In David Eller's excellent book, Atheism Advanced, Eller basically explains morality as those moral rules made up by people in order to define what it means to be part of any culture. They are usually based upon the religious myths each culture accepts. There is no morality then, only "moralities."
He finds that there are moralities among animals like Chimps, so it shouldn't surprise us when language bearing humans came up with more elaborate moral rules. And since we're talking about human beings, it's no surprise that our moralities have some major similarities since we are social animals who need to get along, to be loved and to love, to help and to be helped. Anyone who doesn't accept the moral rules of a culture are not allowed in the group, or we banish them, ostracize them, imprison them, and kill them. Do you want the benefits of being in the group? Then obey the moral rules, or at least don't get caught. Otherwise, you’re on your own. As such, there is nothing prohibiting someone from not accepting the moral rules of a culture if s/he doesn't want the benefits of the group (which would be a Freudian "death wish"). Are acts like murder, rape, and theft objectively and universally "wrong" then? That's probably a nonsensical question.
Therefore, there can be no argument for the existence of God based on morality. Human beings make up their own moralities because we're social beings who need to belong and get along. Morality is part of our survival instinct. We need other people to survive!
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For a Christian who might be stunned by the conclusion that it's probably a nonsensical question whether or not murder, rape, and theft are objectively and universally "wrong," then think again. Look at your own Bible. There is plenty of that to be found in it, all sanctioned by your barbaric God. Elsewhere I've argued that rational self-interest can account for our morality.
February 28, 2009
February 27, 2009
Louis Feldman on Jesus and the Truthfulness of the Gospels
[Note: This is an excursion from a post I’m working on as a reply to Christopher Price’s study on the Testimonium Flavianum pericope the Jewish Historian Josephus (Ant. XVIII. 63 - 4) is claimed to have written. The full lecture, from which these sections were taken by Louis Feldman, can be found here.]
Louis Feldman:
As Eli Wiesel has said, the world is willing to forget the slaughter of six million innocent Jews sixty years ago, but it will never let the Jews forget the execution of that one Jew two thousand years ago.
However, the fact that it depends upon the Gospels immediately raises a number of questions. Because, after all, when you say the Gospels, there are four different accounts in the Gospels and they don't agree with one another in a number of respects. For example, there are different genealogies of Jesus. They have different accounts of the trial of Jesus. And we'll see there are other discrepancies.
In addition to those four accounts, there are a number of accounts that never made it into the canon of the New Testament. So therefore to speak of something that will be dependent upon the Gospels, which Gospel?
Secondly, how could you depend upon the Gospels when after all, the Gospels were not composed in Galilee where Jesus came from. They were not composed in Jerusalem where Jesus died. They were not composed in Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke, but in Greek. They were written by people who never knew Jesus in person. None of them knew Jesus in person. One of them, Luke, was not a Jew, incidentally. And the Gospels were written at least forty years after the death of Jesus. Now, coming from such sources, would evidence be admitted in a court today, let alone be ready to convict somebody?
But one thing is clear, that the earliest of the Gospels certainly, usually said to be Mark, dates from around the year 70, which is long after the time of Jesus, who apparently died in the year 29. And that Jesus never wrote anything. You know, if you had an inquest in the case of Jesus, who killed Jesus, you don't have a body. You don't have anything he wrote. None of the authors of the Gospels ever talked to him. So you have nothing.
On Josephus and Jesus:
It's very interesting that there is one other account which, if it is authentic, does deal with the crucifixion. And that is by the Jewish historian Josephus. The question is whether Josephus really wrote it. And I've written about that, and I've come to the conclusion that he couldn't have written it, certainly in the form that we have it, because Origen, the Christian church father, at one point says that Josephus didn't recognize that Jesus was the Christos.
On Pilate and Jesus:
Here we have two people - and these are really the only two people who deal with Pontius Pilate at any length, namely Philo, the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria, who was the leader of the Jewish community in Alexandria, and Josephus. They both mention Pontius Pilate. I might say that Josephus mentions Pontius Pilate in both the Jewish War and in the Antiquities.
The major difference, I might say, between the two accounts of Josephus is that the Jewish War account, which is almost as long as the one in the Antiquities, does not mention the passage about Jesus, which is a central focus of the Pontius Pilate account in the Antiquities.
Philo says about Pontius Pilate, and again you would never get this from reading the Gospels and certainly not from Mel Gibson, that he was "inflexible, he was stubborn, of cruel disposition. He executed troublemakers without a trial." He refers to Pilate's "venality, his violence, thefts, assaults, abusive behavior, endless executions, endless savage ferocity." And I'm quoting.
Now, Philo was certainly a scholar. He apparently had good information. You can see that he certainly tries his best to be fair towards the Romans. He got along with the Romans. He was the head of a delegation to the Roman Emperor Caligula, yet this is the way he speaks about Pontius Pilate. And those are the only substantial accounts that we have of Pontius Pilate. Pontius Pilate, according to Josephus, actually took money from the Temple and built an aqueduct in Jerusalem. He offended Jewish sensibilities by attempting to introduce busts of the emperor into Jerusalem.
Again, when the Samaritans arose to make a pilgrimage to Mt. Gerixim, he sent his soldiers, who slaughtered the people. Eventually he was deposed. The Roman governor of Syria, who was in charge of the procurators, actually forced him out of office.
Louis Feldman:
As Eli Wiesel has said, the world is willing to forget the slaughter of six million innocent Jews sixty years ago, but it will never let the Jews forget the execution of that one Jew two thousand years ago.
However, the fact that it depends upon the Gospels immediately raises a number of questions. Because, after all, when you say the Gospels, there are four different accounts in the Gospels and they don't agree with one another in a number of respects. For example, there are different genealogies of Jesus. They have different accounts of the trial of Jesus. And we'll see there are other discrepancies.
In addition to those four accounts, there are a number of accounts that never made it into the canon of the New Testament. So therefore to speak of something that will be dependent upon the Gospels, which Gospel?
Secondly, how could you depend upon the Gospels when after all, the Gospels were not composed in Galilee where Jesus came from. They were not composed in Jerusalem where Jesus died. They were not composed in Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke, but in Greek. They were written by people who never knew Jesus in person. None of them knew Jesus in person. One of them, Luke, was not a Jew, incidentally. And the Gospels were written at least forty years after the death of Jesus. Now, coming from such sources, would evidence be admitted in a court today, let alone be ready to convict somebody?
But one thing is clear, that the earliest of the Gospels certainly, usually said to be Mark, dates from around the year 70, which is long after the time of Jesus, who apparently died in the year 29. And that Jesus never wrote anything. You know, if you had an inquest in the case of Jesus, who killed Jesus, you don't have a body. You don't have anything he wrote. None of the authors of the Gospels ever talked to him. So you have nothing.
On Josephus and Jesus:
It's very interesting that there is one other account which, if it is authentic, does deal with the crucifixion. And that is by the Jewish historian Josephus. The question is whether Josephus really wrote it. And I've written about that, and I've come to the conclusion that he couldn't have written it, certainly in the form that we have it, because Origen, the Christian church father, at one point says that Josephus didn't recognize that Jesus was the Christos.
On Pilate and Jesus:
Here we have two people - and these are really the only two people who deal with Pontius Pilate at any length, namely Philo, the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria, who was the leader of the Jewish community in Alexandria, and Josephus. They both mention Pontius Pilate. I might say that Josephus mentions Pontius Pilate in both the Jewish War and in the Antiquities.
The major difference, I might say, between the two accounts of Josephus is that the Jewish War account, which is almost as long as the one in the Antiquities, does not mention the passage about Jesus, which is a central focus of the Pontius Pilate account in the Antiquities.
Philo says about Pontius Pilate, and again you would never get this from reading the Gospels and certainly not from Mel Gibson, that he was "inflexible, he was stubborn, of cruel disposition. He executed troublemakers without a trial." He refers to Pilate's "venality, his violence, thefts, assaults, abusive behavior, endless executions, endless savage ferocity." And I'm quoting.
Now, Philo was certainly a scholar. He apparently had good information. You can see that he certainly tries his best to be fair towards the Romans. He got along with the Romans. He was the head of a delegation to the Roman Emperor Caligula, yet this is the way he speaks about Pontius Pilate. And those are the only substantial accounts that we have of Pontius Pilate. Pontius Pilate, according to Josephus, actually took money from the Temple and built an aqueduct in Jerusalem. He offended Jewish sensibilities by attempting to introduce busts of the emperor into Jerusalem.
Again, when the Samaritans arose to make a pilgrimage to Mt. Gerixim, he sent his soldiers, who slaughtered the people. Eventually he was deposed. The Roman governor of Syria, who was in charge of the procurators, actually forced him out of office.
A Few Links About James P. Holding
James Patrick Holding changed his name to Robert Turkel and changed it back to JP Holding. There are several sites dedicated to exposing his disgusting and depraved tactics, along with the way he dishonestly mischaracterizes his skeptical opponent's arguments. He riles atheists and agnostics not because Holding effectively refutes our arguments, but because he's an obnoxious know-it-all who treats those who disagree with disdain, even credentialed scholars. He's spread his cancerous type of Christianity over at Theology Web where he has been given an area as his own, which he says is his "exclusive place to debate." Any skeptic who dares to challenge his views there will not be able to take the ridicule and abuse he and his followers will heap on him. It will not be a free discussion of the ideas. Expect to be mocked. This is his version of Christianity at its best, and it's ugly. You will feel as though you're back in High School trying to carry on a reasonable discussion with a gang of adolescents who don't care, who mimic their hero J.P. Holding. And Holding likes it this way, because then he doesn't really have to deal with the opposing arguments.
I want to comment about JP Holding's recent Blog he's involved in that is dedicated to personal attacks on me [Edit he now has two, count 'em two Blogs dedicated to Lil ole me. Tee hee. They say you can tell how famous a person is by the number of stalkers he or she has. I have a few of them. But Holding is obsessed with me]. He claims he's focusing on me because of my "entertainment value." Hmmmmm. What's that exactly? And if so, is this a good "stewardship" of his time? The truth is he's being disingenuous, for he later adds that I am an "enemy of the common good." Lot's to say about that one. He cannot honestly or consistently tell us why he's targeting me. No one bothers targeting people who are not influential or important, now do they? Besides, most of what we get from him are ad hominems. He's the one who has entertainment value I think! ;-)
I don't plan on giving Holding much attention here at all. Attention is what he craves for it validates him. In fact, among his ignorant followers they think he's important precisely because he gets some pretty important skeptics to turn our guns on him. His followers conclude he must be doing something right if we go after him. But the truth is that Holding merely annoys us by treating us with such disrespect that we feel compelled to respond. He makes us angry, not because he has great arguments but because of his demeanor toward us.
Dr. Keith Parsons calls him an "idiot loser" and writes: "If you elicit foaming rants from Holding and his ilk, you must be doing your job." "Holding is like the big, fat cockroach that scuttles across your kitchen floor. You just can't resist the temptation to stomp on him."
In one of his diatribes Holding called Dr. Hector Avalos "Dr. Stupid" not long ago. As you'd guess that got a rise out of him. So Avalos powerfully responded to Holding right here. Dr. Avalos points out "A series of self-assured statements (from Holding) that turn out to be false, sloppy, misleading, or outright lies." He continues:
One of the most important debates about Holding and his clowns has to do with his Biblical justification for ridiculing and belittling apostates, skeptics and yes, even other Christians he thinks are heretics. Holding’s justification for being obnoxious to people who don't accept the "truth" can to be found here. Most everyone would disagree with Holding on this. He and others like him live in a tiny tiny part of the world. I've weighed in on this matter here. There are Calvinists who think God has predestined people like me to hell and so I deserve nothing from them, not any dignity, respect or truth. So why would anyone trust much of anything these Calvinists or Christians like Holding say about skeptics like me? They have all but admitted I don't deserve being treated charitably with dignity and respect. Holding is a grand master of what is called "terrorist apologetics," and he's focused on me.
Holding hangs out at TheologyWeb. The first time I went online in 2004 Ed Babinski pointed me to TWeb. I didn't know any better. So I went there. All I have wanted to do is to discuss the issues and the evidence for my claim can be found here at DC every single day. But what I found at TWeb were juveniles, hacks, hyenas and jackals who were not interested in an honest respectful debate for the most part. Holding was the ring leader. People there followed his example of "terrorist apologetics." But I stayed because I wanted to see if I could break through to them. And I didn't know where else to go. It's the one forum I emphatically do not recommend if you're looking for an honest and thoughtful discussion of the ideas. They are juveniles. They act like juveniles, think like juveniles, and argue like juveniles, after their juvenile leader, Holding. To deal with the likes of them is to wallow in the mire with pigs.
When I first self-published my book, Why I Rejected Christianity, it appeared on Amazon without any description of the contents inside. So in order to tell readers about it I wrote a description and posted it as a review using my name. In order to do so I had to rate it, so I did what most other self-published authors do, I rated it with five stars. Then when the description of it appeared three months later I removed it from Amazon. Three years later someone on TWeb claimed I wrote a deceptive review of my own book hiding the fact that it was me. I denied it partially because of how this accusation was made. I emphatically did not attempt to deceive anyone. My name was on the review and I said I was the author and that in order to tell readers what was inside the book I had to rate it. I also denied it because I had forgotten that I wrote it. But Holding and company claim I deceived and denied the truth. I didn't. It was the nature of the accusation and the fact that I had forgotten I did it. When shown that I had written it I remembered and admitted I did so.
In complete frustration with the likes of Holding I went on the attack and started a blog about Holding with numerous quotes and links that people who have dealt with him before wrote (what you will find below). Even a cuddly dog can be provoked to take a bite out of you, and I did. Holding is lying when he says that when confronted with it I denied it. I most certainly did not. I admitted it. Prove me wrong or shut up!
There is another guy over there named Nick Peters whom I debated on the problem of evil a few years ago. Why did I debate him? Who knows? When I first came online in 2004 I didn't know where else to go. In any case, every single one of the Christian TWebbers said I had lost the debate to Nick even though he lost that debate miserably. But rather than say anything critical about his performance all he received was unqualified praise for beating me when he didn't. TWebbers basically lied to him. Nick was at the time a college student working at a Walmart. The only thing I could figure out was that these Christians were encouraging Nick despite the evidence and despite the truth. Liars for Jesus they proved themselves to be. Liars to Nick. I really think we should not lie to people like they were lying to him. Christians will do this out of faith. They'll say "yes, you'd make a good minister," only to have such a person fall flat on his ass figuring out years later he should never be in ministry in the first place. That's why I wanted Nick to hear a second opinion, mine, since he was aspiring to be an apologist and showed no signs of being able to comprehend a simple argument in that debate. I said the reason they encouraged him and put him on staff at TheologyWeb is because he has a disability and the staff felt sorry for him.
Now they go around lying about why I said what I said, without the whole context. Maybe Nick will indeed be a good apologist. He certainly has improved himself somewhat over the years. But there is no crime in telling the truth when everyone else he knew was not doing so. You might be able to fault me in the future for being wrong (or blunt in the heated aftermath of a debate). But it is an absolute lie for them to say what I said was spoken out of hate for a man with a disability.
Nick can show himself to be an adult. Rather than doing the right thing and telling people to drop it since it makes no difference now, he's playing the sympathy card: "Poor pitiful me," he's now acting, "look how a big bad atheist told the truth as he saw it at the time." And that is what I thought at the time, although I also said that even if he proved me wrong he can thank me for inspiring him. It's like I must have actually kicked him or something. I didn't. Get over it Nick. Grow up. Do the adult thing. Tell people to drop it. It's over. Move on. But he's learned from Holding. He'll not amount to much of anything so long as he seeks to mimic Holding and that has nothing whatsoever to do with any disability he has.
Holding also lies when he claims I misused Norman Geisler’s 'endorsement' of my book. I did no such thing. What, must I quote everything Geisler said to provide the context for one or more of his sentences and if I don't, I'm misusing the quote? Who in their right mind would ask for that? I quoted him accurately and even included another personal note inside the book from him later, where he states he does not agree with me.
Holding and crew will throw up other accusations at me from when I was visiting TheologyWeb a few years back. All they can show is that when visiting an insane asylum I can act as crazy as the inmates since I was completely frustrated with that forum and the people there. There comes a point when a person can be so frustrated with a group of people who are not interested in a decent discussion that there is nothing left to do but blast them. And I did. I have no respect for them and do not try to have a rational decent discussion with the likes of them any more. They deserve only my disgust.
So now I have a problem. What I know without a doubt is that Holding and his ilk are swine and they continually try to drag me down into the mire with them. If I don't respond then it seems they win. If I do respond I am equated with him.
But I am not like him. He is below me. He dogs my steps with a couple of blogs dedicated to personal attacks on me on a monthly basis, if not more (plus a few sticky posts at TWeb about me up front and center). He claims I'm obsessed with him but if so, why is it I hardly ever mention his name? Remember, it's not me who has two Blogs dedicated to debunking him. He's not worth it. I merely respond to his false and childish accusations once in a long while. If he didn't do this from time to time I'd never even bother thinking about him or his clown followers. [No wonder they hate me 'cause I call 'em clowns. I maintain they are. No one but a clown would be a follower of Holding].
As far as I'm concerned except for this lone post, Holding doesn't exist. This probably bothers him greatly because he craves validation and I refuse to give it to him. That's why he continues to bring up these false and out-of-context accusations in order to get a rise out of me, to see me mention his name again and again. I suppose he'll bring up these old accusations five years or ten or twenty years from now as if they are relevant to who I am. They aren't, not at all.
Until he comes up to the respectful adult world of discourse who treats his intellectual opponents as human beings, and until he displays a greater level of education and thinking skills, I will ignore him.
I call upon his own Christian friends to bring him to his senses. He is the one who initially poured gasoline on the fires on my passion. I warned him about this that as a passionate man he ought not to have done it with me. I am motivated by believers who think they can dehumanize a person simply because he does not believe the exact same way. I dare say that Holding's efforts his whole life will not be in the plus column after you factor in the way he motivated me to go for the jugular vein of the faith that allows him to justify dehumanizing people like me. It's that same faith that led to the burning of heretics. The only difference is that people like Holding do not have the political power they once had.
But he still laughs even though I am dedicated to the destruction of his faith. Evangelicals have him partially to thank.
---------------------------
Here are what others have said about him:
Joe E. Holman wrote:
Jason Long responds to J.P. Holding here, where he writes,
exapologist said...
Chris Hallquist sums up the consensus opinion about J.P. Holding, here. Hallquist said,
As a former dialogue partner with Holding Matthew J. Green just got fed up with him, seen here. Matthew says,
Matthew J. Green later responds to J.P. Holding, here in these words:
Ebon Musings said this about Holding's tactics, here:
Jim Lippard points out J.P. Holding's dishonesty, here. He says,
Farrell Till responds to J.P Holding, here, and here, and here. Till says this of Holding:
G.A. Wells responds to J.P. Holding, here. He wrote,
Richard Carrier responds to J.P. Holding, here. In response to Holding's argument Carrier says this,
Thom Stark, a liberal Christian scholar writes the following about JP Holding:
I want to comment about JP Holding's recent Blog he's involved in that is dedicated to personal attacks on me [Edit he now has two, count 'em two Blogs dedicated to Lil ole me. Tee hee. They say you can tell how famous a person is by the number of stalkers he or she has. I have a few of them. But Holding is obsessed with me]. He claims he's focusing on me because of my "entertainment value." Hmmmmm. What's that exactly? And if so, is this a good "stewardship" of his time? The truth is he's being disingenuous, for he later adds that I am an "enemy of the common good." Lot's to say about that one. He cannot honestly or consistently tell us why he's targeting me. No one bothers targeting people who are not influential or important, now do they? Besides, most of what we get from him are ad hominems. He's the one who has entertainment value I think! ;-)
I don't plan on giving Holding much attention here at all. Attention is what he craves for it validates him. In fact, among his ignorant followers they think he's important precisely because he gets some pretty important skeptics to turn our guns on him. His followers conclude he must be doing something right if we go after him. But the truth is that Holding merely annoys us by treating us with such disrespect that we feel compelled to respond. He makes us angry, not because he has great arguments but because of his demeanor toward us.
Dr. Keith Parsons calls him an "idiot loser" and writes: "If you elicit foaming rants from Holding and his ilk, you must be doing your job." "Holding is like the big, fat cockroach that scuttles across your kitchen floor. You just can't resist the temptation to stomp on him."
In one of his diatribes Holding called Dr. Hector Avalos "Dr. Stupid" not long ago. As you'd guess that got a rise out of him. So Avalos powerfully responded to Holding right here. Dr. Avalos points out "A series of self-assured statements (from Holding) that turn out to be false, sloppy, misleading, or outright lies." He continues:
In general, Holding’s review relies heavily on the following types of arguments:Then there is the case of former DC member, Matthew J. Green, who as a skeptic tried to be Holding's friend to no avail, and finally wrote him off.
1. Ad hominem argumentation
2. Ad vericundiam argumentation, an “appeal to authority” that is inadmissible in logic, especially without further explanation of why such an authority is correct.
3. Juvenile rhetorical devices usually repeated ad nauseam (“whine” “rant” etc.) that could apply equally to his complaints about my book. These devices serve to deflect attention from the lack of substance in Holding’s posts.
One of the most important debates about Holding and his clowns has to do with his Biblical justification for ridiculing and belittling apostates, skeptics and yes, even other Christians he thinks are heretics. Holding’s justification for being obnoxious to people who don't accept the "truth" can to be found here. Most everyone would disagree with Holding on this. He and others like him live in a tiny tiny part of the world. I've weighed in on this matter here. There are Calvinists who think God has predestined people like me to hell and so I deserve nothing from them, not any dignity, respect or truth. So why would anyone trust much of anything these Calvinists or Christians like Holding say about skeptics like me? They have all but admitted I don't deserve being treated charitably with dignity and respect. Holding is a grand master of what is called "terrorist apologetics," and he's focused on me.
Holding hangs out at TheologyWeb. The first time I went online in 2004 Ed Babinski pointed me to TWeb. I didn't know any better. So I went there. All I have wanted to do is to discuss the issues and the evidence for my claim can be found here at DC every single day. But what I found at TWeb were juveniles, hacks, hyenas and jackals who were not interested in an honest respectful debate for the most part. Holding was the ring leader. People there followed his example of "terrorist apologetics." But I stayed because I wanted to see if I could break through to them. And I didn't know where else to go. It's the one forum I emphatically do not recommend if you're looking for an honest and thoughtful discussion of the ideas. They are juveniles. They act like juveniles, think like juveniles, and argue like juveniles, after their juvenile leader, Holding. To deal with the likes of them is to wallow in the mire with pigs.
When I first self-published my book, Why I Rejected Christianity, it appeared on Amazon without any description of the contents inside. So in order to tell readers about it I wrote a description and posted it as a review using my name. In order to do so I had to rate it, so I did what most other self-published authors do, I rated it with five stars. Then when the description of it appeared three months later I removed it from Amazon. Three years later someone on TWeb claimed I wrote a deceptive review of my own book hiding the fact that it was me. I denied it partially because of how this accusation was made. I emphatically did not attempt to deceive anyone. My name was on the review and I said I was the author and that in order to tell readers what was inside the book I had to rate it. I also denied it because I had forgotten that I wrote it. But Holding and company claim I deceived and denied the truth. I didn't. It was the nature of the accusation and the fact that I had forgotten I did it. When shown that I had written it I remembered and admitted I did so.
In complete frustration with the likes of Holding I went on the attack and started a blog about Holding with numerous quotes and links that people who have dealt with him before wrote (what you will find below). Even a cuddly dog can be provoked to take a bite out of you, and I did. Holding is lying when he says that when confronted with it I denied it. I most certainly did not. I admitted it. Prove me wrong or shut up!
There is another guy over there named Nick Peters whom I debated on the problem of evil a few years ago. Why did I debate him? Who knows? When I first came online in 2004 I didn't know where else to go. In any case, every single one of the Christian TWebbers said I had lost the debate to Nick even though he lost that debate miserably. But rather than say anything critical about his performance all he received was unqualified praise for beating me when he didn't. TWebbers basically lied to him. Nick was at the time a college student working at a Walmart. The only thing I could figure out was that these Christians were encouraging Nick despite the evidence and despite the truth. Liars for Jesus they proved themselves to be. Liars to Nick. I really think we should not lie to people like they were lying to him. Christians will do this out of faith. They'll say "yes, you'd make a good minister," only to have such a person fall flat on his ass figuring out years later he should never be in ministry in the first place. That's why I wanted Nick to hear a second opinion, mine, since he was aspiring to be an apologist and showed no signs of being able to comprehend a simple argument in that debate. I said the reason they encouraged him and put him on staff at TheologyWeb is because he has a disability and the staff felt sorry for him.
Now they go around lying about why I said what I said, without the whole context. Maybe Nick will indeed be a good apologist. He certainly has improved himself somewhat over the years. But there is no crime in telling the truth when everyone else he knew was not doing so. You might be able to fault me in the future for being wrong (or blunt in the heated aftermath of a debate). But it is an absolute lie for them to say what I said was spoken out of hate for a man with a disability.
Nick can show himself to be an adult. Rather than doing the right thing and telling people to drop it since it makes no difference now, he's playing the sympathy card: "Poor pitiful me," he's now acting, "look how a big bad atheist told the truth as he saw it at the time." And that is what I thought at the time, although I also said that even if he proved me wrong he can thank me for inspiring him. It's like I must have actually kicked him or something. I didn't. Get over it Nick. Grow up. Do the adult thing. Tell people to drop it. It's over. Move on. But he's learned from Holding. He'll not amount to much of anything so long as he seeks to mimic Holding and that has nothing whatsoever to do with any disability he has.
Holding also lies when he claims I misused Norman Geisler’s 'endorsement' of my book. I did no such thing. What, must I quote everything Geisler said to provide the context for one or more of his sentences and if I don't, I'm misusing the quote? Who in their right mind would ask for that? I quoted him accurately and even included another personal note inside the book from him later, where he states he does not agree with me.
Holding and crew will throw up other accusations at me from when I was visiting TheologyWeb a few years back. All they can show is that when visiting an insane asylum I can act as crazy as the inmates since I was completely frustrated with that forum and the people there. There comes a point when a person can be so frustrated with a group of people who are not interested in a decent discussion that there is nothing left to do but blast them. And I did. I have no respect for them and do not try to have a rational decent discussion with the likes of them any more. They deserve only my disgust.
So now I have a problem. What I know without a doubt is that Holding and his ilk are swine and they continually try to drag me down into the mire with them. If I don't respond then it seems they win. If I do respond I am equated with him.
But I am not like him. He is below me. He dogs my steps with a couple of blogs dedicated to personal attacks on me on a monthly basis, if not more (plus a few sticky posts at TWeb about me up front and center). He claims I'm obsessed with him but if so, why is it I hardly ever mention his name? Remember, it's not me who has two Blogs dedicated to debunking him. He's not worth it. I merely respond to his false and childish accusations once in a long while. If he didn't do this from time to time I'd never even bother thinking about him or his clown followers. [No wonder they hate me 'cause I call 'em clowns. I maintain they are. No one but a clown would be a follower of Holding].
As far as I'm concerned except for this lone post, Holding doesn't exist. This probably bothers him greatly because he craves validation and I refuse to give it to him. That's why he continues to bring up these false and out-of-context accusations in order to get a rise out of me, to see me mention his name again and again. I suppose he'll bring up these old accusations five years or ten or twenty years from now as if they are relevant to who I am. They aren't, not at all.
Until he comes up to the respectful adult world of discourse who treats his intellectual opponents as human beings, and until he displays a greater level of education and thinking skills, I will ignore him.
I call upon his own Christian friends to bring him to his senses. He is the one who initially poured gasoline on the fires on my passion. I warned him about this that as a passionate man he ought not to have done it with me. I am motivated by believers who think they can dehumanize a person simply because he does not believe the exact same way. I dare say that Holding's efforts his whole life will not be in the plus column after you factor in the way he motivated me to go for the jugular vein of the faith that allows him to justify dehumanizing people like me. It's that same faith that led to the burning of heretics. The only difference is that people like Holding do not have the political power they once had.
But he still laughs even though I am dedicated to the destruction of his faith. Evangelicals have him partially to thank.
---------------------------
Here are what others have said about him:
Joe E. Holman wrote:
"Holding is nothing but a balls-to-the-walls, obnoxious prick who thinks the world of himself and exalts his views to the level of the bible which he tries to defend. To have to fight through someone's mockery and disrespect and insults to get to a good debate isn't worth it. I've debated better credentialed people than him who were openly respectful and decent. They were good exchanges -- without the bullshit! That's what we'd prefer."
"Holding has the annoying tendency of many apologists of looking up facts and presenting himself as an authority on the issues he just looked up. He fronts himself and the select group of 'scholars' he considers valid. To him, everyone else is 'stupid' and he says so specifically. No one makes as many ad hominem attacks as this guy. He'll quickly make you want to hit him in the mouth as hard as you can. No kidding."
Jason Long responds to J.P. Holding here, where he writes,
"He is most notorious for redacting and editing his debates, misrepresenting his opponents, editing his opponents’ responses, refusing to link to his opponents’ responses because 'it gives small-minded people something to complain about,' invoking insults and other ad hominems, outright lying, appealing to authority, dodging questions he cannot answer, constructing absurd rationalizations to make biblical harmonies, and justifying cruelties if carried out in the name of God."
exapologist said...
I want to take a moment to point out that John's most fundamental point is actually correct, viz., that Holding systematically mischaracterizes the views and arguments of his "opponents", and his argumentation is characterized by strings of ad hominems, non-sequiturs and other sorts of fallacious reasoning. This has can be shown by simply looking at the dialogues themselves in which he has engaged. See, for example, the exchange between Holding and Keith Parsons.
Now this doesn't mean that Holding is incorrigible, that he should be written off forever. If he decides later on that it would be better to listen to people's arguments and characterize them fairly and sympathetically, then we welcome discussion with him. There are plenty of Christians who are very smart, but who are also civil and honest, and who care about following a line of argument wherever it leads. Victor Reppert is an example. So are christian philosophers like John Hawthorne, Dean Zimmerman, Michael Rea, William Alston, etc. We are happy to listen to them, since they're reasonable people who recognize the importance of the free, civil, democratic exchange of ideas in the pursuit of truth. There arguments are also forceful, and worthy of consideration in their own right. But Holding, at least for some time and (apparently), is not in that camp. As long as he's not willing to engage in the civil exchange of ideas, there are principled reasons for not engaging him. For one thing, abusive language is contagious and gets everyone angry, leading to the deterioration of the pursuit of truth and serious discussion. For another, systematically misconstruing the views of others positively prevents the pursuit of truth, and stifles inquiry.
In short, there's not much point trying to engage in serious inquiry with someone who has the goal of shutting it down -- it's self-defeating. Since Holding does this (again, at least he does so now -- if he turns over a new leaf, then things will be different), the only reasonable thing to do is to ignore him. Instead, we'll happily listen to Christians who have the same basic interest of careful, civil inquiry about fundamental questions and hopefully have fun and make friends along the way).
Chris Hallquist sums up the consensus opinion about J.P. Holding, here. Hallquist said,
"The consensus seemed to be that he was an arrogant, inflammatory, buffoon, not worth taking seriously. I think Matthew in particular nailed him on his ridiculous attempts to belittle the intelligence of scholars who specialize in ancient history/Biblical scholarship, when Holding only has a degree in library science." "Holding has demonstrated that he simply cannot be trusted to accurately represent his sources."
As a former dialogue partner with Holding Matthew J. Green just got fed up with him, seen here. Matthew says,
"My friends, I am sorry I defended Holding. My opinion of him now is that he is an arrogant spin-doctor of questionable honesty who enjoys insulting people and arrogantly scoffing at those who disagrees with him. I cannot believe that I even wrote a response to a blog post on here trying to defend him by asking blog members on here not to take him so seriously. I would like to offer a bit of friendly advice to people here: don't take him seriously at all. He's a sad joke!"
Matthew J. Green later responds to J.P. Holding, here in these words:
"Turkel has adopted a style of viciously attacking skeptics and, sometimes, even Christians who have been known to have opinions that differ from himself. I believe that the reason Turkel acts this way is because, frankly, he has a serious ego-problem. I consider his arrogance to be borderline pathological. He resorts to abusive name-calling, treats atheists and other skeptics who disagree with him with the utmost contempt, and goes out of his way to make them feel completely and utterly stupid. His favorite defense mechanism is to dodge criticism by redirecting it at those who make the criticism. Thus if someone criticizes Turkel for his behavior, Turkel will latch onto a fault of that person, no matter how minor, irrelevant, or what-not and dish it out at the person making the criticism. I am continually bothered by Turkel's alarming egoism, the abuse that he continues to dish out at skeptics, and the silly arguments that he will often prop up in support of his faith. I would hope that other Christians who are embarrassed by Turkel's behavior and his fellow Turkelites will join with me and others in denouncing Tekton, Turkel, and others as in need of humility and reform."
Ebon Musings said this about Holding's tactics, here:
"Mr. Holding's interest in having an honest and open discussion is doubtful at best." And here he says, "Mr. Holding's position is one that will concede no ground and countenance no loss, no matter the evidence or logic arrayed against him, no matter how soundly he is trounced, no matter how hopeless his case is. In such circumstances he will clutch at any argument, no matter how strained, and present it with a belligerence usually inversely proportional to its strength. His repeated use of ad hominem attacks, his sneering demeanor, his contemptuous and dismissive tone, his scorn and derision of anyone who differs from him - such patterns of expression permeate his site, and are often deployed to intimidate opponents and camouflage arguments that are patently weak, faulty, or irrelevant."Earl Doherty responds to the "style" J.P. Holding, here in these words:
"The heavy sarcasm, the open derision, the sophomoric recourse to insult, the sneering tone: these are readily recognizable as the all-too-common reaction of those whose cherished beliefs are being threatened or even questioned. His lengthy critique of my site is one vast ad hominem diatribe. To perceive, much less to appreciate, the counter-arguments he offers to some of my ideas, one has to wade through a distracting and distressing overlay of insult, innuendo, scorn and ridicule, delivered with a ‘wit’ and word-play of questionable sophistication. Such heavy-handed invectives often serves to bolster what are weak, or beside-the-point, or even fallacious arguments on his part. This is not the mark of the professional scholar, and I suspect that few genuine members of that category, or even the discerning layperson who is interested in learning something on the subject of Jesus’ existence and the reliability of the New Testament record, would bother to read through much of this overblown exercise in self-indulgence."J.P. Holding's dishonesty is exposed, here. There we read,
"Robert Turkel uses a number of deceptive and dishonest rhetorical tactics in his efforts to "win" religious debates. Among other things, Turkel will make up answers off the top of his head; he will hide damaging information from his readers; he will take another person's argument, make a caricature of it, and attack the other person on the basis of his misrepresentation; he will distort and misrepresent the writings of scholars and historians to support his position, he will use insults to minimize those who disagree with him (see here); he will employ insults and bluster to dodge troublesome questions; he will respond to questions with questions; he will make unreasonable demands in exchange for answering a question or questions that he does not want to answer; he will rewrite his responses in debates after the other person has already responded; he will claim to have answered a question or to have addressed an issue when in fact he has not; and so on and so forth. Not all of these actions are blatantly dishonest-but many of them are and all of them, taken together, reveal a basic dishonesty in his approach to discussion and debate."
Jim Lippard points out J.P. Holding's dishonesty, here. He says,
"In Turkel's response to "The Jury Is In," he criticizes me on the basis of arguments I never made, writing that I "botched" three points. I pointed out that I hadn't made those arguments, but rather a different argument that he doesn't address." Then after a response from Holding Lippard says, "He still doesn't get it. No, I don't mean he misunderstood my arguments, I mean he mistakenly attributed statements to me which I did not author and which were not attributed to me by Robby Berry--the error is Turkel's, but it's unlikely he'll ever own up to it, since he doesn't care."Keith Parsons replies to J.P Holding, here. He says,
"Apparently, attacking a straw man whenever he pleases is a convenience that Mr. Holding likes to take advantage of."
Farrell Till responds to J.P Holding, here, and here, and here. Till says this of Holding:
"He has a habit of either removing or revising articles after errors in them have been exposed or he has been caught with his pants down on some issue."Kyle Gerkin responds to J.P Holding, here. Gerkins writes,
"Holding starts out with ad hominem attacks, lampooning me as an author in an effort to denigrate my credibility. These are cheap rhetorical tricks, that have no bearing on the truth or falsehood of the propositions laid out in my article. This is certainly not the tone of an objective analysis."Brian Holtz responds to J.P. Holding, here. Holtz wrote:
"In our debate over the Trilemma (that Jesus was liar, lunatic, or lord), Robert Turkel's latest response to me contained no less than 137 polemical blunders, each categorized and separately identified below...."
G.A. Wells responds to J.P. Holding, here. He wrote,
"Most of Holding's article is devoted to appraisal of the pagan and Jewish testimony to Jesus. This is not, and never has been, my position." And he says, "Holding begins his criticisms, as do many of my critics, by questioning my qualifications to say anything on the subject at all. His final dismissal of my views as "the result of a fallen and sinful human nature, and nothing more" is just childish. His case is not improved by his accusations of "outright misrepresentation to get round the evidence", of ignoring "a great deal" of it, and of treating what is left "most unfairly". Characterization of me as "a measly professor of German spouting balderdash dug up from old books by F.C. Baur" well illustrates the abusive and vituperative material that dominates these responses. One cannot expect to find much in such writing that is worthy of serious attention..."
Richard Carrier responds to J.P. Holding, here. In response to Holding's argument Carrier says this,
"Holding does not make any effort to answer these questions even vaguely. Thus, his conclusion can only be vaguely certain at best." In responding to Holdings' counter argument, Carrier says, "Most of Holding's criticisms worth responding to are not important enough to warrant emending the text of my critique. Rather than identifying actual errors of fact or critical omissions that significantly affect my arguments, or clear flaws in my reasoning or manner of expression, most responses amount to an unjustified misunderstanding of what I actually wrote, or new groundless assertions or even outright false claims."
Thom Stark, a liberal Christian scholar writes the following about JP Holding:
Holding does not trust in his ability to present the facts in such a way that they are able to speak for themselves. He has to employ character assassination, prefacing all his criticisms with assurances that the object of his critique cannot be trusted. In this way, Holding is profoundly disrespectful to his readership; he displays a disdainfully low estimation of their intelligence.[Please note: I update this post periodically.]
February 26, 2009
The Best Antidote to Brainwashing: Demanding Good Evidence
[Written by John Loftus] This is what I need to believe: good evidence along with good arguments. This is what the Christian needs when it comes to the other religions he rejects: good evidence along with good arguments. If a Muslim argues that the Christian simply refuses to believe in Allah because of a hardened heart, the Christian will scoff at the suggestion just as I do when a Christian says I refuse to believe in Jesus because of a hardened heart, so let’s just dismiss this as any kind of explanation for why I don’t believe, okay? We all need good evidence along with good arguments to believe, and all of us claim this to be the case. But we also must admit some people are brainwashed into believing. The best and only antidote to delusional beliefs is good evidence along with good arguments.
I’ve already articulated some of the kinds of evidence I need to believe: just click here. But this evidence does not exist. What good evidence is there to believe Christianity, the particular local one you believe in, Christian? There is no external evidence that shows any miracle occurred. There is no archaeological evidence for the Exodus or the Canaanite conquest. There is no external evidence for Noah’s flood. There is no external evidence that Daniel was saved from the lion’s den. There is no external evidence that Jesus was born of a virgin in Bethlehem. There is no external evidence that Jesus was transfigured before the eyes of his disciples. There is no external evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, either, nor can such evidence be found in the Turin Shroud. There is none as in N-O-N-E!
The Christian claims that evidence of the universe’s complexity points to a designer. But even if so, and there are good reasons to doubt this, what reason can be found for not thinking this universe is the result of the last act of some god as he was dying in which he merely started the quantum fluctuation that produced this universe? And even if this universe was designed by this god, or some other god like Allah, why is there so much unintelligent design found in it, including so many natural disasters? The supposed fall of Adam and Eve in the garden is pure myth, but even if true, it does not account for what we see in this so-called designed universe for so many reasons I don’t know where to start, except to say that the designer must be blamed for not providing them the needed evidence to believe him, otherwise they would never had sinned in the first place! And it is sheer barbarism to punish all of the children who suffer in this world for the sin of Adam and Eve.
The Christian claims he has the evidence of morals that point to a moral lawgiver. But again, if there is a moral lawgiver, then this does not show us that Yahweh exists over Allah or some other god. And there are good reasons to doubt this anyway, given the Euthyphro dilemma and the fact that it does absolutely no good to say there is a moral law when Christians cannot provide any agreed upon specifics about what that so-called moral law is when it comes to the myriad disputes they themselves have had over what God requires of them down through the ages.
The Christian claims there is good evidence for the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. But this evidence is mainly internal to the canonized New Testament texts and gospels which were redacted from oral story-telling and various non-inspired written accounts of the life and death of Jesus. This Jesus is best thought of as merely another failed Jewish apocalyptic doomsday prophet, and nothing more. And so upon his shocking crucifixion his disciples had visionary experiences of him and concluded just like the Millerites, the Jehovah’s witnesses, and other similar religious groups that their God was providing a new direction for their cult. In the case of the early disciples they concluded from these visions that Jesus was still alive and that the end of the world (the eschaton) would come very soon in their lifetime. Besides, historical evidence is very poor evidence to believe in extraordinary claims like Christians must believe in anyway.
Lastly, but probably not exhaustively, Christians will claim they have a religious experience which counts as good evidence for what they believe, like an inner witness of the Holy Spirit. This is so bogus of an argument it’s hard to even start. Every religious believer of almost every particular religious faith will claim they too have had veridical religious experiences to support what they believe, so religious experiences are entirely untrustworthy to decide which religious truth claims are the correct ones. I’ve already provided a way to test these experiences right here, and I critiqued William Lane Craig’s defense of the inner witness of the Holy Spirit in several places, the links of which can be found in this last post.
Apart from the design argument mentioned above, what about the other arguments for the existence of the Christian God? Suffice it to say that at best, if they all work, they only conclude that a deist god exists, and that kind of God is so far removed from the triune God believed by Christians in the Bible that it’s like trying to fly a plane to the moon…it cannot be done. But in fact none of these arguments can give any good reason for why the Christian God does not have the same problems with regard to how he himself exists as a fully formed 3 in 1 eternal being who has never learned anything new because he supposedly knows all things, and so forth. Where did he come from? It is a nonanswer to merely parrot back to me that "he always has existed." That's a mere language game I don't buy into. Explain it. If you can't do this then the simpler brute fact excludes such a complex being by virtue of Ockham's razor.
Christian, since you and I believe there are many people in the world today who are deluded by their religious beliefs, including brainwashed people in the so called “cults” that need “deprogramming," how do you know that you are not one of them having been brainwashed by the very culture you were brought up in? How do you know? You must consider this a possibility for it’s a fact that brainwashed people do not know they have been brainwashed. It matters not how many people believe as you do in your own culture. They may be brainwashed with you, just like you think the more than one billion Muslims have been brainwashed. You need to clearly think about these sorts of things. Read my links. Think about them. My claim is that you are brainwashed. I’m here to help you. Demand good evidence along with good reasons for why you believe, or cease believing. It’s that simple. You do it with everything else you accept. Do the same here.
I honestly think that I was brainwashed by the Christian culture I was raised in. Now I demand evidence to believe along with good arguments. I adjure the Christian believer to do likewise. Do not believe upon insufficient evidence or poor arguments. Do not believe just what you were taught to believe, for again, as far as you know the people and the culture who taught you what to believe may be brainwashed as well, just like you claim this of the Muslims, the Mormons, and the Hindus who were all raised in their own particular religious cultures.
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I know there are many Christians who read this Blog who refuse to get and read my book that offers a sustained critique of Christianity. It's getting some pretty good reviews. To test whether or not you are one of the brainwashed ones you owe it to yourselves to get and read it.
I’ve already articulated some of the kinds of evidence I need to believe: just click here. But this evidence does not exist. What good evidence is there to believe Christianity, the particular local one you believe in, Christian? There is no external evidence that shows any miracle occurred. There is no archaeological evidence for the Exodus or the Canaanite conquest. There is no external evidence for Noah’s flood. There is no external evidence that Daniel was saved from the lion’s den. There is no external evidence that Jesus was born of a virgin in Bethlehem. There is no external evidence that Jesus was transfigured before the eyes of his disciples. There is no external evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, either, nor can such evidence be found in the Turin Shroud. There is none as in N-O-N-E!
The Christian claims that evidence of the universe’s complexity points to a designer. But even if so, and there are good reasons to doubt this, what reason can be found for not thinking this universe is the result of the last act of some god as he was dying in which he merely started the quantum fluctuation that produced this universe? And even if this universe was designed by this god, or some other god like Allah, why is there so much unintelligent design found in it, including so many natural disasters? The supposed fall of Adam and Eve in the garden is pure myth, but even if true, it does not account for what we see in this so-called designed universe for so many reasons I don’t know where to start, except to say that the designer must be blamed for not providing them the needed evidence to believe him, otherwise they would never had sinned in the first place! And it is sheer barbarism to punish all of the children who suffer in this world for the sin of Adam and Eve.
The Christian claims he has the evidence of morals that point to a moral lawgiver. But again, if there is a moral lawgiver, then this does not show us that Yahweh exists over Allah or some other god. And there are good reasons to doubt this anyway, given the Euthyphro dilemma and the fact that it does absolutely no good to say there is a moral law when Christians cannot provide any agreed upon specifics about what that so-called moral law is when it comes to the myriad disputes they themselves have had over what God requires of them down through the ages.
The Christian claims there is good evidence for the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. But this evidence is mainly internal to the canonized New Testament texts and gospels which were redacted from oral story-telling and various non-inspired written accounts of the life and death of Jesus. This Jesus is best thought of as merely another failed Jewish apocalyptic doomsday prophet, and nothing more. And so upon his shocking crucifixion his disciples had visionary experiences of him and concluded just like the Millerites, the Jehovah’s witnesses, and other similar religious groups that their God was providing a new direction for their cult. In the case of the early disciples they concluded from these visions that Jesus was still alive and that the end of the world (the eschaton) would come very soon in their lifetime. Besides, historical evidence is very poor evidence to believe in extraordinary claims like Christians must believe in anyway.
Lastly, but probably not exhaustively, Christians will claim they have a religious experience which counts as good evidence for what they believe, like an inner witness of the Holy Spirit. This is so bogus of an argument it’s hard to even start. Every religious believer of almost every particular religious faith will claim they too have had veridical religious experiences to support what they believe, so religious experiences are entirely untrustworthy to decide which religious truth claims are the correct ones. I’ve already provided a way to test these experiences right here, and I critiqued William Lane Craig’s defense of the inner witness of the Holy Spirit in several places, the links of which can be found in this last post.
Apart from the design argument mentioned above, what about the other arguments for the existence of the Christian God? Suffice it to say that at best, if they all work, they only conclude that a deist god exists, and that kind of God is so far removed from the triune God believed by Christians in the Bible that it’s like trying to fly a plane to the moon…it cannot be done. But in fact none of these arguments can give any good reason for why the Christian God does not have the same problems with regard to how he himself exists as a fully formed 3 in 1 eternal being who has never learned anything new because he supposedly knows all things, and so forth. Where did he come from? It is a nonanswer to merely parrot back to me that "he always has existed." That's a mere language game I don't buy into. Explain it. If you can't do this then the simpler brute fact excludes such a complex being by virtue of Ockham's razor.
Christian, since you and I believe there are many people in the world today who are deluded by their religious beliefs, including brainwashed people in the so called “cults” that need “deprogramming," how do you know that you are not one of them having been brainwashed by the very culture you were brought up in? How do you know? You must consider this a possibility for it’s a fact that brainwashed people do not know they have been brainwashed. It matters not how many people believe as you do in your own culture. They may be brainwashed with you, just like you think the more than one billion Muslims have been brainwashed. You need to clearly think about these sorts of things. Read my links. Think about them. My claim is that you are brainwashed. I’m here to help you. Demand good evidence along with good reasons for why you believe, or cease believing. It’s that simple. You do it with everything else you accept. Do the same here.
I honestly think that I was brainwashed by the Christian culture I was raised in. Now I demand evidence to believe along with good arguments. I adjure the Christian believer to do likewise. Do not believe upon insufficient evidence or poor arguments. Do not believe just what you were taught to believe, for again, as far as you know the people and the culture who taught you what to believe may be brainwashed as well, just like you claim this of the Muslims, the Mormons, and the Hindus who were all raised in their own particular religious cultures.
------------
I know there are many Christians who read this Blog who refuse to get and read my book that offers a sustained critique of Christianity. It's getting some pretty good reviews. To test whether or not you are one of the brainwashed ones you owe it to yourselves to get and read it.
More Christian Heuristic Analysis
I'm a big fan of argument analysis, and in William Lobdells post he listed several common Christian heuristics for dealing with the problem of apostasy. In the comments section of his article you can see one of our christian guests using some other common heuristics which I've taken a moment to analyze. I welcome William, and I hope he'll consider joining DC as an author.
This is a list of some of the heuristics William handled in his post:
Criticism: You’re anti-religious or anti-Christian.
Criticism: You are trying to lead people away from God and/or Jesus Christ
Criticism: You’ve confused the sinfulness of man with a perfect God.
Criticism: You were never really a serious Christian, so you didn’t really lose your faith, you never had it.
Criticism: You’ve consigned yourself to an eternity in hell
In the comments section of that article one of our guests used quite a few common heuristics laying them out nicely for an opportunity for analysis. In my view these heuristics are the result of various cognitive biases and unskilled thinking. A couple of Good books on that sort of thing are "How We Know What Isn't So" by Thomas Gilovich and "How To Think About Weird Things" by Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn
BLAMING THE VICTIM
"no you have not lost your faith – just exchanged it. "
This depends on belief being a voluntary action. Try believing that the sun won't come up tomorrow, or the sun will not set around the time its forecast. I can't do it, and I don't think anyone else can either. One can commit to an idea, but that is completely different than having a belief or an emotional investment in it. I can say "Sir" or "Ma'am" completely independent of whether I think its deserved or not.
One practical test of whether belief is inherently "rational" is to look through trivia game cards and choose the right answer from four or five options. Sometimes there will be one that the observer thinks right away could be the answer, then see another that the observer "feels" more likely to be the right answer. Then the observer is wrong and it was the one the observer thought before but didn't feel right. This kind of thing happens to me all the time. Belief, for the most part, is not consciously controlled, if at all.
"Without proof absolute either way to believe there is no God is as much of a leap of faith (more in my opinion) as to believe there is a God."
A lack of proof of something SHOULD cause a belief that a real world state is not being accurately described by the data. The commenter seems to say that the belief that the datum is unlikely given the lack of evidence is EQUIVALENT to believing it without evidence. The quality of the evidence is relevant only to the observer. The evidence may foster a belief in some people but not in others.
It is appropriate to doubt a datum that lacks support, it is NOT appropriate to commit to a datum that lacks support. The commenter faults the apostate for appropriately doubting the datum on the grounds that the evidence does not nurture, support, cause, sustain or warrant his belief. Therefore the commenter faults the apostate for not ARTIFICIALLY sustaining his emotional investment.
"I really think you are taking cheap (and intellectually weak) shots at the religion that has not met your expectations – by the way, did you meet Christ’s expectations of you?"
This depends on the apostates expectations being inappropriate. Were the apostates expectations inappropriate? If the apostates expectations were based on sound principles in support of the apostates value system then how can it be inappropriate? What expectations does the apostate have that is inappropriate? I think its safe to say that apostates are apostates because the evidence doesn't nurture, support, cause, sustain or warrant their belief. If the only definitive proof is some inner knowing about God, then if God is of One Mind, this inner knowing should be consistent across people and multiple denominations of Christianity are evidence that its not.
THE "TU QUOQUE" FALLACY
"But why should we expect more of Christians and their institutions than of secular organizations?"
"Secular organizations do it too!"
Is it inappropriate to fault something because other things exhibit the same behavior. But it can be appropriate to fault things even though the behavior is exhibited by the speaker. Should I NOT reprimand my child for vulgar language even though I do it too? My child has every right to reprimand me, and to further reprimand me for not being consistent. In this case, how Secular organizations behave has no bearing on how Christian organizations should behave.
THE CIRCULAR ARGUMENT
"it is rational to expect Christianity to attract more than its fair share – where else would they go in an unforgiving world?"
This presumes Christians are in a constant state of "recovery" from their sin. The guest concludes that there are more "sinners" in church exactly because "sinners" see church as place they can go to help overcome their "sin". Therefore it should be expected that one would find "sinners" in church. After all, people that go into an Ice Cream shop have a desire for and are lacking ice cream, so we would expect to find people lacking ice cream in the ice cream shop.
The missing qualifier in that reasoning scheme which disconfirms it and which is the qualifier that breaks the circle is the effectiveness of the ice cream shop in providing Ice Cream. People do get their ice cream because the ice cream shop is effective at selling it to them. So if customers of ice cream never left the store, we should see more of the customers that have had ice cream, and can get it anytime they want and less of those that want it, do not have it and have not had it.
I'll concede that we are all in constant state of recovery from undesirable human behavior. That is what education and learning how to associate in a society is all about. But this leads to the question of HOW EFFECTIVE CHRISTIANITY IS at dealing with undesirable Human Behavior (Sin) compared to other methods. When you assess the effectiveness and efficiency of Christianity on dealing with undesirable human behavior, its evident that it has no advantage.
"[the apostate says] 'I indeed was a serious Christian' Well you certainly went through some of the motions!"
This asserts that though the apostates behavior was consistent with a true believer, his apostasy proves that he never really believed at all. This missing qualifier which disconfirms the statement and breaks the circle is the intent behind the actions. What benefit would the NON-BELIEVER have in ACTING LIKE A BELIEVER? Obviously to act like a Christian is a result of believing oneself to be a Christian or believing their is some benefit to pretending to be a Christian. To say that someone pretended to be a Christian for over a decade and then decided to renounce it and advertise it requires some forethought and premeditation to what benefit? To put oneself into an undesirable minority? Not bloody likely.
THE SLIDING WINDOW
"have fallen into what seems to be a common atheist trap on giving up religion – finding in the literalistic interpretation of the bible anything that can be criticised."
The guests seems to be saying that though the Bible is the revealed word of God, it shouldn't be taken at face value. Its only accurate so far, but they won't define any parameters. Bring some parameters for how to measure what is an accurate representation of a real world state and what is not to the table and there might be a case for a non-literal interpretation. As it stands, it is not clear that the author of the scripture did not intend for it to be taken literally except where there is an obvious use of metaphor such as in the case of parables.
"Given the social context of His time there were many things Jesus did not directly seek out against – capital punishment etc."
This seems to presume that it was somehow inappropriate for God on Earth to speak out against slavery, or not killing witches. If Jesus was God on Earth, then in order to Qualify as God he must have been the ultimate authority, so how would it have been inappropriate? Is it NOT a sound principle that the most qualified should lead, or that the authority should exercise that authority, or that beings should be prevented from intentionally or otherwise harming themselves or others? To make the guests claim tenable the criteria for appropriate behavior in an authority and the criteria for appropriate behavior by the observer of suffering must be modified.
THE SELF-CENTERED STANDARD FOR CHRISTIANITY
"The problem you seem to have faced was that when you realized God was not in the beliefs you held you seem to have decided there is no God rather than that God might be different from what you believed or wanted Him to be."
This is the old "I Got Mine, Why Can't You Get Yours?" argument. If the apostate understood Christianity the way our guest understands it, the apostate would still be a believer. Meaning that if the Apostate would ignore disconfirming qualifiers in the standard Christian reasoning schemes, then they would still be a believer. I Agree.
Link to all my articles
This is a list of some of the heuristics William handled in his post:
Criticism: You’re anti-religious or anti-Christian.
Criticism: You are trying to lead people away from God and/or Jesus Christ
Criticism: You’ve confused the sinfulness of man with a perfect God.
Criticism: You were never really a serious Christian, so you didn’t really lose your faith, you never had it.
Criticism: You’ve consigned yourself to an eternity in hell
In the comments section of that article one of our guests used quite a few common heuristics laying them out nicely for an opportunity for analysis. In my view these heuristics are the result of various cognitive biases and unskilled thinking. A couple of Good books on that sort of thing are "How We Know What Isn't So" by Thomas Gilovich and "How To Think About Weird Things" by Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn
BLAMING THE VICTIM
"no you have not lost your faith – just exchanged it. "
This depends on belief being a voluntary action. Try believing that the sun won't come up tomorrow, or the sun will not set around the time its forecast. I can't do it, and I don't think anyone else can either. One can commit to an idea, but that is completely different than having a belief or an emotional investment in it. I can say "Sir" or "Ma'am" completely independent of whether I think its deserved or not.
One practical test of whether belief is inherently "rational" is to look through trivia game cards and choose the right answer from four or five options. Sometimes there will be one that the observer thinks right away could be the answer, then see another that the observer "feels" more likely to be the right answer. Then the observer is wrong and it was the one the observer thought before but didn't feel right. This kind of thing happens to me all the time. Belief, for the most part, is not consciously controlled, if at all.
"Without proof absolute either way to believe there is no God is as much of a leap of faith (more in my opinion) as to believe there is a God."
A lack of proof of something SHOULD cause a belief that a real world state is not being accurately described by the data. The commenter seems to say that the belief that the datum is unlikely given the lack of evidence is EQUIVALENT to believing it without evidence. The quality of the evidence is relevant only to the observer. The evidence may foster a belief in some people but not in others.
It is appropriate to doubt a datum that lacks support, it is NOT appropriate to commit to a datum that lacks support. The commenter faults the apostate for appropriately doubting the datum on the grounds that the evidence does not nurture, support, cause, sustain or warrant his belief. Therefore the commenter faults the apostate for not ARTIFICIALLY sustaining his emotional investment.
"I really think you are taking cheap (and intellectually weak) shots at the religion that has not met your expectations – by the way, did you meet Christ’s expectations of you?"
This depends on the apostates expectations being inappropriate. Were the apostates expectations inappropriate? If the apostates expectations were based on sound principles in support of the apostates value system then how can it be inappropriate? What expectations does the apostate have that is inappropriate? I think its safe to say that apostates are apostates because the evidence doesn't nurture, support, cause, sustain or warrant their belief. If the only definitive proof is some inner knowing about God, then if God is of One Mind, this inner knowing should be consistent across people and multiple denominations of Christianity are evidence that its not.
THE "TU QUOQUE" FALLACY
"But why should we expect more of Christians and their institutions than of secular organizations?"
"Secular organizations do it too!"
Is it inappropriate to fault something because other things exhibit the same behavior. But it can be appropriate to fault things even though the behavior is exhibited by the speaker. Should I NOT reprimand my child for vulgar language even though I do it too? My child has every right to reprimand me, and to further reprimand me for not being consistent. In this case, how Secular organizations behave has no bearing on how Christian organizations should behave.
THE CIRCULAR ARGUMENT
"it is rational to expect Christianity to attract more than its fair share – where else would they go in an unforgiving world?"
This presumes Christians are in a constant state of "recovery" from their sin. The guest concludes that there are more "sinners" in church exactly because "sinners" see church as place they can go to help overcome their "sin". Therefore it should be expected that one would find "sinners" in church. After all, people that go into an Ice Cream shop have a desire for and are lacking ice cream, so we would expect to find people lacking ice cream in the ice cream shop.
The missing qualifier in that reasoning scheme which disconfirms it and which is the qualifier that breaks the circle is the effectiveness of the ice cream shop in providing Ice Cream. People do get their ice cream because the ice cream shop is effective at selling it to them. So if customers of ice cream never left the store, we should see more of the customers that have had ice cream, and can get it anytime they want and less of those that want it, do not have it and have not had it.
I'll concede that we are all in constant state of recovery from undesirable human behavior. That is what education and learning how to associate in a society is all about. But this leads to the question of HOW EFFECTIVE CHRISTIANITY IS at dealing with undesirable Human Behavior (Sin) compared to other methods. When you assess the effectiveness and efficiency of Christianity on dealing with undesirable human behavior, its evident that it has no advantage.
"[the apostate says] 'I indeed was a serious Christian' Well you certainly went through some of the motions!"
This asserts that though the apostates behavior was consistent with a true believer, his apostasy proves that he never really believed at all. This missing qualifier which disconfirms the statement and breaks the circle is the intent behind the actions. What benefit would the NON-BELIEVER have in ACTING LIKE A BELIEVER? Obviously to act like a Christian is a result of believing oneself to be a Christian or believing their is some benefit to pretending to be a Christian. To say that someone pretended to be a Christian for over a decade and then decided to renounce it and advertise it requires some forethought and premeditation to what benefit? To put oneself into an undesirable minority? Not bloody likely.
THE SLIDING WINDOW
"have fallen into what seems to be a common atheist trap on giving up religion – finding in the literalistic interpretation of the bible anything that can be criticised."
The guests seems to be saying that though the Bible is the revealed word of God, it shouldn't be taken at face value. Its only accurate so far, but they won't define any parameters. Bring some parameters for how to measure what is an accurate representation of a real world state and what is not to the table and there might be a case for a non-literal interpretation. As it stands, it is not clear that the author of the scripture did not intend for it to be taken literally except where there is an obvious use of metaphor such as in the case of parables.
"Given the social context of His time there were many things Jesus did not directly seek out against – capital punishment etc."
This seems to presume that it was somehow inappropriate for God on Earth to speak out against slavery, or not killing witches. If Jesus was God on Earth, then in order to Qualify as God he must have been the ultimate authority, so how would it have been inappropriate? Is it NOT a sound principle that the most qualified should lead, or that the authority should exercise that authority, or that beings should be prevented from intentionally or otherwise harming themselves or others? To make the guests claim tenable the criteria for appropriate behavior in an authority and the criteria for appropriate behavior by the observer of suffering must be modified.
THE SELF-CENTERED STANDARD FOR CHRISTIANITY
"The problem you seem to have faced was that when you realized God was not in the beliefs you held you seem to have decided there is no God rather than that God might be different from what you believed or wanted Him to be."
This is the old "I Got Mine, Why Can't You Get Yours?" argument. If the apostate understood Christianity the way our guest understands it, the apostate would still be a believer. Meaning that if the Apostate would ignore disconfirming qualifiers in the standard Christian reasoning schemes, then they would still be a believer. I Agree.
Link to all my articles
February 25, 2009
Norman Geisler's Review of My Former Self-Published Book is Now Online!
You can read it and decide for yourselves. Here it is. To read my response and a link to FormerFundy's response see here. Needless to say my Prometheus Books edition is a massive revision of my former book and supercedes it in many ways. To see some reviews of it follow this link.
Debunking Christianity is Ranked 13th Among Atheist Sites From More Accurate Polling Numbers
Link. This is updated every week.
Tim Callahan’s Critique of the Movie Zeitgeist — The Greatest Story Ever Told
Tim Callahan is the book review editor of Skeptic magazine and author of The Secret Origins of the Bible, which I recommend. In the latest eskeptic email he critically reviews the Movie Zeitgeist:
The Greatest Story Ever Garbled
by Tim Callahan
Perhaps the worst aspect of “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” Part I of Peter Joseph’s Internet film, Zeitgeist, is that some of what it asserts is true. Unfortunately, this material is liberally — and sloppily — mixed with material that is only partially true and much that is plainly and simply bogus. Joseph’s main argument is that Jesus never existed and is in fact a mythical character based on earlier sun gods. He sees all the motifs and characters of the New Testament as coded astrological or solar references. The argument that Jesus was a mythical construct has been made before — for example by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy in their 1999 book, The Jesus Mysteries, though Freke and Gandy made their argument with a far greater level of scholarship. In reducing Jesus to a sun god, Joseph ignores — as Freke and Gandy did before him — the powerful current of messianic apocalypticism prevalent in first century Judea. The fact that there were references back to earlier dying and rising gods in the Christ myth can lend an air of spurious scholarship to Zeitgeist, as long as one ignores the equally important messianic myth and the fact that there is a viable basis for an actual historical Jesus. Joseph totally ignores the messianic/apocalyptic aspects of the New Testament writings and erroneously asserts that there is no evidence for a historical Jesus. I will return to this issue later. For now, let us consider Joseph’s solar deity argument.
The Solar Cross & Sloppy Solar Symbolism
The first assertion made in Zeitgeist is that the cross is a solar symbol and not a representation of the instrument of Jesus’ execution. That’s true enough, as far as it goes, which isn’t very far. What Jesus was crucified on probably looked more like a capital “T,” the crossbeam to which Jesus’ wrists were nailed being hoisted to rest atop an already anchored upright post. It was then probably secured in place by a spike. The Christian cross probably represents a melding of this “T” shape with the solar cross as a bit of religious syncretism. This can be seen if one considers that many Christian crosses are shown enclosed by or intersecting a circle, as in the Celtic cross. The cross is also a symbol of the four cardinal directions and the four winds. However, the solar associations of the cross, while adding solar connotations to the Christ myth, do not militate against it also being a symbol of the Crucifixion.
Joseph next asserts that the gods Horus, Krishna, Mithra and Attys all paralleled Jesus. Again, there is some truth to this, but Joseph mingles so much falsehood with whatever truths he reveals as to give ample ammunition to evangelical Christians who might want to shoot holes in his thesis. First of all, he says that the Egyptian god Horus was adored by three kings, had twelve disciples and was crucified. He says much the same thing about Mithra, as well as noting that Krishna was born on December 25. Almost none of this is true.
When it comes to Egyptian sources of the Christ myth, Joseph seems to have conflated Horus with his father, Osiris. The Osiris/Horus myth, in much simplified terms, goes as follows: Set, the evil brother of the good Osiris, murders that god and cuts his body into 14 pieces. Isis, the wife of Osiris collects and reassembles the pieces, having to substitute a wooden phallus for that part of the dead god’s anatomy. She copulates with the dead god in the form of a bird, conceives Horus and gives birth to him in secret, raising him on an island in the Nile amidst the reeds. She also raises Osiris from the dead, although this very physical resurrection is in the underworld. When Horus comes of age he does battle with his uncle Set. Set tears out the eye of Horus, while Horus rips off Set’s genitals. Eventually, peace is made between the two, both are healed, and they divide the rule of the year by seasons of life and death.
The physical resurrection of Osiris, even though it is in the underworld, is a significant precursor to Jesus as a dying and rising god, as is the physical resurrection of Dionysus, after he is killed, dismembered and partially eaten by the Titans. Surprisingly, Joseph fails to mention this bit of classical mythology. Horus being born and nursed in the rushes of an island in the Nile is an important parallel to the infant Moses being found among the rushes. However, beyond the resurrection of Osiris, the main parallels between the Egyptian myth and the New Testament are iconic. Isis with the dead body of Osiris prefigures the imagery of the Pieta. More importantly, Christians co-opted the imagery of Isis and the infant Horus in the form of the Madonna and child. I have absolutely no idea where Joseph got the notion that Horus had 12 disciples or that he was ever crucified.
As to the god who is born on December 25 — this was not Krishna, but Mithra in his solar aspect as Sol Invictus (Latin for “Unconquered Sun”). The reason Mithra/Sol Invictus was born on December 25 was that in the Roman calendar of that day, that was the Winter Solstice, the 24-hour period having the fewest number of daylight hours. From that date the days get longer and the nights get shorter until the Summer Solstice. Owing to imperfections in the Roman or Julian calendar, the solstice gradually shifted to December 21, until corrections were made resulting in our present Gregorian calendar. Christianity seems to have deliberately co-opted the birthday of Mithra as a way of occupying a rival’s holiday, rather than this being the result of Jesus being a solar savior.
Joseph’s confusion continues when he tries to tie Isis into the Annunciation narrative of Luke. He says that an Annunciation scene from Luxor shows Isis being told by angelic beings she will bear Horus. Actually, the panels from Luxor depict the mother of Hatshepsut being told she will bear the divine child. Next, the god Amon-Ra consorts with Hatshepsut’s mother. Then the divine child (Hatshepsut) is adored by gods and mortals. This is probably the source of Luke’s Nativity. Mary is told by the angel Gabriel she will bear the divine child. The Holy Spirit overshadows her. Then angels and mortals (shepherds) adore Jesus. However, it has nothing to do with Isis. It was part of the standard Egyptian royal myth that each Pharaoh was engendered by Amon Ra, taking his father’s mortal form to have sexual relations with the Pharaoh’s mother. The reason Hatshepsut (ruled 1498–1483 BCE) had to emphasize her divine origins is that, as a female, she was assumed to have ordinary mortal origins. So there probably is an Egyptian origin to the Lucan Nativity, but it has nothing to do with Isis, Osiris or Horus.
Three Kings & Other Astrological Nonsense
Zeitgeist continues to find not only solar but astrological sources for the Christ myth. The star followed by the wise men is Sirius, in the constellation Canis Major, which lines up with three bright stars on Orion’s belt. These stars are often called the “three kings,” hence the three kings following the star in the Nativity story. Mary is a virgin because she represents the constellation Virgo, which is also referred to as the “House of Bread,” or, in Hebrew beth-lehem, or the town of Bethlehem, The death of Jesus by crucifixion represents the sun being in the Southern Cross, a constellation that in antiquity was visible from the Mediterranean. Thus, the sun was, at its lowest point in the sky (when it “died”) “crucified,” in that it was ensnared in the Southern Cross. Jesus rose from the dead at Easter because it was then, at the Vernal Equinox, that the sun conquered darkness. Jesus had 12 disciples because they represent the 12 signs of the Zodiac. His crown of thorns at the Crucifixion represents the rays of the sun emanating from his head.
This story, like most of Part I of Zeitgeist, is a pastiche of factoid, fiction and ingenious invention. It also betrays a certain naïveté on the part of Peter Joseph in regard to his knowledge of the Bible. This is obvious when he sees in the “Three Kings” of Orion’s belt pointing at Sirius, the source of the magi following the star in the Nativity story of Matthew. At this point, let me ask readers a question: Without looking at a Bible, tell me how many wise men or kings followed the star to Bethlehem. Most likely you answered “Three.” After all, we’ve all heard and sung the popular Christmas carol “We Three Kings of Orient Are.” So weren’t there three kings? Let’s look at the Bible, specifically at Matthew 2:1,2:
It is in these three gifts, along with the eastern origin of the magi, that we see the key to the actual myth in Matthew’s Nativity, which is political. Throughout the Mathean Nativity account, the gospel’s author takes great pains to find fulfilled prophecies showing Jesus to be the messiah of the Davidic line of kings. He is born in Bethlehem because that was David’s home town, and Jesus must be born there to fulfill the prophecy in Micah 5:2, which the chief priests and scribes quote to Herod when the magi ask where the baby is that is born to be king of the Jews (Mt. 2:5, 6):
Other astrological fantasies in Zeitgeist regarding the Christ myth are that Mary is a virgin because she personifies the constellation Virgo, that the Crucifixion represents the sun in the constellation of the Southern Cross, that Easter is related to the sun’s triumph over darkness at or shortly following the Vernal Equinox, that Jesus’ 12 disciples represent the signs of the Zodiac, and that his crown of thorns represents solar rays emanating from his head. The astrological associations of all of these elements are tenuous at best. Certainly, the virgin birth and the elevation of the Virgin Mary in the Gospel of Luke reflects pagan influences on the Christ myth, which can be seen in the Lucan Nativity and which sharply contrast to the messianic/Davidic kingship motifs of Matthew. As previously noted. Luke’s Nativity seems to be based on Egyptian panels from Luxor dating to the 18th dynasty and the reign of Queen Hatshepsut. So Mary could relate to the constellation Virgo, but also took on the iconography of Isis
As to the sighting of Easter near the time of the Vernal Equinox, we must remember that the Passion is staged during Passover. There is a complex layering here that is lost if we simply relegate Easter to a celebration of the Vernal Equinox.
The Christ myth relates not only to previous dying and rising gods, like Osiris and Dionysus, but as well to Jewish messianic, apocalyptic and historical myths. Thus, situating Easter in the Passover season probably relates more to messianic myth than to the sun. Passover itself was probably originally a festival of first fruits, that is, a seasonal, agricultural festival relating to rebirth. However, Jewish seasonal festivals relating to a cyclic view of time were recast in messianic, apocalyptic terms as historical and related to a linear concept of time. In the case of Jewish belief, I believe it’s safe to say that the linear, historical view effectively eclipsed the original seasonal festival. Since the Christian Passion and Resurrection narratives reintroduce a dying and rising god meme into the holiday, the layering of Easter becomes far more complex. Easter blends apocalyptic messianism, emphasizing Christ’s death and resurrection as the critical turning point in God’s war with Satan, and portraying Jesus as the culmination of Israel’s hopes and dreams, with the dying and rising god motif, and the promise to Christians that they, too, would transcend death. It must also be remembered that the cult of Isis and Osiris, which spread through the Roman Empire about a century before the time of Jesus, was not entirely the same as the millennia old Egyptian fertility cult it had originally been. Rather, it was, in all probability, Hellenized and showed some of the refinements of Greek philosophy. This was, likewise, probably the case with the much younger cult of Dionysus, another dying and rising god.
Jesus having 12 disciples also relates more to Jewish messianism than to astrology. The 12 disciples relate to the 12 tribes of Israel, which, though they no longer existed as political entities, were important genealogically to the extent that Paul could confidently claim to be of the tribe of Benjamin (Romans 11:1). Actually, there were 13 tribes, 12 plus the priestly tribe of Levites. Each tribe originally supported the Levitical priesthood and maintained the central shrine for one month a year. The division of the tribes worshipping Yahweh into 12 divisions may well reflect influences of what was originally a lunar cult, but such influences had been subsumed by the apocalyptic, messianic monotheism of post-exilic Judaism well before the time of Christ. Had the 12 disciples represented the signs of the Zodiac, as Joseph asserts, then we would expect to find the disciples individually given specific zodiacal characteristics in the canonical gospels. Instead, most of the disciples are little more than names and lack any character whatsoever.
Jesus’ crown of thorns, along with most of the specific details of the Passion — his being clothed in a purple robe and given a reed as a scepter, the mocking and scourging by the Roman troops, even his being put to death — were probably elements of the Zagmuku Festival, which the Jews brought back with them from Babylon after their captivity there (587–538 BCE). Elements of this festival are to be found in the entirely fictional Book of Esther and the celebration of the Jewish holiday of Purim. This, by the way, is not to say that Jesus’ crucifixion was not a real, historical event, merely that its details were heavily fictionalized in the process of dramatization and storytelling.
It is the historiscity of Jesus that will tell us whether the Crucifixion was real or merely symbolic of the sun descending into the constellation of the Southern Cross. I will deal with that subject later.
The End of the Age
Zeitgeist continues its assertion of the astrological basis of Christianity and even of the Jewish Scriptures with the assertion that both Moses and Jesus based their words and actions on a belief in astrological ages of roughly 2,000 plus years dominated by a specific sign of the Zodiac. According to this scheme the Age of Taurus (the Bull) was ending or had ended when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and was being superceded by the Age of Aries (the Ram). This age was, in turn, superceded by the Age of Pisces, in which we live, but which is now winding down. It will soon be followed by the Age of Aquarius, hence the song by the same name from the musical Hair. Moses, Peter Joseph says, condemned worshipping the golden bull calf because it was a throwback to an earlier age. The blowing of the shofar, specifically a ram’s horn, and other symbols indicate that Judaism came, initially, out of the Age of Aries. Since Christianity came into being at the beginning of the Age of Pisces, fish symbolism is particularly common in the New Testament. Thus Jesus tells the fishermen he recruits (Mark 1:17), “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Thus he feeds the multitude with loaves and fishes, and thus the fish is a Christian symbol. There are also, according to Joseph, references in the Christian Scriptures to the coming Aquarian Age. Jesus tells his disciples to follow a man bearing a jar of water (i.e. Aquarius, the water bearer) in Luke 22:10:
So, was the fish imagery in the New Testament a reference to the Age of Pisces? When Jesus spoke of the “end of the age,” was he referring to the transition from the Piscean to Aquarian age some 2,000 plus years into the future? The answer to all these questions is, “No.”
Consider the antagonism against bull imagery implicit in Moses condemning the people’s worship of the golden calf. This Yahwistic prejudice seems to have evaporated by that time of the building of Solomon’s Temple, as can be seen in this description of the “molten sea,” a huge vessel containing water that was one of the principle furnishings of the Temple (1 Kings 7:25): “It stood upon twelve oxen, three facing nth, three facing west, three facing south and three facing east; the sea was set upon them, and all their hinder parts were inward.” Oxen also decorate the panels of ten stands made of bronze, along with lions and cherubim (1 Kings. 7:28). Yet, for all the rich imagery of the interior of Solomon’s Temple, it is utterly devoid of any image of rams. Thus, we must assume that the story of the golden calf in Exodus refers, as it would seem, to idolatry.
Fish certainly are common images in the New Testament. Yet so are olive trees, fig trees, sheaves of grain, and, particularly, sheep and lambs. In fact, lambs and lost sheep probably figure more prominently in the New Testament than do fish. Does this mean that Jesus actually wanted to turn the clock back to the previous Age of Aries? Joseph would probably counter such an objection by pointing to the Christian fish symbol. Doesn’t this point to Christianity as the faith of the Piscean Age? The Christian fish symbol has been interpreted as referring back to the “fishers of men” phrase from Mark 1:17 and has also been seen as a vaginal symbol lying on its side. However, it appears most likely that the Greek word for fish, ichthys, was an acronym for (in Greek) Iasos Christos Theos Yios Soter, or “Jesus Christ, son of God, savior.”
The assertion in Zeitgeist that when Jesus tells his disciples in Mt. 28:20 he will be with them until the end of the age, he is referring to a time roughly 2,000 years into the future is absurd considering the apocalyptic outlook of early Christianity. Consider what Jesus has to say in Mark 8: 38–9:1:
History vs. Myth
Again mixing facts with sloppy assumptions, Part I of Zeitgeist concludes with an assault on the historicity of Jesus, claming that, outside the New Testament, there is no indication that Jesus ever existed. Joseph correctly points out that the biblical flood myth has its origins in material antedating the earliest sources of the Hebrew Scriptures. He specifically cites the Epic of Gilgamesh. However, he could just as well have cited the Sumerian flood hero Zuisudra, whose account greatly antedates the flood account in Gilgamesh.
Was there a real Jesus? While the historical evidence is meager, it does exist. In his Antiquities of the Jews, book 20, chapter 9, item 1, referring to the execution of James, Josephus refers to him as the brother of “Jesus, who was called the Christ.” It is quite plain that Josephus didn’t see Jesus as the Christ (Christos, the Greek word meaning “anointed”), he merely recorded that James’ brother was the Jesus who had been called or was alleged to be the Christ.
Beyond this scrap, valuable though it is, we can imply the existence of a historical Jesus from the criteria of embarrassment and difficulty. The criterion of embarrassment says that people do not make up embarrassing details about someone they wish to revere. So, if they say such things about the person, they are probably true. Now let’s apply this to what the Roman historian Tacitus had to say about Jesus early in the second century. Concerning rumors that had spread that Nero had deliberately set fire to the city of Rome, Tacitus says (The Annals of Imperial Rome, Book 1, Chapter 15):
In like manner, people do not go out of their way to invent difficulties for a character they have invented. It is clear from the Nativity narratives of the gospels of Matthew and Luke that they were faced with having to explain why Jesus grew up in Galilee if he was born in Bethlehem. Both gospels had to invent rather convoluted means to get Jesus born in Bethlehem in accordance with the messianic prophecy in Micah 5:2, then get him moved to Nazareth. Clearly they were stuck with a real person known to have come from Galilee, when he should have come from Bethlehem. Had they been making Jesus up out of whole cloth, they would simply have said he came from Bethlehem: end of story, no complications. So the evidence for Jesus as a real, historical personage, though meager, is solid.
A Roman Plot?
Considering that Part II of Zeitgeist asserts that the destruction of the World Trade Center was a conspiracy on the part of the powers that be, and that Part III is an attack on the Federal Reserve Board and income tax as unconstitutional plots devised by hidden powers bent on reducing all of us to poverty, one might wonder why Peter Joseph even bothered to open his film with an attack on Jesus and Christianity. Summing up at the end of Part I, Joseph asserts that Christianity was, in fact, developed by the Romans as a means of social control. He cites the Council of Nicaea in 325 as the beginning of this social control. So this is the connection between Part I and the rest of the film: Everything you’ve ever believed to be true is all a pack of lies foisted on you by the secret manipulators who really run things. They faked the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon to manipulate us into a war. They are undermining our financial and other freedoms through manipulation of our money and — guess what?! — they’ve been at it since the creation of Christianity, back in the time of the Roman Empire!
Zeitgeist is The Da Vinci Code on steroids.
Source.
The Greatest Story Ever Garbled
by Tim Callahan
Perhaps the worst aspect of “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” Part I of Peter Joseph’s Internet film, Zeitgeist, is that some of what it asserts is true. Unfortunately, this material is liberally — and sloppily — mixed with material that is only partially true and much that is plainly and simply bogus. Joseph’s main argument is that Jesus never existed and is in fact a mythical character based on earlier sun gods. He sees all the motifs and characters of the New Testament as coded astrological or solar references. The argument that Jesus was a mythical construct has been made before — for example by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy in their 1999 book, The Jesus Mysteries, though Freke and Gandy made their argument with a far greater level of scholarship. In reducing Jesus to a sun god, Joseph ignores — as Freke and Gandy did before him — the powerful current of messianic apocalypticism prevalent in first century Judea. The fact that there were references back to earlier dying and rising gods in the Christ myth can lend an air of spurious scholarship to Zeitgeist, as long as one ignores the equally important messianic myth and the fact that there is a viable basis for an actual historical Jesus. Joseph totally ignores the messianic/apocalyptic aspects of the New Testament writings and erroneously asserts that there is no evidence for a historical Jesus. I will return to this issue later. For now, let us consider Joseph’s solar deity argument.
The Solar Cross & Sloppy Solar Symbolism
The first assertion made in Zeitgeist is that the cross is a solar symbol and not a representation of the instrument of Jesus’ execution. That’s true enough, as far as it goes, which isn’t very far. What Jesus was crucified on probably looked more like a capital “T,” the crossbeam to which Jesus’ wrists were nailed being hoisted to rest atop an already anchored upright post. It was then probably secured in place by a spike. The Christian cross probably represents a melding of this “T” shape with the solar cross as a bit of religious syncretism. This can be seen if one considers that many Christian crosses are shown enclosed by or intersecting a circle, as in the Celtic cross. The cross is also a symbol of the four cardinal directions and the four winds. However, the solar associations of the cross, while adding solar connotations to the Christ myth, do not militate against it also being a symbol of the Crucifixion.
Joseph next asserts that the gods Horus, Krishna, Mithra and Attys all paralleled Jesus. Again, there is some truth to this, but Joseph mingles so much falsehood with whatever truths he reveals as to give ample ammunition to evangelical Christians who might want to shoot holes in his thesis. First of all, he says that the Egyptian god Horus was adored by three kings, had twelve disciples and was crucified. He says much the same thing about Mithra, as well as noting that Krishna was born on December 25. Almost none of this is true.
When it comes to Egyptian sources of the Christ myth, Joseph seems to have conflated Horus with his father, Osiris. The Osiris/Horus myth, in much simplified terms, goes as follows: Set, the evil brother of the good Osiris, murders that god and cuts his body into 14 pieces. Isis, the wife of Osiris collects and reassembles the pieces, having to substitute a wooden phallus for that part of the dead god’s anatomy. She copulates with the dead god in the form of a bird, conceives Horus and gives birth to him in secret, raising him on an island in the Nile amidst the reeds. She also raises Osiris from the dead, although this very physical resurrection is in the underworld. When Horus comes of age he does battle with his uncle Set. Set tears out the eye of Horus, while Horus rips off Set’s genitals. Eventually, peace is made between the two, both are healed, and they divide the rule of the year by seasons of life and death.
The physical resurrection of Osiris, even though it is in the underworld, is a significant precursor to Jesus as a dying and rising god, as is the physical resurrection of Dionysus, after he is killed, dismembered and partially eaten by the Titans. Surprisingly, Joseph fails to mention this bit of classical mythology. Horus being born and nursed in the rushes of an island in the Nile is an important parallel to the infant Moses being found among the rushes. However, beyond the resurrection of Osiris, the main parallels between the Egyptian myth and the New Testament are iconic. Isis with the dead body of Osiris prefigures the imagery of the Pieta. More importantly, Christians co-opted the imagery of Isis and the infant Horus in the form of the Madonna and child. I have absolutely no idea where Joseph got the notion that Horus had 12 disciples or that he was ever crucified.
As to the god who is born on December 25 — this was not Krishna, but Mithra in his solar aspect as Sol Invictus (Latin for “Unconquered Sun”). The reason Mithra/Sol Invictus was born on December 25 was that in the Roman calendar of that day, that was the Winter Solstice, the 24-hour period having the fewest number of daylight hours. From that date the days get longer and the nights get shorter until the Summer Solstice. Owing to imperfections in the Roman or Julian calendar, the solstice gradually shifted to December 21, until corrections were made resulting in our present Gregorian calendar. Christianity seems to have deliberately co-opted the birthday of Mithra as a way of occupying a rival’s holiday, rather than this being the result of Jesus being a solar savior.
Joseph’s confusion continues when he tries to tie Isis into the Annunciation narrative of Luke. He says that an Annunciation scene from Luxor shows Isis being told by angelic beings she will bear Horus. Actually, the panels from Luxor depict the mother of Hatshepsut being told she will bear the divine child. Next, the god Amon-Ra consorts with Hatshepsut’s mother. Then the divine child (Hatshepsut) is adored by gods and mortals. This is probably the source of Luke’s Nativity. Mary is told by the angel Gabriel she will bear the divine child. The Holy Spirit overshadows her. Then angels and mortals (shepherds) adore Jesus. However, it has nothing to do with Isis. It was part of the standard Egyptian royal myth that each Pharaoh was engendered by Amon Ra, taking his father’s mortal form to have sexual relations with the Pharaoh’s mother. The reason Hatshepsut (ruled 1498–1483 BCE) had to emphasize her divine origins is that, as a female, she was assumed to have ordinary mortal origins. So there probably is an Egyptian origin to the Lucan Nativity, but it has nothing to do with Isis, Osiris or Horus.
Three Kings & Other Astrological Nonsense
Zeitgeist continues to find not only solar but astrological sources for the Christ myth. The star followed by the wise men is Sirius, in the constellation Canis Major, which lines up with three bright stars on Orion’s belt. These stars are often called the “three kings,” hence the three kings following the star in the Nativity story. Mary is a virgin because she represents the constellation Virgo, which is also referred to as the “House of Bread,” or, in Hebrew beth-lehem, or the town of Bethlehem, The death of Jesus by crucifixion represents the sun being in the Southern Cross, a constellation that in antiquity was visible from the Mediterranean. Thus, the sun was, at its lowest point in the sky (when it “died”) “crucified,” in that it was ensnared in the Southern Cross. Jesus rose from the dead at Easter because it was then, at the Vernal Equinox, that the sun conquered darkness. Jesus had 12 disciples because they represent the 12 signs of the Zodiac. His crown of thorns at the Crucifixion represents the rays of the sun emanating from his head.
This story, like most of Part I of Zeitgeist, is a pastiche of factoid, fiction and ingenious invention. It also betrays a certain naïveté on the part of Peter Joseph in regard to his knowledge of the Bible. This is obvious when he sees in the “Three Kings” of Orion’s belt pointing at Sirius, the source of the magi following the star in the Nativity story of Matthew. At this point, let me ask readers a question: Without looking at a Bible, tell me how many wise men or kings followed the star to Bethlehem. Most likely you answered “Three.” After all, we’ve all heard and sung the popular Christmas carol “We Three Kings of Orient Are.” So weren’t there three kings? Let’s look at the Bible, specifically at Matthew 2:1,2:
Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him.”Two things are readily apparent from this passage. First, those who saw the star are wise men, not kings. In the original Greek of the New Testament, what is translated as “wise men” is magi, that is, Zoroastrian holy men. The Greek word magos is the source of our words mage, magic and magician. Second, Matthew nowhere says how many magi came to Jerusalem. So where did we ever get the idea there were three of them? Also, if they were actually following a star, it would have led them directly to Bethlehem. The star doesn’t actually lead the magi until they have been told by Herod’s scribes to go to Bethlehem. Only then does the following happen (Mt. 2:9–11):
When they had heard the king they went on their way, and lo, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy; and going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. Then, opening their treasures they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.This is odd. One wonders why the star didn’t just lead the magi to Bethlehem right off. This has led many to speculate that the “star” wasn’t an actual star, but perhaps a conjunction of astrologically significant planets in one constellation or another. It would be tedious to go into them here. Suffice it to say that Joseph’s “three kings” in the belt of Orion bear no relation to the actual myth in Matthew’s account of the Nativity. The only reason conventions of art and caroling gave us three wise men (not kings) is that the magi give Jesus three gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh.
It is in these three gifts, along with the eastern origin of the magi, that we see the key to the actual myth in Matthew’s Nativity, which is political. Throughout the Mathean Nativity account, the gospel’s author takes great pains to find fulfilled prophecies showing Jesus to be the messiah of the Davidic line of kings. He is born in Bethlehem because that was David’s home town, and Jesus must be born there to fulfill the prophecy in Micah 5:2, which the chief priests and scribes quote to Herod when the magi ask where the baby is that is born to be king of the Jews (Mt. 2:5, 6):
They [the priests and scribes] told him [Herod], “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet:So Bethlehem’s mythic associations have to do with Davidic kingship, not astrology. The three gifts also reflect Davidic kingship, since the Queen of Sheba gave King Solomon rich and kingly gifts (1 Kings 10:10). These included a great quantity of gold and, by implication, since Sheba, or Saba was located in modern Yemen, at the southern end of the Red Sea, frankincense and myrrh. Sheba, or Saba, in Yemen is at the southern end, the point of origin of an ancient caravan route that stretched from Yemen to Damascus called the “Incense Route,” since what was traded from the southern end of the Red Sea were two forms of incense, frankincense and myrrh. Thus, the infant Jesus received from the magi the same gifts given to Solomon by the Queen of Sheba.
‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means the least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you will come a ruler
who will govern my people Israel’”
Other astrological fantasies in Zeitgeist regarding the Christ myth are that Mary is a virgin because she personifies the constellation Virgo, that the Crucifixion represents the sun in the constellation of the Southern Cross, that Easter is related to the sun’s triumph over darkness at or shortly following the Vernal Equinox, that Jesus’ 12 disciples represent the signs of the Zodiac, and that his crown of thorns represents solar rays emanating from his head. The astrological associations of all of these elements are tenuous at best. Certainly, the virgin birth and the elevation of the Virgin Mary in the Gospel of Luke reflects pagan influences on the Christ myth, which can be seen in the Lucan Nativity and which sharply contrast to the messianic/Davidic kingship motifs of Matthew. As previously noted. Luke’s Nativity seems to be based on Egyptian panels from Luxor dating to the 18th dynasty and the reign of Queen Hatshepsut. So Mary could relate to the constellation Virgo, but also took on the iconography of Isis
As to the sighting of Easter near the time of the Vernal Equinox, we must remember that the Passion is staged during Passover. There is a complex layering here that is lost if we simply relegate Easter to a celebration of the Vernal Equinox.
The Christ myth relates not only to previous dying and rising gods, like Osiris and Dionysus, but as well to Jewish messianic, apocalyptic and historical myths. Thus, situating Easter in the Passover season probably relates more to messianic myth than to the sun. Passover itself was probably originally a festival of first fruits, that is, a seasonal, agricultural festival relating to rebirth. However, Jewish seasonal festivals relating to a cyclic view of time were recast in messianic, apocalyptic terms as historical and related to a linear concept of time. In the case of Jewish belief, I believe it’s safe to say that the linear, historical view effectively eclipsed the original seasonal festival. Since the Christian Passion and Resurrection narratives reintroduce a dying and rising god meme into the holiday, the layering of Easter becomes far more complex. Easter blends apocalyptic messianism, emphasizing Christ’s death and resurrection as the critical turning point in God’s war with Satan, and portraying Jesus as the culmination of Israel’s hopes and dreams, with the dying and rising god motif, and the promise to Christians that they, too, would transcend death. It must also be remembered that the cult of Isis and Osiris, which spread through the Roman Empire about a century before the time of Jesus, was not entirely the same as the millennia old Egyptian fertility cult it had originally been. Rather, it was, in all probability, Hellenized and showed some of the refinements of Greek philosophy. This was, likewise, probably the case with the much younger cult of Dionysus, another dying and rising god.
Jesus having 12 disciples also relates more to Jewish messianism than to astrology. The 12 disciples relate to the 12 tribes of Israel, which, though they no longer existed as political entities, were important genealogically to the extent that Paul could confidently claim to be of the tribe of Benjamin (Romans 11:1). Actually, there were 13 tribes, 12 plus the priestly tribe of Levites. Each tribe originally supported the Levitical priesthood and maintained the central shrine for one month a year. The division of the tribes worshipping Yahweh into 12 divisions may well reflect influences of what was originally a lunar cult, but such influences had been subsumed by the apocalyptic, messianic monotheism of post-exilic Judaism well before the time of Christ. Had the 12 disciples represented the signs of the Zodiac, as Joseph asserts, then we would expect to find the disciples individually given specific zodiacal characteristics in the canonical gospels. Instead, most of the disciples are little more than names and lack any character whatsoever.
Jesus’ crown of thorns, along with most of the specific details of the Passion — his being clothed in a purple robe and given a reed as a scepter, the mocking and scourging by the Roman troops, even his being put to death — were probably elements of the Zagmuku Festival, which the Jews brought back with them from Babylon after their captivity there (587–538 BCE). Elements of this festival are to be found in the entirely fictional Book of Esther and the celebration of the Jewish holiday of Purim. This, by the way, is not to say that Jesus’ crucifixion was not a real, historical event, merely that its details were heavily fictionalized in the process of dramatization and storytelling.
It is the historiscity of Jesus that will tell us whether the Crucifixion was real or merely symbolic of the sun descending into the constellation of the Southern Cross. I will deal with that subject later.
The End of the Age
Zeitgeist continues its assertion of the astrological basis of Christianity and even of the Jewish Scriptures with the assertion that both Moses and Jesus based their words and actions on a belief in astrological ages of roughly 2,000 plus years dominated by a specific sign of the Zodiac. According to this scheme the Age of Taurus (the Bull) was ending or had ended when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and was being superceded by the Age of Aries (the Ram). This age was, in turn, superceded by the Age of Pisces, in which we live, but which is now winding down. It will soon be followed by the Age of Aquarius, hence the song by the same name from the musical Hair. Moses, Peter Joseph says, condemned worshipping the golden bull calf because it was a throwback to an earlier age. The blowing of the shofar, specifically a ram’s horn, and other symbols indicate that Judaism came, initially, out of the Age of Aries. Since Christianity came into being at the beginning of the Age of Pisces, fish symbolism is particularly common in the New Testament. Thus Jesus tells the fishermen he recruits (Mark 1:17), “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Thus he feeds the multitude with loaves and fishes, and thus the fish is a Christian symbol. There are also, according to Joseph, references in the Christian Scriptures to the coming Aquarian Age. Jesus tells his disciples to follow a man bearing a jar of water (i.e. Aquarius, the water bearer) in Luke 22:10:
He said to them, “Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him into the house which he enters, and tell the householder, ‘The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I am to eat the Passover with my disciples?’"Finally, Jesus tells his disciples (Mt. 28:20) referring to the Age of Pisces and its transition into the Age of Aquarius, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
So, was the fish imagery in the New Testament a reference to the Age of Pisces? When Jesus spoke of the “end of the age,” was he referring to the transition from the Piscean to Aquarian age some 2,000 plus years into the future? The answer to all these questions is, “No.”
Consider the antagonism against bull imagery implicit in Moses condemning the people’s worship of the golden calf. This Yahwistic prejudice seems to have evaporated by that time of the building of Solomon’s Temple, as can be seen in this description of the “molten sea,” a huge vessel containing water that was one of the principle furnishings of the Temple (1 Kings 7:25): “It stood upon twelve oxen, three facing nth, three facing west, three facing south and three facing east; the sea was set upon them, and all their hinder parts were inward.” Oxen also decorate the panels of ten stands made of bronze, along with lions and cherubim (1 Kings. 7:28). Yet, for all the rich imagery of the interior of Solomon’s Temple, it is utterly devoid of any image of rams. Thus, we must assume that the story of the golden calf in Exodus refers, as it would seem, to idolatry.
Fish certainly are common images in the New Testament. Yet so are olive trees, fig trees, sheaves of grain, and, particularly, sheep and lambs. In fact, lambs and lost sheep probably figure more prominently in the New Testament than do fish. Does this mean that Jesus actually wanted to turn the clock back to the previous Age of Aries? Joseph would probably counter such an objection by pointing to the Christian fish symbol. Doesn’t this point to Christianity as the faith of the Piscean Age? The Christian fish symbol has been interpreted as referring back to the “fishers of men” phrase from Mark 1:17 and has also been seen as a vaginal symbol lying on its side. However, it appears most likely that the Greek word for fish, ichthys, was an acronym for (in Greek) Iasos Christos Theos Yios Soter, or “Jesus Christ, son of God, savior.”
The assertion in Zeitgeist that when Jesus tells his disciples in Mt. 28:20 he will be with them until the end of the age, he is referring to a time roughly 2,000 years into the future is absurd considering the apocalyptic outlook of early Christianity. Consider what Jesus has to say in Mark 8: 38–9:1:
“For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” And he said to them, “Truly I ay to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.”Despite the efforts of Christian apologists to rationalize this as something other than a prediction of the end of the world in Jesus’ own generation, there is little else to which it could refer. The parallel verses in Matthew even throw in the Last Judgment (Mt. 16: 27, 28):
For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done. Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not tastes death before they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.Though there are no parallel verses to this in the Gospel of John, it also proclaims the imminent end of the world (John. 5: 28, 29):
Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his [Jesus’] voice and come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.Paul also proclaimed the end of the world in his generation in this passage from 1 Thessalonians (1 Thess. 4: 15-17):
For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we, who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep [i.e. died]. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord.These are but a few of the apocalyptic references salted throughout the New Testament. However, lest anyone doubt that early Christians believed the world would end in their generation, consider what John of Patmos says at the opening of Revelation, that vivid and detailed description of the end of days (Rev. 1:1, 2, emphasis added):
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants what must soon take place; and he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.“What must soon take place’” cannot refer to the end of the Piscean Age some 2,000 years into the future any more than it can refer to a series of events triggered by Russia invading Israel in 1988.
History vs. Myth
Again mixing facts with sloppy assumptions, Part I of Zeitgeist concludes with an assault on the historicity of Jesus, claming that, outside the New Testament, there is no indication that Jesus ever existed. Joseph correctly points out that the biblical flood myth has its origins in material antedating the earliest sources of the Hebrew Scriptures. He specifically cites the Epic of Gilgamesh. However, he could just as well have cited the Sumerian flood hero Zuisudra, whose account greatly antedates the flood account in Gilgamesh.
Was there a real Jesus? While the historical evidence is meager, it does exist. In his Antiquities of the Jews, book 20, chapter 9, item 1, referring to the execution of James, Josephus refers to him as the brother of “Jesus, who was called the Christ.” It is quite plain that Josephus didn’t see Jesus as the Christ (Christos, the Greek word meaning “anointed”), he merely recorded that James’ brother was the Jesus who had been called or was alleged to be the Christ.
Beyond this scrap, valuable though it is, we can imply the existence of a historical Jesus from the criteria of embarrassment and difficulty. The criterion of embarrassment says that people do not make up embarrassing details about someone they wish to revere. So, if they say such things about the person, they are probably true. Now let’s apply this to what the Roman historian Tacitus had to say about Jesus early in the second century. Concerning rumors that had spread that Nero had deliberately set fire to the city of Rome, Tacitus says (The Annals of Imperial Rome, Book 1, Chapter 15):
To suppress this rumor, Nero fabricated scapegoats — and punished with every refinement the notoriously depraved Christians (as they were called). Their originator, Christ, had been executed in Tiberius’ reign by the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilatus. But in spite of this temporary setback the deadly superstition had broken out afresh, not only in Judea (where the mischief had started) but even in Rome. All degraded and shameful practices collect and flourish in the capitol.That Tacitus is obviously a hostile witness makes it much more likely that he accepted Jesus as a real person. Had he reason to suspect he was nothing more than a fabrication, Tacitus would certainly have said so. That author’s claim that Jesus had been executed by Pontius Pilate could only have come from one of two possible sources: Either Tacitus knew this to be true from extant imperial records or he was repeating what Christians themselves had said of Jesus. Were Jesus a mythical character they had invented, they certainly wouldn’t have gone out of their way to invent his being a criminal who had been executed.
In like manner, people do not go out of their way to invent difficulties for a character they have invented. It is clear from the Nativity narratives of the gospels of Matthew and Luke that they were faced with having to explain why Jesus grew up in Galilee if he was born in Bethlehem. Both gospels had to invent rather convoluted means to get Jesus born in Bethlehem in accordance with the messianic prophecy in Micah 5:2, then get him moved to Nazareth. Clearly they were stuck with a real person known to have come from Galilee, when he should have come from Bethlehem. Had they been making Jesus up out of whole cloth, they would simply have said he came from Bethlehem: end of story, no complications. So the evidence for Jesus as a real, historical personage, though meager, is solid.
A Roman Plot?
Considering that Part II of Zeitgeist asserts that the destruction of the World Trade Center was a conspiracy on the part of the powers that be, and that Part III is an attack on the Federal Reserve Board and income tax as unconstitutional plots devised by hidden powers bent on reducing all of us to poverty, one might wonder why Peter Joseph even bothered to open his film with an attack on Jesus and Christianity. Summing up at the end of Part I, Joseph asserts that Christianity was, in fact, developed by the Romans as a means of social control. He cites the Council of Nicaea in 325 as the beginning of this social control. So this is the connection between Part I and the rest of the film: Everything you’ve ever believed to be true is all a pack of lies foisted on you by the secret manipulators who really run things. They faked the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon to manipulate us into a war. They are undermining our financial and other freedoms through manipulation of our money and — guess what?! — they’ve been at it since the creation of Christianity, back in the time of the Roman Empire!
Zeitgeist is The Da Vinci Code on steroids.
Source.
February 24, 2009
The Best Damn Atheist Book on the Market Today, Bar None, Hands Down, Without Question!
[Written By John W.Loftus] I just finished reading cultural anthropologist Dr. David Eller's magnificient book Atheism Advanced. Let me say that as far as offering us significant new insights into what atheism is all about, Eller's book is the best damn book out there, bar none, hands down, without question.
If you value my advice at all you need to read this book. It is absolutely brilliant! While I'm not yet convinced of everything he argues for, the book has challenged my own thinking on the issues he writes about. If you want an intellectual feast, get this book. Every atheist should read it. If you are a Christian apologist you need to deal with his book. No Christian apologist in the future worthy of being called an apologist should be without Eller's book and be able to articulate some kind of lame response to it (because that's the only response apologists will be able to give it).
Eller does not deal with many issues that other atheist books cover (like philosophical arguments against the existence of God, the problem of evil, and so forth), so you'll still want other atheist books as well. It's just that his book is on my limited essential list of atheist books to have in your library.
This is the highest praise I have ever written about any book, and it's probably because after having read so many atheist books I thought I had read up on most of the issues, but I was wrong. I learned a great deal from Eller's book even after having read so many other works of this nature that it took me completely by surprise.
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You can read an earlier post describing what I thought of the first six chapters right here, where you can also watch an interview with him. I also wrote on one his arguments right here.
You can order the book here on amazon.
If you value my advice at all you need to read this book. It is absolutely brilliant! While I'm not yet convinced of everything he argues for, the book has challenged my own thinking on the issues he writes about. If you want an intellectual feast, get this book. Every atheist should read it. If you are a Christian apologist you need to deal with his book. No Christian apologist in the future worthy of being called an apologist should be without Eller's book and be able to articulate some kind of lame response to it (because that's the only response apologists will be able to give it).
Eller does not deal with many issues that other atheist books cover (like philosophical arguments against the existence of God, the problem of evil, and so forth), so you'll still want other atheist books as well. It's just that his book is on my limited essential list of atheist books to have in your library.
This is the highest praise I have ever written about any book, and it's probably because after having read so many atheist books I thought I had read up on most of the issues, but I was wrong. I learned a great deal from Eller's book even after having read so many other works of this nature that it took me completely by surprise.
-------------------
You can read an earlier post describing what I thought of the first six chapters right here, where you can also watch an interview with him. I also wrote on one his arguments right here.
You can order the book here on amazon.
Is God (θεός) Himself an Atheist?
Lets first get a working definition. atheist: noun, One who denies the existence of God.
(Since this definition is based on the Western concept of monotheism, we might expand it to include the Hindu religion or one who denies the existence of any gods.)
What is clear from the growth of the theological tradition in the Biblical text is that the early God of the Hebrews was one of many Semitic gods found in the pantheon usually located atop a high mountain peaks such as the Biblical Sinai or Horeb and it is within this polytheistic society that the first Commandment of Exodus 20 was written.
[An Excursion: The Evolution of “God” in the LXX: A Note on Genesis 1:1
In the early epic cycles in the Hebrew Bible, not only in J and E in in Genesis and Exodus, but as redacted in the Tribal League epics in the Deuteronomistic History of the Tetratuch, the concept of the deity of the Hebrews / Israelites moves from a local god who is but one member of a pantheon of gods which create the world (הארץ) for his people which he rules over to a latter universal single monotheistic deity of the LXX drawn from the Classical Greek concept of θεός.
Genesis 1: 1
This plural form of god is emended in the Old Greek and carried in to the LXX as:
εν αρχη εποιησεν ο θεος τον ουρανον και την γην
(Note: אלהים the plural masculine of אל or singular for god (see: Marvin Pope excellent comments in his classical study: El in the Ugaritic Text, EJ Brill 1955; pp. 1 - 21 and for a more up to date study see: John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan (Sheffield Academic Press, 2000)
Genesis 1: 1 clearly states that the world of the Hebrews was formed by a polytheistic assembly of gods just as one would expect in the Semitic cuneiform text of the ancient Near East such as the Enuma Elish.
How in the hell does אלהיםwith יהוהequal κύριος ὁ θεός? I would emphatically state that during Israel’s evolution from polytheism to monotheism has totally eclipsed the Semitic etymology here in favor of the non-Semitic Greek. ]
Since Yahweh demands the Hebrews / Israelites put him first over all the other gods (Please note: Nowhere does Yahweh say these other gods don’t exist, but rather that only he alone wants to be their god-king). Thus, it is plainly obvious that Yahweh himself believes in other gods just a these other gods also believed in him or (to put it another way; Yahweh is not an atheist). Thus, under Josiah’s reforms, all other Beth El’s or other Houses of Gods must be destroyed thus cutting off their food and leaving only Israel’s leading god’s (Yahweh) temple in Jerusalem alone honored with sacrifices.
In conclusion, when we come to the LXX and the New Testament (which is based on the LXX) we do not find Yahweh as simply another god fearing other deities of the Israelites anymore (or even the name Yahweh itself), but an alone and the only real Theos who himself no longer believes in any other living deities, but considers all other forms of competing gods simply worthless and dead idols (See the atheistic theologies to wards other gods in the Acts of the Apostles and St. Paul’s theology). Put another way, the Theos of the New Testament is now fully an atheist when it comes to belief in any god or gods!
Here a some closing questions to consider:
A. When did Yahweh lose his faith / belief in other Gods?
B. Why does the atheistic Theos (θεός) feel that the religious belief of the Semitic Yahweh was wrong?
C. Does the atheistic Greek Theos even deny the ancient Semitic, but religious
(faithfully believing) Yahweh himself?
D. Can the Biblical text reconcile the atheistic Theos with Yahweh’s faith in other gods? (Can the LXX and its later sibling (the New Testament) ever be really reconciled with the MT text? As I have already pointed out, to say that אלהים יהוה equals κύριος ὁ θεός is simply etymologically apologetic crap!)
(Since this definition is based on the Western concept of monotheism, we might expand it to include the Hindu religion or one who denies the existence of any gods.)
What is clear from the growth of the theological tradition in the Biblical text is that the early God of the Hebrews was one of many Semitic gods found in the pantheon usually located atop a high mountain peaks such as the Biblical Sinai or Horeb and it is within this polytheistic society that the first Commandment of Exodus 20 was written.
[An Excursion: The Evolution of “God” in the LXX: A Note on Genesis 1:1
In the early epic cycles in the Hebrew Bible, not only in J and E in in Genesis and Exodus, but as redacted in the Tribal League epics in the Deuteronomistic History of the Tetratuch, the concept of the deity of the Hebrews / Israelites moves from a local god who is but one member of a pantheon of gods which create the world (הארץ) for his people which he rules over to a latter universal single monotheistic deity of the LXX drawn from the Classical Greek concept of θεός.
Genesis 1: 1
This plural form of god is emended in the Old Greek and carried in to the LXX as:
εν αρχη εποιησεν ο θεος τον ουρανον και την γην
(Note: אלהים the plural masculine of אל or singular for god (see: Marvin Pope excellent comments in his classical study: El in the Ugaritic Text, EJ Brill 1955; pp. 1 - 21 and for a more up to date study see: John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan (Sheffield Academic Press, 2000)
Genesis 1: 1 clearly states that the world of the Hebrews was formed by a polytheistic assembly of gods just as one would expect in the Semitic cuneiform text of the ancient Near East such as the Enuma Elish.
How in the hell does אלהיםwith יהוהequal κύριος ὁ θεός? I would emphatically state that during Israel’s evolution from polytheism to monotheism has totally eclipsed the Semitic etymology here in favor of the non-Semitic Greek. ]
Since Yahweh demands the Hebrews / Israelites put him first over all the other gods (Please note: Nowhere does Yahweh say these other gods don’t exist, but rather that only he alone wants to be their god-king). Thus, it is plainly obvious that Yahweh himself believes in other gods just a these other gods also believed in him or (to put it another way; Yahweh is not an atheist). Thus, under Josiah’s reforms, all other Beth El’s or other Houses of Gods must be destroyed thus cutting off their food and leaving only Israel’s leading god’s (Yahweh) temple in Jerusalem alone honored with sacrifices.
In conclusion, when we come to the LXX and the New Testament (which is based on the LXX) we do not find Yahweh as simply another god fearing other deities of the Israelites anymore (or even the name Yahweh itself), but an alone and the only real Theos who himself no longer believes in any other living deities, but considers all other forms of competing gods simply worthless and dead idols (See the atheistic theologies to wards other gods in the Acts of the Apostles and St. Paul’s theology). Put another way, the Theos of the New Testament is now fully an atheist when it comes to belief in any god or gods!
Here a some closing questions to consider:
A. When did Yahweh lose his faith / belief in other Gods?
B. Why does the atheistic Theos (θεός) feel that the religious belief of the Semitic Yahweh was wrong?
C. Does the atheistic Greek Theos even deny the ancient Semitic, but religious
(faithfully believing) Yahweh himself?
D. Can the Biblical text reconcile the atheistic Theos with Yahweh’s faith in other gods? (Can the LXX and its later sibling (the New Testament) ever be really reconciled with the MT text? As I have already pointed out, to say that אלהים יהוה equals κύριος ὁ θεός is simply etymologically apologetic crap!)
February 23, 2009
Guest Post by William Lobdell: Deconstructing Criticism
With the launch of my book tomorrow, I’m starting to read and hear an increasing amount of criticism–something I expected with a memoir titled, Losing My Religion. They have their opinion; I have mine. Fair enough. But I thought I’d take a stab at answering some of the most popular criticisms.
Criticism: You’re anti-religious or anti-Christian. I’m not. I miss my faith. But I can’t believe what I feel in my heart (and see with my eyes) is untrue. I believe I’ve found the truth, but have enough humility (and experience) to know I need to keep my eyes open for new information that could reshape my views. So far, in my three years as an out-of-the-closet atheist, the evidence has continued to pile up against a personal God who intervenes in my life. In the end, I’m anti-hypocrisy–especially when the hypocrites operate under the guise of God.
Criticism: You are trying to lead people away from God and/or Jesus Christ. Not really. This is just my story. I’m really hoping my journey will let folks know it’s normal to wrestle with doubts and also to get people to think more about faith and its shortcomings. Some of the biggest fans of my memoir have been pastors and other reformers who think the Body of Christ has grown soft and could use the wake up call. Christianity would make a whole lot more sense to me if Christians acted like they really believed the message of the Gospel.
Criticism: You’ve confused the sinfulness of man with a perfect God. This is condescending. In Christian theology, I understand the difference between God and fallen man. And I know that means Christian institutions, run by humans, won’t be perfect. But the argument falls apart on several levels. First, despite man’s fallen nature, Christian institutions should behave in a manner morally superior than their secular counterparts. I didn’t see much difference. But that not even where I lost my faith. That fact only caused me to start questioning other aspects of Christianity: why Christians behave basically the same as atheists in terms of morals and ethics; why no studies show that prayer works; why God gets credit for answered prayers and no blame to tragedies; and why the Bible is filled with a litany of bizarre punishments (death for working on the Sabbath, for one), a wrathful God who wipes out whole populations; why Christianity would be the one true faith out of the 1,000 of religions past and present; how God could be both merciful and just (the notions are contradictory); and even why Jesus didn’t speak out against slavery (in fact, he only says they should be beaten less). Eventually, my faith collapsed under the weight of all the evidence against it. I’d say as a Christian, I had mistaken a man-made creation for one developed by a loving God.
Criticism: You were never really a serious Christian, so you didn’t really lose your faith, you never had it. I’d agree with half that statement. I didn’t really lose my faith in the sense that you can’t lose something that didn’t exist. But I indeed was a serious Christian for more than a dozen years. I went to church weekly. I was member of a small men’s group that studied the Bible. I went on retreats. I read the Bible daily. I prayed several times a day. I read scores of Christian books. I don’t see how anyone could argue that I didn’t take my faith seriously. I think it helps critics to paint me as a half-ass Christian because then I’m easily dismissed.
Criticism: You’re just trying to sell books. I do want to sell a bzillion books, but that doesn’t change my experiences or my de-conversion journey. I also find it funny that Christians never accuse Christian authors–who make a fabulous living off their books–of “just trying to sell books.”
Criticism: You’ve consigned yourself to an eternity in hell. Look, I’ve tried my hardest to hang on to my faith. I just don’t have it. If there happens to be a Christian God and, given the circumstances, he still sends me to an eternity in hell, then what kind of loving God is that? Does that make sense to anyone? What kind of person are you worshipping? More likely, if I’m wrong and there is a loving God, I imagine he would look at me and said, “Son, I know how hard you struggled to believe. I’m very proud of your effort. I love you. Let’s spend eternity together.” What would you do as a loving father?
I didn’t write this post to sway critics. I’m guessing they are locked into their beliefs. But I do think there are a lot of people in live in shades of gray. I at least wanted to give those people something to think about.
- William Lobdell
Criticism: You’re anti-religious or anti-Christian. I’m not. I miss my faith. But I can’t believe what I feel in my heart (and see with my eyes) is untrue. I believe I’ve found the truth, but have enough humility (and experience) to know I need to keep my eyes open for new information that could reshape my views. So far, in my three years as an out-of-the-closet atheist, the evidence has continued to pile up against a personal God who intervenes in my life. In the end, I’m anti-hypocrisy–especially when the hypocrites operate under the guise of God.
Criticism: You are trying to lead people away from God and/or Jesus Christ. Not really. This is just my story. I’m really hoping my journey will let folks know it’s normal to wrestle with doubts and also to get people to think more about faith and its shortcomings. Some of the biggest fans of my memoir have been pastors and other reformers who think the Body of Christ has grown soft and could use the wake up call. Christianity would make a whole lot more sense to me if Christians acted like they really believed the message of the Gospel.
Criticism: You’ve confused the sinfulness of man with a perfect God. This is condescending. In Christian theology, I understand the difference between God and fallen man. And I know that means Christian institutions, run by humans, won’t be perfect. But the argument falls apart on several levels. First, despite man’s fallen nature, Christian institutions should behave in a manner morally superior than their secular counterparts. I didn’t see much difference. But that not even where I lost my faith. That fact only caused me to start questioning other aspects of Christianity: why Christians behave basically the same as atheists in terms of morals and ethics; why no studies show that prayer works; why God gets credit for answered prayers and no blame to tragedies; and why the Bible is filled with a litany of bizarre punishments (death for working on the Sabbath, for one), a wrathful God who wipes out whole populations; why Christianity would be the one true faith out of the 1,000 of religions past and present; how God could be both merciful and just (the notions are contradictory); and even why Jesus didn’t speak out against slavery (in fact, he only says they should be beaten less). Eventually, my faith collapsed under the weight of all the evidence against it. I’d say as a Christian, I had mistaken a man-made creation for one developed by a loving God.
Criticism: You were never really a serious Christian, so you didn’t really lose your faith, you never had it. I’d agree with half that statement. I didn’t really lose my faith in the sense that you can’t lose something that didn’t exist. But I indeed was a serious Christian for more than a dozen years. I went to church weekly. I was member of a small men’s group that studied the Bible. I went on retreats. I read the Bible daily. I prayed several times a day. I read scores of Christian books. I don’t see how anyone could argue that I didn’t take my faith seriously. I think it helps critics to paint me as a half-ass Christian because then I’m easily dismissed.
Criticism: You’re just trying to sell books. I do want to sell a bzillion books, but that doesn’t change my experiences or my de-conversion journey. I also find it funny that Christians never accuse Christian authors–who make a fabulous living off their books–of “just trying to sell books.”
Criticism: You’ve consigned yourself to an eternity in hell. Look, I’ve tried my hardest to hang on to my faith. I just don’t have it. If there happens to be a Christian God and, given the circumstances, he still sends me to an eternity in hell, then what kind of loving God is that? Does that make sense to anyone? What kind of person are you worshipping? More likely, if I’m wrong and there is a loving God, I imagine he would look at me and said, “Son, I know how hard you struggled to believe. I’m very proud of your effort. I love you. Let’s spend eternity together.” What would you do as a loving father?
I didn’t write this post to sway critics. I’m guessing they are locked into their beliefs. But I do think there are a lot of people in live in shades of gray. I at least wanted to give those people something to think about.
- William Lobdell
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