Jason and the Halluci-Nots

Recent Controversy

A spate of recent blog articles (1) has rekindled an old debate between bible believers and critics of the Christian religion on whether or not the so-called "post-resurrection appearances" of Jesus were real or hallucinatory in nature. Since I know of no good reasons to limit the debate to only these alternatives, I am not writing to defend the view per se that the individuals which the New Testament claims to have witnessed Jesus after his alleged resurrection were in fact hallucinating; indeed, I have no confessional investment to protect on this issue and thus am not committed to such predetermined outcomes. Rather, I am seeking to give some brief observations on various objections which have been raised against this proposal by Jason Engwer & co. of the Christian blog known as Triablogue.


An All Too Typical Defense

In one of his articles defending the New Testament's claim to eyewitness accounts of the resurrected Jesus from the charge of hallucination, Jason repeatedly claims that "every major strand of early evidence" (he uses this very phrase four separate times), disconfirms - even "contradicts" - what we would expect to be the case if those accounts were in fact hallucinatory in origin. By "early evidence" he is no doubt referring to various claims found in the texts of the New Testament. Throughout his rejoinder to such proposals, Jason's approach to the matter rests on the assumption that the elements of the New Testament's stories are accurate and historical to begin with, and that a theory attributing the experience of the risen Jesus to hallucination would have to come to grips with these stories on their own terms. Elsewhere I have already explained my view in regard to the claim that the bible constitutes "archaeological evidence" in Contra Dusman, where I clarify my position on this matter as follows:

I'm perfectly willing to accept the text of the New Testament as evidence showing what some ancient people *believed*. But this is far from supporting the claim that what they believed is true... I'm not disputing against the view that there were people in the first and second centuries who believed writings found in the New Testament.

Furthermore, in my blog Reckless Apologetic Presumptuousness, I have already raised issue with the assumption, so commonly taken for granted by believers, that the texts of the New Testament present a uniform picture of Jesus and early church figures and activity, an assumption which is easily reinforced by reading the details we find in the gospels into the early epistolary records. So even before going very deeply into Jason's offerings on the issue, I already detect some areas of concern.


The Legendary Nature of the Evidence

Given the scant details that can be adduced from the New Testament on the psychological stability of the characters mentioned in its stories and chronicles, it is unclear where defenders of Christianity think they get their certainty about the supposed truthfulness of the incredible claims found in the New Testament. Here we have an ancient set of texts, written over a period of several decades and later assembled together in one volume, all apparently about the same individual who is claimed by believers to be the supernatural creator of the universe walking the earth fully clothed as a human man named Jesus. The earliest of these documents are a series of letters written mostly by one man, known to us as the apostle Paul, and his accounts put Jesus in some unspecified past in an unspecified setting, for the most part giving no time, location or other details one could confidently call historical. Much of his letters are preoccupied with doctrinal disputes, ethical teachings, theological arguments, etc., and shows no interest in a pre-Easter Jesus. Paul also includes references to his own mystical experiences of this Jesus, who he says died by crucifixion and was later resurrected, after which time Paul was paid a personal visit in the form of a visionary experience (according to one later source, at any rate) and selected to be Jesus' traveling emissary in search of converts to a belief program built on worshipping this resurrected "savior."

Later, some time after Paul's life and missionizing campaign, a new series of texts starts to be written. These texts also speak of a man named Jesus who was divine, and who was also crucified by the Roman state, and who was later resurrected from the dead. But these texts, known as gospels, place this Jesus into a historical context that is absent from Paul's many letters. All four of these texts portray a Jesus that bears little if any resemblance to the Jesus that Paul describes. The gospel Jesus, for instance, is said to have been from Nazareth, was born of a virgin, survived a slaughter of infants ordered by a jealous king, was baptized by a man named John the Baptist, worked as a carpenter, conducted a preaching ministry in and around Judea, taught in parables, cast out demons and healed diseases, worked various miracles, raised the dead back to life, was betrayed to Roman authorities by a man named Judas Iscariot, and was executed under the rule of Pontius Pilate. While the letters of Paul speak of a Jesus in an unspecified, vague past with virtually no historical details, the later gospel texts paint a detailed portrait that comes alive in the imagination of the reader, complete with other characters who interact with Jesus as well as place names and other location references, all of which give their portrait of Jesus a historical context that Paul's letters do not have.

What's more is that the gospel texts essentially repeat the same story (suggesting that later narratives were derived from the earliest account to produce new versions), and - significantly - that the gospel story grows more elaborate and impressive with each telling. For instance, the earliest account, found in the book of Mark, begins with Jesus as an adult getting baptized under the supervision of John the Baptist. This detail is nowhere mentioned in any of Paul's letters. The next two gospels, Matthew and Luke, seeking to confer a miraculous beginning to their Jesus, portray Jesus as having a virgin mother. And again this detail is nowhere mentioned in any of Paul's letters. The last of the canonical gospels, John, goes even further in giving its Jesus divine credentials by equating Jesus with the Logos (an idea which bears an uncanny resemblance to one of the same name enjoying reverence among Hellenistic Jews in the decades prior to the writing of John), an eternal being existing forever in a magic kingdom and enjoying immutable bliss as a member of the "Godhead." Similar progressions from relatively bare to more embellished treatments of the same anecdotal material can be observed throughout the story of Jesus' gathering of disciples, his performance of healings and other miracles, on up through to the passion and post-resurrection scenes. Thus the gospel accounts themselves are unhelpful in uncovering any truths in the earliest testimony, for the narrative accounts that we find in the gospels bear the signs of literary invention rather than historical reporting.


Our Limited Vantage

We do not have the benefit of seeing what Paul identified as Jesus when he tells us things such as that he received his gospel story by means of revelation (Gal. 1:12) and that "it pleased God… to reveal his Son in me" (Gal. 1:15-16). So again, it's unclear how believers can conclusively rule out at least the possibility that what Paul experienced was hallucinatory in nature, or at least subjective. As what appears to be a private deliverance to Paul that apparently informs his whole gospel (cf. Eph. 3:2-4), this "strand of early evidence" is not, contrary to what Jason has told us, "inconsistent with hallucinations and other psychological disorders," for these are internal experiences that Paul claims for himself, not experiences that are suggested to have been shared with others. Since the book of Acts reads like a later concoction whose intention is to portray a kind of "golden age" pageant of post-Easter adventures of the apostles, all we really have from Paul are his letters. Indeed, how does one rule out psychological disorders as at least a contributing factor in one's reasoning when an individual takes belief in invisible magic beings so seriously?

Jason and other Halluci-Nots may claim that the experience that Paul is referring to in these passages in the first chapter of Galatians, is the incident in which the book of Acts puts Paul on the road to Damascus with fellow travelers. Unfortunately, however, the book of Acts, which tells the same conversion story twice (with conflicts), could only indicate that the content that Paul later referred to as "my gospel" (cf. Rom. 2:16, 16:25) - of which he tells us that he "neither received it of man, neither was I taught it" (Gal. 1:12) - was delivered to him at a later point in time since he was instructed to proceed to Damascus "and there it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to do." (Acts 22:10) The story does not indicate that any more than this was communicated to Paul on this occasion. Since it does not appear that Paul was given a full education on Christian theology at the time of his conversion on the road to Damascus (at least, according to Acts), and since he was not "taught it" or "received it of man," this leaves unexplained exactly how he acquired (if that's the right word) knowledge of Jesus. The record we have nowhere rules out later private visitations by Jesus; in fact Paul's frequent appeals to having knowledge by means of divine revelation suggests that he enjoyed repeated visits by Jesus, or that he was in regular contact with the risen deity.

Of course, at this point, one might raise the question: why doesn't Jesus do for everyone he wants to save what the New Testament says he did for the apostle Paul (i.e., pay a miraculous personal visit), rather than just for one man who lived upwards of 2,000 years ago, whose writings are the only record of these private deliverances from a divine source, and whose ideas have been hotly debated throughout the centuries? It's larger questions like this that serve to put these disputes about whether hallucinations et al. played a part in the development of the early Christian testimony. As it is now, with a private message hand-delivered to one individual who died centuries ago and penned into texts which read like legend and myth, the result that reaches us in the modern era tends to raise more questions than it can hope to answer, and to cause more problems than it can hope to resolve. Apparently the all-wise, all-knowing creator of the universe finds the present method of disseminating its word to be preferable to a direct approach, but for reasons that we will likely never know.


Needlessly Limiting Possible Alternatives

A common apologetic tactic is the artificial restriction of available options for consideration on some point of contention to only two alternatives, one preferred by the apologist and the other presented as too implausible to be taken very seriously. Even though such strategem typically trades on superficial understanding of the issues involved, the intention behind such a ploy is not only to score an easy victory for theism, but also to belittle any alternative to theism (and any would-be adherents by implication). In Basic Contra-Theism, I encountered this proclivity for simplistic bifurcation as I considered the common apologetic treatment of the "origin" of the universe as "a choice between self-generating matter and an intelligent Creator." It seems that apologists are so accustomed to thinking in terms of square circles vs. circular squares, that non-believers should be mindful not to fall into the same booby-traps. For we see this propensity to bifurcate in an article called A Closer Look at the Subjective Visions Theory, to which Jason linked for support. Its author writes:

according to the 'subjective visions' theory, those that saw Jesus did so within the context of a dream, vision, etc., but Jesus did not really appear. In other words, it was the result of the mind playing tricks, or a hallucination.

Of course, the causality behind the experiences that Paul and other alleged eyewitnesses of the resurrected Jesus need not have been either hallucinations or "the mind playing tricks." An individual can have what some might term 'visions' as a result of a heightened, frenzied state, akin to what many charismatics and Pentecostals sometimes experience when brought to a trance-like state in which a subject may be heard babbling a "nonsense language" (so-called "speaking in tongues"). An individual can in fact be encouraged to "let go" of himself and be "taken over" by what are supposed to be "spirit forces." The subject may not experience actual hallucinations, but may be expected that the exhiliration thus experienced has religious significance. Since the details of what Paul's 500 witnesses actually experienced are nowhere given, it is possible that the individuals he had in mind underwent a kind of mass trance-like episode. Earl Doherty points out that the wording Paul uses in I Cor. 15 suggests precisely this:

In a study of the meaning of “ophthe” (the ‘seeing/appearance’ word in the Greek), The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (vol. V, p. 358) points out that in this type of context the word is a technical term for being “in the presence of revelation as such, without reference to the nature of its perception.” In other words, the ‘seeing’ may not refer to actual sensory or mental perception. It may simply be “an encounter with the risen Lord who reveals himself... they experienced his presence.” If what we have here is more a sensing of Christ’s “presence” than a full-blown hallucinatory vision, this would make it easier to accept that so many individuals and even a large group could imagine they had undergone such an experience. It is far from clear, therefore, that Paul in 15:5-8 is describing anything more than a series of occasions on which many people, most of them within a group already formed for a religious purpose, felt a conviction of faith in the spiritual Christ, experiences which took on heightened significance with the passage of time. (2)

In fact, from the scant description that we are given, Paul's 500 witnesses could very well have experienced the same kind of delusion nurtured by indulged religious hysteria not unlike the kind experienced by Marshall Applewhite and his Heaven's Gate followers. Applewhite was so certain there was a space ship hiding in a comet's tail, that he happily poisoned himself so that he could be resurrected on board the otherwise undetectable craft and be carried off into paradise to live happily ever after. The familiar ring of this kind of sold-out certainty concerning a set of ideas that are clearly absurd is due to its sounding for some 2,000 years now. Whether this delusion is constituted by "subjective visions" or by something else, can certainly be debated. But the dubiousness of such claims cannot. Was Marshall Applewhite hallucinating? I don't know, but I tend to doubt that he was since his devotion to his nonsense was sustained over a long period of time. Do I believe that the space ship he said was hiding in a comet's tail really existed? No, I don't. Do I believe that a universe-creating deity "became flesh and dwelt among us" some 20 centuries ago, only to be nailed to a cross and resurrected back to life three days later, and later wafted up to a magic kingdom above our heads some place? No, I don't.

Christian believers have a vested interest in rejecting out of hand explanations that do not affirm their predetermined religious commitments, only then to concoct occasionally plausible-sounding objections to any alternative hypothesis that's been proposed by a non-believer. The problem is not restricted to their inability to explain how they could possibly know for certain what was going through the apostle Paul's mind so as to confidently rule out psychological disorders as a key or contributing factor behind his claims; it also includes the implausible outcomes that their objections lead to when applied as principles in determining the truth of rival claims of a religious nature. I'm referring here to the unintended consequences that are likely to arise from the implications generated by the objections apologists raise against criticism, as well as to the ingenuity they must summon up in order to craft a host of qualifications that are enlisted to stave off unwelcome applications of the same. For instance, apologists will insist that the mystical claims in Paul's letters do not indicate psychological disorders, while the belief that a space ship hiding in the tail of a comet and waiting to scoop up believers' souls after they imbibe a lethal cocktail, is clearly whacko. O what a tangled web they weave...


Rival Miracle Claims

There is no doubt that religious believers reserve for themselves the right to pick and choose which miracle reports they will accept. But this privileged selectivity does not reduce to the application of rational principles. Non-Catholic Christians, for instance, while blindly affirming the stable-mindedness of the anonymous five hundred witnesses mentioned in I Cor. 15, typically dismiss the eyewitness testimony of the estimated 70,000 or so who attest to the Miracle of the Sun, seen outside Fatima, Portugal in October 1917 by 140 times the number that the New Testament claims to have spotted the resurrected Jesus. And unlike Paul's claim to so many eyewitnesses in I Cor. 15, in the case of the Miracle of the Sun we have actual names of witnesses who were present at the miracle, such as the attending newspaper reporter Avelino de Almeida, and Dr. Joseph Garrett, Professor of Natural Sciences at Coimbra University.

Another Halluci-Not and prolific writer of sweet nothings, Steve Hays has sought to preempt the use of what many take to be well-documented Marian Apparitions as counter-examples to the Halluci-not thesis. When attempting to counter the proposal that Paul's experience of Jesus was visionary in nature, the apologist exhibits a strong tendency to take Acts as actual history:

This fails to distinguish between an objective vision or appearance and a subjective vision or appearance... Even in the case of the Damascus road encounter, this was a public event, not a private event, for Paul’s escort were also witnesses to this audiovisual event. It’s a spatiotemporal phenomenon.

We must not forget that the book of Acts itself puts the words "heavenly vision" into Paul's mouth when it portrays him as recounting his conversion experience to King Agrippa (Acts 26:19). Thus it is up to the author of Acts to clarify whether his story's purported experience by Paul was "an objective vision or appearance" or "a subjective vision or appearance." The details given in Acts are too scant and inconsistent with themselves to allow us to make this clarification with much confidence. Naturally the apologist does not want it to be considered subjective, but in the cartoon universe of theism, everything is ultimately subjective anyway. Steve may say to me that, since I am persuaded that, like the gospels, Acts is more legend than history in the first place, that I therefore cannot rely on Acts 26:19 to support the visionary proposal. But if Acts is more legend than history, then the stories of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus are brought into serious doubt anyway. As Earl Doherty points out in response to Gary Habermas' statements to Lee Strobel on page 234 of The Case for Christ, we actually have in the New Testament "a wealth of invention" (Doherty) where Habermas chooses to see "a wealth of sightings of Jesus."

Each writer sat down to provide 'proofs' of Jesus' rising in the flesh," explains Doherty, "and they all quite naturally come up with anecdotes of their own, which best explains their incompatible variety. (3)

Anxious to dispel the subjective implications of phrases such as "heavenly vision" used by Acts to describe Paul's sighting of Jesus, Steve exclaims:

There is also an obvious difference between saying the same Jesus appeared to Paul and the twelve, and saying that Jesus appeared the same way to Paul and the twelve. Even if the Damascus road encounter involved a different mode of presentation, this does not imply an identical mode of presentation for Easter.

But does Paul ever distinguish between the nature of his sighting of Jesus and the sighting of Jesus he says these others enjoyed? On the contrary, it remains ambiguous and unspecified, thus allowing believers to uncritically read gospel details into what they read in Paul. Apologists need to understand that, while they want to put the onus on the New Testament's critics, the onus is really on the New Testament itself to shore up the very areas where they claim its critics habitually default. Steve claims that

the whole point of this chapter is to repeatedly stress the physicality of the glorified body

even though the chapter nowhere uses the word 'physical' (at least not in any of my translations), not to mention the fact that this position needs to be reconciled with what we read in I Peter 3:18, which speaks of Jesus as "being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit." It is hard to read this statement as coming from one of Jesus' own disciples who, according to the gospels, met face to face with a physically resurrected Jesus.

Steve may counter that Paul spoke of Jesus having been resurrected in the flesh, but Paul himself indicates that there are different kinds of flesh, that "all flesh is not the same flesh" (I Cor. 15:39), which leaves open the possibility that Paul may have reserved the use of the term 'flesh' in some circumstances to refer to some spiritual, non-physical "substance" which is to be distinguished from the tissue, bone and organs of living organisms. So this is at best inconclusive. Moreover, Paul insists that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" (I Cor. 15:50), which suggests that the physical bodies we have are not analogous to the resurrected bodies that believers should expect to awaken in once they are resurrected. All these issues point to just some of the many serious ambiguities that plague the New Testament record, thus inviting endless contests between conflicting interpretations and wide-ranging speculations. (I'm glad these aren't my problems.) To be sure, there have been many efforts over the centuries to codify an authorized interpretation, but this endeavor is about as effective as trying to harvest wheat on the dark side of the moon; and no matter how much effort is applied to this ambition, the early record is still what it is: laden with incompatible variances and unyielding ambiguities.

Concerning reported sightings of the Virgin Mary, Steve hedges when considering the question "Do we reject Marian sightings?" giving no firm answer one way or another. He says that

some reports are more credible than others because some reporters are more credible than others.

I agree: some reports are more credible than others, and some reporters are more credible than others. But here we might inquire as to what criteria Steve consults in determining whether a report is "more credible than others," or in determining when one reporter is "more credible than others." Obviously the writers of the New Testament meet his criteria, while what he has written strongly suggests that his contemporaries (or near contemporaries) who have claimed to have been visited by the Virgin Mary, do not meet his criteria. What are those criteria? Heaven knows! But he does give some indication here:

After all, how do they know what Mary looks like? Jesus was seen by his contemporaries. But no one today is a contemporary of the Virgin Mary. No one knows what she used to look like when she was walking the earth two thousand years ago. Any "recognition" of Mary would be based, not on a knowledge of the historical individual, but on Catholic art and iconography. Mary a la Raphael.

If it is valid to ask how those who claim to have experienced a visit from the Virgin Mary "know what Mary looks like," we should also ask: How did Saul of Tarsus know what Jesus looked like? Steve says that "Jesus was seen by his contemporaries," but this may be read as saying far too much. That one is a contemporary of another, does not indicate that either has seen the other or knows what the other looks like. For instance, both Steve and I are contemporaries, but I would never be able to pick him out from a crowd. Nor would he be able to do the same with me. Today we have cameras which record faithful images of our physical features, such that I could pass my picture to Steve via e-mail, and then he very well might be able to pick me out of a crowd. But cameras were not around in 1st century Palestine, so Jesus' "contemporaries" (an expression which takes the gospels as history) didn't even have this benefit. The "no one knows what she used to loo like" approach is certainly applicable in considering claims involving inanimate objects, such as that the burnt markings on a tortilla are the image of Mary. But a sighting of the Virgin Mary is usually claimed to involve an encounter with the real McCoy, though perhaps only in spirit form, which can enable direct communication, sometimes even dialogue (such as we find in Acts' versions of Paul's firsthand encounter with Jesus). And if the apparition identifies itself as the Virgin Mary (just as whatever it was that appeared to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus allegedly identified itself as Jesus), then there's no need for face recognition based on prior knowledge of "what she used to look like when she was walking the earth two thousand years ago" in the first place. The apparition could very well have introduced itself as the Virgin Mary, and the person experiencing the vision, whether subjective or otherwise, might very well be prone to believing it.

Regardless, Steve makes it clear that he is committed to taking the New Testament - including significantly the gospels - as historically accurate on its say so when he writes:

We have more than the Easter appearances to go by. We also have everything that went before. Easter Sunday comes at the tail-end of the Gospels.

How these apologists' belief in the bible amounts to anything better than "it's true because I want it to be true," is not at all clear. But it is clear enough that Steve has the gospels in mind when he asserts that

this additional biographical material gives us a chance to become acquainted with the apostolic witnesses to the Resurrection.

But what the witnesses that Paul speaks about in I Cor. 15? For instance, what "biographical material" do we have in the case of the 500 who Paul claims saw the risen Jesus? Even though this is among the earliest post-resurrection sightings of Jesus reported in the New Testament, Paul mentions it only in passing, not even telling us who any of these 500 might have been or where the sighting may have occurred. Apparently this doesn't matter, because the gospel details are read into the accounts we read in Paul's and other early letters, such that "by the time we arrive at the Resurrection, we know a good deal about the character and quality of the reporters." Were I to take so much for granted in my criticism of Christianity, apologists would try to make a field day of me.

Steve says:

This is not at all the same thing as comparing a reported sighting of Jesus with reported sighting of Mary, where you have two isolated reports without any supplementary background material to help us size up the reporters. To compare the first Easter with Lourdes or Fatima or other suchlike is comparing the incomparable.

Indeed, the sighting of Mary at Fatima is so better documented than the unattested and conflicting reports that we find in the New Testament's epistolary record, that the two are essentially incomparable.

In a last-ditch effort to discount sightings of the Virgin Mary, Steve asserts:

The Resurrection is a purposeful event. Seeing Mary is a grilled cheese sandwich is not.

This merely puts the onus to prove a negative squarely on Steve's shoulders. Otherwise he risks asserting from his own ignorance while standing on New Testament invention. It is not difficult to suppose that the individual(s) who saw Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich would agree that their sighting was not a purposeful event. If one can suppose that turning water into wine or causing a fig tree to wither is sufficiently purposeful for an incarnated deity to take trouble to effect, one can with as much imagination consider that an apparition in burn marks, water stains, tree knots, etc., to be just as purposeful. A mind inebriated on religious faith has already stepped onto the wild-card grounds of make-believe. Surely if apologists had something more substantial than special pleading and rash dismissals, they'd be screaming it instead of these paltry offerings.


The Questionable Value of Purported Eyewitness Testimony

It is important to keep in mind that, in many cases of eyewitness testimony reported in the New Testament, we do not have this testimony from those who are said to have been the eyewitnesses themselves. The reports are at best secondhand (if not further removed) even to those who recorded them. In fact, in most cases we don't even have their names! For instance, in Acts' stories of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus, Paul is said to have been travelling with an unspecified number of companions. Who these men were and why they, too, were not converted as was Paul, we are not told. The story seems to include them only so that it can be claimed that Paul was accompanied by witnesses to the same event, thus serving as an element deliberately included (perhaps invented?) to anticipate the charge of hallucination, for they serve no other purpose in the story.

Would we accept stories of such supernatural character if we were told that they have taken place in our time? Suppose a woman takes the stand in defense of her husband who is being tried for a murder which took place 20 years earlier. The known facts of the case are that there is a victim whose death clearly resulted from foul play, that a blood-stained knife has the accused's fingerprints all over it, that there is a receipt for the purchase of the blood-stained knife signed by the accused, that the accused had strong motive to eliminate the victim, etc. The prosecution is confident that they have an airtight case against the accused. But when the wife takes the stand, she explains to the court that she was present at the scene of the murder when the victim met his violent demise, but that the perpetrator was in fact not her husband. On the contrary, she tells the court that a vampire bat had flown into the room where the victim was killed and turned into a dark-haired man wearing a long, flowing cape. The caped man then walked over to the accused and grabbed the murder weapon, which was in the accused's possession at the time, then strutted over to the victim and stabbed him right into the heart. As the victim lay dying in a pool of his own blood, the caped man turned back into a bat and flew back out the window, never to be seen again. The members of the audience in the courtroom are aghast at what they had just heard, and naturally find the witness's testimony unbelievable. But as she is cross-examined, she insists that her testimony is true, and tells the court that there were more than 500 other witnesses to these very events. Thus the sighting of the vampire was therefore, as Steve says of Paul's sighting of Jesus on the road to Damascus, "a public event, not a private event," and therefore not dismissable as an hallucination or psychotic episode. Of course, this was 20 years ago, so she does not have the details as to the identity and present whereabouts of these unnamed witnesses to this amazing event; she even indicates that some have already "fallen asleep," which the court is to understand as meaning deceased. When asked if any of these 500 witnesses had names, she assures the court that they in fact had names, such as (and I quote) "Bob, Nick, Dan, Pete, Frank, Eddie, and Arnold." She goes on to list the names of no fewer than 12 of the more than 500 witnesses she insists were at the scene of the crime when it happened. So her story is clearly on a par with what we find in the New Testament relating to Jesus' post-resurrection appearances, with the added benefit of a live witness who can be cross-examined. What do you suppose that further cross-examination will uncover holes in her story? What if we had the benefit of being able to cross-examine Paul and other NT writers on the stories that they told? From our vantage, we will never have this opportunity, but the Halluci-Not thesis is driven by the dogma that we are to believe what we read in the New Testament on its own say so. Critical thinking need not apply.

Now here's the question to ponder, and I'm sure it wasn't hard to see it coming: If you were a member of the jury in this trial, how would you evaluate this woman's testimony? Would you think that what she told the court accurately reflects what actually happened at the time of the murder? Or, would you suppose that she

On Jason Engwer's reasoning, we cannot suppose that hallucination was involved, for

Subjective visions, whether we would call them hallucinations or something else, would be experiences within an individual's mind, not shared experiences. While it would be possible for people to have similar hallucinations around the same time, we wouldn't expect the details to be identical.

But since we do not have any testimony from the 500 or so witnesses that the accused's wife claims were present at the scene of the crime, we have no confirming indicators of which details those 500 or so witnesses would report, had we the opportunity to consult them. Thus we would not know whether their experience was shared or dissimilar. Such factors do not seem to concern Jason, for he continues:

If some people lost at sea begin having hallucinations, it's possible that they would all think that they're seeing a ship, but it's highly unlikely that all of them would think that the ship is the same color, is at the same distance, is traveling at the same speed, has the same markings on the side of it, etc.

Similarly, in his blog Hallucinations? Jason quotes Gary Habermas:

Let us suppose that a group of twenty people is sailing across the Atlantic Ocean when the ship sinks. After floating on the ocean for three days with no sleep, food, or fresh water, and with the strongest desire for rescue, one member points to a large ship on the horizon that he is hallucinating. Will the others see it? Probably not, since hallucinations are experienced only in the mind of the individual. However, let us suppose that three others in the group are so desperately hopeful of rescue that their minds deceive them into believing that they see the ship as well. As their imaginary ship approaches, will they all see the same hull number? If they do, it is time for the entire group to begin yelling at the top of their lungs because the ship is real. (4)

This is all well and good, at least in the case where details such as the color of the vessel, the rate at which and direction in which it may traveling, its hull number, even its port of call, might be reported by those experiencing the hallucination so that they can be compared. But in the case of Paul's unnamed 500 or so witnesses, we do not have their testimony, so we do not know what they would report if they in fact existed and could be questioned. That's just the point: this is all a secondhand claim by Paul, with no references, no details, not even an indication of time or place! So even if this were a case of hysteria-induced mass hallucination (which the apologists have not proven impossible), we are not given any details as to what they might have experienced, so if there were discrepancies in their experience, they are omitted from Paul's secondhand (or further removed) report. In other words, we do not have firsthand testimony from these 500 witnesses, so the question of their uniformity is unanswerable on what we are given in the New Testament. For all we are given, some of Paul's 500 might have seen a Jesus who had long hair, suffered from chronic acne and smelled of urine, while others might have seen a Jesus who was balding, bearded and smelled of fish. Still others might have seen a pristine Jesus, glowing with white light and surrounded by singing angels. Habermas' objection is thus insufficient to put the believer's worries to rest, because the scenario he uses to inform it is not sufficiently analogous to the situation recorded in the New Testament.


"...it's highly unlikely that..."

My attention is often piqued when a Christian apologist insinuates that a proposal under consideration is deemed "unlikely," such as when Jason writes:

It seems unlikely that a group of 11 people or a group of more than 500 people would have hallucinations of Jesus at the same time without eventually discovering that they had been mistaken.

Of course, we should not expect any New Testament writer to have come forward to correct the record if in fact any of these alleged eyewitnesses did discover that they were mistaken. But there is an even larger concern here. While we are told that coincidental mass hallucination "seems unlikely," this is stated in the context of a defense of a belief system which tells us that "all things are possible" (Mt. 19:26), that the universe was created by an act of consciousness, that dead people rose from their graves (cf. Mt. 27:52-53), that serpents and donkeys and burning bushes speak in human languages, that water was turned into wine by a wish, etc. To assess the likelihood of some event or occurrence under consideration, a thinker, whether he realizes it or not, is making reference to fundamental premises that he holds about the world in general. As some apologists might say, he is "invoking his worldview presuppositions." Greg Bahnsen explains:

presuppositions have the greatest authority in one's thinking, being treated as your least negotiable belief and being granted the highest immunity to revision.(5)

What 'seems likely' to me is that the apologist is not mindfully conscious of his own worldview's basic premises and their implications as they concern the issues on which he makes such pronouncements. He is torn between the premises of the position he wants to defend, and premises he employs in that position's defense: on the one hand, the Christian's position affirms a fanciful, cartoon-like view of the universe where anything the ruling consciousness wishes is not only possible, but the very standard of reality as such; while on the other hand he seeks to dismiss alternatives to his paradigm on the basis that certain elements of those alternatives "seem unlikely." There's a fundamental inconsistency here, one that usually runs along undetected by the believer as he insists on a fantasy while illicitly borrowing from a reality-based worldview. On the basis of my worldview's fundamentals, I can consistently suppose that it is "highly unlikely" that a group of individuals will have the same hallucination, complete with shared uniform details, and for reasons not unlike those which Jason himself has mentioned. For instance, an hallucination is not only an individual and private experience, its distortion of what one perceives is most likely to be influenced by such an enormous number of imperceptible factors that it would be essentially unrepeatable. But if I held to the view that the universe is run by a magic spirit who choreographs all events in human history according to a divine "plan," on what grounds could I confidently say that uniform hallucinatory experiences shared by even enormous numbers of human beings is either "unlikely" or impossible? Blank out.

In the final analysis, the proposal that hallucinations or other subjective factors played a role in the development of early Christian accounts, is not as implausible or "unlikely" as these apologists would like to believe. The objections raised against the possibility of hallucinatory causes behind the alleged eyewitness testimony in the epistles of Paul, for instance, rely on numerous questionable and sometimes indefensible assumptions, a tendency to read too much into what is actually given in the New Testament, the failure to distinguish between detailed firsthand account and secondhand or further removed testimony wholly lacking in details, and other hallmarks of over-anxious reasoning which frequently accompanies defenses of religious worldviews. Most ironically, we are told that it is "highly unlikely" that mass hallucinations may have played a role in Christianity's beginnings, while being assured that the New Testament's fanciful, myth-like stories are not only true, but divinely inspired truth, fit to serve as the bedrock of our perspective on life and reality as such. One can only say: May the Force be with you!

Notes:

(1) Some of the recent blog articles fueling this controversy include:

The Visionary Basis of Christianity, by Matthew (8 May 06)
God Fought Monsters In Order To Create The Universe: How John Loftus Reads The Bible, by Jason Engwer (8 May 06)
The Hallucination Theory: A Skeptical Delusion, by Jason Engwer (10 May 06)
Hallucinations, by Jason Engwer (11 Apr 06)

(2) Challenging the Verdict: A Cross-Examination of Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ," pp. 253-254n.88.

(3) Ibid., pp. 203-204.

(4) The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, p. 106.

(5) Van Til's 'Presuppositionalism'

by Dawson Bethrick

Basic Contra-Theism

An age-old ploy in the attempt to validate god-belief involves the supposition that the universe needed a creator. Arguments to this end have been formalized in numerous variations, but the basic argument makes the claim that the universe is something that "began to exist," and ends by positing a deity which is said to have created the universe, allegedly by speaking or wishing it into existence. This conclusion we are expected to accept as knowledge. Unfortunately, most if not all variations of this kind of argument that I have come across, do not state the working definition of 'universe' they assume in their premises, even though this is one of the key terms at issue in such arguments. Of course, if one is hoping to defend a position that is rationally indefensible, it's best to veer away from committing oneself to firm definitions. Nevertheless, the argument that the universe needs a creator, and that creator happens to be the one which defenders of such arguments worship, serves as a typical fall-back position when the going gets rough after other apologetic devices have been deployed.

In the comments section of a blog recently posted by Steve Hays of Triablogue, we find an exchange, between John Loftus of Debunking Christianity and a commenter who has chosen to remain anonymous, on this very issue. The anonymous commenter rolled out a stripped down version of this argument, shorn of the sophisticated embellishments that modern apologists usually heap onto it. With this we find the customary false dichotomies that usually accompany the deployment of such arguments. And as is all too typically the case, the defender of this argument does not provide a working definition for the concept 'universe'. After reviewing arguments like this, even those which are far more sophisticated than the one presented here, I'm convinced that such arguments are not defensible on a coherent definition of 'universe'. Below I will show that a coherent definition of 'universe' invalidates such arguments. I will also show that such arguments, whether their defenders realize it or not, commit them to the primacy of consciousness metaphysics, which invalidates itself.

Let's look at the exchange.

John Loftus wrote:

What I'm saying is that I have never seen an event in my expereience which requires a supernatural explanation--that is, something which science cannot explain based upon the laws of nature.

An anonymous commenter responded:

Sure you do, you see it every day, it's called the universe, which science has no explanation for. It's called life, which science has no explanation for. If you claim they do then you obviously don't understand the proper use of the term. Unsupported foundational assumptions are philosophy, not science. Also principles of operation are not an explanation of causes.

Consider John’s statement: he stated that he has not witnessed any event “which science cannot explain based upon the laws of nature,” i.e., an event which necessitates a leap beyond nature to explanation by reference to the so-called “supernatural.” The anonymous commenter, presumably a theist, pointed to the universe as such a candidate. But the universe is not an event, and it is not science’s task to produce an explanation for the universe as such. I will touch more on this individual's misconceptions about the universe below.

For the present moment, observe that the anonymous commenter also pointed to life as a example of something “which science has no explanation for.” It’s not clear what content the anonymous commenter is looking for in a satisfactory explanation, but the science of biology has given men great understanding about the nature of life, and new discoveries are constantly being made. He suggests that the claim that science has an explanation for life means “you obviously don’t understand the proper use of the term.” So apparently there are underlying assumptions here which are serving to reinforce the anonymous commenter’s presupposition that science cannot offer an explanation for life, regardless of what discoveries scientists actually make. What specifically those underlying assumptions might be are anyone’s guess, for the anonymous commenter does not identify them. At this point it has become obvious that there is in theism a vested interest in seeing ignorance of science prevail, for therein lies the gap that theism finds its opportunity to pontificate. Without that gap of ignorance, there's no footing for theistic nonsense. And still theists insist that they do not oppose scientific developments.

To preempt a common countermove by theistic apologists (e.g., "Biologists can't create life in a laboratory!"), we should keep in mind that there is a profound difference between having an explanation for X and being able to repeat X. Seismic geology, for instance, can explain the causality behind earthquakes, but this is not the same as being able to recreate them. So while science enables us to formulate rational explanations for many things having to do with living matter, this is not tantamount to the claim to being able to recreate living organisms in a sterile test tube. If the question is as simple as “Where did life come from?” I have a simple and incontrovertible answer: life came from existence. Anyone who wants to claim that life came from non-existence, is free to present his case any time.

In response to the anonymous commenter’s statement, John Loftus wrote:

Anon, good points, because it is astounding to me that this universe exists. But to call it a miracle is prejudicial in favor of a God. How about we call the existence of this universe strange or unexplainable as of yet. Heidegger said "the fundamental philosophical question is why does something exist rather than nothing at all." That would include your God or the universe. Why does something exist? You can only call it a miracle if you can also explain why it is that an eternal uncreated God exists. but since you can't, then this universe is....is....strangely wonderful.

An anonymous commenter (perhaps the same as above) wrote:

Well, you're either left with an uncaused effect, or a Creator who made it from nothing. Either way it's not natural; hence must be supernatural. Matter does not create itself. So one is left with the problem of the inability of natural laws to explain its existence. If left with a choice between self-generating matter and an intelligent Creator the rational one is decidedly not matter generating itself. That's a pretty big argument in favor of God. So rationally the preference would be in favor of God.

The procedure of the case presented here is quite simple: First, present two options, namely theism and an alternative to theism. Then construe the alternative to theism to be so implausible that theism prevails by default (rather than on any actual demonstrable merits in its favor). If one accepts the premises implicit throughout the case, then theism will surely seem the better of the two. But are the premises which this procedure assumes rationally defensible? I submit that they are not.

The first point that needs correction is the characterization of the universe as an “effect.” Just as the universe is not an “event,” the universe is also not an effect, whether caused or uncaused. The universe is the sum totality of all that exists. (Compare Merriam-Webster’s definition of universe: “the whole body of things and phenomena observed or postulated.”) By virtue of the universe’s inherent all-inclusiveness, it would be self-contradictory to assert that something can or does exist “outside the universe.” Since existence exists and only existence exists, to suppose that something exists outside the sum totality of existence is necessarily incoherent. Consequently there can be no “outside” the totality, and thus nothing “outside the universe.”

Another reason why the notion that the universe is an "effect" is invalid has to do with the concept 'effect' itself. The concept ‘effect’ necessarily implies a cause which would have to precede the effect in question in order to bring it about and make it a part of reality. But causality necessarily presupposes existence. It would be incoherent to assert that something is caused while denying the existence of any thing or things which do the causing. So existence is a precondition to causality, not the other way around. Therefore, by implication, rather than being an "effect"of some prior cause, the universe - that is, the sum total of existence - is preconditional to any cause and effect to begin with. Thus to call the universe an “effect” commits a logical reversal. That is, to call the universe an effect is to posit causality outside the context of the universe, which means: to use the concept ‘causality’ while denying or ignoring its genetic roots, namely existence. This error is known as the fallacy of the stolen concept, and it is the fundamental error of theistic creationism.

It is true that matter does not “create” itself. Indeed, what necessitates the supposition that matter is “created” in the first place, if not the mystical premises borne on stolen concepts like the one assumed above? Moreover – and topical to theistic apologetics – we should ask: What validates the claim that matter was created by an act of consciousness? This is the basic presupposition of theistic creationism, but can those who endorse such a notion present any evidence in support of it? Yes, we can imagine something popping into existence at the whim of a consciousness which possesses powers which our imagination can attribute to it with abandon, such as we might see in a cartoon. But imagination does is not a substitute for fact, and what the theist needs in order to validate this presupposition which is so integral to theism, is not merely what he can imagine (for it is readily granted that the religious imagination is abundantly fecund), but facts which bear on the matter at hand. Since there are no empirical facts which can serve as evidence conclusively supporting the theist’s claims, and since the facts that do bear on the matter in fact show theism to be a contradiction, theists have no choice but to resort either to appeals to emotion, psychological or physical threats, or a semblance of argumentation to defend their faith stance. And this is where they open the door to frequently undetected cognitive errors, such as the stolen concept pointed about above.

The anonymous commenter explicitly repeats the basic procedure of his case when he writes:

If left with a choice between self-generating matter and an intelligent Creator the rational one is decidedly not matter generating itself.

If we limit ourselves to these two scenarios - "between self-generating matter and an intelligent Creator" - then I submit that we have already given rationality short-shrift. As a result, affirming one or the other horn of this false dichotomy cannot be considered rational. Rationality is the commitment to reason as one’s only means of discovering and validating knowledge, and his only guide to action. Reason is the faculty which identifies and integrates what we perceive via our senses, and indispensable to this is the ability of man's mind to form concepts on the basis of objective inputs supplied by sense perception. Our senses are our primary and only direct means of awareness of reality. To discover what is “out there” (i.e., in the world, in the universe), we do not start by turning inward and consulting our imagination. The initial inputs of reason cannot be our imagination, for our imagination itself needs content, and this ultimately comes from what we perceive as well. No examples of consciousness in nature are examples of consciousnesses which create their objects ex nihilo. But theistic creationism posits precisely this idea: that the whole universe was created ex nihilo by an act of consciousness. Essentially, it holds that a ruling consciousness wished the universe into existence. But theists cannot objectively substantiate this claim; the most they can do is disparage alternatives to their view and hope for the best – that is, hope that their illicit premises are accepted uncritically.

Since existence exists independent of consciousness, and consciousness is consciousness of existence, the task of consciousness is not to create its own objects (which is the essence of metaphysical subjectivism), but to perceive and identify them. Do we not all begin as ignorant infants perceiving the world for the first time and constantly struggling to discover and identify everything around us as we mature? I know I did. Can an honest man claim otherwise? Also, since reason is the means by which we conceptualize what we perceive, a rational worldview is one which does not attempt to fake reality by supposing that it is a creation of consciousness; rather, a rational worldview is the systematic application of reason to the task of discovering fundamental truths (i.e., rational principles) and developing a comprehensive view of reality and life. Already we should see how profoundly incongruous theism is to this project, for it affirms the very opposite view - that the universe, reality, and the objects we perceive are ultimately dependent on and conform to someone’s consciousness intentions, that is, to the ruling consciousness’ wishing.

As the anonymous commenter apparently assumes, there are no good reasons to suppose that matter is “self-generating.” But an alternative to theism does not require that matter be self-generating. Only if we begin with non-existence would we need to invent such notions, and since existence exists, the proper place to start is with existence, not with non-existence. So the basic procedure errs by limiting the alternatives to two fundamentally flawed positions and by arbitrarily affirming one while rejecting the other. (Of course, if one is willing to retreat so far from reason as to posit a ruling consciousness which can materialize its wishes at will, it is unclear how one could rule out the possibility of self-generating matter and keep a straight face in the first place.)

As we have seen, theistic creationism itself consists of two fundamental errors, namely that something exists "outside the universe" (that’s one error), and that this extra-universal thing is a form of consciousness which wished the universe into existence (there’s a second error). Thus in the final analysis, theistic creationism is presented as an explanation on the basis of the misguided notion that two wrongs make a right, and this simply does not fly.

Interestingly, theists typically claim that their god was not created, that it exists “necessarily” – which is essentially taken to mean that it does not require an explanation beyond itself. We have only their say so on this, for there is nothing they can point to in the world which conclusively validates such claims. Why not begin with the universe, which we know exists, and build our worldview on the basis of this incontrovertible and objective fact? Theists typically do not dispute the need for a starting point, they just want it to be some form of consciousness which serves as back-up to their feigned authority and which is thought to have created the universe according to their preconceived notions, ever expanding the ruling consciousness’ role as an explanatory terminus which, like a malleable goo, can be troweled into any gap or crevice that momentarily stops the mind in its pursuit for further discovery. The problem for theism is that, as man’s knowledge of the universe grows, the role that theism’s ruling consciousness can play in plausible explanations can only evaporate.

by Dawson Bethrick

Christian Insecurity: A Case Study

In his latest fit of insecurity, Paul Manata again expresses his dislike for me. Instead of tackling criticisms of apologetic treatments that I have posted on my site, Paul aims for the author of those criticisms himself, hoping to discredit me by means of personal attack. Indeed, if one takes Paul’s word for it (apparently this is what he expects of his readers), I come across as someone who’s really bad, all apparently because I don’t believe in Paul’s invisible magic beings. Like an adult who explains the truth about Santa Claus to a child, an atheist can be the ultimate of spoilsports.

Ever one to exaggerate his own reactionary angst well beyond the limits of the credible, Paul makes it clear that he’s sore at me. For instance, he tells us that

atheologians like Bethrick do not really care about truth. If their side makes a mistake we do not see them lambasting their side.

Notice the us-against-them presupposition here, the tendency to view our differences in terms of rival groups populated by unspecified numbers. This is symptomatic of the religious mind’s preoccupation with dividing men into two opposing collectives, the chosen vs. the damned. Paul of course numbers himself among the chosen, and yours truly among the damned. (Perhaps if Paul Manata were god, I’d already be in hell.) The mentality of the desert primitive is indeed alive and well in the 21st century. Apparently Paul thinks that atheists are like Christians - members of a sheeplike herd who are led about by seductive, self-appointed apostles who pretend to be spokesmen for the supernatural. But this is simply unexamined projection. Paul apparently does not appreciate the fact that many atheists think of themselves as individuals, not as members of a "team" looking to score petty points in some inconsequential contest. ("Christianity: 1, John Loftus: 0.") In my case, I have no obligation to support, encourage, correct, or ridicule someone else simply because he does not believe in invisible magic beings. Meanwhile, someone should explain to Paul that non-believers tend not to pretend to have access to invisible omniscient and infallible beings which pre-chew their thoughts for them; I've tried, but he won't hear it from me. The religious mind fears error for this indicates separation from their perfect deity, a blemish unbefitting the chosen status believers want to claim for themselves. Meanwhile, the man who is free of the bondage of religious insecurity, is happy to learn from mistakes – both his own as well as those occasioned by others.

As for my blog, I make its purpose quite clear in the headstock banner, which states:

In this blog, I will post my criticisms of presuppositionalism as it is informed and defended by apologists such as Greg Bahnsen, John Frame, Cornelius Van Til, Richard Pratt, and their latter-day followers.

This should be clear enough to inform Paul that the purpose of my blog is not for "lambasting" other non-believers, since non-believers typically do not promote presuppositionalism. (An expert at logic that should be able to figure this much out on his own.) This of course does not in any way support the would-be conclusion that I therefore affirm everything that other non-believers hold to be true. My time is quite limited, so I have to choose my focus carefully. Other non-believers are free to consider my model, or ignore it. The choice is theirs, and the choice is mine as well.

Paul writes:

When it comes to Christianity we see them claim that they are on the side of reason and truth. They defend "reason." But constantly, we see atheists refusing to lay down their own strict rules on fellow atheists (or, unbelievers).

What does Paul “see” which serves as evidence suggesting that “atheists [are] refusing” to do anything? Does he not understand that I presume no authority over others such that I should "lay down… strict rules on fellow atheists"? Certainly he cannot point to any position that I have affirmed which pretends otherwise. I’m quite live and let live about things: adult atheists are free to govern themselves according to their own chosen yardsticks, and I acknowledge their right to do so. Apparently Paul finds this unsatisfying for some reason. Perhaps he wants me to divert my light away from presuppositionalism and onto something else. What else could “account for” his complaining?

So Paul needs to do more than merely assert things like

Atheists, like Bethrick, are about the group first, reason next.

What "group" is he talking about? In fact, I've been invited on numerous occasions to join other blogs. To date, I have politely declined this invitation (though I am free to reconsider this), primarily due to limitations on my time and the areas of my writings' focus. Furthermore, unlike Christians who prefer the safety of the affirming huddle and network of support ministries, I do not go out looking for other non-believers to "hang out" with. In fact, I rarely discuss my atheism with casual acquaintances. My experience is that the very thought of atheism very much disturbs many people; I have found that the concept of atheism tends to bring a lot of people's insecurities out into the open (especially in the case of lifelong believers), and as adults who suckle on imaginative stories of miracle-workers and fortune-tellers, many are visibly ashamed of their religious confession. Again, I prefer a live and let live approach in this regard, as mystics are an unpredictable and potentially violent bunch (many would love to be able to cast people like me into an eternal hell).

With all the vices and moral failings Paul attributes to me, it's quite extraordinary that the worst he can come up with is a charge like the following:

Bethrick did not blog on how poor Derek did.

Perhaps he is personally offended that I didn't take much notice of his debate with Derek (Paul makes it clear that Derek must have been mortally wounded by an apologetic prowess that I have yet to see). Does Paul really think that I have some obligation to "blog on how poor [sic] Derek did"? To hold it against me that I have not done so, it appears that Paul does in fact think this, but he does not give very clear reasons why. We get a glimpse of Paul's "logic" behind this assumption when he writes:

Bethrick blogs on how poor he thinks Bahnsen did (Bahnsen v. Stein)

Here Paul is apparently referring to my article Bahnsen's Poof, in which I present an analysis of Greg Bahnsen's opening statement - the statement he should have been most prepared to present - in his debate with Gordon Stein. (Incidentally, my conclusion that Bahnsen presents no actual argument for the existence of his god, remains unanswered to this day.) Does Paul suppose that my blog commenting on a statement made in one public debate, somehow obligates me to post another blog commenting on statements made in another debate? It's not clear, but it appears that this is what's turning round in Paul's mind. Well, there are a lot of debates out there, so Paul can wait patiently in line if he likes. It would help, however, if there were a written transcript of his debate with Derek; that way I could review it on my daily commute on the subway. In fact, while Bahnsen debated Stein in 1985, I did not write Bahnsen’s Poof until 2004. So apparently Paul not only expects me to produce an analysis of his debate with Derek, he expects me to do it on his timeline. With so many expectations, is it any wonder why Paul is so dissatisfied?

Now Paul may complain that I have not posted a blog critiquing Gordon Stein's performance in his debate with Bahnsen. But again, such a complaint would miss the stated purpose of my blog. Why would I devote a blog to harping on Gordon Stein's mistakes when he's not a champion of Christian apologetics? Blank out.

Of course, there are things I can say about Stein, and two shall suffice for the time being. The first point is that a debate over the existence of the non-existent is typically a fruitless use of time for rational human beings; when a rational individual encounters someone who holds to belief in invisible magic beings on the basis of faith, the proper response is to be happy he's not one who is so deluded, not assume that such an individual is interested in rational discourse.

The other point I'd make about Stein's performance in his debate with Bahnsen is to point out that Stein said all he needed to in his response to Bahnsen's question at this point in the debate:

Dr. Bahnsen

Okay Dr. Stein, you mentioned eleven basic proofs for the existence of God. Did you mention the transcendental proof for the existence of god?

Dr. Stein

No, I didn’t mention it by name. I think it is not a proof. I would not call it a proof as I understand it the way you said it.

Here Stein rightly points out that the so-called "transcendental proof for the existence of god" is in fact “not a proof” after all. Indeed, as as my analysis of Bahnsen's opening statement demonstrates, it is in fact “not a proof,” but a poof. Apologists today seem not to have grasped the difference between the two, for they are continually presenting variations of the latter while calling them the former.

Paul then writes:

I constantly see this religious attitude in the allegedly non-religious. "Get as many people to deny God first; truth, whatever that is, takes the hindmost" seems to be the motto of many of them.

Here Paul shows his proclivity to insert words into other people's mouths (which, we will see below, he does again later in his blog). But can he find any statement affirmed by me which suggests that I am trying to "get… people to deny God"? Such a construal indicates deep misunderstanding of my position, for I do not encourage people to deny something that does not exist. (Why would one need to do this?) As I mentioned above, I'm quite easy-going when it comes to other people; what they might believe or disbelieve really does not matter to me. They are free to examine my verdicts and the cases I present in their defense, or ignore them. Again, the choice is theirs. If they want to invest themselves in fantasies about supernatural beings, I will not stop them.

Paul then links to his blog More on Moore which in turn posts a link to a posting of his on Triablogue. He asserts that Dr. Zachary Moore made some unpardonable blunder of logic, and after exposing this error those most loathsome of spoilsports - the atheists - "refused to tell him that he was wrong." (My, what gall they have!) Paul then says

Some, like Bethrick, implied that he didn't know who was right.

I checked the comments sections of both these blogs, and did not see where I had posted any comments myself. At any rate, Paul does not quote me saying what he says I have implied, nor does he link to where I might have implied this. But in spite of this undocumented accusation (as if reserving judgment were some grave vice), Paul announces:

This just shows how serious he (and his ilk) should be taken.

Apparently I'm not to be taken seriously - at least, no more than writing an entire series of blog articles with the ambition of smearing me.

Continuing to air his own dirty laundry (apparently his frustrations have been accumulating for several months now), Paul turns his attention to a question that I posed in response to assertions that he made in his blog titled (no, I'm not making this up) Your Post Stunk When The Christian You Tried to Debunk With Your Awful Junk – a title which, as an incomplete sentence, leaves the reader wondering where its author finishes his point. In this blog, Paul responds to questions posed to Christians on another blog.

One of these questions has to do with the myth of Cain and Abel, and apparently the question gets some little detail of the myth wrong by placing the two legendary figures in "the Garden" at some point. (Were Paul a little more careful in his ambitions to rival Oxford scholars, he might have made it clear that I was not the author of the questions he sought to tackle.) Such oversights are simply an open invitation to the "aren't you stupid!" scoldings of Mighty Manata. In his response to this question, Paul asserts that

Cain was afraid that the other people who lived on the planet would kill him.

When I read this, it appeared that he knew something that I had not read in my version of Genesis, so I asked him if he could indicate how many people were allegedly on earth at the time in question, and if he knew any of their names. In other words, I was looking for him to authenticate the statement he was attributing to the Genesis myth. He says that the point of my question "eludes" him, but he did manage to eke out an answer nonetheless, stating that

there were approximately 890 of them,

but that he could not name them all, adding that

some are: Bob, Nick, Dan, Pete, Frank, Eddie, and Arnold.

Naturally, Paul did not give any sources to authenticate this response. Apparently Paul's faith is so insecure that minor questions, such as I had asked him, make him bristle, and so he found it necessary to berate his questioner (namely me) by inserting words into his mouth. Paul writes:

The only way it can be charitably read in a way other than making Dawson look like a stooge is to read it as Bethrick offering a rhetorical question with the implied conclusion: "If you don't know their names and how many there were, how do you know there were any? Since the Bible doesn't say there were others, then there were no others." This is the best way to read Bethrick. We see, though, that the best way to read Bethrick is to read him as committing the fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantium!

In Paul's narrow universe the options are always few and torn between miserable alternatives: either Dawson makes himself "look like a stooge" merely by posing a question (that’ll teach me to go to Paul for answers!), or Paul can make Dawson "look like a stooge" by attributing to him an argument he never made. For nowhere do I make the argument that, if Paul does not know the names or how many people there were at the time, then there couldn't have been any people on the earth besides Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel. (I do realize that the imagination needed by the religious mind is free to invent details not revealed to it from above.) Nonetheless, Paul tells his readers that "this is the best way to read Bethrick" - that is, by attributing to me obviously weak arguments that I have never made in the first place. And though he nowhere presents a conclusive case to support his accusation that I have committed any fallacy here, Paul tells his readers that “the best way to read Bethrick" is to presuppose that I am "committing the fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantium." And Paul says people like me "do not really care about truth."

Continuing to complain about my comments, Paul writes:

I had pointed out that the purpose of the Bible was not to give an answer (or a detailed and precise answer) to everything there is. For example, the Bible doesn't tell us how to change a flat tire. Bethrick said, "I agree, the Bible doesn't give us knowledge of anything."

What I had actually written was:

I agree that it would be naive to expect anything approaching useful or precise knowledge from the primitive writings collected in the bible.

Paul himself seems to agree that the bible does not serve as a source for knowledge on "many, many things" - for he writes:

There are many, many things the Bible gives us knowledge on.

In response to this, I asked:

Such as how the mind forms abstractions?

But I have not seen where Paul answered this question.

Paul then writes:

His [sic] tried to imply that he was agreeing with me but I pointed out that I never said the Bible doesn't give us knowledge of anything

But nowhere did I indicate that I was agreeing with Paul. I even pointed out to him that "I did not specify that I agree with you." So how does Paul now think that I was expressing agreement with him? Does the universe truly revolve around this man, Paul Manata?

Paul then made my point for me, writing:

I pointed out to Bethrick that it gives us knowledge on how to escape the wrath to come.

As I had stated, we "would be naive to expect anything approaching useful or precise knowledge from the primitive writings collected in the bible." As evidence, I pointed out to Paul the laborious confusion in the bible on the issue of salvation. Apparently Paul, like so many Christians, is in the habit of presuming that the books of the New Testament are wholly uniform with one another, and yet this is the very point that's been brought into question. But instead of recognizing the pervasive disharmony within the New Testament, apologists prefer to gloss over this, merrily swallowing the party line and uncritically accepting what their sheepherders order them to believe. As a mild introductory piece, I pointed Paul to B. Steven Matthies' Christian Salvation? I had suggested to Paul that, "if it worries you, perhaps you can devote a blog entry to sorting out the mess." Apparently it did worry him, because Paul sat down and picked through Matthies' article.

Paul writes:

Bethrick claims he was a Christian, but if he agrees with Matthies article then one must wonder if he ever was a believer. Maybe he was in the youth group of some touchy-feely church and now just uses his past childhood (leaving out the details) to give him some credibility when talking about Christianity. One thing is clear, though, as a believer he never studied his faith.

Yes, it is true that at one time I was a Christian, and no, this is not something I'm at all proud of. Quite the opposite in fact, it is painfully embarrassing. I look back on that time in my life and shudder at what I had allowed to happen to me. But now that I have recovered from the experience, I can appreciate how deep the delusion of Christian god-belief can run. It does not surprise me when believers want to deny a non-believer's past sojourn as a Christian, but the ways in which they try to convince themselves that Christianity's critics were never themselves "real Christians," are typically not as inventive as their doctrinal teachings. Nevertheless, I don't think that someone needs to have been a Christian in order to have credibility on the topic of Christianity, any more than I would think that a psychologist trained in counseling those diagnosed with suicidal tendencies needs to have committed suicide himself.

Paul also writes:

We hardly ever find a Christian, who was intellectually satisfied, becoming an atheist. Indeed, in most cases (actually, all) the reason people leave the faith is for moral reasons (i.e., cheating on their wife), not intellectual ones. The intellectual ones always come after, as a way to justify their moral rebellion.

Indeed, someone who is “intellectually satisfied” with Christianity, has in fact sold short his cognitive potential. And it is most telling that Paul segregates the moral from the intellectual here, as he does in fact do so openly, treating morality as if it were not intellectual. On the contrary, morality requires a mature and confident intellect, one which requires the conscious choice to be honest to oneself, whereas religion implores the believer to “deny himself” (cf. Mt. 16:24). One cannot be honest to himself, and deny himself, at the same time. And just as Paul openly divorces the moral from the intellectual, so Christianity divides a mind against itself. I realize that Paul resents atheists, not only because he feels threatened by them, but also because he worries that one day he too will renounce his faith. Only then will it be possible to embrace reason.

by Dawson Bethrick

Manata's Powers of Flawgic

There are times when someone makes it clear to you that he's not playing with a full deck.

This is one of those times (yes, I realize there are many others):

I wrote:

Paul, everything is invisible to a blind man.

Paul responded:

That translates to: Everything is visible to seeing men.

Can someone rescue Paul here? There's gotta be someone out there who can throw him a life-preserver!

Apologetics: the ultimate in stand-up comedy.

by Dawson Bethrick

Hitler vs. Mother Theresa: Antithesis or Symbiosis?

The Ever-Hasty Presumption of Antithesis

In developing an argument for the existence of a god, Paveille introduces the topic of morality and asks the following question:

What is the difference between Mother Theresa and Hitler? To most people this question is outlandish and the answer is simple: Mother Theresa helped people and Hitler killed people. One was good, the other bad. Such distinctions are important because they imply and absolute Moral Law.

Many thinkers, particularly Christians who want to defend the bizarre claim that their religion offers man the only reliable standard of morality, seek to draw our attention to the differences between Adolf Hitler and Mother Theresa, not simply because the differences are so prima facie striking, but also because both individuals are thought to represent diametrically opposite ends of the moral spectrum. Such comparisons are typically introduced only long enough to score an immediate debating point on behalf of religion, one that is primarily emotional in nature, and beyond that the contrast loses argumentative stamina. Typically it is taken for granted that Mother Theresa represents the ideal model of moral behavior while Hitler serves as the pinnacle of viciousness.

It is true that, on the surface, Mother Theresa and Adolf Hitler appear to register at different ends of the moral spectrum. After all, Mother Theresa dedicated her life to "helping others" while Hitler dedicated his life to ruling and slaughtering others. This is why it would seem "outlandish" to ask what distinguishes the one from the other. In fact, it might strike many thinkers that an even more "outlandish" question would be: What is the similarity between Mother Theresa and Hitler? This is the question we should be willing to explore precisely for the very reason Christians are reluctant to ask it, for in fact there is a fundamental similarity between Mother Theresa and Adolf Hitler, and it's more than simply the fact that both had lungs and donned footwear.


The Philosophical Common Denominator

The fact - uncomfortable especially to theists - is that both Hitler and Mother Theresa lived their lives by the same code of morality, namely a morality based on sacrifice. The difference is that Mother Theresa assumed the role of the sanctioning victim, perpetually sacrificing herself to others, while Hitler assumed the role of the tyrannical victimizer, perpetually demanding and collecting the sacrifices of others. While Mother Theresa saw herself as the means to someone else's ends, Hitler saw others as a means to his ends. Thus, contrary to what Christians will want to highlight when they invoke the tiresome Mother Theresa-vs.-Hitler dichotomy, in terms of principle, a Hitler cannot exist without a Mother Theresa, and a Mother Theresa cannot exist without a Hitler! Indeed, those who choose to sacrifice themselves to someone else's ends needs someone who views others as a means to their own ends. This may sound a little extreme, but in terms of principle this is accurate.

The point should be easy enough to grasp once we look past the outward features of the symbiotic moral roles assumed by Hitler and Mother Theresa respectively. The point is that both roles - sanctioning victim and despotic victimizer - are two sides of the same moral coin. Since both sides accept as an unquestionable given that morality consists of and requires sacrifice, both sides need each other to complement their roles and give them purpose, for neither is complete without the other. A Hitler can get nowhere without those who enable him through their self-sacrifice, and those who think they have a duty to sacrifice themselves cannot actualize their moral ideals without someone who is willing to collect their sacrifices. Thus the apparent antithesis between the two is little more than a mirage masking a hideous symbiosis, and the root of that symbiosis is religious in nature.

Philosophically speaking, the cause of a Mother Theresa is clearly religious. Religionists are actually quite proud of the example Mother Theresa provided, even if most of them do not follow her model or align themselves with her particular theology. (Perhaps Mother Theresa really believed her religion's teachings, and the typical "believer" is in it only for lipservice and afternoon banquets.) But we should not forget the fact that the cause of a Hitler is also religious in nature. Both Mother Theresa and Adolf Hitler were raised in the Catholic tradition, a religion which takes the claim that the Jesus of the New Testament is Messiah or "divine incarnation," and it can be confidently said that it was thus the influence of Christianity which set their lives in motion. In terms of philosophical essentials, both ascribed to the notion that there is a supernatural consciousness which determines reality, judges men's spirits, and demands sacrifice. Thus both ascribed to a worldview of supernaturalism, specifically the subjective premise that there exists a cosmic ruling consciousness whose wishes are the final arbiter of reality, truth, and right and wrong. This of course necessitates a faith-based epistemology in which "knowledge" originates from consulting an internal source while the evidence of the senses must submit and be "interpreted" according to dogmatic views accepted as "divinely revealed," all resulting in a worldview of unquestioning obedience to personal authority. This lethal combination of obedience to commandments held up as a virtue, belief in the supernatural and the assumption that sacrifice is essential to morality, makes for a worldview that is tailor-made for both a Hitler and a world full of self-sacrificing Mother Theresas. In truth, religion is not the solution, it's the source of the problem.

The bible says that "the love of money is the root of all evil" (I Tim. 6:10), and yet the most notorious examples of evil are not men who were after money. And even though it was later learned that Hitler evaded paying taxes on the proceeds from his seminal book Mein Kampf, in which he wrote "a man does not die for business, but for ideals," tax evasion is not what made Hitler evil. Rather, his brutal tyranny over others is what made him evil, specifically his use of force to compel other human beings to sacrifice themselves to his aims. (Notice the primacy of consciousness in operation here: Hitler's wishes are to hold moral primacy over the life needs of other human beings.) Neither Hitler, nor Stalin, nor Mussolini, nor Mao Tse Tung were "in it for the money." If anything, money was just a means to other other ends, namely in the interest of increasing their power over others. "It may be that today gold has become the exclusive ruler of life," wrote Hitler in Mein Kampf, "but the time will come when man will again bow down before a higher god."


The Culpable Bible

The bible's teachings actually encourage the despotism of such tyrants by exhorting believers to obey masters (Col. 3:22), offer themselves as "a living sacrifice" (Rom. 12:1), generally to just "go with the flow" while supposing that "rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil" (Rom. 13:3). Believers are "to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates" (Tit. 3:1), for they are instructed to "obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves" (Heb. 13:17). In addition to the repeated exhortations of indiscriminate submission to even secular authorities, believers are commanded to "resist not evil" (Mt. 5:39), which can only mean that believers cannot suppose that their worldview will back them up if they choose to act in their own self-defense. After all, since "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" (I Cor. 15:50), why should believers care what happens to their earthly lives?

The instruction found in 1 Peter 2:13-17 is particularly chilling in this regard:

Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.

The influence of Christianity has seen to it that we do not have to imagine a society of men who take such instructions seriously, "honoring" of all monsters an Adolf Hitler as he gives the order to fill the gas chambers to capacity in order to solve "the Jewish problem."

We should not forget that Germany was one of the most religious societies in Europe in the years leading up to Hitler's meteoric rise to power, and that his ascension to Reichskanzler would not have been possible without the herdlike mentality of the German populace so reliably fostered by religion. Christianity, which was by far the dominant religion of Nazi Germany (ask any surviving Jews if you dispute this), is well known for its use of sheep as a metaphor for characterizing the desired mindset of the faithful (cf. Mt. 25:32-33, Mk. 6:34, Lk. 15:6, Jn. 10:1-27, Rom. 8:36, 1 Pet. 2:25, et al.). As Hitler himself wrote,

...for the masses, faith is often the sole foundation of a moral attitude. ...if religious doctrine and faith are really to embrace the broad masses, the unconditional authority of the content of this faith is the foundation of all efficacy. (Mein Kampf)

Like Mother Theresa, Hitler understood that pleasing the supernatural ruling consciousness requires sacrifice. "A sacrifice to be real," said Mother Theresa, " must cost, must hurt, must empty ourselves." Likewise Adolf Hitler also prized self-sacrifice, writing in his book Mein Kampf, "the most sacred sacrifice [is] the blood that a man sheds for this earth." Compare John 15:13, which says: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." According to what Mother Theresa said, the sacrifice that Hitler commended was a real sacrifice, for the shedding of blood surely costs, surely hurts, and surely empties a man. A society which adopts any variation of the ethics of self-sacrifice is literally a "dog eat dog" society: one "dog" must be willing to sacrifice itself to another "dog," and the other "dog" must be willing to be the collector of that sacrifice. Thus a nation of Mother Theresas would be nothing if there were no Hitlers to give them a sense of purpose.


The Persistence of Delusion

Christian apologist Phil Fernandes, in his debate with Michael Martin, makes use of the apparent contrast between Hitler and Mother Theresa in framing an argument from undesirable outcomes:

Would life have any ultimate meaning if there is no God? If nonexistence is what awaits us, can we really make sense of life? You live and then you die. There are no eternal consequences. Hitler and Mother Theresa have the same destiny. We all finish our meaningless journeys in total nothingness.

Of course, this line of reasoning could only make sense if we accept the unargued premise that one's destiny can only be found in death rather than in life. But if life is an end in itself, as rational philosophy teaches, then Fernandes' concern reduces to emotive rhetoric. Moreover, as a pillar in his cumulative case for the existence of the Christian god, Fernandes essentially endorses consequentialism, the view that the issue in question cannot be the case because the consequences which would obtain if it were the case would be unacceptable. Consequences are certainly a factor to consider in determining a specific course of action to take. For instance, if Jones is running late and wants to take a shortcut to work, he opts against driving through his neighbor's backyard even though doing so would allow him to avoid two stoplights, because he does not want to damage his car or his neighbor's property. But the supposition that the outcome of a certain fact will be disappointing or unsatisfying, is not a criterion for establishing truth. If something is true, it's true whether we like it or not. Fernandes' point is an example of basing what he wants to accept as truth on the premise that if what he wants to be true were not true, the resulting state of affairs would be unacceptable. Apparently we're supposed to think that the Christian god exists because otherwise "Hitler and Mother Theresa have the same destiny," and who wants to think this? Therefore, the Christian god must exist, otherwise we have a very depressing fact to contend with.

This kind of "argument" is actually quite persuasive for many uncritical thinkers, especially those who have been automated to think that one needs to believe in a ruling consciousness in order to have a "meaningful" life. This is the view that man should not presume to choose his own purpose for his own life, but rather should allow someone else to determine it for him. And we already saw above that Christians have no philosophical defense against a tyrant who seeks to tell everyone what their purpose in life is supposed to be. As Christian Gary North writes in his article Mother Theresa: The Efficiency of Self-Sacrifice:

there is no doubt that everyone can strive to be more like leaders who adopt self-sacrifice as their way of life. I once saw a forgettable movie in which Stockard Channing uttered this memorable line: "I always wanted to be somewhere in between Mother Teresa and Imelda Marcos." Better to model ourselves by the former than the latter.

You go, girl. As for me, I'll not arbitrarily restrict myself to such needless dichotomies, for I know of good models to admire and follow, and their greatness is in what they achieved, not in what they "gave up."


The Neglected Archetype

Religionists tell us all about their worldview when they hold up Adolf Hitler and Mother Theresa as the archetypes representing moral opposites. They tell us that their worldview considers sacrifice to be non-negotiable. But why posture as if Hitler and Mother Theresa represented the only moral options available to human beings? Why not consider other models? Personally, I admire men like Thomas Edison, a prolific inventor and creator of boundless wealth who did not dedicate his life to seeking gain at the expense of others, or to enable others to gain at his expense. "Without Thomas Edison," writes David Harriman,

we would have no light bulbs, recorded music or hundreds of other inventions. Yet his goal was not to sacrifice for others, but to pursue and prove his passionately held ideas, no matter what others wanted of him. Do we really wish that he had dedicated himself to "citizen service," perhaps by collecting donations to buy candles for the poor?

As a musician who has made numerous recordings of original compositions, I am definitely one who can appreciate the astounding achievements which Edison brought to fruition. Similarly, I am thankful to those who invented and developed musical instruments, magnetic tape, four-track home recorders, high-definition equalization, distortion pedals, CD players and CD burners. These inventions have served to enhance my profoundly selfish pleasure of music-making for over 25 years. The lust for achievement, not the duty to sacrifice, is what made them possible. And what made the achievements possible if not uncompromising determination, indeed the refusal to sacrifice one's ideals for the wishes of others? Take a tour sometime of a manufacturing plant, a printing house, a lumber mill or other facility which produces values. If there were ever a genuinely rational "house of worship," it would be one of these establishments, not some sterile church with a wooden scarecrow nailed to the wall in front before which some incompotent nobody postures as having everyone's best "spiritual" interest in mind, droning on and on about how miserable humanity is. They speak for themselves.

Religionists are welcome to uphold Mother Theresa as their moral ideal - they can have her! And they can have the Hitlers that such models inevitably invite. I'll go with the great achievers, the religionists can enshrine their great losers.

by Dawson Bethrick

Responding to Pavielle

A new blog has been created called The God Debate where opening statements in a debate on the existence of a god have been published.

In the opening statement of the pro-god position, its author Pavielle affirms "the absolute nature of truth" as "the solid base on which much of my argument rests." Pavielle rightly points out that certain positions on the nature of truth are self-defeating, such as those which affirm as a truth the view that truth cannot be known. Such views are often the outcome of frustrated mysticism.

Additionally, Pavielle asks readers to "check out some characteristics of truth," which are listed as follows:

- Truth is not invented, but discovered
- Truth is transcultural
- Truth is unchanging even though our beliefs about the truth may change
- Beliefs cannot change a fact
- Truth is not affected by the attitude of the one professing it
- All truths are absolute truths

Pavielle then proceeded to present a case intended to prove, not the existence of the Christian god per se, but what is identified as "a generic theistic God," which I understand to refer generally to an invisible conscious entity whose consciousness has the power to bring matter into existence, assign objects their identity, essentially to create reality in one way or another.

In the comments section of Paveille's opening statement, I interacted with a small portion of what was presented, focusing on the issue of "the origin of life." In that section, Pavielle accused "Darwinists" of taking their views on the origin of life "on faith," which I called into question. Additional commonplace criticisms against evolution and abiogenesis were also introduced in Pavielle's opening statement, and I responded to a few of them as well. Specifically I raised the concern that Pavielle's overall argument, as presented in the overview so far presented, is difficult to distinguish from an argument from incredulity. This is because much of his case in this section dwells on what are thought to be probabilities that are so unlikely as to be considered "astronomical." I found this ironic given Pavielle's own pointers regarding the nature of truth: if something is true, it's true regardless of our beliefs (for "beliefs cannot change a fact") and one's estimation that something is utterly unlikely to happen does not trump the actual state of affairs (for "truth is not affected by the attitude of the one professing it"). Since unlikely things do in fact happen, our estimation that some postulated occurrence is highly improbable is not sufficient to rule it out.

Pavielle then responded to my criticism, and that's where we begin. (From here on, I will address Pavielle in second person address.)

Pavielle wrote:

Origon of Life- That it sright. Darwinists take the origon of life theory on faith."

Yes, you did affirm this, but I'm wondering how you would support the highly generalized claim that "Darwinists take the origon of life theory on faith." Nothing you have presented indicates why one should suppose this is the case. It may be the case that some do this, but that would only speak for those who do, not those who do not or might not.

Pavielle wrote:

I was not condemning faith by any means. I was merely pointing out the hypocrisy of most atheists.

Now it seems you're mixing issues. You asserted (without argument) that "Darwinists take the origon of life theory on faith," and then seem to conflate this to atheists as such. But an atheist is simply someone who has no god-belief, and this requires no faith since it is not a commitment to any affirmation. Non-belief in square circles, for instance, is not a faith-based position. It's not even a "position" per se, since it does not posit anything. At any rate, I thought you were trying to present an argument for the existence of a god. Whether or not any particular atheist is guilty of hypocrisy is irrelevant.

Pavielle wrote:

They take certain things on faith, but then mock those who have faith in God.

I'd like to see an example of this, in the words of card-carrying "Darwinists" themselves. Specifically an example showing that they "take the origon of life theory on faith" and then ridiculing others for accepting views on the basis of faith.

Pavielle wrote:

Deduction must be used of course. As for explenations, I believe that is what I am trying to do right now. Both theists and atheists should be able to logically explain their stance.

Fair enough. Let's proceed.

Pavielle wrote:

the mathematical probablility of biogenesis is astronomically low.

Low probability is ultimately irrelevant. The mathematical probability of the bullet fragment hitting James Tague on his cheek in Dallas on November 22, 1963 was also "astonomically low," and yet it happened. Probability assessment is fine for estimating future outcomes. But if something happened, it happened regardless of the odds. Again, truth is absolute, right?

Pavielle wrote:

And there is little evidence that supports it. You say there is some, but did not actually mention any. Until you bring it in, there is no evidence to support biogeneis in this debte.

Just by saying that "there is little evidence that supports it" suggests that you are already aware that at least some evidence which supports it exists. But to clarify my position (since I am not here to argue in defense of abiogenesis per se; others are far more able than I am on this matter), let me just say this. I'm open to supposing that abiogenesis occurred, and I'm also open to supposing that life has always existed. If it's the case that abiogenesis occurred, and we learn this is the case, I'm open to accepting that as truth. If it is discovered that life has always existed, then if that's true, it's true. This is to say that it is a curiosity, but it is not an important issue in my worldview. Life exists. That's a fact, and that's something I need to deal with an act on. How it "got here" is rather moot to me. But I will also mention that I see no good reason to suppose that life is the creation of an invisible magic being which has the power to turn its wishes into reality at will. Where you say that you don't have enough faith to be an atheist (as if non-belief in invisible magic beings were a product of faith; it's not), I'm too honest to be a theist.

Pavielle wrote:

A single cell is considered the simplest lifeform by all scientists. Virus particularly. Simple life exists today and it cannot be made any simpler. Biochemists have proved this. It couldn't exist now, and it couldn't have existed a long time ago.

Can you explain how you know that, just because it's supposed that "it couldn't exist now" (based only on what we know now), it also "couldn't have existed a long time ago"? I'm sure you're aware that scientists are generally open to new discoveries (especially if they make these discoveries themselves). What conclusively rules out the supposed possibility that at some time in the distant past there existed some life form, which may now be extinct for all we know, and which was even simpler than the single-celled organisms we currently consider to be the simplest life forms? Again, I'm not claiming there was such a thing. But I see that you are claiming there could not have been such. Should scientists go into the field of paleo-biological research with the assumption that organisms less complex than the life forms currently considered to be the simplest in existence could not have existed? What would drive such an assumption? A confessional investment in a religious devotional program? Is that responsible science? Is that openness to absolute truth?

Pavielle wrote:

It woulnd't have functioned and therefore would not have evolved. Hard knocks for evolution.

And yet below, we'll find that the concern for simplicity vs. complexity in nature is really a moot issue after all. Again, if evolution took place, it took place, whether we find it incredible or not.

Pavielle wrote:

And you make a good point in my favor by saying that even non-organic molecules aren't simple. That decreases the chances that they would develop naturally.

I think you missed my point then. Recall what you had written:

Even the earliest organisms would have had the equivalent of 100,000 encyclopedias of information stored in them!

But if this is the case with non-organic molecules as well, then the concern for simplicity may in fact be nothing more than a chimera after all. If nature, in the form of both organic and non-organic compounds, is info-packed, then highlighting the (unargued) supposition that "the earliest organisms would have had the equivalent of 100,000 encyclopedias of information stored in them" loses its power to impress. Indeed, simply because some article of fact is by itself impressive does not constitute an argument securing desired conclusions.

Pavielle wrote:

Incredulity? You think my argument is based on that? Incedulity is an emotion. My argument is based on mathematical probabilities. And since the attittude of the person does not affect the truth (As you so aprtly reeaffirmed) then your attitude does not affect such probabilities.

From what I can tell, your argument seeks to employ mathematical probabilities to secure the view that things are so unlikely that they are beyond reasonable credibility. That's the overwhelming impression that I walked away with when I read it.

Pavielle wrote:

Okay: You want an exact definiton of the Principle of Uniformity. Here it is.

Yes, it would be beneficial for your argument to inform it with some indication of what you take to be its key principles. Recall what you had written:

The Principle of Uniformity suggests that such complexity of life could not have evolved without guidance.

So as I look through your (unattributed) definitions of the principle of uniformity, I'll be looking specifically to see how they might "suggest" that complex life forms "could not have evolved without guidance." By 'guidance' I am supposing you have in mind some consciously directed oversight administered by some (presumably *living*) entity which deliberately sought to bring about the current state of affairs on earth (a planet teeming with diverse life forms) as a desired outcome. If you meant something fundamentally different (i.e., some natural process which did not involve a form of consciousness directing outcomes), then you may want to clarify this in future statements.

Pavielle wrote:

The principle of uniformity or the 'The Principle of Uniformity of Nature' postulates that the laws of nature discovered on Earth apply throughout the universe.

It's not clear to me how this rendition of "the Principle of Uniformity of Nature… suggests that such complexity of life could not have evolved without guidance."

Pavielle wrote:

A stronger Uniformity principle is that the laws of event causation have remained constant throughout time (uniformitarianism) as well as applying everywhere in the 'modern' universe. For instance, the idea in Physics that there has been no change in the fine-structure constant since the Big Bang.

Again, it's not clear how this "suggests" some form of "guidance," as I understand this term to mean.

Pavielle wrote:

There is also another definition that the Principle of Uniformity states that nothing that is now impossible in principle was ever the case in the past.

It's still not clear how some form of "guidance" is suggested by any of this. In fact, quite the opposite is suggested (at least, by my understanding). These suggest to me that guidance would not be needed, since natural laws were in operation. Is "guidance" needed for the movement of tectonic plates? I don't think so; geological forces, operating according to natural law, make this happen. Is "guidance" required for intercellular activity? I don't think so; biochemical forces are at work here. From what you have presented, I'd say quite the opposite is suggested.

Pavielle wrote:

There it is. The Principle of Uniformity affirms that natural laws are uniform throughout the universe. In my argument, I am reffering to the laws of probability, which make it highly unlikely that the universe could have spontaneoulsy come into being.

But if the universe always existed (which is my view; see below), then there's no need even to entertain the notion "that the universe could have spontaneously come into being." Existence exists, and the things that exist act according to their natures (that's the law of causality). So again, some form of conscious direction choreographing it all is not even implied, let alone "suggested."

Pavielle wrote:

My watch example is not about comparing natural life to that which is artifical. You misenterpereted.

It may not have been your intention, but that is what your use of the watch in fact does: it compares (quite explicitly in fact) biology to artificial mechanisms, and I see this in itself as a means of stacking the deck. If your case has solid facts behind it, you wouldn't need to do this.

Pavielle wrote:

It was a simple demonstration in probability.

One that actually misses its own point. Suppose you take that watch, as you suggested we do, put it into a bag and smash it with a hammer, and then shake it, every time you dump the contents of the bag onto a table top, you're going to have a new arrangement. Each arrangement is going to be statistically unique, and given the number of pieces involved and the spread of their distribution upon pouring out of the bag, just as astronomically improbable as the next outpouring will be. The whole thought experiment invites us to impose anthropomorphic conceptions of order to natural causality, which is why the comparison of biological organisms to artificial devices begs the question. It does this by seeding our expectation of a specific outcome: that the destruction of an object will result in its reassembly. But why should we expect this? Appeals to probability do not address this question, nor do they actually serve what the case intends to establish, for every outcome can be assessed as improbable in one way or another.

Take for example a deck of cards. If I were to give the deck of cards a good shuffle, and then I asked you to draw four cards, and you drew four aces right off the top, you'd probably say "Wow! What are the odds of that happening?!" That's because we put a certain value on like cards that the universe as such does not apply (the universe does not "value" anything; it wouldn't need to). But suppose you drew a seven of clubs, a queen of hearts, a two of diamonds and a nine of hearts. I could just as easily exclam "Wow! What are the odds of that happening?!" Statistically both outcomes are equally improbable, equally unique. I could say in equal amazement to both outcomes, "I've never seen that before!" So appeals to probability really do not impress me in the final analysis. I'm more interested in why you think a conscious agent is involved in the appearance of life on earth. But your argument seems to skirt from directly engaging this specific issue, which is the big daddy issue of theism.

Moreover, it remains to be explained exactly to what in nature (or in the details of the theory of evolution) the smashing of the watch and shaking of its parts in a bag are supposed to be analogous. The theory of evolution does not teach that new species evolve from the smashing and shaking up of their ancestors. So this in itself constitutes a weakness in your analogy.

Pavielle wrote:

In fact, becuase the universe is more complex than any watch, the probability of the universe simpley coming into being without guidance is actually less.

Well, for one thing, I see no reason to suppose that at one time the universe did not exist, so it seems arbitrary as well as conceptually fallacious to look for an explanation for how it "came to be." If the universe has always existed (again, see below), then there's no need to fuss over "the probability of the universe simpley coming into being," with or without guidance. Again, the issue which needs your attention is this notion of "guidance" which you want to introduce. Splitting hairs about probability is beyond moot; we all know that highly improbable things take place all the time. But since your case for divine guidance rests on the assumption that the universe did not always exist, just by knocking out the latter I've already provided good reason to reject the former. Hence my atheism (that is, non-belief in theism) is on solid ground.

Pavielle wrote:

If you would like, I can use a different analogy, but the effect will be the same: All the parts of a cell are floating in infinity. What are the chances that they will come together perfectly? Astronomical. Even after millions and millions of years? Still astronomical.

And the lack of impressiveness remains the same. Not to mention that the notion of "floating in infinity" is meaningless to me, the supposition that it is highly or "astronomically" improbable that the contents of the first cell would somehow unite into a single entity, is not sufficiently conclusive to warrant our consideration of alternative explanations, especially if they are arbitrary and internally contradictory, such as is the case with theism. It remains to be proven that such is impossible. By saying that the occurrence in question is merely improbable, you are, whether you realize it or not, tacitly conceding that said occurrence is still possible, just unlikely. So if the occurrence is conceded to be possible, then the urgency to consider alternatives loses steam.

But now step back and get a wider picture: suppose you want me to think that it is patently impossible for this to happen, given the known laws of nature. But then you want me to accept as not mere possibility, but as a holy fact, that a form of consciousness wished the universe into existence. Think about that for a moment. What known laws of nature support this notion? You appealed to the known laws of nature in order to rule out the possibility of life somehow generating from non-living substances, but then when it comes to considering the alternative that theism promotes, the laws of nature are no longer to be consulted in the matter. Is there any evidence in nature of a consciousness which can make real and actual something it wishes in its imagination? I'd like to see this. Perhaps it could wish me a million dollars.

Pavielle wrote:

This is a kind exapmle, since I am even giving the cell (A natrual thing) time. Time wouldn't have existed prior to the Universe becuase time, space, and matter must coexist. Also, the cell (Analogous to the Universe) already has all its parts. The Universe would have come from nothing. FInally, the universe is more complex than a cell.

None of this is meaningful to me since I do not begin with non-existence. Since I begin with existence (i.e., the universe), I have no need to hypothesize about what could or could not have existed "prior to the Universe." In fact, the expression "prior to the Universe" is utterly referenceless (unless of course one sacrifices his rational faculty on the altar of his imagination and proceeds to invent fantasies). If we begin with existence, then there's no problem. But if we begin with non-existence, then you've got an insurmountable problem: questions of how existence came to exist where there was no existence before necessarily presuppose the law of causality (for you cannot answer the "how" part of the question without at least implicitly assuming the law of causality), and yet the law of causality itself presupposes the fact of existence (since causality is the relationship between an entity and its own actions). So, unless you're willing to commit the fallacy of the stolen concept, you need to begin with existence.

Theism, however, seeks a compromise between these two: it wants thinkers to take seriously the notion that existence needs an explanation in something beyond it (e.g., "The universe had a cause!"), but it also tries to pass itself off on the legitimacy of beginning with something already existing. The stipulation of theism, however, is that this pre-existing something cannot be the universe as such (even though the universe is the sum total of existence, and we know this exists); rather, it wants to begin with a form of consciousness, which simply dooms theism to metaphysical subjectivism: it asserts that a subject of consciousness holds metaphysical primacy over all objects distinct from itself. There's nothing more subjective than such a view, and nothing more antagonistic to the concept of truth as such.

Pavielle wrote:

As for life being natural of unnatural, that cannot be assumed or determined directly. It must be deduced through evidence. I was not assuming anything. Just demonstrating the low probability of the universe coming into being spontaneously.

I hope you see the point of the objection I raised. If life is natural, then there's no reason to suppose that natural processes are insufficient to make life a reality. We see this all day long. But the argument you want to make needs to trade on the notion that life is somehow analogous to designed artifice (like a watch). I've given some indication as to why this is a very weak analogy. Doug Krueger gives more points to show why the design argument rests on a weak argument in his book What Is Atheism?

Pavielle wrote:

I would enjoy it if you would attempt to tear apart the rest of my arguemnt. Particularly about the Big Bang Theory.

Regarding the 'big bang' theory, see below. As to other parts of your piece, they will have to wait until another time. For now, I hope it is clear why the portions of your opening statement that I have reviewed are conclusively dismissable.

Pavielle wrote:

By trying to tear apart my arguments against evolution and biogensis, you merely rebuttled my intimations at the nature of God.

That's all I sought to do. In fact, I was hoping to find stronger indicators of the existence of a conscious entity behind it all (to account for the "guidance" that you have asserted), but your statement provided no justification for this that I could find.

Pavielle wrote:

The Big Bang Theory is the clicker.

If that's the case, then I don't think you have a case.

Pavielle wrote:

It is ulimately what decides if there is a God or not.

If that's the case, why doesn't the bible ever discuss the 'big bang' theory? Why the need for all the prophecies, an incarnation in first century Palestine, and other "signs" to demonstrate its existence?

Pavielle wrote:

Scientifically at least.

Ah, I see. You mean, as opposed to religious faith. Got it. Well, we can put the matter to rest then.

Pavielle wrote:

All you have proved in your arguemnts is that you disagree with me that God created life.

If that's what you think, I suggest you go back and review what I have presented. What I did is show how your reasons for supposing that a conscious entity was involved in the development of life on earth are dismissable. You've not shown that they can withstand my points of criticism. This is more than simply disagreeing with you. In fact, I could still agree that a god created life (for instance, I could wish that this were the case in spite of evidences to the contrary), so my agreement or disagreement are not a factor here.

Pavielle wrote:

You did not disprove His existence or His involvement in the Big Bang.

There is no need to prove that the non-existent does not exist. If X does not exist, why would anyone need to prove it doesn't exist? The onus is on you to prove that it does exist, if you want others to take your claim that it exists seriously.

Pavielle wrote:

In fact, unless you can come up with some specific evidence in favor of biogenesis and evolution (I plan to add more against it as the debate goes on), you have failed to disprove any of my points.

Wrong again. Your points, even if we accept them as you have presented them, would only show that abiogenesis is "astronomically improbable," based on what we know now. This would not prove that it is impossible, which is what you would need to prove in order to rule out naturalistic explanations. But then there's the quandary that I pointed out above: you want me to suppose that explanation X is so improbable as to dismiss it as virtually impossible, and yet embrace explanation Y as not only merely possible but absolute holy fact, and yet I would have to be utterly dishonest to do this.

Pavielle wrote:

Most of them you merely conveniently misinterperted to suggest that I was operating on and emotional level and therefore my argument was flawed.

I don't think I misineterpreted what you had presented. The portion of your argument that I reviewed reads quite strongly as one reducing ultimately to an argument from incredulity, disguised of course to look like something else, but an argument from incredulity in the end. Earlier in your opening statement, you affirmed absolute truth, in fact you affirmed views which reduce to the primacy of existence principle (since you affirmed that one's attitudes and beliefs do not alter the facts which inform our truths). But then you went on to say how improbable all these proposed solutions are, which is intended to mean we should think them too beyond the pale to be believeable. Hence, we ultimately have an argument from incredulity: if naturalistic explanations are deemed "astronomically improbable," then it would be ridiculous to believe them. Consequently, the explanation resides in something "beyond nature," and the believeability of this alternative explanation is not questioned or scrutinized. It might fly if I were confessionally committed to such an argument's intended conclusion and wanted to settled nagging doubts which are difficult if not impossible to fully quench. But is that an intellectually honest course to take?

Pavielle wrote:

As I have clarified, I am operating on natural and mathematical laws to determine probability.

Your argument's appeal to mathematics and probability is really just a cover, in order to give your faith claim an air of respectability. But look at how the views of absolute truth you presented in your opening statement presuppose the primacy of existence principle (which is the recognition that existence exists independent of consciousness), and yet what you want to conclude in your argument reduces to the primacy of consciousness view of metaphysics (which asserts that reality, existence, the universe, etc. depend on a form of consciousness - cf. your "guidance"). This is to say, you need to identify your starting point, show it to be conceptually irreducible, identify the means by which you are aware of it, and then explain how it is compatible with the position you are defending. Then, if you continue to insist that your god is real, you will need to explain how other thinkers can distinguish your god from something you're simply imagining. Until you can do all of this, your case will remain vulnerable to my criticism, for these issues are where the rubber hits the road.

Pavielle wrote:

Oh yeah... You can't say that life always existed unless the Universe was infinite. But since you did not dispute the Big Bang Theory, we must assume that the Universe is finite. Thus, since life was developed after the Universe, the existence of life must also be finete. In other words, life can not have always existed and evolved.

You're confusing the term 'infinite' with 'eternal', which I have found to be quite a common habit among theistic apologists. The two are not the same. My position holds that the universe is finite but also eternal. This is not a contradiction for the terms are not incompatible. Finitude in this respect has nothing to do with time, but with identity. To exist is to be something specific, i.e., to be finite. The concept 'infinity' can only refer to a potential (such as the potential to continue extending a series beyond any specific measurement), not to an actual. The actual is always finite. The concept 'eternal', on the other hand, indicates that temporal measures do not apply. This is the case with the universe. By 'universe' I mean the sum totality of all that exists. To posit that any thing exists, is to include it, by virtue of its actual or supposed existence, in the totality of what exists, which is the universe. Since time is a form of measuring motion, it requires a standard, such as the earth's orbit around the sun: one orbit equals one year. Thus temporal measurement is possible within the universe (i.e., within the totality of all that exists), since relative motion between bodies takes place within the universe. But when it gets to the universe as such, since there is by definition no such thing as something that exists outside the universe (the universe by definition includes everything that exists), temporal concepts do not apply for there is no relative motion between the universe and "something else" to provide those concepts with the fixed standard they require. Hence, the universe is literally eternal.

I did not comment on the 'big bang' theory, first because it does not counter my position that the universe is eternal (it serves more to explain the current inflationary distribution of what exists in the universe as opposed to offering an explanation for existence as such), and also because I tend to take such theories with a heaping grain of salt: I am not an advocate of the 'big bang' theory, but I'm open to accepting it as truth if the evidence for it is conclusive. Then again, it's like the issue of the origin of life: I don't think it's a very important issue, certainly not in philosophy. (I know, this tends to disturb many theists since they want people to take the question of origins so seriously; it's an area of inquiry where speculation and fantasy are quite difficult to distinguish from cogent assessments, thus providing ample opportunity for mystics to insert the hand of their invisible magic being.)

Pavielle wrote:

Gees, one last thing. If we are not to determine the origon of life by basing are deductions are life that currently exists, then we would be floating in the dark and using only blind faith. In that case, someone who said that all life arose from a pot of noodle soup would be just as locigally valid as the scientist or creationist. If we can't deduce the origon or development of life by looking at living things today, then evolutionists are way off base becuase that is exactly what they do.

I agree that we need to take the knowledge that we have already validated of the present as a point of departure. This would include our knowledge of the primacy of existence principle as well, especially given its fundamentality to cognition. But I also think that scientists should guard against arbitrarily ruling out what may actually be genuine possibilities, especially if new discoveries give them at least some objective footing. That's all I'm saying. Deeming something as astronomically improbable may be impressive to some, but if something that is thought to be astronomically improbable actually happened, then it happened, simple as that. (Again, truth is absolute, right?)

Pavielle wrote:

And, of course if bio-genisis is true then it will always be true, regardless of what I think. But it is a double edged sword. If God exists, He will always exist, regardless of what you may or may not believe Dawson.

Again, you appeal to the primacy of existence principle to undergird your view of truth, which is rational. But I suggest you examine this issue deeper so that you can see just why it is the case that the notion of a god contradicts this very necessary basis of truth as such.

Pavielle wrote:

Sorry, I keep noticing little inconsistencies in the rebuttal and have to keep going back to adress them.

Do you think there was an inconsistency in what I wrote? If so, can you pinpoint it for me?

by Dawson Bethrick