2018-09-06T19:07:28-04:00

Last updated on: September 6, 2018 at 7:07 pm   By

[Words of atheist or agnostic (?) heleninedinburgh will be in blue]

*****

I’ve been dealing with several of the objections to God’s alleged character flaws in my series vs. Seidensticker (so far with zero response from him, after 14 critiques).

‘Character flaws’ is a pretty tactful way to put it. The flood in Genesis, perhaps? Sodom and Gomorrah?

God as the Creator has the “prerogative” to judge His creation when they have gone astray.

We have earthly judges (by analogy) who do the same thing. A criminal commits a crime. He is given a fair trial, found guilty, and is then judged, if deemed guilty. We’ve even had the death penalty.

But it’s inconceivable that God is the Cosmic Judge?

Well, your god is yours; ‘you do you,’ as they say. But I still think killing everyone on earth except eight people is not a moral thing to do. Would your god like it if one of us humans decided to kill everybody on earth?

We’re not God. That’s the whole point. But people who favor legal abortion love to play God, don’t they? They believe that a mother owns another human being (her own child) — just like chattel slavery — and can kill him or her at will. Of course I don’t accept that. I think it’s immoral and murder (by the abortionist). But the internal logic there is the same thing that is objected to when it comes to God, and it’s said that He can’t judge someone and kill them.

Imagine if everyone on earth were like an SS agent (think, Heinrich Himmler). We took out people like that in World War II and everyone thought it was quite moral. But if God does it, suddenly it’s immoral.

Well, with the Flood and Sodom and Gomorrah, that’s what the Bible says took place: the level of immorality was virtually universal and beyond repair. So God judged. I don’t have the slightest problem with it. I think it’s exactly what we would expect in a God Who is both perfectly loving and a just judge.

You mentioned Himmler. Just thinking about Goebbels. If he hadn’t killed himself he’d have been tried at Nuremberg and presumably executed, yes? Would it have been moral to execute his children too?

Not according to our legal systems, no.

And of course I know what you are driving at. In a blanket judgment by God there will be children who are killed as well. But they are not necessarily condemned to hell. God judges each soul individually. So yes, they may have to die young as a result of being in a hyper-corrupt culture (below the age of reason and guilt, as we Catholic say), but they have an eternal life in front of them and God will judge them justly in that respect.

In the atheist view, on the other hand, there is no ultimate justice at all. Since we are doing Nazi analogies, it would be as if the Nazis had won World War II and were ruling the world right now, doing all the evil they did while they were in power. In a world without God, there would be no ultimate justice. These Nazis would die and cease to exist. They would pay no penalty for their great evils (not even in this life if they aren’t defeated). Their victims would die and cease to exist as well, and never receive any good things. All they had was an earthy life which was a living hell under Nazi rule.

There is no justice or meaning or “happy ending” in that scenario. Many people in the world have a terrible life: and very often because of despotic rulers or bad social or religious systems. In the Christian worldview the unrepentant bad guys are judged for their evil (and will end up in hell). People who accept God’s grace spend eternity with God in heaven, in great bliss and joy, with no more suffering.

That is meaningful and just.

Oh, of course you know what I’m driving at.

If you were driving at something else, by all means inform me of it. It looks like you did have in mind what I figured that you did, based on your next answer [below]

In a blanket judgment by God there will be children who are killed as well.

Then why does your god make these blanket judgements? Surely it could do something more targeted?

The idea of innocent people who’ve had a bad life and wicked people who prosper all getting what’s coming to them is a lovely one. I’m going to have to be a spoilsport and ask for proof that that’s actually what happens, though.

According to biblical teaching, it is.

And how do you know the Bible’s accurate?

See many related papers on that topic, that I have collected.

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Related reading:

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2018-09-01T13:41:26-04:00

Last updated on: September 1, 2018 at 1:41 pm   By

This is a follow-up dialogue with my friend, atheist Anthrotheist, concerning my recent article, “Seidensticker Folly #13: God Hasta Prove He Exists!” Seidensticker stated (as recorded in that paper):

Let’s make clear what compelling evidence for God would look like. This wouldn’t simply be the clouds parting one day just as you wondered if God existed. It wouldn’t be unexpectedly coming across a photo of a beloved relative who had died. I’m talking about something really compelling—something like everyone in the world having the same dream the same night in which God simply and clearly summarizes his plan. Could that be dismissed as alien technology or mind-control drugs rather than God? Perhaps, but this evidence would be vastly more compelling than the feeble arguments apologists are saddled with today.

Anthrotheist’s words will be in blue.

*****

I’m trying to pin down the dream example’s basic premises, as they apply to evidence of God’s existence. The best I can come up with is:

1. The event is (mostly) universal. Everyone in the world has the same dream on the same night, which means that at least a large part of half the world had the dream at the same time (given that the other half would hear about it before their day was over).

2. The event is unprecedented. Presumably, the dream plays out in exactly the same manner (thus being the exact same dream) all over the world. It doesn’t fit any particular cultural expectations nor resemble any particular history, legend, or fable.

3. The event is consistent across cultures. Similar to number two, but more how it is interpreted; while the meaning (and certainly the portent) of the dream will vary depending on the culture, the dream itself is independently identical everywhere. It’s like everyone in a room can come up with different explanations for why there is a giant cat walking around, but everyone is definitely seeing the same tiger.

4. The event has God at its center. There’s no cloud of symbolism or metaphor, no obtuse and cryptic language employed; as Bob said, “…God simply and clearly summarizes his plan.” There’s no way to mistake God for something or someone else, and there’s nothing obfuscating the message (at least its transmission, there can always be confusion in its reception).

Taken together, it would defy scientific explanation. No drug, technology, technique, illness, nor combination of any or all of those things is sufficient to explain the phenomenon. It’s certainly possible to rationalize it, ignore it, or deny it, but that would be rarer outliers. Over time, if nothing else similar happened ever again and no amount of investigation produced any reasonable explanation, it is easy to imagine that people would wonder less about it as they moved on with their day-to-day lives. The next generation, who never experienced it, would have all the stories and passions from the people who were there when it happened. A hundred years later, there would be records of it. It would be hard to deny that it happened, given it’s world-wide scope, but it would be easier as time passed to discredit it as being any particular God, and without any repeat of it perhaps even being from a God at all.

The points Bob probably intended to counter seem clear. Christianity emerged in one tiny part of the world, and nowhere else on Earth are the same stories told. Christianity emerged from existing cultures and religions, with many of its stories closely resembling older legends familiar to the area (but again, unheard of elsewhere in the world). All the world religions have similar histories, and all of them have followers that have subjective experiences of their god(s). This example would fairly well defy any of them, including but not exclusive to Christianity.

Well, I can agree that if this actually happened, it would be compelling for a lot of people (even ultra-skeptic / hyper-rationalist Bob, who suggested it!). I’m interested in the deeper questions, though (and I think we could potentially have some interesting dialogue concerning these matters):

1) What is an objective measure by which one can determine that “x amount of evidence” is sufficient for Person A (ostensibly atheist) or, all people, to believe in God’s existence? On what [objective / rational] basis is such a claim made?

2) If that question is answered, how does the person who holds it apply it (logically and epistemologically) to all other human beings?

3) How do two people even have a rational discussion about how much evidence — and what sort — is required to believe in God? What are the criteria or framework within which such a discussion takes place?

These are mainly rhetorical questions and perhaps ultimately unanswerable (at least in certain senses) for those on either side, but I think they indicate the complexity of this issue. It’s not simple or easy at all. I think you are the sort of atheist who can have (and is willing to have) this conversation, because you don’t come around mocking and condescending and assuming that the Christian is an idiot, who has no legitimate reasons whatsoever for his or her views.

As I noted in my earlier paper, Christians believe that God has indeed already sufficiently revealed Himself, so that speculations about what He “must” or “ought to” do, from atheists, are a bit comical and beside the point, from our perspective. These proposals presuppose that God hasn’t revealed Himself at all, or insufficiently for all people, or for thinking / more educated people, etc. We think He has, through and in what He has made (tied in — for thinking, philosophically astute Christians — to the teleological and cosmological arguments):

Romans 1:19-20 (RSV) For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.  [20] Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. . . .

Now, of course, the atheist says, “who cares about that? It’s just the Bible saying what we would expect it to say; but it’s circular reasoning to cite the Bible to prove the Bible . . .” For my part, I’m not trying to prove the point at the moment, so I’m not engaged in circular reasoning or begging the question. I’m simply reporting (sociologically) what Christians believe. We believe that the Bible is God’s inspired revelation, on many other grounds, and so we accept what it teaches, including this passage.

How we would flesh out Romans 1 philosophically would be to utilize the teleological and cosmological arguments. But I’d like to highlight the thought in Romans 1 in particular. Is it true that the thinking person can simply view the universe and the marvels of science and have a rational basis for thinking that it suggests God or some sort of Higher Power (either personal or impersonal) or “organizing / creative principle” (or whatever way one would like to describe it)? I submit that some very great minds (and not Christian minds) have indeed had that reaction.

David Hume was a deist (not an atheist: as is wrongly assumed by many). It is thought that he dismantled the teleological argument. But many good Hume scholars maintain that he disposed of merely one form of it: not all forms. He appears to offer support for my contention, from Romans 1, that the observable world bears witness to God’s existence:

The order of the universe proves an omnipotent mind. (Treatise, 633n)

Wherever I see order, I infer from experience that there, there hath been Design and Contrivance . . . the same principle obliges me to infer an infinitely perfect Architect from the Infinite Art and Contrivance which is displayed in the whole fabric of the  universe. (Letters, 25-26)

The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion . . .

Were men led into the apprehension of invisible, intelligent power by a contemplation of the works of nature, they could never possibly entertain any conception but of one single being, who bestowed existence and order on this vast machine, and adjusted all its parts, according to one regular plan or connected system . . .

All things of the universe are evidently of a piece. Every thing is adjusted to every thing. One design prevails throughout the whole. And this uniformity leads the mind to acknowledge one author. (Natural History of Religion, 1757, edited by H. E. Root, London: 1956, 21, 26)

That is a philosophical argument (not a religious / theological one), tying into scientific observation, from a non-Christian philosopher of great repute, in general, and among atheists. And it precisely (rather spectacularly, I would say) backs up what St. Paul states, in the Bible, in the first chapter of his epistle to the Romans.

As my second corroborating example, I submit Albert Einstein, who was some sort of pantheist (“God is everything”) or panentheist (“God is in everything”) — assuredly not an atheist –, but who backs up to a significant degree, the thought that Paul expresses in Romans 1 and that Christians believe (in faith, but backed up by philosophy). I’ve collected many of his statements concerning religion and the marvels of the universe. Here are several of those (further detailed source information is provided in that paper):

My comprehension of God comes from the deeply felt conviction of a superior intelligence that reveals itself in the knowable world. In common terms, one can describe it as ‘pantheistic’ (Spinoza). (1923)

My religiosity consists of a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we can comprehend about the knowable world. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God. (1927)

Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious. (1927)

I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists, . . . (1929)

A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms — it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and this sense alone, I am a deeply religious man. . . . Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvellous structure of reality, . . . (1930)

I’m not an atheist and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations. (1930)

[E]veryone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe — a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, . . . (1936)

Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is the same as that of the religious fanatics, and it springs from the same source . . . They are creatures who can’t hear the music of the spheres. (1941)

In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views. (c. 1941)

My feeling is insofar religious as I am imbued with the consciousness of the insufficiency of the human mind to understand deeply the harmony of the Universe which we try to formulate as “laws of nature.” It is this consciousness and humility I miss in the Freethinker mentality. (1954)

[see also, Chapter Ten of my book, Science and Christianity: Close Partners or Mortal Enemies? (2010, 301 pages) ]

This is essentially what we Christians are contending, in using Romans 1 as a starting-point for our thought. Hume and Einstein back it up: it’s rational to look out at the universe and conclude that it suggests (and beyond that: basically proves) that God (or something beyond mere matter) exists. The teleological argument is not dead at all. I would say, to the contrary, that it is more compelling than ever, based on our increasingly detailed observations of the wonders of the universe. I opined, in my paper about Einstein’s religious views:

If even rigorous philosophical and scientific minds like David Hume and Einstein look at the universe and immediately sees some sort of Intelligence behind it (though not the Christian God), surely there is something to even Paul’s assertion of the “plainness” of God’s existence, in Romans 1. . . .

Now, I would ask an atheist: whence comes Einstein’s “deeply felt conviction”? Is it a philosophical reason or the end result of a syllogism? He simply has it. It is an intuitive or instinctive feeling or “knowledge” or “sense of wonder at the incredible, mind-boggling marvels of the universe”. Atheists don’t possess this intuition, but my point is that it is not utterly implausible or unable to be held by even the most rigorous, “non-dogmatic” intellects, such as Einstein and Hume. And the atheist has to account for that fact somehow, it seems to me.

And, following such thought, this is why we think it is unnecessary for some extraordinary demonstration to take place, in order for God to prove that He exists, to the satisfaction of every atheist. He already has done so. Why atheists have somehow missed it, is the mystery for us: not why God hasn’t done something that there is no need for Him to do.

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Photo credit: NASA image from the Hubble Space Telescope (4-23-12). Star-forming region 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula because its glowing filaments resemble spider legs. The nebula is located in the neighboring galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud, and is one of the largest star-forming regions located close to the Milky Way. At the center of 30 Doradus, thousands of massive stars are blowing off material and producing intense radiation along with powerful winds. The Chandra X-ray Observatory detects gas that has been heated to millions of degrees by these stellar winds and also by supernova explosions. These X-rays, colored blue in this composite image, come from shock fronts–similar to sonic booms–formed by this high-energy stellar activity. The Hubble data in the composite image, colored green, reveals the light from these massive stars along with different stages of star birth, including embryonic stars a few thousand years old still wrapped in cocoons of dark gas. Infrared emission data from Spitzer, seen in red, shows cooler gas and dust that have giant bubbles carved into them. These bubbles are sculpted by the same searing radiation and strong winds that comes from the massive stars at the center of 30 Doradus. [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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2018-08-14T12:40:14-04:00

Last updated on: August 14, 2018 at 12:40 pm   By

Words of Anthrotheist: a friendly regular contributor on my blog (he wrote this in a combox there), will be in blue.

*****

I remember some time ago having a conversation with Dave, the author of this blog, and he expressed interest in my ‘deconversion’ story. So here goes.

I don’t remember there ever being any particular anguish or trauma involved as I drifted away from church. I grew up in a Methodist home with my grandparents who attended services every Sunday (and at times in my childhood went during other days of the week; I don’t recall exactly what for). I think what I recall the most was sitting in church during Sunday school or the sermon, and thinking to myself, “I should feel more inspired by all of this.” There wasn’t any emotional connection for me, and as I grew older I started looking for an intellectual connection instead. I asked my pastor and elder church members (generally Sunday school teachers) questions, and the only answers I remember getting were, “You just have to have faith.” If there were more substantial responses, they were inconsequential enough that I have no recollection of them.

Looking for any sort of connection, in my teens I tried testing the messages I got from church, primarily regarding prayers. One evening, after chores, I spoke with my uncle regarding a particular cow he had in the pen used for cattle that were sick or close to delivery (the dairy farm I grew up on was run by my uncle and aunt, who had taken it over from my grandparents with whom I lived); he told me that he didn’t think that she (the cow) would survive the night. I didn’t have any particular connection to that cow, but was saddened; I decided to offer what wound up being my most heart-felt and earnest prayers that evening, pleading for the life of a simple farm animal. The next day, after school and during chores, I asked my uncle about it and he told me that she had lived and would probably be alright. It would be natural to assume that I felt vindicated by this apparent response to my prayers, but if anything I felt even less connected; the absolute lack of reaction from my uncle (or anyone else, cousins, hired hands, etc.) left me thinking, “Nobody sees this as miraculous, they all are taking it in stride like it’s nothing.” I think that I understood that what I had taken as a critical situation for this living creature’s wellbeing, was really just another day in the life of a dairy farmer. My prayer, honest as it was, really was quite trite; at the end, I felt more embarrassed than I did reassured.

Time passed, I stopped attending church, moved out and went to college, worked jobs, etc. One girlfriend in my twenties tried to re-convert me, but her attempts amounted to little more than emotional blackmail: believe in God or I’m going to break up with you. That relationship didn’t last, go figure. My first wife was a preacher’s daughter, but as long as I knew her she never expressed anything but indifference regarding her faith, which complimented my own feelings on the subject. My second and current wife was a member of a Pentecostal church when we got married, and I attended her church a couple of times early on. She struggled a bit with her own deconversion, but has remarked many times how she never felt committed to the message of her faith, and for over a decade had been faking it, expecting one day to “make it”, so to speak. We’re both quite content having nothing to do with any particular supernatural tradition, though we both find some interesting philosophical grist in the Tao Te Ching.

Ultimately, I have skimmed the world’s religions, curious about their essential messages. They all make fantastic claims, all of them have dedicated and sincere apologists that work diligently to support their theology (and have for centuries, at least). None of them have any greater insight into the reality in which we all find ourselves; none of them have produced answers that stand up to skeptical scrutiny. The most powerful epistemological system mankind has right now is premised precisely on the idea that there are no “supernatural” forces that cannot be accounted for. I don’t believe that science can answer every question; it is particularly lacking in areas where any data that may exist is almost entirely subjective. But it has revealed knowledge that flatly defies the claims made by the world’s religions, and provides the tools to test and confirm that knowledge. It seems my religious philosophy is basically, “Every adherent to any religion in the world has rejected the possibility of every single religion that has ever existed, with one exception; I have found no compelling reason to make that single exception for any particular religion.” I live my life in the secular realm, sharing that space in which people of all faiths can gather and interact; anyone is free to express their beliefs, no one has the privilege of demanding anyone else’s devotion. I have a former professor who is a good friend, who happens to be Catholic; a former classmate-turned-friend who is Protestant, and numerous acquaintances who’s beliefs have never come up, excepting perhaps a “thank God”, or “God bless you”, or perhaps a “We’re so blessed to… [whatever it may be].” It doesn’t bother or offend me, I am not threatened by it, and I don’t confront it with my own beliefs; I enjoy the religiously neutral space in which we live our day-to-day lives.

And that’s about it. Thanks for reading.

Thank you very much for sharing your story. I have a few thoughts, if I may:

1. Apologetics is necessary to maintain belief in the Christian faith. We must harmonize faith and reason. We have to know why we believe what we believe (assuming we even know the latter; I certainly didn’t in my early years: which was also Methodism at first). This is why I do what I do. If one isn’t taught reasons to believe in Christianity, then there is also no reason to remain a Christian. Such a person is easy pickin’s for any other competing worldview that comes around. By the same token, from where I sit: you present no reason for leaving that poses a challenge to any other Christian, in terms of compelling disproofs of their worldview. Reason per se seemed to have little to do with the whole thing (though I can see that if you weren’t presented adequate reasoning, why you would take the route you took).

2. Your story also highlights the tragedy of having no Christians around one who express enthusiasm; who “carry the torch”: who show forth the light and joy of Christ, to “spark a fire under us.” It’s very tough to have a lasting faith minus such people around us. We’re too social as human beings to not need others whom we admire, that are of our same belief-system. If we don’t, many times we won’t last long in a given environment.

3. Neither #1 nor #2 were your fault. It was the fault of your pastors and role models in the faith. And that was my experience, too, up till age 13, when my brother got “saved” and started sharing his faith (though often in a boorish, unappealing way). I didn’t come into contact with apologetics till I was 19, and especially after age 23, when I discovered historical apologetics (in my evangelical period), and my life was changed, and I knew what I was to do with my life. It was very important to me (right out of college at the time) — indeed, crucial — to merge my faith with reason.

4. Like many atheists and former Christians, you seem to have virtually made science either your religion, or at the least, what “guides” your outlook on life (worldview, philosophy). It’s a view that I have written about as “atomism”: belief that the atom can literally do everything that we believe God does: “create” the universe and the marvelous laws of science, and life and consciousness: the whole ball of wax. Personally, I think that is exponentially more difficult to believe in than a God Who is an eternal spirit and all-powerful, etc.

5. The question then is whether science contradicts or overthrows Christianity. You say, “science . . . has revealed knowledge that flatly defies the claims made by the world’s religions.” Perhaps it casts doubt on other religions, but I have yet to see an argument proving to me that our present knowledge of science casts the slightest doubt on my Christian beliefs. I’ve seen nothing that was a fundamental / essential disconnect or contradiction. Perhaps you’d like to share what it is in science that you think does that. I’d be extremely interested in that. Science can’t disprove the presence of the supernatural because its purview, by definition, is matter and empiricism. That simply can’t rule out spiritual forces or the miraculous, or God, any more than an apple rules out an orange, or east, west, or baseball, algebra.

I commend you for your tolerance and civility (having just endured a two-day marathon of some 30-40 atheists all calling me every name in the book, simply for banning one person: who last night — irony of ironies — banned me from his site). I’m not prejudiced against atheists as a class of people; you don’t seem to be prejudiced against Christians. That’s all that’s required for thoughtful human beings to interact and even to become friends. It’s the deadly combination of hostility + ignorance (along with an automatic attribution of bad faith and insincerity) that causes problems on both ends.

Do I have your permission to make this exchange a new blog post? We can continue the discussion if you like, and I’ll add any new parts. Most atheists whose deconversion stories I have commented upon got mad at me, as if it was the most objectionable thing in the world that a Christian would “dare” critique reasons an atheist gave for forsaking Christianity. I think it’s quite obvious that examinations of such stories would be part and parcel of my job as an apologist defending Christianity in general and Catholic Christianity in particular. If someone is giving reasons to leave Christianity, then the one who gives reasons for being a Christian would and should reply to such reasons.

You are certainly welcome to post this conversation if you wish; you don’t need my permission, given that I posted my comment on your blog in the first place, but I do appreciate you asking. As for objecting to your response, I honestly would have been disappointed if you hadn’t replied. I was curious what you would make of my tale, and never expected that we would necessarily see eye-to-eye on every part [of] the interpretation. It seems to me that increasingly (at least in America where I live) it is far more important to be able (and willing!) to disagree politely, rather than surrounding ourselves solely with messages that fail to ever challenge us and lashing out when our views are confronted.

I agree: polite disagreement is more and more rare and all the more to be sought after in our present toxic environment, where every honest disagreement becomes an opportunity to demonize folks who are different from us. Thanks for being a civil voice and for being willing to discuss things on my page!

Regarding points 1-3, I don’t blame anyone in my former congregation for my deconversion. Whether they are at fault for anything would depend on who is (or should be) responsible for what activities in a church, and that is well beyond my areas of experience; as an atheist now, I don’t feel justified making any such judgement. I believe that the church I attended was probably a bit on the older side, in terms of its members; I went there with my grandparents, and the younger or middle-aged members were perhaps more active than others, but mostly limited to teaching Sunday school. 

You may not blame the people around you, but I do, because any belief-system is social in nature, and all involve role models that we look up to and emulate. No one formulates their beliefs in utter isolation from social surroundings and influences. “We are what we eat.” You yourself note that no one answered your questions or showed much enthusiasm for Christianity, so yes, I do blame them. Not that you were absolutely perfect and blameless in all of it (I have no idea, but since we’re all sinners, I highly doubt it). I’m just going by your report and accepting it at face value.

I imagine that my pastor was probably used to older congregates who had far fewer questions than I did, and I imagine my questions were more challenging than she was ready to answer off the top of her head.

Any pastor ought to be equipped to answer intelligent questions from a young person. But sadly, many did not learn enough apologetics (if any). The seminaries don’t teach it much.

Ultimately, I never felt drawn to the church or to religion; even during times of crisis I never turned to God, neither for support nor in blame. It just didn’t occur to me. 

I’m saying that at least part of that apathy had to do with the lack of inspiring role models and question-answerers around you. You confirm that in a statement near the end of your comment: “For me, if I wanted a community I could go to church, but my past experiences have been everyone sitting quietly in their pews until it’s time to leave, with only brief moments of mingling after the sermon.” Yep: no inspiration, no fire, no motivation to emulate inspiring role models, no one whose enthusiasm makes you curious and draws you further into religion and seeking after God . . .

All of that almost always occurs in a community. I was drawn to evangelicalism in 1977 by social and communitarian factors, and to Catholicism in 1990 via the same things. I thought through both (especially in 1990, which was a very “intellectually dominated” conversion). But we can’t underestimate the role of a like-minded community. It’s why, after all, most atheists online congregate together, and concentrate on running down Christianity. They have their confirming community, and they all agree to bash the thing that most of them used to hold: which is a further confirming — though usually fallacious — practice. I majored in sociology, so I know a little bit about social groups.

I am inclined to opine that something that is supposedly so true requires an inordinate amount of effort to support and explain. Nobody has to explain that gravity pulls objects to the ground or that sunlight can burn unprotected skin (artificial or natural protection of course), these things are clearly evident; and yet the most profound truths about the realities of the universe are only to be found in a single collection of writings from a single region of the world drafted thousands of years ago which take staggering amounts of effort to translate and to understand even casually. It ends up seeming to me like much ado about nothing.

I don’t see that this is apparent at all. You go on to mention gravity as a supposed simple and obvious truth of science. Of course it is not at all, because now we understand gravity not as an apple falling in Newton’s head, but as gravitational waves per Einstein: exponentially more difficult to fully explain. But I would say that science in general is made up of very complicated concepts and formulas that are above most of our heads. I would say all that is confirmation of its truthfulness, not the opposite.

Yet when it comes to religious matters, the same people who accept — virtually worship — science, complain about almost any complexity at all (say, transubstantiation or the hypostatic union) and assume that this suggests falsity rather than being true. I say that that is hogwash: truth of any sort will ultimately be complex. It can be summarized or simplified for teaching purposes, but in the end it’ll be complex. We find that in science, theology, and anything else. I myself, when writing on many topics in theology, present a simple, summed-up version and also go into the greatest depth (usually in dialogues). Both have their purpose. But in the end, the longer treatments show how complex each topic is when closely examined.

(As an example, virtually every culture on Earth has means of creating fire; the methods differ and their explanations for what fire is differ greatly, but the phenomenon is universal. Why would God and his truth be limited to a book derived from a single culture in one part of the world? Why isn’t God more like fire, approached and explained differently, but universal in his characteristics?)

No one is saying that it is limited to the Bible (except a few fundamentalist anti-intellectual dumbbells). There are vast areas of learning and culture not dealt with at all in the Bible or not much (mathematics, logic, philosophy science, architecture, on and on . . . ). All truth is God’s truth. As Galileo said, “The Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.”

Your fourth point is interesting, and I imagine it comes as no surprise that I disagree with you at least in part. When I think about religion, it seems to me that several roles or functions are fulfilled by it most of the time: epistemology, morality, congregation, and tradition are the main ones that come to mind. So when I consider an atheist taking science as their new religion, I have a hard time seeing it as anything more than an epistemology. Science is notoriously bad in areas of morality and congregation (pure logic makes cold morals, and scientists tend to be introverts), and the enterprise of science is in many ways an effort to prevent the establishment of any traditions (particularly ones that would interfere with discovery, but generally as well). Even in the area of epistemology, any sort of ‘atomism’ differs profoundly from any religious belief in one critical way: agency. Atheists may believe that all that exists in the universe is matter and energy, but there is no sense that there is any agency behind those things; materials didn’t create the universe, there was not a creative power in place.

Yet somehow the universe we observe and marvel at, in all its wonders, is here, and had to come about somehow. If all you have is matter, matter had to do all that, and from scratch (as we have no proof that the universe is eternal: the Big Bang is the current consensus).

That matter and energy follow patterns of behavior seems to me self-evident at this point, and those patterns can both generate and destroy complex arrangements of material, depending on circumstances. That’s about it. I don’t hold scientific knowledge in any particular reverence (another aspect of religion to my mind); any sense of awe I may find is usually the result of my experiencing the wonders of nature, rarely as a response to human endeavor.

As for science vs Christianity. I think what I was referring to most was notions like the sun being a flaming chariot wheel, or illness being caused by malicious spirits. Where once the only answers to be found explaining the world were religious, now the scientific method provides answers that are more precise and universal (and therefore at least more useful; and thanks for correcting my misuse of ‘therefor’ at some point before, I may not like English but I dislike misusing it more). Those answers are not more satisfying, usually exactly because they paint a worldview in which nothing but human beings care at all about humanity. It’s hardly inspiring or uplifting, but then it was never meant to be nice any more than it was meant to be bleak. I think the only place I feel that science and religion are incompatible is when a religious claim is made that could be testable; in such cases, the tests always fail (such as prophesies, claims of healing powers, etc. You know, religion’s hucksters.).

I recently (in May) produced plenty of documented scientific / medical evidence for miracles occurring at Lourdes. This was in response to your own queries. To my knowledge, you have not grappled directly with that evidence (let alone explained it away). It’s easy to make blanket statements, as you have here; much more difficult to wrangle with this specific proposed evidence of the miraculous. Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. I’d rather be in a place of being pressured to prove and confirm miracles rather than in a position of having to categorically deny that any ever take place (the good ol’ universal negative).

I think where people tend to have an issue is: if religion doesn’t make a testable claim then it doesn’t conflict with science, but then what does religion offer? It could offer morality and community, but too often it seems that the most fervent faithful (e.g., fundamentalist evangelists) uphold a morality that is oppressive and provincial, all while excluding all but the most devoted from their midst. For me, if I wanted a community I could go to church, but my past experiences have been everyone sitting quietly in their pews until it’s time to leave, with only brief moments of mingling after the sermon. Religion has lost to science as an epistemology for the objective material world, and in my experience all accounts of the supernatural are singularly subjective. A religion may tell me that an angel is watching over me, but my seat belt seems more likely to save me. I can’t help but conjecture that perhaps a large part of why religious affiliation is declining is because religions are still trying to claim truth about how the world is, rather than making more effort to offer a vision of how the world should be (but again, I don’t feel entitled to say what religions should be doing, I’m just sharing my opinion).

There is no epistemological “loss” because it’s apples and oranges. The Bible and Christianity don’t claim to be textbooks of science. The main claim we make about the world and its natural forces are that God created that and sustains it by His power. But He does so through almost all natural forces. Thus, science studies those and builds up a tremendous and immensely helpful body of knowledge that we are all grateful for and use every day. Modern science began in a thoroughly Christian cultural and intellectual environment and was dominated by Christians and theists for 300 years: who founded 115 separate scientific disciplines. There simply is no conflict here at all. Science is more “ours” (if we must talk in that way) than yours.

Thanks again for your long and thoughtful, stimulating comment and your civility, as always.

***

Whatever the charges may be against my former congregation and pastor — I can see how a bit more fire and motivation, and especially intelligent engagement could have made a big difference — I have never dwelt on it. At this point I find little pragmatic reason to do so; I have viewed the world the way that I do for nearly 25 years now, and that is an enormous amount of momentum at which to throw a little bit of conjecture about what may have been.

Yes. From our perspective, it was this lack of what should have been from others, that helped lead you down a path away from the faith. It was one of the reasons, I submit, why you choose Path B in the fork in the road, instead of Path A (“the narrow way,” as Jesus calls it).

I’m just glad that you don’t accuse me of simply being angry at God because my father died or because I want to live a life of sin, an all-to-common theme of conversations with the devout.

We can’t read people’s hearts, and can’t make such judgments about motivation, unless we have overwhelming evidence from a person’s own report. It’s wrong for anyone to do it. And you are right: far too many Christians exhibit this sinful shortcoming. I have written about how the Bible describes two sorts of nonbelievers: the rebellious rejecter of God and the “open-minded agnostic.”

I am glad, but not surprised though; the conversations I have had with you have been singularly uncommon in their polite candor.

Well, thank you very much. I enjoy our dialogues too. I greatly appreciate your open sharing and refusal to bash Christianity, like far too many atheists online do.

The point that I was trying to get at with gravity and fire is that these phenomena are universal. Everywhere in the world, societies have stories where something falls to the ground or something catches on fire. The explanation for why these things happen may vary quite a bit, but in every case we can look back retrospectively and claim with reasonable certainty, “That is an account describing gravity/fire.” Modern physics can quantify the properties of gravitation and combustion, and can even reveal the invisible forces at work (at least in the case of combustion; as far as I know, there still isn’t a clear explanation for why matter has mass), but the visible effects have always been apparent and consistent no matter where you go or when.

Yes, of course: the laws of nature.

The particulars of the Christian God are quite precise, and as far as I have found fairly unique: virgin birth, miraculous powers, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension. Take any of these away (and I may have missed some myself of course) and it seems to me that you have an incomplete picture of Christ; nowhere else in the world’s oral or written traditions do these themes appear together except in a tiny part of the Roman Empire two thousand years ago.

I don’t see how that is relevant. Likewise, modern science began in western Europe in the 15th-16th centuries, in a thoroughly Christian cultural and intellectual milieu. Nowhere else in history did this occur. I don’t see how that has any bearing on the truthfulness of science. It’s simply how modern science began; and you describe how Christianity began. The uniqueness of that historical event has no bearing on whether Christianity is true, either.

Polytheism doesn’t look like the Christian God, and animism certainly doesn’t. Why isn’t the true nature of the one true God more universally apparent?

Because cultures can develop false premises and then build upon those. If you walk two feet to the left, eventually where you end up could be hundreds of miles away from where you would have been if you walked straight ahead. Sometimes, when Christianity would have been introduced to a region, they killed the ones who were brining it, so that it couldn’t get off the ground (e.g., Japan).

Leaving descriptions of the universe apart, the Bible describes what God is like and what to expect after death, and nowhere else in the world does that particular narrative appear except the Bible.

There are certainly other religions that talk about the nature of God and the afterlife. Islam, for one. That’s a billion people. So this is an odd comment from you.

God’s most important truth, the one that will affect everyone for eternity after death, is tucked away in a single culture that only appeared thousands of years after humans started farming.

If you are implying that this is unfair, the Bible says that every man will be judged by what he knows (Romans 2).

Taken all together, it appears to me to be just another local religion that won the lottery of history and expanded into a world religion.

For you it is all chance and happenstance. We believe it is God’s providence: all part of His plan.

As for the beginning of the universe, I don’t have an answer to that quandary.

No atheist seems to. And I think that is a big problem in the atheist worldview: at least for those who strive to find answers to the basic questions of life: “why are we here?” etc.

My inclination is to assume that the universe is like a marble statue that has been pulverized to rubble and dust: the resulting material didn’t come from nothing, but there is zero evidence remaining that could be used to piece together an understanding of what it had been like before. The rubble can go on to do other things, and some of the essential properties are certainly consistent with its previous state, but what came before may always be a mystery. The fact that science is currently stumped by the universe’s origin (and as a result its essential nature) is no form of support for any competing narrative; just because I don’t claim to know, doesn’t mean that your claim that you do know has any greater validity.

I’ve always said that our view is at the very least equally as plausible than yours, and requiring no more faith or (to express it in logical terms) no more acceptance of unproven / unprovable axioms. And you seem to basically agree. You guys offer nothing (a big “Who knows?”). We simply believe in /posit an Eternal Spirit Who brought everything about (a notion which has a long and noble philosophical pedigree, so that it is not merely a religious “blind faith” belief or intellectually equivalent to leprechauns and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny). The fact that He is eternal overcomes the quandary of how matter (which, as far as we know, is not eternal) ever came to be in the first place.

So I did finally look more into the Lourdes cures (I admit that I pretty much glossed over it before, enticed as I was to pursue other lines of thought that appealed to me more at the time), and I honestly don’t know what to make of them.

Thanks for your honesty.

Part of the problem is that it appears impossible to differentiate the claims from the Catholic church; while I don’t doubt any particular person’s sincere intention to evaluate the claims objectively, I can’t ignore the church’s clear conflict of interest given the region’s immense dogmatic value to the organization. The thing that strikes me most is, given the area’s long history, why have I never heard of it before?

Because it is mostly known in Catholic circles. I hadn’t heard of it, either, when I was a Protestant. I remember the first time I heard the word was in a George Carlin comedy routine. I thought he was saying “Lord’s” at first.

Why are references to it almost exclusively limited to Catholic and faith websites and organizations?

Non-Catholics often ignore things that they pigeonhole as “just more Catholic junk.”

If the claims have any veracity, where are the research doctors and scientists that should be clamoring to examine the facts in excruciating detail?

They have to have the will to do so. There are motivations not to pursue it, because what happens if the miracles are verified? Folks might have to act on that and become Catholics! Since they don’t want to, they choose not to begin. Just speculating . . .

Billions of dollars are spent every year researching treatments for cancer alone; if there is clear evidence that cancer is being cured in Lourdes, surely someone outside the faith would want to be involved?

Our actions and beliefs are often determined by presuppositions that we adopt: either favorable or hostile.

Finally, I honestly didn’t ever intend to claim that the Bible was meant to be a science textbook, but hasn’t it served at various points in history as exactly that?

Sometimes it is misunderstood as that, by less sophisticated portions of Christianity.

Wasn’t the position of the church for at least some time that the Earth must be the center of the universe exactly because of a passage about the Earth being set on its foundations and the sun and moon moving about it?

Yes. Later it was better understood that that was phenomenological language: the same sort that all of us use every day: “the sun comes up and goes down.” Or some of the language was poetic and not intended to be literal (as was done in describing God Himself too). Without knowledge of heliocentrism (or any science at all), it’s perfectly logical (and not absurd) to assume or conclude that we are stationary and it’s the sun that is moving. And many great scientists did that, too (backed up also by Aristotle and other great philosophers). At least one great scientist did even after Copernicus (Tycho Brahe).

I know that it describes the creation of the world, and that description counters many current understandings of the order in which things had to happen; literal readings of scripture aside, when a text says “First this, second this, third that,” and so on, that isn’t at all poetical or allegorical.

The ancient Hebrews had a very different conception of chronology, and often, texts that we casually interpret as literally chronological, were not intended to be (I’ve written about the Hebrew conception of time). Early Genesis is a combination of symbolic language (trees and picking fruit, talking serpents) and some real, literal things (the earth did have a beginning — as science also tells us –; there was a primal human pair, who did “fall” and rebel against God). The word for “day” (yom) was understood to not have to be literal, at least as far back as St. Augustine (d. 430).

I suppose the point that I am trying to make is that it is all well and good to say in modernity, “the Bible isn’t a science textbook,” exactly because we now have science textbooks. Prior to that invention, far more stock was put in the Bible’s capacity to explain the world, and that stock has only receded in response to the epistemological successes of science.

Yeah; science (originating in a Christian worldview, not an atheist one; formulated in Christian and medieval minds) was a great advance in human knowledge about the material world, and even interpretation of the Bible was improved because of it. I think that’s great. It didn’t prove that the Bible was wrong; only that we interpreted it wrongly in some respects. Biblical interpretation is a human field of knowledge where we can improve and do better over time. The Bible itself didn’t change, but over time our understanding of it can improve.

That is the loss that I refer to. It isn’t that the church has tried to stymie science, just that by its own hand it has limited the Bible to spiritual matters (whether that amounts to a diminishing of the Bible’s stature is another matter, and I suspect that you don’t believe that it is at all).

The Bible is primarily about spiritual matters. When it touches upon matters that are scientific in nature it is not inconsistent with science. We believe that God created the universe ex nihilo. Science eventually figured out that it began in an instant with a Big Bang (the theory was formulated by a Catholic priest-scientist), which was not inconsistent with our existing view at all. It’s quite harmonious with it. Science came up with evolution (conceived in a then-theist — not atheist — mind, by Charles Darwin).

Nothing in the Bible requires us to believe that Adam was necessarily created in an instant. It says that God made Him from the dust (“the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground”: Gen 2:7, RSV). The “formed” could very well have been a process of millions of years, from matter. It’s interesting that it doesn’t say that God created man out of nothing, but from the dust (matter). To me, that almost implies process itself.

Thus, there is no necessary contradiction. The real contradiction comes with materialistic science, that attempts (inconsistently, among some scientists) to rule out God as impossible in the whole process (even with regard to ultimate origins). That contradicts Catholicism and the Bible (and I would say, logic as well). But evolution itself does not, as long as God isn’t arbitrarily / dogmatically excluded from the process.

And so on and so forth. No unanswerable contradiction between Christianity and science has been demonstrated.

***

Photo credit: Albert duce (10-8-09). The main sanctuary of the Woodward Avenue Presbyterian Church, in Detroit [Wikimedia Commons /  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license]

2018-08-16T14:18:11-04:00

Last updated on: August 16, 2018 at 2:18 pm   By

Elzbieta Kraszewski, who was raised Catholic, wrote in one of my comboxes (words in blue henceforth):

The Bible is much more understandable (and actually more relevant) if we view it in light of the authors’ time and culture. Of course they didn’t denounce slavery because, like every known ancient civilization, slavery was a major part of their economy. Saying that God justified capturing, owning, and selling slaves was simply (and obviously) a man-made attempt to enshrine the right to own other human beings into law. We shouldn’t be shocked that Biblical law does not differ significantly from that of other ancient Near Eastern tribes; it is simply a product of them. If Christians, Jews, and Muslims would just acknowledge this fact rather than claim divine guidance, atheists would be much less likely to harp on these issues.

But of course, Christians also believe the Bible is inspired revelation from God. So slavery is one of the difficult issues that arise as a result, because the Bible seems to present it in accepting terms and to not denounce it (or not as much as it should). We’ve worked through that, just like we’ve worked through all of the tough issues concerning the Bible and Christianity, like the problem of evil, etc.

Every viewpoint has problems that have to be worked through. That’s simply “grown-up” thinking and “intellectual reality.” It would be foolish to think that a document as long and complex (and old) as the Bible would not present thorny issues to be grappled with and agonized over.

Your solution is the simplistic and easy one, but it’s not one that orthodox Christians can take.

For further reading, see: “The Bible, Church History, and Slavery (Resources)”.

“Did the Church Ever Support Slavery?” (Steve Weidenkopf, Catholic Answers Magazine, 9-18-17)

I wrote in another paper: “As to the Flood, so what if other cultures mentioned it? We would fully expect that.”

I don’t see how that casts into doubt the Scriptural story [or biblical inspiration]. C. S. Lewis makes a similar argument about how pagan precursors to Christianity were how God planned it, in His providence. Far from being disproofs of Christianity, they confirm it:

What light is really thrown on the truth of falsehood of Christian Theology by the occurrence of similar ideas in Pagan religion? . . . Supposing, for purposes of argument, that Christianity is true; then it could avoid all coincidence with other religions only on the supposition that all other religions are one hundred percent erroneous . . . The truth is that the resemblances tell nothing either for or against the truth of Christian Theology. If you start from the assumption that the Theology is false, the resemblances are quite consistent with that assumption. One would expect creatures of the same sort, faced with the same universe, to make the same false guess more than once. But if you start with the assumption that the Theology is true, the resemblances fit in equally well. Theology, while saying that a special illumination has been vouchsafed to Christians and (earlier) to Jews, also says that there is some divine illumination vouchsafed to all men . . . We should, therefore, expect to find in the imagination of great Pagan teachers and myth makers some glimpse of that theme which we believe to be the very plot of the whole cosmic story — the theme of the incarnation, death, and re-birth. And the difference between the Pagan Christs (Balder, Osiris, etc.) and the Christ Himself is much what we should expect to find. The Pagan stories are all about someone dying and rising, either every year, or else nobody knows where and nobody knows when. The Christian story is about a historical personage, whose execution can be dated pretty accurately, under a named Roman magistrate, and with whom the society that He founded is in a continuous relation down to the present day. It is not the difference between falsehood and truth. It is the difference between a real event on the one hand and dim dreams or premonitions of that same event on the other. (The Weight of Glory, New York: Macmillan / Collier Books, revised and expanded edition, 1980, edited by Walter Hooper, New York: 83-84, from “Is Theology Poetry?”: originally read to the Oxford University Socratic Club on 6 November 1944 and published in The Socratic Digest, vol. 3, 1945)

G. K. Chesterton makes an elaborate argument along these same lines in his Everlasting Man (a marvelous book, and the one that Lewis said was his biggest influence).

Thank you for the civil reply. I know that the discussion on religion can be quite heated, so I appreciate it. From my perspective (of that as someone born and raised in the Catholic Church), it seems that one of the greatest aspects about the Catholic faith which differs from more fundamentalist forms is that it does not take the Bible literally. Yes, some events (Jesus being born of a virgin and rising from the dead) are to be accepted literally, but others may be viewed within the context of the culture of the writers and used as metaphor. For example, we know from multiple branches of science that Noah’s flood did not happen as the Bible says (the entire world was flooded). In the scientific community, this is beyond debate. However, if one considers the prospective of the Biblical writers, their world was flooded because there was a huge flood in the Ancient Near East which destroyed many cities and ravished the area. Using that prospective, one does not have to reject either science or religion; he/she is free to accept both on their own terms. Catholics have embraced evolution, the Big Bang (discovered by a Catholic priest, no less), and blood/organ transplants whereas a fundamentalist reading of the Bible would denounce all of these.

Thanks for your detailed and civil reply as well. I agree with this, and in fact, I understood and believed that the Flood was not universal over thirty years ago when I was a Protestant, after reading The Christian View of Science and Scripture by Bernard Ramm. We believe this not only because science indicates the position, for various reasons, but because the Bible — rightly understood — never required it in the first place. Even the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia (“Deluge”) stated that the Flood didn’t have to be interpreted as literally universal:

Neither Sacred Scripture nor universal ecclesiastical tradition, nor again scientific considerations, render it advisable to adhere to the opinion that the Flood covered the whole surface of the earth.

I’ve also argued vigorously against young earth creationist flood geology (which presupposes a universal Flood).

Whether something is literal or not in the Bible depends on the literary genre and context. Early Genesis (first eleven chapters), for example, has both literal (a real Adam and Eve and a real fall and original sin) and symbolic elements. The days are not literal, and the trees and the talking snake need not be literal. I recently wrote about the serpent. The choice need not be “totally symbolic / mythical Genesis” vs. “completely literal Genesis, meaning a young earth and no evolution.”

While I certainly appreciate the prospective of those wish to view the Bible solely under the lens of the divine, historical documents (and the Bible is perhaps the greatest one in Western civilization, if not the world) must be viewed in practical terms as to the culture and socio-economic needs of those who wrote them in order to fully understand them. For example: when Paul decided not to enforce Jewish dietary laws and circumcision upon the Gentile population, we can view it in part from his own detailed account as to his belief that Christ’s sacrifice fulfilled that portion of the law and made it no longer necessary. However, we must also be practical and admit that Paul, whose mission in life after his conversion was to attract converts to the faith, most likely knew that few Greeks would clamor to embrace a faith which required cutting delicate body parts and giving up a meat which was a staple in the region. To ignore that obvious point is to ignore the rational.

Once again, you imply that cultural influences in the Bible are somehow logically contrary to inspiration. I don’t see how that follows at all, as I have already argued. Your point about Paul and circumcision is an interesting one, and I think it has some validity. But I could just as easily argue that God in His providence understood the same factors you reference, and so it was decided (with God’s guidance at the Jerusalem Council: Acts 15) that circumcision was no longer required. Christianity has shown itself adaptable to particular cultures, without compromise of principle, to a large degree throughout history.

Thus, I’m not required to deny anything that is rational or a cultural explanation in this respect (or many others), but at the same time I need not deny biblical inspiration or the notion (held in faith) that the whole thing was the “plan” in God’s providence. God, being omniscient, would know that circumcision wouldn’t exactly go over big in non-Jewish cultures; nor would the extensive dietary and ritualistic requirements of the Mosaic law; so it turned out that they weren’t in fact required. If that change hadn’t occurred among early Christians (most of whom were Jewish at first), arguably, Christianity wouldn’t have spread to become the world’s largest religion and the most culturally transformative one.

There is irony, however, in the fact that circumcision is still widely practiced anyway (one in six males worldwide), often for [controversial] medical and not religious reasons.

Slavery, from all appearances, is like the kosher issue. Slaves were needed in the extremely hierarchical ancient Judea and later throughout the Mediterranean world. If early Christians had demanded that all new Christians must release their slaves, few powerful men would have been attracted to the faith and it would, in all likelihood, resulted in far more persecutions of Christians by the Roman authorities due to how disruptive it (abolitionism) would have been to the economy. Rational explanations, rather than diminish the Bible, help the modern reader to understand why the ancients could justify such repugnant acts in the name of God.

You make valid points here as well. I continue to note that slavery in the Bible and throughout Christian history is a complex issue, and that the ideal was always eventual abolition; but Christianity in its infancy was not completely revolutionary, in terms of every cultural and/or economic factor. Thus, Jesus said “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” and respected the authority of the Pharisees, even when they were being hypocritical (Matthew 23), and Paul respected the Jewish high priest’s authority during his trial and said that the government (then led by persecuting monsters like Nero) was the agent of God, and to be obeyed as such (Romans 13).

If it’s difficult to understand how slavery was so widely tolerated and practiced in the ancient world, I understand that by analogy to how we Americans treated Native Americans: attempting to virtually wipe them out by genocide, and how we maintained slavery till 1865, and continuing abominable treatment of black people until very recently, when our society has finally, for the most part, rejected racism, legally and culturally.

And now, of course, most of the western world has accepted legal abortion. We look down our noses at those who had the gall to believe that one human being could own another and keep them in bondage, while we — in our “enlightened” and “progressive” wisdom — believe that every mother owns the child in her womb and can kill him or her at will. That’s fine and dandy, yet we condemn Christians in past ages for having a blind spot regarding slavery.

Thus, the more things “change” the more they stay the same. It’s easily explained by the Christian doctrine of original sin and the human tendency towards actual sin (concupiscence). The things that human beings do are so irrational and so wicked, that the Christian explanation of their origin makes perfect sense and is entirely in accord with observation. Someone said that original sin is the one doctrine of Christianity that is so utterly obvious, it needs no defense.

Thanks again for your reply.

***

Hello, Dave. Thank you again for the very detailed response. Of course, I would be thrilled to be included in your blog paper. Now to your points:

1) I was truly shocked to hear that the Bible did not necessarily present the flood as global or universal. Thank you for sharing this. My sons and nephews, like many Millennials, express that their number one reason for rejecting religion (and Christianity in particular) is how so much of the Bible contradicts our modern knowledge of the world achieved via science, and Noah’s ark is always one of the top three unbelievable stories cited. I will pass on your links and see if it alters their understanding a bit.

I think that one of the issues with a literal Adam and Eve is that, if one accepts evolution, a new species doesn’t simply come about with only two new members as a literal reading of Genesis suggests. Knowing what we know of Neanderthals and the incredibly strong evidence that, not only did we interbreed, but they have also been reclassified as a sub-species to Homo sapiens, I wonder how they fit into the whole Adam and Eve story. Do you think that there is some Biblical character who could have been a Neanderthal/Neanderthal hybrid? I’ve heard theories that in the Epic of Gilgamesh, there is a character who is described as being more akin to beasts in nature but to man in form, and this may be an allusion to the Neanderthals.

I suppose my struggle with taking Adam and Eve as more than an allegory revolves around the soul and species issue. The Bible appears to make it clear that only humans have souls, but one wonders whether the earlier hominids did as well. There were beings like the Neanderthal who were so closely related that we almost certainly interbred but were they human enough for a soul? Since evolution is so gradual, did the soul evolve as well or were humans only given souls once God deemed that they had evolved “enough”? I’ve read Francis Collins’ concept of Biologos and it never truly clarifies this issue. I completely understand why some literal Adam and Eve story is so important to the Bible: without their misdeed, there is no Original Sin, and no reason for Jesus to die on the cross. It just is incredibly difficult reconciling our understanding of how species come into existence with the story of Genesis.

As to Adam and Eve, we believe that God supernaturally put rational souls into them (as we believe He does with every new conceived human being), and made them in His image. That is the crucial dividing line, but it wasn’t biological; it was supernatural / immaterial. Thus, Adam and Eve could have come from preexisting hominid stock. Here are two articles (one in two parts) by Catholic philosophers that discuss this genetic aspect [one / two / three].

2) I can completely understand why a total symbolic approach to the Bible (a large Jordan Peterson or Joseph Campbell) essentially neuters its importance as a religious document, especially as one that acts as a guide to salvation. Years ago, a professor had recommended the works of Bishop Shelby Spong to me, and I found it bizarre that anyone would embrace Spong’s message. Essentially, he ascribed to the same philosophy as Jefferson and gutted the Gospels of any Divinity claims, virgin birth, and literal resurrection. I have to agree with St Paul: without the resurrection, there is truly no point to the faith. I fully agree with you that there are certain points in the Bible and Christianity which define one’s belief as Christian, the aforementioned chief amongst them. Allegories are fascinating, but no one is going to dedicate his life or possibly die for belief in them. That’s the downside to the Spong/Peterson/Campbell school of Biblical reading.

To be honest, I think that both sides (the Christian and the atheist) have much to learn in debates with each other. For example, I don’t believe that most atheists truly give the cosmological argument a fair hearing. In the days of Bertrand Russell, it made sense to debates whether the universe had always existed and had no beginning, hence no need for a creator. We now know it certainly did beginning and once there was no matter in our universe. The force which created/formed time and space must be, by its very nature, outside of time and space, hence the concept of God. To argue as many do, “Well, what created God?” seems to miss the entire notion of this being existing outside of time and space, therefore needing no creation.

Bible interpretation comes down to each text, its context, the literary genre used, the cultural milieu, linguistic aspects, and the author’s intent (as best we can determine it). The Bible has all sorts of literature. The liberal theological impulse is to spiritualize away or make symbolic everything they are inclined to reject as supposedly “antiquated.” That’s wrong, because it is arbitrary and (I would contend) doesn’t take the Bible seriously as inspired revelation.

Likewise, the opposite fundamentalist error is to interpret with a wooden literalism, almost always (except when it comes to John 6 and Jesus talking about His body; i.e., transubstantiation), and without regard to the other factors above.

The orthodox, sensible, “literary” way is to interpret is to examine each passage to determine the genre, cross-reference, and proceed from there. It’s not either/or.

Likewise, I wish that more Christians denounced the obviously disproved young earth theories with their “museums” featuring Adam riding on a dinosaur. I appreciate that you do and wish that more people would read Christian rebuttals to this nonsense, but Ken Ham and company are usually the first people used to cast all religion as the purview of the ignorant and the foolish.

I have not noticed any particular love among most of the people I know (several thousand people online) for young-earth creationism. That view is confined to a small minority of (mostly) fundamentalist, sectarian-type Protestants and a few reactionary Catholics (some of whom espouse geocentrism also). Even if the number is larger than what has been my impression, these folks are marginalized in larger Christianity and easily able to be dismissed.

3) I know I’ve already taken quite a bit of your time, so I’ll attempt to be briefer here. I found your concept that perhaps God Himself influenced Paul into rethinking the adherence to the Jewish law in order to achieve the end goal of converting the Gentiles to be fascinating to say the least. That is something to consider. However, that begs the question of why require such laws in the first place? Maybe the Philistines and Ammonites would have been more likely to convert to Judaism had it begun as a faith devoted to the Jewish God but without the requirements of circumcision and kosher diets. I’ve heard Bart Ehrman’s take that Paul saw those who pushed such requirements upon Gentile Christians as rejecting the salvation made by Christ’s sacrifice in favor of self-salvation via the Law and harshly condemned them. Either way, it’s a fascinating debate. In addition, Ehrman posits that one of the main reasons why Paul does not condemn slavery and demand that Christians free their slaves is because he is certain that Jesus is due to return within Paul’s lifetime. Therefore, one’s status within the community is of no matter since all will be free in the Kingdom of Heaven. This apocalyptic vision colors much of Paul’s message and almost certainly dissuaded him from being more revolutionary in worldly affairs. Understandably, if one truly believes that he only has a brief time to save souls for eternity, he will focus on spiritual matters rather than secular. Still, it is pitiful that these verses have been used to justify such cruelty for centuries.

As for why God required the Mosaic Law, I’m afraid that is above my pay grade. As a generality, Catholics believe that God had to be strict in the early part of salvation history, in order to “get the message across.” As it is, the ancient Jews continually drifted into idolatry and away from God, even given the strictness of their laws (which sort of proves that point, I think).

Paul’s relation to the Law (and Law / grace in general) is another huge issue, and I will have to defer to Pauline scholars and experts on the relation between Judaism and Christianity. I have dealt quite a bit in a more general way with the latter topic, though.

I have three articles critiquing Ehrman listed in one of my papers:

Debate: Is There Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus? (William Lane Craig vs. Bart Ehrman, March 2006)

Disunity and Diversity: The Biblical Theology of Bart Ehrman (Josh Chatraw, 2011)

Review Article of Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman (Daniel B. Wallace, 2006)

Lastly, I do wonder how future generations will view the practice of abortion, especially as it has been presented as a positive thing by the extreme Left. Whatever someone’s views on the matter, science does show that the fetus is alive, is human, and does have separate and distinct DNA from the mother. There is no other medical procedure in which someone is allowed to end the life of someone else without his/her consent. I find the various comedians who jest about it and ghouls like Gloria Steinem who proclaim that “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament” to be truly foul and just demeaning to human life. I honestly don’t know what the solution is to this problem, but it seems that society has become so coarse and just uncaring. Incredibly sad.

I’m very glad to see that we agree about abortion.

Thanks again for reading and sorry to take so much of your time. Please know that I own one of your books (The Catholic Verses: 95 Bible Passages That Confound Protestants [link] ) and regularly use it when arguing why certain Catholic traditions are far more Biblical than most people know. Excellent work.

It’s been a great pleasure dialoguing with you, and I hope you will keep hanging around my site! Thanks so much for buying that book of mine and even mentioning it to others, too!

God bless,

Dave

***

Photo credit: Ishtar Gate from ancient Babylon, Pergamon Museum, Berlin. Photograph by Rictor Norton & David Allen (5-17-06) [Flickr / CC BY 2.0 license]

***

2018-08-09T14:06:14-04:00

Last updated on: August 9, 2018 at 2:06 pm   By

The following came from a critique from Grimlock: a frequent atheist contributor to my blog (I’ve engaged in several lengthy debates with him). He is objecting to my recent blog post, “Why I Blocked Anti-Theist Atheist Bob Seidensticker” (8-8-18), in its combox. It was similar to an earlier paper, called, “Seidensticker: Christians R Intellectually Dishonest Idiots (He Also Projects Onto Me These Bigoted Ideas, as if I Hold the Same About Atheists)” (5-12-18). Grimlock’s words will be in blue. My older words that he is responding to will be in green.

*****

First, let me begin by quoting a blogger whose blog I frequent. I think he got that right.

So I was generalizing ([. .] every thinker must do it).

I think we should acknowledge this, and give people the benefit of the doubt. If we’re are unclear about their attitudes, we ask them. I do not think that you have shown the charity due any discussion partner to Bob, nor conceded that everyone generalizes from time to time. Basically, this reads to me like a hatchet job.

As a demonstration, here are some quotes by you about atheists that could be shown to “demonstrate” your “bad” attitude towards us atheists. Of course, I don’t think they actually show your true attitude. I know you well enough by now to realize that you’d give more nuanced answers if asked to elaborate. I could also find far more favorable quotes if I were so inclined.

Atheism in my opinion is an intellectual malady: a state in which no evidence is ever sufficient to dissuade the atheist because they will it to be so.

(Note: You retracted this statement later when confronted about it.)

Secular, logical, scientific ideas are equally futile with atheists when it comes to this topic. You guys are far more “dogmatic” than us.

The rest of your comments simply prove what is always the case with atheists: the evidence is never enough, no matter how much we submit to them

You and atheists to a person will blow all that off as fairy-tales, insufficiently documented by trustworthy sources (what else is new?).

Atheists generally squirm when asked fundamental, bottom-line epistemological questions about their own belief-systems, and I think many of them do because they know down-deep that they don’t have very good reasons

This is just a quick search for one word. Imagine what a damning post I could write with a bit of effort!

Of course, you have explained why you engage in such generalizations. For instance…

#1 Rhetorical exaggeration: justified in light of many such silly comments by atheists (when talking about Christianity) that both Jim and I have experienced countless times

But I fail to see you allowing for similar reasons for Bob. That looks to me like a classic case of the fundamental attribution error, or something very similar.

I think Bob makes a very good suggestion when he writes this:

Tip: find a trusted friend who can read and summarize your comments–either for a week, or maybe just your interactions with antagonists, or maybe just this one brief conversation with me. Ask them how they think you come across to objective readers and see if there isn’t a little room for improvement in your approach

This is good advice to anyone, I think. It’s very hard to objectively assess one’s own behaviour, and how it is perceived by others. To take a concrete example by what you write, you refer to a comment by Bob as being passive-aggressive. While you do concede that the comment to which he responds was somewhat sarcastic, your own comment (which was first) reads to me as far more snarky and debilitating to a constructive dialogue. Others, I’m sure, will disagree. My point is that perceptions differ, and when it’s our own behavior that’s involved, we’re crap at assessing it accurately.

***

Of course you defend Bob. You defended him last time when I exposed his relentless prejudice against Christians and his poor treatment of us and of Christianity. Apparently he is some kind of hero or revered figure in your eyes, so you automatically defend him. Or else you are inclined to defend any atheist who is harshly (but rightly and justly). criticized by a Christian. That’s the only way I can comprehend your opposing what I find to be utterly obvious and unarguable.

I don’t buy it. The evidence is overwhelming and indisputable, and his recent behavior with me is perfectly harmonious with it. It’s what we would expect, and he acted it out, consistent with his profound prejudice.

You can find tough things that I say about atheists, sure (and many other groups where I have strong disagreements, too, in specific cases). But it’s almost always qualified (or perhaps on occasion should have been in context). What I don’t say — never say — for sure, is that atheists as a class are fundamentally infantile or intellectually dishonest or stupid or anti-scientific or anti-evidential or anti-science. Bob says all this stuff about us, all the time. Just look at the titles of his blasted articles.

He doesn’t qualify. He doesn’t say that this is characteristic of the worst Christians or the fundamentalists or the less educated or most anti-intellectual ones (and there are many such, but they are a small minority of the whole).

In great, east vs. west / black-and-white contrast to that, I say stuff like:

1) atheists can possibly be saved,

2) that one must distinguish between the “open-minded agnostic” and the wholesale rebel against God,

3) that we have much in common,

4) that I am friends with several atheists (and have had good relations with groups of atheists in person),

5) that my favorite dialogue ever (out of 800 or so) was with an atheist,

6) that there is indeed a class of “angry atheists” (very prominent online),

7) but that the “angry atheists” don’t represent the entire group of atheists

8) that atheists are very intelligent and thoughtful folks, on the whole. For example, I wrote on 7-10-15: “I’m not saying that atheists are dummies or immoral, just because they are atheists, . . . I think atheists are intelligent and thoughtful people. I am not claiming that they are generally irrational types of people.”

9) I deny that atheists are “wicked” and “evil” as a class.

10) I concede that atheists have several legitimate gripes against a lot of Christian criticism of them.

11) I engage in perfectly amiable and enjoyable discussions with non-“angry” / non-anti-theist atheists.

You’ll search in vain for virtually any of the above equivalent elements in Bob Seidensticker’s ranting and raving, hyper-polemical, ever-belittling anti-Christian articles. The contrast couldn’t be any greater than it is.

The spirit is entirely different. I don’t approach individual atheists with a chip on my shoulder and a pompous, condescending, superior attitude as Bob does with us (and as many atheists of his type: the anti-theists do). I approach each atheist as an individual, assume their sincerity and good will and intelligence and good faith difficulties that they have with belief in God and Christianity.

At length (in the face of overwhelming evidence, as presently), I may decide that a given individual is prejudiced like Bob and/or intransigently ignorant, and unable to be dialogued with (see many examples of those in the dialogues on my Atheism web page, in the section: “Anti-Theism & the Sub-Group of ‘Angry Atheists’ “), but I don’t start out thinking all (or almost all) atheists are idiots or intellectually dishonest from the get-go, as Bob does with us, or virtually does with us. That is the hallmark of bigotry and pompous assery.

So, nice try, but no cigar. Unless both sides are willing to call out the bigots and extremists on either side who give their larger group a bad name, the generally very low level of Christian-atheist discourse won’t improve anytime soon. I’ve called out plenty of Christian fools. Sadly, there are lots of ’em, just as there are lots of atheist fools in your camp.

***

Grimlock also asked a fellow Catholic, Jim Dailey, a question about me:

I thought I’d ask you a potentially interesting question. You seem to be of the impression that Bob’s behavior was worthy of criticism. I was wondering if there is anything of Armstrong’s behavior in that exchange that you think could be perceived as snarky/unconstructive/nasty by Bob, or perhaps an atheist reader?

Jim was gracious and thoughtful enough to defend me a bit:

Is Dave worthy of criticism in the Dave/Bob exchange? Dave expressed frustration, but only after Bob asks a question, and Dave indicates he has explored and written extensively on the topic, and provides links. Bob then ignores all the references and demands Dave summarize them in a couple of sentences.

We are supposed to express unlimited patience, so I suppose Dave should not exhibit frustration, but given the circumstances, the interlocutor, and everyone’s shortage of time, I think Dave shows an abundance of patience.

I find that there’s a distinction between something being worthy of criticism, and something being possibly perceived as a negative behavior.

But fair enough. We do differ somewhat in our assessment of that exchange, but I guess that’s not surprising.

Jim had written in criticism of Bob:

Sorry for recommending that you interact with him. Believe it or not, I consider him one of the better posters at Patheos Nonreligous (which should really be changed to Patheos Christian Bashing).

I saw a debate between Leah Libresco (former Patheos Atheist poster who converted to Catholicism and posted here for a while) and Hemant Mehta of “Friendly Atheist” (whose names should be changed to “Meta Hater” and “Unfriendly Atheist, respectively). Libresco pinned his ears back in a controlled debate setting where he was admonished several times to stay on topic.

I had been hoping for a similar experience in his discussions with you, but underestimated his willingness to rely on prevarication and nastiness.

Shamefully, I did enjoy watching him squirm in your interactions.

I think this outcome is inevitable if a person is in fact bigoted against Christianity (as I proved, I think, about Seidensticker back in May, documenting from his own words). They are incapable of having an honest, open discussion with a Christian. It’s the same dynamic we see with the anti-Catholic Protestant, who is incapable of being fair and honest about Catholicism. True bigotry incapacitates an [often] otherwise thoughtful / intelligent mind and analysis.

***

Photo credit: “common antireligion/antichristian symbol” [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

***

2018-08-09T12:57:58-04:00

Last updated on: August 9, 2018 at 12:57 pm   By

Scientism or Near-Scientism as a Very Common Shortcoming of Atheist Epistemology

 

This dialogue came about as a result of atheist “JustAnotherAtheist2” [“JAA2”] critiquing one sentence I wrote in response to another from well-known online atheist Bob Seidensticker:

Bob: “Science is the only discipline that tells us new things about reality.” [link]

Me: “Like many atheists, he takes the epistemologically naive and stunted view of scientism: that science is the only legitimate means of knowledge.” [link]

For a helpful treatment of scientism, see the following papers by the atheist evolutionary biologist and philosophy professor, Massimo Pigliucci:

“Staking positions amongst the varieties of scientism” (4-28-14)

“The Problem with Scientism” (1-25-18)

Pigliucci has also written or edited two books [one / two] about scientism.

JAA2 started up a line of criticism in the combox of my paper about Bob and why he was blocked from my blog:  (his words in blue henceforth):

I’ll bite, what other methods of investigation are there? How are they performed? [8-8-18, 1:15 PM EST]

Stuff like philosophy, theology, experience, intuition, revelation, properly basic beliefs, our senses, mathematics, logic . . .

Even your question is not science. It’s philosophy. Hence you presuppose by even asking it that there must be other ways to obtain knowledge besides science, since you are seeking this knowledge, and assume that it can really be gained (else you wouldn’t ask me these two questions). This discussion isn’t science; ergo: science is not the only legitimate means of knowledge. You have already proven that in the very asking of your question. [8-8-18, 2:01 PM]

I’ll grant you that I neglected to fix your poor phrasing of the original question. My apologies. Here goes another try. What methods are there to investigate and make discoveries about external reality aside from science? How are they performed? [8-8-18, 2:27 PM]

I already answered. Methodologies differ according to which one you choose. And it depends on what you mean by “investigate.” I think philosophical speculation is investigation. It’s just not always empirical.

My point was a very simple one. You already agreed with it, as I have shown. I think it’s self-evident. Science is not the only form or means of knowledge. [8-8-18, 4:37 PM]

See also my papers:

Is Christianity Unfalsifiable? Is Empiricism the Only True Knowledge?

Science, Logic, & Math Start with Unfalsifiable Axioms

Dialogue with an Agnostic: God as a “Properly Basic Belief”

Non-Empirical “Basic” Warrant for Theism & Christianity

15 Theistic Arguments (Copious Resources)

Implicit (Extra-Empirical) Faith, According to John Henry Newman 

[8-8-18, 4:49 PM]

Actually, now that I’ve read the Pigliucci links, I can say with confidence I am not engaging in scientism. The problem here appears to be that your conflation of knowledge about external reality with knowledge in general. As I said in an earlier reply:

Either intentionally or unintentionally, you’ve misrepresented the question. No one suggests that science is required for all knowledge. If I think of a baby elephant in my garage, I don’t need science to know what I thought of. But only science can tell us whether there actually is a baby elephant in my garage.

What other method can I use to determine whether there actually is a baby elephant in my garage? [8-8-18, 11:01 PM]

1. See what an elephant looks like, at a zoo, or in a book of zoology, or even by description in a book (“a large, lumbering, gray creature with a big long nose and wrinkly skin, which makes a sound like a trumpet”).

2. See (or hear) the same (baby) elephant in your garage.

That’s not yet science. It’s simple observation. But you already have real knowledge that the elephant is there, before it is scientifically proven that it’s there, in the same way that you believe 100% that you see your Aunt Mabel in the garage and it never occurs to you to prove it scientifically. You know she is there simply by looking at her or even by hearing her distinctive voice calling out for you.

Neither scenario has yet gotten to science proper. It’s the evidence of experience and of our senses. In fact, we have to place an implicit (but not entirely provable or non-erroneous) trust in our senses in order to do science at all. It’s one of the non-scientific starting axioms of science, as philosophers of science have noted. The philosophical, non-empirical assumption of uniformitarianism is another. [8-9-18, 3:27 AM]

Fair enough, for the sake of argument we’ll distinguish between mere observation and science proper.

The question then becomes, would someone blinded by scientism claim that mere observation isn’t enough to substantiate that an elephant is in their garage? Or how about something more mundane; does scientism require more than mere observation to know it is raining outside? [8-9-18, 7:47 AM]

***

Doubting Thomas: How is “properly basic beliefs” a methodology and give me one thing that it has demonstrated is true? [8-8-18, 6:30 PM]

It’s not a “methodology.” My original statement referred to “legitimate means of knowledge.” JAA2 introduced the notions of “methods of investigation.” Not all of the forms of knowledge I mentioned involve that. Science does, and since JAA2, like Bob Seidensticker, appears to espouse the absurd belief of scientism, he couldn’t resist smuggling in those notions. But it was switching horses in midstream: trying to get the discussion to go where he wants it to go. I continue to make the same obvious point I made in the beginning, while he (and now you) seek to divert it to your seemingly empirical-only dogma.

You guys need to learn to think outside of the box and the bubble you are in. [8-8-18, 6:45 PM]

So how is a belief, even a “properly basic” one, a “means of knowledge?” How does a belief also demonstrate its own validity? And what has been shown true by it? [8-9-18, 9:12 AM]

That’s an entirely different topic and a very complex one. In such cases I usually refer readers to other papers of mine. I already did so regarding this topic in this thread. [8-9-18, 10:42 AM]

***

Unfortunately you didn’t answer, Dave. Going through each:

Philosophy – First, science is a form of philosophy, so it’s impossible to know where you’ve drawn the line. More importantly, for any form of philosophy to provide insight about external reality, the premises must accurately reflect reality. Which philosophy itself can’t do without running into a feedback loop.

Theology – Can you point to a single verified fact of reality derived from theology?

Experience – How is this distinct from science?

Revelation -. Once again, what verified fscts about reality were derived from revelation?

Properly Basic Beliefs – Yes, mere thought can help us derive these types of insights, but they don’t tell us anything about the world itself, just our limitations in understanding it. Remember, the question isn’t about knowledge in general (as you conveniently misinterpret), it’s about knowledge about external reality

Senses – Once again, how is this distinct from science?

Mathematics – Math is the language of reality, but it isn’t reality itself. In order for purely math conclusions to be considered reflective of reality, the inputs must have started that way…which means math itself isn’t the original source. Same for extrapolations, once they become sufficiently theoretical, the conclusions must be verified.

We can know things about math itself, of course, but once again that isn’t the question you were asked.

Logic – Logic is the tool used to ensure proper thought processes and conclusions, it isn’t an investigative technique of its own.

Either intentionally or unintentionally, you’ve misrepresented the question. No one suggests that science is required for all knowledge. If I think of a baby elephant in my garage, I don’t need science to know what I thought of. But only science can tell us whether there actually is a baby elephant in my garage. [8-8-18, 7:28 PM]

Philosophy / theology / Revelation examples and properly basic beliefs: each of these would require far too long of a discussion, and the way this one has been going (basically talking past each other the whole time), I highly doubt that it would be worth the time and energy spent.

Experience – How is this distinct from science? / Senses – Once again, how is this distinct from science?

I think I just demonstrated how in my reply to your elephant in the garage scenario.

Mathematics – Math is the language of reality, but it isn’t reality itself.

But of course that is true of science as well (which you seem to insinuate is that reality, unlike mathematics). It describes physical reality by nature of its laws, etc. (which reduce to abstract theories and hypotheses, which are then tested through observation, replication, etc.). But it’s not reality. Mathematics can also teach us about external reality, and indeed, is a very practical tool in relation to it (e.g., the crucial. indispensable use of mathematical calculations to determine how to launch a rocket sending astronauts to the moon — i.e., from a moving planet to its moving moon — or an unmanned spacecraft to Jupiter).

We can know things about math itself, of course, but once again that isn’t the question you were asked.

You have screwed this whole discussion up by changing horses in midstream, as I have already noted. Your whole “line of discussion” took off from one reply of mine: “Like many atheists, he takes the epistemologically naive and stunted view of scientism: that science is the only legitimate means of knowledge.” That was my response to Seidensticker’s statement: “Science is the only discipline that tells us new things about reality.”

The examples of other knowledge [“about reality”] that I gave render his statement clearly untrue. It’s contradicted a billion times. “tells us new things about reality” is itself an epistemological statement, which is a species of philosophy. That was what I was responding to. You tried to move it to something else immediately, by writing, “what other methods of investigation are there?” That confines itself primarily (in its ostensible thrust: though it’s not certain) to empiricism, which is the typical atheist response (because y’all are hung up on empiricism and [physical] “evidence” often to the detriment of many other kinds of knowledge: strongly tending towards scientism, or else an extreme overemphasis on science, which is the virtual religion of many atheists, to the detriment of other forms of knowledge).

That (subtle, but real) change of topic has led to the confusion and non-constructive nature of this discussion ever since.

Logic, as well as mathematics, certainly are (in their own ways) “investigative technique[s] of [their] own.” And they can truly tell us about the external world [remember, I am replying always to Seidensticker’s claim that “Science is the only discipline that tells us new things about reality“] before they are verified scientifically.

If you want an example of that, I would submit theoretical physics, and specifically Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which he developed basically from mathematical equations and thought experiments in his head. That’s not yet science; nor is it empirical. It was abstract philosophy (hardly even having to do with the senses). General relativity was not proven by any scientific experiment till eight years after Einstein came up with it in his head:

Based on calculations Einstein made in 1911, about his new theory of general relativity, light from another star should be bent by the Sun’s gravity. In 1919, that prediction was confirmed by Sir Arthur Eddington during the solar eclipse of 29 May 1919. (Wikipedia: “Einstein”)

Or, see an article on Space.com: “How a Total Solar Eclipse Helped Prove Einstein Right About Relativity” (5-29-17):

Without being able to experimentally test his new theory, Einstein’s idea might have languished indefinitely in a journal on a dusty library bookshelf. However, British astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington was paying attention to Einstein’s outlandish yet powerful new ideas . . . and realized he could lead an experiment to test the theory. . . .

In 1917, Sir Frank Watson Dyson, Astronomer Royal of Britain, had conceived an experiment that would plot the positions of background stars close to the sun’s limb during an eclipse — an experiment that Eddington would lead two years later. If the positions of the stars could be precisely measured during the 1919 eclipse and then compared with their normal positions in the sky, the effects of warped space-time could be observed — beyond what Newton’s classical mechanics would predict. If the position of the stars were altered in exactly the way that Einstein’s theory predicted they should be, then this might be just the test general relativity needed. Eddington most likely knew that if this test confirmed general relativity theory, it would turn the view of the Newtonian universe on its head.

Thus, the theory of general relativity started philosophically and mathematically in Einstein’s head (not empirically). Even the experiment that empirically confirmed it started in someone else’s head (Dyson’s). Both things were true knowledge that were later verified. Now, you may say that the key is the verification, and that is science. In one sense that’s true. But in another, it’s true that the knowledge was already there and was a true observation about reality before it was verified (in the same way that a witness truly did see Person X leaving a crime scene, which was later verified with virtual certainty by a DNA test).

Einstein’s theory of general relativity thus told us “new things about reality” as a philosophy, before it was verified scientifically, by an experiment with real-world astronomical phenomena. And that puts the lie to Seidensticker’s epistemologically absurd and ridiculous assertion that only science does so.

And that’s only one example. Theoretical physics is filled with such examples. And it is a species of science (just a relatively more philosophical and non-empirical one). Quantum mechanics, insofar as I can understand it, was also conceived entirely philosophically and mathematically before it was ever scientifically verified by observable experiment:

Ludwig Boltzmann suggested in 1877 that the energy levels of a physical system, such as a molecule, could be discrete. He was a founder of the Austrian Mathematical Society, together with the mathematicians Gustav von Escherich and Emil Müller. Boltzmann’s rationale for the presence of discrete energy levels in molecules such as those of iodine gas had its origins in his statistical thermodynamics and statistical mechanics theories and was backed up by mathematical arguments, as would also be the case twenty years later with the first quantum theory put forward by Max Planck.

In 1900, the German physicist Max Planck reluctantly introduced the idea that energy is quantized in order to derive a formula for the observed frequency dependence of the energy emitted by a black body, called Planck’s law, . . .

In 1905, Einstein explained the photoelectric effect by postulating that light, or more generally all electromagnetic radiation, can be divided into a finite number of “energy quanta” that are localized points in space. From the introduction section of his March 1905 quantum paper, “On a heuristic viewpoint concerning the emission and transformation of light”, Einstein states:

According to the assumption to be contemplated here, when a light ray is spreading from a point, the energy is not distributed continuously over ever-increasing spaces, but consists of a finite number of ‘energy quanta’ that are localized in points in space, move without dividing, and can be absorbed or generated only as a whole.

This statement has been called the most revolutionary sentence written by a physicist of the twentieth century. These energy quanta later came to be called “photons”, a term introduced by Gilbert N. Lewis in 1926. The idea that each photon had to consist of energy in terms of quanta was a remarkable achievement; it effectively solved the problem of black-body radiation attaining infinite energy, which occurred in theory if light were to be explained only in terms of waves. In 1913, Bohr explained the spectral lines of the hydrogen atom, again by using quantization, in his paper of July 1913 On the Constitution of Atoms and Molecules.

These theories, though successful, were strictly phenomenological: during this time, there was no rigorous justification for quantization, . . . (Wikipedia: “History of quantum mechanics”)

Scientific verifications came later; for example, from Robert A, Millikan:

[H]e verified experimentally Einstein’s all-important photoelectric equation, and made the first direct photoelectric determination of Planck’s constant h (1912-1915). (“Robert A. Millikan – Biographical” at Nobelprize.org)

Thus, Planck’s constant had to wait some 12-15 years to actually be verified and to go beyond mere abstract philosophical / mathematical abstraction, just as general relativity had to wait eight years to be experimentally verified in the real world.

Either intentionally or unintentionally, you’ve misrepresented the question.

Absolutely not, as I have shown yet again, but in far greater depth than I did before. You probably won’t be convinced. But many readers of this will understand my reasoning and its soundness and validity, and see that Seidensticker made a huge error in making the dumb statement that he did. Since the intention of the statement was in the context of “proving ” how ignorant and stupid Christians habitually are (as this is what Bob constantly writes about), and the article in which he made it was entitled, “25 Stupid Arguments Christians Should Avoid (Part 6)”, I do confess to more than a little satisfaction at having shown, I think, that he is the one making the stupid argument, and falling into the rather obvious error of epistemologically uninformed and naive scientism.

A bit of turning the tables . . . [8-9-18, 5:01 AM]

Like many atheists, he takes the epistemologically naive and stunted view of scientism: that science is the only legitimate means of knowledge.” That was my response to Seidensticker’s statement: “Science is the only discipline that tells us new things about reality”

Yes, that’s why I responded by pointing out your conflatiom of new discoveries about external reality with all knowledge…. conflation that you’ve maintained in this very quote.

Rather than offer more long-winded misdirection and obfuscation, please provide a yes/no answer to the following question. Is there a difference between the set that contains all knowledge and the set that contains new discoveries about external reality? [8-9-18, 7:27 AM]

His statement is simply false, as I have shown, and his particular statement is what I was responding to. I was responding to his statement, and you need to interact with my reasoning, rather than simply reiterating your own over and over. That doesn’t make your argument any stronger.[8-9-18, 10:37 AM]

There are constructive discussions that could be had about many aspects of scientism or near-scientism (thinking science is vastly superior to other forms of knowledge and is of a class almost by itself in terms of all knowledge), but that is not this discussion. This discussion was started by you, about one sentence I wrote in response to one sentence that Bob wrote.

As far as I am concerned, you have not overcome my reasoning: including a lengthy foray that I posted last night which got into the fact that even the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics were not initially “scientific” at all. Rather, they were non-empirical and philosophical / mathematical. As such, they are precisely refutations of the silly thing that Bob said, and often implies in his writing. You utterly ignored that and offer more simplistic offerings. That shows me that our discussion on this is over. It makes for a great instructive dialogue, though, in my opinion, and it’ll be a new blog paper, to go up shortly.

I understand that you either can’t or really don’t want to concede, since Bob appears to be someone you highly revere (and I’m a mere Christian). Very few people do. But good and bad arguments are what they are, regardless. [8-9-18, 10:54 AM]

It’s really odd that you view a discussion about your reasoning as a concession of some kind. What else should I do if your reasoning is flawed? What good are more long-winded comments if they rest on a fundamental error?

For the record, though, am I to take that as confirmation that you think “science is the only discipline that tells us new things about reality” = “science is the only legitimate means of knowledge”? [8-9-18, 10:58 AM]

We’re done. This has been beaten to death, and the more work I do to try to answer, the less you directly respond. Thus it has become futile: tires spinning in the mud . . . But everything you have written will be in the new dialogue paper. [8-9-18, 10:59 AM]

***

Further replies (from those other than myself) may be read at the original thread. As far as I am concerned, the discussion is exhausted, and my point has not been overthrown in the least. I’m delighted for this opportunity to considerably strengthen it.

***

Photo credit: Formal portrait of Albert Einstein taken in 1935 at Princeton by Sophie Delar [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

***

2018-07-22T12:13:58-04:00

Last updated on: July 22, 2018 at 12:13 pm   By

This is a follow-up to my dialogue, “Pro-Abortion”: Reply to an Objection to its Use. My dialogue opponents’ words will be in blue. The dialogue in its original format (I’ve made it more “back-and-forth” here, like a Platonic / Socratic dialogue) can be seen in this combox.

*****

In addressing your points —>

(1-2) I also support legalizing cannabis across the board, & am supportive of legalizing euthanasia under certain conditions. That does not make me “pro-cannabis” or “pro-euthanasia”. I support the right of each individual person to decide for her/himself about these matters.

Well, it makes you “pro-legal cannabis” and “pro-legal euthanasia”, just as you are “pro-legal-abortion”: shortened to “pro-abortion.”

Conservatives used to stand for limited government; when Republicans began legislating intrusive government in social policy, I left the party.

The Republican party always had a strong libertarian strain; now the Democrat Party has a strong radically secularist and anti-traditionalist strain.

My position is more nuanced than that, but this is not a treatise, just a post.

Fair enough. So is mine.

(3) As both an undergrad- & grad- student at RC universities, I took a number of both secular & Christian ethics courses; I also taught college-level ethics, as well as general philosophy, religion, & humanities for over 20 years.

I can tell.

I could distill my personal ethical theory into two premises: (a) Moral principles should inform our choices, all else being equal.

I agree. The question is: where do they come from, and why choose them from whatever source they come from?

(b) All else is rarely equal, & situation judgments must be applied to the principles.

Or we adopt the norms and standards and reasoning of some sort of religious morality or other sort of objective criterion. Situational ethics is an outlook that has to be justified. Where does it come from? Certainly not from Christianity . . . Why should we ditch Christians morals for this radically individualist notion?

For me, a zygote/ embryo/ fetus is a developing human being, but not a human person. Personhood is an emergent quality, & we recognize its presence once a pre-rational fetus is at least viable to live ex uterow/o heroic medical incubation. Then its care can be shared, & the baby isn’t utterly dependent on the physical body of one single person.

Funny how when mothers want their child, it’s called a child or a baby. It’s only when they don’t, that we get all the semantic gymnastics, in order to dehumanize and depersonalize the child. But radical movements always play semantic games and seek to control the terminology debate from the outset.

It remains true that you have to justify this philosophy. It’s certainly not a biblical or Christian one. Jesus even compared hell to the practice of child sacrifice (in effect, to abortion). If you claim to be a Christian, why do you reject its tenets when it comes to the question of the right to life of the preborn child? Where do you get the notion that a child is not a person, until it is viable and can live outside the womb?

Lots of born people are dependent upon other human beings or medical apparatus in order to live. We don’t make them non-persons because of it. For example, someone on a lung machine, or on oxygen in the intensive unit at the hospital. According to you, because they can’t survive without such help, they are not persons. That’s absurd. Likewise, simply because the preborn child is dependent upon his or her mother, does not render it a non-person.

But my views are complex, lengthy, & again, this isn’t a treatise. My point: The morality or immorality of abortion or bringing this life to term depends on the informed conscience of the woman whose fetus inhabits her body.

Where does such a philosophy come from? And why do you adopt it rather than traditional, Christian morality, and that of most cultures now and throughout the history of the world, whereby a pregnant mother instinctively understands that this is her child and ought not be killed. The pro-abortion mentality has to be learned. It actually comes mostly from men, who don’t want to be sexually responsible.

She & she alone can know & evaluate the precise circumstances enveloping her.

That might (reasonably) hold for her, but not for another human being / person, because she doesn’t own that person. We’re not (at least not in America) still in slavery times, when one person supposedly owned another.

(4-7, 9) “Pro-life” is just as indefensible a term as “pro-choice”. As used, both refer only to abortion, yet imply a vaster realm of issues.

“Pro-life” is short for “pro-right to life” [of all human persons, but particularly preborn ones]. In this sense, the opposing positions are “right to life” and “right to kill one’s child.”

Again, calling me “pro-abortion” is not only insensitive, but also tells more about you than about me.

Yes, it tells others that I am more precise and objective in my language than you are. I’m not trying to play games with semantics

Were I indeed pro-abortion, I’d advocate it for all pregnant women.

That doesn’t follow, because what it means is “pro-legal abortion”: as even you have admitted. You are in favor of the choice of a mother to kill her own child if she doesn’t want it, because you falsely presuppose that she owns her own child, like a slavemaster and a slave. They used to kill slaves in the Old South because they had a supposed “right” to (Dred Scott decision, 1857). Now we kill our own children because we have a supposed “right” to (Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, 1973). We in America depersonalized and dehumanized the Native Americans so we could slaughter them. The Nazis depersonalized and dehumanized Jews and other opponents so they could slaughter them. They even set up concentration camps as killing centers in order to do so, just as we have today, abortion clinics.

If you dislike being termed a “pro-birther” or your position “pro-fetus”, consider your words more wisely & carefully, please.

Those terms are fine. I do believe in those things. I like birth because I think human beings have infinite value and that, therefore, the birth of another one is a good thing.

If you are “pro-life”, then are you against capital punishment?

Yes I am, though capital punishment is not intrinsically evil, as abortion and euthanasia are, so that this is not a perfect analogy.

hunting?

I don’t hunt myself, but it’s necessary for 1) obtaining food, and 2) in some cases to prevent animal populations from starving. These are not immoral practices, though I think an argument can be made that hunting simply for fun is morally questionable.

animal research?

No, because animals don’t have a right to life, as humans do. They’re not made in God’s image, as we are. If we didn’t do animal research, many millions more people would die. I do think we should not cause gratuitous suffering in animals.

eating meat or even plants?

Everyone has to eat living things or else they wold die. This is your ethical dilemma, not mine.

Do you smoke or drink alcohol?

No. I’m a holistic health advocate and I don’t believe we should abuse our bodies.

Are you overweight?

Slightly!

Do you exercise?

Yes, though less than I should.

Do you recycle?

Yes.

“Pro-life” is just as comprehensive a term as “pro-choice”. Like the late Cardinal Bernardin, I think the term should be seamless but am aware they neither of them can be. As shorthand, they function to establish our general position on the abortion issue only. No need to belabor a moot point here.

I agree!

BTW, just for the record, I am personally “pro-life” on a great many other issues, & since I’m not a speciesist, possibly on a greater range of matters than many “anti-abortionists” are.

But you just can’t bring yourself to be pro-life when it comes to preborn persons. How sad . . .

I have a difficult time, therefore, calling gun-addicts/ death-penalty advocates/ anti-abortionists/ “pro-life” since they aren’t seamlessly so, but again, as shorthand the terms are convenient.

I’m seamlessly so. I believe in the right to life of all human beings, from conception till natural death.

(8) [sigh] “Murder” is a legal term for the killing of persons, not for the killing of z/e/f’s.

You haven’t given us any compelling reason to believe that “z/e/f’s” [nice chilling language there] are not persons.

Yes, abortion kills. Yes, I had an abortion the only time I was pregnant, at age 41. Now at 63, I still have no regrets & no burdened conscience.

Consciences can become hardened. You have to soften yours in order to heal from the wrong you have committed. Until then you will have no peace of soul. I tell you this out of love. God will forgive you.

I’m sad that the pregnancy occurred, & that this was the only viable option I determined (along with my husband-to-be) to be best in my/our circumstances, but then again there are many choices & their consequences any reasonable person wishes could have worked out in a different way. I suppose I could say I “regret” having needed to have an abortion in the same way I regret having needed to cut off relations with one of my brothers who is a sociopath. That I cannot deal with that brother doesn’t negate my lingering love for him, but experience & common sense applied to the situation informed me that I can’t deal sanely with a psychic vampire.

Comparing an innocent child analogously to a sociopath is a new one. But I guess nothing surprises me anymore.

(10) One can disagree with someone else without offensiveness.

Indeed. And folks can be offended for no rational reason as well. And they can be offended even if we are completely saintly, simply because they disagree with what we say. There was a reason why Jesus was called a madman and demon-filled, and then lied about in a kangaroo court trial and murdered.

I’ve turned down creating & officiating a few wedding ceremonies, including a requested S&M one, not by needing to sanctimonious shout out “You perverts!” or something of the sort, but merely by demurring kindly &/or on other reasonable grounds.

I would do the same. I engaged, for example, in a “Friendly Dialogue with a Transgender Atheist & Satanist.”

I’d rather live by “Judge not, lest you be judged”, than by imposing my morals on others as though mine were objectively correct.

You have imposed it on your child that you didn’t want.

Jesus may have cursed a fig tree, whipped up the money-changers (in a very odd pericope), & uttered the words you note. But you aren’t Jesus, & neither am I.

That’s correct. But Jesus is Jesus, so this observation is a non sequitur.

“Let God be God.” “Turn the other cheek.” As a NT scholar of sorts, I well know how easy it is & how susceptible we all are to cherrypick scripture. So I’ll curb my further tendency to dive into citations here.

And as a serious student of the NT for over 40 years, and an apologist for 37, I well know how easy it is & how susceptible we all are to arbitrarily ignoring those passages we don’t agree with.

****

Technically, this belongs under my “(4-7, 9)” category above, but since you made it an addendum, I’ll keep it that way.

Let me preface by saying that unless I need to, I eschew labels for myself. Without caps or quote marks, all ideologies — liberal, conservative, libertarian, marxist, progressive, communist, socialist, etc — are utopian. They don’t work IRL, & so they’re useless for me most of the time. When it comes to any issue, I make my own choices, w/o their framework. But, yet again, as shorthand for how others view these, I fall to the left of center, reserving the prerogative to tilt in either way. I live more in the gray spectrum, than in black/white polarity.

But on the abortion issue, you reason exactly like every other abortion advocate I have ever met in the last 36 years since I became pro-life (following my socially and politically radical period). I don’t see any originality. I see the same old same old.

I don’t create some arbitrary, outrageous definition of what a human being is. Science is sufficient: from conception, a human being has everything it needs to grow into you or I (all that is needed is time): all the DNA is there; the heartbeat starts at eight days, the brain waves at about six weeks. But it’s a human being and a person from conception: as the offspring of two other human beings. How could it be otherwise? It’s not a chicken or a rhinoceros.

The unique human DNA is present at conception, yes, though it can twin or triplicate &, having done so, can reunite into one blastocyte.

And the soul is present in a human person from conception as well, if we want to talk in Christian terms.

This poses a dilemma for Augustinian thought of ensoulment at that juncture.

Augustinian thought is not the magisterium, anymore than Thomistic thought is. Both schools got some things wrong, according to the Church, and science in the 5th or 13th centuries was very different from what it is now.

No matter. Moving on, heartbeat, hair or scales, & brainwaves are also part of embryonic development in frogs, dogs, cats, zebras, etc.

Yes it is. It doesn’t follow that a human baby is not a person because it has some similarities in development to the animals. None of these rationalizations succeed in their aim (depersonalization of a child so it is “thinkable” and “permissible” to kill him or her).

That’s all it is: Developmental characteristics of many life forms. (I cautioned you: I’m not speciesist in my thinking.)

Yeah, I know. You already noted that. I don’t know how you eat, then. Your position logically leads to you starving yourself to death, since everything you eat (minus salt, water, etc., which will not alone sustain you) is organic.

Some of these are more punctiliear rather than emergent, such as fertilization, implantation, heartbeat. We can point to them. The presence of gills, lungs, & even the brain are somewhat emergent as well as locatable on the developmental spectrum. Still, all belong to the realm of science/ fetology/ medicine.

Yes they do. And none of the scientific language can justify killing a preborn person. Science cannot teach us morality, because it only deals with matter. Morality must come from religion and/or philosophy. Certainly you know that.

When we come to personhood, consciousness, rationality, selfhood, ensoulment, etc, we’re now in the spheres of philosophy & theology, not science.

I was answering as I read, so you made the same point I just did. And so I ask you again: why do you adopt some non-Christian philosophy when it comes to right to life, rather than the Christian / biblical view, as it has always been? On what basis?

We can’t “locate” them at any particular point.

If you want to play that game, I can also argue that there is no non-arbitrary point that the developing preborn child can be said to become a person, except at conception. All other “points” are arbitrary and irrational.

It’s fair to say, though, that a zygote, an embryo, & even a non-viable fetus lack these qualities.

Why? How do you arrive at that conclusion? The Bible and Christianity hold that personhood and ensoulment exist from conception and that is consistent with the only non-arbitrary determination from science alone, as to when personhood begins.

Add to that the obvious fact that throughout these stages, the very existence of this entity is both physically & I’d add ontologically fully dependent on the woman’s body,

I’ve already dealt with that hopeless pseudo-argument.

I give ontological & physical priority to the woman’s life & well-being over the z/e/f’s life.

I see. So you’re not a “speciesist” but you are an “ageist” and still believe that one human being can own another and dispose of him or her as she wills, up to and including killing him or her.

Take existence from the woman, & you simultaneous end the fetus’ existence.

Take the lung or oxygen machine away, or the feeding tube, for those who need them, and all those people die. By your logic, consistently you should say that we should instantly kill all such people. And of course you say you favor euthanasia, so you are actually (diabolically) consistent.

I won’t delve into these: How no father is legally forced to donate blood/ bone marrow to his dying child when no other donor is available.

No, but most fathers naturally do so out of love; just as I did exactly that for my late brother Gerry, when he got leukemia. I didn’t say (as your pro-abortion logic would dictate), “he’s dependent upon me for life, and so he has no right to life because he isn’t viable on his own.” Love far transcends mere legal obligation. Brothers love brothers (and will sacrifice for them), and mothers love their own children (and will sacrifice for them), unless they learn (primarily from men and the pressure that men put upon them) not to do so.

How evicting a squatter-X from one’s home (X entered through a closed but unlocked door, aka BC) isn’t the same as killing X, even if that’s the secondary consequence (Just-War Theory stuff).

You haven’t killed the squatter. You have killed the baby in abortion. Nice try.

How supporting this quasi-parasitic life might be nice, even a moral good, but that it’s not a moral necessity under many circumstances. I’m very grateful that I have no daughters or granddaughters who might need to deal w/ the consequences of having their rights to autonomy of decision re contraception & abortion stripped raw, as conservatives plan to do. For this reason, I thank God I did have an abortion.

I thank God that He is merciful, and I share that with you so that you can heal from the wrong you have done and not have this on your conscience (however buried it might be, and we human beings have a great capacity to deny things).

Thanks again for the civil discussion.

Dave, one of the reasons that I rarely click on your topics, even though I receive your newsletter, is because of I dislike reading through stuttered “dialogues”. Sure, that’s what occurs in threads, but there they can continue to go back & forth until both parties call a halt. I’ve invested time & energy in many such prolonged “conversations” with a random poster, sometimes even to the point of tedium. Still, at least each new response gets addressed that way & the matter moves forward.

I haven’t any objection to your publishing what I wrote; after all, threads are public. But this method you use shuts down the communication channel, with your responses being “THE FINAL ANSWERS”. That’s rather dogmatic, pedantic, & even arrogant. It creates the impression of a win/lose contest, rather than of real dialogue, which in the Trumpian era is perhaps inevitable yet as discouraging as the president’s own constant need to “win” at even trivialities. I’m not a game-player, and I don’t seek to win or lose debates, though I do look to be understood even when others disagree. That’s the teacher in me. Many of your replies were stock, however, so I suspect your ossified stance filtered out much of what I wrote.

Anyway, thank you for your responses. Your format precludes further replies to your own comments, so I’ll refrain.

I completely disagree. The back-and-forth dialogue format goes back at least as far as Plato and Socrates, so they take the lion’s share of the blame for that, not me. I love it, you don’t. But I have carefully dealt with everything you wrote, point-by-point, and have reproduced all of your words on my blog, and now (let readers note) you are the one departing the dialogue (with several “mind-reading” personal insults), not me.

In my opinion, the dialogue was just beginning, not ending. But that’s how it often goes these days: discussions end almost before they have begun. You attribute that to Trump; I attribute it to most folks’ reluctance to engage in sustained dialogue. That’s how it was in the 5th century BC when Socrates argued in this fashion, that’s how it is today, always has been, and always will be.

I do heartily thank you, however, for the dialogue we did engage in (which you initiated). It was better than 99.9% of the “discussions” that take place on the abortion issue.

Enough, please. This began with a suggestion to you personally, asking that you refrain from deliberate use of a term rejected by supporters of legal abortion. You chose to air it more generally. Let’s leave it at that. I gave no “final answer” to any of your points, just a critique of your format, explaining why I dislike that in general.

Had you [kept] my lengthy post on abortion confined to this thread & responded to me there, I might have engaged you further with new replies to your own remarks. You didn’t ask my permission to use my post in the way you have, but as I said, it’s alright: What’s done is done, including the discouragement.

*****

Here are two other exchanges that occurred underneath the previous dialogue that I posted:

Bob Seidensticker: I find it odd how Dave Armstrong, in calling his opposition “pro-abort,” doesn’t expect to have his position called anti-choice. I have no problem calling your position “anti-choice” because that’s what it is. I’m “pro-abortion” in the same way that I’m (for example) “pro-heart surgery.” Surgery is not a fun process, but it’s better than the alternative. Ditto abortion.

You’re pro-legal-abortion, which is shortened to pro-abortion and again to pro-abort. It’s simple logic and English. I’m anti-abortion and I’m anti-choice, when the choice is immoral and outrageous. But it’s still the case that “choice” is only a term describing someone selecting one alternative over another. Therefore, one has to ask what the choice is. Heart surgery is not a procedure that anyone thinks is immoral. Abortion is. It’s the taking of a human life, even if you and others want to play the game of pretending that what is killed is not a person.

when you have sex, a responsible person recognizes that a baby might result

I imagine an ER doctor wagging his finger at an accident victim saying, “A responsible person recognizes that getting in a car means an accident can result!” and sending them home. That’ll teach them a good lesson.

You don’t like car accidents? Then never get in a car.

Driving a car entails an inherent risk of “I might be killed.” We are willing to continually take that risk because the chances are so miniscule.

Having sex (at least heterosexual sex) — unlike driving a car — entails the inherent possibility of a conception of another person. We don’t have the inherent right to kill such a person because we don’t own them. They’re not our property (unless — since you’re so fond of analogies — you want to go back to the Dred Scott decision and black people being owned and killed by white people).

We can and do take necessary risks with our own lives. It doesn’t follow (by analogy or logic) that we can procreate and bring about another life and then kill him or her, so we can avoid the results of our own actions. If you don’t want a child, don’t have sex. Sex and procreation are intrinsically connected, just as nutrition and taste buds are intrinsically connected and no one tries to separate them. If people eat merely for nutrition without regard to taste, we consider them oddballs. If they eat strictly for taste without regard to nutrition, we call them junk food junkies and generally regard them as deficient in understanding of the function of food.

You like analogies; so do I!

But that’s about as foreign to our secular, sex-crazed society as can be imagined.

We’re animals with a sex drive. It’s natural. Blame our Maker.

Just because we have a sex drive, and it is very strong, it doesn’t follow that we can’t control it responsibly. That’s not God’s responsibility; it’s ours. We don’t kill another person because we found it difficult to control our sexual organs. If you hop in bed, by the very nature of that act, anyone with half a brain cell understands the risks involved.

the compassionate person accepts the responsibility, rather than kill another human being: their own child, no less.

It starts as a single cell, not a child. It sounds like, given your concerns, you want abortions done ASAP. That makes sense.

Everything is in place for the child at conception to grow and become you or I. All that is needed is time and a mother who doesn’t believe she owns her child and can kill him or her if she wishes. Any point other than conception for the beginning of personhood is completely arbitrary.

Nothing I said implies in the slightest that I “want abortions done ASAP.” I oppose murder. Period. I am for the right to life of all persons, because I believe they have infinite value and worth, as children of God, made in His image. Period.

HematitePersuasion: Quite.  Do the self-identifying ‘pro-life’ crowd mind being referred to as the ‘forced-birther’ contingent? I have no problem calling them forced-birther, because that’s what they are.

It’s not forced birth, because when you have sex, a responsible person recognizes that a baby might result, and that it’s their responsibility to care for such a child, not kill it. Otherwise they should refrain from sexual activity. But that’s about as foreign to our secular, sex-crazed society as can be imagined. It’s barely even comprehensible. No one is “forced” to engage in sex, just as no one is forced to have a baby. The one naturally can potentially lead to the other, and the compassionate person accepts the responsibility, rather than kill another human being: their own child, no less.

[further comments of both men can be read in the original combox]

***

Photo credit: “The now 3-year-old girl was born at just 21 weeks and four days gestation. “She may be the most premature known survivor to date,” according to a case report about her birth published in the journal Pediatrics last week.” From the article, “Born before 22 weeks, ‘most premature’ baby is now thriving” (CNN, updated 11-11-17). The photograph used was classified by Google as “labeled for reuse.”

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2018-05-28T13:37:58-04:00

Last updated on: May 28, 2018 at 1:37 pm   By

This was a discussion in one of my blog comboxes. The words of atheist “Grimlock” will be in blue.

***

What would convince you that God has revealed Himself: thus causing you to believe in Him? Bob never answered this. Perhaps you will be willing to.

Always an interesting question to ponder. The short answer is that I’m not sure – the longer answer involves some rambling, so let’s go with that one.

Let me start off with what would convince me of the existence of gods with supernatural abilities, like Tor, Zeus, and (you probably won’t agree) Jahve of the Torah/OT. Supernatural are here defined as mental capabilities or existence not reducible to physical phenomena. I’d be convinced that Tor existed if he showed up in all his red-haired glory (yes, red), and controlled lightning and the storms. You could set up experiments to this effect under controlled circumstances. Of course, if supernatural abilities were common (like, say, in the X-men), then I’d obviously have a fairly low threshold to accept claims of supernatural abilities, because my background knowledge would indicate that it’s perfectly normal.

You could then start escalating the power of the beings in question. Say, you have someone who can create matter ex nihilo – this could also be verified. This being might not be able to change existing matter, and would so be limited in this respect. But we’re getting someone. Another being might be able to manipulate matter, even on a grand scale. Maybe it could create a few new stars on common, just to show off.

But now we’re starting to see the rough shape of a problem. Where is the limit? How do you distinguish a being that can reconfigure and move around existing matter from a being that can reconfigure, create, and move around existing matter? I can’t really see how. This problem comes in focus once you add more capabilities – absolute instinctive knowledge (intellectus, I believe this is called), absolute moral character, et cetera.

Thus, I can see how you can in principle demonstrate the existence of really powerful beings. It’s not really that complicated. Of course, we haven’t demonstrated any such existence, even of the most minor supernatural ability. But I’m not sure if this approach can even in principle demonstrate the existence of a omni-god. It could get us quite a bit along the way, and the existence of the supernatural would definitely increase the probability of theism.

Another approach would, I suppose, be convincing philosophical arguments. But the more philosophy I learn, the less likely I find it that one can find premises that can be sufficiently well justified. This is in part related to how I find the prior probability of theism to be very low given our background knowledge, which would have been improved by demonstrating supernaturalism.

So, the general approach would have to be something like this: Increase the prior probability of theism given our background knowledge, for instance by demonstrating the existence of the supernatural. Then proceed to demonstrate through empirical evidence the existence of at least one being with an impressive array of powers, and no limitations that we can verify. That’d be enough for me to get to some form of theism. Getting from there to some form of classical theism would, as near as I can tell, only be possible with some philosophical arguments that are more convincing than those with which I am familiar.

I think Jesus fulfilled most of these requirements you demand to believe (see many scholarly resources that demonstrate the historical argument regarding Jesus). That’s a major reason why I’m a Christian.

Interesting. I don’t think I see how he fulfilled the requirements for an omni-god, though.

Here’s how I see it. For the sake of argument, let’s grant that the miracle stories in the gospels are entirely accurate. Jesus then demonstrated some fairly impressive powers – certainly some healing abilities, some form of self-healing, the ability to some extent reconfigure existing matter, and some others.

But that only gets us to supernaturalism, and some sort of powerful being that I guess you’d refer to as a lowercase-g god. But we can certainly conceive of many more impressive arrays of powers. (I’m a comic books fan, after all.) This gets us to some form of theism, but it doesn’t get us to an omni-potent god. Jesus having impressive powers doesn’t demonstrate truthfulness or great knowledge, after all.

I would say that He showed enough for His claim to be God in the flesh to be credible. It would be tough to strictly “demonstrate” omnipotence (or omniscience), but what Jesus did do was quite extraordinary: healings, raising people from the dead, walking on water and through walls, rising from the dead, appearing several times after death, and ascending to heaven.

You and atheists to a person will blow all that off as fairy-tales, insufficiently documented by trustworthy sources (what else is new?). But it does (in my opinion) satisfy (if believed for the sake of argument) what you were asking for above.

Yes – some form of theism, but not Christian theism, or any variant that involves – for instance – an omni-god, or a god as the source of all of reality.

It should be sufficient. But it won’t be, because there are a host of factors causing unbelief and relentless skepticism towards Christianity and God. If we answer one thing; it’s only one of a thousand that the relentless skeptic will throw out. Even if we adequately answered all 1000 they would still not believe (in almost all cases).

Well, it’s hard to summarize my skepticism towards the gospels, but if you’re curious or wanna have that discussion I could certainly give it a try. It’s probably less than a thousand reasons.

Nevertheless, there are atheists who become Christians, so I will keep making my arguments, trying to persuade atheists to do so.

So, this is where I’m coming from. When I talk to Christians online, I will often be told that the God of Christianity is fundamentally different from the old gods. I’m told that the Christian God is not some super-being like a comic book character, but rather the underlying or ultimate source of reality, unmoved mover, powerful beyond limits, the ultimate source of morality, and such.

Okay, fair enough. But this should then mean that demonstrating the existence of a super-being demonstrates the existence of something fundamentally different from the Christian God.

And the miracles of the Jesus in the Bible are exactly that. The acts of a super-being, like the gods of old, or comic book characters of our time. If you want the Christian God to be fundamentally different from the old gods, then you must also accept that demonstrating the existence of one doesn’t demonstrate the existence of the other.

Where does this reasoning go wrong, in your opinion? Have I perhaps misunderstood the other Christians with whom I have discussed, or have they perhaps misunderstood something?

Or perhaps an analogy might be better:

If a being arrived, claiming to be the old Norse god Tor, would you believe him? Would you believe him if he also claimed to be omni-potent, and the source of all reality? To demonstrate this, he could perform supernatural feats. His strength makes the world move. He drinks enough to make the ocean levels sink noticeably. His two rams can be killed, but will live again the next day, despite being literally eaten. He can send thunder and lightning wherever he pleases, and he can – of course – fly. Would this make his claims to being the omni-potent source of all of reality be plausible?

Well, there are some remote or surfacey similarities with earlier gods and some essential differences (the biggest being monotheism itself). G. K. Chesterton in his classic, The Everlasting Man presents a brilliant argument for how earlier paganism foreshadowed Christianity in many ways. See an online copy.

C. S. Lewis (who cited that book as the biggest influence on his thinking) argues the same in various places. So, for example, if we’re told that there were earlier myths of a dying and rising god, and that this is the “origin” of Jesus Resurrection, we casually say “yep; heard that” [ho hum] and go about our business. It proves nothing one way or another, anymore than finding ancient Greek atheists disproves present-day atheism because it was chronologically older and more primitive.

The Bible does present Jesus as omnipotent (in His Divine Nature) and the Creator and Sustainer of Creation as well. Jesus said He would raise Himself in His Resurrection.

The Messiah and the nature of God had been developing doctrines for some 1800 years before Christ: back to Abraham. Jewish religion (in the main) was monotheistic from the beginning. As such, it had little relation to either Roman and Greek polytheism / paganism or eastern conceptions.

If someone claiming to be Tor showed up, no, I would not believe him, because I am a monotheist, based on the development of that thought these past 3800 or so years.

Look, that’s interesting and all, but it is a bit besides the point. The question is if Jesus’ miracles is sufficient to demonstrate the existence of something different than a super-being. And, unless you want to claim that the Christian God really is “just” such a super-being, it is clearly insufficient.

The example with specifically naming the being Tor is really not relevant. Let’s instead call the being Johnny. Johnny shows up, displays impressive superpowers, and claims to be the ultimate source of reality. Is the display of such superpowers sufficient to justify his claims? I think this is clearly not the case. Do you agree?

Yeah, but on different grounds. The true God can never be named “Johnny.” LOL

You’re getting hung up on irrelevancies.

Do you think that a being demonstrating superpowers is also sufficient to demonstrate that this being is also the source of all of reality and an onni-god? If yes, we’re down to our disagreement being about the validity of such a leap. If no, then we agree that Jesus’ miracles are not sufficient to demonstrate the existence of an omni-god.

Sorry for injecting humor . . .

It’s irrelevant what I think, in the sense that nothing will likely convince you. It’s usually the case that no evidence is ever sufficient to dissuade the atheist from their positions.

Let’s recap, shall we? At your request I sketched out what I might require as evidence that a God has revealed himself. Now, you have not criticized this approach. Rather, you claim that Jesus fulfilled the demands that I lay out. I take this to mean that you don’t find my approach entirely horrible.

Then I point out that the miracles of Jesus, even if one grants their historicity, only gets you to some superbeing. Not to an omni-god or a being that’s the ultimate source of reality. I’m trying to resolve our differences on this topic that you brought up. But you apparently refuse to deal with this challenge to your position.

First off, I was following up on the topic you chose, namely that Jesus satisfied most of the criteria I set for believing in a god. (Which, after asking about, you did not even remark on whether you found reasonable or not.) As Jesus clearly didn’t come close to satisfying the criteria for an omni-god, your claim is simply false. If you were bored of the topic, then you should say to explicitly, instead of simply changing the topic. One of us was staying on the topic. Another one was switching the topic. If you wanna stop discussing a particular topic, then say so.

In the future, could you just let me know if you lose interest in a topic, or don’t have the time to follow up more? I’ll do my best to do the same.

If you point out specific errors in reasoning that I make, I will certainly do my best to evaluate and correct them as objectively as I can. If you don’t, I’ll remain fairly confident that I’m being tolerably rational.

Atheists are rarely if ever convinced by any evidence for God. Otherwise, they would become theists, and they rarely do that, right? Hyper-rationalism and/or scientism are my interpretation of why atheists can’t be convinced of theism. It’s some premises of theirs that I think causes it: that I disagree with. And I have been quite open and honest about that. Certainly you guys have all kinds of theories for why we Christians believe what we do.

Sure, it could happen because it has (I have several friends who are former atheist Catholics). So I was generalizing. Basically, I was saying, “it’s exceedingly unlikely that I will convince you of God’s existence (especially not by arguing about Thor analogies to Jesus), and so I’ll take a pass on this particular discussion.”

Moreover, when I gave my longest reply, that I thought was a decent answer, you replied: “Look, that’s interesting and all, but it is a bit besides the point.” Anyone can make those judgments. You thought that about my reply, and I would say the same about the extended analogy to Tor, which I think is a rabbit trail. Goose and gander . . . You want to talk more about that, I don’t, just as I would have welcomed further input on my reply, but you deemed it as “besides the point” and moved right back to your assertion. We both acted in essentially the same way.

Dialogue requires each party to be willing to continue to interact with the other guy’s points. Neither of us is willing to do that presently, which to me shows that this specific topic is exhausted. It’s not just what topic, but how long to talk about it, and in how much detail.

My losing interest in this topic has nothing to do with strength of argument, either. It has to do with whether the Christian is willing to deal in excruciating detail with endless atheist arguments and demands for “proof” and “evidence.” I will do it to an extent (and enjoy it); other times I see that the topics are too complex and multi-faceted to be able to devote the required time or effort to it, so I simply stop. You see me doing both things in this discussion. The present arguments are far more interesting to you than to me.

As I said, I think what Jesus did and revealed is quite sufficient to substantiate His claims of being God (Yahweh) in the flesh. You disagree (of course). There’s not much more that one do, going down that road. It is what it is. I simply observed that if we give a semi-satisfactory reply in atheist’s eyes, then they always come up with another objection. It never ends. I think it’s self-evident that we’re not obliged to keep answering those questions forever. So at some point in a given argument, we opt out.

The most important thing, I think, for the success of atheist-Christian discussion is to narrow the topic down as much as possible. This sub-topic, in my opinion came to an end when I said I thought Jesus fulfilled these conditions and you didn’t. I’m not sure where else you think we could go with it.

[The above is a shortened / slightly edited version of the initial discussion. It went on quite a bit longer in the original combox, but I think most of that would be a tedious discussion for readers (especially when we got into a few more ‘personal” disagreements, which got a bit testy), so I decided to not include it. It can be read there in its entirety]

**

I think I might actually want to revisit the Tor analogy you brought up, and pursue it (which could be added to the blog dialogue). In retrospect I probably tired of that specific topic sooner than I should have (and I think my argument would be quite strong, followed-through more so). Some of my reluctance was simply being busy with other things.

Sounds good to me. Definitely up for continuing the discussion. I’d like to try to summarize the analogy, and specify what I think is the scope of its applicability. Right now it’s in bits and pieces spread out over multiple comments. 

I started writing, and after about an hour I realized I was failing miserably at summarizing. So I saved what I’d written, and might post it somewhere. Here’s my (now third) try at summarizing:

The question, as I see it, is what does Jesus’ miracles demonstrate, if we grant that they actually occurred?

They reinforce the idea that He was Who He claimed to be (God / Yahweh in the flesh). His miracles and Resurrection show that He has power over the elements of nature (precisely as God would have). His character of being loving and forgiving shows that He is benevolent and all-loving, as Jews and Christians believe God to be (not so much, sadly, Muslims). He forgave the ones who crucified Him, etc. People demand signs, and so He bowed to their wishes and provided them. As St. Paul stated:

1 Corinthians 1:22-25 (RSV) For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,  [23] but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, [24] but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. [25] For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

The Book of Acts refers to His post-Resurrection appearances and their purpose:

Acts 1:3 To them he presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the kingdom of God.

The same author, Luke (who was a Gentile, not a Jew), gave the reasons for why he wrote the Gospel of Luke:

Luke 1:1-4 Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, [2] just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, [3] it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent The-oph’ilus, [4] that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed.

The famous “Doubting Thomas” story shows Jesus’ perspective on the relation of faith and evidence:

John 20:24-31 Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. [25] So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe.” [26] Eight days later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. The doors were shut, but Jesus came and stood among them [implying that He supernaturally “went through” the doors or walls], and said, “Peace be with you.” [27] Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.”  [being physical proved that He was not only a spirit, or only in the imagination; also that He was truly resurrected and had conquered death] [28] Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” [29] Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” [30] Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; [31] but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

My position is that we then grant the existence of supernatural phenomena and some form of theism. This might be called a theism of lowercase-g gods, akin to the polytheistic gods of old, or modern-day superheroes (of comic book fame). But these types of (admittedly impressive) powers are a far cry from what is claimed by Christians with whom I usually argue. In their eyes, god is the underlying source of all of reality, omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect. These are fundamentally different properties than those displayed by the miracles of Jesus, which essentially boils down to modifying stuff, such as (self-)healing, walking on water, reconfiguring water to wine, and such. So granting the historicity of Jesus’ miracles would get us to theism, but not to classical theism, or Christian theism in particular.

I disagree. It’s not just the miracles; it’s also what He said about Himself, and what the Bible says about Him. As I wrote above:

The Bible does present Jesus as omnipotent (in His Divine Nature) and the Creator and Sustainer of Creation as well. Jesus said He would raise Himself in His Resurrection.

The link goes to my exhaustive paper of biblical proofs showing all of this. Agree or disagree with them, they are certainly there: stated in the New Testament (following up from the Old).

Jesus’ miracles are consistent with all this, if not strict proof. When He walks on water or through walls, and raises the dead (including Himself), this shows that He has extraordinary power over nature, precisely as God is described as having. This is stuff that God would be able to do, as part and parcel of His omnipotence. And it’s how the Bible describes Jesus:

Philippians 3:21 . . .  the power which enables him even to subject all things to himself.

Colossians 1:16-20 for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities — all things were created through him and for him. [17] He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. [18] He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. [19] For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, [20] and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Hebrews 1:3 . . . upholding the universe by his word of power. . . .

These statements are based on similar ones from Jesus Himself:

John 5:21, 26 For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. . . . [26] For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself, [i.e., self-existent, non-created, eternal; cf. Rev 22:13]

John 10:17-18 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. [18] No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; . . .

In order to demonstrate this point I use the analogy of Tor, of norse mythology:

If a being arrived, claiming to be the old Norse god Tor, would you believe him? Would you believe him if he also claimed to be omni-potent, and the source of all reality? To demonstrate this, he could perform supernatural feats. His strength makes the world move. He drinks enough to make the ocean levels sink noticably. His two rams can be killed, but will live again the next day, despite being literally eaten. He can send thunder and lightning wherever he pleases, and he can – of course – fly. Would this make his claims to being the omni-potent source of all of reality be plausible?

And I replied:

The Messiah and the nature of God had been developing doctrines for some 1800 years before Christ: back to Abraham. Jewish religion (in the main) was monotheistic from the beginning. As such, it had little relation to either Roman and Greek polytheism / paganism or eastern conceptions.

If someone claiming to be Tor showed up, no, I would not believe him, because I am a monotheist, based on the development of that thought these past 3800 or so years.

You blew that off by saying, “Look, that’s interesting and all, but it is a bit besides the point.”

My aim here is to more easily separate the powers from that rather different properties of the philosopher’s god. I aim to clarify the distinction between a powerful superbeing and the philosophically nuanced god of Christian theism. Demonstrating the existence of the former does not come close to demonstrating the fundamentally different entity of the latter.

I agree. Jesus exhibited and talked about everything that characterized the already revealed God of the Old Testament, according to Scripture, as I showed in my paper about His Godhood and also the accompanying one about the Holy Trinity.

Now, one could raise object[ion]s to this. For instance,

Objection 1: Tor is known to belong to a pantheon wherein he’s not even the most powerful.
Counter 1.1: The analogy can easily be modified to do away with this issue.
Counter 1.2: The mythology could be wrong.
Objection 2: The powers described above are not as impressive as those displayed by Jesus
Counter 2.1: The analogy could easily be modified to consider this.
Objection 3: The miracles of Jesus include him being the incarnation of the Christian god.
Counter 3.1: If one wants to assume this, the argument becomes circular, and thus very uninteresting.
Objection 4: Jesus displayed powers fundamentally different from those of a superbeing.
Counter 4: Possible, but I can’t think of any.

Jesus is in no way analogous to Tor / Thor, who is simply an imaginary god, among many in Norse mythology. There is no historical evidence (that I’m aware of) for such a “god.” If you think there is, by all means produce it. The events of Jesus’ life, on the other hand, are historical, and verified by eyewitnesses: recorded in books that have been repeatedly / profoundly verified as accurate by archaeological discoveries and historical research.

This is entirely besides the point. As I remarked above,

My aim here is to more easily separate the powers from that rather different properties of the philosopher’s god. I aim to clarify the distinction between a powerful superbeing and the philosophically nuanced god of Christian theism.

As such, whether Tor was an historical figure, or had an historical core, is irrelevant. The analogy is about impressive feats of power, and what they imply. Thus I am removing the case of displaying impressive feats from the context of the Bible in order to investigate what is implied by impressive feats of power.

My contention is that such feats of power implies supernaturalism and some variant of theism. But not the god of Christianity. This is because the ability to reconfigure and mess around with stuff inside our universe is a fundamentally different category of properties from what is attributed to the god of Christianity. A being having power does not demonstrate a being being omnipotent. A being that’s able to make dead entities alive again does not mean that this being is ontologically non-contingent or is the ultimate source of reality.

It may not prove it to your satisfaction (some standard of “absolute proof” that you seem to demand), but it can show (as I stated) that it is quite consistent with such notions, and that it is arguably what we would expect to see of a person Who claims to be God in the flesh. It’s difficult to conceptualize what Jesus could have done to flat-out demonstrate that He was omnipotent. How would one demonstrate such a thing? But He did what could be seen and observed: to verify His claims: raise others from the dead, raise Himself, walk on water and through walls, etc.

As such, it is completely irrelevant whether the mythological entity Tor actually existed in the real world, as it’s a hypothetical question: Assume that a being showed up, and displayed impressive feats of power, like a god of old, or, say, Superman. This being then claimed to be the source of all of reality, be omnipotent, without peer, et cetera. Assuming all this, would its claims be reliable?

Tor’s wouldn’t; Jesus’ claims would be, because He summed up what had been foretold for a thousand years in the Hebrew Scriptures, and He didn’t appear to be either a liar or a lunatic.

I think not.

I think so. :-)

And if not, then the same applies to Jesus – his miracles, as described in the Bible, if we grant their authenticity, would not demonstrate the existence of any of the really impressive properties attributed to the Christian god.

We disagree on that. If you think Jesus’ miracles didn’t do that, tell me what He could or should have done to convince you that He is God / Yahweh in the flesh. And then tell me why your particular demand should be considered as sufficient or necessary as “proof” for all human beings, and superior to what Jesus actually did.

***

I read in an older comment of yours (within the last month) that you used to be inclined to think Jesus was a myth (like Tor), but now you think He existed:

I believe that I have previously identified myself on this blog as having an inclination towards a mythicist view. This is no longer the case, though I certainly am highly skeptical of what can be said of the historical Jesus.

Good; I’m delighted to hear that. If you hadn’t made that change, I wouldn’t even discuss it with you, because I think the mythicist position is intellectual suicide and not deserving of any consideration at all.

I suspect that I may be missing something in your reasoning, though, or not following it. I trust that I have sufficiently laid out my own reasoning (which presupposes the accuracy and inspiration of the Bible: held for many other reasons).

Yes, you seem to be missing something. But your parenthesis here highlights one difference. I’ll make two clarifications in response to your latest comments.

And lean on repeated[ly] in your comments.

If this is a presupposition, it seems to me that you have already assumed the existence of the existence of the Christian god. But as this discussion started with this claim,

I think Jesus fulfilled most of these requirements you demand to believe. That’s a major reason why I’m a Christian.

That doesn’t seem like a reasonable presupposition, as it makes your reasoning circular. Simply assuming that the Bible is telling the truth about the existence of such a being and that Jesus both made such claims and were telling the truth is just… well, it’s presupposing what you want to prove, and is circular reasoning.

Not for this particular discussion. I hold to the inspiration of the Bible, and I hold to the existence of God, for many reasons (not confined to the Bible; e.g., as a “properly basic belief”: which is a philosophical criterion). But in our present discussion, only the historical accuracy of the Bible is directly in play. That accuracy is conformed by non-religious archaeological and historiographical scholarship and research and findings. That in turn gets us to a place where we can accept the accuracy of the eyewitness reports of what Jesus said and did.

Thus, when I am commenting about those things, it’s not just “religion” or religion per se: it is, rather, discussion of what actually (or purportedly) happened in history. It’s true that one has to accept the possibility of miracles, which is another discussion. You probably don’t; I do, so that colors our perception and interpretation of reputed miracles. In any event, I’m saying that Jesus actually said and did these things, and that they serve to demonstrate that He actually was God in the flesh, and omnipotent and omniscient, etc.

The circular reasoning would be on your end:

1) Premise 1: There is no God.

2) Premise 2: There is no such thing as miracles (because of the laws of science and the non-existence of a God Who performs them).

3) Conclusion 1: Thus, Jesus can’t (rationally, plausibly) claim to be God.

4) Conclusion 2: Thus Jesus didn’t perform [inherently impossible] “miracles” that substantiate His claims to be [the non-existent] God.

Your view would rule out certain conclusions from the get-go, and is circular (the conclusions already being assumed in the premises). A view that Jesus was historical, based on massive secular scholarly evidences, with the openness to the possibilities of miracles and God’s existence, is not circular. It’s simply accepting some premises that you reject.

So, instead I think what you presuppose is something along the lines of the following: That the authors of the Bible believed that they knew there existed a being with the properties attributed to the Christian god, such as omnipotency, being the source of all reality, et cetera. But how would they claim to know this? I can think of three possibilities:

1) They knew this because Jesus performed miracles, and claimed to be such a being.
2) They believed for other reasons.
3) A combination of (1) and (2).

They believed based on the existing revelation of the Old Testament, fulfilled prophecies, the continuing existence of the Jewish people against all odds, etc. Jesus’ actions were consistent with what they understood of God’s nature.

But (1) is what I’m criticizing with my analogy, so we’re back to that being a flawed approach. So they might have believed to know this for entirely different reasons, i.e. option (2). But if so, then these reasons would be sufficient, and Jesus’ miracles and presence would be redundant for demonstrating the existence of the Christian god.

What Jesus’ miracles did was to prove that there was such a thing as the incarnation: God becoming man (and by extension, the Holy Trinity, with the Holy Spirit, too). That was the startling new development of the Old Testament theology of God.

Now, as Jesus’ miracles in and of themselves only demonstrates the truth of supernaturalism, option (3) would require them to have reasons sufficient to demonstrate the existence of the omni-god given the truth of supernaturalism and some form of lowercase-g gods theism.

Thus if this were to be convincing, you have two options:

(i) Demonstrate the Jesus’ miracles demonstrate the properties attributed to the Christian god, thus making the ‘other’ hypothetical reasons discussed above redundant. (This is exactly what I am contending, in part with the analogy.)

I have contended that they do exactly that.

(ii) Demonstrate the existence of such a being as the Christian god, given the truth of supernaturalism and a olden gods-style variant of theism.

The existence of God is suggested in many different ways. See the “Theistic Arguments” section of my “Philosophy, Science, & Christianity” web page.

If you choose (i), then we’re back at discussing what Jesus’ miracles demonstrates. If you choose (ii), it seems to me that you concede that Jesus didn’t provide enough evidence to demonstrate the truth of Christianity.

I think He proved that He was God in the flesh by what He said and did: understood as a development of the existing Old Testament revelation. He was the Jewish Messiah: understood in the Christians sense as also being God the Son / Son of God (which are two ways of saying the same thing).

You’re not convinced. I am. That comes as some sort of surprise to you? :-) It does take faith and (God-given) grace to believe it, after all (as we believe). It’s not just a question of reason. But we say that it is a reasonable faith: not incompatible with reason at all, and not a blind or irrational faith. It simply goes beyond what reason can provide for us.

I hope this cleared up some misunderstandings, and made it more clear what I am trying to get at.

It helped, yes. But we’re still poles apart, and there seems to be no way to bridge the gap. That’s how it usually is, in atheist-Christian discussion. I’m just glad we can talk in a civil fashion, and that perhaps you can see that I am not an irrational or dishonest person, or lack thoughtfulness, simply because I’m a Christian, and a Christian apologist. I just read another comment which argued that I couldn’t possibly be intellectually honest, because I’m a Catholic apologist. It sounded like Bob Seidensticker’s position, once again . . .

***

Consider the following propositions:

1) The miracles performed by Jesus in the New Testament (based on a list from Wikipedia) are in and of themselves sufficient to demonstrate the existence of the Christian god.
2) The miracles performed by Jesus in the NT are, when combined with philosophical arguments, sufficient to demonstrate the existence of the Christian god.
3) The miracles performed by Jesus in the NT are, when combined with assuming the truth of all statements in the Bible, sufficient to demonstrate the existence of the Christian god.

My analogy with Tor deals with (1) above, not with (2) or (3). I get the feeling that you are arguing for (2) or (3).

To try to explain why I believe (1) is false, consider the following. We have the set of properties G belonging to the Christian god, containing such as
g1 = Ontological non-contingency
g2 = Omnipotency
g3 = Omniscience
g4 = Omni-benevolence
g5 = Ultimate source of all of reality
g6 = Being supernatural
g7 = Ability to reconfigure all of reality, including heal and resurrect living beings
g8 = Full control of the weather
g9 = Ability to do whatever desired to other supernatural beings, including killing, exorcising, or turning into orange socks

Then consider the set of properties, J, demonstrated by Jesus in the NT, containing such properties as
j1 = Ability to reconfigure parts of reality, including some healing and some resurrection of some living beings
j2 = Ability to control parts of the weather
j3 = Ability to chase away demons
j4 = Being supernatural

Seen as such, the properties the Jesus demonstrate g6 (by j4), strict subsets (i.e. parts of) g7-g9 (by j1-j3), and doesn’t even come close to g1-g5.

Consider, then, Tor. Tor demonstrates the following properties, in the set T,
t1 = Ability to control parts of the weather
t2 = Ability to kill supernatural beings, e.g. ice giants
t3 = Being supernatural
t4 = Some control over life and death, through his rams.

Seen as such, Tor can demonstrate the existence of g6 (by t3), strict subsets (i.e. parts of) g7-g9 (by t1, t2, and t4), and doesn’t even come close to g1-g5. The same as Jesus.

This is the strength of the analogy. Comparable deeds of power, attached from the Christian cultural context, makes it apparent that such powers does not demonstrate the existence of the omni-god of Christianity.

If you disagree, i.e. believe in proposition (1) above, the burden is on you to show otherwise. If you believe (3), you are making presuppositions that I find entirely unjustified, and if you believe (2) we differ (rather significantly) on the relative weights of various philosophical arguments.

I think we’re just going round and round. I have argued that what Jesus did was entirely consistent with Who he claimed to be, and what we can reasonably expect to see; not that it is absolutely undeniable strict demonstration. But the impossibility of strict demonstration (a=a types of “certainty”) is almost always the case with anything in philosophy, so I don’t see it as all that big of a deal.

In other words, I think it is unrealistic expectations that you seek. Religious faith is not the equivalent of philosophical inquiry in the first place. It has some of those elements, but it requires faith also. Science and philosophy also require “faith” in a specific and limited sense, insofar as there are always unproven axioms that have to be accepted to proceed (e.g., 1 . I exist. 2. My brain exists. 3. Logic is reflective of reality. 4. Conclusions about the real world can be drawn from the logic reflected upon in my assumed brain, which is assumed to be part of “me” and assumed to be trustworthy and “truth-producing” in its analyses.).

As I have alluded to already, I believe: what would be a scenario in which Jesus “demonstrated” that He was omnipotent to your satisfaction? The examples I raised are enough, in Christians’ eyes. They sufficiently provide enough for Jesus’ claims to be plausibly believed in. So what is it He would need to do to absolutely “prove” it to your satisfaction? Make the stars rearrange themselves to say “Grimlock is a hyper-rationalist” (in Norwegian, of course)? Then you would believe He is Who He claims to be? That would be sufficient evidence for an all-encompassing power over nature?

But if we want to reason like you’re attempting to do, we would simply say, “well, that was impressive, but it still doesn’t demonstrate omnipotence, because it only proved that He could do that.” There is always something else the ultra-skeptic can propose that wasn’t demonstrated; therefore leaving the ironclad proof of omnipotence lacking. You always have an out. And if an argument always has an easy out, I don’t consider it particularly worth considering in the first place. It’s not telling us much. It’s not advancing the discussion.

It’s the nature of the beast that any Being Who was truly omnipotent would never be able to absolutely prove that He was. If you think otherwise, then by all means, describe for us what such a demonstration would look like? You demand it, so you must have some idea of what it is that would satisfy your demand. I say that the demand is unable to be / can never be fulfilled. At best we can only observe things that highly suggest omnipotence, but do not absolutely prove it.

It’s the same with omniscience. It’s easy for you to say that Jesus hasn’t absolutely proven or demonstrated that He was that. The same challenge applies: what would such a demonstration sufficient for you look like? How could He possibly prove such a thing? How do you prove that you have all knowledge? Right off the bat, this would logically entail more knowledge than the non-omniscient observer would have; therefore the latter wouldn’t be able to comprehend those aspects of knowledge that he knows nothing of, that are beyond him.

In that sense, a limited analogy would be our trust in scientists or philosophers or mathematicians or engineers: all folks who know far far more about particular fields of knowledge than the average person. We place our trust in them that they know this stuff, that helps create marvels in the real world and make life happier and easier. It’s a sort of faith in a sense. We acknowledge that we don’t know a lot of things, but that Expert X over there knows this stuff we don’t know. And we trust him or her to act benevolently with that information.

Secondly, there wouldn’t be enough time for us to listen to this Being prove that He knows everything. To take just one example out of the millions of tidbits of information that would be required: there are billions of galaxies. God (Jesus) would have to describe each one, the history of each one, the entire history of each star and each planet and each electron involved with each thing.

Even assuming we had time to listen to all that, how do we know each tidbit of information is accurate? And that’s only astronomy and physics. It would take thousands of lifetimes to sit and listen to all that information, that would “prove” that He was omniscient. And that’s simply absurd.

Likewise Jesus can’t conceivably strictly “prove” that He is all-loving and the source of all creation. He can only do things that are obviously consistent with those claims (e.g., dying on the cross to save mankind, forgive and heal people, and exercise power over the elements, including raising Himself from the dead).

Etc., etc. There are propositions and arguments that are impossibly demanding, and thus, ultimately meaningless and irrational. Your present argument is one of those, as I believe I have just demonstrated. If something cannot possibly be demonstrated: not even in our imaginations as hypotheticals or word-pictures, then it’s not worth considering any further.

Impossibly demanding and inconceivable demands such as these, I conclude, are absurd and ultimately meaningless. As such, they pose no counter-argument to either the possibility of omni- beings, or the possibility that Jesus is one.

The (philosophical-type) believer approaches it from common sense: “If there is such a thing as a God with omni- qualities a, b, c, what would we reasonably expect to see in a man Who claims to be that God in the flesh? What kind of things could or would He do [not absolutely demonstrate according to some philosophical standard] in order for us to credibly, plausibly believe His extraordinary claims?”

And when we see Jesus (assuming the accuracy of the accounts on other rational grounds, as we do), we see exactly what we would reasonably expect: He heals, He raises the dead; He raises Himself. He has extraordinary knowledge; He predicts the future, etc. It’s more than enough for us to say, in faith: “He’s God.”

You don’t have that faith. I pray that one day you will. In the meantime, your demands here make no sense, because they are impossible to meet and I say again that you can’t even present a hypothetical demonstration of an omnipotent and omniscient being absolutely proving He possesses those attributes, which would meet your own demand. Therefore, the entire line of reasoning can be dismissed, as of no relevance or even reasonable meaning.

[Grimlock made a further reply in the combox,  and I made a brief final comment]

***

Photo credit: Thor (1901) by Johannes Gehrts (1855-1921). Xylograph after the drawing / painting, by Eduard Ade (1835-1907). Thor crashes through the heavens wielding the lightning-sparking hammer Mjöllnir, the gloves Járngreipr, and the belt Megingjörð. He rides his chariot, pulled by the goats Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr. [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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2018-05-12T12:38:16-04:00

Last updated on: May 12, 2018 at 12:38 pm   By

Do Atheists Habitually Equate Fringe Portions of Christianity with the Whole, & with Biblical Teaching?

This was an exchange with atheist Michael Neville on my blog. His words will be in blue.

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[Michael cited my words in a recent debate] “. . . and infinitely smarter than Christians, whose beliefs they invariably distort and turn into straw men, which they then proceed to quixotically demolish. That’s as big of a mystery as anything in the universe.”

One of the problems in atheist-Christian debates is when an atheist brings up a specific point often the response is “we don’t believe that, it’s those silly Christians over there who believe that nonsense, which makes their Christianity rather dubious.” So atheists may feel that they have rebutted some Christian point, but some other Christian may feel that his “one true Christianity” doesn’t have that flaw. Thus, if we want to try to reduce the crosstalk, we need to have to specify what flavor of Christianity or which particular point of Christianity we are arguing about.

From the Christian perspective, we will point out that criticisms of YEC [young earth creationism] or geocentrism or some other wacky views of that sort only hit a very tiny faction of Christianity as a whole: so that any hint that it is a criticism of Christianity per se is ludicrous and unworthy of a self-respecting atheist critique.

If the criticism is of the tiny faction alone as anti-scientific or anti-intellectual, etc., then of course mainstream Christians readily agree, so we must then ask: why argue about a small group of nuts? But I will always refuse to watch “Christianity” be pilloried for the extremities of fringe elements of the religion (as all large social groups have; e.g., there are extremist atheists like Stalin, etc.).

The trouble is that many atheists take these fundamentalist views (oftentimes, their own former views: whereas they were never mine), and wrongly / wrongheadedly extrapolate them also onto the Bible. I point this out again and again and then the atheist doing it usually gets angry or starts to insult, as we see Bob [Seidensticker] doing at the end of our otherwise pretty good debate.

In any event, I can’t pretend that my own extensive debating experience with atheists and knowledge of the Bible don’t exist, just to please atheists and make them like me and think I’m a great guy. If someone is gonna get mad because I tell them some truth about the Bible or Christianity, that’s not my problem; it’s theirs.

If those who know relatively less about the Bible would listen to those like myself who have studied it intensely for over 40 years and have (as in my case) devoted their lives (as a vocation / occupation) to the defense of Christianity and the Bible, they might actually learn a few things that they didn’t know before (particulars that don’t overthrow their atheism; thus should not be threatening).

But no: very often atheists who want to debate Christians casually (and I’d say, rather condescendingly) assume they know more about the Bible and how to interpret it than Christians who have spent decades and many thousands of hours studying it.

As you can imagine, these sorts of occurrences (which are very common) are exceedingly frustrating and exasperating.

There’s a whole lot more YECs than you appear to think. This survey [LINK] says that last year 38% of Americans “believe that God created humans in their present form at some time within the last 10,000 years or so”. The number is going down but it’s still a large and very vocal group of people.

There’s the further point that you’re showing exactly what I was talking about. You’re not and never have been a YEC. Good for you, neither was I when I was a Christian. But so what? That just means I won’t be debating that particular point of Christianity with you because it would be pointless to do so.

But how do you feel about Hell, infinite punishment for finite sins? Or the virgin birth? Or the bodily resurrection of Christ? How about the lack of evidence outside the Bible for Jesus’ existence? Or how most Christian claim to be monotheists but treat each “person” in the Trinity as a separate god (BTW, I know Muslims and Jews who don’t regard Christians as monotheists). These are topics which can be debated.

I point this out again and again and then the atheist doing it usually gets angry or starts to insult, as we see Bob doing at the end of our otherwise pretty good debate.

The sense that I got from Bob is that he was getting frustrated by your patronizing condescension. He told you that you were getting snarky (comments like “But I do know that it is a common trait of atheists to avoid answering questions that have to do with difficulties (real or imagined) in their own positions”) but you failed to consider that maybe you were. In my not so humble opinion, you are rather snarky and definitely feel superior to anyone, Christian or atheist, who holds a different belief than yours.

I leave you with the thought that while you may be intimately familiar with the Bible you’re in a small minority of Christians. I once quoted Matt 6:5-6 to a Christian advocating public school prayer and she thought I was making it up! She is not alone in her abysmal ignorance of the Bible, far from it.

I haven’t confirmed your point at all. If you are going to critique “Christianity” then you have to go after its mainstream components, not its fringe ones. To go after fringe elements and act as if they represent the whole or the Bible is not intellectually sound. It’s a straw man.

YEC is a minority position of a minority portion of Christianity (Protestantism). Catholicism is the largest portion of Christianity, and Orthodoxy is also another large portion. Neither holds to YEC or fundamentalist hyper-literal interpretation of the Bible. Thus, the proper way to describe the enterprise of critiquing YEC and suchlike is to say that it is a critique of Protestant fundamentalism, which is merely a small portion of the Christian whole.

But many (I would suspect, most) atheist polemicists refuse to do that, and also falsely think that the fundamentalist positions are unarguably taught in the Bible itself.

The other topics you bring up are valid ones that can be said to represent orthodox Christianity as a whole (save for the caricature of trinitarianism that you state). YEC, geocentrism, wooden hyper-literal interpretation, rejection of anthropomorphism and anthropopathism do not. That’s a completely different type of category.

In my experience, it is a very prominent trait of atheists to avoid hard questions regarding their own positions. Again, I can’t make my experience other than what it is. Those things either actually happened, or they did not.

Of course, others may have different experiences. I can only speak about my own. In my case, the dialogues are online for all to see and read, so I can actually verify that this repeatedly happened. No one need simply take my word (which to them may sound like “patronizing condescension” as you say).

Bob did it himself, and provided no counter-example to my claims. I asked him specifically about sufficient evidence to reject God, in his opinion, and he refused to answer: sending it right back to me. I later answered at length when a fellow atheist repeatedly asked me the same thing (only to be told that I never answered).

“you are rather snarky and definitely feel superior to anyone, Christian or atheist, who holds a different belief than yours.”

That’s your opinion, and it’s very commonly attributed to apologists. I could produce many unsolicited “testimonies” of dialogue opponents who thought quite otherwise, but what’s the use? You’ve already made up your mind to harshly judge me. I think it’s because we apologists are always saying “x is right and y is wrong.”

It’s the “nature of the beast” of apologetics. We defend one thing as truth and thus oppose anything that contradicts it. Thus, those who hold y will tend not to like us, because people (to put it very mildly!) don’t like being told that their belief is erroneous. Being an apologist is like being an umpire: we’re always displeasing someone.

You interpret this as being personally an ass and a pompous jerk, and you mind-read my supposed inner motivations. My take is that I argue vigorously. I turn the tables. I give atheists big doses of their own medicine. I have no patience with BS and lousy argumentation and straw men. I know my stuff.

People don’t like that, and so, rather than admit that I made a good argument, they prefer to make it a personal thing against me. They can’t stand the heat and so they get out of the kitchen.

I readily agree that ignorance of the Bible is very widespread. But again, that is a different proposition altogether than making claims about the Bible itself. The Bible is what it is (a = a), no matter how many people are ignorant of it (just as are, say, the Constitution and the laws of thermodynamics). It is able to be consistently, intelligently interpreted, according to the usual rules and norms of the interpretation of any literature.

The problem is that so many people refuse to approach it that way. Atheists usually approach the Bible like a butcher approaches a hog. And so we get many wild and false theories as to what it teaches.

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Photo credit: Straw Man, Stockley Farm, Arley Park [UK], © Copyright Anthony O’Neil and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons License. [CC BY-SA 2.0]

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2018-05-11T19:26:20-04:00

Last updated on: May 11, 2018 at 7:26 pm   By

What can I do after answering a question repeatedly in many ways, yet am told over and over that I haven’t answered at all?

The words of MR, an atheist, will be in blue. Words of fellow atheist Bob Seidensticker will be in green. MR was commenting on a discussion thread that became my paper, “Why Do We Worship God? Dialogue with an Atheist.”

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[from the “Worship” dialogue]

Bob Seidensticker: How much evidence would you need to convert to some other religion? That’s probably how much I’d need.

Me: I can’t tell you how much you need, because that is your thing, that I am exploring. I’m delving into your epistemology, and your fundamental axioms and premises, not mine. You say you need more evidence, so the natural question to ask is: how much is enough? What would this look like for you?

Sorry to jump in here, but I was really looking forward to you answering this question. I’m very interested in how much evidence you would need.

If that’s directed towards me, I have answered in one way or another in scores of articles. I am asking Bob currently because he brought it up; yet he is very reluctant to reply to my simple question. He wants to keep moving the questioning back to me as the recipient. Atheists very typically do this, but I don’t do one-way discussions. I do dialogues. I challenge the other guy, too. On my site, it’s not only the Christian who is always on the defensive, always on the hot seat. Atheists receive scrutiny, too. They don’t like that — aren’t used to it at all — , but that’s reality and life. Tough!

Bob raised the question, but I think it’s an important question and I, myself, am asking you what you would need to convert to some other religion. What kind of evidence would you require?

Briefly, I would have to be unpersuaded of all that I believe in Catholicism, just as I was systematically unpersuaded (mostly through my own intense study) of Protestantism within Christianity. I became a Catholic in 1990 at age 32 after 13 committed (and happy) years of Protestant evangelicalism.

Then I would have to be shown how and why another religion was ubiquitously superior to Catholicism: what in its claims can overthrow my present belief-system.

I am a Catholic and a Christian because of a large accumulation of all sorts of evidences and arguments (theological, biblical, historical, philosophical, scientific, experiential), considered together as a whole, and compelling in effect. Initially, I think most believe in God because it is a “properly basic belief”: as I alluded to in my dialogue with Bob.

So, you still haven’t answered the question. “Prove to me I’m wrong” isn’t evidence for another religion. Suppose someone did prove you wrong, how would that be evidence that another religion is right? And, are you saying that a religion being “superior” (whatever that means) is a reason to believe?

In context, I meant that it would have to be a superior alternative intellectually and rationally, i.e., that it would have more evidences and reasons in its favor than my current Catholicism does, and would be able to debunk my current reasons, so that I could conclude that it was true, rather than Catholicism.

I would be surprised if you really believed that. Besides, how is that evidence?

You were the one to ask Bob what evidence he would require, but now you shy away from answering it yourself. In addition, you criticized Bob for not directly answering it!

I think Bob has made an important point, The evidence he would require is probably on par with the evidence you would require to believe a religion you don’t already believe. If you think it so easy for Bob, why can’t you provide an example yourself, then we could see if the evidence you would require is on par with Bob’s. You seem a reasonable person; I suspect it would be. Why shy away?

Of course I answered, and as usual it is never enough, in these sorts of discussions. I answered (and it’s absurd to now claim that I didn’t), whereas Bob indisputably punted the same sort of question: when I inquired as to what evidence would make him believe in God: how much would be enough. He wants to avoid it, and claims that only Christians are supposed to be questioned. I addressed it head-on, in reply to you (as I have all his arguments). But it’s a very complex question, so I had to do it only in nutshell form. Nevertheless, the entire essence of a longer answer is there.

I have a massive accumulation of evidences for the truth of Christianity and specifically Catholicism, that I find compelling. As an apologist, I have that many more than a non-apologist, because I’m defending my belief-system against the charges of folks like Bob all the time.

All that has to be overthrown. As I said: “I would have to be shown how and why another religion was ubiquitously superior to Catholicism: what in its claims can overthrow my present belief-system.” Positive arguments for another superior view would be required for me to adopt another religion and not just be in “limbo.”

I didn’t say it was an easy question to answer, but it can be answered with a simple summary statement, as I did. He refused to do that, I did not. I don’t bow to double standards in discussion.

But my discussion with him was precisely about what his requirements are, not mine. Atheists generally squirm when asked fundamental, bottom-line epistemological questions about their own belief-systems, and I think many of them do because they know down-deep that they don’t have very good reasons; at any rate, no more immediately compelling than the bottom-line reasons [more intellectual and theologically educated type] Christians give for their beliefs.

And I pointed out that what you gave is not even considered evidence. You danced around the question, exactly as you accuse Bob. If someone walked up to you and said, “My religion is absolutely the one and only true religion, and I can prove it to you. Ask me for any evidence you like and I can give it to you.” What evidence would you ask for?

Obviously, “theological, biblical [or alternate claimed inspired / divine / revelatory holy book], historical, philosophical, scientific, experiential” evidence and reasoning and facts.

Lol! For example? Sheesh, it’s like pulling teeth.

I don’t see why you have such a hard time comprehending all this.

But you choose to pester me to answer a thing that is off-topic, and I answer, then you claim I haven’t;

Because you haven’t. If Jane believes in animism and someone completely convinces her that she is wrong, that is not then evidence for Hinduism. If Jane believes in Catholicism and someone completely convinces her that she is wrong, that is still not evidence for Hinduism.

whereas you won’t encourage Bob to give any answer (which was the topic, that he initially / voluntarily brought up, along with several other topics; underneath a lengthy dialogue about hell).

The whole point is, is the evidence you would require to believe a religion you don’t currently believe similar to what Bob would require? That is the point. When you can honestly answer the question, something that you seem to be having trouble with, then we can turn to Bob and say, “Is this reasonable evidence?”

Always diversions and unseemly nitpicking . . .

Well, it’s not a diversion or nitpicking for me, it’s an important question to me.

I should add also that it’s not the same going from one form of religion to another, compared to going from atheism to theism and then possibly also some religious belief. We have an entire set of propositions that we believe, of many sorts. That’s why I said I would have to be unpersuaded of my present belief-system first; then go on to consider some alternate claims.

For Christianity, the usual locus, if there is one, is Jesus Christ. One would have to prove either that He didn’t exist at all, or that His crucifixion and/or Resurrection and/or post-Resurrection appearances did not occur. This comes under historical argumentation and evidences. I don’t think anyone has come within a million miles of demonstrating any of that. Paul in the Bible says that denial of the Resurrection alone would essentially bring Christianity down:

1 Corinthians 15:13-20 (RSV) But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised;  [14] if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.  [15] We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. [16] For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. [17] If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. [18] Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. [19] If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied. [20] But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

If that were proven to me, I imagine that I would join Judaism as the next best thing: which is identical to or consistent with most of what I believe, but without Jesus as the Messiah and Savior. In other words, that would entail a denial of trinitarianism as well. But I’d still be a monotheist and in the Old Testament biblical tradition and rabbinic traditions.

For monotheism to be overthrown, and to move to eastern-type religion, many other arguments would have to be made.

I’ve answered [your question] in a hundred different ways throughout my blog and its 2000+ articles and my 49 theological books. It’s complex: C-O-M-P-L-E-X, but can be summarized briefly, as I did (which is what rational, busy people do when asked about complex questions and/or complex beliefs that they themselves hold).

What you’re asking is like asking someone who adores his wife (as I do): “why do you love your wife? I wanna know every single reason why; every jot and tittle.” And most people would say, “it’s a thousand reasons all amounting to one: she’s wonderful!” At best one could break down the many reasons into broad categories, which I did.

I summarized my reasons, and Bob could do the same thing. It required only a simple reply, and most atheists in my experience actually readily give an answer to this particular question. They might say, for example, “God has to rearrange the stars so that they spell out, ‘I exist'” or “Jesus has to appear right before my eyes [like Doubting Thomas] or be raised from the dead in my presence.”

But Bob didn’t do that. He switched it right over to me, which is a cheap and unworthy junior high school debating trick.

You’re still avoiding my (your) question. I could[n’t] care less what you currently believe, or what the 9/11 hijackers believed, or what Ghandi [sic] believed, I want to know what evidence would convince you/them/me to believe something else.

BS! At this point I’ll adopt Bob‘s methodology, which you seem to think is fine and dandy:

Me: What do you believe is “enough” evidence?

Bob: You tell me. How much evidence would you need to convert to some other religion? That’s probably how much I’d need.

Me: On what basis can you establish what is “enough” evidence?

Bob: Ask God. He’s really smart, and he would know what it would take to convince me.

So I’ll take that mentality and apply it to your question to me:

You: I want to know what evidence would convince you/them/me to believe something else.

Me: You tell me. How much evidence would you need to convert to some religion? That’s probably how much I’d need. Ask God. He’s really smart, and he would know what it would take to convince me.

If his method was fine in reply to my question, and you have no problem with it, then obviously I need to use the same method (rather than my direct replies) to please you and answer your question, to your nitpicking, obnoxious satisfaction. So I did. Have a great day!

Sigh…, first of all, I’ve heard plenty of things that atheists have posited that could get them to believe in God, including Bob. He’s explored that theme on his blog. My own threshold is likely lower than most. What I find fascinating is that apologists are quick to throw the question out at atheists, as if to say, “No amount of evidence would be good enough you.” But, apologists are loathe to answer the question themselves. Personally, I think the reason for this is that you are just like me, the bar (rightly) needs to be sufficiently high, but you can’t criticize Bob for having a high bar if yours is high, too.

I’m confused. Is it complex or a simple reply?

He switched it right over to me, which is a cheap and unworthy junior high school debating trick.

Personally, I think he was just making an excellent point. It doesn’t change the fact that you yourself dodged the question, too. I don’t see how you can criticize Bob.

I did answer (now many times), and if you say once more that I have not, you’re outta here, because you are repeatedly lying about me, which violates my blog rules for discussion (lying about someone or anyone here).

You can have the last word. And this will be a new dialogue on my blog. It has to be seen to be believed.

What I mean is, you didn’t provide evidence. I pointed out why your answers were not evidence. You simply ignored that. I think it’s an important question that every Christian, every believer of every religion, and every atheist even should ask themselves. What evidence would I need to believe some religion I don’t currently believe in, and have I required that level of evidence to my current beliefs?

Jim Dailey: Dave clearly answered several times. In fact, his answer looks a lot like what I have seen Bob say about what it would take for him to convert. Please stop badgering. Bob and Dave are interesting. Your comments are not adding anything to a great discussion.

I wasn’t badgering, I was asking an honest question. I can see by now that I won’t get a straightforward answer, so, yes, I am done.

And you’re banned, too, because you have lied about me yet again, as I warned you not to do, because it violates the blog rules of ethics that are enforced fairly for all persons regardless of their beliefs or agreement with me. But your protests will be recorded in my blog paper for all to see. Every single word of yours will appear.

***

Photo credit: Strait-Jacket trailer (Columbia Pictures, 1964) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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