To The Boiling Point...

In 1984, my family experienced something I will never forget. I was just ten years old at the time. It was somewhere around eight o’ clock on a Monday morning. Brother and I were getting ready for school. He was at the kitchen table munching on a bowl of Captain Crunch, and having just finished scarfing down mine, I sat on the couch, watching cartoons.

We were running late that morning, and since we had already missed the bus, mom was preparing to drive us to school. It was only a matter of putting her shoes on, grabbing her keys, and getting in the car. Just then, there was a knock at the door. I was going to answer it, but mom ran over and answered it first.

The door swung open to reveal a thin, black-haired man with a small, muscular build and several indistinct tattoos running up his forearms and biceps. He was wearing a midnight blue t-shirt with what looked like some kind of nightclub logo on it and tight-fitting blue jeans. It was like I could smell the thinning, oily hair on that almost peanut-shaped head of his from the couch—that and the overpowering whiff of cologne and cigarettes. He had a bottle of spray cleaner in his right hand. He said to my mother in a very high-pitch, scraggly voice (I don’t remember exactly, so I’m paraphrasing here): “Hi, I’m selling these bottles of spray cleaner. It’s a good cleaner. If I can come in and demonstrate on a piece of laundry or dirty surface in your house…”

Something just felt wrong about the guy, even before he said a word. The way he wasn’t holding up the cleaning bottle so that it could be examined was odd. He was a terrible speaker who obviously hadn’t put much work into his sales pitch, and just like that, he seemed so interested in coming inside! This guy didn’t come off like a salesman. He wasn’t charismatic or persuasive like a salesman, and he sure wasn’t dressed like one. Even my mother, being the nice and entreating person she sometimes can be, looked a little puzzled and interrupted him in mid-sentence: “Well, thanks, but not right now. I’m just walking out to take my kids to school.” The man said – this time with more creepy energy in that scratchy voice of his – “It’ll only take a minute.” Mom replied, “Well, I gotta say no. We’re already late as it is. But thanks. Maybe another time.” The man seemed to look down for a second before leaving our porch as though fighting himself on what to do next. He then unenthusiastically left, stiffly walking away like he really didn’t want to go. He left, and that was that.

The pungent scent of cheap cologne and menthol smokes still lingering, mom looked at us, then rolled her eyes, making a comment or two on how weird that fellow was, but being that we were in a hurry, we forgot about it. In less than five minutes, we were in the family’s 1981 Ford Escort and on our way to school. We didn’t even make it down the street before seeing two police cars parked against the curb out in front of a neighbor’s house and several police officers forcing the man against the trunk of a squad car. One officer searched his pockets and another put cuffs on him. As much as mom could without getting too much attention, she slowed down to get a better view of what was transpiring. When we saw the man, all mom could say was, “Oh…my…God! I almost let that man in!” Brother and I pivoted on our knees in the rear-most bench seat to watch as the man was lowered into the patrol car. It was chilling to see the spooky man meet our gaze just before we drove out of view!

Watching the 6 o’ clock news that evening, with curiosity and a still present disconcertedness in the air, we discovered just how lucky we were. The man that was arrested was a serial rapist, who sometimes pretended to sell door-to-door products. He would introduce the product and then ask his female victims for the opportunity to demonstrate their effectiveness indoors. Once he was let in (or if he could force his way in without being seen), he began beating his victims with his fists. When the unfortunate traumatized were sufficiently bloodied, he tied them facedown to their beds or couches and raped them in that position. Then he fled the scene of the crime, leaving the victim bound. We learned that on at least one of the six rapes mentioned in his confession, he gave a boy my age two black eyes and some broken ribs and then bound him to watch his obese mother be viciously sodomized.

We narrowly missed having our worlds turned upside-down that fateful day. Had mom not been so diligent as to keep him outside, things would have been much, much different! In a flash, all those McGruff “take a bite out of crime” films we saw at school made a whole lot of sense!

Accompanying the shock and lively conversation this generated among the family were the customary platitudes of divine thanksgiving, ”The angels were looking out for you,” “God moved your mom’s heart not to let that man in,” “Jesus was watching over you,” “God must really love this family!”, and on and on it went. I can remember this being repeated when I became a minister. God just had to make sure I wasn’t hurt so that things would fall into place later in life, allowing me to become a preacher. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but today I definitely think about it and am beside myself at the arrogance of such self-serving sentiments.

With only a slight inclination towards rationality one is compelled to answer the question of what happened with the previous six victims of this brutalizing maniac, this sick, twisted beast of a man, unworthy even of a Chinese zoo. Did God not like them? Why would he not send his angels to protect them, or if no one else, just that eleven-year-old boy who had to be hospitalized for his beatings? We can scrape the bottom of the barrel asking what “plan” a divine being could possibly have had for allowing some lying pervert – fit to be put into a wood chipper – to violate these families, but no answer will surface. Those poor women, that unfortunate child; the nightmares they must have had, the horrible flashbacks brought on by this short-circuited toaster of a man; the mental agony, the engrained trauma, the irreparable damage done must have been unbearable.

One can be forgiven for letting the imagination run wild, seeing in the theatre of the mind this loathsome individual restrained, with honey on his genitals, and thrown facedown on an anthill. But there is something else that’s loathsome here; it is the believer’s conceited conviction that he is somehow indispensable to the universe. There is nothing more selfish than to assume that those who narrowly miss tragedy are spared from it by a watchful deity. These prized souls must have a special destiny, whereas the rest of us are getting the “sloppy seconds” of God’s providential care. I am ashamed to say that I used to think like this, but I have thankfully come to my senses, and I can think of nothing more haughty, more gloatingly advantageous than to think that because tragedy hasn’t stricken me that it couldn’t have because of preferential heavenly factors. Just because I wasn’t bum-rushed on a subway train and robbed doesn’t mean I was saved from that fate by a god, and yet this big-headed belief on the part of those who feel too cosmically important to face the music of life’s mayhem are yapping on like schnauzers of stupidity about their blessings all the time. Just watch the news as some bible-thumping buffoon walks away from a car accident and gets on TV and thanks God for it.

A believer thanking God for his deliverance from catastrophe is like one of two siblings thanking his abusive stepfather because the retrograde scoundrel chose to beat his brother with the steel pipe, and not him. When one thanks God for his deliverance, the person is in effect saying, ”Jesus, as a person who hates violence, I don’t understand why you allow it, but if you, God, in your infinite wisdom, must allow someone to die or suffer, I’m glad it wasn’t me.” This unstated line of bloated, self-preserving thinking I renounce as among the worst of mental convictions brought on by a gangrenous spirituality.

How dare you, believer, rejoice because you think your life was spared by a deity when no one had to die to begin with, when loss of life or injury was as needless as an air conditioner in Barrow, Alaska.

How dare you, believer, give thanks to a being who saves a few and slaughters many, many of the slaughtered being god’s own faithful.

How dare you, believer, thank a god who orchestrates his sovereign will so unpredictably that a sane, non-religious mind can only view it as the work of blind chance.

When God blesses some, he curses others by leaving them to endure their calamities, and it makes sense; if god is to be glorified by puny patrons, he must save only a few, and naturally, leave the rest to rot. My family was not “blessed” by God to be delivered from this sicko-path anymore than the others were “cursed” who were subjected to him. Like many other chance-favored, would-be victims, we were fortunate. Our location, the order and times in which the human-meat-monger picked his prey, and our very admissible porch were the factors that put us out of harm’s way. It brings me to the boiling point to think of those who consider themselves bodyguarded by the Big Man Upstairs, while the rest of us get to know life’s tales of terror firsthand—God’s arms crossed and folded nicely all the while.

(JH)

The Price of Atheism

This dated ABC program reveals one of the reasons why I blog, so that people like Nicole can be free to be herself without harassment. [As a side note, the statistics about non-believers quoted in this program are misleading, although you don't see them reflected in this small town. Upwards to 1/4th of all Americans might be either agnostic or atheist.

Prayer: Counting the Hits, Discounting the Misses

This was just too funny to pass up, sorry.

Let's Grade Us, Okay?

In debating the issues we do, there are obviously different levels of understanding between us. We have different educational backgrounds. There are also maturity factors. Younger people generally exhibit a kind of certainty with the arguments that older people do not. This is not always the case, but is a general observation.

Also factor in that we’re dealing with control beliefs, which, like glasses, color how we see the arguments. Because of this, an argument that seems stupid to believers is seen to be a very strong one by non-believers, and vice versa.

Furthermore, factor in that we do not usually know which level of understanding each person has, unless he tell us, or unless we can figure it out by how he understands our argument, how he responds to it, or what he makes of the strength of his response. But these things give us plenty of clues. Let me explain.

There is very little by way of refuting anything, so when someone says his argument has refuted me, that person lacks some understanding. In our debates no one refutes someone else, for the most part, and none of our arguments are "worthless" either. This is a big clue.

Next, does this person understand my argument? The more often I have to say that this isn’t what I said, the more the other person lacks some understanding. Now sometimes it might be the fault of the person making the argument, in that he wasn’t very clear, but this can be seen if pointed out sufficiently enough. And if a person can do that, then he has a good level of understanding.

Also, is this person being charitable with my argument or rather is he creating a strawman of it for the purposes of gaining a quick and easy "refutation"? This is the most common problem here at DC. Sometimes, of course, it’s a matter of how we each “see” things, but most of the time it’s because someone has failed to try to understand what the argument is really all about. This may take some intellectual work. The most ignorant people won’t even understand the argument.

Lastly (but not exhaustively), does he respond directly to the main point of an argument? If someone fails to understand an argument, he or she cannot properly respond to it. Let me suggest to people that before you critique what we say, first state what our argument is so we know you’re on the same page. This is what professional philosophers do when they write. They always state the argument of the person they are about to criticize before they critique it. When I was debating David Wood on the problem of evil I had asked him several times merely to state my argument, and he could not do it. How can anyone offer a good criticism of an argument if he cannot state what it is? I'll tell you how...he can't!

People who have a deeper understanding are simply better at understanding the arguments and responding directly to them. And they do not claim their arguments carry any more weight than what they actually have. These people do this much better than other people who lack in understanding.

Why do I bring this up? Well, I’m always curious to see how people argue for what they believe, and I want to teach people what to look for and how to properly respond to an argument. Let’s say I simply claim this: “the problem of evil is an insurmountable problem for the theistic view of God.” And let’s say that’s all I write, okay, and you know nothing about how deeply I can argue for this claim, if I can at all. The glib responses will flow from believers, until I continue to write what I know and challenge their responses. If I write enough, they will probably come to think I do know what I’m talking about. But I neither have the time nor readership attention span to write everything I know about the problem of evil in one long post. Even if I did, a Christian will still probably disagree with my arguments, if for no reason other than the fact that he just “sees” things differently, even to the point of thinking I’m ignorant. I’ve seen this. I have likewise discussed these issues with some very knowledgeable Christian apologists, like Drs. Paul Copan and Norman Geisler, and concluded they are ignorant too (in some sense). However, at that point it’s really about "seeing" things differently, not about ignorance, since I don't really think they are ignorant at all.

It’s just being intellectually lazy to assume our opponents do not know what they’re talking about, so we jump on them in order to prove them wrong. In so doing, some of our answers seem initially glib to our opponents, until we each hear the other out.

In order to discuss some issues with some people I first have to bring them up to speed on the problem I’m trying to address, and that can be time consuming and frustrating for me. With G. K. Chesterson I say, “It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem.” I’d much rather discuss these issues with people who at least see the problem, even if they still disagree with me. But I realize people are trying. To them I tip my hat.

Born Again Reporter Loses His Faith

Now why would he lose his faith? Read this. There are so many reasons to lose one's faith. Here is his story.

Why Didn't God Create Us in Heaven in the First Place?

I argue that God could've created us in a perfect existence in the first place...in heaven. Christians must counter-argue that God could not have done so, given the amount of suffering that resulted from his decision to create us in a fleshly world here on earth. Let me explain with the problem of free will, as I've done before. If there isn't free will in heaven for the "saints" when they die, then why did God need to test us with it on earth, since without it in heaven we'd all obey God anyway? If there is no free will in heaven for the "saints" when they die, then why did God purportedly grant free will to Satan in heaven from which he purportedly rebelled? If free will is so valuable, then why would God reward the "saints" in heaven by taking it away from them, but punish "sinners" in hell by letting them (us) keep it and rebel forever? If, however, there is free will in heaven for the "saints" when they die, then there would also be the possibility of another rebellion in heaven in the future. Besides, would someone please explain to me why anyone in the direct unmediated presence of God would ever attempt to rebel against an omnipotent Being who loves them with a perfect love? Anyone who would even think of rebelling would have to be pure evil itself, and dumber than a box of rocks. But since I don't believe any person can ever be pure evil or that dumb, I claim it's extremely implausible to believe any person did attempt to do this, or that anyone with free will in heaven would ever try.
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Edited for Calvinists. If there is no libertarian free will at all then what is the point of creating human beings at all? If God did not create us with free will, then Calvinistic theology must justify why our particular world brings God more glory than a different world where he decrees from eternity that his creatures all perfectly obey him. If humans do not have free will, then there can be no rational justification for the suffering that we experience in this world. Such a God as that is only worthy of our disgust, since our world could so easily have been different if he merely pulled our strings to do good and not evil and made us feel as if we were freely choosing what we do.

Adam and Eve and the Problem of Evil

This article explores one aspect of the relationship between the Problem of Evil and the Fall of Man. It is based on a reasoning scheme known as 'poisoning the well'. However, as with most reasoning schemes, its application determines whether it is a fallacy or not. Its intent is to weaken the Christian argument that we don't know enough about Gods intentions to say anything about Evil. I intend to show that we can't confidently say we know anything about God.

For the sake of this argument, I will stipulate the premise of Adam and Eve and the Fall of Man and the existence of God are true.

If Adam and Eve are related to the problem of evil then we have to accept the whole premise literally, the world is less than 10,000 years old, that evolution didn't occur and that the whole field of science is based on factors that are causing the sound principles of Logic and Inference to fail. That raises questions of uncertainty about the principles of Logic and Inference in general. If we accept the old earth creation then the world could be 4.5 billion years old, and we start getting into deciding which parts of the bible are metaphorical and which are not.

If we presume that humans have free will and choose to sin, then the introduction of personal bias is likely and
- The initial writers of the scripture should be suspect.
- Since we don't have the original text, the reproduction of the scripture should be suspect.
- any intepretations based on those scriptures should be suspect.

If we presume that humans cannot understand the mind of god, then those interpretations should be suspect.
- Teachings coming from someone who interprets the bible should be suspect.

Using this principle the phenomena of doctrinal differences between denominations becomes plausible. However, the principle that we can understand Gods word as it appears in the bible becomes implausible because our nature prevents us from interpreting the 'word' correctly. If we say that we receive guidance from the Holy Spirit, the nature of Human Beings prevents the Guidance from being accepted as it was given. Since the only information we have about the christian god comes from the bible and humans are not capable by nature to intrpret the word, then we cannot really trust what we should take to be metaphorical and what we shouldn't and we cannot confidently say we know anything about the Christian God.

A Reasonable Christian's Questions

Jospeh is a reasonable Christian who has asked a few questions of other Christians here. You might want to read what he said in context, but here they are:

He asks, 1) "To start with, does it strike any Christians as odd that we have to do so...much explaining for God?" 2) "Do we really know that God...does not intervene to stop evil simply because he wants us to learn a lesson? It seems to me that the stories of the Old and New Testaments mitigate against this and would lead us to believe that God likes to show himself faithful and true by taking an active role in our reality." 3) "Is it merely coincidence that as humankind has become more scientifically advanced, God has decided to stop talking to us, getting involved in public ways, performing miracles, proving points, etc?" 4) "Does [God's] utter silence and refusal to intervene not make you the least bit suspicious?" 5) If it's true that we are all this way and that God could say or do nothing to guarantee [that] the majority of us do the right thing, doesn't that make you wonder about the way we're "built"? I mean, how can an all-knowing, wise, powerful God...design a "good" human being that would almost instantaneously become commandeered by sin, which would subsequently take over his whole nature? To me, that betrays a God who has lost control (as does the epidemic of evil), or perhaps never had control to begin with."

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These are good questions. I particularly liked question three.

The Problem of Evil and Suffering Revisited

As of now, I believe that the problem of evil and suffering is one of the chief arguments against Christianity in addition to arguments from biblical errancy, atheological arguments, and the problem of supernatural claims needing supernatural evidence. In my opinion wasn't always this. The problem of evil and suffering wasn't always the biggest problem I have had for being a Christian. I think that the reason why this is so is because most Christians seem to paint this argument as a sheer emotional argument, not an intellectual argument. That is, they like to point to human conceptions of fairness, dignity, or perceptions of what ought to be and not what is. I think that this is the reason that the argument from pain and suffering never led me to ask whether Christianity was true, intellectually, but did kill any faith I had in any god of love. Christians believe that the existence of God is more or less factually-based, and so any argument from pain and suffering can only be, at root, an emotional argument based on selfish and limited human ideals of the way that the world ought to work. I guess this is the reason I never struggled with the argument of how Christianity could be true. Yet, my deep clinical depression never led me to consider that pain and suffering could be a logical or evidential argument against God because I was convinced that Christianity was true intellectually. Instead of seeing the evidence of pain and suffering as evidence for the nonexistence of God, I took pain and suffering, particularly my own, as evidence that God had something personally against me.

The Problem of Evil and Suffering

What led me to finally start questioning a lot of the arguments in favor of Christianity was biblical errancy. This is because the Christian perception of pain and suffering as purely an emotional argument controlled my thinking, even for a few years after I left the faith. It wasn't until I read the chapter on pain and suffering by Loftus that I finally began to see that the argument from evil and suffering could and did have a logical structure to it. If I became convinced that pain and suffering had a logical structure to it, I might have left the faith sooner. Another thing that I noticed is that some Christians don't even seem really bothered by suffering and evil in this world. When people bring up suffering and evil, these Christians, never really having experienced much of the pain and suffering in this world firsthand, tend to get self-righteous and judgmental regarding nonbelievers or skeptics and even accuse them of selfishness. When we offer suffering and evil as a reason to disbelieve that any god exists, we are often greeted with an arrogant judgmentalism, ironically accusing us of arrogance in thinking we could selfishly design a world much better than any god could. Other Christians are, in fact, acutely aware of evil and suffering and when they go to explain it, it almost seems like they're apologizing on behalf of God and trying to rationalize away his behavior. They seem aware of the problem of pain evil and suffering and actually concede that it has strong force and try to give a very gentle explanation, probably aware that the problem is a genuine one.

Indeed, it is genuine and powerful. I was foolish enough to not consider that it had a strong logical basis to it for a number of years and I am glad that I finally saw through my shortsightedness and embraced the argument as powerful as it is. I recall reading about the famed agnostic Charles Templeton, a former minister and good buddy of Billy Graham, finally had his faith destroyed by the problem of suffering. He saw a mother cradling her dead child, looking up to heaven, as if expecting an answer from the Almighty, when all that was needed was rain for the child to survive. I still am not entirely sure why this problem never impacted me as much as it has numerous other people. I am not entirely sure why I never really delved into it deeply enough prior to reading Loftus' chapter on the subject. But I now consider it to be a very devastating argument, one, like the starlight problem, that has never been solved by Christian theologians successfully. I look forward to reading Michael Martin's treatment of it in greater detail whereas, beforehand, I was never really impressed by it, my thinking still held hostage by prior fundamentalist assumptions.

Indeed, I noticed something interesting. It seems to me that the more conservative and fundamentalist one is in terms of theology, the less impact the argument has on them. I think I have been noticing that the more extremist of fundamentalists are the Christians who accuse people really bothered or affected by the argument as being selfish to complain about it, arrogant enough to demand an answer from God, and thinking that they can design a better universe where the problem doesn't exist. Worst of all, they are usually the ones who usually accuse people of bringing up evil and suffering as having ulterior motives of selfishly wanting to live a life of sin. In contrast to these classical fundamentalists, the more moderate Evangelicals actually seem acutely aware of the problem and seem almost to apologize for the problem in their explanations. They realize that it is a very serious problem, that people have been very affected and hurt by the problem, and that it poses a tremendous threat to the Christian faith. What is more is that they feel the need to cobble an explanation together which seems to be a tactic admission on their part that there is no real answer because God hasn't explicitly revealed it and the best they can do is take educated guesses at the motives for God's decisions.

My answer to the problem of pain and suffering when I was a fundamentalist was quite simplistic in nature. I would say that mankind hurt God when man sinned and so God allows the problem of pain and suffering to let mankind know just how hurt he feels. I used to liken it to a teenager who went out partying and stayed out very late, worrying her poor mother. So finally the mother decided to teach her teenager a lesson by staying out late one time, worrying the teenager. I once told this to a college instructor. "When the mother comes home late at night, the teenager protests, complaining about how worried she was about her mother, to which her mother replies 'Now you know how I feel'," I told him something like this (I am paraphrasing for a lack of exact wording). To which he responded "Oh! So you think God does this to teach us a lesson?" to which I affirmed my opinion. I simply left it at that although I came to believe that some evil and suffering is actually a necessary evil, a means to bring about good sometimes. If God didn't allow a woman to be sexually assaulted, I reasoned, we wouldn't be inspired to create laws to punish it. If God didn't allow pain in our lives, we wouldn't be grateful for the blessings. When pain and discomfort came growth and healing. I now realize that these explanations are silly and simplistic, not to mention cruel and inconsiderate but such is the nature of Christian apologetics.

Christians waste much time and ink on trying to solve and answer this problem but it is a problem that has gone on unsuccessfully answered. The problem seems unsolvable and I am pleased that a few Christians are intellectually honest enough to admit it. Some Christians will continue to try and solve the problem with the best of intentions while the arrogant of classical fundamentalists will keep acting as though there is no real problem and that it's all in the heathen's depraved imagination. Fine, call me a heathen, but the problem is real and it's the chief reason I could never be a Christian, whether again or for the first time! My other arguments follow from the argument from evil and suffering.

Matthew

The Problem of Goodness and Hume's Hypothesis of Indifference.

David Hume offered us four choices about the moral nature of "the first causes of the universe." Either they are 1) perfectly good, 2) perfectly evil, 3) they are opposites and have both goodness and malice, or 4) they have neither goodness nor malice. Paul Draper calls the last choice the Hypothesis of Indifference, or HI.

Hume (through Philo) argues for HI in these words: "Mixed phenomena can never prove the two former unmixed principles. And the uniformity and steadiness of general laws seem to oppose the third. The fourth, therefore, seems by far more probable." [Dialogues, part XI].

When it comes to the opposite claims that "the first causes of the universe" are either, 1) perfectly good or 2) perfectly evil, it seems implausible to accept either of these extremes given the fact that we see both goodness and suffering in our world. This is what Hume calls "mixed phenomena," in that we see both goodness and malice in our world.

Those who argue that these causes are "perfectly good" have to explain why there is so much evil in this world, known as the problem of evil. Those who argue that these causes are "perfectly evil" have to explain why there is so much goodness in this world, known as the problem of goodness.

Let's consider the problem of goodness for Hume's second choice, placed in the context of a Supreme Being.

Why is there goodness, we might ask, in a world created by a malicious being? The answers provided would be the same ones that theists who believe in a perfectly good God use to explain the problem of evil, such as: 1) Goodness is the result of truly free actions. 2) Goodness is necessary for evil to exist. 3) Rather than this world being a place for “soul making,” it is designed for “soul breaking.” 4) Any good in the world will produce greater evils. 4) We may not know why this malicious Supreme Being allows goodness, but he knows what he’s doing.

But since the same arguments produce two opposite and contradictory conclusions, both conclusions are implausible…they cancel each other out.

To see this argued in greater depth, Stephen Law, the editor of Think, the Royal Institute of Philosophy Journal, has a dialogue called The God of Eth, which I recommend. He defends his argument from a further objection here, but I highly recommend you read his response to Richard Swinburne's objections here.

Is Dog Fighting Evil?

One of the major stories this week has been the indictment of Michael Vick, star quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, for involvement with dog fighting. Allegedly, Mr. Vick has been involved in an activity that pits one dog against another in a fight to the death. The cruelty and violence is abhorrent to most civilized people. The outcry for the NFL to punish Michael Vick has been tremendous this week and several of his sponsors have dropped him.

I have a question for Christians. Do you find Michael Vick’s alleged actions reprehensible? If so, how do you justify the creation of a world by your God in which animals fight to the death and eat each other as a necessary part of their existence? Perhaps, Mr. Vick is just trying to imitate God.

Feelings as a Result of the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit

When I was a Christian I was convinced that I was getting emotional responses as a result of my 'indwelling spirit'. Eventually, through honest introspection, a lot of it done while praying, I reasoned that it was all natural. In fact, I would say that I probably spent too much time thinking about things during prayer which eventually led to "god" telling me that he was really a Euphemism for Luck. But this morning I got one of those feelings again while listening to a podcast and it reminded me of all those times I got them as a Christian....

This morning I was listening to a Science Magazine podcast and they expressed condolences to the family and friends one of the lead authors on the paper they were doing the story about. He died before it was published. I felt an instant of sadness, like a tingling or shock and misty eyes. I remembered the last time that happened was when I was reading about the WWF wrestler (Benoit) that is the subject of a murder suicide investigation. And before that the Virginia Tech tragedy. Then I remember how misty I got watching the Movie "United 93" and had to wipe the tears off my cheeks. I get misty eyed when I see information about tragedies and instances of sadness that I would describe as feelings of electric shocks. It happens out of happiness when I see acts of heroism on the news. It continues to this day. Sometimes, in other situations, it was not sadness but a feeling like my hair was standing on end. In fact, It just happened to me as I was writing this because I concentrated on it and it happened. It happened to me the first few times I published articles on this blog and was waiting for the fall out. Did any of you ever get yourself "Psyched up" for a game or track meet in High School or College? Remember how it felt? I am convinced, as you should be, that it is not the indwelling of the spirit. It is apparently a biological response to some hardwired morality/altruism/excitement that I have built in. Even former contributor DagoodS has those moments. He details one here on his blog.

So, Christians, what is it that convinces you of your spirit indwelling?

Dr. Craig Considers My Question

I asked former professor William Lane Craig a question and he attempted to answer it this week, here. He attempted to answer "the deeper problem lurking" behind Lessing's broad ugly ditch, in these words:

So what is the problem with basing religious beliefs on historical proofs? The problem, it seems to me, is the relativity of the historical evidence as well as one’s ability to grasp it. We have both the manuscript evidence and the evaluative historical tools to provide a good foundation for belief in Jesus as the Gospels describe him. But what about earlier generations which lacked the evidence and the tools we enjoy? The fact is that the vast majority of people throughout history and in the world today have had neither the training, the time, nor the resources to conduct a historical investigation of the evidence for Jesus. If we insist on a historical, evidential foundation for faith, then we consign most of the world’s population to unbelief and thus deny them the privilege and joy of knowing God in Christ. To me this is unconscionable. This, then, is the ugly, broad ditch which confronts us: the gap between people’s historically conditioned epistemic situation and the evidence required to warrant Christian belief.

It was the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard who, I believe, provided the correct response to Lessing. Through an existential encounter with God Himself every generation can be made contemporaneous with the first generation. We are therefore not dependent on historical proofs for knowledge of Christianity’s truth. Rather through the immediate, inner witness of God’s Holy Spirit every person can come to know the truth of the Gospel once he hears it. This approach has come to be known, rather misleadingly, as Reformed epistemology. Alvin Plantinga has masterfully explicated this approach in his marvelous Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford University Press: 2000). This is not the place to defend this approach, but you may want to look at my chapter on Religious Epistemology in my and J. P. Moreland’s Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview Inter-Varsity, 2003).

So that’s how I leap Lessing’s ditch. Christian belief is confirmed by the historical evidence for those of us fortunate enough to be epistemically so situated as to be able to appraise it correctly; but Christian belief is not based on the historical evidence.

Does anyone think Craig's answer is a good one? His answer is what I had anticipated. But it doesn't solve the problem, in my opinion. If you agree with me, then how would you answer the deeper problem lurking behind Lessing's broad ugly ditch?

Was Alister McGrath once an atheist of the "rotweiler" type?

Alister McGrath bills himself as a former atheist, now outspoken Christian, and President of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics. However, can anyone please point me to McGrath's testimony concerning exactly how well thought out his atheistic beliefs were prior to converting to Christianity, and exactly what prompted him to convert? I'd be interested in reading more about that. I haven't found such information at his website yet. Though I did run across this interview between McGrath and a talk show host that prompted an interesting comment by one viewer who wrote:

"Alister McGrath's... assertion that he was once an atheist of the 'rotweiler' type is... untrue. How many of your viewers are aware that McGrath's 'atheism' had not even managed to outlive his teens? He became a Christian when he'd just turned 18. Yet, listening to him, you'd think that he had discovered answers to all the imponderables that religious people and non-believers have been discussing for centuries. McGrath further claims that it was religiously motivated violence in Northern Ireland which made him turn against religion. [But]... people like myself who live in Northern Ireland know that the violence hadn't even started when McGrath had already become a Christian... A recent Belfast newspaper interview has McGrath claiming that when interviewed by Dawkins, McGrath's stance had Dawkins shuffling and taking refuge in evasiveness. Of course, now that the video is on Dawkins's website we can see that McGrath is the one who can't answer a simple question without melting the ears of his listeners..." [6/12/2007 4:56:18 AM Nigel]

The Uncut Video discussion between McGrath and Dawkins that Nigel spoke about above is located at Dawkins's website here.

I also found this video debate in which McGrath was involved, as seen on Channel 4's "The trouble with atheism," a debate between Alister McGrath and Peter Atkins, 22nd Mar 2007. Peter Atkins is a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford University, well-known atheist and supporter of Richard Dawkins.

And Ravi Zacharias the Christian apologist posted this recording of a debate between Prof. McGrath and Richard Dawkins: "Does religious belief damage the health of a society, or is it necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society?"

Personally speaking, I've known about McGrath's apologetics for a while. I sent him an email a while back documenting that he was wrong in his (hagiographic) biography about John Calvin for having complained so much about the agnostic Aldous Huxley's having not provided a reference concerning the incident of a child having been executed in Calvin's Geneva for striking his parents. It turns out McGrath simply hadn't done enough history homework to realize that such references existed, as well as references to children being hung by their arms in gallows in Geneva to show the public that they deserved execution, and other children having been threatened with execution for playing games on Sunday.

New Book: Philosophers without Gods (nineteen leading philosophers open a window on the inner life of atheism)

Philosophers without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life by Louise M. Antony (Oxford University Press, 2007)

Book Description [from the publisher]
Atheists are frequently demonized as arrogant intellectuals, antagonistic to religion, devoid of moral sentiments, advocates of an "anything goes" lifestyle. Now, in this revealing volume, nineteen leading philosophers open a window on the inner life of atheism, shattering these common stereotypes as they reveal how they came to turn away from religious belief. These highly engaging personal essays capture the marvelous diversity to be found among atheists, providing a portrait that will surprise most readers.

Many of the authors, for example, express great affection for particular religious traditions, even as they explain why they cannot, in good conscience, embrace them. None of the contributors dismiss religious belief as stupid or primitive, and several even express regret that they cannot, or can no longer, believe. Perhaps more important, in these reflective pieces, they offer fresh insight into some of the oldest and most difficult problems facing the human mind and spirit. For instance, if God is dead, is everything permitted? Philosophers Without Gods demonstrates convincingly, with arguments that date back to Plato, that morality is independent of the existence of God. Indeed, every writer in this volume adamantly affirms the objectivity of right and wrong. Moreover, they contend that secular life can provide rewards as great and as rich as religious life. A naturalistic understanding of the human condition presents a set of challenges--to pursue our goals without illusions, to act morally without hope of reward--challenges that can impart a lasting value to finite and fragile human lives. Collectively, these essays highlight the richness of atheistic belief--not only as a valid alternative to religion, but as a profoundly fulfilling and moral way of life.

About the Author
Louise M. Antony is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is the author of A Mind of One's Own and Chomsky and His Critics.


RELATED WORKS:

The Cambridge Companion to Atheism
Cambridge Companions to Philosophy
(published Oct. 2006)
by Michael Martin

Atheists: A Groundbreaking Study of America's Nonbelievers
by Bruce E. Hunsberger & Bob Altemeyer

Like Rolling Uphill: Realizing The Honesty Of Atheism
by Dianna Narciso

Nothing: Something to Believe in
by Nica Lalli

My Pilgrim Way,
The Case Against God,
Something Understood--An Autobiography,
Who needs the Church? (The 1982 Barclay lectures),
all by Gerald Priestland

What I Believe
by Anthony John Patrick Kenny


WORKS THAT CONTAIN A WIDER RANGE OF TESTIMONIES

Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists
(nearly three dozen testimonies edited by Edward T. Babinski)

Leaving Fundamentalism (to be published Dec. 2007)
(fifteen testimonies edited by philosophy professor, Dr. G. Elijah Dann)

Walking Away from Faith:
Unraveling the Mystery of Belief and Unbelief
by Ruth A. Tucker

Amazing Conversions:
Why Some Turn to Faith & Others Abandon Religion
by Bob Altemeyer & Bruce Hunsberger

The Courage of Conviction [a collection of varied testimonies from the Dalai Lama to Jane Goodall to Billy Graham]
editor Phillip L. Berman

This I Believe [a collection of varied testimonies]
editors Jay Allison & Dan Gediman

What I Believe:
13 Eminent People of Our Time Argue for Their Philosophy of Life
editor Mark Booth

Journeys in belief (Unwin forum, 2)
editor Bernard Dixon

New Book: Leaving Fundamentalism (fifteen testimonies edited by philosophy professor, Dr. G. Elijah Dann)

Leaving Fundamentalism will be published Dec. 2007 by Laurier University Press.

It's editor, professor G. Elijah Dann, is not only a former fundamentalist but also had as his thesis advisor, Gabriel Vahanian. (At Princeton in 1961 Professor Vahanian wrote the ground-breaking book, The Death of God.) After Professor Dann's studies in France, he was awarded a predoctoral fellowship from the Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame. Besides Prof. Dann's story ("Confessions of an Ex-fundamentalist") and a chapter on the history of fundamentalistic types of Christianity, the book includes:

The Slippery Slope of Theology
by Jeffrey W. Robbins [an American Continental philosopher of Religion. He received his B.A. from Baylor University (1994), his M.Div. from Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University (1997), and his Ph.D. in Religion from Syracuse University (2001). His dissertation was entitled "The Problem of Philosophical Theology." He is the author of two books, Between Faith and Thought, and, In Search of a Non-Dogmatic Theology, and is editor of After the Death of God. Oddly enough Dr. Robbins is not a big fan of Christopher Hitchen's recent atheist bestseller, God is Not Great.]

The Jesus Lizard [which I learned might not appear in the book, but which has been written] by James Fieser [author, co-author, and editor of seven textbooks, including Moral Philosophy through the Ages, A Historical Introduction to Philosophy (Oxford University Prss, 2003), Socrates to Sartre and Beyond (McGraw Hill, 2003), and Philosophical Questions (Oxford University Press, 2005), editor of the ten-volume Early Responses to Hume (Thoremmes Press, 1999-2003) and the five-volume Scottish Common Sense Philosophy; and founder and general editor of The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy web site.]

Fantastic Voyage: Surviving Charismatic Fundamentalism
by David L. Rattigan [Former Pentecostal and evangelical, as well as one-time associate pastor, Dave is now an openly gay liberal Anglican, and actively involved at lay-level in his local Church of England parish. He has a BA (Hons) in Biblical-Theological Studies. Some excellent online essays by Mr. Rattigan include, "Worldviews, Stories and Why Leaving Fundamentalism Hurts," "The Bible and Me: Two Friends on a Curious Journey" in which Dave explains how he lost his belief in the inerrancy of the Bible; and, "Do Evangelicals Really Believe in Hell?" Dave also manages (with some friends and co-contributors) a website titled Leaving Fundamentalism "...to aid people making the difficult and often painful journey away from conservative Christianity. It can be a time of confusion, hurt and frustration, but it's important to know that you are not making the journey alone. Thousands of others have been right where you are today. The site offers support and encouragement to anyone in the midst of leaving fundamentalism, whether they choose to remain within a Christian tradition or leave Christianity altogether." Check out the Frequently Asked Questions at Leaving Fundamentalism.]

"More Catholic than thou":
One Man's Journey through Roman Catholic Fundamentalism
by Andrea Lorenzo Molinari [Ph.D., in Theology (N.T. and Early Christianity), Marquette University; expert on the Nag Hammadi documents; Catholic educator; click on his name for further information]

From There to Here
by L. A. Livingston

My Mother, My Church
by Margaret Steel

The Ministry Revisited
by Keith Dixon

Rapture, Community, and Individualist Hope
by Joseph Simons

Looking Back at Sodom: My Evangelical and Lesbian Testimonies
by Julie Rak [Associate Professor of English, University of Alberta; and, Finalist for the 2006 Raymond Klibansky Prize for the Best Book in the Humanities (English Language)]

Life Stages
by Jacob Shelley

Inching Along
by Beverley Hardy

From Fear to Faith: My Journey into Evangelical Humanism
by Glenn A. Robitaille

"Are you a 'real' Christian?"
by Leia Minaker

The Naked Empress, Queen of Fundamentalism
by Anonymous


THE ABOVE BOOK IS BEING MENTIONED ON BLOGS:

Blog owner of Sub Ratione Dei writes:

One of the essays in Leaving Fundamentalism is by former pastor, David Rattigan, an old college friend from my two year stint at Theological College before I saw the light and got the hell away from the place. Also, he writes very well.

Alexis adds:

I also had a brush with Fundamentalism in the early 90s (and I still have emotional scars). Today I still am a person of faith, but I’ve found that the (majority of the) fundamentalist/charismatic movement has become so entrenched in the modern Christian church (and divisive to the public discourse) that I stopped going. As a result of my own inquiry, research, and exposure to other spiritual traditions, my faith today is a mixture that most closely resembles Zen Christianity.

Evolving Moral Standards Are Evidence Against the God of the Bible

I learn how to defend what I believe better because of the discussions I have with intelligent Christians. Here's an exchange I recently had with Steve Hays on David Wood's Blog:

Both David Wood and Steve Hays criticized Christopher Hitchens for lacking a moral standard to revile Christianity with. This is usual fare among Christians. In Steve's words:

What Hitchens does...is to attack Biblical theism and Biblical morality alike by his extrabiblical sense of what is right and wrong.

Since that is how Hitchens has chosen to frame the argument from evil, he needs to explain and justify his own source and standard of moral valuation.

I had said with Hitchens that Christians do not live up to their own morality. And sometimes they cause suffering when they do follow it.

Steve Hays:

What examples can Loftus cite without begging the question?

John W. Loftus said...

Steve, suffering is obvious. It's pain, pure and simple. Hitchens...has shown how professing Christians have caused suffering in the world though, and professing Christians are the ONLY kind of Christians we see. According to your own belief system a Christian isn't a perfect person (but instead one who believes), so you cannot plausibly argue that the ones causing this suffering are not true Christians without also claiming Christians are sinless, in my opinion.

As far as God commanding his followers to do what we now consider evil goes, I consider the following commands evil: your God declared that a slave is the property of another man (Exodus 21:21). A female captive in war was forced to be an Israelite man’s wife (Deuteronomy 21:10-14). If a virgin who was pledged to be married was raped, she was to be stoned along with her rapist (Deuteronomy 22:23-24), while if a virgin who was not pledged to be married was raped, she was supposed to marry her rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28-29).

I consider the evidence of evolving moral standards--standards that you yourself now accept--as evidence against the God of the Bible...or can you justify honor killings? Answer me this. In obedience to God would you have stoned a virgin pledged to be married, along with her rapist?...or not?

I'm awaiting his answer.

A Critique of Norman L. Geisler’s Review of John Loftus’ FROM APOLOGIST TO ATHEIST

Dr. Norman L. Geisler was one of my heroes when I was a believer. One of the first classes that I took as a Bible college freshman was Bibliology. The textbook for that class was A General Introduction to the Bible (co-authored by William Nix). I literally cut my theological teeth on Geisler’s exposition of the doctrines of revelation, inspiration and inerrancy. I learned how an evangelical believer should think about the development of the canon and the transmission and translation of the Bible. When I became a Bible college professor myself, I used several of Geisler’s books in my classes. I used his Christian Apologetics as one of the required textbooks in Apologetics. I used his Introduction to Philosophy: A Christian Perspective (co-authored by Paul Feinberg) and Let Us Reason: An Introduction to Logic as assigned reading in my Philosophy classes. While, of course, I did not agree with everything he wrote, I had tremendous respect for his scholarship and the clarity in which he communicated. So, when I found out that he had done a critique of my fellow apostate John Loftus’ book , I could not wait to see what he said.

The review is entitled: FROM APOLOGIST TO ATHEIST: A CRITICAL REVIEW , Norman L. Geisler, Ph.D., Christian Apologetics Journal , Volume 6, No. 1, Spring 2007, pp. 93-109.

Geisler begins by throwing some kudos to John’s work. He states: “ … it is a thoughtful and intellectually challenging work, presenting arguments that every honest theist and Christian should face. Indeed, some of his criticisms are valid” (p. 94). The only example, though, of a valid criticism that Geisler mentions is John’s critique of William Craig’s “witness of the Holy Spirit” as a self-authenticating evidence of the truth of Christianity. To me its not surprising that Geisler mentions Craig since they are members of rival schools of apologetics. Its always good to throw a jab at one of your rivals. (I find it fascinating that Christian apologists cannot even agree on the best way to try to defend Christianity. There are multiple approaches each with their own devout followers. See Five Views on Apologetics, edited by Steven Cowan. At least one of these schools, the presuppositionalists accuse the other schools of not really given honor to the Bible.) Nevertheless, Geisler does acknowledge that John’s work is “intellectually challenging.”

My biggest criticism of Geisler’s review is that he maintains that John left the faith because of sin and rebellion not because of genuine intellectual doubts. He says that it is noteworthy that John first step away from God involved moral failure and “Then, he began to doubt God’s word” (p. 97). I am not surprised that Geisler would have this view. Conservative Christians maintain that failure to believe in God is never due to the head but always to the heart. My former pastor used to say this and he would quote Psalms 14:1 to prove it. “The fool hath said in his heart (and by implication not his head), there is no God.” Bob Jones Sr. (who is revered at BJU in way something like Hindus revere their spiritual gurus) had a saying: “If a man will give God his heart, God will comb the kinks out of his head.” For the conservative evangelical Christian it is all about sin. They cannot believe that someone may have honest doubts about God and the Bible (at least not after they have been given all of the pat answers by the Christian apologist—at that stage its only rebellion).

I am also not surprised to see that Geisler actually questioned the genuineness of John’s conversion. He says: “ In summation, one can place question marks on both his ‘conversion’ and ‘deconversion.’ Given the legalistic context, one can question whether or not he really understood the grace of God” (p. 108). Those within my old theological camp (fundamental Baptists) did not believe that most Church of Christ people were truly saved. They thought that the Church of Christ folks (whom they called Campbellites) had added works to grace because of their insistence on baptism as a requirement for salvation. They also felt that the Church of Christ belief that one could lose one’s salvation actually meant that they denied salvation by grace to begin with. A Calvinistic Christian cannot accept the notion of a truly regenerate person falling away. Again to quote my former Pastor: “A faith that fizzles at the finish had a fatal flaw at the first.”

For this reason, Geisler does not give much credence to John’s arguments against Christianity. He says: “The discussion here need not be long for several reasons. First, his unbelief was not initiated by reason, as he admits. Rather, it was his rejection by friends and the lack of Christian love. Second, there is nothing really new here that has not already been answered elsewhere” (p. 100). This confirms what I said above. Many conservative Christians believe that they have all the answers to every question ever raised against the Christian faith. All one has to do is buy their book and presto, they will have all the answers too. If you disagree with their answers, its because of your sinful and rebellious heart.

Geisler maintains that John’s problem with Genesis and science can be answered by “high school level apologetics” (p. 100). While I am no scientist, I have read somewhat widely on evolution and “creation science” and I know that the subject is far more complex than Geisler is acknowledging. He believes that he has refuted evolution by stating: “Red, white, and blue confetti dropped from an airplane will never produce the American Flag on your lawn” (p. 100). Don’t we all wish that the matter was that simple?

The fact is that evolution, while not essentially at odds with conservative Christianity (see the gap theory, theistic evolution, and progressive creationism), is at odds with Geisler’s fundamentalist view of the Scripture. Thus, he seems ready to dismiss the whole subject with his simplistic example of dropping confetti from an airplane.

Geisler says that John’s best argument against God is the argument from evil; but he says it can be dismissed due to circular reasoning. “For how can one know God is ultimately in-just (sic )for allowing evil unless he knows what is ultimately just (sic). And how can he know there is an ultimate standard of justice (i.e., absolute moral law), unless there is an absolute Moral Law Giver” (p. 101)? Here again, it seems to me that Geisler is way too simplistic in dismissing the argument from evil. Common sense and observation tells you that there are many injustices in the world (not caused by man). Hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes and many other types of natural disasters kill and maim young children (not to mention adults) on almost a daily basis around the globe. Children contract cancer and other horrific diseases each day due to no fault of their own. Geisler’s answer to this dilemma is that we will understand one day that these things were really for the best. In the meanwhile, we have to just trust God. Frankly, that is also the teaching of the book of Job and consistent with the overall teaching of Scripture. Don’t be surprised, however, if those who do not have a prior commitment to the truth of Scripture find this argument unconvincing and unsatisfying.

In dealing with Loftus’ “Cumulative Argument” against Christianity, Geisler responds: “First, the atheist, weighs the specific evidence differently than the theist, and his bias affects the way he weighs it. What Loftus views as improbable (say, the resurrection of Christ) is because of his bias against miracles, not because there is not highly probably (sic) historical evidence that it happened, which there is” (p. 101). I have to guess that Geisler has a blind spot here. A man as intelligent as he is ought to recognize that he comes to the same evidence with bias. No one is truly objective. No one interprets any evidence outside of their particular world-view. Now you can argue whether or not the world-view is correct but you cannot operate outside of one in some type of imaginary neutral land. Geisler is just as biased in favor of the resurrection and miracles as Loftus is against them.

Geisler goes on to say: “If miracles are possible (which they are in a theistic universe), then their probability depends purely on the reliability of the documents. And the Gospel documents are reliable. In summary, there are more NT documents, earlier documents, more documents [doesn't this sound redundant-my comment] by more contemporaries and eyewitness testimony, more historically and archaeologically confirmed than for any other events of the ancient world. Hence, it is highly probable that Jesus did the miracles contained in the NT and rose from the dead to confirm his claim to be the Son of God” (pp. 101-102). To argue that the large number of ancient copies of the NT somehow guarantees that the miracles contained in those copies must be true is a huge jump in logic. Would the existence of a large number of copies of the Koran or the Book of Mormon or the Hindu Veda guarantee that the miracles described in those books were true? Geisler mentions archaeologically confirmed Scripture. Has archaeology ever confirmed that a miracle mentioned in the Bible actually took place? I am not aware of any such discovery. Archaeology may confirm some historical references in the Scriptures but that is a far cry from proving that the miracles took place.

Geisler tries to water down John’s claim that historical studies can never prove the Bible beyond a reasonable doubt by saying: “Probabilities leave room for some doubt but not necessarily always a reasonable doubt. And high probabilities do not leave room for any reasonable doubt, though there is always room for possible doubt in historical arguments” (p. 102) To me, this seems like mental gymnastics. Doubt is doubt and for some it will be reasonable doubt and for others it will not. Geisler seems to be assuming some imaginary objective arbiter here. John’s point was simply that historical evidence can never fully prove the Bible to be true and I think he is right.

Geisler continues: “It too can be a cumulative case where one probability is built upon another until the whole argument for Christianity is so highly probable that it is beyond all reasonable doubt” (p. 102). If that is the case, then the only thing keeping the whole world from converting is their lack of knowledge. If somehow, Geisler and his apologists could get their evidence in front of everyone, the whole world would believe (except for those who are willfully rebellious). Excuse me if I think this sounds a little bit arrogant.

Geisler takes John to task for saying that “ancient standards [for eyewitnesses] are pathetic in comparison to today’s standards.” Geisler replies: “This is simply false. Indeed, many legal experts have examined the New Testament eyewitness testimony and found it more than sufficient” (p. 102). Geisler’s “many legal experts” consists of a 19th century apologist-lawyer, Simon Greenleaf, and a 20th century theologian-lawyer, John Montgomery—this hardly constitutes “many legal experts.” The fact is that you can find a lawyer that will defend just about any known position. The testimony recorded in the Gospels is by and large second and third hand which would be dismissed in a court of law as hearsay. And that is ignoring the fact that the Gospel records were written decades after the events took place when memories have a tendency to fade and stories can be embellished. In any case, there is certainly no opportunity to cross examine the so-called eyewitnesses and that alone would nullify their testimony.

Geisler next calls John’s “God-of-the-gaps” argument faulty. Just because science is explaining more and more (leaving less room for God), there is no need for the Christian to worry, according to Geisler, because miracles by definition are irregular, non-repeatable events and as such can never be examined by empirical science. Thus, miracles such as the resurrection are safe from the prying eyes of science. Geisler goes on to argue that only forensic science can be used to test the unobserved and unrepeated events of the past. He writes: “Here one must depend on the principles of causality and uniformity. Events (even past ones) had a cause (causality). And the present is the key to the past (uniformity). Hence, the kind of causes that produce a certain kind of event in the present should be posited for these same kind of events in the past. Some of these events demand intelligent causes” (p. 103). Essentially, Geisler is presenting the cosmological and teleological arguments. While these arguments do have some weight in my opinion, they are far from certain. Whatever the case, what he says does not refute the fact that science has eliminated the need for supernatural explanations of cause and effect phenomena in a host of areas. Whereas people in biblical times had supernatural explanations for many natural phenomena (such as demon possession for epilepsy), most people today living in a post-Enlightenment world know that those explanations are not valid.

Geisler also criticizes John by saying: “… one of the weakest links in his case for atheism is his failure to provide any real positive evidence for God’s non-existence… "(p. 104). Here Geisler is guilty, in my opinion, of the classic fallacy of shifting the burden of proof. It is not the atheist’s responsibility to provide positive evidence against God. The burden of proof lies on the one who is making the assertion that God exists. It is the theist’s responsibility to provide positive evidence for God. The atheist’s only responsibility is to refute the theist’s positive evidence.

Geisler says that John’s “Outsider Test” is self-defeating. (A favorite term of Geisler’s I have noticed in reading his books over the years.) “. . . if one should have the presumption of skepticism toward any belief system, especially his own, then why should Loftus not have the presumption of skepticism toward his own atheistic beliefs? The truth is that the outsider test is self-defeating since by it every agnostic should be agnostic about his own agnosticism and every skeptic would be skeptical of his own skepticism” (p. 105). I fail to see the problem here. Yes, one should be skeptical of their own skepticism. They should try to see their world view as someone outside of their particular belief system would see it. They should read those from opposing world views and talk to people from different cultures and religions. By doing so, it will shed light on the true weaknesses of their particular system of thought (whether that system be evangelical Christianity or atheism).

Geisler believes that being skeptical of one’s views is somehow not a good thing. He says: “Advanced skepticism should only be used when one has advanced evidence or good reasons to disbelieve that the event really did not happen. Otherwise, one should come with an open mind to the question” (p. 107). Geisler seems to be arguing for assuming something to be true until its proven false whereas Loftus is saying to assume something to be false until its proven true. In my opinion, more advances in human thought and understanding are made by following the latter methodology. It seems to me that people are more naturally inclined to follow the first methodology and just believe what the people around them believe. It’s the ones who are willing to question the status quo that wind up making new discoveries and who find new ways to understand the world.

Finally, Geisler accuses John and all atheists of being biased. “The truth is that the only way the atheist or skeptic can even compete on the playing field of religious truth is to load the dice or stack the deck. Most often this is done by assuming either metaphysical or methodological naturalism” (p. 107). I guess evangelical Christians are the only ones who are truly unbiased. Does Geisler not recognize his own bias in favor of supernaturalism? I would agree with those of the competing school of apologetics known as presuppositionalism who maintain that the notion of neutrality is a myth (for example, see Greg Bahnsen). No one is completely objective. No one views the world free from any bias. It is impossible. The first step to achieving some level of objectivity is to recognize your own biases. Geisler does not seem to have done this.

All in all, I cannot say that I am surprised by Geisler’s critique. Knowing evangelical Christianity as I do, I could have almost written the essay for him. Evangelical Christians are certain about what they believe, often to the point of failing to recognize that when it is all said and done, it's still just a belief. They may be right and I may be wrong. I am willing to admit this and they are not. I don’t know if it’s the particular type of psyche that is drawn to dogmatic religion that explains this mentality or if there is some other explanation, but it seems to be common place among evangelicals.

--------------------
To read John's review of Geisler's review see here.

Richard Dawkins Interviews Alister McGrath

This is a 1 hr 10 minute video David Wood found for us.

The Role of Persuasion in the Question of the Holy Spirit

This article takes one of the examples in the "Reasonable Doubts about the Holy Spirit" article and explores it further to show that there is no possible way for a person to come to an informed belief based on the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the alleged interference of Satan or the stubbornness of Humans and that the beliefs that we form about ambiguous subjects are results of factors of persuasion in our environment.

2b. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. Along the way he adopts the belief that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are valid today for everyone. Stipulating for a moment that the Gifts of the Spirit were ONLY valid in the time of the apostles, he lives happily ever after. His Spirit evidently did not pick up on the discrepancy. Is it possible that he made a conscious decision to disregard what the Holy Spirit was telling him and didn't know it?

In this situation at least three premises present themselves to Tom before he forms a belief one way or the other.
1. The Holy Spirits gifts are Valid today.
2. The Holy Spirits gifts are not valid today.
3. Maybe some are valid and some are not.

Stipulating for the sake of argument that the Gifts of the Holy Spirit were ONLY valid at the time of the Apostles I'll assign some claims to some entities.
1. Satan says that The Holy Spirits gifts are Valid today
2. The Holy Spirit says that The Holy Spirits gifts are not valid today.
3. Tom comes up with a compromise that some are valid and some are not.

So How does Tom decide between any of these claims. He is no expert. He stands alone with these thoughts. He can find scripture to support arguments for and against, but his cultural belief in fair play give him the idea that both may be right in certain circumstances. Usually when you have to make a decision or decide what you think about something, it is based on evidence and logical inference. This is true in the day to day interactions in the world. One can see evidence of certain things and one can see if it fits with what the claims are and one can make an informed decision. He knows people that speak in tongues, but he also has a feeling that it may be just a show for attention. However in this case, the evidence is in the Bible, and it seems to be ambiguous on the issue. Usually when one is faced with making a decision and one isn't qualified to make an informed decision, one has to rely on experts.

So now who is an expert? If both arguments have support in the Bible, then how does anyone, even an expert make an informed decision? If they make the decision on a feeling, then how does anyone know where the feeling came from? Holy Spirit, Satan, or the self? If both parties ascribing to different side of the issue make their decision on a feeling that they describe as the Holy Spirit, who can argue? How do they know it was the Holy Spirit? Does this "Holy Spirit Feeling" ever manifest itself in situations where you wouldn't expect any "Holy Spirit Guidance", like at the mall for example? This is where good old fashioned Persuasion and Rhetoric comes into play when you don't have enough information to make a decision about an issue that is ambiguous.

Some factors of Persuasion are in the incomplete list that follows.
- People are naturally terrible at estimating probability.
- People are naturally terrible at perceiving and interpreting probabilistic data.
- People "remember the hits and forget the misses"
- People like stories and are willing to give the teller of the story the benefit of the doubt about the truth of it.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it comes from someone they like.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it is believed by the larger group.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it comes from an authority.
- People will change their evidence based viewpoint if it contradicts the viewpoint of the group.
- People overestimate the degree of belief in others.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it fits with what they already believe or want to believe.
- People look for confirmation of what they already believe and disregard things that contradict.
- People are likely to use the precautionary principle as illustrated by Pascals Wager in minimizing risk.
- People fill in the gaps in information naturally, stories, blind spot in the eye, movies, music etc
- People will come to believe what they hear the more it is repeated to them.
- People are more likely to believe a story that is accompanied by symbols or imagery.

When there are good arguments on both sides and you don't have any evidence to make an inference based on Logic, then you always have your friends, family, church and culture to give you a feeling about the truth of an issue. This is the how the industry of marketing and advertising work as well as politics.

Does anyone just pick a church at random and make it their church home? No, they shop around, and visit other churches till they find one that 'feels' right. Why does it feel right? The Holy Spirit, Satan or self? How do they know? They decide from the factors listed above. The decide based on the influences in their environment.

To say that one follows the Holy Spirit based on a feeling is a case of special pleading. There is no way to validate it even for the person having the feeling. Therefore, the teachings in the Bible that are ambiguous, logically must not be important and can be disregarded until they can be substantiated in principle and evidence.

REFERENCES

- Cialdini, Robert. 2001. Influence: Science and Practice. Boston. Allyn and Bacon.
- Gilovich, Thomas. 1991. How We Know What Isn't So. New York. The Free Press: A division of Macmillan, Inc.
- Okeefe, Daniel J. 1990. Persuasion Theory and Research. Newbury Park, California. Sage Publications.
- Cialdini's Six weapons of influence
- Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion.
- Why Do Christians Believe?
- From an Atheists Perspective
- ChangingMinds.org

Persuasion Videos from Debate Central.
- Speaking to Persuade
- Objects of Persusion
- Theories of Persuasion
- Strategies of Persuasion

Reasonable Doubt About the Holy Spirit

This article is an exploration of some stated and less disputed characteristics of the Holy Spirit. I purposely tried to avoid claims about the Holy Spirit that were disputed between denominations and Churches. I use these relatively undisputed claims as my core premises to construct the argument in favor of the Holy Spirit in order to express doubt about it. By using commonly accepted claims about the Holy Spirit, and my experience as a former Christian I hope to avoid the charge of misrepresentation or "straw man".

P1a. The Holy Spirit is God
P1b. God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, etc.
P2. The Holy Spirit informs the Unbeliever as to the truth of Jesus when being told about it.
P3a. The Holy Spirit is in every Christian
P3b. Every Christian Accepts Christ
P3c. Every Christian should be favorable to Holy Spirit Influence.
P4. The Holy Spirit helped write the scripture
P5. The Holy Spirit helps interpret the scripture
P6. The Holy Spirit gives understanding (informs).

Conclusion: The Holy Spirit is effectively God, it wrote about itself, it lives in every Christian giving guidance about what it helped write about itself therefore there should be no disagreement on any characteristic of the Holy Spirit or interpretation of Scripture.

Many of the claims about the Holy Spirit are not falsifiable, but premises P5 and P6 are. For example, some early pre-Nicean Christian Church leaders rejected the Trinity. They were closest to the source, which infers that if the principles regarding the Holy Spirit were valid, then they of all people would know if it was a proper way to describe God or not. Yet the validity of the Trinity as a proper description of God seems to be in doubt by some denominations. Additionally some other characteristics of God aka The Holy Spirit seem to be in doubt. Some Christians say the Holy Spirit is a female entity, and some say it is male. Some say it is a person and some say it isn't.

Why can't all Christians agree on any of this if they are all getting guidance from the Holy Spirit? But quite counter-intuitively one Christian in one church has their point of view and another Christian in another church has a different point of view. They both believe they have the Holy Spirit inside and are getting guidance (informed). But what is the manifestation of this guidance? Is it a feeling, or verbal thoughts, or images or something else? Its obviously something personal and individual.

You who are Christian, how does the Holy Spirit manifests its guidance to you? The next time you are in a disagreement with another Christian over some aspect of scripture, do a little introspection and have some humility. First, recognize that you may be wrong. Second, if you don't come to agree with the other person, do some introspection. Look for its manifestation and see if you are getting any guidance from the Holy Spirit. See if you can distinguish what your thoughts are from the guidance of the Holy Spirit. If you can distinguish, and you are certain you're expressing the point of view of the Holy Spirit, then the person you are having the discussion with should agree with you if they are a true Christian and have the Spirit indwelling. If you can't distinguish then, ask yourself, is this person getting guidance from the Holy Spirit and if so how do they distinguish? Maybe you should ask them, how the guidance of the Holy Spirit manifests itself to them because if they can distinguish their thoughts from the Holy Spirit, then you need to adopt their way of thinking right away. If they can't and you can't either, then maybe you should stop worrying about the initial disagreement and start worrying about why neither one of you are getting guidance from the Holy Spirit. If you are convinced you are getting guidance, and they are too, then you are at an impasse, and logically this should not be possible. One of you must be wrong about receiving guidance from the Holy Spirit. But why would you think you were getting guidance if you weren't? In any case you'll need to get another opinion, but how do you ultimately know who's interpretation of scripture is correct and who's isn't. Hopefully the Holy Spirit will let you know who you can trust. However that doesn't seem to be the case in some churches. Churches that have had Pastors such as Ted Haggard, or a community in Uganda, Africa are sorely missing that type of guidance.

If the Holy Spirit informs, and a true Christian has it living inside and it lives inside because the person should be favorable to its influence then how can there possibly be Christian on Christian crime? I Bet William Tyndale, who created the first English translation of the Bible and was subsequently charged with heresy was wondering something similar as he was praying "Oh Lord, open the King of England's eyes" shortly before being strangled and burned. If a person can't tell when the holy spirit is giving them guidance, what good is it? How is it supposed to work?

During my research for this article (hardly any of them scholarly or academic sources) I noticed that some web sites talked about the lack of good commentary on the Holy Spirit and one speculated that it was probably because people were afraid of Blasphemy against it. In my opinion, the lack of commentary is because they are afraid to take a position on it out of fear of criticism. Most of them just quoted scripture and never provided any mechanism for how it worked but did provide a lot of ambiguous Emotional Persuasion Dialogue aka Rhetoric with no way to validate it. This is an indication that it is not very well understood which is not what you'd expect if the principles written about it are true.

The following are some situations I created using the principles of the Holy Spirit to explore their implications. I purposely worded them redundantly so the impact of the argument would not get lost. In each case the presumption is that the Holy Spirit informs or gives guidance to facilitate a decision to accept or reject.

How it should happen.
1. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. He does and lives happily ever after.

How it should not happen.

Tom Believes the Gifts Were Only Valid For The Apostles:
2a. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. Along the way he adopts the belief that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were only valid for the Apostles. Stipulating for a moment that the Gifts of the Spirit are NOT only valid in the time of the apostles, he lives happily ever after. His Spirit evidently did not pick up on that discrepancy. Is it possible that he made a conscious decision to disregard what the Holy Spirit was telling him and didn't know it?

or the opposite situation happens

Tom Believes the Gifts Are Valid For Everyone Today:
2b. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. Along the way he adopts the belief that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are valid today for everyone. Stipulating for a moment that the Gifts of the Spirit were ONLY valid in the time of the apostles, he lives happily ever after. His Spirit evidently did not pick up on the discrepancy. Is it possible that he made a conscious decision to disregard what the Holy Spirit was telling him and didn't know it? This argument is discussed in detail here

Tom Becomes an Apostate:
3a. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. He does and learns more about the bible and Christianity. He has questions that are not resolved in his mind. He makes no conscious decision to disbelieve anything that he thought was rational. Everything that bothered him, bothered him exactly because he thought it didn't make sense. He becomes an apostate later in life, living happily ever after. Was the Holy Spirit giving him guidance to cause him to find fault in the Bible or Christianity? If not, then if the Holy Spirit was giving him guidance and it didn't make sense to him then is he culpable when he rejects Christianity on those grounds? On the other hand how do you love something you have doubts about? If he grudgingly keeps professing his faith, gods not going to be fooled and he's as good as an apostate.

or the opposite situation happens

Tom Hangs Onto His Belief Despite Doubts:
3b. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. He does and learns more about the bible and Christianity. He has questions that are not resolved in his mind and he makes no conscious decision to disbelieve anything that he thought made sense. Everything that bothered him, bothered him exactly because he thought it didn't make sense. He wrestles with these questions for the rest of his life professing his faith and NOT living happily ever after. Was the Holy Spirit giving him guidance to cause him to find fault in the Bible or Christianity? If not, how is it that the Holy Spirit didn't intervene on behalf of itself to the point that he would not have to make a choice to disregard conflicting information that he honestly believed was valid? Here is a link to a DC article called "Christians Who Struggle With Serious Doubts" that talks about this.

Tom Doesn't Accept Jesus At First Contact
4. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. But he doesn't because he is not convinced. What could be going on in inside Tom to cause that to happen? Doesn't Tom realize that the Holy Spirit is working on him to influence him to believe? How is Tom supposed to recognize the fact the he is being informed by the Holy Spirit? Is Tom consciously disregarding information that is informing him from the Holy Spirit? Can Tom distinguish between what are his thoughts and what is the guidance and understanding of the Holy Spirit?

Tom Accepts Jesus But Doesn't Become A True Christian:
5. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. Evan is in the Catholic Church, or Protestant, or Church of God, or Jehovah's Witness or Church of Latter Day Saints. Tom likes what he hears and accepts Christ. But the other Churches out there are saying that those churches aren't made up of real Christians, kind of like the Pope did on July 10, 2007. So if these are not real Christians, why didn't the Holy Spirit pick up on this and over time put Tom in a position to have to make a conscious decision to disregard information about itself that he new was valid and accept information that he did not know was valid? There was no informed decision possible.

Where are the real Christians? In what church?
* The Catholic Church? or any of the other versions of Catholicism?
* Protestant Evangelicals? or any of the many other protestant churches?
* Jehovah's Witnesses?
* Latter Day Saints?
* Church of God?

Since it seems apparent that the Holy Spirit does not help interpret scripture or give understanding, Reasonable Doubt about the Holy Spirit is justified.

For effect I listed the staggering number of Christian Denominations from Wikipedia and after that, the staggering number of theological disputes between them.

List of Christian Denominations from Wikipedia
1 Catholicism
1.1 The Catholic Church: Churches in communion with the Bishop of Rome
1.2 Other Churches that are Catholic, But Who Are Not In Communion With Rome

2 Eastern Churches
2.1 The (Eastern) Orthodox Church
2.2 Western-Rite Orthodox Churches
2.3 Other Eastern Orthodox Churches
2.3.1 Assyrian Church of the East
2.4 Oriental Orthodoxy
2.4.1 Oriental Orthodox Communion

3 Anglicanism
3.1 Anglican Communion (in communion with the Church of England)
3.2 Independent Anglican and Continuing Anglican Movement Churches

4 Protestant
4.1 Pre-Lutheran Protestants
4.2 Lutheranism
4.3.1 Presbyterianism
4.3.2 Congregationalist Churches
4.4 Anabaptists
4.5 Methodists
4.6 Pietists and Holiness Churches
4.7 Baptists
4.7.1 Spiritual Baptists
4.9 Apostolic Churches - Irvingites
4.10 Pentecostalism
4.11 Oneness Pentecostalism
4.12 Charismatics
4.12.1 Neo-Charismatic Churches
4.13 African Initiated Churches
4.14 United and uniting churches
4.15 Other Protestant Denominations
4.16 Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

5 Messianic Judaism

6 Restorationism
6.1 Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement
6.2 Southcottites
6.3 Millerites and Comparable groups
6.3.1 Sabbath Keeping Churches, Adventist
6.3.2 Sabbath-Keeping Churches, Non-Adventist in north Pennsylvania
6.3.3 Sunday Adventists
6.3.4 Sacred Name Groups
6.3.5 Other Adventists
6.3.6 Bible Student Groups
6.4 Anglo-Israelism

7 Nontrinitarian Groups
7.1 Unitarianism and Universalism

8 Religious movements related to Christianity
8.1 Manichaeism
8.2 The New Church also called Swedenborgianism
8.2.1 Episcopal
8.2.2 Congregational
8.3 New Thought
8.4 Christian mystery movements

9 Ethnic or syncretic religions incorporating elements of Christianity

10 Christianism

With help from John, Prup, and an Ed Babinski article, here are a list of some disputed topics. I wanted to list as many items as possible to give a graphic representation of how unreliable the principles of the Holy Spirit are.

- Trinity or no?
- Arianism
- The disputes that drove the creation of Protestants.
- Denominations of Protestants
- Denominations of Catholics
- War between Catholics and protestants
- Holy Spirit male or female?
- Holy Spirit is a person or not?
- Salvation, faith or works
- Baptism
- Infant Baptism
- Hell is real and fiery or not?
- Purgatory
- Snake handling
- Once saved always saved?
- Where do Suicides go?
- Speaking in tongues
- Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit
- New covenant theology
- The 'two natures' in Christ.
- The Ordination of Women
- The attitude towards gays
- The various parts of the Bible that seem to be later additions, such as the 'story of the woman taken in adultery' and the 'Great Commission' that ends Matthew, etc.
- The Rapture
- Slavery
- Biblical inerrancy
- Christendom
- Papal Infallibility
- Double Predestination
- Just War Theory
- Penal Substitution
- God as a Male
- Sin
- Unforgivable Sin
- Second coming has already happened
- The point in time that the holy spirit indwells and fills you
- Gifts of the spirit given to everyone or different people at different times
- 'pre-Nicean' controversies

My Talk at the Freethought Association of West Michigan

On June 27th I spoke for the Freethought Association of West Michigan, which, by the way, is one of the largest local Freethought organizations in America. Charles LaRue wrote up a description of my talk and book seen here [Scroll down to "Today's Meeting Topic"]. Don't assume I said everything he writes about since he offers his own particular slant on my talk in several places. Sometime soon they'll post the video of the talk I gave.

What Would You Do With $800,000.00 or 55,000 People for 12 Hours?

On July 7, 2007 55,000 people at a cost of $800,000.00 got together in Nashville for twelve hours of swaying, praying and fasting to influence God or other people or maybe it was just a pep talk to turn the country around. It was intentionally held on 7/7/07 because “Biblically, the number seven is the Lord's number," said Scott MacLeod, who helped organize The Call and is founder of Provision International, an inner-city ministry in Nashville. “All through the Bible, there are a series of sevens. So, when you get three sevens to line up at once, you know something's up.”

Can’t argue with logic like that. God knows there is more potential energy in those prayers than the combined effort of 110,000 hands laying on tools or brainstorming on different ways you could use $800,000.00 or 55,000 people to do something useful.