The Secular Attack on Christianity/Program 6

By: Dr. Paul Kurtz, Dr. Norman Geisler; ©1986

How could anybody challenge me to perform something self-sacrificing, ever, if I believe that I am the product of chance, plus time, plus the impersonal, and I got here by accident, and all that there is is my existence? Why should I care about anything else? Plus Questions and Answers from the Audience Segment 2

Introduction

Ankerberg: Okay. We’ve got some questions right here.

Audience: I address this to Paul. In my belief as a Christian – I’m a Christian – I direct this to you concerning death and what happens when you die. In hearing your views as a skeptic who is not sure – I guess that’s what that means – if I, as a Christian, am wrong and you are right, I’ve lost nothing and I die and cease to exist, as you. But if you’re wrong and I’m right, you’ve lost everything. How do you feel about that, and more importantly, to you, is it worth it?

Kurtz: Well, that’s Pascal’s famous “wager” that you’ve offered. I can find no evidence for the existence of an afterlife, even independent of religion. The belief in salvation is an article of faith. People hope that they will continue to live after the existence of the body. But spending years in research, and ghost-hunting, and examining the evidence for life-after-life, I don’t find sufficient evidence to support that claim. Therefore, it’s an idle gesture. Now, I can turn the “wager” around, that if God doesn’t exist and this is merely an illusion, then much of what you do is a waste of time. What you ought to do is try to build the best society we can live in here and now and do whatever you can to make life meaningful today.

Ankerberg: The problem with that, Paul, is that the very people that you quote constantly concerning the fact of the need for God, and the quest for God, and the meaning of life, I think, are the strongest testimonies in evidence that you’re wrong. For example, Sartre said, “I needed God.” Or, Camus, “Nothing can discourage the appetite for divinity in the heart of man.” Or Nietzsche, “I hold up before myself the images of Dante and Spinoza [whom Geisler was talking about before] who were bettered accepting the lot of solitude. And in the end, all those who somehow still had a God for company, my life now consists in the wish that it might be otherwise and that somebody might make my truths appear incredible to me.”

Kurtz: Well, but all three rejected belief in God. I affirm you can lead an authentic life and you can find life rich. There’s a kind of fullness of existence in the plans and projects that we create. Life is an adventure. Why the need of an illusion?

Ankerberg: Well, one of the secular humanists, that I would be very proud of, that wrote in your book, one of the essays in your book on moral problems in contemporary society, H. J. Blackham, formerly director of the British Humanist Association, said that the problem, as he saw it, was “the pointlessness of it all.”

Kurtz: Really?

Ankerberg: That’s what he said.

Kurtz: I think you may be quoting Blackham out of context because I’ve heard Blackham speak, and read much of what he said, but Blackham has argued continuously that life is full of meaning; that there are points. The fact that one doesn’t believe in God does not deaden the appetite or the lust for living. On the contrary; great artists and scientists and poets and writers have affirmed the opposite.

Ankerberg: Well, I could go on with the list. Maybe, Dr. Geisler, you would want to say something. You’ve done some research in this area.

Geisler: Well, just let me add one thought. In my doctorate research on this very point, I found that atheists had a need for God and admitted it. Sartre did. Camus did. Walter Kaufman said, “Man is a God-intoxicated ape.” Camus, the quote that you said there. They admitted it, but what they were saying is this: “I have a need for God but He doesn’t exist.” Now, that’s like saying, “I’m starving but there’s no food anywhere.” I can understand somebody saying, “I’m starving because I didn’t find any food.” But I cannot understand somebody saying, “I’m starving and there’s no food anywhere; don’t look for it.” “I’m thirsty and there’s no water anywhere; don’t look for it.” That’s cruel. And to say, “You need God, but Ha-ha! There isn’t a God; don’t look for it!” is also cruel. At least you ought to take a look at the evidence.

Ankerberg: Then human personality would really be a disease because you have these longings and you can’t fulfill it.

Kurtz: Well, not everybody has those longings. None of my friends have those longings. But some people do. Not everybody does.

Geisler: There’s a reason for that. These people we quoted were just atheists, and there’s a reason some atheists don’t have those longings. And it’s spelled out pretty clearly in Romans 1:18 in the Bible. It said, “They turned from the God who was there, and God gave them over to a reprobate mind.” You can get to the point that after you reject the truth, then you no longer have those longings. But they killed the longings that were initially there.

Ankerberg: Question.

Audience: Dr. Geisler, did you “reason” your way to faith in God? And if not, can you expect Dr. Kurtz to do the same?

Geisler: As a matter of fact, I did. I did not come from a Christian home and I had to reason my way through this myself. I studied philosophy and I studied history and I came to a conclusion, as many others who weren’t reared in Christian homes, that the evidence is stronger for Christianity – historical evidence and scientific evidence for God – than for any other belief system. So I committed myself to that. And I haven’t found in 30 years of continual research after that point anything to disrupt that, only further things to confirm it.

Audience: I want to direct a comment to Paul and ask both men to respond to a question. My comment is: You have the answer to the questions you have with you practically all the time. It’s either in your pocket, or in your billfold. It’s the American money. It says, “In God We Trust,” and I’d like you to comment. Why does that say that?

Kurtz: You know, it hasn’t helped inflation very much. So the dollar is cheaper in value over the years. Incidentally, that’s a recent addition. I think that only goes back within this century. It didn’t go back historically. But in any case, that doesn’t prove the point. The fact that American money has “In God We Trust” or not is quite irrelevant to the question of whether or not God exists.

Geisler: Well, we don’t agree on much tonight, so I’d like to wholeheartedly agree with him on that. In fact, I think it’s hypocrisy, because basically it’s “in the dollar we trust” rather than in God.

Audience: Mr. Kurtz, don’t you believe that your real problem is that you don’t want to answer to a holy, righteous God?

Kurtz: “I don’t want to answer to a holy, righteous God.” You know, I have no fear. If God exists and I’m brought to the Judgment Day and I’m called into account. People say, “What happens at the Judgment Day?” I said, “I would have no fear because I would say to God, ‘You didn’t give me the evidence!’” And if man is rational and created in God’s image, then I guess God would respect that.

Audience: Norman?

Geisler: Well, my only response is that He gave the evidence, but you have to open your eyes to see it.

Ankerberg: It seemed like Paul preached that the very evidence was the resurrection, which you denied…

Kurtz: Yes…

Ankerberg: …that God would judge the world by one man rising from the dead, in Acts. [Acts 17:31]

Kurtz: He didn’t give objective, corroborative, independent evidence.

Ankerberg: Question.

Audience: My question is, Dr. Kurtz, I’ve read your books and enjoyed them and I just wanted to give you the opportunity to say a little more about what humanism has contributed to our society.

Kurtz: Oh, here I thought I was in the “arena” being “thrown to the lions.” And here’s one person who is going into the arena with me. Well, I appreciate your question. I think that humanism is a positive moral point of view. And there are great figures in the history of Western civilization who have been humanists and have contributed immeasurably. Whether it’s Mark Twain, or Thomas Edison, or Margaret Sanger, or Michelangelo, or Beethoven; you go through the whole history, or Freud, right down. I mean, you find these people who are concerned with the human condition; concerned with furthering the well-being of human beings. And that’s what humanism is, an effort to improve the human condition, to meliorate a better life here and now. To solve human problems by using intelligence and science and reason as best we can. And I’m really surprised and dismayed at the fact that humanists are attacked and criticized because they want to use human intelligence and they want to contribute to the good life. And I say that there are many people who don’t accept your religion and still are good citizens and good persons.

Ankerberg: Paul, do you know, historically, I guess the reason some Christians – some people wish there would be more – but in ‘61 the secular humanist doctrine was recognized as a religion by the Supreme Court. In ‘62, the Supreme Court said that state-required devotional prayers were banned from the schools. In ‘63, devotional Bible-reading was forbidden in the schools. In ‘68, laws against teaching evolution were ruled unconstitutional in the Arkansas Trial. In 1980, the Supreme Court said that posting the Ten Commandments in the classroom is unconstitutional. And in 1982, a law mandating the teaching of creation with evolution was banned in Arkansas. Are you legislating your morality down Christians’ throats?

Kurtz: I would hope not. You know, I think this great country is based upon the First Amendment, and that’s the separation of church and state. That’s the notion: that the state shall not intervene in religion. And I think that the Supreme Court’s rulings are all an effort to interpret the views of Jefferson and Madison and the great founders of this great republic, who, incidentally, were humanists and deists and believed in freedom of conscience, and believed that our society ought not to establish a religion. Now, it seems to me the great virtue of America has been that we have not had fanaticism, and we’ve not had the religious wars, and that belief and unbelief have flourished in this country because of that. And I deplore the efforts in recent years to bridge this basic principle of the separation of church and state. I believe the Supreme Court decisions in this regard have been an effort to support the First Amendment.

Geisler: John, I think it’s just the opposite. This great country began with these great words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,… among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” There are at least three great principles in there: a Creator, man was created, and certain moral absolutes. The Supreme Court has ruled that you cannot teach those three things in the public schools. Humanists have superimposed their morality by way of the Supreme Court so that you cannot even teach the principles of the Declaration in American schools. That is not freedom.

Kurtz: You know, that’s not true. The schools do teach the Declaration of Independence. All the students know about it…

Geisler: The truths of the Declaration of Independence.

Kurtz: Well, truths that…

Geisler: Creator, creation, and God-given moral absolutes have been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Kurtz: They’ve not been ruled unconstitutional.

Geisler: To teach in a public school they have.

Kurtz: What the Supreme Court has said is that the schools should not indoctrinate for religion. You can teach about them, and you should teach American history…

Geisler: But they’re indoctrinating them in humanist views that say there is no Creator, no creation and no supernatural. You can indoctrinate in these views, you just can’t indoctrinate in those Christian views.

Kurtz: We live under the Constitution. Now, the Declaration of Independence is crucial; all believe in it. It was written by Jefferson. But the Constitution…

Geisler: You believe in it? You believe there is a Creator, man was created, and in moral absolutes?

Kurtz: No, I don’t believe…. I believe in the Declaration of Independence against tyranny, against established Church of England…

Geisler: “But these truths are self-evident,” it says. And what is “self-evident”, you don’t believe.

Kurtz: Well, I don’t know that they are self-evident, but I believe in the right of free conscience of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But we live under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment.

Geisler: And the Declaration of Independence is “unconstitutional.”

Kurtz: Now, the Declaration of Independence was written by Jefferson who was against any tyranny over the mind of man and believed in religious liberty. That was fundamental.

Geisler: And I challenge you to go to Washington, DC, and stand in front of Jefferson’s figure, and look over the pond at the White House, and look up at the granite and see what he said. He said, “God who gave us life, gave us liberty. Can a nation endure when we have neglected that these liberties are a gift of God?” That’s what Jefferson believed.

Kurtz: Jefferson also believed that the state ought not to intervene and that the state ought not to proclaim a religion, and he believed in religious liberty.

Geisler: That’s exactly right. And we believe that too, Paul. We think the state should not intervene and say that the only thing you can teach in the public school is, “no Creator, no creation, and no God-given moral absolutes.” That’s intervening and superimposing your humanist religion down our throats and that’s what’s wrong.

Kurtz: I think that’s a libel against the school teachers of America who are loyal Americans. Many of them are religious and believe in God. They represent a wide range of opinion. And to blame the school teachers, and to say that these things are being forbidden, I think is totally mistaken.

Geisler: I’m not blaming the school teachers, I’m blaming the Supreme Court. Those poor school teachers who would like to do something, they have their hands tied. They can’t even post the Ten Commandments on a bulletin board. They could put up your secular humanist Manifesto on the bulletin board, but they can’t put the Ten Commandments up. Is that fair? Is it fair?

Kurtz: Well, I don’t think they’ve posted the secular humanist Manifesto on the bulletin board.

Geisler: But they could.

Kurtz: I don’t think the American teachers are humanists…

Geisler: You’re not answering my question.

Kurtz: I don’t think that they should post the Humanist Manifesto II on the bulletin board.

Geisler: But they can.

Kurtz: I don’t know that they can. It seems to me that one ought not to be allowed to argue for religion or against religion. Either atheism…

Geisler: I thought you said humanism wasn’t a religion.

Kurtz: Okay. But either atheism, or religious…or theism at the same time; the point is that the schools should be neutral. And neither religion or non-religion should be taught in the schools.

Geisler: That’s exactly right: they should be neutral. And they’re not neutral when the only things you can teach are the basic premises of Secular Humanism…

Kurtz: Well, that’s not true.

Geisler: Let me finish. And you can’t teach the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence. That’s hardly neutral.

Kurtz: Well, I think you’ve caricatured what is going on. I think you’ve maligned the teachers. I think our school system…

Geisler: I didn’t malign the teachers, I maligned the Supreme Court.

Kurtz: …is an excellent school system. I think the curriculum and the schools of America have created a great nation, and our students are benefiting from that. These efforts now to attack the schools and to impose religious dogma on the schools, it seems to me, will erode education.

Geisler: That’s exactly right. And the only religious dogma you can teach in the schools right now is secular humanist religious dogma, and that’s got to change!

Kurtz: Secular Humanism is not a religious dogma.

Ankerberg: Can I jump in here, too? Let me jump in here, too, and that is, one of the men who signed the Manifesto II with you, Paul, said this concerning the secular state of our schools. He said, “I think that the most important factor moving us toward a secular society has been the educational factor.” This is Paul Blanshard again. “Our schools may not teach Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school until he is 16 tends to lead toward the elimination of religious superstition. The average American child now acquires a high school education and this militates against Adam and Eve and all the other myths of alleged history.” Now, Paul Blanshard was one of the men who signed it. And I think that this is what Christians are concerned about, is that by legislating the fact that the beliefs of millions of Christians across the country can’t be brought up in the schools in any area – he can’t pray, he can’t read the Bible, he can’t talk about God, can’t talk about the facts of science that relate to creation – you have legislated your morality down the throats of millions of Christians. And they think that it’s unfair, especially according to your own principles.

Kurtz: In response to your question, John, I don’t agree with Paul Blanshard on that point. The fact that he endorsed the Humanist Manifesto doesn’t mean that I accept everything that he says, nor anyone else. But you know, this is an open society. Surely Christians have every opportunity to express their point of view. There’s a free press. There are free churches. I think that religion is probably more vigorous here than almost anywhere else. If you begin to establish a church by allowing the church to express itself through governmental institutions, I mean, why not in the fire house? Why not in the town hall? Why not open up all of the institutions of government to allow religion to interfere. Okay? I don’t know if you agree or disagree. You are then establishing a religion, you see? And that’s contrary to the First Amendment and contrary to what the Constitution is based on.

Ankerberg: You’re just opening up the fact that we are having a discussion about religion. Aren’t you making a differentiation between the fact of, I have a discussion about religion, and belief that you ought to believe this religion.

Kurtz: Well, I think that we ought to teach about religion in the schools. I think we are.

Ankerberg: We can’t even mention it, Paul.

Kurtz: Of course you mention it. I think anyone who has taken a history course has read about the history of religion in the schools. Anyone who takes a sociology course…

Ankerberg: Creation science?

Kurtz: …anyone who takes a philosophy course. Of course you can learn about religion. And the students learn about religion.

Ankerberg: How about creation science?

Kurtz: What you cannot do is indoctrinate for a religious belief. That’s contrary to the spirit of the pluralistic society in which we live.

Ankerberg: Dr. Geisler, in the Arkansas Trial you spoke to this very fact of, concerning the difference between teaching religion and teaching facts. Then talk to the second question of the fact of, what would you suggest Christians do in a society where now we are saying, like in Los Angeles where the state there said that Bible studies had to be zoned, and you couldn’t have them in your home, and then had to be revoked. But the whole society is going that direction: that they’re going to tell us where you can think and talk about these topics. Now, this is America!

Geisler: Well, see, here’s the problem. If it’s one of our beliefs, by definition for a secular humanist it is religious and can’t be taught. If it’s one of their beliefs by definition, it isn’t religious and can be taught. You talk about, “Heads I win and tails you lose!” You talk about sophisticated, intellectual bigotry, that’s it! Secondly, the Declaration of Independence had three basic principles: God; man created in the image of God; and moral absolutes. Humanists believe exactly the opposite: No God; no man created in the image of God; and no moral absolutes. So you have three religious beliefs by Judeo-Christian tradition, three by humanism, which is called “a religion” and recognized as religion. Now, here’s what the Supreme Court said: “You can’t teach these three.” What does that mean? The only thing you can teach are the religious beliefs of Secular Humanism. If that’s not establishing Secular Humanism, I don’t know what is.

Kurtz: It’s not establishing Secular Humanism, because you can teach science and literature and the arts and philosophy and history and sociology and everything else. You are open to the world of knowledge. And you teach about religion. What you don’t teach, you don’t try to establish a specific religion in the United States. America includes Buddhists and Hindus and Jews and Mormons and non-believers and humanists. This is the beauty of this country. It’s a pluralistic country in which every point of view thrives. And the state should not be used to impose one point of view.

Ankerberg: Going toward a secular state, does it bother you when you hear a person who came out of a secular state, like Alexander Solzhenitsyn who, in receiving the Templeton Prize, stated: “If I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat, ‘Men have forgotten God. That’s why all this has happened.’” And he is talking about the fact that then the state took arbitrary power and then could redefine personhood, such as Hitler and other Secular States have done. That’s why Christians do not want arbitrary, humanistic values that can change from time to time. They want to stick with the Judeo-Christian principles that give us absolutes that say “Life is important.” No matter who’s there – the Supreme Court, the President, the Congress – life is still going to be important.

Kurtz: I agree with Solzhenitsyn’s attack on totalitarian Communism and the infamies that that society has created…

Ankerberg: And the “cause” that he has also suggested?

Kurtz: …I should also point out that Andre Sakharov, who is a secular humanist, and who signed Humanist Manifesto II and the Secular Humanist Declaration also is opposed to the tyranny in the Soviet Union. So, if one believes in freedom and democracy, one doesn’t necessarily have to believe in God. You can believe in God and believe in dictatorship; believe in the divine right of kings; believe in oligarchy. Democracy is too vital in this country. We believe in freedom. We believe in an open democratic society. We believe in a society in which religious bigotry does not prevail.

Ankerberg: Okay. But if Christians, then, get together and there’s enough of them that vote in a democratic society and express their opinion, that you don’t agree with, then you will go along with the fact that it becomes law again?

Kurtz: Well, obviously I believe in majority rule, the right of the majority. I would hope that this would not undermine the rights of other citizens and I don’t know that that is implied…

Ankerberg: For 200 years we’ve had that right for you to say that.

Kurtz: …and I would quickly hope that it would allow freedom of conscience for people who do not agree with them.

Ankerberg: Dr. Geisler, give us a wrap-up here.

Geisler: Well, America was founded on basic Judeo-Christian principles, and they’re the ones that gave secular humanists their right to express their view. Take a humanist, atheist country like Russia, and see if there are any real religious freedoms for people who don’t believe in that. Actually, humanists ought to be in favor of these Judeo-Christian principles, because they’re the ones that give them their right to practice their humanism. At the same time, I don’t think their ideals are being implemented, because they are not giving us our right to express our views in the public schools.

Ankerberg: Gentlemen, I just want to say thank you tonight. I asked you to share from your heart and to get involved with it, and I think that you have done that. I appreciate, Paul, that you would come and express the views of the secular humanists, and, Dr. Geisler, that you would represent Orthodox Christianity. Thank you, gentlemen, very much.