Christianity – Page 27 – LOVE | ACCEPT

Building A Contemplative Spirit

The contemplative life of the Christian has nearly vanished within the Church. In many circles, the contemplative has become a person of church history or more dauntingly, has taken on mythical status. The Christian of 2009 involved in Sunday school, small groups, missions, VBS, midweek service and classes can scarcely imagine finding the unscheduled time for quiet meditation. We who shepherd the Church do little to remedy this situation because we have allowed her to become judged by the values of the world. In doing so, the Christian suffers, the Church grows weaker, and the kingdom mission goes unfulfilled.

Soul work starts quietly, learning to hear the voice of God. Meditation moves us from the superficialities of the world and the shallow Christian life into the deep waters of full communion with God. Meditation is the first discipline of change.

The purpose of meditation in the Christian life is to seek out a transformative encounter with the Living God. We meditate in order to hear His voice and, in reflecting on what we hear, to obey Him and His calling on our lives. The Bible clearly portrays God as desirous of our fellowship and the contemplative practices bring us into His loving embrace. As Thomas a Kempis describes it, we are growing into a “familiar friendship with Jesus.” Activity and busyness may make us feel as though we are participating in the Christian life but we are fooling ourselves. We are living our faith like a stone skipping across a lake; tap…tap…tap…splash! We dip our toes here and there and when challenged we have no internal strength to keep ourselves from sinking. Transformed souls come only from those willing to swim far, far out from shore.

Get ready to swim.

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Psalm 40 Many Will See and Fear

Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have pierced; burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require.

Then I said, “Here I am, I have come—it is written about me in the scroll.

I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart. (vv 6-8)

Before even opening the door to our prayer closets, the first thing we should do is evaluate the attitude that we have carried to that point. An idea that is repeated throughout the whole of scripture is the importance to God of our obedience over our offerings and actions. Sadly, the emphasis on holiness has lost out to the church of felt needs and community services. We have replaced obedience with activity.

It appears that two different prayers were concatenated within this psalm. In verses 1-10, the liturgist expresses contrition and recognition that the troubles we face are of our own making and the result of our sin. The voice of gratitude uses very familiar language to express thanks for the innumerable times that the Lord has pulled us from the pit.

I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and hear my cry.

He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.

He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.

Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord. (vv 1-3)

The closing verses of the psalm are a plea for help once again. Though he recognizes his part in the creation of these troubles, the psalmist does not hesitate to reach out again (and again) for the help of the Lord. We need never question our trust in this deliverance but we should always turn back to the highlighted verses in our bibles (get your pen right now) in verses 6 through 8. Obedience is the core of the psalm and obedience is to be at the core of our lives.

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Eyes Wide Open by Jud Wilhite

Pastor Jud Wilhite knows what it means to have the harsh light of reality washing over you twenty-four-seven. Serving in Las Vegas, he sees life in the unrelenting light of the desert sun and the dusk to dawn burn of the casino neon and in the revelatory power of these beams, it makes it very difficult to hide the real you behind the mask that so many Christians tend to don. In his encouraging book, Eyes Wide Open, Wilhite pens a wide-ranging spiritual guide to putting aside the disguise intended to show people how we have it all together and to look in the mirror and see what God truly sees in us. He challenges us to open our eyes and our heart and see the person that God loves without reserve.

The title can lead you to think that Wilhite might have filled the pages with positive, image affirming messages but as soon as you start to read, you find much, much more. His plain spoken spiritual leadership guides the reader through a series of ‘openings’ meant to expose different aspects of our person, character, and behavior to the self-image that God wants us to see rather than the poor, guilt-burdened person that we paint for ourselves. You don’t need to read from page one to the end. Each of Jud’s chapters can stand on its own and you can choose to explore the aspect of life that most applies to you.

Pastor Wilhite asks pointed questions that can orient the way in which you approach the book. He asks you to consider yourself before God and how that image affects the nature of your relationship. Are you a performer, trying to work your way into His heart? Do you believe in your heart that God already loves you personally, despite your flaws and less than holy behaviors? Do you believe that God turns away from you if your prayer life is spotty, your faith on a roller coaster, and deep down you aren’t quite sure of everything? These are tough questions, hard realities that challenge each of us in what we believe about the bond between God and us. Wilhite worked hard to ensure that thumbing through the engaging chapters challenges every answer that you might come up with, especially if you insist upon continuing to claim a negative perspective.

Each essay is brief and pointed and can be good for igniting specific prayer, meditation, and journaling. He asks you see yourself in the characters that populate the stories from Dog Chapman, Evil Kneivel, and Johnny Cash to the myriad people that Jud himself has encountered on the ministry field he serves in Las Vegas. With each page, you stop to think about your own self image, about the way that the image that we often develop for ourselves is much different that the image that the Bible teaches us that God has of us. Turn the page and Pastor Jud is there asking if today is the day that you want to lay yourself wide open to seeing the real you, the you that your Father sees and loves unconditionally. When your eyes are wide open, a different life unfolds in front of you.

For more information, Eyes Wide Open

The Disappearance of God by Al Mohler

Tolerance has become the most important measure of one’s character in our modern era. Modern tolerance is not simple endurance; it is the required subversion of your beliefs and moral standards whenever they appear to impinge upon the beliefs and morals of another. In the era of the “Me” god there is no greater offense than to stand firm on a position, especially one rooted in traditional Christian belief, and deign to judge the beliefs and practices of another person and the truthfulness of their claims.

In The Disappearance of God, Dr. Al Mohler laments the way in which a culture that is enamored of this new tolerance has made inroads into the Church. As the Church has capitulated to the demands for her doctrine and moral requirements to be softened, Mohler effectively makes the case that cancer has begun to eat away at the very things that were meant to set Christians apart in the world. Worse yet, he says, the loss of muscle threatens the gospel as a viable message in the culture, rendering it as nothing more than a truth among other truths.

Dr. Mohler does not simply issue a roll-call of various ills that have visited the Church and leave it at that. He calls for an immediate triage to stop the further decay within the body and to sort out the issues that must be addressed in order to restore the power of the gospel claims and the power of the Body of Christ to once again affect the surrounding culture rather than continued to be diminished by it. In order of priority, the church must first regain a sense of which doctrinal issues are of primary importance to the restoration of authenticity within the Church and second, the members of the body must regain the intellectual strength necessary to engage in this discussion and fight to restore the authentic doctrine.

The book addresses a variety of gospel-weakening issues that have infiltrated the Church and which have varying abilities to permanently disfigure the face that She presents to the world. Mohler points to the loss of the notion of sin and the softening of the modern Church’s doctrine of Hell and eternal perdition as two of the fundamental positions on which leaders and their congregations must regain their footing. Certainly, both of these doctrines are contrary to the prevailing culture and a strong affirmation makes the Church less palatable in a tolerance-driven society. He challenges our desire to be loved by the world which leads us to put these difficult challenges aside and to restore our understanding of who we belong to and His demands of us.

The Emerging Church and their doctrinal slide towards extreme liberalism are also subjected to Mohler’s critique. While the Emergent movement was ignited by a desire to better conform the Church to modern cultural expectations, that formation allowed postmodern notions of truth to color their doctrinal positions as well. Mohler critiques the doctrinal development of Emergent thinker and leader Brian McLaren as representative of much of the whole. McLaren’s definition of generous orthodoxy as wide ranging and allowing for an unlimited spectrum of philosophies fails to address the opposite side of his arguments in that this spectrum essentially denies the existence of absolute truths.

Dr. Mohler has produced another outstanding polemic against the further decay within Christ’s Church. He encourages the reader on page after page to recognize the doctrinal malleability that we have allowed to creep into the Body and affect our witness to the world. Aligned with his early call to develop our own theological muscles, Dr. Mohler doesn’t provide the answers to challenges he issues. He provides a succinct classification of the problems, now it’s up to you and I to follow through and get the Church back on track. The first step is a thorough read of this book.

For more information on this book, click here.

Argument Adjourned, Atheism and Amorality

In his book Why Be Moral, Atheist philosopher Kai Nielsen admits the position that the new, angry Atheists like Sam Harris cannot bring themselves to do, that “Pure practical reason, even with good knowledge of the facts, will not take you to morality.” Bertrand Russell, who above all things devoted himself to attempting to live according to reason alone, admitted that he could not account for morality by this method. If reason cannot complete the equation, where are we left to turn?

In every instance of moral decision, there is an evaluation of the opposite positions of good and bad. Moral affirmation cannot be an abstraction. The person who makes a moral evaluation assumes the intrinsic worth in himself and sees that intrinsic worth in the lives of others. In a world of matter alone, there is no intrinsic worth. A moral framework is necessary for the declaration of right and wrong, one which sets the standard for good and bad.

The existence and continued affirmation of a moral framework can lead us to only one conclusion. God exists and is the provider of this moral framework. We can lay it out as:

P1 Objective moral values exist only if God exists

P2 Objective moral values do exist

C God Exists

The arguments from reason for the existence and practice of morality (without God as the lawgiver) trend along the line of humanity doing things in the interest of the community and cooperation for the good of all. The problem is circular though; with an objective source of good and bad how will the billions of sovereign creatures agree on what is good and bad? Since one life (of matter alone) is of no more value than any other life, why would a person ever do anything but in their own self interest? These questions always lead us back to the top of the page.

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Psalm 39 – My Heart Grew Hot Within Me

Shall I suffer in silence or express my anguish at the way my life is playing out? All of us have asked this question and David was no exception.

I said “I will watch my ways and keep my tongue from sin; I will put a muzzle on my mouth as long as the wicked are in my presence.”

But when I was silent and still, not even saying anything good, my anguish increased. (vv 1-2)

The psalm expresses an acceptance of the fragility and brevity of life. In the eyes of God, our time on the earth is but a second. We who follow Christ can look forward to eternity but we still have apprehension about the end of our days. Will we worry constantly about it or simply accept it as a fact of our existence. And if we come to this acceptance, will it relieve us from our current travails? David explores this hope in prayer:

But now, Lord, what do I look for?

My hope is in you.

Save me from all my transgressions; do no make me the scorn of fools.

I was silent; I would not open my mouth, for you are the one who has done this. (vv 7-9)

Despite our broken natures, we beg for one more chance to praise the Lord before our time is extinguished.

Look away from me, that I may rejoice again before I depart and am no more. (v 13)

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The Soul of Sam Maloof

Sam Maloof (1916 – 2009) was an artist that never created furniture to be placed in a gallery with a ‘do not touch’ sign attached. He created an immense body of work that begs to be touched, with its sinewy lines and understated elegance. Sam truly allowed the imago dei to move his hands to create something new and beautiful out of a primary medium that in itself is forever new and beautiful. He truly embraced God’s intention in creation and we are all better for it.

Maloof wrote,

Too often we who make objects – and I speak of all media – become quite taken with what we have done. We accept all credit, all praise. We become smug and conceited. I believe no man has ever designed anything that approaches the complexity of the simplest flower or the grandeur of a great redwood tree. God is the Creator of all things, and the beauty He has given us is awesome.

Make the effort to view any of the Maloof profiles and you will quickly discover two things, his humility and the natural way in which his hands guide the transformation process of the wood. He never forced the wood to conform to his will. Instead, as you see him sort through his piles of Walnut, his eyes and hands are searching for the boards that contain the piece of furniture that they were intended to be transformed into. We would all do well to view our own perspective on creation in the same way.

We’ll miss you Sam. God Bless.

Arrogant Atheist’s Semantic Subterfuge

In an attempt to mask the ultimate conclusions of their beliefs, the Atheist community continuously suggests the notion that there should not even be a word for atheism since it is the natural and normal state of affairs. In other words, it is not necessary to label the condition of no-God since there is no God? In the great tradition of Chomsky and Lakoff and the deconstructionists, this is semantic infiltration in order to evade the need to clarify what one believes.

The belief in God (in a variety of forms) is the majority condition in the world, and has been throughout history, continuing despite the countless scientific discoveries that have occurred through the centuries. Contrary to their heartfelt desire, atheism is not the normal state of affairs. A word and label are certainly necessary to describe a condition that is contrary to the majority belief, even if the adherents to that system of belief don’t like being named as such.

Their desire may have something to do with the constantly shifting definitions of atheism that the adherents tend to proffer. That discussion, is for another day.

Psalm 38 – Come Quickly to Help Me

For I am about to fall, and my pain is ever with me.

I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin.

May are those who are my vigorous enemies; those who hate me without reason are numerous.

Those who repay my good with evil slander me when I pursue what is good. (vv 17-20)

Modern readers are tempted to dismiss this psalm as the product of ancient superstition and ignorance of the source of bodily infirmities. The psalmist attributes the overwhelming pain and agony of his suffering to a personal attack by God due to his sinfulness. We understand disease and the decay of body from a scientific perspective but we should be slow to allow this knowledge to color our understanding of God’s hand on our lives.

O Lord, do not rebuke me in you anger or discipline me in your wrath. (v1)

Our actions have consequences, good and bad. Should the Lord prevent us from suffering the consequence of our choices because of his deep love for us? We do this for our children, more often than not. God wants us to grow and mature in our holiness and sometimes that requires pain to enter our lives. The pain reminds us of the choices that we made and gives us an incentive to make better choices in the future. On the other hand, there are numerous pains that are significantly disconnected by time and distance from their original source and we can mistakenly attribute them to chance or label them unexplainable. Anger with God can mount: why God, why? Why would you allow this into my life now? These moments, when we most desire to understand, are the times when our knees should hit the floor as we seek understanding.

O Lord, do not forsake me; be not far from me, O my God.

Come quickly to help me, O Lord my savior. (vv 21 –22)

Photo by Patrick Denker

A Morality All My Own

Coincidental to my posts this week on ethics and morality from the perspectives of Atheists and Christians was this post purporting to provide evidence not just of the existence of a standard for morality within Atheism, but of the superiority of Morals among Atheists. After reading it a couple of times and attempting to give it a fair analysis, I have to say that this piece once again demonstrates the deficit logic of the atheist writers which they attempt to mask with vituperative commentary aimed at discrediting Christianity rather than providing evidence of contrary truth.

The author, ‘Neece’, prefaces her schedule of superiority proofs by providing a telling summary of her foundational knowledge of the Bible and its contents. She says

In my experience, the bible goes on, especially in the old testament, about how to treat people who are different than you. It’s full of hate and cruelty, with some arbitrary rules thrown in. Only a few of those rules are sensible. The rest are about control.

It would appear that she has not spent any measurable time reading and studying the Bible since the Old Testament is not predominantly about ‘how to treat people who are different than you.’ Having studied the OT in depth, I fail to see this as a dominant theme. The author does not provide any citations for us to refer to so we have to assume that she is operating from her impressions of what the Bible contains rather than its actual content. What we find in the OT is God’s movement toward the restoration of His most precious creations. A large part of this restoration is the need for humans to recognize their lack of holiness which prevents their full relationship with God. Is there violence in the OT, without a doubt but is it rooted in hate? No, the violence is a necessary cleansing of unholiness. Uncomfortable to deal with but not about hate of people who might be different.

She goes on to say that addressing the specifics of her problems with the Bible ( I assume NT as well as OT ) because it’s not “worth her time or aggravation.” We can assume that she avoids the details because a) she doesn’t know them and b) the Bible is just a straw man that she is going to knock down in an attempt to portray her personal morality as somehow superior to mine. The pejorative rant that follows gives me no reason to doubt my assumptions,

If you believe that the bible is the divinely inspired word of god, you’re only going to skim this article, find a few points to attack me while you brew up a cup of moral and righteous indignation, and then try to shove your fundamentalism down my throat because you’re scared of people who think for themselves and don’t have blind faith in fairy tales from the Fertile Crescent like you do. You don’t listen anyway, you just find ammunition then viciously attack. What great role models you are. How very christ-like.

Would Christ not correct Neece in her incorrect thinking? Perhaps she should read again how He addressed those who perpetrated incorrect beliefs. She makes an interesting statement,

The atheists who read this probably have already read that awful book, because as a general rule, we need to be more educated on religious matters than those militant religious folks that try to tell us how we should believe.

but apparently it is easier to say than to do. Actually, since she is telling us what we should believe, the burden is upon her to provide the evidence of the correctness of her positions. As you will see, her moral stands appear to be little more than emotional outbursts rather than reasoned, evidential proofs that can be independently verified. In other words, the morals she claims to be superior are of her own making. The logical problem that she fails to recognize in her own statements is that in a world where she is the sole judge of morality, I am also the sole judge of morality for my world. Who is right Neece? You have no position to criticize my morals since, like you, I proclaim them to be superior. Ooops!

Here are the authors reasons for her claim of moral superiority.

1. No god tells me to hate gay people, so I have no reason to hate them. In fact I think if gay people love each other and want to get married, more power to them. Why should we stop love and caring based on gender? I encourage loving and caring any way it manifests itself.

The God of the Bible does not tell me to hate gay people either. The Bible has two statements that address sexual relations that are contrary to the natural order. Since she encourages loving and caring any way it manifests itself, her morality has just come out in support of pedophilia and necrophilia.

2.No god tells me that women are inferior and should subject themselves to men. So I’m equal to a man. Except getting spiders out of the house. He can be superior to me in that department. Oh, and opening jars. He can have that one too.

The God of the Bible does not tell me that women are inferior or to treat them as second class humans. The imago dei infuses each gender and makes both equally valuable to God and therefore me. Since the rest of her statement is just a joke we can assume she has no moral statement to make on this point. Perhaps the author would be better served in her understanding of this issue by further study so that she can differentiate between which ideas are timeless and which are temporal.

3. No god tells me to pray instead of seeking medical attention. I believe in all kinds of scientific research and medicine. I even believe in stem cell research. I also think a woman has a right to choose what to do with her body. This probably goes up under the ‘women are equal’ entry as well, because I think it’s ridiculous that an old man I will never meet gets to decide what I can and can’t do with my body. Oh, and euthanasia should be considered an option, although it would have to be properly done so that no one gets murdered. But come on, if life is so freaking precious, why make some sick and dying person go through agony and humiliation and endure countless medical procedures just to stay alive? That’s insane.

The God of the Bible does not tell me to pray rather than seeking medical attention. (I’m beginning to wonder if the author has ever read the Bible since each of the points so far have just been commonly voiced memes by those who dislike Christianity but know nothing about it.) Without getting into a much longer discussion of abortion, I too believe that women have the right to choose what to do with her body. She can choose not to have unprotected sex. If she does, she has the responsibility to recognize the possible consequences of her activities. Interesting that she jumps to euthanasia. Since her world has no objective judge of right or wrong, who gets to decide when life should end, me or you?

4. No god tells me to hate people who believe in the same god but in a “wrong” way. Ok, that’s just stupid. At thanksgiving dinner my cousin was harassed by the fundamentalist methodists there because she went to 3 different bible camps from 3 different churches. She said, it’s all the same god, why does it bother you so much? I had to agree with her. They’re so hateful and ignorant.

I don’t mean to be offensive but I doubt that the author has the theological chops to get into this discussion. The Bible (as God’s revelation) does not tell Christians to hate one another for believing differently though it does insist on correct doctrine. Christians have multiple levels of doctrine, some essential and some non-essential. If there is disagreement on the fundamentals there is abundant tradition and history that can be examined in order to reconcile the differences. To continue to adhere to a belief contrary to historical doctrine means that one is not worshipping the same God in a different way. That person is worshipping a different God. Examples would have been useful but that is not the author’s style. She should be cautious though about claiming morality and then labeling others “hateful and ignorant.” Her earlier sarcasm toward Christians places her in the first camp while the issues I have addressed thus far threaten to push her into the latter family.

5. No god tells me to be fruitful and multiply, then says that sex for fun is bad, then tells me that only sex between married people is ok, then denies me any kind of way to turn off my insatiable teenage sex drive except to come up with abstinence and praying as a lame solution. Which means that I am all for teaching teenagers and anyone who might think of sex how to be safe and protected. Nothing is more dangerous than ignorance. Proper education and access to prophylactics are real ways to reduce teen pregnancy and the spread of STD’s. Also, as noted above, I also believe that mistakes happen, and so do horrible crimes against women. The morning after pill should be available to girls and women who need them to avoid unwanted pregnancies, and abortions, while not the ideal solution, should be legal and safe. Sometimes they are necessary, and a woman or girl shouldn’t be bullied or forced into carrying a baby to term. Oh, and back to the ‘be fruitful and multiply thing’. I didn’t even have to have kids in the first place because I’m strong enough in myself that I don’t need some namesake to carry on for me or continue to overpopulate the planet simply because a god said I had to, thousands of years ago. Or worse, I am not starving in some third world country, having babies one after the other for my whole short life because the christians forced their god on me long ago and imposed their ridiculous rules and told us stupid lies.

I’m not sure how to address this rant or how this contributes to her case of moral superiority. Again, she demonstrates her ignorance of the whole of the Bible and the sexuality of professing Christians. Have you read the Song of Songs Neece? What biblical morality reinforces is that the sex without relationship that the authors claims to be superior has long term affects on the human psyche. Does your ethical stand allow me to view you as simply a sexual object so long as you are willing? Remember, you and I get to define our own personal morals not matter how they might affect one another. Have you taken your atheism to its eventual and irrefutable nihilism?

6. No god tells me to hate people who look different than me, so I am free to see everyone as equal and the same, just with different packaging. No need to be racist. (Oh, yeah, Hitler was religious. So don’t even bother with that one, christians. He’s yours, not ours.)

Again, I struggle to find any Christian doctrine that tells me to hate people who look different than me. How do we evaluate a moral stand which rests upon nothing but the vapors of an overheated imagination? Hitler (and the Nazis) were actually more driven by their Anti-Semitic views, occultism, and the application of Norse mythology in support of their views of Aryan superiority. I’m glad that we finally agree on an ethical standard in the lack of need to be a racist.

7. No god tells me to start a war over another land having the wrong god or the wrong types of people (see the one above), so I don’t have to support pointless wars that justify some ridiculous ancient prophecy or for other silly reasons, like god talking directly to the leader of my country. (Don’t even get me started on how scary that is. At least he’s gone now!)

These “moral” reasons seem to be getting worse and worse in the logic. Since she doesn’t provide any sort of citation, it is difficult to discuss this ethical stance intelligently. From her clues we can assume that she is referring to Iraq and President Bush. Perhaps Neece, you can provide evidence of the reasons you give for the initiation of this war being based in a) having the wrong god, b) the wrong types of people, c) ancient prophecy, and d) various silly reasons. Ethically, war is a difficult and long conversation. I would refer you to my posts on the four main positions that Christians take with regard to war and then you can challenge the ethics of one or all. Until then, we’ll have to dismiss this immature statement.

8. No god makes promises to me about being a martyr, so I have no reason to strap a bomb to myself and blow up a train station or whatever kills the most innocent people.

Since the life of the Atheist has no ultimate meaning other than the fact that you took up space and resources on the planet for a period, the author is correct in her assertion that she has no reasons for blowing herself up. Since the Bible does not condone this, we’ll have to assume that she is referring to the Koran as the source of this direction. The trouble here is logical, how do you judge the morals and ethics of those who blow themselves up since, as the author propounds, each to his own. Their moral standard is as good as yours so don’t be hateful.

9. No god makes open-ended promises that will never come true about armageddon and going up to heaven soon, so I am responsible about the environment, and try my best to have a small impact on the planet, and also support research into making things better for everyone through science and smarter living.

The “morals” discussion has obviously degraded. Is the author trying to make the point that Christians don’t take creation care seriously because we are simply waiting out the rapture or something? This assertion display’s a profound ignorance of what is going on within the Body of Christ so it would be uncharitable to be critical. I’ll offer this; since Christians do not know the time or the date of the end of the world (despite some cultic claims) we also seek to live in a healthy world and to that end, there are many Christian scientists seeking ways to live smarter. Remember though, should I choose to live a morality of waste and obscene consumption, you have no right to be critical since there is no objective way to determine right or wrong.

10. No god promises eternal life to me, so I understand that this life is precious. I take personal responsibility seriously, and I live my life the best way I can because it’s the only one I’ve got. I value the lives of others too, for the same reason.

Actually, God does promise eternal life to you but you have chosen to turn down that offer. You are free to do so.

Here is the final repetition of the logical problems with the author’s manifesto. Her initial thesis is that her personal morality (and that of all atheists) is superior to that of Christians. She has not proven that thesis or provide any evidence that supports her assertion other than her angry, meandering statements. Logically, she would like us to read the statements as follows (using the last paragraph as an example):

She understands that his life is precious. If this is the truth we can base moral truth on then it must be true that Christians do not believe life is precious.

Since Christians do believe life is precious, her implied statement is false.

She takes personal responsibility seriously. If this is the truth we can base moral truth on them it must be true that Christians do not take personal responsibility seriously.

Since Christians take personal responsibility seriously, her implied statement is false.

She values the lives of others. If this is the truth we can base moral truth on then it must be true that Christians do not value the lives of others.

Since Christians value the lives of others, her implied statement is false.

Given these logical inconsistencies, how can I place any confidence in her system of morality? She provides no evidence of her assertions and no objective source on which we can judge the validity of her moral arguments and yet she spends hundreds of words professing their superiority to a moral system thousands of years old. Sadly this represents much of the Atheist argument. It represents the continued desire to be one’s own god and to set ethical standards of their own without judgment by others. I believe Charles Manson held to this same argument.

Neece, you say “Yeah, I’d say most atheists are definitely morally superior to religious fundamentalists.” I’m sorry to be the first to point this out to you but you have failed to make points sufficient to support this assertion. Being a free-thinker is fine but it comes with the responsibility to be support your positions when challenged by other free thinkers. I don’t think you’d be very happy in a world where each of us also gets to determine morality for ourselves based upon what we each think is best.