Is God Dead?

Do you remember the Death of God Movement? Ted Fiske’s 1965 article in the New York Times was celebrated in the Elton John song "Levon" who was "born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas Day when the New York Times said God was dead."  We also have the April 8, 1966 Time magazine article posing the question "Is God dead?" on the cover - was one of the first times it was published without a photograph.  John T. Elson's article in Time begged the question - did God ever really exist?  Elson described what was actually being taught in liberal seminaries, so it could be said that his conclusions were largely based on the "experts" who sat around thinking about God alot. Radical theology was really behind the movement, but not entirely.

Where did all of this come from? Nietzsche is largely responsible. What was his motive? I am sure there are people in philosophy that are way more knowledgeable than I am on Nietzsche and we all know you are smarter than the rest of us "deists" anyway. After all, anyone who believes in God can't actually be a person of reason.

Actually, if you believe in God you may not be able to read and follow big words very well. In fact, I probably shouldn't tell you that there is an academic label for what we are talking about - "theothanatology."  The Greek word "theos" means God and "thanatos" means death.

Some say this had nothing to at all with the death of God as much as it had to with the death of commonly accepted standards of morality (Timothy Keller).

Who murdered God anyway? Nietzsche claimed we did. By now we are supposed to smell God decomposing, but the sweet fragrance of "reason and science" shall perfume the odor. Nietzsche claimed that the blood of God is all over our hands, all over our clothing, and all over our minds.

I couldn't agree with him more. Where our paths differ is on why. Nietzsche claimed that reason and science put God in the cemetery. God's obituary was supposed to be written long before 1965. The French philosopher Voltaire, boasted that within 100 years of his death, the Bible would disappear. What year was that? 1778. According to David Hume, a contemporary of Voltaire and also a skeptic and atheist, there cannot possibly be such a good and powerful God because evil exists. Thus intellect and empirical reasoning were the only ways to destroy evil. Hume basically was saying, of course God is dead because evil lives. Mr. Hume, therefore, has a claim on truth, the truth exclusively based on logic, logic exclusively based on atheism.

Nietzsche, also had a "truth-claim." Interesting because Jesus also said "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6).  Nietzsche's claim not only from those in the philosophical world, but also in the science world. After all, if you deify "science" and if you say that all "other" truth-claims about religion and God are just psychological projections to deal with your guilt and insecurity, you gain a following! It is pleasant to hear, isn't it? After all, if we have science and we have reason, we don't have any insecurities. We now "know" and we are self-sufficient as human beings. We don't need God anymore.

When something dies, you can smell it. I remember when time when a mouse was caught in a trap I set in the kitchen. It took a few days and we could smell the odor, but for the life of me I couldn't find the trap. It was frustrating, the longer it say undiscovered the worse it smelled.

In this case, it isn't a deity who is in a state of putrefaction. It is man. Michael Foucault claims that Christianity and other religions are the cultural straitjacket of science and reason. So, it begs the question. Does a belief in Jesus Christ render a person intellectually bankrupt? Do the philosophers of our time deify their ideas over God's?

I don't know. I guess each of us have to sort it out for ourselves. Did God die?

As Nietzsche said, I do have blood on my hands. Really what our modern day philosophers are saying is that when Christ proclaimed "It is finished" as documented in John 19:3 that God actually died. If the bible is to believe, the soldiers present at the crucifixion and trial actually tried to kill God.

The gospels claimed they stabbed Christ to verify that he was dead as they were going around to break the bones of the two other criminals. Why? So that they could die faster. They wanted him dead.

So they took Christ down from the cross, lifeless. No real funeral for this "dead" God. No memorial service.  It was the sabbath (a religious holiday) and they needed to bury him quickly as it was against the law to work on the sabbath.

They bought perfume 3 days later to cover the "death smell" that Nietzsche talked about.

Gosh, the science versus deity debate really was 2000 years ago that Sunday morning when these women brought ointments to cover the death smell. Any normal person knows that after 3 days any "body" will stink. We have embalming fluid today, but it really just postpones what eventually happens to all of us. Decomposition of proteins, especially by anaerobic microorganisms, and bacteria liquefy what we see in the mirror.

Anyway, back to the original question - is God dead? Certainly the followers of Christ thought so. Most of them ran away as they were frightened the authorities were going to arrest them now that their leader was dead. His executioner thought he was dead. Pilate gave this wealthy guy, Joseph of Arimathea. Politicians thought he was dead.  The Jerusalem Post post in 33 AD could have written the exact same article as Ted Fiske - God is Dead.

So now, it is a matter of faith - isn't it? Did God die? Is this a dead carpenter from Galilee? Is this a mental patient who was really under court order to be admitted to a "facility" as when his mother and brothers attempted on several occasions?

You see, the question really isn't "is he a good teacher?" or is he "a prophet of God" as Islam and other religious leader claim. The question really is - IS GOD DEAD? Since anyone who believes in him today is illogical, stupid, and largely deceived by lies and errors in the transcription of the ancient texts, we must conclude that  Nietzsche was right and Jesus Christ was wrong?

My own belief is that the tomb was found empty that morning - not "because of" a stolen body or a wounded man who revived himself and moved a large boulder with a Roman seal and guard posted outside.  But, because of a risen Christ. A living God, not a dead one. It isn't a claim that I can back up with physical evidence or science. But, it is a one that can be backed up with logic and reason. Is science able to explain everything? I guess you have to answer that for yourself. At least consider what is written here, the arguments have been laid out squarely and without "spin" on them.

Historical Revisionism

Historical revisionism is usually based on challenging orthodox views, most commonly accomplished by modern day academics who have studied all of the original documents and understand contemporary issues that relate to a particular point in history. The premise is generally that traditional opinions are sacred and that modern historians are better able to scrutinize history than others. Generally, revisionism is targeting contemporary issues of great importance and one of these is the religiosity of our nation's founding fathers. Is this a deliberate attempt to distort the historical record?

What is an example of this?

Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore decided to defend the American principle of the separation of the church and state by writing a book called "The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness." It is a college classic on many campuses today. If you read in the beginning of their book, you will find a "disclaimer" of sorts - one that says they have dispensed with using footnotes (normally used in historical academic works). Interesting isn't it?

Not that I am an expert in historical research, but I do know something about scholarly writing. Kramnick, a 30-year faculty member who serves as the Richard J. Schwartz Professor and chair of the Department of Government at Cornell, writes a book used in classrooms around the nation and doesn't document his conclusions with "facts" or evidence? Does it raise suspicion about his motives? Did you know that R. Laurence Moore's wrote the book "Selling God" and that makes him qualified to write this work? Moore's basic premise is that religion has used the principles of marketing to manipulate people into "buying" religion. Sound like a bias to me. But, I could be mistaken since this book is adopted in college classroms I am sure presents a fair and balanced viewpoint.

I have some more examples of objective writing. Steve Morris claims the early presidents and patriots were generally deists or Unitarians, believing in some form of impersonal God, but not Christianity.

We also have Bob Massey of the Sun Herald who says that the signers of the Declaration of Independence were "enemies of Christ."He notes that Thomas Paine, who drafted the Declaration of Independence, was also the author of "Common Sense" (none of these facts are untrue) and most likely not a Christian (also true). However, the only thing he wants you to know are that the 2 signers of the Declaration were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Were these men Christian? No. I agree. But, how did he arrive at the general statement about "deists" and "Unitarians" and do these conclusions match up with the facts?

OK, now everyone reads this stuff and takes it as the "god-awful" truth, right? Our founding fathers were somewhere between atheists or at least semi-religious?

Did you know there were 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence? Of these, 29 had seminary degrees (David Barton). Yep, sounds like they all had the same opinion as Franklin and Jefferson.

Did you know that in the Treaty of Paris (1783) when we signed with Britain following the revolution, at the very top it says "In the name of the most Holy and undivided trinity" (top image here, click on it for a detailed view). Does that sound like they were enemies of Christ? Does that even sound like they were "Unitarians" or dieists? The signers were David Hartley (ambassador and member of the British Parliament) and Ben Franklin / John Adams? You can view this document on your next visit to Washington, DC if it hasn't been redacted.

Did you know that in 1782 congress published the "Bible of the American Revolution" and that one of the signers was John Witherspoon - signer of Declaration of Independence as a representative of New Jersey. He was probably the most noted Christian evangelical of his day? Ever hear of Charles Thomson? How about Robert Sherman? Benjamin Rush? Yes, these men all of historical records of agnosticism. I am certain they agreed 100% with Thomas Paine.

Come on, let's get real. Why don't people just come out and say they are anti-Christian in the preface of their books when they want to write about history? Be sure and strike out the fact that Benjamin Rush, who is considered the father of American medicine and established the American College of Physicians was a devout Christian and has a well-documented historical record of that fact. Charles Thomson, immediately chosen secretary of the Continental Congress at its first meeting, was a believer in Jesus Christ. This is also well documented. How do we know this? In 1808 he translated both the old and new testaments from Greek and published it!

Note that John Adams never said "there is no authority, civil or religious, or no legitimate government, but what is administered by the Holy Ghost." Please strike from the history books that Roger Sherman, also a signer of the Declaration, read through the entire bible each year he was in congress and wrote notes in the margins. Why? He gave the bible to each of his children so that they could have their own copy. Roger Sherman had 15 kids.

Now really, the liberals - probably inflate things a little bit - especially when they claim the bible is full of errors because of historical revisionism. They claim, the bible has been copied over and over and is full of transcriptions errors. For example, what the bible says about homosexuality is really been misunderstood according to Daniel Helminiak, who is incidently a Catholic priest and way more educated than the rest of us.

Radical revisionists are also ignoring the Dead Sea Scrolls (a collection of 850 documents written between 21 BC - 61 AD) that include the texts of Isaiah and quite possibly the earliest known document of the Gospel of Mark (fragment 7Q5 - José O'Callaghan). Some liberal theologians are so certain the Dead Sea Scrolls are false that they've gone to the extreme saying these were not written by the Essenes (religious community about the time of Christ), but rather this was nothing more than a pottery factory (Norman Golb).

After all these scholarly opinions, it makes your head spin doesn't it? I for one, but my faith in the accuracy of the scriptures. It is the one rock solid foundation in my life. As for faith-connection of the founders of my country, well I am certainly not leaving that to the scholars. At least in that case, I can go to the National Archives and Washington, DC and examine the original documents for myself.

Science, Religion and Racism

Richard Dawkins (God Delusion) and David Brooks ( Necessity of Atheism ) maintain that religion is basically a crutch and a hindrance to mankind and the antithesis to intellectualism. Isn't this really a repetitive self-serving assertion? In essence what they are saying is that science is the deity and religion is basically irrational. Isn't it a bit insulting, as a Christian, to be told you are not a scientist or a person of logic because of a belief in God? Are science and theology really at odds with each other?

Brook's book "Necessity of Atheism" was written in 1933; Dawkins seems to harp basically on the same premise 50 years later. Dawkins repeatedly emphasizes the grievous harm that religion inflicts on society, and how no rational human being could believe in God. Others (Jim Herrick, Peter Cave) propose a less divisive proposition, more in the social scientist realm, that that the doctrinal differences between Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism were superficial and insignificant, that really we all believe in the same God. Basically, Buddhism doesn’t believe in a personal God at all. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam believe in a God who holds people accountable for their beliefs. Judaism and Islam hold that God's attribute could not be all reduced to a "loving" God and assert some racial identity to it's members. Christianity, on the other hand, breaks from the Hebrew racial and national identities held in the "Old Testament" and extends it's reach to "gentiles" of all nations through a belief in Jesus Christ.

Two extremes - Dawkins claims that the Christian view of sin can basically be attributed to a "selfish gene" and Paul Kurtz who maintains the notion that man is basically good and all religions are good. While one may sound biologically plausible and the other may sound like a nice way at reconciling all of the world's religions, do they offer any real "breakthrough" in explaining good and evil? Are there ethical values and principles that nonreligious individuals can live by? Of course, it is called civility. So, does this resolve or explain why we have evil in the world? Dawkins claims that religion is basically the reason for our stupidity and that evil can be genetically "engineered out" through recombinant DNA pharmaceuticals. Kurtz is like the well-endowed blond in the Miss America contest calling for "world peace."

As a Christian, I want to examine these approaches seriously. Does the human record (a subject called history) demonstrate that the atheistic or agnostic approach or, dare I say the "scientific approach" uphold this premise? Darwin's "Origin of Species," published 150 years ago, did set the scientific community in motion in better understanding the diversity of CREATION (I know this will sound archaic) . I respect Darwin, his work was fascinating and a major breakthrough. But, he seemed to stir a deep division between religion and science. He was perhaps the first person to offer some evidence on the origin of man, the scientific explanation, but it was theory. He wasn't there to observe man evolve. What is interesting is his view on race. He asserted something additionally that many scientists would disclaim - that race (human skin color) traveled different distances along the evolutionary path. Caucasians in his mind were at the top of the racial hierarchy , while black and brown people ranked below.

Is racism evil? Of course. Did it get a helping hand from Darwin? Yes. Consider Pekka-Eric Auvinen, a Finnish schoolboy who murdered eight people at his high school in November 2007, wrote on his blog that "stupid, weak-minded people are reproducing ... faster than the intelligent, strong-minded" ones. Sounds evolutionary, don't you think? What about the "KKK" in the United States, isn't some of their thought based on the "gene pool" being pure?

I know, some are going to say that this is no different than the harm Christianity or other world religions have imposed on society.

So we have made strides in alleviating racism, as we know it today. But, why, is it heralded as a " humanistic achievement" and why is racism now stripped of it's "roots" in Christianity? A logical or reasonable approach would say no, racism, at least in the United States, was brought to it's knees by a Christian - Dr. Martin Luther King. He implemented the teachings of Christianity in bringing out the "end" through non-violence and civil disobedience. I know some will claim those are not exclusively Christian ideas, but I don't recall Rev King running around giving speeches about Buddha so please be fair with the historical record.

Scientists claim that the bible is full of mistakes and atheists espouse the replicate errors in the "good book" - they are essentially making these same mistakes in documenting how humanism and the social sciences brought us to understand the evil of racism. Didn't social scientists perpetuate racism by proposing African Americans had lower IQ than whites (Galton).

Jesus Christ is a controversial figure historically. But in order to be empathetic to my agnostic friends, a "theologically abstract person" confabulated by idealistic religious fanatics through the evolutionary rewriting of the scriptures. I know, either way, it still comes to a name - doesn't it? Jesus of Nazareth. I believe him to be a real person and the manifestation of God in human form. You may not. But, belief is not an abstract thing. Your belief in not believing in Jesus Christ is real. My belief in the deity of Christ is just as real. But, I do take issue with people like Dawkins who claim I can't be a good scientist or person of reason because I believe in a creator God. I read and agree with findings from atheistic scientists, why should Dawkins not accept people of faith who are scientists? Albert Einstein was Jewish and Louis Pasteur was Catholic. Do we throw out their contributions to science?

There is a flaw in mandating that all scientists be agnostic or atheistic, that we are somehow disabled in our inquiry of the empirical because of our faith. I don't stream "truth" through the lens of religious fanatics and I don't compromise my clinical research findings by worrying that it will interfere with my religion or beliefs. What is humorous to me is the "scientist" who truly believes that "love" and "evil" are biological phenomena and the social scientists who claim "exclusive" rights to discovering the evil of racism and social justice. Are religion and science adversaries?

Bottom line - is intellectualism impeded by faith? I don't think so. The fact that evolutionary scientists assume "no responsibility" for racism, offer silly explanations for good and evil, and rant about how religion invades science amuses me. I do understand that the Catholic church tried to squelch Galileo and that religion also has it's abuses throughout history. But, let's not say that science and religion are adversaries, ok? Isn't it time to bury the hatchet? We are not in the era of the Scope Trial. Can't the two camps trust each other a bit?