Religion - Opium or Character Builder?

According to Wikipedia, one of Karl Marx's quotes is "Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes" which is paraphrased as "religion is the opium of the people".  This must be a phrase that is most quoted by atheists. For Christians there are two issues. Firstly the connotation that our faith is somehow related to a deadly and addictive substance is obviously degrading. Secondly one has to question the veracity of this statement. 

As a human being, I certainly feel insulted by such a statement. This is not because I look down upon drug addicts. Rather that I have been accused of needing a substance akin to opium to keep me going through life. Worse still this is nothing like the reality for untold millions of Christians. I myself is far from perfect (ask my wife, sisters, parents, cousins and friends) but they can tell you how faith has changed my life in positive ways. My faith in God has built me up spiritually, emotionally and even surprisingly physically. In just the last three days, I have been lumbered with more work than I could really cope. It is easy to complain and if religion is indeed a drug I will go through each testing period at work merely to survive to the next one. One common term we use around work is "hump day". Hump day is Wednesday, supposedly we carry our heavy work load through Monday, Tuesday and then the hardest is pushing through Wednesday. With the weekend insight by Thursday, it is downhill from then on. Surely if we are looking for an addiction then one would have to say the weekend is our addiction. Like my co-worker I too look forward to the weekend but I don't see it as a drug to keep me going through the hard work. Sure my faith supports me and gives me rests like the weekends but it does more than that. My faith builds me up. Why? Because whether I succeed or fail, I know that I am part of the bigger picture where the faithful and loving God is in charge. As much as I have delusion about being the Doctor (Time Lord) I don't know the future but I don't have to because God will take care of it. Knowing these facts not only drag me from one crisis to the next, it actually builds up my character. 

My example is not much to look at but if people of faith merely survive day to day on their diet of religion and addicted to the point that we become dis-functional then you better start worrying about the Australian economy. In 2010, Glenn Steven (chief of the Reserve Bank of Australia) revealed on Channel Seven Sunrise program that he is a church-going Christian. Steven even plays the guitar in his church band. How can a religious addict become the head of the RBA? 

But don't just take my word or even Glenn Steven's word. Examine the Bible for yourself. When Paul wrote to his friends at the church in Roman 2000 years ago, Paul said 

"Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴ perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵ And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us." (Romans 5:3-5)

By suffering, Paul meant the suffering that the Roman Christians were under official persecution (nothing serious really, just death at the Colosseum through being torn to pieces by lions). If religion is like opium then surely the Christians at Rome would have given up and took to watching the games (the real opium for the ordinary Romans). And this not the fanatical faith of people who blow themselves up with high explosive in crowded markets, no this is a faith that promotes love and care even for ones enemies. 

Religion is like opium? I just wish I could say directly to Uncle Karl whether he still believes in such a silly notion.

The Atheist Straw man

For all week I have been really excited about the "Has Science buried God?" debate. So much so that I started talking to a work friend about it. For some reason this work friend keep insisting that I am wrong about Christianity. She believes that Christianity originated from a pagan background. In our age of science, we are told (by people like Lawrence Krauss) that religions are all myths invented by man because before science we needed myths to make sense of our world. A cursory reading of the Bible such as from chapter 38 of the book of Job could easily justify what these opponents of religions are saying. Chapter 38 involves God questioning Job understanding of God's creation. Let's look at some of the verses:

Job 38:31-33 states:

 ³¹ “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?
    Can you loosen Orion’s belt?
³² Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
    or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
³³ Do you know the laws of the heavens?
    Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?

Here the Pleiades, Orion, Bear (Ursula Major) and the cubs (Ursula Minor) all referred to constellations. Constellations are grouping of stars. In ancient time, people did make up myths based on the shapes of these constellations (hence Orion the Hunter, the seven sisters of the Pleiades). But to the ancient the shapes of the constellations are not supposed to change. Another way of thinking about how the ancients see constellations is like they are drawings on a blackboard. About the only exception to the evening sky are the planets which wander amongst the blackboard of two dimensional shapes. But that is exactly what the word planet mean, wanderer. The atheist would say "ha ha, there you are myths in the Bible!" But they cannot get away with it this easily. Because this not what this passage is saying, the author is not saying that he or she believes in these myths. The author is saying the God of the Bible transcends these myths. The Bible says God can actually change what the ancients assume are fixed shapes in the night time sky. Why is this important? Before we can discuss this, let's consider the idea of the God of the gaps. 

Atheists like Lawrence Krauss argue that ancient man invented gods for things that they cannot understand. This I would say are pagan religions. Pagan myths often described how the Universe come into being through the interactions between the gods (who are themselves part of the Universe). For example the Babylonians believed in Apsu, the god of fresh waters and Tiamat the goddess of the salt oceans were involved in the creation of the world. Science tells us all about water and so we know that there is no Apsu and no Tiamat . Apsu and Tiamat were the gods of the gaps because they fill in the understanding gaps of the ancients. As our scientific understanding grows there is less and less space for the gods of the gap. But is the God of the Bible a god of the gaps? In Genesis chapter 1, we see that the world came into being simply through God's word. Genesis chapter 1 is not a complicated cook book through which God created the world. The Israelite believed that God is sovereign over the universe but God is nothing like the pagan gods who themselves are subject to the forces of nature just like the humans who worship them. This clearly debunk any notation that somehow Christianity had its origin from pagan religions. 

It is possible to read Job 38:31-33 figuratively but when one realized that constellations are not merely static 2 dimensional shapes then God has the last laugh. In our night sky the belt of Orion consists of three stars in one line, Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka. Mintaka is 800 light years from earth, Anilam is 1000 light years away and Alnitak is 900 light years away. Together with all the stars that make the Orion constellation, they actually mark out a 3 dimensional part of the universe. More importantly stars are not static. Stars are suns like our sun (actually all three stars making up the Orion belt is many order of magnitude bigger and brighter than our own sun) and they move relative to one another. Unfortunately this relative movement is very very small, i.e. not easily observable without advanced instrument but clearly visible over several thousand years. It is as if God is smiling at us foolish humans saying, I am more then your gods of the Gap and I have done wonders far beyond the wisest humans can ever imagine!
  

Lawrence Krauss - Please stop peddling myths about Christianity

The City Bible Forum organised three debates between Professor Lawrence Krauss and 

Dr William Lane Craig. I attended the first debate (7th of August 2013) in Brisbane. The first debate was titled "Has Science Buried God". Actually I wouldn't really described it as a debate as Professor Krauss basically took on the attitude that any non-athetists present in the Brisbane City Hall that night was wasting his time. If I understood him correctly, he thought all religions are myths and that the answer is in the rationalism of science. Hopefully someone would correct my description of Professor Krauss but that is the best I can do from my recollection. 

Dr Craig in his reply to Professory Krauss' tirade made the observation that Professor Krauss was basically attacking the religion straw man. That straw man is the God of the gaps (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps). Another word the whole argument about religions being myths is that some people uses "god" as explanation of the gaps we have in our scientific understanding of nature. But that is not the God of our Bible! Our God transcends His creation. Another word God is independent of His creation. God is not there to fill in gaps in our understanding of creation. If the tools of science e.g. observations, experiments are all bound up in our universe then they can only tell us about our universe. They can only tell us about creation and not the Creator. Science can certainly disprove pagan beliefs where the object of worship are man-made idols but they are merely our straw man. Science can shoot as many arrows it likes against our straw man but it does not nullify the existence of the one true God. I found Dr. Craig description  three reasons why science and theology can cooperate very helpful. (There are three more but Craig only had time for the first three). They are:

1. Theology furnishes the framework in which science can flourish.
2. Science can verify or falsify theological claims (e.g. straw man)
3. Science need theology to answer the why question (can't tell us about the Creator).

I think of the most difficult parts of being a Christian apologist must be trying to stand up for God's reputation from atheist like Professor Krauss. It is not that God's reputation needs rescuing. The problem is that when Professor Krauss use half truth to question God's goodness then God is no longer loving but a vengeful god. Professor Krauss uses Dr Craig's own explanation of  Old Testament genocide to condemn Christianity.
I didn't understand why Dr Craig did not cut through Professor Krauss' deception by simply asking whether Professor Krauss understand the centrality of Christ in the salvation history? Why do we need the New Testament and Jesus if the Old Testament was sufficient to save? I felt all those young people who sided with Professor Krauss in condemning Christianity needed to hear that.

If you were at the debate, tell me what you think?