A Case in Point, Part I

Recent controversy concerning my proof that the Christian god does not exist has brought a few of Christianity’s more daring defenders out of their comfort zones. We have already seen Prayson Daniel’s unsuccessful attempts to attack my argument (see his blog entries here and here).

I have already interacted with Prayson’s feeble efforts to discredit my argument in a blog entry of my own: see Prayson Daniel vs. the Imaginative Nature of Christian Theism. The discussion in the comments of this entry is particularly fascinating given the fact that Christians are taking issue with my argument’s Premise 1, namely the recognition that the imaginary is not real. Believers are preferring to challenge the premise that the imaginary is not real over seeking to topple my argument’s fourth premise, which affirms outright that the Christian god is imaginary (and not without supporting evidence; see here). The choice to attack my argument’s Premise 1 instead of its Premise 4 suggests, quite strongly I might add, that the believers who take this route are admitting through their actions that they know the god they worship is in fact imaginary. Their concern is not to prove that their god is not imaginary, but to challenge the view that the imaginary is not real.

One comment submitted to Prayson’s blog was particularly noteworthy for the abundance of blunders one can find in its author’s attempts to refute my argument. Posted under the moniker “bethelbaptistchurchblog,” its author does not provide his name (which seems customary for many Christians these days – they apparently want to keep their identities concealed). Trying to remain anonymous might be the only wise move the author made in posting his comment. Throughout his comment, the author incorrectly refers to me as “Beckwith.” This was not his only error, nor was it his biggest. In fact, his comment is so full of fundamental blunders that it is hard to know which one should win an Oscar.

Debate between Objectivist Andrew Bernstein and Dinesh D’Souza Now on YouTube

The topic of the debate is: Christianity: Good or Bad for Mankind? The debate was held at the University of Texas, Austin, on February 8, 2013. Details on the YouTube page are as follows:

DEBATE: Christianity: Good or Bad for Mankind? 

Dinesh D'Souza vs. Andrew Bernstein  

Is Christianity the source of important truths, moral law, and man's rights and thus profoundly good for mankind—or is it antithetical to all such values and thus profoundly bad? In this debate, Christian conservative Dinesh D'Souza argues that Christianity is good; Objectivist atheist Andrew Bernstein argues the alternative.  

Brought to you by the UT Objectivism Society and The Objective Standard  

For more information on Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism and its application to cultural and political issues, visit: http://www.TheObjectiveStandard.com

Prayson Daniel vs. the Imaginative Nature of Christian Theism

A Christian blogger by the name of Prayson Daniel has responded to my blog A Proof that the Christian God Does Not Exist. Prayson’s blog entry can be found here: Bethrick: A Proof that the Christian God Does Not Exist? The basic syllogism of my argument is as follows:

Premise 1: That which is imaginary is not real.  

Premise 2: If something is not real, it does not actually exist.  

Premise 3: If the god of Christianity is imaginary, then it is not real and therefore does not actually exist.  

Premise 4: The god of Christianity is imaginary.  

Conclusion: Therefore, the god of Christianity is not real and therefore does not actually exist.

Prayson grants that my argument is formally valid, adding “and thus if premise 1-4 are true, Bethrick would have succeeded in showing that God, as believed by Christians, does not exist.” But of course, given his allegiance to the Christian worldview, Prayson can be expected not to accept that my argument is sound.

Rawlings' Bawlings

In the comments sections of the previous three entries on my blog (beginning with the most recent: Michael David Rawlings and the Primacy of a Bad Attitude, My Discussion with Michael Rawlings, and Is Math Christian?), we have had the opportunity to observe the spectacle of a most pompous individual.

From the beginning, Rawlings has come to us wielding multi-syllabic jargon and point-missing braggadocio in a most characteristic fashion. But according to Rawlings and the defenses he’s provided, what does the Christian worldview have to offer in terms of philosophical value? Let the reader decide, but the reader should be informed before settling his opinion prematurely. So here is an overview (but I caution the reader: this is by no means an exhaustive catalogue of Rawlings’ indiscretions and deficiencies – not by a long shot!):

Michael David Rawlings and the Primacy of a Bad Attitude

Christians are notorious for having hurt feelings when their god-belief claims are not accepted as the truths they affirm on their mere say so. Their feelings are hurt even more when their “arguments” are exposed as the silly collections of incoherence that they are. But in spite of their hurt feelings, some Christians keep coming back for more punishment, pushing the same nonsense like a dog coming back to its own vomit, apparently expecting that his next iteration of the same nonsense, perhaps in a new guise, will somehow slide under the radar of philosophical detection. I have bad news for the believer: it won’t.

Christian apologist Michael David Rawlings is no exception to this frequently encountered quagmire. He has come posting on my blog under the guise of wanting to learn about Objectivism and peddling a highfalutin perspective on Christianity backed up by “credentials” which he never specifies. His pockets are loaded to bear with reality-denying assumptions and ten-cent theological jargon to give the impression that he has the answer to the age-old question, “Where’s the beef?” In practice, Michael Rawlings doesn’t even really try to back up his assertions. On the contrary, he simply gets furiously angry when others don’t accept what he says on his mere say so. And this is a guy who says that Christianity does not affirm the primacy of consciousness when human consciousness is involved.

My Discussion with Michael Rawlings

In the comments section of my previous blog entry, Is Math Christian?, a visitor to my blog named Michael Rawlings has engaged me in a fascinating and, I’m happy to say, very civil discussion about Christianity.

Michael does not strike me as the typical apologist for Christianity. His tone is mature and he exhibits a refreshing willingness to examine ideas and take them seriously. He has also expressed admiration for Objectivism, which I find encouraging.

Still, Michael seems to have a persisting hesitancy to address direct questions responding to his statements. To his credit in this regard, he has expressed caution for taking things slowly and addressing issues in a sequential manner. However, the list of outstanding questions has been growing since the discussion first began.

Is Math Christian?

Two weeks ago, on October 4, I submitted a comment to the blog “MATH IS CHRISTIAN, on an entry titled THE FUTILITY OF ALL NON-CHRISTIAN APPROACHES TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS (pardon the caps - perhaps the author figured that caps would ensure the truth of what he claims).

The author of the blog, a Charles Jackson who, according to his personal info page, holds an MS in mathematics from Cal State Long Beach, claims in his blog that “the Christian God, being, as He is, infinite, personal, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-controlling, self-attesting, and self-revelatory, provides what is necessary for a successful philosophy of anything.” Given this “presupposition,” Jackson reasons, “the sufficiency of the concept of the Christian God for the intelligibility of human mathematical experience follows directly from the sufficiency of the concept of the Christian God for the intelligibility of human experience, simpliciter.” Consequently, he continues, “the concept of the Christian God is a sufficient condition for the intelligibility of human mathematical experience: mathematical knowledge, mathematical practice, etc.”

From these premises Jackson concludes that “all non-Christian approaches to the philosophy of mathematics” are therefore necessarily futile. They would have to be, goes Jakson’s reasoning, since the “concept” of the Christian god is so necessary to “mathematical experience” and “mathematical knowledge.”

For those lounging in the choir, such “reasoning” probably seems both air-tight and bullet-proof. But is it? Does such reasoning have any objective basis in reality? Or, does it only seem so unassailable from within the fake environment of the Christian worldview which elevates imagination over reality?

I suspect it is the latter rather than the former.

Hell is for Believers

There are many unintended ironies in Christianity and Christian apologetics. For instance, Christian apologists claim that their worldview is the only worldview which can consistently “account for” objective moral absolutes, but at the same time they claim that there exists such a thing as a “morally justifiable reason” for allowing evil and that their god has this (cf. Greg Bahnsen, Always Ready, p. 171; see also here). So much for the Christian god being “absolutely good.”

Or consider the claim that only Christianity “provides” the necessary preconditions for knowledge, but at the same time Christianity has no theory of concepts to inform a theory of knowledge. So in spite of all the “How do you know?” questions that presuppositionalists discharge in their debates, their worldview has no answer to how one can know anything and can offer nothing more than “We know without knowing how we know,” as John Frame has affirmed (see here).

Another example is the claim that the Christian god is a perfect creator and that it created everything in the universe, including human beings, but at the same time they say that human beings are inherently flawed and depraved creations in need of redemption (see here). According to this view, a creator that is perfect created creatures which are not perfect. This is like saying that “invisible things” are “clearly seen” (cf. Romans 1:20).

Christianity vs. Happiness

Presuppositional apologists are continually focusing the philosophical debate on issues such as which worldview can account for logic, which worldview can solve the problem of induction, which worldview provides the necessary preconditions for intelligibility, etc. And while presuppositionalism has been answered on each of these points (for logic, see here; for induction, see here; for knowledge, see here), one thing that presuppositionalists tend to overlook in their worldview analysis is man’s need for happiness. Indeed, one may even get the impression that according to their worldview, man does not need happiness or should not even try for happiness. Happiness does not at all seem important to the apologist, for he never draws attention to its importance, and apologists in general do not come across as very happy persons.

This oversight, to the degree that it is merely an oversight, is most fitting. For the Christian worldview cannot provide the necessary preconditions for human happiness. Happiness is not possible to a mind haunted by Christianity’s fear and guilt.

Answers to “50 Important Philosophical Questions”

I recently saw a blog entry on Thoughts On The Line (TOTL) titled 50 IMPORTANT PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTIONS (no, that’s not me shouting), and after reading some of the questions I thought I’d take some time and answer all fifty questions. So here they are, in the order in which they appear on the TOTL blog entry:

STB: Two Years and Counting

It has now been two years to the day since I posted my refutation of the argument showcased on Sye Ten Bruggencate’s website “proof that god exists dot org.” While the argument on his site remains unchanged, Bruggencate has so far failed to vindicate the defense of his worldview which he has presented to the world against my critique.

Is Anyone Truly a Christian?

Non-Christians generally accept a person’s claim to be a Christian without hesitation. If a person claims that he or she is a Christian, non-believers typically take their word for it. And rational individuals usually grant that other adults are mature enough to identify themselves accurately and honestly upon first meeting them. And generally speaking, Christian believers themselves are happy with this situation: they typically expect non-Christians to accept their self-identification as Christians at face value.

Christians themselves, however, are not nearly so accepting. To be sure, they expect others to accept their own self-identification as Christians. But they are not always so accepting of the claims of other individuals to be Christians as well. Internal squabbles among Christians, complete with accusations of heresy and denunciations of deviant practice, are commonplace and have colored the landscape of Christendom since its earliest days. Even in his letters to the churches he had planted, the apostle Paul warned Christians of imposters, contributing from Christianity’s first moments to the “who can you trust?” atmosphere of Christian “fellowship.”

Chris Bolt vs. the Evils of Demanding Evidence in Support of Truth Claims

In his blog Answering the Evidentialist Objection, Chris Bolt makes it clear that does not like the idea, attributed to W.K. Clifford, that

It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

He calls this a “marvelously strong claim” (perhaps stronger than the claim that a first century Palestinian Jew was resurrected by a supernatural consciousness after dying by means of crucifixion) and asks, “What reason does one have for thinking it true?”

Bolt’s reply to this question is “Probably none,” which strikes me as somewhat deficient in confidence. Perhaps this is the reason why he has turned off the commenting option for this blog entry.

Craig Keener on Miracles

To date I have not devoted a specific entry on my blog to a discussion of miracles. This is partly due simply to more important priorities, lack of time, and the fact that I’d expect anyone familiar with my worldview could surmise why I reject miracle claims. But it’s very simple: the notion of ‘miracle’ presupposes a universe governed by the primacy of consciousness metaphysics, and we can know this because it denotes an event in which some or all entities involved are under the direct control of a supernatural will - i.e., a form of consciousness. Since I reject any version or expression of the primacy of consciousness, I consequently reject the notion of miracles since the notion of miracles is an expression of the primacy of consciousness.

Presuppositionalism’s Finest?

Below is my transcription of two excerpts from Fundamentally Flawed’s Episode 47: Hezekiah Ahaz, Round Two.

In Shambles: Nide's Crumbling Worldview

Nide has posted some comments replying to my previous blog entry responding to him here: Christian Anti-Morality: A Response to Nide. While it does not appear that Nide has finished his response to what I stated to him in that blog entry (he left his last comment with an indication that there was yet more to come), I am moving on with a response to what he stated in his reaction to what I wrote.

Christian Anti-Morality: A Response to Nide

The following is a reply to comments made on this blog by Nide (aka “Hezekiah Ahaz”).

Greg Bahnsen on the Problem of Evil

Greg Bahnsen (1948 – 1995) was the most high-profile popularizer of presuppositional apologetics of his day. He remains today one of the foremost interpreters of Cornelius Van Til’s apologetic works, his lengthy Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings & Analysis being published posthumously from Bahnsen’s own manuscript, which he completed shortly before his death (p.xv). The result is 764 pages, including a bibliography and three indices (for bible verses, names and topics) of excessively repetitive droning about how the “unbeliever” can’t account for this, can’t account for that, doesn’t know how to put on his pants in the morning, doesn’t know how to put his shirt on, etc. Throughout all this Bahnsen nowhere lays out an actual epistemological method for one to apply and come to the same “knowledge” Bahnsen and other Christians claim for themselves. Truly, it is a most ironic spectacle.

What some may find surprising is the fact that, in the space of 764 pages, there is in the topical index only one reference to the problem of evil, and that is to a footnote straddling pages 525 and 526 of Bahnsen’s thick tome.

And while it is rather lengthy in itself so far as footnotes go, Bahnsen states in that footnote that the problem of evil is, in his experience, “the most popular argument urged against Christianity.” So while his book is over 700 pages, he spends just one paragraph, relegated to a passing footnote, on addressing what he says is “the most popular argument urged against Christianity.”

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part IVb: Collectivism, Evil and Slavery

This will be the final installment of my extended reply to Dustin Segers’ questions for atheists. My previous responses to Segers can be found here:

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part I: Intro and the Nature of Truth
Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part II: The Nature of Logic 

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part IIIa: The Uniformity of Nature 

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part IIIb: The Problem of Induction 

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part IVa: Objective Morality

In the present entry, I continue my exploration of Segers’ final question, namely:

”How do you account for objective morality without God?"

I have already provided a direct response to this question in my previous blog entry. In this entry, I explore some of the political implications of the moral system found in Christianity, focusing on Christianity’s proclivity towards collectivism, its affinity with Nazism and communism, the problem of evil, and the issue of slavery.

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part IVa: Objective Morality

I am back! I had originally intended to post my response to Segers’ question about morality back in April, but I had several conferences to attend and I also moved into a new house on the outskirts of Bangkok. There’s still much to do and I’m extremely busy, but I have managed to devote some snippets of time here and there to my writing. Not ideal, but I’ll take what I can get!

So many issues came up as I was writing about the contrasts between (genuinely) objective morality and what passes for morality in Christianity, that I have decided to split this portion of my reaction to Segers into two different blog entries. In the present entry I answer Segers’ question about morality, provide definitions for important terms relevant to his question (e.g., what is morality? What is objectivity? Etc.), emphasize the importance of focusing on the individual when discussing morality, examine the 10 commandments, explore the topic of how one determines his own values, and make some points about the abortion debate.

In the follow-up entry (IVb), I will highlight the collectivistic implications of Christian morality and explore Christianity’s permissive view of slavery.

Throughout all of my discussion I draw attention to the stark contrasts between objective morality and Christian morality, leaving no question that Christian morality is entirely unfit for human life and certainly not to be confused with a moral code which is in fact objective in nature. To serve this end I make use of some dazzling quotations from defenders of Christianity themselves.

The previous four entries in my response to Segers can be found here:

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part I: Intro and the Nature of Truth
Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part II: The Nature of Logic 

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part IIIa: The Uniformity of Nature 

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part IIIb: The Problem of Induction