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I just read this article about the evil Wal-Mart. In it, the liberal whacko says:

The state has an interest, he said, because “Wal-Mart is the most egregious offender when it comes to having employees use public assistance - in fact, training them to apply.”

That’s right.  The LIBERAL guy is complaining that Wal-Mart trains its employees how to get public assistance!

1) Isn’t that what Liberals want anyway?

2) Isn’t that what Liberals do for illega–er, undocumented workers already?

3) Isn’t this “public assistence” there to help the poor, underpaid Wal-Mart workers anyway, and thus isn’t Wal-Mart doing its part to help out their workers?

But now we see the truth. Hatred for Wal-Mart is more important than taking care of the “poor” and “destitute” who live in the only society ever on the face of the Earth to have poor people with an obesity problem!

One of my favorite bands is Disturbed.  And right now I’ve got one of their lyrics stuck in my head.  But it’s a cool lyric:

Are you feeling brave or have you gone out of your mind? (From “I’m Alive”)

It ranks up there with my favorite Green Day lyric:

Why are you alone wasting your time when you could be with me wasting your time?

And my favorite Metallica lyric:

I was me but now he’s gone.

with someone who would write this sentence:

If it had not been for Germany being a great contributor to progress in science, philosophy, literature, arts and politics; if it had not been for a more important and positive influence of Germany in international relations and promotion of peace; moreover, if it had not been for the persistence of a strong will by certain global powers and special groups to constantly portray Germany as defeated and indebted country of World War II in order to continue their extortions; and if it had not been for the presence of Your Excellency at the top of the executive branch of your country as an experienced stateswoman with bitter and sweet experiences in two dissimilar societies with different political systems and traditions, and at the same time, if it had not been for the advantages that are limited to women, such as stronger human sentiments and certain manifestations of the divine compassion and kindness, specially in the position of a mother and being at the service of the people, and the common responsibility of all people with faith in God to defend human dignity and worth and to prevent violations of their rights and their humiliation, and proceeding from this conviction that we are all created by the Almighty and He has bestowed upon us all dignity and no one has any special privileges over the other, and under no circumstances could a society be deprived of its rights, barred from pursuit of progress and perfection or be controlled or humiliated; finally, if it had not been for the oppression, however different, of our nations, our shared responsibility to promote justice as the most basic foundation for promotion of peace and human equality, I would not have found the motive to write this letter.

And he wants nukes too…

In the comments at Triablogue referenced in my previous post, I made mention of an argument based on X.  In this case, X simply stands for an unknown entity (be it a being, a force, a place, or whatever) which enables my existence.

The question is: what does my existence presuppose about X?

The question is properly framed.  I can only prove my existence with 100% certainty (and then only to myself).  After all, I perceive things.  If what I perceive is imaginary, I still must exist in order to perceive it.  Likewise, in order to deny my existence I must exist to deny it.  In all instances, I have proven to myself that I exist.

That doesn’t mean I can prove that other people exist with the same certainty.  Nor does it mean that other people can prove my existence with the same certainty (although they can prove their own existence to themselves with the same certainty, using the same principles).

So, what does my existence demonstrate about X?

Obviously, firstly if X enables my existence, then X must likewise exist.  If X did not exist, then it would be unable to account for my existence.  (By the way, I would note that at this point it would be folly to assume X couldn’t be me–that is something we have not yet looked at–and thus X could possibly be self-contained in myself too.)  Since we have defined X as that being/entity/what-not that establishes my existence, then by definition X must exist.

Likewise, if X establishes my existence, then X must exist wherever I exist.  If X establishes my existence, I cannot exist apart from X.  Therefore, wherever I exist, so too must X.

Likewise, if X establishes my existence, then as long as I exist X must also exist.  If I cannot exist apart from X, then if X ever departs I shall no longer exist.  X must exist at least as long as I exist, and at least in the location(s) I exist.

Thus far, X matches up with my being.  But now it is time to make some extrapolations.

1) I perceive other objects.

These objects must exist in some sense of the term or else they would not be perceived.  This existence does not have to be physical existence (indeed, thus far none of the instances of “existence” requires physicality–it could all be functions of consciousness).

2) These objects either exist on their own, or due to my existence.

Either these objects are “real” (in that their existence is independent of mine) or else I imagine them.  Thus, either these objects have their own state of being (which I shall call Y), or else their being is derrived from my own being and they are imaginary (X1).

3) Likewise, my own being is either self-existent or else derrived from the existence of something else.

4) Even if my own state of being is not self-existent but derrived, at some point in order to avoid an infinite regress there must be some being that is self-existent.  That self-existent being must be the cause of my being.  We will call that original self-existent being X2.

5) If other objects are imagined by me, their state of being is likewise dependent upon X2 working through me.  In other words, imaginary objects (X1) are dependent upon my being (X) and my being (X) is dependent, after however long a chain, upon the original self-existent being (X2).

6) If those other objects have being of their own, distinct from mine, (Y) then they likewise must go back to some aspect of being that is self-existent if logic is universal.  Now this self-existent aspect of Y could be different from the X2 over my existence, so we will label it Y2.

7) Regardless of which of the above, there is some aspect to existence that must be self-existent.  This self-existence must be true in at least one instance (X2 and Y2 and …. all as coming from one self-existent being), but could be true for more than one (X2 or Y2 or… coming from different beings).

8) Just as whatever causes my existence must exist wherever I am at, so too must whatever causes the existence of everything dependent upon X2 (or Y2, etc.) must exist wherever X2 is (or Y2, etc.).  So also must X2 (or Y2, etc.) exist for as long as all things that are dependent upon X2 (or Y2, etc.) for their existence exist.

9) Therefore, as far as those things which are dependent upon X2 (or Y2, etc.) for their existence are concerned, X2 (or Y2, etc.) is omnipresent, eternal, and self-existent.  Again, these terms are limited to the scope of X2 (or Y2, etc.) and are not yet viewed in a universal sense (in order to get to that, one must first show X2 = Y2 = Z2, etc. which, while certainly probable, isn’t 100% necessary).

Now all of steps 6ff. depends on the universality of logic.  This is obviously not a problem if X2 = Y2 = Z2, etc.  But logic isn’t necessarily universal if X2 is not Y2, etc.  In such instances, Y2 could theoretically have a different logic than X2.

In this case, the logic formed on X2 cannot speak of truth or falsehood inherent in Y2.  In other words, the logic derrived from my existence cannot speak of the logic derrived from the existence of any other object unless the grounds for both are the same.

So, if Y2 is to be considered logical like X2, then Y2 must = X2.

Thus, if we say that all objects in the universe are logical, then all objects must be derrived from the same self-existent being.  If we deny the same self-existent being, then logic does not extend beyond the individual object.  If we take this course, then we cannot argue anything (for all argument depends on logic).

Therefore, simply using logic presupposes that all objects come from the same self-existent source (either physically or through that self-existent source’s consciousness).

Since I have argued elsewhere that universal logic requires the existence of God, I will not reproduce that argument here.

Suffice it to say, either the atheist must stipulate the existence of a being with all the attributes of God, or else the atheist must confine himself to being unable to speak logically about anything.  Either choice renders his atheism foolish.

Atheists like to pretend they have no burden of proof in an argument.  For instance, if you read the comments on this post, you’ll see quite a few instances of atheists refusing to accept the burden of proof for the foundation their critiques of Christianity require.

Take Apollyon as the first example.  He writes to Steve Hays saying:

I read thru the post and comments….but didn’t see you address you how KNOW that your God isn’t simply an advanced alien race.How do you KNOW this?

 

Apollyon’s attempt is to mirror radical skepticism.  If a Christian cannot “know” that God isn’t an alien race, then perhaps the Christian is wrong.

What Apollyon fails to realize is what Steve pointed out, “[Y]ou have your own burden of proof to discharge.”  Apollyon needs to define what knowledge is.  Furthermore, for his critique to work he needs to establish the difference between knowledge and belief.

After all, knowledge is only the belief in the veracity of a claim.  We “know” because we believe what we “know” is true.  Knowledge is inseperable from faith.

So Apollyon does not even realize that if he is claiming to know that a Christian cannot know God isn’t an alien race, then Apollyon needs to demonstrate how he can know this!  To turn it back on him, Apollyon cannot know that a Christian cannot know that God isn’t an alien race (yes, the multitude of negatives there is quite impressive!).

In any case, Apollyon functions quite well as someone who will grasp at anything to try to disprove Christianity, even if his arguments cannot possibly be grounded in anything he believes in the first place.  Any argument will work, even if the grounds of that argument are rejected by him too.  For some reason, the Christian must still respond to it.

In the meantime, the atheist can pretend that he doesn’t even have a burden of proof….

I can tell as I get ready to write this blog post that it will come out much harsher than I want it to.  But perhaps it’s needed from time to time. This weekend, I attended my first Promise Keepers event. It pretty much matched my expectations for it (i.e. an extra-long “non-denominational” church service). But when the guest band was playing and I saw all the crowd jumping up and down, it just hit me.

It’s all fake.

They want you to think it’s “worship.” They want you to think the Spirit is moving.

But there was absolutely nothing there in the crowd that was not present at the Queensryche/Judas Priest concert I attended last year. About the only difference, besides style of music, was there was no one smoking pot at Promise Keepers.

The videos that they showed just screamed “marketing ploy.” The teaching almost got dangerously close to ankle-depth (but only on rare occasions—wouldn’t want to spook anyone in attendance, ya know).

And the song lyrics. The crowd really seemed to like the line about how in heaven “religion finally dies” seeing as how they screamed it out really loud each of the thirty-seven times it was repeated in the song. This immediately preceded the chorus about how they’d be “dancing with my Father God in fields of grace.” And I couldn’t help but think, “Who’s the Father? Oh wait—that’s defined by religion. What’s grace? Oh wait—that’s defined by religion. Hmmm, by self-acknowledgement, these are just labels with no meaning.”

This is nothing more than postmodernism dressed up to appear as a “move of the Spirit.” Is this what Evangelicalism has come to now? 99.4% content free?

Apparently so.

There were 400 people who came up the first night and “gave their lives to Christ.” Of course, one of my friends I attended the conference with reminded me that he had gone up to altar calls about 10 times in his life. That’s because the speakers were quite good at making you feel guilty for not going up and performing your dog and pony show. And naturally, if someone showed up we have to accept that it was genuine. No need to demonstrate the fruits of faith, no sir.  That would be divisive.

If you go up then you’re automatically saved. You don’t have to change your life or anything because: “God loves you just as you are!” So why think that He’ll want to change you? (In point of fact, God does NOT love you just as you are. If anything, He loves you in spite of what you are, and He most certainly does not want you to remain where you are.)

Saying that could offend some people, and that is the only real sin left in this world. After all, everyone has basically good hearts. We have all these wonderful good intentions that tickle our toes with tingling excitement. God loves us as we are because, darn it, we deserve to be loved just as we are.

After all, it’s not our faith in Christ that matters…it’s His faith in us. God’s just sitting up there in heaven waiting for us to allow Him to be God. He’s just wishing someone would give Him permission to rule His creation. He’s just longing for acceptance and a sense of belonging. If we don’t give it to Him, why God might shed a tear or something.

Oh yeah—if you’re looking for that in the Bible, well you gotta adjust a couple of passages of Scripture. It helps if you read “The Message” instead of an actual translation, for starters. And it also helps a lot if you jump from version to version, always using the one that is closest to what you want it to say in any particular passage. Quote the NIV on one verse, KJV on another, Amplified Version on a third and suddenly you can make the Bible say pretty much anything you want it to say. You know, like how you’ll be dancing with the Father God in fields of grace. I’m pretty sure that’s in Ezekiel or something.

So don’t worry about it. Religion will finally die, ya know. It’ll finally catch up to the faith of the modern American Evangelical!

Yeah, yeah.  I know.  This is an “outreach” ministry.  It’s not supposed to be “deep” because it’s “reaching out.”  But that doesn’t explain the hundreds and thousands of people who’ve been to more than one Promise Keepers event.  It doesn’t explain the fact that people don’t want to make their brain hurt so they avoid anything that might challenge their comfort zone.

I wonder how much God is really glorified by this.  I have to say, as far as I can see, the answer is: “not much.”

“The State Department is investigating whether Israel’s use of American-made cluster bombs in southern Lebanon violated secret agreements with the United States that restrict when it can employ such weapons, two officials said.”

Apparently, no secret is safe when The New York Times is on the case!  Well, except for where Osama is hiding.  That’s one secret they haven’t revealed yet.

But don’t worry, they’ll warn him if we get close to finding him so he’ll have plenty of time to stay hidden.

I saw this headline and thought Don’t scientists have better things to do with their time than to determine THIS?

Of course the article is slightly better if you start counting all the double entendres….

Pluto is no longer a planet.

I’m sure this upsets your entire day.

I’m sure this is the most important news of the year.

Yeah.

Although the reason given in the article makes me wonder:

“Pluto is automatically disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune’s.”

Wouldn’t that also disqualify Neptune then???

Oh well.

Often on this blog, I have mentioned my presuppositionalism. Normally, this is when I am addressing atheists. Since atheists tend not to care much about what Scripture says, I haven’t really focused on the Scriptural reasons for being a presuppositionalist.However, I also know that there are many Christians who read my blog too, and if they are good Christians they will want to know what my Scriptural support is. For that reason, I now put forth this shortened version of my Scriptural case for presuppositionalism.

The first passage we look at is Proverbs 1:7, which states: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” This passage comes in the prologue of Proverbs, when Solomon explains the purpose of his writing. It is “To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity; to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth” as verses 2-3 state. Thus, Solomon is putting forth the basic principles that lead to all wisdom.

The foundation of knowledge, he says, is the fear of the Lord. So important is this concept that Solomon repeats it later on: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (Proverbs 9:10). In a similar vein, he states: “[T]hen you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God” (Proverbs 2:5).

Knowledge of anything begins with the fear of the Lord. As a result, one cannot really know anything unless one first believes in God. As a result, when an atheist knows something he must tacitly acknowledge the existence of God. Knowledge is impossible apart from God. God is the grounds by which knowledge can occur.

This is why the Psalmist says: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” (Psalm 14:1, 53:1). Why is he a fool who says there is no God? Because the beginning of knowledge is the fear of the Lord, and thus no one can know anything—including the atheist’s claimed “There is no God”—without first acknowledging the existence of God. The atheist’s position becomes self-refuting, and therefore only a fool would hold to it.

But there is also another reason why it is a fool who says there is no God. That further explanation occurs in Romans 1, where we read:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. (Romans 1:18-23).

The very creation screams forth the attributes of God. It is not just the fact that the atheist claims to know something (there is no God) that makes him a fool; the very existence of the atheist demands the existence of God. The existence of anything demonstrates certain necessary truths: namely, God’s eternal power and his divine nature. And this is something that God has shown to all men everywhere so that all are without excuse.Why, then, are there so many people who reject this God? Firstly, it’s because these people “suppress the truth” at all costs. Even so, if this truth is so universal, why do atheists honestly believe that they are not suppressing anything when they deny God’s existence? The answer to that can be found in another letter from Paul:

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased Got through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men (1 Corinthians 1:20-25)

The reason that atheists don’t feel like they are suppressing anything is because they feel like they are actually wise. They want to use their wisdom to examine God. But, “the world [does] not know God through wisdom” for “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” as we have already seen. Thus, one does not first become wise and then know God; one knows God and thus becomes wise.But we read: “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). The natural man, therefore, cannot accept the truth of God because it appears to him as folly. Because the truth appears as folly, he does not realize that he is suppressing the truth.

Furthermore, because knowledge of God is necessary before one has true wisdom, those who do not believe in God do not have the knowledge necessary to understand their suppression of truth. Instead, they puff themselves up with vain philosophies, never realizing that their philosophies are built on self-destruction, for in order to deny God, one must accept Him.

All this does have an impact on how the Christian ought to evangelize. What the atheist needs is not more evidence. He has sufficient evidence, but he is unable to understand it. To him, it is folly. Instead of more evidence, the atheist needs a change of heart. Without the ability to spiritually discern the things of God, the atheist will never be able to accept the things of God.

Evidentialism, therefore, is not going to win over anyone. Only the Spirit of God will.  Our right focus in evangelism, therefore, ought to be to focused on the fact that all our evidence (while useful for building up Christian believers) is superfluous, and we ought instead to appeal to the Spirit’s regenerating power.  Perhaps the reason why it seems there are more atheists in the West these days is because believers who attempt a defense of the faith tend to do so from the wrong starting point, and thus their arguments end up just as futile as the thinking of the atheist.