“Atheist in Mind, Humanist in Heart”. It was the downfall of these two young men, Figdor and Bayer, not when they melded in their book Atheism and Humanism as a religious belief system of Atheism, but rather when they used the words “Mind” and “Heart”, perhaps borrowing from or even striving to overcome Jesus’ own summary of the 10 commandments from the LORD God Himself. “And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour? (Luke 10:25-29) Look at those young American faces of brilliant college graduates, who can doubt them; and the real force of their arguments is that they are our cleaning cut and nice looking youth. You could imagine them in your church or Boy Scout troop! Yet even as we doubt some of their Harvard and Stanford Professors on an individual basis based on what they say and teach, even so we must evaluate against the standard of the Bible we trust the religion of the Atheist and Humanist that they themselves express as a Belief system of 10 beliefs. {Yes, that is what they call them online at http://www.atheistmindhumanistheart.com/about-book/ .} Of course, it not commonly known there is a “Humanist Chaplain” at Harvard; that the community of atheists humanists and agnostics at Stanford with so many organized events and programs in the Bay Area, that a Masters of Divinity graduate even from Harvard could state as a belief as you will soon see, “There is no God” with the belief system of a religion of atheism. We might be shocked to know that a Humanist organization is tax-free, essentially our taxes support them, that serves both Stanford and the Silicon Valley where so many youth have also become instant millionaires, etc. “My Beliefs” of Bayer and Figdor with Answers What the young authors, Bayer and Figdor express as the religion beliefs of a humanist and atheist: {Are you surprised that they like so many other atheists chose 10 beliefs, rules, or commandments for life?} NOTE: This whole thing sounds like young men who gained the happiness of popularity, wealth, and approval in their limited academic environment of choice, likewise in the environment of friends and associates of the silicon valley that made a god out of computers, software, and technology. 1. The world is real, and our desire to understand the world is the basis for belief. {From Figdor and Bayer} Answer: That desire to conquer the world like our pioneers of the past hopefully will give them some eternal credit of some kind, but the desire itself testifies to the first commission of God written in the Bible but also in the conscience and consciousness of these of the humanists and atheist religion. 2. We can perceive the world only through our human senses. {F&B} Answer: Yes, if the internal sense of conscience is included; and if the eye can see design in the world demanding a great Designer. A wonderful constructed scientific experiment to prove the creation of life apart from a Creator was shown online with a sarcastic title of something like “What Creationism Taught Me”, which by the way did not work for him, as in his rational thoughts warped by the bias of sin, did not consider the intelligence and process that it took for the creation of the experiment, which is even more so for the God/Father/Creator that made so much more at one time so much more than a single cell and created an environment on earth and in the heavens above that would sustain that life. Any discover in science is a puny and limited effort to understand, sometimes even duplicate, what God did on a world wise scale. Common sense and the scientific method just will not let you get away from the example of a native in the jungle stumbling across a PCB or some other complex piece of technology fallen from an orbiting satellite. THE DESIGN DEMANDS A DESIGNER. And what this poor mis-guided soul of a superficial scientific method overlooked in his efforts to prove humanism and atheism, is the human intelligence required by the experiment creator, and intelligence made by God in the image of God, is within itself a witness to the Divine Creator. However, it like a toy or a gnat compared to “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth...” (Genesis 1:1) It reminds one of a high school or freshman college student repeating the Millikan oil drop experiment to measure the charge and mass of the electron, then declaring a re-creation of the universe was underway, while it is obvious among the many human limitations is the limited space of a lab big enough. 3. We use rational thought and language as tools for understanding the world. {F&G} These young men need a big dose of Millikan from “Evolution in Science and Religion”, or even often certainly in the Heisenberg uncertainty principle where efforts to measure effects what is being measured. Millikan illustrated the human bias and lack of objectivity from both the scientific and religious communities. It is almost impossible singularly as an individual human or in a group of humans to overcome some inherent bent of nature, training, or environment. 4. All truth is proportional to the evidence . Truth is proportional to the evidence because our observations, coupled with the scientific method, are good at predicting future events. {F&B} ANSWER: Obviously little of their research and learnng has come the Classical Christian evidences and apologetics like where Millikan before them in asserting universal and absolute truth. Yes, you can predict the Force (F), if you have measured the mass and acceleration, and vice versa; yes you can predict the Energy (E) if you know the mass and speed of light squared; but can you predict without conscience, design, and the evidence of the Bible, predict force itself, energy itself, and the Great Brains behind their creation. Truth should include the Classical Christian Evidences for God, Christ as the Son of God, and the Bible. Even as Linton states in “A Lawyer Examines the Bible” that a man was never met sceptical of these evidences who had sincerely without a pre- conceived hypothesis of unbelief read the Bible itself. While we all appreciate Harvard worthies from the days of John Cotton and the Mathers all the way to Skinner, and we are not belittling or knocking their educations at Harvard and Stanford, if they could become intellectually honest long enough to admit that they give little time to the Bible itself {we have known of many seminary graduates to get a lot of relgion but little Bible}, or even to the Apologists of Harvard like Simon Greenleaf, former dean of the Harvard Law School who maintained a “prima-facie” case that the testimony of the evangelists—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—would stand up in any court of law, much less of Millikan in “Evolution in Science and Religion”, and so on and on. 5. There is no God . There is insufficient evidence for a belief in God. Believing in any particular god is playing the “religious lottery.” ANSWER: Oh my my, these two young men of the Silicon valley and Harvard show gaps in their education right there, and at te judgment they will be held eternally responsible for such a bad testimony at Stanford, Harvard, and the Silicon Valley. “The fool has said in his heart, there is no God” (Psalm 14:1). Can you imagine a theology without God, a Divinity school education and degree without God. While we can appreciate their limited intellectual honesty, to use some words from Trueblood, for admitting like most humanists and atheist will not, that theirs is a religion and a set of beliefs, most often very negative, don't talk to hundreds and thousands of Christians and other Bible believers with personal and pragmatic experience about any god, sounds like a heathen of idol worship, for they and we are talking of God the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, the author of the Bible. 6. We all strive to live a happy life. We pursue things that make us happy and avoid things that do not. We believe that we seek things that make us happy because introspection about our thoughts and desires, and observations of others, are consistent with this perspective. ANSWER: In your faulty concepts and definition of happiness would you consider non-joyous temporal choices for an ultimate and eternal happiness like Jesus did on the cross, or many Christian martyrs have done in testimonies to the faith? You know this belief system of these young humanists is sounding more and more immature in that their observations of others have been very limited even as a young life itself is very limited. 7. There is no universal moral truth. Our experieces and preferences shape our sense of how to behave. There is insufficient evidence for objective moral truth. On reflection, our views of right and wrong are inextricably linked to what sort of people we want to be, our past experiences, and the cultural norms of the times. ANSWER: The Bible Itself is universal moral truth in the category of Absolute truth of which Millikan spoke in the Yale lectures and wrote in the Evolution book, it is contrasted to universal truth generally accepted by the majority depending on time and environment. 8. We act morally when the happiness of others makes us happy. We observe that people we consider more moral tend to derive more happiness from making other people happy. ANSWER: We act morally not only because a good Boy Scout is “trustworthy, loyal, helpful, courteous, kind, cheerful, brave, clean and reverent; but also because of the expectations of a holy Creator to in turn be holy. And yes, Jesus summarized the fulfillment of the 10 commandments as “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:25-29) 9. We benefit from living in, and supporting, an ethical society. Ethical societies benefit everyone because it is easier to live a happier life when you are surrounded by other people who value cooperation and take pleasure in your happiness. This is a mutually beneficial relationship. ANSWER: Can either sound like a utopia from Skinner in BEYOND FREEDOM AND DIGNITY, or with some measure of reality of world history and now, all human societies of history are more adequately described by Romans: “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. (Romans 1: 20-25) 10. Our beliefs are subject to change in the face of new evidence, including these. Beliefs are subject to revision because the more experiences you have in life, the more data you have to draw on, and the more likely you are to formulate accurate conclusions. ANSWER: This sounds sad and lonely without any absolutes. The formulation of life conclusions are more like the rest of Romans 1: “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. (Romans 1:26-32) Download this page in PDF. |