When responding to the Realists and Camps and Torleys of the world I keep the tone sarcastic to signal that we're not having anything approaching a real discussion. I don't regard it as a question of 'shutting down communication' which assumes there's some real communication taking place. The responses we get from the resident apologists aren't the results of reasoned textual interrogation but canned material from apologist blogs and (my personal fav) Christian "think tanks" to which we are often referred. Whether their responses cohere with anything else the New Testament says isn't a question that occurs to the apologetic mindset; it's all ad hoc argumentation anyway. It helps to remember that Christian advocates are used to proselytizing the ignorant, the emotionally vulnerable, and the gullible, and that they assume they'll find some similar audience here. It seems rarely to occur to the true believer that most here who have reconverted have "been there, done that," and have heard it all before.
I also proselytize among the ignorant. By educating them. I appeal to the emotionally vulnerable who are offended by the monumental hypocrisy of Christian preachments. However I don't pretend I can sway the gullible--there are some people, lots of people, who are just born to be swindled.
What are the odds that someone can self-propel themselves to the moon and back without any technological help, including oxygen tanks?
Timothy R Campbell:
I am not sure that one can utilize math or reason or probabilities when dealing with claims of miracle or magic. After all, any event that can be seen as statistically possible would then not be magic. Resurrection -and John flying to the moon through self propulsion- are impossible without magic, but would certainly be possible if magic was possible. Once someone shows definitively that magic is possible, THEN the statisticians can review their estimates!
On Facebook Richard Carrier has been arguing that every claim, except a logically impossible one, has a non-zero probability to them. He said:
The only thing that has a zero probability is that which no amount of evidence (none whatsoever) would ever warrant believing; not a thing for which we don't have that evidence, but a thing for which no such evidence can even be conceived. The only thing that qualifies, is raw uninterpreted present experience. Everything else we can be wrong about, such that some amount of evidence, *if it were presented* would warrant believing it. But when it isn't presented, we aren't warranted in believing it.
When it came to the resurrection Carrier said,
I literally actually believe the probability is nonzero, and not only because I can imagine evidence that could convince me, although that's the big point to note here. I don't think resurrection happened because no such evidence has appeared. Not because no such evidence can even be conceived.
John W. Loftus: Nonzero as in
.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001?
Richard Carrier: Maybe. That's the kind of probability I'm talking about at least.
John W. Loftus: There is no difference between that number and zero.
In responding to Christian apologist David Marshall who asserted I should say: "By faith, Christians mean 'holding to and trusting in what you have good reason to think is true, in the face of difficulties.' But in practice they don't live up to their own standards." That's not what I want to say. I said "Faith is an irrational leap over the need for evidence" and stand by it. It's because Christians like Alvin Plantinga and others say this. I also say "Faith is an irrational leap over the evidence." That's because it best describes what Christian do. Mattapult explains:
How can I believe that what they do is not important, but what they call it is important?
Let's look at a few examples: Don Camp says that if you pray a lot, and look for times when your prayers seem to be answered, then obviously "God" is answering them. That is a counting-the-hits fallacy.
Realist1234 seems to think babies being killed by "God" is ok, because "God" is perfectly moral and will even things out sometime in the future.
Vincent Torley often argues that philosophy answers empirical questions. Enough said.
When confronted with these fallacies, the rational approach would be to re-evaluate the evidence.
Then there's the Ken Hamm's of the world, and the Westboro Baptist Church, Evangelicals, Mormons, and so on. Not only do they experience difficulties -- as you suggest -- they cannot even convince each other their god is the right one, and the others are wrong. With so many different conceptions of god, how can we believe they are all taking a rational look at the evidence?
We know geographic coincidences, indoctrination, and emotional manipulation play important roles in their belief systems. How is the belief guaranteed to be rational when there's such heavy irrational influences?
When the behaviors differ so drastically from the definition, how can the definition be right?
To say the word "faith" is to say fideism or faithism, they have the same exact meaning. That's what we're saying, despite their claims to the contrary.
Is there no word in the Christian lexicon that describes a belief not grounded on proof or empirical evidence? My question is directed to all Christians. My point is that the common Christian wouldn't know the word fideism. In fact, the lay Christian, who is coached by those who know the weak arguments, quotes Hebrew 11:1 to bat-down the "atheist" definition of faith. When cornered about the lack of proof or empirical evidence, Christians respond with faith as a reason; for if they had evidence, they would state so without relying on faith.
I like these thoughts. How about the word "Faithism" the belief in belief itself? And then say it's equivalent to how "Faith" is used by believers. Or, that it's all faithism? "Fideism" seems to be a a good word as well, the view that knowledge depends on faith. We could say it's all fideism. The word "faith" is therefore equivalent to the words "faithism" and "fideism." Discuss.
Christians (and a few atheists) get butt hurt when we tell the truth that brain dead cold cadavers stay dead, that there's a zero chance one or more of them have ever come back to life. Here are the facts: 108 billion human beings have been born into the world (per one estimate), all of whom died except those still alive, 7.5 billion of us. Those of us alive will die and our deaths will be permanent just like all other species on the planet, who share with us a common ancestor, along with everyone yet to be born (no known estimates for this figure). I think we can safely say everyone born has died or will die, and never come back to life. While taxes may not always be a permanent state of affairs, death is.
Let me give an analogy. What are the odds I can fly to the Moon and back on my own via self-propulsion without the use of modern technology, not even oxygen tanks? Zero. Again, Zero.
JP415: "What is the Bayesian probability that Muhammad split the Moon in half, or that Hercules killed the Hydra? Sometimes satire is the most effective form of refutation."
In his classic analysis of religion, Treatise on the Gods, H. L. Mencken speculated on how it all began: “There must have been skeptics at the ringside when the first priest performed his hocus-pocus, and no doubt some of them, revolting against its transparent fraudulence, set themselves to find a better way to deal with flood, fire and famine.” But there were far more non-skeptics, those who were duped by the hocus-pocus. It was not Mark Twain who said: “Religion was born when the first con man met the first fool” (I don’t know who did, although Twain often gets the credit))—but it shows his flair for nailing the truth.
As somebody with a degree in mathematics, I look in disgust at every apologist who tries to use Bayes theorem to "establish the likelihood of the resurrection." Bayes theorem requires that we have an established background probability, and as far as I know, the dead stay dead. The background probability of coming back from the dead (after more than a few minutes) is 0.
Ask any school child and they'll tell you that zero times anything is always zero. Just more apologists trying to pull the wool over the eyes of their math ignorant flock.
Establish that people come back from the dead, and we can start talking about Jesus coming back from the dead.
If Lourdes worked there would be no reason for any cancer patient to bother with treatment - just bop over to Lourdes for your miracle. But, believers know that conventional medicine offers real hope, whereas trekking off to Lourdes is what you do when you've abandoned hope. The miracle claims from Lourdes have been analyzed and the Christian church's own attested cure rate is less than the natural remission rate for cancer. Likelihood of dying en route to Lourdes is orders of magnitude higher than the cure rate.
I have an axe to grind with the way Craig, Torley, et al. used Bayes’ Theorem. It just seems like a diversionary tactic. During a debate, they break out an equation and say, “Our methods are objective! See, we’ve even got a math formula to prove it.” But when you look at the formula, you see that it’s stuffed with a bunch of unproven assumptions. They should know better. Maybe they do.
GearHedEd:
They do. Craig's entire career has been an effort to become a "respected Christian Apologist". He was already committed before he went to college. And none of the "priors" that they stuff into their Bayes' Theorem Machine are reasonable. It all comes from poorly evidenced claims in the Bible, and gets a "pass" because of where it was found.
JP415:
Yeah, it's like, "Given our prior background knowledge that Superman came from the planet Krypton, it's entirely likely that he could fly and shoot laser beams from his eyes." You could just put any old thing in there and get the results you want.
I think this analysis is basically correct, and I wish to comment further.
I wish I could get Robert as a Team Member here at DC. Here's a quote for people who insist on following the latest Christian apologetic fad of trying to quantify unique miraculous claims in ancient history using Bayes' Theorem:
I don't know much about Bayes' Theorem, but I know it's August 1, 2017 and Jesus hasn't come back yet.
Here's another one highlighting the fact that faith is pretending to know what you don't know (think of the Sophists in Socrates's day):
Celsus repeatedly noted Christians boldly opine about all sorts of things they don't and can't know, and nothing has changed in the two millennia since. Jesusplaining Christians appear to think their convictions are some kind of "smart pill"--just witness the resident apologists who infest this site with their twaddle and who never cease to pontificate about everything from the ancient documents they read only in translation to particle physics to evolutionary biology.
In order to maintain a high quality of discussion in the comments box, I have made the executive decision to moderate all comments on all posts. This decision is effective immediately.
The following policies are in effect....5) This blog has a philosophical focus; the editors and authors aren’t interested in debating with readers who think philosophy is worthless or cannot understand the value of clearly defined terms. Comments along those lines will be blocked. LINK
Not having been a part of the discussions he refers to, it looks like he's feeling the heat from my book, Unapologetic: Why Philosophy of Religion Must End, which mirrors Dr. Hector Avalos's call to end biblical studies as we currently understand them.
Listen, I have blocked people for various reasons, but never because someone merely disagreed with my views. One issue I have debated over the years is the existence of an apocalyptic prophet who was the basis for the Jesus we read about in the gospels. I have never silenced this debate here at DC, yet Lowder just censored a debate over the value of philosophy of religion. Pity, to think he claims to be interested in "genuine inquiry." Hypocrite! This is to be taken as another example of his hypocrisy.
But com’on, is Jesus their best reason for stepping up to the plate?
A young man named Matthew Vines has taken on a big challenge: trying to convince Evangelical Christians that their virulent opposition to homosexuality is wrong. Those very righteous people don’t seem to grasp that their anti-gay rhetoric is mean-spirited, destructive, evil. They may claim that they don’t hate gay people…no, they love them, and want to get them to turn away from sin. But they remain mired in aggressive and arrogant ignorance about gay people. They bring shame to theology.
Miracle claims aren't interesting to me because they cannot be verified. The best we can do is establish that the "miracle" in question was a result of natural phenomena at work. The best the apologist can do is claim that since science can't explain an event, it could be supernatural.
Until the day that some apologist has a reliable method to investigate their "supernatural", miracle claims are nothing more than empty claims, and can be dismissed.
Here is why internet celebrities are divisive. Because they can be. Since I'm against atheist divisiveness I have plenty to do, and in doing it I guess that makes me divisive too. I am against a cookie cutter-mentality, a one size fits all approach to capturing this planet for reason and science. I am against the attitude that we should all do this or think that, and if we don't we are ousted from the atheist ranks of the cool people. This reminds my of High School all over again, but it's happening.
Sometimes I just inadvertently back into these difficulties. Recently I liked this meme of Dr. David Madison's who posted a David Silverman quote. I Tweeted it and said, "Yep. Honesty requires atheists to tell the truth, not placate them, no more than doctors with patients." Controversy ensued.
Here's an accurate description of a faith based cult, per my friend Peter Bighossian's work. Watch up to the 3:15 mark. Listen up apologists, if this is not accurate description then what word would YOU use that best explains all of these similar examples that reject science based evidence?
This is the claim I made in a chapter for my book, How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist. Whenever an apologist makes an exception for their own faith, that same exception can be claimed by another sect in the Christian household, or another religion. Whenever an apologist uses an argument for their faith, that same argument can be claimed by another sect in the Christian household, or another religion.
They say Christianity is unique. Aren't all religions? They say miracles are possible. Don't other religions say that? They say their deity answers prayers. Others claim the same thing. They say they have a subjective experience of their deity. Don't they all? They claim a personal miracle. So do others. They quote their scriptures (or inspired people) as an authority to settle disputes. Don't others? They claim the existence of objective morality shows their god exists. So do others, even ISIS! They claim there is solid evidence for what they believe over all other religions, yet it does not convince others who believe in the supernatural.
They treat their own religion as special, that it has truer truth, and a better history. But in reality they're just more familiar with their own religion. Period! They cannot see what they're doing. They take for granted their faith is the one true one out of the myriads of religions of the past, present and future. Then taking this as the real reason for their faith, they special plead it all the way to market. But by special pleading their case they allow other religious faiths to walk through the same door. It doesn't defend their religious faith from the myriads of others out there, which is arguing fallaciously. This shows how desperate apologists are to defend what cannot reasonably be defended, and why reasonable people cannot believe.
A review of David Chumney’s new book, Jesus Eclipsed
Christians are the huddled, persecuted masses, yearning to breathe free—or so they would have us believe. After all, in the last few years a lot of folks have been ganging up on them. Gay people who want wedding cakes come to mind, but, more seriously, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins scorched Christianity with their bestselling atheist books—and these turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg. And then, of all things, a few scholars grabbed headlines with the suggestion that Jesus might not even have existed; they have published substantial works to make their case that a real Jesus is, well, iffy. Yes or no? Well, are you ready for some homework?
Did the Pope Just Reveal the Secret to a Christian Mystery?
Thanks to a recent circular letter to Catholic bishops, we may be a step closer to understanding a central Christian mystery, the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ—the bigliest nonfake news to come down the pike in two millennia, a landmark revelation that marks an exciting new era in theological transparency that merits the attention of New Testament scholars worldwide.
The Truth about Godby Franz Kiekeben speaks simply yet intelligently to readers who want a good primer for understanding why atheists don't believe. He expertly introduces them to a range of important issues in an easily understandable manner, and that's not an easy task to do. As such, this book fills a very needed gap. It's not so technical that it loses the average reader, nor is it so simple that it becomes simplistic. Well done!
Originally from Portugal, Kiekeben studied philosophy at the University of South Florida (where he was awarded the Undergraduate Prize by the Florida Philosophical Association), and at the Ohio State University, where he then lectured for seven years. He has written for Skeptic Magazine, published academic articles on determinism and on time travel, and blogs on atheism and related subjects at www.franzkiekeben.com.
Brain-dead corpses do not come back to life and fly off into outer space. Once a brain cell is dead it stays dead. This is a scientific fact. The regeneration of dead human tissue is Christianity's core belief, therefore Christianity is false.
It's as simple as that.
There may be an intelligent Creator, but if he exists, he (she, they, or it) has decided that the universe will operate under certain inviolable "laws". One of those laws is that when human tissue dies it stays dead. Your Reanimation of a Dead First Century Jewish Preacher story is therefore false until overwhelming evidence indicates otherwise. Alleged eyewitness testimony of this science-defying claim is insufficient.
In this book Loftus provides some insightful criticisms of arguments by Christian thinkers, including those having to do with the problem of evil.
Dr. Meister is a Professor of Philosophy at Bethel College and author of numerous apologetical works, including, Evil: A Guide for the Perplexed, where this recommendation can be found.
I've challenged this unrepentant believer to read my magnum opus. He is, and he's commenting on it. He thinks of himself as equal to the task of answering my doubts and others here. Can he? He's reading my chapter on prophecy, where I ask how his god has the required foreknowledge to predict the future of human free willed agents with certainty. I examine four different models and Camp defends one. Here's Camp:
Theological. God decrees everything that happens, he can know the future of every human action, since humans don't have the freedom to do otherwise. "Such a theology creates atheists. It, more than anything else, is what motivates me to attempt to demolish the Christian faith." - Loftus
God is outside time. If God is outside of time he would have no problems predicting future human actions since human actions are not actually in the future. God would merely be seeing the present from his perspective. “We have on hand no acceptable concept of atemporal causation, i.e., of what it is for a timeless cause to produce a temporal effect.” - Davis. “If God is truly timeless,” Hasker says, “so that temporal determinations of ‘before’ and ‘after’ do not apply to him, then how can God act in time, as Scriptures say that he does? - Hasker
The Inferential View. On this view, God figures out from the range of options which choices we will make. "If the history of an empire or nation is already part of the divine plan, how can God hold the leaders, and indeed the peoples themselves, accountable for their actions?" then their thoughts and actions are so preordained as to render them devoid of free will. - Callahan. "How, for instance, can anyone living in the year 2000, God or otherwise, innately know what someone will do on January 1, 2050? So the bottom line for me is that if there is no known mechanism or reason given for how a God in time can foreknow future truly free human actions, then I have reasons to reject that God can foreknow such actions." - Loftus
The Innate View. On this view, God has innate comprehensive knowledge of the future. He just “sees it” because he is omniscient. But this isn't an explanation at all.
Could we put please all Christians on a Bible-reading regimen? We can ask them to read each chapter of the Bible, then sign off on each one. That is, we’d like them to read each chapter carefully, very carefully, then check a few boxes: (1) Yes, I believe that this is the word of God; (2) Yes, I will let this chapter be a guide for my life; (3) Yes, I really believe this is the way the world works. They could be assured that their answers would remain confidential—to boost chances for honesty. At the end of this experiment, I predict that most of the chapters wouldn’t have checkmarks. There’s a reason that Mark Twain said, “The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible,” and Hector Avalos is probably right that 99 percent of the Bible would not be missed. (“Why Biblical Studies Must End,” The End of Christianity, John Loftus, ed., p. 109)
Christian Apologists Keep on Churning Out Flimflam
I have suggested, in a previous post here on 2 June 2017—that the story of Jesus ascending to heaven, i.e., floating up to exit Earth’s atmosphere—qualifies as the New Testament’s Biggest Lie. Anyone with the least shred of common sense, knowledge of a rotating, orbiting Earth, and any appreciation for the line between fact and fiction/fantasy, knows that no such thing happened. There are a lot of folks, however, for whom skepticism about received religious tradition never kicks in. Compare this with fantasies about Superman; a six-year old may be awed by the Superman comics/movies, but by age ten, chances are, healthy skepticism has kicked in. And from that age on, Superman is enjoyed—using the term of old friend of mine—as “good schoolboy adventure.” Great fun, Yes. History—well, of course not.
I had a discussion about faith with Christian apologist Tom Gilson on Facebook. You need to read it. He blogs at Thinking Christian and edited the book True Reason. *cough* Our discussion began with a video and my initial salvo:
In the clip above forget about Mel Robbins's religiously charged language and whether talk of motivation is garbage. She hits it when she forcefully and eloquently says:
"The way that our minds are wired...is that we are not designed to do things that are uncomfortable or scary or difficult. Our brains are designed to protect us from those things because our brains are trying to keep us alive.....The way our minds are designed is to stop us at all costs from doing anything that might hurt us."
Robbins goes on to say we're just one decision away from having a new life! But our brains keep us from choosing it because it's uncomfortable scary or difficult. When we come upon a new life changing idea we hesitate. That's our brains keeping us from changing our lives.
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I think this is the number one reason why believers don't abandon their faith in light of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They are made comfortable with their myths in a society of believers who reinforce each other, especially when there's a hell to pay if they get it wrong. So because of our evolved brains atheists face a monumental uphill two-steps-forward-one-step-backward struggle. Belief is easy. Doubt is hard. Belief is still socially acceptable. Doubt could separate us from our loved ones.
I have a friend named Mark who attended a lecture I did about six months ago for the FreeThought Fort Wayne group we're a part of where I handed him a copy of my book, "The Outsider Test for Faith." Sheila saw him yesterday. They talked. She asked him if he has read it. He said he's picked it up a few times but got a "weird" feeling about it, so he put it down. That was his brain dong the talking. The reason he won't even read the book is because he doesn't want to doubt. That's because doubt is hard. If he ever decides to read it he'll probably do as another good friend of mine did, named Brenda. I handed her a copy of my magnum opus and she said this prayer every time she opened it: "Dear Lord, don't let me be deceived by what I read today." This was her brain doing the talking. It was keeping her closed-minded while she read it.
So I put it to you. Given this fact about our brains how can we come to know the truth about which religion is true, if there is one? Remember, our brains have a vested interest in keeping us away from the truth, if the truth is something we were not raised to believe. Taken together with another fact, the fact of religious diversity, we know most people, billions of them, have been raised to believe something false. I've proposed we should treat what we were raised to believe with doubt as agnostic outsiders, who require sufficient objective evidence before we accept any religion, or none at all. What's wrong with my proposal? What is the alternative? I'm serious. Be honest
Tom Gilson "overwhelming evidence to the contrary"? Sorry. No.
John W. Loftus: Tom, our brains will even keep us from seeing that there is "overwhelming evidence to the contrary." Clinical studies confirm this.
"Religious freedom will be protected for decades to come."
ephemerol comments:
Since the freedom to practice your religion, at least to the extent that it does not impinge upon the freedom of others, is not now, nor has it ever been under threat, I think what you meant was, "Religious privilege will be protected for decades to come." Religious privilege to expressly impinge upon the freedom of others. Religious privilege to be intolerant and bigoted.
The history of this nation is littered with countless instances of people committing reprehensible acts of injustice under the pretense of “living out their faith.”
The quote to remember: "Accomodationism is simply a way of sneaking in special pleading by the back door."
I can't help but feel that you are mixing up context and accommodationism.
Lawremce Krauss, Stephen Hawking, or Richard Dawkins, are experts in fields that are pretty well totally inaccessible to ordinary people. That they can actually find a level of understanding in quantum physics, or gravitational waves, or speciation, is an amazing testament to the levels to which humanity has risen. All of these scientists, however, make attempts to communicate their knowledge to ordinary folks, such as me, and although I don't pretend to understand anything like all of it I get the general idea, and can talk quantum fluctuations in any pub discussion.
The point is that scientists such as these communicate by identifying their audience, by writing in context. Were they to write their popular science books at a technical level nobody would buy them, and there'd be no point to them; and vice versa. No accommodationism, only context.
It's the same with philosophy, though it is a generally more accessible subject than traditional science. Great philosophers of the past resonate in the present, even those who perhaps have fallen from favour; Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Bertrand Russell, Immanuel Kant, all names that are relevant today. How about Plato and Socrates? All have things to say that are relevant today, even though much of what they believed has been found to be wrong (and I'd guess that all were sufficiently wise to know this was likely). All must be taken in context, and where they are wrong we call it out as wrong.
Yet somehow you expect the bible to be regarded differently. If the bible says something that is plainly wrong then that's just because if God had presented the truth nobody would have understood it? Yet God knew that one day people would know he was lying? Basically this makes God a very bad communicator. After all, he didn't need to go into the details of quantum physics, he could just have said that what we see is made up of lots of tiny things we can't even see, or at least give us some helpful hints; and no, the Ten Commandments don't come close! How about 'always wash your hands after using the toilet' or 'store food in a cool place'?
Accomodationism is simply a way of sneaking in special pleading by the back door.
People do evil things in the name of God. Does God have a moral obligation to stop people from doing evil things in the name of God? None of the regular apologists here have tackled this question. -- Mattapult
[Written by John W. Loftus] Today I was called an “idiot” and a “moron” for arguing that God should've told human beings a few things he didn't do, especially when it comes to the ancient superstitious problem for modern Christians about the evil eye. He said, “If you were this ignorant in the pulpit then I really feel sorry for your former congregation.” Am I an idiot? Let me respond.
Christians don't believe their own Bible. If they did they would agree with these Flat Earth Society idiots who claim they have "members all around the globe."
--Kyle Huitt: Wait, what makes you think that the Bible asserts the factual claim that the earth is flat, John?
--John W. Loftus: Kyle, what makes you interpret the Bible based on modern science rather than according to the times it was written? This is the key question.
--Kyle: John how can you question my interpretation when you haven't even brought up a passage that we are interpreting?
--John: Kyle, being disingenuous, eh? Typical Christian. I made an assertion about what the Bible says. Do you deny it or not?
--Kyle: I'm inviting you to support your assertion by asking a simple question. I haven't even implied you're wrong. I just want to know why you think what you do.
--John: Kyle, you said, and I quote: "how can you question my interpretation"? So, you deny it? Why? You tell me.
--John: Why don't you do what scholars should do with an ancient text of any kind? Listen to Jon D. Levenson, Professor at Harvard Divinity School in the Department of Near Eastern Studies and Civilizations, who offered a great definition of what scholars do. They “are prepared to interpret the text against their own preferences and traditions, in the interest of intellectual honesty.” See page 3 of his book "The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son." Your preference is to see the Bible as the Word of God rather than interpreting the Biblical texts honesty in their historical context as a part of Mesopotamian beliefs. We must discuss this before we look at the texts.
Below is a good depiction of what ancient Mesopotamian people believed, along with our final comments. For a detailed analysis see Edward Babinski's chapter 5 in my anthology, The Christian Delusion.
I've been thinking a lot about god-of-the-gaps and method.
Science has a lot of tools as part if its method: modeling, hypothesis, falsifiability, null hypothesis, testing, peer review, and so on. We've learned over the centuries, that these are the best methods to prevent ourselves from fooling ourselves. The standard of proof in science is fairly high, and even then, we often call the findings "provisionally true".
A god-of-the-gaps argument starts with the assumption that the best methods have failed; that no matter how hard we've tried to reach the standard of proof required, it is impossible to reach the standard of proof.
So let's punt to Authority and Revelation.
The CEO of Google is probably a pretty good authority on the next product Google will produce. But if he claims to knows what dark matter is, then we should demand evidence as expected of any scientist.
By the same standard, if you have a hypothesis of "God", then by all means, follow the same standards of science to test and validate your claims. You don't get a free pass based on authority to get around the level of proof. Model your god, hypothesize, test, and peer review. Oh, and please have at least one Hindu, Muslim, Jew, and Christian on the peer review panel.
What of the "method" of revelation? Revelation is nothing more than intuition, guesses, dreams, or the output of any other creative process. The number of revelations throughout time are uncountable, people had revelations ranging from where th eir lost car keys are to when it's right to start a war. How many of those are truly a divine inspiration? Answer: model, hypothesis, test, and peer review. It's important to set your pass/fail criteria in advance--another lesson from science.
For the sake of example, let's say there is a divinely inspired revelation out there somewhere. How do you know which one it is? There is no method to find it or identify it. Perhaps ask an authority, but that just substitutes one failed method for another.
God-of-the-gaps will never be a valid argument because there is no method to fall back on when the best methods have failed.
No matter what denomination or creed, there is indeed massive ignorance about Christian origins and the Bible. You can ask 100 believers, “What is your opinion about the turmoil in Jesus studies during the last half-century?” and 99 will give you a blank stare: “What turmoil?” They have no idea. They are unaware—and just as happy to be in the dark. I can easily pick out at least 10 quotes attributed to Jesus (and 10 for Paul as well) that Christians would find incredibly stupid or horrifying: it is their ignorance of their own faith that is truly a scandal. John W. Loftus is not exaggerating when he speaks of the "epidemic of ignorant believers."
Silverman's manifesto is a needed approach given a world with an epidemic of ignorant believers--and they're all ignorant--who are infected with the God virus so much they feel certain their God wants them to be cruel, misogynistic, gay bashing, racist, warmongering theocratic bigots. This is not a God we can placate or accommodate. It's all out war--a war of ideas, arguments, litigation and persuasion--for truth, humanity and the planet. If you love all that's good you too must fight this fight. God must die if we are to live.
I'm the new Executive/Senior Editor of the Secular Nation, the magazine of Atheist Alliance of America. LINK. Yep, I'm pumped! We offer a print and a digital version. As with everything I set out to do, I aim to do this well.
There are gap arguments because there is science. If there is no science, there are no gaps in our scientific understanding.
If God made the world, he made it completely consistent with naturalism. That's why science works, and that's why we are naturalists. And it's why all the evidence we ever see is consistent with naturalism - and we don't expect to ever see anything that is not consistent with naturalism. There has never been a single exception to this. EVER. (your mythical stories notwithstanding).
God could have made a world where naturalistic science does not work. Maybe we could actually witness things like rotting corpses rising from the dead, and we'd have no science to tell us that couldn't happen, because it does happen. It would then be reasonable to seek some other explanation for what we observe, which might be some supernatural entity (especially if we observe that such entities exist). That's not what I call God of the gaps. It's simply a matter of inferring the best explanation for observed evidence.
This is the final post of three on Victor Reppert, our ignorant gullible person of the day. [See the "Gullible" tag below.] Reppert again, about the gaps to god argument:
Look, when I raise this kind of question, I mean show us by providing evidence. Yes, God could sovereignly perform the act of causing Loftus to believe by going "Loftus, believe," and the next Sunday, Loftus will show up in church on his knees praying to God. But providing evidence is by definition not coercive. Of course God could shove belief in his existence down your throat if he wanted to. But could he give us a good reason to believe in his existence, such that no matter how disinclined we were to want to believe in a being greater than ourselves (so that we would have to admit we were not the supreme beings) whose commandments to us are our moral duties (however much we would like to avoid performing them). Wouldn't there be an escape clause available, no matter what we did?
Reppert says he has reservations about coercive belief, that his god only wants non-coercive belief. For one thing I don't see anyone refusing to believe in Reppert's god because he's bigger than they are. What utter indoctrinated ignorance that is!! Would Reppert say he rejects the existence of Allah due to the fact Allah is bigger than he is? I do however, see a good reason to disbelieve in any god that has commanded and taught the kinds of morality ISIS does, which can also be found in this religion. Any god that allows or commands or regulates slavery, or allows or commands or regulates how that women are to be treated as chattel, is not one I could stomach, much less believe.
Perhaps more to the point of non-coercive belief, if Reppert's god coerced belief in Moses, the Egyptian Pharaoh, Gideon, doubting Thomas, or Paul on the Damascus Road, which the Bible says he did without abrogating their free wills, then he could do it again and again. Surely Reppert knows of Theodore Drange's argument (from memory) that if there are people who want to know the truth it's not coercive to provide them with what they want. I find it extremely difficult to accept the faith-based claim that only a small number of people want to know the truth, such that only evangelicals like Reppert receive the needed evidence to believe.
These are Vic Reppert's two atheist talking points:
Here is my real point, which I think has gotten lost here.
There are two atheist talking points that don't mix. Here they are:
1) Look, guys, if God would just give us evidence of his existence, we'd believe in him. The only reason we don't believe is because he hasn't provided evidence of his existence.
2) God of the gaps arguments are always wrong. Any gap in our naturalistic understanding of the world should be dealt with by waiting for science to produce a naturalistic explanation, not by appealing to God.
But anything God might do to reveal his existence could be dismissed as a gap, thus leaving the atheist unaffected. The ban on god of the gaps arguments would allow the atheist to escape no matter what God did to convince us of his existence.
"Gullible Person of the Day" is a new feature here at DC. Enjoy. I recently argued that differences between believers and nonbelievers are not primarily about worldviews. My contention is that believers are simply ignorant! I did so here and I mean it. To believe is to be ignorant to some degree. Our differences are not centered in disputes about the rules of logic either. We can all agree about them. They are centered in the accumulation of knowledge that in turn produces a reasonable/healthy skepticism. This skepticism leads knowledgeable people to apply the rules of logic consistently across the boards without any double standards, or special pleading on behalf of one's own particular religious faith. So believers are naively gullible. They aren't sufficiently skeptical people. Their subconscious brains are lying to their conscious brains about the quality and quantity of evidence for their faith. Their subconscious brains even lie to make their conscious brains see evidence where there isn't any at all.
Think of the saying, "It's as easy as taking candy from a baby." A gullible person is not sufficiently knowledgeable enough to be skeptical of the motives of someone else. So a gullible person can be taken advantage of easily. We can see it in recognized defenders of faith, like Victor Reppert, who is today's Gullible Person of the Day. I intend nothing personal here. Yet I maintain Reppert is ignorant. Like the baby in the aforementioned aphorism, he's but an intellectual babe. No matter how much knowledge he may have or retain, and regardless of whether he knows more than I do, Reppert lacks the knowledge to be skeptical of his inherited religious faith. Like the Sophists in the days of Socrates he's pretending to know what he doesn't know. As an intellectual babe he's playing a childish pretend fantasy game of faith, one that in my book is indeed a dangerous idea.
