"Thank God for Richard Dawkins"...? The Resurgence of Belief in God with Justin Brierley
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 ต.ค. 2024
- Joining me today is Justin Brierley, #Christian author, speaker, and broadcaster. Justin has hosted many of Justin is a longtime radio and podcast host who has interviewed many of Europe’s and North America’s leading intellectuals in conversations about the intersection of #religion, #science, #culture, #society, and #politics. In 2017 he wrote Unbelievable?: Why After Ten Years of Talking with Atheists, I'm still a Christian, in which he tackled many of the claims of new #atheism. Part of our conversation today will deal with his new book coming out later this year, The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God: Why New Atheism Grew Old and Secular Thinkers are Considering Christianity Again, which is available for pre-order at justinbrierley.com.
Dominion's historical analysis cleverly exposes the Christian assumptions that western culture is saturated in. When put into it's proper historical context it is easier to see how radical and pivotal Christianity really is and was.
Yes!
I appreciate the conversation, guys, but the truth is that a resurgence of Christianity is not possible without repentance. You talk about people "coming back to faith," etc, etc, as though it were merely some mechanism for social cohesion, but the central truth of Christianity (NT Wright notwithstanding) is that Christ died for sinners, and that whosoever believes in Him shall be saved. That is the truth on which the church was founded in Acts 2, and by which it was revived in the 16th century, and apart from which there is no hope in the present.
You've made a fair point, for sure, and it's a point that is not lost on me nor Brierley. Reconsidering belief in God is only the first step for some toward repentance and, hopefully, discipleship.
There is no ‘Resurgence of Belief in God’. Belief is God in ‘western’ nations has dropped off a cliff. Many counties are now less than 50% theist and still dropping.
Looking back at the past 30 years of waning belief is a fascinating topic. The speed and amount of drop varies greatly across countries and cultures, and it is interesting to plot the change in light of factors such as, political change, educational change, religious scandals, atrocities, internet use etc. However, one thing is for certain there ain’t no resurgence!
It is undeniable the enormous influence Christianity has had, and continues to have on culture, but that has no bearing on whether the Christian God is real. The societies in other parts of the world are strongly influenced by their ‘indigenous’ religions, but this doesn’t make them true either.
I agree with your point that belief in the supernatural in whatever form isn't going away anytime soon. All we can hope is that this belief isn’t too damaging for everyone else.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
We may find that hard data will catch up with the anecdotal evidence Brierley describes in his book: belief in God will become increasingly popular as more thinkers like the ones he mentions in his upcoming book reconsider the value of Christianity. I don't think it's too great a leap to go from "Christianity has done enormous good for society" to "Why has it done that good? What is it about Christianity that leads to this kind of society where equality of persons and a dignity of personhood are inherent?"
@@faithinthefolds2034 “We may find that hard data will catch up with the anecdotal evidence”. That would require an enormous turnaround, some would say miraculous! As an aside, this isn’t gloating, I don’t have a particular disdain for Christianity, it’s just what the data shows.
“What is it about Christianity that leads to this kind of society where equality of persons and a dignity of personhood are inherent.” It would be very easy to contend that those ideals were (mostly) achieved in spite of Christianity rather than because of it. I expect anyone reading this can think of examples!
The fact that parts of the world with no Christian culture have very similar ideals, would suggest that it is not one particular God that is producing the values, and very likely not a God at all.
Organised religion is definitely on the wane in the west, however spirituality is alive and well. I suggest you read Iain McGilchrist's The Matter with Things that explores some of your questions. I found his thoughts on consciousness , intuition, and his challenges to scientism to be illuminating.
@@nicksibly526 I haven't read it. Thanks for the recommendation.
@@auntietheistjuror Ayaan Hirsli would certainly disagree with you and she sees reality for what it is. She is correct about the fact that if it wasn't for Christianity, there would be a lot of good things missing in the world. Also your expectations about people contending this are wrong are wrongly placed.
"Hahaha, silly atheists, they got split! Well, we got split too... That's just human nature."
Yeah, exactly. Which is what you would NOT find if your religion came from a wise deity, instead of being precisely that. Another manifestation of human nature.
Jesus himself (the biblical character, we'll never know what the historical guy said) prayed to God (so, to himself?) asking that his followers DIDN'T get split, so as to prove the veracity of this new branch of belief.
Apparently he said "no" to himself.
Too late, he was already on the record admitting that splitting was evidence that it did NOT come from a deity.
John 17:20-23
Jesus Prays for All Believers
20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one- 23 I in them and you in me-so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
Funny you should mention the difference between the biblical character of Jesus and the "historical guy," because that's what I wrote my doctoral dissertation on. I can recommend some really excellent resources on the Jesus of history if you'd like.
As far as Jesus's unity prayer goes, I think you've misunderstood Jesus's point. He was not saying "If they aren't unified, there's no God," but that seems to be how you've taken him. Interestingly, you seem rather confident the historical Jesus said this.
@@faithinthefolds2034 , quite the contrary. I'm pretty confident he didn't say almost any of the things the gospels claim he said, and particularly this one, because there's no evidence that Jesus though he was starting a new religion, but he was just an apocalyptic wandering rabbi.
And among those falsehoods attributed to Jesus, we have the unity prayer, which seems to say what it seems to say. Jesus asking god for his future church to be a single one, instead of the thousands of denominations like we have in the real world.
"His" reasoning was absolutely correct: That would be amazing evidence that the religion is special, instead of being just another memetic infection people can get, which is transmissible between humans, and can mutate, and be retraced geographically, like any virus.
Gods may fall in and out of fashion, but nobody has presented a reasonable case for any yet.
And everyone KNOWS (while some may try to close their eyes tightly) that the smarter and more educated people are, the less they believe in deities, fairies, mermaids, ghosts, demons, et cetera.
Thanks for watching and commenting! It really boosts the channel.
And, I'm afraid what you say "everyone KNOWS" is lost on a great number of intellectuals who have a deep and grounded faith in God. Educating oneself out of belief in God-or even the supernatural, more generally-happens to some, for sure, but that's hardly a worthwhile argument against belief in God.
@@faithinthefolds2034 I don't mind "boosting your channel" (which shouldn't be needed in a world where your god was real). I'm all for the public clash of ideas (because there are no deities who can provide revelations).
But it does look like you're trying reverse psychology, which would be pretty infantile. 🤨
And no, pretty much everyone knows that, statistically, the smarter and more educated people are the less they believe in deities, flying carpets, leprechauns, et cetera. And the smarter and more educated people are, the more they're aware of this too.
And you're wrong. This is EXCELLENT evidence against claims about deities who are all-powerful, all-knowing, and interested in a relationship with us. It's pretty close to a defeater. Because an all-knowing all-powerful deity who was interested in a relationship with us would know exactly how to make us know this, and would have the power to actually do it. And the smarter and more educated people were, the clearer they would see the evidence.
We have the exact opposite of that situation.
Believers are underrepresented in sciences (which is why believers make pathetic lists of believers who are or were scientists, and mostly from the past, because there are so few worth mentioning nowadays).
They're overrepresented in prison populations, though.
Do you have a good explanation of this?
Because I do. It's extremely simple. I bet you can guess.
"A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion” ― Francis Bacon. Just sayin'.
How do? All of the minds behind the Scientific Revolution were Theists, most of them Christians.
'Promo SM'
EVEN IF IT WAS TRUE that some part of my moral thinking comes from Christianity, Christianity is still disgusting to me as a whole, and this is entirely irrelevant anyway.
I'm sure we've also been influenced by Roman and Greek thinking, and that's not a good case in favor of THEIR deities.
And the fact that you're wasting time on these distractions only makes it more obvious that you don't have a good case for the REALITY of your magical claims, which is why you lower yourselves to argue for its usefulness.
Quite shameful.
Have you ever wondered why your moral thinking makes sense?
@@faithinthefolds2034 Because it's based on demonstrable reality instead of ancient mythology. 🤷🏽♂️
And yet, here you are on a Christian podcast looking for answers. Plenty of atheists/agnostics support the values of the Judeo-Christian West. Look no further than Tom Holland, Iain McGilchrist, Louise Perry, Jordan Peterson and Douglas Murray. It seems more than likely that the radicalnesss of Jesus' teachings continue to reverberate through western thinking. Once you see it you can't unsee it.