Category: Faith and Reason (Page 6 of 8)
What comes to mind when you think of “mercy.”
Mercy, like many other human virtues, cannot be comprehended without an objective moral law which gives objective meaning to mercy. Therefore, it follows that moral law must have a moral law giver.
The problem in our aggressively, and dare I say, ideologically secular society is that the moral “law giver” has has become the human person. As a result we have seen misguided and erroneous approach to mercy. An approach that has a seeming obsession with death. The latest example being an aggressive push for “assisted suicide.”
Courtesy of Unsplash.com by Matthew Henry
I remember visiting a person and discussing the moral implications of abortion. My interlocutor held the position that abortion ought to be legal because a child is not considered to be living until the child is outside the mother’s womb.
So I proceeded to ask who has the authority to decide when a human person is to be considered a human person. Thinking for a moment he responded by saying it’s simply the secular law. “So, who is the lawgiver or law creator then? And by what authority does the lawgiver decide that a law is objectively just?” I asked. He responded “It just is?” What an odd answer.
The Crux of the Matter
I wish to discuss 2 questions in brief:
- What is secularity?
- Are secular values objectively always true and what is the standard by which we decide if they’re true?
Let’s start with the first question.
Coutesy of Unsplash.com by Claire Anderson
There are many reasons that people can turn away from faith in God. The top three reasons I hear most are the following:
- The assumption that science disproves God…
- The problem of evil and suffering…
- And unanswered prayers
I have spoken on all three of these issues in previous written and video posts (which you can check out on my blog), but today I would like to revisit the third one. The problem of unanswered prayers.
Courtesy of Unsplash.com by Ben White
As a former atheist I believed three things about having faith in God.
First, I believed that God was no different from childhood wishful fantasies such as the Tooth Fairy or Santa Clause. I also believed that God was a “god of the gaps”; an explanation for natural phenomena that is yet to be explained by science. Ancient mythical gods fall into this category along with the plethora of gods recognized in classical Hinduism.
Second, I believed that if God did turn out to be real he’s a real jerk. He always seemed to be in competition for my happiness. To me it seemed that God put up a bunch of rules/commandments that kept me from experiencing freedom. You know which “rules” I’m referring to: No sex before marriage; Even after I get married I have to be “open to life.” It seemed to me there were really two options:
a) have a million kids or…
b) abstain from sexual intimacy.
And perhaps the worst “rule” to abide by was being forced to sit through an agonizing hour of church every Sunday. “What a party pooper!” so I thought.
Courtesy of Unsplash.com by Liane Metzier