What it comes down to for me, is that the premise of atheism / materialism, does a better job of predicting the reality we see around us. If we are all products of natural selection and our consciousness just comes from our brain chemistry, then it would make sense that humanity would turn out the way it has. Not only evil and suffering, which are the obvious problems, but also weird and arbitrary quirks in our anatomy that do not seem like the result of good design. We get kidney stones. Growing teeth is very painful for infants. Then they fall out when you turn six and you get your actual teeth! Until you’re 20 and your wisdom teeth start hurting. The appendix.

First I would say, that what you seem to mean is not “predicting” but explaining. Materialism (you may also hear it referred to as physicalism) explains what we see better than an supernatural explanation. The first thing you think M (Materialism) explains is consciousness. It makes sense, for you, that consciousness can be reduced to brain chemistry. Its true that you can manipulate brain chemistry in such a way as to alter consciousness but why think that explains consciousness? Philosopher Colin McGinn in his Mysterious Flame sees consciousness as anything but reducible. And this from an agnostic! Here’s a summary from Amazon.com review:

Not at all defeatist in tone, The Mysterious Flame rejects strict materialism and dualism, which seek to solve the mind-body problem in fairly unsatisfactory ways, and claims instead that our intelligence is not an appropriate tool to use for understanding the interface between subjective experience and material reality. (And, unfortunately, we don’t have anything better.) Instead of bemoaning our fate, McGinn turns the traditional questions around and asks “What can we know about ourselves?” This is just as interesting as any question being asked by philosophers of the mind, and in fact seems to merit a higher priority. Whether McGinn’s arguments will succeed in the marketplace of ideas is an open question, but they certainly deserve the attention of anyone interested in the nature of human thought. –Rob Lightner –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

My only point is that if you delve into the mind/body problem people without any theological axe to grind seem to say that consciousness isn’t as reducible as many think. So in a way my first way of combating your doubts is to argue that M isn’t as simple as the new atheists might think. Second, I would argue that there are some aspects of the universe that a theistic worldview explains better. 1st, the big bang itself. It is completely contrary to all scientific data, that things begin without an efficient cause. Multiple universe hypotheses don’t solve this problem but merely push it back. Now I know Stephen Hawking has claimed to have solved this but in order to do so he has to rely on some dodgy and highly controversial imaginary number equations. So it may be simple but its not necessarily ironclad. You would have to swallow some controversial premises. Second, the concept of morality. NOTE: I do not mean that M cannot be consistently moral, I mean how to get moral concepts from a Materialist universe. To paraphrase Hume, if all we have sub-atomic particles in motion where is the wrong in murder? I deal with this in a blog post I argue there are basically three options left for materialists, none of which explain things very well.

One of the most important things you said is the M is more elegant than Christianity in explaining things. I want to suggest you unpack what that means? If you mean there are fewer “plot holes” then my advice is to delve into the responses to new atheists from people like Edward Feser and Hunter Baker. However, suppose Christianity has more plot holes but they aren’t as big? Suppose M has fewer holes but the ones it has are much larger (like the Big Bang and Moral Principles). What, for you, does elegant mean? Less holes are shorter leaps?

The main thing I would say is, keep asking and keep praying even with your doubts. I know that if the God I worship exists, your questions and your seeking is important and not insulting to Him. Don’t simply read into one side of the debate. Check out the responses from Theists. Also consider me a sounding board since I’ve been where you are.

Spiritual truth is not understood by the natural man. Spiritual truth is just that, spiritual. It is not natural but spiritual.

Of course the natural man has his own ideas about how things are and his ideas are of course natural, and make sense to his natural mind.

However, there are a couple of big problems. One is guilt. What do you do with guilt? Unless one is a sociopath, one will have a conscience and it will be troubled by sins, past and present. As one who has struggled through a human relationship in which forgiveness is being withheld from me, I know the crushing weight of never feeling forgiven. Humans may withhold forgiveness, but I am thankful that God delights in mercy. I have found that the irreligious person often has his own way of dealing with sin and it is usually quite destructive (alcoholism, drugs). Or sometimes it is a ritual of some type, which is way more legalistic than what a Christian could conceive (such as excessive cleaning or hand-washing that becomes repetitive and obsessive).

Another big problem is that the Bible tells us that men in fact KNOW that there is a Creator God. It says that God Himself has made it obvious to us in His creation. The bible tells us that men in fact suppress the truth in unrighteousness. An unbeliever can’t find God for the same reason that a thief can’t find a policeman (hint: he doesn’t want to). To admit that there is a Creator God means: He made me and owns me and He can tell me what to do. This the natural man hates, so he suppresses the truth.

The human body alone, not to mention the universe, is enough to convince a reasonable person that there is a Creator. We would laugh at someone who found a working computer laying around and concluded that said computer just somehow came together out of some free floating material, and began working. Yet we have a body (machine) and a brain (computer) and they work together and are dependent upon one another. We have eyes that function to see, but also to work with our brains to remember. We can recall things we have seen or experienced in our thoughts, or communicate them to others through speaking or through writing. And they can understand us. This is amazing! Another thing I find very puzzling is how could male and female of every species evolve at just the right time, just the right place with just the right interworking parts in order to reproduce? To think this could “just happen” is sheer credulity.

Also, so much of false teaching seems to make incremental inroads into the church through just such books. At first, they mix truth and error, but pretty soon the books have all error and nobody notices because they had already being led astray by Voscamp et.al.

What it comes down to for me, is that the premise of atheism / materialism, does a better job of predicting the reality we see around us. If we are all products of natural selection and our consciousness just comes from our brain chemistry, then it would make sense that humanity would turn out the way it has. Not only evil and suffering, which are the obvious problems, but also weird and arbitrary quirks in our anatomy that do not seem like the result of good design. We get kidney stones. Growing teeth is very painful for infants. Then they fall out when you turn six and you get your actual teeth! Until you’re 20 and your wisdom teeth start hurting. The appendix.

Materialism explains this simply and elegantly – we have leftover bits from our evolutionary ancestors that once served a purpose but are now obsolete. Believing in God, you have to all kinds of cartwheels to explain things like this, and the answer usually sounds pretty flimsy. or just ignore it altogether, which is what I’ve done for most of my life.

The author says he cannot understand how anyone can come to believe these ‘remarkable things,’ but it doesn’t seem that complicated to me. What you are taught as a child sticks with you! I’m sure there are hardcore atheists who despite their intellectual certainty, can’t seem to shake that nagging fear of hell, because it was so engrained into them since childhood.

I also think the church has cherry picked its doctrine over the centuries, and it amazes me how ‘human’ or ‘organic’ the process has been. I can’t help but wonder how Christianity would have been different, or if it would have survived at all had we had picked different writings for our canon. Or if a completely different faith might have emerged altogether, if other writings had been preserved and transmitted. It is so much like natural selection for ideas – the adaptive traits of Christianity are what enable it to survive where other ideas faded into obscurity. Have you read any Daniel Dennet? He talks a great deal about this in ‘Breaking the Spell,’ and of all the ‘New Atheist’ thinkers he seems by far the most respectful and level-headed.

I do not want to be arrogant like I’m the only one who sees through all the BS – it has actually been incredibly humbling, no to mention scary, to think about and research these things. Fear and trembling is a great way to put it.

THEY have the ultimate power. THEY make Jpusa what it is, not the council.

Unfortunately, I think Jaime’s analysis is spot-on. From all outward appearances, when doing battle to protect their public image of righteousness, JPUSA’s Council uses others as armed human shields, if you will.

Yes, JPUSA’s Council signed Eric’s “An Open Letter To Dr. Ronald Enroth,” and that perhaps has given the impression that at one point they actually did “defend themselves.” But now that we all know that Eric actually wrote it, it occurs to me that if I were to begin picking apart that document’s statements (which I can easily do based on what I know from Scripture and have heard from ex-members), the Council could manufacture an “out” by expressing their “regret” over Eric’s choice of wording which they did not “catch” at the time. (Wink! Wink!)

I hate to sound cynical here, but in my opinion the behavior I’ve been witnessing for nearly 20 years now on the part of JPUSA’s leadership, and especially the aspects of that behavior which we have all come to learn more recently thanks to Jaime’s work, places the burden squarely on them to explain why we should give them the benefit of the doubt.

They have never once defended, or tried to defend themselves as a council using their voice, rather letting others take the fall while they get the minutes of each debacle reported to them.

Imagine the scenario when all of this begins to unfold, and they are questioned about certain responses throughout the years….”well, we didn’t tell Jon Trott or Eric Pement to say such things” see how that works?