FSTDT

Is Christianity really sexually repressive? Let's consider the facts, shall we.

Take for instance the Puritans. They are held up as the model of sexual repressiveness, right? But most people tend to ignore the fact that Puritans had large families of 8 plus children. That sounds like they are sexually liberated to me. A good example is the Duggar family of Arkansas . [...] That is a couple that had sex at least 19 times. Who were the critics of this sexually free family? None other than single, free thinking secular progressives who basically want to have their cake and eat it too. Columnist Mark Morford wrote a bigoted piece decrying the Duggars as freakish dullards with too many babies to feed.

But Morford is a classic example of the so-called liberated free thinker. [...] But remember, "free thinker" is really just a code word for sexual deviant: a pervert. When secular atheists boast that they are "free thinkers" they want you to believe they have opened minds and consider many areas of intellectual pursuits. This is a dishonest picture. In truth, the idea with the term "free thinker" is of a person longing to be free to have as much sex with whomever (or whatever) he or she desires with reckless abandon and impunity, and without fear of judgment from societal norms.

Those fuddy dudes, like Christian moralists, who tell individuals to control their sexual impulses; teaches faithful, sexual commitment to one person of the opposite sex; and maintains a since of propriety with those restrictive age of consent laws, are frowned upon by "free thinkers" as being "dinosaurish" and unenlightened.

Fred Butler #fundie fredsbibletalk.com

I have a reason to use the word “anti-theist” rather than atheist. The person who would hold to traditional atheism as a belief system is insistent that no compelling proof exists for him to believe in God. The atheist claims to be neutral when considering the evidence for the existence of God, but his “neutrality” is disingenuous, because he absolutely has no intention of abandoning his atheism and submit himself to God if and when that undeniable proof for God is discovered. Thus, in reality, the supposed atheist is against any and all evidence that would point to God. His attitude is one that is opposed to God as an anti-theist, rather than a neutral observer waiting around to see if God shows up.

I have a personal example of this attitude when I had an atheist challenge me to take his “god detector” test. This fellow had built a small box with a free-floating needle set in the center. The needle pointed toward the left side, and on the right side the atheist had written, “I exist.” The atheist’s challenge was that if I could ask God to move the needle so as to point to the words he had written, he would then believe God existed. I rolled my eyes and laughed, and then asked the atheist, “If the needle does move, will you abandon all of your atheistic beliefs and embrace Jesus Christ as your Lord?” He thought a moment and replied, “I don’t know, it depends on if the box wasn’t rigged and if God could do it once, then you could ask him to do it again, and when I determine there is no fakery and that the moves were genuine, then maybe I would think about it.” His response demonstrates clearly the true heart of the atheist: It is one that is opposed to God, rather than one honestly looking for God. He offered a simple test, but if the criteria of his test were actually met, then he would change the criteria until it was no longer a valid test in his mind and he would have a further excuse to justify his unbelief and rebellion toward God. Such is the heart of the anti-theist.

Fred Butler #fundie fredsbibletalk.com

With these two thoughts in mind, when the believer engages the unbelieving skeptic/atheist/agnostic, he will note an unusual fact about his opponent. He will begin to notice that the skeptic/atheist/agnostic lives contrary to his supposed belief systems. In other words, the unbeliever’s lifestyle is perpetually inconsistent with his core values and overall worldview.

For example, there are skeptics who will claim no absolute truth exists, so it is inappropriate, according to their philosophy of life, to place value judgments upon other people groups who do not conduct themselves according to our particular morals. However, at the same time, these skeptics do not live consistently with their beliefs about absolutes, because if any one of them had, say for instance, a stereo stolen by an individual from one of these other “people groups,” the skeptic who was robbed will all of the sudden have a high sense of personal property rights and protest against such an injustice caused by this person.

Another example is an atheist I once encountered who was an avid environmentalist. She spent much of her spare time involved in environmental causes. But, if she were consistent with her philosophy of evolutionary naturalism, the environmental causes she advocated are really a waste of time. According to evolutionary biology, species are only a product of environment, time, chance, and survival of the fittest. If survival turns only to the fittest, then why help lesser species that cannot improve the survival of their population without any outside intervention? Are not the forces driving evolution only weeding out those lesser species? An evolutionary atheist who is an environmentalist working to prevent the extinction of a species is truly a contradiction of the worldview to which he subscribes.

This perpetual inconsistency between the beliefs of the unbeliever and the way he actually lives out his life needs to be exploited by the Christian in a witnessing encounter. It is important that the Christian press the unbeliever living in contradiction to his worldview to give an account for such an inconsistency; to make him justify the presuppositions that under gird his beliefs. And, in addition to forcing him to justify his core presuppositions, the Christian must also drive the skeptic to the throne of his creator. The Christian must show the skeptic what he truly knows about God; that He exists and holds His creatures accountable. Then, the Christian must show from scripture how trying to earn God’s favor and pardon for sin is impossible and bring the skeptic to the foot of the cross; the only means by which man can be made right before God.

Fred Butler #fundie fredsbibletalk.com

And then fourthly, Chaz must not be aware of some of the more "anti-intellectual" comments coming from his side of the aisle. The way he carries on, you would think scientists are these humble individuals who honestly follow the evidence where ever it leads. Because the hard, scientific "evidence" supposedly points away from any idea of God and always disproves the Bible, there is no choice on the part of the serious minded intellectual but to separate religion from science; to place them into two compartments where never they shall interact. Hence, in order to be intellectual, you have to lay aside a belief in the Bible or your scientific endeavors will be ruined. Is that how these so-called intellectual really think? Consider some of my more favorite candid quotes from atheistic "scientists:"

Professor D.M.S. Watson, once a leading biologists and writer:

"Evolution is a theory universally accepted not because it can be proven by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible."

Science writer Boyce Rensberger,

"At this point, it is necessary to reveal a little inside information about how scientists work, something the textbooks don't usually tell you. The fact is that scientists are not really as objective and dispassionate in their work as they would like you to think. Most scientists first get their ideas about how the world works not through rigorously logical processes but through hunches and wild guesses. As individuals, they often come to believe something to be true long before they assemble the hard evidence that will convince somebody else that it is. Motivated by faith in his own ideas and a desire for acceptance by his peers, a scientist will labor for years knowing in his heart that his theory is correct but devising experiment after experiment whose results he hopes will support his position." [Rensberger, How the World Works, p. 17-18]

Then an all time favorite, Richard Lewontin, a fellow Marxist anarchist like Chaz, wrote in a 1997 The New York Review article,

"We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so-stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."

Does it sound as though these scientists are being intellectual? Intellectual implies using the rational faculties of the mind. Is it rational to believe in something utterly absurd like non-living inanimate material gave rise to complex biological life just because the only option is to recognize a creator? Sure, the Church has had its share of superstitious beliefs over the years, to which those purveyors of superstition should be faulted and rebuked, but Marxist, anarchist atheists also have their superstitions that are equally anti-intellectual.