Cosmology and the Pathetic Bible
Christopher Hitchens then brings up the following point:
“You know, Dinesh D’Souza makes this statement in his new book. He’s going to be, by the way, one of the much more literate and well-read and educated of our antagonists I’m going to be debating soon. He says that in Genesis, which people used to mock, they said ‘let there be light’ and then only a few staves later you get the sun and the moon and the stars.”Sam Harris, “Right.”Christopher Hitchens, “How could that be?”Sam Harris, “Yes.”Christopher Hitchens, “Well, according to the Big Bang, that would be right.”Sam Harris, “Yeah, but that’s pretty pathetic.”
Christopher Hitchens, “The Bang precedes the galaxies. Believe me, I think it’s pathetic too, but _”
It is interesting to note that Christopher Hitchens was stating that when we combine the Bible with modern cosmology it makes perfect sense. Meanwhile, Sam Harris is interrupting apparently not knowing where Christopher Hitchens was going with this, since Christopher Hitchens was not merely going to say, “Light before Sun equals nonsense.” They both agree that the Bible accurately describes light before the Sun.Why then is it “pathetic”?What is “pathetic” about a prediction (employing the scientific definition)?It is because a mere book written by mere superstitious ignoramuses could not possibly be stating what it is stating?
Is it because it is not convenient to their particular worldviews?
I paused the quoted transcript above at “but _” at which time Sam Harris stated:
“Right. Well, I try to demonstrate this cast of mind in, I think, a very long end note in ‘The End of Faith’, where I say, ‘any text can be read’. Well, with the eyes of faith you can make magical [the official transcript has this inserted here “?prescience/impressions”] out of any text. So, I literally walked into a book store, the cookbook aisle of a book store, randomly opened a cookbook, found a recipe for wok-seared shrimp with ogo relish or something, and then came up with a mystical interpretation of the recipe. And you can do it! I mean, you can play connect the dots with any crazy text and find wisdom in it.”Christopher Hitchens again, “Michael Shermer did it with the Bible code.”Sam Harris, “Right, I haven’t seen that, but, yeah.”
Christopher Hitchens, “The hidden messages in the Bible. Very, very good. You can write yesterday’s headlines from it anytime you like. Yeah.”
They are clearly skirting the issue and making category mistakes. The issue was not hidden Bible codes, not newspaper theology nor that “any text can be read,” but comparing a claim (the Bible’s) with science (modern cosmology). Various New Atheists make this point about “any text can be read” concept, they do not, however, take it far enough. The question is not merely “Can you make any text state whatever you want” but “Did you logically, viably, make is state what you want” or most importantly, “What you want the text to state is irrelevant since the question is what does the text state” (this is basic hermeneutics, basic exegesis versus eisegesis/isogesis see here).
Sam Harris himself has lamented that his writings have been misquoted and uncontextually misapplied:
“_the fine art of selective quotation to make me appear to hold positions which I do not hold_While I stand by everything I have written in ‘The End of Faith’_I cannot be expected to parry every malicious sampling of my text. It is unfortunate_”1
Apparently, he can recognize this with the treatment of his own writing but not the Bible. Noting that the Bible’s cosmology is accurate is not making anything say anything, it is just reading. I will soon be posting on two aspects of atheism’s views on cosmology.
With regards to the above mentioned Dinesh D’Souza you can hear a radio debate between him and Christopher Hitchens here and with Dan Barker here.
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