Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Christopher Hitchen's Challenge

My challenge: name an ethical statement or action, made or performed by a person of faith, that could not have been made or performed by a nonbeliever. I have since asked this question at every stop and haven't had a reply yet. Link
This challenge reduces faith to an object of which only has the use of producing works. It’s like asking a married man what he has in his marriage that a bachelor doesn’t. I did not get married just to produce something. I am married because I love my wife. My faith is the same. My faith is my relationship with Christ. I am able to give an oath to someone that is greater than myself. I am able to give an oath to my creator out of love. Now I can predict that I will get snickers for this statement. Just like when I was in junior high I got snickers from friends when I told them that it was not cool to use girls because girls are more than objects to be manipulated. The problem with the challenge is that it has a faulty premise.

Beliefs have consequences. If this were not true then why make the challenge towards believers?

Being a follower of Christ has many consequences. I am called to love my enemies. I don’t see how this command would make much sense to an atheist. It is also possible as a Christian to find joy when persecuted for Christ. Again I don’t know how this would make much sense to an atheist. Christians can find meaning through suffering. Suffering is an evil but through Christ I have the ability to transcend suffering. Again I don’t think this would compute for an atheist. The Beatitude would also fit the description. Now these things are hard and I will concede that most Christians are not there spiritually. But without Christ setting this high standard I do not know why an atheist would even try to reach to this. Atheism does not produce saints.

Atheists can be moral but they do not have an explanation for the why of their subjective conscious based morality. Why not reject your own conscious if it’s just the product of evolution to better pass on genes? [Or based on some other external cause] If my conscious is based on my own making, why not change it to whatever I want?

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