I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (9 page)

3. Truth is not dependent on our feelings or preferences. Something is true whether we like it or not.

4. Contrary to popular opinion, major world religions do not “all teach the same things.” They have essential differences and only superficial agreements. All religions cannot be true, because they teach opposites.

5. Since, logically, all religions cannot be true, we cannot subscribe to the new definition of tolerance that demands that we accept the impossible idea that all religious beliefs are true. We are to respect the beliefs of others, but lovingly tell them the truth. After all, if you truly love and respect people, you will tactfully tell them the truth about information that may have eternal consequences.

2

Why Should Anyone
Believe Anything At All?

People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on
the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find
attractive.

—BLAISE PASCAL

AUTHOR AND SPEAKER James Sire conducts an eye-opening interactive seminar for students at colleges and universities across the country. The seminar is called
Why Should Anyone Believe Anything At All?

With such an intriguing title, the event usually attracts a large audience. Sire begins by asking those in attendance this question: “Why do people believe what they believe?” Despite the wide variety of answers, Sire shows that each answer he gets fits into one of these four categories: sociological, psychological, religious, and philosophical.
¹

Beginning on the left, Sire goes through the reasons in each category by asking students, “Is that a good reason to believe something?” If he gets sharp students (like he would at Southern Evangelical Seminary!), the dialog might go something like this:

Sire: I see that many of you cited sociological factors. For example, many people have beliefs because their parents have those same beliefs. Do you think that alone is a good enough reason to believe something?

Students: No, parents can sometimes be wrong!

Sire: Okay, what about cultural influences? Do you think people ought to believe something just because it’s accepted culturally?

Students: No, not necessarily. The Nazis had a culture that accepted the murder of all Jews. That sure didn’t make it right!

Sire: Good. Now, some of you mentioned psychological factors such as comfort. Is that a good enough reason to believe something?

Students: No, we’re not ‘comfortable’ with that! Seriously, comfort is not a test for truth. We might be comforted by the belief that there’s a God out there who cares for us, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he really exists. Likewise, a junkie might be temporarily comforted by a certain type of drug, but that drug might actually kill him.

Sire: So you’re saying that truth is important because there can be consequences when you’re wrong?

Students: Yes, if someone is wrong about a drug, they might take too much and die. Likewise, if someone is wrong about the thickness of the ice, they might fall in and freeze to death.

Sire: So for pragmatic reasons it makes sense that we should only believe things that are true.

Students: Of course. Over the long run, truth protects and error harms.

Sire: Okay, so sociological and psychological reasons alone are not adequate grounds to believe something. What about religious reasons? Some mentioned the Bible; others mentioned the Qur’an; still others got their beliefs from priests or gurus. Should you believe something just because some religious source or holy book says so?

Students: No, because the question arises, “Whose scripture or whose source should we believe?” After all, they teach contradictory things.

Sire: Can you give me an example?

Students: Well, the Bible and the Qur’an, for example, can’t both be true because they contradict one another. The Bible says that Jesus died on the cross and rose three days later (1 Cor. 15:1-8), while the Qur’an says he existed but didn’t die on the cross (Sura 4:157). If one’s right, the other one is wrong. Then again, if Jesus never existed, both of them are wrong.

Sire: So how could we adjudicate between, say, the Bible and the Qur’an?

Students: We need some proofs outside those so-called scriptures to help us discover which, if either, is true.

Sire: From which category could we derive such proofs?

Students: All we have left is the philosophical category.

Sire: But how can someone’s philosophy be a proof? Isn’t that just someone’s opinion?

Students: No, we don’t mean philosophy in
that
sense of the word, but in the classic sense of the word where philosophy means finding truth through logic, evidence, and science.

Sire: Excellent! So with that definition in mind, let’s ask the same question of the philosophical category. Is something worth believing if it’s rational, if it’s supported by evidence, and if it best explains all the data?

Students: That certainly seems right to us!

By exposing inadequate justifications for beliefs, the way is cleared for the seeker of truth to find adequate justifications. This is what an apologist does. An apologist is someone who shows how good reason and evidence support or contradict a particular belief. That’s what we’re attempting to do in this book, and it’s what Sire sets up in his seminar.

Sire’s Socratic approach helps students realize at least three things. First, any teaching—religious or otherwise—is worth trusting only if it points to the truth. Apathy about truth can be dangerous. In fact, believing error can have deadly consequences, both temporally and—if any one of a number of religious teachings are true—eternally as well.

Second, many beliefs that people hold today are not supported by evidence, but only by the subjective preferences of those holding them. As Pascal said, people almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive. But truth is not a subjective matter of taste—it’s an objective matter of fact.

Finally, in order to find truth, one must be ready to give up those subjective preferences in favor of objective facts. And facts are best discovered through logic, evidence, and science.

While using logic, evidence, and science seems the best way to get at truth, there are some who still have an objection. That objection concerns logic—namely, whose logic should we use, Eastern or Western? Ravi Zacharias tells a humorous anecdote that will reveal the answer.

WESTERN LOGIC VS. EASTERN LOGIC?

As a Christian apologist, author, and native of India, Ravi Zacharias travels the world giving evidence for the Christian faith. He has an incisive intellect and an engaging personality, which makes him a favorite on college and university campuses.

Following a recent presentation on an American campus regarding the uniqueness of Christ, Ravi was assailed by one of the university’s professors for not understanding Eastern logic. During the Q&A period the professor charged, “Dr. Zacharias, your presentation about Christ claiming and proving to be the only way to salvation is wrong for people in India because you’re using ‘either-or’ logic. In the East we don’t use ‘either-or’ logic—that’s Western. In the East we use ‘both-and’ logic. So salvation is not
either
through Christ
or
nothing else, but
both
Christ
and
other ways.”

Ravi found this very ironic because, after all, he grew up in India. Yet here was a Western-born, American professor telling Ravi that he didn’t understand how things really worked in India! This was so intriguing that Ravi accepted the professor’s invitation to lunch in order to discuss it further.

One of the professor’s colleagues joined them for lunch, and as he and Ravi ate, the professor used every napkin and place mat on the table to make his point about the two types of logic—one Western and one Eastern.

“There are two types of logic,” the professor kept insisting.

“No, you don’t mean that,” Ravi kept replying.

“I absolutely do!” maintained the professor.

This went on for better than thirty minutes: the professor lecturing, writing, and diagramming. He became so engrossed in making his points that he forgot to eat his meal, which was slowly congealing on his plate.

Upon finishing his own meal, Ravi decided to unleash the Road Runner tactic to rebut the confused but insistent professor. He interrupted, “Professor, I think we can resolve this debate very quickly with just one question.”

Looking up from his furious drawing, the professor paused and said, “Okay, go ahead.”

Ravi leaned forward, looked directly at the professor, and asked, “Are you saying that when I’m in India, I must use
either
the ‘both-and logic’
or
nothing else?”

The professor looked blankly at Ravi, who then repeated his question with emphasis: “Are you saying that when I’m in India, I must use
either,”
Ravi paused for effect, “the ‘both-and logic’
or,”
another pause, “nothing else?”

Ravi later commented to us that the next words out of the professor’s mouth were worth the time listening to his incoherent ramblings. After glancing sheepishly at his colleague, the professor looked down at his congealed meal and mumbled, “The
either-or
does seem to emerge, doesn’t it.” Ravi added, “Yes, even in India we look both ways before we cross the street because it is
either
me
or
the bus, not both of us!”

Indeed, the
either-or
does seem to emerge. The professor was using the either-or logic to try and prove the both-and logic, which is the same problem everyone experiences who tries to argue against the first principles of logic. They wind up sawing off the very limb upon which they sit.

Imagine if the professor had said, “Ravi, your math calculations are wrong in India because you’re using Western math rather than Eastern math.” Or suppose he had declared, “Ravi, your physics calculations don’t apply to India because you’re using Western gravity rather than Eastern gravity.” We would immediately see the folly of the professor’s reasoning.

In fact, despite what the relativists believe, things work in the East just like they work everywhere else. In India, just like in the United States, buses hurt when they hit you, 2+2=4, and the same gravity keeps everyone on the ground. Likewise, murder is wrong there just as it is here. Truth is truth no matter what country you come from. And truth is truth no matter what you believe about it. Just as the same gravity keeps all people on the ground whether they believe in it or not, the same logic applies to all people whether they believe it or not.

So what’s the point? The point is that there’s only one type of logic that helps us discover truth. It’s the one built into the nature of reality that we can’t avoid using. Despite this, people will try to tell you that logic doesn’t apply to reality, or logic doesn’t apply to God, or there are different types of logic,
²
and so on. But as they say such things, they use the very logic they are denying. This is like using the laws of arithmetic to prove that arithmetic cannot be trusted.

It’s important to note that we are not simply engaging in word games here. The Road Runner tactic uses the undeniable laws of logic to expose that much of what our common culture believes about truth, religion, and morality is undeniably false. That which is self-defeating cannot be true, but many Americans believe it anyway. We contradict ourselves at our own peril.

TO BE BURNED OR NOT TO BE BURNED,
THAT IS THE QUESTION

The Road Runner tactic is so effective because it utilizes the Law of Noncontradiction. The Law of Noncontradiction is a self-evident first principle of thought that says contradictory claims cannot both be true at the same time in the same sense. In short, it says that the opposite of true is false. We all know this law intuitively, and use it every day.

Suppose you see a married couple on the street one day—friends of yours—and you ask the wife if it’s true that she’s expecting a baby. If she says “yes” and her husband says “no,” you don’t say, “Thanks a lot, that really helps me!” You think, “Maybe she hasn’t told him, or maybe they misunderstood the question (or maybe something worse!).” There’s one thing you know for sure: they can’t both be right! The Law of Noncontradiction makes that self-evident to you.

When investigating any question of fact, including the question of God, the same Law of Noncontradiction applies. Either the theists are right—God exists—or the atheists are right—God doesn’t exist. Both can’t be correct. Likewise, either Jesus died and rose from the dead as the Bible claims, or he did not as the Qur’an claims. One is right, and the other is wrong.

In fact, a medieval Muslim philosopher by the name of Avicenna suggested a surefire way to correct someone who denies the Law of Noncon-tradiction. He said that anyone who denies the Law of Noncontradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned! (A bit extreme, but you get the point!)