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Feedback archive → Feedback 2002 Answering angry anti-Christianity15 April 2002 Right from its beginnings in the mid to late 1990s, our website received much positive feedback, as well as a few brickbats. Back then, we didn’t have a feedback section, but we still tried to answer them. We also didn’t have a Q&A section as we do now, with over 50 different topic headings, or such an extensive database of articles on a wide range of topics. One example of a brickbat came from a young woman, then 20, from Melbourne, Australia, and this is now printed (indented) with Dr Jonathan Sarfati’s reply (interspersed, non-indented) at the time. Ellipses (…) at the end of one of K’s paragraphs signal (not in the middle, because she used them a lot herself) that a mid-sentence comment follows, not an omission. But this reply has been slightly edited so current readers can benefit the most, mostly using square brackets [] to indicate where he would have referred to articles posted since the original reply.
Actually, Jesus said this to the apostles, and it is to do with the forgiveness of sins by God. The apostles preached the Gospel (defined in 1 Corinthians 15:1–4). They pointed out that anyone who believed the Gospel would have their sins forgiven by God, while those who rejected the Gospel would not be forgiven.
Anything said about these people is factual rebuttal. We try to avoid personal attacks, so if you can actually identify anything that would qualify as a ‘personal attack’ please let us know. If someone proposes nonsense and we show that it is nonsense, then of course this can offend the sensibilities of some because it does point to incompetence on behalf of the person. So it is difficult to expose error without offending. The article about Thiering refuted, with temperate language, that the Gospels are a code, a claim which has no support in the scholarly world, whether creationist or not. Non-creationist scholars have been quite vehement against Thiering’s pseudo-scholarship compared to us. What exactly is the problem with answering Plimer’s scurrilous charges against [CMI], showing that he makes crass scientific blunders, pointing out that he is an ardent humanist (atheist) so is hardly a friend of ‘rational Christianity’ as he manages to convince gullible ‘men of the cloth’ that he is, documenting clear examples of plagiarism, the worst academic sin, etc. I challenge you to point out anything scurrilous in our responses. It doesn’t seem to bother you that Plimer accuses creation scientists of being scientifically and financially fraudulent, calls them Satanic and unchristian, and even accused (on a university letterhead) one creationist of being ‘surrounded by young boys who were continually touching him’ although that gentleman always travelled with his wife or the couple he was billeted at. Or are trumped up accusations of pederasty OK and not to be refuted? [See ‘The Ian Plimer Files’] As for Spong, we have said very little about him, so I can’t understand the basis for your complaint. But have no fear—we will soon be publishing a detailed rebuttal of his pseudo-scholarship on our website. [Now posted—see What’s wrong with Bishop Spong? By the way, as amply shown in this article, Spong is hardly a paragon of temperate language.] I should also point out that Jesus used some pretty harsh words to people sometimes, especially hypocritical teachers, e.g. Matthew 23:27: ‘Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.’ And in verse 33: ‘You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?’
What do you mean? The whole point of evolution is to deny creation. Stephen Jay Gould agrees that Darwin’s main motive was to attack the Argument from Design [see Darwin’s real message: have you missed it?] and Dawkins claims that Darwin made it possible to be ‘an intellectually fulfilled atheist’ [see review of his Climbing Mount Improbable].
They do—no-one’s stopping them. [Au contraire, in New South Wales (Australia), a University moved to crack down on Christian Freedoms, and it’s actually lawful in that state to discriminate against Christians.]
All of us will talk to non-believers. But [CMI] will not take part in public debates with the Australian Skeptics [sic] until they dissociate themselves from Plimer’s wicked accusation of pederasty and similar gutter tactics. Rather, what little they have published on this is in support of it. [See Countering the Critics: Anti-creationist lobby, Skeptics, etc.]
And He commanded people to believe in Him. He said: ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’ (John 14:6).
Not guilty. [But as pointed out, there is plenty of slander on the part of anti-creationists in anti-creationist publications, and even condoned in supposedly objective scientific journals. For example, the grossly misnamed Free Inquiry 13(3) 1993, contained an article ‘Is religion a form of mental illness’, while Daniel Dennett said that religions should be caged like dangerous wild animals in Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, a book much loved by the scientific establishment. I’d challenge you to find statements by creationists on the lines of ‘Is atheism a mental illness?’ or ‘Evolutionists should be caged like wild animals’. Another example is the apostate anti-creationist Michael Shermer’s comparison of creationists with Holocaust deniers, which conveniently sweeps under the carpet the fact that the major creationist organisations have pointed to the Holocaust as the logical outcome of a consistent evolutionary philosophy—see The Holocaust and Evolution. It also glosses over a glaring commonality between Holocaust deniers and evolutionists—that they both dismiss reliable eye-witness reports (of gas chambers and Einsatsgruppen extermination squads, cf. the Creation account in Genesis and the Resurrection accounts in the Gospels and 1 Corinthians 15) because of their commitment to an ideology (anti-semitism and materialism, respectively]
If you think that way, then you’d need to refute some of the arguments [in our Q&A page on God, with point-by-point rebuttals. Actually, a good start would be Is There Really a God? (above left) Also, Christianity would have been refuted right at the outset if its opponents could have produced the body of Christ, but they never could because His tomb was empty and He appeared to more than 500 people at once—see Q&A: Jesus Christ, Resurrection.]
He created a paradise, but this paradise was destroyed by sin (Genesis 3). It will be restored when Christ returns, as promised in Revelation 21:4 and 22:3, where there will be no more curse, death or tears. [This shows the importance of believing in a literal Genesis, because if there were billions of years of death and suffering before Adam’s fall, then would it mean that it will be ‘restored’ to billions more years of death and suffering?]
Evil is not a ‘thing’ in itself, even though it is real. Rather, evil is the privation of some good something ought to have. Murder is a removal of a good human life. Adultery is a privation of a good marriage. Good is fundamental and can exist in itself; evil cannot exist in itself. It is always a parasite on good. For example, a wound cannot exist without a body, and the very idea of a wound presupposes the concept of a healthy body. Blindness in a human is a physical evil, because humans are supposed to see (but oysters are not, so blindness is not an evil for oysters). Also, evil actions are done to achieve things like wealth, power, sexual gratification, which the evildoer finds ‘good’ (meaning ‘pleasing’). Evil things are not done as ends in themselves, but good things are. Now, since evil is not a thing, God did not create evil [although He does create calamity as he has a right to do, and this is the correct understanding of Isaiah 45:7].
A few brief points are made in the article ‘Why would a loving God allow suffering?’ [Subsequently we have published the booklet ‘Why is there death and suffering’ (above right), and see also Why is there Death & Suffering? booklet: Raises questions but provides framework for answers.]
God didn’t tempt them, Satan did, and Adam and Eve followed their own pride rather than obeying God. God warned them exactly what would happen and they chose not to heed His warning. [See also Isn’t God’s command not to eat the fruit a case of entrapment?!?]
Indeed, we have all inherited Adam’s sinful nature [as Romans 5:12–19 says]. This is the easiest doctrine of Christianity to prove empirically, as G.K. Chesteron pointed out!
God is not only perfectly loving, He is also perfectly just, so must punish violations of His holy law. Since our shortcomings offend His infinite holiness, the punishment must also be infinite. Either we must suffer such punishment, or else a Substitute must endure it in our place (Isaiah 53). The Substitute must be fully human to substitute for humanity (Heb. 2:14), and must be our blood relation (through Adam) so he can be our ‘kinsman redeemer’ (Isaiah 59:20, same word in Ruth 2:20), must be perfectly sinless so He would not have to atone for sins of His own (Heb. 7:27), and must be fully Divine to endure God’s infinite wrath (Is. 53:10). To be the mediator between God and Man, Jesus must be both. 1 Timothy 2:5 states: ‘For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus’. You could also read ‘What about Hell?’ [as well as Is there really a hell where the unsaved will be eternally punished?]. Note also that Jesus talked about Hell more than Heaven, so Christians shouldn’t downplay its seriousness.
[Condensed: there are several major principles involved in this one:
Anyway you have heard, so you have no excuse. So what are you going to do about it?
He has defeated the Devil, when He, the Second Person of the Trinity, our Creator Jesus Christ, took on human nature (John 1:1–18), died on the Cross and rose from the dead. The war is almost over; just mopping up operations now. Similarly, one could say that WWII was virtually over once the Allies landed on D-Day, although there were plenty of battles until the actual surrender.
Who knows? As Daniel Defoe made his character Robinson Crusoe explain to Friday who asked ‘Why doesn’t God destroy the Devil because he’s so evil?’, ‘Why doesn’t God destroy all of us when we do so many things which offend Him’ (paraphrased).
And this is why there is so much evil in the world. They have misused God’s gift of choice. [Now, they have no power on their own to do what’s right because of their sin nature, which is why God must step in and renew our hearts—Ezekiel 36:26
You have failed to substantiate these accusations about us [or told us why these things seem to be acceptable among our opponents, or even given any reason why these things should even be objectively morally wrong if we live in an evolutionary ‘survival of the fittest’ world.]
He doesn’t. But Christ’s chief apostle, Peter, commanded us (1 Peter 3:15): ‘But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,’ And Christ’s half-brother Jude commanded in v.3 of his epistle: ‘… earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.’ The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 10:2–5:
What on earth could this mean?
Who does? But note also that Jesus told the adulteress ‘Go and sin no more’ (John 8:11). You seem to have forgotten that. He also said in Matthew 15:18–19: ‘But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.’
[This raises a good point—unlike many unbelievers who think they’re ‘good enough to get into heaven’, ‘K’ realizes that neither she nor anyone else has any hope of coming up to Jesus’ standards.] That’s why we have no hope unless we believe that Jesus paid the penalty for that sin on the Cross …
We do.
Jesus made it clear when He forgave people that He expected them to turn from their life of sin. We should love prostitutes, adulterers and homosexuals, but part of that love means pointing out their serious sins, and their danger of spending an eternity without God in Hell.
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I think creationists are more in danger of being burnt at the stake, [as shown by the vitriol spouted against us in the establishment scientific journals and the media, as above. Anti-creationist discrimination is rampant—see Do Creationists Publish in Notable Refereed Journals? It’s notable that the number of deaths in the last century alone due to evolution-based philosophies such as Nazism and Communism far outweigh those caused by ‘religion’ in all centuries combined. Further, the professing Christians who killed were acting inconsistently with their professed faith, while Hitler and Stalin were acting consistently with theirs. See again Q&A: Communism and Nazism.]
K.
Melbourne Australia
(Dr) Jonathan Sarfati
PS: Why not come and hear what we really have to say next time we are in your area, you seem to have quite the wrong idea of what we are on about?