Religion Doesn't Poison Everything: Case in Point? - Me.

In my last blog entry I mentioned a Christian friend of mine named Dan. When we had our debates a few years back he asked me about my atheism. He mentioned the obvious truth - my overexposed religious upbringing caused my rejection of theism. He mentioned how growing up in the Baptist church/school environment for my entire childhood was probably not healthy. In fact, he stated that he thought that the Christian education I received wasn't adequately "Christian" enough or "proper" scholarly Christian enough. My issue with my religious upbringing stems almost solely from the education portion of my childhood. It's one thing to teach a child in Sunday School that Jonah lived in a whale, but it's quite another thing to talk about Noah's ark in biology class in junior high or high school. To compound the problem, the Christian school I went to at the time was drastically understaffed with credited teachers in the fields of mathematics and science. We had a great English teacher. I know she was good because those specific classes were actually memorable and she actually pushed us to learn. When I took my ACTs I found out just how poor my math skills were. I'm still playing catch up in college to this day. It wasn't necessarily like this every year, but some years were more understaffed in certain subjects than others. The philosophy was sacrifce quality of education for a "christian" education. (and censored education) - such as American history, for example. I know, I know Fox News would not approve of me learning a single critical thing about American history.

I have spoken often in my blog about my ferocious loathing of Christian education in place of public education (as the sort that I received). I can blame this "leg down" on life all I want, but of course in perspective just by being born a white male in twentieth century America gives me the biggest "leg up" possible. So I'm not devoid of perspective on this, and I don't fault my family for sending me to this school. Many may find that hard to believe, but I honestly do not hold a grudge. It was what they felt right at the time. I, of course, wouldn't send my kids to a evangelical school instead of public school. My father (as I've stated in previous blog entries) is very religious. My mother is a Christian. However, I am not sure if she goes to church as often as we all once did. My mother and I do not talk about religion. This isn't to say we couldn't some day or that it may just be my fault for being so afraid to talk about my disbelief with her. It's nerve-racking being an atheist when the rubber meets the road with a religious family. It's very, very uncomfortable as some of you may know. That's probably why a lot of families don't discuss these things if they disagree. It sure is much easier if you are not outspoken about your atheism or especially anti-theism. I do think being an atheist in this day and age is much easier than it used to be. In some ways it is like "coming out of the closet". Not quite as drastic as coming out as a gay man or lesbian, but awkward nonetheless with religious family members. It has generally been forbidden to discuss such things at the dinner table - such things as doubt in Christianity itself. Books by Dawkins and Harris have helped mainstream this idea of disbelief and skepticism being finally more socially acceptable. And no matter how many anti-neo-atheist books I read there is no denying that this push back towards religion in this country has helped. The latest polls show the nonbeliever group is now skyrocketing as fast as Christianity is declining in America.

As of late, I have become a little more on my heels about my anti-theism. I can't get this idea out of my head presented in Frans de Waal's book. It's so simple and not really all that profound but it shook me a bit. He says, "The central issue of atheism, which is the (non)existence of God, strikes me as monumentally uninteresting. What do we gain by getting in a tizzy about the existence of something no one can prove or disprove?" I can think of a counter argument to this - clearly there must be a pushback against the majority of religious indoctrination being shoved in our face in this country. Religion being taught in the science classroom via "intelligent design". Religion effecting women's rights to choose what to do with her body or stem cell research, etc. However, Waal is right. When we elevate above this centuries long debate between God or no God we see it's really sort of a non-issue. Religion does poison a lot of things in modern society. It could actually be a social vestige from our evolutionary past. It destroys our critical thinking skills, it robs us of our money, it brainwashes our children, it subjugates women and homosexuals, it flies planes into buildings, and gets us thinking unscientifically when we take the dogma as mandate from God or the "holy books" as literal, but above it all - it's really a non-issue. We live in a world where most people may need to take their eyes off of their Facebook accounts, set down their iPhones, turn off their Monday Night football,  shut off the reality TV, and think a little more deeply about things.

I focus so often in this blog on the "bad" in my life - the religious indoctrination, the untruths, the poor science education, etc, but what did I gain from my childhood? My parents were and still are very supportive and loving parents. We always had food to eat, provided by my father working at his factory job. Did you know my father made most of the furniture in our house? He also plays the piano and was really good at basketball. He doesn't play anymore, but he is an excellent golfer. He is hilarious to be around and he's one of those people that you can make laugh and laugh til the point that they are so red in the face they look like they will explode at any moment. I love my father a great deal.

And My mother. What can I say about my courageous, self-sacrificing, loving mother? She stayed home when we were younger which probably is the greatest single cause for my brother and I turning out as decent as we have. I am clearly not perfect, and have my flaws like many others, but overall my mother and father did a tremendous job raising my brother and I. My mother knows children. She should have been a child psychologist. She understands exactly what they need (even the troubled ones). I love hearing her amazing stories from her pre-school job she works at now. She conquers problem kids, she gets them to love her and she does it all with class, grace, and dignity. She is strict but loving at the same time, and children are drawn to her like a magnet because of this. So the question is what positive things came from my Christian upbringing?

1. As I just mentioned my mother stayed home with us when we were children. In my opinion, this was probably the greatest single factor that aided in our successful upbringing. My loving mother stayed home with us as children. She didn't take us to a nursery or send us to the babysitters. We still are very close with her and love her deeply. I don't recall much religious indoctrination at that age but I'm sure Bible stories were told, which seem harmless enough along side stories of the three little pigs and sleeping beauty. Bible stories aren't in themselves wrong. It's just jewish mythology really. It's when we teach them as historical and scientific fact that we start to call that religious indoctrination. Maybe when I have children I can tell them all the fantastic stories from all kinds of different mythologies over human history, not just limit it to the Jewish stories.

2. Sunday school brought fond feelings. I remember my Sunday school teachers using flannel boards to teach us the stories in the Bible. I loved the way the cut out pieces of flannel of Adam and Eve or Noah would stick to the flannel backdrop of the Garden of Eden or Noah's ark. Of course I always wanted to mesh the stories. I was a huge fan of the cartoon "Super Friends" growing up so I enjoyed the all star team sentiment. Only recently have I begin to despise this concept (*An example would be the Miami Heat basketball team.) I also used to think it was so funny to stick Joseph's "coat of many colors" on Samson, or put Daniel's lions in the mouth of Jonah's whale. You get the drift.

3. When I visited my old church recently I was sort of saddened by the lack of entertainment. Maybe everything seemed bigger when I was younger, and I didn't attend a children's service downstairs (which is during the same time as the adult service). The size of the church attendance overall has drastically dropped since I was a kid. Patch the Pirate plays were so fun. I still have those cassette tapes somewhere. Fonda (an attendee of the church that is still currently there and runs the children's ministry) used to do the recruiting. She was the one who was in charge of cooking all that pizza, I mentioned in an earlier blog entry about my recent trip home (just in case you are really following this closely.) My brother and I were always dressed up in some pirate garb every few months for a new "Patch the Pirate" play. She also collaborated with others to present puppet shows to the kids at church. The music was fun and we all had a blast as kids, plus it was my first real introduction into theater and music. Unfortunately I can only get "pirate" gigs in my acting career.

4. The games were also always fun. Competitive sports is a blast. We used to play kickball at school and in church we would have YMCA lock-ins. We had basketball tournaments, and could have had diving competitions in the olympic size swimming pool if I wasn't so terrified of heights. I have fond memories of our Christian school's basketball tournaments. I won a three-point contest at a tournament when I was in junior high. That's right. And a sportsmanship award. So show some respect!! (- because I will obviously show you some in return.) Playing basketball was my obsession then. My Christian school provided me with a sport that had I attended a public school, I would not been talented enough to play, let alone be a starter. Our church also had Monday night "gym nights". Once I began high school I was eligible to join the adults and play against my dad and all his buddies. It was really completive and very fun. Dan was a tough, show no mercy competitor on Monday Night Gym nights.

5. There is a large social benefit to attending a church. Friends and families mix and thus a vibrant community thrives. This is the single hardest aspect of people that become agnostics or atheists. They have to leave that all behind. And we know that human beings are social animals. We thrive off of community. It's what led us to our moralities in the beginning and set up our ethics in the first place. I have friends that I grew up with in church. Some, if not most of which are now non-practicing Christians at the very least; some are open atheists. Some of my closest friends are friends from my childhood, which means friends from my church/Christian school. These connections are more than some supernatural connection. They are real human connections. I think this was the greatest thing church gave me growing up - my best friends. Frans de Waal writes in his book "The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates"

Research points to church attendance as a major factor, which suggests a social dimension. It is well known that social connectedness strengthens the immune system, and church attendance surely helps in this regard. If so, it may not be religiosity per se that protects against disease, but rather human contact. For all we know, the same benefits may apply to members of a book club or a birding society. Churches, however, produce more shared commitment, which does add to a sense of belonging. Emile durkeim, the French father of sociology, emphasized the collective rituals, sacred music, and signing in unison that make religious practice an irresistible bonding experience.

6. Church brought out the rebel in me. I was in no means as much of a rebel as many other friends of mine in my church growing up, but I had my moments. I remember getting "called down" by our Dear Leader from his pulpit during a service as me and my friend were laughing about something. There is this undeserved "father figure" "spiritual expert" respect that must be given to Pastors, sunday school, teachers, and any other authoritarian church figure in church. Typical social hierarchy. We are by nature a hierarchal primate. Talking and laughing during any public speaking event is frowned upon, understandably, but in church it was even more taboo. Especially in "big people" church services. The problem is my friend and I (and my brother as well) kept coming up with the most ludicrous of stories or alternative realities. Think "Mighty Boosh" meets "Tim and Eric", but making less sense. In this world we created all the characters were these caricatures of silly adult church goers sitting in pews next to us, or in the choir, or leading the music, or giving a sermon. Some stories were set outside of the church setting while others involved absurd moments we witnessed. Such as when they set the mortgage of the church building on fire as some dramatic jester; as the congregation cheered we pictured wooden sticks with marshmallows on the ends getting some of that open mortgage flame. As it's been said (or actually never been said), "Nothing more shameful then wasting a perfectly good mortgage blaze." We exaggerated everything, and made what would be boring to most kids into a wide range of comedic, imaginative stories. It was just nearly impossible not to laugh out loud at the absurdity of our imagination running wild in such a senselessly serious environment. Here's a few stories we came up with:

- Carrie's Giant Glasses (that require stilts, wheels, and a track they are so large.)
- Dale and his incredible stretching neck (plus beet red face to boot)
- Mel the Assassin (Mitch is always being watched as he is forced to sing)
- Crotch-walker (someone who could actually only walk on people's crotches)
- The Lizard (no explanation needed)
- Grandfather Clock Falling.
- "I wish I had a watermelon."
- Fonda and the "Ahh my bones" last words at the funeral.
- People that could fold.
- Buddy the Dog.
- Our Mandy Date
- Hoty assassins.
- Owl Towels. (The epic journey of one man.)
- Bat to the Crotch.
- Out of control fireworks
- Jeff and his timeless creed of wisdom, "guys, quit."
- Distant grunter.
- The story of Jason's Mets jacket and the chewing gum
- The Perfect Paperboy
- "Bobby, I gotta go to bed now."
- Who is Cindy Helmet?
- Dan Helmet and the failure of the pizza making machine.
- The great success story of Seth and the house pounding.
- Flies cover human. Human then lifted then dropped to his death. Pointless.

I realize out of context this list makes no sense at all.  So I will go into just one of these to show you what I mean and end with that.

The Story of Mitch Troxell.

There was a great man who grew up in our church and moved on to do greater things. And by greater things I mean more professional spiritual type stuff in the Bible belt of Missouri. He had the voice of a golden god (if only calling a man a "god" wasn't so blatantly blasphemous.) He always sang specials in our church services growing up. In fact we have a wonderful old Polaroid of him in "black face" (that's right, painted black,... like a white man painting himself to look like a black man. You know, church stuff.) Luckily there were no real black people in our congregation to be offended by this joke. He always sang this song called "Hammer Ring" The lyrics went a little something like this... (and a one .. and a two...)

Listen to the hammer
as it rings on Calvary
The nails that held Him captive
They liberated me

Now You might say I'm callus
When you see this joy in me
But every blow was planned by God
And taken willingly

So listen to the hammer ring, and rejoice
Listen to the hammer ring, and thank Jesus
Listen to the hammer ring, for He's taken everything
That was against us, and nailed it to His cross

Precious hands of Jesus
that healed the sick and the lame
His touch was oh so tender
Now those hands are maimed

And those feet to travel
over rough and dusty roads
Now are bloodied by the nails
that my Jesus chose

 So listen to the hammer ring, and rejoice
Listen to the hammer ring, and thank Jesus
Listen to the hammer ring, for He's taken everything
That was against us, and nailed it to His cross

Ever since he moved away our church song specials just weren't the same. The aforementioned Fonda would sometimes go up front to sing. She would always preface her off key song with a long winded testimony that would inevitably end in tears. Of course my eyes were always on the Pastor or the song leader just sitting in the front pew impatiently waiting for this long diatribe to end to not throw off the schedule. THE BUFFET LINES are gonna fill up fast! There was a handful of wonderfully terrible songs by equally talentless vocalists. Some that reminds me of first round American Idol. Praise the Lord with your screeches! Amen. Our youth pastor/choir leader would sometimes sing a special when no one else would fill in. He was talented but his vibrato was so intense he would fluctuate a full few notes each time. Sort of sounded like a lamb. Which I guess, was appropriate.

Anyways, needless to say Mitch came back from time to time to visit. His parents still lived in our small town. Even though he was more like a movie star now when he would visit, (like a Bible Belt celebrity) he would be urged by the church staff to sing a special with each visit. This story actually began because my brother once swore he saw Mitch roll his eyes while singing during one of his visits. Suggesting that he really did not like lowering himself to such lower level superstitious people. So of course as always, my friend, my brother, and I ran with this story. The next thing we know, we created a full blown folklore of Mitch's return visits.

He was clearly being forced (as we imagined - probably by gun point) to sing with each visit back. As he was on stage we imagined that Mel (a church deacon) would be up in the ceiling tiles with a gun pointed at him. The red dot from the site of the sniper would suddenly appear on Mitch's forehead. THEN without a second passing Mitch's sister Peggy would stand up and weakly scream in a raspy voice,

"MITCH! .... there's a sniper on you!"

then Terri Lane shouted instantly, "HIT THE FREAKIN' DIRT, MAN!"

Mitch would in fact "hit the freakin' dirt".

In one imagining we considered (after this initially story was concocted) that one of us would actually be outside the glass doors behind the congregation with a laser pointer. Of course the rest of us would  think it was true as the laser pointer ret dot follows Mitch ever so effortlessly as he dives to the ground. Pure ease. and end of story.

These are the types of things that we came up with, and you can damn well guarantee I am going to remember and write more of these stories .. maybe I'll do a blog short every week or so with another "How to Cure Church Boredom" story (that's what I'll call them). If any of you remember any of this and want to email me or comment with other stories you remember please feel free to do so. If there are any requests from the list you would like to here let me know. I MUST get this out. It's just too important to humanity.

Years ago my friends and I used to be in a band called "Early August". We actually had a small following of fans. We broke up but several years later we started sending out emails and myspace bulletins talking about us reuniting and recording a new song. Well, it was all a joke and it was a actually a rap song with lyrics solely comprised of inside jokes. Most of which were stories from the list I put up above.

The song is called, "Hammer Ring" listen to the mp3 HERE):

http://www.myspace.com/earlyaugust

Meet my old church:

http://www.wbcjax.org/

Meet my old school:

http://www.westfairchristian.com/

"Atheism Remix" Book Review & Comments on a Christian Friend

This is my review of Atheism Remix: A Christian Confronts the New Atheists by R. Albert Mohler Jr.

If anyone at all reading this knows about R. Albert Mohler Jr. it is more than likely from this NPR story titled "Christians Divided Over Science of Human Origins".

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/22/140710361/christians-divided-over-science-of-human-origins

In this story the author of the book Atheism Remix: A Christian Confronts the New Atheists shows his support for a literal Adam and Eve event in human history: one man, one woman. (You know, just like REAL marriage!) Dan, an old friend of mine, mentioned a book his boss at the time had written. This was the book by R. Albert Mohler. At the time this was mentioned Dan and I were having a mild debate on creationism vs. evolution. Dan attended the same Christian Junior High School I had once attended in a small town in the Midwest. He eventually went on to attain his degree from a Bible college and become a professor, pastor, and currently dean of Boyce College in Kentucky. We took drastically different paths. I let go of Christianity after attending a different Bible college and have become a vocal atheist/anti-theist. We have clashed several times on facebook. Dan preferred to come to an em passe (as he would say) in our discussion. I always wanted to dig deeper and to come to some sort of change (one of us). Looking back at some of those heated discussions I see many flaws (as we usually do as we learn more) by my tactics of debate, but the general themes I was arguing were never really answered - which seems common with all Christian apologists. Let's just say, ... They like to dance.

When I was beginning my Bible college education I looked up to Dan as someone I wanted to be like. He was young, funny, and energetic, with a passion for the gospel. He made that gospel relevant to our generation. He seemed real and his beliefs and convictions came from a real place compared to many Christians I had grown up with, those that were simply brainwashed since birth. Dan was brought up in a Christian home, but he attended a public high school eventually. Growing up, I remember he was very intimidating to me. Dan was tough and intense as a teenager. I suppose when he was eventually "saved" and "called" into the ministry it made me respect him and admire the life-changing power of God.

The last time I really talked with Dan we discussed reading Kenneth Miller's Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution . We were to complete a book then come up with a short little essay bullet pointing some of the key points. Then we would present it to each other and discuss what we agreed with and disagreed with. I still have not finished the book, and this assignment sort of fizzled out. I had an issue with pinning Dan down on a single subject. I never wanted to talk about atheism or abiogenesis. I just wanted to talk about common descent and evolution by natural selection vs. intelligent design. This is an argument that is airtight in favor of the theory of evolution. There is no other alternative theory to how life began and as good religious apologists do, Dan danced around the subject matter never specifically answering questions, instead just attacking the way I ask questions. For an expert in Christian theology (to a good degree, though he may say otherwise) he tries very hard not to discuss anything other than theism vs. atheism. Which is ultimately a discussion between deism vs. atheism in my opinion. Theism to Christianity is literally "a leap of faith" with not enough (if any) sufficient evidence. However, the scientific evidence to support the theory of evolution (that for me quite literally destroyed my belief in Yahweh) is too immense to argue. Learning the basics of evolution led me completely away from Christianity. Science killed the God of the Bible in my life.

Almost a year or so has passed since I talked with Dan about anything regarding these topics. During our lull I did, in haste, post a "KONI 2012" link on his facebook wall before doing much research on the hype (not my best skeptic moment). Sorry, if you were one of my facebook friends reading this right now that was victim of my "sheeple moment". The other day I was thinking of the next blog entry when I remember Dan's old boss's book Atheism Remix. I looked it up online and found it used for $6 with shipping and purchased it. In the next few weeks I cracked open the 108 pg. book to see what this was all about. As most atheists I've been a huge fan of the "four horsemen" (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and the late Hitchens) and all of their books and debates. I've watched the 2 hour long "Four Horsemen" video Dawkin's released about 6 times (where they all sit around drinking and talk about religion). As you can imagine I was very skeptical after knowing a little of what R. Albert Mohler Jr. is all about. I've seen him talk about creationism and stories in the Bible being historically and scientifically accurate. I've seen him on Larry King showing his disapproval of gay marriage. So in a way I went into this book biased. I wanted a good laugh. So I cracked it open

First off,

The book is mostly resumes for each of the "New Atheists". Mohler begins telling us what Old Atheism is, how it started, and what new atheism is and how it arose from secularism. The one thing I expected out of this book (but knew in all seriousness I really wouldn't get) was a single specific refuting argument against a a single specific argument made by the New Atheists. When I pause to think for a second, I can conjure up about a dozen specific arguments made by either Hitchens, Dennett, Harris, or Dawkins against theism and not a single one of them was addressed in this book. In fact, the only time Mohler shares criticism at all is when he is quoting other theologians who have written books such as The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World by Alister McGrath, The New Atheists: The Twilight of Reason and The War on Religion by Tina Beattie, and John F. Taught's God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens. Mohler also mentions Alvin Plantinga who has written a few articles in several different publications criticizing the New Atheists.

Mostly all arguments cited from these books deal with Richard Dawkins and his book "The God Delusion". Sam Harris is mentioned as the "junior partner in the enterprise of the New Atheism." The New Atheist Mohler barely mentions is the late, great Christopher Hitchens. I wonder why?! Besides providing a small resume he barely mentions his book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. The author does make a rather weak point. He states that the tepid Christian education that Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins received as children more than likely produced their devout atheism. I suppose if they were to be brought up under someone like Jerry Falwell or James Dobson we may have a couple devout Christian evangelists on our hands instead. All arguments seem to converge on the simple assertion that Richard Dawkins wouldn't pass a sophomore college class in philosophy with arguments he presents in his book. He is out of his field of study and makes obvious points against vague, ignorant, stereotyped religious people. While there may be some point to these assertions there is no helpful alternative presented in this book.

Alister McGrath believes Dawkins book "The God Delusion" is made for his fellow atheists as a rally cry to start a revolution against religion. They fail to see that the book is also written for the laymen, the average church-going American who absolutely fits the stereotype presented in his book. A good portion of the people reading Dawkin's book are Americans, and as Mohler makes clear more than once: Most Americans believe in God and nearly 40% don't accept the theory of evolution. Dawkin's book wasn't meant for the theologian Bible scholars with upper level degrees in theology. Richard Dawkin's is writing a book to reach the religious masses.

That brings me to one of many logical fallacies Mohler so kindly graces us with - "Appeal to Popularity". Our author asserts several times in the book that the majority of Americans (95%) believe in God which shows us that secularization is not winning. To his credit however, Mohler does go on to tell the global story that in countries like Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, France, Spain, etc. only 1-5 percent of the population attend church. He states that fewer than 10 percent of these populations claim to believe in God, but in America ("the most hyper-modern state in the world as measured by sociological analysis"-  as he puts it) some 40% of Americans don't accept evolution as how we came to be. Thus, evolution is not a sure bet on how we came to be (Fallacy #2 - The Balance Fallacy: Thinking that there is equality between to things Evolution vs. Intelligent Design) Within this mini-book we see logical fallacies ranging from "Appeal to Authority", "Appeal to Tradition", and "Appeal to Consequences of Belief", to name just a few.

I also noticed this behavior and attitude in the New Christians (as I will now call them). There is this laughing off, this intellectual snobby attitude where when we as atheists question the absurdity, contradictions, or falsehood of specific passages of the Bible we are "out of our element". Scholars whose whole life it is to study the original texts in their original languages have answers to these concerns. (Clearly it takes a full time job and an entire academic field to come up with excuses for an irrelevant ancient book pieced together by less intelligent human beings than us). This goes to prove nothing. This is the logical fallacy "Appeal to Authority". There is something to this intellectual dishonesty and academic hysteria that appears to me to be the one last defense before religious literalism crumbs apart completely. Before it all becomes so irrelevant and is studied as simply mythology along with the Greek or Egyptian gods and their stories. Ask a Biblical literalist that is educated like William Lane Craig what they think of the historicity of the talking donkey story in the book of Numbers and see how they respond. They usually don't or give some complicated verbal dance using big theological words that really mean, "yeah, we're full of shit. Obviously a donkey didn't actually talk, but I can't actually admit that the Bible is full of fantastical fictional tales.

For example,

I once asked Dan if he really thought Jonah lived inside a whale, a donkey talked to his owner, and two of every animal species fit on one boat to avoid a worldwide flood. I couldn't get a straight yes or no answer. (*Just as I never could when asking how old he thought planet Earth was). That seems like a simple enough question. Dan responded to the first question with something to the effect of

- Why would you think that I couldn't think these things are possible? I, as a Christian, believe that there is an all-powerful, all-knowing deity that transformed his own son into a human/god to die for the rest of the human race so they won't burn forever in hell? Why would I not believe in miracles such as Joshua stopping the sun or Jesus resurrecting the dead? To be a Christian you simply believe in the supernatural.

Well, um. OK then...

So his answer to my question was of course I believe it .. why? Because the Bible said so and how do I know the Bible is true? Because the Bible says it is? So it's just faith then? When you get to this part... Dan goes silent. See, to theists their faith has evidence to back it up but when asked for evidence it is either going to take an advanced degree in theology, ancient history, and ancient languages to decipher the holy books or it will take too much time to show me Christian history. However we, as atheists, have beliefs that if traced back, end with evidence (until the point where the is no more sufficient evidence). Theists have beliefs that if traced back end with faith. Period. The entire path of Christianity is not littered with evidence at all but faulty assumptions and circumstantial historical documents. Atheism leads us to be humble and say WE DON'T KNOW! where Christians and other theists say we not only know but if you don't accept what we know then you will be punished. Sorry - it's just the nature of God. (who we can't prove exists. Oh but he loves you too.).

 The interesting thing is the "liberal" theologians that Mohler uses to "prove" that this New Atheism is flawed are people that he doesn't ultimately agree with. For example Haught and Beattie are, as Mohler writes, "appalled by the identification of Christian theology with biblical literalism." The "liberal" theologians Mohler cites are in complete opposition to what Mohler believes. He is a Biblical literalist and goes on to offer no reason to be a Biblical literalist except that the Bible says its true so it is. Mohler writes,

This means that Haught, with Beattie, is particularly appalled by those who defend the historicity of the Genesis accounts of creation and, more broadly, those who would argue that evolutionary theory and biblical theism are fundamentally incompatible. 

So I found myself eight pages away from the end of this book eagerly awaiting an answer on how to address this problem from the author of our little book.  Mohler needs to explain to me how the historicity of the Bible and Christian theism can make sense with everything we know about the cosmos (including Earth and our origins) through modern science. I need specifics and there is less than ten pages left. I would, as you would suspect be disappointed.

R. Albert Mohler Jr. sums things up in the last few pages,

The only God that matters is a supernatural God - a personal God - who will judge. In the end, the existence of the supernatural, self-existent, and self-revealing God is the only adequate starting point for Christian theology. 

Mohler's point seems to be that the New Atheists and New Christians can meet on this common ground that liberal theologian scholars can't, that God is supernatural and the Bible is literal, and historically and scientifically accurate. This is where we are, sure I agree. The New Atheists fight isn't with the liberal Biblical scholars but with the common Christian (the New Christians) who think the Bible is to be followed as a perfect mandate from God. Mohler's end of the book sounds like the beginning of the book, or at least the early middle. We need to start from this part. I hope Mohler is planning on writing a second book because it goes on to end offering no answers, even within the last two chapters titled, "The Defense of Theism" and "The Future of Christianity" 

As I approached the last 2 pages of the book I was laughing out loud and shaking my head in confirmation of what I already knew before I opened this small book- We have not only no specific arguments presented here against specific claims made by the New Atheists, but we have not a single argument supporting theism. Oh, and even better, readers of this book are also left with not a single argument for Christianity. The last page tries to sum up how the author feels Christians must fight in the public arena of ideas for the "truth" of Christianity (giving no instructions on how to specifically do this). As I'm reminded from Sam Harris, "We are seeing religion losing the argument on a hundred different fronts." And Mohler ends with "The New Atheists are certainly right about one very important thing - it's atheism not biblical theism. There is nothing in between." ... I actually wrote the words underneath "Wait! .. What? NO!" This last sentence is false. There are plenty of things in between. Ever heard of Islam? There are few other religions out there. And multiple denominations and sects in each. Mohler is the same all all the New Christian apologists who understand some philosophy but no science. Even though they commit constant logical fallacies such as the obvious "Argument from Authority" or "Appeal to Ignorance". 

Now please take time to look at Dan blog. He doesn't allow comments so post comments here or email me if you want to discuss anything. He has obviously put much more time into the layout of his blog than say me or many other atheists blogs I've seen.  He enjoys graphic design as well as preaching the gospel. But just because something is dressed up doesn't distract from the fact that at it's core there is nothing there. There is no argument for theism / specifically Christian theism. Read through some of Dan's posts or even sketches. You will see poking holes (that sometimes I may even mildly agree with) at Harris explaining morality strictly through scientific means. You will see his blog entries where he talks all about New Atheism and some of their arguments then in the end .. makes a giant unintelligible leap to the gospel with no string of evidence to support this leap. It's a leap of faith and that is all. It would just be nice if on this point he was honest.

-Meet Albert Mohler:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhypIUOvp3s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=k_iCmRBFOPk

- Meet Dan:

(his blog page) http://www.theolatte.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quVQEKII4JY