A Slave to Incompetence: The Truth Behind David Marshall’s Research on Slavery by Dr. Hector Avalos
Such a hack writer is David Marshall, author of The Truth Behind the New Atheism: Responding to the Emerging Challenges to God and Christianity (Eugene Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 2007). To illustrate our point, we shall examine almost every sentence in a section titled, “Jesus Frees Slaves,” and found on pages 144 to 148 of that book.
Labels: "Avalos"
John Beversluis, "The Gospel According to Whom? A Nonbeliever Looks at The New Testament and its Contemporary Defenders" 6
Labels: John Beversluis
Some Mistakes of Moses, by Robert Ingersoll, Part Two
It is not easy to account for an infinite God making people so low in the scale of intellect as to require a revelation. Neither is it easy to perceive why, if a revelation was necessary for all, it was made only to a few.Below you'll read extracts from an 84 page paper written in 1879 that my friend Julian Haydon sent me. There were some Christians and even ministers who were beginning to reject a talking serpent in favor of allegorical explanations; but there were millions who regarded every word in the Bible as holy fact. Ingersoll was contending with the latter and defending the rights of the former, pushing them even farther and farther away from the Bible. Part one can be seen here. A bit of his language is antiquated but it is a great defense of freethought.
Pascal's Wager Revisited
There is the evidential objection, the many gods objection, and the gambler’s objection.
The evidential objection concerns how much evidence Christianity should have before I must take seriously the claims of Christianity. Keep in mind that the only brands of Christianity that make the wager a strong argument are the ones that promise an everlasting conscious torment in a fiery hell. Other brands of Christianity don't even apply, those affirming annihilation, or universal salvation, since there is not much to fear if one is wrong. In any case, I judge that conservative Christianity has about a .00001% probability of being correct, or 1 in 100,000. This is something I think one can conclude from the arguments in my book. Given that I might be wrong in this judgment, since I've been wrong before, I'll up it to a .0001% probability, or 1 in 10,000. This probability has nothing to do with how many other religions and gods there are. It's a probability based solely on the merits of the evidence and arguments themselves.
Keep in mind what this means. It means unless there is a religion with a greater amount of probability then there is a .0001% chance this life is all there is. It means that there is a 99.999% probability that Christianity is delusional and that Pascal’s Wager is an argument akin to someone crying "wolf," or someone else yelling "the sky is falling." Why should I place that bet even if the payout is an infinite amount? If the bet was some money, wouldn't I be throwing money away? Sure, people are not being unreasonable by placing a bet on these odds, but what reason would we say that a non-gambler should bet based on these odds?
And what are we to bet? According to the Christian faith I must bet it all, my whole life. I must die daily. I must take up my cross and follow Jesus. I must be totally committed and have total faith. That’s what I’m called upon to do, daily, even to the point of guarding my very thoughts. I must sacrifice that which I think about and I should not lust, hate, covet, nor entertain any doubts.
I can understand betting a few dollars to win the lottery even though there is a 1 in 80 million chance to win. But I would never consider betting everything I own based on those odds, even if the payout was 800 trillion dollars, nor would I want to bet my whole life on a 1 to 10,000 chance of eternal bliss.
Still, I'll admit Pascal's wager has a good deal of force, the evidential objection alone notwithstanding, since the payout is an infinite amount with an eternal bliss if correct.
The many gods objection almost eliminates the force of Pascal's wager, I think, since now we have many religions and many gods all clamoring for our obedience; Muslims, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and so on, and so forth. One religion claims that if you don't follow its god you will fry in hell, while another one makes the same claim. Since many gods are threatening us with hell if we don't believe, then Pascal's Wager cannot help us to decide between them. All of them offer an infinite payout, too. All of them demand belief and obedience. Whom should we believe? Whom should we obey? Pascal’s Wager does not answer this objection on its own terms. We still must judge which religious viewpoint has the most probability and such judgments are based on the accidents of birth, as I’ve argued.
The third objection is what I call the the gambler’s objection. Anyone who plays the very popular poker game called Texas Hold'em , for instance, knows what I’m talking about when I say there is a distinction to be made between the actual odds and the pot odds. Actual odds are the mathematical odds of our hand winning the pot. Pot odds concern the relationship of the money in the pot to the actual odds of our having the winning hand. If, say, in order to bet on our hand we only need to bet $5 more to win a pot of $200 (or a ratio of 1:40, which is known as the pot odds), then that’s a good bet even if the actual mathematical odds of winning the hand are not that great. If, on the other hand, we must place a bet of $50 to win the same pot of $200 (or a ratio of 1:4 pot odds) the bet is a bad one unless the actual odds of winning the hand are much greater.
Let’s say you need a particular winning card to be drawn, which could be a spade (for a flush), or an Ace, or a King, and you calculate the odds of one of those cards being drawn are about 1 in 3. Let’s say there are five players and you must decide whether or not to bet $4 on a pot that has $36 in it. That’s 36 divided by 4 equals 9; or 9 to 1 pot odds. At that point you must ask yourself whether you should place that $4 bet. The actual odds are against you 1 to 3, but the pot odds are in your favor 9 to 1. Because of the pot odds you should bet the $4, and here’s why: If you faced this same situation seventy-five times and bet $4 each time for a total of $300, and you won one time out of three bets (the actual odds), your gain would be about $900 because of the pot odds.
Now let’s consider the actual odds and the pot odds when it comes to Pascal’s Wager. The actual odds for the Christian faith, as I calculate them, are 1 in 10,000, being generous. The payout is an infinite amount; an eternal bliss (the pot odds). With the pot odds so extremely high I should always make the bet, it’s argued. But here’s the problem. Pot odds only come into play if the gambler plays a certain number of hands. If the actual odds for a winning hand in Texas Hold’em are 1 in 3, it does not matter what the pot odds are if he must bet everything he has, and if this is his last hand! Pot odds only matter when the gambler can play a number of hands and when he’s not betting it all. It’s the number of hands along with the size of the bet that make the pot odds what they are.
How many times can a gambling religious seeker go “all in” on a bet that has a chance of winning the eternal bliss pot, when the odds are 1 in 10,000? He can only do this one time! There are no second chances. The poker game will be over for him no matter what the result is. The actual odds are extremely low for his bet. With those odds he will undoubtedly lose everything he has on this one bet! It’s only if this religious gambler can make 10,000 lifetime wagers and that he has something leftover to bet each time that would make the pot odds worth the bet!
Given the actual odds as I calculate them, I would have to sacrifice 10,000 lifetimes for the pot odds of an infinite bliss in heaven to be worth the bet. Not just one life. 10,000 lifetimes. But I will not have 10,000 lifetimes to make that bet worth it! So I must bet on the actual odds, and I do.
For this reason gamblers who play Texas Hold’em do not bet everything they’ve got unless they are pretty sure they have a winning hand, with the actual odds being over 50% or more, preferably 60% to 90%, depending on several other factors. Since I calculate the odds at much less than this and because I must bet on the actual odds, going "all in" on a bet like this is simply a bad bet.
Hence Pascal’s wager fails…badly.
Labels: book
Does modern cosmology supply the materials that can fill gaps in the traditional arguments for the existence of God?
In view of the belief that there has been a shift in the landscape of modern philosophy, with regards to the respectful position now adopted by theists, it is important to reassess this landscape at regular intervals. This is not particularly due to new philosophies being developed ex nihilo, but more in light of the nature of modern physics, and the constant change involved in the discipline. The assumptions that underlie most premises in cosmological arguments are often open to debate, and they depend, in no small part, on present physical and cosmological understanding. Since these are shifting sands of understanding, then philosophers must be cautious when making truly assertive and dogmatic claims. Though there are very good arguments indeed for remaining agnostic on many theories (to adopt a truly Pyrrhoian[1] sceptical approach), there is still an attractive quality about holding a definite position, whether as part of a cumulative case, or in isolation, in order to inform a worldview. That being said, all too often, worldviews inform people’s interpretation of evidence, rather than the opposite.
'Great' Bible Texts…that Really Aren't So Great
Extreme religion in disguise
So, be honest now: How many Christians cheerfully open their doors to Jehovah’s Witnesses who come knocking? It’s not so easy to knock on doors in Manhattan, so it’s common to see these intrepid missionaries at their literature tables in the New York City subway. I have yet to see passers-by interacting with them, so their hit ratio (getting people to hear their pitch) is probably no higher than when they ring doorbells.
The irony, of course, is that Christians who rebuff or ignore Jehovah’s Witnesses are on the same family tree of faith; they share belief in the ancient Jesus cult. It’s just that the JWs are more aggressive about it. And, of course, there are now thousands of variations on the old cult, as Christianity has splintered endlessly. This fragmentation can be traced to endless Christian fighting about theology, but above all to the disagreements in the original source documents, i.e., the gospels and epistles.
Things We Wish Jesus Hadn’t Said
Text of my presentation at e-Conference on Atheism
We pose this challenge to theists: please tell us where we can find reliable, verifiable data about God—and all theists must agree: Yes, that’s where to find it. This never happens because theists don’t agree. For example, they usually claim that scripture is a source of data about God…but whose scripture? We see no effort on the part of Christians to expand the Bible to include the Qur’an and the Book of Mormon. They refuse to acknowledge that these books qualify as scripture.
Naturally, Christians adore the gospels. But these documents themselves present major problems, just in trying to figure out what Jesus did and said. Rembrandt has given us a portrait of a friendly, amiably Jesus. So my apologies to Rembrandt for puncturing this image in what I’m about to say.
Hoisting Mittelberg By His Own Petard: The Authoritarian Path to Faith. Reviewing Mittelberg's "Confident Faith" Part 8
1) The Relativistic Path: "Truth is Whatever Works for You"
2) The Traditional Faith Path: "Truth is What You've Always Been Taught"
3) The Authoritarian Faith Path: "Truth Is What You've Always Been Told You Must Believe"
4) The Intuitive Faith Path" "Truth Is What You Feel In Your Heart"
5) The Mystical Faith Path" "Truth Is What You Think God Told You"
6) The Evidential Faith Path: "Truth Is What Logic and Evidence Point To"
If you think #3 the Authoritarian Path of faith is the same as #2 the Traditional Path of faith, I'm with you. Still it probably deserves a separate chapter since they bring up different issues. Mittelberg distinguishes between them: The Traditional Path of faith (#2) is more of a religious tradition passed down to children from generation to generation that is passively received, whereas the Authoritarian path (#3) is based on "submission to a religious leader--past or present--and the ideas that leader holds up as the standard to live by." (p. 61) It's being required to believe authority figures. Being required to have "blind obedience" to "unquestioned authority" is bad, and very dangerous.
Labels: Mark Mittelberg
What Would Happen If Christians Went on Strike?
But the apologists never do
In May 2018, volcanic eruptions in Hawaii caught the world’s attention. The New York Times described local beliefs about the cause of the destruction, namely the goddess of volcanoes and fire, Pele:“…in a striking display of the resilience and adaptability of Native Hawaiian culture, the exaltation of Pele has not only persisted through the centuries, but seems to be strengthening with every bone-rattling eruption of Hawaii’s volcanoes.” Said one 71-year old resident, whose house was destroyed, “My house was an offering for Pele. I’ve been in her backyard for 30 years. In that time I learned that Pele created this island in all its stunning beauty. It’s an awe-inspiring process of destruction and creation, and I was lucky to glimpse it.” (The New York Times, 23 May 2018)
Pete Edwards of Durham University On The Scale of the Universe
Edwards says we cannot get our heads around how big the universe is. Matthew Cobb at Why Evolution is True corrects his numbers, which are out of date:
Here’s how astronomers breakout the visible universe within 14 billion light years:With this as a backdrop I want to discuss Jeff Lowder's criticisms of my argument that the size of the universe leads to atheism. I have looked in vain to see if Lowder has any educational credentials at all, so I look forward to him sharing them with us if he responds.
Superclusters in the visible universe = 10 million
Galaxy groups in the visible universe = 25 billion
Large galaxies in the visible universe = 350 billion
Dwarf galaxies in the visible universe = 7 trillion
Stars in the visible universe = 30 billion trillion (3×10²²)
A new study suggests that 90% of the most distant (and therefore oldest) galaxies in the universe could be unseen, hidden by clouds of dust. That would mean that – assuming the same number of stars in each galaxy, and that older galaxies don’t deviate from this rule – that the number of stars in the visible universe would be 270 billion trillion or 2.7 x 10 to the power of 24).
Labels: Lowder, Lowder Ignorance, Scale of the Universe
Paul’s Christianity: Belief in Belief Itself, by John W. Loftus
It was long, so understandedly Conner had to edit it down. Here it is in it's entirety.
Paul’s Christianity: Belief in Belief Itself
Citing plenty of Roman writers familiar with the early Jesus Cult, along with teasing out the true meaning from Christian sources, Robert Conner makes a solid case that “Christianity was a cult from its inception, a toxic brew of apocalyptic delusion, sexual phobias and fixations, with a hierarchy of control of women by men, of slaves by masters, and of society by the church.” It had an “irrational and antisocial nature” to it, and “its destructive features remain a clear and present danger today. Its greatest threat is the core feature of the Christian cult: belief in belief, the conviction that the Christian narrative is literally its own proof.”
To say I agree with Conner is a huge understatement. I love how he writes! Readers will find in his book a great amount of erudition combined with an unmatched use of rhetoric and even hilarity. I am honored and delighted to write this Foreword for another excellent book by him.
Connor says Christianity was nothing more than a cult “in the most pejorative sense of the word.” In the chapters to follow he makes his case, showing that religious cults share with Christianity “several familiar features” like “a fixation on sexual purity, bizarre interpretations of scripture, and often a preoccupation with End Times theology which leads members to interpret events through an apocalyptic lens.”
Labels: Robert Conner
The Five Stages of Bible Grief
Brought on by actually reading it
Bart Ehrman, with several best-selling books about the Bible to his credit, has taught undergraduates:“… part of the deal of teaching in the Bible Belt is that lots of my students—most of them?—have very conservative views about the Bible as the Word of God. A few years ago I used to start my class on the New Testament, with something like 300 students in it, by asking the students a series of questions, just for information:
• How many of you in here would agree with the proposition that the Bible is the inspired Word of God (PHOOM! Almost everyone raises their hands)
• OK, great: Now, how many of you have read the Harry Potter series? (PHOOM! Again, almost everyone raises their hand).
• And now, how many of you have read the entire Bible? (This time: scattered hands, here and there, throughout the auditorium)
Another Failed Christian Attempt to Explain Away Suffering: Mary Jo Sharp's Review of the 2nd Loftus/Wood Debate
The topic of the debate was expressed in a question: “Does the extent of suffering in the world make the existence of God implausible?” But it wasn’t a formal debate. In a formal debate each participant is given a certain amount of time for an opening statement; a rebuttal or two, or three; time for questions and answers; and then a final statement, or something like this. Our debate was one-on-one for about an hour and a half, if I remember the time correctly, with Finley commenting and interjecting a few questions during that time. If someone put a stop watch on it then Wood dominated with about 65% of the time, Findley with 10% of the time, and me with the remaining 25% of the time. Most always when I began speaking Wood interrupted me. Finley did not give me equal time. I was just not going to get in a shouting match, which would’ve been required several times to get a word in edge-wise.
I shall not rebut every point Sharp made. It’s not necessary, although I think I treat most everything she said in what follows. We just see things differently, no doubt. I did make a formal argument, too, which was earlier expressed clearly in our first debate in my opening statement, of which this second debate was a continuation of that one.
Sharp wrote:
Loftus claims that he is looking at this world and asking whether or not God exists while Wood already believes God exists and is trying to explain intense suffering “given that prior belief.” From the outset of his argument, Loftus assumes that only the theist has prior commitment to a belief. However, this idea is oblivious to the atheist’s own commitment to the non-existence of God, which is a governing worldview itself. Loftus takes the position of being the only one who is able to objectively argue due to his non-commitment to a religion, whereas Wood must “punt” to his worldview considering the reality of evil. I do not find a solid line of reasoning for Loftus’s statement; it is simply an attempt to discredit the ability of a theist to argue objectively. However, both the theist and the atheist come to the debate carrying their worldviews on their back.Well, in the first place my worldview includes every belief I have about the world, but atheism, per se, is not a worldview. There are many kinds of atheism and many differences among people who call themselves atheists. Another thing Sharp should realize, but which most theists don't understand, is that the only thing I affirm is that Christians have not made their case. My atheism is a position of last regard. I came to it by the process of elimination. She herself is an atheist when it comes to Islam. I just reject her God with the same confidence she rejects the Muslim faith. I simply reject one more God than she does. I don’t think any believer in any religion has made her case. I don’t even have to make a case that there is no God, but I do. Furthermore, since the argument from evil is a serious problem for the believer, as admitted by everyone who has ever written about it (otherwise why write on a non-problem?), then if this is the only issue we had to deal with to settle the question of the omni-God's existence, it would be obvious that such a God does not exist. Christians retreat, or punt, to background beliefs to help settle this problem without which they would not believe in the first place. I mean really, if she looked at this present world and were asked whether or not an omni-God created it without reference to any other background belief of hers, I dare say she would conclude as I do.
Sharp wrote:
What kind of world should we expect an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good being to create? Wood handles the question by suggesting that a world in which human pleasure is maximized and human pain is minimized is not what would be expected of this type of Creator. He posits a two-world theodicy in which ‘good’ is maximized: this world with its goods, and the next world (heaven) with its goods. Neither world can contain all of the goods (since some of them are mutually exclusive) and therefore the best possible situation is one with both worlds, in which the world of greater goods is eternal and the world of lesser goods is a limited world.The words "lesser goods" is a euphemism for things like gang rapes, genocide, witch hunts, brutal slavery, the Indonesian tsunami, cholera, hurricanes, the Brazilian Wandering Spider, and many parasites of which it's estimated that from them one person every ten seconds dies. Yeah, these are "lesser goods." Well if these things are "lesser goods," then what would it take for Wood or Sharp to call something evil? And what notion of a perfectly good God do they have anyway, that would allow for these "lesser goods"? The bottom line is that Wood is expressing a consequentialist ethic in his two world's theodicy, in which the ends (heavenly existence) justify the means (earthly existence). Conservative Christians reject such an ethic, so my challenge is for them to be consistent. Either acknowledge the argument from evil succeeds, or change your ethic.
Sharp wrote:
In order to maximize good, this world could not be by-passed, for there are goods in this world that cannot be achieved in the heavenly world in God’s full presence. Wood gives several examples of the goods of this world, including the choice of whether or not we will follow God, morality, and virtues such as courage and compassion. Morality in this world is only possible due to our free will to choose whether or not we will act morally. If God’s presence were fully known in this world, either His presence would overwhelm human will or humans would only be following God due to a fear of being “zapped” by this all-powerful watchman. By contrast, the goods of the heavenly realm include a lack of suffering and the full presence of God—the latter being the ultimate good.With regard to the two world's theodicy, what possible good can come in this world that is important in the next one? Courage, generosity, and compassion are only needed in the face of poverty, suffering and pain, so how are these virtues even needed in heaven without pain and suffering? Besides, I truly think neither Wood nor Sharp understands the nature and value of free will.
I also find it very odd that in order to exonerate God they must explain the lack of his revealed goodness due to an "epistemic distance," otherwise known as divine hiddenness. I find no satisfactory understanding for why God created in the first place such that he wanted any creatures to love him. Theists ask if God is to be blamed for creating this world and for wanting people who freely love him. Yes, most definitely yes, until or unless she can tell me why a supposedly reasonable triune completely self-fulfilled God wanted this in the first place (“grace” is not an answer at all); why libertarian free-will is such an important value to God when compared to the sufferings that have resulted from this so-called gift; whether human beings actually have free-will if God created us with our specific DNA and placed us within a specific environment (an environment that actually obstructs many people from receiving the gospel because of the “accidents of birth”); why God suspends some people’s free choices (i.e. Pharaoh) but not others; why God even cares to have free-willed people who love him, knowing full well the consequences for the billions of people who wind up in hell (the collateral damage), and why God will allow sinners in hell to retain their freedom but take it away from the saints in heaven (and who subsequently completes the sanctification process for these saints without their own free choices doing it).
There are three attributes of God we're dealing with here, God's power, his love and his knowledge. God must reveal his love to us irregardless of whether he reveals his power to us. If a man courts a woman and tests her to see if she loves him by not showing her his true love, then that is quite simply a false test. If she doesn't see him as a loving person she will naturally reject him. So the woman would not actually be rejecting that man but only the man he showed himself to be. And so likewise, if God is all-knowing then he would know we only rejected a false caricature of him and not who he really is. So I find it wildly improbable to think this settles anything for Sharp or Wood or any Christian theist. Maybe Mary Jo should try this on her own children if she has any, and see how her own children react to it. See what that gets her as a mother and she'll understand the seriousness of the problem.
Sharp wrote:
At this point in the program, Reginald Finley, the host, asked how Satan could have been in God’s perfect presence and yet still rebelled. However, this is a misunderstanding of the theodicy. In Wood’s theodicy, this present world and the restored, future world are the two worlds. The “heavenly realm” from which Satan fell could not have been a place of God’s full presence or Loftus would be correct in stating that Satan would be “dumber than a box of rocks” for rebelling. More accurately, Satan would not have been able to rebel in the full presence of God. So this original heavenly realm is not the same as the restored heaven and earth to come. Loftus interjected, “So there’s a rule change then.”Yes, I "interjected" because that's all I could do as Wood droned on.
Satan is a mythical figure derived mostly during the inter-testamental literature. He was not viewed as an evil being in the Old Testament itself. In the OT Satan was a fully credentialed member of the heavenly court who is best described as a prosecutor, the high ranking head of the ancient barbaric "thought police." Prosecutors are not evil because they are doing their jobs and we find him in God's heavenly court a few times in the history of Israel simply doing his job. As such he was not the serpent in the Garden of Eden earlier, otherwise God later allowed sin in his presence if he allowed Satan to be a member of his heavenly court. Christians deny God allows sin in his presence and they also claim sinners could not bear to be in God's presence. So why do we find Satan in God's presence doing God's will later in passages like Job 1-2; Numbers 22:22-32; II Samuel 24:1 (cf. I Chron. 21:1); and Zechariah 3:1-5?
But even if Wood's concocted view is correct, he has merely pushed back the problem of evil before the Fall of humankind. Why didn't God allow Satan into his direct immediate presence to see all of his power and love such that Satan would neither desire to rebel against him or think he could succeed? Because of this divine decision every person who suffers in this world and every person who will suffer for all eternity (along with Satan himself) will do so because God failed to show Satan his love and power. Apologists say God did this to show us his glory and grace, but then that's using people for his own ends. This is the ethic of consequentialism, again. Why does God hide his love from his creatures, for instance, knowing it would cause such intense suffering? This theodicy sounds much more like an excuse for what God should have done than it offers anything by way of a reasonable justification for a so-called perfectly good God.
Given the suffering that resulted from Satan's supposed rebellion, why didn't God simply deal with him and put him down immediately? That's what a good and reasonable ruler would do. Listen, does a perfectly good God want a peaceable kingdom, or not? A good ruler would not allow such an evil in his kingdom in the first place. Evil like that is to be eliminated as soon as possible by a good ruler. Too many innocents would be hurt if he didn't do this immediately.
Sharp wrote:
The argument Loftus presents, at its foundation, reasons that if God had foreknowledge of those who would choose Him and those who would not, He should have only made those who would choose Him. This argument essentially disregards free will, making it appear as practically useless in this world.Not so. If God has foreknowledge of future free-willed contingent actions then he could foreknow our free choices. We wouldn't have to actually choose anything since if God has this kind of foreknowledge he would already know who would.
Sharp wrote:
Loftus believes that it would be better for us to have no free will, but to live a utopian life in which peace, happiness, and health are maximized. Although I have seen this type of existence portrayed on Star Trek, I highly doubt this is the type of existence we really desire. In listening to Loftus, I wondered if he had spent any time formulating what that type of existence would actually look like.I'm merely thinking of what the theist conceives heaven to be: a heavenly existence, is after all, the one Christians believe they will experience in the future, with an incorruptible body including eternal peace and happiness in a world of utter bliss.
Sharp wrote:
Loftus uses instances of immense suffering to bolster his argument, but he ignores the issues of “not-so-immense” suffering such as the girl who doesn’t feel ‘pretty enough’ who wants to commit suicide. How would this situation be remedied in Loftus’s utopia? Would God therefore have to make every person look alike so as to avoid even the smallest amount of suffering? (He does argue that God should have only created one race of people.)Listen, the argument from evil is only as forceful as the suffering that exists in this present world. If there was no intense suffering the argument would lose most of its force. If there was no suffering at all then it would have no force at all. I have struggled in life, although I have not experienced any prolonged intense suffering. I've always had good health, with enough food and money and friends to get by. So if my kinds of struggles are good enough to test me then why couldn't everyone's struggles be no more than mine? Why do some suffer for years and years, and a few commit suicide because of their sufferings? Do they need this suffering whereas I don't? Not everyone suffers the same. Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouths while others struggle with financial woes and health issues and the loss of loved ones throughout their whole short lives. Why?
Sharp wrote:
Loftus’s assessment of this life as a cruel game of hide and seek is, to quote him in another statement, “expecting way too little of God.” This judgment of God’s method of Divine expression oversimplifies the total issue. The atheist, as Wood explains later in the debate, has to explain why anything exists at all. The problem is amplified when we consider the origin of the universe, the fine-tuning of the cosmos for life, the design on earth that enables survival, and the astronomical odds that complex life would arise on this one planet, in order to even get to a brain that can ponder the problem of evil. The theist has a foundation for the existence of God rooted in all of these things to which he then adds theodicies to help make sense of suffering in the world. What evidence should we expect from a God-level intellect concerning His existence? The evidence He has provided in the cosmos, nature, human reasoning, and the written Word allow humankind to thoughtfully consider who we are and where we came from without being mindlessly forced into accepting God as our Creator.Here is but another example of how Christians count the hits and ignore the misses. They do this with prayer too. If a prayer is answered they count that as a hit. If it's not, they ignore it. With regard to the universe and its form they simply ignore the vast amount of natural evil in it, as I mentioned earlier. One cannot look at this universe objectively and come away believing in the omni-God Sharp believes if she takes into consideration all of the evidence of unintelligent design. At best one should be agnostic about what the evidence can lead us to think. Even if one is to conclude some divine entity created a "quantum wave fluctuation" we don't have an explanation for where this divine being came from, nor whether he still exists, nor whether he is good, or all-powerful. For her to believe in God she must believe in a historically conditioned interpretation of a selected group of ancient anonymous superstitious writings. And we certainly cannot verify the claims of miracles by the historical method, especially as outsiders looking in. Those beliefs of hers are to be described simply as bizzaro! If she understood the full range of problems for the Christian faith, then as I argued with respect to William Lane Craig, she would never have believed in the first place!
Sharp wrote:
In the argument from evil, the atheist points out instances of intense suffering, especially undeserved suffering of innocents such as children and animals. In an attempt to make this the sole issue regarding God’s existence, the atheist skips over any good found in the world. The scales of good and evil thus tip to the evil side making it appear as though evil, all by itself, is enough to prove a godless world. The problem is that the scales are tipped and weighted on one side, not putting enough consideration on the good side. One of the differences in the perspectives on this issue is that Loftus and Finley view this world as bad and the (imaginary for them) future world as good, whereas Wood views this world as good and the future world as good.This claim of hers is quite simply a red herring. For me personally life is good. That has nothing to do with the argument itself. My claim is that neither Sharp nor Wood can actually see the blood stained whip in the slave master's hand, nor smell the flesh of the witches burned at the stake, nor hear the screams of the woman whose child is eaten alive by a pack of wolves, because they are blinded by their faith. They cover their eyes their noses and their ears to the truth of this world in order to have the comforts of a delusional belief. Whether we think this present world is a good one over-all, probably depends on where we were born. If someone was born in the Gaza Strip, life right now would be terrible. Besides, we're not just talking about whether this world is merely good, anyway. We're talking about whether this world reflects a perfectly good God.
Sharp wrote:
Wood argued thus: Given our world, God can either put animals in it or not put animals in it. If He does put them here, then they are going to be a part of our world, which is governed by natural law. Animals are good-in-themselves. Wood suggests that Loftus’s question is spurious by giving an example of the tiger. Tigers are in danger of going extinct in the wild; however, no one says, “Hooray! Now all the animals the tiger hunts will no longer have to suffer.” In fact, the general feeling is that we should keep tigers from going extinct. Why do we react this way if tigers just cause a lot of pain and suffering? Returning to what Wood said, we must know on some level that animals are good-in-themselves. If we want a world with less animal suffering, then God offers us one—the heavenly world. If we reject that offer, then we still have this world, which is good.Whether or not we are concerned if tigers go extinct is another red herring. We are concerned because of our delicate ecosystem and its ability to support all life. My question has to do with what God should be concerned about and that makes all the difference in the world. My question is whether or not a fine-tuned ecosystem is more important to God than one in which divine maintenance is needed to correct anything in an incomplete ecosystem, given the massive amount of intense suffering in it. I think God should care more about sentient beings than having a fine-tuned ecosystem that causes this much suffering. Is God lazy, or what? Can God do perpetual miracles by miraculously feeding human beings through the process of photosynthesis without any animals at all--animals who have viciously preyed upon one another for hundreds of thousands of years prior to our arrival on earth? Finally, when it comes to animals do all dogs go to heaven?
Sharp wrote:
...the theist could turn this argument around and ask what a universe should look like without a God and point out all the instances of good, concluding that there must be a God because there is immense good and incredible joy in the world.Such a tactic undercuts the Christian claims, I think, for such arguments cancel each other out, leaving nothing but a blind indifferent world, which is actually what I'm arguing for.
Sharp wrote:
Nearing the end of the debate, Loftus and Finley agree that naturalism better explains immense suffering in the world. Wood responds by stating that naturalism cannot explain the standard by which the atheist views certain events as evil. Presupposed in the atheist argument is some sort of standard of goodness. Wood explains that though Loftus denies God’s existence, the morality he bases his argument on has as its foundation an absolute Moral Law Giver. Atheists may be able to say that naturalism explains suffering better than theism, but then they have to explain the concept of ‘right and wrong’ through naturalism as well. This is one area where atheism can be seen to lack the explanatory power of theism.I have dealt with Wood's red herring extensively right here. I have briefly dealt with the problem of an atheistic ethic here. I adjure Wood and Sharp not to try to escape their problem by claiming I have one too. I've adequately deal with my difficulty. They need to adequately deal with theirs.
Sharp wrote:
At one point, Loftus was asking Wood to answer the question, “Was it good that God did not stop the earthquake which caused the Indonesian tsunami?” How would answering this one particular instance explain the universal problem of evil? It would not help. Wood is correct in consistently reminding Loftus that the argument itself needs to be dealt with in order to discern whether the argument is sound. Loftus can ask “why?” all day long, but as Wood has said, “why?” isn’t an argument.Asking Wood to answer the massive amount of suffering in this world is, I think, an important strategy for a theodicy. My argument, since I couldn't fully express it given Wood's propensity to interrupt me, can certainly be expressed as a rhetorical question, for that's what it was. I say he cannot sufficiently explain why God did not stop that earthquake, for if he had stopped it no one would ever know he stopped it simply because it wouldn't have happend (and thus God would stay "hidden"). If that earthquake was needed for the ecosystem then I see no reason why God didn't wait a few years when better warning systems would be in place. Most importantly I see no reason why an omnipotent God who created the laws of nature could not have performed a perpetual miracle by stopping that earthquake from ever have taken place.
I think the more power a person has then the more of an ethical obligation he has to alleviate suffering. If, for instance, a woman is being gang raped, no one would fault me if I didn't physically try to stop them, for then I would be beaten up and perhaps killed along with her (although I would be held morally responsible if I didn't call the police). But if I was Superman and did nothing then everyone would rightly fault me if I didn't stop them. So since God supposedly has all power he is the most obligated to alleviate suffering in our world. Without a suffient explanation for these things I argue that it's probable such an omni-God doesn't exist. Wood has not made his case.
Sharp wrote:
In the end, Wood shows that the background information presupposed in the argument from evil itself points to theism....Loftus’s argument is that suffering provides enough evidence to lead us away from God. However, suffering itself is just not enough evidence in light of a comprehensive look at the world to move the theist away from a reasoned, evidenced belief in God.With regard to Wood and Sharp's worldview background beliefs I have thoroughly debunked all of the important ones in my book, one after another. Given the demise of their background worldview beliefs they no longer have a leg to stand on in the face of the massive amount of intense suffering in this world, since it becomes quite obvious that without them they cannot sufficiently explain why a good God allows this suffering.
Sharp wrote:
The theistic worldview explains the conditions assumed in the argument from evil far better than atheism does. In fact, atheism does not satisfactorily account for any of the conditions presupposed in the argument. When the atheist points to suffering as his reason for rejecting the existence of God, he assumes all of these conditions, which atheism simply cannot account for. Hence, theism has far more explanatory power than atheism, and the argument from evil therefore does not make the existence of God implausible.Atheism, as I understand it simply means one is a non-theist, or a non-believer in the particular religion being discussed. Christians, after all, were called "atheists" by the Romans. So the options are not between being an atheist (qua metaphysical naturalist) or a Christian theist. There are a host of other positions on this question, most notable panentheism, or process theology. My claim is that the more beliefs a person has that are essential to his worldview then the less likely the whole set of beliefs comprising his worldview are true. He must maintain not only that there is a three-in-one God, but that the collection of books in the canonized Bible are all inspired by God, and that God became incarnated through a virgin in Bethlehem, atoned for our sins, resurrected from the grave, and will return, for starters. These beliefs, along with a multifaceted number of others, all stand or fall together. If one is shown wrong then his whole worldview collapses. By contrast, as I said earlier, the only thing I affirm is that Christians have not made their case. My atheism is a position of last regard. I came to it by the process of elimination. I don’t think any believer in any religion has made his case. I don’t even have to make a case that there is no God, although I do.
Chapter 13: "Christianity Can be Hazardous to Your Health, by Harriet Hall
Dr. Skepdoc Harriet Hall died peacefully in her sleep last night. In her honor I present a sample of her work from my anthology Christianity is not Great. If there is any occasion to see the truth of her chapter look no further that how Covid-19 and it's variants have killed, and are still killing, ignorant Christian vaccine deniers. She was one of the greats in our lifetime! If you haven't read that anthology yet, there are a number of really good chapters in it!
Christianity Can be Hazardous to Your Health,
by Harriet Hall, MD
Religion will always be a controversial subject, but its impact on health is one area that lends itself to objective investigation.
Labels: Excerpts
Maybe Jesus Himself Could Talk You Out of Christianity
There’s so much he shouldn’t have said!
A few years ago I asked a prominent Italian journalist: “Can it possibly be true that the Vatican hierarchy really believes the wacky ideas that the church promotes?” For example, transubstantiation, papal infallibility, immaculate conception, the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven. He responded, “Oh, maybe half of them do. Don’t forget, it’s a business.” The primary product of this business is Jesus, and for twenty centuries the church has worked hard to hype the product. The apostle Paul got the ball rolling with his message that he’d had private conversations with the dead Jesus, whom he was convinced was alive in heaven. Paul was confident that believing in resurrected Jesus was the key to salvation. This is a perfect example of magical thinking: believe something and voilà , you get your wish. Decades after Paul, the gospel writers wrote their stories about Jesus the Wonder Worker.
Stinky Piles of Rhetoric and Flawed Principles
This is a response that spans two articles and three people. I am making an article out of my responses because they are avoiding answering my questions and I'm hoping that I can get some feedback from others. Their comments are bold and italicized. I have referenced the articles at the end so anyone interested can follow the context.
In a nutshell I am challenging the principle of the original sin, the human sacrifice which depends on the principle of original sin and I am challenging the principle of the the problem of evil as a test and I am asserting that Christians have no concept about what properties an all powerful, all knowing, all good god should have. They have no concept of the infinite. Infinity has a lot of problems with paradoxes and if you look, you see that God has inherited those same problems.
david,
For you example, if you were to sacrifice your son so that others may live, I don't think anyone would call you terrible. The fact is, the sacrifice of your son cannot save anyone. The substitution of names in this case flawed.
It might be flawed, but it depends on your answer to this question (and honestly I don't think I would kill my son to save the world, or even a bus load of people).
What would you think of me if I crucified myself because I was punishing myself for a rule I made up? Sounds crazy doesn’t it?
If it sounds crazy then I would be killing son for nothing right? God could have changed the rules, he did it with the new covenant, he could have thought that human sacrifice was justifiably abhorrent and decided to handle it a different way. I would have.
Human sacrifice, killing yourself because of a rule you made, claiming to be a human, a son and a god all in one body, It is insane.
How do you know that jesus was really his son? mary's word? If jesus was an immaculate conception why didn't mark mention it?
God gave you a brain right? use it! why is it that these principles that supposedly came from a god seem so flawed? The principles don't translate into the real world. Why is that? Its what the bible tells us! Where did the bible come from, why does it say this?
Do your home work. Do some serious bible study. Look for the original texts. Study the history of the near east from the last ice age on, they call it the agricultural revolution.
get busy!
drsimrak
In regards to suffering, I would say that there is something that is to be gained in suffering. Once again, I come to my own lack of understanding, Why suffering? I don't know and the more I think about it, the more I realize that isn't the point.
You have not considered what an all powerful, all good, all knowing god should be able to do.
God should be able to do anything. In a breath, he could have spoken all christians into existence with their varying traits exactly as they would have turned out with without all the needless suffering. If he were really a loving god he should have made it so we could avoid the suffering and he could have avoided the 'pain' of having to sit on the sidelines and watch and just instilled the alleged virtues that result from suffering. This would not make us robots because the result is the same, only the process is removed. He could make them like he needs them. And I dispute that suffering makes us better than not suffering. That stands to be shown through something other than anecdotal evidence. In fact, I can show you that stress causes damage in people at the molecular level and causes the onset of depression and other harsher mental disorders. Just keep your eye out, you'll see me posting things about the brain, mind and behavior.
The point is that the world around us is collapsing and falling apart. The world around us bears witness that it is in need of a savior. All of mankind is dying and God has provided himself as our Savior in Jesus Christ. How ridiculous would it be if a drowning man to chose not to accept help from someone because he didn't like the shirt the rescuer was wearing.
This is completely subjective and as prup answered you, completely one sided and it avoids several qualifiers that make that untrue. The most you can say is that there are good things and bad things, and while we are evidenlty suffering from global warming due our screw ups, we can have a better quality of life, relatively disease free, to enjoy it with. (irony, i put that in there because some people have a hard time picking it up)
It's a question of faith and a matter of the heart. After all, it is with the heart that man believes unto salvation not with the mind. The true question is, do you need saving? If you think your fine or that you don't need or want the help of a God you view as cruel then so be it. But that doesn't change reality.
People believe with thier heart and not with their mind? What level of school did you make it through? Your self is a result of molecular electrochemical interactions in that chunk of meat in your skull and a good neurosurgeon could go in there and make you have a religious experience and think that god was in the room behind you as well making you think you had two arms on one side. You need to get a grip on reality. What is it about me that needs saving? I say that most people are good people, its just that minority percentage that ruins it for the rest of us!
What is to be known of God is made manifest in creation. But man chooses to deny that power. It's because of the hardness of men's hearts that they are given over to their own desires. If we want salvation we can have it, the choice is ours.
This is one of those piles of rhetoric that you guys leave behind every now an then. Theres no response to it because it so totally ignores reality. Once again lets all say it together, "it does not follow that because there is a world, there is a god that created it and that God is the christian God."
And there's that heart again, my heart is fine, no attacks yet. My mind is fine too, my morals and attitudes seem to be fine as I have a lot of friends that seem to like me as I'm sure is the case with most non-christians. Look, behaviour is not totally a matter of free-will, there are biological reasons for behaviour, and since that is the case your degree of free-will is limited, whether you want to belive it with your heart or not. I suggest thinking about it in your mind a little more. Thats what its best at.
Questioning what you believe and why is a good thing. Questioning to prove that you too can be like God is foolishness. The question is, who is God? Will we exalt ourselves as gods or will we humble ourselves and submit to the one true and living God even though we don't always understand?
Before you go submitting to something you better make sure it exists, because if everybody did that, that would be a lot of wasted resources with regards to labor that could go to making the world a better place. And no one is saying anything about wanting to be like god or be god, so you can just toss that stinky red herring out of here!
david,
Pain and evil are just part of the fabric, Christian or Atheist. But it is not right to say God is unjust if He Himself suffered.
rich,
People overcome great odds all the time. Why should it be easy? Why should we be handed something we didn't work for? Everyone would like it to be easier, even Christ in the gardin asked that the cup pass over him. He knew it couldn't be and he went through with it even though he asked not to, and he left it up to the Fathers will. A little less suffereing would sure be nice, making it easier to do what is right would be nice, but neither are our reality, so we accept it and do our best, that's all were asked.
With this kind of attitude there is never going to be resolution to pain and suffering because you are just giving to god, but you are not thinking that even if you do, it all happens in gods time right? So stop praying cause he already knows what you want and get off your butt and do something about the 'terrible world' you live in. Go volunteer at assisted living facilities, hospitals, homeless shelters, donate money to the organizations that handle disasters, volunteer at schools, go pick up trash on the side of the road. If you are already doing those things BRAVO, I take my hat off to you.
REFERENCES
Five Big Rocks
Schizophrenia Candidate Genes Affect Even Healthy Individuals
Labels: Lee, principles, Reasoning