Responding to ID -- A Review of Their Positive Arguments with Rebuttals

Intro: I simply want to lay out a fair representation of the positive case for intelligent design (ID) in this article, and examine why the case has been ruled a failure by the greater scientific community. Because ID is so vague, eg defined by the Discovery Institute as,

The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.

Therefore, making an argument for such a claim is going to be difficult from the outset. "Some features"? "An intelligent cause"? We see the vagueness of the definition come back to haunt ID advocates in their inability to put forth convincing arguments which line up with "this is best explained by an intelligent cause" versus "random mutation/natural selection". For example, some of ID's cosmological arguments in The Privileged Planet (largely the anthropic principle) do not [obviously] fit this criterion.

And thus lot of what passes for "arguments" coming from ID/Creationism (IDC) these days against biology is simple: find some part of evolution that people don't know a lot about and say, "How do you explain X?!" This argument from ignorance is common among laypeople, because they don't know enough about the science to make positive arguments for the claims of IDC. Therefore, a great deal of the "noise" and political theatre of IDC is just critiques of evolution. As Judge Jones eloquently pointed out, there is a false dichotomy between showing someone else's explanation isn't good and proving your own case [not granting that the former has been done in the case of IDC]. Just because you do the former doesn't mean you've done the latter -- established evidence for IDC. I would call these critiques and arguments from ignorance negative in character, because they do not purport to demonstrate the truth of IDC.

However, there are some positive arguments for IDC, and they will be the focus of this review. I am going to go through and list the positive arguments (that I'm aware of), and link to strong rebuttals/refutations of those arguments.

Almost everyone already knows the basic arguments of IDC: "design detection" (DD) and "irreducible complexity" (IC). Generalized arguments, though very useful in philosophy, don't work in science. You have to pick particular examples (data) and use these to demonstrate your argument works. Until then, you haven't yet crossed the threshold of science. I'll pick back up on this at the bottom.

Responses to the claims IC are abundant, and here are layman-friendly resources to familarize onesself with the mechanisms by which scientists explain complexity and apparent IC: exaptation/cooption, scaffolding, gene duplications, etc:
1) Prof. PZ Myers' Powerpoint presentation, see slides 29-50
2) Prof. Dave Ussery's paper delineating the four different RM/NS pathways to complexity
3) Don Lindsay, How Can Evolution Cause Irreducibly Complex Systems?

Two particular systems are touted as crucial examples of IC: i) the blood-clotting cascade (BCC)/immune response; ii) the flagellum.

i) The IC arguments for IDC are the brain-child of Prof. Michael Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh U. The BCC arguments can be found throughout IDC websites. One of the most well-informed responders to these arguments is Andrea Bottaro. Last year, as more evidence came in that transposons were involved in the human immune response, Dr. Bottaro put together the pieces and completely refuted the claim of IC as it applies to BCC. How did Prof. Behe respond? By moving the goalposts -- not in any way denying the evidence, but demanding a mutation-by-mutation account of the pathways involved. Thus, he undercuts his own argument by rendering the burden of proof unattainable by any scientific pursuit.

Also see Matt Inlay's article on the supposed IC of the BCC. Matt rigorously examines different branches of the tree of life to demonstrate the fallacious nature of the claim by evidencing the reducible nature of the immune response.

The single best place for you to start in looking at IC as it relates to the immune response is here.

These technical papers, as well as others that can be accessed via this long bibliography on the subject, here, here, and peer-reviewed literature like this Nature review and via searches on PubMed and other scientific databases, decisively defeat the claim of IC as it relates to BCC or the immune response. Again, the very important thing to do is focus in on the specific systems that are being examined, and claimed as evidence, and force the burden of proof upon the claimant. In the cases of IC, these claims have been refuted by the research of biologists and biochemists, which have always shown evidence of cooption and homology of these systems -- completely undercutting the identification of IC.

ii) The evolution of the flagellum is probably the keystone argument of IC. IDC proponents use this system because they feel it is best compared to a "machine", is most difficult to reduce, and is the strongest evidence for intelligent design in biology. One of the most comprehensive resources on this argument is from a continually-updated paper written by NCSE staffer Nick Matzke. Another resource is the PandasThumb section here on flagellum evolution.

In addition, Nick Matzke got a peer-reviewed paper published in Nature Reviews which unequivocally demonstrated, for the first time, that of the 42 proteins involved in the flagellar system of a particular bacterium, all but 2 of them had known homologs! This research involves doing BLAST-type searches in the genome of the bacterium being considered, and showing that the raw evidence of co-optation/exaptation is abundant -- there is no good reason to suppose that all 42 of these components originally had the function that they now do. See also Matzke's reader background page.

Moving on to the second prong of the "case for design" involves taking on those claims that design has been "detected" via mathematical research in IC or other biological systems.

iii) Design detection is the specialty area of William Dembski. Dembski took the "No Free Lunch" (NFL) theorems developed by David Wolpert and others (background with citations) and attempted to use these mathematical constructs to argue a few different things. One of his arguments was the the NFLs showed that evolutionary RM/NS would theoretically not be successful in the development of complexity. Although we can find numerous responses and refutations of this claim (here, here, here , here and see references here -- Wein 2002a,b; Shallit 2002; Rosenhouse 2002; Perakh 2001a, 2002a, 2002b, 2003; Young 2002; Orr 2002; Van Till 2002), I think it best to turn to the person who actually developed the NFL theorems in order to take Dembski to task for misrepresenting them and their implications. Wolpert almost immediately refuted Dembski's claims, and it took a few years before Dembski further tweaked his claims:

[David H. Wolpert] The values of the factors arising in the NFL theorems are never properly specified in his analysis. More generally, no consideration is given to whether some of the free lunches in the geometry of induction might be more relevant than the NFL theorems (e.g., those free lunches concerning "head-to-head minimax" distinctions that concern pairs of algorithms considered together rather than single algorithms considered in isolation).

Indeed, throughout there is a marked elision of the formal details of the biological processes under consideration. Perhaps the most glaring example of this is that neo-Darwinian evolution of ecosystems does not involve a set of genomes all searching the same, fixed fitness function, the situation considered by the NFL theorems. Rather it is a co-evolutionary process. Roughly speaking, as each genome changes from one generation to the next, it modifies the surfaces that the other genomes are searching. And recent results indicate that NFL results do not hold in co-evolution. [emphasis mine]

It may well be that there is a major mystery underlying the performance of some search processes that one might impute to the historical transformations of ecosystems. But Dembski has not established this, not by a long shot.

Dembski refined his arguments and published (2003) a response which attempted to show that even in co-evolutionary processes, that the NFL theorems do still hold. A great deal of the problem with Dembski's work is that it is all on his own website and books, and none of it in peer-reviewed literature. That means that mathematical laymen (like me and most of you) are often going to miss the subtleties in Dembski's articles that peer-review would immediately weed out. The most basic mistakes and differences between arguments by Wolpert and Dembski will be caught by other professional mathematicians and fixed in the MSS before publication. This keeps the "certitude" factor on the IDC side to a minimum, because while Wolpert's arguments are accepted by the mathematical community, which immediately lends substantial credibility to them, and evidences Wolpert's authority, none of this can be said for Dembski. An argument from silence may then be made that Dembski's work cannot clear the bar of legitimacy. Why else would he not want it published academically, if it is valid?

Dembski may possibly complain that he can't get his work published due to discrimination, but this complaint makes little sense: Behe has published work since he published his Darwin's Black Box, and Dembski's work, being mathematical in nature, need not even address the question of evolution directly. Therefore, if any case can be made about anti-creationist bias, it would be much more likely for Behe's work to be "censored", [as they love to claim (without evidence)] due to its intrinsically anti-evolutionary content, versus Dembski's abstract math. Dembski's work may or may not apply to biological systems. Behe's is directly about biology. Therefore, which is more likely to be "censored" by anti-creationist bias, and so does Dembski have any excuse for not publishing his work in a respected academic format?

Conversely, Wolpert has recently published, via peer-reviewed literature, about the co-evolution which accurately models biological systems:

Abstract: Recent work on the foundational underpinnings of black-box optimization has begun to uncover a rich mathematical structure. In particular, it is now known that an inner product between the optimization algorithm and the distribution of optimization problems likely to be encountered fixes the distribution over likely performances in running that algorithm. One ramification of this is the "No Free Lunch" (NFL) theorems, which state that any two algorithms are equivalent when their performance is averaged across all possible problems. This highlights the need for exploiting problem-specific knowledge to achieve better than random performance. In this paper, we present a general framework covering most optimization scenarios. In addition to the optimization scenarios addressed in the NFL results, this framework covers multiarmed bandit problems and evolution of multiple coevolving players. As a particular instance of the latter, it covers "self-play" problems. In these problems, the set of players work together to produce a champion, who then engages one or more antagonists in a subsequent multiplayer game. In contrast to the traditional optimization case where the NFL results hold, we show that in self-play there are free lunches: in coevolution some algorithms have better performance than other algorithms, averaged across all possible problems. However, in the typical coevolutionary scenarios encountered in biology, where there is no champion, the NFL theorems still hold.

Dembski has seized on this last sentence as evidence that he is right. It isn't true. Note that the problem here is still that the NFL theorems are about "algorithms averaged across all possible problems".

It is thus hardly convincing to say that the specific ecological "fitness landscapes", or "search space", is not beautifully searched by RM/NS versus a blind search. Simply put, in order to model biological systems properly, the algorithm itself would have to be altered such that it was not specific-target-directed [multiple positive adaptations are possible], such that each "score" improved the algorithm [the scope of the organism's ability to adapt further], and such that each "score" altered the competitiveness of the landscape [the domain in which fitness is evaluated, here, the ecosystem, which coevolves with the players]. This is the true nature of biological co-evolution -- as organisms adapt, the machinery by which they acquire adaptations itself adapts (consider that increasing surface area for sunlight is useless to animals, but not to plants), and the environment around them is full of other "game players", co-evolving just like them. This is, so far as I am able to tell, the definition of an "open algorithm" during the permutations. This is not what Wolpert has even considered at this point.

Dembski has not modeled a system in this way as of now. Thus, in the shortest way to respond to the "postive case" Dembski has laid forth, it is simply a strawman representation of biological evolution. Modeling real evolution in simple mathematical terms is probably one of the most daunting and complicated of tasks. The NFL theorems do not take into account an algorithm that itself adapts with increased fitness of the player, and changes the landscape with each successful target. Wolpert explained this in his earliest response to Dembski, and published his findings that take this into account w.r.t. NFL theorems. This intrinsic flaw is continually overlooked and undermines the positive case for design completely.

To his credit, Dembski's formalistic abilities are not in question. That is, his ability to evaluate a given model, and perform the correct analysis, is A-ok. The problem is the relevance and correlation of this model to anything resembling reality. "Let the reader judge," as Dembski says in response.

The real problem here is that Dembski has never addressed the most substantial critiques of his work. As Mark Perakh points out in this extensively referenced article (a good place to start for an overview of the status of Dembski's claims):

When encountering critique of his work, Dembski is selective in choosing when to reply to his critics and when to ignore their critique. His preferred targets for replies are those critics who do not boast comparable long lists of formal credentials – this enables him to contemptuously dismiss the critical comments by pointing to the alleged lack of qualification of his opponents while avoiding answering the essence of their critical remarks. (See, for example, Dembski’s replies to some of his opponents [3]) This type of behavior provides certain hints at Dembski’s overriding quest for winning debate at anycost rather than striving to arrive at the truth. For example, in his book No Free Lunch [4] Dembski devoted many pages to a misuse of Wolpert and Macready’s No Free Lunch (NFL) theorems [5]. (Some early critique of Dembski’s interpretation of the NFL theorems appeared already in [6 a, b]. A detailed analysis of Dembski’s misuse of the NFL theorems is given, in particular, in [6 c].)

Dembski’s faulty interpretation of the NFL theorems was strongly criticized by Richard Wein [7] and by David Wolpert, the originator of these theorems [2]. Dembski spared no effort in rebutting Wein’s critique, devoting to it two lengthy essays. [3] However, he did not utter a single word in regard to Wolpert’s critique. It is not hard to see why. Wein, as Dembski points out, has only a bachelor’s degree in statistics – and Dembski uses this irrelevant factoid to deflect Wein’s well substantiated criticism. He does not, though, really answer the essence of Wein’s comments and resorts instead to ad hominem remarks and a contemptuous tone. He can’t do the same with Wolpert who enjoys a sterling reputation as a brilliant mathematician and who is obviously much superior to Dembski in the understanding of the NFL theorems of which he is a coauthor.

Dembski pretends that Wolpert’s critique does not exist.

Dembski has behaved similarly in a number of other situations. For example, the extensive index in his latest book The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design [8] completely omits the names of most of the prominent critics of Dembski’s ideas.

We don’t see in that index the following names:
Rich Baldwin, Eli Chiprout, Taner Edis, Ellery Eels, Branden Fitelson, Philip Kitcher, Peter Milne, Massimo Pigliucci, Del Ratzsch, Jeff Shallit, Niall Shanks, Jordan H. Sobel, Jason Rosenhouse, Christopher Stephenson, Richard Wein, and Matt Young.

All these writers have analyzed in detail Dembski’s literary output and demonstrated multiple errors, fallacious concepts and inconsistencies which are a trademark of his prolific production. (I have not mentioned myself in this list although I have extensively criticized Dembski both in web postings [9] and in print [10]; he never uttered a single word in response to my critique, while it is known for fact that he is familiar with my critique; the above list shows that I am in good company.)

Thomas D. Schneider, another strong critic of Dembski’s ideas, is mentioned in the index of [8] but the extent of the reference is as follows:

"Evolutionary biologists regularly claim to obtain specified complexity for free or from scratch. (Richard Dawkins and Thomas Schneider are some of the worst offenders in this regard.)"

Contrary to the subtitle of Dembski’s book [8], this reference can hardly be construed as an answer to Schneider’s questions. Essentially, all the listed writers have asked Dembski a number of questions regarding his concepts. The absence of any replies to the listed authors makes the title of Dembski’s new book [8], sound like a parody. It should have properly been titled The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design. Of course we already know that Dembski is a stubborn purveyor of half-baked ideas [10]. Is he also of the opinion that selectivity in choosing when to respond to opponents and when to pretend they do not exist is compatible with intellectual honesty? [edit: Check out the article for the references: http://www.talkdesign.org/people/mperakh/perakh_ddq.pdf]

Welsley R. Elsberry has an impressive set of links (left sidebar) on Dembski's work and its ramifications. Mark Chu-Carroll has an entire section examining some of Dembski's work, Richard Wein has written extensively about the problems with it, also TalkDesign, as does TalkOrigins, on the NFL and his work in information detection, for more reading. Another awesome resource is the PandasThumb IDC archive. Furthermore, this post at the PT lays out some good refs on the background arguments of Dembski involving complexity via RM/NS:

1. Peter Schuster, How does complexity arise in evolution? Complexity, 2:22-30 (1996)
2. Christoph Adami, Charles Ofria, and Travis C. Collier Evolution of biological complexity, PNAS | April 25, 2000 | vol. 97 | no. 9 | 4463-4468
3. Lenski RE, Ofria C, Pennock RT, and Adami C, The Evolutionary Origin of Complex Features Nature, 423:139-144 (2003).
4. Tom Schneider, Rebuttal to William A. Dembski’s Posting and to His Book “No Free Lunch”
5. Tom Schneider ev: Evolution of Biological Information Nucleic Acids Res, 28:14, 2794-2799, 2000

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As we discussed at our freethought group's 11/9 meeting, there are actually some good philosophical arguments in ID. Teleological and anthropic principle-type arguments certainly aren't invalid, although the veracity of their premises is, of course, crucial. However, they simply aren't science, or scientific arguments, without meeting some pretty strict criteria, and without going through the process of peer review, experiment, and eventual scientific consensus. As of now, they are completely philosophical in nature. That only means that ID still has to pass the standard hurdles before including itself into the scientific community as a valid idea to teach in science classes.

As Prof. Joe Meert pointed out at that night's meeting, Einstein didn't take out ads in newspapers asking people to write their congressional representatives to get relativity included in high school curricula. Einstein didn't try to get a relativity-sympathetic school board voted in, and include his ideas in high school textbooks. Einstein wanted legitimacy among his scientific peers and to establish his ideas via empiricism and the method of science, and then, he knew, getting into textbooks would follow. Those sorts of political tactics by IDCists are what undermines their claim to legitimacy in the scientific community. They want their philosophical verbiage smuggled into science classrooms since they can't get a single scientific argument going for them.

Conclusion: Irreducible complexity as a positive argument fails as a critique against evolution, as the proposed systems have viable, published explanations for their evolution; and Dembski's work in design detection fails as it is a critique against quasi-evolution -- a strawman, which does not even intersect with the robust work done by geneticists and computer scientists in mathematically modeling evolutionary theory.

The good philosophical ideas intrinsic within teleological arguments are lost amidst the "culture war" that IDC's are waging against evolution and materialism, in their own words. Hopefully, once the dust settles, and cooler heads prevail, some of their ideas can be incorporated into places that they belong (history, philosophy, etc.), and continue to be excluded from the science classroom until they become scientific...hopefully.
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Technorati tags: Intelligent Design, Evolution, Creationism

Taner Edis on Multiverses

Here's Taner Edis on Dawkins vs. Collins in their Time magazine debate speaking about mutiverses. see here

What if the Bible was Perfectly Copied for the last 2000 Years?

I was downtown last week with a friend when we were confronted by a student from the local Bible College. In the midst of the conversation the supposed reliability of the New Testament manuscripts came up.

Being a Bible college graduate myself, I've read a number of books on how we can trust what our Bibles say. All the books have essentially the same answer:

We can trust what the New Testament says is true because:
1. There are MORE New Testament manuscripts than any other document from the ancient world (around 5,500 near complete manuscripts which is a lot compared to other ancient documents).

2. There are EARLIER New Testament manuscripts than any other ancient document (scholars range them between 25 and 200 years of when the events they record supposedly happened).

3. There are BETTER New Testament manuscripts than any other ancient document (in other words, scholars are fairly certain that much of what is in modern New Testaments is what was originally written in the first century).

Christian apologists, such as Dr. Norman Geisler, Josh McDowell, and Dr.WIlliam Lane Craig, have used the above three points to persuade people to believe what the Bible says. I used to believe that because the Bible was meticulously copied for centuries, that that was good reason to believe it.

Without going into the fine detail that the above arguments deserve, let's just assume all three of those statements are true. What does that really prove? Does it prove we should trust that what the Bible says is the Gospel truth? (no pun intended here).I used to believe that.

For #1, it shows we've got a lot of manuscripts. But what if it's a lie? Then we have a lot of copies of a lie. In other words, the number of copies of the Bible we have has little to nothing to do with whether I should trust that what it says is true.

For #2, it shows people wrote those things down as early as 30 years after the events happened. It's assumed that since someone wrote it down within three decades of the event, it had to be accurate. But why? People can make things up 2 seconds after an event as easy as 100 years afterwards. It was even easier back then in a world without mass media or other modern tools that would limit one's ability to make up stories. Bill Curry, a contributor here at DC, has written an excellent evaluation on
how legends can in fact arise within the lifetime of an eyewitness.

As far as #3 goes, it shows that what it says today is fairly close to what it said back then. But historians are also fairly confident that the stories we have about Caesar being a god are what was originally written by the author, but no one seriously considers that to be evidence that he really was a god.

Now, I understand those three points are often used to make a cumulative case, but in this case, three bad arguments put together don't make good evidence for anything. I also understand that Christians use other areas of evidence to show why it's "trustworthy" (such as archaeology), but I'm talking about the three claims above that are routinely used by Christians.

There's absolutely no reason why the above three claims, even if they're true, should cause someone to believe that Jesus got people drunk at a wedding instead of just hydrated, or that graves opened up and dead people started preaching the word, or that all of a sudden a room of people could speak perfectly in another language.

So what if the Bible was copied perfectly for the last 2000 years? Would it follow then that we can trust what it says is what really happened? I don't think so.

The bottom line is that these apologists and evangelists are confusing the reliability of the TEXT with the reliability of the MESSAGE. That, I think is a crucial distinction that needs to be made.

Whether the manuscripts are early, late, a lot, a few, xeroxed, or hand copied by a second grader, is not the point. The point is to show that the stuff really happened in history -- and I'm afraid you just can't do that with the New Testament or any other ancient document with the above three claims.

What Evidence Do We Have From the Cosmos (or From the Bible) That Human Beings Are "Valuable?" Questions Abound.

How intrinsically "valuable" are human beings according to the cosmos and also according to the Bible? In the cosmos all living things die, including human beings, and even some of the tiniest forms of life live by sucking the life out of the ones with the largest brains and/or the biggest hearts. As for the Bible's view of humanity's intrinsic "value," even more questions arise, a wide variety in fact.

FIRST, let's review the most direct and common recognitions of humanity's place in the cosmos:

THE COSMOS AND HUMAN "VALUE"

Every living thing in the cosmos dies. There is plenty of evidence that our home planet, the earth, has been struck by large objects from space. Visible fiery meteors continue to enter the earth's atmosphere from time to time some even videotaped, and some larger objects from space have passed so close to the earth in the past few decades that their pathways were within the distance from the earth to the moon's orbit. Also, a little behind the arm of the Milky Way in which our solar system lies, there are stars being drawn into our galaxy from a nearby smaller galaxy, and so over a million stars are entering our galaxy and their gravity is interacting with stars found in our galaxy which can cause grave problems for any planets on those stars as they pass nearby each other. Lucky for us the arm of the galaxy where our solar system lies has just recently (in galactic time) already passed through that danger zone where the stars keep entering our galaxy. Also note that a solar flare from our own sun came so near the earth in the 1990s that it disabled satellite and cell phone communication. The earth's magnetic field is also diminishing (viz., the earth's poles shift in polarity and power over time, and a "few generations from now" our planet will soon be in a down phase, lacking a magnetic shield, and no one knows for sure how that might effect life on earth, or affect how electronic-based technology--computers and telecommunications function). I also read that dangerous gamma radiation was detected striking the earth in bursts coming from the vicinity of a "magnestar" that blew up in our general part of the galaxy. That could be quite dangerous if the star were just a bit nearer. Others have supposed that radiation from a star going nova in our vicinity might have instigated some extinctions in the past. Though if any star went nova near the earth that might be it for all life on earth. So this cosmos provides uncertainties galore concerning the continuance of life. Even stars and galaxies in our cosmos have finite lifetimes (though the question of what sort of infinite matrix all cosmoses might lie within, or how that matrix generates new cosmoses, remains an open one in physics and philosophy).

Astronomers have evidence of rings of matter and even planets surrounding distant stars, so there might be planets in the cosmos other than earth on which sentient beings live (found in the "galactic habitable zone" of our galaxy or of distant galaxies, since there's over a hundred billion other galaxies out there, each of them containing a billion or so stars). It is not inconceivable that such beings should they exist, live on planets like ours in which every living thing dies. One is therefore left with far more questions than answers concerning cosmic "value."


GOD AND HUMAN "VALUE"

Assuming God exists, how do we know for sure that God "values" human beings or to what degree He does? I've already reviewed questions regarding the nature of such "value" based on the cosmic situation in which God has placed humanity, and also based on the fact that neither nature nor God provide every embryo a whole and healthy start in life, but instead the opposite is true, since disabilities, nutritional deficiencies, and childhood illnesses, including deaths during birth and deaths during infancy and early childhood are very common among all species, including human beings.

The Bible says and/or implies that God finds human beings "valuable," even created in God's own "image," however human beings wrote those books, and any sentient being would probably find it difficult to imagine a deity not created in THEIR own image.

However, being "created in God's image" does not even mean that hunanity was so valuable as to be granted the equally god-like gift of immortality. Instead, early authors of some books in the Bible also expressed in numerous places that everyone went to the same place after they died, Sheol, the grave, the land of shades. Such authors of early books of the Bible taught that only God was immortal, while human beings were created from dust and to dust would return. I'm not saying the Bible teaches a uniform view of the afterlife, but simply noting that there are different ideas in the Bible of the afterlife. One was that humanity was animated dust and was not immortal like God. Such a view was common in the ancient world. Among the Greeks for instance, they viewed humanity as mortal , but a select few "heros" could be taken up to be with the gods and live forever like Hercules (the early Hebrews likewise pictured only a few like Enoch and Elijah being taken up, but in other places the Bible emphasized humanity's mortality and a place known as Sheol where all ended up). So some strands of the Bible picture humanity as being "valued" while they lived and breathed, but after death they were "valued" no more than say, "dust" or mere "shadows."

Speaking of the Bible, the same people who wrote some of the earliest books in the Bible also assumed the cosmos was created in six evenings and mornings as measured by evenings and mornings on what we today know to be but one planet, earth. This does not impress humans living today who have learned that all planets have their own days and nights, evenings and mornings, rather than the earth's evenings and morning being central. Was the very first light created "in the beginning" for the sake of instituting our planet's earth days and nights, evenings and mornings? And all the rest of the cosmos was likewise created "based on earth's days and nights," six of them, whether in metaphor or fact? But if that is what "revealed" books of the Bible teach, then how can we be sure of other matters in such books, including statements that God "values" humanity?

Even the pains and pleasures that people and nations experienced were interpreted by the Bible's authors as being signs of "God's" pleasure and displeasure, or signs of God's "punishments" or "blessings." While today people question such easy black or white supernatural interpretations of disasters and boons, of good times and bad times. It would appear that it is indeed the writers of the Bible who are interpreting what happened to them and their nation in terms of "God," just as they interpreted the earth's status in cosmic creation myths, with light created for the earth's evenings and mornings, and the earth created even BEFORE the sun, moon and stars were "made and set... above the earth... to light it, and for signs and seasons" on earth, merely one planet out of the entire cosmos?

The ancient Greeks likewise viewed their nation as lying at the "center of the earth" with their oracle of Delphi lying at the earth's navel, and the earth itself being the foundation of creation with a dome above it where the sun, moon and stars lay. The ancient Greeks also thought they "knew" why good and bad things happened during the Trojan war to certain warriors and nations. They "knew" it was due to the pleasure or displeaure of their "gods" and the exertion of their supernatural powers to decide battles or bless the land (read Homer).


THE "VALUE" OF HUMANITY IN THE N.T.

Only in the New Testament are human beings portrayed as having such "value" that God would put Himself through suffering, death, and hell, including God "becoming sin"--becoming something that God cannot stand--hence God punishing God, in order to spare humanity from "hell." That is quite a claim concerning humanity's "value" but note the lateness of such a claim even in the "revealed religion" of the Bible.

Also, think about the self-centeredness of such a portrayal of humanity. Humanity's self-centeredness began with claiming it was created in God's image, then in the intertestamental period believing it would live eternally, and now in the N.T., humanity claiming its own "sins" or failures are why God had to put God through pain, death and hell, with God Himself becoming sin, and shunning and punishing Himself, thus creating a rift, albeit temporary, in God. Quite a jump from humanity being simply mortal dust that returns to dust and winds up in Sheol, the land of shades. For now the human writers of the N.T. have even divinized humanity's faults, imagining God had to take humanity's faults so seriously as to tear God Himself into pieces in a manner of speaking, God punishing God (or to use a metaphor from nature and animals) God smeared Himself with our poo and hated Himself, dissassociating God from God, creating a rift in the Godhead all because of US. Thus humanity's ego and hubris appears to have grown over time and throughout "revealled revelations" in the Bible, such that even our poo is made to eventually smell good or come out good, regardless of the consequences to "God."


THE "VALUE" OF HUMANITY VIS A VIS THE QUESTION OF HELL

Even one human group's self-centered dislike of other nations or other human beings differing from them, has sought justification in the "Divine," namely "Divine condemnations." Such hubris not only gave birth to the interpretation that when other nations suffered they were being "punished by God," but also applied later in the sense of eternal punishment (book of Daniel) other intertestamental works, and of course the N.T.

In intertestamental works the idea of "evil" demons and Satan ruling this world, their power over this world, and fears thereof, all grew immensely, leading to elevated suspicions and hatreds projected onto "outsiders." In the N.T. the projection of such fears was also projected onto believers who loved the same holy books, and who were labeled, "heretics." Thus Christians began persecuting fellow believers as soon as the first Christian emperor gained the throne of Rome, and Christians proceeded to kill more Christians in a few years during the Arian-Athanasian controversy than were killed during the previous three hundred years under non-Christian Roman emperorsl; even killing each other over matters such as whether or not a bishop had ever denied his faith under duress during the earlier days of persecution or remained "pure" (the Donatist controversy). Today Christians continue to debunk each other's practices and beliefs far moreso than non-believers have ever done.

The notion of hell raises the question of the "value" of humanity in other ways as well. Though some Christians declare that hell is God's "great compliment" to human beings, that simply begs the question of what God would do to someone He wished to "insult" rather than "compliment." Furthermore, if God already sees the past and future, then God would know in eternity that there was no "choice" for some souls but hell. What "value" does such a view place on human life?

Hellish conundrums continue when one considers the view that Adam's sin (as Augustine taught) automatically damned all humanity, and it was up to God to grant the gift of saving grace to whomever He would, but he only grants it to some, and denies it to the rest, which means God "values" only some, and damns the rest. Jonathan Edwards put it in Augustinian terms and added darker metaphors, teaching that we all deserve the utmost punishment, because God's disgust toward all of Adam's children since the fall is similar to the disgust we feel when we see a horrid insect or worm. Doesn't sound like everyone is extremely "valuable" in God's eyes.

Christians have also argued that heretics and other non-believers in this life are not very "valuable" at all, since they spread the disease of unbelief that kills people eternally. Some Christians have even argued that we should treat heretics and/or unbelievers no better in this life than God is going to treat them in the next, in hell. For example see these statements by Luther and Melanchthon regarding the Anabaptists, a diverse Reformation movement of Bible readers and preachers, many of whom wanted to live in a land were religious beliefs were totally a matter of conscience, and there were no state churches, nor coercion, nor indelible national creeds (neither Lutheran nations nor Calvinist ones nor Catholic ones), but instead each person could read the Bible and love and follow Jesus as they were led by God.

“They [the Anabaptists] are not only blasphemous, but highly seditious, urge the use of the sword against them... We may not, therefore, mete out better treatment to these men than God Himself and all the saints.”
--Luther in letter (written early in 1530) to Menius and Myconius who were composing a work against the Anabaptists

“They [the magistrates] should apply to them [the Anabaptists] the law of Moses against blasphemy and treat them as the Roman Emperors treated the Arians and Donatists.”
--Melanchthon in a letter to Myconius (Feb. 1531)[SOURCE: Mackinnon, James (Ph.D., D.D., Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History, University of Edinburgh), “Luther and the Anabaptists,” p. 57-75 in Luther and the Reformation, Vol. IV., Vindication of the Movement (1530-46), (New York: Russell & Russell, Inc, 1962), pp.64 & 69]


A FEW FINAL QUESTIONS OF "VALUE" ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE

How "valued" is humanity in the "primeval history" stories in Genesis in which God "repents" of having made man, and floods the earth, drowning nearly every breathing thing on it? How about in Exodus where God tells Moses He would like to let all the Israelites in the desert die and raise up a people from Moses alone? (Even if the story is interpreted as being a ruse on God's part or a temptation or testing of Moses by God, anyone reading it cannot help to also see in it a certain callousness toward human life by God. Note that it states elsewhere in the Bible that God does not "tempt" people so why would he "tempt" Moses with an offer to let the Israelites die and set Moses up as a new Abraham giving birth to a new people? Admittedly, theologians finely divide, some say "gerrymander," the words "tempt" and "test" in this case). And one could also ask what "value" God places on human life when He commands Joshua to slaughter every breathing thing inside certain cities, including babes and pregnant women? Makes life seem relatively "cheap" in God's eyes.

Revealed biblical religion even states that God "sends lying spirits" into prophets, and God "hardens" people's hearts in order that they might be destroyed utterly as in the book of Joshua ("The Lord hardened their hearts to meet Israel in battle in order that He might destroy them utterly, that they might receive no mercy"). Or, God sends plagues and famines, or God says He will put people in the situation where they will be forced to eat their own children just to survive. Or in the N.T. God "sends them great delusion" that they might not turn and be saved. Sounds like a cavalier way to treat human life.


*A FINAL NOTE ON "HELL"*

From Origin's day to ours Christian theologians have continued to debate just how much of Jesus's apocalyptic speech about "hell" needs to be taken literally. Some say such speech is an accommodation to the ideas of Jesus's day concerning ideas of heaven and hell already in circulation since the inter-testamental period; and thus we don't even know for sure just how much of what Jesus spoke about hell was an accommodation to ideas and concepts his audience already took for granted.

The Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (1908) by Schaff-Herzog says in volume 12, on page 96, “In the first five or six centuries of Christianity there were six theological schools, of which four (Alexandria, Antioch, Caesarea, and Edessa, or Nisibis) were Universalist; one (Ephesus) accepted conditional immortality; one (Carthage or Rome) taught endless punishment of the wicked. Other theological schools are mentioned as founded by Universalists, but their actual doctrine on this subject is not known.”

Augustine (354-430 A.D.), one of the four great Latin Church Fathers (Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome and Gregory the Great), admitted: “There are very many in our day, who though not denying the Holy Scriptures, do not believe in endless torments.”

Origen, a pupil and successor of Clement of Alexandria, lived from 185 to 254 A.D. He founded a school at Caesarea, and is considered by historians to be one of the great theologians and exegete of the Eastern Church. In his book, De Principiis, he wrote: “We think, indeed, that the goodness of God, through His Christ, may recall all His creatures to one end, even His enemies being conquered and subdued....for Christ must reign until He has put all enemies under His feet.” Howard F. Vos in his book Highlights of Church History states that Origen believed the souls of all that God created would some day return to rest in the bosom of the Father. Those who rejected the gospel now would go to hell to experience a purifying fire that would cleanse even the wicked; all would ultimately reach the state of bliss.

The great church historian Geisler writes: “The belief in the inalienable capability of improvement in all rational beings, and the limited duration of future punishment was so general, even in the West, and among the opponents of Origen, that it seems entirely independent of his system.” (Eccles. Hist., 1-212)

Gregory of Nyssa (332-398 A.D.), leading theologian of the Eastern Church, says in his Catechetical Orations: “Our Lord is the One who delivers man [all men], and who heals the inventor of evil himself.”

Neander says that Gregory of Nyssa taught that all punishments are means of purification, ordained by divine love to purge rational beings from moral evil, and to restore them back to that communion with God....so that they may attain the same blessed fellowship with God Himself.

Eusebius of Caesarea lived from 265 to 340 A.D. He was the Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine and a friend of Constantine, great Emperor of Rome. His commentary of Psalm 2 says: “The Son ‘breaking in pieces’ His enemies is for the sake of remolding them, as a potter his own work; as Jeremiah 18;6 says: i.e., to restore them once again to their former state.”

Gregory of Nazianzeu lived from 330 to 390 A.D. He was the Bishop of Constantinople. In his Oracles 39:19 we read: “These, if they will, may go Christ’s way, but if not let them go their way. In another place perhaps they shall be baptized with fire, that last baptism, which is not only painful, but enduring also; which eats up, as if it were hay, all defiled matter, and consumes all vanity and vice.”

A Quick and Dirty Refutation of Divine Command Theories

Robert Adams has played a significant role in reviving divine command theories in ethics (DCT). According to Adams, and many before him, the most plausible construal of DCT entails that moral obligation depends on the expressed will of God, where these expressions are properly construed as commands.1 Call any such view a ‘command formulation’ of DCT. Recently, Mark Murphy has argued that command formulations of DCT are untenable, and that the most plausible formulation of DCT entails that moral obligation depends upon the will of God, whether or not it is expressed.2 Call any such view a ‘will formulation’ of DCT. In this paper, I will argue that, while Murphy-style arguments against command formulations are decisive, the arguments Adams advances against will formulations seem equally decisive. But the most salient implication of these results is not that their particular versions of will and command formulations of DCT - those of Adams and Murphy - are inadequate. Rather, as I will argue, a much more dramatic implication follows: no possible formulation of DCT is an adequate moral theory.

This paper is divided into four sections. In the first section, I will briefly describe the defining features of the two most plausible formulations of DCT. In the second, I will discuss Murphy’s main objection to command formulations of DCT. In the third section, I will discuss Adams’ main objection to will formulations of DCT. In each of sections two and three, two goals are achieved: (i) a conclusion that an objection against a formulation of DCT is persuasive, and (ii) the uncovering of a necessary condition for any adequate moral theory. Finally, in the fourth section, I will utilize these results to argue that no version of DCT is adequate.

I
According to all formulations of DCT, at least some moral properties - such as the morally permissible, impermissible, and obligatory - are somehow dependent upon the will of God. Will formulations state that the dependence is direct. That is, certain kinds of divine acts of will are both necessary and sufficient for the exemplification of moral properties. By way of contrast, command formulations state that the dependence is indirect. That is, although certain sorts of divine volitions are necessary for the exemplification of moral properties, they are not sufficient. For such volitions to generate (e.g.) moral obligations, God must also communicate such volitions to the relevant people.

Are either of the above-mentioned versions of DCT plausible? As I mentioned earlier, Murphy has offered powerful criticisms of command formulations of DCT, and Adams has advanced powerful arguments against will formulations of DCT. We will now examine the best of these arguments in turn.

II
A key objection3 to command formulations of DCT can be expressed simply: If God’s ability to impose moral obligations depends on the expression of certain of His intentions in the form of commands, then they are objectionably contingent. For then God would be powerless to obligate without the existence of certain sorts of social practices, in particular, the practice of commanding. Such contingency is objectionable, for if (e.g.) the morally impermissible depends on God’s commands in this way, then it seems metaphysically possible for a community of people to exist in which either (i) the requisite social facts don’t exist, or (ii) they do exist, but God hasn’t commanded anything. But if either case obtains, then there will be actions that aren’t (say) impermissible, but should be. But this is implausible: such moral properties would be exemplified even if (i) or (ii) obtained. Therefore, command formulations of DCT are implausible.

Adams has a reply to this objection: “This does not ground a serious objection to divine command theory. A practice of commanding exists in virtually all human communities, and I think we need not worry about what obligation would be (if it would exist at all) for persons who do not live in communities in which they require things of each other4.”

This is surely too quick and dismissive. For it hardly suffices to say that, as a matter of fact, all (or virtually all) communities have a practice of commanding. For, prima facie, it seems (metaphysically) possible that a community without such a practice could exist. And it also seems that wrongness could supervene on acts in such a community. For consider a possible world, W, in which there exists a community of five people: a man (call him ‘Zed’), and four children, none of which is older than ten years old. Suppose further that this community has no practice of commanding. Finally, suppose that Zed regularly sodomizes these children. Since, by hypothesis, this community has no practice of commanding, command formulations of DCT entail that none of Zed’s acts are morally wrong. But, surely, moral wrongness supervenes on at least some acts in W. But then moral wrongness doesn’t require the existence of a community practice of commanding as a part of its supervenience base. And if not, then command formulations of DCT are false. Therefore, it appears that Murphy is correct: command formulations of DCT are objectionably contingent. With this objection, then, we have uncovered a necessary condition for any adequate moral theory:

The Non-contingency Condition (NC): No moral obligation, R, is objectionably contingent.

Corollary: For any moral obligation R, if R isn’t binding without a human social practice of commanding, then R is objectionably contingent.

It will be important to keep this condition in mind when we come to assess the adequacy of divine command theories in general.

III
Adams’ main argument against will formulations of DCT is also simple: Moral obligations cannot exist unless they are communicated. But will formulations of DCT falsely imply that it is possible for certain sorts of God’s uncommunicated volitions to morally obligate us. Therefore, will formulations of DCT are false.5

There are two ways to support the main premise of this argument. According to the first, uncommunicated intentions can’t obligate because they are generated when (and only when) at least one person requires something of another person. But requiring is a communicative act. If, for example, a parent forms an intention (of a certain sort) that his teenage daughter be home before 8 p.m. every weeknight, but he doesn’t convey this intention to her, then she is not obligated to be home by 8 p.m. on weeknights. As soon as he communicates his intention to his daughter, however, an obligation is generated, and she must now be home at the stated time. Now if this is how obligations are generated, then, necessarily, if God has created obligations, then He has expressed them. But will formulations of DCT falsely imply that it is possible for certain sorts of God’s intentions to generate moral obligations even if those intentions remain forever unexpressed. Therefore, will formulations of DCT are false.6

According to the second way, uncommunicated intentions can’t obligate because a certain version of the “ought implies can” principle is true: If x is obligatory for S, then S must be aware (or at least be capable of becoming aware) that x is obligatory for S7. The general idea here is that one can only be responsible for what one is capable of doing. So, for example, suppose my hands are handcuffed together. If so, then I can’t raise just one of them. So if someone commands me to raise just one of my hands, I won’t be able to comply, even if I want to. But if not, then I can’t be held responsible for failing to raise just one of my hands. Similarly, I can’t be held responsible for failing to comply with an obligation if I can’t come to know of that obligation. For knowing of an obligation is a necessary condition for being capable of (intentionally) complying with it. But will formulations of DCT imply that the following type of situation is possible: (i) Due to a divine intention of a certain sort, at least one person is morally obligated to do something (or refrain from doing something), and (ii) she is unable to come to know of this obligation, since God has not expressed His intention. But since the above-stated “ought implies can” principle is true, this situation is not possible. Therefore, will formulations of DCT are false.

What to make of these objections to will formulations? If we don’t consider the “ought implies can” rationale behind the main premise, then the force of the argument will depend upon whether one finds a social theory of moral obligation persuasive. I suspect that many won’t find it persuasive. But even if we don’t, I think the “ought implies can” rationale is strong enough, all by itself, to support the main premise. However, Murphy disagrees. He thinks that no self-respecting moral realist can accept it. For, he argues, it seems to be a straightforward implication of moral realism that moral facts exist independently of human beings, just as rocks and trees exist independently of us. But then it follows that it is possible that there are moral values that we are not aware of. In particular, there could be moral obligations that we are not aware of. But if so, then the above-mentioned “ought implies can” principle is false, and so the argument doesn’t go through.8

I think this objection misses the mark. For recall the way that the “ought implies can” principle was formulated above. The principle doesn’t have the implication that there can’t be unknown moral obligations. Rather, it implies that there can’t be unknowable moral obligations. But surely any plausible moral theory must have the latter implication. A fortiori, any theistic version of moral realism must have this implication. For, prima facie, God’s holding His creatures accountable for failing to comply with obligations that He doesn’t express is incompatible with His goodness.9 So it appears that, necessarily, if a divine command theory is true (one according to which the divine commander is the God of traditional theism), then if God places obligations on His creatures, then He communicates them (or somehow makes it possible for His creatures to discover them). But as we have seen, will formulations allow for the possibility of morally binding, yet forever unexpressed, divine intentions. I submit, then, that Murphy has not shown that the above-mentioned “ought implies can” principle is false with respect to moral realist theories. It appears that we have found another necessary condition that any adequate moral theory must satisfy:

The Accessibility Condition (AC): Necessarily, for any moral rule, R, R is binding only if R is cognitively accessible in principle.

Unfortunately for Murphy, the principle shows that will formulations of DCT are inadequate. For unlike other versions of moral realism, will formulations of DCT entail that moral obligations can exist, and yet be incapable of discovery (even in principle) if God doesn’t express them. Therefore, will formulations of DCT are untenable.

IV
It is now time to take stock. In section II, we saw that any adequate moral theory must meet the following condition:

The Non-contingency Condition (NC): No moral obligation, R, is objectionably contingent.

Corollary: For any moral obligation R, if R isn’t binding without a human social practice of commanding, then R is objectionably contingent.

And in section III, we saw that any adequate moral theory must also satisfy the following condition:

The Accessibility Condition (AC): Necessarily, for any moral obligation, R, R is binding only if R is cognitively accessible in principle.

Putting these together, we get the following thesis:

The Adequacy Thesis: A moral theory is adequate only if it simultaneously satisfies both NC and AC.

Finally, the discussions of sections II and III together provide strong support for the following thesis:

The Incompatibility Thesis (IT): No version of DCT can simultaneously satisfy both NC and AC: For any version of DCT, T, T satisfies NC iff T does not satisfy AC.

For it is clear from the discussion in these sections that the feature of command formulations that enables them to satisfy the Accessibility Condition - the one that grounds the claim that no divine intention can generate a moral obligation unless it is communicated - is the very feature that prevents them from satisfying the Non-contingency Condition. It is also clear, from the discussion in these sections, that the feature of will formulations that enables them to satisfy the Non-contingency Condition - the one that grounds the claim that divine intentions (of a certain sort) can generate obligations, even if God does not express them - is the very feature that prevents them from satisfying the Accessibility Condition. But IT entails that no divine command theory satisfies the Adequacy Thesis. But if not, then it follows that neither formulation of DCT is adequate.

If the points of the previous paragraph are correct, then it is a short step to the conclusion that no possible formulation of DCT is adequate. For anything that could possibly count as a formulation of DCT would have to ground (at least some) moral properties in either (i) God’s commands alone, (ii) God’s intentions alone, or (iii) God’s intentions expressed in the form of commands.10 Now we have already dealt with (ii) and (iii). But our objections to (iii) apply to (i) as well. For, even apart from the inherent implausibility of type-(i) versions of DCT11, they imply that God’s ability to obligate would depend upon an existing practice of commanding. But if so, then version-(i) DCT fails to satisfy the Non-contingency Condition. Therefore, it cannot be an adequate moral theory. But since versions (i), (ii) and (iii) are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive formulations of DCT, any possible version of DCT must be an instance of one of these versions. And since we have just seen that each version is untenable, it follows that no possible version of DCT is an adequate moral theory.

In summary, then, we have taken a brief look at the only two formulations of DCT that have been advertised and endorsed. While discussing these accounts, we uncovered two necessary conditions of any adequate moral theory. We then saw that, while each of these formulations could meet one of the two conditions, neither version could meet both. Finally, we exploited some of these results to refute the only other possible formulation of DCT, one that no one endorses. And these results yielded the (perhaps) startling conclusion that DCT is doomed.

-----
1His most developed defense of this view is to be found in his Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics (New York: Oxford UP, 1999). See especially chapter 11 of that work.

2 Murphy, Mark. “Divine Commands, Divine Will, and Moral Obligation”, Faith and Philosophy 15 (January, 1998), pp. 3-27.

3The following argument is a modified version of the one Murphy gives in “Divine Commands, Divine Will, and Moral Obligation”, pp. 5-7.

4Adams, Robert. Finite and Infinite Goods, p. 266.

5This is a rough summary of Adams’ argument in his Finite and Infinite Goods, pp. 261-2.

6This is Adams’ primary rationale. See Finite and Infinite Goods, p. 262.

7It should be noted that Adams is uncomfortable with putting much weight on this second rationale. See Finite and Infinite Goods, p. 261-2, and footnote 27 on p. 262.

8This is a paraphrase of Murphy’s reply in “Divine Commands, Divine Will, and Moral Obligation”, p. 8.

9Adams seems to be raising the same problem for will formulations when he says that they yield “...an unattractive picture of divine-human relations, one in which the wish of God’s heart imposes binding obligations without even being communicated, much less issuing a command. Games in which one party incurs guilt for failing to guess the unexpected wishes of the other party are not nice games. They are no nicer if God is thought of as a party to them.” Finite and Infinite Goods, p. 261.

10 Surely, no ethical theory that entailed that moral properties are grounded *neither* in God’s will *nor* in His commands (nor a combination of them) could count as a version of DCT.

11E.g., it appears that type-(i) versions imply that there could be a morally binding divine command that God does not want us to obey, which seems absurd., end

I'm less than convinced

My line of work affords me the opportunity to convince a variety of people to do various actions. I am acutely aware of motivating factors, and how they impact situations. We realize that we must interact with these motivations, because ignoring them will only bring doom.

It is fascinating to me, communicating with so many different people on so many different levels, as to what one person finds extremely significant, another finds completely irrelevant.

As deconversion stories abound, we see people, due to the variety available in humanity, question their long-held belief for various reasons. This should not surprise us, given the make-up of humanity.

I find it even more intriguing how others will criticize the deconvert for doing it “incorrectly.” As if there is only one proper way in which one can deconvert!

So what is that proper way? What steps must I follow to deconvert? Why is it that the way in which you are convinced; I must be convinced?

This is a deviation from my normal blog entry. No Bible verses. Only little cry for methodology. No hermeneutics. Never fear—I will be back in full form and function.

As I said, I am actively involved in convincing other people.

I convince clients. Perhaps they want to pursue a course of action that is not beneficial to their case. Perhaps they do not fully understand the implication or costs involved in a certain action. Perhaps they believe the practice of law is similar to what is on TV.

And in our discussion, we talk about motives. One of the first questions asked in a new divorce matter is whether there is a new love interest on the part of a spouse. Such a factor will have a huge motivating force. (Those with love interests tend to want to resolve the divorce quickly, even to the point of financial detriment.) Mothers tend to be motivated by maternal instincts; Fathers by finance. The most common tactic in the book is the man fighting for custody to scare the mother, and the female fighting for higher child support to scare the father.

I have seen clients motivated by greed, jealousy, revenge, money, principle, fear, anger, business direction, spouses, friends, parents, children and just about every facet in-between. And each must be deal with at their motivating factor. If a person is motivated by principle, there is no sense convincing them of the unnecessary cost of a matter.

I convince judges. Here’s a great feeling—going into court prepared to the hilt to argue a legal issue. And hear the Judge say, “I don’t find that very important. What I would like to see is some argument on this other legal issue.” One that frankly my position is not nearly as strong. What can I do? Argue with the judge as to what is more important? Or convince him that I will prevail on both the weaker issue, and then attempt to persuade him that the legal issue I originally wanted to argue is clearly the crux of the matter.

And each judge is different. Some follow the letter of the law, some the spirit. Some want the case to go away, regardless of how it is done. Some favor oral argument, some despise it. As we practice, we learn what the judge desires, and what persuades him or her.

I convince jurors. At times, the most difficult of all. We are presented with a mixed cross-section of the community, and are given only a morning to question them. Within that morning, we attempt to learn what they will find important, and what they will ignore. Then, with that little information, we spend the next few days using that data in the hopes to gain or prevent millions of dollars, or decades in prison.

Talking to jurors after a trial is always enlightening. Very often they will say, “You spent way too much time on this point” or “We were surprised you did not talk about this point.”

We think to ourselves, “I have been a trial lawyer for 15 years. My opponent has as well. We have each done 100’s of trials. The Judge has seen 100’s more. Clearly we thought these points were important, or those were not based upon our experience. Had we anticipated the jury would think completely differently, obviously we would have focused our attention otherwise.”

See, at that moment, with those few people, what all our experience(s) informed us was meaningless. To them certain items were persuasive and others were irrelevant. Because each jury has a different make-up; a different motivation.

If each of us look in our lives, we use different methods, different words to persuade different people—based upon our relationship, or their personality, or what they are interested in at that moment.

Why should deconversion be any different?

I read deconversion stories. I read them as a Christian (upon learning such a thing existed!) wondering what would make a person want to stop believing in something as obvious as a God. I read them while deconverting, to attempt to understand what I was going through, what to expect and what to avoid. I read them now because I find the story of the human race continues to enthrall me.

One concept that sticks out, almost universally, is the desire to investigate alternative forms of information. Either we were always reading Christian books, and discovered scholars in fields other than our particular form of Christianity, or creationists discovering scientific fields or historians reading secular history. Does this always lead to deconversion? Of course not! But I cannot think of a single deconvert that does not mention graduated levels of study of a broader spectrum during the process.

But what led a person to investigate originally? Perhaps for some, it was an incident or a tragedy that made them begin to question how God works. Or, for others, a personal struggle that brought them to the point of looking for answers. Perhaps a purely academic endeavor or an interest in debating the topic.

In every other aspect of our lives, humanity’s motivations are too varied to contain in a limited number of boxes—so, too, with deconversion.

Which brings me to the odd question: What makes a deconversion legitimate? Is a deconvert more justified in her action because she decided to engage in a study of the origin of Christianity, as compared to a homosexual that decided to investigate why God made him that way? Or is a scientist that discovers the viability of evolution a more suitable deconvert than a questioning parent who loses a child to disease?

There are two items that strike me as particularly humorous in this regard. First, for a religion that prides itself on faith, it certainly has a fascination and worshipful awe for intellectualism. “Thinking” one’s way out of Christianity is demanded, but “believing” one’s way into it is required. Second, since all deconverts have an equal degree of heathenicity, does it really matter by what method we started or traveled this path? “You were never saved in the first place” is equally tattooed to the homosexual deconvert, the scholarly deconvert, the scientific deconvert, or the {fill in the blank} convert.

So…you tell me. What is the “proper” way in which one becomes a deconvert?

What is disappointing about this discussion is how small the Christian God becomes. Even as humans we figured out that people are different. That their needs, wants and desires are different. Consequently, and certainly not surprisingly, what persuades them is different. To some, a series of books that is complied over the course of few centuries which contain amazing stories is enough. For others, in observing the world about them, they need more.

We are often told “Who are you to ask ‘Why?’ of God?” (“Often.” Heh heh. There’s an understatement!) Who am I? I am a person with different motives than you. I am a person that cannot sleep with “ultimate purpose” as a response to the Problem of Evil. I am a person that is not convinced a series of books with possible, not plausible, resolutions to contradictions qualifies as spectacular. I, like numerous other humans, am looking for more evidence that convinces me.

You, as a human, can figure it out. If you were selling me a car, or trying to date me, or persuade me to not see a Movie, you would understand that you must first learn what motives me. What persuades me. What is convincing to me. And your God cannot figure that out?

So many times we are told, “THIS is what God claims must convince you. THIS is what is persuasive.” And yet it turns out the “THIS” is exactly what persuades the person making the claim. Can’t God do better? Can’t God actually persuade someone else with evidence that convinces them and does NOT convince you?

Because we see that happen in life all the time.

If my deconversion does not meet your standard, if it was deficient and ineffective in some way, please; I ask you. Provide me with the “proper” way in which one can be a legitimate deconvert.

There is no learning curve for stupid

This title is most aptly directed towards a man by the name of Kip Mckean, founder of the Boston Movement church, the International Church of Christ and now the International Christian Church. In 1979, Kip Mckean corralled 30 would-be idiots in a living room in Boston, Mass. who dedicated themselves to "go any where, and do anything" for the cause of Christ. To the end of world evangelization in one generation, Mckean created a culture infused with unbridled manipulative strings over its members. He indoctrinated members live solely for his own self absorbed purpose. I should know since I was once one of them. The ICOC planted a church in every country with a city of a population of a 100,000. His evil empire came crashing to halt when his own daughter rejected his church and left the church in 2002 -03. The church organization as a basically dissolved, after having permanently damaged thousands of lives.

Do you think Kip Mckean would shoulder any of the blame? Do you think he would anything from this adolescence escapade of power mongering? There is no learning curve for stupid.

Rather than doing anything with a slight semblence of rationality, he decided that all the fault was with everyone except himself. If people had committed themselves truly to his fundemental convictions which he himself formulated back in 1979, then the original movement would still be growing according to god's (Kip McKean's) plan. So without missing a beat and a with a slight of hand, he has consigned all the churches of his former movement (ICOC) to hell and has started from scratch to create a "new" movement (same movement, just a new name and a new group of fools who are suckered) called the International Christian Church. You can find out what this gross movement is up to at www.portlandchurchofchrist.org. As I write this, he is sending out mission teams from Portland,Oregon to start new churches around the country to indoctrinate, to manipulate and to enslave new members in the most radical principles of an already guilty religion. Kip Mckean represents the worst of the worst of already horrible religion.
If by chance you happened to be invited to church by a member of this church, please do me a favor. Just spit in their eye for me.

ex-pastor, ex-wife, ex-christian

I was a pastor’s wife. I lived a Christian life. I did the Christian things. I believed the Christian doctrine. I did it all. I believed it all. Now I am not a pastor’s wife. I do not lead a Christian life. I do not believe the Christian doctrine. This is my journey.

The first time I was saved was when I was 11. I visited my friend and she had a book called Danny Orlis and Linda’s New Mother. I started reading it while I was spending the night and she said I could take it home with me. The first time I read it I was rather huffy about it and declared to myself that I was Catholic and didn’t need to be “saved” like they were talking about. The second time I read it I decided I had better say the sinner’s prayer in the back of the book, just in case it was right.

When I was in high school I was very involved in the Youth Group at church. We played our guitars and sang for the Saturday and Sunday Mass. This was when the Catholic Charismatic movement was very much in the vogue and all of us in the youth group got born again and baptized in the Spirit.

From there it was one step further into “real” Christianity when I became born again, again, left behind Catholicism, and got involved in Calvary Chapel with Chuck Smith in Costa Mesa. It was the time of Jesus Freaks, Maranantha Music and real Bible Study. I realized how much I had been missing at the Catholic Church and delved in full force.

When I was 20 I got married and we moved to Oregon and found ourselves at a Foursquare Church. During the time we were there my husband “got the call” to go into the ministry and thus began the highly emotionally charged game "Figuring Out God's Will." He felt God calling him; he prayed about it, he sought counsel with the pastor of our own church.

Then he asked me what I thought because God could give me insight, too. What can a wife say in that situation? He already told me he felt God calling him; that God was telling him to uproot and go. Could I go against God? Could I say God was telling me something different? Could I say I didn't hear God at all?

Will it never end, I asked myself; the constant fight to know God's will? Why does He make it so hard? Why does everything have to be such a guessing game? Why is it set up so that we must second guess every decision? Why is every decision we make colored by what we felt God was saying before and did we get it right the first time or did we miss it altogether? Were we being punished for making a mistake? Why? It isn’t our fault God doesn't speak out loud and clear. It's not our fault He makes us put together a puzzle with half of the pieces missing.

But then maybe pastoring a church would be the answer. Surely if pastoring a church wasn't God's will, what was? Surely if God wanted us in the ministry, he would provide, right? In the end, we moved.

I was ready to go to Eugene if that's what the Lord wanted. Sometimes I got the impression that our pastor and the district pastor didn't think it was that good of an idea. But no matter, if it was God's will for us to go, then go we would. We would show them.

I loved being in Eugene. The church was big and vibrant. The people were so nice. Ministries Institute was hard work and fun. We were treated special because we were in Ministries Institute. We weren't outsiders for long; we were brought in with a welcoming arm.

My time in Eugene was well spent. I got the opportunity to learn and to teach. I took every opportunity to better myself. Because I was a wife I got to go to classes for free.

Those days in Eugene were some of the best days I had. God was a very strong presence in my life. Being a saved, born again Christian was my life. I went to church Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday nights. I went on retreats and getaways to learn more and to get spiritually revived. I went to the Ladies' Bible Study, I studied the bible on my own every day, I set yearly goals to read it all the way through, I prayed every day. I lived it all, I believed it all. We were there for a little over two years. Then we graduated. We were pastors and on our way to change the world.

We were in our first church a few months where my husband had the dual role of children's pastor and janitor. We were back in our original church where he first got the call to go into ministry. We were back with people who loved us. We were back with our friends. But he wanted more: more pastor, less janitor.

We traded places with the pastor in Joseph, Oregon. We took over his church of about 60 people. We were there nine months. The mill in town closed down and it looked like we were going to lose quite a few members. Lenny didn't even try to get a second job so we could stay there. He listened to the people who said get out of there, you will never make it, the people who were losing their jobs and who were disheartened and moving back to the populous side of Oregon.

And now, like I said, here we were in Hermiston. Here where God called us. After we left Joseph, Oregon we moved into the little house next to the VFW Hall in the city next to Hermiston. The district pastor wanted us to be a part of his church for awhile and start off small in Hermiston with a Bible Study. We did as he asked and we couldn’t complain. After all he got us free housing. All we had to do was clean the VFW Hall after every event. The pastors there had a decent sized church and we were glad to be a part of it.

We found a few families that were interested in starting a church. A couple had been in contact with the pastors to see about starting a church in Hermiston. One couple made contact with a few other interested families and we were on our way with the Bible Study. We met at their house until we were big enough to start the church.

I wish my husband had learned how to be a self-starter, how to be self-employed, how to build a business. Then we would have had better luck with the churches we pastored. That's something they didn't teach us in the Institute. They taught us that if God wanted your church to grow it would. And of course God wanted all of his churches to grow. But if yours wasn't growing...that must be God's will, too, or maybe, you weren't in God's will.

But only the pastors of big churches got any accolades. Only the pastors of the big churches got asked to speak at retreats and trainings. Only the pastors of big churches were asked their opinion of anything. Why? Because, if their churches were big, God must really like them. And if God liked them, so did the church leadership.

The truth is, as I have come to find out, pastors who build big churches are skilled in business building, they are skilled in marketing, and they are skilled in running big businesses. It is not God, it is their hard work. It is not God, it is their skill. It is not God; it is being in the right place at the right time. It is not God; it is their sweat equity and time. A "successful" pastor would be a success at any business he put his hand to.

It's no fun pastoring a small church; there is so much tension and pressure to grow up. When one family misses a service it could mean 25% of your congregation is gone.

It’s a lot of hard work to build a church. My husband worked full time at the furniture store delivering furniture. This cut into his time that he could have used to grow the church. There wasn’t much we could do about that. We had to eat and the church wasn’t big enough to support us. Some of our church members had told him he should just trust the Lord and devote himself to the church. Maybe they were right. It's hard to give 100% to the church if you are working. Some people thought he should just quit and let the church support him, give it the real test so to speak. It certainly would have been a time for growth for us and the church. Or maybe it would have been our demise.

It seemed my husband was never satisfied for long. Here we'd been in Hermiston for barely three years and he was ready to move on. Three years is barely enough time to get a business, any business, going and he was ready to move on to something else: something with less work, something with less personal responsibility.

I had too many responsibilities to just pick up and move on. I was committed to home schooling my kids and their friends. I was on the Aglow Board, I was the leader of out home school support group, and I was teaching a finance class for the kids at church. I certainly didn't feel like it was time to go.

Except for the church itself, my husband didn't have any commitments except that he was the token male on the Aglow Board and his answer to that was, “Oh well." I hated to think of letting people down. As much as I would have liked to be in a big church with our friend, I knew it would never happen. It was too good to be true. We certainly hadn't proved ourselves.

Besides, Hermiston was supposed to be where God for sure called us. Hermiston was where we would start our own church and do it our way and we wouldn't inherit anybody else's problems. Hermiston was where we would finally make it big having the support of the district and the division leaders. Here would be utopia. But here was my husband looking for a way out, again.

He was always looking for something better, always had an excuse to quit, always looking for the perfect job, unwilling to make things work where he was, unwilling to make the effort to excel, the grass was always greener somewhere else.

I had many questions about how involved God was in his job decisions.

He chose to be laid off at Rockwell instead of working swing shift because he heard God, he said. After much "prayer" (which I came to understand later, was figuring out what you wanted to do and coming up with enough compelling evidence to support your convictions to go for what was the easiest way out) he said God wanted him to refuse the offer. God didn't want him to tie up his evenings and keep him away from his ministry. His "ministry" was our youth group which consisted of our friends that we hung out with on a regular basis. We held a bible study and a prayer meeting with them that we were the leaders of, but it was nothing formal. Mostly we hung out and did things together, it was our group. That was the first time God told him to change jobs.

He got hired on at Intel as soon as we moved to Oregon. Praise the Lord, he provided a job right away. The plant wasn't even opened yet, so everyone was starting at the beginning as far as the training went. Lenny thought he got hired on as the Lead Man, that's what he had heard. But when they actually started the shifts, someone else was placed in that position. When he questioned it, he was told no promise was made to him. He had been told that they would consider him, but it was up to the shift supervisor as to who would be placed in that position. He quit over that, with no other job lined up. He quit even though it was God who gave him that job.

At Ricoh he said he was fired because the boss didn't like his drug-free attitude.

At the mobile home lot things didn't pan out for him. He couldn't make a sale and the one he did make fell through. He decided that sales weren’t for him.

He started looking for a mill job. In his mind a mill job would be the perfect job. He got hired and a few months later he got laid off.

When God gave him the truck washing job, he was so thankful. This job must really be the one from God because he was finally working for a Christian. All he did was complain the whole time.

Then there was the insurance job. He had decided to become an insurance agent to support us while he was in school and while his ministry got started. He had gotten his license before we left the Portland area and started up when we got to Eugene. This job was supposed to be the answer to all of our problems. But, no, it was too hard. He couldn't fit in school and work.

He got off to a slow start. A career like that takes self-discipline and courage to build. It is hard work to start any business and this one never got off the ground. It wasn't his fault though - the company he worked for wasn't supportive, they didn't help him, everybody else had it better, he didn't have the time to do all the work required, etc. Soon all our hopes of making a good living were dashed as we had to resort to food stamps and government cheese to survive. He finally got a "real job" working as a custodian for a cleaning company.

I was beginning to realize that the real answer to all of our problems would be for my husband to find a job and stick to it no matter what. And then somewhere between the truck washing job and the insurance job, he felt the call to go into ministry, to become a pastor. And I already told you how that went.

After we left Hermiston we became associate pastors at a church in the Seattle area. The pastor there was physically sick and played on it as well as spiritually abusive and very manipulative. I could write a book (and will, one of these days) on the whole experience, but it was because of this situation that I started the questioning process.

I still remember how I went through different levels of "coming out." It started because I went to counseling, and even though my counselor was a Christian, he taught me to question and to look at things in different ways.

I'm sure that's when it started, because up until then I believed, lock, stock and barrel. It was the questioning, the learning to think for myself, the introduction to NLP, the seeing I had control over my life.

Then it was Spong, starting with "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism." That was an eye opener. I could still believe without taking everything so literally. Reading Spong was like a breath of fresh air.

I remember telling my friend (also a pastor’s wife at the time) to read this book. Her husband saw it and demanded that she take it back to the store and to tell them she didn’t know what she was getting. She didn’t…she just hid it from him.

Then it was Scott Peck, he wasn’t a Christian (then) and yet what he said rang so true. When I saw him in person he said, “Sometimes divorce is the answer.” I felt like I’d been given the OK to consider it. My marriage and my religion were so tied up in each other, if it was okay to think that, then it was okay to think other thoughts outside the box.

When I finally made that break, the divorce, I never looked back. I never regretted my decision. I still don’t.

I still went to church after the divorce, but not to any fundamentalist bullshit church. I went to my friends’ (from NLP) church. They were real people. The church was small and unobtrusive, real people offering real solutions.

Then I discovered self-help beyond Christianity. Brian Tracy, he taught me to think for myself to an even further degree. He taught me that I am responsible for everything. He taught me about taking control of my life, not giving it away to someone or something else.

Peter McWilliams with Life 101 and Do It. Those books helped me along too. He said it didn’t matter what higher being we believed in, these books still worked, they still held truth. I am rereading Life 101 at the moment. It is still good.

Then I read The History of God and in doing so I discovered the history of man-made religion and I became disgruntled, felt like I had been sold a bill of goods. It was all man-made, a way to keep control over the masses, to lock people into a way of thinking to make their job easier. If you teach people how to think you can make them give you money.

There were many others along the way and they all helped to break me free of religion in a box.

I am no longer a religious person. I am a free thinker. I don’t believe in a fundamental Christianity, I don’t believe the Jesus-God connection, I don’t believe the Bible to be true – in fact, I believe it to be a bunch of stories, compiled over the ages and bound into one book. I find it contradictory and a weapon that can be used to make any point or prove any side.

I don’t like reading the bible or hearing it quoted from. It makes me cringe when I hear scriptures, I’ve heard them misused and abused so much. I can’t hear the beauty behind them. I can’t see the lesson, I can’t hear beyond the abuse. I don’t want to hear the old fables. It makes me feel sorry for those who believe it and stupid for having believed it. How could I have been so caught up in it all?

I can’t yet see Jesus apart from the bible banging religion. Maybe taken apart from all that there are good lessons and examples.

I don’t believe that God talks to man or tells him what to do. I don’t believe God listens to our prayers or has any connection with our day-to-day lives. I don’t believe in miracles, I don’t believe God has a purpose for my life, I don’t believe God comes down and rearranges things for us, I don’t believe God saves some people (from catastrophes and from hell) and not others, I don’t believe God can read my thoughts or direct my path.

I don’t believe in anything like that anymore – heaven or hell, spirits, eternal life. It was a slow and painstaking, gradual process. A lot of thought and reading went into each departure. It wasn’t a blind, unthinking decision.

I don’t want anything to do with Christianity. I am not a Christian, not even an “American Christian.” I live my life as an atheist.

It seems like once I started questioning, and I questioned the church, religion, my beliefs all at the same time, I couldn't stop. One question led to another, one doubt expressed led to many more, one belief shattered rocked the foundation and more came tumbling down, one "rule" found to be untrue gave way to more.

It was like I had a blanket, what I thought was a beautiful blanket, wrapped around me, protecting me from the elements. One day I noticed a loose thread and I picked and pulled at it and the blanket started unraveling. I tried to put it back, to weave it back in, but I couldn't leave it alone. I picked at it and worked at it and asked other people if they saw it and pretty soon, bit-by-bit, the blanket got smaller.

That's OK, I said, I still have this much left. So I cut off all the loose yarn and tucked in the loose end. But pretty soon the loose end worked itself out and started bugging me so I began the process again, pulling and unraveling until I got out the pieces that no longer worked for me. I cut off the excess and tucked in the loose ends for safekeeping.

Now my blanket was really small. I kept a hold of it like that for a while, but every time I'd take it out to use it that thread seemed to work itself out again. One day I couldn't stand it so I picked and pulled again, until the whole thing came apart.

I cut off a little thread and rolled it into a little ball. I kept it in my pocket for remembrance mostly. It couldn't be called a blanket anymore. It wasn’t worth anything, it couldn't be made into anything, it was just there. If anybody asked I could say I have a little bit of it left, the starting piece of yarn, the foundation. But really, it was just a piece of yarn, unraveled, no meaning.

I was afraid of what people will say if I threw it all away. I was afraid to admit to myself that I wanted to throw it all away. I called it god but with little letters. I didn't use it for anything; I never took it out of my pocket. If somebody questioned me I said I've still got it. I chose to hang on to that part for awhile. I chose to believe in god for a little longer. But certainly not the GOD of before, the GOD of rules and regulations, the nosy one, the all involved one, the one who makes men weak.

I chose to believe in a force outside of myself that kept things in motion from afar, one who set up the rules of the universe and lets us play them out. But then I saw that yarn hanging out of my pocket and I pulled out the last bit.

It is a wonderful place to be, free from the guilt and burdens of Christianity. I live my life fully and without question, enjoying the process of becoming who I am.