ATHEISM AND AGNOSTICISM HAVE MANY FORMS

Everyone, even if he doesn’t believe in God, attempts to make sense of the reality around him. If he doesn’t attribute the world’s existence to God, he forms an alternative naturalistic explanation for the world.

An atheist is one who believes he has positive evidence that there’s no God at all. He explains all of existence in natural, rather than supernatural terms. He sees nothing in the universe except blind and unconscious force.

An agnostic is one who believes there’s insufficient evidence to either prove or disprove the existence of God. There are two types of agnostics. One type says there’s insufficient evidence now but leaves open the possibility of obtaining sufficient evidence later. The other type says its impossible for anyone to ever know with certainty whether or not there’s a God. Therefore, he doesn’t even look for evidence.

The dominant form of atheism and agnosticism today is secular humanism; a philosophy which interprets the being of man solely within the confines of the human sciences and which makes man himself the subject, source and primary object of values. It makes no room for God or religion.

A more subtle form is practical atheism; which means ignoring or neglecting any relationship to God – living as if God doesn’t exist – and orienting life exclusively toward attainment of temporal goals.

COMMON REASONS FOR DISBELIEF IN GOD

Some of most common reasons why people say they’re atheists or agnostics are:

• The existence of evil (wars, injustices, natural disasters, sickness, death) negates the possibility of a good and omnipotent God.
• Denial of God is necessary to guarantee the absolute character of man’s freedom and ability to choose his own happiness.
• It’s wrong to believe anything upon incomplete evidence.
• Religion is emotional, not rational.
• The Bible is full of incredulities and contradictions.
• Christians are often hypocrites.

EVERY POSITION IS A MATTER OF FAITH

Atheists and agnostics usually pose as intellectuals. They say their views come by reason, not by faith. They often scorn the simple faith of those who believe in God.

The fact is, however, that any position – theist, atheist or agnostic – IS BY FAITH. Atheists and agnostics say that no one can ‘prove’ (as in a court of law) that there’s a God. The converse is also true: atheists and agnostics can’t ‘prove’ there is no God. Therefore, even the atheist and agnostic positions come by faith.

ATHEISTS GIVE THEIR ARGUMENTS

Most atheists don’t view themselves as anti-theists but simply as non-theists. They prefer a positive positioning of their view; which they may call humanism, materialism, naturalism or positivism. There are many kinds of atheists – from those who are absolutely convinced that there’s no God to those who think there’s low probability. Some are silent and some are vocal.

Most often, atheists don’t attempt to disprove God but rather they refute the grounds upon which others believe. Here are some classical arguments against God often voiced by atheists:

ARGUMENT – If everything needs a cause, then so does God, in which case he wouldn’t be God. If God doesn’t need a cause, then neither does the world. If the world doesn’t need a cause, then the existence of the world proves that God is either nonexistent or unnecessary.

ARGUMENT – In order for God to cause himself to exist, he would have to exist prior to his existing, which is impossible.

ARGUMENT – An all-powerful God could, and an all-good God would, destroy evil. Since there’s evil in the world, either there’s no God or else he’s weak and/or malevolent and not worthy of worship.

ARGUMENT – If God is absolute, he’s free, and free to do evil. If he’s good, he can’t do evil. God can’t be absolute and good because it’s impossible to be both free and not free to do evil.

ARGUMENT – If God were all-powerful, he could make a stone so heavy that he couldn’t lift it. But if there’s something he can’t lift, then he’s not all-powerful.

THEISTS RESPOND TO THE ARGUMENTS

Theists – those who believe in God – respond to the atheists’ arguments:

CAUSE – If every dependent thing needs a cause (even to the point of infinite regress), it follows that there must be some infinite, necessary and independent cause; something that causes itself. That independent cause IS God. It’s untenable to say that something comes from nothing.

EVIL – Atheists actually assume God in their attempt to disprove him. For example, in attempting to disprove him via evil, they assume an ultimate standard of good and justice beyond the world. The existence of evil does not mean that God is powerless to eliminate evil. Rather, he hasn’t chosen to eliminate it yet.

LIMITATIONS – The fact that God can’t do all things doesn’t disprove his existence. Even though he can’t make a stone heavier than he can lift, he could vaporize it out of existence; thus demonstrating his power over it. Some things God can’t do because they are impossible by definition (like the stone) or because they would violate his character (like sinning). Limitations define his existence, but don’t negate it.

BUDDHISM WAS STARTED BY SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA

The Buddhist religion began with Siddhartha Gautama, who was born son of a king in northeastern India in bc 563. Reared in a beautiful palace, and trained as a prince, his father tried to protect him from the sorrows of the world by surrounding him with wealth and pleasures.

He married a beautiful princess, who bore him a son. One day when his son was still an infant, he informed his father that he wanted to see what life was like outside the palace. This excursion changed him forever because he saw ‘the four passing sights:’

• He saw a decrepit old man and was told that everyone will become physically weak.
• He saw a sick man afflicted by disease and was told that everyone will suffer pain.
• He saw a funeral procession with a corpse on its way to cremation and was told that everyone will die.
• He saw a shaven-headed religious beggar, clad in a simple yellow robe, but radiating peace and joy in the midst of all the sorrow around. The tranquil look on the beggar’s face convinced Gautama that, paradoxically, this is really the highest level of living.

Immediately he left the palace and his family in search of enlightenment and that became known as ‘the Great Renunciation.’ The former prince, now a beggar, wandered from place to place seeking wisdom to overcome life’s miseries. One day, deep in meditation under a fig tree, he reached what he claimed to be the highest degree of consciousness. After seven days under the tree – revered now as the ‘bodhi’ (tree of wisdom) – the ‘truths’ he learned there he would later impart to the world not as Siddhartha Gautama, but as the Buddha (‘the enlightened one’).

He soon gathered around him a band of 60 people – the beginning of the Buddhist order of monks – and he taught them his views. Then, they traveled around together proclaiming and expanding these ‘truths’ and making disciples.

THERE’S NO GOD, ONLY NATURAL ORDER AND REASON

Buddhism has no god in the Christian, Muslim or Hindu sense. Buddhists believe the universe evolved by itself and that it operates by natural power and law, not by divine command. There’s no such thing as sin against a supreme being. Sin is only a social matter.

The Buddha never claimed to be divine. He claimed only to be an enlightened teacher. Actually, according to Buddhist doctrine as it has evolved, he is but one in a great line of Buddhas. There have been four principal Buddhas, of whom Gautama was the latest. The fifth and final Buddha, Maitreya, is yet to come; some Buddhists have made attempts to identify Jesus as the final Buddha. Also, some Buddhists have deified Gautama.

The Buddha taught that there’s nothing within us that’s metaphysically real. There’s no ‘self’ or ‘soul’ or ‘spirit.’ Everything can be understood in natural terms. He taught that it’s the duty of every parent to have his children educated in science and literature and that no one should believe what is spoken by anyone, written in any book, or affirmed by any tradition unless it’s in accord with reason.

After physical death, there’s rebirth to another existence. The merits and demerits of a person’s past existences determine his condition in the present one. Everyone has prepared the causes and effects of the life which he now experiences.

Buddha taught that ignorance produces desire... and unsatisfied desire is the cause of rebirth... and rebirth is the cause of sorrow. Therefore, to end sorrow, we need to end the cycle or rebirths. To end the cycle, we must let go of our desires. It’s our ignorance, he said, that causes desire. Ignorance can be overcome by showing tolerance and brotherly love to all men, by showing kindness to the animal kingdom, by repressing cravings for selfish and sensual pleasures, and by developing intelligence.

GOAL IS TO END REBIRTHS AND ACHIEVE NIRVANA

The Buddha said our present existence arises out of our actions in previous existences, by the law of cause and effect (karma), in a complex chain of causes during a great number of lifetimes. A bad life may accrue demerits which will lengthen the cycle. The important question is how to end the wearisome rebirths and all the misery they bring. (One Buddhist manuscript claims that the Buddha had already lived 550 previous lives.)

The Buddha taught that a liberating purification is effected by following, with sincerity and continual meditation, ‘the noble Eightfold Path,’ which he described as: (1) right way of seeing things, (2) right aspirations, (3) right speech, (4) right conduct, (5) right way of making a livelihood, (6) right endeavors, (7) right awareness, and (8) right meditation.

Doing these right things with intense consciousness will ultimately (perhaps over thousands of years) bring a person to the final goal, ‘nirvana’ (which literally means ‘blowing out’ the flame of desire). Nirvana ends rebirths and sufferings and is eternal formless bliss. Nirvana is the one thing not caused by anything else. Nirvana is not a place and not annihilation; it’s a state of being that surpasses anything experienced in this world of conventional understanding.

THERE ARE MANY BUDDHIST SECTS AND SCRIPTURES

Siddhartha Gautama died at age 80. His body was cremated by his disciples and his ashes were divided between eight clan groups. Each built an elaborate sacred ‘stupa’ to house the ashes and these ornate little buildings became the focus of devotion; becoming early prototypes of the pagodas which today enshrine Buddhist relics.

There are now many sects of Buddhism, each with its own groups of sacred writings. The extreme bulk of Buddhist scriptures – over 5,000 volumes – makes it almost impossible for the average Buddhist to understand and practice the often contradictory teachings found in them.

So many forms of organization, cults and beliefs have developed within Buddhism – even in the fundamentals of the faith – that, like Hinduism, it has become a family of religions rather than a single religion.

In actual practice, Buddhism is often intertwined with local folk religion, including spiritism and ancestor worship, and with other religions such as Confucianism and Taoism. In these religious systems, there’s a tightly drawn hierarchy of family and social relationships and the belief that we should strive to achieve perfection through duty, learning, hard work and virtue.

HINDU RELIGION IS FLUID AND EVOLVING

The Hindu religion developed in India gradually over thousands of years. It doesn’t have any single person (like Jesus or Muhammad) or any single book (like the Bible or the Qur’an) to serve as a source of its doctrines.

Throughout the ancient world, it was common for the head of the family to offer animal sacrifices to please God. As Abraham (see Topic 12) was offering animal sacrifices in Arabia, Aryan priests were burning sacrifices on altars in India. As part of their sacrifice rituals, they chanted hymns referring to God by various names such as The Sun, The Heavenly One, The Storm, etc. Originally, the names merely represented different facets of a single Almighty God, but over the centuries the names of God became increasingly personified, and by bc 1000 the ‘Eastern’ religions had become polytheistic.

Then, as the next step, Hindus began saying that these gods are not different from things in the universe, but rather that God is everything, and everything is God.

Hindus are often syncretic (picking and choosing from many schools of religious thought to formulate uniquely personal beliefs and compromises). For example, the famous Indian leader, Mahatma Gandhi, said that he was a Hindu, Christian, Muslim and Jew – all at the same time, despite the obvious contradictions. It’s the essence of Hinduism to believe that there are many different ways of looking at something, none of which will give the whole view, but each of which is entirely valid in its own right.

KEY HINDU BELIEF: MAN IS PART OF GOD

Atman = Brahman (the soul of man is God) is the famous Hindu equation. This is regarded as the succinct formulation of the profound and ultimate truth about man and the universe. Man is not outside, but part of Brahman. Hindus rebel against the Jewish, Christian and Muslim view that God is external to the world.

The Hindu scriptures, written between bc 1400 and ad 500, are so voluminous that no one can know and comprehend them all. They include vedas (books of wisdom), upanishads (speculative treatises), puranas (stories illustrating desirable virtues), and the Ramayana and Mahabharata (epic tales of India). They’re a mixture of prayers, hymns, poems, rituals, philosophy, social law, and stories involving Hindu gods and goddesses. Hindus believe they contain sacred religious truth.

The best known and most read Hindu book is the Bhagavad Gita, a poetic narrative added to the Mahabharata in the first century AD. It’s a dialogue between Sri Krishna (the great God-spirit Vishnu on his 8th visit to earth, in bodily form as a chariot driver) and the warrior Arjuna. Hindus apply the concepts Sri Krishna told Arjuna to their own situations, thoughts and actions today.

Hindus have many deities, and every person can choose the ones he wants to worship. Even though deities appear in separate forms, most Hindus believe they’re part of one universal spirit called Brahman, the eternal Trimutri (three-in-one) God consisting of Brahma (creator of the universe), Vishnu (the preserver), and Shiva (the destroyer). These three sub-deities have hundreds of their own sub-deities, which are regarded as different expressions of the same High God or Ultimate Reality. Gods and goddesses are represented by sculptured images, and most Hindus believe that the deities actually dwell in the idols. Hindus worship as individuals, not as congregations.

LIFE IS CYCLE OF BIRTHS, DEATHS AND REBIRTHS

Hindus believe that the soul never dies. When a person’s body dies, his soul is reborn into another body. Every action in this lifetime influences how his soul will be reborn in his next reincarnation.

If a person performs honorable deeds and lives a good life, his soul will be reborn into a higher state, as into the body of a person of noble standing. But if a person performs evil deeds, and leads a bad life, his soul will be reborn into a lower state, as into the body of a worm., and then he will have to work his way up again.

CHIEF AIM IS TO END REINCARNATIONS

To the Hindu way of thinking, whatever is IS – it’s ‘karma’ (fate) based on the actions of previous lifetimes, and there’s nothing we can do but to accept it and strive to live a little better for the next lifetime.

For a Hindu, the chief aim of existence is to be freed from the relentless cycle of births, deaths and rebirths. A person’s reincarnations will continue until he achieves spiritual perfection in one of three ways: (1) the way of works (carrying out prescribed ceremonies, duties and religious rites in order to add favorable karma to his credit), (2) the way of knowledge (concentrating with much discipline and meditation on the thought that he is part of the ultimate Brahman and not a separate entity), and (3) the way of devotion (loving and worshiping a deity, in public and in private, and extending this love to human relationships).

When this perfection occurs, in any of these three ways, his soul is freed from the chain of rebirths. He then enters a new level of existence, called ‘moksha,’ which is eternal, blissful, unconscious rest in Brahman.

‘NEW AGE’ IS MODERN HINDUISM

The ‘New Age movement’ is a popular modern version of Hindu thought. It’s an umbrella term which refers to a wide variety of ideas, practices and groups. It’s not an organized religion but a growing cultural trend in spiritual and social change which seeks to throw off traditional monotheism (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) and secular humanism (rationalism, atheism, and skepticism) and usher in a New Age of self-realization.

In New Age thought, ‘God’ is everything. He’s not a personal being (see Topic 9). Instead, he’s an ‘it,’ like a principle, energy or force. We’re all (part of) God.

New Agers believe we’re moving into an exciting new era of spiritual discovery – called the Aquarian Age in astrology – which will be a quantum leap in evolutionary consciousness.

New Agers seek supernatural experience through yoga, martial arts, transcendental meditation, channeling (talking to spirits of the dead), extra sensory perception, telepathy, clairvoyance, remembrance of supposed past lives (reincarnation), psychic healing, out-of-body experiences, divination, and use of crystals. The result of these experiences, they say, is a feeling of oneness with everything, and the realization of one’s own divinity, sometimes called the ‘Higher Self.’ When we get to this high level of enlightenment, we’re no longer fettered by an external and objective reality, but rather we create our own reality.

There’s no standard, and thus no sin. Acts of wrongdoing are not done against any God but are done against ourselves as a result of our own ignorance.

Like traditional Hindus, New Agers believe that after death, the soul moves to a new body.

USE OF THE WORD ‘CHRISTIAN’ REQUIRES DEFINITION

The word ‘Christian’ means different things to different people. This causes communication problems because the word evokes stereotypes and emotions which distort the message. The difficulty is compounded because there are no synonyms and because repeated definition is cumbersome and impractical.

The result is that there are two primary definitions of Christianity in common usage today, often blurred together, referred to here as ‘cultural’ Christianity and ‘biblical’ Christianity.

‘Cultural’ refers to the meaning given by society. It focuses on what church members do, or at least what they should do. It emphasizes clean living, honesty, generosity and good works. ‘Biblical’ refers to the meaning given by the Bible. It focuses on who we are, not on what we do. It emphasizes the problem of sin, our own inadequacy to overcome it, and why we need God (Jesus Christ) to save us from our predicament.

Cultural Christianity and biblical Christianity are quite different from each other, as shown on the following diagram and chart.

STATISTICS OVERSTATE THE NUMBER OF REAL CHRISTIANS

All that goes by the name Christian is not in fact Christian! What most people know and observe is cultural Christianity. But this is NOT real Christianity. It’s only an outer shell, largely hiding the real thing. At the core of Christianity is God, not our theologians, rituals and good works.

In this resource, Christianity always means biblical Christianity – the core of it, the real thing, in its pure and simple form – as stated by God in the Bible, not necessarily as portrayed or practiced by church or society.

Statistics on the Christian population generally refer to the broad spectrum of Christianity – cultural and biblical – and therefore greatly overstate the number of real Christians. In fact, as calculated in Topic 17, it appears that only about 5% of the world’s population is Christian by God’s definition. Topics 53-66 – and particularly Topics 62 – define ‘real’ Christianity.