Month: December 2016

God is “He who sits above the circle of the earth” (Isaiah 40:22)

Cliff Walker has presented us with various logical fallacies and faulty inferences drawn from lack of knowledge of, and misunderstandings of, the Bible.

This essay, which is part 3, will focus on a very small but significant statement made by Cliff Walker. Note that I am not writing very much of this essay but will mostly allow the research of the late Stephen Jay Gould to respond to Cliff Walker’s statements.

Cliff Walker wrote:

People have been working for years to undermine any human progress which contradicts cherished myths…Since the myth they want to enforce cannot stand on its own merit, the only method left for them is to try to discredit any human progress which contradicts the myth.We must remember that in 600 B.C.E., philosophers (what scientists were called back then) knew that the earth is a globe (and is not flat, as it appears to a mind that is unaided by abstract thinking skills). In 400 B.C.E., philosophers had made a close calculation as to the size of the earth. By 200 B.C.E., they had realized that the earth is not a perfect sphere, and had made some concerted efforts to measure how far off from a perfect sphere this spheroid called Earth is…

Long after these accomplishments came the Dark Ages. Ancient science had become so completely forgotten, through the domination of the Christian religion and its flat-earth dogma, that we now speak of the Copernican Revolution — as if Copernicus was the first to discover and publicize heliocentricity. Galileo was persecuted in 1633 — fully 141 years after Christopher Columbus, in 1492, ‘discovered’ a land that had already been inhabited for tens of thousands of years. Galileo was persecuted fully 111 years after Magellan’s crew, in 1522, completed the first known voyage around the globe…1

This portion of Cliff Walker’s statements interested me because they are so brief and yet, contain a tightly packaged concoction of historical myths. This succinct package was the reason I referred to his statements as “small,” their significance will be drawn out as we proceed. I rely heavily on Mr. Gould’s essay not because it is the only source of refutation of the above ideas (in fact Stephen Jay Gouldcites various authors) but because he well encapsulated a response to the historical myth. I will now quote from The Late Birth of a Flat Earth.2

Stephen Jay Gould set the stage thusly:

I also once learned that most other ecclesiastical scholars of the benighted Dark Ages had refuted Aristotle’s notion of a spherical earth, and had depicted our home as a flat, or at most a gently curved, plate. Didn’t we all hear the legend of Columbus at Salamanca, trying to convince the learned clerics that he would reach the Indies and not fall off the ultimate edge?

This is basically what was described in Philip J. Sampson’s book 6 Modern Myths About Christianity and Western Civilization as “ideas everyone believes that really aren’t true.” Stephen Jay Gould proceeds to explain how such historical myths came to be.

Stephen Jay Gould continues:

…the supposed Dark and Medieval consensus for a flat earth-is entirely mythological…the invention of this fable [is traced to] the nineteenth century…the nineteenth-century invention of the flat earth…occurred to support another dubious and harmful separation wedded to another legend of historical progress-the supposed warfare between science and religion.

Classical scholars, of course, had no doubt about the earth’s sphericity. Our planet’s roundness was central to Aristotle’s cosmology and was assumed in Eratosthenes’ measurement of the earth’s circumference in the third century B.C. The flat-earth myth argues that this knowledge was then lost when ecclesiastical darkness settled over Europe. For a thousand years of middle time, almost all scholars held that the earth must be flat.

Stephen Jay Gould had already noted that The Venerable Bede (673-735) “clearly presented his classical conception of the earth as a sphere at the hub of the cosmos…Bede then explicitly stated that he meant a three-dimensional sphere, not a flat plate.”

The inspirational, schoolchild version of the myth centers upon Columbus, who supposedly overcame the calumny of assembled clerics at Salamanca to win a chance from Ferdinand and Isabella. Consider this version of the legend, cited by Russell from a book for primary-school children written in 1887, soon after the myth’s invention (but little different from accounts that I read as a child in the 1950s):

‘But if the world is round,’ said Columbus, ‘it is not hell that lies beyond that stormy sea. Over there must lie the eastern strand of Asia, the Cathay of Marco Polo’…In the hall of the convent there was assembled the imposing company-shaved monks in gowns…cardinals in scarlet robes….’You think the earth is round…Are you not aware that the holy fathers of the church have condemned this belief…This theory of yours looks heretical.’ Columbus might well quake in his boots at the mention of heresy; for there was that new Inquisition just in fine running order, with its elaborate bone-breaking, flesh-pinching, thumb-screwing, hanging, burning, mangling system for heretics. [ellipsis points are here Mr. Gould’s]

Dramatic to be sure, but entirely fictitious. There never was a period of “flat earth darkness” among scholars (regardless of how many uneducated people may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the earth’s roundness as an established fact of cosmology…This commission, composed of both clerical and lay advisers, did meet, at Salamanca among other places. They did pose some sharp intellectual objections to Columbus, but all assumed the earth’s roundness. As a major critique, they argued that Columbus could not reach the Indies in his own allotted time, because the earth’s circumference was too great…

Virtually all major medieval scholars affirmed the earth’s roundness…The twelfth-century translations into Latin of many Greek and Arabic works greatly expanded general appreciation of natural sciences, particularly astronomy, among scholars-and convictions about the earth’s sphericity both spread and strengthened. Roger Bacon (1220-1292) and Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) affirmed roundness via Aristotle and his Arabic commentators, as did the greatest scientists of later medieval times, including John Buriden (130(1-1358) and Nicholas Oresme (1320-1382)…

English philosopher of science William Whewell first identified major culprits in his History of the Inductive Sciences, published in 1837-two minimally significant characters named Lactantius (245-325) and Cosmas Indicopleustes, who wrote his ‘Christian Topography’ in 547-549. Russell comments: ‘Whewell pointed to the culprits…as evidence of a medieval belief in a flat earth, and virtually every subsequent historian imitated him-they could find few other examples’…both men played minor roles in medieval scholarship. Only three reasonably complete medieval manuscripts of Cosmas are known (with five or six additional fragments), and all in Greek. The first Latin translation dates from 1706-so Cosmas remained invisible to medieval readers in their own lingua franca…

Where then, and why, did the myth of medieval belief in a flat earth arise?… None of the great eighteenth-century anticlerical rationalists-not Condillac, Condorcet, Diderot, Gibbon, Hume, or our own Benjamin Franklin-accused the scholastics of believing in a flat earth, though these men were all unsparing in their contempt for medieval versions of Christianity…

Russell [Jeffrey Burton Russell, Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians] did an interesting survey of nineteenth-century history texts for secondary schools, and found that very few mentioned the flat-earth myth before 1870, but that almost all texts after 1880 featured the legend. We can therefore pinpoint the invasion of general culture by the flat-earth myth to the period between 1860 and 1890. Those years also featured the spread of an intellectual movement based on the second error of taxonomic categories explored in this essay-the portrayal of Western history as a perpetual struggle, if not an outright ‘war,’ between science and religion, with progress linked to the victory of science and the consequent retreat of theology. Such movements always need whipping boys and legends to advance their claims. Russell argues that the flat-earth myth achieved its canonical status as a primary homily for the triumph of science under this false dichotomization of Western history…

I was especially drawn to this topic because the myth of dichotomy and warfare between science and religion-an important nineteenth century theme with major and largely unfortunate repercussions extending to our times-received its greatest boost in two books that I own and treasure for their firm commitment to rationality (however wrong and ultimately harmful their dichotomizing model of history)_ John W. Draper’s History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, first published in 1874; and Andrew Dickson White’s A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, published in 1896 (a great expansion of a small book first written in 1876 and called The Warfare of Science)…

Draper states his thesis in the preface to his volume:

The history of Science is not a mere record of isolated discoveries; it is a narrative of the conflict of two contending powers, the expansive force of the human intellect on one side, and the compressing arising from
traditionary faith and human interests on the other…Faith is in its nature unchangeable, stationary; Science is in its nature progressive; and eventually a divergence between them, impossible to conceal, must take place.

Draper extolled the flat-earth myth as a primary example of religion’s constraint and science’s progressive power:

The circular visible horizon and its dip at sea, the gradual appearance and disappearance of ships in the offing, cannot fail to incline intelligent sailors to a belief in the globular figure of the earth. The writings of theMohammedan astronomers and philosophers had given currency to that doctrine throughout Western Europe,

but, as might be expected, it was received with disfavor by theologians…Traditions and policy forbade [the Papal Government] to admit any other than the flat figure of the earth, as revealed in the Scriptures.

Russell comments on the success of Draper’s work:

The History of the Conflict is of immense importance, because it was the first instance that an influential figure had explicitly declared that science and religion were at war, and it succeeded as few books ever do. It fixed in the educated mind the idea that “science” stood for freedom and progress against the superstition and repression of “religion.” Its viewpoint became conventional wisdom.

Andrew Dickson White…wrote: ‘Much as I admired Draper’s treatment of the questions involved, his pointof view and mode of looking at history were different from mine. He regarded the struggle as one between Scienceand Religion. I believed then, and am convinced now, that it was a struggle between Science and Dogmatic

Theology’…

Despite these stated disagreements, White’s and Draper’s accounts of the actual interaction between science and religion in Western history do not differ greatly. Both tell a tale of bright progress continually sparked by science.And both develop and utilize the same myths to support their narrative, the flat-earth legend prominently among them. Of Cosmas Indicopleustes’s flat-earth theory, for example, White wrote, ‘Some of the foremost men in the

Church devoted themselves to buttressing it with new texts and throwing about it new outworks of theological reasoning; the great body of the faithful considered it a direct gift from the Almighty’…

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Darwinian revolution directly triggered this influential nineteenth-century conceptualization of Western history as a war between two taxonomic categories labeled science and religion…

This essay has discussed a double myth in the annals of our bad habits in false categorization: (1) the flat-earth legend as support for a biased ordering of Western history as a story in redemption from classical to Dark to Medieval to Renaissance; and (2) the invention of the flat-earth myth to support a false dichotomization of Western history as another story of progress, a war of victorious science over religion. I would not be agitated by these errors if they led only to an inadequate view of the past without practical consequence for our modern world. But the myth of a war between science and religion remains all too current, and continues to impede a proper bonding and conciliation between these two utterly different and powerfully important institutions of human life. How can a war exist between two vital subjects with such different appropriate turfs-science as an enterprise dedicated to discovering and explaining the factual basis of the empirical world, and religion as an examination of ethics and values?”

As to these definitions of the roles of science and religion, keep in mind that Stephen Jay Gouldespoused the concept of NOMA (Nonoverlapping Magesteria).

Stephen Jay Gouldcontinues:

…a simplistic picture of history as continual warfare between science and theology. Exposure of the flat-earth myth should teach us the fallacy of such a view and help us to recognize the complexity of interaction between these institutions. Irrationality and dogmatism are always the enemies of science, but they are no true friends of religion either. Scientific knowledge has always been helpful to more generous views of religion-as preservation, by ecclesiastical scholars, of classical knowledge about the earth’s shape aided religion’s need for accurate calendars, for example.

Certainly, Cliff Walker is not to be faulted for lacking omniscience but it is perhaps as noteworthy as it is sad and unfortunate that Mr. Jeffrey Russell published Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians in 1991 AD, Stephen Jay Gould wrote the text above in 1996 AD and Cliff Walker in 1999 AD. A mere three years had passed since Mr. Gould’s essay and the activist popularizes of the myth were still hard at work confusing the public (having had eight years prior to become familiar with the historical facts, and this is not even considering other works on this subject). In light of Cliff Walker’s historical myth and Mr. Gould’s refutation of it, it is interesting to quote Cliff Walker again:

People have been working for years to undermine any human progress which contradicts cherished myths…Since the myth they want to enforce cannot stand on its own merit, the only method left for them is to try to discredit any human progress which contradicts the myth.

Would that Cliff Walker may cease to undermine human progress in the understanding of history which contradicts his cherished myths. Since the myth he wants to enforce cannot stand on its own merit, the only method left for him is to try to discredit any historically accurate rendering which contradicts the myth.

God is “He who sits above the circle of the earth” (Isaiah 40:22)

Amazing PerplexityChristopher Hitchens states:

“I didn’t expect, when I started off on my book tour, to be as lucky as I was and I, Jerry Falwell died my first week on the road, that was amazing.”

Sam Harris, very enthusiastically and laughingly,

“Yes, that was amazing luck!”

This must be far too erudite and or in-house atheist humor because I am simply perplexed. I just do not understand what was “amazing.”
I have asked for elucidation at Prof. Richard Dawkins’ website (487. Comment #130681) and am currently awaiting a response.
In the meantime, and I do mean “mean,” it may be of interest, or morbid curiosity, to note the following report by David Limbaugh from, The Paradoxical Hatred of Christopher Hitchens:

“Hitchens refused to back down from his excoriation of Falwell on the very day of his death, saying, ‘I don’t care whether his family’s feelings are hurt or not. But if they are, they can take comfort from the extraordinary piety and stupidity, and generally speaking, uniformity of the coverage of the man’s death.’ Hitchens’ response to CNN’s Anderson Cooper’s question of whether he believed in heaven and whether ‘you think Jerry Falwell is in it.’ Hitchens said he did not believe in it, but ‘I think it’s a pity there isn’t a hell for him to go to.'”

Anonymous Confession of an Atheist Clergyman
Prof. Richard Dawkins mentions that Dan Barker is compiling a “collection of clergymen who have lost their faith but don’t dare say so because it’s their only living, it’s the only thing they know.” Sam Harris claims to have been in contact with precisely ONE such person. This is as fascinating as Sam Harris’ ability to name precisely ONE secular charity as a counterbalance to the hundreds of thousands of religious ones. He is aware of precisely ONE single clergyman out of all of the clergymen on the planet and this is supposed to make some sort of point.

Well, it actually does make a point: the book will be about dishonest and hypocritical unbelievers. Yet, between Prof. Richard Dawkins’ statement and today Dan Barker published yet another book based on his old, tired and only self-appointed claim to fame the good old , “I’m an ex-preacher” routine.

Faith, Evidence and Doubting Thomas
Sam Harris stated,

“…this idea that you start with a premise that belief without evidence is especially noble, I mean, this is the doctrine of faith, this is the parable of doubting Thomas…”

I found it fascinating that he correlates “belief without evidence” with doubting Thomas since that “parable” makes precisely the opposite point. But I will divert your attention to my essay responding to Prof. Richard Dawkins’ claim that the apostle Thomas should be the patron saint of scientists since I have corrected this notion there-for now, note that not one of the apostles took Jesus resurrection on “faith.” This is merely indicative of Prof. Richard Dawkins’ lack of knowledge with regards to that which he seeks to discredit.

It’s Absolutely RelativeSam Harris stated:

“And I think we make a very strong case when we point that out, and point out also that whatever people are experiencing, in church or in prayer, no matter how positive, the fact that Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims and Christians are all experiencing it, proves that it can’t be matter of the divinity of Jesus, or the unique sanctity of the Koran.”

According to various theologies this actually proves no such thing. For instance, according to the theologies of various religions there are many paths to God even though specific religions may not believe so. This would not even prove that it cannot be the divinity of Jesus, or the unique sanctity of the Koran (Qur’an), since God would be reaching people thorough various means.
Even according to Christian theology there is no reason to deny that religious people of various theologies, or atheologies, have “mystical,” or “spiritual” experiences. The God of the Bible may be using their contemporary beliefs in order to eventually draw them to the true theology. God may have been giving them over to their own passions if they are so free-willingly following their own way (Romans 1:26).

Ex-atheist C. S. Lewis wrote:

“If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth. When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view.”1

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At least, some treat the First Law of Thermodynamics as a sort of commandment which they seek to employ in a self-serving manner. Such was the case with Brian Sapient of the Rational Response Squad (during his, and Kelly’s, debate with Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron).

Two quick things to point out: he made the slight misstatement of referring to the Law as being the Third rather than First. Also, some mistakenly claim that he argued that the universe is eternal but he did not. Rather, he argued that eternal uncaused energy/matter brought our universe into being. Thus, according to his argument our universe is finite but energy/matter is infinite.

Here is the crux of his statements in this regard:

“Science has a law, it’s called the third law of thermodynamics; which shows us, and it’s one of the most tested laws in science, that matter or energy can neither be created nor destroyed. That we always have the same amount of matter and energy.

We could blow up this building, and while it would look completely different, there would be the exact same amount of matter and energy in the universe.

That tells us scientifically, if we were to use a more scientific approach, that the components of our world today, our universe, have always existed.

And we have real science to lend credence to that.”1

It was evident that Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron were simply unprepared to even attempt to respond to this point.

Yet, the crucial non sequitur here seems to be that the First Law is relevant to the universe in which it functions. As obvious as this seems, it does appear as if this is what is being overlooked: “we always have the same amount of matter and energy.” Who is “we”? It is us, here, this, universe.

Thus, the disconnect, the non sequitur, is to conclude that “the components of our world today, our universe, have always existed.” This is sort of like sealing a box and stating that nothing can go into the box and nothing can come out. Yes, but this is within the box. Let us think outside of the box.

We know that within the universe energy/matter is neither created nor destroyed but only changed. We are dealing with conservation of energy within a system. We have real science to lend credence to this but not to the assertion that energy/matter is the uncaused eternal first cause.

The fact that the universe is not eternal leads us to the rational conclusion that energy/matter came into being at the moment of the universe’s inception (along with space/time). Furthermore, it is reasonable to conclude that whatever existed “before” that, whatever brought the universe into being, was without matter, or immaterial, or spirit (and timeless, or eternal and space-less or without spatial restrictions).2 Thus, we have real science that supports the conclusion that energy/matter came into existence at a finite point having not existed previously.

Therefore, real science does not demand that energy/matter cannot be created or destroyed any”where” any”time” but only within our universe, within the box in which the Law functions.

The Bible predicted the First Law of Thermodynamics:

Genesis 1:1
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”

“beginning” = time.

“heavens” = space.

“earth” = matter.

“In the beginning” = the finite creation of the universe.

“God” = a preexistent time-less, space-less, matter-less being or; eternal, not confined to locality nor subject to natural laws, immaterial or spirit.

“created” = brought into being, infused with energy/matter, designed.

Genesis 2:1-3

“Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”

Thus, the Bible stated that energy/matter were brought into being, placed within the box (the universe) and that no more energy/matter is being created.

Moreover, due to entropy, the amount of usable energy is constantly being depleted so that if the universe was eternal the usable energy would have been depleted an eternity ago. This is another way of knowing that the universe had a beginning.

This, the first installment of The BOBA Digest will focus on an argument that surely proceeds forth from the murky depths of atheism’s barrel (see our definition of BOBA here).

The argument that I wish to present is one that claims that Christians demonstrate that they do not really believe in all of this stuff about a supernatural afterlife in heaven with God because Christians cry and or mourn at funerals.

Can you imagine being so malicious, so filled with hatred, so joyful of another person’s misery (schadenfreude) and so self-congratulatory? Can you imagine seeing people mourning and crying and mentally highfiving yourself and stating, “Look at ’em, just look at ’em! Hypocrites! Just look how they cry, they obviously doubt the existence of God! This is great! Oh, oh, look at that one – wah, wah, wah – you can actually pinpoint when their faith failed, it’s when the tears started falling!”
What depths of depravity would turn human being into such vicious and malicious inhuman, inhumane, subhumans?

Seriously, there are various people out there in the blogosphere who are really pseudo-pontificating on this issue. They are really having a go at Christians who are careless enough to show emotions at funerals and patting themselves on the back in the meantime (and I do mean “mean”).

The prisoner who now stands before youWas caught red-handed showing feelingsShowing feelings of an almost human nature;This will not do.”-Roger Waters and Bob Ezrin

From Pink Floyd‘s song The Trial,

from the album1 The Wall

It is actually pretty simple: if you want to know why Christians cry at funerals you should ask them. For instance, I can tell you that I cried when my father-in-law died. I can also tell you that crying was a purely emotional reaction and I did not stop to construct thoughts around my mourning, I just mourned. But if you must know, I believe that he is enjoying an afterlife with God.

Imagine that someone told you that they were going to take your spouse or child to the most wonderful country. This country is on the other side of the planet. In this country there is no war, no disease, no poverty, etc. Your spouse or child will live a perfectly healthy and happy life there. And in a year, or a decade or eighty years you will also be taken there to join them. What would your reaction be? I would guess: joy and sorrow. The same joy and sorrow as Christians experience upon the death of one of their loved ones. Joy because they are happy for them and sorrow because they will miss their love one until such time as they are reunited.

Also, these BOBA atheists are so quick to take delight in another’s suffering that they do not consider that some deaths occur due to tragic or violent occurrences. If your loved one died after years of suffering from a physical disorder you may weep from a sort of emotional release. If your loved one was beaten to death you may mourn that their life had to end on such a brutal note. Having received an urgent phone call that woke me up, I ran into my father-in-law’s house and felt his wrist for a pulse. Upon touching his skin I could tell already that he was gone since his skin was unnaturally cold. The feeling of a human body being so unnaturally cold stays with you. Seeing someone you love laying there like an unanimated slab of meat does as well. Today I still think about him, I miss him and think that he has not yet met two of his grandchildren but I do not mourn or weep.

The bottom line is that atheists can pretend to know why I wept and mourned. They can pretend to know my thought. They can pretend to know my doubts. They can put me on their metaphoric Freudian sofa and psychoanalyze me. Yet, in the end I know why wept and mourned and they do not. They have no evidence for claiming that a Christians who weep and mourn at funerals doubt their faith. Simply because Christians believe in an afterlife does not mean that we are somehow robotic processors of purely information based theology. We are also complex creatures who function at various levels of belief, intellect and emotion.

This cheap shot, consisting as it does of non sequiturs and schadenfreude, certainly earns those who make the argument a place in the bottom of the barrel.

On very rare occasion I decide to pull an interesting article from directly from another website and repost it here.

Such will be the case in this post as I will quote, in its entirety the UK Guardian‘s Madeleine Bunting‘s April 6, 2009 AD article “Real debates about faith are drowned by the New Atheists’ foghorn voices-More thoughtful sceptics warn that we should fear the consequences of the swift collapse of Britain’s major belief system“

Following is her article:

This is Holy Week. It started yesterday with Palm Sunday and continues through Holy Thursday, Good Friday and culminates this Sunday with Easter Day. One can no longer assume most people will be aware of this, let alone the events these days mark; in a recent UK poll, only 22% could identify what Easter was celebrating. What other system of belief has collapsed at such spectacular speed as British Christianity? One can only presume that the New Atheists are organising a fabulous party to celebrate. Richard Dawkins could stump up for the crates of champagne out of his sumptuous royalties from The God Delusion.

But I’m curious as to how many of the country’s finest minds would join the celebrations. Increasingly, one hears a distaste for the polemics of the New Atheist debate and its foghorn volume, and how it has drowned out any other kind of conversation about religion: what it is, the loss of it, whether it matters, and what happens in a post-religious society? From sometimes surprising quarters there is an anxiety about the evangelical fervour and certainty of the New Atheists: they are so sure they are right, but there are plenty of people – and many of them would not count themselves as believers – who can’t share their contempt for religion.

Just this week, AN Wilson announces in a thoughtful cover article for the New Statesman that he has apostated, abandoning his fellow atheists. Or take another example: in the Third Way, a Christian magazine, the poet Andrew Motion reflects wistfully, “I don’t believe in God – though I wish I did, and I can’t stop thinking about it so who knows what might happen one day?” Wilson and Motion talk of uncertainty, doubt and faith in terms that are probably far more familiar to the vast majority of the British – many of whom still describe themselves as believing in God, whatever they mean by that – than the certitudes used by Dawkins. New Atheism may come to be regarded as winning a battle but losing the war.

What many argue is that the New Atheist debate has ended up down an intellectual dead end; there are only so many times you can argue that religion is a load of baloney. Ask a philosopher like John Gray or a historian of religion like Karen Armstrong and they are simply not interested in the debate; they bin the invitations to speak on platforms alongside New Atheists. Gray dismisses them as offering “intoxicating simplicity”; Armstrong is appalled by their “display of egotism and arrogance”. Both are deeply frustrated by a debate inflated by the media that generates heat but no light. They see the New Atheists mirroring a particular strain of fundamentalist Christianity with no knowledge of the vast variety of other forms of religious faith. In common with their Christian opponents, they share “the inner glow of complete certainty” – as Wilson describes his atheist conversion.

Armstrong and Gray converge again on where they pinpoint the key mistake. Belief came to be understood in western Christianity as a proposition at which you arrive intellectually, but Armstrong argues that this has been a profound misunderstanding that, in recent decades, has also infected other faiths. What “belief” used to mean, and still does in some traditions, is the idea of “love”, “commitment”, “loyalty”: saying you believe in Jesus or God or Allah is a statement of commitment. Faith is not supposed to be about signing up to a set of propositions but practising a set of principles. Faith is something you do, and you learn by practice not by studying a manual, argues Armstrong.

“We need to get away from the endless discussion about wretched beliefs; religion is about doing – and what every faith makes clear is that the doing is about compassion,” she argues. To try and shift the debate about faith into more fruitful territory, Armstrong came up with the idea of a global Charter on Compassion for all faiths (and none), which she is drafting and planning to launch later in the year.

From a different perspective, Alain de Botton, the philosopher and writer, has also been trying to broaden the conversation. He has founded a School of Life in London, which runs courses and events reflecting on how to live. He describes himself as “definitely an atheist”, but readily admits he borrows plenty from religions. His team have instituted the idea of Sunday sermons, and organise contemporary “pilgrimages”. “Even if you’re an atheist, there are a huge number of insights in religion,” he says. “We’re in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”

De Botton argues that the decline of religious faith has left behind a real and widespread need for wisdom and insight; the media offers only a “cruel sentimentality” and gives little space to the most difficult of our life experiences, such as failure, death or envy, nor does it offer ways to deal with them. The author Mark Vernon teaches on some School of Life courses. A former priest and atheist, he now advocates a principled agnosticism rooted in an understanding of the limits of human knowledge. He argues that the most interesting conversations about faith are among those just outside religious traditions and those just inside – along the borders of belief, if you like.

It’s a perspective that Gray shares. Describing himself as a sceptic, he looks to another border of belief for deeper insight into the nature of faith: the dialogue between the theistic and non-theistic. Intriguingly, where Gray, Armstrong and Vernon all end up is with the apophatic tradition of theology. Apophatic is a word no longer even in my dictionary, but it’s a major tradition of Christian thought, and central to the thinking of St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas: it is the idea that God is ineffable and beyond powers of description. S/he can be experienced by religious practice, but as Armstrong puts it: “In the past, people knew we could say nothing about God. Certain forms of knowledge only come with practice.” It makes the boundary between belief in God and agnosticism much more porous than commonly assumed.

But the modern distortion was to make God into a proposition in which you either did or did not believe. He was turned into an old man in the sky with a long white beard or promoted as a cuddly friend named Jesus. Arguing about the existence of such human creations is akin to the medieval pastime of calculating how many angels could fit on the head of a pin.

So the media has been promoting the wrong argument, while the bigger question of how, in a post-religious society, people find the myths they need to sustain meaning, purpose and goodness in their lives go unexplored. What worries Gray is that we forget at our peril that all systems of thought rely on myth. By junking the Christian myths, the danger is that the replacements are “cruder, less tested, less instructive”. At times of crisis – such as the economic recession – the brittleness of a value system built on wealth and a particular conception of autonomy becomes all too apparent, leaving people without the sustaining reserves of a faith to fall back on. The consequences of that will certainly not be cause for celebration, he warns.

The End
I, Ken, did want to offer one note on the point about the “old man in the sky with a long white beard” and the “cuddly friend named Jesus.”

I know of no Christian based religions that consider God to be an “old man in the sky with a long white beard.”
The “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints” or “Mormons” certainly do hold to this view but it is one of the reasons that they are considered a pseudo-Christian cult. Moreover, they are henotheists (yet, even though Prof. Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens do not know this very basic fact and refer to them as monotheists).

As for the “cuddly friend named Jesus” I do not know about the cuddly part but Jesus did say, “I have called you friends” (John 15:15).

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Note: this was written by one of my fellow co-authors when I was posting to the Atheism is Dead blog:

Though I haven’t been writing much lately, I still like to visit my old pals over at Debunking Christianity from time-to-time. 

Today, after perusing their blog, I noticed a post criticizing a personal hero of mine:  Plantinga.  The post is entitled, “Plantinga Propounds Invalid Argument”, and is filled with a lot of unflattering caricatures of Plantinga’s philosophy. 

The entire article seems rather haughty considering that an amateur blogger (Evan) – who apparently has no experience in philosophy – is claiming to have bested a renowned epistemologist and all around respected thinker. 

In fact, reading the comments to the article reveals that the atheists over at DC are unwilling to afford the respect that I think Plantinga rightly deserves. 

Regardless, Evan’s arguments stand or fall on their own, and so without further ado, I’ll simply deconstruct his numerous misconceptions.

Firstly, Evan seems to find it incredible that Plantinga could “sympathize” with a young-Earth creationist, in the sense that Plantinga doesn’t think that we can outright declare YEC beliefs to be irrational or stupid.

Evan says:

Plantinga himself believes that the earth is old because multiple lines of evidence converge to show this to be the case. Yet he is willing to accept the sensiblity of someone who does not accept the evidence that he does, because they are using their faith in scriptures and praying about it. If this is an adequate epistemology for a philosopher one wonders if there will be much in the rest of his philosophy to dream of or wonder about.

Of course, if this childish caricature is the best Evan can do, one might wonder about the rest of the article. 

Without getting too sidetracked from the main issue, I will simply note that Plantinga’s views are hardly this simplistic.  If Evan really wants to criticize a scholar like Plantinga, I think he would do well to take the issue more seriously, and not misrepresent his opponent’s views. 

However, I will note that as an epistemologist, Plantinga simply points out that there is nothing about the idea of a young Earth that can be declared outright irrational, and as such his charge still stands.  Evan hasn’t outlined exactly what is irrational about belief in a young Earth from an epistemological viewpoint.  Certainly a naturalist who thinks the Bible is nothing more than ancient mythology would find it ridiculous, but the presuppositions of naturalism aren’t necessarily axiomatic. 

Regardless, I’ve already spent far too much time on such an important issue, so I’ll move along.

What Evan really takes exception to with his blog post is Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism.  In simple terms, this states that if evolution and naturalism are both true, then we have no reason to think that ANY of our beliefs are true, or no way of knowing if they are true.  Therefore, given the truth of naturalism and evolution, we have reason to believe that naturalism and/or evolution are false. 

Since evolution is the more basic of these two beliefs, it would stand to reason that naturalism is an irrational philosophy in light of evolution. 

As Plantinga so succinctly puts it:

I said naturalism is in philosophical hot water; this is true on several counts, but here I want to concentrate on just one—one connected with the thought that evolution supports or endorses or is in some way evidence for naturalism. As I see it, this is a whopping error: evolution and naturalism are not merely uneasy bedfellows; they are more like belligerent combatants. One can’t rationally accept both evolution and naturalism; one can’t rationally be an evolutionary naturalist. The problem, as several thinkers (C. S. Lewis, for example) have seen, is that naturalism, or evolutionary naturalism, seems to lead to a deep and pervasive skepticism. It leads to the conclusion that our cognitive or belief-producing faculties—memory, perception, logical insight, etc.—are unreliable and cannot be trusted to produce a preponderance of true beliefs over false. Darwin himself had worries along these lines: “With me,” says Darwin, “the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?”

While this argument might certainly be unsound, I don’t think it’s as blatantly false as Evan paints it to be. 

In response to this, Evan goes on at some length (and I might note needlessly) about how naturalists aren’t the only one’s who are skeptical and so on.  What this has to do with the argument, I don’t know.  It seems that Evan is confusing a “normal” level of skepticism with the radical form of skepticism evolution and naturalism combined would seem to lead us to.  Regardless, Evan doesn’t really make a counterpoint to the argument when he speaks about skepticism, so I don’t know what else to say.

One must wonder exactly what mechanism Plantinga imagines allows him to have the correct apprehension of this particular fact when so many of his “sensible” coreligionists and theists in general disagree with him on this point vehemently. Does he believe that his brain is working better than theirs? Yet this could not be for Plantinga, because he believes that brains don’t detect true beliefs.

This paragraph contains two matters on which Evan is confused. 

Firstly, Plantinga never claims that he is absolutely right on the issue of Old Earth v. Young Earth, since Evan has already pointed out that Plantinga has declared belief in a Young Earth to be rational.  Certainly, then, I don’t see how Plantinga would claim his brain is “working better” – whatever that means – than a YECreationist.  When it comes to epistemology, as best Plantinga might claim that he relies less on the absolute literal nature of the Bible than his YEC counterparts. 

Secondly, we can see here that Evan has completely misunderstood the point of Plantinga’s argument.  Plantinga is not arguing that humans don’t hold true beliefs about reality, only that given naturalism and evolution, we have no reason to believe that what we believe is true. 

This is a rather important distinction, and missing this point doesn’t bode well for the rest of Evan’s post. 

[Plantinga] believes that brains don’t detect true beliefs.

I know you think I’m kidding, but really, that is his position. He believes that brains by themselves are evolved organs and therefore can only be “adaptive” but that being adaptive does not entail the truth of a given conclusion arrived at by an adaptive organ.

Plantinga would only argue that this is true just in case evolution and naturalism are both true.  Despite that Evan is a bit confused on Plantinga’s actual argument, poking fun at it and chuckling about it with your fellow atheists doesn’t disprove the point.  Again, given Plantinga’s reputation, I think Evan would have been better off taking this issue more seriously. 

Evan goes on to say (with Plantinga’s words in Italics):

Let’s look again at his position about what he calls “neurophysiology”:

Your beliefs may all be false, ridiculously false; if your behavior is adaptive, you will survive and reproduce. Consider a frog sitting on a lily pad. A fly passes by; the frog flicks out its tongue to capture it. Perhaps the neurophysiology that causes it to do so, also causes beliefs. As far as survival and reproduction is concerned, it won’t matter at all what these beliefs are: if that adaptive neurophysiology causes true belief (e.g., those little black things are good to eat), fine. But if it causes false belief (e.g., if I catch the right one, I’ll turn into a prince), that’s fine too. Indeed, the neurophysiology in question might cause beliefs that have nothing to do with the creature’s current circumstances (as in the case of our dreams); that’s also fine, as long as the neurophysiology causes adaptive behavior. All that really matters, as far as survival and reproduction is concerned, is that the neurophysiology cause the right kind of behavior; whether it also causes true belief (rather than false belief) is irrelevant.

The use of scare quotes around the word physiology is about the best response that Evan will muster with regards to this analogy.  Evan has this to say in response:

But this metaphor is absurd and wrong on the face of it. For a frog to catch a fly he first needs to adequately apprehend that there is a fly to be caught. This belief MUST be true for a frog to catch it. The frog’s eye must accurately determine there is a fly in the field of vision. It must accurately gauge the speed and distance of the oncoming fly. It must accurately know the position of its tongue in its mouth and accurately direct its head and mouth at the correct angle to catch the fly. All of these things are things the frog’s brain must believe first, before it can create an overarching belief that drives it to catch and eat the fly. Therefore Plantinga must admit that at least some of the beliefs the frog needs to have must correspond accurately to the external world. And of course, even in his example, the simplest belief is the one that is most correct, namely that the fly will feel better if it eats.

I had a good chuckle at the fact that Evan actually thinks that frogs hold beliefs. 

Anyway, the fact remains that the example of the frog is simply an illustration meant to distance the reader from the fact that what Plantinga is really talking about is the human mind. 

However, Evan is employing a sort of circular reasoning here.  Above, Plantinga rightly points out that the frog will still attempt to catch the fly if it thinks that catching the correct fly will turn it into a prince.  Well, Evan claims that in actuality the frog must believe that eating the fly will make it feel good.  But why?  What is necessary about that belief over any other?  Evan seems only to claim it by brute force.  The fact is, the frog need only believe anything that will lead to adaptive behaviors.  Again, Evan has missed a simple point, which is causing quite a bit of confusion, and ultimately all of his counter-examples fall prey to this same problem. 

Then, Evan says:

Plantinga’s skepticism about neurophysiology assumes the accuracy of perception. Yet we all know that many perceptions themselves can be flawed. A few minutes with a magic-eyes book or even a glass of water and a pencil can show a child that. So if Plantinga’s main point is that perception, memory, the brain’s physics, working logic and apperception can be inherently flawed yet still adaptive, his point is one that neuroscientists have been making for several decades.

Again, Evan misunderstands the thrust of Plantinga’s argument.  Plantinga is not claiming that our beliefs are absolutely false or at least indeterminably true, only that we would have reason to believe they are given evolution and naturalism (by now the perceptive reader will notice the self-destructing nature of the coupled beliefs of evolution and naturalism). 

Furthermore, how is pointing out that neuroscientists have demonstrated that Plantinga’s argument is true detract from Plantinga’s argument.  Pretending for a moment that Evan’s misunderstanding of the argument is actually correct, Evan would only be proving Plantinga’s point for him here.  If I actually cared a little bit more, I might be flabbergasted by Evan’s supposed criticism of someone I respect so much. 

Moving on…(Plantinga’s words are in italics)

Yet Plantinga wants to take healthy skepticism and reduce it to a ridiculous solipsism that would be destructive to all knowledge. His way out is obvious:

Clearly this doubt arises for naturalists or atheists, but not for those who believe in God. That is because if God has created us in his image, then even if he fashioned us by some evolutionary means, he would presumably want us to resemble him in being able to know; but then most of what we believe might be true even if our minds have developed from those of the lower animals.

As a side point, the use of the term “lower animals” is simply another example of his lack of understanding of biology. A high-school level understanding of biology as it is taught in the 21st century would teach Plantinga that all life forms on earth are equally evolved. They have all derived from a common ancestor and have been adapting to changing environments and ecologies since then and all lineages extant have survived to this point. There are no “lower animals” unless you already accept creationism. But back to his main point.

There is a disturbing amount of nitpicking on Evan’s part here.  I doubt that Plantinga doesn’t understand this point, but this is so irrelevant that I don’t care to worry about it. 

According to Plantinga, while brains cannot evolve a method for detecting truth, God can give them that ability through his creation. Yet of course there is simply no logical connection between the existence of a theistic deity and the belief systems of organisms evolved under such a deity. I will give some alternatives that Plantinga fails to even consider, much less address, that show how limited his “supernaturalism” really is.

Actually, Plantinga’s claim is a bit more cautious than that; Plantinga merely stated that our beliefs aren’t necessarily false if God exists and created us (even ‘indirectly’ through evolution), which is in contradistinction to naturalism. 

Therefore, Evan’s “examples” are useless and don’t actually refute any point that Plantinga has made.  As a point of fact, as far as Plantinga’s arguments are concerned, all of those examples are logically equivalent to naturalism.  In other words, Evan just made Plantinga’s point for him, without realizing it. 

I’m very close to being flabbergasted by the absolutely terrible job Evan is doing of refuting my hero here.

There is simply no logical or philosophical reason to select Christian theism as the only rational alternative to methodological naturalism.

Another misunderstanding – Plantinga wasn’t arguing for Christianity, but against naturalism. 

Certainly there is no reason to assume the probability of one supernatural hypothesis over any other as there is simply no accepted supernatural data.

Whatever this statement means, it seems to be loaded with a lot of atheist bias.  I don’t really know exactly what “accepted supernatural data” is, but I’m sure it has something to do with Evan’s acceptance of Scientific Naturalism which is a self-defeating philosophy. 

Plantinga knows, however, that most of his readers are either Christian or former Christians and thus artificially limits his calculus to those two possibilities to make his outcome look superficially more plausible.

And therefore atheists can discard Plantinga’s words without a single ounce of real, critical thought. 

How convenient.

At this point in the post, Evan moves on to Bayesian analysis, but to be fair to my readers I’ll refrain from commenting since I’m too ignorant on this subject.  (Not that that stops fundy atheists like Evan, but…)

Most of the rest of Evan’s post is based on the myriad misunderstandings that I’ve pointed out so far, so there isn’t much that remains to be said. 

An interesting point to note, however:

While [Plantinga] does believe that he has had some true beliefs, he has admitted in his review of Dawkins that some of his arguments in the past have been invalid. How is it possible for his God-given truth detector to have allowed this?

This statement inadvertently demonstrates one of the many reasons why the so-called New Atheism is in so much trouble.  This sort of childish commentary is the bread and butter of modern atheists – it’s the rule rather than the exception.  This sort of mindset of critiquing complex issues with misrepresentative one-liners should really be intellectually embarrassing for anyone who takes these issues seriously (theist or atheist). 

At this point, I think I’ve successfully deflated Evan’s criticism so I’m not going to continue beating a dead horse. 

I simply want to highlight some of the “rational” and “freethinking” commentary we find on Loftus’ blog in regards to this post. 

One commentator wrote:

Once you have the supernatural, all of your beliefs at once become questionable, because supernatural agents can change the laws of nature at will.

Which is irrelevant to the issue, but I just wanted to point out that as far as this commentator knows, the universe is randomly acting ordered and rational, and might randomly break it’s own laws, and therefore all of his beliefs are questionable.  So there!

Anyway, this more to say about that, but for the handful of you still reading at this point, I’ll wrap this up.

Another commentator says:

Great post, Evan. For the life of me, I don’t understand why Plantinga is so highly regarded.

Presumably this person thinks that Dawkins is a great philosopher?  Either way, if you can’t understand why Plantinga is so highly regarded, then you’re clearly a fundy atheist.  Clearly.  🙂

Another commentator says:

looking at beliefs as being “true” or “false” is misleading: only in systems of formal logic, such as mathematics, can things be, by definition, absolutely true or false: 2+2=4 is absolutely true in arithmetic, for instance. A frog’s “belief” about flying objects is a model which works to keep the frog well fed, but it is not absolutely “true” or “false”.

I had a good chuckle about this since, based on this person’s own logic, I have no reason to believe anything in this quote. 

Another commentator says:

Surely believing that our cognitive faculties are reliable is properly basic?

Thus showing that fundy atheists can, in fact, get half way to understanding something outside their own little box. 

Clearly the fact that at least some of our beliefs is true is…well…true.  Therefore, Plantinga’s argument that any belief which leads us to believe that our beliefs are false or unknowably true is false, isn’t really that far fetched now, is it?

And I’ll wrap up my post with my favorite comment by the philosopher John W. Loftus.

Very nice job Evan!

I am by no means an actual philosopher (I’d like to call myself an amateur philosopher 🙂 ), but I can clearly see that Evan only did a good job if his job was to misunderstand all of the basic points of Plantinga’s argument. 

John, as a philosopher with an actual education that dwarfs my own, should have recognized this fact.  Though, to be fair to John, it’s much easier to critically analyze something with which you disagree. 

That said, this concludes my post.   

Poverty Equals Salvation? Dan Barker wrote:

“According to Jesus, what must you do to have eternal life?…Sell everything you have and give all the money to the poor. -Heaven will be very empty, it seems. How many Christians take seriously this direct command of Jesus?
‘And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?…Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor; and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.’ (Matthew 19:16-21. See also Luke 12:33)“1

Interestingly enough, the third word into the quoted text answer the issue for us: “one.” One man came, one man asked and Jesus answered one man. If this was a standard for salvation it would be as ubiquitous as the generalized gospel message.

Somehow, Dan Barker overlooked quoting Matthew 19’s 22nd verse, “But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” Clearly, Jesus was speaking directly to this one man’s life situation. Note the correlation between “treasure in heaven” on the one hand and “great possessions” on the other. How could he, at that time, have been ready to follow Jesus if he could not let go of his great possessions?

The point of these sorts of texts is to let go of attachment and set priorities, “seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you” (Luke 12:31). Also, “No one can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24 also Luke 16:13). “Mammon” is understood as wealth, avarice or plainly, money. The problem is not having it but serving it.

Christianity ————-

Atheism

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World Religions and Cults

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Science

(Science in general, Evolution, Cosmology, Creation Science, Intelligent Design) ————-

Movies & TV Shows

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Fringe-ology

(Transhumanism, Aliens/UFOs, Occult, Conspiracies) ————-

Misc. and Resources

(Nazis, Communism, Crusades, Morality / Ethics, Abortion, Rape, Homosexuality / Trans, Audio, Books, Debates, Videos, etc.)

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In his article Is Science a Religion?, Professor Richard Dawkins wrote:

“Well, science is not religion and it doesn’t just come down to faith. Although it has many of religion’s virtues, it has none of its vices. Science is based upon verifiable evidence. Religious faith not only lacks evidence, its independence from evidence is its pride and joy, shouted from the rooftops. Why else would Christians wax critical of doubting Thomas? The other apostles are held up to us as exemplars of virtue because faith was enough for them. Doubting Thomas, on the other hand, required evidence. Perhaps he should be the patron saint of scientists.”

Elsewhere, we have pointed out that when asked to present the “most persuasive” argument in favor of Darwinian-atheistic-evolution Richard Dawkins did, in fact, appeal to his own faith. Now that he “got religion” is he going so far as to bestow sainthood?

Gregg Easterbrook wrote a review of Richard Dawkins’ book “The God Delusion.” What is interesting is how succinctly his article’s subtitle captures a sentiment that has been expressed with regards to the New Atheists as a whole: “In ‘The God Delusion,’ a vocal atheist ignores more sophisticated concepts of God in favor of fundamentalist stereotypes.” It may be that when Richard Dawkins elucidates evolutionary theory in technical terms, he is speaking above the common man’s head. Although, Richard Lewontin who is the Alexander Agassiz Research Professor at Harvard University an evolutionary biologist and geneticist has categorized Richard Dawkins amongst a group of science-popularizers who has “put unsubstantiated assertions or counterfactual claims at the very center of the stories they have retailed in the market.”1 It may be that when Sam Harris expounds upon neuron-scientific breakthroughs, he is referring to a field with which many of us are not the least bit acquainted. It may be that when Daniel Dennett is philosophizing, he engages in mental maneuvering beyond our scope. However, it has become extremely common, and simple, to note that when these, and others, expound their opinions regarding religion, theism, the Bible, etc., they are attempting to elucidate a topic of which they are less than erudite.

The issue at hand is actually multifaceted and perhaps we aught to be somewhat empathetic towards Richard Dawkins. He makes reference to some Christians who are critical of the Apostle Thomas. He is, after all, known as “doubting Thomas.” Here we may have to differentiate what the text of the Bible actually states as, perhaps, opposed to what individual Christians make of it. Yes, he did do what may be referred to as doubt, but the issue is how was this doubt taken and what was its significance? Another, issue is Richard Dawkins’ statement regarding the difference in reactions between Thomas and the other apostles for whom it is claimed that “faith was enough for them.”

We will present various quotations from the New Testament that will make it exceedingly clear that Richard Dawkins is not only mistaken but even missed making a point about how Christians should stick closer to the text of scripture than they sometimes do. He could have expounded the actual text and made an informed and well rounded statement. Yet, perhaps due to his ignorance of that which he is so vehemently opposed to, he was unable, or unwilling, to do so.

Simply stated, the New Testament knows nothing about faith being enough for all of the apostles except Thomas. Here we use Richard Dawkins’ derogatory definition of “faith” as referring to believing in something while lacking any evidence and taking pride in that fact. Ironically, this meaning of faith is precisely descriptive of Richard Dawkins’ own faith, as referred to in the second part of our essay The Gap Filler. The New Testament also knows nothing of anyone looking down on Thomas for his doubt. The bottom line of that which follows is that not one of the apostles relied on faith for their belief in Jesus’ physical resurrection from the grave in which He was placed after He died. Rather, they each relied upon various experiences of which they were eyewitnesses. Mover, Jesus went to great lengths to prove that it was He, that He was literally present, and that He was in the flesh.

Let us now survey the relevant New Testament texts:

“By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep” (1st Corinthians 15:2-6).

Note the specificity: Jesus died, was buried and then appeared. He appeared to the “brothers”: apostles, disciples and lay believers. Note that at the time of the writing it was stated that “most of whom are still living” which contemporaneously meant: go and ask the eyewitnesses for yourself.

“Jesus showed Himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias…This is now the third time Jesus showed Himself to His disciples after He was raised from the dead” (John 21:1, 14).

He “showed Himself” and did so “again”: at this point not once, not twice, but thrice.

“they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, ‘The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!’ And they told about the things that had happened on the road, and how He was known to them in the breaking of bread. Now as they said these things, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them, ‘Peace to you.’ But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit. And He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.’ When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. But while they still did not believe for joy, and marveled, He said to them, ‘Have you any food here?’ So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb. And He took it and ate in their presence” (Luke 24:33-43).

The text is so clear that it needs no explanation but let us review: the believers, who previously had their faith shattered, gather and retell that the Lord has “risen” and “appeared.” Then Jesus appeared-“stood in the midst of them.” They were terrified and frightened because they did in fact see someone but “supposed they had seen a spirit.” Jesus asks why they are troubled and proceeds to prove to them in various ways that what they are actually looking at is not a spirit but Jesus Himself, in the flesh. He does this by asking them to “behold” (to perceive through sight or to gaze upon) His hands and feet, parts of His physical body. He asks them to “handle” Him, to touch His physical body. He explains that while a spirit does not have “flesh and bones” Jesus obviously does. He proceeds to “showed them” His hands and feet, displaying parts of His physical body. Lastly, we learn that they were in such a state of joyful shock that Jesus asked them for food and He “ate in their presence”, this consists of wrapping a physical hand around a physical piece of food, placing said food in a physical mouth, chewing it with physical teeth, swallowing it, etc., etc.

Please pardon the extensively detailed retelling but we attempting to drive three points home:One-the New Testament is extremely clear on this subject.Two-orthodox Christianity understands the text as is.Three-Richard Dawkins simply has not provided adequate or viable explanations for this and the various other likewise texts of the Bible that speak of physical resurrection.

“Him God raised up on the third day, and showed Him openly” (Acts 10:40).

“God raised Him from the dead. He was seen for many days by those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are His witnesses to the people” (Acts 13:30-31).

Jesus, “whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses” (Acts 3:14-15).

“For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living” (Romans 14:9).

Clearly the brothers believed due to their eyewitness observation of what may be termed a reproducible experiment. This was not blind faith, this was not one person’s imagination, this was not even symbolic for the rising of Jesus as a spirit. This was the physical resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Luke 24 referred to “the eleven.” Thomas was not there at the time and so was told of the physical appearance of Jesus but would not believe by faith, none of them did. Finally, when Jesus appeared to Thomas:

“He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord_Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ So he said to them, ‘Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.’ And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, ‘Peace to you!’ Then He said to Thomas, ‘Reach your finger here, and look at my hands; and reach you hand here, and put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing. And Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:20 & 24-29).

Why was he urged to believe and not to be an unbeliever? Because he was presented with the same evidence to which the rest had been exposed. They, in turn, demonstrate no ill will towards Thomas, there is no indication that they belittled him at all for his doubt. But what about Jesus’ statement “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”? Surely this is nothing but a call to blind faith. The fact that we experience the passage of time in a linear manner means that the very moment that something occurs it is instantly relegated to the past where it is no longer directly accessible. If you drop something and someone in the next room asks you, “What was that?” They have to rely on your word, your retelling of what happened. Secondarily, they may be able to see some evidence, for instance: spilled milk and a broken glass. Once Jesus ascended what we have is the historical accounts of those who were eyewitnesses and those who interviewed eyewitnesses. This is the same way that we “know” ninety-nine percent of everything that we say that we “know.”

If events such as the resurrection had not occurred the disciples would have never encouraged skeptics, seekers, or even other believers, to check out the facts and ensure the truth of their teachings. There are many examples in the New Testament of the disciples not only proclaiming that they themselves are eyewitnesses but they appeal to the knowledge of their audience in saying, “you yourselves know of this,” or “you yourselves have seen this” (For some examples see, 2nd Peter 1:16; 1st John 1:3; John 19:35; Acts 2:22, 26:24-28).

Far from preaching blind faith, the New Testament challenges and encourages detective work. A Greek doctor name Luke did just that and he wrote the following:

“Dear Theophilos: Concerning the matters that have taken place among us, many people have undertaken to draw up accounts based on what was handed down to us by those who from the start were eyewitnesses and proclaimers of the message. Therefore, your Excellency, since I have carefully investigated all these things from the beginning, it seemed good to me that I too should write you an accurate and ordered narrative, so that you might know how well-founded are the things about which you have been taught” (Luke 1:1-4).

In the New Testament we find praise for the Bereans who did not just believe by faith but conducted their own research:

“the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more fair-minded [or more noble] than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so” (Acts 17:10-11).

“He [Jesus] through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days” (Acts 1:2-3).

Think on these things anytime that the New Atheists expound upon the text of the Bible, or rather, their dogmatic interpretations/perceptions of what the text of the Bible states.

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