Schoolhouse Review: I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist

What?  You need faith to be an atheist?  Well, when a lot of people think about faith, they think about blind faith.  Believing something just because.  Is that what our religion is to us?

Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek, the authors of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, point out that many atheists go through the same thought processes as many Christians.  In fact, they say, scientists who claim to be objectively observing the facts can become agitated when evidence seems to contradict what they believe to be true, just like people whose religious convictions are challenged.  Atheism itself can become like a religion for some people, with its own strong set of beliefs and opinions.  Can we know who is right and who is wrong?  Can we draw an objective conclusion from the evidence we have in this world?

"So," my son asked, "if we descended from apes, and we still have apes, and we still have humans, why didn't the in-between species survive?"  He is thinking right along the lines the authors want him to think.  In fact, they point out, not only didn't they survive, but between-species creatures could not survive.  If birds with feathers evolved from reptiles with scales, as Darwin asserted, then there would have been some sort of in-between species that no longer had scales but didn't quite have feathers.  That creature could not have survived, so no bird would have evolved.  Scientifically, this is impossible.

I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist draws on a little bit of Intelligent Design (one of my favorite topics in the world), historical documentation, scientific evidence, and lots and lots of logic to show that there is plenty of evidence that proves the truth of Christianity.  We do not have to believe in God based on "blind faith," and in fact, it requires some "blind faith" to believe otherwise.  As James Tour, a Nanoscientist, is quoted saying at the beginning of one of the chapters:  "Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith.  If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God."

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  Hebrews 11:1 KJV

I have taught Intelligent Design, historical documentation for Christianity, and logic to my kids in homeschool, and am always looking for curriculums that support these themes and our Christian worldview, so I was thrilled to see that Apologia (simply one of our favorite companies for both science and Bible curriculums) has developed a workbook to go along with this fabulous book and turn it into a whole curriculum.  At first, I planned to use this with my children all together, but I realized it was going to be over the heads of all but my oldest.  He's beginning 9th grade this year, and this book is right up his alley.  He's right at the stage on the classical education spectrum where he should be reading and understanding this kind of logic, and he is.  He has a very logical, practical mind like his dad, and I am glad to have books like this to use with him, because I believe it will stay with him for life.  I am working through this entire book and workbook with him, and I believe I am learning as much as I am teaching!

Apologia's workbook for I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist is really much more than a workbook.  When I think of a workbook for a study like this, I expect it to basically have discussion and review questions to go along with the text.  Apologia's workbook, however, develops the ideas in the book and turns the textbook into a complete curriculum.  It reviews each chapter of the text, provides additional information for diving deeper into the issues, gives assignments and ideas for research and projects so that the student can learn more on his own, and discusses application of what he has learned.  I loved the extra information given on key figures on both sides of the Christianity/Atheism debate, such as Carl Sagan, C.S. Lewis, and Richard Dawkins.  (My son's favorites are C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien!)  There is also biographical information on historical characters such as Hitler and Josephus.  Logic charts, historical information, information on other religions and worldviews, and some photographs of things like the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found and ancient art all work together to make this what I would consider to be an effective "capstone" high school course.  A "capstone" course is one that brings together all the other courses you've studied and helps you apply them to your life.  After you've studied all this history, art, science, literature, and religion, what do you believe?  What is your worldview?  How does it affect how you live?  I am using this as a "capstone" course over what we have studied up to this beginning-high-school point, and to be effective, I may repeat it (or parts of it) during my son's senior year.  I may also use this as a Bible study or small group for teens or adults.

Many of us grew up in Christian households with parents who were brought up in Christian households in communities where most people went to some kind of church and had some minor denominational differences.  Not so with our children.  They are already being exposed to a multitude of worldviews, religions, and a plethora of scientific evidence.  This is not a bad thing.  People whose ideas have been tested know more firmly what they believe and why.  We do, however, need to give our children the tools with which to evaluate the overload of ideas that are being thrown at them.  Using a course like Apologia's that teaches them how to think rather than just what to think will help them navigate these intellectual waters throughout high school, college, and their lifetimes.  Apologia has several worldview books to this end, and I believe this workbook used in conjunction with the text of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist is one of the best I have seen.

If you have a high schooler, if you are leading a college-age small group, or if you would like to firm up your ideas about what you believe and why for yourself, here is the information you need about this curriculum:

The Product:  I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist Curriculum workbook by Frank Turek and Chuck Winter and
I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist book by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek
   
Vendor:  Apologia Educational Ministries
    Website   http://www.apologia.com

Ages:  High School thru Adult

Price:  $16 for the book I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist
      $33 for the I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist Curriculum workbook

I'm going to say you probably just need to go right now and order this curriculum, but if you'd like to see what my Schoolhouse Crewmates have to say, click the banner below!

Disclaimer:  I received a free copy of the book and workbook for I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist from Apologia Educational Ministries for the purpose of a fair review.  No other compensation was given, and all opinions are my own.

TOS Review: Who Am I? And What Am I Doing Here?

We were so excited for a chance to review Apologia's Who Am I?, from the What We Believe series, especially since we had already been doing the first book in the series, Who Is God?, which I had purchased several months ago.  I have been looking for books that teach about a Biblical Worldview, and these are some of the best that I have found.

Why do we need to teach our children from a Biblical Worldview?  Are we brainwashing them to believe as we do, as some accuse us of doing?  In actuality, I believe we are doing the opposite.  We are explaining to our children what a worldview is and how it affects them; we are teaching them to think for themselves.  Children are, at birth, unable to process much of the data from the environment around them and make conclusions based on that data.  They are something like the tabula rasa, or blank slate, in John Locke's theory.  In the nature vs. nurture debate there are, of course, arguments for both sides: that children are born with certain attributes, or that they gain attributes through experience as they grow.  The answer, as in so many debates, must lie somewhere in between.  It is clear, however, that as they grow, children's thought patterns and problem-solving processes are influenced by what they are taught.  This becomes their worldview.  Everyone has a worldview of some sort.  If you were raised on streets full of thieves and have learned by experience that most people are dishonest, then you will not easily trust people because of your worldview.  On the other hand, if you were raised in an environment where no one did anything dishonest, then you may believe everyone is honest and you will trust more easily.  Either worldview can be altered when evidence appears to the contrary, but they are difficult to shake.

Assume, for example, that you were raised in a culture that believed heavily in magic and superstition.  If you met a witch doctor who seemed to make a small animal disappear, would you believe that he had made that happen?  Most likely.  It would fit with both your worldview and the data that you observed.  Now, if you were raised in America and had a more skeptical worldview, you may see the same witch doctor do the same trick, and you would probably start looking around for his trapdoor or hiding place.  You saw the same evidence that the person in the other culture did, but it did not fit with your worldview, so you started looking for more evidence to reconcile the data with what you knew to be true.  The fact that I called what the witch doctor did a "trick" shows what my worldview is, and I wasn't even thinking about it when I typed it.  Obviously, however, only one of those worldviews is correct.  The witch doctor either made the animal disappear, or he didn't.  They cannot both be true.  If we want to know what is true, we will try to determine which worldview is correct, not just the one that we like the best.

A worldview, then, is how you interpret the information you have based on what you know to be true.  It is impossible not to have a worldview.  A child who goes to public school and is never told anything about God has just as much of a worldview as the child who is homeschooled in an overtly Christian home.  He does not have less of a worldview; he just has a different worldview.  If one wants to call teaching from a perspective of a specific worldview "brainwashing," then the children in any public school, private school, or home are all being "brainwashed."  They are all being taught to interpret data based upon some set of facts, be they true or false.  Since a worldview that is incorrect, such as in the example of our witch doctor, will cause one to arrive at the wrong conclusions, then it is important to have the foundation of the correct worldview in order to process all the information and experiences we have in our environment.

What then, is the correct worldview?  Undoubtedly, no person is likely to always be right on every interpretation and every conclusion drawn in life.  We must do the best we can, and some small parts of our worldview may change over time.  The best gift I can give my children, though, is the foundation of a basic, true worldview to start out with.  A framework of what we know to be true and that will not change.  I believe that is a Biblical worldview.  If you disagree with me, then obviously your next question will be, how do you know that the Biblical worldview is correct?  That will have to be the topic of another blogpost, or even a novel, as this blogpost is already stretching quite long and I haven't even gotten to the chapters of the book yet.  I do not believe this worldview blindly, just because my parents taught it to me, and I do not teach my children to believe it blindly.  I believe it is important for them to know that there are other worldviews, and what the reasons are that I believe in this one.  I will get to that another time, but for the purposes of this review, suffice it to say that for numerous reasons, I have concluded that the Biblical worldview is True, and it is important to teach my children from that foundation.

If you want to teach your children about the Biblical worldview, Apologia's What We Believe series is for you.  Specifically, this second book in the series, Who Am I?  And What Am I Doing Here?, deals with a Biblical worldview of self-image, and that age-old question of purpose.  The book explains what a worldview is, what the Biblical worldview is, and how that worldview will affect the choices you make.  It uses material from the Bible, other historical anecdotes about people like Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, well-known stories like Peter and the Wolf, and lesser known facts and stories.  It teaches what some other people's worldviews are.  Overall, it is a thorough and effective study of the subject, and it can be overlapped with studies in history, language arts, and art, to name a few.  It is also set up well for teaching integrated ages.

For this review, I received the textbook, notebooking journal, coloring book, and audio book on CD for the Who Am I? volume.  This combination works perfectly for my children, with their different ages and learning styles.  The things they are learning in here also work very well with some of the other products we have reviewed this year.  The curriculum is geared toward children ages 6-14, but it can be adapted for children who are slightly older or slightly younger.  I whole-heartedly recommend Who Am I? and the whole What We Believe series.  The textbook may be purchased online directly from Apologia for $39.00.  See the catalogue for prices of other items and the rest of the What We Believe series.  Apologia also carries curriculum for science, history and geography, writing, and other homeschooling resources.

To see what other TOS Crew members thought of this curriculum, click here.

Disclaimer:  I received free copies of some of the above products in exchange for a fair review.  No other compensation was given, and all opinions are my own.