What does atheism have anything to do with having faith? Atheists usually define faith as believing in something without or contrary to evidence. If we use this definition of faith, could it perhaps take more faith to be an atheist? Dr. Frank Turek travels the country to speak at college campuses and challenge the students to think about the evidence that grounds their beliefs. We all have beliefs. Is your belief based on evidence? Based on the evidence, I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist. Listen to the full interview as we discuss the evidence for Christianity, challenges on college campuses, and problems with atheism.
Frank Turek is the President of CrossExamined.org and is the author or co-author of four books: Stealing from God: Why Atheists Need God to make their Case, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, Correct, Not Politically Correct and Legislating Morality.
I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist with Dr. Frank Turek
Frank Turek Explains Why Atheism Makes Reason Impossible
What are the common challenges to Christianity on college campuses?
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November 4, 2019 at 10:05 am
in that there is plenty of evidence for evolution, I don’t believe it by faith assuming that what I want exists despite all evidence against it.
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November 4, 2019 at 10:23 am
I’m not sure I understand. Evolution isn’t atheism.
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November 4, 2019 at 10:32 am
nope it isn’t. Evolution works. Claims about magical beings creating the universe don’t.
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November 4, 2019 at 10:43 am
I’m confused. Why are you talking about evolution? What does this have to do with the original post about atheism?
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November 4, 2019 at 10:56 am
I’m sorry you are confused. You have posted claims by Turek about not having enough faith to be an atheist.
Turek says he doesn’t have enough faith to believe in evolution which he consigns to atheism. He has no evidence for his religion but he still believes in it and intentionally misrepresents evolutionary theory. This is part of his claims about evolution right from his book “I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist”: https://crossexamined.org/intelligent-design-evolution/
I said “in that there is plenty of evidence for evolution, I don’t believe it by faith assuming that what I want exists despite all evidence against it.” Turek wants to try to claim that atheists have to have his kind of faith too. That is not the case. This is why I mention evolutionary theory.
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November 4, 2019 at 12:04 pm
When you say that there is plenty of evidence for evolution, what do you mean by evolution?
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November 5, 2019 at 7:31 am
This is a good one for me “Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes that are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Different characteristics tend to exist within any given population as a result of mutation, genetic recombination and other sources of genetic variation. Evolution occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection (including sexual selection) and genetic drift act on this variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more common or rare within a population.”
What do you think evolution means?
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November 5, 2019 at 10:23 am
I know that both myself and Frank Turek would agree with you that evolution is true if that is the definition you are using. What you just stated is a scientifically proven fact that is supported with much evidence. We are all in agreement on that one.
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November 5, 2019 at 11:53 am
That is not true per his own words. He claims intelligent design is true with no evidence. Evolutionary theory does not have some magical being causing the change in organisms.
the attempt to claim that this god uses evolution is a baseless claim and simply Christians trying to use science to validate their supernatural claims. Creationists always follow along behind science trying to claim that they “always knew” it, when that is documentably not the case.
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November 5, 2019 at 2:43 pm
I have never met a Christian, including Frank Turek, who believes that God is causing the changes in living organisms as you have described. Intelligent design, in no way, contradicts with the definition of evolution that you have provided. All Christians that I know of, and I could be wrong, recognize that genes are passed down from parent to offspring and that genetic mutations and natural selection happens apart from “some magical being causing the change.” Could you show where you are getting your information? If not, this is a complete straw man of the Christian view of creation.
Also, your claim that “Creationists always follow along behind science,” and that this is documentably true is simply false. Christians have claimed for 2,000 years that the universe had a beginning because of Genesis 1:1. It wasn’t till the last 100 years that the scientific consensus has agreed. Christians have claimed for over 2,000 years that humans were the end of creation. Science now confirms that animals came before humans. Christians have believed for over 2,000 years that humans originated in the Garden of Eden which is located in Africa and the Middle East. The most accepted view in science now is that humans originated in Africa. What you have stated is simply not true.
Finally, how is it that Christians always “follow along behind science” when it was Christians who started the scientific revolution?
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November 7, 2019 at 12:26 pm
The definition of evolutionary theory I have given is what evolutionary theory is. That a creationist wouldn’t believe that a god would be causing changes like that is no surprise.
Intelligent design entirely contradicts evolutionary theory, since it requires a magical force to make things happen. And yes, I know, you’ll likely claim that ID isn’t about gods (it could be aliens!) but we know it is since the term was invented by a creationist in order to hide his religious intentions. Intelligent design requires a being intentionally changing things, not the effects of physical laws on genes.
The Christian view of creation is many different things since you can’t agree on that either. Which version should I take as the TrueChristian™ version? Where the stories in genesis are literal and god can’t figure out that an aardvark isn’t a suitable helpmeet for Adam? Or where you want to pick and choose what is literal and what is metaphor? Just go to Answers in Genesis, and Creation Institute and Biologos to see how Christians differ.
So, is my point documentably true or simply false? Your sentence makes no sense. Christians have claimed that there was a certain type of beginning and the sciences do not support those ridiculous claims. You try to misrepresent what Christians have claimed, in order to pretend that Christians “always” knew there was a beginning.
It’s also rather pathetic that you want to claim that science has said that animals came before humans. Sorry, dear, but humans are animals. And humans certainly aren’t the end of “creation”. How pathetically ignorant and arrogant. The bible doesn’t state where the garden of eden was, so your attempt to claim that the bible was “really” right, is again a false claim built on trying to make southern Africa equivalent to the eastern Mediterranean. Science certainly says that humans likely came from Africa. Eden has nothing to do with that. Again you are caught in trying to lie.
Christianity didn’t start the scientific revolution. That was long ago started by the Greeks and Romans, Egyptians, Chinese and Indians. What Christianity did was encourage people to look for this god and they used scientific methods that had been around to do so. Then they found that they didn’t find this god, but they found out a lot of other things, like antibiotics, the earth wasn’t flat or the center of the universe, etc. Then Christianity got frightened and advocated for hiding the discoveries made since they didn’t support the nonsense in the bible.
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November 5, 2019 at 2:56 pm
I also forgot to mention that science doesn’t have a worldview. There are both Christian and Secular scientists. To say that Christians are behind science presupposes that science is anti-Christian and doesn’t account for Christian scientists.
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November 7, 2019 at 12:29 pm
You are quite right, there are christian scientists. They ignore their religion when convenient when they work in their field. Science isn’t anti-christan, but many Christians are anti-science since it shows that their myths aren’t true.
The claims in Christianity vary wildly so Christians can believe quite different versions of it, picking and choosing what they want to claim as literal and as metaphor. Since they must do this, I still feel quite comfortable in saying that Christian claims are always behind science, that as scientific investigation continues, more of the bible becomes metaphor, and this god has smaller and smaller gaps to fit into.
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November 5, 2019 at 7:31 am
oh and that definition came from wikipedia
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