Which is Responsible for More Evil, the Church or Atheism?

The last several days have been inspired by comments on the Greta Christina blog post that inspired February’s “Unlikely Bedfellows” post here on TSR. In some of her responses to readers’ comments, she discusses various arguments for and against both faith and atheism. While I passionately disagree with much of what she says and supports, I respect her stated desire to have rational discussion on the merits of different worldviews.

She takes issue with certain classic Christian arguments about atheism, such as more evil has been committed by atheists than the Church, and responds that it is the other way around.

As I thought about the topic, I realized it is a pathetic argument from either direction.

Vibrant Dance Revisited: Faith: Able or Willing?

I spent most of the posts back in November summarizing the Vibrant Dance Symposium on Faith and Science that occurred here in Austin back in October. One of the speakers was Alister McGrath, the British scientist and theologian, who, though unable to travel to the symposium sent a video presentation.

While an overall excellent presentation, he did make a point I wanted to visit at a later date. Turns out that’s today. At one point, McGrath argued that some people (mostly scientists) are trapped within reason, and unable to make the leap to faith.

I largely disagree with that statement philosophically. They are presupposing a purely naturalistic universe—but they do demonstrate faith in daily life, but it is faith based on reason, not blind faith.

The Many and the Few

The Bible is a wonderful book that contains many inspiring, beautiful and uplifting things. It also contains some very difficult statements and passages. If we are going to take the former, then we must take the latter. The Book is meant for us. As Paul states in his second letter to Timothy, “all Scripture is breathed by God and useful for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness.”

Therefore, we are required to deal with passages such as Matthew 7:13-14, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

Large Nobility

On my mother’s desk is the following quote by Abraham Lincoln, “We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.”

Today's post comes from observing how a major incident costing many people their jobs escalated from an unwise but relatively minor comment made in a meeting. How many troubles would be avoided if we would ignore offensive things said by others and sought to minimize the opportunities for others to take offense at our words. In today’s culture, the burden for avoiding conflict lies almost exclusively with the speaker and the hearers are rarely expected to let things slide by. In fact, much of the “politically correct” mentality seeks to hunt for any potential opportunity to infer offense in someone’s words. Author intent and gracious forgiveness are not options. To me, what is even more diabolical is when a hearer is offended on behalf of some hypothetical person not even present who might be offended had they heard the comment.