Palin saves Xmas

It's easier to spend time hooking suckers to buy your new book than to work on legislation (i.e., Farm Bill, Immigration).

Why does this "War on Christmas" shit drag on? (here, here, here...)

As Krugman memorably put it, the modern GOP is an alliance between the plutocrats and the preachers. You can't get middle and lower-class Americans to vote for plutocrats openly, so you make BS like this the underlying current that drives them. This is of course the famous "What's the matter with Kansas?" thesis. As the GOP continues its rightward slide, I can't help but think that as older white people die off so will the party they support. The GOP will become a truly regional party, largely rooted in Southern Christianity.

PS: I'm a not-so-angry atheist without an attorney. Thus I won't be "telling" Palin that Christ is no longer a part of Christmas. Lolz

Did Jesus Rise Bodily from the Dead? Arif Ahmed vs. Gary Habermas Debate

There is a really good defense of Humean skepticism towards the Christian belief in the Resurrection by Prof. Arif Ahmed. I saw this a few months back via the Debunking Christianity website. I forgot to link it at the time and found myself trying to remember it recently. Luckily I was able to retrieve it (see below).

The form of Dr. Ahmed's arguments are very simple forms of Humean skepticism, and he was kind enough to email me a copy of the handout from his presentation:

The Case Against Resurrection (Prof. Arif Ahmed)

All the arguments assume that we have evidence far stronger than what is available in the Bible: in particular we assume that we have contemporary testimony from witnesses who are known to be both independent of one another and highly educated; and we assume that the testimony states directly that a corpse came back to life after three days as a solid body able to pass through rock (John 20:19, 20:26).

First argument
(1) If two hypotheses are compatible with the evidence we should prefer the one that we expect to be more frequent given evidence of that type.
(2) We have frequently observed and verified beyond doubt cases of independent and educated witnesses testifying at the time to something that didn’t happen.
(3) We have never observed and verified cases of bodily reanimation after three days or of solid bodies passing through rock.
(4) Therefore, it is more likely that the witnesses got it wrong.

Second argument
(1) If two hypotheses are compatible with the evidence then we should prefer the one that we expect to be more frequent given evidence of that type.
(2) We have frequently verified cases of an apparent miracle turning out to have an initially unknown natural explanation.
(3) We have never verified cases (except possibly that in dispute) of an apparent miracle having no natural explanation (known or unknown).
(4) Therefore, a presently unknown natural explanation is more likely than a supernatural Resurrection.

Third Argument
(1) If the evidence gives us no reason to prefer one hypothesis to another we should give them equal weight
(2) The evidence gives no reason to prefer Resurrection to any other supernatural explanation.
(3) Therefore a supernatural Resurrection is no more likely than a supernatural hallucination (or Satan, or Baal, or…)

See the video below:

Did Jesus Rise Bodily from the Dead? Arif Ahmed vs. Gary Habermas Debate (posted below) | YouTube link

What would Jesus do (or not do)?

Love it. (H/T: Pharyngula)

he is not risen!

How could I call myself a good god-disbelieving atheist without poking a stick in every Christian's eye today? Here's the real connection between the Easter Bunny and Jesus...


Re-post:

Glorious Ishtar! Isn't it lovely how the Christians co-opted all the fun pagan festivals for boring prudish commemorations? Have a wonderful myth day!

1. Did Jesus Really Rise From The Dead?
2. Easter: Did Jesus Arise? The Choice is Obvious
3. Why Wasn't There any Veneration of Jesus' Empty Tomb?
4. Is There Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus?
5. Carrier-O'Connell debate part 1
6. Matthew Green on the Resurrection of Christ
   
7. The Martyrdom Argument
8. Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection Story
9. The Historicity of Jesus' Resurrection: The Debate between Christians and Skeptics
10. Misc. others

Since Dan Barker has already invented the wheel, why should I reinvent it? From his article, "Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?" we see the parallel passages from the gospels (and Acts) laid out so as to show us the impossible task of harmonization of the resurrection stories.

What time did the women visit the tomb?

1. Matthew: "as it began to dawn" (28:1)


2. Mark "very early in the morning . . . at the rising of the sun" (16:2, KJV); "when the sun had risen" (NRSV); "just after sunrise" (NIV)


3. Luke: "very early in the morning" (24:1, KJV) "at early dawn" (NRSV)


4. John: "when it was yet dark" (20:1)

Who were the women?

1. Matthew: Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (28:1)


2. Mark: Mary Magdalene, the mother of James, and Salome (16:1)


3. Luke: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women (24:10)


4. John: Mary Magdalene (20:1)

What was their purpose?

1. Matthew: to see the tomb (28:1)


2. Mark: had already seen the tomb (15:47), brought spices (16:1)


3. Luke: had already seen the tomb (23:55), brought spices (24:1)


4. John: the body had already been spiced before they arrived (19:39,40)

Was the tomb open when they arrived?

1. Matthew: No (28:2)


2. Mark: Yes (16:4)


3. Luke: Yes (24:2)


4. John: Yes (20:1)

Who was at the tomb when they arrived?

1. Matthew: One angel (28:2-7)


2. Mark: One young man (16:5)


3. Luke: Two men (24:4)


4. John: Two angels (20:12)

Where were these messengers situated?

1. Matthew: Angel sitting on the stone (28:2)


2. Mark: Young man sitting inside, on the right (16:5)


3. Luke: Two men standing inside (24:4)


4. John: Two angels sitting on each end of the bed (20:12)

What did the messenger(s) say?

1. Matthew: "Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead: and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you." (28:5-7)


2. Mark: "Be not afrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him. But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you." (16:6-7)


3. Luke: "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again." (24:5-7)


4. John: "Woman, why weepest thou?" (20:13)

Did the women tell what happened?

1. Matthew: Yes (28:8)


2. Mark: No. "Neither said they any thing to any man." (16:8)


3. Luke: Yes. "And they returned from the tomb and told all these things to the eleven, and to all the rest." (24:9, 22-24)


4. John: Yes (20:18)

When Mary returned from the tomb, did she know Jesus had been resurrected?

1. Matthew: Yes (28:7-8)


2. Mark: Yes (16:10,11[23])


3. Luke: Yes (24:6-9,23)


4. John: No (20:2)

When did Mary first see Jesus?

1. Matthew: Before she returned to the disciples (28:9)


2. Mark: Before she returned to the disciples (16:9,10[23])


3. John: After she returned to the disciples (20:2,14)

Could Jesus be touched after the resurrection?

1. Matthew: Yes (28:9)


2. John: No (20:17), Yes (20:27)

After the women, to whom did Jesus first appear?

1. Matthew: Eleven disciples (28:16)


2. Mark: Two disciples in the country, later to eleven (16:12,14[23])


3. Luke: Two disciples in Emmaus, later to eleven (24:13,36)


4. John: Ten disciples (Judas and Thomas were absent) (20:19, 24)


5. Paul: First to Cephas (Peter), then to the twelve. (Twelve? Judas was dead). (I Corinthians 15:5)

Where did Jesus first appear to the disciples?

1. Matthew: On a mountain in Galilee (60-100 miles away) (28:16-17)


2. Mark: To two in the country, to eleven "as they sat at meat" (16:12,14[23])


3. Luke: In Emmaus (about seven miles away) at evening, to the rest in a room in Jerusalem later that night. (24:31, 36)


4. John: In a room, at evening (20:19)

Did the disciples believe the two men?

1. Mark: No (16:13[23])


2. Luke: Yes (24:34--it is the group speaking here, not the two)

What happened at that first appearance?

1. Matthew: Disciples worshipped, some doubted, "Go preach." (28:17-20)


2. Mark: Jesus reprimanded them, said "Go preach" (16:14-19[23])


3. Luke: Christ incognito, vanishing act, materialized out of thin air, reprimand, supper (24:13-51)


4. John: Passed through solid door, disciples happy, Jesus blesses them, no reprimand (21:19-23)

Did Jesus stay on earth for more than a day?

1. Mark: No (16:19[23]) Compare 16:14 with John 20:19 to show that this was all done on Sunday


2. Luke: No (24:50-52) It all happened on Sunday


3. John: Yes, at least eight days (20:26, 21:1-22)


4. Acts: Yes, at least forty days (1:3)

Where did the ascension take place?

1. Matthew: No ascension. Book ends on mountain in Galilee


2. Mark: In or near Jerusalem, after supper (16:19[23])


3. Luke: In Bethany, very close to Jerusalem, after supper (24:50-51)


4. John: No ascension


5. Paul: No ascension


6. Acts: Ascended from Mount of Olives (1:9-12)

He is risen! Not.

...the more things stay the same

Although things change, many of the dialogs I've had with theists via email, facebook, blogging, etc., all still sound a lot like a dialog between Spinoza (a sort of pantheist/deist) and Burgh (a fervent young Catholic) from over 330 years ago!

Check it out, thanks to Babinski: here.

Job and the Problem of Evil

It is often to the book of Job that Christians refer in answering questions about why we suffer.

About the problem generally, for the theist, there are only a few possible responses:

1. We suffer because we deserve it (the attitude of Job's friends)
2. We suffer because we are righteous (hinted at by Jesus in the NT) while the world around us is wicked -- it's God's way of bettering us -- but it will be righted in the end (the Apocalyptic view)
   
3. We suffer because the world is wicked and we deserve it, as we are all wicked (we are to blame for both) and we may not blame God for it at all (Rom 9)
   

Job's god never really answered this question. But I did like the way a recent Yale course in religion analyzed the issue (H/T: Wes):

God has heard enough, it's his turn to ask questions, the answers to which are clearly implied; these are rhetorical questions.

[Job 38 ff]

Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations?
Speak if you have understanding.
Do you know who fixed its dimensions
Or who measured it with a line?"
You did, God.
…Have you ever commanded the day to break,
Assigned the dawn its place,
…Have you penetrated to the sources of the sea,
Or walked in the recesses of the deep?

No, no human has. And God continues with these rhetorical questions, questions regarding the animals, their various powers and attributes, but one wonders what the purpose of all these questions is.

One senses that they are irrelevant. Job has posed some very specific challenges to God. Why am I suffering? Is there a pattern to existence? Is God's refusal to answer these challenges a way of saying there is no answer? Or is it God's way of saying that justice is beyond human understanding? Or is this theophany of God in nature and the focus on creation, an implicit assault on the fundamental tenant of Israelite religion that God is known and made manifest through his interactions with humans, his rewards and punishments in historical time.

You'll recall that the monotheistic revolution is generally understood to have effected a break from mythological conceptions of the gods as indistinguishable from various natural forces, limited by meta-divine powers and forces of the cosmos.

The biblical God wasn't another Ancient Near Eastern or Canaanite nature God ultimately, but a wholly transcendent power--He was figured this way in many parts of the Bible--known not through the involuntary and recurring cycles of nature but through His freely willed and non-repeating actions in historical time. Such a view of God underwrites the whole system of divine retributive justice.

Only an essentially good God who transcends and is unconstrained by mechanistic natural forces can establish and administer a system of retributive justice, dealing out punishment and reward in response to the actions of humans in time.

Is the author of Job suggesting that history and the events that befall the just and the unjust are not the medium of revelation? Is God a god of nature after all, encountered in the repeating cycles of the natural world and not in the unpredictable and incoherent arena of human history and action? If so, then this is a third fundamental biblical assumption that has been radically subverted.

So we'll turn now to God's direct speech to Job in 40:8, 40, verse 8, excuse me. "Would you impugn my justice? / Would you condemn Me that you be right?" God, I think, is now getting at the heart of the matter: your friends Job were wrong, they condemned you. They attributed sin to you, so that they might be right. But you, too, have been wrong condemning Me, attributing wickedness to Me so that you might be right.

Job's friends erred because they assumed that there's a system of retributive justice at work in the world and that assumption led them to infer that all who suffer are sinful, and that's a blatant falsehood. But Job also errs; if he assumes that although there isn't a system of retributive justice, there really ought to be one. It's that assumption that leads him to infer that suffering is a sign of an indifferent or wicked God, and that is equally a falsehood. Job needs to move beyond the anthropocentrism that characterizes the rest of Scripture and the Genesis 1 account of creation, according to which humankind is the goal of the entire process of creation.

God's creation, the Book of Job seems to suggest, defies such teleological and rational categories. In a nutshell, God refuses to be seen as a moral accountant. The idea of God as a moral accountant is responsible for two major errors: the interpretation of suffering as an indicator of sin, or the ascription of injustice to God. In his final speech, Job confesses to a new firsthand knowledge of God that he lacked before, and as a result of this knowledge Job repents, "Therefore, I recant and relent, / Being but dust and ashes," 42:6.

Here we see the other meaning of Job's name, "one who repents," suddenly leap to the fore. What is he repenting of? Certainly not of sin; God has not upheld the accusations against Job. Indeed he states explicitly in a moment that the friends were wrong to say he had sinned. But he has indicated that guilt and innocence, reward and punishment are not what the game is all about, and while Job had long been disabused of the notion that the wicked and the righteous actually get what they deserve, he nevertheless had clung to the idea that ideally they should. And it's that mistaken idea--the idea that led him to ascribe wickedness to God--that Job now recants. With this new understanding of God, Job is liberated from what he would now see as a false expectation raised by the Deuteronomistic notion of a covenant relationship between God and humankind, enforced by a system of divine justice.

At the end of the story Job is fully restored to his fortunes. God asserts he did no evil and the conventional, impeccably Deuteronomistic view of the three friends is clearly denounced by God. He says of them, "They have not spoken of Me what is right as my servant Job has," 42:7. For some, the happy ending seems anticlimactic, a capitulation to the demand for a happy ending of just desserts that runs counter to the whole thrust of the book, and yet in a way I think the ending is superbly fitting. It's the last in a series of reversals that subverts our expectations. Suffering comes inexplicably, so does restoration; blessed be the name of the Lord.

God doesn't attempt to justify or explain Job's suffering and yet somehow by the end of the book, our grumbling, embittered, raging Job is satisfied. Perhaps he's realized that an automatic principle of reward and punishment would make it impossible for humans to do the good for purely disinterested motives. It's precisely when righteousness is seen to be absurd and meaningless that the choice to be righteous paradoxically becomes meaningful. God and Job, however we are to interpret their speeches, are reconciled.

The suffering and injustice that characterize the world have baffled humankind for millennia. And the Book of Job provides no answer in the sense of an explanation or a justification of suffering and injustice, but what it does offer is a stern warning to avoid the Scylla of blaspheming against the victims by assuming their wickedness, and the Charybdis of blaspheming against God by assuming his. Nor is moral nihilism an option, as our hero, yearning for, but ultimately renouncing divine order and justice, clings to his integrity and chooses virtue for nothing.

So the only "answer" Job may provide is that the laws of nature themselves are not used as tools of god's justice, but instead callous impersonal forces of the world. Job's "error" is in assuming that the world ought to be just if there was a god behind it who was just. And so this just brings in Occam's Razor to cut away whether a god is behind it all regardless...

Remember Ehrman's explication of the Apocalyptic view of evil in the world, which is somewhat more satisfying than this one, but lacks in logic still.

Jesus' Money 101

Stanley Fish is a great read in the NYT. Today's piece is an example: he examines the allegorical and literal role that money plays in the Christian faith and doctrines.

One thing I've always found hilarious is the idea that Jesus paid for all men's sins on the cross (c.f., Matt 18:14, 1 John 2:2, &c.) yet that one must "accept" such a work in order to realize it. Now I know this doesn't apply to Calvinists, but instead to Arminian non-universalists. The logic of the claim is horrible to say that your "free will" is needed in "accepting" a work done on your behalf if you don't have the authority to order the work done in the first place.

True, if I say I will build a deck onto your back porch, I need your permission to do this work for you, because you are legally in charge of the property and must approve of the work to be done.

But in the case of "paying off your (sin) debts" wouldn't God be the legal authority and thus be the sole arbitrer of approval for the work to be done? In fact the Bible plainly claims that God foreordained the act of Redemption (c.f. Rev. 13:8, &c.), and so it's solely up to God as to whether or not a particular work (the payment of all men's sins) would/could be done.

It's sort of like me saying that I'm going down to the bank to pay off your mortgage, but you say, "What if I don't accept your payment?" The point is, the one who holds the debt is the banker, and he will accept my payment. The act of clearing your debt is collaborative only between the banker and the one paying the debt. Your cooperation is unnecessary, should the banker have authority over how the debt is discharged.

Does God not have authority over the payment of sin?

I suppose that's why a lot of Christians accept universal salvation.

Baby dedication

I went through a phase where I specifically wanted to debunk certain aspects of the Christian faith, in particular, as I felt such noble work (leading others away from falsehood) would surely bring about good things. I thought people would listen to my well-reasoned arguments and admit they were wrong, and like me, turn from the err of their ways and embrace a new freedom of mind and being.

Then I woke up.

Anyway, I don't often hone in on Christianity in particular much anymore, but there's one practice that seems peculiar to it that I wanted to comment on: baby dedication.

The logic I would use to argue that the practice is ridiculous reminds me of the issue of prayer. I suppose it could be argued that prayer is for our benefit, not based on the illogical desire to change God's mind or cause something to happen that wouldn't anyway. In the same way, I guess baby dedication can be "justified" as being a ceremony that makes parents feel better about themselves.

But the hard questions, for those who embrace the idea that a baby dedication actually does do something other than rub the parents' glands the right way, still exist:

1. If you accept the idea of free will, doesn't "dedication" violate this idea?
2. If you don't dedicate your baby to Jesus/God, is this your sin or the child's? Therefore, would the child suffer or would you?
3. If God is a "Father to the fatherless" as the Bible describes, isn't he already looking out for your kids?
4. Do you think that this dedication sways God over to your side in protecting/providing for your child in some way that God otherwise wouldn't? If so:
5. Do you realize what an asshole this sort of God would be?
6. Is this sort of God only responsive to such ceremony because God just doesn't pay much attention otherwise?
7. Or is this sort of God democratic, and needs you to vote/lobby/show your interest in an issue before acting?

So many things people do are just dumb. Baby dedication is one of them.

Suffering and the Bible

Since I've had a little more free time this past two weeks, I've pondered a little on old philosophical problems and thus have felt the old familiar urge for an atheist apologetic post. I just got through reading a thought I've had before, but put well into words: that the Cinderella-esque nature of the Christian narrative makes the problem of evil even more difficult for the Christian than for the Muslim or Jew. I also saw Bart Ehrman's lecture (video) on suffering via DC. He also mentions Elie Wiesel and his God on Trial that you can watch on YouTube. He lists the following as the attempts in the Bible to explain or understand suffering in the world: as punishment for (or as a natural consequence of) sin, evil forces in the world (Satan) who are allowed to punish people, as a test of one's faith (Job), a "mystery" that even to ask "Why?" is a blasphemy, that sometimes chaos happens and we "get in the way".

Ross Douthat writes:

Any such revolution would affect atheism as well as belief. Consider, for instance, the way in which the dominance of the Christian story has actually sharpened one of the best arrows in the anti-theist's quiver. In Western society, especially, the oft-heard claim that the world is too cruel a place for a good omnipotence to have created derives a great deal of its power, whether implicitly or explicitly, from the person of Christ himself. The God of the New Testament seems more immediate, more personal, and more invested in his creation than He had heretofore revealed Himself to be. But this arguably makes Him seem more culpable for the world's suffering as well. Paradoxically, the God who addresses Job out of the whirlwind is far less vulnerable to complaints about the world's injustice than the God who suffers on the Cross - or the human God who cries in the manger. For many Christians, Christ's suffering provides a partial answer to the problem of theodicy. But for many atheists and agnostics, it only sharpens the question: How can a God who loves mankind enough to die for us allow us to suffer as much as we do?

Take that question away, and all the arguments that spin away from it disappear as well. Which is just one small reason why a world in which nobody had any reason any longer to believe that God had been born in human flesh to a poor Jewish woman in Bethlehem, or died a miserable death on a Roman cross, would be a world in which atheists as well as believers found themselves arguing about life, the universe and everything in very different ways than they do now.

This is true. For people like presuppositionalists, they prefer to use the whirlwind-style God along with their Calvinism and Rom 9 to say, "Who are you to question God's way of running the world?" To them, you either have no logical basis to even argue that God isn't good (a difficult argument for them to maintain) or you have no ability to cross over to disprove their beliefs because of your flawed fundamental premises. They are a small minority of Christians for good reason. For most Christians, they want to believe that the world as you see it is not the world that God wants it to be, but that He allows it to remain this way because of one thing or another (attempting to draw a distinction between what God permissively and what God perfectly wills has always been absurd to me). Free will is the typical theodicy.

I agree with one of the first things Ehrman says about suffering with respect to Americans: it is very, very difficult to relate to most Americans the scope and nature of suffering that occurs in the world on a daily (minute-by-minute) basis. The inability of Americans to grasp at such suffering, I am convinced, is at least in part the reason for the outlier nature of America in being a very religious country which is also very rich. As I said in a recent post,

The idea that God is listening to your requests and will fix that prostate, or give you that new job, or raise, or protect you from danger, is hilarious. While you're sitting there asking that, mothers are raising their dead children to the sky, after pleading with God to spare them. People are physically rotting from leprosy and mentally rotting from Alzheimer's. To think that God is letting all the billions of people on earth suffer and plead with no reprieve, but that he cares what job you have or mate you pick, is the height of hubris. The problem of evil has destroyed the faith of giants like Charles Templeton and unknowns like me.

When Bart Ehrman talks about free will theodicies, he labels them the "robot answer" defense of suffering in the world: humans are given the ability to obey or disobey and this leads to suffering in the world. He points out that this may help explain some suffering but not natural disasters. He doesn't take it to the next level and include animal suffering, accidents and the distinctions I've drawn before -- the question of why one person's (evil) will supersedes the others involved (including God's and the victims of the suffering), the question of why the physical contingencies allow for one person's (evil) will to actually physically occur rather than be a wish...[I won't rehash all that again, but it is essential to read that post as I feel I've dealt with nearly every single point that theists raise to the argument from evil against God's existence.]

Ehrman goes on to bring up the classic 3-point argument from evil:

1. God is all-powerful
2. God is all-loving
3. There is suffering

He establishes the common theodicies:

1. Deny one of the three premises (deny 1, deny 2, deny 3)
   
2. Bring in an "extenuating circumstance" to explain how the three premises are not logically imcompatible: as punishment for (or as a natural consequence of) sin, evil forces in the world (Satan) who are allowed to punish people, as a test of one's faith (Job), a "mystery", that even to ask "Why?" is a blasphemy, that sometimes chaos happens and we "get in the way" (think spiritual warfare here).

He then goes on to look at the two major overarching themes on suffering in the Bible -- one from the OT and one from the NT:

1. OT (the "Prophetic response") -- the Prophets nearly all had the same view on suffering, and it only concerned Israel, that suffering was punishment for sin. This is exemplified in the story of the Exodus and the obligation that Israel had towards God for saving them from Egypt. If Israel was God's "Chosen People" then all its suffering (war, drought, pestilence, famine) must be explained as some sort of breach of contract, and of course it must be man's (not God's) fault for this contract being breached (cf. Amos 3:2). The reason this is a supposed "solution" to the problem of evil is that the punishment is made with repentance in mind; if the people turn around from their "sin" then the suffering will have served a "greater good" of saving their souls. This is consistent with Adam & Eve's explusion from the Garden of Eden, with the Noachian Flood, with Sodom & Gomorrah, &c. The question of why people are supposed to believe that this sort of God is worth serving is left for the thinker...
   
2. NT (the "apocalyptic response") -- found in the latest book of the OT (Daniel) and dominated the NT: suffering was not coming as a punishment from God, but from "other sources" in the world. Enemies of God (cosmic forces in the world) cause our suffering (the devil and his demons). The devil was not found in the Prophets. Sin is not a specific wrong that you've done, but a sort of cosmic force in the world ("the flesh") and this is what leads to suffering. Eventually, God will remove these evil forces from the world and restore perfection to the world.
3. The Ecclesiastical Response -- "all is vanity" [vanity = Hebrew hevel: transcience, impermanence]. There is no justice in the world, therefore the idea that suffering is a just punishment for sin is false. Also, there will not be justice in the next world, which takes away the empty hope of Apocalypticists. Therefore, live life fully in the present. There is therefore no "answer" to suffering except to try to live and enjoy life. Paul's thoughts as he pondered this possibility? Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die! This third response is somewhat like that of atheism.
   

Ehrman points out four tenets of this apocalyptic response:
1) dualism [Manichaeism]: which groups everyone into either God's camp or the devil's, and also gives this world (the one of suffering) to the devil but the future world (the one of perfection) to God, is also intended to explain "why the wicked prosper but the righteous suffer", in the sense that the present age will "pass away";
2) pessimism: we can't really improve the present age, and even if we do, it won't matter in the cosmic sense, the present age is under the control of evil forces, and things will get worse and worse;
3) vindication: God will set things right, especially by judgment, and restore its own sovereignty, those in one camp will be rewarded and those in the other will be punished, this is why the suffering that occurred in this world is really inconsequential, this was the beginning of philosophical defenses within Judaism/Christianity of the afterlife;
4) imminence: the timing for all this is soon, the coming of the Lord is at hand, things were just about as bad as they could get/were going to be, Mark 9:1, the imminence seems necessary as it helps to make God less bad for letting all this suffering occur -- if God can stand this much suffering for much longer, it seems that God is less good;

Ehrman looks at the Apocalypticists as a contrast to the Prophets and points out the logical inconsistencies that any believer has to deal with. Moral complacency is a real issue for the former: why worry about evil if things will get better only in the next world? Along this same line, the belief that the end is coming soon is something that gives believers hope but also alarm and fear. Therefore, along with moral complacency, believers along the Apocalyptic response have a certain scary worldview that doesn't enrich their lives or the lives of those around. The conflict between the two major responses is obvious: either this world is rotten and you don't get what you deserve here because God doesn't fundamentally dole out punishment until a later judgment, or, people do get what they deserve in this life. Either you reap what you sow here in this world or you don't and you get it in the world to come.

One of the questions he was given at 48:00 or so in to the video was, "How do you know that suffering is bad if there is no God?" He dealt with it pretty simply: the traditional utilitarian view -- whatever brings about good (in the sense of health, wealth, happiness and pleasure) for the majority of people, acknowledging and using our human sense of empathy in avoiding suffering for ourselves and others as being foundational to this moral view. He also hinted at seeing the problem of Divine Command Theory in his transition from to becoming an agnostic from Christian.

I also liked a guy at the end (55:00 or so) who pointed out that the idea that "the poor you shall have with you always," and the general moral complacency brought about by the Apocalyptical view is harmful and wrong. We have the resources in the world, if they were redistributed and focused, to end the sort of starvation and ridiculous death rates from things like lack of drinking water and mosquito nets. And this guy's point was that a religious view keeps us from realizing that we could alleviate much suffering on earth, and thus in turn reduce the burden on a theist to explain/justify it with a theodicy.

Some of Ehrman's statistics (21:55):

• Every 5 seconds, a child starves to death
• Every minute, 25 people die from drinking unclean drinking water
• Every hour, 700 people die from malaria
  

Skeptical thoughts re the Bible

I've made no bones about my feeling that the resurrection is a myth, as well as the birth narratives. I've also explained why skepticism is warranted when approaching the Bible in general, given the nature of ancient superstition, the lack of fact finding capabilities for writers in the era, the relative dearth of gospel-related facts in the earliest NT (Pauline) manuscripts, the growth of legend as the gospels aged, and so forth.

I just wanted to highlight two posts at my old haunt that are very good on these issues:

1. Why I don't believe in the resurrection, by Matthew Green
2. Where is the 800 pound gorilla? by Bart Willruth

A lot of the stuff being written at DC is sort of "pop culture atheism", but the overall tenor of conversation there is much higher than, say, the RRS.

New evidence casts further doubt on Jesus as unique messiah

Although I don't bite as hard on the full Jesus-as-myth-only hypothesis as some do, I definitely reject claims of an inerrant historicity of the NT (and the OT, for that matter). There are many scholarly takes on the resurrection myth, which I reject as anything but myth, given the illogic of the idea of the doctrine of the Incarnation, among other things. Now, some of the further left ideas about Jesus being but one of many pagan agri-god resurrected saviors seem a bridge too far, but new evidence on an ancient (1st BCE) tablet definitely gives more context to the time in which Jesus lives, and deflates air out of the argument that his story is unique:

It was in Cathedra that Israel Knohl, an iconoclastic professor of Bible studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, first heard of the stone, which Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur dubbed “Gabriel’s Revelation,” also the title of their article. Mr. Knohl posited in a book published in 2000 the idea of a suffering messiah before Jesus, using a variety of rabbinic and early apocalyptic literature as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls. But his theory did not shake the world of Christology as he had hoped, partly because he had no textual evidence from before Jesus.

When he read “Gabriel’s Revelation,” he said, he believed he saw what he needed to solidify his thesis, and he has published his argument in the latest issue of The Journal of Religion.

Mr. Knohl is part of a larger scholarly movement that focuses on the political atmosphere in Jesus’ day as an important explanation of that era’s messianic spirit. As he notes, after the death of Herod, Jewish rebels sought to throw off the yoke of the Rome-supported monarchy, so the rise of a major Jewish independence fighter could take on messianic overtones.

In Mr. Knohl’s interpretation, the specific messianic figure embodied on the stone could be a man named Simon who was slain by a commander in the Herodian army, according to the first-century historian Josephus. The writers of the stone’s passages were probably Simon’s followers, Mr. Knohl contends.

The slaying of Simon, or any case of the suffering messiah, is seen as a necessary step toward national salvation, he says, pointing to lines 19 through 21 of the tablet — “In three days you will know that evil will be defeated by justice” — and other lines that speak of blood and slaughter as pathways to justice.

To make his case about the importance of the stone, Mr. Knohl focuses especially on line 80, which begins clearly with the words “L’shloshet yamin,” meaning “in three days.” The next word of the line was deemed partially illegible by Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur, but Mr. Knohl, who is an expert on the language of the Bible and Talmud, says the word is “hayeh,” or “live” in the imperative. It has an unusual spelling, but it is one in keeping with the era.

Two more hard-to-read words come later, and Mr. Knohl said he believed that he had deciphered them as well, so that the line reads, “In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you.”

To whom is the archangel speaking? The next line says “Sar hasarin,” or prince of princes. Since the Book of Daniel, one of the primary sources for the Gabriel text, speaks of Gabriel and of “a prince of princes,” Mr. Knohl contends that the stone’s writings are about the death of a leader of the Jews who will be resurrected in three days.

He says further that such a suffering messiah is very different from the traditional Jewish image of the messiah as a triumphal, powerful descendant of King David.

“This should shake our basic view of Christianity,” he said as he sat in his office of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem where he is a senior fellow in addition to being the Yehezkel Kaufman Professor of Biblical Studies at Hebrew University. “Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.”

Ms. Yardeni said she was impressed with the reading and considered it indeed likely that the key illegible word was “hayeh,” or “live.” Whether that means Simon is the messiah under discussion, she is less sure.

Moshe Bar-Asher, president of the Israeli Academy of Hebrew Language and emeritus professor of Hebrew and Aramaic at the Hebrew University, said he spent a long time studying the text and considered it authentic, dating from no later than the first century B.C. His 25-page paper on the stone will be published in the coming months.

...

Mr. Knohl said that it was less important whether Simon was the messiah of the stone than the fact that it strongly suggested that a savior who died and rose after three days was an established concept at the time of Jesus. He notes that in the Gospels, Jesus makes numerous predictions of his suffering and New Testament scholars say such predictions must have been written in by later followers because there was no such idea present in his day.

But there was, he said, and “Gabriel’s Revelation” shows it.

“His mission is that he has to be put to death by the Romans to suffer so his blood will be the sign for redemption to come,” Mr. Knohl said. “This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This gives the Last Supper an absolutely different meaning. To shed blood is not for the sins of people but to bring redemption to Israel.”

More on this as it becomes available.

A reminder of the incoherence of the resurrection narratives

Glorious Ishtar! Isn't it lovely how the Christians co-opted all the fun pagan festivals for boring prudish commemorations? Have a wonderful myth day!

1. Did Jesus Really Rise From The Dead?
2. Easter: Did Jesus Arise? The Choice is Obvious
3. Why Wasn't There any Veneration of Jesus' Empty Tomb?
4. Is There Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus?
5. The Martyrdom Argument
6. Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection Story
7. The Historicity of Jesus' Resurrection: The Debate between Christians and Skeptics
8. Misc. others

Since Dan Barker has already invented the wheel, why should I reinvent it? From his article, "Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?" we see the parallel passages from the gospels (and Acts) laid out so as to show us the impossible task of harmonization of the resurrection stories.

What time did the women visit the tomb?

1. Matthew: "as it began to dawn" (28:1)


2. Mark "very early in the morning . . . at the rising of the sun" (16:2, KJV); "when the sun had risen" (NRSV); "just after sunrise" (NIV)


3. Luke: "very early in the morning" (24:1, KJV) "at early dawn" (NRSV)


4. John: "when it was yet dark" (20:1)

Who were the women?

1. Matthew: Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (28:1)


2. Mark: Mary Magdalene, the mother of James, and Salome (16:1)


3. Luke: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women (24:10)


4. John: Mary Magdalene (20:1)

What was their purpose?

1. Matthew: to see the tomb (28:1)


2. Mark: had already seen the tomb (15:47), brought spices (16:1)


3. Luke: had already seen the tomb (23:55), brought spices (24:1)


4. John: the body had already been spiced before they arrived (19:39,40)

Was the tomb open when they arrived?

1. Matthew: No (28:2)


2. Mark: Yes (16:4)


3. Luke: Yes (24:2)


4. John: Yes (20:1)

Who was at the tomb when they arrived?

1. Matthew: One angel (28:2-7)


2. Mark: One young man (16:5)


3. Luke: Two men (24:4)


4. John: Two angels (20:12)

Where were these messengers situated?

1. Matthew: Angel sitting on the stone (28:2)


2. Mark: Young man sitting inside, on the right (16:5)


3. Luke: Two men standing inside (24:4)


4. John: Two angels sitting on each end of the bed (20:12)

What did the messenger(s) say?

1. Matthew: "Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead: and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you." (28:5-7)


2. Mark: "Be not afrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him. But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you." (16:6-7)


3. Luke: "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again." (24:5-7)


4. John: "Woman, why weepest thou?" (20:13)

Did the women tell what happened?

1. Matthew: Yes (28:8)


2. Mark: No. "Neither said they any thing to any man." (16:8)


3. Luke: Yes. "And they returned from the tomb and told all these things to the eleven, and to all the rest." (24:9, 22-24)


4. John: Yes (20:18)

When Mary returned from the tomb, did she know Jesus had been resurrected?

1. Matthew: Yes (28:7-8)


2. Mark: Yes (16:10,11[23])


3. Luke: Yes (24:6-9,23)


4. John: No (20:2)

When did Mary first see Jesus?

1. Matthew: Before she returned to the disciples (28:9)


2. Mark: Before she returned to the disciples (16:9,10[23])


3. John: After she returned to the disciples (20:2,14)

Could Jesus be touched after the resurrection?

1. Matthew: Yes (28:9)


2. John: No (20:17), Yes (20:27)

After the women, to whom did Jesus first appear?

1. Matthew: Eleven disciples (28:16)


2. Mark: Two disciples in the country, later to eleven (16:12,14[23])


3. Luke: Two disciples in Emmaus, later to eleven (24:13,36)


4. John: Ten disciples (Judas and Thomas were absent) (20:19, 24)


5. Paul: First to Cephas (Peter), then to the twelve. (Twelve? Judas was dead). (I Corinthians 15:5)

Where did Jesus first appear to the disciples?

1. Matthew: On a mountain in Galilee (60-100 miles away) (28:16-17)


2. Mark: To two in the country, to eleven "as they sat at meat" (16:12,14[23])


3. Luke: In Emmaus (about seven miles away) at evening, to the rest in a room in Jerusalem later that night. (24:31, 36)


4. John: In a room, at evening (20:19)

Did the disciples believe the two men?

1. Mark: No (16:13[23])


2. Luke: Yes (24:34--it is the group speaking here, not the two)

What happened at that first appearance?

1. Matthew: Disciples worshipped, some doubted, "Go preach." (28:17-20)


2. Mark: Jesus reprimanded them, said "Go preach" (16:14-19[23])


3. Luke: Christ incognito, vanishing act, materialized out of thin air, reprimand, supper (24:13-51)


4. John: Passed through solid door, disciples happy, Jesus blesses them, no reprimand (21:19-23)

Did Jesus stay on earth for more than a day?

1. Mark: No (16:19[23]) Compare 16:14 with John 20:19 to show that this was all done on Sunday


2. Luke: No (24:50-52) It all happened on Sunday


3. John: Yes, at least eight days (20:26, 21:1-22)


4. Acts: Yes, at least forty days (1:3)

Where did the ascension take place?

1. Matthew: No ascension. Book ends on mountain in Galilee


2. Mark: In or near Jerusalem, after supper (16:19[23])


3. Luke: In Bethany, very close to Jerusalem, after supper (24:50-51)


4. John: No ascension


5. Paul: No ascension


6. Acts: Ascended from Mount of Olives (1:9-12)

He is risen! Not.

Interesting analysis

**updated 12/4/07 to include link to article**

There is an interesting analysis of atonement, morality and justice in the new AA journal. From "For God so loved the world He did what?" by Gary J. Whittenberger, Ph.D., printed in the American Atheist Magazine, October 2007 (excerpt from p.23):

From the preceding discussion we can see that the standard Christian theology in regard to the crucifixion, death, resurrection and atonement of Jesus has several core beliefs:

1. One person X should sometimes request or command another person Y to prove his love for X by killing somebody else Z whom Y loves.
2. If asked or commanded by person X, another person Y should prove his love for X by killing somebody else Z whom Y loves.
3. One person X should sometimes spontaneously kill somebody else Z he loves in order to prove his love for another person Y.
4. If a person X or group of persons has rationally developed a justice system which works perfectly well, then he or the group should change it.
5. If a person X or group of persons has rationally developed a justice system which works perfectly well, then he or the group should subvert it by exempting some people from just punishment after they have behaved wrongly.
6. If a person X or group of persons has rationally developed a justice system which works perfectly well, then he or the group should subvert it by sometimes transferring penalties earned by one person Y to another person Z who has not earned them.
7. If a person X or group of persons has rationally developed a justice system which works perfectly well, then he or the group should subvert it by exempting some people from just punishment after they have behaved wrongly if they agree to accept irrational beliefs.
8. There exists a god X who would do or has already done those things.

All these core beliefs are irrational, unethical and/or false.

I had a long discussion on the question of how God can be both just and merciful at the same time with Todd Friel where I really emphasized #6 & 7 above. Of course he didn't get it/didn't agree. Oh well...

Superstition cultivates stupidity

It should come as no surprise that the people kneeling to pray before a spittlebug nest think Jesus is showing them a sign. Teaching people to believe in a 6,000 year old universe, a boat holding all of the creatures on earth, people teleporting and flying through the sky...it leads to the absolute ruin of critical thinking faculties.

What would be really funny is if one of them caught this "water" in their cup and drank it. It's what they deserve:

Spittlebugs are xylem parasites of vascular plants. They tap into the xylem through a proboscis, suck out the xylem sap, and absorb the nutrients within. Xylem sap is very dilute, though, and they must process a lot of the liquid sap to obtain their nutrients. The excess liquid is then excreted from the anus. As the liquid passes through the anus, the spittle bug adds silk-like protein to it. As this emerges from the anus, the spittle bug folds air into the liquid with its legs, producing the characteristic spittle that envelops the insect.

heh.

"God Hates the World"

This brought tears to my eyes. But for all the wrong reasons...especially the little child at the end singing about how it's too late to change his mind.

"...PROUD SINNERS!"
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Technorati tags: God, Religion, Atheism

Carnival of AiG's Creation Museum

**UPDATE: Check out this amazing compilation of resources debunking the lies and silliness of AiG's grand experiment in "How We Can Waste $27M on Human Ignorance": DefCon presents
http://www.defconamerica.org/creationmuseum/**

Tomorrow morning at 10 AM the glorious Creation Museum of AiG is opening to the public. America's collective IQ will dip ~20 points, and progress in public understanding of science will be rolled back about 300 years.

PZ set up a "creation carnival" of posts related to AiG and its pseudo-science in general. It has 65 entries! Check it out.


Read these for some background:

• Yabba-dabba science, LA Times
• Adam and Eve in the land of dinosaurs, NYT
• NCSE resource
  
• The Rally for Reason
• Chris Hedges' report at Truthdig
• Petitions by DefCon

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Technorati tags: God, Religion, Intelligent Design, Evolution, Creationism

BattleCry San Francisco, Another Rally for Militant Theonomy

Rolling Stone has an excellent new article, "Teenage Holy War", on the fundamentalist BattleCry movement, and links to lots of video on it:

"Just as the events of September 11th, 2001, permanently changed our perspective on the world," Luce writes, "so we ought to be awakened to the alarming influence of today's culture terrorists. They are wealthy, they are smart, and they are real."

Luce is forty-five, his brown hair floppy, his lips pouty. On the screens above the stage, his green eyes blink furiously. "The devil hates us," he exhorts, "and we gotta be ready to fight and not be these passive little lukewarm, namby-pamby, kum-ba-yah, thumb-sucking babies that call themselves Christians. Jesus? He got mad!" Luce considers most evangelicals too soft, too ready to pass off as piety their preference for a bland suburban lifestyle. He hates what he sees as the weakness of "accepting" Christ, of "trusting" the Lord. "I want an attacking church!" he shouts, his normally smooth tones raw and desperate and alarming. He isn't just looking for followers -- he wants "stalkers" who'll bring a criminal passion to their pursuit of godliness.

I mentioned BattleCry a while back. The militant theonomists like Ron Luce have been working hard to infuse the imagery of "spiritual warfare" into the minds of teens and kids. They want these kids to see themselves as "warrior for God," and we secularists as "enemies," or "fighting for Satan." ABC Nightline had a segment on Battlecry which I'm posting below.


Last year, Sunsara Taylor wrote an article on BattleCry, a ministry which uses military allegories and targets youth in rallies, entitled "Fear and Loathing at Philadelphia's BattleCry."

Immediately afterward, a preacher took the microphone and led the crowd in prayer. Among other things, he asked the attendees to “Thank God for giving us George Bush.”

On his cue, about 17,000 youths from upward of 2,000 churches across America and Canada directed their thanks heavenward in unison.

Throughout the three and a half hours of BattleCry’s first session, I thought of only one analogy that fit the experience: This must have been what it felt like to watch the Hitler Youth, filled with self-righteous pride, proclaim the supremacy of their beliefs and their willingness to shed blood for them.

And lest you think this is idle paranoia, BattleCry founder Ron Luce told the crowds the next morning (May 13) that he plans to launch a “blitzkrieg” in the communities, schools, malls, etc. against those who don’t share his theocratic vision of society.

Blitzkrieg.

Nothing like a little Nazi imagery to whip up the masses...

...Luce put great emphasis on following every word in the Bible, treating it as an “instruction book,” even when a person doesn’t understand or agree. This is, of course, the logic that leads to the stoning of gays, non-virgin brides, disobedient children and much more—because the Bible says so.

Chillingly, when I confronted Ron explicitly about these passages, he refused to disavow them. During the afternoon preceding the May 12 rally, Luce and about 300 BattleCry acolytes (almost entirely youths) rallied in front of Philadelphia’s Constitution Hall—the location having been chosen because Luce wants to “restore” the Founding Fathers’ vision of a religious society (never mind that the Founders enshrined in the Constitution an explicitly secular framework of government).

I and about 20 people representing various anti-Bush, atheistic and anti-Iraq-war factions made our way into the rally and began interacting with the youths assembled. Some said openly that it was OK that George Bush’s lies have cost the lives of thousands of Americans and Iraqis. Why was it OK? Because “God put him [Bush] there.”

For more on that story, see two articles on DailyKos:
1) DailyKos 1
2) DailyKos 2

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Technorati tags: God, Religion, Church-state, Politics

Exchange With Dan Marvin

A few weeks ago, a comment got left on a fairly old thread here by Dan Marvin, and we started an exchange. He then commented at Gator Freethought on the Tabash-Friel debate, and since I saw that he was trying to appeal to me personally I decided a switch to email would probably be more apropos than using our group's website. After the last email he sent me, Dan left a few more remarks at the Gator Freethought site, but I deleted them and am opening up this thread for the conversation to continue (if he should want it to) in this comment section. Dan feels I misrepresented his remarks (threats) about my wife going to hell, so I've reproduced all the emails in their entirety.

-----Original Message-----
From: S. nsfl
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 5:36 PM
To: Dan Marvin
Subject: Re: comment

Dan,

Really easier to email than leave comments back-and-forth.

Now, we are certainly going to disagree on many things, but I want to cut to the chase: the onus is on you. What I mean by that is that scientists have published hundreds of thousands of articles full of data on evolutionary biology. Physicists have published about the same number on topics that address the evolution of stars, our cosmos, the age of the earth, sun, galaxy, and even the universe. You reject it all. They have laid out their case in a systematic, logical fashion, displaying their presuppositions and evidences clearly. You just heard some arguments from people you think are trustworthy (Debmski, Wells, Meyers...all the Disco ID-iots), and so you're convinced that the global scientific community, of all creeds, races, religions, and backgrounds, are all, universally and emphatically *WRONG*.

Who is the burden of proof on? You!

Therefore, I ought to make you be more specific. When you say, "the flagellum," for instance, *which* flagellum? Did you know that a huge distinction must be made between extant bacterial flagella and archael flagella and eukaryotic flagella? Probably not. The ID-iocy movement doesn't like details.

http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Flagellum

Perhaps you would be interested in reading something I've written that addresses the supposed irreducible complexity (IC) of the flagellum:

http://nonserviamergofiatlux.blogspot.com/2006/11/responding-to-id-review-of-their.html

It's very important to get creationists to give you a definition of information. If they can't even define it, then it should tell you (in a hurry) that they are relying upon colloquial "instincts" about information, rather than having a sound argument based on mathematics. There are really only two commonly accepted ways to define information, covered by either Shannon or by Kolmogorov. Both of these rely heavily upon the adage that, "complexity is non-compressibility" when it comes to information.

I can prove this to you by asking you to write a program that generates a given string of characters. The more complex the string, the less compressible your program or algorithm(s) will be. *THIS* is the sort of highly-technical, formal, *genuine* information theory that real mathematicians and computer scientists are quite familiar with. The sort that Dembski and others rely upon is the idea that "information is a message!" Which can be true, but can also be quite false.

I strongly recommend checking out computer scientist Mark Chu-Carroll's work in debunking the "information problem" for evolution. Start with the first two posts on what information *is*, then move on to the three indices: http://recursed.blogspot.com/2006/03/nancy-pearcey-creationists-miss.html http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/08/qa_what_is_information.php http://goodmath.blogspot.com/2006/06/information-theory-index.html http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/bad_math/debunking_creationism/ http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/infotheory.html

Edward Max also has a nice write-up (see section 1.2.2):

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/fitness/

What you find in a hurry, my friend, is that the creationists don't know their hands from their asses, which is something we scientists have not been surprised about for decades.

If you think my web sources are wrong/dumb, I have a simple request of you: go to the nearest university, and ask a professor of mathematics or computer science how to define information, and thus how you might go about measuring the "information content of DNA" or some such other exercise that creationists love to hint around about but display their inability to produce any answers to whatsoever.

In the end, my suggestion is that you take each of these supposed "disproofs" of evolution and examine them *thoroughly*! Talk to all kinds of different experts, read books and articles at the library...actually do *research* on it instead of *trusting* these people who make money off of your credulity! That's what scientists do. People like them, all they do is take our (scientists) research and write books purporting to show how our work supports their anti-evolutionary stance, this despite the fact that only a fraction of actual scientists reject evolution. Think long and hard about that factoid.

Take care Dan, and don't write me back until you've done some HW. You can tell that I have.

With warm regards,
nsfl

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Marvin
Sent: Thu, 12 Apr 2007 15:51:49 -0700
To: S. nsfl
Subject: Re: comment

nsfl,

I respect the fact that you may not want to be humiliated in a public forum like your blog so we can do this in private.

“What you find in a hurry, my friend”

If 15-18 years is in a hurry then fine.

“When you say, "the flagellum," for instance, *which* flagellum? “

Bacterial flagellum is what I wrote right.

“You reject it all.”

One reason is that there is no logic in most of the arguments. (The classic frog turns into a prince fairytale) The Bible is clear and makes sense.

I admit some of the links you gave me went right over my limited brain. You are missing some huge point’s dude, and you are dodging the key point made here that God exists.

I am beginning to believe there is nothing that God can do to prove his existence to you, buddy. You will search so hard to find an alternative answer like your friend Eddie in that debate. I cherish how God simplifies things for us for us to comprehend, example: Jesus came to take the punishment that we deserve for breaking his laws, the Commandments. I am partial to Astrophysics I must admit, they use simplified terms to describe things because the universe is complicated enough. If you see spots on the sun they call it sun spots and if you see a hole in the universe that is black they call it black holes. They actually try to help people understand things in terms an 8 yr old understands. You, my friend, might not be like that.

I believe atheists have an ignorance fallacy that is very common. Explaining away Bacterial flagella or Origin of Information in some form that you accept as truth will not help you in your last days here on earth. Think about when you die, why would you delay to repent and put your trust in the savior? Are you waiting for a better offer? What does God have to do to prove his existence to you? Remember Todd pointed out the parable of the rich man and Lazarus what more “evidence” do you need. 1 Corinthians 1:19,1 Corinthians 2:14

I feel for you because you believe to have all the answers when actually God views you as a fool Psalm 14:1

Think about it, can man really explain what God knows.

“Do you know how many hairs are on the back of a fully grown male Tibetan yak? Probably not. I think, therefore, that it is reasonable for me to conclude that there are some things you don't know. It is important to ask these questions because there are some people who think they know everything. Let's say that you know an incredible one percent of all the knowledge in the universe. To know 100 percent, you would have to know everything. There wouldn't be a rock in the universe that you would not be intimately familiar with, or a grain of sand that you would not be aware of. You would know everything that has happened in history, from that which is common knowledge to the minor details of the secret love life of Napoleon's great-grandmother's black cat's fleas. You would know every hair of every head, and every thought of every heart. All history would be laid out before you, because you would be omniscient (all-knowing).

Bear in mind that one of the greatest scientists who ever lived, Thomas Edison, said, "We do not know a millionth of one percent about anything." Let me repeat: Let's say that you have an incredible one percent of all the knowledge in the universe. Would it be possible, in the ninety-nine percent of the knowledge that you haven't yet come across, that there might be ample evidence to prove the existence of God? If you are reasonable, you will be forced to admit that it is possible. Somewhere, in the knowledge you haven't yet discovered, there could be enough evidence to prove that God does exist.” Ray Comfort

I will help you out in any way but you must understand that I can find a tremendous amount of flaws in Richard Dawkins theories and yes I have examples, but that will not help me or you when we face God on THAT DAY. BTW did you read my response to you on my blog?

For Him,

Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: S. nsfl
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 4:51 PM
To: Dan Marvin
Subject: Re: comment

Dan,

Humiliated? Riiiiiiiight...(Dr. Evil) I don't want to clutter up my freethought group's webpage with a 1-on-1 conversation with you. Tell you what, feel free to post *all* of my two emails and comments to you on your own blog, so that I will be publicly humiliated.

There are eubacteria, archaea bacteria, and then eurkaryotes, all of which possess versions of cilia and flagella, and all of which are different. ID-iots don't tell their followers about it, because it confuses the issue (and they don't like details).

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/87/12/4576

The Bible is clear and makes sense? That's why there are 5,000 denominations of Christians and why the Jews and Muslims use the same OT that you do? Once again, cue in Dr. Evil..."Riiiiiiiiiiiight..."

Okay, so let's keep it simple. Information's complexity *can* be measured, using Shannon or K-C theories. This is pure math, that's all. What does that tell us? That the more random and stochastic a string, the more information it contains. These are the most difficult to compress or to express in algorithmic form.

Evolution is based upon stochastic, random processes in chemistry and biology. There is MUCH noise generated in the processes of genetics. Thus, it makes *perfect* sense that information is generated by evolution. Information and noise are interrelated. The creationists have no way to present any intelligible argument against this, so they, like Ray Comfort, use *analogies* which appeal to our human understanding of human activities. For example -- "if you see a book, that didn't happen by chance!" Yes, sure...right...because we know what books are, who makes them, their language and how they are made.

On the contrary, when we "read" the "book" of DNA, what do we find? Lots of very very complex things that have arisen through millennia of random and stochastic processes accumulating. For example, a friend of mine once issued the following simple challenge to show a creationist how silly the "information disproves evolution" argument really is:

Sequence 1: cag tgt ctt ggg ttc tcg cct gac tac gag acg cgt ttg tct tta cag gtc ctc ggc cag cac ctt aga caa gca ccc ggg acg cac ctt tca gtg ggc act cat aat ggc gga gta cca agg agg cac ggt cca ttg ttt tcg ggc cgg cat tgc tca tct ctt gag att tcc ata ctt

Sequence 2: tgg agt tct aag aca gta caa ctc tgc gac cgt gct ggg gta gcc act tct ggc cta atc tac gtt aca gaa aat ttg agg ttg cgc ggt gtc ctc gtt agg cac aca cgg gtg gaa tgg ggg tct ctt acc aaa ggg ctg ccg tat cag gta cga cgt agg tat tgc cgt gat aga ctg

Please use your 'procedure', whatever it may be, to measure the 'genetic information' content of these two sequences. Please write down the step-by-step process by which you measured the 'genetic information' content of these two sequences, being as clear and/or specific as you can.

http://www.creationtalk.com/message-board-forum/post-27800.html#27800

(I'm "Skiddum" on that board)

There's an old saying about catching a bullshitter by forcing him to walk you through something step-by-step and explain it. Oh, wait...no there's not, but there should be.

Now, here's my challenge to you -- find me *anyone* who can tell me what the "information content" of that sequence is. Anyone. The only requirement is that they explain it all the way through. Please note that this doesn't mean "find me someone who knows the codon triplets and can tell me which amino acids these encode", although that would be an added bonus.

The logical fallacy argumentum ad ignorantium is when we try to use something we don't know *as evidence* that is supposed to support something we do. Here are two simple examples, (i) "Jim, how many miles are on that car? Jeez, Pat, I don't know, I've never seen it before. But, the miles on that car prove that it's old!" (ii) "Tommy, my mommy and daddy told me babies come from a sperm and an egg? No way Jackie! I don't know where they come from, but I know that the stork brings them!"

These are two examples of someone postulating a possibility (i) the car is old; (ii) the stork brings babies, and trying to use their ignorance as if it is *evidence* for those propositions.

In the world of creationism and ID-iocy, it is: "Scientists Asimov tells me that the universe is 13 bln years old, and he explained why scientists think that way. But he doesn't know what came before that! Therefore, God exists!" and "Evolution can't fill in every single hole in our knowledge, and has unexplained questions. Therefore, creationism is true!"

What you guys suffer from is a basic inability to grasp your own non sequiturs. Even *if* evolution was wrong, it would *not* mean that the Evangelical YEC is true. There are an infinity of other possibilities, from natural explanations to other religious myths. It is simply a false dilemma to claim that, "Either evolution or YEC."

That's why Ray Comfort's argument below is wrong and stupid. I don't *have to know* anything. I simply claim, "I don't believe in your God, for reasons X, Y and Z." End of story. Do I claim that I know everything? Of course not! But when you claim that you *DO* know, and I ask you *HOW* you know, you can't answer me by asking me if I have all the answers! I don't claim to. You do! You're the one who claims to know all this stuff that is contradicted entirely by modern science. And then when I ask you to give me some semblence of a rational answer, you would just try to debunk science, as if this automatically means you would win. Even if science is wrong, if you have no comparable evidence and methodology, then you have nothing but blind faith! Which is exactly all you have.

In the end, all you can say is, "My god might exist!" To which I shrug my shoulders and walk away -- millions of gods *might* exist. I need evidence and compelling arguments to believe in any one of them, which I don't have. That's why I'm an atheist. It's not because I know it all. It's because you know nothing to make me believe otherwise. You're a dying breed, my friend, and your particular brand of religion is just one of millions that has co-evolved with humanity and its culture for eons. Some have gone extinct, and others have adapted, like yours.

With warm regards,

nsfl

PS: Get a Gmail account. Hotmail is outmoded.

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Marvin
Sent: Thu, 12 Apr 2007 23:01:00 -0700
To: S. nsfl
Subject: Re: comment

Dude,

You are cracking me up. I don’t care if you actually know how to split atoms into mutated beer making zygotes. You are a draft dodger.

“Okay, so let's keep it simple. Information's complexity *can* be measured, using Shannon or K-C theories”

Are you listening to yourself? Really that is keeping it simple? Really? Are you kidding? Are you trying to flex in front of a mirror or something? How about this: Let’s keep it simple, have you ever lied? The 9th commandment in Revelations 21:8 it says all liars will have their part in the lake of fire. (Unbelievers also for that matter) Umm are you a believer nsfl?

“That's why there are 5,000 denominations of Christians”

I have done some advanced studies about this subject and they all may be wrong, I don’t know yet. That is one of the debates that I want to either be in or be in the audience. My opener would be “The mere fact there are different denominations negates the one true way as talked about in Jeremiah 32:38-40 . I did studies about the word church in the bible and found this: "Church" in the original text is "Ecclesia”. Ecclesia means convocation, gathering, congregation, meeting, etc. "Ecclesia tou demou" (meeting of the citizens). Not a building but a gathering.

On my site I have a link to verses that point to the possibility that Church is not the answer God still is. If you belive you must go to church, I give you this.

Again, on ignorance fallacy here is an example

“Hundreds of years ago, scientists made the same claim against bacteria – “I don’t see it, so it must not exist. These early skeptics fell into the trap of appealing to their own ignorance – another type of fallacy.”

I submit this:

For hundreds of years, atheists made the same claim against God – “I don’t see it, so it must not exist. These early skeptics fell into the trap of appealing to their own ignorance – another type of fallacy.”

“What you guys suffer from is a basic inability to grasp your own non sequiturs”

Great! Now you have me looking up Latin. You have me in stitches you are a funny nerd (a compliment because I claim geek status myself) if I was there next to you I would pinch your cheeks. God hates prideful boasters BTW so stop the flexing, muscleman. Yes, you think your brain is big, we get it, but that is just not the case (according to God) although I like you.

“I need evidence and compelling arguments to believe in any one of them, which I don't have”

Yes you do but you are choosing to hide behind man made arguments against God but none of it will work with God. You will claim to him “but God you haven’t shown me enough evidence” and he will spew you out and send you to the abyss. I would love nothing more to share a coffee with you in heaven someday and we say to each other ‘whew that was close, I almost didn’t take that leap of faith and ended up in hell” Just put Jesus on like you would a parachute dude, you claim you need proof and God says he will give it to you and will manifest himself to you but you must go to him on his terms not yours. He manifested himself to me and gave me undeniable proof without a doubt and I would die for him gladly. I am not afraid of a guy with a gun but I am afraid what God will do to him if he pulls the trigger when it is pointing at me.

PS: Get a Gmail account. Hotmail is outmoded.

I am old school, I know and I even own Google stock. I do have Gmail accounts but I can not sign in with multiple emails at least I don’t think I can still. Unfortunately I am using Outlook and I can not configure Gmail to it so I wait until I either stop using outlook or Google comes up with something with as many or same features.

In the end, all you can say is, "My god might exist!"

God does exist. Do you want to see your wife in hell burning forever? I went to your web site and saw your wife (marriage umm invented in the bible I believe) and my heart aches to think that because of your stubbornness and “she stands by her man” that she may not get to go to heaven. Do the leap of faith for her, challenge God himself. Pray to him and ask him to manifest himself as promised in John 14:21 and you promise to repent and trust in him in faith. HE WILL I wouldn’t lie to you, at least he wouldn’t. Give it time, and grow in his word (The Bible) I thought I was a Christian for years but I just believed in Jesus but that doesn’t matter (I found out later) what matters is if Jesus knows who YOU are. When he knew me he manifested himself to me and changed my heart forever. If you only knew me before I was a Christian then after you would be a believer easily.

Do you know what marriage is, God created it for us to have role play because when we get to heaven we followers of Christ will be his Jesus’ bride. He is the head and we are the body. In marriage on earth YOU are the head and your wife is the body of the family and she submits to you because you are the “captain” of the ship and have ultimate responsibility of the family (I assume you don’t have kids, if you do you will see how God works, I have three). What if someone was to rape your wife or mine and never gets caught would you consider it justice? Don’t you want a system of perfect justice? God makes sure there is justice in this perfect universe. God is the bully’s bully and I can relate to that. We can go into later how evolution removes morals and that survival of the fittest condones raping of woman and children to advance the seed of the strongest and God’s morals does not, Seals gets raped everyday all the time, but I am getting tired I have a life to lead.

I really care enough about you to tell you that you are wrong. Perfect love is a constant confronter. It takes far more love to confront then to just ignore the situation. I can’t watch a child perish in a burning home and I cannot stand idle watching you perish. We may disagree but your salvation is the most important thing in the world even more then your kids or wife or school or anything. In a plane you are instructed to put your oxygen mask on first then your kids so you do not pass out and you both die. So nsfl save yourself, put the mask of God on and then you can put one on your wife and future kids. He is right here waiting for you to put on the mask then he will save you. Go talk to him not me but if you need help I am here for you.

With love,

For Him,

Dan

At this point, Dan may take over my comment box and go wild. I have very little left to say to him unless he moves back into an intellectually-tenable position. We started out on scientific arguments, which he promptly avoided when I called his bluff. He quickly moved to question-begging and emotive pleas by telling me to think of my wife burning in hell. These guys are pretty weak, and it shows -- they can't win an argument so instead choose resorting to the "You better believe, or else!". If evidence is lacking, try threats!
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