Atheist Standards of Morality - Part 1

Edit: Tweaked for wording.

Buon giorno. Part 2 of this set should be up in a week or two, when the audio becomes available. I had some nice talks on the radio with an apologist...

But never mind about that now. One of the apologetics podcasts that I hear is Greg Koukl on "Stand to Reason". He is yet another former atheist turned apologist for the Christian faith. He has a radio show, and gives monologues as well as receives calls (presumably from people who have not insulted his family online like they have done to other podcasters). They have materials for defending the faith. Greg and his fellow apologists give lectures, have debates, write articles, are staunch pro-lifers — you know, busy.

Here is a section from the podcast for April 3, 2011. I did not want to have you wait through the fishing stories and other materials; Greg has almost three hours that he does each week, so there are less intense discussions as well.

Anyway. This discussion with a caller touched on some experiences I have had with atheists in the past year. The caller said that some atheists equate Jesus with terrorism, and Christians with terrorists. On one Weblog, a cafone called me a "child abuser" when I said that I gave out gospel tracts on Halloween! Said his kids had enough problems with their "self-esteem" without thoughts of God. (With a father like that, I'm not surprised.) Well, Greg shows the essential silliness of such atheists' charges.

From there, he also pointed out that it is not the duty of a Christian to defend mischaracterization of our views (which is very similar to the common "Straw Man" fallacy that atheists love to employ). Why should we have to defend a wrong view?

Recently, I had an incident where an atheist could not grasp a concept. He claimed that I had insulted his wife. I pointed out that (presuming that he was correct in the first place), to be consistent with his Godless, "no objective morality" view, he should respect my morality because there are no moral absolutes. By saying, "That's not right", he is appealing to an ultimate, higher source; he was appealing to God.

Greg and his caller talked on a parallel track to my experiences. This talk extended to the topic of the atheist rulers who were responsible for the murders of millions of people.

"But Cowboy Bob, they did not do their murders in the name of atheism!"

Greg pointed out — nah, you have to hear it. The audio is less than fifteen minutes long. I thought it was so good, I heard it three times:

Comments

Paul Baird said…
Hugh Laurie

Although Laurie was raised in the Scottish Presbyterian church as a child,[2][6] he has declared:

"I don't believe in God, but I have this idea that if there were a God, or destiny of some kind looking down on us, that if he saw you taking anything for granted he'd take it away."
4/08/2011 01:51:00 PM
Bob Sorensen said…
I think there's some truth in Laurie's statement.

If you come back in an hour from this message, I have a debate going up that you might find interesting. (No, it's not presup.)
4/08/2011 01:58:00 PM
Rhomphaia (Sword) said…
Love it- but it makes me very upset to think what some people teach their children...its wrong to bring up a child 'in fear' but its also wrong to bring them up 'in lies'.
4/08/2011 06:24:00 PM
Bob Sorensen said…
The guy that accused me of "child abuse" for passing out tracts on Halloween was imposing his opinion, based on nothing. And he was elevating it above the law.

Atheists claim they're afraid of Christians imposing a theocracy (if such fears were legitimate, it would have been done centuries ago). Well, their bringing up their children with blatant disregard and disrespect for not only God, but for believers, could be considered child abuse as well. Fortunately for them, we are not only not in a theocracy, but heading toward the opposite.
4/08/2011 06:36:00 PM
Anonymous said…
Francis Schaeffer said something that fits part of your topic, "If there is no absolute moral standard, then one cannot say in a final sense that anything is right or wrong. By absolute we mean that which always applies, that which provides a final or ultimate standard. There must be an absolute if there are to be morals, and there must be an absolute if there are to be real values. If there is no absolute beyond man's ideas, then there is no final appeal to judge between individuals and groups whose moral judgements conflict. We are merely left with conflicting opinions."
4/10/2011 07:14:00 AM
Bob Sorensen said…
It is indeed unfortunate that certain egomaniacs cannot understand principles of this nature. Thanks for sharing.
4/10/2011 07:14:00 AM
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