Review of Bart Ehrman's Jesus Before the Gospels

Jesus Before the Gospels (New York: HarperONe, 2016, ISBN 978-06-228520-1). 326 pp. Hardcover, $27.99.

            For evangelical apologists, the search for the historical Jesus centers often on the existence of supposed witnesses very close to, or from within, his actual lifetime. Accordingly, we supposedly can trust those sources because memories would be fresh and uncorrupted.

  Bart Ehrman, who is one of the best-selling biblical scholars of all time, provides a cogent challenge to those who equate contemporaneity with a reliable memory. Just because someone witnesses an event or hears someone speak does not mean that any corresponding memory remains unmodified when that “witness” relates or writes his or her account. That is just as true today as it was two thousand years ago.

            In fact, memory is very friable. The brain is constantly adding and subtracting material. As he remarks when summarizing the work of British psychologist F. C. Bartlett: “...when we experience something, bits and pieces of its memory are storied [sic] in different parts of the brain...To complete the memory we unconsciously fill in the gaps” (134).

            Ehrman adduces a wide variety of evidence to prove his point in eight chapters. These include psychological experiments and anthropological fieldwork.

            In Chapter One, Ehrman introduces the reader to the history of research on memory. It usefully includes a discussion of the different types of memory that have been identified in scholarship. For example, some scholars posit a distinction between semantic/factual memory (e.g., the capital of the United States is in Washington, DC), and procedural memory, which centers on how to do something.

            Chapter Two focuses on “The History of Invention,” or how people will invent stories that they then believe are accurate memories. This chapter challenges the fieldwork performed by Kenneth Bailey, who claimed to have collected examples of the accurate preservations of memories in some Middle Eastern villages. Bailey used these as analogies to propose a reliable mechanism that might have preserved Jesus traditions accurately in the first century.

            Explorations of the supposed “eyewitness” accounts in the Gospels constitute Chapter Three. Here, Ehrman effectively debunks Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (2008), which is one of the most prominent defenses today of the reliability of eyewitness testimony about Jesus.

            The distorted memories of the death and life of Jesus are the subject of Chapters Four and Five, respectively. Ehrman lists a number of episodes that are “distorted” memories, including the famed Barabbas episode and the episode suggesting that Jesus shut down temple operations (166).

            “Collective memory,” the main concern of Chapter Six, refers to memories affected by a social context. Ehrman follows the French philosopher Maurice Halbwachs (1877-1945), who coined that term, in affirming that “there is no such thing as memory outside of a social context” (230). The Gospel of Mark, which is regarded as the earliest gospel, is the special concern of this chapter.

            “The Kaleidoscopic Memories of Jesus: John, Thomas, and a Range of Others,” the title of Chapter Seven, explores non-canonical gospels and other sources (e.g., Paul, the hypothetical source called Q) that may preserve authentic memories. Chapter Eight is the conclusion to the book.

            The book is at its best when it specifically refutes claims about how reliable specific memories of Jesus would be. Debunking the reliability of supposed eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life is where Ehrman shines. His command of the fields of textual criticism and early Christian history are in clear evidence.

            Nonetheless, I believe there are some fundamental problems that need to be addressed with Ehrman’s entire argument. In most or all of the modern scientific experiments of memory to which Ehrman refers, the “original” source of the memory is extant or well-documented. That source can be compared easily to claimed recollections.

            Let’s suppose we write a certain sequence of numbers and later test the memory of different individuals. We can evaluate the accuracy of the recollection because the original string of numbers is still extant and verifiable. If we have video of an event that we ask experimental subjects to remember, we can directly verify the accuracy of the memory with the video.

            However, the “original” source is precisely what we do not have in the case of Jesus. Thus, we have no way to compare or evaluate any remaining “memory” if we do not have that original source of any supposed memory.

            What Ehrman ends up doing is akin to looking at about a dozen of the earliest paintings of Jesus, and then declaring that a particular painting best matches a “memory” of Jesus’ appearance. Obviously, without the “original” Jesus we cannot say if any painting matches Jesus’ true appearance. 

            We may be able to eliminate paintings that probably do not match Jesus (e.g., if the painting looks like Donald J. Trump in a three-piece suit), but we could never really verify that any depiction of Jesus matches the original Jesus. The same applies to narratives, which can be considered paintings in words.

            That is why we also cannot speak of the “gist” of any memory of Jesus. Ehrman says that “there are gist memories of Jesus recorded in the New Testament that are almost certainly accurate” (144). But how can we possibly know the “gist” of any memory about Jesus if we don’t have access to the “original” Jesus to which we can compare the supposed memory?

            Ehrman also says “[n]early all critical scholars would agree that some gist memories of Jesus’ last week, as recorded in the Gospels, are almost certainly accurate” (148). One of these gist memories is that “Jesus was immediately taken off and crucified, along with two other criminals” (149; see Matthew 27:38; Luke 23:32–43).

            But how was it determined that this is one of the gist memories that is “almost certainly accurate”? Ironically, Ehrman does not apply any memory study directly to test the accuracy of this memory. In fact, to evaluate the entire list of gist memories, he mainly reverts to the standard critical tools we have used for centuries to evaluate historical claims. One can even reduce the basis for Ehrman’s approach further to this rationale: “Source X says Y about Jesus, and I believe Source X.”

            There may be some plausible reasons to believe Source X, but memory studies really will not help establish the accuracy of the claims he lists. In fact, the list is pretty much the same one he has given in previous books that did not emphasize memory studies. 

            I can also adduce reasons why being crucified alongside two criminals may not be an accurate gist memory. For example, what if the Gospel writers inserted that part of the story to make Jesus fulfill the “prophecy” in Isaiah 53:12 that the Suffering Servant figure in that chapter “was numbered with the transgressors” (Revised Standard Version).

            One also must remember that this claim is in manuscripts of the Gospels that date no earlier than the third century CE. Therefore, I don’t know how Ehrman or any New Testament scholar determined what narrative features had been added or removed from any tradition about Jesus’ crucifixion, which is supposed to have taken place around the year 30 CE. How do we evaluate the accuracy of a source extant some 200-300 years later when it comes to how many criminals were crucified alongside Jesus, if the latter was crucified at all?

            I am not convinced by the insistence that we can date the narratives, especially those identified by Ehrman as preserving accurate memories, to the actual time of Jesus. We may be able to date some claims in the Gospels before or after the year 70 CE, depending on attitudes toward the Jewish temple that was destroyed in that year by the Romans.

            But whether Jesus was crucified with two other criminals (not 4 or 5 or not zero), is not something whose accuracy can be determined by any memory study or by any other written record that Ehrman cites from around the year 30 CE.

            In the end, we retain virtually the same list of historical claims deemed accurate by Ehrman before any emphasis on memory studies. Memory studies did not change anything on Ehrman’s list, and it is the standard tools of historical criticism that are behind all the judgments of accuracy in the list.

            My criticism is not to deny that scientific studies of memory do have great value. The main value is to challenge and undermine the previous confidence that Christian apologists had in trying to convince us of the reliability of eyewitness testimony behind the Gospels. That is the main reason why I do recommend Ehrman’s book as important for both skeptics and believers.

NOTE: This review is published with permission from Free Inquiry 39, no. 1 (December 2018/January 2019), pages 60-61.

People Really Worship A Sun God in Today's World!

Oh come on! In this day and age people really worship a sun god! That's utterly unbelievable to me. Believing that a virgin gave birth to a baby deity in the ancient past? Now that's something much different. It's more believable! Right? LINK.

In Defense of Hume, Part 3: Hume's Maxim On Human Testimony to Miracles as a Foundation for Religion

David Hume's Maxim and its defense comes from chapter 10 of his Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding. It's stated in these words:

"That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior." When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion. #91

Later Hume tells us the only reasonable conclusion one can draw from his maxim: "Therefore we may establish it as a maxim, that no human testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle, and make it a just foundation for any such system of religion." (#98). The fact that a miracle requires extraordinary evidence over and above the fallibilites of ordinary human testimony is not an unreasonable demand on Hume's part. It's the nature of the beast. The consistent workings of the natural world preclude miracles from happening. This natural world order is known with as much assurance as anything that can be known. It's so well established that natural laws have been derived from it's regularity and used daily in our laboratories and factories. That human testimony is fallible is also known with a great deal of assurance, especially with the discovery of a great many cognitive biases. So we need more than just human testimony to accept that a miracle happened. Human testimony alone isn't enough to overcome what is known about how the world works. Given the nature of the world and the fallible nature of ordinary human testimony, we need sufficient objective evidence over and above human testimony (hence, called extraordinary evidence) to corroborate that a miracle occurred.

All you need to consider is what you'd think if someone testified that his amputated limb regenerated itself, or if a woman testified she gave birth to a baby deity as a virgin! Would you believe their testimony? What if a few others said the same thing? Here's the kicker: Human testimony, second- third- and fourth handed human testimony in the ancient pre-scientific world, where miracle claims were abundant without the means to discredit them, is all we have when it comes to the miracles we find in the Bible and the religions founded on it.

You can read Hume's Maxim in context below (#99-100). Upon doing so let's be done with the claim that Hume's argument is an a priori one that admits of no possibility of a miracle. It's one of probabilities all the way down. It's about human testimony to miracles in a world that precludes them as the foundation of a religion. And the kind of human testimony considered to be extraordinary in nature just does not exist! It could exist. That it doesn't is not Hume's fault.

The problem with Hume's argument therefore, is that miracles just don't happen. For if they did believers wouldn't object to it. It's precisely because believers want to believe that they try to find a way around it, even if it requires an intellectual sacrifice. Say it isn't so! Otherwise they would agree with Hume's reasonable demand then go on to present sufficient corroborating objective evidence showing the miracles of their religion really did take place. The fact that corroborating evidence does not exist is why believers must object to Hume's rock solid maxim. So Christians have a choice to make. Either 1) biblical miracles did not take place, so there's no reason to believe them, or 2) miracles did take place, but there's still no reason to believe them. Given that Christians only have the evidence of human testimony in the Bible, this is the choice forced upon them. So choose. In doing so, don't go nutty on us as some others do.

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Jesus the Cult Fanatic, At It Again

Christians pretend not to notice…

In a recent article Richard Carrier didn’t mince words about Jesus: “…he is actually quite loathsome and rarely gives anything but really bad advice…” This probably has greater shock value than Christopher Hitchens’ famous subtitle, “religion poisons everything.” Believers can shake their heads in alarm and accuse Carrier of having gone over the edge with atheist snark; they’re accustomed to hearing white noise about Jesus from the pulpit—only good stuff. He’s the guy they worship, after all. How could Jesus possibly give bad advice?

Well, it’s not hard at all to figure out. For starters, how about actually reading the gospels? I recently fell into impromptu conversation with a devout Catholic, and I dropped Luke 14:26 on her: How can you be a follower of Jesus? He expects you to hate your family to be his disciple. She had never read that verse, had not even heard of it. That was not part of the white noise. She’s one of those in-the-dark-Christians so highly valued by priests and preachers.

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The Conclusion Driven Arguments of Cameron Bertuzzi of "Capturing Christianity" Regarding The Outsider Test for Faith, Part 2

Having previously commented on the kinds of important issues Cameron Bertuzzi of "Capturing Christianity" failed to mention, let me deal with the substance of his criticisms of the Outsider Test for Faith (OTF). To his credit he quotes me fairly as saying:

The outsider test is simply a challenge to test one’s own religious faith with the presumption of skepticism, as an outsider. It calls upon believers to “Test or examine your religious beliefs as if you were outsiders with the same presumption of skepticism you use to test or examine other religious beliefs.” Its presumption is that when examining any set of religious beliefs skepticism is warranted, since the odds are good that the particular set of religious beliefs you have adopted is wrong.

The amount of skepticism warranted depends on [1] the number of rational people who disagree, [2] whether the people who disagree are separated into distinct geographical locations, [3] the nature of those beliefs, [4] how they originated, [5] how they were personally adopted in the first place, and [6] the kinds of evidence that can possibly be used to decide between them. My claim is that when it comes to religious beliefs a high degree of skepticism is warranted because of these factors. SOURCE.

In his first post he loosely discusses numbers 1, 2, and 4 above, with a focus on #1, that "the amount of skepticism warranted depends on the number of rational people who disagree."

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My Response To An Encouraging Email With Questions and Suggestions

Here is the email from Jeffrey Kuhn of Cincinnati, Ohio (used by permission):

Dear Mr. Loftus,

My name is Jeff Kuhn, and for the past several months I have been reading a number of your books, or books which you have edited, with great enthusiasm, and wanted to reach out to you directly with some thoughts concerning these works. So, hopefully you will indulge me for just this brief inquiry.

First, I want to say that I found all the works I read (The Christian Delusion, The Outsider Test of Faith, Christianity in the Light of Science, and Why I Became an Atheist) not only compelling but ultimately convincing, and that I am in agreement with the conclusions you and the other esteemed contributors present.

Secondly, and just for the record, I have no credentials in either Christian Apologetics or science. I am just a lay person (67 years old) who has been a Christian most of my life but has struggled mightily over the past 20+ years with the obvious conflicts between Christianity and science, the problems of suffering and evil in the world, the problems and conflicts in the world created by religious demagoguery and ideologies, and the lack of critical thinking of people who I know to be of more than average intelligence when it comes to accepting events which cannot obviously be true as stated in the Bible. (This one is especially troubling).

Ultimately it was single event which occurred several months ago in which a man in Florida, holding four young children hostage in a police standoff, killed all four (and himself) that was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. The children were 6 months, 6, 10, and 11. I cried for days after this event thinking what they must have been going through before they were killed and wondered how a merciful and loving God could find "Glory" in this event , and be either unwilling or incapable of preventing it. Certainly there have been larger and more tragic events in history that could have been averted by the God of Christianity, but this one event sealed the deal. So now I have rejected the entire concept.

But to my point. The books I read were very convincing and lay out the facts in such a way that it would be very difficult for any reasonable person who took the time to consider the information to not arrive at these conclusions. But, though it is stated the material is written for college level, the reading is difficult at times and the logic of the philosophical arguments sometimes is very circular and difficult to follow. I am a reasonably intelligent person, and well educated, but I have to admit there were sections I had to read several times, and do additional outside research, to understand the discussion.

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Christianity Is Not Too Big to Fail

Helping it along…off the cliff

I sometimes hear the complaint: “Why do you care if I’m a Christian? I don’t care if you’re an atheist, so why can’t you just leave us alone?”

But we don’t, in fact, exist in a live-and-let-live-world. The evidence is substantial that Christianity is harmful to our culture and our health. Richard Carrier has made the case for this in his recent essay, What’s the Harm?, but we’re hammered by headlines almost daily about scary Christian aggressions against the world, e.g. provoking the end times and the rape of children in the church’s care.

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Aquinas’s Abject Failure

There are quite a few things wrong with the first cause argument, but the worst thing about it — Aquinas’s attempt to show that the chain of efficient causation cannot extend back to infinity — is ignored by most critics. The claim that there cannot be an infinite causal regress is often disputed, of course, but Aquinas’s bizarre reasoning to the contrary is usually passed over — maybe for fear it would just be confusing to readers. Whatever the case may be, I think it’s worthwhile to be aware of it, especially given that Aquinas’s old argument is still touted by many.

The part I’m referring to is the following:

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The Conclusion Driven Arguments of Cameron Bertuzzi of "Capturing Christianity" Regarding The Outsider Test for Faith, Part 1

It doesn't take much for people in the pew to mindlessly quote mine from the Bible and/or the apologetics based on it. But upon thinking just below the surface we find it's all a ruse, a sham. Christian apologists have a hidden agenda. Instead of getting better at arguing for their faith they are getting better at obfuscating (or obscuring) it from view. They have become experts in conclusion driven arguments. That's all they have. It's called special pleading, and it's all special pleading. It's special pleading all the way down. That means they base their arguments on double standards, one for their faith and a different one for other faiths. It's double standards all the way down since they would never allow other people of faith to do the same. It's faith-based apologetics, never reasoned-based apologetics; no matter what they say. It's always their faith seeking reasons, never reasons leading to their faith. It's all based on assumptions, all the way down. They never argue to their faith. They always assume it and argue based on it. All apologetics is therefore presuppositional. It's presuppositional all the way down.

Cameron Bertuzzi of "Capturing Christianity" seems to be a good enough guy. He's a wannabe Christian apologist though, who has goaded me a bit to deal with his three part disputation of The Outsider Test for Faith (OTF). He honestly admits he hasn't read my book on it, LINK, but that's where the intellectual honesty ends. In the Introduction to it I said it's "my final understanding" of the test up until it was published. He still hasn't read it, preferring instead what I wrote before I wrote my book.

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The Most Horrific Examples of Moral and Natural Suffering Took Place in 1918

In the same year that World War I ended in 1918, which was a very good year, the most devastating plague hit the world in which 20-40 million more human beings suffered and died cruel deaths. On the heels of the most horrific example of moral suffering comes the most horrific example of natural suffering. God is good, right? Bullshit! God did nothing in either case. His only excuse is that he doesn't exist. LINK. [See tag below for more on WWI].

This Could Be Your Religion!

I've been sharing a weekly link of photos from Religion News Service that depicts people of different religious faiths from around the world. Some of them and their festivals are quite bizarre; the one highlighted here for instance [click it to read the caption]! The people pictured are sincerely and deeply committed to worship differently conceived religions and deities. They cannot all be right, although they could all be wrong. More pics here.

What does this global religious diversity say about a god who will judge us by what we believe (cf. John 3:16, Romans 10:9-10)? It makes a mockery of such a notion! No reasonable person can accept belief unto salvation. Only unreasonable people do. That's why Christians who worship such a god make all kinds of excuses for this statute of his. Catholics say it's not about belief but good deeds in keeping with belief. Some others say everyone will be saved in the end, while still others take the bite out of damnation by saying the final destination of unsaved sinners is not all that bad. Probably most Christians offer the excuse that God knows our hearts and is a merciful judge, with the implication that even I, a blaspheming apostate debunker, can and will be saved. But if so, such a judging god would be unfairly letting unsaved sinners into heaven who didn't obey this divine statute. Why did he state it in the first place?

If you still wish to maintain your god's stated policy of belief unto salvation from a terrible final destination, then think as you look at these photos. When you look at them ask yourself how your god is going to judge people who just happened to be raised to believe differently? What if they refused to be honest by re-examining their own inherited religion as outsiders do?

But more importantly, what if you're wrong and it's YOU who were raised to believe the wrong religion? What if YOU will face a future final judgment for not believing the true religion, if there is one? Wouldn't you want to know now, not later after you die?

The Cure-for-Christianity Library©

The atheist publishing surge since the 1990s

Mark Twain famously suggested that “…the best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible.” Penn Jillette added a little more bite: “Reading the Bible is the fast track to atheism.” But these days, there is much more homework available. I had hoped to include a bibliography in my book when it was published two years ago, but there wasn’t space.

That omission, however, turned out to be a blessing. In any book, of course, a bibliography is frozen, but that is not the case when it can be continually updated on a website. I decided to include the resources for further study and research on my book’s website, and rechristened it The Cure-for-Christianity Library©.

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World War I Was a Christian Jihad!

Yesterday Dr. David Madison wrote a fantastic timely piece on how World War I killed god. Seriously! The horrors of that war--which led to WWII--are too terrible to explain away the non-involvement of a perfectly good all-powerful monotheistic God. He sat by and did nothing--NOTHING--while sixteen million people, mostly Christians, slaughtered each other. If you think for one minute our own free willed choices are to blame you just haven't thought about the nature and value of free will.

Anyway, as we commemorate the 100th anniversary of the ending of World War I, you need to be confronted with the religious motivations for that war. They involved the certainties of faith. It was a Holy War, a Christian Jihad, one of a number of jihads stretching down through the centuries. Philip Jenkins documents this in The Great and Holy War: How World War I Became a Religious Crusade.

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The War that Killed God Too. Seriously.

What does it take to get people to snap out of it?

It was Jesus himself who gave the clue that God would ultimately let us down. The prayer that he famously taught his followers includes the words, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” To figure out what this means, we have to grasp the context of his preaching about the ‘kingdom.’ This may be hard to do, given the Jesus hype we’re so used to. George Federick Handel put Isaiah 9:6 to music, and helped give ‘our savior’ his holy glow: “For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” It was Handel, by the way, who applied these words to Jesus—not any of the New Testament authors.

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How Best to Bury Christianity? by Robert Conner

Here are some brute facts. There are twenty-seven documents in the New Testament. Twenty-one are letters, but only seven are generally regarded as authentic—the rest are either forgeries or misattributed. The four gospels are anonymous—in no case does the writer name himself. There is near universal agreement that the gospels were written decades to a half-century or more after the events they purport to relate and almost certainly contain no direct eyewitness testimony. No original of any New Testament document is known to exist. Although the exact dating of the earliest running-text copies of the gospels still extant is a matter of dispute, they date from no earlier than 150 to 200 years after the life of Jesus.

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Dr. David Madison's Book Now Has a New Foreword, Written by Me!

If you love what Madison writes here at DC, as I do, you now have another reason to get his book, Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: A Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith. I was honored to write the Foreword for it. Two of your favorite authors for the price of one! ;-)

Another Weekly Reminder, You Too Could Be A Jamiat Ulema-e-Islamist...

...and you too could be demanding that Asia Bibi be hanged for blasphemy in Pakistan. That is, if you too rejected the need for objective evidence for the faith you were raised to believe, rather than embracing the only way to know which religion is true, if there is one. LINK. More Photos are found here.

A Jesus Cult’s Assault on Science

Pushing theocracy over democracy

One of the most baffling developments of our time is the love affair between Donald Trump and evangelical Christians. Not that Trump is even capable of love—and there is no evidence whatever that he possesses religious or moral sensibilities. Are they out of their minds? It would be hard to think of a better example of ‘selling your soul to the devil.’

In many cases, I suspect, evangelicals are simply driven by panic, as assaults on their worldview pile on. What a horror, for example, that gay people can now get married; the holy folks on the Christian right have no trouble believing that hurricanes are God’s wrath for such flagrant violation of ‘Bible law.’ Thrice-divorced Kim Davis—how’s that for thumbing your nose at Jesus?—became a folk hero for standing her Christian ground.

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Evil and Foreknowledge

The problem of evil and the problem of reconciling God’s foreknowledge with free will are usually treated as if they were entirely separate issues. But treating them that way hides the fact that the most popular theist views on them are in conflict with one another.

The existence of evil is most commonly explained as a consequence of free will. This is consistent with the biblical idea of the Fall of humanity. God gave humans the ability to make their own choices, and that means that he cannot prevent us from acting badly. However, most theists also want to say that God knew ahead of time what his free creatures were going to do — and thus knew we would be sinful.

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“This Howling Conflict between Mark and John”

Yet so many Christians don’t seem to have a clue   

Even when I was a teenage Bible enthusiast, I didn’t trust the gospel of John; there was something phony about his Jesus. Then one of my religion professors at college remarked that John’s Jesus “…always walks three feet above the ground—he isn’t real.” It was years later that I heard about the famous jab that Mary McCarthy leveled at Lillian Hellman, during an interview with Dick Cavett: “Every word she wrote was a lie, including and and the.” Could this apply as well to the author of John’s gospel?

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The Top five Six Books On Bible Prophecy

There's a great deal of crap out there about Bible prophecy. Read these five six books in descending order instead:

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Weekly Reminder: You Could Have Believed Differently

Here's a weekly reminder that you could've been raised to believe differently. Gone then is any notion people suffer eternally for believing differently.

Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

This is the title to a chapter I'm writing for my next anthology to be called, "The Case Against Miracles." William Lane Craig asserts that the "seemingly commonsensical slogan" above, as popularized by Carl Sagan and "beloved in the free thought subculture", is "false". [Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (p. 273)]. In online videos Craig says this slogan is "demonstrably false." When it comes to accepting a highly improbable event he argues we don't need "miraculous evidence" or "lots of evidence" or even "an enormous amount of evidence."

Craig offers an often repeated nauseating analogy based in winning the lottery. He says that by showing us the winning lottery ticket a friend can convince us she overcame the staggering odds by winning it. Hence, "the evidence for the winning pick is, indeed, extraordinary", says he, even though it's not a lot of evidence, or enormous amount of evidence or miraculous evidence. [Ibid.]

But wait just a minute! Craig's analogy is plainly false on three counts. Firstly, the odds that someone will eventually win a lottery over several drawings can be calculated, and eventually someone will win it. Given that so many people have won so many lotteries it's a somewhat ordinary claim about a somewhat ordinary experience requiring only somewhat ordinary evidence. How this is analogous to an extraordinary miraculous claim about an extraordinary miraculous experience requiring an extraordinary quality of evidence for it escapes me. Odds like winning the lottery are overcome every day. To see this just read David Hand's excellent book, The Improbability Principle, with a subtitle that says it all: "Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day."

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Jesus the Magician Does it Again

…and the disciples still don’t catch on

“Professor McGonagall raised her wand again and pointed it at Snape’s desk. A large plate of sandwiches, two silver goblets, and a jug of iced pumpkin juice appeared with a pop…when Harry and Ron had eaten as many sandwiches as they could (the plate kept refilling itself) they rose and left the office, treading the familiar path to Gryffindor Tower.” J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“Then Jesus ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full… Now there were about four thousand people.” The Gospel of Mark, Chapter 8

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In Defense of David Hume On Miracles, Part 2

J.L. Mackie’s argument against miracles in defense of David Hume, to be found in the first chapter of his classic book The Miracle of Theism, is stated very well:

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Dr. Gary Habermas Has "Highly Recommended" My Counter-Apologetics Book to His PhD Students

Gary Habermas is an evidentialist, one who believes the evidence shows both that Jesus arose from the dead and that God exists. He's presently working on 5000 pages of text for his magnum opus containing "almost all new material on the resurrection". He also teaches at Liberty University in the School of Divinity. This semester he's teaching the PhD class APOL 910—Apologetic Methodology and he told me he has "highly recommended" my book, How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist to his students. He requires his students to read 1000 pages for this class and my book is on the list of recommended books. Just saying!

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Seven Problems With Biblical Miracles

I can think of at least seven problems with believing in the biblical claims of miracles.

1) We live in a scientific era whereas the claims of biblical miracles come from a prescientific era. New Testament scholar Rudolph Bultmann just calls them “myths” and says:

“The cosmology of the N.T. is essentially mythical in character. The world is viewed as a three-storied structure, with the earth in the center, the heaven above, and the underworld beneath. Heaven is the abode of God and of celestial beings—angels. The underworld is hell, the place of torment. Man is not in control of his life. Evil spirits may take possession of him. Satan may inspire him with evil thoughts. It is simply the cosmology of a pre-scientific age. To modern man . . . the mythical view of the world is obsolete. It is no longer possible for anyone seriously to hold the N.T. view of the world. We no longer believe in the three-storied universe. No one who is old enough to think for himself supposes that God lives in a local heaven. There is no longer any heaven in the traditional sense. The same applies to hell in the sense of a mythical underworld beneath our feet. And if this is so . . . we can no longer look for the return of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven. It is impossible to use the electric light and the wireless and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time to believe in the N.T. world of spirits and miracles. The same objections apply to the doctrine of the atonement. How can the guilt of one man be expiated by the death of another who is sinless?” [R. Bultmann, in Kerygma & Myth: A Theological Debate, ed. Hans Werner Bartsch (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), pp. 1–7.]

My claim is that in our world miracles like a virgin birth, resurrection, and an ascension into the sky do not happen. What world are YOU living in? If these type of miracles do not happen in our day then they never happened in first century Palestine either. And that's the end of it.

Jason Pratt made fun of me by saying this is a "category error":

Remember folks, if televisions and electric light switches didn't happen in first century Palestine, they couldn't happen in our day either. And that's the end of it.

But it's a category mistake to equate ordinary events with extraordinary ones. It's a category mistake to equate ontology (i.e., what actually happened) with epistemology (i.e., what we have reason to believe). And it's a category mistake to equate the results of science with the results of god-explanations which, to date so far, have always been wrong so the theist must continually move the goals posts as science solves the gaps of the past and uncovers new ones.

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The Lack of Faith of the Average Christian

Roger Olson, one of the theologians Lee Strobel interviewed in The Case for Miracles, laments the lack of faith he finds among the majority of his fellow believers. He correctly observes that in their everyday lives, they for the most part live as if God isn’t really there. Only when faced with something like a terminal illness do they turn to God. Even churches function much as secular institutions do: “Years ago, I noticed that churches were tending not to think biblically or theologically about the way they ran their operations…They’d ask, ‘Will this fit into our budget?’ regardless of any faith that more funding could come in.”

That average Christians don’t usually expect miracles, and that churches run their business based on realistic expectations rather than counting on supernatural intervention, is disturbing to Dr. Olson. Nevertheless, he believes he knows the reason why: “You see, there’s a certain unpredictability with the Holy Spirit, and we mainstream evangelicals have come to love predictability. We don’t want big surprises. We don’t want to open the door to something that will really shock us, because we can’t control it.” In other words, according to Olson, people behave as if God isn’t there because they don’t like the idea of something that is out of their control.

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Is it any wonder why we think apologists are nuts!

J.A. Cover, who teaches at Purdue University, provides yet another example where I say, "If he doesn't think so, why should I?" One would think God's own apologists would agree the evidence is there to believe. But he says otherwise:

The divine authority of Scripture seems to me not something that one could really establish at all. Some of us came to believe it at our parents’ knee. (But then, how’d they come to know it?) To accept the authority of Scripture on the authority of my parents will work all right as an explanation of why I do believe it, but hardly works as a justification of the belief itself (why I should believe it). My own view is that no amount of historical scholarship can establish the inspiration and authority of scripture.

He asks,

what sort of evidence could there be about God inspiring the Gospel writers (say) or the selection of the Canon that would underwrite belief in those?...My suspicion is that Plantinga is right: our warrant in believing the Bible to be the authoritative Word of God owes to the work of the Holy Spirit. Full stop, pretty much. [Note 15, page 370, in Reason for the Hope Within, ed. Michael J. Murray.]

Later Cover admits the evidence can't even convince a non-Christian theist, saying: “We oughtn’t expect too much from an apologetic of miracles: there’s no forcing a theist to be a Christian.” [Ibid., Note 16, page 374].

Cover's views agree with what Christian apologist Vincent Torley recently said:

I believed that a Christian could make a strong case for Jesus’ having been raised from the dead, on purely historical grounds...I would no longer espouse this view....Whether one chooses to continue believing it (as I do) or not, one is forced to accept... that belief in the Resurrection cannot be built on the foundation of historical data, for it is a foundation of sand. LINK

Is it any wonder why the rest of us think these people are nuts! [Sorry, no I'm not!]

Quote of the Day By Aron Lucas On Faith

Aron Lucas commented on something in the Keith Parsons vs William Lane Craig Debate. David Marshall and other apologists tell us faith is trust based on evidence. But we know differently.

Around 2 hours a Christian questioner defines faith as belief without evidence. Craig is very frustrated in his response. He defines faith as trust based on evidence. This shows a real disconnect between how academic Christians define faith and how common people define faith. In his debate with Peter Boghossian, Timothy McGrew speculated that the overwhelming majority of Christians would reject the idea that faith is defined as belief without evidence. I think this shows that he’s out of touch with regular Christian folk. The questioner in this video and many regular Christians have no idea that apologetics is even a thing and are happy to base their belief on “blind faith.”

Keith Parsons vs William Lane Craig On "Why I Am Or Am Not a Christian"

I just realized I had only linked to an audio version of this debate earlier. Enjoy.

Why Don't YOU worship Durga, the goddess of valor, Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, and Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge?

If you were born into a different culture you would. And guess what? They're just as sure of their gods as you are your god. More religion photos of the week here.

Why I Write and Write and Write About the Religious Right

I had a fairly close friend ask me the other day why I'm so preoccupied with the religious right. 

"Can't you write about something else?" 

Yes, dear friend, and I do. I write about long-term travel, philosophy, living debt free and alternative lifestyles, overcoming the restrictive limitations of cultural expectations, minimalism and more. I've even written two psychological murder mysteries and at least thirty plays, many of which have been performed on stage in front of  live audiences.

But, here's the deal. 

While everyone else gets sidetracked by all the other political issues, I've decided to keep my eye on the religious right. I know that's hard for most to understand either because they're religious and thus rarely speak out against religion on principle or they've completely forgotten how things used to be. 

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Aron Lucas On "Hume's Maxim: How a 'Trivial Truth' is Too Strong for Christian Apologetics"

Aron Lucas earned a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 2016, and is using his sharp legal mind to defend Hume's Maxim against apologists Michael Licona, Stephen Davis, J.P. Moreland, William Lane Craig and Timothy & Lydia McGrew. It's an excellent piece of counter-apologetics! David Hume's maxim is this: "That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish." John Earman faults Hume for basically stating the obvious, but Lucas shows that "if Hume is to be faulted for stating the obvious, many of today's leading Christian thinkers should be faulted all the more for failing to see the obvious." Excerpt below:

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Christianity Is Beyond Redemption

Apologists can’t help themselves…or the faith

When I look back, through a fog of nostalgia, at my own religious upbringing, it all seems like a harmless adventure. In rural Indiana in the 1950s we knew that religion was a great benefit to mankind; worshipping God was the decent thing to do, as was telling the world the good news about Jesus. It was a sheltered perspective.

My mother was a voracious reader, and everyone loved the local librarian, but had there been a conspiracy? Or was it just negligence: No one bothered to tell me about Thomas Paine, Robert Ingersoll, H. L. Mencken—or even Bertrand Russell, who, fifteen years before I was born, had delivered his famous Why I Am Not a Christian lecture. Criticism of Christianity was nothing new, but we were in a little cocoon. The 1950s are so long ago and far away: withering criticism of Christianity is now mainstream and in-your-face.

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An Interview With Dr. Ralph Lewis On His Excellent Book, "Finding Purpose in a Godless World."

Earlier I had written a blurb for Ralph Lewis's excellent book, LINK: Finding Purpose in a Godless World: Why We Care Even If the Universe Doesn't. I wrote:

The question of life's purpose is probably the main reason believers cannot bring themselves to reevaluate and reject the antiquated religions they've been indoctrinated to believe. Prompted by a personal crisis, Dr. Lewis has written a definitive answer to this question, one which I hope gains a substantial audience.

Below is an interview and an excerpt from his book. Enjoy. Then. Get. His. Book. Now!

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In Defense of David Hume On Miracles

I'm researching Hume's arguments against miracles in chapter ten of his Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, to be read here.

Christian apologists unanimously think Hume's argument in Part I fails. See Richard Swinburne in his books, The Existence of God, and The Concept of Miracle, along with other apologetical works by C.S. Lewis, William Lane Craig, Norman Geisler, and others too many to name.

What surprised me is that some significant atheist philosophers also think Hume's argument fails, like Michael Martin (Atheism: A Philosophical Justification, pp. 194-196), Michael Levine (The Cambridge Companion to Miracles, pp. 291-308), and Graham Oppy (Arguing About Gods, pp. 376-382), who strangely says "Hume's argument against belief in miracle reports fails no less surely than do the various arguments from miracle reports to the existence of an orthodoxy conceived monotheistic god" (p. 381). Agnostic/atheist John Earman thinks Hume's argument is an Abject Failure (as seen in his book by that title). And while J.L. Mackie defends Hume against some objections, even he thinks Hume's argument needs "improvement" (p. 25) by being "tidied up and restated" (p. 17) due to "inaccuracies" (p. 27), with one part he calls "very unsatisfactory" (p. 23).

I'm finding that only four atheist philosophers think Hume's argument in Part I succeeds, Antony Flew, Evan Fales, William L. Vanderburgh (forthcoming book in 2019) and Nicholas Everitt (see his chapter 6 in The Non-Existence of God). As I study this issue out, I agree with them.

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Deconstructing the Walls of Jericho

What follows is a short account of the brief history of archaeology, with the emphasis on the crises and the big bang, so to speak, of the past decade. The critical question of this archaeological revolution has not yet trickled down into public consciousness, but it cannot be ignored. By Ze'ev Herzog.

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Religion Photos of the Week

You too could have been a Buddhist monk, and other recent religion photos of the week.

When Will the Next President Be an Atheist?

Did you know that John Adams once called Thomas Jefferson an ATHEIST as part of his negative campaigning efforts? All these years later, that label still horrifies the good citizens of America and has the potential to ruin a politicians chances of becoming President.

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Philosopher Michael Levine On Miracles

There are basically three philosophical questions of interest about miracles. The first is whether miracles are possible. The second is whether anyone can ever be justified, epistemologically speaking, in believing that a miracle has occurred. With regard to this question it is important to note that the fact one can imagine conditions in which belief in a miracle would would be justified does absolutely nothing to show that anyone has been so justified. The third question is whether anyone is or has been so justified.[1] These questions can be answered in short order. The first two questions have sheltered philosophers from dealing with the only philosophically significant question about miracles per se -- the third question.

The first two questions lead to various questions concerning the laws of nature, and naturalism versus supernaturalism. These issues may be worth pursuing in their own right, but they are of little consequence when it comes to the important third question about miracles. Is anyone epistemologically justified in believing in a miracle--for example, on the basis of Scripture and historical evidence? The question is not the modal one of whether one could be justified, but whether anyone is (or has been) so justified. It is this third question that Hume addresses in Part II of his essay, and it is this question that was of primary concern to him...In Part II he argues straightforwardly and on the basis of ordinary reasons--the kind used all of the time to dismiss such reports--that no one is justified in believing in miracles.

Philosophical discussion about miracles frequently ignores the question (Hume's central concern) of whether there exists historical evidence, testimony--including testimony in the form of Scripture--or first-hand experience, that justifies belief in the miraculous. Those who wish to champion miracles either argue that such evidence exists or else they merely assume it. But the question of whether such evidence does exist, by itself, is the crucial question about justified belief in miracles."

[1] A fourth question might be 'what is a miracle?' I do not, however, think that there is much of philosophical interest attached to this question. Aquinas' definition suffices: "Those things are properly called miracles which are done by divine agency beyond the order commonly observed in nature" (Summa Contra Gentiles, III). Following Hume, a miracle is frequently defined as a violation of a law of nature, but technically speaking this is a mistake. Laws of nature are meant to account for or describe natural events, not supernaturally caused events. Miracles, being outside the scope of laws of nature, cannot properly be seen as violations of them.

From The Cambridge Companion to Miracles, pp. 291-294.

What Is It with Christians and Violence?

Christian soldiers, please give it a rest

A few days ago a Christian posted this comment on my book’s Facebook page: “I don't care if you're an atheist. Why should you care if I'm a Christian?‬‬” I responded, “Is it REALLY that hard to figure out?” and I provided the link to Richard Carrier’s recent article, “What’s the Harm? Why Religious Belief Is Always Bad.”

Within seconds—there had not been enough time for him to read the article—he responded, with no interest whatever in discussing the issue he had raised: “What a small and narrow-minded person you must be. You think you can paint millions of people with one tiny brush.‪ But you've got your own little cult, right here. And you're raking in the profits. Good for you!‬‬”‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

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A Miracle Is A Supernaturally Caused Extraordinary Event

There have been a lot of definitions of the word "Miracle." In the pre-scientific biblical past the term "signs and wonders" sufficed. This term referred to the extraordinary actions of their God. But in the Bible everything that happened was due to God's working. The only difference that mattered was whether events were ordinary (that is, occurred frequently, or frequently enough) or extraordinary (that is, didn't happen much, or not at all). For people living in this era anything was possible, so they could even pray for a mountain to be uprooted and cast into the sea (Mark 11:23; Matt. 21:21; Luke 17:6).

[As an aside: What is considered possible has changed with the advance of science. God is doing less and less as science progresses. And so too, believers are asking for less and less. Let that sink in. Rather than making excuses for your deity try reasonably explaining why this trend is the case.]

Based on the above considerations, my definition of miracle is not intended to apply to the period before the rise of modern science, since trying to do so creates many of the definitional problems. I think a good definition of a miracle is that it's a supernaturally caused extraordinary event, one that's scientifically unexplainable by natural processes alone. Any claim that an extraordinary event occurred requires more than just ordinary evidence before reasonable people should accept it. For the evidence required should be commensurate with the type of claim being made. So the more extraordinary the claim is then the more extraordinary the evidence required to accept it.

Ordinary testimony is sufficient to accept many claims of our experience. But when an extraordinary--out of the ordinary--claim is made, it demands stronger testimony, more evidence, and/or stronger evidence for it. Discuss.

So You Think You're Being Persecuted?

I keep hearing a lot of talk these days about religious freedom. Apparently, many American Christians, even though they are in the majority, believe that they're being persecuted. I can't remember a time when atheists made these same claims. Atheists, in America at least, depend upon the separation of church and state to offer them protection. Yet, living as a minority in the Bible belt, I often feel that I'm expected to conform or shut up. And, while I wouldn't go so far as to say that I'm being persecuted, I think that if most Christians were in my shoes, they'd feel deeply offended. 

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The Latest from Ray Comfort

In a recent YouTube interview, evangelist Ray Comfort somewhat surprisingly admitted that certain things in the Bible — things like the talking snake and Jonah and the whale — are “crazy,” and even “intellectually offensive.” This doesn’t mean he’s becoming more enlightened: Comfort fully believes that the stories involved are veridical. However, he has an explanation for why these things happened.

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Am I "Totally Wrong" About Faith? *Sheesh*

I wish atheists would do their research before claiming I'm "totally wrong" about something. This stuff is quite disconcerting.

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The Need to Require Sufficient Objective Evidence

This excellent essay is based on the facts of human nature. It explains why we need an FBI investigation into Brett Kavanaugh. It can also explain why religious hucksters have it easy on gullible people who don't require sufficient objective evidence before believing them. Don't trust your feelings. Don't trust subjective states of affairs. Seek sufficient objective evidence or you'll believe lies, many of which your parents and culture indoctrinated you to believe. LINK.

Made-to-Order Stories for the Jesus Cult

But consistency was not a virtue

Every missionary who has ever lived has been inspired by the famous ‘Great Commission,’ spoken by the resurrected Jesus in Matthew 28:19-20: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” Of course, we have a right to be skeptical that a dead man came back to life to give orders, but there are other reasons as well for suspecting that Jesus—even while he was alive—didn’t say this.

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Christian Apologist Vincent J. Torley Now Argues Michael Alter’s Bombshell Book Demolishes Christian Apologists’ Case for the Resurrection

Dr. Vincent J. Torley is no stranger to us at DC. We've dealt with him plenty of times before. To his credit he engages us in an intelligent and civil manner.

Not too long ago I challenged him to read Michael J. Alter's book Resurrection: A Critical Inquiry as the best book on the resurrection, by far. He read it. Alter's book changed his mind. Torley offered three reasons why he changed his mind about the resurrection and credited me with the first one! He now says:

It is not often that I encounter a book which forces me to undergo a fundamental rethink on a vital issue. Michael Alter’s The Resurrection: A Critical Inquiry is one such book. The issue it addresses is whether the New Testament provides good evidence for Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead. Prior to reading Michael Alter’s book, I believed that a Christian could make a strong case for Jesus’ having been raised from the dead, on purely historical grounds. After reading the book, I would no longer espouse this view. Alter has convincingly demolished Christian apologists’ case for the Resurrection – and he’s got another book coming out soon, which is even more hard-hitting than his first one, judging from the excerpts which I’ve read.

Diehard skeptics will of course dismiss the Resurrection as fiction because they reject the very idea of the supernatural, but Michael Alter, a Jewish author who has spent more than a decade researching the Resurrection, isn’t one of these skeptics. Alter willingly grants for the sake of argument the existence of a personal God Who works miracles and Who has revealed Himself in the Hebrew Bible. Despite these generous concessions to his Christian opponents, I have to say that Alter’s book is the most devastating critique of the case for the Resurrection that I have ever read....reading Alter’s book will make you realize that what historians know about Jesus’ crucifixion, burial and post-mortem appearances to his disciples is very little: far too little for a Christian to base their belief in the reality of Jesus’ Resurrection on the historical evidence alone. I now believe that only the grace of God could possibly justify making such an intellectual commitment.

If you think that's stunning you won't believe what Torley says next, about the minimal facts and the maximal data approaches to defending the resurrection:

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Religion Photos of the Week.

These photos remind us again that the religion we adopt is the one we were raised with, and the need for the Outsider Test for Faith. See here for more.