The Religious Condition (rough draft) part 02

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Bart Ehrman's Lectures on "Misquoting Jesus."

This lecture series titled "Misquoting Jesus" took at place at Stanford University. This ten part series (1 hr 40 minutes) can be seen by following the links.

You Must See Mel Gibson's Movie Apocalypto

I'm not in the habit of recommending movies here, but for an absolutely amazing movie showing the (Aztec's, no, corrected) the Mayans in action, I heartily recommend people rent Mel Gibson's Apocalypto.

It vividly shows what it was like to be captured into slavery and what it was like to be marked for human sacrifice. Surely this movie also depicts what it was like when American slave traders captured Africans as slaves too, with some variations, since this was done by gunpoint.

While I was at first hesitant to do so, because it was Gibson's movie, and because is was subtitled and not in English, it will show you what it was like to live in that day. There are very few subtitles anyway because of the action of the movie itself, and during a greater portiton of it no subtitles are even needed. GET THAT MOVIE!

I find it interesting, though, that Gibson doesn't see how his ending doesn't help anything, because the Spanish Conquistadors brought an end to millions of lives through bloodshed and the spread of European diseases, along with the adoption of Catholicism by gun point.

Did you know that after slavery was abolished by the British Empire, who ruled the seas, that American slave traders would turn their ships broadside when a British war ship approached and dumped their "cargo" overboard so as not to get caught? All of this reminds me yet again that God could easily have said in the Bible, "Thou shalt not trade, sell, buy, own, or beat slaves," and said it often enough so professing Christians would not misunderstand.

The Religious Condition (rough draft) part 01

Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting a rough draft of my upcoming book (in about 10-15 parts) that should be out early next year. I would appreciate comments, corrections (grammatical and other), and evaluations. I don't have much time to get involved in the discussion of comments on this blog, but I'll definitely read all of them. If it's boring, say so!

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Religion—Either Amoral or Immoral

In my opinion, one of the most popular arguments that religion has in modern, secular America is the perception (factual or not) that religion is a basis (perhaps THE basis) for morality. As time goes on and modern scientific research continues to pry intrusively at nature’s great secrets, religions that are unwilling to repudiate reason in the manner of Young Earth Creationists have found great comfort in Gould’s “non-overlapping magesteria”; the idea that religion holds sway into the meaning of existence, and as a basis of morality. But where does religion comment on morality that philosophy does not?

Since its beginnings in time, philosophy has sought through reason, argument, and appeal to offer systems for humans to morally interact with humans and other creatures. Religion has done the same, but with one essential difference; it has claimed the mandate of Heaven, becoming “fossilized philosophies” in the words of Simon Blackburn that would brook no argument regarding its central tenets. Would a Christian theologian dare say that Jesus was flat-out wrong when he instructed his followers “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Of course not! He may debate as to the details of Jesus’ meaning, but he could not say “I’m afraid Jesus was off his rocker in this instance.” By claiming the mandate of Heaven, the underlying moral philosophy is stultified, without prospects for improvement.

If, and only if, one is to grant that the source of the philosophy is divinely inspired, then this may be seen as a reasonable trade-off (although I am wont to agree with Lessing that “the true value of a man is not determined by his posession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth.”) However, this grant of divine revelation cannot be stipulated when applied to a subject as important as how a person should treat another. A person outside of the revelation does not only have the right, but the duty to demand justification from the believer of the authenticity of the revelation, bound as humans are in our ancient and continually updated social contract. Of course, such justification is impossible; the core of revealed religion is the revelation, and that cannot be shared or evidenced, only “witnessed”.

So the skepticism of the outsider is justified; what of the belief of the theist? The theist has the dubious benefit of the revelation; experiential evidence that is of little worth to an outsider, but of enormous visceral worth to the theist himself. While quite a number of people resist the draw of experiential evidence of the supernatural, many others heed it as valid evidence and deny all argument to the contrary. However, the concern of society is not the belief of its members, but rather their actions. As such, do believers owe justification to society for the basis of their morality?

It depends, and this contingency is the heart of the matter. Does the believer’s religion force them to perform an action which society would consider immoral? If not, then the believer owes society no explanation; it really is not anyone else’s business what goes on in the heart of a man (or woman). However, if the religion demands an action that society considers immoral, then the theist is required to evidentially justify his behavior to society. For example, if an Aztec lives in an Aztec society, then no justification is required for the practice of human sacrifice; his society does not find the practice immoral (even though I do). However, were this Aztec transported to modern Switzerland, he would be expected to justify his religious morality without appealing to the authority of his religion, which he would be hard pressed to do. To apply this principle to modern pluralistic American society, I would encourage a Christian seeking to compel a moral action to argue outside of his religion; just as no amount of appeal to Huitzilopochtli would justify human sacrifice outside of Aztec society, no amount of appeal to Christ will justify an action in secular, pluralistic America that is currently considered evidentially immoral.

However, this line of reasoning prompts a question, which I find foundational and utterly intriguing. I have argued why religion cannot justify an action considered immoral by society. Now we approach the question of the role of the believer in evaluating religious moral teachings. Is it moral for a person to commit an evil act at God’s command? The Old Testament is filled with instances in which believers commited incredibly evil acts at God’s command. Much of the Old Testament is written like a loving ode to genocide; Abraham would have killed his son as a sacrifice; an old man offers up two young women (including his own daughter) for a mob to rape to death. Is it morally right for a believer to commit what his inherent morality states is an evil act (genocide, murder, etc.) because his God told him to? While “just following orders” may in some very limited cases be a legal defense, is it a moral one? In a totalitarian system, is only the head despot morally responsible? Of course not; a person is responsible for his or her actions. Religion is certainly the ideal totalitarian system with God as the despot. Why should a theist not be morally responsible for all outrageous acts against his morality, whether commanded by God or not?

The theist may take refuge in self-preservation; knowingly defying God’s will leads directly to hellfire and damnation. A theist can legitimately claim that he must follow God’s will for his own preservation. But is this a moral act? No; the moral act is self-sacrifice to preserve the lives and well-being of others. Medals are not given to those who run from a live grenade; they are given for knowingly sacrificing one’s own well-being for the well-being of his comrades. Self-preservation is an amoral act, neither to be condemned nor praised. If the theist takes refuge behind the vindictiveness of God, he resigns himself to an amoral life, following the will of God solely for ultimate self-preservation. And the addition of Heavenly profit for the immoral act only makes it more tawdry and reprehensible, although strictly amoral.

On the other hand, the theist may take pleasure and pride in following God’s commands, believing that to be the highest form of morality. However, atheists, secularists, and many intellectually honest theists admit that humans have an inborn morality that is independent of religious belief, whether they think this morality is from God, evolution, or another source. I, for one, also think humans have this inherent morality that can usually only be overcome with some difficulty. If one agrees that humans have an inherent morality, then one agrees that it is conceivable that God could command them to do an act against their inherent morality. I would hope that every theist here would agree that genocide is immoral, rape is immoral, and human sacrifice is immoral; and yet God ordered all three from his human subjects. I ask again: is it moral to follow an immoral command, regardless of the source of the command? No, of course not; at best, despotic religion turns any action, moral or immoral, into an amoral act of self-preservation. At worst, the follower takes pleasure in violating his own morals, relishing an immoral act.

Now there is, of a necessity, two kinds of religions: those in which God admittedly commands immoral actions of His followers, and those in which He does not. In cases where God commands immoral actions of His followers, I have argued (I hope convincingly) that the resulting actions are immoral or amoral, and therefore the religion itself is not a suitable basis for moral action. In cases where God never commands an action that outrages human morality, then religion suddenly becomes unnecessary; it never commands us to perform an action other than that which our morality would allow without religion. Perhaps it can be said that religion encourages us to perform actions that we already consider moral, but the primary way in which it does this is by carrot and stick, which again turns moral actions into amoral self-promotion and preservation.

Religion offers fossilized moral systems that debase human moral action with tawdry rewards and outrageous threats. Philosophy allows for self-analyzing systems of morality that encourages moral action without inducements outside of the pleasure of doing right, and the natural rewards of morality (ordered society, approval of peers, etc.) Religion is at best amoral, and at worst encourages moral outrages for the glory of the ultimate totalitarian regime. If I cannot appeal to reason against the theists’ personal experiences, then can I not appeal to your human dignity? Do not debase yourself by requiring a heavenly secret police to induce your moral actions; do not defile yourself by allowing the usage of your human faculties to outrage your basic human decency in the name of the ultimate despot. Take your morality from your love of yourself and your fellow man, which I as an atheist share.

Conceivability, Possibility, and the Ontological Argument for God's Existence

I don’t want to go into a full-dress exposition of the ontological argument for God's Existence, because I think it would be distracting to a simple yet decisive objection to it. For our purposes, then, we can express its structure crudely as follows:

1. It’s possible that there is a necessary being.
2. If it’s possible that there is a necessary being, then a necessary being exists.
3. Therefore, a necessary being exists.

The argument is valid; so, if its premises are true, its conclusion follows of necessity. Well, what reasons can be offered for the premises?

Premise (2) is just an instantiation of Axiom S5 of S5 modal logic. The underlying idea of Axiom S5 is that what is necesssarily the case doesn't vary from possible world to possible world: if something is necessary in one possible world, it's necessary in every possible world. I accept Axiom S5; so I accept premise (2). That leaves us with premise (1). Is it more reasonable to accept it than to reject it-- or at least: is it more reasonable to believe it than to suspend judgment either way?

No, it isn’t. For the evidence is supposed to be that it’s conceivable that such a being exists, and that whatever is conceivable is possible. Now there are a lot of points that could be brought up here, but I want to limit myself to one point based on recent work in modal epistemology, i.e., the study of how our beliefs about what is impossible, possible, and necessary are known and/or justified.

There are many objections, both classical and contemporary, that have been raised against inferences from conceivability to possibility. For example, in the past, people were able to conceive of the Morning Star existing without the Evening Star, or water existing without H20. So if everything conceivable were possible, it should follow that it’s possible for the Morning Star to exist without the Evening Star, or water without H20. But we now know that these things are impossible, since the Morning Star is the Evening Star, and water is H20.

Another example: Goldbach's Conjecture is the mathematical hypothesis that every even number greater than 2 is the sum of two primes. To date, no mathematician has proven that Goldbach's Conjecture is true (nor have they proven that it's false). Now I can conceive, in some sense, that Goldbach's Conjecture is false. I can also imagine that it's true. So if all inferences from conceivability to possibility are valid, then it follows that it's both possible for Goldbach's Conjecture to be true, and possible for Goldbach's Conjecture to be false -- in other words it would follow that Goldbach's Conjecture is only contingently true if true at all. But that can't be right, for mathematical statements are necessarily true or necessarily false if true or false at all!

Thus, it looks as though we need some criterion of legitimate conceivings to screen out illegitimate conceivings, thereby preserving the utility of inferences from conceivability to possibility.

A lot of progress has been made over the past several decades in the sub-field of modal epistemology, but for our purposes, it’s enough to mention one key distinction that’s been developed that’s helpful. Stephen Yablo[1] and James Van Cleve[2] have each pointed out that there’s a distinction between not conceiving that P is impossible, on the one hand, and conceiving that P is possible, on the other. Van Cleve calls the former, ‘weak conceivability’, and the latter, ‘strong conceivability’.

Now it turns out that pretty much all of the counterexamples to the conceivability-possibility inference are cases in which something is weakly conceivable. For example, when one says that they can conceive of Goldbach’s Conjecture being true, and that they can conceive of it also being false, they really mean that they can’t see that either conception is impossible – i.e., they only weakly conceive of such things. The same goes for conceiving of water existing without H20, and conceiving of the Morning Star existing without the Evening Star. By contrast, I can strongly conceiving of my car as being red, and of myself as a person who doesn't like to surf (albeit just barely!); thus such conceivings provide prima facie evidence that it's possible for my car to be red, and that I really could have been a person who doesn't enjoy surfing.

In light of this distinction, then, we can handle the counterexamples by limiting conceivability-possibility inferences to those that involve what is strongly conceivable – i.e., to those in which one intuits that p is possible, and not to those in which one merely fails to intuit that p is impossible.

With the weak/strong conceivability distinction before us, let’s consider premise (1) again. Is it strongly conceivable that there is a necessary being -- i.e., do we "just see" that it is possible? It doesn’t seem so. Rather it merely seems weakly conceivable – i.e. I merely can't intuit that such a being is impossible. But this isn’t enough to justify the key premise (1) of the ontological argument. For that to be so, a necessarily existing individual would have to be strongly conceivable.

To come at the point from another direction: Christian theistic philosopher Peter Van Inwagen asks us to imagine a being whom he calls 'Knowno'. Knowno is a being who knows that there are no necessary beings. If such a being is possible, then a necessary being is impossible. For then there would be a possible world in which a being knows that there is no necessary being. And if he or she knows it, then it's true that there's no necessary being.

Now both possibilities can't be true -- either a necessary being is possible, or a knowno is possible, but not both, since the possibility of each one precludes the possibiliity of the other. But notice: both possibilities are conceivable in the weak sense: on reflection, I fail to see an incoherence in the conception of either one. So, if weak conceivability were sufficient evidence for possibility, it would follow that I'm justified in believing that necessary beings and knownos are both possible, which, as we've just seen, is false -- if either one is possible, the other is impossible. Thus, again, the notion of a necessarily existent individual is only weakly conceivable, and weak conceivability isn't good evidence for possibility.[3]

Thus, it looks as though the ontological argument is not a successful piece of natural theology. Whether or not the key premise is true, I don’t have sufficient reason to think so. Thus, the argument is of no help in the task of justifying theism.
---------------------------
[1] “Is Conceivability a Guide to Possibility?”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53 (1993), 1-42.
[2] “Conceivability and the Cartesian Argument for Dualism”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 64, (1983), 35-45.
[3] This objection to the ontological argument can be found in Peter Van Inwagen's textbook, Metaphysics, 2nd edition (Westview, 2002).

Dinesh D’Souza's “What’s So Great About Christianity, Part 2

Skipping to later chapters, Dinesh D’Souza argues in his book “What’s So Great About Christianity,” that the crimes of Christianity’s past were not that big of a deal when compared to the mass killings under recent atheist regimes, especially Mao, Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot, to name just a few.

D’Souza claims the Crusades were mostly defensive battles against the invading Muslims by pilgrims who had to pillage for food, and in the process raped and murdered too. What wonderful pilgrims they must have been! The Salem Witch trials only killed 19 or more people. “Few casualties, big brouhaha,” D’Souza proudly proclaims (p. 207). Although, he admits that 100,000 witches were either burned or executed during a 300 year period. The Inquisition only killed 2000 people, he boasts, and was directed only at professing Christians. D’Souza totally ignored the terror the church had over the thought life of most everyone their entire lives during these centuries, since most people were in the church. When it comes to the many religious wars and conflicts people fought, D’Souza argues that they were not about religion, but about ethnic tensions, territory and land. He further opines that for the Christian, “the tragedy of violence in the name of religion is thankfully in past.” (p. 210).

Turning to atheism D’Souza argues: “the indisputable fact is that all the religions of the world put together have in three hundred years not managed to kill anywhere near the number of people killed in the name of atheism in the past few decades….Atheism, not religion, is responsible for the worst mass murder of history.” (p. 221)

I’m planning to write more about his arguments later, but let me throw a few comments about on the table for now.

Some Christians will say the atrocities committed by professing Christians of the past do not represent Christianity, just as many Muslims today say that the militant Muslim terrorists do not represent Islam. If they can get away with this then atheists can do likewise and argue the crimes done in the name of atheism do not represent atheists. So D’Souza, to his credit, does not take that tact, at least when it comes to what Christians have done in the past. However, he still wants to blame atheism for the crimes done in the name of atheism. Just because he avoids one error doesn’t mean he is not stepping into another error when he does this.

One consideration is the big difference in the means people had to commit these crimes. In our modern era we have guns and tanks and bombs. People with guns kill more people than people without them. So I wonder how many more people would’ve been killed in the past by Christians if they had this arsenal at their disposal? Surely many many more.

Another consideration is that D’Souza excuses the wars done in the name of religion as defensive ones based on ethnic rivalries, and/or over territory. But why can’t it be said that Hitler's war was based on territorial expansion and ethnic tension too? I think it can.

Another consideration is that D’Souza fails to realize the role of a dictator in a totalitarian government. Most all of the Russian tsars, for instance, were hated because they were cruel. Ivan the Terrible, was one such example unrelated to his religious preferences. Saddam Hussein was cruel too. Most dictators ruled with an iron fist because of fear they would be assassinated. Those of us who have never been a dictator will not understand this. So they terrorize their people to fear them. This is just what most dictators do, and it’s a defense mechanism unrelated to their religion, or none at all, and best explains Stalin and Mao’s atrocities.

Another consideration is that religious views, or non-religious views, are mostly used by people to justify whatever they want to do. It’s not clear Hitler was an atheist. But he was certainly the type of maniac that would use anything he could to advance his egomaniacal power over people.

The bottom line is that civilized people todyy are less likely to commit such crimes because we have all learned our lessons from history, both Christians and atheists. Why? Because that's how human beings learn our morality, through trial and error and the lessons of history.

Do You Want To Debate Me On the Existence of God?

I am challenged to a debate about once a month. Recently I was challenged to a debate by three people within the space of two days. So if you want to debate me then Hear Ye This!

I've already made an opening statement in my book! Get it and read it. Our debate proposition will be this one: "The Christian faith should be rejected by modern civilized scientifically literate people." Now it's your turn. Get my book and respond to it chapter by chapter. You respond to it as you can on your blog or website.

Reviews of My Book:
Eddie Tabash Recommends it.
Norman Geisler Recommends it.
Christopher Hitchens Recommends it.
Andrew Atkinson was Led to Deconvert Because of it.
The Nature of Our Arguments.

When I was recently challenged to a debate I asked the challenger what exactly he wanted to debate. Here's what I wrote (revised slightly):

Would you like to defend the existence of the social Trinitarian God (versus an anti-social Trinitarian God) of the Bible (which had a long process of formation and of borrowing material from others) who never began to exist and will never cease to exist (even though everything we experience has a beginning and an end), who never learned any new truths, who does not think (for thinking demands weighing temporal alternatives), who is not free with respect to deciding his own nature, who revealed himself through a poor medium (history) in a poor era (ancient times), who condemns all of humanity for the sins of the first human pair, who commanded genocide, who allows intense suffering in this world (yet does not follow the same moral code he commands believers to follow), whose Son (the 2nd person of the trinity) became incarnate in Jesus (even though no one has ever made sense of a person who is 100% man and 100% divine) to be punished for our sins (even though there is no correlation between punishment and forgiveness) who subsequently bodily arose from the dead (even though the believer in miracles has an almost impossible double-burden of proof here) and now lives embodied forever in a “spiritual” human body to return in the future, who will return to earth in the parousia (even though the NT is clear that the end of all kingdoms and the establishment of God's kingdom was to be in their generation), who sent the 3rd person of the trinity to lead his followers into "all truth" (yet fails in every generation to do this), who will also judge us based upon what conclusions we reach about the existence of this God and what he has done (paralleling the ancient barbaric thought police), and who will reward believers by taking away their freedom and punish the dammed by letting them retain their freedom?

Interesting hypothesis, if so. This is such a large claim. The larger the claim is, the harder it is to defend it.

Five Big Rocks (part three)

This is the third in a series of articles exploring five major hurdles I encountered to faith in Christianity, culminating in my deconversion:

1. The Problem of Evil
2. The Problem of Communication
3. The Problem of Scriptural Errancy
4. The Problem of Theological Incoherence
5. The Problem of Religious Toxicity

Read on...and get ready to rock on!

3. The Problem of Scriptural Errancy

The third rock is closely related to the second one, but I believe it deserves to stand on its own. Put simply, there are numerous factual, historical, textual, theological, and moral errors in the Bible—errors of such number, degree, and character as to cast serious doubt that the Scriptures are truly the work of a superior intelligence to that of man.

I have found that most mature Christians are not shocked by the common Biblical discrepancies brought up by unbelievers. After all, there is a whole segment of the Christian book market aimed at inoculating believers against such attacks on the integrity of Scripture, with books starting at 5 lbs, 3 inches thick. Like many readers, I grew up on John Haley’s Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, Gleason Archer’s Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, and Norm Geisler’s When Critics Ask. Soon after I was baptized, my Dad gave me a well-worn copy of Haley’s handbook to equip me to handle the skeptic's arguments. I vaguely remember at the time being in awe of both the size of the book and the number of discrepancies it dealt with. However, whatever tiny seeds of doubt this engendered were quickly squashed by the excitement of my newfound faith and my increased involvement in church ministry.

I will say right from the outset that I am not a big fan of picking Biblical texts apart to find the minutest mistakes. Maybe it was my smart-aleck friend back in middle school who soured me on this kind of critical spirit. As a consequence, the present article will not be taking issue with where Cain got his wife (I can accept that it was his sister) or why rainbows appeared for the first time after Noah’s Flood (I can accept that some measure of poetry is used in Bible stories—-after all, who can resist a rainbow for a happy ending?).

Having said this, the Bible's scientific and factual errors are some of the easiest to spot. By now, everyone should know about the classic rabbit who “chews the cud” (Leviticus 11:6; Deuteronomy 14:7). Lesser known is Jacob’s hair-brained method of breeding spotted animals, in apparent defiance of the laws of genetics (but according to Genesis 30:37-43, it worked). John has previously written about the strange cosmology of the Hebrews, complete with its novel view of a firmament in the heavens, a flat earth, and a geocentric universe. A great many stories in the book of Genesis were preceded by the myths of Sumerian culture, from which the Torah borrows quite liberally. The situation is little improved when we come to the New Testament. Here demons are believed to cause epilepsy and muteness (Mark 9:17-22; Matthew 9:33) and an evil eye is feared for its bewitching powers. All this is indicative of primitive, pre-scientific worldview and outright superstition. If the Bible has no credibility in earthly matters, how can it be trusted in spiritual matters?

Other glaring errors take the form of contradictions and discrepancies. Did David take 700 or 7,000 horsemen from Hadadezer? (cf. 2 Samuel 8:3-4; 1 Chronicles 18:3-4). Did Solomon’s horse stalls number 4,000 or 40,000? (cf. 1 Kings 4:26; 2 Chronicles 9:25). Was Ahaziah 22 when he began to reign or 42? (cf. 2 Kings 8:26; 2 Chronicles 22:2). How old was Jehoiachin when he began to reign—8 or 18? (cf. 2 Chronicles 36:9; 2 Kings 24:8). How about Jesus healing the blind man Bartimaeus as he was leaving Jericho (Matthew 20:29)....or was it he healed as Jesus entered Jericho? (Mark 10:46; Luke 18:35). One might attribute these problems to a scribal error and dismiss them with a smirk. Fine. The big question is, why weren’t these obvious mistakes corrected millennia ago? They would have been easy to correct had someone actually known the correct answer! Of course, none of this would matter so much were it not for the fact that evangelical Christians claim the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

Perhaps the most serious form of Scriptural errancy comes in the form of moral incongruence from—-of all characters—-God himself! The same God who “so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son” to save it (John 3:16), who is “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9) is the God who is responsible for atrocities worthy of a whole new series of horror films (Tarantino, are you listening?). Atrocities like the global flood sent by God (if the story is taken at face value) to maliciously drown every man, woman, child, and animal (Genesis 7:4). What Christian hasn’t been shocked by the methodical cruelness of Yahweh, as he commands the Israelites to go from city to city, exterminating whole races of people along the way (Deuteronomy 20:16), until the land of Canaan is claimed as their own? Here we read of the most vicious, hateful, and bloodthirsty acts of aggression in the entire Bible targeted towards men, women, and children (Joshua chapters 6, 8, 10, 11).

While historians are skeptical about the exact nature of the Canaanite conquest and liberal Christians seek to spiritualize these passages, one problem won’t go away: how can you reconcile—-even as fiction—-such savage acts of destruction with the familiar ethic, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44)? Either the God of Christian theology is schizophrenic or there is a serious moral flaw in his character. Remember, we're judging by his OWN standards, here! (By the way, Jim Benton has written an insightful series of articles here, here, here, here, and here analyzing the questionable moral underpinnings of Scripture.) It is entertaining to watch the most conservative of Christians become moral relativists in the processes of trying to defend Jehovah’s genocidal tendencies (not to mention his endorsement of human slavery). Exit reason, enter cognitive dissonance.

I haven’t even begun to comment on the other categories of Biblical errancy, such as false prophecy, impossible promises, conflicting spiritual ideas, and problems in the transmission and translation of key texts.

For the fair-minded Christians among us, I ask: how long of a leash are you willing to give the Bible for its misstatements, contradictions, and inconsistencies? How many errors do you need to be confronted with before you realize that the "Good Book" is human, rather than divine, in origin? Indeed, the Bible can be explained more satisfactorily through natural, rather than supernatural, means.

Dinesh D’Souza & Christopher Hitchens Debate

The whole debate can be seen here, but you'll need to turn your volume up all the way.

Michael Shermer Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Socratic Club Debate featuring Michael Shermer and Dinesh D’Souza, Monday, October 15, 7 PM, Austin Auditorium - LaSells Stewart Center, Oregon State University. Topic: "Is Christianity Good for the World?



For part 2 see below:


Read what D'Souza said about atheists here.

See also where Christopher Hitchens Debates Dinesh D'Souza

DC Book Club: Reviewing Dinesh D'Souza's "What's So Great About Christianity."

Dinesh D'Souza's book What's So Great About Christianity? just arrived today, and I'm planning to evaluate it to see how good it is, since several important people are saying it's an important book. I plan on reviewing it in several Blog entries. Let's call this the first ever DC Book Club Selection. I got it delivered in just a few days, so if you want to buy it and read along, I recommend that you do so. Together let's see what he has to offer. [FYI: I really don't care if you disgaree with anything else he's written prior to this book, because his other views are basically irrelevant to his case here].

Here are my first impressions:

You can see for yourself in the table of contents that he covers a lot of ground, including whether Christianity will survive in the future, how it affects the western world, its relationship to science, its intelligent design hypothesis, its defense of the miraculous, the morality of the Inquisition vs the morality of atheists, and who has the best foundation for morality. He's obviously well-read too, which means I will probably learn a few things, which is always a goal of mine.

Lacking in his book is a discussion of Biblical criticism, any detailed argument on behalf of the bodily resurrection of Jesus, or for the inspiration of the Bible, and he only deals with the design argument for God's existence. Well, I suppose he can't cover everything. He's entitled to assume some of these things, I suppose, since it seems his book is attempting to answer the arguments of Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, and Hitchens, who themselves don't offer any detailed arguments in these other areas. Fair enough. Although, I should point out that even if he's correct about most everything else in his book, and I very much doubt it, unless it can be shown that we can trust the Bible as the inspired word of God, and unless we can be sure Jesus actually arose from the dead, his whole case falls to the ground.

Okay so far?

Now just a brief note about "A Note On the Interpretation of Scripture." (pp. xi-xii)

D'Souza distinguishes between a "crude literalism" reading of the Bible from a "cafeteria" style reading where we reject the parts we find objectionable and embrace the parts we like. Since the Bible operates on a multitude of levels, like metaphor and parable, we shouldn't approach it in a crudely literal way. And on this point he's absolutely correct. However, few people, if any, embrace such a crudely literal approach to the Bible. Even if Origen did castrate himself based upon a crudely literal reading of Matt. 19:12, who else reads it this way today? Maybe snake handlers do in some sense, but even they don't do so consistently since they live and breathe in the 21 century like the rest of us. Moreover, he seems blithely unaware that all Christians pick and choose the parts of the Bible they like from the parts they don't like, and they have been doing so from the beginning. The only difference between Christians on this is how much they do so, much like on a continuum, and the question left unanswered is why they do so in some areas but don't do so in other areas.

The other extreme, which he rejects, "says the Bible should be read through the lens of contemporary secular assumptions." Now here I see trouble ahead, for I don't think we can objectively read the Bible, or any historical document, without using our present assumptions. We are, after all, children of our times, and as children of are times we are not likely to be able to rise about them, as Voltaire pointed out. The question for us is which set of assumptions should we use to interpret the Bible, and I don't see why we should assume that Christianity is true, or that supernaturalism is the case, in order to read the Bible properly. If, for instance, we begin reading the Bible from Christian assumptions, then the question I want to have answered is where does the Christian gain those assumptions in the first place if they don't get them from the Bible? To me this whole approach is circular reasoning.

He claims to hold a middle ground between these extremes. He wants to read the Bible not literally, nor liberally, but rather contextually. He writes, "Only by examining the text in relation to the whole can we figure out how a particular line or passage is best understood." Then he suggests "whether you regard the Bible as inspired or not, read the text in context for what it is actually trying to say." He says this will be clearer as he proceeds.

This reveals more trouble ahead, I think. Even though his approach sounds on the surface to be true, and is partially true, I question where this will take us. His approach is partially true since we must read every passage in the Bible according to its context in order to understand it. Since the basic meaning resides in the sentence (not the word), then in order to understand any sentence we must also understand the context for that sentence in the paragraph, and onward up to the purpose of any book in the Bible itself. But there is more. For any book in the Bible there is a wider context. There is the cultural milieu of each book in the life of the initial readers which must be understood. But that wider context is difficult to understand and also debated today. And there is the whole problem of knowing what purposes the last editor/author of each of the books in the Bible were, since even conservative scholars admit the gospels, for instance, were compiled by editors (or redactors). This means we need to also adequately date these books, know where they were written from, and even who the final authors were. Furthermore, there were pseudonymous additions to the texts long after it left the hands of the final editor/author, along with copyists who made their changes, sometimes for theological reasons, along with the whole process of canonization which affirmed which books belong in the Bible.

On one level we might be able to understand a Biblical passage given only the texts themselves, but that’s a different thing entirely from trying to truly understand what the Biblical editor/authors meant in their day and time. Furthermore, just understanding what they wrote isn't enough, for we must go on to evaluate whether or not what they said was true. So not only do I fear D'Souza is skipping a few contextual steps, but even when I have understood what they wrote I can still question what they said. This is the subject of his book. We'll see how it goes.

The Least Religious of American Medical Professions is Psychiatry

In a recent study by Farr Curlin, et al, published in Psychiatric Services (2007) 58: 1193-1198; titled "The Relationship Between Psychiatry and Religion Among U.S. Physicians," there is an interesting finding. [You can download the PDF file].

According to the authors, "Psychiatrists were less likely to attend religious services frequently, believe in God or the afterlife, or cope by looking to God."

There is something anti-religious about the field of Psychiatry. While it's true that it had it's roots in the anti-religious zeal of Freud, there is still something anti-religious about it as a discipline. I think I can guess why.

Psychiatrists know something most of the rest of us don't know that well. Experiencing this a little from when I was a counselor in the churches I served, I think professional psychiatrists know better than the rest of us that what people believe and how they behave are both based upon many factors that are out of their control. What are some of these factors? Brain matter. Genetics. Gender. Race. Social learning. Social development. Cultural influences. Family influences. Peer influences. Drugs (or the lack of drugs). Diet. Strokes. Sicknesses. There are many others, including financial status, geographical location, age, and birth order.

Psychiatrists know that the whole idea of a person holding to, and acting upon, a completely rational set of beliefs, is just not possible. There are so many other factors that heavily influence us all. Therefore, they also know better than the rest of us that the whole idea of a God who is supposed to judge people based upon what they believe, who subsequently condemns people forever based on how they act, is not a good God at all. In fact, it's abhorrent. And if there isn't a good God, there might as well be none at all.

Christian, you should really consider the evidence coming from the field of Psychiatry. It could change your minds.

My Book is Sold Out On Amazon But More Are On the Way

Update: More copies of my book have arrived at Amazon! I have a self-published book titled, "Why I rejected Christianity," which you can get at Amazon. You can also get it through Barnes & Nobles, or through the publisher.

An extensively revised edition of that book is being published soon, titled, "Why I Became an Atheist," by Prometheus Books.

Creedal Post-Mortem, Part One

"We Believe..." These are the first words of (arguably) the most important and universally acknowledged creedal statement in christianity - the Nicene Creed. They are also possibly the most dangerous and destructive words ever professed.

In AD 312, Constantine won control of the Roman Empire at the battle of Milvian Bridge. He attributed his victory to the intervention of Jesus Christ (a shrewd political move) and elevated christianity to favored status in the empire. His motto became "one God, one Lord, one faith, one church, one empire, one emperor."

The new emperor soon discovered, however, that "one faith, one church" thing wasn't representative of the state of christianity in the empire. Believers in the new religion were already fractured by theological disputes, especially over the understanding of the nature of Christ. Arius, a leader of the church in Alexandria, asserted that Christ was created by God before the beginning of time - divine, yes, but also created. Therefore, the divinity of Christ was similar to the divinity of God, but not of the same essence, because it was of the created order. Arius was opposed by another leader, Alexander, together with Athanasius, who argued that the divinity of Christ, as the Son of God, was of the same essence as the divinity of God, the Father. To believe otherwise, they said, was to open the possibility of polytheism, and to imply that knowledge of God in Christ was not final or ultimate knowledge of God. To counter this widening rift in the church, Constantine convened a council in Nicaea in AD 325. A creed reflecting the position of Alexander and Athanasius was written and signed by a majority of christian leaders (and politicians). Arius was declared a heretic and his teachings heretical. Nevertheless, the two parties continued to battle each other, so in AD 382, a second council met in Constantinople. It adopted a revised expanded form of the creed, now known as the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed became the foundational creed of christianity, and today is the only creed acknowledged by protestant/reformed, Eastern Orthodox, and Roman Catholic traditions. (thanks to creeds.net for the above summarized information).

This little history lesson is given to demonstrate a couple of crucial points. Every Sunday morning, literally millions of christians around the world - regardless of theological or denominational stripe - utter these words. However, how many of them know their origin or their meaning, and what they were attempting to create? As a former pastor (who served thousands in a quarter-century of service, I would say less than 10%). A second point is that - even its earliest days - christianity was not a unified or coherent theological system and did not understand its own god. A council of leaders was necessary (which actually was called to address a political purpose) was needed to develop an authoritative position that could be enforced within the faith community and from beyond (in this case, the empire and the sword). Someone needed to tell the poor christian lambs both what they believed, and what they were not to believe. The creed was formed as much to identify the heretics like Arius as it was to promote the doctrine of Christ as God.

The development of the creed is important to understand because it establishes the true source of belief and doctrine of christianity. Evangelical christians profess that Scripture is the only "infallible" source of faith and doctrine, but the canon of scripture was not even agreed upon at the time of creedal formation. Athanasius (yeh, the same guy who was involved in the controversy with Arius) developed a list of accepted scripture in 367; however, it was not consistent with what was finally agreed upon decades later (and ultimately contended for another thousand years). Creed came first, and creed ultimately created canon!

So, christians, do you know the creed? Do you believe it? Do you understand it?

It is ironic and amusing that the creed, which created canon and is the foundation of christian belief and doctrine, is also in contradiction to much of biblical literature. Nevertheless, christians continue to make the creedal profession and assert that the bible is the "infallible" foundation of faith and doctrine - an internal contradiction at the very foundation of the religion.

The words "We believe", stated at the beginning of the creed, represent the core problem of christian religion, and perhaps any religion. Those words establish, at the outset, that christian religion is not based on reason, logical argument, or scientific evidence, but on subjective experience or opinion that is formed by a number of different sources...not just one authoritative source (like scripture). If christians ascribe to the creed, then they willingly subjugate reason to subjective experience.

Belief is highly personal. It involves a willingness to suspend reason or rational review. Belief is formed in a number of ways, and we all practice it. I am not saying belief is "bad" - however, it must always be tested (eventually). In the test of belief, christianity has largely failed. The creed states "we believe", not "we conclude". There is not a conclusion drawn on the basis of offered evidence.

Belief, in the case of religion, is a weakness and possibly a terminal illness. It has led to atrocities in the name of its god or doctrine. It leads individuals towards delusional thought patterns and behavior. It both incites emotion and denounces it. Who, or what, can challenge a personal, subjective profession? The only real authority in christian religion is the "authority of the believer" (the protestant battle cry!). The authority of one's experience and opinion is ultimate - even the bible says so - "what we have seen, and heard, we declare to you." (1 John 1"3). How can it be tested? Christian religion spurns the test, calling it a challenge to faith, even calling it the activity of the devil.

Because belief is the heart of christian religion, the religion both flourishes and presents its greatest vulnerability. A continuous, pressing challenge on christians about their beliefs - beginning with the Nicene Creed - will eventually lead to collapse.

Let's Think About the Big Picture

Disbelief has rapidly been gaining ground especially since the beginning of the twentieth century and continues today at record pace. Atheists are the fastest growing minority in America. The non-religious comprise 1 billion members of the population, around 20 percent of the entire population. To realize how fast this has happened, consider this. The percentage of people that would fall into the skeptic, Agnostic, Deist, or non-religious category at the year 1900 would be around .2%. So within a hundred years that same group has gone from .2% to 20% or more and that is not including the deists!

I read this a while back in a book by the Christian apologist Os Guinness who specializes in the sociology of religion, he holds a Ph.D in Sociology from Oxford, for the percentage of present worldwide disbelief see the Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Considering all the effort put forth by religious adherents for people to believe in the religious, including things such as missionary work, literature, religious radio, Churches, Religious schools, Sunday school, religious tv etc. And considering on the other hand that on scale with the religious the skeptics ideas and exposure of them have been infinitesimal. So it is pretty remarkable if you think about it, that skepticism has grown as much as it has without having no where near an equal hearing or exposure as religious belief have had. It wasn't even much longer then one hundred years ago where even in America people where being put in jail for blasphemy charges! So if skepticism has grown this much this fast without near the exposure that religion has had, just think what would happen if culture got to the point where it did? We have this many people becoming skeptics without skeptics Sunday schools, without skeptic missionaries, without skeptic churches, without threats of going to hell if you change your mind, without all the social pressure to believe certain doctrines and the threat of being cut off socially if you don't, without skeptic praise and worship, without skeptic communities that will make you feel all warm and fuzzy giving you a sense of identity and making you feel like your part of some divine eternal plan, without skeptic TV that is on 24/7, without being indoctrinated to believe something without question from the time they where young with hell is the only alternative if they chose to believe otherwise, without skeptic wars that set up a skeptic pope, without killing religious people for disagreeing with them, burning books and libraries down who adhere to another creed and silencing the opposition not by argument but by force, without a skeptic empire that dominated western civilization for over a thousand years, without the punishment of death or imprisonment for blasphemy for talking against skeptics beliefs etc. I could go on but you get the picture, the war for truth and for the minds of men have not been fought fairly throughout history. Just think how different things may be if it was!

In any discussion on the subject of making society more conducive to secular enlightenment invariably both many skeptics and believers will indulge in the guilty by association fallacy. This fallacy tries to say something is wrong just on the basis that it is in someway associated with something wrong. For example Hitler drinks water and wears clothes and Hitler is bad, therefore drinking water and wearing clothes is bad. Even though this line of reasoning should obviously strike some one as absurd, I very often hear this line of reasoning from otherwise intelligent people when it comes to religious issues. So when people say things like.... "you should not try to change someone’s religious views because that is what religious people do" "Skeptics should not meet in buildings because religious people do that" "Skeptics should not be passionate about letting people Know why and what skeptics believe because that’s what religious people do" they are committing the guilty by association fallacy. Of course it is fine if people want to try and say why skeptics should not do such and such on other grounds, but when there soul objection is that skeptics should not do something if religious people do the same thing that is just patent nonsense. Religious people also breath, have friends, have careers, and have sex, but I do not see skeptics saying we should deny all that on the same grounds (:.

So lets do some brainstorming and try to think of the big picture. If our goal is to secularize society what are some barriers that would need to be overcome and how can we overcome them? For starters I think we need to persuade skeptics that doing things to make society more skeptical is beneficial for them and everyone else. Skeptics of course believe religion is false but many do not think it is more harmful then helpful. If religion is valuable then why do anything to mitigate it? Until this prevailing attitude is changed among the skeptical community it will be like trying to fight a war without half your countries members or resources. I actually plan on putting together a book on this very topic in the future. The book would be a compilation of the greatest thoughts from the greatest skeptics throughout history on the reasons they gave for religion being more harmful then helpful. I would also want to have all the greatest modern skeptics to write their thoughts on why they think religion is more harmful than helpful and how we would be better off without it such as Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, Hitchens, Loftus, and more. I would, to be fair, include some essays by both skeptics and believers who argued the counter-position. I think the skeptic community very much needs this though, because if they are not persuaded that religion is more harmful then helpful, then what incentive will they have to go out of there way to do something about it? Skeptics have enough numbers to change the worldview of billions if they really wanted to.

For example I have only been a skeptic for a couple of months and have helped deconvert my best friend, my brother, and my ex-girlfriend. Think what would happen if every skeptic just helped deconvert one person in their lifetime, the effect would be incalculable. With my best friend and ex-girlfriend I did this just by giving them skeptic books to read and persuading them to read them. With my brother I actually just talked to him and he became a skeptic. Many of the people that are close to you will read some type of skeptical material if you let them know how important it is to you. Religious people become skeptics all the time, how do you think there are near a billion skeptics in the world if they didn't? My main tactic with people is to first convert them to reason (by that I mean a rational method) and then expose them to counter-information. So how do we help expose religious people to counter-information? How do we even begin to secularize a culture where religion is privatized and a personal affair not a public one? A culture where it is politically incorrect to rationally scrutinize religion. A culture where people are constantly affirmed in there beliefs by there collective group but rarely challenged, and if so it is usually a superficial challenge. Here are some possible ideas that could get the boll rolling.

1. Create incentive among the skeptical community that religion is a harmful falsehood that is well worth fighting against for the sake of the greater good of humanity.

2. Organize the skeptic community as much as possible and help create as many skeptical institutions as possible (Yes I think the idea of skeptics meeting together is a good idea, call me crazy but it just may be beneficial for skeptics and the cause of skepticism. How much influence would religious people have without Church?

3. Seek to make religion more of a public affair then a private one. Bring it out into the light.

4. Publish more skeptical books at a popular level that are geared towards the people who need to read them the most.

5. Start a skeptic 24/7 television station (yes I am serious why not? We have the numbers and the money to do it; all we need is the will.)

6. Start a religion Channel that deals with things only related to religion and where the best arguments and top people of both sides are presented. In this way we could expose religious people to skeptics and skeptical thought they may never have been exposed to otherwise and plant seeds of doubt that may spur them to read and study farther. If the subject of history can have channel and do well, why not religion, why not a religion channel? This would be healthy for society in so many ways I am sure you can imagine.

7. Make sophisticated and entertaining documentaries that are good enough to show at the national cinematic level (Hey Michael Moore did it with 9/11, why could it not be done again dealing with religious issues? You could also make documentaries, where both top people and reasons pro and con where presented. In this way you could get more people to watch it and get more people exposed to new ideas.

8. Create a book series that critically challenges all the major religions. In the book series you could bring all the top skeptical scholars to write a comprehensive critique of the religion at hand, and make the book series geared for the believer to read. To reach as wide a demographic as possible, the book series would have beginner, intermediate, and advanced versions of each book. So for example you would have: a) The Case against Islam (Muslims comprise about 1.6 billion people of the world which is about 25% or one out of every four people on the planet! Some sociologist estimate that if Muslims keep growing at the same rate, that in 40 years from now half of all children born on the planet will be born to Muslim parents! There are also over 40 Muslim nations on the planet. b) The Case Against Christianity (Close to two billion people) c) The Case Against Eastern religions (This book would cover mainly Hinduism which comprises about 850 million people and Buddhism which comprises about 600 million or so.

9. Create a debate book series similar to the Christian counterpoint book series, except instead bring together top philosophical combatants on issues related to religion. In this way you could expose people to views they would otherwise never be exposed to or never read themselves (and if religious people think there views can withstand the force of sophisticated scrutiny then they should want this also). You could call the series the "decide for yourself" debate book series. You could also carry over this idea to a magazine, radio show, documentaries, internet website, and TV show.

I could go on, but I would like to hear more and more brainstorming form others on what could possibly be done to make society more conducive to the truth.

Maxwells Demon and The Soul

A commenter that goes by the screen name of B H has a blog with an entry from September 30 that I appreciated very much. The artcle is called "Maxwell's Demon and the Soul". I highly recommend everyone go take a look at it.
The Set of All Things Not Identical to Themselves
In this Article B H proposes a scientific test for the soul using the hypothesis that in the case that a supernatural being should exist in the natural world, then properties of the natural world should be disturbed and therefore detectable.

If the soul allows humans to have wills that are free (at least to some degree) from material causality, then our souls must act like Maxwell's demon in some sense. The soul must allow neural impulses to proceed unhindered in some instances but not others, but being separate from the physical world, there's no physical requirement for the soul to balance the energy consumed and the energy expended. The purpose of the soul is less specific than Maxwell's demon, but we might expect to see that energy is added to the system extra-physically when the brain makes moral decision and that the energy added may be proportional to the complexity of the dilemma or to the desire of the individual to do the immoral act.

I agree. Several times in the comments I have argued similarly that if the holy spirit can be said to guide us or influence us, I think it should be detectable in the brain because the whole of our experience as humans is gathered through our senses, interpreted, processed, understood and stored there. It makes sense to me that gathering a base line of brain activity in different modes storing them, searching for patterns, signatures to be used for comparisons could be useful in determining if any supernatural activity is 'skewing' the normal signatures. I think that the technology for this type of thing is beyond us now, but one goal for Health Care insurance is to verify that a Psychological Treatment is working, and one way to do it is with brain scans, so I think the technology is forthcoming.

I also have defended a variation of this argument against Shygetz at the beginning of the year when John proposed that Prayer should be able to change history. If God is everything that he is supposed to be, I think it should be feasible and it should be detectable through a kind of "skewed probability".

And I argue that another intersection between the natural and supernatural is prayer, and though many studies have been performed, the results do not support the efficacy of prayer.

Additionally another contributor wrote an atricle, of which I highly recommend, about the soul called "The Soul--A Rational Belief?". Exbeliever argues that the brain being what it is, it does not support the existence of a soul.

I challenge Christians to formulate testable hypotheses, publish them and encourage scientists to investigate them. It would go a long way to giving some of us something to believe in and would be the most powerful ministry ever devised by Humans.

REFERENCES
- The Set of All Things Not Identical to Themselves
- The Soul--A Rational Belief?
- Can Prayer Change The Past
- The Promise of Prayer
- Lee's Holy Spirit Series

The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument

The deductive cosmological argument from contingency has a long and illustrious history. It’s been exposited and defended by the likes of, e.g., G.W. Leibniz, Samuel Clarke, and recently (e.g.) Stephen T. Davis, Ronald Nash, Robert Koons, and Alexander Pruss. However, a number of contemporary theists seem to shy away from defending it, such as J.P. Moreland, Peter Van Inwagen, and William Lane Craig (although Craig seems to have warmed up to it slightly in recent years, given his more-positive-than-usual assessment of it in his essay in The Rationality of Theism). In this post, I will exposit the Leibnizian cosmological argument from contingency. Then, I will discuss some common objections to the argument that don't seem to work. Finally, I will discuss several decisive criticisms of the argument. In the appendix, I exposit and critique a recent defense of PSR.




I: Exposition
This version of the cosmological argument has been given a number of construals, depending on how its proponents spell out the notions of a contingent being and the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR). One common way to spell out these notions is as follows:

A contingent being or state of affairs is a being or state of affairs that exists, but doesn’t have to – its nonexistence is logically (or metaphysically) possible. So, for example, rocks, trees, and you and I are contingent beings, and George W. Bush being the current U.S. President is a contingent state of affairs. By contrast, a necessary being or state of affairs is a being or state of affairs that exists or obtains of logical (or metaphysical) necessity – to use possible worlds talk, one that exists or obtains in all possible worlds. So, for example, if Anselm’s God exists, then it is a necessary being.

Finally, PSR states that (a) for every being that exists, there is a sufficient reason for why it exists, and (b) for every state of affairs, there is a sufficient reason for why it obtains. PSR has prima facie plausibility, and is often defended by offering one or more of the following three considerations. First, it seems to make sense of our intuitions when we reflect on sample cases. So, for example, suppose there is a ball on the lawn in your front yard. No one would say that there is no sufficient reason for why the ball exists, or why it’s there on the lawn. Obviously, the ball has an explanation for its origin (in a toy factory), its continued existence (in terms of, e.g., the properties of the particles that constitute the ball), and its being on the lawn now (your daughter left it there). The same sorts of explanations seem to generalize to any case we can think of. Therefore, we have some support for PSR based on reflection on cases. Second, some have argued that PSR is self-evident. Self-evident propositions are those that can be seen to be true merely by coming to understand what they assert. That is, once you understand what they mean, you can see that they’re true. So, for example, consider the proposition, “all triangles have three angles”. Once I understand the constituent concepts of this proposition, I can see that it’s true. Similarly for “nothing can be red all over and green all over at the same time.” And similarly, say some proponents of the contingency argument, for PSR. Third, even if one remains unpersuaded by the previous two considerations, one may think that it’s a presupposition of rational thought. Compare: Although it's notoriously difficult to justiify the existence of material objects, and the existence of a past, it nonetheless seems pathological to deny that material objects exist, or to deny that the universe has existed for more than ten minutes (as opposed to thinking that it was created ten minutes ago, with an appearance of age, and with false memories of a longer past). All sane people accept these propositions, and -- say some proponents of the argument from contingency -- the same is true of PSR. Thus, even if you think we can’t prove it, you must accept it to be a rational agent. Given these notions, we may now state the argument.

It’s undeniable that contingent beings exist. After all, we came into existence, and could go out of existence without much trouble. The same is true of rocks, trees, our planet, and in fact every object in the universe. In fact, the universe itself seems to be just one big contingent being. If so, then by PSR, it has a sufficient reason for its existence. Now since it’s a contingent being, it can’t account for it’s own existence in terms of its own nature, even if it has existed forever. For even if the contingent universe existed forever, the following contingent state of affairs would obtain:

(CF1) There being an eternally existent contingent universe.

But if so, then by PSR, there is a sufficient reason for why CF1 obtains, in which case we must look for a reason beyond our contingent universe.

Now whatever that “something” is, it can’t just be more contingent beings. For even our universe is explained in terms of an infinite series of contingent beings, the following contingent state of affairs would obtain:

(CF2) There being an infinite series of contingent beings.

But if so, then by PSR, there is a sufficient reason for why the infinite series of contingent beings exists or why CF2 obtains. In short, no matter how many contingent beings we throw into the explanatory “pot”, the existence of our contingent universe – or any contingent being whatever, for that matter – cannot be sufficiently accounted for purely in terms of contingent beings. But if not, then the sufficient reason for the existence of our contingent universe must be in terms of at least one necessary being. And, as Aquinas would say, “this we all call ‘God’.



II: Giving the Argument its Due: A Defense Against Common Objections
In this section, I continue the task of giving the contingency argument its due. To that end, I briefly discuss three criticisms of the deductive argument from contingency that don’t seem to work. Here I’m just summarizing William Rowe’s points from his Philosophy of Religion (Belmont, Ca: Wadsworth, 1978), pp. 16-30.

1. Dependence and the fallacy of composition:

1.1 The argument fallaciously assumes that because each member of the collection of beings within the universe is dependent, that therefore the whole collection of such beings is itself dependent. But this doesn’t follow.

1.2 Reply: It would be fallacious to assume this, but the defender of the cosmological argument need not assume it for the argument to work. Rather, since the existence of the collection of dependent beings is a positive fact, then it follows from PSR alone – i.e., without the need to rely on an inference from dependence of the parts to dependence of the whole -- that there must be a sufficient reason for why the collection exists.

2. Causation and the fallacy of composition:

2.1 The argument fallaciously assumes that because each member of the collection of dependent beings has a cause, that therefore the whole collection of dependent beings has a cause. But this doesn’t follow.

2.2 Reply: It would be fallacious to assume this, but the defender of the cosmological argument need not assume it for the argument to work. Rather, since the existence of the collection of dependent beings is a positive fact, then it follows from PSR alone – i.e., without the need to rely on an inference from the need for a cause of the parts to a need from a cause of the whole -- that there must be a sufficient reason for why the collection exists.

3. Nothing’s left to explain

3.1 The defender of the cosmological argument fails to see that once the existence of each member of a collection of dependent beings is explained, the existence of the whole collection is thereby explained.

3.2 Reply: It’s not true that explaining why each member of *any* collection of dependent beings exists entails an explanation for why the whole collection exists – why there are dependent beings at all. True, there are cases *of certain sorts* in which explaining the former entails explaining the latter. For example, if a necessary being were the direct cause of each dependent being in the universe, then it would be true that explaining why each dependent being exists would thereby entail an explanation for why the whole collection exists, and why there are dependent beings at all. However, there are cases in which it wouldn’t; just take the necessary being out the previous case, and imagine each dependent being as caused by one of the others. In such a case, explaining why each dependent being exists wouldn’t explain why there are dependent beings at all.



III: Why the Argument Ultimately Fails
This section completes my discussion of the deductive cosmological argument from contingency. In the previous section, I considered a set of objections to the argument that didn't seem to be persuasive. The moral of that discussion seemed to be that the argument stands or falls with the viability of PSR.

Here, I offer objections to PSR that seem to have some force. These criticisms aren’t original with me, but rather are standard objections (except perhaps the last one, although it's based on ideas of other authors). Furthermore, I don’t mean to imply that there aren’t other versions of the argument from contingency that may avoid these criticisms. However, they do seem to apply to the variants of the argument that one finds in standard “intermediate-level” apologetics books. The criticisms can be divided into two broad categories: (i) those that undercut the reasons offered for accepting PSR, and (ii) those that indicate that PSR is positively false or unreasonable.

1. Type-(i) Criticisms:

1.1 Contrary to what its proponents often assert, PSR does not seem to be supported by reflection on cases. Rather what such reflections support is the weaker principle that objects and events are explained in terms of antecedent causes and conditions. In actual practice, ordinary individuals and scientists explain the existence of objects and events in terms of antecedent causes and conditions, provisionally taking the latter things to be brute facts unless or until they, too, can be further explained. But the prinicple implicit in this sort of search for explanations isn't sufficient to generate the need for an explanation of the universe as a whole in terms of a necessary being.[i]

1.2 Contrary to what some of its proponents assert, PSR does not seem to be self-evident. For what makes a proposition self-evident is that grasping its meaning is sufficient for seeing that it’s true. Consider the two standard categories of self-evident propositions: analytic a priori propositions and synthetic a priori propositions. Both sorts of propositions are knowable independently of empirical investigation of the world. But they differ in that the former (analytic a priori propositions) are tautologous and uninformative, while the latter are not. So, for example, "All bachelors are unmarried" is an analytic a priori proposition, while "Nothing can be red all over and green all over at the same time" is arguably a synthetic a priori proposition.

Now consider PSR: (a) For every object, there is a sufficient reason for why it exists; (b) for every positive state of affairs, there is a sufficient reason for why it obtains. This isn't a tautology; so it's not analytic a priori. Furthermore, although it's a substantive claim, its truth or falsity is not evident merely by reflecting on its constituent conceps. Thus, it doesn't seem to be synthetic a priori, either. Perhaps there is another category of self-evident propositions, but if so, PSR seems not to belong to it. For what makes a proposition self-evident is that one can see that it's true merely be reflecting on its contituent concepts, and we have seen that PSR doesn't safisfy this condition.

1.3 Even if PSR were a presupposition of reason, it wouldn’t follow that it would then be true. But in any case, PSR does not seem to be a presupposition of reason. Rather, again, reason only seems to demand that the existence of each object or fact is explained in terms of antecedent causes and conditions, which are provisionally taken as brute facts unless or until they, in turn, can be explained. Reason does not seem to require anything beyond this.[ii]

2. Type-(ii) Criticisms:

2.1 PSR absurdly entails that everything obtains of necessity. The argument for this can be stated as follows. Consider the conjunction of all contingent facts (CCF). By PSR, there is a sufficient reason for CCF. Now the sufficient reason for CCF is itself either contingent or necessary. But it can’t be contingent, because then it would represent a contingent fact, in which case it would itself be a part of the CCF. But contingent facts don’t contain within themselves the sufficient reason for why they obtain – let alone the sufficient reason for why the CCF obtains. Thus, the sufficient reason for CCF must be necessary. But whatever is entailed by a necessary truth is itself necessary, in which case all truths would be necessary truths, and the referents they represent would obtain of necessity. But this is absurd. Therefore, PSR is false. [iii]

2.2 The following scenario is prima facie possible: there are just two kinds of beings that exist: contingent-and-dependent beings (e.g., rocks, trees, planets, galaxies, you and me) and contingent-yet-independent, “free-standing” beings, out of which all contingent-and-dependent beings are made (perhaps matter-energy is like this). If so, then even though there are possible worlds at which the contingent-yet-independent beings don’t exist, they are eternal and indestructible at all possible worlds in which they *do* exist (interestingly, some theists -- e.g., Richard Swinburne -- take God to be just such a being). On this account, then, there are contingent beings that come to be and pass away – viz., the contingent-and-dependent beings. But the beings out of which they’re made – i.e., the contingent-yet-independent beings -- do not; nor can they [iv]. This scenario seems possible. But if so, then since PSR entails that such a state of affairs is impossible, then so much the worse for PSR.

The basic point here is that PSR assumes that dependent beings must have their ultimate explanation in terms of *necessarily existent* independent beings (beings who exist in all possible worlds), when in fact *essentially* independent beings (beings that are independent at all possible worlds *in which they exist*) are all that are needed to do the requisite explanatory work. PSR entails that this isn't enough: if there are any essentially independent, indestructible, free-standing beings, then these must be *further* explained in terms of a *necessarily existent* being. But surely this is explanatory overkill, and since PSR entails that such further explanations are required, this implication undercuts any prima facie plausibility PSR may seem to have had.

These criticisms have varying degrees of force. However, it seems to me that criticism 2.2 is an undercutting defeater for PSR, and that criticism 2.1 is a rebutting defeater of PSR. But if these things are so, then the argument from contingency is defeated.
==================
APPENDIX: A Recent Defense of PSR

(Note: some things I say here are of a technical nature, and thus will probably only be of interest to those with some background in philosophy)

A number of philosophers have attempted to revive the Leibnizian cosmological argument in recent years by advancing a weaker version of PSR. According to their version of PSR, every contingent being has a *possible* explanation in terms of something else. That is, every contingent being is such that there is at least one possible world at which it has an explanation for why it exists. Call this version of PSR, 'Modal PSR'.

Now some authors -- in particular, Garrett DeWeese and Joshua Rasmussen[v] -- offer an argument for Modal PSR . Now I think their argument has a couple of problems, but here I just want to mention one that I think is decisive: The argument uses Modal PSR as a premise to derive the standard version of PSR we discussed above. But this premise is implausible at best, and outright false at worst. For unless they just beg the question and assume that there are no possible beings that lack a sufficient reason, then they must be claiming that, even if there *are* possible worlds at which a given contingent beings lacks a sufficient reason, there are *other* possible worlds at which it does. But this is implausible, For It seems to me that the only way to accept Modal PSR is to reject origin essentialism. Allow me to me unpack and explain this criticism below:

Suppose origin essentialism is true, and suppose we've got our hands on a universe, and we give it a Kripkean baptism: (pointing to the universe) "Let *that* be called 'Uni'. 'Uni' is now a Kripkean rigid designator -- it refers to *that* universe in all possible worlds in which it exists.

So now we have a way to hold Uni fixed, so we can start considering modal claims about *it*. Well, there are two relevant possibilities for us to consider here: (i) Uni has its origin in the causal power of a divine being,and (ii) Uni has no origin. If (i), then, by origin essentialism, this is an essential property of Uni, in which case there is no possible world in which Uni lacks such an origin.

If (ii), then Uni lacks an origin in the causal activity of a divine being, and so *this* fact about Uni is essential to it, in which case there is no possible world in which it has an origin in the causal activity of a divine being.

The moral, then, is that if we accept origin essentialism like good Kripkeans, then whether a universe has an explanation in terms of a divine being doesn't vary from world to world. But if so, then Modal PSR is of no help unless we know *beforehand* whether our universe has its origin in the causal activity of a divine being. But if we already knew *that*, then the contingency argument would be superfluous.

Of course, one could always reject origin essentialism, or restrict its scope in a way favorable to the argument, but then the audience for the argument shrinks considerably.

================================
Notes
i. This is a rough paraphrase of one of J.L. Mackie’s objections in The Miracle of Theism (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1983), pp. 84-87.

ii. See ibid.

iii. This objection is a rough paraphrase of one of Peter Van Inwagen’s objections in his textbook, Metaphysics, 2nd edition (Boulder: Westview Press, 2002), pp. 119-122.

iv .Another way to see how this could be: contingent-yet-independent beings have indestructibility as an essential property: they are indestructible and everlasting at all possible worlds in which they exist. However, there are possible worlds at which they don’t exist.

v. See their chapter of the recent apologetics book, In Defense of Natural Theology (InterVarsity Press, 2005).

Religion is Totalitarianism

Christopher Hitchens debates Alister McGrath



Let me start out saying that I am not a fan of Hitchens' politics. However, there is a reason why he does this for a living, while I am a mere amateur.

I would like to use this video to kick off the discussion of one of Hitchens' points. Religion is totalitarianism; it requires complete obedience to the figurehead, even to the point of outlawing certain thoughts. It utilizes a pervasive surveilance system to ensure obedience--God is always watching, always judging. It demands loyalty to the leader as the supreme in morality, over and above all other moral dictates. It has been previously argued, here and elsewhere, that religion is no worse than atheism from a moral stance, as many of the most despotic regimes of the modern world were atheist (Stalinist Soviet Union, Mao's China, Pol Pot's regime). I argue that all forms of totalitarianism are morally wrong, including religion.

Totalitarianism supercedes all moral constraints with a duty to the leader, whether that leader be god (who makes his wishes know via fallible humans or fallible revelation) or man. The Bible is full of atrocities (genocide, slavery, infaticide, etc.) performed out of loyalty to a totalitarian God, and also full of punishments for those who dare revolt against the regime. Loving Jesus himself brought about the ultimate totalitarian notion of eternal punishment for thoughtcrime--you must believe or you will burn in everlasting fire.

Stand with me in condemning totalitarianism in all its forms. Be it service to the Fuhrer or to a supposed god via his prophets and priests, it is evil and an affront to your human dignity.

An Important New Christian Apologetical Book is Now Available

I just ordered it and plan on reviewing it. Link.

Apologies Not Accepted!

I once had a friend named Mickey. He was a great guy, though underappreciated at the time. Like so many friends who grow up and part ways, we don’t see each other anymore. Oh, how the ages fly by—that is one lesson you learn from life. But I learned another, a more important lesson from my friend Mickey.

Mickey was one of a kind. He would come over and lounge around the house with the rest of us kids who occupied ourselves with less-than-constructive activities all summer long. We had great fun, but more than anything, Mickey got on our nerves because he broke half the things he touched. He was like “Chunk” from The Goonies.

He once stepped on our cat while walking upstairs. Another time, he crushed two Christmas lights that lit the walkway to our house. He broke two expensive lawn chairs by leaning back too far in them—and these are just a few things. Cassette tapes, tools, and dishes also came to be demolished with the calamitous touch of this oversized, Snickers-eating chum. Mickey was a Class-A klutz.

But Mickey was funny; just after every little mishap, he would say, breathing heavily and in a nerdy, fat boy’s voice, ”Oh, uh, sorry! I’ll pay for it!” He had a few other yucky tendencies too, like sweating profusely all over everything – and farting with the force of a category-1 hurricane – but this was all harmless fun in retrospect. It was actually hysterical. Mickey was a good guy. He still is, I hear.

But the other thing I learned from Mickey was that God must also be a pale-skinned, clumsy, fat kid with an eating disorder and a gland problem. No, just kidding. What I really learned from Mickey was that sometimes saying, “I’m sorry,” is not enough! When Mickey broke an expensive piece of stereo equipment we owned, mom and dad were furious. It took more than an apology to fix what was done—it took money from Mickey’s mom, which we got.

Now an apology is only good when it is followed by a resolution not to commit the same offense again. In Mickey’s case, he improved a little, but then again, he was still Mickey and always would be (what are you going to do, right?). As was the case with Mickey’s meaningless apologies, so it is with Christians and Christianity. We infidels get lots and lots of apologies for Christian shortcomings, but these apologies are totally un-redeemable.

My inbox is filled with emails from evangelical Christians making apologies for this, that, and the other. It’s always something as they apologize that I rejected Christianity without having a chance to know the “real Jesus,” that I was “soil with little root,” that I was ruined to Christianity by the radical Church of Christ from which I came, that I was not raised in or around family or friends of religion x, that I was driven away from the church by “cruel and divisive brethren,” that I was not taught well in preaching school, that I never had anyone take me to see a “real miracle,” that I was hurt inside from a personal tragedy, etc. The list is incredibly long.

Every step of the way, Christians are apologizing for something—for everyone else’s failures and for their own, but never for their deity’s failures. The apologies don’t mean a thing because no improvements can be made. Apologies for “bad Christians” are worthless because human nature is what it is. Humans will keep making the mistakes they make. There is nothing that can be done about that. And what about apologies from God? Well, of course, we get no apologies from that mystical being. God (if he existed) would owe the human race the biggest apology of all for bringing us into such an abhorrent existence. However, because the God of the Bible is like a big chemical company who refuses to be culpable for poisoning a small community’s water supply, you’ll get no apology from him. Allowing sick babies to stay on ventilators may move you and I to tears, but it doesn’t move God. So don’t expect an apology of any kind.

And what do we get in place of apologies from God? We get from Christians the ever popular “we’re all sinners” contention. That sickening gab never ceases to weary me. I’m tired of Christians apologizing for their failures, for the church’s failures (both today and in the past), for my supposed failures, for my parent’s supposed failures, for my preaching school’s supposed failures, and for the alleged failures of the whole human race. I want accountability, damnit, not meaningless apologies! Christians, your apologies are NOT accepted! And don’t tell me that you’re sorry I feel that way!

(JH)

The Firepower of Debunking Christianity.

I just want to thank the team members and commenters who make DC what it is. There is some real firepower at DC in our common goal. Here we are in alphabetical order:

Edward T. Babinski has edited a book, written chapters for others and is somewhat of an expert in the issues pertaining to creationism and evolution. He seems to have his hands everywhere, a sort of hub for people who leave the fold. He first encouraged me, and I'll always be thankful, I think. ;-)

Dr. Hector Avalos, a Biblical scholar of the New Atheism.

Jason Long has a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and wrote two books, Biblical Nonsense, and The Religious Condition.

Joe E. Holman was a seminary trained minister who is writing a book describing his deconversion and highlighting the many problems there are for the Christian faith. I just read a rough draft of his deconversion story in his book and it's the most comprehensive and complete one I've ever read. Plus he teaches creative writing and this is reflected in his book. He maintains a website and an online forum.

John W. Loftus, me, *ahem* I have the near equivalent of a Ph.D. in the Philosophy of Religion, have taught apologetics at a Bible College, and I too wrote a book.

Lee Randolph, is my right hand man in many ways. He's a polymath and dabbles in Comparative Religions, ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean history and Mythology, Argument Analysis, Informal Logic, Cognitive Science, Philosophy, Game Theory and Information Technology. He has a great deal to share, and he helps maintain this blog.

Marlene Winell has a Ph.D. in psychology and specializes in helping people go through the process of deconverting. She wrote a book and she conducts seminars for people who leave the Christian faith.

Valerie Tarico has a Ph.D. in psychology and also wrote a book. Her specialty lies in the area of the psychology of beliefs, how we get them, and why the evangelical faith is so hard to shake.

That’s a pretty well-rounded group.

I am very pleased they have come on board and I greatly value their contributions. Of course, I wish some would contribute more often, but whenever I have a question, or whenever there is a person whom they can deal with better than me, I hook them up.

There are others who comment here, both skeptic and Christian, and I thank them all. Christians who visit here help to sharpen us, and I thank them for this. Skeptics who visit here do the same, and add to our combined knowledge.

I personally think this is a great place to discuss the ideas that separate us. I look forward every day to see what people have said. My aim is to make this a friendly place to debate, and I think that goal is being achieved. I also want DC to be a place where people who struggle with their faith can come to ask questions and learn. There are many such people in the church who dare not express themselves. At DC they can. If the church was more open to their questions they wouldn't have to visit DC to express them, and you all know the answers that we offer.


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Past Contributors at DC Include:

Andrew Atkinson

Aaron M Rossetti

Bart Willruth

Bill Ross

Brother Crow

Craig Duckett

DagoodS

Dan Barker

Dennis Diehl

Evan

exapologist

exbeliever

Former Fundy

Joseph

Ken Daniels

Matthew J. Green

Robert Bumbalough

S Burgener

Shygetz

Theresa Frasch

Troy Waller