This article expresses doubt about the existence of the soul on the grounds that since the brain is so obviously a biological platform for computing, and since it can be incrementally "disabled" in ways that decrease the performance of body and mind, and if there is a correlation between mind and soul, then this degradation of performance should be experienced by the soul. Since this idea is obviously unacceptable, I do not think it likely that the soul exists. This article also introduces three series of recurring follow on articles tracking Brain Physiology as it relates to the concept of the soul, Biological Bases for Behavior and Animal Cognition.
It is a fact that smaller components can make something more complex. Among other disciplines, Engineering, Science, Information Technology and even the phenomena of Language take advantage of this fact. This fact is a key element in the Principle of Evolution, and it also describes how the brain works. This article attempts to be brief but informative on what the brain is how it works and how there is no noticeable mechanism to support a soul.
Above all the Brain is an organ. It is the control center of the central nervous system and it is made up of more that one hundred billion neurons. It is where our behavior originates from. It is made of up of interdependent systems and these systems can found in in other species in various stages of development working in much the same way. In some cases these systems actually compete with each other. One result of this competition can be seen in the disciplines of Economics and Behavior. In these disciplines, some of the problems that they try to solve are why people consistently make irrational decisions. FMRI scans show that when these types of decisions are being deliberated in the brain, the emotional and rational or executive areas of the brain are extremely active. The theory that seems to describe the outcomes is that the two areas are in competition for control.
The brain is similar to the heart in one respect. It is like the heart in the fact that some consider it to be the place where the soul resides. I presume that since the soul is supposed to be our essence, survives after our death and is what will get rewarded or punished by God that it correlates to our consciousness, behavior, decision making and our desires. What does it mean to say that a person is going to hell if we are not talking about their consciousness? They should be aware that they are in hell to make it meaningful. Then there must be a correlation between consciousness and the soul.
Consciousness is a topic that has been debated since before recorded history so I am not going to discuss it too much as a philosophical topic (aka "The Mind-Body Problem") but will discuss the correlative mechanisms and its known constraints. In fact, I think I can state that the study of consciousness as a result of physical mechanisms has gone so far as to cast serious doubt on "Dualism" however, the last vestige of dualism that I can see that survives is the phenomena of "meaning". We can get machines, using artificial intelligence to act like biological organisms, but the problem of getting them to understand what they are doing and at what point they become self aware still remains. Many people think that self-awareness and consciousness is what make human beings unique, it is what it means to be made in Gods Image. How much to consciousness and the soul correlate?
What does consciousness mean? How do you measure it? There are various forms of artificial intelligence programs being developed that can handle various problems of intelligence, and they are getting better every year. There is a test called the Turing test which is the standard for machine intelligence that has not been passed yet. Every year there is a competition and the "second place" prize is awarded, but none have been able to pass it. If one does, then I suppose we will be seeing a revival of discussions on machine consciousness. However, if you look at the definition of "conscious", you can see that it could be applied to sophisticated computers, however, I don't think anyone would say that a machine is conscious yet. The definition of "conscious" is a sliding scale. I think a machine can be made to be as conscious as a person in a vegetative state, and we all know that not everyone agrees on when a person in a vegetative state is conscious. What is going on with the soul in a person in a vegetative state?
Where does consciousness come from, what are its mechanisms? One way to understand how something works is to compare a version that is broken to a version that works. It is called reverse engineering. There are many ways that a brain can be broken, in fact in my view, there is no perfectly working brain, there is only an average of similar functionality between brains that is labeled "normal". In my view, everyone is "broken" in one aspect or another. Brains get broken by things such as Trauma, degradation, contamination and in some cases they are born broken. Some of the smallest components that result in a Brain and of organisms in general are genes. There are genes that have been identified as "markers" for higher risk of cognitive diseases such as Alzheimer's, schizophrenia and autism and for behavioral traits such as aggression and temperament. If the fundamental components that make up a brain are defective, the brain will likely wind up defective. These diseases adversely affect consciousness, our desires, our decisions, our behavior and how well our autonomous systems function such as heart beat and motor functions and breathing. In fact the autoimmune system is responsible for a few neurological diseases. The body attacks itself because its algorithm is flawed. The brain is made up of 100 billion neurons with each one connecting to between 1000 - 10,000 other neurons which make up a matrix. Each of these neurons are made up of smaller pieces. The omission or interruption of any of these pieces results in poor performance. Seizures and anxiety attacks are examples of how the body and mind react when these little pieces malfunction and send out unregulated signals that result in "electrical storms". The state of our brain at any give time determines our personality, attitude, feelings, emotions, decision making capability and thoughts. Quantity of stress, sleep, oxygen, blood, quality of physical infrastructure, presence or absence of foreign bodies, glucose, dopamine, serotonin, perceptual stimulus, sound, Electromagnetic fields, alcohol and drugs etc. all have an affect our our cognitive abilities.
Some examples of biological bases for behavior.
* Dopamine
* Dopamine and Addiction
* Seratonin
* Brain Systems Become Less Coordinated With Age, Even In The Absence Of Disease
* Eleven million Americans will have strokes this year. But they won't know it.
* Genes and Aggression
* Temperament and Character Profiles and the Dopamine D4 Receptor Gene in ADHD
When discussing consciousness, the fact that consciousness originates in the brain, is much more appealing than the fact that so does the desire to go to the bathroom. When people have to go to the bathroom, they will say "I have to go to the bathroom" rather than "My bladder needs to be emptied". They concentrate on the "I" and the "My". People want to concentrate on the interesting things such as "why am I here", "How did I get here?", "Why do I dream?", rather than wondering, "What controls my arm?","why do I like chocolate?", "How do I know when my bladder is full?", "Why do I get sad when this or that happens?", "Why does my finger or eyelid sometimes tremble?". It all originates from the same place. The seat of consciousness is also the seat of body control. Similarly when you have a malfunction in one aspect of your neurological makeup that affects your motor functions, you can have malfunction that affects your cognitive abilities. So, there are brain and neurological diseases that affect how the body works and how the mind works. The common denominator is the brain.
But what about factors that affect consciousness that are not pathological? Sleep is one factor. We need sleep. If things are working normally, we go to sleep automatically. All we can really do is prepare ourselves for it and be ready when it happens. We can take steps that make it happen when we prefer it, such as "bed time" but sometimes it won't happen no matter how much we want it to. It is something that we cannot will to happen, but can prepare for. It is a state that the brain reaches on its own, and "I" can't control it, "I" can only postpone it. A neuroscientist said there is a place in the brain where it gets "switched on", as if there is a toggle in there somewhere. However "I" can force it to "switch on" with Drugs and anesthesia. The Study of Consciousness and Pain is central to the field of anesthesiology. So what is going on with the soul when we go to sleep? How is the soul affected under anesthesia?
In Brain Surgery, in many cases the patient needs to be awake. There are no pain receptors in the brain, so the surgeon is free to apply some local anesthetic and get to work. According to the The Mayo Clinics Web Site"Without this option, patients with brain tumors or epileptic seizures in the functional brain tissue would be unable to have surgery or would face a significant risk of losing function as a result of surgery." It is used when removing tumors or brain tissue that causes seizures. That loss of function doesn't just extend to speech, it extends to personality as well. In some cases, loved ones of patients with brain diseases, trauma, stroke, surgery state that the patients personality has changed and that they are not the same person. Is there a correlation between the soul and personality? If a persons personality changes as a result of brain surgery, trauma or stroke, how does that affect the soul?
In the lab, researchers do experiments on animals attempting to 'reverse engineer' the brain. I don't know anyone that thinks animals have souls so it may not be relevant to the discussion, however animals do have some of the same brain functionality that humans do. The type of Brain Mapping done on animals can only be done on humans in the context of treating a disease, and "reverse engineering" is out of the question. But by extrapolation, we can surmise that it would be possible to 'reverse engineer' the brain. It would be possible to 'disable' a small area of the brain and see how it is affected, to see how it affects motor skills, perception and those soul related properties behavior and personality. How would that affect the soul? Since our perceptions and motor skills originate in the brain, are they part of the soul as well? If a stroke affects personality and motor skills, has it affected the soul? How much similarity between the brains of Animals and Humans does it take to correlate to a soul?
Some examples of Animal Cognition
* Animal Cognition from Wikipedia
* Animal Communication from Wikipedia
* Emotion in Animals
* Fish Logic
* Monkey Math
* Bird Grammar
* Dogs Can Classify Complex Photos In Categories Like Humans Do.
* Like Humans, Monkey See, Monkey Plan and Monkey Do.
* Young Chimps Top Adult Humans In Numerical Memory.
Michael Shermer, in an article for Scientific American in which he reviewed several books on consciousness sums it up as follows.
Koch and his colleagues, for example, discovered a single neuron that fires only when the subject sees an image of President Bill Clinton. If this neuron died, would Clinton be impeached from the brain? No, because the visual representation of Clinton is distributed throughout several areas of the brain, in a hierarchical fashion, eventually branching down to this single neuron. The visual coding of any face involves several groups of neurons--one to identify the face, another to read its expression, a third to track its motion, and so on. This hierarchy of data processing allows the brain to economize neural activity through the use of combinatorics: "Assume that two face neurons responded either not at all or by firing vigorously. Between them, they could represent four faces (one face is encoded by both cells not firing, the second one by firing activity in one and silence in the other, and so on). Ten neurons could encode 210, or about a thousand faces.... It has been calculated that less than one hundred neurons are sufficient to distinguish one out of thousands of faces in a robust manner. Considering that there are around 100,000 cells below a square millimeter of cortex, the potential representational capacity of any one cortical region is enormous." Given that the brain has about 100 billion neurons, consciousness is most likely an emergent property of these hierarchical and combinatoric neuronal connections.
The brain is an organic machine, it can be reverse engineered, it shares features with other species and it can be mimicked by solid state machines. While we refer to computing machines as hardware, we should refer to our brains as "wetware". So what is it the demarcation point between humans and other species or Artificial Intelligence? The soul? Cognitive Ability? Our definition of intelligence and consciousness is not objective. We define it around our parameters. If we had a more objective way to define it or measure it, we might find that we are acting immorally to animals. In the past two centuries, western culture has expanded its application of morality and ethics and it has come to accept "outsiders" as belonging to the human race. The abolition of slavery was a result of applying our definition of consciousness and self-awareness to slaves. As we learn more about the brain and how it works in other types of outsiders, western culture may find itself once again expanding its application of morality and ethics to other "outsiders" such as other species or machines. If and/or when that happens, the question of whether or not they have souls will arise. Can humans decide? I say no. And I say that this idea, as well as many others, never occurred to the writers of scripture. And if one of the writers of scripture was omniscient, it is is a pretty grave oversight.
Listed below are some links to reference material on the topic of the brain and for the rest of my time at DC, I will post links supporting a Reasonable Doubt About The Soul.
* The Soul, A Rational Belief?
* Artificial Intelligence utilizing neural networks, (metastability)
* Metastability in the Brain
* Wikipedia Mind and Brain Portal
* Wikipedia Neuroscience Portal
* Wikipedia article on Human Brain
* Wikipedia Cognitive Neuroscience approaches to Consciousness
I received an email from an Ed H. and I'd like some discussion about it. Here it 'tis...
I'm contacting you to ask you to answer a simple question regarding a basic issue related to the concept of atheism. The basic issue related to atheism can be stated as follows: My position is that atheism is an invalid concept for the following, but somewhat long-winded simple rationale:
I understand and agree that it's impossible to prove the existence of God, or to "keep-it-simple-stupid," that spirit is an attribute of matter based on any reasonable definition of matter or spirit, or application or version of the scientific method. However, it's also impossible to deny that spirit is an attribute of matter. This is because it is impossible to perform one or more experiments to completely validate any scientific theory without having some level of resultant difference in the sample statistical variances for each of the sample experimental measurements. This is a simple statistical fact, and since experiments performed by independent investigators to produce what are considered to be equivalent results, are essential to support any scientific theory, then any resultant credible theory based on the experimental data will still has some measure of intrinsic uncertainty. The result being that no one, especially atheists, can discount the possibility, however small, that something as basic as spirit is not an attribute of matter, or even deny the overly simplistic idea that traditional versions of something like a Judea-Christian God is possible. Further, since there is this inherent small uncertainty in any position taken by scientists, then it's also obvious that atheism's dogmatic rationale that God is something akin to a fantasy is clearly unsupportable. Therefore, atheism is nothing more than an invalid concept that can simply be defined as dogmatic science. Now since dogmatic science typically includes groups like scientists without a label, secular humanists, and atheists, then the more rational members of the scientist and secular humanist communities should seriously consider discounting and divorcing themselves from atheists, and simply define themselves as agnostics. However, arriving at this more rational state will obviously require redefining the simplistic and archaic terms "atheist and agnostic."
I happen to believe that it's not necessary to accept any of the traditional religious dogma to believe in the possibility that some attributes of spirit, or the paranormal, may be attributes of matter. Philosophers and scientists have been debating this issue for millenniums, although not precisely in my terms. And speculation based on credible scientific theory allows this. My bottom line here is that while I think that I understand rational, secular, and scientific positions concerning religious dogma, I also think an atheist position based primarily on rational scientific rationale, unfortunately results in atheists being essentially no different from those who believe in religious dogma.
All anyone has to do is to take a cursory look at recorded history to note that there have been a comparable number of atrocities and genocides committed by both extreme atheist and religious advocates. Thus the atheist and secular humanist focus on the religious community is not only counter productive, but just continues to relate to ego at the expense of using our energy in a more productive and far less destructive way to help minimize this age old problem of getting some respectful level of communication going to eliminate some of the dogma in the extremes, and especially to get some meaningful communication ongoing between the less dogmatic extreme advocates of religion and science.
I also have a lot of confidence in scientific theory because it has allowed us to form the basis for, and to develop and apply our technology, and I've thoroughly enjoyed the past 50-years applying electrical engineering technology to a variety of different problems, but the fact remains there is uncertainty in all of our decisions based on science, and about everything else we know, or what we will ever know about this physical universe, or other dimensions.
One important thing I learned early in my career, as an electrical engineer was being able take a lot of data and to prioritize and organize the related parameters into a simplified model of interconnected processes. There are at least two significant benefits for developing this skill while at the same time carefully considering the implications of William Ockham's razor: First, it allows you to have a second rationale when solving a problem that has been modeled/simulated and solved in parallel using something like a mainframe computer and supporting analysts (though I've also found that having a third solution significantly improves your confidence), and second of more importance, is that this is a basic approach that can be used to arrive at a first-order understanding of anything, while at the same time recognizing, that while any of us are in this physical universe, the best that any of us will ever be able to do, will be to come up with only an approximation as to what is reality, and also recognize that the approximation will change over time.
I prefer to look at things in what I loosely describe as a rational-pseudo-statistical approach (how vague is that), meaning that I like to assess scientific literature and speculate about what is possible based on a selected small set of what appears to be credible correlated ideas in the metaphysical literature (metaphysical here including everything related to the paranormal). I understand that many ostrich members of the scientific community reject rational scientific speculation, but this is one of the few fun games still left in town, because relying totally on our scientific theory and rational thinking is somewhat boring. Plus speculation naturally leads to some interesting correlations, such as: but not limited to: an apparent agreement between science and metaphysics, where the following are possible: multiple dimensions, multi-dimensional humans, a more interesting multi-dimensional description of string theory, a holographic universe, something existing before the big bang, etc.
Now even after a cursory exposure to philosophy and science, it should be obvious to anyone that any simplification we may arrive at relative to reality is going to be nothing more than an approximation, so just relax and enjoy your present experience/lifetime in this physical universe.
It boggles my mind that so many secular humanists, including their smaller subset of atheist advocates, take such a negative adversarial position as to the religious advocates (except Muslims because their fringe groups deserve serious attention). Don't they (the secular humanists and atheists) understand the simple fact that atheism has been responsible for genocides committed by the likes of Hitler and Stalin, and that at the other extreme, the Catholic Church has caused unaccounted for atrocities for over 1,000-past years, and now we still have the Muslim problem that's been around for over a millennium? What is needed is to first understand that these two fringe segments and their supporting atheist and religious advocates need to be enlightened. Oh I know this will never be completely resolved, but at least the situation should be amenable to improvement, and it should be easier to help atheists become enlightened since they are already partially in la-la land, at least I hope so.
Look, another of my bottom lines is this: if an atheist wants to base his or her logic on 50-decimal points of empirical accuracy, then fine, but at least they should be honest and admit that they might be wrong. I mean hasn't history demonstrated that many of our cherished scientific theories have been proven wrong? At least that's certainly true of every major theory out there now, including the greatest intellectual achievement of man, quantum mechanics -- isn't this obvious? The fact is that no one has, or ever will develop a theory for "All that Is" anyway, and even if they think they have one, it'll change. I'm not suggesting that scientists should not continue the adventure, because, hopefully everyone should gain some benefits from technology properly utilized, but also let's have some fun speculating about what might be possible based on science and metaphysics (but keep the crackpot fringe out). Now while science, technology, art, anthropology, psychology (science?), religious history, and everything else is fun; speculating about what is really possible with respect to matter and spirit is the icing on the cake. And taking the secular humanist rational approach based on science is the easy way out, flawed, and when applied, typically overly: opinionated and condescending, and a hell of a lot less fun.
By the way, I'm in the process of writing a book related to the subject of matter & spirit and if you can come up with anything logical to reject my argument that the intrinsic uncertainty in scientific experiments negates atheist denying that the paranormal is possible, then please enlighten me, but please not with generic philosophical arguments because the vast majority of past philosophers were either misfits, and/or had very limited knowledge of our physical universe, and therefore, many of their pet arguments with respect to reality are seriously flawed, and anyway, now most of them have been replaced by the "wisdom of scientist gurus." And also, please don't come up with intelligent design isn't science, that obvious; or with this old argument that there is no way to validate that the paranormal is an element of matter, because that's also obvious; or that there is no scientific evidence for miracles, Jesus being divine or God, or his mother being a virgin, or that Jesus was actually resurrected in human form; or that the Pope being infallible (Thomas Jefferson had a simple solution to some of those problems when he authored the Jefferson Bible); so please don't bug me with any of that stuff, because none of it is even an issue here -- and because I'm very busy, and because I simply want to contribute as little energy as possible to getting the "misguided-omnipotent-smart-ass" secular humanist and atheist communities straightened out.
Ed H.
Anselm said his was a "faith seeking understanding” (
fides quaerens intellectum). I've said from the beginning that it's not about intelligence, it's not even always about being educated. It's about seeing things differently. It's about control beliefs.
Just like Anselm's Ontological Argument proceeded out of a desire to make sense of a faith he already had, so Christians argue from the same desire. All of your arguments are nothing more than rationally defending something you came to believe initially for less than adequate reasons. Most of you learned to believe before you even heard of any sophisticated argument for God's existence, or could defend the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. But when you heard these arguments they confirmed what you needed to believe.
The control beliefs you adopted from that initial conversion experience led you to see all available evidence through the lens of those glasses. Now it's time to grow up and realize that the initial reasons you had for believing in the first place were inadequate.
Many Christians remind me of followers of Zeus who swore by the prophecies that purportedly came from him through the priests. There would be nothing I could say to change their minds...nothing. It's because the control beliefs they adopted from their culture and upbringing made them see the world that way.
Christians would be arguing for Mormonism to this day if they were raised to be a Mormon. Admit it. Be honest.
Christians would be arguing for Islam to this day if they were raised to be a Muslim. Admit it. Be honest.
Therefore the default position is agnosticism ("we don't know"). We must all admit this. Anyone moving off the default position has the burden of proof. The larger the knowledge claim is when moving off that initial position, then the more unlikely that claim becomes. The smaller the knowledge claim is when moving off the default position, then the more likely it becomes.
What's there not to understand about this?
The Christology (the nature and doctrine of Christ) of Jesus in the New Testament can be found in its formative development especially in the Synoptic tradition. A case in point here is taken from the Gospel of Luke (23: 34)
where, the now crucified Jesus looks down from the cross and said: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
The problem could be raised by any general reader of the three Gospels by realizing that if Jesus himself repeatedly forgave sins (as he does though out the Synoptics only as the word “forgive” does not occur in John), then why did he ask his father / God to forgive them (Luke 23: 34) from the cross?
A solution to the above question can be found in the verses of the paralytic man where Jesus healing is preceded with vocal forgiveness Luke 5: 18 -26 (= Matt. 9: 2 – 8 = Mk. 2: 3 – 12) at which time Jesus proclaims: “But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, (he said to the paralyzed man) I say to you, Arise and take up your bed and go home.” (Luke 5:24).
When these two verses are consider together, one finds a Jesus who, when suspended between heaven and earth, looses all his power to forgive sins and, hence, must ask his father to do the forgiving.
Thus, one is faced with an odd Christology where a limited Jesus functions move like a tragic figure in a Classical Greek play than a Christological deity.
BTW
Several years ago I debated J. P. Holding on a number of problematic Biblical texts (of which this was one) with most ending up on his Tekton Apologetic website and given superficial explanations.
Holding’s explanations to solve the above problem is that God is the patron, Jesus is the broker and the believer is the client are the result of a simplistic and confused methodology. Had Mr. Holding bothered to check the definitions of his terms in such standard references as Black’s Law Dictionary, 8 edition, he would have found that the terms patron and client are the same thing. Thus, in Black’s we find patron defined as: 1. “A regular customer or client of a business.”
Moreover, if Jesus is indeed the broker of divine forgiveness, than why was the Temple sacrificial system still valid; a system Jesus both defended and participated in?
In the final analysis, the limited Christology of Luke as displayed in Luke 23: 34 remains highly problematic despite the meager and confused explanation given by J. P. Holding.
Applying a sound principle to God, if you take your car to an expert and the work doesn't meet your expectations, then you have doubts about the expert don't you? That's normal.
As I've said before, if god is going to buy off on being called trustworthy, Just, merciful, omnipotent and omniscient in the bible, he is compelled logically to act that way. If not then since we are rational animals and he knows that and he knows what that entails, then it is incumbent on him to act in a way that doesn't betray those labels of being Trustworthy, Just, Merciful, etc because he can reasonably expect to create doubt in us. This doubt would be a result of reasoning about him with the only facilities we have at our disposal which he provided. Therefore, if he's going to refer to himself in that way and expect us to believe him, then a reasonable expectation can be made that he would act that way.
If god acts in a way that causes us to doubt, he has no one to blame but himself because he supposedly made the architecture that makes up the 3 pounds of meat in our heads.
Is it too much to ask for someone to do what they say? Is it too much to ask that someone walk the walk instead of talk the talk? What Would Jesus Do? What did Jesus say he would do?
He didn't come back in the lifetime of the Apostles and good luck getting a prayer answered when its crunch time.
Western believers used to claim God (or Zeus) lived on Mt. Olympus, pictured below. But then someone climbed up there and he wasn't to be found.
Then they claimed God lived just beyond the sky dome that supported the water, called the firmament, argued for here. But we flew planes and space ships up there and found he wasn't there either. Believers now claim God exists in a spiritual sense everywhere. What best explains this continual retreat? Doesn't it sound more like the attempt to defend what one already believes rather than progressively understanding what God is like?
Now contrast this retreating notion of the Occidental God with the Oriental notion of God. Oriental notions of God did not start by affirming an embodied deity in the first place, as I understand them. Their God was indescribable and inscrutable...the ONE. So they have not experienced a retreating notion of God because their starting point was different.
What best explains the current Western notion of God? I think it's because Western notions began by affirming God was embodied and such a notion continually retreated in the face of the arguments and evidence. It sure sounds like the progression of human thought (not divine revelation) beginning with one falsely stated assumption.
Another DC member wrote a great book,
Project Bible Truth.
I have been able to read through it prior to publication. It's an excellent book written by a master writer. It contains the most comprehensive deconversion story I've ever read. A must have book. Go to the link and you can preview it.
The following was sent to me via William Hawthorne in response to Dr. Hector Avalos’ comments on a debate he had with Dr. Craig,
seen here.
I'm happy to clarify for Dr. Avalos what I meant by "printer's errors;" the rest of his remarks hardly merit comment.
Since I don't type, I've written all my books and articles longhand, including the book in question. The hand-written manuscript was delivered to a typist, who produced the typescript using an IBM Selectric typewriter with "golf balls" for different fonts. Later this typescript was re-done on a computer. Edwin Mellen Press used the camera-ready copy which I supplied to print the book. Somewhere in the transmission of the text letter-substitutions crept in, resulting in several misspellings. As I said in the debate, I take full responsibility for these spelling mistakes, since it was up to me to proof-read the text. These misspellings have, of course, no impact on the argument of the book. But then Dr. Avalos is less interested in the argument than in impugning the integrity of his opponent.
Such extraordinary ad hominem attacks by Dr. Avalos are unseemly and highly unprofessional and serve, I'm afraid, only to sully his own reputation.
Dr. Avalos' handling of my argument concerning the expression "the first day of the week" (Mark 16.2) well illustrates his modus operandi of half-truth and distortion. As I explained in the debate, the use of the cardinal number rather than the ordinal number violates the conventions of Hellenistic Greek, but not of Aramaic. I even supplied a reference to an Aramaic targum where the very phrase "the first day of the week" is found (Targum Esth. II 3.7) as an illustration. Now the half-truth mentioned by Dr. Avalos is that this targum comes from the period of late Aramaic (A.D. 200-700+). In the scant literature in middle Aramaic (200 B.C. - A.D. 200) we don't have any surviving texts that happen to mention the first day of the week. But we do have texts illustrating in middle Aramaic the convention of substituting the cardinal number for the ordinal number, as in, e.g., "the first month." The fact that no text survives having the very words in Mark 16.2 is thus inconsequential, an accident of historical preservation. That Mark's phrase is a Semitism is widely acknowledged and often remarked on by commentators.
Dr. William Lane Craig
This problem is about probabilities based upon contradictory historical testimonies on matters of crucial importance to the truth of separate religions.
Here's my argument:
1) There are 45,000 different historical witnesses to mutually exclusive religious truth claims.
2) There is no other evidence apart from these historical witnesses that can tip the probability in favor of any single one of them.
.: Therefore even if one of these historical witnesses is correct I have no way to know which one.
Now Christians could show me the evidence that defeats 2 or accept conclusion 3. It’s that simple. The evidence Christians use to support their case is historical evidence, but as I’ve argued history is a poor medium to reveal anything of importance. There is no scientific evidence that leads specifically to their conclusion over the others. And present day religious experience is trumped by the other religious witnesses.
-------------------
Elsewhere I have defended the notion that history is a poor medium for God to reveal himself to humanity, here, here, here, and here.
Lets think about that for a minute. What happens to a sheep when it's surrounded by wolves? Chances are It won't survive. Now lets bring that analogy a little closer to home. What happens if we threw a cat in among dogs? Chances are it won't survive.
Why would we throw a sheep in among wolves or a cat in among dogs? To get the sheep or cat to depend on us? To trust us? I wouldn't, but thats just me. The atheist with no moral compass.
If the sheep, cat or us get shredded is it because we didn't trust enough? Trust presumes that there is something to trust in. Some way out. But when bad things happen to us, its not Gods fault.
Everything happens for a reason.
Its a result of Mans Sinful Nature.
And everything works for the greater good.
So lets pray for help, faith, tolerance. Sometimes the answer is no. And everything happens for a reason.
So who's reason is it? How did we get to be among wolves?
When we pray what is there to pray for? What is there to hope for? God already knows doesn't he? He threw you in there among those wolves didn't he? And its for the greater good. Everything that is happening to you is the result of mans sinful nature. God already knows what you want, He already knew what the result would be. Why do you think your prayer is going to change his mind when everything happens for a reason, and it is for the greater good and Its caused by mans sinful nature anyway? You have some responsibility for what is happening to you. What you are going through must be part of Gods plan. If you get stuck and the only way out is to burn to death or jump 100 floors to your death, remember God is a strong tower, and this is happening to you because you were thrown in like sheep among wolves, everything happens for a reason, it happens for the greater good and it is the fault of mans sinful nature, and you need to pray for faith and strength to withstand the fear and pain of falling or burning to death. Trust in Jesus, he's stronger than the tower you are stuck in.
In the next second whatever happens to you is part of a chain reaction of evil that people do to each other. It is an infinite regression of evil deeds and consequences. You may be the innocent victim, but are you sure there is not something you could have done differently to avoid this? What happened to you is not someone else's fault, you share the responsibility with whomever is doing you harm. It is a recursive loop of evil actions and consequences right back to the beginning, so don't expect god to get you out of this, you did it to yourself.
* You were thrown in like a sheep among wolves
* The bad thing happened for a reason, and
* its not Gods fault,
* it is the fault of mans sinful nature
therefore, there is a correlation between the reason and mans sinful nature.
* therefore it happened because that is what you would expect to happen to a sheep among wolves.
* therefore since it doesn't make sense to throw us in like sheep among wolves without a way out, Jesus is the way out.
* So pray about it, but remember, sometimes the answer is no.
Just like it would be if there was no God and everything happened by Chance. What Was Jesus Thinking?
Here's a praise prayer that I used when things went south.
"Thank you Jesus for not completely squashing me like a bug."
I've argued that no argument for God, taken by itself, demonstrates theism -- or even makes theism more probable than not. However, this leaves open the possibility that,
when taken together, these arguments
do demonstrate the truth of theism, or at least make theism more probable than not.
Richard Swinburne is one famous philosopher of religion who takes this approach to arguments for theism[1]. He uses a formula from the probability calculus known as Bayes' Theorem to argue in this way. He calls an argument that raises the probability of a hypothesis a good C-inductive argument, and he calls an argument that makes a hypothesis more probable than not a good P-inductive argument. He then considers a large variety of arguments for theism, and admits that none of them, when construed as a deductive argument, constitutes a sound argument for God's existence. However, he argues that a number of them, when reformulated as inductive arguments, each raise the probability of theism at least a little bit. Thus, he thinks that a number of them are good C-inductive arguments for theism. And when taken together, they make theism at least a little bit more probable than not, making the set of arguments taken together a good P-inductive argument for theism.[2]
To illustrate Swinburne's ideas about C-inductive arguments, P-inductive arguments, and cumulative case arguments, consider a simpler example. Suppose we're detectives investigating a murder, and that we know that either Smith committed the murder or that Jones did it. Then we have two hypotheses:
H1: Smith committed the murder
H2: Jones committed the murder
Suppose further that the following constitutes all our evidence, or data:
D1: Smith's fingerprints are on the murder weapon (a gun)
D2: Jones's fingerprints are on the murder weapon
D3: Smith had a strong grudge against the victim for sleeping with his wife
D4: Jones disliked the victim
D5: Jones is a terrible shot
D6: A somewhat reliable acquaintance of Jones said they talked to Jones at his house at 8pm, which was only 10 minutes before the time of the murder.
D7: Jones lives about 15 minutes from the victim's house.
D8: Smith lives 5 minutes away from the victim's house.
Notice that no single piece of evidence makes either hypothesis even slightly more probable than not -- i.e., not one of D1-D8, when considered individually, is a good P-inductive argument for either hypothesis as to who killed the victim. However, each one (or at least most of them), when taken individually, raises the probability of the relevant hypothesis at least a little bit, in which case each one (or at least most of each one) is a good C-inductive argument. And when taken together, they do make H1 a bit more probable than H2. In fact, D1-D8, taken together, constitutes a good P-inductive argument for H1. Similarly, even if none of the arguments for God establish the truth or the probability of theism, perhaps they do when taken together. Well, do they?
I've already mentioned that Swinburne thinks they do. Some other examples include J.P., Moreland[3], WIlliam Lane Craig, and Basil MItchell.
So, for example, suppose our hypotheses are:
H1: theism
H2: naturalism
And suppose our data are:
D1: the apparent contingency of the universe
D2: the apparent fine-tuning of the universe
D3: the apparent irreducibility of consciousness to the physical
D4: religious experiences of various sorts
D5: the existence of morality[4]
What's the probability of H1 on D1-D5? Of course, as everyone in this debate admits, there's probably no way to assign precise numerical values to the pieces of evidence here, whether taken individually or collectively[5]. To be charitable, though, let's say that each of D1-D5 raises the probability of theism at least a bit, and thus each is a good C-inductive argument for theism. Furthermore, let's be charitable and say that, when taken together, the probability of H1 on D1-D5 is a very strong P-inductive argument, raising the probability of H1 to .9 (i.e. 90%)[6]. Do we now have a cumulative case argument based on D1-D5 that makes the posterior probability of H1 higher than that of H2?
No, we don't. For to truly assess the posterior probability of a hypothesis, one has to include in the data pool *all* of the evidence that has a bearing on the hypotheses in question; to ignore the other evidence is tantamount to philosophical gerrymandering: artificially limiting the range of relevant evidence in order to ensure the conclusion you want. It would be analogous to arguing above that Jones probably committed the murder by just presenting D2, D4, and D6 of the data presented there, and suppressing all the rest.
But it turns out that there is a lot of data that appears to conflict with theism that needs to be added to the data pool before we can properly assess the hypotheses. Some of this evidence includes:
D6: massive amounts of apparently random and pointless suffering
D7: massive religious diversity
D8: empirical studies on the ineffectiveness of prayer
D9: the apparent hiddenness of God
D10: evolution
But once we throw in this data, it's no longer clear whether H1 (i.e., theism) is more probable than H2 (i.e., naturalism): even if the probability of H1 was about .9 on D1-D5, it sinks down to about .5 (i.e., 50%) when we evaluate it on D1-D10. At worst, H1 is lower than .5 on the total evidence.
So it seems to me that cumulative case arguments for theism fare no better than the same arguments taken singly.
=======================================
Footnotes:
1. See especially his classic book, The Existence of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979). In this post, I refer to the revised edition (1991). An extensively revised edition was released in 2004. A popular-level presentation of the main ideas in that book can be found in his book, Is there a God? (Oxford: OUP, 1996).
2. While this is roughly correct, technically it isn't quite right. In at least the original edition, Swinburne argues for the weaker claim that, taken together, the arguments for theism he endorses give theism a probability of at least .5 (50%), or thereabouts. He then argues that (what he dubs) the Principle of Credulity applies to religious experience -- i.e., like ordinary perceptual and memory experience, religious experience enjoys prima facie justification (it's "innocent until proven guilty"). But since he thinks he's shown that theism isn't improbable on the evidence (i.e., it's not less than 50% probable), then the prima facie justification of religious experience isn't undercut, and thus religious experience of God justifies theism. In an appendix in the 1991 version of the book, he considers the new "fine-tuning" version of the design argument, and concludes that with this new piece of data, theism is indeed more probable than not, in which case there is a decent P-inductive, cumulative case argument for theism. I haven't read the newest edition of Swinburne's book, but I believe he is even more optimistic about the cumulative case for theism is if anything even stronger than he thought in his 1991 version.
3. Moreland's views here are a bit more optimistic than Swinburne's. He thinks that there are a lot of sound deductive arguments for theism, and that several versions of the design argument are good P-inductive arguments all by themselves. Thus, the function of a cumulative case for theism isn't primarily to make theism more probable than not, but rather to (i) provide a finer-grained conception of the identity of the God established by the arguments (e.g., to rule out deism), and (ii) to strengthen a theistic case already made strong by most of the arguments taken by themselves. See his "rope" analogy of theistic arguments in his debate with Kai Neilsen (Does God Exist? The Great Debate), as well as his remarks in Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (co-authored with William Lane Craig). William Lane Craig seems to endorse this view as well. This comes out especially in his discussion of the arguments of natural theology in his popular-level debates, as well as the book on the Christian Worldview just mentioned.
4. It should be pointed out that although at least some theists take moral arguments to support theism, Swinburne does not -- indeed, he doesn't even think they make good C-inductive arguments for theism. For he takes moral truths to be necessary truths, akin to mathematical truths (e.g., 1+1=2), in which case they would exist even if God did not. See his discussion of this in his chapter on moral arguments in his The Existence of God (1991).
5. For example, Swinburne says this explicitly in the final chapter (not the appendix) of The Existence of God (1991). Plantinga says this in Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford: OUP, 2000).
6. This is of course extremely generous. For not even Swinburne thinks the probability is this high even when you add more theism-friendly pieces of data (see footnote 2, where I mention that Swinburne thinks the data give theism a posterior probability of around .5). Plantinga more-or-less agrees with Swinburne's assessment. See Plantinga's section on the Problem of Dwindling Probabilities in Warranted Christian Belief, where he argues that inductive arguments for theism aren't sufficiently strong to render religious belief epistemically appropriate..
Link [The audio may take a minute to load]. Stenger is the author of
The God Failed Hypothesis which I reviewed
here.
I found Vic's opening statement:There Is No God
Aloha. It's wonderful to be back in Hawaii where Phylliss and I spent so many happy years. Our two children were born in Hawaii and both graduated from the University of Hawaii. I would like to express my thanks to Keli'i and the other organizers and sponsors for inviting me.
It's certainly an honor to share the platform with William Lane Craig. I've read that he is one of the world's foremost Christian apologists.
In his opening remarks, Dr, Craig has appealed to your common sense. You know what common sense is. It's the human faculty that tells us that Earth is flat. Objective observation, on the other hand, tells us that Earth is round.
In tonight's debate, I will be defending the view that the universe, life, and mind are purely material. I will argue that objective observation as well as reason and logic lead to the conclusion that a God with the traditional attributes of the Christian God does not exist, beyond the shadow of a doubt..
I will give four arguments to support my position.
1. Attributes are self-contradictory
The attributes of the Christian God are self-contradictory. They are like a square circle.
2. Attributes incompatible with what is known
The attributes of the Christian God are inconsistent with what we know about the world.
3. Naturalism is a better explanation than supernaturalism
Supernatural explanations for events in the universe are unnecessary. Natural explanations are simpler, are based on objective observations, and are fully consistent with all we know about the world.
4. God's actions should be observable but are not
The attributes of the Christian God imply actions that should be objectively observable. But they are not observed.
Attributes of God
Let me list a set of attributes that are traditionally associated with the God of the monotheistic religions, particularly Christianity.
1) He is the creator of the universe.
2) He is an immaterial being who transcends the physical world.
3) He is all-powerful all-knowing, all-good.
4) He is perfect in every way.
5) He is a person. He loves humans and wishes us to know him.
6) He is forgiving and merciful.
7) He speaks to humans, revealing truths to us that we would not otherwise know.
8) He answers our prayers, as he sees fit.
9) He performs miracles, violating natural laws.
Incompatible attributes
Many philosophers have argued that the traditional attributes of God are logically incompatible. Here are just a few of these:
1) Perfect v. creator. If God is perfect, then he has no needs or wants. This is incompatible with the notion that God created the universe for some divine purpose. Divine purpose implies that God wants something he doesn't already have, which makes him imperfect.
2) Transcendent v. Omnipresent. How can God be beyond space and time and everywhere within space and time≠at the same time?
3) Just v. merciful. To be just means to treat a person exactly as they deserve. To be merciful means to treat a person better than they deserve. You can't do both.
4) Immaterial v. personal. To be a person is to have a material body.
So a God with these attributes cannot exist.
Existence of nonbelief
The God of monotheism also has attributes that are inconsistent with what we see in the world. For example, an all-powerful, all-knowing God who also has the attribute of wanting all humans to know and love him is inconsistent with the fact that there are nonbelievers in the world.
The Problem of Evil
Perhaps the most ancient and strongest of the arguments for God's nonexistence is the problem of evil. An all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing God is inconsistent with the fact of evil and gratuitous suffering in the world.
God's reasons for evil and suffering
Theologians have, of course, grappled with the problem of evil for centuries, and still do. For example, Richard Swinburne says of the problem of evil,
"If the world was without any natural evil and suffering we wouldn't have the opportunity . . . to show courage, patience and sympathy."
But . . . is so much suffering necessary?
Certainly, pain has a role in warning us of illness or injury. But does God really need so much suffering to achieve his ends? Is there any good purpose behind so many children dying every day of starvation and disease? How are they helped by the rest of us becoming more sympathetic?
Logically consistent gods
Dr. Craig and many other theologians have spent their lives building models of God that are logically consistent and at the same time in broad agreement with the traditional teachings of Christianity.
This has mainly consisted in trimming off God's characteristics one by one until he is defined mostly in the negative: not-material, not in space or time, not seen or heard. Apologists have reduced God to an almost undetectable background -something like what we physicists used to call "the aether" until we found the aether didn't exist either.
I have no doubt that a logically consistent picture of some kind of God can be devised. But I have considerable doubt that this God can be made consistent with Christianity.
Computer games
These theologians remind me of the creators of computer games. Programmers invent whole new universes in which the characters have all kinds of superhuman powers and many of our familiar laws of physics are violated. Yet the rules of the games are logically consistent. They wouldn't run on a computer if they weren't. But the computer game universes have little connection to the universe we see around us. They exist in what is called "virtual reality."
God's actions should be observable, but are not
Just because something is logically consistent, it doesn't necessarily follow that it exists. For the theologians' logically consistent God to actually exist, he must have something to do with the observed universe, some attributes that can be objectively observed. Otherwise God is as useless as the aether.
Naturalism is a better explanation than supernaturalism
Even if a God can be devised who is consistent with logic and observations, natural explanations for phenomena are better than supernatural ones. They better explain why nonbelievers, evil, and gratuitous suffering exist. They better explain the origin and structure of the universe, life, and mind. They are based on objective observations and theories that are testable.
Supernaturalism offers no explanation for these except "God did it," which coveys no more information than "Santa Claus did it."
Most scientists do not believe
Only seven percent of the members of the National Academy of Sciences believe in the personal God worshipped by perhaps 90 percent of other Americans. Most scientists don't believe in God because they don't see any objective evidence for him! When they look at the world around them, they see no sign of God. They don't see God when they peer through their most powerful telescopes. They don't detect God with their most sophisticated microscopes and other instruments. Furthermore, scientists find no need to introduce God or the supernatural into any of their explanatory theories.
Here are a few of the famous scientists who have been outspoken in their nonbelief: Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, Steven Weinberg, Francis Crick, and Carl Sagan. Let me add that all of these great scientists would have become believers had they been shown sufficient evidence.
Objectively observable actions of God
A God with the attributes I have listed implies phenomena that should have been easily observable by now. For example, let us consider revelation, prayers, and miracles.
Revelation
Most people believe in a God who has a substantial, and detectable, role in the universe and in human affairs. One common characteristic attributed to this God is that he communicates with humans and provides them with verifiable new knowledge.
The theistic religions have traditionally taught that God speaks to humanity. Their scriptures are widely assumed to be the word of God and he's believed to have revealed knowledge to religious leaders in the past that they would otherwise not have known. Many believe God continues to do this today, speaking even to common people.
Revelation Is verifiable
Surprisingly, these claims can be easily verified≠if they are true. All we have to do is find some fact supposedly gained by divine revelation that was unknown at the time of the revelation, and then confirm this fact at a later time.
For example, suppose the Bible had predicted that men would walk on the moon in two thousand years. Then we would have a rational basis to take seriously what else is written in the Bible.
No revelations
Unfortunately, no revelation of previously unknown knowledge has ever been empirically validated.
The scriptures contain nothing that could not have been known to or imagined by the ancients who wrote them. The Bible reads exactly as we would expect it to read, based on existing knowledge at the time it was composed.
Failed revelations
There are many examples of the failure to confirm of Biblical revelations. Consider the failed prophecy of the Second Coming:
"They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory." (Mat 24:30)
"I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened." (Mat 24:34)
We're still waiting. It was supposed to happen 2,000 years ago. It's time to give up and move on.
All in the head
Those who have claimed to talk to God have provided no knowledge that was not already in their heads. Many people have claimed religious experiences in which they felt the presence of God, but they never return from those experiences with any exceptional knowledge that would easily validate their claim.
Furthermore, religious experiences can be induced in the brain by drugs, electromagnetic pulses, and oxygen deprivation. Consider the example of pilots undergoing high-g in a centrifuge. They experience a tunneling of their vision, with the "light at the end of the tunnel" characteristic of the near-death experience.
Does God choose to hide?
In Rom. 1:20 St. Paul says:
"Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity, have been clearly perceived in the things that have been made."
In other words, God may be invisible but his actions are visible.
Theists may respond that God's actions are obvious to those who wish to see them. Well, I would love to see them, but they are not obvious to me, or to the millions of other nonbelievers in the world.
Prayers and miracles
Another commonly believed attribute of God is that he listens to entreaties from humans to change the natural course of events. He can be expected to grant a sufficient number of these requests so that the results should be observable. Otherwise, what's the point in praying?
Many people will testify that they've had prayers answered. But personal testimony is insufficient since it doesn't rule out other more mundane explanations. For example, if someone is ill and recovers after praying, it could be that the prayers had nothing to do with it. After all, the body, sometimes with medical help, does a pretty good job of healing itself. In fact, it works every time≠except the last time.
If prayer had value in healing we'd have doctors prescribing Prayer Aspirin. "Say three Our Fathers and four Hail Mary's and call me in the morning."
Convincing evidence for a God who answers prayers can, in principle, be scientifically demonstrated with high probability≠if he really exists. Well-designed experiments on intercessory prayer should turn up solid, statistically significant results on the success of prayer in healing.
In fact, some studies claiming positive effects of prayer have been published in refereed medical journals to great media hoopla. However, you can't rely on media reports but need to look at the actual published papers. Applying the same criteria that are used in conventional science when testing extraordinary claims, you'll find that none of the reported effects is significant. Furthermore, most of these experiments are severely flawed and none of the claimed positive effects have been successfully replicated.
Mayo Clinic study
The best study published so far was done at the Mayo Clinic. Here is the summary:
"The results of 26 weeks of intercessory prayer, a widely practiced complementary therapy, were studied in 799 patients randomized to an intercessory prayer group or to a control group after discharge from a coronary care unit. As delivered in this study, intercessory prayer had no significant effect on specifically defined medical outcomes, regardless of risk status." (2001)
Summary
1. The traditional attributes of God are self-contradictory. Such a God cannot exist.
2. The traditional attributes of God are incompatible with objective facts about the world. Such a God cannot exist.
3. Natural explanations are superior to supernatural explanations. No basis exists for anything supernatural.
4. The traditional attributes of God imply actions that should be objectively observed, but are not.
It is possible to hypothesize a God whose attributes are logically compatible with each other. But, it does not follow that such a God exists unless it has objectively observable consequences. No such consequences have been observed.
If God exists, where is he?
Stenger's first rebuttal:
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
Carl Sagan said: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Dr. Craig has made the extraordinary claim that certain empirical facts require supernatural explanations.
In order to refute this, all I need to do is provide plausible natural explanations for these phenomena. I need not prove these. If he wants to argue that God is required to exist in order to explain the observed universe, Dr. Craig must disprove all possible natural explanations for these phenomena.
Cosmological Argument
Dr. Craig argues that
1) Whatever begins must have a cause
2) The universe had a beginning
3) Therefore the universe must have had a cause
Not everything that begins has a Cause
Physical bodies begin to exist all the time without cause. In the radioactive decay of an atomic nucleus, an alpha, beta, or gamma particle begins to exist spontaneously, without a cause. The universe at the beginning of the big bang was a subatomic particle.
Is the big bang is evidence that the universe had a beginning?
Even if everything that begins has a cause, this does not apply to the universe if the universe did not have a beginning.
Dr. Craig argues that the big bang is evidence that the universe had a beginning. However, the universe need not have begun with the big bang.
Many prominent physicists and cosmologists have published papers in reputable scientific journals proposing various scenarios by which the big bang appeared naturally out of a preexisting universe that itself need not have had a beginning. Once such recent scenario is called "The Cyclic Universe".
Does an infinite universe have a beginning?
Dr. Craig also claims that the universe had to begin because if it were infinitely old, it would take an infinite time to reach the present.
However, if the universe is infinitely old, then it had no beginning - not a beginning infinitely long ago.
Universe can be finite and still not have a beginning
Einstein defined time as what you read on a clock. It's a number, the number of ticks of the clock. We count time forward and never reach infinity. We can also count time backward and never reach minus infinity. The notions that the universe has a beginning and will have an end are theological, not scientific.
Is the universe fine-tuned for life?
Dr. Craig calls upon the currently popular argument that the physics of our universe is fine tuned for life. This is taken as evidence for divine purpose behind the existence of life.
However, even if any given kind of life is highly improbable to have arisen by natural means, some kind of life may be highly probable. Another form of life might evolve in a universe with different physical constants or even different physical laws. We certainly don't have sufficient knowledge to rule out the possibility of every conceivable form of life under every conceivable circumstance. Dr. Craig cannot prove that only carbon-based life like ours can exist.
Argument from improbability
Dr. Craig claims that the universe and life are too improbable to have come about by purely natural processes alone.
The Improbable happens
However, this is a fallacious argument. To use probability to decide between two alternatives requires a comparison of the probabilities of each alternative. Simply saying that one has low probability without calculating the probability for the other is inadequate.
What's the probability that the laws of nature are violated? What's the probability that there's an all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing--but undetectable--super being? Complex things are common. We see natural events every moment. We've never seen a supernatural event.
Low probability events happen every day. What's the probability that my distinguished opponent exists? You have to calculate the probability that a particular sperm united with a particular egg, then multiply it by the probability that his parents met, and then repeat that calculation for his grandparents and all his ancestors going back to the beginning of life on Earth. Even if you stop the calculation at Adam and Eve, you will get a fantastically small number.
To use Dr. Craig's own words, "improbability is multiplied by improbability by improbability until our minds are reeling in incomprehensible numbers."
Dr. Craig has a mind-reeling, incomprehensibly small probability for existing, yet here he is before us today.
Modern versions of the argument from design, both the fine-tuning argument and intelligent design share this fatal flaw. They are based on the idea that natural causes can be ruled out by some arbitrary notion of low probability.
Why is there something rather than nothing?
Dr. Craig asks: why does the universe exist instead of nothing? Why should nothing be a more natural state than something? Why would you expect nothing rather than something? In fact, how could nothing ever exist? Wouldn't it then be something? Why is there God rather than nothing? Dr. Craig leaves these questions unanswered.
Genesis confirmed?
Dr. Craig claims the big bang confirms the Biblical view of creation.
Genesis falsified
Let's look at what Genesis actually says. In the first day, Earth is created. Not until four days later does God create the sun, moon, and stars. This is clearly at odds with modern cosmology, which says that the Earth did not form until 7 billion years after the big bang. There are many other disagreements.
Genesis implies that the universe is only about 6,000 years old. Here's a picture of a quasar whose light left its source 12 billion years ago.
Every one of the thousand or so religions in the world has a creation myth. Most probably resemble modern cosmology as well or better than Genesis.
Objective morality
Dr. Craig calls upon our common sense to attest that morality is objective and so must come from God.
Subjective morality
Not everyone shares the same morals. So, there is no evidence for objective morality.
But, even if morality were objective--its source could be natural--an evolutionary process that aids in human survival and built into our genes. Dr. Craig has not disproved hat possibility.
Is the Gospel historical?
Dr. Craig claims the Gospel stories describe actual historical events, such as the empty tomb of Jesus.
The Empty Tomb
There is no evidence outside the Bible. The story of the empty tomb is second and third hand, written years after the event from the oral testimony of supposed eyewitnesses. Paul did not seem to know about it. Furthermore, eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable.
Even if the story of the empty tomb is accurate, it could have a simple, natural explanation. If you went to the Napoleon's tomb in Paris one morning, and found that his remains were not in their usual place of honor, would you conclude Napoleon had risen bodily into heaven?
Hardly. You would figure that somebody took the body! Dr. Craig has not shown that Jesus's body could not have been removed. So that remains a more plausible explanation and a supernatural explanation is not required by the data,
Personal experience of God
Dr. Craig says that many people have a personal experience of God. Well, many, including myself, have not. So that cancels his final argument for the existence of God. We can't rely on subjective experience. Any successful argument for or against God's existence needs to be objective.
No Evidence for God
Dr. Craig has not ruled out plausible natural explanations for any observable phenomenon in the universe. He has failed to prove that God or any supernatural hypothesis is required to explain the universe.
Thus, he has failed to prove that God exists. In the meantime, I have proved that a God having the traditional attributes of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God cannot exist.
What attitude best explains why both science and religion have changed their views on a various number of topics down through the years? Science gradually learns and grows. Religion usually adapts, regroups, and reaffirms new truths with the same confidence as before. Science has learned humility. Most religions still claim to represent the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Distinguished philosopher of science, Karl Popper, has argued that scientific knowledge progresses by conjectures (or guesses) which are in turn refuted for better conjectures (or guesses). He argues science progresses because we learn from our mistakes, and likewise I argue, so does our morality . We have learned to accept moral principles by trial and error because we learn from our mistakes. Echoing the Greek philosopher Xenophanes, who said “all is a woven web of guesses,” Popper argues we should “give up the idea of ultimate sources of knowledge, and admit that all knowledge is human; that it is mixed with errors, our prejudices, our dreams, and our hopes; that all we can do is to grope for truth even though it be beyond our reach.” [Conjectures and Refutations, p. 39]
What Christian Bible believer will say the same types of humble things about how their own beliefs develop? Catholics, and liberals already so. But not Bible believers. According to them their interpretation of the Bible is true. They have the truth and will call anyone who disagrees both ignorant and deceived by Satan.
Now consider this approach of some Christians I’ve met on the internet, and contrast that with the humility of scientists. Sure, there may be some heated debates within the scientific community, but there is no comparison to these type of Bible believing Christians who berate us daily for disagreeing.
Such things would not go over within a knowledgeable scientific community who seeks to understand the truth about the universe at all. Because scientists have a seeker attitude.
What scientist, for instance, would claim that his opponent disagrees with him because she is blinded by Satan? Which scientist would argue before an audience that anyone who disagrees is going to be dammed to hell? Which one would treat other scientists with complete and utter disrespect and distain if she tries to get people to agree with her view of things?
Many Christians have an arrogance that is beyond description and beyond reasoning with.
This article builds on the argument that the Problem of Evil/Needless suffering is caused by the process of Creation initiated in the article Resolved! God Caused The Problem Of Evil/Needless Suffering. (I should point out that "the process of creation" is a euphemism I am using for "Chance". With or without a God, Stuff Happens.) Its conclusion is that if the Problem of Evil is a Test, then there should be no biological bases for handling stress or decision making, it should all be a mysterious function of the soul and there should be no biological price to pay for it.
The problem of evil/needless suffering causes harmful stress. People are poorly 'designed' to handle stress and it negatively affects their decision making in some cases creating a negative feedback loop of decisions and consequences. People have varying degrees of stress tolerance. I have seen some people come unglued for what I consider to be nothing. I know people with Bi-Polar disorder and I spend quite a bit of time every week calming a person that has panic attacks because he/she dreads going to work. Two people in my family committed suicide, and a third was believed to be suicidal and they were all three Christians. Why would Christians commit suicide? If Christianity is true, it doesn't follow. But don't take my word that situations cause harmful stress in people, at the bottom of the article there are some lists I got from the Mayo Clinic.
The PoE causes harm to the subject of the test and can actually break them. If the PoE were actually a test, this variable should be controlled for. We should be more robust or equally robust in handling stress.
God won't give us anything we can't handle? It makes sense, and that's what I was always told. God is a strong tower. If someone can't handle it, its their fault, not praying hard enough, not living right, not waiting long enough, not humble enough, not patient enough, whatever excuse in the world could be thought up to put the blame on the person. The fact is that God won't give us more than we can handle because he doesn't have anything to do with it. He's not there. Christians get more than they can handle all the time. Sometimes with tragic consequences.
I think I stopped believing in God on Sept. 11, 2001 when I heard the newscasters say "we have reports that people are jumping out the windows of the towers, presumably to avoid being burned alive". If I had been on the towers on Sep. 11, instead of watching it on TV, and looked out the window and felt the fire behind me and had to make a decision of how I wanted to die, pain for a second or pain for some minutes, I probably would have lost my faith then too. If not before I jumped, then probably on the way down as I realized that I really was going to hit the ground and that the last most important prayer in my life was not going to be answered. I would have prayed that if I can't float down like a feather, then at least take me before I hit. Would I have gone to hell for losing my faith? Or maybe from committing suicide? Would the last act of my life have been a sin? Am I going to go to hell now because I empathized so much with those people that I don't believe that God could have anything to do with any of it or because this situation doesn't support my belief that the God of the Bible would not allow someone to be put in this situation? What would Jesus do? What did Jesus do? What was Jesus thinking?
My "Belief Balance" tipped the other way that day.
I hear it from Christians all the time "Why this and Why that?" "This must be some type of punishment." etc. A key concept in punishment is rehabilitation and without that aspect punishment doesn't make sense. If punishment without rehabilitation is the goal then it is more like revenge. If there can be no rehabilitation then the offender should be removed from society, and at that point, logically, it doesn't matter if they live in a prison or a luxury hotel. There is no evidence of a principle of rehabilitation in the doctrine of Hell, just retribution.
If the problem of Evil is a test, why is it so inequitable? Why do some people get born in impoverished unstable countries to struggle their whole life and others a born relatively affluent and hardly have much to complain about? It just doesn't make sense. It seems to be more a result of chance. Why are some people more able to handle stress than others? Why does stress break some people and it doesn't break others? Why are there biological bases of stress tolerance rather than a function of this mystical soul we are supposed to have and be punished or rewarded with. It seems to be more a result of chance. If the Problem of Evil is a Test, then there should be no biological bases for handling stress, it should all be a mysterious function of the soul.
When we feel stress we feel uncomfortable. We naturally want to feel better. I assert that all of our motivations are initiated from a desire to feel good rather than anything spiritual or moral. The 'spirituality' and 'morality' are the self-justifications that follow to help us maintain that feeling.
Some symptoms of stress and effects on our bodies are as follows. These lists were taken from The Mayo Clinic Website but it left some things out such as schizophrenia and multiple-personality disorder.
On your body
* Headache
* Chest pain
* Pounding heart
* High blood pressure
* Shortness of breath
* Muscle aches
* Back pain
* Clenched jaws
* Tooth grinding
* Stomach upset
* Constipation
* Diarrhea
* Increased sweating
* Tiredness
* Sleep problems
* Weight gain or loss
* Sex problems
* Skin breakouts
On your thoughts and feelings
* Anxiety
* Restlessness
* Worrying
* Irritability
* Depression
* Sadness
* Anger
* Mood swings
* Job dissatisfaction
* Feeling insecure
* Confusion
* Burnout
* Forgetfulness
* Resentment
* Guilt
* Inability to concentrate
* Seeing only the negatives
On your behavior
* Overeating
* Undereating
* Angry outbursts
* Drug abuse
* Excessive drinking
* Increased smoking
* Social withdrawal
* Crying spells
* Relationship conflicts
* Decreased productivity
* Blaming others
Here are the results...
The question was this:How probable is testimonial evidence in history (TE) relative to repeatable scientific evidence (SE) when it comes to assessing the claims of Christianity if they contradict each other?
TE = 0%; SE = 100% - 74 (61%)
TE = 20%; SE = 80% - 21 (17%)
TE = 40%; SE = 60% - 3 (2%)
TE = 50%; SE = 50% - 3 (2%)
TE = 60%; SE = 40% - 0 (0%)
TE = 80%; SE = 20% - 3 (2%)
TE = 100%; SE = 0% - 16 (13%)
An anonymous commenter wrote this to me in response to my article that God is an accessory to Child Abduction.
Lee, I sympothize with you that it seems that you are hurting and are trying to find someone to blame for something that has happened. I will pray for you!
I'm trying to find someone to blame? The blame falls where it resides, on chance, or whichever individual does something harmful, or me, but it doesn't automatically default to me as much as Christians will tell me it does.
God is not to blame for things that happen. He sees things that we don't so to say that there isn't a reason for even the most horrible thing to happen you just don't know what the bigger picture is. None of us do.
The other side of this logic is that the Christian doesn't know that there IS a reason. Since we neither know that it is true or that it is not true, all we can say is that we don't know. When we don't know we are agnostic. When we choose one belief over the other without a reason other than it makes us feel better, we are biased. So go ahead and say it. Lee you are biased. However I have demonstrated that I can overcome my bias because I was a Christian once.
Another aspect to this logic is that if there is a reason, who's reason is it? It must be the reason of whomever is in control. That would be God. For Gods reason horrible suffering happens. Then, if we do something to try to interfere with this horrible suffering, then we are interfering with Gods reason. We can make one of a couple of assumptions, that it is a test for us, or a test for the sufferer, or we don't know what is going on, so by interfering, we are acting out of ignorance which may be mucking up gods reason. Sounds silly doesn't it? There's no reason, just chance.
Here is the fundamental flaw in Christian reasoning. It is the starting point for a hasty conclusion that leads to a slippery slope that can only be justified using special pleading and the sliding window of criteria.
An assumption must be made that God exists to get him into a position to help write the Bible.
1. Christianity is built on an assumption that God exists and he helped write the Bible
2. and Christian faith is built on the bias of wishful thinking that the assumption is true obviously because it makes them feel better
3. With ambiguous evidence when viewed in the light of confirmation bias, maintains the good feeling about their assumption.
So my suggestion is that you stop blaming God for all the sick and despicable things the MAN does in this world and start looking at how to either correct the problem or how to help yourself deal with what has happened. It maybe hard and you may need some counseling.
I need the counseling? Am I really that bad off? You don't need counseling? I may need some counseling and you do not. Does it make you feel better to think that I'm that bad off?
anyway...
If God made it so that a tumor in the frontal cortex will make a man act on pedophiliac tendencies (true story) then god didn't design the brain very well. If god designed the brain such that a malfunction in the Limbic system will create a psychopath, then god didn't design the brain very well. If god designs us such that we get worked up so much with religious fervor that we kill people over it, then he's got a problem in his design. Granted these are all extreme examples, but less extreme examples are seen in the behavior of Christians every day and throughout history. It wouldn't be a big deal except that they think they have the moral advantage. Even Christians get cranky from lack of sleep and get depression and panic attacks and sexually aroused at an odd moment occasinally.
The other option is that God didn't have anything to do with any of it.
Again, I will pray for you.
Thanks I appreciate the sentiment. Thats the equivalent of saying "Good Luck" or "I wish you the Best".
But what makes you think YOUR prayer will make any difference?
1. will it influence god?
2. if it influences god, won't it turn out worse if it was going to happen for the best anyway?
3. does he not know already?
4. doesn't he know what you want already?
You don't realize that your prayers cannot logically have any effect at all as long as an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent being already has a plan.
Think about it.
Here's a response by
Wes. See also what Dr. Hector Avalos said about genocide
here. Joe Edward Barnhard comments on C.S. Lewis and genocide
here. Thanks to Ed Babinski for these links.
William Hawthorne recently expressed the sentiments of many Christians when he said...But you see, John, nobody is claiming that without God, humans must be immoral. The problem is whether and how the existence of objective value and moral facts can be explained in an atheistic world.
Well then, while the philosophers are debating this problem like they do the ontological argument and the brain/mind problem, life goes on doesn't it? Christian philosopher Terence Penelhum has gone on record as saying we cannot wait for the philosophers to conclude these kinds of debates before we make our religious choices. And G.E. Moore's shift probably applies here since he was more sure from the evidence that he's holding a pencil in his hand than that the arguments to the contrary are correct.
Let me briefly explain. You claim atheists and agnostics don't have an ultimate objective moral basis, and as such without it there is no logical reason prohibiting us from murdering, and raping, and cheating, and stealing at will without regard for any consequences. This would be your SPECIFIC claim, which is part of a more GENERAL claim. Your GENERAL claim is that all non-Christians are in the same boat as the atheist and agnostic with regard to not having an ultimate objective moral basis for how they should behave. If you want to make the SPECIFIC claim and not make the GENERAL claim, then I’d like to know your reasons for doing so.
Now here’s the rub. With the GENERAL claim you indict all non-Christians everywhere in all eras of human history, Muslims, Jews, Taoists, Shintoists, and Buddhists. You’re claiming that none of these potentially 50 billion people have had an objective moral basis prohibiting them from murdering, and raping, and cheating, and stealing at will without regard for any consequences, and that this applies to them as well as to us skeptics. You’re saying that none of us non-believers have had an ultimate moral basis for being good, period, and so there is no logical reason why we should refrain from commiting horrendous evils. [60 billion is Frank Tipler’s estimate of the number of Homo Sapiens since we developed, from which I merely subtracted 10 billion for Christians since the NT times, which I think is being very generous).
All I need to do while the philosophers settle this debate is to look at the evidence, just like G.E. Moore did. Look around the globe. Look to our human past. There are many people who act morally who are non-believers and they have been doing so since the dawn of time. All someone needs to learn who makes such a claim as yours is a basic history lesson. There have been great Chinese dynasties, the great rule of Mohammed, along with the Greek Golden Age, the Roman Empire, and nearly all Japanese dynasties, NONE OF WHICH HAD ANY DOMINATING INFLUENCE FROM THE CHRISTIAN FAITH to gain their ultimate objective morals from. Some of them had no influence from Christian morals at all. And if you think Christianity is waning in America, then consider the evidence that even in this secular dominated culture our government works well with diversified religious and non-religious groups of people in it, as do all European countries.
So while the philosophers debate these issues, where is the evidence that backs up your claim? Surely if non-believers have no logical reason for upholding ultimate objective morals then we should see billions of non-believing people acting logically by murdering, raping, cheating, and stealing at will with no regard for any consequences. There should be great mayhem in this world, the likes of which should send the rest of us into the asylum. But if we do just fine without this supposed ultimate objective moral standard then why do we need one at all? And if there is no evidence supporting this claim of yours then I think the claim is false no matter how long the philosophers take to decide the issue (and I personally like participating in the philosophical debate as well).
The Following is a contribution from The Dude in the Atheist RFC for Empirical Evidence... I think it is brilliant.
Christian salvation doctrine clearly stated in the bible dictates that in addition to good deeds, a "saved" follower must, above all else, choose to believe with no doubts. If one does not utilize the "free will" given to him by god and choose to believe, they will be banished to an eternity of hellish suffering upon death. No amount of good deeds over a lifetime will save a person if they do not choose to believe in the biblical god/Jesus.
The problem with this biblically-stated doctrine is that humans are naturally unable to choose to believe in anything, as belief is the result of biochemical/neurological processing of evidence in the human mind, and how information is processed is biologically unique to every individual. The way an individual processes information is absolutely out of their control - one cannot simply choose to accept evidence, it must be processed and evaluated by the brain, and the result of this processing is either non-belief or belief. Humans are born with specific genetic tendencies beyond their control that dictate how to process information, which can then nurtured or suppressed based on outside factors such as parenting, education, social influences - all of which are not within the control of the individual.
With this premise laid forth, the biblical requirement for salvation based on choosing to believe goes out the window, and thus in my mind dismisses the entire doctrine as jibberish.
Atheism Sucks has a post deriding Avalos in his debate with Craig. Here is his response...
The following was written by Dr. Avalos in response to JP Holding:
-------------------------
Over at Theologyweb, James Patrick Holding (aka Robert Turkel) has begun what he calls an “in depth” review of my book, The End of Biblical Studies (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2007).
However, it does not take long to realize that Holding offers neither depth nor competence in biblical studies. Indeed, it is not a good sign of research competence when that review begins with a patently false statement about my background. As he phrased it:
Since Logic is necessary to understand God, we can apply sound principles derived from reasoning, using logic grounded in experience and evidence to other areas of our lives. We can derive a list of sound moral principles in this way. We can take our list of sound moral principles and apply them to other cultures, other time periods and stories in the bible to see if they meet, beat or break the principles.
In this way we can compare our list of sound moral principles to those displayed as evidence and compare them. In this way we can see what percentage of our list of moral principles are met, and then measure how much our morality matches another. I suggest we all take a highlighter and go to the bible and highlight all the verses that do not match our list of morals and see what we have at the end.
I think Christians will agree that their set of morals don't really come from the bible.
(God Limits Himself) This article is an extension of an article called "God Limits Himself". It is intended to show that principles of Logic are valid and necessary for an inquiry into the characteristics of the Christian Religion. It will be referenced by subsequent articles as a premise for their complex arguments. It intends to show that God (if he exists) has agreed implicitly to use the principles of logic to further our understanding of him.
Our trust in another being, including God, is built on the avoidance of the violation of those principles. Every case in which he violates a principle of Logic is a violation of that commitment. A violation of that commitment results in a violation of the trust. In order to maintain that trust it is necessary to use due care and diligence not not violate principles the trust is built on. In this way God must limit himself to working within the principles of Logic in order to maintain our trust in him.
* The Bible tells us that God exists and that he created all things.
So how were people able create the Bible so that we can look at it and come to know about God and attempt an understanding of Him?
If God wants us to know about him and to understand him he must commit to following rules that will achieve that goal, effectively making the commitment to limit himself.
1. All things have various interdependencies and relationships between themselves.
2. We can observe our environment and when we see that an event reliably follows another event then using a rule such as "when this happens, then this follows", we can create a simple rule that describes it. This rule is called a precedent. It is based on experience. It depends on evidence created by the successful performance of this rule. This becomes a principle and we can add it to a "set" of "rules". This set of rules and principles we call logic.
3. Using this set of rules and principles we can develop another set of rules. By applying sets of rules to create other sets of rules we create a complex set of interdependent rules. One of these sets of rules we call "Reasoning".
4. Using the process of reasoning we can make reliable observations and predictions about our environment.
5. Using reasoning from precedent we can look at the accumulation of successful predictions about our environment and we are able to identify more interdependencies and relationships in the world. The idea that results from the application of these rules is called "inference". When our inference is shown be correct by a successful prediction then we call it "understanding".
6. When we see a phenomena or "sign" we are able to think and recall things that are interdependent and have relationships to it, and make predictions or conclusion about the next event, or its state or past events.
7. These successful rules and processes, when appropriate, can be applied elsewhere with varying success and we call this extending the rules or principles.
8. Applying these rules and processes help us to successfully interact, survive and create memories of rules and processes that we use to understand our world and make further predictions. It creates a complex rule set that we can call our "world view"
9. We can extend these principles to other areas such as communication and language. We can create rules for sets of sounds that we can call words, and using principles that regulate how we use these sounds we can create a category of sounds and rules that we call language.
10. We can extend these principles to a set of rules that we use to represent these sounds and call it writing.
11. We can apply these rules to a series of sounds and apply other rules for representing them using lines and record the proper sequence. This recording can be observed and understood by another being using those same rules and principles. In this way we can transfer information between beings and ensure as much integrity as possible.
Therefore, the bible comes to us by a complex set of rules derived from the extension of sets of simpler rules and our understanding of it as information depends on applying these rules to comprehend the content and to make inferences, conclusions and predictions about it. God must follow these rules if he wants us to know about him and understand him. This knowledge and understanding is necessary to have a "relationship" with him.
Christian apologists appear to agree that logic is necessary to understand God since they use logic and reason to provide apologia for their faith. Logic is necessary to understand God, its use spans categories of people (i.e. Christians and Atheists) and categories of subjects ( religion and science) and God (if he exists) has apparently made the commitment to participate.
The simplest rules of logic are even exhibited to be understood by animals. The algorithm for understanding simple principles of logic seem to be hardwired in the brains of many species of animals. Any one with a pet can tell you anecdotes about smart things their pet has done. Additionally researches have observed and measured in the lab the use of rudimentary logic with fish and some predatory animals. One of the simplest rules of logic is one that can be made using precedent. For example, since the sun has risen every day of recorded history, then the sun will rise tomorrow. Another (lame?) example. Since the stop light changes every minute and it just changed to red at 0700, then if I record how much time it stays red in addition to the time it takes the other lights to change, then I can reliably predict that unless something unexpected happens, the light will turn red at 0746 (for example). Using rules (principles) created from experience and evidence we can create rules (principles) of precedent, and we can describe how we derived the rules and principles. Should the light become irregular or random, it would need to be repaired because it would not be trustworthy since there will be a case when it will be green when it should be red.
RFC: Request for Comment.
A belief should come from a reason, which should be derived from logic which should be based on evidence.
This article is intended as a fun exercise between Christian and Atheist teams. This article is a request for Comment from Christians for items in the bible that are supported by empirical evidence.
For example some things I can think of follow.
- the four rivers in the Garden of Eden really existed.
- the egyptians, assyrians, bablylonians, persians existed
- there is corroboration from other cultures for Ba'al
- there is evidence for a 'house of david'
I heartily endorse you to get your friends to participate and take us evidence loving Atheists to task!
In another article I'll compare this list with the other teams list and see what we get!
