British Driver Refuses to Drive the “Godless Bus”

J. P. van de Giessen has informed me that the Dutch paper Reformatorisch Dagblad is reporting that a Christian bus driver from the city of Southampton last weekend refused to drive a bus carrying the advertisement promoting atheism. The bus carrying the promotion has been called “The Godless Bus.”

According to the Dutch newspaper, the driver said that when he first saw the slogan, he was shocked and appalled. So, he felt that he could not drive the bus. When his bosses said they had no other bus available, he went home. The bus company has promised him that he could drive a bus without the atheist message.

It seems that in a secular society like the one in Great Britain, some Christians have made a decision to stand for their faith.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Atheism, Atheists, God

“So Help Me God”: Atheists Lost Their Case

The Washington Post is reporting that a federal judge has cleared the way for government officials and ministers to pray and make references to God during the swearing-in of President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday.

According to the Post,

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton refused to grant an injunction preventing such references in a lawsuit brought by a group of atheists. The atheists had argued that the use of prayer and the words “so help me God” by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. while administering the oath of office violated their Constitutional rights. Walton ruled that he did not have the power to prevent Obama from making such references or inviting ministers on stage to offer prayers.

The group of atheists, led by Californian Michael A. Newdow, sued Roberts, several officials in charge of inaugural festivities, the Rev. Joseph E. Lowery and megachurch pastor Rick Warren.

They filed the complaint in U.S. District Court. Newdow failed in similar lawsuits to remove prayer from President Bush’s swearing-in ceremonies in 2001 and 2005.

Roberts will administer the oath of office to Obama at the Jan. 20 ceremony. Warren and Lowery are scheduled to deliver the invocation and benediction, respectively.

Newdow and others urged Walton to prevent Roberst from using the phrase "so help me God” in the inaugural oath. They said those words have no place in the Constitution and had been used only “intermittantly” in the oath until 1933 with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inauguration. They called the use of “so help me God” an “unauthorized alteration” by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, who administers the oath.

The decision of the court reflects the sentiment of the majority of the American people.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Atheism, Atheists, God,

The Atheist Bus and the God Question

The Christian Science Monitor has published an interesting article on The Atheist Bus Campaign going on in Britain.

The Atheist Bus Campaign is the first effort at mass marketing atheism in Britain. The sign was placed on more than 800 British buses with the slogan: “There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

When The Atheist Bus Campaign was organized, Richard Dawkins, the leading British atheist and author of The God Delusion predicted that Christians would be offended by the campaign. He said: “They have to take offense, it is the only weapons they’ve got. They’ve got no arguments.”

But, according to the article in The Christian Science Monitor, the response by most Christian leaders was not what the atheist community expected.

“Religious institutes, church pastors, and divinity school professors have not treated the ads with Old Testament wrath, but with a relatively open mind and even embrace of so important an issue,” the article said.

The article gives the reaction of several religious leaders in London:

“The campaign will be a good thing if it gets people to engage with the deepest questions of life,” says the Rev. Jenny Ellis, Spirituality and Discipleship Officer of Britain’s Methodist church.

“Many people simply never think about God or religion as a serious question, and if this prods them a little bit, then that’s great,” says the Rev. Stephen Wang, of the Westminster diocese of the Roman Catholic church.

The article also mentioned Karl Barth and his endorsement of Feuerbach’s book:

The Lutheran Karl Barth, a leading 20th-century European theologian, wrote the forward to the English language version of Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach’s prominent atheist critique, “The Essence of Christianity.” Barth wasn’t worried about the atheism, says Herman Waetjen, professor emeritus of New Testament studies at the San Francisco Theological Seminary, because Barth felt Feuerbach exposed many fault lines, mistakes, social and collective projections, and other falsifications of Christianity that had arisen around the 19th-century church.

I agree with both Rev. Ellis and Rev. Wang: People in Britain are thinking and talking about God.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Atheism, Atheists, God, Karl Barth

Atheists and God

I was finally able to read the summary of key findings of the U. S. Religious Landscape Survey published by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. My sabbatical research has not allowed me to do much blogging nor extra reading outside my area of research.

The survey conducted by the Pew Forum is a major study on how Americans view religion and how they approach their faith. The survey was taken among 35,000 Americans of all faiths and ideologies in order to ascertain the beliefs and practices of religious and non-religious people.

Both Duane Smith and Iyov have already commented on this survey. I invite you to visit their blogs and read what they have written about the survey. What I want to do here is give my perspective on the survey. My post will be divided into two sections. In the present post I want to comment on what the survey has to say about atheists and God. In an upcoming post I will discuss what the survey has to say about evangelicals and God.

The U. S. Religious Landscape Survey reports the following results:

1. Do you believe in the existence of God?

Atheists:
21% believe in God. Of these:
6% believe in a personal God
12% believe in an impersonal force
3% don’t know

Agnostics:
55% believe in God. Of these:
14% believe in a personal God
36% believe in an impersonal force
5% don’t know

Secular people not affiliated with a religious group
66% believe in God. Of these:
20% believe in a personal God
40% believe in an impersonal God
7% don’t know

2. Certainty of Belief in God or Universal Spirit

Atheists:
21% believe in God
8% absolutely certain
13% less certain

Agnostics
55% believe in God
17% absolutely certain
38% less certain

Secular people not affiliated with a religious group
66% believe in God
24% absolutely certain
42% less certain

3. Belief in Heaven and Hell

Atheists:
12% believe in Heaven
10% believe in Hell

Agnostics
18% believe in Heaven
12% believe in Hell

Secular people not affiliated with a religious group
32% believe in Heaven
23% believe in Hell

4. Prayer and Meditation

Atheists:
10% pray at least weekly
18% meditate at least weekly

Agnostics
18% pray at least weekly
25% meditate at least weekly

Secular people not affiliated with a religious group
19% believe in Heaven
22% believe in Hell

These numbers are very revealing. Granted, there may be different ways of understanding these numbers. However these numbers are interpreted, the information they provide is still very revealing. How do we interpret these numbers? In what follows I offer several ways of understanding what the Pew survey says about atheists and God. I believe the same could be said about agnostics and secular people.

First, it is possible, as Iyov has suggested, that the survey was poorly designed and that the results are distorted and do not really reflect the views of those surveyed. Second, it is also possible, as Duane has suggested, that questions, methodology in polling, and the sample size of those surveyed also skewed the results. It is even possible, as Iyov also suggested, that many people “have problems with polysyllabic words.”

All of these possibilities could have influenced the answers of those polled by the Pew Forum. However, I have a different perspective on the results of the survey.

Let us for the moment accept the view that the survey presents reliable information, that the numbers truly confirm the beliefs and practices of those people who were surveyed. If the survey presents reliable information about what Americans believe about religious issues, then, what the survey says about atheists should be taken seriously. This is how I view the answers:

1. It is possible that many atheists pray or meditate regularly. Their prayers would be addressed to some impersonal force considered to be the giver of life, the ground of being, or some manifestation of eastern religious or philosophical idea.

2. Some atheists believe in heaven or hell but not the kind of heaven or hell that is taught by Christianity. One good example is provided by a reader of my blog who is an atheist who said he believed in heaven. He wrote: “I am comfortable with the fact that there is nothing after this, but I do believe in Heaven. Only my heaven is what I'm living everyday I wake up, and when it ends, it was worth it.”

3. It is possible that some atheists and agnostics when confronted with their mortality or when dealing with the issue of death look at the possibility of the existence of God and life after death with more realistic eyes. This is what I believe happened with Robert Ingersoll, “the Great Atheist.” In a speech at the time of the death of his brother, Ingersoll’s eulogy was a wish for the existence of a God, a request for someone who could answer prayer and provide hope after death.

4. The fact that 21% of atheists and 55% of agnostics believe in the existence of God may reflect the different levels in the spectrum of probabilities about the existence of God that Richard Dawkins developed. In this spectrum, there are seven levels of probability concerning the issue whether God exists. At one extreme is Level 1, where strong theists are. Those who are on Level 1 believe 100% that God exists. On the other extreme, Level 7 is where the strong atheists are. A strong atheist is the one who says for a fact that there is no God. Dawkins places himself at Level 6. Those who are on Level 6 say that there is a very low probability that God exists. Those on Level 6 are the people who say they cannot know for sure but think that maybe God does not exist. It is possible that many atheists are at level 5, 4, or even 3. Thus, as the Pew Survey reveals, deep down in their inner being, many atheists believe in God, primarily those who are at different levels in the spectrum of probability.

Finally, what the U. S. Religious Landscape Survey published by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life truly reveals is that there is still hope for atheists.

Next: Evangelicals and God

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Agnostics, Atheists, Pew Survey

Atheism and the Culture of Denial

In my interview with Jim West posted on July 1, 2007, Jim asked me a question about biblical interpretation. In my reply, I said that believers are better interpreters of the biblical text than atheists because atheists approach the Bible with false assumptions. Some of these false assumptions are that there is no God, that the Bible is only myth, that there is no revelation, and others.

In reply to my statement in that interview, Chris Hallquist published a blog in which he addresses my statement and also criticizes a response I wrote to Duane Smith, who had written his own post responding to my interview with Jim West. Hallquist’s post was also published in God is for Suckers, a blog dedicated to “making fun of believers everywhere.”

Hallquist believes that atheists can interpret the Bible as well as believers because anyone can examine an ancient text such as the Illiad [sic] “without believing everything it says.” The problem is that Hallquist already begins with the false assumption that the Iliad and the Bible are identical in purpose and message. They are not! The intent and message of the two books are completely different. The only similarity between both books is that they are literary works of individuals who lived hundreds of years ago.

Atheists and Christians have two different world-views and this alone influences the way they approach the Bible. Atheists can read and interpret the Bible from a historical, sociological, linguistic, or mythological perspective. Christians, on the other hand, read the Bible from a historical, sociological, linguistic perspective, but also from the perspective of faith and religion. For instance,

1. Atheists can study the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4-5, but they cannot love God with all their heart, soul and strength.

2. Atheists can study the word hesed from a philological perspective, but they cannot experience divine hesed.

3. Atheists can write many books and articles about Christ, but they cannot say: “Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

4. Atheists can write about Christians and Christianity, but they cannot understand fully what it means to be saved by grace (Ephesians 2:8).

These are facts that atheists fail to understand. Atheists deny the existence of God and the claims of Christianity. Believers approach the Bible from the perspective of faith, thus, there must be a difference in the way believers and atheists interpret the Bible, since atheists do not have faith in the God of the Bible. Because atheists deny the possibility of faith, they are not willing to accept any view espoused by Christians. Because Christians believe in God, they are not willing to accept the claims of atheism. This, then, leaves both group at an impasse.

In his post, Hallquist uses “the outsider test” to evaluate my comments. According to Hallquist, “the outsider test” is “a phrase coined by John Loftus for the idea that religious believers ought to be willing to examine their beliefs from the point of view of an outsider.”

Hallquist applies the outsider test to Christianity; I would like to apply the outsider test to atheism.

1. The Test of History. Judaism and Christianity claim a historical basis for their faith. Judaism says there is a God because of the work of God in the history of ancient Israel. Christianity says there is a God because of the existence of a historical Jesus. Atheism does not have any historical claim to prove that there is no God. Atheists only have their own statement that says there is no God. Since atheists do not have history on their side, they deny the historicity of events in Judaism and Christianity.

2. The Test of Witnesses. Judaism and Christianity believe there is a God because they believe the words of witnesses who saw God at work. The people in Israel claimed they heard the voice of God. Christianity claims that after the resurrection, Jesus “appeared to more than five hundred people at the same time” (1 Corinthians 15:6). It is possible to say that these people were delusional or that they were unreliable witnesses but atheism does not have one witness who was there to say that there was no God. Since atheism does not have one single witness who has seen the evidence that there is no God, they reject the reliability of the biblical witnesses and deny the validity of their testimony.

3. The Test of Written Records. Judaism and Christianity claim that God exists because they have ancient written records that report the work of God in their history. Atheism has no written records that can prove that God does not exist, therefore they deny the claims of the written records of Judaism and Christianity.

The fact is, atheism cannot prove anything. Atheism cannot prove that God does not exist. Even Richard Dawkins acknowledged this truth. In his book, The God Delusion, Dawkins developed a spectrum of probabilities about the existence of God. He said that there are seven levels of probability concerning the issue whether God exists. At one extreme is Level 1, where strong theists are. Those who are on Level 1 believe 100% that God exists. On the other extreme, Level 7 is where the strong atheists are. A strong atheist is the one who says for a fact that there is no God.

Dawkins says there are very few people at level 7. Dawkins places himself at Level 6. Those who are on Level 6 say that there is a very low probability that God exists. Those on Level 6 are the people who say they cannot know for sure but think that maybe God does not exist.

Since atheists cannot prove that there is no God, they place the burden of proof on Christians; it is the responsibility of Christians to prove that God exists. Since atheism cannot prove their claim that there is no God, they deny the existence of God, they deny the claims of the Bible, they deny the possibility of revelation, they deny divine intervention, they deny the reality of faith. Atheism is based on a culture of denial. In order for atheism to exist, atheists must deny anything and everything Christianity stands for. The truth is, atheism stands on the shoulders of Christianity to tell the world “there is no God.”

When asked to prove that there is no God, atheists point to errors and contradictions in the Bible, as if the faith of Christianity is based on who wrote Genesis, or how many days it took to create the universe, or how many officers Solomon had, or even how old Jehoiachin was when he began to reign.

Atheists also mention suffering, evil, wars, violence, diseases, hunger, poverty, tornadoes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters to prove that there is no God. But these tragedies are not evidence that there is no God. These tragedies do exist. There are many reasons that cause some of these tragedies to afflict human beings; many of these tragedies are hard for us to fully understand. When Christians try to offer an explanation for these events, no explanation is good enough because atheists have already convinced themselves that these events are evidence that God does not exist or if he does, that God is not good or that God is powerless.

Atheists advance their cause by ridiculing others. “God is for Suckers” is their motto. Their writings are only “rants on the evils and stupidity of belief.” Their purpose is “making fun of believers everywhere.” Their goal is to discredit “the big invisible daddy in the sky.”

The ridicule present in the writings of atheists shows that there is no dignity in their argument. Atheism is a cause infused with a culture of denial. Atheism does not have anything positive to say; they only advance their cause by denying the claims of others. The day atheism can show me better proof that there is no God, I may be willing to listen.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Other posts of this topic:

The Answer Atheists Can't Provide

Atheists and the Bible

The God Delusion: A Preview

Tags: Atheism, Atheists, Christianity, Faith, Religion

Atheists and the Bible

In my interview with Jim West published in Biblioblog, I said a few words about atheists that caused Duane Smith’s heart “to skip a beat.”

In response to what I wrote, Duane wrote a post, “Who Can ‘Fully’ Interpret the Bible?” in which he takes issue with what I said about atheists and biblical interpretation. Read his post and learn the full scope of his argument.

Jim West comments on my statement and Duane’s response in a post titled “Duane Smith v. Claude Mariottini” and presents the dialogue as an adversarial argument between atheist Duane and Christian Claude. Jim concludes his post by saying that “in some respects Claude is right. In some respects Duane is right.”

I will begin this post by responding to some of Duane’s arguments. It is possible that I made a mistake by putting all atheists in one group. Duane classifies himself “as a secular student with an interest in the Hebrew Bible.” Thus, his position on the Bible makes him different from the strident atheist whose sole aim is to ridicule the Bible.

Duane is a secular person who believes “that the Bible has had a tremendous influence on Western civilization.” His view is completely different from Bertrand Russell who believed that every bit of human progress in law, morality, and science has been opposed because of the teaching of the Bible. In his lecture “Why I Am Not A Christian,” Russell wrote: “A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.”

Atheists like Bertrand Russell, Robert Ingersoll, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens approach the Bible with such a negative view that for them, the Bible is a book of lies and contradictions and the work of a demon. Strident atheists share Voltaire’s view of the Bible. Voltaire defined the Bible as “what fools have written, what imbeciles command, what rogues teach.”

So, how can strident atheists interpret the Bible when they do not believe in God, deny the possibility of revelation, reject the concept of inspiration, do not believe in divine intervention, faith, prayer, the possibility of miracles, or the concept of divine justice?

I agree with Jim West when he said that atheists “can be extraordinarily good historians and philologians.” Atheists can relate some historical events of the Bible to Assyrian and Babylonian histories, but the Bible is more than just a book of history. It is a religious book written by people of faith who believed that God had entered human history.

Atheists can study the words of the Bible (either in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek) and understand precisely what the words mean and what the words communicate. But the Bible is more than just letters: “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6).

Duane has two criticisms which he believes disprove my argument. First, he said that “in order to provide as full an interpretation of a text as possible, the interpreter must be part of that text’s living tradition.” By this he means that for a proper interpretation of the text the interpreter must be alive when the text was written.

But this argument is not true. Albert Einstein's theory of relativity is very complicated but scientists can understand the theory of relativity today even though many of them were not alive when Einstein developed it. In addition, the Bible is different. “The word of God is living and active” (Hebrews 4:12). Because the word of God is living, then the believer does not need to have been alive when the word was written because the word is alive today, at a time when the believer is alive. The word of God makes itself contemporary with the believer. Thus, the believer becomes part of the text’s living tradition.

Second, Duane said: “Claude would be justifiably upset if I claimed he couldn’t fully understand Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens because he isn’t an atheist.”

But the fact is that I can. The works of Dawkins and Hitchens are only words and anyone can read words and understand precisely what the words mean and what the words communicate. Notwithstanding all the enthusiasm and the bravado in Dawkins’ and Hitchens’ words, they are, after all, only words.

The Bible, on the other hand, is the living word of the living God. And, that word became human and lived here on earth among us (John 1:14). This truth is hard for atheists to accept.

It is God who teaches us to understand his word. This is the reason the Psalmist prayed: “Teach me” (Psalm 119:12). So, the proper understanding of the Bible requires divine instruction. But how can people call on him in whom they have not believed? And that is the dilemma atheists face.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Atheists, Bible, Interpretation