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My tummy hurts. Ergo, there is no god.

This argument may be absurd but it is not intended as a reductio ad absurdum. Although a very simplistic form, this enthymeme encapsulates one of the primary atheological arguments -- the argument from evil.

The structure of the argument becomes more obvious once we include the unstated premises:

1. Tummy aches are a form of harm being done to the physical and/or psychological well-being of a sentient creature.
2. Harm is evil.
3. God--an omniscient, wholly good being--would prevent evil.
4. God did not prevent my tummy ache
5. Ergo, there is no god.

This argument is a type known as the evidential problem of evil, the primary remaining form since the logical problem of evil has been solved.*

The evidential problem of evil is the problem of determining whether the existence of evil constitutes evidence against the existence of God. As the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains, "Evidential arguments purport to show that evil counts against theism in the sense that the existence of evil lowers the probability that God exists."

One of the strongest and most famous examples of this type of argument can be found in William Rowe's 1979 paper, "The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism." Rowe outlines his argument as follows:

[Note: I’m still trying to acclimatize to the pace of working on a Presidential campaign (I love saying that), so for the next few days I’ll be recycling material.]

In his book A Brief History of Time, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking relates a story about a well-known scientist who gave a public lecture on astronomy:

He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.

At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."

The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"

"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down."

Like the old lady in this tale, most of us haven't given much thought to what our "tortoise" is "standing on." When pressed for an answer we tend to be uncomfortable and defensive. Francis Schaeffer called this intellectual exercise of pushing people toward the logical conclusions of their presuppositions "taking the roof off," and warned that it often causes people psychological pain. Sadly, rather than being loving and gentle, we Christians often take great joy in the "de-roofing" process.

If we expect people to "name their turtle"-by explaining how their presuppositions provide the scaffolding for their worldview-then we should be willing to do the same. We often examine other people's worldviews in extensive detail while choosing to provide only the most basic framework for our own. In doing so we hide any inconsistencies that might be exposed and avoid shedding light on areas we would rather not have to defend. Such an approach is not fair to those we criticize nor is it conducive to honest and open dialogue.

That is why I've decided to tackle the onerous task of naming my own giant tortoise and many of the turtles that stand on its back; the "turtles" that comprise the basic set of presuppositions which constitute my worldview. While the following list neither exhaust the totality of my presuppositions nor explains them in sufficient detail, I do believe it provides a useful starting point for examing my foundational beliefs. Also, I should point out that although I have done so in the past and expect to do so in the future, I don't attempt to defend these beliefs in this post. For now it is enough simply to state "I believe..."

[Note: This is a continuation of the discussion from Tuesday's post on Mathematics and Religiously-Based Explanations.]

In ancient Greece a religious controversy once broke out over the square root of two. The Pythagoreans, a Hellenic organization of thinkers who believed that all things were essentially reducible to numbers, had an irrational aversion to irrational numbers. Because they believed that numbers represented a realm of invisible mathematical entities upon which the visible world depended, the Pythagoreans insisted that there could be no genuinely irrational numbers and attempted to keep such knowledge a secret. Legend has it that Hippasus of Metapontum, a disciple of Pythagoras, was at sea when he discovered that the square root of 2 is irrational. His fellow Pythagoreans, outraged by the finding, threw him overboard.

Today, of course, we are more enlightened and rarely drown mathematicians who disagree with a theory (instead she'd just be denied tenure). But while disagreements over theories may not spark a murderous rage, they are as religiously motivated and reductionist as they were in Hippasus' day. Yet for the most part, such presuppositional beliefs remain unexamined even among Christians. Although we should know better, we too often fail to understand the guiding role that religious beliefs and other presuppositions have on theory-making.

Even when the importance of Christian-based scholarship is acknowledged it is generally for the wrong reasons. While we may not use such language to describe our intentions, we tend to take a postmodern view in which we are offering an alternative "meta-narrative" to compete among a pluralism of other viewpoints. What we fail to comprehend is that the reason it is imperative for Christians to "think Christianly" about theory-making is that is essential for adequate scholarship.

Several years ago I made the assertion on this blog that evangelicals should "think Christianly" about their work and fields of study. I also claimed that we are merely fooling ourselves if we believe that we can approach our vocations with a sense of religious neutrality. Naturally, some people were skeptical. Even those who agreed with my general point did not see, for example, how there could be a particularly Christian view to hard subjects like mathematics.

While I certainly understand their hesitation, I do in fact believe there is a Christian view of mathematics. Indeed, I believe that there is a distinctly Christian view of everything.

The reason this idea seems so foreign (if not downright absurd) is that most of our theories about the world have only a minimal pragmatic affect on how we actually live our lives. Both my neighbor and I, for example, may get sunburned even if we different beliefs about the sun. The fact that I think it is a ball of nuclear plasma while he believes that it is pulled across the sky in a chariot driven by the Greek god Helios doesn't change the fact that we both have to use sunscreen. It is only when we move beneath the surface concepts ("The sun is hot.") to deeper levels of explanation ("What is the sun?") that our religious beliefs come into play.

Even the concept that 1 + 1 = 2, which almost all people agree with on a surface level, has different meanings based on what theories are proposed as answers. These theories, claims philosopher Roy Clouser, show that going more deeply into the concept of 1 + 1 = 2 reveals important differences in the ways it is understood, and that these differences are due to the divinity beliefs they presuppose.

But before we can see why this is true, let's review what constitutes a religious belief.

"For the modern world will accept no dogmas upon any authority; but it will accept any dogmas on no authority. Say that a thing is so, according to the Pope or the Bible, and it will be dismissed as a superstition without examination. But preface your remark merely with 'they say' or 'don't you know that?' or try (and fail) to remember the name of some professor mentioned in some newspaper; and the keen rationalism of the modern mind will accept every word you say."

- G.K. Chesterton, The Superstition of Divorce, 1920

I was reminded of that quote by Chesterton while reading comments and articles about the connection between atheism and the Enlightenment. Although my memory fails me, I recall seeing a prominent professor mention that in a newspaper recently, though for the life of me I can't remember his name. Anyway atheists often say something along those lines. (Don't you know that?)

Then again, maybe my boorish imagination is weaving a strawman. After all, I can't imagine why any intelligent atheist would claim such a connection. Indeed, the "New Atheists" probably consider the Age of Enlightenment a most unenlightened age, considering the low regard that thinkers of that period had for atheism.

Still, there are probably at least a few of the acolytes of Dawkins/Dennett/Harris/Hitchens who aren't aware that most Enlightenment thinkers viewed their intellectual forebears (the New Atheists, circa 1770) with scorn. And it is easy to see why they might be confused. "The Enlightenment" is the term used to describe the 18th century intellectual movement which advocated reason as the primary basis of authority. The New Atheists also believe reason to be the primary basis of authority. Ergo, there must be some Darwinian line of descent connecting these rationalists. Q.E.D.?

Many atheists who make this mistake are simply unaware of Western intellectual history. For the rationalists of the Enlightenment era were able to trust in reason precisely because they were theists or deists and believed in a transcendent, rational God. To think otherwise was considered, as the philosophers often noted, the height of absurdity.

Sometimes brevity is the soul of wit; other times it is the spirit of confusion. In my recent post "Are Atheists Autistic?" I attempted to abbreviate my argument, which led to a spirited exchange over my unintentionally confusing point. Because the word count was already tipping 1000 I thought it would try the reader's patience to add more. I was hoping my readers would be able to make the connections that I wasn't making explicit.

Instead, I just made a mess of things. So now I ask your indulgence as I try to clarify what I should have said the first time around.

The main question asked in the post was, "Is there a correlation between atheism and autistic tendencies?" Most people got hung up on the terms "atheism" and "autistic tendencies." But the key term in that sentence is correlation.

Correlation is an estimate of the relationship between two variables and the degree to which they vary together. The number used to describe the correlation (r) ranges from –1 to +1. If the correlation between variables X and Y is -1 (that is r = -1) then there is a perfect negative correlation. Likewise, if the correlation is 1 (r = 1) then there is a perfect correlation. If r is close to 0, it means there is no relationship between the variables. If r is positive, it means that as one variable gets larger the other gets larger. If r is negative it means that as one gets larger, the other gets smaller.

Take, for example, the correlation between height and weight. The average weight of a people who are 6'4" tall is higher than of people who are 4'3". Therefore, the correlation would be close to 1 (something like r = .75).

My question, therefore, could be reframed as, "For the variables x (atheism) and y (autistic tendencies), is r closer to 0 or to 1?"

Missing from the original post was any explanation of what this had to do with Asperger's syndrome (AS). I worded it poorly, which lead to all kinds of confusion. I seemed to be implying that atheism was correlated with AS. That was not my intention.

To simplify the matter, let's assign the key terms variables: x (atheism), y (autistic tendencies), z (Asperger's syndrome). Obviously, there is a strong correlation between y and z. People with AS, by definition, tend to have autistic tendencies. We could say, for the sake of argument, that for y and z, r = 1. My post implied, however, that there might be a correlation between x (atheism) and z (AS). Again, that was not my intention. The question I wanted to address was whether there was a correlation between x and y. Also, while the variables y and z are correlated, they are not interchangeable.

Let's return again to the original question: Is it possible that there is a correlation between atheism and autistic tendencies? In other words, is the correlation between x and y close to 1?

"It's very simple," says Vox Day, in his typical controversial style, "Agnosticism is a belief in the lack of evidence for God's existence. Atheism is a symptom of a personality disorder which inordinately affects developmentally challenged young men. Watch and learn. Science will confirm this in the relatively near future."

Buried within the goading hyperbole is an interesting question: Is there a correlation between atheism and autism?

In earlier post Vox raised that as a possible hypothesis:

It's not just a figment of my imagination, it seems atheists truly are socially autistic by their own report. Asperger's Syndrome is a disorder described as "autistic psychopathy" by its discoverer, Dr. Hans Asperger. Those with the disorder tend to be intelligent, socially awkward and difficult to converse with. They are also likely to be male.

Based on Wired Magazine's observation that atheists tend to be quarrelsome, socially challenged men, to say nothing of the unpleasant personalities of leading public atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Michel Onfray, one could reasonably hypothesize that there is likely to be a strong correlation between Asperger's and atheism.

Asperger's Syndrome (AS) is a neurobiological disorder on the autism spectrum (some even claim it is merely High Functioning Autism). AS differs from typical cases of autism in that non-social aspects of intellectual development generally proceed at a normal or accelerated rate. Persons with AS show marked deficiencies in social skills and have a difficulty reading nonverbal cues (i.e., body language). Some positive characteristics, however, include things such as "enhanced mental focus, excellent memory abilities, superior spatial skills, and an intuitive understanding of logical systems. These characteristics can often lead to fulfilling careers in mathematics, engineering, the sciences, music, art, or language."

Are atheists more likely to have AS? To test this hypothesis, Vox compared the scores of 232 blog readers (both on his site and on PZ Myer's blog Pharyngula) who took the Asperger Quotient Test.

A score of 32 or more is generally taken to indicate Asperger's Syndrome or high-functioning autism (34 is considered a high score). The average man scores 18 and the average woman a 15. The average results of Vox's analysis, broken down by religion belief, were:

After a long day at work, three baseball umpires meet at a diner for a drink. When the discussion turns to their philosophy of umpiring, one ump declares, "There's balls and there's strikes and I call 'em the way they are." Another responds, "There's balls and there's strikes and I call 'em the way I see 'em." The third says, "There's balls and there's strikes, and they ain't nothin' until I call 'em." The third umpire, who sees truth as entirely personal, is what we might call "postmodern." Christians, on the other hand, would be more like the second umpire, who recognizes that there is an objective reality even if our ability to perceive it is somewhat limited.

I believe that the second umpire is not only correct, but that he knows more than his postmodern colleague. The postmodern ump believes that because there is no outside standard by which they can determine if something is objectively true, the best that they can claim is that it is either "true for them" or "false for them." Two or more humans might collectively agree, but that is a decision they make rather than a standard imposed upon them from the outside; it is a matter of consensus rather than of objective fact.

Postmoderns can combine statements about ethics (X is moral) and epistemology (X is true) but neither type of statement has an objective or absolute value. When a postmodern person makes a moral statement such as, "It is true that it is wrong to torture babies", they are simply saying, "I prefer that babies not be tortured." If another person agrees, then they share the same opinion. But if the other person disagrees he cannot, in any meaningful objective sense, be considered morally wrong. The postmodern worldview puts all ethical knowledge squarely within the realm of epistemology, and since all knowledge is individual, moral statements are simply matters of opinion. Anytime a po-mo umpire says something is "immoral" or "unethical" you can replace those terms with the phrase "something they don't like" and have the exact same meaning.

In the absence of consensus, the postmodern moral skeptic requires pressure in order to ensure that their preferences are carried out. If they prefer not to have their donuts stolen then they must rely on the pressure provided by such forces as the legal system (I'll go to jail for stealing the donut), societal norms (donut thieves are viewed with disdain), or violence (you'll punch me the piehole if I take your bearclaw). The problem with this view is that it equates the group that can muster the most consensus (tyranny of the majority) or pressure (might makes right) with being the most moral. We might not like this hard truth, but the consistent po-mo moral skeptic can only shrug and hope that their preferences line up with the group's socially-constructed reality.

Christians, however, can know moral truths and thereby know more than their po-mo neighbors. This is an admittedly humble assertion, claiming only that we can know something to a greater degree than can our postmodern friends. It does not mean that we can know all truths or even know many truths. But fortunately, all it takes is to be able to call at least one strike more objectively than the po-mo ump.

During the most recent debate among the Republican Presidential nominees, Gov. Mike Huckabee was once again asked about his views on evolution. The day before, the New York Times ran an article lamenting the fact that future scientists may have no way of finding out about the Big Bang and the expanding universe and will assume that the universe is comprised of only a half-dozen galaxies. Those two seemingly unrelated stories got me to thinking about this potential scenario from the future….

Zed shakes his head in disdain -- 37 hands were raised. When the 84 candidates running for President of the United Continents of America were asked if they believed in Sixism, only 37 raised their hands. Frustrated by such a show of silliness, Zed throws his shoe at the screen but the pleather moccasin flyes straight through the holographic image, passing through the abdomen of the Senator from Zimbabwe.

In a follow-up question, the moderator asks Gov. Tombcee if he's a "Big Banger." Zed sniffs as the hologram dodges the question by saying she's running for the office of President and is not "planning on writing a 5th-grade textbook on astrophysics."

Zed can't believe this debate is still going on. The intellectual elite had assumed that the Sepocs Inflation Trial in AD 10,000,001,925 had put the kibash on the silly notion that the universe contains billions(!) of galaxies. As the world's leading cosmologist, Zed is particularly frustrated that these "relativists" still cling to their belief in the ancient texts of Einstein, Hubble, Hawking, and the proto-scientists who believed in an inflationary universe.

He can't fathom how so many people can ignore the obvious empirical evidence for Sixism--the theory, no, the FACT, that there are only six galaxies in the universe. Any kid with a neutron parascope can make the observation for themselves!

Zed looks at the smooth black plane of the night sky. One-two-three-four-five-six. It's so basic, so obvious. How could any intelligent, rational human being deny the Theory of Sixism? Science is based on observation, he mutters, not some faith in silly old theories about a Big Bang, dark matter, cosmic radiation, and an expanding universe in which the galaxies moved away to where we can't see them anymore.

Zed checks his pulse and breathes deeply, trying to lower his blood pressure. He used to be patient with these ignorant relativists. He really did. But then at a debate at Bob Jones MCXIV University he made the mistake of asking one of them to explain their belief about how this galactic disappearing act occurred.

He remembers the answer the religious nut gave because he had written in down on his silica pad. Zed looks at the notes:

[Note: This is a modified version of a post from September 2004.]

Although I try to respect the opinions of those who disagree with my beliefs and arguments, I do have one prejudice that limits my ability to take my critics seriously. I have an admittedly low regard for the position held by some atheists that the assertion "God does not exist" requires no justification. Though this philosophical relic was once in vogue, it appears that some people didn't get the memo that the claim has been deemed invalid.

What is even more maddening is that this idea is often accompanied by a claim that a disbelief in God is on par with a refusal to recognize the ontological status of the Tooth Fairy or some other presumptively mythical being.

A prime example is the comment left by BCB on a previous post on this blog:

That's right, I don't buy into the notion of God or the fairy or any of the crap...I became too sophisticated for when I was about five.

And a few comments later Rob Ryan added:

No faith is required to not believe something of which there is no evidence. It takes no faith to disbelieve in the tooth fairy, Joe. Your Bible god is similarly incredible to millions of Americans. Get over it. You are the one with the worldview that has a positive statement to defend, one it has never defended anywhere near adequately to assuage my doubts.

Since numerous atheists--including many of the so-called New Atheists--make a similar claim, I think it's important to clear us some of the confusion on this point. But before we begin, we must first define the meaning of the term atheist.

I recommend that we follow the example of Theodore M. Drange and use the term atheist to refer to a person who would answer false or probably false to the proposition that "God exists." We could also say that an atheist is one who believes the set that contains "Entities defined as God(s) which exist" is an empty set. They claim that there are no members of that particular set. While it may not be all-encompassing, I believe it is applicable to my critics who refer to themselves as atheists.

Drange also presents four types of atheists that I think would be useful for this discussion:

You have to pity the modern atheist who attempts to present arguments for her cause. Unmoored from any respectable intellectual tradition, each generation is forced to recreate anti-theistic arguments from scratch. The result is that the claims which they believe to be clever and damning often turn out to be, to use a technical philosophical phrase, just plain silly.

Take for example, the Flying Spaghetti Monster. According to Wikipedia, The Flying Spaghetti Monster is the deity of a parody religion founded in 2005 by Oregon State University physics graduate Bobby Henderson to protest the decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to require the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to biological evolution. In an open letter sent to the education board, Henderson professes belief in a supernatural Creator called the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which resembles spaghetti and meatballs. He furthermore calls for the "Pastafarian" theory of creation to be taught in science classrooms, essentially invoking a reductio ad absurdum argument against the teaching of intelligent design. (The FSM has been popularized by the otherwise charming and intelligent folks at BoingBoing.)

What Henderson actually showed was (a) a profound ignorance of the design argument, (b) a profound ignorance of what the Kansas board was actually proposing, and (c) that OSU should require physics graduates to take courses in philosophy. But what Henderson was trying to get at, though he doesn’t seem clever enough to grasp his own point, is similar to what Bertrand Russell was arguing with his “celestial teapot” analogy. In the famous passage from Is There a God?, Russell writes:

"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." -- Alice in Wonderland

Like Alice I am woefully unskilled in the art of believing impossible things. Even if I were to spend an entire hour a day I doubt I could develop the proficiency to believe even one impossible thing before breakfast, much less six. This lack of imagination is one of the primary reasons I could never be an atheist.

I�m not sure how they do it, how they aquire the skill, but they have an incomparable ability to believe impossible things. Take, for example, the following list of beliefs. Not all of them are shared by every atheist, but all who claim the label believe at least one of these items:

1. Emergent properties �arise� out of more fundamental entities (i.e., matter) and yet are �novel� or �irreducible� with respect to them. Consciousness, for example, is an emergent property of the brain, arising � like magic � from a specific arrangement of molecules. This magical property which is created by the physical can also turn around and affect the physical matter from which it came.

2. Everything that is real is, in some sense, really physical. Therefore, mental states such as beliefs, desires, and sensations do not exist. Mental states such as the belief that mental states do not exist, do not actually exist but are merely physical states in the brain.

3. Our cognitive faculties have resulted from blind mechanisms like natural selection, working on sources of genetic variation such as random genetic mutation, yet are reliable for distinguishing between truth and false aspects of reality, such as the claim that our cognitive faculties have resulted from blind mechanisms.

4. Evolution is a blind process that has no teleology; whatever behavior works is the behavior that survives. Yet ethical norms of behavior should not be based on what works or what will lead to survival but should be based on concepts not found in nature (even though nature is all that exists).

5. The brain is nothing more than a physical system whose operation is governed solely by the laws of chemistry and physics. Nevertheless, a person�s beliefs (i.e., about the purported existence of deities) are not determined by random fluctuations in the natural laws but are chosen by the individual and should be considered �rational.�

6. A human being has a finite ability to know yet should be taken seriously when making claims that no infinite beings exist.

While I�m fairly certain that all Western atheists believe at least one of these items, I am completely baffled at how they do it. Admittedly, I�ve never been much of one for magic or mysticism and since such alien and exotic concepts are required to maintain a belief in atheism, I am at a distinct disadvantage. Still, I wonder how they are able to maintain such supple reasoning abilities. I wonder sometimes if, like the Queen of Hearts, they have to practice the skill of believing the impossible.

Although I am having a bit of good-natured fun at the expense of my atheist friends, I do hope they will take the broader point seriously. As the philosopher Mortimer Adler once wrote, a person should not only be able to state the position of the other in a manner that the other approves, he should also be able to state the other person's reasons for holding that view. I�m not sure that I would be able to do that which is why

I don�t claim, of course, to understand how atheism can be considered internally coherent. As a Christian I obviously don�t think it�s possible for atheism to be true. But it might be more logically consistent and intellectually reasonable than I give it credit for being.

I�d be curious to know how an atheist would reword the list of six impossible things (in a way that doesn�t avoid the inherent tensions I point out) and also how they justify their beliefs. If you put together such a response send it to me in a email or, if you post a response on your blog, a link to the relevant post. If I receive enough responses I�ll put them together and include them in a post next week.

[Note: Because no one wants to read (and I hate to write) anything serious on Fridays, I have a rotating list of features for this day. �The Lists� is yet another occasional Friday feature that has been added to the mix.]

"Great movie quotes become part of our cultural vocabulary," said American Film Institute director Jean Picker Firstenberg last year as he unveiled AFI�s 100 Years�100 Movie Quotes: America�s Greatest Quips, Comebacks and Catchphrases. The AFI list is as comprehensive as it is dull; a mix of the classic ("Here's looking at you, kid."), the banal ("I feel the need - the need for speed!), and the downright silly ("Nobody puts Baby in a corner."). Left off of the list were many of the enduring favorites of our misspent youths (think anything from Caddyshack or the Monty Python movies) that are repeated ad nauseum by college freshman as if they were fresh inside jokes.

Somewhere there is a middle ground between the trite classics and the trite cult standards. To fill that gap I offer the following fifty quotable lines of dialogue from movies that are neither overly familiar nor exceedingly obscure. The criteria for making the cut was that the quote had to be relatively short, profanity-free, and provide either a kernel of wisdom, insight, or humor. Some of them come from exceptional films while others are gleaned from movies that are merely watchable. I tried to choose representative quotes so your feelings about the snippet of dialogue are likely to mirror your appreciation of each movie. These are not necessarily the best or even my favorite movie quips (though some are) but they are all, in my opinion, deserving of more attention.

Here then is my list of 50 memorable (but obscure) movie quotes:

After a long day at work, three baseball umpires meet at a diner for a drink. When the discussion turns to their philosophy of umpiring, one ump declares, "There's balls and there's strikes and I call 'em the way they are." Another responds, "There's balls and there's strikes and I call 'em the way I see 'em." The third says, "There's balls and there's strikes, and they ain't nothin' until I call 'em." The third umpire, who sees truth as entirely personal, is what we might call "postmodern." Christians, on the other hand, would be more like the second umpire, who recognizes that there is an objective reality even if our ability to perceive it is somewhat limited.

I believe that the second umpire is not only correct, but that he knows more than his postmodern colleague. The postmodern ump believes that because there is no outside standard by which they can determine if something is objectively true, the best that they can claim is that it is either "true for them" or "false for them." Two or more humans might collectively agree, but that is a decision they make rather than a standard imposed upon them from the outside; it is a matter of consensus rather than of objective fact.

Postmoderns can combine statements about ethics (X is moral) and epistemology (X is true) but neither type of statement has an objective or absolute value. When a postmodern person makes a moral statement such as, "It is true that it is wrong to torture babies", they are simply saying, "I prefer that babies not be tortured." If another person agrees, then they share the same opinion. But if the other person disagrees he cannot, in any meaningful objective sense, be considered morally wrong. The postmodern worldview puts all ethical knowledge squarely within the realm of epistemology, and since all knowledge is individual, moral statements are simply matters of opinion. Anytime a po-mo umpire says something is "immoral" or "unethical" you can replace those terms with the phrase "something they don't like" and have the exact same meaning.

In the absence of consensus, the postmodern moral skeptic requires pressure in order to ensure that their preferences are carried out. If they prefer not to have their donuts stolen then they must rely on the pressure provided by such forces as the legal system (I'll go to jail for stealing the donut), societal norms (donut thieves are viewed with disdain), or violence (you'll punch me the piehole if I take your bearclaw). The problem with this view is that it equates the group that can muster the most consensus (tyranny of the majority) or pressure (might makes right) with being the most moral. We might not like this hard truth, but the consistent po-mo moral skeptic can only shrug and hope that their preferences line up with the group's socially-constructed reality.

Christians, however, can know moral truths and thereby know more than their po-mo neighbors. This is an admittedly humble assertion, claiming only that we can know something to a greater degree than can our postmodern friends. It does not mean that we can know all truths or even know many truths. But fortunately, all it takes is to be able to call at least one strike more objectively than the po-mo ump.

Throughout history children have been awed and thrilled by retellings of their culture�s creation story. Aztec�s would tell of the Lady of the Skirt of Snakes, Phoenicians about the Zophashamin, and Jews and Christians about the one true God -- Jehovah. But there is one unfortunate group -- the children of materialists � that has no creation myth to call its own. When an inquisitive tyke asks who created the sun, the animals, and mankind, their materialist parents can only tell them to read a book by Carl Sagan or Richard Dawkins.

No child, though, should have to go without an answer which is why I�ve decided to take the elements of materialism and shape them into an accurate, though mythic, narrative. This is what our culture has been missing for far too long -- a creation story for young materialists.

In the beginning was Nothing and Nothing created Everything. When Nothing decided to create Everything, she filled a tiny dot with Time, Chance, and Everything and had it explode. The explosion spread Everything into Everywhere carrying Time and Chance with it to keep it company. The three stretched out together leaving bits of themselves wherever they went. One of those places was the planet Earth.

For no particular Reason � for Reason is rarely particular -- Time and Chance took a liking to this wet little blue rock and so decided to stick around and see what adventures they might have. The pair thought the Earth was intriguing and pretty, but also rather dull and static. They fixed upon an idea to change Everything (just a little) by creating a special Something. Time and Chance roamed the planet, splashing through the oceans and scampering through the mud, in search of materials. But though they looked Everywhere there was a Missing Ingredient that they needed in order to make a Something that could create more of the same Somethings.

They called to their friend Everything to help. Since Everything had been Everywhere she would no doubt be able to find the Missing Ingredient. And indeed she did, hidden away in a small alcove called Somewhere, Everything found what Time and Chance had needed all along: Information. Everything put the Information on a piece of ice and rock that happened to be passing by the planet Pluto and sent it back to her friends on Earth.

Now that they had Information, Time and Chance were finally able to create a self-replicating Something which they called Life. Once they created the Life they found that it not only became more Somethings it began to become Otherthings too! The Somethings and the Otherthings began to fill all the Earth -- from the bottom of the oceans to the top of the sky. Their creation, which began as a single Something eventually became millions of Otherthings.

In his book A Brief History of Time, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking relates a story about a well-known scientist who gave a public lecture on astronomy:

He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.

At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."

The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"

"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down."

Like the old lady in this tale, most of us haven't given much thought to what our "tortoise" is "standing on." When pressed for an answer we tend to be uncomfortable and defensive. Francis Schaeffer called this intellectual exercise of pushing people toward the logical conclusions of their presuppositions "taking the roof off," and warned that it often causes people psychological pain. Sadly, rather than being loving and gentle, we Christians often take great joy in the "de-roofing" process.

If we expect people to "name their turtle"-by explaining how their presuppositions provide the scaffolding for their worldview-then we should be willing to do the same. We often examine other people's worldviews in extensive detail while choosing to provide only the most basic framework for our own. In doing so we hide any inconsistencies that might be exposed and avoid shedding light on areas we would rather not have to defend. Such an approach is not fair to those we criticize nor is it conducive to honest and open dialogue.

That is why I've decided to tackle the onerous task of naming my own giant tortoise and many of the turtles that stand on its back; the "turtles" that comprise the basic set of presuppositions which constitute my worldview. While the following list neither exhaust the totality of my presuppositions nor explains them in sufficient detail, I do believe it provides a useful starting point for examing my foundational beliefs. Also, I should point out that although I have done so in the past and expect to do so in the future, I don't attempt to defend these beliefs in this post. For now it is enough simply to state "I believe..."

Where did we come from? Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the meaning of human history? Mankind has pondered these questions since the beginning of time so its rather ironic that the answers can be found in a book that takes its name from the words �In the beginning��

The book of Genesis is not only my favorite work in the Old Testament but one of the most profound philosophical narratives I�ve ever read. The depths of its wisdom continue to baffle me and frustrate my ability to grasp its full meaning. Yet I constantly find that while I cannot plumb its depths, its depths continually plumb me.

Recently two of my favorite bloggers, Jeremy Pierce and Mari Davey, have drawn similar conclusions about the first chapter of this most profound book. Davey provides an particularly astute analysis when she writes:

The purpose of Genesis is to demonstrate the supremacy of Yahweh over and against the god�s of the pagan nations that surrounded the ancient Hebrews. And just as we would approach any modern poem in light of its nature as poetry, or any modern novel in lights of its nature as fiction, so also we ought to approach Genesis in light of its nature and purpose as an apologetic, not scientific work. When we understand Genesis in this way we can move beyond the endless debates over creationism and evolution, which Genesis does not address, and focus on its more important message: that Yahweh is the author of this universe, that He alone has created humanity in His image, that we are thus created, not the creator, that as image bearers humans have certain responsibilities, that humanity as a whole is fallen and sinful, and that from the very beginning God had a plan to redeem His creation. Indeed, I am of the opinion that in trying to make Genesis a scientific work, many Christians have missed the important message of the book altogether.

Though I think that Davey is generally correct in her assessment, I don�t think she follows the logic of her conclusion to where it ultimately leads.

"Always be prepared to give an answer,� said the Apostle Peter, �to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have." Like most Christians, I take this verse as an exhortation to provide intelligent, reasonable answers to atheists, agnostics, and other skeptics who question the claims of Christianity. While I may not always be able to adequately defend my position, I believe I have a responsibility to make as valiant an attempt as possible.

Non-believers, of course, have no mandate to defend their own worldview. I believe it is only reasonable, though, to expect them to explain why they believe as they do and to give their answers a just hearing and fair scrutiny. Some people will naturally be reticent to argue for their case knowing that it will inevitably lead to a "clash of worldviews." But I think if Chrisitians broach the topic humbly and honestly we will learn a great deal about other belief systems.

One of my favorite evangelical bloggers and apologists, Jeff Clinton from The Dawn Treader, presents a particularly useful way to approach this task: the �Columbo Technique.�