2019-08-05T16:12:10-04:00

The following “replies” took place on the Debunking Christianity website in early August 2019, underneath the post, “Things We Wish Jesus Hadn’t Said” (7-21-19), by Dr. David Madison. The sky fell down because (lowly ignorant Christian that I am) I dared to write (and announce there) a refutation of one of twelve podcasts that Dr. Madison presented in his article (I’ll be writing many more, too: possibly replies to all twelve).  Words of the attackers will be in various colors:

sir_russ = blue

Jim Mallett = green

Zeta = purple 

Zarquon5 = brown

John W. Loftus = red

*****

I have now thoroughly replied to the supposed “embarrassment” of what Jesus said about “hating” families:

Dr. David Madison vs. Jesus #1: Hating One’s Family?

Let me say I am nowhere near as educated as most on this blog in refuting believers. But, in reading your “defense” on your blog. I can safely say all you have succeeded to accomplish is to quote bible verses to prove the bible true. Not impressed. Sorry bud, it doesn’t work that way with unbelievers Also, a little advice, don’t link your blog on Mr. Lofus’ blog. If you want traffic, do it somewhere else.

I’m not trying to prove the Bible to be true by citing it. That would be circular reasoning. I’m trying to prove that the Bible teaches x in verse y: a completely different thing. Dr. Madison claimed that Jesus taught believers that we ought to literally hate our families. I showed that He did no such thing.

Whether one believes that the Bible is inspired or that Jesus said these utterances is a completely separate question (as Dr. Madison himself acknowledged). It need not be presupposed in order to assert that the Bible teaches thus-and-so on topic z.

I linked to my reply to the piece above this combox. This is what I consider a courtesy. I do quite well in traffic. I’m generally in the top three on the Catholic Patheos channel.

Why should I or anyone else give a s*%$ about your interpretation of the bible? Convince me in ONE sentence why I should believe you. No bible quotes, just your own words. What makes you so special among the millions and millions of apologists who spout the same tired defense?

Why does god need your need help relaying what he really meant? That is the funniest part about preachers and apologists. Hilarious..

Eat another jesus wafer, then spend some time pondering why your Catholic church fathers have committed so many heinous crimes.

“Smart people learn from everything and everyone, average people from their experiences, stupid people already have all the answers.”

— Socrates

The fact that Armstrong’s god needs preachers and apologists to explain what he really wants to say is indeed hilarious. And in a big way too. Exhibits include

Norman L. Geisler’s 864-page (!) tome:
Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics

or his 672-page tome
The Big Book of Christian Apologetics: An A to Z Guide

All these just show that this god (if it exists) is truly an extremely poor communicator, not worthy of the fantastic attributes that it supposedly has. Lots of human authors have done or can do a much better job. Apologetics on this scale is a slap on the face (if it has one) of this god.

Yet another person who refuses to discuss the topic at hand. It’s equal parts ridiculous and entertaining.

[Mallett “responded” with this meme]:

Again, your defense is to site bible verses and quote other apologists. Is that supposed to impress anyone?

The word is “cite”, not “site.”

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Wow my phone used the wrong word. Never happen to you? What do you think of the pic? Try to defend your Big Papi and his cronies with all their billions of dollars, while millions live in squalor and starve to death.

“Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

I think it’s more evidence that you are an intellectual coward. It’s still zero interaction with / refutation of my counter-reply from anyone.

You sir are typical arrogant, self delusional, who is blind to the horrible &*%$#@^ atrocities your own &*%$#@^ church has done for thousands of years. First, refute why your priests like to &*%$ little boys.

Deal with your anger issues, then come back and provide rational, on-topic replies to my reply to Dr. Madison. Thanks!

You might know this one. Just insert yourself where the word”fool” is used.

Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
or you yourself will be just like him.
Answer a fool according to his folly,
or he will be wise in his own eyes.
Sending a message by the hands of a fool
is like cutting off one’s feet or drinking poison.

***

Dr. David Madison replied to someone else:

The gospels are riddled with contradictions and bad theology, and Jesus is so frequently depicted as a cult fanatic—because cult fanatics wrote the gospels. We see Jesus only through their theological filters. I just want to grab hold of Christian heads (standing behind them, with a hand on each ear) and force them to look straight ahead, unflinchingly, at the gospels, and then ask “Tell me what you see!” uncoached by apologist specialists, i.e., priests and pastors, who’ve had a lot of practice making bad texts look good.

Richard Carrier rates the existence of Jesus, 1 chance in 3, and he is highly critical of shoddy arguments that have been advanced by some mythicists. I don’t say to Christians, “Aha, he never existed.” At the end of the day I never claim that. But I DO say, “Deal with the really bad stuff in the gospels.” Are you SURE you’ve not make a big mistake endorsing this particular Lord and Savior? That’s the whole point of this series of Flash Podcasts, because a helluva lot of Christians would agree, right away, that these quotes are bad news—if no one told then that they’ve been attributed to Jesus.

“Deal with the really bad stuff in the gospels.”

Not so much “bad” as wildly misunderstood and miscomprehended by critics. Usually, I’ve found that it is either misunderstanding linguistic genres and context, or so-called “contradictions” which really aren’t at all (from a strictly logical standpoint).

That’s what I have invariably found, in my scores and scores of replies to such charges. I have a very extensive web page of critiques of atheism, and I would like to tackle some of your claims here, over the next week or so, depending on how much is involved and time-permitting.

[Jim Mallett “replied” with this meme]:

Mock away. Meanwhile, I have just completed my counter-reply, which I shall post in this combox. You’re welcome (along with Dr. Madison) to overcome it with rational argument rather than memes. I surely won’t hold my breath.

2000 years have passed, yet YOU have the key to understanding the New Testament. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Yeah, I won’t hold my breath either.

Right. Well, I won’t expect any substance from you. But thanks for the chuckle.

Jesus wasn’t Divine because nobody is Divine. If God brought light to Judea, he would bring it again, today, practically everywhere, because there are now places worse than Jesus ever saw. There you go, not a meme in sight.

No meme, but also no interaction whatever with the topic at hand: whether the real Jesus or (as one might think) the fictional “Jesus” portrayed in the Bible taught folks to literally hate their families.

You said, “whether the real Jesus or (as one might think) the fictional “Jesus” portrayed in the Bible taught folks to literally hate their families.”

From my standpoint, what the Bible’s Jesus character said or did not say is not as important as, say, Christians today abusing and killing children as witches. [link given] Are you one of those Christians? Is that how you read the Bible? If you are not one of those Christians, do you realize that there really are Christians who kill children today as witches? Just as an idea maybe you could fix children being killed in the name of the Bible, and then work your way back to quibbling about what words are associated with the Bible’s Jesus character.

I’m sure that ironing out all the bugaboos of exactly what the Jesus character said is a real important way to spend one’s time. But, it seems to me that Christians have more urgent matters to address.

I ain’t gonna be distracted from the topic at hand. Nice try. If the topic is so utterly unimportant in your eyes, then take it up with Dr. Madison, who seems to think it was important enough to devote 12 podcasts to it.

I imagine you as one of those philosophical hacks who, like all the others, has nothing that would show anything Christian specific to be true. What you work from is the assumption: let’s pretend Christianity is true. Then, you beat the snot out of Biblical semantics. Fun, but really no point to it.

I think it’s really important to note that if the Bible was dictated, handed down, or inspired by the creator of the universe, then the creator of the universe is one piss poor author or muse. And, your need to fight over silly words put into the mouth of a fictional character in a book of fairy tales just underscores that.

A matter of much greater concern to all Christians should be that if Bible-God and Bible-Jesus were real and really cared about people, why did they write such a shit book. A book so s*&%$# that it has you, Dave Armstrong, up in arms over a trifle. You’re twisting yourself in knots, itching for a fight, about a few words in a book that the people who say they believe in it won’t even read. Not exactly a glowing endorsement.

Here are some links to Christians and others fighting about the same topic. Stop acting as if one has to see the world differently than you do to get “Jesus wants me to hate my family” from the Bible. [six links provided]

These are all from Christian or Jewish sites.

If I’m such an idiot and a hack, then by all means refute my counter-replies to Dr. Madison (which will be three after I post two more in the next 90 minutes). We’re all waiting with baited breath. Put up or shut up. Can’t you figure out by now that I don’t play your games?

You said, ” I have a very extensive web page of critiques of atheism,”

That is all well and good, but a criticism of one thing, here atheism, is not the same as proving that some other thing, here Christian theism(or any theism for that matter), is true, is it?

Before you try to impress or baffle or b&%^$#*@ us with your critiques of atheism, just do us the favor of showing us that anything Christian specific is true.

For instance, if Christian theism is true and there really is a god who answers prayers, we should see how the quality of life for those who are more faithful is observably better than the quality of life for those who are less faithful – especially atheists, but not excluding persons from other religious faiths and, of course, not excluding all those wrong types of Christians.

The most faithful of Christians in the US are found in the Bible Belt. Every year they rank at the top of religious observation among US states. So how do they rank for overall quality of life? That’s altogether different. Essentially every measure of personal and social well-being ranks them right at the bottom.

If a Christian god is real and the US Bible Belt Christians exemplify what it does for those who are the most faithful, I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with it anyway. It appears that those who believe most strongly get s%$# on the most. I like people; I don’t want that for anyone.

So have at it. Show us. If we’ve heard it all before, we’ll let you know.

I’m not here at the moment to prove that Christianity is true (though I’d be happy to do that in another context). I’m not here to do the “101 topics all at once” routine. I’m here to specifically critique Dr. Madison’s claims about Jesus. And I’ve only just begun.

So far, not one peep from him or anyone else here about my present argument. But that’s just how it usually goes with atheists, which is not particularly an indication that y’all (generally speaking) are confident about the criticisms of Christianity that you set forth. Otherwise you would defend them when they are scrutinized.

Now perhaps Dr. Madison has been detained and still intends to do so, and there can actually be intelligent, substantive atheist-Christian discussion about what Scripture teaches in specific passages. I hope so, and we’ll see. It very rarely happens once a Christian makes a plausible critique of atheist “exegesis.”

As Dr. Madison himself stated in this combox: “You have not addressed the issues that I raise, but move right away to obfuscation.” I know the feeling well!

The matter of what the Bible’s Jesus character said seems to be real important to you, but we know it’s essentially meaningless to Christians in general. How do we know?: Christians can’t even be bothered to read it. Christians literally spend more time reading horoscopes than they spend reading Bibles.

You said,

Now perhaps Dr. Madison has been detained and still intends to do so,
and there can actually be intelligent, substantive atheist-Christian
discussion about what Scripture teaches in specific passages. I hope so,
and we’ll see. It very rarely happens once a Christian makes a
plausible critique of atheist “exegesis.”

So do you imagine yourself to the “Christian answer man”? Let me clue you in: you’re not. You have your opinion, but the Bible is so confused, incoherent, and inscrutable that PhD’s from every seminary and school of divinity fight over everything associated with Christianity. What you say is nothing more than one more opinion among millions.

Some Christians say god is real; others, not so much.
Some Christians say Jesus answers prayers; others say nope.

No one need accept what you happen to imagine as the “God’s honest truth” about anything Christian.

As far as anyone can tell the Bible’s Jesus character is just one more fictional creature.

***

You said, “I have now thoroughly replied to the supposed “embarrassment” of what Jesus said about “hating” families:”
You obviously accept it as an embarrassment, that is why you responded with more than 3,000 words of that mental masturbation called apologetics. You cite opinion after opinion to justify your opinion concerning David Madison’s opinion. And, then you bring your whiny assed Christian apologist self here to piss and moan about not being engaged.

Oh, wow, I just looked at comment counts on your blog. You are really desperate for blog traffic aren’t you.

You should start a new blog, one that is more honestly titled: Dave Armstrong Whiny Assed Catholic-type Christian Apologist. It’s a far more catchy title, and much closer to the truth.

As I said earlier, if that oh-so-stupid self-appointed creator of the universe you call God didn’t want there to be confusion it should have written a better book. That’s what real entities do. Matters are even worse for your mythical God because it is also claimed that it knew all this confusion was going to happen before it wrote the book. Wow. How totally screwed is that. How screwed is the book? Let’s see now: lots of Judaisms comes from the book; numerous Islams comes from the book; and tens of thousands of Christianities, including a glut of Catholicisms. Yeah, the book is totally screwed.

Ain’t is lucky we got Dave Armstrong beating his head against a wall to sort it all out for us. Cuz Dave Armstrong really, really knows. Only about almost all of Christianity and the rest of humanity ignore or disagree with him. That puts him a pretty exclusive club. Imagine that!: a Christian apologist lost in his own little philosophical construction of a Christianity. We’ve only seen a few thousand of those before.

You show yourself quite the colorful figure and pompous ass. These techniques don’t work with me. If you know so much, then you’d simply respond rationally to what I wrote instead of immediately going to ad hominem and obfuscation and throwing tons of manure against the wall, hoping some of it will stick.

It’s terrifically entertaining, though. I do grant you that much.

***

Why don’t you explain why a supposedly omniscient god needs apologists like you to explain what he wants to tell humans? Can’t he do it properly in the first place? Why does he need people like you to act as a middle man?

Off-topic yet again, but just this once: Why We Should Fully Expect Many “Bible Difficulties”.

Thanks for the response. I have just read your post. Some of the points you made are laughable, especially when you attempt to compare your holy book to scientific theories.

Yahweh was a local war deity invented in the ancient Near East, later promoted by his believers to be the Creator god endowed with fantastic attributes. If the father god is imaginary, so is the son. So, to me, your holy book is largely fiction.

Since you are not going to continue this discussion, I’ll also stop here.

As expected. Be well. I continue to await even the slightest response to my three critiques. The fact that none has been forthcoming leads me to suspect that there are no good replies; that the ability to do so is lacking. Why not blow the lowly and ignorant Christian’s arguments out of the water? But no one has yet done so; no one has even tried at all.

Since this comment is a reply to my previous comment, I need to add on to what I said before: Your holy book is largely a work of fiction about an invented god. From my point of view, what is the point of wading through piles of word salad that seek to defend an embarrassing verse from a piece of fictional work?

Thus, the thought of “loving Jesus more than one’s own family” is expressed by the non-literal “hate [one’s family, in order to] be my disciple.”

This is just shameless whitewashing. Why was the very strong word ‘hate’ used in the first place when the intended meaning could be very easily expressed in another way? This is a confirmation of what I said before: “All these just show that this god (if it exists) is truly an extremely poor communicator, not worthy of the fantastic attributes that it supposedly has. 

***

You quoted Socrates: “Smart people learn from everything and everyone, average people from their experiences, stupid people already have all the answers.”

I think it odd that you would highlight a quote that automatically places Christians into the “stupid people” category. Christians think they have all the answers, and, thus, are stupid people. And, those like you, Dave Armstrong, who have a deep enough understanding to know that Christianity is false (many of your blog posts support this) and, yet, still defend it for money, power, authority or social status, are plainly immoral.

You seem so very butthurt in your statement: “Why not blow the lowly and ignorant Christian’s arguments out of the water? But no one has yet done so; no one has even tried at all.”

Until someone can show that anything Christian specific is true, Christianity remains no closer to truth than any other mythology. There is no reason at all for anyone to indulge your fetish for philosophically pounding the s%$# out of mythological trivialities.

The number [of] comments and visitors on your blog demonstrate how you are quite capable of delivering long-winded explications to an empty house. You need no one else to be involved.

As a matter of record, I have had my blog at Patheos almost exactly four years (since 4 August 2015), and according to Google Analytics, my total page views over that period is 2,132,645, or an average of 1461 views per day average, the entire time.

That’s a helluva lot of people for an “empty house” ain’t it?

To approach it another way: let’s descend down to your silly level of insults-only and fallacies, and see how well it works, in terms of this “argument” of yours. In your mentality, all that matters is how many page views and comments one can obtain (which is, of course, the ad populum fallacy). The actual strength or merits of one’s arguments or the amount of truth and facts in them don’t matter a hill of beans.

So, adopting this goofy outlook, we see that Dr. Madison garnered 923 views of his first podcast in this series of twelve. It was posted on April 10th. My critique of it, on the other hand, has gotten 203 views in four days, which is an average of about fifty per day, compared to Dr. Madison’s average of eight per day over the time it’s been up. Therefore (by your “reasoning”) my post is more than six times more truthful and worthy of attention than Dr. Madison’s.

Remember, you, Dave Armstrong, are already, as a Christian, one of the stupid people who has all the answers. Worse yet, you, Dave Armstrong, are on one of those really stupid who defines themselves as having all the answers.

You said, “As expected. Be well. I continue to await even the slightest response to my three critiques. The fact that none has been forthcoming leads me to suspect that there are no good replies; that the ability to do so is lacking.”

You are correct. There are no good replies to the application of philosophy to fairy tales.

When a book, in this case the Bible, includes talking snakes, witches, demons, resurrections, immoral dictates from a rather hollow “supreme being”, and many, many factual errors about the world, an intelligent critical thinker can only conclude that the book is a fairy tale. To then apply philosophy to it, seriously apply it as you, Dave Armstrong, do, is pure farce. It doesn’t deserve serious consideration. Yeah, one can play with the semantics as an intellectual game, just as with any book, but, you, Dave Armstrong, are waging jihad for Jesus. Sadly, though, since you, Dave Armstrong, are a stupid Christian who has all the answers already, you could have your ass handed to you, and you would go off and, nonetheless, declare victory, so playing your game would be of no value to anyone. Since you are a stupid Christian, you have lost the capacity to learn what’s true about the world.

If you could show anything Christian specific to be true, you would. But, you can’t show anything Christian specific to be true so you want someone to join you in a dive into the cesspool of philosophy over useless trivialities about the Bible’s Jesus character. Too bad the authors of the Bible were not more than ignorant, barbaric and superstitious people; maybe they would have written a better book; maybe even a “good” book.

You said, “You show yourself quite the colorful figure and pompous ass.”

Actually, no, I am not a pompous ass, though, I might be a bit colorful. I am, however, accustomed to reading apologists who have defined themselves as having all the answers, despite all the rest of us being able to recognize that they don’t. You, Dave Armstrong. and your silly church do not have all the answers. Fact is, you have almost none. Maybe Friday fish fries and Bingo are good ideas, but nothing Christian specific makes sense at all.

Show me that you can show anything Christian specific to be true and I will give full consideration to other Biblical topics. I don’t want to waste time fiddling with fairy tales.

***

What does it say that you have about 46 comments for your last 20 essays? Given your mean spirited attitude, one probable interpretation is that your headlines grab attention from the massive amount of readers attracted to Patheos. But when people see how you treat others they leave you to your anger. And you are angry. That is clear. You hate people who disagree with you, which actually proves Dr. Madison’s point, that Jesus wants you to hate others in deference to him. Readers see this quickly then they go away.

I wrote in one of my papers:

In our postmodern culture today, to disagree with someone is to “hate” them. It can’t possibly be otherwise, because now people are their opinions (x = y); not separate from them (x has opinion y).

The people who commit these horrible acts of tough love must have hidden nefarious motives: so we are informed by the upholders of the secularization zeitgeist and idol. There are no absolutes. We either agree with other people (in which case we “love” them), or we disagree, which is intolerance and hate. Those are the only two possible scenarios. We can’t disagree and love them. Disagreeing (by definition) is hatred and touchy-feely / warm fuzzy agreement is love.

I am not a postmodernist and so, must necessarily (so we’re told) be a hater in the postmodernist’s eyes, because (routinely, in the course of doing apologetics) I dare to disagree with someone, and beyond that, even outrageously dare to tell them sometimes that they are wrong, for their own good (and to accept the same criticism coming my way). Thus, the “bad guys” in this brave new thought-world are those who reject postmodernist subjective-mush-relativism.

I wish I had a dime for every time I’ve been accused of “hating” someone just because I had an honest disagreement concerning what they believe or do. But fuzzy, illogical thinking is also part and parcel of postmodernism.

Your speech betrays you. I can get a bit angry when purposely misunderstood by self-proclaimed know-it-alls like you. But you enter a debate angry! You write as if Dr. David Madison is a non-entity, a non-being, who is mere fodder for your supposed “superior” debate skills. I cannot convince you of this I’m sure, but that’s what I see, and it’s one good reason I ignore you.

Just like you’re doing now . . .

I don’t hate anyone, including you and Dr. Madison. If anyone is hating (and I don’t even claim it here, but am merely being rhetorical and turning the tables), it is the 100% ad hominem (minus any rational substance in reply to my arguments) insult-fest directed towards me here. Since it can’t be justified, and is an embarrassing farce, you decide to project all that idiocy onto me, as if I am exhibiting it. Nice try, but no cigar.

Self-respecting intellectuals and thinkers will defend their assertions over against serious counter-replies. Dr. Madison has not so far (he may be otherwise detained), and no one here has, either.

That speaks volumes . . .

***

Photo credit: Clker-Free-Vector-Images (7-5-14) [PixabayPixabay License]

***

2019-05-24T13:03:42-04:00

I made a statement: “Atheist knowledge of the Bible and exegesis (generally speaking) is abominable.”

Atheist “Grimlock” replied: Fun fact: If the average atheist’s knowledge of the Bible is abominable, the average Christian seems to be even worse off. (At least in the US.) [source from Pew Research]

I do love me some empiricism.

This is a major reason why I do what I do: I’m an educator. But at least Christians approach the Bible with respect, which makes it a lot more likely that they will figure out its true meaning: a lot more than those who approach it like a butcher approaches a hog, or a lumberjack, a tree. So I reject a view that holds that they are more ignorant of the Bible (as an entire class) than atheists. It’s a joke. And I know so for certain, from my own long experience in dialogue.

People have differing levels of understanding in all human groups. What is objectionable is the atheist who comes in, guns blazing, thinking they know so much more about the Bible than Christians do. Atheists generally pride themselves for being the “rational” and “scientific” people and constantly imply that Christians are neither. Hundreds of examples of that exist in my own dialogues alone.

Lastly, many atheists (especially the ones who love to pick at and mock the Bible and claim that it is filled with alleged “contradictions”) come from fundamentalist Christian backgrounds (I never did, myself). Invariably, when they attempt to interpret the Bible, they do it with that inherited fallacious and ignorant way of doing so, from fundamentalism (hyper-literalism and virtual ignoring of linguistic, contextual, cultural, and literary genre factors). Thus, they generally make two major mistakes:

1) They assume that all Christians are anti-intellectual fundamentalists, as they once were.

2) They assume that anti-intellectual hyper-literal, “wooden” biblical interpretation is the only sort that exists, or is the “mainline” approach.

Related Reading:

Atheist Bible “Scholarship” & “Exegesis” [3-18-03]

Flat Earth: Biblical Teaching? (vs. Ed Babinski) [9-17-06]

“Former Christian” Atheists & Theological Ignorance [7-21-10]

Dialogue w Atheist: Joseph of Arimathea “Contradictions” (??) (Lousy Atheist Exegesis Example #5672) [1-7-11]

Reply to Atheists: Defining a [Biblical] “Contradiction” [1-7-11]

The Census, Jesus’ Birth in Bethlehem, & History: Reply to Atheist John W. Loftus’ Irrational Criticisms of the Biblical Accounts [2-3-11]

“Butcher & Hog”: On Relentless Biblical Skepticism [9-21-15]

Genesis Contradictory (?) Creation Accounts & Hebrew Time: Refutation of a Clueless Atheist “Biblical Contradiction” [5-11-17]

Alleged “Bible Contradictions”: Most Are Actually Not So [6-8-17]

Atheist “Refutes” Sermon on the Mount (Or Does He?) [National Catholic Register, 7-23-17]

Reason, Science, & Logic Not the Exclusive Possessions of Atheists (+ Double Standards in How Christian Conversions are Treated, Compared to the Often Chilly Reception of Critiques of Atheist Deconversion Stories / Atheist “Exegesis” of the “Doubting Thomas” Passage) [7-24-17]

Richard Dawkins’ “Bible Whoppers” Are the “Delusion” [5-25-18]

Atheist Botched Biblical Exegesis: Example #4,974 [7-23-17; expanded on 7-3-18]

Atheist Inventions of Many Bogus “Bible Contradictions” [National Catholic Register, 9-4-18]

Seidensticker Folly #21: Atheist “Bible Science” Absurdities [9-25-18]

Seidensticker Folly #23: Atheist “Bible Science” Inanities, Pt. 2 [10-2-18]

Seidensticker Folly #25: Jesus’ Alleged Mustard Seed Error [10-8-18]

Bible “Contradictions” & Plausibility (Dialogue w Atheist) [12-17-18]

Biblical Knowledge of Atheist “DagoodS” as a Christian (Specifically, the Biblical [and Patristic] Teaching on Abortion) [12-13-10; expanded on 3-14-19]

Reply to Flimsy Atheist Biblical “Exegesis” #145,298 [4-5-19]

Seidensticker Folly #32: Sophistically Redefining “Contradiction” [4-20-19]

***

(originally on Facebook, 7-5-18)

Photo credit: The Dunce (1886), by Harold Copping (1863-1932) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

***

2018-12-10T17:19:21-04:00

This exchange took place on the Debunking Christianity blog, underneath a post by John W. Loftus, called No More Funerals! [which appears to now be a defunct link]. Words of “DagoodS” will be in blue; some others in various colors as indicated. Indentation (excepting Bible verses) indicates my own words being cited by my opponents.

* * * * *

She still exists. Hopefully, she went to the right place. I don’t know if she did or not. God is merciful and gracious. That would depend on her entire life’s response to the divine grace given to her, not on a momentary decision.

You would have tended toward the latter in your former theology, but most non-Protestant Christians take a little more of a nuanced view.

[Bruce] For the husband’s sake, I sure hope she “went to the right place”. Must be torture to believe that your dead wife could be burning in Hell. Why would anyone want to be part of a religion that tortures both the dead and living?

Makes a lot of sense: hell is a yucky, icky, dreadful place, so to avoid the yuckiness and ickiness one simply denies that it exists and accuses the Christian of being cruel to folks by suggesting that it may.

Meanwhile, there is no ultimate justice in the atheist world. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Jack the Ripper end up in the same place (nowhere) that John Loftus and DagoodS end up.

Sorry; I find that view of reality far more disturbing (apart from the question of which view is true) than the Christian notion of hell, where someone only goes there if they choose to reject God and suffer the consequences.

The atheist “consequences” (i.e., of the entire worldview) makes life far more troubling and ultimately meaningless than the doctrine of hellfire, much as you guys will protest that till you’re blue in the face.

No one has to go to hell, in the Christian view, rightly understood. But we all have to cease existing and only have a 70-year or so dinky, miniscule lifespan in the atheist view. And then those of you who favor abortion would disallow even that for those who must die by those atrocious ethics. They get obliterated out of existence before they have even drawn one breath in this world.

And you want to wax indignant about hell?

We all would like people who truly deserve it to get what is coming to them, but wanting it to be so doesn’t make it true.

Nor does wanting hell to be untrue make it untrue.

Are your religious beliefs based on what you believe to be true or what you want to be true?

The former; however the latter is not to be immediately dismissed. The presence of thirst doesn’t disprove that there is water; sexual drives don’t prove there is no such thing as sex, etc. Likewise, a desire for God or for heaven is more likely to prove that there is a God and a heaven, in my mind, than that no God or heaven exist. The fact that we all seem to have this interior, gut-level sense of right and wrong and desire for justice suggests to me that there is absolute justice in the universe, grounded in God.

When I ponder a universe without God I truly wonder why it would be that this godless universe contains human beings on earth: some 90-95% of whom are religious, and virtually 100% feel that the universe has meaning and that certain things are right and wrong even though there is no basis upon which we are all bound to carry out this morality, unless there is a God.

You chastise John for making this funeral a “matter of polemics” but you have no problem using it to push a pro-life agenda?

I didn’t “use” the funeral for anything. John chose to write about it; that being the case, folks can make comments. Didn’t you see how I wrote that it is inappropriate to make a funeral an evangelistic service? My point about abortion was just to show how wildly unjust some aspects of the atheist worldview are: depriving human beings of the only life they could ever have. Abortion is self-evidently wrong as it is, but adding the atheist element of no afterlife, either, makes it all the more outrageous.

[John W. Loftus chimed in (tolerant and respectful of the views of others, as usual) ]:

You seem so confident, just like I once was. You defend the notion of hell. That’s utterly ridiculous from my perspective. If you were not so blinded by your faith you would see it as I do. . . . a trinitarian three separate consciousness Being is nonsensical, . . . Defend this all you want to, but you are deluded. [emphases added]


Hell is a yucky, icky, dreadful place . . .


[Paul] I’ve got to say, this is a new one for me. “Yucky?” “Icky?” Cooked spinach may be yucky, icky. But hell? Whatever happened to “wailing and gnashing of teeth?” Burning torture without end?

Nothing that I am aware of. I would say that this is covered pretty well by the word dreadful. The rest was obviously rhetorical and semi-sarcastic understatement, subtly aimed at atheists who are always going on and on against hell, as if it were an indictment against God (which it is not at all). But as it involved some subtlety and my characteristically dry wit, I’m not surprised that some would misunderstand it.

Yes indeed Dave, it is cruel for the christian (and would be for god if it existed) to use hell as a threat. 

As I agree. I don’t talk about hell as a threat, but as a potential reality for those who choose to rebel against God. If it is a threat at all, it is in the sense that cancer is a “threat” to those who insist on smoking, or venereal disease is a “threat” for those who insist on promiscuity and sexual immorality. The rational person doesn’t blame the laws of nature for those bad things coming about, but rather, the person (who should have known better, based on our knowledge of causation for these horrors) who did the things that were the cause of them coming about.

When a criminal rebels against the laws of a society and is caught, convicted, and imprisoned for life (or executed, to make the analogy fit even better), we don’t say that the “cause” of his imprisonment or execution was the laws of the state that he violated, and rail against the very notion of law as the horrible, unjust cause of this guy’s suffering! He brought about his own demise by going astray. Likewise, with human beings, God, and hell.

The penalty for very serious crime in a civil sense is life imprisonment or execution. That’s just how it is. Law itself is not to be blamed.

The penalty for very serious sin and rebellion against God in spiritual reality is eternal torment in hell. That’s just how it is. God (the ground of moral law) is not to be blamed for that.

Likewise, a desire for God or for heaven is more likely to prove that there is a God and a heaven, in my mind, than that no God or heaven exist.

Actually, this is exactly backwards. “Desire” is an outstanding motivator, but a horrible proof. If we desire something, this places us on notice that we have a bias, and should be more careful to remove that bias when attempting to ascertain the truth, not less because it is “more likely.”

Well, technically (epistemologically), the word suggest would have been a better choice here than prove. But I still say that the desire is more likely to correspond to the things that are desired actually existing, rather than non-existent. This was the point of the analogies that followed. It was not so much hard philosophical “proof” in mind as it was common sense and experience of our desires and whether or not they are able to be fulfilled. Peter Kreeft makes a long elaborate “argument from desire,” drawing from and expanding upon C. S. Lewis. I think it is a rather neglected argument in the Christian “arsenal.”

In high school, I may have desired the head cheerleader to want to date me, but the fact she glanced my way in class is not proof of my desire. Simply because we desire something to be true, does not make it true.

I didn’t say that it did (I fully agree; that would be most foolish indeed). Don’t take this criticism too far. I said that the desire, in my opinion, made it probably more likely that the desired end exists, than that it does not. This is obvious from life. So in your analogy above, you desired to have a date with the cheerleader. This proves that it is possible that such a thing as a date with the cheerleader exists. It may be unlikely, but it is untrue that the desire proves or suggests that the thing is absolutely unattainable or nonexistent. more so than the contrary (as you atheists would make out with regard to the theist longing for God and heaven).

We have no evidence of life after death. None. NDE’s don’t even come close. 

Nor do we have any compelling evidence for the cause of the Big Bang. There are lots of things that don’t have evidence; e.g., extraterrestrial life. But then again, you assume from the outset the unreasonable assumption that scientific knowledge is the only sort that gives us reliable information. You would deny the miraculous and revelation: precisely the things that we Christians would bring forth as evidence for life after death.

Therefore a “desire” for it is not a proof, but rather a warning we have painted a wish and now look for “proof” with anything that sticks.

It is a strong indication of existence, precisely on the analogical basis that I have described; particularly because the desire is so widespread, and even had many many defenders in the philosophical world, through the centuries.

I have said it before, I will say it again. The idea of this is NOT to pick the team with the snazziest uniforms and stick with them regardless of the score. 

Sure; not exactly clear what this means . . .

Hey, the concept of a place where we will be with people we love and can socialize for all eternity, where wrongs will be avenged, and good acts rewarded is a great idea. So is a perpetual motion machine. Doesn’t make either true. 

I didn’t say it did. You misrepresent my argument if you think I was claiming that the mere desire for something is proof that it exists. I did use a word that should have been softened, but my use of “likely” shows what I had in mind. Context (as almost always) shows that I was not arguing as foolishly as you make out. And now my clarification makes it even more clear. This is one reason why I love dialogue.

The fact that we all seem to have this interior, gut-level sense of right and wrong and desire for justice suggests to me that there is absolute justice in the universe, grounded in God.

Interesting statement. Yet when we want to talk about the Christians claims regarding their God, and how it clashes with our “gut-level sense of right and wrong” we are often (if not always) informed that God’s Justice is not like Our Justice.

I wouldn’t argue in that way. That is more of a Calvinist approach. The Catholic and Orthodox and non-Calvinist Christian argument is that God builds upon nature. If we (human beings) feel a certain sense of morality naturally, God builds upon that and presents His fuller revelation to us, that expands upon what we already know.

C. S. Lewis argued somewhere that the almost universal agreement on many basic moral precepts doesn’t show that Christianity is false because these things are ingrained with the necessary aid of religion (Christian or otherwise), but the opposite: they are ingrained because God put the moral sense in human beings in the first place.

The prevalence of a single broad morality is not inconsistent with the notion of one divine source for that morality, just as, e.g., if one follows the history of language, one sees that languages tend to come from a common background (French, English, and Spanish, all derive from Latin). If there were no God and everyone was truly on their own, it seems to me quite reasonable to suppose that we would see a great deal more basic diversity on morality than we do.

So which is it – is our sense of Justice in line with God’s or not?

I say it is. But it is also likely, granting this, that some things about God or what He does will be difficult for us to understand. We derive from Him; we’re made in His image, but we are finite and created and don’t know a millionth of what He knows. So for us to find certain things difficult (stuff like you’re about to bring up now!) is totally to be expected.

See, my sense of justice would say that an authority, simply to demonstrate loyalty to the authority, requiring its subject to kill its own child would be an injustice. Yet your God does not. (Abraham and Isaac.)

But He didn’t require Abraham to kill his son (as we see at the end of the story). It was a test of faith. How far would Abraham’s faith go? Would he do that thing which is incomprehensible to him. Kierkegaard writes an entire marvelous book about this (Fear and Trembling). On the other hand, even nations sometimes require able-bodied persons to fight in wars that will get some of them killed. People die for their country. So do you argue, also, that this is inherently unjust for a country to demand of a mother the possible life of her child? It becomes a reductio ad absurdum. You would have to be a pacifist.

The professions of firefighter or policeman involve a given risk of death. People are willing to give their life for someone else. De we say that “society” is unreasonable in having things like firefighters, because potential sacrifice is involved? Yet you would blame God in this instance. You’re inconsistent. God is the one who does have power over life and death, so even if He did demand someone’s life, there would be no grounds that this was unjust, because He gave the life in the first place, as the Creator. And there is eternal life.

What is truly unjust, as I keep saying to atheists, is abortion, given your presuppositions. You take away the life that is all that this preborn child has, or will ever have. This is the true human sacrifice, going on every day!; not Abraham and Isaac, which wasn’t even a sacrifice, but a profound test. Abortion is the sacrament of atheism and radical feminism. That’s what your vision of “life”(and the supposed “happy life”) leads to: death and destruction. But Christian death may come about because God the Creator wills it, and He has every prerogative to do so; and then there is an eternal life, so that the life of that person isn’t truly over, anyway; it just becomes different and better (presuming salvation).

I would think that holding the value of silver and Gold over the life of a two day old boy is unjust. Yet your God does not. Numbers 31:26-28. I would think that enforcing a genocide for the actions of one’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents would be unjust. Yet your God does not. (Amalekites)

Christians have explained this stuff a million times, and the atheist will never understand it. Because God is Creator He also has the prerogative to judge. This is analogous to our experience. Society takes it upon itself to judge the criminal and punish him if he supercedes the “just” laws that govern the society, in order to prevent chaos and suffering. If that is true of human society (one man to another), it is all the more of God, because He is ontologically above us (Creator and created).

So it is perfectly sensible and moral to posit (apart from the data of revelation) a notion of God judging both individuals and nations. God’s omniscience is such that He can determine if an entire nation has gone bad (“beyond repair,” so to speak) and should be punished. And He did so. Now, even in a wicked nation there may be individuals who are exceptions to the rule. So some innocent people will be killed. But this is like our human experience as well. In wartime, we go to war against an entire nation. In so doing, even if it is unintentional, some innocent non-combatants will be killed.

But it’s also different in God’s case because He judged nations in part in order to prevent their idolatry and other sins to infiltrate Jewish (i.e., true) religion. He also judged Israel at various times (lest He be accused of being unfair). In any event, it is not true that nations or individuals were punished because of what great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents” did. 

Nice try at more of patented atheist caricature and 50-story straw men. There is a sense of corporate punishment, just described, and it is also true that the entire human race is a fallen race. We all deserve punishment for that fact alone, and God would be perfectly just to wipe us all out the next second. No one could hold it against Him.

He decides to be merciful and grant us grace to do better, but He is under no obligation to do so, anymore than the governor is obliged to pardon convicted criminals. Again, the societal analogy is perfectly apt. If someone rebels at every turn against every societal norm and law and appropriate behavior and so forth, is society to be blamed? Say someone grows up thinking that serial rape is fine and dandy and shouldn’t be prevented at all. So he goes and does this. Eventually, the legal system catches up with him and he gets his punishment. He rebelled against what most people think is wrong, and more than deserved his punishment.

We don’t say that there should be no punishment. We don’t blame society for his suffering in prison. We don’t deny that society has a right to judge such persons. So if mere human beings can judge each other, why cannot God judge His creation, and (particularly) those of His creation that have rebelled against Him at every turn? What is so incomprehensible about that? One may not believe it, but there is no radical incoherence or inconsistency or monstrous injustice or immorality in this Christian (and Jewish) viewpoint (which is what is always claimed by the critics).

My sense of justice would be to hold each person accountable for knowledge based upon persuasive evidence. Your God does not.

That is how the ultimate judgment works; absolutely. Each man will give his own account (Rom 14:10; 1 Cor 3:13; 2 Cor 5:10; Rev 22:12). So again, God’s way is analogous to our own (and your own). Hence, Scripture teaches:

Jeremiah 31:30 (RSV) But every one shall die for his own sin; . . .

Numbers 27:3 Our father. . . died for his own sin . . .

Deuteronomy 24:16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor shall the children be put to death for the fathers; every man shall be put to death for his own sin. (cited in 2 Kings 14:6; 2 Chron 25:4)

Now obviously, the Christian and the Jew holds that Mosaic Law came from God to Moses, and thus represented how God viewed morality. And this principle was within it. So it is incorrect to say that God is judging someone for someone else’s sins. It’s a distortion of what the Bible teaches. This true teaching is made even more explicit in the entire chapter Ezekiel 18:

1: The word of the LORD came to me again:
2: “What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’?
3: As I live, says the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel.
4: Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sins shall die.
5: “If a man is righteous and does what is lawful and right –
6: if he does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife or approach a woman in her time of impurity,
7: does not oppress any one, but restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment,
8: does not lend at interest or take any increase, withholds his hand from iniquity, executes true justice between man and man,
9: walks in my statutes, and is careful to observe my ordinances – he is righteous, he shall surely live, says the Lord GOD.
10: “If he begets a son who is a robber, a shedder of blood,
11: who does none of these duties, but eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbor’s wife,
12: oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his eyes to the idols, commits abomination,
13: lends at interest, and takes increase; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominable things; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself.
14: “But if this man begets a son who sees all the sins which his father has done, and fears, and does not do likewise,
15: who does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife,
16: does not wrong any one, exacts no pledge, commits no robbery, but gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment,
17: withholds his hand from iniquity, takes no interest or increase, observes my ordinances, and walks in my statutes; he shall not die for his father’s iniquity; he shall surely live.
18: As for his father, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother, and did what is not good among his people, behold, he shall die for his iniquity.
19: “Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is lawful and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live.
20: The soul that sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
21: “But if a wicked man turns away from all his sins which he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die.
22: None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness which he has done he shall live.
23: Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?
24: But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity and does the same abominable things that the wicked man does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds which he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, he shall die.
25: “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just?
26: When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he shall die for it; for the iniquity which he has committed he shall die.
27: Again, when a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is lawful and right, he shall save his life.
28: Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions which he had committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die.
29: Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ O house of Israel, are my ways not just? Is it not your ways that are not just?
30: “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, says the Lord GOD. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin.
31: Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel?
32: For I have no pleasure in the death of any one, says the Lord GOD; so turn, and live.”

This is how God thinks. This is how He has revealed Himself (or in your skeptical atheist terms, how Jews, and Christians after them, have conceived of their God-that-doesn’t exist). Either case, your characterization of God (and/or how He is conceptualized) is false.

See also my papers:

Seidensticker Folly #17: “to the third and fourth generations”?

Does God Punish to the Fourth Generation?

I read the Bible and come away with statements that appear to be completely contrary to my gut-level sense of justice.

That’s because you have not understood the above elements. you’ve been fed a bill o goods by those who distort the Bible and reason badly and illogically.

What is the punishment for adultery? My intuition doesn’t seem to find that raping the perpetrator’s wife as very just. Yet your God does. 2 Sam. 12:14

You just keep coming up with them, don’t you? The atheist’s garden-variety playbook of verses that supposedly prove how rotten God is.

Apparently you got this verse wrong. Did you mean 12:11? The principle here is the same that I have argued with you at length about God’s allowing evil in His providence being described as if He caused it (see 12:11). But God could decide to judge, and He can even decide to use sinful agents to do so. They have free will. They are acting freely. But God can incorporate that into His providence in order to judge the sinner. This is what happened to David. His son Absalom freely rebelled against his father, of his own will. So he was judged on his own (by God and by David’s soldiers). But this was foretold (not foreordained) by God as a punishment for David’s sin.

We can see this on a purely natural, human level, too. Say we raise a child to not respect elder people, or to believe in euthanasia, under false pretenses and even worse ethical reasoning. Then the time comes when we are old and sick, and our own child actively tries to knock us off, and cares little for us. Like Harry Chapin sang in Cats in the Cradle, “my boy was just like me.” No doubt there was a lot of this in David. Something helped cause the son to go astray. He was still responsible for his own sin, but there can be precipitating causes from secondary parties or agents.

Or the punishment for murder. Apparently if God favors you, there is none. 2 Sam. 12:13 

Yes; God can pardon whomever He will, just as the governor of a state can. Is this unfair? One can try to argue that, I suppose. But there it is. In God’s case, we are His creatures, and we are all part of the rebellion against Him, in the sense of original sin. He offers a way out of that, but some can spurn it. David sinned and repented sincerely, from the heart. God knew his heart. And God decided to spare him, because of his importance as king and bearer of the covenant.

Or it may be that one of the murder’s relatives will become sick. (Not the murderer themselves, of course) 2 Sam. 3:29. 

I went through that already, above. All these things are complex, and long discussions in and of themselves. You can keep firing out error, but it takes ten, twenty times longer to effectively answer all this falsehood. That’s why atheists (much like Jehovah’s Witnesses) love the “rapid-fire, throw out 50 things at once “routine. They know full well how much necessary work it takes to answer this stuff. Most people don’t have that amount of time or energy (not to mention, knowledge). I’ve been writing for hours.

So they don’t do it, and then the atheist can smugly claim, “see, there are no answers or else they would be provided! That proves how irrational and silly Christianity is!” Well, in this case, I think I have provided solid answers. Chances are, you won’t be dissuaded in the slightest, but other people who may be fooled by your arguments can be prevented from adopting them. I am writing mainly for them, and for Christians, so that they can be confident that these shots against the Bible and God are groundless.

But, alas poor David will not make it to heaven, either. Rev. 21:8

Is that so? Now here is a prime example – absolutely classic – of muddle-headed atheist “exegesis.” Clearly the verse means that unrepentant sinners will not make it in. But David repented of his serious sin. We’ve already seen above that God will grant mercy to all who do so:

Ezekiel 18:21 But if a wicked man turns away from all his sins which he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die.

What of the punishment for blaspheme of God? 

The word is blasphemy.

I would think this pretty serious, eh? Apparently the appropriate punishment is kill a baby. 2 Sam. 12:15. 

First of all, David’s sins were not blasphemy (I don’t know where you’re getting that). They were adultery and murder. The verse is wrong again, too. It is 12:14. Again, it is pre-philosophical language regarding God’s providence. Things were allowed to happen (including tragic events) that could be seen as a judgment on persons related to them. But it doesn’t prove that God necessarily caused them (we see that very clearly in the book of Job, where God allowed Satan to do his deeds, and do a number on Job). This was all dealt with in our previous discussion on Pharaoh, with many biblical examples provided. You didn’t get it, then, and I suspect that you won’t this time, either.

(Don’t forget, though that blaspheme of the Holy Spirit is completely unforgivable! The worst punishment of all.)

Indeed, but that is not what we’re dealing with here. It means no longer believing in God at all or calling evil good. As long as someone refuses to believe in God, and knows that He exists, He cannot be forgiven or saved. This is why you and your fellow atheists need to seriously think about that which you espouse. You could very well end up in a place you don’t want to be in. And God could say then, “why didn’t you listen to people like Dave when he shared the truth about Me with you, and you didn’t want to hear about it? That was My way of trying to reach you, but you refused and would have none of it. So I had to leave you to your fate, because I won’t force anyone to believe in Me or serve Me. I want sons and daughters, not slaves.”

In light of blaspheme of God being equated to one death, my sense of Justice would think that taking a census, if a sin at all, would be far less. But no. According to your God’s sense of Justice, taking a census is worthy of a punishment of 100,000 to 200,000 deaths! 2 Sam. 24:15.

That’s absurd. I dealt with all that business in another paper, as you know.

Wow! David’s taking a census seems like a pretty big sin. Even within OUR justice system, it would be the equivalent of killing 100,000 people.

Ditto.

So what’s the number, Dave Armstrong? 

One. One person rebelling against God and spurning His free gift of salvific grace is enough for them to end up in hell by their own choice.

You indicate the concern about dispensing justice to a Hitler or a Stalin. That such persons deserve Hell. So what is the number of murders at which point Heaven becomes barred? Is it one? Is it 100,000? Is it 10 Million? 

Hitler could have theoretically repented, just as, e.g., abortionist Bernard Nathanson did, after 10,000 or so (some horrendous number) murder-abortions. But it is exceedingly unlikely, because the more one sins, the more one becomes hardened in sin and against God and His grace.

See, each person’s intuition changes. If you talk to a universalist, 10 Million is not enough. Others may say one is too many. Most others would figure some number between one and 100 is too many, although what, precisely would be uncertain.

According to Rev 21:8, one murder is one too many. 

If unrepented of, certainly. That’s the whole point.

And the verse indicates that anyone that lies gets the toss into hell as well. 

No. It is amazing how ignorant you (an otherwise intelligent man) can be about verses like this. This is so ridiculous that I suspect maybe you are just playing a game. It’s tough to believe that you are this much out to sea. Clearly it is referring to those who persist in these sins and whose lives are characterized by various sins. Otherwise, why have forgiveness of individual sins at all? Are you denying that God forgives anyone of their particular sins?

Have you lied, Dave Armstrong? Is there a human that has not? This sure doesn’t seem very just to me!

You’re right. But since it is a gross, stupid caricature of the biblical system of morality, grace, and forgiveness, it is not my problem. Your ignorance of biblical theology is your own problem to rectify. I suppose you can’t even properly believe in Christianity if you wrongly think it is this goofy, irrational, arbitrary system. That’s why there remains hope for you. The more you learn and are disabused of your errors, then you can see what Christianity really is, and accept it and come back to following God.

Further, if we all have an interior sense of justice, and create a god, what surprise is it that we claim it, too, has a sense of justice? “If a fish could make a god, it would look like a fish” is not just talking about scales and fins, you know.

I haven’t seen anything that is so foreign to my sense of justice that I would feel duty-bound to reject it, and God with it. I have tried my best to show that all these instances have reasonable explanations and have a strong analogy to many other things in life that you and I both equally accept. God’s justice is, after all, like our own, which derives from His in the first place.

Thanks for the great discussion! Sometimes it gets very frustrating, but overall I enjoy my interactions with you.

***

Can a Perfect being create imperfect beings?

He not only can do so, He must, because He cannot create another being that is eternal, like Himself, and all-knowing, etc. (e.g., any created beginning cannot know firsthand about that which occurred before it was created).

Therefore, whatever He creates must be lesser than Himself; hence imperfect, because He is perfect. Logic requires this. It cannot be otherwise, far as I can see.

If a perfect entity makes something imperfect, that act was imperfect.

Hardly. All it means is that even God is subject to the limitations of logic, because they are inherent to reality. God can’t, e.g., make the sun and the moon be in the same place at the same time, or make it the case that your entire life’s experience is suddenly mine, and mine yours, or make 2 + 2 = 5. There’s lots of stuff even an omnipotent being cannot do.

So which is it—is God partly imperfect, or is all of creation perfect?

Neither. God is perfect and creation isn’t, at least in many respects (meaning the best it can imaginably be, etc.).

* * *

The point was that upon realizing we have a desire for a certain outcome, event or thing, we have interjected bias into our reasoning process. How do we eliminate that bias?

You have a bias toward an afterlife. Don’t get me wrong; I think such a bias is appropriate. In fact, I have written elsewhere that Christians present a brighter picture regarding an after life than a naturalist view. I can understand why a Christian funeral is happier than a naturalist.

But that does not make it true. That was point about the snazziest uniform. You know the tired polemic of the female that makes the picks in the football pool based upon the color of the uniforms and wins every week.

The idea of determining what is true is NOT to pick the thing that is most pleasing to us, but rather use the evidence we have to come to the conclusion of what is most likely reality. However, being human we must recognize our bias toward certain propositions (and face it – ultimate justice of things that happen in this life is quite pleasing) and how to keep that bias from impacting our reasoning.

I don’t disagree with any of this (nor did it form any part of my argument), so there is no need to “refute” it.

You use the example of the Big Bang. Here is where I see the difference. Big Bang Theory is based upon the evidence we current have as to what happened at the initiation of this particular universe. It is the best theory to fit the facts.

But it is possible we make new observations, and new determinations so that in 100 years Big Bang theory will be scoffed as an outdated theory of unknowledgable people. Science has, within itself, a checks and balance system through presentation, peer review, and good old fashioned money by which former theories are rejected for theories that answer more facts.

Correct. At the moment, it makes far more sense to posit a Creator Who began the process, than some sort of ludicrous “self-creation” out of nothing.

I would agree with you that if some Scientist was beholden to Big Bang because they found it more pleasing, I would equally question how they remove their bias. Equally a poor method.

It’s not a matter of “pleasing” but of the comparative plausibility of competing truth claims. I don’t find atheism plausible at all: especially concerning the Big Bang where it literally becomes nonsensical and self-defeating.

What is the similar checks and balance regarding after-life? At what point do we incorporate new or different theories to explain the facts we observe? We can’t! Because an after – life is placed outside observation.

In our everyday experience, pretty much; yes. But miraculous events like the Resurrection of Jesus provide some empirical evidence that it exists.

The only proof provided of an after life by a Christian is hearsay. One person claims another person said “There is an after life.” It is not that I say scientific knowledge is the only thing that provides reliable information. Rather, hearsay is notoriously a poor source of information.

Bias coupled with a poor source is not compelling to us.

This is incorrect. Like I said, there is miraculous evidence, and also the data of revelation (Holy Scripture). The veracity of Scripture is verified on other independent grounds (fulfilled prophecy, minute accuracy of geographical and historical detail, archaeological confirmation, extraordinary internal consistency, lack of bizarre Babylonian, Greek mythological characteristics, etc.). Thirdly, there is the history of philosophical, non-religious arguments in favor of immortality, which is not insignificant. So it is a gross caricature to claim that “hearsay” is all that we can give in favor of our view.

Justice and God 

Your argument (as I read it) was that, as humans, we have an innate sense of Justice, which would lead one to the conclusion there was some absolute justice grounded in God. But when I use my innate sense of Justice, it finds the Christian depiction of a God as not just. So which do I use? Do I use my innate sense of Justice to find a God in general, and then immediately abandon that very same sense in order to maintain the Christian God?

I believe I have shown again and again that our human sense of justice, rightly-understood, is indeed harmonious with the justice of God as presented in the Bible. Your task is to make some argument against my counter-arguments; not simply state subjective opinions that you may have, which do nothing to move the discussion along. I want to know why you believe as you do, and why you disagree with my reasoning; not what you believe (which I already know).

Yes I know the standard Christian responses to the instances I raised. I will address them further in a moment.

Good! And I know standard atheist responses, too.

But bottom line, it boils down to “Might makes right.” Since God made us, he can do whatever he wants with us.

Thankfully, He is benevolent!

Which is all the more ironic considering the above conversation about an after-life. The only proof one has is that God has promised an after-life.

Nope; this is why Jesus appeared after He was killed: to show that He had conquered death and made a way for us to do so, too.

But if God can kill us, torture us, change our language, blind us, give us disease, and do what he wills, simply because he created us – couldn’t he also lie to us?

Theoretically, sure; but He is good, so He doesn’t do so. He merely simplifies things so our tiny, fallen minds can comprehend them.

The only basis for an after-life that you have could equally, under “might makes right” be completely unsupported.

Sheer speculation doesn’t resolve any of our differences. You can believe that God is a liar if you wish, and I can say that atheists are speaking falsehood when they go after God’s existence or character.

“Universal agreement on many basic moral precepts.”

I guess if one is looking for similarity in anything one can find it. What has been the “universal agreement” over the course of history and civilizations regarding war, families, education, cannibalism, human sacrifice, communal living, females, marriage, slavery, implementation of punishment, homosexuality, abortion, honor, societies, clothing, music and economics?

There is a great deal of agreement across the board. Particular s are defined differently, but the broad areas are quite similar. So people fight against each other, but they don’t disagree that there is a time to fight, and to defend oneself, one’s family, and country. It is understood that folks are to take care of their families and have an extra commitment to relatives. To go against family and cojntry is universally regarded as traitorous. There is the famous incest taboo.

With cannibalism and slavery and those sorts of things, this is essentially a matter of defining certain people out of the range of human. Everyone agrees that human beings have certain intrinsic rights, but to get out of that, societies create arbitrary exceptions. So the slave was considered sub-human (the history of slavery in America and the systemic racism that resulted from it or which was identical to it is sadly instructive). Or women are lowered to a status of sub-human.

Today the preborn child has been deprived of its inherent right to life. It is simply defined as non-human or a non-person. The very effort to dehumanize the victims of these horrible sins and evils proves that everyone agrees that “real” fully human beings have rights.

Ancient cultures sacrificed children or adults (human sacrifice, as with the Aztecs) to imaginary gods-idols (Molech, etc.). Now we sacrifice our preborn children to the modern idols of “free” sexuality and expediency. So we see that not much has changed. Human beings are as wicked now as ever, if not much more so.

We can even find a sense of right vs wrong in the animal kingdom within dogs, cats and chimpanzees, if we are looking for similarities! Are we saying a dog’s sense of doing something wrong is part of the “universal agreement on many basic moral precepts”?

Animals seem to have a primitive sense of right and wrong (much like atheist conceptions); the higher intelligence they have, the more we see this (as one would expect; since higher intelligence is a characteristic of man).

Further, if there is universal agreement, then this would include the naturalist position. It would include my sense of desire for justice.

Exactly! It does. You simply haven’t adequately reasoned the whole thing through. I’m trying to help you do that. :-)

Which directly conflicts with the Christian presentation. If we are to use universal agreement as the method by which to determine which God absolute justice is grounded in, then the Christian God loses.

Only if you reason illogically and implausibly, as you are doing. :-)

Looking at the instances . . . 

(And I am listing numerous instances to give us a variety to pick from. I cannot help that your Bible provides so many.)

Abraham and Isaac 

But He didn’t require Abraham to kill his son (as we see at the end of the story). It was a test of faith.

But Abraham didn’t know that. 

That’s irrelevant. You are trying to indict God: that he required him to kill his son. I pointed out that this was not, in fact, the case. Just because Abraham didn’t know it doesn’t alter that fact. He knew in the end, which is the important thing.

Are you seriously saying that if someone told you that God asked them to kill their child, your innate sense of right and wrong responds with, “Sounds about right to me”?

No; of course not. That’s why it was a test. Abraham believed despite the fact that it made no sense to Him: because he had faith. You miss the whole point of the story. Faith goes beyond the rational.

Keeping our eye on the ball, here – the claim is that our innate desire for justice, our gut-level sense of right and wrong means there is absolute justice in the universe grounded in God. This is an argumentation that our intuition is proof of the Christian God.

It suggests it. It’s not my position that it proves it. It would be nice if you could understand this by now and stop misrepresenting what I have argued. I believe there are very very few things that can be absolutely proven.

Yes, yes I know about closed revelation, etc. But that is not what we are discussing. We are talking about one’s innate sense of right and wrong and how it would point to a particular God. I would hope one would have the following conversation (based upon my intuitive sense of justice:

God: Go kill your son as a test of your faith.

Me: Uh, God. My sense of Justice says that is wrong.

God: Good answer. You need to use that innate sense to make right choices as to the law I wrote on your heart.

NOT:

God: Go kill your son as a test of your faith.

Me: When and Where?

God: Good answer. Your unquestioning willingness to do anything is proof that there is justice in the world.

Of course this is a stupid caricature of the Christian / Jewish worldview, designed to make it look infantile. Maybe you can get away with such silliness with some people, but not with me. The actual Christian perspective would go something like this:

God: Go kill your son [the “test of faith” part wouldn’t be there at first because that gives away what God was trying to do].

Me [in the utmost agony and bewilderment, as throughout]: How could this be?! This makes no sense. How can I kill my own child [i.e., assuming one is pro-life; if not, then such agony would be rationalized away by using words like “choice” and “my rights”]? Everything in me; every bone and fiber in my body tells me this is wrong. I cannot do it. I’d rather kill myself.

God: Are not my thoughts and ways as high above yours as the stars are above the earth?

Me: Yes, but this makes NO sense whatsoever. If You are good, how could You command this terrible, unthinkable thing?

God: Do you trust Me?

Me: Yes, but I don’t understand. Can’t you at least explain this to me if I must do it?

God: Do you believe that I love you?

Me: Yes, but I’m very confused and troubled, because the moral sense I feel comes from You (so I have thought), and it’s not moral or right to kill your own child.

God: It does; but what makes you think you would understand every last jot and tittle of what you are commanded to do?

Me: I suppose I can’t. But why would You want to torture me so?

God: Was not Jesus my Son also tortured and sacrificed for the sake of the salvation of men?

Me: Yes.

God: Will you do what I command or not?

Me: I will. But I am destroyed. Life has no meaning for me anymore if I must do this.

God: But you will do it rather than disobey Me?

Me: Yes. I must obey because a man cannot do otherwise and hope to be saved.

[I then proceed to carry out His command, and He then explains that He was testing my faith. Now He knows that I would do anything to follow Him; even if I didn’t understand it. But because He is good and merciful, He didn’t actually want me to carry out the deed. This is basically the story of Job in a nutshell]

Read Kierkegaard. You want depth on this question? He’ll provide more than enough of it. Do you think that Jews and Christians have not struggled with this scene and the book of Job for 4000 years? Of course we have. But we can ultimately make some sense of it. You atheist worldview is what should bring you to despair. Why are you so concerned about what you think isn’t even true? You have more than enough agony if you simply ponder the universe and life as you think it really is.

The comparison to soldiers, police and firefighters is poor. The difference is necessity. An unfortunate fact of life is that we require soldiers to protect our country, police to protect our society and firefighters to stop fires. And those individuals are killed in the line of duty.

This is a far, FAR cry from a needless death simply to prove a point of loyalty.

Exactly. All these people have mothers. or spouses. And they are willing to possibly sacrifice their loved one for the sake of country. So if you can do that for mere country, why not for God? It’s not absolutely inconceivable. Secondly, there was no needless death here. God never intended that Abraham actually do it. But the marvelously selfless, loving pro-abortion crowd is quite content to sacrifice the lives of their own children for the god-idols of convenience and free sex, isn’t it? 4000 murders of innocent, helpless children every day in America and you want to obsess over an ancient story of severely tested faith that didn’t involve a death at all? Fascinating . . .

If I am truly part of this universal agreement on basic moral precepts – child sacrifice is NOT within my innate sense of right/wrong. The Christian God, if there is a God, is not the grounding of absolute justice.

Genocide 

I use the Midianites of Numbers 31 for a very specific reason. They introduce a concept that Christians avoid.


Now, even in a wicked nation there may be individuals who are exceptions to the rule. So some innocent people will be killed. But this is like our human experience as well. 


How does this help one’s argument that God’s genocide was divine? This is claiming that within life, such as in war, as humans we have collateral damage. We kill the innocent with the wicked. Our Bombs cannot differentiate between civilians and combatants.

So you are saying God is no better than humans? He can’t do any better than we do, when exercising justice? See, my innate sense of right and wrong is to reduce as much as possible, down to zero, harm to innocents when punishing the wicked. You seem to be saying that your innate sense of right and wrong is that if a few innocents get caught up in the punishment of the wicked, that is simply an unfortunate necessity?

You misunderstand my analogy, and the limitations of analogy itself (as you often do). I was making the (imperfect) analogy between God’s judgment of entire peoples and our warring against countries, involving the death of innocents.

In both cases, there is a corporate sense of evil and an individual sense. It is obvious that there are exceptions to the rule. Obviously, not absolutely every German or Japanese was wicked and evil. So when we bombed a military plant, there would be innocent people killed (and I think carpet bombing of cities is an evil act, by the way, because it violates Catholic just war precepts).

Likewise, from God’s perspective, when He judges a nation, He knows that not everyone in it is equally wicked. They all have original sin (another question) and are all equally deserving of judgment in that score (so that if He killed them all, it wold be just for Him), but they’re not all exactly the same level of wickedness. Every person is judged fairly when they stand before God, but God chose to judge an entire people at times, to show the results of wickedness running rampant in a society.

Thus, the analogy (as far as it goes) is clear: God can judge whole nations without damning all of them or considering every single person equally evil. Likewise (remember, I was trying to show throughout that God’s justice is mirrored by our own, and this is another instance), when we bomb our enemies we understand that not everyone in those countries are equally evil. But we do it because evil in the world makes such things necessary.

The analogy clearly breaks down, but I think it is close enough to show that God’s judgment is not without its parallels in human existence. We can understand it in the same way we understand these military acts of war. But it’s fundamentally different because God knows everything and He can judge the human race that He created, and do it with total justice, not man’s feeble attempts at justice.

Your God can’t do any better than this?

But WAIT! He DOES!

See, in the Midianite genocide, God DOES manage to separate out the innocents from the wicked. It must be a matter of supreme coincidence that the innocents just happened to be the virgin females. Numbers 31:18. Virgin females that the soldiers got to keep for themselves as spoils of war. As booty.

Amazing, isn’t it, that a two-day old boy is wicked beyond repair. A grandmother, a mother, and older sister – all wicked, wicked, wicked. A 15-year-old girl that was married by her parents to a Midianite farmer – wicked. But a 16-year-old girl engaged to be married the next day? Innocent as the pure-driven snow.

Are you buying this? 

Notice also, that God himself did not speak to the people, but Moses did. Num. 31:3.

Now, let’s talk about your intuition. Your sense of right and wrong. A commander comes to you and says, “God says to kill all the men. All the wives. All the mothers, all the fathers. All the little boys. God says to take their gold, their silver, and their possessions for yourself as spoils of war. You also are to take all the virgin females for yourself. If they are male or a female that has slept with a man – kill them. If they are a female, you can take them as a(nother) wife for you.”

Would you question whether that order came from God, or man? Wouldn’t your entire inner being cry out at the wrongness of this entire concept? Or would you say, “Sounds about right to me” and pick up your sword to start slaying children?

Again, it is a special case if it is a war of judgment, directly commanded by God. Otherwise, mercy upon non-combatants would be the norm.

I do agree, however, that the sparing of the virgins is difficult to understand, since it was a judgment. Perhaps one could argue that virgins could not (by definition) have participated in the sins that were judged (namely, a sort of cult prostitution: Numbers, chapter 25). So they were more innocent in that sense, and could be incorporated into Jewish society (as many are who marry into a different culture).

Any offspring from them would be half-Jewish. This would then possibly me an exercise of mercy within judgment. I never claimed that there were no difficult passages in the Bible to understand or adequately explain. This is one that I don’t have a completely satisfactory answer for. But that doesn’t mean no Christian can explain it, either.

I’ve written about the Midianites (and the massacres of the Amalekites). The ancient Hebrews were not known to widely practice sex-slavery, as the Greeks and Romans did.

Amalekites 


In any event, it is not true that nations or individuals were punished because of what “great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great- grandparents” did. 


1 Sam. 15:2-3: “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'”

‘Nuff said.

Yes; you are correct; my language was imprecise. When nations are judged there is a sense of past misdeeds, and a corporate sense of guilt; though not to be conceived as allowing no individual exceptions. We see in this very example, that the Kenites, who lived among the Amalekites, were spared (1 Samuel 15:6).

Secondly, one must distinguish between judgment in the sense of judgment of nations (being killed) and eternal judgment. These nations were physically killed, but it doesn’t follow that each and every person was eternally damned. They would have been judged as individuals in that sense. And in this personal sense, no one is judged for the sins of distant ancestors, or anyone else. We’re all subject to original sin, but God can take away the penalties for that by grace (we believe the sacrament of baptism does this today).

Thirdly, it is interesting to note that the booty in this case (not allowed by God) was Agag the king, and sheep and oxen (1 Samuel 15:8-9), not young virgin girls. So it is not the case that cynical exceptions were always made, for sexual purposes (as you seem to imply).

Punishment for Adultery 

David sinned with Uriah. God says, “Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight.” 2 Sam. 12:11 

(And yes, I meant vs. 11, not 14. Thanks for catching that. I was skipping ahead at that moment and biffed the reference.)

A person commits adultery and murder. Having someone else rape his wives goes against my sense of right and wrong and desire for justice. It is not right.

Now, in defense of that, you are claiming God would “allow” another person to do a wicked act and “incorporate” that sin to judge the sinner.

Guess what? That still goes against my sense of right and wrong and desire for justice! What about punishing the person directly? Why must innocents (the wives) be harmed? Can’t God, (here’s a novel solution!) actually punish the wrongdoer and leave the innocents out of it?

But David was punished by his son’s rebellion. Absalom was not “innocent” of this sin. God freely incorporating evil acts as agents of His justice does not violate free will or cause any injustice. As I’ve argued before there can be varying levels of causation. A person can mean something for evil and God can use the same act for purposes of true justice (we saw that in the Joseph story; Joseph later made note of this, so the concept of multiple simultaneous cause for different purposes was present early on in Hebrew religion).

But it is an analogy to human experience that when we sin, it tends to adversely affect those around us. Just talk to any teenagers held in juvenile detention facilities, and ask them about their parents and their background, if you doubt this. They all had a free will. But they also (usually) had a rotten background which greatly precipitated their crimes.

Does your sense of justice merely shrug at the fact that women are being raped as part of God’s “providence” in order to punish a person? That God does not prevent it?

It doesn’t follow that God caused these things. Whether He should massively intervene and prevent every evil act in the history of humanity is another huge question. I have argued that if He tried to govern the universe in that way, that it would, in the end, reduce to a scenario with no free will at all, since God would be controlling everything to absolutely prevent all evil, pain, and suffering.

I’ve written about the atheist charge that God condones rape.

Out of curiosity, how many women have you convinced that their being raped because of their husband’s sin conforms to an intuitive sense of right and wrong? That it is justice?

Nice try at caricaturing my argument.

Punishment for Murder 


David sinned and repented sincerely, from the heart. God knew his heart. And God decided to spare him, because of his importance as king and bearer of the covenant. 


Wait, wait, wait. If someone is “important” enough, or of a high enough position, they can be spared punishment?

Anyone whatsoever can potentially be spared punishment. Haven’t you ever heard of a pardon?
God could kill us all and be perfectly just in doing so, or spare whomever He wills to spare. But we all have equal chance at eternal salvation.

Sorry, but that goes against my innate sense of justice. In your sense of justice, at what point is a person important enough that you think they should be spared punishment?

We do it with Presidents, don’t we? President Nixon was pardoned. President Clinton was let off the hook by political maneuvering. This happens because of their high position. One could argue as to the propriety or lack thereof in both cases, but it is not a totally foreign concept.

Again, remember what we are discussing. Not whether God has some right or ultimate justice which allows Him to do what he pleases when he pleases, but rather what direction our internal sense of right and wrong and desire for justice would lead us when looking for a God.

Yes. I think overall, the data of experience and reason based on analogy, is still highly in God’s favor. You can pick and choose some of the hard-to-understand passages in the Bible, but of course you ignore the tons of passages that are very easy to understand, and you seem to almost think that the New Testament (the fullest revelation of God) doesn’t even exist.

And no, you did NOT respond to Joab’s relatives being punished for Joab’s sin. Again, Dave Armstrong, I can’t help that your Bible provides us numerous questions regarding justice dished out by God, and how that fails to conform to our principles of Justice. Joab himself was not punished because he was too “important” to David. Interestingly, when David died, Joab was no longer important enough, and at that time the punishment was rendered.

I don’t recall what this was. You skip some of my arguments, so if I missed one of yours in the midst of my usually point-by-point replies, I don’t think it is a huge sin.

I understand you are writing to other Christians. Those that believe as you do. That you are attempting to demonstrate my “shots” (your words) are groundless. That is your choice. That is a role you have assumed. So do so.

I’m writing to an atheist. But Christians read the stuff, and they are overwhelmingly the ones who can be convinced of my arguments. As the old saying goes: “a man convinced against his will retains his original belief still.”

To some degree, I sorta hope I am frustrating. I am trying to challenge you.

Likewise.


No, not as in some further study, but rather to present better arguments. Rather than simply present arguments to sustain those that already believe – attempt to persuade those that don’t!


That’s exactly what I’m doing. I only said that the atheist is highly unlikely to be convinced of a Christian argument; especially one — like yourself — who has already rejected Christianity (an apostate). I see this as likely to be more of a problem of thinking than of being deliberately wicked and so forth. You decided at some point to accept false premises and falsehoods.

Rise above the defensive apologetic of how it is “possible” or what “might be” and actually go beyond and convince others, using THEIR situation, THEIR bias, THEIR position in life. Become probable, not possible.

Again, that is exactly my methodology. I try to approach things based on whatever common presuppositions can be found. St. Paul said to become like others, so that you can win them over. His method varied according to whom he talked to. I’ve always tried to apply that wisdom. You’re not convinced because of your bias and commitments, not because of my faulty method (though one can always improve, of course).

Revelations 21:7-8 

There is no “s”. Many Christians make the same mistake.

“He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.

But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars – their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

Rev. 20:12-13

“And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were upended. Another book was opened which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them and each person was judged according to what he had done.”

I’m sorry, where, exactly, was the bit about repentance? That if one committed an act and was unrepentant then it was counted against them?

It’s presupposed. This is made clear in comparing Scripture with Scripture. I already gave you
the proof: see, e.g., Ezekiel 18:21,27. Another is Psalm 51. David repented of his sin and was forgiven. I find this to be one of the more bizarre and muddleheaded of your arguments.

Dave Armstrong, it is not there. Sure 1 John 1:9 says confession will result in righteousness. But 1 John 3:6 says true Christians do not continue to sin, either.

Correct: meaning that the essence of a Christian is not to sin: not that they never will sin (cf. 3:9). That’s why John talks about confession, too. You have to understand it all in context. Atheists are masters at ignoring that.

The reason I bring up Rev. 21:8 is that unbelief is not the ONLY thing that prevents a person from entering heaven. Apparently one can be a believer, and yet commit certain acts, and still be denied heaven.

You can claim to be a believer, but if your acts don’t follow, the Bible teaches that you not only can be deemed not truly a believer (James 2:8-17), but damned as well (Matthew 7:21-23).

Now, you might be quite correct that God will allow murderers in. (Hey, might makes right – according to this argument, God can do what he wants.)

If they repent; absolutely. Might makes right is the atheist principle of ethics, not the Christian one. Ours is “the benevolent, all-loving God is the ground of the right and the good.” You guys can do what you want, and that includes evil. Many atheists in power have acted accordingly (playing a warped notion of “god” in effect).

Perhaps David the King is “important” enough that God will make an exception for him.

David was described as a man after God’s own heart. One temporary state of serious sin does not necessarily mean one is damned for eternity. A man can fall temporarily. Lust is the classic instance of human weakness. We all understand it from our own experience.

Are you saying, that a Christian who lies, and fails to repent, will not make it in? (Nowhere does it say “persist in their sins” either.) Interesting.

It depends on a lot of things. I’m not gonna make some simplistic analysis of how God decides if someone is saved or not. Catholics also make a distinction between mortal / deadly and venial sin.

I suppose you can’t even properly believe in Christianity if you wrongly think it is this goofy, irrational, arbitrary system. 


What I thought I was being told was that I had an intuitive sense of right and wrong and a desire for justice. That this intuition would lead me to conclude there is absolute justice, grounded in a God.

Yes; but you can corrupt that understanding (like conscience) by lousy reasoning and sin. I don’t know about what your sins may be. All I can do is critique your reasoning.

I am now told that we do not know a millionth of what this God is like,

That’s correct. It doesn’t follow that what we do know follows the model of God; particularly in the sense of right and wrong that we have been discussing. My five-year-old daughter doesn’t know a millionth of what I know, but she and I have a common sense of right and wrong. If she pokes her brother in the eye on purpose, she herself knows that this is wrong. And that knowledge (I would argue) is internal, and also derived in part from learning it from her parents (precisely as with us and God).

that this God (apparently) has the same human limitations as we have in discerning innocents and wicked, 

Not at all; that was simply your dim comprehension of how my analogy was functioning.

that this God has the same human propensities to absolve those it favors, and that this God uses other human wickedness performed on innocents to punish the wicked.

None of this is my argument; nor does it follow from what I argued. You have distorted it, in your profound bias against “all things theistic.”

I am now told that “Might makes Right”

Not by me; I never said that.

and that this God can do (or not do) what it chooses when it chooses, simply because I have the audacity to be a human.

Of course He can, being omnipotent; I don’t know what the second part is supposed to mean.

No, Dave Armstrong, I do not find Christianity to be a “goofy, irrational, arbitrary system”. Not in the least.

You could have fooled me, given all your fallacious critiques and caricatures of what you think Christianity teaches, or what the Bible teaches, or your failed reductios of the Bible to moral absurdity.

I find Christianity, (at times) afraid to use the same measurement of inspection upon its own beliefs as compared to what it will utilize on others.

My entire argument was based on analogy to human experience and felt sense of justice. I love to argue that way, following Butler and Newman.

You find my beliefs “disturbing” and “meaningless.” Fair enough

I don’t know the context of where these judgments occurred. But atheism as a whole is highly disturbing because it gets the most important things in life wrong; and that is frightening, and leads to ultimate meaninglessness and despair. Thankfully, most atheists don’t grapple with the consequences of their beliefs. They still have enough Christian residue from experience or society to pretend that life has some meaning, when in fact it can have little if there is no binding morality or immortality or justice in the end, so that evil can be judged and the scales balanced.


I haven’t seen anything that is so foreign to my sense of justice that I would feel duty-bound to reject it, and God with it. 


Yes, I know. But can this Christian God become convincing to other persons’ sense of justice, or is it only persuasive to those that already believe in the Christian God?

I firmly believe so. I think that if you fairly consider the arguments I have made (and many others from Christians), and not concentrate solely on difficult Old Testament passages about massacre and so forth (even those are not absolutely insuperable, I’ve contended), that it is quite easy to see the similarity. We shouldn’t and don’t just dwell on the most difficult things in any given view in order to accept it or reject it. For example, if one believes in the theory of evolution, there are plenty of anomalies and unexplained elements in that. Yet the vast majority of scientists accept it. They don’t reject it because of the anomalies and difficulties that they freely grant.

Likewise, you have no warrant to reject how the Bible presents the character of God based on passages that most people find difficult to grasp, like Abraham and Isaac, and the massacres, and so forth. But that’s all you seem to want to talk about. it’s thoroughly slanted towards skepticism from the outset. So how can you think you are approaching the topic fairly and with an open mind? You have a different standard when you approach the Bible than you have when you approach science. The Bible is subjected to an impossibly high standard. So the problem is not in dearth of solid evidence and reasoning, but in your flawed methodology and epistemology, that includes double standards within it.

If it is not persuasive to us, can there really be a “universal agreement on basic moral principles”?

I think it is virtually self-evident that there is this agreement.

Bottom line – I do not see how humanity’s intuitive sense of right and wrong and desire for justice leads one to the Christian God.

If anything I have written and argued has brought you even the tiniest bit closer to God, then my labors have not been in vain. I ask the Christians reading this to say a prayer for you (and other atheists reading too): that you will be able to see and receive what God is trying to communicate to you through this most unworthy vessel.

Thanks again for the stimulating, amiable, challenging dialogue. It’s my pleasure to interact with you and joy and privilege to share the gospel and the Christian and Catholic message.

***

(originally 12-5-06)

Photo credit: A wildfire burns in a cypress prairie at Florida Panther NWR. [public domain / Free Stock Photos.biz]

***

2018-08-23T18:31:48-04:00

If one dares to critique an atheist’s “deconversion” from Christianity to atheism one will prove oneself (in the eyes of some – dunno how many) atheists, to be evil incarnate, the scum of the earth, and a most unsavory personage. “RubySera Martin”, a former Christian herself, leaves no stone unturned in savaging my person for this outlandishly evil sin that I have committed. The link to her post is now defunct, but I cited it in its entirety.

RubySera’s words will be in blue, John Loftus’s in green, and my older cited words in brown.

*****

John Loftus’s “reply” to my critique of his deconversion was ridiculous enough (“He doesn’t think I was sincere. I’m probably not even a person to him. . . . You’re a joke. I’m surprised you have an audience. . . . To think you could pompously proclaim you are better than me is beyond me when you don’t know me. It’s a defensive mechanism you have with people like me. . . . damned psychobabble . . . drivel . . . It’s called respecting people as people, and Dave’s Christianity does not do that with people who don’t agree with him. . . . self-assured arrogant idiots out there, like Dave, who prefer to proclaim off of my personal experience that they are better than I”), but this goes beyond merely ridiculous, to surreal and hysterical. And the sad thing is that it is again based on a massive misunderstanding that doesn’t follow from the words and arguments I used.

So now, rather than rationally discuss the issues at hand, I have to prove I’m not the devil. See how it works? I wish I could just ignore this, but it is so absurd that I just don’t have it in me. It’s one thing to honestly disagree, but when a person has to literally demonize someone because she is unable to properly understand what they are arguing, then someone must speak out against that. It’s a true shame, that here we are again with atheists who want to resort to personal attack and insult.

Once again, we’ll see that context was utterly butchered, and little attempt was made to grant good faith to me, because, after all, I am a Christian, and I committed the unpardonable sin of critiquing an atheist’s deconversion story. I didn’t know it was the unpardonable sin according to atheists till I did it. Now I know.

Spiritual Predators

The following was said by a Christian about a person [John Loftus] who deconverted from Christianity:

So he grew up being “taught to believe in the Christian faith” yet this is how he ended the later years of his youth? Doesn’t sound like a very compelling Christian upbringing to me. Something was deficient there somewhere. On the other hand, I was a very nominal Methodist growing up, and even stopped going to Church at age 10 (because my parents also did) and was almost a practical agnostic; at the very least exceedingly secular in outlook (though never an atheist). Yet I never remotely got into this much trouble (pursuing the occult was about the extent of it).

That can be about the most scathing thing seekers face. They make themselves vulnerable, they bare their souls, hoping for understanding. Instead of understanding they are mocked for being the way they are.

The author, Dave Armstrong, claims elsewhere that he was only critiquing. No, he was not critiquing. He was being skeptical of another human being’s honesty regarding that person’s own personal experience of life. In other words, he was being skeptical about another person’s interpretation of his own life experience.

This is a complete distortion of what I was trying to do, and my interior disposition. I was not mocking at all. This is implied in the fact that I concluded my own not very stellar example of religious background. My point was that there was likely some deficiency in how John was taught the Christian faith, because, as a rule, those who are taught it properly, don’t get into all the trouble that he did (“I had dropped out of High School, and was arrested six different times for offenses like running away, theft, and battery. I had also hitchhiked around the country with a friend. I was heavily into drugs, alcohol, sex, fast cars, and the party scene”). This was all prior to age 18. I used myself as an analogy; in effect, arguing: if I wasn’t properly taught religious things and got into relatively little trouble, it stands to reason that John probably wasn’t, either, since he got into a load of trouble.”

This doesn’t involve my allegedly “being skeptical of another human being’s honesty regarding that person’s own personal experience of life.” Not at all. And that is because the statement, “I grew up being taught to believe in the Christian faith” is capable of including within it many possibilities as to factual variables: possible deficiencies in doctrine, in ethics, in bad example from those teaching it, in hypocrisy of those teaching it, etc. It is a subjective statement. I only had so much information to go by and responded accordingly.

It’s true that I am skeptical of the nature of this faith that he was taught. I highly suspect that there was something wrong there (in the teaching, not with him as a supposedly rotten, evil person), that led him to go astray in his youth. Most people who see a young person go so far astray will immediately look at the parents and what they have been doing. But this doesn’t entail some unsavory claim that John is not honest, or that he is deliberately misrepresenting his past. That simply doesn’t follow. It was a very general statement.

What I am skeptical of is whether he was properly taught Christianity. Perhaps he was. I assumed he would clarify that later, since, after all, he asked me to critique his deconversion in the first place, and we were getting along fine (so I thought) until I did so. He could easily have done so, but instead we had an explosion of irrational and emotional invective.

RubySera says I was “being skeptical about another person’s interpretation of his own life experience.” Again, this is not true. The above observation doesn’t require this sort of reading at all. I was simply reacting to the general statement that he was raised in the Christian faith, combined with his own report of his mischief and lawbreaking, and stating aloud that something doesn’t connect there. I don’t place that in his sincerity, but in problems in what he was taught, or something along these lines.

I do see, however, that there were two things I could have expressed in a better way: the use of the phrase, “on the other hand,” which can (I see now) be taken to imply that I was contrasting myself (by this phrase) as (an inherently) “good kid” over against John as a “bad kid” (and then using this presumption of his “badness” to dismiss his reasoning thereafter). But that was not my intention at all. I intended the phrase to contrast the two following things, by reverse analogy:

1. John: good Christian upbringing — wild youth.

2. Dave: nominal Christian upbringing — relatively docile, trouble-free youth.

My reasoning (I grant that it is not totally clear) was that good religious teaching usually corresponds to kids getting into less trouble. So if John got into a lot, I was saying that maybe the teaching or the environment in which it was presented wasn’t that great. He may have sincerely thought that it was. But reasonable people can differ on that.

RubySera herself was brought up as a very conservative Mennonite (she describes it as a “horse and buggy Mennonite community”). She now thinks it was a terrible thing. So why is it unspeakably evil for me to simply question whether there were deficiencies in John’s upbringing, too? It’s only permissible for atheists to critique such things, but Christians dare not, on pain of being publicly savaged and demonized as wicked scoundrels? Atheists can critique errors in practice of Christians, but Christians cannot?

The second thing was my use of the word “deficient.” I meant it strictly to imply to the teaching he received. But I can see how, grammatically, it is possible to think that I was referring to John as a person. I was not. Even if I were, this would make little sense in the context of a Christian understanding, because we say that everyone is subject to original sin, and everyone actually sins (except for Mary in Catholic theology and the unfallen angels). We’re all sinners in need of a savior. I might make judgments that a person is lacking in this or that quality, if it is repeatedly manifest.

But I can’t imagine saying “x is a deficient person.” I don’t think I’ve ever said since I have been a serious Christian (almost 30 years): “I’m better than that person.” That’s just not the way I talk or approach people, so it wasn’t what I meant here. It’s completely foreign to my worldview and thinking processes. I would say (and have, many many times), “we’re all sinners; myself foremost; Exhibit #1.” But I recognize that it could legitimately have been misunderstood here, and to that extent I accept my share of the responsibility and even offer an apology for the poor wording, leaving myself open to be misunderstood.

But even that, in my opinion, doesn’t excuse how RubySera has responded to me. She has the choice of whether or not to believe my report of my intentions, just as she is protesting against my imaginary doubting of John’s personal report. So stay tuned for that. It’ll be very interesting either way.

Before we proceed further, let’s look at the context of my remark. This is easy, because there is only one additional paragraph, right after what was cited, before moving onto other sub-topics. Here it is. Note the information that gives a quite different impression from the one RubySera drew from the isolated paragraph. It’s a classic study in quoting out of context:

I’m not questioning John’s sincerity; only saying that something was missing for this sort of rebellion to have occurred. It could still occur even in a profoundly Christian home (e.g., Billy Graham’s son Franklin, who later straightened up and became a minister), because we all have free will, but generally this indicates a less-than-stellar foundational Christian teaching. And that, in turn, influences one’s thoughts and opinions, which has relevance to a “deconversion” and sad descent into atheism.

First of all, one observes my making very clear that I am not questioning John’s sincerity (first five words). The choice, then, is to either believe my report of my interior disposition and opinion of John or not. I am being chided for supposedly not granting this charity and benefit of the doubt to John. But ironically, now I find myself being subject to the same thing I am being falsely accused of. We’re supposed to believe that atheists are sincere in their stories, but Christians are not in their critiques? If not, why does RubySera continue?:

That is outside the boundaries of anyone except for the individual who has the experience. Telling a person that he did not experience things that way is like telling someone, “No you are not cold when you are cold.” It denigrates a human being’s perception. We must protect ourselves against that kind of person. They are destructive in all their ways.

But I didn’t do this! I just stated that I don’t question John’s sincerity! I even granted that there are exceptions to the rule of the “kid gone astray” (thus, John’s case may have been one itself). There is no question that youth go astray overwhelmingly when there is some serious deficiency in the home. This could be either from teaching or disciplinary chaos or lack of one parent or drug use. It could be any number of things. But it is completely rational to suspect that something seriously wrong (i.e., from the parents) went on.

If anyone doubts this, go interview juvenile delinquents or adult criminals and ask them about their childhoods. Only a fool could deny the connection. I don’t know more particulars about John’s childhood unless he decides to let me in on them. But it was entirely rational and reasonable (and, I say, not unethical or uncharitable) to suspect what I did, based on the information I had.

Secondly, one phrase makes it clear that I was concentrating on the Christian teaching (or lack thereof) when I referred to something being “deficient”: “generally this [rebellion] indicates a less-than-stellar foundational Christian teaching.” I think this easily explains my use of that word, in context. But by omitting the second paragraph, RubySera could have a field day in distorting my intentions, and then moving on to “argue” (based on this false premise) about what wicked, evil — indeed, even “dangerous” — person I allegedly am. I think it also explains the intent of my phrase “on the other hand.”

Nevertheless, I’m happy to acknowledge that one might misinterpret those words; particularly because it is an emotional and personal topic, etc. That often causes lapses in logic and reading comprehension. If John (and/or RubySera) immediately got angry with my first paragraph, then they read the rest of the paper in that fog of misguided anger. I’m saying that it was ultimately unjustified. It certainly is now, at any rate, after my elaborate explanations. But if they insist on having an axe to grind against me, on a groundless basis, all of this won’t amount to a hill of beans.

In our search for what is right for us we need clear-headed, honest people to help us understand ourselves. People who talk in the tone of voice Dave Armstrong talks are among the most dangerous people to listen to. The problem with not listening to them is that they will get emotionally vicious. They will make personal attacks. They will threaten that bad things will happen. Those are a few of the things they will say.

I did none of these things whatsoever. I just didn’t. It’s amusing to me that she talks about “tone of voice” when that is precisely the thing that is lacking in written material. Anyone who has met me would never say this nonsense. I appeal to those who know me in person, just as John has done. Even two fellow atheists in the very thread discussing my critique recognized that I was not intending to attack John personally.

Matthew Green, for example, wrote on John’s own blog: “. . . the tone of Dave’s critique is a bit pleasant and not really nasty, . . . At least Dave Armstrong seems a likeable kind of a guy, . . .” And “whizler” wrote: “I don’t believe Dave Armstrong’s response was directed at you personally.” So this personal interpretation is often wildly subjective. These are four atheists all looking at the same exact thing. John and RubySera go nuts and start attacking me personally, whereas Matthew and whizler make rational comments and form a very different impression.

Moreover, I made it very clear in my comments underneath the critique on my blog, that I do not hold the unsavory opinions about John, that have been falsely attributed to me:

Dave, as I read this I thought to myself, he doesn’t think of me as an equal. 

Quite the contrary; we’re all sinners. No one is any better, at bottom, than anyone else. Whatever good is in us is because of God’s grace, not our inherent superiority to someone else. 

He looks down his nose at me. 

Not at all. I simply disagree with your positions and your denigration of Christianity. Your position is not you. If you write about such things publicly, then do you not expect that Christians will respond to them? You actually encouraged me to respond to your deconversion, so I did.

As I’m writing he looks for loopholes. He doesn’t think I was sincere. 

Really? That’s news to me. I never remotely implied such a thing; nor do I believe it. Your problem (at least insofar as this version of your story suggests) is intellectual, not a matter of dishonesty. 

Bad premises lead to bad conclusions. I didn’t see anything that would bring any Christian doctrine into question at all. Sorry, that’s my honest opinion. Or am I dishonest?

I’m probably not even a person to him. 

Wow. Well, I know one thing: you are extremely sensitive to Christian critiques, even when done respectfully and not attacking you as a person or immoral scoundrel, etc. I can understand that, but it has the effect of alienating those (such as myself) who simply don’t have the attitudes you are attributing to them. 

I understand that many Christians have treated you rottenly. I’ve seen some recent things that shocked me and were terrible witnesses to Christianity. That’s contemptible. But I am not among them. I don’t share their attitudes. I never said you were especially evil (more than any other sinner, of whom I am foremost) or damned, etc. Catholics (to their credit, and we have many faults, believe me) generally don’t do that. We leave those judgments up to God.

[Of, course the net is impersonal anyway so some of this is excusable]. 

This is true. But I take great pains not to fall into the common shortcomings of Internet discourse. You think I’ve attacked your person? Good grief. You should see the amazing things that are written about me. And the worst comes from fellow Christians (some of them even Catholics). 

I dare say Dave that if YOU were to write about your CONVERSION story I could pick it apart no matter how much you write too IF I DIDN’T CONSIDER YOU TO BE A SINCERE AND HONEST AND THOUGHTFUL PERSON. 

Now get this straight, John (in big capital letters): 

I *****DO***** CONSIDER YOU TO BE A SINCERE AND HONEST AND THOUGHTFUL PERSON. 

Got that? Now if you say I am lying, then obviously all discourse is over. But it wasn’t because of me. God is my witness for that, and also (since you think He doesn’t exist) all who have read our exchanges.

RubySera could easily have read that, if she is so interested in figuring out exactly what my intentions, opinions, and interior dispositions were. Instead, we get her ludicrous attack. It ends with this ultra-absurd rant:

I call them spiritual predators because that is exactly what they are. They attack, maim, and torture. Only when they have their victim completely within their power to do release the pressure. It is possible to escape even then, but it is extremely difficult and dangerous.

Further comment on this paragraph would obviously be superfluous and futile and would be an insult to my readers.

There is nothing to these charges. But if it floats RubySera’s boat to falsely demonize me based on no evidence at all that I hold these alleged opinions (and much flatly stated evidence to the contrary), what can I do about it? All I can do is use reason, as I have, and hope that fair-minded atheists will try to persuade this woman that she is only hurting herself and the cause of atheism by this sort of groundless attack.

***

(originally 10-28-06)

Photo credit: werner22brigitte  (12-24-12) [PixabayCC0 Creative Commons license]

***

2018-06-25T10:50:05-04:00

Grimlock is an atheist from Norway. He made a response to my initial provocative questions (see the whole thing). This is my counter-reply. Due to his length I can’t reply to absolutely everything (that would make this post way too long). His words will be in blue.

*****

One thing I habitually ask atheists is to explain how matter could obtain the qualities it has, including evolving into living organisms. I don’t see that science (at least to my knowledge) has yet explained that, but you guys object when we suggest that a God might be the explanation of the universe and its marvels. You in turn call that “god of the gaps.”

But I don’t see that whatever explanation you come up with is all that more explanatory or plausible than our “answer.” I see it as atheists having even more faith, and a much more blind faith, in the inherent capabilities of matter, than we Christians exercise in believing in God. At least we have (love or despise them) some 25 theistic “proofs” for God, while we await even one plausible materialistic scientific explanation of matter evolving into life and everything we see in the universe: all starting from a chaotic explosion that itself has no good explanation as to prior cause.

Do you know that feeling when your comment ends up being a 2700 word essay? 

I do very well! :-)

I interpret these issues as dealing with the matter of providing explanations. Different types of explanations, to different types of questions, but still; explanations. Consequently, I’ll endeavour to provide my view on a view different questions, and also how I see my view compared to the theistic view. The following are the different questions.

1) Why is there stuff? (Also phrased as why is there something rather than nothing?)
2) Given that there are stuff, why is there is particular stuff?
3) Given that there are this particular stuff, how can these particular events come to pass?

Throughout pondering these questions I shall also consider that if we take it as given that these events came to pass, what is the most plausible explanation for these events; theism or naturalism?

Good start!

[for the sake of space, I have passed over his self-described “digression” regarding what he thinks “makes something a good explanation.” See it at the original posting]

1) Why is there stuff? (Also phrased as why is there something rather than nothing?)

I have no idea. It might be that there not being anything at all is utterly incoherent and impossible. But perhaps not.

It might be thought that the theist has an edge here — after all, a common claim is to say that God is necessary, that He had to exist. But I find this unconvincing. It is far too easy to simply inquire, why is it so that God is necessary?

Instead, one ought to concede that at some point you just have to say that this is simply how it is. A brute fact, if you will. My intuition (admittedly hopelessly useless in this context) is inclined towards this view. A bit of epistemic humility, and a concession that I don’t think the mere existence of anything at all provides neither the naturalist nor the theist with an edge.

As a quick note, the two criteria that I laid out for what makes a good explanation is futile here. I have no idea how to explain existence of stuff in a way that existence must follow, nor do I see how existence — everything that is — can be explained in terms of something else.

I greatly appreciate your honesty and “epistemic humility.” I think , right off the bat, this gets to the heart of the matter and the question of relative explanatory value of theism and atheism for these grand cosmological / material mysteries. You ask, why is it so that God is necessary?”  The answer is simple: something has to explain why the universe is here, and why it is so unbelievably marvelous and extraordinary.

This “something” is what Einstein called his own religion (a sort of pantheism or panentheism). He recognized that straight atheism was woefully inadequate to explain what we observe; especially all the more so, as we learn more and more about physics. His religion was very different from ours as theists; yet on the other hand, it is far more like our cosmological answers and religion than your answer (or “epistemologically humble” non-answer, as the case may be) and non-religion.

I found a site called Brief Answers to Cosmic Questions (run by NASA / Harvard / Smithsonian Institute). It made the fascinating observation (one of many):

Was the Big Bang the origin of the universe?

It is a common misconception that the Big Bang was the origin of the universe. In reality, the Big Bang scenario is completely silent about how the universe came into existence in the first place. In fact, the closer we look to time “zero,” the less certain we are about what actually happened, because our current description of physical laws do not yet apply to such extremes of nature.

The Big Bang scenario simply assumes that space, time, and energy already existed. But it tells us nothing about where they came from – or why the universe was born hot and dense to begin with.

I just did a series of critiques of Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion. He complained about an “infinite regress” where the theist appeals to God and then Dawkins asks (thinking he is spoiling the party), “well, where did God come from?” He came from nowhere. He was always there, by definition. He’s not subject to the laws of science. We can’t prove about matter (at least according to our present knowledge), what theists attribute to God: self-existence, self-sufficiency, and eternality.

But in the quotation above, “space, time, and energy already existed” before the Big Bang, and moreover, we know “nothing about where they came from” (my emphasis). Well, isn’t that something?  Science is awful ignorant about some very important things, isn’t it? Theists are mocked and looked down on all the time for “god of the gaps.”

But how is the above scenario any different? How is it not “matter of the gaps” or making matter god: as I have mercilessly satirized, to the consternation of many atheists (oooh: you should have seen the insults, in the attempt to shut me up!)? Matter was just there; we know not how — don’t have a clue — but we will believe it anyway, if we are materialists, because, what choice is there (minus God)? This is truly a faith-filled belief in something with no evidence: precisely as theists and Christians are constantly criticized (and I would say it is a bum rap in our case).

You say, this is simply how it is.” Okay, that’s fine.  Matter’s here; the universe is here. We have no inkling how or why, but “it’s simply how it is.” There’s no evidence there. My problem with this is that we are always forbidden (under pain of being called irrational, gullible, superstitious, followers of the tooth fairy and leprechauns, et al) to posit that God was the Prime Mover and First Cause. At least we can provide many reasonable arguments for His existence. Science offers none for the universe before the Big Bang (not according to its own methodology of relentless cause and effect). We just saw that above. So why is that view supposedly so much more reasonable and plausible than ours? I don’t buy it! It’s simply not. I think our view is far more reasonable and plausible.

2) Given that there are stuff, why is there is particular stuff?

To this, I think one ought to be rather more specific. I don’t know if it is meaningful to ask why this particular stuff exists. It might be some if one limits the scope, for instance as is done in the fine-tuning argument. Or, as you ask, why does matter act in the way that it does?

Yes I would, but not only that; also, how is it that it came to evolve and become what it now is?

Yet, once again, I must admit that I don’t know. I am not surprised that the stuff that exists has some regularity at some level. After all, what would be the alternative? Sheer randomness?

I don’t see how that could be conceived without the randomness having some probability distribution. But then you see regularities at some aggregated level, and you’re once again given some regularities. So I am not surprised that the stuff that exists behaves in some way with regularity.

It’s perfectly conceivable that the universe could be a chaotic, random, senseless place that simply didn’t have all these laws and regularities of nature that we observe (uniformitarianism, etc.). In reality it has extraordinary order, and so we must ask why? From whence did such amazing things derive?

At some limited level, one could explain the stuff that exists by appealing to other existing stuff. For instance, certain of our so-called laws of nature (which I tend to think of as descriptive rather than normative) appear to be emergent from other underlying regularities. But as for explaining these regularities, I don’t know.

How does theism do in this regard? Not particularly well, I think. One might be tempted to claim that God made it so that things are as they are. But as with (1), one always seem justified in asking why stuff is so that God is the ontologically non-contingent part of existence. Note also the criteria that I set for explanations; It is hard to see why this particular type of stuff would follow from God, and as an appeal to an entity whose existence is not an immediate part of our ontology, it utterly fails at appealing to established ontologies.

Yeah, you simply rule out the possibility of God from the outset, or (perhaps more accurately) rule out that God as an explanation or First Cause can never be more plausible than your explanation. Death by preconceived category . . . But since your explanation of these fundamental questions so far is nothing; that’s not a very high bar to surpass, is it? 

Now, another digression might be appropriate. I believe there is one way we could look at our stuff, what we perceive to exist, and give either theism or naturalism the edge.

[see another “digression” comment in Grimlock’s original posting at this point, that provides relevant context]

Consider the universe as a whole, or on a general level. We observe that physical stuff exists and changes. The mental that we observe (animals, including humans) appear to be dependent on the physical. This seems to correspond better with naturalism than with supernaturalism, and as such, the stuff that we do observe seems, on a very general level, to provide some evidence for naturalism.

Nature does suggest naturalism, I agree, but that’s only after the “wheels have been set in motion.” Observational cause and effect are fine; no one disagrees with that.  How things came to be in the first place is what I am interested in, in this discussion. I deny that everything mental is dependent on the physical, but that’s a completely different discussion.

3) Given that there are this particular stuff, how can these particular events come to pass?

Now we come to, I think, at least three points that you make in the quote above.

3a) You appeal to life originating from non-life. Abiogenesis, as I believe it is called. It is true that there is no current scientific theory that explains either how life can originate from non-life, or how life did originate from non-life. (If anyone knows differently, I’d love to be corrected.)

Exactly. So once again, materialistic science has no clue; not even the hint of one.

I expect that it would be tempting to here, once again, appeal to God as an explanation.

Not only tempting, but equally as reasonable, and (I say) more plausible than matter coming from nothing for who knows what reason, or having some sort of supposed faux-eternality, and somehow organizing itself into ever more complex forms, up to and including life and consciousness.

As a contrast, I will appeal to the following: Saying the word “chemistry” while doing a vaguely circular gesture with my hand. Let us now compare these explanations, based on the criteria that I appealed to above.

Do either of these explanations make it so that the life originating from non-life is a reasonable consequence? I don’t see how. Neither provides sufficient details, and while one could always add ad-hoc premises to either explanation, that seems… well, ad-hoc. So in terms of (i), neither is particularly successful.

How about in terms of (ii)? Well, as this is used as an appeal to increase God’s plausibility, I fail to see how one can contend that God is an entity that exists in our ontology without being circular. Whereas chemistry is something we know to exist. Thus, my vague explanation is superior to the God-explanation of terms of (ii). This is what I tend to think characterizes a god-of-the-gaps argument; A phenomena that is not currently understood, where God has little to no explanatory power, and where we have a promising venue in terms of stuff that we already possess in our ontology.

Well, that’s just it. You and atheists say “God isn’t in our ontology; we can’t comprehend him, or understand why anyone else believes in him.” Or if theists do offer reasons they are circular or inconsistent, or incoherent, or non-empirical / evidential. But atheists have always been in a small minority. Most of mankind is religious, believing in some sort of superior power or Supreme Being. So the facts on the ground suggest an existing ontology that does indeed include God or at least some sense of an organizing, creative force (if it is deemed as non-personal).

Here we get into the waters of “properly basic belief.” Alvin Plantinga explored that in a famous paper. I’ll quote a good chunk of it:

[T]he believer is entirely within his intellectual rights in believing as he does even if he doesn’t know of any good theistic argument (deductive or inductive), even if he doesn’t believe that there is any such argument, and even if in fact no such argument exists. . . . it is perfectly rational to accept belief in God without accepting it on the basis of any other beliefs or propositions at all.

The evidentialist objector holds that one who accepts theistic belief is in some way irrational or noetically substandard.

Typically this objection has been rooted in some form of classical foundationalism, according to which a proposition p is properly basic for a person S if and only if p is either self-evident or incorrigible for S (modern foundationalism) or either self-evident or ‘evident to the senses’ for S (ancient and medieval foundationalism). [ElsewhereI argued that both forms of foundationalism are self referentially incoherent and must therefore be rejected. Insofar as the evidentialist objection is rooted in classical foundationalism, it is poorly rooted indeed: and so far as I know, no one has developed and articulated any other reason for supposing that belief in God is not properly basic. Of course it doesn’t follow that it is properly basic; perhaps the class of properly basic propositions is broader than classical foundationalists think, but still not broad enough to admit belief in God. But why think so?

I’ve heard it argued that if I have no evidence for the existence of God, then if I accept that proposition, my belief will be groundless, or gratuitous, or arbitrary. I think this is an error; let me explain. Suppose we consider perceptual beliefs, memory beliefs, and be liefs which ascribe mental states to other persons: such beliefs as

(1)  I see a tree,

(2)  I had breakfast this morning, and

(3)  That person is angry.

Although beliefs of this sort are typically and properly taken as basic, it would be a mistake to describe them as groundless.

[ . . . ]

By way of conclusion then: being self-evident, or incorrigible, or evident to the senses is not a necessary condition of proper basicality. Furthermore, one who holds that belief in God is properly basic is not thereby committed to the idea that belief in God is groundless or gratuitous or without justifying circumstances. And even if he lacks a general criterion of proper basicality, he is not obliged to suppose that just any or nearly any belief — belief in the Great Pumpkin, for example — is   properly basic.

The takeaway here is that appeals to abiogenesis hardly gives the theist an advantage, but rather the opposite.

Really? You yourself freely (and admirably) admitted above:It is true that there is no current scientific theory that explains either how life can originate from non-life, or how life did originate from non-life.” Yet despite that big zero explanation-wise, you continue to believe that an exclusively natural explanation (what explanation?!) is superior to a Christian believing that “God created life” (which may, of course, have been through the means of evolution). Once again you have nothing, but you regard it as a superior explanation (nothing!) to simple Christian belief in a God Who created the universe.

3b) You also appeal to the universe’s alleged cause, and more broadly its origin. But in terms of explanations, let us once again make a comparison.

This time, we once again appeal to God as an explanation. One could, I suppose, add more speculative details, if one is so inclined. I would undoubtedly make a muddle of that, so I shall leave it be.

Compare this with this model by Anthony Aguirre and Steven Gratton.

The latter, entirely naturalistic, explanation provides an expectation of our universe. So in terms of (i) above, it is rather successful.

What is the proof and evidence that they offer, beyond being just a speculation from their own brains? You tell me. Most of the article is way over my head (far too technical for a non-physicist or non-mathematician). If it’s mere speculation, with no solid scientific evidence, then of course it is ultimately on the same epistemological ground as our belief in God.

These guys think matter has all these amazing inherent capabilities. We believe God does. I fail to see how your scenario is superior to ours. Yours is self-contradicting when it claims to be superior in terms of explanation, yet offers no compelling evidence from its own supposedly self-sufficient scientific paradigm.

This is the heart of my ultra-controversial, feather-ruffling, sacred cow-busting satire of atheist “atomism”:

Matter essentially “becomes god” in the atheist / materialist view; it has the inherent ability to do everything by itself: a power that Christians believe God caused, by putting these potentialities and actual characteristics into matter and natural laws, as their ultimate Creator and ongoing Preserver and Sustainer.

The atheist places extraordinary faith in matter – arguably far more faith than we place in God, because it is much more difficult to explain everything that god-matter does by science alone. . . . 

The polytheistic materialist . . . thinks that trillions of his atom-gods and their distant relatives, the cell-gods, can make absolutely everything in the universe occur, by their own power, possessed eternally either in full or (who knows how?) in inevitably unfolding potentiality.

One might call this (to coin a phrase) Atomism (“belief that the atom is God”). Trillions of omnipotent, omniscient atoms can do absolutely everything that the Christian God can do, and for little or no reason that anyone can understand (i.e., why and how the atom-god came to possess such powers in the first place). The Atomist openly and unreservedly worships his trillions of gods, with the most perfect, trusting, non-rational faith imaginable. He or she is what sociologists call a “true believer.”

Oh, and we mustn’t forget the time-goddess. She is often invoked in worshipful, reverential, awe-inspiring terms as the be-all, end-all explanation for things inexplicable, as if by magic her very incantation rises to an explanatory level sufficient to shut up any silly Christian, who is foolish enough to believe in one God rather than trillions. The time-goddess is the highest in the ranks of the Atomist’s wonderfully varied hierarchy of gods (sort of the “Zeus” of Atomism). One might call this belief Temporalism.

Atomism is a strong, fortress-like faith. It is often said that it “must be” what it is. The Atomist reverses the error of the Gnostic heretics. They thought spirit was great and that matter was evil. Atomists think matter is great (and god) and spirit is not only “evil” (metaphorically speaking), but beyond that: non-existent.

Is God as successful an explanation in terms of (i)? Not really. God could easily create other types of universes, not to mention eternal ones, or create a universe mid-existence in such a way that its current laws of nature does not explain its history.

I have found one vigorous critique of a similar paper by them. The great theistic apologist William Lane Craig criticizes their theory:

For the two models mentioned (Aguirre-Gratton and Carroll-Chen) were specifically addressed by name by Vilenkin in the paper from the Cambridge conference which I quoted in my opening speech. These models were comprised in Vilenkin’s conclusion, “None of these scenarios can actually be past-eternal.” So when Vilenkin says that they afford a “possible loophole,” the idea must be that because they deny the single assumption of the theorem, maybe that’s a way to avoid the beginning of the universe. But in his paper Vilenkin proceeds to close this loophole by showing that these models cannot be past-eternal for other reasons.  . . . 

To my delight [Alexander] Vilenkin furnished the unabridged version of his letter to [Lawrence] Krauss. . . .

Any theorem is only as good as its assumptions. The BGV theorem says that if the universe is on average expanding along a given worldline, this worldline cannot be infinite to the past.

A possible loophole is that there might be an epoch of contraction prior to the expansion. Models of this sort have been discussed by Aguirre & Gratton and by Carroll & Chen. They had to assume though that the minimum of entropy was reached at the bounce and offered no mechanism to enforce this condition. It seems to me that it is essentially equivalent to a beginning. . . . 

Dr. Craig cited a letter from theoretical physicist and cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin to himself:

The Aguirre-Gratton model can avoid singularities by postulating a small “initial” closed universe and then allowing it to evolve in both directions of time. I put “initial” in quotation marks, because Aguirre and Gratton do not think of it that way. But this model requires that a very special condition is enforced at some moment in the history of the universe. At that moment, the universe should be very small and have very low entropy. Aguirre and Gratton do not specify a physical mechanism that could enforce such a condition. . . . 

Whatever it’s worth, my view is that the BGV theorem does not say anything about the existence of God one way or the other. In particular, the beginning of the universe could be a natural event, described by quantum cosmology.

So Vilenkin is not some Christian apologist. He’s an agnostic, and is saying that his own theory doesn’t address the issue (which I think is proper). On the other hand, he doesn’t dogmatically rule out God either. I think this is the better, more open-minded scientific approach. Similarly, Dr. Craig opines:

As for Vilenkin’s theological views, while I would never rejoice that someone is not a Christian, I find his agnosticism to be helpful in that no one can accuse him of having a theological axe to grind in his defense of the universe’s beginning. 

How about existing ontology? I believe the model by Aguirre and Gratton contains some speculative physics, and some appeals to existing physics. So it’s moderately successful in terms of (ii), while God – as mentioned before – fails in terms of (ii).

Dr. Craig debated atheist Dr. Sean Carroll (on You Tube), in February 2014. Dr. Carroll in the debate was an advocate of the Aguirre/Gratton thesis. He wrote in a post-debate reflection:

In contrast, I wanted to talk about a model developed by Anthony Aguirre and Stephen Gratton. They have a very simple and physically transparent model that (unlike my theory with Chen) imposes a low-entropy boundary condition at a mid-universe “bounce.” It’s a straightforward example of a perfectly well-defined theory that is clearly eternal, one that doesn’t have a beginning, and does so without invoking any hand-waving about quantum gravity. I challenged Craig to explain why this wasn’t a sensible example of an eternal universe, one that was in perfect accord with the BGV theorem, but he didn’t respond. 

Dr. Craig may not have responded, but Dr. Vilenkin (the “V” in “BGV”) did. I showed above how he does not think Aguirre/Gratton is “in perfect accord” with his own. He thinks it does not show an eternal universe (let alone a “clearly eternal” one), but rather, one with essentially a “beginning.” See also a related video by Dr. Vilenkin, who stated in 2012, “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.”

Dr. Craig, with Paul Copan, offered further fundamental critiques of Aguirre/Gratton, in the book, The Kalam Cosmological Argument, Volume 2: Scientific Evidence for the Beginning of the Universe (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017, p. 133):

A matter of some importance is that there is no communication; no causality by definition from one region to the other. Thus one can say that there is no eternal past that evolved into our present. . . . What one really has in this model are two separate universes that trace their origins to a past boundary (the very singularity that Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin have demonstrated). . . . if they are right, then a beginning of time has been demonstrated. Rather than a past eternal universe, one has a past finite multiverse.

3c) As a more general view, you appeal to at least 25 theistic arguments of proofs. I assume you consider these to be 25 strong theistic arguments, as I suspect there are far more actual arguments. I’d say that both (3a) and (3b) are instances of such theistic arguments, though not phrased particularly precisely.

I said nothing about relative strength. I would consider some fairly strong (e.g., cosmological, teleological) and some pretty weak (e.g., ontological, argument from beauty). I don’t consider any of them strictly a proof. Five days ago, I summarized my precise view of theistic proofs as follows:

My view remains what it has been for many years: nothing strictly / absolutely “proves” God’s existence. But . . .

I think His existence is exponentially more probable and plausible than atheism, based on the cumulative effect of a multitude of good and different types of (rational) theistic arguments, and the utter implausibility, incoherence, irrationality, and unacceptable level of blind faith of alternatives.

As a counter, one should note that there are many arguments against various forms of theism. A handful, primarily aimed at looking for contradictions or tensions in the concept of God, can be found in this compilation.

Of course there are. The question is (just as with our proofs): how good and convincing and reasonable are they?

Others can be found, for instance, at the Secular Outpost here on Patheos.

Since we’re trading lists, here are some of mine:

*
*
*
*
*
*

While I cannot claim to be familiar with all theistic arguments, my impression is that they can be put in a rough shape along the following lines:

P1: Phenomena A exists (e.g. the universe’s alleged beginning or ontologically real moral values)
P2: Phenomena B is more probable on theism than on atheism
C: Theism is more probable than atheism

In other words, the arguments appeal to some observed phenomena (concrete or abstract), and argue that this is more easily explained in terms of theism. (There are exceptions, obviously.) Without going into detail, the ones that I have encountered appear to me to fail to establish their conclusion with a high degree of certainty. As you don’t refer to any particular arguments, I shall respond with some general observations.

No particular beef, except to say that obviously I think they are stronger arguments than you do.

3c-1) I am deeply skeptical to the proposition that a person can coherently defend all such ‘strong’ arguments, as they rely on a variety of underlying premises and conceptions, all of which might not be compatible. My impression is also that most Christian philosophers criticise several arguments. (To name a couple of examples off the top of my head, I believe Swinburne has criticized EAAN, and that van Inwagen has criticized the argument from contingency. Though I might be mistaken about these specific examples.)

That’s true. They are of variable strength.

3c-2) I believe that Paul Draper has made the point that while some phenomena might support theism (e.g. the existence of minds), details of this fact (e.g. that minds seem to be dependent upon the physical) often provides evidence against theism.

Dependence on the physical (in Plantinga’s argument from other minds) is, I believe, irrelevant, because he’s looking at our “basic” belief that other minds exist, before we get to the specifics of the other minds or the mind-body question.

3c-3) When the arguments gets turned around a bit, there is usually a sense in which God in some way is supposed to be an explanation for some phenomena. But as we have seen, God tends to be a bad explanation in terms of (i) and (ii). One can improve upon the sense in which God fulfills (i), but only by adding further auxiliary propositions to the God hypothesis. This has the consequence of decreasing the modesty of God as an explanation, and thus increasing the burden of evidence on the theist.

Meanwhile, you have given me zero compelling scientific evidence for a purely materialistic explanation of the origin of the universe or for life. That is not any kind of appearance of strength for your position.

I believe that this provides a fairly thorough account of why appeals to specific phenomena in our universe is hard to credit to theism, but rather plays nicely along with naturalism.

As I said, it does for current processes (which we believe God set in motion and sustains in some sense). When we get to origins, it is exponentially more difficult to explain by materialism / naturalism alone.

Some final thoughts

Let me close by making some final remarks to a somewhat long comment. I find it vital to specify the scope of one’s explanations when comparing two explanatory models. In our case, we compare theism to naturalism. If we try to answer how life originated from non-life, we need to compare the respective explanations. I find that when one is careful with comparing like explanations with like, theism comes up short compared to naturalism.

Since you have given me no explanation, I fail to see how yours is better than ours! Our explanation is essentially the cosmological argument. You don’t like it, but I think most people would agree that at least a serious attempt at explanation, made by many great philosophers through the centuries, is superior to no explanation at all. 

While there are some instances of what we observe that fit better with theism than with naturalism, on the whole, naturalism as the upper hand.

A takeaway is, I think, that appealing to questions such as the ones you raise does not, as I see it, provide challenges to naturalism that is not also shared by theism. I have tried to stay reasonably on point, and only include the digressions that I find pertinent.

Thank you for what I thought was an enjoyable and constructive exchange.

***

Photo credit: photograph of physicist Alexander Vilenkin from a You Tube video [You Tube / standard You Tube license]

***

 

2017-07-25T12:12:41-04:00

DemonsSwine

The Swine Driven into the Sea, by James Tissot (1836-1902) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

*****

Prominent online atheist Jonathan MS Pearce (A Tippling Philosopher) loves to write about alleged biblical contradictions. He produced the post, “On Harmonising Biblical Contradictions” (7-23-17) and was kind enough to mention my name in the beginning:

This is a post I once made for John Loftus at Debunking Christianity [my italics] and contradictions came up in a recent conversation with Dave Armstrong, so here it is. Contradictions, as Dave stated, can be harmonised, or found not to be contradictions, or are so insignificant as to not be of bother to the Christian. However, what is really interesting is how the Christian mind deals with them.

He continues:

As mentioned, many [contradictions] are fairly irrelevant in the scheme of things and don’t really invalidate the core claims of the Bible, only the claims of inerrancy. What it does show, however, is the rationalisation process of the average Christian. Not only is the process hilarious to watch, but the answers given vary so widely amongst defenders of inerrancy (and even amongst liberal defenders who instinctively try to protect the Bible’s accuracy) that it seems fairly obvious as to the ad hoc nature of the defences.

One such example is the use of Gadarenes and Gerasenes that I will look into in more depth in this post and show how bad such attempted harmonisations can be.

Mark 5:1-2
They came to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gerasenes. 2 When He got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met Him,

Matt 8:28
When He came to the other side into the country of the Gadarenes, two men who were demon-possessed met Him as they were coming out of the tombs. They were so extremely violent that no one could pass by that way.

Luke 8:26-7
Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 And when He came out onto the land, He was met by a man from the city who was possessed with demons;

We have two problems here:

Problem 1 – the Gospels contradict each other on where this took place – the country of Gadara or the country of Geresa
Problem 2 – one or two demons

Most skeptics claim that there is clear contradiction in both of these. The accounts are clearly referring to one single event, so there can’t be two events in nearby places.

It’s ridiculous to claim with any confident certainty as to whether these instances are even contradictions. The “one or two” [men / demons] supposed “contradiction” is clearly not one at all, by the rules of logic. This is one of the most common atheist / skeptical errors: in their rush to show how absurd the Bible and Christians are, to believe all this stuff that they despise so much. Mentioning one is as easily explained as saying that one writer drew from a (non-infallible) oral tradition in which one was mentioned, and the second from a tradition that mentioned two. Even those weren’t necessarily contradictory. In order to be, one account would have to say “only one” and the other “two.” That would be a logical contradiction. But they don’t and so it is a non sequitur (like innumerable atheist “exegetical” arguments are).

Jonathan, oblivious to the rules of logic,  nevertheless asserts that “most skeptics” believe there is a “clear contradiction” here. So much for the cogency and logical coherence of their thinking. It’s embarrassing, but there it is. All we need do (as St. John Chrysostom and St. Augustine did) is posit that one person was more remarkable or prominent than the other. Mark and Luke mention one, Matthew two. Likewise, in Matthew 20:30, two blind men are mentioned (with again one mentioned in Mark and Luke).

The number of demons are multiple in all accounts (Mk 5:9-12; Mt 8:31; Lk 8:30-33), so that is a non-issue as well. Why, then, does Jonathan wonder about “one or two demons”? It’s neither. It is “many.”

Now onto the place names. Gerasa is (as we know) some 30-35 miles southeast of the Sea of Galilee (but may have also been the name of the larger region). Wikipedia states about it: “In the second half of the 1st century AD, the city of Jerash achieved great prosperity”. Gadara is about six miles from the sea. Its ruins include two amphitheaters, a basilica, temple, a hippodrome, aqueducts, and colonnades: showing its importance and stature. “Gergesenes” is also in some manuscripts (Khersa or Gersa was a town actually on the shore of the sea). I visited it myself in Israel in October 2014. It has a huge cliff going down to the sea (the coast, however, being a bit further away, since the earthquake in Galilee in 749). Commentator R. C. H. Lenski states:

The distance of these cities from the lake is immaterial for the narrative since this deals with the region that is near the lake and not with the vicinity of either of the cities to the lake.

Jonathan concedes the existence of both cities: Gerasa (“at least 20-30 miles from Gadara”) and “Gadara, quite an important place, whose region must then have surely spread to the lake shore. This is why ‘the country of the Gadarenes’ makes some sense.”

Personally, I think that the most plausible explanation is that the seemingly “contradictory” accounts are simply using alternate names for the same area. As we all know, this is very common today. Jonathan is from England. Or is he from Great Britain? Or the United Kingdom? All are valid names for the same country. I’m from America; also known as the United States. Ancient Persia is now Iran. Ancient Babylonia is Iraq. France is also Gaul.

I myself am a midwesterner, a Michigander (indeed, from the “land of the Great Lakes”), and Detroiter (also known as Motown and the Motor City and the Automobile Capital of the World). I’m an Anglo-Saxon, Scottish-American, and Canadian-American (northern European, ethnically). We regularly visit friends near Pittsburgh, and can say “we visited the Pittsburgh area.” We could also say, “we visited Pennsylvania” or “Pennsylvania Dutch country.” Jesus was from Nazareth; hence is called “Jesus of Nazareth” or “Nazarene” (Mt 2:23; Mk 14:67) [actual town of origin] or “Jesus the Galilean” [larger region]. The Sea of Galilee itself is also called Lake of Gennesaret and Sea of Tiberius. Here are the actual descriptions (RSV):

Mark 5:1 . . . the country of the Ger’asenes.

Luke 8:26 . . . the country of the Ger’asenes . . . 

Matthew 8:28 . . . the country of the Gadarenes . . . 

Note that the texts don’t say Gerasa or Gadara, so they aren’t necessarily referring just to one of the cities. They all say “country of . . .” (in the sense of region, not “nation”). “Gerasenes” could have had a sense of reference to the entire region (as well as to a city: just as “New Yorker” can refer to the state or city), and “Gadarenes” likely was a reference to the most prominent city of the region at the time. Smith’s Bible Dictionary provides what I find to be a quite plausible explanation (not “special pleading” at all), and analogous to how we still use place names today:

These three names are used indiscriminately to designate the place where Jesus healed two demoniacs. The first two are in the Authorized Version. (Matthew 8:28; Mark 5:1; Luke 8:26) In Gerasenes in place of Gadarenes. The miracle referred to took place, without doubt, near the town of Gergesa, the modern Kersa, close by the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, and hence in the country of Gergesenes. But as Gergesa was a small village, and little known, the evangelists, who wrote for more distant readers, spoke of the event as taking place in the country of the Gadarenes, so named from its largest city, Gadara; and this country included the country of the Gergesenes as a state includes a county. The Gerasenes were the people of the district of which Gerasa was the capital. This city was better known than Gadara or Gergesa; indeed in the Roman age no city of Palestine was better known. “It became one of the proudest cities of Syria.” It was situated some 30 miles southeast of Gadara, on the borders of Peraea and a little north of the river Jabbok. It is now called Jerash and is a deserted ruin. The district of the Gerasenes probably included that of the Gadarenes; so that the demoniac of Gergesa belonged to the country of the Gadarenes and also to that of the Gerasenes, as the same person may, with equal truth, be said to live in the city or the state, or in the United States. For those near by the local name would be used; but in writing to a distant people, as the Greeks and Romans, the more comprehensive and general name would be given.

The Biblical Training site (“Gerasenes”) elaborates:

The fact that Matthew places the healing of “Legion” in the “country of the Gadarenes” whereas Mark and Luke place it in the “country of the Gerasenes” may be harmonized on the historical grounds that geographical boundaries overlapped, and on the exegetical consideration that “country” embraced a wide area around the cities.

It’s simply alternate names for the same area: thus not contradictory at all. I think the coup de grâce is to look up the Greek word for “country” in these passages, to see what latitude of meaning it has. In all three instances the word is chōra (Strong’s word #5561). Thayer’s Greek Lexicon defines it as “the space lying between two places or limits . . . region or country.” The Sea of Galilee was clearly one of the limits.

In Luke 2:8 it is applied to the city of Bethlehem; in Acts 18:23 to Galatia and Phrygia. In Mark 1:5 it is used of “the land of Judaea” (KJV) and in Acts 10:39,to “land of the Jews” (KJV). In Acts 8:1 we have the “regions of Judaea and Samaria” (KJV), and in Acts 16:6, Galatia alone. Thus it is not always used of one specific country (nation), but rather, usually to regions or areas of either small (Bethlehem) or large (Judaea and Samaria) size, including regions surrounding large cities.

All of this sure seems perfectly consistent with calling the same area the “country” (chōra) of either the Gerasenes or the Gadarenes, after the two major cities. Why is this even an issue, I wonder? Well, it is because atheists, in their zealous rush to make fun of Christians, Christianity, and the Bible, start to lose their logical rigor and rationality, leading them to contend for implausible things: as presently.

2017-07-17T17:43:25-04:00

GlassBroken4

Image by “Pexels” [Pixabay / CC0 public domain]

***

Introduction: “Deconversion” stories are accounts of an atheist or agnostic’s odyssey from some form of Christianity to atheism or agnosticism. Since these are public (else I wouldn’t know about them in the first place), it’s reasonable to assume that they are more than merely subjective / personal matters, that have no bearing on anyone else. No; it is assumed (it seems to me) that these stories are thought to offer rationales of various sorts for others to also become atheists or to be more confirmed in their own atheism. This being the case, since they are public critiques of Christianity (hence, fair game for public criticism), as a Christian (Catholic) apologist, I have a few thoughts in counter-reply.

I am not questioning the sincerity of these persons or the truthfulness of their self-reports, or any anguish that they went through. I accept their words at face value. I’m not arguing that they are terrible, evil people (that’s a child’s game). My sole interest is in showing if and where certain portions of these deconversion stories contain fallacious or non-factual elements: where they fail to make a point against Christianity (what Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga calls “defeating the defeaters”), or misrepresent (usually unwittingly) Christianity as a whole, or the Bible, etc.

As always, feedback on my blog (especially from the persons critiqued) is highly encouraged, and I will contact, out of basic courtesy, everyone whose story I have critiqued. All atheists are treated with courtesy and respect on my blog. If someone doesn’t do so, I reprimand them, and ban them if they persist in their insults.

When I cite the stories themselves, the words will be in blue.

*****

Today, I am responding to “Real Deconversion Story #14 – Anthony Toohey” (12-5-16), hosted on Jonathan MS Pearce’s A Tippling Philosopher web page at Patheos (where my blog is also hosted).

With . . .  Duane’s promise that all of the confusing stuff I’d heard about salvation and redemption in my Catholic upbringing was wrong, that it all came down to Believe and Be Saved… Well that was enough for me. I did, and as far as I knew, I was.

Anthony stated that he went to “after-school catechism. This created a fascination in me for the bible and for the mystical/spiritual aspects of Christianity.” But we don’t know how much he actually knew about Catholicism . . . seemingly not all that much, if he could forsake it  merely because of a Bible trivia game and the usual ignorant “Chick Tract”-like anti-Catholic sermonizing. Hence, he appears to have been like many millions of insufficiently catechized Catholics: almost to a person unfamiliar with apologetics, or the reasons why Catholics believe as they do. This is a common theme running through deconversion stories: either relative or profound ignorance of one’s own Christian affiliations. If we don’t know why we believe whatever — have no reasons for it — , then obviously we are easy targets of those who would dissuade us from our shallow, non-rational beliefs.

He talks about how the Santa Cruz Christian Church (I tried to find it on Google and was unsuccessful) gave him and his fiancee advice, causing him to call off their engagement. But this is hardly grounds to blame Christianity, because one church practiced what he rightly describes as “spiritual abuse.” As so often in these stories, one extreme sect is universalized to all of Christianity, as if it is representative of that whole. Atheists reading such gory details sit there lamenting, “see what rascals and morons those damned Christians are! So glad I came to my senses and left it. Best thing I ever did . . .” They never seem to realize that one extreme and twisted version of Christianity is not the whole ball of wax. Basic category errors and logical fallacies, in other words . . . These things usually aren’t stated outright, but I would contend that they are the underlying strongly implied assumption.

Former Christian atheists often refer back to the years of “abuse” (real or alleged) that they went through. Hence, Anthony writes: “It was not until after I left the faith and went back to examine my Christian life in light of my new viewpoint, that the gravity of what I had allowed to be done to us hit me.” In this case, it was real abuse, but only from an extremist fringe sector of Christianity, which is no disproof of Christianity per se.

I bought the first pieces of my spiritual library. He and Theresa had already bought me a study bible. That day I bought a comprehensive concordance, a bible dictionary, an exhaustive cross-reference, a bible atlas, and, finally, Gleason Archer’s Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties.

What?

I took Duane at his word, but inside, the title of that book put a cold shaft of fear inside me. How could God’s word have “difficulties?” What on earth was difficult about God’s revelation to mankind. I mean, he’s God, right? And we have the spirit of God.

This is shallow, unreflective thinking. I can think of a number of sound, logical reasons why such a book would exist:

 

1. The Bible is a very lengthy, multi-faceted book by many authors, from long ago, with many literary genres, and cultural assumptions that are foreign to us.

2. The Bible purports to be revelation from an infinitely intelligent God. Thus (even though God simplifies it as much as possible), for us to think that it is an easy thing to immediately grasp and figure out, and would not have any number of “difficulties” for mere human beings to work through, is naive. The Bible itself teaches that authoritative teachers are necessary to properly understand it.

3. All grand “theories” have components (“anomalies” / “difficulties”) that need to be worked out and explained. For example, scientific theories do not purport to perfectly explain everything. They often have large “mysterious” areas that have to be resolved. Think of, for example, the “missing links” in evolution. That didn’t stop people from believing in it. Folks believed in gradual Darwinian evolution even though prominent paleontologist and philosopher of science Stephen Jay Gould famously noted that “gradualism was never read from the rocks.” Even Einstein’s theories weren’t totally confirmed by scientific experiment at first (later they were). That a book like the Bible would have “difficulties” to work through is perfectly obvious and unsurprising to me.

4. Most of the rationale of explaining “Bible difficulties” is not from a perspective that they are real difficulties, but rather, to show that purported difficulties really aren’t such. They are usually based on illogical thinking or unfamiliarity with biblical genre, etc. Many alleged biblical “contradictions” simply aren’t so, by the rules of logic.

5. The Foreword of the book by Kenneth S. Kantzer explains its rationale: “[T]he faith of some troubled souls is hindered by misunderstanding the Scripture. They are confused by what seems to them to be false statements or self-contradiction. We need, therefore, to clear away such false obstacles to faith.” (p. 8)

 

For these reasons, as an apologist and avid Bible student, I’ve done quite a bit of writing on alleged “Bible difficulties” myself: found in the final section of my Bible & Tradition web page, and have analyzed relentlessly shoddy, illogical, fact-challenged atheist attempts to run down the Bible, in a section of my Atheism & Agnosticism page.

When I got home, I looked through some of the topics. I’ll confess that, even then, it seemed very equivocating – sort of a wordy hand-waving.

What is plausible and what isn’t, is a very complicated matter itself. In any event, Anthony has simply talked about the book, and has not given any concrete examples that readers can judge for themselves. As such, this is simply no argument against Archer’s book, or against Christianity. All we know is that Anthony found it unconvincing. So what? Granted, accounts like this (or Christian conversion stories) can’t argue every jot and tittle. But still, it’s good to point out what is actually an argument or evidence, and what isn’t, lest anyone become confused over the nature of evidence pro or con.

Not being comforted by what I read, I usually ignored this book. Instead, I started reading about all the wrong religions.

“We are what we eat.” It looks like Anthony didn’t even read Archer’s book all the way through. He seems to have quickly judged it, and moved on. But why should anyone think that his negative judgment and dismissal is infallible?

Anthony then talks about his struggles in the Christian life. All of this is perfectly understood and familiar to Christians. St. Paul himself talks about it in Romans 7, and then gives the solution in Romans 8. But that we all fall short and fail many times, in many ways, is not some big bombshell. Nor is it any argument against Christianity, because the latter teaches us to expect this. Faith is a lifelong struggle.

I’m going to focus on the building string of doubts that led me to examine, and ultimately abandon, my faith.

Great. Let’s see if they are compelling for any reader to think likewise.

. . . my wife was determined to complete her education. After getting eligible to transfer, she decided to attend San Jose State to get an accounting degree. While she was there, she took a class in the Religious History, and possibly one more focused on Western religion. The professor was also a pastor who was, to me, very liberal. He taught about the history of the development of the doctrine of hell. He taught how the prophets were used to enable rulers to motivate their soldiers to commit atrocities they would otherwise not ever consider. He taught the very human side of religion.

. . . It brought her faith deeply into question.

And so this is the oft-heard story. Christians go to college, get confronted with skeptical or atheist professors, in a very lopsided scenario, and lose their faith, if they are insufficiently equipped (i.e., lacking in apologetics knowledge: my field) to take on skeptical challenges to it. Again, “we are what we eat.” If she sat there and took in all this rotgut from the professor, and never read a Christian refutation of it, then why should anyone be surprised that she goes the route of the professor? One must read the best proponents of both sides of major disputes: not one side only or the best proponents of one side vs. the worst on the other (which is the usual atheist game: they love to wrangle with ignorant, uninformed Christians). This is why I love to have dialogues on my blog. I present the other person’s words for my readers to see: and if not all of them, I always provide a link and urge them to read the whole article, and then see my response.

We attended a bible study. By our second or third time, she was asking more questions. I don’t remember the last question she asked, but it froze the room. You could have heard a pin drop. She got a soft-shoed answer and the pastor rushed past it as quickly as he could.

Unfortunately, many pastors and priests are as undereducated in apologetics as the laypeople.

She never went to church again. She announced she was agnostic and didn’t believe what I believed.

All we know about her story is that she heard some skeptical stuff, started asking “hard” questions that were unanswered. We don’t know whether she actually took the time to read good Christian apologetics or philosophy. Consequently, there is nothing there that should persuade any other Christian to cease being so.

It is a fact that people, to an overwhelming degree, adopt the religious tradition of their culture. To them it is accepted fact.

Sociologically, that is very true. The problem with making it an exclusively anti-Christianity argument, however, is that atheists act in largely the same way. That’s why kids lose their Christian faith in college. They’re surrounded by liberal, skeptical or atheist professors who undermine their faith and don’t give both sides of the story (i.e., they are immersed in a different “culture”, and so — unsurprisingly — adopt it). The “smart people” seem to be against Christianity in that environment, and the few informed Christians are too scared to speak out (and today are even shut up and shouted down). No one wants to be seen as the oddball or outsider, so they lose their faith: not usually because of objective intellectual inquiry and reading the best of both worldviews, but because of sheer peer pressure and being subjected to one view (propaganda) over and over. They become politically liberal for the same reason.

Atheists like to think that they arrive at their view solely through reason, while Christians soak in theirs from their mother’s milk. But atheists are just as subject to peer pressure and environmental influence as anyone else. Most worldviews (whether Christian or atheist) are arrived at far more for social (and emotional) reasons than intellectual. I can’t emphasize it enough: “we are what we eat.”

Because of this cultural indoctrination, the only way to objectively examine your faith is to take the position of an outsider from a different culture and examine your faith with the same level of skepticism you treat other religions.

Conversely, the only way to objectively examine one’s atheism is to interact with an outsider from Christianity (someone like me, willing and able to do it) and examine your axioms and premises with the same level of skepticism that one treats Christianity. I am offering Anthony and any other atheist the opportunity to do that in this very paper.

There was a point during my cycle of failure and repentance that I wondered why on earth I would rush to the writings of Paul (specifically Romans 5-8) to restore my spirit rather than to Jesus. One was an apostle, but one was actually God, as I understood it. The modern salvation transaction as we’re taught it was never all that clear in Paul’s writings, and not at all in the words attributed to Jesus.

That is, the fundamentalist Protestant version of salvation, which is out of touch with even historic Protestantism, let alone Catholicism and Orthodoxy . . . I agree that this warped version is never taught by either Jesus or St. Paul.

So I began to spend more time with the words of Jesus, thinking that if I can’t find what I need from the words of my god walking upon the earth, the words of an apostle would not help me. To shorten the story, reading the words attributed to Jesus turned me into a social liberal. The Jesus in the bible is compassionate to the poor, destitute, and irredeemable, in stark contrast to the modern Christian, who, if they follow the culture, would sooner tell the poor to get a job and wave the flag of meritocratic individualism.

Pitting Paul against Jesus is plain silly. There is no essential difference in what they taught (which is perhaps why Anthony never provides any example of such alleged divergence). They simply taught in different ways. Jesus was the storyteller: more like a pastor (therefore, much better understood by the common man), whereas Paul was systematic and more abstract: like a theologian or academic: more like philosophy. But making false dichotomies is very typical of the sort of Protestant milieu that Anthony was part of.

The next issue I faced was the issue of evolution. I was a Young Earther, but the more I read, the more I realized that the science wasn’t a conspiracy, but rather an accurate representation of the way the world actually worked. But it didn’t lead to my faith deserting me. All truth is God’s truth. I figured, therefore, that Genesis was an allegory. My theory was that as long as Christ rose from the dead, then Christianity was true. It wouldn’t matter if Genesis was an allegory or literal. Jesus = salvation. The rest is interpretation.

In the same vein, I decided the flood of Noah was also allegory, as it was scientifically impossible. Australia itself stands as a testament to the unreality of it.

This is very typical of many deconversion stories, where the person came out of fundamentalism. Anthony was a young-earther. I never was that, nor was I ever a fundamentalist or anti-science in my evangelical days (1977-1990).  But the solution to these errors is not to ditch any literalism in the Bible and go to an all-allegorical position. The solution is to recognize that the Bible contains many genres of literature, and to determine which is occurring in a particular place. That’s how normal language and literature work. The problem is that fundamentalists and skeptics alike start treating the Bible as if it isn’t subject to the normal rules of interpretation of literature. And so Anthony was knee-jerk and simplistic regarding the Bible. He went from one extreme error to another on the opposite side of the spectrum.

There are, of course, many old-earth evolutionist Christians. They simply believe that God had some hand in the process of evolution. The choice isn’t “godless, materialistic atheism vs. young-earth creationism. I denied the universality of Noah’s flood over 30 years ago, as a result of reading a Christian book about science (by Baptist scholar Bernard Ramm). Why should that cause anyone to lose their Christian faith, pray tell?

So being in this strange place, with only the resurrection of Jesus Christ to keep me in the fold, I came to a full on crisis of faith. I won’t go heavily into it now, . . . 

He can, of course, divulge whatever he wants, but the fact remains that we are given no solid, compelling, cogent reasons why he should have forsaken Christianity, or why anyone else should do so. Because he was a fundamentalist extremist, those who never were that (like myself) should also leave Christianity: even the forms of it vastly — essentially —  different from Anthony’s anti-intellectual fundamentalism?

I searched for the best apologetics book I could find, settling on Norman Geisler’s I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. 

I commend him for at least reading one book from the Christian perspective, against atheism. Of course, different authors have different emphases, styles, and particular philosophies. So it may have simply been a case where Geisler (a fine apologist) wasn’t a good “fit” for him.

I gave God first shot at me and read Geisler. I expected to be strengthened – steeled for my encounter with the atheist, able to find a way to keep my faith and work on my anger. Instead I took 30 pages (steno pad) of notes. I could easily formulate my wife’s answers to his arguments without even trying. I was disappointed and borderline devastated. I read Loftus’s book. Another 20 pages of notes later I set down his book and realized that 1) I didn’t know what I did believe, and 2) I was sure it wasn’t the god of the bible.

So John Loftus did the trick.

I was unmoored. I tried another apologist, thinking that maybe Geisler wasn’t the best to read. Loftus had referenced William Lane Craig, so I started reading one of his books. About 40% of the way through, I gave up. It was over. I sat at my desk and said to myself, “I’m an atheist.” And here I am today.

Craig is also a fine Christian thinker and debater. But it also depends what particular place we are at in our thinking: how much we will be influenced.

I do wonder why — if John Loftus’ atheist polemics are so compelling –, he is so extremely hyper-sensitive (and I do not exaggerate at all, believe me) to any critique of them? I have examined his “outsider test of faith” argument (ten years ago), some of his irrational criticisms of the Bible, and his story, and he went ballistic. This hardly suggests a confident atheism, willing to take on all critiques:

*
*
*
Loftus is very much like the preacher that is often maligned in atheist deconversion accounts: the guy who loves to hear himself talk, unopposed, who wilts at the first counter-challenge. That has always been what John Loftus does, in my experience. And he has a colorful set of epithets and insults, too, that he sent my way for having the audacity to challenge him in his infallible wisdom. If his atheist apologetic is so unvanquishable, let him stand up and defend it like a man and honest thinker. But (at least with me) he has never done so. Thus, I am utterly unimpressed by his thinking (and demeanor). I have atheist friends who are embarrassed by him, because he conducts himself like such a rude and pompous ass. He’s not exactly a good representative or figurehead for atheism.
*
In conclusion, I don’t see anything here in this deconversion story that would compel anyone else to forsake Christianity. At best it is an account that raises serious questions about extreme fundamentalist Christianity, which I fully agree with. But since that is merely one fringe element of Christianity, it is irrelevant as to the truthfulness of larger Christianity, let alone atheism as a supposedly superior and more rational and cogent alternative worldview.
2017-02-25T12:34:41-04:00

Further Adventures at an Atheist “Bible Study” Group

Dialogue6

Image by “josemiguels” [Pixabay / CC0 public domain]

***

(11-24-10)

*****

Last night I attended for the third time an “atheist Bible study” group in metro Detroit led by Jon, a former evangelical and friendly fellow, with whom I have debated the Galileo issue. He has a blog called Prove Me Wrong. The first time I went there, several months back, I was invited as a guest speaker. It was simply a Q and A, “grill the apologist” session (due to my dislike of lecturing as my own method of communication), mostly devoted to the usual garden-variety questions about Catholicism. Jon later described the night as follows:

I run a bible study. It’s for those interested in understanding the Bible from a secular perspective. We’re mostly atheists but we do have some Christian participation. A couple of times instead of studying the Bible I’ve simply brought in a religious person. So once Roman Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong came. A lot of atheists regard Christian belief as extremely easy to debunk and I thought it would be fun to bring in someone that has thought through common objections and is able to turn it back on atheists. Make them exercise their brains a bit. We had a great time with Dave.

That time, there were eleven atheists and myself. It was the most enjoyable and challenging evening I have ever spent as an apologist in almost 30 years of apologetics. Several of the people said that I had won their respect, by simply showing up and being cordial and willing to answer their questions and do some back-and-forth. For their part (save for just one person who was later kicked out of their group) they were very cordial and friendly.

This is not the stereotypical “angry atheist” group (example: John Loftus’ Debunking Christianity blog), with (irrational, self-contradictory) anger against God and Christianity upfront and dominating everything, complete with ubiquitous personal insults towards Christians. No; Jon, to his great credit, is trying to do something different, and to actually seek to better understand Christianity and Christian arguments and to have some real dialogue.

I went a second time and enjoyed some great discussion around a campfire (mostly with the guy who had given me the hardest time in the first meeting: insinuating that I was dishonest or ignorant or both). Then I invited Jon to my house to do a presentation on the nonexistence of Jesus (a position he holds tentatively). That went well, too, and Jon gave the following description of his experience:

I had the opportunity last Friday to sit down with some Catholics and just spend an evening discussing some of our disagreements. It was me along with another atheist (who I met for the first time) and a few Catholics. It was put together by Dave Armstrong. I really appreciate Dave. He’s one of those people that is able to sit down and disagree with me strongly, but do it in a way that makes for productive and friendly dialogue. Not all Christians can do this, nor can all skeptics.

Apparently, Jon has a somewhat more favorable view towards my reasoning abilities these days, compared to 26 March 2010, when he wrote (I tease him about this):

As far as apologists go I kind of like Roman Catholics. Dave Armstrong may be extremely irrational. But he’s always been fairly charitable.

Last night, the person doing the presentation was a guy who goes by “DagoodS”: another former Christian who runs a blog called Thoughts From a Sandwich. He is an attorney; a very animated, thoughtful, academic type (the sort of person I particularly love talking to and learning from). He talked about how Christians defend the resurrection of Jesus; playing “Christian” most of the time. It was historiographically dense (with many “footnote” references to “what scholars today think”), interesting enough, and entertaining on its own level, but ultimately not to my own taste because it was a professorial-type lecture (complete with the white board and markers). It was like being in a graduate-level history class (or maybe a Unitarian Bible study). I want to dialogue (as is well-known to my readers by now), and that never occurred. We all have our preferences.

One of the few critiques I was able to get in at all had to do with the relentless, dogmatic presuppositional skepticism of atheists. DagoodS asked the group (17 including myself) how many believed that miracles occur. I was the only one to raise my hand. Then he asked how many believed that miracles might possibly occur. Jon raised his hand, and possibly one other. Only one or two even allowed the bare possibility. This exactly illustrated the point I was to make.

DagoodS was saying that it is more difficult to believe an extraordinary miracle or event than to believe in one that is more commonplace. True enough as far as it goes. But I said (paraphrasing), “you don’t believe that any miracles are possible, not even this book raising itself an inch off the table, so it is pointless for you to say that it is hard to believe in a great miracle, when in fact you don’t believe in any miracles whatsoever.” No response. I always try to get at the person’s presuppositions. That is my socratic method.

This being the case, for an atheist (ostensibly with an “open mind”) to examine evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus, is almost a farcical enterprise from the start (at least from a Christian perspective) because they commence the analysis with the extremely hostile presuppositions of:

1) No miracles can occur in the nature of things.

2) #1 logically follows because, of course, under fundamental atheist presuppositions, there is no God to perform any miracle.

3) The New Testament documents are fundamentally untrustworthy and historically suspect, having been written by gullible, partisan Christians; particularly because, for most facts presented therein, there is not (leaving aside archaeological evidences) written secular corroborating evidence.

Some atheists (like Jon) even claim (or suspect) that Jesus didn’t exist at all (making such a topic even more absurd and ludicrous (given that premise) than it already is in atheist eyes. Yet they think that such an examination of the Resurrection is an objective endeavor on their part, as if they will come to any other conclusion than the foregone one that they have already decided long since, upon the adoption of their atheism? And we are the ones who are constantly excoriated for being so “inflexible” and “dogmatic” and “closed-minded” to any other truths besides Christian ones?

The lecture went on for two hours in the library room where the group met, and then we went to a restaurant. Over there, I wasn’t seated next to either Jon or DagoodS (there were about 13 people present), so further discussion with them wasn’t possible. Instead I talked a lot about the problem of evil and God’s supposed serious deficiencies, with a third person, with the person on the other side of me asking me intermittently about purgatory and limbo and indulgences.

I was able to get in at least one important point with Jon at the restaurant. He was making fun of the popes taking many centuries to decide the dogmatic question of the Immaculate Conception of Mary [1854]. So I noted (with some vigor) that people (not just atheists but also Protestants) are always criticizing popes (and the Church as a whole) for supposedly declaring things by fiat and with raw power, apart from rational deliberation and intellectual reflection (which is a myth), yet on the other hand, if they take centuries to let the Church reflect and ponder important issues (this example, Mary’s Assumption [1950], papal infallibility [1870]), by not yet declaring something at the highest levels of authority, then they get blasted for being indecisive and wishy-washy and lacking authority.

It was a classic case of the Catholic Church always having to be criticized, even if there are simultaneous contradictory criticisms taking place. It’s the amusing, ironic spectacle of people illogically falsely accusing us of being illogical. If we do one thing we are wrong and stupid and illogical because of thus-and-so. If we do the exact opposite and contrary of that, we are still wrong and stupid and illogical for reasons that utterly contradict those of the prior criticism. And so on and on it goes. The only thing that critics of Catholicism “know” is that the Catholic Church is always wrong. That is the bottom line. We seem to be everyone’s favorite target and “whipping boy.”

DagoodS’ specialty (like that of many atheists of a certain sort; especially former Christians) is relentlessly trying to poke holes in the Bible and dredging up any conceivable so-called “contradiction” that he can find. It’s the hyper-rationalistic, “can’t see the forest for the trees” game. As I’ve often said, such a person approaches the Bible like a butcher approaches a hog. Their mind is already made up. If they go looking for errors and “contradictions” they will assuredly always “find” them.

And if a Christian spends the great deal of laborious, tedious time required to debunk and refute these in order to show how they are not, in fact, contradictions (as I and many others have done), they simply ignore that as of no consequence and go their merry way seeking out more of the same. It never ends. It’s like a boat with a hundred holes in the bottom. The Christian painstakingly patches up the last one while the atheist on the other side of the boat merrily drills another one to patch. I’ll play the game for a while and every now and then but it is never to be taken too seriously because it is, quite literally, just a game in the end.

I have actually debated DagoodS several times in the past on the Internet, and have critiqued his deconversion story (atheists invariably despise the unmitigated gall of a Christian daring to do that!).

Now that I have met the man, and had no chance to interact with him last night for more than 90 seconds, I may try to set aside some time in my busy schedule to debunk more of his skeptical excursions undertaken for the purpose of undermining the trustworthiness and inspiration of the Holy Bible. In all likelihood, judging from his past responses, any such replies will have no effect on him, but they can help Christians see the bankruptcy of atheist anti-biblical arguments, and those on the fence to avoid falling into the same errors of logic and fallacious worldviews built upon such errors.

And that is the whole goal of apologetics, and particularly the dialogical apologetics that I specialize in: to help people (by God’s grace) avoid theological and philosophical errors and to be more confident in their Christian and Catholic beliefs, by understanding solid intellectual rationales for same. We remove obstacles and roadblocks. What the person will do with that information is a function of their minds and free wills and God’s grace, and that is out of the apologist’s hands.

Related Post

Dave Armstrong vs. the Atheists (Protestant apologist Cory Tucholski, 10 Dec. 2010, from Internet Archive)

*****

Meta Description: Description of a fun, friendly meeting with 16 atheists & agnostics & Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong.
Meta Keywords: atheism, agnosticism, atheists, agnostics, atheist-Christian dialogue, agnostic-Christian dialogue, miracles
2017-04-25T13:45:56-04:00

Lies About What I Do from the All-Too-Common “Angry Atheist” 

AngryMan8

[public domain / Pixabay]

* * *

Pete Migdale was banned from my Patheos blog, which doesn’t allow personal insults. I think you’ll see why in the following tirades that he has launched in the last 12 hours, on an extremely popular atheist post: Jesus never existed. It also illustrates why I only rarely comment in atheist venues, because they freely allow garbage like this:

Wow! Dave the intellectual coward emerges from his “Love me or Be banned” domain to post a comment.

You don’t discuss, you demand respect for absurd positions and anyone who calls you for your nonsense is deleted, you can’t take being bettered.
You are one of the most experienced onanists I have ever encountered.

No point going there, make a clever comment and you will be banned and blocked. He is a pathetic, little, power freak who can’t cope with reality.

* * *

Dave is a very average catholic apologist who, on his own blog, blocks anyone who derails his little red wagon. Typical catholic, silence that which you can’t rebut.

What is annoying in particular about him that he initially appears interested in discourse then he just stops when challenged.

He is very self aggrandising, condescending and arrogant. He is deserving of ridicule whenever you catch him “out in the wild”.

The funniest part is that anyone can see that I am debating atheists almost on a daily basis (i.e., the ones who aren’t exhibiting relentless verbal diarrhea). Anyone can see that by going to my blog and searching “atheism” on the sidebar. Yesterday I posted a discussion with atheist and noted my dinner with six atheists in June (which we all enjoyed). The day before I posted two more debates / dialogues with atheists or agnostics [one / two].

In fact, I was debating in the last few days one of the very people that Pete was “talking” to in this thread “TheMarsCydonia”]. LOL

So go figure . . . But we shouldn’t be surprised that an atheist like this clown would be spreading slanderous myths, legends, and fables, since he is participating on a ludicrous thread called “Jesus never existed.” One myth or Lie is as good as the next, right?

I went over to this thread and posted the following fact-encumbered comment:

Nice try, Pete.

1. I’ve been debating Mars over the last few days on my site. He’s still there, as he has been for months, and not banned.

2. I hardly ever participate in atheist venues because they allow fools like you to pollute them, without any censure at all.

3. Me and Mars had this discussion in a different form in a dialogue which was posted on my site two days ago.

So much for all your lies. That’s odd behavior if (as you fancy) I supposedly avoid all sentient, breathing atheists like the plague, am scared to death of them, and flee every possible intellectual encounter in abject terror, since I am invariably “bested” etc.

The truth of the matter is that I greatly enjoy debating atheists and have been doing so almost on a daily basis at Patheos, and online generally for 17 years: including several professors, such as philosopher Dr. Theodore Drange, or lawyers, or leading figures like John Loftus of Debunking Christianity infamy and Amazon bestsellers, etc. [one / two / three / four / five]

Anyone can readily see the amount of interaction by searching “atheism” on the sidebar on my blog.

But fools like you, with verbal diarrhea, are not allowed on my site because we want constructive, amiable dialogue to take place.

So lie away; you only confirm the wisdom of banning you in the first place. You came onto my site with almost exclusively insults (just as you spew here) and so, quite consistently with my posted discussion policy, I hit the ejector seat.

Thanks for the opportunity to set the record straight and for more exposure! I do appreciate that.

He replied in that thread, with this:

LIAR, but I expected that you coward. You are an intellectual prawn!

Literally, all this clown does is insult Christians in his comments. He’s like an atheist Don Rickles. You can see that in the record of his comments on Disqus. Apparently he thinks it is “free speech” to allow his horse manure to be freely aired in a Christian venue. We must do it under pain of being mocked and ridiculed and lied about as cowards, etc., if we don’t. That game doesn’t work with me. Moreover, it’s widely acknowledged by all (Christian and atheist alike) that trolling is unethical online conduct.

It’s pretty ironically humorous, too, that in one of the recent dialogues mentioned above, with the agnostic academic JD Eveland, with whom I’ve now had many enjoyable and amiable dialogues, JD wrote in the combox this very day: “A very nice job of weaving together a couple of different strands here, Dave! You’ve certainly been quite fair to my arguments.”

So, as always, folks either “love” me or despise me. It’s always been that way, always will be. It’s the lot of the apologist who dares to take a stand on truth (in my case, defense of Catholicism and general Christianity. When you take a stand and offer any critiques, this will be the dual reaction. Many will detest you; others will respect that you are a conscientious thinker, who tries to be charitable to opponents.

Irrational opposition should never come as a surprise to the Christian, about whom Jesus said, “you will be hated by all for my name’s sake.” So why would anyone be shocked when this happens? I would say that our Christianity is highly suspect if it does not ever happen, or only rarely so. Christianity ain’t a popularity contest, and Christian apologetics certainly is not!

2017-04-26T17:08:16-04:00

. . . And of Course, “Jittery John” Again Explodes . . . 
 Volcano
[Flickr /  CC BY 2.0 license]
(11-30-06)
“Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.”

Job 38:3 (RSV)

“Pour forth the overflowings of your anger, and look on every one that is proud, and abase him . . . bring him low; and tread down the wicked where they stand.”

Job 40:11-12

 

This amazing display of condescension came about after I commented on a post from atheist John W. Loftus (author of a bunch of books and webmaster of the influential Debunking Christianity website), having to do with whether God was in time or not. John has a history (with me, at any rate) of flying off the handle, rather than presenting rational counter-replies, when some criticism is offered. The classic case was when I dared to offer criticisms of his deconversion story. His reaction has to be seen to be believed.

I had hoped that (with the passage of time) he had gotten over this skittishness and hair-trigger defensiveness and condescension where I am concerned, but alas, it was not to be. He has even “upped the ante” and continued a stream of insults toward me, for (quite outrageously) being and acting like a Christian confident in his faith and able to defend it. In the past, he has called me a “joke” and an “arrogant idiot” among other things. He has yet to retract any of the epithets.

Now, I’m the first to gladly assert that his reaction should not be seen as one that typifies atheists, or disproves any particular atheist version of reality. Neither is true. But that is not my purpose at present; rather, it is to show how even intelligent people (John has two masters’ degrees) can become utterly irrational and unreasonable when confronted with criticism of their arguments, and how harmful this is to the intellectual endeavor. This is how not to do it, folks!

There is also some considerable humor and amusement to be enjoyed (the section about “obvious”); I simply couldn’t resist. He laid himself out wide open on that one; provided the rope to hang him with. John’s words will be in blue.

* * * * *

. . . look these arguments up before you comment further. Please do my readers a favor here. Read up on this topic before you continue to waste space. Let other more informed people comment.

ME: On the other hand, it is obvious that God must be outside of time, if one accepts the description of Him that the Bible offers.

That he walked in the cool of the Garden of Eden? That he showed Moses his back side? That he appeared to Abraham? That he changed his mind? That he visited us in Jesus? You are ignorant if you think what you just said is obvious.

. . . Anthropomorphism. That saves you, doesn’t it? Then show me one verse in the Bible that could not have been written by an ancient superstitious person. Just one. Show me where there was a prediction of the computer chip, or a vaccine for Polio. Show me where God told people about the vastness and age of the universe.

ME: I suspect you are slanting his full argument. If he is orthodox, he would not put it in such despairing terms.

Read it yourself. Why is it that you distrust what I say? If you distrust what I say then why bother to comment on this at all? Just say you don’t believe he said this and move on.

[I didn’t say I distrusted it, only that there was possible bias in presenting the Christian’s argument]

Dave, you present your uninformed arguments as if everyone should agree with you, and that is what I object to.

You used the words “obvious” and “obviously” twice in this last comment alone, when not even all Christians will agree with you, much less atheists. Why do you continue to insist that the things you believe are obvious? That’s what I think is ignorant of you, for if they were obvious no one would disagree.

But that’s not all. You state “it is nonsensical and utterly illogical.” You state “This is radically unbiblical,” and “impossible exegetically.”

You annoy me, not because of your arguments, but because of your ill placed confidence. Any educated person would not state the things you do with such arrogance. That’s all.

Besides, it does nothing for your argument to add the word “obviously” to it. And if you were informed as you say about this, then you would know that such interpretatons are not impossible since Christians themselves think otherwise.

I mean, really, with you there is no discussion to be had for any topic you write about. You are the answer man. Everyone else is ignoring the obvious. And that’s the hallmark of an ignorant and uneducated man.

You keep being personally insulting, John, and I’ll keep making arguments (just like when I critiqued your deconversion). People can see through that.

If I’m as big of a dolt and an ignoramus as you endlessly contend, then surely you’ll be able to blow my arguments out of the water.

But of course, since you’re far less “confident” than I am, this handicap (or virtue, depending on one’s point of view) would OBVIOUSLY present an opposing counter-weight to your doing so.

Which scholar, for instance, would you point to who says his arguments are obvious?

I don’t know who’s a scholar or who isn’t, but I’ll use examples from this very blog:

Obviously, the problem is that each author of the various books treats ‘Faith’ as something differently.

(DagoodS, 11-1-06)

(I won’t argue whether such a conception of “degrees of individuality” is “true or not” in a philosophical sense, which will obviously get us no where, since how could one prove any of my assumptions above at all)?

(Ed Babinski, 10-20-06)

Obviously, this passage presents some theological difficulties for early Christians. This passage seems to run against the notion that Jesus is God.

(Bill Curry, 11-6-06)

. . . God must take the sum total of His wrath out on the most unworthy recipient, a wholly guiltless individual, who also happens to be Himself? Why is such a belief necessary? And why do Christian creeds insist on the necessity of such a belief, when it obviously does not appeal to all, nor even make sense to all?

(Ed Babinski, 10-20-06)

Conclusive proof that the Bible is NOT inerrant. [title] . . . The God who created the Universe, stars, planets, and our own Sun, obviously wasn’t aware of the very astronomical phenomena he created.

(Desolate-Paladin, 6-21-06)

Steve is obviously committing a fallacious appeal to authority, considering he hasn’t yet even evaluated my writing in order to refute it on the grounds of “no formal credentials”.

(Daniel Morgan, 5-11-06)

The Establishment Clause is best understood by the Lemon Test. This situation fails the test on obvious grounds, . . .

(Daniel Morgan, this very day: 11-30-06)

The message was as obvious as anything, but I tried to look for answers. I read up on the responses from all the theological camps, from the conservatives (Blomberg, Marshall, McKnight, Wright, Witherington) to moderates (Meyer, Brown) to the Jesus Seminar.

(exapologist – almost a scholar, going for his doctorate in philosophy, 9-9-06)

Rather it is a book easily proven to be filled with errors and of obvious human origin.

(s burgener, 11-5-06)

Now let’s say a Calvinist offers an answer and is unconvinced by any of my replies. I never said I could convince those who hold to absolutely idiotic beliefs such as this one, that they are wrong. Any thinking person not already blinded by their faith would see the obvious and serious problem here.

(John W. Loftus, 10-15-06)

[I]t is apparent that upon careful examination, several fundamental elements of the Christian faith do not stand up to outside critiques, or even, in some cases, to several passages in the same book. In the case of the ‘virginal birth’ and the accompanying prophecies, it is obvious that the two critical parts of the faith of Christianity can not logically coexist. But then, logic is not what religion is based upon.

(C.J. Baserap, 5-14-06)

But here’s one scholar, at least: William Lane Craig:

There’s another version of Dr. Ehrman’s objection which is even more obviously fallacious than Ehrman’s Egregious Error. I call it “Bart’s Blunder.”

In this paper, presented by you (6-6-06), you yourself state that Craig is a pretty decent scholar, not an idiot and deluded and presumptuous fool like you think I am: “Craig understands symbolic logic, and uses it to his advantage whenever he can. . . . Craig does a masterful job of it.”

Since Dr. Craig used the outrageous word “obvious” with regard to one of his own arguments, or regarding the “obviously fallacious . . . Egregious Error” [his capital letters] and “Blunder” of an opponent, then he, too must be (as you say I am) “the answer man. Everyone else is ignoring the obvious . . . the hallmark of an ignorant and uneducated man.” Nice little foray into symbolic logic there, John . . .

And again you (5-7-06) cite NT scholar James Dunn (one whom Ed Babinski has tried to cite against my position):

“John’s Gospel is ‘obviously different’ [Dunn] from the other three earlier Gospels in terms of style and content.”

So there is another “ignorant and uneducated” scholar, using this dreaded word “obvious” and thus proving that he has no business commenting on anything at all, with such unmitigated gall and hubris, leading him to possess such inappropriate confidence!

Okay Dave. Fine. Where do you get the time to search these things out? For me to answer you I would have to search out the context of every one of these uses of “obviously.” But let me guess. Craig does this only in debates for rhetorical effect. Others were talking about their own notions and personal experiences. Still others are indeed fairly obvious.

They’re what???!!!

There are other usages you pointed to which I’ll let those who used them speak for themselves. But if I’m arguing against a viewpoint that I know my opponent doesn’t agree with, or if I’m arguing a minority viewpoint, or a contestable viewpoint then it’s ignorant to use the word for anything contestable, especially as much as you use it. And even when you don’t use such a word it’s in the whole tone of what you write.

For instance it is “obvious” to me that Christianity is false.

It’s what???!!! But of course, this is not an arrogant use of the word; only when I use it to defend Christianity. Curious logic . . .

That’s my personal belief, and it’s proper to use this word to describe my personal feelings about Christianity. But to say it’s “obvious” that Christianity is false in an argument that attempts to show another person that it’s false, is ignorant, unless done for rhetorical effect, which is merely rhetorical and has no force at all. Ehrman could’ve simply said “this is not obvious to me.”

That’s interesting. So to describe an argument as “obviously wrong” is insufferably arrogant, but to utilize a number of different arguments to make a statement describing one’s conclusion that an entire religion is obviously false, is perfectly prim and proper. It’s a silly distinction. Just let people say what they want to, and give them the freedom to use whatever words they wish. John finds my style offensive and overly-confident. I find his insulting and condescending. Does he really think my being confident that an argument is “obviously wrong” is more offensive than him calling me an “arrogant idiot” and all the additional insults (most aimed at my knowledge and intelligence) seen presently?

I am annoyed by people like you, and it may be a personality problem. I’m annoyed with pompous self-righteous know-it-all’s, especially when I know they don’t.

See, there you go! LOL Yet another to add to my collection. So John lectures me about supposed attitudes, using examples that don’t prove his point, and then absolutely proves that his attitude is far worse than mine, by any objective criteria.

And that is how you come across. Now it might go over well with your supporters and visitors to your site, but not here. Here you will find people who disagree with you a lot more often.

Not only do you think you’re right when you haven’t read the relevant literature. Now you are attempting to defend the arrogant way you argue. You’re just right about everything, or, at least you always come across that way. And in my book that reveals you are an uneducated, ignorant, arrogant know-it-all.

What I am probably going to do is to delete these comments tomorrow so that we can start this discussion all over again. You may copy them if you want to, but they are off track.

Yes, of course (precisely why I knew I had to preserve them). I suppose I would do the same thing, if something made me look like a fool, as this stuff does regarding John.

[to someone else]:

I think people who argue in the manner I see over at Triablogue [an anti-Catholic site], and even Dave Armstrong to some degree, don’t care about us as persons. They only want to show to others, whom they do care for, that we are wrong. Many of them think we are ignorant or willfully ignorant deceivers who don’t care about the truth at all. So they treat us like non-persons.

Yes, of course. I disagree with a position, and this sort of hyper-paranoid tripe is what I get back. But John is clearly (whoops, OBVIOUSLY) showing tons of “care” for me as “person” when he uses the following descriptions (all now a matter of record):

you continue to waste space

You are ignorant

you present your uninformed arguments as if everyone should agree with you

Any educated person would not state the things you do with such arrogance.

with you there is no discussion to be had for any topic you write about.

You are the answer man. Everyone else is ignoring the obvious. And that’s the hallmark of an ignorant and uneducated man.

I am annoyed by people like you, . . . pompous self-righteous know-it-all’s

Now you are attempting to defend the arrogant way you argue.

You’re just right about everything, or, at least you always come across that way.

you are an uneducated, ignorant, arrogant know-it-all.

I think people who argue in the manner I see over at Triablogue, and even Dave Armstrong to some degree, don’t care about us as persons.

Many of them [implied, including me] think we are ignorant or willfully ignorant deceivers who don’t care about the truth at all. So they treat us like non-persons.

(all on 11-30-06)

Not bad for a day’s work, especially for one who is lecturing another about how to treat folks respectfully. What else has John said about me in the past?:

Dave, as I read this [my critique of his deconversion] I thought to myself, he doesn’t think of me as an equal. He looks down his nose at me. As I’m writing he looks for loopholes. He doesn’t think I was sincere. I’m probably not even a person to him.

You’re a joke. I’m surprised you have an audience. You’re also a psychologist, eh? Wow! . . . Again, you’re a joke.

. . . that quite frankly is stupid of you.

You’re a joke, and I just don’t have the time to teach you what you need to understand.

To think you could pompously proclaim you are better than me is beyond me when you don’t know me. It’s a defensive mechanism you have with people like me.

You have shown yourself to be non-objective with me and to parade before the ignorant how smart and how much more faith you have than I did.

It’s called respecting people as people, and Dave’s Christianity does not do that with people who don’t agree with him.

I’m just tired of pompous asses on the internet who go around claiming they are superior to me in terms of intelligence and faith. Such arrogance makes me vomit.

. . . self-assured arrogant idiots out there, like Dave, who prefer to proclaim off of my personal experience that they are better than I.

(10-16-06; wow, it’a close call between these two insult-days. I give the nod to 10-16, though, because I love “arrogant idiot” and “joke” the best)

Follow Us!



Browse Our Archives