Breaking The Spell, by Daniel Dannett

Unlike the arrogant and aggressive approach of most militant atheists, Dennett’s approach to critiquing religion is quite diplomatic and respectful. He seems to be aware that to address religious folk in an arrogant and haughty manner is to alienate the religious reader straight away.



So rather than verbally bashing the religious reader into submission, Dennett strives to convince the reader instead. This was quite refreshing.





To a large degree he is successful in departing from the traditional approach of the new atheists. There were very few times that I found myself rolling my eyes in reaction to the typical atheist drivel that is found in abundance in Dawkins and Hitchens works. But Dennett seemed to have set the bar a bit higher.





Despite the refreshingly tactful approach that Dennett took, he still managed to fall into some of the same old traps.

One of the usual dirty tricks that other militant atheist authors are guilty of is overstating the validity of evolution. In attempting to reject the need for a creator in nature, these new age atheists tend to greatly exaggerate how valid the theory of evolution actually is.

And Dennett is no less guilty of this. At one point he actually says that “Evolution is about as well established as the fact that water is H2O.” Suffice it to say, that water is in existence right now so we can put it to the test, and then retest it, at any time. The evolution of life through common descent on the other hand, is something that is alleged to happen in the deep past. And as such, can not be observed, and therefore can not be scientifically tested. No event of prehistory can ever be as scientifically established as water is H2O.



Another dirty trick – or maybe wilful ignorance – is his comment that there are no reputable scientists who reject evolution. This old canard can easily be rejected by noting the large lists of scientists who do unashamedly reject evolution. Lists, such as from Creation Ministries International or the Discovery institute, amply testify to this fact. These lists not only include hundreds of reputable scientists, but also include many dozens of science Professors of secular universities.



After admitting that certain religious aspects can have very good influences on people (something that almost all new-age atheists are loathed to do), Dennett seems obliged to offset this fact with the comment that atheists too could be better people than religious people. What is his reasoning for this? Well, he says that no survey has shown otherwise! Apparently, the moon is populated by pink elephants too, well no evidence has proven otherwise!



Dennett makes the claim that morals need to be grounded in reason, not blind faith. But, he says, blind faith is reasonable when we trust the source.

He then goes on to criticize Christians for having blind faith, but he somehow misses the point that Christians trust their source, just as his criteria demands! Christians trust that our omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent God is worthy of trusting over the fallible reasoning of man.

So in areas such as homosexuality, where God’s command conflict with man reasoning, Christians trust God, by virtue of his omniscience, that God would know. But human reasoning on the other hand, is based on a very poor understanding of the functioning of the human mind and sexuality. Because of this, human reasoning is always being revised and changed.

So when the two collide, Christians always place human reasoning in a subservient position to God’s reasoning.



Dennett makes the point that Christians need to make religion less of a “sacred cow”, and more like a “worthy alternative”. I have no doubt that this would be a virtuous exercise. Christianity could gain a lot from a critical examination, and a subsequent purge of all the dross that has infected it from the wider society over history.

But one must not make the mistake of rejecting religion outright simply because it contains a few faults.

Ultimately, if Christianity is the one true religion, then it will emerge from such a purge much stronger. But for this to happen it must cease compromising itself with the amoral tendencies of wider society, such as with evolution. The strength of Christianity is only in it’s whole form. As soon as Christianities protective shell of inerrancy is breached with the corrupting influence of compromise, it’s integrity rapidly fails and it is deformed into a feeble false religion. Such a religion is easily killed off.



Dennett opines that there is no reason why the materialist would be less caring or less moral than a theist. While this is undoubtedly true, the simple fact is that there is no reason why the materialist should, or even has to be, moral or caring.

For a materialist to be caring and moral is to embrace traits that are entirely superfluous to existence. Atheists can only hold on to these virtues as a mere matter of opinion, because in a materialistic world there are no transcendent morals or values.

It is only those materialists who have had a moral upbringing who continue to hold on to these values.



But what of those children, typically of today, who have not had such a privileged virtuous upbringing? Many of these children have not had these virtues installed in them during their formative years, and see no reason to adopt them later on in life. For them the questions are: Why stay faithful to a monogamous life when you can sleep with whoever you want to? Why donate to charity when you can spend the money getting drunk. Why be kind to a stranger when it makes you late for a movie?

Being caring and moral are just useless excesses in a materialist universe.



Dennett counters the claim that religion, if it has evolved, must be beneficial. After all, evolution is meant to eliminate harmful traits, and only perpetuate the beneficial ones.

He provides the analogy that tobacco isn’t good for us, yet it survives just fine. So he reasons that traits that have a negative effect on us, can still evolve. Thus religion could still have evolved even if it is bad for us.

The fault in this analogy is in the fact that tobacco’s existence is totally independent of humans existence, religion is not. The fact that tobacco is harmful to humans has no effect at all on it’s survival. Tobacco would still evolve regardless of it’s effect on humans.

Religion, on the other hand, is an idea that only exists in the minds of humanity. Therefore if religion was bad for humanity, then evolution would have had eliminated it from the human mind a long time ago. And because religion doesn’t exist outside the human mind, when it is eliminated from the human mind, it is eliminated from existence totally.

Thus, it is still true that if religion really was bad for humans then evolution definitely would have eliminated it.



On the topic of religious education in schools, I was very surprised to see that Dennett departs from the standard antireligious dogma of the other militant atheists who demand that religion should be totally wiped from schools. In contrast to this draconian position, Dennett believes that more religion should be taught in schools.

He believes that students should be taught about all religions, not just the one that they have been brought up in. While it is somewhat impractical to teach students all religions, I think that in the multicultural society that we live in today, it would be highly beneficial to teach about the most prevalent ones.



He also believes that, contrary to the absurd claims of the likes of Dawkins and Hitchens, that parents should teach their children whatever they want – within reason- as long as it doesn’t “close their minds through fear and hatred or disable them from inquiry.”





Overall this book was a refreshingly diplomatic break from the usual antireligious diatribe of the new atheists. Dennett’s exploration into “religion as a natural phenomenon” was quite genuine and thought provoking. But it’s major downfall was that it is quite boring. Something about Dennett’s writing style left me rather flat and unenthused, which is quite odd for an antireligious book. Something about the book just didn’t flow as well as Dawkins or Hitchens books, I can’t quite pin down what it is though. Maybe a provocative and aggressive style is what keeps the readers attention?



So based on the content of the book I would give four stars, but on style two. This leaves an average of three stars.

Ideologies and Morality

Crimes and atrocities are committed by those of all beliefs. In the great struggle between Christianity and atheism each has blood on it’s hands, though it is clear that atheist inspired ideologies have caused far more causalities in one century than religious conflict has in the whole history of humanity. But this isn’t the topic of this post. Instead I want to discuss the distinction that separates the two.

When a Christian gives alms; cares for the vulnerable; is patient or humble, he is practicing the moral principles that are commanded of him by his ideology. Conversely when he murders; steals from; rapes or slanders somebody, he is violating the clear moral principles of his ideology. There is a transcendental moral code that he believes he is held accountable to.

The atheist on the other hand, has no obligation or responsibility to do either good or bad. When God is eliminated from one’s ideology, morality goes with it too. If an atheist gives alms or cares for the sick, it is of his own personal volition. He may think it is his moral obligation, but this is just his personal opinion. He has no objective reason to do so.

Similarly, his raping of the child next door, is just as much his moral obligation. Both are morally equal actions. He is in perfect harmony with his amoral atheist ideology. He can rape or care; assault or mend; steal or give alms, no particular action by a mere human ‘bag of carbon atoms’ has any more moral significance then the action of a particular cloud of stellar dust. At least a cloud of stellar dust doesn’t have the arrogance and audacity to claim that the actions of his particular arrangement of up-quarks and down-quarks is any more significant than the human atheist’s mix of quarks! He is at least a humble bag of quarks!

Thus when a Christian rapes someone, he is in clear violation of his ideology. But when an atheist does the same, he is in perfect harmony with his own ideology.

Atheism, when taken to it’s logical conclusion, is absurd. As Calvin (in the cartoon above) found out the hard way!

The God Delusion

Having read The God Delusion this second time, I have come to appreciate much of what he says. While there is no doubt that much of the content is intellectual drivel, most of his criticisms of the church hit the nail on the head. The God Delusion to me seemed to act as a very efficient ‘Occam’s’ razor to various religions, and various practices within religions. I really think that if the Christian church implemented this razor to their theology and to their general practices, they would come out much stronger and fitter as a result. Though this is certainly not Dawkins intention!

The thing that shocked me the most was how surprisingly short on scientific evidence it was, while being long on speculation. Page and page went by where Dawkins indulged in fantastic speculation as to the origin and possible Darwinian reason for religion, yet he never substantiated any of his arguments with anything remotely resembling empirical data. It is for this reason alone that religious people can simply ignore this book and it’s claims, because they are nothing more than spectacular speculation.

Most people seem to think that this book is an argument against the existence of a god, specifically the Christian God. This is certainly how it is portrayed. Yet this couldn’t be further from the truth.

The basic argument that Dawkins uses against the existence of God falls in to the trap of the Genetic Fallacy; the denigration of the origin of an idea or the people who believe it, does not disprove it’s existence. For example, if I were to call Dawkins and imbecile, this wouldn’t invalidate his arguments. It may or may not be true, but it has no impact on his actual arguments.

Dawkins quite rightly bemoans the ill that religious people cause, but wrongly assumes that just because some religious people do bad things, that God mustn’t exist.

The second argument that falls into the Genetic Fallacy is Dawkins’ attempt to explain the belief in God as being just a delusion in the human’s brain. But yet again, speculating as to the workings of the human mind doesn’t even begin to address the actual existence of God Himself.

The main bone that I have to pick with Dawkins is his extreme intolerance towards those who disagree with him. He seems to be a hardcore anti-pluralist. He seems totally unwilling to even consider the idea of just living with people who disagree with his own worldview.

In critiquing religion, his chosen method is to throw the baby out with the bath water. He isn’t interested in live alongside even the many religions which shun all forms of violence. Instead he tarnishes all religions with the dirtiest brush that he could find, and proclaims that even the most benignly pacifist religions must be eliminated. This type of dogmatic intolerance sadly reminds me of the oppression techniques of communist China and Russia where everybody who disagreed with the rulership was systematically eradicated. Dawkins rhetoric is shockingly similar to this horrible time in history.

It is disconcerting that this book is in the hands of the pleb. While I recommend it to those who are properly educated in religion (specifically Protestants), ‘The God Delusion’ is a dangerous propaganda tool in the hands of those people whose only real knowledge of religion is from these types of biased books. These people are totally unable to critically evaluate Dawkins claims, and balance them against what the Bible really teaches.

As a Protestant young earth creationist, I found that virtually no criticism of Dawkins was applicable to my worldview. I could almost feel the bullets rapidly bounding off of me!

Virtually all of his attacks were directed against various Catholic doctrines and practices which clearly don’t apply to Protestants.

His other major point of attack was against the various inconsistencies that arise by trying to amalgamate belief in God with the theory of evolution- and again, none of this applies to the YEC worldview.

For me, I came out the other end of this book smiling. Dawkins razor was only ever directed at the dross that prevents Christianity being a credible alternative to atheism. If you eliminate all that Dawkins recommends, you get YEC; a worldview tempered in the crucible of Dawkins vociferous attacks; a worldview, by virtue of Dawkins tempering, that is immune to all weapons that he has in his arsenal.

Atheism, Creationism and a Conflict of Interest

Atheistic naturalists are inherently incapable of critiquing any theory which presupposes miraculous events. This is for the same reason of judicial 'conflict of interest'.






Suppose an accused man was brought before a judge who was his father. If the judge insisted on presiding over the accused he would be forced to step down from the case because of an obvious conflict of interest. The reason this is so is because the accused is likely to be benefited by the judge’s predisposition towards favouring him due to their special relationship. Thus, the judge has an ineradicable favouring towards the accused, therefore the outcome is quite likely to be skewed.

The same is true of atheistic naturalists who wish to pass judgement over creationism.





The most foundation axiom for the atheist is that supernatural events do not exist, and as such the ‘supernatural’ is totally excluded from even consideration. This means that their starting assumption - there is no supernatural events – conflicts with the task at hand - critiquing creationism - because creationism presupposes supernatural events as an axiom of it's model of origins.





The fact that the atheist has an ineradicable disposition against creationism means that his conclusion will be highly skewed; the atheist has a substantial conflict of interest when discussing creationism.

Revolutionary Christianity

I am halfway through ‘Atheist Delusions’ by D. B. Hart, and WOW! I love his writing style, those I think most people would find it a little verbose. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve had to reach for my dictionary!



It is a superb refutation of the fabricated history that so many atheist authors feel forced to employ to find something to criticise Christianity with.



But on another level, it is quite good for illuminating the reader about just how radical and emancipatory Christianity was to the ancient world. We in the modern world have largely become blind to just how great Christianity is. Modern critics take the New Testament and nitpick grievances from it and claim that it is an inferior form of ethics compared to the modern Western ethics. But they err by forgetting that the modern Western society that they so cherish is a direct product of that same Christian ethic!!!



The Christian ethic of equality, freedom and rights for all humans was so revolutionary that it basically turned the old pagan order and it’s ethic on it’s head.

We tend to think that the Christian ethic is not particularly special in light of our society’s current ethic. But what Christianity’s critics, and Christians themselves, forget is that the Christian ethic that was taught by Christ is actually the most radical ethic ever invented, and the fact that this revolutionary ethic was born in a pagan society that was so directly contrasted to it goes to show it's Devine originality in my opinion.





For me, the fact that it is only societies which have been built upon Christianity which produce ideals such as liberty, freedom of speech and egalitarianism, is proof enough of the superiority of the Christian worldview.

YEC, ID and the God of the Gaps

Atheist Fairytales

The ‘God of the Gaps’ idea (hereafter abbreviated as gotg) is commonly used as a disparaging epithet against anyone who denies that only natural causes have been in effect in the universe’s history. Wikipedia defines it as:

“a view of God as existing in the "gaps" or aspects of reality that are currently unexplained by scientific knowledge, or that otherwise lack a plausible natural explanation….a tendency to postulate acts of God to explain phenomena for which science has yet to give a satisfactory account.” [Emphasis added]

I will ignore the non-sequitur logical fallacy of the gotg argument that, just because you can imagine a plausible natural explanation for an event in the past doesn’t mean that it actually occurred that way. Instead I want to focus on it’s common application to the two worldviews of Young Earth Creationism (YEC) and the Intelligent Design movement (ID).

It seems to me that the idea of filling the explanatory gaps in the naturalist theory of origins with ‘god did it’ is most applicable to ID. To explain why this is so, a brief explanation of what ID is, is necessary. Wikipedia defines ID as the:

“proposition that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.”

This means that ID basically accepts every single part of the atheistic model of evolutionary origins, except where atheistic evolution fails to explain how something happened, like the commonly cite bacterial flagellum. So whenever naturalism fails to provide a plausible explanation of how something could have occurred naturally, ID says “god did it” (or to be more accurate: “a designer did it”). So we see that the definition of what ID is, inherently includes the essential logic of the ‘God of the Gaps’ idea.

YEC on the other hand, rejects all forms of evolution (be it atheistic, theistic, deistic etc) totally and utterly. YEC has a totally different model for the origin of life. It completely rejects the idea that all life has commonly descent from bacteria via any form of evolution. YEC rejects the theory that all life has a common ancestry as merely a figment of the imagination, and as a false interpretation of the empirical data that the earth’s rocks provide.

I would consider YEC immune from the gotg allegation, as opposed to ID (or any other variation of theistic naturalism), because YEC doesn’t actually attempt to insert supernaturalism in the gaps of the atheistic framework, but inserts supernaturalism in place of the whole atheistic framework itself!

Thus, if the YEC theory rejects the actual whole fractured framework of evolution, than any accusation that the YEC theory is a gotg type theory is inapplicable since the YEC model rejects the actual framework and thus the gaps that gotg thinking is employed to plug.

Because of this rejection of the atheistic evolution of all species, and the rejection of the corollary gaps in the model that ID tries to fill, YEC is free to interpret nature through supernatural means, immune to the gotg epithet.

It is for this reason that YEC avoids the whole gotg trap that ID inherently falls head-first into.

Communism, Islam, Atheism, Christianity and

When it comes to proselytising, Christianity sets itself apart from these other three in one very important way.



The first three of these belief systems all use subjugation, ridicule and peer-pressure to gain and maintain acceptance.

Those who lived in a Communist State had to forever be looking over their shoulder in a perpetual state of suspicion that their neighbours and even their own children may denounce them to the State authorities as ‘counter-revolutionaries’. Severe beatings and even death was a constant fear.



Similarly Islamic States use cruel punishment techniques for those who dare to question the status-quo. Women are kept on a horrifyingly short leash, being cudgelled by their husbands, brothers or fathers at the slightest whim. All this is not just condoned, but promoted by Islamic scripture.



Atheism fits right in with these two, only differing in the degree of chastisement. The primary tool in use by atheism to gain and sustain social and intellectual prominence is ridicule and scorn. Even the slightest mention of secular dissent is immediately countered with a pillory of public humiliation and castigation.









And this is where Christianity differs markedly. Christianity seeks to convince and cajole rather than use the atheist tactic of criticism and castigation. Christianity does not wish for domination and subjugation like Communism, Islam and Atheism. But instead endeavours to show the love and compassion shown to us by Christ.

We let our actions do the talking. Rather than force people to outwardly conform, we would much rather it to come from their hearts in an honest and willing display of acceptance.



I’m sure many people would object and point to various Christianised governments and institutions in the past who didn’t act this way, but rather adopted the methods of the other three worldviews.

Yes it is true that medieval rulers used Christianity to subjugate and even terrorize their peoples. And yes it is true that even this previous century saw Christianised governments enforce Christianity on the population through things such as Christian prayer in State run institutions, and the prohibition of teaching evolution in schools. But my point is that this is not what the teachings of Christ teach us as I will demonstrate.



Christ led the way, giving us an example of how we are to approach the heathen world around us.

A prime example is found in John 8:2-11. After answering the Pharisees in their challenge over a women caught in the act of adultery, He did not chastise and condemn the woman. He did not arrogantly pronounce the law that she must adhere to. And He did not ridicule and shame her into submission:

Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”



No, instead He showed her complete love and compassion, with only a gentle reminder of what she new to be wrong anyway.



A firm hand only serves to harden the heart against your rules, and guarantees hostile rebellion.

Conversely, a gentle and loving hand cajoles and convinces, and ensures honest devotion.

Atheism-The Social Parasite

Atheism and society in general can be accurately portrayed metaphorically as the symbiotic relationship between a parasite and its host.



Atheism thinks of itself as being a fully functioning, self sustainable, belief system that should be the sole worldview in society, a society that has rid itself of religion. As a metaphor, this is akin to a parasite believing that it could survive, and be better off, without its host.



But we all know that a parasite can’t live without it’s host, because by definition, for a parasite to propagate and survive on its own, it needs various things from its host that it is utterly incapable of providing by itself. A parasite who espoused such beliefs would be said to be in a state of megalomaniacal delusion.



The same can be said to be the case for atheism. For any belief system or worldview to propagate and survive on its own, it must possess certain qualities that fulfil the human psychology and thus nurtures a functioning society. It must offer secure moral and ethical foundations to prevent nihilism from wrecking society. Foundational aspects such as sound reasoning for adhering to rules and laws; treating others with respect; liberty to allow basic human freedoms; etc. Without these basic aspects of a functioning society, society and civilization would quickly breakdown.

But In fact, atheism provides none of these things! Atheism only provides a subjective existence. You do what you want, when you want, why you want, how you want. If there is no god to set and enforce the rules, then the rules are made by the strongest.



This is thoroughly demonstrated when you look to societies from history that have replaced religion as the their social compass with atheism and science. Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Russia, Mao ZeDong’s China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia all eliminated their native religions as their moral and ethical compasses and instead followed their self fulfilling subjective doctrine of atheist driven Communism. We all know what horrors ensued thence.

The fact is that they disavowed the existence of a higher power, thus they saw fit to do whatever their power over the population allowed.



The nature of atheism is such that it does not provide any form of moral or ethical basis. It is at heart ‘amoral’. This means that by itself, atheism could never survive. The only reason that atheism is as prevalent as it is in society today, is because it is benefiting from 'sucking the moral blood' of the religious society; It is incapable of providing the sustenance of morality that Christianity, and religion in general, DOES inherently have at its core.

Atheists claim to be self fulfilled only because it crudely copies Christian morality, whereas atheism alone actually provides NO grounds for any morality or ethics; atheism is only seen to be 'intellectually fulfilling' because it hijacks, and hides behind, the good name of science. It is only when you look closely that you see that science offers no support to the atheist faith what so ever.

The Prosaic Threat of Atheism

Accessed from  http://thesignalinthenoise.wordpress.com/category/ignominiously-defining/

I have been reading a few atheist works over the last few months in an effort to understand their position. I have read works by Dawkins, Dennett, Stenger, Mills to mention a few of the well-known ones. I have a few more to read, but already I am seeing a few general traits and tactics that they employ, ignorance being the most prominent one!


To be honest I am starting to see why Michael Ruse, a prominent atheistic philosopher, said that Dawkins makes him embarrassed to be an atheist! Their approach to critiquing religion is very poor on most levels.



One militant atheist trend is constructing a sophistic model of Christianity specifically fabricated to be invalid and indefensible which no Christian actually advocates or would defend.

They are egregious artifices, and only goes to show that an honest and accurate critique is inadequate to depreciate the legitimacy of Christianity. Thus atheists are left with the only option of the distortion and manipulation of religion and it’s Scriptures to try and discredit it.



I am getting more and more secure in my faith as a result of these books. Atheism really poses no challenge at all.

Theist vs. Atheist Atrocities

We never cease hearing from these militant atheists about the many deaths that have occurred throughout history in the name of religion.


They delude themselves with the idea that the all of the worlds problems are due to theism, and the world would be far better off without it. They base this idea on the delusion that theistic worldviews have been responsible for all the worlds atrocities.



Yet they seem to have selective amnesia when it comes to all the atrocities that have been perpetrated by the many infamous anti-theistic atheist tyrants of the last century.

The inconvenient fact that they so often try to sweep under the rug is that in only half a century these tyrants were able to engineer vast massacres which totally out-killed all the religious atrocities in ALL OF HISTORY COMBINED!



Atheists can berate theists all they want, but their atheistic worldview is responsible for far more carnage than any theistic worldview.

They have no basis what so ever for rejecting theism as being responsible for war violence and atrocities. Their worldview has far more to answer for than theism.

The following text and tables were all accessed from http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/atrocities.html

 

What percentage of these killings were due to religious democide? It is less than 3% of the totals. The surprising thing is that these killings occurred during a period of time when virtually all the peoples of the world were involved in some sort of religion. Here is the data for the 20th century:

Vox Day, in The Irrational Atheist, lists 22 atheistic regimes that committed 153,368,610 murders in the 20^th century alone:

What percentage of this democide was due to religious conflict? It turns out that religious democide doesn't even make the top 20 (although I am sure there is some in the "lesser murderers" category. Still, the total religious killings is less than 2%. In fact, the top two killers were specifically atheistic states (which had never existed before in human history). Should atheism be blamed for more than 50% of the atrocities committed during the 20th century? The answer of course is No! If one examines the nature of the regimes that committed these atrocities (even the religious ones), the key factor is absolute power (see Figure 1, right). According to Professor R.J. Rummel, in the 1816-2005 period there were 205 wars between non-democracies, 166 wars between non-democracies and democracies, and 0 wars between democracies. Lord Acton's warning that "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" seems to be more than just a trite saying.

Authority and Truth

Obtained from http://pw0nd.com/tag/faith

It is a natural human trait that each and every one of us must have some source of authoritative truth.




A Christian will no doubt place his faith in God. He does this because the Christian God is considered omniscient, omnipotent and wholly benevolent. These traits ensure that God is capable of knowing all things, and is not going to lie to us. Thus Christians put their faith in this God that anything He says to us, such as in the form of the Bible, will be considered to be wholly truthful.



Atheists on the other hand, have no such source of truth, so they must transfer this yearning for truth and authority to some other source; science.

In fact, they will boast that their source of authority is a superior source of truth than putting ones faith in an invisible God. But is it really? Does it take any less faith to believe that science is the fountain of all truth?



The fact is that all sources of truth and authority have to be taken as such by faith, especially science. The scientific method of investigation is not some sort of holy and infallible fountain of truth. It simply can not be if it is operated by fallible and biased operators. The truth of this is demonstrated in the fact that science textbooks go out of date every few years or so. Very few texts last longer than a decade, and you can be sure of the fact that they too will be superseded at some point in the future.
You can be guaranteed that what is known to be scientific truth today will most certainly be overturned some time in the future. Is science really an appropriate source of authoritative truth? Only through faith, can so many atheists say yes.



The Christian has faith that our God is the ultimate source of truth, which is what would be expected from an omnipotent and omniscient creator deity. But atheists only have the scientific method which is constantly in revolution.



Faith in God or faith in science, take your pick.

Separation of Church and State

On issues such as opening parliament with a Christian prayer, we often hear the claim from secularists that all forms of prayer should be dropped in favour of a position of religious neutrality.




It is claimed that, to have a Christian prayer in a state institution, is exclusionary of other religious and risks offending them. So, they reason, we should adopt a neutral position of no prayer.

In fact they would have all forms of religion totally wiped from all state institutions.



On the surface this seems like a reasonable proposition. To have the State clinically scrubbed of all vestiges of religion seems like a reasonable diplomatic solution.



But the fact is that such a solution is not neutral at all. Rather than it being a position of neutrality, it is actually a staunchly anti-religious and dogmatically atheistic position.

In a country where the vast majority of people are religious, does it really makes sense to force it’s elected body to adhere to a religiously sterile and atheistically biased position? Surely not.



In a country where the vast majority of it’s population identifies itself as Christian and only a very small minority with atheism, does it really make sense to force our government to adopt a vastly marginalized position?



If a country is still vastly Christian, then it is entirely appropriate to have Christian prayer. It is a beautiful tradition that appeals to most people. So if it ain’t broke, then what’s there to fix?

Islam, Judaism and numerous other religious cultures have brought untold riches to our society, we all experience them to a certain degree, and most of us enjoy the fruits of these extremely aesthetic cultural riches.

It will be a sad day if religion is scrubbed from society in the impossible ploy to please everyone. Who seriously wants to live in the secularist’s sterile world, devoid of the rich religious traditions that our Western society was founded upon?







Surely there is a far better solution to accommodating our religiously pluralistic society in our State institutions than adopting the position of one of the smallest minorities!