atheism Archives - Colin Dye

Brandon Flowers of 'The Killers' Challenged on his Mormon Faith by Atheist Richard Dawkins

Colin Dye — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 14:31:55 +0000

Musician Brandon Flowers of the rock band “The Killers” had an unexpected and tense conversation about his Mormon faith with famed atheist Richard Dawkins on the Swedish talk show “Skavlan” in early September. Here I answer the question: “are all the religions the same?”

Vocalist Brandon Flowers of The Killers was challenged by Richard Dawkins on his Mormon Faith

The host of the talk show, Fredrik Skavlan, asked Flowers, a devout Mormon, to describe the “beauty of [his] faith.”
Flowers responded positively to Skavlan’s request, saying that some of the things he loves about his Mormon faith are “my mother teaching me to pray, and that I have that communication with my heavenly Father. That’s something I turn to on a daily basis.”
“There are answers to questions that my church has that also are very…it’s a beautiful thing to me, and I’m happy,” the musician added.
Flowers went on to say that he believes Mormonism is a “misunderstood” religion and that people are unfamiliar with it.
Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, joined the interview later on, and directly addressed Flowers.
“I have to say that when I read the book of Mormon recently, what impressed me was that this was an obvious fake. This was a 19th century book written in 16th century English. That’s not the way people talked in the 19th century ? it’s a fake. So it’s not beautiful, it’s a work of charlatanry,” Dawkins told the 31-year-old musician.
Flowers, evidently uneasy with the direction of the interview, responded to Dawkins, “These are all falsehoods ? you should do your research.”
“The book has been studied and torn apart and looked at but I’m not one of the professors that have done it. To call this man a charlatan ? I take offense to it,” he added, referencing the Mormon Church’s founder Joseph Smith.
Flowers was not able to respond further to the comments of Dawkins before the program cut the interview short in order for Flowers to give a live performance with his band, “The Killers.”
Several viewers took their opinion of the interview to Twitter. Many agreed that Flowers, who does not often publicly discuss his Mormon faith, was ambushed in the interview.
“The waylaying of Brandon Flowers, being unfairly ambushed on the subject [of Mormonism],” wrote one Twitter follower.
Others supported Flowers for maintaining his composure during the tense interview.
“Listening to Brandon Flowers’ interview. He’s defending the Book of Mormon. Love this guy,” tweeted Stephanie Nielson, author of the popular blog “Nie Nie Dialogues.”
source

The Fall of Atheism

Colin Dye — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 12:33:13 +0000

Exposing atheism for what it really is

God doesn’t exist- Prove it. An interesting challenge to the too often arrogant claims of atheits.

The Fall of Atheism in the West?

In the West, over the last 30 years the Christian consensus has been shrinking as thousands of nominal Christians have abandoned the Church. This is often taken to mean that people have abandoned faith for non-faith. But this is not the case as can be seen from the rise in interest in faith-based views in Western countries today. There is clear rise in more generalised spiritual beliefs such as new age spirituality or that of other World Religions especially Buddhism and Islam.

The Berlin Wall and the end of atheism

The theologian and biologist Alistair McGrath published “a devastating critique’ of the atheism preached by the scientist and staunch evolutionist, Richard Dawkins entitled, Dawkins’ God (Blackwell). McGrath also wrote a book entitled The Twilight of Atheism (Rider). In it he showed that atheism as a popular belief system began to gain currency around 200 years ago fuelling among other things the French and Russian Revolutions and giving rise to various forms of Communism in the 20th Century. However, McGrath suggests that atheism peaked in the 1960’s and that the demolition of the Berlin wall in 1989 signalled also the end of atheism. Disbelief in God is no longer the consensus view. Faith is on the increase. As Christians, we want to impact our society with the gospel and see the culture of our nation transformed by the teaching and values of Christ.

Design and a designer

Intelligent design. This is the theory that the world is not the product of the blind forces of nature and chance, but that an intelligent designer is behind the universe. The prevailing “scientific’ opinion, upheld by so many of the institutions of our day, is supportive of the Darwinian theories of evolution. But is this down to the weight of scientific evidence? Or is it because these evolutionists (like Richard Dawkins) have a prior and rigid commitment to a philosophy which predetermines their view in these matters, no matter what the scientific evidence? Johnson and Snelling did an admirable job of showing how current evolutionary theories are wholly inadequate interpretations of the scientific facts at our disposal. Their arguments were so persuasive that one reporter suggested that the Snelling-Johnson tour should have been entitled Darwin Refuted and not Darwin Reconsidered. On the other hand, some dismissed the tour as mere Christian propaganda.

Atheism as a religion

And so we see that atheism is still far from dead. But we also can now see atheism for what it truly is – a religion in its own right. It is a religion founded neither on clear-thinking nor on science and is absolutely committed to perpetuating a view which is being increasingly discredited by science – the belief that the natural world, the world we can see or touch, is all that exists, and that everything we can see and touch comes only from what we can see and touch. Matter/energy is the ultimate reality of the universe. Congratulations! Atheists these days have more faith than most Christians I know!

The post The Fall of Atheism appeared first on Colin Dye.

Atheism=Free Thinking?

Colin Dye — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 11:23:06 +0000

Atheism= free thinking? This is the view of the world. (source http://whyit-scaresme.tumblr.com/post/3516762978)

A humanist philosophy originated in Western Europe around 300 years ago called, ?enlightenment thinking?. The world, through this idea, is proclaiming ?freedom? to the captives.
But what kind of freedom is it? Are they showing us how to be free from the bondages of sin and guilt? Do they offer freedom from the enslavement of addiction, hopelessness, anger or injustice? No! They are proclaiming a freedom from God, not the freedom of God.
They insist that we must be freed from his values, his life and his purposes. Think how incredible this is. People actually believe that to be ?released? from the loving embrace of the Father?s unconditional love is freedom! This reminds us of Jesus? story about the son who ran away from home. He rejected what he thought was the boring life of bondage at home on the farm only to find that life in ?Sin City? was not so good after all. Fresh from the stench and humiliation of the pigpen, he found what he had missed all along ? freedom at home.
Ironically, he was willing to come home as a hired servant ? the very thing he thought he had run away from. But he became a son set free, not a slave in chains. Now is the time for lost sons and daughters to return home and find freedom in the Father?s house ? to experience the loving embrace and acceptance of God who paid a high price for our reconciliation to him. The Father wants to restore us so that we can live in true freedom.

The post Atheism=Free Thinking? appeared first on Colin Dye.