Culture

 https://substack.com/@coreapologetics/note/c-355066960?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=28q7xt

 

"𝗡𝗼 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗖𝗵𝗿𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝘀𝘁" will lead many atheists to respond with: "How dare you!" The interesting thing here is that it is 𝗻𝗼𝘁 a Christian who is saying this, but the agnostic historian Tom Holland.

He and others recognize that many of the moral values those in the West have are not self-evident (caring for the weak, poor, etc.) but are derived from the Christian worldview. As he rightly notes, these are hardly the types of moral values that would have been self-evident to first-century Romans, for example.

Sometimes this point takes some time to settle in, but it is one that also convinced Ayaan Hirsi. She was told by Roger Scrutton that she was living like a Christian even though she was an atheist. She initially (and politely) disagreed, but years later came to agree that she had been doing this.

What is particularly important about these discussions is that they force us to look at what we believe, but also why we believe it. What are our presuppositions? What have we derived from our culture? What is or is not self-evident to others? And so on.

This is a clip from the recent discussion hosted by Justin Brierly, whose podcasts have provided a tremendous venue for discussions like this for many many years."