In his review of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, Alvin Plantinga, the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, admitted that he has propounded some invalid arguments in his life. It's good to know that he is aware of this fact but he seems to have done it again with his most recent argument.
His recent article in Christianity Today manages to misunderstand probability, biological evolution, Bayesian analysis and neurophysiology all at once in the service of his presuppositions. To start with, it's important to realize that although Plantinga is not himself a young-earth Creationist, he is sympathetic to them. He said in an earlier formulation of this argument:
Nonetheless a sensible person might be convinced, after careful and prayerful study of the Scriptures, that what the Lord teaches there (the book of Genesis -- ev) implies that this evidence is misleading and that as a matter of fact the earth really is very young. So far as I can see, there is nothing to rule this out as automatically pathological or irrational or irresponsible or stupid.
Plantinga himself believes that the earth is old because multiple lines of evidence converge to show this to be the case. Yet he is willing to accept the sensiblity of someone who does not accept the evidence that he does, because they are using their faith in scriptures and praying about it. If this is an adequate epistemology for a philosopher one wonders if there will be much in the rest of his philosophy to dream of or wonder about.
This credulity (that scripture and prayer are valid sources of knowledge for the Christian theist) is the crux of Plantinga's fallacy. He seems to accept the validity of Christian theism first and then adjudicate all positions in the light of this position in standard "presuppositionalist" ways. However these presuppositions simply don't conform with the evidence we have available. Of course, in Plantinga's mind, that is the fault of human minds. If our reason and the evidence lead us to doubt God, it is likely that our reason and evidence are wrong.
Specifically he says this:
I said naturalism is in philosophical hot water; this is true on several counts, but here I want to concentrate on just one—one connected with the thought that evolution supports or endorses or is in some way evidence for naturalism. As I see it, this is a whopping error: evolution and naturalism are not merely uneasy bedfellows; they are more like belligerent combatants. One can't rationally accept both evolution and naturalism; one can't rationally be an evolutionary naturalist. The problem, as several thinkers (C. S. Lewis, for example) have seen, is that naturalism, or evolutionary naturalism, seems to lead to a deep and pervasive skepticism. It leads to the conclusion that our cognitive or belief-producing faculties—memory, perception, logical insight, etc.—are unreliable and cannot be trusted to produce a preponderance of true beliefs over false. Darwin himself had worries along these lines: "With me," says Darwin, "the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"
Now I am certainly one to congratulate and reward someone who has a deep and pervasive skepticism. Skepticism is one of the very best tools to keep your wits, your money and your body safe. Yet skepticism is hardly a characteristic of naturalists alone. Christian theists are also skeptical, including Plantinga himself, who doubts that the Bible is correct on the age of the earth. One must wonder exactly what mechanism Plantinga imagines allows him to have the correct apprehension of this particular fact when so many of his "sensible" coreligionists and theists in general disagree with him on this point vehemently. Does he believe that his brain is working better than theirs? Yet this could not be for Plantinga, because he believes that brains don't detect true beliefs.
I know you think I'm kidding, but really, that is his position. He believes that brains by themselves are evolved organs and therefore can only be "adaptive" but that being adaptive does not entail the truth of a given conclusion arrived at by an adaptive organ.
Let's look again at his position about what he calls "neurophysiology":
Your beliefs may all be false, ridiculously false; if your behavior is adaptive, you will survive and reproduce. Consider a frog sitting on a lily pad. A fly passes by; the frog flicks out its tongue to capture it. Perhaps the neurophysiology that causes it to do so, also causes beliefs. As far as survival and reproduction is concerned, it won't matter at all what these beliefs are: if that adaptive neurophysiology causes true belief (e.g., those little black things are good to eat), fine. But if it causes false belief (e.g., if I catch the right one, I'll turn into a prince), that's fine too. Indeed, the neurophysiology in question might cause beliefs that have nothing to do with the creature's current circumstances (as in the case of our dreams); that's also fine, as long as the neurophysiology causes adaptive behavior. All that really matters, as far as survival and reproduction is concerned, is that the neurophysiology cause the right kind of behavior; whether it also causes true belief (rather than false belief) is irrelevant.
But this metaphor is absurd and wrong on the face of it. For a frog to catch a fly he first needs to adequately apprehend that there is a fly to be caught. This belief MUST be true for a frog to catch it. The frog's eye must accurately determine there is a fly in the field of vision. It must accurately gauge the speed and distance of the oncoming fly. It must accurately know the position of its tongue in its mouth and accurately direct its head and mouth at the correct angle to catch the fly. All of these things are things the frog's brain must believe first, before it can create an overarching belief that drives it to catch and eat the fly. Therefore Plantinga must admit that at least some of the beliefs the frog needs to have must correspond accurately to the external world. And of course, even in his example, the simplest belief is the one that is most correct, namely that the fly will feel better if it eats.
Plantinga's skepticism about neurophysiology assumes the accuracy of perception. Yet we all know that many perceptions themselves can be flawed. A few minutes with a magic-eyes book or even a glass of water and a pencil can show a child that. So if Plantinga's main point is that perception, memory, the brain's physics, working logic and apperception can be inherently flawed yet still adaptive, his point is one that neuroscientists have been making for several decades.
Yet Plantinga wants to take healthy skepticism and reduce it to a ridiculous solipsism that would be destructive to all knowledge. His way out is obvious:
Clearly this doubt arises for naturalists or atheists, but not for those who believe in God. That is because if God has created us in his image, then even if he fashioned us by some evolutionary means, he would presumably want us to resemble him in being able to know; but then most of what we believe might be true even if our minds have developed from those of the lower animals.
As a side point, the use of the term "lower animals" is simply another example of his lack of understanding of biology. A high-school level understanding of biology as it is taught in the 21st century would teach Plantinga that all life forms on earth are equally evolved. They have all derived from a common ancestor and have been adapting to changing environments and ecologies since then and all lineages extant have survived to this point. There are no "lower animals" unless you already accept creationism. But back to his main point.
According to Plantinga, while brains cannot evolve a method for detecting truth, God can give them that ability through his creation. Yet of course there is simply no logical connection between the existence of a theistic deity and the belief systems of organisms evolved under such a deity. I will give some alternatives that Plantinga fails to even consider, much less address, that show how limited his "supernaturalism" really is.
Example 1: There is a theistic deity. He does wish to make creatures in "his image" and intends to at some point in the future. We are "lower creatures" who can discern some of the deity's plans but remain ignorant about our role in them.
Example 2: There is a theistic deity who is evil and enjoys making a mockery of the creatures he watches evolving. They live and die with ridiculous beliefs about him and he chuckles about it like a pet owner chuckling at his dog when he puts peanut butter in his mouth.
Example 3: There is a deistic deity.
Example 4: The deity is panentheistic and is part of the entire process of creation and can only direct it from within matter, and thus is subject to the rules of matter.
Example 5: There are multiple supernatural beings who vie for control of the supernatural realm in a type of supernatural selection to propagate themselves and the supernatural substance they are created from.
There is simply no logical or philosophical reason to select Christian theism as the only rational alternative to methodological naturalism. Certainly there is no reason to assume the probability of one supernatural hypothesis over any other as there is simply no accepted supernatural data. Plantinga knows, however, that most of his readers are either Christian or former Christians and thus artificially limits his calculus to those two possibilities to make his outcome look superficially more plausible.
I specifically reject his use of Bayesian analysis in this article and the reason is the same one I give generically in all these situations. Bayes was discussing decisions made when there is a knowable a priori probability being discussed. The data that we have are then plugged in to that equation and an a posteriori calculation is then performed to determine the probabilities after the data is analyzed.
Yet our knowledge of universes is limited to an n of 1. Our universe, so far as we are able to talk with evidence about it, is sui generis. Therefore there cannot be a knowable a priori probability of a given type of universe existing from a pool of all possible universes. In fact, we can't even make a rational guess at how likely any given universe might be. This is like using a hammer to drive on the road. It's simply a ridiculous misuse of a tool.
When math is used improperly, it generates results that make no sense, and this is what happens when Plantinga uses it here. He is doing the equivalent of a sophomoric trick by dividing by zero unknowingly.
Even accepting his Bayesian analysis (which I do not) does not rescue his position however, because he is arguing that if most beliefs are false then all beliefs are false, which is unworthy of someone who has never taken a philosophy course, much less a professor. Certainly someone who has written three volumes on belief must know that there are techniques philosophers have devised over the centuries to separate true from false beliefs and that these techniques are far from universally employed -- even by philosophers, even by himself. While he does believe that he has had some true beliefs, he has admitted in his review of Dawkins that some of his arguments in the past have been invalid. How is it possible for his God-given truth detector to have allowed this?
After reviewing these facts and the gross misapprehension of how Bayes theorem works, it's fun to review another quote from his review of Dawkins:
You might say that some of his forays into philosophy are at best sophomoric, but that would be unfair to sophomores; the fact is (grade inflation aside), many of his arguments would receive a failing grade in a sophomore philosophy class. This, combined with the arrogant, smarter-than-thou tone of the book, can be annoying. I shall put irritation aside, however and do my best to take Dawkins' main argument seriously.
In that spirit, I shall put irritation aside, however and do my best to take the rest of Plantinga's argument seriously.
So Plantinga goes on to argue that if evolution is true than naturalism is disproved, because some of our perceptions are apparently true and adaptive. He believes that this can only be explained by the presupposition of theism:
Returning to methodological naturalism, if indeed natural science is essentially restricted in this way, if such a restriction is a part of the very essence of science, then what we need here, of course, is not natural science, but a broader inquiry that can include all that we know, including the truths that God has created life on earth and could have done it in many different ways. "Unnatural Science," "Creation Science," "Theistic Science"-call it what you will: what we need when we want to know how to think about the origin and development of contemporary life is what is most plausible from a Christian point of view. What we need is a scientific account of life that isn't restricted by that methodological naturalism.
Note that Plantinga simply asserts the "truth" that God has created life on earth. He gives no evidence for this position and also suggests that the entire scientific enterprise itself is somehow suspect because of his argument about methodological naturalism. Yet is this the case?
No.
Here's why not: Most beliefs are worthy of skepticism. The fact that most beliefs may be wrong is simply not an argument. Of course many or most beliefs may be wrong. It is the job of philosophers to counteract wrong arguments and beliefs by coming up with ways to avoid them. Yet if we assume, as Plantinga does, that the only way we can have correct beliefs is because God is letting us have them, there is simply no job left for the philosopher. He may abdicate his job and let the workings of the deity do its business.
Yet of course, Plantinga must be aware of the proliferation of false beliefs on this earth and their ubiquity. In a day's conversation he must encounter multiple false beliefs. Yet he gives no explanation about how a God-given method for detecting truth would operate. He has certainly never demonstrated a technique that differs from that of methodological naturalism. Is there a way to show that true beliefs can only exist for those whom God is blessing with them?
Given the nearly universal presence of false beliefs, this is a strong acid that Plantinga is playing with, and from my point of view it dissolves the bottle that he is trying to carry it in.
To wit, if we accept his proposition, arguendo, that organisms that have evolved in a natural world may very well evolve to have adaptive but false beliefs that are widespread, does that not comport pretty well with the world we see? In fact, assuming naturalism, would we not expect to see hierarchies of beliefs that coexist and a mixture of some falsehood and some truth within those hierarchies of belief?
In fact what we see is nearly universal acceptance of directly perceived facts. Only the craziest among us will doubt there is a yellow lemon in the room when we are all staring at one. This is a directly perceived object which fits neatly in a perceptual category for which we have a concrete word. The same goes for our beliefs when driving a car. There is little room for skepticism about an oncoming car and false beliefs about such a thing will rapidly result in negative consequences for the individual that has them.
Our brains and perceptual systems of course are not evolved to create true beliefs, Plantinga is certainly correct about that, but they are evolved to create accurate perceptions. And each perception that we have insinuates itself into a rounded and whole set of beliefs, each of which is reinforced by the other.
However some beliefs have very few perceptions on which to base themselves on. For example, a sense of awe at seeing something greater than oneself is quite remarkable when it happens, but differing things awe different people. One person is awed by the Taj Mahal, another by Yosemite, and another by the starry sky at night. There simply is no general agreement on awe. And thus, when people discuss awe, there is more nuance, less agreement, and more difficulty at achieving a consensus of truth.
Even moreso when we get to beliefs based on no direct perceptions at all: Mohammed rode a winged horse to Jerusalem. The Buddha forewent nirvana to become a bodhisattva. The Great Spirit will protect the plains and their bison. Quetzalcoatl has appeared in Veracruz and is on his way to Tenochtitlan to usher in the next age.
The Christian theist must -- if he accepts Christianity as true, be skeptical about all these strongly held beliefs. Yet by what mechanism then does he trust his own beliefs about his own religion? According to Plantinga, God allows him to see the truth of them. Yet is it not possible, yea, even probable that God is allowing someone else to see a truth and not allowing the Christian?
Plantinga simply fails to address this possibility.
His argument seems to fail in two directions then. In one direction it simply asserts a truism of philosophy that has been known since the presocratics, namely that some perceptions and some beliefs that are accepted as accurate by those who hold them are wrong. The proper response to this as far as I can tell is, "Duh."
The second way it fails though is the much more spectacular, for by expressing contempt for methodological naturalism, it eviscerates all but the most uncritical, fundamentalist theism, something Plantinga himself seems to think is "sensible" but that he does not yet wish to fully endorse.
His lack of a method for God's image to function as a truth-maker leaves his corrosive skepticism for naturalism eating away at the vessel he carries it in until they both lie on the ground at his feet, bubbling, oozing and evaporating away into the air.
Loftus includes everything: absurdities, superstitions, interpretations, persuasive psychology, pseudoscience, morality, philosophy, proofs, logistical issues, history, miracles, methodology, prayer, creation, canonization, legendary embellishment, etc. Whereas pop writers like Dawkins and Harris scoff at the obvious stupidity of Christianity, and textual scholars like Ehrman and Price focus on apologetic issues without hardly mentioning that Christianity doesn’t deserve the air of respectability it gets, Loftus tackles both methods.
John does a wonderful job of pointing out how apologists are all extremely confident of their positions even if the contrast among one another, yet he also doesn’t lose sight of the fact that a neutral start for these apologists would never prompt them to offer their conclusions. It is probably the best comprehensive book of the issues I’ve read. Fifteen dollars will net you fifteen hours worth of intense reading. Yes, ninety percent of the material can be found elsewhere, but this is to be expected when there is no true point of concentration in the book. It is a jack of all trades, and Loftus pulls it off beautifully.
Loftus, like very few writers, takes the time to explain why we start our observations “from below” rather than “from above.” Persuasive psychology is briefly mentioned, and since I write on it frequently, I was extremely happy to see it (even if I would have liked to have seen more). What I really support is his focus on fundamental questions, which I believe deconvert more individuals than textual analysis ever could. These questions include why God needs worship, why religions distribute predictably, and why the Bible has no declaration against slavery. I also learned a few things while reading, such as William Lane Craig’s ridiculous arguments for why God has religious diversity (while ignoring the obvious answer of societal conditioning) and Francesco Sizzi’s equally ridiculous arguments for divinity in space.
While ninety-nine percent of this book is fantastic and I could write pages on how great it is, in the interest in balancing praise with criticism, I’ll quickly point out a few things I would have done differently. The personal story (kind of boring, until Linda!) could lead critics to argue that John left for emotional reasons (even though he specifically states what should be obvious: the emotions merely got him thinking). The book isn’t as entertaining as Shermer, Sagan, Mills, etc or as easy to understand at times because it isn’t geared toward a mainstream audience. The text is beyond ninety percent of America because you need some good knowledge of the Bible to grasp all of it. For instance, Uzzah is mentioned in one chapter, but several dozens and pages later, he is mentioned (but not explained) again. If you don’t remember who he is, John’s point is missed at the second mention.
Loftus extensively quotes scholars without briefly mentioning their positions, and there are a slew of them because he has a terrific appreciation for the arguments in the field. He also uses terms that will be unfriendly to beginners (e.g. Pauline). John also made the same choice I did in my first book, which is to make laborious lists that aren’t necessary to make a point (especially on visions). Most readers, I suspect, would become bored with it. In my opinion, he wastes time and paper on the Trinity and bodily resurrections. Arguing over how miracles work plays into the apologetic game. I love his term “chronological snobbery” for why social conservatives are consistently wrong, but it is already known as the “Planck Problem.” He lists Job as intertestamental even though almost all scholars regard it as the earliest book in the Bible. He says historic Japan is “a great [society] by all standards of history,” which I have to take exception with as a student of ancient Japan, since women were possessions, the warrior class could kill without accountability, and foreigners were immediately killed for stepping on Japanese land.
There are some editing issues as well. For example “and1563” on p309 is missing a space (spell check doesn’t look for words with number/letter combinations by default) and “when did he know Jesus had died” is used on p368 instead of “how did he know when Jesus had died” (again, something spell check wouldn’t grab).
None of these complaints really detracts at all from the book. In short, Loftus has left humanity much better than he found it, which is what all nonbelievers can only strive to accomplish.
The best way to understand something is to build it.
In my recent articles I have been facilitating discussion on Adam and Eve and I have been collecting explanations about how Adam came to disobey god. This article identifies the parts of those arguments and diagrams one of them, and tries to tease out whether Adam could in any reasonable way be held accountable by his maker for his transgression and the resultant overall negative result that emerges from Gods Creation. However if we take Adam and God out of the equation, then the properties that emerge from nature are what we should expect once we understand them, and labeling them "good" or "bad" outside of any context becomes meaningless.
Emergence
Wikipedia says that the term “Emergence” was coined by G. H. Lewes. Its an old concept recognized as far back as Aristotle.
Basically it is self-organization or a property or behavior of a thing that results from the combination of all its other properties and its interaction with its environment.
Some examples of Emergence from Wikipedia and some I thought up.
Feel Free to suggest some more in the comments.
NATURE
- Hurricanes
- Termite "Cathedrals"
- Patterns in plants in nature
- Color
- Patterns in Clouds
- Friction
- Classical Mechanics
- Statistical Mechanics
- Weather
- Patterned ground
- Temperature
- Convection
- Physics -> Chemistry -> Biology -> Psychology
- Flocking
- Herds
- Patterns that birds make when they fly together
- Fractals
CULTURE
- Traffic Patterns
- Forming Lines
- Cities
- Political systems
- Economics
- The Stock Market
- The World Wide Web
- Placement of pathways in building complexes
MATHEMATICS
- Mobius Strip
- Chaos theory
- Clustering in Probablity
HUMAN BEHAVIOR
- Emotions, Fear, Joy, etc
- Some actions, scratching and itch, catching a ball,
- Unconscious Decision Making (AKA Intuition)
- and in my opinion, the SUPERNATURAL emerges from the poor reasoning schemes of an untrained mind.
Emergence is highly efficient and economical. That is exactly what should be expected from a perfect being. If a perfect being created something, we could reasonably expect the perfect being to build is so that it would be self-organizing, efficient and economical meaning that additional properties would emerge from the raw material.
If that is the case then the way the world is, is the only way it could have turned out, which means that Adams transgression emerged out of the way he was made.
While I haven't yet got a Christian to put any culpability on God for anything that supposedly went on in "the fall of man", they do accept every premise up to the conclusion, and circle back to the fact that "Adam made the choice" while affirming that God knew what was going to happen and the fact that it was predestined.
Comments from an article accumulated from two Christians
In the discussion below, the components of the arguments are labeled with initials.
HP. stands for Hidden Premise. A Hidden Premise is a premise that the argument depends on but is not explicitly stated. The commenters did not state these premises but they were understood as a dependency.
P. Stands for the premise. Premises are effectively data, or conclusions of other arguments used to support the inferrence to the conclusion.
C. The conclusion is derived from the inferrences made from the premisses.
xxxxxxx said...
Yes, I agree, that according to scripture,
HP1. God is omnipotent
HP2. God is omniscient
HP3. God made adam
HP4. God has a plan
P1. God knew that Adam would disobey,
P2. and not only knew it, but predestined it.
C. Scripture says that this happened so that the second Adam (Christ) would come into the world to accomplish what Adam failed to do and to redeem his people from the curse of sin.
In the Diagram below, the Hidden premisses HP1, HP2 and HP3 collectively support the premise that God knew that Adam would disobey. HP4 supports the premise that adams transgression was predestined. The two premises explcitly stated support the conclusion.
Diagram for the Argument Above
The Best Way To Understand Something Is To Build It
The arguments that follow are restatements and variations of the argument above from Christian comments
xxxx said... I agree with most of the article.
HP. God is omnipotent
HP. God is omniscient
HP. God made adam
HP. God has a plan
P. I think that God not only knew Adam would transgress,
P. he counted on it and
C. that was part of the plan of salvation.
xxxx said...
HP. God is omnipotent
HP. God is omniscient
HP. God made adam
HP. God has a plan
P. The way this seems is that God had a plan, P. he put it into action and
P. put Adam and Eve here to start, the first two people out of the gate failed
C. so he had to go to plan B. If it wasn't planned, there would be no need to label Christ as the redeemer from the foundation of the earth.
xxxxx said...
I would disagree that God had a plan B.
HP. God is omnipotent
HP. God is omniscient
HP. God made adam
HP. God has a plan
C. God has one plan and one plan only and it always comes to pass.
xxxxx said...
HP. God is omnipotent
HP. God is omniscient
HP. God made adam
HP. God has a plan
P. Not to mention that it is said that he failed, except he was part of a plan that played itself out.
C. So it seems that the failure on Adams part would have been to not eat the fruit. I never see anyone give him the opportunity to be a part of an infinite atonement.
xxxxxx said....
My intent is to agree with much af what Lee has brought up in his post. I don't think Adam is a villian,
HP. God is omnipotent
HP. God is omniscient
HP. God made adam HP. God has a plan
P. he did exactly what he was suppose to do,
P. and just like every single other person who makes a mistake,
P. he was forgiven of his sins
C. just like we can be.
xxxxx said....
HP. God is omnipotent
HP. God is omniscient
HP. God made adam HP. God has a plan
P. Adam's transgression separated us from God, C. which left us the ability to be able to choose for ourselves between the recently aquired knowledge of good and evil.
Reconstructing Gods Plan From What We Know
1. Gods plan was to make Adam and Eve,
2. give them free will, desire, speech, cognitive bias, but not the knowledge of good and evil.
3. put them in the Garden, wait long enough for Adam to Disobey (disobeying a God that you can have a discussion with is insane in itself)
4. then use that as a reason to kick them out of the Garden,
5. introduce sin into the world,
6. kill everyone in a worldwide flood because they were so sinful,
7. make a covenant with Abraham, who had strong reasons not to disobey
8. impregnate a virgin with his holy seed, without giving her a choice
9. occupy the body of a sinless human who had compelling reasons not to disobey, effectively compromising any free will he had
10. come into jerusalem on the passover,
11. have one of his disciples report him, who may or may not have know the consequences, had no choice since he was key player in the plan and consequently died a horrible death
12. get crucified as a human sacrifice during the passover so that he could meet the ritual requirements,
13. take all the sins of the world onboard,
14. become resurrected in three days,
15. and take off to disappear into heaven.
16. And leave us with the free will to believe all this on meager evidence or not.
So now lets look at the results and see what has emerged from this plan.
Lets asign some values to some things and see how they play out.
God = 0, because he is perfect.
Christ = -1 because he was god but tainted by man
Adam = -2 because he was not perfect and sinned and he was not god
Please follow along in the chart below. The left side represents the values for God, Jesus and Adam and the bottom represents the timeline from creation to 3000 CE. I projected past today's date since Jesus is probably not coming anytime soon.
God Operating In The Red.
Diagram showing the resultant prolonged negative value over the course of 6000 years, projected beyond the current date to 3000 CE. So now god creates Adam and things go to -2.
That's counter-intiutive in a perfect being.
Now we need a Christ to set things right so we subtract -1 and we are back to -1.
Things aren't perfect but hey, god can be imperfect if he wants to because because he can do anything.
God created just so he could create an overall negative? This is not very efficient or economical. There is a lot of wasted resources built into this plan.
If god was like the Greek gods, which seems to be the case throughout Genesis 1-11, then this would be more coherent. But he's supposed to be perfect which means that he should not need anything, even company. Creating this mess was worse than not creating.
However, if we take Gods plan out of the equation, we can reasonably deduce that it probably wouldn't be any worse than this.
Click on the image. The hits usually go down in the summer months, so to grow during the summer like we did is superior. I wonder how we'll do come Fall? Stay tuned. People are reading what we write!
"you seem to be questioning God. Why didn't God do this? why did God do that? The short answer is, because God does what he pleases and since he is infinite in knowledge, then God knows best, not us." 10:41 PM, August 23, 2008
But what we see here is that some christians don't have a problem with trying to shut down critical questioning of biblical principles. When Biblical principles don't accurately reflect reality, then one of two things are happening. Biblical principles are flawed or reality is flawed. Pick your poison.
In my view, to go around breaking the law of society or of a God, is unnecessarily risky behavior. Those that do break the law have some other frame of reference. For example, they don't put as a high a value on the risk as I do, or they may be mentally handicapped in some way, and the former may follow from the latter. I know that if I broke the law I would worry about being caught, then perform some inconvenient tasks such as lying or hiding to resolve it, then, if I got caught I would pay some fine or spend some time in Jail. For the most egregious acts, the punishment can last a lifetime. For example, the punishment for murder can get a person put in Jail for the rest of their life, and on the other hand, for stealing a piece of fruit and eating it, you may get a fine if anyone cares enough to pursue litigation.
Teaching and changing behavior.
The reason people get fined and go to jail is to pressure them to change their behavior and to condition them to follow rules. It is a form of education. Education is important to facilitate sound judgment and conformance to societal standards. From the time children are born to the time they finish their formal schooling, they undergo conditioning. They learn such things as the rules of Grammar, Math, Science, Physics, Music, Art and the lessons of History. To advance to the next level they must satisfactorily demonstrate their grasp of the information, and their proficiency is monitored periodically along the way to ensure they are progressing toward the goal of advancing. Education and changing behavior is a sound principle, but it is not limited to people. It works on animals as well.
My dogs want to put their noses on the table.
I am an expert on the behavior of my dogs, but not to the degree that God must have been an expert in Adams behavior. When I have dinner, my dogs stay out of the kitchen, where the table is, because they like to put their nose on the table (they're big dogs). I can tell them a hundred times not to put their nose on the table but after awhile, they do it anyway. So I make them stay out of the kitchen and I do not feed them from the table.
When I want to spend time with my dogs, we laze about the house, tug on a stuffed toy and they get a little petting. We all love each other (I guess they love me) and I pet them, praise them, give them instruction in the form of a stern "no", or a "sit" or a "go lay down" and they understand me and comply. When they don't, I admonish them.
I do it in a nurturing way because I don't want them to become afraid of me or they will want to avoid me. I admonish them just enough so they respect me and follow my instruction. I know that because of their nature (how they are composed), they act a certain way and we work with it. In doing so we have a happy, healthy nurturing life together. I didn't make my dogs, but I know how they act, and I accommodate their behavior, adjust and compromise with them.
How much disobedience do I tolerate? I tolerate quite a bit. What type of transgressions would get them kicked out of the house? Biting the kids.
Decision/Event Tree for teaching my dogs not to put their nose on the table.
In the diagram below I would like to draw your attention to the box labeled “Teaching phase”.
If my dogs are not in the kitchen, they decide to sleep or chew toys and have no option to disobey. They don't worry that their free will is impeded, they understand that they just have a limited number of options because an infinite number of options would just confuse them.
If my dogs are in the kitchen with me they get a warning. They will either be with me or without me, but I'll focus on when they are with me because its analogous to Adam and Eve living in the Garden with God walking around. If they put their nose on the table I have three options but one of them is not obvious. The two obvious options are to ignore the behavior or to admonish them. Ignoring the nose on the table, in my view, is out of the question. So I opt for the admonishment option. This way I can reprove them and they will stop until they are overcome by their nature and I reprove them again or they learn that to stay in the kitchen with me, they have to keep their nose off the table.
The other option that is not so obvious is the option to abandon them to the street and never have any animals in the house again until one of them kills themselves to show me they can obey. I don't choose that option for a variety of reasons. The overriding one is that I'd never have thought of it without the story of Adam and Eve in the bible and another reason is that it is freaking stupid. In my view the admonishment and instruction is by far the best option to sustain a healthy loving relationship between myself and my dogs and this is the event labeled in the diagram as the “Teaching Phase”.
Decision/Event Tree for Adam in the Garden
We all know the story. Boy meets girl, girl gets motivated when she sees that snake, and carries her fruit over to her boyfriend to share it with him. Adam follows the script, disobeys God and God kicks them out of the garden until he and the holy spirit can come back four thousand or so years later as a perfect human that obeys himself to follow the course of events of his plan that ultimately end up with his human part dying as the perfect sacrifice and he and his holy spirit bail out just before the end. The happy ending is that the human part gets resurrected and disappears amid rumors that the body was stolen, or that he was taken down before he died. It usually takes longer than a few hours to die impaled on a cross. That is why the Romans used it. In fact Josephus talks about a couple of his friends that survived a crucifixion.
Once again I'd like to draw your attention to the area labeled “Teaching Phase”. You may have noticed that the Event Tree is the same as the Dogs Event Tree. The algorithm is exactly the same. The analogy is the same. The difference is that God did not choose the admonishment option. He chose to break off the relationship rather than nurture it.
How much and what type of transgressions should God tolerate and work with? I think that most people get along well enough and follow the rules to sustain a society. Are the transgression of these people, or should I say, are your transgressions serious enough to not warrant nurturing admonishment? Think about all the things you've done today. How many of them would you be embarrassed about? How many of them are even worthy of being “exalted” to a “TRANSGRESSION” [thunder and lightning in the background]
Being in a relationship means to nurture.
Parents don't kick their kids out of the house the first time they disobey, most of the time they put up with a lot of transgressions.
The Friendly Atheist comments on what "may be the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen in my life." It's the book Illustrated Stories from the Bible. He wrote about it here.
Rick, a Young-Earth Creationist gave me a citation from Answers in Genesis in a comment thread earlier in an attempt to explain how Kangaroos got to Australia after the ark of Noah landed in Turkey. The citation is full of logical inconsistencies and lunacy and I link to it to allow the reader a chance to peruse it for herself.
It is not a problem for us to rationalize why certain animals do not appear in certain parts of the world. Why, for example, does Australia have such an unusual fauna, including so many marsupials? Marsupials are, of course, known elsewhere in the world. For example, opossums are found in North and South America, and fossilized marsupials have been found elsewhere. But in many places, climatic changes and other factors could lead to their extinction.
It's not a problem. See? It just isn't. Hey, look over there, there's an opossum. The Young-Earth Creationist doesn't even deal with the fact that animals cannot migrate long distances through deserts or ice fields without dying first. They adapt to conditions in the location which they exist and if the ecology changes in that location and they cannot complete their life cycle, they die. There's no attempt there to explain how a koala bear, who can only eat Eucalyptus leaves could travel from Turkey to Australia without going extinct first. There's no attempt to explain how an aquatic species like a duck-billed platypus could complete its life cycle during the "mini-Ice Age" that followed the flood while all the water was frozen. The truth of the Genesis account is simply asserted and no explanation is given for these problems.
The lack of great marsupials in other continents need be no more of a problem than the lack of dinosaurs. As with many species today, they just died out—a reminder of a sin-cursed world. One proposed theory is that marsupials—because they bore their young in pouches—were able to travel farther and faster than mammals that had to stop to care for their young. They were able to establish themselves in far-flung Australia before competitors reached the continent.
Yes, kangaroos managed to get all the way from Turkey to Australia bearing their tiny live young from a founder population of two (2) individuals and the reason they got there is because they were faster than the cheetahs, gazelles, horses and other slow placental mammals who were bogged down by the need to care for bigger offspring. I really can't imagine an adult finding this explanation compelling. But it has to be compelling if you can't give up the Bible.
At one level, the authors realize this is one of their weakest positions. They know these explanations will not satisfy a critical reader. The article ends in the following way:
We must not be downhearted by critics and their frequent accusations against the Bible. We must not be surprised that so many people will believe all sorts of strange things, whatever the logic.
I believe this is not even intended to be ironic. Yet the unintentionality of it makes the irony drip off it even more. They continue:
Starting from our presupposition that the Bible’s account is true, we have seen that scientific models can be developed to explain the post-Flood migration of animals. These models correspond to observed data and are consistent with the Bible’s account. It is notable that opponents of biblical creationism use similar models in their evolutionary explanations of animal migrations. While a model may eventually be superseded, it is important to note that such biblically consistent models exist. In any event, we have confidence in the scriptural account, finding it to be accurate and authoritative. The fact of animal migration around the world is illustrative of the goodness and graciousness of God, who provided above and beyond our needs.
Notice that only if they start from the presupposition that the Bible is true can they find any reason to believe the Bible. However the models do NOT correspond to the observed data unless you consider a model that can be torn apart by a teenager who's seen a couple of shows on Discovery channel to be valid.
The authors are to be scolded for foisting off such poor explanations to an uncritical fundamentalist audience. Commenters like Rick and DSHB should demand more of them.
Since the Bible has no Systematic Theology, the twenty thousand plus Christian denominations, sects and cults are eternally trying to make God make sense. That is, the logical God drawn from the conflicts of different authors in the Biblical text must be processed into some form of logic that has the appearance of eternal truth and trust. As such, each Christian group has expressed this subjective cohesion in a theo - logical creation called theology.
To recruit professional defenders for the mental fight (not only with secularist, other religions) but in particular with other Christian faiths themselves; Christian denominations, sects and cults have often tightly controlled and supported schools whose whole purpose is to make the concept of their god appear more logical that the others, or (if you will) schools are called So and SoTheo - logical Seminary.
Once the god of a certain Christian group is finally made logical, this form can be sold via preaching to the masses. Or to state it systematically, it has now moved into the second phase of its logical process called “Theology” where the logically created “God“ can now be studied with some form of certainty. This distilled systematized information is usually published in book from for sectarian teaching tools and for the proselytizing of the general public with popular books entitled: “The Theology of the Old Testament / New Testament”. However, in light of the problems of Biblical Theology, most now carry only either “A Theology of the OT / NT” or simply “Theology of the O.T. / N.T.”.
The general Christian can be totally bewildered by the number of “Theologies” of the Old Testament and New Testament with each written from a denominational or sectarian prospective to make some logical sense out of the various views of Yahweh, El, (Hebrew / MT) vs. Theos / Kurios (Greek / LXX) to function with the detached θεόςor Logos in Classical and Hellenistic Greek philosophy.
An example here is the Biblical word of divine love ἀγάπη / agapa as used in the New Testament especially in the most famous evangelical Biblical verse, John 3: 16 “Οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον…”. However, the systematic logical use of agapa is totally and completely lost in the LXX which uses agapa in sexual lust and rape context as in the story of David’s children Amnon and Tamar: “…και ηγαπησεν αυτην αμνων υιος δαυιδ.” (2 Samuel 13: 1).
Another way to correct this deformity in consistency in Biblical thought on the divine, Christian groups have been very creative in making God theo - logical. Some of the theologies in used today are listed below:
1. The Biblical text has been corrupted by heresy and sinful men. (Examples: Mormons, Church of Christ, Jehovah Witnesses).
2. God is made consistently logical over time by an evolutionary process called “Dispensational Theology”. So what may appear as a contradiction is really only a new beginning for God and his covenant (A theology used by a number Protestant groups such as Baptist).
3. There is such a rift between the God in the Old Testament and the God in the New Testament that there simply can not be any reconciliation. That is, the creator God of hate of the Hebrew Bible is not the God of love and Jesus ( Marcion).
4. The Bible only appears to contradict itself, but all problems can be resolved by careful study. This is based on circular reasoning by forcing the Greek concept of “absolute truth” onto God and the Biblical text (Southern Baptists, Independent Baptists such as Bob Jones University, and our own D.S. Harvey Burnett).
5. The Bible and its god can be made Theo-Logical by more revelation (Mormons: Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, Doctrines and Covenants; Moonies, The Divine Principle).
6. The Bible must be read and interpreted ONLY by inspirited ecclesiastical authorities or councils (Catholics: The Magisteium; Jehovah Witnesses: Awake and Watch Tower).
7. Nothing in the Bible is what it seems. Words have hidden meanings (Philo of Alexandria, Gnostics, Eastern Christendom (Orthodox), and Christian Science).
This final section of the Post is a case study section in which I now invite all Christians to make God appear logical or Theo-Logical. The facts are real.
Christians, here is your change to sell a logical god to the masses who may consider the following situation totally illogical and even cruel.
The summer of 1999 was a tragic one for my family as my fourteen year old daughter taken to the hospital with chronic vomiting and nausea only to be was diagnosed with End Stage Renal Failure.
While taking my daughter to dialysis three times a week, he met a 16 year old boy also on dialysis who often did his dialysis in a chair next to hers. He was a strong evangelical Christian who “loved Jesus” and would spent his three hours talking about his love for the Gospel of Christ, his love for the Bible and how he wanted to be a full time Christian minister the rest of his life. He would share the Gospel with any dialysis patient who was placed next to him.
My daughter finally left the dialysis clinic after getting a transplant, but she kept in touch with friends she made there.
After several more years on dialysis, this young sixteen year old preacher too got a kidney transplant and he entered a Christian university to prepare for the full time Gospel ministry. However, within several years of his transplant, his body went in to rejection. With prayers of his fellow Christians appearing to go unanswered his second kidney failed. He received a second kidney transplant at which time he returned to his Christian education to prepare for full time Christian work with the full support and payers of his Christian community.
But sadly, his body when into rejection for the second time. Now, faced with a life of dialysis three times a week plus a life of failing access sites in his circulatory system, this young Christian - who had given gave his life and heart to Christ for full time ministry -opted to go home and die (which indeed happen several years ago).
Now all Christians who want to make and keep God Theo-Logical, let me start you off with some “pat” apologetic explanations:
A. God knew this young Christian would have to face a life of suffering so He called him “Home to Heaven”.
B. There was secret “sin” in this young Christians life. To correct it, God either struck him down or called him to Heaven.
C. Like David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12: 15 - 18), his parents sins caused either his kidney failure or death or both.
D. We just don’t understand the mind (Logos) and ways of God. As such, we should not question it. (This is nothing but a justification of fate in the secular world).
E. God used his life as a testimony to the lost world and it severed its purpose: “As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?" Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. (John 9: 1-3).
Now it is your turn Christians. Please use the above case study to see if you can make and keep your God logical or theo - logical.
One of my ongoing struggles in relating to the believers in my life is to know how hard to press my convictions on others. All of us here at DC no doubt face this question over and over. Some tend toward the “attracting flies with honey” approach of Carl Sagan, while others tend toward the “calling-a-spade-a-spade” approach of Harris and Dawkins. I generally aim to be courteous, but I have been known to shift from one end of the spectrum to another depending on the encounter.
The “new atheists” have taken a lot of flack from every corner for their unapologetic use of ridicule and sharp wit. I guess it’s a natural action; no one likes to get verbal lashings. Yet in my case it was the forceful, in-your-face tirades of Thomas Paine, Robert Ingersoll and Bob Price that helped push me over the edge. I’m sure, though, that if I hadn’t already experienced internal doubts, I would have responded far more defensively and indignantly. My gut feeling is that the correct approach depends on the target audience: If we’re addressing those who have few or no doubts about their faith, a hard-line tack will be met with a defensive counter-attack and will yield more heat than light. If we’re addressing those who are already struggling, a strong push may be what does the trick. This is somewhat counter-intuitive, and is based admittedly on a small sampling (i.e., my own experience), but I wonder whether others have made similar observations.
As I’m part of a firmly believing family, I feel it’s in my best interest to stick with a soft-line approach so as not to alienate those I hold dear, but apparently Dawkins and Harris have no such commitments. Furthermore, I suspect they have swayed few committed fundamentalists but that they have had influence on the half-hearted middle-of-the road believers. I don’t believe there’s an either-or, one-size fits all solution to this question: it all depends on the target audience and on one’s social commitments.
Interestingly, for all the complaints about the style of the “new atheists,” I’ve seen very few screeds that approach the level of ridicule employed by the scriptural authors themselves:
He cut down cedars, or perhaps took a cypress or oak. He let it grow among the trees of the forest, or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow. It is man’s fuel for burning; some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes bread. But he also fashions a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it. Half of the wood he burns in the fire; over it he prepares his meal, he roasts his meat and eats his fill. He also warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.” From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says, “Save me; you are my god.” They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand. No one stops to think, no one has the knowledge or understanding to say, “Half of it I used for fuel; I even baked bread over its coals, I roasted meat and I ate. Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?” He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?” (Isaiah 44: 14-20)
But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned (Galatians 1:8-9)!
As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate [i.e., castrate] themselves (Galatians 5:12)!
It's long been just understood that humans are unique among all animals in their capacity to engage in altruism, the expenditure of energy and or resources to aid others who are not closely related or otherwise capable of providing reciprocal value. A mother duck will act injured and try to distract an approaching predator away from her ducklings, an unselfish, and possibly sacrificial act, ostensibly, but we understand that this is not really altruistic in the intended sense; her efforts align neatly with the imperative for her offspring (and thus her genes) to survive. In other cases, we observe that some animal species engage in sharing, but this too is accounted for as "self-interested sharing". Sharing food from a kill with others in the group creates a context for reciprocity, and allows the successful hunter who shares to participate in the successful kills of others in the group when he is hungry and did not manage a kill on his own.
Altruism, though, is a kind of shibboleth for humans, and particularly for Christians. Our "better angels" have always been a key distinction for humans, an unbridgeable ontological chasm between the rest of creation, and man, endowed by God with the imago dei. Christian writers from Paul in the first century to C.S. Lewis in the 20th century have made much of this unique sense of man, of which altruism was a distinguishing sign. Man not only knew God was his creator intuitively just by surveying the world around him, man had an innate moral conscience, a built in sense of ought that was utterly intractable as a matter of biology. Christians commonly wonder, bemused at the thought, how evolution could account for something so... self-defeating as selfless charity and self sacrifice. Humans, for instance, send money, food and medicine to the other side of the world, to aid people they've never met, never will meet, and couldn't be more perfect strangers, genetically or otherwise. What's the selective imperative for that, they demand.
This is an important point for Christians, as Christ is understood to be a kind of apotheosis of this idea. God is supposed to have became flesh and sacrificed himself through no fault of his own, perfect in his being, in need of nothing, just giving of himself as a reprieve to (believing) man because that is his nature. Jesus instructed those who listened to love their enemies, another rendering of altruism, becoming less, being vulnerable in services of a higher good on the Christian view. Modern apologists rely heavily on the "moral argument", the idea that man cannot account for his moral sense, or moral convictions without positing God as creator, divinely provisioning them. It's just unthinkable, in contrast, that man would evolve in an impersonal universe with this innate moral sense, in their view.
What do we make, then, of research like this study done last year which investigated and compared the altruistic capabilities and tendencies of chimpanzees and human children? Here's the author's summary of the research:
Debates about altruism are often based on the assumption that it is either unique to humans or else the human version differs from that of other animals in important ways. Thus, only humans are supposed to act on behalf of others, even toward genetically unrelated individuals, without personal gain, at a cost to themselves. Studies investigating such behaviors in nonhuman primates, especially our close relative the chimpanzee, form an important contribution to this debate. Here we present experimental evidence that chimpanzees act altruistically toward genetically unrelated conspecifics. In addition, in two comparative experiments, we found that both chimpanzees and human infants helped altruistically, regardless of any expectation of reward, even when some effort was required, and even when the recipient was an unfamiliar individual—all features previously thought to be unique to humans. The evolutionary roots of human altruism may thus go deeper than previously thought, reaching as far back as the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees.
(emphasis mine)
There are (at least) two important implications of this kind of finding. First, it assaults the ancient shibboleth, the distinction of man as uniquely equipped and aware in the enterprise of altruism. To be sure, the experiment does not find chimpanzees organizing global relief efforts for men or monkeys if far off lands, and by no means would we mistake these findings for some kind of altruism in chimps that places them in parity with humans, by quality or quantity of their altruism. But here you have a structured set of tests that show that our closest relatives manifest behaviors of the kind that has always put man alone on one side of the "moral chasm", with every other living thing on the other. Now, it seems, in light of recent investigations, that maybe we need to make some room on our side of the moral divide for our chimpanzee cousins (and who knows who else might get added to the list).
Second, its hard to read the article and not be struck by the similarities demonstrated between chimps and small (human) children. In both cases, when the researcher doesn't demonstrate distress, chimps and kids aren't distressed either, and don't help out, as ostensibly no help is needed. When the researcher sends clear signals that they need help, help that the chimp or kid might render, they do, much more often then when no "need-state" is in view. We humans, being humans, intuitively understand this; if someone is having trouble, you ought to consider helping, even if there's no reward in view, immediately or ever. As the study affirms, this isn't something we must be taught in class to develop, but something that is innate at some low level.
That's not strange to most humans. But it is strange to see the same kind of response from chimpanzees when your worldview says that that "ought" can only come from God, and can only come to man. For the chimp who has perfectly nothing to gain (on the caricatured view of evolution as seen by most Christians) in helping someone reach something just beyond their grasp, whence the "ought" that prods them to help? Does God spare a little moral sense, sense unto altruism, even if in rudimentary form, for the chimp?
If so, it's a spotty application. Chimpanzees are notorious for their inclination for infanticide, the brutal killing of infants in the group, sometimes resulting in cannibalism of the young as a follow up to the frenzy (see here, for example). If there is some kind of natural theology for chimps, it seems much more compartmentalized that it is even for (allegedly) fallen, depraved humans. I won't even bother to recount the illustrious sex life of the average chimp, Google that up some time if you are not aware and inclined to think just maybe God dished out a helping of the same sense of "objective moral values" he designed for man, to use a favorite (if problematic) term from William Lane Craig.
Infanticide and sexual promiscuity the likes which might make Larry Flynt blanch aren't a problem from a naturalistic standpoint. There are both plausible (and to increasingly evidentially supported) explanations for such features of chimp behavior, and no "moral chasm" to bridge. Man is a moral being and capable of ethical reasoning in ways that no other animal is, as best we can tell. But while we stand apart, we stand apart by degree and by circumstance on the naturalistic view. For the Christian, man stands apart in kind, in essence. If we are to find, as this study suggests, that that degree isn't nearly so different from our closest genetic relatives, it's interesting and informative, but it fits the model. Chimps and man shared a common ancestor some time long ago, and the discovery of chimp altruism just points us back to our common heritage, a developmental history where we shared the "proto-ethics" that later developed into the concrete forms we see in chimps and humans today.
On the Christian view, though, it's hard to know what to make of such findings. There's always the trusty "common design" hobby horse to trot out whenever parallels and isomorphisms are identified in biology between disparate species. But common design, weak as it is, just utterly fails in this case, as mankind is suigeneris in terms of his moral conscience, per Christianity, a "bespoke design" as a British friend recently called it. The sensusdivinitatus is what makes man different from all other creatures for the Christian, and it is this that man draws upon, even and especially the unregenerate man in acting on moral impulses.
This is why morality as a matter of biological evolution is flatly, unequivocally rejected by Christianity. If morality emerges as the output of evolution, then it's as available to the chimp or the dolphin as it is to man. It's different for the same reasons the species themselves are different: they occupy different ecological niches, and have unique paths that brought them where they are as social animals. The more we learn though, the more the evidence accumulates that works right against the "moral chasm", against the sensusdivinitatus, and toward the idea that morality fits right into the unifying principles and dynamics of evolution. If morality is supported as an integral part of the impersonal biological processes of man's development, one of the load-bearing beams of Christian apologetics, and the appeal of Christianity itself, falls apart.
The Warnekenetal study is not the final word, of course, but just a piece of the puzzle. Chimps being helpful, even at some cost, without a basis for reciprocity or any kind of compensation, doesn't quite rise to the commitments of say, a Mother Teresa (Hitchens' objections to her notwithstanding). It's representative of the "pebbles" that are ever accumulating into what has grown now to be a significant pile of data that supports the idea that the "moral instinct", or the "moral grammar" as Marc Hauser would call it (with a hat tip to Chomsky), is a natural byproduct of evolution. No imago dei, no sensusdivinitatus provisioned by a supernatural deity needed. A very good amount of the moral finger-wagging by Christian apologists depends on this message: you can't be moral without God. Or, more recently, a slightly more sophisticated revision: you can be moral, but you can't justify your morality without God. The more we learn, the more clearly plausible and evident becomes the picture of man as a moral being by virtue of his evolutionary biology.
So long as man is the only "altruist" -- the only one on the "moral" side of the moral chasm -- that's not a big problem for Christianity. A theistic evolutionist can nod at all the evidence for man developing a moral sense in the context of evolution. In her view, God is working, invisibly, behind the scenes, pulling invisible strings to steer man's nature toward its proper, intended moral constitution. But the identification of that kind of moral development, the emergence of even such sublime features as moral, conscious altruism in other animals, is problematic. That kind of evidence is a disconfirmation of the idea that man is unique, alone in his moral endowments. If we find emergent morality and ethics in other species of the very same kind we find more fully developed in man, the chasm is bridged, and this works strongly against the idea that man is ontologically distinct from the rest of life on earth.
Natural theology for chimps is a problem for the Christian worldview.
If you have my book and want to comment on it as you read it, you may want to do so here. Your comments can be good, bad or indifferent. Any honest feedback at all is appreciated.
God was omnipotent, and God must have known the properties and tolerances of everything he created, just like a baker and just like an engineer.
If he was omniscient, then he had foreknowledge and if he didn't have foreknowledge (for whatever reason), he could have made reliable predictions based on his intimate knowledge of his creation and its properties and tolerances. To refute this would necessitate showing why God cannot be expected to have the same capabilities as any other Engineer or Baker.
Stipulating that the story of the Fall of Man is true in some sense, God was an expert in how to make Adam. He understood Adam intimately.
God made Adam as a Man in Gods image, whatever that means. Since god made Adam as a man, Adam necessarily possessed all the qualities that qualify Adam to be classified as a man. From the story, we can see that Adam had desire, cognitive biases (such as trusting someone he liked) but he didn't posses the Knowledge of Good and Evil. So from Adams perspective all options were more or less equal. These choices he made from the options and characteristics that he possessed guaranteed certain outcomes were more likely than others.
6 But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground.
7 Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
Since Adam had no family, no history, no education, no culture, no frame of reference with which to view the world, he had to make decisions based on information he picked up from the time of his inception or from what God instilled in him at creation. Since God made him without the Knowledge of Good and Evil, his options would be determined by that frame of reference. If God made him without language, his options would be limited accordingly. If he made him without an opposable thumb his options would be limited accordingly. Based on Adams properties, Adam could be expected to behave in certain ways. For example, we don't expect Adam walked on all fours even though he could have. We expect and assume he walked upright because of his body structure. He, like us, had parameters that made it more comfortable to walk upright than on his hands and knees. He, like us, had desires that made it more likely that had the ability to place value on things and have a hierarchy of preferences. In fact, he did not choose a helper. While its strange that God did not make woman when he made the animals once Adam gave up trying to choose, God made Eve in such a way that it was likely that Adam was going to accept her as a his helpmate. If God had made woman when he made the animals, Adam could have avoided wasting time looking for a suitable helper from the animals.
2:20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.
2:21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.
2:22 The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.
If certain conditions are met, we can reasonably expect a certain outcome.
An example from close to home. My grandmother was an expert about what she cooked. When my grandmother used to make biscuits, she used only a certain type of flower, and she added Crisco and other ingredients to make the best biscuits ever. When I asked her for the recipe she said it was in her head, and when i asked her to dictate it to me is was full of dashes and pinches of this and that. She did that with everything and she was a great cook. She knew exactly how each ingredient would affect the outcome of the texture, taste, consistency etc. I imagine that God would have been like my grandmother with Adam. He would have known exactly how each ingredient in each proportion would affect the outcome of Adam and Eve and all the animals that he made from scratch.
Another example are engineers for the space program. They used engineering principles to make predictions and test them to find solutions to problems that never existed before. They used mathematical models to derive solutions, then tested them empirically, and when their collective confidence was strong, they put their plan into action. Without any foreknowledge or omniscience, engineers put men on the moon by ensuring certain conditions were met, and they enjoyed many successful outcomes.
Adam worked with what he had. Generally, a small number of mistakes are expected.
When Adam disobeyed Gods order not to eat the fruit, he was making decisions based within the boundaries of his frame of reference. Being the first human, mistakes should have been expected. Using myself as a standard, with my life experience, and generally knowing Good from Evil, I cannot see myself disobeying a God that I was confident existed. I know this about myself because I choose to abide by the Law and the Law is something less than a God. Since I choose to abide by the Laws of my society, I would likewise choose to abide by the Laws of a God that I believed existed. To me it is obvious that Adam made a mistake because he did not understand what he was doing.
In fact, Adam did not, on a whim, decide to disobey God. There were many other factors that led to that act that should be considered. There is no doubt that he knew that God said not to eat the fruit, but he could not have known it was wrong to trust Eve's new information and revise his options and choices. People that are not capable of flexibility in their decision making are severely handicapped in life and in business. Of course revising opinions and making decisions on the information at hand can lead to mistakes, generally it guarantees more successful outcomes. Adam and Eve revised their thinking based on new information but because they were missing the component that enabled knowledge of Good and Evil, they were mentally incompetent as detailed in the article "Gen. 2:16-3:24: Adam and Eve Were Mentally Incompetent". They did not have knowledge of Good and Evil before they ate the fruit, they possessed desire, exhibited preferences, and exhibited several cognitive biases that put enabled them to be persuaded by the snake.
A list of factors follows leading up to Adams disobedience.
1. Adam Existed
1.a. Adam and Eve had desire built in (Gen. 3:6)
1.b. Adam and Eve were missing some cognitive processes (Knowledge of Good and Evil, experience with bad people) (Gen. 3:7)
1.c. Adam and Eve had Cognitive Bias built in (trusting someone they like) (Gen. 3:6)
2. Adam was put in the Garden
3. Eve existed
3.a No Warning about the snake
4. Snake Existed
5. Tree Existed
These were the factors involved in causing Adam to disobey God. If any one of these factors had not existed, the likelihood that Adam would have disobeyed God would decrease. This is obvious in hindsight, but since God is supposedly Omniscient, and he engineered everything, if he didn't know it, he should have been able to reliably predict it.
For people who have been patiently waiting for my book you can now get it on Amazon. Here is a link to some blurbs and to the book itself. Be among the first to review it on your blogs. Help spread the word if you like it.
We often hear from the Christian evangelicals: “God hates the sin; but God loves the sinner.” (A non-Biblical statement used to gloss over the fact that the “loved” unforgiven sinner will fry like bacon for eternity in the Lake of Fire (Hell) because of “God’s love“). But remember sinner, you sent yourself there, not your loving Heavenly Father.
Or again: If God be for me/us, who can be against me/us?! This statement is simply an excuse to exploit religious bigotry and hatred under the guise of salvation theology. Anyone who doubts this need only read Brad S. Gregory’s Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Modern Europe (Harvard University Press, 1999) and winner of the Thomas J. Wilson Prize of Harvard University Press. The fly cover states:
Thousands of men and women were executed for incompatible religious views in sixteenth-century Europe. The meaning and significance for those deaths are studied here comparatively for the first time, providing a compelling argument for the importance of martyrdom as both a window onto religious sensibilities and a crucial component in the formation of divergent Christian traditions and identities. … Gregory shows us the shifting perspectives of authorities willing to kill, martyrs willing to die, martyrologists eager to memorialize, and controversialists keen in dispute.
Be it in John Calvin’s Geneva, Luther and Melanchthon in favor of death for the Anabaptist, the Catholic Inquisition or the killing of witches in New England; the Hebrew Bible set the precedence in the slaughter of all of God’s non-chosen people in the land of Canaan.
This is followed in the New Testament where even a loving “Gentile Jesus meek and mild” states:
"Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW; and A MAN'S ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. (Matthew 10: 34 - 37) and Jesus in the final stage of Salvation History is depicted riding a white horse in Revelation 19: 11 - 21 wheeling a sword to the slaughter:
“And the rest were killed with the sword which came from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse, and all the birds were filled with their flesh.” (verse 21).
Even the Ku Klux Klan’s website proclaims that “Our Entire Group of Sites are Family and Christian Friendly” which is re-enforced by their own Pastor Thomas Robb of the World Church of the Creator:
A racist recognizes within their kindred people a special relationship with Jesus Christ. They recognize that race is but one aspect of living a Christian life, but such an important one that the mingling of the races, will as in the days of mingling in the scripture cause God’s wrath to fall upon his children. Peace on earth for all nations and races can only come about by adhering to Biblical truth. It is we who are the compassionate ones because we understand that true satisfaction and happiness will not be felt by everyone until God’s word and his edicts are felt throughout the land. Our job in the Knights’ is to send a wake up call, to inform our white brothers and sisters of their rightful inheritance and to ask them to repent so that God will bless our nation once again. We want God to use us to bring a message of revival throughout the world.
With Bible courses such as: The Anglo-Saxon Jesus sold in their White Heritage Book Store, the positive side of religious hate can be made very family friendly.
Finally, to show how vicious another monotheistic religious tradition can be, this is from an August 17, ‘08 new paper:
A Saudi Arabian Muslim father cut out his daughter's tongue and lit her on fire upon learning that she had become a Christian.
The child became curious about Jesus Christ after she read Christian material online, the Gulf News reported. Her father read of her Internet conversation, detached her tongue and burned her to death "following a heated debate on religion," according to an International Christian Concern report. The father is employed by the muwateen, or Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The muwateen are police tasked by the government with enforcing religious purity. The man has been taken into custody, and his identity has not been released.
The ICC pointed out the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has reported textbooks at the Saudi Arabian government school in Northern Virginia teach, "It is permissible for a Muslim to kill an apostate (a convert from Islam)." Saudi Arabian oil money is used to export Wahabbism – a version of Islam said to be least tolerant toward non-Muslims – to other nations, including the U.S., ICC notes. ICC president Jeff King said, "Saudi Arabia has to treat Christians with the same respect that it wants Muslims to be treated in other countries. It has to stop exporting hate and persecution against Christians in other countries."
Here's a quick response a section in a recent post by "Dusman", in which we find Dusman, a reducing philosophical materialists to absurdities via the magic of presuppositional apologetics.
Dusman advances the following argument:
Argument One:
1. Material things are extended in space. 2. Logical laws are not extended in space. 3. Therefore, logical laws are non-material. 4. Materialism posits that non-material entities do not exist. 5. Therefore, logical laws do not exist.
Just thinking about that, I wonder if Dusman thinks the activity of "walking" is a materialist absurdity:
The "Walking" Corollary:
1. Material things (like legs) are extended in space. 2. "Walking" is not extended in space. 3. Therefore, "walking" is non-material. 4. Materialism posits that non-material entities do not exist. 5. Therefore, for the materialist, "walking" does not exist.
If you've spent any time wading into the rhetorical devices of presuppositional apologetics, you'll anticipate that Dusman might just want to assert that materialist really don't have any basis for believing in "walking" or any similarly derived concept.
Walking, as a concept, has physical infrastructure -- the brain-state(s) that reify the concept in the mind -- and is thus perfectly "real" and extant as a physical entity, but the subject of the concept is abstract.
Logic, like the activity of walking, isn't a physical entity beyond the electro-chemical patterns of the brain that holds the concept. And logic, like walking, is descriptive of natural properties and phenomena. Both are useful abstractions for understanding and describing the world around us, but they are abstract beyond their physical housing as brain-states. When I get out of my chair and walk across the room, I have not created a "walking" when I get out of my chair and walk across the room, nor destroyed a "walking" when I sit down again. The concept in both cases -- "walking" and logical principles -- is just that: conceptual, and thus real and extant in the form of brain-states. The referents of the concepts are real and existent in the straightforward sense; legs are "extended objects" in space/time, and "walking" is an abstraction about the patterns of movement and activity of the legs.
I don't know who the philosophical materialists are that Dusman can get to take him seriously with the argument he presents, let alone find themselves reduced to absurdities, but whoever they are, they aren't philosophically anything much at all, if they are, in fact, actual in the first place. In any case, all the materialist needs to do is show that "walking" doesn't exist under the terms of Dusman's argument, which winds up making Dusman dealing with the absurdities, not the materialist. Does Dusman believe the materialist thinks "walking" doesn't exist, or must disbelieve in walking as a materialist? It's as if the concept of abstraction itself has somehow eluded him, or that he supposes that the concept of abstraction somehow necessarily eludes the materialist.
In any case it's too bad Dusman doesn't make himself available to actual responses to his arguments, to see who is really trafficking in absurdities.
What say you, materialists? Does "walking" exist? Has Dusman removed that from our cognitive reach along with logic?
In February 2002, four years before his book The God Delusion was released in 2006, Richard Dawkins called atheists to arms on TED. Seen here. His talk was first posted by TED in April of 2007. He makes it clear he wants a campaign much like the gays used to gain acceptability in American society. His final sentence was, "let's all stop being so damned respectful." It seems to be working.
