Atheism and Agnosticism

Sunday we looked at two topics not completely removed from one another, both in essence are the same thing, with the same goals in the end. I would love any comments or additions to this in the comments section below, if anyone wants to add anything. Let's unload what we looked at.

First, the two positions:

Atheism - fairly straight-up, men like Dawkins, whose book is pictured, who would claim that there is no God, god, or gods, or any beings supernatural. Any need for intelligent design in creation could have been performed by alien beings long ago, or ooze on the back of crystals (see Xpelled with Ben Stein). Therefore morality is a human invention, which is necessary, but ultimately there is no sort of judgment or anything else where people are held accountable for what they have done (obviously).

Agnosticism - this can mean different things to different people who call themselves this, but in the end it goes something like this: there may be a god(s), probably not the Biblical God, but perhaps a greater design or being somewhere. However, he hasn't revealed himself to us, so we shouldn't worry too much about him. Morality, judgment, heaven, and hell, probably don't exist, but if they do, I'm sure everyone as good as me or better will get in to heaven. All faiths then are mostly human by invention, but none can be put above another. I need not concern myself with my soul, in a real sense, because who can know what to do for sure.

Now let's get a little broader perspective:

Agnosticism finds its roots in Enlightenment Deism. Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and some other early intellectual American colonists were part of this belief system, and it is about 3 inches different than agnosticism. The Classic Deist would say that YHWH (Yahweh) created the world and set it spinning and that was it. It is impossible to know Him, and He doesn't want to really know you. Jesus was a great man, he wasn't God, he wasn't a Savior.

Jefferson formed his own Bible by going through and cutting out all the things that he didn't agree with (not kidding). Mostly all the things that dealt with prophecy, Jesus' divinity, miracles and other supernatural thinking, God's communication with mankind, and anything that just didn't seem to work. You can imagine how small the Bible was that he was left with!

Deism was actually the fruit of slavery in one sense, I know that seems ridiculous, but it really was. These rich white men who should have had to earn a living instead spent much of their youth and young adult lives on their own pursuits, making money off of slave labor. (If you look at a cross section of colonial deism, it was almost completely made up of wealthy and/or intellectual white people). They poured themselves into John Locke, Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and others. All of the sudden they FELT more intelligent than anyone around them, and because they FELT that way, they now became the authority on ultimate truth in their own minds, because of their pride.

Sunday we read Romans 1 as we looked at these topics; read it and see what Paul says as he talked about people who "exchanged the truth of God for a lie" and "their thinking became futility." That no men get to atheism naturally, instead they shut God out of their minds and hearts. They exchange His authority, for their own authority.

Where do these belief systems come from?

There is one thing that makes it possible to move from a Deist to an atheist - Darwinist evolutionary theory in its classical sense. (To clarify, there are those who hold to certain elements of evolutionary theory, but still see a Creator in the midst of the process, that is not what I am talking about).

The reason a Deist couldn't be an atheist, even though he practically was by the way he lived, was that Creation had to have a Creator. Darwin was the first person to lay out a theory that everyone bought where there was no longer a Creator necessary. In that sense, a true atheist has only existed for that last 150 years or so. Before that point, even if someone was a practical atheist, (they didn't live like there was a god, or they didn't trouble themselves with the specifics) they had to acknowledge that someone or something created the cosmos. The need was not there anymore with Darwinian theory.

Okay, enough of the theories, what does this mean to me?

Most of the time, the agnostic/atheist person came to their belief system in one of these ways:

-They have no TRUE knowledge of Christianity (i.e. the Gospel). Everything they know about Christianity has to do with morality (hypocrisy in their mind), perceived ignorance (think how Christians are shown in media outlets), political stances (Evangelical Christianity as Highly Conservative, or Liberal Denominations as Socially Driven), and the list could go on and on. They have never heard the gospel in its true sense, but they have prepared arguments over a lot of things.

- They were burned by someone or something tied to the church. This can be legitimate or illegitimate, but it doesn't matter to them. They cast Jesus off completely, because of what Brother Bill did to them.

- They view Christianity as primitive and themselves as enlightened. This is especially seen in these forms: My parents and their beliefs are stupid, I am smart. My hometown is small and ignorant, My college/new life is part of the enlightened bigger picture. I was sheltered as a child, so I must have been fed propaganda, now I am being exposed to all sorts of truth, and so this must be more legitimate, or at least since there is so much truth, there can't just be one truth. NOTICE: in none of these scenarios has the gospel been dealt with, only their situations. BUT, this is the most common thing that I have dealt with in people of the Atheist/Agnostic framework.

- They are in love with themselves and their own thinking. They literally would rather stay in the sinking lifeboat cause they built it, and they have much confidence in themselves as the ultimate authority.

When I talk to someone who is an atheist or an agnostic, there are several things that I try to remember:

There is a time for intellectual debate, especially when someone wants to just view you as an ignorant putz who has never dealt with tough questions, or gotten outside their hometown. However, debate will only get you so far, and in the end will only hurt your cause with many atheist/agnostic folks.

The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. When I talk to someone who is an atheist I take a little bit of time dealing with logic, science, historiography, or whatever, and try to keep prying them with conscience questions, and questions about their own position before God. If you haven't gotten a chance to listen to Judson's story yet, do it; it's in the previous blog. He was a deist, who came to faith listening to a dying man. The words that kept ringing in his head were "death, hell, death, hell."

I truly believe that God will use those words to haunt an atheist/agnostic if the gospel is presented to them in love and truth, in a way that they know it's God or nothing. At some point, somewhere, they are going to have to shut those words out of their mind as best they can, or deal with them before God. It's probably going to happen when they are alone, in thought, before God in the dark, not in an intellectual debate.

I try to present my beliefs as much as I can in asking questions (when it fits). The person who asks the questions controls the conversation. In my conversations with atheists/agnostics this fall, I have tried to simply deal with "what happens when you die?" type questions. Not because I am trying to scare them, but because they need to realize that their thinking is not a game, and this is serious.

I want them to unload their thinking and they themselves hear how it sounds out loud, (sometimes that makes a huge difference in them) and then answer the question that they will never have to stand before an ultimate authority and be judged based on His standards. I also want them to take full responsibility that it is their own thinking they are placing trust in. If it is someone I know, if I can do this the first time, the conversation is done, and I let it stew for a while before bringing it back up again. God deals with their heart, not me or you.

So I hope this has been helpful, I would love any thoughts you guys might have! God bless you all!