Specific
Comments
Again
we look at the specific points we have observed in the ‘Content' part
above
P.205-206
Opening Introduction. The
opening paragraphs lay down the structure for the chapter and note
that “these faults and crimes are not to be
found in the behaviour of the adherents (which can sometimes be exemplary)
but in its original precepts.” The first of these ‘faults and
crimes' in his following list is “Presenting
a false picture of the world to the innocent and the credulous,”
but he doesn't deal with this as he claims he has previously done
it. I'm afraid I missed that.
Creation
myths: this is
how he writes off any Biblical explanation and although he doesn't
say it here, he has previously briefly mentioned evolution as THE
alternative. To respond to that, we must ask you to go to our assessment
of The God Delusion, where this highly inadequate response
of naturalists is dealt with in detail. CLICK
HERE
Folk
Myths: again in
a fairly short paragraph he reveals his complete ignorance of the
rich sources of knowledge for the founding documents of the Bible.
Please go to our Apologetics pages to see the detail that confounds
this silly writing. CLICK
HERE
P.206-208
Blood Sacrifice .
The opening shots of the next of the ‘faults and crimes' simply revert
back to the atheists' standard attack of taking extremists who have
little or nothing to do with mainstream religion and pillory them
for their idiocy. Not really worth commenting upon.
Abraham:
the tirade next
focuses on Abraham's ‘sacrificing' of Isaac. Rather than repeat ourselves
ad-infinitum I would refer the reader to our Apologetics page 31 (CLICK
HERE) about the revelation of God and the embryonic nature
of Abraham's knowledge of God, together with Part 1 of Chapter 7 of
our assessment of The God Delusion . CLICK
HERE
Their
Grave Cave: Half
way down page 207 the author reverts to the ‘silly-example' strategy
speaking of religious people who still kill for a plot of land in
the vicinity of this unknown cave. Their behaviour has nothing to
do with the “original precepts” the author said he was going to denounce,
in fact nothing so far has done that! Indeed he continues by recounting
various massacres but nothing is said about any Biblical references
to blood sacrifice. These seem to be hints against Islam but the point
is so unclear that it is difficult to know.
P.208-210
Atonement.
After some rambling sentences about primitive religions and child
sacrifices etc. (which, as we have previously commented, the author
studiously avoided when denouncing Israel 's activity when entering
Canaan) the author moves on to vicarious sacrifice. His account of
Jesus' death is so noteworthy that I repeat it in its entirety:
“I
am told of a human sacrifice that took place two thousand years ago,
without my wishing it and in circumstances so ghastly that, had I
been present and in possession of any influence, I would have been
duty bound to try to stop it. In consequence of this murder, my own
manifold sins are forgiven me, and I may hope to enjoy everlasting
life.”
Arrogance:
Now as an account
it is not bad. What is so awful is the total arrogance (or possibly
childishness) that uses such language as “without
my wishing it,” in respect of Christ's sacrifice. Whatever
do the self-centred wishes of an arrogant, atheistic journalist in
the twenty first century have to do with the rightness or otherwise
of what happened in Jerusalem two thousand years ago?
Furthermore,
his assertion that he would have stepped in to prevent it if he had
been there with influence, is again both arrogant and totally unknowing.
He is certainly right in describing what went on as ghastly but in
reality it was simply another Roman execution, of which there were
many. What was terrible was the motivation behind it, but from all
the derision of religion that has so far come from the pen of this
writer, I would suggest that he would have been more likely to have
sided with the religious authorities against this heretical young
Jewish preacher than speaking up for him!
Unbiblical
Guilt: In the
paragraph that follows he opens up his guilt to what he has obviously
heard some preacher say, that he take on the guilt and responsibility
of what happened to Jesus and indeed the guilt of Adam. Now the Bible
doesn't actually say that. If we are guilty (and tell me you are not),
we are guilty of our own sins that have mounted up down the years,
every wrong thought, word or deed. Find me the person who declares
they have never thought, spoken or done wrong and I will show you
a deluded imbecile. Whether these atheists like it or not, clinical
psychologists and psychiatrists tell us that the biggest problem that
most men and women suffer from is guilt – and not because the church
has told them they are guilty; they just know they are!
Spiritual
Blindness: There
is in what follows a remarkable example of knowing the truth but not
‘seeing' it. Our author speaks of the purposeful way that Jesus went
to Jerusalem
to be crucified and the fact that those who killed him were unknowingly
doing God's will and fulfilling ancient prophecies. It can only be
spiritual blindness that prevents the author, who see clearly speaks
about Jesus' death, from seeing the truth behind it.
The
truth: Yes, listen
to the apostle Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost: “This
man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge;
and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing
him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead.”
(Acts 2:23,24).
Yes, God planned it. Yes, God knew it would work out like this but
it was the free will of men who acted evilly to bring it about. God
never ‘made' them do it. God never makes us do wrong; we simply choose
it. That's what the Bible calls sin and that's the problem we struggle
with that causes guilt. It may upset atheists but one of the incredible
things that happens in this world is that guilt-laden people hear
of the death of Jesus Christ and, without understanding a great deal,
suddenly find their guilt lifted and their lives transformed. You
can scorn the death of Jesus as much as you like, but it DOES bring
total transformation to those who say' “I believe,” and that transformation
is for good – so don't knock it!
Judas?
I sometimes wonder
if atheists have a Bible of their own, with lots of “These
are things to hit Christians with” in it, because it seems
wherever you turn you find the same silly things being said. Richard
Dawkins wrote: “Judas Iscariot has received
a bad deal from history, given that his betrayal was a necessary part
of the cosmic plan.” In response I quoted the verses
above and then noted: “God knew that Jesus' goodness would provoke
the evil in men's hearts to rise up and crucify him or, in Judas's
case, He knew that Judas's bad attitude would rise up and enable him
to betray Jesus to the authorities in the middle of the night. To
talk about ‘poor' Judas is a bit like saying poor Jack the Ripper.”
The
Jews: This is
then followed by another of those silly things I conclude must be
in the atheist's Bible, the blaming of the Jews. Again Dawkins followed
on with this exact same point, (rather confirming my theory!) and
so I'd like to just quote again from what you'll find in Part 2 of
Chapter 7 of our appraisal of The God Delusion:
“I'm
sure there have been those who opposed the Jews as Christ-killers
but I would suggest they simply used that tag to legitimise (in their
own minds at least) their opposition. I'm sure there have been Christians
in the past who have joined in that opposition and I in no way agree
with that. However, the Bible suggests another reason: because they
are the people of God from the pre-Christian era and God has a part
for them to play in end-time history.
In
pure sociological terms I suspect such opposition has been focused
on the fact that they have kept themselves to themselves, maintaining
their own culture, and prospering in business. Remember in an earlier
chapter Dawkins himself spoke disparagingly about American Jews. Those
who blame Jew-baiting on Christians forget a number of issues:
1.
The early Christian church was entirely Jewish.
2.
As the early church grew to include non-Jews, one of the main areas
of opposition to the church was the other Jews who refused to receive
the Christ-revelation.
3.
Those who blame the Jews for Jesus death are ignorant of the facts
of his death.
Yes,
they did arrest and try him falsely and accuse him, but it was the
Gentile world, the Romans, who just went along with it and actually
ended up crucifying him! If there is Jew-Gentile guilt apportioning,
then it is equal! Enough
said!
P.211-215
Eternal Punishment and Impossible Tasks. The
author again and again seems to almost verge on belief but not quite
make it.
Ring
of Truth: Under
the new heading he writes about the Garden of Gethsemane ,
it, “used to absorb me very much as a child…
and… made me wonder if some of its fantastic scenario might after
all be true.” In a previous chapter we referred to a lawyer
by the name of Frank Morrison who started out to disprove the resurrection
story that he had heard about, but as he looked carefully into the
details he came to realise that this was a true story and wrote, Who
Moved the Stone. You can find an extract from that book if you
want to see an example of his meticulous reasoning by
CLICKING HERE.
In
the middle of the last century a translator of the New Testament,
by the name of J.B.Phillips, ended up writing a book by the name Ring
of Truth, because he concluded that, as he worked his way carefully
through the New Testament accounts, he became utterly convinced of
their veracity, because there was this ring of truth about them. Many
others have similarly read and similarly come to the same conclusions.
However you do need to have read it through!
I
think it is worth quoting from J.B.Phillips' book, Ring of truth:
So
long as a man confines his ideas of Christ to a rather misty hero
figure of long ago who died a tragic death, and so long as his ideas
of Christianity are bounded by what he calls the Sermon on the Mount
(which he has almost certainly not read in its entirety since he
became grown-up), then the living truth never has a chance to touch
him. This is plainly what has happened to many otherwise intelligent
people. Over the years I have had hundreds of conversations with
people, many of them of higher intellectual calibre than my own,
who quite obviously had no idea of what Christianity is really about.
I was in no case trying to catch them out: I was simply and gently
trying to find out what they knew about the New Testament. My conclusion
was that they knew virtually nothing. This I find pathetic and somewhat
horrifying. It means that the most important Event in human history
is politely and quietly bypassed. For it is not as though the evidence
had been examined and found unconvincing: it had simply never been
examined.
The
Scapegoat: He
then goes on to refer to the Old Testament picture of a ‘scapegoat'
but sadly misses the point. He even picks up on the amazing picture
that Charles Dickens (a Christian) wrote into A Tale of Two Cities,
where one man steps in and dies in the place of another. He stumbles
around, failing to accept that Jesus could possibly step in a relieve
us of our guilt.
There
are two things here: We believe it because Jesus was and is the eternal
Son of God and only he was ‘big enough' to die in the place of each
one of us. Now we may not understand either a) the love that could
do that or b) the workings of it, but the second reason we believe
it is that God says that is how it is and the whole of the Old Testament
sacrificial system points to the same thing, that God accepts a substitute.
To equate this with bribery indicates a blindness to the wonder of
what is here. When, in A Tale of Two Cities, Sidney Carton
steps in and take Charles Darnay's place and goes to the guillotine,
bribery would be the last word to describe this act of sacrifice!
Pascal
: If I didn't believe
in the possibility of an atheist's Bible, I would have to accuse the
author of plagiarism here because this is the third thing in a row
that Dawkins raised in his earlier book we've referred to a number
of times, and it was also linked to Russell's silly comment. Rather
than repeat my notes there again, may I simply refer you to that part
of our appraisal by CLICKING
HERE. In the following, denouncing the hypocrites and frauds
who have followed faith, I can but agree.
Impossible
Rules? The tirade
flows on to chaff about rules that the author maintains cannot be
follows and starts with reference to, “You shall not covet,” as an
example of how it is impossible to change ‘thinking'. Well, sadly,
this is just the author's lack of knowledge and experience of the
Christian life. Once you have changed the direction of your life from
self-centred serving to God's-love filled living, it IS possible to
have a change of thinking. I'm not special as a Christian when I say
I DON'T covet. I am quite happy with God has allowed me to have. Similarly,
to follow up his next example, I can look on a beautiful woman on
a beach in the Summer and not desire here. That's not because I lack
sexually but because I have a wife who I am totally committed to and
therefore have no desire for any other woman.
I
understand the two methods of dealing with these things that he suggests,
but they are not the only way of dealing with wrong thoughts. Am I
saying that I never have such wrong thoughts? No, of course not, but
I deal with them by immediately offering them to God and replace them
with 'good' thoughts. If (on occasion) I do have wrong thoughts, speak
wrong words or whatever, I confess those to God and receive His forgiveness
on the basis of what Christ has done. Such a process completely disarms
desires etc. that might lead us astray and reduce the times that such
thoughts occur. There is considerably more we could say here, but
this is simply pastoral wisdom that any good pastor will convey.
Loving
your Neighbour:
This is the third area that the author takes up. What he misses is
the truth that without God it is true that we cannot be these things,
we cannot overcome. Yet millions of Christians will testify that without
the mental gymnastics that the author speaks about, it IS possible
to conform to these standards that he refers to - with Christ's help.
It is the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit within the believer
that gives them the strength to achieve these things.
Giving:
His assertion
on P.214 that people will not give to a perfect stranger without wanting
return, simply portrays the godless and unrighteous mentality of so
many for whom what he says is true. Yet Christians will often give
in this manner with no expectation of return. Sorry, it happens –
regularly! When you are aware of being utterly loved, it changes your
entire outlook – but I cannot ask someone who has not experienced
that to understand it – but it is true. When you are loved, there
is no pressure to conform, but it is a natural thing to do so, because
the very instructions the author has been taking such great exception
to, are the very basic building blocks of civilisation which the Christian
world has so often demonstrated.
Genetically
determined : The
same sad, old, trite atheistic excuses are trotted out as we approach
the end of this chapter – we are genetically programmed! Oh yes, and
the word ‘evolved' even crept in. We may have a certain genetic disposition
but we can still choose how we will respond to that disposition.
Sexual
Escapism: It used
to be said that Christians were absorbed with sex or sexual repression,
but now it is atheists. Indirect comments about masturbation are used
as negative sideways comments, but we are left wondering what and
why because no detail is spoken, just a vague reference to sex generally
with the suggestion that that is what will follow in the following
chapter. Shades of Freud about all this – and he has been dismissed
by his profession too.