Is Belief in God Dangerously Irrational?

Catherine Creighton

01524028

Spring 2016

Word Count: 4, 810 (excluding Bibliography)

Introduction

In the nineteenth century, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche famously declared,

“God is dead.”1 Reason was believed to have triumphed over superstition. Humanity had

evolved, and progress was inevitable. As secular historian W. E. H. Lecky proclaimed, a

“superstitious age…must necessarily decline before a new stage of progress can be attained.”2

Sigmund Freud had reduced religion to a neurosis and wish-fulfillment3 while Karl Marx had

reduced it to a drug (“opium of the people”) in a historic class struggle.4

Such reductionism has continued to this day. The rhetoric, however, has become even

more emphatic. Some, like sociologist Timothy McGettigan, continue the nineteenth century

tradition, dismissing God as “a supernatural conceptual construct” and, therefore, irrelevant.5 But

for evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, God is a delusion,6 for psychologist Darrel W. Ray,

he’s a virus,7 with many concluding that belief in God is “dangerous to humanity.”

8

But is God irrelevant? Is God a delusion or a virus to be eradicated at all costs? Is belief

in God dangerous to society? This paper will demonstrate that the skeptic’s confidence is

1 Friedrich Nietzsche, “Parable of a Madman,” in Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft [The Gay Science], ed. and trans.

Walter Kaufmann (1882; repr., New York: Vintage, 1974), 181-82, accessed January 16, 2016,

https://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/nietzsche-madman.asp. 2 W. E. H. Lecky, History of European Morals: From Augustus to Charlemagne, authorized copyright edition

(1869; repr., London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1913), 1:142-43, accessed January 14, 2016,

https://archive.org/stream/historyofeuropea0leckuoft#page/n169/mode/2up. 3 “Freud and Religion,” Freud Museum, accessed January 20, 2016,

http://www.freud.org.uk/education/topic/10573/freud-and-religion. 4 Karl Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction,” Deutsch-Französische

Jahrbücher (February 10, 1844), accessed January 20, 2016,

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm. 5 Timothy McGettigan, “God Is Irrelevant,” The Socjournal (blog), June 25, 2013, accessed January 16, 2016,

http://www.sociology.org/god-is-irrelevant. 6 Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006).

7 Darrel W. Ray, Ed. D., The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture (Bonner Springs, KS: IPC

Press, 2009). 8 “Why Belief in God Is Dangerous to Humanity,” The Church of Reality, accessed January 16, 2015,

http://www.churchofreality.org/wisdom/does_god_exist/god/why_belief_in_god_is_dangerous_to_humanity.html.

2

misplaced, that their own worldview is fraught with contradiction and inconsistencies, and that

belief in God is warranted, rational, and reasonable.

Belief in God Causes Violence

If belief in God is dangerous, “a living spring of violence,”9 poisoning everything,

10 then

humanity should dispense “with the dogma of faith,”11

as atheist philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris recommends. This would include religious morality. The assumptions are that

humanity is essentially good, and that religion corrupts, as Christopher Hitchens opined:

“Religion makes people do wicked things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. It doesn’t make them

behave better—it makes them behave worse.”12

One of the problems with these diatribes against religious belief is that religion is

presented as if it were some universal entity. But as Alister McGrath explains, “individual

religions exist; ‘religion’ doesn’t.”13

Atheists tend to lump all religions together as if they were all

equally guilty of causing violence. However, Islamic fundamentalists should be distinguished

from Amish pacifists; and anyone who does a modicum of research would notice the

fundamental differences between different religious beliefs and practices.

Another problem is that New Atheists routinely bring up the evils of the Crusades and the

Spanish Inquisition as if those evils represented Christian belief. But, as mathematician John

Lennox observes, they “inexcusably confuse the evils of renegade Christendom with the

9 Sam Harris, “The Virus of Religious Moderation,” Sam Harris (blog), March 19, 2005, accessed January 19, 2016,

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-virus-of-religious-moderation. 10

Christopher Hitchens, “God Is Not Great,” Slate (blog), April 25, 2007, accessed January 19, 2016,

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/features/2007/god_is_not_great/religion_poisons_e

verything.html. 11

Sam Harris, “The Virus of Religious Moderation.” 12

Christopher Hitchens, interviewed by Jon Wiener, June 6, 2007, “Christopher Hitchens: Religion Poisons

Everything,” truthdig, accessed January 20, 2016,

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070606_christopher_hitchens_religion_poisons_everything. 13

Alister McGrath, “Is Religion Evil?,” in God is Great, God is Good: Why Believing in God Is Reasonable and

Responsible, ed. William Lane Craig and Chad Meister (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), 122.

3

teachings of Christ, and thus think that violence is part and parcel of the Christian faith; whereas

the Christian faith itself actually explicitly repudiates violence and religious exploitation. The

New Atheists ought to be applauding Christ, not condemning him.”14

Moreover, if one must bring up the evils, what about the good? After all, the institution of

medieval Christian universities made freedom of inquiry and debate possible. Byzantine

hospitals provided specialized and advanced free medical care, preparing the way for medieval

medical facilities which cared for the poor.15

In modern times there are people like Mother

Teresa and others who voluntarily aid those in need, following Christ’s model of sacrificial love.

It is interesting that Nietzsche deplored this “slave morality” and “religion of pity” because it

deprived humanity of its strength, preventing us from achieving greatness – the “will to

power.”16

Similarly, Dawkins calls Christian saints “Suckers” because they go too far in their

sacrificial altruism, repaying evil with good and expecting nothing in return. Atheist philosopher

J. L. Mackie explains that it “endangers the healthy Grudger strategy,” Grudgers being those

who only give to those who will reciprocate (reciprocal “altruism”).17

Hitchens even claimed that

Martin Luther King, Jr. wasn’t a Christian because he didn’t commit violence.18

So which is it?

Are Christians violent or not? Is repaying evil with evil preferred or not? Does belief in God

cause violence or prevent it?!

But even worse, in failing to distinguish between “religion” and “worldview,” skeptics

overlook the secular worldviews and political movements that also produce extremism and

14

John Lennox, Gunning for God: Why the New Atheists Are Missing the Target (Oxford: Lion Hudson plc, 2011),

68. 15

David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and its Fashionable Enemies (New Haven: Yale

University Press, 2009), 71-72. 16

Friedrich Nietzsche, “The Transvaluation of Values,” in Ethical Theory: Classic and Contemporary Readings, 4th

ed., ed. Louis P. Pojman (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002), 129-34. 17

J. L. Mackie, “The Law of the Jungle: Evolution and Morality,” in Ethical Theory, 680. 18

Christopher Hitchens, ““Christopher Hitchens: Religion Poisons Everything.” Rather than following Jesus’

example, Hitchens seemed to think that Christians are supposed to follow Old Testament conquest practices.

4

fanaticism. For instance, consider Marxism in communist regimes like the former Soviet Union,

Communist China, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, North Korea, and Tito’s Yugoslavia.

Were such state atheist regimes more enlightened and free from violence? On the contrary, R. J.

Rummel’s statistical evidence for “democide,” or murder by a government, revealed that “the

communist [governments] probably have murdered something like 110,000,000, or near two-

thirds of all those killed by all governments, quasi-governments, and guerrillas from 1900 to

1987.”19

Given the above, and considering the atheist agenda in the Soviet Union to eliminate

religion,20

the skeptic cannot say that belief in God caused such violence. Rather, fanaticism and

political extremism are the real causes. Yet skeptics still insist that there’s no such thing as “a

‘pure’ secular society without any traces of religion.”21

In fact, Hitchens believed that Hitler’s

Catholicism influenced him, and Stalin’s ability to rule was based on hundreds of years of

believing that Russia’s leader, the czar, was close to God.22

How interesting that atheists are

happy to acknowledge Christianity’s influence when it comes to violence, but they reject such

influence when it comes to their moral values. Even so, Stalin’s regime is what systematically

and violently eliminated religion, not the exploited masses, “the pool of servility and docility.”23

It was Stalin’s regime that was motivated by an atheist agenda. At any rate, it is foolish to think

that Hitler and Stalin were influenced by belief in God, wholesale or by just a trace, as David

Berlinski emphatically proclaims:

19

R. J. Rummel, “How Many Did Communist Regimes Murder?,” Powerkills, November 1993, accessed

January 16, 2016, http://hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM. 20

Alister McGrath, “Is Religion Evil?,” 127. 21

Avi Sagi and Daniel Statman, Religion and Morality, trans. Batya Stein (Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1995), 107-11,

quoted in Jeffery Jay Lowder, “An Emotional Tirade Against Atheism,” The Secular Web (blog), May 21, 2000,

accessed January 29, 2016, http://infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/zacharias.html#7. 22

Christopher Hitchens, “Christopher Hitchens” Religion Poisons Everything.” 23

Ibid.

5

What Hitler did not believe and what Stalin did not believe and what Mao did not believe

and what the SS did not believe and what the Gestapo did not believe and what the

NKVD did not believe and what the commissars, functionaries, swaggering executioners,

Nazi doctors, Communist Party theoreticians, intellectuals, Brown Shirts, Black Shirts,

gauleiters, and a thousand party hacks did not believe was that God was watching what

they were doing. And as far as we can tell, very few of those carrying out the horrors of

the twentieth century worried overmuch that God was watching what they were doing

either. That is, after all, the meaning of a secular society.24

The fact is that extreme ideologies, religious or not, can lead to atrocious behavior. As McGrath

notes, humanity is “capable of both violence and moral excellence…provoked by worldviews,

religious or otherwise.”25

Removing belief in God does not remove tendencies to seek

transcendence and abuse ideals. In fact, societies which remove belief in God tend to

“transcendentalize alternatives,” such as liberty and equality in the French Revolution;26

and any

transcendentalized ideal can also be abused.

How strange then that Dawkins, admitting his Pollyanna tendencies, would believe “that

people would remain good when unobserved and unpoliced by God.”27

It would seem like the

author of The God Delusion is himself deluded. Aside from contradicting the above historical

evidence, if people were by nature good, then why would societies require law enforcement?

“Do you lock your door at night?,” Ravi Zacharias asked in response to the question, “Why are

you so afraid of subjective moral reasoning?”28

People lock their doors at night because it is

during the cover of darkness, unobserved and unpoliced, when human beings can and do behave

badly because they can get away with it. Why do people cheat on exams or commit fraud? If

24

David Berlinski, The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions (New York, NY: Baker Books,

2009), Amazon Kindle edition, 26. 25

Alister McGrath, “Is Religion Evil?,” 128. 26

Ibid. 27

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Bantam Press, 2006), 228, quoted in Peter May, “Richard Dawkins and the

Man Delusion,” bethinking (blog), accessed January 16, 2016, http://www.bethinking.org/human-life/richard-

dawkins-and-the-man-delusion. 28

Ravi Zacharias, “Why Are You So Afraid of Subjective Moral Reasoning?” Ravi Zacharias International

Ministries (video), February 15, 2014, accessed January 16, 2016,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0218GkAGbnU.

6

they can get away with it, they do. After all, if these actions increase their chances of human

flourishing,29

then on what basis should they refrain from doing them? In reality, without a

transcendent moral law people do not behave well even when observed and policed, let alone

when unobserved and unpoliced.

Without such a law we end up with moral boundaries shifting according to individual or

corporate preferences and needs. Adolf Hitler preferred to train young people to be “capable of

violence, imperious, relentless, and cruel.”30

Wealthy students Nathan Leopold and Richard

Loeb preferred to kidnap and murder a 14-year old boy in 1924 just for the thrill of it and to see

if they could commit the perfect crime.31

ENRON executives preferred to embezzle billions of

dollars, and identity thieves prefer to steal people’s identities. Why are they wrong if the

universe only exists as matter and energy and has, according to Dawkins, “no design, no

purpose, no evil and no good”?32

After all, without evil there’s no basis for moralizing. Yet

atheists like Harris contradict themselves in railing against general and particular evils?33

Such

inconsistency is particularly evident in Dawkins’s scathing diatribe against the biblical God, who

is described as “petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic

cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential,

megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”34

29

For instance, Sam Harris views morality as maximizing human flourishing, or “maximizing the well-being of all

conscious creatures” (Sam Harris, “Clarifying the Moral Landscape,” Sam Harris (blog), June 6, 2014, accessed

January 25, 2016, http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/clarifying-the-landscape). 30

Adolf Hitler, quoted on a wall plaque at Auschwitz Death Camp, accessed January 19, 2016,

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Ov6BNRJGSqE/SOT3tFQIIkI/AAAAAAAABSs/izLJ6-CzTxA/s320/HPIM3520.JPG. 31

Simon Baatz, “Leopold and Loeb’s Criminal Minds,” Smithsonian Magazine, August 2008, accessed January 19,

2016, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/leopold-and-loebs-criminal-minds-996498/?no-ist. 32

Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden, (New York, NY: Baker Books, 1995), 133. 33

Sam Harris, “No Ordinary Violence,” Sam Harris (blog), October 11, 2013, accessed January 19, 2016,

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/no-ordinary-violence. 34

Richard Dawkins, “Chapter 2: The God Hypothesis,” The God Delusion (2008; repr. Mariner Books, 2011),

Amazon Kindle edition.

7

These are pretty harsh words considering, according to Dawkins, neither evil nor God

exists, and human beings are nothing more than “robot-vehicles blindly programmed to preserve

the selfish molecules known as genes.”35

After all, how can “robot-vehicles” have moral agency

and moral worth? If, for Hitchens, evolution rates “life relatively cheaply,”36

then on what basis

does life have value for him to make value judgments like religion “poisoning everything”? On

naturalism, human intrinsic worth doesn’t exist. In fact, one atheist forum declares that a “human

being is of equal intrinsic value to a tree or rock.”37

Dawkins encourages eugenics and legal

“human” rights for apes.38

For Harris, “the only thing of intrinsic value is well-being.”39

In fact,

Canadian atheist philosopher Kai Nielson ridicules the “extraordinarily obscure notion that man

is a creature of God and as such has infinite worth,” seeing this concept as “mysterious,”

requiring “a crucifixion of the intellect.” Of course, he provides no explanation for its alleged

“unintelligibility.”40

Still, such a notion of intrinsic worth would explain why life is sacred and murder is

always wrong. In fact, atheist philosopher Michael Ruse can’t help blurting out that we “are not

free to decide whether killing is wrong or not. It is wrong!”41

In other words, it is objectively

wrong for everyone. Yet since evolution allegedly “thrust [moral claims] upon us,” they only

seem objective. But this is just an illusion because, in reality, metaphysically independent (“out

35

Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, (1976; repr., New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), xxi. 36

Christopher Hitchens, “Christopher Hitchens on Suffering, Beliefs and Dying,” NPR, October 29, 2010, accessed

February 2, 2015, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130917506. 37

“Atheism Is More Than Simply ‘non-Belief,’” Atheist Forum, May 19, 2014, accessed January 20, 2016,

https://atheistforum.wordpress.com/2014/05/19/atheism-is-more-than-simply-non-belief. 38

Hilary White, “Anti-Religion Extremist Dawkins Advocates Eugenics,” LifeSiteNews, November 21, 2006,

accessed January 20, 2016, https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/anti-religion-extremist-dawkins-advocates-eugenics. 39

Sam Harris, “The Moral Landscape Challenge,” Sam Harris (blog), May 31, 2014, accessed January 20, 2016,

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-moral-landscape-challenge. 40

Kai Nielson, “Ethics Without God,” in Ethical Theory, 622-23. 41

Michael Ruse, “Evolution and Ethics: The Sociobiological Approach,” in Ethical Theory, 660.

8

there”) moral principles don’t exist.42

But if Ruse knows their objectivity is just an illusion, then

why does he continue to claim their objectivity? Why does he insist that killing is wrong? The

fact is that he cannot escape his instinct that certain things are absolutely wrong. Harris calls this

“intuitive morality.”43

Nonetheless, Ruse’s worldview dictates that there are no absolutes; and

there’s the rub.

So if morality is not objective in reality, then it must be subjective. If it is merely

subjective, then the individual becomes both moral law and moral lawgiver, conflicting with

other individuals’ moral laws. Oddly enough, skeptics fail to see how their subjective moral law

has somehow become objective for everyone else. Thus, not only is subjective morality self-

contradictory, but it leads to tyranny and confusion. In defining morality, therefore, the skeptic

becomes tangled and trapped in logical incoherence, as Zacharias observes. “And when

coherence breaks down, there’s an implosion and a self-destructive mood sets in.”44

Human

nature is not essentially good, but requires a higher, transcendent moral authority. Without it,

society breaks down, implodes, and self-destructs.

Belief in God Inflicted On Children

If it’s fanaticism and not belief in God that causes violence, then what about the claim

that belief in God is harmful to children because it is supernatural nonsense at best and mental

abuse at worst? Some legal experts have suggested that parental child-rearing rights in religious

contexts are “illegitimate” and “inconsistent with well-established legal principles” because a

42

Michael Ruse, “Evolution and Ethics,” 661. 43

Sam Harris, “Thinking About Good and Evil,” Sam Harris (blog), December 14, 2013, accessed January 25,

2016, http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/thinking-about-go. 44

Ravi Zacharias, interviewed by Anthony C. Hayes, “Ravi Zacharias: Christian apologist proclaims a reasonable

faith,” Baltimore Post-Examiner, May 24, 2015, accessed January 16, 2016, http://baltimorepostexaminer.com/ravi-

zacharias-christian-apologist-proclaims-a-reasonable-faith/2015/05/24#sthash.dMqu48Lq.dpuf.

9

child’s rights of personal autonomy and self-determination are being violated.45

In other words,

children should not be controlled. Psychologist Nicholas Humphrey argues that “children have a

right not to have their minds addled by nonsense. And we as a society have a duty to protect

them from it. So we should no more allow parents to teach their children to believe, for example,

in the literal truth of the Bible, or that the planets rule their lives, than we should allow parents to

knock their children’s teeth out or lock them in a dungeon.”46

Both Hitchens and Dawkins have

seen parental religious instruction as child abuse.47

When considering these serious charges, it should be noted that atheists regularly insist

that “religion should be a private matter.”48

Hitchens complained: “These are not just private

delusions, they’re ones [the religious] want to inflict on other people.”49

Yet if religion should

remain in the private domain, why then are atheists denying private beliefs in the home? The

reason is that, according to Dawkins, religious instruction is “mental abuse” when one is brought

up with beliefs like “sinners burn in hell (or some other obnoxious article of doctrine such as that

a woman is the property of her husband).”50

Moreover, young children are too young to have

beliefs, according to Dawkins. Therefore, children “should be taught to think for themselves”

45

James G. Dwyer, “Parents’ Religion and Children’s Welfare: Debunking the Doctrine of Parents’ Rights,”

California Law Review 82, no. 6 (December 1994): 1371-47, accessed January 20, 2016,

http://www.cirp.org/library/legal/dwyer2. 46

Nicholas Humphrey, “What Shall We Tell the Children?,” Social Research 65 (1998): 777-805, accessed January

20, 2016, http://www.humphrey.org.uk/papers/1998WhatShallWeTell.pdf. 47

Richard Dawkins, “Physical Versus Mental Child Abuse,” Richard Dawkins Foundation for Research and

Science, January 1, 2013, accessed January 20, 2016, https://richarddawkins.net/2013/01/physical-versus-mental-

child-abuse; Stephen Prothero, review of God Is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens, The Washington Post, May 6,

2007, accessed January 20, 2016, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-

dyn/content/article/2007/05/03/AR2007050301907.html. 48

Richard Dawkins, in conversation with Will Hutton, “What is the proper place for religion in Britain's public

life?,” The Guardian, February 18, 2012, accessed January 25, 2016,

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/19/religion-secularism-atheism-hutton-dawkins. 49

Christopher Hitchens, “Christopher Hitchens: Religion Poisons Everything.” 50

Richard Dawkins, “Physical Versus Mental Child Abuse.”

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rather than have their parents’ “opinions” foisted on them.51

But are children too young to have

beliefs? What about fairy tales, imaginary friends, make-believe, monsters under the bed, and the

like? Well, it turns out that Dawkins deplores fairy tales as well due to the supernatural

element.52

Is he concerned that children would never be able to learn the difference between

fantasy and reality? Has he ever met an adult who still believed in the Tooth Fairy? What about

nurturing a child’s imagination and wonder? Isn’t this foisting unbelief onto children?

Dawkins reminds me of the grim utilitarian father, Mr. Gradgrind, in Charles Dickens’s

Hard Times, who refused to teach anything but material facts, suppressing his children’s feelings

and imagination.53

Far from leading to a better society, Dickens’s critical analysis of a totally

utilitarian, rationalized society was that it led to the greatest amount of misery, rather than the

greatest amount of happiness. In fact, as Alister and Joanna Collicutt McGrath point out, this

atheist agenda of ridding children of supernatural beliefs sounds “uncomfortably like the

antireligious programs built into the education of Soviet children during the 1950s, based on

mantras such as ‘Science has disproved religion!’ ‘Religion is a superstition!’ and the like.”54

For Humphrey, however, tactics like those of Dickens’s Mr. Gradgrind would probably

not be seen as particularly abusive because at least the truth was being imparted. But what about

teaching religious misrepresentations as if they were true? The McGraths rightly ask whether

they would argue “that parents who read The God Delusion aloud to their children were also

51

Richard Dawkins, “Don’t Force Your Religious Opinions On Your Children,” Richard Dawkins Foundation for

Reason and Science, February 19, 2015, accessed January 22, 2016, https://richarddawkins.net/2015/02/dont-force-

your-religious-opinions-on-your-children. 52

Ian Johnston, “Richard Dawkins on Fairy Tales: ‘I think it's rather pernicious to inculcate into a child a view of

the world which includes supernaturalism,’” Independent, June 4, 2014, accessed January 29, 2016,

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/professor-richard-dawkins-claims-fairy-tales-are-harmful-to-children-

9489287.html. 53

Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854; repr., New Jersey: J. P. Piper Books, 2015). 54

Alister and Joanna Collicutt McGrath, The Dawkins Delusion? Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the

Divine (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 21.

11

committing child abuse? Or are you only abusive if you impose religious, but not antireligious,

dogmas and delusions?”55

This kind of inconsistency is also being played out at the higher education level. Because

of current cultural sensitivities and victimhood mentalities, voicing “opposing views” is now

considered to be abusive to the extent that university campuses now have “safe places” where

“opposing views are not allowed.”56

But it’s only the conservative view that seems to be

objectionable. A liberal atheist learned the “unfortunate truth” that if “you’re going to be

censored on the modern college campus for your opinion, chances are you’re going to be

censored by the Left.”57

Even President Obama cautioned “coddled” liberals to return the favor

and listen to the other side.58

So it doesn’t seem like a secular upbringing with a public school

system teaching children that only moral opinions exist (not moral facts)59

necessarily causes

children to become more tolerant and rational.

Belief in God Is Irrational

But putting parental instruction aside, what about belief in God as harmful to society

because it is irrational, not testable, contrary to evidence, and therefore irresponsible? The

problem is that the definition of the word “evidence” is unclear. What constitutes evidence in

physics is not what constitutes evidence in mathematics or in a court of law. As Berlinski notes,

“Within mathematical physics, the theory determines the evidence, and not the other way around.

55

Alister and Joanna Collicutt McGrath, The Dawkins Delusion?, 22. 56

Christine Ravold, “Microaggressions and Thought Police,” National Review, May 7, 2015, accessed January 22,

2016, http://www.nationalreview.com/phi-beta-cons/418065/microaggressions-and-thought-police. 57

Lukianoff, quoted in Napp Nazworth, “Top 10 Worst Offenders of Free Speech on College Campuses,” Christian

Post, March 6, 2015, accessed January 23, 2016,

http://www.christianpost.com/news/top-10-worst-offenders-of-free-speech-on-college-campuses-135274. 58

Jesse Byrnes, “Obama hits ‘coddled’ liberal college students,” The Hill (blog), September 15, 2015, accessed

January 23, 2016, http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/253641-obama-hits-coddled-liberal-college-

students. 59

Justin P. McBrayer, “Why Our Children Don’t Think There Are Moral Facts,” New York Times, March 2, 2015,

accessed August 8, 2015, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/why-our-children-dont-think-there-are-

moral-facts/?_r=3.

12

What sense could one make of the claim that top quarks exist in the absence of the Standard

Model of particle physics?”60

Moreover, skeptics often disseminate false and misleading information and rehash

outdated arguments to bolster their claim about religious lunacy. For instance, second century

Christian philosopher Tertullian supposedly believed Christianity to be true because it was

absurd (credo quia absurdum).61

But this is a misquote. Rather, he wrote et mortuus est dei

filius; credibile prorsus est, quia ineptum est (The Son of God died: It is [wholly] believable

because it is silly).62

The context is divine versus conventional wisdom, not about logic and

reason; and certainly not about the irrationality of Christian belief.

Aside from such misleading “evidence,” atheists typically object to the alleged

incoherence and irrationality of believing in an invisible being. In fact, developmental

psychologists view the innate “tendency to see purposiveness throughout our world” as naturally

disposing human beings “to believe in an invisible, counterintuitive, purpose-giving force in the

universe: gods or a God.”63

But why should belief in an invisible being be seen as ludicrous

when scientists themselves believe in things they cannot see or even directly test? For instance,

theoretical physics posit black holes, quarks, and multiverses, all of which cannot be seen or

directly tested.

60

David Berlinski, The Devil’s Delusion, 50. 61

Richard Dawkins, A Devil’s Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,

2003), 139, quoted in Alister and Joanna Collicutt McGrath, The Dawkins Delusion?, 23; David Stove, “Essay 9: A

New Religion,” Darwinian Fairytales: Selfish Genes, Errors of Heredity, and Other Fables of Evolution (New

York, NY: Encounter Books, 1995), Amazon Kindle edition; Kenneth H. Nahigian, “I Believe Because It Is

Absurd,” The Eloquent Atheist, June 30, 2008, accessed January 22, 2016,

http://www.eloquentatheist.com/2008/06/i-believe-because-it-is-absurd. Here Nahigian admits that it’s a “slight

misquote,” but his correction is not much better, “it is wholly credible, because it is ridiculous.” 62

Tertullian, De Carne Christi, chapter V, quoted in “De Carne Christi (On the Flesh of Christ),” The Tertullian

Project, January 2016, accessed January 22, 2016, http://www.tertullian.org/works/de_carne_christi.htm. 63

Michael J. Murray, “Evolutionary Explanations of Religion,” God Is Great, God Is Good, 100-01.

13

Moreover, not all beliefs need to be empirically proven. Even Harris acknowledges that

“[s]ome intuitions are truly basic to our thinking.”64

In fact, scientific work wouldn’t be possible

if scientists didn’t presuppose certain foundational beliefs such as the rules of logic, truth and

falsity, and mathematics. In addition, if a person’s mind is functioning properly, intuitions like

perceptual and memory beliefs are also justified and should not be considered groundless

because they lack empirical evidence. As philosopher Michael J. Murray explains, the object of

one’s perception could be triggered by certain “causal consequences” rather than by direct

observation. For example, a perceptual belief of a deer having been in one’s backyard comes

from observing the causal consequences of deer tracks. Similarly, the causal consequences for

belief in God would be God’s activity. As such, belief in God would be “directly caused in us by

the remote causal activity of God.”65

Therefore, as philosopher Alvin Plantinga argues, such a

belief is properly basic and, therefore, warranted and rational as long as it is grounded in certain

conditions and circumstances; such as sensing God’s creative work in creation, sensing God

speaking while reading the Bible, sensing God’s disapproval when committing a wrongdoing or

his forgiveness after confessing sin, etc.66

Such a belief is an intrinsic defeater of an atheological

defeater because it has a “nonpropositional warrant” as a rational reason for thinking the

potential defeater is false. An example of an intrinsic defeater is an individual’s belief in their

innocence in the face of overwhelming evidence against them. They know that they weren’t even

in the vicinity when the crime was committed. The proposition that they’re innocent is a

warranted belief even though the evidence for its denial is stronger.67

64

Sam Harris, “Clarifying the Moral Landscape: A Response to Ryan Born,” Sam Harris (blog), June 6, 2014,

accessed January 28, 2016, http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/clarifying-the-landscape. 65

Michael J. Murray, “Evolutionary Explanations of Religion,” God Is Great, God Is Good, 103 n.10. 66

Alvin Plantinga, “Is Belief in God Rationally Acceptable?,” Philosophy of Religion: A Reader and Guide, ed.

William Lane Craig (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002), 45. 67

Ibid., 53.

14

But the case for theism is even stronger than just properly basic belief. First, a

cumulative case can be made using various arguments from natural theology for the plausibility

of belief in God. For instance, both the fine-tuning and kalam cosmological arguments are

compelling because they draw upon accepted scientific evidence to demonstrate the plausibility

of an Intelligent Creator. The former draws attention to the fact that the universe is so incredibly

fine tuned that if the initial constants had been altered by just a fraction, life would not have been

possible. The latter relies on Big Bang (Standard Model) or Hartle-Hawking cosmogony, which

predicts an absolute beginning of space and time – the absolute beginning of the universe –

requiring an explanation for its cause.68

Second, there is also evidence supporting the reliability of the Bible. The discovery of the

Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 has been called “the greatest archaeological find of the 20th century.”69

These biblical and non-biblical manuscripts helped verify Old Testament textual integrity and

provide additional insight into the intertestamental period. The abundance of manuscript copies

for the New Testament allows textual critics to notice some minor differences and, thus,

reconstruct the contents of the originals. Even agnostic Bart Ehrman has concluded that “the vast

majority of the hundreds of thousands of [textual] differences are immaterial, insignificant, and

trivial”70

so that “essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript

68

For a more detailed discussion of these two arguments, see William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian

Truth and Apologetics, 3rd

ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2008), 111-170. 69

Jennie Cohen, “6 Things You May Not Know About the Dead Sea Scrolls,” History, May 7, 2013, accessed

January 29, 2016, http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/6-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-dead-sea-

scrolls. 70

Bart Ehrman, “Who Cares??? Do the Variants in the Manuscripts Matter for Anything?,” The Bart Ehrman Blog

(blog), June 19, 2014, accessed January 30, 2016, http://ehrmanblog.org/who-cares-do-the-variants-in-the-

manuscripts-matter-for-anything.

15

tradition of the New Testament.”71

Additional archaeological evidence has also helped in

affirming the timeline indicated in the biblical text. Certain cultural practices, for instance, like

the price of a slave or the wording of an oath, could be compared with similar examples in other

ancient Near Eastern texts. Prices for slaves went up and down over the decades and centuries,

which is one way to date certain material. The wording of an oath also changed over time.

Certain names of places can be confirmed by comparing with other extrabiblical texts, and so on.

Even if one finds holes here and there, the accumulation of reliable evidence on the whole helps

to support the reliability of the parts.72

Finally, the vast majority of critical scholars, liberal and conservative, accept the

historicity of Jesus as well as certain minimal facts or “historical bedrock”: (1) the crucifixion of

Jesus; (2) the transformative experiences of the disciples, leading them to believe and proclaim

the risen Jesus and his resurrection appearances to them; (3) Paul’s conversion after seeing what

he believed to be the risen Jesus.73

New Testament and historical Jesus scholars must be able to

provide a reasonable explanation for this historical bedrock which satisfies the historical criteria

of explanatory scope, explanatory power, plausibility, less ad hoc, and simplicity. A detailed

analysis is beyond the scope of this paper. But Michael Licona, Gary Habermas, and N. T.

71

Bart Ehrman, “Appendix,” in Misquoting Jesus, quoted in Jonathan McLatchie, “Has The New Testament Been

Substantially Edited Since It Was First Penned?,” The Christian Apologetics Alliance, August 27, 2012,

http://christianapologeticsalliance.com/2012/08/27/has-the-new-testament-been-substantially-edited-since-it-was-

first-penned. 72

See K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing

Company), 2003. 73

Michael R. Licona, “4.3 The Historical Bedrock Pertaining to Jesus’ Fate,” in The Resurrection of Jesus: A New

Historiographical Approach (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press: 2010), Amazon Kindle edition.

16

Wright have provided compelling evidence that the resurrection hypothesis is indeed the best

explanation of the historical evidence.74

Belief in God in Conflict with Science

So belief in God is properly basic, natural theology can provide a cumulative case for the

plausibility of theism, and Christian theism is supported by archaeological, manuscript, and

historical evidence. But what about this supposed conflict between science and faith? Does belief

in God hinder and stifle intellectual progress? Actually, it is naturalism, as defined by Carl Sagan

as everything that is, or was, or will be, that is trivial and leads nowhere. As Berlinski argues, “If

what is natural has been defined in terms of what the natural sciences reveal, no progress in

thought has been recorded. If not, what reason is there to conclude that everything is an ‘aspect

of the universe revealed by the natural sciences’? There is no reason at all.”75

So why should only scientific naturalists make meaningful statements? Consider David

Hume’s argument: “If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for

instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No.

Does it contain any experimental reasoning, concerning matter of fact and existence? No.

Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”76

But this

argument is itself sophistry and illusion. It doesn’t pass its own test. It does not contain

mathematical or scientific statements.

74

Michael R. Licona, “5.8 Summary and Conclusion,” The Resurrection of Jesus, under “Chapter 5.” See also Gary

Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications:

2004); and N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God , vol. 3

(Minneapolis, MI: Fortress Press, 2003). 75

David Berlinski, The Devil’s Delusion, 51. 76

David Hume, “Of the academical or sceptical Philosophy,” in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed.

Charles W. Eliot, The Harvard Classics (1748; repr., New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1909–14; Bartleby.com, 2001),

37: 3, accessed January 23, 2016, http://www.bartleby.com/37/3/19.html.

17

Yet this is precisely what scientists like Dawkins believe; namely, that only knowledge

from natural sciences is meaningful. Science has supposedly “buried” God because it has filled

in all the gaps in knowledge. Therefore, belief in a nonexistent god is as foolish as believing in

Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. However, Ruse proposes that scientists “start to look seriously at

the limits of science and whether it is appropriate for religion to fill the gaps.”77

Notwithstanding Ruse’s more favorable approach, current Christian philosophers and

theologians don’t subscribe to this God-of-the-gaps view that religion plugs the gaps in our

knowledge. Instead of viewing the universe as a closed system, as naturalists do, theists view it

as an open system, which means that God can intervene. Thus, naturalists and theists can view

the same scientific evidence while offering different interpretations.

So it’s about conflicting worldviews, not about a conflict between science and religion.

After all, many well respected scientists are deists or theists. They are hardly delusional or

irrational, submitting to “blind faith.” In fact, particle physicist turned Anglican priest John

Polkinghorne insists that “faith is not a question of shutting your eyes and gritting your teeth. It

is a search for truth in a different domain.”78

Scientists like Polkinghorne, who believe in God,

actually prefer to follow the evidence where it leads, recognizing that science can only explain

the mechanism and not the agency behind the mechanism. In fact, one of the reasons he left the

discipline of physics was because it was heading in a more speculative direction: “All the time I

was in physics, the field was driven by experimentation. There were lots of very clever theorists

around, but the experimentalists provided the motivation. Since then the subject has become very

77

Michael Ruse, review of Science under Siege, by Chris Mooney, The Christian Century 122, no. 23

(November 15, 2015), accessed January 23, 2016, https://www.christiancentury.org/reviews/2005-11/science-under-

siege. 78

John Polkinghorne, interviewed by Michael Fitzgerald, “Physicist and Priest: An Interview with John

Polkinghorne,” The Christian Century 125, no. 2 (January 29, 2008): 30-33, accessed January 23, 2016,

https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2008-01/physicist-and-priest.

18

speculative with little empirical input. That’s actually not good for physics, and in that respect

I’m not sorry to have left the game.”79

In his 2007 book entitled, There is a God: How the World’s Most Intelligent Atheist

Changed his Mind, atheist philosopher Antony Flew explained how he converted to deism

because he followed the scientific evidence of the enormous complexity of DNA, and the

integrative complexity of the physical world in general, all of which convinced him that the

universe was created by an Intelligence. His conversion, which was announced in 2004, sent

shockwaves around the atheist community.

There are many other scientists who are theists. Physician-geneticist Francis Collins,

leader of the Human Genome project, is another example. This former atheist unapologetically

proclaimed that “[a]s a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as

God’s language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a

reflection of God’s plan.”80

Throughout his search for truth, Collins

had to admit that the science I loved so much was powerless to answer questions such as

“What is the meaning of life?” “Why am I here?” “Why does mathematics work,

anyway?” “If the universe had a beginning, who created it?” “Why are the physical

constants in the universe so finely tuned to allow the possibility of complex life forms?”

“Why do humans have a moral sense?” “What happens after we die?”81

His further explorations and ruminations brought him to faith in Christ:

…after a search to learn more about God’s character led me to the person of Jesus Christ.

Here was a person with remarkably strong historical evidence of his life, who made

astounding statements about loving your neighbor, and whose claims about being God’s

son seemed to demand a decision about whether he was deluded or the real thing. After

resisting for nearly two years, I found it impossible to go on living in such a state of

uncertainty, and I became a follower of Jesus.82

79

John Polkinghorne, “Physicist and Priest: An Interview with John Polkinghorne.” 80

Francis Collins, “Collins: Why this Scientist Believes in God,” CNN.com, April 6, 2007, accessed January 14,

2016, http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/03/collins.commentary/index.html?iref=allsearch. 81

Ibid. 82

Ibid.

19

Examples of scientists who believe in God abound. Polkinghorne, physicist/theologian Bob

Russell, and others teamed together to discuss matters of religion and science in the Divine

Action Program, launched by the Vatican Observatory. Russell observed that “[i]t’s often

assumed that scientists are intrinsically atheist, but science can be a spiritual experience. For

some, it is about reading the mind of God.”83

He concluded “that the best place to seek scientific

support for God is in quantum mechanics, the physical laws describing the subatomic realm.”84

Polkinghorne’s use of chaos theory helped resolve problems associated with God sovereignly

intervening in quantum events. The criticism was that quantum events usually only functioned at

the subatomic level. Polkinghorne concluded that a “divine intelligence in command of chaos

could manipulate a vast number of quantum events with just a few well-chosen controls. The

results could then grow large enough to have a meaningful impact on human lives.”85

Whether one disputes their scientific conclusions or not, it is clear that faith in God is

logical and reasonable for these scientists. There’s no conflict. In fact, modern science owes a

great deal to theists. It is because of their faith in God that scientists throughout the history of

modern science have been led to explore the complexities and intricacies of God’s awesome

creation.

Conclusion

Although skeptics would have us believe that belief in God is dangerous, irrational, and

unscientific, it is the skeptic who demonstrates irrationalism in his contradictions and

inconsistencies; and his subjective morality leads to incoherence and self-destruction. By

contrast, belief in God is warranted and rational because it can be demonstrated to be properly

83

Bob Russell, quoted in “The Priest-Physicist Who Would Marry Science to Religion,” Discover (Kalmbach

Publishing, Co.), July 14, 2011, accessed January 14, 2016, http://discovermagazine.com/2011/mar/14-priest-

physicist-would-marry-science-religion. 84

Ibid. 85

John Polkinghorne, quoted in “The Priest-Physicist Who Would Marry Science to Religion.”

20

basic. Natural theology can make a powerful cumulative case for the plausibility of Christian

theism. Archaeological, manuscript, and historical evidence can lend additional support; and

scientific evidence can lead people like Antony Flew to God. Clearly belief in God is rational,

warranted, and reasonable.

21

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