book review: against all gods

What’s right and wrong about the new #atheism.

I’ve gotta be honest… I was a little surprised by this title (and subtitle) on a Christian book. But Against All Gods presented a refreshingly honest look at what’s important in the debate between the secular atheist and the Biblical Christian world views.

Focused on the controversy around a proposed course at Harvard about ‘faith and reason’, Johnson and Reynolds applaud the New Atheists for bringing discussion about faith in any religion back into the spotlight. While this book is less about the actual apologetic for the Christian faith, it is about how we talk with each other.

Johnson and Reynolds challenge Atheists (and Christians alike) to ask the right questions about what faith in a God really means. They argue that faith is not the opposite of reason, but it’s what allows us to act when we cannot be absolutely certain about what we believe to be true. Ironically, this is the very thing that keeps science moving forward, especially in areas were there is little (or no) actual evidence to immediately prove a hypothesis. In addition, they show how reason is just as important to Christian belief as it is to science. Essentially, the worlds of science and religion are much closer than many choose to realize.

Phillip E. Johnson is often referred to as the father of the intelligent design movement, and has been at the forefront of the public debate over evolution and creation for many years. John Mark Reynolds is the founder and director of the Torrey Honors Institute and professor of philosophy at Biola University. Together these men make a great one-two punch in the discussion between atheism and religion.

Personally, I’m not a fan of the Christian mentality of, “Bible good – atheist bad”. I need a good book like this every once in a while to help me better understand the discussion between these two conflicting world views. Against All Gods not only leveled the playing field, but it also outlined the rules of engagement that both sides of the argument should play by. This book sharpened, encouraged, and outraged me all at the same time. But most of all, I’m more prepared to talk… and ask the right questions.

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Note: This book was part of my summer reading list.

wordle :: why believe in a god?

After several back-and-forth comments with an atheist (and a few others), my last post (including comments) got up to over 5,600 words pretty quickly. That is some serious content! I encourage you to check out the conversation, but for those of you that prefer not to read the entire post and comments, I thought a wordle would help to provide a good summary…

why believe in a god?

Most definitions of God aren’t scientifically testable. They are philosophical abstractions, logical contradictions, imprecise spiritual notions, or subjective feelings. So there appears no way to show that this or that particular god idea is true or false, or even makes much sense. Moreover, most people don’t even want their god idea to be scientifically testable, since that might result in it being falsified.
                                                — American Humanist Association

I was floored today when checking out the news to see an absolutely blatant and public attack on Christianity (and all religion)! It seems that the American Humanist Association (a group that promotes atheism) is running an ad campaign this Christmas season that challenges people to not believe in a god. The quote above is from the website that people are referred to in the ad for more information.

While I can appreciate the organization’s desire to prompt people to be good and kind to each other, but am amazed at the anti-religious statements that they use to deliver that message. The website does not even tell people about ways that they can help to spread ‘goodness’, but instead simply pushes their anti-religious, secular humanist worldview.

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