more time than, for example, studying physics or mathematics. In the nineteenth century in Russia, education at the Theological Seminary and Academy took twelve years. The same length of study now with Buddhists. I have been studying Christianity for over twenty five years, got my doctorate degree, but I see before me a whole ocean of unexplored. In general, despite two thousand years of hard work of theological thought, a long series of important questions remain unanswered.
Thus, any debate is not able to reveal the topic completely. This is just an entertaining show for those who do not want to read books. Nevertheless, we use them to provide a clear example of the points of view of the parties to the dispute.
[00:03:12–00:03:50] Moderator: But what, of course, we can do to inform our decisions about this debate tonight to use our reasoning, to use our mind, to use our intellect. And really to have an open mind set. Muslim, Non-Muslim, Christian, whatever you are, whatever you believe in, we should have an open mind set and really go at this with sincerity. I am just asking you, I am asking myself first . . .
[00:03:55–00:05:17] Moderator: This evening two major belief systems, if you like, claim to the truth and going head to head. No matter which side of a fence you tend to reside on. But at the end of the night you will be better informed about Atheism and about Islam . . . And after that there will be “crossfire”. Only without weapons! No heavy arms to be use in this section, both of you. Okay? Good? Although, I understand that tongue is a lot more dangerous than nuclear weapons . . .
[00:07:18–00:07:47] Tzortzis: Today’s question: “Islam or Atheism—Which Makes More Sense?” I would argue that if we use our reason, our rational faculties, we will definitely come to the conclusion, that Islam makes more sense. I will use two simple arguments to verify that claim. Argument number one: Islam makes sense of the origin of the universe. Argument number two: Islam makes sense of the nature of the Qur’anic discourse . . .