Definitions of "God"Before getting to the arguments, it is important to present the various definitions of "God" that they employ:
D1: God is the eternal, all-powerful, personal being who created and rules the universe. (Being eternal, God cannot come into or go out of existence. Being all-powerful, he can perform any action that is logically possible to perform. Being personal, he has some characteristics in common with humans, such as thinking, feeling emotions, and performing actions. The universe is understood to consist of all the space, time, matter, and energy that has ever existed.)
D2: God is the eternal, very powerful, personal being who rules the universe, loves humanity, and gave humanity its moral conscience.
D3: God is the eternal, very powerful, personal being who rules the universe, loves humanity, and strongly desires that that love be reciprocated.
D4: God is that being which is self-existent, that is, which contains the explanation for its own existence within itself.
D5: God is that being which is (objectively) perfect in every way. (The term "perfect" is here understood in an objective sense, as opposed to a subjective sense relative to individual values, so the term may be used in public reasoning.)
D6: God is the deity described in the Bible as interpreted by evangelical Christianity.
It will be indicated for each argument which of the above definitions of "God" it employs.
Arguments Against God's Existence
1. The Anti-creation Argument (D1, D6):
(a) If X creates Y, then X must exist temporally prior to Y.
(b) But nothing could possibly exist temporally prior to time itself (for that would involve existing at a time when there was no time, which is a contradiction).
(c) Thus, it is impossible for time to have been created.
(d) Time is an essential component of the universe.
(e) Therefore, it is impossible for the universe to have been created.
(f) It follows that God, as defined by D1 and D6, cannot exist.
Discussion: A similar argument might possibly be constructed with regard to the other components of the universe as well: space, matter, and energy. It is very hard to comprehend how a being could have created the universe without existing within space and without any involvement with matter or energy.
- The God of evangelical Christianity (defined by D6) is included here (and for argument #2, below) because of the first sentence in the Bible, which evangelicals take to refer to the entire universe.
2. The Transcendent-Personal Argument (D1, D6):
(a) In order for God to have created the universe, he must have been transcendent, that is, he must have existed outside space and time.
(b) But to be personal implies (among other things) being within space and time.
(c) Therefore, it is logically impossible for God, as defined by D1 or D6, to exist.
Discussion:
It might be suggested that God has a part that is outside space and time and another part that is inside space and time and that it is the latter part, not the former part, which is personal in nature. But the idea of a being which is partly personal and partly transcendent is incomprehensible. Furthermore, definition D1 implies that God, as a personal being, existed prior to the universe, and it is incomprehensible how a personal being could do so.
- Aside from conceptual considerations that have to do with the very concept of "being personal," there are empirical considerations relevant to premise (b). It might be argued that to be personal requires having thoughts and that science has very strongly confirmed that having thoughts is dependent on having a physical brain. For example, since brain damage has always been found to delete, or at least disrupt, thoughts, it can be extrapolated that there can be no thoughts at all in the total absence of a brain. Although the empirical support for premise (b) is very strong, that may not be a factor that would impress people who are not "scientifically oriented" to begin with.
3. The Incoherence-of-Omnipotence Argument (D1, D6):
(a) If God as defined by D1 or D6 were to exist, then he would be omnipotent (i.e., able to do anything that is logically possible).
(b) But the idea of such a being is incoherent.
(c) Hence, such a being cannot possibly exist.
Discussion: Definition D6 is included here because evangelical Christians maintain that the biblical description of God as "Almighty" is accurate. The issue of whether or not premise (b) is true is complicated. Some writers claim that the idea of omnipotence in itself is inconsistent. Also, some writers claim that being omnipotent is incompatible with possessing certain other properties. (For example, an omnipotent being could commit suicide, since to do so is logically possible, but an eternal being, by definition, could not. Hence, the idea of the deity defined by D1 or D6 is incoherent.) Whether or not the given claim is true is here left open. See comments on the concept of "incoherence" made in connection with argument #7, below. (For further material on arguments similar to #3, see Everitt, 2004, Martin, 1990, and Martin and Monnier, 2003, in the bibliography below.)
- The divine attribute of omniscience gives rise to similar considerations, and there is an Incoherence-of-Omniscience Argument that could be raised. (For material on it, see the references above.) That argument, which is omitted here to save space, also has a premise (b) (worded as in argument #3), which introduces issues that are exceedingly complicated and controversial.
4. The Lack-of-evidence Argument (D1, D2, D3, D6):
(a) If God as defined by any of the four definitions in question were to exist, then he would have to be deeply involved in the affairs of humanity and there would be good objective evidence of his existence.
(b) But there is no good objective evidence for the existence of a deity thus defined.
(c) Therefore, God, as defined by D1, D2, D3, or D6, does not exist.
Discussion: The rationale behind premise (a) is that the sort of deity in question, a personal being who rules the universe or who loves humanity (and perhaps wants that love reciprocated), would need to become involved in the affairs of humans and thereby reveal his existence overtly. It might be claimed that God has achieved such involvement just by means of subjective religious experiences, without providing humanity with any good objective evidence of his existence. This assertion could be attacked on the ground that people who claim to have had such experiences are mistaken about the nature and cause of them. It might also be reasonably argued that religious experiences would be insufficient for the given divine purposes, and only good objective (publicly testable) evidence of some sort would do. Argument #4 is a versatile argument that can be widely used by atheists to attack God's existence, given many different definitions of "God."
Another argument similar to #4, sometimes put forward by scientifically oriented atheists, is the Argument from Metaphysical Naturalism, according to which all phenomena ever observed are best explained by appeal to natural causes (Carrier, 2005). Since that premise is a reason to accept naturalism, it provides an evidential argument against God's existence. However, the given premise is an extremely sweeping one and for that reason alone argument #4 would be preferable.
5. The Argument from Evil (D2, D3, D6):
(a) If there were to exist a very powerful, personal being who rules the universe and loves humanity, then there would not occur as much evil (i.e., suffering and premature death) as there does.
(b) But there does occur that much evil.
(c) Therefore, there does not exist such a being.
(d) Hence, God, as defined by D2, D3 or D6, does not exist.
Discussion: This formulation of the argument is a version of what is called "The Logical Argument from Evil." If the word "probably" were to be inserted into steps (a), (c), and (d), then it would be a version of what is called "The Evidential Argument from Evil." Similar considerations arise in connection with the different versions. According to the Free-will Defense, premise (a) is false because God wants people to have free will and that requires that they be able to create evil. The evil that actually occurs in our world is mankind's fault, not God's. Thus, God can still love humanity and be perfectly good despite all the evil that occurs. There are many objections to this defense. One of them is that much of the suffering and premature death that occurs in our world is due to natural causes rather than human choices, and the Free-will Defense would be totally irrelevant to that form of evil. (Drange, 1998.)
6. The Argument from Nonbelief (D3, D6):
(a) If there were to exist a very powerful, personal being who rules the universe, loves humanity, and who strongly desires that his love for humanity be reciprocated, then there would not exist as much nonbelief in the existence of such a being as there does.
(b) But there does exist that much nonbelief.
(c) Therefore, there does not exist such a being.
(d) Hence, God, as defined by D3 or D6, does not exist.
Discussion: As with the Argument from Evil, an "evidential" version of this argument could be constructed by inserting the word "probably" into steps (a), (c), and (d). Similar considerations arise for all the various versions. The argument is directed against the deity defined by D6, as well as the one defined by D3, because evangelical Christians take God to have all the properties mentioned in D3. (For a discussion of the Argument from Nonbelief framed on the basis of definition D6, see Drange, 1993.) Possibly the argument might also be directed against the deity defined by D2, and something like that is attempted in Schellenberg, 1993, though there it would not be quite so forceful.
The rationale behind premise (a) is that nonbelief in God is an impediment to loving him, so a deity as described by definition D3 or D6 would remove that impediment if he were to exist. Defenses similar to those in the case of the Argument from Evil could be raised, and similar objections to them could be presented. (Drange, 1998.)
7. Arguments from Incoherence (D4, D5, D6):
(a) In order for X to explain Y, not only must Y be derivable from X, but the derivation needs to be in some way illuminating.
(b) If X is derived from itself, then the derivation is in no way illuminating.
(c) Thus, it is impossible for anything to explain itself.
(d) God as defined by D4 is supposed to explain itself.
(e) It follows that the idea of "God" as defined by D4 is incoherent.
(f) Furthermore, perfection is relative, and so, the concept of "objectively perfect," as a concept employed in public reasoning, makes no sense.
(g) Hence, the idea of "God" as defined by D5 is also incoherent.
(h) In addition, the Bible contains descriptions of God that are incoherent (e.g., implying both that Jesus is God and that Jesus is God's son, that God is spirit or a spirit and that God is love).
(i) Evangelical Christians interpret those descriptions literally.
(j) Therefore, it might be argued that the idea of "God" as defined by D6 is also incoherent.
Discussion: Unlike the other arguments in this section, these arguments do not aim to prove God's nonexistence, but rather, the incoherence of God-talk when "God" is defined in certain ways. The point is not that theists who employ such God-talk are mistaken about the world, but that they are confused in their language.
The idea of "incoherence" is also sometimes applied to contradictions or other sorts of conceptual incompatibility. For example, arguments #2 & #3, above, could each be regarded as a kind of "argument from incoherence," for they appeal to conceptual incompatibilities between pairs of divine attributes. [This point might also be applicable to definition D5 if theists were to try to combine it with other definitions. For example, if a theist were to claim that God is both perfect (as given in D5) and the creator of the universe (as given in D1), then it might be argued that such a notion is incoherent, since a perfect being can have no wants, whereas a creator must have some wants. Or if a theist were to claim that God is perfect and also loves humanity (as given in D2 & D3), then it might be argued that such a notion is incoherent, since a perfect being can feel no disappointment, whereas a being who loves humanity must feel some disappointment.] However, this notion of "incoherence" is different from that appealed to in the Arguments from Incoherence, for if incompatible properties are ascribed, at least there is a conjunction of propositions there, even if it is a contradictory pair. In that case, it would still make sense to say that the sentence "God exists" expresses a (necessarily) false proposition. But with the sort of "incoherence" appealed to in the Arguments from Incoherence there is no proposition expressed at all, whether true or false. (For more on incompatible-properties arguments against God's existence, see Martin and Monnier, 2003.)
8. The Argument from Confusion (D6):
(a) If the deity described in the Bible as interpreted by evangelical Christianity were to exist, then there would not exist as much confusion and conflictedness among Christians as there does, particularly with regard to important doctrinal issues such as God's laws and the requirements for salvation.
(b) But there does exist that much. (Christians disagree widely among themselves on such issues, as shown, among other things, by the great number of different Christian denominations and sects that exist.)
(c) Therefore, that deity does not exist.
(d) Hence God as defined by D6 does not exist.
Discussion: The rationale behind premise (a) is that the God of evangelical Christianity is a deity who places great emphasis upon awareness of the truth, especially with regard to important doctrinal issues. It is expected, then, that if such a deity were to exist, he would place a high priority upon the elimination of confusion and conflictedness among his own followers with regard to important doctrinal issues. Because of the great abundance of Christian confusion of the relevant sort, this argument is a very forceful one.
9. The Argument from Biblical Defects (D6):
(a) If the deity described in the Bible as interpreted by evangelical Christianity were to exist, then the Bible itself would not have the defects that it has. That is, it would not contain textual errors, interpolations, contradictions, factual errors (including false prophecies), and ethical defects. Also, the canon would have been assembled with less political involvement and would not have original manuscripts or parts missing.
(b) But the Bible does contain those defects.
(c) Therefore, that deity, which is God as defined by D6, does not exist.
Discussion: Premise (a) is based on the point that evangelical Christians regard the Bible to be God's main form of revelation to humanity. So, given that their God exists, it would be expected that the Bible would possess features implied by the motivations which they ascribe to him. Premise (a) follows quite naturally. (For examples of the Bible's defects, see appendix D of Drange, 1998, and Mattill, 1995. For more on arguments #8 & #9, see Drange, "The Arguments from Confusion and Biblical Defects" in the forthcoming Martin and Monnier, 2006.)
10. The Argument from Human Insignificance (D6):
(a) If the deity described in the Bible as interpreted by evangelical Christianity were to exist, then it would be expected that humans occupy some significant place in the universe.
(b) But, both from the standpoint of space (the size of the universe in relation to the size of the earth) and from the standpoint of time (the length of time in which the universe has existed in relation to the length of time in which humans have existed), humans do not occupy any significant place in the universe.
(c) Hence, God, as defined by D6, probably does not exist.
Discussion: The idea behind the first premise here is that the Bible describes God as having a very special interest in humans. Since humans are so important, they should naturally occupy some significant place in space and time. To reject that idea is to reject the evangelical Christian outlook on the nature of reality. (A slightly different version of this argument is referred to as "The Argument from Scale" in Everitt, 2004.)
- There are many other arguments against God's existence. Some are inductive in form (Martin, 1990). Some make appeal to cosmological assumptions (Craig and Smith, 1993). I have here picked just those that I regard to be the main ones.
Summary
The various arguments can be matched up with the six definitions of "God" as follows:
DEFINITION
ARGUMENTS AGAINST GOD
D1
#1-4
D2
#4, #5 (+ possibly #6)
D3
#4-6
D4
#7
D5
#7
D6
#1-10
All theistic arguments for God's existence can be refuted by at least one objection, and all of the definitions of "God" considered here permit God's nonexistence to be established (or else God-talk to be shown incoherent) by at least one argument. Other definitions of "God" are used in ordinary language, but all of them permit God's nonexistence to be established by appeal to similar or analogous considerations. There is much more to be said about the various arguments. The bibliography below supplies some of that and also supplies further references.
Bibliography
Carrier, Richard. Sense & Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2005.
Craig, William Lane and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. God? A Debate Between a Christian and an Atheist. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Craig, William Lane and Quentin Smith. Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Drange, Theodore. "The Argument from Non-belief." Religious Studies 29, 1993.
Drange, Theodore. Nonbelief & Evil: Two Arguments for the Nonexistence of God. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1998.
Drange, Theodore. "The Fine-tuning Argument Revisited." Philo vol. 3, no. 2, 2000.
Everitt, Nicholas. The Non-existence of God. London and New York: Routledge, 2004.
Le Poidevin, Robin. Arguing for Atheism: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. London and New York: Routledge, 1996.
Martin, Michael. Atheism: A Philosophical Justification. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990.
Martin, Michael and Ricki Monnier, eds. The Impossibility of God. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003.
Martin, Michael and Ricki Monnier, eds. The Improbability of God. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2005.
Mattill, A. J., Jr. The Seven Mighty Blows to Traditional Beliefs. Gordo, AL: The Flatwoods Free Press, 1995.
Schellenberg, J.L. Divine Hiddeness and Human Reason. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993.
Sobel, Jordan Howard. Logic and Theism: Arguments For and Against Beliefs in God. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Stenger, Victor J. Has Science Found God? Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003.
-- Ted Drange
---------------
Used by permission of Reggie at The Infidel Guy Show, who also has this posted.
You should read how one of the boys at DC is singlehandedly handling the boys over at Triablogue
on the Legend of Sargon. Evan is awesome!
A University of Central Florida student was manhandled and is now receiving death threats and being accused of hate crimes by his local Catholic diocese after a recent incident at the local church. His crime?
He took the communion wafer he was given back to his seat.
Webster Cook attended Mass at his local Catholic church. He claimed he wanted to show his non-Catholic friend what the wafer looked like, so when the priest gave him the wafer, he started to take it back to his seat. He was grabbed by parishioners and his way was blocked. In order to get back to his seat, he popped the wafer in his mouth. When he returned to his seat, he removed it. A church leader saw him, grabbed his wrist and tried to pry the wafer from his hands. She refused to release him despite repeated demands that she do so, so Cook left the church with the wafer.
Father Migeul Gonzales made a striking comparison of the cracker abduction--"Imagine if they kidnapped somebody and you make a plea for that individual to please return that loved one to the family."
Mr. Cook returned the cracker to the Catholic Church, but that's not enough according to Susan Fani, a spokesperson for the local Cathlic diocese--"[I]f anything were to qualify as a hate crime, to us this seems like this might be it." Mr. Cook claims that he has received death threats over the "incident".
Now please note, this isn't some odd cult in the backwoods of Appalachia. This is the Roman Catholic Church. If ANYTHING can be considered mainstream Christianity, the numbers are on their side. And this isn't some rogue sect off in some uncivilized corner of the world. This is Florida (okay, okay, but it's NEXT TO civilized parts of the world, so I expect better). These aren't some whacked-out parishoners who equate taking a cracker that was freely given to him with kidnapping, or calling the cracker caper a "hate crime". This is an ordained priest and an official spokesperson of the diocese making these claims. Any why? Transubstantiation. They think that this guy literally kidnapped a piece of Jesus (instead of eating him like a good cannibal, I guess).
If anyone dares to tell you that mainstream Christianity doesn't take the mythology literally, just point them to this story. Religious myth isn't just morality stories to many, many mainstream Christians; it's real (yet always unverifiable) fact. Fortunately, no one has died over it yet, although a complaint has been filed with the Student Union at UCF against Mr. Cook and his friend. Also, armed UCF police officers (that Florida residents paid for) are standing guard over the crakers at Mass to ensure that the Catholic Church retains its ability to serve Jesus "dine-in only".
Jeffrey Jay Lowder first alerted me to Dr. Wes Morriston's critiques of the
Kalam Argument for God's existence, saying they were the best critiques of the
Kalam to be found. I agree. They are as far as I know. So imagine my utter surprise when I received Craig's 3rd edition of his "signature" book,
Reasonable Faith, by finding him taking on atheist scholars like J.L. Mackie, Richard M. Gale, Graham Oppy, Howard Sobel, along with
New Atheists like Daniel C. Dennett and Richard Dawkins, only to find that Craig doesn't even mention Morriston's critiques, must less try to respond to them! Morriston's critiques are not to be found in any bibliography in Craig's book, nor is Morriston's name in the index...at all!
Why? What reason can he give for this? I'm sure he'll come up with some reason. But one thing he cannot do is to say he doesn't know about them, because he responded to the first one, but not to the second one!
Maybe, just maybe, Craig is hoping that the popular audience he's writing for in his apologetics book will not see or hear of Morriston's critiques, because after all, they can only be found in the scholarly literature. Most of the readers of his book will never see it. Maybe he thinks he already answered Morriston in his one and only reply? But I do not think he did so at all.
That's where I come in *ahem.* I'm not writing for professional scholars. I've written a counter-apologetics book for the average college student. I'm taking the arguments of the professional scholars and articulating them for the average college student, educated person in the pew, and pastor.
In my book I tell the average college student about Morriston's critiques of the Kalam. That's right. I deal with the Kalam in my book by using Morriston's critiques. The average person will now be able to understand the best critiques of the Kalam when he or she reads my book. Then Dr. Craig will have to respond to Morriston sometime in a debate or in the next edition of this book.
You can read the exchange between Craig and Morriston for yourself. All of the following articles can be found online: Wes Morriston,“Must the Beginning of the Universe Have a Personal Cause?: A Critical Examination of the Kalam Cosmological Argument,” Faith and Philosophy 17, no. 2 (2000): 149–69; William Lane Craig, “Must the Beginning of the Universe Have a Personal Cause?: A Rejoinder”; and Morriston’s counter-reply, “Causes and Beginnings in the Kalam Argument: Reply to Craig,” Faith and Philosophy 19, no. 2 (April 2002): 233–44.
I'd like to thank Ed Babinski and John Loftus for encouraging me to join this blog. You can read my blow-by-blow
story on the Secular Web, but I'll provide a condensed version here.
My parents met and married as evangelical/fundamentalist missionaries in Ethiopia, my birthplace. My parents' missionary career also took us to Liberia and Nigeria, where we remained until I was 16. It was during my ninth grade year at boarding school in Nigeria that I entered into what I considered a personal relationship with Jesus, pouring out my heart to God with earnestness and reading his word (the Bible) daily.
After returning to the U.S., I went on to earn a B.S. in computer science at LeTourneau University, a non-denominational Christian college in east Texas. From there I went on to gain a one-year graduate certificate of biblical studies at Columbia Biblical Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina. Shortly after that I met a young lady who shared my goal of becoming a missionary Bible translator for a language group that did not yet have a translation of the Bible. We married in 1992 and joined Wycliffe Bible Translators in 1993. After the required linguistic training and support-raising, we set off to Europe for French learning before heading to a predominantly Muslim West African country to learn a minority language and translate the Bible into it.
We were still in the language learning process in 2000 when doubts that I had entertained during my college years began to re-surface. I had difficulties with many of the passages in the Old Testament, so I went online in search of apologetic materials to answer my questions. As it turns out, instead of finding anything to help me, I found the opposite: Robert M. Price's online book Beyond Born Again. This sent my faith into a tailspin from which I recovered twice before I finally threw in the towel about nine months after my March 2000 crisis. We left the mission field in the summer of 2000 so I could work through my doubts, but due to my waffling, the mission board requested our resignation in October 2000 (a painful but appropriate decision, in retrospect).
I remained a firm believer in God for about a year after my deconversion from Christianity, considering myself a deist, but gradually moved toward an atheist-leaning agnosticism. For all practical purposes, I am today an atheist, though I suppose I haven't yet grown fully comfortable with the term, preferring labels like freethinker or humanist.
Though my wife of 16 years remains a committed evangelical Christian, we have a relatively strong marriage with no intention of parting ways. We have three children, 13, 11 and 9 who attend church with my wife. At least the older two show some signs of independent thinking. Only time will tell where they end up.
So that's my journey in a nutshell. I do encourage you to read my full story on the Secular Web if you'd like to know more about what brought me down this path. I look forward to engaging with believers and former believers alike. I'm especially interested in knowing what leads some of us to desert the faith and others to remain in it. What is it that makes the difference?
Sarah Cooper (35) of Augusta, Maine, was just another ordinary member of St. Luke’s Catholic Church, along with her husband and their three children. That all changed at a church fish fry on a certain Friday afternoon. Little did Mrs. Cooper know, but she was about to make headlines!
“I was just sitting there, nibbling on my hushpuppies and fries. When I took a bite of my fish sandwich, I started to taste a funny taste. Then I noticed something chewy and gross in my mouth. I got sickened by the grossness and quickly spit it out. That’s when I noticed what it looked like. It looked like a human foreskin!”
And she wasn’t wrong. A human foreskin was indeed found in her fish sandwich, smothered under ketchup, tartar sauce, and a nice helping of mayo. “Well,” said Father Perry Showalter (56), devoted priest of St. Luke’s parish for the last twenty-one years, “at least it didn’t cause the commotion until after everyone finished eating.”
Nicely, Mrs. Cooper agreed to be discreet about the matter until it was brought to the attention of the monsignor, but her husband was none too thrilled about the fact that for a brief moment, his wife was led into involuntary sin by having a part of another man’s penis in her mouth. “It’s a sad day for all religions when a faithful Catholic Christian woman can’t go to church without chewing on another dude’s cock! I’m furious and I want to find out how this happened!” said a red-faced and visibly distraught Matthew Cooper (39), an air force captain and husband of thirteen years to Sarah. “I’ve been a good Catholic all my life, and never have I seen anything like this!”
We understand Mr. Cooper’s rage, and we also want to find out what happened. So we decided to sit down with Father Perry, who was gracious enough to take the time out of his busy schedule to discuss the issue with us at length. Father Perry was not hesitant to put the blame where he said it was due—on his own church for the institution’s timelessly bad habit of going hog-wild for holy relics. In this case, the holy relic was believed to be the foreskin of Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity.
“Well, it’s pretty simple,” Father Perry explained. “The only way the foreskin could have wound up in Mrs. Cooper’s sandwich is because of the recent truckload of foreskins, which was delivered to our church only a week earlier. One of them must have somehow gotten mixed in with the food during meal preparation, that’s all.” Father Perry, seeing our dissatisfaction with his words, elaborated further…
“You see, we are Catholics, and over the years, many Catholic churches have claimed to possess the one true foreskin of our Lord and Savior, along with tons of other “holy” relics that were found to be out-and-out frauds. Our church absolutely loves bombastic claims of the healing power of shrines and holy relics, and despite having some learned sages and scholars among us, our members are still stupider than Jupiter—stupid enough, in fact, to believe that visiting a holy site or touching a holy relic will bring healing and blessings from above.
Now you would think that with all the ‘seeing’ that the Holy See does, that they’d be able to detect what is true and what is false in the department of holy relics. But, as it turns out, God is more interested in having the Virgin Mary appear on tree stumps, making statues bleed, and having our Italian grannies make good garlic and tomato sauces to go with freshly-cooked pasta than he is in certifying accuracy in matters of the divine.
Over the centuries, the Catholic church has been as wrong as a still-working lottery winner on a great number of things, so it shouldn’t surprise us when pious, boy-touching bachelors with deadpan grins, tall hats, and fears of falling victim to chronic masturbation tell us lies. And not only is the Catholic Church filled with liars, but with shameless hypocrites too.
We once burned people alive for denying that un-baptized babies go to Hell, but now we believe precisely the same thing we once condemned others for believing. That’s just how we work. We’re a church of fallible human beings, and we’re no different than any other glorified, gregarious, gaggle of old geezers out there who claim a monopoly on faith and forgiveness.
So, getting back to the matter of the foreskin, the problem is that we can’t say for sure which of the possibly holy foreskins belonged to Jesus, even after many centuries of feuding and quarrelling with rival churches over the issue. To keep from throwing away the true foreskin of God Almighty (and to raise money for the church by having everyone of them put on display so that people will pay to come and see them), we decided to keep them around. Maine’s Roman Catholic Diocese thought it was a good idea to keep the foreskins here, and that is what led to the unfortunate accidental ingesting of the foreskin by Mrs. Cooper.”
When asked what he intends to do about the situation as a means of restitution for Mrs. Cooper, Father Perry replied, “We’ll do the same thing we’ve always done when we mess up—give a formal and somber apology, and then pretend the whole thing never happened. Every time we screw up (and we do often), we just say “I’m sorry,” and it has worked like a charm! No matter how many men we burned alive or stretched on the rack, no matter how many innocent women were tortured and falsely accused of being witches, all we had to do was offer up an apology and it was like spilled milk!
That’s what we did with Galileo, you’ll recall; the church wronged him, and not until many years after his death did the church get around to offering an arid, half-assed apology for it. Well, we intend to be much better to Mrs. Cooper than we were to Galileo by apologizing to her while she is still alive. And here it is for the record (and we’re only going to say it once): We’re sorry, Mrs. Cooper!”
When asked if she felt that the resolution of this matter was sufficient, Mrs. Cooper commented, “Oh yes. Of course, I accept the apology, although I’m having mixed feelings about this; the thought of having another man’s private part in my mouth was very disturbing. But then, I must admit that our church says that the foreskin I had in my mouth might have belonged to Jesus Christ, and if that is the case, I am deeply honored to have had a part of my Savior’s blessed hoo-haa in my unworthy mouth!”
(JH)
Ancient Egypt had a lot of firsts. Resurrection and healing were two of them. In a story that you can read
here Isis the Mother of Horus and the Wife of the
resurrected Osiris, sets the standard for Jesus to follow by healing a sick boy.
Stories of Isis and Osiris precede the development of writing. That means before 3100 BC. I highly recommend that Christians take a college course in Egyptology. Keep in mind the principle that the greater civilization influences the lesser. Some of the things Christians should focus on are Egyptian Mythololgy, the pounding the egyptians gave the Syrians every year for about twenty years (around 1479 - 1425 BC) and the "foreign kings" (1648–1540 BC) that ruled the egyptian Delta.
Link. Thanks to Ed Owens who alerted me to this story.
Leaving your Religion?
or still feeling the effects?
It's not the end of the world!
Join us at a recovery retreat in August, 2008, in Berkeley, CA.
"Release and Reclaim I", Aug. 8-10, will be a supportive retreat for those who are beginning to let go of toxic beliefs and recover from an authoritarian religion such as Christian fundamentalism.
"Release and Reclaim II", Aug. 15-17, will be an advanced weekend for moving beyond religion and reclaiming a life of joy, creativity, and connection. It will be open to those who have already attended a retreat or have done healing work already.
Both retreats are led by Dr. Marlene Winell, author of Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving the Fold. Interested participants are asked to discuss their situation with Marlene first. Both weekends are also open to professionals by special arrangement. Call Dr. Winell at 510-292-0509
More about Marlene Winell is at www.marlenewinell.net.
RELEASE and RECLAIM I: Sorting it out and Healing
Do you feel alone in your struggle for healing? Join us for a powerful weekend with others who can understand and support you. We'll rant and rave, tell our stories, discuss the issues, visualize, role-play, dance and draw – whatever it takes to let go of toxic teachings and reclaim our lives. A joyful, empowered life is your birthright and we will use individual and group processes for learning new directions. Bring your sense of humor and plan to have fun too.
WHEN: FRIDAY, August 8, 7PM until SUNDAY, August 10, 3PM
RELEASE and RECLAIM II: Growing and Thriving
Have you left your religion behind but you're not sure what's next? Join others who are feeling liberated and wanting to rebuild a life that allows full, creative expression of who you are. We'll help each other with courage and confidence dealing with "the world," sharing our experiences and doing exercises for tapping into inner resources of wisdom, love, and strength – perhaps more than you ever expected if you were taught to be dependant!
We'll look at issues of enjoying life now instead of later, sexuality, "spirituality," and relationships. In a supportive group, we'll use art, movement, and visualization as well as discussion. Bring your wild and worldly self and plan to have a great time.
WHEN: FRIDAY, August 15, 7PM until SUNDAY, August 17, 3PM.
BOTH RETREATS:
WHERE: A beautiful house in Berkeley, California, with hot tub and other amenities. The closest airport is Oakland, and we can help you with connections from there.
COST: $320 for the workshop, $125 for room and board. $445 total. $25 discount given for full payment by July 20. Financial need considered and options available.
TO REGISTER: Contact Marlene Winell for a telephone discussion about your interest. Send an email to mwinell@gmail.com or call 510-292-0509. $100 deposit will then secure a space. Register soon as group size is limited to 8.
Note: These retreats are designed to help develop networks of support that extend beyond a single weekend. With time for sharing meals and relaxing in a house together, participants often make lasting friends - face to face, not virtual! We also have an online group and conference calls as a follow-up support system.
Read comments about a previous retreat at: http://marlenewinell.net/
This is a datum to support my assertion that Biological Bases for Behaviors are incorrectly interpreted as "Sin" and that we don't have as much free will as we think we do. The new field of Epigenetics is documenting that regulating gene expression in the brain affects how susceptible we are to maladies such as depression, anxiety and drug addiction.
One viewpoint that I keep pushing around here is that we don't have as much free will as we think we do. I argue that the brain is an electrochemical device where millions of tiny biological switches accept combinations of thousands of analog signals that interact together to turn processes on and off to produce what we call "our self". Now I know there is lot a packed into that statement (presumptions and all) but I want to focus on one molecular mechanism that is a part of all of that.
First, a layman's description of Genes and Gene expression.
What is a Gene?
Genes are a smaller component of DNA. It is made up of combinations of chemicals units called A (Adenine), T (Thymine), G (Guanine) and C (Cytosine). Chromatin proteins called histones compact and organize DNA to form chromosomes. Chromosomes are made up of DNA and reside in the nucleus of a Cell. Chromosomes guide the interactions between DNA and other proteins.
Genes carry chemical information that is used by the cells to collectively determine their characteristics. Each cell contains from 20,000 to 25,000 genes attached to a strand of DNA coiled up into a chromosome, sitting in the nucleus of a cell.
One estimate I found states that there are between 75 to 100 trillion cells that make up the human body. Only in the brain there are estimated to be 100 billion cells interconnected by trillions of synapses (http://www.livescience.com/mysteries/070405_brain_use.html).
Gene Expression
Our genes form the blue prints for proteins. Our bodies are built on proteins, just like a nicely marbled rib eye steak. Accordingly our brains are built on proteins. Every cell has every gene, but each cell only uses a subset of those genes. For a gene to be "expressed" it must be accessed by a chemical catalyst to cause the formation of an RNA molecule. The RNA is then used to make a protein, and the cell uses the protein to carry out its purpose in life, whatever that may be. In the brain, the purpose is to run your body in the background without any conscious effort or knowledge of it on your part and to produce the various stages of consciousness you experience between sleep to stressing out in traffic. Don't forget that while you are stressing out in traffic and worrying about that slow person in your way, you are still listening to the radio, working the pedals, breathing, remembering to call someone when you get in, etc. There's a lot going on that you are not conscious of so it is not accurate to say that YOU are in control, but it is accurate to say that your sense of self is one of those processes going on in the brain that you are not of aware of or even know how to manipulate. But those process are manipulated automatically biologically by a wide range of bodily process which include hormones produced by your organs (the endocrine system). Your brain gets feedback from your organs and it is regulated by them whether you like it or want it or not. Your brain reacts to stimulus and is regulated by the various chemicals that are set into motion as a result. Your experience in traffic changes your mind, your mood, your attitude, your thoughts, your wishes, your desires whether you like it or not. Those molecules that are the catalyst for creating RNA molecules are released, and they go about feeding the cells that your brain is using to handle your traffic experience. Your performance, your emotion, your mood, you thoughts, your access to your memories and your sense of self depends on how well those molecular processes work.
For an RNA molecule to be produced, a chromosome "unravels" (remember that a chromosome is coiled up DNA) to permit the catalyst molecules access to the sequence of ATGC that it is made up of. To "silence" a gene, is to prevent the interaction of the catalyst by preventing it from getting to the uncoiled part of the chromosome or from preventing the chromosome from uncoiling. The body does this on its own, your 'self' doesn't have any choice in the matter, whether it works properly or not. In fact, you or your personality can be modified and you won't even realize it. Just like gene expression causes your pancreas to work properly to do what it is supposed to do, gene expression causes your brain to work properly to do what is supposed to do which is run the processes in your body (such as your sense of self), and create your physical and emotional characteristics that everyone else knows as "YOU".
Now the Hard questions. Were does the soul fit into this? What is "the Soul"? Is the Soul "the personality"? Is the Soul the "I" in "I am alive"? If the personality/soul likes chocolate or to harm animals, can it stop liking those things? Why do people like anything? Am I responsible for things that I like? How do we turn "liking" on or off?
I'll buy a beer for anyone that can tell me why chocolate is so appealing to people. I know why, I'm just looking for audience participation.
One way to turn "liking" off is by manipulating the brain. Its bound to be more reliable than praying and there's no worrying about whether you've got the right god or not.
Nature versus Nurture.
We have been living with this concept since as long as I can remember. What makes one tomato more tasty than another or one person more amicable than another? Finally we know, it is a feedback loop between nature and nurture and we have identified one mechanism by which it happens. Now that this mechanism is revealed, scientists hope to develop treatments for maladies such as drug addiction, schizophrenia, depression and anxiety. Maybe one day they can discover where a specific desire originates from. Maybe one day it can be used to rehabilitate criminals. Maybe one day they can fix the Limbic Systems in psychopaths or make sociopaths more compassionate. Maybe one day they can give me something that will allow me to like mushrooms.
If I were to take a liking to harming animals, and I acted on that, then I am responsible and should be stopped, not necessarily for punishment because punishment may not mean anything to me, but I should be stopped simply to prevent more harm. However, if I have the desire, but do not act on it, since it is "in my heart" the bible says that I am still responsible for it. The desire is born in the brain, electrochemically, and subject to the "nature vs nurture" feedback loop. Since this feedback loop is verifiable, and predictable to a degree, and at least one mechanism for how it works has been identified, to say that human kind is accountable to the creator for "its sin" is as ridiculous as to say that I am responsible for how ugly I am or I am responsible for my dislike of mushrooms or that I even have a choice in the matter.
For further reading
Scientific American Mind, June 2008
* The New Genetics of Mental Illness (subscription or print only)
* Unmasking Memory Genes (subscription or print only)
* Addicted to Starvation: The Neurological Roots of Anorexia
From me on DC
* Reasonable Doubt About Sin: Biological Bases for Behavior
* Sin, Genes, Sugars and Alcohol
* Brains "Trust Machinery" Identified
* "When Our Vices Get the Better of Us"
* Negativity Is Contagious, Study Finds
* Schizophrenia Candidate Genes Affect Even Healthy Individuals
* Brain atrophy in elderly leads to unintended Racism, Depression and Gambling
Early this morning I happened to see Kenneth Copeland talking with another preacher about faith. It disturbed me and discouraged me. It became clear to me while listening in for about ten minutes of wasted time that Christianity is here to stay. Just as Christianity survived the attacks of Voltaire, Thomas Paine, Nietzsche, Robert Ingersoll, and Bertrand Russell, it will survive the attacks of skeptics in our day. That’s both disturbing and discouraging to me. Christians have told the oft repeated story of how an anvil has broken many a hammer, and just like the anvil, the Bible as God’s anvil will break any hammer attack by skeptics. Christians tout the claim that skeptics have come and gone but the Bible has withstood every attack. Yes it has. And it will survive, perhaps easily. It’s an impossibly tough nut to crack, but not for the reasons Christians tout. Not because the Bible is true. Not because the evidence is on the believer’s side. But because of faith, fear and ignorance.
Copeland said faith was an action word. It's not. It's a noun. Verbs are action words. He said if someone yells "fire" in a theatre, the man who sniffs and says he doesn't smell any smoke and who looks and doesn't see any fire, will die if he doesn't get out. He said "I'm not gonna die because of my nose. I'm gonna believe God's word." This scenario is a non-analogous one, because it presumes that the person yelling "fire" is telling the truth even when the initial evidence seems to be against it. People have been known to yell "fire" in a crowded theatre when there is no fire.
During the brief time I was watching him it became crystal clear to me he is ignorant. He is ignorant about the Bible, philosophy, and history, to name just a few things. I don’t write about televangelists, because my aim is much higher that that. I usually aim at the premier apologists and Christian philosophers of our day. But these televangelists have a great many watchers and donors enough for some of them to be rich. This may be a better indicator of the level of understanding of the person in the pew than others. Ministries like his flourish because there are a great many ignorant believers with money. Even as a minister I tried to argue with my congregations that their offerings would be better used in the local church and on the mission field than on televangelists, and I said that prior to the Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker debacles.
Maybe the main motivator that keeps believers from being informed is that they have a fear of doubt which can lead to hell, I don’t know for sure. Maybe it’s anti-intellectualism, since the Bible disparages reason in favor of faith. Maybe it’s the desire to be "fully persuaded" in order to please their God, which doesn’t allow them to entertain any doubts or question their faith. Again, of that it might depend on the individual believer. But they are ignorant. Millions of them.
I think there are several areas of study which could provide the antidote to this ignorance. Maybe many believers just do not read the Bible. Chris Hallquist is right. When asked after a debate which books he would recommend, he said, “read the Bible.” Why? Because it debunks itself. It contains the reflections of ancient superstitious and barbaric people. Christian, have you read the Old Testament? Have you read Judges 19-21, seen here (scroll down)? One of my goals here at DC is to help believers become biblically literate for this very reason.
Copeland talks about the Bible being the word of God, but has he done any study at all in the five stages of Gospel transmission (scroll down), or has he really wrestled with the Biblical inconsistencies? I didn’t think so.
I think Copeland should also look into the history of the church which demolishes evangelicalism. He should look into the history of theology too, and he can even read evangelical Roger E. Olson’s treatment of it, to see how theology has been fought over and changed through the years. He should look into how theologians down through the years have interpreted the Bible, by reading evangelical Donald K. McKim’s edited book, Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters. It’s simply ignorant of Copeland to be that cocksure of his particular theology and his particular interpretation of the Bible, even by the standard of better informed evangelical writers (who, by the way, do not draw the proper conclusions necessitated by their own studies, presuming as they do that they've finally got it right when they admit it's an ongoing and ever-changing venture).
Copeland should also try to understand the history of Christian ethics, by reading J. Philip Wogman’s book, Christian Ethics: A Historical Introduction (Westminister Press, 1993). Christian believers who claim they alone have a standard of ethics should go to the library and read that book. They don’t have one. There isn’t any evidence they do.
That’s enough for now. But I think Christianity will survive our attacks because of ignorance. It’s not because our arguments have been defeated. So I commit myself and hope other skeptics (and believers) will join me in stamping out ignorance. I'm not afraid of this. Are you?
Link. The author uses the term "theists" to refer to religious believers. This is interesting,
ScienceDaily (June 27, 2008) — New exquisitely preserved fossils from Latvia cast light on a key event in our own evolutionary history, when our ancestors left the water and ventured onto land. Swedish researcher Per Ahlberg from Uppsala University and colleagues have reconstructed parts of the animal and explain the transformation in the new issue of Nature.
It has long been known that the first backboned land animals or "tetrapods" - the ancestors of amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, including ourselves - evolved from a group of fishes about 370 million years ago during the Devonian period. However, even though scientists had discovered fossils of tetrapod-like fishes and fish-like tetrapods from this period, these were still rather different from each other and did not give a complete picture of the intermediate steps in the transition.
In 2006 the situation changed dramatically with the discovery of an almost perfectly intermediate fish-tetrapod, Tiktaalik, but even so a gap remained between this animal and the earliest true tetrapods (animals with limbs rather than paired fins). Now, new fossils of the extremely primitive tetrapod Ventastega from the Devonian of Latvia cast light on this key phase of the transition.
"Ventastega was first described from fragmentary material in 1994; since then, excavations have produced lots of new superbly preserved fossils, allowing us to reconstruct the whole head, shoulder girdle and part of the pelvis", says Professor Per Ahlberg at the Department of Physiology and Developmental Biology, Uppsala University.
The recontructions made by Professor Ahlberg and Assistant Professor Henning Blom together with British and Latvian colleagues show that Ventastega was more fish-like than any of its contemporaries, such as Acanthostega. The shape of its skull, and the pattern of teeth in its jaws, are neatly intermediate between those of Tiktaalik and Acanthostega.
"However, the shoulder girdle and pelvis are almost identical to those of Acanthostega, and the shoulder girdle is quite different from that of Tiktaalik (the pelvis of Tiktaalik is unknown), suggesting that the transformation from paired fins to limbs had already occurred. It appears that different parts of the body evolved at different speeds during the transition from water to land", says Per Ahlberg.
Above: This lower jaw with teeth is one of the new fossils of Ventastega found in Latvia. Photo: Ivars Zupins, Latvian Museum of Natural History. Below: Reconstruction of Ventastega in side view. With the help of new, superbly preserved fossils, Per Ahlberg and his colleagues have been able to reconstruct the whole head, shoulder girdle and part of the pelvis. The silhouette is based on fossils of one of its contemporaries, Acanthostega, Scale bar 10 cm. Picture: Per Ahlberg. (Credit: Image courtesy of Uppsala University)
Relics of Machabees Venerated at Church of St Peter’s Chains For 1500 Years Were Dog Bones
While reading about the Machabees, I ran across the following in the Answers.com encyclopedia entry.
"The history of the supposed relics of the Machabees is obscure: it is not known either when or by whom they were brought to Rome, where they were housed in the church of St. Peter's Chains. Modin and Antioch, according to Jerome, also claimed their relics. In the 1930s it was discovered that the 7 bones at Rome believed to be theirs were in reality canine remains; so they were immediately withdrawn from the veneration of the faithful."
Link to cite on Answers.com
It seems to be the case that knowledge amongst devout Catholics includes assertions about Jerome's report of the transfer of the bones from Antioch to Rome.
"Before the reform of the General Roman Missal today was the feast of St. Peter's Chains. It celebrated the dedication of the basilica of St. Peter ad Vincula in Rome which was built in about 432 on the Esquiline Hill in Rome and consecrated on August 1. It was also the commemoration of the Holy Maccabees. The seven Machabees were brothers martyred with their mother under Antiochus Epiphanes in about the year 150 before Christ. There is an account of their wonderful death in the Old Testament. Their relics venerated at Antioch in the time of St. Jerome, were translated to Rome in the sixth century, to the church of St. Peter's Chains."
Link to Cite on catholicculture.org
If Jerome (347-420) can be trusted, then the dog bones were venerated by the faithful for approximately 1500 years before someone noticed they were dog bones. :)
If the Christian God does exist, then why did not the so called Holy Spirit see fit to inform some high ranking cleric that his flock was venerating dog bones instead of pre-Christian martyr bones? If there is an actual spiritual reality to Christianity, wouldn't the Christian God be keen on preventing snafus such as the Machabeeian-dog-bone mix up? Although this incident was corrected in the 1930's, still for 1500 years, many millions of deeply faith believing religious people were venerating dog bones. If a Holy Spirit exists and if it infuses and indwells the central emotional-intellectual core of the Christian Believer, then it would assuredly have acted in accordance with its alleged guiding purpose to have all humans come to Christian belief. To that end, it would, if it were to be a rational and reasoning being, act accordingly in harmony to that end by ensuring Christians hold a proper, correct, and uniform set of doctrines. By proper and correct, I mean doctrines that do not include absurdities like worshiping or venerating dog bones.
According to adherents.com reporting that the “World Christian Encyclopedia”, by David B. Barrett published by Oxford University Press informs the reader that: The 2001 edition, successor to his 1983 first edition, which took a decade to compile, identifies 10,000 distinct religions, of which 150 have 1 million or more followers. Within Christianity, he counts 33,830 denominations.
With so many Christian denominations and sects it seems unlikely that an actual set of doctrines can be identified as being the norm. Despite this and even if we were to presume that 99% of all these groups were self-deluded, there would remain in excess of 330 sects. Of those, the divergence of opinion is very likely profound. It seems intuitively obvious that it would be difficult to find a majority that share common kerygma, soteriology, Christology, and eschatology. This is not at all what is expected if there were to be an actual existing lattice structuring Christian Theology. The evident schizophrenic diversity of doctrinaire opinion within “Christianity”, nevertheless, constitutes just what is expected under naturalism and atheism. This is strong evidence that Christianity is false.
Chris Sandoval wrote a fine essay that is featured on the front page of infidels.org. Included here is the opening paragraph and a link to the page. One of the main proofs proffered by Christianity is its allegations that Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled Old Testament prophecies such that he is the Messiah. Sandoval points out that the writer of Hebrews took Jeremiah 31 out of context and twisted the text to make it imply a prophecy of a new covenant. Sandoval then explains how and why the Hebraic author got it wrong.
"The New Testament authors frequently manufactured prophecies about Jesus by twisting Old Testament passages out of context to make them say things the original authors never intended. The Old Testament prophets had nothing to say about Jesus, who lived many centuries after their time; they only spoke about the concerns of their own times, as we read in treatises by Jim Lippard on the Secular Web[1], and American patriot and deist Thomas Paine[2]. Here we examine one spectacular but commonly overlooked example of misquoted prophecy--Jeremiah's prophecy of the New Covenant.[3]"
Jeremiah's New Covenant vs. Christianity
Why do so many Christians use God of the Gaps arguments even though they intuitively understand that sort of argument is fallacious? In this short essay, I take a shot at answering my question.
God of the gaps arguments are often used by religious believers to assert their god exists. Such arguments, in my experience, have often had the following form.
1. Human knowledge does not include X.
2. It is impossible for X to be caused or explained under naturalism.
3. Therefore, God did it.
The believer's burden of proof for premise 1 is to show that the relevant scientific literature does not include X. The believer must show an exhaustive survey of the relevant scientific literature to support their first premise. Any failure to show a dearth of knowledge dooms the argument.
In order to validly make premise 2, the believer must have omniscient knowledge of all natural phenomena to rule out any possibility of natural causation. This neither the believer nor any other person can do, for human beings are not omniscient. Conceptually, the Uniformity of Nature is secure. No instance of a supernatural explanation supplanting a natural cause has ever been observed. The converse, however, has been witnessed many times. The history of science is the history of sweeping away superstitions, of showing alleged supernatural explanations to be not even wrong. The context of supernaturalism is not the context of reality. Fantasies of gods, demons, angels, spirits, magic, fairies, incorporeal beings and such can neither be right nor wrong, for they are not part of or even related to reality. (Additionally, it is amusing to note that by making premise 2, believers blaspheme their idea of God by predicating they are omniscient. Comparing their minds to God or asserting they are God constitutes blasphemy.)
Even if the first two premises were sound, the conclusion would not follow. Under a supernatural worldview, there are an infinite number of invisible magic beings or other causes that could be responsible for a given phenomenon. Most religionists actively seek to gloss over this uncomfortable fact of their worldview. Their feeble protestations notwithstanding, the preeminent standing granted to the primacy of consciousness and mere alleged possibility renders any "god of the gaps" conclusion Non Sequitur.
Despite the obvious irrationality of this type of argument, religious believers continue to predicate their assertions at least in part thereupon. Why? If what they believe is so believable, then why do they believe by faith what is propped up by obvious and ostensively fallacious arguments? Blank out. Could it be that what the religious believer claims is not actually believable?
What does it mean for something to be believable? The primary definition of believable is "to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so".
What does it mean to say that something is the truth? The first three definitions of truth are:
1. the true or actual state of a matter:
2. conformity with fact or reality; verity: .
3. a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like:
For something to be believable human beings must be able to have confidence or reliability that the given proposition is the actual state of the matter that is in conformity with the fact of reality in the sense of a verified and indisputable objective event. What must the religious believer do in order to be confident that what she believes is actually believable – actually in conformity with the fact of reality? The believer, if she is to be honest with herself, must accurately compare her faith propositions with actual reality and accept only those propositions comparing favorably. But if the believer does not need absolute proof of being right in so doing, then she need not be concerned that any proposition she believes "true" be only probably in conformity with the fact of reality. By accepting as absolutely true propositions that only probably compare favorably with the fact of reality, is the believer not disrobing the primacy of existence of meaning? In so doing the believer is finding a back door to a primacy of consciousness fantasy and thereby reversing the proper epistemological subject-object order of her own consciousness.
With a subject of thought-object of thought reversal in hand, it then becomes child's play to hold god of the gaps arguments as valid and sound reasons to believe. By ascribing a probability of truth to god of the gaps arguments, the believer inculcates a sense of correctness for her propositions and justifies ignoring any lack in comparing correctly with reality. This vivifies her subject of thought-object of thought epistemic reversal. Self-purposed feedback loops tend to reinforce themselves on each run. A hysteresis effect ameliorates such feedback, yet as the loop progresses, the facts of reality dim. For that reason, it is vitally important for human beings to ground their cognition to the metaphysically actual and accept only that which is demonstratively in conformity with fact or reality. Thus lack of knowledge should lead us to be skeptical of the claims of god believers.
Dinesh D'Souza in his bestselling book,
What's So Great About Christianity? offers a simplistic answer to the problem of Genesis chapter one. This is what he wrote:
The Big Bang resolves one of the apparent contradictions in the book of Genesis. For more than two centuries, critics of the Bible have pointed out that in the beginning--on the first day--God created light. Then on the fourth day God separated the night from the day. The problem is pointed out by philosopher Leo Strauss: "Light is presented as preceding the sun." Christians have long struggled to explain this anomaly but without much success. The writer of Genesis seemed to have made an obvious mistake.
Dinesh offers the solution Christians everywhere have been waiting for:But it turns out there is no mistake. The universe was created in a burst of light fifteen years ago. Our sun and our planet came into existence billions of years later. So light did indeed precede the sun. The first reference to light in Genesis 1:3 can be seen to refer to the Big Bang itself. The separation of the day and the night described in Genesis 1:4 clearly refers to the formation of the sun and the earth...The Genesis enigma is solved..." (p. 123)
But Dinesh is badly mistaken for many reasons. Let me merely mention just one of them. On Day One God created light, which, Dinesh says represents the Big Bang. Then on Day Two God is doing something on earth, he creates the firmament and separates the waters on earth from those in the heavens. On Day Three God again is doing something on earth. He makes dry land appear. When we finally get to Day Four God already has an earth, a firmament, and dry land. But on Day Four we see God creating the universe of sun, moon and stars. This "solution" of his is no solution at all, for if Dinesh wants to harmonize the Big Bang with Genesis then he must try to harmonize all of it. And according to modern astronomy there were already stars and galaxies before there was an earth, or at least, they were all formed at the same time. If the earth existed before the universe of stars and galaxies, which were supposedly created on the fourth day, this contradicts what we know from the evidence of the Big Bang itself.
A joke from commenter drow ranger:
A guy's sitting on his roof, waiting for rescue from an overflowing river. A boat comes by, and the guy refuses to get in the boat, saying "God will save me". Another boat comes along and he says the same thing, choosing to stay on the roof. Finally a helicopter comes, and guy still says, "God will save me." Copter goes away, guy drowns. Guy's in heaven, saying to God "Why didn't you save me?" God says, "What are you talking about? I sent you two boats and a helicopter!"
I've heard this joke many times when theists want to make a point about how God moves through the mundane. But let's poke at this joke a little bit from the perspective of someone who is not omnipotent and who does not get to hear God give the punchline at the end--you know, regular people. What role does faith in God play in this anecdote? The only thing faith in God does is keep that man on the house to drown--an atheist would have been saved. This is the point we have been making all along; all faith is going to do is keep you on that house to drown. Until God is willing to have a clear dialogue to let you know EXACTLY what He means (not a monologue like all theists experience now), then you shouldn't trust what you THINK His promises are going to be; trust your fellow man who's trying to get you off of that house before you drown.
"Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools?" Obama said. "Would we go with James Dobson's or Al Sharpton's?" referring to the civil rights leader.
Dobson took aim at examples Obama cited in asking which Biblical passages should guide public policy — chapters like Leviticus, which Obama said suggests slavery is OK and eating shellfish is an abomination, or Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, "a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application."
"Folks haven't been reading their Bibles," Obama said.
I have always had my suspicions that he is an atheist. His mother, father, and stepfather were all indifferent or hostile toward religion.
READ THE ARTICLE
1.
Oystein Elgaroy, a professor of astrophysics who formerly defended the Christian faith has become an Atheist. 2.
William Lobdell was an Evangelical Christian journalist covering the religion beat for years before he left the fold. 3) Daniel Florien, of the new blog UnreasonableFaith.com (reminicent of William Lane Craig's book title) attended Bible college to be a pastor. Here is one of his posts denying
the virgin birth of Jesus.
Transcript of Rev. Billy Graham's conversation with Rev. Schuller on "The Hour of Power" TV program:
Schuller: "Tell me, what is the future of Christianity?"
Billy Graham: "Well, Christianity and being a true believer, you know, I think there's the body of Christ which comes from all the Christian groups around the world, or outside the Christian groups. I think that everybody that loves Christ or knows Christ, whether they're conscious of it or not, they're members of the body of Christ. And I don't think that we're going to see a great sweeping revival that will turn the whole world to Christ at any time. What God is doing today is calling people out of the world for His name. Whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world, or the non-believing world,
they are members of the body of Christ because they've been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus, but they know in their hearts they need something that they don't have and they turn to the only light they have and I think they're saved and they're going to be with us in heaven." [So Graham has apparently adopted the "anonymous Christian" view defended by liberal Catholic theologians like Hans Kung. I also suspect that Graham's view may have been influenced by seeing good friends die without becoming born again Evangelical Christians, including lifelong friend and fellow-evangelist-turned-agnostic, Charles Templeton, succumb to Alzheimer's.--E.T.B.]
Schuller: "What I hear you saying is that it's possible for Jesus Christ to come into a human heart and soul and life even if they've been born in darkness and have never had exposure to the Bible. Is that a correct interpretation of what you're saying?"
Graham: "Yes it is because I believe that. I've met people in various parts of the world in tribal situations that they have never seen a Bible or heard about a Bible, have never heard of Jesus but they've believed in their hearts that there is a God and they tried to live a life that was quite apart from the surrounding community in which they lived."
Schuller: "This is fantastic. I'm so thrilled to hear you say that. There's a wideness in God's mercy.
Graham: There is. There definitely is."
[SOURCE: The Hour of Power television program #1426, "Say 'Yes' To Possibility Thinking," aired May 32, 1997]
"When asked whether he believes heaven will be closed to good Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus or secular people... Graham says:
'Those are decisions only the Lord will make. It would be foolish for me to speculate on who will be there and who won't... I don't want to speculate about all that. I believe the love of God is absolute. He said he gave his son for the whole world, and I think he loves everybody regardless of what label they have.'"
[SOURCE: Jon Meacham, Pilgrim’s Progress: In the Twilight, Billy Graham Shares What He’s Learned in Reflecting on Politics and Scripture, Old Age and Death, Mysteries and Moderation, Newsweek, Oct. 15, 2007]
Check out these videos concerning Billy Graham on YouTube:
This one provides the above "Hour of Power" video.
On Larry King Live
John MacArthur talking about Billy Graham's stance.
OTHER WAYS IN WHICH GRAHAM'S VIEWS HAVE MELLOWED OVER THE YEARS
Rev. Graham was caught on the “Nixon tapes” complaining to the president about “the Jews” and their “stranglehold” on the media, and blaming them for “all the pornography.” Even after the president replied that he agreed but “you can’t say that” in public, Graham pressed the point: Yes, right, but if you get elected to a second term, then we could do something about the problem. Graham added that while many Jews were friendly to him, “they don’t know how I really feel about what they are doing to this country.” [After the Nixon tapes came to light Graham said he had no memory of ever having said such a thing, but none the less he apologized profusely multiple times after hearing them for himself.]
[SOURCE: David Vest, The Rebel Angel, ‘They Don’t Know How I Really Feel’ Billy Graham, Tangled Up in Tape, March 5, 2002, Counterpunch]
In 1965, Billy Graham dismissed demonstrations for peace in Vietnam, saying, “It seems the only way to gain attention today is to organize a march and protest something.”
[SOURCE: Jon Meacham, Pilgrim’s Progress: In the Twilight, Billy Graham Shares What He’s Learned in Reflecting on Politics and Scripture, Old Age and Death, Mysteries and Moderation, Newsweek]
Rev. Graham was caught on the Nixon tapes giving a wholehearted thumbs up to the controversial plan by some of president Nixon’s military advisors to “bomb the damns” in North Vietnam which would have drowned many and starved a million or more North Vietnamese by draining the water used for their rice paddies. (The plan was never carried out.)
[SOURCE: Alexander Cockburn, The Lord’s Avenger: When Billy Graham Wanted to Kill One Million People, March 12, 2002, Counterpunch]
A major survey by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that most Americans have a non-dogmatic approach to faith. A majority of those who are affiliated with a religion, for instance, do not believe their religion is the only way to salvation.And almost the same number believes that there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their religion. This openness to a range of religious viewpoints is in line with the great diversity of religious affiliation, belief and practice that exists in the United States, as documented in a survey of more than 35,000 Americans that comprehensively examines the country’s religious landscape.
This is not to suggest that Americans do not take religion seriously. The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey also shows that more than half of Americans say religion is very important in their lives, attend religious services regularly and pray daily. Furthermore, a plurality of adults who are affiliated with a religion want their religion to preserve its traditional beliefs and practices rather than either adjust to new circumstances or adopt modern beliefs and practices. Moreover, significant minorities across nearly all religious traditions see a conflict between being a devout person and living in a modern society.
The Landscape Survey confirms the close link between Americans' religious affiliation, beliefs and practices, on the one hand, and their social and political attitudes, on the other. Indeed, the survey demonstrates that the social and political fault lines in American society run through, as well as alongside, religious traditions. The relationship between religion and politics is particularly strong with respect to political ideology and views on social issues such as abortion and homosexuality, with the more religiously committed adherents across several religious traditions expressing more conservative political views. On other issues included in the survey, such as environmental protection, foreign affairs, and the proper size and role of government, differences based on religion tend to be smaller.
Religion in America: Non-Dogmatic, Diverse and Politically Relevant
Most Americans agree with the statement that many religions – not just their own – can lead to eternal life. Among those who are affiliated with a religious tradition, seven-in-ten say many religions can lead to eternal life. This view is shared by a majority of adherents in nearly all religious traditions, including more than half of members of evangelical Protestant churches (57%). Only among Mormons (57%) and Jehovah’s Witnesses (80%) do majorities say that their own religion is the one true faith leading to eternal life.
Most Americans also have a non-dogmatic approach when it comes to interpreting the tenets of their own religion. For instance, more than two-thirds of adults affiliated with a religious tradition agree that there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their faith, a pattern that occurs in nearly all traditions. The exceptions are Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, 54% and 77% of whom, respectively, say there is only one true way to interpret the teachings of their religion.
The lack of dogmatism in American religion may well reflect the great diversity of religious affiliation, beliefs and practices in the U.S. For example, while more than nine-in-ten Americans (92%) believe in the existence of God or a universal spirit, there is considerable variation in the nature and certainty of this belief. Six-in-ten adults believe that God is a person with whom people can have a relationship; but one-in-four – including about half of Jews and Hindus – see God as an impersonal force. And while roughly seven-in-ten Americans say they are absolutely certain of God’s existence, more than one-in-five (22%) are less certain in their belief.
A similar pattern is evident in views of the Bible. Nearly two-thirds of the public (63%) takes the view that their faith’s sacred texts are the word of God. But those who believe Scripture represents the word of God are roughly evenly divided between those who say it should be interpreted literally, word for word (33%), and those who say it should not be taken literally (27%). And more than a quarter of adults – including two-thirds of Buddhists (67%) and about half of Jews (53%) – say their faith’s sacred texts are written by men and are not the word of God.
The diversity in religious beliefs and practices in the U.S. in part reflects the great variety of religious groups that populate the American religious landscape. The survey finds, for example, that some religious groups – including Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and members of historically black and evangelical Protestant churches – tend to be more likely to report high levels of religious engagement on questions such as the importance of religion in their lives, certainty of belief in God and frequency of attendance at religious services. Other Christian groups – notably members of mainline Protestant churches and Catholics – are less likely to report such attitudes, beliefs and practices. And still other faiths – including Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims – exhibit their own special mix of religious beliefs and practices.
The Landscape Survey also reveals that people who are not affiliated with a particular religious tradition do not necessarily lack religious beliefs or practices. In fact, a large portion (41%) of the unaffiliated population says religion is at least somewhat important in their lives, seven-in-ten say they believe in God, and more than a quarter (27%) say they attend religious services at least a few times a year.
The findings of the Landscape Survey underscore the importance of affiliation with a particular tradition for understanding not only people’s religious beliefs and practices but also their basic social and political views. For instance, Mormons and members of evangelical churches tend to be more conservative in their political ideology, while Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and atheists tend to be more politically liberal than the population overall. But the survey shows that there are important differences within religious traditions as well, based on a number of factors, including the importance of religion in people’s lives, the nature and certainty of their belief in God, and their frequency of prayer and attendance at worship services.
One of the realities of politics in the U.S. today is that people who regularly attend worship services and hold traditional religious views are much more likely to hold conservative political views while those who are less connected to religious institutions and more secular in their outlook are more likely to hold liberal political views.
The connection between religious intensity and political attitudes appears to be especially strong when it comes to issues such as abortion and homosexuality. About six-in-ten Americans who attend religious services at least once a week say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, while only about three-in-ten who attend less often share this view. This pattern holds across a variety of religious traditions. For instance, nearly three-in-four (73%) members of evangelical churches who attend church at least once a week say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, compared with only 45% of members of evangelical churches who attend church less frequently.
These are among the key findings of a major survey on religion and American life conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life between May 8 and Aug. 13, 2007, among a representative sample of more than 35,000 Americans. The first report based on the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey was issued in February 2008 and focused on the religious affiliation of the American people, including the impact of immigration and changes in affiliation. This report provides information on the core religious beliefs and practices as well as the basic social and political views of the various religious traditions in the U.S. as well as people who are not affiliated with a particular religion.
The report includes information on members of many religious groups – such as Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, atheists and agnostics – that are too small to be analyzed in most public opinion surveys. More detailed tables, provided in an appendix to this report, also summarize the basic beliefs, practices, and social and political attitudes of a dozen Protestant denominational families and 25 of the largest Protestant denominations in the U.S. These detailed tables also include information on what the survey classifies as “other Christians,” which includes such smaller groups as Spiritualists and other Metaphysical Christians, as well as on members of a variety of other faiths, including Unitarians and New Age groups.
Just a few hours ago, I got some very, very bad news. I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach when I read it. My eyes saw it, but seemed slow to want to comprehend it. “How could it be?” I said to myself. “He had such high energy, such vibrancy, such a house-rocking stage presence!” No, I didn’t know him personally, but I sure knew of his work. I’m a huge fan!
Then, as I sat there and soaked the news in, I realized it had to be true. He was 71 and had a history of heart trouble. But he lived a rich, full life, and as with all things, there is an end to come. That’s really all there is to it. But…that’s
not all there is to it! No sir! No maam! There’s so much to this man that no one article could possibly express it.
He was the paladin of profanity, the oratory athlete of atheism, the crowned prince of common sense, and a whispering wind of wisdom to all who gave ear. I’m talking about none other than comedian George Carlin who died at Saint John’s Medical Center in Santa Monica, California just yesterday. Only a week ago, he was on stage, doing what he did best. A week later, he’s complaining of chest pains and being admitted to the hospital, and finally, being deserted by that defective blood pump in his chest.
Hate him if you want to, tell him he’s going to hell if you so choose, but don’t say you weren’t moved to chuckle a time or two at his ostentatious observations. The man made a difference like few have or could have; he pushed until it gave; he stretched the limits and then some; he was court marshaled a number of times, fired, and was constantly being called out and faulted for being who he was. On one occasion, he was arrested for disturbing the peace after performing on stage. But he won four Grammys, was nominated for five Emmys, wrote three renowned books, produced twenty-three comedy albums, made fourteen HBO specials, put a few TV shows under his belt, and even appeared in prominent parts in a number of big movies. And let’s not forget that it was George Carlin who hosted the very first episode of Saturday Night Live!
Carlin taught us all a lot—comedians will do that! But what Carlin assured me of most of all is two things; first, that truly great men tend to be movers and shakers and will kick against the pricks of normalcy until it hurts; but second, Carlin taught me who the real BEST debaters are on the planet. As a former seminary student – young, wet-behind-the-ears, and always obsessed down to the bone with debate and intellectually outclassing my opponents – I wondered for so long what group could consistently outclass their adversaries and make them look like blithering, blockheaded fools on the podium.
Well, it certainly wasn’t the debate students or teachers in the colleges. And it certainly wasn’t the elitist theologians, and it’s not even the atheists. Nope, if you really want to get your ass handed to you in a debate, challenge a comedian! Go on! See what happens! Carlin defined an entire genre of teachers, educators who employ the use of those teaspoons of sugar called humor and irony to help the “medicine” of knowledge go down. It’s the honesty of comedians that really sets them apart from the rest of us, with our cold formalities and superficial codes of conduct that tend to hide the answers to so many of life’s hard truths.
It was the George Carlins of this world who taught a fearful, sex-abhorring, body-hating, Bible-loving public that certain body parts are not evil and should be able to be exposed just like all the other parts. It was the George Carlins of this world who let us know how dippy and stupid our society is to isolate a certain set of “seven words” to keep them from being said in public. From Carlin we learned that being offended by anything as small as profanity is totally senseless and dumb, and that only people with oatmeal for brains will be. It was comedians like Carlin who softened us up to accepting that religion is completely man-made and man-driven—from start to finish. The gods are fair game; it’s okay to doubt them, to joke about them, and to use their holy books as a means to even-out wobbly tables or for toilet paper!
It was from comedians like Carlin that we learned that the world will not end if we are made uncomfortable by what someone else says, that it’s okay to say out-loud those obtuse thoughts in our own heads that we are embarrassed to verbalize. It’s okay to express yourself just as surely as it is to reason freely about every facet of reality. If the gods were real, they’d bless George Carlin and those like him for their honesty, for being courageous, for making sport of sacred silliness, for being lighthearted about our dark natures, for casting aspersions at monotonous norms, and for frustrating the goddamn hell out of those on the far right. Such triumphant souls pave the way for the rest of us to open up and to laugh at life, to be ourselves and to be better communicators. If I can accomplish 1/8th of what George has done, I’ll call myself a witty man.
Rest in Peace, George.
(JH)
Christine Wicker has a
blog one may subscribe to via RSS or Google Reader that keeps abreast of the book's latest reviews and reader's comments. Meanwhile, Steve Locks, at
Leaving Christianity has done us the favor of reading her book and summing up its contents...
The author is a Christian of sorts, an ex-Southern Baptist and ex-evangelical, but still a mild believer (she has a mini-testimony at the end of the book) saying that she accepts Jesus as her saviour and would count her self as born again on certain days when she is in the mood for it! She also prays when she wants to but has many doubts and disagreements with the church.
Her data comes from interviews with leading Christians, polls and published studies. If you want her references for any of these below, let me know.
Here are a few notes of interest that I found within it:
* Church attendance figures are inflated as many Christians attend more than one church and are multiply counted.
* Roughly 1,000 evangelicals leave Christianity altogether every day and don’t come back. As a whole American Christians lose 6,000 members a day (i.e. the other 5,000 going onto their own private views of religion – leaving organized religion, whilst maintaining some unorthodox religious belief like Christine Wicker, the author).
* Conservative religious causes and spokesmen are over-represented on TV as they are featured 3 times more often in TV and print reports than moderate and progressive Christians.
* The proportion of Christians who subscribe to all core evangelical beliefs is about 25%.
* The fastest growing “religious group” in America is non-believers.
* There are twice as many people claiming no religion as there are participating evangelicals that have made the religious right powerful.
* Southern Baptist growth isn’t keeping up with population growth and it hasn’t for years.
* 86% of baptisms are of people who are already Christians. (i.e. Christians “changing brands” rather than conversions of unbelievers).
* In the remaining 14% baptisms are going down in every group except children under five.
* Southern Baptist baptisms were 100,000 in 1980 but 60,000 in 2005.
* Evangelicals are slightly more likely to believe that astrology impacts one’s life (13.6%) than Americans as a whole (12.3%).
* Mega-churches are often heavily dept-laden and suffer particularly when an influential pastor retires or dies, or the local population demographics change.
* 11% of Americans identify with the religious right.
* 20% of evangelicals identify with the religious right.
* Some evangelicals blame the Internet for allowing people to think differently about Christianity. (note: exactly as Farrell Till predicted in The Skeptical Review many years ago!)
Steve Locks, Leaving Christianity
Perhaps more than any contradiction in the Bible, the cock crowing contradiction has attracted its share of how-it-could-have-been-scenarios. This is my response to one apology. Comments are welcome.
Shortly before the crucifixion, Jesus tells Peter that he will choose to disavow any knowledge of Jesus on three occasions. After these events manifest, a cock will crow to remind him of Jesus’ words. In the books of Matthew, Luke, and John, Jesus warns Peter that all three of his denials will take place before the cock crows. In these three accounts, the situation unfolds exactly how Jesus predicted. The cock crows after, and only after, Peter’s third denial is made in accordance with what Jesus states, “the cock will not crow until you have denied me three times.” However, the details are different in Mark. Here, we see Jesus warning Peter that he will deny their friendship three times before the cock crows twice. Of course, this is exactly how the events play out in Mark. The cock crows after the first denial and again after the third denial. This is an undeniable contradiction without a rational explanation. If Mark is correct, the cock must have crowed after the first denial – even though Jesus said, in the other three Gospels, that it would not crow until after the third denial. If these three Gospels are accurate, Mark is wrong because the cock could not have crowed until after all three of Peter’s denials. How does the apologist handle this one?
What it runs down to, in terms of weight of evidence, is that 14:30 and 14:72 are likely to have been part of Mark originally, whereas the key verse in 14:68 (“and the cock crew”) is not, and was likely added to make the fulfillment of Jesus’ prediction more exact.
In other words, someone added a crowing at a later date. Mark 14:68, which takes place after the first denial but before the next two denials, reads, “But he denied, saying, I know not, neither understand I what thou sayest. And he went out into the porch; and the cock crew.” The apologist asserts that the last part of the verse, “and the cock crew,” was “added to make the fulfillment of Jesus’ prediction more exact.” When all else fails, he claims that the Bible says something God did not want it to say. If a phrase gives him trouble, the apologist throws it out and internally justifies his best reason for doing so.[see note at bottom] This is confirmation bias in its finest hour. The apologist does not thoroughly scrutinize the Bible before drawing a conclusion on its infallibility; he begins with the premise of its infallibility and subsequently makes excuses for its errors in order to remain consistent with his premise. What book could we not hold as infallible by employing such disingenuous methods? Practices like these render the idea of an inerrant text meaningless.
That said, what of the fact that the other gospels do not say “twice”? Strictly speaking, there is no contradiction in action, since of course if Peter denied before the cock crowed once, he also did it before the cock crowed twice!
And the same would be true if the cock had crowed three, four, five, or seventy-two times, but does it make any sense for the author to say that the cock would crow twice (or three, or four, or five, or seventy-two times) if the three denials all took place before the first crow? Of what relevance is the second crowing, and why is it worth mentioning? The passage in Mark says it would crow twice for an obvious textual reason, but this is the rationalization that we receive after the apologist has removed the part from the other verse that is not convenient to his cause. Now that the apologist has made the first crowing disappear from existence and offered a weak explanation for the mention of two crowings instead of one, we must consider whether Jesus actually said that the cock would crow once or twice in the other three Gospels. We will let the apologist tie his own rope…
In that light, I would suggest that Mark offers the original verbiage of the prediction (as might be expected, if Mark is recording from Peter), while the other gospels contain a modified and simplified oral tradition that follows the usual oral-tradition pattern.
Does the apologist not see that he just admitted that the divinely inspired text, in addition to being contradictory at face value, is not fully consistent with what happened? How convenient is it that not one of the four Gospels registers the accurate account of the alleged two consecutive crowings after the third denial, even though one Gospel specifically registers two crowings in the prediction? Apparently, the author of Mark made it only half way. He did not fall victim to simplified oral tradition when he remembered to include the second crowing in Jesus’ prediction but did fall victim to simplified oral tradition when recording the actual crowing. Since the apologist removed the second crowing in Mark because it was “added” in the wrong place, the author apparently had the cognizance to include specifically two crowings in the prediction but only one crowing in the occurrence. So why did the author mention two crowings in the prediction when the detail was not important enough to include in the occurrence – and not important enough for the other three authors to include in the prediction or the occurrence? Why did the declaration of two crowings survive the telephone game when the resolution, just a few verses later, fell victim? It appears that the apologist did not bother thinking ahead.
If we are to simply brush the textual connotations off as a disparity due to the simplified oral tradition found in seven out of the eight Gospel occurrences, why not just say that the story details themselves are different due to the same shortcomings of oral tradition? Mark is internally consistent. Matthew, Luke, and John are internally consistent and consistent among each other. The only problem is that Mark is not consistent with the other three. The simplest answer is that Mark made a simple error. The apologist, on the other hand, would have his audience believe that three of the Gospels are modified and simplified oral traditions that are not fully consistent with the actual events – and that the fourth account is partly affected by oral tradition and partly tampered with after God inspired a perfect record of what actually happened. He readily admits that oral tradition is fallible, played a role in the formation of the current text, and was responsible for crucial details being left out, yet the apologist will not allow the skeptic to use the same reason, the fallibility of oral tradition, to explain the error already in the text – simply because the apologist predetermined that the earliest manuscripts, which he has never seen, were free from error.
Within this context, this is not considered a “contradiction” or “error” – no ancient reader would have thought this!
A different apologist once offered me this explanation for why Gospel writers attributed Old Testament sayings to the wrong prophets. Since other readers of the day thought the misattributions were factually correct, and since no ancient reader would have called the authors on their mistakes, no errors were apparently committed. I hope even the most novice of readers can appreciate the absurdity of such an argument. It does not matter what ancient readers reach as a consensus. What matters is whether the recorded facts are consistent with reality. If they are not, they are in error.
I do not care whether ancient readers would have considered the cock crowing stories contradictory; I care whether we can regard all four as consistent with reality. The apologist has to omit part from one version without any justification whatsoever, declare that the other three versions are missing a key detail because they were products of a “modified and simplified oral tradition,” and still has to explain why Mark considered the second crowing important enough to mention in the prediction but not in the occurrence. I ask again, what book could we not hold as infallible by employing such disingenuous methods? Inerrancy would lose all meaning.
A cock’s crowing lasted as long as five minutes and occurred at all hours; as Cicero wrote: “Is there any time, night or day, that cocks do not crow?” The “second” cockcrowing was usually associated with the dawn.
And this is relevant, how? Jesus specifically stated that the cock would not crow until the third denial. Regardless of whether the cock had been crowing all day and night, it is only reasonable to assume that it would not be crowing once the denials started, hence the statement that it would not crow. Otherwise, Jesus was wrong by suggesting that it would not. So why would the apologist even mention this bit about a cock typically crowing all day? Was it with the hope that it would further complicate the issue and prevent the audience from thinking critically about the issue? I can only suppose that the desperation of his predicament drove him to offer such worthless evidence for his position. But I suppose that once you naively accept the existence of a genocidal god who can read your mind and punish you for not believing in him, the rest just makes sense.
[note]Since the apologist argues by assertion instead of argumentation, I will have to speculate on his reasoning. The duplicate crowing in Mark 14:68 (along with segments of dozens of other verses) do not appear in one of the two oldest (currently) discovered manuscripts from the fourth century. This manuscript, Codex Vaticanus, stands in contrast to other early extant manuscripts that contain the duplicate crowings as well as all major English translations that chose to include them. As it stands, God apparently lets the majority of the world think for centuries that Mark had two crowings. We will discover an enormous problem for Christians, much later in this book, if they wish to appeal to the inerrancy of the Codex Vaticanus manuscript. In short, the apologist is not arguing for weight of evidence, but obviously for the sake of maintaining inerrancy. The apologist would probably like to appeal to the other oldest (currently) discovered manuscript, Codex Sinaiticus, since it omits all three duplicate crowings in Mark 14, but he likely knows that it is greatly corrupted. Furthermore, we begin to see the stupidity in arguing for biblical inerrancy when the closest documents we have to the originals are heavily edited copies made centuries after the events they report.
Dr. Hector Avalos again responds to Dr. Weikart, below:
In Part I of the commentary on my debate with Dr. Weikart, I emphasized the general flaws that I see in his methodology. Here, I will concentrate on Dr. Weikart’s seven reasons for arguing that Darwinism was more important than Christian anti-Judaism in explaining Nazi ideology.
