January 19, 2011

  • (book review) "The Christian Delusion" - Ch. 6: The Bible and Modern Scholarship (part 2)

    Intro: 

    This series is an atheist's review of an important anthology critical of Christian beliefs called, "The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails" (TCD), that has been popularly discussed across the web.  I'll be reviewing the book in light of just about every other response to TCD on the web (pros and cons) and responding to new Christian objections as I find them.  I think this will be educational and perhaps the best that I personally can contribute to improving the online dialogue between Christians and non-believers on popular battleground issues.

    Who cares if the Bible gets some things wrong?

    But before we get into the issue of scholarly authority and bias and the details of atheist, Paul Tobin's chapter, a surprising number of Christian reviewers seem relatively okay with an errant word of the Christian god.  Let's take a look.

    Looney said this:

    My bet is still on Luke getting it right - especially since he writes much closer to the events - but if he gets one event a bit confused, it certainly won't shake my faith.  [emphasis mine]

    I assumed Looney was an inerrantist, but perhaps not.  It seems he is of the opinion at least that inerrancy is optional.

    Diglotting said this:

    ...as with a lot of this essay, I am left thinking, “so what?” If the Genesis flood narrative never actually took place, what does that prove? That Jesus was never resurrected and is not Lord over all creation? Hardly. It only proves that perhaps the genre and literary purpose of Genesis needs to be rethought.  [...]  if  Luke was just plain wrong, what does it prove? That the rest of what Luke wrote is historically false and should not be believed? If Luke was historically inaccurate on the census issue, I guess it could be a problem for those who hold to a scientific/historical view of inerrancy.  [emphasis mine]

    Jayman777 said this:

    Like the previous chapter, an individual Christian’s response to this chapter will depend largely on his views of inspiration and inerrancy.  There are numerous Christians who are modern scholars and have felt no need to leave Christianity because of their findings.  [...]  The bulk of the section is spent attacking the historicity of the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke.  Raymond Brown’s The Birth of the Messiah is a scholarly treatment of the infancy narratives.  He does not attempt to defend every historical detail of the narratives.  I must also note that if a passage in the Bible is of a genre of literature that is not concerned with history then it is pointless to criticize that passage for not being history.  [...]  I agree with Tobin that the prophecies he mentions from Ezekiel were not fulfilled.  [emphasis mine]

    I'm not clear on what Diglotting and jayman777's views on inspiration are (and I recall that jayman777 doesn't have his views 100% crystallized yet).  Presumably they are fine with their god's word being as generally true and reliable as other human works.  One wonders why a most excellent god aimed so low in terms of quality control, but okay.  The expectations of fundamentalists seem more philosophically justified at face value.

    Randal Rauser said this:

    Tobin talks about "forgeries" in the Bible, what New Testament scholars call pseudopigraphy. To call them forgeries is about as blunt as calling a polygamist living in sub-Saharan Africa an "adulterer".  [...]  So let's say that 2 Peter is pseudopigraphic – it was not written by Peter but rather by someone emulating his style (rather unsuccessfully it must be said) and claiming his authority. Tobin's argument presumably would be that God cannot appropriate a pseudopigraphic text, that is, he cannot include it within a canon of literature that through the providential course of history will come to be recognized as authoritative in matters of faith and action by a specific community of faith.  Why not Mr. Tobin? What's the problem? [emphasis mine]

    Rauser's view of inspiration is the most unsettling since the Christian god can appropriate literally anything that he wants to.  Perhaps mythicism is true and Christianity started out as a mystery cult with a cosmic Jesus who never even existed.  Why couldn't this god just use the urban legend style gospels as "authoritative" and divinely insist the church take historicity seriously?  Maybe Rauser wouldn't have a problem with that, or with my proof that the character of god in the Old Testament lies to Abraham.  I don't know.  But we have to admit here that modern Christians have some extremely lax standards of "inspiration" as far as truth goes and then still manage to be confounded when outsiders looking in have an eyebrow raised.  The only thing left to grant errant documents divine authority is Rauser's flimsy "god perception evidence" and perhaps the "unfair cultural mystique" of the Bible that was discussed in Jason Long's chapter 3.


    Outro:

    Each of these Christian folk are willing to defend Biblical contradictions when they think skeptics have gone too far, but ultimately inerrancy (or at least Tobin's standard of inerrancy) isn't an issue for them.  That's a slight majority of Christian reviewers.  The three Triabloggers in The Infidel Delusion will presumably not be giving ground. 

    This situation might be inspiring if I thought that the more liberal Christian reviewers were necessarily going to compromise on some of the more important errors in the Bible (as in, something that might help the Christian population get along with the modern world) rather than just covering the Christian god's behind and maintaining the general status quo of mere self-satisfying belief.  I'm not familiar enough with any of their stances on various modern issues to know for sure.

    Ben

January 7, 2011

  • Is Richard Carrier wrong about Bayes' theorem?

    Intro:

    Atheist Luke Muehlhauser interviewed Christian theist Lydia McGrew on the topic (partially, at least) of the application of Bayes' theorem to historical inquiry.  Later, Muehlhauser interviewed atheist Richard Carrier which included the same subject.  In that podcast interview Carrier dismissed McGrew's paper on the topic which set her husband, Tim McGrew, off on fellow Christian Victor Reppert's blog to show that Carrier doesn't know what he's talking about.

    However, nitpicking what is meant to be an intro to a difficult math subject (as though even textbooks don't have basic errors) simply doesn't prove the point that Carrier's forthcoming book on the topic is doomed to failure, even if there are some legitimate examples.  There are only three supposed errors here and only one that shows any promise.  If Tim McGrew or someone else comes up with something valid, Carrier will just correct the text.  They aren't going to refute Bayes' theorem or its application to history as I'm sure they'd agree.

    Note, I sent the original incarnation of this post (that was meant to be a concise summary of the "errors") to Carrier and I've been given permission to reproduce his comments (which will only show up here on the web, to my knowledge).

    Problem one:

    Carrier says:

    There are numerous statistical fallacies and statistical illusions (where the correct result violates common sense intuitions). The more of these you are aware of, the better your reasoning will be.  An example of a pertinent statistical fallacy arises from the Talpiot tomb discovery (the so-called “Jesus Tomb”), where it was claimed that a particular conjunction of five names was highly improbable, but the fact that there were ten burials in that same tomb was ignored, a serious error. The probability of getting five specific names in a sample of five is indeed low, but the probability of getting those same five names in a sample of ten is much greater. For example, if 1 in 4 people were named Mark, and you picked three people at random, the odds that they would all be named Mark would be 0.253 = 0.016 = 1.6%, in other words very unlikely, but if you picked ten people at random, the odds that any three of them would be named Mark would be 1 – 0.757 = 1 – 0.133 = 0.867 = 87%, in other words very likely. This is the kind of statistical fallacy you need to be aware of if you decide to employ statistical logic in your historical method.

    However, a Christian (I'm assuming these are all Christians, I haven't double checked) named Tim over on Victor Reppert's blog says:

    There's a cookie for the first person who can explain why this calculation, winding up with "87%," is completely bogus; bonus cookie for the first person to give the proper calculation. (Hint: remember nCr from basic statistics?)

    And the Duke of Earl answers his request:

    Okay, in the binomial coefficient equations.

    10!/(3!x7!) = 120.

    Thinking
    Thinking

    120(0.25^3)(0.75^7)=0.25

    So the probability that 3 people in a group of ten are named Mark where 25% of the population is named Mark is 0.25

    I won't call it 25% because probabilities are not presented in percentages.

    Tim calls that answer good:

    A cookie for Duke! Two cookies, in fact! (Is your browser cookie-enabled, Duke?)

    Richard Carrier responds:

    The information he is leaving out of his math is that the Talpiot tomb has missing names, i.e. we *don't know* what the other names are (as my example states). Thus Duke is calculating for finding exactly three Marks (no more), not for there being *at least* three (i.e there might be 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or even 10 Marks). But he is right that the correct math is more complex than I use (I gave only the equation for at least 1 Mark in a group of 7, not at least 3 in a group of 10) and the correct result is thus slightly different than I gave, and I'm glad to be reminded of this so I can revise the tutorial. It now has the correct equation: if you picked ten people at random, the odds that at least three of those ten were named Mark would be the converse of the probability of there being less than three Marks in those ten (i.e. the probability of finding only 0 Marks, plus the probability of finding only 1 Mark, plus the probability of finding only 2 Marks), or 1-[(10!/2!8!)(0.25^2)(0.75^8)+
    (10!/1!9!)(0.25^1)(0.75^9)+(10!/0!10!)(0.25^0)(0.75^10)] = 1-[(45)(0.0625)(0.1001)+(10)(0.25)(0.0751)+(1)(1)(0.0563)] = 1-[0.2816+0.1877+0.0563] = 1 - 0.5256 = 0.4744. In other words almost 50/50, which is very likely. If there is almost a 50/50 chance of at least three Marks in a tomb of ten, finding three named Mark there is not improbable at all. (Like mission control in *Apollo 13* if I have erred anywhere in my arithmetic, please check it and let me know and I'll correct it, but otherwise the equation is correct). Note that the probability of three names chosen at random from those ten then being these Marks will still be less than this (and differently so for observing three Marks if five names are selected). But in the Talpiot case, the accident of which names remain unmarked is irrelevant to the hypothesis being tested.

    Problem 1, part 2:

    Tim continues:

    Extra credit -- and Duke, perhaps you should just eat your cookies and let someone else have a crack at it -- to what question would Carrier's calculation yield the right answer?

    To which the omnipresent internet commenting deity known as Anon answers:

    Working backwards.

    Carrier's calculation 1-(.75^7)=.86 takes the form of the basic probability formula, 1-P(A)=P(not-A). So in Carrier's example, P(A)= .75^7

    .75^7 is the probability that the first 7 people you meet successively are not named Mark (in much the same way as how P(first seven coin flips being heads)=.5^7) .

    Hence, P(not-A)= the probability that it is not the case that the first 7 people you meet successively are not named Mark.

    So Dr. Carrier should have asked something along the lines of, "What is the probability that it is not the case that the first 7 people you meet successively are not named Mark?"

    Tim says:

    Yes indeed! Please note that this has absolutely nothing to do with ten guys or with three guys: it's all about seven, namely (to rephrase Anon's version) that if you meet seven guys, at least one of them will be named Mark.

    Problem 2:

    Tim moves on to the second problem:

    ...let's start with a conceptual question. Carrier offers this definition:

    ~h = all other hypotheses that could explain the same evidence (if h is false)

    Question: what role does the phrase "could explain the same evidence" play in the definition of ~h? [Warning: this is a trick question.]

    Mr. Veale adds:

    ~h includes hypotheses that lower the probability of the evidence.

    And then Mr. Veale says:

    ~h is just all the hypotheses that aren't h. That's it. You consider them before you consider the evidence.

    That information is concealed in that subtle little word prior

    Mattghg suggests:

    Um, is the answer: no role at all? The definition of ~h should just be 'h is false', right?

    Tim says that Mr. Veale and Mattghg are correct.  This one seems to be a matter of nitpicking. 

    Richard Carrier responds:

    I'm still not sure what they are saying is supposed to be an error here. The statement "The definition of ~h should just be 'h is false', right?" is a statement entailed by my statement. So they aren't contradicting anything I said. So what's mistaken? If any hypothesis exclusive of h is true, then h is false (by obvious deductive logic); therefore if ~h includes all hypotheses exclusive of h, then if any one of them is true, h is false (and conversely if h is true, all of them are false).

    The reason ~h must include all hypotheses that explain e (but that entail h is false) is mathematical: the sample space must be complete (you can't get a correct ratio if your divisor does not equal the total of all possibles). For example, if h is "Joe got rich by winning the lottery" and e is "Joe got rich" then ~h must include all the other ways Joe can get rich (each one of which can be re-framed as h, and then "Joe got rich by winning the lottery" must become one of the hypotheses included in ~h; as all hypotheses must be commutable this way, all hypotheses must be included in ~h). For example, if data showed that there are only 100 rich people, 10 got rich by winning the lottery, 80 got rich by business, and 1 got rich by space aliens, that leaves 9 unaccounted for. If you calculated the prior odds that Joe got rich by winning the lottery without those unaccounted possibles you'll get the wrong result: 10/91 when there are 100 rich people; if there are 100 rich people then the prior odds Joe got rich by winning the lottery must be 10/100, not 10/91; therefore those other 9 unaccounted for causes of getting rich must be included in ~h, even if you don't know what they are (this gets even more complicated when you address the fact that you can never have a complete sample, e.g. those 100 rich people aren't the only rich people there are, were, or ever will be; this is addressed, of course, with sampling probabilities, etc., but the mathematical fact remains the same that in any sample of 100, the frequency of x must always be x/100, which entails that all ~x must be accounted for, even if by sweeping categories like "unknown causes").

    This can be demonstrated formally by expanding the equation to multiple hypotheses (see my formula for that, it's in the same document: PDF p. 4, and p. 15, for expanding ~h into h1, h2, and h3, which can be continued to any h{n}). It can be shown that a sum of probability formulas for three (or any number of) hypotheses alternative to h necessarily equals a single probability formula for ~h alone; therefore a single ~h by definition includes all three hypotheses. This can be iterated to all possible hypotheses. It's just that most of them have a P(h|b) and P(e|h.b) so small we don't even need to count them, e.g. "Joe got rich by my spitting to the left on Wednesday" has a nonzero prior probability (by virtue of our non-omniscience) and a nonzero consequent probability (ditto), but each so small they can have zero observable effect to any decimal place we'd ever bother caring about (so we ignore them). But this still means ~h includes even that hypothesis, as a matter of necessary logic: e.g. we could give it a formula box in the denominator as h4, say, which entails that any single denominator for only ~h alone would have to include the numbers for this h4 (and therefore it always does, it just doesn't matter because those numbers are so small).

    But exactly what part of all that that they want to object to is unclear to me.

    Problem 3:

    Tim says:

    On p. 4, Carrier gives the following definition:

    P(~h|b) = 1 – P(h|b) = the prior probability that h is false = the sum of the prior probabilities of all alternative explanations of the same evidence (e.g. if there is only one viable alternative, this means the prior probability of all other theories is vanishingly small, i.e. substantially less than 1%, so that P(~h|b) is the prior probability of the one viable competing hypothesis.

    [...] what is wrong with the explanation being offered here?

    No one has answered this yet, but Tim gives a hint:

    [Hint: does viability have anything to do with P(~h|b)? If sub-hypotheses under ~h have non-zero probability given b, even though that probability is low, do they still contribute to P(~h|b)?]

    Mike responds:

    P(~h|b) = 1 – P(h|b) simply means there is a 100% chance one of the two is correct. Assigning "viability" to one or the other simply exposes your priors.

    To which Tim responds:

    You're in the zone -- have a peppermint -- but there's something more direct to be said. Every sub-hypothesis under ~h that has a non-zero prior given b contributes to P(~h|b). So to say that if

    the prior probability of all other theories is vanishingly small, i.e. substantially less than 1%,

    then

    P(~h|b) is the prior probability of the one viable competing hypothesis

    is just mathematically wrong.

    Richard Carrier responds:

    The statement is that *if* there is one and only one viable *alternative* hypothesis (PDF p. 4) then "the prior probability of all *other* theories" i.e. all theories that are neither h nor this one viable alternative "is vanishingly small, i.e. substantially less than 1%." Which is actually just a tautology (I'm simply defining "viability," and wholly uncontroversially I might add), so they can have no objection to it. They are mistakenly assuming "all other theories" means "other than h" when I am clearly saying "other than h *and* the one proposed viable alternative." Once that is explained to them they should concede the point. (I italicized the word "other" in both instances in the hopes of making this clearer, although it should have been clear enough already).

    Outro:

    Muehlhauser wants to save his intellectual reputation too prematurely it seems:

    When asked to guess at the competence in probability theory between two people who have been publishing peer-reviewed philosophy literature on probability theory for at least a decade [that would be the McGrews] vs. someone who discovered Bayes’ Theorem in the last few years [that would be Carrier], I’m going to bet on the former in a heartbeat.

    Unfortunately that's a false dichotomy from even a non-expert perspective since I pointed out that Carrier says he's had his stuff vetted by qualified people who generally approved of it with minimal changes.  The retaliatory Christians out and about on the internet on this issue are conveniently ignoring that (and continue to do so). Further, the disagreement between the McGrews and Carrier turned on miscommunication and not math competency, as Carrier and Lydia McGrew eventually agreed. 

    Ben

January 6, 2011

  • Does science show that atheists are angry at God?

    There's some survey information floating around the popular atheists blogs. 

    The Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta complains:

    I don’t know what questions Exline asked, but if the conclusion people are reporting is that “atheists are angry at god,” there’s either a problem with the questions, the interpretation of the results, or communication of what was actually found.

    This plays into a common Christian narrative that atheists validate the existence of God because of their emotional states.  Normally atheists respond negatively to the accusation and try to distance themselves from it with some intellectual move.  I recall that atheist Richard Carrier will quip: 

    Finally, [Christian apologist, David Wood] resorts to the ad hominem tactic of claiming I'm "angry at God" because my "mind has been poisoned by rage, and this rage has led to [my] irrational war against Christianity." I'm angry at someone I don't even think exists? That's like accusing me of being angry at Darth Vader.

    Um...I do get angry at Anakin Skywalker for betraying his wife, murdering children he probably helped to train, and being such a selfish wanker who falls for the Dark-side despite there being virtually a large neon sign saying "EVIL" floating over Emperor Palpatine. That dick move cost the galaxy a huge setback in moral progress. You can be angry at hypothetical people and I'm sure the mirror neurons are firing in pretty much the same way.  My investment in the plight of the characters from the original trilogy, having watched the films countless times in my youth, is predicated on the sins of Darth Vader.  When I think of how horrible Luke Skywalker's life was and how virtually the entire weight of setting the galaxy right again was laid upon his orphan shoulders (at the expense of having a normal life), Anakin's moral failings shine brightly.  So I can be rather moved by this anger at times when watching Revenge of the Sith.  

    Although in terms of "me and the Christian god" I've been more historically bitter that there isn't even a coherent concept of that god to even properly hate. It probably would have been a much more emotionally healthy transition into unbelief had I been able to be straightforwardly angry at that god.  One has to be able to model the mental states of a being plausibly enough to even get a direct emotional "lock." And needless to say there are just so many messed up things in the definition of god that I've been intellectually unable to disregard in favor of some simplistic sky daddy picture.  It's just too psychologically hard to do and so historically I've been unable to get that lock in some subjective sense.  I had similar problems as a Christian with just trying to establish a coherent stable relationship for lots of similar reasons.  Others were willing to make all sorts of unjustified arbitrary assumptions that could be completely different than the next Christian over and I just wasn't willing to do that.  The Christian god had to do his own job of interacting and I wasn't going to interpret him into reality in ways that I knew were so plastic as to be entirely useless.  I always knew it wasn't my job to make the Christian god my imaginary friend.  I lived with that lack of confidence for a long time in a Christian context...and then eventually push came to shove and I bailed. 

    I imagine other people less constrained by the plausibility of the entity in question who reject its existence are perfectly capable of being angry in ordinary senses at a god they don't think exists. I see no reason to fault them for this and I don't think this tells us anything about atheists other than that they are human and have historical emotional entanglements with their native religions.  Allah doesn't exist because of angry apostates from Islam.  The many gods of the Hindus don't exist because of the emotional states of their ex-believers.  The common denominator here isn't hard to discern in a naturalistic context. 

    Ben

January 3, 2011

December 23, 2010

  • Evidence for Documentary Hypothesis Sucks

    Intro:

    So for research purposes on my review of atheist, Paul Tobin's chapter 6 in "The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails" (TCD) on the "Bible and Modern Scholarship" I've needed to investigate more rigorously the documentary hypothesis (DH) since Tobin neglects to defend it in confrontation with his Christian critics.  Basically the idea is that the Old Testament, especially the first five books traditionally attributed to Moses (for the most part), are actually the work of at least 4 different later sources.  This is justified for a number of reasons, especially but not limited to various contradictions in the stories.  Tobin provides some in TCD that aren't exactly smoking guns and so I've gone looking for better examples.  And the prognosis on that front so far has not been good. 

    Tobin cites three books at Christian reviewer, Steve Hays to demonstrate his views represent the consensus, but those books (or the two I can look into via the internet) are much more summaries of conclusions rather than arguments for positions.  The wiki page on the DH has some references I've been looking into and one such reference gives two example pieces of evidence for the DH.  Both suck on the face of it.   

    Example 1:

    In section "C. Evidence for Composite Character," from The Anchor Bible Dictionary's notes on the Documentary Hypothesis, John Barton says:

    In narrative texts it may be impossible to extract a coherent sequence of events.  For example, in Gen 12:1, Abram is told to leave Haran after the death of his father, Terah.  According to 11:26, Abram was born when Terah was 70; according to 11:32 Terah died at the age of 205; hence Abram must have been 135 when he was called to leave Ur. But 12:4 says that he was only 75 when he left Haran. The difficulty is explained if the story in Genesis 12 is drawn from a different source from the genealogical information in Genesis 11. [emphasis mine]

    Impossible?  Only if you are making crap up.  It doesn't say in 12:1 (or any of the verses referenced) that Terah had to die before Abram left, so I don't see why Abram couldn't have left when Terrah was 145.  Mission Impossible?  Hardly.  Perhaps it is some kind of cultural taboo to ever leave your parents' household before they die and so that is just assumed into context?  Is there some Hebrew death phrase or play on words in 12:1 that doesn't show up in English translations?  Barton doesn't bother to tell us and that's pretty lame. 

    Example 2:

    The other bit of "evidence" presented is found in these verses:  1 Samuel 9:15-16; 10:1, vs. these verses:  1 Samuel 8:1-22; 10:17-19.  Basically the first point to the people being rebellious against Yahweh and getting a king out of it and the second set points out how Yahweh decrees it to happen.  There's no contradiction theologically since everything good and bad happens on Yahweh's watch and he uses it all towards his own ends.  Other stories portray Yahweh both hardening Pharoah's heart in confrontation with Moses and Pharoah hardening his own heart and not letting the Hebrew slaves go free in Exodus.  Theologically Yahweh is causing things and yet still placing blame on the human agent in use.  It's all part of the plan.  Even if the two sections in 1 Samuel were two accounts woven together the "weaver" could have been fully aware of the "contradiction" and thought nothing of it.  I doubt Christian apologists are impressed.

    Outro:
     
    This is not inspiring a lot of confidence in critical scholarship.  They phone all this in?  Or am I missing something?

    I'll keep digging into other examples until I find the best ones (assuming they exist).  If anyone wants to point me in the right direction of the best defense of the DH on the internet, please do so.  It would be especially nice if it were presented in light of conservative criticism of it. 

    Ben

December 16, 2010

  • (book review) "The Christian Delusion" - Ch. 6: The Bible and Modern Scholarship (part 1)

    Intro: 

    This series is an atheist's review of an important anthology critical of Christian beliefs called, "The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails" (TCD), that is likely to be popularly discussed across the web.  I'll be reviewing the book in light of just about every other response to TCD on the web (pros and cons) and responding to new Christian objections as I find them.  I think this will be the best that I personally can contribute to improving the online dialogue between Christians and non-believers on popular battleground issues.

    Chapter 6, "The Bible and Modern Scholarship" by Paul Tobin:

    First impressions:  This chapter covers way too much ground and doesn't appear to do it very well (since some of the problems are fairly evident in just a first reading).  It is barely argued, mainly asserted and takes for granted the perspective of the first four chapters, where in any other case, we'd just accept secular scholarship and dismiss every defense of supposedly inerrant magical books.  It is a summary of part of another book and Tobin references books that seem to be summaries of conclusions reached by scholars rather than the under-structure of those arguments.   In other words, Tobin opens up a huge cans of worms and leaves himself open to a lot of criticism even if every conclusion he touches on about the Bible and modern scholarship happens to be completely correct.  Many Christian reviewers simply pointed to other evangelical scholarship and said "they disagree."  Any Christian who has some investment in apologetics already and who took offense to the first 3 chapters and especially the "outsider test for faith" in chapter 4 will be unimpressed with Tobin's contribution to TCD (unlike Babinski's chapter 5 which stands on its own merits). 

    I will take each issue in turn to the best of my ability and call the debate as it stands presented in TCD vs. the all the responses from Christian reviewers.  As you can see from this post, I will be bringing the entire conversation to my readers, chunk by chunk and will use Christian reviewer, Steve Hays' 36 numbered points (that Tobin uses as well in his responses to Hays) and supplement that framework with the random tidbits less thorough reviewers have contributed.  The table of contents below will eventually be a full set of links for future posts (and I've thrown in some other links for basic reference purposes).  By the end of this survey hopefully it should be clear where each issue stands insofar as what is available online is concerned.  Arguments that require the supplement of books and unavailable academic papers will take a hit in terms of my provisional non-professional conclusions.  It's important though to see how things look through the eyes of the internet-only crowd and people who are in the know can easily figure out which chunks need to be online in the future and easily accessible to all.

    Table of contents for my review series on chapter 6 of TCD:

    1: Does Genesis 1 contradict Genesis 2 on when plants and animals are created?
    (see here and here) Tobin appeals to consensus authority on the validity of the documentary hypothesis to justify the probability of the contradiction, and Hays and others provide an argument that is persuasive, imo.

    2:  Does Genesis 6 contradict Genesis 7 in terms of the number of clean animals taken aboard Noah's ark?

    (see here)

    3:  Is Deuteronomy 23:3 an example of Biblically mandated racism?

    4:  Does Ecclesiastes contradict Proverbs?

    5:  Does James contradict Paul on the relationship to faith and works?

    (see here)

    6:  Is the young earth creationist version of Noah's Flood a scientific impossibility? 

    (see here)

    7:  Are parts of the Genesis story dependent on the epic of Gilgamesh?

    8:  Could Abraham have been from Ur of the Chaldees?

    9:  Could Isaac have met a king of the Philistines at Gerar?

    10:  Had camels been domesticated at the time of Abraham and Joseph?

    11:  How could circumcision set God's covenant with Abraham apart if all the other cultures were doing it, too?

    12:  Is the story of Moses a meaningful parallel with the story of Sargon?

    13:  Does the Bible give Moses' father-in-law three different names indicating different traditions?

    (see here)

    14:  Should we expect Moses' name to be Hebrew rather than Egyptian?

    15:  Does the uncertainty of the dating of Exodus matter to authenticity?

    16:  Is the Exodus historical?

    17:  Is the conquest of Canaan by Joshua historical?

    18:  Is the Hebrew monarchy historical?

    19:  Should we expect King David and King Solomon's empires to be vast (in contradiction to the archeological evidence)?

    20:  What's wrong with talking snakes and talking donkeys?

    (Covered previously here.)

    21:  Does the virgin birth of Jesus parallel other pagan stories?

    22:  Is Herod's massacre of the infants in the gospel of Matthew a fiction?

    23:  Should it have been God's intention to avoid infant massacres? 

    24:  Can the nativity of Jesus be discounted because it is the aggadic midrash genre?

    25:  Does Matthew contradict Luke on the nativity of Jesus (this is the census of Quirinus issue)?

    (see Richard Carrier's extensive article here)

    26:  Is Matthew 2:14-15's use of Hosea 11:1-2 an example of a fake/unfulfilled prophecy?

    27:  Does Matthew misuse Isaiah 7:14?

    28:  Does Isaiah 19:5-7 get the prophecy wrong about the Nile river drying up?

    29:  Does Isaiah 17:1-2 get its prophecy wrong about Damascus ceasing to be a city?

    30:  Does Ezekiel 26:7-14 get its prophecy wrong about Nebuchadnezzar conquering Tyre?

    (Covered here, though I somewhat side with the apologists on this one.)

    31:  Does Ezekiel 29:8-12 get its prophecy wrong about Egypt becoming uninhabited?

    32:  Does Ezekiel 29:19-20 get its prophecy wrong about Nebuchadnezzar conquering Egypt?

    33:  Does Jeremiah 36:30 contradict 2 Kings 24:6 about Jehoiakim, king of Judah, having a successor?

    (see here)

    34:  Did Paul expect the end of the world in his own lifetime?

    35:  Does the ecclesiology of 1 Corinthians contradict the ecclesiology of 1 Timothy and Titus?

    36:  Are many books (and portions of books) of the Bible pseudonymous?

    Continue reading →

December 11, 2010

  • Did kenedwards5 lie to JT about having a degree in science?

    In my opening speech, “Be a Challenging Diplomat” in a debate with zerowing21, I pointed out why firebrands should be angry that their conventionalized anger often gets in the way of reality and sabotages communication.  Phil Plait from BadAstronomy blog was criticized for not giving specific examples of how his infamous “Don’t be a dick” speech actually applied.  I provided other examples, but did not focus on JT specifically  in the debate.  Fortunately (I guess), it appears a recent online exchange of his has provided some rather cliche’ examples of where I see firebrands overdoing it (which is my main criticism of a tactic of moral condemnation which can be used justifiably).  

    This is what I said, quoting wiki on the effects of anger:

    Unlike other negative emotions like sadness and fear, angry people are more likely to demonstrate correspondence bias - the tendency to blame a person's behavior more on his nature than on his circumstances. They tend to rely more on stereotypes, and pay less attention to details and more attention to the superficial. In this regard, anger is unlike other "negative" emotions such as sadness and fear, which promote analytical thinking.


    And so, over on JT’s blog, we can see that JT has some firebrand-like stuff to say in his post “How science and academia work”:

    On top of that, lately BD2 has been vomiting up manufactured pride at how she's so proud of her sources (which are unscrutinized web sites, one of which even has the sinner's prayer at the bottom).  [...] most religions remain chained to a time when our understanding of the world was completely inchoate both scientifically and morally.  [...]   It is a simple enough concept to grasp, which makes it a little sad that so many amateur wannabe apologists don't grasp it.


    To which one Christian, kenedwards5, replies:

    You seem to know so little about science, academia or religion. So why write about them?


    In my debate with JT, I also quoted Tribalscientist saying:  

    A 1992 communications study by a leading researcher in the field of aggression and communication – Dominic Infante – looked into situations where argumentativeness and verbal aggression occurred together, and found that the more aggressive the speaker, the less credible they were deemed to be and less able to appear to present a valid argument[11].


    Prophecy confirmed, right?  JT is not entirely to blame since obviously kenedwards5 has been very vague.  Should we take it on his authority that JT doesn’t know much about what he’s talking about?  

    JT seems to have a reasonable message at the heart of his post, despite the firebrand packaging.  The world of science and academia is most characterized by sustained, well-rounded scrutiny by many knowledgeable people.  It is designed to be like that regardless of its failings.  When there is a consensus that comes out of that process, that is a strong indicator that the arguments supporting that position are probably the best we can hope for at this point in human history.   As non-experts we can’t hope to do better even if that consensus gets overturned at some point in the future.  Shouldn’t we be responsible and listen to their conclusions and at the very least grant them a higher priority over our ignorant intuitions?    

    That is the conversation that they should be having for the sake of everyone, imo.  What should non-scholars and non-scientists do with appeals to authority?  And further, what should other scientists and scholars do with the authority of other scientists and scholars on the many difficult and complicated areas of knowledge that they will never have the time to personally investigate?  That’s a delicate issue and has come up several times in my extensive review of the back and forth online discussion between Christian reviewers and the non-believing contributors to the anthology: “The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails.”  See here, here, and here.  

    If Christians have something responsible to say about the topic to non-experts on the authority of experts when it contradicts the Christian worldview (other than trust your arbitrary Christian feelings), I have yet to see it.  When science somewhere crosses the domain of religion and religion appears to lose on that point, why should ordinary folk listen to religion?  Why not the current consensus of experts?  Is it because we should trust God’s authority instead?  Well which god?  Which religion?  And how exactly should we understand the authority of say the Bible since there are many competing views and no Christian consensus on the matter?  

    How can an ordinary person be expected to figure this out if it comes down to listening to enough of the actual debates on all the issues this huge battle of worldviews inevitably brings up?  We can’t all be experts on everything.  If the Christian god wants us to be responsible with our ignorance, he does not appear to expect us to be Christians.  Just because that battle of worldviews happens to be one of my personal focuses in life, I don’t see how everyone can be expected to do that job.  The reality of science and technology is very easy to verify.  If you want to know the reasons for their conclusions, it is possible to investigate.  Obviously the modern world of experts have to have something going for it.  Worst case scenario, we might have to end up disregarding all intellectual authorities if we just don’t have the time to be experts on the topics.  Um, okay, but I don’t think we should be going out on religious limbs rather than admitting we just don’t know enough about a given topic to have beliefs worth defending on it.      

    Anyway, kenedwards5 claims this:

    I have degrees in both science and theology. My advice to JT would be to talk to people with a little less academic learning and a little more sense! You are very naive if you think the two go together! I have actually met people in the wilds of africa with far more sense than in some of our western places of learning! At colleges and universities I have noticed that common sense often isn't very common!


    JT decides that Ken is probably lying about his credentials because he thinks no genuine scientist would put down the accountability factor in science and they wouldn’t play up the folk wisdom of Africa.  Who would want to look that dumb?  And yet JT is quite familiar with other examples of say Francis Collins publishing his infamous triune waterfall conversion story.  That silly religious story doesn’t reflect at all on Collins’ ability to do genetics, does it?  But JT wants to call kenedwards5 out anyway:

    A degree in 'science', eh?  Didn't feel like going for a particular discipline (you know, the kind that universities tend to give out).


    I lost a friendly firebrand vs. diplomat bet with JT because the terms were that if Ken did not provide his credentials or simply vanished and was never heard from again, I would accept that as a win for JT.  But that’s just the bet.  In reality, this is an understandable reaction from kenedwards5:

    again I smile at your condescending naivity. 'I will give you a chance'. As if it matters to me what someone like you think about me! Just who do you think you are? You really have got one on yourself! It's really laughable and if you think I'll give details away on a site like this! Sorry but I'm not that stupid!! Just one hint - for goodness sake stop thinking you are the centre of the universe. And try and broaden your mind somewhat by considering other opinions different to your own. [emphasis mine]


    A Christian with a degree in physics who gets really lame when defending the relationship between the two and perceives a firebrand atheist as a threatening individual who may have ulterior motives is simply not an extraordinary claim.  Lo and behold Ken appears to have exactly that kind of philosophical position.  A Christian who is willing to lie in order to justify their faith does at least strike me as a more improbable claim than not (though not that improbable).  Even if this particular Christian is lying, he might as well not be since I don’t think JT can hope to argue there aren’t perhaps a million more scientists who are Christians who get irrationally defensive about the relationship of science and religion just like the “lie” describes.  

    Another aspect of the problem is that JT has insulated himself methodologically from getting to the truth of the matter.  If you are always on the war path, people with different values than you have are not going to trust you.  It doesn't make a lot of sense to blame them for reacting normally from their perspective to what you are doing. Habitual mockery and ridicule are risky.  And as JT conceded in the debate, you damn well need to make sure you are actually right.  And JT’s argument from silence is not strong.  I’m not the only person who has noticed.    

    My diplomatic prediction is that kenedwards5 mind will not be changed.  He probably has a degree in some science and he probably just doesn’t trust JT with personal information.  Ken will not be marginalized.  He will persist in “trolling” JT’s blog until he gets bored of it and probably not because of anything JT does.  JT will look kind of bad.  Most atheists who already agree with JT will continue agreeing with JT (on the actual topic and also JT’s version of the politics), and most Christians who already disagree with JT will continue to disagree with JT (on the topic and politics).  Perhaps some Christian who just so happens to be closely aligned with JT’s values will see the light regardless of whether kenedwards5 has a science degree or not and will change their beliefs just because of successful political theater.  That may happen eventually if JT does this kind of thing often enough.  But on the other hand (and more significantly) the divide between believers and nonbelievers has been reinforced.  Atheists walk away somewhat embittered because of kenedwards5's lame defense of NOMA (as though science has never once had anything to say about a single Christian claim).  Christians walk away somewhat embittered because of JT’s accusations and general pejorative rhetoric.  No real progress on anything important is actually made.

    And so my message here is that conventionalized anger is not a tool of communication that serves the skeptical community well.  Informal social controls in context of the internet are a poor way to get your message across the ideological divide.  Diplomacy is a universal virtue when spreading the proverbial seed of your message to the four winds.  Many different kinds of people are listening in and they are all at different points in their intellectual journeys.  We are not some nearly like-minded tiny insulated tribe out on the plains where in-group cajoling or “jeer pressure” might actually work out much more often than not.  Our ideological differences are intensified because of the nature of the internet just as much as our ignorance of one another is intensified because of the nature of the internet.  A worst possible construction-a-thon on each other’s character and intelligence born out of ignorance and stereotypes is simply not ever serving the conversations that need to happen.  Perhaps most importantly, we condition ourselves to get things wrong and are just as subject to the down side of impression management theory as everyone else.  

    Be a challenging diplomat instead.  

    Ben

November 9, 2010

August 23, 2010

August 17, 2010