Atheism : Succinct Statements, part 1—On Morality, Reward, Punishment, and Crowns

I must admit that I serial blogger that I am (guilty of creating some 22 blogs) a cyber-sloth.



That is to say that whilst online I generally do not take the time to read articles (essays, posts, etc.).
I generally attempt to make use of the internet as a research tool.
When I do encounter interesting articles, particularly long ones, I either print them out so that I can read them at leisure (and while not attached to a monitor) or I save them on a flash drive so that I can read them whenever I have a moment whilst not having to be online.

Conceiving of the thought that I am surely not the only cyber-sloth I thought to begin a series entitled “Succinct Statements” that are meant to be just that: non-all encompassing, short, concise, bite sized, posts. I will begin this series on a few of my blogs.

I can just imagine you crazy modern kids with your cyber-surfing to read posts, view videos on YouTube, playing video games, posting photos on Flickr, and downloading audio files from your Dave Clark Fives, your Cindy Lauper, and all of your modern day music! You whippersnappers!

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So, here goes part 1, which considering is on Morality, Reward, Punishment, and Crowns does not seem like a good candidate for a Succinct Statement but I shall make an attempt nonetheless.

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On the topic of my own, temporary, sloth we come to the sloth of the atheist. I have found that there is an anti-scholarly trend amongst atheists when it comes to many, many topics in this case: the contents of the Bible.

Whilst critiquing Prof. Richard Dawkins’ treatment of the Bible’s content an atheist attempted to defend Dawkins’ misunderstanding, misapplications, misinterpretations and misstatements. I asked whether he had actually opened up the Bible in order to ascertain whether Dawkins’ claims were accurate and he stated that since he was already familiar with the texts in question he did not do so but merely accepted Dawkins’ infallible interpretations (hyperbole added). This is not only unscholarly-sloth but demonstrates another atheist trend—lack of skepticism. He lacked skepticism of his own memory of the texts and lacked skepticism of Dawkins’ interpretations (see comments to this post). I too was familiar with the texts but I am skeptical enough of both memory and Dawkins that I actually went through the trouble of opening up the Bible. Upon doing so, I saw that Dawkins was not as wrong as I initially thought—he was even more wrong.

This anecdote is a spring board from which to make a point about the trendy atheist lack of scholarship and skepticism. By scholarship I do not mean to state that if atheists are not Biblical scholars or cannot elucidate esoteric minutia they ought not comment on the Bible. I merely mean to point out what I have noticed whilst considering the manner in which the Bible’s text, what is generally necessary to correct the atheist’s misunderstanding is simply reading a couple of verses before or after their conveniently selective citations. This is true whether dealing with Dawkins, Sam Harris, the ex-pastor himself Dan Barker or John Cyber-Doe blogger or comment poster.

Well, anecdote and spring board behind us now, let us get to business.
An atheist presented a very popular but fallacious argument about Judeo-Christian morality being immoral due to there being reward and punishment involved. I have dissected this argument in my essay: The Red Light of Punishment.

As evidence of the expectation of the receipt of rewards for good deed the atheist referred to “the rewards that believers are supposed to get for their service on earth. You know the verses talking about the various crowns that believers get.”

True, yes indeed, that is what the Bible states but—do what this atheist did not do, keep reading, what do those who receive crown do with them?

Firstly, the crowns are on the heads of the twenty-four elders.

Secondly, they have a “crown of life” (Revelation 2:10) and not rewards for do-goodery.

Thirdly, they do the following with the crowns, “the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying: ‘You are worthy, O Lord, To receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, And by Your will they exist and were created’ (Revelation 4:10-11).

This is tantamount to stating, “Whatever I have is yours and it is due to you.”

Ok, ok this one did not turn out as succinct as I intended but I will blame the 229 word intro. I will endeavor to produce true succinction in the future.