What is Truth? | What is truth? – Patheos

What is truth? Truth is the revelation and acceptance of what is genuinely real.Time. What is Truth?

The public theologian needs an answer to the question, what is truth? Further, this answer needs to be intelligible. Why? Because of the relentless and merciless shelling against the theistic citadel by new atheist artillery. Believers in God, allegedly, cannot live in the truth because there is no deity. God does not exist. This makes all theistic claims not only false but unintelligible. It is time to ask this question: what is truth?

Despite the diversity of atheists, the American Atheists website makes clear that the common thread that ties all atheists together is a lack of belief in gods. Some of these atheists load their cannons with scientific ammunition. Is there a connection between science and atheism? Really?

Atheist Feldmarschall Richard Dawkins demands that the question of Gods existence be treated as a scientific hypothesis. If so treated, the evidence will show that no god exists, rendering the theistic hypothesis disconfirmed. Dawkins contends that religious belief is not true in the scientific sense. This makes religious belief one of the worlds greatest evils.

Not so, according to Cambridge University hybrid physicist and theologian, the late John Polkinghorne. Polkinghorne finds the natural world intelligible and celebrates this intelligibility. Polkinghorne also finds that the intelligibility of the natural world is enhanced when grasped as the creation of a loving and gracious God. God and the world are most intelligible when viewed together.

The universe is astonishingly open to us, relationally transparent to our enquiry.The most we can require is an interpretation that is coherent and persuasive. Theism provides just such a response to the meta question of intelligibility. If the world is the creation of the rational God, and if we are creatures made in the divine image, then it is entirely understandable that there is an order in the universe that is deeply accessible to our minds. Putting the same point in a different way, one could say that science discerns a world in which its rational beauty and rational transparency is shot through with signs of mind, and the theist can understand this because it is indeed the Mind of God that is partially disclosed in this way(Polkinghorne, 1998, pp. 72-73).[i]

In other words, the most coherent understanding of the many scientific propositions which disclose natures secrets requires a worldview inclusive of natures creator, God. A worldview that incorporates both God and what we learn about nature through science is more comprehensive and more intelligible than science without reference to God can provide.

So, when we ask, what is truth?, we are asking that genuine reality reveal itself to us.[ii] This happens in science, we trust. This happens in faith, we also trust. How might these cohere with one another in worldview construction?

Unless the claims of Holy Scripture and the Christian tradition are true, no one would want to believe them. The task of the public theologian is to make Christian claims intelligible, so that those within the church and outside the church can test them for their truth value.[iii]

What is truth? That was Pilates question to Jesus in John 18:38. Elsewhere, in John 14:6, we find Jesus saying, I am the way, and the truth, and the life What does truth mean here? And everywhere we use this word?

If truth is propositional, then the assertionJesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the lifecould be either true or false. How would we measure the truth or falsity of this proposition? On the basis of what appears. On the basis of what has been revealed to be real. On the basis of what is yet-to-be revealed to be real.

In the Johannine passages cited above, note the Greek word for truth, aletheia. Philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) analyzed this term (Heidegger, 1947). He noted how aletheia means unveiling or uncovering or revealing, Entdeckung. Truth is an event in which something concealed becomes unconcealed, Unverborgenheit.

Curiously, the unconcealing of one truth sometimes requires the concealing of another truth, leading to an ongoing dialectic of revealing and hiding. In sum, truth is the unconcealing or disclosing of being (Water, 1969).

What modern culture loves about science is that scientific facts and theories are transcultural. Scientific claims are universal, according to Polish philosopher Jsef Tischner. The fundamental property of scientific truth is its universalityscientific truth is the truth for everyonebasic truths are the same for all people(Tischner, 1982, p. 33).

Scientific truths come in the form of propositions or assertions. Truth and falsity areproperties of propositions (Inwagen, 2009, p. 33). Propositional truth presumes a correspondence between what is thought or asserted via language with objective or mind-independent reality. So far, so good.

Yet, phenomenologically speaking, the truth of propositions is dependent on a more fundamental and more comprehensive human experience, namely, the ostensive self-revelation of reality. Only what has been uncovered or disclosed about natures mysteries can rise to articulation in assertions or propositions.[iv] Then, when propositions or assertions correspond with what has been unconcealed, they are said to be true.[v]

Here is the takeaway. A propositional claim is like a single Blue Gill hooked by someone fishing, reeled in, and landed in the boat. Even though this single fish is real in every respect, it is abstracted from the fishermans total experience with the entire lake and the unknown number of fish that have not been seen, caught, or reeled in.

So, we must grant with Stuart A. Kauffman that Science is not the only pathway to truth (Kauffman, 2008, p. xii). Or, perhaps more precisely, scientific truth is an abstraction. It finds its meaning within a more comprehensive horizon of truth as experienced.

This applies to true living as well, living in behalf of the common good. The truth is deeper than facts, contends Patheos columnist, Victorious Living. More important. More real, even. We cannot pursue truth while avoiding facts. But we cannot make sense of our facts while avoiding the deeper truths.

Let me tell you about Charles Townes (1915-2015). Charlie was a Nobel Prize winning physicist. Among his achievements was the discovery of a black hole in the center of our galaxy, designing the scientific agenda of the first astronauts on the Moon, and inventing the laser and maser. The final decades of his career were spent at the University of California at Berkeley, where I had an opportunity to get to know him and his vibrant wife, Francis. Charlie served on the board of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences.

Charlie loved physics. Physics was his passion. Even as he neared the age of a hundred, he spent almost every day engaged in scientific research. I get to do physics all day. What could be better than that?, he once said to me with glee.

Now, heres whats startling. Charlie told me and then an audience that I assembled that the invention of the laser was due to a special revelation. The laser came to him as a vision. While sitting on park bench in Washington DC, a vision appeared before his eyes with the physics and engineering necessary to make the first laser. He copied on his brown lunch bag what appeared in the vision. And, thus, the laser was born.

Charlie did not describe the vision as supernatural. Yet, is was a revelation that came to him as a gift.

One evening, Charlie and Francis were visiting at my Berkeley condo. A number of students were seated around Charlie, eagerly asking questions. Ya know, Charlie began one of his rare pontifications, I believe all scientific discoveries are revelations. Oh, yes, discoveries come at the end of experiments. But, whats really happening is that nature is revealing itself to the human mind. Isnt it wonderful!

Before a scientist can enunciate a proposition, nature must reveal itself. Thats Heideggers phenomenological insight. Revelation as disclosure applies as much to science as it does to theology.

If you are motivated to harken to the call of truth, then you will want to understand truth. To understand truth, is to subject your mind and your will to the reality that is uncovered in a truth event. Understanding requires us to stand under the authority of truth.

Truth is self-defining. And truth compels us to respect it by submitting to it. Here is theologian Alan Padgett: I want to stand under the truth and receive (understand) what light it brings(Padgett, Alan 2006). Truth asks us for submission so that we can gain understanding.

Or, more completely: I will simply propose that we understand truth as the mediated disclosure of being (or reality). Sometimes that truth will be mediated through everyday experience, or common sense, sometimes through the specifics of propositions (Padgett, Alan 2006). In short, truth calls the human mind to humility. This applies to truth in all forms, especially theological truth.

Grace to Youproposes an understanding of theological truth.

Heres a simple definition drawn from what the Bible teaches: Truth is that which is consistent with the mind, will, character, glory, and being of God. Even more to the point:Truth is the self-expression of God. That is the biblical meaning of truth. Because the definition of truth flows from God, truth istheological.

Truth is alsoontologicalwhich is a fancy way of saying it is the way things really are. Reality is what it is because God declared it so and made it so. Therefore God is the author, source, determiner, governor, arbiter, ultimate standard, and final judge of all truth.

Now, we turn to hermeneutics. Truth is tied to interpretation.

Our human receptivity for revelation is conditioned by our personal past experience, our historically inherited culture, our linguistic capacity, and our willingness to learn new things. You and I come to every new experience with a pre-understanding, a Vorverstndnis, to use the terminology of Hans-Georg Gadamer(Gadamer, 1965). An open-minded person ready to learn avoids allowing this pre-understanding to become a prejudgment (Vorurteil) or prejudice. A prejudice prevents new learning. A pre-understanding is always necessary for receiving new truth. But, a prejudice is optional.

Because each one of us lives within a specific context with its own horizon of pre-understanding, our experience with a truth event will be inescapably perspectival. A purely objective or absolute truth with no pre-understanding is not an option. All of our seeing is seeing-as. We must grant a certain level of relativity to our truth experience. What passes for objective truth is, for all practical purposes, an inter-subjective interpretation.

Theologian Catherine Keller acknowledges the inescapability of relativity in perspective. Relativity, which we must strictly distinguish from relativism, just describes the reality of a relational universe. The human observer belongs to that universe. Therefore all human truth-claims are relative to context and perspective(Keller, 2008, p. 4).

The truth of Godthe truth that brings knowledge, forgiveness, comfort, and joyis always pro me, says Martin Luther. The objective truth of God is revealed within subjective trueness for you and for me. To understand God is to stand under Gods Word addressed to you or me.

The uncovering of what is genuinely real is the essence of all truth. This applies to Gods emergence from hiding as well. God defines God-self in events of self-revelation. And because God is the ultimate reality, all truth becomes dependent on what is revealed by God about God. At least according to Calvinist philosopher Alvin Plantinga. There is such a thing as truth, and it is intimately connected with God (Plantinga, 1998, p.36).[vi]

This is the theme that runs through Karl Barths Church Dogmatics. The freely acting God Himself and alone is the truth of revelation. (Barth, 1936-1962, p. I/1 15). According to Barth, the Bible mediates Gods Word through the human words on the pages.

T.F. Torrance, a scholar quite concerned with the interaction between theology and science, elaborates with regard to Scriptural truth.

When all is said and done in biblical interpretation and theological formulation, the ultimate criterion to which appeal is to be made is the Truth itself, that Truth independent of themselves too which the Holy Scriptures direct us and to which they themselves are subject. All faithful interpretation must allow the Truth to assert itself in its own intrinsic weight and majesty and to maintain its own ground over against us and our prejudices, for in the last resort we have to reckon with the fact that God alone can name himself and bear witness to himself and prove himself to us (Torrance, 1982, pp.118-119).

On the one hand, what we assert in propositional or second order form derives from what is uncovered in first order experience. Reality comes out of hiding and becomes unconcealed at the level of first order experience. Then, when we formulate an assertion about what has been revealed, we abstract from the embedded first order experience. In sum, propositions are second order discourse reporting on the first order experience of disclosure.

One task of the systematic theologianalong with the public theologianis to press for coherence between what has been revealed to us by God and what has been unconcealed for us by our scientists. But, constructing coherence requires distinguishing prejudice from pre-understanding.

Here is the late Wolfhart Pannenberg on overcoming prejudice in constructive theology.

The truth of Christian doctrine cannot be maintained where Christian proclamation gives priority to adaptation to the secular mentality. It has to challenge that mentality and its prejudices.Since secularism produces meaninglessness, the human person suffers from the lack of meaning. There is a need, then, for the Christian message, perhaps more urgently so than in other periods of human history. But the message can reach its addresse only if the prejudices of secularism against Christianity can be overcome (Pannenberg 2002, 1).

Pannenberg advocates a coherence theory of truth, not a correspondence theory of truth. Coherence provides the final criterion of truth, and it can serve as such a criterion because it also belongs to the nature of truth: so that truth is only one, but all -embracing, closely related to the concept of the one God (Pannenberg, An Introduction to Systematic Theology 1991, 6). How coherence works should become clear in what follows.

Belief in God requires belief in the truth. No rational person would place his or her or their life in the hands of a God who does not exist. It all depends on truth, says Pannenberg when asking why a non-Jew might believe in the God of Israel. If we suppose that the God of Israel and of Jesus is the one and only true God, then and only then is there sufficient reason for believing in that God, even if one is not a Jew (Pannenberg, An Introduction to Systematic Theology 1991, 4-5). Belief includes confidence and trust in truth. And, truth depends on revelation. Did divine revelation take place in Israels history?

Revelations from God about God always leave some residue, some dimensions that resist codification in assertions or propositions. This is because God remains mysterious even in unconcealment. The more that God reveals, the more we become aware of the divine mystery. Religious propositions, then, must convey the dialectic of concealment with unconcealment. Religious propositions must be symbolic at their most fundamental level.

A holistic self-disclosure of reality rises to articulation only in symbolic speech. Binoy (Jacob) Pichalakkat, mathematician and theologian in Pune, India, makes this observation. In symbols reality becomes aware of itself and mirrors itself (Pichalakkatt, 2006, p. 26). Note the direction of movement: reality discloses itself, and we mark the event of this disclosure with a symbol. Symbols both reflect and participate in the reality they disclose.

Please get this point. Propositional truths are literal assertions that intend a single meaning. Symbolic truths are multi-valent with two or more levels of meaning. We live in a worldview with both.

Austrian philosopher Eric Voegelin reminds us of the distinction between symbols and propositions. Truth is not a body of propositions about a world-immanent object; it is the world-transcendent summum bonum, experienced as an orienting force in the soul, about which we can speak only in analogical symbols (Voegelin, 1956-1987, p. 3:363). Symbols point to and even participate in the reality they uncover; but symbols cannot exhaust the meaning of what they reveal in propositional form. Symbols come first. Propositions come second.

As double-valent, symbols connote concealment and unconcealment simultaneously. Religious symbols are pre-propositional in character. Symbols participate in the truth, to be sure. Yet, first order symbols stop short of reducing truth to proposition. Second order propositions interpret first order symbolic experience. Scientific propositions interpret experience in the form of empirical evidence and experiment.

Do religious people believe in literal truth? No. Scientists do, though.

Well, wait a minute! Some evangelicals and fundamentalists pridefully exclaim that they stand on the literal truth of the Bible. Patheos columnist Vance Morgan was born into a fundamentalist family. He has since become a Progressive Christian. Morgan explains what it means to believe in literal truth.

I was born into the fundamentalist Protestant worldand I am thoroughly familiar with how literalists read the Bible. I was taught that the Bible is the inerrant and infallible word of God, dictated by divine inspiration to specially selected human beings, then assembled into the Word of God that we call the Bible. The Bible is Gods final word to us, I was taught; all the guidance a Christian needs to live a life pleasing to God can be found between its covers. Many of the vehicles in our church parking lot sported a bumper sticker expressing the appropriate attitude toward Scripture: God Said It. I Believe It. That Settles It.

Because the linguistic expressions of Holy Scripture include deliberately non-literal formspsalms, aphorisms, parables, metaphors, and suchit would be irrational to treat all biblical texts literally. Contrary to common belief, Protestant fundamentalists do not believe in the dictation theory of the Bible.

The predominant view of Scriptures inspiration within fundamentalism derives from the late 19th century Princeton Theology. According to that Princeton Theology, the Holy Spirit inspired the New Testament writers who then mediated Gods Word through their own language and experience along with the their own writers agenda. In the heat of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the 1920s, fundamentalist Clarence E. Macartney announced in his famous sermon, Shall Unbelief Win?, the following. Those who hold the New Testament idea of inspiration, that holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, have never thought of the Holy Ghost dictating to Moses, Isaiah or St. Paul. What could be more clear! There is no warrant to believe that the words of the text were dictated by God, even for a fundamentalist. So, what Morgan reports here seems a tad extreme.

Biblical speech is fundamentally symbolic and double-valent. Biblical speech connotes invisible realities while it denotes ordinary experiences. This is why Jesus strained to convey truths about God through parables. We today must always treat Holy Sculpture hermeneutically, soliciting the Holy Spirits inner witness when we apply scriptural truth to our own daily lives.

Not so with scientific propositions. The laboratory scientist swims in eddies of experiment, fact, data, hypotheses, theories, and revisions of theories. Then, with corroboration and caution, the scientist tenders a proposition. That proposition is intended to be a literal assertion. It is intended to denote a fact. And only a fact. Thats it. Nothing more. No meaning. No significance. No metaphysical implications. Just a fact.

Keep clear: it is science that communicates literally through propositions. Not religion.

Do theologians ever make propositions? Yes, indeed. The Apostles Creed and Nicene Creed are collections of propositions. To theological propositions we now turn.

Theological propositionscalled dogmasare hypothetical assertions about ultimate reality. They are hypothetical because their truth depends upon confirmation or disconfirmation by Gods future actions. Drawing from the multi-valent symbols found in Scripture, dogmas point prophetically to truths about divine promises yet awaiting fulfillment. Only future fulfillment can determine the truth or falsity of such Christian theological claims.

Such dogmatic propositions are also doxological. That is, the reality yet to be revealed will be far more glorious than these propositions can convey. Even if a theological proposition gets confirmed by God, its literal meaning will be engulfed with a penumbra of glory that will bring an unanticipated fullness. Here is Pannenberg on dogmatic statements requiring eschatological confirmation to determine their truth value.

Dogmatic statements have a proleptic tendency in that they have all of reality, history as a whole, in view, since in Christ, the consummation of history, the future of us all, has already begun.Thus, the doxological element in the dogmatic statement is founded upon the proleptic, and both are interrelated through the universal meaning that inheres in this particular event(Pannenberg, Basic Questions in Theology, 2 Volumes, 1970-1971, p. 1:205).

Right now, the Apostles Creed and Nicene Creed are statements of faith awaiting divine confirmation or disconfirmation eschatologically. These collections of Christian propositions about God are abstractions from more robust multi-valent biblical symbols. Even in propositional form, dogmas still resonate with symbolic meaning that is suprapropositional. Historically, creedal collections of dogmas are frequently called, symbols.

Creedal symbols remain second order discourse, still subordinate to the first order discourse of Holy Scripture. The more basic biblical symbols articulate what our ancestors experienced in revelatory events where truths about God were disclosed. Today we look forward to the eschatological future anticipated by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:12: For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

The scriptures themselves tell us that the universal recognition of Gods glory will not occur before the eschaton. Until then, the truth of his revelation continue to be in dispute. (Pannenberg, An Introduction to Systematic Theology 1991, 17)

Not everyone is dedicated to standing under the truth in coherent form. Wikipedia management, for example, holds that multiple truths exist without cohering with one another. We all have different truths. We all have different biases. We need to listen to voices other than Western white men. We should share power. Rather than talk about the truth, then, we should focus on what we believe and what we can agree on. What is important is that we all get along, according to Wikipedias Katherine Maher. Yet, despite this well-intentioned gesture toward social harmony, my question here is still this: what is truth?

In this Patheos post, we have been asking: what is truth? In addition, we have been asking whether a theological worldview could be intelligible when coherently incorporating scientific knowledge. Standing under the truth requires the theologian to strive not only for coherence but also intelligibility.

No theologian need answer atheist shelling with a counterattack. Rather, the theist may simply live truly within the symbols which participate in Gods self-revelation. Then, of course, the theologian should formulate intelligible propositions. Such constructed propositions will be hypothetical. They will turn out to be proleptic assertions, awaiting divine confirmation or disconfirmation in the eschaton.

Every searching soul welcomes truth whenever an event of unconcealment makes something invisible visible. Scientific truth along with personal truth and divine truth belong together in a single worldview. Pannenberg rightly reminds the public theologian: The question of the truth of Christianity cannot be enquired into without also enquiring into the question of the truth of all areas of human experience, including scientific knowledge about the natural world (Pannenberg, Theology and the Philosophy of Science, 1976, p. 255).

Ive been working with the following hypothesis: truth is the revelation and acceptance of what is genuinely real. If God is the ultimate reality, then all truth must come from the one God. All truth, no matter by whom it is uttered, comes from the Holy Spirit (Omnis veritas, a quoquo dicitur, e Spiritu Sancto est). Ascribed to St. Ambrose of Milan.

Thank God that our minds hunger and thirst for truth. Thank God that truth comes to us. Thank God that truth satisfies that hunger and slakes that thirst.

Ted Peters directs traffic at the intersection of science, religion, and ethics. Peters is an emeritus professor at the Graduate Theological Union, where he co-edits the journal, Theology and Science, on behalf of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, in Berkeley, California, USA. He authored Playing God? Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom? (Routledge, 2nd ed., 2002) as well as Science, Theology, and Ethics (Ashgate 2003). He is editor of AI and IA: Utopia or Extinction? (ATF 2019). Along with Arvin Gouw and Brian Patrick Green, he co-edited the new book, Religious Transhumanism and Its Critics hot off the press (Roman and Littlefield/Lexington, 2022). Soon he will publish The Voice of Christian Public Theology (ATF 2022). See his website: TedsTimelyTake.com.The fictional spy thriller, Cyrus Twelve, follows the twists and turns of a transhumanist plot.

[i] Truth cannot contradict truth(Pope, 1998).

[ii] No religion is genuine unless it be joined with truth, according to John Calvin(Calvin, 1960, p. I/v.3.50.).

[iv] Fuller systematic theologian Veli-Matti Krkkinen promotes the dialogue between theology and the natural sciences, because the doctrine of creation itself requires the access to reality provided by science. Specifically, the scientific worldview differs from previous worldviews within which theology worked. This engagement happens under a radically different worldview from that of the past: ours is dynamic, interrelated, evolving, in-the-making(Krkkinen, 2015, pp. 10-11).

[v] Lets compare correspondence with coherence. Scientific propositions rely on the correspondence theory of truth, according to which propositions correspond to reality as revealed. The coherence theory of truth, alternatively, relies on the coherence of one proposition with others in a web of claims. Borrowing the metaphor of the web or net of beliefs formulated by logician W.V.O. Quine, Nancey Murphy at Fuller abandons the correspondence model of truth in favor of a coherence model. Truth is found in coherence, where beliefs require one another is a web or net. This new picture of knowledge is salutary for religion scholars, she writes. No longer is there a need to find an unquestionable starting point, a theological foundation, before we can begin the task of theology proper(Murphy, 2018, p. 71).

[vi] Truths from God belong together with truths from science. The task of the systematic theologian is to make them all coherent. A limited rational validation of the truth of the Gospel is possible.Negatively the Gospel must and can be validated by exploring the limits of historic forms of wisdom and virtue. Positively it is validated when the truth of faith is correlated with all truths which may be known by scientific and philosophical disciplines and proves itself a resource for coordinating them into a deeper and wider system of coherence(Niebuhr, 1949, p. 152).

Barth, K. (1936-1962). Church Dogmatics, 4 Volumes. Edinburgh: T&T Clark.

Calvin, J. (1960). Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 Volumes. Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox.

Dawkins, R. (1997). Is Science a Religion? The Humanist, https://web.archive.org/web/20121030144700/http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/articles/dawkins.html.

Gadamer, H.-G. (1965). Wahrheit und Methode. Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).

Heidegger, M. (1947). The Essence of Truth. Berlin: UNKNO.

Inwagen, P. V. (2009). An Essay on Free Will. Oxford UK: Oxford University Press.

Krkkinen, V.-M. (2015). Creation and Humanity. Grand Rapids MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans.

Kauffman, S. A. (2008). Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion. New York: Basic Books.

Keller, C. (2008). On the Mystery: Discerning God in Process. Minneapolis MN: Fortress Press.

Murphy, N. (2018). A Philosophy of the Christian Religion for the Twenty-First Century. London: SPCK.

Niebuhr, R. (1949). Faith and History. New York: Scribners.

Padgett, Alan. (2006). I am the Truth. An Understanding of Truthe from Christology to Scripture. In e. Alan G. Padgett and Patrick r. Keifert, But Is It All True? The Bible and the Question of Truth (p. Chapter 6). Grand Rapids, MI, USA: Wm. B. Eerdmans.

Pannenberg, W. (1976). Theology and the Philosophy of Science. Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox.

Pannenberg, W. (1991).An Introduction to Systematic Theology.Grand Rapids MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans.

Pannenberg, W. (2002). The Task of Christian Eschatology. In e. Carl E. Braaten and Robert Jenson, The Last Things: Biblical and Theological Perspectives (pp. 1-13). Grand Rapids MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans.

Pichalakkatt, Binoy (2006). Dialoging with Symbols Exploring Zero, Sunyata and Trinity for a Holistic Reality,Omega: Indian Journal of Science and Religion,5:2: 25-41.

Polkinghorne, J. (1998). Science and Theology: An Introduction (1 ed.). London and Minneapolis: SPCK and Fortress.

Pope, J. P. (1998). Evolution and the Living God. In e. Ted Peters, Science and Theology: The New Consonance (pp. 149-152). Boulder CO: Harper/Westview https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP961022.HTM.

Schleiermacher, F. (1960). The Christian Faith. Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark.

Tischner, J. (1982). The Spirit of Solidarity. New York: Harper.

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What is Truth? | What is truth? - Patheos

11 Youth Group Kids Every Church Had to Deal With – RELEVANT – RELEVANT Magazine

The appeal to youth group is that its all so familiar. While the main church service could be formal and even sort of cold, youth group felt like school, with similar dynamics, social structures and, often as not, insane games and snacks. Thats part of the appeal. Youth group was often so close to the rest of your teen existence that it could get a little predictable. In fact, certain recurring characters pop up in every youth group. Here are a few of the most common ones.

The Kid Who Already Knew the Greek and Hebrew

Like, we get it. You want to be a pastor when you grow up. But where are you, a 14-year-old, getting this seminary-level training?

The Kid Who Clearly Is Just Trying to Find a Date

Dont get us wrong, weve all been there. When you run out of potential significant others at school and work, church is a fallback option. But could you at least try to look semi-interested in the message?

The Kid Who Sure Seems Like They Should Have Graduated Last Year

You do know theres a college/young adult ministry, right?

The Burgeoning Atheist Whos Just Trying to Prove the Youth Pastor Wrong

All are welcome here, Devin, but maybe we can address this after group prayer time?

The Pastors Kid

Who wants to call Pastor Steve and tell him Alexis hitchhiked away from Bible Camp?

The Future Americas Got Talent Contestant

I think 45 seconds of guitar solo on Oceans is plenty, Preston.

The Kid Who Brought a Djembe on Every Youth Group Trip

Just in case we need a little percussion. (Pro tip: We never do.)

The Kid Whose Mom Is Always Last to Pick Him Up From Church Events

Are you sure we cant give you a ride, Ashley?

The Worship Pastors Kid

Who wants to call Pastor Grace and tell her Carissa hitchhiked back toBible Camp?

The Kid Who Takes the Youth Group Games Way Too Seriously

Settle down, Tanner. The NFL isnt scouting Chubby Bunny champions.

The Kid Who Took Sword Drills Way Too Seriously

Marissa, how on earth did you open to exactly Psalm 96:4 in one try?

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11 Youth Group Kids Every Church Had to Deal With - RELEVANT - RELEVANT Magazine

The census shows Australians are becoming less religious but why have we chosen to live without God? – ABC News

So Friedrich Nietzsche was right, God is dead and we have killed him.

That's what the latest census tells us: the number of faithless is closing in on the number of faithful.

In my lifetime I have seen Australia change from being an almost completely Christian country to one where now just 44 per cent practise Christianity.

This is no surprise. It mirrors a widespread shift away from religion by citizens of the Western world, most of whomwere traditionally Christian, alongside increases in religions like Hinduism which has grown more than 55 per cent in Australia since 2016 as our communities diversify.

Yet the numbers reporting no religion is also increasing and the impactis rapidly gathering pace.

Philosopher Charles Taylor, in his book A Secular Age, warned: "Modern civilisation cannot but bring about a "death of God."

Taylor said we have seen the rise of an "exclusive humanism". We have swapped God, he wrote, for a "culture of authenticity, or expressive individualism, in which people are encouraged to find their own way, discover their own fulfilment, "do their own thing".

Scholar of religion and politics Jocelyn Cesarihas traced the evolution of secular modernity in her book, We God's People. We have now reached a point in Western Europe, she says, where"worldly" things are allthere is.

There is a division between the immanent and the transcendent between what is Caesar's and what is God's. The immanent is the realm of politics.

Believers, she says, "are expected to keep the transcendent to themselves".

Cesari says the nation is now "the superior collective identification" overtaking "religious allegiances."

This is where the West was bound to end up. The tension between secularism and faith emerged out of the Thirty Years War the wars of religion that laid waste to Europe between 1618 and 1648. It's estimated as many as 8million people were killed.

It led to the birth of the modern state and coincided with an explosion of new ideas that we call the Age of Reason or The Enlightenment.

Across Europe reason was elevated above faith. People were encouraged to break with tradition. Thinkers like Rene Descartes the father of modern philosophy told us "I think therefore I am."

The mysteries of the universe were no longer the province of God.

Immanuel Kant summed up the Enlightenment with three words: dare to know.

While historically the West was founded on Christianity, the modern West was shaped by the break with God. People were sovereign. Liberalism prized the individual above all.

SociologistPhillip Rieffsaid we swapped a sacred order for a social order. That accelerated in the 20th century with social revolutions up-ending society and demolishing old ethical and moral boundaries.

French writer Olivier Roy says "secularisation has given way to large scale de-Christianisation." There is now, he says, "a serious crisis surrounding European identity and the place of religion in the public sphere".

The Church has found itself out of step with changing societal values on issues like divorce, abortion or same sex marriage.

Roy says: "Little by little, the very definitions of sexual difference, family, reproduction and parenthood have been redrawn." The scandal of child sex abuse in the church has further stripped religion of its moral authority.

Personal freedom, Roy writes, "prevails over all transcendent standards." Society is now ordered on "new valuesfounded on individualism, freedom and the valorisation of desire."

The West is a place beyond history. The past is another country. Tradition is seen as stifling, old fashioned. No doubt some traditions are well rid of. Which woman or person of colour would want to return to the white, male, dominated 1950s? But what are we left with? Is there still a role for tradition?

HistorianTim Stanleythinks so. He says the "war on tradition"has "translated into a soulless consumerism, and, while some flourished, many felt alienated and unfulfilled."

In his new book Whatever Happened to Tradition, Stanley fears our "liberal order is out of ideas, that's partly because we have deprived ourselves of valuable experience".

For some, the response to this soulless voidhas been a retreat into fundamentalism. We see this in radical Islamic groups like Al Qaeda or Islamic State whichrepresent a rejection of Western modernity.

Similarly right-wing or white-supremacist groups reach back to "tradition" as an attempt to recover some lost glory.

Stanley warns against this fundamentalism, yet he wonders what the secular West offers in response. Across the West, he says, "there is a dearth of purpose and spirit: we can't agree on who we are or what we are about, or even of these big existential questions matter."

Yet if people have turned away from religion it does not mean they are without faith.

Atheism in its own way can become an article of faith.

The new radical atheists quote the likes of scientistRichard Dawkinswith the certainty of scripture. They proselytise with evangelical vigour. In the West, identity is the new faith.

We are free to re-imagine and reinvent ourselves, untethered from the past; from family or faith.

It is a peculiarly Western phenomenon. Elsewhere religion is booming. The heart of Christianity has shifted from Europe to Africa and Latin America.

Officially atheist, China has experienced what's been called a Christian revival. It is estimated that by 2030 China may have the world's largest Christian population.

And despite what the census tells us is happening here, Christianity is not dying. Pew Research shows that in the century between 1910 and 2010, the number of Christians grew from 600million to more than twobillion.

Pew says that by 2060 Christianity will remain the world's largest religion with more than three billion followers.

Islam is the world's fastest growing religion driven significantly by a higher fertility rate. By the end of this century it is thought there will be more Muslims than Christians in the world.

This is a reminder if one is needed that the West is not the world. Indeed in many parts of the world the turn to religion is connected with a rejection of colonialism and Western values.

Sudipta Kaviraj, Columbia University Professor of Indian History, asks: "Why should the history of Europe happen elsewhere?" In Bengal, he says, Hindus in the 19th century "rejected an unconditional embrace of the package of moral values of Western modernity". Modern individualism, he says, was seen as "impoverishing the character and content of collective life".

In modern India, he writes, even the secular "need and desire transcendence as intensely as the devout."

Kavirajcautions against seeing the world through eyes of the West, not to speak, he says, "the facts of one history through the language of another." Yes, the West is more secular, less religious, and hyper-individualistic but that is not how most people live.

Western ideas of progress are founded on burying the past, killing God, and making the human divine. It can be liberating and holds the promise of freedom. But it doesn't speak to all. It doesn't even speak to all in the West who replace old faiths with new faith, who feel alienated and alone and long for somewhere to belong.

As Charles Taylor sees it, the journey of the secular West is from an enchanted age, to an age of disenchantment.

If as Nietzsche said, "God is dead", we in the West might ask what comes next?

Stan Grant is the ABC's international affairs analyst and presents China Tonight on Monday at 9:35pm on ABC TV, and Tuesday at 8pm on the ABC News Channel, anda co-presenter of Q+A on Thursday at 8.30pm. He also hosts the Religion and Ethics Report on RN.

Posted2 Jul 20222 Jul 2022Sat 2 Jul 2022 at 7:00pm, updated3 Jul 20223 Jul 2022Sun 3 Jul 2022 at 9:53am

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The census shows Australians are becoming less religious but why have we chosen to live without God? - ABC News

Everybody should have to follow the rules – Villages-News

To the Editor:

I get that there are rules, but rules should be for EVERYone, not just those that have received complaints.If you cant have signage, statues, crosses or whatever, then no one should be exempt. If you only make those remove that have complaints, you could just be playing into a neighbor war. what is fair for one should be fair for all.Personally, I feel if I want a cross or a bird or a fish, it should be my choice. I own the property and I pay for taxes, landscaping, yard work, etc.Now I understand that people could take their decorations a bit far, so there should be a limit, but i dont understand how a small white cross is hurting anyone or anything, unless now we are giving in to liberalism whose feelings might be hurt because maybe they are atheist and dont want to look at a cross. Look in Arlington and see what is there, and why they are there. Its called freedom my friends.

JoEtta HinrichsenVillage of Marsh Bend

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Everybody should have to follow the rules - Villages-News

Apologetics conference to feature former Jehovah’s Witnesses – The Pathway

BONNE TERRE Elaine Bales was a second-generation Jehovahs Witness (JW) who lost her family and friends when she walked away from the false religion. Now a follower of Jesus, she leads a worldwide ministry that replaces the lies of the Watchtower with the truth of Scripture.

Paul Blizard was a third-generation JW who met Jesus in 1982 and was disfellowshipped from the Watchtower for approving a blood transfusion for his daughter.

Christopher Marshall was a Bethelite, working in the Watchtowers headquarters in New York, before meeting Christian apologist Al Stewart and coming to faith in Christ.

All three of these once-devoted JWs are now serving Christ faithfully and are featured speakers at There Is Something Better, the 2022 Witnesses Now for Jesus Conference July 22-23 at Sonrise Baptist Church in Bonne Terre.

The event is free and runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and from 9:30 a.m. to noon on Sunday.

Other speakers include Robert Bowman, widely regarded as the leading evangelical scholar addressing Mormon and Jehovahs Witness interpretations of the Bible; Roger Sherrer, a former atheist who now serves as youth pastor at First Baptist Church, Lebanon, Mo.; Charles Smith, a former Jehovahs Witness who serves as director of Witnesses Now for Jesus Midwest; and Rob Phillips, who directs the apologetics ministry of the Missouri Baptist Convention.

This conference is designed to show the power of the gospel to transform lives, says Smith. Each testimony illustrates the deceptive ways Satan keeps people in darkness through false religions. At the same time, conference attendees will hear about the redemptive work of Christ, who shows that when it comes to a search for truth among the worlds religions, there truly is something better.

Apologetics is simply the practice of defending the Christian faith. Apologetics comes from the Greek noun apologia, which means a defense. Every Christian is urged to be ready at all times to defend the faith with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15-16).

For more information about the event, contact Charles Smith at 314-277-3866.

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Apologetics conference to feature former Jehovah's Witnesses - The Pathway

Thor: Love and Thunder review: A romcom with epic battles – BBC

When Thor (Chris Hemsworth), that big-hearted hunk of a god, accidentally runs into Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) his big-brained, astrophysicist, Earthling ex-girlfriend the encounter is wild even by superhero standards. In the midst of a battle against the latest force of evil, Thor spots Jane, now carrying his very own famously powerful hammer. She is wearing armour and a red cape and has flowing blonde hair. "That's my hammer you've got," he says, as they stare into each other's eyes. "And that's my look." Taika Waititi's Thor: Love and Thunder is a Tale of Two Thors, a romcom interspersed with Universe-saving battles. It might make you wonder: What if Bogart and Bacall had superpowers?

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The first thing to know is that this film is enormous fun. As he did in Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Waititi brings his distinct voice to the Marvel Cinematic Universe's cookie-cutter franchise. His formula balances a tongue-in-cheek tone with adventure, prizing wit over action; a relief from Marvel's more sombre instalments. (Doctor Strange has his qualities but he's not a witty sort.) In Love and Thunder, Waititi injects more emotion than in Ragnarok and goes for weightier themes, about nihilism and belief, love and death. The themes may be half-baked, but they exist.

The next important thing to know is that this is not really Jane's story. Disney's marketing talks a good game about how Jane is wielding the God of Thunder's hammer, Mjolnir, and has become a superhero called Mighty Thor. True enough, but this is still original Thor's film. Fortunately, Hemsworth is better than ever at making the character the most human, lifelike and appealing of gods, a regular guy except when he's saving the world.

Early on, his sidekick, Korg a giant, sweet-tempered pile of rocks with Waititi's voice tells children the story of the Thor-Jane romance, filling in any background a new viewer might want. It's a goofy account that reveals details about their break-up which also manages to name-check Jane Fonda.

Voldemort with a nose

Soon the familiar characters are threatened by a new villain, Gorr (chillingly played by Christian Bale), who has become disillusioned with gods in general. Instead of becoming an atheist or agnostic like a normal person in his situation, he goes for revenge, and becomes known as the God Butcher. Grey-toned from head to toe, he is basically Voldemort with a nose.

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Thor: Love and Thunder review: A romcom with epic battles - BBC

Atheist | Definition of Atheist by Merriam-Webster

Many people are interested in distinguishing between the words agnostic and atheist. The difference is quite simple: atheist refers to someone who does not believe in the existence of a god or any gods, and agnostic refers to someone who doesnt know whether there is a god, or even if such a thing is knowable. This distinction can be troublesome to remember, but examining the origins of the two words can help.

Agnostic first appeared in 1869, (possibly coined by the English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley), and was formed from the Greek agnstos (meaning "unknown, unknowable"). Atheist came to English from the French athisme. Although both words share a prefix (which is probably the source of much of the confusion) the main body of each word is quite different. Agnostic shares part of its history with words such as prognosticate and prognosis, words which have something to do with knowledge or knowing something. Atheist shares roots with words such as theology and theism, which generally have something to do with God.

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Atheist | Definition of Atheist by Merriam-Webster

10 facts about atheists | Pew Research Center

Measuring atheism is complicated. Some people who describe themselves as atheists also say they believe in some kind of higher power or spiritual force. At the same time, some of those who identify with a religion (for example, say they are Catholic or Jewish) say they do not believe in God.

One thing is for sure: Along with the rise of religiously unaffiliated Americans many of whom believe in God there has been a corresponding increase in the number of atheists. Here are some key facts about atheists in the United States and around the world:

1 The share of Americans who identify as atheists has increased modestly but significantly in the past decade. Pew Research Center telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019 show that 4% of American adults say they are atheists when asked about their religious identity, up from 2% in 2009. An additional 5% of Americans call themselves agnostics, up from 3% a decade ago.

2 The literal definition of atheist is a person who does not believe in the existence of a god or any gods,according to Merriam-Webster. And the vast majority of U.S. atheists fit this description: 81% say they do not believe in God or a higher power or in a spiritual force of any kind. (Overall, 10% of American adults share this view.) At the same time, roughly one-in-five self-described atheists (18%) say they do believe in some kind of higher power. None of the atheists we surveyed, however, say they believe in God as described in the Bible.

3 Atheists make up a larger share of the population in many European countries than they do in the U.S. In Western Europe, where Pew Research Center surveyed 15 countries in 2017, nearly one-in-five Belgians (19%) identify as atheists, as do 16% in Denmark, 15% in France and 14% in the Netherlands and Sweden. But the European country with perhaps the biggest share of atheists is the Czech Republic, where a quarter of adults identify that way. In neighboring Slovakia, 15% identify as atheists, although in the rest of Central and Eastern Europe, atheists have a smaller presence, despite the historical influence of the officially atheist Soviet Union. Like Americans, Europeans in many countries are more likely to say they do not believe in God than they are to identify as atheists, including two-thirds of Czechs and at least half of Swedish (60%), Belgian (54%) and Dutch adults (53%) who say they do not believe in God. In other regions surveyed by the Center, including Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, atheists generally are much rarer.

4 In the U.S., atheists aremostly men and are relatively young, according to the 2014 Religious Landscape Study. About seven-in-ten U.S. atheists are men (68%). The median age for atheists is 34, compared with 46 for all U.S. adults. Atheists also are more likely to be white (78% vs. 66% of the general public) and highly educated: About four-in-ten atheists (43%) have a college degree, compared with 27% of the general public. Self-identified atheists alsotend to be alignedwith the Democratic Party and with political liberalism.

5 The vast majority of U.S. atheists say religion is not too or not at all important in their lives (93%) and that they seldom or never pray (97%). At the same time, many do not see a contradiction between atheism and pondering their place in the world. About a third of American atheists say they think about the meaning and purpose of life at least weekly (35%), and that they often feel a deep sense of spiritual peace and well-being (31%). In fact,the Religious Landscape Study shows that atheists are more likely than U.S. Christians to saythey often feel a sense of wonder about the universe (54% vs. 45%).

6 Where do atheists find meaning in life? Like a majority of Americans, most atheists mentioned family as a source of meaning when Pew Research Center asked an open-ended question about this in a 2017 survey. But atheists were far more likely than Christians to describe hobbies as meaningful or satisfying (26% vs. 10%). Atheists also were more likely than Americans overall to describe finances and money, creative pursuits, travel, and leisure activities as meaningful. Not surprisingly, very few U.S. atheists (4%) said they found lifes meaning in spirituality.

7 In many cases, being an atheist isnt just about personally rejecting religious labels and beliefs most atheists also express negative views when asked about the role of religion in society. For example, seven-in-ten U.S. atheists say religions influence is declining in American public life, and that this is a good thing (71%), according to a 2019 survey. Fewer than one-in-five U.S. adults overall (17%) share this view. A majority of atheists (70%) also say churches and other religious organizations do more harm than good in society, and an even larger share (93%) say religious institutions have too much influence in U.S. politics.

8 Atheists may not believe religious teachings, but they are quite informed about religion. In Pew Research Centers 2019 religious knowledge survey, atheists were among the best-performing groups, answering an average of about 18 out of 32 fact-based questions correctly, while U.S. adults overall got an average of roughly 14 questions right. Atheists were at least as knowledgeable as Christians on Christianity-related questions roughly eight-in-ten in both groups, for example, know that Easter commemorates the resurrection of Jesus and they were also twice as likely as Americans overall to know that the U.S. Constitution says no religious test shall be necessary to hold public office.

9 Most Americans (56%) say it isnotnecessary to believe in God to be moral, while 42% say belief in God is necessary to have good values, according to a 2017 survey. In other wealthy countries, smaller shares tend to say that belief in God is essential for good morals, including just 15% in France. But in many other parts of the world, nearly everyone says that a person must believe in God to be moral, including 99% in Indonesia and Ghana and 98% in Pakistan, according to a 2013 Pew Research Center international survey.

10 Americans feel less warmly toward atheists than they do toward members of most major religious groups.A 2019Pew Research Center surveyasked Americans to rate groups on a feeling thermometer from 0 (as cold and negative as possible) to 100 (the warmest, most positive possible rating). U.S. adults gave atheists an average rating of 49, identical to the rating they gave Muslims (49) and colder than the average given to Jews (63), Catholics (60) and evangelical Christians (56).

Note: This is an update of a post originally published on Nov. 5, 2015.

Excerpt from:

10 facts about atheists | Pew Research Center

50 Atheist Youtube Channels Every Atheist Must Follow

The Atheist Experience

Austin, Texas, United States The Atheist Experience is a weekly show in Austin, Texas geared at a non-atheist and atheist audience. The Atheist Experience is produced by the Atheist Community of Austin. We define atheism as the lack of belief in gods. This definition also encompasses what most people call agnosticism. Frequency 4 videos / day Since Mar 2009 Channel youtube.com/user/TheAtheistE..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

The true beauty of a self-inquiring sentient universe is lost on those who elect to walk the intellectually vacuous path of comfortable paranoid fantasies. Phil Mason is known for its Criticism of creationism and religion, criticism of radical feminism, criticism of pseudoscience, advocacy of the scientific method and atheism, and his work on the reaction of alkali metals with water. Frequency 1 video / week Since Oct 2006 Channel youtube.com/user/Thunderf00t..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Oklahoma, United States Religion often tells us that faith is a virtue. We think faith (believing something without evidence) is a poor method for determining what is true, especially in an era when science, reason and evidence continue to provide much more satisfying answers than faith ever has. This channel challenges the claims of religion & encourages all to reject faith, to be unfailingly curious & to keep thinking. Frequency 1 video / week Since May 2009 Channel youtube.com/user/TheThinking..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Los Angeles, California, United States An Atheist channel. Frequency 2 videos / month Since Mar 2011 Channel youtube.com/user/JaclynGlenn..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Chicago, Illinios, United States This channel has always been mainly about criticism of religious ideas. I neither support nor condone the oppression of anybody because of their religion. People should be able to freely practice their religion as long as doing so does not entail infringing upon the rights of others. Frequency 1 video / week Since Jan 2009 Channel youtube.com/user/DarkMatter2..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

United States The Amazing Atheist is a professional ranter who yells loudly in empty rooms, and puts videos of it on the internet. Occasionally he reads a book or watches a movie--but mostly he just yells about things for your amusement and/or disgust. Frequency 2 videos / week Since Jan 2007 Channel youtube.com/user/TheAmazingA..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Charleston, Mississippi, United States Making a mockery out of Religion. One vid at a time. Frequency 9 videos / week Since May 2009 Channel youtube.com/user/CultOfDusty..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

United States The Bible Reloaded is an ATHEIST series that will dissect, discuss, & dismantle the Christian Bible. We will read the entire NIV Bible, cover to cover. We strongly encourage viewers to read along with us, highlighters at the ready. We encourage everyone, Christians included, to Email, discuss, argue, berate, agree, disagree, insult & convert to atheism alongside us. Frequency 2 videos / month Since Jul 2012 Channel youtube.com/user/TheBibleRel..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Garland, Texas, United States Aron Ra is President of Atheist Alliance of America. He is a secular activist advocating reason in education. He serves as Texas State Director of American Atheists, and hosts the Ra-Men podcast with Dan Arel and Mark Nebo of BeSecular. Frequency 5 videos / week Since Aug 2006 Channel youtube.com/user/AronRa/videos+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Welcome to Dear Mr. Atheist! Our main show, which airs on Thursdays, is all about answering the questions and assertions that we atheists hear all to often! Frequency 5 videos / week Since Jan 2018 Channel youtube.com/channel/UCgeV..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Oxford, England, United Kingdom My name is Alex J. O'Connor or Cosmic Skeptic and I am a science enthusiast, atheist and vlogger. If you're into critical thinking, atoms and planets and stuff and beef with religious people then this is the place for you. Frequency 2 videos / month Since Feb 2013 Channel youtube.com/user/alexjoconno..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

United States Examining cults and oppressive religions. I am the Telltale Atheist. I've been battling religion for years with reason and evidence, something religion seems to be lacking. Frequency 3 videos / week Since Mar 2017 Channel youtube.com/channel/UCgIi..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

London, England, United Kingdom I make videos and share my opinions and stories and random thoughts on science, atheism, social issues, puppies and many other topics! Frequency 1 video / day Since Dec 2016 Channel youtube.com/channel/UCC6u..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

United States Welcome to Holy Koolaid. Thomas Westbrook here. I'm enthusiastic about science and creating a technologically advanced world worth living in. I was raised a missionary kid, but no longer believe in the supernatural. Frequency 1 video / month Since Jul 2015 Channel youtube.com/channel/UCzvo..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Austin, Texas Host of The Atheist Experience, Lecturer, Debater, anti-religionist and more. Frequency 4 videos / month Since May 2011 Channel youtube.com/user/SansDeity/v..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Canada The original anonymous, suit-wearing skeptic avatar. Skepticism and sarcasm in a top hat. Anti-religious anti-theist atheist. I make no claim to being a scientist, philosopher, mathematician, journalist, wine expert, golf champion, or space marine. I am a self-educated layperson and these videos are partially a learning tool. If I make a claim, double-check it before you take it as fact. Frequency 1 video / week Since Jan 2012 Channel youtube.com/user/logicked/vi..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Maryland, United States Videos about politics, social issues, Star Trek, pop culture, and general smartassery and tomfoolery Frequency 5 videos / week Since Dec 2010 Channel youtube.com/user/stevelikes2..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Calgary, Canada A former Christian takes a look at the claims of Christians, wherever science is being denied in the name of ancient books. Frequency 1 video / week Since Dec 2016 Channel youtube.com/channel/UCIS4..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

United States Talk Heathen is a weekly call-in television show in Austin, Texas geared toward long-form and on-going dialogue with theists & atheists about religion, theism, & secularism. Frequency 6 videos / week Since Nov 2017 Channel youtube.com/channel/UCNo4..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Decatur, Alabama, United States I am an ex-christian. There was nobody around to point me in the correct direction as far as thinking critically about what I believed. I was allowed to believe ridiculous things like that Adam and Eve were real people and a global flood covered the earth. I felt stupid believing those things when they didn't make sense but I was told that was what I was supposed to believe. Frequency 4 videos / week Since Aug 2013 Channel youtube.com/user/godlessengi..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Canada YouTuber, works in social services, and anti-theist. I support LGBT rights and the right to criticize religion or anything else for that matter. Find News, atheism, religion and opinion based channel. I also like to throw in a few game reviews now and then. The exchange of ideas and free speech are very important to me. I want to be able to share my opinion and have you share yours. Frequency 2 videos / quarter Since Sep 2016 Channel youtube.com/channel/UCewU..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Surrey EssenceOfThought is an online media outlet which produces fully referenced video reviews of other online content touching upon secularism, feminism, LGBT , and ethnic equality. Content warnings are supplied at the start of all videos where appropriate. Frequency 3 videos / month Since Feb 2012 Channel youtube.com/user/EssenceOfTh..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

This is my channel for atheist themed videos. How's that for quick and factual. The biggest ongoing project I have planned is 'The Rescue of Han Solo,' a stop-motion animated satire of the Biblical Exodus. Frequency 2 videos / month Since Feb 2016 Channel youtube.com/channel/UCm0V..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada This is the Atheist Republic. We are not afraid to call ourselves what we are. We are atheists and proud of it. Atheist Republic is a growing community of godless heathens who share their views and help each other express their atheism. Frequency 2 videos / day Since Feb 2012 Channel youtube.com/user/TheAtheistR..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

San Diego, CA Ripping faith and illogic a new one on nearly a daily basis. Someone has to. Frequency 1 video / month Since Feb 2007 Channel youtube.com/user/BionicDance..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

United States Atheist community of Milwaukee. we dish out science and philosophy videos. We research ancient history and debunk pseudo science claims. Frequency 1 video / week Since Jan 2015 Channel youtube.com/channel/UCcyg..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

I'm an internet atheist, and I'm here because these ideas are interesting, relevant to my life, or just annoying and I gotta bitch about 'em. Frequency 1 video / month Since Aug 2008 Channel youtube.com/user/Venaloid/vi..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

I am an Atheist, Ateapotist, Asasquatchist and Afairytaleist, my channel mainly focuses on entertainment disguised as debunking of ideas and demands that range from silly to inhumane. If you have a hard time to understand me, don't worry, neither does my family, also I may not be able to make new content in short intervals, but I constantly work on new videos. Frequency 1 video / month Since Nov 2013 Channel youtube.com/user/isethorigin..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Menifee, CA I would like to grow my channel to be the 'go to ' place where people can come bring their presentations on science that would be of interest in the Great Debate Community. I would also like to be able to bring in bigger named guest to engage them in real time on various topics relating to refuting Young Earth Creationism and bad science in general. Frequency 1 video / week Since Oct 2015 Channel youtube.com/channel/UC1Sz..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Los Angeles I debate preaching theists. Frequency 1 video / day Since Jul 2012 Channel youtube.com/user/TedTheAthei..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

United States Do you want to learn how to have better conversations with people of other religions or with atheists? Pinecreek Doug, a former fundamentalist Christian of 30 years, now an agnostic atheist, conducts cordial interviews with believers, as well as critiques your favorite pastors/apologists from the unbelievers' perspective. Pinecreek Doug's motto is that doubt is a virtue, that can lead to humilit. Frequency 4 videos / week Since Aug 2016 Channel youtube.com/channel/UCCR2..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Austin, Texas, United States The Non-Prophets is a live internet radio show airing on the first and third Wednesday of every month, starting at 7:30 PM Central (01:30-03:00 UTC). Hosted by Russell Glasser, Jeff Dee, and Denis Loubet, the Non-Prophets focuses on atheism and the separation of church and state. Frequency 2 videos / week Since Dec 2016 Channel youtube.com/channel/UCYKh..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Ireland Atheist Ireland aims to build a rational, ethical and secular society free from superstition and supernaturalism. The voice for Atheists in Ireland. Frequency 3 videos / month Since Jan 2009 Channel youtube.com/user/AtheistIrel..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

US Atheist, Philosopher, aspiring potus. I debate stuff. Frequency 22 videos / month Since May 2017 Channel youtube.com/channel/UCHXr..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

United States Passionate rants, discussions, and debates on the sciences! Love/Hate science? Love/Hate religion? Then welcome to the pale blue dot, wear your adult pants and strap in! Frequency 1 video / month Since May 2017 Channel youtube.com/channel/UCtV0..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

United States The Show aims to delve into discussion about where one comes from, their pathway to religion or worldview, & what holds them to their beliefs. How is it that they believe, & we don't? What separates us from that belief? We aim to have friendly, yet challenging discussions with people who believe in the supernatural. They consider themselves, 'agonistic atheists,' because they do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity & because they claim that the existence of a deity is either unknowable in principle or currently unknown in fact. Frequency 6 videos / week Since Apr 2020 Channel youtube.com/c/TheAtheistRoun..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

United States Keep up with videos on Atheism and find out what's been happening. Frequency 1 video / week Since Sep 2016 Channel youtube.com/channel/UCfXf..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

United States We are skeptic, agnostic atheists, humanists, and all-around good guys who love having good conversations about religion and science. This show is meant to give you a look at our views, interviews with people with expertise in certain areas, and open debates on opposing religious views. Like, subscribe, and join for our endeavors into the controversial realm of religion and god beliefs!! Frequency 1 video / week Since Apr 2020 Channel youtube.com/c/TheEmpatheticA..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Colorado The Bible Skeptic examines in rich, deeply researched detail and sober rationality, the many claims of biblical inerrantists, Christian apologists and creationists. Brett Palmer is a Bible Skeptic, atheist, video producer Frequency 3 videos / quarter Since Aug 2008 Channel youtube.com/user/brettppalme..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Science, Atheism and Smiles! Find science related stuff in this YouTube channel! Since Jul 2016 Channel youtube.com/channel/UCJqt..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Atlanta, Georgia This Channel is for education against Religious bullying. It's also to set the record straight on Theism and it's central role & the need for Atheism in society. I am on a quest to normalize atheism ,and bring more blacks & other minorities & people of all ethnicities to the logical stance of non-belief. I am also a counter-apologist who will debate any apologist or theist anytime. Frequency 1 video / year Since Sep 2016 Channel youtube.com/channel/UCCb4..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

South Chicago, Illinois So now I am Tom your friendly neighborhood atheist and my tag line is Tom the atheist on what ever crosses my mind. Being an atheist is easy so why isn't it more common? Holding onto your belief when there is no actual reason to believe seem hard so why do so many do it? I don't want to change anyones mind, I want to give them a reason to change their own mind. Frequency 1 video / year Since Feb 2013 Channel youtube.com/user/TomTheAthei..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

Just another step in the all too important process of shaking free from our ignorant, patently moronic and barbaric history, this channel serves to openly point out the laughable nature of religious thought, expose it for it's absurdity and falseness and push the needle towards rational thought and sanity. Since Sep 2013 Channel youtube.com/channel/UCg6M..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

United States Godless Girl new channel for The Great Debate community and atheist debate Discord servers videos. Godless Girl Welfare queen, female athiest, troll, youtuber, debater, Darth Dawkins enemy. Frequency 30 videos / year Since Sep 2019 Channel youtube.com/c/GodlessGirl/vi..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

United States I'm an ex-Christian white kid who wants to give the world beneficial information. Since Aug 2015 Channel youtube.com/channel/UCzfg..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

The Atheist Voice provides a platform for discussion for atheist leaders, authors, bloggers, activists, and everybody else who is passionate about atheism, and secularism. Since Jun 2013 Channel youtube.com/user/TheAtheistV..+ Follow View Latest Videos Get Email Contact

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New podcast: Harvard head chaplain is an atheist and Gray Lady covers half of that story – GetReligion

Ah, another story about the young religiously unaffiliated folks who have received so much ink in recent years, following in the footsteps of the spiritual, but not religious and Sheilaism trendsetters of previous decades. But how many of the nones are actually atheists or agnostics? Hold that thought.

The other big idea here is that Epstein was a popular choice among the Harvard chaplains, in part because of his abilities to build bridges between a wide variety of religious brands including evangelical Protestants and Christian liberals. Hold that thought, as well.

I found myself, while reading the Times piece, wondering: What is the dominant religious worldview at postmodern Harvard? I am sure that there are more than a few atheists and agnostics there. But people I know with ties to the campus tell me that a kind of woke liberal faith is the norm, which actually fits with the schools roots in mainline Protestant New England. Also, there are more than a few evangelicals in the mix (look up The Veritas Forum).

I was reminded of the debates almost a decade ago at Vanderbilt University, as campus leaders tried to push evangelical Protestant student ministries off campus because of tensions over You Know What. In a column at that time (The new campus orthodoxy that forbids most old orthodoxies) I noted:

Leaders of Vanderbilt student groups were told they must not discriminate on the basis of "race, sex, religion, color, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, military service, or genetic information. ... In addition, the University does not discriminate against individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression."

Here the the chunk of that column that I believe is relevant to this new Times piece about Harvard:

(S)ome conservatives called this struggle another war between faith and "secularism." In this case, that judgment was inaccurate and kept many outsiders from understanding what actually happened, according to the Rev. Tish Harrison Warren, an Anglican minister who worked with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Vanderbilt during the dispute.

"What Vanderbilt did affirmed the beliefs of some religious groups and rejected those of others. That isn't secularism. Vanderbilt established that there is an orthodoxy on the campus, which means that it has taken a sectarian stand," said Warren.

"The university established some approved doctrines and now wants to discriminate in order to defend them. ... As a private school it has every right to do that," she added, reached by telephone. Meanwhile, conservative Christian schools "have their own doctrinal statements, but they're very upfront about that. Students who go to those schools know what they're getting into. The question is whether Vanderbilt will be just as candid and tell students about these new limitations on free speech, freedom of association and freedom of religion" on campus.

Is that what is happening at Harvard?

I would predict that liberal religious groups feel little or no tension with the Ivy campus powers that be. I know that, at one point, InterVarsity and similar small-o orthodox groups were facing a crackdown at Harvard.

So, the Times piece stressed that the committee that selected Epstein as chief chaplain included an evangelical chaplain but this person was not named or quoted (as opposed to the liberal Lutheran chaplain who is a major source for the piece).

It only took me 30 seconds or so to find an online guide to the Harvard chaplains and it is a fascinating list. There are plenty of liberal campus ministers, but there are also six InterVarsity staffers, a leader for Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ), a representative of the Reformed University Fellowship, a Southern Baptist or two and various representatives of Orthodox Judaism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Catholicism, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and others.

If one of the major themes of the article was that Epstein is an effective bridge builder, why not seek out one or two traditional believers to speak on his behalf? Why only quote the left? Why not talk to the Veritas Forum leaders, since that is an evangelical ministry that was BORN at Harvard?

The Times piece noted:

The dozens of students whom Mr. Epstein mentors have found a source of meaning in the schools organization of humanists, atheists and agnostics, reflecting a broader trend of young people across the United States who increasingly identify as spiritual but religiously nonaffiliated. That trend might be especially salient at Harvard; a Harvard Crimson survey of the class of 2019 found that those students were two times more likely to identify as atheist or agnostic than 18-year-olds in the general population.

Well, dozens of students is important (if vague), but it did make me wonder how those numbers contrast with the total membership of the various other campus ministries. InterVarsity has a half-dozen staffers? How many students take part in their prayer circles, Bible studies, seminars, etc.?

Crossroads host Todd Wilken and I also spent some time discussing this next chunk of the Times piece:

Nonreligiosity is on the rise far beyond the confines of Harvard; it is the fastest growing religious preference in the country, according to the Pew Research Center.More than 20 percent of the country identifies as atheist, agnostic or nonreligious called the nones including four in 10 millennials.

Mr. Epsteins community has tapped into the growing desire for meaning without faith in God. Being able to find values and rituals but not having to believe in magic, thats a powerful thing, said A.J. Kumar, who served as the president of a Harvard humanist graduate student group that Mr. Epstein advised.

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New podcast: Harvard head chaplain is an atheist and Gray Lady covers half of that story - GetReligion

Bishop Barron: Election of atheist as Harvard chaplain president ‘complete and abject surrender’ – The Catholic Telegraph

by Joe Bukuras

Washington D.C., Sep 1, 2021 / 18:00 pm

Bishop Robert Barron said on Tuesday that the Harvard University chaplains made a complete and abject surrender by electing an atheist as the president of their association.

What does bother me, Barron wrote in an Aug. 31 op-ed for the New York Post, is the complete and abject surrender on the part of the presumably religious leaders at Harvard who chose this man.

If a professed atheist counts as a chaplain which is to say, a leader of religious services in a chapel then religion has quite obviously come to mean nothing at all, he continued. Barron is the auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles and founder of Word on Fire Catholic media.

Last week the New York Times announced that Greg Epstein, an atheist and humanist chaplain at Harvard University, was unanimously elected as the chief chaplain of the Harvard Chaplains, the association of more than 40 chaplains serving Harvard students of various religious denominations.

However, the Harvard Catholic Center and a Christian alumni association took issue with some reporting of Epsteins new role. The Harvard Catholic Center clarified to CNA this week that Epsteins role as chaplain facilitator is administrative, and has no effect on its ministry at Harvard.

There really is no influence in the role other than the fact that he has the title as the president as the Harvard Chaplains and that hes the liaison between that group and the president of Harvard, said Nico Quesada, marketing and media director at the Harvard Catholic Center, to CNA on Monday.

Epstein will also convene all the university chaplains when they have matters to discuss, he said, and thus will be representing the entire group but hes not representing his own opinions if that makes sense.

The Harvard Catholic Center is the chaplaincy to the universitys Catholic students, based at nearby St. Pauls parish in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is staffed by three priests serving as part of the universitys chaplains association.

Barron on Tuesday urged Harvard religious chaplains who elected an atheist to lead their association to [s]how a little self-respect. Being a chaplain has something to do with the worship of God and you shouldnt be ashamed to say it.

My point is, Barron said, that the relativizing of doctrine has led, by steady steps through two centuries, to the situation at Harvard today: Even that most elemental of doctrines belief in God doesnt matter. One can still, evidently, be perfectly religious without it

Before his election as president, Epstein previously served as the vice president of the university chaplains association. He has been the humanist chaplain at Harvard since 2005, and also serves as humanist chaplain at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

During the 2020 presidential election, he served as the national chair of Humanists for Biden on behalf of humanists, atheists, agnostics, and others. He has authored the book, Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe, a response to prominent atheists on humanism.

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Bishop Barron: Election of atheist as Harvard chaplain president 'complete and abject surrender' - The Catholic Telegraph

Bible on Germ Theory: An Atheist Hems & Haws – Patheos

. . . while I offer a serious answer to his caricature regarding the Bible and genetics

This occurred in a combox at anti-theist atheist Jonathan MS Pearces blog. Words of atheist Makoto will be in blue.

*****

He has abundantly revealed Himself in the Bible. That is its purpose. There are arguments about how to interpret it, but for the most part, all Christians agree on the basic aspects of the nature of God (classic theism).

And we come back to how is that different than other holy works for other religions. I wasnt even trying to get into the fact that different Christians obviously disagree on how to interpret your bible, because Christians cant even agree on how being saved works, which seems like it would be a pretty important aspect of your bible!

Its different because it is consistently verified by historiography and archaeology, which is consistent with (but not proof of) its divine inspiration. Ive been writing a lot about this lately on my blog: the Bible & archaeology (as well as science).

See, for example:The Bible on Germs, Sanitation, & Infectious Diseases.

Scientifically accurate? Theres plenty to choose from on this topic, but since when do we breed animals in front of background props to change how the offspring look?Now, you could say it was a miracle, of course, but miracles, by definition, would not be scientific.

See also my web page:Bible & Archaeology / Bible & Science (A Collection). You asked me why I thought the Bible was different from other holy books. This is why.

I did a quick search I didnt see a single instance of breeding, sex, offspring, or similar terms in that post. I did notice the whole Piltdown Man thing, which science disproved, not religion, though

You replied to my post about breeding with a different set of points. Sorry, I was trying to stay focused. Did you have a reply to my point about breeding, or is this deflecting to other science parts that you feel have support?

You asked me how is that different than other holy works for other religions[?]. I replied that Its different because it is consistently verified by historiography and archaeology, . . . (as well as science). I then offered as one evidence of that, the biblical teaching on germs. Your task, then, would be to explain how that knowledge got there, which took modern science 3100 years from Moses time (13th c. BC) to figure out? You went off on the issue of breeding (which is not a biblical teaching on science).

Thats not my argument. You asked me about why I believe the Bible is different, and I answered. Thus, for the discussion to rationally continue, you have to offer a disproof of the biblical teaching on germs, or explain variously how the ancient Hebrews in the 13th c. BC could know these things, short of divine inspiration (which is my explanation). And thats only one argument of many that I have compiled, as regards the Bible and science, and the Bible and archaeology.

Do you want to address the breeding issue? If not, fine, I understand, I just wanted to be very sure we both agree this is in the bible you claim is scientific.

I did, in saying, its not a biblical teaching on science. In other words, I deny that it has anything to do with the topic at hand. It merely indicates Jacobs pre-scientific (but not anti-scientific) understanding of breeding of animals.

I gave a specific example of biblical teaching that is remarkably in harmony with post-19th century science regarding germs and hygiene. Do you wish to address (or refute) that or not? I have provided a concrete example of the Bible being extraordinarily accurate, 3100 years before science caught up with it. It seems to me that ispreciselydead-on-topic.

Moreover, heres an article that satisfactorily explains this topic you brought up (showing that nothing in the account contradicts genetics):

A Mendelian Interpretation of Jacobs Sheep (J. D. Pearson,Science and Christian Belief, Vo. 13, No. 1, pp. 51-58, 2001). Thats my counter-response to the ultimately off-topic issue you raised. You have yet to offer any counter at all to my far more nuanced and complex argument about the Bible and germs.

Man, you really dont want to talk about breeding at all, do you? It literally is science, after all. Bible says, in Gen 30:39, they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted.This is very straightforward. Very biblical! Do you have a reason this should not be accepted as god-based science, despite it being literally in the bible?

Nice try. I already answered with a link that refutes what you are contending (three minutes before this comment of yours). Man, you really dont want to talk about the (13th c. BC) biblical teaching on germs at all, do you? It literally is science, after all.

I did not see your refutation when I was typing up my reply. I will read it now. I have to admit, its crazy to think the bible says that the point was to breed them in front of reeds. That seems absurd, because your linked article implies that it would not matter! They couldve bred anywhere, yet the bible says it was in front of reeds that was important. Why?

Understood and thanks. I eagerly await your counter-interpretation on the Bible and germ theory. Im sure youll have a fascinating theory as to how this knowledge was in possession of ancient Hebrew nomads over 3200 years ago.

I have to admit, there is a side to this I completely agree with, in regards to biblical germ theory! Lev:13:45-46:

A diseased person must wear torn clothes and let his hair hang loose, and he must cover his mouth and cry out, Unclean, unclean!As long as he has the infection, he remains unclean. He must live alone in a place outside the camp.

If only more Christians were willing to listen to that these days, it very much describes the use of masks and social distancing/quarantine

Science is not at all unanimous on masks.

Im still waiting for your theory on breeding in front of reeds, so thats cool.

Its in the article that I posted 28 minutes ago.

Right, I read that. I still dont get it, though. It literally is denying the participation of the reeds, which.. if I check my bible.. is a key factor. Was that something unrelated? If so, why was it in the bible?

Im not gonna go over the article. It was addressed there. Now its your turn to deal with my argument on germ theory, and Im not holding my breath . . .

Glad I didnt hold my breath. Its now been about 28 hours and counting, since no response has been forthcoming.

[30 hours passed from the time of my original challenge question]

Oh, my apologies. I got bored. You bored me.You lash out at atheists left and right, werent presenting anything useful that I saw, and I decided I had better things to do. Such is life.

Right. This is what atheists do when they have no answer to Christian arguments. Thanks for the entertainment!

***

Photo credit: Clker-Free-Vector-Images(4-11-12) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

***

Summary: Exchange with an atheist that delved into the Bible & science. I submitted my article on remarkable biblical knowledge of germs in the 13th c. BC. He offered a non-argument on genetics.

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Bible on Germ Theory: An Atheist Hems & Haws - Patheos

When Harvard hired an atheist to be the chief university chaplain – The Christian Post

By Michael Brown, CP Op-Ed Contributor | Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Harvard University was founded as Harvard College in 1636. Its stated purpose was: To train a literate clergy. Among its mottos were, Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae (truth for Christ and Church) and In Christam Gloriam (to the glory of Christ). Now, Harvard has hired an atheist as its chief chaplain. And no, this is not a poor joke.

As reported by the New York Post, This spiritual leader doesnt need a higher power.

Harvard Universitys organization of chaplains is getting a new president to coordinate the campus Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and assorted other religious communities. Only the new president, 44-year-old Greg Epstein, does not identify with any of those traditional religions himself.

He is an atheist.

But how can an atheist be a university chaplain?

Epstein explained to The New York Times, There is a rising group of people who no longer identify with any religious tradition but still experience a real need for conversation and support around what it means to be a good human and live an ethical life.

We dont look to a god for answers. We are each others answers.

The only problem is with Epsteins explanation is, well, everything. He may believe in God or not. He may follow a religion or not. Thats his own business. And he may have some great ideas about living an ethical life.

But to be a chaplain, by definition, means to be a religious leader, not simply a department head or an administrator or someone who believes in ethical living. And so, to appoint an atheist to be chief university chaplain is like appointing a Christian evangelist to head up the universitys atheist club. Or a devout Muslim to head up the universitys Judaism club. It is a total contradiction in both purpose and logic.

As for Epsteins appointment being controversial, thats not how Harvards leadership felt, voting to elect him unanimously. What a perfect choice! Couldnt think of anyone better!

The Merriam Webster website offers these four definitions for chaplain: 1: a clergyman in charge of a chapel; 2: a clergyman officially attached to a branch of the military, to an institution, or to a family or court; 3: a person chosen to conduct religious exercises (as at a meeting of a club or society); 4: a clergyman appointed to assist a bishop (as at a liturgical function).

According to Dictionary.com, a chaplain is: 1. an ecclesiastic attached to the chapel of a royal court, college, etc., or to a military unit. 2. a person who says the prayer, invocation, etc., for an organization or at an assembly.

And a military website states that: The chaplain's responsibilities include performing religious rites, conducting worship services, providing confidential counseling and advising commanders on religious, spiritual and moral matters. Chaplains are commissioned officers stationed wherever there are military members, including combat environments.

But if you dont believe in God, you cannot perform any of these functions.

Really now, how can you conduct a worship service if there is no God to worship? How can you perform religious rites, all of which presuppose the existence of a deity, if there is no deity?

To whom do you pray? What hope can you offer regarding the world to come? How can you help someone connect to the spiritual, unseen, eternal realm? Who, outside of the human race, forgives your sins or empowers you to change?

And if you yourself are convinced that there is no God, doesnt that mean that you view all religious believers as being in serious error, not to mention deeply deceived?

Its one thing if Harvard said, Rabbi Epstein does a great job of bringing people of different religions together. Terrific. Then hire him as an administrative coordinator for the chaplains department. But dont hire him as your chief chaplain. To do so only heaps further scorn on Harvards wokeness.

As for Epstein being a rabbi, that is just as absurd as being a chaplain, if not more so. (For the record, he received ordination as a Humanist Rabbi from the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism.)

Without God, there is no Judaism, since Judaism is the story of God choosing the Jewish people for Himself, rescuing them from bondage in Egypt, and giving them His Torah. Thus, to have Judaism without God would be similar to having Christianity without Christ. It simply cannot be.

But why let truth and facts and logic get in the way? Lets just set our own standards and, to cite the title of Epsteins 2009 book, which has suddenly become a bestseller, lets just be good without God.

In the end, if someone wants to try and be good without God, that is their choice. Just dont call that person a rabbi or a chaplain. To do so, to say it once more, is a total contradiction in terms.

As for the Harvard of old, in order to graduate with the most basic degree in arts (not theology, which came later), the student had to be able logically to explain the Holy Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testamentsandbe blameless in life and character.

Among the Rules and Precepts of Harvard to be observed by the students were these: Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life.

And: Every one shall so exercise himself in reading the Scriptures twice a day, that he shall be ready to give such an account of his proficiency therein, both in Theoretical observations of Language and Logic, and in practical and spiritual truths ...

As for the Harvard of today (in terms of its spiritual condition and worldview), need I say more?

Dr. Michael Brown(www.askdrbrown.org) is the host of the nationally syndicatedLine of Fireradio program. Heholds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and has served as a professor at a number of seminaries. He is the author of 40 books. Connect with him onFacebook,Twitter, orYouTube.

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When Harvard hired an atheist to be the chief university chaplain - The Christian Post

Conservative Writer: Dr. Anthony Fauci is Immoral Because He’s a Humanist – Friendly Atheist – Patheos

Cheryl K. Chumley is one of the worst writers for the conservative Washington Times, which isnt easy. Its not enough to just offer right-wing takes on current events; she willfully misunderstands what shes writing about, whether shes calling for the takedown of Satanic monuments that dont exist or saying that Christians who oppose Christian Nationalism are very un-Christian.

Her latest diatribe involves trashing Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the only voices of reason coming from the government during the pandemic.

She doesnt bother pointing out anything he said thats untrue. Instead, shes criticizing him for being an atheist. Fauci said in a 2015 interview that he was a humanist despite his Catholic upbringing because I have faith in the goodness of mankind.

This is apparently very problematic for Chumley.

More than that, hes a humanist meaning, he takes his moral compass from his own mind. He has little-to-no concern with the stuff of higher authority the constraints that come from fears of heavenly accountability.

An atheist in charge of U.S. government, policy, economics, education and constitutional freedoms, as they relate to coronavirus response what could go wrong, right?

Hes unelected. Hes largely unaccountable to the people. Hes atheist, which speaks volumes about his character, his moral compass and his understanding of American Exceptionalism and basic founding and constitutional principles. And hes just been outed for lying.

The path is clear: He has to go.

He was not outed for lying. Shes referring to a piece written by Sen. Marco Rubio, whos downplayed the pandemic, in which he criticized Fauci for saying the percent of immunized Americans needed to achieve herd immunity was higher than he felt Americans could tolerate. In other words, he made a decision when it comes to communicating the importance of getting vaccinated because he didnt want to generate fear in a public that includes many anti-vaxxers. Maybe that deserves criticism, but thats a far cry from lying about the science, and nothing he said changes COVID restrictions or policies regarding the vaccines.

But Chumley, who cant simply criticize that decision, thinks his non-religiosity is why he cant be trusted, even though the entire administration is full of conservative Christians who have been openly lying to the public about damn near everything for the past four years.

As for his character, Fauci was recently named one of the most admired men in America by Gallup, though that poll is really more about fame than anything else. (Trump was at the top of the list.)

Heres a difference Chumley never brings up: Fauci doesnt spend any time talking about his personal religious beliefs unless hes specifically asked about them. The evangelicals surrounding Trump cant stop talking about their faith because they constantly fantasize about a theocracy.

Also: Why is it okay to slander Fauci because of his humanism? As American Atheists president Nick Fish rightly noted, you would never see something like this in a legitimate publication:

If the New York Times calls out conservative Christians, its because theyre using those beliefs to inflict harm upon other people, not because theyre Christians. Chumley has no substance to use against Fauci, so she just cites his religious label, as if atheists shouldnt be allowed in positions of power. Its embarrassing and its awful journalism. Which means its par for the course for the Washington Times.

By the way, not that it matters, but Faucis boss is Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health and an evangelical Christian. Collins has no issue with Fauci. You would think that would carry some weight with Chumley. I guess not.

(Screenshot via YouTube)

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Conservative Writer: Dr. Anthony Fauci is Immoral Because He's a Humanist - Friendly Atheist - Patheos

Loss, despair marked 2020. Let healing be the hallmark of 2021 – The Times of India Blog

In this brand-new year, lets pump up the positivity and raise a glass to a beautiful 2021. Beautiful, in every way. In a real way.While a pale pink pearly dawn breaks over the distant horizon, I find myself singing an old Hindi film song: Dekh tere sansar ki halat kya ho gayi BhagwanKitna badal gaya insaan Its an evergreen song from the 1954 film Nastik (The Atheist), a crime drama written and directed by the irrepressible I S Johar. We all asked god exactly this question in the year just gone we urged Him to take a good, hard look at the state of the earth, while we lamented on how mankind had changed. It has changed irrevocably, and one fervently hopes, for the better. Since most of us had no choice but to stay cold sober this New Years Eve, unless of course you were Bollywood love birdscelebrating in Ranthambore, our thoughts turned to ourselves.

By default, this has been a year designed for introspection. Given the universal state of despair and panic, as the pandemic raged on and on and on, people started on a journey that was entirely unplanned a long, tumultuous one within their own selves. They arrived at places they did not know existed. Speaking personally, it was one hell of a ride! What started off as a distraction to keep dark, morbid Covid thoughts at bay, turned into an adventure, an exploration scary and thrilling at the same time. Not sure how many of you experienced insignificance and smallness, but I did.

Compared to the scale of global mass devastation and so many deaths my life shrank and shrank in a good way. In the larger scheme of things, we all figured how very inconsequential our pedestrian concerns were. A heightened state of awareness generated mixed feelings anxiety on one hand, and liberation on the other. We were freed from the pettiness of our daily insecurities. We asked ourselves tough questions, and all those trivial preoccupations of the past slunk away guiltily, leaving us feeling that much lighter.

My biggest learning involved waste. Waste in a larger context. Time became the most precious commodity who knew how much time was left for each one of us? I became possessive and frugal about my waking hours. Figuring out how best to maximise the one resource (time) that cannot be either bought, borrowed or stretched, made me consciously cut, cut, cut. We all became great editors of our own narratives. We ruthlessly chopped non-essentials this included people. So many important but tricky decisions that had been kept on hold for decades became crystal clear as we pruned all the annoyances and irritations, the blocks and barriers. Time became an extravagance, a luxury beyond any other. Yes, there was loss so many of us dealt with the deaths of people we loved. Memories started playing games, as did a surfeit of information. How much more could we possibly absorb?

No matter who propounded which theory, the virus was one step ahead of us all. The French have a lovely expression, cest la vie. It is mandatory to shrug while uttering these words. It is true, life is what it is, what it has always been, what it will continue to be. We poor creatures will have to adapt and change. Why not? A hard lesson has been learnt by the world. The vaccine will be here shortly. It will provide just one of the answers for our survival, not all. We will certainly beat the virus, and any mutant that shows up. What is equally imperative is for us to change our wretched ways and think anew.

Enough has been said about the environment and how we have abused the very matter that sustains us and nurtures life. If we dont understand the meaning of the word respect now, we will have learnt absolutely nothing during the pandemic. But we are not that stupid, right? We are like cockroaches we survive! And like cockroaches, we crawl out of dark spaces when required to find food, find partners, mate, reproduce. We are hard to crush, even when a heavy boot lands on us. During these past months, when everything appeared pretty hopeless, I channelled my inner cockroach and scurried about in my restricted space, confident that I would make it to the other side. The tragedy being, so many didnt.

To all those who lost loved ones, and to all our courageous frontline workers, 2020 belongs to you. We are alive, thanks to you. Its a debt that can never be fully repaid. We shall go forth from this point onwards, stronger, wiser, healthier the journey has just begun. Heres to a gorgeous new year! I am singing Michael Jacksons immortal anthem as I write this: Heal the worldmake it a better placefor you and for me and the entire human race there are people dyingif you care enough for the living make it a better place for you and for me.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

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Loss, despair marked 2020. Let healing be the hallmark of 2021 - The Times of India Blog

Jason O’Toole column: It will be tough to follow in the footsteps of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin – Irish Mirror

I believe George Bernard Shaw was spot on when he quipped: I am an atheist and I thank God for it.

I can count on one hand the number of times I darkened the doors of a church these last 30 years.

But it would be below the belt to use the outgoing Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martins retirement as an excuse to now bash the Church ad nauseam.

It would be like shooting fish or rather Ichthys in a barrel.

You have to know when to pick your David versus Goliath battles, which is something Archbishop Martin would tell you himself after being on the losing end of so many in recent years.

He was ordained a priest aged 24 in 1969 and no doubt there mustve been times during these 50-odd years when he felt like throwing in the towel.

So, it would be mean-spirited not to doff your hat to someone sailing off into the sunset after spending their entire life in the same job.

I once interviewed Dr Martin and walked away with tremendous respect for the man himself.

The 75-year-old mightve lived in palatial splendour but he had the common touch something desperately lacking in his two arrogant predecessors.

He never forgot his humble roots thanks to the hardships in his own early life.

He first lived with relatives in the inner city before his parents got a council house in Ballyfermot, Dublin, when he was aged five.

It probably explained why he could be found shopping in Lidl.

He joked: I have also been in Aldi and Tesco Im not going to go in for advertising!

Dr Martin never courted the limelight himself because he turned down most interview requests.

Archbishop Martin mightve had aspirations of becoming a BBC broadcaster in his youth, instead of possessing any great calling.

But he obviously didnt like hearing his own voice for the sake of it.

Its a real measure of the man that he only talked to the media when he had something important to say. Perhaps he learnt that from his older brother Seamus ironically an atheist who was a foreign correspondent for the Irish Times. He seemed to be someone who practised what he preached and had a love the sinner, hate the sin mentality.

His innate compassion shined brightly, like the sun does through a church stained glass window, when the elephant in the room raised its ugly head during our lengthy chat.

His voice became emotionally charged when he spoke to me about his tremendous anger towards those priests who sexually abused children.

On the downside, I was disappointed with how he danced around my question about the Church either covering up or turning a blind eye to abuse in some incidences.

But I admired how Archbishop Martin, who described himself as thick skinned, was able to handle the pressure of being first in the firing line at a time when the Church was constantly under attack.

He said: Im never one to have a martyr complex. Im never one to think, Wouldnt it be great to have been archbishop 20 years ago when everything was different? You cant live like that.

Now, it would be stretching credulity to hail him as some kind of maverick lone voice in the wilderness. He was not the type hell-bent on radically reforming the Church.

Archbishop Martin was a safe pair of hands and a team player, who was willing to toe the (hard)line for Rome.

In fairness, I think hell will freeze over before the Church softens its stance on abortion or civil partnership.

But I found it disappointing when he dismissed the idea of married priests. Perhaps Dr Martin wouldve been less mealy-mouthed if he wasnt speaking with his Archbishop hat on.

Considering he spent most of his vocation in Rome and knew the lay of the land there, I reckon he mightve made a good Pope.

I suppose thats the biggest compliment you could pay any man of the cloth.

Hes going to be missed and I wish him all the best in his retirement.

His successor Archbishop Dermot Farrell certainly has big shoes to fill.

More here:

Jason O'Toole column: It will be tough to follow in the footsteps of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin - Irish Mirror