Friday, March 27, 2009

Blind Faith

Christians are often accused of having blind faith. Punmesiter Bill Maher has said that Christianity stops people from thinking and in essence gives them blind faith. Here’s what he said on Larry King Live:

You know, I always love to go off on religion; I think it’s one of those most deleterious things ever to come down the pike in human history. I think it has caused more misery. I think it stops people from thinking. Just think of the wasted energy. What could be done if people would channel the energy that they waste towards silly, superstitious pursuits?[1]


Now I think Maher is involved in silly superstitious pursuits himself, because in reality nothing could be farther from the truth. Ultimately, what is blind and bigoted is the erection of an imaginary dichotomy between faith and reason.

Speaking to followers of Christ, you might recall that the Apostle Peter says: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15). The Bible not only claims that it’s God Word and thus true, but God cannot lie or contradict that which corresponds to reality. Therefore, the Bible presupposes the validity of reason.

Not only so but biblical faith is never blind faith, but rather faith placed in history and evidence. Put another way, the Bible makes many factual claims about reality and offers reasons or evidences in support of such truth claims. For example, the apostle Paul sets forth a list of people who saw Jesus Christ alive again for forty days after His Death by crucifixion to remind the Corinthians that the resurrection was a testable and proven fact of history (1 Cor. 15:3-8)

In stark contrast to people like Bill Maher, the Bible promotes open-minded reasoning. Far from letting the facts lead whereever they may, Maher closes his mind to the possibly of supernaturalism and blindly places faith in philosophical naturalism, even when its tenets fly directly in the face of reason and evidence. He demonstrates a unique brand of idiosyncratic fundamentalism, because he begins with anti-supernatural bias and thus rejects God a priori. In place of reason and evidential substance, he traffics in rhetoric and emotional stereotypes as he did in Religulous.

Thankfully, God often uses evidence and sound reasoning, through the witness of reasonable Christians, to break through the blind faith of skeptics in order to turn them towards open-mined contemplation. Truly, the hearer can only fully rejoice in what the mind comprehends.



[1] Bill Maher, CNN: Larry King Live, January 28, 2004.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

To be fair, Bill Maher makes no claims regarding how life originated. He position is nobody knows and says that he doesn't know it either.

Please don't mischaracterize other's positions to support your claims.

Anonymous said...

What about the typical Christian young earth believer? Their whole belief system is often dependent on a young earth (one even told me so), but they have blind faith in the creation ministries such as Answers in Genesis. CRI's motto is "Because Truth Matters," but when will they confront the young earth ministries for all the misinformation they are giving out? I've been to several of their creation seminars - their teachings are just as big of an embarrassment to Christianity as the word-faith teachers on TBN, and they leave us wide open to attacks from people like Maher and Dawkins.

Believe it or not, I'm a long time CRI supporter!

Tim Helble

John Tucker said...

Anonymous,

Please read his post carefully. Hank made no such claim or characterization regarding Maher's position on the origin of life.

Hank,

Thanks for a great post! My blood pressure cannot handle me listening to Maher. LOL

Bortis said...

Hank said: Now I think Maher is involved in silly superstitious pursuits himself, because in reality nothing could be farther from the truth. Ultimately, what is blind and bigoted is the erection of an imaginary dichotomy between faith and reason.

Boris says: “Reason should be destroyed in all Christians.” – Martin Luther. “Just as Christianity must destroy reason before it can induce faith, so it must destroy happiness before it can induce salvation. The fundamental teaching of Jesus-the demand for conformity thus gives rise to a fundamental and viciously destructive teaching of Christianity: That some beliefs lie beyond the scope of criticism, and that to question them is sinful, or morally wrong. By Christianity declares itself and enemy of truth and of the faculty by which man arrives at truth-reason.” – George Smith

Hank said: Speaking to followers of Christ, you might recall that the Apostle Peter says: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15). The Bible not only claims that it’s God Word and thus true, but God cannot lie or contradict that which corresponds to reality. Therefore, the Bible presupposes the validity of reason.

Boris says: As Tom Paine pointed out: “That God cannot lie, is no advantage to your argument, because it is no proof that priests can not, or that the Bible does not.” Hank’s statement is a typical logical fallacy termed circulus in demonstrando, otherwise known as circular reasoning. Basically what Hank is saying is: “The Bible is the word of God. Since God wrote the Bible, we know that it contains only truthful accounts. Since the truthful accounts are inspired by God, we know that the Bible is God’s word.” In other words, the Bible is the word of God because the Bible says so. If you can’t spot the enormous gaping hole in this argument, you must be a Christian. The Qur’an says Muhammad is Allah’s prophet, but that doesn’t make it a fact. There must be good evidence to support these claims.

Hank said: Not only so but biblical faith is never blind faith, but rather faith placed in history and evidence. Put another way, the Bible makes many factual claims about reality and offers reasons or evidences in support of such truth claims. For example, the apostle Paul sets forth a list of people who saw Jesus Christ alive again for forty days after His Death by crucifixion to remind the Corinthians that the resurrection was a testable and proven fact of history (1 Cor. 15:3-8)

Boris says: How come we don’t have any testimonies from any of these 500 supposed witnesses to Christ’s resurrection. Paul could say there were 5000 witnesses but if we don’t hear or read something from one of them the resurrection is hardly a testable proven fact of history.

Hank said: In stark contrast to people like Bill Maher, the Bible promotes open-minded reasoning. Far from letting the facts lead whereever they may, Maher closes his mind to the possibly of supernaturalism and blindly places faith in philosophical naturalism, even when its tenets fly directly in the face of reason and evidence. He demonstrates a unique brand of idiosyncratic fundamentalism, because he begins with anti-supernatural bias and thus rejects God a priori. In place of reason and evidential substance, he traffics in rhetoric and emotional stereotypes as he did in Religulous.

Boris says: “They are from the world, and therefore the world inspires what they say, and listens to them. We are from God; whoever recognizes God listens to us; anyone who is not from God refuses to listen to us. This is how we can distinguish the spirit of truth from the spirit of falsehood.” – (1John 4:5-6) There we have the Bible’s definition of truth is all its glorious absurdity. Contrary to Hank’s claim that truth is that which corresponds to reality, truth in the Bible is whatever the authors say it is. This passage in First John is nothing but mind-numbing brainwashing- one of the Bible’s many defenses against free inquiry, skepticism and critical thinking.

Hank said: Thankfully, God often uses evidence and sound reasoning, through the witness of reasonable Christians, to break through the blind faith of skeptics in order to turn them towards open-mined contemplation. Truly, the hearer can only fully rejoice in what the mind comprehends.

Boris says: Evidence and sound reasoning? What evidence and sound reasoning is behind the story of a 500 year old man building a ship the size of the Titanic out of wood and then putting millions of animals on it in such a short time? I wish airlines could get their planes loaded so fast.

Boris said...

Tim Helble in response to your post of March 30, 2009 4:25 PM:

The asininity of creationism is easily reflected in the fact that every CHRISTIAN college and university in the world with a science department teaches evolution, common descent, cosmology, geology, paleontology, zoology, cell theory, quantum physics, anthropology, astronomy and all the rest of science the creationists deny and fight against. To insist that public schools teach creationism or ID when the entire Christian academic community has soundly rejected these things as unscientific dogma and nonsense is ludicrous! The rhetoric against the teaching of evolution is nothing but a smokescreen to hide the fact from the general public and even their own followers that the creationists are fighting a war on all science just as Bible believers have done ever since the Bible was written. Did you know that no Protestant denomination accepted the basic findings of Galileo until well into the 19th century? That’s right Protestants have been even more anti-science than the Catholics. It’s hilarious to read the arguments from 19th century apologists who claim to be able to prove scientifically that the earth is flat and never moves, sits on a foundation supported by pillars and is orbited by the sun every day (unless someone stops it!) just like the Bible claims. And these proofs come with the exact same warnings about believing the earth is round and just another planet like millions of others as the warnings we get from modern creationists (if there could be such a thing) today about what accepting evolution will cause. That’s right, 200 years ago Christian apologists just like Hank Hanegraaf warned that belief in a round earth would lead to moral decay and the eventual destruction of the race. Sound familiar? The fear mongering stays the same no matter the subject. If Hank were alive 200 years ago he would be a flat-earther warning us all of the consequences that come with believing the earth is round. The problem is that Protestants ignore their own history and keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again because they never recognize the historical parallels between themselves and their science fearing and hating Protestant forerunners. Denying evolution and common descent is no different than denying the roundness of the earth. But again it is important to note that it isn’t just evolution the creationists deny, it’s all science.

Hank made a statement to the effect that evolution must be defeated by any means fair or foul. So we know that he know he’s lying when he makes claims that evolution is a theory in crisis or that scientists know this theory isn’t any good. We have to remember though that Hank believes that acceptance of evolutionary theory leads people to eternal torture in hell. Now if a Christian really believes this and that telling a lie could save someone from this fate we can understand the motivation behind Hank Hanegraaf’s intellectual dishonesty. Personally I could not do that. I’m an atheist and I’m more honest than George Washington. George could not tell a lie. I can but I won’t. Hank Hanagraaf on the other hand will.