David Wood Is No Longer Worth My Time

This Blog Entry has been reposted because some people still think it's a mutual misunderstanding that Mr. Wood and I have with each other. Some of that is undoubtedly true, but I have just responded to this in comments 58-61 (beware, harsh language at one point).

I still want to stress that I like David Wood very much, and apart from our disputes I would consider him a friend of mine. What I am strictly dealing with are his arguments. Nothing personal is implied, even if I have been frustrated with him at times. He's a good man.

I do commend him for dealing with the problem of evil. My claim is that he is not dealing with this problem head on. I think he ought to take the advice of Adam in the comments below and just say he believes in the goodness of God despite the suffering in this world as a sort of Kierkegaardian leap of faith, and leave it at that. For as long as he wants to figure this out, he won't be able to do so.

Dr. Weisberger told me I'm wasting my time with David Wood of Answering Infidels and The Problem of Evil Blog. Like many others before her, I think she's right. She also advised me to argue with him on my blog, so I am now. I want people to see how he argues. So here we go...

Mr Wood claims that the argument from the problem of evil is an atheist argument. I responded that the problem of evil would have to be dealt with by him even if no atheist argued for it, since it flows out of that which he believes about an omni-God. He responded by distinguishing between the "problem of evil" and the "argument from evil," and the "argument from evil" is indeed an atheist argument. If successful as an atheist, he argues I'm trying to show that "God doesn't exist." But that is High School level thinking. A process theologian could press the argument, as could a pantheist. The conclusion of the argument isn't that God doesn't exist, only that if God exists he either isn't omnibenelovent, omniscient, or omnipotent. So why is it an atheist argument when it may not lead to atheism? A Deist could use it. I think it does show the Christian God doesn't exist, but it most emphatically doesn't lead to atheism. The amazing thing to me is that David does not back down, so far, and I don't expect him to here either.

After disagreeing with Dr. Weisberger's discussion of the burdern of proof , which I in turn agreed with her, Mr. Wood claims something wildly fanciful about that "method" (which isn't a method at all). He wrote:

"So the question arises, "Why would John cling to such an absurd method?" The answer: "Because he can't handle having to support his arguments with evidence." I see no other explanation.

Really now? Is it really true he can see no other explanation? Come on now David, think a little more deeply than that. What other explanations are there for why we argue you have the burden of proof here? Could it be that we think you do, irrespective of anything else? The burden of proof is not on the person who is disputing a claim, especially an extraordinary claim about an omni-God (or that there are invisible gremlins), but on the claimant. The person who makes a claim always has the burden of proof. Furthermore, if what he says is true, that I cannot support my arguments with evidence, then why is it that I am stressing the evidence, and arguing that that evidence is overwhelmingly against him? It's obvious that's what I've argued.

Besides Dr. Weisberger, Dr. Jeffry's also has commented on our debate. After reading both of their comments here's what David Wood said:

I've noticed something interesting, however. Both atheist reviewers (Weisberger and Jeffrys) seem to imply that John's arguments didn't work. That is, Jeffrys's response was "It would have been good to bring X up, and you shouldn't have let him get away with Y." Weisberger, apart from outlining [John's]arguments, responded by showing what she would have said in response to my claims. That is, at no point does either reviewer say "David said so and so, but John proved that wrong when he said such and such." Instead, both reviewers try to explain to readers what John should have said.

David claims that what they both wrote seems to imply my arguments "didn't work." Really? That is so slipshod by way of evaluating what their intent was, that I didn't think it needed mentioning that this is a completely ignorant thing to say. [The reason I mention this now, is because I'm seeing quite a pattern here coming from Mr. Wood and I want to lay a few examples on the table]. They were entering the debate. They were offering their own take on the arguments in the debate. There is no way anyone should ever conclude that because they had their own arguments on the issue that this implies they thought my arguments were ineffective at all! This is a non-sequitur.

But there is more. There was a post at Triablogue about a book called, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence by David Benatar, where the author discusses whether or not parents should bring children into existence given the harms that life might bring upon them, and that parents should give it serious thought before bringing another child into this world. According to the editorial review, "David Benatar argues that coming into existence is always a serious harm. He argues for the 'anti-natal' view---that it is always wrong to have children. Anti-natalism also implies that it would be better if humanity became extinct. Although counter-intuitive for many, that implication is defended, not least by showing that it solves many conundrums of moral theory about population." You can see the book and the reviews for yourselves here

Okay so far?

Now in comes David Wood, who wrote:

This guy sounds like John Loftus with a PhD.

Really? Is that what I am saying? We'll get to that later.

Then Jim Pemberton wrote:

Let's see a show of hands: who is glad they were born - despite any discomfort? I'm raising mine.

Then David Wood wrote:

THIS JUST IN FROM JOHN LOFTUS:

Jim,

You said that you're raising your hand because you'd rather live. But what about all the people who can't raise their hands because their hands have been chopped off in an accident? What about them? Huh?!! What about people who were born without hands! It must be easy for you to raise your hand, since you've got one. But other people don't have them, and they all understand that it would be better to die. Yeah, they understand. They can't play Nintendo like you. Cause they don't have hands. So think about that, Mr. Handman. Think about people with no hands. And you'll see that we'd all be better off not existing. That's why I don't like God, you know. Cause he made me exist and all. And he doesn't give me everything I want. That's just not right.

Now check out my response:

John W. Loftus said (with corrected typos)...

Okay, funny guys.

Have you ever heard of the phrase, "you'll wish you were never born?" That usually refers to someone who is about to be beaten or tortured to a bloody pulp. There have been such people you know. There have been people born who never had a pleasurable day, due to sickness, starvation, and torture. There are teenagers who have merely spoken their minds only to spend the rest of their lives in a gulag and to die, never seeing their parents again. I could go on and on and on, of course.

This is what I'm referring to, and all you can do is to joke about it. But I understand why you must do so. Because you can't face the problem head on for what it really is.

But there is more. After these people die, according to Christian theology some of them, maybe most of them, will suffer eternal conscious torment forever in hell. This is where the other shoe drops.

Face the problem head on. There are people according to YOUR own theology who wish they had never been born.

Stop joking about this real situation from the standpoint of the silver spoons in your mouths.

You actually make me sick.

I do think it's sick to so glibly treat a serious issue of why GOD, not parents, brings people into existence. And I think it's ignorant to even hint that my argument is anywhere close to what David Wood says it is here. He even thinks I wish I never existed! He has even argued that, if I enjoy life, I "shouldn't constantly describe the world as if it's nothing but a cesspool of death, disease, and bloodshed." But that again, is nothing like what I'm saying. He just doesn't understand for some reason. There is good in the world. I enjoy life very much. My questions are about why so many people (other than me) have to suffer so much if there is a good God, and why this God created such a world when he knew in advance that these people will suffer like they do.

Speaking of my questions, that's all he thinks I'm doing, asking questions. He summarized my 20 minute opening statement by placing the following words in my mouth: "I asked 'why this?' and 'why that?' for twenty minutes without making a serious argument." If anyone can read my opening statement and come away thinking I never made a serious argument, he is intellectually challenged.

I have repeatedly asked Mr. Wood to state my argument in his own words, and the two times he tried to do so, he failed miserably. So I challenge him to do so again, if he responds here. For he cannot seriously interact with my argument until he can effectively state it. That's what scholars do before they argue against someone. First they lay out the other person's argument, so that everyone can see for themselves if he did so fairly, with no strawmen. And scholars must do so charitably too, giving it the most charitable interpretation. I suspect he refuses to do so because he cannot effectively argue against it. Whether that's the case or not is to be seen. Maybe I'm wrong on this. But because he misunderstands and misrepresents so much of what I'm saying, I doubt it.

David Wood responded:

"You actually make me sick."

MORE FROM LOFTUS:

If God exists, why would he make so many people who make me sick? A good God would have put us on different planets, so I wouldn't get sick thinking about you disgusting people and your logic and all that. If I had the choice between living in a world with you people, and not living at all, I'd rather not exist. But here again, God hasn't given me what I want. So I will fight against him with all my might, and I will teach him that no one denies John Loftus! No one!

My concern here is that David Wood is in a Ph.D program at Fordham University in Philosophy where he must logically evaluate arguments. When it comes to the problem of evil he shows little evidence that he can do this. I wonder what his professors would think of this? It does not speak well for Fordham University, in my opinion. What Mr. Wood is saying is filled with many strawmen arguments, including the informal fallacy of "horse laughter."

Then I responded one final time:

John Loftus said...
David, I guess your response either means 1) my questions are silly and have already been answered by you so the only fitting response is to laugh at me, even though my questions about existing are sincere ones, and even though I have never seen you even attempt to answer them, ever, or 2) you refuse to face head on what your theology commits you to, so you refuse to deal with it. If there are other options please let me know what they are.

Bottom tier buddy. Sorry. But that conclusion is inescapable.

Carry on then. Bring on more ridicule. When you actually want to deal with this problem, let me know.

When I referred to "bottom tier," here, I meant that he is in the bottom third tier of those who defend the Christian faith, which parallels his placing the Rational Response Squad in the bottom third tier of those who defend atheism.

There are probably about ten types of things Mr. Wood continues to argue that shows me he's not really dealing with the problem of evil head on, and which shows me he is in the bottom third tier of those Christians who defend the Christian faith.

Now is he worth my time or not? I've just spend some time here, haven't I? Well, then yes, and no. Maybe I'm still hoping that by bringing these things to the light it might help him to take a serious look at what I'm actually saying and respond as the budding respectful scholar he's supposed to be. But until he does, I can no longer take him seriously.

Two More 5 Star Reviews of My Book.

There are two more 5 star reviews of my book, one from a Christian! I especially like the fairmindedness of people on opposite sides of the fence who are reasonable enough to think what someone writes is good even if they disagree, as I did when I reviewed Paul Copan's book That's Just your Interpretation.

Loftus blows over the Christian theology house of cards., March 14, 2007. Reviewer: Thomas A. Lewis.

John. W. Loftus is a serious thinker and philosopher, and while his self-published book lacks the professional style and editing that mainstream authors enjoy of their publications, his argumentation and critical analysis of Christian theology is top tier.

I can personally identify with Loftus in many ways, being a former evangelical myself. The process of de-conversion is a long and drawn out intellectual, thinking, and learning process, unlike the quick emotional rape that can be had at the alter of any fundamentalist church.

On page 24 Loftus says: "I was so sure and so confident in my faith that I didn't believe I could learn anything that would ever cause me to doubt my faith." I highlighted this sentence in my copy since it was so close to what I had thought at the beginning of my investigation of Christianity. I thought to myself: "I'll read these books by evolutionists and their arguments will fall like sand through the reason of the Bible." "I'll read about these other religions and see how silly and insincere their believers are." "I'll read about the psychology of religion and demolish their babble with sound doctrine."

Like Loftus, the results are quite contrary to what one expects as a Christian going in. Christian naivety and ignorance is revealed at every turn. The flimsy arguments of theistic apologists are blasted to bits in the strong wind of reason and evidence. Christian insularity is eroded away by sound knowledge. In the end, one is left feeling like Blade at the end of the second movie where he is holding a beautiful vampire that is soon evaporated into ash by the rays of the sun. To me, my religion had been like that vampire. Yes, you loved her. Yes, she was beautiful on the surface. But in the end you're glad that the sun rose, she is gone, and you awoke from the myopia of the night.

Still Keeping The Faith, March 9, 2007
Reviewer: Mrs. M.

Actually I changed from a 4 to a 5 star as soon as I began writing this review. While the author makes it an easy read (thank you I am not as intellectual as a lot of others on this board), I have mixed feeling. The part about hell and the evil were all questions I struggle with. I agree wholeheartedly and have a really hard time with a God that would not offer salvation to all of mankind. Punishing someone eternally really bothers me.As the author points out no one (as even in Hitler) should be in total agony forever and ever. Do I think a fair and just God would demand retribution as in, well let's use Hitler. Let him feel the pain and agony of people he burned alive, let him have his organs pulled out the way he did to the many Jewish and yes Christians that was part of his evil ways.Let him know.taste and feel the horror of what he did. Please do not think I am a Hitler sympathizer, I certainly am not. But eternity is a long time. And then.......I look at the stars, the moon, the beautiful deer in my yard and I know he is there.Do I fear what may lie beyond our mortal death,I don't know, sometimes, but I just can't believe that this is it.I was so blessed in this life I just know someone was looking out for me. I know the author was disappointed (for lack of a stronger word) at the so called "Christians and friends that turned their back on him.But these people are not your judges, that's what happens when people do the judging. I look forward to the day that I will see Christ and my loved ones. No one here knows all the answers, sometimes we just have to trust God. The book does raise questions though, and I will pray I get the answers.

First Congressman in History Comes Out as Nonbeliever!

Here's an email I received from the FreeThought Association of West Michigan about the first congressman in history to come out as a non-theist:

Press Release: Congressman Holds No God-Belief
March 12, 2007
For Immediate Release

There is only one member of Congress who is on record as not holding a god-belief.

Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), a member of Congress since 1973, acknowledged his nontheism in response to an inquiry by the Secular Coalition for America (www.secular.org ). Rep. Stark is a senior member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee and is Chair of the Health Subcommittee.

Although the Constitution prohibits religious tests for public office, the Coalition’s research reveals that Rep. Stark is the first open nontheist in the history of the Congress. Recent polls show that Americans without a god-belief are, as a group, more distrusted than any other minority in America. Surveys show that the majority of Americans would not vote for an atheist for president even if he or she were the most qualified for the office.

Herb Silverman, president of the Secular Coalition for America, attributes these attitudes to the demonization of people who don’t believe in God. “The truth is,” says Silverman, “the vast majority of us follow the Golden Rule and are as likely to be good citizens, just like Rep. Stark with over 30 years of exemplary public service. The only way to counter the prejudice against nontheists is for more people to publicly identify as nontheists. Rep. Stark shows remarkable courage in being the first member of Congress to do so.”

In October, 2006 the Secular Coalition for America, a national lobby representing the interests of atheists, humanists, freethinkers, and other nontheists, announced a contest. At the time, few if any elected officials, even at the lowest level, would self-identify as a nontheist. So the Coalition offered $1,000 to the person who could identify the highest level atheist, agnostic, humanist or any other kind of nontheist currently holding elected public office in the United States.

In addition to Rep. Stark only three other elected officials agreed to do so: Terry S. Doran, president of the School Board in Berkeley, Calif.; Nancy Glista on the School Committee in Franklin, Maine; and Michael Cerone, a Town Meeting Member from Arlington, Mass.

Surveys vary in the percentage of atheists, humanists, freethinkers and other nontheists in the U.S, with about 10% (30 million people) a fair middle point. “If the number of nontheists in Congress reflected the percentage of nontheists in the population,” Lori Lipman Brown, director of the Secular Coalition, observes “there would be 53-54 nontheistic Congress members instead of one.”

Mugger punches 101-year-old woman on video

• Man breaks woman's cheekbone as he punches her twice, takes purse
• Attack captured by a surveillance camera in apartment building lobby
• Police think same man mugged 85-year-old woman for $32

"God saved my life," she said.

That's one way to look at it.

video:
text:

Alonzo Fyfe on Levitating Superturtles

Alonzo Fyfe wrote an interesting piece on Paul Davies: Levitating Superturtles. I really liked the thought experiment he uses about a super deck of cards. This deck has one billion suits, each with one billion and three cards (cards numbered 1 (ace) though 1,000,000,000 plus the jack, queen, and king of each suit).....

Check it out.

The Promise of Prayer

Prayer should be the intersection between the natural and the supernatural. This is a critical discussion comparing and contrasting the promises of prayer in the bible, our expectations and our observations. I use the first person, using myself, or my former Christian persona as an example.

Here were my presumptions:
- The Bible is the revealed word of God through a collection of mostly anecdotes. The only evidence I have for that is tradition and the belief of the majority of others in my community of believers and also the precautionary principle as demonstrated by Pascals Wager.

- I am told that prayers work by a large community, and have anecdotal evidence to support the claim. Also the anecdotal evidence supports what the Bible says about prayer. The bible says the following about prayer.
A. * 2 Chronicles 7:14 "If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."
B. * Psalm 145:18,19 "The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him. He will also hear their cry and save them."
C. * Proverbs 15:8b "…The prayer of the upright is His delight."
D. * Isaiah 45:11 "Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel…ask of Me of things to come concerning My sons; and concerning the work of My hands, you command Me."
E. * Isaiah 65:24 "It shall come to pass that before they call I will answer; and while they are still speaking I will hear."
F. * Jeremiah 33:3 "Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know."
G. * Mark 11:24 "Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them."
H. * John 14:13,14 "And whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name I will do it."
I. * John 15:7 "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you."
J. * John 16:23,24 "…Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you…ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full."
K. * Romans 8:26 "Likewise the Spirit also helps our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."
L. * 1 Peter 3:12 "For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to his prayers."
M. * 1 John 5:14,15 "Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, he hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him."

Anecdotal evidence is regarded as weak and defeasible.

In the list above, of which may not be all inclusive, only A, B, G, H, I, L and M have qualifiers that could justify an unanswered prayer. It would seem that all the bases are covered.
- A. conditions are "humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways".
- B. conditions are "He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him".
- G. conditions are "believe that you receive them".
- H. conditions are "whatever you ask in My [Jesus] name", which is an added qualifier, different from the old testament.
- I. conditions are "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you".
- L. conditions are " righteous".
- M. conditions are "according to his will".

I would like to point out that there is no comprehensive list anywhere in the bible that talks about the conditions of prayer. I think that is an oversight that I would not expect if the Holy Spirit was responsible for the text through the ages.

So what is the point of prayer?
I think it is the method that god provided to us to interact with him. It is a point of intersection between the natural and the supernatural. It would seem to be a good place for a test. And if it is meant as the method that god provided to interact with us, I think that I could reasonably expect god to want to participate. Since he knows how we think, he would know that this would give us confidence about our relationship. Relationships are more successful when we know we can trust our partner. And in fact, unless I am remembering wrong, our relationship with Jesus is supposed to be the perfect example of a marriage. Since this is the case we should be able to show that intercessory prayer works. However in at least ten studies, it didn't (Power of Prayer, American Heart Journal). If the testing method is alleged to be faulty, then I think it is the responsibility of Christians to set up a double blind test with the participation of non Christian experts with a protocol that is agreeable to everyone to show that prayers work.

So lets say that Christians set up a test as described above and that out of 1000 studies, some numbers of prayer work. And in the control group, the same thing happens. The results are inconclusive. This seems to be the typical outcome in scientific prayer studies (suspect or not). In the control group, some reasons this could be are the test protocol is invalid or has been compromised, god was skewing the odds for some reason, or that chance is just as effective as prayer. If we assume that god is skewing the odds for the reason that he won't permit us to test him, that would seem to mean that it is impossible to test prayer and the only reliable way of knowing that prayer works is to maintain the sanctity of the intent and look at the personal interaction. We could keep our own prayer log. But in this case, we can expect god would know and once again skew the odds. Therefore we can't use any empirical method to test prayer. But since it seems to work sometimes, it is evidence of a miracle. And the investigation into the odds of how likely it would be to turn out the same way to due to chance is given no thought.

Empirical studies have shown that the following are likely to be true, and sufficient to use as presumptions in research.
- People are naturally terrible at estimating probability.
- People are naturally terrible at perceiving and interpreting probabilistic data.
- People "remember the hits and forget the misses"
- People like stories and are willing to give the teller of the story the benefit of the doubt about the truth of it.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it comes from someone they like.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it is believed by the larger group.
- People will change their evidence based viewpoint if it contradicts the viewpoint of the group.
- People overestimate the degree of belief in others.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it fits with what they already believe or want to believe.
- People are likely to use the precautionary principle as illustrated by Pascals Wager in minimizing risk.

These schemes of reasoning are detailed in the books such as the ones I have read "How We Know What Isn't So" by Thomas Gilovich, and to a smaller degree Daniel OKeefe's "Theories of Persuasion" and Robert Cialdini's "Influence". Cialdinis "six weapons of influence" depend on a couple of them. These are common patterns of reasoning that can be identified and predicted. In fact they are used effectively in Politics and Advertising and they explain the persistence of the existence of the "rumor mill".

There is a concept called "Negative Evidence", "Negative evidence is the absence of evidence that might reasonably be expected to be found were the issue in question true" (Freeley, 113). There is another concept known as "Ockhams Razor". Ockhams Razor states that when given the choice of options for an explanation, the one that is less complicated or depends on less variables is more likely to be correct. Using the data contained in the books listed above and my personal experience with prayer, I think a simpler hypothesis to explain prayer is that it is a myth.

So lets stipulate for a minute that I am an amateur and that reading a few biased books doesn't mean anything with regards to the truth of the lord. With this stipulation in place I would like some expert to explain my recent experience.
My 86 year old grandmother was a model of righteousness in her church community. Without getting into it here, only condition M fits her circumstances, it which case it was gods will that she die a slow, painful and humiliating death from cancer in the face. The intercessory prayer of her church community had no noticeable effect. This is the personal prayer experience of a community of presumably righteous Christians. This is the way I predicted it would happen based on probability. Why not answer the prayers and let her die in her sleep and get around the suffering?

I have no reason to believe in supernatural factors with regards to my prayers or "my walk with god". And I assert that no one else does either. If they do, I'd like to see them because a world with a loving god in it manipulating things for the better is something that I would be interested in.

References:
American Heart Journal. Intercessory Prayer.


"anecdotal evidence." Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 2007. Answers.com 11 Mar. 2007.

Freeley, Austin J. 1993. Argumentation and Debate: Critical Thinking for Reasoned Decision Making 8th ed. Wadsworth Publishing Company

Cialdini, Robert. 2001. Influence: Science and Practice. Boston. Allyn and Bacon.

Gilovich, Thomas. 1991. How We Know What Isn't So. New York. The Free Press: A division of Macmillan, Inc.

Holy Bible.

"Ockham's razor." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Answers.com 11 Mar. 2007. http://www.answers.com/topic/occam-s-razor

Okeefe, Daniel J. 1990. Persuasion Theory and Research. Newbury Park, California. Sage Publications.

Power of Prayer. New York Times.

Dr. William H. Jefferys on the Loftus/Wood Debate

Dr. Jeffery's, Harlan J. Smith Centennial Professor of Astronomy, Emeritus, University of Texas at Austin wrote me this:

I listened to your debate with David Wood today. Very interesting.

A twist on the Argument from Evil that seems to be implicit in what you said but was not stated explicitly is the following, which I think undermines David's case and the rationalizations he gave.

Take a counterfactual hypothetical: Suppose that we observed that the world did *not* contain gratuitous evil (tsunamis killing thousands, leukemia, etc.). Would the theist conclude that this evidence *favored* the existence of the 3-omni God? (I certainly would, and I think that most people would.) If he would, (and we'd have to see if David would say that it does) then the observation of the world we actually do have undermines the existence of the 3-omni God quite trivially. For if we have any hypotheses A and B, where A and B are mutually exclusive and exhaustive hypotheses, and possible evidence X and not-X, then if observing evidence X supports A against B, then observing evidence not-X necessarily supports B against A. This is straightforward in either Bayesian or likelihood analysis.

I've used this approach in other contexts. See my review of the book, The Privileged Planet by Gonzales and Richards.

A small point: One should not let people like Wood get away with trying to deflect the argument from evil by claiming that atheists can't state a principle for recognizing evil. After all, the burden of proof is on them, and they claim to have a way of recognizing evil. By their own definitions, the world contains evil...even Wood would not claim that the holocaust, for example, was not a monstrous evil. They are then hoist by their own petard, since the logical inconsistency is purely on their side. The atheist doesn't have to justify anything, just point out that it is the theist's position that is logically inconsistent.

Regards, Bill
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Who Wrote The Bible?

This is a very well produced British documentary by Dr. Robert Beckford on Who Wrote The Bible? Although he's a believer, there is some very informative stuff here that conservative Christians need to learn. He sums up what he's saying in the last 10 chilling minutes. Definitely some great stuff here and worth a look.

Linking Inerrrancy and the Resurrection

There is an area of theology where I tend to agree with Christian fundamentalism as opposed to more liberal Christians. I think that if Jesus rose from the dead, then the Bible is inerrant. A major difference is many fundamentalists think that resurrection is evidence for inerrancy (Modus Ponens), where I think errancy is evidence for the fact the resurrection didn’t happen (Modus Tollens). I have some liberal Christian friends who think that the inerrancy doesn’t follow from the resurrection and shouldn’t play into my assessment of the resurrection. I think there are good reasons to side with the fundamentalists on this issue.

A deductive argument for the inerrancy is given below. The argument entails that an error in the Bible is incompatible with the resurrection of Jesus.

1. If the gospels are reliable in their central claim, Jesus was raised from the dead.
2. If Jesus was raised from the dead, he was vindicated (marked as a perfect sacrifice and endorsed) by God.
3. If Jesus was vindicated by God, everything he said and was true.
4. If everything Jesus said was true, the Old and New Testament are true (Jesus indicated that the Old Testament was true and the New Testament would be true).
5. If the Old and New Testaments are true, they are not in error about matter of fact (be the facts historical, spiritual, etc.) in other words, inerrant.

I would also add that if God made the effort to inspire an inerrant work as guidance throughout the ages, he would ensure that we would be able to reliably reconstruct that work.

There is the question of should a Christian think that the argument is sound? Given Christianity, is there good reason to believe each of the premises is true? Another way to frame the question is how likely is Christianity to be true if any of the premises are false. I think rejecting any of the premises is very damaging to Christianity.

I don’t know of anyone who disputes the first premise. The same goes for the second premise. If a resurrection doesn’t indicate God’s approval, it is hard to imagine what Christians would regard as approval by God. In support of this, see Acts 17:31. The fifth premise seems to be obvious as well.

The third premise is a little more controversial, but not much more so. A resurrection could only be brought about by God. It seems exceedingly unlikely that God would intervene and bring back to life someone who taught things God didn’t endorse. God vindication of someone who taught errors would imply that God endorses at least some falsehood. If God endorses falsehood, we shouldn’t necessarily belief what God proclaims. That idea seems incompatible with Christianity. Another way to look at this is if Jesus made error regarding things that can be checked, why should we believe him with regard to things that can’t be checked like the requirements for salvation.

The fourth premise is perhaps the most controversial. Some of it is based upon one of the perceived purposes of the incarnation. If God were to be incarnated, it would be expected that he would indicate the path to salvation. If there were literature that was inspired by God that would guide us in the correct path, He would be expected to indicate it.

Greg Koukl also supported the idea that Jesus indicated that the Bible is inerrant here:

More than that, we also see in the person of Jesus, His stamp of approval on virtually the entire Old Testament. He quotes from every section of the Hebrew Bible: the Pentateuch, the Wisdom Literature, the Poetry, the Prophets (both major and minor), the Historical material. He quotes them as if they were authoritative, from God Himself.

In fact, sometimes Jesus refers to the text itself as "God said." Sometimes He says "Scripture says…" sometimes He says "Moses says…" or whatever writer. But clearly, when you examine the words, in His mind those terms are interchangeable.

In addition, the following passages lend support to the idea that Jesus indicated the Old and New Testaments are true.

Matthew 5:18
I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

John 17:17
Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.

II Peter 1:20-22
Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

John 14:26
But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

John 16:13
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

I have heard some Christians say that Jesus did endorse parts of the Bible as God’s word, but they didn’t think that his endorsement applied to the entire Bible (particularly the parts with demonstrable errors). However, if Jesus should have indicated what God’s word was, why wouldn’t he have indicated the parts that are not? An omission of this type would indicate that Jesus would have been tolerant of error. His tolerance of error would undermine any salvation message contained in the writings he endorsed.

Another objection is that perhaps Jesus didn't say the things that would indicate he endorsed the Old Testament. Of course if that is the case, the Gospels we have are unreliable, and that undermines the plausibility of anything they claim, like that Jesus was resurrected.

The issue of inerrancy was probably the biggest factor in my realization that Christianity was probably false. When I closely examined several difficult passages, I had no choice but to conclude that they were in error. When I tried to make enough qualifications to the doctrine of inerrancy to sustain it, that made it seem like I was making allowances for my beliefs that I wouldn’t allow Mormons or others to make. In the end I couldn’t maintain my belief in Christianity.

I know that liberal Christians disagree with the argument that I have put together here. In addition, I know some skeptics who don’t think that inerrancy has a significant tie to the resurrection. If you don’t think that belief in inerrancy follows from the resurrection, which premise could a Christian plausibly deny? I ended up agreeing with fundamentalists that one should not simultaneously belief the resurrection happened and the Bible contains errors.

Lee's Deconversion Story

I deliberately tried to keep this to under five minutes reading time. I hope it is adequate. Here is a link to all my Posts at Debunking Christinity.

I grew up in a more or less religious background. I Attended church occasionally and also at Christmas and Easter like a lot of other people. One of my grandfathers was a Baptist preacher. My other two grandparents formed a church about sixty years ago that has grown into something like a mega-church today. About fifteen years ago I got serious in the church and went Baptist Fundamentalist. My reasoning was that since God exists, and he wrote the book, then I should accept my responsibility to have a relationship and assumed the Bible must necessarily be the literal word of God. With this literal viewpoint in mind I got involved in all sorts of conundrums relating to theology and comparing my observations to the way I understood the world should and does work and the way god is described to work and the promises it allegedly made to us.

In an attempt to reconcile problems that I noticed, I started to study the Bible, apologetics and lexicons very hard. I became a staunch apologist, and I could quote chapter and verse like a pro. But I kept running into these people that had really good points about why I was wrong, but I just minimized it using 1 Corinthians 2:14 which supports the idea that because they don't have the holy spirit they can't understand. But even that poses a problem in logic that I didn't bother to reconcile. I just didn't know enough to deal with their questions so I kept studying deeper. I was told that I should go to seminary and seriously considered it, but I wasn't motivated to figure out how to do it.

The more I studied the harder it was to take the Bible literally, so I started sliding into the more metaphorical style of belief. At this point I reconciled the question of how do you know what is metaphor and what is not by believing that praying and the holy spirit would solve that problem. And to take my mind off those kinds of problems, I got involved in "Spiritual Warfare". Having read a book about Earl and Lorraine Warren in my youth called "The Demonologist" and "The Exorcist" I was sure that this kind of thing really went on, and I was going to get in the fray. I sought out Wiccans and people I was convinced were being bothered by an evil spirit and tried to "help" them. In the midst of all this I had some personal crises that convinced me that the demons were fighting back. I prayed and prayed to no avail, and started to try to think of a time when I could say that a prayer actually worked. I couldn't think of many and I started to think that maybe I was just being forsaken like Jesus in the last minutes. I heard from well meaning people that God won't give you anything you can't handle. Well, that meant that I was not devout enough for his tastes or that I was too weak. I didn't buy into either option. After I got to where I couldn’t take it anymore I made a deal with God that he should leave me alone, and I would leave him alone. I was betting it all on my acceptance of Jesus and my baptism to keep the door open, but my advocate days were over.

While I was 'floating through life' I saw the odd news story with the person saying "God saved he/she/me/it from dying or anything worse happening". From my perspective it made more sense for God to have prevented it if he was going to do anything about it all. Away from the Rhetoric of Church, some questions came to mind. Some of them from the church days and some from comparing my observations to how I understood the world was supposed to work with a God around. It didn't add up. Since I am an Engineer, I had some rudimentary critical thinking skills. I began to reflect back on my walk with God, and I realized that my experience in the Church and personal relationship with God was a lot like chance or luck. Not being interested in pursuing that line of reasoning seriously, I just let it go.

After Sep. 11, the Islamist fundamentalists started saying that God answered their prayers, I was wondering why he didn't answer the prayers of the people stuck in the WTC before they collapsed, or the people in the planes, or any reasonable prayer that I ever had in my life. This idea about prayer that "God answers in his own time, sometimes the answer is no, you can't test prayer or God" didn't fly with me anymore. So I decided to apply the same kind of logic, reasoning and research necessary to troubleshoot engineering problems to reconcile this question of "Why does it seem to me that my personal experience with God was so much like depending on Luck."

I went back to studying the Bible but this time I wanted to know where the Bible came from and this time I was going to use secular and academic texts. I wanted to resolve some obvious problems in the Bible that weren't adequately addressed in my mind and so I studied physics, biology, archeology, psychology, informal logic, and reasoning. My first milestone was to discover that God didn't work the way that everyone thought he did. Why was that? I stumbled onto Robert M. Price's Bible Geek podcast and he said something that sounded like "the Old Testament is a collection of Sumerian and Babylonian Myths". I decided that was a plausible hypothesis so I decided to validate it. I have concluded to my satisfaction that most likely the Bible is a compilation of Near Eastern myths. I am sure the Bible was put together over time through socio-political pressures in the near eastern region in an attempt to establish an identity for a community of people that wished to be unique. The implications are that it puts the Bible on equal footing with all the other scriptures in the world, which means that we don't really know anything about God including if it exists or not. Once I realized that I became interested to know how this could go on for so long. That is when I bought the book "Why People Believe Weird Things" and learned about "Skepticism".

Skepticism is a nice buzz word, but I don’t ascribe to being a member of the skeptical movement or a 'Bright' because I am not comfortable with what I consider oversimplified ideals of schemes of reasoning, persuasion and deception. I won't get into it here, but in looking into how people reason including how to influence, persuade and deceive them, it is easy to see how religious belief has gone on for so long. But now I am confident that I have an understanding of what went on with me and is going on with other people. I want to help them answer some of those questions that cause them cognitive dissonance and to be mentally uncomfortable.

References:
Here is list of study material in an amazon.com list that represents what I have studied over the past fifteen years:



Here is link to a researcher that has assembled the information about the origins of Israel in a lay person friendly readable format in his series of Books. He's not the only one in this field, but he has done a good job putting the material in books that non-archaeologists can understand.



If you do a tiny bit of research on the Old Testament. You will find that it is the Hebrew Bible which came about from oral traditions and various historical documents. Now look up the definition of Folklore. Now click here and read this and think about it for a little while

Jesus Lives in Texas!

According to many believers Jesus has come back to earth in a man who lives in Texas. See Here. Do Christians really think that if people living in today's scientific world are so gullible to believe this crap that people were different in a superstitious age when it came to the Jesus they worship? If this can happen today, then why are we to think the same thing didn't happen in the 1st century AD? Besides, didn't God supposedly foreknow we would ask such questions as these which would lead us to doubt that the 1st century Jesus was the son of God?

Lewis Wolpert and William Lane Craig on Religion

I found this brief exchange between Lewis Wolpert and William Lane Craig on Religion to be very interesting:

Craig: On the one hand, I don't think it's true that we should only believe what we have evidence to believe, but then on the other hand, I think there is, in FACT, good evidence for the existence of God.

Commentator: How'd you come to the conclusion that you should believe something you can't actually see evidence for?

Craig: There are many of our most BASIC beliefs for which we have NO scientific evidence. For example...There are many of our most BASIC beliefs for which we have NO scientific evidence. For example.. . . the reality of the past, the existence of the external world, the presence of other minds. All of these are what philosophers call "properly basic beliefs." They are rational beliefs to hold but there's no way you can prove that the world was not created, say, five minutes ago with built in memory traces and food in our stomachs with a breakfast we never ate.

Wolpert: Are you seriously suggesting that the world could have been created before we came in this morning? Come on, you can't be serious!

Craig: I'm saying that there's no way you can prove SCIENTIFICALLY that the past is real, that the universe didn't come into existence five minutes ago with an illusion of age or that other minds exist.

Wolpert: I can't take that...this is philosophical nonsense. I'm sorry.

Commentator: How do we know that other minds exist?

Wolpert: Well, I think you've got another mind. You seem to be rather similar to other human beings. I have no doubts that you have another mind. These aren't BELIEFS. This is a microphone in front of me. This is not a belief. This is about knowledge in the real world.

Craig: I agree that we should believe these things. I think they are rational to believe, but you can't prove them on the basis of evidence.

Wolpert: Well you CAN touch them - I mean you can touch the microphone. There it is.

Craig: Yes, but if you were a brain in a vat of chemicals being stimulated with electrodes by a mad scientist to THINK that you're having the illusion of this microphone in front of you, your experience would be INDISTINGUISHABLE from the experience of an external world. Our belief in the reality of the external world is not a scientific belief. This is a properly BASIC belief. Or, another analogy, if you were a body lying in the matrix as in the film then your experience would be identical with the experience we have so there are all sorts of very FUNDAMENTAL beliefs about the world which we're perfectly rational to entertain but which cannot be justified by the scientific method.

This exchange between the two of them reveals the differences between philosophers and scientists. I understand Craig's arguments, having used them before myself.

The question in Craig's mind is why he needs scientific evidence for God when we believe things that have no scientific evidence either way. For instance,I might be dreaming right now. And Craig is quite right to point these things out.

Wolpert responds as a scientist who speaks about evidence and probability, and I think he's correct to do so.

But here's the rub. While Craig is correct that it's possible that God exists even if there is no evidence, Wolpert is right to ask to see the evidence. While Craig is right about what is possible, Wolpert is right to talk about what's probable. No matter how long Craig wants to talk about what's possible, he still has to present the evidence...the scientific evidence. No matter how long he wants to speak as a philosopher he must eventually speak as a scientist. He still must talk to the scientist about the evidence in the only terms he will accept, and that's the probability of something existing based upon the evidence.

In Craig's defense, if there is no evidence for something either way, then we simply have no way to assess whether or not it exists. He is arguing that we just cannot say either way. The probability factor is equalized.

But come on. Does Craig really think it's probable that his brains are in a mad scientists vat somewhere? To prove something is possible doesn't get us very far, since there are a great many things that are possible that have no plausibilty. How can he assess the claim that green gremilins stabilize the smallest particles of the universe? Possible? Yes. But if he has to resort to what is possible so many times in his arguments, something is indeed lacking when it comes to the evidence for his beliefs. For if the evidence was overwhelming, he would no longer have to talk about what is possible so often. Think about this, and you'll know exactly what I mean.

Weisberger Evaluates the Arguments in the Loftus-Wood Debate

Reason to Disbelieve: A Critical Reflection on the Loftus-Wood Debate
By A. M. Weisberger.

Some prefatory remarks should be made about the following discussion of the Loftus-Wood Debate. First, both sides continually refer to god as "he." Although this may be a cultural throwback, my comments will use what I believe to be the more accurate term: 'it.' God, as theologically construed, would be an incorporeal, genderless being, having neither the attributes of female nor male, but some wholly other constitution that transcends these physically-based categories. Alternatively, we might construe god as a combination of all genders [here we can bracket the question of whether gender categories are binary or not], and interpret god's perfect nature as incorporating all gender configurations. In this case, god would also be an 'it' since the combination of all genders would render attributions such as 'he' inappropriate. If there is difficulty in conceiving of god as an 'it' we should be reminded that we do have examples of creatures classified in such a way, namely the mule. Mules, offspring of donkeys and horses, are considered to be genderless beings, and referred to as 'it' rather than as a 'he' or a 'she.'

Secondly, the term 'god' is frequently capitalized as if it is a proper name. Being a non-theist (and here I lay my cards on the table), I lack faith in the existence of such a being, let alone such a being with a proper name. As a result, I find that the capitalization of 'God' begs the question for the theistic hypothesis, and prefer the more neutral reference to deity: god.

Terms of the debate
Framing the terms of the debate is helpful for clarificatory purposes. I found Mr. Wood's remarks in his review of the debate to be helpful in this respect, as he touches on some issues which were not laid out in the opening remarks of the debate itself.

In his critical review of the Loftus-Wood Debate, Mr. Wood lays out 5 possible debate propositions, and focuses on the distinction between implausibility and improbability. He claims:

Whereas a person could hold that the existence of God is improbable yet still plausible, to say that the existence of God is implausible means that we shouldn’t even take God’s existence seriously.

However, he seems to have it backwards here: if a proposition were to be labeled implausible, it would be difficult to believe, or have some quality that provokes disbelief. On the other hand, if a proposition were to be labeled improbable, that would mean it was unlikely to be true or occur. If something is unlikely, it would therefore be difficult to believe, and would in fact have some quality which would provoke disbelief. Therefore, if a proposition were improbable, it would be implausible as well, contrary to what Mr. Wood claims. For why would anyone accept that something is plausible when it is unlikely to be true? On the other hand, it does make sense to say that although a proposition seems implausible, it is still probable -- in other worlds something may be true even though people do not believe it is. It is much more difficult to provide evidence for the claim that although something is recognized to most likely be false, it still makes sense.

In short, it seems in Mr. Wood's listing of the 'weakest to strongest' debate propositions, he should reverse the places of 'improbable' and 'implausible' so that:

(1) The extent of suffering in our world poses an interesting problem for theists, since God is said to be all-powerful and wholly good.
(2) The extent of suffering in our world is at least some evidence against theism.
(3) The extent of suffering in our world makes the existence of God improbable.
(4) The extent of suffering in our world makes the existence of God implausible.
(5) The extent of suffering in our world makes the existence of God impossible.

becomes:

(1) The extent of suffering in our world poses an interesting problem for theists, since God is said to be all-powerful and wholly good.
(2) The extent of suffering in our world is at least some evidence against theism.
(3) The extent of suffering in our world makes the existence of God implausible.
(4) The extent of suffering in our world makes the existence of God improbable.
(5) The extent of suffering in our world makes the existence of God impossible.

That being said, the claim that the extent of suffering in the world serves to make the existence of god implausible seems to me to be too weak a position. I would opt for the stronger statement that the abundance or extent of suffering in the world serves to make the existence of god improbable. However, this debate focused on the weaker claim, namely that the extent of suffering in the world makes the existence of god difficult to believe. Implausibility refers to the belief-worthiness of a claim, while improbability references the chances that something is true or will occur. The belief in god might be argued to be plausible or implausible, whereas the debate over the existence of god should focus on issues which call probability and possibility into question.

Since this particular debate referenced the plausibility option, the focus is then on whether or not the god hypothesis is difficult to believe, given the constraints of so much suffering in the world. Perhaps framing the debate as: "Does the Extent of Suffering in Our World Make Belief in the Existence of God Implausible?” would clarify this ambiguity. [Again, it does seem, however, that the more interesting issue would focus on the stronger claim which could be rendered as: "Does the Extent of Suffering in Our World Make the Existence of God Improbable?”

Perhaps this ambiguity is responsible for Mr. Wood's understanding that the debate does not focus on the existence of god, but whether evil makes the existence of god implausible. It is unclear what this distinction really amounts to, for it is the existence of evil itself, in such great abundance and variety that abounds in the world, which is in need of justification in order for a deity so radically opposed to evil, and who admittedly has the ability to eradicate such evil, to be claimed to exist. In fact, it is the existence of wholly good, all-powerful god which the problem of evil calls into question.

Another issue to be addressed is the burden of proof which, Wood claims, lies with the skeptic. But his position here appears to rely on a misunderstanding. The entire terms of the debate rests on a response to the god hypothesis, initially offered by the theistic view. The problem of evil, which is the focus of the debate, could not even arise unless a particular theistic worldview were presented beforehand.

This worldview, as Dr. Hatab noted in his introductory comments to the debate, is peculiarly western: god is assumed to be all powerful, (inclusive of all knowing), as well as wholly good. If we round out what these terms mean in their most profound sense, we should conclude that we are referencing a deity which is as powerful as logical possibility would permit, and so perfectly good that this being would be opposed to evil in every respect. So this god, no matter what other attributes might be claimed of it, would be powerful enough to eradicate evil (provided it was not logically impossible to do so) and motivated to do so by absolute goodness, which we can suppose is the opposite of evil.

If we posit the existence of an omnipotent (and omniscient), and omnibenevolent deity, then one might wonder why there is such an abundance of suffering or evil in the world. It is only if we posit the existence of such a god that evil becomes a "problem." So we see that the questioning of the existence of god, or the plausibility of the god hypothesis, only occurs in response to the god hypothesis. As a result, the burden is on the proponent of the hypothesis or the presenter of the initial claim.

An analogy would be if someone were to claim that invisible, green gremlins power all microchips. Confronted with this hypothesis, one might ask how this is so, how it is known that these gremlins are green if they are invisible, and many similar questions. It is simply not convincing for the proponent of the invisible, green gremlin hypothesis to then claim, 'Well, since you question the gremlins' greenness, it is up to you to prove that they are not green!' This does little to persuade anyone of the viability or plausibility of the gremlin hypothesis. Similarly, anyone making claims about the existence of extraordinary phenomena, such as invisible, green gremlins, the burden of proof lies with the claimant. And the claim about the existence of a wholly good, all powerful being, in the face of such abundant and excruciating suffering in the world, appears to be an extraordinary claim! It is the proposer of the god hypothesis, no matter what the flavor (classical or personalist), who must bear the burden of making sense of the claim that an all good, all powerful being -- one who is powerful enough to eradicate at least some of the tremendous suffering that exists, and one who is opposed to such suffering by its very essence -- exists.

The Arguments
Mr. Loftus presents a summary list of evils in the world, from mental torture to animal suffering to the evils of slavery. Reflecting on these leads to the following questions:

• Why did god create any of this at all?
• If god had to create, why not just create a heavenly world with perfect existences (no evil)?
• If there was an initial heavenly world, but there was rebellion, then how can we explain how an angel would rebel when in the presence of an all-powerful, wholly good being?

Free will is frequently offered as an explanation, complete or partial, for numerous instances of suffering, mostly those having to do with moral choice. But the issue of free will provokes another set of questions. One of which is:

• Did god not know how free will would be abused?

Loftus reminds us that, If the answer is affirmative, then god is blameworthy for the subsequent suffering. If the theist maintains that free will is a ‘gift,’ then the giver of a gift, for which it is foreknown will be used to cause harm, is guilty of that harm. For example, a mother who gives a toddler a razor blade to play with is responsible for the resulting damage.

For Loftus, there are a number of moral concerns which arise from a posited relationship between an all-powerful god and creation. Some of these are:

1) We should not be permitted to create suffering by abusing free will (we should not be constructed so as to easily choose evil)
2) We should not be placed in a dangerous environment (we should not be subject to suffering from natural disasters)

• To claim there is a compensatory greater good for our troubles is problematic as a justifier. Such claims do not justify our torture of others, even if we were to reward them afterward. And, the purported greater good is not revealed.
• Creatures should not be subject to the horrors of predation, and pain is not necessary as a warning mechanism. God should not have created animals, if their only purpose was to suffer pointlessly. (There is no moral lesson animals are meant to learn.)
• If physical laws are responsible for suffering, then why could the laws be altered so as not to do so?

3) We should not be created as to be so physically vulnerable (why can’t our injuries be more easily healed?) Our configuration could have been different so as to minimize suffering, especially in light of god’s omniscience.

The resulting conclusion from Loftus’ argument is that this just cannot be the best of all possible worlds – an omniscient being should have been able to do better.

_____________________________________________________________


In his response to these concerns, Mr. Wood begins by stating that it is not the existence of god which is at issue, but whether the abundance of pain and suffering does damage to the god hypothesis. His claim is that the burden of proof lies with the atheist rather than the theist.

Wood lays out two options here. Either:

1) There is a reason for suffering
or
2) There is no reason for suffering

Wood argues that on intellectual grounds, but perhaps not emotional, there is a reason for suffering. He uses the example of the plot in the film Sophie’s choice. Sophie, while standing in line to the gas chambers with her two small children, must select one child over another to save -- under duress from a Nazi. If she fails to select one, all three will die. If she plays the Nazi’s cruel game, two of them live. She chooses her son and sends off her daughter to die. Wood claims that this was an acceptable intellectual choice, though emotionally devastating. In the film, Sophie eventually commits suicide.

However, is such a choice justified on intellectual moral grounds? Is it the case that we have some definitive framework for determining a morally correct choice here? And if so, is there obvious evidence for adopting an act utilitarianism over a rule utilitarian or even deontological approach -- which might claim that since all human lives are infinitely (or even equally valuable) one cannot then choose between them? To make this claim, and in light of the background of Nazi insanity, implies that there was a logically coherent and correct response to the Nazi proposition of choosing to save one of your children and condemn the other to death. This is not a rational proposition, and there is no rationally based correct response to such horror. There is not even a moral framework, let alone a meaningful language external to the incoherence of the Holocaust, to judge the actions of the film’s protagonist.

Undeterred, Wood argues that the concept of god’s goodness is not a claim about personal behavior, but about essential features. Despite a misplaced reference to Thomas Aquinas’ pronouncement that ‘god is good’ (since Aquinas was loathe to apply moral predicates in any meaningful sense to god) this concept is abandoned.

The claim that Wood wants to emphasize is that there are coherent reasons for why a god would permit the existence of suffering in the world. Wood briefly mentions 3 possible theodicies, and only discusses the last in any detail:

1) Free will theodicy:

• A world with free will is better than one without
• True freedom entails the choice to choose evil

Of course, both of these claims are highly questionable. Why is it the case that a world with free will is better than a world without? How is the value of free will quantified so as to make such a claim? What measurements would be used to determine that free will is so intrinsically valuable that without it our lives would somehow be diminished? Considering that god itself does not have free will, namely the ability to even choose to do evil since god is perfectly good, it does not seem that it is really such a boon to existence.

And, does true freedom really entail the choice to choose evil? If we had the choice between very good, good, and uneventful actions, would that not be a real choice? Is it not a real choice if I am only choosing between oatmeal and Frosted Flakes for breakfast? Could not free will also refer to the ability to choose to act, and not necessarily to commit the act? (As in choosing to create a plan to do evil, but not have the ability to carry out the plan?) If so, then is not having the ability to fly, no matter how hard we flap our arms, a limitation on free choice? In other words, is ‘true freedom’ the same as absolute freedom? If so, then we do not have that now.

2) Wizard of Oz theodicy

• The world is a place of wonder, and problems make us realize there is hope

I am not sure what to make of this claim. It is not really a theodicy at all since it does not offer any explanatory power regarding the existence of suffering. Is the existence of hope somehow the justifier for suffering? Was it just fine to torture people in concentration camps so long as they had hope of liberation? And is the take home message, for concentration camp survivors and others who were enslaved, that the world is a wondrous place? It seems to me that if god is relying on suffering to create a sense of wonder in humans, then god is inept, and really not the sharpest tool in the shed. A miracle now and then would seem to have a better chance of assuring the resulting sense of wonder in the face of the world than torture!

3) Soul-building theodicy

• Suffering builds character, god is a divine thermostat

Although this theodicy has a long history, Wood makes no reference to any of the literature on the topic. Instead, Wood constructs a very odd argument:

1) If god exists, we would not be permitted to feel pain (since it interferes with our happiness)
2) We experience pain
3) Therefore, god does not exist

But, Wood notes, what if premise one were not true? What if the purpose of existence were not to maximize happiness? Then the argument against soul-building fails.

Of course, the reasonable rejoinder is that even if premise one were false, and suffering serves some good purpose, there still does not need to be the abundance of suffering that exists in the world. And it is the great abundance of suffering, or gratuitous evil, which calls into question the existence of a wholly good, all-powerful deity.

Anticipating such a response, Wood argues that the world is not such a bad place as the non-theist makes it out to be. The non-theist makes it out that the world is just one giant cesspool of suffering, without focusing on the good that exists. The atheist, according to Wood, has ‘tunnel vision.’

This view, that the world is a happy place overall, is perfectly consistent with being a privileged, well fed, insulated person who has had the good fortune to be born into a first world country and who has all their immediate survival needs met. The facts speak quite differently, especially if one were to take a global perspective.

Just to take one example: 18,000 children a day die of starvation. 18,000 children: innocent people who have never done anything to deserve such a horrible death. These are children who have had the misfortune of being born into a country in which there are not enough resources to feed them – either due to natural occurrences such as drought, or due to the misuse of freewill by political leaders aiming to torture their own people and/or accrue wealth to satisfy their own desires. To take one example, the death rate for starvation in North Korea is monumentally higher than that of South Korea. Here, being born in one geographical location considerably impacts on quality of life and life expectancy. According to James Morris, outgoing director of the UN World Food Program:

"The average 7-year-old North Korean boy is eight inches shorter, 20 pounds lighter and has a 10-year-shorter life expectancy than his 7-year-old counterpart in South Korea. And to have this much disparity by age 7 — it's a terrible thing."1

Moreover, death by starvation is not even a remotely pleasant experience. And, having to watch one’s own children die of starvation adds an additional layer of agony, one which is incomprehensible to the majority of us living in the privileged environment of the US.

So, the attribution of ‘tunnel vision’ by Wood in this case seems to be self-referential. What possible justification could there be for subjecting 18,000 children per day to death by starvation? And notice, this number does not include adults into the equation. Estimates are that 40,000 people per day die of starvation worldwide.

The point Wood wants to make is that the claim about the abundance of evil outweighing the good needs substantiation in order for the argument from evil to succeed. But this is a factual issue that must rely on some type of quantification, both in the amount and quality of suffering versus incidents of pleasure in the world. And who is willing to make the case that the joy of an American child receiving a Playstation 3 for Christmas outweighs the excruciating pain a North Korean child experiences while suffering from starvation?

The important issue is that the suffering of the North Korean child is unnecessary and gratuitous. If one North Korean child could be prevented from starvation without that occurrence impacting any of god’s ‘plans’ in some negative fashion, then that suffering is gratuitous. If it is reasonable to think that the entire course of the universe is not dependent upon the suffering of one North Korean child, then not all suffering is necessary. If not all suffering is necessary, then there is no reason for some suffering, and it is gratuitous. If there is gratuitous suffering in the world, then we can imagine a better world than this, one in which there is at the very least, no gratuitous suffering.

So, to clarify:

1) If an instance of suffering could be prevented without compromising a greater good, that suffering is unnecessary for that greater good
2) If an instance of suffering is unnecessary, then there is gratuitous suffering in the world
3) If there is gratuitous suffering in this world, then we can imagine a better world than this

Contrary to what Wood believes -- that the burden is on the atheist to show how the suffering outweighs the happiness, the burden is on the theist to show why this particular worldly configuration, one in which gratuitous suffering seems to exist, is the best of all possible worlds.

Because if this is not the best god could have created, even with the 18,000 children a day dying of starvation, then there is a problem.

4) If god could have done better but chose not to, god is not wholly good
5) If god wanted to do better than this but could not, then god is not all powerful
Assenting to either one of these propositions supports the conclusion that the argument from evil offers.

It is the original claim that is what is really at issue – it is the theist who makes the initial claim that god is wholly good and all powerful. And a wholly good being would be opposed to suffering in such a way as to desire to eradicate it. An all-powerful being would have the ability to do so. The stubborn fact of suffering in the world, and especially apparently gratuitous suffering, is what calls the theist’s claim into question.

Ignoring the entire issue of god’s allege omnipotence, and the ability to eradicate suffering in the world, leads to a consideration of the other primary attribute called into question by the argument from evil: god’s perfect goodness. Wood finds difficulty with the concept that there are moral laws that god must follow. In other words, god may be above the moral law, in other worlds, god is the source of moral law.

He presents an argument:

1) If god does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist
2) Objective moral values do exist
3) Therefore, god exists

Wood comments that the logic is valid. This may be so, but this is far from a sound argument. As first year logic students are taught, an argument’s validity says nothing about truth, it is merely a statement about the relationship between the premises and the conclusion. Valid arguments are not necessarily sound.

Wood notes that the second premise might be called into question in an effort to defeat the conclusion. But not only might the second premise be challenged, namely, whether there are such things as objective moral values existing independently of moral creatures in a vacuum, but the first premise is itself highly questionable. What, exactly, is the connection between god and morality? It seems that Wood is making the assumption that there is such a connection, an assumption that would beg the question in favor of his position.

If we hearken back to Socrates’ question in the Euthryphro, the difficulty is immediately obvious. In Socrates’ version the question is framed in the following terms: ‘Do the gods love what is holy, or is what is holy whatever the gods love?’ In terms relevant to this debate, the question could be framed as: ‘Is what is ‘objectively morally valid’ whatever god determines it to be, or is god itself subject to moral laws?’

In the first interpretation, god is the source of objective moral values. Therefore, whatever god tells one to do must be the right thing to do. So, if god spoke to you and told you to murder your infant daughter while she slept, than that would be morally the correct thing to do. If god had really commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, without the ‘just kidding’ part at the last minute, then according to the first interpretation [what is ‘objectively morally valid’ is whatever god determines it to be], human sacrifice would be morally correct. Note, this is the view that the first premise of the argument assumes. We should also note that the concept here of ‘objectively morally valid’ really means ‘subject to god’s whim at the moment’ – not very objective at all really.

If, on the other hand, we reason that there are actions which are right or wrong, independent of what god decides at the moment, than god itself must be subject to moral laws. If so, then the existence of ‘objective moral laws’ has no bearing on the existence of god, since god itself is subject to these laws. If god is subject to these laws, there is a complication with imagining that god is also the source of these laws.

After parsing out the first premise of the argument Wood offers, we can see that it is incoherent. If God is the source of moral law, it is hardly ‘objectively valid.’ On the other hand, if there is such a thing as an objective moral law, then it would not be dependent upon the existence of god. In fact, the theist is better off arguing that there is no such thing as an objective moral law (denying premise #2) in its most absolute sense, since that claim would then negate the concept of god as the creator of everything.

In sum, either premise 1 is false (that morality is dependent upon god) or premise 2 is false (that morality is independent of god). Objective moral values cannot be both dependent upon god (in which case they would be subjective to god) and truly objective (independent of a subjective viewpoint) at one and the same time. Such an argument, as Wood constructs, falls under its own weight, without even so much as a whisper from the atheist.

Perhaps it might be better to construe moral values as inter-subjectively determined by moral creatures who are attempting to make the world a better place than they found it. The issue of why we find so much suffering in the world, suffering that we moral creatures should be attempting to eradicate, still remains unanswerable.

Any coherent attempt on the theist’s part to offer an explanation will need to go beyond the hollow repetition that god has reasons for everything. Ultimately, the belief in such a deity in the face of the horrendous suffering that currently exists, coupled with the reliance on the hope that it will all one day make sense, requires a leap of faith beyond the boundaries of rationality.

1 Departing U.N. Food Chief Reflects on World Hunger Michele Keleman, National Public Radio:

My Debate With David Wood

My Debate With David Wood:

Here you can watch the video of the debate.

My Opening Statement.

The Loftus-Wood Debate Reviews Have just been Posted.

Responding to David Wood (Part 1)

Responding to David Wood (Part 2)

Comments From the Debate Hour.

Responding to David Wood (Part 3)

The Nature and Value of Free Will.

David Wood Still Baffles me.

Defending the Bizarre Against the Obvious.

Weisberger Evaluates the Loftus-Wood Debate.

Dr. William H. Jefferys on the Loftus/Wood Debate.

David Wood is No Longer Worth My Time.

Another Failed Christian Attempt to Explain Away Suffering: Mary Jo Sharp's Review of the 2nd Loftus/Wood Debate.

The Blasphemy Challenge

The Blasphemy Challenge

What Does the Bible Say About the Blasphemy Challenge?

The Blasphemy Challenge of the RRS.

Brian Flemming Explains the Rationale of the Blasphemy Challenge.

DagoodS on a Christian Blasphemy Challenge

Ed Babinski on the Blasphemy Challenge

Sorry—you’ve been cut off

Recently we brushed upon the issue of Problem of Suffering. You may have missed it. Within this discussion we often see the question asked by the non-believer (in some form) of “Why couldn’t God have eliminated or reduced _________?” in which the blank is filled by some tragedy, or some disease, or terrible accident.

And the reply entails a defense of why God may have some higher purpose, or we need it to learn, or it is our fault for sinning or simply “them’s the breaks.” The one thing I do not ever recall seeing is that the Christian argues that suffering should not be reduced even a fraction. That every single pain is necessary. (Do Christians argue that every single jot of suffering is necessary under God’s plan?)

Albert Mohler was recently discussing disease prevention, and made the statement, “If I was able to eliminate AIDS, would I? Absolutely. Even though that is a horrible disease as a consequence for sin, we ALL deserve to die because of sin, no more or no less than a person who has AIDS.” [paraphrased]

Believers and non-believers alike strive to reduce and even completely eradicate suffering. We agree that peace is better than war. That diseases disappearing is better than diseases appearing. We all want to see a cure for cancer. We all choose anesthesia for an operation.

Unfortunately we have human limitations. I do not have the knowledge to prevent Alzheimer’s. I do not have the funds to feed 1000’s. I do not have the physical ability to care for all of those around me. But there was one fellow, according to Christianity, who did…

As Christians, when we discussed temptation, it was often brought out that Jesus, being 100% human, was tempted in all ways just like every other human, yet did not sin. (Heb. 4:15) Of course, as skeptics, we focus on how could Jesus be tempted to abort a Down’s syndrome baby out of his own body, or whether Jesus was tempted by pedophilia.

But rather than focus on the human temptations toward sin; if Jesus was 100% human, was he tempted to reduce suffering? And how far?

Think about it. I hand you a magic wand. Ever time you raise it in the air; a disease disappears off the face of the earth. How long do you go? Do you stop? Do you reach a point where you think, “You know…I think I have eliminated enough disease. We probably need some for population control, or to give scientists a reason to live, or perhaps some other reason I just don’t know, so I better stop now.”

And then your daughter gets sick with one of those diseases you miss. You look at that wand long and hard. Are you tempted?

Jesus had that magic wand! If he was 100% human, wouldn’t he likewise want what 100% of other humans would do, and wave that magic wand for all it is worth? And every time a loved one contracted a disease, give ‘er another wave? If he was tempted in all ways like we are, was he tempted to completely cure disease? I know I sure would have been!

Or did the God-part of Jesus have a governor on the Human-part of Jesus to keep him from eliminating too much suffering?

I once rented a truck to move my belongings. The truck had a governor on it that prevented it from going any faster than 58 mph. I mashed the accelerator down to the floor and left it. Because we went 58 mph regardless.

Did the God-part put such a limiting device on the Human-part? “Sure, Human-part. Spin your little human inclinations as hard as you want. Can’t have you reduce suffering out of control, now can we? Shoot, if you had your way, the whole universe would tumble out of control. We gain a world of no disease, but could lose Pluto as a planet!”

And did the Human-part know that the God-part had put such a limitation on the human-part? According to the Gospel of John, the Human-part knew about that part of him that was God-part. (John 7:29; 8:58) Did the Human-part recognize the same information that the God-part knew as to why suffering could not be stamped out? But then the Human-part is not really 100% Human, since it knew why and how much suffering was necessary, which no other human knows.

And would such a human-part Jesus utilize the God-part Jesus’ knowledge to know when to quit? “Uh. Uh. If I make one more blind person see today, there will be too little suffering in the world. Oh. Wait. What if I blind some poor sod in Mesoamerica, where no one will ever know?”

Or, as God, could Jesus actually choose to reduce one person’s suffering without causing universal upheaval and consequence?

Mark 6:34-44 records a familiar tale of Jesus feeding the Five Thousand. A story we heard beginning from our very early years in Sunday School. At the very beginning of the story, a statement is made; “and moved with compassion, he [Jesus] began to teach the multitude…” Jesus is recorded as a person who recognized other people’s frailties and inabilities, and, like other humans, attempted to address them. Of course, as we all know, Jesus then goes on to feed the hungry crowd through the use of a miracle.

Mark records another incident—the feeding of the Four Thousand in Mark 8:1-9. Again, it is prefaced with the statement that Jesus felt compassion on the crowd following him; that they had nothing to eat for three days. Again, it is followed with the miraculous provision of food. See Also Matt. 15:32-38

Luke records Jesus having compassion on a widow whose son had died and raising him from the dead. Luke 7:11-17. Matthew equally records Jesus healing out of compassion. Matthew 14:14. Immediately followed by the parallel tale of the feeding of the Five Thousand. Matt. 14:15-21.

The authors of these tales are not recording Jesus’ compassion as an exception. Simply because there are incidents in which compassion are mentioned does not mean that all the other occasions Jesus was healing and feeding He was doing it out of a wooden, cold-blooded methodical nature. Clearly it was an emphasis of a normal characteristic, not a highlighting of an exception in Jesus’ nature. (Unless some Christian would like to argue that Jesus normally was NOT compassionate, and these were the exceptions to the rule? I somehow doubt it.)

If Jesus was compassionate for the Five thousand, the Four thousand, the multitudes, the widow, the crippled, the blind, (Matt 20:34) deaf and dumb that he actually saw, would the thought ever cross his mind to reduce the suffering of those he didn’t see? I don’t have God-intelligence to tap into, such as Jesus might have. Even without that ability, Jesus was recorded as being extraordinarily clever. (Luke 2:47, 52) But yet I can figure out that if there are hungry people in front of me, it is very likely there are other hungry people that are not. That equally need assistance.

And yes, Jesus seems to have figured that out as well. He ordered his disciples to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead and cast out demons. Matt. 10:8; Luke 10:9. He ordered the rich man to give to the poor. Mark 10:21; Matt. 19:21; Luke 18:22. Jesus tells his disciples that they are free to help the poor when they wish. Mark 14:7. Jesus never states a concern that the disciples might upset the balance of the universe by reducing too much suffering.

Obviously Jesus had no constraint upon healing those in the crowds he encountered during his earthly ministry. Mark 6:1-6 records the curious tale of Jesus’ inability to perform mighty works in his own country, but the limitation was apparently due to the people’s unbelief—not a concern over the reduction in suffering. Certainly Matthew interpreted the problem as one of unbelief, and not suffering. Matt 13:58.

In a nutshell, the authors of the Gospels paint Jesus as attempting to reduce as much suffering as he humanly could, and commanding others to do as well. The authors had no philosophical qualms or concerns over the justifying the Problem of Suffering. They presumed (like humans do) there should be as little as possible! Therefore they wrote of Jesus, as God, expressing compassion and reducing suffering.

While I enjoy the philosophical exchange over the Problem of Suffering within the Christian worldview--in looking at the Gospel accounts of Jesus, I am left with a question. We all know it.

What Would Jesus Do?

If Jesus, as God/Human appeared today, how would he address the Problem of Suffering? If believers pointed out the numerous children dying of preventable disease and hunger—would the Jesus of the Gospels step in to resolve the problem or would the Jesus of the Gospels retreat, armed with the Christian philosophers’ cry of “such suffering must be in this world”?

How do we resolve the fact that when Christians claim God appeared on earth, He reviewed the human situation with compassion and immediately and miraculously interfered with the course of the universe to reduce suffering over and over and over and over? Yet we are told the Christian God cannot. Must not. Shall not. Was human-Jesus imprisoned by God-Jesus to prevent human-Jesus from blowing it by utilizing too much of God-Jesus to reduce suffering, even though human-Jesus wanted to, but God-Jesus knew better?

It is a simple question, but I am curious as to the answer. If Jesus appeared today, would he be convinced by all they theodicy’s and justifications and rationalizations of why suffering is necessary, or would he overlook the dispute, roll up his sleeves and start eliminating suffering?

Part of what is unconvincing to me is the fact Christians regale us with tales of their God, in human form, and all the wonderful things He miraculously did to constantly lessen suffering, but when we question why God doesn’t lessen suffering we are told that for some unclear reason—he cannot.

Perhaps a Christian can clear up my confusion. So strap on the bracelet, grab the bumper sticker, put up the billboard, and tell us—within the Problem of Suffering What Would Jesus Do?

Statistical Note of Interest

This post is solely an observation of facts, using the benchmark of a well-known theistic group blog that I think serves well as a comparison to this group blog. Don't go over-analyzing my motives or what this is supposed to mean, please.

That said...Debunking Christianity is set to overtake Triablogue in site traffic, according to data from sitemeter for both sites:

Triablogue Sitemeter traffic prediction


Debunking Christianity Sitemeter traffic prediction:


In comparing stats, you want to use the largest data set possible to minimize your error and maximize your confidence interval approach: thus, use the data from the entire previous month. Based on that data, the Triablogue gets 1 more visit per hour, 35 more per day, 243 more per week and 1,053 more per month than DC. Of note is that DC has been around since January 2006, while the Triablogue has archives going back to April of '04.

Also note that the stats will change over even the course of the day, so don't fuss at me for poor subtraction if you aren't using the stats from the pics above.

Possibly of more interest is that the readership of the tblog has been pretty stagnant over the past year, and the upward trend of DC's readership may indicate that within 2 months, we will have higher stats across the board:

DC (year)

tblog (year)

As I said, these are anecdotally amusing to me, not indicative of any deeper meaning. Thanks to all the readers of DC for your support and comments: theists and nonbelievers. I may be consulting with John for an overhaul of some blog features to make this blog even more user-friendly and our posts easier to bookmark.
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Technorati tags: Triablogue

Lee Randolph's Posts

(Updated Nov. 1, 2007) This link will take you to a list of all my articles. This is a link to this post link

About me.
- Lee's Deconversion Story

I am interested in an empirical inquiry into the phenomena of Christianity. These are what I think are my strongest arguments.

Holy Spirit
- Reasonable Doubt About the Holy Spirit
- The Role of Persuasion in the Question of the Holy Spirit
- Feelings as a Result of the Holy Spirit
- Holy Spirit and the Analogy of the Flame

The Soul
* Maxwells Demon and The Soul

Bible
- The Natural History of The Bible
- Judaism, Christianity and Islam are built on a faulty premise
- The Believers Reasoning Scheme
- Reasonable Doubt About the Resurrection
- The Bible as Truth?
- Adam and Eve and the Problem of Evil
- Reasonable Doubt About "Adaption Theory"

God is Chance
- The Promise of Prayer
- A Means to Manage Uncertainty

Behavior: Morality
* Negativity Is Contagious, Study Finds
* "When Our Vices Get the Better of Us"
- A Double Standard for Morality?
- Reasonable Doubt About The Atonement: Psychopathy
- Brain Atrophy In Elderly Leads To Unintended Racism, Depression And Problem Gambling
- Schizophrenia Candidate Genes Affect Even Healthy Individuals

Behavior: Homosexuality
- Homosexuality Is An Indicator Of Lack Of Divine Participation In The Creation Of Scripture

Behavior, Psychology: Persuasion, Cognitive Bias, Cognitive Dissonance, Self-Justification
* Solomon Asch Conformity Experiments
- Suspension of Disbelief
- The Role of Persuasion and Cognitive Bias in Your Church

The Problem of Evil
* Reasonable Doubt about the Problem of Evil
- Anencephalic Babies and the Problem of Evil
- Cognitive Dissonance and The Problem of Evil

Articles Addressing Frequently Asked Questions.
- Why I am an Agnostic: The Bible as a Domain of Knowledge
- The Identity Crisis of Deconversion
- You Don't Need Faith to Believe The Principle of Evolution
- Atheists Don't Believe in God Because They Think They Are So Smart They Don't Need Him?
- Should The Atheist Have to Prove There Is No God?
- Does The Atheist Want God To Do Tricks?
- Christians Are Not Stupid or Irrational.

Articles related to critical thinking and reasoning.
* Stinky Piles of Rhetoric and Flawed Principles
- Happy St. Patricks Day! Leprechauns Exist!
- Lee's Non-Atheistic Recommended Reading

Articles that use news stories to provide data weakening or critical of Christian claims.
* Ministry of a Healing Amputee and Another Where the Dead Come Back to Life
* Church ordered to pay $10.9 million for funeral protest
- What Would You Do With $800,000.00 or 55,000 People for 12 Hours?
- "Floods are judgment on society, say bishops"
- Study In "Journal of Religion and Society" Finds Societies Worse Off With Religion.
- Humans Hard-Wired To Be Generous
- Miracle Watch March 23 - 26, 2007
- Mugger punches 101-year-old woman on video