A Response...Part 4

"Blogger : The poster didn't provide any source for these claims, but it doesn't matter. I would implore him to do so in the future.This is simply a non-sequitur. There could be one million copies of the New Testament, but that does not make any of its claims true. Is there some rule that states that untrue narratives cannot be copied thousands of times? Do the Celestial Truth Police prevent this from happening? The only thing 5,600 copies proves is that there are 5,600 copies. Would civilizations 2000 years from now be justified in believing in Scientology if they discover millions of copies of Dianetics?The accuracy between copies is another non-sequitur. All this proves is that people were paying close attention when they made copies. This does not make any of the claims true. I ask again, When civilizations 2000 years from now come across copies of Dianetics  and find that the copies agree with each other, would they be justified in believing in Scientology?Consider the dating of the earliest copies: approximately 100 years. So, all of these copies were made by people who weren't there and who had no way of verifying the truth of these narratives, one hundred years after the events supposedly took place. So, a bunch of people copied an unverified story. So what? If there were 5,600 unique eyewitness accounts, not people who weren't there passing along a century-old story, I would be impressed. This historical "blink of an eye" isn't as inconsequential as the poster wants us to believe. I hope people find this piece of paper where I wrote "Michael Epperson is the Son of God" one hundred years from now and make thousands of copies. I might get a few naive followers. How does the poster deal with the many contradictions in the Gospels? Did I not already grant the claim that Jesus existed? I agree that Jesus existed, so why is the poster sticking to this one point, posting a video titled "Did Jesus Exist?" and telling me to "suck it"? My guess is that he has no response for everything else I wrote here. The poster simply ignored my point about Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and Sathya Sai Baba. As I said in my previous response, mere existence is not evidence that Jesus did everything that the Bible claims he did. There are no secondary sources that report any miracles. Zero. Unless the poster is willing to concede that Joseph Smith's existence is evidence that Mormonism is true, he should stop using this empty existence argument. Show me contemporaneous accounts of miracles, and then we can talk.

Me:  There was also something about Mohamad having more evidence for his existence. It all falls under the same category though so I’ll attack it all now. Ok so blogger basically calls bullshit on my whole argument about the how Scholars would first scrutinize any piece of ancient document for its validity, but whatever he can dismiss and ignore those facts. It’s not the only one. And you also missed when I said LESS than approximately 100 years. Even if it was 100 years having copies of the original document THAT EARLY is unheard of. As I already proved with the Illiad. Now when we look at THE EVIDENCE in regards to the new testament these accounts of Jesus’s life were written WITHIN A GENERATION of his death. THIS IS WHILE THE EYEWITNESSES WHERE STILL ALIVE WITH PEOPLE WHO HAD FIRST HAND CONTACT WITH JESUS DURING HIS LIFETIME. I would also like to add documents about the events taking palce around Alexander the greats life did not appear 400 years after his death. Yet historians and mainstream academia accept them to be trustworthy. The Great legends of Alexander did not appear until another 2 centuries after those first documents. Now contrast that to the New testament and Jesus Christ. Suck ………wait for it ……. On that. In conclusion we actually have better sources for the life of Jesus than we do for most of the major figures in antiquity. There you go support for both the validity of the New Testament and Jesus’s Existence.  Now let’s talk about how you compare Jesus to other religious figures(not like there’s any comparison). Mohammad and Islam,that religion is about 600 years younger than Crhistianity. The evidenc e that would be used to prove their existence would be different.  Same thing for Sathya Sai Baba. I mean the guy was born in 1925 are you serious? The Blogger talks about relatively recent people in history who’ve contributed to their own religions through their inflated egos the most. This says nothing about any of their validity. Secondly none of these people Rose from the dead, claimed to be born of a virgin, or were son of God. None of these people claim to be divinity in the flesh. I mean isn’t that the real reason it’s so hard for people to swallow the Jesus Pill? The fact that The New Testament documents are so old and agree with each other is a marvel in the anthropological world and anthropology like any other scientifically based field of research is based  upon the scientific method which on a few words is close scrutinization. I’m coming back to your contridictions."

A good deal of my argument was removed from the quotes, so, as I feel the need to, I may repost certain things I've posted before that have gone unaddressed. I apologize for leaving out the "less." The accidental omission doesn't affect the argument. And the good thing about quoting the poster in full is that other readers can see what's being left out if I make a mistake. Unfortunately, the poster does not post my response in full.

I'm not ignoring the facts about the copies. I'm completely dismissing the notion that this--and this alone--gives us good reason to accept the claims and narratives in the Gospels as true. The poster comes nowhere near explaining how a large number of copies = completely true stories. The volume and internal accuracy of the copies can be "unheard of" or a "marvel," but it's a simply a non-sequitur to suggest that, therefore, the stories are true. The poster needs to stop repeating his flawed logic, and show the logical step here:


1. There are 5,600 copies that mostly agree with each other
2. ???
3. Therefore, the stories are true.

The poster also refused to answer my question about Dianetics.

As stated earlier, the earliest Gospels appear at least thirty years after the supposed death of Jesus. Can the poster tell us who actually wrote the Gospels? Can he tell us how we know the authors were eyewitnesses or, at least, basing their narratives on eyewitness accounts? Where is his evidence for this claim? Sure, it is likely that some people who were alive when Jesus supposedly performed miracles were still alive by time the earliest Gospels were written, but that does not mean that those were the people who wrote Gospels. The Gospels are anonymous documents, and nowhere do they claim to be written by eyewitnesses. The poster can make the claim that they were written by eyewitnesses, but there is no evidence for this. He can make the claim that the authors based their stories off of eyewitness accounts, but there is no evidence for this. If the poster wants me to accept any claim that the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses, or based on eyewitness accounts, he needs to provide evidence. The below video may be of interest:

 
The poster keeps trying to make the argument that the Gospels are more reliable than other ancient texts. I have addressed this several times already. This is my third time addressing this:

"The poster seems to want to argue that it is the most trustworthy ancient text. As mentioned in a previous blog, this is relative--it proves as much as calling someone the least oppressive dictator; it does not mean said dictator is not oppressive. Even if he proves the relative trustworthiness of the text, this just proves that the text is relatively more trustworthy than other texts. It does not come close to giving us a reason to call it trustworthy in its own right, and it certainly does not come close to giving us a reason to believe literally every claim in the text."

Let's say that I grant the argument that historians have been unfair in dismissing the Gospels while accepting other ancient texts. All this proves is that historians have been unfair. This still doesn't prove that the Gospels are reliable. Even if I grant that we have "better sources" for Jesus than others, that still does not prove that these are good sources. A source can be "better" than others and still be unreliable. I've repeated this several times. The poster needs to let me know if he disagrees with this point or not. If he agrees, he should drop this weak argument.

The poster compares texts about Alexander the Great to the Gospels. The problem here is that the poster is still using one criterion in his evaluation of historical texts. This is not how the scholars evaluate documents. They do not judge reliability based only on the gap between events and reports. I addressed this in my last post, but he conveniently cut it out and ignored it, so I'll repost it:


"In his response, I would like to see the poster cite sources about scholarly methods and opinions, and be very specific about what exactly scholars use the volume and accuracy of copies to prove. I would also like to see the poster address the relationship between the historical method and supernatural events--since we're appealing to scholarship we need to ask, How do scholars actually approach supernatural claims? I would also like to see the poster actually take the multifaceted scholarly approach, not isolate one method because it supposedly supports his point. Coming to a judgment about a text based on one criterion, no matter how useful a criterion it is, is the antithesis of historical scholarship."

There are many essential factors that go into evaluating ancient documents (link in previous blog), but the poster has completely ignored these factors. Unless the poster is willing to properly apply the historical method, in full, to Jesus and Alexander the Great, it is completely unreasonable to suggest that historians are being unfair in accepting the existence of the latter and not the former. Additionally, the poster cannot continue to use the unsupported claim that the Gospels are more reliable than other texts to support the claim that literally every claim is valid. A person (Liar A) who lies 75% of the time is more reliable than a person (Liar B) who lies 90% of the time. But they are both unreliable. You cannot establish the truth of Liar A's claims by saying, Look, he is more reliable than Liar B. You cannot establish the truth of the claims in the text by saying the text is more reliable than other texts. The only way to establish the reliability of the Gospels is to properly apply a multifaceted approach to the text itself, not in comparison to other texts. The poster needs to examine the origin of the texts, authorship, the nature of its claims, the existence of independent contemporaneous accounts, etc. The poster cannot continue to isolate one method and think this proves a point. This is not scholarship.


Frankly, I'm not familiar with scholarship on Alexander the Great. I can guarantee, though, that academia does not ask anyone to accept any non-eyewitness, unverified, miracle claims about Alexander the Great that are unsupported by additional sources.


The poster completely missed the point of my bringing up Muhammad, etc. The poster was trying to use the existence of Jesus as proof of Christianity and miracle claims. I pointed out that the existence of Joseph Smith would, therefore, be proof of Mormonism and its miracle claims. How old the religion or the figure has absolutely nothing to do with that point. The poster is clinging at meaningless distinctions here. Nor does the nature of the claims about them.

The poster needs to go back to the post and read it again. I also brought up Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and Sathya Sai Baba as a refutation of eyewitness accounts. There are literally thousands of people alive right now who will give a supposed eyewitness account of Sathya Sai Baba's supposed miracles. The poster needs to explain why he would accept the eyewitness accounts of people from 2000 years ago, and not the eyewitness accounts of people alive now. This is merely hypothetical, of course, since there are no eyewitness accounts of Jesus' miracles, and the poster has yet to give evidence for this. 






"Blogger: Speaking in terms of physical causality, free will is an incoherent concept. So, even if the poster manages to show that there is "free will" in Christianity, he has to show that free will is even a psychological possibility. See the Sam Harris video from part one. Without a fundamental psychological free will, any type of Christian free will can't get off the ground--unless we're supposed to assume that the creator of the universe has a third-grade understanding of causality. "Free will" is one of those terms people like to throw around without being clear on what they mean. I need to know how he's using this term. He seems to be using "free will" in a way that is specific to his religion (people in other religions talk about their religion the same way). Again, free will is not a Biblical concept, so I wonder where he's getting this. Anyway, the problem with his usage of "free will" is that it's completely contradictory to how this term is used in the English language. Here a few examples

Me: In part one the I speak about how a persons concept of free will is bogged down by human perception. The blogger did not argue my point and even used it against me. I then presented an argument that went outside the human concept of free will and provided God’s biblical definition. As it is understood in the Christian Religion. Then he says oh nope you can’t do that it doesn’t fit the human constructed model of free will. Pick one either way you lose there is free will in Chritianity. Its obvious the blogger knit picks what he chooses to respond to in an argument or discussion. Not bringing the whole thing into context. This is hardly the way to get any point across. Oh and the examples were just some definitions of free will in the English language."

I addressed this in the first blog, but the poster ignored it. I'll repeat: The poster is a human, and his concept of free will is necessarily bogged down by human perception, too. Is the poster willing to go on record and say that he is not a human, and therefore does not possess human perception?

The "human concept of free will" is code for "free will as it's actually defined in the English language." As I stated earlier, "free will" is not a term that appears anywhere in the Bible, so I'm wondering where the poster claims there is a Biblical definition; this has not been provided. I mentioned this twice before, but the poster still has not addressed this. I also posted a link with good number of verses that challenge the notion that free will is even implied in the Bible. I will post it again. Maybe the the poster can respond to these passages, and offer some passages of his own that give me some insight into  this so-called Biblical free will. It's ironic that the poster claims that I am ignoring his posts when he has ignored many posts many times, and on this very point.

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/free.html

I explained in my previous blog why there is no free will in Christianity in the sense of the term as it's used in the English language, not within the Christian religion. Maybe the poster can explain how I lose either way.


In my previous blog, I already said if he wants to redefine free will in the context of religion, that's fine. The poster cut this part out and chose to ignore it. I will post it again below, and I would like a response to my points this time. I am curious as to where this religious concept is coming from. That's all. The poster can define the term any way he wants, but I'm not sure why he and his religion need to hijack a term that is antithetical to how it has historically been used. I can redefine "cow" to mean what we currently call "horse" in the English language, but it's not practical, and it's careless to go around using this term in such a way.


"It's obvious how coercion of any sort contradicts the notion of free will as defined above.  The poster is using a self-serving definition of "free will" that is specific to his religion, and at odds with the English language, philosophy, and psychology. Given all of this, I wonder why he won't stop hijacking this term that, in its non-religious use, is completely at odds with the believe-or-burn religion he believes in. If, in the context of your religion, you consider coercion to be compatible with free will, that's fine. You can also consider torture an act of love if you want, or you consider bats to be birds--that's if you're redefining these terms. But the poster should know that the term he is using is antithetical to how it is defined in the English language."




The poster also ignored the following which I would like to hear response on:

'If someone holds a gun to my head and tells me to give them my money or die, would we really say I have "free will"? If the poster agrees that I have "free will" in this scenario, then at least he's consistent. It would still be at odds with the English language, and I see no reason why I should entertain his religious butchering of a term.

But even if he's consistent, I wonder how he feels about the terroristic threat at the core of his religion. A terrorist who gives you free will is still a terrorist.'


 It's amazing that I'm being accused of picking and choosing what to respond to when huge chunks of my posts are being ignored, forcing me to repeat myself.




"Blogger : Did the poster miss this the part where I said, "I will agree...only on the grounds that he never existed to enslave anyone"? According to the Bible, Yahweh did endorse slavery, and not once did he condemn it (sources in part one). The poster needs to respond to that. Yahweh leading by example is interesting, though. Slaveholders in antebellum South surely took up Yahweh's example when it came to slavery. We are talking about a deity who supposedly committed near-genocide with a global flood--some example. Let's not forget that Christianity is a believe-or-burn religion, and that Jesus went around threatening people with Hell. Is that the type of example people are supposed to follow? Terrorize and torture people who don't do what you want them to. If Christianity is true, Jesus is at the head of the most powerful terrorist group of all time--a universal terrorist group with a victim count in the billions. That really undermines all of the fuzzy stuff Jesus said in the Bible, doesn't it?

Me: First all of your slavery examples come from the old testament. Since we are speaking in context of biblical values we will continue like that. Biblically the whole world entered into a new covenant with the creator Yahweh. All the specifics of the new covenant are laid out in the New Testament.  Ethically Christians don’t believe or endorse slavery. Jesus often argues for the equality of all men. Now Judaism  does not include the New Testament, take that up with them. You can’t blame God for how some humans have chosen to twist and pervert his word for their own profit. Secondly the Christian religion is not believe or burn. If a police officer tells you not to murder or you are going to jail  you don’t say he is threatening you with jail that’s just what freaking happens when MURDER somebody….Hello!??. You just have to be held accountable for your misdeeds. The Lord is the law and you will be held accountable simple as that. The Christian religion is pure justice. You talk about childish name calling but calling jesus a terrorist is what? If I call you an asshole and I have this whole argument as proof of you being one I’m being childish, but you call Jesus a terrorist and use his words as proof and you’re not? Somebody has deep seeded issues against Christianity and possibly all other religions. Although that statement is completely unfounded and off topic soooo. Like I was previouysly saying … suck it. *Does suck it dance all over counterargument lol.*"

Yahweh was in charge during the Old Testament. According to the Bible, Yahweh was the one who endorsed slavery. According to his religion, this happened. Is this true? Yes or no? If yes, then my claim that Yahweh endorsed slavery is true. Is the poster denouncing the Old Testament? The poster needs to tell us which parts he wants to denounce? Is the poster willing to denounce the Creation myth, Original Sin, the Ten Commandments (in the OT Law along with slavery guidelines), the Exodus, too? Is the poster willing to go on record and say that slavery is morally reprehensible, and Yahweh was morally wrong for endorsing slavery? After all, the poster supposedly does not endorse a practice that his god endorsed. Where did Jesus say to abandon the OT law? Where did Jesus say that slavery was a moral abomination, and Yahweh was wrong for endorsing it? Check the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus specifically said he did not come to abolish the prophets of the Law.

The poster should not tell someone where their slavery examples come from before one gives them. There are endorsements of slavery in the New Testament as well:

  Ephesians 6:5-9: "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him."

 Colossians 3:22: "Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord"

 1 Timothy 6:1-3 "Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;"

At this point I need to ask the poster if he has actually read the entire Bible. I am not being facetious, here. I would like an honest answer, because I have the suspicion that I am dealing with someone who has not read the text he worships.

What does the poster have to say about New Testament endorsements of slavery? Morally disgusting verses that tell slaves to take pride in their captivity and forced labor. Would the poster be willing to say that his Bible is wrong, or at the very lease irresponsible, when it does not condemn these actions? What exactly is being twisted and perverted here? These are empty claims. Can the poster show me one passage in the Bible that says it is morally wrong to enslave human beings? 


The poster needs to offer a moral judgment on these parts of the Bible. Are these verses morally right or morally wrong. If the latter is his answer, he is in disagreement with his holy text. One has to wonder what else he disagrees with.


The Christian religion is believe or burn. If someone does not believe, they burn. Whether someone thinks this is just or not, does not change the fact that the religion offers the believe-or-burn scenario. The poster did not deny this; he only said that it was just. Think about this: A human being thinks that justice means being subjected to eternal torture for not accepting a proposition.

It is, quite frankly, psychopathic to believe that subjecting people to eternal torture is just. The god of the poster's religion uses threats of torture to coerce human beings into doing what he wants. This is, by definition, terrorism. What exactly is unfounded about the terrorist claim? I guess I can be accused of name-calling when I call Osama Bin Laden a terrorist. I'm fine with that. Name-calling isn't inherently bad. It's a waste of time to call one's debate opponent names. However, I have no qualms about properly labeling characters that are the subject of the debate. 
 

"Blogger: My point is not that we have two opinions, but that we have two opinions that cannot go beyond being opinion. They are subjective calls and, therefore, cannot "graduate" to the level of fact. The poster needs to go back and read through the logic again. Although any claim about rights and obligations cannot go beyond opinion, I would be interested in hearing how one rationalizes the "right" and "obligation" to torture billions of human beings for eternity.

Me: Already explained this. He needs to enforce the law.  He is the creator he is the judge. The difference is that he loves us and his laws are for our well being. Even without the bible a lot of what is in there is already considered un ethical without him telling us. But if there was no punishment people would still do whatever. He ensures everyone behaves ethically."

The idea that Christianity ensures everyone behaves ethically is laughable. The religion offers a loophole that allows people to be forgiven for any sins they commit. A person could literally slaughter millions of people with her bare hands, and then sincerely ask Jesus to forgive her one week before she dies, and she gets to go to Heaven. This religion has nothing to do with morality. Two great minds who articulate this point much better than I can:

 

"Blogger: The poster refused to give a definition of religion, and back up his claim about evolution being a religion. Can we stop the personal attacks and stick to the arguments?

Me: Oh well soooooooorry like it’s that hard to look up the current anthropological definition of religion. Religion as defined in its scientific field of study is quite simply a culture system. Well why does evolutionary biology fall under the definition of a culture system? Well because it is a science and Science more understandably falls under the working anthropological definition of a religion because it is literally it’s own type of culture. Think about it in layman’s terms.  A culture defines central dogma’s underlines the not only the values you live by but how you come about those values. Ok me being  a strong Christian it would be the bible through my religion. You being an atheist it would be evolutionary biology through science. Or whatever nut article you decide to cite. Bottom line you argue for a religion as much as I am arguing for one. The real point is who’s religion is right, and I’m here to tell you mine is."

These definitions are flat-out untrue or lacking in key components. I provided sources for my definitions, and the poster needs to show me where he got the idea that religion is defined simply as a culture system, that science is defined as one of those types of culture systems, and what a culture system actually is. Not only does the poster not lay out what a culture system is (the poster left out the part about what culture systems actually do), but he does not define what  science is and how science is a religion or a type of culture. "Think about it in layman's terms" is code for "think it about these terms under the false definitions that I have simply made up or conveniently butchered." The poster needs to form an argument, not tell anyone to "think about it in layman's terms." "Culture system" and "culture" are not even interchangeable; these are two different terms with specific meaning.


Second, under this vague definition of "culture system" or "type of culture" hip-hop could be considered a religion. Hip-hop is literally its own type of culture. Is this a religion? African-American, Latino, Ancient Greek, or Japanese cultures would be considered religions--even secular cultures would be considered religions. This is not the scientific definition of religion--I'm not even sure what the poster means by scientific definition of religion; there is no scientific definition of religion any more than there is a scientific definition of music. The poster is simply making up these definitions or leaving parts out. The poster needs to cite a source for his definitions, and be 100% clear about all the components of "religion" and "culture system" and show how evolution and science fall under both of these definitions. Here's what he seems to be referring to, and what he is leaving out:


http://www.colorado.edu/ReligiousStudies/chernus/4800/GeertzSummary.htm


"One of the most influential figures in this social-scientific approach to religion is the anthropologist Clifford Geertz. In an essay titled "Religion as a Cultural System" (1965) he spelled out a definition of religion that many others have borrowed, adapted, and employed in studying religion. Geertz's definition gives us a starting place for understanding religion in this social scientific way. It suggests that every group--and every individual--may have a religion, even if no one in that group believes in a god or an afterlife or any of the more familiar trappings of organized religion. Every group has a religion because every group has some overall framework that all its members share in common, to make sense out of life and guide behavior."


The poster doesn't show what those who call a culture system mean, because it undermines the notion that science is a culture system. Science is not an overall framework or comprehensive worldview. Science makes no moral prescriptions. Science makes no claims about the meaning of life. Science does not tell you how to behave. Science does not tell you what to value. Science describes the natural world, and it is up to people to do what they want with that information. Two people who accept science and evolution can have completely different morals and values, and this is not a problem because science is not in the business of providing what cultural systems provide. Scientists or people who accept science--however you want to define this group--do not have morals and values that all members share in common. Science fails the cultural system test on those grounds alone.

If the poster wants to be taken seriously he needs to define and outline culture and then explain how science is a culture.


The poster chooses to simply tell me what underlines the values that I live by. He is making up my life for me at this point. Evolution is not a culture system or religion by any definition of these terms other than the ones he has made up. Even if it is why is evolution or science my cultural system, as opposed to Western culture? Why is the poster ignoring the influence of postmodernism, secularism, liberalism, feminism, determinism, utilitarianism, absurdism, Aristotelianism, and other non-scientific cultural influences and ways of thinking that contribute to my overall worldview and influence my behavior more than the little I know about science? My feminist beliefs guide my behavior more than my acceptance of evolution. Why isn't feminism my religion? Utilitarianism is the biggest influence on my moral beliefs. Why isn't utilitarianism my religion? Metaphysical naturalism and absurdism are the philosophical schools of thought in which I ground beliefs on the nature of existence and the meaning--or lack thereof--of life. Why aren't these my religions? My worldview is influenced by many philosophical and cultural modes of thought that have nothing to do with science or evolution. If I have a "religion," it's a personal "religion" for which there is no name. Here the poster simply resorts to making up my life and beliefs for me in order to argue against a fiction he has created. This is why this conversation must end.

Evolution does not tell anyone anything about what to value. Science attempts to describe the natural world. Evolution tells you species evolve from other species. That's it. There are no commandments, no moral guidelines, no rituals, no practices, no prayers, no hymns, no dietary restrictions, no miracles, no holy land, no sacred objects, no infallible texts, no divine prophets, no deities, no divine system of reward and punishment, no prescribed system of earthly punishment and reward, no superstitions, no dogma. If the poster knew anything about science, he would know that science is not in the business of making value judgments. Science is descriptive, while religion is mostly prescriptive. Everything in science is questionable--including evolution.


This is simply embarrassing at this point. When asked to provide definitions and show how science is religion, the poster chose to make up, or strategically omit aspects of, definitions of culture, religion, and science. The poster needs to stop wasting everyone's time with lies. Can the poster cite scholarly consensus that science is a religion or culture system? I've asked this several times, and he has yet to do so. I have also asked the poster to explain why science and religion are separate fields of study and separate departments at universities. The poster wants us to accept that science falls under academia's definition of religion, but this is completely undermined by the fact that scholars do not define science as a religion. Scholars simply do not agree that science is a religion, so he obviously using definitions in ways that are not in agreement with academia. It's absurd to make appeals to scholars when they simply do not agree with his unfounded, dishonest assertions.

This is nothing but a word game. In order for science to be a religion, religion needs to be defined as a cultural system--i.e. a method of categorization that ignores all the distinctive qualities of religions, that strips religion of its unique aspects, that reduces it to an overall framework or something more akin to a worldview. Then science, although the poster has not explained this, needs to have its distinctive qualities ignored so it can be redefined to fit under this definition of cultural system. Even if we accept the unsupported argument that science is a cultural system, it would be more accurate to say that the poster and I both have cultural systems, worldviews, overall frameworks, not that we both have religions. Effectively, however, the poster would not be saying anything of any importance. He would essentially be saying that we both have ways of thinking about the world. This is as meaningless a statement as one could make. This says absolutely nothing about the merit of our worldviews, though. The poster obviously plays these word games because he has no interest in comparing cultural systems or worldviews, and he can offer no justification as to why he adopts a worldview that is based on supposed divine revelation to anonymous desert dwellers.

Can the poster demonstrate that science functions as a religion for me as opposed to other modes of thought that influence my behavior? The poster also cannot sum up my worldview for me.


This conversation is over. The poster has chosen to make up and butcher definitions of several terms instead of dealing with reality on its own terms. He has also chosen to make up a worldview for me. It's dehumanizing and insulting. Someone who lies like this is only interested in slandering and demonizing the Other.


All these redefinitions are a smoke screen to hide the fact that the poster believes in the sexist, homophobic, ignorant, bigoted mythology of a bunch of anonymous desert dwellers who treated women and other people like property--who "punished" rapists in a lighter fashion than our current society punishes people who exceed the speed limit. The poster believes in a bunch of ridiculous, nonsensical stories for which there is absolutely no evidence. None. If he had evidence, he would not need to resort to the red herring of criticizing science. The poster cannot provide justification for his religious beliefs (well, except the marvelously compelling lots-of-copies argument), so he attempts to change the subject. The poster can claim I have a religion, but one thing I do not do is believe in ridiculous stories about supernatural invisible magic men who live outside of the universe--stories that contradict everything we do know about the universe--without any evidence. The attempt to conflate my secular worldview with his religious worldview is a desperate attempt to knock the chess pieces off the board so no one can win. This argument that "you have a religion, too" is the equivalent of the schoolyard taunt, "takes one to know one." It's empty rhetoric.


The poster has failed to offer any reason why any reasonable person should believe in the absolute nonsense written in a bunch of ancient texts.

I'll leave on this thought:

I could stop accepting evolution tomorrow, and nothing about my life would change. I would still be an atheist, feminist, absurdist, metaphysical naturalist, partial Aristotelian, a bit of utilitarianist, postmodernist, secularist, determinist, etc., with the same lifestyle and set of morals and values. 

If the poster stopped believing in Christianity tomorrow, his worldview would crumble.  

A Response/Challenge to a Christian on Facebook: Part 3

Well, I got a response. This should be fun.

"Blogger: Beliefs can be false and practical. To argue that religion is useful is not to argue for the truth of religion. Religion can be the most useful thing in the world, and the most untrue. The video below may be of interest.

Me: You did not argue that religion was useless so I’ll assume you agreed as for why you should believe the Christian Religion we will start with the holy text that defines its whole dogma. The New Testament. Scientifically speaking if you cannot trust the New Testament you cannot trust any ancient text. Let me explain. There are more copies and fragments of this ancient document than there are for any other ancient document IN THE WORLD. 5,600 copies to be exact. Second on that list is Homer’s The Illiad with only 643. In fact most ancient documents only have about 10 copies. The next factor that plays a role in the factual credibility of any ancient text is the time between when the original was written and when the first copies show up. The New Testament again ranks NUMBER ONE with a gap of less than a generation which approximately 100 years which historically speaking is less than the blink of an eye. Again Homer’s Iliad comes in second with about a gap of …..wait for it ….. 500 years. The next factor any scholar uses in determining factual credibility of any ancient text is looking at how much each of the texts agree with each other, which is to determine if they all say the same thing. Well guess which ancient text ranks number one in that category also. The New Tesatment of course comes in at 99.6% agreement between the texts. This fact is bolstered by the fore mentioned amount of copies we have in existence of the new testament. So back to the truth of religion, I don’t know about that. But arguing for the truth of Christianity? There you go Mr. Myterious Athiest Blogger and his over hype brother."

The poster didn't provide any source for these claims, but it doesn't matter. I would implore him to do so in the future.

This is simply a non-sequitur. There could be one million copies of the New Testament, but that does not make any of its claims true. Is there some rule that states that untrue narratives cannot be copied thousands of times? Do the Celestial Truth Police prevent this from happening? The only thing 5,600 copies proves is that there are 5,600 copies. Would civilizations 2000 years from now be justified in believing in Scientology if they discover millions of copies of Dianetics?

The accuracy between copies is another non-sequitur. All this proves is that people were paying close attention when they made copies. This does not make any of the claims true. I think the poster here may have a fundamental misunderstanding of the historical method. Historians give more credence to claims when multiple independent sources agree on events. Copies are not considered different sources. I ask again, When civilizations 2000 years from now come across copies of Dianetics  and find that the copies agree with each other, would they be justified in believing in Scientology?

Consider the dating of the earliest copies: approximately 100 years. So, all of these copies were made by people who weren't there and who had no way of verifying the truth of these narratives, one hundred years after the original texts were produced--originals which, I should remind readers, came decades after the events happened. So, a bunch of people copied an unverified story. So what? If there were 5,600 unique eyewitness accounts, not people who weren't there passing along a century-old story, I would be impressed. This historical "blink of an eye" isn't as inconsequential as the poster wants us to believe.

It should also be noted that the earliest Gospel comes along more than thirty years after the supposed death of Jesus, but the poster doesn't seem to feel any need to address this. I would need the reliability of the original texts to be proven, not the reliability of copies as copies.


I hope people find this piece of paper where I wrote "Michael Epperson is the Son of God" one hundred years from now and make thousands of copies. I might get a few naive followers.

How does the poster deal with the many contradictions in the Gospels?

 http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/paul_carlson/nt_contradictions.html

It seems silly to talk about the accuracy of copies of stories that show very little internal consistency. 


Nevertheless, all any of this proves is that people were passionate about spreading these narratives.


If there were 5,600 unique sources, not copies, that reported miracles and were all agreement, I would be impressed. However, there are no contemporaneous non-biblical sources reporting any of the miracle claims at the time. There aren't even contemporaneous non-biblical sources for Jesus' existence (which I accept anyway), let alone any miracles he supposedly performed.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

The argument from copies is one of the worst I've seen, honestly. Is this really the sole criterion for determining the trustworthiness of a text--how many copies there are? Not how many unique, unbiased sources report events, but how many copies there are? And what about the originals? I'm not sure how anyone can take this argument seriously. I suggest readers take a look into the historical method instead of accepting the poster's claims about the opinion of scholars, because scholars do not operate is this fashion (see below). The poster's approach is far too superficial and oversimplified and dangerously negligent of other essential considerations. It has literally nothing to do with the content or construction of the original texts.

Not only is the argument being bad in its own right, but the poster chooses to isolate this single questionable method of determining historical accuracy of a text. Scholars use several methods to determine the reliability of ancient texts, but the poster makes no mention of them here--I'm guessing because the Bible flat-out fails to meet other scholarly standards (see link below and put the Bible to the test for yourself). For example, he mentions the time between the original and copies, but he blatantly ignores the passage of time between the supposed events and the original documents; historians are more concerned with the latter, and common sense should reveal why. Historians do not judge the credibility of a text based on one criterion any more than a building inspector judges the safety of a building by only checking to see if the doors open properly. 

In his response, I would like to see the poster cite sources about scholarly methods and opinions, and be very specific about what exactly scholars use the volume and accuracy of copies to prove. I would also like to see the poster address the relationship between the historical method and supernatural events--since we're appealing to scholarship we need to ask, How do scholars actually approach supernatural claims? I would also like to see the poster actually take the multifaceted scholarly approach, not isolate one method because it supposedly supports his point. Coming to a judgment about a text based on one criterion, no matter how useful a criterion it is, is the antithesis of historical scholarship.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method

"Blogger: I'm not sure why Christians even bring up free will. It's not even a Biblical concept, so I'm wondering where this belief that Yahweh gives people free will even comes from. Judging by the Bible, there are many reasons to believe that free will is not compatible with Christianity

Me: Click the link and suck it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wivgDck1l88   …. The video is pretty long so I’ll paraphrase, break it down, and explain why it is a relevant counter argument.  You’re basically saying that the concept of free will is not possible in Christianity. Well your not Christian first of all how would you know. Being an atheist you don’t even accept the existence of hell or punishment for how ever you choose to live so what difference does it make if Christians live a certain way because we know there are eternal consequences for our actions. Aside from that a simple grasp of Christian principles and how God works makes it easy to understand. You are an atheist that is your free will. You chose to ignore Christs teaching and resolve your cognitive dissonance with dumbass evolution facts philosophical conundrums. Free will in the Christian religion is having the choice of doing what you want despite the fact God knows it is bad for you and the fact that you may face eternal consequences for them. Free will is not anarchy. God’s word is the law and if you break the law you go to Jail. You can’t say oh I have no freewill because if I murder a three year old I’m going to jail. Silly Atheist.lol"

Speaking in terms of physical causality, free will is an incoherent concept. So, even if the poster manages to show that there is "free will" in Christianity, he has to show that free will is even a psychological possibility. See the Sam Harris video from part one. Without a fundamental psychological free will, any type of Christian free will can't get off the ground--unless we're supposed to assume that the creator of the universe has a third-grade understanding of causality.

"Free will" is one of those terms people like to throw around without being clear on what they mean. I need to know how he's using this term. He seems to be using "free will" in a way that is specific to his religion (people in other religions talk about their religion the same way). Again, free will is not a Biblical concept, so I would like him to explain why free will is part of his religious beliefs. Anyway, the problem with his usage of "free will" is that it's completely contradictory to how this term is used in the English language. Here a few examples:


"The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion." (Google Dictionary)
"Spontaneous or unconstrained will; unforced choice; (also) inclination to act without suggestion from others." (Oxford English Dictionary)

It's obvious how coercion of any sort contradicts the notion of free will as defined above.  The poster is using a self-serving definition of "free will" that is specific to his religion, and at odds with the English language, philosophy, and psychology. Given all of this, I wonder why he won't stop hijacking this term that, in its non-religious use, is completely at odds with the believe-or-burn religion he believes in. If, in the context of your religion, you consider coercion to be compatible with free will, that's fine. You can also consider torture an act of love if you want, or you consider bats to be birds--that's if you're redefining these terms. But the poster should know that the term he is using is antithetical to how it is defined in the English language.

If someone holds a gun to my head and tells me to give them my money or die, would we really say I have "free will"? If the poster agrees that I have "free will" in this scenario, then at least he's consistent. It would still be at odds with the English language, and I see no reason why I should entertain his religious butchering of a term.

But even if he's consistent, I wonder how he feels about the terroristic threat at the core of his religion. A terrorist who gives you free will is still a terrorist.

"Blogger: According to the Bible, Yahweh endorsed slavery. Why wasn't "thou shall not enslave" a commandment, anyway? I will agree with the claim that the Biblical god didn't enslave only on the grounds that he never existed to enslave anyone.

Me: Well I am glad you agree …. Secondly the Yahweh leads by example. This was the whole point of sending  Jesus Christ, because in the Christianity he is divine, God in the flesh. He was suppose to be an example for the rest of us. I’m sure you are familiar with the phrase …. What would jesus do?"

Did the poster miss this the part where I said, "I will agree...only on the grounds that he never existed to enslave anyone"? According to the Bible, Yahweh did endorse slavery, and not once did he condemn it (sources in part one). The poster needs to respond to that. Here the responder jumps off-topic to preach.

Yahweh leading by example is interesting, though. Slaveholders in antebellum South surely took up Yahweh's example when it came to slavery. We are talking about a deity who supposedly committed near-genocide with a global flood--some example. Let's not forget that Christianity is a believe-or-burn religion, and that Jesus went around threatening people with Hell. Is that the type of example people are supposed to follow? Terrorize and torture people who don't do what you want them to. If Christianity is true, Jesus is at the head of the most powerful terrorist group of all time--a universal terrorist group with a victim count in the billions. That really undermines all of the fuzzy stuff Jesus said in the Bible, doesn't it?

"Blogger: This is an opinion. “X created Y; therefore X has the obligation and right to judge and punish Y.” That is a personal judgment—albeit one that many people share, but still an opinion. Rights and obligations do not exist outside of minds. They are derived from minds, and are therefore subjective. Quite simply, they are made up. I could easily say the contrary--that it would not be his job or right to judge anyone or anything, and we would be stuck with two opinions.
 Now, the poster might say, "But this is not my opinion. God created this rule. And as the creator, he gets to make up the rules."

Me: This was a rubuttal to me saying God has the right to judge because he is creator. Just because we have two opinions does not mean one of us isn’t wrong.  Secondly if my stance is considered made up for the simple fact that it is an opinion  “that many people share”  then yours must be also made up for it is also an opinion. The only difference is less people believe in your stance. That is all."

My point is not that we have two opinions, but that we have two opinions that cannot go beyond being opinion. They are subjective calls and, therefore, cannot "graduate" to the level of fact. The poster needs to go back and read through the logic again. Although any claim about rights and obligations cannot go beyond opinion, I would be interested in hearing how one rationalizes the "right" and "obligation" to subject billions of human beings to eternal torture.


"Blogger: To be infinitely merciful and vengeful to any degree is a contradiction. It makes as much sense to say that I am an infinitely calm being--except when I'm excited. Mercy is suspended when an act of vengeance occurs. If a god were to commit an act of vengeance, there is obviously a limit to its mercy--it is not infinitely merciful. The god who commits no acts of vengeance, who shows mercy in every instance, would be the god who is infinitely merciful. Any other god fails to be infinitely merciful.

Me: Ok so he’s not infinitely merciful ….. sue me lol. He is merciful though!  For the simple fact that anyone……ANYONE!!! …. In the Christian religion can make it to heaven. Provided you profess Jesus Christ as lord, savior, and only way to eternal life. Also that you repent for all your sins and continue to whole heartedly seek a close and meaningful relationship with God."

Did I actually get a Christian concede on a point? Nice.

What happens if you don't comply with Yahweh's demands? Eternal torture. Yahweh isn't any more merciful than an abusive husband who promises to be nice to his wife as long as she doesn't disobey him--but as soon as she disobeys him, he Chris Browns her. You see a character who is merciful. I see a character who is just another terrorist.

"Blogger: To make this claim, one would have to have studied the literally tens of thousands of religions to have ever existed. I would be willing to bet that no human being alive has done this. I would be interested in hearing evidence for this claim, though. Why is Christianity less trustworthy than, say, Judaism, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, etc.? Has the poster truly done a fair comparison of all religions?I would like some evidence for this claim. Is there a poll that shows that scholars deem the Christian religion to be the most trustworthy? I don't understand this appeal to authority here. Given current academic standards, the claim doesn't make sense. The vast majority of universities, academic journals, and publishers do not accept religious scripture as evidence of anything other than what scripture says. Backing up an argument with Biblical support is considered to be invalid and unsophisticated amongst scholars and academics. I thought this was general knowledge. I shouldn't have to explain this to anyone who has taken a college course--even a high school course. If scholars considered the religion so trustworthy, academic standards would be drastically different. I don't think the poster wants to play the game of appealing to what most academics would vouch for. He would, then, have to deal with the fact that the vast majority of scientists accept evolution as fact. That is a claim that can actually be proven with a five-second Google search, unlike the wild claim presented here about Christianity's standing amongst academics. And does "most trustworthy" mean that all its major and miraculous claims are trustworthy or accepted by academia? Since most trustworthy is relative, a religion can be the most trustworthy and still have, say, 95% of its claims written off as untrustworthy. To me, the "most trustworthy religion" sounds like "least oppressive dictatorship." Not exactly a compliment, is it? Still, I would love to hear the argument for this claim.

Me : Didn’t I already shove your face in it? Just in case you forgot here it is again …. Scientifically speaking if you cannot trust the New Testament you cannot trust any ancient text. Let me explain. There are more copies and fragments of this ancient document than there are for any other ancient document IN THE WORLD. 5,600 copies to be exact. Second on that list is Homer’s The Illiad with only 643. In fact most ancient documents only have about 10 copies. The next factor that plays a role in the factual credibility of any ancient text is the time between when the original was written and when the first copies show up. The New Testament again ranks NUMBER ONE with a gap of less than a generation which approximately 100 years which historically speaking is less than the blink of an eye. Again Homer’s Iliad comes in second with about a gap of …..wait for it ….. 500 years. The next factor any scholar uses in determining factual credibility of any ancient text is looking at how much each of the texts agree with each other, which is to determine if they all say the same thing. Well guess which ancient text ranks number one in that category also. The New Tesatment of course comes in at 99.6% agreement between the texts. This fact is bolstered by the fore mentioned amount of copies we have in existence of the new testament. So back to the truth of religion, I don’t know about that. But arguing for the truth of Christianity? There you go Mr. Myterious Athiest Blogger and his over hype brother."

Repeating this doesn't make it true. This doesn't address the claim that the Bible is trustworthy--only that we should trust it more than other ancient texts.  The content--I repeat--the content and construction of each religious text needs to be examined in order to support this claim, not the number of copies of a certain text. The poster makes no attempt to examine the origin of the original texts, and explain why those are reliable. A good case can't be made for the trustworthiness of the original Gospels, which contain many contradictions (link above), no secondary sources to support their claims, and come from anonymous authors several decades after the events supposedly took place. We're simply asked to ignore that and take the reliability of the original texts for granted. Without a reliable foundation, copies hold no weight. If the poster responds, he needs to argue for the reliability of the original texts, not reliability of copies as copies, which is all his argument can do at this point. It is completely possible for a text to be copied 50 million times and still be completely untrue. On the other hand, it is completely possible for a religious text to be copied only once and be more trustworthy than the Bible. This argument from copies is nonsensical.

The poster seems to want to argue that it is the most trustworthy ancient text. As mentioned in a previous blog, this is relative--it proves as much as calling someone the least oppressive dictator; it does not mean said dictator is not oppressive. Even if he proves the relative trustworthiness of the text, this just proves that the text is relatively more trustworthy than other texts. It does not come close to giving us a reason to call it trustworthy in its own right, and it certainly does not come close to giving us a reason to believe literally every claim in the text.

"Blogger: Again, let’s get some evidence for this accuracy. Jesus’ existence is still disputed among historians, but that is beside the point. It's dubious, but I'm willing to grant that a man named Jesus existed at the time and went around preaching in ancient Israel. Someone named Jesus merely existing at the time, and doing or saying some of things attributed to him, does not mean that he did or said all of the things attributed to him. The miracle claims in the Bible are not considered historical facts among historians (I guess scholars don't find the religion very trustworthy at all), and they can’t be proven by mere existence of a person. If someone, 500 years from now, wants to claim that I had telepathic powers, producing a photo that proved my existence would not be evidence for their claim. There is more historical evidence for Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and Sathya Sai Baba, and many people (thousands alive today in the case of Sathya Sai Baba) who will vouch for supposed miracles. Why not believe them? Are Joseph Smith's claims true because we have photos of him? Below is a list of other figures who have supposedly performed miracles, most of whom have more evidence for their existence than Jesus. Why does a Christian accept the miracle claims of their religion, and not others?

Me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CycbvARsxWU&list=PL1B7EA7B92476264B&index=12&feature=plpp_video    ….. Click the link and suck on it. Basic point of the video >>> In reality there is much more proof for the existence of jesus than any other famous figure of the day. Secondly sources used are NON BIBLICAL"


Did I not already grant the claim that Jesus existed? I agree that Jesus existed, so why is the poster sticking to this one point, posting a video titled "Did Jesus Exist?" and telling me to "suck it"? My guess is that he has no response for everything else I wrote here. The poster simply ignored my point about Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and Sathya Sai Baba.

As I said in my previous response, mere existence is not evidence that Jesus did everything that the Bible claims he did.

There are no secondary sources that report any miracles. Zero. Unless the poster is willing to concede that Joseph Smith's existence is evidence that Mormonism is true, he should stop using this empty existence argument.



By the way, all those non-Biblical sources are not eyewitness accounts, and they all come from non-eyewitnesses several decades after the supposed death of Jesus. If one actually reads the early non-Biblical sources they mostly attest to the existence of Christians and Christianity, not Jesus, anyway. Actually reading the sources will illuminate the distinction. So, although I'm willing to grant existence, let's not get a big head about this. Because, as I said, it is still a dubious claim.


Still, I have no interest in debating Jesus' existence, just the miracle claims. Show me contemporaneous, non-Biblical accounts of miracles, and then we can talk. Hint: They don't exist.


"Blogger: Let’s get a definition of religion here. This claim is absurd.

I should also take the time to remind the Christian poster of the words of Jesus, who certainly wouldn't appreciate the language used here:

But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister[b][c] will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’[d] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell

Me: What are you butt hurt? Yea I’m Christian I never said I was Mr. Holy person or whatever. Suck it up he’s an asshole. Instead of saying that why don’t you try to prove he’s not an asshole. Hmmm …. Lemme guess why. One, because he is in fact an asshole …. Two, because you thought it was cool to throw the bible back in my face ….. Yeah nice job there. You have also graduated asshole academy."

The poster refused to give a definition of religion, and back up his claim about evolution being a religion. Can we stop the personal attacks and stick to the arguments?

"Blogger(Paraphrased): Basically just a whole bunch of bullshit about how I think Darwins Origin of Species fully explains evolutionary biology and that I need a deeper understanding blah blah I’m so freaking smart blah blah blah. Also Christians use the bible as fact and we atheist support our views with lots of bull shit.

Me: First of all .....I wasn’t trynna say that so calm your neck. Atleast  80% of what you said was mad unnecessary .  Secondly why not use the bible as evidence? Do I have to shove your face in how trustworthy it is…..AGAIN? …. Silly Atheist. Darwins Origin of Species is the beginning of all evolutionary biology. The base work, so not for its factual worth or infallibility is it the holy text of you atheists .... it is so for the (lack of a better phrase) sentimental value."

It's unfortunate that the poster has to resort to this type of childish approach.

I'll repeat this only because the poster repeats his argument: Saying there are 5,600 copies of a text does not prove it is trustworthy. I can go make 5,600 copies of a story about how I created the universe last Tuesday, and that wouldn't make my story trustworthy. I'm going to need a better argument for why we should trust a set of stories that contradict themselves, were written decades after the events supposedly happened, by non-eyewitnesses. The poster needs to tell me why we should trust the original texts before leaping to copies.

It's unbelievable that anyone would really use this line of reasoning: "this story has been copied a lot of times; therefore, you should believe all of it." Fortunately, I believe this argument is a rationalization for faith, not the actual reason why the poster is a Christian. 

So, a text is religious/holy if it has sentimental value? I guess Jane Eyre is a religious/holy text for me. I guess the journal I kept the first year of college is a religious/holy text for me. I see that "religious/holy text" has been butchered, for rhetorical purposes, to the point of being a meaningless descriptor. It's purposefully misleading to call a text religious or holy for this reason. I will consider this claim empty, dishonest rhetoric.

Why does the poster make claims about "you atheists"? Most atheists haven't read any of Darwin's writings, so it's pretty dishonest to claim a text has sentimental value for those people. Can I just go on record and say that I have read Origin, but it doesn't have any sentimental value for me. I don't even own it. It drags a bit at times, to be honest. 

 

A lot of my other points just went ignored. This is the biggest problem with debating several big issues at once. I wonder if the poster would want to focus on one issue at a time.

A Response/Challenge to a Christian on Facebook: Part 2

(Interestingly enough, after a Google Images search for "rejected," I got this image from a blog called "Theology Forum." Is this a sign?)


Unfortunately, my challenge has been rejected. I can't say that I'm surprised. A lot of the wild claims made by the poster are indefensible. I did, however, get a response--a response that assured me I wouldn't get a response. The response came in the form of two Facebook posts on the original thread (I posted a link to the blog entry there). I'll take the opportunity to post the responses and add a bit of commentary.

 Facebook post 1:

"Oh come on! Staggering ignorance of history of evolutionary biology? You mean that bullshit I learned in my sophomore EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY class at UD? Fuck outta here they told me global warming was real too."

Evolution, history and theory, cannot be fully covered in one sophomore class any more than astronomy, calculus, capitalism, or any other extensive field of study can be covered in a fourteen-week lower-level course. To suggest that this is the case is to further demonstrate an ignorance of the theory and its extensive history. Saying, "I took a class" doesn't prove knowledge. Knowledge must be demonstrated. I have yet to see it demonstrated.

Facebook post 2:

"Challenge not accepted lol. The thing about truth is that it's the truth. It is intolerant. If the sky is blue then its fukkin blue. No matter how many "facts" you throw at me saying its red. You might have everyone backing you up and all the data in the world. Nigga the sky is still blue. Same thing applies to what I'm saying. Now I don't wanna be the stereo typical intolerant christian who thinks they know everything just because of the fact I'm christian. Cuz I don't know everything, but i am intolerant tho, so I don't gotta accept your cheap shot rebuttals to informally laid out argument. You know why? Cuz the sky is fukkin blue lmao ... I'm out dis bitch."

Here we have the poster simply asserting that what he says is the truth. He offers no evidence, no argument; he seems to be offended by the very notion that he should have to give evidence for his claims. The color of the sky is an interesting (read: silly) analogy. The poster can take me outside, and show me what he says is true. Can he produce that kind of evidence for his claims? He can merely assert that his position is analogous to the sky being blue until he is blue in the face, but this doesn't pass for an argument. It is just another empty claim, and the most dishonest and immature one I've seen yet.

If his claims were as evident as the sky being blue, why would he waste his time talking about historical accuracy, scholarly consensus, trustworthiness of certain texts, etc., in his first post? No one ever feels the need to back up claims about the sky being blue with so-called historical evidence, scholarly consensus, etc.. But the poster obviously does feel the need to defend his claims or he wouldn't have posted such a long rant in the first place. Now that he's been challenged, he wants to pretend that it's ridiculous to expect him to argue for his position, although he's the one who already began arguing for his position. How am I out of line for simply taking up the indirect offer?

It's interesting that the poster wants to dismiss the fact that I have people backing up my claims. I would like to remind readers of the poster's attempts to show that he has people backing up his claims:

“Well simply put it is the most trust worthy of all the religions. Do more research on that any self respecting Academic Scholar not restrained with bias will vouch for that statement.”

If he doesn't care that I have people backing up my claims, why should I care about the people who supposedly back up his claims? He likes the consensus game, but only when the consensus is on his side.

It's also interesting (read: hypocritical) that the poster dismisses any evidence I present, all while alluding to supposed historical evidence for his own claims:

"From the accuracy of both the old and new testaments to the legitimacy Jesus Christs existence.”

This gave me the impression that the poster wanted to play the evidence game, but it's obvious that he doesn't care about evidence. He only likes evidence when it supports his beliefs. Otherwise, evidence is silly and worthless and should be ignored. This is the very definition of delusion. It's amazing how much random Christians on the internet have in common with "sophisticated" theologians:

 
Why are these "cheap shot rebuttals"? I was going to ignore his post, but I issued a formal challenge because he is obviously passionate about his beliefs, and the claims were so outrageous that I assumed that he must have done some research. I offered a formal challenge because the poster put a lot on the table, and I figured we could have an interesting debate. Although he doesn't feel the same way about me, I believe that he is worthy of a conversation. I was actually looking forward to getting into the discussion of free will and the historical accuracy of the Bible. I've seen the claims in the "informally laid out argument" (code for "unsupported hit-and-run argument"), and now I want to see if the poster can give me the second half: the evidence. Don't leave me hanging, here.

Alas, I have been dismissed with the class and open-mindedness of a stubborn five-year-old who holds his hands to his ears and shouts la la la la la.

I think I'll end with another Biblical quote:


"But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect."

1 Peter 3:15

Dear Facebook Christian, I am asking you to give a reason for the hope you have. Are you willing to do this with gentleness and respect, not profanity and intolerance? To dismiss the challenge is to ignore your duty as a Christian.

A Response/Challenge to a Christian on Facebook.

I haven't had a good idea for a blog in a while. I think I have one now. Recently, I've engaged in several conversations on Facebook, but the format, I'm afraid, has not been conducive to productive conversation. So, what I would like to do is to offer a friendly challenge to any theist who would like to have a conversation about anything related to religion. By moving the conversation to a blog, we will able to engage in more structured, coherent debates--preferably debates where we choose one topic and stick to it (the historicity of Jesus, the reliability of personal experience, etc.), paying close attention to our opponent's posts and responding respectfully. Trying to discuss five big topics at once results in a big mess, and it allows posters to ignore a lot of the claims and arguments being made.

My first challenge goes to a poster on a friend's page. He posted on a thread that began with a Richard Dawkins quote: "I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world."

The post addresses several topics, so taking them all on in one post goes against the blueprint I have laid out. However, I'm not sure if the poster will accept the challenge, and I really want to get the ball rolling. If the poster accepts the challenge, we can break the conversation up into sections--or focus on one particular topic of his choosing.

The original Facebook post has been copied and pasted here (spelling and grammatical errors are his), but I have broken it up into sections. I did not rearrange anything. The order is the same. If you take out my responses (bold), you can read his thoughts in the order in which he presented them.

With that said, let's begin:

“I'm a good God fearing christian that's dabbled with philosophical issues lik this but I def disagree with both you. Thinking God is impartial is dangerous point of view. I also don't think religion is bullshit. All religions in general serve a purpose. That type of frontal lobe activity is what served as rules and laws before civilization developed. It seperrated us from the beasts.”

Beliefs can be false and practical. To argue that religion is useful is not to argue for the truth of religion. Religion can be the most useful thing in the world, and the most untrue. The video below may be of interest.

“As for the questions about the contradiction of free will my dude put forth over here the answer is there is no contradiction. Not if you're really talking about a truly omniscient being. We could still have free will with him maintaining his divinity. Think about it your concept of freewill is also restrained with the concept of time from a humans perspective.”

The poster's thoughts are also restrained by the concept of time from a human perspective, unless he has the miraculous ability to think from the perspective of a non-human.

“For argument purpose I can say that a truly divine bieng could simultaneously exist in the past present and future at once.”

Well, he could say this, but there is no reason to believe that this is possible, or that even if there is such a thing as a divine being that being able to exist in the past, present, and future would necessarily be something this divine being could do. Before this argument can be taken further, one needs to justify the assumption of this property.

“Not only that but he would exist in all VERSIONS of the past present and future at once. This allows you your free will and he still maintains is omnipotence.”

Free will is an incoherent concept to begin with. I would need “free will” to be defined, and then it would need to be defended.  This argument can't get off  the ground without these two things. The problem with "free will" is best articulated by Sam Harris.

After making sense of the basic concept of free will (good luck), one still has to show how it makes sense to say there is free will in Christianity. The video below shows the utter nonsense of the claim if we're talking about free will a more layman sense:

I'm not sure why Christians even bring up free will. It's not even a Biblical concept, so I'm wondering where this belief that Yahweh gives people free will even comes from. Judging by the Bible, there are many reasons to believe that free will is not compatible with Christianity:

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/free.html

“Another thing God has never enslaved not the biblical God.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_slavery

According to the Bible, Yahweh endorsed slavery. Why wasn't "thou shall not enslave" a commandment, anyway? I will agree with the claim that the Biblical god didn't enslave only on the grounds that he never existed to enslave anyone.

“He has judged and will judge its his job and right as the creator.”

This is an opinion. “X created Y; therefore X has the obligation and right to judge and punish Y.” That is a personal judgment—albeit one that many people share, but still an opinion. Rights and obligations do not exist outside of minds. They are derived from minds, and are therefore subjective. Quite simply, they are made up. I could easily say the contrary--that it would not be his job or right to judge anyone or anything, and we would be stuck with two opinions.

Now, the poster might say, "But this is not my opinion. God created this rule. And as the creator, he gets to make up the rules."

Again, that would be a made up rule based on the god's opinion on what should be the case.

“He has also killed for the biblical God in all his infinite mercies is also a vengeful one, but if you look at the staggering amount of death and disparity that has plagued the human race over the course of it's existence that is not God. Not the biblical.”

To be infinitely merciful and vengeful to any degree is a contradiction. It makes as much sense to say that I am an infinitely calm being--except when I'm excited. Mercy is suspended when an act of vengeance occurs. If a god were to commit an act of vengeance, there is obviously a limit to its mercy--it is not infinitely merciful. The god who commits no acts of vengeance, who shows mercy in every instance, would be the god who is infinitely merciful. Any other god fails to be infinitely merciful.

“Any atheist would or opponent of my position would argue about why trust the christian interpretation of the universes mysteries and explanations for life and death. Well simply put it is the most trust worthy of all the religions.”

To make this claim, one would have to have studied the literally tens of thousands of religions to have ever existed. I would be willing to bet that no human being alive has done this. I would be interested in hearing evidence for this claim, though. Why is Christianity less trustworthy than, say, Judaism, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, etc.? Has the poster truly done a fair comparison of all religions?

“Do more research on that any self respecting Academic Scholar not restrained with bias will vouch for that statement.”

I would like some evidence for this claim. Is there a poll that shows that scholars deem the Christian religion to be the most trustworthy? I don't understand this appeal to authority here. Given current academic standards, the claim doesn't make sense. The vast majority of universities, academic journals, and publishers do not accept religious scripture as evidence of anything other than what scripture says. Backing up an argument with Biblical support is considered to be invalid and unsophisticated amongst scholars and academics. I thought this was general knowledge. I shouldn't have to explain this to anyone who has taken a college course--even a high school course. If scholars considered the religion so trustworthy, academic standards would be drastically different.

I don't think the poster wants to play the game of appealing to what most academics would vouch for. He would, then, have to deal with the fact that the vast majority of scientists accept evolution as fact. That is a claim that can actually be proven with a five-second Google search, unlike the wild claim presented here about Christianity's standing amongst academics.

And does "most trustworthy" mean that all its major and miraculous claims are trustworthy or accepted by academia? Since most trustworthy is relative, a religion can be the most trustworthy and still have, say, 95% of its claims written off as untrustworthy. To me, the "most trustworthy religion" sounds like "least oppressive dictatorship." Not exactly a compliment, is it?

Still, I would love to hear the argument for this claim.

“From the accuracy of both the old and new testaments to the legitimacy Jesus Christs existence.”

Again, let’s get some evidence for this accuracy. Jesus’ existence is still disputed among historians, but that is beside the point. It's dubious, but I'm willing to grant that a man named Jesus existed at the time and went around preaching in ancient Israel. Someone named Jesus merely existing at the time, and doing or saying some of things attributed to him, does not mean that he did or said all of the things attributed to him. The miracle claims in the Bible are not considered historical facts among historians (I guess scholars don't find the religion very trustworthy at all), and they can’t be proven by mere existence of a person. If someone, 500 years from now, wants to claim that I had telepathic powers, producing a photo that proved my existence would not be evidence for their claim.

There is more historical evidence for Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and Sathya Sai Baba, and many people (thousands alive today in the case of Sathya Sai Baba) who will vouch for supposed miracles. Why not believe them? Are Joseph Smith's claims true because we have photos of him? Below is a list of other figures who have supposedly performed miracles, most of whom have more evidence for their existence than Jesus. Why does a Christian accept the miracle claims of their religion, and not others?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle#Individuals

“Coming full circle to this misleading quote I'd like to first say*Clears thorat* RICHARD DAWKINS IS A POMPOUS ASSHOLE. Not realizing that he's effectively created a new religion called evolution.”

Let’s get a definition of religion here. This claim is absurd.

I should also take the time to remind the Christian poster of the words of Jesus, who certainly wouldn't appreciate the language used here:

But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister^[b][c] will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’^[d] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5-7&version=NIV

“Complete with its own holy text Darwin's Theory on the Origin of Species. In fact take a freshman college anthropology class and the whole discipline of science falls under the definition of a religion. I'm not trying to say science doesn't have merits I'm not an idiot, all religions have truths and lies. Your job is to sift through the garbage and find what the actual truth is. I'm not against religion specifically I am not against the christian religion. Because I believe THIS particular religion and its most basic and fundamental level.... IS THE TRUTH THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH. Amen!”

In the interview below, Richard Dawkins, Darwin's biggest defender, says "Of course [Darwin] was wrong on many things" and "Darwin wasn’t right about everything."

http://natgeotv.com/uk/dawkins-darwin-evolution/dawkins-interview-darwin

Does this sound like a holy text? Would Christians say this about Jesus or Yahweh or the Bible?

The poster here demonstrates a staggering ignorance of the history of evolutionary biology. On the Origin of Species (from here out referred to as Origin) laid out some foundational ideas that have been proven to be true a million times over, but it's far from complete or infallible. No one would call it "the whole truth and nothing but the truth" as the poster does his religion. This line of thinking is contradictory to Dawkins' perspective, as demonstrated above. After a century and a half of gathering evidence and testing the theory, some of Darwin's ideas have been confirmed and expanded on, and some of them have been discarded. No idea has been accepted by scientific consensus by virtue of being an idea of Darwin's.

Darwin's basic ideas are still accepted amongst both atheistic and theistic scientists. While still indebted to Darwin and Origin, evolutionary biology has moved miles beyond both. If someone really wants to learn about evolution, it would better to read several recent publications that bring the Darwinian foundation to the table and everything scientists have learned and discovered in the past 150 years or so after Darwin introduced the theory. The bulk of evolutionary knowledge has come post-Darwin (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_evolutionary_thought).

To isolate Origin like this is to ignore the contributions of Fisher, Dobzhansky, Haldane, Mayr, Rensch, etc. (the list goes on and on) is to demonstrate a profound ignorance of the history of evolutionary biology. Quite frankly it is insulting to the many scientists who have made profound contributions to the field—contributions that would blow Darwin’s mind if he were around to learn about them.

Again, I would love to hear this person’s definition of religion, and how science or evolution is a religion. Most academics, religious and secular, would not say that science fits the definition of a religion; no one with a dictionary and integrity would say this. This can be demonstrated by the fact that science and religious departments are separate at universities across the world. All of this makes the suggestion to "take a freshman anthropology course..." seem silly. Define religion, and show how science is one.

The problem with people so knee-deep in their religious way of thinking is that they have an inability to comprehend others' way of thinking. This is why people want to make these false comparisons of religion/science, or Bible/Origin. They seem to assume that people think in the same way they do. Because they cannot imagine life without their religious beliefs, they seem to make the assumption that whatever non-religious beliefs or modes of knowing others have must really function in the same way as their religious beliefs or modes of knowing. It seems that people have the impression that biologists just sit around reading Darwin all day, that the last 150 years or so of evolutionary biology has consisted of close readings of this one book. That's the impression that is given by people who oversimplify the importance of, or only mention, this one text as if evolutionary biology rests on this one text, this one man. That's just not the case, and to treat it as such is uninformed.

Here is a fundamental difference that this poster is missing. Christians treat the Bible as evidence. They say, “Here is a claim, and here is the passage that proves the claim"-- the famous "for the bible tells me so" mentality, and an utterly unsophisticated and indefensible epistemological framework. In other words, a claim is evidence simply by virtue of being in the Bible. This is not the case with anything written in Origin, or any science book. Biologists do not say that all species evolved from others because Darwin tells me so. Everything that Darwin introduced—the claims and the evidence—has been tested and challenged by scientists for the past 150 years. Some ideas were kept and some were dropped, all depending on how much the evidence confirmed or refuted them. Throughout the history of evolutionary theory, there has not been one claim of Darwin’s that has been accepted simply by virtue of being made by Darwin or written in Origin. Evolution is grounded in physical evidence, not words. Followers of the Bible consider words to be evidence. With evolution, the words merely report and explain the evidence. To suggest that Darwin's writings are regarded as holy is inconsequential rhetoric that shouldn't be taken seriously. To suggest that science functions like religion in any way is to misunderstand both science and religion.

Theistic attacks on evolution and science are misguided. Quite frankly, evolution and science don't care about god. What I mean to say is that science and evolution are concerned with the natural world; they do not seek to prove or disprove anyone's god because the god question is not addressed. The attacks on evolution seem to stem from the fact that evolution does refute literal interpretations of certain creation myths.






If the poster accepts the challenge, he can post his response in the comment section, or he can email his post to me and I will copy and paste it here as its own entry. I prefer the latter.