Fox News had a program tonight called Can we live without God? being Christmas Day and all.
It was hosted by Lauren Green, a catholic herself. The program started with her asking the big question to a three-person panel, composed of none other than a Rabbi (Marvin Hier, Dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center), a Muslim (Mokhtar Ghambou, Assistant Professor of English at Yale University) and a Catholic (Jeff Cavins, Catholic author, theologian, and media personality, who served as a Protestant pastor for twelve years before returning to the Catholic faith). Sounds like a bad joke yet? These programs are always way too short to be any good. You get a sensible sentence or two, here and there, and you cringe at what people, who are looking for truth, are taking away. The program never allows the time to develop any kind of sound arguments or response. So what you get are short soundbites whether true or untrue left unchallenged for the most part.
After the religious trio segment you were left with the impression that we all share the same One and only God, so why should we be so divided? After all, as the hostess pointed out, the latest poll shows that 92% of Americans believe in God, so why are we so divided? Perhaps it is because each religion says very different things about who God is, and about who Jesus Christ is, in particular. Muslims see Jesus as a good prophet, a holy man but not divine, who never died of crucifixion. Jews see Jesus as a false prophet, perhaps even a charlatan, while Christians believe in Jesus' own words "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Each religion claims very different things about who God is and that is precisely why we're divided. That's OK though, I'd rather be divided than believe that 2+2, 3+5 and 1+8 all equal 4. Division isn't all that bad anyway. Good is divided from evil and most people don't see a problem with that. Somehow people get the idea that because God is love and offers his love freely to all, that he is all things to all people. That somehow defining certain attributes to God is diminishing the Deity. As a reasonable person I cannot come up with a set of attributes and say "this is my God." No, instead I have to look at and wrestle with the evidence as best I can honestly wherever it may take me.
Next came Rev. James A. Forbes Jr., Senior Minister of The Riverside Church in New York. It was painful. Painful to watch him say that he does not believe in using the word "innerant" when talking about, the word of God - the Bible! He did not want to believe that "God spoke through a meagaphone and people wrote what He said." When asked which part of the Bible he disagreed with, he responded that it was not the right question to ask. When pressed on the question of homosexual marriages, he gave the all loving answer that God would simply embrace those people and implied their sin as well. He treated the bible's strong opposition to homosexuality as a thing of the past, and related it to slavery. "We cannot project our values on others as Christians"- quote!. I'm still not sure which God this supposedly Christian leader believed in. What a confusing mess for the viewers, not counting for the people he is supposed to be sheparding. If the words of the Bible are not true, why even bother leading a Christian church? I mean there are some valid questions regarding the validity of scriptures and whether or not there is evidence that the Bible is in fact God speaking to His creation. The evidence is there, I researched it. What bothers me with this guy is he hasn't the foggiest idea what historical Christinanity stands on. Then Fox uses these guys to represent the evangelical Christians in front of the world - Yikes! No wonder people are so confused about what to believe.
Ravi Zacharias (RZIM) briefly addressed The problem of Evil and was by far the most cogent speaker on the issues addressed to him tonight. He explained, the fact that evil happens (cancer killing 5 year old children, the Katrina hurricane, the tsunami, as the host probed) is a constant reminder of our separation from God and our need for Him. This is where I wish the program had spent more time. This Problem of Evil is a seemmingly unsurmountable obstacle to many unbelievers and skeptics, and is an important subject for Christians to know how to address. Much more could be said to build a case to explain why evil exists in the world. The best explanation I've ever read is in the book Hard Questions, Real Answers by William Lane Craig. God made human beings creatures with free will, and therefore created the potential for evil, but not evil itself. His creatures freely chose to turn away from God and are doing evil to this day. That was the case for Lucifer at the beginning of creation, it was the case for Eve then Adam and it is the case today. The next speaker turned away from God because of never hearing satisfying answers to this issue. It is critical for Christians to understand how to answer the problem of evil and I was so glad to see that Ravi was chosen to answer this segment.
Michael Shermer, Skeptic Magazine, to the question Can We Live Without God? takes the stance that we essentially have been living without God. He claims that the Problem of Evil and his encounter with science led him to abandon his belief in God. He further claims that our sense of right and wrong evolved as it is needed for survival and that we have no evidence for God's existence. Although, the problem of evil is an important issue which many Christians are unable to answer effectively, I find Shermer's dilemma interesting. He struggles with a problem which really shouldn't be a problem at all - for him. Afterall, if we are just a composition of atoms which evolved by pure chance, randomness and time, as he believes, why should that issue bother him. I mean stuff happens. If cancer evolved along with human beings; if Tsunamis and hurricanes are part of nature's course, why should he call it evil in the first place. For the skeptic should there be such a term as "evil?" These are random events which just happen naturally in the course of time, as we live and spin aimlessly on this common little planet we just happen to call Earth. In other words, why blame a God or question his existence for things you believe are natural events anyway? For how would the concept of evil evolve? How does something immaterial such as the idea that there is evil come into being from pure physical matter? The fact is, it does not. Evil is the idea that things aren't the way they ought to be. And the concept that things ought to be a certain way should be foreign to skeptics who don't believe in moral absolutes and God. Evil is indeed very real and skeptics know it intrinsically, therefore evil is itself evidence for the existence of God.
Then came Julia Sweeney, writer/comedienne who wrote Letting Go of God. Need I say more? When asked about the universality of moral values, she just replies that our species happens to have a brain and that is what sets us apart. Morality is just a mechanistic device which we use to co-survive. When asked about Faith, she says she prefers to use the words hope, and confidence in community, confidence in the human race, rather the word Faith. Not sure why Faith is such a bad word to use these days. It just means believeing in something we do not see. And believing in something we don't see is something we do all day long. I have faith people won't drive into me head on or swerve erratically when driving down the highway. I have faith my blood will coagulate before I bleed to death. Faith that this chair won't fail me or this laptop won't explode in my face. I'm not sure what I got from that segment with Sweeney, other than people freely choose to live without God. God does not hold a pistol to her temple to make her love him, so I guess I'm not all that surprised.
Next came Story Musgrave, a Cosmonaut, who sees God everywhere, in a grain of sand, in nature. I was so interested in hearing his perspective when the program resumed after commercials since he had a perspective from space few of us will ever have, and then he says "I am God." The idea of a Big Bang theory makes no sense to him and he claims the universe and everything in it always existed, always was. Much like Shermer and Sweeney, it was the unfolding of the cosmos (should I capitalize that?) that created morality. Another painful/weird segment to watch. In response, I would state the obvious that human beings are not God and neither is Mr. Musgrave. The main reason why I get frustrated with these programs is because they don't give Story a chance to explain how he arrives at the conclusion that he is God. Perhaps if people heard the premises on which he builds his conclusion, they may have a chance to see why that cannot be true. Well, without knowing those I won't go there other than to say there are certain things we just simply know and me not being God is one of them.
In the end, the conclusion of the program seemed to be that Christians are arrogant for wanting to push their views on others and that God can only be known by faith, and not reason.
What happened to the historicity of the miracles and resurrection of Jesus Christ? The witnesses? The evidence we see in science such as DNA or the fine tuning of the universe and the physical constants that permit life on Earth? Why is reason always thrown out of the window whenever we ponder such important questions? Do people really think that the belief in God has withstood the test of time by mere faith or have some bright intelligent beings investigated those things over the course of time? It is evident that God created the world around us not only by studying it, but by simply looking at it.
Can we live without God? In the moral sense - Yes, of course we can, and it's not pretty. In the physical sense - No, as God sustains all life. Without God, nothing ever was.
We took a little trip to Washington DC to visit Andi's dad during this Christmas break. One of Santa's helpers came on the parking shuttle. Needless to say the kids were thrilled.
Gabe loves to fly in airplanes.
We opened lots of presents, compliments of Poppa David and Mama Alex. Andi's sister Jessica was there too, an we all had wonderful conversations at the dinner table and in the morning there.
We got out by the Chesapeake Bay. We had beautiful sunny days and as you can tell it was chilly.
Having a little fun.
My precious...
Camille on Mulberry Street. You wouldn't believe what happened on that street (a Dr. Seuss book we read together many a time).
The gorgeous girls! Alex, Jessica, Camille and Andi. We had a wonderful time in St. Michaels, MD. It's good to live in the USA.
