Equivocatheists?

There's an amusing dialog going on over at Conversations at the Edge about certain comments by Christian apologist Lee Strobel that an atheist deem are "inconsistent". Strobel claims that if atheists were consistent with their worldview, they'd be "self-indulgent me-first naracissists".

Now the defense is that atheists don't believe in consistency. Helen continues:

Lee implies it’s irrational of atheists not to be self-indulgent, me-first and narcissistic. I disagree: if I am kind to others they are more likely to be kind back, which for me is a win-win situation. If Lee truly hasn’t figured this out I have to think he hasn’t tried very hard. Or, more likely, he’s fallen into the unfortunate way of some conservative Christians, which is to cite Christian rhetoric regardless of whether it accurately reflects how life and human beings really are. Some groups of Christians make it possible to do this by validating each other’s rhetoric and not holding each other accountable for when the rhetoric departs from reality.

Not only is Lee wrong in his implication, it’s inconsistent with his own experience! Just a couple of paragraphs later he writes:

How did I become a Christian? My wife’s conversion to Christianity (which deeply troubled me at first) resulted in a lot of positive changes in her attitudes and behavior, which I found winsome and intriguing.

(emphasis mine)

If Lee is right about atheists then Lee the atheist should not have perceived his wife’s newly less self-indulgent and me-first behavior as positive. He should not have found it winsome and been attracted to it. That he did undermines his case that atheists always choose a self-indulgent, me-first life.

And if that case is so easily undermined then, as I mentioned, I wonder if the same is true of the cases in his three books.

First, if atheists don't have to be consistent, why does Strobel? Of course, we can say he holds to a different standard that is verifiable. I exlained how Strobel is not really being inconsistent; atheists were also made in God's image and reflect His forebearance in dealing with others even though they won't admit it.

With respect to Strobel's wife's effect on him, I think a strong assurance is the primary fruit of an honest walk with Christ. Strobel the atheist was not changed by reasoning but by seeing the peace and patience that his wife displayed, that "peace that goes beyond all understanding". Witness trumps apologetics any day.

Last, there are only two ways to reconcile what we say with what we do. We can admit that we often fail to reach the highest standard of moral behavior, that of imitating Christ. We recognize Christ's word and deed is one and the same, and we struggle onward toward the goal of being like Him.

Or we can say it does not matter. We're "free" to choose whatever we want...and it's all right. Correct me if I'm wrong, but atheism seems to say we cannot know moral truths for certain. It's one thing to say "I don't know" and wise men often say that. But "I cannot know" is another thing entirely.