QUESTION THIRTEEN:
How Can Common Sense Help Determine What is True?
(Images on screen: Prophet spraying congregation with Doom, giving them Rattax to drink and church members eating grass)
There is a man that calls himself a prophet of God that has told his church some crazy things. It doesn’t take much for a mature Christian audience like this to identify that this man acted outside the truth of God’s word. But if it is absurd to us as believers, imagine how much more insane it seems to the mind of a sceptic. Now keep your sceptic hats on for a moment, let’s think like an atheist and from that view point let’s look at these next images:
(Images on screen: Blind man with mud on eyes and Jonah spat out by the fish)
Spitting in the mud and putting it on the eyes of a blind man to make him see, getting swallowed and spat out by a big fish, a virgin becoming pregnant and giving birth… from any unbelievers view point it is total nonsense.
A frequent claim against Christianity is that it defies common sense.
“Just use a little common sense and you will know it isn’t true”.
This is a down and dirty attack on Christianity and you see this kind of mudslinging (excuse the reference) all over social media. It is meant as mockery to cause shame. Instead of trying to explain every miracle in the Bible lets defeat this blanket statement by addressing the claim “Common sense tells me it can’t be true”
Argument 1
Common sense is based on
Argument 2
Many things are weird but true - defying common sense. When we encounter anything out of our ordinary experiences we question it but many things are true despite it being weird eg living on a rock that is spinning around a ball of fire at 66600mph without us feeling it. The truth of religion usually involves unique revelations outside of normal events and so common sense cannot be applied to try and explain it.
To summarise
Common sense is a very
Christianity is NOT common sense, but it does make sense. Don’t confuse common sense with something that makes sense. There are many
QUESTION FOURTEEN:
If Christianity is True, Why Are There so Many Denominations?
The Elephant in the Room
Last week:
Question 9: Truth Exists
Question 10: Religions Don’t All point to the Same Truth
Question 11: Reasonable for Christians to Claim we know what’ true
Some objections not about What Christians Believe but the:
Results of What Christians Believe
Intellectual Competence of Believers
Next 3 Questions are more as a “Nail in the Coffin” for Rejecting Jesus rather than being primary reasons
The elephant in the Christian church is its thousands of sects, many of whom hold longstanding, diametrically
Such a situation seems inexplicable for an allegedly
Let the first test of Christianity’s reasonableness be whether it can convince its own adherents to shed incorrect gospels and unite behind a single doctrine. This achievement seems trivial for a religion that’s truly reasonable, one headed by a deity who is supposedly no author of
As per Wikipedia: more than 40,000 Christians Denominations?
“How can Christianity be true if there is such disagreement over that supposed truth?”
religioustolerance.org “tolerantly” defines the word Christian:
We accept as Christian any individual or group who devoutly, thoughtfully, seriously, and prayerfully regards themselves to be Christian. That is, they honestly believe themselves to be attempting to follow the teachings of Yeshua of Nazareth (a.k.a. Jesus Christ) as they interpret those teachings to
be.
In other words – Anyone who identifies as Christian is a Christian but if this is true, then this is where the water gets muddy.
Protestants (with thousands of denominations),
Roman Catholics,
Eastern Orthodox,
Mormons,
Jehovah’s Witnesses,
Christian Scientists,
New Thought, and the
Unification Church.
All supposedly Christian but quite a wide range of beliefs.
Example – Girl Scout Troop – parent breaks away from the group and starts their own Girl Scouts Troop that focuses purely on theatre and acting, instead of badges, you earn roles. Sell performance tickets instead of cookies. The new troop would be so different no one would consider them a Girl Scout Troop
Allowing
Essential Biblical Based Doctrines
We need to identify the standards of “membership” for us from the Bible:
- The
- Salvation by
- The
- The
-
- The
- Jesus is the
- The Bible is the
So we see – Christian by name only, but not in Belief
Christian Denomination: Unity, Not Uniformity
In Essentials – Unity
In Non-Essentials – Liberty
In All Things - Charity
Most denominations agree on the Essentials, it is in the non-essential where there is disagreement and it is at this level where the majority of the debates happen within the church.
Some disagreements are
Last Points
Vast Majority of Christians belong to a handful of denominations (40,000 plus on Wikipedia includes minor church splits but we wouldn’t classify as a denomination)
Disagreement is not
QUESTION FIFTEEN:
Is Christianity Responsible for Millions of Deaths in History?
Atheist author Sam Harris, in The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, claims religion is “the most
Claim: Christianity can’t be true if its’s responsible for so much evil in the world.
Difference between Human Behaviour and the “Instructions” that direct behaviour.
Are those instructions found in the Bible?
We should only fault Christianity for the alleged millions of deaths if support for the actions leading to those deaths is found in Scripture.
Otherwise, we should
According to the Encyclopedia of Wars, out of all 1,763 known/recorded historical conflicts, 121, or 6.87%, had religion as their primary cause.
(Axelrod, Alan; Phillips, Charles, eds. (2004). Encyclopedia of Wars (Vol.3). Facts on File. pp. 1484–1485 “Religious wars”. ISBN 0816028516)
Matthew White’s The Great Big Book of Horrible Things gives religion as the primary cause of 11 of the world’s 100 deadliest atrocities. (4 are debatable)
(Matthew White (2011). The Great Big Book of Horrible Things. W.W. Norton & Company. p. 544. ISBN 978-0-393-08192-3.)
Evaluating the Crusades, Inquisition, and Witch Hunts
The Crusades
What Happened?
Muhammad born in 570 and died in 632, founded Islam
Within 80 years, Islam dominant religion in the Middle East, North Africa and Southern Spain.
Muslim armies of the Seljuk Turks making attempts to take Constantinople (MAP C1090) (modern day Istanbul) so Emperor Alexius Comnenus sends a letter to Pope Urban II in 1095 and pleads for help. He responds and sparks the first of a series of Nine Crusades.
End result, anywhere from 1-3 million deaths including Europeans, Muslims and Jews.
Is Christianity to Blame?
No Biblical Mandate to fight for land under Christian rule
Christian belief is that we are Peacemakers (Luke 1:79, Matthew 5:44; Matthew 5:9; psalm 34:14)
Sceptics point to Matthew 10:34, 38-39
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword… Whoever does not take his Cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
But they
Witch Hunt
What Happened?
Started in the Middle Ages BETWEEN 1400 AND 1782
The Salem Witch Trials is a good example.
Believed the world would end and satan would step up his game so people became paranoid. Reached its peak in the 16th and 17th Centuries and went as far as the US.
Is Christianity to Blame?
OT Law requires we execute witches and sorceress, mediums and necromancers etc
But these people did not separate Old from New as the OT is for Israel and the laws pertaining to that.
Under NT Law, we are through Christ to set the Captives free
See Acts 16:16-18 – Fortune Telling Slave Girl
See Act 8:17-24 – Simon the Sorcerer
Both called to Repent and to be set free – one did, one didn’t.
What About Millions of Deaths Not Attributable to Christianity?
The rule of Mao Zedong, founder of the People’s Republic of China, resulted in the deaths of 40-70 million people from starvation, forced labor, and executions.
The regime of Joseph Stalin, communist dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1929 to 1953, led to 20-60 million deaths from artificial famine, executions, and forced labor.
Adolph Hitler and his Nazi party were responsible for the genocide of about 6 million Jews (and other victims deemed racially inferior) during World War II.
Rwandan Genocide of ‘94: in a space of 3 months, estimated 800,000 people dead
It’s The Person
If Christianity didn’t exist, Crusades and Witch Hunts would not have happened.
The problem is not the belief structure, the responsibility lies with its people who do wrong nad have selfish pursuits.
“What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them” (James 4:1,2, NLT).
Distinguish Between
What People
What They
What Their
QUESTION SIXTEEN:
Are Christians Less Intelligent Than Atheists?
This question is from a quiz given in July 2014 to Psychology students at Ohio State University: Theo has an IQ of 100 and Aine has an IQ of 125 - which statement can you expect to be true?
A) Aine earns less money than Theo
B) Theo is more liberal than Aine
C) Theo is an atheist while Aine is a Christian
D) Theo is a Christian while Aine is an atheist
The correct answer to the quiz (according to the lecturer)? D
You may assume that this is an example of baseless bias against religion but unfortunately it is not. It is true that this particular question was worded very poorly but it is also true that some studies have found a negative relationship between
We are going to look at these studies in case you ever get confronted with them but before we do remember: Even if it was possible to accurately determine that one group is smarter than the other, it does not tell us anything about the truth or validity of that group’s beliefs. You can be smart and still believe a lie…
The 2 Major studies done:
Country-Level Study
Individual-Level Study
Science doesn’t say anything, Scientists do! - Dr Frank Turek
Ever wonder why there is such varying contradictory information about Covid? It is because of this statement.
If you are not a numbers geek, you can go into snooze mode now. I’ll wake you up toward the end for the conclusion. If you are a numbers geek, forgive me for dumbing the language down for us mortals to understand
COUNTRY LEVEL STUDY:
In 2009 Researchers compared the average national IQ with the national percentage of atheists for 137 countries and concluded “the higher the IQ the less likely the people are to be religious”
Challenges against the study:
The validity of measures use to determine INTELLIGENCE and ATHEISM is questionable.
Measuring national intelligence is controversial as it does not take into account the complexities of environment, education, literacy, nutrition and health care. This means that IQ numbers will vary across nations due to a wide variety of factors that was not taken into account and it makes cross country comparison difficult.
Calculating the percentage of Atheists or Religious persons is equally difficult because of
- Low response rates
- Weakness in random sample selection
- Regime (government) or peer pressure influencing responses
Terminological variation between cultures (eg meaning of the words ‘religious’ or ‘secular’)
- More detailed analysis of the raw data shows the relationship between atheism and intelligence is limited to countries within a specific national IQ range only.
- Data shows the effect seen is mostly limited to countries with a national IQ between 85-95. Countries below and above this average showed zero statistical relationship between intelligence and atheism.
- Only 38 countries of the 137 therefor showed a statistical relationship.
PERSPECTIVE: if each country was a person then 99 of them showed no relationship between their IQ and religion. Only 38 people showed a possible relation between the two (that’s only 28%)
The countries that did show some relationship are all located in Central Asia, South East Asia and South America suggesting underlying region-specific factors playing a role.
INDIVIDUAL LEVEL STUDY:
In 2013 Researchers pulled together all past studies conducted on this topic for individual persons.(There was 63 such studies.)
- 35 Showed ‘atheists are smarter’
- 2 Showed ‘religious people are smarter’
- 26 Showed NO significant relationship
Saying that atheists are smarter ignores almost HALF of all the studies ever done. Combining all these individual studies is problematic because they vary extensively on who was studied (age & background, how many people were studied (sizes ranged from 20 people to 14000 people), when the studies were conducted (over 84yrs), what measures were used to determine religion (church attendance vs ‘raised christian’) and what tests were used to establish intelligence (university entrance exams vs vocabulary test).
Cornell Stats prof William Briggs said: “Data of every flavour was observed, data that should not be mixed without an idea of how to combine it”. - like making a cake with tomato sauce and bully beef.
Even if we accepted the data could be combined it showed:
- Religious behaviour had no relationship to intelligence
- Religious belief had no relationship to intelligence in teenagers
- Religious belief had a weak negative relationship to intelligence in students and adults
- The results said atheists are smarter but the mathematical magnitude of that is very small. The majority of factors that impact religious beliefs are factors other than intelligence.
The stats can be boring or confusing for most of us but for those who dozed off, wake up. This is the important part: What does the Bible say about intelligence and faith?
Belief is not a function of the mind, it is of the heart. People without the Holy Spirit’s leading do not accept the things that come from God and consider them foolishness (1 Cor 2:14). The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God (Rom 8:7).
BUT We should not leave our minds out of our faith. Love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (Mat 22:37). Do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil but in your thinking be mature (1 Cor 14:20).
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ (2 Cor 10:5)
The Bible warns us agains SELF RELIANT thinking. Not against thinking. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding (Prov 3:5)
An atheist friend of my sister once invited me to lunch and after about 2hours of conversation he commented. “You are a very interesting person and you seem so intelligent and well informed, but then you bring up religion and faith and I have to ask how can a smart person believe in a god”
This is a