Stomping Grounds

This is a present-day picture of a fund-raising event--the Stepathon. It takes place in Pittsburgh on the city's Northside, in the area where I grew up. (And where, apropos nothing, Jehovah's Witnesses began.)

I can't believe that there was a time when I wouldn't have given the staircase (we called them "city steps") a second thought. I lived on a hill, in a neighborhood called called Fineview because it had a "fine view" of the city's skyline. City steps were ubiquitous.

Dispensationalism and The Sermon on the Mount

The Sermon on the Mount is one of the most important passages of scripture. It is interesting what the different systematic theologies make of it.

Dispensationalism's long-time rival, Covenant Theology, teaches (wrongly and indefensibly, in my opinion--although I am in general a great fan) that Jesus was correcting Pharisaical distortions of Mosaic law, or perhaps clarifying misunderstandings.

Classic Dispensationalism (Left-Behind-ism) has a particularly interesting and equally indefensible position. They teach that the Sermon, while perhaps offering good advice for Christians, is actually the rule of life for the Millennial Kingdom. We read, for example:

According to both Old Testament and New Testament, righteousness and peace are the great words of the [millennial] kingdom. The Sermon on the Mount is the expansion of the personal righteousness, which is required in the [millennial] kingdom. The great words in this present dispensation [the church age] are believe and grace. Not once do these words appear in connection with the [millennial] kingdom teachings of the Sermon (Lewis Sperry Chafer, Grace the Glorious Theme, p. 164).

another example:

In His early ministry to Israel the Lord Jesus gave none of the great heavenly truths for the present Church dispensation. He but mentioned the Church, giving no explanation. Nor were these vital Church truths revealed to the Twelve.

Paul is the declarer of the Gospel of the grace of God to us - Take Romans to Philemon out of the Bible and you are bereft of Christian doctrine. For instance, if you were to take Paul’s Epistles out of the Bible, you could not find anything about the Church, or the Body of Christ; for no other Apostle even mentions the Body of Christ (W. Newell, Peter vs. Paul, p. 6).

We see then that according to classic Dispensationalism the law (rule of life) for the church comes from the Pauline epistles, not from the Lord's great sermon.

New Covenant Theology--a nascent movement primarily in Reformed Baptist circles-- has a third view: that Jesus is replacing the Mosaic law, including if not primarily the Ten Commandments, with a fuller (and final, prior to the end of human history) revelation of God's moral law. Moses' law is a type or foreshadowing of Jesus' law--much like virtually everything in the Old Testament is a type of what was to come in the fullness of time.

Thus when Jesus says:

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery. But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

The Covenant Theologian has to argue, absurdly, that Jesus is "correcting" some manner of bad teaching of Moses' law, when in fact Jesus quotes the exact words of the commandment and then contrasts his teaching against the exact words. The dispensationalist must argue that this teaching is not intended for the church, but the inhabitants of a future millennial kingdom. The New Covenant Theologian has the cleanest explanation: Jesus is not saying what was taught before was bad, but what he is offering now is new and better--befitting a new and better covenant and a new and better priesthood.

Guest Post: Michael Heath

Below is Michael Heath's response to my preceding post.

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David,

You’re conceding a certain descriptive to make a leap into the prescriptive. I think such a leap will guarantee a sub-optimal dialogue on the prescriptive since the descriptive premises required for an optimal dialogue aren’t well-established, at least on my end and between both of us. I’ll play along on this post, but I strongly suggest we spend future energies more on the morality of people celebrating the existence and nature of a god who punishes eternally – where I presume you belong to this group. Additionally I would love to see a defense of God, as you understand the Bible describes him that asserts he is not evil in spite of his promising to punish some eternally. Unless of course you concede the point he is incredibly evil, which I doubt you, do.

In addition I don’t conclude, at least yet, that Christians who celebrate a god they believe will punish humans for eternity are therefore evil themselves. I’ll play along here, but that’s not a conclusion I’ve reached. I’ve just started this line of thought and read nothing on the matter so I won’t go there because I’m confident others far smarter or better-informed have taken positions that would greatly expand my perception of this issue, and hopefully present compelling arguments I’d never come up with myself. So I’m far more interested in considering your position on these descriptive points.

I also disagree the ball is in my court, I find that analogy doesn’t work here at all. I’d argue for a plethora of responsibilities some owned by me and more owned by you given your a member of the set who believe in this type of god. So I would instead suggest we consider the degrees to which each of us is associated with those acting badly.

As a fellow human and ultimately, an American, I do take some responsibility that people celebrate a biblical god who punishes eternally based on their fealty to an inerrant Bible because I think the premises lead to the following conclusions:
1) The primary premises allowing this belief system have primarily been falsified or lack empirical evidence. And because this type of belief is based on certain biblical passages where the Bible is asserted to be both inerrant and the word of God, incoherent. That train of thought is problematic for all us because I think this incoherent reasoning continues to enable our culture in its pervasive celebration of faith as a beneficial human attribute. I instead find faith to be an infantile character defect which impedes human progress while increasing human suffering.
2) This belief coupled to the association of believers into various religious denominations and other religious-centric groups have caused and continue to cause increased human suffering.
3) Because the U.S. has over the past five decades experienced a merging of believers in this category with political conservatism and this religious-political movement has come to significantly influence policy, this suffering has extended beyond these believers and their close associates and now harms all U.S. citizens while also threatening the well-being of all humans. [Re the future threat of all humans: American Christian conservatives are the primary voting base that allows the Republican party to successfully obstruct even confronting the fact of climate change along with the grave threat it poses to human wellbeing and life on this planet.]

I do take my responsibility seriously. I don’t just comment in Ed’s blog, I write and advocate elsewhere. Just recently I had an on-going private dialogue with the local editor of our local newspaper. We are on good terms. He’s a social conservative in a rural red-state area so red it’s uncommon for us to have Democrats running for local office. Yet he writes columns as if Christians are persecuted when people criticize Christians for acting out their faith in the public square. The people criticizing such public acts were not demanding these public demonstrations of piety end; they were only criticizing them for making such demonstrations. My motivation here was first to get him to make better arguments given that as editor, he writes opinion columns. He’s a young guy where he graciously accepted my offer to read two books I recommend which teach how to identify bad arguments and build good ones, qualities I would have thought he’d have learned getting his degree in journalism.

A few years back we had our state representative, Kevin Elsenheimer, make a very Rick Santorum-like argument regarding gay rights in our local newspaper. His argument was that his church’s teachings (Catholic) condemned gays. He then argued that his personal religious beliefs were justification for him to legislate in a manner that denied gays their rights. He never mentioned his constitutional obligations or even mentioned any regret on how his position would harm the gay people and their family members in his district. I wrote a published letter to the editor conceding his right of conscience to believe this, but how it violated the principles inherent to the enlightenment, Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution and was in direct violation of the 14th Amendment of the plain meaning of the Constitution as well. I also made a policy argument he had an obligation to represent the interests of all his constituents, not just those who were heterosexual. I received two death threats from that letter, calls to my home. Thank goodness I answered the phone both times rather than my wife.

I received my first death threat for defending a local family when their gay son’s wedding announcement was published in the local paper which caused a ruckus, largely centered on people objecting to such an announcement being published, “in a family newspaper” (actually it’s our area’s paper of record). Of course these arguments were predominately based on the critics Christian beliefs. My letter defending this family and arguing we should celebrate gay people taking on the responsibilities of family was worthy of our admiration, not an event that justified shoving gays back into the closet in a manner that enables gays to be persecuted precisely because the larger Christian community seeks they continue to suffer being ostracized.

These are merely a few examples; as a human and an American I am actively engaged at the local, state, and national level advocating for policies that are based on our country’s secular founding values where we leave religious beliefs at the door if those beliefs are contra to the first principles of this country (freedom, equal rights, rights of conscience, and pursuit of happiness to name a few of a long list). That has me calling my U.S. representatives office, writing letters to my governor and Congressional members, and contributing to organizations like the ACLU, Americans United, and politicians I think have the character to govern on behalf of all their constituents without seeking to ostracize some as a way to gain political advantage, power, and money.

I also personally lobby (in-person, never email) my extended family advocating they differentiate their obligations to their church and how that can conflict with their obligations in our free society as U.S. citizens. These conversations are decreasing for obvious reasons, they’re committed and by attribute, incapable of adapting. [A close family member and many of her fellow church members continue to advocate for the current president’s death because they’re convinced he’s a covert Muslim operative and member of al Qaeda, where they get this idea because of their religious association.]

While I would never directly advise my nephews and nieces on religion, most have no idea what I believe, I do present my siblings, their parents, with arguments their obligation to their children should have them considering those kids getting the best education possible rather than merely indoctrinating them as they prefer. That such indoctrinal tactics are ultimately selfish and limit their children’s future. They of course seek to save their kids souls by lying to them about what is and what is not true, and paying “teachers” to do the same.

This issue is not my primary concern however, that’s because unlike you David, I’m not so directly associated with these people as you are. In addition I’m currently become far more concerned about what I perceive is a far greater threat, that of climate change. So my free-time energies are often spent more on that topic than others.

I don’t think there is a cookie-cutter response to your question and therefore find it some nonsensical. Some people work to reduce the suffering of animals, should they stop and all focus on children? We each have to judge if we’re doing enough. However that doesn’t deny our respective responsibilities, I’ll gladly carry that burden and do what I think is the best I can.

I do find your responsibility to be far more immense so I don’t think you do yourself any favors raising this question. So, I’m in a rhetorical corner? Hardly, I’d argue you’ve instead done that to yourself. To concede one is evil doesn’t remove the responsibility I think you have for the planet and humanity so I can’t follow the logic, “the ball is in my court.” Your closer association to this evil should obviously put a far bigger burden on you than on me.

David writes, “What action do you advocate against evil such as I am, or do you just stand by and then, by similar reasoning by association, become a guilty accomplice?”

If we belong to a group with fundamental issues which harm others, and they all do to some degree, I think each of us has a personal responsibility to always do the following:
1) Vociferously seek reform
2) Quit. I admire people who work for authentic reform even when their odds are nil to low. I spent 5 additional years in the Republican party advocating for reform, finally leaving the evening of the 2008 National Convention delegates unanimously approved Sarah Palin to be their VP nominee. I don’t have the wisdom necessary to create and offer a formulaic method on when to stop seeking reform from within and quit. I don’t regret quitting the GOP because I don’t see a candidate, officials, or even voters who even remotely approaches past Republicans I admired, like MI’s long-time governor, Bill Milliken.
3) For those issues we find have a grave impact on us and/or others, own responsibility and continue to advocate for reform on those where you think you have the talent and resources to make a difference.

When I was young I actually thought hard and long about remaining in the denomination I was raised and seeking reform. I decided that the very structure set-up by evangelical and fundamentalist organizations makes any such efforts nearly impossible, both within the denominations and their so-called colleges. That’s because they reject the journey seeking objective truth; they instead demand members submit to a set of “truths” where there are few viable if any viable options to seek reform. At least I thought that, growing up in a small rural area I was never exposed to the fact some local faith communities do change denominations because influential members convince enough of the others. But still, what’s the odds of and uneducated (at the time) late-teen/early-twenty convincing his church that not only was the Bible not the inerrant word of God, but it wasn’t even rational to believe in a judging triune god who has us destined for either Heaven and Hell.

And while I left that church, I continued to study religion, formally at university and even more ardently informally after university, from 1985 to the mid-2000s. That was in order to authentically test fundamentalist/evangelical truth claims and later in this time period, make better arguments to convince people to abandon faith, seek objective truth using the best methods possible, and do what morally right rather than act out in a way you can justify with Bible verses. I was especially motivated to change minds due to the persecution of gays I encountered either by conservative Christians, or enabled by them. This wasn’t merely due to what I read in the news, but persecution I personally encountered where I got involved to stop. (Public school bullying that was defended by the principal, a certain Board Member, and an elder of my church. Where the Board member was the Board’s president and my pastor and the elder was a close relative. Only the superintendent was empathetic to the persecution gays were subjected to in our school.)

So I don’t see our responsibilities ending if we sought to reform and failed and quit. I do think it’s not easy to calculate the level of effort we should expend and claim we acted with integrity. I will assert with confidence you have far more responsibility to act on this matter than I do precisely due to your association being degrees closer than me.

And while I’d find a response to my points here interesting, if you have limited amounts of time I’d much prefer getting into believers’ moral culpability for celebrating a god who punishes eternally. Especially given the nature of this reality and God’s supposed powers and role in the development of this reality

If I am evil, what then?

Ed Brayton (and many others) are posting on the ugly comments/threats/harassment faced by the high-school girl Jessica Ahlquist, who won her lawsuit over a large prayer mural on display at her public high school.¹ The mural will be removed. I agree with the decision. I am not sure why any Christian thinks we are mandated to post doctrine, theology, or prayers in public areas. There is nothing in the New Testament that instructs us to make such in-your-face empty gestures. There is no precedent. If we are to offend, it is only by presenting the gospel, when it is welcomed. Otherwise dust off your feet and move on. It is certain that we are not to offend by vulgar displays of power (which we have enjoyed in the US over the years--arguably not to our benefit) over what is displayed in the public spaces we share with unbelievers and advocates of other faiths.

I expressed my contempt for the hate with this comment:

I truly despise, with what I hope is a righteous anger but what I suspect is garden-variety revulsion, those Christians who made such hate-filled comments. It demonstrates the truth, yet again, that the church has nothing to fear from atheists–they are impotent in their ability to harm us–we can only harm ourselves. One of these vile comments does more damage than a sea of gnu atheists. What an utter embarrassment, disgrace and humiliation.

Dispatches superstar commenter Michael Heath² responded to my comment:

Your post rings hollow for two reasons:


1) Your refusal to own to up to the reality and I think, your own personal responsibility, that it is your form of biblical inerrant beliefs that enables, justifies, and maximizes people who believe and think like this.

2) That you too celebrate the existence of a god who promises to punish eternally. These people’s very role model is no different than the OT god who hates and the NT god who promises eternal punishment and to bring a sword. Yes it requires the avoid certain biblical verses to so, but there’s also ample verses that also support such a position.
Whether you like it or not heddle, you are far more closely associated with this reprehensible behavior than you are to those who condemn such beliefs. As I wrote in my previous post, believing such, mourning this perception, and working to save others because of this belief is a moral high ground. But celebrating such a reality as you do should have us seriously considering whether such behavior is also demonstrably evil. I do not yet weigh in because I've just started considering this and have read little on the topic to weigh others’ good arguments.

I then have the following question for Michael:

Let's grant your argument or at least your potential argument. Let's accept that my brand of biblical-inerrancy, hell-affirming Christianity—even if I do not commit acts such as those described in Ed’s post—even if I unambiguously condemn such acts-- is inherently evil.

That then leaves the ball in your court, does it not? Are you going to be the proverbial good man who does nothing, allowing evil to win? What action do you advocate against evil such as I am, or do you just stand by and then, by similar reasoning by association, become a guilty accomplice? Do you think blog-commenting is a sufficient response to evil? What are you going to do about it?

Yes, I'm trying to paint Michael in a corner--but he is quite formidable so I fully suspect I haven't.

--------------
¹ One cannot rule out the possibility that some of the comments are from non-Christians, designed to make Christians look bad—but at the same time we must admit the likelihood that most of the comments do indeed come from professing Christians. We are good at making ourselves look bad.

² I mean that in a sincerely complimentary fashion. No Dispatches commenter is as noted as Michael Heath for a sustained record of well-reasoned responses.

I am Richard Carrier. I have demonstrated this. I have refuted that.

It boggles the mind when people claim, definitively, that they have refuted the bible. If they were to say: Here is a serious problem for those who affirm biblical inerrancy--well that would be one thing. But to claim to have demonstrated error--not just to have made a decent case for error--well that takes an especially small mind.

Such a mind is that of Richard Carrier.

Here he has a post concerned with a well-known problem, the mention Luke makes of a census:

¹ In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. ² This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. (Luke 2:1-2)

The problem being that this reference to Quirinius is anachronistic; the census when Quirinius was governor is known to have taken place in 6AD. There are various suggestions about solutions to this problem--frankly none very satisfying, but the problem, as I say, is well-known. It is not a "gotcha."

If you read Carrier's post you will see he characterizes this problem as "Matthew versus Luke." That is, he says Matthew places Jesus' birth at ~4BC and Luke around 6AD. That would indeed be a problem if it could be demonstrated.

That is where my exchange with Carrier begins. My first comment was:

You really are a dishonest piece of work. Or else just plain dumb.

Yes, convenient of you to couch the problem this way:

Haha! Matthew says one thing; OMG, Luke says something entirely different!

When in fact, Luke says exactly the same thing as Matthew. In Matthew we read:

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king (Matt 2:1)

Luke write[s], in agreement with Matthew,

In the days of Herod, king of Judea (Luke 1:5)

Luke also writes, as you [Carrier] point out:

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria (Luke 2:1-2)

And furthermore Luke also refers to the despised ca. 6AD census:

After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered. (Acts 5:37)

Just in case this is too complicated for you, let me summarize. An honest person would not pit Matthew v. Luke. An honest person would have at least pointed out that Luke wrote:

1) The birth of Jesus was during the reign of Herod (consistent with Matthew.)
2) Luke also talks about the census of ~6AD in Acts.
3) Luke mysteriously talks about a census at the time of Christ’s birth

Why would an honest person do that? Because all the information from Luke paints a more complicated picture. Luke, like Matthew, had Jesus born in the time of Herod. Luke also mentions the hated ~6AD census. But Luke also puts a census at Jesus’ birth. Perhaps Luke is completely nuts and he refers to the same census twice—once placing it at its correct time and once placing it ~14 years earlier. Or maybe he was referring to two different events, at least in his mind. Who knows? It is still a problem, for which no satisfying solution is known, but it is not the trivial “Matthew says one thing Luke says another” problem that you stupidly portray. It is more nuanced than you explained. Or perhaps can handle.

Then you also (I can hardly believe it but why should I be surprised?) invoke the tiresome canard of playing “gotcha” with Christians with this problem of the early census and leaving them dumfounded. Why atheists, especially of the pseudo-intellectually variety, fantasize that they surprise us with their awesome biblical knowledge, is a great mystery. This problem is in the notes of any study bible of the kind most Christians own. It is discussed in Sunday schools and mentioned in sermons whenever these passages are discussed. We know the problem. You are not surprising us. Get over yourself.

Carrier responded with:

Heddle: Your argument makes no logical sense. Luke mentions the same census twice; how do you get out of that that he meant two different censuses? Luke doesn’t say Jesus was born under Herod the king, but that John the Baptist was. And Herod the Great was not the only king named Herod. Judea was ruled after Herod the Great’s death by Herod Archelaus, whom even Josephus designates a king. Luke does not tell us which Herod John the Baptist was born under. In fact, as he never mentions this Herod dying and being replaced by another before Quirinius arrives (whereas Matthew does), we should assume Luke means Archelaus. Luke also contradicts Matthew on numerous other points: e.g. the family of Jesus never goes to Egypt and even goes to Jerusalem every year in Luke; but they flee to Egypt and then never go to Judea at all until decades later in Matthew; Jesus’ family comes from Nazareth in Luke, but does not come from Nazareth in Matthew, they only settle there years later; etc. If we saw this in any other pair of histories, we would conclude they are contradicting each other and that one of them is surely wrong (if not both). But the contradiction as to the date is worst of all, because Luke places the birth in the 6 A.D. census, and Matthew places it before the 4 B.C. death of Herod the Great. Every attempt to argue Luke meant a different census is based on ludicrous arguments and embarrassingly incompetent historical claims, as I have extensively proved.

If you cannot think of anything new that I haven’t already refuted, please don’t waste people’s time here.

Well alllllrighty then. He has "extensively proved." He has "already refuted."

The debt the world owes to an intellect such as Carrier's--well if it weren't too silly to contemplate, we'd be tempted to thank god for a blessing of such incalculable worth!

And then I commented, which at the time I posted is still in moderation (the real purpose of this post is to preserve my second comment in case it never gets out of moderation) this:

heddle says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.
January 13, 2012 at 10:41 am

Luke mentions the same census twice; how do you get out of that that he meant two different censuses?

I never said that. I said he mentions the census in a way that is a well-known problem, not sprung upon us by the enlightened Richard Carrier. I did not offer any solution to that problem, because I don’t have one. You are being dishonest again, claiming that I offered a discredited solution, when in fact the gist of my post was that you, with malice aforethought or plain ignorance, mischaracterized the situation as a trivial Matthew v. Luke problem.

Luke doesn’t say Jesus was born under Herod the king, but that John the Baptist was.

Oh my gosh. In Luke 1:39 Luke places Jesus in Mary’s womb at the same time John is in Elizabeth’s womb. So if John was born in Herod’s time, so was Jesus. Can you not put two and two together?

Luke doesn’t say Jesus was born under Herod the king, but that John the Baptist was. And Herod the Great was not the only king named Herod. Judea was ruled after Herod the Great’s death by Herod Archelaus, whom even Josephus designates a king. Luke does not tell us which Herod John the Baptist was born under.

Well if is not even Herod the great, then why did you make the feeble argument that Luke doesn’t say Jesus was born under Herod, but only that John was? That makes that point not just dumb (which it is, since they were born within months of one another) but also irrelevant.

But really, are you out of your mind? In v3:1 Luke mentions, at the time John the Baptist is about to start his adult ministry,

Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis

Here Luke demonstrates the practice that when Herod is not “the” Herod, one must give specifics. Yet you claim Luke referred to Archelaus simply as “King Herod”—even though he was never awarded that title—without distinguishing him from Herod the Great. But why would he not refer to Herod Antipas simply as King Herod, especially when, given the other references, such as to Pilate, there is no chance of confusion? Why the specificity for one and not the other. Why the incorrect title, causing more confusion due to the temporal proximity of their reigns? That is your argument? Seriously?

So let me recap your “argument.”

1) Luke doesn’t claim that Jesus was born under Herod, but only that John the Baptist was—and we’ll ignore the fact that he also claims that they were in the womb at the same time.

2) But that doesn’t matter anyway, because Plain “King Herod” in Luke 1 actually means Herod Archelaus. Who was never officially king.

Is that a fair representation?

But the contradiction as to the date is worst of all, because Luke places the birth in the 6 A.D. census,

No he doesn’t, you are full of crap. He places it at the same time. Because your argument that “King Herod” in Luke 1:5 is Archelaus cannot be supported. A fair criticism, which you seem to be incapable of making, is that Luke also, inexplicably, refers to a census at the time of Jesus’ birth. But your claim that he places Jesus’ birth at 6 AD is asinine.

If you cannot think of anything new that I haven’t already refuted, please don’t waste people’s time here.

You haven’t refuted anything, except in your own mind.

Bad to Worse

Incredibly, the quality of criticism from new atheists seems to have deteriorated.

First there is Richard Carrier who, if his let-me-talk-about-myself-in-the-third-person blog purports to demonstrate “quite conclusively” mathematically sound results pertaining, negatively, to god’s existence. He does not tell you (at least on his blog) what his assumptions are, their validity, or that he is doing nothing more than using those assumptions in a simple theorem accompanied by seventh-grade Algebra-1 manipulations.

And then, also under the freethoughtblogs domain, there is the much heralded and apparently famous (although I had never heard of him, but I lead a sheltered life) John Loftus, whose cv trumpets the exceptional qualification that he studied under the rather regrettable apologist William Lane Craig. Loftus’s blog is titled Debunking Christianity. At least that sounds interesting. And a much better name than “Richard Carrier Blogs” for the blog on which, well, Richard Carrier blogs. (Which reminds me of those NASCAR segues: we are happy to bring you the Coca Cola 600, proudly sponsored by Coca Cola.)

Debunking Christianity. Famous debunker. Studied under William Lane Craig. What could go wrong?

Let’s begin with a recent post. Top Seven Ways Christianity is Debunked by the sciences.

1. Philology (scientific textual criticism.) As Loftus points out, philology "proved" (more accurately: in conjunction with other supporting evidence demonstrated with high confidence--but Loftus, as we'll see, habitually oversells) that the Donation of Constantine was forged. Loftus fails to mention what the hell that has to do with Christianity (as opposed to ecclesiastical history and shenanigans.) Answer: nothing. Nothing debunked here. He also alludes that the same (imprecise) science might have something to say about books in the canon. He’s right, it might—and as Christians we embrace these studies given that the original autographs are lost. We, more than anyone, have a stake in learning about possible additions and redactions. But Loftus gives the absolutely false impression that these studies are conclusive—when they are merely suggestive. Also he does not address how Christianity would be “debunked” if, say, in his dream of dreams, 2 Peter was shown to be a forgery. How would that effect Christian theology? Answer: In no significant way. Christian theology is the gospel. The gospel is presented in a redundant and fault-tolerant manner. You would have to more or less destroy the entire bible. But Loftus preens at the end: That’s science, baby, kick against the goads all you want to. As a quibble, it is not actually science, it is a science based approach. And Loftus again oversold what it has taught us as “debunking” Christianity. The only thing apparent here is his commitment to false braggadocio.
   
2. The Copernican astronomical revolution as defended later by Galileo showed us that we do not live in a geocentric universe. Never did. The Biblical viewpoint, supposedly coming from a divine mind, did not understand this basic fact. Sigh. Now we know we are dealing with a lightweight, because only a lightweight would repeat such a tiresome canard. The bible does not teach geocentricism—there is not one verse in the bible that does—not one verse that is not similar to current figures of speech (The sun rose and moved across the sky) that also do not teach geocentricism. The fact that, prior to the advent of modern science, many believed in geocentricism is irrelevant—they were wrong.
   
3. Evolution/biology. Perhaps his strongest point, and the only one of the seven that is at least causing a great deal of concern among Christians. As he points out, however, some Christians are adopting a theistic evolution viewpoint and others are at least accepting that viewpoint as withing the pale of orthodoxy. Of course even here he can't resist, and once again screws up badly, writing: But with evolution we no longer need a creator, for there is nothing left to explain by means of the supernatural hypothesis. It is perhaps true that ultimately there will be nothing left to explain, only time will tell. But in the real world there is a little matter of abiogenesis.
   
4. Archaeology. Loftus: "Archeologists have discovered several ancient Mesopotamian texts that predate the ones in the Bible and tell similar superstitious stories of the origins of the universe." Yeah, so what? Is there a verse in the bible that states: this is the first time this was written down! There is not. If there was a catastrophic Mesopotamian flood, then there is nothing in the bible that states: by divine fiat this was never passed by word of mouth, distorted, and written down prior to the inspired biblical writer. Another Loftus misspeak: "It has also shown us there was no Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt." Gosh Loftus if you had any integrity you would write it in a accurate manner that is troublesome for Christians: There is little (and no undisputed) documentation indicating the presence Hebrew slaves in Egypt, and little or no archeological evidence of a massive exodus. Instead you, once again, take the low-brow approach of exaggeration—that "Archaeology has shown there was no Exodus." Proving a negative John, proving a negative.
   
5. What has that great science Psychology taught us? Loftus reports! "Psychology shows us there can be no wrathful God who will punish us forever because of what we believe." I missed that issue of Science where the data were published.
   
6. Anthropology has shown us from the fact that there are many different cultures around the globe and with it a great deal of religious diversity. I’m stunned. I don’t know how to reply. Clearly Christianity, which teaches that there are but a few cultures and little religious diversity has be refuted.Totally.
   
7. Loftus: A) Neurology shows us there is an extremely close relationship between our beliefs and neuron firings, which can be drug induced, or even surgically removed. B) There is therefore no need for the supernatural explanation of the soul. Yes John it is crystal clear that A→B.
   

I hate this feeling of being debunked. I feel all violated. Loftus, however, helps us forget feeling dirty by topping this travesty with another post that is mind-numbingly stupid. I mean, it is way beyond the pale.

Scientists to Theologians: Put Up Or Shut Up!

Christian theists love to point out the limits of science, and it does have some. But to focus on them to the exclusion of the massive amount of information we have acquired from science is being extremely ungrateful for what it has achieved. To me that is one aspect of the denigration of science. The limits of science are based in 1) the limits of human imagination, and 2) the limits of that which we can detect. That which is undetectable does not fall within the realm of science, although, with further advances in our scientific instruments we can detect things that were previously thought undetectable. If science does reach its limits in the future, there won’t be any cause for theistic celebration because scientists may not know they have reached its limits, and because there are probably some things they might never know. Why should that conclusion, if they reach it, be preferred to an evolving God concept in a sea of god-concepts without any means to settle which one is to be preferred as the best explanation of the same data? What is the theistic alternative method for squeezing the truth out of the universe? What is it? Until theists can propose a better method than science to learn about the universe, they should just shut up!

First I’ll point out that the title is a lie. It promises examples of scientists telling theologians to put up or shut up. It gives no such examples. The phrase “Scientists to Theologians” in the title should, if truth means anything to the writer, be replaced with “Me, John Loftus, non-scientist, to Theologians:”

That aside, the post is incoherent. It lacks the charm of a mushroom-induced hallucination and/or the redeeming naiveté of a all-night freshmen bull session. It’s just bad. Awful. Sentences strung together. Misunderstandings about science. Non sequiturs about theology. No theme. No connections. Garbage. One of the worst essays I have ever read about science and religion. Ever. Including posts written by fanatical YECs.

John, you don’t know what science is. Science is an agnostic methodology. Nothing more, nothing less. It is a very successful agreement on the rules for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating data, rules that serve as checks and balances against bias. It actually has no limits—because it is a process. Its success may come in fits and starts but it can be done indefinitely. Theology is not in competition with science. Christian theology does not argue that it can teach you all about quarks. Christian theology readily defers such questions to science.

I see why such thoughts as Loftus's are "free." Carrier and Loftus are among your best and brightest? Sucks to be you.

Richard Carrier: Worthy winner of the Jerry Coyne Lidless Eye Award

Richard Carrier wins the coveted Jerry Coyne Lidless Eye Award which, as you may know, was created to celebrate and recognize exceptional stupidity in writing about the intersection of religion and science.

Richard, you see, has, um, --well it is best to use his own words:

"In fact, I show how the fine tuning of the physical constants actually proves God doesn’t exist. Quite conclusively in fact."

Quite conclusively? Really?

This is of course complete nonsense, which I pointed out on his blog. He has threatened to treat my comments as spam because I haven't actually read his chapter in some book that contains this "proof." I have read other such proofs, such as from Ikeda and Jefferys. I know exactly how they work.

I wonder if Carrier agrees with many of his FTB colleagues who argue that it is OK for Dawkins to criticize absurd theological arguments without actually studying them? Because I am using the same argument against him--I don't have to read his chapter to recognize it as utter nonsense. Can you say "Courtier's Reply?"

Now one can argue that under the assumptions of fine-tuning (the habitability of the universe is sensitive to the constants) and a low probability of the constants (something which nobody actually knows--but you can assume it for the sake of an argument) that multiverse explanations are more plausible, from an Occam's Razor sense, than supernatural design. But even then neither Carrier nor anyone else can prove "quite conclusively" that God doesn't exist. Total Kool-Aid. And he doesn't need Bayes' theorem--which if you don't know is a simple theorem in probability that freshmen learn--but like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is disgustingly abused in the hands of the intellectually challenged/dishonest and the mathematically illiterate.

In this kind of argument, Bayes' Theorem--which is incredibly powerful when used properly--is merely obfuscatory, in a Sokal-like sense.

So... let's image an incredibly fine-tuned universe:

1. This universe has only one physical constant, C.

2. The universe is only habitable if C is within its measured value by one part in 10²³.

3. The laws of this universe predict the value of C.

Now here is an extremely fine-tuned universe! I challenge Carrier to prove that such a universe precludes the existence of a god.

If you believe he can, there may be a lidless eye award in your future!

Spew the Woo

Nobody can spew the woo like secularists/rationalists/materialists trying to explain free will. Behold (via wikipedia) the woo-master himself, the old fraud Daniel Dennett:

The model of decision making I am proposing has the following feature: when we are faced with an important decision, a consideration-generator whose output is to some degree undetermined produces a series of considerations, some of which may of course be immediately rejected as irrelevant by the agent (consciously or unconsciously). Those considerations that are selected by the agent as having a more than negligible bearing on the decision then figure in a reasoning process, and if the agent is in the main reasonable, those considerations ultimately serve as predictors and explicators of the agent's final decision.

No theologian would dare write such nonsense. On a smaller scale, consider this new-age crapola from freethought blogger Daniel Fincke:

Further, I do not believe in an undetermined free will. I do think we have a will that makes genuine choices as expressive of who we are, but who we are is still ultimately determined by physical, chemical, biological, and psychological laws (and social determinants) in ways that make it ultimately impossible that we might have done otherwise than we chose to do. I just think that since we are these beings who are determined in these ways, what we do is a genuine expression of us.

Of course, not all atheists vomit up woo to explain the inexplicable. Some are quite honest. One well-known example is Cornell biologist William Provine who writes:

Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly.
1) No gods worth having exist;
2) no life after death exists;
3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists;
4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and
5) human free will is nonexistent.

Provine is quite right. The problem for the atheist crowd always has been and always will be that there is no physical mechanism for free will. In terms of quantum mechanics, the wavefunction of the universe at time t, which tells us all there is to know about the universe, is determined by the wavefunction at t = 0 and the Hamiltonian (Energy) operator H.

Ψ(t) = e^-iHtΨ(0)

Free will demands that by some thought process (evaluating and choosing) you can affect Ψ(t) by altering the Hamiltonian. Ψ(t) ends up different than it would have if you hadn't made that choice. But the only way that can happen within the laws of physics is if your choice was already built into the Hamiltonian of the universe. But if so it wasn't a choice at all.

The only way that free will is possible is for something to affect the system from the outside. By altering the Hamiltonian through an intervention. There is a term for that: supernatural.

Provine understands this. Woo-masters like Dennett do not, or they do and they choose to lie about it. So they obfuscate due to ignorance or malice aforethought by penning impenetrable gobbledegook about "consideration-generators" and the like.

That is the only choice they have, short of being honest like Provine. Because nothing, ever, can rescue them. Ever. No philosophical solution, no matter how jargonized and obscure, can obviate the need for a physical mechanism which the laws of physics don't allow. You cannot, through mental processes, change the Hamiltonian in situ. It is what it is. It is, in fact, determining your mental processes, not vice versa.

The religious agree with Provine. The natural world cannot accommodate free will. Only the supernatural world can. Provine rejects that solution, we accept it, but we agree that it takes an intervention from outside to redirect the time evolution of the universe—which is precisely what free will represents.

It's only a harmless bunny!

The unbearable mind of the "truly intelligent." If Pharyngula didn't exist, you'd have to.. well, you know.

So here PZ posts a comic designed to show how stupid the religious are. Alas, poor PZ, who's been slipping of late, did not properly vet the cartoon. He should have run it by Greta or Ophelia or one of the few other souls enlightened enough to examine anything, anything at all, for blatant, latent, or vestigial sexism. You see, the cartoon has two bunnies. The smart, rational bunny is a boy. (Danger Will Robinson, danger!) The dumb, religious bunny is a girl. Uh-oh. You don't have to be Fellini to figure that one out!

Predictably, the monster PZ has created reared its ugly head—no longer in the control of its maker. PZ enabled an atmosphere on his blog wherein Richard Dawkins becomes a "sexist pig" for using man and female in the same sentence. PZ nurtured and encouraged this hideous insanity, one that painted even mildly non-conformists as gender-traitors (if they were women) and rape-enablers (if they were men.)

So much so that now on Pharyngula a comment from a man often comes with a preemptive strike. The supplicant first acknowledges and apologizes for his unspeakable male privilege, doubly so if he is white, triply so if heterosexual. He announces, like a good re-educant, that he has learned a lot from the gurus and their moderated-by-intimidation discussions. He is, oh joy, much more sensitive to his own cluelessness. While he will still make mistakes (he is, after all, still a man--his bad) he stands ready to be corrected by the thought police. After all that self-flagellation he is tentatively and humbly prepared to offer a comment—but he'll "keep his finger on it" like kids do to a valuable piece when playing chess. If he gets the slightest whiff that it was a bad move, if he has disturbed the web and the spider is heading toward him ready to devour, he can still withdraw. Mulligan!

Poor PZ. You can almost feel sorry for him. He had this great cartoon bashing the religious as bumpkins (how original!) and instead of basking in its reflected glory he finds himself—PZ of all people!—at the heart of yet another sexism pogrom. On his blog! With PZ himself, P freakin’ Z, partially to blame for not seeing the evilness of this cartoon! Unthinkable!

So PZ starts a new thread, saying a bunny is sometimes just a bunny and that you can't judge from a sample size of one. This in spite of the fact that PZ has turned judging from a sample size of one into something of an art form.

Of course, trying to maintain his feminista street creds while at the same time refusing to acknowledge his error is not easy, and it is not surprising that PZ becomes relatively incoherent. The "Yes, but..." defense will eventually wear anyone out. So he writes mystical woo like:

Equality does not mean that the smart bunny in the dialog will always be the one in the dress.
It does mean that the bunny in the dress isn’t always the dumb one.
There is a difference between those two sentences, you know.

Oh, PZ, surely you know that's not good enough! (And it isn't, read the comments.)

The über-rational. They sure know how to throw a party.

What would you choose?

If you could have one vexing biblical verse or passage explained and clarified, which would it be?

I would choose James' passage on the effectiveness of prayer:

¹³ Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. ¹⁴ Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵ And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. ¹⁶ Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. (James 5:13-16) 

I have heard and read many discussions of this passage from admired pastors and respected theologians. None of them satisfy. The plain reading of the text is that prayer can make the sick well. This is, quite frankly, neither demonstrable or logical. Not demonstrable because we pray for sick people all the time--and they sometimes recover and sometimes not, at normal rates. Not logical because it is our destiny to have our three score and ten and then, to first order, get sick and die.

No, I wouldn't choose having creation, or the end-times, or infant vs. believer's baptism, or the problem of evil, or anything else-- given one opportunity to have my eyes opened on one item--I would use it on the question of prayer. This passage in James bothers me so much I confess I sometimes wonder if James is really canonical. I will continue to go on the assumption it is, given I know that for the most part I'm an idiot. But I will probably never understand its straightforward teaching on the tangible effectiveness of prayer.