I felt as
though I would respond to this video, because I have heard these arguments over
an over again, which suggests to me that not many people are addressing these
issues. Furthermore it seems to allow people to not only disbelieve in God, but
to feel okay about abandoning their quest for truth, or at least a truth that
includes God.
First of all, I
admit that I am at a disadvantage. I do not have the skills, resources, or time
to produce a slick-looking cartoon. I am hoping that if the reader is genuinely
interested in truth, they will do their best to be aware of their tendency to
be drawn to animation rather than words, and combat that tendency. So let’s get
started.
# 1 - Thinly
veiled arrogance.
First of all,
the big blind spot in this perspective is that it is portrayed to be the most
humble, when the Atheist view is the most arrogant. He believes he is
expressing humility by saying things like, ‘I don’t think I could be sure…’
which he believes suggest that he has a humble incredulity in regards to his
own experience.
However, if you
watch the video closely, the experience of the Atheist is presented as superior
to the experience of every one else. He is the smart one in judgment over all
the other religious views. What qualifies him to judge all the other views? His
own reasoning and experience. It is ironic because, as I’ll get to later, at
least some in the crowd of theists trust holy literature above their own
experience, which makes them more humble than the Atheist.
Another few
points of veiled arrogance are the way that the Atheists walks away at the end
(showing, ‘he tried, but they are just too foolish…), his forceful, ‘logical'
argument is met with silence (showing his thoughts to be wise), and the way the
silence is broken followed by more arguing and fighting amongst the theists (showing
that the theists have nothing to come back with). It draws out this unspoken,
‘If only more people were more level headed and logical like the Atheist, the
world would be a better place.” Such a view needs to do some homework and see
that Atheism does not breed utopia, not by a long shot.
# 2 - Straw
man argument
If you don’t
know what a ‘straw man argument’ is, it is when you put forth a weak version of
a person's or group’s argument, in order to show how ‘stupid’ it is without
doing the actual work of understanding what they believe and refuting it. That
is what happens here, in AT LEAST the case of the few Christian denominations
that are represented. I can’t speak for all the other ones.
Although I am
surprised at some of the accuracies, only the most bigoted and naive
perspectives of each person’s faith is being represented here, and that is just
not fair arguing.
The first
example of this is right at the very beginning. The video broad strokes all
Theists as believing that God has spoken to them, simply because of some
subjective ‘feelings’. I know that for myself, being a Christian, I am a
staunch doubter of my emotions. Furthermore, Christians do not set their hope
on their subjective feelings alone, we set them on the Word of God, and the
Historical person of Jesus Christ. Here is Richard Dawkins admitting that Jesus
Christ lived:
If you want to
argue the validity of the Bible, miracles, etc., there are many resources for
such debates. The point is that Christians do not simply rest their belief that
there is a God, and He speaks to them, based on their biased, subjective
feelings.
# 3 -
Straight up lies.
The Atheist
says at 3:03, “typically, religion obeys borders, while truth does not”. He say
this after a condescending lecture, finger pointed, harsh tone stating that
their view of God comes from the way they were raised, and the view of God they
were taught. This is simply not true, and there are some very obvious points
behind me.
Christianity,
for example, was started in the middles east, amongst Jews. It moved around the
world, taking hold in Europe, and then moving to North America. Today, China and
Africa each have percentages of Christians that at least compete, if not
completely overwhelm the numbers in the US and Canada. It is simply not true
that, ‘for the most part, religion obeys borders’, at least not in the case of
Christianity.
# 4 Differing
perspectives on an issue does not mean all perspective are wrong.
I’ll say it
again: “Differing perspectives on an issue does not mean all perspectives are
wrong!”. Let’s say there were 5 doctors that each at a different perspective on
your health, and two of them said, ‘It’s cancer”. Would you throw up your arms
and say, ‘Who can know if such smart people disagree!’ No, you would roll up
your sleeves, and darn well figure out who is right.
This argument is
more common among agnostics, but it is also used by Atheists: “If those
religious people can’t agree, then logically, there is not point in finding out
what is true. In fact, probably no one is right”. This is not even logical.
# 5 God
should be clearer
The argument at
the end says, “If God had a message about who He is, and what He requires of
man, then why wouldn’t He express it in a way that we would all understand and
agree on?” The answer to this is very simple: we don’t want to.
Think about it.
Have you ever had an argument with someone who refused to see plain logic
because of the consequences of conceding to your argument? Of course! That is
what this video is accusing theists of doing. The reason people all agree that
2 + 2 = 4 is because there are no consequences from the way we live whether it
is 4 or 137. I can still do what I want, when I want, even if 2 + 2 = 4. But if
the God of the Bible is real, then there are real consequences for the way I
live. We see this all the time in how people twist scientific research into the
harm of certain chemicals, etc, reinterpreting the results when there is money
involved.
So why doesn’t
God just correct us all? Because He allows us to choose. He is humble enough to
put His beautiful, eternal Word in a book, and simply say, “When you want to
know, here it is”. With some He is more urgent, but that is the way He has done
it in general.
Things I
like about the video
I actually
appreciate that there has been some homework done in regards to different
denominations, and that this person admits that there are true and real
contradictions between these belief systems. I do believe there was some
attempt to portray these views in a real and fair way, even though it failed in
the ways I mentioned. My goal here is that those who have stopped thinking
about the possibility of God and the next life would pick it back up again,
since truth is worth it.
No comments:
Post a Comment