THINKING ABOUT HUMAN DIGNITY

Your Brother Daniel

For more great blogs as this one go to Daniel’s blog site at:  www.Mannsword.blogspot.com

Here are three essays I recently posted on atheist Facebook groups:

Thinking about Human Dignity

Ultimately, the way we think about humanity is the way we will treat humanity. The late and renowned Swiss theologian, Emil Brunner, affirmed the impactfulness of our worldview:

• The recent terrible years of the world war and of the preceding totalitarian revolutions have shown us that the understanding of man is the basis of all social order and of all culture…The denial of this dignity is equivalent to the total abandonment of man to the power of the state…The totalitarian state can arise, and is bound to arise, whenever the idea of human dignity has been lost. The idea of human dignity, however, is historically and, in principle, none other than the idea of man’s being created in the image of God. (The Scandal of Christianity, 69-71)

Most embrace an idealistic concept of the dignity of humanity and also acknowledge that, without such a concept, humanity is no more than an animal to be manipulated and used. But are there necessary preconditions for such an idealistic and dignified view of humanity? Brunner thought that there were:

• [The] time of idealism has always been followed by one of materialism in which human dignity was denied. Such was the case after the idealist tide of the nineteenth century, which was followed by a terrible ebb of crudest materialism, which had nothing else to say of man but that he was the most differentiated and developed animal.

Sheer secular humanism cannot long retain this idealism. It lacks the necessary presuppositional underpinning and, therefore, belief in human dignity will eventually erode. If the human is no more than a sophisticated bio-chemical robot, eventually he will be treated in this manner. Robots are esteemed as long as they serve a purpose, and then are thrown on the junk heap.

Brunner concludes:

• [The Christian] doctrine of man, which acknowledges the image of God as well as the depth of sin, is able to create a social order which has room for the dignity of man and at the same time provides for the necessary precautions against the terrible forces of evil which are slumbering in man.

These forces seem now to have been revived with renewed “progressive” vigor. Similarly, the German poet, Heinrich Heine, saw the approach of Hitler’s National Socialism from afar:

• "It is to the great credit of Christianity that it has somewhat attenuated the brutal German lust for battle...And should ever that taming talisman break--the Cross--then will come roaring back the wild madness of the ancient warriors...For thought goes before deed as lightening before thunder. There will be played in Germany a play compared to which the French revolution was but an innocent idyll." (cir. 1830) 

The Deadly Implications of Atheism

Does atheism lead to genocide? It seems to! Just look at Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot and the 100,000,000 they exterminated to accomplish their ideal progressive society. However, atheists claim that there is no association between atheism and the horrors committed by atheists:

• Whenever an atheist points out that a lot of people have died in the name of religion, a theist’s first response is always that people like Mao Zedong and Pol Pot were atheists. Therefore, atheism is responsible for a shit load of deaths too. This would be a good point, if not for the fact that atheism simply doesn’t have enough to it in order to condone or encourage genocide.

• Atheism is defined as a lack of belief in any deity or higher power. That’s it. There is nothing in that sentence that calls for atheists to murder anyone…Atheism simply doesn’t have enough in it to be a world view or something that can support a psychopath’s rage. (god swillchurch.co)

Truly, there isn’t anything in the etymology of the word “atheism” that translates into killings millions. However, when someone rejects the concept of God, it seems to create a worldview avalanche, a veritable mental tsunami. When the idea of God is rejected:

Naturalism takes the place of supernaturalism. Instead of God creating, a new creation myth is required – Everything came into existence naturally (even before the existence of natural law – go figure!) uncaused, and out of nothing.

Secular Humanism takes the place of theism. Instead of God defining meaning and morality, each human being becomes his own court-of-last-resort. Hence, each one of us becomes the creator of our own destiny – the captain of our own ship - and sole determinator of meaning and morality.

Moral relativism takes the place of immutable, universal moral law. This means that moral “truth” is relative to the way we might feel on a particular day. It also can be relative to whatever an authoritarian regime might deem as “good” or what the majority decide. If the regime or the majority decide to eliminate the capitalist as vermin, there is no reasoning left that can deter this action as “evil.” After all, evil no longer exists, but merely what is expedient. Therefore, it might be deemed expedient to destroy the “enemies of the state” and redistribute their money.

Lenin had been asked, “What constitutes morality?” He simply answered, “Whatever promotes the revolution is good; whatever interferes with it is evil.” This kind of pragmatic thinking can justify anything, and it did! Besides, there is no longer any objective moral rationale that can challenge this thinking!

Materialism replaces the Transcendent. Although atheists seek to elevate humanity, they have degraded him, esteeming him as no more than an animal, albeit a sophisticated animal. We are no longer esteemed as having been created in the image of God, full of glory and worthy of all protection and dignity.

Instead, we are regarded as purposeless bio-chemical machines, free perhaps, but free for no transcendent purpose. However, we are not even free. As bio-chemical machines, materialism deprives us of our freewill and freedom of thought. After all, such things are just the product of a serious of chemical reactions!

If we are simply animals living in an amoral, atheistic world, then there is no reasoning or rationale that can prevent us from being treated as animals to be used, manipulated and even destroyed for the “good” of the powerful. If we are machines, then the State is justified in getting whatever use it can out of us before it deposits us on the junk heap along with other useless machines.

Proving God: The Transcendental Argument

There are a number of proofs for the existence of God. The Transcendental Argument is one of the less well-known, but it can be powerfully used. Here’s how it goes:

1. Logic and reason exist.

2. Logic and reason can’t exist without God.

Conclusion: God must exist!

Premise #1 doesn’t require any proof. It is self -evident. We all agree that reason and logic exist. In order to deny them, we must use reason and logic, the very things we are denying!

Premise #2 involves only two possible choices: 1) logic and reason are either the result of natural, unintelligent force(s) or 2) an intelligent, transcendent Being. If we can rule out the first possibility, we are left with God (ID). Here are some considerations that would tend to rule out the first option:

1. There is no evidence that natural, unintelligent forces exist. Although we all agree that objects are subject to laws and respond in formulaic and predictable ways, there is no evidence whatsoever that these laws are natural, unintelligent and independent of one another. It is more likely that they find their origin and unity in the single Mind of God.

2. Reason and logic are unchanging. In an ever expanding universe of molecules-in-motion, naturalism can’t account for unchanging laws or principles. ID can!

3. Reason and logic are uniform, wherever we look and in whatever historical period. However, for a force or law to be natural, it must have a location from which it exerts its influence. (At least, that’s our experience with the “natural.”) The sun attracts the earth because it is in proximity to the earth. We find that this gravitational influence diminishes as the distance increases. Likewise, I’ve found that I can’t pick up the WQXR radio signals, which beam from a station in NYC, when I’m in Pennsylvania. However, the laws of physics (and reason and logic) seem to operate uniformly and universally, transcending the material considerations of location, matter and energy. Naturalism can’t seem to make such a leap.

4. Reason and logic require an adequate cause. There are so many other things that naturalism can’t adequately explain (life, DNA, fine-tuning of the universe, freewill, consciousness, moral absolutes, the unchanging physical laws). Therefore, there is no reason to believe that naturalism is adequate to account for reason and logic.

5. Our experience with causal agents informs us that the cause is always greater than the effect. If the effect was greater than the cause, it would suggest that some part of the effect is uncaused - a scientific impossibility! Only God is great enough to account for reason and logic.

If we can't account for reason and logic naturally, then we are only left with a super-natural explanation! God must exist!