The Dawkins Lennox Debate - Part 2 of 3

(Continued from Part 1.)

The third thesis in the God Delusion Debate was "Design is dead; otherwise one must explain, who designed the designer?" Dawkins takes the argument here from what happened once life existed to where life came from in the first place. He acknowledges that the existence of God is technically not disprovable, but he thinks it is very improbable. He acknowledges that no explanation is entirely satisfying for him, but the Anthropic Principle coupled with the idea of a multiverse will do for now, and once he's cleared that hurdle, evolution explains the rest.

In my estimation, Dawkins does not really defend the last part of the thesis - why it's necessary to explain who designed the Designer. He only really indicates that he feels it's not satisfactory to "invoke God". As Lennox points out, the entire "Who made God?" argument turns on the premise that God is created. To accept the argument is to accept this premise. But no one believes in created gods. God certainly makes no such claim for himself; nor does Jesus, who shocked the Jewish leaders by claiming to be eternal:

"You are not yet fifty years old," the Jews said to him, "and you have seen Abraham!"
"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!"
At this, they picked up stones to stone him...(John 8:57-59)

Dawkins argues that "you can't evade the issue by saying 'God was always there' - you still need an explanation." But God's eternity is not an evasion, it is the explanation. Dawkins is frustrated by this argument, but he doesn't really come up with a reason for this besides the fact that he doesn't find it satisfying. Of course, he should not find his own "interim" solution satisfying either - as Lennox hints, it still does not explain the origin of the matter and energy itself.

The fourth thesis was "Christianity is dangerous." Dawkins is careful to assure us that he doesn't believe that all religion is bad, or that all religious people are bad. He rightly points out that there is a convention in our society that religion is to be respected and not to be questioned. He declares it an evil that children are taught not to question their faith or seek justification for it. Dawkins wants each child to be given the gift of skepticism. Finally, he postulates that when some of these children eventually do evil things, it is the fact that they do not feel the need to question or justify their actions that allows them to do them. Thus he declares that there is a logical path from religion to evil acts.

For the most part, biblical Christians agree - we are called to be thinking, discerning people; as mentioned with regard to the first thesis, God does not call us to scientific incuriosity either. Lennox strongly declares that Christ's teachings do not allow for the evils Dawkins listed. He also gives several plausible examples of a logical path from atheism to evil acts. Dawkins has a double standard for people who do evil - if they are not atheists, it is because of their religion; if they are atheists, it is not.

What follows is an interesting little exchange on Lennox's thesis that atheism is a religion in its own right. Dawkins defines atheism as not believing in a God, and compares this with Lennox's "atheism" with regard to Zeus. So he claims to be religiously neutral. But humans can not exist in an ideological vacuum. To say that one does not believe in God is not to say that one believes in nothing. It is to say that one does believe that God does not exist, and this belief has consequences; it will affect how one thinks, and, inevitably, what one says and does. For this reason, atheism must be seen for what it is: a worldview, an ideology, a religion.

(See also: Part 3).

The Dawkins Lennox Debate - Part 1 of 3

In October 2007, the Fixed Point Foundation hosted a debate between evolutionary philosopher Prof. Richard Dawkins and Christian scientist and apologist Dr. John Lennox on the topic of "The God Delusion" (a reference to the title of the latest book from Dawkins). The debate can be seen at dawkinslennoxdebate.com and is worthwhile to view.

The debate was civil yet lively, serious but not humourless, and detailed but understandable. Dawkins comes across as eminently thoughtful, reasonable, and scholarly. He is well spoken, and is able to clearly verbalize his argument. Lennox is friendly, forceful, and logical, as one would expect a mathematician to be. He also injected a bit of humour into the debate.

The debate itself can only loosely be called such. Summaries of six theses from The God Delusion were chosen and introduced by the moderator. Dawkins was to elaborate on and give his reasoning for them, after which Lennox was to respond, before the moderator moved to the next thesis. This gave no opportunity for Dawkins to rebut Lennox's arguments, or for any debate in the true sense. It is clear that both Dawkins and Lennox wanted and tried to move to a back-and-forth free debate format, which they managed to do several times. This format held back the possibility of a true debate. Nevertheless, both men were able to clearly articulate and argue their positions.

The first thesis was "Faith is blind; science is evidence-based. Faith teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding." Dawkins's position is that faith removes the need for evidence or the desire to understand. His argument also implies that faith is not evidence-based and science is not blind. Dawkins's premise is that faith is defined as belief of something for which we have no evidence. The writer to the Hebrews wrote:

Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1)

But it is false to equate what we do not see with what we do not have evidence for. The Bible certainly does not say that we have no evidence for what we believe. Yet, we must be clear that, though the evidence is consistent with our faith, it is not evidence on which we base our faith.

Dawkins asserts that faith teaches satisfaction with not understanding. This is true to this extent, that there are some things which Christians do not need to understand, and which we therefore do and should not pursue (Deuteronomy 29:29). But this satisfaction with not understanding is absolutely not true with regard to scientific curiosity; this is abundantly clear from the example of the many early Christians who were ground-breaking scientists. God and His Word do not call Christians to scientific incuriosity.

The second thesis was "Science supports atheism, not Christianity." There are two points here on which biblical Christians agree with Dawkins: first, "a universe with a God would be a very different kind of universe from a universe without a God"; second, science and religion are not non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA). To his credit, though other evolutionists warm him it is damaging to their case, Dawkins unequivocally states that evolution led him to atheism. He also acknowledges that the study of science came out of the Christian faith.

But on this point Dawkins also makes a strong statement:

It becomes even more glaring where you talk about miracles... However much sophisticated theologians may profess their non-belief in miracles, the plain fact is, that the ordinary person in the pew - the ordinary unsophisticated church-goer - believes deeply in miracles, and it's largely miracles that persuade that person into the church in the first place.

Leaving the reality and nature of miracles for later discussion, I think it is an exaggeration to imply, first, that ordinary church-goers are unsophisticated, and second, that it is miracles that draw these people into the church. But if this is true for the average church-goer, it is an indictment on their churches. Churches that teach biblical Christianity teach their members to be personally well-versed in the Scriptures, and there is thus no room for spiritual illiteracy that would have them holding on to mere miracles instead of the gospel to which they point. These are the same Christians who are likely to be, as Lennox put it with reference to the first thesis, "guilty of a lazy God-of-the-gaps kind of solution - I can't understand it, therefore God did it, and of course, God disappears as the gaps close."

Lennox makes some very strong arguments in rebuttal, particularly that one can't even begin scientific study without believing that it is bound by law and order.

(See also: Part 2 and Part 3.)

A Musical Interlude

I'm working on an arrangement of J. S. Bach's Praeludium II (BWV 847), from the Well-Tempered Clavier Book II. Here's a great arrangement of the same for Chapman stick.

My Own Hate Crime

I'm jumping on the bandwagon à la Ezra Levant. As a show of support for Stephen Boissoin, as well as defiance of a kangaroo court ruling, I also hereby publish what the Alberta HRC has declared hateful. At The World Truths, Boissoin himself gives the letter some context (see the second comment).

The following is not intended for those who are suffering from an unwanted sexual identity crisis. For you, I have understanding, care, compassion and tolerance. I sympathize with you and offer you my love and fellowship. I prayerfully beseech you to seek help, and I assure you that your present enslavement to homosexuality can be remedied. Many outspoken, former homosexuals are free today.

Instead, this is aimed precisely at every individual that in any way supports the homosexual machine that has been mercilessly gaining ground in our society since the 1960s. I cannot pity you any longer and remain inactive. You have caused far too much damage.

My banner has now been raised and war has been declared so as to defend the precious sanctity of our innocent children and youth, that you so eagerly toil, day and night, to consume. With me stand the greatest weapons that you have encountered to date - God and the "Moral Majority." Know this, we will defeat you, then heal the damage that you have caused. Modern society has become dispassionate to the cause of righteousness. Many people are so apathetic and desensitized today that they cannot even accurately define the term "morality."

The masses have dug in and continue to excuse their failure to stand against horrendous atrocities such as the aggressive propagation of homo- and bisexuality. Inexcusable justifications such as, "I'm just not sure where the truth lies," or "If they don't affect me then I don't care what they do," abound from the lips of the quantifiable majority.

Face the facts, it is affecting you. Like it or not, every professing heterosexual is have their future aggressively chopped at the roots.

Edmund Burke's observation that, "All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing," has been confirmed time and time again. From kindergarten class on, our children, your grandchildren are being strategically targeted, psychologically abused and brainwashed by homosexual and pro-homosexual educators.

Our children are being victimized by repugnant and premeditated strategies, aimed at desensitizing and eventually recruiting our young into their camps. Think about it, children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights.

Your children are being warped into believing that same-sex families are acceptable; that men kissing men is appropriate.

Your teenagers are being instructed on how to perform so-called safe same gender oral and anal sex and at the same time being told that it is normal, natural and even productive. Will your child be the next victim that tests homosexuality positive?

Come on people, wake up! It's time to stand together and take whatever steps are necessary to reverse the wickedness that our lethargy has authorized to spawn. Where homosexuality flourishes, all manner of wickedness abounds.

Regardless of what you hear, the militant homosexual agenda isn't rooted in protecting homosexuals from "gay bashing." The agenda is clearly about homosexual activists that include, teachers, politicians, lawyers, Supreme Court judges, and God forbid, even so-called ministers, who are all determined to gain complete equality in our nation and even worse, our world.

Don't allow yourself to be deceived any longer. These activists are not morally upright citizens, concerned about the best interests of our society. They are perverse, self-centered and morally deprived individuals who are spreading their psychological disease into every area of our lives. Homosexual rights activists and those that defend them, are just as immoral as the pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps that plague our communities.

The homosexual agenda is not gaining ground because it is morally backed. It is gaining ground simply because you, Mr. and Mrs. Heterosexual, do nothing to stop it. It is only a matter of time before some of these morally bankrupt individuals such as those involved with NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Lovers Association, will achieve their goal to have sexual relations with children and assert that it is a matter of free choice and claim that we are intolerant bigots not to accept it.

If you are reading this and think that this is alarmist, then I simply ask you this: how bad do things have to become before you will get involved? It's time to start taking back what the enemy has taken from you. The safety and future of our children is at stake.

Rev. Stephen Boissoin

Dear Mr. Blaikie

Dear Mr. Blaikie,

I would like to thank you for your work in parliament, even though we disagree on many issues.

I write to you to voice my concern regarding the Human Rights Acts in Canada and the Commissions that enforce them. From a purely practical perspective, the commissions have clearly demonstrated that they are out of line. The March 25 hearings of the federal Commission and the recent tribunal investigation of Maclean's highlight the fact that these commissions, though not dealing with actual criminal actions, are nevertheless more powerful and less limited than real courts and investigators. It is unconstitutional and in total disregard of the rights and freedoms of our legal heritage that non-crimes can be investigated and prosecuted with looser limits on search and seizure and with looser (if any) rules of evidence and procedure than actual crimes can be. This is not even to discuss the total one-sidedness of Commission proceedings.

The possibility - as in the cases of Levant, Steyn, and even Lemire - that my political thoughts could subject me to prosecution, even though they are not criminal, is despicable in a liberal democracy. The possibility - as in the cases of Brockie, Owens, and Boissoin - that my bona fide religious convictions are subject to the approval of the government or its agent, even though they are not criminal, is frightening.

Your website has a link to an October 2007 article in the United Church Observer. In the interview, you state that your opinion that secular fundamentalists are misguided in wanting to "rule out religious talk in the public domain", while religious fundamentalists need to be "challenged about how to speak about political matters from a faith point of view". In general, I agree with this sentiment. But I submit to you that it is neither the right nor the responsibility of the government to censor or to sit in judgment of either political or religious public discourse.

I urge you, with many other constituents and Canadians, to support Dr. Keith Martin's efforts to repeal subsection 13(1) of the Human Rights Act, and further, to encourage the government to consider scrapping the Commissions and Tribunals altogether.

I eagerly await your response. Thank you.

Freedom vs. Happiness?

Lorne Gunter: Freedom isn't failing us — we're unhappy because we're no longer free. A great read that puts the smaller battles into perspective.

Both groups (and Prof. Gorton, too) make a common mistake, though: They equate choice with freedom. The two are not one and the same.

It's entirely likely that as the range of our choices has expanded in the past five decades, along with our ability to afford those choices, we have become less politically happy because our core freedoms have been undermined by a growing, rapacious state...

... Some of these may be good ideas on their own, but it is the added element of state compulsion that makes doing the sensible thing a freedom-robbing affront.

The way I see it, we have to take yet another step back. Gunter quotes Benjamin Disraeli as having said that "an Englishman did not need a lot of laws because he was prepared to do the proper thing of his own accord." I think this is instructive in another sense than Gunter takes from it.

Freedom is not itself an end; it is a means to an end. If we don't understand what freedom is for, why should we be concerned about giving it up? I wonder whether people are so quick to allow themselves to be put under the dominion of the state because they are incapable of handling freedom. Could it be that the citizen's apathetic shirking of responsibility is the most to blame for the state's gathering of more and more power?

The Apostle Paul wrote:

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. (Galatians 5:1)

But that is not the end of the story.

You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. (vs. 13)

So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. (vs. 16-18)

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.(vs. 22-23)

Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars...

... And "gender equality" is a black hole. I was about to link to a great column by Lorne Gunter, when I came across this nail-on-the-head offering from Karen Selick about Stephane Dion's promise, if elected, to create a "Commissioner of Gender Equality."

But, as Selick points out, no matter how hard the social engineers try, they just can't convince women to act or think like men, something for which most of us are quite thankful.

The authors acknowledge that Canada already provides what they call "formal equality," or equality of opportunity. In other words, our laws treat men and women equally. But equal treatment, they claim, has not turned out to yield "the expected results."

That depends, I venture to suggest, on what results you expected. If you expected women en masse to behave exactly like men en masse merely because there were no legal obstacles to their doing so, then of course you would be disappointed. The biological differences between men and women make such an expectation ridiculous. There is ample scientific evidence of differences between male and female brains that accounts for the tendency of men to excel in — and therefore cluster in — certain occupations, while women excel in and cluster in others.

I wonder with Selick whether there would be "equal opportunity" for the position of "Commissioner of Gender Equality."

Both "gender" and "equality" are very loaded words in our culture. Whenever I hear them together, I'm reminded of a book by Elizabeth Elliot called The Mark of a Man. In her discussion of biblical masculinity and femininity, she begins by describing the ways in which men and women are equal. For instance, they are equal in being created in the image of God; in being called to serve Him faithfully; they are equal in being given the grace of salvation. But it's a pretty short list.

Then Elliot describes the many ways in which men and women are different, especially from a biblical perspective. We are so different that she speaks of a "glorious inequality," one in which we serve God and each other best. Selick aptly describes the practical and logical fallacies of the feminist ideology; Elliot shows that we are best off when we follow the Maker's instructions.

What's that Sucking Sound?

Maclean's Magazine is on trial this week before British Columbia's Human Rights Tribunal. Coverage of the proceedings can be found at Andrew Coyne's blog. The complaint centers around an issue of Maclean's that discussed the future of the West in relation to Islam and Muslims. At the heart of the complaint is the work of Mark Steyn, in particular his book, America Alone.

Opponents have declared that Steyn's book is "Islamophobic", an attack on Muslims, an attempt to portray all Muslims as terrorists. But the book is not firstly about Muslims or Islam. The key point of Steyn's thesis is that many Western nations have become cultural, moral, and demographic vacuums. European nations, as well as Canada, are unwilling to defend the fundamental values and freedoms in and for which they were constituted. They are committing societal suicide. Thus, America Alone is first an indictment of the West.

Steyn reasons this way: The West does not have a strong cultural will or demographic strength and longevity. This creates a vacuum. What fills the vacuum? The easy answer is radical Islam, which has both demographics and cultural will aplenty.

I agree with Steyn's assessment of the West's predicament. But the root of the problem is deeper, as Steyn hints with many references to multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is a mindset that is part of a larger worldview - that of moral relativism. In this worldview, there are no absolutes; thus, no basic standards by which to judge anything; thus, no judgments. It is moral relativism that simultaneously causes the West's general reluctance to confront real enemies, and inability to defend its own freedoms and interests.

The issue of freedom of speech and the HRCs is far from unrelated. When there are no absolutes, what is your standard for testing people's thoughts, words, actions? In our times that standard has become feelings. If thoughts, words, or actions cause feelings to be hurt - or, in the case of Canadian Human Rights Acts, if they can potentially remotely possibly cause feelings to be hurt - then forget about truth, fair comment, and other inconveniences; these must be stopped.

The same vacuum that is giving the upper hand of the future to radical Islam is blinding many Canadians to the HRCs' egregious assault on real human rights that are based on timeless absolutes. That sucking sound? That's the vacuum created by a lack of absolutes.

The CPAC Debate

Ezra Levant and Concerned Citizen discuss the panel discussion on the HRCs at the Canadian Association of Journalists conference in Edmonton. I was able to watch all 80 minutes, but Levant also has a few shorter clips of the action.

Ian Fine was pretty brilliant in the way he avoided questions - I don't know why parliament did this or that, We just apply the law. His attempts to appear reasonable - We understand that there is concern, We appreciate that there is another take on the issue, the Supreme Court and Parliament agreed that we needed more protection against hate [italics are my paraphrases], etc. - were severely undermined by his statement of support for more laws against hate.

The big catch to me is that it is not enough just to look at a law and ask what is wrong with it in a legal sense, i.e. the letter of the law. The law, in this case the Human Rights Act, also has to be examined in a practical sense - that is, how the law is being used. In the case of Human Rights Acts, the law is being used in a way that was never intended, which the Supreme Court in the Taylor case did not anticipate - very much against the spirit of the law. When the law is used to prosecute political discourse and victim-less non-crimes, you know there is a problem with it.

The other thing is this idea that hatred needs to be stamped out by the government. This is a way of thinking that is very common, but diametrically opposed to the way our Dominion was conceived. That is the key point, that - as Levant and Martin argued - ideas should be tested, evaluated, and tossed out or retained in the court of public opinion, not by the government. When people seek to have arguments silenced, it is an indication that they have no defense against the arguments.