Jesus and the Ancient Superstitious "Evil Eye" Problem.

[Written 8/6/07 by John Loftus] Are we to actually believe that people have a powerful "evil eye"? In Matt 6:22 (Luke 11:34-36) Jesus says "The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is generous [NRSV: healthy], your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!" Later, Jesus mentions the evil eye in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matt 20:15). The landowner asks the worker, "Do you have the evil eye because I am generous?"

According to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus, in a dispute with the Pharisees over the issue of purity, (Mark 7: 1-23), lists the evil eye (Mark 7:22) among a group of evil things (Mark 7:23) that emerge from the human heart and thereby pollute a person. Note that Paul (Gal. 3:1) uses the concept as well: "O foolish Galatians! Who has put the evil eye on, you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was proclaimed crucified?"

Anencepahlic Babies and the Problem of Evil

This article is to narrow down the Problem of Evil to one type of situation that I have not seen Christians provide a rationale for. Maybe I missed it because I wasn't reading carefully enough. In any case here is the chance for Christians to resolve this once and for all, to provide something they can proudly point to on this blog as an unequivocal victory.

P1. God is Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent
P2. God is Good.
P3. God permits suffering because it creates a greater good
C. There should be no suffering that does not add value to the greater good.

Anencephaly is a lethal birth defect characterized by the absence of all or part of the skull and scalp and malformation of the brain. (answers.com)
Anencephaly from Wikipedia.

As far as I can tell, the couples that have had anencephalic babies were average people. Some of them appear to be persons of faith. They exercised their free will and they wanted to have children. The woman did nothing intentionally or inadvertently that would have caused this. The babies were carried to term and they typically live up to three to five days before they die. While it is true that there is no perceptible suffering on the babies part, there is suffering on the part of the parents and family. What value to the greater good could this possibly add? And if it is for "soul building", then why doesn't something similar happen to everyone? For most people I think it can be said that having a baby is a joyous time.

This webring is a tribute and place where people who have had this happen to them support each other.
Anencephalic Angels I provided the text of the first page as an appendix to this article.

As far as I can tell the only defense is to Appeal to Ignorance/Appeal to Mystery. It can be argued that we don't have enough information to say anything about Gods goodness. It can even be argued that God defines goodness, and our definition is flawed. But be careful when you do that because you are establishing a principle that can be used to show that it is impossible to know anything about God with any certainty. If the problem of Evil is the fault of Man, and started in the Garden of Eden by disobeying god, or if the story of A & E is metaphor for mans natural condition, then mans tendency to disobey God makes it impossible to know anything about God with any certainty.

If
P1. man caused his own fall through the exercise of freewill and disobeyed God,
P2. And as a result or initial condition man is prone to sin,
P3. And God wrote the bible through man,
P4. And The bible scriptures are the only accepted authority about God
P5. And Man is prone to mis-interpret the bible as evidenced by the multitude of theological disagreements,
P6. And There is no standard except Jesus by which to measure proper knowledge of God,
P7. And Because we only know anything about Jesus anecdotally and not from the source,

C. there is no way to know if the information in the Bible is accurate therefore no one can know anything with any certainty about God.

It appears to me that God has a problem with infinity. If God had boundaries, then it seems to me that most of the Atheistic arguments against God would go away.
I don't think the ancients thought it through very well. That is a characteristic of folklore.

If you say that God is not completely good, or God is not omnipotent then the problem of Evil/Suffering goes away or if Jesus had sat down and spent a month writing, then I suppose he could have explained it away.

And if this too easy to explain, heres another one
Police, shooting at snake, kill 5-year-old boy, officials say

APPENDIX

Here is a list of the First page of Links on the Anencephalic Angels web ring.

In Memory of Adam
In memory of our angel, Adam, who we lost due to anencephaly.

Matthew's Memorial
This site was made in memory of my sweet baby boy, Matthew, who was stillborn due to anencephaly.

Jessica's Journey
My Jessica's story, information about anencephaly, support groups, memorial links, and inspirational stories are all found within the pages of Jessica's Journey.

Nathan's Story
This is the story of our precious little boy, Nathan ,who lived for 25hrs and 2 minutes before returning to heaven.

MY ANGEL ARIEL
Memorial to my baby lost to anencephaly and a tribute to her sister lost to miscarriage at 12 weeks.

My Angel Lily Faith
Memorial to my baby born with anenchephaly after years of intertility & IVF treatment.

Memorial to Mary Elizabeth Karg
A short story with pictures about the happenings leading up to the birth of Mary Elizabeth, about her short life, and about saying goodbye.

IN Loving Memory of Annalise
The story of the my daughther Annalise from her diagnosis till eventual death.

Anouk's memorial
A memorial to my anencephalic daughter Anouk.

Michaela's Hope
A site created in memory of our daughter, Michaela Hope.

Calebs Memorial
A memorial site for our angel Caleb whom we lost to Anencephaly in March of 1999.

Faith Lynn
This site is dedicated to my daughter, Faith Lynn, who was born and died on 8-21-02 due to complications from anencephaly.

Heaven's Lullaby
A place where mommys, daddys, and families can find comfort and support after the loss of their baby.

Ryan and Jesse Angel Babies
This is a educational memorial dedicated to my angels Jesse who had anencephaly and Ryan had congential diaphragmatic hernia.

Anencephaly - Angel Meert's Memorial Site
This is a memorial site dedicated to our baby boy that we lost to Anencephaly on 7th October 1995.

Gabriel Aaron Meehan our child in heaven
Gabriel Aaron Meehan was born on April 15, 2003 to his loving parents Ben and Kelly, and to his adoring big brother and sister Zach and Emmarie.

Jasmine Faith, Our Treasure in Heaven
The story of my daughter, who passed away shortly after birth due to anencephaly.

My Angel Daniel
This is a website in memory of my sweet boy who i lost to Anencephaly in Jan 1992.

Our Precious daughter 'Angel'
Memorial to our baby lost to anencephaly on January 12th 2002.

Amanda Marie
In loving memory of my daughter, Amanda, who was born still because of anencephaly.

God and the Problem of Evil, Again.

Jennifer responded again to this post of mine, which originated out of a challenge to Christians to put up or shut up...literally. Jennifer wrote:

It seems that this is hinging on God making sure we don't hurt each other by intervening in some way before the act is carried out....Let's say someone is going to kidnap a child. At what point does God stop them? Let's say this kidnapper had a bad childhood. (I'm using a real life example.) His brother sexually assaulted him many times, which means it probably happened to his brother, which means it probably happened to the person who did it to his brother etc...So on the day this man is driving around on the lookout for someone to take, he sees who he wants and runs out of gas. (God's intervetion) What does he do next? Are you saying that if he runs out of gas enough times he will eventually give up? If I follow this idea all the way to it's end, it seems that God would have to start with babies. But then what if the parents are just evil people? He should stop them from having children? It seems like what you are really saying is that God should just make us right to begin with so nothing will go wrong.

Okay, this is worth responding to. Good questions and good point. Thank you. Since she may be speaking the thoughts of others, let me respond below:

There are three prior possibilities that you must first deal with before we should consider your questions. 1) I have argued here that God did not have a reason for creating anything at all, but even if he did so anyway, then 2) he could've and should've created a heavenly world with heavenly beings in the first place (I reject any notion that a being in the direct unmediated presence of an all powerful and perfectly loving God would ever under any circumstances rebel). And I also argue that 3) given the intense suffering in this world (both with animals and human beings) and the suffering of billions of people forever in hell, that God should not have given these creatures free will in the first place. It was an immoral decision of God’s by any standards we have to judge whether a good God exists or not, which are the same moral standards that Christians themselves use to judge the morality of any act. To those who want to maintain that free will is an overweighing good, I argue that free will is not such a good thing. Besides, we do not have abstract freedom anyway, able to do whatever we want to do. We are limited by our age, gender, physical strength and stamina, looks, finances, social status, era we live in, and where we live. Since this is so, further limiting our free choices when we already have limited freedom anyway is not a problem, especially when we see the Biblical God doing just that in several cases (Pharaoh’s hardened heart, planting thoughts (or dreams) into someone’s head (Paul’s visions), making a person insane (Nebuchadnezzar), and/or simply killing them (Herod, Uzzah, Ananias & Sapphira).

Hence the questions and points that you make are nonsensical until you first deal with these three prior possibilities.

If however, for no good reason at all (especially for no good moral reason) God created a fleshly world with free creatures in it, then and only then are we faced with the difficulties you point out, but they are not difficulties at all, especially for God. Let me explain.

Yes, there are generational moral deficiencies passed down through the ages. I simply say nip this in the bud at the very first person in the generational line to screw up. If Adam & Eve existed, start with them, and I’ve already argued this case here.

If a man is about to start a generational chain of molesters, stop him from molesting his first victim. It’s that simple. If he’s religious, try by planting thoughts into his head at an early age. Keep him from those experiences which will cause him to desire this, if possible. Start young in his life, and early as needed. I see no difficulty for this with an omniscient God who is reading his thoughts as he thinks them. If he continues to rebel, and I simply see no reason he would if God monitors his thought life and redirects it, then give him a heart attack the day he decides to do it. What exactly is the problem here, since as the author of life you will claim he can take it away? And this could be repeated for any heinous moral act down through the centuries. If you want to maintain we need some problems to challenge us, then God need not stop all “sinful” acts, only the most heinous ones. If you want to claim that for all you know he does stop many of them, there is no evidence that he does, and the number of sicko’s out there left to wreak havoc upon us means he doesn’t do enough.

Responding to Jennifer

This is a continuation of a discussion I provoked with this post.

There have been some good responses but let me highlight Jennifer's since she attempted to meet my challenge, and later asked me to comment on it. She wrote:

What would it take?

It would take you explaining why God should even bother with people who don't listen to Him even when He does show Himself. What does the world say when a person claims they were healed of cancer? They say, "we can explain that..blah blah blah". Tell me how a young man is prayed for an his short leg grows three inches on the spot. We aren't going to run and tell the news, they would sensationalize a powerful moment between a young man and God.

I'll tell you what...my 10 year old has a mass in her pancreas. I don't expect God to heal it. I will ask Him to, but with all the toxins we depend on every day, why should God intervene?

When every single person on this planet gets on their knees and asks God to forgive them for their little part of messing up the planet and each other..for disregarding and ignoring Him and being so busy with churchy stuff or work or whatever..and we all stay there until we cannot physically survive any longer...if at that point, God does nothing I will concede that I am wrong and there is no god.

It is all the fault of man.

Jennifer, Jennifer. Why should God wait to answer your prayers until people pray? Don't you see this is a cop out, an easy excuse to continue believing in God? If God cares and we fail to pray why does he punish your 10 year old? Why doesn't he merely respond to your prayers? Why doesn't he just do the right thing regardless? After all, God should care about your 10 year old even if no one else does. Besides, if your God is the perfect parent, then YOU as an imperfect parent do not love your 10 year old better than he does. And since I am absolutely sure that you as an imperfect parent would not wait to heal your 10 year old until other people prayed, then why does God?

As regards to your response, besides everything else that God fails to do here, you have set up a test that will never happen for so many reasons, not the least of which because not everyone on earth will ever hear of your request. So why such an absurd test? Why not make it something that can happen? I'll tell you why you don't. It's because you fear that if your request might be within the bounds of reason it will never happen, that's all. So you testify against yourself here. You have blind faith, pure and simple. You never want to actually have a test that might show your faith to be false.

I had written:

Jospeh said...There would be FAR more gained morally if the sickos were STOPPED in the act...

Yes! Yes! Yes! Compare that to what we do as human beings. We lock these people up. We take away their freedom. We think this is a good thing. It helps people to live peacful lives.

Can you hear any sane person saying, yes, but freedom is so precious we shouldn't stop them? Sorry, but sometimes I have nothing else to say but "bullshit!"

We already have examples in the Bible where God took away people's freedom when he killed them, and we have Pharoah whose heart was hardened. So God can do it. Freedom isn't a good thing when it comes to sicko's, so where is God?

I'll tell you where. No where.

In response to this
Jennifer wrote:

OK..let's have God come tell us to build enormous prisons and then we will farm the land, sew the clothes, fetch the water and provide the medicine they need in order to keep them all alive. Sounds like a great way for the rest of us to live...support all the sickos so they can get free care.

Or..would you propose God supply all their needs through miraculous intervention? If that's the case, there are days I would rather be in prison!

Or maybe you think God should build this prison or create another planet for all the sickos but let us stay here. Those people won't suffer necessarily except to be abusing each other...then what is solved? All of the transgressors would be complaining like you are and saying how unfair it is for God to send them away.

I'm sorry, John, that is just idiocy.

I would like YOU to answer my questions.

The idiocy here, Jennifer, is that you think I am the one suggesting the things that YOU did. I am not. I am merely suggesting that a good God should limit the freedom of these sicko's just like he hardened Pharoah's heart for good purposes. I have suggested a number of ways God could do this, not the least of which is to plant thoughts in their minds, cause them to blackout just before assaulting a woman, make them have a flat tire on the way to rob a bank.

Listen, life has been very good to me when I compare mine to most everyone else in third world countires, and many even in America. I have not had any real physical suffering in my life. I've always had something to eat, I'm not butt ugly (well....at least my wife thinks so), and I have social skills that help me get along with many different people. But life is still difficult for me, sometimes very difficult. And here's my point. Why can't God make everyone's life face the same level of difficulties as I have? I don't need to be maimed by an attacker. I don't have to sit and watch my children as they are gunned down by a sicko. I don't have to suffer because some sicko decides to hurt me. I don't need these thngs to have a difficult life. I don't need these things to strengthen my character. I don't need these things to test my moral resolve. I AM ALREADY TESTED DAILY BY THIS LIFE ITSELF WITHOUT THESE ADDED PROBLEMS! And if that's true then neither does anyone else need them! I merely claim that God should stop these kind of sicko's dead in their tracks, just like we put them in prison, and just like he purportedly did in the Bible by killing some of them. It would be easy to do and he could do it without us even knowing he did.

Cheers to you. Nothing personal.

I Challenge Christians To Put Up Or Shut UP...Literally!

It's always man's fault, isn't it? It's never God's fault according to Christians, no matter what the problem is. They are letting God off the hook too easily here...way to easily. What would it take for Christians to say, "hey, this is probably God's fault in some way"? The fact is, God did not reveal himself clearly which has led to so much confusion among Christians even to the point of burning other Christian people alive (at least some, and probably many of the people burned at the stake during the Inquisition would be admitted into today's fundamentalist churches). There have been wars between Christians too. Christians killing other Christians due to a disagreement over little things by today's standards by far, leaving many widows without a husband and many children without a father.

What would it take Christian, for you to consider what I consider obvious? Name it, or drop this defense of your God.

Furthermore, why God did not say this: "Thou shalt not buy, own, sell, or trade slaves," and say it so often that Christians would've gotten the point and be appalled if any other professing Christian decided to own a slave in the American South, much less make it allowable under law. Some of these slaves became Christians and their Christian masters still beat them and whipped them and raped their wives and daughters.

God is at least partially to fault! I have argued this many times before. Christians are simply not being reasonable about this because of blind faith...that's right...blind faith.

But here's the rub. If God is even partially to fault, then this destroys the orthodox Christian faith in a perfectly good God who is believed to be completely pure and faultless. So Christians continue spouting off proof texts mindlessly in support of their blind faith.

Sorry to be so harsh, but Christians are clearly and plainly denying what is obvious...obvious. Which can only mean they are blinded by their faith just as much as sincere Muslims who become suicide bombers in hopes for 70 virgins when they die (THEY REALLY BELIEVE THIS, AND YOU COULD NOT CONVINCE THEM OTHERWISE!). The one difference in today's world (for the time being) is that the Christian blindness (for the most part) doesn't cause this much mayhem. But both are blind.

lowendaction recently provoked this outrage from me when he described, as I've heard so many times before, "a wide range of so-called Christian church fellowships..." (Although, what he said was mild compared to this response of mine which has been building up from hearing so many others who say the same thing in more matter-of-fact ways).

What do Christians mean by describing other evangelical Christian fellowships as "so-called" ones (I presume that's the only fellowship he would be a part of, and if I'm wrong, this takes nothing away from my upcoming challenge)? My challenge is this: Tell me what they believed or how they acted and I will show you how easliy God could have straightened them out. Barring God doing that, I can probably show you how you either believe or act the same way, or that what you believe or how you behave is at least as bad as them (in many cases).

I think I can show you how easily God could've done differently by clearly communicating to them. Easily. Try me. It's PARTIALLY God's fault Christians don't know what the truth is or how they should act.

Give us here at DC a try. Put up or shut up. I claim it's partially God's fault, and if that's the case your orthodox faith crumbles to the ground.

Podcast of Stephen Law Discussing The Problem of Evil

Since John turned me on to the Problem of Evil and Stephen Law, I have stumbled onto an interview with him, David Edmunds and Nigel Warburton discussing it. Stephen takes the problem of evil and turns it around and explores it as the Problem of Good to illustrate its shortcomings. I highly recommend it for everyone.
The picture is of an apologist bending over backwards to dodge some arguments in our recent debates here on DC of the Problem of Evil.

Here are several options for acquiring it.
- The MP3
- Philosophy bites on Learnoutloud.com
- Philosophy Bites Blog

The Identity Crisis of Deconversion

This is a tribute to some very brave commenters. Wrestling with God is one of the hardest things you will ever do. I don't care if you keep your faith or not. It doesn't matter to me. What does matter to me and actually gets me choked up is the situation you find yourself in now. I remember what it was like and it was a very sad time for me.

I have a similar story to you. I was the adult bible study teacher, led the singing every sunday, usually sang the lead in the Christmas Cantata, was the 'goto guy' and a pillar of the community, etc. But in the process of my deconversion, I had no one to talk to. No one wanted to hear it. Those that did said to pray about it. But how can they understand that praying doesn't fix it? Praying is part of the problem. They said during and afterwards that I wasn't working hard enough, or doing it right, but just have faith. In the speed of a thought, I went from being a good guy to a bad guy. When I wasn't a Christian anymore I became an Atheist. I went from being morally sound to immoral. I lost a part of myself. It was like losing a spouse or child or parent. I lost my Identity. And I lost the kind of friendships that I used to have. For me, everything changed. I had a library full of christian appologetics and commentaries, I had invested so much time in the church and studying the bible. I was forever going to be a different person. I miss the fellowship, and I guess that is one of main reasons I joined DC, to talk about it and share my experiences with people like you. Now I dabble in reasoning and philosophy. I don't want to get fooled again.
Take care and good luck.
lee

Debunking J.P. Holding (aka Robert Turkel)

If anyone is interested in reading the best damn site debunking J.P. Holding (aka Robert Turkel) then here it is, bar none, by our own Matthew J. Green, who is working toward getting his Ph.D. someday. There is much to read on his Blog. Don't just stop with the most recent post. They are all great for thought.

The Shroud of Turin

I'm writing about the Shroud of Turin as evidence for Jesus. Is it? See also here.

Catholic physicist Frank J. Tipler, of the anthropic principle fame, has recently defended the Shroud of Turin as genuine in his newest book.

In his book, if I understand him correctly, he argues that a virgin birth of a male child has the probability of 1 and 120 billion from happening naturally. Given the fact that he calculates there have been 60 billion Homo sapiens who have populated the earth, such a thing becomes somewhat probable. Mary would have been an XXY chromosomal female (Klinefelter’s syndrome), except her womb would’ve been normal. The virgin born male child would have a XX chromosomal structure, just like females. This child might not have male genitals.

Now comes the Shroud. DNA evidence from the Shroud showed that the blood had an XY pair, but Tipler argues this might be from contamination. The full results of the DNA testing of the Shroud were published, he says, in an obscure Italian journal, which included "a computer output of the DNA analyzer." However, "there was no attempt to interpret the data.” As soon as Tipler saw the data he was able to interpret it "at once." He says, “They are the expected signature of the DNA of a male born in a virgin birth”--a double XX structure. (p. 184). Thus, “the DNA data support the virgin birth hypothesis,” and that the Turin Shroud “is genuine.”(p. 187).
----------------------

Blinded by Science?
by Lawrence Krauss

By the time I was halfway through Frank Tipler’s new book I scanned the table of contents and was disappointed to find there would be no explanation of the recently reported miraculous appearance of Mother Teresa’s image on a cheese Danish in Nashville. That was unusual, given that Tipler goes out of his way to provide convoluted physics justifications for key Christian miracles, including the image of Jesus on the Shroud of Turin, long debunked as a 14th-century forgery by many experts. Moreover, whenever conventional physics doesn’t provide a sufficient explanation for the phenomenon of interest, Tipler re-invents it.

As a collection of half-truths and exaggerations, I was first tempted to describe Tipler’s new book as nonsense, but I soon realized that that would be unfair to the concept of nonsense. These descriptions are far more dangerous than nonsense, because Tipler’s reasonable descriptions of various aspects of modern physics, combined with his respectable research pedigree, give the distinct illusion that he is honestly describing what the laws of physics imply. He is not. This book provides an object lesson in the dangers of pushing science beyond its domain of validity, and using various scientific approximations as if they are completely valid in all contexts.

---------------------------------
The Physics of Nonsense
Tim Callahan

Dr. Frank Tipler really, really — no, I mean really — needs to take a basic, freshman level, course in comparative mythology. He could also use a course in the development of Christian dogma. He could as well use a little knowledge of what the Bible actually says in the original Hebrew (for the Jewish Scriptures) and the original Greek (for the Christian Scriptures).

As is the case of previous works of this sort, Tipler’s attempt to shoehorn science into the Bible ignores the disciplines of biblical scholarship. There is an arrogance implicit in this. The author is saying, in essence, that his discipline should be respected, but that the disciplines of linguistics, biblical scholarship, comparative mythology, history, and archaeology are of no consequence.

In past exercises of this sort tsunami’s have been used as the explanation for the Exodus story of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea dry shod — when the waters rolled out just before the tidal wave — and for the ensuing destruction of their Egyptian pursuers — when the tsunami proper hit. Earthquakes have been used to explain the collapse of the walls of Jericho, and a multitude of scientific causes have been proposed for the sun standing still at the command of Joshua (see my article “Sun Stand Thou Still” Skeptic Vol. 7, No. 3, 1999). Tipler plays fast and loose with translation of the biblical text and Christian dogma, ignores comparative mythology as an explanation for such things as the virgin birth, and makes bizarre demands on science itself to prove as literally true the Trinity, the Star of Bethlehem, the Virgin Birth and, of course, the Resurrection.

Tipler wades through well-trodden turf in the matter of the Virgin Birth, by trying to make the Immanuel Prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 fit the birth of Jesus, even though it was plainly misused by Matthew. Here is Is. 7:14 as rendered in the King James Version: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Here is the same verse as rendered in the Revised Standard Version: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign; Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

Notice that the “virgin” of the King James Bible has transmogrified into a “young woman.” This is because the Greek of the New Testament and the Septuagint had one word, parthenos, that could be rendered both as “virgin” and “unmarried woman,” whereas the Hebrew scriptures used two words. One, bethula, means specifically “virgin.” The other, almah, means simply a young woman. The word used in Is. 7:14 is almah. Ergo, it is not a prediction of the Virgin Birth, Q.E.D. Yet Tipler rationalizes (pp. 156-157) that maybe the meaning of almah changed over time, and asserts, without supportive evidence, that there are numerous references to the Virgin Birth in Paul’s letters, as well as in Mark and John.

There is an amazingly simple way to cut through all this rationalization and speculation, and that is to put the Immanuel Prophecy back in the context of Isaiah 7. King Ahaz of Judah is being attacked by King Pekah of Israel in alliance with Rezin, prince of Damascus. Isaiah assures Ahaz that God will protect him, saying that a young woman will shortly bear a child named Immanuel, meaning “God is with us.” After this prediction Isaiah says (Is. 7:16) that before this child knows how to refuse evil and choose good, that is, before he reaches the age of moral discrimination, 12 years old at the latest, the kingdoms of Israel and Damascus will be deserted. In other words, this prophecy dealt with the period of the Assyrian conquest of Israel and Damascus by Tiglath-pileser III ca. 732 BCE. There is simply no way to honestly stretch this to fit the Matthean Nativity and the Virgin Birth.

While Tipler’s attempt to use the Immanuel Prophesy as a prediction of Jesus being born of a virgin is both tired and tiresome, his attempt to make the Virgin Birth compatible with science is novel, if nothing else. He argues that parthenogenesis, whereby a female animal can reproduce without being fertilized by a male, could be a scientific way for a virgin to give birth. There are a number of problems with this. First, parthenogenesis has never been observed in mammals. Second, parthenogenesis results from the female egg not undergoing meiosis or reduction division, which produces a haploid cell that needs to unite with another haploid cell to produce a new individual. In parthenogenesis the egg keeps its full compliment of chromosomes, meaning, in mammals, two X chromosomes. Thus a parthenogenetic birth should only produce a daughter. How do we get Jesus? Tipler argues that Jesus was a double X male, an oddity that appears in one out of every 20,000 births. This might just be possible, though it’s still stretching things. However just when you think Tipler’s going to be rational, he brings in something weird. In the case of attempting to prove that Jesus had a double X chromosome genotype, it’s the Shroud of Turin, from which he hopes to find Jesus’ XX genotype in the DNA from the blood on the Shroud. Most people know that the Shroud was radiocarbon dated to the 14th century. Not so says Tipler:

The radiocarbon dating of the Shroud is known to be incorrect, first because bacterial contamination was not taken into account (bacteria add carbon of a later date than the actual Shroud material and thus make it seem younger than it is), and second, because the Shroud samples tested were apparently from a section that had been partially “repaired.” The chemist Raymond Rogers has done a careful chemical analysis of linen fibers taken from all areas of the Turin Shroud, and he is almost certain that the linen used to obtain the radiocarbon date was medieval in origin. That is, the particular sample taken from the Shroud to obtain its age by radiocarbon dating was not manufactured at the same time as the rest of the Shroud. This suggests that the linen from the radiocarbon sample was added at a later date, probably to repair the Shroud. The radiocarbon analysis yielded a date between A.D. 1260 and 1390 completely inconsistent with Rogers’s chemical analysis of the linen fibers from the radiocarbon area.

It is interesting that the argument that bacterial contamination corrupted the date could be used against accepting the radiocarbon dates of the wrappings of the mummy of Rameses the Great or the beeswax used to seal the paint on the bust of Nefertiti. Of course, it never is because no one is trying to make Egyptian archaeology fit into the narrative of a holy text.

As to the argument that the parts of the Shroud tested were either burned or were patches, consider that in an article on the carbon dating of the Shroud in the February 16, 1989 issue of Nature, P.E. Damon and colleagues reported that textile experts took pains to select samples of the cloth away from areas that were either charred or patched. This was done under the auspices of the Holy See and under observation of the local Roman Catholic archbishop. Not only were samples of the Shroud sent to three independent laboratories, as controls they also sent pieces of cloth that were not from the Shroud. The pieces of cloth were labeled A, B, C, etc., and the laboratories were not told which samples were controls and which were from the Shroud. Also, the three laboratories did not compare results until after they had been transmitted to authorities at the British Museum, which was coordinating the testing. In other words, the samples of the shroud were not charred, nor were they from later patches. Furthermore, rigorous steps were taken to insure that the three independent findings were as objective as possible, with the following results reported by Damon in the Nature paper:

The results of radiocarbon measurements at Arizona, Oxford and Zurich yield a calibrated age range with at least 95% confidence for the linen of the Shroud of Turin of AD 1260-1390 (rounded down / up to the nearest 10 yr.). These results therefore provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is medieval.

Defenders of the shroud’s authenticity also claimed that pollen in the cloth could only have come from Israel and that the red brown paint was actually blood. That the heightened defense of the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin in response to the radiocarbon dating by the independent labs is rooted in pseudoscience fueled by faith, can be seen if one considers what the reaction from these sources would have been had the three independent labs found the cloth samples to be from the first century. Then there would have been nothing but praise for the radiocarbon process.

What about the fact that myths of virgin births, along with heroes and demigods rising from the dead, parallel the Christian accounts? Tipler abandons reason and empiricism in favor of what “rings” true to him:

Indeed they were common, but the Gospel accounts of the Risen Jesus have in my judgment (and Pannenberg’s and that of most other scholars who have studied the matter with open minds) a ring of reality unlike these myths. Similarly, the accounts of the Virgin Birth in Matthew and Luke have the ring of reality, unlike the equally common ancient myths of the conception of a god born of copulation between a god and a human female. Matthew and Luke describe the Virgin Birth as the result of the action of the holy spirit, not as the result of intercourse between God the Father and Mary.

It is curious that Tipler finds that the accounts in Matthew and Luke of the Virgin Birth “have the ring of reality,” particularly since these two accounts disagree with each other in nearly every particular. Matthew says Joseph and Mary were living in Bethlehem, and only left for Nazareth to escape persecution, first from Herod the Great, then from his son Herod Archelaus. Luke says they were originally living in Nazareth, but had to go to Bethlehem to be entered into an empire-wide Roman census (which, by the way, is fictional). Thus, they had to make the 70-mile trek to get to Bethlehem with Mary in the late stages of pregnancy. This piece of melodrama, along with other important details, are missing from Matthew. Missing from Luke are the star of Bethlehem, the Magi, the slaughter of the innocents, and the flight of the holy family to Egypt. As to the supposed differences between the Christian myths and those of the pagans, consider what the early church father St. Justin Martyr (ca. CE 100–165) had to say on the subject in item 21 of his First Apology, a philosophical defense of Christian belief addressed to Emperor Antoninus Pius:

And when we say also that the Word, who is the First-begotten of God, was born for us without sexual union, Jesus Christ our teacher, and that He was crucified and died and rose again and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing new beyond (what you believe) concerning those whom you call sons of Zeus. For you know of how many sons of Zeus your esteemed writers speak: Hermes, the interpreting Word and teacher of all; Asclepius, who though he was a great healer, after being struck by a thunderbolt, ascended into heaven; and Dionysus too who was torn in pieces; and Herakles, when he had committed himself to the flames to escape his pains; and the Dioscouri, the sons of Leda; and Perseus, son of Danae; and Bellerophon, who, though of mortal origin, rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus. For what shall I say of Ariadne and those who, like her, have been said to have been placed among the stars? And what of the emperors, whom you think it right to deify, and on whose behalf you produce someone who swears that he has seen the burning Caesar ascend to heaven from the funeral pyre?

That Justin compares the Christ myth to those of Greek mythology and even to the deification of emperors, saying, “we propound nothing new beyond what you believe,” indicates that he saw the virgin birth and the resurrection of Christ in the same light as what he acknowledged to be already existing beliefs, only assuming that the Christian myth was the true one.

Tipler’s science behind the Immaculate Conception involves his theory that evil was implanted in our genes (his version of the Fall) in the distant past. Jesus and Mary would both, according to Tipler, be free of this genetic evil. Here Tiper returns to the Shroud of Turin:

Since Jesus and Mary would share the same genome on my XX male theory, if the genes were absent from Jesus’ genome, they would be absent from Mary’s. Jesus would indeed have been conceived immaculately. A DNA search of the Shroud for the X-chromasome gene just mentioned would be the first step. If this gene were indeed involved in our tendency to commit evil, we would expect to see this gene modified from the human norm in the Shroud DNA. In fact, if the evil gene is connected to bone generation, the amelogenin gene, which codes for the generation of teeth, might be entirely absent from Jesus’ genome both in its X form and in its Y form. If so, this gene would be absent from the DNA in the Shroud of Turin if this artifact is genuine. If the Christian tradition that the Fall affected the entire animal kingdom is correct, we would expect to see a similar evil gene complex present in all animals, presumably in the chromosome coding for the sex differentiation.

Moving on to the Resurrection, Tipler claims that skeptics haven’t made a strong case against it. One could also argue that skeptics haven’t made a strong case against the existence of giant sea serpents. The fallacy in both statements is that it is virtually impossible to prove a negative. Those arguing for the validity of either sea serpents or the Resurrection are the ones bearing the burden of proof. The skeptic’s job then is to examine the evidence to see if it can be either verified or falsified.

Tipler goes back to the Shroud of Turin for actual proof. He then compounds this offense with a whole section devoted to the idea that the Shroud is the actual Holy Grail. This is simply nonsense. The Grail is the invention of medieval writers, specifically the French poet Chretien de Troyes, who wrote his Grail story ca. 1180, the Burgundian Robert de Borron and the German Wolfram von Eschenbach, both writing in the early 1200s. Tipler is really reaching to try to make the source of the Grail stories the Shroud of Turin, which wasn’t even known to exist until after the Grail stories had been written.

Holy Spirit and the Analogy of the Flame.

This article compares the Holy Spirit to a flame and attempts to weaken the claims found in the bible about the Holy Spirit. The flame informs in a way that the Holy Spirit does not.

If we say that
- God is real,
- the Holy Spirit is God,
- the Holy Spirit lives in every christian and that
- the requirements for the indwelling of the spirit are that the person must necessarily profess faith in Jesus Christ and
- the Holy Spirit gives guidance and understanding,
All Christians should understand the same thing. There should be no major disagreement. If we say that God loving Christians wouldn't think of disobeying God intentionally then in theological matters that they don't have any personal preference but state a belief anyway we can assume that they must have gotten guidance from somewhere. Lets say its the Holy Spirit since they should meet the criteria and Lord knows this influence wouldn't come from their geographical area or culture or any other persuasive factors. An example of Christians like this would be my Grandparents or Aunts and Uncles, parents, etc.

Peoples thoughts, attitudes and behavior can be manipulated by stimulating or changing parts of the brain, and it can be shown through fMRI how the brain reacts during thought processes. Behavior and attitudes can be manipulated and monitored through physical means. It can be inferred that if the Holy Spirit exists and has the ability to influence, then it has the ability to manipulate physical properties in the brain as well. If we say that the Holy Spirit is real and is able to influence, not force, then someday we should be able to see this effect in brain monitoring techniques. I would think that some force could be measured as it exerts influence in the brain. Using nano-technology, we can now break the blood brain barrier and research groups are trying to develop tiny sensors able to better monitor the brain from the inside. Recently, in animal research, scientists have mapped a memory, and documented the expanding web-like participation of neurons as an animal learned. In one human case, researchers were able to predict what a person was thinking (within the protocol) with about 80% reliability. I would like to see Christians investigate the hypothesis that the Holy Spirit may be able to be measured in the Lab. However, in my opinion, it's not likely that it would be distinguishable from natural processes and would generate more of that "can't test God" talk the way prayer studies do.

But failing that, if we stipulate that the Holy Spirit is real then maybe we can compare it to a flame. Since it appeared as a flame at Pentecost, it seems appropriate. If we think about a flame, we can safely assume that equally dispersed about the world is the belief that if we put our hand in it we will get burned. We can also safely assume that we all know enough about the properties of a flame to work with it. So if we were to tell someone something obvious about it such as "If you put your hand in the flame you will get burned" they will probably not argue with us. And if we tell them that paper exposed to a flame doesn't burn they would justifiably disagree. You could try this in China, Israel, Saudi Arabia, India and Italy and the results would all be the same. The reason is that it is a real phenomena and people have unmistakable experience with it. They can choose to deny it but the evidence will contradict them in the eyes of any rational person. The flame informs.

Now if we think about the Holy Spirit, and consider it real, and able to manipulate physical properties, then not only should we be able to measure it but we should find that God loving Christians of the sort that wouldn't think of disobeying God, should not have any theological disagreements between themselves and any other denomination which arguably would have thier own God loving Christians of the sort that wouldn't think of disobeying God either. But try this, do a google search for 'salvation AND baptism' and try to figure out if you need to be baptized or not to get into heaven. Since Salvation is what Christianity is all about, I would think it would be obvious how it happens.

The flame informs in a way that the Holy Spirit doesn't. A person can keep their hand in a flame, or not. It's their choice. They can use it wisely or foolishly, its their choice. Most of the time they behave in the manner which minimizes the risk of harm to themselves and others because they know through experience what it entails. They learn things about the flame by dealing with it. We can assume that if there really were a Holy Spirit that was distinguishable to them, Christians would all have been informed about the same things and chosen not to disregard its guidance.

For more of this sort of heresy, see my other Holy Spirit articles.

To The Boiling Point...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(JH)

The Price of Atheism

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

Prayer: Counting the Hits, Discounting the Misses

This was just too funny to pass up, sorry.

Let's Grade Us, Okay?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Born Again Reporter Loses His Faith

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

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

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

Adam and Eve and the Problem of Evil

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Reasonable Christian's Questions

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

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

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These are good questions. I particularly liked question three.

The Problem of Evil and Suffering Revisited

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

The Problem of Evil and Suffering

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

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

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

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

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

Matthew

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is Dog Fighting Evil?

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

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

Feelings as a Result of the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit

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

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

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

Dr. Craig Considers My Question

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


RELATED WORKS:

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

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

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

Nothing: Something to Believe in
by Nica Lalli

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

What I Believe
by Anthony John Patrick Kenny


WORKS THAT CONTAIN A WIDER RANGE OF TESTIMONIES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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