tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13711619008952760042024-03-13T08:11:08.057-04:00Failing The Insider TestBeliefs are not justified if they cannot pass the Outsider Test. That is, they must make some degree of sense even when not immersed in the belief. This blog has been my prolonged argument that Christianity fails the insider test since I deconverted in April 2008. (Occasionally, my thoughts on politics slip in too.)Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-59727086180197027622017-04-08T21:48:00.000-04:002017-04-08T21:54:45.380-04:00The Reason for God, Chapter 2Quite a few people have recommended that I read the book <u>The Reason for God</u>. I was not impressed.<br />
<br />
I do not expect to blog through the whole thing, so I’ll start with the most interesting chapter(s). Chapter 2 easily makes the cut: <i>How Could a Good God Allow Suffering?</i> My section headers are mostly copied from the section headers in the book.<br />
<br />
<b>Chapter Outline</b><br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Maybe there’s some reason justifying evil that we simply haven’t thought of.</li>
<li>Sometimes bad things turn out well, so maybe evil and suffering isn’t all that bad.</li>
<li>There’s no basis for evil without God, so evil is evidence for God.</li>
<li>Jesus was overwhelmed by torture, and that's because he was separated from himself. Thus, God suffered too. So <i>How Could a Good God Allow Suffering?</i> Answer: Jesus.</li>
<li>People like the idea of Christianity.</li>
</ol>
<br />
<b>Page 22-23: Introduction</b><br />
<br />
I will begin with a paraphrase of the opening paragraph of <a href="http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/fellenm/Classes/PHL215_files/Alston.pdf">a paper by William Alston</a>:<br />
<br />
With the problem of evil, there are two different arguments. The “logical” argument claims the existence of evil provides a logical proof of the nonexistence of a good God. The “inductive” (or evidential) argument claims that evil is strong evidence that God does not exist. Alston writes, “It is now acknowledged on (almost) all sides that the logical argument is bankrupt, but the inductive argument is still very much alive and kicking.”<br />
<br />
Tim Keller begins his chapter by misquoting the final sentence.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The effort to demonstrate that evil disproves the existence of God “is now acknowledged on (almost) all sides to be completely bankrupt.” Why? (p.23)</blockquote>
The sequence of words inside the quote marks do not appear in Alston’s paper; Keller added the word “completely.” But doctoring a quote is a small mistake compared to what follows.<br />
<br />
Keller places the quote immediately before the section header “Evil and Suffering Isn’t Evidence Against God.” This deceives readers into thinking “almost all sides” agree the inductive/evidential argument is wrong, despite Alston directly stating the exact opposite! In the future, I’ll recommend that Keller finish reading a sentence before publishing it in a New York Times bestseller.<br />
<br />
While I don't know for sure, this certainly looks like a deliberate lie. Furthermore, it was strategically well-chosen; I would not expect readers unfamiliar with the topic to type in URLs from footnotes. Sure, people like me can point out what Keller has done, but still, its primary effect is to help build the faith of Christians.<br />
<br />
The alternative to a lie is that Keller is unfamiliar with the concept of evidence and how it differs from logical proof. But later in the book, Keller makes a big deal out of how his pro-God arguments are “clues” and not “proof”, so I can think of but one explanation matching the data: Lying for Jesus.<br />
<br />
<b>Page 23-24: Evil and Suffering Isn’t Evidence Against God</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Tucked away within the assertion that the world is filled with pointless evil is a hidden premise, namely, that if evil appears pointless to me, then it must be pointless. (p.23)</blockquote>
As usual, Keller responds to evidence by saying it isn’t proof.<br />
<br />
The phrasing “evil appears pointless to me” is designed to downplay the logic and data justifying the conclusion and instead attack the people reaching the conclusion. He doesn’t have an answer for why God lets it happen, which is to say, evil appears pointless to him too. He could use fewer words to communicate more: “evil appears pointless.” But then he wouldn’t be able to talk down to skeptics for daring to arrogantly use reason against Christianity.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Again we see lurking within supposedly hard-nosed skepticism an enormous faith in one’s own cognitive faculties. If our minds can’t plumb the depths of the universe for good answers to suffering, well, then, there can’t be any! This is blind faith of a high order. (p.23)</blockquote>
It’s a testament to the strength of the evidence of evil that Keller resorts to sputtering about hypothetical answers, rather than giving one.<br />
<br />
Imagine Congress is voting on a new law. Its opponent tells us, “Our minds can’t think of any reason the law might be a bad idea, but still, there might be one! To assume that you automatically know all the side effects, and all side effects of the side effects shows blind faith of a high order!” Speculating about a hypothetical harm while refusing to name one would be an inane rebuttal, even by the low standards of political logic. If the best a law’s opponents can do is speculate over an unspecified hypothetical disadvantage, then either the law is extraordinarily well planned out, or its opponents are unusually inept. Keller is in precisely this position by simply speculating over an unspecified hypothetical disadvantage to creating a world with less suffering.<br />
<br />
Next, Keller uses an analogy: If you don’t see a St. Bernard in your tent, you can conclude it’s not there, but if you don’t see a no-see-um (the insect), then you have no basis to conclude anything. Likewise, our inability to see the reason for suffering doesn’t tell us if God has a hidden reason:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If you have a God great and transcendent enough to be mad at because he hasn’t stopped evil and suffering in the world, then you have (at the same moment) a God great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it to continue that you can’t know. (p.25)</blockquote>
Yet again, we see the false dichotomy of “suffering is not evidence at all” versus “suffering is proof that God does not exist.” I would say God’s reason for allowing suffering is rather like a weasel. If there’s a weasel in my tent, I’d definitely expect to see it, but I’m less than 100% certain I would. When I look in my tent for a weasel and don’t find one, this is strong evidence that there isn’t one.<br />
<br />
The Christian God wants to be known and wants to be worshiped. The Christian God inspired several thousand pages, and one of its goals is to teach us about God. Theology books are filled with millions of pages of speculation about God’s motives and character. Before we even approach the question of my ability to divine God’s purpose, my first guess is that God would simply tell us. Or perhaps there would be many plausible explanations, and we’re simply left in the dark about which one is true. The Bible’s failure to provide an explanation and the failure of theologians to patch the hole is not the fault of skeptics. It’s the failure of Christians to invent a God with a credible backstory. If Keller can’t think of a way that God’s actions could be good, then he should stop calling them good.<br />
<br />
Evangelical Christians would have us believe that if the Emperor looks naked to us, then something is wrong with our eyes. The moment you have an Emperor grand and powerful enough to be worthy of the title, you have Emperor who knows more about fashion and clothing than some arrogant little brat who thinks himself wise enough to know what an Emperor looks like naked.<br />
<br />
Also, God need not be particularly great and transcendent for me to take issue with His inaction. Were I to learn that there’s a real world Spiderman sitting on his hands, I’m going to conclude his inactions reveal that he isn’t good.<br />
<br />
Postulating not just a God but an extra great and transcendent God doesn’t avoid the problem. Suppose the Emperor is a super-duper-awesome Emperor, with an omni-suave sense of fashion, whose fashion opinions are the very definition of Fashion Truth, and with the ability to shut down entire lines of clothing with a single withering scowl. He’s still naked. I’m disappointed by minds who think imagining that God is beyond criticism automatically makes God beyond criticism.<br />
<br />
In defense of the Emperor, at least he gave his subjects proof of his existence. Likewise, it was clear that the Emperor himself believed in his clothing; his subjects didn’t have to wonder if the Emperor simply felt like being a nudist today. It really was as simple as the authority of the Emperor versus their own eyes. By contrast, the Bible’s message is delivered not by God, but by ordinary people asserting that their invisible friend is very different from what my eyes say he is. So what Keller is doing is kind of like an argument from authority, except without the authority.<br />
<br />
<b>Page 25: The Benefits of Suffering</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Though none of these people [in the preceding anecdotes] are grateful for the tragedies themselves, they would not trade the insight, character, and strength they had gotten from them for anything. With time and perspective most of us can see good reasons for at least some of the tragedy and pain that occurs in life. Why couldn’t it be possible that, from God’s vantage point, there are good reasons for all of them? (p.25)</blockquote>
A few pages later, Keller rebuts it himself:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A woman in my church once confronted me about sermon illustrations in which evil events turned out for the good. ... She insisted that for every one story in which evil turns out for good there are one hundred in which there is no conceivable silver lining. (p.27)</blockquote>
The woman’s main point is true, and it shows why Keller has failed to rebut the inductive argument. Anecdotes of bad turning good are useless against the knowledge that this is not how things usually work, and that sometimes apparently evil events turn out even worse than expected.<br />
<br />
In addition, I suspect that many of the fortune-reversal stories are told by people who started with the healthy perspective of looking for the good in the bad, and ended up forgetting that the bad actually was more significant than the good. Or perhaps they maintained a positive outlook without ever making this mistake; perhaps Keller twisted their words just like he did with the Alston quote back at the beginning.<br />
<br />
Keller makes no attempt to actually respond to her point. Without even a paragraph break, he ignores the logic and pretends she was just getting emotional. This is simply another example of Keller changing the subject away from the actual argument, and instead criticizing the person making it. Here’s the quote again with more context:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A woman in my church once confronted me about sermon illustrations in which evil events turned out for the good. ... She insisted that for every one story in which evil turns out for good there are one hundred in which there is no conceivable silver lining. In the same way, much of the discussion so far in this chapter may sound cold and irrelevant to a real-life sufferer. “So what if suffering and evil doesn’t logically disprove God?” such a person might say. “I’m still angry. All this philosophizing does not get the Christian God ‘off the hook’ for the world’s evil and suffering.” (p.27)</blockquote>
<b>Page 25-27: Evil and Suffering May Be (If Anything) Evidence for God</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[M]odern objections to God are based on a sense of fair play and justice. ... On what basis then, does the atheist judge the natural world to be horribly wrong, unfair and unjust? (p.26)</blockquote>
When showing how evil and suffering are evidence against Christianity, my basis for fair play and justice is Christianity’s sales pitch. Evangelicals will sell people on a “good” God who “loves” people, and then fault anyone who notices how much this differs from God’s inaction.<br />
<br />
I’ve already written <a href="http://failingtheinsidertest.blogspot.com/2009/08/moral-argument-for-existence-of-god.html">more than enough</a> about the moral argument. Using it as a rebuttal to the problem of suffering makes it even more wrong than usual.<br />
<br />
<b>Page 28-29: Comparing Jesus to the Martyrs</b><br />
<br />
Let me begin by recounting Luke’s account of Jesus on the cross. Jesus says of the people torturing him, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The thief beside him acknowledges Jesus as sinless, and Jesus replies, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Moments before his death he says, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” In Luke, Jesus is fully in control of his mind even as his body is destroyed. Note that these are not cherry-picked examples, but a comprehensive list of everything Jesus says during his crucifixion in Luke.<br />
<br />
Likewise, in John, after Jesus has been flogged and given a crown of thorns, he defiantly replies to Pilate’s death threat, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.” By contrast, Keller writes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The gospel narratives all show that Jesus did not face his approaching death with anything like the aplomb and fearlessness that was widely expected in a spiritual hero. The well-known Maccabean martyrs ... were famous for speaking defiantly and confidently of God even as they were having limbs cut off. ... Why was Jesus so much more overwhelmed by his death than others have been? (pp.28-29)</blockquote>
How is it that Keller gives such a backwards description of how Jesus faced his death? The issue is that Luke and John’s portrayals do not match Matthew and Mark’s. In these accounts, Jesus is overwhelmed. There are no words of forgiveness for the soldiers killing him. He provides no words of encouragement for the penitent thief. In fact, there is no penitent thief at all; Matthew explicitly tells us “the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him.” Jesus even asks God why he has been forsaken. In his final moment in Matthew and Mark, rather than affirming God as his father and as the destination of his spirit, he utters a loud and wordless cry.<br />
<br />
(Keller tries to defend his point using Jesus’ agony the night before his death. But Keller wasn’t making a comparison with the Maccabean martyrs anticipating their deaths in private the night before, but to their actual executions, so I focused on the parts of the Bible that are actually relevant.)<br />
<br />
There are three issues raised by the diverging portrayals of Jesus’ death. The obvious problem is the challenge to the idea that the Bible is without error. The worse problem is that the Bible can’t keep its story straight even on topics of importance. Keller uses Jesus’ reaction to build an argument about the Trinity, thereby accidentally showing how Jesus’ reaction is not a trivial detail, but a matter of theological consequence. The third problem is that Keller’s main point in the chapter is already undermined by the time he starts making it, as we will see.<br />
<br />
<b>Page 29: The Suffering of God</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To understand Jesus’s suffering at the end of the gospels, we must remember how he is introduced at their beginning. (p.29)</blockquote>
We “must remember” this. Here’s my understanding of why Jesus suffered so much: the nails in his hands and feet. The point would be utterly absurd even if all four gospels mirrored Matthew/Mark’s description. Keller is implicitly asserting that a spiritual hero would not be overwhelmed by torture, and his evidence is several anecdotes from ancient history.<br />
<br />
Keller tells us Jesus suffered so much because God is three in one, and Jesus was separated from his better third.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We cannot fathom, however, what it would be like to lose not just spousal or parental love that has lasted several years, but the infinite love of the Father that Jesus had from all eternity. (p.29)</blockquote>
The separation part sounds pretty easy to me; it’s not like Jesus “lost” God’s love permanently, or was otherwise confused about how things were going to turn out. In a stable relationship, being separated for several days isn’t something you volunteer for, but if you have to do it, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s new relationships and strained relationships that are the most challenged by a short term separation. Jesus and God the Father have been together for, what, an eternity? Time to themselves for a bit might have done some good. Maybe God the Father should have even kicked the angels out for a bit so that he could have heaven all to himself for a change.<br />
<br />
I have no doubt that many of the same Christians who found Keller’s human relationships/Trinity analogy to be insightful theology will in turn find my counterpoints to be utterly blasphemous blind faith in my own cognitive faculties. How dare I try to understand God by assuming the relationship of the Trinity is anything like that of human relationships!<br />
<br />
<b>Page 30: Redemption and Suffering</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Christianity alone among the world religions claims that God became uniquely and fully human in Jesus Christ and therefore knows firsthand despair, rejection, loneliness, poverty, bereavement, torture, and imprisonment. ... He had to pay for our sins so that someday he can end evil and suffering without ending us. (p.30)</blockquote>
Christianity claims this. That’s wonderful. And now in the chapter’s climax, Keller treats the claim as fact:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Let’s see where this has brought us. If we again ask the question: ‘Why does God allow evil and suffering to continue?’ and we look at the cross of Jesus, we still do not know what the answer is. However, we now know what the answer isn’t. It can’t be that he doesn’t love us. It can’t be that he is indifferent or detached from our condition. God takes our misery and sufferings so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself. (p.31)</blockquote>
Here, he plays his theological assertions against physical evidence and then tells us that the latter must give way to the former. This is a blind assertion followed by a jarring willingness to simply ignore the evidence. This isn’t even faith without evidence, it’s faith within the teeth of evidence to the contrary. Trimmed of it’s unjustified assertions, here’s what remains:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If we ask the question: ‘Why does God allow evil and suffering to continue?’, we do not know what the answer is.</blockquote>
<b>Page 31-34: Resurrection and Suffering</b><br />
<br />
Keller spends the last fourth of the chapter talking about how people want Christianity to be true, particularly if they are suffering.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I think we need something more than knowing God is with us in our difficulties. We also need hope that our suffering is ‘not in vain.’ ... Embracing the Christian doctrines of the incarnation and Cross brings profound consolation in the face of suffering. The doctrine of the resurrection can install us with a powerful hope. (pp.31,33)</blockquote>
This is an example of what I like to call the Argument From Sadness:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>If there is no God, there is no heaven.</li>
<li>If there is no heaven, that would make me sad.</li>
<li>I am not sad.</li>
<li>Therefore, God exists.</li>
</ol>
<br />
I’m being only slightly satirical. Keller really is trying to persuade people to believe God exists, and he really is basing this on people wanting it to be true. The only difference is that the Argument from Sadness pretends to be reason. But if you look back at the title of the book, it’s not so clear that even this is a real difference.<br />
<br />
I'm not saying Keller is too stupid to understand the difference between a reason to <i>want </i>something to be true and a reason to think it <i>is </i>true. What I'm saying is that Keller is too dishonest to care.<br />
<br />
Far from giving a Reason for God or answer to the Problem of Suffering, in this chapter Keller has given an example of how evangelical Christianity is completely and utterly without intellectual merit. And so naturally, the book is a bestseller.Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-12569953143009081592016-11-12T14:14:00.000-05:002016-11-12T14:14:06.303-05:00The Election of Trump Will Destroy Evangelical Christianity<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
Trump’s defeat was supposed to destroy the Republican party. Instead, Trump’s victory will destroy evangelical Christianity. The damage of muted support for his losing candidacy could have been mitigated; the damage of enthusiastic support (as measured by actual votes) for his victory will never be forgotten. Millennials were already rejecting Boomers’ faith, through taking a different approach, through being openly more liberal, and through outright rejection of Christianity. What effect do you imagine enabling 4 years of a pussy-grabber-in-chief will have on them?</div>
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The destruction will come from the outside, from countless people like me who are newly motivated to expose the sham of evangelical thought. It will come from people who previously may have thought it unkind of me to do so, but who will now cheer me on.</div>
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But above all, it will come from within, from Millennial Christians who will look at what their religion has been exposed to be and seek to reform it before giving up with disgust. Evangelical Christianity has always been utterly impotent at winning peoples’ intellect; the only remaining sales pitch is “come to us, we will teach you how to be a better person.” With this final sales pitch undermined, no excuse for its failure could be sufficient.</div>
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Trump’s candidacy opened a rift within conservative Christianity, and with Trump’s victory, the rift will never be closed. The line is not drawn in conventional theological terms, it’s not denominational, and it’s not degree of devotion. The rift hinges on a question that evangelicals may ask themselves privately but dare not ask out loud without considerable dancing around the topic, lest they be branded as having weak faith.</div>
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The question is this: Does God do anything?</div>
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The old guard of the Religious Right will say “yes”, while thinking “no”. Or rather, “no” is simultaneously a briefer and more precise version of, “God wants to work through our political actions. When we watch millions of Christians voting for godly principles, we are seeing the work of God.” That is, God doesn’t do anything, Christians do it for him. Such a view accurately describes how the world works. Prayer is more powerful than voting, they say, while using calls to prayer to get out the vote. And thus, cutting a deal with Trump is not surrender, it’s practical. The goal is not a show of character, the goal is to seize power and use it to enforce Christian norms. They must do it themselves, because God won’t. If they take a principled stand and lose the election, they just lose. To put it mildly, this is the face of evangelical Christianity, both in raw numbers at the polls, and especially in terms of who holds the positions of leadership.</div>
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The next generation of evangelicals say “yes”, God does do things, and they mean it. (Or rather, vastly more Millennial Christians think this than Boomers.) They may not know God’s reason for allowing abortion and gay marriage, but they know he does allow it. If God’s top priority were stopping it, it would be stopped already. When presented with two not-equally-evil options, voting third party is to throw away an ultimately useless commodity, a vote, in exchange for a more powerful one, a testimony. The central question is not which of the two candidates would be better; the central question is which stand will lead more people to Jesus. These evangelicals have a complete understanding of what was chosen this week. Their religion of trying to save people from their sins is gone, it has become a political organization clawing for power at any cost.</div>
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The rift cannot be healed, once opened. One group bases their point of view on their understanding of how reality works, and they are correct: the only justice to be found in the world is the justice that people fight for. The other group bases their point of view on an accurate understanding of the tenants of their faith: God is in control and we should act like we believe it. Many will learn to see the other sides’ point of view, only to discover that this shines a light on the central problem, the contradiction between how their faith suggests the world should work, and how the world works. Both sides will thus correctly infer the other side to be a path out of Christianity.</div>
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Such a rift is nothing new. Evolution presents exactly the same problem, with creationists believing that evolution is a path out of faith, and Christian evolutionists believing the same of creationism. Both sides are right. The Trump rift will much deeper; to not have an opinion on evolution is a live option. With Trump, the options included not voting, but a decision was forced.</div>
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Trump is perhaps the greatest tool for making atheists I will ever receive, and God knows I will wield it. But I wish I didn’t have it. I fully expected Trump to lose in landslide, because I expected evangelical Christians to vote their conscience. I wish evangelical Christians continued to have as strong of a claim to sincerity as Mormons.</div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
</span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-73285214432939702322016-11-12T14:04:00.000-05:002016-11-12T14:04:07.576-05:00A Deal With the Devil<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
And then Trump took Evangelical Christians to a very high mountain and showed them all the Cabinet posts in the world and their glory. And he said to them, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me."</div>
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And they replied, "We like saviors who weren't crucified."</div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
</span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-43902002358965132872014-02-16T13:43:00.001-05:002014-02-16T13:50:54.212-05:00Ken Ham, the Anti-Scientist<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Much of this critique will be based on
the content of the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_04S0fYU7FI">Ham v. Nye debate</a>, although virtually everything
Ham said is simply <a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v22/n1/creation-proof">what he's been saying for decades</a>. Throughout this post, I'll be providing direct links to the relevant parts of the debate.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Ham opens by noting that our culture does not consider creationists to be scientists, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_04S0fYU7FI#t=17m33s">using language</a> like "scientists v. creationists." In this post, I will
be arguing that Ham's views are anti-science. I mean this not as
(just) an insult, but as a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiscience">factually accurate description</a>. Thus, Ham
provides a perfect example of why drawing a dichotomy between scientists and creationists is entirely justified.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_04S0fYU7FI#t=18m02s">Ham counters</a> the dichotomy with an
example of a creationist who is also a scientist. I'm not familiar
with the particular example, but I agree that people like this exist. One could have an anti-science view of origins
while fully deserving the title of scientist in another area, simply
by taking a scientific approach to only the latter. Similarly,
someone could axiomatically assume that the Roman Empire never existed, and
still do excellent historical work on ancient Egypt. It may seem
surprising that someone could refuse to use reason regarding one
topic while being quite skilled at using reason in another, but this
happens regularly, and to far more than just creationists.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Next, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_04S0fYU7FI#t=20m19s">Ham makes a distinction</a> between
historical science and observational science. "Historical science" and "non-historical science" sound like accurate phrases to me. "Observational science," on the other hand, carries a false
assumption. The implication is that questions of historical science
cannot be settled via observation. This is equivalent to saying that
the scientific method is not a useful tool for learning about the
past, which is precisely what it means to be anti-science on questions of historical science. It's
quite ironic that moments after Ham criticizes the language "scientists v. creationists" for bringing in an assumption, he
shows the assumption to be true by defining terms in a way that
bring in his own anti-science assumptions.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
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There is a very good reason both
historical and non-historical science are lumped together as simply
science. In both cases, theories are tested based on their ability
to make true predictions. Many data points are desired, and the more
the better. If a theory makes many true predictions but then several
false ones, we go back to the drawing board, and see if the theory
needs to be modified slightly, or even fully replaced by a more
accurate one. When the predictions are consistently right (or at
least close), we have strong evidence that the theory is at least
very close to accurate. No step of this reasoning is affected by the
theory dealing with a historical question – with both historical
and non-historical theories, all we need is sufficient data. This is
simply the scientific method. I've explicitly explained something so
basic because a grade school understanding of the scientific method
is sufficient to expose the error in Ken Ham's anti-science views.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
With a particular historical question,
we may have enough clear evidence to settle it by means of the
scientific method, or we may not. Ham <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_04S0fYU7FI#t=02h04m07s">assumes</a> <i>axiomatically </i>that we
do not. This is distinctly different from claiming that, in this
particular case, we lack sufficient information.
To know that the evidence <i>cannot exist</i> without looking is equivalent
to saying that the scientific method does not help us figure out what
is true. When a theory makes testable predictions, the results of
the test give us evidence one way or the other. To disagree with
this statement, as Ken Ham does, is to be anti-science.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_04S0fYU7FI#t=20m24s">Ham admits</a> that his view of
historical science is based on the Bible. So both sides agree that
creation is not based on evidence – I'm glad he cleared this part
up. He claims that mainstream science is similarly not based on evidence, but
again, he's forgotten about the scientific method.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
But then he <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_04S0fYU7FI#t=22m02s">further explains</a> an already
explained position and seems to contradict himself: "creation
is ... confirmed by observational science." What role is left for
evidence? Ham has systematically ruled out any way that evidence
could influence his beliefs. The Bible is sufficient for him to be
certain, and he <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_04S0fYU7FI#t=02h04m07s">cannot even imagine</a> hypothetical evidence that could change this. Ham is talking out of
both sides of his mouth, momentarily playing lip service to the idea
of supporting a historical claim using evidence, despite the fact
that his worldview provides no room for something so rational.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_04S0fYU7FI#t=35m33s">Ham claims</a> the debate isn't evidence for evolution versus evidence for creation,
but rather dueling interpretations using the same evidence. Ham
seems to be thinking in terms of a static set of facts that both
sides are trying to explain. What he's forgotten, again, is none
other than the scientific method. A theory makes a prediction
regarding currently unavailable data, and then scientists proactively search for new data to either confirm or disprove the prediction. The results of the experiment are quite likely to produce
strong evidence for or against the theory. Denial of this fact is
not merely anti-science, it is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem#Statement_and_interpretation">anti-math</a>. Furthermore, as a couple examples will show, Ham does seem to think in terms of some facts
being evidence for creation, and others as evidence for evolution, despite his assertions to the contrary.</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C4BdHEdWx1w/UwDijehipKI/AAAAAAAAACQ/anpolkbXWdU/s1600/HamDebate2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C4BdHEdWx1w/UwDijehipKI/AAAAAAAAACQ/anpolkbXWdU/s1600/HamDebate2.jpg" height="243" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_04S0fYU7FI#t=40m03s">Ham showed some charts</a> that
illustrate how species vary within a "kind" as would be
predicted by creation. The question is, does Ken Ham think the data
behind these charts are evidence for creation? If no, then how can he claim that this data confirms his creation model? If yes, then why claim that evidence can't support one side
or the other? It seems that Ham wants people to think "there's no
such thing as objective evidence" when looking at evidence for
evolution, while applying ordinary scientific reasoning when looking
at evidence for creation.
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Of course, Ham doesn't even hint at
how his "orchard of kinds" differs from looking at the branches
of the evolutionary tree with the trunk not pictured. Perhaps the goal was to
give us an example of an invalid evidence-based argument in the hopes of persuading us that all evidence-based arguments are invalid?</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-V1-FPrJHxtI/UwDiZUtH4zI/AAAAAAAAACI/yhtY0jsxYnU/s1600/HamDebate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-V1-FPrJHxtI/UwDiZUtH4zI/AAAAAAAAACI/yhtY0jsxYnU/s1600/HamDebate.jpg" height="247" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_04S0fYU7FI#t=01h33m53s">Most blatantly of all</a>, Ham
pulls up a chart titled "hundred of physical processes set limits
on the age of the universe" proudly asserting, "more than 90% of
these processes give an age less than billions of years." There
you have it. According to Ham, we have more than 90% of the pieces
of evidence supporting a young(ish) universe on one side and less than
10% supporting an old universe. So the debate <i>really is</i> about comparing
evidence for evolution against evidence for creation. (Although, I wonder
what Ham thinks we should conclude if, hypothetically, all the valid
techniques give an old age? Never mind, he's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_04S0fYU7FI#t=02h04m07s">already answered</a> that. If all the dating methods all said 4.5 billion years, we should trust the Bible and conclude that reality is in error.)</div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I'm overwhelmed by the audacity of this snake oil salesman maneuver. He puts up the slide, claims huge amounts of evidence against an old universe, and then
moves on in 11 seconds before anyone has had a chance to read it. If this slide is what he says it is, it should have been a focal point of his opening speech. Ham does not name <i>a single process</i> giving a young age, but instead
uses a bare assertion of lots of evidence as a throwaway line. After all,
evidence is boring and the real point is the Bible anyway, so let's
talk about something else.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
But I'm not bored by the evidence! In fact, I
find the list to be <i>absolutely fascinating</i>! "5. Human population." But the universe is older than the human race. My understanding was that this is actually a point of agreement between scientists and Ham. "22. Oldest living plants." Similarly, the
oldest living person limits the age of the universe to an absolute maximum of 115 years old. What's going on there, Ken? Are you
assuming that plants never die? Did you move on so quickly because the arguments for creation make the most sense when thought about for only a fraction of a second? (Or better yet, don't think at all, and just believe the Bible.) This slide doesn't give us evidence
that mainstream dating methods are unreliable. It gives us evidence
that Ken Ham is a pathological liar.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Think about the outrageousness of this error a bit longer.
Creationists have presented scientists with their champion, and their
champion thinks mainstream science's methods of dating are unreliable because there aren't
any plants that are billions of years old. The remaining question is
if the debate is "scientist versus creationist" or if it's really "scientist versus liar." In principle, we could have enough
evidence to decide between the two, although I'm not persuaded that
we do.</div>
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<br /></div>
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</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
When Ken Ham is called anti-science,
this is not merely an indictment of Ham's conclusions. This is not
simply defining scientist as "someone who agrees with me." Ham is an anti-scientist because Ham teaches people to distrust evidence
and to reject the scientific method in favor of the Bible. Ham is an anti-scientist because he
uses lies as a substitute for evidence.</div>
<span style="font-family: times new roman;">
</span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-55308347534741463562012-04-01T14:23:00.003-04:002012-04-01T15:09:42.216-04:00Area Man's Near Death Experience Leads Thousands to Rethink Their Faith<span style="font-family:times new roman;">During a hockey game dangerously late in the spring, an Area man fell through the ice. His body remained submerged for nearly an hour as he floated under the surface. Eventually, his body was retrieved through a hole in the ice and non-miraculously revived through the purely materialistic process known as CPR. But what has truly captivated the hearts and minds of the nation is his experience while unconscience.<br /><br />"As best as I can remember, the ice just suddenly broke under me. The next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground shivering."<br /><br />Dinesh D'Souza was among the first to understand the full significant of these events. "While unconscious, he didn't experience anything! Most people don't understand just how the brain works, so let me try to explain it. When you almost die, all sort of secrets just pop out. And the greatest secret of all is what happens to us when we die.<br /><br />"I have spent much of my life thinking through the implications of this truth. And now I finally know where it leads. This man's experience tells us that … it's just nothing. Nothing happens to us when we die. It's like falling asleep forever. While I find this conclusion to be deeply disappointing, my intellectual honesty compels me to embrace it."<br /><br />Ray Comfort could not be reached for a full interview. When contacted by phone, he repeated over and over, "Domesticated! Domesticated! Bananas are domesticated!" Kirk Cameron mentioned that after Ray went on a rampage through a produce section, local grocery stores have banned him. He added, "I'm really worried about him right now."<br /><br />Perhaps most enlightening of all, an Area nerd managed to spare time for an interview between raids. "Almost dying is like when a computer crashes and starts spewing long sequences of text. Those aren't random bytes. It could be registers, memory dumps, or really just about anything. These are secrets hiding deep in your box. They really <span style="font-style: italic;">mean</span> something."<br /><br />Others were less moved. William Lane Craig was quick to dismiss the inference. "What you have to remember is that if hell is real, and NDE are but a shadow of what is to come, then we should have expected the NDE of an atheist to be a small amount of heat. However, once all the facts have been carefully considered, we will remember how cold the lake was. What if the heat and the cold merely canceled out, and produced a feeling of nothingness? It should therefore be clear that the Logical Argument From Near Death Experiences is invalid. In order for the argument to succeed, the atheist must know with absolute certainty all of the possible temperatures of hell, and how a fraction of the experience would interact with a numbing cold."<br /><br />J. P. Holding was merely irritated by the suggestion that this was in any way significant. "These atheists always claim to base their views on repeatable experimentation. If this Area Man wants us to believe his story, he should walk back to the lake and throw himself in, just to see if the experience repeats itself."<br /><br />What has been overlooked until shockingly late in this article is the Area man's own thoughts on the commotion. "What the hell? People are making deep philosophical inferences from my malfunctioning brain? I'm all for people figuring out that religion isn't true, but this is just ridiculous. If religion is replaced by using my dreams as a basis for a beliefs, well, we're really just back to where we started."</span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-10551044280916298152011-05-13T22:44:00.011-04:002011-05-24T21:51:03.135-04:00My Rebuttal to the McGrews - Rewritten<span style="font-family:times new roman;">I posted the <a href="http://failingtheinsidertest.blogspot.com/2010/01/my-rebuttal-to-tim-and-lydia-mcgrew.html">first version</a> of my rebuttal to Tim and Lydia McGrews' argument for the Resurrection last year, and it was more difficult to understand and more heavily mathematical than was necessary. This was unfortunate, for I believe that it is still the Internet's only rebuttal that engages the math head on. Many people have noted ways the argument is “obviously” invalid, and my first impression was exactly the same. But the “obviously” invalid step isn't shoved under the rug – the McGrews give specific reasons in defense of this step. In my opinion, it is not at all obvious what in particular is incorrect about their defense.<br /><br />Although, there is a limit to how simple math can be made. The McGrews' argument uses Bayes factors, and so neither their argument nor my rebuttal can be understood without some knowledge of probability. This second try should be simple enough that if you understand <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem">Bayes' Theorem</a>, you should be able to understand this post.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The McGrews' Main Point</span><br /><br />Tim and Lydia McGrew have written a chapter in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blackwell-Companion-Natural-Theology/dp/1405176571">The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology</a> titled <a href="http://www.lydiamcgrew.com/Resurrectionarticlesinglefile.pdf">The argument from miracles</a>: a cumulative case for the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Their argument needs to be understood in the context of the standard argument for the Resurrection based on the disciples' testimony and death:<br /><br />Claim 1: The disciples believed that they saw Jesus after rising from the dead, and they believed with enough sincerity to die for this belief.<br /><br />Claim 2: Based on these beliefs, it is probable that Jesus rose from the dead.<br /><br />This is not the McGrews' primary argument in the chapter. They are not making a full argument for the Resurrection. Their primary claim is not even a full defense of Claim 2, although it comes very close.<br /><br />Let R be the Resurrection of Jesus, and let P, D, and W be the events that each of Paul, the disciples, and the women at the tomb claimed to have seen Jesus, and in many of these cases, died for this belief. The McGrews' primary claim is that P & D & W together provide a Bayes factor of 10^44 in support of R over ~R. Within this post, I am rebutting exactly one thing: their primary claim.<br /><br />Edited to add: I need to be very specific about the sort of death it takes to qualify as D. What if the disciples died for their belief in a moralistic religion based on Jesus, but not the Resurrection in particular? What if Jewish leaders in general were rounded up and killed, and the disciples qualified as leaders? What if they didn't have the ability to recant? In this case, lying disciples dying for their faith is plausible. If these possibilities still count as D, then Claim 2 is weaker. If these don't count as D, then D is less likely and Claim 1 is weaker. I'm defining D to be the event that they died for their belief in the Resurrection in particular, and they had the ability to save their lives by recanting. I'm defining it this way to make the McGrews' argument <span style="font-style: italic;">stronger </span>and show that their fundamental argument is wrong regardless of details like this.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The McGrews' Argument</span><br /><br />There are 13 disciples in the argument (the twelve minus Judas plus Matthias plus James the brother of Jesus.) Under the hypothesis ~R, the probability that, say Matthias would persevere as a Christian is about 1000 times smaller than that probability that he would do the same under R. From this it follows that for each disciple and for Paul, we have a Bayes factor supporting R over ~R of 1000. They estimate the factor for W to be 100.<br /><br />First, suppose these are independent. If so, the cumulative Bayes factor is found by multiplication, which gives 10^3 * 10^(3 * 13) * 10^2 = 10^44. This would be strong enough to overcome a prior probability on R as extraordinarily small as 10^-40, and make R 1000 times as likely as ~R. (Of course, they aren't independent, and this is what makes the argument “obviously” wrong.)<br /><br />The fact that the events are not independent is recognized by the McGrews and responded to on pages 40-46. While dependence could lead to overestimating the factor, it could go the other way too. While it's possible that killing one martyr encourages the others, the more likely effect is that it scares off other people, who now realize that their life is in danger. So while the McGrews recognize that these aren't independent, their claim is that factoring in the dependence makes the Bayes factor even larger.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Rebuttals I'm Omitting</span><br /><br />The bulk of the factor comes from the 10^39 factor for D, and so I will focus my rebuttal on that point and make no further mention of P or W.<br /><br />One could argue that D is not true. This completely fails to rebut the McGrews' argument. They are defending Claim 2, and changing the subject to Claim 1 does not rebut Claim 2.<br /><br />One could argue that the factor of 1000 used for each disciple is too large. Most rebuttals used against Claim 2 in the standard apologetic argument fall in this category. While these are important rebuttals, they are ineffective against the McGrews' version. Suppose the correct factor is 30 per disciple – then the Bayes factor for D is still over 10^19. Clearly, either the McGrews' argument is mostly correct, or there is a much bigger error somewhere else.<br /><br />The primary reason the calculated value is so big is that they are multiplying the factors together. I will show why this is incorrect.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">A Telekinetic Digression</span><br /><br />I'm going to start with a related (and fictional) story that more cleanly illustrates the McGrews' mistake. As a digression from my digression, the reason mathematicians and economists often make up unrealistic and fictional scenarios is that they are <span style="font-style: italic;">instructive</span>. Clearly reasoning through simplified examples is an essential prerequisite to reasoning through the more complicated and more realistic scenarios.<br /><br />While at a carnival, I found a traveling circus performer who claimed to be able to control the flipping of coins with his telekinetic powers. He wrote down a sequence of three heads or tails and gave me the piece of paper. Next, I took a coin out of my pocket, and I flipped the coins myself while he started very intently at the process. To my surprise, all three predictions were correct. What should I make of this?<br /><br />First, I will use the incorrect argument employed by the McGrews:<br /><br />I can't think of a plausible way the performer could have known the result in advance, and controlling a coin that I will provide and I will flip is very difficult. But a very plausible idea comes to mind: maybe this is just a probabilistic trick. The idea behind the trick is that while it totally flops 7 out of 8 times, 1 out of 8 audiences are dazzled. The performer hopes to earn sufficient tips from the hapless few who happen to see the trick work. Or maybe he has a hidden video camera, and sells the recordings of the trick working.<br /><br />Before flipping any coins, I thought that the odds that this was a probabilistic trick relative to telekinesis were 1,000,000,000 : 1. Maybe this is the wrong number – I don't care. This example is about what to do with the numbers, not about which input numbers are correct. If telekinesis were being used, I would expect every flip to be called correctly. Each flip gives a Bayes factor of 2 supporting telekinesis over luck: this value is computed via P(correct prediction | telekinesis) / P(correct prediction | luck) = 1 / (1/2) = 2. Three flips give a Bayes factor of 8 in support of telekinesis. So now the odds are 125,000,000 : 1. I continue to accept the usual laws of physics.<br /><br />But then I pressed the performer, and in violation of the usual practice of magicians, he agreed to perform the trick as many times as I wanted. To my skeptical shock and dismay, he called 150 coin flips in a row! The cumulative Bayes factor supporting telekinesis over luck is now 2^150. This is about 10^45, which means that odds of a probabilistic trick to telekinesis are now 1 : 10^36. Have you spotted the mathematical error? I hope not, for I haven't made it yet. So far, all of my statements have been completely true.<br /><br />And so I conclude that it is highly probable that the performer has telekinetic powers. Now <span style="font-style: italic;">there's</span> the mistake. Although it should be obvious that something is wrong with allowing every talented illusionist to convince you of the paranormal, it's far less obvious what in particular is wrong with the argument.<br /><br />But to explain why the inference is a mistake, let me go back to the start and name the possibilities more explicitly:<br /><br />A: There was no illusion and no magic. He got lucky.<br />B: There was an illusion, or some other scientific means of controlling the coins.<br />C: It was his telekinetic powers.<br /><br />This time I will not bury possibility B. While I can't think of a plausible way for B to work, I can think of some implausible ones. Maybe his assistant will sneak a magnetized coin in my pocket and will be using a hidden electromagnet to make it land properly. Maybe the first toss will be probabilistic, and then he will find a way to swap the coin out after it's out of my pocket. Maybe he writes out eight predictions, and finds a way to swap the pieces of paper. However, I know that the trick is rarely this complicated, and that these wild guesses are very likely to be wrong. (Alternatively, B can be thought of as the possibility that it's an illusion using a mechanism that I can't think of.) I would guess that A is 100 times as likely as B. Before flipping any coins, I would expect the odds of A, B, and C to be about 1,000,000,000 : 10,000,000 : 1.<br /><br />Just as before, each correct call gives a Bayes factor of 2 supporting C over A. However, the same factor supports B over A, which provides us with no information in helping us decide between B and C. After the first three coin flips, the odds of A, B, and C are now 125,000,000 : 10,000,000 : 1.<br /><br />After ten coin flips, the odds of A, B, and C are 1,000,000 : 10,000,000 : 1. At this point, I'm pretty close to convinced that there is a trick, and that the trick isn't probabilistic. (Actually, the trick could be partially probabilistic, but most of what's going on is something else.) So at this point, I think it is likely that the performer will call my coin tosses indefinitely.<br /><br />When he does so, the odds of A, B, and C end up at 10^-36 : 10,000,000 : 1. As I claimed, it's actually true that telekinesis is more likely than luck at this point. Telekinesis really is supported over random chance by a massive factor. However, a known (or unknown) mechanism is also supported over random chance by a similarly massive factor. The result of these two is that the known (or unknown) mechanism goes from implausible to a virtual certainty, while telekinesis only goes from very, very, very unlikely to very, very unlikely.<br /><br />Here's the general set-up of the mistake. Start with three possibilities where the first is likely, the second is unlikely, and the third is astronomically unlikely. Next, show the second possibility to be unlikely, and ignore it beyond this point. Next, reveal evidence that absolutely buries any shred of reasonableness in the first possibility. If you continue to ignore the (initially) unlikely possibility, only the astronomically unlikely option remains.<br /><br />The next question is how to measure the degree to which evidence for telekinesis has been provided. I'm not asking for a number. What do we measure to determine the strength of the evidence? The answer is the obvious one. The strength of the evidence is measured as the initial degree of certainty that a non-probabilistic solution is impossible. I don't know how to compute an actual number for the strength of this evidence. But I do know how not to: 2^(number of flips).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">On to the Resurrection</span><br /><br />With the telekinetic coin flipper in mind, most of what needs to be done to refute the McGrews' argument is to label the relevant events. As would be expected, the flaw starts with the independence assumption. Although, I hasten to add that it's not really an assumption. What I really mean is that the flaw is in their justification for why this assumption doesn't mess up the calculation.<br /><br />If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, the disciples' behavior would certainly influence each other. It's possible that circumstances would cause their behavior to be negatively correlated. It's also possible that circumstances would cause their behavior to be positively correlated. I suppose the McGrews and I agree so far.<br /><br />I will divide the possibilities as:<br /><br />A: Jesus didn't rise from the dead, and the disciples' reactions were close to uncorrelated or negatively correlated.<br />B: Jesus didn't rise from the dead, and the disciples' reactions were strongly positively correlated.<br /><br />The McGrews go on to argue that A is much more likely than B. I don't know if I agree, although their argument does not work either way. They write: “If their belief that Christ was raised from the dead was false, either they had good reasons to believe it or they did not. The analogy of their belief to the subjective enthusiasm of religious zealots assumes that they did not. But their actual actions would be highly improbable under this condition.” Well, how improbable is it? Is it one in 100? One in a billion? We will see that justifying a Bayes factor of 10^39 for D requires justifying a similarly astronomical improbability of B. The McGrews do not attempt to quantify “highly improbable.”<br /><br />I'll go with one in a billion as the probability that the disciples' behavior was strongly correlated. This includes the naturalistic explanations that have been suggested, and it includes the explanations that we haven't thought of. The McGrews hypothetically suggested prior odds of R as 1 in 10^40. I'm leaving out W & P, and so I will already include their factors of 100 and 1000 by thinking through the implications of the prior odds of R being 1 in 10^35. I have no reason to think any of these numbers are reasonable – my topic is what should be done with the input numbers, not what the input numbers are.<br /><br />From here, the argument proceeds in much the same way as the telekinesis argument. The odds of A, B, and R start at about 10^9 : 1 : 10^-26.<br /><br />The death of the first disciple is a 1 in 1000 surprise to both A and B, while R saw it coming. This changes the odds to about 10^9 : 1 : 10^-23. Note that the odds of the Resurrection went up by a thousand due to the first disciple – this much of the McGrews' argument is true.<br /><br />But the death of the second disciple is very different, and the odds start acting like they did with telekinesis. Hypothesis A is shocked by the second death, B isn't all that surprised, and R knew it was coming. If the disciples are bound to act the same way and disciple 1 willingly died, then disciple 2 was reasonably likely to willingly die too. The effect is that the ratios P(A)/P(B) and P(A)/P(R) are drastically reduced, while P(B)/P(R) does not change much. (How much it changes depends on the precise meaning of “strongly positively correlated.”) Suppose that under B, after the first death the probability that the second disciple will die is about 1/2. Just as before, R is supported over A by a Bayes factor of 1000. However, R is supported over B by a Bayes factor of only P(second martyrdom | R & first martyrdom) / P(second martyrdom | B & first martydom) = 1 / (1/2) = 2.<br /><br />After two disciples, the odds of A, B, and R are about 2*10^6 : 1 : 2*10^-23. (The math: Because R is supported by a factors of 1000 and 2 over A and B respectively, this means B is supported by a factor of 500 over A. Thus, I divided the number for A by 500, left the number for B the same, and multiplied the number for C by 2.)<br /><br />The final odds of A, B, and R will be about 4*10^-24 : 1 : 4*10^-20. The Resurrection is as it started – drastically implausible. (The math: the last eleven disciples give a factor of 2^11 = 2*10^3 supporting R over B, and a factor of 500^11 = 5*10^29 supporting B over A.) It is true that R ends up more plausible than A. This fact is also completely irrelevant.<br /><br />The final question is what to measure to determine the degree to which the Resurrection has been supported. The first relevant number is the odds that the first disciple would die for his faith. The second relevant number is the odds that their choices were strongly positively correlated. The third relevant number is just how strong this correlation would be.<br /><br />We have returned full circle. These are the same questions that must be answered to assess the strength of the standard argument for the Resurrection based on the disciples' testimony and death. I have not shown the standard argument to be invalid, as that was not my goal. What I have shown is this the McGrews' Bayes factor of 10^3 * 10^(3 * 13) * 10^2 = 10^44 is of absolutely no use in evaluating the argument for the Resurrection.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Second Problem</span><br /><br />There is a second problem with the McGrews' use of math in the argument, which is essentially the first problem in a different context. Until now, I've considered the question “If D is mathematically certain, how does this affect the probability of R?” Except this really isn't relevant, except as a means to finding the answer to the correct hypothetical: “If conservative Christians are correct, and the most reasonable explanation of the data is D, how does this affect the probability of R?” Quantifying “most reasonable” will put an upper limit on the Bayes factor supporting R.<br /><br />Suppose that the data is overwhelming, and the odds of D are 10^9 : 1. Suppose further, that the McGrews are correct and D supports R over ~R by a factor of 10^39. As before, suppose the prior odds against R are 10^35 to 1.<br /><br />A: The disciple's died for their false belief in Jesus<br />B: The disciple's didn't die for a belief in Jesus<br />R: The disciple's died for their true belief in Jesus<br /><br />The odds of A, B, and R start at 10^35 : 10^26 : 1. The McGrews' argument gives a factor of 10^39 supporting R over A and supporting B over A. However, the McGrews' argument does not give any information helping one choose between B and R. The odds of A, B, and R end up at 10^-4 : 10^26 : 1. R has been supported by 10^9, which is the number in the initial odds of D.<br /><br />So even if the McGrews' argument gives a valid conclusion when taking D as a mathematical certainty, the way to measure to degree to which the Resurrection has been supported is to look at the chance of ~D. The factor 10^39 is again of no use in evaluating the strength of the argument for the Resurrection.</span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-24857403241057956382011-02-05T21:38:00.009-05:002011-05-22T17:28:08.798-04:00Why did God kill Himself?<span style="font-family:times new roman;">Within Evangelical theology, Jesus did not merely choose to die for Christians' sins. The wages of sin is death, and someone had to pay that penalty. Jesus <span style="font-style: italic;">had</span> to die, or else everyone would go to hell.<br /><br />This fundamental belief is not merely unsupported by evidence, which goes without saying in theology. There are also three fairly obvious problems with the basic idea.<br /><br />The first problem is that it portrays God as a judge who is in the unpleasant position of having to uphold a law that calls for mandatory sentencing. Sin calls for death, so God's hands are tied. The obvious flaw here is that the reason sin calls for death is because God chose for that to be the penalty. Or perhaps rather than the penalty being the result of God's choice, it's due to God's nature, God's will, or God's character. I don't care in the slightest which aspect of God is to blame for this.<br /><br />The second problem is that the punishment is set up as something that's transferable. Punishments aren't like that. I can't go to prison in someone else's place. I can't have points put on my driving record in place of someone else. I can't die in the place of someone on death row, even if I and the criminal agree. If any of these happened, it would be called “corruption.”<br /><br />A monetary debt analogy is often used to explain how someone could “pay” a penalty for someone else. However, the analogy is flawed at precisely the point that the analogy is designed to make. With a monetary debt, it's not that the debtor has to pay, the point of the agreement is that the creditor needs their money back. Someone else can pay the debt, just as someone else can give money to the debtor who can then give it to the creditor. This isn't some special exception; it simply follows naturally from the fact that wealth is transferable. Non-monetary penalties aren't like that. The point is not that the victim of a crime needs someone, anyone, to serve 20 years for them. The point is that the criminal needs to serve 20 years. Either the criminal “pays” the “price” himself or it goes unpaid.<br /><br />The third problem is that Jesus didn't pay the penalty for sin. Precisely what are the wages of sin? Death is a fairly clear answer in ordinary language, but theology has a way of mincing even the clearest of words. Death could mean the destruction of the body, death could mean eternal separation from God, death could mean an eternity in hell, or it could be some combination of these.<br /><br />Here's the key question: do the wages of sin include an eternity in hell? Certainly, the answer must be yes or no, although multiple positions are encompassed by either answer. If no, then what's the point of hell? God just keeps a torture chamber around not because it's demanded by justice, but simply because he's the sort of being who wants hell to exist. Furthermore, if the wages of sin do not include hell, the fact that Christians still physically die means that Jesus' death didn't take away the penalty. If yes, then Jesus didn't pay the penalty for sin. The penalty for sin includes hell, and Jesus certainly didn't go to hell for eternity.<br /><br />Furthermore, Jesus' only paid the penalty of physical death in a legalistic sense. Suppose a judge sentences a convict to be executed, legally declared dead, and then revived afterward. Assuming everything goes as planned, this is not capital punishment. There is no real difference between sentencing someone to death followed by resurrection and sentencing someone to a painful experience. So it's not even clear that Jesus paid the penalty of “death” in any sense of the word.<br /><br />Using clear language, here's a fairly common Evangelical position: </span><span style="font-family:times new roman;">“</span><span style="font-family:times new roman;">An eternity in hell is the penalty for sin. Jesus paid this penalty by temporarily dying.</span><span style="font-family:times new roman;">”</span><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> Notice how different this sounds when you use “death” to equivocate between literal death and hell: “The wages of sin is death. But Christians don't have to pay the penalty, because Jesus' paid the penalty of death.” “Death” is one of the many weasel words concealing flaws in Christians beliefs that become crystal clear whenever the beliefs are stated clearly.<br /><br />Were I engaging a position that gives more than lip service to reason, I would expect the usual response to this to at least have the general form of “here's why the substitutionary atonement makes sense.” But rebuttals to reasoning about theology are usually of the form “even though it doesn't make sense, here's why you should believe it anyway.” For instance, it is suggested that we shouldn't expect the mysteries of God to make sense to our minds. More educated Christians are likely to give a very long and drawn out analysis of first century culture and Jewish sacrificial traditions, and buried within the explanation will be the assertion that we have no right to question God's plan.<br /><br />But notice that Christians never object to reasoning about the things of God when it is used to support their ideas. Jesus had to die <span style="font-style: italic;">because</span> someone had to pay the penalty of death. The <span style="font-style: italic;">reason</span> that someone had to pay the death penalty is <span style="font-style: italic;">because</span> people sin. The penalty for sin is infinite <span style="font-style: italic;">because</span> the sin is against an infinite God. If Christians really don't think that the things of God can be reasoned about, Christians need to stop giving the impression that they are intending to have a coherent position.<br /><br />The real reason that Christians object to skeptics' reasoning about God is that the conclusions of reason differ very sharply from Christian beliefs, and so they wish to downplay the role of thinking. It is absolutely vital to the Christian faith to have the word “mystery” and other synonyms available to serve as blank checks to wish away all ways in which faith clashes with reality. What could hold together an obviously false belief more securely than a justification for believing even in the teeth of the realization that Christian beliefs do not hold together? As Mark Twain put it, “faith is believing what you know ain't so.”</span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-59655307574586916452010-05-23T14:18:00.015-04:002011-05-22T17:28:21.360-04:00The Problem of Hell<span style="font-family:times new roman;">One of the most common lines of attack against Christianity is that the Christian God is evil. It's not surprising this is the case, because to conclude someone is evil because they do evil things is a fairly unanswerable argument, and there are so many different ways of reaching this conclusion. You can reach it by thinking about Christian theology, especially the doctrine of hell. You can reach it by reading how the God of the Bible just hates some people before they are born. You can reach it by noticing that God cares primarily about people stroking his ego and comparatively little about people actually doing any of the kinds of things that we call good. You can reach it by reading the Bible, and seeing the genocide that God commanded, and the barbarisms that he takes care of himself. You can reach it by simply looking at how the world works, and at how much pain God could stop and chooses not to stop. And yet, somehow, Christians think they can portray their religion as nice and cuddly and loving, and largely seek to win converts in this way.<br /><br />This is not merely incorrect. The inanity is so breathtaking that it's difficult to organize a coherent response. When a position has a flaw or two, it's not too hard to point it out. But here, the flaws are so severe, so unanswerable, and so pervasive that it's difficult to even convince myself that I'm not engaging minds irreversibly wrecked by religion. But if I let that stop me, I wouldn't have a blog on why I'm not a Christian. And if Christians were really so lost that reasoning can have no effect, I would not have made it out.<br /><br />But before I lay bare the utter awfulness of Christianity, I wish to first explain what it is that I'm arguing. God is evil arguments are all but universally met with, “but what is your basis for the morality by which you judge Christianity to be evil?” This response usually has more to do with parroting apologists and just believing by faith that it actually engages the argument, than it does with actually thinking about what was said. With the arguments I make, responding like that will merely proclaim that you haven't taken the effort to understand or even read what I clearly state.<br /><br />First of all, I am arguing that Christianity is evil as judged by Christians' morality. For instance, Christians say they value human life. The Bible and the Christian God do not. Therefore, Christians do not get their morality from the Bible. Christians say they value religious freedom. The Bible and the Christian God do not. Therefore, Christians do not get their morality from the Bible. Christians' theology completely and utterly fails to account for their ethics, therefore something is seriously wrong with either Christians' ethics or their theology.<br /><br />The second thing I am arguing when I say Christianity is evil is that some parts of the Bible promote things that are evil as judged by the standards in other parts of the Bible. Therefore, one or both parts of the Bible are false, and not just about matters of history and science, but even about matters of morality. This is what happens when “God is evil here” is met with “but God is good here.” I absolutely agree that doing to your neighbor what you want done to you is good as judged by pretty much any standard of morality. But unless genocide and sadism are things you want done to you, seeking to answer the genocide and sadism in Christianity with nicer parts merely shows that the Bible contradicts itself. Nice and cuddly parts affect the degree to which Christianity is damaging, but it does nothing to answer the argument that Christianity is false.<br /><br />The third thing I am doing is opposing the deceitful PR campaign more commonly known as “evangelism.” People are told that Jesus loves them. The truth is that Jesus loves people in much the same way that a stalker in a horror movie loves the woman he's harassing. When he's turned down, he'll turn nasty, hunt her down, and begin torturing her. But if only she hadn't rejected his love, she would have seen how loving he is! Nice and cuddly evangelism is claiming that God is good and loving in ways that are consistent with what people mean when they use the words good and loving to describe anything else. God is clearly not loving in the sense that evangelists are communicating. He is also not loving in a “not a tame lion” sense either. I am exposing the lie.<br /><br />And fourth, when I point out that God is evil as judged by human moral intuitions, I am blocking the moral argument for the existence of God. The argument is premised on taking seriously our moral intuitions as a valid basis for learning about moral truth. One of many ways to parry this argument is to simply point out that our moral intuitions judge God to be evil. Therefore, either our moral intuitions are wrong, or God is evil. Either way, the moral argument fails. If you say that our moral intuitions are evidence for God, despite believing in a God that is the exact opposite of our moral intuitions, you are not merely being illogical. You are being dishonest. If this is your position, then you don't believe because of this moral evidence. You are believing in willful defiance of the very sort of evidence that you claim is the evidence for your beliefs.<br /><br />God commanded genocide in the Bible. There are three possibilities: God didn't really do this, commanding genocide does not mean you are evil, or God is evil. The options are similar with the other barbarisms of evangelical Christianity. To believe the Bible, it's quite obvious that you must be an apologist for genocide, and trying to parry with “AH, AH, but what's your basis for morality!!” only serves as a proclamation of one's unwillingness to think about the four implications that I have listed.<br /><br />It is true that Christians who fully bite the bullet and embrace the utter awfulness of their religion are immune to many of these arguments, and all of these arguments if they can explain how the nice parts of the Bible wouldn't really be nice if we understood them correctly and disowned the heretical moral argument for God. Fred Phelps nearly qualifies. Maybe God hates America. To say it would suck if true is not an argument that it is false. I fully recognize that I haven't debunked his religion with this post. But if you say or even think things like “Jesus loves you”, “God is love”, or something else emotionally equivalent, then this post does contradict your version of Christianity.<br /><br />Another response that says absolutely nothing is that good is simply defined as what God's character is, therefore God being evil is logically impossible. The obvious problem here is that this is not all Christians and the Bible say about goodness. Being good and loving also means having specific loving intentions and performing certain loving actions, as described in the list in I Corinthians 13. Surely Christians would also claim that being a genocidal sadist is not good, and this implies that Christians are claiming that God is not a genocidal sadist. So when I argue that Christian beliefs mean that God is a genocidal sadist, this is a perfectly valid argument that Christian beliefs are false, regardless of how you twist the definition of good. Similarly, if you define “fuzzy” as “what alligators are like”, all that can be said against this position is that it's an abuse of language that facilitates misunderstanding. It's not false yet, because for a claim to be false, it must first be a claim. If you go further and claim that not only is the nature of alligators the definition of fuzziness, but fuzziness also means having lots of hair, this is a position that can easily be disproven by simply looking at an alligator. It's rather disingenuous to counter </span><span style="font-family:times new roman;">this argument by inquiring about the basis for my concept of fuzziness. (The analogy is due to <a href="http://de-conversion.com/2010/05/14/jehovahs-linguistic-land-grab/">Phil Stilwell</a>.)<br /><br />While it's not always easy the cut through the rhetorical wordplay of theologians to see precisely where the flaw is, it should be obvious that the “but what basis do you have morality” response is not even a response. It is a question completely unrelated the argument that God is evil, for in all four of the ways I've listed, I clearly state what standard of goodness I'm talking about and what the implications are if God is not good according to that standard. All I'm really saying is that when someone is called a genocidal sadist, any defense of their complete and perfect goodness will have to involve saying they are not a genocidal sadist. I've belabored this point for so long because Christians consistently try so hard to not understand it. Although, this is to be expected. Once it is granted that “human” reasoning about morality should be allowed to influence beliefs about God, Christianity is doomed.<br /><br />The clearest way to see that the Christian God is evil is to look at the doctrine of hell. I have one suggestion I'd like to give God: make hell only last 100 years, after which the souls of the damned are snuffed out of existence. Or the time can very from an instant up to 100 years depending on how evil someone was. I'm certainly not saying this plan would make God good either, but I don't need to imagine what moral perfection would look like to see that God is less than perfect. If a single improvement exists, then God is not perfectly good. And if an infinitely massive improvement exists, then God is not even moderately good.<br /><br />Imagine this: the world ended 100 years ago, and God is trying to decide what to do with all the souls. One of his options is for one billion people to continue enjoying eternal bliss, while 9 billion continue to experience eternal torture. Another option is for only the one billion to continue enjoying eternal bliss and for the others to no longer suffer. Christians believe that God will choose the first, and will continue to make this choice for every moment for all eternity.<br /><br />Whenever someone makes a choice, it tells you something about what they want and what they value. God's choice tells us he wants some people to suffer. Or more precisely, what evangelicals believe God's choice will be tells us something about what they believe God wants and values. In other circumstances, such as not stopping suffering on earth, or commanding genocide, it could mean that God wants some beneficial result that comes from suffering more than he wants to stop the suffering. Not a great position, but at least there is some minor suffering that can be explained this way. But not with hell. The end is already known. The damned will not eventually become better people who no longer need the punishment, and there is no one watching them to receive moral instruction from seeing the consequences. In fact, many evangelicals believe in the mind-wipe theory of heaven, where God deletes all knowledge of the damned from the minds of people in heaven, so there is not even any room for making up ways that hell produces even marginal benefits for the people in heaven. The damned continue to suffer simply because God wants them to. It makes him happier than he would be if they were not suffering. It is difficult to image how a being could be more perfectly described as an infinitely cruel sadist.<br /><br />(The mind-wipe theory comes from the verse that says there will be no tears in heaven. For people in heaven to be happy despite knowing about hell would require them to be utterly unfeeling and heartless. Evangelicals usually find it unimaginable that they could be so unfeeling and heartless in heaven, and instead imagine the goodness of a God who is equally unfeeling and heartless.)<br /><br />This isn't something that should be “balanced out” with the nice things God does. With hell, we're talking about eternity for the majority of people. If one really must bend to the other, it's the nice things God does that should be balanced out with his eternal sadism.<br /><br />Perhaps the most biblical answer is “Who are you, O man, who answers back at God?” Or to put it more practically, “Thou shalt not think about these things!” It's difficult to overstate the influence of this biblical defense of not allowing thinking to effect beliefs. I suspect this is the biggest reason for merely asking the questioner what their basis for morality is instead of thinking about the question. Rebuttals this poor usually originate not with apologists themselves, but with the Bible. To repeat: God is evil as judged by even what Christians will say they believe is good and evil, therefore Christians don't get their basis for morality from religion. The God of the Bible is evil as judged by other parts of the Bible, therefore one of both contradictory parts of the Bible is false. Evangelists' emotional arguments about how loving the Christian God is are based on lies. And the moral argument for God fails because it's premised on trusting the moral intuition that Christians cannot trust without judging God to be evil.<br /><br />The standard Calvinistic “you're so evil that you deserve it” is no good here either. Look back at the argument: either God doesn't want people to suffer for eternity, and so they won't, or God wants them to suffer, and is a sadist by definition. Either explain how God isn't a sadist, or admit to worshiping a sadist. Just saying people deserve it is nothing more than an explanation of why sadism follows as a consequence of the Christian definition of goodness. And I certainly agree that it does.<br /><br />A sickeningly weak way of defending the claim that people deserve hell is to hypothetically exaggerate how evil God is and say that it would still be “justice” if everyone went to hell. What's so amusing about this is that it sounds like a slippery slope argument that skeptics would come up with: “What's next? Soon you be saying that we would still owe worship to the justice of a God who does nothing but torture people.” But, no. This is an actual argument used by actual people who are trying to defend the justice of hell. This isn't one step further down the slippery slope. This is what Christians <span style="font-style: italic;">already</span> believe.<br /><br />I like to imagine what would happen if God threw everyone in hell, and then after a million years, God let Satan out and gave him the reins to the universe. Satan would be more frustrated than a monkey in a canned banana factory: <span style="font-style: italic;">What!? You're already torturing everyone? That was my idea! This really sucks, because there is no way for me to do anything evil, for the universe is already as bad as it could possibly be. Oh, I know what I can do! I can be rebellious, and defy the will of God! I'm going to just choose some people, not based on anything they have done, and create a heaven for them! That would be completely unjust, and that'll show God!</span> Total depravity is not the inherent nature of man. It's choosing to worship the goodness of an all-sadistic God whose actions make him indistinguishable from Satan, and then pretending that evil means not joining in the worship of Satan.<br /><br />The response of “I'm sorry it's like this, but it's still true” is worth something, but certainly not what apologists would like it to be worth. How could you be sorry that it's true? It's not an impersonal fact, like an atheist being sorry that a hurricane is about to hit. Hell is the way it is because a good God wants it to be like that. Even if, contra many Calvinists, God wants all people to be saved, hell is still eternal because God wants it to be eternal. If you believe that a good God chooses to make hell eternal, you must logically believe that in the balance of the good and bad results, it is good that hell is eternal. (Unless, of course, I'm building a straw man by using the words “logically” and “believe” in the same sentence.) When Christians are sorry it's true, this tells me that many Christians don't really believe their own theology, and are replacing it at select points with their compassion. So while being sorry hell is true does keep me from calling someone a sadist for believing in hell, it only dodges the criticism by backing down from Christian beliefs. You can only be sorry that hell is true to the extent that you don't really believe that a good God makes it or that you don't believe God has the power to make it work the way he wants.<br /><br />Despite the way hell is clearly not consistent with the kinds of things Christians usually call good, still, Christians believe that “somehow” hell will still be good once we understand it better. It's a mystery, which is a euphemism for a belief that has been shown to be false. This reasoning about hell is why I can't believe Christians when they claim to be trusting that God has a plan with smaller things, like financial needs, or that Jesus really is coming quickly. You aren't trusting that God has a plan and will make things work out in the end. The reason I know this is that even when you know what the end is, you still try to apply the same reasoning and have faith that God will work things out, even when you already have an inflexible belief in precisely how it is that things will not be worked out. So I must conclude that you aren't really trusting God. You are living in rebellion against reality, and willfully refusing to allow facts, reason, or even a basic sense of decency to influence your beliefs.</span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-72031139736360750792010-01-28T00:34:00.004-05:002010-01-28T00:46:02.211-05:00Haiti and Israel<span style="font-family:times new roman;">As I'm sure everyone has heard far too many times by now, Pat Robertson is convinced that the earthquake hit Haiti because they've signed a pact with the devil. I will spare you my moral outrage – I have a very different point to make.<br /><br />Robertson's is by no means the normal Christian response. A more common response would be that it wasn't God who directly caused the earthquake, but rather Satan who directly caused it – God merely allowed Satan to cause it. (Another common response would be admitting ignorance of whether or not Satan or God caused it and therefore not drawing a conclusion about the Haitians morality.) But for the sake of example, I'll contrast Robertson's position with the response that Satan caused it in opposition to God.<br /><br />The first point I'm making is an obvious one. So obvious, that it may be confusing why I'm even bothering to say it. Here goes: the people who think God did it and the people who think Satan did it disagree with each other. These are different positions. Are you with me so far?<br /><br />Okay, next point: because they are making clear claims about the agent of causation, and because they disagree with each other, at least one of them is wrong. Still with me?<br /><br />I would like to pause and note that this conclusion is contestable. One could try to find a clever interpretation of one or both sides, so that we could reconcile these two positions with each other. After all, the people on both sides are Christians. So maybe they have some special knowledge that God gave, and we are simply getting two perspectives on the same thing. But to take this approach would be ridiculous. We can look at the two claims, see that they disagree, and therefore conclude that one or both sides isn't getting a special message from God. One or both sides are wrong. How could anyone see this any differently?<br /><br />This is an extraordinarily common situation. Two sides disagree as to whether evil spiritual forces caused something, or good spiritual forces. It even happened in the Bible:<br /><br />When David was king, there was a plague that killed 70,000 people in I Chronicles 21:14. And why? God was punishing Israel for David's sin. (Yes, God was punishing <span style="font-style: italic;">Israel </span>for <span style="font-style: italic;">David</span>'s sin, although that's not quite the point I'm making.) Backing up a step, what was David's sin, and why did he do such a thing? David's sin was to take a census. Ignore, for the moment, whether or not this sin merited such a response from God. The point I want to make is in I Chronicles 21:1:<br /><br />“Then Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel.”<br /><br />That's what started this whole problem. Satan started it by tempting David who then incurred God's wrath and allowed Satan to get his way as Israel suffered. In that sense, the author of I Chronicles is rather like normal Christians.<br /><br />But the author of II Samuel was more like Pat Robertson. He tells the same story starting in II Samuel 24:1, where he writes:<br /><br />“Now again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and it incited David against them to say, 'Go, number Israel and Judah.'”<br /><br />Satan didn't do it. God did it. He was angry at the Israelites, and he needed David to sin so as to have an excuse to judge them.<br /><br />I'll start with a trivially obvious point. The author who thought God did it and the author who thought Satan did it disagree with each other. Still with me? And because they are making clear claims about the agent of causation, and because they disagree with each other, at least one of these Bible verses is wrong.<br /><br />I'm sure that you could find some creative interpretations of one of both so that they are still consistent. After all, both authors are inspired by God, so maybe he gave them some special knowledge, and we're just reading two different perspectives. But to take this approach is ridiculous. We can look at what the books say, see that they contradict, and therefore conclude that one or both sides <span style="font-style: italic;">aren't</span> getting special knowledge from God. </span><span style="font-family:times new roman;">One or both authors of the Bible are wrong. How could anyone see this any differently?</span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-88705602625999281582010-01-23T21:37:00.024-05:002011-05-22T12:32:34.754-04:00My Rebuttal to Tim and Lydia McGrew<span style="font-family:times new roman;"><br />***<br /><br />This post has been completely re-written. The new version appears <a href="http://failingtheinsidertest.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-rebuttal-to-mcgrews-rewritten.html">here</a>.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Tim and Lydia McGrew have written a chapter in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blackwell-Companion-Natural-Theology/dp/1405176571">The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology</a> titled <a href="http://www.lydiamcgrew.com/Resurrectionarticlesinglefile.pdf">The argument from miracles: a cumulative case for the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth</a>. Understanding <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes_factor">Bayes factors</a> is an prerequisite to understanding the McGrews' argument and my rebuttal to it. Their article includes a description of what you need to know - this post does not.<br /><br />The article covers a lot of ground, and I'm not responding to all of it. While you should read the article yourself, here's my brief description of the portion I'm responding to:<br /><br />Scholars disagree as to the accuracy of the Gospels and New Testament. But what if we conclude them to be as accurate as any other historical document, not counting the times they refer to miraculous events? Which is to say, it's accurately reporting what Peter said, even if this isn't what Peter actually saw. This is still an interesting question even to people who disagree with the historical conclusions of conservative scholars.<br /><br />If these assumptions can be used to make a solid case for the Resurrection, this means that the case against Christianity depends on the problems in the Gospels and Acts even as a mere historical documents. Reasons for discounting the Gospels as even history are within the last couple centuries. If the case against Christianity rests on this more recent scholarship, that means David Hume would have been a Christian if he had accurately evaluated the evidence available to him. (Talk about ultimately refuting Hume...) I guess one could technically hold this position and still not be a Christian. I have no problem saying that Hume would have been unjustified in believing in evolution if he had heard of the idea but not the evidence for it. But I don't hold that Hume should have believed in the Resurrection. To hold this position means I should be willing to argue against the Resurrection, even under the assumption of the Gospels' and Acts' historical reliability.<br /><br />Moving on the argument itself, Paul, the disciples, and the women who went to his tomb all claimed to have seen Jesus. To what degree does this support the resurrection? Bayesian statistics give a language with which to communicate the answer. Let R be the Resurrection of Jesus, and P, D, and W be the events that each of Paul, the disciples, and the women claimed to have seen Jesus, and in many of these cases, died for this belief.<br /><br />There are 13 disciples in the argument (the twelve minus Judas plus Matthias plus James the Just.) The events that they testified they had seen Jesus will be denoted </span><span style="font-family:times new roman;">D1-D13.</span><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> For each of these and for Paul, the McGrews estimate that their Bayes factor supporting R is 1000. What this would mean was that the martyrdom of a specific disciple given R was fairly likely, while roughly a 1 in 1000 chance given ~R. They estimate the factor for W to be 100.<br /><br />First suppose these are independent. If so, the cumulative Bayes factor is found by multiplication, which gives 10^3 * 10^(3 * 13) * 10^2 = 10^44. This would be strong enough to overcome even an extraordinarily small prior probability on R and make belief in R reasonable.<br /><br />Of course, they aren't independent. This is recognized and responded to on pages 40-46. While dependence could lead to overestimating the factor, it could go the other way too. While it's possible that killing one martyr could encourage more, the more likely effect is that it scares off other people, who now realize that their life is in danger. So while the McGrews recognize that these aren't independent, the claim is that factoring in the dependence makes the case <span style="font-style: italic;">stronger</span>.<br /><br />Before beginning my response, I want to mention an alternative approach that I'm not taking: I could list contrary evidences C and argue that the Bayes factor of P & D & W & C is fairly small. Sure, it works. Stronger evidence to the contrary is a valid reason to not be persuaded. But here, the topic is the strength of the evidence P & D & W, and bringing up C's do not help answer this.<br /><br />I will be responding to the claim from which the majority of the Bayes factor comes. I will be objecting to the factor of 10^39 for D by arguing that the dependence among D1-D13 means the Bayes factor has been overestimated horribly. (D1-D13 are similarly dependent on W. I'm leaving out W from here on because it complicates the notation without really adding anything. On the other hand, P could <span style="font-style: italic;">not </span>be added.)<br /><br />Without a doubt, I can imagine some likely circumstances (call them A), where once fixed, the D's are negatively correlated or correlated little enough that the odds against D & ~R are at least as bad as the independence assumption provides. But on the other hand, the disciples spent a lot of time together in the time leading up to their belief in the resurrection. So I can also imagine some plausible circumstances (call them B), where the D's are highly positively correlated and thus P(D1-D13 | ~R & B) is much, much larger than the independence assumption estimates. Actually, B need not even be plausible for my first point. It's enough for B to be highly implausible.<br /><br />A & B are not two hypotheses that we should choose between purely based on which one has a higher prior probability. D changes the odds of A and B, and it will turn out that B is the hypothesis that matters, even if its prior probability is extremely remote. To show this I will suppose the odds in favor of A over B are a billion to one. Now condition on D1-D4. The odds against these four testimonies happening is a trillion to one under ~R & A, while vastly less under ~R & B. It is true that ~R & A started out only one billion times more likely than R & B. But once we conditioned on D1-D4, suddenly B is probably more likely than A. ("Probably" depends on the specifics of "highly positively correlated.") While A & B are not a dichotomy, setting up a more comprehensive list of possibilities won't change the idea – every Di shifts the odds enormously in favor of a stronger and stronger positive correlation.<br /><br />Speaking of ~R without specifying which of A or B is true, we can see that D1-D13 are not even close to independent. Even if B is extremely unlikely, my argument still goes through. The event ~R & D1-D4 consists mostly of ~R & D1-D4 & B, and thus P(D5-D13 | ~R & D1-D4) is not even remotely close to the value reached by the independence assumption.<br /><br />This make sense anecdotally as well. Suppose 13 soldiers/civilians/terrorists/we don't know what have been captured and are being interrogated, and these 13 are each capable of giving the desired answer. "Tell us where the whatever thing is, or we start killing you." A gun is pointed at the first person – there's a good chance he gives in. The first person is shot, and the gun is pointed at the second person. With the second person, it's not clear which factor is stronger – what we have learned of the group from the first death, or the intimidation factor. But if you start going down the line, and the first four die rather than sharing their secret, the interrogator's expectation that anyone will speak dwindles to a mere hope. The fact of the first four deaths is reason to think that these are not 13 random people, but a group of Navy Seals, thoroughly dedicated ideologues, or something else that makes this group so tough that they can stand up in the face of certain death, and this something else will cause the other 9 to be willing to die too. This "something else" includes both R and ~R & B.<br /><br />So to compute how large of a Bayes factor D1-D13 produce, we can find an upper bound by computing P(B | ~R) x P(D1-D13 | ~R & B). The independence assumption gave a factor of 10^39, which is of no use whatsoever in computing this probability.<br /><br />I would like to also hold a stronger position than simply that the factor is much less than 10^39. What could count as B, and more importantly, how probable is it?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">***Edit 4/19/10*** </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">The rest of this post is a terrible argument - I still stand by the first half.</span><br /><br />First of all, I would like to defend a dismission of ancient historical arguments in defense of the supernatural that scarcely depends on even looking at the specifics. Even under the assumptions about the reliability of Acts, D1-D13 are not mathematical certainties – they are historical probabilities. When the highly probable is plugged into a mathematical equation that takes input in the form of certainties, the results are not necessarily reliable. What is the probability that believing in Peter's martyrdom is the best conclusion to reach based on the evidence available to us, and yet he didn't? One in a hundred? One in a million? If the odds of Peter's death given that the evidence supports it are a million to one in favor, Peter's death cannot produce a Bayes factor greater than a million – while this is actually larger than the thousand to one factor placed on a single Di, it combines differently with the rest of D. When D1-D13 are not taken to mean the events that the disciples actually died for their testimony, but rather to be that the historical record has come to support these conclusions, their positive correlation is exceptionally strong. The circumstances that would lead to made-up stories about Peter being believed, written down, repeated in the historical record, and mistakenly believed could easily lead to the same thing happening with the other 12, so the additional Bayes factor from D2-D13 is relatively small, giving a total factor of “a small factor” times one million – this is far, far out of the range of 10^39. The Bayes factor coming from historical evidence cannot exceed the odds against the evidence itself being false.<br /><br />Returning to the position that the 13 disciples really did testify about their experiences, the first thing that needs to be brought up is the effect beliefs in an afterlife can have on one's behavior. For a Christian to die for their faith is gain – or at least, it is perceived as gain, which is all that matters here. It doesn't require any special level of devotion. It requires actually believing. To learn that God wants one to die soon is not merely a sacrifice that is well worth it. It's a non-sacrifice – it would be a good thing for the person who dies. This is even true in the relative paradise of middle-class America. How much more persuasive would this reasoning be in first century Palestine? So what would it take for people who believe in heaven and hell to give their lives for their beliefs? Only the same level of dedication that countless groups all manage to reach every single generation.<br /><br />The intuition of Pascal's Wager is clear even without the math behind it. “But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.” Circumstance forced the disciples to deny Jesus and risk hell or believe he was still alive. If the disciples thought there was any chance that Jesus rose from the dead and that living for it would influence the afterlife, they could convince themselves to give their lives for this chance out of faith that it was true. So what remains to explain is what could cause the disciples to consider the possibility of the Resurrection and think there was, say, a 5% chance it was true. That's not to say their beliefs only reached a 5% level – but that is to say the 5% level would be more than sufficient to not only explain their actions, but also to explain the rationality of their actions, given their level of belief. This greatly increases P(B | ~R), for what each of the disciples believed about the influence of being a faithful witness on eternal destiny is definitely not independent.<br /><br />Once beliefs in hell and heaven have taken hold of your mind, it is nearly impossible to escape. When trying to hold onto such a belief that is looking more and more false, and while struggling to escape the mind control of hell, your head plays tricks on you. A pencil isn't where I left it – did God move it as a sign? If yes, then that is a way to escape the torment of the cognitive dissonance, and without risking hell. If God didn't do it, and I say that God did it, what do I lose? After the disciples left their lives behind to follow a Messiah who died, they had nothing left to lose. I've been there – I know how it works. When you want to believe something badly enough, God does nothing at all and this is interpreted as a surprisingly detailed conversation. Upon retelling, a semi-metaphorical “God told me” can become literal. I don't believe these stories when it's a friend telling me in person, and I definitely don't believe these stories when they are written down and aged for nearly two thousand years. While Christians then and now usually have nothing to gain by directly lying, they have everything to gain by deceiving themselves. Pascal proves this – or at least Christians tend to accept his conclusion, which is all that matters here. Under ~R, the disciples' beliefs that they saw something and their deaths for these beliefs was little more than the disciples' failure to escape the mental prison that is the doctrine of hell. While the strength of these factors could have varied from disciple to disciple, how strong it is with each is decidedly not independent, and they all depend on what Jesus actually said, as well as content of the discussions among the disciples about what Jesus meant.<br /><br />For the sake of contrast, consider something that requires much, much more sincerity than martyrdom: de-conversion. You can't really escape from the logic of Pascal's Wager as a defense of the rationality of trying to believe. You can only find yourself as unable to believe in your invisible friend are you are unable to believe that 2 + 2 = 5. It is far more difficult for a Christian to admit to themselves that it's all in their head than it is to give their life for Christ. My sincere disbelief proves as little as the sincere belief of martyrs, but it still means I can look at Christian martyrs or a passionate testimony and not be that impressed. For a Christian to give their life while believing God wants them to is a very little thing. To push through the “am I going to hell?” stage without relapsing into belief: now that's hard. And yet appeals to a supernatural experience are not needed to understand how it could happen.<br /><br />With this is mind, a specific explanation of what happened to the disciples is not needed to be unpersuaded by their deaths, for they are not even the kind of outliers who make you scratch your head and wonder "How did they do it?" Or at least nothing beyond "they believed in heaven and hell."</span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-12857771220537020332009-08-29T14:39:00.008-04:002009-09-10T19:02:01.712-04:00The Moral Argument – A Follow-Up<span style="font-family:times new roman;">Courtesy of Google Analytics, I found a link to <a href="http://failingtheinsidertest.blogspot.com/2009/08/moral-argument-for-existence-of-god.html">my post</a> on the Moral Argument on <a href="http://pw201.livejournal.com/113993.html?view=690761#pw201113993">Paul Wright's blog</a>.<br /><br />Paul paraphrased part of my argument as: “a God whose morality was similar to ours wouldn't allow there to be so much suffering in the world.” In response, one commenter wrote “Why not? We do...” This was probably tongue in cheek, but a valid point is raised. Our morality says we should care about a poor person in a third world country even at a small cost to us, but this small cost is sufficient to prevent us from helping them nearly as much as our morality says we should. And yet I talk about what a God who shares our morality would do. This shows there is something is wrong with at least the presentation of my argument – I will show that only the presentation is at fault.<br /><br />My second rebuttal depends on the dichotomy “God's morality is/isn't similar to ours.” While these two cases cover Christianity, they do not cover all of theism. The implicit assumption in both cases is that God is living in a manner consistent with his own morality. Because this assumption is being made about God but not about people, it makes sense to say God necessarily would help if he could, despite the fact that we quite often don't help even in cases where mortals could solve the problem. I'm perfectly happy with the content of my arguments, I just need to specify that there are three cases: “God's morality isn't similar to ours,” “God's morality is similar to ours and God is moral by his own standards,” and a new case, “God's morality is similar to ours but God isn't moral by his own standards.”<br /><br />This third option leads to perhaps the easiest of the rebuttals. If God is condemned by a set of standards, these standards must be above God. But now God is in a position directly analogous to the position people are in within the moral argument. So how can there be standards above God without a Higher God who wrote them? This rebuttal cannot be answered without undermining the moral argument. So the moral argument fails in all cases.<br /><br />In case you are confused by how I can make this argument consistently, I'll put it in symbolic terms.<br /><br />A: The moral argument is valid.<br />B: A God exists of the third kind, that is, God's morality is similar to ours but God isn't moral by his own standards.<br /><br />I'm showing that A implies ~B. This is sufficient to refute the position A & B, and I can consistently evaluate the implications of A, even though I don't actually accept A. This doesn't specify which of A or B is false, but this is not needed to refute “I accept B because of A.”<br /><br />This is perhaps a trivial point – I'm refuting a position that pretty much no one holds. But I expect my explanation of why it matters to actually be more important than the argument itself.<br /><br />The outline of most cases for Christianity are: common knowledge implies God exists, given that God exists Jesus' Resurrection is plausible, given the Resurrection Christianity is plausible. But within this argument, games get played with the definition of “God.” The sort of God you get at the end is one who must resort to “who are you, O man, who answers back to God?” to “explain” how he is other than a cruel and unjust tyrant. This is very different from the sort of God imagined when the Moral Argument is being made.<br /><br />So while the logical content of refuting the case for the God no one believes in is low, it blocks a common apologetic tactic – get any God you can in the door, even if its nature is directly opposite that of the Christian God, and then start turning it into the Christian God. While I object primarily to the use of the bait and switch, I will also argue against the bait itself. A God who is implicitly assumed to think about morality in much the same way that people think about morality is such common bait that it deserves a direct response.<br /></span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-6946551440507734962009-08-22T14:50:00.013-04:002009-11-08T22:01:59.462-05:00The Moral Argument for the Existence of God<span style="font-family:times new roman;">One of the most common arguments in modern apologetics is the moral argument. Rather than coming up with my own summary, I'll quote a <a href="http://www.existence-of-god.com/moral-argument.html">Christian site</a> at length.<br /><br />“The moral argument appeals to the existence of moral laws as evidence of God’s existence. According to this argument, there couldn’t be such a thing as morality without God; to use the words that Sartre attributed to Dostoyevsky, 'If there is no God, then everything is permissible.' That there are moral laws, then, that not everything is permissible, proves that God exists.<br /><br />“Some facts are facts about the way that the world is. … For most facts, there are objects in the world that make them true. Moral facts aren’t like that. The fact that we ought to do something about the problem of famine isn’t a fact about the way that the world is, it’s a fact about the way that the world ought to be. There is nothing out there in the physical world that makes moral facts true. This is because moral facts aren’t descriptive, they’re prescriptive; moral facts have the form of commands.<br /><br />“… If the moral argument can be defended against the various objections that have been raised against it, then it proves the existence of an author of morality, of a being that has authority over and that actively rules over all creation.”<br /><br />I first need to unpack what the two sides mean by their terms.<br /><br />What is right and wrong? Most theists will postpone the question to God: right and wrong depends on God's will and/or God's commands. What makes God's actions and commands right? God's will and/or nature are the <span style="font-style: italic;">definition </span>of right, that is, God commands things and/or does things and that makes it right. While there are alternative Christian answers, this is probably the most common and it's the one I know the most about, so I will not address alternatives.<br /><br />The atheistic answer (or rather, the answer I give) is that morality is a partially unwritten social contract. This contract involves primarily fundamental values, such as treating others the way you want to be treated, as opposed to more specific ethics. To the extent that people share these fundamental values, conversations about specific ethics are meaningful, whether or not people agree on what “morality” actually is.<br /><br />Apologists often confuse the issue by suggesting that the two views are that morals are either absolute or relative. The better question is “relative to what and absolute in what context?” For instance, if God were different, then Christian morality would be different. That means Christian morality is relative to God's nature and absolute in contexts where God's nature is fixed.<br /><br />Similarly, my concept of morality is relative to society and relative to human nature. But when human nature and which society I'm talking about are fixed, most of my moral ideas are absolute. Furthermore, with most of the fundamentals there is agreement between nearly all societies – so most of my moral ideas are only relative to human nature.<br /><br />There is yet another way my moral ideas are objective: “What does society think” and “what fundamental values are led to by human nature” are questions which usually have objective answers. The dichotomy where morality is completely absolute or everything is permissible is a false one. Morality can be thought of as something that is dependent on humanity and still something that I can't change just because I feel like it.<br /><br />Having laid out what I mean by morality, I will show that the moral argument fails on two independent lines.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">First Rebuttal: Exposing the Rhetoric</span><br /><br />“For most facts, there are objects in the world that make them true. Moral facts aren’t like that. The fact that we ought to do something about the problem of famine isn’t a fact about the way that the world is, it’s a fact about the way that the world ought to be.”<br /><br />The problem with this claim is that morals are both kinds of facts within my understanding of morality. The claim “stopping famines is a moral goal” is not a simple fact about how the world is. But on the other hand, the claim “most people have the sort of morality that wishes for no famines” is a claim with physical objects showing it to be true. Similarly, “human nature is such that people are prone to thinking that stopping famines is moral” is a claim with a physical object showing it to be true. Statements about peoples' sentiments and human nature are claims with objects in the world that makes it true. So while the moral claim itself is not a claim about how reality is, the claim that a particular claim really is "moral" is a statement with physical objects in the world making it true.<br /><br />The entire argument depends on a subtle rhetorical play to hide its most dubious claim. When unpacked, the argument is:<br /><br />1. People have a moral concept.<br />2. The only moral concept is the Christian one.<br />3. Therefore people believe in Christian moral concepts.<br />4. Christian moral concepts only make sense if God exists.<br />5. Therefore God exists.<br /><br />My primary disagreement with the argument is with 2. Notice just how strong the claim must be for the argument to work. To contradict the argument, I don't need to show my moral views to be true – only that I have a view differing greatly from the Christian view. The input data in the argument is a claim about what “everyone believes.” But I don't believe what is claimed that I believe. This alone is sufficient to rebut the moral argument.<br /><br />Once the terms are defined it becomes clear that no argument exists underneath the rhetoric. With Christian definitions, I don't believe in morality. With atheistic definitions, I believe in morality, and this implies absolutely nothing. It is my intention to be rebutting the moral argument in general and not simply this one articulation of it. However, every single version I have read either depends on this rhetorical slight of hand, or explicitly makes the claim which I have rebutted.<br /><br />Very little knowledge of apologetics is needed to foresee Christians' response to my position. The response is that the social contract I described isn't really a system of “morality.” What makes it wrong to violate our social contract?<br /><br />All moral systems have this problem: where to start? Theism has the exact same problem. What makes what God says right? Sure Christians can define that what they mean by “right” is aligning with God's will, but isn't that still just might makes right on a cosmic scale? Christians tend to object when I claim that Yahweh is a barbaric tyrant. But they shouldn't react at all if they consistently hold to their definition of good. God could be a barbaric tyrant, and this simply implies that being a barbaric tyrant is what being good means. The reaction shows that Christians think of good as meaning something deeper than “the way God is.” How could I be accusing God of something unless there is a higher moral law over God and I'm accusing God of violating this higher law? When consistently thinking of good as “the way God is,” objections should only be raised if I say something factually wrong about God, instead of simply using different adjectives to describe the same actions. I don't pat myself on the back for spotting this problem. It's obvious, because all moral systems have this problem: where to start?<br /><br />It is reasonable to reject either “good is determined by society” or “good is determined by God” as a definitional cheat that avoids the real problem. And they are cheats, unless accompanied by an acknowledgment that they haven't solved the key problem, at which point they simply become unprofound. It is also reasonable to grant that either one could work in principle. What is not reasonable is the double standard that is needed to make the moral argument work.<br /><br />(On the flip side, this implies that I think the Euthyphro dilemma is an invalid reason to disbelieve in God. While it's a good clarifying question and it shows that theism doesn't answer any foundational moral questions, on the other hand, theism isn't creating new problems either.)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Second Rebuttal</span><br /><br />To make an argument for the existence of God, one needs to first specify what is meant by “God.” Our society has a sufficiently specific idea about what this means that it's not always necessary to do so explicitly, but the ideas that different God-concepts have in common are not specific enough for my second rebuttal. The split is based on if the God being argued for has a concept of morality that is at least similar to human moral intuitions.<br /><br />One half of my rebuttal could work well against some concepts of God while looking like a straw man to people who are arguing for a different concept of God. <span style="font-style: italic;">While either half is easily avoidable, one of the prongs must be faced directly</span>. For this reason, it is important that they be viewed together. For quite while, I bounced between near-Calvinism and C. S. Lewis' explicit non-Calvinism. This wasn't just indecision, but largely due to a disorganized attempt to avoid two different problems that cannot both be avoided. Clarity of thought is sufficient to shut the door on that option.<br /><br />(By Lewis' position, what I really mean is “what I understood of Lewis' position in 2007-early 2008,” that is, the C. S. Lewis of <u>Mere Christianity</u> and <u>The Problem of Pain</u>. As John Beversluis painstakingly documents in <u>C. S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion</u>, Lewis himself went through similar indecision later in life, although his indecision went all the way back to his answer to the Euthyphro dilemma. He never articulated a clear reconciliation.)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">If God's morality is not similar to ours:</span><br /><br />Suppose the moral argument makes it as far as “people believe in moral ideas which imply God's existence.” There is a difference between establishing factual claims that imply God's existence, and establishing that <span style="font-style: italic;">people believe things</span> implying God's existence. If everyone's moral ideas imply God exists, one possibility remaining is that everyone's moral ideas are flawed. Moral dilemmas are inherent in all moral views because they all imply absurdities and/or they are simply not livable. The idea that everyone's moral ideas are incorrect is extremely plausible. Perhaps what's really true is the social contract idea of morality, despite the fact that I and all other freethinking people don't “really” believe it.<br /><br />Normally, I would be on my last legs if I was reduced to making argument like “sure everyone including me believes X, but we still might all be wrong.” In most cases, this would mean I'm stuck defending the possible, yet highly implausible. But here, there is a key difference: the concept of God that I'm rebutting implies that everyone's moral views <span style="font-style: italic;">are</span> wrong. So it's a very small leap for me to suggest that yes, perhaps everyone's moral views are wrong, but simply in a very different way than the one suggested by Total Depravity.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">If God's morality is at least similar to ours:</span><br /><br />(*Update* This should be split into "</span><span style="font-family:times new roman;">God's morality is at least similar to ours but God isn't moral by his own standards" and "</span><span style="font-family:times new roman;">God's morality is at least similar to ours and God is moral by his own standards."</span><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> What follows is my answer to the second. My <a href="http://failingtheinsidertest.blogspot.com/2009/08/courtesy-of-google-analytics-i-found.html">next post</a> deals with the first.) </span><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><br />But God's morality is almost diametrically opposite to our own morality as evidenced by the problem of pain. There are a number of ways to set up this argument, and in my opinion, by far the best way is as an empirical problem. I'm not suggesting that pain proves this kind of God does not exist – what I am claiming is that pain is very strong evidence against his existence, although this is the sort of evidence that could potentially be outweighed by contrary evidence. As an empirical argument, the real issue isn't that pain and evil exist at all – the problem is that there is <span style="font-style: italic;">so much</span>.<br /><br />Similarly, if you are making the case that the police in a particular city are failing, the existence of a robbery is a poor argument – the level of surveillance needed to achieve perfection wouldn't be worth it even if it were possible. But millions and millions of robberies is good evidence for the failure of law enforcement. An explanation of how, in a free society, some level of abuse of freedom is to be expected completely and utterly fails to explain why there is <span style="font-style: italic;">so much</span> crime. With God, I'm not saying that a good plan couldn't involve <span style="font-style: italic;">any</span> discomfort. I'm saying that based on the extreme level of pain in the world, it sure looks like his plan is either not loving or very poorly thought out.<br /><br />Suppose a person discovered a cure to every single disease in the world. Suppose they had the resources to deliver these cures to the people who need it, and they knew about the need. Suppose this could be done with very little effort. And yet they then did absolutely nothing about it. They just watched while people died from diseases because doing so helped them seek their own glory. If we rely on human intuitions about morality to tell us what morality is, we would call this person the most extreme kind of evil. This person is God.<br /><br />Christianity's problem of pain is far more severe than that of general theism. Not only is there the overhead of the inaction of God to deal with, there is also all the genocide and killing that God either did himself or delegated to his minions, not to mention hell.<br /><br />But I bring up diseases in particular because it's something about which we have experiential knowledge and it cannot be avoided with a weaker view of biblical inspiration. We cannot reasonably speculate that diseases are needed to bring about some other greater good – some diseases have been cured in the past and that turned out quite well. Even while knowing about the lack of negative consequences, God still didn't cure these diseases sooner. Furthermore, whenever a person claims to have a new cure, one question that is not asked is “but is curing diseases a good idea?” We don't look back with skepticism at the morally questionable activities of the World Health Organization and others in eradicating polio. We don't do this because while it is a remote possibility that curing diseases is damaging, it is not a reasonable possibility.<br /><br />Without a justification for God's inaction, the evidence suggests that if God exists, he does not follow a system of morality similar to ours. And if we are so wrong about morality to have so badly misjudged the morality of cosmic inaction to pain, then an argument cannot be grounded in the trusting of our moral intuitions.<br /></span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-13685330659520651272009-07-19T14:09:00.003-04:002009-07-19T14:29:31.613-04:00The Problem of Tongues<span style="font-family:times new roman;">As everyone but Christians knows, Christians apply a double standard to their own religious experiences versus similar experiences in other religions. But it's worse than that. The double standard is completely in-house.<br /><br />Specifically, I'm addressing the inconsistency of the following three positions:<br /><br />1. My experiences of God are a valid reason for thinking God is real.<br />2. The gift of tongues has ceased.<br />3. Many people who speak in tongues are solid Christians.<br /><br />The doublethink is so glaring that I hardly need to do more than list the positions. Apparently, lots of Christians who are very close to God don't know the difference between a psychological phenomenon (or demons) and an experience of God. “But not <span style="font-style: italic;">my</span> experience! I experienced God! How can you explain that?” With great ease...<br /><br />If God really was in relationships with people, and God really did speak to people through a certain branch of a certain religion, you would expect them to agree on what God said. Or at least they should agree on a much easier question: <span style="font-style: italic;">how do you know God is the one who is speaking</span>?<br /><br />But if God doesn't exist or if he doesn't reach out to people through personal relationships, what we should expect to find is an enormous level of disagreement on the most basic questions about how it is that God really talks, and what it is that he says. This is exactly what we find. <br /><br />One rationalization is that maybe God makes his voice unclear for some reason, or in other words, he likes making it look precisely the way it would look if he wasn't there. It's possible. It's also possible that the reason pictures of aliens are always really grainy is that, well, aliens are just really grainy.<br /><br />The far better explanation is that Jesus' sheep do not hear his voice, and they do not follow him. Instead, they are scattered in every direction as they all insist that they are the ones' following the correct voice.<br /><br />None of this excludes the position that tongues are fake and Pentecostal Christians are therefore borderline heretics. Perhaps exactly one of the scattered sheep are following the correct voice. But if this is your position, please hold to it consistently. Don't try to tell me that God is at work spreading the Gospel throughout the world. Third world Christianity is very Pentecostal – consistent cessationists and I are in agreement that all that's going on is the realignment of superstitions.<br /><br />On the other side a different inconsistency is quite common: <br /><br />1. Non-Christians disbelieve due to rebellion against God and his laws.<br />2. The gift of tongues is real.<br />3. Many cessationists are solid Christians.<br /><br />The problem here is that cessationists who are solid Christians show that the reality of tongues can be denied for other than hedonistic or rebellious reasons. What would motive a cessationist to accept all the restrictions of Christianity while denying themselves the most dramatic parts? The answer is that it's not about “motivation,” but about <span style="font-style: italic;">actually thinking</span> that tongues are not for real. Once this line of reasoning is accepted, it is extremely hard to maintain the impossibility of non-Christians disbelieving simply because they <span style="font-style: italic;">actually think</span> that Christianity is false. Hell then becomes very difficult to justify when the litmus test is belief.<br /><br />None of this excludes the position that tongues are real and cessationists are lukewarm believers or less. But if this is your position, don't try to tell me true Christianity existed between, say, 100AD and 1900AD.<br /><br />It is noteworthy that the more consistent positions often result in more disagreeable people and more divisions in the church. This is the dilemma of trying to think of many different Christianities as some mystically unified “Christianity.” Churches and Christian organizations must choose among being intellectually shallow, segregated along theological lines, or a cauldron churning out apostasy whenever the wrong combination of views interact.</span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-2049050625871785632009-05-20T14:55:00.004-04:002011-05-24T22:14:15.445-04:00The Evangelical Fall v. The Biblical Fall<span style="font-family:times new roman;">One surprising aspect of “biblical” Christianity is just how much of it doesn't come from the Bible, and just how much can be refuted without looking at anything but the Bible. A perfect example of this is the Fall.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Snake/Satan</span><br /><br />What happens is that Satan appears to Eve as a serpent/enters a serpent and deceives her. Right? Actually, that's the evangelical version of the story, which is quite different than the biblical version.<br /><br />The talking snake is to be contrasted with the talking donkey in Numbers 22:28. With Balaam's donkey, the text recognizes that donkey's don't normally talk, and thus it says that “the LORD opened the mouth of the donkey.” This story actually makes sense within the context of Bible. Now, I'm not saying that I just believe stories about a talking donkey just because a superstition scribe who believed in the power of curses wrote it down millenia ago. But at least it's internally consistent with the world of the Bible.<br /><br />With the talking snake, there is nothing suggesting that Satan was behind this particular reptile's speaking gifts. It's a literal snake that was able to literally speak just because – well, because snakes can talk, I guess. Genesis 3 begins “now the serpent was more crafty than ...” Not, “now Satan was crafty.” The snake. The craftiness comes from <span style="font-style: italic;">the snake</span>.<br /><br />When the snake talks to Eve, the conversation proceeds without any mention of anything supernatural that allows the snake to talk, and without any mention of Eve thinking anything is unusual about this particular reptile's level of linguistic development. Personally, I think a good case can be made that even the ancient Israelites didn't take this literally, although I appreciate no longer having to care if YECs are wrong due to believing an ancient superstition or due to believing an ancient work of fiction.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Curse on the Snake</span><br /><br />When God hears about what happened, he's not mad at Satan for using an animal to enact his evil plan. God is mad at <span style="font-style: italic;">the snake</span>. And so he curses <span style="font-style: italic;">the snake</span>. The first part of the curse is directly targeted at snakes and they now have have to eat dust(!) and crawl on their bellies. The second part of the curse is about the snake's seed and Eve's seed, but evangelicals consider it to be a prophecy about Jesus' death: “And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”<br /><br />Several things need to be stretched for this to be talking about Satan v. Jesus. First off, the snake needs to have something to do with Satan, when in fact, there is no biblical connection between the two. (Or a literal snake needs to talk to Judas...) But suppose for the sake of argument that in the biblical version, Satan had entered into the snake when it tempted Eve. Still, the curse is on the snake's <span style="font-style: italic;">seed</span>. Satan still isn't the snake's seed. For the curse to be a prophecy about Satan v. Jesus, it should be enmity between “you and her seed,” not between “your seed and her seed.” The snake's seed is future generations of snakes, and Jesus hasn't bruised their head, and they haven't bruised Jesus' heal.<br /><br />Next, there is no reason to think “her seed” refers to one person. <a href="http://failingtheinsidertest.blogspot.com/2008/11/hermeneutics-of-paul-seed-and-seeds.html">Unless you're Paul</a> and twisting the words to mean what you want them to mean, “her seed” is referring to future generations of humanity. The exact same arguments that I used in reference to Abraham's seed apply here.<br /><br />(“He” in “He shall bruise your head” is not justified by the Hebrew words, unless one is operating under the assumption that the prophecy is true and therefore using the NT to guide the interpretation/translation of the OT. But for consistency, I'm sticking to the NASB, even though the KJV uses one fewer male pronoun.)<br /><br />Finally, suppose that Jesus' heal was literally bruised as a significant part of his crucifixion in one or several of the Gospel accounts. We can be certain that Christians would consider it to be evidence that prophecy is accurate down to the exact detail. We know this because when Isaiah talks about Jesus' “stripes” or being “pierced”, this is seen as a prophecy about the particular details of the crucifixion process and evidence for the divine nature of biblical prophecy. If those literal details are seen as evidence that biblical prophecy has an uncanny accuracy, I think that the lack of a literal fulfillment of this detail should be seen as evidence that biblical prophecy is sometimes wrong.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Alternatives to Literalism</span><br /><br />Of course, a good case can be made that none of these are literal prophecies and therefore none of these are evidence for or against the accuracy of biblical prophecy. But if you take this position, think carefully about whether or not Jesus fulfilled a single prophecy and just what prophecy is good for.<br /><br />Similarly, as much as it complicates the case against Christianity, I actually still agree with position that much of Genesis was not meant to be understand as a literal account. IMO, Christianity's most intellectually robust form includes the positions that the beginning of Genesis is myth and the Gospels are historical. But it's hard to learn to respect the cryptic wisdom and “spiritual truths” of a fable after once having thought of it as “true” in the sense of “actually happening.”</span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-64812741084784769332009-05-15T15:09:00.010-04:002009-05-16T13:17:08.823-04:00Two Creation Stories<span style="font-family:times new roman;">Just as there are <a href="http://failingtheinsidertest.blogspot.com/2009/03/two-flood-stories.html">two flood stories</a>, there are two different creation stories. While Bible contradictions will be part of the argument, keep in mind that I'm not countering inerrancy directly – I'm taking another step in making a positive case <strike>for the Documentary Hypothesis</strike> that the Torah consists of several conflicting documents woven together. My arguments are not “... therefore the Bible contradicts itself” but “... therefore there are two different creation accounts.” Establishing the existence of a reconciliation between the two versions would not alone answer my arguments. Differences can be less than a contradiction but still evidence that there are two different creation accounts contained in Genesis 1-2 and that neither account shows any signs of having been written to go with the other account.<br /><br />Understanding the distinction between contra-inerrancy arguments, and arguments that lead to a positive conclusion (in the context of the Gospels) was quite possibly the final “aha” moment for me on the way out of Christianity. With the second approach, to goal is not to find contradictions but to find clues that help us figure out the history of the writing of the Bible. Once dozens of these clues are harnessed together by all supporting the same point, they cannot be belittled one piece at a time as trivial details or something for which an explanation will present itself at a later time.<br /><br />I would like to begin my argument by pointing out that the prima facie case is mine. Read Genesis 1:1-2:3 by itself and you have a complete story of the creation of the world and everything in it. Read Genesis 2:4-2:25 and you have a complete story of the creation of the world and everything in it. Both stories are begun with verses that would make perfect sense as the first verse in a book.<br /><br />If these really are different stories, what we should expect to find is differences in the details that must be explained away to maintain that it's really all the same story. If this really is the same story, we should expect the halves of the story to refer to each other in ways that just don't make sense when viewing the stories as individuals – especially because the second half is claimed to cover a time interval contained within the first half. These are the criteria by which I will be making the case for two different stories.<br /><br />(Don't think that I think I'm some scholar who knows the official criteria by which this is normally judged. I'm merely spelling out precisely what I consider to be common sense so that if anyone disagrees with my overall approach, it's clear what they are arguing against.)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Man Before Plants?</span><br /><br />Plants are created on the third day, which is certainly before the creation of people on the sixth day.<br /><br />However, Genesis 2:5 lets us know that plants are not created yet. “Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.” Before plants are created in 2:8-9, Adam is created in 2:7. The prima facie case is mine again: Adam is created before plants in the second creation account.<br /><br />Looking closer at the logic of the story makes the point even more clear. In 2:5, we are given two reasons for a lack of plants: no water, and no man. 2:6 solves the first problem as a mist comes. 2:7 solves the second problem as man is created. Both problem are now solved. So God is now ready to plant a garden and make plants grow, which he does in 2:8-9. It's not just the order in which event are recorded that suggest Adam was created before plants, but the logical flow of the account as well.<br /><br />Creationists' rebuttal is that Genesis 2:5 refers only to specific kinds of plants, namely cultivated plants. Thus, most of the plants were created on the third day, while the cultivated plants of Eden were created after Adam on the sixth day. I'm no Hebrew scholar, but just looking up all the different words used for shrub and plant in Strong's Concordance offers absolutely no support for this position. I see no reason to think Genesis 1:11-12 excludes some kinds of plants and I see no reason to think Genesis 2:5 includes only the kinds of plants not created on the third day. Without either of these arguments, the YEC position fails without even looking outside the Bible.<br /><br />The only reason I see for even speculating about either is simply that it is needed to make Genesis 1-2 flow as a single story. Another way of saying this is that the creationist position is to begin with a certain conclusion and then look for an interpretation of the words to make it work. But that's not how you're supposed to read things when the goal is a truth search and not merely the affirmation of preconceived ideas. The intellectually honest approach is to let Genesis tell you what Genesis is saying. The way young-earth creationists cannot do this is precisely the kind of bending over backward that should be expected if there really are two creation stories.<br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><br />Also, this doesn't make sense of the logic of 2:5-9. The reason for no plants of some kind is a lack of rain and a lack of man. Now, what kind of plants either need rain or need man? Pretty much all of them, at least according to non-technical ideas of what a plant is. If there's a distinction between wild and cultivated plants, then I would guess that no rain is why there are no wild plants and no man is why there are no cultivated plants in 2:5.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Animals Before Eve?</span><br /><br />On the sixth day, God first creates the animals, and then he creates people. However, in the second creation account, the order is Adam, animals, Eve. Creationists generally agree with the first part, so I won't belabor that point.<br /><br />The order in which the events are recorded is the creation of Adam (2:7), animals (2:19), and finally Eve (2:22), so the prima facie case is mine again. But the case is much stronger than the mere order in which the facts are recorded – this is the order that is implied by the logic of 2:18-2:22. In 2:18a, God observes a problem: man is alone. In 2:18b, God suggests a solution: Adam needs a helper. The next thing that happens is God creates the animals in 2:19 as an attempt to find Adam a helper. My claim that the creation of the animals was an attempt to find a helper for Adam is all but explicitly stated in 2:20: “but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.” In verse 2:21, God tries a more successful solution: taking one of Adam's ribs and making a woman.<br /><br />To argue that Genesis 1-2 is a single literal account means that three things that must be explained away. First, the order in which the events are recorded must be overlooked. Second, the awkward insertion of the story of the creation of the animals (2:19-20) into the story of the creation of Adam's helper (2:18 & 2:21-22) must be ignored. And finally, Genesis' own explanation for why the creation of animals fits into the creation of Adam's helper must be ignored. I don't see how this position can be held unless one is taking the approach that Genesis <span style="font-style: italic;">must </span>be true and literal therefore there <span style="font-style: italic;">must </span>be some way of resolving the contradiction.<br /><br />This is precisely what should be expected if these are two different creation accounts that were not written to go together. The six days of creation have their own logical structure, and the second creation account has a logical account of needs and solutions. Each makes sense alone, but to view them as going together prevents the reader from seeing what the second author is saying.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Two Creation Stories/Two Flood Stories/Two Authors</span><br /><br />The case for two authors gets even better when compared with the two flood stories. In one of the flood stories, God was known as Elohim, while in the other, he was known as Yahweh. In all 38 instances, the God of 1:1-2:3 is Elohim. In all 11 instances, the God of 2:4-2:25 is Yahweh.<br /><br />Also, in the flood stories, it was the Elohim author that spoke of the opening of the windows of heaven and fountains of the deep, while the Yahweh author says the flood comes because it starts raining. One is giving more of God's perspective while the other is giving more of man's perspective. We see the same thing with the creation accounts. The Elohim author doesn't even mention people until the end, and then man fades into the background again as Elohim rests. The Yahweh author describes the creation of plants and animals in the contexts of plants needing man and man needing a helper.<br /><br />Furthermore, on the second day of creation, Elohim creates an expanse and calls it heaven. Water is created that is above this expanse. It was Elohim who opens the windows of heaven to let this water out to flood the earth. This suggests that not only are there two authors of the creation and flood stories, but they are in fact the same two authors.<br /><br />If Genesis 1-2 is a single narrative, it is quite curious that we find internal references and similarities between certain halves of the creation and flood accounts, but we don't find internal references between the two halves of the creation account, in spite of the fact that the time interval of the second half is completely inside the time interval of the first half.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;">I encourage you to read <a href="http://creation.com/genesis-contradictions">creationists' rebuttal</a> to these arguments, because it so clearly shows that the arguments I am presenting have been noted and answered poorly. Both sides have reasonable positions if you are just reading an overview of the positions. Where creationists lose is when you compare each position to the <span style="font-style: italic;">specifics </span>of the <span style="font-style: italic;">details </span>in how Genesis 1-2 is written.<br /></span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-21524879658441987412009-05-11T23:06:00.005-04:002011-05-22T17:29:25.193-04:00A Puff of Logic<span style="font-family:times new roman;">Douglas Adams inserted a hilarious bit of theological satire into <u>The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy</u> that I would have added to <a href="http://failingtheinsidertest.blogspot.com/2009/05/divine-hiddenness-other-fine-tuning.html">my last post</a> if I had remembered it in time. Adams has just finished introducing a comically convenient plot device: the Babel Fish. This is a creature that feeds on sound waves and excretes brain waves – all you must do is place a Babel Fish in your ear, and then all languages are immediately translated into your native language.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Now it is such a bizarrely impossible coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the nonexistence of God. The argument goes something like this:<br /><br />"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."<br /><br />"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."<br /><br />"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't though of that" and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.</span><br /><br />While at face value this is “the Design Argument Against the Existence of God,” don't miss the real point. It's not actually a rebuttal to the Design Argument or a positive argument for atheism. It's a satire of the “it's so we can have faith” defense for a lack of evidence for God or a particular religion.</span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-67694585111794212602009-05-04T00:13:00.006-04:002014-02-18T18:54:03.258-05:00Divine Hiddenness: The Other Fine-Tuning Argument<span style="font-family: times new roman;">“... God our Savior ... desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” – I Timothy 2:3-4<br /><br />Why is God hidden? While theists disagree with both me and each other on the level of clarity in the evidence, surely they would agree that if God did something like performing miracles on national TV, he would be obvious in a way that his is not right now. Why must apologetics consist of ancient history, philosophical arguments, and subjective feelings? But before I rebut apologists' explanations for why we even need apologists, I wish to further explain a few of the many ways that God hides himself.<br /><br />The Bible could have had very specific prophecies about Jesus that he very specifically fulfilled. Pesher may be an acceptable excuse for why the prophetic evidence for Jesus cited in the Bible is nonexistent, but it is no excuse for God choosing to reveal Jesus in a culture that would lead to “fulfillments” like this. Micah could have said “One day, the Messiah will be born of a virgin in the town of Bethlehem, and yet still manage to come out of both Egypt and Nazareth.” Jonah could have said “just like me, the Messiah will be in the belly of the earth. Unlike me, it will be for one and a half days and two nights.” Isaiah could have told us plainly that the suffering servant of chapter 53 was the Messiah. He could have told us plainly that the Messiah would be literally “pierced” for our transgressions, but not literally “crushed” for our iniquities. He could have told us that “not opening his mouth” would be limited to the trial before Herod and the walk to the cross; this would not exclude a quite lengthy prayer the night before, this would not exclude dialogue with Pilate, and this would not exclude dialogue and a yell while on the cross. He could have told us that “like a lamb that is led to slaughter” is fairly close to the literal truth, while “like a sheep that is silent before its shearers” is not even close to the literal truth. But instead, God fined-tuned the prophecies in the Bible to make it look precisely like God played no role in inspiring the Bible.<br /><br />The Bible could have had scientific information that was useful immediately. Starting whenever God decided to start inspiring books, we could have known:<br /><br />“Diseases are caused by tiny things that you can't see. They live inside of you and pretty much everywhere else too, but they stop growing where it's really cold and they die where it's really hot. Cook meat well to kill them – when you don't, these tiny things go inside you and make you sick. With some of them, you can protect yourself by teaching your body how to fight them in advance. It's kind of complicated, but how it works is you need to grow a lot of these tiny things. Then heat up those tiny things to kill them. The shells of their bodies will be left behind – you won't be able to see them, but they're there. Inject these shells into your body and your body will automatically learn how to kill them. Now, if you come in contact with those tiny things in the future, your body will be prepared ahead of time. You might have to experiment a bit to get this to work, but knowing the general idea of what's going on should make it quite a bit easier than it would be if I uncaringly left you to figure all of it out yourself.”<br /><br />The efficiency with which I have communicated should be contrasted with the wisdom of not eating pork or shellfish. I'd bet with more work and more knowledge of medicine, I could write something shorter, clearer, and more helpful, and that an omniscient deity could do better still. With this is mind, I have difficulty understanding why Jesus wasted his time with trifles like healing blind men one at a time or feeding people thousands at a time. He could have saved so many more people so much more easily, and in a way that authenticated his message for both his audience and for scientists who one day discovered just why his suggestions worked so well. It didn't have to be the case that science and the Bible were set on a collision course. Just think of how much stuff God could have packed into the Bible or Jesus could have shared. Thousands of paragraphs like the one above could have all been packed into a book of the Bible's size. But the ancient Jews were not given any of this information. He fine-tuned the scientific data in the Bible so we couldn't see that he had anything at all to do with it.<br /><br />While I understand the position that God just worked through the historical process in writing the Bible, I'm not willing to just take it for granted that this is the only option he had. Making the Bible be a book that God literally dictated was one of God's options. There are all sorts of ways in which God could have inspired the Bible. And yet he chose an inspiration technique that is indistinguishable from doing nothing at all.<br /><br />Not only was modern scientific information left out, but even after receiving the law, the Israelites didn't even have enough contemporary scientific knowledge to beat their rivals. Judges 1:19 “The LORD was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had iron chariots.” Science, it seems, has been Yahweh's Kryptonite for a long time.<br /><br />This also leads to God's hiddenness in war. God could favor the strongest army to end the war quickly and minimize deaths, he could favor the underdog, or he could favor whoever is more moral. But instead, God favors big armies, iron chariots, and technologically advanced weapons. Atheism forces people to this conclusion ahead of time. Theism says that pretty much anything could be the result, but for some reason, God chose the one result that would be consistent with atheism. He fine-tunes his control of battles to make it look like he doesn't do anything.<br /><br />Similarly with birth defects. If God exists, it could go in many ways. Maybe God gives all the defects to the children of people who aren't Christians. Maybe they are simply more likely to go to non-Christians. Or maybe it's the other way around, and God gives more birth defects to Christians than everyone else. In fact, any outcome is perfectly consistent with the possibility that God set it up that way. But with atheism, one is forced to make a very specific prediction. Faith will not matter, except to the extent that faith is correlated with circumstantial differences, as with missionaries who bring medicine. This very specific prediction is what we actually see in the real world. While any outcome could in principle be explicable in the context of theism, this is a surprising outcome. God fine-tunes the distribution of birth defects to make it look like he doesn't do anything at all.<br /><br />Christianity has a number of answers to this. The weaknesses of these answers help illustrate the unanswerability of the problem of an invisible God when he's omnipresent, omnipotent, and wants to be known.<br /></span><span style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">“</span></span><span style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">God isn't hidden</span></span><span style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">.”</span></span><span style="font-family: times new roman;"><br /><br />In my opinion, this is the only chance. But a desire to give this answer is where the most easily disproven Christian positions come from. This gives us faith healers, extremes of Pentecostalism, and creationism (not merely that evolution is false, but also that the evidence overwhelmingly supports creation.) Except for maybe faith healers who think they can raise people from the dead, all of these, even if true, seem quite pathetic compared to the options available to an omnipotent deity.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">“God's ways are not our ways.”</span><br /><br />Translation: “Yes, I admit it makes absolutely no sense.” That's exactly what I'm saying. God's plans contradict human concepts of reason, which are in fact, the only concepts of reason that humans have. “Human reasoning” is not a term that describes a particular kind of thinking, it is a term that describes whether or not you are thinking. To realize something doesn't make sense and to continue to believe it is like looking at one's face in a mirror, observing it is unwashed, and then doing nothing about it. And yet Christians continue to disparage reason and then whine whenever insultingly described as opposing reason.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">“It's so we can have faith.”</span><br /><br />There are quite a few problems with this. First off, there are options other than all aspects of Christianity being proven and the dismal evidence apologists think we have. God could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's powerful and intervenes in the world while making us believe purely by faith that he's good. God could prove that he's powerful while providing only a little bit of evidence that he's good. He could prove that he's powerful and good while making us believe by faith that salvation actually works. So even if God wants us to have faith, that is no excuse for his absence.<br /><br />The next problem is that it supposes that something is good about having faith. Without this assumption, to say God is hidden so we can have faith is not an explanation, but merely a description of the particular sort of irrationality behind the plan. There is no basis for claiming that belief in God must necessarily involve faith – it's only necessary because God set it up this way, and he didn't have to set it up this way. While faith can have other meanings, in this context, faith is nothing more than an excuse for being illogical and an emotional shield that makes pointing out the obviousness of this cruel and offensive. But for some reason, God likes it when we don't try to be rational. One of the few systems that I can imagine where justice would be more arbitrary than this would be if God just chose some people and didn't choose others.<br /><br />In fact, I have proof that the God of the Bible didn't have to set up the system to require faith because he doesn't always set it up that way. In the garden of Eden, Adam was provided with absolute proof that God exists, is powerful, and cares. And this didn't seem to interfere with his ability to have free will or a relationship with God. Furthermore, in heaven, the perfect existence will again not require people to have faith.<br /><br />The final and most severe problem with this explanation is that even Christians don't believe it. If they did, Christians would doubt the crossing of the Red Sea because that would be too clear of evidence for God's existence and would take away the Israelites' ability to have faith. Christians would doubt that Jesus walked on water because that would take away the disciples' ability to have faith. Christians would conclude that a personal relationship with God couldn't be a valid reason for belief, because that would destroy the ability to have faith. But that's not how Christians think about miracles or proofs of his existence. When God gives proof, well did you see that? That was proof. When God doesn't give proof, it's because it would be against his nature to give us proof.<br /><br />I only take the “it's so we can have faith” line seriously when it's coming from someone who consistently applies this reasoning. For the other 100%, it's a excuse that allows people to just make stuff up and pretend it's a worldview worthy of respect.<br /><br />Imagine what it would be like if atheists thought this way. We'd have motivational speakers telling us things like:<br /><br />“I know sometimes you might see crazy things like someone healed right in front of you, but just <span style="font-style: italic;">try</span> not to see God in it. Sometimes, you might find yourself in a place where it’s just obvious God has done something. It just doesn’t make sense any other way. But don’t believe it! It doesn’t have to make sense. If you need one, find a support group to help you not believe even after you’ve seen a miracle. You aren’t the only one this has happened to! Lots of atheists in the past have seen miracles and still found a way to have faith in God's non-existence! You can do it too!”<br /><br />Of course, if atheists talked like this, theists would be all over us saying that our words show that we don’t really disbelieve. Yes, I did just make a not-very-subtle remark about whether or not theists are atheists in rebellion against a reality that they don't like. (My apologies for sinking to the level of functional theism.)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">“It wouldn't work anyway.”</span><br /><br />Gideon disagreed. He didn't believe, so God allowed him to perform a fleece experiment to test his power. Gideon was so impressed by the efficacy of evidence in convincing people that you could have confused him with an atheist. [Or, to be fair, with a Christian evidentialist.]<br /><br />Thomas disagreed. He didn't believe before Jesus showed him his wounds, and he believed afterward.<br /><br />Even Jesus disagreed. “And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day.” – Matthew 11:23<br /><br />The question Jesus didn't answer is why he didn't perform those miracles in Sodom, because he sure seems to think it would have worked. I'd bet millions and billions of people are alive today who are even more open to the evidence of miracles than the Bible's epitome of evil. And yet God doesn't show them miracles. By contrast, I actually want people to stop damaging their lives with faith, and so I try to provide actual arguments against it. I show you my beliefs by my works. God claims that he wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. I wish God would have shown us that he really wanted Sodom to be saved by his actions. The Sodomites aren't in hell because they refused to be with God and so God told them “thy will be done” and sent them off to the one place apart from himself. Sodom could have been saved. Unfortunately for them, God was in one of his smiting moods.<br /><br />And again, Christians are unwilling to consistently think according to this rationalization. If they have a dramatic answer to prayer or observe a miracle, you'd better believe that they are going to tell people. It could be the case that they still don't believe this will have an effect on people who don't believe. But that's not the point. The point is that they realize it makes sense to try. But God doesn't try. He has instead fine-tuned war, scientific laws, birth defects, tragedies, and the Bible to make it look like he doesn't do anything at all.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Kicker</span><br /><br />All of these rebuttals completely and utterly fail to provide a coherent explanation for why God hides himself. There is no excuse for God not making himself known. But it's even worse than that. Suppose for the sake of argument that Christianity provides a completely plausible explanation for God's behavior, one is completely content with the possibility that we cannot have any idea why God doesn't do what he doesn't do, or I'm wrong on every single point when I talk about things God “should” want to do. Then the argument from hiddenness is <span style="font-style: italic;">still </span>a powerful argument. If any or all of these are the case, this would merely explains how hiddenness was one of God's options.<br /><br />Atheism forces people to make very specific predictions about how things will work, namely that no actions will be performed by God that are distinguishable from no action at all. But Christianity cannot predict in advance that God will fine-tune the outcome to look like he did nothing at all.<br /><br />Suppose one person predicts that the sun will rise at 5:54 am tomorrow morning, while the second person says it could rise at any time between 4 am and 10 am and there is no way of knowing precisely what the sun will do in advance. And then the sun rises at 5:54 am. Technically, the second person hasn't been shown to be wrong. But this is powerful evidence that the first person knows something that the second person doesn't know.<br /><br />Every single time that God could preform a miracle, could reveal himself, or could reveal useful knowledge to us but doesn't is a case where theists merely observe this to be one of many possible outcomes. But atheists knew the sun would rise at 5:54 am. How do atheists get these things right so often and so precisely? Personally, I do not find this question to be particularly difficult to answer.</span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-89213227493717550472009-04-17T00:25:00.009-04:002011-05-22T17:37:17.480-04:00The Role of Evolution in my Deconversion<span style="font-family:times new roman;">Perhaps the most common reason people reject Christianity is evolution, and I am no exception. However, the way it influenced me was very different from the usual way that learning Genesis is not historically reliable leads to learning the rest is not historically reliable either. For me, the primary effect was sociological – it changed my social standing within [evangelical] Christianity and this caused me to see how Christians think about the rest of their faith as well.<br /><br />It's hardly a revolutionary observation to notice that if Christians thought about Christianity with the same critical thinking they use when approaching the evidence for any other religion, then most of them would stop believing. But as a bare claim, this is something anyone could say about anything. An argument that can refute anything refutes nothing. (See Romans 1:22.)<br /><br />The fact that Christians believe in Yahweh but not the other deities of antiquity is, in and of itself, no more reason to suspect Christians are wrong than the bare fact that scientifically minded people usually believe in the theory of relativity but not in UFOs. What is needed are the particulars of how the “problems” with and evidence for every other religion are similar to the “mysteries” inside one's own religion that are just accepted. It is only with these particulars that either side can justify the comparison.<br /><br />Once I became a theistic evolutionist (TE), my Christianity became one of the positions to which young-earth creationists (YEC) apply critical thinking. And consequently, claims about the consistency of evolution and Christianity were both essential to my faith and rejected by most Christians. To understand their position was to view my faith as an outsider.<br /><br />While the emotional fallout of this situation should not be dismissed, it was also a fundamentally intellectual struggle that could not be wished, tolerated, or loved away. First, a lot of the theological arguments against TE make sense. Second, most of these arguments have a twin argument which is against Christianity as a whole. Most seriously, the arguments against Christianity as a whole are equal to or stronger than the arguments against TE. But these claims are only as strong as my examples:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Ten Commandments</span><br /><br />While supposedly the entire Bible is God-breathed in some sense, with a few parts, more is claimed. Perhaps most dramatically, with the ten commandments, God didn't just work through the historical process of the recording of events. These words were written with by the finger of God. In the Exodus version, right after the specifics of the commandment about the Sabbath, God's finger wrote in 20:11, “For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy. ”<br /><br />However, Deuteronomy 5 disagrees regard precisely what God's finger wrote. In that version, the fourth commandment is followed in verse 15 by “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day.”<br /><br />Even ignoring the question of the degree of similarity and differences, which version did God's finger write? I don't typically hear the phrase “written by God in stone” and think of it as something quite so flexible. As is so often the case, there is an enormous difference between having actual reasons to think that God's finger wrote something, and having a book that claims God helped write it. To outsiders, it can be a bit strange that this isn't thought of more often, but we don't know that God really wrote the ten commandments just because the Bible tells us so. In fact, the Bible itself accidentally testifies that God's finger probably didn't write some or all of the ten commandments.<br /><br />This is a sticky enough of a question that I was not willing to charge ahead and draw deep theological conclusions out of a trouble text. Another way of saying this is that what the Bible says is so unclear, that even if it is true, trusting what one thinks it says would be unwise.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Genealogies</span><br /><br />Luke traces Jesus' genealogies all the way back to Adam. My half-answer was that I still believed in a literal Adam and a literal Fall about which all we know is myth. The reason this only halfway works is that I accepted science's dating of early civilizations that are older than the Bible suggests Adam to be by means of genealogies. However, before I was willing to trust the minute details of biblical genealogies, there were some major issues that had to be dealt with that are internal to the Bible.<br /><br />First off, Luke and Matthew's genealogies clash. Before giving a rehearsed answer of one being Mary's and the other being Joseph's, <span style="font-style: italic;">look them up</span>. “Jacob the father of Joseph” is clear in Matthew 1:16, and everyone agrees with this. Luke 3:23-24 says “[Jesus] was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat, ...” This communicates with great clarity that Heli was Joseph's father.<br /><br />The best inerrantist answer I've seen to this is that the repetitions of “the son” are not present in the original – they are incorrectly added words in English to smooth out the grammar. The literal translation is then “[Jesus] was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, of Heli, of Matthat ...” where the implication is “Jesus son of Heli, Jesus son of Matthat, ...” And then the way this is consistent with Matthew is that this is merely a list of Jesus' ancestors without implications of their relationships to each other, and thus Heli could be Mary's father.<br /><br />This is quite strained, but I accepted the explanation for quite a while. However, notice that it means that Luke failed to communicate clearly. You must twist the text to even get to the point where Heli <span style="font-style: italic;">could </span>be Mary's father. What we know with certainty is that Luke didn't tell us that Heli is Mary's father. Telling us that Heli is related to Jesus because he's Mary's father is, in fact, precisely the sort of thing that genealogies are supposed to communicate. If you just read Luke and trust it to be reliable, you will conclude that Heli is Joseph's father. Perhaps the genealogies in Genesis are the same, and they need to be viewed with a grain of salt – meaning science.<br /><br />Also, in several places Matthew's genealogy skips generations that appear in the OT. He doesn't tell us why, but presumably, his reason for doing this is to turn it into a clever 14-14-14 pattern. He also fails to make to 14-14-14 pattern work by only coming up with 14+14+13=41 names. If you double-count one name it works out. But there is a commonly accepted term for counting something twice: a mistake. I just don't see why I should take the OT genealogies more seriously than the NT writers took them.<br /><br />Furthermore, the Bible is consistently quite bad at getting numbers right. Jesus died on Friday and rose on Sunday, and yet Matthew 12:40 says Jesus was dead for three days and three nights. I'm very curious about which three nights these might have been. While I'm sure Matthew knew how to count, the point is that to think the numbers in the Bible are mathematically accurate is, at best, to misunderstand the Bible. To argue against evolution based on the genealogies is to assume their mathematical accuracy.<br /><br /><a href="http://failingtheinsidertest.blogspot.com/2009/02/evolution-and-holocaust.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Evolution leads to the Holocaust</span></a><br /><br />Suppose for the sake of argument that it does. God told Moses <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=numbers%2031:1-18;&version=49;%E2%80%9D">to slaughter the Midianites</a>, including the male children. (The soldiers were commanded to save the girls “for themselves.”) What would become of society if everyone believed in a ideology that condones genocide?<br /><br />The ease with which Christians see the depravity of the Holocaust is the ease with which I see the depravity of the Bible.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Problem of Pain</span><br /><br />Not accepting YEC certainly makes the problem of pain more difficult. Instead of physical death being something that followed the curse of sin, it's present as part of the original creation. But if you believe in hell as I did, this objection is bizarre. The majority of humanity is supposedly going to be tortured for eternity because <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans%209:18-20;&version=49;%E2%80%9D">God didn't call them</a>. And yet if God's plan involves animals living finite and painful lives this is supposed to be something that indicts God as cruel and unloving.<br /><br />What's going on is very simple. When God's the sadistic keeper of a medieval torture chamber filled with heretics and it's part of my theology, it's just something that I'm supposed to <span style="font-style: italic;">struggle </span>with until I can train myself to realize that it's what justice really means – if I don't accept the answer, then my sin is causing me to have a warped understanding of what a loving God is really like. <span style="font-style: italic;">But think of the bunnies!</span> Look at them! A loving God wouldn't design a system where mean coyotes eat cute little bunny rabbits. If your theology says that God created lots of bunnies to die for no reason better than lunch, that means you are calling God evil. Is seems as though the YEC God is one of the founding members of PETA.<br /><br />Of course, that's not to say the problem of animal pain is trivial. But it seems more like a concern for a universalist, an annihilationist, or at least someone who thinks God was genuinely surprised by Adam's rebellion and the necessity for hell. Otherwise, it's like a vegan wanting to venerate Stalin for being so loving but first stopping to ponder the moral implications of his occasional steak.<br /><br />There is actually is a way that an evolutionary story of life can fit with the YEC doctrine of the physical death of animals being due to sin. Maybe God created the first bacterium to live forever. But before he had a chance to split, it rebelled and ate of the forbidden lactose. And then animals inherited its sin, for which they are personally (animally?) responsible, and that's why animals deserved to die for billions of years. I may not have evidence showing it actually happened, but you don't have evidence saying it didn't happen. It also may not make a lot of sense to one's mind, but maybe it's just the kind of thing that should be accepted by faith and believed in one's heart. (By the way, Pascal's wager calls for the baptizing of your pets.)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Why did God take so long?</span><br /><br />This is a really good question. It doesn't make much sense for God to create billions of years of existence for the cosmos when the center of his attention is alive for only thousands of years. But similarly, why did God created billions of light years and billions of stars most of which no person will ever see? As a theistic evolution, I thought it was weird that creationists ask only the first. While I appreciate the consistency of asking neither, I now ask both.<br /><br />Similarly, why did God wait so long after the Fall to send Jesus? Why make so many animals die as pointless sacrifices? Why spent so much time between Abraham and Jesus with only the Jews and a scattering of Gentiles having a real chance to know him? Christians' reaction to this is fairly predictable. God has a plan. We don't always understand it, but it's quite presumptuous for us to think we could have done better than him. This is precisely how I hope creationist readers react to these questions. Here's the kicker: why not give theistic evolutionists/old earth creationists the same leniency? Maybe God made the universe old for a similar “reason” – it's part of his plan that we can't understand.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Paul's use of Genesis</span><br /><br />When talking about the Fall, Paul says that death entered the world through one man's sin. While this isn't clear at all, especially because Adam didn't physically die on the day he ate the fruit, I'll suppose for the sake of argument that we know that Paul is talking about not just spiritual death and not just about human death, but physical death and animal death as well.<br /><br />But since when have the NT authors been a valid source concerning what the OT actually says? When God makes a promise to Abraham's seed, <a href="http://failingtheinsidertest.blogspot.com/2008/11/hermeneutics-of-paul-seed-and-seeds.html">is seed singular or plural</a>? If singular, I would like to know the verse of Genesis that helped you reach this conclusion. If plural, then Paul was not only wrong about what the OT says, but this faulty understanding was his basis for a theological argument about the promise to the Jews being transferred to Christians.<br /><br />So maybe Paul was a young-earth creationist, Paul was wrong, and Paul tangentially communicated these false ideas in the process of communicating true theological ideas about Jesus' death. And we're still supposed to believe these theological truths even after learning the debunking of the argument for these theological truths. The ease with which YECists see the weakness in this position is the ease with which I look at Galatians 3 and see that it is false.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Blurring the Line Between Man and Animals</span><br /><br />Another problem is that evolution blurs the line between man and animals. And it certainly does. This means “human” is not a yes/no question, but rather a question of degree. There are ways around this like believing that in a certain moment in time, God gave an animal that looked like an ape-man a soul, but this isn't as clean of an answer as the one provided by creationism.<br /><br />Consider <a href="http://failingtheinsidertest.blogspot.com/2008/10/life-begins-at-conception.html">embryonic development</a>. The same problem appears. We have a smooth transition between non-human sperm and egg to a fully human baby. This cannot be evaded by just “believing” God creates a soul at conception. Theistic evolutionists believe that God created the first human soul at some point in the evolution process, and YECists don't let them get away with this equally evidence-free claim. Here, the problem is even worse. At least with evolution, you could go back 40,000 years and look at a child and say it is human while the parents were animals – while the line may be arbitrary, at least the line can't be blurred further by looking at the generation between the child and the parents. But with embryonic development, it's a fully smooth transition. YECists easily see that a mostly smooth transition from animal to human suggests that talk of a soul or being created in the image of God doesn't make sense. With the same ease, I see that embryonic development shows the concept of a soul to be nonsensical.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Randomness</span><br /><br />In Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology, on page 276 he writes “The fundamental difference between a biblical view of creation and theistic evolution lies here: the driving force … is randomness.” This is tangential, but this is a common misconception about evolution. Evolution is like the weather – it's a process involving randomness. Due to the randomness of weather I can only guess within ten or twenty degrees what the temperature will be in a week. But I could guess the average temperature for 2010 within a degree or two (and without knowing about global warming.) Due to random effects averaging out, a process that looks chaotic on a small scale is often one that behaves predictably on a larger scale. Evolution says that changes are the predictable long-term result.<br /><br />But theologically speaking, the misunderstanding doesn't change the implications. In theistic evolution, God's guidance of evolution looks precisely the way it would look if it looked like he stopped caring billions of years ago.<br /><br />However, the same issue of randomness appears when thinking through the implications of actuarial science. If you know the rate at which heart attacks occur, and you know the size of the population, you can make a very good guess about how many people in the population will have heart attacks. For a more precise prediction, you don't pray to learn the will of God. You learn more about the population, like their age distribution. Actuarial science requires thinking about death in terms of the naturalistic cause and effect that comes from supposing death is left up to chance. And it works. This means that the way in which God takes away life looks precisely the way it would look if it looked like God doesn't care. There are less fatalist ways of saying this, but it's no different than the spin creationists universally give to evolution. Personally, I find the threat actuarial science and statistics pose to believing God still cares about death to be far more severe than the threat evolution poses to believing God cared while creating.<br /><br />YECists show the proper approach to theistic evolution – skepticism toward the meaningfulness of talking about a creator who is indistinguishable from no creator at all. With the same ease, I apply this same skepticism to Christianity and see that the reasoning behind actuarial science supports the conclusion that God doesn't exist or doesn't care.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Problems in the Local Flood</span><br /><br />Most old earth creationists and theistic evolutionists believe that Noah's flood was a local flood (a myth is the alternative.) The Bible talks about the whole world as a hyperbole in many places, so perhaps here as well. To this position, YECists have an <a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v21/i3/flood.asp">excellent response</a>. Why didn't Noah just migrate several hundred miles? Why not just have the birds fly a few hundred miles away? Noah had a hundred years to kill, so I don't suppose finding the time to pack would have been too burdensome.<br /><br />I really like this objection. It's an excellent reason to not believe in the local flood. What I like so much about it is the underlying assumption that if a plan is completely illogical, then an omniscient God probably didn't come up with it. This assumption comes as naturally as the basic rules of logic – unless one's own beliefs are under the microscope.<br /><br />So here's my question: Why didn't God just smite everyone and skip the whole flood thing entirely? This would have saved so much trouble for everyone. Noah could have preached about coming judgment for years and he could have shown he believed his own message by making provisions for surviving on his own. I would be interested in hearing if there are any reasons to send a flood at all that don't also defend the idea of having Noah build an ark for a local flood. Maybe there are reasons, but I could throw in an extra miracle or two if they are needed for the practicality of my smiting proposal.<br /><br />With the local flood, YECists show the proper way of thinking about dramatic claims about what God did. If the story has God commanding a lot of pointless milling about, this should count strongly against its chance of being true. By applying the same skepticism to the global flood that creationists apply to the local flood, I reject the story of Noah even without the scientific and <a href="http://failingtheinsidertest.blogspot.com/2009/03/two-flood-stories.html">biblical</a> cases against it.<br /><br />Reconciling the Bible with evolution is really quite easy compared to reconciling the Bible with the Bible and other realities in the here and now. Creationists' ability to see the problems in my answers to comparably easy questions helped me see how contrived both our answers were to the hard questions.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Failing The Insider Test</span><br /><br />Small step at a time, I moved my theology a bit while staying inside what I thought was inside. I would wait a bit, and my idea of “inside” would be stretched with me. After moving a moderate distance, I thought that where I came from was inside while the painful truth is that where I came from thought I was outside. This placed me in a curious position: YEC was still inside to me, YEC viewed me as an outsider, I was seeking to fully understand different positions within my idea of orthodoxy, and therefore the logically inevitable result was <a href="http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2009/03/outsider-test-for-faith_20.html">viewing my faith as an outsider</a>.<br /><br />I don't remember if anyone ever told me that I would reject Christianity if I used the same skepticism toward it that I use toward every other religion. If so, I don't remember it because it made no impact on my thinking. But eventually, I found myself looking at creationists and seeing that if they were to apply the same critical thinking to their own beliefs that they apply to mine, they would stop being Christians. Conversely, if I thought about my own faith the way other Christians thought about my faith, I would stop being a Christian.<br /><br />While I thought my way out of many aspects of faith, here I simply got lucky. The desire and ability to think critically about my own beliefs was a very small part of the final step out. Thinking critically about my own beliefs was forced upon me as an unintended consequence of other decisions that were much easier to make. Perhaps this is the difference between me and Christians smarter than I am.<br /><br />While many of the arguments against Christianity work just fine as academic arguments, I doubt this can be written so that readers will feel the weight of the argument as I did. It took the grind of over two years of not only trying to fit evolution in with Christianity, but trying to fit evolution in with the Christian community to see the blatant inconsistencies on both sides. It's not a matter of people being dogmatic or whatever negative adjective you want to throw in. It's simply the predictable clash of incompatible beliefs – or rather, different Christianities.<br /><br />My YEC and inerrantist Christianity failed the insider test because the arguments against it are so solid that any perspective save for closing one's eyes is sufficient to see it. My TE Christianity failed the insider test because even the very idea of an insider test failed the insider test. To define “inside” as bigger than “me” was to include people who don't agree on everything. To be willing to have candid conversations with other Christians who believed a bit differently and to honestly seek to understand where they were coming from was to look at many of my own beliefs and critically think through if I had reasons for believing them or not. Sociological circumstances turned this into looking at all of my beliefs with skepticism.<br /><br />Few faiths, if any, can survive under the scrutiny that everyone applies to everyone else's faith. Truth has nothing to fear from inspection and Christianity should be terrified. My mortally wounded faith staggered on for a while, but my fate had been sealed. I had escaped.<br /></span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-27291359004117725322009-04-12T01:26:00.012-04:002011-05-22T17:34:37.103-04:00The New Testament's Most Dramatic Miracle<span style="font-family:times new roman;">According to Matthew 27:52-53, right after Jesus died, “The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many.” I know poking fun at this story is like dissing Paris Hilton. It's just so easy that it's almost dishonorable. Almost.<br /><br />Besides that fact that people are being raised from the dead, this is a very strange story. Why did they come out of the tombs <span style="font-weight: bold;">after</span><span> Jesus' </span>resurrection? Did they find little scrolls in their coffins with messages like “Hey, I apologize if this sounds a bit contrived, but when Jesus yelled, I just felt like someone needed to rise from the dead. I don't actually want you seen in public until Sunday. I apologize for the inconvenience. Signed, Yahweh.”<br /><br />While I don't understand the motivation behind the newly raised saints' behavior, I'm sure Jesus appreciated the way they didn't steal his thunder by showing up first. If they had rushed the whole process of, you know, trying out their legs again, exploring the countryside anew, </span><span style="font-family:times new roman;">telling people they aren't dead, </span><span style="font-family:times new roman;">they could have really screwed things up. Imagine what would have happened had they not hung out in their graves for three (meaning two) days. With so many resurrected people running around appearing to many people, by the time we get to Easter morning Jesus would appear to people and they'd be like “Yeah, you used to be dead and now you're not. We know. You aren't the first and if you ask me, I really don't think you'll be the last.” I can just imagine ten of the disciples insisting that Jesus is dead, while Thomas is like “Until I see his corpse with my own eyes, and smell his rotting flesh with my own nose, I will believe that he has been raised from the dead just like everyone else!”<br /><br />It could have been especially bothersome if only one of the newly raised saints, call him Brian, didn't quite understand what was going on. Suppose Brian came into the Jerusalem on Good Friday. People would naturally conclude that he was the first. They might even assume that because he's first, he must have been the one responsible for all the other resurrections. In reply, someone might still claim that it was really Jesus who raised Brian. “Jesus? Jesus couldn't have done it. He was dead!” You got to admit, as far as the soundness of air-tight alibis go, this one is pretty near the top. Before you knew it, there would be a whole new sect of Judaism venerating the life of Brian and all because of a hapless resurrectees misunderstanding of what a newly raised corpse is supposed to do with oneself.<br /><br />In a little closer to all seriousness, I'd bet Matthew wanted to write “and coming out of the tombs they entered the holy city.” But the more he thought about it, the more it took away from Jesus' Resurrection, so he just had to add some sort of qualifier to keep Jesus at the head of the story. These do not look like the words of someone accurately recording what actually happened. It can be astounding just how much easier it is to explain how it is that we have a story about a miraculous event than it is to explain the miraculous event itself.<br /><br />But true or not, I'm rather disappointed that these two little verses are all we get to hear about this amazing event. As <a href="http://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/reason31.htm">Thomas Paine wrote</a>:<br /><br />“Had it been true, it would have filled up whole chapters of those books, and been the chosen theme and general chorus of all the writers; but instead of this, little and trivial things, and mere prattling conversations of, he said this, and he said that, are often tediously detailed, while this, most important of all, had it been true, is passed off in a slovenly manner by a single dash of the pen, and that by one writer only, and not so much as hinted at by the rest.<br /><br />“It is an easy thing to tell a lie, but it is difficult to support the lie after it is told. The writer of the book of Matthew should have told us who the saints were that came to life again, and went into the city, and what became of them afterward, and who it was that saw them – for he is not hardy enough to say he saw them himself; whether they came out naked, and all in natural buff, he-saints and she-saints; or whether they came full dressed, and where they got their dresses; whether they went to their former habitations, and reclaimed their wives, their husbands, and their property, and how they were received; whether they entered ejectments for the recovery of their possessions, or brought actions of crim. con. against the rival interlopers; whether they remained on earth, and followed their former occupation of preaching or working; or whether they died again, or went back to their graves alive, and buried themselves.<br /><br />“Strange, indeed, that an army of saints should return to life, and nobody know who they were, nor who it was that saw them, and that not a word more should be said upon the subject, nor these saints have anything to tell us! Had it been the prophets who (as we are told) had formerly prophesied of these things, they must have had a great deal to say. They could have told us everything and we should have had posthumous prophecies, with notes and commentaries upon the first, a little better at least than we have now. Had it been Moses and Aaron and Joshua and Samuel and David, not an unconverted Jew had remained in all Jerusalem. Had it been John the Baptist, and the saints of the time then present, everybody would have known them, and they would have out-preached and out-famed all the other apostles. But, instead of this, these saints were made to pop up, like Jonah's gourd in the night, for no purpose at all but to wither in the morning.”<br /><br />Even if you think that miracles happen all the time, this story still fails to maintain a shred of reasonableness. Left unexplained are why the risen saints waited until Sunday, why Matthew tells us so little about them, why no other Gospel writer mentions it, and why we have no secular record of them. It doesn't explain why Peter didn't point out one of the newly Resurrected saints on Pentecost or use the resurrections many of them had seen as evidence for the resurrection that they didn't see. I would have thought that he would have understood the audience appeal of a dead guy walking around.<br /><br />But there is an extraordinarily simple theory that explains all of this. It didn't happen. Things like this should be taken into consideration when deciding if Matthew's more famous tale of a resurrection deserves to be taken seriously.</span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-62440359166531767602009-04-09T17:05:00.007-04:002009-04-09T17:46:19.678-04:00Human Irrationality<span style="font-family:times new roman;">The theology blog <a href="http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2009/04/the-strange-case-of-sir-arthur-conan-doyle-houdini-and-romans-1/">Parchment and Pen</a> had a recent post about human irrationality. It begins with one of Paul's most quoted lines: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth by their unrighteousness, because what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them."<br /><br />My slightly edited reply follows:<br /><br />Here's what you are saying about nontheists: you know you will suffer for eternity for choosing wrong, and yet you do so anyway, because you are just that retarded. While truth and offensiveness can coincide, it shuts off chances for dialogue.<br /><br />This is vastly more extreme than an atheist who responds to any anecdotal evidence with "you are superstitious and deluded" and to any rational argument with "you are simply justifying your delusions." While I think there is some merit to the truth value of these claims, it's completely patronizing and the extent to which I'm forced to fall back on argumentative tactics like these is the extent to which I don't have anything worth saying. And which is more insulting: you're so dumb that you think your imaginary friend is real, or you're so wicked that you deserve eternal torment and so dumb that you know it's coming and yet do nothing to try to stop it?<br /><br />Two Hitchens don't make a right, but this perspective is needed when deciding just how fiercely the new atheists' tone should be denounced, and if at all. And this isn't even an objection to the people in the church, but only to the words in the Bible itself.<br /><br />---<br /><br />I find it to be strange just how often Christians make arguments that either our reason cannot be trusted, or that people aren't nearly as reasonable as we think. It's not that these claims are false. The problem is that even if true, I don't see how it helps the case for Christianity at all. This is an argument that belongs on the agnostic side of either an agnostic v. atheist or an agnostic v. theist debate. If agnostics are "right", then either God exists and has not revealed himself, or atheists hold the right position for bad reasons.<br /><br />Just as it debunks the foundation under any argument against Christianity, it debunks the foundation under any reason to believe. If people are a lot dumber than we think, that makes it easier for a relationship with God to be something that's just in your head. It makes it easier for answers to prayer to simply be bad estimations of probability and selective memory of the "hits." It becomes even easier to understand the birth and growth of Christianity - if people are just that irrational, skeptics don't even need a theory to explain the sincere belief of the Gospel writers and Paul.<br /></span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-15015282831933730572009-03-02T02:23:00.009-05:002009-03-03T14:03:42.848-05:00The Two Flood Stories<span style="font-family:times new roman;">Sometimes surprises are hiding in plain sight. One of my biggest biblical shocks was when I first heard someone make a passing reference to the two flood stories. What? How could I not know about the second story if this is one of the many repeated stories in the Bible? How could someone mistakenly think there are two stories? This would lead to an enormous shift in the way I viewed the history of the writing of the Bible.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Contradiction</span><br /><br />I couldn't count how the dozens of times I've read the flood story straight out of the Bible. I was even told several times that Genesis contradicts itself by saying says seven of each kind in one place and two of each kind in another. But the reconciliation is easy: it was two of every unclean kind and seven pairs of every clean kind – right? No. In one place, it's two of every kind, and in the other, it's two of every unclean kind and seven pairs of every clean kind and bird.<br /><br />Genesis 6:19-20 “And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive.”<br /><br />Genesis 7:2-3 “You shall take with you of every clean animal by sevens, a male and his female; and of the animals that are not clean two, a male and his female; also of the birds of the sky, by sevens, male and female, to keep offspring alive on the face of all the earth.”<br /><br />It's not a matter of the “two of every kind” instruction being less detailed. Two of every bird is explicit in the first instruction, and seven pairs of every bird is explicit in the second version, just as it is with the clean animals. I find it to be incredible just how long it took me to notice this after having been trained by creation scientists to not see it.<br /><br />(Fellow skeptics and liberal Christians, take note: I would have noticed this one a lot sooner if I had been told that the Bible says two of each kind in one place, and two of unclean animals and seven pairs of clean animals and birds in another. If you screw this one up by saying two in one place and seven in another, Christians will remember 7:2-3 and know you are wrong.)<br /><br />But there is an odd objection to this contradiction. What sense does it make to for this mistake to have been made? <a href="http://failingtheinsidertest.blogspot.com/2009/01/jacob-and-genetics.html">Jacob's mistaken view of genetics</a> makes sense – the author didn't know about modern science and hence contradicted a truth that he had no way of knowing. But how could an author get this wrong? With something so blatant, is not the explanation that we misunderstanding the author more plausible than to call this a mistake? This discrepancy is not alone enough to support the conclusion I'm moving toward, so before stating it, I wish to first point out several other weirdnesses in the story.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Premeditated Lambslaughter</span><br /><br />Bible contradictions are often dismissed by non-inerrantists is as trivial details that do not matter to the story. I wouldn't hold a newspaper up to a standard of perfection. Surely a report getting the number of sheep in a zoo wrong doesn't compromise the truth of a story about a zoo's existence. But once we get to the ending of the story in 8:20-22, the apparently trivial detail of the number of animals on the ark shows itself to be critically important.<br /><br />If you plan on making sacrifices of the clean animals at the end, having extras of specifically the clean animals is a very good idea. If you only bring two of every kind like Genesis 6:19-20 says, and then sacrifice one of them when you get off the ark ... um ... that's quite the sacrifice. The pair could have had a baby in the year on the ark, but I wouldn't stretch my luck. (Also, mating in the ark lines up poorly with creationists' speculation that the animals on the ark hibernated.) So back at the beginning of the story, one of the sets of instructions quite specifically prepares for the sacrifices, while for the other set, a sacrifice would make for a comical blunder. Interestingly enough, the bit about the sacrifices isn't repeated like nearly everything else.<br /><br />(And why is Noah sacrificing only clean animals centuries before The Law? This is like Marco Polo stopping to celebrate Thanksgiving. Now, I know that the laws of God are written on mens' hearts, but an example of a particular law that I have not found written upon my heart is: “You may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and that chews the cud. There are some that only chew the cud or only have a split hoof, but you must not eat them.” Maybe Noah was wired differently than I am, but without the Bible, I certainly wouldn't have figured this one out.)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Choppy Narration</span><br /><br />Genesis 6:5-8 starts out with a coherent narrative. The earth is wicked and God decides to destroy mankind, except for Noah because he is righteous. But then all of a sudden, Genesis 6:9 begins the story all over again. Starting at verse 9 makes a great opener – Noah is righteous, the rest of the earth is corrupt, so God decides to destroy all mankind except for Noah and his family. In the 6:9-22 segment, God gives Noah detailed instruction about what to build, how many animals to bring on the ark, and Noah does everything he has been commanded to do.<br /><br />So now we should be ready to get on with the story. Next up should be actually entering the ark and the rain starting. But no, Genesis 7:1-4 takes us back a step and repeats some earlier information. Just like in 6:19-20 (well, not <span style="font-style: italic;">just</span> like), Noah is told how many animals to bring in 7:2-3. It is important to notice that I'm not just pointing out the mere fact of repetition, but the fact that this part of the story is different under a retelling.<br /><br />7:13 starts out with “On the very same day.” One would expect this to mean that the previous verse was something that happened on a particular day. “The final version of the Declaration of Independence was completed on July 4. On the very same day it was announced” makes sense. “The Declaration of Independence was written in June and July. On the very same day it was announced” does not make sense. 7:12's “The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights” leads into the grammar of 7:13 very poorly.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Two Calendars</span><br /><br />In 8:3-4, the days line up differently than might be expected. In 7:11, the flood starts on month 2, day 17. In 7:24, the water floods the earth for 150 days until 8:3's month 7, day 17. What's worth noting is that the forty days of rain are not in there. I'm not suggesting that the idea that the forty days of rain are the first forty of the 150 days is impossible – what I am saying is that the chronology in the form of months lines up seamlessly if you just ignore the forty days.<br /><br />8:6 tells us that “it came about at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window.” From a purely literal perspective, there is nothing wrong with this. But from a literary perspective, it's out of place. In 8:4 and 8:5, time is marked in absolute terms – the month and day. Now it switches back to talking in time intervals. But this alone would not be that significant of an observation. In 8:3, “at the end of one hundred and fifty days” isn't a new number – it refers back the 150 days the waters prevailed in 7:24. Similarly, 8:6 seems to be referring back to some previously mentioned forty days that are now over. Flood story. Forty days. What could this possibly be referring to? Why the forty days of rain in 7:4, 7:12, and 7:17. I don't mean to oversell the significance of these new forty days. Noah waits seven days before sending out the dove again, and no one suggests it is the same seven days from 7:4. However, it is worth noting that if you ignore the chronology in the form of months, 7:4, 7:12, 7:17, and 8:6 all fit together very nicely: “I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights … The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights … the flood came upon the earth for forty days … it came about at the end of forty days that Noah opened the window.” But if you insert 150 days between the third and fourth mention of forty days, the continuity is disrupted.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Two Birds</span><br /><br />In 8:7, a raven is sent out and flies around until “the water had dried up from the earth.” One bird later in 8:9, “there was water all over the surface of the earth.” I understand that “dry” and “water all over” are very relative terms, and in this story, the ground goes from being under miles of water, to under several feet of water, to being covered in pools of water, to horribly muddy, to “dry ground” in the sense of drier than a marsh, and finally to truly dry ground. But surely, the shades of meaning behind “there was water all over the surface of the earth” imply vastly more moisture than “the water had dried up from the earth.” It sounds like the raven wasn't sent out first, assuming these stories go together at all.<br /><br />What was the point of the second bird? If you have a raven that flies around until the earth dries up, why send a dove? If you have a dove that you can send out until it doesn't return, why send a raven? It's not that I think these problems are completely irreconcilable. What I'm saying is that sending either the raven or the dove is a much more natural story than sending both.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Two Flood Stories</span><br /><br />So here's a recap: Noah is introduced twice. There are two conflicting versions of the instructions about the animals. Verse 7:13 looks like it was written to come after something other than 7:12. The time is marked while switching between seven and forty day intervals and month-based time. Viewed together, the two systems are in tension. Viewed individually, the two systems make as much sense as should be expected from a narrative that coherently keeps track of time. After the ground dries up, water is all over the earth again. Noah redundantly sends out two birds. And after only one of the two sets of instructions prepared for a sacrifice, and the repetition of nearly every detail, we have but one account of a sacrifice.<br /><br />Suppose someone tried to harmonize Luke and John by cutting up each Gospel and putting them together in what they thought was the best order, added little or no extra-biblical text to smooth over the transitions, and just left the surface contradictions in place. If you only read the final product, you may or may not be able figure out which story went with which author – but you certainly would notice things like Jesus saying “it is finished” and dying followed by saying “into your hands I commit my spirit” and then dying a second time. You also might notice switches between two different writing styles. If you could fully split it up into the two sources this would greatly add to the case for two authors, but it wouldn't be essential to an argument that there are two authors. That's what the Documentary Hypothesis says the Torah is – the splicing together of primarily four sources. In the case of the flood story, there are two different authors.<br /><br />Start with 6:5-8 and call this story A. 6:9-22 is a continuous piece and it's not A, so call it story B. 7:1-5 is a continuous piece and it isn't B, so it's part of A. (My A and B are usually called J and P, but I'm setting up my argument as step one in making the case for a JEPD source theory, not an argument in support of an existing theory. I'm using my own letters so I can't subliminally cheat and take advantage of what people know about J and P through other means.)<br /><br />In what we have so far of A, the deity is called the LORD (Yahweh) all six times. In B, the deity is called God (Elohim) all five times. In A, there are sevens of some kinds and pairs of others, while in B there is a single pair of each kind. These differences are even more striking because they show up together in the rest of the flood story. In 7:8-9 and 7:14-16a, there are two of each kind and they come as Elohim commanded (both B.) In 8:20-22, Noah utilizes the extra clean animals and sacrifices to Yahweh (both A.)<br /><br />From this point on, most my arguments are that this particular way of splitting the text in two is the correct split. They are not meant to be arguments that a split is correct, only that if a split is correct, this is the correct one.<br /><br />Based on the names of God used, to A we can add 7:16b, and to B we can add 8:1 and 8:15-19.<br /><br />Because the first mention of the seven days until forty days of rain is in 7:4 which is A, we can place the month-based verses in B and the other time interval verses in A. To A we can add 7:10, 7:12, 7:17, and 8:6. To B we can add 7:11, 7:24, 8:3-5, 8:13a, and 8:14.<br /><br />One of the most obvious seams in the story is between 7:12 and 7:13. 7:12 is A already and so 7:13 is B. This fits nicely with 7:14-16a already being labeled B. 7:13's “On the very same day” now makes sense because it directly follows 7:11's “on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth.”<br /><br />In A, the floods come because it starts raining in 7:4 and 7:12. But in B, the floods come because the windows of heaven and fountains of the deep are opened in 7:11. And hence 8:2a is B, while 8:2b is A.<br /><br />The dove account marks time not only in time intervals but also in seven days like A, rather than speaking in months like B. So 8:8-12 is A and the raven in 8:7 is B.<br /><br />This leaves 7:6-7, 7:18-23, 8:13b without a clear story. I didn't leave them out because they don't fit, but because at my low level of OT scholarship, it works either way. There is no reason to open myself to criticism by guessing poorly, or doing “too well” and cleverly splitting them so as to create coherence in two accounts of my construction rather than discovering coherence in two accounts as they actually exist.<br /><br />If you look at the accounts <a href="http://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/cflood.htm">side-by-side</a>, you can see two complete stories. Of course, I haven't completely argued for this splitting, but I have no disagreements with it, and it's certainly easier to see than pulling out a Bible and trying to read 7:1-5, 7, 9-10, 12, etc.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dissenting Opinions</span><br /><br />One criticism is especially important for me to point out because I held <a href="http://failingtheinsidertest.blogspot.com/2008/09/arguments-of-josh-mcdowell-seventy.html">Josh McDowell's</a> feet to the fire for a very similar problem. Of course, if I thought my case was even close to equally open to criticism, I wouldn't have written this post at all – but it's open enough that I feel the need to point it out.<br /><br />The problem is that googling “two flood stories” brings up pages with slightly to significantly different ideas about what verses go in which story. The top 3 agree on how to split 6:1-7:5 and 8:8-22, but for the middle third of the story, two are similar while the third is in a world by itself. The cheap defense is that I'm right and he's wrong – while this is not necessarily false, I didn't throw McDowell this line, so I won't depend on it myself. The key difference between the two situations is that McDowell needs <span style="font-style: italic;">every single detail</span> in his argument for it to work <span style="font-style: italic;">at all</span>. If someone disagrees with his starting event, his ending event, or the time between them by a single day, then their entire arguments are contradictory.<br /><br />If two people disagree on the authors of <a href="http://www.energion.com/rpp/flood.shtml">only a few verses</a>, then the remaining points of agreement do support each other. Furthermore, details of the unweaving are not even required to argue for two authors. My arguments about the conflicting concepts like one pair/seven pairs, raven/dove, forty days/months, Yahweh/Elohim all stand without figuring out what goes together. People getting different answers is evidence that the stories cannot be fully and definitively separated (or at least not easily.) Contradictory opinions on even significant details is not a rebuttal to the evidence that there are two authors in the first place.<br /><br />To present a broad theory and only then look back and see if the evidence supports it is a form of reasoning that easily admits <a href="http://sol.sci.uop.edu/%7Ejfalward/Two_Flood_Stories.htm">poor arguments</a>. He writes “But, what really <span style="font-style: italic;">proves </span>beyond any doubt that there were two authors—not one--is the wealth of unique correspondences found in disconnected passages.” This is quite inconvenient for me because with several of the correspondences (seven/seventh/seventeen, six hundred years, and probably sons), I think the correspondences don't really exist in the correct splitting.<br /><br />The way scholarship is supposed to work is to begin with evidence and show how the evidence itself points toward the theory. <span style="font-style: italic;">Every single piece</span> of the theory must be <span style="font-style: italic;">individually</span> supported. One cannot bind up related claims into one package and use truth by association. When this is done, five good ideas get mixed with five bad ideas and yet the overall theory has real evidence in support of it due to the parts of it that are true. For instance, he's not completely wrong about one author caring about the number seven, so some of the correlation he's finding isn't just a coincidence. The problem is that lots of authors of the Bible liked the number seven, so you can't just go by that. He writes “Not once does the [Elohim] author use the numbers seven, seventh, seventeen.” Yes, but only in 7:1-5 is seven associated with Yahweh, so that's not saying very much. This is the problem with just presenting a split – it's not clear when you have found a characteristic of one author and when you have simply moved similar verses to one side.<br /><br />But still, the only reason he can find two stories at all is because there really are two stories which provide an abundance of repetition that makes it very easy to divide Genesis 6-8 into two complete stories. But that is not to say it is easy to <span style="font-style: italic;">correctly </span>divide Genesis 6-8 into the real two stories from which it came.<br /><br />There are drawbacks to arguing from the evidence instead of starting with the theory and showing it has evidence in support of it. It's much, much more work and when you get done, it might not be the answer you wanted. But that is the price of knowledge.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What it Means for Christianity</span><br /><br />While this alone need not undermine Christianity, it can and should very greatly change how the Bible is viewed. It seriously undermines inerrancy by the mere idea that the “surface” discrepancies are actual discrepancies that come from different authors. But it also makes perfect sense for more liberal Christians to use this to make the case that the problems conservatives have come not from the Bible itself, but from misunderstanding what sort of a book it is. Historically speaking, these arguments did originate from within Christianity. (And this is not just because they were “liberal Christians.” These are the reasons many are liberal in the first place.)<br /><br />But there are two features in particular that are especially difficult to reconcile with Christianity. The first is that this means Moses didn't write Genesis 6-8, or at least not in the way conservatives think he did. Even if Moses wrote the original flood story, which split into two different traditions and were later merged, the Genesis version isn't Moses' version. Or maybe Moses was the compiler of earlier and contradictory sources, but this is vastly different from the idea that God quite nearly dictated the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai. And yet Jesus talks about the Law as if Moses wrote it. Of course, we could be misunderstanding Jesus and he might have meant the Law as the legal code rather than the Torah, but the hope that Moses at least wrote the legal code does not survive the remainder of the Documentary Hypothesis. The possibility that Jesus as a man was ignorant of the real authors is possible, but saying that something Jesus said that is directly relevant to core doctrine was wrong is a very dangerous direction to move in for conservative Christianity.<br /><br />The second problem is that it makes belief in the inspiration of the autograph of the Bible look completely arbitrary. Why not look to the two flood stories pre-combination for the inspired version? If the two stories have a common literary source, why not look to that as the inspired version? Why look to the combination in Genesis? Why not go a step further and say that the Septuagint or the King James Version is inspired? Even under the assumption that something Bible-related is inspired by God, to say it is the original Hebrew of Genesis and not the true original seems just as arbitrary as randomly pointing to an English translation and assuming it to be inspired.<br /><br />When you come to Genesis 6-8 with the Documentary Hypothesis in mind, the text makes sense. But that's not point. You don't have to come to Genesis 6-8 with the Documentary Hypothesis to come away with it. This is what it means for evidence to support a position. Countering with how it might be a single story isn't an argument. The consistency of evidence with a position is not enough – real evidence for a position is evidence that has the ability to point someone to a conclusion they don't already accept or even know about.<br /><br />Of course, I have only provided evidence to get as far as two authors of Genesis 6-8 – that isn't the Documentary Hypothesis yet, but it's a start.<br /><br />(Kudos to Richard Elliott Friedman's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wrote-Bible-Richard-Elliott-Friedman/dp/0060630353">Who Wrote the Bible</a>. My argument is set up very differently than his and hence any errors are mine, but his book and a private email greatly enhanced my partial understanding of this topic.)</span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-36940677821625723472009-02-09T02:52:00.006-05:002009-04-12T02:19:36.902-04:00Evolution and the Holocaust<span style="font-family:times new roman;">One argument against evolution that comes up exasperating often is that evolution taken to its logical conclusion resulted in the Holocaust. This is rather like a gay person deciding to reject electromagnetic theory because they dislike the cultural impact of laws like “opposite charges attract.” It's only funny until millions of people believe it and vote accordingly.<br /><br />This is such an inflammatory argument that it is rarely is given a passionless rebuttal. Shouting back at it is an enormous rhetorical mistake. All you have to blow on it a bit and the whole thing collapses marvelously.<br /><br />To justify the Holocaust with evolution requires four different conclusions. First, it is logically possible that some races are better or more fit than other races. Second, Aryans are in fact superior and Jews are in fact inferior. Third, eugenics could effectively be used to advance evolution. Fourth, doing so is morally right. The Theory of Evolution fails to be at fault in all four steps.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Are Some Races Inferior?</span><br /><br />The first issue is whether or not evolution creates a basis for racism by providing a basis for the possibility of one race being better than another. And it certainly does. It is logically possible that one race is more fit than another due to evolution.<br /><br />However, different races are all part of the same species. So we're talking about microevolution. Creationists accept microevolution, so it makes absolutely no difference which view of origins you accept. Poodles and wolves are part of the same species and differ only due to microevolution – one certainty need not believe in their equality. Similarly, it might be the case that one race has better genes than another regardless of your theory of origins.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Which Races Are Inferior?</span><br /><br />Evolutionary theory does not tell us which race is superior, or even if a superior race exists at all. If someone wants to argue that evolution led to the Holocaust, the least they could do is explain how evolution leads to a negative view of Jews or any of the other races that were targeted.<br /><br />The hatred of the Jews had nothing to do with Darwin. It goes back to at least the Middle Ages and is due in large part to religious differences and anti-Jewish propaganda spread by the church. This component of the case for the Holocaust comes not from a distortion of evolution, but a distortion of Christianity.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Is Eugenics Effective?</span><br /><br />How do you get rid of Jews? You kill them, or otherwise prevent them from reproducing. Any view of science sufficiently advanced to realize that Jewish children typically come from Jewish parents will reach this conclusion. Of course, I'm not talking about ethics, I'm only asking if a worldwide Holocaust would have accomplished Hitler's goal. The answer is yes. This hardly shows us the evils of believing that children usually look like their parents.<br /><br />A harder question is if killing the weak and disabled would have a noticeable effect upon improving the human race's gene pool. Would it take three generations to see a difference? One thousand? Would it never help at all? But notice that the question here is about the effectiveness of a particular means of reducing the frequency of particular alleles so that a less fit homo sapiens population can become a more fit homo sapiens population. Or in other words, eugenics deals with microevolution, which is kind of funny, because creationists accept microevolution. Thus, it is not defenders of macroevolution who are inadvertently making the case for eugenics – we explicitly argue that evolution doesn't imply eugenics. The people whose rhetoric makes the case for eugenics are creationists.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Is Eugenics Morally Acceptable?</span><br /><br />The alleged reason that evolution defends the morality of eugenics is that in evolution, life progresses through struggle and death. While there are some awkward moral issues if you believe that a loving God set it up to work this way, evolution itself does not say anything about the morality of the process. Evolution is a description of how the process works.<br /><br />To argue that the efficacy of survival of the fittest somehow implies that a Darwinian society should be our goal is the “is-ought” fallacy. This is rather like telling the child of a rape victim that because their existence is good, they must believe rape to be morally acceptable. Or rather, it is like the child concluding that he wasn't conceived by means of rape because the moral implications of this would just be too terrible to be true. Evolution is merely a theory about the manner in which it happened – this isn't a moral claim, and only the barest amount of common sense is needed to see this.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Conclusion</span><br /><br />I don't reject Christianity because Hitler also used religious language to defend hatred of the Jews. I don't even fault religion for Hitler's use of religious language – this would only be relevant if the Bible actually taught people to hate the Jews. The question is if Hitler's evolutionary case for the Holocaust was valid.<br /><br />It is difficult to overstate just how bad the case for evolution leading to the Holocaust is, or just how badly it reflects on creationists' integrity. Ignorance is no excuse for falsely accusing others of harboring mass murderers. All you have to know to see through the argument is that different races are part of the same species, and thus the origin and extent of racial differences are questions for microevolution. I can more easily forgive the good-faith mistake of accepting many of creationists' other arguments, as they at least require some level of scientific knowledge to be refuted. But this takes next to nothing to be refuted and still it is a <span style="font-style: italic;">mainstream </span>creationist argument. Just how gullible do creationists have to be for their leaders to be able to get away with this kind of thing for decades on end without an enormous backlash from within? Well, there actually is a backlash from within. We, the former creationists, are vilified for “trusting the reasoning of man.” When a group has catchphrases that antagonize people for the sin of thinking, there is no limit to what they will believe.<br /></span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-80036487482621682212009-01-29T00:50:00.006-05:002009-04-12T02:29:03.876-04:00Jacob and Genetics<span style="font-family:times new roman;">For Christians who think Genesis' creation story is other than myth, science poses a great threat. But rather than arguing that they are taking the Bible too seriously, I'm going to take the opposite approach. If creationists really want to stand up for the Bible, they need to be less selective in the sciences that they deny. We should have a controversy over genetics, too.<br /><br />Genesis 30:25-43 is the story of the negotiations over Jacob's wages. Laban had little when Jacob began to live with him, but now he's rich. They both recognize the role played by Jacob in producing the wealth, but Laban's wealth is still his to give.<br /><br />Laban: If now it pleases you, stay with me; I have divined that the LORD has blessed me on your account. Name me your wages, and I will give it.<br /><br />Jacob: You shall not give me anything. If you will do this one thing for me, I will again pasture and keep your flock: let me pass through your entire flock today, removing from there every speckled and spotted sheep and every black one among the lambs and the spotted and speckled among the goats; and such shall be my wages. So my honesty will answer for me later, when you come concerning my wages. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, will be considered stolen.<br /><br />(Don't let the precision of the NASB distract from the humor. This is the feigned courtesy of two guys who are trying to swindle each other.)<br /><br />Next Jacob separates the flocks with the white ones in Laban's flock, and the rest in his flock. But Jacob is still working for Laban and hence has the ability to bolster his own flock without actually breaking any rules. What he does is show the white sheep striped rods while they are mating. Sure enough, the sheep who were shown stripes give birth to striped lambs, and Jacob claims them. Also, he wasn't content to just get random sheep; he wanted the best.<br /><br />Genesis 30:41-42 “Moreover, whenever the stronger of the flock were mating, Jacob would place the rods in the sight of the flock in the gutters, so that they might mate by the rods; but when the flock was feeble, he did not put them in; so the feebler were Laban's and the stronger Jacob's.”<br /><br />And so Jacob the deceiver wins this round due to his brilliant scheme.<br /><br />However, what is to be made of this story due to genetic theory? To apply creationist reasoning to it, we can't rely on the conclusions of geneticists because they are atheistic scientists who assume that God doesn't create new genes. (Also, it's called genetic <i>theory</i>. That's means scientists don't really know if it's true or not.) Every time you see a genetics chart of the alleles of the parents and the potential offspring, think to yourself “naturalistic presuppositions.”<br /><br />For whatever reason, here Christians are willing to bend the clear meaning of the Bible so that it can be consistent with reality. So how can the striped offspring be explained? You guessed it, Goddidit.<br /><br />But look back at the story. Where are we told that God intervened to make the plan work? Jacob conned Esau into giving away his birthright without a miracle – Esau was exhausted and a fool. Jacob conned Issac out of Esau's blessing without a miracle – Rebekah helped him, he used goat skins to fake hairiness(!), he wore Esau's clothes to smell right, and mostly he took advantage of Issac's poor eyesight and senility. Laban conned Jacob into sleeping with Leah the night Jacob thought he was marrying Rachel, although the Bible's a bit short on details regarding the logistics of how this one was pulled off. Just like all the other tricks, Jacob's plan via striped rods worked. Jacob was crafty, and “so the feebler were Laban's and the stronger Jacob's.” The Bible doesn't attribute the result directly to God, but to Jacob.<br /><br />Now, when it comes to believing in miracles, there's believing because you saw, believing because of hard evidence, believing because you know someone who saw, etc. Toward the bottom of the scale of good reasons to believe in a miracle is just because some ancient document says so. Now this miracle – this is several steps below that. This is claiming a miracle happened when the Bible doesn't even suggest that one happened. It's believing in a miracle just to fill in a plot hole in a story ancient people told each other, a plot hole that would have been a perfectly logical mistake for pre-scientific writer.<br /><br />And yet people still believe Genesis is a reliable source of scientific knowledge. Despite being shown that the story doesn't make any sense without suspending your knowledge of how reality works. It reminds me of a country song:<br /><br />That's My Story – Colin Raye<br /><br />I came in as the sun came up.<br />She glared at me over her coffee cup.<br />She said, "Where you been?"<br />So I thought real hard and said,<br />"I fell asleep in that hammock in the yard."<br />She said, "You don't know it boy, but you just blew it."<br />And I said, "Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it."<br /><br />"That's my story.<br />Oh, that's my story.<br />Well, I ain't got a witness, and I can't prove it,<br />but that's my story and I'm stickin' to it."<br /><br />I got that deer-in-the-headlight look.<br />She read my face like the cover of a book<br />and said, "Don't expect me to believe all that static,<br />'cause just last week I threw that hammock in the attic."<br />My skin got so thin so you could see right through it,<br />and I stuttered, "Well that's my story and I'm stickin' t-t-to it."</span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-23321725404483667322009-01-16T19:29:00.012-05:002011-05-24T22:15:26.006-04:00Why I am an Atheist<span style="font-family:times new roman;">The biggest reason I am an atheist is that I grew up evangelical and later rejected evangelical Christianity – that is the subject of the rest of my blog and will be overlooked here. But evangelical Christianity rejected doesn't imply atheism; in my case, non-Christian theist to deist to agnostic to atheist took from April until October. Here, I will cover my reasons for being an atheist rather than an otherwise undecided non-Christian.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Atheism: What it Means</span><br /><br />I need to first clarify what I mean by “atheist.” I don't believe in a God of any kind, or even see the existence of one as plausible, therefore I am an atheist. I don't claim to know for certain, and I can't prove God doesn't exist. I'm not an atheist in an absolute certainty sort of way, which is what some people still use it to mean.<br /><br />Oftentimes, the definition of a word has a subliminal effect on how we think. Take the word “discipline,” for instance. It can be a verb meaning to punish misbehavior, or it can be an adjective describing one who behaves with great self-control. The subtle implication inside English is the idea that discipline leads to discipline. When we call someone “highly disciplined” this is a claim about their present level of self-control, not about the amount of punishment needed to become like that, but when this is said in English, this implication hides just under the surface regardless of if the implication was desired by the speaker. If this were false, this would be a problem in the English language. (Generally speaking, I agree with the idea subliminally reinforced by this homonym.)<br /><br />An unfortunate misconception is caused by the word “atheist” meaning one who is absolutely certain there is no God. The problem is that it forces together the concepts of a particular position and absolute certainty. This causes a concept of unjustifiable arrogance to be automatically associated with the idea that God does not exist. A word is needed that merely describes the position and does not contain an implication of certainty. That word is atheism. The word's evolution into not carrying the implication of certainty is a needed linguistic change, but the change is only partially complete, and hence my embracing of the label is at the possible expense of misunderstanding.<br /><br />Similarly, I am a capitalist. I'm not an expert at economics, I can't refute every socialistic argument ever put forward, and I might be wrong. But I'm still a capitalist, and this is not in tension with my lack of omniscience. I wouldn't want to call myself agnostic on matters of economics just because I might be wrong. I think capitalism works, I think God doesn't exist, I'm certain of neither, and I'm ashamed of neither. Therefore, I am a capitalist and an atheist. Only if the existence of God or the effectiveness of socialism starts seeming plausible to me will I call myself agnostic with regard to either.<br /><br />One other misunderstanding of atheism is that it necessarily <span style="font-style: italic;">starts </span>with the position that the cosmos is all there is. Some atheists do, but I do not. If I were to map out core presuppositions, conclusions just above those, the next level of conclusions above those, and so on, atheism would be very near the top. That is to say, very little that I believe rests on atheism – atheism rests on those other things that I believe. In particular, atheism is the conclusion that comes from the absence of reasons to believe in God. Richard Dawkins beautifully expressed this idea of atheism as a denial of others' claims, rather than as a positive position:<br /><br />“We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Why God's Existence Requires Defense</span><br /><br />The one positive statement I will make that defends my atheism is that there are no good reasons to believe in God. I use absolute language not out of arrogance, but so as to have a target for theists (and agnostics) to shoot at. Agnostics have more wiggle room because it's perfectly fine if they feel the pull of several arguments for God's existence but don't think it's quite sufficient to believe. Think of my absolute statement as denying myself wiggle room so as to have an actual position that could be falsified by a fellow mortal.<br /><br />I don't start with the existence/non-existence of God as a presupposition, and you shouldn't either. If there's an elephant in the living room you shouldn't have to believe in it on faith – if the elephant isn't obvious, it's not there. If it's not there, you shouldn't have to just disbelieve in it because it's too preposterous of a possibility to be worthy of consideration – if it's not there, you should be able to look and see that it's not there. How much more should this be the case with an omnipresent God, especially if he wants us to know him?<br /><br />However, plenty of Christians <span style="font-style: italic;">do </span>think God is obvious. Paul was among them, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” If I succeed in refuting the arguments for God based on creation, I have not only rebutted positive arguments, but I will also have shown biblical reasoning to be flawed.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Key Idea</span><br /><br />Before I address the particulars, I wish to belabor what I think needs to be the general idea behind “how do you explain X without God” arguments. The same idea will apply to existence, design, meaning, morality, free will, and probably dozens of others. In my opinion, this one idea destroys nearly all arguments for God in a single blow. (This idea does not refute most arguments for Christianity in particular, such as evidential arguments for the Resurrection, etc.)<br /><br />At face value, the argument from X rests on one claim, namely that atheists haven't figured X out, therefore they aren't looking at a big enough picture, therefore God. I can at least speak for myself in saying that for years I had this misconception. But this is wrong. For these argument to work, they also need to establish that theism doesn't suffer from the same weakness. <span style="font-style: italic;">Weaknesses in atheism are evidence for God only to the extent that theism doesn't have the same weaknesses.</span> This point will come up over and over again, and I intend to repeat it au nausum as it is so often missed.<br /><br />These arguments all rely for their rhetorical strength on the idea that it is somehow irreverent to try to understand God. I don't allow religion to impose a double standard on the discourse. Arguments for theism often consist of taking a bunch of things in the universe that we don't know, throwing them in a big box labeled “God”, and declaring inspection inside the box to be irreverent. Of course theists think the mysteries of life are not problems for their view! The problems are all hidden in a box that is not to be opened, because that would mean trying to understand God.<br /><br />Pandora, be damned. I dare to peer inside the box.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Argument from Existence – Why is there something rather than nothing?</span><br /><br />But why is there a God instead of nothing? If the existence of the universe demands a creator, why doesn’t the existence of a creator demand someone who created him? The only way to get around this conundrum is to assign to God some made-up property, like “necessary being,” “self-existent,” “not an effect, hence not needing a cause.” However, all these properties could just as easily apply to the universe as a whole. Perhaps this is a necessary universe, a self-existent universe, or the Big Bang was not an effect (there is no “before time”) and hence the Big Bang needs no cause.<br /><br />Maybe God has one of these properties. But a need for one of them destroys the argument because a weakness in atheism is not evidence for God when theism contains the same weakness hidden in the God-box.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Argument from Design – Where did all this apparent design come from, if not a Designer?</span><br /><br />So who designed the designer? A being capable of designing a world this intricate must be even more intricate than the world itself. To the degree that evolution is a good theory, atheism has a better answer than non-evolutionary theism. But even if the validity of evolution were nil, atheism would be on equal ground with theism regarding its ability to explain the existence of design. (Theistic evolution and atheistic evolution are on equal ground as well.)<br /><br />A weakness in atheism is not evidence for God when theism contains the same weakness hidden in the God-box.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Argument from Meaning – How do our lives have meaning, if not in following God?</span><br /><br />First off, the possibility that our lives have no meaning deserves serious consideration if the topic is truth, rather than what we would want to be true. The prevalence of extreme pain in the world gives a strong reason to think that some very harsh realities have to be faced. If the bitter truth is that our lives have no meaning then the argument fails.<br /><br />In any case, how does God's existence have meaning? According to Christians at least, what we know of God's existence consists of seeking to be loved, seeking to love, and seeking his own glory. All of these are goals that mere mortals can seek for themselves without God. If meaning is to be found in the existence of the sort of God that Christians envision, then I too can create meaning in my life by living life.<br /><br />A weakness in atheism is not evidence for God when theism contains the same weakness hidden in the God-box.<br /><br />Furthermore, what is it about existence in heaven that is meaningful? The two perks are hedonistic (streets of gold, etc.) and relational (always being with the Lord/other Christians.) But this is not terribly different from seeking to create meaning in one's life through living life with other people and enjoying whatever time we have. How is being with the Lord meaningful while being with other people is not meaningful? If the problem is that a finite existence is not meaningful, then I am happy to be spared the experience of heaven, as it would then consist of an infinite sequence of meaningless existences.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Argument from Morality – How do we have a concept of “ought” (distinct from “want”) if not from God?</span><br /><br />How does God have a concept of morality? If morality proceeds from what God wants, then from God's perspective, there is no right and wrong – only what he wants/conforms to his will. This takes away the possibility of genuine praise – he isn't any better than Satan in an objective sense, he's just on a different side. Also, if “good” equals God's whim, then if he had lied to us about his unchanging nature and ultimately decides to cast all believers into hell this would be every bit as “good” as what Christians think he's really doing. Surely, this idea of “good” has strayed so far from our intuitive concept of good, that our intuitive concept of good is not evidence for the reality of this counterintuitive concept of “good.”<br /><br />If morality precedes what God wants, then I would like God to answer the Moral Argument: where did God get his concept of morality if not from another Higher God?<br /><br />Neither side has an answer that results in the sort of transcendent morality that Christians claim to have. Either God has no morals, or the fact that God must have morals that don't come from himself shoots the argument from morality in the foot.<br /><br />A weakness in atheism is not evidence for God when theism contains the same weakness hidden in the God-box.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Argument from Free Will – How do we have free will if not from God?</span><br /><br />How do we know we have free will? As Dawkins recounted:<br /><br />"'Tell me,' the great twentieth-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once asked a friend, 'why do people always say it was natural for man to assume that the sun went around the Earth rather than that the Earth was rotating?' His friend replied, 'Well, obviously because it just looks as though the Sun is going around the Earth.' Wittgenstein responded, 'Well, what would it have looked like if it had looked as though the Earth was rotating?'"<br /><br />Similarly, I ask what the world would look like if it looked like we had no free will. I freely admit that this wondering challenges my own thinking as much as it challenges theism.<br /><br />(I'll overlook the quantum physics answer outside this comment. It proves the logical consistency of free will and atheism, but leaves the actual existence of free will unknown. While very interesting, it is not needed to refute the argument.)<br /><br />I'm sure you see where my second objection is heading by now... How does God have free will? Apparently, the reason a godless universe would have no free will is because such a universe would always follow its natural laws. But God always follows his own nature – so what's the difference? If God has no free will, it makes no sense for him to have the capacity to give the gift of something he lacks. As Calvinists show, even if God has free will, there are many definitions of free will and concepts of Sovereignty where we still don't have it. I will spare you the final repetition of the key idea...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Conclusions</span><br /><br />With all of these questions, much more can and should be said. Just because evolution and abiogenesis are not needed to answer the design argument doesn't mean they aren't worthy of study. What is the meaning of life? Is morality absolute? Do the words “free will” even mean anything? All of these are worthy of centuries of analysis by philosophers and scientists. Surely we can do better than “42.” But as <span style="font-style: italic;">arguments</span> for God's existence, I find that little is required to refute them. If you dare to look inside the God-box, you will see that theism fails to answer the questions that justified the idea of God in the first place.<br /><br />Sometimes humanity does learn things that were previously unknown. Due to evolution, we do have a pretty good idea about the origin of much of the design on the earth. Many theists are working hard to resist these answers so as to keep this treasured piece of ignorance inside the God-box. If part of the question is answered, theists will have to find a smaller box. I'm tired of downsizing my box. I've gotten rid of it entirely and placed what I don't know on a shelf in full display. I would like to think that I could have figured out Thor does not exist even if I lived in a time before scientific descriptions of thunder existed. I wish to do the same with what remains unknown. Therefore, I am an atheist.<br /></span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1371161900895276004.post-81934066180008508902009-01-11T19:43:00.008-05:002011-05-22T17:29:59.878-04:00The Power of Prayer: Believing Too Much<span style="font-family:times new roman;">One place where Christians engage in doublethink is through a love/hate relationship with the concept of believing that God will actually do something when they pray. On the one hand, believers are supposed to believe God does things. But on the other hand, it's nice to be able to write off God's no-shows as the product of kooky beliefs in a “vending machine” God. (This is often a euphemism for a God that is distinguishable from no God at all.)<br /><br />Some Christians actually believe that if they pray for healing, God will answer with healing. A fairly extreme group supporting such faith in action is <a href="http://www.unleavenedbreadministries.org/?page=TestimoniesHealings">Unleavened Bread Ministries</a>. They have a page full of cool stories of how God healed people.<br /><br />The interesting thing about one of the families involved in this ministry, the Neumanns, is that the results of their faith are a matter of public record. Last spring their 11-year-old daughter became extremely sick. Her parent prayed for her instead of taking her to see a doctor. What follows might have been the work of Satan. It might be a continuing test of their faith. What I do know is that <a href="http://www.isthmus.com/isthmus/article.php?article=23430">Madeline Neumann died</a> from a treatable form of diabetes while her parents petitioned an all-powerful, all-loving God for her healing. Her parents think she died because they didn't have enough faith. I think she died because her parents had too much faith. Faith like this is a form of criminal negligence, or at least it should be.<br /><br />A lawsuit is currently brewing to see if the parents are guilty of second-degree murder. The Neumanns defense is quite interesting. <a href="http://www.helptheneumanns.com/">Their friends'</a> website states, “Before I give my case and point, let me say this: If we are going to judge this family -- which we really have no right to do -- we need to understand completely what the Bible states about healing and prayer. In short, the Bible states that we should trust God for healing and use prayer to achieve that goal.”<br /><br />Don't ask God why this happened. We know why. The Neumanns let their child die from a treatable condition because they completely, sincerely, and absolutely had faith in the love and power of their God. If God wanted her to live she would have lived, and if God didn't why should they seek to oppose God's will through medicine? We must understand how much sense this makes viewed through the lens of their religion. The problem was not that her parents didn't care. The problem was not that they acted irrationally, given their worldview. Madeline Neumann died because her parents are people of childlike faith and consequently acted like children. Any religion that sees childlike faith as a good thing or believes that God will reward childlike faith should not be surprised by outcomes like this. Moderate religion lacks the language to properly express what went wrong – a culture with a healthy disrespect for faith is needed to combat tragedies like this.<br /><br />There are two key places where the Neumann differ radically from mainstream evangelicals. Most obviously, they blamed the result on a lack of faith – this mistake has nothing to due with the Bible. Most of the book of Job is about refuting the idea that tragedies should automatically be blamed on sin. Plenty of differing evangelical beliefs come from differing picking-and-choosing, but the Neumanns are wrong here even if the Bible is true.<br /><br />But while as a matter of fact, the Neumanns differ wildly from mainstream evangelicals by forgoing medical treatment, biblically speaking, it is not obvious why they are wrong. A case can be made for an alternative view, but it is hard to argue biblically that the Neumanns are <i>necessarily</i> wrong. What was wrong with trusting God with their actions rather than trusting the effectiveness of modern medicine? The Bible tells Christians to put their faith in God with much greater clarity than it tells Christians not to trust him for other things. While “do not test the Lord” is an explicit command, it was not the Neumanns' goal to test God but only to trust that he would take care of them and to live in a way that is consistent with this belief. The fact that Madeline's death did not cause them to call God a failure should be proof enough that they were not testing God and were not presuming to know the will of God but only living by faith in the way that they thought they should.<br /><br />Among evangelicals, some form of the following catch-phrase is quite popular: “Prayer should be our first resource, not our last resort.” This is a convicting line for people whose first reaction to an accident is to call 911 first, and pray second. This is wrong! This is a sign of our weak faith! Forgive us Lord! <i>But does prayer work?</i> Adult Christians have such a hard time having childlike faith because they aren't children, and that's a good thing. They've seen too many prayers unanswered and too many colds successfully soothed with NyQuil to not use medicine as a first resource.<br /><br />More “mature” approaches to prayer are to pray primarily in ways where if it did nothing at all, one would never know the difference. “God, be with person X during event Y,” “God help event X happen, if that's your will,” or prayers whose explicit goal is to change the attitudes of the one who is praying. When faced with a “no” answer that is indistinguishable from no answer, one is to react as if that's how it's supposed to be. “Yes” is to be paraded about in glory of God. Are there more “yes” answers than would be expected at random? <i>These questions are not supposed to be asked, because this would be testing God.</i> This needs to be called what it is: fear of the possibility that prayer doesn't really do anything. If it is biblical, it merely means that this fear of the truth is present in the Bible and not just in Christians.<br /><br />Doctrines of prayer seem designed so that if prayer did nothing at all, people would never know the difference. And so prayer continues to do nothing at all, while people continue to be convinced that it is changing the world. If people who think God works miracles all the time still don't see that nothing is happening, how much more should we doubt the reality of God's answers to “be with me when...” prayers?<br /><br />Prayer's true power should not be underestimated. The true power of prayer is its ability to blind people to its impotency as they believe all the way to second-degree murder. This power needs to be opposed.</span>Jeffrey Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11134064631280499241noreply@blogger.com4