301. The Pagan Christ

Comment #116031 by Mark Smith on January 25, 2008 at 10:30 am

Albondigas

Yes, we have been referring specifically to those who would have started it all. The operative word is 'convince'. Suppose Fred is this one person that believes Jesus is alive and he goes and tells George about it. How would George respond? Would he say 'Fred, that is amazingly good news! Terrific, let's tell the others.' Or would he say 'Fred, I think you're a bit stressed. Look, I know we all hoped he was the Messiah but he's dead now. In fact, why don't we take a walk over to the tomb where he was buried so you can see that he's still there and get a grip before you lose it.'

I think you are doing bad history here, and that is important because we are debating the question of whether there is good historical evidence for the resurrection. I'll come back to why it is bad history in a moment. But just supposing for now that your example with Fred and George is a good one, what is it saying? It is only saying that it is no more than quite (or even 'very', if you want) unlikely that George would have believed Fred. (George might have been more credulous than you suppose.) George believing Fred might be very unlikely, but it is orders of magnitude more likely than a dead body coming back to life.

But what do I mean by 'doing bad history'? I mean that you are imposing your own particular opinions about what ought to be believed onto a historical person. You think you would not have thought X if you had been in George's shoes, so George could not have thought X. I'd like to think that if I had been around the first followers of Muhammed, or of Joseph Smith, or of any of the other countless religions with strange beginnings, then I would not have believed their claims. But I don't extrapolate from that to say that because people did believe them they must be true. Or do you not accept one of the great truths of history: people will believe anything.

Don't forget there's more to the Paul story than just a waking apparition. There's this small issue of going blind that went along with it. As for John, what he believed appears to be ambiguous given the verses that follow the one you referenced … Nope, they all just went back to their homes.

I don't find the repeating of details culled from ancient and potentially highly fallible writings to be historically convincing. But if you want to add 'going blind' to the list of reasons people might have believed in the resurrection, be my guest.

And similarly, your assumption that the first Christians did claim a bodily resurrection from the start is not well founded.

Are there more reliable documents that would indicate otherwise? As far as I understand, some of Paul's writings were the earliest. He claimed a bodily resurrection.

We know that, say around AD50, Paul was probably claiming a bodily resurrection. This is a fairly well established historical fact, and I have suggested a mechanism as to how this could have come about if Jesus died and was not resurrected. It is not critical to my argument when a bodily resurrection was claimed. Paul might have been first, Peter might have been first, years earlier. You, on the other hand, are asserting as a key part of your argument that the very first Christians, say 15 to 20 years earlier claimed a bodily resurrection. I merely pointed out that this critical part of your argument has no direct evidence in support of it.

Do we automatically discard them as being unreliable?

Its not a question of automatically discarding things. Memories can be accurate, but can also be false, or somewhere in between. Similarly with written documents. It is a question of looking critically at the evidence and reaching a careful, well-thought out view.

On the Gospels, by the way, have you ever tried comparing the detail of their version of the resurrection stories? Try doing it with the first visits to the empty tomb. The discrepancies and contradictions are enormous. John has men going in the tomb first, the other 3 have the women. Matthew has an angel sitting on a stone outside the tomb, Mark has an angel inside, Luke has two standing inside and John has two sitting inside. Etc etc etc. To the historian, this suggests there were several (at least four and probably more) accounts circulating in the early church each with different mythical accretions as the story was retold. That doesn't prove the central supposed event didn't happen, but it does show that the stories are not the 'reliable recall' you might wish for.

You think they explain why they came to believe Jesus was raised but I do not. As stated earlier, I don't think that when the suggestions you have made are put in the balance and weighed against their very culture that they would even come close to tipping the scales in that direction.

You claimed that my suggestions were not credible because they couldn't explain why they gave up their strongly-held culturally-ingrained beliefs. My point was that they gave up those beliefs as a result of coming to believe in the resurrection. That is the case whether the resurrection actually happened or not. That is, both you and I agree that they came to believe in the resurrection and that new belief was the cause of giving up their old beliefs. Thus your objection on this basis is incorrect as a matter of logic.

302. This Week's Flea

Comment #114739 by Mark Smith on January 22, 2008 at 4:38 pm

Perhaps not necessarily irrationality. But certainly subjectivity.

I do regard it as irrational: the 'truths' which are being read in are propositions and are therefore in the realm of reason. Yet the 'inner witness' that supposedly guarantees these truths is not open to reason in any way. The people who have it simply 'know that they know that they know', even if all the evidence is to the contrary. That, in my view, can reasonably be described as irrational.

The criticism that it is subjective appears to be the reason why people like Malcom Muggeridge turn to Catholicism.

303. This Week's Flea

Comment #114726 by Mark Smith on January 22, 2008 at 4:07 pm

ADH

The Bible is not a guidebook. It's essentially God's revelation of His character and the unfolding of his purposes for his creation.

I can understand where you are coming from. It is much more appealing in modern times to think of the Bible as revealed narrative than as a manual of revelation. But it still falls prey to the criticism that I made earlier, namely that in order to reach that narrative you have to impose the constructs of the group you are loyal to onto a very large collection of words that many other people (presumably who you think do not 'have the Spirit') read in extraordinarily different ways. In other words, it is not a narrative which, as it were, spings out at you from the Bible and which thereby creates your faith. Instead, you have to read the narrative into it, based on the things your faith community tells you you ought to be seeing in it.

This means you need some guarantee that is separate from the Bible that your group has the truth. Otherwise you are just going to be reading in untruth. (Which supposedly is the great strength of Roman Catholicism, with its assertion of an unbroken line of authority going back to St Peter.) Evangelicals I have known have tended to try to appeal to some sort of inner witness – they just know that they know that they know … And that brings me back to my original claim: that an irrationality is at the heart of what you believe.

304. This Week's Flea

Comment #114202 by Mark Smith on January 21, 2008 at 2:24 pm

ADH

Then we'd all be sunk.

Why? Loads of people have done more good in their life than bad. Or are you referring to the Christian propaganda (which isn't very 'biblical' by the way, unless you are interpreting through Paul's eyes – the guy who could only see through a glass darkly!) that everybody has sinned against the Christian god, and that is much worse than anything they could ever do to any other person.

305. This Week's Flea

Comment #114199 by Mark Smith on January 21, 2008 at 2:15 pm

ADH

There is no mismatch. The OT can only be interpreted in the light of the incarnation because that was the event that it was intended to point forward to.

Excellent example of the arbitrary application of an interpretative method and the interpretation of some parts in the light of other parts you like better, which I referred to earlier. (And which you seemed to imply was incorrect assumption.)

306. This Week's Flea

Comment #114187 by Mark Smith on January 21, 2008 at 1:52 pm

ADH

Don't ask me how that's going to pan out.

You are claiming the human need for justice, and the lack of it in this life, proves that there must be justice in the next life. I am claiming that the Christian construct, according to which humans either go to heaven or hell according to whether they have faith not according to their acts such as murder, expressly denies the possibility of such justice. Murderers go to heaven if they have faith. If you believe as strongly as you say you do in the need for justice, I suggest you give up your Christian faith and start believing in some other judgmental god. One that ignores peoples' faith and instead scores them points purely on what they have done.

307. This Week's Flea

Comment #114166 by Mark Smith on January 21, 2008 at 1:27 pm

ADH

That is your assumption.

I was guessing about the inerrancy and evangelicalism (as I said), but the rest is certainly not assumption. It describes how 'Bible-believing Christians' approach 'the good book'. Perhaps you could say how you differ from them?

I'd also be interested to know if you aren't an inerrantist and/or an evangelical. You presumably are happy to be open about your position.

308. This Week's Flea

Comment #114156 by Mark Smith on January 21, 2008 at 1:10 pm

ADH
The guy in Matchpoint murdered and got away with it in 'this life'. Am I right in assuming you accept this happens, but that you think (if it were real) he would 'get justice' after death? What would this justice be? Assuming he didn't have faith, he would be going to hell anyway wouldn't he, regardless of the murder. Conversely, if he converts, he gets to go to heaven, and so again justice is not done.

309. This Week's Flea

Comment #114151 by Mark Smith on January 21, 2008 at 1:00 pm

ADH

Because I accept and have confidence in the Bible as a truthful reflection of the character of God.

Here is the centre of your irrationality. 'The Bible', let alone 'the Bible as a truthful reflection', is a mythical construct. There is the Bible in its original languages, the translated Hebrew Bible (Old Testament only), the Protestant Bible and the Catholic Bible, King James Bible, the NIV, RSV, etc etc. Once you have chosen one of these you need to impose an arbitrary interpretive method (I'm guessing inerrancy plus evangelicalism in your case) and then focus in on the bits you like and interpret the other bits in the light of them (and probably effectively ignore yet others).

This is not 'accepting and having confidence in', it is imposing the constructs of the group you are loyal to onto a very large collection of words that many other people (presumably who you think do not 'have the Spirit') read in extraordinarily different ways.

310. Dawkins: I'm a cultural Christian

Comment #113761 by Mark Smith on January 20, 2008 at 1:16 pm

djspideyspinster
I just followed the link to your blog and can't find anything about RD. Has it moved?

All I could see is one from December. It does have in it claims about the historicity of the resurrection, which interests me. If you go here: http://richarddawkins.net/article,1966,The-Pagan-Christ,CBC-Tom-Harpur and check out the debate between myself and Albondigas, you will see he takes the same line. I believe I have refuted the argument (though I would think that wouldn't I!) and if you are in the mood I would be delighted if you were to post there where you think I have gone wrong.

311. The Pagan Christ

Comment #112503 by Mark Smith on January 17, 2008 at 11:40 am

Albondigas
If you are planning to respond to my Post 224, please do so in priority to this one. But I just wanted to highlight a point on natural selection I think you have misunderstood. You said:

That is the name of the game right, pass on your genes and do it efficiently.
So let's see in asexual reproduction you get to pass on all your genes, you don't have to find a mate, and you don't have to carry around the expensive baggage of reproductive organs. For sexual reproduction you get to pass on 50% less of your genes, you have to find a mate, and you get to expend energy carrying around the baggage of sexual reproductive organs. Which one is the better one for the game?

This misunderstands the animal (or plant etc) as the unit of reproduction. Rather it is each gene (albeit acting in cohort with other genes and acting 'through' the animals they 'inhabit') which makes copies of itself. If sexual reproduction is an evolutionary advantage it is so for the genes which cause it to come about. So for sexual reproduction to become an ongoing feature, it has to cause more copies of those genes to be made than would be made without sexual reproduction.

As I understand it (and simplifying massively), sexual reproduction increases variety between offspring, and that will be an advantage in environments where variety is an advantage. So lets say Animal A produces 5 offspring by asexual reproduction. Its genes reproduce themselves 5 times. Animal B produces 5 offspring by sexual reproduction. That requires half B's genes to be passed on, so on average the genes have reproduced themselves 2.5 times. All you need for sexual reproduction to become a persistent feature is an environment with say a disease in it which is successful at attacking Animal A's offspring. If on average it kills 4, then A's genes will only reproduce themselves once. The disease might only kill say one of B's offspring if the variation between the offspring happens to be of the right type. So now B's genes are reproducing themselves 2 times and they are outproducing A.

312. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #110761 by Mark Smith on January 12, 2008 at 10:32 am

They seem to go through responses picking out perceived logical inconsistencies and category errors to fight small battles, completely bypassing the larger argument being made.

Absolutely. I'm trying to get the blog owner, William, to engage with me on content after he rejected my first post after he took exception to it being in the format of an explanation of what I believe! Yet to see whether he will though.

313. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #110629 by Mark Smith on January 11, 2008 at 4:33 pm

Fair enough, duely chastised.

Don't apologise. Why shouldn't you get the giggles? Or indeed tell us that you do? I didn't read you as disparaging or dismissing anybody.

314. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #110622 by Mark Smith on January 11, 2008 at 3:58 pm

Corylus
I don't think ADH is actually defending objective morality as such. He is criticising various people, and atheism in general, for not having objective morality themselves. But that doesn't mean he believes in it himself (though I suppose he might think he does). I know I'm speculating (and ADH please put me right if I am wrong), but I suspect he is hoping that if somebody agrees a need for objective morality he can get them to take on board something entirely different, namely 'Christian morality', which of course he thinks entails becoming a Christian. And he will thereby have done his evangelistic duty.

In terms of what the nature of Christian morality is, it seems to me he prevaricates, between something highly subjective – "Love God with all your heart soul and mind, and your neighbour as yourself", which he says is the core of Christian morality – and something 'objective' which will function as a 'yardstick'. He hasn't yet stated what this yardstick is and how we get access to it, but I am working on the hypothesis that it will turn out to be 'the Bible'.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he will be perfectly happy if none of us become Christians, just as long as we convert to 'objective moralism'.

315. Two Ex-Jehovah Witnesses to Tell Why They Became Atheists

Comment #110598 by Mark Smith on January 11, 2008 at 3:06 pm

Styrer

How I wish I understood the movement from 'debunking' to 'finally realising'.

I'm not sure I'm properly understanding your question, and I can't generalise, but for myself I was part of a kind of Christianity which claimed to value truth and also was quite evangelistic in ethos (ie believed others need to be told about the gospel). I took both these things to mean that you should try to examine critically (within certain limits) your own beliefs and the false beliefs of others (ie debunking them). I found that once this process started I began to take seriously potential difficulties with my own (and my church's beliefs). And from there it is not far to 'finally realising'.

316. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #110579 by Mark Smith on January 11, 2008 at 2:06 pm

By the way, it would have been nice to see some of you hang in there a bit longer in the Atheism Sucks site. But there you go.

I don't know what ADH is talking about here. Hope he isn't spinning things for the sake of his cause! I've just been on the site (the thread set up for us in particular) and I would say it is the theists who are failing to respond. And my latest post hasn't been answered.

317. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #110510 by Mark Smith on January 11, 2008 at 12:12 pm

ADH
I know people are keeping you busy, but please please will you answer my question from earlier. I've copied it below to save you time! And it should be quick to answer if it's what it appears to be from your various posts, namely 'the Bible'.

Question:
You are suggesting that it would be really nice if there were a moral code or the like which is entirely apart from any human being's particular views and which can therefore be appealed to in order to arbitrate between what each human does, provide instructions as to what should and should not be done etc. The paradigm is probably the Ten Commandments, given by god and available for all (Hebrew reading?) people to consult.

I can see why you think it would be great if such a thing existed. But at the moment all you are doing is explaining why it would be great. I assume you also think that it does in fact exist. So please will you say what it is and how we can all get access to it. I know you've referred to 'love god and love your neighbour' above, but that doesn't even come close to being something that can be appealed to in order to arbitrate between what each human does, provide instructions as to what should and should not be done etc.

Thanks

318. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #110193 by Mark Smith on January 10, 2008 at 3:48 pm

Diacanu
Thanks for the link. An enjoyable watch.

319. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #110178 by Mark Smith on January 10, 2008 at 3:24 pm

ADH
You are suggesting that it would be really nice if there were a moral code or the like which is entirely apart from any human being's particular views and which can therefore be appealed to in order to arbitrate between what each human does, provide instructions as to what should and should not be done etc. The paradigm is probably the Ten Commandments, given by god and available for all (Hebrew reading?) people to consult.

I can see why you think it would be great if such a thing existed. But at the moment all you are doing is explaining why it would be great. I assume you also think that it does in fact exist. So please will you say what it is and how we can all get access to it. I know you've referred to 'love god and love your neighbour' above, but that doesn't even come close to being something that can be appealed to in order to arbitrate between what each human does, provide instructions as to what should and should not be done etc.

320. The Pagan Christ

Comment #109753 by Mark Smith on January 9, 2008 at 3:58 pm

Albondigas

I'm hoping that having agreed 1 to 3 above are a fair representation of your argument, you'll accept they are a fair refutation of it.

Actually I think they are weak.

I did suspect I might be hoping for a bit too much!

First of all most of them have nothing to do with providing a reasonable basis for why they would claim a bodily resurrection.

I'm assuming you mean by this that my suggestions don't explain why they claimed a bodily resurrection. I'm surprised you say this. May I recommend you have another look at the New Testament? If you take it seriously, as you appear to, it itself demonstrates that some of the reasons I gave did cause people to claim a bodily resurrection. It is full of people like my person A above, people who were told by other people that Jesus had been raised, and who presumably went on to 'claim a bodily resurrection': try Acts 2:41 for example. Then there is Paul, a good example of person D, who had a waking apparition on the road to Damascus. He certainly went on to claim a bodily resurrection. Or for person E try John 20:8. This verse asserts that John, the other disciple, 'believed' simply on seeing the empty tomb.

Perhaps you are you talking about the very first believers, the ones who weren't told by anyone else? How many of these would it have needed to get things going? Well actually just one. All you need is one person who came to believe (or even decided to lie), as a result of any of the experiences I described earlier, that Jesus had been raised, and to go on to convince some others.

What you also need to remember is that we are doing history here. We do not know that any of the claims in the New Testament about the days, week or even first years immediately after Jesus died are at all accurate. So you can't assume that the resurrection stories are accurate. And similarly, your assumption that the first Christians did claim a bodily resurrection from the start is not well founded. It could well be that they simply claimed he was alive, with no more content to it than that, and the bodily aspect only got filled in later, perhaps in response to those who were claiming it was purely 'spiritual', or indeed that there was no resurrection at all (th beliefs Paul is arguing against in 1 Cor 15 for example).

Secondly none of them do anything to provide good reason as to why these believers would be so quick to give up on their long-held cultural beliefs about Messiah and what he would do.

Yes they do. They explain why they came to believe Jesus was raised. Which must be precisely the reason why you think they were so quick to give up their long-held beliefs.

Cheers
Mark Smith (previously smithyboy)

321. Could there be a Darwinian Account of Human Creativity?

Comment #108792 by Mark Smith on January 7, 2008 at 3:35 pm

Why is evidence that would be utterly convincing to you in any other area so easily dismissed?

It's because the Bible tells him so

322. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #108770 by Mark Smith on January 7, 2008 at 2:49 pm

Wow. Now I'm getting nostalgia for relativity - seems so simple in comparison. I'm going to have to read up: has anything been written yet that's reasonably clear for dummies?

323. Could there be a Darwinian Account of Human Creativity?

Comment #108764 by Mark Smith on January 7, 2008 at 2:42 pm

PlagioClase
You are still arguing for creationism, ostensibly from a scientific perspective, so I think the question I asked you a few days ago is still relevant. But you haven't answered. It just asks for a quick, but honest, answer. Here it is again:

You're a creationist because of the Bible, right?

Try to imagine yourself without a Bible but still think of yourself as religious: you look at the world around you, the stars and the amazing plants and animals etc, and you think, surely it is all here because of a greater power, because of the hand of God. But you have no preconceptions as to how he did it. So you go to an astronomer and he/she explains how the stars came about, and you go to a geologist who explains why the Earth is like it is. And then you go to a biologist, who explains how life developed into what it is today by evolution by natural selection.

Try to imagine yourself doing this, but with no prior knowledge and no preconceived ideas, and with enough time to get a good understanding of what these scientists are saying. Can you honestly say that having done this, the scientists' ideas would not be plausible, and that God couldn't have brought it all about the way they described?

324. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #108752 by Mark Smith on January 7, 2008 at 2:17 pm

Sorry peacebeuponme, my fault.

Steve

They don't quite re-instate the conventional idea. The question is 'whether or not spacetime is continuous through the "Big Bang" (or, more accurately, the state at which the universe is at its smallest dimension).

I thought 'spacetime' *was* the idea that time is part of the fabric. So I'm not sure whether you are saying that these theories suggest space and time get ripped apart at the Big Bang, or that spacetime (or just time?) continues through (ie 'before') that moment? Do let me know if this is covered elsewhere and you'd rather just refer me there.

325. US 'doomed' if creationist president elected: scientists

Comment #108733 by Mark Smith on January 7, 2008 at 1:41 pm

Yorkshire: best beer and best cricket, just a shame we can't produce a decent football team. I should know, I'm a Sheffield Wednesday fan.

326. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #108722 by Mark Smith on January 7, 2008 at 1:22 pm

Steve and Epeeist
Thanks very much. Point taken on 'proven', a criminal lapse!

Einstein suggested that time is part of the fabric of the universe. I'm wondering if the other hypotheses reject this and sort of reinstate the conventional view of time. Or rather do they develop the 'part of the fabric' idea in some way?

Steve. Kaku might be simplistic but wacky, but at least (I think) I understand him so far! I think the wacky bits must be further on.

327. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #108673 by Mark Smith on January 7, 2008 at 12:09 pm

The set "that which begins to exist" is a bit of linguistic trickery. Time, space, and causation have meaning within the universe, which is everything that exists. If you imagine you can step outside "the universe" somehow, you must concede that you can't say anything. Time, space, causation, and meaning itself, vanish beyond the boundary of "everything that exists."

I'm glad Doc Benway said this. I'm currently reading Michio Kaku's book Einstein's Cosmos and it has reminded me that Einstein apparently established that time is confined to this universe. That seems to imply that the first cause argument when applied to the god question is invalid when it attempts to step outside of the universe for that *first* cause. I wanted to ask the scientifically-trained among us if this is right. If so, it seems a reasonably straightforward and easily (relatively speaking) understood refutation, since it relies on proven science, Einstein's theory of relativity. Steve Zara and others, can you offer any help (or direct me to the appropriate thread if it has been covered before)? Have I misunderstood?

328. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #108359 by Mark Smith on January 6, 2008 at 2:41 pm

ADH
I don't care whether you cry off or not. I would just prefer that if you felt the need to repeat the assertions I highlighted earlier you did not give the impression that they had not already been strongly challenged. That is just my preference though, and you are free to do as you feel appropriate.

329. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #108355 by Mark Smith on January 6, 2008 at 2:31 pm

ADH
You are 'honestly not sure how open' I am! Have you heard yourself? Could you be any more condescending (and that's not the only word I can think of)?

330. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #108345 by Mark Smith on January 6, 2008 at 2:19 pm

ADH

Albondigas was doing a fine job. I agreed with everything he said.

In that case perhaps you'd like to return there, because he has gone quiet since we reached an agreed summary of what his argument is for the resurrection and I set out a refutation.

As regards the historical reliability of the Gospels, I could point you to a number of sources.

I doubt you could. But be my guest (on the Resolution 888 thread).

All I want you to realise is that there is a lot of very serious historical scholarship which supports their reliability.

I'm very well aware of what scholarship there is, and the large majority from the last 100+ years does not support Gospel reliability, though a minority does argue that way (not successfully in my opinion).

But I know your mind is made up, so any evidence I could produce would make little impression on it.

If you mean you know that I have carefully weighed the evidence and the scholarship, and have arrived at a considered conclusion, then you are right (and somewhat spooky too!). If you wish to suggest that I am not open to reconsidering matters if new evidence or convincing historical arguments were produced, then you are wrong.

331. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #108322 by Mark Smith on January 6, 2008 at 1:45 pm

ADH

Two reasons for being a Christian theist:
1. The stunning uniqueness of Jesus Christ as he comes across in the four gospels, the historical reliability of which has been established beyond reasonable doubt.

2. The paradigmatic event of the resurrection of Jesus Christ - not only a one-off event but a declaration of God's intent for the whole of creation. God's life-affirming purposes for nature will prevail, whatever havoc human beings have wreaked or ever will wreak on the planet that they have been made custodians of.

Trouble is you made a similar assertion about historical reliability of the Gospels just a few hours ago on the Stop House Resolution 888 thread, and when I and several others offered reasons why this claim is wrong you never replied. On the historicity of resurrection, you bailed out of the debate on The Pagan Christ (6 December article) thread.

I don't think you should make such assertions on one thread when you won't defend them on another.

332. The OUT Campaign has its own Flea!

Comment #108211 by Mark Smith on January 6, 2008 at 9:04 am

Krisking

One of the big differences between religions and atheism is that the first expect some standard of behaviour while atheism expects nothing.

Some of the standards expected by some religions are not ones I would ascribe to (suppression of homosexuality, oppression of women, etc etc). Having come to believe there is no god, I have no difficulty rejecting the imposition of those standards, while those who want to hold onto religion have terrible difficulty in this regard.

It is true that atheism per se does not expect anything, but you make a massive leap from there if you think I (or indeed a secular society) can therefore have no standards. (A secular society is my ideal, by the way, not necessarily an atheist one.)

You seem to be afraid that if religion goes everything will fall apart: the slippery slope argument. Dan Dennett has a good discussion of this in his AAI 07 award acceptance speech http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-808547712754338659 (or navigate to it by this site if that doesn't work).

333. The OUT Campaign has its own Flea!

Comment #107961 by Mark Smith on January 5, 2008 at 5:06 pm

Krisking

Do you know any society that you'd like to be part of whose morality doesn't have an objective source such as the Bible?

I put 'objective' there in scare quotes because that is the word the Christians I was referring to seem to use. I take them to mean by it that a morality is set out in the Bible by someone or something that is not human. This is appealing to many people, presumably because they think it eliminates some of the perceived problems of relativism. In fact, it doesn't seem to. No society I am aware of that has a supposedly non-human source of morality escapes problems of interpretation, subjectivity of judges etc.

But to answer your specific question, yes, I'd rather be in a society without such a non-human source, Britain (it doesn't claim to have any particular source) and America (the Constitution, very human, but pretty good) spring to mind, rather than Saudi Arabia (Allah being the source), where I might get my hand cut off for shoplifting.

But of course, in another sense your question is a non-starter for me. I don't believe there is any source outside of humanity for morality, so I don't believe there is any society which in fact has or can have an 'objective' source for morality, and so I can't in any meaningful sense want to be in one or not. It's like asking whether I'd prefer to be in a society where pigs can fly.

334. Stop House Resolution 888

Comment #107944 by Mark Smith on January 5, 2008 at 3:46 pm

ADH

In what sense was the record of Acts and th Gospels a "rewriting" of history as opposed to a historical record?

Nice one ADH. Where would you like to start? Perhaps at the beginning. Matthew chapter 1 is a made up genealogy of Jesus in which history is rewritten in an attempt to tie Jesus into some of the key Jewish bloodlines. If you want a detailed account of how Matthew does this, try any of the academic commentaries. They will also tell you why – which is that the author ('Matthew') was concerned to try to prove to Jews that Jesus truly was the messiah. This Gospel goes on to rewrite history in many ways in an attempt to show that Jesus was the one prophesied by the Hebrew prophets. The flight to Egypt (Mat 2:13-15) is a good example.

Luke, on the other hand, rewrites history in a different manner, wanting to emphasise Jesus as saviour of the world (rather than Matthew's messiah of the Jews), so his genealogy is strikingly different. Fundamentalists try to reconcile the two genealogies, but most academics agree that the Gospels have at the very least 'been creative' with history at this point. And Luke is not so bothered about the Hebrew prophets, so his history hasn't got a flight to Egypt for example. Again, read the academic commentaries for confirmation of these and many more points.

This sort of thing is endemic in the Gospels. But more importantly, in other places they are simply incorrect – which is of course in its way a rewriting of history. There was no virgin birth (this being a 'pagan' myth written back in, because Matthew and Luke, but not Mark and John, thought it was needed) and there was no resurrection (this being a belief which arose to enable the first believers to deal with their cognitive dissonance resulting from their hero's death).

If you examine Luke's account you will find that it reflects 1st century Palestine rather well. The detail is meticulous.

Meticulous detail doesn't mean it isn't historical rewriting, just that it is more convincing to readers like you.

When you don't happen to like a historical record it's not good enough just to announce that the said account is a "rewriting" of history. You must be able to show that this is the case.

It's not a question of liking or disliking. First you have to determine the nature of the writing you are considering and then you have to read it in that light. The Gospels are not attempting to be 'historical records' in the sense of, say, a modern history book. They are 'gospels' ie attempts to convince their readers as to the truth of the good news of Jesus Christ. John 20:31: ''these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ'. Your apparent favourite, Luke, claims to be doing the closest to a modern history (Luke 1:1-4), and appears to be more concerned about detail, as you say, but that in no way means he was immune from rewriting those details in favour of the 'truth' he wants to demonstrate.

You must be able to present documentary or archaelogical evidence of wilful distorion. Where's the evidence? Does this site not pride itself in priorising EVIDENCE over wishful thinking? Let's have some evidence that history has been rewritten by Christianity. Otherwise I might be forced to conclude that the wishful thinking is actually on your side!

I've summarized a very small portion of the evidence above. There is a wealth more that has been set out by countless New Testament scholars over the last 100+ years. The wishful thinking is yours if you think it can be ignored.

335. Richard Dawkins: Author of the Year!

Comment #107875 by Mark Smith on January 5, 2008 at 2:34 pm

Truden

it is pity that an intelligent man can not see the difference between Religion and God

I can see the difference Truden: religion exists and god doesn't.

336. Stop House Resolution 888

Comment #107863 by Mark Smith on January 5, 2008 at 2:15 pm

ADH

I would like to know in what sense "Christianity" has been able to rewrite history

It started straightaway, with the Gospels and Acts.

337. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107770 by Mark Smith on January 5, 2008 at 9:07 am

It's interesting to see Antony Flew wrestle with this question. He had never thought about it before. Ideas do not exist in isolation but they bring other ideas with them.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=XQ2VuQyAeRM

So if you don't want to open the door, just say that Flew is losing his marbles and don't watch the video.

Pretty sad video I thought, PlagioClase. The interviewer seemed happy to lead him and Flew seemed happy to be led. Not really a great example of excellence in philosophy.

In your post 110 above you quoted the Bible as an authority on how irrationality comes in for we 'deniers of god'. You therefore think it is right to treat the Bible as an authority. I'm guessing that is because you think it is god's revelation of truth. Can you confirm if this is the case? If it is, I'd love to hear a short account the evidence supporting why you believe it is god's revelation of truth, but without any proof from the Bible itself (which would be circular). Or do you just take it to be revelation on faith?

By the way, you didn't reply to my post about whether you would still be a creationist if the Bible didn't tell you so.

338. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107537 by Mark Smith on January 4, 2008 at 5:35 pm

Great debate format. Wish more could be like this

339. Sadly, an Honest Creationist

Comment #107535 by Mark Smith on January 4, 2008 at 5:28 pm

PlagioClase
You're a creationist because of the Bible, right?

Try to imagine yourself without a Bible but still think of yourself as religious: you look at the world around you, the stars and the amazing plants and animals etc, and you think, surely it is all here because of a greater power, because of the hand of God. But you have no preconceptions as to how he did it. So you go to an astronomer and he/she explains how the stars came about, and you go to a geologist who explains why the Earth is like it is. And then you go to a biologist, who explains how life developed into what it is today by evolution by natural selection.

Try to imagine yourself doing this, but with no prior knowledge and no preconceived ideas, and with enough time to get a good understanding of what these scientists are saying. Can you honestly say that having done this, the scientists' ideas would not be plausible, and that God couldn't have brought it all about the way they described?

340. Mother Nature is Not Our Friend

Comment #106875 by Mark Smith on January 3, 2008 at 4:15 pm

BigginHillbilly

This article smacks of the most absurd grandiosity and the kind of 'perfection of mankind' ideology that made such a mess of the 20th century.

You seem to be reading an awful lot into an article which I don't see as doing much more than saying 'I used to think we shouldn't "interfere" with how nature has made us, but now I've changed my mind and think we should consider what we can do with genetic engineering etc'.

You appear to disagree because you have doubts about humans' ability to do the engineering very well. That sounds similar to the other examples we come across in 'a history book or two' of people who argued we shouldn't get into new areas of science because of the terrible dangers that would be bound to follow at the hands of fallible humans.

341. The Pagan Christ

Comment #106747 by Mark Smith on January 3, 2008 at 11:47 am

cup of joy

have a pint of Timothy Taylor Landlord Bitter on me Steve

342. The OUT Campaign has its own Flea!

Comment #106729 by Mark Smith on January 3, 2008 at 10:42 am

Artful_Dodger

There is NOTHING in the Bible that could be remotely construed as providing a mandate or even a pretext for child abuse or any other kind of abuse.

Said with confidence. But for a long time Christians construed the Bible as providing a mandate for the abuse known as slavery. There are plenty of other examples.

343. The OUT Campaign has its own Flea!

Comment #106704 by Mark Smith on January 3, 2008 at 9:32 am

Nickthelight
If it isn't mentioned in the Bible, then they take principles which they do believe are 'biblical' and apply them to the new situation. I don't think the procedure (identify a principle and then apply it) is very different from how some other kinds of morality work. The difficulty of course is in knowing that the Bible is a suitable source for the principles and then deciding what is a suitable interpretative method by which the principles can be identified. Bible as source is usually a given for all but the more liberal Christians, but there is massive debate about interpretative method (often also called 'hermeneutics').

Generally when Christians come to this site, one thing they can't seem to come to terms with is, if the Bible is ditched, that morality can be possible without an 'objective' source such as the Bible.

344. The OUT Campaign has its own Flea!

Comment #106613 by Mark Smith on January 3, 2008 at 7:47 am

Nickthelight

Anyone versed in theology or perhaps a Christian, please explain the following, taken from the last paragraph: "...to conform to a system that is above even that which Scripture calls for"

"above even that which scripture calls for" - what does this encompass?; stem cell research perhaps. This was not known to the authors of Christianity.

It's a negative. He (I'm assuming it's a male writing) actually says

we must refrain from the … demanding the lost world or fellow Christians to conform to a system that is above even that which Scripture calls for.

He is referring to the fairly common idea in conservative evangelical circles that all of morality can be derived from (a proper interpretation and application of) the Bible, and that nothing additional should be required of anybody.

345. Moderates Storm The Religious Battlefield

Comment #106322 by Mark Smith on January 2, 2008 at 4:49 pm

'Ruthless uncertainty':

If this becomes popular, I claim the glory. At last I'll have done something original, even if totally by accident!

If people are only preaching uncertainty against atheism and not against faith then they simply don't understand what the term means, and this can be easily pointed out to be hypocritical.

They tend to advocate 'doubting faith', but faith nonetheless.

I don't believe that uncertainty gives anyone space - in fact, it helps to deny them that. If you can persuade someone of the true nature of evidence and how it can be questioned, then they should be left in a state of skeptical uncertainty which provides no support for their previous mode of thought.

I disagree, because established religions and more ambiguous spiritualities etc all have it written in that they are stances which are not wholly dependent on the evidence. Christians might argue, for example, that the evidence will only take you so far, and then you need to make the leap of faith.

I'll rush to add that I am not advocating that we should necessarily be claiming certainty for atheism – perhaps merely that, all things considered, we perceive it to be the most reasonably view.

346. Moderates Storm The Religious Battlefield

Comment #106308 by Mark Smith on January 2, 2008 at 4:21 pm

Oops. I usually reread my posts before submitting, but got lazy on this one. My last sentence should have had 'ruthless certainty', not 'ruthless uncertainty'. I seem thereby to have promoted a philosophical stance entirely unintentionally. I'll come back on why I don't agree with it in a mo!

347. Moderates Storm The Religious Battlefield

Comment #106295 by Mark Smith on January 2, 2008 at 4:00 pm

I am undecided about this, but sometimes I feel the promotion of uncertainty is a healthy antidote to faith. I mean, can we really be sure of things...

I don't think promotion of uncertainty does much to protect against faith. A lot of the advocates for it are actually also promoters of faith, albeit a moderate kind. And they seem to 'preach' uncertainty only against, say, 'militant atheism', and are pretty quiet towards the 'militant religious'. After all, if you are uncertain, you've got precious few grounds to say the more certain are wrong. And it gives the certain space to operate in. I'm afraid I can't see 'ruthless uncertainty' as anything more than empty rhetoric used by people who feel comfortable with the status quo.

348. Moderates Storm The Religious Battlefield

Comment #106236 by Mark Smith on January 2, 2008 at 2:22 pm

What utter rubbish. Is it laziness or stupidity that allows her to make a statement like 'What's dangerous about the world today is not belief in God—or secularism or unbelief—but ruthless certainty.' What the hell is 'ruthless certainty'?

349. What have you changed your mind about? Why?

Comment #105695 by Mark Smith on January 1, 2008 at 3:17 pm

Random chance *happens* krisking, it's not a question of whether it works.

Do you mean, Is there a mathematical model to show that natural selection working on randomly produced variations produces changes in a species?

350. The Evangelical Rebellion

Comment #105689 by Mark Smith on January 1, 2008 at 2:45 pm

Roger
Basically I think 'Evangelism' is a term that no Christian group (as far as I am aware anyway) would use to identify itself. (Not to say that that the media doesn't often misidentify Evangelicals this way.) Rather Christians think of evangelism as the activity of trying to convert others by telling them about their faith, Jesus etc. For example, in the 1990s the Church of England had a Decade of Evangelism, which all parts of the church were supposed to contribute to, no matter what their theological preferences etc.

'Evangelical', on the other hand, is definitely a term which a lot of Christians use to identify themselves. But here it does get somewhat confused. Often they use it to distinguish themselves from more liberal sections of their denominations, with the idea that 'the good news' (the 'evangel') of the gospel is central to their faith, ie that they focus on Jesus as their saviour. Some also like to use it to distinguish themselves from fundamentalists, but unfortunately many fundamentalists tend to see themselves as Evangelical.

I think it is probably fair to say that 'Evangelical' is the best term we have for describing the very large number of western Protestant Christians (including in America, but somebody from the US might be able to provide some more clarity here) who are relatively conservative (theologically speaking) and who have very high on their list of 'important beliefs' faith in Jesus as their personal saviour.

And as far as I am aware, Dominionism, Dispensationalism and Creationism do all have very strong links to Evangelicalism. Though they are certainly not exclusive. I seem to remember that Behe, for example, is Roman Catholic.