One Saturday in each month Christ Church, Brownsover holds a men’s breakfast. A full English breakfast for adult males only. It is usually attended by about a dozen people, sometimes more, and is open to men who are not members of the church and who are not necessarily Christian. After eating we have a discussion about Christianity or about Christian life. The topic is chosen by Simon who organises the breakfast. I like going because I rarely have a cooked breakfast otherwise and the discussion is always interesting. A while ago, we discussed the question of what God expects of us or wants us to do.
It was made interesting by the presence of someone who did not believe in God and who essentially held to the humanist philosophy which has the tenet that you can “be good” without God. In its atheistic view of course it does not accept that God gives us a sense of right and wrong. It is interesting that the forbidden fruit in the “Garden of Eden” was on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis ch.2 v.17).
Humanists
From the Humanists UK website: “Humanists are people who shape their own lives in the here and now, because we believe it’s the only life we have. We make sense of the world through logic, reason, and evidence, and always seek to treat those around us with warmth, understanding, and respect.”. Elsewhere on the website it states “They have trusted to the scientific method, evidence, and reason to discover truths about the universe and have placed human welfare and happiness at the centre of their ethical decision making.”. So it reads like a godless religion, with statements like “we believe”. And they talk about ethics and moral values which have no anchor other than that they stem from Christianity. A fact which they conveniently ignore.
Humanists have “trusted to the scientific method ….. to discover truths about the universe … “. Their trust runs out when it comes to creating a universe out of nothing. Or indeed to creating anything out of nothing. There is no “natural law” to explain it and they can’t even explain why there are laws of nature in the first place.
To be a humanist requires assumptions about humanity and requires a leap of faith, though they will likely not admit it.
Evidence for Christianity
Clearly I should also subject my Christian faith to the same brief critical analysis but quite frankly I find that difficult in that I didn’t get here by trusting to “the scientific method, evidence, and reason”. The fact is simply that I didn’t really believe until I did. I believed that there was most likely a God, in that the arguments against His existence were pretty weak, and the argument for the creation of the universe was pretty strong (humanists seem confident that science will work out how the universe created itself out of nothing). But it didn’t affect my life in any way until I felt the strongest urge, which I take to be the working of the Holy Spirit, to get a Bible and read it. Then everything just fell into place. It really comes down to two questions: “Is there or isn’t there a God?”, and “What should one do about the answer?”. The humanist would answer the first question with a ‘No’ and the second, apparently, with ‘Invent a substitute set of beliefs’. A Christian would answer the first question with a ‘Yes’ and the second with faith and a resolve to love God and love one’s neighbour (see my blog post on the Good Samaritan). Before I found real faith, I would have answered the first question with ‘Yes, probably’ and the second with ‘Do nothing’.
There is certainly evidence to support Christianity. In Jesus’ time there were religious cults that melted away when they lost their leaders. This is recorded after Jesus’ death and resurrection when the apostles were called before the Sabhedrin (Acts 5).
33 When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death. 34 But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honoured by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while. 35 Then he addressed the Sanhedrin: ‘Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. 36 Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. 37 After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered. 38 Therefore, in the present case I advise you: leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. 39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.’
It was indeed from God and the message is still going strong 2,000 years later. But for the resurrection and the sending of the Holy Spirit, the disciples would surely have dispersed. They were dejected and demoralised after the crucifixion until they were aware of His resurrection. Then Jesus sent them the Holy Spirit. They were so energized and transformed that they preached the Gospel and gladly faced death. Their actions alone are convincing evidence of the Resurrection and divinity of Jesus.
The empirical evidence for Christianity is vast. The conversion experience and immediate transformation in many people’s lives alone is convincing. Indeed I don’t think any other religion has such profound conversion experiences. If they were bogus and purely emotional, then surely all other religions would have similar experiences,
I did check out some videos of conversions to Islam which confirmed my hypothesis that they were not the same. I make no comment other than that they are different. What I found rather sad was that Christians who converted to Islam, including those involved in leading and teaching young people in church, did not have a good understanding of Christianity. They had been brought up in the Christian faith but somehow missed out on the joy and the freedom it gives. The moral here is that Christian parents, bringing up their children as Christians does not make them Christians. Becoming a Christian requires a deliberate act of faith.