I Highly Recommend the New Book, Doubting the Resurrection

It is rare that I recommend a new book twice to my readers, but the recommendations for Kris D. Komarnitsky's book keep coming in: Doubting Jesus' Resurrection: What Happened in the Black Box? In it he lays out a probable naturalistic hypothesis of Christian origins. Here's what some scholars are saying about his book:

“If you liked my book Beyond Born Again, you're going to love this one by Kris Komarnitsky! He shows great acuity of judgment and clear-eyed perception of the issues. He does not claim to have proof of what happened at Christian origins, but he does present a powerfully plausible hypothesis for what might have happened, which is all you need to refute the fundamentalist’s claim that things can only have gone down their way. By now it is a mantra – it is also nonsense, and Kris shows that for a fact.”

–– Robert M. Price, Ph.D. Theology, Ph.D. New Testament

“A surprisingly excellent demonstration of how belief in the resurrection of Jesus could plausibly have originated by natural means. Komarnitsky is well read in the leading scholarship on this issue and boils the debate down to bare essentials in plain language. He quotes and cites dozens of scholars and primary sources to build a solid case. Though I don't always agree with him, and some issues could be discussed at greater length, everything he argues is plausible, and his treatise as a whole is a must for anyone interested in the resurrection.”

–– Richard Carrier, Ph.D. Ancient History

“Komarnitsky is addressing an important topic in a considered and rational way. This book offers the open-minded reader an opportunity to work through some of the key questions surrounding the Easter mystery that lies at the heart of Christian faith.”

–– Gregory C. Jenks, Ph.D. FaithFutures Foundation

“Clearly written and well argued, Doubting Jesus’ Resurrection lays out a plausible and intriguing case for a non-supernatural explanation of the New Testament resurrection accounts. Don’t be put off by the fact that Komarnitsky is not a scholar – his book makes a solid contribution to the historical-critical understanding of these immensely important texts. This book deserves serious attention from scholars and all those interested in Christian Origins.”

–– Robert J. Miller, Professor of Religious Studies, Juniata College.

"In Komarnitsky's third chapter he ventures onto my home turf--psychology--and his treatment of the the subject is impressive. I found the chapter opening a bit hard to follow, but persistence paid off in spades.

Komarnitsky pulls together the work of historians and psychologists and tells story after story of apocalyptic cults that find ways to sustain their beliefs despite radical disappointments (a messianic figure betrays trust, an end-of-the-world date comes and goes, aliens fail to appear). Social psychologist Leon Festinger's work on cognitive dissonance provides a theoretical framework for understanding an otherwise incomprehensible phenomenon. For anyone who is interested in how apocalyptic beliefs are sustained, whether in a Christian context or not, I recommend this thorough, well-documented overview.

Although the Christian resurrection story is shrouded in mythos, making it hard to know what actually happened in history, modern examples and cognitive dissonance theory offer a compelling possible scenario. Without resorting to any form of supernaturalism, drawing just on what we know about human behavior, Komarnitsky offers a sufficient explanation for the resurrection story at the heart of Christian orthodoxy."

-- Valerie Tarico, Ph.D., Author: The Dark Side - How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth

Science and Religion: A Truce

I, Science, have heard your plea for a truce, oh religion, My nemesis of ages past.

You are wounded, oh religion.
The still-warm blood runs down your side as you say it did your savior on the cross.
My Soldiers in white coats have maimed you.
They have crippled you, leaving you to limp away a casualty from the battlefield.

And now, on the loser’s end, with My chipped and crimson sword laid at your throat, you plead for mercy.
You beg Me to spare your life.
You ask for compassion and for understanding from Me, Science.
You want to be held up and accepted.

Know that I, Science, have no obligation to hear you.
Better it is that you should die, as all things old and decrepit.
But out of compassion and mercy, I grant you what you seek.

I let you alone.
I let you go your way.
I spare you.
But like a fool, you press your luck and demand more.

Instead of running away with your tale between your legs, with a morsel of thankfulness, and what little dignity you have left intact, you debase yourself.
You whine and complain.
You want your doctrines to be accepted in the universities and Institutions of Science and higher learning as viable theories, if not Scientific Truths.

You ask, “Why does science have to be so hostile to religion?”
“Why does the Scientific Community mock us so?”
“Why can't we as religious believers get the respect that we seek?”
“Why can't science and religion join hands?”

And I, Science, reply to you that We are hostile to you because you claim to be of Our Number, but are not.
Your representatives – the creationists and apologists of the ID movement – claim allegiance to Science when your claim is invalid and a manipulation for your own advantage.

You are imposters, all of you, liars and imposters with an agenda.
You serve yourselves and your own interests, and not those of Science.
You seek to exalt your savior and your faith.
You don't seek Truth.

So this I say to you – the religious intelligencia who actively seek an alliance with, Me, Science – take the liberties I give you. Bask in the sun of the life conveniences and the comforts I have granted to you, to worship, to sing, to pray, and to affirm or to deny any belief you want; teach and expound; reprove, rebuke, and exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine; imagine and create, appoint and oversee; stand outside and admire the stars and the host of heaven as you believe your god provided them for you to admire.

Let the raindrops bounce off of your tongue; admire to no end; teach on love, seek peace, and promote change as you see fit. Do all these things and My covenant of peace shall abide with you, and a very small number of My White-coated Representatives of Science shall at times join you as you worship.

But should you cross into My Territory, into the Territory that belongs to Science, should you bring your antiquated holy books into My Realms of microscopes and peer-reviewed journals, should you take select quotes from real Scientists to bolster your own beliefs and the claims of your false scientists, I will attack you and will kill you in open debate.
You can never stand up to Me, oh religion.
I am your Successor.
I am your Better.

Should the outstretched arms and bleeding hands of your savior embolden you to embrace Our Naturalistic Approach and begin to choke our Scientific Method, should the representatives of your splintered, pious movements begin to interfere and impersonate Our Scientists, to subvert our Work and to make it your own work, a great trespass is committed, and I will remember no more the covenant I made with you.

Nay, I, Science, shall strike you down, and your academics shall be cast out of the universities.
All My Scholars shall hiss at you, and you will be a mockery and an abhorrence to all of the Enlightened everywhere.
You shall grope in the darkness.
Only the simpleton and the ignoramus and the child shall hear you.
The dumb and the fool and the unlearned shall be they who give ear to your words.

And I, Science, shall surely slay you in the courts of the lands.
Cursed shall you be in the schools and cursed shall you be in the colleges.
Cursed shall you be in the laboratories and cursed shall you be in all of the institutions of higher learning.

I, Science, have spoken.

(JH)

What Is The Difference Between A Perception And Knowledge?

Or, "What is the difference between private personal experience and knowledge?". I know this may sound like a stupid question to some, but it seems that it is pivotal in the "Disregarding Established Knowledge..." discussion. In my view, considering inaccessible personal experience to be of the same value as established knowledge is untenable.

Disregarding Established Knowledge Is Bad, UnKay?

Its simple,
If your beliefs are not consitent with established human knowledge, then they probably are not justified. In that case, other people are not justified in believing what you say about them, and furthermore you have no reason to expect anyone to believe you.

Another One Leaves the Fold: YOU Could Be Next.

Below are excerpts from yet another former Christian telling his family and church friends he no longer believes. Isn't the internet a wonderful thing?

I dare say no one has called out more to God than I for answers, even for answers about his own existence. No one has pleaded more with God for help. No one has been on their knees more than me. But I’ve heard nothing. Not one thing but my own voice, until eventually I got the impression that my prayers were merely floating to the ceiling and falling back down like stillborn stars. So, I got off my knees and determined, like the human that I am, to find the truth.

We have, indeed, for centuries, received nothing at all but silence from the God of the Old Testament, just as we have received no recent word from Jesus or Zeus or Apollo or Allah or Osiris. Thousands of years have passed and not an utterance. Does that not strike anyone else as peculiar?

I did not set out at the start to disprove anything. I set out to find the truth. And these truths we can’t escape: Earth is billions of years old, Earth exists on a spiral arm of our galaxy, an insignificant spot, and not the center of the galaxy as many of our forebearers thought (which, by the way, gave creedance to the argument that we are the special planet, and a special species, in all of creation). The Earth will one day be uninhabited by people once again, not by a rapture, but either by a wayward asteroid or gamma ray burst or by the sun losing power. The truth is the canonical Bible contains many irreparable self-contradictions; condones slavery, mass slaughter, rape, the mutilation or altering of children’s genitalia, among other things; and cannot even get the details straight about the events surrounding Jesus’ death and resurrection.

And at some point, all us of have to make a similar choice: Do we want to be complacent in living our lives for a faith that may or may not, in reality, be true, or can we mentally and emotionally handle another possibility: that we are an insignificant dot in a vast, vast universe.

For me, the option that we are an insignificant dot in a vast universe, takes much more wherewithall, and frankly, is a quite liberating axiom, to know that we are, at the core, connected and interconnected with the universe, not just Earth, and everything the universe is quite a beautiful thing, as astrophycisist Neil deGrasse Tyson noted.

His name is Jeremy Styron.

Debate with Jerry McDonald: Round three

The third round is now completed.

Direct Evidence Of Moral Behavior From Evolution

My working hypothesis is that Game Theory and simple rules derived from self-interest are sufficient to generate self-organized behavior that is labeled as "Morality". Here's more evidence to back that up.

Evolution Guides Cooperative Turn-taking, Game Theory-based Computer Simulations Show, ScienceDaily.com

"We published indirect evidence for this in 2004; we have now shown it directly and found a simple explanation for it. Our findings confirm that cooperation does not always require benevolence or deliberate planning. This form of cooperation, at least, is guided by an ‘invisible hand’, as happens so often in Darwin’s theory of natural selection.”

Should Skeptics Send Their Children to Church on Sundays?

Last night I talked with a skeptic who wants his children to be exposed to Christianity in order for them to learn about it and to decide for themselves. So he's sending them to some church on Sundays. Is this a good strategy? NO, not at all, for several reasons. There are other alternatives. I have an alternative proposal for him and others like him.

Let me suggest to these skeptics what they ought to do. If they want to truly expose their children to religious ideas then they should send their children to different churches for a month at a time, or more. Have them attend them in a random order. Have them attend a Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, Seventh-Day Adventist, United Church of Christ, Congregational, Methodist, Lutheran, Catholic, Unitarian, Disciples of Christ, and Non-instrumental Church of Christ churches. And don't forget a Jewish Synagogue, a Muslim Mosque, a snake handling service, a Pentecostal healing service, and so on and so on, and so on and so on. If this skeptical parent truly wants to expose his children to the religious ideas of his culture then give them the whole range of choices to choose from. And don’t forget to take these children to atheist meet-ups, and freethought gatherings too. Then these children can truly choose for themselves. Then these children can be truly educated about these ideas. And then these children will most assuredly choose to be skeptics.

Nothing but total exposure to the varying options will educate his children. This is what Daniel Dennett proposes with regard to educating our youths in American schools, but will probably never fly because of First Amendment concerns. When placed on a equal playing field religious options are no options at all. THAT’s why I love Bill Maher’s movie Religulous, because it does just that.

One danger in sending our children to the same church over and over is that children are easily swayed to believe what an authority figure tells them in a community of happy looking, but deluded, people. Take for instance Norman Geisler, known as the "Dean of Christian Apologetics." He was raised in an atheist home, but because of a bus ministry he went to church every Sunday for nine years and was swayed to accept and then later defend Christianity. His parents thought the same thing as this skeptic, but they were wrong to do so.

Inerrancy and the Crisis of Evangelicals in the Late 70's

Last night I heard my friend Bob Price give a talk on his new book Inerrant the Wind, which describes the crisis evangelicals had in the late 70's to the early 80's, of which I remember very well. Harold Lindsell dropped his bombshell of a book on us titled, The Battle for the Bible, where he drew a line in the sand whereby evangelicals must accept inerrancy in order to stay evangelicals. Afterward all of us had to take a position on the matter.

This book is Price's dissertation finally in print about that era. There were five evangelical responses as he describes them. Each one of them opened the door to liberal thought, and he takes us through each one of them. Price argues that basically Lindsell was right. Once evangelicals denied inerrancy they were on a slippery slide to liberalism, but Lindsell was wrong in that the Bible is in fact errant, which led evangelicals to travel on this slippery slide in the first place. A history of evangelicals since that time proves that Price's predictions were correct. Evangelicals who denied inerrancy did indeed become more and more liberal. It's a good book and a very interesting read.

In our own day a recent attempt to reformulate and question inerrancy is the book by Carlos R. Bovell. He's already given up the ship.

I also had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Bruce of "Bruce Droppings" who also wrote about last night.

Genesis Chapter 1 (Revised Reality Version)

Rumors of a Tunnel in the Underground Railroad: Using Both Reason and Evidence to Learn the Truth

This past weekend my wife and I went to hear a presentation about the Underground Railroad in Orland, Indiana. This small town has quite an interesting past with regard to aiding runaway slaves. Then we went on a walking tour of a few of the homes where these slaves found rest on their journey to Detroit and then into Canada, which was a free country. The people of this town probably helped thousands of them.

Our guide mentioned that there are rumors of an underground tunnel between the leader’s house to either the library or someone else’s house. But the library wasn’t built until years later and she couldn’t find any evidence of a tunnel.

Here then lies an example of what we do in testing a claim. The first thing we do is to think. Can we account for the origin of a rumor that would lead us to think it’s not true? The Underground Railroad was neither underground nor was it a railroad (although in some cases slaves did hitch a ride on trains). Rumors after all, like folklore, spring up all of the time because we’re story-telling people. Rumors of tunnels have sprung up everywhere with no basis (although archaeologists did discover one under George Washington’s home). Then too, we must ask ourselves what would be the purpose of a tunnel? Tunnels to transport slaves would require a great deal of work, so the payoff would have to be significant. Our tour guide told about one house that had a trap door on the second story where runaway slaves would climb down into a room with no windows and no other way to get out but to climb back up. That seems to have been a good enough hiding place. Why would they need a tunnel? These runaway slaves could be easily transported at night, which they were.

While this disproves nothing, it does cause us to require evidence before we’ll accept such a claim.

See, that way easy. The analogy here at DC is obvious. If it isn't then my next post will make it so.

If God Knows How to Get My Attention Why Doesn't He Do So?

After hearing a presentation of the Underground Railroad my wife and I watched a local parade and then went to the Park to mingle, eat, and watch some skydivers land in an open space. I saw an old friend named Joe there are we got into a conversation. He is a Bible Thumper, and by that I mean someone who finds all of his theological questions answered decisively in the Bible, not in reason. Even as a believer I thought Joe was lopsided, since reason was something God created and he required us to think about these issues as well. But Joe has all of the answers.

Joe is sure that he's right and that he has the proper interpretation of the Bible, even though he has had no deep theological training at all. He has the tendency to talk down to others since he has divine truth and it doesn’t matter if someone has studied these issues out deeply either. Again, he has divine answers.

In the course of our conversation he told me that he cannot convince me to believe again, only the Holy Spirit can do that. As he was starting to quote the Bible I interrupted him. I told him about the presentation I just heard concerning the Underground Railroad and the rumors of a tunnel, and how to think through such claims. Then I said to him he needs to begin by thinking, not quoting.

“Don’t quote the Bible to me. Just think about what you’re saying. Does the Holy Spirit know how to get my attention?” He said that “it depended on whether I reject the Spirit or not.” “But even if I rejected it can the Holy Spirit get my attention anyway, like what supposedly happened to Paul who was so hard-hearted that he was even persecuting Christians? Can he get my attention like his supposedly got Moses’ attention with a burning bush? Can he get my attention like he did with Gideon, or many others?” Joe had to admit that I was right, "yes he knows how to get your attention." Then I simply asked him: "If God knows how to get my attention why doesn’t he do so? It’s not that I don’t want to believe. I am open to the evidence just like I’m open to the evidence that there is a tunnel in the town of Orland. It’s just that I cannot believe. I really can’t. It not only doesn’t make sense, there isn’t enough evidence to believe these ancient stories.”

In the end Joe asked if he could pray for me. I told him yes that would be fine. But then I also said if prayer works it’s a done deal. I should eventually believe.

We parted as friends, but I hope the lesson was not lost on him. We must begin to evaluate a claim by simply thinking about it.

End Times: A set of prophecies or a set of hallucinations?

Real Christians are going to disappear abruptly someday soon. The world is going to descend into a bloodbath while someone known as the antichrist attempts to seize control of the planet. That is what some of your neighbors think—and some of your politicians. Many of them even relish the thought. Is Revelation, the last book in the Bible, a set of prophecies or a set of hallucinations? Neither, says Reverend Rich Lang of Trinity United Methodist in Ballard Washington.



If the Book of Revelation isn’t a blueprint that tells us what is coming in the End Times, what the heck is it?
Like any book in the Bible, Revelation was written from the perspective of faith for the purpose of giving faith. It was written in the early days of the Jesus movement to a persecuted minority that was fearing worse persecution.

As the Jesus movement started in Jerusalem and Jesus was crucified, and there was this experience of resurrection, at the same time, there was a simultaneous political movement within Judaism of rebellion against the Roman Empire. It peaked in the 60’s and 70’s. It culminated finally—horrifically-- in the Roman legions marching into the country, destroying Jerusalem and burning down the temple. These two factors – the young Jesus movement and the brutally crushed rebellion–intersect in the writings we now call Revelation

But Revelation doesn’t talk about Jerusalem being destroyed. It talks about a beast with many heads and a dragon and the four horsemen. . .
That poetic language which sounds so strange to us was actually familiar to ancient readers. The author was writing a dramatic script in a form of popular media. Today we all recognize different modes or “genres” of writing—the detective novel, the love sonnet, manga. . Each has its own familiar structure and images. The same was true in the past.

The book of Revelation belongs to a then popular genre of literature called apocalyptic. The term apocalypse means “unveiling.” There were lots of apocalypses, each a graphic poetic vision of some radically transformed future in which the good guys win. This genre began around 200 BC and went out of style around 150 AD. The book of Revelation is also called the Apocalypse of John, and it is one of several explicitly Christian apocalypses that still exist today. In each, metaphoric language was used to communicate something that, experientially, felt too big for words. It was a way of trying to speak the unspeakable—and to inspire endurance and hope.

So what was the author of Revelation unveiling?
Revelation was written about twenty years after the fall of Jerusalem. The author, who we know only as John, had lived during the horrors that accompanied fall of the city. Imagine: the Roman Empire is surrounding Jerusalem. At the same time, civil war is raging within the walls. People are literally starving to death. As the siege continues, the Romans capture 20,000 Jews and crucify them on the walls of the city—while the city still is under siege.

20,000! We think of the crucifixion being unique.
No. Crucifixions happened all the time. There were thousands and thousands of crucifixions. The Jews wanted freedom. To them it was a blasphemy to have the Romans in their land. Many of them rebelled, and they lost. Eventually, the city fell, and the people were slaughtered. Many remaining were expelled from the land. This is part of the Diaspora—the scattering of the Jews, who became dispersed around the Mediterranean—Asia Minor, Greece, Northern Africa and Europe.

But the author, John, is a Christian.
Remember, the earliest members of the Jesus movement were Jews, and so early Christians scattered with the rest of the Jewish people. Over time, thanks to this scattering and missionary activity, Christianity began to be adopted more widely by gentiles and at that point it began to grow rapidly throughout the Mediterranean. John is writing to Pauline (gentile) churches, but they are very rooted in Judaism and the Hebrew scriptures.

At the time Revelation is written, about twenty years after the devastating events of The Great Revolt, the young scattered Christian movement is being persecuted. They are treated like Blacks in the South during the ‘30s and ‘40s. A Christian carpenter might not be able to get work. Some are lynched. John, himself, is writing from exile, so whatever he was preaching was viewed by the Roman Empire as a threat to law and order.

Why was the message so threatening?
Clearly, part of his message was “Stop participating in the imperial cult. Stop participating in the patriotic way of life of the Roman Empire which requires paying homage to the gods of the Empire and in particular the emperor as an incarnation of God.” The Early Christian movement was an alternative to the way of empire. You know, Jesus is called “Lord and Savior”. If you ask where did that language came from, that language came from Caesar. Caesar was “Lord and Savior.” Christians celebrate the birthday of Jesus on December 25, which was when Roman celebrated the birthday of the Unconquered Sun. The pagans believed that if they didn’t take care of the gods, the gods wouldn’t take care of them. By forbidding the cult of the gods, the Christians threatened this balance.

One thing confuses me. Is John writing about events in his past or events in his future?
First of all, he is writing from a lived experience of what Empire can do. That is the key to understanding his perspective. He is writing a book that combines familiar political images. The dragons, for example, are much like our political cartoons. When you see an eagle and a bear you know it means the United States and the Soviet Union. For him, he is using images largely out of Hebrew scripture to convey what the Roman Empire is, and what he believes will happen to the early Christian movement. John’s primary message comes in Chapter 18: Empire will fall. Rome cannot last. This power structure that seems so big and is so crushing of the people will crumble, and God will re-create out of the ruins a new Jerusalem. John continually counsels the movement to hold fast: Those who endure to the end will be saved. This is a book of hope: The empire is going to fall. God is going to make a way where there is no way.

But had he—lost it? With all of the bizarre images, I’ve heard Revelation called “John on Acid.”
No. Almost all the imagery in the book of Revelation is rooted in the Hebrew scriptures, and some comes from Greek myths. In Chapter 12, you have the woman clothed in the sun and Satan falls out of the sky and there is this dragon that chases the woman. Well, that is the birth of Apollo. Domitian, who is the emperor at that time, he likens himself to Apollo. He is the sun god. So John is taking this known story and writing a counter-myth. He is saying that Domitian is not so important as he thinks. The birth of the child, Jesus, that’s the real big story.

The images of Jesus himself are rooted in Hebrew stories. They simply cannot be understood unless you know that they are coming from the book of Daniel and Ezekiel and Zachariah. The narrative, the story line is rooted in the Exodus story in which God liberates the Jews from Pharaoh’s empire – walks them through the Red Sea and the wilderness and sends them to a promised land. Revelation is a recapitulation, a re-telling of the same story. God is the god who frees us from empire, whether Pharaoh or Dominion. We will come out of this into a land flowing with milk and honey. One of the big exhortations of the book is: “Come out of her.”—Come out of Roman Empire (as the Jews came out of Egypt).

What you are saying helps me to understand why people who are immersed in this theology are so fearful of empire – the League of Nations, the Soviet Union, the United Nations—any form of internationalism. Among the “Left Behind” crowd, people who are bridge builders or peacemakers are seen as evil and to be mistrusted. That is what John was talking about, that was his experience, even if people take it out of context.
From the very beginnings, part of the Christian message was the notion of an end time. God is going to clean up the world –which is a messy awful a place with a lot of violence and evil. After all, the central hero of the Christian story is tortured and crucified-- put to death by an empire! How is God going to clean up the world? Jesus is going to come back and rule the world and shepherd the nations.

The Hebrew understanding of history is that it is going somewhere. It is linear, not cyclical, which is a break with the agriculture-based earth religions. Christianity, which is a child of Judaism, picks up the Hebrew storyline: History is linear. But –and this is really important-- in the Bible the end is never the end of the physical world. It is the end of an age. It’s the end, for example, of the Roman empire, and then what happens is not that everyone is whisked off to heaven but that on earth there is a renewal , a renewal of the earth itself, of culture, of the nations ,peace and justice, everyone has their own vineyard and fig tree.

So, where did the notion of everyone being lifted out of their clothes and cars and cockpits come from?
That comes from the 19th Century. An Anglo-Irish theologian called John Darby created a new interpretive lens for the Bible. It’s called Dispensationalism, because in this system, history is divided into seven “dispensations” or ages within an age. In this system, the Rapture leads to the Millennium when Jesus reigns on Earth for 1000 years but before the Millennium is the reign of the antichrist. At different historical junctures different bad buys are picked as the antichrist. In the 1970’s, thanks to Hal Lindsey’s book, The Late Great Planet Earth, it was all about Russia. And the ten nations, the European Union would become part of the Beast. Today dire warnings about Barack Obama being the antichrist are scattered about the internet. Or Osama Bin Ladin.

Believe me—I’ve seen plenty of both—even Chavez and Bono. But come back, for a moment, to the Rapture itself. What about that verse in Thessalonians (1 Thess. 4:16). There’s the Lord descending with a trumpet, and the dead in Christ rising and then “we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air.”
That is wonderful graphical mythical language which, when written, had very little to do with the plot of Left Behind.

Thessalonians is Paul talking with an early church in southern Europe, and he faces a specific challenge: Christians have died. We had expected Jesus to come back before that happened. Now what do we do? Paul thought he was living at the end of an age. He thought he would see the day that God would come back, clean up the earth and restore Paradise. But it hasn’t happened within the timeframe he expected, so he offers an explanation that integrates the existing facts—instead of Christ returning before any Christians have died, the dead and the living are united with Jesus together.

Flash forward a little bit. When you study very early church history, if you study the art of the early church you don’t see a lot of images of the crucifix or scenes of the crucifixion; you see images of paradise. And there was a proclamation of the early church that had an optimistic view – that where we were headed --on earth as in heaven, was a paradise. This was the expectation of many in the early Jesus movement.

There was a historical process, and over time this expectation changed for some. This process, which I don’t have time to go into, was wrapped around when Constantine became emperor and absorbed Christianity as the state religion. Rather than being a minority faith it became the dominant faith.. Once it became the dominant faith Christianity radically changed because it became about politics and power and control of the nations.

You have this book that is all about how evil empires can be because he has this horrifying experience and now all of a sudden Christianity is in power; empire is on the side of Christianity. That’s a little awkward.
Yes. And, the book of Revelation was dormant for many many years because of this. In our time the book of Revelation has come back with a vengeance because the imagery is made to order for wild interpretation. You’ve got an entire generation of children being raised in these fundamentalist end-times churches, being told they are the last generation.

You obviously think this is a bad thing.
Well, thankfully these families don’t live as if what they say is true is really true. They are still stashing away money to send their kids to college and for their own retirement. If they really believed you would see a hardening of the faith. There is a far right segment of Christian in which you do see this hardening—churches focused on “spiritual warfare” building walls rather than bridges, organizing services to celebrate gun rights, praying public prayers for the death of abortion providers or Barack Obama or judges. This kind of far right hardening comes out of the misuse of apocalyptic literature. Christianity gets translated into a quest for purity and righteousness that will bring these prophesies to fruition.

You said earlier that there were lots of apocalypses. It was a popular medium. How did this particular book get into the Bible?
Well, there was controversy about that. Many Christians didn’t want it in the Bible, and even Martin Luther question the decision of the Catholic councils to include it. Revelation got into the Bible because the church fathers chose to believe that the same John who knew Jesus in person was the author of this and several other texts. Their primary criterion was “apostolic authority.” What we now know – this is just the evolution of our own knowledge—is that the authors who wrote the Gospel of John, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Letters of John, and the Apocalypse of John, were not the same person. The script is very different. The same phrases are not used. One is written by a highly educated Greek author, the other written by a person whose primary language is Semitic.

These books that the counsels thought were written by John, the companion of Jesus, they were written by two or three people?
The people who actually knew Jesus, the twelve, none of them left writings for us. All of these writings are written well after the death of Jesus. The Church was looking for authority, and so they tried to choose writings that fit a hierarchical form of Christianity and that traced their lineage through the apostles back to Jesus. The Bible is the book for the church and it was compiled by the Church for the purpose of helping the Church advance faith. The books didn’t become finalized as scripture till 300 years after Jesus lived and died.

I was taught as a child that the Bible was essentially dictated by God to the authors. I was never taught about which books were chosen and how. But I would assume that Catholics believe God gave perfect insight to the councils that made the decisions?
I would assume so. And that is a wonderful mask for authority. When religion becomes a pursuit of power—a system to keep people in control, you are always going to have those games that are being played. Against religion, you have the message of Jesus, which is a spiritual message – a message of freedom.

Part of what this comes down to is: What is the Bible? When you are dealing with an end times fundamentalist Christian, you are dealing with a person who believes that the Bible was written by God– God writes it and there is a secret code and if you are in the know you will know the code and the elect will know the code. The Bible itself becomes a magical book, a secret script. If you just know how to read the script, you’ll know where the world is going. And so people begin to live this script as if they live in the end times.

We’re so into that secret knowledge thing, aren’t we? You see it many places: Gnosticism, the Knights Templar, Freemasonry, the Mormon temple, childhood clubs, Skull and Bones . . . .
Yes, and I think you see it in all religions. I think that part of the religious impulse easily gets perverted into a quest for secret knowledge because it makes me more than you. I am special, I am elect, I am closer to God, I know the truth. The reality is that we are all schmucks trying to muddle through as best we can.

This article is adapted from an interview conducted by Valerie Tarico on Moral Politics Television, Seattle, June 12, 2009. Special thanks to Producer Bill Alford.

Is Atheism Rationally Coercive?

Let me comment on what Eric said here at DC, who is an intelligent Christian:

I'm just trying to get at the truth. I was an ardent atheist for a number of years, but gradually came to believe that the theistic worldview and the arguments for it are more consistent with my experience of the world and my philosophic intuitions (which we all rely upon when thinking these things through). I've changed my mind in the past, and I'm certainly open to doing it again in the future. I don't think that my position is rationally coercive, but I do think that it's rational, just as I would say (and I presume John would agree) that the arguments for atheism aren't rationally coercive, but atheism is rational. LINK

First off I really appreciate Eric's honesty and willingness to consider his faith to be in error. Not many believers will say what he did, and for that I find it a joy to discuss these issues with him, even if we both think the other person is wrong. Kudos to him! Can I say the same thing?

Am I open to the possibility that I'm wrong? Well, it depends on the question. If the question is whether there was a supernatural force or being who may have created a quantum wave fluctuation which caused this universe to spring into existence as his last act before dying, then yes, I could be wrong. Such a being might have existed. Nor am I 100% sure no supernatural force or being exists now. But if the question is whether evangelical Christianity is true or many other moderate to liberal versions of that faith, then yes, I am very sure. Do I think there is a slightest chance that I might be wrong about Christianity? No. In fact, I am so sure I'm right that I'm willing to risk being thrown into hell for all of eternity. I think this says a lot about how assured I am that I'm correct.

That being said, do I think arguments for atheism aren't rationally coercive? Yes, that's what I think. Let me explain by defining the words "atheism" and "rationally" as well as what it means for something to be "coercive". These distinctions need to be fleshed out to see why I say this.

If the word “atheism” means “metaphysical naturalism,” as Eric and many Christian theists equate the terms, then I do not think “metaphysical naturalism” is “coercive” in the sense that the evidence compels people to accept it. One could affirm deism, or the philosopher’s god. If the word "atheism" is defined as simply "the lack of a belief in God," then that too is not rationally coercive, if for no other reason but that rational people disagree (as I'll explain later when it comes to the word "rationally"). I do think that agnosticism is rationally coercive, if by that we mean a skeptical method for assessing truth claims. We should all be agnostics in the Huxleyan sense. I also think agnosticism is rationally coercive if by that we mean the view that we just don't know why the universe exists (known as "soft-agnosticism"). We must all admit this is the default positon before making any positive claims about the origins of existence. I just happen to think this kind of agnosticism leads us to atheism though, as defined in either sense above.

When it comes to what it is that makes a person reasonable or “rational,” this is a complex topic. If people can only be considered rational if they are correct, then there are a few serious problems to be dealt with which cannot be satisfactorily answered. For one, how is it possible for a rational person to change his mind and still be considered a rational person both before and after changing his mind? Did he all of a sudden become rational because he changed his mind for the truth, or did he become irrational because he changed his mind and is now wrong? Besides, how do we describe what it means to be rational when all of us are surely right about some things and yet wrong about other things? Are we just rationally schizophrenic human beings? Furthermore, how can we tell when someone is rational if being rational means being correct, since everyone is influenced by non-rational emotional factors having to do with what William James described as our passionate natures? If we are to judge whether someone is wrong about an issue and hence irrational, then how sure can we be that we are not wrong and therefore irrational ourselves?

If instead we think being rational means following the rules of logic, then rational people can be dead wrong and still be rational. All they have to do is follow the rules of logic to be rational. Rational people can be dead wrong simply because they start with a false assumption. If they take a false assumption as their starting point then they may be perfectly rational to follow that assumption with good logic to its logical conclusion, even though their conclusion is wrong. They would be wrong not because they are irrational, but because they started with a wrong assumption.

To people who think we should have no assumptions I merely say that we must all assume some things if for no other reason than that we can never examine everything we accept to be true all at once. Ideas which are not subject to conscious scrutiny form a set of background beliefs which are used in assessing a given issue at hand. Our conclusions on these other issues are our accumulated set of assumptions. Yes, we must try to examine everything we accept one at a time, but we can never examine all of that which we accept as true. Just as Michael Polanyi effectively argued that we know more than we can tell, we also accept more than we can justify. Have you, for instance, ever serious examined whether or not communication is even possible between two people? Some philosophers have, and at least one ancient Greek philosopher named Cratylus concluded this was impossible. Given that conclusion of his, Cratylus merely wiggled his finger whenever he was asked a question, which, if he was correct, was the logical thing to do even if it might seem irrational. Your assumption that we do communicate is just that, an assumption, until you actually examine the arguments to the contrary. Was Cratylus correct? I don’t think so. But even if he was wrong he was still being rational. In the same sense I think George Berkeley was wrong for arguing there was no physical universe even if I think he was rational in doing so, and I do.

As another example, I personally think the logic of the Inquisition was impeccable, but absolutely wrong because it assumed God was the author of certain Biblical texts that justified it. As another example, if a believer assumes God exists then this might lead him to logically conclude God is the author of morality and that there is a life after death. The logic is probably there, at least for believers. It’s just that their starting assumption is false.

Believers: Should atheists promote religion to improve society?

A deist friend of has pointed me to a couple of articles by atheist Theodore Dalrymple: Why Religion Is Good for Us and What the New Atheists Don’t See.

I find these articles both fascinating and puzzling: a self-confessed atheist praises religion for imbuing the lives of millions with meaning, purpose and morality, while castigating recent atheist writers for their simplistic belittlement of religion. Dalrymple’s perspective is best summarized by the following quote:

Though I am not religious, I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible for us to live decently without the aid of religion. That is the ambiguity of the Enlightenment.

I appreciate Dalrymple’s call for personal responsibility, but it strikes me as patronizing for an atheist to say that society needs religion to be decent. Does Dalrymple not consider himself to be decent? If so, how has he managed to maintain his own decency without religion? Does he feel that he has somehow managed to rise above the need for religion while the masses still require it? If so, can they not benefit from the same insights that have allowed him to live morally without religion? He does seem to have a high estimation of the intelligence of the underclasses; why not leverage that intelligence to lead them to an understanding of the benefits of morality without supernaturalism?

I’m writing this post primarily to elicit feedback from believers concerning Dalyrmple’s approach. For which kind of atheist do you have the lesser respect: one who sings the practical benefits of religion or one who advocates putting religion behind us? Before answering this question, perhaps imagine temporarily for the sake of argument that there really are no gods. Also take into consideration Paul’s thoughts in 1 Corinthians 15:17-19:

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

In short, do you appreciate being told by an atheist like Dalrymple that, even if your religion is untrue, you should go ahead and maintain your faith because of its contribution to your sense of meaning and morality? Or would you prefer that atheists encourage you to leave your religion if God does not exist?

Two Thirds of British Teenagers Don't Believe in God

According to a study by Penguin books:

Teenagers even say family, friends, money, music and even reality television are more important than religion.
It also emerged six out of ten 10 children (59 per cent) believe that religion "has a negative influence on the world".

The survey also shows that half of teenagers have never prayed and 16 per cent have never been to church.
The study of 1,000 teenagers aged 13 to 18 was carried out by Penguin to mark this week's publication of controversial novel 'Killing God' by Kevin Brooks.
The book is about a 15-year-old girl who questions the existence of God.
Kevin Brooks, the author, said: "I can't say I am surprised by the teenagers' responses.
"Part of the reason that I wrote Killing God was that I wanted to explore the personal attitudes of young people today, especially those with troubled lives, towards organised religion and the traditional concept of God.
"How can the moralities of an ancient religion relate to the tragedies and disorders of today's broken world? And why do some people turn to God for help while others take comfort in drugs and alcohol?
"These are just some of the questions I wanted to consider... And I wasn't looking for answers."
The research also found 55 per cent of young people are not bothered about religion and 60 per cent only go to church for a wedding or christening.
Only three out of 10 teenagers believe in an afterlife and 41 per cent believe that nothing happens to your body when you die, but one in 10 reckon they come back as an animal or another human being.
A Church of England spokesman said: "Many teenagers aren't sure what they believe at that stage of their lives, as is clear from the number who said they don't know whether they believe in God.
"On the other hand many of these results point to the great spirituality of young people today that the Church is seeking to respond to through new forms of worship alongside tradition ones."
Hanne Stinson, chief executive of The British Humanist Association, said: "It confirms that young people - like adults - do not need a religion to have positive values.
"The 'golden rule', which is often claimed by religions as a religious value, is in reality a shared human value - shared by all the major religions and the non-religious and almost every culture - that predates all the major world religions."

[Telegraph Media Group Limited 2009]

Debate with Jerry McDonald: Round Two

Round two is now complete. Jerry’s second affirmative and my second rebuttal have been posted, and both statements are divided into two parts (because of their length). I'm curious to know what people think.

Meet My New Neighbors

The late Rev. Ike, who coin the phases: “Some people need a checkup from the neck up.” to “The more you pay, the harder I'll pray.”; used to tell Christians listening to his broadcast: “Why wait for a pie in the sky in the sweet by and by when you can have the pie right NOW with ice-cream on top of it!”

Ministry Leader Building $4 Million Home After Cutting Jobs

A Charlotte-area religious broadcaster is building a $4 million home in western South Carolina, as the ministry has cut jobs.
The Charlotte Observer reported Monday that Inspiration Networks’ CEO David Cerullo, is building the 9,000-square-foot home in a gated community that overlooks Lake Keowee.
Inspiration Networks has drawn scrutiny for up to $26 million in incentives it won from South Carolina to move from Charlotte to Indian Land in Lancaster County.
Don Weaver of the South Carolina Association of Taxpayers says given Cerullo’s salary and land holdings, it doesn’t appear the state needs to offer tax breaks.
Employees told the newspaper the ministry began laying off some workers late last year.
News Channel 7 called and email Inspiration Ministries, to speak to Cerullo or a media relations person. So far, we haven’t heard back from them. But those who know Cerullo said people are developing opinions before they know the facts.
Nick Rubio’s parent’s own the company building Cerullo’s home and he said he is working there during construction. He stresses that Cerullo has been involved in many businesses, other than the ministry.
Cerullo’s bio on the ministry website does state he’s worked internationally and had founded a successful advertising and public relations firm, a construction company and a management consulting firm.
“He was a businessman in real estate and he got into that, and developed that company up,“ said Rubio. “He’s a real genuine, sincere guy who loves God and loves the people that he’s helping.“

Some Interesting Sites

Check these out: Atheism: Proving the Negative;
Religious Tolerance;
The Jesus Police;
The Messiah Truth Project, and
The Christian Central-the Antithesis.

Ken Daniels' Review of My Book: "An unremitting battery of helpfully organized arguments against orthodox Christianity"

Former missionary turned agnostic Ken W. Daniels reviewed my book on Amazon. Among some minor criticisms he wrote:

As a former evangelical missionary who lost my faith nearly a decade ago, I am struck by how closely Loftus' arguments against Christianity match those that drove me independently out of the fold. My journey was long and painful; I discovered the flaws of my faith in bits and pieces until the weight of them all tipped the scales against my former position. In retrospect I believe the process could have been cut significantly shorter if John's book had been available to me years before my crisis finally came to a head.

The value of this volume lies not so much in its development of unique arguments as in its bringing together in a single accessible package most of the important criticisms that have been advanced against the Christian faith (and theism in general) since the Enlightenment. To be sure, there are individual books that delve into each topic more deeply than John's, but few if any cover as many bases as Why I Became an Atheist, while at the same time digging as deeply as can be expected for a general audience.

Though I have read many books arguing for and against the reasonableness of the Christian faith, I was rewarded with a number of helpful insights sprinkled throughout the text.

I found Loftus' treatment of the Atonement to be particularly incisive. I have not read a more succinct and effective rejoinder to the penal substitution theory than his...

[It is] an unremitting battery of helpfully organized arguments against orthodox Christianity. There is no denying that Loftus is well read and gifted at consolidating the arguments of a wide variety authors, tying them together with his own thoughtful analysis.

Loftus is superb at anticipating and preempting the counter-arguments of believers. Well done, John!

To read the whole review click here.

FYI: You can find my book as a Kindle Book on Amazon: Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity

Ken Daniels just informed me he wrote his own book soon to be available on amazon. Ken was a former team member here at DC.

The Christian Faith Makes a Person Stupid (Part of a Series)

While I try to be respectful and polite with believers who disagree with me, there are just some things I do not tolerate at all: stupid attempts to justify Biblical ethics. I may make this part of an ongoing series titled: "Fundamentalists Say the Stupidest Things" [FSST]. But Alan is at it again...

Although I already trashed him in a previous post he seems undeterred. He cannot even fathom what God could've said differently about rapists, even to the point of thinking that his "Put up or shut up" demand is a debate stopper when asking me to suggest something else. Is that not utterly ignorant?

You can read what he wrote for yourselves in context, but in light of a different post I wrote about the Ten Commandments my answer to him is this:

"Thou shalt not treat women as inferior persons, nor shall you rape them or force them to marry a man they do not want to marry."

There, that was easy. Given that your God is barbaric I am better than God, and you can quote me on that!

Sheesh. Faith seems to go hand in hand with not being able to think. If this is the ignorant kind of reasoning that makes believers then there is no way in hell they can have any assurance they are right. Alan doesn't even know that he's ignorant!

The Top Ten Reasons Why the Bible is Repulsive

The Christian Faith Makes a Person Stupid: Another Case in Point.

Read what Alan said in defense of the Old Testament commands concerning rape. This is absolutely stupid.

We were discussing these two passages from the Bible:

Deuteronomy 22:23 If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, 24 you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the girl because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man's wife. You must purge the evil from among you.

Deuteronomy 22:28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, 29 he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. [c] He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.

Okay so far? Now along comes Alan who writes:

In some cultures today, once a virgin has been raped, she is shunned by society and remains unmarried all of her days. She pines away as an “untouchable”. This is really sad. In such societies, I would love to see action taken against such damnable perpetrators by having them pay money to the father and require at least an offer of marriage and make the law stick such that he can’t divorce her later. Wait a minute… isn’t this what the Biblical law provides?

This is an utterly stupid analogy. There is no thought in this analogy at all, NONE! Alan is trying to equate what some cultures do today with the command of a perfectly good God regarding such matters. Again, did Yahweh shape the culture of the Israelites or not with his commands? If not, why not? If so, why wouldn't he have commanded them not to shun women who have been raped in the first place, idiot?

But we're not done yet. Next Alan writes this gem:

If a law forces rapists to marry their victims, then perhaps the number of rapes will decline to near zero.

Hmmmm. Let's pick our wives this way okay? Whom would I choose to marry? Just rape her. This is fucking nonsense. ;-)

What’s more, if the law requires rapists to pay fifty shekels of silver to the father, this could indeed equate to the death penalty if the rapist hasn’t saved toward his bride’s future. Thus, we have narrowed down the field of rapists who marry their victims to only those who have saved for their “brides” future.

Oh, the debtor’s prison, right? Let's have a show of hands in this economy whether people would prefer this barbaric practice? Alan wants to turn back the clock. He wants to live in the ancient world with Madelein Flannagan who likes being treated as women were treated in the Bible. How can I shock these idiots into their senses here? I just don't know, but with every utterly stupid comment they write it makes me more passionate than ever to keep them from getting more control of America. I will stand in the way of these barbaric people who must defend the Biblical ethics in order to continue believing in the barbaric Bible.

But Alan isn't done yet:

If the girl happens to be ugly, he is required to marry her anyway. Again, this stipulation will help narrow the field further since potential rapists will be motivated to think before acting.

Naw. Only pretty women will fear being raped, that's all. But then these women might be forced into marrying some ugly bastard like Alan too, which Alan seems not to care for at all. Such idiocy I don't have the words.

Here's Alan again:

Thirdly, if one “selects” his wife through means of rape, then he’ll never be able to divorce her even if “she” turns out to be a transvestite.

What? Why do I waste my time here?

Alan again:

The law is putting so many roadblocks into the potential rapist’s path, and causing him to think, I would guess most potential rapists would opt for the easier path of waiting for a willing partner.

Here is exhibit "B" of just what it takes to defend Christianity (Madeleine was exhibit "A"). One must defend the indefensible. This is why I say believers are ignorant. Although some of them are also unintelligent, like Alan.

Alan's conclusion :

Thus, such a society could easily exceed the American society in quality by many fold. In America, if a woman is raped, often the rapist is nurtured in a prison and the possible resulting child is killed. Why not kill the rapist and let the child live? Often, another woman is victimized as soon as the rapist is released.

So here he is comparing what a perfectly good God commanded with what we do as an American society. Right. There should be no comparison at all if a perfectly good God is behind the laws in the Bible. What Alan wants is for rapists to be killed, for women not to have the right to choose, and for criminals to be flogged, put on chain gangs, or tarred and feathered. Those days are past and for good reasons. It’s just a good thing Alan was not framed for a crime, or a black man facing a white jury, or a woman facing an unwanted pregnancy. Alan, you are stupid! Oh, but what I really mean is that your faith makes you stupid.

Kinda reminds me of that commerical where an egg represents your brain. It's cracked open and thrown into a frying pan then we hear the words: "This is your brain on drugs." Well likewise, here's exhibit "B" of what the Christian drug does to your brains too!

To read what Alan said in the context of exhibit "A" here's the link.

The Christian Faith Made Simple

In the words of that famous Christian hymn: Only Believe. Only Believe. All things are possible. Only Believe!

God the Father; God the son; God the Holy Spirit: These three in One. Very God of Very God being of one substance (Homoousios), begotten not made, True God from True God. This very same True God was born by the creature He created (Theotokos: God Bearer or when the Creator created the creature who, in turn, created the Creator in sinful flesh yet without sin): Mary who herself was impregnated by her own Father God so He could be born into the very fallen world of sin the Creator so detested and cursed the created creatures with. In so doing, He became flesh and dwelt among us, but to correct the very Fallen State the Creator cursed the creatures with, the Creator had Himself killed so He as Very God of Very God could shed His own sinless blood for Himself (Creator-Creature atoning to Creator) in order that He could finally accept the world the Creator created in His perfect mind which the Creator had fully planed with fore-knowledge before the foundations of the earth (Gospel of John Chapter 1). The Creator is now seated at the right hand of Himself while making inter-secession to Himself for the fallen creatures of which he had foreknowledge (Supralapsarianism) of before He created the foundations of the cosmos. He, Himself, will now come again to receive this, His fallen creation, unto Himself by re-creating a New Heaven and a New Earth in which the redeemed fallen creatures will also rule with the Creator in a New Jerusalem filled with the very items (Gold and Emeralds: Revelation 21) which produce the greed and lust of the fallen state of the creature the Creator condemned in the old eternal Covernant now replaced with the new eternal Covernant.

Now dear Christian, just which part of your salvation do you not understand? (Remember, your very soul hangs in the balance between orthodoxy and heresy or between eternal damnation and eternal salvation.)

May God have mercy on your mental state!

Former Christian Michael Shermer's 100th Column: "The Answer is Science."

This is an except from his 100th column for Scientific American:

What I want to believe based on emotions and what I should believe based on evidence does not always coincide. And after 99 monthly columns of exploring such topics (this is Opus 100), I conclude that I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe but because I want to know. I believe that the truth is out there. But how can we tell the difference between what we would like to be true and what is actually true? The answer is science.

Science begins with the null hypothesis, which assumes that the claim under investigation is not true until demonstrated otherwise....Failure to reject the null hypothesis does not make the claim false, and, conversely, rejecting the null hypothesis is not a warranty on truth. Nevertheless, the scientific method is the best tool ever devised to discriminate between true and false patterns, to distinguish between reality and fantasy, and to detect baloney.

The null hypothesis means that the burden of proof is on the person asserting a positive claim, not on the skeptics to disprove it.

Link

Now compare what he wrote to what I wrote here.