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.

Richard Carrier's Five Questions Concerning "The Resurrection"

Dear Richard Carrier,
The five questions (that you prepared for your recent radio discussion with Gary Habermas and Mike Licona on "the resurrection") were well put. In case anyone missed them, they were:

1. "In the Book of Acts the Apostles are having vivid and powerful visions and dream communications from God all the time. We hear of similar experiences reported in that era from Jews and pagans, who were also having vivid and powerful visions and dream communications from a variety of gods and angels. Why isn't this happening now? And why was that happening back then, even to pagans and Jews, who weren't seeing or hearing what the Christians were seeing and hearing?"

2. "This might sound like a frivolous question, but it really isn't. I mean it quite seriously. Why does God give me more evidence that smoking cigarettes is harmful than he gives me that Jesus lives?"

3. "The Gospel according to Matthew says (27:52-54) 'the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints who slept rose up and came out of their graves after His resurrection, and went into the Holy City and appeared to many'. Do you believe this happened? If Yes: How could this amazing event have escaped everyone else's notice, even the other evangelists? If No: How could the author of Matthew get away with such a lie?"

4. "The following three questions are all closely related and really amount to one question. Why did the risen Jesus only appear to his followers, and to only one previously obscure enemy among the thousands opposing his Gospel? Why didn't he appear to Pilate or Herod or Caiaphas or the Roman Senate? Why didn't he also appear to deliver the Gospel to China--or to the Americas, as the Mormons claim he did?"

Or... "Why was the death of Jesus so public, but his resurrection so private?"

5. You seem to trust what the Gospels say is what actually happened. I want to understand why. I have an analogy that I think might help. Suppose I hauled you into court on a murder charge, and the only evidence I had against you was a bunch of letters that described you murdering the victim in vivid detail. Of course you would ask who wrote those letters. I answer, "Joe, Mike, Bob, and Dan." You then ask, "Who are they?" And I answer, "I don't know for sure." That's a dead end, so you would ask, "How do they know any of the things they claim in those letters?" And I answer, "I don't know. They never say exactly where they are getting any of their information." Okay. Imagine that happened to you. Would you conclude that I had a convincing case against you? Do you believe the jury should conclude that you committed the murder those letters describe you committing?"

~~~~~~~~~

Dear Richard Carrier,
You mentioned some errors that you made during your aforementioned radio discussion on the resurrection. One of which was simply choosing the wrong questions with which to begin, and not even getting through all of the above questions, but getting bogged down discussing minutely a few less relevant questions. Perhaps the most common error was the assumption by all concerned that communication can take place with relative ease and transparency, when in fact, communication is never that easy, especially between two people who have read many different books and articles, known different people, and who espouse widely different philosophical and/or religious views.

I suppose that if a Designer had wanted people to communicate with greater ease then S/he/it might have installed a port in the side of everyone's cranium through which we could download and upload data with others, i.e., whole lifetimes of learning and experience being shared quickly and easily. Or in lieu of such a physical port perhaps such a Designer might at least allow two people to share their knowledge and experiences in some "psychic" fashion so as to be able to focus sharply and intently on their greatest singular points of agreement, disagreement, and in-conclusiveness. (I suspect that each pair of individuals engaged in a discussion has different points or major singularities that overlap and mean the most to each of those individuals concerning each question. Hence for two individuals to "connect" at points that they both find equally significant, equally meaningful, and/or equally perplexing, is a task in itself.)

Instead, as things stand in this cosmos, misunderstandings of the sort that you mention occur with great frequency.

And what about the choice of the show's producer to interview people lying on far sides of a question (i.e., putting an atheist together with people speaking for revealed religion) means that large gaps in communication and understanding were being sought by the interviewer, perhaps to keep listeners a bit more interested and boost ratings, because listeners would then get to "root" for their "team" which is a team distinctly different from that of the "other side." Instead, if moderate believers in revealed religion were chosen to discuss matters with conservative believers in revealed religion, like a moderate Christian arguing a visionary interpretation of the resurrection with a conservative Christian arguing a physical interpretation of the resurrection, then each side might have been able to listen more openly and comprehend the views of the other side a bit more easily, since the other's views would have lain just a bit further down the road from their own, and not across the canyon-sized gap of atheism and revealed religion.

Indeed, Christians have spent far more time and written far more books debunking each other's interpretations of their Bible and theological views than non-Christians have ever spent debunking Christianity. Today there's even a burgeoning series of "viewpoints" books published by Zondervan and Intervarsity in which Christians of the Protestant Evangelical kind debate their differing views both practical and theological and scientific, including debating the meaning of Genesis, Revelation, and the brain-mind question as well (not all Evangelicals believe in substance dualism!), not to mention differing interpretations concerning differing "Christian" responses to a host of questions.

A FEW RELEVANT QUOTATIONS

"Our divisions should never be discussed except in the presence of those who have already come to believe that there is one God and that Jesus Christ is his only Son."
--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

"Theology is a comprehensive, rigorous, and systematic attempt to conceal the beam in the scriptures and traditions of one’s own denomination while minutely measuring the mote in the heritages of ones’ brothers."
--Walter Kaufmann, The Faith of a Heretic

"Every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly; and where it fails them, they cry out, 'It is a matter of faith, and above reason.'"
--John Locke

CONCLUSION

At base, I suspect that most debates shed little light because they begin with ignorance. Polls reveal that not many Christians in America can even name all four Gospels. Many people also are far more ready to defend the Bible than read it. Or they are ready to state they believe the Bible "cover to cover" without having studied what's between the covers or thought about it very much. (There are some excellent college level lectures by the way produced by "The Teaching Company" that are available online. They sum up a lot of major scholarly views of which anyone studying or debating religion ought to be aware. I'd suggest directing Christians to learn more about what theologians really believe today than spend much time arguing matters.)

Neither does life leave the majority of mankind with much time for studying the world's questions. Life is short and we all have to spent time and effort on surviving, maintaining families and friendships, even maintaining our health. Emotional ups and downs also play a role throughout our lives. And our beliefs can be influenced by all manner of things, including social factors, familial factors, national factors, tragic or happy events, individual psychological factors including fear of death, the joys of feeling certain about what we already believe, or simple mental inertia after we have imbibed or developed a view of the world (the brain/mind does not eagerly rearrange all the furniture it has previously laid down in specific spots just in order to accommodate a new end table).

"We believe in nothing so firmly as what we least know."
--Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, Essays

"Even the weakest disputant is made so conceited by what he calls religion, as to think himself wiser than the wisest who thinks differently from him."
--Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864)

"Only a Designer would have made it sooooo easy to find the 'one true faith' that even your parents could pick it out for you, and in most places on earth, they do. It's even easier to find a 'true' Christian as opposed to a false one, or a 'true' Moslem as opposed to a false one. The 'believer in the true way' (of a religion or denomination or interpretation) is always the one with whom you are speaking at the moment."--E.T.B.

"Only a Designer would have made it so that 'The type of person who devotes himself to the pursuit of wisdom is most unlucky in everything, but above all in begetting children--as if Nature had taken pains, I suspect, to keep the disease of wisdom from spreading too widely among mortals.'"
--Erasmus, In Praise of Folly

Lastly,

"Remember to be kind to everyone you meet, for everyone is fighting a great battle."
--Philo of Alexandria

Dr. Gene Witmer on Presuppositionalism

Those of you who encounter presuppositionalism on the web should really listen to Dr. Gene Witmer, professor of philosophy at the University of Florida, who is interviewed by Gene Cook at Unchained Radio. This was very interesting to me.

Here's a Link to My Interview on The Narrow Mind

Link here. Pastor Gene was respectful, professional, and intelligent. His assumptions make him say bizzare things, though. Anyone who wants to comment one way or another, can do so here. I sure said "Uh" a lot. I know better than that.

After hearing it just now, I realized there were some statements Gene made that I could've jumped on that I didn't. I probably misunderstood Gene and Paul a couple of times, too. It's tough being in the heat of battle. It's also really strange that I didn't realize Paul Manata and I were talking at the same time, again. But I hope I got some of my points though.

What I wanted to convey was that when it comes to explaining why something--anything--exists, we all run into improbable absurdities, so Christians have a misplaced confidence level when they think our arguments are silly. Such a confidence level reminds me of Holocaust deniers and Muslim suicide bombers. It's their confidence level that I think is silly. I ask them questions that I think are tough and they turn around and riddicule those questions. That's what I vehemently object to! I also wanted to convey that history is a very poor medium for God to reveal himself, if he exists, because all of us judge history from our present experience--all of us! Lastly, when it comes to the arguments of Christians who think it's absurd that we use logic and act on our moral notions without an ultimate foundation, that those same types of arguments can be leveled at their God, if he exists. Did God create the laws of logic and morality, or does he have to abide by a logic and morality he didn't create? Can he, as a spirit, move a material object? How? Can he think? Thinking demands weighing temporal alternatives. Is he free to choose his nature? How could he have decided who he would be if he always and forever had his nature?

I wasn't trying to convince them their world-view was wrong so much as I was trying to show that the atheist arguments are not silly. If I could just get them to admit that, then it was worth the effort. If they would just admit this we could have a decent, civil and respectful discussion. My point wasn't that their position alone is absurd, but that both sides of this debate start with brute facts which cannot be sufficiently and totally explained. They won't admit this because they need to be confident, hopeful, and full of faith to please their God, who who will reward them because of their faith.

People mention the title to this blog as if I am hostile to Christianity. If I am hostile to anything, I am hostile to the attitudes of Christians who would treat atheists like me with disrespect, distain, and laughter. The Blog title is to attract attention, and that's its main function. And yes, I do think Christianity is false for so many reasons. But I have always wanted to have a respectful discussion, as much as possible. It appears that the only way this can be done is to help them see that they do not have a corner on the truth. But I probably argued in vain....

Evaluating the Evidence for the Resurrection, Part 2

Christianity is a religion that grounds itself in historical claims. As such it is a religion that invites examination by using methods of inference. In essence, Christianity does not seem to exclude itself from the command to "Test everything, hold on to the good." In this post I will continue my examination of the inferential case for and against Christianity using what I think is relevant evidence. I will continue to utilize Bayes' theorem to help consolidate the evidence. My assessments are collected in a table at the end of the post. I will continue to provide the formula's I used so a reader could update the table with their own assessments. I find that this methodology helps eliminate much of the distraction from ensuing discussion and focuses the issue with those interested in understanding what they should believe and why.

My background assumptions are primarily based on experiences with people who make claims about the divine. I fleshed this out in greater detail here and argued that the background probability that God would raise Jesus from the dead (compared to the legendary hypothesis) should be no higher that 1 in million. So far I have considered 1) the time between the reports and events and 2) chief priest's need of Judas as relevant evidence with regard to determining if the Gospel accounts are legendary or historical (see here). In this post I will include two additional pieces of evidence.

I present numeric values in these assessments primarily as a tool to help me think in a disciplined way, not to provide a precision to the results. I would expect that the numbers would change as I continue to gain knowlegde about the situations I examine. However, the numbers do help present an ordering to the strengths of my beliefs. I would greatly appreciate criticism that included the critic's estimate of the plausibility ratio for the evidence in question. My goal here is to hold beliefs that are most consistent with the evidence, and I think including values for assessments helps to do that.

Evidence 3: The report of James' conversion
Both the Apostle Paul's testimony and Christian tradition give evidence that James was a Christian. The report of James' conversions is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15,
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, … 7 Then he appeared to James, …
and in Galations 1:
18 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter[b] and stayed with him fifteen days. 19 I saw none of the other apostles-only James, the Lord's brother. 20 I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie.

The question is "how likely would these reports be if Jesus was raised versus if the resurrection was a legendary addition?" P(E|H)/P(E|~H). I was asked, "what would it take for you to believe that one of your brothers was divine, and would you die for that belief?" The theory is that these reports would not have been possible had James not converted. Further James conversion would require that Jesus had risen and appeared to James.

However, there are some anomalies to the story, thus the report doesn't appear to be perfectly consistent with the resurrection hypothesis. It is somewhat surprising that James the Just is traditionally portrayed as the leader of the Jerusalem church given the facts 1) He had very little to do with Jesus' mission and story as portrayed in the Gospels. 2) Jesus had seemingly hand picked Peter to be the head of the church.

Hyam Maccoby argues that these anomalies give evidence that the Jerusalem church did not accept that Jesus was divine and the Jerusalem church was more monarchical than ecclesiastical. If the messianic claim were understood to be a kingship, then James would be the nearest relative the Jesus and would inherit the role as messiah. He cites the fact that the Jerusalem church kept meeting daily in temple courts (see Acts 2:46) and seemed to be part of the normal Jewish religious community. He also points out that Acts 2:22, Peter did referred to Jesus as "a man attested to you by God" and not "the Son of God." Now perhaps Maccoby's takes the evidence too far, but it is still clear that we are not getting the whole story from the New Testament here. In my opinion, James' leadership role in the church is not inconsistent with a legendary growth of Jesus.

Now if the resurrection story was legendary and James was a man of great esteem, it does seem plausible that writer would attempt to co-opt James as a support of the movement. We see similar things even today, both liberal and conservative politicians will cite John F. Kennedy in support of positions they each hold.

Although it would be hard to convince a sibling that one is God, it is not clear that Paul's testimony and tradition are sufficent to establish that fact James was convinced the Jesus was God. There are enough inconsistencies in reports to give one reason to doubt the veracity of the reports. This evidence is perhaps a bit stronger than the positive evidence assessed last time (the time for legends to grow), but again it doesn't seem all that powerful in and of itself. I would assess that P(E|Resurrection)/P(E| Legend) ~ 1.6 (about +2 dB).

Evidence 4: Deemphasizing Jesus lack of knowledge
When legends occur, it is expected that the hero of the story may become stronger, wiser, and more heroic in later accounts. Scholars typically date Mark prior to Matthew. If legendary development is true, one would expect that the character of Jesus would be improved in strength, character, and wisdom in the later accounts. Such development is less likely in the case of history.

Consider the passage Mark 13:32 where Jesus is talking about the signs of the end of the age: "But as for that day or hour no one knows it-neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son-except the Father." Obviously, this passage presents some theological difficulties for early Christians. This passage seems to run against the notion that Jesus is God. (It is conceivable that early readers could have concluded "if God knows all, and Jesus does not know all, Jesus must not be God.")

The author of Matthew also covers roughly the same event. Here the phrase "nor the Son" is missing in Matthew 24:36 (or it is at least not present in early manuscripts according to my NIV). Matthews's omission is consistent with legendary development and less consistent with the claim that Matthew was writing history. I think that this evidence is at least as strong as the no questions raised of reporting the chief priest's need of Judas. I would assign this ratio the value of 0.5 ( about -3 dB).

To make the following table in MS Excel, (presuming that the first evidence listed is in row 3, enter the formula "=C2*B3/(B3*C2+1-C2)" into cell C3. The continuation of that formula is used for the remainder of the column.

Evidence	Ratio, P(e|HR)/P(e|HL)	Assessment posterior
a priori	-	10-6
Time of reports	1.2	1.2×10-6
Chief Priest's need of Judas	0.5	0.6× 10-6
Reported conversion of James	1.6	0.96× 10-6
Jesus' ignorance deemphasized	0.5	0.48× 10-6

I'll be on Unchained Radio Wednesday.

This Wednesday, on November 8th, from 9-10 AM (Pacific Time) I'll be a guest on Gene Cook's Unchained Radio program. Gene decided to bill it that I'm planning on responding to the Discomfiter, so I expect he'll ask me about him. But I have bigger plans...

Then on Thursday 11/09 9am-10am, Dr. Gene Witmer will discuss the topic, "Christian Presuppositionalism - A General Response." That should be good!

An unexpected journey to the truth part 2

How can one so entrenched in Christian belief for so long turn so rapidly from Christian theist to agnostic to atheist over a period of a year and half? One might as well ask the opposite question,"How can someone who has studied the Bible, theology, and philosophy take so long to disbelieve?"

First,one must only seriously consider arguments which arguments which support the case for Christianity. Thus essential reading is C.S Lewis, Geisler, Moreland and decidedly conservative scholarship.
Second, one must treat those who argue against Christianity and strongly oppose Christianity as straw men. One must read their books as if they are already guilty of error. The job of a Christian theological/philosophical critique, in my mind, was to poke holes, take potshots and think that the whole secular ediface had been discredited, much as Phillip Johnson does in his book Darwin on Trial. On the whole, the validity of the secular arguments must not be analyzed on its own terms as a viable option.

Once I deviated from this formula, I found that Christianity is a historical, theological and philosophical "house of cards" whose arguments for validity can be defeated by even the most sophmoric of ex-apologists.

What were the arguments which convinced me of the falsity of Christianity?
There are too many to list in any reasonable amount of space at this time. However, the primary reasons were first historical, then theological and then philosophical/scientific.

As mentioned at the end of part 1, it was a systematic study of the Bible with frequent cross-referencing and comparative study of passages which lead me to the conclusion that the Bible is an inspired book of divine origin. Rather it is a book easily proven to be filled with errors and of obvious human origin. The Bible in I Tim 3:16 claimsthat all scripture is to be taken as of divine origin and divine inspiration. In order to consistently argue this point, one must perform numerous theological gyrations and offer ad hoc explanations.

The watershed moment for me was a comparative analysis of 2 Samuel 24 and I Chronicles 21, which both record the event of David taking a census and thus bringing a devasting pestilence on the people of Israel. The book of Samuel was written during the Babylonian captivity. The books of Chronicles were written later during the Persian period prior to the rebuilding of the Temple. God's inspiration is clained by I Timothy 3:16 to be behind both accounts. However, there is a major change between the two accounts. In the Samuel account, it is God who incites David to do evil by calling for a census as an excuse to punish him. David later realizes that he has sinned in performing the census. But it was God who incited David to commit this sin in the first place. However, one must remember that Israel at the time of writing this document had no concept of a devil. Good and evil were seen at that time as proceeding from God. Thus one is struck by the account in I Chronicles which attribution the evil incitation of a census to Satan. Why the change? Here one must remember that at this point that Israelite theology had been exposed and influenced by the Persian religion, Zoroasterianism and had incorporated the idea of a satan who opposed the goodness of God. The authors of the Chroncles wanted to clear the God of the barbarous charge that he was directly responsible for David sinning and then punishing him for a sin which he caused him to commit. Thus they interjected the Persian idea of divine adversary which was probably known to their reader to avoid the contradiction presented in II Samuel. This change is perfectly understandable for the perspective of historical research but presents a nearly insurmountable peak to be climbed by those who want to uphold the verbal inspiration of both of these passages. Can any amount of theological gyrations cogently overcome this problem and maintain divine inspiration with a straight face?

This was a watershed moment which set face down the course toward atheism. Of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg of historical incongrueties and implausibilties. I found the gospels to be filled with similar problems that I shall not take the time to detail at this moment. These problems lead me to agnosticism for I could no longer believe in the God of the Bible. He does not exist. If he does exist, he is the most clumsing inept stooge, subject to the development and wavering of human thought.

Second, I found theological problems which I could no longer surmount. All my life I wanted to be close to God, much as in that silly story that I previously related about wanting to converse directly with God in my childhood. However, maybe it isn't so silly and needs to be taken seriously. If God really loved us, why can't he converse with us directly. Why is he so impersonal to only address us through an ancient book, which wasn't addressed directly to us anyway? If God wanted to have a relationship with me, why couldn't he just appear to me, tell me that he loves me and wants to have a relationship with me. If God is all powerful and all knowing, he would certainly figure out a way to do so. Not only for me but for every person who has lived on the earth. The fact of God's transcendence and extremely holiness cannot be used as an argument to rebuff this because God is believed to accommodated himself to directly address Moses, Abraham and the handful of Biblical prophets that lived on this earth. Why is able to appear directly to them and not to vast majority? Could it be that there is no one behind these appearances and that these appearances can be explained in terms of the psychological study of mysticism. The fact that God has failed to appear to 99.9 % of the people who have lived on this earth is convincing evidence that God may be nothing more an idea formulated in a pre-scientific age.

Philosophically, I found the entire idea of heaven untenable. We are told by apologists that the possibility of suffering is necessary for free will to exist, in what post Leibnizians call the best of all possible worlds. For free will to exist, there must be possibility to sin and to cause suffering. However, we are told that in heaven, there is no sin and no suffering. Thus, one has the unresolveable problem of having to do away with free will in order to preserve heaven, which I don't think any evangelical will accept.

I had better stop now. The dam has been broken. The floodgates have opened and swept away the last vestiges of Christianity in my life. I would have to give up my mind in order to turn back and believe the things which I once believed. I am free to accept as substantiated only those things which can be examined from all sides and may be questioned to ascertain their veracity.

Yes, this is certainly an unexpected journey. But I am certainly to be where I am after years of holding to one sided truths. I am aiming to move forward intelligently as I am able.

An unexpected journey to the truth-part 1

My life, my viewpoint and my stance are all radically different than anything I had previously anticipated. Religion, Christianity, and Christian service were my stance and my viewpoint from the very earliest age. I thought that there was for me no other. Until rather recently, there was no consideration of any other.

For some odd reason, my inclination from childhood was toward religion. I received no parental push or other like pressure to be in church. My parents did not attend church except sparodically. Yet, I wanted to be in church and Sunday School even my parents did not attend.
I found out in the fifth grade all my sisters had been baptized as a baby but I was not. I was afraid that I was unpleasing to God and would be sent to hell. Upon my insistance, I was one of the few who was baptized by sprinkling outside of infancy in that church.
I always wanted to develop a relationship with God. When I was about 10-11, I remember that I received a sunday school pamplet about prayer. I understood it to say that if you wanted to talk to God all you had to do was ask to talk to him. As a child, that was taken to mean that I could have a direct conversation with the Creator of the Universe if I but asked. A holy light, I thought , would come down upon me as I would stand directly in his presence. I was scared to death but I decided to do it anyway. I prayed and asked to talk to God directly. Suprisingly or maybe in retrospect not suprisingly, there came no voice, no response except the silence. Part of me felt relief for fear of disturbing a mighty God and making him angry at having been bothered by someone so miniscule as a young child.
In seventh grade, I was invited to the Christian Church in my town by a friend. I soon started reading the Bible for myself and found that as the Christian Church taught I needed to be baptized by immersion. Thus, at age 12 baptism two now by immersion. I felt my life totally change. I wanted to be at every church service. I lead my entire family to be baptized. I read my Bible every day. I brought my Bible to school every day. I witnessed to my classmates. I lead some to say the sinners prayer. I wore Jesus T-shirts to school. I was consistently made fun of (rightly so) for my faith. But at that time, I thought that I had decided where my life was going for the rest of my time on earth. I was not only going to be a life long Christian, but also a minister .
As a result, I preached my first sermon in the eighth grade and preached 2-5 times a year until my high school graduation. I entered the preaching category in the Talent Rally at an area Bible College and placed high year after year. In addition, I was the "star" member of my local church's Bible quiz team which competed in area and national tournaments.
Immediately upon graduation, my course was set directly for bible college at Lincoln Christian College. My desire was to excell in my knowledge of the Bible so that I could help others know God. Throughout my 4 years, I was active serving in churches teaching and preaching. I also helped lead student spiritual life both in the dorm and on the campus as a whole. At the conclusion, I earned a BA degree in preaching ministries. Capping off my undergraduate studies, I did summer mission work in Eastern Europe.
But that was not enough. I decided that I needed to study the Bible and world views on a deeper level. Thus the next four years were spent studying theology and philosophy under Dr. James Strauss at Lincoln Christian Seminary. Under his tutelege, I was excited to learn that non-Christian worldviews could be critiqued on the level of assumptions and could be shown to be not only tenable but absurd. I was not his most insightful student. But I worked very hard and grew in my ability to philosophically analyze arguments.
During this time, I was the full time preaching minister of a small church in nothern Illinois. It was a very hard and lonely experience. But it never once caused me to question whether there was a God who was directing my life. Rather, I decided that leadership ministry was not my calling but the teaching ministry was.
Thus after graduation, I moved to Milwaukee, WI to work toward a Ph.D. in philosophy at Marquette University and eventually become a Bible college professor. During this time, my path crossed with John Loftus who was studying theology. But being from a small town, my life began to unwind in such a big city. Even though my financee was with me, I had never been without a support system in such an overwhelming manner. I began to feel that I was drifting away from God.
In an overwhelmed and depressed state, I was invited to a Bible study by a member of the Milwaukee Church of Christ, a church in the semi-cultic Boston Movement. They provided me with immediate friends, supposed support and renewal of my faith to what I thought was a higher level. Stupidly, I allowed them to convince me that I never had been a Christian prior to that point. Thus I needed to be baptized........again: Baptism #3. I was taught to be totally sold out to God. And I truly wanted to be. This included mandatory attendance at all service, mandatory sacrificial tithing, mandatory annual special contribution 15-24 times regular week contribution, mandatory daily "shairing your faith,"-every day at all hours on the street/door steps/evangelistic Bible studies. All areas of life were authoritarianly dictated, including the number of times you had sex with your wife each week. My education was sneered upon and I was shamed into quitting Marquette University. In this church, Bible knowlege and my teaching skills were counted as nothing. As a seminary graduate, I was allowed to teach only a few times. Every member was supposed to work toward advancing in leadership rank with the ultimate goal of becoming a church evangelist. Since my wife was not deemed to be leadership material, I was relegated to the lowest level. One leader in the church once came up to me and said" you'll never be a leader."
You may ask, " Stupid, why did you stay? Why did you waste your life by letting one year become two and then become 16 years?" I do not have a good answer. Simply the Bible as I interpreted with the subtle coercion of the church convinced me that my marriage would fall apart and that I would go to hell if I left that church. Foolish man that I am. I allowed them to close my mind. I gave up my dream, my education and my self worth to be controlled by a pontificating fool. I tried to convince John Loftus to join the church but he was much smarter than I and rejected the invitation to the absurd.
Year after year, I felt myself sinking into dark hole of which there was no escape. Where was the support? There was none to be found. Where was God? He was not to be found. My prayers were but wisps of air, without substance. Prayer was but talking to myself or maybe to a dark abyss. I spent an entire year in the gloom of depression with thoughts of suicide never far from my mind. Only the successful suicide of another member of the church shook me and maybe saved me from my own.
In 2003, the entire ICOC Boston Movement authority structure collapsed. People started to leave the church in grooves. I however, decided to renew my faith and help steer the church in whatever way I could back to a truer foundation based on the Bible. I teemed up with a fellow Lincoln Christian Seminary graduate in the church and began writing theologically accessible but still in depth papers to more accurately define what God expects his disciples to be like. Since the authority structure had collapsed, people in the church were begging to taught in depth from the Bible. I was asked to preach in Sunday service from time to time. I taught series of classes on how to study the Bible using correct hermenuetics. I still upheld the verbal inspiration of scripture and taught that the Bible could be apolegetically defended at every level.
I picked up my study again with a passion and began devouring books from the conservative perspective verciferously. I set up an elementary Greek class in my church so that others could be trained to interpret the Bible using proper tools. As many as twelve were enrolled at one time. (I am still teaching one man every other week and have progressed him to the level of intermediate Greek.) I thought that now ,finally, once again, I could go forward and deepen my life with God and help others to do likewise. I even enrolled temporarily in the Doctor of Arts program at Trinity Theological Seminary.
Little did I know that this renewed desire would lead to its own demise. In my desire to know God better, I decided to study the Bible in depth in an organized and coordinated manner over a period of many months. Though I had studied the Bible for over 30 years, I had never undertaken such a coordinated effort.

I can say without hesistation that a solid path to atheism can be found in an intelligent coordinated, systematic, and critical study of the Bible.

Continued, Part 2

What If Allah Exists?

Let's say Allah exists. Since no one can be absolutely sure, this is a possibility, correct? The Muslim God could exist and the Koran could be his word. As an atheist I admit this possibility, so I suspect that Christians who are not absolutely blinded by their faith and upbringing would agree with me here. So with that possibility, let's say you die and you stand before Allah's judgment and he sends you to hell. Christian, what do you say in response? You say "I didn't know." "I thought Christianity was true." Then the Muslim God simply says, "ignorance is no excuse, I gave you many clues." "I even spoke through the atheist John W. Loftus when he suggested this possibility one day on his Blog." ;-) "Now off you go into hell's eternal flames."

Think of the shock of it all! You would be completely and utterly in shock, wouldn't you? And this is exactly what you believe that Muslims and atheists, Jews and Deists will face on the day of judgment with YOUR Christian God? Hogwash. Absolute hogwash. I haven't got the words to express my disgust with this God of yours, and I am dumbfounded why anyone would believe this. I am even more dumbfounded that I believed it for far too long.

Wake up. No intelligent Being would demand that we must believe the right things about him in order to gain entrance into heaven, even if he did exist. This God of yours parallels the barbaric "thought police" in ancient civilizations. This is a democratic age we're living in. We all have various opinions on everything, and these opinions are sincerely held ones. We are tolerant of diverse opinions because educated people realize we will have intelligent differences. But to send people to hell because they disagreed, well, that's barbaric, plain and simple.

On the Force of "Possibly" in Plantinga's Free Will Defense

Plantinga construes the key claim in his Free Will Defense as possibly true:

(TWD) Possibly, every creaturely essence suffers from transworld depravity.

According to Plantinga, if a creature suffers from transworld depravity, then *every* God-accessible world (i.e., every world that God can create) is one at which the creature goes wrong at least once.

So if some free creature FC is transworld-depraved, then we have:

1) Necessarily, if God actualizes FC, then FC goes wrong at least once.


And if every creature is transworld-depraved, then we have:


2) Necessarily, for any x, if x is a free creature, then if God actualizes x, then x goes wrong at least once.


If so, then if Plantinga is using "possibly" in (TWD) in the metaphysical sense (as in (1)), then (TWD) amounts to:


3) Possibly, it's necessary that for any x, if x is a free creature, then if God actualizes x, then x goes wrong at least once.


But Plantinga accepts S5 modal logic. If so, then he accepts the following axiom of S5 modal logic:


(AS5) If it's possible that P is necessary, then P is necessary.


But if so, then by (3) and (AS5), (TWD) reduces back to (2):

2) Necessarily, for any x, if x is a free creature, then if God actualizes x, then x goes wrong at least once.

But this can’t be what Plantinga meant to assert, can it? For now we don’t just have a defense – we have a theodicy. For we have an account that’s not just possibly true, but necessarily true. And you can’t have a stronger theodicy than one that’s necessarily true.

The problem, though, is that it’s extremely implausible to think that (2) is true: is there some shortage of souls, so that there is no possible creaturely essence that has at least one God-accessible world at which it never sins? Plantinga grants that there are possible worlds at which free creatures never sin; it’s just that none of them are worlds that God can actualize. Is this really plausible?

I think that this problem (in addition to some things that Plantinga says) leads many to say that Plantinga's "possibly" shouldn't be construed as *metaphysical* possibility (i.e., that there is, as a matter of fact, at least one possible world at which it's true), but rather as *epistemic* possibiliity (i.e., *we can't rule it out*, given all our evidence, that it's metaphysically possible).


Now the relevant notion of epistemic possibility can be construed in at least two ways:

(Strong EP) We're not quite justified in thinking that P really is metaphysically possible; however, we're not justified in thinking that P is metaphysically impossible, either -- given our evidence, it could go either way.

(Weak EP) We're not justified in thinking that P is possible; however, although it's implausible to think that P is possible, we can't *conclusively* rule it out that P is possible.


Of course, the theist hopes that (TWD) is at least strongly epistemically possible; if it's merely weakly epistemically possible, one wonders how interesting the Free Will defense really is: "Sure, it's pretty far-fetched to think that every essence suffers from transworld depravity, but it hasn't been *conclusively* ruled out as imposssible -- hooray!")

The problem is that the same objections arise all over again for the strong epistemic possibility construal: it seems *implausible* that it's metaphysically possible. It seems that there are infinitely many free creaturely essences that God could actualize; are we to think that *every one of them* is such that *all* of the worlds in which they always freely do right are inaccessible to God? And as I’ve mentioned before, it looks to be a part of conservative Christian theology that angels exist, are free, and that some never sin. But if so, then it’s not necessarily true (because it's not *actually* true!) that all free creatures are transworld depraved. Thus, not even theologically conservative Christians believe it’s epistemically possible – let alone metaphysically possible. Even if the Old and New Testaments don't force belief in a doctrine of sinless angels, it needs to be pointed out (again) that Christians who endorse Plantinga's Free Will Defense *have no choice* but to reject such an idea.

What about weak epistemic possibiity: is it true that we can't *conclusively* rule it out that every creaturely essence would freely go wrong in all God-accessible worlds? Well, maybe for non-theists, some non-Christian theists, and some moderate and liberal Christians. But again, it doesn't seem to be even *weakly* epistemically possible for theologically conservative Christians (recall the problem of angels who always freely do right).

What, then, does Plantinga's Free Will Defense really show? In light of the previous discussion, just this: for people who aren't theologically conseverative Christians, it's not conclusively ruled out as impossible that the Free Will Defense saves theism from the logical problem of evil; but for the theologically conservative Christians, it is.

Haggard Resigns Amidst Allegations of Gay Sex

Haggard Resigns Amidst Allegations of Gay Sex

**UPDATE: Voicemails analyzed by expert and confirmed Haggard**

Holy shit. It looks like there is some serious substance to this story, as Mike Jones, the accuser, has physical evidence -- voice mails from Haggard and $100 bills with his fingerprints on them.

I just watched an interview with the new pastor there -- Ross Parsley, and he said, quote:

There has been some admission, of indiscretion. Not an admission to all of the material that has been discussed. But, there is an admission of some guilt.

Wow. This Haggard is one of the loudest voices for the Colorado amendment banning gay marriage. Does hypocrisy get any more stunning?

You're going to want to keep up with this. HERE is a link to a blogsearch on Google for Haggard. Keep checking it as the story develops.
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Technorati tags: Politics, Religion, Hypocrisy

Testimonies of Two Who Left the Fold: Paul Wright and Gareth McCaughan

It was mentioned here and at Victor Reppert's Christian philosopher's blogsite that former Christian Gareth McCaughan had left the fold and had composed an intelligent and calmly worded testimony about having done so. (Gareth and Vic used to discuss Vic's philosophical arguments in a British usenet group back when Gareth was still a Christian.) I recently heard from Gareth that a friend of his, Paul Wright, left the fold before he did and that Wright had composed a testimony of similar intellectual equipose that can be read here.

From : Gareth McCaughan
Speaking of UK atheists on the web, you might like to take a look
at Paul Wright, a friend of mine who preceded me into apostasy.

Victor Reppert, Edward T. Babinski, Philosophical Problems of Knowledge & Communication

Victor Reppert recently left me a comment at his blog that began with an invitation for me to return to kindergarten, and concluded that my replies were full of "sound and fury," and my questions "signified nothing." My reply appears below.

Vic,
Since you wish to take me back to kindergarten, then let's do so. No evasions, let's begin from scratch.

Tell me all that you know about God, all that you've seen of God, touched of God, heard of God, tasted of God; and then tell me all that you know about the world you see and taste and touch and hear, the people you see everyday, and the cosmos where you see all things die.

The "God" knowledge appears relatively more "hidden" to me than the knowledge I have of the cosmos we all live in together.

I am not saying that the problem of evil has ceased being problematical any more than I am saying it is impossible for anything other than nature to exist. I'm simply telling you what I know with some degree of certainty compared with beliefs that I am less sure about.

I have also pointed out what I consider to be flaws in philosophizing about the Big Questions. Anyone may philosophize all they wish, and argue for whatever "God" or "force" they believe exists or doesn't.

However the more I read such arguments, the less convincing I find them. "Words" themsevles do not appear to provide absolutely accurate descriptions of the realities they are supposed to parallel. "Words" are stuck having to describe things that can also be understood as lying along spectrums of change. Words and concepts appear to be distilled from experiences within this cosmos where words/concepts and their opposites co-exist, or intermingle along spectrums of change. Neither am I of the opinion that verbal analogies constitute proof. Poetry yes. Proof no. I suspect the human mind of also being flexible enough to come up with counter analogies and counter arguments aplenty concerning all the BIG questions.

So I have simply come to trust direct experience a bit more than idealized philosophical arguments purporting to explain the answers to all the Big Questions. I also have grown more patient, not less, with living life day to day, and with the experimental process on both a personal level and in terms of humanity's groping toward greater knowledge. I choose patience even to the point of admitting I will very probably grow old and die with the same questions we have discussed, being debated still among philosophers.

Let me put it this way, I don't even know nor can I prove in a strictly philosophical fashion whether or not death ends "me" permanently, or, whether I or bits of me might survive after I die in a "ghostly" fashion, or, whether bits of me might not merge or join with others or bits of others that have died to form something new that begins again in a cosmos like ours or continues in some another dimension, or, whether I or bits of me might not "come back" in a reincarnate fashion, or, whether bits of me might survive after death for a long time and THEN even those bits die eventually, or, whether I have an immortal individual "soul" that can never die, or, perhaps I will die and an exact duplicate of me will be CREATED with the exact same knowledge and memories I had right up to the instant of my death (I don't know whether or not such a thing could be done by beings of super-intelligence from the future or past or parallel cosmoses, or by a demi-god or infinite Being who kept a copy of me in their "memory" and so could recreate me in some other place time or cosmos even if the "me" that lives here "dies"). Christian philosophers of mind also can't agree on the later two options, an immortal soul, or recreation after death by God. Some of them even use the Bible to argue that human beings don't "have" souls, they "are" souls. So, they agree the mind could be a function of the brain and the summation of experiences and knowledge each brain takes in as it grows and develops and becomes enculturated. Purely philosophically speaking, any or all of the above options might be true. It's even possible philosophically speaking to argue that what we call "consciousness" does not include our particular memories and knowledge and lives which might accrue and gather round "consciousness" and interact with it, so "consciousness" might be something that is more basic even to the cosmos itself, malleable and universal rather than individual. (Note, I'm not saying I view all options as equally appealling.)

There certainly are many weird things I've read about when it comes to consciousness, including mystical experiences, and weird visions people claim to have experienced which vary depending on one's culture. Though unfortunately, most people whose heart stop during surgery, or for long periods, and they are revived, recall nothing. And most sleep during the night is unconscious, dreamless. And there's questions that result from split-brain experiments, and there's cognitive science that is teaching us some of the many ways we each are influenced by items around us, or by others, unconsciously, and there's phermonal influences as well (scents we can't even consciouslly smell that affect us). Recently I read about how certain bacteria might be affecting people's brain/minds. Other experiment indicate that the brain/mind is an excuse generator, even a belief generator (as indicated in some-split brain experiments).

It also seems to me that humanity is young as an intellectual species. Heck we're still stuck on the cradle planet.

So tell me Vic, what do you really know? How much do you think you know about "God the universe and everything?" What percentage of that knowledge consists of philosophical conundrums that have remained unresolved for millennia? While just how much more do you interact with and know about the cosmos in which you live, move and have your being, and in which everything dies? I think you'd have to agree with me that you know more about the latter than the former.

P.S., By the way, your recent post about the Deity's "right to choose" as a possible reply to "evil," appears like you're thrashing blindly about for answers nearly as much as I am. I don't know how you can continue to believe you are building up "proofs" when you sink back in that post to relying on total mystery and faith in whatever "God does," which is close to relying on the mystery of "whatever will be will be." Are you honestly considering no longer even asking WHY "God" might "choose" the things "God" chooses, or what the definition of "good" is? Is it simply whatever God chooses? Whatever exists? Again, mystery. Didn't Aquinas and Barth also sink back into total mystery in the end and admit all of their philosophizing wasn't quite the point, or didn't provide the ultimate proofs they'd hoped to present?

I know you're not a fundamentalist Vic, and you DO admit uncertainties. I simply admit more than you do. By the way, there's a book about kindergarten that I enjoyed reading once, titled, Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.

A Faithable Reason

In the discussion between Christians and non-believers the diametrical line is often drawn in the sand between “Faith” and “Reason.” Non-believers regularly make the claim that Christian’s beliefs are based upon a completely unfounded concept of “Faith” which has no basis in logic, reason or observation. The term “Blind Faith” is bantered about.

Christians counter with the claim that to be a Non-believer requires just as much “Faith” as being a believer. As if each side is weighed down with the troublesome notion of “Faith” and the non-believer is ignoring it, while the believer is embracing it.

The question I have for Christians: If you have faith, why do you care about reason at all? Why do you even feel the necessity to argue the viability of various positions within Christianity?

“Faith” has a history of being difficult to define. It is common to see it confused with “trust.” Not the same.

How many of us have heard the example of “You have faith every day, just crossing a bridge.” Sorry. That is not faith. That is trust, based upon repeated observation. I have crossed 1000’s of bridges, and they have not fallen down, thrown me, or collapsed. I have worked with the material that builds bridges—stone, steel and cement, and have first-hand knowledge as to their strength and cohesiveness. I have seen the forces necessary to cause damage to bridges, including cranes, or hurricanes, or earthquakes.

Based upon my life experiences and observations, the likelihood of bridge failure to occur while I am crossing it is so remote that it is statistically insignificant. This is not Faith. It is trust that things will continue as they have in the past.

Which raises a first, questioning eyebrow. How much faith was required to be healed by Jesus? Here we have a person performing miracles repeatedly. The Book of Matthew records that multitudes brought their lame, blind, mute and maimed, and Jesus healed them. Matt. 15:30-31. When John the Baptist questioned as to whether Jesus was the Messiah, Jesus used the observable data—pointing out that the lame walk, the blind see, and the dead are raised up.

Yet when the blind man asked to be healed, Jesus tells him, “Your faith has made you whole.” Mark 10:52; Luke 18:42. This was a man who obviously knew who Jesus was, who knew his capabilities and trusted on repeated observation. Was that faith? The Centurion, coming to Jesus because of his healing ability, asks for healing for his servant and receives it. Jesus commends his faith and heals the servant. Matt. 8:10. The Centurion noted that he was well-aware, because of his position, how authority works, and that speaking a word can make an action come about. Again, trust on repeated observation.

Imagine you have a broken arm. You stand in a long line of broken arms. A doctor is walking along this line, handing a blue pill to each person. You watch a young girl take the pill—and her arm is healed. You watch an older gentleman take the pill—his arm is healed. After observing person after person being healed the doctor approaches you with the blue pill. Now, having had Biology 101, and a course or two in First Aid, you are very aware of the fact that bones need to be set, and take time to knit together. However, you are also aware that medicine advances. Is it possible that a company has developed a pill that causes bones to re-align and join? Seems unlikely—yet you have just observed it.

How much of taking that Blue pill is trust and how much is faith? Are you part of some elaborate con, or a game show? Is it a placebo test? How much of your brain is utilizing reason, and how much is faith?

I use that illustration to point out how difficult it is to easily define “Faith.” How much observable data is necessary to cross over from “Faith” to just “Trust”?

Another example oft-used is the claim that adherence to a scientific hypothesis is “Faith.” That belief in the viability of the “Big Bang” theory, (as it was not observed) is as much “Faith” as belief in the resurrection (which was also not observed, according to the canonical Gospels.) Again, this is not quite an accurate picture of “Faith.”

In its most simplistic form, scientists observe data, and based upon that data derive a possible explanation of how that data came into existence. New data will either support or disagree with that explanation. If it disagrees, then a new theory would need to be proposed in order to explain that data.

Of course, due to our lack of complete information, it is very possible that two disagreeing explanations account for the data we currently have.

Is that really the type of “Faith” that a Christian is referring to? Is that the comparison they desire to make? Is the Christian willing to modify their belief, based upon new data? The explanation that the facts of the Canonical Gospels were developing myth, also account for the data. Does the Christian agree that a Jesus of partial myth is equally viable?

Once more, this does not seem to be an accurate depiction of “Faith.”

Obviously, the most cited verse as to a definition of faith is Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Is that a claim that Faith is based on lack of evidence? That cannot be the sole definition—those healed by Jesus at least had some evidence.

And when does Faith become Hope? For example, I can have faith that tomorrow a client will enter my door, bringing in One Million Dollars of business. I can also have faith that the President of the United States will enter my door. But are those really of equal faith?

Clients do walk through my door. While most do not bring in that sum of money, it is not out of the realm of possibilities. Further there are numerous such possible clients. There is only one President of the United States. He is very unlikely to do something he finds unnecessary, and there is little reason he would find walking into my office necessary. Possible? Yes. Likely? Not even remotely.

Is one of those two possibilities faith? Hope? Delusion? At what point does faith utilize evidence, and at what point can it abandon it?

My Webster’s New World dictionary defines “Faith” as “an unquestioning belief that does not require proof or evidence.” This is horribly inaccurate when describing what a Christian means by “Faith.” I see Christians questioning their faith all the time—not blind adherence to a position. (Admittedly, I see few that are willing to change—but at least they do question!) Further, Christians rely upon a book they claim is evidence; rely upon other books and other persons’ claims as evidence.

It is not as if Christian claims are based on nothing whatsoever. There is evidence involved.

So what is “Faith”? Clearly it is not what common usage has reduced to dictionary definitions.

Regardless of its stoic definition, behind what Christians claim as Faith is an essence of Power. An action. It is not a mere belief, but rather a belief with observable results. As James points out, acknowledgement of a belief is not enough. Within “Faith” is something more that necessarily results in works. James 2:17-20.

Tremendous, monumental works. Jesus uses the hyperbole that with just a grain of faith, one can move a mountain (Matt. 17:20; Mark 11:23) or uproot a tree and plant it in the bottom of the ocean (Luke 17:6.) I understand that this is a statement of exaggeration. Jesus was not demanding a display of geological or botanical translocation. But Christians usually stop there. Saying “this is hyperbole” without grasping the essence of what Jesus is claiming.

With faith, nothing is impossible. While perhaps moving a mountain is a bit much, the Christian, with their faith, can do greater wonders than Jesus himself did! John 14:12. Whatever a Christians asks, in this thing called “Faith” God will do. Jesus is saying with the smallest portion of Faith, one can do such grand, miraculous things, the equivalent of moving a mountain!

Because of “Faith” a Christian need never worry about finances. Matt. 6:30. Faith allows a Christian to calm weather (Matt. 8:26) or cause a tree to whither (Mark 11:21-22). Faith Heals. Mark 2:5-11; 5:34. Interestingly, it is not necessarily the faith of the person healed, but rather the person doing the healing. Luke 17:19.

Which makes sense, because with faith one can raise the dead, and how much faith can a dead person have? Matt. 10:8. If the faithful pray, the sick are healed. James 5:15.

As we debate back and forth, it seems to me that the Christian advocate relies primarily on reason and logic. We hear philosophical arguments for God. Demands that science provide answers, and if unable that there must be a God. We read historical arguments for the viability of the Bible. Logic and Reason. Reason and Logic.

And, inevitably, a hole or conflict appears, at which time the Christian uses “Faith” as putty to patch over the hole. That they just choose to believe it, even if they cannot confirm it, or it appears to conflict with what we see.

Why are Christians using plastic explosive as putty? This stuff is supposed to be dynamite! Please stop holding me in suspense—when is the strongest argument coming out? Would Paul chide the current crop of Christian apologists that their faith is not in the power of God, but in the wisdom of the world? 1 Cor. 2:5.

Contrary to what may be seen on T.V., in a courtroom we present our strongest argument first. And present it again. And present it last. Over and over we say, “This is where the proposition rises and falls. This is where we win on every point.” Why are Christians utilizing reason or logic at all, when they have this thing called “Faith”? It should be blowing us away!

I respect people on both sides who spend the time, effort and concentration to prepare for a formal debate. I appreciate the academic surroundings and formal system implemented. But why are we discussing there?

Look, Christians, you want to win the debate? Every time? The format is simple. The place is easily determined. Offer to hold the debate at the City Morgue. Allow the non-believer to go first. Who cares what the topic is—who cares what the non-believer says? It is all foolishness in comparison to what is about to occur. (1 Cor. 1:18-20) After the non-believer has run out of babble, your path is clear. Whip open a door (any one will do), peer at the dead body, and say a simple prayer “Let these people know that you are God. Arise and walk.” (1 Kings 18:36-37)

You have faith, right? Nothing is impossible? If you truly believed, you could literally move mountains. Nuts, you even have some evidence, since you believe the dead have come back to life in more than one instance. It is not as if you claim this is the first (or second or third or fourth) occurrence, right?

When that person comes back to life—you have won the debate. I have never seen any atheist, agnostic or naturalist that would be able to respond to this decisive demonstration of the plausibility of your belief. We simply have no answer for this tactic.

So why don’t you use it? Why are we on-line arguing over who wrote what Gospel first, when you can so easily prevail? Quit your employment—use faith that God will provide. Start ordering weather about to preserve life. Heal the sick. Make the Blind see. Raise the dead. Come ON! Eagerly we wait, wondering why we are discussing such petty questions as how did Judas die, when you hold back this awesome power of “Faith.”

Or…is it possible? Can it be that the Faith as described in the Bible does not exist? Is it possible, that just like every other human proposition Christians are reduced to argumentation, observable data, and persuasion, rather than demonstrative capability?

I find, in discussions, that “Faith” is notoriously hard to precisely define. That’s O.K. Because when I read what Christians propose, at the least this Faith produces incredible, unbelievable and miraculous events to occur. When I see Christians use Faith as an excuse, rather than the potent, unbeatable argument described in their own belief system, it does cause me to wonder—why do they constantly refrain from utilizing their greatest proposition?

(Final note. Obviously, the problem is that each author of the various books treats “Faith” as something differently. Only when attempting to align the differing concepts does the problem arise. Yes, I know “Scripture interprets Scripture.” I traditionally see the hard scriptures are simply ignored, in order to concentrate on the more modest scriptures on faith.)

Happy Halloween!

From Daylight Atheism on Hauntings :

Happy Halloween!

God, Schmod, and Gratuitous Evil

In "God, Schmod, and Gratuitous Evil", John O'Leary-Hawthorne & Daniel Howard-Snyder [Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 1993], discuss the problem of evil by using a purportedly analogus story about a Being they call "Schmod," which is to be identified with God.

Here is their case:

Say that Schmod is an omnicausal being. (Roughly, an agent S is omnicausal =df. S is such that, for any effect e, either S directly causes e, or S ensures that there is some y that causes e.) Now consider the following proposition:

(P) There exists an effect E that is uncaused (e.g. quantum indeterminacy).

We take it that some physicists are justified in believing (P). But (P) entails the nonexistence of Schmod. Therefore, physicists, and for that matter all those who are justified in believing (P), are justified in being an aschmodists.

But believers in Schmod will have none of this. The schmodist claims that, for all we know, there is a causally sufficient reason, beyond our cognitive grasp, that Schmod has for permitting E. In other words, it's epistemically possible that Schmod has a causally sufficient reason for permitting E; it's an epistimic possibility that E is not indeterministic, despite appearances to the contrary.

Schmod's ways are higher than our ways, and we shouldn't expect to recognize the cause of every event, but it's possible (for all we know) that there is one for every event. Therefore, the aschmodist cannot justifiably assert (P). He is just not in a good enough epistemic position to judge the truth of (P).

Presumably, we're all aschmodists (insofar as we agree with many physicists that quantum indeterminacy exists). Is our belief in aschmodism justified?

I think it is.

In the first place it would depend on the magnitude of (P), which makes this whole argument non-analogous. Consider this proposition:

(P1) ever since the beginning of earthly existence there have been massive amounts of suffering on an ever increasing global scale which offset the pleasure in the world such that we cannot determine whether or not there is more suffering than pleasure in this world.

In the second place, since the theist proclaims that God desires or wants us to believe in him (or else we're damned), it stands to reason that he should offer us clues (or reasons) why (P1) obtains. But since he is silent on the matter, it calls into serious question whether or not he truly wants us to believe in him. For then (P1) without any explanation (or comfort) would mean he doesn't really care whether we believe in him, and if that's true, then he doesn't care about us, and if that's true we have a God who lacks omnibenelovence.

In the third place, scientists have dealt with problems like this since the dawn of science, and with the available evidence they have made great strides in understanding the workings of this universe. But according to Howard-Snyder, theists are no closer to understanding why they can't "see" a divine moral virtue that explains the existence of (P1) than at any time in the past. Therefore I can confidently claim it's implausible that anyone will do so, since there have been no successes in finding this so-called divine moral virtue in the past, and there are at present no fruitful prospects on the horizon to explain (P1). It would be akin to someone wanting to create cold fusion. The nansayers have the weight of evidence on their side.

Lastly, but not exhaustively, if theists think God's "ways are higher than our ways" with regard to (P1) (because of his omniscience), and they cannot come up with any reason for God allowing (P1) to obtain, even though we can come up with several reasonable suggestions for how God could've created differently (like no predation in the world, and the creation of all human beings as one color of skin), then God should be at least omniscient enough to create a better world without (P1). But since he hasn't done so, even though we have some idea how it could've been created better, then it's implausible God indeed has this so-called attribute of omniscience.

A Critique of Plantinga's Free Will Defense

Exapologist offers a critique here of Plantinga's free will defense. It's very good!

Christians, Do You Have "Blinders" On?

There is an interesting thread at Theology Web started by a Christian on the distinction between Christians who have "blinders on" and those with the "blinders off," and what this means. I like the distinction very much. Christian, which are you?