We have Christians commenting who do not even try to understand us here at DC, so I thought I'd state the obvious. WE DO NOT BELIEVE! I find it humorous that I must continually state the obvious to Christians who fail to grasp this simple fact. Again, WE DO NOT BELIEVE!
Some Christians tell us to have faith, others quote "Scripture" to us, and still others tell us that when we die we'll know the truth. As far as I can tell these Christians are merely venting. None of this affects us at all. Again, WE DO NOT BELIEVE! Get it? No amount of quoting the Bible or telling us to have faith or that we'll know when we die makes a bit of sense to us. When I believed I at least understood this. You must reason with us. That's right. You must reason with us. Show us why we should believe the Bible, for instance, don't just quote it to us.
The next time you think of telling us to have faith just picture an orthodox Jew saying that same thing to you, okay? Does this do any good to you as an outsider? The next time you think of quoting the Bible just picture a Mormon quoting a passage from the Book of Mormon, okay? How does that feel? Does it do any good? And the next time you think to tell us we'll know the truth when we die just picture a Muslim saying the same thing to you, okay? Saying these kinds of things has no affect whatsoever on you as an outsider, so why do you try that with us?
[As an aside, if there is no afterlife then no one will ever know we were right about it when they die because in order to know we were right they would have to regain consciousness, which, if we're right cannot happen.]
January 23, 2009
January 22, 2009
Revealing the Reasoning of the Believer: A Review of Jason Long's Book, The Religious Condition
I really liked fellow team member Jason Long’s book, The Religious Condition: Answering and Explaining Christian Reasoning. In some ways he has done for the average person what I have done in my book for the college student, and for that I can only congratulate him. His book begins by taking a good hard look at why people believe and what believers must do in order to defend their beliefs. This encompasses the first half of the book, or 94 pages (5 chapters). The second half of his book (5 chapters) through to page 248 deals with answering a wide range of specific Christian objections, most of which came from believers who emailed him about his previous book, Biblical Nonsense.
I like his approach very much. In the second half of his book Long’s answers to Christian objections are solid and convincing for the most part (which provides many specific examples of what Long claims in the first half about how Christians reason). If you’ve read his first book you need to read this one just to see how he effectively deals with the many objections Christians have made against it. Even if you haven't read his first book this is a good read with intelligent answers.
But the first half of Long’s book intrigued me personally the most, especially since I was very familiar with the objections Christians make to our arguments. In this first half Long gives us many examples of how people come to believe strange things and how they in turn defend them, from Virgin Mary healings to UFO sightings to ghost hunters to Mormons to Muslims. Here he includes Christian beliefs as well, since people who adopt a religious faith usually do so based on when and where they were born. One of the lessons of this first part of his book is that “Human beings are unbelievably gullible and illogical creatures. The ability to think skeptically is not innate; it requires practice.” (p. 84). In this first part I believe Long made this point very effectively and it should cause all believers to question their faith, subject it to scrutiny and demand hard evidence to believe.
But what usually happens is that rather than “initiating an honest and impartial analysis” of any new evidence, believers “simply bury their heads in the sand and continue to observe whatever beliefs…their ancestors thought they needed thousands of years ago.” (p. 12). When looking at new evidence believers get into a defense mode where they seek to defend what they believe rather than trying to impartially weigh it, Long rightly charges. Impartiality might be an elusive goal, of course, but we should at least try to look at the evidence. Consider this example from Long: “If you wanted safety information on a used car, would it be wiser to trust the word of a used car salesman or the findings of a consumer report?” (p. 23). I think the answer is obvious. But Christians routinely will only trust other Christians for their information. They don’t trust outsiders. Why? If I were interested in car safety information I want an outsider’s perspective to get a different, more objective opinion. Sometimes I’ll even get a second opinion from doctors or dentists. Why is it that Christians will not read Long's book or mine for a second opinion? I challenge them to do so, even if they might eventually disagree. At least they would be honestly looking at the other side. That’s why I’ve initiated the Debunking Christianity Challenge in the first place. Start with Long’s book if you will. It’s as good of a place to start as any, especially if you are an average reader and you think you have impartially weighed the available evidence.
In this first half of his book Long clearly articulates concepts like “Cognitive Dissonance,” “Impression Management Theory,” and "Psychological Reactance Theory” and shows how believers defend their beliefs when faced with evidence to the contrary. One story he tells from the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology is about an evangelical group who believed there was going to be a nuclear attack so they went into a bomb shelter for 42 days before coming out to find no nuclear attack had happened. So what did they conclude? Not that they were wrong. No sirree Bob. “Rather than accepting the obvious conclusion that they had erred in their prediction, group members proclaimed that their beliefs had been instrumental in stopping the nuclear attack.” (p. 48).
Citing from the most authoritative books on persuasive psychology, one written by Robert B. Cialdini, titled Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, and another one written by Richard E. Petty and John Cacioppo, titled Attitudes and Persuasion: Classic and Contemporary Approaches, Long proffers several other examples of this kind of thinking among people who do the same thing with regard to everyday examples. Human beings truly are “unbelievably gullible and illogical creatures.” We’re more likely to buy unusual items when priced higher; we’re more likely to buy items that offer coupons even though there is no price advantage; we’re more likely to agree to absurd requests if preceded by ones of greater absurdity; we’re more likely to consider attractive people to be more intelligent; and we’re more likely to agree with the crowd we hang around because we want to fit in; and so on, and so on. (pp. 84, 88-89)
All believers must do is look at these things to realize that as humans we MUST be skeptical about what we believe! In my opinion these studies reinforce my claim that the default position is skepticism. To embrace this default position is to be an adult mature thinker with regard to what we believe. Instead of being mature, Long shows us that Christians do not seek to be skeptical about what they have been taught from their parents. They seek rather to defend what they believe. They are resistant to any contrary evidence. They seek to ignore it or look for any answer that might solve the cognitive dissonance this new evidence creates just to maintain their comfort zone, even if it is a non-answer, a glib answer, a far fetched answer.
Long tells us that we believe both because of emotional reasons and because of logical reasons and he illustrates this with two people, one who has the fear of heights and another who thinks old skyscrapers are not as safe as newer ones. (pp. 76-77). The latter person has intellectual doubt about the older skyscrapers and must be given reasons to think otherwise. But the former person who has a fear of heights has an emotional problem. He knows people go up to the top of the skyscraper and come down safely. So we cannot convince him by showing him the steel beams, or the safety ratings of that building. He must face his fears. He must get to the first floor and look around. When he’s comfortable on the first floor he must then go up to the second floor, and so on until he gets to the top. This may take a long time and he must be willing to face his fears. This, Long argues, is the plight of the believer, since he thinks there isn’t any good evidence to believe in the first place, and I agree.
Believers think we’re wrong about this but I challenge them to consider the possibility they are wrong for a moment. Consider a more objective perspective coming from two former believers who have investigated the reasons to believe and found them seriously wanting. Given the overwhelming psychological data Long presents you’ve got to at least consider this as a real possibility, and if that’s the case then Long says that to free you from your religious indoctrination “we must delve into the history of the individual’s beliefs to find the avenue from which they originate.” (p. 77) This echoes what I've said about the Outsider Test for Faith. When testing your beliefs as an outsider you need to revisit what the reasons were for adopting your faith in the first place. What were they? Most of them were clearly emotional, weren't they? Were they intellectual? If so, when looking back on these reasons do you now consider those initial reasons less than persuasive? Would those same reasons convince you to believe today or are they much too simplistic? What I argue is that you initially adopted your faith for less than good reasons but from that moment onward you see the world through colored glasses by which you now analyze and examine the evidence. YOU NEED TO TAKE THEM OFF, is what Long and I argue, as best as you can. Then do what Julia Sweeney told us she did. She put on her “No God Glasses” for just a few seconds and looked around at the world as if God did not exist. Then she put them on for a minute and then put them on for an hour, and then a day. To me this would be just like climbing up that skyscraper Long wrote about. That’s one way to face your fears.
But fears they are, Long says, especially since believers think they have a “mind-reading god” always present who monitors their every thought. (p. 74). With such a mind-reading God, believers are just too fearful of being honest with themselves about their doubt. So they refuse to truly look at the evidence to the contrary. To such people Long suggests telling God you are sincerely going to look at the evidence “to determine if the Bible is really his word. Ask forgiveness in advance if you feel you must…” This is great advice. If God really cares he should allow you to be intellectually honest with yourself.
All in all, as I said, I really liked this book and I highly recommend it. It is unusual to other comparable works because it seeks to articulate the real reasons why people believe and reveals the mental gymnastic contortions needed to defend ignorant and comfortable beliefs. This type of book just may go a long way to help Christians be honest about their delusional beliefs.
---------------
Oh, and if you really want to test whether petitionary prayer works, and not just play games, Long offers a unique test that should surely go down in the books (something about arsenic and prayer, but I don't think any Christian should try it. pp. 86-87)
I like his approach very much. In the second half of his book Long’s answers to Christian objections are solid and convincing for the most part (which provides many specific examples of what Long claims in the first half about how Christians reason). If you’ve read his first book you need to read this one just to see how he effectively deals with the many objections Christians have made against it. Even if you haven't read his first book this is a good read with intelligent answers.
But the first half of Long’s book intrigued me personally the most, especially since I was very familiar with the objections Christians make to our arguments. In this first half Long gives us many examples of how people come to believe strange things and how they in turn defend them, from Virgin Mary healings to UFO sightings to ghost hunters to Mormons to Muslims. Here he includes Christian beliefs as well, since people who adopt a religious faith usually do so based on when and where they were born. One of the lessons of this first part of his book is that “Human beings are unbelievably gullible and illogical creatures. The ability to think skeptically is not innate; it requires practice.” (p. 84). In this first part I believe Long made this point very effectively and it should cause all believers to question their faith, subject it to scrutiny and demand hard evidence to believe.
But what usually happens is that rather than “initiating an honest and impartial analysis” of any new evidence, believers “simply bury their heads in the sand and continue to observe whatever beliefs…their ancestors thought they needed thousands of years ago.” (p. 12). When looking at new evidence believers get into a defense mode where they seek to defend what they believe rather than trying to impartially weigh it, Long rightly charges. Impartiality might be an elusive goal, of course, but we should at least try to look at the evidence. Consider this example from Long: “If you wanted safety information on a used car, would it be wiser to trust the word of a used car salesman or the findings of a consumer report?” (p. 23). I think the answer is obvious. But Christians routinely will only trust other Christians for their information. They don’t trust outsiders. Why? If I were interested in car safety information I want an outsider’s perspective to get a different, more objective opinion. Sometimes I’ll even get a second opinion from doctors or dentists. Why is it that Christians will not read Long's book or mine for a second opinion? I challenge them to do so, even if they might eventually disagree. At least they would be honestly looking at the other side. That’s why I’ve initiated the Debunking Christianity Challenge in the first place. Start with Long’s book if you will. It’s as good of a place to start as any, especially if you are an average reader and you think you have impartially weighed the available evidence.
In this first half of his book Long clearly articulates concepts like “Cognitive Dissonance,” “Impression Management Theory,” and "Psychological Reactance Theory” and shows how believers defend their beliefs when faced with evidence to the contrary. One story he tells from the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology is about an evangelical group who believed there was going to be a nuclear attack so they went into a bomb shelter for 42 days before coming out to find no nuclear attack had happened. So what did they conclude? Not that they were wrong. No sirree Bob. “Rather than accepting the obvious conclusion that they had erred in their prediction, group members proclaimed that their beliefs had been instrumental in stopping the nuclear attack.” (p. 48).
Citing from the most authoritative books on persuasive psychology, one written by Robert B. Cialdini, titled Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, and another one written by Richard E. Petty and John Cacioppo, titled Attitudes and Persuasion: Classic and Contemporary Approaches, Long proffers several other examples of this kind of thinking among people who do the same thing with regard to everyday examples. Human beings truly are “unbelievably gullible and illogical creatures.” We’re more likely to buy unusual items when priced higher; we’re more likely to buy items that offer coupons even though there is no price advantage; we’re more likely to agree to absurd requests if preceded by ones of greater absurdity; we’re more likely to consider attractive people to be more intelligent; and we’re more likely to agree with the crowd we hang around because we want to fit in; and so on, and so on. (pp. 84, 88-89)
All believers must do is look at these things to realize that as humans we MUST be skeptical about what we believe! In my opinion these studies reinforce my claim that the default position is skepticism. To embrace this default position is to be an adult mature thinker with regard to what we believe. Instead of being mature, Long shows us that Christians do not seek to be skeptical about what they have been taught from their parents. They seek rather to defend what they believe. They are resistant to any contrary evidence. They seek to ignore it or look for any answer that might solve the cognitive dissonance this new evidence creates just to maintain their comfort zone, even if it is a non-answer, a glib answer, a far fetched answer.
Long tells us that we believe both because of emotional reasons and because of logical reasons and he illustrates this with two people, one who has the fear of heights and another who thinks old skyscrapers are not as safe as newer ones. (pp. 76-77). The latter person has intellectual doubt about the older skyscrapers and must be given reasons to think otherwise. But the former person who has a fear of heights has an emotional problem. He knows people go up to the top of the skyscraper and come down safely. So we cannot convince him by showing him the steel beams, or the safety ratings of that building. He must face his fears. He must get to the first floor and look around. When he’s comfortable on the first floor he must then go up to the second floor, and so on until he gets to the top. This may take a long time and he must be willing to face his fears. This, Long argues, is the plight of the believer, since he thinks there isn’t any good evidence to believe in the first place, and I agree.
Believers think we’re wrong about this but I challenge them to consider the possibility they are wrong for a moment. Consider a more objective perspective coming from two former believers who have investigated the reasons to believe and found them seriously wanting. Given the overwhelming psychological data Long presents you’ve got to at least consider this as a real possibility, and if that’s the case then Long says that to free you from your religious indoctrination “we must delve into the history of the individual’s beliefs to find the avenue from which they originate.” (p. 77) This echoes what I've said about the Outsider Test for Faith. When testing your beliefs as an outsider you need to revisit what the reasons were for adopting your faith in the first place. What were they? Most of them were clearly emotional, weren't they? Were they intellectual? If so, when looking back on these reasons do you now consider those initial reasons less than persuasive? Would those same reasons convince you to believe today or are they much too simplistic? What I argue is that you initially adopted your faith for less than good reasons but from that moment onward you see the world through colored glasses by which you now analyze and examine the evidence. YOU NEED TO TAKE THEM OFF, is what Long and I argue, as best as you can. Then do what Julia Sweeney told us she did. She put on her “No God Glasses” for just a few seconds and looked around at the world as if God did not exist. Then she put them on for a minute and then put them on for an hour, and then a day. To me this would be just like climbing up that skyscraper Long wrote about. That’s one way to face your fears.
But fears they are, Long says, especially since believers think they have a “mind-reading god” always present who monitors their every thought. (p. 74). With such a mind-reading God, believers are just too fearful of being honest with themselves about their doubt. So they refuse to truly look at the evidence to the contrary. To such people Long suggests telling God you are sincerely going to look at the evidence “to determine if the Bible is really his word. Ask forgiveness in advance if you feel you must…” This is great advice. If God really cares he should allow you to be intellectually honest with yourself.
All in all, as I said, I really liked this book and I highly recommend it. It is unusual to other comparable works because it seeks to articulate the real reasons why people believe and reveals the mental gymnastic contortions needed to defend ignorant and comfortable beliefs. This type of book just may go a long way to help Christians be honest about their delusional beliefs.
---------------
Oh, and if you really want to test whether petitionary prayer works, and not just play games, Long offers a unique test that should surely go down in the books (something about arsenic and prayer, but I don't think any Christian should try it. pp. 86-87)
The Face of Christianity is Changing and With it Comes Real Dangers for Peaceful Free Loving People
Philip Jenkins has published a few books in which he argues that the locus and shape of Christianity is rapidly changing. A summary of his newest book The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity states this:
Christianity is growing among the people of the southern hemisphere and in Asia by leaps and bounds. It's doing so among superstitious thinking people who are already prone to believing in superstitious things.
Reason and scientific literacy make people less superstitious, period. It took centuries for science and reason to reduce superstitious thinking in Europe (and other things like WWI, WWII), but it eventually did. Europe's Christian population now seems to be at all time lows. Scientific reasoning and freethinking are showing evidence of having its effect on the American continent too, as recent polls show. Christianity flourishes among superstitious people, period. The Christian gospel story is just a more wonderful story as told when compared to other superstitious contenders (God's son died for me? How wonderful!). That's why superstitious people embrace it, not because of the evidence. For if the evidence were behind the Christian story the most scientifically literate people would be the ones embracing it in the industrial West.
So the fact that Christianity is growing in places like Africa and Asia doesn't surprise me at all. Although, sooner or later scientific literacy will catch up to these Christian people and they too will move in the direction Europe has and where America is headed. If we do our best it probably won't take as long for them to become enlightened as it did for the industrial West, maybe just 150 years. But only if we put more effort into this and ban together for the cause of freedom and the planet itself. In the meantime if Jenkins is correct, brace yourselves and your children and your children's children for an escalation of more religious violence in the world.
Jenkins (history and religious studies, Pennsylvania State Univ.) believes that we are on the verge of a transformational religious shift. As he explains it, Christianity, the religion of the West, is rapidly expanding south into Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and he predicts that by the year 2050, only about one-fifth of the world's three billion Christians will be non-Hispanic Caucasian. By numbers alone, they will be able to overwhelm the present political secular nation- and city-states and replace them with theocracies, similar to the Islamic Arab nations. He ends with a warning: with the rise of Islam and Christianity in the heavily populated areas of the Southern Hemisphere, we could see a wave of religious struggles, a new age of Christian crusades and Muslim jihads. These dire prognostications could be seen as just another rant from a xenophobic pseudo-prophet; however, the author is a noted historian, and his statements are well formed, well supported by empirical evidence, and compellingly argued.His is a dire warning to be heeded and worth looking at very closely. If true this is one more reason to support the people who argue against Christianity and Islam and for translating our books into these other languages. If you can translate this Blog into Spanish, Korean, or other languages, that is a real need! To this same end I also need your support here at DC. There is a donate button to your right. Please use it to help. If you don't have the means to do the research, I do, but only if I don't have to get a second job. If you have financial means to do so that's how you can help out. Whatever you do, do something for the future of peaceful free loving people and the the planet itself.
- From Library Journal
Christianity is growing among the people of the southern hemisphere and in Asia by leaps and bounds. It's doing so among superstitious thinking people who are already prone to believing in superstitious things.
Reason and scientific literacy make people less superstitious, period. It took centuries for science and reason to reduce superstitious thinking in Europe (and other things like WWI, WWII), but it eventually did. Europe's Christian population now seems to be at all time lows. Scientific reasoning and freethinking are showing evidence of having its effect on the American continent too, as recent polls show. Christianity flourishes among superstitious people, period. The Christian gospel story is just a more wonderful story as told when compared to other superstitious contenders (God's son died for me? How wonderful!). That's why superstitious people embrace it, not because of the evidence. For if the evidence were behind the Christian story the most scientifically literate people would be the ones embracing it in the industrial West.
So the fact that Christianity is growing in places like Africa and Asia doesn't surprise me at all. Although, sooner or later scientific literacy will catch up to these Christian people and they too will move in the direction Europe has and where America is headed. If we do our best it probably won't take as long for them to become enlightened as it did for the industrial West, maybe just 150 years. But only if we put more effort into this and ban together for the cause of freedom and the planet itself. In the meantime if Jenkins is correct, brace yourselves and your children and your children's children for an escalation of more religious violence in the world.
Can Faith Distinguish Between Fact and Fiction?
Here are two miracles:
1. Jesus Arose From the Dead.
2. St. Raymond of Penyafort Had a Sailing Cloak.
Here is the account of St. Raymond and the sinful prince / king:
This prince was an accomplished soldier and statesman, and a sincere lover of religion, but his great qualities were sullied by a base passion for women. He received the admonitions of the saint with respect, and promised amendment of life, and a faithful compliance with the saint's injunctions in every particular; but without effect. St.Raymund, upon discovering that he entertained a lady at his court with whom he was suspected to have criminal conversation, made the strongest instances to have her dismissed, which the king promised should be done, but postponed the execution. The saint, dissatisfied with the delay, begged leave to retire to his convent at Barcelona. The king not only refused him leave, but threatened to punish with death any person that should undertake to convey him out of the island. The saint, full of confidence in God, said to his companion, "A king of the earth endeavors to deprive us of the means of retiring; but the King of heaven will supply them." He then walked boldly to the waters, spread his cloak upon them, tied up one corner of it to a staff for a sail, and having made the sign of the cross, stepped upon it without fear, while his timorous companion stood trembling and wondering on the shore. On this new kind of vessel the saint was wafted with such rapidity, that in six hours he reached the harbor of Barcelona, sixty leagues distant from Majorca. Those who saw him arrive in this manner met him with acclamations. But he, gathering up his cloak dry, put it on, stole through the crowd, and entered his monastery. A chapel and a tower, built on the place where he landed, have transmitted the memory of this miracle to posterity. This relation is taken from the bull of his canonization, and the earliest historians of his life. The king became a sincere convert, and governed his conscience, and even his kingdoms, by the advice of St. Raymund from that time till the death of the saint.
Both miracles are venerated by honest sincere Christian faith as having factually happened.
A. Form the view of an outsider; how does a non-Christian tell which of the above miracles (if any) are factually true? Why are both stories not just recorded examples wishful thinking?
B. How does one Christian faith (Catholicism) know historical truth by faith; while another Christian faith (Protestantism) knows the same historical truth to be a pious religious fraud? {How can Protestants attack with faith miracles (which Catholics believe to be true) as pious lies (St. Raymond via Negative Criticism), but immediately reverse themselves and claim to know historical truth with the same faith (Jesus’ Resurrection via Positive Criticism)?}
1. Jesus Arose From the Dead.
2. St. Raymond of Penyafort Had a Sailing Cloak.
Here is the account of St. Raymond and the sinful prince / king:
This prince was an accomplished soldier and statesman, and a sincere lover of religion, but his great qualities were sullied by a base passion for women. He received the admonitions of the saint with respect, and promised amendment of life, and a faithful compliance with the saint's injunctions in every particular; but without effect. St.Raymund, upon discovering that he entertained a lady at his court with whom he was suspected to have criminal conversation, made the strongest instances to have her dismissed, which the king promised should be done, but postponed the execution. The saint, dissatisfied with the delay, begged leave to retire to his convent at Barcelona. The king not only refused him leave, but threatened to punish with death any person that should undertake to convey him out of the island. The saint, full of confidence in God, said to his companion, "A king of the earth endeavors to deprive us of the means of retiring; but the King of heaven will supply them." He then walked boldly to the waters, spread his cloak upon them, tied up one corner of it to a staff for a sail, and having made the sign of the cross, stepped upon it without fear, while his timorous companion stood trembling and wondering on the shore. On this new kind of vessel the saint was wafted with such rapidity, that in six hours he reached the harbor of Barcelona, sixty leagues distant from Majorca. Those who saw him arrive in this manner met him with acclamations. But he, gathering up his cloak dry, put it on, stole through the crowd, and entered his monastery. A chapel and a tower, built on the place where he landed, have transmitted the memory of this miracle to posterity. This relation is taken from the bull of his canonization, and the earliest historians of his life. The king became a sincere convert, and governed his conscience, and even his kingdoms, by the advice of St. Raymund from that time till the death of the saint.
Both miracles are venerated by honest sincere Christian faith as having factually happened.
A. Form the view of an outsider; how does a non-Christian tell which of the above miracles (if any) are factually true? Why are both stories not just recorded examples wishful thinking?
B. How does one Christian faith (Catholicism) know historical truth by faith; while another Christian faith (Protestantism) knows the same historical truth to be a pious religious fraud? {How can Protestants attack with faith miracles (which Catholics believe to be true) as pious lies (St. Raymond via Negative Criticism), but immediately reverse themselves and claim to know historical truth with the same faith (Jesus’ Resurrection via Positive Criticism)?}
January 21, 2009
Americans' Confidence in Religion Waning, Poll Finds
By Audrey Barrick
Christian Post Reporter
Just three years ago, half of the U.S. adult population felt the influence of religion on American life was rising. Today, only a little more than a quarter believe so. A recent Gallup Poll found that just 27 percent of Americans perceive religion's influence to be on the upswing while 67 percent of Americans say religion as a whole is losing influence on American life.
The trend is consistent with those who attend religious services regularly as well as those who seldom or never attend services, with majorities saying religion is losing influence in this country. Since 2005, the Gallup Poll has recorded a downward trend in those who believe the influence of religion is increasing. The record low for this perception was in 1970 when only 14 percent said religion was increasing in influence at that time.
The last time a majority of Americans felt the influence of religion was rising was in December 2001, just months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when 71 percent said religious influence was increasing – the highest percentage Gallup Poll recorded since 1957. Previous polls show that there was a long period of doubt about the influence of religion during the Vietnam War era – from 1965 through 1975, according to the Gallup report. Then, in the 1980s, religious influence was perceived as growing when religious conservatism, or the "religious right," was gaining prominence during the Ronald Reagan presidency.
The Gallup Poll suggests that the recent waning perception that religion is increasing in influence is "partially a result of the decline of Republican political strength throughout President George W. Bush's second term. At the close of 2008, few Americans perceive that religion is thriving in U.S. society, and a relatively small majority believe religion is relevant to solving today's problems," the report stated. "These perceptions may stem in part from the political climate – characterized by a weakened Republican Party and the incoming Democratic administration – as well as from the overwhelming consensus that the main problems facing the country today are economic."
In other major findings, the percentage of Americans who believe that religion can answer society's problems is at an all-time low, with only 53 percent saying religion "can answer all or most of today's problems. "The poll, conducted Dec. 4-7, comes during an economic crisis and at a time when the vast majority of Americans believe the U.S. economy is the nation's greatest challenge.
Meanwhile, over the last several decades, the percentage of those who perceive religion as "largely old-fashioned and out of date" has been on a continuous rise. The latest poll found that 28 percent believe it's old-fashioned. Among Americans who attend worship services weekly, 82 percent say religion can answer today's problems. Only 27 percent of those who rarely or never attend agreed. Also, Americans across all age groups were more likely to say that religion can answer today's problems than reject it as old fashioned. But the poll found that confidence in religion to solve problems increased with age (44 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds believe religion can answer problems compared to 52 percent of those 35 to 54 years old and 60 percent of those 55 years and older).
Despite the decreasing confidence in religion among Americans, a majority still says religion plays a very important role in their own lives and self-reported church attendance has not declined this year, the Gallup Poll noted. Results of the latest poll are based on interviews with 1,009 national adults, aged 18 and older.
Christian Post Reporter
Just three years ago, half of the U.S. adult population felt the influence of religion on American life was rising. Today, only a little more than a quarter believe so. A recent Gallup Poll found that just 27 percent of Americans perceive religion's influence to be on the upswing while 67 percent of Americans say religion as a whole is losing influence on American life.
The trend is consistent with those who attend religious services regularly as well as those who seldom or never attend services, with majorities saying religion is losing influence in this country. Since 2005, the Gallup Poll has recorded a downward trend in those who believe the influence of religion is increasing. The record low for this perception was in 1970 when only 14 percent said religion was increasing in influence at that time.
The last time a majority of Americans felt the influence of religion was rising was in December 2001, just months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when 71 percent said religious influence was increasing – the highest percentage Gallup Poll recorded since 1957. Previous polls show that there was a long period of doubt about the influence of religion during the Vietnam War era – from 1965 through 1975, according to the Gallup report. Then, in the 1980s, religious influence was perceived as growing when religious conservatism, or the "religious right," was gaining prominence during the Ronald Reagan presidency.
The Gallup Poll suggests that the recent waning perception that religion is increasing in influence is "partially a result of the decline of Republican political strength throughout President George W. Bush's second term. At the close of 2008, few Americans perceive that religion is thriving in U.S. society, and a relatively small majority believe religion is relevant to solving today's problems," the report stated. "These perceptions may stem in part from the political climate – characterized by a weakened Republican Party and the incoming Democratic administration – as well as from the overwhelming consensus that the main problems facing the country today are economic."
In other major findings, the percentage of Americans who believe that religion can answer society's problems is at an all-time low, with only 53 percent saying religion "can answer all or most of today's problems. "The poll, conducted Dec. 4-7, comes during an economic crisis and at a time when the vast majority of Americans believe the U.S. economy is the nation's greatest challenge.
Meanwhile, over the last several decades, the percentage of those who perceive religion as "largely old-fashioned and out of date" has been on a continuous rise. The latest poll found that 28 percent believe it's old-fashioned. Among Americans who attend worship services weekly, 82 percent say religion can answer today's problems. Only 27 percent of those who rarely or never attend agreed. Also, Americans across all age groups were more likely to say that religion can answer today's problems than reject it as old fashioned. But the poll found that confidence in religion to solve problems increased with age (44 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds believe religion can answer problems compared to 52 percent of those 35 to 54 years old and 60 percent of those 55 years and older).
Despite the decreasing confidence in religion among Americans, a majority still says religion plays a very important role in their own lives and self-reported church attendance has not declined this year, the Gallup Poll noted. Results of the latest poll are based on interviews with 1,009 national adults, aged 18 and older.
Nonpartisan Media Discussing Failed Arguments For God
Over at The Fallacy Files, the article The Arguments That Failed discusses the Boston Review Article God; Philosophers Weigh In by Alex Byrne. Both demonstrate the problems with Anselm's "Ontological" Argument, The Design Argument and The "Fine-Tuning" Argument.
January 19, 2009
Christians Must Be Agnostic
The Use Or Intent Of Information Does Not Determine Its Quality
Over at Sophies Ladder, Jeff says
Reliability is not an IDQ dimension, however it clearly is important. But the use of the information does not determine its quality. Poor quality data can be used to make a living with. Its called Fraud. Information can be presented in such a way as to be persuasive whether it accurately represents real world states or not.
Blaming The Victim
Is the Bible reliable – not as a history or science book – but as a conveyor of information regarding the transcendental, spiritual realm? How can one ever know? There is nothing to compare it to, nothing to triangulate (aka cross-check) it with. That is really the point of all my IDQ articles. Using the information in the Bible, the Christian remains agnostic about God whether they realize it or not. For example Jeff brings up Jesus' encounter with Nicodemus.
This is completely ambiguous and, additionally, lacks nurturing. Can anyone be blamed if they don't understand something that is presented ambiguously? Generally, teachers are held accountable if the students don't comprehend the information. In a small percentage of cases, the student has some individual difficulty that prevents them from grasping the information whether its ambiguous or not. When that is the case, the student is not chastised. In all cases, principle dictates that more attention is given to the student, until the student can comprehend the information. From the text it doesn't seem likely that Nicodemus was being deliberately difficult, it seems that the material was exceptionally difficult for Nicodemus, and, as we can see, it is of poor quality because it demonstrates the IDQ flaws of Incomplete Representation and Ambiguous Representation. Simply stated, Jesus did not explain himself clearly. Simply stated Nicodemus is being blamed for not understanding. Is the material impossible to convey in words? Considering how common the phrase "Born Again" is, when clearly explained, it can be "understood" by some. But Jeff says
If God Engineered Us, And If We Don't Get It, It's Not Our Fault
Alright, I'll stipulate that "it is not possible to speak plainly given the subject matter" for the sake of argument and I'll point out that if the material necessary to be comprehended to obtain salvation is too complicated for our minds, then, since God supposedly engineered us, he is solely responsible. But he has another option. Being all powerful and the creator of all things gives him the option of implanting the knowledge directly in the brain. There's no excuse for the material to be unobtainable, incomprehensible unless it was of poor quality.
Getting Burned is All You Need To Know About Fire
At this point Jeff tries to build the case that
additionally he goes off down a slippery slope. He asks
but he seems to ignore the fact that plenty of understanding goes on without shouting for joy or turning to music. The theory of General Relativity and String Theory can be explained in words alone, it takes a long time, and a lot of words, but it can be done. I know because I understand them and can explain them. I can also explain how schizophrenia is produced by a genetic mutation, and how human behavior is affected by that. I can also explain the History of the concept of the Soul starting with Orpheus. In my opinion someone who says that a thing is indescribable doesn't understand it well enough to talk about it.
Data Abstraction
Jeff goes on to reference John 21:25 where Jesus says that the world cannot contain the books necessary to express the Logos. That's fine, but using data abstraction, I don't need to know how fire works or how my computer works, or how the elements in my steak marinade combine for me to benefit from them. Likewise I didn't need to know how the Logos worked for more than thirty five years as a Christian to appreciate it. When I realized that the Jihadists were right when they said that it looked like their prayers were answered and Allah guided those planes into the towers and that, to me, it looked like God was ignoring the prayers of those people jumping out of the towers I decided to stop using a double standard for my religion. I started to "cross-check" Christianity.
Circular Reasoning And Shooting Yourself In The Foot
Jeff's reasoning is circular. There is nothing to Triangulate his data except with such things as the Bible, his personal experience, the personal experience of other Christians, the personal experience of non-christians and Science. Unfortunately the more data we accumulate to triangulate with, the weaker Jeffs case gets. While Jeff continues to minimize the importance of the text of the Bible and emphasize the importance of the inner dwelling of the Spirit, he keeps using Biblical texts to support his case. The problem is that he is weakening his own case by minimizing the information in the Bible.
Christians Must Be Agnostic About The Things They Do Not Agree On
Unless Christianity can value each others information equally, they must remain agnostic on the topics they do not agree on. The topics they do not agree on get to the fundamental tenets of Christianity. Since that is the case, Christians must necessarily be agnostic about a large percentage of the things they think they know. They must be Agnostic.
Christianity is a disorganized mess and it has all the symptoms of an organization that needs their data cleaned up using the principles of IDQ.
But I think that would be its undoing, and I think that Christians know that intuitively, and that the biological algorithms for comfort and self-preservation kick in to preclude them from committing to the inference from the Data.
With help from John, Prup, an Ed Babinski article, and Sconnor, here are a list of some disputed topics within Christianity.
And following that, I listed the staggering number of Christian Denominations.
- Evolution or creationism?
- Being Born Again?
- Trinity or no?
- Arianism
- The disputes that drove the creation of Protestants.
- Denominations of Protestants
- Denominations of Catholics
- War between Catholics and protestants
- Holy Spirit male or female?
- Holy Spirit is a person or not?
- Salvation, faith or works
- Baptism
- Infant Baptism
- Hell is real and fiery or not?
- Purgatory
- Snake handling
- Once saved always saved?
- Where do Suicides go?
- Speaking in tongues
- Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit
- New covenant theology
- The 'two natures' in Christ.
- The Ordination of Women
- The attitude towards gays
- The various parts of the Bible that seem to be later additions, such as the 'story of the woman taken in adultery' and the 'Great Commission' that ends Matthew, etc.
- The Rapture
- Slavery
- Biblical inerrancy
- Christendom
- Papal Infallibility
- Double Predestination
- Just War Theory
- Penal Substitution
- God as a Male
- Sin
- Unforgivable Sin
- Second coming has already happened
- The point in time that the holy spirit indwells and fills you
- Gifts of the spirit given to everyone or different people at different times
- 'pre-Nicean' controversies
List of Christian Denominations from Wikipedia
1 Catholicism
1.1 The Catholic Church: Churches in communion with the Bishop of Rome
1.2 Other Churches that are Catholic, But Who Are Not In Communion With Rome
2 Eastern Churches
2.1 The (Eastern) Orthodox Church
2.2 Western-Rite Orthodox Churches
2.3 Other Eastern Orthodox Churches
2.3.1 Assyrian Church of the East
2.4 Oriental Orthodoxy
2.4.1 Oriental Orthodox Communion
3 Anglicanism
3.1 Anglican Communion (in communion with the Church of England)
3.2 Independent Anglican and Continuing Anglican Movement Churches
4 Protestant
4.1 Pre-Lutheran Protestants
4.2 Lutheranism
4.3.1 Presbyterianism
4.3.2 Congregationalist Churches
4.4 Anabaptists
4.5 Methodists
4.6 Pietists and Holiness Churches
4.7 Baptists
4.7.1 Spiritual Baptists
4.9 Apostolic Churches - Irvingites
4.10 Pentecostalism
4.11 Oneness Pentecostalism
4.12 Charismatics
4.12.1 Neo-Charismatic Churches
4.13 African Initiated Churches
4.14 United and uniting churches
4.15 Other Protestant Denominations
4.16 Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
5 Messianic Judaism
6 Restorationism
6.1 Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement
6.2 Southcottites
6.3 Millerites and Comparable groups
6.3.1 Sabbath Keeping Churches, Adventist
6.3.2 Sabbath-Keeping Churches, Non-Adventist in north Pennsylvania
6.3.3 Sunday Adventists
6.3.4 Sacred Name Groups
6.3.5 Other Adventists
6.3.6 Bible Student Groups
6.4 Anglo-Israelism
7 Nontrinitarian Groups
7.1 Unitarianism and Universalism
8 Religious movements related to Christianity
8.1 Manichaeism
8.2 The New Church also called Swedenborgianism
8.2.1 Episcopal
8.2.2 Congregational
8.3 New Thought
8.4 Christian mystery movements
9 Ethnic or syncretic religions incorporating elements of Christianity
10 Christianism
RECOMMENDED READING
Information and Data Quality (IDQ)
* Journey to Data Quality, from Amazon
* Data Quality Assessment
* Beyond Accuracy: What Data Quality Means To Consumers
* Anchoring Data Quality Dimensions in Ontological Foundations
IDQ Applied To The Bible
1. How Accurate is the Bible?
2. Applying Data and Information Quality Principles To The Bible
3. Applying IDQ Principles of Research To The Bible
4. Overview of IDQ Deficiencies Which Are Evident In Scripture
5. Jesus As God From IDQ Design Deficincies
6. "Son of Man" As Jesus From IDQ Deficiencies
7. IDQ Flaw of Meaningless Representation In The Bible
Triangulation
* "Triangulation", University of California, San Francisco, Global health Sciences
* "Triangulation", Wikipedia
IDQ Applied
* National Transportation Safety Board information quality standards
* Thank Sully!
Rebuttals
* IDQ Flaws Relevant To The Holy Spirit
* Cooking The Books To Avoid IDQ Principles
* Accuracy In Detecting The Spiritual Realm Using "Triangulation"
Over at Sophies Ladder, Jeff says
"Reliability, on the other hand, I take to mean “can be dependably used” and so, obviously, reliability relates to the purposes intended."
Reliability is not an IDQ dimension, however it clearly is important. But the use of the information does not determine its quality. Poor quality data can be used to make a living with. Its called Fraud. Information can be presented in such a way as to be persuasive whether it accurately represents real world states or not.
Blaming The Victim
Is the Bible reliable – not as a history or science book – but as a conveyor of information regarding the transcendental, spiritual realm? How can one ever know? There is nothing to compare it to, nothing to triangulate (aka cross-check) it with. That is really the point of all my IDQ articles. Using the information in the Bible, the Christian remains agnostic about God whether they realize it or not. For example Jeff brings up Jesus' encounter with Nicodemus.
“How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?” he asks. Jesus chastises him for not knowing any better than to be so literal. “You’re a master of Israel and you don’t know these things?”
This is completely ambiguous and, additionally, lacks nurturing. Can anyone be blamed if they don't understand something that is presented ambiguously? Generally, teachers are held accountable if the students don't comprehend the information. In a small percentage of cases, the student has some individual difficulty that prevents them from grasping the information whether its ambiguous or not. When that is the case, the student is not chastised. In all cases, principle dictates that more attention is given to the student, until the student can comprehend the information. From the text it doesn't seem likely that Nicodemus was being deliberately difficult, it seems that the material was exceptionally difficult for Nicodemus, and, as we can see, it is of poor quality because it demonstrates the IDQ flaws of Incomplete Representation and Ambiguous Representation. Simply stated, Jesus did not explain himself clearly. Simply stated Nicodemus is being blamed for not understanding. Is the material impossible to convey in words? Considering how common the phrase "Born Again" is, when clearly explained, it can be "understood" by some. But Jeff says
In the case of the Bible, it is likely that it’s not possible to speak plainly, given the subject matter.
If God Engineered Us, And If We Don't Get It, It's Not Our Fault
Alright, I'll stipulate that "it is not possible to speak plainly given the subject matter" for the sake of argument and I'll point out that if the material necessary to be comprehended to obtain salvation is too complicated for our minds, then, since God supposedly engineered us, he is solely responsible. But he has another option. Being all powerful and the creator of all things gives him the option of implanting the knowledge directly in the brain. There's no excuse for the material to be unobtainable, incomprehensible unless it was of poor quality.
Getting Burned is All You Need To Know About Fire
At this point Jeff tries to build the case that
There is something very small about a concept if it can be contained in words alone.
additionally he goes off down a slippery slope. He asks
Why do we shout for joy or turn to music to express ourselves, if words alone can suffice?
but he seems to ignore the fact that plenty of understanding goes on without shouting for joy or turning to music. The theory of General Relativity and String Theory can be explained in words alone, it takes a long time, and a lot of words, but it can be done. I know because I understand them and can explain them. I can also explain how schizophrenia is produced by a genetic mutation, and how human behavior is affected by that. I can also explain the History of the concept of the Soul starting with Orpheus. In my opinion someone who says that a thing is indescribable doesn't understand it well enough to talk about it.
Data Abstraction
Jeff goes on to reference John 21:25 where Jesus says that the world cannot contain the books necessary to express the Logos. That's fine, but using data abstraction, I don't need to know how fire works or how my computer works, or how the elements in my steak marinade combine for me to benefit from them. Likewise I didn't need to know how the Logos worked for more than thirty five years as a Christian to appreciate it. When I realized that the Jihadists were right when they said that it looked like their prayers were answered and Allah guided those planes into the towers and that, to me, it looked like God was ignoring the prayers of those people jumping out of the towers I decided to stop using a double standard for my religion. I started to "cross-check" Christianity.
Circular Reasoning And Shooting Yourself In The Foot
Jeff's reasoning is circular. There is nothing to Triangulate his data except with such things as the Bible, his personal experience, the personal experience of other Christians, the personal experience of non-christians and Science. Unfortunately the more data we accumulate to triangulate with, the weaker Jeffs case gets. While Jeff continues to minimize the importance of the text of the Bible and emphasize the importance of the inner dwelling of the Spirit, he keeps using Biblical texts to support his case. The problem is that he is weakening his own case by minimizing the information in the Bible.
Christians Must Be Agnostic About The Things They Do Not Agree On
Unless Christianity can value each others information equally, they must remain agnostic on the topics they do not agree on. The topics they do not agree on get to the fundamental tenets of Christianity. Since that is the case, Christians must necessarily be agnostic about a large percentage of the things they think they know. They must be Agnostic.
Christianity is a disorganized mess and it has all the symptoms of an organization that needs their data cleaned up using the principles of IDQ.
But I think that would be its undoing, and I think that Christians know that intuitively, and that the biological algorithms for comfort and self-preservation kick in to preclude them from committing to the inference from the Data.
With help from John, Prup, an Ed Babinski article, and Sconnor, here are a list of some disputed topics within Christianity.
And following that, I listed the staggering number of Christian Denominations.
- Evolution or creationism?
- Being Born Again?
- Trinity or no?
- Arianism
- The disputes that drove the creation of Protestants.
- Denominations of Protestants
- Denominations of Catholics
- War between Catholics and protestants
- Holy Spirit male or female?
- Holy Spirit is a person or not?
- Salvation, faith or works
- Baptism
- Infant Baptism
- Hell is real and fiery or not?
- Purgatory
- Snake handling
- Once saved always saved?
- Where do Suicides go?
- Speaking in tongues
- Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit
- New covenant theology
- The 'two natures' in Christ.
- The Ordination of Women
- The attitude towards gays
- The various parts of the Bible that seem to be later additions, such as the 'story of the woman taken in adultery' and the 'Great Commission' that ends Matthew, etc.
- The Rapture
- Slavery
- Biblical inerrancy
- Christendom
- Papal Infallibility
- Double Predestination
- Just War Theory
- Penal Substitution
- God as a Male
- Sin
- Unforgivable Sin
- Second coming has already happened
- The point in time that the holy spirit indwells and fills you
- Gifts of the spirit given to everyone or different people at different times
- 'pre-Nicean' controversies
List of Christian Denominations from Wikipedia
1 Catholicism
1.1 The Catholic Church: Churches in communion with the Bishop of Rome
1.2 Other Churches that are Catholic, But Who Are Not In Communion With Rome
2 Eastern Churches
2.1 The (Eastern) Orthodox Church
2.2 Western-Rite Orthodox Churches
2.3 Other Eastern Orthodox Churches
2.3.1 Assyrian Church of the East
2.4 Oriental Orthodoxy
2.4.1 Oriental Orthodox Communion
3 Anglicanism
3.1 Anglican Communion (in communion with the Church of England)
3.2 Independent Anglican and Continuing Anglican Movement Churches
4 Protestant
4.1 Pre-Lutheran Protestants
4.2 Lutheranism
4.3.1 Presbyterianism
4.3.2 Congregationalist Churches
4.4 Anabaptists
4.5 Methodists
4.6 Pietists and Holiness Churches
4.7 Baptists
4.7.1 Spiritual Baptists
4.9 Apostolic Churches - Irvingites
4.10 Pentecostalism
4.11 Oneness Pentecostalism
4.12 Charismatics
4.12.1 Neo-Charismatic Churches
4.13 African Initiated Churches
4.14 United and uniting churches
4.15 Other Protestant Denominations
4.16 Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
5 Messianic Judaism
6 Restorationism
6.1 Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement
6.2 Southcottites
6.3 Millerites and Comparable groups
6.3.1 Sabbath Keeping Churches, Adventist
6.3.2 Sabbath-Keeping Churches, Non-Adventist in north Pennsylvania
6.3.3 Sunday Adventists
6.3.4 Sacred Name Groups
6.3.5 Other Adventists
6.3.6 Bible Student Groups
6.4 Anglo-Israelism
7 Nontrinitarian Groups
7.1 Unitarianism and Universalism
8 Religious movements related to Christianity
8.1 Manichaeism
8.2 The New Church also called Swedenborgianism
8.2.1 Episcopal
8.2.2 Congregational
8.3 New Thought
8.4 Christian mystery movements
9 Ethnic or syncretic religions incorporating elements of Christianity
10 Christianism
RECOMMENDED READING
Information and Data Quality (IDQ)
* Journey to Data Quality, from Amazon
* Data Quality Assessment
* Beyond Accuracy: What Data Quality Means To Consumers
* Anchoring Data Quality Dimensions in Ontological Foundations
IDQ Applied To The Bible
1. How Accurate is the Bible?
2. Applying Data and Information Quality Principles To The Bible
3. Applying IDQ Principles of Research To The Bible
4. Overview of IDQ Deficiencies Which Are Evident In Scripture
5. Jesus As God From IDQ Design Deficincies
6. "Son of Man" As Jesus From IDQ Deficiencies
7. IDQ Flaw of Meaningless Representation In The Bible
Triangulation
* "Triangulation", University of California, San Francisco, Global health Sciences
* "Triangulation", Wikipedia
IDQ Applied
* National Transportation Safety Board information quality standards
* Thank Sully!
Rebuttals
* IDQ Flaws Relevant To The Holy Spirit
* Cooking The Books To Avoid IDQ Principles
* Accuracy In Detecting The Spiritual Realm Using "Triangulation"
Robert M. Price and I are Interviewed on The Enlightenment Show.
[Redated Post] This show was produced by the Freethought of Ft. Wayne, Indiana, August 2008. First Episode. And Second Episode.
Five Original Arguments in My Book
A few Christian reviewers of my book, some of whom show no evidence they have even read it, claim there is nothing new in it. I beg to differ.
For people looking for new arguments I actually think I can count five new ones that have probably never been used before in one book (at least not in the way I do that I know of). That's quite an accomplishment since most people don't come up with a new argument their entire lives. It has been quipped, "Confound the ancients; they've stolen all of our ideas." New arguments are hard to come by because there have been thousands of years of books that predate ours. A.N. Whitehead said all philosophy is but a footnote to Plato (This is a gross exaggeration).
And yet, I think there are five things in my book that are probably original to it: 1) My outsider test for faith; 2) my version of the problem of evil (which assumes God exists); 3) Testing the results of prayer by praying to change the past; 4) Looking at the superstitious nature of the people in the Bible (this has been suggested before but mine is probably the first detailed discussion of it); 5) the structure of the whole book itself having three parts containing one cumulative and comprehensive argument against Christian theism.
Some very good reviews are being written about it, for which I'm very thankful. [I update this link periodically.]
For people looking for new arguments I actually think I can count five new ones that have probably never been used before in one book (at least not in the way I do that I know of). That's quite an accomplishment since most people don't come up with a new argument their entire lives. It has been quipped, "Confound the ancients; they've stolen all of our ideas." New arguments are hard to come by because there have been thousands of years of books that predate ours. A.N. Whitehead said all philosophy is but a footnote to Plato (This is a gross exaggeration).
And yet, I think there are five things in my book that are probably original to it: 1) My outsider test for faith; 2) my version of the problem of evil (which assumes God exists); 3) Testing the results of prayer by praying to change the past; 4) Looking at the superstitious nature of the people in the Bible (this has been suggested before but mine is probably the first detailed discussion of it); 5) the structure of the whole book itself having three parts containing one cumulative and comprehensive argument against Christian theism.
Some very good reviews are being written about it, for which I'm very thankful. [I update this link periodically.]
Accuracy In Detecting The Spiritual Realm Using "Triangulation"
Over at Sophies Ladder Jeff agrees that accuracy and reliability are important but his view of accuracy and reliability all stem from some "inner knowing". This contradicts commonly held principles about accuracy and reliability which generally holds that the source of the information is known, can be verified, represents real world states and can be depended on to accurately reflect real world states when verification is not a viable option and when planning needs to be done. But for the moment, I'll stipulate the Spiritual Realm exists.
The Sixth Sense, AKA The Spirit Detector
Jeff says
In this passage he has presumed the existence of the spiritual realm. But he has not defined the spiritual realm. Where does he get the Idea that the spiritual real exists? Does he get it from the Bible? Surely he does not get it from the Bible with as much effort as he is making to distance himself from it. If he knows the spiritual realm exists, and he knows that he has the spirit indwelling, and he gets information from it, then Jeff has a spiritual detector built in. If Jeff has a spiritual detector built in, like he does for colors and sounds, then we probably all do. And in fact we have most of the world exercising their spiritual detectors in one way or another. Muslims, Hindus, (some) Buddhists, Jews, smaller religions outside the scope of the "Big Five" additionally Psychics, New Agers, Tarot Card readers, etc all have their Spiritual Detectors running gathering data that they use to make decisions with. However, there is little consistency in the data they are gathering, but as a I said, there is a little.
Measuring The Effectiveness of The Spirit Detector
Does the spiritual realm that he's talking about apply to the rest of those groups or is it Christian only? Which groups Spiritual Detector is collecting data that represents the state of the real world. In this sense, I mean real world to include the spiritual world. If the spiritual world exists, and it can be detected, it must overlap with humans and our earth. I suppose a good analogy would be like its another dimension. If the spiritual world can be detected, then it can be described, and if it can be described then uncertainty about it can be reduced, and if uncertainty about it can be reduced then we would have some way of measuring it in relation to other descriptions, then we could find which groups spiritual detector is the more accurate. If we can find which groups spiritual detector is more accurate, then we might be able to whittle away at the myriad of religions and their gods that exist today.
Collectors, Custodians, and Consumers
In Information and Data Quality concepts, there are three groups of people that are stakeholders in ensuring quality of accuracy of data and information. They are Collectors, Custodians and Consumers. One person can belong to any or all groups simultaneously. Jeff and the other spiritual detectors are in the Collector and the Consumer group. In IDQ it is presumed that the data collectors goal is accuracy. It is presumed that the information coming from the collectors will represent real world states, but Humans make mistakes so the data collected must be audited to ensure its accuracy. The way this is done is using the concept of "Triangulation".
Triangulation
Triangulation is an approach to data analysis that synthesizes data from multiple sources.
"Triangulation", University of California, San Francisco, Global health Sciences
"Triangulation", Wikipedia
It recognizes the need to cross-check (aka cross-examine) information to ensure accuracy and reliability. The accuracy and reliability that IDQ measures and was designed to obtain cannot be equivocated to suit the observer, it has to be able to be used and applied to such things as Safety in the industries of Health Care, Aviation, Maritime, Nuclear Power, Chemical Engineering, Construction etc.
Humans Make Mistakes And Triangulation Mitigates Them
So now we just need to figure out a way to triangulate the data coming from all those spiritual detectors and find what they have in common. We can take all that data and put it in a set and reduce it to the lowest common denominator and start comparing it to other things that are relatively well understood. As I said above, there is little consistency in the data they are gathering, but there is some. I know one group of items in the spiritual detector set off the top of my head that are common to all of those sets of spiritual detector data, Human Cognitive Bias. Humans make mistakes, that is why there is a need to audit the accuracy of the data collectors. In my opinion, unless there is some way to increase the likelihood of any those spiritual detectors being more accurate than any other, I can only commit to agnosticism about the spiritual realm and, in principal, decisions should not be made using ambiguous information.
Jeff says
Reliability is not an IDQ dimension, however it clearly is important. But the use of the information does not determine its quality. Poor quality data can be used to make a living with. Its called Fraud. Information can be presented in such a way as to be persuasive whether it accurately represents real world states or not.
TO BE CONTINUED.....
RECOMMENDED READING
Information and Data Quality (IDQ)
* Anchoring Data Quality Dimensions in Ontological Foundations
* Beyond Accuracy: What Data Quality Means To Consumers
* Data Quality Assessment
* Journey to Data Quality, from Amazon
IDQ Applied To The Bible
1. How Accurate is the Bible?
2. Applying Data and Information Quality Principles To The Bible
3. Applying IDQ Principles of Research To The Bible
4. Overview of IDQ Deficiencies Which Are Evident In Scripture
5. Jesus As God From IDQ Design Deficincies
6. "Son of Man" As Jesus From IDQ Deficiencies
7. IDQ Flaw of Meaningless Representation In The Bible
Triangulation
* "Triangulation", University of California, San Francisco, Global health Sciences
* "Triangulation", Wikipedia
IDQ Applied
National Transportation Safety Board information quality standards
The Sixth Sense, AKA The Spirit Detector
Jeff says
But the real world for the Bible is God and the spiritual realms
Any value placed in accuracy and reliability must therefore be in relation to the spiritual, inward truth.
In this passage he has presumed the existence of the spiritual realm. But he has not defined the spiritual realm. Where does he get the Idea that the spiritual real exists? Does he get it from the Bible? Surely he does not get it from the Bible with as much effort as he is making to distance himself from it. If he knows the spiritual realm exists, and he knows that he has the spirit indwelling, and he gets information from it, then Jeff has a spiritual detector built in. If Jeff has a spiritual detector built in, like he does for colors and sounds, then we probably all do. And in fact we have most of the world exercising their spiritual detectors in one way or another. Muslims, Hindus, (some) Buddhists, Jews, smaller religions outside the scope of the "Big Five" additionally Psychics, New Agers, Tarot Card readers, etc all have their Spiritual Detectors running gathering data that they use to make decisions with. However, there is little consistency in the data they are gathering, but as a I said, there is a little.
Measuring The Effectiveness of The Spirit Detector
Does the spiritual realm that he's talking about apply to the rest of those groups or is it Christian only? Which groups Spiritual Detector is collecting data that represents the state of the real world. In this sense, I mean real world to include the spiritual world. If the spiritual world exists, and it can be detected, it must overlap with humans and our earth. I suppose a good analogy would be like its another dimension. If the spiritual world can be detected, then it can be described, and if it can be described then uncertainty about it can be reduced, and if uncertainty about it can be reduced then we would have some way of measuring it in relation to other descriptions, then we could find which groups spiritual detector is the more accurate. If we can find which groups spiritual detector is more accurate, then we might be able to whittle away at the myriad of religions and their gods that exist today.
Collectors, Custodians, and Consumers
In Information and Data Quality concepts, there are three groups of people that are stakeholders in ensuring quality of accuracy of data and information. They are Collectors, Custodians and Consumers. One person can belong to any or all groups simultaneously. Jeff and the other spiritual detectors are in the Collector and the Consumer group. In IDQ it is presumed that the data collectors goal is accuracy. It is presumed that the information coming from the collectors will represent real world states, but Humans make mistakes so the data collected must be audited to ensure its accuracy. The way this is done is using the concept of "Triangulation".
Triangulation
Triangulation is an approach to data analysis that synthesizes data from multiple sources.
"Triangulation", University of California, San Francisco, Global health Sciences
"Triangulation", Wikipedia
It recognizes the need to cross-check (aka cross-examine) information to ensure accuracy and reliability. The accuracy and reliability that IDQ measures and was designed to obtain cannot be equivocated to suit the observer, it has to be able to be used and applied to such things as Safety in the industries of Health Care, Aviation, Maritime, Nuclear Power, Chemical Engineering, Construction etc.
Humans Make Mistakes And Triangulation Mitigates Them
So now we just need to figure out a way to triangulate the data coming from all those spiritual detectors and find what they have in common. We can take all that data and put it in a set and reduce it to the lowest common denominator and start comparing it to other things that are relatively well understood. As I said above, there is little consistency in the data they are gathering, but there is some. I know one group of items in the spiritual detector set off the top of my head that are common to all of those sets of spiritual detector data, Human Cognitive Bias. Humans make mistakes, that is why there is a need to audit the accuracy of the data collectors. In my opinion, unless there is some way to increase the likelihood of any those spiritual detectors being more accurate than any other, I can only commit to agnosticism about the spiritual realm and, in principal, decisions should not be made using ambiguous information.
Jeff says
"Reliability, on the other hand, I take to mean “can be dependably used” and so, obviously, reliability relates to the purposes intended."
Reliability is not an IDQ dimension, however it clearly is important. But the use of the information does not determine its quality. Poor quality data can be used to make a living with. Its called Fraud. Information can be presented in such a way as to be persuasive whether it accurately represents real world states or not.
TO BE CONTINUED.....
RECOMMENDED READING
Information and Data Quality (IDQ)
* Anchoring Data Quality Dimensions in Ontological Foundations
* Beyond Accuracy: What Data Quality Means To Consumers
* Data Quality Assessment
* Journey to Data Quality, from Amazon
IDQ Applied To The Bible
1. How Accurate is the Bible?
2. Applying Data and Information Quality Principles To The Bible
3. Applying IDQ Principles of Research To The Bible
4. Overview of IDQ Deficiencies Which Are Evident In Scripture
5. Jesus As God From IDQ Design Deficincies
6. "Son of Man" As Jesus From IDQ Deficiencies
7. IDQ Flaw of Meaningless Representation In The Bible
Triangulation
* "Triangulation", University of California, San Francisco, Global health Sciences
* "Triangulation", Wikipedia
IDQ Applied
National Transportation Safety Board information quality standards
January 18, 2009
Thank Sully!
By now everyone has heard about the plane crash in the Hudson River. The "miraculous" landing was facilitated by a human being prepared for the split second decisions he had to make by a lifetime of EXPERIENCE, DATA GATHERING, DATA ANALYSIS and SOLUTION PROVIDING. PRAISE SULLY! HALLELUJAH FOR IDQ! Can I get A "HUMAN"?
Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, III
Sullenberger is president and CEO of Safety Reliability Methods Inc., which is a company he founded that provides
* Analysis/Assessment
* Risk Evaluation
* Strategic Vision/Mission
* Executive/Leadership Enhancement
* Targeted Training Development and Implementation
* Team Coaching
* Transition to High Reliability Organization
consulting services to business, government, aviation and health care.
He has three degrees and forty years experience combined as a commercial and military fighter pilot.
In industries such as Aviation, Safety and Health care Information and Data Quality are fundamental. Data Gathering is audited for its accuracy and information is treated as a product.
To illustrate the point here is what the US National Transportation and Safety Board have to say about Information and Data Quality
So the next time you put your safety in the hands of a professional, you better hope its an educated human that places a high degree of importance in Information and Data Quality principles.
In the last few days I've seen several people who had nothing to do with the decisions made in that cockpit thanking God for their safety, and thanking God that Sully was the right man at the right time, but Sully didn't spend his life preparing for those minutes in Church. He did it by a lifetime of working hard and using his head.
And if God had anything to do with it, then he interfered with normal human activities and interfered with the free will of numerous people. If the claim is that God did it for his Glory, then where was he? All I saw was bunch of Humans doing what Humans do best, helping each other in times of trouble, and many hard working, highly skilled, professionals doing a great job, doing what they had prepared for.
No God Required.
Crisis? Just call educated, data driven humans.
Thank Sully!
Thank the flight crew!
Thank the boat crews!
Thank safety training!
Thank IDQ!
Give the credit where the credit is due.
Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, III
Sullenberger is president and CEO of Safety Reliability Methods Inc., which is a company he founded that provides
* Analysis/Assessment
* Risk Evaluation
* Strategic Vision/Mission
* Executive/Leadership Enhancement
* Targeted Training Development and Implementation
* Team Coaching
* Transition to High Reliability Organization
consulting services to business, government, aviation and health care.
He has three degrees and forty years experience combined as a commercial and military fighter pilot.
News Excerpt from CNN about Sully
US Airways captain the 'consummate pilot', CNN
The pilot speaks internationally on airline safety, and collaborates with the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management at the University of California-Berkeley, whose researchers look for ways to avoid air disasters.
Sullenberger was primed to help passengers aboard the Airbus A320 survive the crisis, said Karlene Roberts, a university professor who co-directs the center.
Education: U.S. Air Force Academy, B.S.; Purdue University, M.S.; Northern Colorado University, M.A.
He was an instructor and Air Line Pilots Association safety chairman, accident investigator and national technical committee member, according to a biography on the Web site of his company.
He participated in several U.S. Air Force and National Transportation Safety Board accident investigations, and worked with NASA scientists on a paper on error and aviation, according to his resume.
In industries such as Aviation, Safety and Health care Information and Data Quality are fundamental. Data Gathering is audited for its accuracy and information is treated as a product.
To illustrate the point here is what the US National Transportation and Safety Board have to say about Information and Data Quality
National Transportation Safety Board information quality standards
Quality - information should incorporate utility, objectivity, accuracy, and integrity.
* Utility - information should be useful for its intended audience.
* Objectivity - information products should be unbiased.
* Accuracy - factual information must be accurate, clear, concise, and complete.
* Integrity - information released to the public should be secure from tampering, modification, or destruction.
So the next time you put your safety in the hands of a professional, you better hope its an educated human that places a high degree of importance in Information and Data Quality principles.
In the last few days I've seen several people who had nothing to do with the decisions made in that cockpit thanking God for their safety, and thanking God that Sully was the right man at the right time, but Sully didn't spend his life preparing for those minutes in Church. He did it by a lifetime of working hard and using his head.
And if God had anything to do with it, then he interfered with normal human activities and interfered with the free will of numerous people. If the claim is that God did it for his Glory, then where was he? All I saw was bunch of Humans doing what Humans do best, helping each other in times of trouble, and many hard working, highly skilled, professionals doing a great job, doing what they had prepared for.
No God Required.
Crisis? Just call educated, data driven humans.
Thank Sully!
Thank the flight crew!
Thank the boat crews!
Thank safety training!
Thank IDQ!
Give the credit where the credit is due.
A Six-Part Documentary on Faith Healing
This documentary debunks faith healings fairly well!
Edit on March 10, 2011: This video no longer exists but here's another one, so enjoy.
Edit on March 10, 2011: This video no longer exists but here's another one, so enjoy.
January 17, 2009
On Plantinga's Ontological Argument
One of the most curious arguments for the existence of God has been presented by St. Anselm, René Descartes, and many other theologians throughout the centuries: the Ontological Argument. The classical formulation of the argument is (1):
1. God is that entity than which nothing greater can be conceived.
2. It is greater to be necessary than not.
3. God must be necessary.
4. God necessarily exists.
Perhaps the most challenging formulation of the argument is presented today by Alvin Plantinga. Dr. William Lane Craig presents Plantinga's argument as (2):
1. It is possible that a maximally great being exists.
2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.
3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then He exists in every possible world. ($$)
4. If He exists in every possible world, He must exist in the actual world.
I will discuss this particular formulation at length in this article.
The Classical Take
A brief statement about the classical version of this argument is necessary, particularly about the necessity of "necessary" being an inherently positive quality in and of itself, without regards to its referent in reality. This is not entirely clear; a fantastic counterexample would be certain events in the context of human history, which as an A-time theorist I hold to be necessary facts of existence. Suppose, for instance, that Adam and Eve existed and chose to Fall. Then, unless one is a high-Calvinist, the necessity (by asssumption) of the Fall would be a negative quality, as opposed to a positive one, as the action in the Fall brought death and damnation to Adam, Eve, and subsequently, to all of us. Therefore, it cannot be established that necessity qua necessity is an inherently positive quality of existence.
Other refutations exist of this presentation, from skeptics to believers. Hume famously rejected the argument by stating that it was logically possible to conceive the nonexistence of every entity in reality, i.e. it is logically possible to conceive that the truth value of the existence of every particular entity in the actual world is equal to "false." Geisler and Corduan endorse this objection (3).
Plantinga's Take
Plantinga opens the playing field to the set of all possible worlds. In his presentation, we are asked to imagine every logically possible world, where a possible world is defined to be a world (or state of existence) such that the set of all logical facts describing the world
p1^p2^p3^...^pn
exists without internal contradiction. Now, personally, I agree with the rather minority viewpoint that the only possible world is the actual world, given that I accept the necessity of entities in reality as my primary philosophical axiom (4). But for the sake of argument, I will accept a multiplicity of possible worlds, assumed in this case to be infinite (5). Although counterintuitive if we view Craig's presentation (6) of possible worlds as consisting only of a finite set of facts, we are assuming that the set of facts in one possible world can differ from the set of facts in another possible world arbitrarily. Let's begin the critique with these understandings.
Craig asserts all premises save premise #1 is "relatively uncontroversial," a point which I disagree heavily and will touch upon later. He then goes on to establish a priori warrant for premise #1, stating that the intuitive concept of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient being must be logically incoherent to invalidate the premise. Bill first attempts to show how typical objections along the "maximally great island" lines fail, asserting "there could always be more palm trees and native dancing girls." While true, I sort of have an ill feeling that Craig's criticism is misplaced: certainly an island completely filled with dancing women to the point where nobody could move anywhere but into the ocean would be less great than if four or five women were there to greet me with some freshly cut coconuts.
Bill states the stronger criticism that such concepts are relative to the observer; perhaps, as Bill says, another person would prefer a full resort while another an empty desert island. Indeed, the person in question could be a woman who would prefer men on the island, or, in my case, some other tropical fruit apart from coconuts given my distaste for them. But that doesn't disprove the notion that a maximally great tropical island is logically possible for all humanity (who are interested in these things to begin with). Perhaps the island could contain several resorts sorted for particular tastes, and could contain areas of desertion where those who prefer to be away from civilization could relax maximally. It may be so that not every desire is satisfied by all of our prospective visitors, but the fact remains that a resort island built to maximize every interested person's preferences and leave everyone at least happy that they came is not necessarily impossible logically due to relativity in preference.
A discussion follows regarding quasi-maximal beings. Let's suppose that a logically possible world W1 exists where the maximal being exists and where Fred Sanford, say, is born with omnipotence and omniscience, but not omnibenevolence (Bill offers an example of a quasi-maximal being lacking knowledge of future events). This being may be derived in the same method as the maximal being: given the establishment of a maximal being, we may use the same logic to establish a quasi-maximal being, i.e. the necessary existence in a possible world of a being "one step down" from our maximal one.
Craig correctly states that the maximal being could choose not to create the quasi-maximal being with His creation powers, but why do we presuppose that the maximal being created? Given these premises, it is not logically impossible that a quasi-maximal being exists; perhaps in a possible world Fred Sanford and God existed side-by-side, with the only difference between the two (apart from conscious separation) being that Fred had a bit more heartburn. In this presentation, our quasi-maximal being would be uncreated, as our maximal being is. As another side note, it is possible, logically, that a quasi-maximal being created the maximal one; there is no premise that states that to be created is less in maximality than to have existed in all states of our logically possible world, only that the maximal being's existence in this world is necessary. It is my charge, then, that the challenges stand and that the a priori concept of a maximal being still presents the incoherency that Craig assumes to have been refuted. (**)
Craig then goes on to discuss an a posteriori establishment of Premise #1, but Craig treads carefully here: "I remain uncertain of this argument ... which would require us to reject various nominalistic alternatives to conceptualism such as fictionalism, constructabilism, figuralism, and so forth. Still, prominent philosophers such as Plantinga have endorsed it." (7) This concern is brought forth from Plantinga's a posteriori establishment via means of grounding abstractions metaphysically n the mind of some being, since, as Plantinga argues, they cannot be established in our own.
It took me a while to understand Craig's persistent stomachache over this (ultimately leading to the aforementioned confession of Craig's doubt about the Ontological Argument), but then I remembered that this sort of argumentation from the supposed inability to ground concepts in reality is part of Bahnsen's Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God (TAG).(8)Bahnsen, and Plantinga himself, are generally Reformed, and come from a very rationalist and highly skeptical (in the philosophical sense) worldview that Craig, an evidentialist and classical apologist, tends to shun (TAG, for instance, appears nowhere in Craig's book). I side with Craig here, but a post about this will have to wait.
There is one more difficult premise, however, that Craig accepts without discussion, but that Plantinga elsewhere (9) both understands and attempts to correct: the inductive premise #3, i.e. the premise that if this maximally great being exists in some logically possible world, He exists in all possible worlds, including our actual one.
Loosely, Plantinga describes "maximally excellent" as necessarily including the three omni-'s: benevolence, potence, knowledge. If this Being enjoys maximal excellence in all possible worlds, then this Being is "maximally great." Plantinga wishes to establish premise #3 by establishing that a maximally great Being exists in at least one possible world.
As a side quip, why are the three omni's properties of a maximal being and considered to be tops in evaluating excellence? If I were omniscient - and I'm sorry to go to toilet humor, but you see what I mean - I'd see everyone poop. Not excellent! All kidding aside, who would want to know every detail of the Holocaust, particularly if one were additionally omnibenevolent and omnipotent (but doing the Arminian thing of letting people act on their own power of choice)? But I'm being mean and too speculative, so I will grant Plantinga that the three qualities give a being a great degree of excellence exceeding beings which do not possess these qualities. I'll also be nice and grant that only one being possessing these three qualities can exist in logical possibility in a given possible world.
How are we to establish values for these omni-qualities and for the rest of the qualities of our theoretical being, or any being, for that matter? Plantinga proposes a number (assumed to be bigger than or equal to zero) describing the "excellence" of an extant entity in some possible world, and asks us to sum this excellence number over all possible worlds where the entity in question exists. Such a sum is taken only over the possible worlds containing the assumption of x's existence, for, the concept presupposes existence and therefore an "excellence number" has no value in a world where the truth value of x's existence is false. It's not even zero - it would be, if you remember Algebra, like taking the square root of a negative number while working only with reals. It's simply outside the domain!
But still, how can one metaphysically quantify "excellence" for any particular entity? Nowhere do either Plantinga or Mears propose such a means, but I'll propose a concrete definition: an excellence number represents the number of entities which the entity "x" is, in a sense, "better in more individual respects" than. This would allow God, as omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, to have an excellence number equal to the (finite) sum of entities in reality, playing on the undiscussed intuitive notion here that a being with the three omni's is better than all the rest of the entities in reality.
So, taking the sum of excellence over all possible worlds well-defines a function F(x) as such:
F(x) = W1 + W2 + W3 + ... + Wn
This is the "greatness function," as greatness, remember, is to be taken as a representation of the excellence over ALL WORLDS where x exists. Here n represents the number of worlds where x possibly exists. Taking the limit as n goes to infinity gets our "greatness number" for an entity possibly existing in an infinite number of worlds. We assume our case for a maximally great being must exist in an infinite number of possible worlds, then, since if He were to exist in only a finite number of worlds the chance of His existence in the actual world, although logically possible, would be (letting k be the total number of possible worlds)
lim k->infinity (n/k) = 0,
a point which Plantinga and his critic Mears miss in their respective papers.
The conclusion of Plantinga's case for premise #3 is that
lim F(x), x:= "God"
is a number greater than all other greatness valuations F(x') taken over any arbitrary non-Godly entity x' that exists in any possible world.
Here's one killer, built on the idea formulated by Mr. Mears. Note here that F(x) (God's greatness) must be finite to make any sense. For, if
lim F(x) -> infinity,
then the coherency of the maximally great being vanishes logically (10). Therefore, this greatness must be a concrete number. Plantinga's reasoning for this has been refuted above, but Plantinga is still correct for the reason I give in the footnote: natural numbers themselves do not have a greatest upper bound, and although they cannot be used to describe actual metaphysical quantity as e.g. increasing girls indefinitely on our island, the possibility of the comparison with our "greatness function" exists inherently in the definition. Therefore, if it can be demonstrated that the function evaluates to infinity, then God's greatness, e.g. his summation of his "excellency rating" over every world in which He exists, becomes logically incoherent, collapsing the argument. (&&)
Since the existence of God over a finite subset of the (infinite) set of logically possible worlds leads to a zero-probability of His actual existence, as mentioned earlier, we must take the infinite sum. Following my coherent definition of what it means to have excellence, i.e. an integer representing the number of entities that "x" is "more excellent than" in the intuitive sense, then only one logically possible world has an excellence rating of zero for God - the one where only He exists. Therefore there are an infinite number of positive integer representations of excellence-ratings in possible worlds. Letting W1 = 0 (our excellency rating in the one world where only God exists), we have, then:
F(x) = 0 + W2 + W3 + W4 + ... > 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 + .... --> infinity
proving that F(x) = infinity, rendering maximal greatness incoherent by the above argumentation. Therefore, Plantinga's argument fails under my coherent definition of "excellency rating."
Even if Plantinga would object to my definition, he must at the very least represent a function whose infinity-limit tends toward zero if we wish for the summation function F(x) to yield a finite number (to wit, the sum of 1/n^2, n from 1 to infinity, is a finite positive number, and 1/n^2 itself tends to 0 as n rises without bound, fitting our bill).
But this implies that God's excellence by any definition Plantinga wants to use, when ordered, must tend to zero and therefore gets arbitrarily small - and furthermore, must do so in a matter that still yields a finite sum (for, sum 1/n, n from 1 to infinity, is still infinity despite the fact that limit 1/n ->0 as n tends infinitely). As this is intuitively counter to our notion that these values of excellency ought to be large, it seems a tough challenge indeed to define an excellency valuation which both tends to zero when ordered, is such that the sum is still a finite number, and is so that, despite being damned near zero for all but a finite number of possible worlds, it is still greater than all other entities' excellency evaluations in each of those particular possible worlds. And that's if a coherent definition of how to evaluate an "excellency rating," apart from the one I offered, is first given!
One final point, unobserved by neither Plantinga nor Meirs - we have, in the latter part of this paper, only discussed a sum over an infinite number of possible worlds. This is the direct case allowed by Plantinga's presentation. All it would show even if every premise is true and justified is that God exists in an infinite number of possible worlds, and not the actual one, and at most with his definitions this presentation can only establish a probability of God's existence, rather than a logical certainty. (##)
I conclude that Plantinga's presentation of the Ontological Argument has been refuted, pending critiques, comments and discussions from the readers of this blog. I am looking forward to an engaging discussion.
And am hoping nobody fell asleep because of the math. :)
-Darrin
Sources and Notes
(1) St. Anselm. Proslogion, Ch. 2. Retrieved from Wikipedia. See also criticisms of this presentation in Dr. Corduan's response to this post.
(2) Craig, William Lane. Reasonable Faith. Crossway Publishing, p. 184.
(3) Geisler and Corduan, Philosophy of Religion, pp. 147-148. Retrieved from http://www.biblicaldefense.org/Writings/ontological_argument.htm
Corduan notes in the commentary to this post: "Of course, I'm not sure we mean it in the same sense as Hume did, but it's always nice to see it when people realize that there is an unspoken assumption underlying the ontological argument, namely that something exists." (Retrieved 1/19/09, with thanks to Dr. Corduan).
(4) See e.g. Rand, Ayn, "The Metaphysical Versus the Man Made."
(5) Mears, Tyrel. "Sympathy for the Fool," p. 87. If one buys the premise of "possible worlds" in the first place, it logically follows that the number of "possible worlds" is infinite. For, it could be logically possible for a world outside of a proposed finite set of worlds exists where I swivel my chair completely around here at my desk; one where I swivel halfway around; one where I swivel one-forth around; etc. leading immediately to an infinite set of possible worlds if one does not, as I do, hold the necessity of entities and action in the actual world as a foundational premise.
(6) Craig 183.
(7) This quote, as well as the preceding analysis and a bit more proceeding this footnote, are discussed in full on (Craig) pp. 184-189.
(8) Bahnsen mentions the inability of the non-Christian to ground concepts in "The Great Debate" versus Gordon Stein, a debate which I am planning to review in the near future, but Bahnsen's presentation of TAG leans more heavily on the inability to ground the process of reasoning. Personally, I believe the two are interrelated, if not equal processes, and at the very least the former precedes the latter inclusively (see e.g. Ayn Rand, "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology," or earlier Wittgenstein). See also Gordon Clark's Youtube lectures regarding his critique of Empiricism; both Clark and Bahnsen are free for anyone to watch on that website.
(9) The rest of Plantinga's quotes have been retrieved from Mears' paper, documented earlier (once again here:http://aporia.byu.edu/pdfs/mears-sympathy_for_the_fool.pdf). All quotes from Plantinga are properly annotated in the work, and I have found no indication that Mr. Mears misuses or presents in a nonobjective manner any material written by Dr. Plantinga. The references to Mr. Mears himself which follow from this annotation until the end of my paper are taken, for the most part, from pp. 83-91.
(10) Plantinga, Alvin. God, Freedom, and Evil. P. 91. Plantinga uses the objection mentioned by Craig, about the paradise island that can indefinitely gain more girls and coconuts and get better. But this has been refuted earlier; Plantinga's necessary inherent maximum is present for this concept, as well. However, for the (entirely epistemological) natural numbers, e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ..., there is in fact no "greatest number," since infinity is not recognized as a member of the natural number set (11). Thus, with respect to the natural number set, the idea of a "maximal natural number" is incoherent, which properly captures the idea intuited by Craig and Plantinga in the "add more girls!" objection, while not escaping the context of practicality.
(11) See e.g. Royden's Real Analysis, Ch. 1.
(12) ibid.
($$) There is an issue with Plantinga's modal logic presentation of this premise that goes undiscussed here, due to my unfamiliarity with the subject (it's been over a decade since I've seen it!). Refer to http://barefootbum.blogspot.com/2008/05/modal-logic.html for a criticism on this subject. (Thanks to The Barefoot Bum and Dr. Corduan for bringing this issue up in the commentary of this post.)
(**) As a side note, it may be stated that if it can be shown that two omnipotent beings exist in a logically possible world, where one of the two beings is not omniscient and one is, and if it can be logically possible that the nonbenevolent Being would wish to engage the benevolent Being, the dual omnipotence assumed in this case would render a logical impossibility. Perhaps via traveling down the quasi-omniscient chain we may always find such a "Fred Sanford" through inductive establishment on the basis of the establishment of the existence of the maximal being. This would demonstrate the necessary logical incoherency of omnipotence, and would be a logical disproof of God in any possible world.
This is merely postulation, however, since none of my premises have been established in this paragraph; but should they turn out logically sound, then assuming the existence of a maximal being in all logically possible worlds may logically lead to the existence of a quasi-maximal omnipotent, omniscient, but anti-benevolent being in every possible world, who, through the definition of benevolence, would both desire to defeat one another as their highest priority. But since both are omnipotent and omniscient, they both can and can not defeat one another; we would then establish the non-existence of God through the impossibility of the contrary.
(&&) - If we accept this quantity to be possibly infinite despite the intuited objection from the natural number comparison, we run into problems: if any other being had a "greatness valuation" F(x') = infinity, it would be impossible to quantify x' and x in greatness relation (the infinite is countable in any case by definition). As we shall see later in the paper, all it will take is for some other being x' to exist with quality in an infinite number of possible worlds to get an infinite greatness evaluation - let's say that the Devil, for instance, exists in an infinite subset of possible world, and that his valuation of excellency, given the Devil's immense powers described Biblically, is always greater than zero in each world. By the argument which follows this annotation, the Devil would, in this case, have a greatness valuation of infinity, equal to God's; even if the Devil existed in "less" worlds than God (but still existed in an infinite subset of possible worlds), we'd have to equate the Devil and God with greatness, and I don't think we want to say that.
(##) - Again, Plantinga's summation is defined over an infinite number of possible worlds, not all possible worlds. Plantinga has made the mistake in assuming that since the number of possible worlds is infinite, then the sum taken over infinity covers it. But this may not be so. For, by mathematical postulate, we may well-order all the possible worlds in this set; it might be the case that God exists in all odd-numbered worlds W1, W3, W5, W7, W9, .... so that even if Plantinga destroys my case but fails to establish how God's existence in an infinite number of worlds entails His existence in all worlds, we might have that
W1+W3+W5+W7+W9+ ... = F(x)
is a finite number indeed, establishing coherency and validating the argument, but still leaving the evens out of the consideration (the ones where it is possible God does not exist). This leaves only, in this assumed case, the probability of God to be N/2N = 1/2 for our actual world (assuming we don't know which possible world-number it is) even if we assume all of Plantinga's case as otherwise true and valid.
1. God is that entity than which nothing greater can be conceived.
2. It is greater to be necessary than not.
3. God must be necessary.
4. God necessarily exists.
Perhaps the most challenging formulation of the argument is presented today by Alvin Plantinga. Dr. William Lane Craig presents Plantinga's argument as (2):
1. It is possible that a maximally great being exists.
2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.
3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then He exists in every possible world. ($$)
4. If He exists in every possible world, He must exist in the actual world.
I will discuss this particular formulation at length in this article.
The Classical Take
A brief statement about the classical version of this argument is necessary, particularly about the necessity of "necessary" being an inherently positive quality in and of itself, without regards to its referent in reality. This is not entirely clear; a fantastic counterexample would be certain events in the context of human history, which as an A-time theorist I hold to be necessary facts of existence. Suppose, for instance, that Adam and Eve existed and chose to Fall. Then, unless one is a high-Calvinist, the necessity (by asssumption) of the Fall would be a negative quality, as opposed to a positive one, as the action in the Fall brought death and damnation to Adam, Eve, and subsequently, to all of us. Therefore, it cannot be established that necessity qua necessity is an inherently positive quality of existence.
Other refutations exist of this presentation, from skeptics to believers. Hume famously rejected the argument by stating that it was logically possible to conceive the nonexistence of every entity in reality, i.e. it is logically possible to conceive that the truth value of the existence of every particular entity in the actual world is equal to "false." Geisler and Corduan endorse this objection (3).
Plantinga's Take
Plantinga opens the playing field to the set of all possible worlds. In his presentation, we are asked to imagine every logically possible world, where a possible world is defined to be a world (or state of existence) such that the set of all logical facts describing the world
p1^p2^p3^...^pn
exists without internal contradiction. Now, personally, I agree with the rather minority viewpoint that the only possible world is the actual world, given that I accept the necessity of entities in reality as my primary philosophical axiom (4). But for the sake of argument, I will accept a multiplicity of possible worlds, assumed in this case to be infinite (5). Although counterintuitive if we view Craig's presentation (6) of possible worlds as consisting only of a finite set of facts, we are assuming that the set of facts in one possible world can differ from the set of facts in another possible world arbitrarily. Let's begin the critique with these understandings.
Craig asserts all premises save premise #1 is "relatively uncontroversial," a point which I disagree heavily and will touch upon later. He then goes on to establish a priori warrant for premise #1, stating that the intuitive concept of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient being must be logically incoherent to invalidate the premise. Bill first attempts to show how typical objections along the "maximally great island" lines fail, asserting "there could always be more palm trees and native dancing girls." While true, I sort of have an ill feeling that Craig's criticism is misplaced: certainly an island completely filled with dancing women to the point where nobody could move anywhere but into the ocean would be less great than if four or five women were there to greet me with some freshly cut coconuts.
Bill states the stronger criticism that such concepts are relative to the observer; perhaps, as Bill says, another person would prefer a full resort while another an empty desert island. Indeed, the person in question could be a woman who would prefer men on the island, or, in my case, some other tropical fruit apart from coconuts given my distaste for them. But that doesn't disprove the notion that a maximally great tropical island is logically possible for all humanity (who are interested in these things to begin with). Perhaps the island could contain several resorts sorted for particular tastes, and could contain areas of desertion where those who prefer to be away from civilization could relax maximally. It may be so that not every desire is satisfied by all of our prospective visitors, but the fact remains that a resort island built to maximize every interested person's preferences and leave everyone at least happy that they came is not necessarily impossible logically due to relativity in preference.
A discussion follows regarding quasi-maximal beings. Let's suppose that a logically possible world W1 exists where the maximal being exists and where Fred Sanford, say, is born with omnipotence and omniscience, but not omnibenevolence (Bill offers an example of a quasi-maximal being lacking knowledge of future events). This being may be derived in the same method as the maximal being: given the establishment of a maximal being, we may use the same logic to establish a quasi-maximal being, i.e. the necessary existence in a possible world of a being "one step down" from our maximal one.
Craig correctly states that the maximal being could choose not to create the quasi-maximal being with His creation powers, but why do we presuppose that the maximal being created? Given these premises, it is not logically impossible that a quasi-maximal being exists; perhaps in a possible world Fred Sanford and God existed side-by-side, with the only difference between the two (apart from conscious separation) being that Fred had a bit more heartburn. In this presentation, our quasi-maximal being would be uncreated, as our maximal being is. As another side note, it is possible, logically, that a quasi-maximal being created the maximal one; there is no premise that states that to be created is less in maximality than to have existed in all states of our logically possible world, only that the maximal being's existence in this world is necessary. It is my charge, then, that the challenges stand and that the a priori concept of a maximal being still presents the incoherency that Craig assumes to have been refuted. (**)
Craig then goes on to discuss an a posteriori establishment of Premise #1, but Craig treads carefully here: "I remain uncertain of this argument ... which would require us to reject various nominalistic alternatives to conceptualism such as fictionalism, constructabilism, figuralism, and so forth. Still, prominent philosophers such as Plantinga have endorsed it." (7) This concern is brought forth from Plantinga's a posteriori establishment via means of grounding abstractions metaphysically n the mind of some being, since, as Plantinga argues, they cannot be established in our own.
It took me a while to understand Craig's persistent stomachache over this (ultimately leading to the aforementioned confession of Craig's doubt about the Ontological Argument), but then I remembered that this sort of argumentation from the supposed inability to ground concepts in reality is part of Bahnsen's Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God (TAG).(8)Bahnsen, and Plantinga himself, are generally Reformed, and come from a very rationalist and highly skeptical (in the philosophical sense) worldview that Craig, an evidentialist and classical apologist, tends to shun (TAG, for instance, appears nowhere in Craig's book). I side with Craig here, but a post about this will have to wait.
There is one more difficult premise, however, that Craig accepts without discussion, but that Plantinga elsewhere (9) both understands and attempts to correct: the inductive premise #3, i.e. the premise that if this maximally great being exists in some logically possible world, He exists in all possible worlds, including our actual one.
Loosely, Plantinga describes "maximally excellent" as necessarily including the three omni-'s: benevolence, potence, knowledge. If this Being enjoys maximal excellence in all possible worlds, then this Being is "maximally great." Plantinga wishes to establish premise #3 by establishing that a maximally great Being exists in at least one possible world.
As a side quip, why are the three omni's properties of a maximal being and considered to be tops in evaluating excellence? If I were omniscient - and I'm sorry to go to toilet humor, but you see what I mean - I'd see everyone poop. Not excellent! All kidding aside, who would want to know every detail of the Holocaust, particularly if one were additionally omnibenevolent and omnipotent (but doing the Arminian thing of letting people act on their own power of choice)? But I'm being mean and too speculative, so I will grant Plantinga that the three qualities give a being a great degree of excellence exceeding beings which do not possess these qualities. I'll also be nice and grant that only one being possessing these three qualities can exist in logical possibility in a given possible world.
How are we to establish values for these omni-qualities and for the rest of the qualities of our theoretical being, or any being, for that matter? Plantinga proposes a number (assumed to be bigger than or equal to zero) describing the "excellence" of an extant entity in some possible world, and asks us to sum this excellence number over all possible worlds where the entity in question exists. Such a sum is taken only over the possible worlds containing the assumption of x's existence, for, the concept presupposes existence and therefore an "excellence number" has no value in a world where the truth value of x's existence is false. It's not even zero - it would be, if you remember Algebra, like taking the square root of a negative number while working only with reals. It's simply outside the domain!
But still, how can one metaphysically quantify "excellence" for any particular entity? Nowhere do either Plantinga or Mears propose such a means, but I'll propose a concrete definition: an excellence number represents the number of entities which the entity "x" is, in a sense, "better in more individual respects" than. This would allow God, as omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, to have an excellence number equal to the (finite) sum of entities in reality, playing on the undiscussed intuitive notion here that a being with the three omni's is better than all the rest of the entities in reality.
So, taking the sum of excellence over all possible worlds well-defines a function F(x) as such:
F(x) = W1 + W2 + W3 + ... + Wn
This is the "greatness function," as greatness, remember, is to be taken as a representation of the excellence over ALL WORLDS where x exists. Here n represents the number of worlds where x possibly exists. Taking the limit as n goes to infinity gets our "greatness number" for an entity possibly existing in an infinite number of worlds. We assume our case for a maximally great being must exist in an infinite number of possible worlds, then, since if He were to exist in only a finite number of worlds the chance of His existence in the actual world, although logically possible, would be (letting k be the total number of possible worlds)
lim k->infinity (n/k) = 0,
a point which Plantinga and his critic Mears miss in their respective papers.
The conclusion of Plantinga's case for premise #3 is that
lim F(x), x:= "God"
is a number greater than all other greatness valuations F(x') taken over any arbitrary non-Godly entity x' that exists in any possible world.
Here's one killer, built on the idea formulated by Mr. Mears. Note here that F(x) (God's greatness) must be finite to make any sense. For, if
lim F(x) -> infinity,
then the coherency of the maximally great being vanishes logically (10). Therefore, this greatness must be a concrete number. Plantinga's reasoning for this has been refuted above, but Plantinga is still correct for the reason I give in the footnote: natural numbers themselves do not have a greatest upper bound, and although they cannot be used to describe actual metaphysical quantity as e.g. increasing girls indefinitely on our island, the possibility of the comparison with our "greatness function" exists inherently in the definition. Therefore, if it can be demonstrated that the function evaluates to infinity, then God's greatness, e.g. his summation of his "excellency rating" over every world in which He exists, becomes logically incoherent, collapsing the argument. (&&)
Since the existence of God over a finite subset of the (infinite) set of logically possible worlds leads to a zero-probability of His actual existence, as mentioned earlier, we must take the infinite sum. Following my coherent definition of what it means to have excellence, i.e. an integer representing the number of entities that "x" is "more excellent than" in the intuitive sense, then only one logically possible world has an excellence rating of zero for God - the one where only He exists. Therefore there are an infinite number of positive integer representations of excellence-ratings in possible worlds. Letting W1 = 0 (our excellency rating in the one world where only God exists), we have, then:
F(x) = 0 + W2 + W3 + W4 + ... > 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 + .... --> infinity
proving that F(x) = infinity, rendering maximal greatness incoherent by the above argumentation. Therefore, Plantinga's argument fails under my coherent definition of "excellency rating."
Even if Plantinga would object to my definition, he must at the very least represent a function whose infinity-limit tends toward zero if we wish for the summation function F(x) to yield a finite number (to wit, the sum of 1/n^2, n from 1 to infinity, is a finite positive number, and 1/n^2 itself tends to 0 as n rises without bound, fitting our bill).
But this implies that God's excellence by any definition Plantinga wants to use, when ordered, must tend to zero and therefore gets arbitrarily small - and furthermore, must do so in a matter that still yields a finite sum (for, sum 1/n, n from 1 to infinity, is still infinity despite the fact that limit 1/n ->0 as n tends infinitely). As this is intuitively counter to our notion that these values of excellency ought to be large, it seems a tough challenge indeed to define an excellency valuation which both tends to zero when ordered, is such that the sum is still a finite number, and is so that, despite being damned near zero for all but a finite number of possible worlds, it is still greater than all other entities' excellency evaluations in each of those particular possible worlds. And that's if a coherent definition of how to evaluate an "excellency rating," apart from the one I offered, is first given!
One final point, unobserved by neither Plantinga nor Meirs - we have, in the latter part of this paper, only discussed a sum over an infinite number of possible worlds. This is the direct case allowed by Plantinga's presentation. All it would show even if every premise is true and justified is that God exists in an infinite number of possible worlds, and not the actual one, and at most with his definitions this presentation can only establish a probability of God's existence, rather than a logical certainty. (##)
I conclude that Plantinga's presentation of the Ontological Argument has been refuted, pending critiques, comments and discussions from the readers of this blog. I am looking forward to an engaging discussion.
And am hoping nobody fell asleep because of the math. :)
-Darrin
Sources and Notes
(1) St. Anselm. Proslogion, Ch. 2. Retrieved from Wikipedia. See also criticisms of this presentation in Dr. Corduan's response to this post.
(2) Craig, William Lane. Reasonable Faith. Crossway Publishing, p. 184.
(3) Geisler and Corduan, Philosophy of Religion, pp. 147-148. Retrieved from http://www.biblicaldefense.org/Writings/ontological_argument.htm
Corduan notes in the commentary to this post: "Of course, I'm not sure we mean it in the same sense as Hume did, but it's always nice to see it when people realize that there is an unspoken assumption underlying the ontological argument, namely that something exists." (Retrieved 1/19/09, with thanks to Dr. Corduan).
(4) See e.g. Rand, Ayn, "The Metaphysical Versus the Man Made."
(5) Mears, Tyrel. "Sympathy for the Fool," p. 87. If one buys the premise of "possible worlds" in the first place, it logically follows that the number of "possible worlds" is infinite. For, it could be logically possible for a world outside of a proposed finite set of worlds exists where I swivel my chair completely around here at my desk; one where I swivel halfway around; one where I swivel one-forth around; etc. leading immediately to an infinite set of possible worlds if one does not, as I do, hold the necessity of entities and action in the actual world as a foundational premise.
(6) Craig 183.
(7) This quote, as well as the preceding analysis and a bit more proceeding this footnote, are discussed in full on (Craig) pp. 184-189.
(8) Bahnsen mentions the inability of the non-Christian to ground concepts in "The Great Debate" versus Gordon Stein, a debate which I am planning to review in the near future, but Bahnsen's presentation of TAG leans more heavily on the inability to ground the process of reasoning. Personally, I believe the two are interrelated, if not equal processes, and at the very least the former precedes the latter inclusively (see e.g. Ayn Rand, "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology," or earlier Wittgenstein). See also Gordon Clark's Youtube lectures regarding his critique of Empiricism; both Clark and Bahnsen are free for anyone to watch on that website.
(9) The rest of Plantinga's quotes have been retrieved from Mears' paper, documented earlier (once again here:http://aporia.byu.edu/pdfs/mears-sympathy_for_the_fool.pdf). All quotes from Plantinga are properly annotated in the work, and I have found no indication that Mr. Mears misuses or presents in a nonobjective manner any material written by Dr. Plantinga. The references to Mr. Mears himself which follow from this annotation until the end of my paper are taken, for the most part, from pp. 83-91.
(10) Plantinga, Alvin. God, Freedom, and Evil. P. 91. Plantinga uses the objection mentioned by Craig, about the paradise island that can indefinitely gain more girls and coconuts and get better. But this has been refuted earlier; Plantinga's necessary inherent maximum is present for this concept, as well. However, for the (entirely epistemological) natural numbers, e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ..., there is in fact no "greatest number," since infinity is not recognized as a member of the natural number set (11). Thus, with respect to the natural number set, the idea of a "maximal natural number" is incoherent, which properly captures the idea intuited by Craig and Plantinga in the "add more girls!" objection, while not escaping the context of practicality.
(11) See e.g. Royden's Real Analysis, Ch. 1.
(12) ibid.
($$) There is an issue with Plantinga's modal logic presentation of this premise that goes undiscussed here, due to my unfamiliarity with the subject (it's been over a decade since I've seen it!). Refer to http://barefootbum.blogspot.com/2008/05/modal-logic.html for a criticism on this subject. (Thanks to The Barefoot Bum and Dr. Corduan for bringing this issue up in the commentary of this post.)
(**) As a side note, it may be stated that if it can be shown that two omnipotent beings exist in a logically possible world, where one of the two beings is not omniscient and one is, and if it can be logically possible that the nonbenevolent Being would wish to engage the benevolent Being, the dual omnipotence assumed in this case would render a logical impossibility. Perhaps via traveling down the quasi-omniscient chain we may always find such a "Fred Sanford" through inductive establishment on the basis of the establishment of the existence of the maximal being. This would demonstrate the necessary logical incoherency of omnipotence, and would be a logical disproof of God in any possible world.
This is merely postulation, however, since none of my premises have been established in this paragraph; but should they turn out logically sound, then assuming the existence of a maximal being in all logically possible worlds may logically lead to the existence of a quasi-maximal omnipotent, omniscient, but anti-benevolent being in every possible world, who, through the definition of benevolence, would both desire to defeat one another as their highest priority. But since both are omnipotent and omniscient, they both can and can not defeat one another; we would then establish the non-existence of God through the impossibility of the contrary.
(&&) - If we accept this quantity to be possibly infinite despite the intuited objection from the natural number comparison, we run into problems: if any other being had a "greatness valuation" F(x') = infinity, it would be impossible to quantify x' and x in greatness relation (the infinite is countable in any case by definition). As we shall see later in the paper, all it will take is for some other being x' to exist with quality in an infinite number of possible worlds to get an infinite greatness evaluation - let's say that the Devil, for instance, exists in an infinite subset of possible world, and that his valuation of excellency, given the Devil's immense powers described Biblically, is always greater than zero in each world. By the argument which follows this annotation, the Devil would, in this case, have a greatness valuation of infinity, equal to God's; even if the Devil existed in "less" worlds than God (but still existed in an infinite subset of possible worlds), we'd have to equate the Devil and God with greatness, and I don't think we want to say that.
(##) - Again, Plantinga's summation is defined over an infinite number of possible worlds, not all possible worlds. Plantinga has made the mistake in assuming that since the number of possible worlds is infinite, then the sum taken over infinity covers it. But this may not be so. For, by mathematical postulate, we may well-order all the possible worlds in this set; it might be the case that God exists in all odd-numbered worlds W1, W3, W5, W7, W9, .... so that even if Plantinga destroys my case but fails to establish how God's existence in an infinite number of worlds entails His existence in all worlds, we might have that
W1+W3+W5+W7+W9+ ... = F(x)
is a finite number indeed, establishing coherency and validating the argument, but still leaving the evens out of the consideration (the ones where it is possible God does not exist). This leaves only, in this assumed case, the probability of God to be N/2N = 1/2 for our actual world (assuming we don't know which possible world-number it is) even if we assume all of Plantinga's case as otherwise true and valid.
Christianity as an Evolutionary Human Ant Colony
The Christian religion, from the perception of the conservative believer, must be kept perfect and flawless least any plague of imperfection affects both one’s God and one’s Bible.
The consequence here is that if either a flaw in God or the Bible is admitted, then the theological house of cards begins to fall just as when one domino stacked vertically in line with a thousands more is knock towards its neighbor likewise, secular logic begins to move the conservative theological mind away from the sanctuary of pat indoctrinated religious answers in turn forcing the believer to struggle with the reality of life just as he or she did before to their religious conversion.
In religion, objective truth is not the goal, but what matters is to insulate ones mind from the hard facts of the world and wrap one’s self in a theological blanket of love. When this happens, the believer becomes like an ant defending its colony and queen. Now when the ground shakes near the nest, or God forbid, the nest itself is touched; ants (like programmed and indoctrinated believers) swarm out to do battle often giving up their own life (martyrdom). Thus, at the vibration of any real or perceived threat, the colony advances forth in defense to attack and kill any threat to the safety and security of the nest (its sectarian religion / Bible) and (more importantly) the life brood of the nest itself: The queen or God.
Like a nest of Fire Ants (whose goal (like that of evangelical Christianity) is to evangelize the entire world with its nests) that have developed specialized warriors or soldiers ants whose huge jaws make them useless for little more that attacking and fighting for the colony, these Christian apologists / preachers soldier ants have development the same guard stance and move quickly to the defensive front lines to defend their doctrinal colony over and ahead of the smaller worker ants.
The sole function of the nest is again, to not so much to defend the colony (the Bible), but to defend until death what is in the center of the colony keeping it alive; that being its queen (God).
Since the queen is little good for anything but consuming food and producing eggs which hatch into more sterilized females and soldiers ants; the colony knows that (deep down in their genetic heats) without her, the entire nest is doomed and she must be protected and defended at all cost. Like the colony queen is to the worker and soldier ants, God is absolute truth who is perfect without any mixture of error and without the queen / God, the workers feel they have no more reason to live.
By comparison, the single church member (worker ant) is made to feel secure and protected in the colony along with their fellow indoctrinated, but mentally sterilized workers both bring unable to formulate any Christian doctrines themselves. However when disturbed, the specialized apologists and preachers will snap their huge doctrinal mandible jaws at any perceived threat knowing full well, that while their fellow smaller mentally sterilized workers out number them fifty to one, the workers job is not to fight (apologetics), but to support the colony (church) with food (tithes and offerings). Even thought the average doctrinally sterilized workers are equipped with small pincher months and small stingers, they quickly fall in battle due to the fact that their main function and make up is not colony defense, but colony support.
Thus, we have a similar symbiotic relationship where both the ant colony (the church) and the queen (God) must have the workers and soldier ants to care for and protect an enormous queen whose body has been rendered totally useless other than consuming food and laying eggs.
To facilitate this process, the queen in many colonies produces a sweet nectar that is consumed by the workers giving them strength to carry on until their wretched short lives past on and newly programmed mentally sterilized workers are added (evangelized) to take their place in a mindless colony with millions workers.
As I pass by the large Southern Baptist Church down the street from my house on Sunday mornings, I see is a huge nest of ants in which this large circular church is a functioning colony where the workers have brought their food (tithes and offerings) to the queen (God) while the preachers (seen as God’s vicar on earth) rewards the faithful but mindless workers with sweet sermonized nectar promises. They are assured that their huge queen (God, who is the prime mover in the creation of life) will always be there to love and protect them.
However in reality, their God-Queen is little more than an egg laying (evangelizing) figure head whose huge theological body is rendered useless being totally kept alive by the devotion to her (His) workers (the congregation as nest).
Should an independent, but objectively free thinking Secular Humanist happen to either shake the theological ground around this church nest - or God forbid - get inside the colony itself; the specialized soldier preachers and deacons will run to the defense of their God concept (knowing full well God’s huge bloated theological body is totally unable even to take care itself and must be constantly cleaned and feed simply to exist) snapping their huge mentally evolved apologetic jaws at the intruder.
But since these colony apologists can NOW no longer to attack and kill any free thinking secular invaders (Burning at the stake and torture), they try and force out the foreign / secular invader before many of the simple workers are mentally killed and even the center piece of the colony-church or God Himself is infected with secular ideas leading to theological weakness with the collapse and death of the religious nets being inevitable.
Here at DC, the contributors see this totally symbiotic relationship where a post shakes the theological ground near some doctrinal nest sending forth apologetic soldier ants and preachers snapping their huge mentally indoctrinated jaws at any perceived threat to the cheers of the simple, but mindless worker ants (Joe the Christian).
We are constantly told by these soldier apologists that if their huge indoctrinated jaws will not stop us, then one day the queen (God) itself will craw forth from somewhere deep down inside the nest (Heaven) to do an end time / apocrylpyptic battle with us and totally crushing all its free thinking secular enemies.
But since we secular atheist see the reality of this symbiotic relationship, we know that simply by killing (deprogramming) hundreds of worker ants plus an occasional apologist / soldier ant, the queen (God) being unable to stop the battle and can only hope to lay more eggs (proselytize more converters) before the entire colony itself falls into an irreversible decline.
We also know this huge queen (God) is totally unable to even move or care for itself and must be theologically carried along by its own doctrinally sterilized anti-free thinking workers and the apologetic soldiers ants just to appear to be active.
As independent free thinking Secular Humanist, I have now shaken the theological ground and, though I may see some drive-by defenses by the mentally sterilized worker Christians, I fully except the soldier Ant-Christians apologist to come forth to do battle snapping their huge mentally indoctrinated jaws, again not so much for the defense of their own sectarian colony, but their universal queen or the God concept itself!
The consequence here is that if either a flaw in God or the Bible is admitted, then the theological house of cards begins to fall just as when one domino stacked vertically in line with a thousands more is knock towards its neighbor likewise, secular logic begins to move the conservative theological mind away from the sanctuary of pat indoctrinated religious answers in turn forcing the believer to struggle with the reality of life just as he or she did before to their religious conversion.
In religion, objective truth is not the goal, but what matters is to insulate ones mind from the hard facts of the world and wrap one’s self in a theological blanket of love. When this happens, the believer becomes like an ant defending its colony and queen. Now when the ground shakes near the nest, or God forbid, the nest itself is touched; ants (like programmed and indoctrinated believers) swarm out to do battle often giving up their own life (martyrdom). Thus, at the vibration of any real or perceived threat, the colony advances forth in defense to attack and kill any threat to the safety and security of the nest (its sectarian religion / Bible) and (more importantly) the life brood of the nest itself: The queen or God.
Like a nest of Fire Ants (whose goal (like that of evangelical Christianity) is to evangelize the entire world with its nests) that have developed specialized warriors or soldiers ants whose huge jaws make them useless for little more that attacking and fighting for the colony, these Christian apologists / preachers soldier ants have development the same guard stance and move quickly to the defensive front lines to defend their doctrinal colony over and ahead of the smaller worker ants.
The sole function of the nest is again, to not so much to defend the colony (the Bible), but to defend until death what is in the center of the colony keeping it alive; that being its queen (God).
Since the queen is little good for anything but consuming food and producing eggs which hatch into more sterilized females and soldiers ants; the colony knows that (deep down in their genetic heats) without her, the entire nest is doomed and she must be protected and defended at all cost. Like the colony queen is to the worker and soldier ants, God is absolute truth who is perfect without any mixture of error and without the queen / God, the workers feel they have no more reason to live.
By comparison, the single church member (worker ant) is made to feel secure and protected in the colony along with their fellow indoctrinated, but mentally sterilized workers both bring unable to formulate any Christian doctrines themselves. However when disturbed, the specialized apologists and preachers will snap their huge doctrinal mandible jaws at any perceived threat knowing full well, that while their fellow smaller mentally sterilized workers out number them fifty to one, the workers job is not to fight (apologetics), but to support the colony (church) with food (tithes and offerings). Even thought the average doctrinally sterilized workers are equipped with small pincher months and small stingers, they quickly fall in battle due to the fact that their main function and make up is not colony defense, but colony support.
Thus, we have a similar symbiotic relationship where both the ant colony (the church) and the queen (God) must have the workers and soldier ants to care for and protect an enormous queen whose body has been rendered totally useless other than consuming food and laying eggs.
To facilitate this process, the queen in many colonies produces a sweet nectar that is consumed by the workers giving them strength to carry on until their wretched short lives past on and newly programmed mentally sterilized workers are added (evangelized) to take their place in a mindless colony with millions workers.
As I pass by the large Southern Baptist Church down the street from my house on Sunday mornings, I see is a huge nest of ants in which this large circular church is a functioning colony where the workers have brought their food (tithes and offerings) to the queen (God) while the preachers (seen as God’s vicar on earth) rewards the faithful but mindless workers with sweet sermonized nectar promises. They are assured that their huge queen (God, who is the prime mover in the creation of life) will always be there to love and protect them.
However in reality, their God-Queen is little more than an egg laying (evangelizing) figure head whose huge theological body is rendered useless being totally kept alive by the devotion to her (His) workers (the congregation as nest).
Should an independent, but objectively free thinking Secular Humanist happen to either shake the theological ground around this church nest - or God forbid - get inside the colony itself; the specialized soldier preachers and deacons will run to the defense of their God concept (knowing full well God’s huge bloated theological body is totally unable even to take care itself and must be constantly cleaned and feed simply to exist) snapping their huge mentally evolved apologetic jaws at the intruder.
But since these colony apologists can NOW no longer to attack and kill any free thinking secular invaders (Burning at the stake and torture), they try and force out the foreign / secular invader before many of the simple workers are mentally killed and even the center piece of the colony-church or God Himself is infected with secular ideas leading to theological weakness with the collapse and death of the religious nets being inevitable.
Here at DC, the contributors see this totally symbiotic relationship where a post shakes the theological ground near some doctrinal nest sending forth apologetic soldier ants and preachers snapping their huge mentally indoctrinated jaws at any perceived threat to the cheers of the simple, but mindless worker ants (Joe the Christian).
We are constantly told by these soldier apologists that if their huge indoctrinated jaws will not stop us, then one day the queen (God) itself will craw forth from somewhere deep down inside the nest (Heaven) to do an end time / apocrylpyptic battle with us and totally crushing all its free thinking secular enemies.
But since we secular atheist see the reality of this symbiotic relationship, we know that simply by killing (deprogramming) hundreds of worker ants plus an occasional apologist / soldier ant, the queen (God) being unable to stop the battle and can only hope to lay more eggs (proselytize more converters) before the entire colony itself falls into an irreversible decline.
We also know this huge queen (God) is totally unable to even move or care for itself and must be theologically carried along by its own doctrinally sterilized anti-free thinking workers and the apologetic soldiers ants just to appear to be active.
As independent free thinking Secular Humanist, I have now shaken the theological ground and, though I may see some drive-by defenses by the mentally sterilized worker Christians, I fully except the soldier Ant-Christians apologist to come forth to do battle snapping their huge mentally indoctrinated jaws, again not so much for the defense of their own sectarian colony, but their universal queen or the God concept itself!
Cooking the Books To Avoid IDQ Principles
A straw man (aka misrepresentation) and a moving goal post (aka sliding window).
Over at Sophies LadderJeff has misunderstood my position.
I do not think the Bible should be used as a history book or a science book, and I know the Bible, in its current form, was not intended to be either. I know there is no warrant to take the bible as a science or history "treatise". I agree we delineate our concepts such as biology and (as he says) Philosophy (but I wouldn't have used philosophy because its not data driven) based on its intent and its purpose. Jeffs asks rhetorically
At this point he as compared the Bible to Poetry and Mythology and he used the term "Transcendent" in relation to Poetry and Mythology but I haven't seen him define what he thinks transcendent is. He seems to suggest that poetry and mythology are transcendent.
answers.com has the definition of "Transcendent" as follows.
1. Surpassing others; preeminent or supreme.
2. Lying beyond the ordinary range of perception: “fails to achieve a transcendent significance in suffering and squalor” (National Review).
3. Philosophy.
1. Transcending the Aristotelian categories.
2. In Kant's theory of knowledge, being beyond the limits of experience and hence unknowable.
4. Being above and independent of the material universe. Used of the Deity.
Cooking the Books: Shifting the relative value of the Bible to make a point
While I assume he's using transcendent with regard to the bible as option four, I can only guess at how he applies it to poetry and mythology. And I can only guess at what the relationship is between The Bible, Poetry and Mythology. I know The Bible has Hebrew Poetry in it, and I presume that it has mythology in it, but I don't understand how Jeff views it. Usually we don't presume Poetry or Mythology as having the same importance as the Bible and tradition holds that the originating source for the bible is not the mind of humans as is the case with poetry and mythology. If Jeff wants to say that Divine inspiration originates in the mind of humans and is of the same type as any other inspiration I will go along with that, but I doubt he's willing to agree to that.
One persons Relgion is another persons Mythology
IDQ is meant to assess information that is intended for use in decision making.
It is not meant to assess poetry and mythology, but it can, and it will produce metrics. But there is no reason to apply IDQ principles to poetry and mythology because they are not intended to be accurate with respect to the real world. The writer is at liberty to record whatever she pleases with no presumption or expectation of accuracy. However, in the case of Tom Clancy, the accuracy of the information in his books adds to the appeal. Poetry's purpose is not to create text to be used for decision making but to express whatever the writer has in her head. On the other hand, generally speaking, one persons mythology is or was another persons religion. An old worn out religion becomes a mythology. We have plenty of examples of it: Egyptian, Vedic, Sumerian, Greek, Roman, and all the millions of subcultures scattered around the world. African Bushmen had a religion, Australian Aboriginees had a religion, American indians had a Religion etc.
Generally, novels and short stories are not intended as data for decision making, either, but IDQ can be applied and metrics can be derived, but its not clear why one would want to do that. However The Bible supposedly does represent real world states, some history of the Jewish people and the only record of Jesus. The question is what is the quality of that information?
Over at Sophies LadderJeff has misunderstood my position.
I do not think the Bible should be used as a history book or a science book, and I know the Bible, in its current form, was not intended to be either. I know there is no warrant to take the bible as a science or history "treatise". I agree we delineate our concepts such as biology and (as he says) Philosophy (but I wouldn't have used philosophy because its not data driven) based on its intent and its purpose. Jeffs asks rhetorically
What is the proper IDQ criteria to be applied to poetry and mythology? Or better yet, what is the proper IDQ criteria to be applied to information dealing with the transcendent?
At this point he as compared the Bible to Poetry and Mythology and he used the term "Transcendent" in relation to Poetry and Mythology but I haven't seen him define what he thinks transcendent is. He seems to suggest that poetry and mythology are transcendent.
answers.com has the definition of "Transcendent" as follows.
1. Surpassing others; preeminent or supreme.
2. Lying beyond the ordinary range of perception: “fails to achieve a transcendent significance in suffering and squalor” (National Review).
3. Philosophy.
1. Transcending the Aristotelian categories.
2. In Kant's theory of knowledge, being beyond the limits of experience and hence unknowable.
4. Being above and independent of the material universe. Used of the Deity.
Cooking the Books: Shifting the relative value of the Bible to make a point
While I assume he's using transcendent with regard to the bible as option four, I can only guess at how he applies it to poetry and mythology. And I can only guess at what the relationship is between The Bible, Poetry and Mythology. I know The Bible has Hebrew Poetry in it, and I presume that it has mythology in it, but I don't understand how Jeff views it. Usually we don't presume Poetry or Mythology as having the same importance as the Bible and tradition holds that the originating source for the bible is not the mind of humans as is the case with poetry and mythology. If Jeff wants to say that Divine inspiration originates in the mind of humans and is of the same type as any other inspiration I will go along with that, but I doubt he's willing to agree to that.
One persons Relgion is another persons Mythology
IDQ is meant to assess information that is intended for use in decision making.
It is not meant to assess poetry and mythology, but it can, and it will produce metrics. But there is no reason to apply IDQ principles to poetry and mythology because they are not intended to be accurate with respect to the real world. The writer is at liberty to record whatever she pleases with no presumption or expectation of accuracy. However, in the case of Tom Clancy, the accuracy of the information in his books adds to the appeal. Poetry's purpose is not to create text to be used for decision making but to express whatever the writer has in her head. On the other hand, generally speaking, one persons mythology is or was another persons religion. An old worn out religion becomes a mythology. We have plenty of examples of it: Egyptian, Vedic, Sumerian, Greek, Roman, and all the millions of subcultures scattered around the world. African Bushmen had a religion, Australian Aboriginees had a religion, American indians had a Religion etc.
Generally, novels and short stories are not intended as data for decision making, either, but IDQ can be applied and metrics can be derived, but its not clear why one would want to do that. However The Bible supposedly does represent real world states, some history of the Jewish people and the only record of Jesus. The question is what is the quality of that information?
January 16, 2009
Richard Carrier Reports on the Amherst Conference Concerning The Jesus Project
You can read his detailed report right here. I want to highlight some of his statements, make some comments on what he wrote, issue a caution to him, and make a suggestion or two. Get ready. Here we go again.
About Paul Kurtz's speech, Carrier said that
About Robert Price, Carrier said:
About Ronald Lindsay, Carrier reported:
About Frank Zindler, Carrier noted that
If one reads Carrier carefully we see that Gerd Lüdemann, Robert Eisenman, Dennis MacDonald, and Bruce Chilton all think there was a man behind the mythic traditions. I think it's important to add that G.A. Wells used to argue Jesus didn't exist, but has since changed his mind. It should also be noted that Bart D. Ehrman, one of skeptics best scholarly friends, thinks Jesus was an apocalyptic end times prophet, as I do.
Having said this it's an interesting question to me, but the money could be spent on better things. It seems as though skeptics have long ago concluded that religion is "bullshit" (ala Penn and Teller) and have now moved beyond that question to investigate other topics of interest to them. Most of them come from a scientific background, too. Since these other topics are interesting questions to them they focus on them. Having already debunked religion, including Christianity, they are looking for other things to debunk (why beat a dead horse, right?). The problem I see with such worthy interests is that there are still a great number of Christian believers in the world who will not seriously consider the possibility that Jesus did not exist. I would like to know if any Christian has walked away from his faith because of these arguments. I dare say that no one ever has (although this might change, I cannot say). It might be the equivalent of the Ontological Argument for the existence of God. No one has ever become a believer from that argument that we know of (Bertrand Russell flirted with belief because of it but eventually rejected it).
Given our recent poll on the question of who Jesus is/was, an overwhelming number of skeptics think Jesus was a mythical fictional character. Some of the skeptical voters have not been reading my arguments of late. They came here just to vote because of a request to chime in on our poll, which was posted on a very popular skeptical website. They came, they voted, and they left. Still it's good they did. It shows what most skeptics believe.
There are many topics that are of interest to me, while there are only a few that I'm concerned about. The question of The Jesus Project is of interest to me, but I'm not concerned about the results. I think Christianity fails whether Jesus existed or not. I base my arguments on Jesus's existence not unlike how St. Aquinas based his arguments for the existence of God on the eternality of the universe. He thought if he could show God existed based on the eternality of the universe, then how much more so can he show God exists if the universe did come into existence at some point in time. I can do that in reverse. Even if Jesus existed then Christianity still fails.
Where can the money be better spent? I need grant money to continue my work. There is a donate button in our sidebar that helps me stay alive in these hard economic times. I need your help. I need people who are willing to donate on a regular basis, a monthly commitment if you can. Unless more money comes in I’ll be forced to get a second job. Spinoza ground lenses during the day and researched at night. What if he had to have two jobs? I’m no Spinoza by a long shot, but what if Spinoza never had to grind lenses for a living and could research and write all day long? How much better would his arguments be?
Call me arrogant if you will, but I am one person who has the arguments that can be the undoing of Christianity. [BTW, Keith Parsons emailed me recently and said: "Humility is a Christian virtue. Be proud of your accomplishment!"] I’d like for CFI and Paul Kurtz to send me on a speaking tour, allow me to revise my book one more time (if I had time I could condense it and make it more accessible to the masses), fund me to debate some high profile Christians, make me a research scholar for the CFI institute. These requests have been made by me to them, with one important person who is advocating on my behalf, and maybe some or all of these requests will pan out in the near future. But my goal is not just to understand the world, as Marx said, but to change it.
Skeptics, yes, we need to move on to other issues and be on the cutting edge of them. Let's just never forget what our common goal is and how daunting the task is. We must major on the majors and minor on the minors and know the difference between which is which.
About Paul Kurtz's speech, Carrier said that
"...it was so full of historically naive or inaccurate statements that it seems to have embarrassed some of the scholars.” “I know it's impolitic to speak ill of the Grand Lord of Humanism (legend has it his wrath is reminiscent of Ruper Murdoch on a bad day), but I'm a suicidally honest man, and I honestly have to say there was no reason for this speech other than to please the Kurtz fans in the audience. Since that's where the money comes from, I suppose this was a practical tactic, though that's generally not how scholarly conferences are oriented.I have to respect someone like Carrier who is a true freethinker and willing to offend Paul Kurtz, whom I have nothing but respect for at 80 plus years old and going strong. I've heard Paul speak too, and he does ramble. He seems disorganized as well. But he's probably done more for skepticism than any other living person. As far as I know he committed the funds for the conference in the first place. The organizers merely honored him by asking him to speak. He deserves that honor. [Last I read from Paul Kurtz he thinks Jesus existed. See his 1991 book, The Transcendental Temptation. He wrote: “[I]t seems to me that some such man lived, most likely in Palestine in the first half of the first century, that he was crucified or hanged, and that a sect of Christians developed proclaiming his divinity. We know very few authentic facts, however, about Jesus beyond this bare outline.” (p. 114)]
About Robert Price, Carrier said:
“...though most of the scholars I found were unhappy with Price, finding him a bit of a kook, I found him funny and erudite and generally right.”*Ahem* Richard, that means most of the scholars there would think you are a kook too. [I'm not saying you or Bob are kooks. I'm only commenting on what you yourself said]. As I have said before, do not become marginalized as a scholar. Your scholarship is too good for that to happen to you. Make sure that your book contains convincing arguments. I have no reason yet to suspect it doesn't do this. I wish you the best and I will read your book. What typically happens is that someone writes on a topic of interest and when scholars call the author a kook he will write a response in order to save face. And if this isn't convincing he will devote his whole life to defending himself. If this happens to you let it drop. Move on to other more important topics. You have so much to say about so many things. Say them. Make your statement and move on to these other topics if that happens.
About Ronald Lindsay, Carrier reported:
“He...used Plato's dialogues as an example of the rapid fabrication of sayings and conversations of a historical person (it is generally acknowledged that these are not a verbatim record, and often not even true at all, of what Socrates said), proving two points in one: that rapid fabrication of unchallenged legends is not improbable but in fact routine, and that such fabrication does not entail the non-historicity of the speaker.”I believe this is the honestly respectable position, and I applaud Lindsay for this.
About Frank Zindler, Carrier noted that
"...he is somewhat infamous for excessive skepticism.”Yes he is. Frank sent me a copy of his opening statement. As a scientist he's asking us to do history just like we do science. He wrote:
"The crucially important difference for us to note today is that for all claims of existence, science presumes the negative. It will ignore all affirmative arguments if they are not supported by evidence and facts." "[T]he problem is that we have not even been trying to use the scientific method in the field of religion studies." And later reiterates his point by saying: "For the last time I shall remind you that we must always remember that in science it is not necessary to prove a negative. Science assumes the negative. If no one can provide convincing positive evidence that Jesus of Nazareth once lived, we must then resort to the tried-and-tested, successful methodology of science to account for the origins of Christianity....Any hypotheses that survive rigorous tests can then be elevated to the rank of theory. In time, one of the rival theories will predominate and gain the scientific consensus." [Emphasis is his]My claim is that if we treat the historical past according to these rigorous scientific standards then there will not be much for historians to write about. He's demanding that the paucity of evidence found in the historical past should shoulder the burden of proof when it comes to the existence of an end times apocalyptic prophet like Jesus is depicted to be. Prophets like these were Legion in those days. My claim is also that how someone views the past is guided by control beliefs which must additionally be defended. There are several different philosophies of history that must be defended as one looks at the evidence of the past. The historian looks at the past with his particular outlook on life and it's probably impossible to do otherwise.
If one reads Carrier carefully we see that Gerd Lüdemann, Robert Eisenman, Dennis MacDonald, and Bruce Chilton all think there was a man behind the mythic traditions. I think it's important to add that G.A. Wells used to argue Jesus didn't exist, but has since changed his mind. It should also be noted that Bart D. Ehrman, one of skeptics best scholarly friends, thinks Jesus was an apocalyptic end times prophet, as I do.
Having said this it's an interesting question to me, but the money could be spent on better things. It seems as though skeptics have long ago concluded that religion is "bullshit" (ala Penn and Teller) and have now moved beyond that question to investigate other topics of interest to them. Most of them come from a scientific background, too. Since these other topics are interesting questions to them they focus on them. Having already debunked religion, including Christianity, they are looking for other things to debunk (why beat a dead horse, right?). The problem I see with such worthy interests is that there are still a great number of Christian believers in the world who will not seriously consider the possibility that Jesus did not exist. I would like to know if any Christian has walked away from his faith because of these arguments. I dare say that no one ever has (although this might change, I cannot say). It might be the equivalent of the Ontological Argument for the existence of God. No one has ever become a believer from that argument that we know of (Bertrand Russell flirted with belief because of it but eventually rejected it).
Given our recent poll on the question of who Jesus is/was, an overwhelming number of skeptics think Jesus was a mythical fictional character. Some of the skeptical voters have not been reading my arguments of late. They came here just to vote because of a request to chime in on our poll, which was posted on a very popular skeptical website. They came, they voted, and they left. Still it's good they did. It shows what most skeptics believe.
There are many topics that are of interest to me, while there are only a few that I'm concerned about. The question of The Jesus Project is of interest to me, but I'm not concerned about the results. I think Christianity fails whether Jesus existed or not. I base my arguments on Jesus's existence not unlike how St. Aquinas based his arguments for the existence of God on the eternality of the universe. He thought if he could show God existed based on the eternality of the universe, then how much more so can he show God exists if the universe did come into existence at some point in time. I can do that in reverse. Even if Jesus existed then Christianity still fails.
Where can the money be better spent? I need grant money to continue my work. There is a donate button in our sidebar that helps me stay alive in these hard economic times. I need your help. I need people who are willing to donate on a regular basis, a monthly commitment if you can. Unless more money comes in I’ll be forced to get a second job. Spinoza ground lenses during the day and researched at night. What if he had to have two jobs? I’m no Spinoza by a long shot, but what if Spinoza never had to grind lenses for a living and could research and write all day long? How much better would his arguments be?
Call me arrogant if you will, but I am one person who has the arguments that can be the undoing of Christianity. [BTW, Keith Parsons emailed me recently and said: "Humility is a Christian virtue. Be proud of your accomplishment!"] I’d like for CFI and Paul Kurtz to send me on a speaking tour, allow me to revise my book one more time (if I had time I could condense it and make it more accessible to the masses), fund me to debate some high profile Christians, make me a research scholar for the CFI institute. These requests have been made by me to them, with one important person who is advocating on my behalf, and maybe some or all of these requests will pan out in the near future. But my goal is not just to understand the world, as Marx said, but to change it.
Skeptics, yes, we need to move on to other issues and be on the cutting edge of them. Let's just never forget what our common goal is and how daunting the task is. We must major on the majors and minor on the minors and know the difference between which is which.
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