I talked to a couple of young men the other night who told me that they are agnostic atheists. Before they explained what they meant by that, they asked me what I think the definition of an atheist is. I told them that an atheist is someone who doesn’t believe that God exists and therefore they have no morals (no sense of right and wrong) so they do what they please. They said that my definition is that of a gnostic atheist – one who believes that there absolutely is no God.
These young men then proceeded to tell me that there may be a God and there may be proof of God, but they just haven’t seen any evidence to support that God exists. So they allow for the possibility that there may really be a God, but they want to see proof of Him before they will believe in Him. They said that they believe in evidence. They believe in science. I told them that I believe in evidence and science too and that the world we live in proves that God is real (Romans 1:20-22). The universe didn’t get here by chance. We didn’t evolve from nothing. We are created beings that were created by the great Creator.
Even though both of these young men are “the new atheist,” I took one of the young men through the good person test. It was very difficult because he didn’t want to admit that he had ever done anything wrong. His friend didn’t help, because he kept wanting to define everything. They had a hard time admitting that lying is lying. They only counted malicious lying as lying. (For example, if a woman asked them if this dress makes her look fat, they didn’t consider that lying if they told her no, when in fact the dress revealed her fat).
So the young man finally admitted that he had maliciously lied maybe about once a year and that maybe he had stolen something small a time or two as a child. But they both said that they never lusted, never coveted and didn’t have any false gods that they worshiped instead of the One True God (even though they don’t know if there even is a One True God).
I want you to understand that I enjoyed visiting with these guys. They were very kind and cordial. They both grew up in Christian homes. The one young man even believes that he was a Christian, and isn’t one now. We all took turns speaking. They told me what they thought and I told them what the Bible says. But they broke my heart. All I kept thinking the whole time is that they are self righteous; like we read about how the Pharisees were in the New Testament.
They broke my heart because they think that they are genuinely good people. They don’t hurt anyone else, they don’t drink to excess and they don’t chase women. I tried to explain to them that none of us are good (Romans 3:10-12). We’ve all sinned against our Holy God (Romans 3:23) and if you die in your sins, then your punishment will be separation from God for all of eternity in a very real place called Hell (Matthew 13:41-42).
These young men try to live good, moral lives. I tried to help them see that we get our morals from God as stated in the Bible. But they believe that society gives us our standard of right and wrong. That makes no sense at all. Look at how the morals of America is changing almost daily now because of the current liberal bias in politics, media and yes, unfortunately in several professing “churches.”
Our morals come from God. He has written His law on our hearts (Romans 2:15). God loves us and God made us, but we’ve all sinned against God. We can’t undo our sins. We can’t erase them and we can’t hide them, we can’t cover them up. You can never take back that lie that you told. You can say that you are sorry, but you can’t take it back or undo it.
Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation (Acts 4:12). He walked this earth 2,000 years ago. He was fully God and fully man. He lived a perfect sinless life. Jesus never sinned in His thoughts, words or deeds (Hebrews 4:15). He willingly laid down His life. While He hung on the cross, God poured His wrath out against Jesus (Isaiah 53:4-5). The wrath that you and I rightly deserve. Jesus died, was buried and on the third day He rose from the grave. He defeated sin, death, Hell and Satan.
God offers eternal life to those who repent and put their trust in Jesus (Acts 26:18,20). If you are reading this and you are a new atheist, an agnostic atheist, please swallow your pride and humbly come before the Lord. Remember that God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). Cry out to God to have mercy on you, a sinner. Turn away from your sins and put your faith in Jesus Christ to save you. Stop trusting in your own self righteousness. Stop trusting in your own good works. Put your trust in Jesus and in Him alone.
Hello Dennis, I am one of the young men that you talked to the other evening. For the sake of fairness and accuracy I thought I would offer a small addendum to your article, if you would allow it, as it seems that how you describe our interaction playing out is much different from how I remember it.
First off, when my friend and I asked you to give us your definition of an atheist I specifically remember you saying that an Atheist was someone who said that God DOES NOT exist. There is a key difference between someone not believing that a god exists and believing that one DOES NOT exist and that is what I was trying to point out by asking you for your definition. Classically defined, atheism rejects the claim that a god exists, and I specifically remember making the differentiation, where rejection is simply not accepting the claim, NOT asserting the opposite. Beyond this atheism can be separated into two other subgroups gnostic and agnostic. One being the opposite assertion and the other being a rejection respectively.
In the post, I thought I explained my definition of an atheist was a gnostic atheist (as you guys explained it to me). You guys then explained that you were agnostic atheist (this was the way I retold it).
I also do not recall any mention of morality when you initally gave us your definition, as I would have jumped on that immediately, but I will address this in a moment.
Secondly, My friend and I never asserted that there WAS NO evidence, merely that we hadn’t been provided with such and I specifically remember us asking you on multiple occassions to provide us with what you considered to be evidence for the existence of god. This is something I specifically make a point about noting when discussing this topic. I never assert that NO GOD exists or that NO EVIDENCE exists, only that as of yet I have not heard an argument that I find convincing. I also have to be clear on this that when we were talking about evidence we were talking about epistemological methods. One being faith based and the other being demonstration based. We asked why the faith path was superior to demonstration when trying to discern the factual nature of a claim, a question I don’t recall getting an answer for. We also told you why we didn’t accept scripture as evidence as it is necessarily circular and inherently fallacious. Something cannot be proof of itself.
As for the Good Person Test, we answered your questions honestly. We weren’t trying to avoid admitting to anything that we had done. The reason in particular that I kept wanting you to define what you meant is because I felt that the terms being used were rather vague and I wanted to make sure we answered your questions as honestly as we could. Clarity is very important to me when communicating with others and I have had discussion go into long and unnecessary tangents only to find out that it was due to a misdefined concept. I wasn’t trying to dodge, I was only trying to make sure I understand what was being said the best that I could. It is something I do in all of my political and philosophical discussions.
I don’t remember that you ever admitted to breaking any of the 10 Commandments and your friend only admitted to maliciously lying about once a year and that he may have stolen something once or twice when he was small.
Another thing I would like to point out is that we did not say that lying wasn’t lying. We were well willing to accept that a lie is a lie regardless. However, what we were doing was questioning which lies were necessarily bad, since we were taking the Good Person Test after all. We said that forus that lies are immoral based on the intention. Malicious lies being necessarily wrong and benevolent lies being more or less innocuous, though I would differ with m friend on the example he gave.
This ultimately goes into what I spoke of earlier when I brought up you saying that Atheists have no basis for morality. Never did either me or my friend make the claim that we derived our morality from society. In fact, moral relativism is something that both of us have always vehemently opposed. I tried to make very clear on multiple occasions that our morality was based on reducing harm and reasoning (ie. If there is no reason for something to be wrong, then why should it be wrong? And if there is a reason for something to be considered wrong, then it should be considered wrong) Morality based on divine authority is necessarily arbitrary and intimidation, and neither of these can be considered moral in any respective sense. It ultimately comes down to Euthyphro’s dilemma, Are a god’s commandments moral because he commands them, or does he command them because they are moral. If the former, then the judgement is arbitrary, and if the latter, then the god’s authority is unnecessary for morality. (Keep in mind that asserting that morality is simply god’s nature is only rewording the former and that the end result is the same. Asserting that god’s nature is necessarily moral is inherently arbitrary, especially when considering that there is no frame of reference) At least when using a moral system aimed at reducing harm one can reliably and objectively determine and praise actions that are most conducive to a healthy society and determine and criminalize actions that are least conducive to a healthy society. That is why we cannot accept your definition of morality, not because we enjoy sinning or because we’re trying to hide our transgressions, but because we view divine moral authority to be just as arbitrary and no more moral than moral relativism.
I disagree with your recollection here. I specifically asked you where morals come from if not from God and you did say from society.
Dennis,
It reminds me of Israel in Exodus 32. If the people do not get the evidence they want, then they will make gods for themselves. Sounds like you had a good conversation and was able to present the Gospel to those two young men. I pray God softens their hearts.
God bless you
Brad
@admin, Yes, you’re correct in that originally you gave us the definition of a gnostic atheist. However, when you explain it at the beginning of your article, what you’re actually defining is an agnostic atheist and that is what I was trying to clarify.
When you say “an atheist is someone who doesn’t believe that God exists” (agnostic atheist) it is something much different than saying “an atheist is someone who believes God doesn’t exist” (gnostic atheist). It’s a very subtle difference in wording, but where you put the “doesn’t” makes a world of difference in what’s actually being said.
In short, gnostic atheism is an assertion (ie. No gods exists)
Agnostic atheism is a reservation of belief. We do not assert that a god exists, however we also do not assert that one does not.
I hope that clears up what I was trying to say. I can give a few analogies that better explain the concepts if someone still doesn’t quite understand.
As for the Good Person Test (10 Commandment Test), it was cut short 3 questions in and I don’t remember what those 3 were so I can’t really attest to whether or not I admitted or not.
Ultimately, it’s a non-issue to me whether we admitted to anything or not as I understand that the test is purely a rhetorical device and not any sort of actual moral gauge. The test is designed to fail every person who takes it and shame them into repentance. My friend didn’t understand this, which is why he agreed to take it in the first place.
I see no reason to be ashamed of not upholding an impossible and arbitrary standard, which is why I didn’t agree to the test and was something I wish I could have explained better at the time.
As for me saying that morals come from society, again I will have to insist that that is not what I said. I understand that it was hard to hear with all the music and that you could have simply misunderstood what I said, However, like I said before deriving morals from society (moral relativism) is a concept that I have always strongly opposed and would never in good conscience say that I accepted it. Though, instead of insisting back and forth that I did say it or that I didn’t say it, let’s drop that and focus on what I proposed about moral systems being based on reasoning and harm reduction as that’s what I’m professing now.
Since I gave the good person test to your friend, I’m going to call him A and I’ll call you B. The good person test is not a non-issue. It very much is a moral gauge. We are all guilty of breaking the 10 Commandments and we are all going to die and face God on Judgment Day.
In Matthew 13, Jesus told the parable about the wheat and the tares (weeds). He later explained the parable to His disciples (still in chapter 13). He said that at the end of the age, He will send forth His angels and they will gather all that offend and those which do iniquity and the angels will cast them into the furnace of fire. Jesus then says that Hell will be a place of wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Iniquity is sin. You know that you are sinner by the comparing yourself to the 10 Commandments. In Romans 7:7, the apostle Paul says that he would not have known what sin was except for the law. None of us measure up to God’s perfect standard. That’s why Jesus (the perfect sinless One) died on the cross – to offer a way of escape from the wrath to come.
That’s why I stopped to talk that night to you and A. We are all going to die and after this comes the judgment (Hebrews 9:27). You may think you have questions now that you will ask God on that great and terrible day, but the reality is you won’t ask a single question. You will be like Job when God questioned him – Job realized that he had no right to question almighty God and Job then said, “I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6).
The Bible says that every mouth will be stopped. Unfortunately for you, if you die in your sins (as an unrepentant sinner), then you will face the wrath of God on that day. It will be a terrible day for you.
But if you turn away from your sins and put your faith in Jesus Christ, then Judgment Day will be a great day. Do not be deceived. God gave us the 10 Commandments to show us that we don’t measure up to His righteousness. Please don’t foolishly continue down the path you are going. Please repent and believe the Gospel.