By: Dr. Jerry Bergman
Montpelier, Ohio
Most of my university colleagues, some of whom I worked with for years, were atheists or agnostics. I had many conversations with one colleague in particular. I recently interviewed him and, with his permission, decided to print parts of the interview.
Thank you for the opportunity to voice my concerns. I was reared a Catholic and in college became an atheist, so I am aware of both worldviews. One thing that bothers me is the belief that atheists are immoral liars and bad people.
Most atheists I know, due to my university employment and my active involvement in the atheist movement, including The Freedom From Religion Foundation, are honest, ethical persons.
One early influence in my becoming an atheist was reading a book for my philosophy class titled Why I Am Not a Christian by British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970). Bertrand Russell rejected the design argument, called creationism today, because he accepted evolution, as did many of his, and my, colleagues, which led him to atheism.
He rejected Christianity for many reasons, including the centuries of fighting between Catholics and Protestants in the French Wars of Religion (1562-1598), the Schmalkaldic Wars (1546-1547), the Eighty Years’ War (1568-1648), and the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648).
Another example is the religious conflicts that pit Catholic Irish natives against Protestant English/Scottish settlers in Ireland. These also included the 17th-century Confederate and Williamite wars, and “The Troubles” (c. 1968-1998).
Then there are the roughly 1,400 years of war between Jews, Muslims, and Christians still active today. This is, in addition to the killing of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish heretics.
Why not let God do the killing, and then the likelihood of burning the wrong person at the stake will not exist. One lightning bolt will effectively eliminate the heretics.
Better yet, simply help him see the error of his ways.
As a history major, I have studied the three Jewish sects (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) in some detail and have concluded that the differences between them are very minor.
They do not see these differences as minor, but are they really worth waging a war over, resulting in many millions of deaths?
Muslims highly revered Jesus as a prophet and messenger of God, born of a virgin, who performed miracles, and a key figure in the prophet chain leading to Muhammad.
Jews largely accept the Muslim belief about Jesus, but reject Jesus as the Messiah because, they claim, he did not fulfill specific messianic prophecies from the Hebrew Bible.
Jews, except messianic Jews, reject Jesus as the Messiah and reject Jesus as God as do the Muslims. Jews are strict monotheists, believing in the absolute unity and singularity of God. Christians add that Jesus is part of the Godhead. In short, the three faiths largely agree on who Jesus was, but Christians add the deity claim.
Jews are strict monotheists, believing in the absolute unity and singularity of God. Christians add that Jesus is part of the Godhead. In short, the three faiths hold varying views on who Jesus was, but Christians alone make the deity claim.
We, atheists, do not accept any god. We do not believe in Greek gods (Zeus, Aphrodite), Roman gods (Jupiter, Venus), Norse gods (Odin, Thor), Celtic gods (Rhiannon, Brigid), nor the Christian gods (YHWH, Jesus, and Holy Spirit). In his book “Why I Am Not a Christian,”
Russell argued that organized churches have consistently opposed scientific progress, fueled fear and hatred, and functioned as the main enemy of human science advancement such as opposing human evolution.
The fact is, humans are only naked apes. The churches especially opposed human evolution, which is accepted by 99.99 percent of all scientists. God did not create us. We evolved by mutations providing genetic variety, which was selected by natural selection.
You are one of the very rare scientists who reject the fact of evolution, although I admit you have some excellent arguments against evolution. To me, you have just discovered problems for evolution to answer with more research.
The charge that religion produces endless wars is best illustrated by Iran’s nuclear ambitions and regional proxy conflicts.
The religious leaders there have, instead of using their billions of dollars in oil revenue for the benefit of their people, invested it in 450 kg of enriched uranium to build atomic bombs to enable them to wipe Jews off the face of the Earth, or at least in the Middle East.
The atomic bomb will not only cause the death of many millions of people, but will also cause enormous suffering from cancer and other diseases. Iran has also stockpiled hundreds of thousands of bombs, rockets, and other instruments of war.
My Response
The religious wars are one example of a horrible violation of the basic teachings of Christianity. Judaism teaches that war is an evil to be avoided, requiring that compromise be sought before engaging in conflicts.
Islam teaches that war is to be used only for defense or ending oppression. The Hebrew prophets expressed hope that people will not “learn war any more” (Micah 4:3), adding that they will “beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:4). Christianity has the strongest teaching against war. Christianity preaches to love your enemy and to pray for those persecuting you, not to go to war against them.
The mammoth three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars (edited by Phillips and Axelrod) researched all 1,763 wars that occurred in recorded history.
They found that religion was central in only 121, or 7 percent of all wars, and over half of those wars were waged in the name of Islam. This may be because the Quran teaches that all non-Muslims are infidels who must submit to Allah or be killed.
Obviously, the teaching of Christianity has had a positive effect in limiting war, but 121 wars are 121 too many, especially if your child was killed in one.
In short, Christian teaching does have a major effect in preventing war and, therefore, pastors should not shy away from teaching the central Christian doctrine of overcoming hate with love, as some do.
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Dr. Bergman is a multi-award-winning professor and author. He has 9 degrees and has taught at both the graduate and undergraduate level for over 40 years. His over 2,100 publications are in both scholarly and popular journals. Dr. Bergman’s work has been translated into 15 languages. He has spoken over 2,000 times to college, university and church groups in America, Canada, Europe, the South Sea Islands, and Africa. He lives in Montpelier and is available to present in churches and schools. Jerry can be reached at JerryBergman30@yahoo.com