Atheist Hypocrisy

I have been watching a lot of Atheism vs. Theism debates lately and I wanted to post some observations.  I am sure if any of my atheist friends find their way to my blog that they will engage in Dawkinian and Hitchinian insults about how ignorant and deluded that I am.  This is totally fine with me.

1. BURDEN OF PROOF DISCREPANCY:  While our atheists friends chide us incessantly about the lunacy of theism and its lack of evidence they are more than willing to be open minded about pure speculation and even laud it as intellectual if it denies God.  An example of this is the Multiverse Theory.  There is at this point no scientific evidence that there are billions of other universes outside of ours, yet for atheists to entertain this idea is intellectualism.  To even theorize about the Multiverse Theory one must immediately leave science behind. Yet, no matter what hypothesis the theist forwards or what evidence he gives for it, we are deluded.

2. UNDERSTANDING DISCREPANCY: In these debates with atheist, particularly Christopher Hitchens, they show not even a rudimentary understanding of what the bible actually teaches.  I point this out because atheists often insist that we don't understand science.  However, atheists like Hitchens and Dawkins do not even have a Sunday School grasp of Christian theology, much less the advanced knowledge they demand we have of science.  The only way that religion, and Christianity in particular, could be so misrepresented is for these guys to be ignorant of theology, or intentionally misrepresenting our view, neither of which are good options.  Frankly, it is hilarious to watch at times. The theists (Craig, D'souza, Lennox, Strobel, Wilson) that participate in these debates are much versed in philosophy and science than the atheist (Barker, Dawkins, Hitchins) are in theology.  If the theists only knew as much about philosophy and science as the atheists knew about theology (religion in general/Christianity specifically) they would not be given the time of day; no one would take them seriously.  The atheists need to do a much more serious job in their presentation of religion and Christianity in these debates. 

What to do with Questions?

Peter Kreeft in Heaven: The Heart's Deepest Longing makes the statement: "Questions cannot be killed, only muffled." Just because you silence the questioner does not mean the questioner is not sill being questioned by the question. The only thing that you accomplish by silencing the questioner is removing yourself from contributing to the answer. While Peter Kreeft is speaking about the heart's question of Heaven, the principle applies to all questions. There are two contexts that I would like to apply this principle to: natural fathers and spiritual fathers.

If anybody ought to resist the temptation to muffle questions and questioners it ought to be fathers. Now that I have children I realize this truth more than ever. I can never truly silence either the question or the questioner; I can only cause the question not to be asked of me. If I silence the questioner they always have mom, maw maw and paw paw (my wife's parents), grandma and poppy (my parents) and the list of uncles and aunt continues on from there. The truth is, the older they get the more options they have: teachers, friends...

Since children are by nature questioners, I owe it to myself to engage the process. If they are asking questions I want to be part of the expedition searching for the treasured answers. The greatest damage we can cause to our children is to become angry at their questions. There is safety in verbalized questions. The only questions that you need to fear from your children are the ones they don't ask. You can only shape their views if you provide a venue for them to verbalize their internal struggles.

I refuse to raise children that are afraid to ask questions about: the existence of God, the inspiration of scripture, standards and anything else that questions them. Even if I don't know the answer I will take the journey with them to find it. Your children either are, or will, struggle with these issues. Make sure you are the one they are asking the question to. I can say this without fear as I have periodically struggled deeply with these issues. Faith that has never wrestled with the fundamental question of God maybe pure, but it is also immature.

Never avoid questions because you don't know the answer. Never be afraid to admit that you do not know the answer. Better to say that you don't know, than to give a bad answer. We must be willing to work through the questions with our children. I know that I have only been a parent for a couple years, but I have been a son for 36.

Ultimately, what you do with questions is wrestle with them until you get the answers. You should never muffle them. You should also never weary of the same question. Some questions are too important for you to quickly answer them; they must be wrestled with and prayed over.

Two Books I recommend:

The Sacredness of Questioning Everything, David Dark

Heaven: The Heart's Deepest Longing, Peter Kreeft