I have been pushing myself recently.
To try and understand the atheistic ideology and worldview, I have recently read various materials and listened to debates by a couple of prominent detractors of the Christian faith, namely Sam Harris and posthumously, Christopher Hitchens. These men are and were formidable foes and counterpoints to the Judeo/Christian ethic.
I suppose I could go digging around in their past, their upbringing, their passions, their sexual orientations, their losses, and so forth, but I believe once a person is an adult, regardless of any childhood trauma and absent any legitimate necessity for professional treatment, they must confront the meaning of being with a little more humility.
In the case of Sam Harris, his commanding confidence overshadows a cohesive argument in rebuttal to a mass religious experience or expression in historical humanity. He aptly diminishes the narratives of people groups and glibly declares that most past spiritualism is superstition and ignorance. He alone, it seems, is the purveyor of truth and bases his rationale upon his extensive neurological background. What is lacking, is his explanation as to how a moral and ethical standard can be achieved absent a transcendent, vis-à-vis, God.
Even if I were to concede my religious underpinnings, which I am not, what would Harris propose for an alternative to the good versus evil paradox and who would arbitrate this orthodoxy?
Harris espouses that a better explanation is, if a person chooses a positive path, then positive or upward achievement follows. And conversely, if one chooses a negative path, then negativity or downwardness follows. But, again, he struggles to suggest a standard or measurement by which to evaluate the spectrum. Who decides good or bad, better or worse? Moreover, in what manner is justice achieved?
If death is the end, then do countless ruthless individuals and peoples get a pass for transgressions? Seems hardly a convincing argument to a utopia where just being is sufficient. If your or my “being” is abject suffering and justice is never meted out, then nihilism grips humanity and this is certainly no answer to a “positive path”.
While I continue to study the thinking behind secularism and humanism, not to mention atheism, I am left with an emptiness or perhaps, a narrowness in outlook. It seems every effort by supporters of anti-religious interests is intended to explain existence in a purely rational lens. The problem, of course, is that the rationale used is only based upon what is observable today. And even if scientific evidence were produced to prove God’s existence, and possibly His innocence in suffering, my apprehension is that even this would not satisfy.
From the very beginning mankind has had two choices: recognize God or reject Him. The irony, and perhaps the benevolent forbearance of God, is that man is given a voice to speak his heart. We can verbally and physically shake our fists at God for the perceived plight of humanity, or we can keep digging deeper into whatever manner God has revealed Himself and be thankful.
I appreciate a good debate, but being a detractor of the God of universe seems a losing proposition.
Still, I will try to keep an open mind… Kent Simmons is the pastor of Canyon Community Church i
