Discussing with an Inerrantist

The interaction over the claim that the Bible has no contradictions within it, at times can be ferocious, fascinating, frustrating, and funny.

The typical dance in this charade is for the skeptic to claim “Contradiction!” laying out two (or more) apparently differing portions of Scripture. The inerrantist then jumps in with an explanation, asserting “Resolution!” They each banter back and forth, with graduated verbosity, citations, and hand-waving, while continually proclaiming “Contradiction!” or “Resolution!” respectively.

It can be as amusing as children arguing: “Window Seat! Because I called it, I got it!” “Then I get the Video Game!” Each is certain that the verbal announcement has set the matter in stone as unassailable as a law of nature. And, on occasion, as a parent I am forced to veto the declarations made, and re-distribute seats and games accordingly.

My children are stunned to learn that the verbal proclamations were not sacrosanct. “But I called it!”

It is the same in this debate. Simply labeling something as a “Resolution!” or a “Contradiction!” does not make it so. No—no matter how many times, nor how forcefully it is stated. “Calling it” does not count.

That is why I continually and constantly ask for a method to determine a contradiction. Rather than waste our time, using our labels, and not progressing the matter forward a millimeter.

When I ask for this method, I begin a new dance. A different jig. Most times, it appears that the inerrantist has never been asked this question and has never considered what method to use. They appear to be so familiar with the old steps of “This is a Resolution!” and stringing together a series of possibilities, bolstered by analogies, that my asking for a method throws them off their cadence.

As this point we stumble a bit. The inerrantist attempts to re-start the song of “Resolution!” and when I won’t dance, begins to engage in the more demanding task of coming up with a method to determine what is or is not a contradiction within the Bible.

I offer my method that if a neutral jury would feel it is more likely to be a contradiction, based upon the facts and the human condition then it is, but that is immediately rejected. We certainly cannot have a skeptic setting the tunes by which we dance!

Eventually a method falters out. Inerrantists are not stupid. They are well aware that if the method is too exacting the Bible will fail. Based on my history, apparently my “neutral jury” is one such method that is too probable to produce results the inerrantist cannot live with, so the method must be less than that.

Unfortunately, the method is normally minimal, such as “any logical possibility,” that it renders just about any work conceivable as inerrant. While it retains the Bible’s ability to be non-contradictory, it also makes the very human endeavors such as newspapers and Yellow Pages equally as non-contradictory.

I point out that by using this method; the inerrantist has won the battle but lost the war. The Bible is non-contradictory, but so is everything else. The Bible loses any uniqueness, and becomes as ordinary as could be. “Inerrancy” is as much support for divinity of the Bible as the fact it is written on paper. In other words—none.

And then the inerrantist wanders off (and sometimes I do), with the inerrantist muttering under their breath, “Resolution. Resolution. Who needs a method when we have resolutions?” I presume off to find some skeptic that is more willing to dance to the stomp and flurry of “Contradiction! Resolution!”

Recently I was bemoaning this request for a method, utilizing the names of the disciples as the example of the contradiction, and Dave Armstrong entered the fray with a “Resolution!”

After tussling a bit back and forth, a method to determine a contradiction emerged: “Examine the proposed contradiction and see if there is an explanation that can account for it. The explanation must be more plausible and more believable than the opposing view of a contradiction.”

Simply put, the claims of the contradiction are proposed, the claims of the explanation are proposed and whichever is more plausible and more believable determines the outcome. Now, the issue as to “Who?” makes the determination of plausibility has been left unresolved. I would propose a neutral person (such as Jew, a Hindu or a Taoist who has no stake in whether the New Testament has a contradiction or not) but Dave Armstrong is not certain that such a neutral person exists.

(Personally, I think most neutral people generally expect contradictions in a variety of stories, and there is a fear that by using a neutral, they are far more likely to naturally determine contradiction. Again, this does not bode well for the inflated claims for the Bible if it cannot even withstand regular, normal human scrutiny. But I digress.)

So I leave it to the reader of this blog entry. A poll, if you will. I cannot help the fact that many of you are not neutral, as you can see I was left with little choice. The question is simple—Given the various names of the Twelve disciples and the different circumstances around their calling (you will have to read my previous blog entry) and the explanation provided by Dave Armstong (link above): which is more likely? Contradiction? Or Explanation?

The music has come up; it is time to dance, I see.

The explanation given is not complicated: Jews of the First Century Palestine had 2 or 3 names. When one author recorded a particular disciple, another author happened to record a different name of the same disciple. An example would be my referring to a blogger named “John,” and Dave Armstrong referring to a blogger named “Loftus” when we both mean the same person.

Analogies

One thing to be careful is utilizing analogies of a different time and society as compared to the period we are discussing. Simply because we, at times, call people solely by their last time, this is not necessarily analogous to how a Biblical author would have done so.

Jews did not assume family names (such as “Loftus”) until the 10th Century. Prior to that (and during the period we are discussing—1st Century) an individual would be known by his/her given name, and sometimes their father’s name would be added. For example “David ben Yaakov” (David the son of Yaakov). "Ben Yaakov" was not a family name, but part of his given name. His son's name, for instance, would not continue with the ending “Ben Yaakov,” but rather “Ben David” (the son of David). See here.

A Jew may have been referred to as “David” or “David ben Yaakov” but not just “ben Yaakov.” Comparing the analogy of “John” to “Loftus” is incorrect. While analogies can be useful, it would be better to utilize the information we have from the period and place of time that we are discussing.

Two names?

While the explanation provided asserts that Jews were known by 2 or 3 names, no citation, no point of reference, no further information was given as to demonstration of this claim. We have other writings from this time period which would give valuable insight; a prominent example—the writings of Josephus.

Reading Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18, we come across the following names: “Joazar, who was the son of Beethus,” “Judas, a Gaulonite,” “Sadduc, a Pharisee,” “Judas the Galilean,” and “Ananus the son of Seth.”

However, we also see Josephus utilizing a singular name at times as well, such as “Herod,” “Philip,” “Antipater,” and “Alexander” often after already identifying them with the longer term.

In viewing other works prepared at the time of the Gospels, it would seem appropriate that writers would call a person by either their singular name, OR include their occupation (“the king” “the Baptist”) OR include their location, (“the Galilean”) OR by including their father’s name, (“son of Beethus.”) The one thing we do NOT see are other authors calling people by just “son of Zebedee” if they knew the first name.

This explanation, though, demands that it is MORE plausible that the authors did something contrary to their style, with no evidence to support that claim. Each of us has a certain style—a way of writing. If we write that way on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, it is more likely, more believable that (absent any evidence to the contrary) we will continue to write that way on Friday.

The authors of the Gospels display a propensity to list dual names, when known. In order for this explanation to work, it claims that the authors picked only one name. But that is contrary to their style! Look at the names of the Disciples:

Simon Peter (John 21:2)
Andrew, brother of Peter (Matt. 10:2)
James the son of Zebedee, son of Thunder (Mark 1:19 & 3:17)
John the son of Zebedee son of Thunder (Mark 1:19 & 3:17
Philip of Bethsaida of Galilee (John 12:21)
Bartholomew
Matthew
Thomas called the Twin (John 21:2)
James, son of Alphaeus (Mark 3:18)
Thaddeus, also know as Lebbaeus (Matt. 10:3)
Simon the Cananite (Mark 3:18)
Judas Iscariot (John 12:4)

Judas, son (brother?) of James, (Possibly the “other” Judas) (Luke 6:16) (John 14:22)
Nathanael of Cana of Galilee (John 21:2)

What we see are numerous indications of the writers very freely listing more than one name of an individual, or listing the parentage, or listing a moniker such as “the twin” or “the Cananite.” (Again, very similar to Josephus.)

Initially, the inerrantist would seem to be pleased with the notion of two names, and the claim that one author could utilize one name, and another author a different name. However, in reviewing the actual writings and styling of the Gospel writers, we see that the authors do no hesitate, and repeatedly embrace the use of more than one name.

Is it more plausible, given the affinity of use of the other names, that an author of the Gospel would know the other name of the disciple and not use it? Or is it more plausible that the author did not KNOW any other name, so they only used the singular?

Other Contradictions

If there are other contradictions within the stories of the calling of the disciples, it makes it more likely and more plausible that the names themselves are contradictory. If the authors were obtaining information from different sources, or creating legendary history of their own, we would expect differences in more than just the names; we would expect differences in the surrounding events themselves (for verses see previous post)

Problem of Order
- According to Mark and Matthew, the first disciples called were Peter and Andrew together.
- According to Luke, it was Peter first, then Andrew later.
- According to John, it was Andrew first, then Peter later.

Problem of When
- According to Mark, Matthew and Luke, the calling(s) took place AFTER John the Baptist was thrown in Prison.
- According to John, the calling(s) took place BEFORE.

What were the disciples doing?
- According to Mark and Matthew, Peter and Andrew were fishing; James and John were mending their nets with dad.
- According to Luke, Jesus used Peter’s boat as a platform to preach, then did a miraculous catch of fish with James and John. Who have been elevated to partners with Peter. James and John’s dad, servants and mending are all absent. So, too, Andrew.
- According to John, Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist, who brought Peter to Jesus.

Where were Peter and Andrew from?
- Bethsaida. John 12:21 Edited to add: "and John 1:44"
- Capernaum. Mark 1:21-33 and Luke 4:31-38

Given the vastly different tales surrounding the calling the disciples, is it MORE likely that the names would be different as well, or less likely?

But let’s dig into the common explanations for the names themselves, shall we?

Levi/Matthew

The explanation given is that Levi and Matthew were the same person. The authors just used different names.

Imagine Jesus meets three men—Levi, Nicodemus and Zacchaeus. We then read a list of twelve disciples and these three specific names are not listed. What is the more plausible explanation: that they didn’t make the cut, or that their names were changed?

Yes, I am aware of the timing of Nicodemus and Zacchaeus after the calling, and Jesus’ parallel words of “Follow me” to Levi. But think about it. Mark tells of an encounter with a Levi, and then his name does not appear on the list. Luke tells of an encounter with a Levi, and his name does not appear on the list. John does not tell of an encounter, nor of Levi, nor of Matthew.

If all we had were those three Gospels, the contradiction would not even appear! The most plausible and most believable explanation would be that the Levi fellow never became one of the Twelve. The only reason we have a contradiction is because of the Gospel of Matthew.

I presume my readers are aware of the Synoptic problem, and Markan priority. In a nutshell, I hold that that author of Matthew and the author of Luke utilized the written Gospel of Mark in preparing their own Gospels. The author of Matthew tended to remove the difficult languages, or implications when copying Mark. (Part of the basis of Markan priority is that it includes more difficult concepts regarding Jesus, and later works “smoothed them out.”)

(One such example in our own tale is the confrontation at Levi’s table. According to Mark, the disciples of John the Baptist and the Pharisees both confront Jesus at Levi’s house. Mark 2:18. To take away the difficulty of these two entities working together, Matthew removes the Pharisees from asking the question. Matt 9:14. Luke removes the disciples of John. Luke 5:33. Go figure.)

I contend it is more plausible that to make Levi a certainty as a disciple, the author of Matthew inserted “Matthew” in the stead of “Levi” to resolve what he viewed as a difficulty.

Item One: In Matt 10:3, Matthew lists the twelve disciples. (He is well-aware of the number, as he just mentioned “twelve disciples” two verses previously.) He is careful to note that the “Matthew” who is listed is “Matthew the tax collector.” But why emphasize this fact? He had just finished listing the tale of Matthew the tax collector! He doesn’t list “Andrew the fisherman.” Or any other occupation.

The author is placing special emphasis on the fact that this was “Matthew the tax collector” as in the person listed previously. As if he needs to bolster the claim that the previous tale of the tax collector resulted in the “Matthew” of the list of disciples he is copying from Mark.

Item Two: You are told that “Levi, son of Alphaeus” is a disciple. His name has been changed. Which one is the most plausible to correlate to Levi?

1. Andrew
2. Philip
3. Bartholomew
4. Matthew
5. Thomas
6. James the son of Alphaeus
7. Thaddaeus
8. Simon the Canaanite
9. Judas Iscariot

I am uncertain how we would ever come up with anything but person No. 6 – James son of Alphaeus. “Son of Alphaeus” would certainly seem to point to the same person as the most plausible choice. (Apparently I am not the only one. The copyist of Codex Bezae inserted “James” in lieu of “Levi” in the Markan tale of the tax collector.)

Yet what does the author of Matthew do, when copying Mark? He removes the reference “son of Alphaeus” when referring to Matthew, but NOT when referring to James. Apparently to remove any inference or question as to whom the tax collector could be.

To sum up, three gospels do not create any contradiction in this regard. Only the Gospel of Matthew introduces this problem. The author deliberately adds language to highlight the relationship between the tax collector and Mark’s list, the author deliberately deletes language to remove any confusion as to who the tax collector is, and the author does not note an additional name for Levi of Mark, despite doing so for other disciples.

Not only is it plausible this is a contradiction, I would think it more believable that it was a deliberate act when we take into account the modifications he must intentionally be performing on the Gospel of Mark.

Or is it more plausible that Levi and Matthew were the same, and the author of Matthew failed to note the alternative names. The author of Mark failed to note the alternative names. And the author of Luke failed to note the alternative names.

Thaddaeus/Judas

Lebbaeus. Great Example of exactly what we are talking about. Many early manuscripts (primarily the Western Text) refer to this disciple as “Lebbaeus.” One name. Other manuscripts (Alexandrian) refer to this disciple as “Thaddaeus.” One name.

Later copyists, seeing the error, assumed that this disciple had two names—“Lebbaeus” and “Thaddaeus” and introduced the error of “Lebbaeus, also known as Thaddaeus” in order to resolve the apparent problem! This mistranslation was continued into the Textus Receptus, and therefore continued into the KJV.

However, now that textual criticism, availability of manuscripts, and improved sharing of information has occurred, it is realized that there was only one name. Scholars decided it was more plausible that there was only one name, and an error entered into the translation. That is why the newer versions only have “Thaddaeus” in Matt. 10:3 whereas the KJV continues with “Lebbaeus, also known as Thaddaeus.”

I should repeat this, to emphasize it. Two different names were given to a disciple. It was determined that this was a resolution, introduced to resolve a contradiction. It was determined that it was more plausible that the disciple only had one name. link

But, to consider the explanation as it stands…

The man of many names! Hold on to your seat. Mark calls him just “Thaddaeus.” Matthew indicates he is also called “Lebbaeus.” This explanation claims Luke uses one of his other names, being “Judas.” But the KJV translates, in Luke, Judas being the son of James, whereas in Acts 1:13, he is the brother of James. Since there is a “Jude” who is also a brother of James, and wrote…well…the Book of Jude, he is ALSO associated with this name. Which “James” this person is a brother/son of is left unclear.

We have Thaddaeus aka Lebbaeus aka Judas aka Jude who is either the brother or son of James, which could be James, the brother of Christ, James the brother of John, James the son of Alphaeus, or some other James. If it is James the son of Alphaeus, Matthew aka Levi is ALSO the son of Alphaeus, making Levi the brother of Jude!

Confused? What is more plausible? The simple fact that this is a different name by a different author for the same person, or that we have this round-robin circle of names, which are conveniently not included as it suits the inerrantist?

I propose that the Gospels developed in varying communities that had differing stories about Jesus and his disciples. The Gospel of John refers to “another Judas” so it is very likely there was a tale circulating about two (2) Judas’ within the Disciples. The author of Luke has taken it upon himself to “correct” any misunderstandings (Luke 1:1-4) (including the events surrounding Peter’s calling) and one of them was to insert the second Judas into Mark’s list.

Again, Luke has the same propensity to title people with two names (“Simon Peter,” “Judas Iscariot”) and if Judas Thaddaeus was this disciple’s name, there would be no reason to NOT to list both names.

We have an author that is willing to modify and enhance the Gospel of Mark. We have a name strangely disappear, and another appears in its place. Which is more plausible, a merry-go-round of names and relatives as an explanation, or a contradiction?

[Mere speculation, but one of Jesus’ brothers was named “Judas” Matt. 13:55. If Luke was saying this was “Judas brother of James {brother of Jesus}” was he trying to shoe in one of Jesus’ brothers into the twelve disciples?]

Finally, if Thaddaeus/Judas was the brother of James, we have the additional problem that Matthew fails to identify them as brothers. Matthew identifies Peter and Andrew as brothers. The Author identifies James and John as brothers. But then he fails to identify Thaddaeus and James as brothers. Is that more plausible? Or is it more likely that Matthew did not believe they were brothers.

Bartholomew/Nathanael

The Gospel of John is the sole book to list (or even mention) Nathanael. Now, the Gospel of John varies a great deal from the Synoptic Gospels in other regards, and as already pointed out, varies regarding the calling of the disciples. But rather than recognize that all those contradictions, not surprisingly, also result in a contradiction of names, we foxtrot on regarding this explanation.

Since the claim is that some disciples had two names, but the other authors only listed one name, all we need to do is find a disciple listed by Mark, and plug in Nathanael as being his “second” name.

We can’t use Andrew, Peter, Philip or Judas Iscariot because they are used by the author elsewhere. Our favorite multi-named person—Thaddaeus--may already be in use as “another Judas” so he is out as well. But that leaves us a wide open field to pick from.

(Although this may appear as sarcastic, it really is not. This explanation is based on plausibility. What is stopping us from picking any name on the list? Nothing, really. That demonstrates how plausible this interpretation is, when we can be so loose with its implementation.)

Do you know that “Matthew” means “Gift of Jehovah” and “Nathanael” means “Gift of God”? While that seems a tempting match, the explanation goes with Bartholomew.

The reason is that “Bar” means “son” in Aramaic, so “Son of Tolmai” would be translated to “Bartholomew.” The claim is that the disciples’ FULL name was “Nathanael Bar Tolmai” so the author of Mark (with the authors of Matthew and Luke faithfully copying) only referred to “son of Tolmai” and not his first name. Hence, just “Bartholomew.”

The question that arises though is: At what point in time did the name “Bar Tolmai” become a first name of “Bartholomew?” See, if Bartholomew had already developed into a first name by this time, then the fact that its origin that it used to be a last name is useless. The question is not the etymology of Bartholomew, but rather when the name developed.

This explanation would appear to rely upon fact that at this point it had not developed into a “last name” of sorts. However, as pointed out long ago—this fails. Jews were not referred to by family names, nor surnames. This would be similar to having a list of “Jim Bob, Joe, son of Sam, Frank,…” In order for this explanation to be more plausible, it would need to be demonstrated that referring to someone as “son of Tolmai” without their first name was done in Judaism in the First Century.

To sum up, this explanation would claim that it is more plausible that this disciple’s full name is “Nathanael, son of Tolmai.” But Peter, who literally roomed with the fellow (Acts 1:13) only knew him by “son of Tolmai” and translated that to Mark? (But Peter knew “James, son of Alphaeus.”) Matthew, who also roomed with him, coincidentally also only knew him by “son of Tolmai” so when it came time to write the names of the disciples, could not come up with his first name?

Luke, who studied and investigated, never could find his first name? Only the author of John knew his first name (and where he was from.)

Is that plausible?

John 21

This is a chapter added on to the book of John. (John 21:24) Who and when remains a matter of some speculation. However, this author also mentions Nathanael, and apparently is familiar with other disciples listed in the Gospel of John.

Notice when listing the disciples in vs. 2 this author uses Peter’s full name “Simon Peter.” (The author(s) of the remainder of John alternate.) The author of chapter 21 uses Thomas’ full name of “Thomas, called Didymus” and gives us more name information on Nathanael than anywhere else—“Nathanael of Cana of Galilee.”

Is it plausible that this author would be reducing names, or only including one name, when they knew of another? I would contend not. They are demonstrating a style of using as much identifying information as possible.

But at this moment, the information provided drops off sharply. Next are the “sons of Zebedee” and then, no names whatsoever, “two other disciples.” It is implausible the author will use this much information in the first names listed, and then fade off to “and some other guys” if s/he knew their full names.

Most likely, the author had heard of “sons of Zebedee” being disciples, but did not know their name! Just as the author(s) of the remainder of John did not list them, this author did not know who they were either. Also, the author of John seems unaware that Andrew was also a fisherman. He is conspicuous by his absence from the fishing trip with his brother, Peter, back on the home turf.

Simply put, the author of Chapter 21 appears to know the same disciples as the book of John, with only the additional information of “sons of Zebedee.” It is more believable that they would include their names (in light of how the other disciples were named) if they knew them. It would be more plausible that the author did not know the names of the “sons of Zebedee” (considering who the author of the Gospel of John is claimed to be—this is remarkable!), as well as not knowing any other names for disciples, such as those listed by Mark, Matthew and Luke.

Early Church Writings

Although the Epistle of Barnabas refers to “the twelve,” no names are given. Barnabas 8:3. 1 Clement refers to the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul, but no other disciple is mentioned. The most interesting writing is from Papias and his writing on “Mary.”

Mark 15:40 refers to three women watching Jesus on the cross, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the lesser and Joses, and Salome. John 19:25 also refers to three women, only the author lists Mary Magdalene, the sister of Jesus’ mother being Mary, wife of Cleophas, and Jesus mother. (The Gospel of John never gives Jesus’ mother a name.)

Oddly, this would mean that Mary, the mother of Jesus has a sister named Mary!

Because one of Mark’s disciples is “James the son of Alphaeus” Papias assumes this is the same as James the lesser, and therefore the Mary that was at the cross was the mother of James, wife of Alphaeus/Cleophas. There is a claim that “Cleophas” is the Greek for the Aramaic “Alphaeus” but this is problematic.

Papias writes that Mary, wife of Cleophas was the mother of James, Simon, Thaddaeus, and Joseph. He then writes that James and Judas and Joseph were the sons of an aunt of Jesus (presumably this Mary.) He goes on to repeat that this Mary was the mother of James the less and Joseph.

The names attributed to this woman are:

James
Simon
Thaddaeus
Joseph
Judas.

What is immediately evident is that if Luke felt that Judas and Thaddaeus were the same person, and entitles them to be “brother” (not “son”) of James, this resolves the Thaddaeus/Judas question of Luke. It leaves the Matthew problem, as well as whether this was the same person as “Jude.”

Levi, Bartholomew and Nathanael are left unresolved. However, Papias intriguingly indicates that another aunt of Jesus was the mother of James and John.

This opens the possibility that James, Levi/Matthew and Thaddaeus/Judas were brothers; sons of Mary & Alphaeus/Cleophas. That James and John, sons of Zebedee, were cousins to James, Levi and Judas. All five were cousins to Jesus.

Of course this all rests on the plausibility that the mother of Jesus—Mary had another sister named Mary, as well as another sibling who all named one of their boys “James.”

Or is it more likely there is confusion between each author among the James and Mary’s?

Conclusion

A question of believability. In the past we have seen attempts to resolve two names (Lebbaeus and Thaddaus) by claims that it was the same person with two names and it was more plausible that it was human error. We have varying accounts as to the time, place and order of the calling of the disciples. We have various names as well.

The resolution of “two names” actually hurts the proponent of inerrancy when viewed in light of how many times, and the propensity of the authors to use more than one identifying mark for a Disciple. The explanation leaves unexplained as to why the authors would do so with the two named persons.

We see with Levi/Matthew that the author of Matthew intentionally modifies Mark in order to force the correlation, resulting in contradictions as well as questionable family alliances elsewhere. Thaddaeus/Judas appears to be the fall person. His name could be Thaddaeus, or Lebbaeus or Judas or Jude or Joses, or Joseph or any variety thereof.

What is more plausible—that he had all these names, or that any name convenient is attributed to him?

Nathanael is the most problematic, and attempts to claim it was his first name to Bar Tolmei as a last name is unsupported by any other example in Jewish use. Coupled with the Gospel of John’s penchant to be different than the others, it is more believable that this was a different name.

I would hold that it is more likely than not, taking in the evidence, the names contradict.

And now my feet are tired from the dance.

Why Skeptics have an Anti-supernatural Bias.

Christians will regularly accuse skeptics with an anti-supernatural bias when they approach the Bible with a bias against believing in the miraculous. They claim we have an anti-supernaturalistic bias. This is true, although such a bias is a conclusion we’ve developed over time.

Most all of us started in the homes of people who believed in the supernatural, however conceived. But the real truth is that we first started out with an anti-superstitious bias. We rejected superstitious beliefs. I think most all modern educated people have such a bias, even if there are probably exceptions. Although, before acknowledging these exceptions I would want to know of their education before I could judge whether or not they are truly educated (which is why we have accredited schools).

According to Microsoft Encarta, Superstition is “a belief or practice generally regarded as irrational and as resulting from ignorance or from fear of the unknown. It implies a belief in unseen and unknown forces that can be influenced by objects and rituals. Examples of common superstitions include the belief that bad luck will strike the person in front of whom a black cat passes or that some tragedy will befall a person who walks under a ladder. Good luck charms, such as horseshoes, rabbits' feet, coins, lockets, and religious medals, are commonly kept or worn to ward off evil or to bring good fortune.”

The Christian, however, has his bias too. He approaches the Bible with a supernaturalistic bias, a specifically theistic one. And with such a bias he concludes that the miracles recorded there really happened in history.

So how do we decide which approach, which bias, and which set of control beliefs are preferrable when looking at the Bible? That’s the whole question! Why? Because the set of control beliefs we start with when looking at the Bible is the same set we will usually come away with. It’s a strange dilemna, correct?

I think I have better reasons for starting with my control beliefs, presuppositions and biases. For me it's all about seeing things differently. It's not about more and more knowledge. It's about viewing what we know in a different light. Let me briefly explain why (a much fuller explanation can be found in my book).

One) I have never seen a miracle, even when I was a Christian. Christians have their arguments for why I haven’t experienced one, but it doesn’t change the fact that I haven’t, and because of this I don’t think one happened in the past either. It is more likely to me that Biblical people were superstitious than that the stupendous miracles took place as recorded in the Bible.

Two) Because of the first reason, I find there is real power in Lessing’s Ugly Broad Ditch.

Three) I believe that the control beliefs a person adopts are the ones he picks up based on when and where he or she was born . Therefore, I am skeptical of any specific set of supernatural beliefs. I believe that religious diversity, along with the many splinter groups of each religion, provides us with a good reason to approach any religious claim with skepticism.

Four) Science has taught us to assume a natural explanation for every event, called methodological naturalism. We who live in the modern world operate on this assumption ourselves everyday. This assumption is the foundation of modernity. We now know how babies are made and how to prevent them; we know why it rains; why nations win and lose wars; why trees fall; why most people get sick and how to cure most of them, etc. In previous centuries people either praised God for the good things that happened to us, or they wondered why he was angry when bad things happened. If they lost a war, there was sin in the camp. If someone got sick, it was because of sin in his or her life, and so on. Now we have scientific explanations for these things, and we all benefit from those who assumed there was a natural cause to everything we experience. Because of this, educated people question any unsupported claim. Even Christians do this. The problem is that Christians take the words of some ancient superstitious text as a fact, when they don’t do that with any claim in today’s world. If they were placed back in time with the same mindset they have today, they themselves would ask for evidence if someone claimed an axe head floated, or a donkey talked. But because it’s in the Bible they adopt it unquestionaly, and I find that to be holding to a hypocritical double standard.

Five) Because of reason four, I find it prima facia the case that miracles have a very low degree of probability. Therefore I will need more evidence to believe one took place than there is evidence that one didn't occur. Yet I have all of my waking life as evidence against a miracle happening (see reason one).

Six) The problem of evil. When it comes to theistic beliefs, enough said.

Were We Former Christians? It Depends...

We have people who visit us here at DC who haven’t read previous discussions where we have each claimed to be former Christians. Christians who come here deny that we were ever Christians. We deny this. Since this particular question comes up so often, I am creating this Blog entry on it, so I can merely refer Christians here rather than continually arguing over and over about the same question.

At one time we were all members in different churches, from various denominations (anyone who doubts this can check our respective church registries). At one time we had a former member of the World-Wide Church of God here at DC. I am not opposed to having anyone who claims they were a former Christian to be a team member here, whether Catholic or Jehovah’s Witness, or Seventh Day Adventist. As an atheist I no longer make judgments about whether someone was a Christian. If they say they were one that's good enough for me. Judging whether somone is/was a Christian is something Christians do, not me. If you think other groups who claim to be Christians are not really Christians, then start a Blog called, “I know who the real Christians are! I know what they should believe! I know how they should act and vote!” Then provide us the link so that we can sit by and watch the ensuing debate….and laugh (sorry, but that’s exactly what I would do).

I am a former member of the centrist Christian Churches/Church of Christ (not the leftist Disciples of Christ, and not the right-wing non-instrumental Church of Christ). Some Christians think my former church group is a semi-heretical sect, and the reason is because of their view on baptism. But not everyone within Church of Christ circles adheres to the strict interpretation of Christian baptism being “necessary for salvation” (there is a swelling movement otherwise). I was personally let go of my teaching responsibilities at Great Lakes Christian College, Lansing, MI, for a couple of essays on Christian baptism, so maybe this helps Christians who visit here decide about me, if it matters at all.

And to a large degree it doesn’t matter whether Christians who visit here think we were former Christians, although we think such a view is very ignorant. They still have to deal with our arguments. So if you’re a Christian and you think we were never Christians in the first place, don’t harp about it. It’ll do you no good. It’ll just produce tension and frustration between us. You see, we know differently. It'd be like us claiming you really do not believe as a Christian. Who am I to make that judgment?

Christians who think this way about us are deluded, and that's only one of the delusions they have. Many of the other things they believe are delusions too. Maybe they ought to begin interpreting the Bible in light of the evidence instead of interpreting the evidence in light of the Bible? For starters, maybe Calvinistic theology is wrong? Many Christians reject such thinking. Start there.

I'll tell you what, for those of you who think there is no such thing as an ex-Christian, start a Blog and argue for Calvinism, or the once saved always saved doctrine. Invite Arminian Christians to debate this with you. Then when you all come to an agreement about this issue come back and tell us what it is. I just let Christians debate this issue. Don’t ask us how the Bible is to be interpreted here, and don’t quote a Bible verse to us that is interpreted differently by Arminian scholars. Instead go debate other Christians who disagree with you. We do not believe the Bible. So quoting a Bible verse will not show us otherwise. Again, since we are all former Christians we know otherwise. We have personal experience that the once save always saved doctrine is false, okay? You will not convince us otherwise, so don’t even try. Keep it to yourself if you believe otherwise, okay?

Your interpretation of the Bible on this issue needs to consider the evidence of every member here at DC as well as everyone mentioned in the almost encyclopedic link here. It’s very interesting to us that Christians will reject our personal testimonies to the contrary and at the same time believe the personal testimonies of ancient superstitious people in the Bible who claim to have experienced miracles, even though their testimonies are all contrary to our experiences in the modern world, where there are no miracles happening today on the same scale.

Christian, you can always investigate our claims. You can talk to people who know us (including past preachers and teachers, parents, siblings, friends, and people we ourselves converted to the Christian faith!); you can listen to our sermons; and you can read our Christian writings.

So, to answer your specific question, were the team members here ever really Christians? Well it depends on the particular perspective you want us to respond to.

There are two perspectives to describe our lives as former Christians. On the one hand, from our former Christian perspective, we can describe ourselves as having truly been Christians, in that we experienced salvation, regeneration, the Holy Spirit, and answered prayer. We had accepted Jesus’ substitutionary death on the cross for our sins, and believed he bodily arose from the dead and would return to earth in the parousia. We repented from every known sin, again and again. We confessed “Jesus is Lord.” We prayed the non-Biblical sinner’s prayer (where is that in the Bible?) by inviting Jesus to come to live inside us. We had a personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ. Like you do now, we tried to live a spiritual life in gratitude for God’s grace by reading the Bible and obeying what we read in it. So we evangelized, tithed, attended worship services, Bible studies, and became leaders in our respective churches.

Some of us were ministers, pastors,and preachers. Others were Sunday school teachers, superintendents, elders, deacons, and/or Bible study leaders. s burgener taught Greek at his church! I taught people who are now in ministry at a Bible College. There are at least three men presently in the ministry because of my influence.

For you to reject our testimony you will probably have to reject the testimony of someone you know right now in your church whom you look up to as a Christian who may reject Christianity in the future. The problem is that you just may not personally know someone like that. But the chances are that you will. Then what will you think?

On the other hand, from our present skeptical perspective, the Christian faith is false and based upon ancient superstitions. We believe we were deluded about it. We were never true Christians in the sense that there is no truth to Christianity. If being a Christian means that we had a personal relationship with God-in-Jesus Christ, then we never had such a relationship, for such a supernatual being is based upon non-historical mythology. There is no divine forgiveness because there is no divine forgiver. There was no atonement because Jesus did not die for the world’s sins. There was no God-man in the flesh to believe in. Our petitionary prayers were nothing but wishful hoping. And we believe this is true about your claim to be a Christian too. You are not a Christian, either, because there is no Christ, no Messiah, no God-in-the-flesh, no Holy Spirit regeneration, no devil and no heaven to go to when you die.

Atheists are Deluded!?

This is hilarious! Thanks go out to David Van Allen for finding it.

Here's An Email From a Christian

"If you believe nothing, than stop believing you can make a difference. To you and your beliefs, you die, and that's it, no one cares. To Christians, you are a major pain in the neck, and we wish you just left us alone to love the Lord. You see, we've found something. Something you have obviously lost."

"My relationship with the Lord, don't you dare tell me it is fake. Is it yourrelationship with the Lord I am having? Is it for you that God gives me His love and mercy? The relationship I have is only for me and the Lord, and I know it is real, because it is personal. I suppose you lost yours, (Which can never be truely lost, because our God is the God that will love us) but why on earth, if you have no faith in God, and don't even care about God, so therefore have no care for anything related to God, such as religion and Heaven, and Hell, why do you care then if the world believes in God. Wouldn't you just say "They are wasting their time, but it doesn't matter anyways."? If you will not realize your primary mistake in turning away from the Lord, then stop trying to "convert" people out of their Love and faith for our Lord. I am slowly finding that atheism is a religion. If it were not so, people would not argue for it so hard as they do. You ask for intelligent people. Intelligence is nothing without wisdom. And if you think the knowledge of this world times a thousand will stop an ounce of wisdom inspired from the Lord, than prepare yourself to be run over by a train of devistation, and a huge waste of time. My God wants you back! He loves you too much. Stop hurting His people. Love the Lord again."

Just thought I'd share this. It's sad really. I see myself as a liberator of superstitious and even dangerous delusionary thinking.

How to Be An Apologist For Christianity and For Skepticism

[Written by John W. Loftus] Since others are getting into the act here, here, and here, let me throw my hat in the ring as well. Let me tell you how to be an apologist for the Christian Faith, as well as how to be one for skepticism. Like theirs, this too is sarcasm.

 

How to be a Christian Apologist: 

1) Hide your head in the sand. Believe that people in the ancient world weighed the evidence for their beliefs with the same rigorous standards that we do today. But the Bible itself tells us otherwise. 

2) Demonize the skeptic. Believe he or she is willfully ignorant of the obvious truths that you believe. Believe that the skeptic is just not interested in knowing the truth. Believe that the whole reason he is a skeptic is because he hates God and is in rebellion against him. Believe that he just wants to live an immoral life apart from God. 

3) Claim that skeptical objections have been refuted long ago. Claim that Hume’s arguments have already been refuted, as William Lane Craig said to me at a conference. If they've been refuted, then why are they still very potent? In fact, Hume’s arguments against miracles cannot be refuted, strictly speaking, since he’s talking inductively. He argued that a wise person proportions his belief to the evidence. How can that be refuted? 

4) Use rhetoric not substance. Do what William Lane Craig did in his debate with Bart Erhman. Claim that Erhman’s argument is “mathematically fallacious.” 

5) Mischaracterize what skeptics are actually claiming. We do not claim to know that there is no God. We just think there isn’t enough evidence to believe in one. We do not claim miracles are not possible. We just don’t see enough evidence for them. We do not claim to have more knowledge than God purportedly does with regard to how he could’ve created a better world than this one. We just think that a Being with omniscience would know how to create a better world, especially since we have some knowledge about how a better world could’ve been created (like getting rid of all raced based conflict and slavery by creating all human beings as one race, and with no law of predation in the natural world). 

6) Claim that the skeptic is ignorant of recent scholarship. While some skeptics are ignorant of recent scholarship, it isn’t more knowledge that is needed. As Dr. James D. Strauss would repeatedly tell his students in Seminary, “It’s not more knowledge we need. What we need is better interpretative schema.” Control beliefs, after all, control, and each side has them. The rise of modern science in the Occident, and the knowledge of religious diversity on the planet, and the presence of intense suffering around the globe aired nightly on the news have developed the skeptical control beliefs. Furthermore, Christian scholarship itself leads many Christians away from the faith. Me included. 

7) Earn your living off what you claim to believe. So long as you are a preacher or a teacher in a seminary, you have a need to squash your doubts. I know of a few Christian professors and preachers who have openly expressed their doubts to me. But they refuse to entertain them for fear of losing their jobs and their livelihood. 

 8) Don’t ever take the skeptical arguments seriously. Just read them to refute them. You are sure of what you believe, so only read skeptical arguments with a view to refuting them. Never actually think about why that skeptic takes that view. Never try to step inside his mind. Never truly consider his viewpoint. Never think about whether or not his arguments could be true. After all, consider the source. According to #2 above, he doesn't really believe them sincerely either. 

 9) Deride the skeptical position and the skeptic himself. Talk about Stalin, Lenin and Marx. Talk about Soviet communism, Hitler, or other atrocious dictators as often as you can. Refer to gulags, concentration camps and even the Holocaust itself (although, about these things there is more to the story, especially inside Germany). Talk about Gay radical activists, mass murderers, and gang rapists who do not have “a moral compass.” At the same time explain away the Crusades, Slavery in the American South, Inquisitions and witch hunts. No one has a corner on moral truth…no one. But go ahead and continue to claim that Christians do, despite the evidence to the contrary, and despite the evidence that Christians do not get their morals from the Bible alone. Then simply deride the skeptic as a person as often as you can, in whatever way you can. Find some flaws in his character that will prove his arguments are wrong, then bring them up as often as you can. Doing so will refute all of his arguments. 

10) State your arguments over and over until you believe them, and state them as if they are obvious to any intelligent educated person. Any falsehood can be believed if it is stated honestly and sincerely enough by many people over and over. Stay securely inside the Christian community from which you gain your beliefs. They will be reinforced every time you get together. However, if the Christian set of beliefs are truly obvious then anyone who encounters them should believe them. But it’s simply an illusion to think Christianity is a rationally superior faith. 

 

 How to be a Skeptical Apologist: [This too is sarcasm, by the way, although not entirely! Sorry, I just couldn’t resist. ;-). ]. 

 

1) Think evidentially. 

2) Think scientifically. 

3) Think philosophically. 

4) Think psychologically. 

5) Think archeologically. 

6) Think anthropologically. 

7) Think historiographically. 

8) Think about religious diversity. 

9) Think about the amount of intense suffering in the world. 

10) Think about how often the superstitions of the past have been refuted by science.

Does Science Invalidate Religious Faith?

There’s been a lot of Christian discussion since the Beyond Belief conference in November held by a number of atheist scientists and thinkers. How dare these scientists think that science is opposed to religion, especially the Christian faith, which purportedly gave rise to science? How dare scientists think that science invalidates religious beliefs? How dare they think that science invalidates miracles?

In the first place, when it comes to the origin of a self-sustaining science, I have read the relevant literature. I have read nearly everything Jaki wrote, plus Torrance, Polanyi, Barbour, Moreland, Bube, Peacoke, and several others on the origin of science.

The claim is that Christianity provided the foundational assumptions that gave rise to a self-sustaining science. Richard Carrier helps to answer that question.

Secondly, Christianity has hindered almost every scientific advancement we've ever had, which we can see right now in stem cell research. While Christians can tout Galileo's faith, what about those who condemned him? And what about Rene Descartes who had written a book called "The World" but decided not to publish it after he heard of Galileo's fate? Instead, Descartes wrote his "Meditations" with the express purpose of making it possible to discuss the questions of science apart from the same kind of Christian censorship. He argued that there were two worlds, the world of material objects subject to the laws of math, and the world of the spirit subject to the scrutiny of the church. And into this climate he later published his former book agreeing with Galileo.

Just prove your point here. How many original scientific advances can you name that haven't been opposed by the church? How many?

Third, when I speak about science undercutting the believability in miracles and prayer, Christians will usually claim that science isn't so great. It cannot understand everything. Why do they have to do this? It may not be able to explain everything, but it has explained so much that a 15 century church person would probably lose his faith by merely being brought into our era. So many of his beliefs would be overturned at once.

Science is invalidating miracles one by one. We no longer think demon possession accounts for epilepsy, nor do we believe nature is such that God sends hurricanes on people for their sins, nor do (educated people) go to faith healers instead of doctors for healing, nor do people pray for the sun to stand still, or for axe heads to float, or for people to be raised up from the dead. We know better. Christians no longer cast lots to decide important issues, and certainly would object if our politicians did this, especially if they lost the issue. Educated Christians no longer see dreams as if God was communicating to them, since science has shown that dreams are the result of the rational parts of our brain being asleep. Christians no longer believe that curses and blessings actually change the nature of people and events, and they no longer believe they are irreversible. Science sets the limits for what Christians will pray for. This is no different than science setting the limits for where aliens purportedly come from. That’s right. As soon as science showed us that any present life on planet Mars was impossible, people stopped claiming that aliens came from there! Science has shown so many beliefs to be false that it's fair to say theologians have always been wrong. Why should it be any different in the future?

Fourth, why is it that the God Christians believe in will not allow a scientific test that will show he exists, or that Jesus arose, or that prayer works, or that miracles can occur, or that there is a heaven, or that there is a hell? Why not? I can conceive of such tests. For instance, if everyone who ever died and was brought back to life in a hospital told the exact same story about what they saw, it would be considered strong evidence about the nature of the afterlife, heaven and hell, and they could tell the same story about meeting Jesus or the devil too. But instead they tell stories based upon what they already believe. If God would do miracles today like he did in the past it would be considered strong evidence that the past miracles really could've occurred. If God would "allow" tests about prayer to succeed, that would be considered strong evidence that prayer works.

Take prayer as just one example. The American Heart Journal (April 2006) reported on a scientific study of patients who had heart by-pass surgery who were separated into three groups. Group 1 received prayers and didn’t know it. Group 2 received no prayers and didn’t know it (the control group). Group 3 received prayers and did know it. Groups 1 and 3 were prayed for by different congregations throughout America. The results were very clear. There was no difference between the patients who were prayed for and those who were not prayed for. Moreover, the patients who knew they were being prayed for suffered significantly more complications than those who did not know they were being prayed for.

It's very interesting that Christians must downplay science. They always have. They always will. Sad, really.

"Mortal Values" or "A How-to Guide to Banana Worship"

"Do you really mean to tell me the only reason you try to be good is to gain God's approval and reward, or to avoid his disapproval and punishment? That's not morality, that's sucking up." -Richard Dawkins, "The God Delusion"

Most of the Christians I speak with talk of doom for the human race if we stray from biblical morality. "I can't imagine a world where people didn't believe in God," they say. "There would be no basis for moral values. I mean, everyone would just be making up whatever they think is right or wrong."

But do we need God to be moral? Certainly not. Of course, there are millions of good people in the world without a belief in a god. And somewhere in that haze between Christianity & Atheism, somewhere between Nihilism, Existentialism, & Humanism, I realized that being a Christian, an Atheist, or a Banana Worshipper made little to no difference in how "good" of a life I actually lived.

The point I want to make here is to respond to this notion that Christians have some "corner" on morality -- that they subscribe to "God's Law" and other people "make up their own moral values." But that's just simply not true.

The fact is that WE ALL DECIDE OUR OWN MORAL VALUES. We all decide what is good and what is bad on our own, apart from God, whether we believe in him or not. Christians make up their own morals using their own brains just like atheists. In this sense, there is no difference between Atheists, Christians, or those elusive Banana-Worshippers.

Christian's think their moral decisions are based on God's law. But they are wrong. When they first picked up a Bible and read, "thou shalt not kill" they said, "this is a moral principle I think is good, so I will live by it." But by what standard did they decide that was a good moral principle? (insert Final Jeopardy song here) That's right, they used their brains. They made a moral decision based on WHAT THEY THOUGHT WAS RIGHT, just like anyone else would in deciding what is good and bad.

Christian's cannot take the high ground here because "our morality comes from God." They can't say, "Well, I don't make up my morals, I just go by what the Bible says." They can't really say that because before they bought into God's Law, they had to decide that God's Law was worth buying into.

In other words, even assuming that a God was so kind as to send us a book with an Absolute & Perfect Moral Law each person would still have to make a judgment call - "Should we live by this?" We did this when we became Christians. We did this when we rejected it. You did it as well when you chose to adhere to your moral code. And if you think Bananas, not God, hold the key to morality, that's a decision you'll have to make on your own too.

All moral values are mere mortal values - they're all based on mortal, not divine, decisions about what is right and what is wrong.

Related Post: John W. Loftus "Can I Judge the Judge?"

How to be an Apologist

Jeffery Jay Lowder has written a couple of Blog entries called Sarcasm: How to be a Christian Apologist, and Sarcasm: How to be an Atheist Apologist. Check these out and the discussions that follow. I noticed that the Secular Outpost is down to just two contributors now, Lowder and Lippard.

Homosexuality and the Christian

Since I have recently written about sexuality and it has gotten some intense feed back, let me venture into the area of homosexuality. I want to address the moral issue here, not any political agenda about gay rights and such. But since many Christians consider homosexuality a sin let’s discuss it. I will prime the pump, so to speak.

Modern distinctions: There are homosexual/heterosexual orientations (for which people are not responsible), and then there are homosexual/heterosexual practices (for which people are responsible). Homosexual/heterosexual practices which are anonymous acts of self-gratification are different than practices that are expressive of authentic human love between two people. Both homosexual practices and heterosexual practices are judged by the same standards.

The secular challenge to the Christian: “Sex is essential to human fulfillment. To expect homosexual people to abstain from homosexual practice is to condemn them to frustration and to drive them to neurosis, despair, and even suicide. It’s outrageous to ask anybody to deny himself what to him is a normal and natural mode of sexual expression.”

The modern theological challenge: “No where in Scripture is there a clear condemnation of a loving sexual relationship between two gay persons.” “Scriptural authors never deal with homosexual orientation, and when they do treat homosexual activity, they never do so in a context of a loving relationship. They presuppose that they are dealing with a humanly destructive activity in the context of idolatry, prostitution, promiscuity, violent rape, seduction of children or violation of guests’ rights.” John J. McNeill “Homosexuality: Challenging the Church to Grow” in Christian Century (March 11, 1987: 246.).

Some Secular Thoughts on Sex and Commitment

In December of 2002 I had a student who gave an oral presentation in class that since sex was biologically based it was not a moral issue at all. She claimed open sexual relationships are justifiable so long as both partners agreed to it. Here are my thoughts at the time about whether it’s ethical to have a sexual partner without some level of commitment to that partner. I used these notes to discuss the issue in class after her presentaion.

Sex is a moral issue if sex is not purely physical and/or demands some level of commitment. There are levels of commitment to everything we do; to a lunch date, a class presentation, a work schedule, to friends, relatives, etc. We also have a commitment to do no harm toward strangers. Therefore we have some level of responsibilty toward others about everything that affects them. In sex one must be responsible enough not to give or receive STD’s, we should not use people for our own selfish ends, we should not produce unwanted children. We should be responsible enough to have those kinds of commitments to ourselves and to others.

If sex is purely physical then I can treat my partner as an object--they don’t exist as a person. They are just a body, and I need not care for their feelings at all, nor do they need to care for me. It would completely depersonalize people to naked bodies. It would be to use people for my own selfish ends. I wouldn’t even have to care whether my partner climaxed.

Is anything purely physical? Everything we do is done in a mental and/or social context. Drinking beer with friends is a social/mental event. Eating lunch with someone develops closeness--you wouldn’t have lunch with just anyone.

What about prostitution? It’s wrong because it lacks a commitment as described above. Prostitution sex can never be safe sex with regard to STD’s, it uses another person (for money or sex), it might produce a child, plus you never know if you might get robbed or murdered by your partner while alone with them. That having been said, I cannot say prostitution is wrong in every case for everyone, especially in places where it's legal and men cannot get sex any other way.

Is it really possible to have sex with someone without getting emotionally attached in some way, leading to some level of commitment to that partner? I doubt it, since it’s one of the most intimate shared experiences one can have, especially if done repeatedly over several weeks and months. On the Jerry Springer show some guy came on to tell his prostitute that he was in love with her and wanted to marry her, which she in turn mocked him. This is why open marriages don’t work, because eventually there is tension and eventually one partner leaves his/her spouse for the other. The more intimate the experience the more intense the feelings of closeness, emotional attachment, and/or commitment toward that person. Guys in a foxhole during WWII shared an intense experience with each other, and as a result many of them would die for the others even today. Their commitment to each other is directly proportional to how close they were together in that foxhole, and how long they fought together.

BOTTOMLINE ISSUE: If sex is purely physical then why bother making a commitment to be sexually faithful to another person, ever? If sex is just physical then sex is no different than eating lunch together with someone beside your regular lunch partner. If marriage doesn’t demand monogamous lunches, then why would it demand monogamous sex? Even if you wanted the benefits of family life (children, shared income, life-long helper, etc), why would two people bother promising sexual faithfulness to each other? But if you don’t promise your partner sexual faithfulness, then how would you feel if he slept with his secretary, or your sister, or your mother? Why would you ever feel betrayed if sex is just physical?

Sam Harris on the Relationship of Science to Religion

See here. There are two questions that we can ask whenever we are dealing with a piece of datum.

"1) Does a given piece of scientific datum suggest the existence of God, or 2) is this fact compatible with the existence of God?" Hear what he says about it if you haven't already. I like this distinction very much, along with other things he said.

Sam Harris on the Lunacy of Belief

Sam Harris on the lunacy of belief "The problem is that religion..allows perfectly sane and perfectly intelligent people to believe en masse (thanks Martin) what only idiots or lunatics could believe in isolation." That's pretty strong. Watch this if you haven't already.

Sex, Marriage, and the Christian

Here are some brief thoughts about sex, marriage and the Christian. It's not meant to be complete or exhaustive, so don't go jumping to conclusions, or in assuming the worst.

I think Christians are hung up over sex. Many Christian couples don't talk about it because it's taboo. It's of the flesh...dirty...and even sinful to fantasize about having sex with someone else, even though they all do it.

Christian, if you are married, do you and your wife experiment, role play? Christian men, if you aren't married you masturbate, don’t you? Do you deny this? How many times a week do you do it? Can't admit that you do? Then that's what I mean. If you're married, then how many times a week did you do it before getting married? Won't admit it? Then that's what I mean. How often do you look at pornography on the web? Do you have any latent homosexual tendencies that you know of? But I suspect you won't discuss this with even your closest friend, or your wife. Then that's what I mean. Christians suppress these things, as Freud pointed out, and it's emotionally unhealthy. [Of course, spilling your guts out to just anyone is equally unhealthy].

Sex is biologically based and yet Christians don't talk about it with their kids, except to tell them to wait until marriage to have it. Christians feel guilty about their sexual fantasies, and are afraid to bring them up to their spouses, so their sex life goes dull after about seven years of being married. I had an affair once. Would I have had an affair if I never was a Christian? I don't know. Did this Christian suppression in the area of sex cause me to look elsewhere? I'm not sure. Will you have an affair? You don't really know, either. Life brings upon us many things we never can anticipate.

There are reasons why people have affairs. One of them is that they no longer feel loved and no longer love their spouses. One of the vows we say at a wedding is that we promise "to love and to cherish" our spouses. That’s the whole reason for marriage in the first place. That’s the basis for a good marriage. But what do you do when your spouse no longer loves you? What do you do when you no longer love your spouse? My ex-wife told me she was no longer attracted to me. What would that do to you? Only people who have been married over 23 years like we were know the pain and struggle of it all. Some choose to go ahead living their lives out, fulfilling the one vow about being faithful, and yet living the rest of their lives unhappily in a loveless relationship. Others choose differently, like me. I divorced and remarried. I am very happy.

I remember going to a marriage counselor just after my ex-wife and I separated, but while we were still married. My soon to be ex-wife was having a hard time and so I went to see her counselor for a session alone. This counselor was a woman who was a Christian and worked one day a week for a big church. It was part of the church’s ministry to its members, of which we were both members. I remember her talking to me about commitment and the stuff my ex-wife and I had struggled with for a few long years. The stress was on commitment, mind you. After this talk I looked her right in the eye, knowing she was married for 12 years herself, and I asked her point blank, “are you happy?” Her eyes drifted to the floor, and then she realized what she had just done and brought them back up to meet mine again, and said, “that’s not the issue here. I am committed to my husband.” I asked her again, “are you happy.” And she said that she was the counselor here…she would ask the questions.

But it was I who was doing the counseling that day, not her. And she knew what I was saying. We both knew she was not happily married herself. Her body language communicated it all. Sometimes personalities and the birth orders of those who fall in love when they are 17-21 just won't work in the end. It's not healthy to stay together. And yet she was the counselor. We both knew she didn’t have much of a right to counsel me at that point if she couldn’t figure out how to be happily married. As we looked at each other she knew what I was thinking, “Counselor, heal thyself!” She liked me though, and we laughed. She saw that I was very happy. I asked her some tough questions. I even critiqued her counseling method in a few short sentences, since I could tell the method she used from the diploma on her office wall that told me where she graduated. She later said one of her superiors would like to take my case over since it was so unique, having quite a bit of knowledge about counseling myself. So I said, “if I am such an unique case, then he ought to be willing to counsel me for free!” Later she told my ex-wife that I was “charming, but arrogant.” ;-) I suppose it's arrogant to counsel the counselor and to know about as much as she did. I initially went into graduate school to be a counselor!

I remember so many older church couples who would argue with each other over everything...everything. They didn't even like each other. They felt stuck because of their vows. The bickering and fighting every time I saw them made me want to puke. Ahhhh, but they are doing something I failed to do. They are faithful. Bullshit! Their marriage is a sham. A pretense. A farce. A lie. I was not going to live out my life in a lie. They cannot be completely faithful if they no longer love one another, for being faithful must also mean loving their spouse. If it's only about monogomous sex, being faithful means nothing much at that point.

Pollster George Barna's research has shown that “a surprising number of Christians experienced divorces both before and after their conversion.” [www.barna.org]. Why should it be different for skeptics when they leave their religion?

Contrary to Popular Opinion…

A common defense to the claim of contradictions within the Bible is to provide a possible resolution. As long as it is logically feasible, it is felt that this is a defeater for a claim that a contradiction exists.

However, the method itself is flawed, and must be abandoned. See, even when there are actual contradictions, application of this method provides the same results as if there isn’t any contradiction. The test provides false-positives.

What if we came up with a method to determine whether a person has alcohol in their blood? But when we implemented the test, we found it was positive for alcohol the vast majority of the time, even when we knew there was no alcohol present! The test is insufficient to make a determination. So, too, the method of “any possible explanation.”

Imagine my wife and I had the following conversation:

Me: I met Bob’s wife, Sue at the party tonight.
Wife: No. Bob’s wife’s name is Ellen.

Unbeknownst to us, I was completely wrong. Yet, with just those two statements, an inerrantist could propose any number of “possible solutions” (“Her name was ‘Sue Ellen,’” or “There were two ‘Bob’s’”) which provides us with a “False – positive.” A method that when implemented provides an answer of “No contradiction.”

Regardless of whether there was a contradiction or not, use of this system provides the same answer!

My question is this: if there WAS a contradiction within the Bible-- how would you know? How would this method ever provide any new information that would demonstrate that to us?

ExWhat were the names of the Twelve disciples?

Although there were a number of disciples that followed Jesus, tradition holds to a select few; twelve of special designation. We first learn of them in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, 1 Cor. 15:5, where he refers to Jesus, post-resurrection, being seen by “the Twelve.” According to Christian tradition, this would not be the actual number (as Judas’ death reduced the number to 11), but rather a Title. A Designation.

Like saying, “The twelve tribes of Israel” regardless of the make-up of the people, or “The Twelve signs of the Zodiac.”

Unfortunately, none of the Gospels agree with each other as to the names of these individuals.

According to Mark, Jesus meets Simon (Peter) and his brother, Andrew fishing, and calls them to follow him. (Typical Markan theme, they “immediately” follow Jesus) (Mark 1:16.) A little further on, Jesus meets the fishermen James and John, sons of Zebedee; they leave their father to join Jesus. (Mark 1:19.) Matthew follows this same tale. (Matt. 4:18-22)

Luke provides a much different picture about Jesus’ first meeting with his first disciples. (Luke 5:1-10) Here Jesus was pressed by the crowd, so he commandeers Peter’s boat, in order to perform a Sermon from the Sea. After preaching, Jesus tells Peter to do some more fishing, in which a miracle occurs as to the amount of Fish. Peter asks for help loading the fish from James and John, who have now been elevated to partners with Peter!

Andrew is conspicuous by his complete absence in this tale, and does not appear until Luke gives the list of disciples. (Luke 6:14) If the basis of the Gospel of Mark was Peter, one must wonder how Peter missed this tale of his first meeting with Jesus. One is equally curious how Peter’s “partner” John would have missed it as well.

See, the author of the Gospel of John veers even more dramatically. In John, Jesus is pursued by two (2) disciples of John the Baptist, one of whom turns out to be Andrew. Andrew then brings Jesus to Peter. John 1:37-42. No boats. No fish. No James and John.

O.K., back to Mark. If you can recall, we have Peter, Andrew, James and John. Mark then introduces us to, “Levi, son of Alphaeus.” A tax collector. (Mark 2:14-15) In a parallel telling, Jesus asks Levi to follow him and he “immediately” does so.

Mark later lists the remaining disciples: Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot. (Mark 3:16-19) Whoops! If you have been counting correctly (and I am sure you have) we add these eight to the previous five we end up with thirteen! All well and good, but the author had just indicated there were “twelve.” (Mark 3:14)

Perhaps one of the previous five named, is named differently in this second list? One thing we notice is that the second “James” received a qualifier “son of Alphaeus.” Levi the tax collector was also qualified as “son of Alphaeus.” Jesus has a penchant for changing names—the simplest resolution is that he must have changed Levi’s name to “James” bringing us back to the correct 12. Problem solved.

Or is it?

See, Matthew also has a tax collector. Who invited Jesus to eat at the tax collector’s house. Only Matthew doesn’t name this taxman “Levi” but rather calls him “Matthew.” (Matthew 9:9) Apparently in Mark’s list of Mark 3:16-19, the author of Matthew chose the name “Matthew” as being the one Jesus changed “Levi” to.

In order to avoid confusion, Matthew leaves off “son of Alphaes” when referring to Matthew. Humorously, in case we were so thick to miss the connection, when listing the disciples in Matthew 10:2-4, the author calls him “Matthew the tax collector,” just to make sure we knew which one was the one referred to as “Levi” in Mark.

One could almost hear the emphasis.

So, according to Matthew, we have the five—Peter, Andrew, James, John and Matthew (“the TAX COLLECTOR”) to which we add the remaining seven (same as Mark) being Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, James (son of Alphaeus), Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot. This is the closest we get to a match.

Luke goes back to the name of “Levi” (still dropping “son of Alphaeus,” though) for the tax collector. (Luke 5:27) To the four (remember Luke had skipped Andrew, so we only had Peter, James, John and Levi) Luke adds Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James (son of Alphaeus) Simon who was called the Zealot, Judas (son of James), and Judas Iscariot. Luke 6:14-16. Whoops! Four plus nine puts us at 13 again, and Luke had said there were only 12. (Luke 6:13) Only now we don’t have the father of Levi anymore, so it might not be James, (son of Alphaeus), nor does Luke subscribe to Matthew’s insistence that Matthew must be the tax collector.

It would appear that “Levi” could be anybody’s name! Further, we pick up a second “Judas.” This fellow that is a son of James. And we lose the Thaddeus from Matthew and Mark.

It would seem we must smash “Levi” back to “Matthew” and “Thaddeus” back to “Judas” and we have a match.

Or do we?

Good old Gospel of John throws a wrench in the works. Remember, in John we have Andrew, who gets Peter. We gain Philip (Jn. 1:43), Judas Iscariot (Jn. 6:71) Thomas (John 14:5) and the Sons of Zebedee (John 21:1) all of which agree with the other three Gospels. We also have “another Judas” which would appear to agree with Luke. John 14:22

But who is Nathanael? (John 1:49, 21:1) Here is a disciple that does not correlate with anyone in any other Gospel! You could plug his name in with anybody—may I recommend Bartholomew? His name is apparently open for some “double-naming.” The author of John leaves the other three (3) disciples unnamed, although he agrees there were 12 in total. (John 6:70)

(A side note: Matthew, Mark and Luke say Jesus chose his disciples after John the Baptist was thrown in prison, (Matt. 4:12; Mark 1:14; Luke 3:20) whereas the Gospel of John makes a point to say he started choosing before. (John 3:20) Just another point of contention.)

Eventually this is sorted out as Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John (sons of Zebedee), Philip, Thomas, and Judas Iscariot are in all four Gospels. Within the synoptic Gospels, we have additional agreement of Bartholomew, Matthew, James (Son of Alphaeus) and Simon the Zealot. We have a Thaddeus in just Matthew and Mark, and a Judas (son of James) in just Luke and John. And then Nathanael solely in John

Using the method of “any possible explanation” we have two readily available resolutions:

1) Either individuals had different names, and one author called them by one name, another author by their other name, OR

2) Different individuals were part of the Twelve, and depending on the moment, a different set was listed. (Remember, apparently members of the Twelve were replaceable Acts 1:26).

Either answer removes any contradiction, correct?

Assume, for a moment, there really was a contradiction. That the author of the Gospel of John was completely incorrect that Nathanael was ever a disciple. By using this method, 1900 years later, we obtain the result: “No contradiction.”

Assume, for a moment, there was not a contradiction. That the author of the Gospel of John utilized Bartholomew’s middle name of “Nathanael.” By using this method, 1900 years later, we obtain the result: “No contradiction.”

Can you see how the method, with or without an actual contradiction, provides the exact same test results? That is why this system is ineffective for determination of a contradiction and must be abandoned.

On a final note—we often discuss the claim that Christians are morally different. That they are a “new creation.” That they should be better, morally, than non-Christians. When we address it, though, we are informed that despite the Christian’s intense desire to not sin, despite the Christian’s request from the God who created the Universe to not sin, and despite the fact that this God hates sin—they still sin.

How is a non-moral error any different? If the authors of the canonical works had an intense desire to not make error, requested God to not make an error, and God hates errors—could they still perform the human propensity to commit an error?

It is slightly humorous that proponents of inerrancy claim the authors could make moral lapses of judgment. Just not historical ones. They would sin—but not write anything incorrectly.

There is No Doubt - I Was a Christian

A while back I posted my deconversion story and received a lot of comments. I wasn't able to respond to everybody since I was in the middle of moving and lost my internet connection for awhile. But thank you all (well, most of you) for your support.

I expected some opposition, of course, and got some. One commenter said:

A very interesting and thorough account of your alleged deconversion. However, since you were obviously never a believer in the first place, it is merely interesting from the point of view of what the Bible itself says about self-deception and the unconverted...

So the fact that you found Spong, by your own admission, "a breath of fresh air" indicates that you were never educated in the faith (although you may think you were, of course); nor did you hold to the faith (though you may think you did, of course)..

I know why it is so hard for Christians to admit that one time believers have fallen away - if it happened to her, it could happen to me. It is easier to say an ex-Christian was never a Christian in the first place than to have to admit that they were converted away from Christianity.

What could any of us here on the board say to convince the above reader that we were indeed Christians, many of us more devout than the average Christian?

I used to have a devotional time every morning where I prayed for my friends and family and myself, I read the Bible from cover to cover numerous times during my devotions. I witnessed to my family and they were saved (except my dad, no matter how hard I prayed), I brought up my kids as Christians and led them in the sinners prayer, I spoke in tongues and gave prophecies, I went to prayer meetings and Bible studies, I studied the Bible and prayed with my Christian friends. I believed God had a plan for my life, I believed he would help me through any situation, I believed I had a personal relationship with him. I lived my life for him.

So for this reader to say I was never a Christian says more about him than it does about me. I would venture to say that if he knew me when I was a Christian we would have gotten along just fine, he wouldn't have doubted my belief or sincerity one minute, we would have prayed together for all of the lost souls we knew.

To any Christian readers who happen on this blog, please don't doubt my sincerity when I say I used to be a Christian, but ask yourself, what did she find out there that convinced her otherwise.

Can I Judge the Judge?

Christians claim I cannot say God punishes us in barbaric ways even though I think he did so in many examples found in the Bible. If any judge turned someone into a pillar of salt for looking back (Lot’s Wife), or if he struck Uzzah down for steadying the Ark, or if he killed Ananias and Sapphira for lying, I would consider these punishments barbaric by all decent standards in today’s world. Christians claim I do not have a standard of morality to judge how God purportedly punishes us. They claim I must have an objective standard to know what good and evil is. They claim God is the objective standard, so by definition he does what is good, and I have no reason to judge the Judge of all creation.

But this all begs the question. I am seeking to know whether or not God exists from the way he supposedly judges people in the Bible. It’s not that I see myself actually judging the Judge as if he exists. Even if he does exist I don’t see why I can’t assess how he officiates in his court room, just like I do with any other judge in my society. Regardless, I’m looking at how the Bible claims God judges us and asking whether or not he exists. And my conclusion is that if this God exists then he’s not a good God. Since Christians claim God is good, this means their conception of God does not exist. And this is one of many reasons I reject Christianity.

Let's say you didn't believe in God, like me. Would that change anything with regard to how you thought a judge sentenced someone for a crime? Let's say before you became an atheist you thought that if a molestor was merely sentenced to probation, then he received a slap on the wrist for his crime. Would that view of yours change if you became an atheist? NO! I can indeed say when the punishment is too great or small based upon how serious I think the crime is. [At one time the Bible codified the standards of its own day when it proscribed capital punishment for a son who cursed his parents, but Christians no longer believe in that kind of law because history has moved on, and them with it.] Christians say I have no objective standard to claim this, but I say I am well within the standards of decency in modern America, which are more humane and civil than in the barbaric past. Christians say America has no ultimate standards for their morality, or those that do exist are based upon the Bible, but I say there have been a number of civilizations that have had little or no influence from the Bible that would agree with my standards.

Christians say humans beings as a whole have some kind of moral code written within them from God, and I disagree for one obvious reason: there is such a wide diversity of moral standards among the people in our world, along with the fact that there is a wide moral diversity among those who claim to be Christians too. Where is this moral code that is supposedly written into all human beings? Take a poll on the great moral issues of our day. If God writes a moral code within us then he’s writing in invisible ink, as far as I’m concerned. We cannot read it, and if that’s so, what’s left of the claim that God has done so?

Christians claim that God writes this moral code within us, but people just suppress it. However, no one is consciously aware of any suppression. Almost every person thinks his or her moral notions are true. People hold their moral convictions sincerely. For one side to say that the other side is not being sincere, doesn't help know who is correct at all. In fact, I have seen Christians hotly dispute other Christians on so many moral and political issues that it's difficult to see how such a claim makes any sense at all, since not even Christians can claim to know what that code is. This becomes a problem for the existence of the Holy Spirit who is supposed to guide the Christian as well. Where was he when Christians went to war with each other over interpretations of the Bible? Apparently he's not properly doing his job, and never has. These facts strongly suggest to me there is no moral code given us by God, and there is no Holy Spirit either, contrary to the claims of the superstitious people who wrote the Bible, and those who believe those claims. The hard evidence is against it.

The progression of Christian morality that can be read in any history of Christian ethics book will show this. How the Christian judges morality is not necessarily learned from the Bible, but it is brought to the Bible; that is, Christians develop their morality in tandem with their culture and find justification for that morality in the Bible. [Key issues here are slavery, democracy, women's leadership roles, abortion, capital punishment, and what to do about poverty].

In fact, if a Christian became an atheist his or her behavior wouldn't change much either, which is another reason why it's not the Bible that forms our ethics. Michael Shermer asks the Christian one simple question. “What would you do if there were no God? Would you commit robbery, rape, and murder, or would you continue being a good and moral person? Either way the question is a debate stopper. If the answer is that you would soon turn to robbery, rape, or murder, then this is a moral indictment of your character, indicating you are not to be trusted because if, for any reason, you were to turn away from your belief in God, your true immoral nature would emerge…If the answer is that you would continue being good and moral, then apparently you can be good without God. QED.” [Michael Shermer, The Science of Good and Evil, pp. 154-155].

Furthermore, it seems obvious to me that punishing the whole human race for the small sin of curiousity and selfishness that was created within them by God in Adam and Eve, was absolutely horrible of the Biblical God. God would have known that he had not given them enough evidence to believe that eating the fruit would cause so much horrendus suffering. If they had enough evidence to actually believe this would happen, they wouldn't have done it. Besides, God purportedly knew full well in advance they would indeed sin. The sentencing of this God for this crime is warped and barbaric. I think a case can be made for entrapment here.

The only reason Christians don't agree is because they believe in God, and the reason they believe in God has more to do with a felt need for some higher power taken together with when and where they were born, called "the accidents of birth." Their religion was the one experienced within their culture. For if they were born in Turkey they would be a Muslims, and if they were born in Mongolia they'd be Buddhists right now.

If Christians didn't believe in God, they would see what their God concept purportedly does for what it truly is, barbaric. Their God concept clouds their eyes from seeing what seems obvious to others.

And as far as the naturalistic standard of morality goes, I believe at root we all have the same standard, based in nature, it's just Christians refuse to acknowledge it. Christians think they find their morality in the Bible but they don't, as I've indicated. If their morality is to be found inside the pages of the Bible, then they need to explain why Christians have disagreed about that morality down through the centuries, and even today. People have their morality and then they try to find it in the Bible, for the most part, although, since the Bible is part of our culture then it helps to shape our standards in a dialectic conversation.

Another Look at John Loftus', "Why I Rejected Christianity"

The trend is growing. More and more often nowadays we are hearing about Christian preachers walking out of their pulpits, away from lives of privilege and honor, leaving the fold of God. Emerging from different sects of Christianity, these ex-ministers are observed to defect for strikingly similar reasons. When they let us into their lives to see why they forsook their lord and master, we see that virtually all of them found Christianity to be evidentially problematic, if not patently false.

In 1963, a young Church of Christ preacher by the name of Farrell Till left the faith. A number of years later, he became quite outspoken against his former religion in a publication he founded known as The Skeptical Review. Then in 1984, Dan Barker appeared on the scene, a former Assembly of God preacher and graduate of Azusa Pacific University. After leaving Christianity, he joined the Freedom from Religion Foundation where he is now co-president, and in 1992 published his account of the desertion entitled, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist.

As of 1997, another name has been thrown into the hat of unbelievers, John W. Loftus. Like myself, Loftus was a Church of Christ minister and graduate of several Christian colleges and seminaries. Making John even more unique to the already exceptional caste of minister-turned-atheist is his education at the feet of renowned Christian apologist, Dr. William Lane Craig. Craig is best known for his work and defense of the Kalam Cosmological Argument and is viewed as a “Big Gun” in the world of Christian-atheist debate. Having spent a number of years as a seeker, a mere doubter of Christianity, Loftus now openly rejects his former theistic belief system and has declared why in this work, Why I Rejected Christianity: A Former Apologist Explains.

Says Loftus, “I was a Christian apologist with several Master’s Degrees set for the express purpose of defending Christianity from intellectual attacks.” Was he successful? Could Christianity be successfully defended from the attacks of her systematically versatile secular critics? What was his conclusion after years of preaching and fighting for the faith? “I am now an atheist,” John says. Why? Because the arguments in support of Christianity “just weren’t there, period.” (p. 8)

Having left the ministry myself, I can personally relate to many of John’s struggles as a Christian minister. I have endured some fine ones in my time, plus the painful dregs of resurfacing doubts that just wouldn’t go away all throughout my Christian years. Any Christian-turned-heretic can confirm that eventually, all such doubts terminate in unbelief, and this only after a long and agonizing de-conversion process—right up there in intensity with a divorce or a death in the family. Just ask any apostate who has gone through the ordeal!

In one word…

For a little while now, I have been acquainted with John and have found him to be an upstanding individual. It’s not everyday you learn about someone with the courage and love of self-honesty to turn their back on a cherished belief system. John stepped up to the plate by being willing to follow his heart (and his mind) wherever it led him. It led him right out of Christianity!

If I had just one word to describe John, it would be “noble.” It doesn’t require much of one’s self to gloat in personal positives, but it does require a lot of conviction to expound on the negatives. John is noble and humble to share some less than flattering things about himself in his journey out of Christianity. One word describing John’s book would be “rich,” as every chapter is tightly packed with loads of qualitative information.

Style…

The overall writing style of the book is decent, while the format is at least tolerable, being tiresome on the eyes at times. The outline breakdown of content makes for a somewhat fragmented read with underlined text, bold-faced type, repeated indentations, and tabbed paragraphs not exactly aiding the “lazy eye” along. Incredibly lengthy source quotations and thick paragraphs of book recommendations can be distracting at places, but after reading a few chapters, this begins to seem less obstructive.

A number of writers make the understandable mistake of writing in an outline style, assuming that accented lines of text make for an easier read, when in fact just the opposite is the case. The eye is not only lazy, but prefers simplicity and uniformity. A traditional chapter layout would have proved more accommodating for the reader. But these are merely cosmetic critiques. I now move on to more important matters.

Content…

The book’s central strength lies in it’s information-rich content. In truth, a person could spend quite a long time following up on John’s sources and recommended reading materials. There is a tremendous well of knowledge here. The work is chock-full of great information with one major theme underlying it all; the supporting “facts,” the cardinal pillars of Christianity, cannot be rescued from unrelenting, submerging doubt—even if one happens to find belief in Christianity viable. Cause for serious skepticism is everywhere lurking. The major tenants of Christianity, the “core doctrines” at the heart of the faith, are shaky at best and vulnerable to attack from all sides of debate. John speaks the language of competent and well-known Christian scholars and apologists of both liberal and conservative affiliation, employing their own words against them, demonstrating that they themselves recognize the grave position they are in when facing the critical eye of a skeptical, modern world.

The audience…

I see this book being of exceptional value to college students, philosophy buffs, and particularly those who are “on the fence,” actively struggling with an open mind to objectively beat their doubts about the validity of Christianity. I also see it serving as an ideal study-guide for someone looking to get in touch with other excellent works on the nature of the Christian religion. John’s scholarship is solid, drawing from a host of proponents and critics in a wide range of disciplines, including history, philosophy, and theology. Loftus is very well read. Any doubts about that will quickly disappear upon reading the book.

Concerning his own academic qualifications, John writes, “I consider my expertise (if I have one) in the area of the Big Picture.” “None of us are experts in all the areas we need to be,” and yet “someone has to stand back from all of the trees to see the forest and describe what it looks like.” (p. 59) True that. It is the job of every writer to extrapolate information, to draw from a wellspring of sources and reach conclusions of their own, and to expound upon those conclusions in a clear and thought-provoking manner. This John does, and his conclusion is that Christianity is fatally inundated with problems.

Exceptional chapters…

While I enjoyed reading every chapter, there were some that stood out as sublimely exceptional in nature. These included…The Outsider Test for Faith, The Problem of Unanswered Prayer, The Problem of Evil, The Strange and Superstitious World of the Bible, Historical Evidence and Christianity, Was Jesus born of a virgin in Bethlehem?, Was Jesus God Incarnate?, The Devil Made Me Do It!, and Prophecy and Biblical Authority.

The Outsider Test for Faith is one of those chapters that says what every doubter of religion has always thought but perhaps never said so well. The chapter is an absolute jewel, an extended take on the old realization that “If you lived in Iraq, you’d be a Muslim.” John did a masterful job at making application of this truth when he made the following observations…

“If you were born in the first century B.C. in Israel, you’d be a Jew, and if you were born in Europe in 1200 A.D. you’d be a Roman Catholic. But there’s more. Had we lived in ancient Babylonia, or the Greco-Roman worlds, we would have been very superstitious and polytheistic to the core. In the ancient world, we would have sought God’s guidance through divination, and appeased his wrath with barbaric blood sacrifices. We would have also been opposed to democracy and preferred instead the divine right of kings, like Plato and people in the Middle Ages…Our metaphysical and religious beliefs are dependent to a great extent on the ‘accidents of birth’ (when and where we are born) primarily because there are no agreed upon empirical tests to decide between these metaphysical and religious belief systems.” (p. 43-44, 46)

I don’t want to give away too many goodies, but I’ll make mention of several more before moving on. In The Strange and Superstitious World of the Bible, Loftus discusses the more rigorous nature of today’s standards of proof verses those in the minds of first century societies. Loftus rightly points out how big of a discrediting factor to the Bible the superstitious setting from which it emerged is. We should consider it suspect for this reason alone, if for no other…

“We who live in the modern world of science simply don’t believe in a god of the sun, or moon, or harvest, or fertility, or rain, or the sea. We don’t see omens in an eclipse, or in a flood, a storm, snakebite, or a drought, either. That’s because we understand nature better than they did, by using science. We don’t see sickness as demon possession. Nor do we think we are physically any closer to God whether we’re up on a mountaintop or down in a valley. But every nation did in ancient days.” (p. 120)

Commenting on Historical Evidence and Christianity, the chapter bearing this title emphasizes what naturalists have long since known and faulted theistic conceptions for—legends and records of so-called miraculous events cannot survive the stretch of time with credibility…

“History itself is fraught with many difficult problems when one comes to understand the events of the past. According to Beddington again, ‘Any historical account is, in strict logic, open to doubt. It is not just remarkable events long ago like biblical miracles that are not logically certain. But if non-supernatural events in the past are open to doubt, then how much more so is it the case with supernatural claims of events in the past, like biblical miracles?’” (p. 163)

And…

“The modern historian lives in the modern world, a world where miracles and supernatural events simply don’t take place. At least, that is his experience…There should be no reason to suppose that ancient historical people experienced anything different than what we experience today. They were perhaps just superstitious, that’s all, and they lived in a world where there was nothing known about nature’s fixed laws—just their belief in a God who expresses his will in all events. So when confronted with a miraculous story the modern historian assumes a natural explanation, or that the story became exaggerated in the telling, or that the cure was a psychological one, or it may simply be a legend to enhance the reputation of the miracle worker.” (p. 165-166)

The thrust of the chapter forces the believer to acknowledge that the Jesus they preach and defend originates from a limited knowledge of the past, an intrinsically fallible knowledge, one which can be misinterpreted, misrepresented, exaggerated, or just plain wrong. This realization brings shockwaves of uncertainty to an inquiring mind.

Gems…

In addition to possessing some very fine chapters, such as those already mentioned, this work covers some ground that is seldom touched on in other comparable freethought works. These include such things as references to the apocryphal Book of Enoch and Jude’s quotation of a passage from this obvious fake as a divine prophecy from God (Jude 1:14) (p. 153-154). It also delves into a biblical problem with the resurrection story I find to be particularly intriguing—the biblical claim that Pontius Pilate’s guards would approach the chief priest and elders of the Jews to suppress the knowledge that they were actual eyewitnesses of God’s miraculous power in the moving away of the stone from the tomb…

“These soldiers wouldn’t have reported to the chief priest and elders, but to Pilate whose guards they were (Matt. 27:64). And what was the lie? They are to say; “we were asleep” while the disciples stole the body. Now it’s one thing to lie, but another thing for soldiers to spread the word that they were derelict in their duty in order to help people they didn’t care for, especially in light of their vivid experience, and with the possibility of being severely punished for it…But the truth is that it’s a useless and stupid lie. If they were asleep, how did they know what happened?” (p. 213)

John does a number on this and other major logistical problems with the resurrection narrative. Was Jesus God Incarnate? is an especially juicy chapter that focuses on the many serious absurdities and troubles created by the idea of a “fully God and fully man” Jesus. Scholars have unendingly tried to work out the manifold difficulties that the notion of a man-god brings to the surface, one of which has to do with sin and temptation…

“We’re told that Jesus was tempted (Matt. 4:1; Heb. 4:15). To be tempted would entail having thoughts about sinning. One cannot be tempted to do something if there is no desire to do it…But since Jesus was tempted to sin there seems to be some small imperfections in him, since to be tempted means to have desires that do not accord with the nature of God.” (p. 198)

Loftus also mentions the very common (and comical) discrepancy concerning Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a colt, or (depending on which gospel account you read) one young colt and a fully-grown ass! This problem – by far one of the most embarrassing biblical discrepancies of all time – comes from five conflicting passages of scripture (Zech. 9:9; Matt. 21:2; Mark 11:2; Luke 19:30; John 12:14-15). All but Matthew mention Jesus riding on a colt, whereas Matthew mistakenly and ridiculously concludes from Zechariah 9:9 that “riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass,” refers to two mules, which it clearly doesn’t as John points out on page 234.

Many other gems are found throughout that are worth mentioning but are far too numerous, like how the words of Mary at the announcement of Jesus’ miraculous conception, “How shall this be seeing I know not a man?” are a complete literary invention (p. 188). Loftus rightly bears out how Enuma Elish (the Babylonian creation tale) is an older mythical epic, from which Genesis steals its framework (p. 108-109). And on and on we could go.

Criticisms…

Aside from format and basic literary concerns, I do not take issue with many of the claims John makes, and those small tidbits we might happen to disagree on are not even worth commenting on here. But here are a few things I will take issue with…

My biggest complaint is with the tone of the book. It is not aggressive enough. A writer must accept the challenge to exude personal authority, to tell the reader what should be believed and why. The occasional lack of this quality is found throughout the work in certain places where John seems rather withdrawn; namely, I would love to have seen more of John’s own sentiments and less a barrage of thoughts and facts presented by others, which in certain places, can seem rather dry and aloof. A hefty number of sections and chapters, however, including The Outsider Test for Faith, The Problem of Unanswered Prayer, and The Problem of Evil, are fittingly exempted from this criticism.

I would like to have seen John elaborate more on the popular Josephus forgery that some uninformed Christians still claim was Josephus’ testimony of Jesus (found in Antiquities 18.3.3), though even many Christian fundamentalists now realize that the text was in fact doctored by later Christian interpolators, making it royally unlikely that Josephus wrote very much of that text, if any of it (p. 156). More supporting material would have been helpful on the discussion of the Exodus and the Canaanite Conquest (p. 157-158). I happen to agree that the evidence for the traditional view of an Egyptian Exodus is extremely wanting.

I wish John had devoted more space dismantling the Kalam cosmological argument, though he does deal with it (p. 75-76). The same criticism goes for his hasty development and critique of the mildly confusing ontological arguments in Faith and Reason (p. 72-73). John’s writing is not difficult to follow, but with strained and nebulous arguments like those of the Ontological persuasion, more attention and space are needed to exhaustively deal with these subjects as deep as they are, and with as much weight as some contemporary Christian thinkers put on them. This brings out what would be a concern for some—the book is, in a few places, a little too deep for the average reader who may not have at least a tad of familiarity with these philosophical arguments.

A few small criticisms notwithstanding, the book cuts the theological lifeline of mom and dad’s “old time religion.” It is a more than worthy read, making it a fine addition to the freethinker’s library.

Conclusion…

Why I Rejected Christianity is the story of a once invigorated believer who, having seen Christianity from the inside out, chose to reject it. In an age when evangelical Christians have decided to spread their nets to catch a much larger audience, an audience of more critical minds than the average churchgoer who sits in the pews like a wooden Indian, the contents of this work should be considered all the more valuable to them. It will challenge the faith of believers, and only the most wayfaring of them will accept this challenge. The progressively-minded faithful owe it to themselves to strongly consider the material presented herein, forgoing the usual aversions that popular Christian scholars “already answered that.” The biblical incongruities John addresses are “alive and kicking.” They have not been laid to rest by Christian defenders as some assume and would love nothing more than to believe. The rifts and divisions in scholarly thought alone bear witness to this fact. These problems are formidable, and they aren’t going to go away anytime soon.

(JH)

The Concept of God Solves All Problems!?

One of the reasons I started this Blog is because I was curious to see which arguments have the best chance to persuade Christians that their faith is false. Sadly, I am no closer to figuring this out then when I started, and I think I know why.

The bottom line seems to be that when someone believes in God, then his concept of God becomes the answer to all of his problems.

The problems I refer to here are intellectual complexities, socio-political troubles, and personal difficulties. If something bad happens to the believer, for instance, he believes either God has a reason for it, or God will bring good out of it. The same goes for unanswered prayer, for the believer will claim it just wasn’t God’s will, or that it’s not in God’s timetable.

I don’t mean to suggest that there are no problems for the believer. He does indeed have problems. But he also has an explanation for them in that God allows him to experience them in order to strengthen his mind, character, and body, or that they are the punishment for sin. I only mean that with his faith the believer has a solution to all problems, and they are solved by his concept of God.

The Christian thinks this way, as I’ve seen, but so does the Muslim, so does the Jew, so does the Hindu, so does the Buddhist, in their various respective ways. But because religious believers have their problems solved by their faith it’s nearly impossible for them to see that it’s their faith itself that solves these problems, and not the object of their faith. This is especially true when the believer is fearful to doubt.

When you stop to think about it, with such a faith it's nearly impossible to see that faith for what it really is: faith in a concept of God. Such a concept must solve all problems. It cannot be otherwise. By definition the theistic God must answer or solve all problems and/or difficulties, otherwise he's not worthy as a God concept.

I watched the movie Troy (starring Brad Pitt as Achilles) just recently. I liked the movie a great deal even though it was long. It was very entertaining and loosely based on Homer’s The Iliad, along with Greek mythology. You ought to watch it! So long as it’s even close to how the ancients thought about the gods, it’s enlightening. The confidence they had when they spoke of the gods of Apollo or Poseidon or Zeus was absolutely amazing to me, and reminds me of how confident Christians are too, even though there are differences in how they determined the will of the gods. Kings consulted the priests for signs from the gods about whether or not they will win a battle, and the priests saw omens in nature to indicate what the gods will do. [Christians determine God’s will from a book that was written by the same kind of superstitious people, too, although they will never acknowledge this. But even in the Bible divine guidance was sought for through Rhabdomancy, Hepatoscopy, Teraphim, Necromancy, Astrology, Hydromancy, Casting of Lots, and Dreams (look these up yourselves). And while there were many prophets proclaiming what they called God’s word, how did anyone back in those days actually know which ones were from God, if any of them were? I know the so-called tests for a true prophet, but the so-called false prophets didn’t think they were false prophets, did they?...nor did those who followed them. Who would you really believe in Jeremiah’s day, since he was walking around Jerusalem proclaiming that it would fall? On Jonah’s story see here.]

The basis of their faith rests in ancient pre-scientific superstitious people, and in when and where they were born, but they refuse to acknowledge this.

Take for example religious diversity. Why is there a proliferation of religious belief systems? Well, if you believe in a specific concept of God then God is your answer. Consider the arguments used to explain religious diversity by adherents of different religious faiths. These explanations are similar in kind to each other, if not exactly the same. They will argue that those who don’t accept their particular religion are either ignorant of the truth, willfully ignorant, unenlightened, deceived by Satan, or that God has good reasons for permitting this state of affairs. Cultural factors are downplayed or even ignored, even though they play an overwhelming role in what a person believes.

Take for instance the issue of miracles. Miracles don’t occur in today’s world (Pentecostal believers will very rarely claim they happen in today’s world nearly as often as the Bible records, or with such force). But if you believe in the Christian God concept, then God is your answer. Miracles must’ve occurred, even though believers face a double burden of proof, and even though believers must overcome Lessing’s Broad Ugly Ditch

Take for instance the problem of evil. If you believe in a Christian God concept, then God is your answer. God knows what he’s doing, and what he does is good, even though Christians have no answer as to why God didn’t explicitly condemn slavery, or create all human beings with one color of skin. Intense suffering speaks volumes against the Christian faith. Believers will even try to justify why people end up in hell with arguments that seem absurd, because of a faith that believes God solves all problems.

With a God concept like this who solves all problems, it’s nearly impossible to help the believer to see his faith for what it truly is, as a Freudian wish fulfillment, or Nietzsche’s will to power, or the Marxian opiate of the people. Ludwig Feuerbach was correct, human beings have fashioned God in their image rather than the other way around.

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Since I’ve mentioned the movie Troy, according to Greek mythology when Achilles was born, his mother, Thetis, tried to make him immortal by dipping him in the river Styx. As she immersed him, she held him by one heel and forgot to dip him a second time so the heel she held could get wet too. Therefore, the place where she held him remained untouched by the magic water of the Styx and that part stayed mortal or vulnerable. Achilles died from a heel wound as the result of a poisoned arrow fired by Paris. To this day, any weak point is called an “Achilles’ heel”. I think the Achilles’ heel of Christianity is to be found in the advance of modernity.

Debate DVD and Book For Sale.

I interrupt this Blog to offer a good deal to those who might want it.


A few people have been asking where they can purchase the debate DVD in which David Wood of Answering Infidels and I debated the problem of evil. I have three copies to sell at $15 each plus shipping (which will depend on how you want it shipped and where). If you also want my book and don't have it yet, I'll sell both DVD and book together at a discounted rate of $30 plus shipping. Just e-mail me and I can bill you through PaylPal, or you can send me a check in the mail. First come first served. If there is more interest I'll get some more of both, but it might take some time.

Climbing into de-Bunker....

I apologize from the start for the horrible pun in the title. But get used to it. :o)

Before I was an ex-Christian I was......well, a Christian! I very sincerely confessed my sins and pledged my life to Jesus at the tender age of 7, and I was just as sincere in my effort to maintain my Christianity for the next 35 years or so. I took very seriously the exhortation to 'study to show thyself approved.' Little did I know that my studiousness would be the undoing of my faith in the supernatural.....

My childhood was fairly typical for the son of a Southern Baptist minister. Periods of rebelliousness punctuated an otherwise general attitude of respect and obedience. As a young man I evolved from inerrancy to legalism. I entered Dallas Baptist University with the intention of entering the ministry, which was constantly distracted by my affection for the piano. After my first marriage disintegrated I entered another period of 'rebellion', followed by a return to faith characterized by the charismatic experience. My wife and I met during this time and I led praise and worship for a medium-sized non-denominational church for five years. For most of this time we tithed over 10% of our gross income.

My first dose of critical thinking/reason came from, of all people, my own father! He gave me a copy of Hank Hanegraaff's Christianity in Crisis which, among other things, pointed out a flaw in one of the core teachings of one of our favorite ministers. I soon abandoned most Charismatic teaching and eventually stopped attending church altogether. I later ran across Preterism which at least seemed to make more sense out of the ever-changing field of eschatology while allowing me to remain a Christian. But Preterism's approach to symbolic vs. literal passages in the Bible led me to the discovery of major holes in the Genesis flood story, then creation accounts and eventually the historicity of much of the Bible, from Eden to Palestine. Where faith had taught me to accept even the most incredulous stories as literally true, reason brought doubts. I eventually reasoned my way out of faith in the supernatural altogether.

I have written about this in greater detail here and here.

I look forward to joining my fellow ex-Christians in this endeavor.