Intro:

Fletch_F_Fletch (FFF) came up with a list of ten arguments from the New Atheists like Dawkins, Hitchens, and Sam Harris (SH) that seemed the most worthy of further consideration amongst fellow Christian thinkers.  FFF said he was focusing on objection six at the time I got started, so I thought I would give my input on just that one to keep things simpler.  So far, four more Christians got involved in the conversation (in addition to Travis, who is FFF) and so I'll be going at it with all of them. 

Basically, SH notes that Christians claim to know more than scientists do about the what the universe is for based on faith all the while criticizing the science establishment for being arrogant about its own claims.  The main exchange with Vox Day (VD) can be found elsewhere (link).  VD tried to divert attention to other verses advocating humility in order to cancel out the prerequisite epistemic overconfidence.  Here, Zeno tries directly to deny that the Bible has anything to say about what the universe is for. 

I note that in both the Old and the New Testament, the Bible is very clear that Man CANNOT understand God's reasoning or His purposes in Creation. Vox

WAR_ON_ERROR: 8/25/09 8:23 PM:

To support the misdirection, VD quotes some Bible verses that talk up the ignorance and humility factor, but fails to address other Bible claims such as that the heavens declare the glory of God. Obviously most Christians believe that everything that happens is all about God's glory, so it naturally follows the universe exists for that purpose and SH's claim is accurate.

Obviously you misunderstand. Obviously, everything is all about God's Plan FOR Creation.
Obviously, you are locked into an infinite loop of ignorance. This could end badly for you.

WAR_ON_ERROR: 8/25/09 8:23 PM:
I don't think VD or SH is stupid. I think we're all just human and disagree on difficult topics.

That is a very pleasant fiction, but when people's opinions are faced with reality, some one is the sucker. There is no relativism in the Cage.

WAR_ON_ERROR: 8/25/09 8:23 PM:
I take it that VD is probably one of those Christian evidentialists who believes he has solid arguments for these things that don't rely on faith.

You maybe want to read The Irrational Atheist, that can be downloaded freely from a link on this site.

Sorry for the excess posting, but I feel like a f7cking Janitor.

Hi Zeno,

Thanks for the heads up on the link to "The Irrational Atheist."

I don't think there are two correct answers to the question, Zeno, but this isn't a cage match as far as I know. It's a conversation. At least, that's what it is for me. People who are wrong about certain questions aren't necessarily stupid. Does everyone with the same IQ agree about everything? Don't think so. Apparently you don't think there's a such thing as honestly mistaken and I believe you might be honestly mistaken about that. But to VD's credit, I believe he called SH's *statement* stupid, so perhaps I led us away on the wrong tangent. We'll call this half my fault.

zeno: 8/25/09 9:10 PM:
Obviously, everything is all about God's Plan FOR Creation.

Um, right. I'm not really sure what you are getting at or how it is different than what was being claimed on your behalf by SH originally. Somehow God's plan for creation isn't what creation is for? Please explain.

Otherwise, it seems to me when Christians aren't trying to squirm out of the implications, they freely expound upon the topic citing numerous scripture. Just type in "Why did God create the universe?" into google to see for yourself. Even Muslims get in on the action.  Continue reading →

Intro:

It appears I've been on vacation from blogging for about a month and I have yet to contribute a post to the "Planet Atheism" blog roll.  I have been doing a bit of worthwhile commenting around the blogosphere so I will be reposting those exchanges over the course of the next few days. 

Fletch_F_Fletch (FFF) came up with a list of ten arguments from the New Atheists like Dawkins, Hitchens, and Sam Harris (SH) that seemed the most worthy of further consideration amongst fellow Christian thinkers.  FFF said he was focusing on objection six at the time I got started, so I thought I would give my input on just that one to keep things simpler.  So far, four more Christians got involved in the conversation (in addition to Travis, who is FFF) and so I'll be going at it with all of them. 

Basically, SH notes that Christians claim to know more than scientists do about the what the universe is for based on faith all the while criticizing the science establishment for being arrogant about its own claims.  Vox Day (VD), the author of "The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, And Hitchens" sets up the argument below.  Basically he tries to divert attention to other verses advocating humility in order to cancel out the prerequisite epistemic overconfidence.   

Travis requests responses to what he considers to be five of the New Atheists' most effective arguments:

That is a very stupid statement on Harris's part and serves to demonstrate his ignorance of the Christian religion, among others. First, on what basis does Sam Harris claim that arrogance is reprehensible? Second, what evidence does Sam Harris actually offer of any religious claims explaining why the universe exists? In contradiction, I note that in both the Old and the New Testament, the Bible is very clear that Man CANNOT understand God's reasoning or His purposes in Creation.

Job 36:26: "How great is God—beyond our understanding!"

Corinthians 13:12: "For now we see through a glass, darkly."

On the other hand, many atheists, including Sam Harris, deny nihilism even as they claim there is no basis for any belief in purpose in life. This is both philosophically incoherent and, to the extent that one knows it is philosophically incoherent but pretends otherwise, inherently dishonest. I further note that one should always be suspicious that Sam Harris doesn't know what he's talking about and is simply making something up when he writes "in fact".

Now, as for the remark about arrogance, this appears to be psychological projection as well as a good example of the deceitful atheist predilection for redefining words. Arrogance means "offensive display of superiority or self-importance; overbearing pride." Synonyms: haughtiness, insolence, disdain. Antonyms: humility, modesty, diffidence. How, one wonders, is the Christian worldview an offensive display of superiority or self-importance? Indeed, there is no religion that places more explicit importance on humbling oneself before God or more completely stresses that all are fallen, including the believer. And are very few things more haughty, insolent, and disdainful, very few more ostentatious and overt displays of claimed superiority, than the New Atheist insistence that every religious, agnostic, or atheistic criticism of their reliably incorrect assertions is based on stupidity, evil, or ignorance. This is why I am forced to distinguish between atheists and New Atheists, as any neutral observer must admit that the New Douchebags would have been an equally fitting title for the latter.

Should one accept the least amount of beliefs that cannot be provided with sufficient evidence? Why? Parsimony is for scientific logic, not belief. No one, including the New Atheists believes anything this way; as one who is well-read in both economics and military history, I can easily demonstrate that each of the New Atheists and virtually every single atheist is badly guilty of harboring beliefs in direct contrast to all of the available evidence. To single out Christians and Creationists while letting millions of Labourites and Democrats off the hook for refusing to accept the Law of Supply and Demand, the logical impossibility of central planning, or the failure of public education is a reprehensible double-standard. #6 isn't just a spurious and baseless argument, it is one that is damning to the New Atheist, not the religious believer.

Greetings all,

Travis asked me to comment.

In regards to number 6, VD's answer amounts to misdirection. It's understandable misdirection, since humility before God is the doctrinal highway most Christian minds frequent and readily acknowledge. However, as an outsider, we readily see that this humility is predicated on the not-so-humble defense of the unknown. In other words, you can't have one without the other, and pointing to the humility part doesn't magically cancel out the epistemic arrogance part necessarily.

To support the misdirection, VD quotes some Bible verses that talk up the ignorance and humility factor, but fails to address other Bible claims such as that the heavens declare the glory of God. Obviously most Christians believe that everything that happens is all about God's glory, so it naturally follows the universe exists for that purpose and SH's claim is accurate. The book of Hebrews also seems to directly say that everything was created by, through, and for Jesus and therefore the Christian salvation scheme. To avoid/ignore that conclusion is outright blasphemy, if I'm not mistaken.  Continue reading →

Intro:

I love TMS animation (link).  Their episodes in American television are beautifully drawn and animated.  In my teens, whenever I was able to recognize they'd done an episode of Batman The Animated Series, Superman The Animated Series, Spider-man or whatever, I knew I was in for a treat.  iTunes recently uploaded the first season (link) of the 1994 cartoon version of Spider-man (link), and I promptly purchased the TMS episodes.  I realized it'd be great to sample the artwork with screen shots, and thought I would share. 

So far I have shots from "Night of the Lizard."

My mouf!  Some people can throw their voice and apparently Peter Parker can throw his lip lines.  hahahahahaha  There are all sorts of coloring errors throughout the episode where small sections of clothing get colored the same color as adjacent regions for a single frame.  Those are boring.  And there are other issues where a hand or foot that was behind something (and not drawn) is double framed (as with all animation) on a moving background so that we have a brief amputation.  Those are kind of fun.  But the above image is especially humorous given that his mouth is actually on camera on his neck!  haha

Peter Parker does look cool in spider-sense mode with his mouth intact, doesn't he?

And here we have a brief look at what Spiderman does in his free time.  Apparently he is into Xtreme tricycling in the rain off of neighborhood rooftops.  Only Spiderman would dare...   Continue reading →

Intro:

I thought I'd actually create a post so that the photoblog comments wouldn't keep getting cut off with word count limits.  Also, I got tired of updating the links on the previous versions.  Below is the argument map of my discussion with pychen, LSP1, musterion99, and oeshpdog2 (as I see it) that has been archived here.  You can click on any of the thumbnail images below the big one to see other tangent conversations that contributed to the map.  Also, see the research archive on 2 Thessalonians 2:11 here.

Please let me know if there are any spelling mistakes or any corrections to the argument path that would be more fair. And feel free to submit new rebuttals, but be sure you aren't just rehashing what others have already argued to death.

Previous versions:

I used "argunet" to make the diagram and with Andrea's (link) help was able to finally figure out how to export an image directly. Luke Muehlhauser on Common Sense Atheism was recommending argument mapping software (link) and I was excited to give it a try with arguments fresh on my mind that were basically complete.

I would like to know if an argument map is easier or more difficult to follow than reading a seemingly unending comment archive.  Is it just a different difficulty level?  It is helpful to me regardless (and fun to make), but I really have no idea if someone who isn't me gets a clearer picture of the deal.  Perhaps it depends on your learning style.  I was just curious.

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Outro:

If we accept that God's "righteous lying" (by implication or by proxy) is acceptable, then this allows us (with Premise 2) to conclude that God is still ultimately trustworthy on foundational spiritual matters (as I allowed for in Rebuttal 6B criteria D).  There's no deal breaking issue here depending on your expectations. What there is is a direct Bible based argument that addresses conservative Christians when they attempt to stop the conversation with "the Bible says so" in opposition to good evidence in important cultural debates (creationism would be a good example).  They know liberal theologies aren't very consistent, but here I've provided an intellectually consistent in-house Christian argument that allows them to believe things that the much of the world embraces with intellectual integrity.  Many Christians are basically ideologically coerced into accepting positions they might not normally accept whether or not they have good direct evidence for that specific conclusion.  It's not because they are stupid or even uninformed, it's because they are loyal.  God is always wiser than the science establishment or anything a mortal can say about any issue and so any ad hoc absolutely implausible excuse is justified.  This humanistic travesty shreds solidarity and science.  However, the line of reasoning I've presented has the ideological potential to open up that inquiry regardless of what they conclude honestly after that.  That's the idea anyway.

Ben

Intro:

The original conversation can be found over on pychen's site (link) and I also have an archive of it on my site (link).  Click on the large version below to see the full resolution argument map.  "Argunet," the software I'm using, doesn't allow me to create just any size image I want, so I've extended Map A off to the right with Map B.  Hopefully that is clear enough.  I'm open to corrections, spelling mistakes, and any organizational ideas to help the presentation be more clear.  Some of the mapping is a matter of interpretation of a very long and complicated conversation, but hopefully it properly represents the course of things. 

Please note the labels for each box if you want to submit new rebuttals.  Oh yeah, and btw, there is no "naturalistic logic argument map" yet (as it refers to in some of the purple squares).  That's forthcoming.

Map A:  Map B: 

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Outro:

I think these argument maps are important because the conversation tends to go in circles.  This nails down all the important iterations so we can see the entire conversation-scape more easily and directly refer to specific junctures.  Philip noted (link) it might be easier to have a physical copy.  I agree, it is better.  The one I printed out cost me about 8 dollars at Kinko's to get a really nice (readable) laminated version.  Don't know if that's worth it to anyone, but if you were curious, that's the price tag.  Although if you are just looking to get throw away copies as I update them, then it's only like 3 dollars or something. 

Ben

Intro:

It seems the Christian xangan, StrokeofThought (Philip) has adjusted his views a bit since we last went back and forth on things a long time ago.  He didn't seem very interested in the priority of evidence at the time, but appears that is perhaps a different story now.  And more power to him.  A month or so ago, he was most gracious in bringing to my attention how Jacob Kremer no longer holds to William Lane Craig's position on the historicity of the empty tomb of Jesus (which was a point of discrepancy in the Richard Carrier/William Lane Craig debate, link).  I'm not sure if Philip is aware of my follow up on that where I actually called in to the Infidel Guy's radio show to discuss the discrepancy with Richard Carrier (link).  Anyway, just recently, in response to SirNickDon's fideist position (link), Philip gave his critique (link), arguing that in fact the Bible advocates a more evidential perspective than fideists would acknowledge.  I believe Philip is mistaken (link), but in response he offered up some Bible verses that appear to contradict my understanding of early Christian methodology.  That's what I'll be addressing here. 

Even if I were to concede this was the case, the problem there is that we are allowing the Bible writers to mix bad methods with good methods.  There are mystics all over the world throughout history in many different religious traditions who likely mix their mystical presuppositions with a degree of reason.  Should we trust all of these divergent conclusions?  Probably not and it seems like special pleading to leave the door open for a handful of Jewish mystics 2,000 years ago.  We would need really good evidence that these mystics were miraculously pulling off a better balance of mysticism and science than any other in the history of mysticism.  I don't think we have that.  For instance I could imagine a really bizarre story about a bunch of tea leaf readers which could be entirely in step with logic and reason.  They'd just have to be willing to rigorously test the tea leaf reading mechanism and its conclusions.  I'm assuming most tea leaf readers are not willing or able to really go all the way with that since it is not currently a branch of science.  I suppose I could be mistaken.

Regardless, is it even the case?  Did the early Christians really care about evidence apart from mystical methods?  Philip points to the following verse:

John 14:11  "Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves."

It is true that certain characters in the Bible are given all sorts of evidence, but unfortunately the majority of such stories are FRAMED with anti-evidential tsk tsks for generations to come.  We can't just ignore that.  For instance:  

Matthew 12:39 "He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah."

So already it is not hard to see where this is going.  A character in a story gets oodles of evidence.  We get nearly nothing (other than ancient stories about it).  If we ask for it, we've been defined a priori as bad people.  Continue reading →

Intro: 

The following is a comment archive lifted from lynnjynh9315's xanga.  He describes himself in his profile as a moderate Christian who writes "gutsy" posts.  Recently he wrote a gutsy post titled, "Daughter of Jephthah: a Biblical Slasher story?"  Another Christian, nyclegodesi24 made some odd comments that I thought I would respond to.  Arnobius_of_Sicca is briefly in the mix there, too.  Enjoy.

I have always found it very odd that Christians condemn the depravity of slasher-films and uber-violent video games like God of War while simultaneously praising such equally violent films like "The Passion of the Christ". It is not that I disagree with them, I also find slasher-films to be deplorable at best, but I feel that this issue deserves a fair evaluation: if Christians are to abhor such depictions of violence and avoid such works... wouldn't this also be good cause to avoid the Bible itself for the very same reasons?

Intro:

So does SirNickDon (link) want to argue with an atheist?  Not that he has to.  But if he wants to know what one might say...

SirNickDon: 

Ben:  Is there something wrong with the "show me why something is correct" thing?

SirNickDon:  Because to play the prove-me-wrong game, you've got to get into objectivism, and that, rather than the conclusion that there is no (effective) god, is the problem.

Ben:  If effectively having no way to prove god exists is a problem then the underlying presupposition here seems to be that there has to be a way to conclude that God exists. What if there isn't a way?  Is that presupposition unchallengeable?  

SirNickDon:  Objectivism, on the other hand, is a worldview that makes truth into an inert entity, a mental substance, if you will, that exists "somewhere out there," that can be discovered and grasped by means of a detached method of learning, such as the scientific method.

Ben:  While I won't be defending objectivism, I will freely defend objectivity in a generic sense.  I don't think truth is something in and of itself.  Truth in my view is a relational concept where a mechanical brain checks and updates with sense experience versus its constructed mental model of affairs (whether internal or external). 

SirNickDon:  Objectivism, then, attempts to glean truth by freeing human understanding from all perspective that is rooted in particular times, places and tradition.  In short, it is an attempt to gain a view from nowhere in particular.

Ben:  You make it sound like there is a problem with a-centrically cross checking all traditions against everything you know from any starting position.  That's sad.  You won't be convincing me of anything any time soon.

SirNickDon:  And here is where I would argue with atheists, if I wanted to.  Here is where I would say, this is impossible.  God may or may not exist, and maybe we'll get to that later, but objectivism certainly does not exist.  Because there is no view from nowhere.  There is no neutral ground to stand on.  Continue reading →

Intro:

Since I'd like to start a new precedent when questions of Bible translations come up, this will be my first translation/commentary survey of a particular verse in question.  Basically it is a bit irritating when one Christian or another makes a contrary claim based on a translation.  Two red flags go up.  One, neither of us know Greek, probably, and things can get really stupid, really quick if either of us pretends to know what we are talking about if we have to duke it out on details.  Two, often questions of translation are heavily debated in Christian circles much less with unbelievers and it makes little sense to concede a point if the next conservative Christian who walks through my blog door asserts the opposite with equal confidence.  I want a universal argument and not one that just flip flops around.  So, to avoid the trust your favorite scholar game and other similar follies, when possible I'd like to buzz through all the online resources I can find and see what everyone is saying. 

Reprinted below are the brief volley of comments between myself and oeshpdog2, the translations I can find that support oeshpdog2's claim, all the online commentaries I can find, three that I scanned in from my own library, and then several online position papers.  To make skimming easier, I highlighted what seem to be the most critical words of each section of quotes.  I'll be using the A-F system I started laying out on my creation/evolution posts (link).  Grade C will be a neutrality.  B will be leaning for and D will be leaning against.  A will be definitely for and F will be definitely against.  Then we'll add them all up and give an overall grade.  The question is whether God is just "hands off" with sinners who turn away from him or whether he actually does something deliberate to twist the knife so to speak and force upon them further confusion.  The orientation will be A for God being a jerk, and F for God just living and let living.  This method I think helps disown a bit of personal bias regardless of what you believe about the verse.  It allows you to be more honest with what is the most plausible thing each author means and to help keep yourself from reading what you want into each section.  Just call it like it is, and move on.  Then add it up and see what happens. 

For those of you who do not know, 2 Thessalonians 2:11 says, "For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie."  That seems pretty straight forward that God is doing something specific so that people will be misled somehow, but this clashes with typical Christian ideology that would like to think God isn't responsible for any lying.  Sometimes, they are actually right, not just making up lame excuses, and some nuance gets smashed up in translation.  I don't think that's the case here.  But we'll see. 

Thinking about this brings to mind the hardening of Pharaoh's heart (which is yet another silly debate that Christians will go back and forth on with each other just as much) and the God who overtly proclaims himself a Jealous God (link) who we can only imagine is most compatible with this kind of behavior.  What do jealous gods do anyway?  Not act jealous?  This is just one verse of at least 6 others that indicates God really doesn't have a problem twisting the truth in people's minds for his own supposedly righteous ends.  While I'm not too concerned with Bible contradictions or an argument from evil here (though I will touch on that just a little bit), the Skeptic's Annotated Bible (link) has some verses to add to the mix in regards to the back and forth on whether God lies (albeit by proxy).  Those have been added to the argument map (see version 12) on whether Jesus might be righteously lying about eternal damnation (from which this conversation originated). 

I understand this is rather long and mainly for my own purposes.  I have no idea who out there is actually crazy enough to follow along.  I did try to make it pretty easy to breeze through if you have any idea where I'm coming from with this and I added some lolcat pics that I think might help get through it.  Though I'm not sure what the appeal might be to an average reader (assuming I have average readers), I would be delighted to find in the comment section any links to important position pieces from Christian apologetics that somehow managed to not get represented here.  I will add them.  The Online Parallel Bible (link) has been very helpful, though I've found other online commentaries (link).  If anyone else knows of any other online resources that would make future projects like this more efficient, I would be very grateful to know about them.

Please note at the bottom of each section in italics are my grades and brief commentary where applicable.