The claims it makes simply don’t add up – it uses logic as a thin guise for Berg’s fundamentalism. God can’t be ‘logically disproved’ (something hundreds of generations of scholars still haven’t managed) by anybody like Berg (or indeed anybody else), especially if you don’t even have a proper view of what logic actually is.

All that notwithstanding, we make the distinction between substance and insubstantiality primarily because we do experience an objective world even though it is processed subjectively. To think there is no objective world, wherein a god would necessarily have to have some characteristic that can be even elementarily be experienced in order to “be” experienced, is to wind oneself up in solipsism in which case the invention of a god was invented by oneself and presents a moot case for a god’s existence. An experiential world would be true even if we “constructed” that objective world, as it is the only way one could even say I think therefore I exist, since from the first one intuits a duality, self and not self, self and a world in which to exist.

Many of these comments are hearteningly thoughtful.

Seriously, thanks. You’ve expressed my own thoughts perfectly. I’ve tried giving my opinion on this matter a number of times, but I end up ranting and getting angry.

I actually think this Berg fella does more harm to the atheist ’cause’, what with him having a crap argument and all. How do people like him and Dawkins get published? It’s a shame C.S.Lewis is dead, he could’ve helped them write their books before writing his own.

I would like to respond to your last comment but it looks like the thread has gone too deep.

Re-reading your original post I think I see more clearly what you are saying: that (although Berg’s arguments are logically valid) God is outside our comprehension and logic and beyond the bounds of the physical universe, yet (somehow) transcends that impossibility (through Jesus of Nazareth) to interact with our lives personally.

Aside from the Bible, what reason is there to think that such a supernatural being – we’ll assume it exists for purpose of argument – has any connection to a historical Jesus of Nazareth? Or any of the stories in the Bible? Why not call it ‘the force’? Does it help to personify it in some way? Doesn’t worshiping an infinitely mysterious God in this way (through an image of a man) amount to idol worship? This (as I understand) is one of the main criticisms Jews have about Jesus worship. They believe one should not even speak G-d’s name much less make “graven” images.

I do agree wholeheartedly with your comments on fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is wrong because it denies that there can be any uncertainty. The man who shot Dr. Tiller was (and is) 100% certain he was doing God’s will. If he was able to entertain any doubts, I’m sure Dr. Tiller would still be alive.

I am willing to accept the possibility that some type of supreme being or force may exist outside the limits of our understanding. I don’t see any reason to believe that such a being has ever, would ever, or could ever intervene in our lives or would expect us to behave in certain ways, but there’s no harm (and arguably some benefit) in believing in this type of God. This is similar to the ‘deism’ of Thomas Jefferson.

You admit that Berg’s arguments for atheism are logically valid. You acknowledge that the Bible is “a collection of ancient manuscripts written by a multitude of different writers across a time period spanning thousands of years.” You have distanced yourself from Ken Ham and the young earthers. In general, you have spoken intelligently for your cause and have defended it as well as any I have seen.

Hovever, you conclude your article with:

“The God who is, however: that’s another story. The God who is, who crosses the gulf between humanity and God in the form of Jesus of Nazareth, who dares to take on the impossibility of existence, who walks amongst us and dies at our hands — that God cannot be argued into or out of existence.”

So this is a Christian blog and obviously most of your readers are already believers.
I’m sure reading this affirmation of faith made your Christian readers feel better after all that stuff at the beginning about Berg proving that God doesn’t exist.

If I may humbly offer a suggestion:

Rather than offering a feel-good affirmation of faith for the converted, why not acknowledge that Berg’s book and others by Dawkins, Hitchens, etc. DO pose a major threat to the Christian religion. Those who have been quicker to realize this are already moving into the fundamentalist camp and shoring up their defenses (such as Ken Ham, Focus on the Family, Westboro). But these fundamentalists are an even bigger threat to Christianity, representing a post-modern reaction against our entire secular society which is doomed to failure.

A recent worldnetdaily article looked at why 2/3rds of kids who go to Sunday School end up leaving the church.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=100324

They found that found that regular participants in Sunday School are more likely to:
* Leave the church
* Believe that the Bible is less true
* Defend the legality of abortion and same-sex marriage
* Defend premarital sex

I was one of these Sunday school kids – I grew up in the Nazarene church and have read the Bible cover to cover many times. In fact, I was a champion Bible quizzer several years running.

I don’t want to see Christianity die, but I do believe that it is dying right now.

The way forward is to transcend. To be a Christian doesn’t mean you have to believe in either God or the Bible, it means you live your life in accordance with the teachings of Christ, because by doing so you believe you will lead a better life.

This is a simple and workable philosophy in the modern world – turn the other cheek, forgive your enemies, love your neighbor. There is no supernatural component required.

Nevertheless, neither you nor I have the verifiable evidence to avow the existence of “Jesus” without lying.

If someone were to deny that “Jesus” ever existed, I do not think that this would be “silly”. There are enough lies, myths and legends surrounding “Jesus” for a reasonable person to strongly doubt his historical reality and many do.

I agree: plenty of nutters have claimed the Bible as their inspiration; but so have plenty of saints — and by saints I don’t mean the people canonised by the Church, I mean people who have worked and lived as servants of humanity, giving themselves away. I think, on balance, it’s the saints who stand the test of time; but perhaps that’s just selective memory, part of human psychology: we prefer to remember the good.

And that’s one good thing about the Bible: there’s no pretence that everything’s hunky-dory: ancient Israel is portrayed warts and all and is frequently shouted down by its own prophets. If they were on twitter it’d be #israelfail as a trending topic every day.

The trouble is that people tend to read the Bible as if it were a coherent whole written by God this morning. It isn’t: it’s a collection of ancient manuscripts written by a multitude of different writers across a time period spanning thousands of years. But you know that, I guess, so there’s no need for me to launch into a mini-lecture about biblical interpretation and hermeneutics or the importance of reading it critically, like any ancient manuscript, in its literary, historical and social context.

What the Bible offers us is one ethnic group’s emerging concept – or concepts – of God and a whole variety of takes on that which, if we happen to accept the Christian perspective, culminates in Jesus of Nazareth.

Following Jesus today doesn’t oblige anyone to mindlessly follow the laws of Leviticus let alone follow the example of ancient Israel in all its warmongering and homophobia, though there’s plenty we can learn from them both on how to live and on how not to. On the contrary, it challenges us to live in humility and learn to love our neighbours as ourselves. Personally the more I think about it the more convinced I become that Christians should not be in positions of power — but that’s another story.

Fundamentalism — whether it’s the kind of atheistic fundamentalism that gave us the worst excesses of Marxism or the religious fundamentalism that gave us the Crusades and 9/11 — is dangerous. But please don’t make the mistake of thinking that everyone who follows Jesus is a fundamentalist. Some of us — a lot of us, actually — do think about our faith, and aren’t afraid to question it.

As you say, believing in fairies never did anyone any harm. But did it ever do anyone any good?

This is why you will get harsher reactions defending belief in the bible than belief in fairies.
Believing in fairies never hurt anyone, as far as I know.