10 (non)Commandments of Atheism #9 and 10- Prohibited and Yet Mandatory

Today we conclude a look at the 10 (non) commandments offered as an alternative to the ten (actual) commandments. This list is compiled from nearly 3,000 submissions from atheists from more than a dozen countries.

In keeping with the mindless emotional drivel which has come before, the remaining two (non) commands are not only entirely baseless and indefensible on atheism, but are actually contradictory:

#9. There is no one right way to live.

#10. Leave the world a better place than you found it.

Number 9 almost works on their world view, as long as you acknowledge that there isn’t even ONE right way to live, let alone more than one. There is no right or wrong of any kind on atheism, so this becomes a meaningless statement. It’s like saying, “In a world where light does not exist, you can wear any color you want after labor day.” Or, “In a world with no liquids, there is no one drink of choice.” Whoo hoo. Can you feel that exhilarating feeling of freedom? Me neither.

Oh, and by “There is no one right way to live,” we meant, “The only right way to live is where you leave the world a better place than you found it.” I think we’ve passed hypocrisy and have plowed, full speed, into stupid. While it is hard to remember this while watching the Indiana Jones movies, The Nazis REALLY BELIEVED that they were going to make the world a better place. (Read more about that HERE)

Number ten is an actual COMMAND, or would be if they could qualify “Better.” Ironically this failure is their escape hatch. On Atheism, there is no good, and so there can be no better. For an atheist to ask if the world is a better place is like two bus station drunks having the following conversation:

Drunk 1: “Are we closer, or further away?”

Drunk 2: “From what?”

Drunk 1: “It doesn’t matter.”

Drunk2: “Oh. In that case, no.”

This sums up the entire exercise. Without God, there is no meaning and purpose to our existence. Without meaning and purpose, we can’t fail to reach out goal, and we can’t fulfill our purpose, because none exists. No one is of adequate authority to give commands. So why did these guys all make their own top ten list? Because they all KNOW the truth they refuse to acknowledge.

Romans 1:20 (ESV) tells us this: ^“For [God’s] invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,  in the things that have been made. So they [unbelievers] are without excuse.”

Everyone KNOWS that God is there. Some just don’t like it. Everyone KNOWS there is a moral law, given to us by God. Many just don’t like being held accountable. But even these atheist give the game away when they try to replace the word of God with their own wills. They still insist we be selfless, and not selfish. They still insist we take responsibility for our actions, and even consider how our actions will effect future generations whom we may never meet.

They are like a group of children arguing about which color of flower is the best, all the while pretending that there is no light, because they do not like the sun. But without the sun, there would be no light, and thus, no colors. You can claim its possible to have a favorite color without the sun, but when you admit to color, you are admitting to the sun as well.

Even on the ten (non) commandments of Atheists, we have all sinned. None of us ALWAYS works to make the world a better place, or considers others first when we choose to act. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23) But where atheism leaves you stained forever by you own sins, and all of the world’s religions demand you raise yourself from the dead, the Bible tells us that God did for us what we could not do. “…God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.“ (Romans 5:8).
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3: 16-17)

Where ever you get your ten commandments, you still need to be forgiven. You still need a savior. God gave us a top ten list to show us that we needed to be forgiven, and then he made the way for us to be saved from our sin. Believe in Jesus, let him take yours sins away, and then, when you can see the sun, acknowledge the true standards of God’s moral law, then you can selflessly love others by really trying to make the world a better place.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9

Do that today. And thanks for letting me be your rent a friend.

10 (non)Commandments of Atheism #5 – 8: No Foundation for Fish Tacos

We’re continuing our tour through the epic failure which occurred when nearly 3,000 atheists from more than a dozen countries tried to replace the ten commandments with their own very helpful suggestions. In a lot of ways, it’s what I imagine would happen if a group of alcoholics tried to write up a list of reasons they believe that words do not exist. But not as funny.

Today we start with (non)Commandments of Atheism #5:
5. God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life.

I’ve heard a thousand variations on this argument, and they always fail for the same reason. The argument fails to understand the moral argument (Read about it HERE and more about it HERE). In short, Christians do not argue that a person who does not believe in God cannot do good things. We are saying that, in a universe where God does not exist, there is no GOOD or BAD just as in a universe with no light there is no red or blue, or in a universe with no food there is no fish taco with guacamole and a side of Spanish rice and re-fried beans.

Very simply, without God revealing His nature and will to us, the terms “Good” or “Meaningful” become meaningless, which makes them no good to anyone. Of course, we can simply choose our own definitions of “good” and “meaningful” to use when evaluating our own lives, but then there is no way to truly distinguish a “better” between the cannibal, the Nazi, the boyscout, or the Buddhist monk. Even if we just define ‘good’ for ourselves personally, there’s no way to evaluate whether we are truly becoming more ‘good’ by loving our neighbor or eating him. On atheism, there IS no objective morality, and thus no good or evil, or any objective law on which to distinguish between the two. There is also no purpose or meaning, and thus to ask if a life is meaningful is a meaningless question, just as it is to ask what the number five smells like. If the serial rapist/murderer/cannibal feels like he has lived a meaningful life, and has done good by his deeds, Atheism offers NOTHING in rebuttal. At best they can say, “I define good and meaningful differently.”

If you needed a reason never to vote for an Atheist, I think this is it.

(non)Commandments of Atheism #6:
6. Be mindful of the consequences of all your actions and recognize that you must take responsibility for them.

In all seriousness, on Atheism this is stupid, and at best I can assume they mean, “If you kill someone, it’s YOUR job to hide the body. Don’t expect anyone to do it for you.”

(Non) Commandment #4 gives us the right to control our own bodies- to do what we like. #5 just freed us from anyone else’s definitions of Good or Meaningful. Now #6 expects us to take responsibility for what we choose to do? Screw that. I’m passing the buck. I’m shifting the blame. I’m leaving the mess for others to clean up. I’m going to blame my mother, the government, and Santa Clause. And if all else fails, I’ll blame the God I don’t believe in for the world he made. Then I’ll put on my big wig and squeaky shoes and hide in the dark with my bottle of cheap wine, waiting for a Christian to throw it at.

The biggest problem for the atheist here is that this is part of a Biblical world view and part of the Gospel. Our sins are OUR debts. We incur a debt when we do wrong- I am responsible for the consequences of MY actions and I ALONE am responsible for them. I cannot pass blame to anyone for the sins I commit. This is true, and Biblical, and is exactly the reason we need a savior- because we owe a debt we cannot pay (And Jesus, with his death on the cross paid a debt he did not owe). Once again, the atheists accidentally discover the truth, but the truth only works in the context of the Bible they have rejected.

That must be frustrating.

(non)Commandments of Atheism #7:
7. Treat others as you would want them to treat you, and can reasonably expect them to want to be treated. Think about their perspective.

Ok, seriously? Now they’re quoting Jesus? 3,000 atheists are going to suggest the Golden Rule? This is what I meant when I said they REALLY wanted to be Christians or Jews. Naturally, if Jesus is the living God, then when he tells us this, his word is Law. But on Atheism, why should anyone do this unless it benefited them directly? Would someone like to show me how this concept coincides with Natural Selection? Because to me, this is a HUGE backwards step for evolution. You want to evolve? Kill the weak. This biblical ethic under the pretense of being an atheistic guideline doesn’t even make sense on Atheism. What would Uncle Charles “Chuck D” Darwin say? What would Nietzsche say? What would Hitler say? What would Hillary Clinton say?!?!?

(non)Commandments of Atheism #8:
8. We have the responsibility to consider others, including future generations.

I think I can dismantle this with a three letter word: “Why?”
Once again, the Bible teaches this in many places, such as Philippians 2:3, and the eight verses which tell us to love our neighbors, but if you can argue from the accidental explosion which created the universe, the amazingly improbable arrival of life, and the unguided, bloody struggle of evolution which created us that we have a RESPONSIBILITY to consider others, including others that DON’T YET EXIST, then I would like to hear that. If you are reasonably sober, I think you already know that this is an empty proposition which, again, would make Uncle Chuck Darwin very sad. And Nietzsche would just slap the taste out of your mouth and declare you to be BENEATH the Superman. Hitler would put a bullet in your head, and then pretend he did it for future generations. And according to the 10 (Non) commandments of atheism which he has on his office wall, he has done what is right (According to how he chooses to define “Meaningful: and “good.”)

What we’ve learned from some of these (non)commandments, is that even the atheist knows right from wrong. They know that we should love our neighbors and take responsibility for our own sins. What they fail to recognize is that these truths only make sense in a Biblical worldview. You CANNOT build these truths on the foundation of atheism, any more than you can build a fish taco with guacamole in a world with no food.

Next time we’ll wrap this up and get on with our lives. Thanks for reading, and thanks for letting me be your rent a friend.

10 (non)Commandments of Atheism #3 and 4- Ghosts in the Machine

Once again we are looking at the 10 (non) commandments of Atheism as compiled from the helpful suggestions of nearly 3,000 atheists from more than a dozen countries. There are no Atheist organizations working in the name of atheism for peace, or an end to poverty, but when it comes to supplanting the word of God via the internet, those guys come crawling out of the woodwork like roaches. I picture them like tiny, angry roaches dressed like clowns. The following should help you to see why.

The 10 (non) commandments of Atheism
# 3. The scientific method is the most reliable way of understanding the natural world.

Since I am a young earth Creationist who takes the Bible seriously, I think I can speak for the many other like-minded Christians around the world about this particular statement when I say, “Yeah. Duh.”

Right now there are a hundred clown roaches throwing full wine bottles at their computer screens screaming, “HE CAN’T DO THAT! He’s supposed to reject science and just believe the voo-doo in the Bible!”But this only goes to show the lack of attention these little guys give to details- details like what particular words are used to make up a particular sentence. Or what the Bible says. Or what science is. The list is long.

First, and most importantly, let’s note that the above says, “The Natural World.” This is the world of matter, energy, time, and space. If you know anything about the history of Western Culture, you know it was Bible believing Christians like Pascal, Newton, and Pasteur who invented the sciences to do just this. Some have likened the natural world to a machine, and science to the study of that machine and it’s parts. I’m good with this. I don’t know of any Christian or Creationist who isn’t. In fact, if you combine that with the above tidbit about the history of science, then #2 here is nearly 3,000 atheists basically saying, “Those Christians are completely right about this!”

You know guys, you’re only damaging your own screens and wasting wine when you do that. Now, stop it.

The leap of stupid which many will try to make off of this starting point is this: “Because the material universe is like a machine which can be studied for it’s parts and their function, it had no designer, and there is no supernatural/immaterial anything.”

If you can’t see why this is stupid, then just replace the material universe with any actual machine. “Because we can study the Model T Ford to learn about its parts and their functions, there was almost certainly no Henry Ford.” If you still can’t see why this is stupid, then just go back to throwing full wine bottles at your computer screen and try not to worry about it.

Christians do not think the Bible is a better way to understand the material world around us than science. We think the Bible is the foundation for building the sciences, such as chemistry, physics, astronomy and geology- which is why Bible Believing Christians built those sciences. We believe that the Bible can answer questions which science alone cannot. For instance, science can discover the physical laws which govern the universe, but the Bible tells us the identity of the law giver who wrote those laws. Science tells us the universe cannot be infinite in age, but the Bible tells us when and why the universe came into being. The Bible tells us that an infinitely powerful God, Himself eternal and uncreated, brought the universe into being, complete with the many organized laws which governs it, all of which are necessary for our existence. Atheism says, “First there was nothing, and then it exploded, and by HAPPY CHANCE it exploded into this organized universe which is so AMAZINGLY FINE TUNED for our existence that it sure looks like SOMEONE has been monkeying with the physics*, but we have faith that no one has. Just Dumb Lucky!” And then they claim to be the faith of “Reason.”

Maybe I’ve been hasty in assuming those wine bottles are full…

The 10 (non) commandments of Atheism
# 4. Every person has the right to control of their body.

Here is where our wine saturated roach clown friends are wishing REALLY HARD that they were Christians or Jews. Every PERSON has the RIGHT to control THEIR BODY!

Just a few problems.

First, why? On what grounds do that suggest that everyone has this right? This is the sort of thing liberal politicians love to throw out in a vacuum as if this is self-evident. What do they mean by “right”? This “Right” is certainly not a description of the material universe as discovered through science. What kind of control? And by what right do we claim ownership of our bodies? Merely by possession of them? We used to hold these truths as self evident- that all men were CREATED equal. But, if we’re just brute matter organized by accident into organic machines, what sense does ANY of this make?

Also, does this give me the understood right to control my body so that it steals, rapes, and kills? Surely when people commit crimes against each other, they were in control of their own bodies at the time. Does this mean the atheists are all in support of the crimes you KNOWINGLY commit, and are only in objection to the ones you commit when some alien will is controlling you, such as on ANY science fiction TV show made since 1950? This seems to open more questions than it answers.

The obvious applications they wish to make are in terms of sexuality and abortion. The hypocrisy always comes in when they add amendments such as “Consensual sex” or abortion “On Demand.”

Why does the sex have to be consensual? Or even with another member of the same species? Does this right to control his own body give a man the freedom to rape pandas? A man who raped a panda would probably not argue “I was not in control of my body at the time!” though he may try to blame alcohol. What, on Atheism, would support the demand that all our acts be consensual? The clown roaches rarely ever even try to answer this question, let alone do they with any coherence. Sometimes they flat out admit that there is no atheistic reason NOT to rape or kill. Honesty isn’t always comforting.

I won’t even address the obvious hypocrisy of abortion on demand being ONLY the demand of the mother. The problem with trying to use this (non) commandment to defend abortion is the fact that it is impossible to defend the idea that an unborn child is PART of the mother’s body. I know this has been a part of the “Pro-Choice/Infanticide” camp propaganda for 30 years, but seriously, ask yourself, WHAT part of the mother is a fetus? Is it part of her skeletal system? Her muscular system? No, on all accounts. Does it have the same DNA as the rest of her cells? Not it does not. Her own immune system recognizes the fetus as a foreign body and NOT a part of her own. It doesn’t take better than a 5th grade human anatomy education to see that a baby is NOT part of the mother’s body any more than the bus full of Japanese commuters is PART of Godzilla while he’s in the act of swallowing the bus they are on. Imagine the scene:

Young Hayato just watched his family be eaten by Godzilla as the bus they were on is consumed. He runs to Shinzō Abe, the Prime Minister of Japan:

Hayato: Prime Minister! You must destroy Godzilla! He has murdered by family!

Abe: Murdered, did you say?

Hayato: Yes! He devoured the bus they were on!

Abe: Was he in control of his body at the time?

Hayato: I would assume so. After all, it is his right.

Abe: And right now the passengers on the bus are all inside of Godzilla, and are being digested?

Hayato: Yes! Godzilla has murdered them!

Abe: But surely that it not so. They are all inside of him, and thus they are part of his body. We cannot destroy Godzilla for digesting parts of his own body any more than we can arrest you for eating your own boogers.

Hayato: Godzilla has murdered my entire family! He must be destroyed!

Abe: Do not be such a close minded bigot. He has merely exercised his right to choose. He has chosen digestion, and as I have already said, the things inside him must obviously be part of his own body by the fact that they are inside him.

Hayato: Being inside of a larger body does not, by that fact, make anything or anyone part of that larger body. To be part of the larger body they must be made of the same substance. None of my family share DNA with Godzilla, and even the comparison of a single cell from each would show that they are not one and the same. We have learned all of this and more in my 5th grade human anatomy class!

Abe: I can surely praise our fine public school systems for their efficiency, but you have obviously been brain washed by Rush Limbaugh, the American dictator of the Republicans. Be gone Child!

And CNN will have a pole asking their viewers if Hayato is a close minded bigot, or if he should be burned at the stake.

We’re nearly half way through the 10 (non) commandments. Fill up those $3 wine bottles, slap some duck tape onto your computer screens, and join us next time for more. And as always, thanks for letting me be your rent a friend.

See the complete list of 10 on Ken Ham’s blog here:

http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2014/12/26/10-atheist-non-commandments/

* “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”
–Fred Hoyle (British astrophysicist)–
Hoyle, F. 1982. The Universe: Past and Present Reflections. Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics: 20:16.

10 (non)Commandments of Atheism #1 and 2- A Mind as Open as a Gulag

Just when I had begun to think, “Maybe I’m being too hard on the Atheists** out there. Maybe they aren’t insane people who give no thought to what they profess,” CNN gathers the data it takes to remind me that, if anything, I need to be more cynical. Thanks a lot CNN.
You jerks…

It was in fact Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis who shared this, via this blog post:
http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2014/12/26/10-atheist-non-commandments/

The list of 10 (non) commandments for Atheists was compiled from 2,800 submissions from 18 different countries. What would be really interesting is to see how many submissions there would have been if they had to pass a breathalyzer or the 8th grade to send them in. But I digress. The point is, we get to see what the human race would come up with to replace God’s revelation of rules for better homes and gardens if given the chance, and the result is a reminder that people are made in the image of God with His word written on their hearts, and that many of them do not stop to think about anything, at all, ever.

Ken Ham  goes through each one and compares it with the Bible’s teaching on similar topics, because he’s a lot more mature than I am. I suggest you take a look at what he has to say. Me? I’m going to make fun of these people and their collectively submitted butts. Prepare once again to witness the tragic failure of orthodox atheism, and I suspect the unfortunate collision of failing public schools mixed with illegal drugs. “Public School! Reading scores get low while the kids get high, or your money back.”

While CNN does not report on this, I suspect it was handed down to a hung-over Jack Black on a mountain of dirty laundry, having been carved into a plaque of dried E-Z cheese by chance random processes over millions of years.

The 10 (non) commandments of Atheism.

#1. Be open-minded and be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence.

This is great advice, and interestingly is exactly why I became a young earth Creationist. Ironically, it’s advice which conflicts with atheism. When bitter, Bible/Christian-hating atheists like Josh McDowell, Lee Stroble, or CS Lewis actually took this advice, they became Christians. (Listen to one former atheist say just this HERE.)

CURSE YOU EVIDENCE AND REASON!!! CURSE YOOOOUUUU!!!!!!!

Fooey! I thought atheists were atheists because they were people of REASON who followed the evidence wherever it went and rejected Christianity because of the lack of evidence for it. Isn’t that what they claim on their blog posts and bumper stickers? Now it seems that an open minded look at evidence leads to FAITH IN GOD?!?!? What is to become of the New Atheism?

But wait! There’s a way that your atheism can be protected from evidence or arguments: The Inner Witness of Atheism. You will think I am making this up, but I am not. Here’s just one of MANY examples I could give of an atheist declaring just this:

“Sometimes I am tempted to “backslide” from atheism and I recall the inspiration and comfort I used to get from religion. But then, when I really think about it, I have an overwhelming and undeniable sense of disgust and revulsion when I think about being a Christian again…whatever I believe, I can’t believe that. Christian dogmas just seem to be fantasies, no matter how many apologies for them I hear.”
-Dr. Keith Parsons- *1. [Editor’s note- by ‘apologies’ he means evidence and arguments, not Christians saying they are sorry]

That’s right kids. When your faith in atheism is shaken by evidence and reason, hold fast to your yucky feelings against it! Because, I guess that leaves your mind open. Open like a Russian Gulag.

What’s that? You want more, right from the atheist horse’s mouth? Oh, ok. One more. This one is about the open-mindedness of atheists in the fields of science:

“It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”
-Professor Richard Lewontin-*.2

No doubt I could do this all day, but you get the idea. For now, considering these open-minded admissions of the Atheists, let us consider their second (non) commandment:

#2. Strive to understand what is most likely to be true, not to believe what you wish to be true.

I don’t make this stuff up you know. And when you don’t believe me, it hurts my feelings.

The Atheists on the internet will refer to themselves as “reasonable” and will make comments like #2 here to implicate Christians as being “wishful thinkers.” But sometimes, probably by accident, they admit things like this:

“I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God…”
-Thomas Nagel-*3

And then these open minded Atheists become college professors and poison whole generations against thinking.
The atheists of course mean to imply with these two (non) commandments that Christians are the close minded wishful thinkers, but even without the gems dredged up by quote mining, you can see their EPIC FAILURE by seeing the discussion between Christians and Atheists on every part of the blogosphere or in various types of print.

The Atheist says, “WHAT EVIDENCE AND REASON do you have for believing the Bible is true and God is real?”

And the Christians come up with the brilliant apologetic works of GK Chesterton, CS Lewis, Peter Kreeft,  (Just to name some from the most recent century) as well as decades of work from organizations like Reasonable Faith, Answers in Genesis, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, Cold Case Christianity, Cross Examined, Tekton Ministries, and dozens more on TV, Radio, Internet, and print, covering science, history, philosophy, and many other related fields.

Then the Christians say, “WHAT EVIDENCE AND REASON do you have for Atheism?”
And the Atheists say, “Stop trying to force the burden of proof on me! I don’t have to prove anything!”

Which to me sums it all up fairly well.

We’ve only just begun the wacky walk down the Atheist top 10 (non) commandments. Next time we will see them REALLY wishing they were Jewish or Christian. It would be sad if it weren’t already so dern funny. So, join me next time, and thanks for letting me be your rent a friend.

*1. Read more: 1. http://www.reasonablefaith.org/answering-critics-of-the-inner-witness-of-the-spirit

*2. http://creation.com/amazing-admission-lewontin-quote

*3. http://creation.com/thomas-nagel-i-hope-there-is-no-god

**Atheism is the belief that there is no god. According to the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

“Atheism is the position that affirms the non-existence of God. It proposes positive disbelief rather than mere suspension of belief.”¹

I am not in any way making fun of honest thinkers who feel they have not been shown sufficient evidence- people who would rightly be called “Agnostics” or, as the Mythbusters would say, “Plausable.”