Humanists often flock to Ray Comfort’s (Founder and CEO of Living Waters) Facebook page to comment and/or troll his Facebook posts. Recently, Ray posted about a disturbing video game that seems to mock the God of the Bible, and the objective of the game is to build a cult following. As I read some of the comments, there was one comment from an apparent humanist that caught my attention, and I decided to respond.
Below is the brief debate transcript (8/17/22 update: the debate continued, so this is just "Part 1"), and as always, I abbreviate other people’s names for privacy.
JS:
Looks rather fun. Remember, there is no difference between a religion and a cult.
Kevin:
JS, Since everybody (including atheists and agnostics) has a "...set of beliefs..." in some form or another per the dictionary.com definition of religion (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/religion), then wouldn't your religious view be a cult by your own definition?
JS:
No.
Kevin:
Also, if you are an atheist or agnostic believing in evolution, then how is being part of a "cult" a bad thing within your worldview? How can you call anything "good" or "bad" in your evolutionary, materialistic worldview without a transcendent Ultimate Standard of right and wrong? In other words, according to your worldview, aren't you and your very thoughts just chemicals reacting?
To even use the word "cult" as an insulting description, you actually have to borrow a biblical principle, even if you don't believe the Bible. Only the Bible gives the basis for rejecting false prophets and false teachers (2 Peter 2:1), and for putting spiritual claims to the test by comparing them to the Word of God (1 John 4:1), so a "cult" is certainly a bad thing from a biblical perspective.
JS: [Reacted to my second comment with a laughing emoji]
JS did not even try to provide a reasoned response. Even if he did, any further argument would be forced to borrow a biblical principal of some sort, because the religion of humanism cannot account for the preconditions of intelligibility such as the laws of morality, laws of logic, and laws of physics.[1]
Another humanist jumped into the debate thread, so I will share Part 2 of the Religions and Cults Debate in my next blog post.
[1] See the following Answers in Genesis article to learn more about the preconditions of intelligibility: https://answersingenesis.org/apologetics/presuppositional-procedure/