Month: July 2016

Jewish / Judaism : A Jew Never Had to Keep 613 Commandments

It is true; Jews as individuals, never had to keep 613 commandments. Please do not make the mistake of asking a Jewish person if they keep the 613 commandments. But were there not 613 commandment for the Jews to keep? Yes however, some of the 613 were just for priests, some just for kings, some just for certain tribes, some just for men and others just for women.

A better question is “Do you keep the Ten Commandments? And when you do not, how do you atone for your sin?” The answer might be that atonement is made through prayer and good works. Judaism has, to a large extent, become a works based salvation religion.

Indeed, the Talmud-Sanhedrin 97b has Rabbi Rabh stating,

All the predestined dates for redemption (the coming of Messiah) have passed and the matter now depends only on the repentance and good deeds.1

However, the Bible states:

“The righteousness of the righteous man shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression; as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall because of it in the day he turns from his wickedness; nor shall the righteous be able to live because of his righteousness in the day that he sins.” When I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, but he trusts in his own righteousness and commits iniquity, none of his righteous works shall be remembered_ (Ezekiel 33:12).

Also,

All of us are like someone unclean, all our righteous deeds are like menstrual rags; we wither, all of us, like leaves; and our misdeeds blow us away like the wind (Isaiah 64:6).

jewishjudaismmessianicjudaismmessiahjesustorahtanakhbibletencommandmentsgod27stencommandments-8728445A common Jewish teaching is that the whole law can be, and has been, reduced to one single commandment which is living by faith. The Talmud-Makkot 24a states:

After Moses, David came and reduced the six hundred thirteen commandments to eleven, as it is written: “Lord, who shall sojourn in Your tabernacle? Who shall dwell on Your holy mountain? He who walks blamelessly, and does what is right, and speaks truth in his heart, who does not slander with his tongue, and does no evil to his friend, nor takes up a reproach against his neighbor, in whose eyes a reprobate is despised, but honors those who fear the Lord, who swears to his own hurt and does not change, who does not put out his money at interest, and does not take a bribe against the innocent” [Ps. 15:1-5].

Then Isaiah came and reduced the commandments to six, as it is written, “He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, he who despises the gain of oppression, who shakes his hands lest he hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed, and shuts his eyes from looking upon evil” [Isa. 33:15]_

Then Micah came and reduced them to three, as it is written, “It has been told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: To do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God” [Mic. 6:8]_

Then Isaiah came again and reduced to two. “Thus says the Lord: Keep justice and do righteousness” [Isa. 56:1].

Amos came and reduced them to one, as it is written, “Thus says the Lord to the house of Israel: Seek Me and live” [Amos 5:4]_

Habakkuk came and also reduced them to one, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith” [Hab. 2:4].

Keep in mind that this comes from the Talmud which orthodox Judaism considers as authoritative as the written Word of God: the Old Testament-the Tanakh.

The New Testament comes to the same conclusion:

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith” (Romans 1:16-17).

Talmud-Shabbath 31a,

What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbour(1) that is the whole Torah, while the rest is the commentary thereof.

Footnote: (1) “The golden rule; cf. Lev. XIX, 18: but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself_“

Under the new covenant we are taught exactly the same thing:

Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:35-40).

See my essay Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan’s Anti-Missionary Assertions for an unfortunate example of how Christianity is criticized due to this text.

jewishjudaismmessianicjudaismmessiahjesustorahtanakhbibletencommandmentsgod27stencommandments-8366658

A likewise situation occurred:

Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the first commandment of all?” Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
So the scribe said to Him, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but He. And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices” (Mark 12:28-33).

Under the new covenant we are taught that we are not to let ourselves be judged according to the old covenant because we recognize that the old covenant rituals were symbolic of the Messiah and now that he has come those things have been fulfilled.

Don’t let anyone pass judgement on you in connection with eating and drinking, or in regard to holiday, or Rosh-Hodesh or Shabbat. These are a shadow of things that are coming, but the body is of the Messiah [or, but the substance belongs to the Messiah]” (Colossians 2:16-17).

Under the new covenant we are also taught not to use freedom from the old covenant as an excuse to live sinful lives,

For, brothers, you were called to be free (or, to liberty). Only do not let that freedom (or, liberty) become an excuse for allowing your old nature to have its way. Instead, serve one another in love (Galatians 5:13).

Under the new covenant we are not bound to keep the ritualistic aspects of the old covenant however, we are to keep the moral aspects. We keep the commandments that deal with morality and a proper reverence for God but do not necessarily keep the seventh day Sabbath (Friday sundown to Saturday sundown) as discussed above in the quote from Colossians 2:16-17, although we do keep a Sabbath day. Also, as quoted above, from the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmud, both Jewish and Gentile Christians are keeping the major principle of the Torah. Yet, salvation is by grace and not by works: this, we must ponder.

Jewish group Chabad on the Nephilim

Yehuda Shurpin, of the Jewish group Chabad, wrote an interesting article titled, Nephilim: Fallen Angels, Giants or Men? The mystery of Genesis 6:1-4.

After a short intro and quoting the relevant Genesis text, he notes:

One thing benei elokim [aka elohim] does not mean is “sons of G d.” In fact, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai would “curse” anyone who translated the term benei elokim as the “sons of G d”…Nephilim seems to be derived from the verb-root naphal, meaning “fall.”

A footnote at this point cites the rabbi’s statement to Midrash Genesis Rabbah 26:5. Yehuda Shurpin notes that the rabbis claimed that “benei elokim means judges. However, his cursing those who translate it as ‘sons of G d’ is not meant in reference to the opinion that they are angels, for (a) this opinion is found in many places in the works of the sages, including the Talmud, so it does not seem probable that he would curse those who hold so widely accepted an opinion (see footnote 5 [which simply reads, “Psalms 8:5”]); (b) the Zohar [see my Zohar on the nephilim] (1:37a) quotes this explanation without any negative comments.”

genesis206-1546203

Shurpin continues thusly:

The word elokim in Scripture, while generally referring to G d, is in essence merely an expression of authority. Similarly, the term benei does not necessarily mean “sons,” but is often just a title. Benei chorin, for example, means those who are free—not “sons of freedom.”

Indeed, elokim does not “mean ‘God’” as some may think and as for benei “not necessarily mean ‘sons,’” indeed, the Angelic view of Genesis 6 is that it is “just a title” as in the metaphorical example of “sons of freedom” since the claim is not that God somehow birthed the Angels but that they are titularly, metaphorically, his “sons” as they are a direct creation of God.

It is noted that the view that “the generation of the Flood went astray” in general is related in the Babylonian Talmud (aka Talmud Bavli) Yoma 67b, in Targum Yonatan (aka Johnathan) ben Uziel to Genesis 6:4, in Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer 22, in Zohar 1:37a, and Yalkut Shimoni, Bereishith, remez 44. Thus, the issue is details: who are the sons of God, daughters of men, Nephilim and Gibborim?

Shurpin relates that within the relevant Midrash two angels are named: Shamchazai and Azael which the Talmud’s Yoma 67b counts as being three Shamhazzai (same as the Midrash but with a different transliteration), Uzza and Uzziel (perhaps a variation of Azael which is aka Azazel).
It is related that they complain to God with words related to Psalms 8:4-5, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour” (which Hebrews 2:7 applies to Jesus).

To make a long, folkloric, story short: the Angels are dispatched to Earth and end up falling for human women thus the Genesis 6 affair. See Louis Ginzberg’s The Legends of the Jews on the Nephilim and Islam’s magickian fallen angels Harut and Marut.

Yehuda Shurpin then makes a sadly typical statement of sorts to the effect of that which is a “fact…in Judaism” which is that “there is no such thing as fallen angels or conflict in heaven…Even ‘Satan’ is merely the name of an angel whose divinely assigned task is to tempt people to sin.”

There is some accuracy to this (see the book of Job for example) yet, to authoritatively assert that which is a “fact…in Judaism” is just that; an authoritatively assertion. Think, for example, even just the difference between the Bible’s Judaism versus Rabbinic Judaism. The Bible’s Judaism has a priesthood while Rabbinic Judaism has a rabbinate. As per the Bible (see Numbers if nothing else) a Jew is one born to a Jewish father yet, as per Rabbinic Judaism a Jew is one born to a Jewish mother. Another immediately relevant example is that to back his claim about Satan, Shurpin does not cite the Bible but cites “Talmud, Bava Batra 16a.” As per Ezekiel 28:14, Satan is a Cherub and not an Angel.

The Bible claims that God is sovereign over all and Satan is certainly no match whatsoever; only in his twisted delusion could he consider himself to be a match. The being in question is known by many titled, two of which are Satan which means adversary and Devil which means accuser: he is an adversary and accuser of humanity (for example, see Zechariah 3:1 and Revelation 12:10 for examples).

Shurpin notes

Based on a more literal translation of benei elokim, many explain that the term is simply referring to princes, noblemen or judges who abused their power, raping anyone they fancied, and forcing any women who got married to have relations with them first.

A footnote dichotomizes sons of God and Angels plus giants as on the view proposed “benei elokim is understood to refer to princes, noblemen and judges, the term nephilim may very well still be referring to angels and giants” and I would elucidate that the sons of God are Angels and the Nephilim are their giant offspring.
Now, that the sons of God “abused their power” is accurate regardless of the view but that they went about “raping anyone they fancied, and forcing any women who got married to have relations with them first” is certainly not biblical. On this point, the Bible simply relates that “they took them wives of all which they chose” and there is no reason to think that this means anything more than that they chose a woman of their fancy and married her.

“Signature in the Cell,” “Signature of Controversy” and the Signature of Pseudo-Scientific Sloth, part 3

Steve Matheson wrote a “review”:

mixing frequent personal attacks on Meyer with exposes of occasional typos and the possible discovery of one minor error….
Matheson is noteworthy because he at least gives every indication that he’s reading Signature in the Cell before attacking its author. It would have been preferable for Matheson to have read the book entirely before rendering judgment. But when it comes to many other critics of Signature in the Cell on the internet, this is progress…
Unfortunately, Matheson feels it necessary not just to critique SITC but to smear it as “not a serious work of scholarship,” not “serious science,” “awfully bloated,” potentially “a joke,” “disingenuous,” “sad,” “pathetic,” and “fluffy and vacuous, simplistic at best and not infrequently wrong or misleading.”
In case you didn’t get the point, Matheson accuses Meyer of “some combination of ignorance, sloth, and duplicity,” using tactics that require “layers of dishonesty” that is “sufficient to justify a charge of deliberate dishonesty.”

Matheson also noted that it was “pathetic” that he was “disgusted” and that it was “embarrassing” yet:

Like a judge who issues a verdict after only reviewing half the evidence, Matheson is prematurely accusing Meyer of misrepresenting origin of life thinking. What’s ironic is that by accusing Meyer of creating a straw man and ignoring SITC’s much more comprehensive argument, it’s Matheson who is promoting the straw man. Is this really the best critique possible from someone who is actually reading SITC?

Mathematician and software engineer Mark Chu-Carroll,

called Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell “a rehash of the same old s—t,” even though he admitted, “I have not read any part of Meyer’s book.” Chu-Carroll further decried the “dishonesty” of Meyer, whom he called a “bozo” for merely claiming that DNA contains “digital code” that functions like a “computer.”

Well, Mark Chu-Carroll is quite right in that DNA does not function like a computer. Rather, computers function like DNA—albeit on a much, much, much more primitive level.
This section of Signature of Controversy goes on to provide evidence of the ubiquity of references in the literature to correlations between software and genetics. Mike Gene also provides ample evidence of this in his book, The Design Matrix: A Consilience of Clues (find it here).

Note also that it has since come out that Steve Matheson agrees that “design is an excellent and irrefutable explanation” but rejects it on philosophical grounds such as the faith in a future hope of finding a materialistic explanation (see Robert Crowther, Which Steve said “design is an excellent and irrefutable explanation”?).

dna2c20intelligent20design2c20steven20meyer2c20signature20in20the20cell2c20true20freethinker2c-jpg-2147083

Much like Steve Matherson, Darrell Falk has a prior commitment to materialism:

for Professor [Darrell] Falk, drawing any negative conclusions about the adequacy of purely undirected chemical processes or —worse—making an inference to intelligent design, is inherently premature. Indeed, for him such thinking constitutes giving up on science or making “an argument from ignorance.” But this betrays a misunderstanding of both science and the basis of the design argument that I am making.

Darrell Falk has a,

commitment to finding a solution to the origin of life problem within a strictly materialistic framework…[he and his colleagues] accept the principle of methodological naturalism, the idea that scientists, to be scientists, must limit themselves to positing only materialistic explanations for all phenomena. Of course, it is their right to accept this intellectual limitation on theorizing if they wish. But it needs to be noted that the principle of methodological naturalism is an arbitrary philosophical assumption, not a principle that can be established or justified by scientific observation itself.

But does Steven Meyer presuppose that a materialistic explanation will never be found?:

The public rebuttals of Signature in the Cell may be inadequate, but does this mean that materialists will never explain the origin of information in the cell? Not at all. In scientific debates, one must always remain open to future discoveries. But the showing thus far does mean that intelligent design deserves serious scientific consideration—not abrasive quips, dismissals, and refusals to engage Meyer’s arguments…
many reviewers unashamedly boasted of not having read the book (or wrote rebuttals so far askew from Meyer’s argument that one could not help but question whether they had).

Referencing books/movies such as Carl Sagan’s (find info on Sagan here and here) Contact with reference to detecting information:

we would quickly lose interest in the plot if, say, in every scene where a scientist appeared before an important governmental group and said, “The outer space signal contains over sixty thousand, multidimensional pages of complex architectural plans,” she were countered with, “This is exactly the predicted outcome of billions of years of cosmic evolution—you see, random interstellar events lead to just this kind of complex specified information…we are not impressed.” We would want our money back.

Reviews written by an anonymous blogger who goes by the pseudonym “RJS.”

I’m guessing that RJS is a scientist, or is in a sensitive academic position, and doesn’t want to risk banishment for saying reasonable things about an ID argument. If so, that tells us something of the social pressures against writing publicly about this issue.

This is actually a good point as was elucidate in the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, by Philip S. Skell (member of the National Academy of Sciences and Emeritus Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University) who warns students that if they have doubts about the ruling biological orthodox-Darwinism they should keep their concerns to themselves for, the very real, fear of being blacklisted and risking their grades and or careers. And on it goes.

Back to Francisco Ayala, as his objections go from the biological to the theological:

Ayala proclaimed that ID is tantamount to “blasphemy” because it implies that God is responsible for “design defects,” such as tsunamis, back aches, misaligned teeth, and complications encountered during childbirth. Ayala’s argument for Darwinism is almost entirely theological: “people of faith would do better to attribute the mishaps caused by defective genomes to the vagaries of natural selection and other processes of biological evolution, rather than to God’s design.” One could flippantly note that orthodontists and chiropractors may in fact rejoice over such “design defects,” but a serious response to Ayala can be made just as succinctly. Jay Richards did so in Salvo (“Can ID Explain the Origin of Evil?”). “‘Bad designs’ and ‘evil designs’ are still designs; neither of these arguments refutes ID,” he pointed out. “The problem of evil isn’t an argument against ID. An argument for intelligent design is just that. Questions about evil and about the nature of the designer are separate questions.”

Meyer corroborates this point in Signature in the Cell, writing, “Though the designing agent responsible for life may well have been an omnipotent deity, the theory of intelligent design does not claim to be able to determine that.”

Having dealt with likewise issues already I will merely direct the interested reader to the essay Protecting the Science Classroom and here mention that we ought not accept Francisco Ayala’s particular, and peculiar, theology (also see Was “the Problem of Evil” Solved Before it was Ever Proposed?).

dna2c20intelligent20design2c20steven20meyer2c20signature20in20the20cell2c20true20freethinker-8735935

Now, a note about information in and of itself:

[Jeffrey Shallit referred to] “First, its essential dishonesty, and second, Meyer’s significant misunderstandings of information theory.”

Setting aside the gratuitous invective, Shallit’s main objection is that Meyer defines information as “specified complexity,” rather than Shannon information or Kolmogorov complexity, the terms which he elsewhere claims are the “accepted senses of the word as used by information theorists.” Shallit is so opposed to the ideas advocated by ID proponents that he even refuses to use Meyer’s term, “specified complexity,” instead calling it “creationist information.”

But in Signature in the Cell, Meyer spends pages explaining why Shannon information in fact is not a useful measure of functional biological information…

“specified complexity” (also called “complex and specified information,” or CSI) is supported by eminent scientists who are by no means “creationists.”

In a 1973 book cited by Meyer, The Origins of Life: Molecules and Natural Selection , leading origin-of-life theorist Leslie Orgel—a staunch materialist—described “specified complexity” as a hallmark of the information in living organisms:

[L]iving organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals are usually taken as the prototypes of simple, well-specified structures, because they consist of a very large number of identical molecules packed together in a uniform way. Lumps of granite or random mixtures of polymers are examples of structures which are complex but not specified. The crystals fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity; the mixtures of polymers fail to qualify because they lack specificity.

Furthermore:

Shallit asserts, “This is pure gibberish. Information scientists do not speak about ‘specified information’ or ‘functional information.’” Again, Shallit must be unaware that leading scientists have used those very terms while simultaneously arguing that classical information theory is not useful for measuring biological information.

In 2003, Nobel Prize-winning origin-of-life researcher Jack Szostak wrote a review article in Nature lamenting that the problem with “classical information theory” is that it “does not consider the meaning of a message.”

Thus, overall and from beginning to end the supposed erudite elucidators of all things scientific discredit themselves whilst leaving Intelligent Design and Steven Meyer unscathed.

Mark Miravalle on Mariology (or is it, Maryolarty?), part 5

Next comes a section—New Testament Outline of the Mediatrix (Lk 1:38; Lk 1:41; Jn 2:1)—with various subsection which I will consider succinctly.
Here is the intro to the section:

Mary’s role as Mediatrix with the Mediator in distributing the precious gifts of salvation[125] merited on the Cross is a gift given to the “Woman” at Calvary (cf. Jn 19:26). But her role as the Mediatrix of the graces of redemption is outlined and manifested in a gradual way in earlier passages of Sacred Scripture, where the Mother of Jesus acts as Mother and Intercessor in the Gospel mission of her Son, the Mediator of all grace and salvation.

Since we are back to an assertion being concluded by a citation of John 19:26 we will then again ask: what does “When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, ‘Woman, behold your son!’” have to do with “Mary’s role as Mediatrix…given to the ‘Woman’ at Calvary”? Utterly nothing.

Knowing Mark Miravalle’s modis operandi, what he means by “manifested in a gradual way in earlier passages” is that he will embark upon an expedition which consists of pulling a verse here, a half a verse there and tie them together via assertions followed by contextually unrelated citations into a tapestry of that which the Bible never states.

Subsection: “Lk 1:38 – Mediatrix Of Christ: Source of All Graces”

To the angelic invitation of divine motherhood which will provide the world its Mediator, Mary responds, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). As Pope John Paul II explains,
“The first moment of submission to the one mediation ‘between God and man’ – the mediation of Jesus Christ – is the Virgin of Nazareth’s acceptance of motherhood.. ..Mary’s motherhood, completely pervaded by her spousal attitude as ‘handmaid of the Lord,’ constitutes the first and fundamental dimension of that mediation which the Church confesses and proclaims in her regard and ‘continually commends to the hearts of the faithful….'”1

Note that Luke 1:38 is being mis-interpreted as an “angelic invitation of divine motherhood.” This is due to the concept of Mary’s yes which is taken to mean that, as it where, Mary is responsible for our salvation because she is the one who agreed that the savior would be born of her.

Not so! Too much! Too far! How so!

Mark Miravalle writes that Mary “brought into the world the Uncreated Grace from which flows every grace” that Mary was “bringing to the lost world its Saviour” and that Mary “becomes ‘for the whole human race,’ as St. Irenaeus tells us, ‘the cause of our salvation.’”2

Furthermore, more to the point and more pointed still; let us consider the elucidation on this point by Tim Staples. Catholic Answer’s page on Tim Staples describes him as a “Catholic Apologist Extraordinaire!.” Tim Staples is Director of Apologetics and Evangelization for Catholic Answers, he spent “six years in formation for the priesthood, earning a degree in philosophy from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Overbrook, Pennsylvania. He then studied theology on a graduate level at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, for two years.”
During a radio debate with James White on the Bible Answer Man that was aired on July 6-7 and August 14, 2000 AD, Tim Staples stated,

Mary is so crucial because here we see Mary, a little fourteen year old girl, who God comes to and, we believe in essence, asks her permission to save the world.

John Paul II’s statement above is more sober and, at least on one level, more true to the text as he referenced Mary’s “Submission” and “acceptance of motherhood.” Why is this more accurate? Because the angel did not ask Mary anything, did not wait for an answer, did not ask (for God) her permission to save the world. Rather, “the angel said to her…‘you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus…’ Then Mary said to the angel…‘Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.’”
She heard God’s will and accepted it; what a blessed servant of the Lord and what a good example to us all.

In confirmation of my assessment consider the next statements by Mark Miravalle:

We see the beginning of Mary’s unique sharing in the salvific mediation of Christ at the Annunciation, where the free consent of the Virgin to be the Theotokos, the “God-bearer,”3 mediates to the world Jesus Christ, Saviour and Author of all grace.
It is in virtue of Mary’s yes that He who is the source and mediation of all the graces of redemption came to the human family.

Note that he has to traverse almost half a century (to 431 AD) in order to quote from the Council of Ephesus that Mary is the Theotokos/God-bearer (for the she is not God’s mother…yes she is because Jesus is God…but she is not the Trinity’s mother argument, please see Mary in Roman Catholicism, part 7 – Mother of God?).
I will stick to the words of the Bible and refer to Mary as “the mother of my Lord” (Luke 1:43).

New Atheism – Further Evidence of Its Deleterious Effects, part 2 of 2

As stated in part 1, the typical New Atheist fallacies committed by Christopher Hitchens during his debate with Jay Richards are further compounded by the laymen New Atheists as exampled throughout the internet. In this case, I will consider the picture perfect example of a fallacy compounder in the form of Aidan Maconachy (from his article “Christopher Hitchens Debates Creationist Jay Richards“) a DHDH Meme carrier (for Dennett-Harris-Dawkins-Hitchens).

Following on the heels of Christopher Hitchens’ statements which we considered in part 1, he wrote,

Hitchens made the very good point that centuries of “barbarism, misery, ignorance, slavery and early death” hardly leads one to believe in a beneficent designer God.

Obviously, this means that if someone steals your car and runs someone over with it, your car was not designed by a beneficent engineer-right? Nay, rather this solidifies the doctrine of the fall.Aidan Maconachy also notes,

Richards responded by describing God as the “definition of goodness and love”. However his all-loving deity for some reason turned a blind eye to the holocaust and the other epic atrocities that scar human history. His argument from science was equally unconvincing.

Setting aside the emotive references to the Holocaust (which Sam Harris blames on the Jews), et al, I think that he is missing the point: that God is the definition of goodness and love is meant to draw attention to the fact that without God’s standards of goodness and love the most that the atheist could do is claim that they personally disapprove of the Holocaust but since the Nazis disagree with their personal disapproval we are at a stalemate that was only broken when the allied forces survived as the fittest over the Nazis.

atheismandchristopherhitchensandjayrichardsandbenstein-6053921Aidan Maconachy then makes reference to the virgin birth and resurrection question and the “science has nothing to do with his world view” statement and writes,

And that’s the crux of it. How can people like Richards try to enlist science in their quest to ‘prove’ God, when they also believe biblical fairy tales?

Yes, this is the crux of it, if God exists then the Bible is not necessarily filled with, note another emotive term here, “fairy tales.” In fact, it is the very fields and methods of science that were established largely by believers in God that uncovered laws in the universe and the continuity to which they give rise. As far as we know, laws do not proceed forth from arbitrary collocations-from explosions. When continuity is broken, such as when a dead body rises, we can discern the possibility of a miracle. Jay Richards holds that the scientific evidence for a creator leads, eventually perhaps, to a chain of causation which concludes in the Bible’s theology.I actually do not understand how atheists deny any miracles at all. It would be more logical for them to state that for example; Jesus rising from the dead was no act of God but a serendipitous combination of natural laws in an unexpected and or rare chance event.Aidan Maconachy notes that “It makes it appear that they are only using science as a partisan tool, reducing it pretty much to a pseudo-science.” “Ditto,” seems like an appropriate retort since there are atheist-activist-scientists who infer atheism from biology and others who claim that science and atheism are inseparable. Yet, science has nothing to offer atheism (see my essay Omni-Science).Aidan Maconachy wrote that Jay Richards,

described God as “a transcendent, eternal, personal being.” The problem with this glorious picture, is that the God of the bible was in fact more like a mean spirited psychopath, than anything approximating Richards’ description.

Yes, the childish emotive assertions continue. The statement is that since the God of the Bible is like a mean spirited psychopath He cannot be a transcendent, eternal, personal being. This is a non-sequitur. Let us grant the emotive statement and state that God can be like a mean spirited psychopath and also be transcendent, eternal and a personal being (although, maybe not personable). I am forced to wonder if such simple to correct logical fallacies are overlooked due to the amount of time, energy and focus being placed on the adrenaline spiked excitement of the emotionally charged pseudo-arguments.Aidan Maconachy seeks to reinforce his likening of the God of the Bible to a mean spirited psychopath by noting that “The biblical deity described himself as ‘a jealous God.'”Yet, in his eagerness to discredit this God and accredit Christopher Hitchens he overlooks another very basic point: jealousy is bad when it is misplaced but good when it is well placed. In other words, jealousy could be based on petty misunderstandings, etc. but could also be a well founded and an appropriate reaction. God’s jealousy is, by definition, perfect jealousy.Sadly, he further compounds this error by writing that God “routinely called for the slaughter of those he deemed unworthy.” This is just generic enough to be meaningless. Yet, it does function as a self-serving jab: routinely and deemed unworthy are simply generic and unfounded.
christopherhitchensandatheismandatheist-8970859He further states

It wasn’t enough to slaughter the fighting men – the women, children and livestock had to be wiped out also to satisfy his craven lust for vengeance.

If I were an atheist I would not be so bothered about slaughters and lust for vengeance as I would be by my inability to condemn slaughters and lust for vengeance. Note that he does not present any sort of argument against such actions but merely makes an argument from outrage which he appears to expect his readers to accept likewise-due to emotionally driven feelings.
Moreover, he is also pseudo-condemning the past actions of the ancient Middle Easterners whom, on his view if followed logically and biologically, were acting in accord to the less evolved morality of their time. He fails to note that what was routine was these culture’s practice of human, often child, sacrifices to false gods and that the God of the Bible gave them hundreds of years to repent. In effect, these cultures condemned themselves (human sacrifice is discussed here).The last part of Aidan Maconachy’s article is something that a critic of atheist could not make up as it is such a picture perfect as an example of the New Atheist movement’s deleterious effect upon discourse.He writes,

Although Hitchens made a strong showing, he won by default. The glaring flaws and contradictions in Richards’ argument guaranteed it. Attempting to prove “God” verges on silly.

Need any more be said?

Christopher Hitchens won by default because since attempting to prove God verges on silly, Jay Richards was doomed before the debate even began.Of course, these are not real “flaws and contradictions” but are those which an atheist defender of the indefensible New Atheist tactics is forced to concoct. They either concoct these pseudo-flaws and pseudo-contradictions in order to claim theistic failure, due to basic lack of knowledge about what they are attempting to criticize or because they are simply incapable of meeting the arguments on the argument’s own merits.

‹ New Atheism – Further Evidence of Its Deleterious Effects, part 1 of 2 up

Is PZ Myers establishing a church? Behold his new “wonderful revelation,” part 2 of 2

The preacher, PZ Myers, also saith,

You aren’t you because of some grand design, but because of chance, contingency, and selection. Your genome is a mess of detritus with a tiny fraction of well-honed functionality, and your body is cobbled together from the framework of a tetrapod — you bear the scars of chance throughout…

This thoroughly stinks of biology that is outdated by, at least, decades as he seems to be referencing junk DNA, vestigial organs, etc. Yet, as science progresses such pseudo-scientific mythology regresses. We have found that there is no junk DNA (also see Backwardly wired retina “an optimal structure”: New eye discovery further demolishes Dawkins) and that there are no useless vestigial organs (also see Vestigial Organs Are Fully Functional: A History and Evaluation of the Vestigial Organ Origins Concept). PZ Myers is going from preaching about a mythological creature by which we share common decent to concluding that we are accidents of natural laws—it is all one big it just is…it just happened… claim. If you can believe in natural accidents stumbling into life—life from non-life, consciousness from non-consciousness, morality from amorality, etc—then, he appears to hope, you can believe that God does not exist and all based on a dogmatheistic quaint Victorian Era story.

atheism2c20atheist2c20pz20myers2c20true20freethinker-6724296

Now, apparently to his satisfaction, having disproved the Christian worldview—by asking up to accept his assertions by authority—he reveals the new revelation the new and better way: behold, hear yea, thus saith Myers:

This is our new heresy. We have killed our heavenly father, demolished that cozy personal (but imaginary!) relationship with a great and caring being. We are alone, orphans in an indifferent universe. We atheists must be a cold and broken people, without hope, without love. But of course, we’re not, and I think this change in our vision of our relationship to the universe is humankind’s great good hope…
new and better ways to visualize our relationship with the universe. Father and child is inadequate; we have to think in terms of populations and species interacting (not dominating), of being part of an environment… here’s the wonderful revelation. If you’re a well-adjusted person, once you’ve discarded the unhealthy fictitious relationship with a phantasm, you can look around and notice all those other people who are likewise alone, and you’ll realize that we’re all alone together. And that means you aren’t alone at all — you’re among friends… with no gods and no masters, only autonomous agents free to think and act.

Firstly, note again the all encompassing nature of his statement, “This is our new heresy” unless he is using the plural of majesty; which may be another issue altogether.
He proclaims the death of God just as Friedrich Nietzsche did 128 years ago. Let us pray that this time the proclamation that “We have killed our heavenly father” will not be followed by that which followed Nietzsche’s proclamation; the most secular and bloodiest century in human history wherein atheists slaughtered hundreds of millions of people—see my section on Adolf Hitler / Nazism / Communism That he wants species to interact and not dominate is interesting in, at least, two ways: one is how does he suppose we will keep a species such as bacteria, for example, from dominating us without us dominating them? Secondly, he may be playing off of a talking-point about Genesis 1:28 that states, “…fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Yet, the whole issue of oppressing the environment which comes from a misunderstanding of this issue is specifically detailed by Philip Sampson in his book 6 Modern Myths About Christianity and Western Civilization

Now, what is to stop the next most secular and bloodiest century in human history? After all, PZ Myers is preaching a neo-relationship with the universe and the universe is “indifferent” which is why “atheists must be a cold and broken people, without hope, without love.” Well, because he claims that they are not. But why not? Because his wonderful revelation is to foster a relationship with the indifferent universe which expresses itself via “species interacting.” Yet, since the premise is the relationship with the indifferent universe; species can logically interact by loving each other or eating each other and it does not matter which. But it does matter because once you accept that you are alone, there if no God, and the universe is indifferent you can find other doomed souls and pretend that there is subjective meaning in an objectively meaningless existence. Only then will you realize that you have “no masters” and that we are all “autonomous agents free to think and act” which can mean that we are free to love each other or eat each other since the universe is indifferent, there is no God, we have no master, we are autonomous and free to act.

I realize that PZ Myers’ envisages a utopian world in which the conclusion is humanity singing kumbaya but it can just as easily and logically conclude the way I have proposed. And that is just the point; by destroying an absolute point of reference, such as our God given morality he destroys and one conclusion and opens the door, as did Friedrich Nietzsche, who at least recognized it, to anything at all.