Secular Scientific Worldview of the New Atheists

Self-interest rules
We are a product of our evolutionary past and our environmental present. The existence of free will is questionable. Life is disposable. We are responsible to no one but ourselves. Ourselves personally Ourselves as a society Reality is precisely what we can observe In principle humans are capable of knowing everything.

Christian Worldview
God, others, self We are created in the image of God. We have free will. Life is valuable. We are responsible ultimately to our Creator. We are responsible to others as individuals. What we can observe is the minority of what is real. There is a spiritual realm that is larger and more important than the observable physical realm. We are different in kind from the animal kingdom.

Steven Pinker New York Times November 2, 1997, Sunday Section: Magazine Desk Why They Kill Their Newborns No, the right to life must come, the moral philosophers say, from morally significant traits that we humans happen to possess. One such trait is having a unique sequence of experiences that defines us as individuals and connects us to other people. Other traits include an ability to reflect upon ourselves as a continuous locus of consciousness, to form and savor plans for the future, to dread death and to express the choice not to die. And there's the rub: our immature neonates don't possess these traits any more than mice do.

Contradictions

Medical science is saving many who are far less than the fittest. Abortion may be destroying the fittest. Abortion sidesteps the system by destroying the young of our specie before they are strong enough to demonstrate their survival fitness or lack thereof. We are not practicing eugenics.

Roosevelt, Twisted Eugenics, in The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, op. cit., National Edition, XII, p. 201.

"I wish very much that the wrong people could be prevented entirely from breeding; and when the evil nature of these people is sufficiently flagrant, this should be done. Criminals should be sterilized and feebleminded persons forbidden to leave offspring behind them... The emphasis should be laid on getting desirable people to breed..."

Richard Dawkins
"IN THE 1920s and 1930s, scientists from both the political left and right would not have found the idea of designer babies particularly dangerous - though of course they would not have used that phrase. Today, I suspect that the idea is too dangerous for comfortable discussion, and my conjecture is that Adolf Hitler is responsible for the change.

Nobody wants to be caught agreeing with that monster, even in a single particular. The spectre of Hitler has led some scientists to stray from "ought" to "is" and deny that breeding for human qualities is even possible. But if you can breed cattle for milk yield, horses for running speed, and dogs for herding skill, why on Earth should it be impossible to breed humans for mathematical, musical or athletic ability? Objections such as "these are not onedimensional abilities" apply equally to cows, horses and dogs and never stopped anybody in practice.

Dawkins (continued)
I wonder whether, some 60 years after Hitler's death, we might at least venture to ask what the moral difference is between breeding for musical ability and forcing a child to take music lessons. Or why it is acceptable to train fast runners and high jumpers but not to breed them. I can think of some answers, and they are good ones, which would probably end up persuading me. But hasn't the time come when we should stop being frightened even to put the question?"

The Essence of the Difference

Christian
Only workable system: Unselfish love

Secular
Only workable system: Survival of the fittest Look out for number one Get it now there's nothing to come We are the product of an undirected process Free choice is an illusion We are responsible to ourselves Guilt and shame are evolutionary constructs Our bad choices are not really ours We started simple and we're getting better

Love even in a dog eat dog world There is a bigger better world to come We are created in the image of God
Free choice is real We are responsible to God Guilt and shame are real We own our wrong choices We started good, we're going downhill

Three Modes of Explanation

Determinism Randomness A mixture of the two

God Did Not Create Sin

Ezekiel 28:1117 (ESV) 11 Moreover, the word of the LORD came to me: 12 Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord GOD:

You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 13 You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle; and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created they were prepared. 14 You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked. 15 You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you. 16 In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned; so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. 17 Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you.

Choice Is Real
Joshua 24:15 (ESV) And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

Free Choice

The Bible teaches that God made everything. The Bible teaches that sin is not God's fault. The Bible teaches that sin is a choice. Therefore, free choice is not deterministic. The Bible teaches that the sinner is responsible for his/her sin. Therefore, free choice cannot be random. If humans are just fancy dice they cannot be held responsible.

Darwinist Perspective

Brain = Mind We are the product of our genetics and our environment. We are not entirely responsible for our mistakes. Science fiction Robots become human. Science of origins Humans become robots.

Hebrews 11:13 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the 2 conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their 3 commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
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