Reginald Finley is an internet sceptic. There are many such sceptics, who see themselves as part of a thriving community of thought, which in actuality amounts to a (virtual) crowd of usernames at internet forums who perceive themselves at the cutting edge of the genuinely critical approach to biblical studies. They are strident non-believers, they know that Jesus never existed, and they know – they are absolutely certain – that this is what the evidence shows. People who disagree are simply ignoring the evidence or are unwilling to challenge tradition.
Bart Ehrman is a New Testament critic. By that I mean that he’s a qualified, professional scholar who has expertise in textual criticism. In the past I’ve criticised Ehrman over what I take to be his rather sensationalist work, especially in the podcast episode Sexing Up Early Church History. I say that lest anyone think that I’m a fan of his. I’m not. As I explain in that episode, I think some of his theories about the way the church suppressed alternative books of the Bible are more at home in The Da Vinci code than in the classroom. Perhaps banking on the fact that a fellow non believer, and someone with a few degrees to boot, would come to the aid of the “Christ myth” theory, the fringe view that Jesus never existed, Finley broached the subject with Ehrman. You can tell from Finley’s reaction that he was unprepared for the reply.
At his Internet Infidels website and in a number of talks including a debate with Michael Licona on the Resurrection of Jesus, Richard Carrier presents an argument for “Why I Don’t Believe the Resurrection Story.” I have decided to put together a response to the reasons that Carrier offers for not believing in the resurrection of Jesus. This will be a series of three or four blog posts, and when complete I will make it available in the article section.
At his website, his presentation is divided into five sections: Main Argument / Rubicon Analogy, General Case for Insufficiency, Probability of Survival vs Miracle, General Case for Spiritual Resurrection, and Rebutting Lesser Arguments. Actually the section that drew my interest the most was Carrier’s arguments for a “spiritual resurrection.” His position is that the earliest biblical account of the resurrection of Jesus has nothing to say about Jesus actually coming back to life in any bodily sense. Instead, says Carrier, the first disciples of Jesus had either a vision or a dream of Jesus in heaven, and came to believe that in spite of his death, Jesus had spiritually survived in an immaterial form in heaven. I’ll say more about that later.
Out of convenience, I’ll divide my coverage of the arguments into five sections as Carrier did. For what it is worth, I commend to readers the debate that Carrier had with Michael Licona (see the link provided above) for a succinct, clear verbal presentation of Carrier’s position. Read the rest of the entry »
A conversation I had the other day reminded me of what is now a rather old argument in relation to the question of belief in God (old in terms of twentieth century arguments anyway). Essentially, the issue was this: If my purported experience of knowing God / knowing that God exists via some sort of intuition or any other sort of experience should count as a reason for me to believe in God, then why can’t somebody else’s atheist experience (or at least their testimony of it) count as a reason for me to not believe in God? I say that I have a direct knowledge of God’s existence (let’s say I do). But what about someone who has direct, intuitive knowledge of something like “there is nothing out there, there is no purpose at all to life”? Surely, it was suggested to me, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Read the rest of the entry »
On the evening of the 7th of April 2011 (the 8th of April here in New Zealand), Christian philosopher William Lane Craig debated Atheist author and speaker Sam Harris on the question Is Good from God? Brian Auten has made the mp3 audio of this debate available over at Apologetics 315.
What follows is my sketch of how the debate unfolded, along with my own analysis of the arguments used and how they contribute to an answer to the question in dispute. I emphasise that last aspect of my analysis, because It seemed to me that there was a tendency at points for comments and claims to be made which carried a certain degree of rhetorical flourish, but which, no matter how interesting they might be, drag the discussion off topic. This was the overriding impression that I got from much of what Dr Harris had to say in his rebuttal sections.
I won’t pretend that I don’t have a horse in this race. I have long believed that Harris is mistaken in his view that moral facts are simply scientific facts. His arguments in this debate, where they do address the subject of the debate, have been used before and carry all the same flaws that I have identified in the past. Conversely, I have long believed that William Lane Craig is largely correct in holding the position that he articulates in this debate (I say “largely” because I do have some foibles with one aspect of his position). Nonetheless, I self consciously try to advocate the positions that I do for good reasons, and I like to think that I advocate my position because of those reasons, rather than vice versa, and I have tried to evaluate the arguments used in this debate on the basis of the quality of the reasons that are given to accept them. The review is not intended to be in-depth. It is my assessment of how the debate went after listening to it twice (and replaying a few parts to make sure I understood what was being said). The review follows. Read the rest of the entry »
I know, I know. Pointing out that Richard Dawkins bungles the relationship between science and religion is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. Next to getting confused about what arguments for religious belief actually say, he has built the latter part of his career on the practice of being wrong about the relationship between religion and science. Still, it’s worth noting the occasions where he does this if only for the purpose of serving as a voice of reason against the choir of adoring Dawkinites.
The late Steven Jay Gould described the relationship between religion and science with the acronym NOMA: Non-overlapping magisteria. They are completely separate fields. Science investigates purely natural phenomena, and religion asks – well, religious questions; questions about theology, about God, about questions about subject matter that’s not part of “nature.” I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with Gould, just setting the scene, as Dawkins’ comments are given as his reason for rejecting NOMA. He has to reject it, of course. Richard Dawkins holds a view that is sometimes derisively called “scientism,” the belief that science is the proper way to investigate all questions of fact. If it’s a fact, then it’s something for science to investigate.
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.
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. Read the rest of the entry »
John Dominic Crossan, the late Robert Funk, John Shelby Spong, or New Zealand’s own Lloyd Geering. All call themselves Christians, none of them believe that God exists (except in some emotive or mythological manner), and all are adamant that Christianity should change. It should give up belief in a personal creator, in myths about miracles, in nonsense about bodily resurrections from the dead, and so on. Christianity must get with the times and become relevant, and in our day and age people just can’t believe in such silliness.
One of the goals of liberal theology is to give Christianity a modern acceptability. People can’t believe in ancient superstitions these days, we are told, but they can believe in “God” if by God we mean the goodness in the world. People can believe in the resurrection of Jesus, if by “resurrection” we mean the survival of (some of) his moral teachings in the lives of his followers, and so on.
These folks don’t want to abandon Christianity, according to them. Not at all. They want to see Christianity get real, they would tell us. They are making the Christian faith credible. Or are they?
Firstly, there’s a rather noticeable pointlessness at work here. Why do these men identify with Christianity? Given what they actually believe, why position themselves in the church? Take their belief that there is no being called God and that Jesus was a wonderful human teacher and nothing more. There already exist religions that teach this – certain forms of Buddhism, for example. What is it that actually distinguishes their view from other views by calling it Christian? Nothing, as far as I can tell.
Secondly there’s a palpable dishonesty at work here too. If you’re going to present ideas, it’s helpful to name them. But if you name them, you need to be conscious of the fact that some names are already taken, and already have meaning. Some of these names are covered by copyright (such as Coca Cola), so you wouldn’t be able to use those, but others aren’t. When you identify as a Christian theologian and say “I believe that God exists and that Jesus rose from the dead,” you’re using terminology and also theological phrases and concepts that have recognisable meaning. In a Christian context there’s an existing understanding of what those concepts are and what those terms mean. God is the being who created the Universe, and Jesus rose from the dead by coming back to life and exiting his tomb. That’s what Christians have always meant when they say those things. But how honest is it to say “I’m a Christian, God exists, and Jesus rose from the dead” when what you actually mean is “I have a healthy respect for the teachings of a man who was no saviour, I believe that there is such a thing as goodness, and Jesus’ teachings still have some relevance for today”? Surely the respectable thing to say is “Look, Christianity is false, there’s no God, but we can still gleam a thing or two from what Jesus said.”
Take John Dominic Crossan. He took exception to the fact that William Lane Craig said that he was an atheist. He insisted that he really did believe in God – provided by “God” we mean a subjective projection of believers onto the universe. Listen as Craig recalls the discussion between the two:
Thirdly, there is no evidence at all that what these people have cobbled together is a version of Christianity that has any “street cred” at all. It is not, as they had hoped, a version that has more secular respectability in the modern world. The very reverse seems to be the case. For one, modern secular minds just aren’t that easily fooled. Marylin Sewell, a retired Unitarian minister, shares much in common with the names listed at the start of this blog entry. She interviewed “new atheist” Christopher Hitchens and put to him the idea that her liberal Christianity would survive the attacks in his book.
Sewell: The religion you cite in your book is a generally fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make any distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?
Hitchens: I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.
Sewell: Let me go someplace else. When I was in seminary, I was particularly drawn to the work of theologian Paul Tillich. He shocked people by describing the traditional God—as you might, as a matter of fact—as “an invincible tyrant.” For Tillich, God is “the ground of being.” It’s his response to, say, Freud’s belief that religion is mere wish fulfilment and comes from humans’ fear of death. What do you think of Tillich’s concept of God?
Hitchens: I would classify that under the heading of Statements That Have No Meaning—At All.
I have no doubt that for people who – for whatever reason – have an emotional or wistful connection to chapels, ecclesiastical robes and moving liturgy but who cannot stomach the perceived balderdash about inconvenient things like God, liberal (or “progressive”) Christianity is perceived as more intellectually respectable and credible. But those on the outside are a little more discerning and quite frankly aren’t this easily duped. However wrong they might be, they are not uniformly stupid. The genuinely honest and self respecting thing would be to stop receiving the church salary or pension, stop using its land, buildings and resources, admit that you reject Christianity outright and be done with it. Do something a little less duplicitous with your life. Start your own religion if you must, but face the fact that a more respectable version of religion is not what you have created.
Eugene Genovese’s reaction is perfectly understandable:
I would not presume to tell Christians how to be Christians, but I must confess that I cannot understand how Christians, without ceasing to be Christians, can retreat one inch from a belief that Jesus is the second person of a triune God, the Christ, the redeemer. If other religions offer equally valid ways to salvation and if Christianity itself may be understood solely as a code of morals and ethics, then we may as well all become Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, or, better, atheists. I intend no offense, but it takes one to know one. And when I read much protestant theology and religious history today, I have the warm feeling that I am in the company of fellow nonbelievers.
Eugene D. Genovese “Marxism, Christianity and Bias in the Study of Southern Slave Society,” in Bruce Kuklick and Darryl G. Hart (eds), Religious Advocacy and American History (Eerdmans, 1997), 90.
Thinking that you’ll appeal to secular thinkers this way is a bit like me thinking I’ll start attracting men if I become a cross dresser. I promise you: It wouldn’t work.
This random thought was prompted by me hearing a radio interview with Dinesh D’Souza today. It seems to me that in the wake of obvious defeats in public debates, some atheists throw their former champions under a bus.
When Bill Cooke debated William Lane Craig on the existence of God, Dr Cooke very clearly lost. This was the assessment of those who observed on the whole, regardless of whether they wrere a religious believer or not. The New Zealand atheists (e.g. folks supportive of the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists) who were keen to see the debate happen changed their tune and decided that Bill Cooke just wasn’t a good representative of their viewpoint, and that’s why the debate turned out that way.
When John Loftus debated Dinesh D’Souza on the existence of God – and Mr Loftus unambiguously went down in flames, the atheists who were keen to see the debate happen (e.g. those supportive of John’s labours at the Debunking Christianity blog) changed their tune and decided that John Loftus just wasn’t a good representative of their viewpoint, and that’s why the debate turned out that way.
When Raymond Bradley debated Matthew Flannagan on whether or not it’s rational to think that God is the source of morality – and very clearly lost, the atheists who were keen to see the debate happen changed their tune and decided that Raymond Bradley just wasn’t a good representative of their viewpoint, and that’s why the debate turned out that way.
I wonder what those same atheists would have thought had been established if, in any of these cases, they had thought that their man had won. Would the only telling oucome have been if the atheist won? Is there anyone who would be a good representative? It seems they think their spokespeople are just devastating – until they are actually put to the test.
At his 
A conversation I had the other day reminded me of what is now a rather old argument in relation to the question of belief in God (old in terms of twentieth century arguments anyway). Essentially, the issue was this: If my purported experience of knowing God / knowing that God exists via some sort of intuition or any other sort of experience should count as a reason for me to believe in God, then why can’t somebody else’s atheist experience (or at least their testimony of it) count as a reason for me to not believe in God? I say that I have a direct knowledge of God’s existence (let’s say I do). But what about someone who has direct, intuitive knowledge of something like “there is nothing out there, there is no purpose at all to life”? Surely, it was suggested to me, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. 
On the evening of the 7th of April 2011 (the 8th of April here in New Zealand), Christian philosopher William Lane Craig debated Atheist author and speaker Sam Harris on the question Is Good from God? Brian Auten has made 
I know, I know. Pointing out that Richard Dawkins bungles the relationship between science and religion is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. Next to getting confused about what arguments for religious belief actually say, he has built the latter part of his career on the practice of being wrong about the relationship between religion and science. Still, it’s worth noting the occasions where he does this if only for the purpose of serving as a voice of reason against the choir of adoring Dawkinites.
At the request of a couple of listeners, this episode is a response to the documentary: Zeitgeist.
John Dominic Crossan, the late Robert Funk, John Shelby Spong, or New Zealand’s own 
This random thought was prompted by me hearing a radio interview with Dinesh D’Souza today. It seems to me that in the wake of obvious defeats in public debates, some atheists throw their former champions under a bus.