Apologetics? What is apologetics? Apologetics is the defense of the faith. But what are the faithful defending their faith from? What stands as a threat to their faith? Non-faith? In other words, disbelief? Whose disbelief?

On the other hand, if it is not the case that the believer articulating the defense of his faith perceives the non-belief of others as a threat, then what instigates the need for articulating such a defense? Could it be that the threat the believer perceives is really only confined to himself, that it is his own fear which he truly seeks to combat, the secret fear that he might not believe? Just whom is the apologist trying to convince?

The outward goal is that he wants to convert the world, even if by one sheep at a time. This is the pretense of his apology, the appearance he strives to maintain before others (especially his fellow sheep). But the internal goal, which fuels the deeper impetus of his motivation to 'apologize', is to convince himself in order to service the placation of his incessant pangs of guilt for privately fearing the very real potential fact that deep down he might not really believe after all.

This is the apologist's concealed, psychological purpose of defending his faith claims, which throws the active apologist into a vicious, torturous circle, constantly trying to outmaneuver his own subconscious doubts in a con game between himself and imagined poltergeists. The more persistent his deep-centered doubts, the more strenuous his desire to apologize, and the more he attempts to apologize, the more frustrated he becomes at trying to convince potential converts and outmaneuver his own, deeply rooted psychological conflicts. Indeed, what would he do if there were no unbelievers to occupy his mind?

Thus, as we explore the questions leading to the discovery of the apologist's true goal, we will find that the bulk of his effort boils down to his own desperate groping for validation.

The apologist's primary focus is on his status as a believer, both in his personal life as well as in his social conduct. He is constantly on the guard for the sin of unbelief, which most Christians believe belongs to the greatest of sins (particularly because unbelief necessarily 'disobeys' the first commandment). Through religious indoctrination the believer is programmed to constantly fear, both philosophically and practically, consciously and psychologically, the effects of unbelief. In all things, the believer is exhorted to practice "casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (II Cor. 10:5). Thus, anticipating and dodging the specter of unbelief is, for any serious believer, the supreme preoccupation of his mental life.

Consequently, internal psychological warfare resulting from the overwhelming distress of the mere suspicion of unbelief and its hidden effects, which the believer is programmed to perceive as actual independent living beings (e.g., devils and demons) intent on deceiving him, (and thus rogue forces he must "cast down" or "bring into captivity"), compels the believer to establish within his thought habits a kind of 'safety zone', often taking the form of psychological self-humiliation, repeating favorite prayer verses, ad libbing gospel choruses to oneself, or pretending to be speaking to the ruling consciousness itself. This psychological 'safety zone' offers the believer a temporary sensation of freedom from the specter of unbelief during private inner moments. But because man's mind cannot sustain its focus on any given point for extended periods, disintegration of the illusory safety zone is inevitable, and the believer's psychological chase for 'peace' is once again set in motion.

The implications here are clear: If church indoctrination does not succeed, the would-be believer shall engage in self-hypnosis. The message delivered by such reports is also clear: That belief must be pursued at all costs, including the cost of one's integrity and capacity for honest intellection.

In this way the concatenations of divine psychology and the appeasing affirmations of group conformity and approval offer the balance needed to perpetuate the working of the evangelical mind-control program in the intellect of the believer.

A constant, ready source of friction for the believer is the world and his activity within it. While the believer accepts the con-game that he is in the world (e.g., Col. 2:20 et al.), but not of the world (e.g., Rom. 12:2; I John 2:15-17 et al.), he cannot completely escape dealing with those whom his religious programming identifies as carnal unregenerates, who embody worldly corruption, who are afflicted with rampant unbelief. However, the constantly observable fact that unbelievers appear immune to the symptoms of stress caused by the specter of unbelief to which the believer is prone can easily kindle inarticulate and unacknowledged resentment towards the salient cues of the belief program, thus providing the believer with a source of psychological conflict as a secular counterpart to his social affiliation with other believers.

This conflict results in feelings of guilt in the mind of the believer, who is bewildered by the vast expanse of moral dilemmas and options acutely presented by his close interaction with non-believers (such as in the secular workplace). This bewilderment itself thus becomes a kind of 'divine psychological stage fright' experienced by the believer as he faces moral decisions which may validate the specter of unbelief from which he is running and the assumed spiritual preconditioning of the unbelievers in his midst, who provide an audience to the hope and light that is supposedly within him.

Just as belief must be achieved at any cost, so must the believer's wrestling with the specter of unbelief be concealed from the world at all costs. There are precious few explicit directives in the New Testament guiding the believer's conduct among unbelievers. "Were the most essential behaviors wanted of the believer to be spelled out, the mind-control system would be become transparent." [Cohen, 172] Thus, the New Testament was crafted in such a way that behavioral cues are hinted at implicitly and surreptitiously. The result of this manipulation fosters in the mind of the believer a genuine knack for charade. With the direct and more prevalent

Sustained bewilderment in the human mind naturally leads to varying degrees of panic, given the value of whatever may be at stake (for the believer, it could be his very salvation), and consequently to a desperate determination to discover the proper solutions or defenses. However, for the believer, who is constantly reminded to "lean not unto [his] own understanding" (Prov. 3:5), the panic often becomes deeply internalized and concealed in the private torment of trying to balance the physical realities of his life with his spiritual obligations (thus we see the fallout of mind-body dualism taking its psychological toll). The believer's guilt trip typically resulting from his contact with the world (i.e., the realm of unbelievers) and the psychological conflicts it creates, completely anesthetizes his rational faculty and convinces him that what he needs is just more fellowship with other believers!

The panic cycle of fleeing the sin of unbelief would quickly outwear itself were it not for the fact that those god-belief systems which have survived offer believers minute rewards which they can accept as confirming the particular faith program of their indoctrination. These occasional jolts of highly-charged emotion aid in preserving in the believer's mind the illusion that his view of the world and his particular interpretation, so long as it finds itself in compliance with fellow sheep - with whom he considers himself 'spiritually yoked', is "true." It is to the efficacy of these carefully devised perks that the survival of modern religious systems owe their historical continuity.

One of the rewards that a well-defended faith bestows upon its frontline troops is the ersatz resemblance of self-esteem, the genuine counterpart of which the faith program makes impossible upon its acceptance. Since genuine self-esteem of the believer is not possible under the faith regime, acceptance by a religious peer group is a ready substitute. Having bought the delusion that his religious faith "filled the God-shaped void in his heart," the believer finds, often for the first time in his life, that he can sustain the illusion of feeling good about himself by affirming the religious program as the remedy for the unearned guilt he accepts as an irreducible primary, a precondition to the faith program itself. Through acceptance into "the fold" and the acquisition of peer approval within that fold, purchased cheaply by agreeing in return to the inputs of a delicate social web of illusory emotional supports, the believer remains faintly unaware that the void cited in pithy clichés is still empty in the reality of his mental life.

Certain incongruities with reality, such as the fact that the unexamined, indiscriminate (i.e., non-judgmental) agreement paid in the hopes of gaining peer approval is rendered without the believer's full understanding (cf. Prov. 3:5 et al.) as well as the fact that pressure to maintain faith program illusions causes dissonance in the believer's mind when the facts of reality confirm otherwise, continue to cause conflict between the believer's subconscious evaluations and his conscious intentions, thus sustaining his feelings of guilt, and this time with a psychological stamp of confirmation. These feelings of guilt, although usually buffered by the false sense of security made possible through the approval garnered by group participation and being "with the same accord," thus cheaply satisfying scripture demands on the believer, keep the psychological tug-of-war in progress and drive the believer to endure his social participation.

The social support system of the believer, provided by those with whom he fellowships, typically follows a hierarchy informed by the believers' seniority within the system (i.e., by rank of familiarity with church practice and biblical doctrine). Those who have been at the game longer than others become a source of encouragement for new initiates, who may be constantly bombarded with constant cheerleading by their more seasoned, mentoring counterparts: "Be encouraged, brother!" "Hang on, don't let the devil steal your faith!" "Let go, and let God!" or "God knows all about it, just give it all to Him!" Thus while the believer already has accepted that succumbing to the specter of unbelief will disappoint God, he also develops the psycho-social bonds to his fellow believers which he is obliged to defend and maintain.

A fantastic opportunity to observe the phenomena experienced by struggling believers of a religious system without having to participate in the faith program oneself, is afforded by lurking on an apologetics e-mail discussion list. While the specter of unbelief is a constant threat for each believer, their attempts to rationalize their belief through philosophical argument exposes their own unawareness of the fact that they have been manipulated by the evangelistic mind-control system identified in great detail by Edmund Cohen.

Observe the following admission from an e-mail submitted by an apologist to the Van Til list:

This message offers a great opportunity to examine just how the religionist's mental distortions may express themselves. Let's look at some of the particular statements Mr. Rudd makes in his message here.

In the case of 'presuppositional apologetics,' the strategy of assuming a fact or condition as a point which both believers and unbelievers share is rejected in favor of a paradigm which argues that god-belief is necessarily presupposed by all attempts to argue, either for or against god-belief, and that this god-believe is indispensable to all cognition, even if it is not recognized or accepted as such. It is my understanding, after studying numerous apologetic sources, reviewing hundreds of e-mail messages and related articles and essays concerning 'transcendental apologetics' that even its own practitioners are in hopeless confusion and dispute among themselves as to how such argumentation is supposed to proceed or be genuinely effective. Of course, the question I ask in this paper is rather generally applied: Just what is the intended purpose of such arguments, assuming there is a purpose?

Mr. Rudd states:

Several things should be apparent in Mr. Rudd's statement here. First of all, he alludes to the existence of evidence supposedly supporting his position, but would prefer to withhold it from the unbeliever. Why is this? Mr. Rudd's message suggests two reasons.

First, because, the unbeliever's epistemology is presumed to be "flawed." How does he justify this presumption? Because the unbeliever has no god-belief, or does not have the same god-belief that Mr. Rudd has in particular. In other words, this basically boils down to a tautology: Unbelieving epistemology is "flawed" because unbelieving epistemology is "flawed." While Mr. Rudd and his colleagues would never admit that this tautology is essentially the ultimate presumption to which their dismissals of "unbelieving epistemology" inevitably reduce, it stands to reason as such in light of the stark absence of any successful attempt to make any connection between reason and god-belief. Hence, such "axioms" are unchallengeable as far as this kind of apologist is concerned. Indeed, because of its lack of content, no challenge is needed.

Watch as this confusion unfolds in Mr. Rudd's following statements.

Next he writes:

It is not entirely clear which antecedent Mr. Rudd has in mind for the pronoun "this" in the above statement, but context suggests that it refers to the consequence that offering evidence for god-belief claims which unbelievers may or may not accept negates the mysterious requirement of a presupposed belief to make belief possible. Those who are familiar with this particular approach to apologetics are wise to recognize that among its advocates there is little if any concern for establishing validity for their "belief in the extent of the sovereignty of God." Instead, the 'transcendentalist' merely claims that this is an 'ultimate presupposition,' that it is his cognitive starting point, and not a conclusion resulting from a hierarchy of prior reasoning based on the facts of reality. (Later we will find that reality is not viewed as a primary. This is very significant.) In the believer's mind, the existence of God is a given, but accompanying this there is no objective understanding just how knowledge ultimately reduces to this presumption.

Mr. Rudd states:

The concern with god's "all-sovereignty" is merely a gloss ploy posited more out of need for the believer's emotive cushioning against the specter of unbelief and auto-hypnotic reinforcement of his psychological defenses than for any genuinely philosophical purpose. Since presumptions of the existence of a 'god' would likely be accompanied by such lofty attributions as 'all-sovereignty' (such ascription have their counterparts in virtually all god-belief programs), Mr. Rudd's citation of it is itself an instance of begging the question, since it is presupposed already as part of the overall package.

Mr. Rudd continues:

Here Mr. Rudd bares a significant vulnerability in the apologist's overall program: the retreat to determinism. I call this particular variation of it the 'deus ex machina' ploy. In this instance, it is the view that man's recognition of a fact is outside his volition (assuming that the issue in question were actually a fact). Several points can be made on this matter.

Of course, this recourse to supernatural determinism in this regard fulfills for the apologist a ready and expedient exit to safety, and it is here that we find the genuine purpose governing its assertion. The presence of this security valve within the religionist's argument schemes is the evidence that he does not expect his arguments to succeed very often. The pre-positioning of the success of theistic arguments on the decision of the ruling consciousness to intercede in the minds of unbelievers hearing the arguments affords the apologist an always-ready escape in the event that the unbeliever recognizes their invalidity or for some reason is not compelled to be persuaded.

Should an unbeliever not be persuaded by the apologist's arguments, the apologist can always lay the blame on God's "plan," a "plan" no man can know fully or comprehensively. An apologist may go to extreme lengths to argue for the existence of his particular ruling consciousness personality and insist that his audience accept his claims. However, if the unbeliever is not persuaded, the apologist pads himself with the convenience of claiming that it was not in God's will that the unbeliever "see the light" of the apologist's reasoning at this time, for whatever mysterious reason, thus confirming in his own mind that the ruling consciousness is indeed in control of the situation. In the mind of the apologist, he cannot lose. The tight grip of evangelical mind control system is demonstrated once again.

Mr. Rudd makes the following confession:

In a remarkable display of aloofness to the risk of baring the apologist's own device, Mr. Rudd offers the confession that the goal of the apologist's effort may not be about "convincing the sinful autonomous intellect to repent and believe" after all, which he essentially admitted in his prior statement is not in his power to influence. Instead, his efforts to 'apologize' are "supposed to be… a 'reason for the hope'" he feels (again, feelings hold primacy over reason and knowledge for the mystic). The important point to note here is: the apologist's ultimate goal has nothing to do with using reason as a means of establishing a conclusion. It has nothing to do with testing his own verdicts against the immutable facts of reality. It has nothing to do with a concern for non-contradictory identification of reality. Instead, apologetic argumentation is postured as an intellectual end in itself. Its deeper goal, however, is purely psychological.

Mr. Rudd explains:

While it is unclear why Mr. Rudd or any other apologist would expect unbelievers to attempt a duplication of the apologist's 'nature of reason,' what is clear from the context of his statements thus far is that he feels safely justified in asserting the undefended verdicts for the approval of his colleagues. Who among his fellow apologists would contest that the "all encompassing and coherent nature of [their] reason" - the "reason for the hope" that is within the believer - is beyond the access of the unbeliever? Then again, what unbeliever desires such fantastic, reality-rejecting hopes - hopes he considers false or arbitrary - in the first place? Does the apologist actually fancy himself as holding up before unbelievers an object of envy in the form of such hopes? Certainly for those who accept reality on its own terms, as Objectivists do, there is no place for the doomed hope of escaping it.

Besides, the arbitrary requires no refutation.

Mr. Rudd writes:

This is very interesting. Notice that Mr. Rudd's idea of TAG's (the "transcendental argument for the existence of God") usefulness is in its ability to "refute or dispel" rival arguments and systems of thought. But refuting and/or dispelling rival arguments is not the same as establishing one's own conclusions. What is important to recognize at this stage, so far as the apologist's psychological motivations are concerned in the context of a social outlet for sharing religious thought among those who are sympathetically inclined to agree, is the emphasis placed on protecting one's ideas and notions (indeed, mental illusions) from being placed at risk. Hence, the usefulness of TAG as a dispelling device, not as an instrument designed to establish positive verdicts of its own.

Again, Mr. Rudd's words above make this crystal clear:

This apparently is what he means by a "modified version of an argument."

The claim that "God exists" is an existentially positive claim. It differs fundamentally from claims that something does not exist, that an event has taken place, or that something already known to exist has a certain quality or attribute. Existentially positive claims, which are claims that something belongs in the class of existents, bear a severe epistemological burden. Establish the truth of existentially positive claims is not achieved by refuting argumentation contradicting the existentially positive claim, which is the virtue of TAG as Mr. Rudd sees it. Instead, the establishment the truth of existentially positive claims relies on a process of proof, which

Mr. Rudd continues:

The proper identification of reality has been the topic of debate since men first attempted to define a philosophy. While so many variations of philosophical models have been advanced throughout history as satisfying the requirement of finally unveiling the secret answers long coveted by thinkers of the past, few have had anything fresh to offer insomuch as a legitimate system. One system, Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, not only corrects the problems advanced and indulged by the philosophies of the past (problems often inherited from the religious view of the world), but establishes a completely rational and fully integrated comprehensive view of life unlike any other system.

For instance, to answer Mr. Rudd's question, "which [reason or model of reasoning] fits with reality?" Objectivism answers: That system which takes reality as an unalterable, absolute primary and builds its doctrines according to a rigorous allegiance to this primary is the one that fits with reality. Reality, therefore, is the final court of appeal.

What is reality? Reality, according to Objectivism, is the realm of existence. What is existence? Existence is that which exists, the entities that make up reality. In other words, to begin giving content to a system whose allegiance is to reality as an unalterable, absolute primary, we must first look to reality in an effort to define it. This is what Objectivism accomplishes, beginning with the axioms existence, consciousness and identity. These axioms, which by their very nature are irreducible, inescapable and perceptually self-evident, are implied in all of man's cognition: they must be assumed even to deny them. As explicit fundamentals, they are the foundations of Objectivist philosophy.

How this idea "fits with reality" is a fantasy. The mystic calls it a 'mystery' but insists you accept it as knowledge.

Mr. Rudd writes:

There was no "borrowing" from the Christian view here. In fact, many Christians will object to Rand's definition of 'reason' while they themselves cannot isolate one instance in the biblical canon which offers an alternative to Rand's definition. The Bible is explicitly clear in its reliance on and advocacy of faith, which, according to Objectivism, is antithetical to reason.

In fact, noting the Bible's glaring ignorance of the importance of defining key philosophical terms (thus rendering it completely impotent to stand alone in its own capacity as a guide to man's knowledge and morality), we find that biblical 'scholars' who believe that the Bible is an authority on matters of reality, knowledge, worldviews, ethics, etc., must look outside the Bible even to define both essentially important as well as casually nugatory terms for their definitions. (This is a theme that is developed in many of the articles on this website).

To claim that unbelievers must "borrow" from Christian theism in order to understand and deal with the world and reality, while believers can only point to precious few points of useful knowledge (and even then, primarily only within the context of his theistic notions) within the Bible itself, is to miss the point to an embarrassing degree.

Arguing that the uniformity of nature must be explained by stepping outside nature contradicts the Objectivist axioms. The uniformity of nature is the recognition that reality is consistent with itself. Existence exists. A is A. To exist is to be something. If A should exist, it must be A. Wherever existence exists, existence exists. Wherever A exists, it is A. These fundamental recognitions of reality are expressible as tautologies whose reference is the world of facts. No explanatory value is gained by stepping into a supernatural realm and positing a ruling consciousness which sustains a 'creation' and makes everything so.

I have corresponded with Muslims who make this claim too, and the Christian has no way to distinguish his paradigm from those that are asserted by rivals to his. In fact, within Christianity itself, there is little if any agreement on these basic, fundamental issues. Besides, since the recognition of the fact that existence exists is all that is needed, all the Christian's ranting about the non-Christian's supposed inability to "account for" the uniformity of nature is contentless. Those who argue for this position will not likely see this, as they enter all debate with the presumption that no appeal to reality (as offered by Objectivism) will satisfy his explanatory commitments because they do not include reference to God, which the religionist still cannot prove exists. Knowledge of reality cannot be gained by enshrining the incomprehensible.

Far from confirming the Christian's argument here, the fact that rationality must be rooted in the absoluteness of reality (existence and identity) simply underscores man's need for Objectivism.

Mr. Rudd continues:

No doubt Mr. Rudd may actually believe this. Then again, look at the claims that the religious view of the world has its believers accept: the belief that the universe, existence and reality were magically zapped into being by the will of a ruling consciousness personality; that man was 'created' by this ruling consciousness; that woman was 'created' from man by the magical extraction of one of his ribs; that a serpent spoke; that a donkey spoke; that a burning bush spoke (assuming it was not cannabis); that seas can part down the middle and an entire tribe of believers could walk on the exposed seabed; that dead corpses were resurrected; that mental illness is caused by mischievous demons and devils inhabiting the mind; that blindness can be cured by spitting into the eyes of the blind; that men could walk on water; etc.

Here, Mr. Rudd suggests that his worldview offers itself as a comprehensive integration of knowledge, doctrine and policy. However, any claim to this effect, as we have seen so far, will not bear scrutiny.

For instance, how can man's volition, which is self-evident, be integrated with the determinism of the Bible? (Mr. Rudd even alludes to this problem above.) How is it internally consistent that one's epistemology should advocate faith-based belief (which is the acceptance of claims without evidence and against one's own reasoning or understanding) in the cases of some claims, while other claims must be proven by a process of reason (which relies on the non-contradictory identification of the facts of reality and rigorous observance of the hierarchical nature of knowledge), as the presuppositionalist seems to do in the case of other claims? What overriding principle can justify for such epistemological duplicity? How is it internally consistent with one's worldview if one should engage in torturously complicated argument, replete with reference to rhetorical schemes known only to themselves, in an effort to acquire understanding, when the primitive rudiments of that same philosophical system commands the believer to "lean not unto [his] own understanding" (Prov. 3:5)?

How can induction be integrated with the view that reality is contingent upon volition (which ultimately he must reject in man as a result of the determinism of his worldview, but which he attributes to god) and that the facts of reality are constantly subject to revision according to the mood swings of an angry, jealous, indeed childish, ruling consciousness prone to unpredictable mayhem and vindictive tantrum? (This is the very 'reason' apologists offer to "account for" the uniformity of nature!) How can Mr. Rudd ever achieve certainty when he must constantly accept the possibility that the facts of reality can be rewritten at any given moment without his understanding or ability to reason an explanation other than, "it is God's will"?

How can any certainty of reality be achieved when one must allow for the possibility that at any moment a burning bush or a donkey will start speaking to him? That one minute he will sink in the waters of a lake, and the next he will be walking on it? That one minute corpses in a cemetery will lie at rest in their graves, and the next they "rise and appear unto many"? That suddenly he will hear a voice from the sky, but those who are with him only see a light? That he will come home from a visit to the eye doctor with a prescription for new bifocals but learns that his blind mother's vision was restored by applying an earthen compress made of dirt and spit? That one minute he will be walking along a city street and suddenly come upon a giant detached hand writing Babylonian cuneiform on a wall? That a stick he finds along a trail will suddenly turn into a snake? That suddenly identity will be contradicted and causality will be subverted to create a reality of unpredictable chaos, where anything is deemed possible so long as one can imagine it, that the inanimate suddenly becomes animate, that A suddenly becomes non-A, that order in reality is dismissed as an empirical fantasy based on 'presuppositional bias,' that the absolute becomes a falsehood, and the incomprehensible becomes the valid?

Mr. Rudd must accept as a genuine possibility that the ruling consciousness may even zap him into another 'possible world' governed locally by a wholly different set of natural laws contradicting those of 'this world'. The omnipotent ruling consciousness is indeed capable of this, and without knowledge of "God's plan" Christians have no basis to reject such absurdities as genuine possibilities.

How can Mr. Rudd argue that his philosophy is internally consistent with the facts of reality (particularly with the fact that man is a rational being who must act in order to achieve his values) when his Bible commands him to "take no thought for the morrow" (Matt. 6:34), yet Christians hold long-term jobs, plan weekend barbecues, invest in the stock market, purchase various kinds of insurance, commit themselves to 30-year mortgages, save for retirement, etc.? How is it consistent for one to advocate in theory the premise that believers should "resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also" (Matt. 5:39), yet in reality find personal security that they live in a civilized society (unlike ancient Palestine) which is built on the foundation of individual rights (a doctrine that finds no support in biblicism) and is protected by a trained police force and a system of courts?

Where is the internal consistency within a worldview that claims that "God is not the author of confusion" (I Cor. 14:33), yet hundreds of splintered denominations of that worldview exist as a result of their inability to agree on particular interpretations of the very source of such quotes? How is it at all consistent for the believer to hold that the Bible is the source of moral authority when that source neither defines the term 'morality' nor articulates any comprehensible and workable system of objective values? How is it internally consistent to argue that what one enshrines as incomprehensible (the notion 'god') is the ultimate source of knowledge and understanding? How is non-contradictory knowledge for the Christian even possible when his epistemological doctrines, as inferred from the Old and New Testaments, make no attempt whatsoever to distinguish the nature of knowledge from man's emotions and thereby offer principles against confusing the one for the other?

These and many numerous other issues come into mind when Christian apologists make the claim that Mr. Rudd is making here. If the Christian worldview leads to anything, it certainly is not coherence.

Mr. Rudd states:

Here Mr. Rudd makes another admission that is devastating to his own position. This position necessarily entails a plethora of problematic notions, such as the idea that reality is contingent on the ruling consciousness (i.e., dependent on God since is "the reality God made"). The absurdity of this position is exposed by a single question: Is God therefore real? If reality is contingent, then anything that is real (i.e., part of reality) is also contingent. If God is real, then God is contingent. If reality is contingent on God, then God cannot be real. Such positions as Mr. Rudd's (and there are many such instances in Christian thought) are sufficiently self-refuting. Such is to be expected when dealing with the arbitrary.

The pressure to define crucial terms, if one accepts that consistency in meaning is at all important to one's understanding of the world and reality, can be very uncomfortable for theists. We saw above that Objectivism is more than willing to offer definitions that reduce to the objective appeal to reality. However, when it comes to the religious view of knowledge, identifying just what is meant by religious terms becomes a guessing game which ensnares the apologist by beating him at his own ruse (as we see in Mr. Rudd's comment above).

The apologist will stop at nothing to avoid committing himself to any concepts that include within the scope of their subsuming jurisdiction both the notion of the ruling consciousness and anything said to have been created by that ruling consciousness. The symbols preferred by the Christian to signify the arbitrary division he has in mind may include 'creator' versus 'creature' or 'natural' versus 'supernatural' and so on. But no conceptual category that subsumes both ideas will be allowed by the attentive apologist.

The apologist observing such conceptual boundaries finds agreement with the Objectivist in doing so, but not for the same reasons the apologist has in mind. The apologist avoids treating concepts so widely for two reasons, one ostensible, the other hidden from view. The apparent reason, used in argument, is that that which pertains to God cannot be intermingled with that which pertains to the effects of God or is "distinct from God," i.e., his creation. Thus, concepts like 'reality' and 'nature' can only pertain to that which is said to be a creation of God. The reason that is kept hidden from view is that the apologist fears that his game will be revealed.

In contradistinction to the motivations of the religionist, since the Objectivist adheres to the general policy of separating ideas pertaining to objective reality from those pertaining to arbitrary notions, notions such as a 'contingent reality' or the 'supernatural' - as identified by religious philosophies, are rejected.

All these unnecessary notions are immediately slashed off by the Objectivist axioms. For the Objectivist, there are no such arbitrary divisions in objectively formed concepts. Existence exists. As one Objectivist atheologist put it, "If God exists, then existence exists. If God does not exist, existence still exists. So what's the fuss?" Indeed, what is the fuss? Again, whom is the apologist trying to convince?

Veiled within Mr. Rudd's message above is another admission of demonstrable consequence: 'Transcendental reasoning' (which is based on the primacy of consciousness) fits with the primacy of consciousness view of reality. The metaphysical view that reality is contingent upon a form of consciousness is called subjectivism. It is the view that reality is not a self-sufficient absolute, but the product of the whims of a ruling consciousness.

Will the Objectivist's reasoning ever "fit with the reality God made"? This is equivalent to asking whether or not the Objectivist's epistemology will ever find itself in compliance with the primacy of consciousness view of metaphysics. And here Mr. Rudd is absolutely correct: Since Objectivist philosophy vehemently rejects the primacy of consciousness view of reality in all its variants, it stands to follow that Objectivist epistemological doctrines will also reject the wreckage that erroneous view of reality bequeaths to those who accept it. Mr. Rudd will find sharp agreement with the Objectivist that Objectivism will never "fit with" the view that reality is contingent on a form of consciousness. Objectivism is a system of integrated philosophical doctrines built squarely, explicitly and consistently on the primacy of existence view of reality, and rejects all systems and doctrines resulting from any acceptance of views based on the fallacy of the stolen concept.

And finally, Mr. Rudd concludes:

Here, Mr. Rudd alludes to one of the primary focuses of the evangelical mind-control system! For detailed discussion of this system, I refer my readers to Edmund D. Cohen's The Mind of the Bible-Believer, pp. 169-386.

With all these problems, whom does Mr. Rudd think he's going to convince? Unfortunately, for those who are not aware of the problems identified in the foregoing analysis, such positions actually appear valid. This only demonstrates the need for more effort to educate individuals about Objectivism. This demonstrates the need for an Objectivist atheology.

In attempting to answer questions regarding the apologist's purpose in "defending" his faith claims, attention is often directed to alleged problem issues in the life of the unbeliever which the apologist thinks his faith claims are suited to "correct."

For example, many Christians like to parrot the claim that life without god-belief has no meaning. This is the claim that an atheist's life is meaningless. One very simple question is usually sufficient to dispel this popular, arbitrary myth, a myth that church leaders love to teach to their gullible flocks. That question is: Meaningless to whom? If the apologist answers that the atheist's life is meaningless to God, how is this a problem for the atheist? By definition, the atheist has no god-belief, so this is a non-issue for such an individual.

What else can the apologist say? The apologist may claim that the unbeliever's life has no meaning for himself. But no one can legitimately make this claim about another based simply on their status as one who does not believe the claims of others. Acceptance of another person's claims, whether ancient or contemporary, is not a prerequisite to establishing meaning in one's own life. If this is the operative presumption, whatever notion of 'meaning' is understood in such presumptions, it is not rational.

The religionist may admit that the unbeliever has no meaning according to the religionist's view, which very well may be the case. But this is not the same as saying that the unbeliever has no meaning in his own life; nor does it justify any claim that essentially asserts that an atheist has no basis for establishing meaning in his life. For it very well may be the case that the religionist finds no meaning in the unbeliever's life, while the unbeliever does. This is most likely what is meant, however, when the religionist says that the lives of unbelievers are meaningless. History is full of examples of what happens when people act on the presumption that some individuals' lives have no meaning because they deem it so.

The religionist may also attempt to fortify his stance by claiming that the life of the unbeliever has no meaning according to the church. But the church is not an entity, but a group of individuals (each individual member is an entity, not the collective). Thus, the religionist attempts to speak for the group. This may or may not be accurate of the assessments of those collected within the church. But even if such an assessment were accurate, so what? Again, this should not matter to the atheist. Is this an evaluation upon which the group should act? If many individuals agree that the life of one unbeliever is meaningless (again, to whom?), what action will such an evaluation condone, dear apologist?

It can be argued that the claim that the unbeliever's life has no meaning in the eyes of the church is hypocritical, since the church is a primary means of indoctrinating the unbeliever. It is for the purpose of a kind of 'spiritual rehabilitation' that the church exists, both of believers and, ultimately, of unbelievers. The emphasis on the recruitment of new converts into the religious fold on which the Christian commission is built, is evidence that the existence of unbelievers gives the church itself an overall purpose, and therefore unbelievers must represent at least some meaning to the church. Those churchmen who repeat the claim that unbelievers have no meaning abnegate this recognition.

A similar claim repeated by religionists is that the atheist's life has no purpose. But what is the meaning of a man's purpose but to himself? Again, the same problems pointed out above arise when the religionist attempts to degrade those who do not believe his mystic claims in this way. A man's purpose cannot be divorced from himself or his values and still be rational; one's rational purpose in life cannot built on the irrelevance of his needs and his nature as a volitional being capable of rationality. Thus, man's purpose is a selfish endeavor by nature. A rational purpose takes into account the entire context of a man's life. Dr. Peikoff defines the nature of purpose according to Objectivism:

Notice that the Objectivist's conception of the purpose of his life, as articulated here so eloquently by one of Objectivism's foremost spokesmen, presupposes no god-belief, either implicitly or explicitly. In fact, the religionist's entire notion of his own purpose in life, which may be defined as "selfless service to God," is anathema to the Objectivist virtue of purpose on every account.

For the Objectivist, purpose presupposes value. 'Value' is that which man acts to gain and or keep. Values, consequently, according the Objectivist definition, are not selfless, but selfish by nature. According to Objectivism, the man of purpose does not resent the fact that the achievement of his values requires his effort, both mental and physical, nor does he presume the notion that his purpose is to serve something external to him, be it a mystic illusion, his neighbor or an idea that cannot stand to gain from his effort. The common, perhaps intentional, misunderstanding, indeed a straw man, that atheists necessarily have no purpose in life, is a failure in itself. Those who parrot such drivel would be wise to check their premises and their definitions, or take a vow of silence.

Both claims, that the atheist's life has no meaning or has no purpose, are essentially identical to saying that the atheist's life has no value. Value to whom? This question is never considered by those making such claims. The religious view of ethics relies on the intrinsic theory of values.

This theory of values, the one that detaches value from its valuer and from its relationship to a standard, is the root of the common misunderstandings pointed out above. When asked why some action is "good" as opposed to an alternate course of action, the religionist is programmed ultimately to say, "Because God says so!" Thus, it is because it is commanded (allegedly by a higher being) that something is said to be "good" or "right" in a moral sense. One need not understand it in order to recognize that the action in question is "good" or "right," as one's understanding is an irrelevant distraction (see Proverbs 3:5).

The Objectivist recognizes that it is one's prerogative to value himself, and therefore turn the religionist's empty, condescending diatribes to dust.

Another common misrepresentation of atheists is that atheists base their cognitive identification of reality on the presumption that there is no god. This is no more true than the claim that people who do not believe in the tooth fairy base all their ideas on the presumption that there is no tooth fairy. While supposedly it is possible for some individuals to claim that they base their knowledge on the idea that there is no god (such as perhaps those who have not fully recovered from the effects of the evangelistic mind-control system of Christianity), it is unlikely that such a condition applies to very many self-professing atheists. What is important, however, is that atheism per se does not require the denial of the existence of a god as the atheist's cognitive starting point. Assertions to this effect are completely unjustified on rational terms.

Evidence for the operation of such unjustified presumptions can be found in questions such as "Why are you fighting God?" or, in one that was recently posted to the Van Til list, "When a non-Christian conceptualizes the car, is it not true that he always implicitly or explicitly includes in his conception the presupposition that the car is not a God-interpreted fact?" ("Re: A Query on Morality," Jan. 13, 2000.) Substitute any mythic or fabulistic notion, such as "tooth fairy" or "bridge trolls," for "God" in the above question and the dishonesty of the misrepresentation being attempted becomes clear.

For the Objectivist, cognition does not find its basis on the negation of a claim or set of claims - regardless of their content or reference, but on the recognition (i.e., the positive identification) of perceptual self-evidencies (i.e., the axioms; see Peikoff, pp. 4-12). The Objectivist's atheism is not a self-sufficient primary, but a consequence of prior reasoning, reasoning that does not allow the arbitrary to double as knowledge (as it does in religion; see above). In short, the Objectivist's rejection of god-belief claims belongs to the same category of his rejection of all arbitrary claims, and for the same reason: they are posited in defiance of the objective identification of reality.

Such misrepresentations as those given above are the result of the apologist's desperation to rationalize his struggle with the specter of unbelief and to separate the collective of believers from the rest of the world.

Because of the apologist's fickle sense of purpose, a purpose torn between conscious incentives, religious directives and psychological anxieties, determining what will satisfy the apologist's and the belief program's demands on both himself and those whom he meets (and those he converts), is rather complicated, indeed engrossing.

Because religious indoctrination is an extremely complex process, the mentality of the apologist must be viewed in light of psychological reverberations that stretch back to his conversion. The conversion itself is only the beginning of that process, which can be summed up as two primary steps: "get them in the door" (i.e., persuade unbelievers to become Christians) and "teach them the gospel" (i.e., let the indoctrination take its toll). Where the initial step is presented in inviting terms approaching familial concern, its secondary counterpart accomplishes a complete reversal of the first.

This apparently duplicitous attitude finds its source in the evangelical mind-control system of the New Testament. Therefore, we must consult the apologist's primary source for the proper cues that guide his apologetic course.

For instance, Romans 10:9 states that, "if thou shalt confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." This formula for salvation presents the religious program of Christianity as a non-rigorous, easy-to-join social club with easy-to-fulfill prerequisites (the suspension of disbelief) and sure results ("thou shalt be saved"). The pick-and-choose features of modern versified Bibles makes isolation of such passages quite handy for the apologist in his proselytizing efforts, and superficially benign verses can be presented as representing the Bible message as a whole.

Common to the pattern, for instance, would be to fortify the Romans passage cited here with other benign New Testament passages, such as Matt. 11:28-30, where Jesus is recorded as saying, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Now, who could have a problem with that? Such is the reasoning implicit to the recruiting strategy. Highlighting such verses is a very effective means of painting Christianity in benevolent, attractive terms which may prey on the affections of the unsuspecting. The goal here is to bring new initiates through the doors of the church. What happens later is a different story.

That different story is slowly but surely unleashed on the believer as he becomes more and more indoctrinated into the belief program. While at first he was attracted to the belief program by the pretentious veneer of benevolence and compassion of Bible doctrines and the supposedly unconditional warmth exhibited by the euphoria-induced crew of the church, new initiates are gradually

While the symptoms of this "net detrimental effect on mental health" of believers is quickly absorbed into the evangelical mind-control system through an implicit system of interpretation and thus reinforced, the overall effect on the new believer is like that of a frog slowly boiled in a pot on a stove. If the believer were cognizant of the radical transformations that the initial, benevolent teachings will eventually undergo, the newcomer to the religious experience would likely not accept it so willingly, just as when the same frog is thrown into a pot of already boiling water, he quickly jumps right back out. Extreme caution, therefore, must be exercised by the apologist not to scare off hopeful new recruits. (His venom is reserved for those who actually challenge his religious positions, for anyone who confidently challenges the belief program is dismissed as hopelessly "unregenerate" and thus fair game for attack. And that attack can be quite vicious. For some apologists, attacking unbelieving "scoffers" is but a sport with few - if any - rules of conduct.)

Once an unbeliever shows interest in the surface promises of the faith program, and the apologist detects the potential of "winning" a new convert, the pretense of those benign surface teachings reaches its most pungent crest. It is like a meal in reverse: the sweet desert is served to attract the newcomer to the meat and potatoes of indoctrination. Choice Bible quotes, each geared to play up the system's initial appeal, are then rained on the candidate for conversion along with pleas to consider the fate of his soul should he dismiss the witnessing strategy.

Soon after the newcomer decides to "enter into fellowship" with the church and its doctrines begins the transformation from the benevolent companionship promised by the faith program's initial appeal to the holy dictatorship of psychological tyranny which the apologist failed to mention. As he throws himself to the 'mercy' of the faith program, he discovers that not every verse in the Bible is so appealing as he first thought. In fact, he learns that much of the content of the Bible is quite dreadful and ominous. While he does not consciously realize precisely what is happening, many of the verses that were pitched to him have been undone.

For instance, when he was first approached, he was told, as indicated in Romans 10:9, that all he had to do was "confess with [his] mouth" and believe. However, now he learns that "not everyone that sayeth unto me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 7:21). Indeed, far more than simply confessing belief will be required of him to share in the promises which initially attracted him through the doors of the church. Now that an initial investment had been made, and the claws of the mind-control system have begun to sink in, very little effort will be needed keep the cycle continuing. And now that the convert has an entire "church family," there will be no shortage of "saints" ready to supply the extra push.

Many of the New Testament's ready-made sales pitch verses are constantly employed as conversational seasoning by the more 'mature' believers in their dialogue with newcomers. These may include the so-called 'Beatitudes' of Jesus' sermon (Matt. 5:3-12), the 'faith' chapter (Heb. 11), the 'love' chapter (I Cor. 13), the parables of Jesus, sundry tales of healing ailments and sickness, etc. The quaintness of many of these passages is handy in suspending the benign attraction that has now grown quite faint for the new recruit whose indoctrination is well under way. More and more, however, the focus of this indoctrination is transferred from promises of peace, tranquility and everlasting joy, to the doom that awaits should the believer begin to waiver in his faith and, most importantly, his obedience to the ruling consciousness. The goal at this point is to perpetuate the "baby saint's" personal investment in the faith program long enough for its roots to take their unrelenting grip on his mind. Once momentum is achieved, the inertia of the system itself takes over.

The turnabout in operation here is no accident. Indeed, this is the effect of the evangelical mind-control system desired by its long-forgotten, anonymous authors. While the ploys of this system are inarticulately sensed by some unbelievers, few if any believers themselves are ever aware of what is going on. As Edmund Cohen points out, "The misleading biblical surface impressions are not inadvertent. Initial recruitment contacts could not succeed without them. A short description of Device 1, the most external of the seven, is that a colossal bait-and-switch sales pitch is worked on the new believer!" [Cohen, 171]

According to Cohen's analysis, this mind-control system consists of seven distinct devices, each of which have their scriptural supports and cues. Only the first device, which Cohen calls the "Benign, Attractive Persona of the Bible," finds an outward expression; it is the system's contact point with the world. The other six are concentrated on the mind of the believer itself, and systematically manipulate that mind into the dispirited, obedient robot intended by the system's designers.

Christianity is presented to newcomers as a club that is easy to join, whose initiation has the simple requirement that the newcomer only believe what he is told. Never mind that down the road he will be expected to sacrifice his mind. Believing is only the beginning. Conformity, obedience, indeed thought control, however, are the end.

Thus, Christianity is not at all about benefiting man's spirit, as its apologists like to claim. Instead, Christianity is about the annihilation of his spirit, or any chances he may have of developing one in the first place. So the next time you are approached by an apologist for a religious cause, and he wants to tell you about the "good news," keep these points in mind. Ask him, "What would satisfy you, dear apologist?"

While apologists may like to congratulate themselves as having constructed argumentative paradigms which successfully persuade unbelievers to join their ranks of thought-conformity (in spite of sundry admissions that such power is ultimately outside their direct influence or control), the actual underlying component in operation in accepting god-belief is an individual's inarticulate philosophical beliefs and their consequential psychological fallout. The absence of making it common practice to identify one's philosophical outlook in terms of explicit essentials, as made possible by the Philosophy of Objectivism, is the actual foundation of an individual's vulnerability to god-belief indoctrination.

When one loses confidence in his own mind, he faces a fundamental choice: discover the reason for that loss of confidence in an attempt to resolve any conflict he may be suffering, or act on it as if his lack of confidence in his ability to think were a self-sufficient primary incapable of being resolved through his own effort and understanding.

While no man can claim with any rational justification that he has actually experienced the supernatural himself (since the 'supernatural' is an illusory myth), one can learn to validate his attempt to escape his own circumstances in reality by modeling his behavior and 'reasoning' after those whom he holds in high esteem. The issue common to all such surrendering is the unquestioned premise that to hold others in high esteem is to subordinate oneself to their judgments, their proclamations, their power to know what is beyond "normal means of comprehension." Thus, the inarticulate presumption of oneself as occupying the lowest rungs of an unseen social hierarchy is taken as a primary without acknowledgment or examination.

Thus, a god-belief can be one of the consequences of a poor self-esteem. Note how often one hears the testimony from born again Christians that prior to conversion, believers were at an extreme low point in their lives. Whether they were addicts of narcotics, alcohol abusers, going through a torturous divorce, dealing with the consequences of coming from a broken home, being in trouble with the law, experiencing chronic depression, suffering a series of failures extinguishing one's zest for living, etc., believers routinely claim to have been "delivered" from the merciless throes of destitute lifestyles, habitual ruts or personal circumstances.

The psychological ravages one may experience as a result of such destitute circumstances can paralyze one's self-esteem and undermine or destroy any value one may otherwise place on his own being. As a result of this psychological disability, he becomes fearful of facing any decision on his own and often becomes quite vulnerable to the suggestion of others very easily. And with the profusion of available philosophical models which accommodate the absence of self-esteem, there is no shortage of systematic means validating the rejection of reality in preference for coddling his developing neurosis and indulging his whim-worship.

In the schism between the mind and reality as informed by religious thought, we find the fundamental problem shared by all god-belief programs. All forms of rejecting reason in favor of mysticism bear the same essential philosophical resemblance to each other. This is because they all share the same root. The primary issue in all philosophy is the issue of metaphysical primacy. This identification was made explicit for the first time in the history of philosophy by Ayn Rand. She wrote:

Here it is recognized that a philosophical code for man, including doctrines pertaining to the nature of and means of acquiring knowledge, a code of morality and the political system proper to man, is rooted in his initial identification of reality - whether it is viewed as an immutable absolute which he must discover through a process of reason, or as a projection of his wishes, or those of a supernatural consciousness. The primacy of existence versus the primacy of consciousness is essentially a matter of reality versus whim-worship.

Religious doctrines which explicitly confirm the issue of primacy of consciousness metaphysics as identified by Rand include notions such as the creation of the universe ex nihilo (cf. Genesis chapter 1), the belief that reality can be influenced by begging the ruling consciousness for intercession (e.g., prayer), the idea that one can move mountains (Matt. 17:20) or cast trees into the sea (Luke 17:6) merely by commanding them to, as well as the idea that man's mind or soul is finally released from the prison of his body upon his death. These ideas are taken seriously by the religious mind and are welcomed as the remedy to his resignation to deal with reality on its own terms in preference of some illusory means of escaping the effort of living this life.

The belief that the metaphysically given, which means "any fact inherent in existence apart from human action (whether mental or physical)" [Peikoff, 23-24], can be altered, that the facts of reality are open to revision by the fiat of a ruling consciousness, that the particulars of what is are only the result of a 'divine plan' which no man can ever know or comprehend, is the result of the metaphysical primacy of consciousness. "This amounts not merely to evading reality, but to declaring war on it."

When one gives up on identifying and dealing with reality according to reality's terms, one's mental life is held hostage to the recklessness of his whims, which is the abandonment of reason and logic and the failure to base his cognition on an objective reference to the facts of existence. As a consequence, one may very well be given to the idea popular in contemporary philosophy that whatever one is capable of imagining should be accepted as 'possible' in reality, however he may define the term, without concern for the identity of those particulars in reality in question.

Note the persistent condemnation from the mouths of religious men for the root of man's self-esteem: his selfishness. "Don't be so self-centered," they shout whenever your actions do not include the sacrifice of your values for their benefit. It is your self-esteem, which is perceived as a threat, that they must destroy before they can hope to graft you into their pews. This is the demand that the individual not rely on his own mind, his own rationality, his own assessments of the world around him, and that he subordinate his mind to the will of others, whose primary guide is their whim and an imagination granted the status of unquestionable knowledge, no matter how incomprehensible that supposed knowledge may be. Comprehensibility as man's security in his reasoning is replaced not only by its opposite, but by the apotheosis of its opposite. This is known as the enshrinement of the incomprehensible.

"If God did not exist," wrote Voltaire, "it would be necessary to invent him." There are several reasons why this identification of Voltaire's is true. Man by nature begins his life tabula rasa, that is, he begins his life with a clean slate, so far as his consciousness is concerned. He is born with no knowledge of the world, only with a potential faculty, a conceptual consciousness, which he must learn to use in identifying the existents around him. In rough terms, he is born completely ignorant. Since he is born without knowledge of reality, man's development of a comprehensive view of life is not a given; no man can claim that the views he has of life in his adulthood, to the degree of their development, or in the nature of their content, have been with him since he first opened his eyes to the world.

By corollary, a sense of self, in essence, one's self-esteem and confidence in the ability of his mind, is not a given; the achievement of one's recognition of his own value for himself and efficacy in the realm of existence is a painstaking process which cannot be shirked or wished away. The probability of a child's thought processes to be influenced by his elders, who the child believes are in possession of some mysterious power (knowledge and experience) that is beyond his understanding, is extremely high. In essence, to the child, his parents are as gods: omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent. A pattern of psychological subordination is easily set in motion.

Equipped with a consciousness that is capable of sensing reality (the sensory level), perceiving entities (the perceptual level) and abstracting concepts from the material provided by his senses (the conceptual level or rational faculty), man possesses a potential inclination to explore his environment. While this potential inclination is guided by his volition, as man learns to grasp the facts of reality he begins to formulate questions about reality and about himself, questions which challenge his mind and compel him to seek their answers.

Dr. John Ridpath, in his lecture Religion Versus Man, briefly explains the human conditions underpinning the development of religious thought from an Objectivist perspective. In his explanation, he identifies five points that make up those human conditions which lead to the inception of religion.

Thus, according to Dr. Ridpath's pathology of religious development, religious thought sprang out of both the ignorance of reason, and in defiance of objective reality. When a question was satisfied with an answer, a new question sprang into focus. And when that question was satisfied, there was yet another question, and another, and another. There was no stopping point, no stopping the mind, the mind continued in its quest for answers unbridled, with no ability to identify reality in objective terms, and therefore no ability to identify a stopping point, or the proper starting point. Without axioms, without the identification of the proper identity of man's mind and the reality around him, without an objective understanding of the nature of knowledge and what informs the objective content of knowledge, the mind was let loose on itself in a reckless frenzy of hysterical resignation from the constraints of this world. The result was not an identification of reality, but a rejection of reality, as identified by Ayn Rand.

One's imagination, if granted priority status, can be a most powerful force in an individual's life. Having jettisoned the virtues of rationality and objectivity, those who fail to distinguish between knowledge and imagination are doomed to confuse the two. Just as there is no compromise between food and poison, there is no compromise between truth and falsehood, between the world of facts and the realm of the imaginary, or between reality and whim. The elevation of one's wishes, desires or hopes above the facts of reality is in essence what religion is all about. So long as men run from the effort of rational thought and reject the facts of reality as absolutes, there will always be a demand for religion.

Objectivism does not make the claim that a man's joy and happiness are by-products of merely accepting a position as true or false. Instead, Objectivism, as a system of thought geared toward its individual practitioner, identifies the nature of man's happiness, and recognizes that man's enjoyment of his own life is a value in and of itself, and as such, a moral end worthy of his effort.

Happiness, according to Ayn Rand, the founder of Objectivism,

Thus, for the Objectivist, happiness and joy are what the rational man give to himself; they are not the gifts he receives by donating his mind priests or ghosts or god-beliefs; they are not the hapless consequence of faith, but products of his reason in action. The rational man does not find happiness by failing to pass judgment, or by seeking to escape those who don't fail to pass judgment. Instead, happiness rightfully belongs to those who actively apply their minds to dealing with the facts of reality in the goal of reaching the values he places before himself. Happiness for the Objectivist does not come as the result of sacrificing his values, either to illusionary beings or to mindless "brethren" parroting empty oblations to each other without genuine value as their backing. Instead, happiness is a profoundly and supremely selfish value, as are all rational values ultimately.

One cannot achieve happiness by following commandments, as if obedience were its prerequisite. If that were so, one could command his or her loved ones to be happy any time they were suffering from unhappiness, anger, sadness or anxiety. Nor can one become happy just by wishing for it. If that were so, we could all just wish we were happy and happiness would result automatically. Objectivism recognizes that happiness and self-esteem are causally connected. Should one undermine his self-esteem, he has no choice about the fact that his happiness, if he had any to begin with, will crumble like a wall whose foundation has been ripped from beneath it.

Replace Rand's "con man" with any man who attempts to subsist on deceiving others, such as the village priest, the corrupt politician and the religious apologist. The similarities are striking. In each case, deception is the root of his strategy and unearned values are his quest.

The Objectivist has no need to deceive others for the fundamental reason that he does not seek the unearned. One of the singular traits of an Objectivist is his recognition that the values he seeks are to be achieved by his own effort, not by fiat, not by wishing, not by commandments or by coercing others to produce in his stead. An Objectivist does not seek any alternative to this because, as Dr. Peikoff noted above, "such a person does not resent the effort which purpose imposes. He enjoys the fact that the objects he desires are not given to him, but must be achieved." [Peikoff, 298] Or, as Ayn Rand points out so eloquently:

The apologist might like to explain why the Bible fails to identify its own principles in such explicit terms, as Objectivist literature does. Instead of offering clear, articulate ideas which believers can readily employ in their daily lives, the Bible is written cryptically as if its principles were only valid in some kind of recondite code which requires some kind of "insight" to mine and understand. Either the explicit identification of principle was not important to the authors of the Bible, or there is a reason why they preferred to couch meaning in such confusion (see above).

The author(s) of the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament wrote more about happiness than can be found in any other book of the Bible. Yet even in this book, the nature of happiness is not clearly or rationally identified, nor are its inferences consistent throughout. And to the extent that the Book of Proverbs makes any identification of the nature of happiness, it undercuts it at its source by condemning man's pride (cf. Prov. 8:13, 11:2; 16:18; 29:23, et al.) which is the recognition that man is his own highest value, without which happiness is impossible.

It is the pillar of man's self-esteem and his capacity for happiness that stands in the way of the apologist, for it is the unbeliever's enjoyment of his own life that will frustrate the apologist's attempts to convince him of his faith program promises. Quite simply, if the unbeliever is already happy with his life, and that happiness is genuine, the product of reason in action, he will have no need for the apologist's self-deception schemes. This is precisely why the testimony of so many believers resemble each other in pointing to a life that was in shambles when the decision was made to become a Christian. As noted above, a god-belief can be one of the consequences of a poor self-esteem.

The values that make up the rational man's state of non-contradictory joy are not contextless. In other words, they are not 'values' floating without reference to reality, they are not 'values' asserted without a full understanding of their meaning. When one says that something is valuable, the rational man asks: valuable to whom? And: valuable according to what standard? The rational man never loses sight of the standard of his values, which is his own life (which is here on earth).

This happiness is not what the mystic seeks in life. It is this capacity for happiness of which the rational man alone is capable that the mystic detests. It is this capacity for happiness which he seeks to destroy when he attempts to "win" you to his religion. After all, misery loves company.

We find, after examining apologetic arguments, religious philosophy and the believer's psychology, as exemplified by their own positions and admissions, that religious apologists suffer a deep-seated confusion in regard to just what they should attempt to achieve. With all the effort they put into their god-belief claims and their vast, sophisticated supporting arguments, it remains difficult from a critical perspective to determine just whom the apologist is attempting to convince.

From the believer's struggle with the haunting specter of belief, his pursuit of spiritual rewards, and his misidentification of reality, the believer's psychology is indeed shown to be in peril. Just as the rejection of objective reality goes hand in hand with the rejection of reason, so does the apologist's rejection of the subordination of this life in favor of a set of religious illusions necessitate the psychological frenzy of protecting his false hopes.

So, when you hear a knock at the door and find two Jehovah's Witnesses asking for your attention to their arguments, or encounter two Mormon's on the sidewalk while going your own merry way to the grocery store, or make the acquaintance of a glazy-eyed, euphoria-feigning "believer" bent on "sharing the 'good news' of the gospel" with you, ask yourself: Whom are they trying to convince?

The fact that the pattern of striving to convince unbelievers repeats itself so consistently among apologists for competing god-belief programs only testifies of the tremendously reinforcing psychological benefits within those programs such practice tends to accomplish. The root that they each share, the Jehovah's Witness, the Mormon missionaries and the Christian neophyte, is the identical: The panic to suppress one's own doubts beneath a veneer of repetitive activity of self-inducement.

Dear Apologist: Whom are you trying to fool?

____________________________________________________________

[2] Many biblical verses acclaim the virtues of fellowship and warn of the vice of hanging out with the world. Some include:

Apparently it's okay for God to love the world (however that is defined!), but if the believer loves the world (including those who are in and/or of the world?), "the love of the Father is not in him." Contradictions like these proliferate the text of the Bible, yet apologists have an armory of techniques at their disposal designed to pass off such contradictions as benign appearances of 'discrepancy'.

[3] The message by Mr. Rudd, dated Dec. 21, 1999, which I analyze here was offered in response to the following message posted the day prior by listmaster James Anderson:

Submissions to the Van Til list are archived at the following URL:

[4] On the other hand, I would also point out that one of the believing participants of the Van Til list apparently found Mr. Rudd's description of TAG to be accurate and quoted his post's second paragraph with the following words of praise and elaboration:

The author here refers to what he calls the "beauty and inspiration" of the Bible, claiming that the "content of [its] message [is] beautiful." By what standard could one call the content of the Bible "beautiful"? As the author of this message suggests, one indeed should not glorify the "intellect" that deems the content of so horrid a collection of tales and woes as the Bible "beautiful." Any casual flipping through the Old Testament will confirm this.

As for the author's praise of Mr. Rudd's summary, we see that his taste in argument is also misdirected. In my analysis of Mr. Rudd's message, we see why such argumentation fails miserably without recourse to improving its chances of succeeding.

[5] This transgression of the hierarchical nature of knowledge is precisely what is advocated by the biblical definition of 'faith' in Hebrews 11:1: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Such is an example of a completely unworkable set of ideas that cannot be integrated without contradiction or avoiding stolen concepts. Something "hoped for" does not produce a "substance." The Christian would be better off just to come out and say what he really means, e.g., "faith is the substance of things wished for." This rendering is consistent with the definition of 'hope': "To want or wish with a feeling of confident expectation" (Webster's II New Riverside Dictionary, s.v. 'hope'). Notice the 'substance' of hope is wanting, wishing and feeling. Ideational content accepted on the terms of 'faith' is not knowledge achieved by a process of reason, for reason does not operate on wanting, wishing, or feelings, but through logic, which is the art of non-contradictory identification. Such ideational content is properly called whim or fantasy.

Faith, according to this definition, is not a means of achieving certainty. Paul, in his letter to the Romans (8:24), wrote: "For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?" Thus, one can infer from Paul's vague statement here that those things which are "hoped for," to be presumed as knowledge, are justified by the fact that they are the objects of hope, i.e., of wishing. Paul seems to use 'faith' and 'hope' interchangeably, for in Ephesians 2:8 he writes: "For by grace are ye saved through faith…" (ital. added - AT). But again, simply hoping for something does not mean it is true. Whim is no method for establishing certainty. It is, however, a wonderful tool for self-deceit and illusion.

Clearly the New Testament authors (especially Paul) demanded that followers of Christ enter themselves into a hysteria of mass conformity. Through such teachings as these, religious doctrines unequivocally establish the primacy of the group over the individual. While such conformity is raised to the level of a 'holy virtue' within the church, it is extremely difficult to see how an individual could rely on his own reasoning abilities if indeed his conclusions varied from that endorsed by the string-pullers of the group (which is inevitable).

Similarly, the notion 'omnipotence' is held to mean that a being can do anything, that such a being would be 'all-powerful' and thus have unlimited ability to do as it pleases. Of course, this would include the ability to contradict oneself, and this is not a capacity Christians like to ascribe to their deity. Therefore, much debate within Christian theology over the proper definition of 'omnipotence' has ensued as a result. Revisions of the definition of 'omniscience' are currently in circulation, such as the one found in The New Unger's Bible Dictionary (Revised and Updated Edition 1988), which states: "By ascribing to God absolute power, it is not meant that God is free from all the restraints of reason and morality, as some have taught, but that He is able to do everything that is in harmony with his wise and holy and perfect nature" (s.v. 'omnipotence'). The same could essentially be said about a rock.

[8] See Rand's review of J.H. Randall's Aristotle in The Objectivist Newsletter, May 1963, p. 18; also see the title article of For the New Intellectual, p. 22; Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, p. 68; et al.

[12] Curiously, the five "wise" virgins in this parable are portrayed as selfish, for they refused to share the oil that they did remember to bring in their lamps with the five "foolish" who forgot to bring oil in theirs. Their reason: "lest there be not enough for us." While the New Testament's position on selfishness is that it is essentially the source of sin (see Titus 1:7; II Peter 2:10; Matthew 16:24; John 5:30 et al.; in Luke 22:42, the model for Christian behavior is encapsulated in Jesus' words "nevertheless not my will, but thine be done"), the reward is given to those who act on their own best, selfish interest in the parable of the ten virgins (see Matt. 25: 1-13). Did the five "wise" virgins seek the will of the bridegroom (a metaphor for the ruling consciousness in the context of the parable) before deciding to refuse the request of the five "foolish" virgins to share their oil? The parable does not say, and had there been an intention to maintain a consistency of doctrine, one would expect the parable to make this point clear. So much for Christian compassion.

It is in subtle contradictions as these that the evangelical mind-control system is built. The New Testament is maximally full of similar mind-bending discrepancies. Then again, it is primarily for selfish motivations that one would decide to become a Christian in the first place, although this is not an instance of rational selfishness (for it is not based on rational premises), as advocated by Objectivism. For in the case of the Christian, the ultimate goal is to enjoy eternal life (or to escape eternal torment, however one looks at it). Thus the motivational groundwork of Christianity depends on the believer's implicit value of himself just as much as it relies on the outward belief program. However, most Christians will deny this if asked, and will claim that their motivation in becoming Christians is not to save their own skin, but to please God. It would be interesting to see if these same Christians would be so motivated to please God if they had no hope of entering eternal bliss but were irrevocably doomed to suffer eternal torment regardless of their actions and beliefs.

 Completed and posted January 15, 2000 - ATOA