Ex-Atheist Dr. Sarah Salviander Destroys Atheism with One Tweet
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
If you're unfamiliar with Dr. Sarah Salviander, I encourage you to make her acquaintance. She's a Christian apologist, takes the Genesis creation account literally (although she's not a young earth creationist, she believes that God created the cosmos in six days), has a Ph.D. in astrophysics, and is an ex-atheist. Because of her background and credentials, Salviander has insight into atheism that many do not. Earlier this month, utilizing that insight, Salviander tweeted a sharply worded reminder that atheism suffers from intellectual dishonesty.
In the tweet, Sarah Salviander provides steps to crafting your own atheistic philosophy. Her steps are: "1. Start with the assumption of no God 2. However, also start with Christian morality 3. Remove the bits you personally don’t like 4. Proclaim that it's self-evident 5. Ignore the meaninglessness of a Godless universe."
In a follow-up tweet, and in case you're curious, Salviander explains that since she receives the same criticism and arguments from atheists over and over, she's pinned a tweet to the top of her page linking to an article answering commonly asked questions and arguments from atheists. However, the above tweet is apologetics gold.
Step number one pokes at the wholly unsubstantiated claim that there is no God. Contrary to popular belief, Christians do not blindly believe in God. We look at the evidence and conclude that the data supports our belief in God. Atheists, on the other hand, blindly believe that there is no God. This is demonstrated by Salviander's next three steps.
Dipping into the evidence for the existence of a God, atheists pick and choose which parts of Christian morality they like and discard whatever they don't like. Paraphrasing a statement Douglas Wilson made to Christopher Hitchens, atheists hijack the Christian's car (morality) and then unwittingly crash it into a tree. The reality is that if the universe is impersonal, then morality is socially constructed with no basis in objectivity. Without a transcendent Being that has authority, no one can rightfully claim that it's wrong to do anything. Without the existence of a God, I am free to do whatever I want.
Sure, people can band together and form a society that restricts actions that they agree impede their collective goals. But, if another group takes power and decides to pursue goals that allow for previously restricted actions to be unrestricted, there is no outside authority to which those who disagree can appeal to. Might makes right.
Of course, this is why Salviander's step number five is needed in order to construct an atheistic philosophy. The only way to insist that it's morally wrong to take your neighbor's farm by force is to ignore that atheism requires an utterly meaningless universe.
Many atheists like to pretend that their position is the intellectual position. It's not. It's a wholly unsubstantiated claim that has to steal ethics from the Christian worldview in order to keep from promoting a society ruled by utter chaos. Sarah Salviander's tweet almost perfectly sums up the intellectual dishonesty inherent in atheism.
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Typically believers redefine atheism as a positive disbelief in a god. That is intellectually dishonest. While some atheists do go that far, most atheists simply lack belief that a god exists. Profoundly different positions. As for Christian evidence, it would be very intriguing to actually see this evidence. Claiming evidence is not nearly as good as actually delivering it. This article is no different. Note that no evidence is provided - only claims in passing.
Indeed. Without an arbiter there can be no objective morality. That would mean that morality, as we perceive it, is subjective (relative). Not surprisingly, that is exactly what we observe.
Except that we are all subject to our culture and societies. Our larger 'group' defines a subjective morality. This morality is not that of a god, but (as with our laws) it is binding. So, no, we are not free to do whatever we want. But yes, without a god there is no objective morality - morality is then at best of human origin.
That is correct. If there is no uber-authority then there is no uber-authority. If there is no god then there is no god. This is not an argument. It is an appeal to emotion. If we do not have objective morality we only have subjective (relative) morality.
If reality is undirected (i.e. no god) that does not mean there is no morality. It is odd that people argue that morality is all or none. Objective (god-determined) morality would be all or none. Subjective morality, however, does exist (we observe it) and will continue to exist as long as human beings are around. Not as cool as objective morality, but morality nonetheless.
Why does morality have to be Christian thing. Morality is a societal thing, not attributed to any one religion.
Example. It is now considered immoral to use children for labor, not so much in the past. It is now immoral to have relations with anyone under 18yrs old. Not so much in the past. It used to be immoral for girls to wear pants, not so much anymore. It used to be moral for governments to conquer less civilized and technologically advanced nations, not so much anymore....etc
This ladies whole premise is left wanting
Just think how immoral biblical marriage is to us now. Selling little girls to old men, forcing widows to marry their husband's brother, telling people to kidnap, enslave and marry little girls from neighboring tribes, saying that husbands can beat their wives ... we now consider those things immoral but, as you said, back then they were accepted as normal.
I always had a crush of Cassiopeia.
They said she was vain. But she wasn't------------she was beautiful. She was right.