Two unique approaches to atheists (not that it matters, usually)
Here are two unique approaches to take when attempting to wake up an atheist, to some degree:
1. Introduce the atheist to the biblical doctrine and reality (for a Christian) of *regeneration.* Why? Because atheists have a very shallow, juvenile notion of *faith* and really base all their complaint against Christians based on this shallow notion of faith. They think faith is some thing Christians just decide to have, a matter of self-will, and that it is a blind leap and so on, etc. But when you speak to them of regeneration you can actually see them stop in their mental tracks, because regeneration is an experience, and the atheist doesn't think Christians have *any* experience of anything that they don't have access to. So when you explain to them regeneration, and monergistic regeneration, you can then explain to them that their entire complaint is that some people have experienced something they the atheist hasn't experienced. So they are like the deaf person who thinks the people who are dancing are crazy because he can't hear the music they hear. An atheist doesn't like being trumped on experience, and since they don't know enough doctrine to know about regeneration by the Word and the Spirit when you explain this to them it shocks them a bit, and thus is a unique approach to take towards them.
2. Challenge them to do what the people they seem to often most admire (the ancient Greeks) did: practice the saying 'Know Thyself.' Atheists tend to be shallow by nature. They tend to not know themselves any more than they have understanding of human nature in general or the ways of the world or higher influences of imaginative literature, history, philosophy, science, sacred writings, music or art. (Yes, they'll usually have a pretension to such things, but it is not difficult to expose that.) Science fiction genre novels and some Richard Dawkins and they've graduated to atheist Ph.D. That and being born. So challenge them on their self-knowledge. When they deny original sin, for instance, challenge them on how much they are awake to themselves. These are actually areas of worldliness where the atheist can be made to see he/she is very immature and undeveloped. The ancient Greeks practiced 'know thyself'...and they became Christians. Another thing the ancient Greeks had going for them was a basic degree of honesty with themselves in their pursuit of truth. Know thyself, atheist; and pursue the truth honestly.
15 Comments:
Point 1 is excellent. Point 2, I suspect refers only to a small, probably elite, and educated group among the grosser body of athiests. I know enough athiests, gnostics and non-believers - the Greeks are not on the horizon. You'd be lucky if they care about the Victorians. Any rate, as always with language things turn out more complex than we can comfortably express. Also, you have to recognize that the idea of 'know thyself' has been co-opted by everyone from new age marketeers to satanists right through to typological theorists training management. It's ubiquitous and possibly meaningless without the presence of the Spirit. It is generally misunderstood, naturally. We are creatures that excel at self-justification.
You're right. I guess I was just in a conversation (such as it was) with an atheist who kept using the ancient Greeks as an example to look up to.
On the first one, I agree that is the strongest. It really was a striking thing to see how the atheist I was talking to very much resisted the fact that experience, any kind of experience, has anything to do with why some are believers. You have to know doctrine to see this (regeneration) even though one has actually experienced regeneration. You have to have a language for what you experience to see it, really. (Which is why it is good advice to simply read the Bible - and inspired works of literature such as the Homeric epics - to get higher language (and higher visual language) to then be able to see things in yourself and in the world around you you couldn't otherwise see.)
I saw one recently: when we get some higher energy in us (by prayer and watchfulness, i.e. presence, self-remembering, O.T. saing 'I am here', 'Here I am.') it is common to be assaulted by memories of our past life; people, events, etc. And these memories we partly indulge in and partly are afflicted by. Usually embarrassing things that sting in the remembrance and all that. So the Bible has something to say about this:
First it says keep your mind on what is above rather than the world (Colossians). Don't love the world (which includes what you've left behind) more than what is above. Then two things:
Luk 9:62 And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.
and:
Gen 19:26 But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
I see the second as meaning crystallizing into a state of not being awake or even alive.
I think when you talk about the fear of God, and I know it's a subject you've covered often, it can be difficult to get at what that means. Especially when one reads about the fear of God - it can sound hollow and abstract; very different if one is slapped in the face by remorse of conscience. One can understand it intellectually but never really connect with it emotionally to a meaningful degree. Yet, wow, there is something wholly horrific in the idea of crystallising into a state of not being awake. That's worse, far worse than not being awake, it's interminable. You can't talk really about the fear of God, beyond putting it out there as an idea, it has to be an experience. Back to square one: there are those that have, and those that haven't. But we should always remember that the haven'ts, may yet have the experience. Time and regeneration are living mysteries.
You are insane. I'm an atheist & I would agree you must be having some experience I'm not, but I'd say you are gullible when you trust it. This sense you have that there is something "out there" is an illusion, probably with an evolutionary purpose that is no longer necessary. As a small child I was afraid of the folds in my curtains at night. I thought my curtain was a mighty menacing being. I suspect that what you experience is the same. You need to grow out of it. Morality is an illusion. Anthropomorphising the universe is also an illusion.
1Co 1:18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
1Co 1:23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
1Co 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
1Co 3:19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
What is stronger and more real than your juvenile accusation of gullibility is the fact that you can't focus your attention on the words of Scripture above without writhing like a serpent caught in a trap.
But, aside from that, I like to ask atheists sometimes: read any good books lately?
>I think when you talk about the fear of God, and I know it's a subject you've covered often, it can be difficult to get at what that means.
You get at the meaning of 'fear of God' where we truly should have a real *fear* of Him. What this verse is saying:
Mat 10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
The fear of God I usually try to get at with explanation is the fear/reverence that is usually given to the world, to man, to false idols and how this is part of that slavery to illusion and fascination we have with the external world of things and events and our own inner uncontrolled imagination and thoughts and so on. In Work (Ouspensky) terms being in a state of identification. Not awake and wholly in a state of identification. Like a cat looking at a mouse. So it's powerful to correlate that state to fear of man rather than being in a state of fearing God only. When you fear God you don't fear man or the world or the flesh. You don't reverence man or the world or the flesh. So 'fear God' becomes a kind of solid ground to set one's feet on internally and put everything into perspective in the moment, and to come out of sleeping fascination with the devil's kingdom (internal and external) in all it's illusion and desires and fears and so on.
A good illustration of identification is this:
Imagine you are in a movie theater and you are interested in the movie. Not such a bad thing, the movie is actually good. So you are captured, in a sense, by the moving images and lights on the screen. Now imagine pulling back, so to speak, your consciousness and seeing the actual 'screen' itself that the images and lights are on. You have just pulled back from a state of being fascinated, or captured, or of being 'identified' with the images on the screen.
Now apply this to the average traffic of daily life you find yourself in.
And be careful, because it is a spiritual act. An act that involves awakening. The others in the movie theater will be vaguely disturbed by your presence now, without consciously knowing why. They may try to kill you. So be careful. Ha, ha, seriously.
>Morality is an illusion. >Anthropomorphising the universe >is also an illusion.
What are you on? No one was talking about morality. Bunyan blasted the village of morality centuries back, we know what that is and no real christian will loiter in that stink for too long. As for anthropomorphising the universe: you made that up to entertain yourself. God is a Spirit. Regeneration begins the process of restoring God's image in our lives, (sanctification).
Maybe you're gullible? You keep it 'out there' when it is buried within.
'How shall we sing the LORD'S song in a strange land?' (Ps.137.4)
I read some thrillers a few months ago. I prefer movies (horror/action/western). Perhaps you think I'm too lowbrow to perceive 'spiritual' things & believe in salvation by cognitive works. The verses you cite are only true if they could be proved objectively. Your experience can't validate them.
to '+', morality is one of the traditional 'experiences' (pt 1 in the post) that is appealed to in order to prove God's existence (romans 2; law written on everyone's heart, etc., etc.). As William Craig says:
i) If God does not exist objective moral values do not exist.
ii) objective moral values exist
iii) God exists.
I deny premise 2.
You can deny it all you want. Your conscience is another matter. It may be a bit buried currently, but it's there enough to put the lie to your denial.
>to prove God's existence
Perhaps.
For myself, and maybe I differ from the flock but I could care less about proving God's existence. I don't even think you can. The proof - if we are prepared to go with that - of God is buried within you. I cannot unearth it. That is the work of the Spirit. This is deeply in the realm of mystery, even non-sense, though still reality. If only for some. Athiests do a special line in denying the experience of others. Personally, I could not understand, of all the beliefs on the shelf, why anyone would choose Christian. As an outsider to the interior life of others, of course it appears as if we choose yet what choice really?
>I read some thrillers a few months ago. I prefer movies (horror/action/western). Perhaps you think I'm too lowbrow to perceive 'spiritual' things & believe in salvation by cognitive works.
Not lowbrow, just undeveloped. Classic works of literature and music and other higher influences don't do it automatically, but you do need to engage higher influences to get above your current level of development. Really atheists especially because atheists have a vain pretension to understanding all and everything as part of their ongoing, unending assault on all things metaphysical and such.
Hey, Paul (and S. and M. and W. if they are reading this), obviously the email thing has come to a necessary interval, or cycle conclusion. It became too trivial from my part, but it's good anyway that it cease. But you can see books I've recently read listed in the right hand margin of this blog (finished my 6th complete reading of the Bible, then just read Silas Marner to see if I want to dedicate the greater effort to Middlemarch, and despite some tediousness in Silas Marner I think I would probably dedicate the time and effort to her big novel[s]); and anything more important and worth relating I'll put on the Fourth Way blog.
One thing that happened today is for the first time since my new situation (living where I am) my old self sort of showed itself, but it's all new. I was snapped at (in a way where the person exposes contempt for you), and I didn't react the usual way, I knew it was internal-considering (Work term) I was feeling, yet a moment or two later despite 1) being awake to it, and 2) having the power to not indulge in it, I lashed back, moderately, though with equal contempt. Worse because though I could see the contempt in my own words I know he couldn't see the contempt he showed me.
Here's the point: I am now not a rookie soldier on the battlefield. What I did was delinquent. I was being a delinquent soldier in Christ's army. As usual the world lets you know. I went out right after that and was met with unusual crude violence/behavior from people, not directly, but enough to let me know those forces are out and about and when I am delinquent they appear and get closer. A reminder.
I could only pray. I'm good at that when I have no other option. Ask forgiveness and ask for strength and ask for what only God can give, grace, his will, ask for God to give the most important things to the person you lashed back at. Then repeat as needed.
But the battlefield is real. And when I indulged resentment (I'll not use a Work term again) that was a failure in the spiritual world on the battlefield not only letting myself down but letting my King and fellow soldiers down. You can know this and feel it. You control your environment with your level of being. When you fall and are a delinquent soldier you let the army you are a part of down. It's serious. Little things seemingly, very serious depending on how far you have developed and how much responsibility you have been given.
The warfare is real. You do your part by being awake and loving your enemies, but in that conscious shock(s) real manner.
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