Claim about the Brutality of God and the Nonexistence of Truth

You wrote:

“People turn against and blame each other for being "godless" and rarely ever question the brutality of the order from on high. In other words, God's obliteration is never questioned because He is asserted to be Just and Good, and since He is the absolute ideal of Goodness, humanity must be always be to blame. And so the human mind gets trapped thinking and blaming atheists or people who aren't "real Christians" for problems instead of ever questioning God or learning to dig beyond the surface level of "crime" and "sin" to discover that these are culturally defined terms and not absolutes. Even the Bible's list of sins has changed from the Old to the New Testament.”

Answer:

First of all, I do think that people blame God for many a thing. And if God would be bad, then of course it would be a bad thing not to do so. But you must know, that we Christians think that even if men are bad, we have grounds to believe that God is in fact good. The reason why a good God can allow bad is that without possibility of doing bad, there is no freedom, and that the possibility of evil is a price worth paying for freedom, and that good God is capable of using bad to make good.

The goodness of God is certainly often questioned, even among devout Christians, but as stated above, regardless of these questionings, we Christians believe that there is more than sufficient grounds to believe.

And about blame I think that Christians are adviced to blame primarily THEMSELVES for the problems, not the humanity in general or even other people. The point about Christian doctrine is not primarily that you or some others are sinful, but that I am, and that my primary task is to tackle the sin in myself. And with the help of God having success in my own life over sin, I am to shine the light. To be a witness of what God can do in my life and so also in other people’s lives in having victory over our wickedness and in healing our brokenness. And truly does seem to me that those who question Him the least are indeed the most victorious over sin. And also blame the others least.

I certainly agree that the scientific inquiries about morality or anything else made by men are far from perfect, but I am not sure if I agree with the proposed causes of it. Certainly an honest and questioning mind is important for scientific progress. But to find the truth one needs to have a believe in the fact that the truth does exist, as Christians do, and Atheists, for example, don't. And I think that a clever mind is best nurtured in a loving environment and I believe that ultimately it is God and belief in God that provide such an environment. As Einstein put it:

“Science without religion is lame.”

And finally a quote about the existence and knowledge laws and sins:

“I know that some people say the idea of a Law of Nature or decent behavior known to all men is unsound, because different civilizations and different ages have had quite different moralities. But this is not true. There have been differences between their moralities, but these have never amounted to anything like a total difference. If anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other and to our own.”

God and the truth indeed both exist and are good.

Claim about Predetermination

Claim:

“God knows exactly who will and who won't believe in Him, and by extension, He knows exactly who and who will not be redeemed. Which is fair enough, except that He created them. Combining His role as all-knowing and as creator, everything happened according to His plan and so every action one takes, especially in regards to those that determine your relocation to Heaven or Hell, was determined the exact moment God created that individual. He picks the starting point knowing the entire path and the ending point for each individual.

Therefore, one's placement in eternal paradise or eternal torment was determined from the very beginning, as since God's all-knowing and creator, there is not a single action one could ever take that He did not know would be taken and did not plan for it to happen.

Meanwhile, assuming the Bible is truth, He created entire cities (Sodom and Gomorrah) of people doing exactly what He planned for them to do (since they couldn't be engaging in sodomy without Him knowing, having created them knowing it would happen, and by extension having planned for it), just to later destroy them and have people blame the individuals in those cities for being "godless" when it was exactly God that had designed them for precisely that purpose.”

Answer:

He knows, but He does not want it and does not determine it. I know that my friend is addicted to heroin, but so long as he himself does not want to get rid of it, there is very little I or even God can do, if we are to grant him any degree of freedom of choice. Sometimes it might be good to override his freedom of choice, but if we leave him no freedom, then we don’t allow him humanity. And this is exactly what will happen in the end if we don't repent, but nobody and especially God does not want such a thing. He desires our true progress and humanity.

So you think it would have been better not to create? Not to create a person with a degree of freedom of will of his own. Fair enough. But I am sorry to say, but most of humanity disagree with you. Most parents, especially loving parents, have a freedom not to have children, but still they have them and by so doing show that they think that human existence (even as it is) is better than no human existence.

And, as explained below, not everything happened according to His plan. And, the relocation to Heaven or Hell was not determined at the creation. And, again, He knows but does not predetermine. One can know that something happens, without willing it. God didn’t wish anyone to go to Hell, but He did wish man to have the freedom to make a choice to go to Heaven or Hell and this implies that all those who wish to go to Hell, go to Hell. He didn’t design them for that purpose, but as they themselves chose it, He did the best that could be done out the mess we chose to get into.

Claim about the way man was created

Claim:

“So, He creates a situation where He knows humanity not only will be tempted but will give in to the temptation. Then He blames us for the situation that went exactly according to His plan (expulsion from Eden), and forces us to fend for ourselves. We're in a state of rebellion that God created for us to be in.“

Answer:

God did create a situation where He knew humanity not only will be tempted but will give in to the temptation. But that men and women gave in to the temptation was not His will. God knew that man would fall, but didn’t want it. God created man such that man could rebel, but He didn’t want man to rebel. He knew man would rebel, but didn’t want it.

You might have been in a situation where a teacher makes previously compulsory class participation voluntary. The British author and tutor C.S. Lewis had been. He said that what mostly happens as a result is that half of the students stop attending. That was not what the teacher wanted but his will made it possible. God didn’t want us to disobey Him, but He made us such that we could disobey. He didn’t will our disobedience but His will made our disobedience possible. Just as the teacher does not want acts of disobedience, but his will might, if he values student's freedom thus, still make it possible.

He didn’t create us to be in a state of rebellion, but He created us so that, we can choose to be in a state of rebellion if we want.

Comment about circular arguments

Claim:

"Just because people that commit crime and get divorced say that they are Christian doesn't mean that they are TRUE Christians, and we have reason to suspect that they couldn't be, because Christianity makes people good. What a beautiful argument - circles are my favorite shape."

I answer:

As you must know, making statistical inquiries into human morality is no easy matter, but the researchers have made a great effort to avoid such fallacies in studying the impact of Christianity on people's lives. But the point that religiosity can be measured in many ways and is not easy is certainly worth keeping in mind. And I do hope that if we are to make references to scientific studies here, we will be able make use of the best possible of them. And I do hope that we can avoid circular arguments.

Claim about Christians having higher divorce rates

Claim:

"In the US, Christians have higher divorce rates than Atheists."

Answer:

The obvious answer to why this is, is that atheists and agnostics divorce less since they marry less. But among those Christians, Atheists and Agnostics who do marry, Christians divorce much less. In the US the pairs with no religion report by far the least marital stability followed by the Baptist, then Catholic, then moderate Protestant, then conservative Protestant, then liberal Protestant and finally nondenominational Protestant, who seem to be the most faithful.

Claim about goodness

Claim:

“Atheists are good people (at least no worse than average) here where we have stability, moral teachings throughout society, and view change usually with an optimistic tint. It might be different if there was chaos and death, and change almost always meant instability.”

Answer:

I believe that there are good atheists as there are good Christians, but the point is not what they are but what they are becoming to be. I believe that atheism makes people worse and Christianity makes people better. It might well be just because there IS chaos and death. But digging a bit deeper, I believe that it is, because Christian God exists, He is willing to help, He is powerful and He is good.

Claim about the nature of faith

Claim:

“I have long thought that being an atheist is a luxury of having a good life. If I were desperate, I think the lie of a blissful future might give me hope. And hope is a mindset that can only change desperate people for the better. A man falling off a cliff will cling to brittle grass if it’s the only thing around, and rightly so.”

Answer:

In other words you admit that God might actually exist, only, for the time it doesn’t pay to trust in Him. I think that even now you are not an atheist in a strict sense. You admit that there might be something there, even if it only seems to you now like “brittle grass”.

Question about the need for trials

Claim:

”If god is all knowing then why perform any tests since he knows the result?”

Answer:

In the movie “The Invention of Lying” everyone is such that they cannot but tell the truth. Then, suddenly the hero realizes that he has a freedom to either lie or to tell the truth. In other words, he as the first human being develops free will. And only then he becomes fully human. Only then, he becomes capable of faith, hope and love. Without the free will there is no humanity. And without the tests or trials there is no free will.

Another little pointer: Have you ever thought of the fact that the tests are actually primarily for the student and not for the teacher? Teacher might know that you will or will not pass a test, but for you to know it, it is good to have the test. Why? If you pass the test, you will have more confidence, more faith. If you fail, it will still increase your knowledge of yourself and make you more receptive of the assistance that the teacher is trying to offer you.

Claim about the abstinence only education

Claim:

"Abstinence only education is spiking AIDS rates."

Answer:

Being a Protestant, I don't have any theological difficulties to agreeing with you.

Claim about the badness of God

Claim:

”God is the one who punished every living being because some couple ate a fruit that he knew they'd eat. (He's all knowing, isn't he? Or do we just forget that when it's inconvenient?)”

Answer:

The Bible says that every human being has been tempted. And adds: Temptations must come. Adam and Eve were tempted, but that was not their sin, the sin was to give in to that temptation. We are in the same position as Adam and Eve in this sense. We are also tempted and we also ought not to give in. God certainly knew that we would give in. But He also knew that there would be a way out of that state of rebellion. He knew that any fallen man can be redeemed.

Claim about the impossibility of forgetting God if He existed

Claim:

“If God exists, it really wouldn't have anything to do with forgetting "Him."”

Answer:

I also exist, but a lot of people whom I would like to remember me, do not. I would like it very much that people would “find” me, but it is not always very easily accomplished.

I might, and sometimes do (at least to almost the same effect), of course stand up and shout: “Look at me, I also exist!” This might help, but not very often, if I really would want to make friends. I think the best strategy for me to befriend people is just to wait, or at least be quite patient. Even hide myself. I think that it is better that somebody else finds my good qualities, without myself always making them very explicit. It is good that people love me and I love other people.

God also wants that we would “find” Him and love Him. This is why, I think, it is very reasonable for Him to hide himself, so that we would learn to love Him even when He is not yet lovable, even when He is weak. This is the reason, I think, why Jesus chose to be such an outcast. Because, so we could see Him to be beautiful even when He was not. Because only in that manner one forms a relationship. And God wants a loving relationship with us.

Claim about the higher intelligence of Atheists

Claim:

"Atheists have been proven to have higher intelligence."

Answer:

To be able to answer to this, it would be interesting to see just where this "has been proven."

Claim about Catholic countries having high poverty and crime rates

Claim:

"The most catholic countries in Africa have some of the highest poverty and crime rates."

Answer:

I remind you of the point I made earlier: Religious affiliation need not be a very good indicator of religiosity. Finland, where I live, is perhaps the most Lutheran country in the world, with more than 80 percent of people belonging to the Luther church. Still, only about 1-2 percent of people attend services on a weekly basis and an overwhelming majority being for the gay marriages, for example. This granted, I do strongly believe, that Catholicism, were it exists, does a lot of good in Africa as well as in any other continent.

In Uganda, at least, which is a predominantly Catholic country the World Bank economists Reinikka and Svensson find that: "Working for God matters" in a paper titled "Working for God? Evaluating Service Delivery of Religious Not-for-Profit Health Care Providers in Uganda"

Claim about Atheists being underrepresented in prisons

Claim:

"In the United States, atheists are vastly underrepresented in prisons compared to the percentage of them in everyday life."

Answer:

It so turns out that it was easier to find articles related to religiousness and crime. Again, it seems, that all the evidence points to the opposite direction to what you suggest.

Lipford, McCormick and Tollison write in "Preaching matters" for example that:

"Taken as a whole, the results suggest that organized religion promotes certain public goods in an economy. Illegitime births and crime rates, for example, are negatively related to church membership by state, all else equal."

Akers and Cochran on on the other hand write in "Beyond Hellfire: An exploration of the variable effects of religiosity on adolescent marihuana and alcohol use" that:

"Sloane and Potvin (1986) find similar results and arrive at the same conclusion. As a consequence, we argue, with confidence, that religion truly does have demonstrable potent effects. These are of moderate magnitude but are consistent enough to be formulated into an empirical generalization: Religiosity is inversely related to delinquent behavior."

Evans, Cullen, Dunaway and Burton find in "Religion and Crime Reexamined" that:

"Religion, as indicated by religious activities, had direct personal effects on adult criminality as measured by a broad range of criminal acts. Further, the relationship held even with the introduction of secular controls, and did not depend on social and religious contexts. Thus, measured as an individual behavioral trait, religion's effects persist over a wide range of crime."

Wlliam Sims Bainbridge writes in "The Religious Ecology of Deviance" that:

"Substantial negative associations between rates of church membership and rates of crime and cultism survive statistical controls."

Claim about Atheists having lower divorce rates than Christians continued

Claim:

"In the United States, atheists have lower divorce rates than any of the christian sects."

Answer:

I read another article called "Reciprocal Effects of Religiosity, Cohabitation, and Marriage" which points to the fact religious people are more likely to marry. The article is written by Thornton, Axinn and Hill. They write:

"Low levels of religious importance and participation are related to high rates of cohabitation and low rates of marriage in that less religious young people are much more likely than their religious peers to cohabit than to marry. People without religious affiliations are also opt more for cohabitation and less for marriage than do people who identify with a religious group."

In this light it would not be surprising if the religious would divorce more in the sense that:

number of divorces of religious people/number of religious people > number of divorces of non-religious people/number of non-religious people.

But this is wrong way of looking at this question. The real question is whether the unions of religious people are more stable than the unions of non-religious people. In other words, out of those, religious and non-religious, WHO MARRY, how many divorce. So, the meaningful comparison would between:

number of divorces of religious people/number of religious people WHO MARRY

AND

number of divorces of non-religious people/number of non-religious people WHO MARRY

Claim about Atheists having lower divorce rates than Christians

Claim:

"In the United States, atheists have lower divorce rates than any of the christian sects."

Answer:

I am really not an expert on these topics, and know particularly little about the United States, but am now in the process of looking it up.

The first article on these topics I bounced into is called "The Effects of Religious Homogamy on Marital Satisfaction and Stability" by Heaton and Pratt. It doesn't discuss the actual divorce rates, but self-reported satisfaction in marriage and stability of marriage, so it is not exactly the same thing as you say, but I try to report any related findings as I go along.

First, it is good to note however, that religious affiliation is not necessarily a very good indicator of a person's religiosity. As the authors of the above article, Heaton and Pratt, point out: "Denominational affiliation may be the result of something completely unrelated to one's religious ideas, such as keeping the peace with one's parents, or trying to "fit in" better with one's associates." Thus Heaton and Pratt use two other measures of respondents religiosity, ie. church attendance and believe in the Bible.

Now, the first relevant finding is that according to this article at least, you seem to making a mistatement. The pairs with no religion reported by far the least marital stability followed by the Baptist, then Catholic, then moderate Protestant, then conservative Protestant, then conservative Protestant, then liberal Protestant and finally nondenominational Protestant.

There are also other relevant findings, which go against your claim, such as: "Results indicated that respondents who attended church frequently, and those who report strong convictions about the utility of the Bible were more likely to report their marriage was very happy and had a low chance of dissolution."

It is somewhat difficult to get hold of the published articles as I am not in Helsinki, where my university is, and have to depend mostly on the internet to provide the articles, and am now actually on a sick leave, but I will be coming back to you as I find more relevant information.