351. The Secular Conscience

Comment #148567 by Mark Smith on March 23, 2008 at 10:06 am

PlagioClase
McGrath constantly harps on about his 'conversion' away from atheism and seems to imply it was based on 'evidence'. But he is strangely silent on what that evidence was. The closest he seems to get in his books that I have read is in the introduction to 'Dawkins' God'. He says there (I paraphrase from pages 4 and 5) that as an atheist teenager he had assumed science was equivalent to atheism; he then read some philosophy of science books before going up to university and realised this simple equation was unwarranted; at university he 'began to discover that Christianity was rather more exciting than' he had realised, while 'the intellectual case for atheism was rather less substantial than' he had supposed. In other words, it wasn't a question of evidence, it was a question of competing worldviews. McGrath strikes me as somebody who just wants to make himself rhetorical space to be able to talk about 'mysterious things', and whatever evidence there may be doesn't greatly concern him.

352. Fleabytes

Comment #148539 by Mark Smith on March 23, 2008 at 9:16 am

pathfinder
If you were as clever as you seem to think you are, you would know you can prove anything you want in cyberspace, particularly when the person you are trying to prove it to is yourself.

353. The death-of-god debate

Comment #148523 by Mark Smith on March 23, 2008 at 8:49 am

babrock
try again with an a in Gray not an e. He is the one at the top of the resulting listing: John N Gray, British philosopher

354. Fleabytes

Comment #148442 by Mark Smith on March 23, 2008 at 5:08 am

Clearthinker, your comment 6478:
The Bible is obviously very important to you, and you clearly have thought and studied a lot about it. But your answers to Mixmaster re the ending of Mark and the nature of the Gospels in my view reveal serious weaknesses in your theology and history.

First, theology: you are prepared to discard Mark 16:9-20 on grounds it was not written by Mark but rather added later. The logic here is that you feel free (no doubt not lightly) to discard the canonization process and decide for yourself what your Holy Word contains. This was the supposed error of the marcionites, who were declared heretics. This is the issue you have glossed over. You may or may not be right about the provenance of Mark 16:9-20, but that is not the point. The point is that it was made part of Holy Scripture, and if you wish to claim scripture as your authority you are not free to reject the bits you don't like. Nor are you free to criticise others who reject different bits on different grounds.

Second, history: Mixmaster suggested that the Gospels are

the comforting fireside tall-tales of ancient, superstitious and semi-literate desert shepherds?

Again, you glossed over this too easily. It is clear, and all scholars agree, that the stories eventually written down in the Gospels went through a relatively long period, say 20 or 30 years, of oral transmission. If you are a serious historian, you must accept the potential for things to be embellished, other things to be forgotten, others to be retold in differing ways and yet others to be downright invented, in the numerous retellings. You must also accept that when they did get written down the author of each Gospel recast the stories (and perhaps invented others - John in particular) with his own preferred ideology, biases and so on. It takes a massive blindspot not to read the four different versions and see that such a process took place. It takes an even bigger (and unwarranted) leap of faith to believe, as you presumably do, that despite all these influences the Gospels do accurately tell us what took place all those decades ago.

355. Discussion on PZ Myers being expelled from Expelled

Comment #148340 by Mark Smith on March 22, 2008 at 4:56 pm

RC Metcalf
I see from your site you have a 'new model that explains the events of the first Easter scientifically'. Care to give us an outline?

356. Hitchens and Boteach Debate on God

Comment #148304 by Mark Smith on March 22, 2008 at 3:43 pm

Joe K

Hitchens describes all religious people as violent fanatics

Hitchens does overstate his case at times, but I think you may be doing so here also.

I'm not particularly interested in defending Hitchens, though, so may I ask about your beliefs? You say

the bible says murderers will go to hell

But actually it (as interpreted by literalists such as yourself - whether rightly is another question) actually says everybody will go to hell, unless they 'have faith'. The upshot being that a murderer who subsequently believes gets away with it and goes to heaven while the guy who has 'done right' all his life gets tortured for eternity. Does this massive injustice not trouble you? And don't you think the god who brought about this state of affairs is very far from the good god you would like it to be?

357. Fleabytes

Comment #148158 by Mark Smith on March 22, 2008 at 8:04 am

Adam, apparently just means "man" in Hebrew.

That's right. If you read it as metaphor, Adam is representative of 'mankind' and is not a specific man in history. Of course, it is a poisonous metaphor, not least because it puts the blame on women, and leaving aside the dodgy metaphysics.

358. Fleabytes

Comment #148149 by Mark Smith on March 22, 2008 at 7:39 am

Why not do as many more liberal Christians do and say it is not making a historical assertion in this respect and 'merely' is saying something metaphorical about what it is to be human?

Cos it doesn't sound quite so convincing Jesus being crucified for a metaphor - you need Ningizzida the talking snake Lord of the Tree of Life (sorry about that, wrong mythology), the wrath of god and all that.

Absolutely.

It is very interesting (to me anyway) that the Adam and Eve myth seems to have been pretty peripheral in pre-Christian times. There is very little reference to it in the Old Testament (compared, say, to the exile theme, the God as judge theme, etc etc). And it is also surprisingly peripheral in the New Testament. It is only once the atonement theory of the crucifixion became prominent that Adam and Eve were in turn given importance.

359. Fleabytes

Comment #148136 by Mark Smith on March 22, 2008 at 7:03 am

Artful

Re "metaphorical" v "Literal" and the difference between the two, one knows by being familiar with the genre, and by not mistaking one genre for another. The book of Job does not read like history, it reads like epic poetry. Anyone who is familiar with epic poetry will be guarded against the danger (a minor danger mind you) of taking it as a historical biographical account of the life of a man called Job.

But as you (I think) rightly said earlier, the first three chapters of Genesis are epic poetry. So how come you take them as making historical assertions, namely (and leaving aside the creation of the universe as a whole and of human beings specifically) that two human beings rebelled against God?

Why not do as many more liberal Christians do and say it is not making a historical assertion in this respect and 'merely' is saying something metaphorical about what it is to be human? That would be a more 'faithful' reading of the text since it takes the whole as metaphor, rather than picking and choosing.

360. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #144753 by Mark Smith on March 16, 2008 at 5:23 pm

jac12358
jac it is a mistake to take lack of responses personally. It is even more of a mistake to read any of your 3 conclusions into the lack. Nobody is under any obligation to respond to anybody else. And with a relatively old thread like this one people tend to lose interest and move on to something else. There is nothing more to it than that. If you have important and insightful things to say, then it might be best to work them into one of the more recent threads (it would be best to find one that is on a topic that is relevant to your points). Though even then it remains the case that no-one is under any obligation to answer.

361. Richard Dawkins on The Alan Colmes Show

Comment #144492 by Mark Smith on March 16, 2008 at 8:08 am

Richard Morgan

"people"?
Which "people"?

Anybody listening to the show

I guess what you're trying to say is that mocking the stupidity of certain beliefs is counter-productive to the atheist cause.

Not at all. I have no difficulty with mocking beliefs (in appropriate circumstances). What I am trying to say is that he asserts (or at least appears to get very close to asserting) something which is clearly wrong, namely that believers as a group are not very intelligent. For example, he said he did not think Obama can really be a believer, because, quote: 'He is a very intelligent man. I can't believe he really believes in God … I doubt if any really intelligent educated person in this country or any other country really believes in God.' Close quote

And in answer to Colmes' question, 'You don't believe an intelligent sentient being can believe in God?' RD indicated that such a being could believe in the Einsteinian type of god, but when it comes to, quote: 'There is a God in heaven and there is Jesus who died for your sins and did miracles and turned water into wine …', he appeared to indicate that an intelligent person cannot believe this.

RD did then focus in on those who believe the Earth is 6000 years old, and perhaps (though I don't think he was clear on this) when pressed he might say intelligent people do believe these things it is just that they shouldn't. Nevertheless, I think many listeners will take RD to be at least implying that believers are stupid. And they will know this is just not true. As with all groups, there are all levels of intelligence among believers.

362. Richard Dawkins on The Alan Colmes Show

Comment #144206 by Mark Smith on March 15, 2008 at 10:25 am

Richard Morgan

However, I can't help but feel that it is actually quite useful to point out the silliness of religious beliefs, even if that offends most of the time.
A bit of "shock treatment", y'know what I mean?

True.

But that is not my point. I'm not suggesting he should not give offense. I am saying that by seeming to believe essentially that believers are stupid, RD is giving people grounds for thinking RD is wrong, perhaps even 'stupid' himself in this regard, and therefore to dismiss other things he has to say.

363. Richard Dawkins on The Alan Colmes Show

Comment #144148 by Mark Smith on March 15, 2008 at 7:53 am

While I agree with a good deal that RD says, I wish he would not imply, or at least seem to imply, that believers must not be very intelligent (unless their belief is of the type held by Einstein etc). I think he needs to find a way to acknowledge that there are a very large number of highly intelligent people who nevertheless hold to many of the standard Christian beliefs. He could talk about compartmentalisation etc in this regard. As it is, people hear him to say something close to 'all Christians are stupid'. They know this isn't the case, and it gives them reason to suspect his other assertions may be false.

364. Fleabytes

Comment #136490 by Mark Smith on March 1, 2008 at 10:18 am

However I would like to warn my fellow theists - don't bother to post here. It is a complete waste of time. Your posts will be met with suspicion, hatred, bile, mockery etc.

Not so, theists. You are very welcome to make your case and ask questions. If you want an example (one of many) where this has been happening, try searching for 'The Pagan Christ' (6 December) thread and look at the discussion between Albondigas (theist) and various others both about the resurrection and about evolution. There have been plenty of other similar threads.

365. The Pagan Christ

Comment #136435 by Mark Smith on March 1, 2008 at 7:26 am

Hi Albondigas

Pride in humanity is not a matter of coming to a theological conclusion, it's a matter of observation.

Since you weren't present in the first century and nor do you have knowledge of the internal state of other human beings I had assumed you were basing the conclusion on what god has told you through the Bible. If you wish to maintain your point is 'a matter of observation' please provide your evidence. For the moment I maintain you have no way of knowing much at all about the inner state, motivations etc of the first persons who believed Jesus had been resurrected.

Regardless of whether the resurrection took place or not, why don't you accept the fact that the best evidence we have at hand indicates that Jesus' followers did believe in a bodily resurrection to start off with? How is it better history to say that they didn't believe a bodily resurrection, but rather that belief was added later when the evidence at hand says otherwise? And you're saying that I'm doing bad history?

I haven't said 'they didn't believe a bodily resurrection'. Reread my words that you quoted in your last post. My point is that you make belief in a bodily resurrection a key plank in your argument and yet it is not well established that they did believe this. To repeat from my comment 109793: '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 (the beliefs Paul is arguing against in 1 Cor 15 for example).'

The fact that the gospels depict a bodily resurrection and that Paul believed in it does not establish that the first Christians believed it. My own view is that it probably wasn't even an issue at first: they just thought 'He has been made alive again', and only later did they start filling in the details. But this is merely a 'balance of probabilities' view on my part, since my position is that we don't have enough evidence to know to a high degree of probability.

Let's start by looking at the actual text of Acts 2:5-13 and that way we can straighten out the misinformation that you have provided... Ok, first of all you suggest that they give up core values by 'merely seeing some men they supposed were drunk'. Clearly that's not the case, there was an astounding event that occurred that divided the listeners into two groups: one group was 'amazed and astonished' because they (being from different places in the Middle East) heard uneducated Galileans declaring the wonders of God in their native language while the other group mocked them saying they were drunk. Though it's not specified who believes the message that Peter delivers, I think it's more likely that the majority were from the 'amazed and astonished' group rather than the mockers as you suggest.

Apologies for the lack of precision. I obviously took Peter's words in v15 too seriously! :-) If we accept your reading (which I don't quite with respect to vv5-13, but it might go too far off topic to go into that), then I should have said 'This seems to go against the so-called biblical evidence of the 3000 Jews who also shared those core values and some of whom were prepared, according to Acts 2:41, to give them up merely on seeing some men they supposed were drunk (v 15) followed by a sermon from Peter and the rest of whom (probably the majority) were prepared to give them up on seeing some uneducated Galileans speaking of god in their native langages followed by a sermon from Peter.'

Now back to your point about giving up core values... you're changing the focus to why someone would believe a message that is being spread

Not so. Your claim is that only actual observation of a bodily resurrection would have caused first century jews to give up their core values. That is the heart of your argument as to why the resurrection is historical fact. And I have provided clear evidence (assuming you accept Acts 2 is 'evidence') of first century jews who gave up their core values for other reasons. This is not changing focus, it is countering your claim.

You can't reconcile contradictions and that's what you said the accounts of the resurrection were, contradictory (post #120843).

If two witnesses appear in court, one of whom is telling lies, and apparently contradict each other, that will be because one is giving false witness. In which case, the jury will hopefully conclude they are indeed 'contradictory'. That will not prevent the lawyer offering ways of reconciling the accounts to protect his case.

You do realize your logic appears to be that if I meet someone who claims they have seen a flying pig and they are sufficiently credible etc, I should conclude that pigs can fly?

No, I don't realize that because it wouldn't outweigh what I know about pigs.

Then why do 2000 year old writings from a non-scientific, mythically influenced age outweigh what you know about dead bodies?

366. Add another flea to the list...

Comment #133113 by Mark Smith on February 25, 2008 at 3:55 pm

Wyattroberts
Matthew and Luke lying?
Matthew and Luke were written fairly late. Mark, the earliest gospel has no virgin birth. Nor do the other earlier sources, ie Pauls letters. So there was plenty of time for a myth like this to have developed around a man who was supposed also to be a god. The point about the Septuagint is that Isaiah 7 as originally written (ie in the Hebrew) did not predict a child born of a virgin, but by the first century there was a mistranslation (influenced by pagan virgin birth myths) which the greek-bible-reading first century Christians thought made such a prediction, and so the myth had something further to fuel it alongside the co-existing pagan stories. It is unlikely the authors of Matthew and Luke were consciously lying, rather they were retelling the myth that had developed and come to be believed as fact.

367. The Pagan Christ

Comment #133091 by Mark Smith on February 25, 2008 at 3:30 pm

Albigondas

That's assuming that differences are aggregated which I think is a bad assumption.

Differences are obviously aggregated, or you wouldn't get adaptation. Eg Galapagos finches with increasingly long beaks. Of course, sometimes what is gained in one generation might be lost in the next, and in that case there isn't aggregation. Do you mean you don't get both an increasingly long beak and, say, increasingly long wings aggregating in the same species? If so, why not? and what is your point?

Well, the definition of species can be a bit cloudy but if you mean for example what I described above with the birds, then yes different species have arisen over time but both are still birds.

Agreed that it can 'be a bit cloudy', but the basic idea is that a species is a group that can interbreed, and by implication a different species cannot interbreed with it. I don't want to put words into your mouth, but it seems to me you accept that the mechanism of natural selection is the cause for at least some species having come into existence.

I don't believe there is any real evidence for evolution from one species to a radically different one.

Do you really think there is no real evidence? Or is it simply (a) a general incredulity that natural selection is powerful enough to do the job and (b) a theological desire to hold on to something that is (at least to some extent) consistent with Genesis (eg, according to their kinds and so on). As I understand it, there is copious real evidence: the fossil record (notwithstanding supposed and overplayed gaps on the part of creationists), DNA, embryology, common body-plans, geographical commonalities and differences etc.

So organisms that reproduce asexually start lugging around this baggage for sexual reproduction that does nothing for them for millions or years. They started out reproducing asexually and they continued to reproduce asexually until the mechanism for sexual reproduction was complete. So why the baggage for sexual reproduction for all those years of asexual reproduction?

It wasn't baggage for sexual reproduction. Each mutation that survived must have given an advantage in its own right and have performed some function (either in improving asexual reproduction or in something unrelated). So the answer to your question:

Did it make the asexual reproduction work any better than it already was?

is, Probably yes. But I am very very far from knowing much about this, so I will not try to give any more specifics. The fact that I, or the people who really matter in this field, the biologists cannot at the moment give a definitive answer to this problem, emphatically does not mean it did not happen by evolution. The history of science is one of apparently insuperable problems getting answered without appeal to divine intervention and we can be pretty confident it will happen here, just as has already happened with the evolution of the eye.

368. Add another flea to the list...

Comment #133003 by Mark Smith on February 25, 2008 at 1:59 pm

Wyattroberts
Quite a number of us, including me, are ex-Christians and are pretty well aware of the arguments against atheism, and indeed of why we don't find them at all compelling. I haven't read this particular book, but I have read plenty of others. I read them because I wanted to check I have reached a reasonable conclusion. Eventually, after reading so many, it became apparent the new books weren't offering any new arguments. There is always a chance somebody will come up with something new and I try to keep alert to that. So it would be a mistake to jump to a conclusion we are closed-minded.

(By the way, on the assumption that you are also open-minded, may I encourage you to consider the possibility that your god does not exist. The universe makes a lot more sense when you do!)

369. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #131865 by Mark Smith on February 23, 2008 at 1:35 pm

Shrommer
You think there is historical evidence in support of the resurrection. Perhaps you aren't aware, but there are many, many historians who have carefully considered that evidence and consider it is entirely explicable on the basis that the resurrection did not happen. Any claim that the evidence can only be understood if the resurrection did happen is simply not credible.

370. Feb 12th: Happy Darwin Day!

Comment #131608 by Mark Smith on February 22, 2008 at 5:02 pm

Sorry about that last post folks. I think a few beers combined with Wooter have driven me a little crazy.

371. Feb 12th: Happy Darwin Day!

Comment #131601 by Mark Smith on February 22, 2008 at 4:42 pm

Wooter
If I had a god, it would be you. In fact, I think I may have seen the light. Until now I have been afraid to speak. But I must confess, you really are marvelous to behold. Every time you post I see more of the truth. Your logic is unarguable. You are the way, the truth and the life. I believe in you. I really do. Please, never stop posting.

And my fellow believers, please keep on responding to His holiness the Wooter. If you don't He might not return. For He is a jealous Wooter and great beyond compare.

Wooter must be god. How else can we explain the fact that Josh lets it keep posting?

372. Over half of Britons claim no religion

Comment #131504 by Mark Smith on February 22, 2008 at 1:35 pm

Krisking

I am not suggestion that you have any religious faith. I am suggesting that being an atheist will have implications for your lifestyles.

The implications will, I assume, be massively varied according to who you are and what and how you think etc etc. This is no different to the theist. The islamicist is different from the moderate muslim is different from the fundamentalist Christian is different from the liberal anglican etc etc.

They will also depend on where you have come from. The implications for me have been I no longer go to church, I no longer feel guilty about my inability to 'spread the Word' and various other things, while I do feel I have greater understanding of the world and my own life, and so on. The implications for somebody coming from a different place (eg who has always been an atheist) will no doubt be very different. I think you are making a very big mistake if you think you can arrive at 'the implications' of atheism.

373. Why Darwin matters

Comment #129828 by Mark Smith on February 19, 2008 at 3:55 pm

Now try leaving them behind.

This is an extremely real issue/fear. I've found that my best friends have remained best friends, but the wider circle has gone (though not entirely).

374. Feb 12th: Happy Darwin Day!

Comment #129823 by Mark Smith on February 19, 2008 at 3:49 pm

Shmeezers
You're being ironic right?
This is a blog. If you want scientific proof, you'll need to go to the scientific journals etc. Here, people try (among other things), in more and less successful ways, to explain some of the science. If you don't find the explanations helpful and you aren't prepared to say why, as opposed to making pointless assertions about arrogance etc, then I suggest you go elsewhere to try to find whatever it is you are looking for.

375. Why Darwin matters

Comment #129790 by Mark Smith on February 19, 2008 at 3:19 pm

True, but this is a different case. This fellow has been on this Dawkins site for months, and has been presented with evidence repeatedly, both in the form of conversations, and threads in which these things have been discussed.

We ex-conservative evangelicals (which from memory I think is what Krisking is (might become?), have a lot to work through!

Seriously, though Steve: you shouldn't feel you have got to keep on answering if it is getting tiresome. You are very helpful to a lot of people, but don't let that put something too heavy on you. (Hope that doesn't sound silly/patronising etc, just ignore me if it does.)

(By the way Steve, I posted at number 354 of this thread, re your debate on your own site. I'm not sure if you saw it, because I think you were away at the time.)

376. Why Darwin matters

Comment #129777 by Mark Smith on February 19, 2008 at 3:05 pm

I am being slightly hard, because there is all the difference between saying you have a problem understanding an idea supported by the overwhelming majority of scientists, and saying that you are unsure that this idea is true. The former is honest, the latter is (in my view) arrogant, unless you are suitably qualified in that area.

My wife regularly has an 'I can't believe that!' reaction to various scientific theories, generally when they are counter-intuitive (which most of them are). It sometimes seems an arrogant reaction to me. But then I remember that I am 'on-side' with science. I really do think that if you aren't 'on-side', it really is very difficult to accept a lot of these things.

377. Why Darwin matters

Comment #129751 by Mark Smith on February 19, 2008 at 2:36 pm

Don't be too hard on Krisking. I think the paradigm shift thing is quite helpful. Once you have shifted, everything seems so obvious, but until then it doesn't!

378. Why do we believe in God? 2m study prays for answer

Comment #129736 by Mark Smith on February 19, 2008 at 2:16 pm

I think this study is good news. Hopefully, the source of funding will not have much or any effect on the results, but it is an area well worth examining scientifically in any case. And if the results were skewed, hopefully that would be picked up on review.

379. Fleabytes

Comment #129699 by Mark Smith on February 19, 2008 at 1:27 pm

excellent stuff Paula, and thanks for the hard work

380. State Approves Evolution As 'Scientific Theory'

Comment #129683 by Mark Smith on February 19, 2008 at 1:06 pm

This is super annoying since it is re-affirming the misrepresentation of the meaning of the word "theory".

Only if you read into it the original compromise. But in fact it can be read as a simple statement that 'the scientific theory of evolution' is to be taught. I think the publicity could (and probably should) be used to assert that evolution is a scientific theory like gravity is a scientific theory.

381. The Search for Truth, God and Braver Scientists in 'Expelled'

Comment #128244 by Mark Smith on February 16, 2008 at 3:37 pm

jbacsa

It also seems to me that a notable exception are a wealthy, privileged minority who have no use for God.

Even if you are right, what is your point?

(I don't think you are right by the way - take a look at wealthy America, for example)

382. The Search for Truth, God and Braver Scientists in 'Expelled'

Comment #128233 by Mark Smith on February 16, 2008 at 3:28 pm

jbacsa

The comment by user Nails about so called faith-heads being ingnorant of science can be reversed, the comments by atheists on this website demonstrates ignorance of religious experience which most humans on this planet seem to share and be aware.

In fact a great many of us have plenty of firsthand knowledge of religious experience. I, for one, spent a number of years as a strongly-committed Christian. You should not make the mistake of confusing negative opinions about religion for a lack of experience of it.

383. Why Darwin matters

Comment #128115 by Mark Smith on February 16, 2008 at 8:25 am

Steve, I recently had a debate with somebody on the AtheismSucks site who was arguing that anybody who recognizes rationality (the laws of logic was his preferred phrase) must also recognize the Christian god in order not to be self-contradictory. He seemed to have a similar background (Reformed Christian, presuppositionalist etc) to the guy you are debating. In the end it seemed to boil down to him disliking my view that the laws of logic are human products and him preferring to think that they were grounded in a metaphysical being out of whom logic flowed in some way. I didnt feel he ever managed to show that the simple fact that we use the laws of logic must lead to belief either in a deist god or more particularly the Christian god, but he kept asserting it was obvious. However, in the end, when I suggested that if he was right, both me and every other thinker ought to come to god purely by virtue of the use of reason, he commented that

I don't actually believe that if someone merely goes through a thinking exercise that he would conclude Christianity is correct...proper thinking would lead to that, but i don't believe men think properly (we are born in sin). If you thought I was merely trying to argue you into Christianity, I apologize for giving you that impression. You actually need to repent of your sins and believe in Christ...proper thinking follows from that.

So you might want to ask your guy early on whether he thinks you are capable of correct thought, or whether you are inevitably blinded by sin.

384. Why Darwin matters

Comment #127847 by Mark Smith on February 15, 2008 at 4:41 pm

What would a good ‘working model’ of evolution consist of? Would you not just need something which could reproduce itself in a relatively enclosed but somewhat varying environment? If you could stop yourself from intervening (and thereby acting as a “designer”) it might cease to reproduce or it might succeed for some time. If it did the latter, and there were sufficient “generations”, you might well get evolution to some degree. It seems to me that what currently prevents this is our inability to make something that can reproduce itself sufficiently well. But I got the impression that the fields of robotics and AI might be making progress. Having said that, don’t certain computer viruses already reproduce themselves in their environments?

385. Why Darwin matters

Comment #127765 by Mark Smith on February 15, 2008 at 3:33 pm

See the computer simulation....but the problem for me is that the Darwin monkey is being compared to the target phrases until it hits a right letter. This means there is purpose, as Dawkins says "it has a distant target in mind which natural selection does not have". And yet he goes on to say that it does show us the key to the way out of mammoth improbability. I can't see how it does. He gives this (as he admits) faulty illustration, but then goes on to talk about smearing out the luck etc.

I think he has made a huge leap here.

It is interesting you raised this. I actually agree with you. I remember seeing this example in "The Blind Watchmaker", and thinking that it was open to misinterpretation!

I'll come up with a detailed response in another post in a short while.

Sorry for jumping in, but isn’t the problem that you can’t come up with an illustration of evolution that isn’t evolution without some element of purpose/design etc written in? By definition, if you come up with something that genuinely has the features of randomness and natural selection, you will be pointing to actual evolution, not some model of it. Any supposed model I have ever seen of evolution seems to me to have this ‘weakness’ (ie purpose written in somewhere). But on the other hand, you could criticize models of anything on a similar sort of basis.

386. Debate between Richard Dawkins and Madeline Bunting

Comment #127005 by Mark Smith on February 14, 2008 at 4:29 pm

Excellent points Cartomancer. I would add that some people seem more concerned with maintaining relationships (Bunting seemed to say as much herself) and loyalty to their group than arriving at conclusions as to the nature of things. If that is your concern, it may be better just not to let your mind commit itself on certain matters. There seem to be plenty of people who take this aproach and do so in good conscience.

387. The Pagan Christ

Comment #126187 by Mark Smith on February 12, 2008 at 2:57 pm

Albigondas

What, that pride has been and continues to be a prevalent characteristic of the human race? Historians also try to understand the context of a particular event.

You want to have it both ways: making an unwarranted assumption about some particular persons (presumably based on a theological conclusion about humanity in general, that we are all proud), and then claiming to understand the context of a particular event. I repeat my claim that this is not good history.

you dismiss these with a wave of the hand as if they were of no consequence and that they would give up these core values because of someone suggesting something new

Not so. I have claimed that we do not have sufficient evidence to be nearly so sure as you seem to be about what they believed, either before or after, or what might have caused changes of belief. But nevertheless it seems likely at least some of them really did believe some sort of resurrection had taken place (though not necessarily a bodily one at the beginning). I have claimed that, if there was a giving up of core values as you claim, then it was their coming to believe a resurrection which must have been what caused them to give up their core values. And I have pointed out that this is precisely the same cause as you must posit. Where we differ is the cause of that cause. You say it was an actual resurrection. I say there is no need for this hypothesis.

By the way, your core values point is supposed to be that the values were so important to Jews it would have required actual direct experience of a resurrected body to cause them to have given them up. This seems to go against the so-called biblical evidence of the 3000 Jews who also shared those core values and were prepared, according to Acts 2:41, to give them up merely on seeing some men they supposed were drunk (v 15) followed by a sermon from Peter.

If you are interested, you can Google 'resurrection accounts' and find that the accounts can be reconciled.

You can reconcile anything if you try hard enough. At some point the reconciliation will become incredible to most people and it is more credible to accept one or more of the accounts is incorrect. Though that will not be possible if you have a prior commitment to inerrancy/infallibility. So be it. But again, you rule yourself out of the realm of doing good history. The good historian must always be open to the possibility that a source is not correct.

Ok, but there is still the event that causes me to conceptualize the flying pig right? Say I'm watching a TV show about pigs and in the background I see an airplane fly by. That even't might cause me to conceptualize and wonder if pigs could fly. Or I might walk outside one morning and while talking to my neighbor, we both look up and see a flying pig. Both events could cause me to conceptualize flying pigs but which one would be the more likely to lead to the belief that pigs can fly? You see, the cause of the conceptualization itself plays a significant role in whether what is conceptualized becomes a belief or not. As it relates to the resurrection, the culture and the beliefs that the first disciples had carried significant amount of weight. My contention is that something weighty would need to be loaded into the scales to tip the balance away from those established beliefs in favor of a new belief.

You do realize your logic appears to be that if I meet someone who claims they have seen a flying pig and they are sufficiently credible etc, I should conclude that pigs can fly?

It seems to me that your faith really is preventing you from doing good science (eg evolution) and good history (eg the resurrection).

388. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #124179 by Mark Smith on February 8, 2008 at 3:25 pm

The previous page on this thread, there was mention of wave-functions and quantum theory. Can I take the chance to ask Steve et al something about this I’ve been wanting to ask for a while, specifically about Schrodinger’s Cat. With Schrodinger’s Cat, at the moment of opening the box, we observe the cat and the observation causes the wave-function to collapse. In other words, as I understand it, observation is the key thing. So (and I apologise for this, because I fear I’m asking something stupid: no need to be gentle with me), what if we re-imagine Schrodinger’s cat as follows? The box has a glass lid which switches between opaque and transparent if an electric current runs through it; the lid is wired up to the Geiger-counter, such that at the same moment as the Geiger-counter is triggered and releases the poison gas the lid also becomes transparent. Doesn’t this mean that, assuming someone is watching, the lid will be changed (and therefore the wave-function will have collapsed) before the cat has died and the cat will be seen to die? What I’m getting at with this amended thought experiment is that in this one the observer is not involved in the collapse, as the collapse has to happen first. I know I must be going wrong, but I can’t see where.

389. The Pagan Christ

Comment #123210 by Mark Smith on February 6, 2008 at 3:44 pm

Albondigas

The word evolution is commonly used in such a way that it refers to 2 different processes, one where an organism adapts to its environment and the other where an organism becomes a different kind or organism. Both are not the same and the same word should not be used to describe both processes.

I think you are mistaken here. There is only one ‘process’, which is adaptation by natural selection. (It seems from what you say that you accept this process does occur - I’ll come back to this in a moment.) As successive organisms adapt to their changing environments, they tend to become increasingly different from their ancestors. At some point, and with hindsight, they can be regarded as sufficiently different to be described as a new species. But there is not some ‘different process’ which comes into play at some arbitrary moment such that one organism gives birth to an organism of a different species. There simply is an ongoing process of adaptation, which considered over all its history we call evolution.

Returning to your acceptance of adaptation (presumably by natural selection), would it not be consistent with your worldview to say that, although God created each species distinct at the time of creation, since that time the species have been adapting and, in theory at least, could have turned into new species?

Or are you claiming that it is scientifically impossible for new species to have come about, even since creation? If you are claiming this, can you honestly say your claim is not made in order to protect your religious views?

You have to maintain that every mutation along the way was advantageous, but sexual reproduction wouldn't work until the last mutation had occurred. So how did the organism reproduce until the last piece was in place for sexual reproduction to work?

This is the same as the objection to the evolution of the eye, but shifted over to another case because the eye objection has been dealt with. Try reading Dawkins’s Climbing Mount Improbable which explains in detail how eyes evolved.

390. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #120884 by Mark Smith on February 2, 2008 at 5:58 pm

Blacknad
The sun is made of cheddar cheese. Last week I wrote a very good book proving this fact and setting out all the rational arguments. When you have read it we can get into a debate about the finer points of the sun's cheesiness if you like.

I appreciate it is possible that despite Vox's ridiculous assertions in the article above, he makes good arguments in the book. I have to say though that I find it extremely unlikely.

391. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #120867 by Mark Smith on February 2, 2008 at 5:43 pm

Blacknad
Could be that the two quotes I've given are aberrations.

Oh, but wait, then he says

Dawkins thinks humanity should follow Darwin just long enough to cast off Jesus Christ, then ditch Darwin in favor of following Richard Dawkins' opinion on life, the universe and everything. Just like philosophers, you can always count on a scientist to come around eventually to the concept of rule by scientist-king.

Perhaps the guy who said these things is his alter-ego, while in the book he leaves out this kind of rubbish?

392. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #120854 by Mark Smith on February 2, 2008 at 5:31 pm

Blacknad
Here is another reason to not read his book

Atheists have felt that science was on their side ever since the Enlightenment, and now they see it slipping away from them. So, this recent explosion of atheist books is not a sign of strength; it's a sign of desperation.

He's talking bollocks!

393. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #120848 by Mark Smith on February 2, 2008 at 5:19 pm

Blacknad
Here is a good reason not to read his book:

There is very little that Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens say that was not already said by Jean Meslier prior to his death in 1729.

He is talking bollocks. 1729 is rather a long time before the theory of evolution by natural selection, and that informs rather more than a 'very little' that Dawkins has to say.

394. The Pagan Christ

Comment #120843 by Mark Smith on February 2, 2008 at 5:01 pm

Albigondigas

I'd say that I'm relying on something that is very prevalent in humanity, and that is pride. Fred is not talking about some event in some far away land that he experienced and George didn't. The event is something they both experienced. George saw the man get beaten, he saw him crucified, and he saw him die. When Fred communicates something that contradicts George's experience and understanding, that's where pride comes in: 'No way man, I saw him die.' As they say, 'Seeing is believing'.

You are continuing to make the sort of assumptions a historian could not make. That is your choice, and I can understand why you make it for the sake of your faith. But don’t claim (or kid yourself in your own mind) that you are making a historical case for the resurrection. Neither you nor I can have any confidence about what Fred or George might have thought or done. Your faith relies on the unsubstantiated (and ‘unsubstantiatable’) claim that George would have thought and done what you wish he would have thought and done. What if he was actually a rather gullible fellow? It is possible that the religion of billions of people came about because George wasn’t too bright and didn’t see the need to check things out. I’ve met plenty of people just like that.

I seem to recall something about when a group of people witness an event, there will invariably be deviations in their perceptions of the event. In fact, it's expected and when there isn't, then it's actually an indication of someone not telling the truth. I have no reference for this so I'd have to look into this more.

If that is your line then I trust you recognize the doctrines of inerrancy and/or infallibility of the Bible are false and are happy to acknowledge that here.

Irrespective of that, your suggestion that inconsistency of detail supports the central event doesn’t stand up in this case in my opinion. The idea behind your ‘deviations in their perceptions’ point is that person A will perceive differently from person B and so A will report different details from person B. But if the details given are sufficiently contradictory and unbelievable, we conclude the reports as a whole cannot be trusted. We weigh the discrepancies up, and at some point conclude that they have arisen not because of differences in perspective but because A or B or both are incorrect in respect of their whole reports. Furthermore, it is clear that the Gospels are not simple collections of witness statements from persons A, B, C etc. Rather they are contradictory retellings. John’s Gospel has ‘the beloved disciple’ (ie John) going in the tomb first, while Mark, Luke and John have the women going in first. You might argue there are underlying witness statements containing deviations on the detail: the women said ‘We were first there’, while John said ‘No, I was’. But both can’t be right while both could be wrong. I would argue that such contradictory details are more consistent with the idea of different legends arising in different sections of the early Christian religion as the resurrection myth got ‘fleshed out’.

We both agree that they came to believe in the resurrection, but not that the new belief was the cause of giving up their old beliefs. The cause in your case is someone convincing someone else that Jesus was alive, the cause in my case is Jesus actually being raised from the dead and physically appearing to them.

This is simply wrong as a matter of fact. No event (excepting blows to the head and the like) can in and of itself cause a change of belief. If you see something happen, you must conceptualize it, interpret it etc, before you change your beliefs. If you were to see a four-legged pink, curly-tailed creature in the air above you, you would have to conceptualize it as a flying pig before your came to believe pigs could fly.

What I'm saying is that it would take an extraordinary event to overcome the ingrained cultural beliefs that were held at that time as well as the 'seeing is believing' element mentioned above.

And I am saying it would take belief that an extraordinary event had occurred to overcome the …

395. The Pagan Christ

Comment #119447 by Mark Smith on January 31, 2008 at 3:50 pm

Albondigas

Take a look at bacteria that can exchange DNA (i.e., have sex); one bacterium mutates to be resistant to a specific environmental threat (an antibiotic, say). It then aligns itself with another bacterium, they open up a channel between each other and the resistant bacterium injects the "how to be resistant" instructions to the other one.

Do you read what you write? You make this sound so simple, even trivial but it's not. As you indicated, these organisms are blind, uncaring, unpredictive, selfish, and I added, unaware. Why develop the ability to transfer DNA at all? Who should it transfer it to? It's not aware, remember? And why did the neighbor develop the ability to incorporate extraneous DNA into it's own? Pretty lucky for these 2 processes to develop independently and then one day just match up and work!

The way you responded to Galactor suggests you thought he was talking about a possible mechanism for things that may have taken place a long time ago, and you thought it was implausible because it would have had to be 'pretty lucky'. I read him as describing the kind of evolution of bacteria that takes place in hospitals now all the time. You do realize that bacteria unquestionably are evolving now, and by the sort of mechanisms Galactor described? And therefore they provide an excellent model as to how 'sex' may have got started.

The question was never whether it was an advantage. The question was why did it start?

Because if something is an advantage and it can be arrived at by (say) a mutation, then it will get started. That is the key step in evolution by natural selection.

396. 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.

397. 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.

398. 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.

399. 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.

400. 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.)