Friday, May 6, 2016

The Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God


by Jeff Miller, Ph.D.

The famous philosopher from the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas, is generally given credit for articulating what is known as the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God, although the Bible described the essence of the argument hundreds of years before he was on the scene (e.g., Hebrews 3:4). The argument essentially says that the cosmos is here and had to come from somewhere. It could not have created itself. Nothing comes from nothing in nature, as verified by the First Law of Thermodynamics (Miller, 2013).

The rational person will only draw conclusions that are supported by the evidence (Ruby, 1960, pp. 130-131). The evidence from the natural realm indicates that every material effect must have an adequate antecedent (or simultaneous—Miller, 2012a) cause. The mass of a paper clip is not going to provide sufficient gravitational pull to cause a tidal wave. There must be an adequate cause for the tidal wave, like a massive, offshore, underwater earthquake (“Tsunamis,” 2000, pp. 1064, 2000). Leaning against a mountain will certainly not cause it to topple over. Jumping up and down on the ground will not cause an earthquake. If a chair is not placed in an empty room, the room will remain chairless. If matter was not made and placed in the Universe, we would not exist. There must be an adequate antecedent or simultaneous cause for every material effect. If this Law of Cause and Effect seems intuitive to you, then you understand why the Cosmological Argument is powerful, logical evidence for the existence of God.

CAUSALITY AND HISTORY

The Law of Cause and Effect, or Law/Principle of Causality, has been investigated and recognized for millennia. From at least the time of Plato (1966, 1:96a-b) and Aristotle (2009, 1[3]) in the fourth century B.C., philosophers have pondered causality. In 1781, the renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote concerning the Principle of Causality in his Critique of Pure Reason that “everything that happens presupposes a previous condition, which it follows with absolute certainty, in conformity with a rule…. All changes take place according to the law of the connection of Cause and Effect” (Kant, 1781, emp. added). In the nineteenth century, German medical scientist and Father of Cellular Pathology, Rudolf Virchow, affirmed that “[e]verywhere there is mechanistic process only, with the unbreakable necessity of cause and effect” (1858, p. 115, emp. added). Fast forwarding another century, our increased understanding of the world still did not cause the law to be discredited. In 1934, W.T. Stace, professor of philosophy at Princeton University, in A Critical History of Greek Philosophy, wrote:

Every student of logic knows that this is the ultimate canon of the sciences, the foundation of them all. If we did not believe the truth of causation, namely, everything which has a beginning has a cause, and that in the same circumstances the same things invariably happen, all the sciences would at once crumble to dust. In every scientific investigation this truth is assumed (p. 6, emp. added).

The truth of causality is so substantiated that it is taken for granted in scientific investigation. It is “assumed.”
This principle is not some idea that can simply be brushed aside without consideration. If the Law of Causality were not in effect, science could not proceed—it would “crumble to dust” since, by its very nature, it involves gathering evidence and testing hypotheses in order to find regularities in nature. The goal of scientific experimentation is to determine what will happen (i.e., what will be the effect) if one does certain things (i.e., initiates certaincauses). If there were no relationship between cause and effect, then nothing could be taken for granted. One day gravity may be in effect, and the next day it may not, and there would be no point in studying it, since it might be different tomorrow. There would be no such thing as a “scientific law,” since there would be no such thing as a “regularity,” which is fundamental to the definition of a law of science (McGraw-Hill Dictionary…, 2003, p. 1182).

Moving farther into the 20th century, the Law of Cause and Effect still had not been repealed. In 1949, Albert Einstein, in The World as I See It, under the heading “The Religiousness of Science,” wrote, “But the scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation” (2007, p. 35, emp. added). In The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, renowned American philosopher and professor Richard Taylor wrote, “Nevertheless, it is hardly disputable that the idea of causation is not only indispensable in the common affairs of life but in all applied sciences as well” (1967, p. 57, emp. added).
Even today, when scientific exploration has brought us to unprecedented heights of knowledge, the age old Law of Causality cannot be denied. Today’s dictionaries define “causality” as:
  • “the principle that nothing can happen without being caused” (“Causality,” 2009).
  • “the principle that everything has a cause” (“Causality,” 2008).
The National Academy of Science’s guidebook, Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science, says, “One goal of science is to understand nature. ‘Understanding’ in science means relating one natural phenomenon to another and recognizing the causes and effects of phenomena…. Progress in science consists of the development of better explanations for the causes of natural phenomena” (1998, p. 42. emp. added). Notice that, according to the National Academy of Science (NAS), there can be no progress in science without causality. The NAS, though entirely naturalistic in its approach to science, recognizes causality to be fundamental to the nature of science. It is not, and cannot rationally be, denied—except when necessary in order to prop up a deficient worldview. Its ramifications have been argued for years, but after the dust settles, the Law of Cause and Effect still stands unscathed, having weathered the trials thrust upon it for thousands of years.

THE LAW OF CAUSALITY—A PROBLEM FOR ATHEISM

The Law of Causality is fundamental to science, and yet it stands in the way of the bulk of today’s scientific community due to their flawed definition of “science.” In an interview in 1994, the late, famous evolutionary astronomer Robert Jastrow, founder and former director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA, said:

As Einstein said, scientists live by their faith in causation, and the chain of cause and effect. Every effect has a cause that can be discovered by rational arguments. And this has been a very successful program, if you will, for unraveling the history of the universe. But it just fails at the beginning…. So time, really, going backward, comes to a halt at that point. Beyond that, that curtain can never be lifted…. And that is really a blow at the very fundamental premise that motivates all scientists (as quoted in Heeren, 1995, p. 303, emp. added).

The scientific community today, by and large, incorrectly defines “science” in such a way that anything supernatural cannot be considered “scientific,” and therefore science “fails” in certain areas. Only natural phenomena are deemed worthy of being categorized “science.” According to the definition, if something cannot be empirically observed and tested, it is not “scientific.” [NOTE: The naturalistic community contradicts itself on this matter, since several fundamental planks of evolutionary theory are unnatural—they have never been observed and all scientific investigation has proven them to be impossible (e.g., spontaneous generation of life and the laws of science, macroevolution, etc.; cf. Miller, 2012b).] One result of this flawed definition is highlighted by Jastrow, himself, in the above quote. Contrary to Jastrow’s statement, the laws of science, by definition, do not “fail.” They have no known exceptions. So, it would be unscientific to claim, without conclusive evidence in support of the claim, that a law has failed.
This leaves atheistic evolutionists in a quandary when trying to explain how the effect of the infinitely complex Universe could have come about “unscientifically”—without a natural cause. Four decades ago, Jastrow wrote:

The Universe, and everything that has happened in it since the beginning of time, are a grand effect without a known cause. An effect without a known cause? That is not the world of science; it is a world of witchcraft, of wild events and the whims of demons, a medieval world that science has tried to banish. As scientists, what are we to make of this picture? I do not know (1977, p. 21).

When Jastrow says that there is no “known cause” for everything in the Universe, he is referring to the fact that there is no known natural cause. If atheism were true, if the material realm is all that exists, if naturalistic science can shed light on the matter of origins, there must be a natural explanation of what caused the Universe. Scientists and philosophers recognize that there must be a cause that would be sufficient to bring about matter and the Universe—and yet no natural cause is known. The McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms says that “causality,” in physics, is “the principle that an event cannot precede its cause” (p. 346). However, the atheist must concede that in order for his/her claim to be valid, the effect of the Universe did not precede its cause—rather, it actually came about without it! Such a viewpoint is hardly in keeping with science.

THE LAW OF CAUSALITY—A FRIEND TO CREATIONISTS

Instead of flippantly disregard­ing the truth of the Law of Causality because it contradicts naturalistic theories, why not recognize that the highly respected, exception-less Law of Causality is not the problem? Why not recognize the fact that naturalistic theories, such as the Theory of Evolution and the Big Bang Theory, are simply not in harmony with science on a fundamental level? Why not consider an option that does not contradict the Law? If one were to follow the evidence wherever it leads, rather than defining God out of science, one is led to the unavoidable conclusion that there must be Someone super-natural that caused the Universe to be. If every material (i.e., natural) effect must have a cause, then the ultimate Cause of the Universe must be supernatural.

Every material effect must have an adequate antecedent or simultaneous cause. Notice that creationists have absolutely no problem with the truth articulated by this God-ordained law from antiquity. In Hebrews 3:4, the Bible says that “every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God.” A house must have a cause—namely, a builder. It will not build itself. Scientifically speaking, according to the Law of Cause and Effect, there had to be a Cause for the Universe. And that is the essence of the Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God.
The only book on the planet which contains characteristics that prove its production to be above human capability is the Bible (see Butt, 2007). The God of the Bible is its author (2 Timothy 3:16-17), and in the very first verse of the inspired material He gave to humans, He articulated with authority and clarity that He is the Cause Who brought about the Universe and all that is in it. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth” (Genesis 1:1).

Emile Borel was a famous French mathematician for whom the Borel lunar crater was named (O’Connor and Robertson, 2008). He once said concerning the amazing human brain that is able to author works of literature, “Now the complexity of that brain must therefore have been even richer than the particular work to which it gave birth” (1963, p. 125). The effect of the brain’s existence, like a work of literature, must have an adequate cause. In the same way, we know that the infinite Mind behind the creation of this infinitely complex Universe had to be, and was, more than adequate for the task of bringing it all into existence (Revelation 19:6).

UNCAUSED CAUSE?

"But if everything had to have a beginning, why does the same concept not apply to God? Doesn’t God need a cause, too? Who caused God?” First, notice that this statement is based on a misunderstanding of what the Law of Cause and Effect claims concerning the Universe. The law states that every material effect must have an adequate antecedent or simultaneous cause. A law of science is determined through the observation of nature—not super-nature. Since they have not observed the supernatural realm, scientists cannot apply the scientific Law of Causality to it. The laws of nature do not apply to non-material entities. The God of the Bible is a spiritual Being (John 4:24) and therefore is not governed by physical law. In the words of skeptic Michael Shermer, executive director of the Skeptics Society and columnist for Scientific American:



If God is a being in space and time, it means that He is restrained by the laws of nature and the contingencies of chance, just like all other beings of this world. An omniscient and omnipotent God must be above such constraints, not subject to nature and chance. God as creator of heaven and earth and all things invisible would need necessarily to be outside such created objects (2006, Ch. 8, emp. added).

Recall also what Professor W.T. Stace wrote in A Critical History of Greek Philosophy concerning causality. “[E]verything which has a beginning has a cause” (p. 6, emp. added). God, according to the Bible, had no beginning. Psalm 90:2 says concerning God, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God” (emp. added). The Bible describes God as a Being Who has always been and always will be—“from everlasting to everlasting.” He, therefore, had no beginning. Recall Hebrews 3:4 again, which indicates that God is not constrained by the Law of Cause and Effect, as are houses, but rather, presides as the Chief Builder—the Uncaused Causer—the Being Who initially set all effects into motion (John 1:3).

Again, philosophers recognize that, logically, there must be an initial cause of the Universe. [Those who attempt to sidestep the need for a Cause and argue the eternality of the physical Universe are in direct contradiction to the Law of Causality (since the Universe is a physical effect that demands a cause), as well as the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which indicates that nothing physical lasts forever (see Miller, 2013).] Aristotle, in Physics, discussed the logical line of reasoning that leads to the conclusion that the initial cause of motion must be something that is not, itself, in motion—an unmoved mover (1984, 1:428). Aquinas built on Aristotle’s reasoning and said:

Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another…. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality…. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e., that it should move itself. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently no other mover…. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God (1952, 19:12,13, emp. added).

God, not being a physical, finite being, but an eternal, spiritual being (by definition), would not be subject to the condition of requiring a beginning. Therefore, the law does not apply to Him. Concerning the Law of Causality, Kant said that “everything which is contingent has a cause, which, if itself contingent, must also have a cause; and so on, till the series of subordinated causes must end with an absolutely necessary cause, without which it would not possess completeness” (2008, p. 284, emp. added). An uncaused Cause is necessary. Only God sufficiently fills that void.

Consider: in the same way that dimensional space—length, width, and height—are part of the physical Universe, time, itself, is as well. In the same way that space had to have a cause, time itself had to as well: time had a beginning. That means that its Creator logically could not have a beginning. A “beginning” implies a specific timeframe that has begun. Without time in existence, there could be no such thing as a “beginning.” So the Cause of the Universe could not have a beginning since He created time, itself. In essence, there was no such thing as a “beginning” until the uncaused Cause began something. [NOTE: If time was not created, then it exists apart from God and even God is subject to it. The Bible affirms, however, that time itself was created along with the Universe when it uses the phrase “in the beginning” in Genesis 1:1.]

Consider further: if there ever were a time in history when absolutely nothing existed—not even God—then nothing would continue to exist today, since nothing comes from nothing (in keeping with common sense and the First Law of Thermodynamics; Miller, 2013). However, we know something exists (e.g., the Universe)—which means something had to exist eternally, or we would eventually get to a point in past time when nothing existed, which we have already noted cannot be. That something that existed forever could not be physical or material, since such things do not last forever (cf. the Second Law of Thermodynamics; Miller, 2013). It follows that the eternal something must be non-physical or non-material. It must be mind rather than matter. Logically, there must be a Mind that has existed forever. That Mind, according to the Bible, is God. He, being spirit, is not subject to the Second Law of Thermodynamics and can exist forever—the uncreated Creator. While usable energy in the Universe is inevitably expended, according to the Second Law, moving the Universe ever closer to a state of completed deterioration and unusable energy, God’s power is “eternal” (Romans 1:20).

Of old You laid the foundation of the Earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You will endure; yes, they will all grow old like a garment; like a cloak You will change them, and they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will have no end (Psalm 102:25-27, emp. added).

The Universe exists. It cannot be eternal according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It could not create itself according to the First Law of Thermodynamics. Its existence requires an adequate, supernatural Cause. The Bible calls Him Jehovah.

REFERENCES

Aquinas, Thomas (1952), Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago).
Aristotle (1984), Physics in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
Aristotle (2009), Metaphysics, trans. W.D. Ross, http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.1.i.html.
Borel, Emile (1963), Probability and Certainty (New York: Walker).
Butt, Kyle (2007), Behold! The Word of God (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press),http://www.apologeticspress.org/pdfs/e-books_pdf/Behold%20the%20Word%20of%20God.pdf.
“Causality” (2008), Concise Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press), http://www.wordreference.com/definition/causality.
“Causality” (2009), Collins English Dictionary—Complete & Unabridged (New York: HarperCollins Publishers), tenth edition, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Causality?x=35&y=25.
Einstein, Albert (2007), The World As I See It (New York: BN Publishing).
Heeren, Fred (1995), Show Me God (Wheeling, IL: Searchlight Publications).
Jastrow, Robert (1977), Until the Sun Dies (New York: W.W. Norton).
Kant, Immanuel (1781), The Critique of Pure Reason, trans. J.M.D. Meiklejohn (London: Henry G. Bohn), 1878 edition, http://philosophy.eserver.org/kant/critique-of-pure-reason.txt.
Kant, Immanuel (2008), Kant’s Critiques: The Critique of Pure Reason, the Critique of Practical Reason, the Critique of Judgment (Radford, VA: Wilder Publications).
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms (2003), pub. M.D. Licker (New York: McGraw-Hill), sixth edition.
Miller, Jeff (2012a), “Simultaneous Causation,” Apologetics Press,http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=687&topic=57.
Miller, Jeff (2012b), “The Atheistic Naturalist’s Self-Contradiction,” Apologetics Press,https://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=4225&topic=296.
Miller, Jeff (2013), “Evolution and the Laws of Science: The Laws of Thermodynamics,” Apologetics Press, http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=12&article=2786.
O’Connor, John J. and Edmund F. Robertson (2008), “Felix Edouard Justin Emile Borel,” The MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Borel.html.
Plato (1966), Plato in Twelve Volumes, trans. Harold North Fowler (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0170%3Atext%3DPhaedo%3Asection%3D96a.
Ruby, Lionel (1960), Logic: An Introduction (Chicago, IL: J.B. Lippincott).
Shermer, Michael (2006), Why Darwin Matters (New York: Henry Holt), Kindle file.
Stace, W.T. (1934), A Critical History of Greek Philosophy (London: Macmillan).
Taylor, Richard (1967), “Causation,” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: Philosophical Library).
Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science (1998), National Academy of Sciences (Washington, DC: National Academy Press).
“Tsunamis” (2000), The Oxford Companion to the Earth, ed. Paul L. Hancock and Brian J. Skinner (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press).
Virchow, Rudolf (1858), “On the Mechanistic Interpretation of Life,” in Disease, Life, and Man: Selected Essays, ed. by L.J. Rather (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press), 1958 edition.

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Tuesday, May 3, 2016

What about bad things done by the Church?

rubbish-bin

by 
Our Creation magazine is dedicated to defending the truth of the Bible, especially as it concerns creation by Jesus Christ. In particular, two main logically independentissues that CMI addresses are:
  1. Is creation right?
  2. Why does it matter?
Professing Christians who committed atrocities were acting inconsistently with the teachings of Christianity. Conversely, evolutionists who committed atrocities were acting consistently with evolution.
This article mainly addresses point 2. In the past, we have frequently supported this point by showing that Christianity has been the most powerful force for good in history.1
This includes motivating charity, education, abolition of slavery,2and science.3 The evidence is so strong that even some high-profile atheists have conceded that biblical Christianity drove the Salvation Army’s charity and one even proclaimed, “As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God.” 4 Similarly, T.H. Huxley (1825–1895), the famous agnostic known as ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’, advocated teaching the Bible to children for its great morality, and insisted on this for his own children.5

The vital difference

About the only response that anti-Christians can give is that the history of the church has not always been good. The most important issue in reply is this:
Atrocities in the name of Christ are inconsistent with real Christianity, which is revealed in the Bible; atrocities in the name of atheism are consistent with it.
Note that we are NOT claiming that all atheists are always ‘evil’ or can never do good things, but that atheism provides no basis for judging right from wrong.
Evolutionist Jaron Lanier showed the problem, saying, “There’s a large group of people who simply are uncomfortable with accepting evolution because it leads to what they perceive as a moral vacuum, in which their best impulses have no basis in nature.”
In reply, the leading atheist and evolutionist Richard Dawkins affirmed, “All I can say is, That’s just tough. We have to face up to the truth.”6

So here we have a leading atheist admitting that evolution provides no basis for morality. Instead, he and his fellow atheists have needed to borrow from Christian concepts of sanctity of life and charity. Similarly, the Jewish libertarian columnist Jeff Jacoby gave a lucid summary of the argument:
“Can people be decent and moral without believing in a God who commands us to be good? Sure. There have always been kind and ethical nonbelievers. But how many of them reason their way to kindness and ethics, and how many simply reflect the moral expectations of the society in which they were raised?
“In our culture, even the most passionate atheist cannot help having been influenced by the Judeo-Christian worldview that shaped Western civilization. …
“For in a world without God, there is no obvious difference between good and evil. There is no way to prove that murder is wrong if there is no Creator who decrees ‘Thou shalt not murder.’ It certainly cannot be proved wrong by reason alone. One might reason instead—as Lenin and Stalin and Mao reasoned—that there is nothing wrong with murdering human beings by the millions if doing so advances the Marxist cause. Or one might reason from observing nature that the way of the world is for the strong to devour the weak—or that natural selection favors the survival of the fittest by any means necessary, including the killing of the less fit.
“It may seem obvious to us today that human life is precious and that the weakest among us deserve special protection. Would we think so absent a moral tradition stretching back to Sinai? It seemed obvious in classical antiquity that sickly babies should be killed. …
“Reason is not enough. Only if there is a God who forbids murder is murder definitively evil.”7
Therefore, the corrective for faulty application of Christianity is not atheism but correct (biblical) application of Christianity.
Given the reasoning above, it should be no surprise that the atrocities committed in the name of Christ are not only an aberration, but pale compared to the monstrous atrocities committed by atheists for atheistic reasons. Some specific well-known cases in each category will now be addressed.

Christian atrocities?

Inquisition

The Inquisition is certainly a black spot; biblical Christianity, from a human standpoint, tells people to come freely to Christ, not be forced to profess Christ because of threats. But the Inquisition also must be put into perspective, both compared with the numbers and the culture of the time. Spanish Inquisition (1478–1834): historians such as Henry Kamen estimate between 1,500 and 4,000 people were executed for heresy,8 out of Spain’s 6–10 million total population. So at most 0.05% of Spain’s population was killed. While this is nevertheless deplorable, it means that the Inquisition’s rate of executing people was lower than that of the state of Texas today, while atheist Stalin often killed that many before breakfast (so to speak). Furthermore, Inquisition trials were often fairer and more lenient than their secular counterparts—indeed, some criminals uttered heresies precisely so they would be transferred to the Inquisition courts.

Salem witch trials

This was a travesty of paranoia and mass hysteria in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. However, they killed fewer than 25 people, far short of the “perhaps hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions” that the late antitheist Carl Sagan (1934–1996) claimed. Further, they were stopped when Christians protested at the travesty of justice in the unfair trials and how they violated all biblical standards of evidence.9 Even a trial proponent, the Puritan minister Increase Mather (1639–1723), opposed the ‘spectral evidence’, i.e. from dreams and visions, instead of the biblically required plurality of eyewitnesses (Deuteronomy 17:6, 19:15; Matthew 18:16; 2 Corinthians 13:1). He also made the statement that has now become a vital part of Western justice, “It were better that Ten Suspected Witches should escape, than that One Innocent Person should be Condemned.”10

Crusades

While many people attack Christianity for the Crusades, an increasing number of historians regard them as a belated response to four centuries of Islamic aggression that had conquered two-thirds of the Christian world.11
The Muslims quickly conquered the Iberian Peninsula (now Spain and Portugal) well before the Crusades. They would have almost certainly conquered Europe were it not for the King of the Franks, Charles Martel, grandfather of Charlemagne. In the Battle of Tours (ad 732), Martel’s infantry army stood firm against Muslim cavalry, and repulsed their repeated charges while inflicting enormous casualties. The Muslim leader Abd-er Rahman was killed. Afterwards, the remains of the shattered army retreated back across the Pyrenées, and never returned.
Also, just think about the historic centres of Christianity, such as Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria and the rest of North Africa—they are now Muslim lands, converted at the point of the sword. And after the crusades, the Muslim Turks conquered the ancient land of Asia Minor, the birthplace of the Apostle Paul, the site of many of his missionary journeys and home of the Seven Churches of the book of Revelation. Furthermore, when they conquered Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1453, some 800 years after its founding, they turned Hagia Sophia (‘Holy Wisdom’), the world’s biggest Christian church at the time, and the centre of Eastern Orthodoxy, into a mosque.
In this, they were following the example of Muhammad himself. Evangelist Lowell Lundstrom (1939–2012) observed, “During Muhammad’s ten years in Medina, he planned 65 military campaigns and raids, and he personally led 27 of them.”12 In Sura 66:9, the Koran affirms, “O Prophet! Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites and be stern with them. Hell will be their home, a hapless journey’s end.” Historian Sir Steven Runciman notes, “Unlike Christianity, which preached a peace that it never achieved, Islam unashamedly came with the sword.”13

Even Richard Dawkins recently admitted:
“There are no Christians, as far as I know, blowing up buildings. I am not aware of any Christian suicide bombers. I am not aware of any major Christian denomination that believes the penalty for apostasy is death. I have mixed feelings about the decline of Christianity, in so far as Christianity might be a bulwark against something worse.”14
So, in a similar note to the main teaching of this article, while atrocities committed in the name of Christ, such as during the Crusades, were inconsistent with the teachings of Christ (such as “Do not murder”), the atrocities committed by Muslims are consistent with Muhammad’s teachings and actions.15

Religious wars?

It’s important to note that religion had nothing to do with the vast majority of wars, e.g. Hutu–Tutsi war in Rwanda, Falklands War, Vietnam and Korean Wars, WW2, WW1, Gran Chaco War in South America, Russo-Japanese War, Spanish–American War, Franco-Prussian War, Crimean War, US Civil War, Napoleonic wars, Wars of the Roses, Mongol wars, Gallic War, Punic wars, Peloponnesian War, Assyrian wars …

Christian terrorists?

When Islamic or atheistic atrocities are announced, the secular media almost invariably resort to moral equivalence with claimed Christian terrorists. Let’s address a few of them.
Regarding the IRA (Irish Republican Army), Rev. Dr Mark Durie, a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, points out the truth:
“The example of the IRA, so often cited as Christian terrorists, illustrates the Christian position, because the IRA’s ideology was predominantly Marxist and atheistic. IRA terrorists found no inspiration in the teachings of Christ.”16
Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City Bomber who killed 168 people and wounded over 680, has often been called a “Christian terrorist”. But he was an agnostic to the end. In fact, his final pre-execution public statement was William Ernest Henley’s strongly humanist poem Invictus(1875). This starts, “I thank whatever gods may be/ for my unconquerable soul,” and finishes, “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”17 Such defiant rejection of his Creator is hardly the mark of any Christian, good or otherwise.
Also, the news media were quick to label the Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Breivik as a Christian. But Breivik specifically denied that he was a religious Christian, caring nothing for God and Christ:
“If you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God then you are a religious Christian. Myself and many more like me do not necessarily have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God. We do however believe in Christianity as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform. This makes us Christian.”18
He could not be more wrong.

Hypocrites in the Church

Hypocrisy is the compliment vice pays to virtue.
Jesus reserved some of his strongest criticism for the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. But He in no way condemned the righteousness that they stood for in public. Matthew 23:1–3 records:
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so practise and observe whatever they tell you—but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practise.”
Thus the charge of hypocrisy was not an attack on the morality they preached but on their failure to live up to it. He actually told His followers to be even more righteous than the Pharisees (Matthew 5:20).
We are upset by hypocrisy precisely because we recognize that something intrinsically good has been debased and let down by the hypocrite’s failure to meet the very standard he proclaimed. Hence the saying, “Hypocrisy is the compliment vice pays to virtue.”
This atheist criticism amounts to preferring that we both say and do the wrong thing rather than say the right thing but do the wrong thing.19

Atheistic atrocities

  
The eugenics movement looked like a Darwin family business. … Darwin’s son Leonard replaced his cousin Galton as chairman of the national Eugenics Society in 1911.
Atrocities committed in Christ’s name pale in comparison to the record-breaking tens of millions killed by atheistic regimes just last century. This was thoroughly documented by Rudolph Rummel (b. 1932), Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Hawaii, who coined the term democide, meaning ‘murder of a people by their government’:20 77 million in Communist China, 62 million in the Soviet Gulag State, 21 million non-battle killings by the Nazis (including 6 million Jews, ⅓ of all Jews in Europe), 2 million murdered in the Khmer Rouge killing fields. This is many times more deaths than all ‘religious’ wars put together in all centuries of human history, and this is just for the 20th century!
We have previously documented the evolutionary basis for the Holocaust.21 This included eugenics, which was so Darwinian that non-creationist Denis Sewell documented:
Atrocities committed in Christ’s name pale to the record-breaking tens of millions killed by atheistic regimes just last century: 77 million in Communist China, 62 million in the Soviet Gulag State, 21 mconan-1illion non-battle killings by the Nazis, 2 million murdered in the Khmer Rouge killing fields.

“[In the] years leading up to the First World War, the eugenics movement looked like a Darwin family business. … Darwin’s son Leonard replaced his cousin Galton as chairman of the national Eugenics Society in 1911. In the same year an offshoot of the society was formed in Cambridge. Among its leading members were three more of Charles Darwin’s sons, Horace, Francis and George.”22

Summary

Professing Christians who committed atrocities were acting inconsistently with the teachings of Christianity. Conversely, evolutionists who committed atrocities were acting consistently with evolution.
The term ‘atrocity’ has meaning only under a Judeo-Christian worldview; it has no meaning in an evolutionary philosophy.
The horrors of atheistic atrocities in the 20th century alone dwarf all the ‘Christian’ atrocities in all centuries combined.

Related Articles

Further Reading

References and notes

  1. Sarfati, J., What good is Christianity? Creation 29(4):6, 2007; creation.com/christianity-good. Return to text.
  2. Anti-slavery activist William Wilberforce: Christian hero, Creation 29(4):12–15, 2007; creation.com/wilberforce. Return to text.
  3. Sarfati, J., Why does science work at all? Creation 31(3):12–14, 2009; creation.com/whyscience. Return to text.
  4. Catchpoole, D., Atheists credit the Gospel: Two high-profile atheists concede that to get practical help to the poor and liberate them from poverty you need Christianity’s teaching about man’s place in the Universe, Creation 32(4):48–49, 2010; creation.com/atheists-credit-christianity. Return to text.
  5. Grigg, R., Huxley, Morality and the Bible, Creation 34(4):40–42, 2012. Return to text.
  6. Evolution: The dissent of Darwin, Psychology Today 30(1):62, Jan–Feb 1997. Return to text.
  7. Jacoby, J., Created by God to Be Good, Patriot Post, 15 November 2010. Return to text.
  8. Kamen, H., The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision, Yale University Press, 1999. Return to text.
  9. D’Souza, D., What’s So Great About Christianity? p. 207, Regnery, Washington DC, 2007; see review by Cosner, L., J. Creation 22(2):32–35, 2008; creation.com/dsouza. Return to text.
  10. Mather, I., Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits Personating Men, Witchcrafts, Infallible Proofs of Guilt in such as are accused with that Crime, September 1692. Return to text.
  11. Spencer, R., The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (And the Crusades), Regnery Press, 2005; Spencer, R., Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t, Regnery Publishing, 2007; Stark, R., God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades, HarperOne, 2009. Return to text.
  12. Lowell Lundstrom, The Muslims are Coming (Sisseton, SD: Lowell Lundstrom Ministries, 1980), p. 37. Lundstrom served for ten years as president and chancellor of Trinity Bible College, in Ellendale, North Dakota. Return to text.
  13. Quoted in Lundstrom, Ref. 12, p. 37. Return to text.
  14. Cited in: Gledhill, R., Scandal and schism leave Christians praying for a ‘new Reformation’, The Times(UK), 6 April 2010. Return to text.
  15. See J. Sarfati, Unfair to Islam? creation.com/islamunfair, 2008. Return to text.
  16. Durie, M., Creed of the sword, The Australian, 23 September 2006. Return to text.
  17. Gallagher, M., Timothy McVeigh, Christian terrorist, Townhall.com, 28 October 2002. Return to text.
  18. See also Bergman, J., “Anders Breivik—Social Darwinism leads to mass murder”, J. Creation 26(1):48–53, 2012; Sarfati, J., Norway terrorist: more media mendacity, creation.com/breivik, 11 August 2011Return to text.
  19. Wieland, C., The Haggard tragedy: “Christianity must be wrong because of all the hypocrites in the church!” creation.com/haggard, 9 November 2006. Return to text.
  20. Rummel, R.J., Death by Government, New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1994; hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM. Return to text.
  21. Weikart, R., From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, USA, 2004; see review creation.com/weikart. Return to text.
  22. Sewell, D., The Political Gene: How Darwin’s Ideas Changed Politics, p. 54, Picador, London, 2009; see alsoreview, Bergman, J, J. Creation 25(1):19–21, 2011. Return to text.
Creation Ministries International  Dear  Augustine: You are welcome to post CMI articles on the mentioned website, as long as you agree not to change any of the content and reference creation.com and the relevant authors, as you have indicated. Kind regards,  Annalouise Bekker  Administration
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