Today's post is inspired by a short discussion yesterday during CG time where some of them were talking about how many Malaysians today seem to have a problem with the idea of a belief in God, or that they have this idea of all religions being true at the same time and what not.
As someone who's spent quite awhile debating the local Malaysian scene on issues regarding the existence of God and Christianity, I think I should talk about a few common objections that local "skeptics" often raise against Christianity or theism in general.
Definitions
I'll start with getting my definitions clear.
Theism is the belief that there is a God, and He is a personal God. In contrast to a Deist, who believes that God exists, but He is not personal. Atheism is the belief that there is no God (though some would contest this definition) and agnosticism is the belief that we cannot know (the middle position) whether God exists or not.
Religious pluralism is the belief that all roads lead to God.
Cultural borders
While I've been widely influenced by the westerners in their discourse on whether or not God exists or is Christianity true or viable, I realize that Malaysians are very different in their objections. Malaysians don't particular solid critical thinking, rather they mix their thoughts with alot of emotions most of the time. This cannot be blamed solely on them as our education system is one that has nearly 0 emphasis on critical thinking at all, unless the west. The arguments Malaysians often make against Christian theism are often targeted at the idea of religious exclusivism (the idea that there is only one way to God) since we come from a background of a diverse amount of races, religions and customs.
Which leads me to the first common objection to Christianity that I hear alot...
There are so many religions out there, it's arrogant to claim that yours is the only one that is true etc.
This argument takes multiple forms, like the one above and another form where it goes like this "There are so many religions out there, therefore we cannot truly know which religion is truth". This argument I think, relies alot on the assumption that if there are disagreements, therefore there is no truth. Which I think doesn't hold. Why think that just because many people disagree with something, therefore there can be no truth? Scientists disagreed previously on the structure of the atom before all the experiments took place, yet we now know that there is indeed someone in the debate that was right after all. Simply put, just because there is disagreement between people, it doesn't mean that no one is right.
Another issue that local detractors of religion point out is the problem of "knowing" which religion is true. Alot of Malaysians are given their "religion" based on what religious sect. their parents believe in, hence leading to the idea that religion is just something that is passed down, not reasoned with. It's like a man's race. You cannot change it. You are born with it. So they conclude from this assumption that religion is merely a family tradition that is passed down from generations to generations, saying that one is truer than the other will be like saying a chinese is more true than an indian (which makes no sense).
I agree to some extent that alot of Malaysians treat their religion like a family tradition, but is that really what a religion entails?
A religion is a set of beliefs regarding the supernatural and a worldview in general. It's beliefs comprises of statements that are either true or false, it is not like nasi lemak or what not. The objection assumes that ALL religious believers have not reasoned about their own faith and are blind to the world around them, which is of course a flawed assumption. There are many who know why they are a Muslim instead of a Christian, Hindu instead of a Buddhist or what not. People reason about their religions (and it's beliefs) and connect it to others etc. It might not be a coherent reason for believing, but nevertheless, it's not always a matter of mere blind faith.
Then this leads us to a more common proclamation by Malaysians trying to be peaceful and intelligent. They say "all roads lead to God actually" or "Claiming that there is one way to God is arrogant!"
They claim that there is one God, and He has revealed Himself in multiple forms in the form of the different world religions today.
Two things, firstly, for a claim that large, do they have anything to back up their statement? My moral teacher, Ms Geetha argues that it's only fair for God to reveal Himself to all and not just a particular race, but who is Ms Geetha to tell God what to do? Let's put this in the perspective of Christian theology. Christianity believes that Men have been separated from God because of their sin (their wrongdoings), and perfect justice demands that Men be put to death for their wrongdoings. Yet for God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son to die on the cross for the sins of the world. The gospel began when God revealed Himself to the Isrealites in the old testament. Now we see that justice isn't an issue here, because if Ms Geetha wanted God to be just, in the eyes of Christian theology, she would want God to wipe out the entire human race because that is what justice truly demands. The fact that God even revealed Himself to a particular group of people at the beginning is already an act of grace.
Then there's the claim that all religions can actually be true at the same time. Which I think is a political statement more than a well thought out one. Every religion contradicts another to some extent, even religions which say that other religions are true.
For example, religion X might claim that all the world religions are equally true at the same time, but we have religions like Islam and Christianity which makes truth claims that there can only be one true religion, and by saying that all the religions are true, religion X is claiming that Islam and Christianity are wrong with their truth claims. To claim that they are all true at the same time is like claiming that a married bachelor can exist!
You are a man of faith, I am a man of science.
Now this isn't an objection that is restricted to Malaysians only. It is common for people to express skepticism over religious belief in an age where science seems to be able to explain everything...
Cave men believed in God because they heard the sound of lightning and concluded that "God did it!". This is a common line of reasoning that people give to argue that religion is of no use as science is teaching us more and more about nature and how the world works.
But is the purpose of religion really to merely explain the workings of the universe? Yes, some religions do make certain truth claims about how the universe that might or might not contradict science (for example, if the static universe model was true, then the universe is eternal, and religions which assert that the universe had a beginning would be in trouble) But then this boils down to whether or not there are truth claims being made by any religion that clashes with our current understanding of science and what not.
Look at Christianity for example. Galileo Galilei was imprisoned by the Catholic Church back then because he claimed that the earth was not the center of the universe because the Catholics thought it went against the biblical teaching that the earth was the center of the earth (which is a literal interpretation of metaphorical or allegorical text). Then we have the ever painstaking creation evolution debate going on today. Did Genesis really literally happen? Did God create the earth in 6 days and did it happen 6000 years ago?
Many Christians would read Genesis allegorically (even St. Augustine suggested that the Genesis creation account might've been allegorical even when evolution was a few hundred years away from even being suggested!), but some would argue that Genesis ought to be taken literally to some extent, and evolution isn't entirely true and what not.
Which brings us to the problem of knowledge within science. Yes, the scientific method is a really good way for us to know truth, but it is not the only way. There is logic and mathematical truth (I don't know if I should categorize the two together though). Some philosophers (primarily from the Intelligent design movement) would argue that there are problems with evolution from a philosophical and sometimes scientific standpoint (though I personally would disagree). The creation-evolution debate is a sticky topic, but my own personal stance is that God created via evolution.
Which goes to show how science and faith can be reconciled in most cases. But this doesn't seem to be the biggest problem I think. It seems that many people who argue that science and faith are incompatible seem to be assuming more than just the fact that there are things religious people say about the world that is against science. They seem to be assuming that if science cannot prove something, then we do not know whether it is true or not. But this is self-defeating, for the statement "Science is the only way in which we can know truths about the world" isn't a scientific statement at all! You cannot prove the truth of this statement in a laboratory setting or what not. What other ways can we know truth then? By reason. Christianity, is a reasonable religion. It calls it's followers to always be prepared to give a defense of the faith. God is believed to be the truth. I understand that most Christians in Malaysia are somewhat fideistic (meaning that they "just have faith"), but in essence, Christianity is a reasonable faith. You can prove it wrong by coming up with an argument against the existence of God or that Jesus never actually existed in history before and so forth(that is, if your argument holds).
The issue of science and faith is a wide topic though, I might just blog more about this next time. But hopefully I've successfully demonstrated that the whole idea that science contradicts faith is false.
If your God is so good and all loving, He won't send people to hell...
According to Christian theology, Men have sinned and therefore fallen short of the glory of God. What this means is that while God is a loving God, He is also a holy God. That means that no one deserves to live because we all have sinned, for the wages of sin is death. So He didn't owe it to us to save us, yet He did. But those who reject His grace get what they deserve in the end.
C.S.Lewis put it something like this; On judgment day the words "thy will be done" will be said, either by God or by man. He means to say that God doesn't send people to hell, they choose to go there themselves. God says to the man "thy will be done", which is to say that God lets the man go to the place where he wants to be; eternal separation from God.
end thoughts
I'm actually not too sure if I did a good job with my defense. I have a problem with this because I feel that I'm occasionally forgetting which objections I'm addressing since some arguments sound so similar but are very different in nature. I know there are more objections to deal with, such as the ever so famous problem of evil and what not, but that deserves a post on it's own to handle.
If anyone has any questions, do pm me on facebook or twitter!
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