It is exactly that impersonal biology (whatever that means) that provides us the means to experience those limbic responses that inform our morality – experiences like compassion and empathy and sympathy and altruism and sacrifice. It is the impersonal biology that provide us with the mirror neurons necessary.

I suspect we are defining morality differently: you a sense of metaphysical right and wrong, me a sense of physical compassion that shapes our moral actions in this world in the here and now. So when you write Only an Ultimate Personality (such as that of God) can reveal and communicate objective morality for human beings, I realize that what you are talking about has no basis in anything knowable except by pure conjecture and imaginings, whereas my basis can be explored in the natural world to increase actual knowledge. I’m not sure if you can establish any meaningful benefit to couch morality as you do in such a supernatural setting. But I can find terrific use in coming to know how people and other critters act in various ways we call moral and immoral. (And of course there is are ethics, as well…)

Having been a Christian for most of my life I would say you’re in a good place. Someone with your doubts and questions will not likely be intellectually or spiritually satisfied at any point.

My personal opinion, after much study and thought that is: if Jesus is who the authors of the Bible said he was then all of humanity will end up in heaven (that is if there is a heaven).

Whatever people say the born-again “experience” is seems to be a sort of psychological event which is more than likely a result of an awakened conscience.

Keep on your journey!

peace to you,
Your Fellow Traveler

I don’t know if you’ve hung in here to read thru all the comments and get to this point, but on the off chance that you have, I will attempt to offer some simple suggestions:

1. The first post hit the nail on the head. Read the book of John and ask (pray) Christ to reveal himself to you in a way that is real for you. Pay attention to Christ’s words as you read.

2. Then return to the book of Matthew and read thru the rest of the new testament. (continue to “pray”.) Also, the “stories” in Matthew, Mark, and Luke often overlap. Don’t let this throw you off, it’s just three different guys point of view on some of the same events.

3. Start visiting churches. A different one every weekend. Again, asking God to lead you to a church that is right for you.

4. Two questions for you: Is Jesus who he says he is? and… Do YOU need a savior?

Best wishes Seeker. I will remember you in my prayers.

Dan

I posted (basically) the same answer to you twice below– the site was initially “telling” me that there was an error, and the first post didn’t go through. Actually, it did, along with the second one that I ultimately wrote to make up for the first!

To the person who subscribes to purely naturalistic, non-theistic (no God involved) evolution, biology is ultimately an impersonal, strictly material process. To the non-theist, then, biology is simply an expression of the way things *happen to be* at a given time in evolutionary history.

By contrast, objective morality is about the *personal, conscious choices* that personal, conscious beings *should* and *should not* make. There is no way to build an ultimately objective foundation for morality for *conscious* beings upon an *unconscious, impersonal* material process.

Only an Ultimate Personality (such as that of God) can reveal and communicate objective morality for human beings. An impersonal process cannot finally *communicate* morality to anyone or provide a truly *objective* foundation for it.

Human biology is not, and cannot be, an ultimately *objective* foundation for moral behavior. Morality is about what is truly right and wrong between conscious and personal beings. It is about the choices that we objectively *should* and *should not* make.

By contrast, biology is simply about the way things *are,* materially and physically– and if one subscribes to a purely naturalistic (i.e. non-theistic, no God involved) form of evolution, then biology is ultimately an *impersonal* reality. The impersonal cannot provide an objective foundation for morality (right and wrong) between personal beings. Only Ultimate, Conscious Personality (as in, the Personality of a God who has actually revealed Himself to us) can reveal and communicate *objective* morality to *personal* beings. Impersonal things don’t truly communicate morality to anyone.

Well, there are some positive points in your monologue. First of all you get it that it basically all comes down to one’s presuppositions. Atheistic materialism assumes out of hand that there is no God because in doing empirical science there can be no appeal to supernatural intervention, otherwise science degenerates into superstition and mysticism.

However, the philosophy of science has challenged the idea that somehow “science” is neutral. Thomas Kuhn in his classic book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions argued convincingly that science is basically controlled by sociological power structures very similar to a religious organization like the Roman Catholic Church. In other words, there is a degree of subjectivity in doing science and in determining the current “dogma.” Which theory of evolution is the correct one? Do blackholes exist and what about string theory? Can life spontaneously generate itself from a primordial soup of the right combination of amino acids? (No scientist has been able to duplicate the process. You would think if they know how it happened it could be repeated in laboratory conditions).

Really the agnostic position is no better than the atheist position because it presupposes that there can be no rationally acceptable answers. But if that is so then empirical science should become agnostic instead of making theoretical presuppositions and then testing those presuppositions. You assume that the burden of proof is on the Christian. When you said that there is no way to prove Jesus rose from the dead, etc., you’re clearly siding presuppositionally with the atheist. But how can the atheist be rationally certain that there is no God apart from presupposing that there is no God? The atheist is on equal ground with the Christian since the burden of proof is equally his to prove there is no God.

Now, I know you’re going to ask now we can know that Christianity is true from among all the other world religions. That comes done to rationally and logically comparing religions. There is a reason why Christianity is one of the three major religions in the world. It is because it is superior rationally, ethically, and spiritually. Of course, I am biased and presupposing that.

Forgive me for being blunt here but agnosticism is in fact a choice. You have deliberately chosen not to choose and you do so based on your presupposition that God is unknowable and that Christianity is irrational. But that is far from the case as you intimated in your inner struggle. God is indeed incomprehensible as far as knowing everything about an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient being goes. But incomprehensibility is different from unknowability.

To believe or not to believe is based on your own choices and your own presuppositions since there is no absolute knowledge of anything. We are all in the same situation on that point whether the choice is atheism, agnosticism, Christianity or some other religion.

The bottomline is presupposition. In my opinion Christianity is compatible with science and it is superior to atheism, agnosticism and to any other religion when rationally examined and when one finally decides to believe.

Calvinism takes the position that God will actually cause you to believe, though you must make the choice. The onus is still on you but God will help you to make that decision if you are willing to stop choosing rebellion and simply submit to the Creator.

Sincerely in Christ,

Charliee