I will admit to jumping on a bandwagon with this one. A good recent post over at MandM alerted me to just how far and wide the phenomenon of apparently ignorant evangelicals bashing William Lane Craig is spreading based on something he said recently. Since such uninformed critique seems to spread like wildfire, I thought I would add my voice to those defending Dr Craig and calling our fellow evangelical Christians to be a little more patient and careful – as well as striving to be better informed about the theological issues we discuss.
Interested? Read the rest.

At the request of a couple of listeners, this episode is a response to the documentary: Zeitgeist.

As I promised in the episode, here are a few links.

First, a link to some astronomical illustrations: http://www.tracer345.org/zeitgeist.html

And here are the links to my three part blog series on evidence for the historical Jesus outside the New Testament, as promised:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

You might also find it helpful to check out my previous blogs on copycat theories about the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

Episode 038: Zeitgeist Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

It’s Christmas! Why are you reading a blog?

Merry Christmas

OK so it’s not really all that interesting, but I’ve just changed the structure of permalinks at this blog. Permalinks are links to individual posts.

Take my last post on Ricky Gervais’s silly comments about God. The link to that post used to look like this:

http://www.beretta-online.com/wordpress/index.php/why-ricky-gervais-is-a-comedian/

See that index.php in the middle? That’s ugly. I’m not really sure when or why I set it up that way, but it’s different now. Now the link would look like this:

http://www.beretta-online.com/wordpress/2010/why-ricky-gervais-is-a-comedian/

Much nicer. This applies to all links to previous posts. Fortunately, any permalinks out there that were written prior to today will still work.

Ricky Gervais has given us all a cheery holiday message about why he’s an atheist.

People who believe in God don’t need proof of his existence, and they certainly don’t want evidence to the contrary. They are happy with their belief. They even say things like “it’s true to me” and “it’s faith”. I still give my logical answer because I feel that not being honest would be patronizing and impolite. It is ironic therefore that “I don’t believe in God because there is absolutely no scientific evidence for his existence and from what I’ve heard the very definition is a logical impossibility in this known universe”, comes across as both patronizing and impolite.
Arrogance is another accusation. Which seems particularly unfair. Science seeks the truth. And it does not discriminate. For better or worse it finds things out. Science is humble. It knows what it knows and it knows what it doesn’t know. It bases its conclusions and beliefs on hard evidence -­? evidence that is constantly updated and upgraded. It doesn’t get offended when new facts come along. It embraces the body of knowledge. It doesn’t hold on to medieval practices because they are tradition. If it did, you wouldn’t get a shot of penicillin, you’d pop a leach down your trousers and pray. Whatever you “believe”, this is not as effective as medicine. Again you can say, “It works for me”, but so do placebos. My point being, I’m saying God doesn’t exist. I’m not saying faith doesn’t exist. I know faith exists. I see it all the time. But believing in something doesn’t make it true. Hoping that something is true doesn’t make it true. The existence of God is not subjective. He either exists or he doesn’t. It’s not a matter of opinion. You can have your own opinions. But you can’t have your own facts.

There are a few claims here:

• People who believe in God say (of their belief in God) things like “it’s true to me.”
• Ricky Gervais has heard that the definition of God is a logical impossibility
• There is no scientific evidence for God
• Science seeks the truth (and by implication) finds out the truth about whether or not God exists. Since there’s no scientific evidence that God exists, God doesn’t exist.

Now, I don’t know what it is about an endearing comedian (or actors generally, I’ve noticed) that makes people treat their comments on religion, politics and the environment as though they should be listened to. I’m reminded of the pretension of the Film Actor’s Guild in Team America: World Police. But if Gervais’s comments here are anything to go by, he doesn’t offer anything that isn’t provided by scores of internet message board inhabitants on a daily basis.

First is the suggestion (echoed elsewhere by Christopher Hitchens) that theists say of their belief that “it’s true for me.” It may not be true for you, but it’s my truth, whatever yours might be. I’m never really sure where this myth came from – that believers in God accept some sort of relativism when it comes to the truth. All sorts of conflicting outlooks can be true – true for the peoples who believe them. But it’s a rather obvious straw man, It is in conservative Christianity more than any other place that I have encountered the strongest opposition to exactly this type of relativism – so much so that evangelicals are frequently dismissed as “absolutist” or “dogmatic.” Whetever phenomenon Gervais is commenting on, Christians can simply ignore it.

Second, Ricky Gervais has heard (where he heard it, we’re not told) that the definition of God is a logical impossibility. He doesn’t give any reasons for believing that it’s true, he simply tells us that he’s heard it. But so what? I’ve heard a lot of things. In fact I’ve even heard that God, far from being impossible, is a necessary being. So Mr Gervais has heard one thing and I’ve heard the opposite. Perhaps we should arm wrestle to decide who’s right? This kind of hearsay argument hardly inspires confidence.

Third, fourth, and fifth, and in spite of repeated and rather desperate sounding denials on the part of some atheists, Gervais spells out and endorses scientism the view that the sciences are the only way to know anything. If there’s no scientific evidence (that is, no physical proof) that God exists, then that means he doesn’t exist – a premise that stands or falls on the rather circular assumption that only things that are physically testable can exist (to say nothing of being a rather obvious argument from alleged silence).

This stuff will, no doubt, be quoted by armchair atheists as serious, crushing and worthy reasoning that Christians everywhere just ignore, or can’t answer. Why wouldn’t they quote it? After all, it has the right conclusion, and for some, that’s all that matters.

It’s interesting to read Gervais’s own account of how and why he became an atheist:

But anyway, there I was happily drawing my hero when my big brother Bob asked, “Why do you believe in God?” Just a simple question. But my mum panicked. “Bob” she said in a tone that I knew meant, “Shut up.” Why was that a bad thing to ask? If there was a God and my faith was strong it didn’t matter what people said.
Oh … hang on. There is no God. He knows it, and she knows it deep down. It was as simple as that. I started thinking about it and asking more questions, and within an hour, I was an atheist.

Wow. No God.

This strikes me as the norm, to be honest. When telling us why he’s an atheist, Gervais told us earlier that it’s because of scientific and logical considerations. But this is simple nonsense. He adopted atheism for no scientific or logical reason at all. The move was impulsive and grounded entirely in personal relationships. He realised that other people didn’t believe, so he no longer believed. In giving what he thinks are scientific reasons, Gervais is rationalising a position that he adopted long before science or logic entered the picture – more or less the same thing that Christians are frequently accused of doing.

Mr Gervais, you’re a very talented and funny man. Please stick to the comedy. Thanks.

Glenn Peoples

I recently finished reading Erik Wielenberg’s book Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe. I’ve already commented a couple of times on crucial junctures in that book where the author’s argument against theologically grounded ethics depends heavily on conceptual confusion and misrepresentation.

It would get a bit tedious to write a blog entry every time I come across a significant shortcoming of this sort in the book, just because – with all due respect – there are quite a few at various junctures. Although there are more examples that could serve as the basis of more short posts identifying and responding to what I think are errors of one sort or another in this book, this will be the last such post. At some point in the future if I have time I may write a review and put it in the articles section.

After addressing – so he thinks – the view that God must exist if there are any moral facts, Dr Wielenberg begins to consider what value and virtue look like in a world where God does not exist. One of the claims he makes – and this is the subject of this blog post – is that if atheism is true, then we can perform a much more moral deed than we could ever perform if Christianity were true. Now of course, I think this claim collapses from the outset because I don’t think Wielenberg – or atheism in general – is able to provide a cogent account of moral facts at all, but I’m setting that aside for now for the sake of focusing on a different claim.
Interested? Read the rest.

[Time for another foray into biblical studies. I thought it might be fun (???) to post some excerpts from previous work I have done at the University of Otago when completing my Master's Degree in Theology. This is the first such example, slightly adapted from my thesis on the modern role of biblical law.]

One of the issues that will affect the discussion of the continuity of the law’s authority is the question of categories of law. When theologians and biblical scholars speak of categories of law, what is usually in mind is a distinction between moral and ceremonial law. Can we legitimately speak of categories of biblical law, and if so, how do we go about recognising them?
Interested? Read the rest.

Have you ever had anyone say this? Maybe you’ve said it yourself. Two people are in a disagreement, and one of them gets sick of the discussion and blurts out “You always think you’re right!”

Never mind the fact that if somebody says this, it’s likely that they’ve had a few disagreements with you in the past and always thought that they were right. There’s something more important than hypocrisy here. People who say this must surely think that they are accusing the other person of thinking or acting in a way that they ought not. You’re somehow arrogant if you always think that your right. But think about what they’re saying. How might you deny this accusation? There’s really only one way to deny it, namely by saying: “No, that’s not true. Sometimes I believe and say things that I myself think are wrong.” But who does this? You would deserve a pretty strange look if this was your reply. This is just a confusion of language, because to “think” something is to believe it – that is, to believe that it’s true. When I say, “that was a really bad thing to do,” and someone asks me “do you think so?” they are being rhetorical. Of course I think so, because that’s what it is to believe something – to think that it is so. This is not arrogance. It is sanity.

Every time you think that something is true, you think that you’re right. Otherwise you’re a living contradiction. You think something is the case and you don’t think that it’s the case. Now, it’s possible that when someone says “You always think you’re right,” what they really want to say is “you never listen.” But if that’s what they mean, then that’s what they should say, instead of something crazy. Maybe if you listened, you would change your mind and form a new belief. But you’d still think you were right (unless you thought that your new belief was false, which would, again, be insane).

There’s a difference, of course, between always thinking that you are right on the one hand, and thinking that you’re always right on the other. You should always think that you’re right – in fact you can’t do anything else if you’re a sane person. But you should think twice about saying that you’re always right.

Always thinking that you are right just means that on any given occasion, you believe (i.e. affirm) what you believe (duh). Another way to express this is: “I am not wrong.” Thinking that you are always right means that you believe that on all occasions, what you believe is true. Another way to express this is “I am never wrong.” And that, in my books, counts as arrogant.

[Normal people can stop reading now]

As an observation on similarity, confusing these two sentences:

• Always, I think I am right.

and

• I think that I am always right

Is a lot like confusing these two sentences, which some philosophers have done:

• Necessarily, if God knows that p will c at t, then p will c at t.

and

• If God knows that p will c at t, then p will necessarily c at t.

And if discussions around molinism have shown anything, it is that this is confusion of the highest order.

Glenn Peoples