Vol. 1: Worldview Validity
(Since this exercise in general offers criticism of Paul Kurtz's Humanist Manifesto 2000, I will not reply to every point. Paul Kurtz does not advocate the same approach to ethics which Miss Rand does in her development of Objectivism, the Philosophy of Reason. Therefore, some of the points which the Passantinos attempt to make here are not relevant to the development of a specifically Objectivist atheology. The points on which I offer criticism are those which strike me as broad enough to apply to non-theistic philosophies in addition to Mr. Kurtz's views. Only in this context do I see my efforts here to be part of a development of a rational approach to atheology.)
Bob and Gretchen Passantino (hereafter referred to as 'the authors'), open with the following:
Some God-doubters reject what the Bible says about God, Jesus Christ, and salvation, asserting, "The Bible is full of contradictions," or "The Resurrection is a myth like other ancient mythology," and so forth. Documented refutations are found in books such as Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ (Zondervan, 1998) and Hank Hanegraaff's Resurrection (Word, 2000).
There are several reviews of Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ available online. See the following articles:
The Rest of the Story - by Jeffery J. Lowder
Challenging the Verdict - by Earl Doherty
Review of Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ" - by David
I do not know of any reviews of Hank Hanegraff's Resurrection, however it is difficult to imagine Hanegraff's defense of the Christian claim to the resurrection can fare any better than the numerous criticisms offered by skeptical philosophers. I have also weighed in on this issue in the following articles on my website:
A Query on the Resurrection
More on the Resurrection Tale
The Resurrection Story Revisited
These articles, in addition to the points I make in them, offer links to a large number of articles critical of the resurrection story of the New Testament.
Others hold a subjective and relativistic worldview (often included in postmodernism). Truth cannot be known about anything; ethics are relative; God is whatever you perceive Him to be, and so on. This is self-refuting, or self-contradictory: absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth; the absolute ethic is that all ethics are relative; and the objective worldview is that all worldviews are subjective.
The self-refuting nature of so-called "subjective and relativistic worldview" described here is not contested. Philosophy that does not affirm the supernatural is not necessarily "subjective and relativistic" in nature, as some apologists like to assume.
"The answer to a false philosophy is an objective philosophy." - Peikoff (CITE - Objectivist Forum?)
Therefore, in response to this, I can only repeat my advocacy of Objectivism.
Still others assert objectivity, absolute truth, and moral certainty without any transcendental Being, or God who is personal, moral, and the creator of all things, both material (the universe and everything in it) and immaterial (minds, concepts, etc.). Objectivist humanist problems against the existence of God include: (1) language and knowledge, (2) ethics and morals, (3) science and scientific methodology, and (4) logic and reasoning. Each can be refuted from a Christian theistic worldview, as in Norman Geisler and Winfried Corduan's Philosophy of Religion (Baker, 1988).
I can only agree with Dr. Peikoff when he wrote:
Every argument commonly offered for the notion of God leads to a contradiction of the axiomatic concepts of philosophy. At every point, the notion clashes with the facts of reality and with the preconditions of thought. This is as true of the professional theologians' arguments and ideas as of the popular treatments.
The point is broader than religion. It is inherent in any advocacy of a transcendent dimension. Any attempt to defend or define the supernatural must necessarily collapse in fallacies. There is no logic that will lead from the facts of this world to a realm contradicting them; there is no concept formed by observation of nature that will serve to characterize its antithesis. Inference from the natural can lead only to more of the natural, i.e., to limited, finite entities acting and interacting in accordance with their identities. Such entities do not fulfill the requirements of "God" or even of "poltergeist." As far as reason and logic are concerned, existence exists, and only existence exists. [Footnote: Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, p. 32.]
In the four points which the author lists as the "Objectivist humanist problems against the existence of God," he overlooks the facts of reality and the issue of metaphysical primacy. In fact, each of the four points the author lists are nothing more than floating abstractions without the assumption of the primacy of existence.