I spend a bit of time on the Christian Apologetics Alliance Facebook page. It’s a place for people to discuss Christianity and apologetics. Overall it’s a good experience. I’m surrounded by a bunch of people sharper than I am (as if that were a high ladder to climb), as well as some thoughtful atheists and skeptics. One of the challenges, though, in posting there is trying to discern if someone asking a question is really asking a question, seeking dialogue, or actually trying to refute some element of Christianity—or, if the poster is merely a troll that thinks Christians are Jerry Springer (does he still have a show) guests that are amusement and fun for the mocking. I’m near convinced that trolls like that make up the majority of posters when it comes to all things religion. Whilst the thoughtful skeptic is a breath of fresh aid, the norm is not such as this.
And what do most of these folks trumpet? They love the ‘New Atheists,’ and they ‘argue’ accordingly. For a good description on how this works, I refer you to a recent blog post by Ed Feser
> Argumentum ad Himmlerum
> Step 1: Launch an unhinged, fallacious attack on your opponent, focusing your attention on arguments he has never given.
> Step 2: Studiously ignore the arguments he actually has given.
> Step 3: Declare victory and exchange high fives with your fellow New Atheists, as they congratulate you for your brilliance and erudition.
> Step 4: When your opponent calls attention to this farcical procedure, accuse him of making unhinged, fallacious attacks on you….
> Step 5: Exchange further high fives with your fellow New Atheists.
> Step 6: Repeat 1 – 5 until your disconnect from reality is complete.
Feser goes on to detail what promted his post, but I think his overall summary is applicable to more than just the example he gives, as he points out. We see this in a lot of the New Atheists. Just consider the debates William Lane Craig has done with some of the leading New Atheists like Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and the almost-debate with Richard Dawkins (side note: consider that Dawkins has been unwilling to defend even his own books). While only some of the examples that could be presented, in formal debates on “The Existence of God” little or no arguments are ever given to actually argue for there being no God by the people that dedicate their professional careers to maligning people that affirm there is one. And consider that many of the Christian arguments go unchallenged, either by refusal to engage the actual argument overtly, or passively by missunderstanding the argument (either by intent or ignorance) and instead refuting straw men.
Most of the attention in these debates (and careers) is spent instead drawing attention to how evil religious peple are (Hitchens) or how stupid they are (Dawkins), and all seem to focus on how evil, wicked, unjust, unloving, etc., God is. In the God Delusion, Richard Dawkins sumarizes: >The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
And let’s be serious. This is really what it’s about isn’t it? It’s not that God doesn’t exist. I cannot recall whom I first heard say it, but it’s been echoed many times sumarizing Hitchens’s main focus in his religious writings, ‘There is no God and I hate him.’ And that’s it, isn’t it? It’s not that God doesn’t exist, it’s that people hate him.
I was prompted to jott down this post after reading a post by Amy Hall or Stand to Reason, making this same point: > Christianity is Vile to Atheists > >In John Loftus’s book, Why I Became an Atheist, he quotes “exbeliever,” one of his fellow bloggers, who gives the clearest, most accurate illustration I’ve seen to describe the mindset of outspoken atheists toward God and Christianity…. >> For a long time, I was an ardent admirer of Dr. John Piper. I remember a sermon of Dr. Piper’s in which he described God as a flowing fountain of delight…. But what about those of us who have left the fountain with a horrible taste in our mouths? We came to the fountain and drank as deeply as we could and, for a while, could not get enough of it…. But, then, something happened. The fountain became foul to us…. We opened the Bible and, instead of finding wisdom, we found violence and the justification of immoral acts. We found anti-intellectualism and backward thinking. We found oppression….
>> We tried to hold on to the fountain, but something had changed. It wasn’t the fountain; it was our taste for it. We realized that the fountain wasn’t a being; it was a religion. It was just dogma. It is like we had been drinking from it with our eyes closed and noses plugged. Somehow, though, we opened our eyes and unplugged our noses and discovered that we had been enjoying filth. The fountain was a fountain of blood and other foul things. We realized that we had spent most of our lives consuming a vile concoction….
For some more insight on this, I refer back to my debate where the mudslinging of how evil church is and how irrational Christians are, yet when called to actually discuss the issues at hand, the debate was literally closed off.
I really am convinced that this is the big issue. It’s not “does God exist.” While there is an obvious need for being able to answer this question, if we can discern anything from the way almost every single debate on the existence of God goes, the issue is really not existence but God’s character.
So I go back, again, to Amy Hall’s post (which I think you should read in its entirety): >What does this mean for us as we speak to these atheists? In the end, no person’s taste for God or the Gospel will change unless the Holy Spirit changes his ability to taste. But the Holy Spirit moves people when we explain and glorify the beauty of God and the Gospel, so we need to make a more concerted effort to, first, in the midst of every topic of our apologetics, keep the arguments close to the idea that we’re ultimately conversing about a Person—a real Person whom we love, Who is distinct from us, and Who has a will and purposes; and second, we need to focus on understanding, explaining, and honoring His character and actions. I’ve come to believe that this is where we need to begin, even before arguments for His existence. This is where we need to concentrate our speaking and writing.
>Further, within this core issue of God’s character, I believe there is a truth even more deeply central to the divide between Christians and atheists—God’s surpassing holiness. I’m convinced that the atheists’ inability to comprehend God’s holiness is the particular turning point from which they have gone completely wrong. If the Holy Spirit were to reveal a glimpse of the majestic righteousness and holiness of God (and, by comparison, our sinfulness) to these atheists, the answers to 90% of their questions would fall swiftly into place. Since the Holy Spirit often uses our words as the means by which He reveals such things, we need to be prepared to speak on this subject.
