"God of Genocide? A Debate on Biblical Violence" The Text of My 12 Minute Debate Opener Against Randal Rauser
No wonder serious biblical scholars argue that the god of the Bible is modeled after ancient kings, who were themselves often cruel towards their own subjects. God is just like what we find in the story of Job. Job was a good man but God destroyed everything he had, and killed all his sons, daughters and servants, just to win a bet with Satan. Such a wanton disregard toward a human being is utterly reprehensible and barbaric. Kings could do that. But a perfectly good god should not do it.
Tonight everything hinges on Rauser’s moral intuitions. His moral intuitions cause him to believe in two contrary irreconcilable propositions. On the one hand, he believes the Bible uniquely and unmistakably reveals the actions and commands of god. On another hand, he rejects the violence in the Bible which uniquely and unmistakably reveals a cruel god.
To accomplish this feat Rauser offers a scenario to show we can sometimes trust our intuitions, despite the lack of objective evidence. He asks us to consider a man who sincerely believed he was innocent of a crime even though all the objective evidence pointed to his guilt. Rauser claims the man is in a position to know he’s innocent because he personally knows that he’s innocent, even if the objective evidence points to him. So let’s picture this. There are several eyewitnesses along with video footage of the man killing someone with a gun he had purchased the day before, which was found at the scene of the crime with his fingerprints on it. With this objective evidence the man should honestly accept that he has a serious case of amnesia, or been drugged, hypnotized, or even lobotomized. He is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Labels: "Rauser", Debate Opener
Rauser's Moorean Shift
[Note: I watched some of a recent online interview with Dr. Rauser — just enough to get the gist — and wrote the following about his argument this morning. I wasn't aware that the debate with Loftus was already tonight. Maybe the following will be useful for those who watch it. I should also add that there may be additional details to Rauser's argument that this doesn't cover.]
In the book God? A Debate between a Christian and an Atheist (p. 124), William Lane Craig replies to the argument:
If God exists, gratuitous suffering does not exist
Gratuitous suffering exists
Therefore, God does not exist
by means of a so-called “Moorean shift,” in this case by arguing instead:
If God exists, gratuitous suffering does not exist
God exists
Therefore, gratuitous suffering does not exist.
(This is called a Moorean shift after the British philosopher G. E. Moore, who famously turned arguments for philosophical skepticism — e.g., that you might be a brain in a vat — around in this manner.)
What Craig is doing is pointing out that one can deny a premise of an argument if doing so seems more reasonable than accepting its conclusion. He thinks the existence of God is more certain than that of gratuitous suffering. Therefore, rather than accepting the conclusion that God does not exist, he finds it more reasonable to deny the claim that gratuitous suffering exists. Of course, we can easily disagree with Craig's use of this strategy here. The existence of gratuitous suffering (suffering that is morally unjustified and which therefore an all-powerful and perfectly good being would not allow) seems far more certain than the existence of the being himself. So there are good and bad uses of this strategy.
Labels: "Rauser"
Tonight at 8 PM ET I'll Be Debating Randal Rauser On Biblical Violence
12-minute openings
60 minutes of open dialogue
30 minutes of audience Q&A
The Divine and Human Violence In the Bible Creates Violent People
Why is the United States such a violent nation filled with so much crime? The startling answer proposed by criminologist Peterson Sparks is that it’s due to the tremendous impact of the Bible and Christianity on the culture, institutions, and political life of the United States. She specifically indicts Christian theocratic nationalism for this, with its hateful, xenophobic, war-mongering, gun-toting, misogynistic, child-abusing, gay-bashing, get-tough-on-crime, right-wing nuts. This is the devil in disguise we already know, finally exposed for the evil it is. This book is a masterpiece! It should scare the hell out of you.
Christians Have the BEST Magic!
And the best holy spirit too
I do sometimes wonder how Christianity gets away with it. But it’s not such a mystery after all. The failure to think it through accounts for the endurance of piety and belief; the failure to look below the surface and simply ask, “Does this make sense?” In the Book of Numbers, chapter 21, when the people of Israel complained too much about their ordeal in the desert, God was so pissed off that he sent poisonous snakes to bite them. Then, on appeal from Moses, God recommended a solution, which turned out to be a magical bronze snake: if people just looked at it, they wouldn’t die of snakebite. “Well, yes,” even some of the devout may say, “that’s just quaint Old Testament folklore.”
Where Was God When This Happened? Part 1
The scandal of divine negligence
Please note carefully this Jesus-script, Matthew 12:36-37: “I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
God is watching carefully. He doesn’t miss a thing. Moreover, prayer works because God can even read our minds. Christians believe in, love, worship, and sing songs to this God who pays such close attention to every human being.
If God is so attentive—actually, so intrusive—then he cannot evade responsibility for our wellbeing. How can he just watch so many of the really horrible things that happen? Wouldn’t he want to do something? Tim Sledge has called it correctly:
Dr. Randal Rauser Asks Me for a Debate Rematch: "God of Genocide? A Debate on Biblical Violence"
I was happy to be asked to debate him and have agreed! It should be fun and informative and challenging.
As a Christian apologist, I can say that there is no intellectual objection to Christianity more daunting than the problem of horrendous suffering. In this important new book, John Loftus has gathered a diverse collection of voices that seek to build a comprehensive, multi-pronged critique of Christianity based on this most difficult problem. No Christian apologist can afford to ignore it. -- Dr. Randal Rauser, Professor of Historical Theology, Taylor Seminary.
Labels: "Rauser", God or Godless, GoG Reviews
The Bad Jesus Is On Full View in the Gospels
“The Evangelical Resurrection Industrial Complex (ERIC) has churned out scores of scholarly tomes, hundreds of erudite disquisitions in professional journals, dissertations and commentaries, as well as debates and conferences beyond numbering, and the tsunami of dishonest verbiage shows know sign of receding.”
Labels: "Avalos"
"Doubting Thomas" Tells Us All We Need To Know About Christianity
The lessons of the "doubting Thomas" story are not what you think. It does not offer any objective evidence that Jesus arose from the dead. It only offers us a story about a man named Thomas who asked and received objective evidence that Jesus arose from the dead. That's a huge difference. This story is no more to be considered objective evidence that Jesus arose from the dead than anything else we read in the gospel according to John. Yet, and this is the extremely important point, the story is told as if it's objective evidence Jesus arose from the dead! Let that sink in.
The whole point of the story is that faith is a virtue not a vice. The lesson is supposed to be: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." But to make that point the author uses story about a man named Thomas who saw what we did not, and cannot, see. We've never met the risen Jesus in the flesh, nor stuck our fingers in his side. So a story about Thomas cannot be our substitute. If this is supposed to convince readers then the author is asking us to believe based on insufficient evidence. If this actually convinces readers then they believe based on insufficient evidence.
This is the case even if a man named Thomas actually met the risen Jesus in the flesh, and stuck his fingers in his side! The reason is because we don't know he actually did this, because we were not there to see him do it. The lesson is that faith, blind faith, unevidenced faith, faith in a mere story about a man we never met, by an author we never met, is something praiseworthy.
By using this little bait and switch of his, the author of John's gospel is conning his readers. The gospels have been conning readers from the very beginning. No mere story about Thomas can be considered objective evidence for the rest of us. Period.
Labels: "Faith", faith verses reason
Bible Blunders & Bad Theology, Part 11
The Lazarus story goes off the rails
Let’s begin with a brief scene from the 1987 film Moonstruck:
Elderly woman at airline departure gate: “You have someone on that plane?”
Loretta Castorini, standing close by (played by Cher): “Yeah, my fiancé.”
Elderly woman: “I put a curse on that plane. My sister is on that plane. I put a curse on that plane that it’s gonna explode, burn on fire and fall into the sea. Fifty years ago, she stole a man from me. Today she tells me that she never loved him, that she took him to be strong on me. Now she’s going back to Sicily. I cursed her that the green Atlantic water should swallow her up!”
Loretta: “I don’t believe in curses.”
Elderly woman: “Eh, neither do I.”
The Obituary of Dr. Hector Avalos (10/8/1958 - 4/12/2021)
Labels: "Avalos"
Who Would WANT the Christian God Anyway?
He makes too many big mistakes
If we could pose this question to folks coming out of their weekly worship services: Do they really want the God they worship? …we would hear enthusiastic affirmations, “Oh, Yes, I want the Lord! Our God is so wonderful.” But I wonder. Have they really thought it through? There are several things about this God that are a turnoff. Many of us would put he/she/it near the bottom of a list of gods to follow. Let’s look at a short list.
What About The Emotional Problem of Evil?
My Easter Epiphany
Dr. Jaco Gericke: "Christian philosophy of religion as nonsense on stilts"
Bible Blunders & Bad Theology, Part 10
Letting Satan have his way
Since this is Good Friday, we should pay homage to Matthew’s effort to merge Halloween with Easter. He reported that when Jesus died on the cross, many people came alive in their tombs, then on Easter morning walked around Jerusalem. (Matthew 27:52-53) Even many Christians dismiss this as a tall tale, but this is awkward: how can they argue that the resurrection of Jesus isn’t a tall tale as well?
Now, on with today’s topic.
How much time and energy have Christian apologists devoted to figuring out why God allows so much suffering? In fact, apologetics is quite an industry; there is so much incoherence in Christian theology that has to be dealt with, but especially suffering. I once found a stunning bit of information in a July 1993 article by Peter Steinfels in the religion section of the New York Times. He reported the amazing achievement of scholar Barry Whitney:
On Finding Jesus
I'm here today to announce my conversion to Christianity. For several years now, I've been blogging at Debunking Christianity, and before that at my own site, arguing against what up until recently I saw as irrational beliefs. But last night, God spoke to me, and I am now saved. Praise the Lord!
Do A Vast Majority of Naturalists Hold To Naturalism Dogmatically and Unreflectively?
GCRR Announces the 2021 International eConference on Religious Trauma!
Religious trauma results from an event, series of events, relationships, or circumstances within or connected to religious beliefs, practices, or structures that is experienced by an individual as overwhelming or disruptive and has lasting adverse effects on a person’s physical, mental, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being.
The Persistence of Christian Crazy
“…it’s a problem for the rest of us…”
“Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” So said John the Baptist when he spotted Jesus heading toward him, according to the opening chapter of John’s gospel (v. 29). This gospel was written well after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 C.E. The Temple had been a great slaughterhouse, doing big business in the ritual killing of animals to atone for sins. John’s theology represents an adjustment, an upgrade from animal to human sacrifice: Jesus is the one and only Lamb whose death is needed to cancel sin. This is ancient superstition, a dramatic example of magical thinking, promoted even today by a vast church bureaucracy.
Dr. David Madison, Debunker Par Excellence!
I'm a big fan of former Methodist minister and biblical scholar Dr. David Madison, who no longer believes. He understands how best to debunk Christianity. It has to do a great deal with the Bible. Since the Bible makes atheists out of readers--doing so will shock you to the bone--then how much more does reading what Madison says about the Bible. He honors us at DC by writing weekly essays on Friday, plus so much more, as he's also an administrator. He honored me by asking for a Foreword to his book three years ago, Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief (2nd ed. 2018). With his permission, here it is:
The Paradoxes of Denying Infinity
It consists of two parts — the main blog post, plus (for those who want to delve a bit deeper into the issue) an addendum on the solution to Zeno's paradox:
Although it may be surprising, no claim I've made has been criticized more by the religious than the claim that there are actual infinities. Every time I so much as mention infinity, someone goes out of their way to "inform" me of the errors of my ways. And yet there appear to be clear cases of infinity all around us. For example, every time you move, you go through an infinite number of subintervals: You first go half of the way, then 3/4 of the way, followed by 7/8, 15/16, and so on, covering what is obviously an infinite series. Nevertheless, you are able to complete the motion.
Three Pillars of My Atheism
“We have in this century discovered our universe”
My focus in this article will not be suffering—colossal human and animal suffering—that is built into creation, and renders the concept of a caring, competent god incoherent and meaningless. There are three other realities that make Christian theology highly suspect, and contributed mightily to my rejection of the faith; that’s my focus here, but please be assured that the scale of suffering alone blasts Christianity out of the water. Nobody has said it better than Stephen Fry, when he was asked in an interview what he—an outspoken atheist—would say to God if the latter confronted him at the Pearly Gates:
“I’d say, bone cancer in children…what’s that about? How dare you? How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault. It's not right. It's utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world that is so full of injustice and pain? That's what I would say.”
Labels: Scale of the Universe
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
In Defense of the New Atheists: An Excerpt From My Book "Unapologetic"
It's time for atheist philosophers of religion to end their own sub-discipline under Philosophy proper. I explain in detail what I mean in my book Unapologetic: Why Philosophy of Religion Must End (2016). Below is an excerpt from it where I defend the new atheists Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Stenger from the philosophical elites. A few months ago I defended Hitchens' Razor. You can see the same dismissive attitude in both of these essays. I have no personal axe to grind. It's a principled disagreement. You can comment but before I'll respond you should first read my book.
Labels: Real Atheology
The College/Seminary/University Transcripts of John W. Loftus
A Flare-up of Atheism in 1849
“No preachers at my funeral, please”
Not long after the dawn of this new century, a New Atheism was born—at least it’s been called that. The best selling books by Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett stunned the Christian world: so much eloquent, outspoken criticism of theism. Perhaps the adjective “new” was meant to suggest that it was a fad, but these famous books spurred many other authors. By my count, well over four hundred books have now appeared since 2000, explaining in detail the falsification of theism, Christianity especially. These include, by the way, the five anthologies published by John Loftus—with two more in the works. In 2011, The Clergy Project was established, which is a support group for clergy who have become atheists. If there is no such thing as “new” atheism, there is a new level of energy and determination.