No Evil Before Creation, No Evil After

The philosophical washing machine. It cleans dubious concepts until they look like "ideas you really ought to consider."

Philosophically-minded theists may think Alvin Plantinga dispensed with the logical problem of evil for all time back in the 1970s.

I disagree, but even if it were true, then we would have several more ways of looking at the problem of evil. In other words, it's still a problem.

Philosopher J. L. Schellenberg lays out the case for a new logical problem of evil. Basically, it runs like this:

1. God is the greatest possible being.
2. God's reality is entirely to be distinguished from that of any world.
3. Prior to creation (whether ‘prior’ be taken logically or temporally) there
is no evil in God of any kind.
4. There is evil in the world.

The fourth statement is logically inconsistent with the conjunction of the first three.

Schellenberg's reasoning hinges on statement #3 and the concept of prior goodness. Given #3 and the previous two statements, he says, what should have happened is "no evil before creation, no evil after."

But that's not what happened. We got evil. Therefore, something is wrong. Maybe it's with the way we think about God. Maybe it's the way we think about evil. Maybe it's our logic. But something's gone awry.

The whole paper is worth reading and thinking about. Some atheists will carp that the existence of God or something like God is asserted without evidence. They would be right, but the point of the game, as it were, is to assume God exists. Over 1,500 years of philosophical rumination on the question of God's existence forms the implied backdrop of what Schellenberg is doing.

Yet the really interesting comment comes at the very end, where Schellenberg suggests that maybe our idea of God is just wrong:

It is only because of its own special way of filling out the more general religious proposition I have elsewhere called ultimism – the idea that there is a reality triply ultimate: metaphysically, axiologically, and soteriologically – that theism gets into such trouble. Take away the assumptions of ONTOLOGICAL INDEPENDENCE and PRIOR PURITY and the game is on again – though it is likely to be a very different game.

This option, of beginning again, perhaps more humbly, with UNSURPASSABLE GREATNESS alone, is not one that atheists often mention. That is because atheists are usually also metaphysical naturalists, and thus opposed to all religious ideas. I think this orientation is mired in error. In part this is because I think we humans are still at the very beginning of what may be an extremely long process of religious adventuring on our planet. If that is so, and if I am right about the seriousness of the problem evil presents for theism, then not only should we be prepared to let go of God. We should also gird ourselves for religious explorations and discoveries not yet dreamt in any philosophy.

Schellenberg sure seems to be advocating a different kind of deity, super-great yet part of the world and not all-good. I'd love to get a theist's take on Schellenberg's proposal, but to me it seems that he unfairly thinks atheists--even metaphysical naturalists--would automatically reject the idea in full.

I consider myself a metaphysical naturalist. I would love to hear the argument for the existence of Schellenberg's unsurpassably great god that is part of the world and not all-good. I don't see right now how such a good would conflict with metaphysical naturalism, but it sure seems like such a god ought to be apprehendable and comprehensible. If so, my desire for empirical verification could be satisfied.

But this is my critique of Schellenberg: he doesn't address at all how we might get to his god, logically or empirically. He simply asks us to entertain the fluffy idea of "beginning again."

This is a problem because we atheists are always being called militant and hyper skeptical and disagreeable. So, if I'm not going to be a close-minded atheist, well, how exactly should I "begin again" with a workable god concept? You're the deep thinker, Schellenberg, so pony up with the goods. Again and again, we're advised to just close our eyes and imagine the best possible dude of all, and that's God.

No, it doesn't work that way. I reserve the right not to take the God idea very seriously until someone can offer evidence stronger than thinking about God really hard.

God's Violence and How to Avoid Facing It

Which dummy is speaking?

I recently posted on the human cruelty sanctioned by God--and, indeed, indirectly perpetrated by Him--in biblical passages such as Joshua 6:20-21.

Some of God's defenders point out that God can do what He likes with human life, as all life "belongs" to him. This apology is special pleading par excellence. As a student of literature I note that no other single character in all of fiction or history has been praised for violently and indiscriminately taking back what he has freely given.

Other God-defenders insist that those who were killed--including non-military, children, the old, the ill, and even livestock--deserved what they got. They did something, or didn't do something, and so God was morally justified to make Israel his instrument of genocidal brutality.

Biblical scholar Peter Enns suggests, following one of his mentors, that difficult passages such as Jericho can be rendered less problematic if the Bible is understood as God letting His children tell the story. He explains:

The Bible is what happens when God allows his children to tell his story–which means the biblical writers told the story from their point of view, with their limitations, within the cultural context in which they wrote.

When children tell the story of their father or mother, parents are typically delighted by how much they get and the childlike way that they see the world. But they are also well aware that children miss a lot when they tell the story, and invariably refract the complexities of family life through their own youthful vision.

It’s not a perfect analogy, I know, but roll with it: Think of how young boys talk in the schoolyard about how great their father is. They are ways of telling the story to make sure everyone knows they have the best dad around.

No, it's not a perfect analogy. And, uh, it's hard to roll with. I'll summarize some of the difficulties I have with Enns's approach, but here's a bit more of his explanation:

When God lets his children tell the story, the way that story is told is deeply and thoroughly influenced by the “rules of the schoolyard”; in the case of the Old Testament that means ancient tribal societies that valued in their people and in their gods such things as taking land, vanquishing (i.e., killing or enslaving) their foes, and generally bragging about who has the best gods and the best kings.

That is how people thought, and this “rule” is stamped all over the Old Testament. This is a way of understanding why the Bible behaves the way that it does. It bears the marks of the limitations of the cultures.

Bear in mind this is only an analogy, but if we want to extend this to the New Testament, we can think of the teachings of Jesus as a more “mature” telling of God’s story. Jesus tells the story in a way that is more in line with who God is (“you have heard it said, but I say to you…”). Such things as land acquisition and killing and enslaving enemies is no longer part of God’s narrative.

It’s like a boy who grows up to be an adult, gets a job, and has a family of his own. Now ask him to tell his father’s story. The son’s life experiences have brought him to a deeper knowledge and appreciation of his father’s experiences, and the story will reflect that.

What problem does the "schoolyard rules" approach solve? Well, it suggests that God really didn't do as much killing as the Bible says. It also indicates that He wasn't in full support of all the killing perpetrated by the Israelites.

OK, so maybe God ain't so bad. But wait. God's exoneration comes at a heavy price, for now we have to wonder how credible "His children" actually are. What else did they exaggerate? Could they have outright fabricated a story or even several stories?

Other problems: Did God approve of some killings and not others? Which ones? Was he OK with the killing of children but not livestock? How do we know?

More problems: Did God let His children tell the whole story or just parts of it? How do we distinguish God's telling from His children's telling, since they both use human language? Is it merely a matter of using the schoolyard rules approach when God does something that makes us uncomfortable?

Even more problems: Are other holy books from the world’s many cultures also re-tellings by God’s children? When re-tellings contradict, how do we adjudicate between them?

These are serious issues. Now take a look at the second section I quote. We see clearly that Enns has the ultimate concern of dropping the "OT" and getting to gentle Jesus. Jesus offers, Enns implies, a truer (what else could "mature" mean?) account of who God is and what He does.This approach reflects a longstanding Christian paradigm wherein the Hebrew Bible prefigures the New Testament. In other words, nasty genocidal God points the way to fatherly God sacrificing himself/his Son out of...love. Yes, love.

Hold on, for Houston, we have more problems. The teachings of Jesus are themselves re-told by the gospel writers. Are these to be viewed also by schoolyard rules? Should we then apply the same questions of credibility, structure, and speaker identification to these teachings?

Sigh.

Despite his cautions on using the analogy, Enns provides no clear statement of how it unambiguously succeeds. We're given the idea that it helps us to accept God's violence but this idea gets us nothing but momentary, visceral relief. Indeed, if we think about it, God's exoneration is passed off to the Israelites. Those kooky Jews were telling tall tales.

I suspect that momentary, visceral relief is all many believers want. Many will not pursue thinking about schoolyard rules and what their truth would entail for the Bible, biblical criticism, and belief.

Sometimes I wonder why people don't just make it easier on themselves and become deists. That way, they could just believe in a supreme being and dispense with having to maintain the authority of the Bible/New Testament.

If you want to believe in the Bible/New Testament, you simply have to accept that God is a huge douche and Jesus is a surly prick--these aspects are inextricable from the characters. Against the plain readings of the Bibles in their original languages and in their many conjoined historical and linguistic contexts, you cannot maintain uniform conceptions of God the loving father and Jesus the meek savior. The conceptions don't hold.

The Postmodernism Translator

James T. Kirk using the Postmodernism Translator to learn deep thoughts from the French.

Over at Why Evolution Is True, Jerry was having trouble with a paragraph from postmodern scholar Bruno Latour. I happen to speak postmodern, so the table below gives Latour's sentences on the left and my liberal translation on the right.

Latour

Tanner

In religious talk, there is indeed a leap of faith, but this is not an acrobatic salto mortale in order to do even better than reference with more daring and risky means, it is a somersault yes, but one which aims at jumping, dancing toward the present and the close, to redirect attention away from indifference and habituation, to prepare oneself to be seized again by this presence that breaks the usual, habituated passage of time. As to knowledge, it is not a direct grasp of the plain and the visible against all beliefs in authority, but an extraordinarily daring, complex, and intricate confidence in chains of nested transformations of documents that, through many different types of proofs, lead toward new types of visions that force us to break away from the intuitions and prejudices of common sense. Belief is simply immaterial for any religious speech-act; knowledge is not an accurate way to characterize scientific activity. We might move forward a bit, if we were calling “faith” the movement that brings us to the close and to the present, and retaining the word “belief" for this necessary mixture of confidence and diffidence with which we need to assess all the things we cannot see directly. Then the difference between science and religion would not be found in the different mental competencies brought to bear on two different realms—“belief ” applied to vague spiritual matters, “knowledge” to directly observable things—but in the same broad set of competences applied to two chains of mediators going in two different directions. The first chain leads toward what is invisible because it is simply too far and too counterintuitive to be directly grasped—namely, science; the second chain, the religious one, also leads to the invisible but what it reaches is not invisible because it would be hidden, encrypted, and far, but simply because it is difficult to renew.

Religious people take "leaps of faith" [in talking about the substance of belief]. But it's not just fancy, meaningless talk, and it's not trying for mere poetry or emotion. Instead, it attempts to articulate the wonder and extra-ordinariness of the present moment, of its present-ness. Where the events of our lives could be seen indifferently and as mundane happenings, in a religious frame the events are grand and worthy of amazement. Religious knowledge--that is, feeling sure that God exists, is watching, and is at work--is not like knowing in everyday life. It is, rather, a heroic assertion and a point of view that finds new and beautiful ways, every day, to confirm that assertion. The assertion, perspective, and continual connecting of the two make the knower a supremely open-minded learner. Religious belief therefore transcends ordinary speech. Language cannot convey the complexity of what the religious seeker is actually doing and learning in active seeking. Neither is the word knowledge appropriate to the learning done by anyone who actively looks at and in the world. Current discussions of religion and science might progress if we all shared a more nuanced understanding of the difference between "faith" and "belief." The more nuanced understanding would help locate the real difference between science and religion: the different cognitive skills and ideological commitments each brings to bear in inquiry. Science and religion are, in other words, different ways of knowing and and of advocating for personally held values. Science orients the thinker to the invisible reality that only mathematics and high-powered instrumentation can access. That reality is far from us and behaves in ways we often find counter-intuitive. Religion also orients the thinker to the invisible, but this invisible reality is the now, the unique present. It's here and close, but only momentary and unrepeatable.

Latour's prose is dense, but not inscrutable. Unfortunately, it's hard to be overly impressed with the logic of his grand--and beautiful--claims for what religion is, does, and knows.

For Latour, to be religious, to think in the religious mode, is to elevate oneself and the now. One is introspective and amazed to be part of a singular narrative in time. Every facet of one's life now is imbued with higher meaning and purpose. And exercise of religious thinking is equally noble and equally important compared to the exercise of scientific techniques.

His aspirations and dancing prose notwithstanding, Latour ultimately fails to make his case. Religious thinking and talk, by his characterization, are little more than very deep navel gazing. They are solipsistic exercises, the dramatic cry of one unable to escape time, and thereby death. In Latour's ornamented formulation, religious introspection re-states William Saroyan's famous quote: "Everybody has to die, but I always believed an exception would be made in my case." Religion is the fantasy invoked to come to grips with the fact that no exception will be made.

The Why Evolution Is True crowd notes, as I do, the rhetorical game Latour is playing: "science" is the standard, and Latour wants to bring religion up to or--even better--past the standard. Science has a presumed preeminence and authority he wants conferred also to religion.

It's a silly game, and unnecessary. Religion can be very beautiful. It can make one introspective, and it can yield breathtaking insights into one's life and one's moment. It can help one question common sense and one's own prejudices.

But religion really isn't like science and today bears no relation to it. There's no basis for comparing the two.

Religion is not about truth or knowledge, even self-knowledge. Rather, religion is about understanding, about feeling rationally justified to hold a certain view. The key here, as far as I can tell, is "feeling rational." We're not talking about pure rationality but emotional sanctification with the idea that one is intellectually attuned to forces at work in the universe.

Religion taps into an enticing fantasy, the fantasy of somehow knowing something. But it's just a fantasy. It isn't true, not in the sense of modelling, observing, or schematizing a phenomenon.

I wish people could be OK with that, with the fact that religion isn't true. After all, they can still go to church. They can still pray. They can still observe the rituals and special days. They can still read holy books and discuss teachings. They can still imagine heaven. They can still contemplate hell.They can still fantasize about knowing, all by themselves, deep secrets of the universe.

Religion does not need to be true for people to be interested in it, inspired by it, educated by it, moved by it. But it needs to be true if people are going to learn about the universe and about people.

And it's not true, so let's not ask it to be, and let's not try to extract knowledge where there is none to be had.

In the end, Latour's prose and point are ineffectual because they misguidedly inflate religion into areas it cannot influence. A reformed postmodernist myself, I hope my prose and my arguments are more compelling than his indulgent apology for the unsubstantive.

Kill 'Em All: God's Prerogative

The Biblical World notes an interesting discussion over Israel's capture of Jericho.

The story is well-known for the part where Joshua and the Israelite circle Jericho, blowing trumpets until the city's walls come tumbling down. My kids used to have a Veggie Tales video that framed the story as one of "doing it God's way, not your own." The vegetable Israelites trusted God by obeying the bizarre orders of Joshua. They brought down veggie Jericho and immediately made their way to the Promised Land.

Not recounted in the kid vid, and hardly ever in polite company, is the actual Biblical story. For example, here's Joshua 6:20-21:

20. And the people shouted, and (the priests) blew with the trumpets; and it was when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, that the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down in its place and the people went up into the city, every man opposite him, and they took the city.

21. And they completely destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.

This is, of course, an orgy of genocide and slaughter. It's indiscriminate--excepting the household of Rahab the harlot, whose aid of Israel is rewarded by their being spared. And it's all God-sanctioned: consider that what arouses God's anger is the later actions of one Achan, who does some looting in Jericho and sets back Israel's army. Achan pays for the crime with his life.

Now, some apologists bleat that Jericho had been warned beforehand. The city foolishly decided to oppose Israel; therefore, God was moral and Joshua was moral and Israel was moral to fuck up absolutely everyone and everything in Jericho.

Today, however, we can hardly accept such a feeble excuse. We know it's unfair to expect a city to surrender to an invading force. There's no way to reconcile the specific events recounted in the this chapter with an all-powerful, all-smart, human-loving deity. Surely such a God could have found a safer, saner method for achieving his divine purpose? For example, why not whip up a wall of sand--Exodus-style--on either side of Israel as they simply pass through Jericho unharmed?

But no, the God-apologists need to protect their idea of God by blaming the victims. Or, as John Piper does, the divine defenders just say genocide is fine...when God does it:

It's right for God to slaughter women and children anytime he pleases. God gives life and he takes life. Everybody who dies, dies because God wills that they die.

God is taking life every day. He will take 50,000 lives today. Life is in God's hand. God decides when your last heartbeat will be, and whether it ends through cancer or a bullet wound. God governs.

So God is God! He rules and governs everything. And everything he does is just and right and good. God owes us nothing.

"May I have another?"

Hallelujah, John! God can fucking kill anyone, anytime. He can stomp and maim until he's satisfied that He's killed enough. Heck, he can juggle the freakin' corpses and gargle their bones, and by definition it would be morally good and right.

And what's more, whatever the hell he decides to do to you, me, your little baby, your dear Aunt Sally, or whomever: we all should just thank him. He owes us nothing.

Piper's demented view is not far off from that of the odious Jewish convert, Jacob Stein. Stein believes that the Holocaust was essentially God's response to the Jewish Enlightenment in Europe.

It is true that I am implying that generally the victims of the Holocaust were sinners who were deserving of their fate however I believe that this is in fact obviously true and we will honor their deaths by learning from this.

In my opinion, the Holocaust is one of the strongest proofs of the truth of Judaism.

Stein has nothing to say about what the other millions of Nazi victims did to deserve their fate. Neither does he explain why American Jews, hardly known for orthodoxy, were spared. All he knows for sure is Haskalah-therefore-Holocaust. Bravo, Stein!

Piper and Stein agree that God uses human brutality to make his holy will known and to achieve his divine design in the world.

It's easy enough to dismiss abhorrent views such as those of Piper and Stein. Most of us, however, are unprepared to tolerate indiscriminate killing, genocide, and wanton violence. This is a good thing.

But come back to the Veggie Tales video I mentioned before. Remember what the decent little tomato and funny cucumber say: the right thing to do is what God tells you to do.

What they don't say is that God has sometimes told people to do some pretty awful and wrong things, if you believe there is a God to tell anybody anything.

Let me close with a modest proposal to leave vegetables for cooking and eating, leave God and the Bible in the fiction bin where they belong, leave moral decisions to rational minds, and leave genocide and slaughter altogether.

Heaven Can Wait

Warrant sang that heaven isn't too far away. In reality, you have to transform yourself.

Is heaven real?

No, of course not. There is a popular book claiming otherwise, but we have good reason to give the book little weight.

First, consider what something real is. It has a material existence. A microbe, a star, a color--all of these can be talked about as presences in the universe. If a color is the one questionable item in the above list, remember that it's a wavelength on the electromagnetic spectrum. So it is physical.

What about love? Love is traceable to chemical impulses in the brain affecting physical processes in the human body. Therefore, love too has a clear and direct connection to materiality.

What about an abstraction such as the number 4? Is 4 real? Yes, 4 can be encoded in material units: four sticks, four apples, four fingers.

Is heaven real?

Can we observe it directly and measure it? No.

Does it affect physical processes in the universe or in live beings? No.

Can it be encoded in material units? No.

Therefore, we are very justified in rejecting the idea of heaven.

But a popular book tells the story of a father, a pastor, telling the story of his son. Following recovery from a very serious illness, the son began to claim having visited heaven. The father and son both believe that the son visited.

The story is compelling. The father had been shaken in his faith. The son, so the father tells us, speaks with the authority of observation. What's more, as we so often get in stories of this type, the visitor to heaven comes back with knowledge "he could not have possibly known." We readers and hearers must take in the story and say, "Could it be so?"

Compelling as the story may be--I don't think it is, particularly--it's probably best not taken as evidence of heaven's existence. The story does nothing to bridge the gap from the idea to material reality. The human brain, awesome as it is, doesn't do a great job in helping us construct a full picture of reality or reconstruct remembered observations. Indeed, because we actively construct cognitive pictures, making us susceptible to all sorts of illusions, and actively construct memories, we ought to be especially wary of a second-hand retroactive claim about "observations" made in the mind.

Ultimately, the I've-been-to-heaven story is of a type we've seen since Moses came across the burning bush. It's 40 days in the desert. It's the light on the road to Damascus. It's Augustine opening his Bible. It's Bruce Wayne witnessing the murder of his parents. It's Iron Man escaping from terrorists in Afghanistan. The hero witnesses something amazing and becomes transformed into a different kind of person--a person with a specific mission and purpose.

That these stories help us little with establishing heaven is almost banal. The interesting question is what in our emotional make up drives us to feel compelled by them. Do we understand the father's doubt? His subsequent connection, through the son, with his god? Do we understand the son's recollection of a dream? His sense of being able to give something to his father, of being a source of power?

The impulse is to rally around the people and to partake in their transformation, not so much to believe the story. Surely, some people will believe the story and agree that heaven is real. But most folks, I think, will maintain an "I'm not sure" attitude while setting themselves in the community of people they think the father and son represent. The important thing to walk away with after a story such as the father and son's is "I'm a Christian, too," not "I really and fully believe in heaven."

The important thing is the transformation. That's what everyone sees. That's what everyone believes. That's what everyone feels. That's what everyone desires. And that's why the story compels.

But heaven still isn't real.

At Last, What Intelligent Design Theory Advocates!

 
Over at the Intelligent Design site Uncommon Descent, a commenter called Jerad has been asking what ID theory advocates for the origin of life and development of species.

His requests are often polite and specific:

I am not asking you for the designer’s name or address, just your idea about the methods and timing. We know quite a lot about the people who built Stonehenge: what they ate, some of their rituals, stuff you can’t get from just studying Stonehenge itself. There are lots of good books about prehistoric Britain if you’re interested. AND we do ask: why did they build Stonehenge? When? In stages or all at once? Why? Always WHY?? It’s what science does. Asks questions.

You asked me a few weeks ago about finding Stonehenge on Mars and I said: you bet I’d think it was designed. And then I’d immediately start asking those questions and looking for answers and more evidence. I couldn’t just let the deign inference sit there and be happy. I’d start digging. Quite literally in that instance in fact. I’d do some archaeology and look for the designer’s trash heap. I’d ramp up SETI trying to find a signal. I’d try and date the structure. I’d hypothesise (based on careful examination of the thing) about construction techniques. If someone left a Stonehenge on Mars I’d bet they left some other traces and evidence.

Here's a second statement clarifying what Jerad wants to know about ID:

I won’t ask about the designer but, surely, a core part of ID is when; when did the designer intervene. That at least should be answerable. That is the core difference isn’t it: Darwinism says: the ‘gaps’ were bridged by natural, observable processes. ID says: the designer bridged those gaps with knowledge and abilities we extrapolate from our own currently inadequate abilities. BUT, you haven’t said which gaps or when.

Although in that thread none of the ID proponents sketches out the narrative for origin of life and development of species, the comments give enough for a reconstruction. Here, then, is my summary of ID's theory of life:

Intelligent Design is a theory of common design. At some point in the distant past, an intelligent being released one or more organismic "seeds" on earth. Each seed presumably had been designed by this being--although I am not sure we can assume this--and introduced to earth for the purpose of living here. Although each seed is crafted to give rise to organisms with common features--such as teeth, eyes, brains, and so forth--they all represent different life forms. Some seeds are for plants or plant types. Some are for humans, some are for ostriches, some are for bears, some are for ants, some are for salamanders, some are for swordfish. And so on.  The evidence of design is found at the microbiological level, where cells and cell processes indicate that they should have resulted only from a prior engineering and manufacturing process. The cells and processes of living organisms must have been planned by a being, then assembled and finished into an integrated whole. These integrated wholes were used to seed the earth with life. Without these seeds, earth would have remained forever a lifeless planet of water and rock. Following the initial seeding, the organisms reproduced. Generation after generation, they grew in number and established various ecological balances in diverging populations across the planet. These balances shifted according to climate changes, as well as according to the dynamics of different populations growing, strengthening, migrating in or out, or contracting disease. Today, many of these populations are identified as species and subspecies, and various relationships among the species can be shown scientifically. Current biology mistakenly views the relationships between species as the result of (1) common descent and (2) evolution via natural selection. Current biology errs because the level of microbiological complexity required for life to appear on earth could not have happened without an intelligent being placing seeds here. Therefore, common design better explains all of the evidence.

I hope the account above accurately reflects the theory. I expect I have the broad outlines but am off in particulars. I appreciate correction. Nevertheless, it's important to have an articulated ID theory because I, for one, am not satisfied with the following:

When we see a known adequate process that leads to reliable signs, we have every good reason to infer that like causes like, and to hold that in the teeth of any and all contrary metaphysical speculations and doctrines that do not have that sort of empirical warrant. In other worlds [sic], we are well within our scientific rights to insist on the credibility of inductive generalisation on signs that reliably point to known adequate cause.

That is what design theory is about, and it is why in the end, once people realise what is at stake in rejecting it — driving the proverbial stake through the heart of scientific methods and empirical reasoning — it will prevail.

The above defends ID, claiming it makes reasonable extrapolations from observed reality. It also attacks modern science for being driven by unsupported assumptions about reality. For all I know, these arguments have merit; unfortunately, they do not answer the questions people want science to address: What actually happened way back then? How did it occur? What were the conditions and how else might things have turned out?

It is not enough to claim only "I infer design" because to infer design is to invoke a narrative. If X is the result of design, then some designer made X and brought X into being at a certain point in time. What's more, design implies intent: to some degree, X fulfills the designer's intentions both for what X is and what X does. It's not enough, then, to conclude design without also articulating the designer, the designer's purposes, and the historical conditions under which the design first appeared. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that design cannot be offered or accepted as a serious hypothesis unless it affirms a designer, argues purposes, and establishes historical conditions and parameters.

Because ID proponents tend not to provide the sorts of details that Jerad asks for, ID continually comes across as incomplete and pallid criticism. From the thread I link to, anyone might question how much experience Jerad has with the biological data. Nevertheless, one clearly sees that his position is one that encompasses a totality of known data. ID rests on almost pure induction and seeks--seemingly--to keep design from being entirely ruled out.

*  *  *  *  *

Years ago, as a theist starting to buy into the arguments for atheism, I looked to Intelligent Design for a reasonable alternative to atheism. I thought ID might give good reasons to think our world was not without God or gods.

But Intelligent Design failed right away. I realized quickly that it would not give me what I wanted, which was a plausible, clear, evidence-based explanation of the world--including reasons for keeping the idea of God/gods. After all, if there were a good reason to think intentional design was part of life's origins, then there was also good reason to think God could have been the designer.

Unfortunately, ID's proponents, sites, and books provided no scientific development of the theory. Few people, least of all biologists, were applying ID to a full range of data from fossils, genetics, biogeography, morpohology, and so on. One could not enroll in a biology program at a university and study with an ID theorist. One could not open an academic biological journal and read about current findings in ID.

I saw, then, that ID was marginal and almost completely static. In its efforts not to identify explicitly with religion and creationism, it offered no definite theory of anything. It argued that "Darwinism" had failed and that "materialism" had thoroughly corrupted the practice of modern science. But it gave no explanation or narrative of the first design processes and subsequent processes.

Well, now we have an explanation and narrative. Once it's properly tweaked by ID advocates, we can have a real basis for assessing which accounts of life on earth best fit all the data. One final takeaway, then, is that ID postulates not a simple creationism. In the end, it is creationism and an argument that creationism can be rationally and scientifically warranted.

I suspect that people who buy into ID do so because they want to hold onto creationism. Sure, I suppose there is reason to dislike or be unimpressed with evolutionary science, but I find it hard to believe that one accepts ID simply because one is anti-evolution. No, I think one accepts ID out of rational necessity: these are people who know the Bible falls short of truth, who despise the middling ground of agnosticism, and who are repulsed by atheism.

These are, I imagine, some very conflicted conservatives--people whose intellects are at war with their values.

I'm Dreaming of Some White Christians

I mentioned recently that I was all "meh" on religion these days. It's true. I don't feel inspired to comment on matters of religion and atheism right now. Part of the problem is that I very much want to say something original. I want to get into issues. I don't simply want to link to stories or other blog posts, and I don't want only to point and laugh at religious beliefs.

Here is a story worth thinking about, an advertisement for a "white Christians" gathering in Alabama. MSNBC reports:

A three-day whites-only religious conference — which will conclude with a flaming cross — in Lamar County, Alabama, has some residents upset at the racist implications while the minister complains that his freedom of speech is being violated.

"Yes, we believe that the Europeans and their descendants are the chosen people of God," according to the website for Christian Identity Ministries, which is holding the event with Church of God’s Chosen. "We believe this, not because we think that the white race is superior, but because there is overwhelming proof in support of this belief. We do not back down from this belief, because we are certain."

Some local residents learned of the July 4-6 gathering after the group posted fliers promoting their fourth annual pastors conference, announcing "All White Christians Invited," according to a report by WBRC in Birmingham.

"It was put up throughout the town in the middle of the night. (It was) when everyone was asleep without the permission of the business owner," said Tyler Cantrell, manager of Norris Music in nearby Winfield, Ala., the report said.

According to the flier, the three-day conference, being held in a rural area, will end with a "Sacred Christian Cross Lighting Ceremony."

From this story, the feature that strikes me first is the distinction:

• European Christians (and descendants) are God's Chosen.
• European Christians are not superior to Christians of other races.

My Jewish background gives me some perspective on the "chosen" issue. The teaching from the rabbis was always that "chosen-ness" was a bad use of terms. God honored Israel by giving the Torah to them, and through them to humankind. They told us that being Jewish was not a matter of superiority but a matter of priority: we were the first to know God and His Holy Law, and to know a mission for ourselves to be a light unto the nations.

Now, this ministry says that Israelites (and by extension, modern Jews) have been replaced by European Christians. Co-opting the chosen-ness idea is hardly new. I once attended a speech by Louis Farrakhan that claimed Black Americans were chosen. The DNA of Abrahamic religions seems to hold this pernicious idea that a single swath of people has more of God's favor than other peoples.

While it's not surprising that this group claims the mantle of God's favor, it is unexpected that they insist not to be racist. There is "progress" here, in a sense. They seem not to conceive of Black people as the enemy. They seem not to consider Jews, Muslims and Asians to be lower or lesser humans. In the Alabama flier, the "Sacred Christian Cross Lighting Ceremony" reads to me as a specific attempt to divest cross-burning from its associations with KKK and their anti-Black terror campaigns.

Is the ministry racist? Of course. But they certainly are conflicted. They like being white and feel it's pretty cool. They may even feel as though the world-at-large doesn't (or no longer, to put the matter into narrative form) value racial whiteness as it should. Yet they also sense the moral wrongness of racism. They want racial coherence and perhaps insularity; they also tolerate the diversity of the world beyond their group. And so, they bury their racism by downplaying how great it is to be white and chosen--it's the "Mo' money, mo' problems" argument.

That tolerance has ugly limits, though. This ministry is fully certain that it stands closest to God's favor and intentions. It has "overwhelming proof." I wonder: If you are a Christian and you think this ministry is wrong, how do you go about showing them? How do you refute their "overwhelming proof," and how do you know that you are not the one who's wrong?

Let's close by hearing some of the comments on the story. One person says:

Alabama. 'nuf said.

This, of course is not helpful, although we all get the joke. I think the good thing that atheist criticism can add here is to ask whether this event is strictly provincial. We atheists ask whether the exclusion of this group is really so different from exclusive practices that are normal to mainstream Christianity: exclusion of women, homosexuals; the insularity of church leadership; the place of Christians generally at the top of the holy heap, above Jews and Buddhists and atheists.

Another comment:

These people obviously didn't get what Jesus was trying to say.

Riiiight. Because Jesus was saying what YOU say he was saying.

But let's continue. Here's the inevitable tu quoque:

And did the Black Caucus or The Black Law Students Association get the message too. Or maybe you need to attend a meet of the African Americans For the re-election of Obama and ask them if they got his message. Don't tell me you don't know of all of these organizations. Maybe you know the Black Panthers then. This is just the same people doing their usual racist things....but they are not whites...Right!

So tell me I am racist now....I'm not black and I am tired of everyone like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton telling me I'm racist because I'm white and not black too......get over it. We are not all black here it this country. Just look at the President....he's not all black either. Is he?

Here's the history buff chiming in:

Overwhelming proof? Really? Don't know how to break this to you Rev, but "the white race" (my ancestors) were pagan until they were dragged kicking and screaming into Christianity; ever heard of Charlemagne? Charlemagne, or "Karl the Butcher" as he was lovingly known by the Saxons, force converted Western Europe just as Jesus would...by torture and murder. So tell me, with that history, and being that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam originated in the middle-east, and each of the three claim to be God's "chosen" people...what could possibly be your overwhelming proof...ROFLMAO!!!

One more comment on how one bad Christian group does not Christianity make:

There is no such thing as a All white Christian gathering. If your not reaching out to all... your not reaching out at all.

All they are doing is trying to get news. That church (if you can call it that) been around for awhile and now they made front page on a left leaning site... wow.

Don't even try to associate all Christian with this ... All real Christians denounce this and so do I. It their deal not Christs.

There are more comments I could post, including the ones on how Jesus was dark-skinned and Jewish, on how we all came from Africa, and inroads to Obama/Romney. But it's time to sum up.

The takeaways from the story are (1) that co-opting earlier identities, narratives, and status (as in connecting myself or my group to Israel at Sinai) is part of what religion enables; (2) that overt, hostile racism and bigotry may be on the decline; and (3) we have lots of stock responses to stories like the "white Christians" gathering, but the gathering is really just one manifestation of what groups do (setting 'in' and 'out'-group boundaries) and of what seems endemic to Western religious thinking.

Book of Love

Family fun: We write our own book.

My middle child turned six years old this week. She's a very bright and sweet girl, self-assured and quiet. Like me, she's a homebody and an introvert. I have looked  closely at her this week. Her growing up fills me with more emotion than I think I can handle.

I get nearly as emotional concerning my two other children, but our relationships are different. The older girl is, by virtue of being first-born, the one whose growing up is most comfortable for me. As she grows, so do I: it's like we are on an adventure together. My boy, now four, is a wonder because of his autism. Although he's the baby of the family, I think of him as a little man and see his growth as just filling into what I know he will be.

Then there's the wife. She and I are getting older. We feel middle age coming on. Our lives are not monotonous or boring, but rather stable and muted. This is good. In her, I still see the girl who used to link arms with me when we walk, the girl who got a certain twinkle in her eye whenever she saw a baby. She's come a long way in managing her depression and setting herself up for a transition from stay-at-home mom to working woman. She's as beautiful as ever.

I've become all meh on religion. There's too much God and Jesus stuff in the house, but I have more important matters to think about than the biblical blah-blah. I know everyone in the family but me is a believer and a Christian, but I won't be surprised if the religiosity slowly tones down to nothing in the coming years. My presence in the house must pose questions everyone has either to ignore or face:

• Why isn't there any evidence in favor of God's existence?
• Why don't facts about the world/universe lend themselves to God as an explanation?
• Why is there no good evidence of miracles?
• Why is there no good evidence of the extraordinary events concerning Jesus, such as his birth, miracles, and resurrection?
• Why do the so-called proofs of God's existence and the apologies for Jewish and Christian doctrines fail to complete what ought to be clear slam-dunks?

Besides, all the "God loves you" and "Jesus wants you to bleh" stuff butts up against the reality of Christian doctrine: You are a sinner who better beg for forgiveness. The more polite expression of the doctrine is that humanity is fallen and needs grace to be reconciled, but my formulation is no less accurate and may be the truer representation of attitude.

In short, I have the luxury of being meh about religion. Eventually, everyone will have a WTF moment on this. If anyone cares to share the WTF with me, I'll be ready to listen.

Hasidic Pedophiles and Pederasts. Yep, It Can Happen Here.

Hey rabbi, check out the sexy boy in the third row.

Crimes against children by adults who claim to live the word of God are not new. Many religions have demons, and the ultra-Orthodox Jews are no exception. Most deny it could happen in their midst. Child rape and molestation don’t fit their pious image.

"The (ultra-Orthodox) Jews are no exception." That's the point. And by understanding that point, abuse of children and minors can be stopped everywhere.

On the CNN pages, the following part of the story is the most interesting:

The Hasidim in Brooklyn are a powerful voting block. That’s why District Attorney Charles Hynes is accused by victims’ rights advocates of going easy on alleged Hasidic child molesters and rapists. He’s been elected six times, and is accused of appeasing the rabbis in order to get their support and keep his position.

Hynes strongly denies the allegations. In 2009, he established a program and a hotline to help victims called Kol Tzedek (“Voice of Justice” in Hebrew). But critics are outraged because he refuses to disclose the names of the men arrested through the initiative. The Jewish Daily Forward’s request for the records filed under the state’s Freedom of Information Law was denied.

Hynes claims that revealing the names of the suspects could lead to the community identifying the victims and intimidating them. That decision raises concerns about the rights of the public, the legality of shielding the men, and the DA’s motives.

Tuchman asked Hynes how he reconciles instituting a policy for the Hassidim, but no other groups, like the Roman Catholic Church. He says because “there’s never been any intimidation by priests.”

In a May 16 op-ed, Hynes wrote:

Since the inception of Kol Tzedek, we have made 95 arrests; 53 cases have been adjudicated, with a conviction rate of 72%.

I stand by these numbers.

The statistics show how absurd it is to suggest that we cover up, downplay or in any way “give a break” to sex offenders in the Orthodox Jewish community. Like any other defendants, they are often arrested in public by the police, and their court appearances are open and available to the public as part of the public record. I welcome scrutiny of these cases.

The suggestion that I have ever condoned the practice of first seeking a rabbi’s advice before an Orthodox Jewish community member reports sexual abuse is a distortion of my record. I have never suggested that someone seeking the advice of a rabbi is then relieved of the obligation of reporting sexual abuse to the appropriate authorities.

While some may persist in protecting the community ahead of justice for the young victims, there are signs of progress. On June 10, a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews held a meeting in Crown Heights to talk about combating child sex abuse. Hynes was on the panel. Some rabbinic leaders have said anyone with knowledge of abuse should go to the police and do not need to talk first with a rabbi. It will take the courage of the victims and the compassion of the community to make lasting change.

Hynes ought to disclose names of people arrested through Kol Tzedek because ultra-Orthodox Jews are no exception. What's more, the interests of a single community do not outweigh justice for our society's most vulnerable.

Magical Thinking: Sometimes You Just Gotta Believe

This past weekend, I chilled out on the couch with my kids. We watched a program re-telling "Jack and the Beanstalk." In this version, Jack receives the magic beans from a roadside vendor. The vendor advises that the beans only work if you believe in magic. The tale's hero, of course, believes in magic.

The "you gotta believe" idea--what I call the magical thinking trope--appears a lot in kids' movies and shows. When a story uses magical thinking, the character who doesn't believe or who is skeptical always gets shown up by the power of belief. For instance, the heroine who knows in her heart there is a "diamond castle" that can be called into existence by singing a song--she will prevail. In another program, the skeptical character will eventually be forced to admit that there are powers beyond rational and scientific explanation.

I don't see the point of putting magical thinking out on TV like this. Maybe it has something to do with an ideal of childhood--a time when magic seemed real and wonder abounded. But I think the producers have it wrong. Look at most any Bugs Bunny cartoon, universally smarter and funnier than today's kiddie pablum. In these animated shorts, humor comes from the fun of being able to violate reality. In the classic Bugs joke, he defies the law of gravity, but then notes he never studied law.

Bugs cartoons play with magical thinking; they never take it seriously, and never promote it as a life value.

The magical thinking of today's kiddie media comes with an ugly downside, too. When you tell the little darlings that magic is real you also tell them monsters are real. They have to accept both. The world of fairies and demigods by necessity includes sorcery and demons. The world of Jesus is the world of Satan. The world of the faithful is the world of infidels. You open their hearts to both wonder and terror; you cannot shut out the scary.

In contrast, a world without magic is a world where power comes from the mind, the will, the body, the community, the resources, and the technology. Who manages these is best positioned to influence the world. There are no magic spells in this world, only knowledge and power. There are no hidden helpers, only one's friends and one's network. There are no gods to please, only a society to contribute to. There are no devils to resist, only bullies.

There is both wonder and terror in this world, too. There is scary. The difference is that we are part of it all. In the magical world, the dram of good an evil happens on some other plane, hidden from us except for the magic that brings it out.

There's no need for magical thinking. We can have fantasy movies without bolstering general superstition. We can dramatize positivity without advocating miracle-dependence. We can promote imagination and creativity without endorsing irrationality.

Reality may be scarier than fictional monsters, at least at times and for some people. But reality is certainly far better than magic.

20 Questions for Religious Believers

Warning: These questions may induce deep reflection and a search for hard evidence:

1. Why is the physical universe so unimaginably large?
2. Why would God desire to create embodied moral agents, as opposed to disembodied minds (such as souls, spirits, or ghosts)? Why is the human mind dependent on the physical brain?
3. Did Australopithecus have a soul? What about homo habilis? Homo erectus? Neanderthals? Why or why not? (HT: Keith Parsons)
4. How do souls interact with physical matter? Do you have any answer that is not tantamount to "I don't know?" (HT: Keith Parsons)
5. Why would God use biological evolution as a method for creation? Do you have any answer that is independent of the scientific evidence for evolution?
6. Why are pain and pleasure so connected to the biological goals of survival and reproduction, but morally random? For example, why do sentient beings, including animals which are not moral agents, experience pain or pleasure that we do not know to be biologically useful?
7. Why do only a fraction of living things, including the majority of sentient beings, thrive? In other words, why do very few living things have an adequate supply of food and water, are able to reproduce, avoid predators, and remain healthy? Why do an even smaller fraction of organisms thrive for most of their lives? Why do almost no organisms thrive for all of their lives? 
8. Why is there social evil, i.e., instances of pain or suffering that results from the game-theoretic interactions of many individuals? 
9. Why does God allow horrific suffering (and relatively little glorious pleasure)?
10. Why does horrific suffering often destroy a person, at least psychologically, and prevent them from growing morally, spiritually, and intellectually?
11. Why is there nonculpable (reasonable) nonbelief in God? Why are there former believers, i.e., people who, from the perspective of theism, were on the right path when they lost belief? Why are there lifelong seekers? Why are there converts to nontheistic religions and especially nonresistant believers who arrive as a result of honest inquiry at nontheistic experiences and beliefs? Why are there isolated nontheists, i.e., people who have never so much as had the idea of God?
12. Why do some believers feel there is evidence for God's existence on which they may rely, but in which God is not felt as directly present to her experience, and may indeed feel absent?
13. Why are there such striking geographic differences in the incidence of theistic belief?
14. Why do only some people have religious experiences? 
15. For those people who do have religious experiences, why do they pursue a variety of radically different religious paths, none of which bears abundantly more moral fruit than all of the others?
16. Why do so many people report not experiencing God's comforting presence in the face of tragedies?
17. Why does the the relatively new discipline of cognitive science of religion support the claim that forming beliefs about invisible agents including gods is very natural for human beings?
18. Why does God allow such confusion or disagreement among people, including theists, about what is morally good and bad?
19. If you believe humans have free will, why would humans have free will if God exists? Why are we able to exercise free will in some situations but not others?
20. Why should we believe that, of the innumerable deities worshiped by human beings over the ages, yours is the one that really exists?  Why believe in Yahweh rather than Zeus, Odin, Marduk, Ishtar, Osiris, Quetzalcoatl, Madame Pele, Ahura-Mazda, etc., etc., etc.? (HT: Keith Parsons)

The Children's Crusade, Then and Now

When I saw the video below of a child being applauded in a church (namely, the Apostolic Truth Tabernacle Church in Greensburg, Indiana) for singing "“Ain’t no homos gonna make it to Heaven”--

I was reminded of the Children's Crusade of 1212. Wikipedia introduces it as follows:

The Children's Crusade is the name given to a disastrous Crusade by Christian children to expel Muslims from the Holy Land said to have taken place in 1212.

The traditional narrative is probably conflated from some factual and mythical notions of the period including visions by a French or German boy, an intention to peacefully convert Muslims in the Holy Land to Christianity, bands of children marching to Italy, and children being sold into slavery.

The 1213 Chronica Regiae Coloniensis relates events this way:

In this year occurred an outstanding thing and one much to be marveled at, for it is unheard of throughout the ages. About the time of Easter and Pentecost,4 without anyone having preached or called for it and prompted by I know not what spirit, many thousands of boys, ranging in age from six years to full maturity, left the plows or carts which they were driving, the flocks which they were pasturing, and anything else which they were doing. This they did despite the wishes of their parents, relatives, and friends who sought to make them draw back. Suddenly one ran after another to take the cross. Thus, by groups of twenty, or fifty, or a hundred, they put up banners and began to journey to Jerusalem. They were asked by many people on whose advice or at whose urging they had set out upon this path. They were asked especially since only a few years ago many kings, a great many dukes, and innumerable people in powerful companies had gone there and had returned with the business unfinished. The present groups, moreover, were still of tender years and were neither strong enough nor powerful enough to do anything. Everyone, therefore, accounted them foolish and imprudent for trying to do this. They briefly replied that they were equal to the Divine will in this matter and that, whatever God might wish to do with them, they would accept it willingly and with humble spirit. They thus made some little progress on their journey. Some were turned back at Metz, others at Piacenza, and others even at Rome. Still others got to Marseilles, but whether they crossed to the Holy Land or what their end was is uncertain. One thing is sure: that of the many thousands who rose up, only very few returned.

Today, it seems the foundational events are apocryphal and the crusading group was made up of poor people in Germany and France, some of whom tried to reach Jerusalem. It's not clear how many, if any, bona fide children launched or participated in the crusade.

Now, there is not much connection between the video and the crusadeoutside of the shared idea, "children," which, as we know, probably doesn't really attach to the Children's Crusade.

In both cases, however, Christian belief establishes a context for seeing the "homos" or the Muslims as "other." The other can be the object of jokes, even jokes that delight in the idea of a group of people eternally receiving punishment and being denied love. The other can be the object of military and political action, as in influencing others through force to change their opinions and way of life.

And although the Children's Crusade of 1212 may not have involved children centrally, we have no doubt that religious communities of all sizes love to put children on the front lines. Get the children believin' and prayin' and preachin' while they still accept doctrine on authority. While they still believe in magic. While they still care about gaining approval. This remains true today as it did in 1212.

Historical Jesus Is Here!

R. Joseph Hoffmann has issued the The Jesus Process, a series of essays (one by him) discussing the historicity and non-historicity of Jesus, and the processes of scholarship used to adjudicate between historical arguments on Jesus.

This is a moment of supernova-esque importance because, for the first time that I know, the public (indeed, the world) has quasi-direct access to academic scholars in the process of making scholarly arguments. This is not a journalist's report of an academic conference or paper. This is not a mass-market book made by an academic. This is not a non-academic book challenging academic scholarship.

This is the academy on the "home turf" of the public. This is the opportunity for the academy to show how and why its professionalism serves the world better than amateur scholarship in books and blogs. Now, alert readers may note that one of the three essay writers, Stephanie Louse Fischer, is a graduate student and not yet a professional academic.

Nevertheless, professionalism is what is at stake in this academic volley against prominent mythicist bloggers. This essay series puts professionalism at the center of its concerns. The facts, the knowledge, the inferences and interpretations all serve the application of professional methodologies and techniques. The final outcome of these essays and their aftermath will be both the definition of professionalism and the professional viability of mythicism. This is why the moment is so fascinating.

I am very excited about this moment and these essays. I plan to read and analyze every one. I encourage others to do so, too. From there, we on the sidelines will await what I am sure will be an equally momentous reply from Richard Carrier. There may be other mythicists, academic and non-academic, who chime in on The Jesus Process essays, but now that the essays are out, Carrier is the man. Initially, no reply will matter more than his.

Indeed, the credibility and reputation of non-academic scholarship may rest on what Carrier does with this opportunity. If Carrier can make a strong scholarly case in favor of both his use of Bayesian techniques and his mythicist position, he will have achieved something very significant and unique in modern scholarship.

But Hoffmann's essays are determined, make no mistake about it, to go after Carrier and expose his mythicism as less than professional grade. One of the essays of The Jesus Process is by Hoffmann, a long piece called "Controversy, Mythicism, and the Historical Jesus." In it, he promises that the weight of history is "decisive" in favor of the historicity of Jesus. On this point, Hoffmann offers his thesis as follows:

It is my view, simply stated, that while facts concerning the Jesus of history were jeopardized from the start by a variety of salvation myths, by the credulity of early believers, by the historiographical tendencies of the era, and by the editorial tendencies of early writers, the gospels retain a stubbornly historical view of Jesus, preserve reliable information about his life and teachings, and are not engulfed by any of the conditions under which they were composed. Jesus “the Nazarene” did not originate as a myth or a story without historical coordinates, but as a teacher in first century Roman Palestine. Like dozens of other Hellenistic teachers, but lacking sophisticated “biographers” to preserve his accomplishments, Jesus is distinct only because the cult that formed around him perpetuated his memory in ritual, worship, and text, while the memory of other attested personalities of antiquity, even those who enjoyed brief cultic popularity like Antigonus I, Ptolemy I and Demetrius of Macedon are known to us mainly through literary artifacts.

You'll have to read the rest of the article to see how Hoffmann defends the thesis. Let me note, however, that Hoffmann's use of the gospels in his argument may have similarities with the narrative-based methodology employed by Joel S. Baden for the Pentateuch. Both Hoffmann and Baden are interested in immediate sources of religious texts. Hoffmann argues that a person, the subject of the texts, is probably a source for his texts; Baden argues that earlier, separate versions are the sources for his.

In addition to the positive case for the historical Jesus, Hoffmann holds the mythicist position "as fatally flawed and subject to a variety of objections." Here, Hoffmann's thesis is, well, devastating:

The attempt of “mythicists” to show that Jesus did not exist, on the other hand, has been largely incoherent, insufficiently scrupulous of historical detail, and based on improbable, bead-strung analogies.[1] The failure of the myth theory is not the consequence merely of methodological sloppiness with respect to the sources and their religious contexts; that has been demonstrated again and again from as early as Shirley Jackson Case’s (now dated) study, The Historicity of  Jesus (1912). It is a problem incipient in the task itself, which Morton Smith aptly summarized in 1986: The myth theory, he wrote, is almost entirely based on an argument from silence, especially the “silence” of Paul. “In order to explain just what it was that Paul and other early Christians believed, the mythicists are forced to manufacture unknown proto-Christians who build up an unattested myth . . . about an unspecified supernatural entity that at an indefinite time was sent by God into the world as a man to save mankind and was crucified… [presenting us with] a piece of private mythology that I find incredible beyond anything in the Gospels.”[2]

As I said, Hoffmann's essay is long, yet it's well worth careful reading and re-reading.

So, grab your popcorn and read up. I won't say "This is gonna be good," because it already is good.

The Suffering Spouse: A Story of Religious Melodrama

Woe is me! How much I suffer!

I consider myself a "New Atheist" because when I assess the effects of mainstream religious beliefs on the world, religion more often than not appears to be harmful.

The harm shows not only in criminals like the pope or in the violence of religiously motivated groups, but also at a very basic, everyday level. At Spiritually Unequal Marriage, a website for Christians married to "non-believers," a woman writes an open letter to the community:

I remember when I came across your site. I was so thankful that I was not alone! I think the most powerful thing that you and Dineen [i.e., Lynn and Dineen, the site owners] have done lately is to post honestly and transparently. Women in these marriages WANT to have hope but they also don't want to necessarily hear that others in "unequal" marriages are thriving and joyful etc. That may sound strange but for the most part unequal marriages suffer, greatly.

This woman wants to be part of a community...of suffering! She will hear nothing of couples happy and satisfied in "unequal" marriages but prefers to dwell in sadness and difficulty.

As the woman continues, see how religious beliefs give her life a context with a narrative based on war/struggle and characters such as the devil:

And truthfully if the marriage is unequal the home has a constant open doorway for the devil. He is always welcome and WE must do battle continually. We may get "breaks” the fog may lift to some degree but the battle is continual. For those of us in marriages where there are serious addictions the battles are that much more intense. The need to cling to the Lord is that much more necessary. I think your honesty lately is revealing more Truth than ever. Because the truth is, we may live our entire lives with our spouse and they may never be saved. The hardest thing to grasp in these relationships is that it is not God's WILL that ALL be saved. It is His desire and He woos and calls people to Himself but He gives them the free will to love Him in return.

This poor woman imagines herself a solitary warrior in her own home. She mentions "addictions," so perhaps she or a loved one (likely) has substance issues. True enough, plenty of people never shake their addictions. More than anything, this woman seems trying to cope with the uncertainty of the addict. Her reality is an allegory of the religious: one may not be saved from addiction as one may not be saved religiously. The final result is beyond her ken and control, even beyond--to some extent--her loved one's control. The woman invokes God because she wants SOMEONE to be in control. The idea of God covers over the unpleasant scenario of no one having intelligent governance over her affairs.

Yet, the idea of SOMEONE being ultimately in charge, even if that someone is God, does not comfort the woman. It costs her to feel part of a purposeful universe, and that cost is separation from her loved one:

This is so difficult for us who have loved ones who are unsaved. At times, I find myself with a lump in my throat, my spirit crying out, and pain that goes deep beyond description, as I watch my loved ones walk further and further away from the Lord. Yet, at other times, there is great peace and there is a sweet surrender. It is then that I realize the peace that Christ had. He mourned those who are lost but pressed forward into God's will, trusting the entire world to God's sovereign care. Jesus prayed that God would "make another way" but prayed nevertheless, that God's WILL be done. God's will called for Christ to die. This side of the Cross we don't argue with God's decision. On the side of the Cross where Jesus' mother Mary kneeled God probably seemed to be failing His people in more ways than they could imagine. But, He knows what He's doing. We must remember that Jesus said . . .Matthew 7:13-14:

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

My great peace has not come from giving up hope.
I cling to the Promises and I declare:

"But I will keep on hoping for your help; I will praise you more and more"
Psalm 71:14

In each successive paragraph, the woman toggles between grief and sad resignation. True, the notion of God keeps her from falling into an emotional abyss. However, she would do much better to discard the idea of God altogether.

God and Bible quotes give her consolation, but the potential for happiness lies outside of God and the Bible. If she were not so preoccupied with the "spiritual warfare" scenario, she would have no worry of the saved/unsaved problem. This problem would not exist. She would own her life and her life choices. She would understand that her decisions and actions would be able to help her feel better about her life. Although she would never be able to control her loved one's addictions or know if he would re-lapse, she would be able to adopt a proper "we'll deal with it if it comes up" attitude.To ditch God would be to claim her life in the present.

For this reason, I find that atheism better allows one to compartmentalize. In contrast, religion encourages an awful combination of ceaseless naval gazing and self-flagellation. This woman seems driven to see and open her own wounds:

I pray continually for the salvation of my husband and my loved ones but my hope is not in that outcome. If I hope in that I will find myself disappointed. But if I hope in God, trusting that HE knows best even if that means that He must allow some of my loved ones to turn away from Him then, I will not be disappointed. Just as Jesus' Disciples were not disappointed at the resurrection! So, I guess to make a LONG email short, haha. I just think that the more you share your struggles, the more power you will see in your ministry. God will not force ANYONE to love Him. If He did then the love He offers would not be love at all. You can't FORCE someone to love you. Therefore, each person may choose. Though it is difficult for saved spouses to watch, their unsaved spouse may continue to drift back and forth. It is the power of God moving. Yet, in the end it is the decision of their heart and yes, God allows it. Because of His great love.

Those who have engaged in any sort of discussion with religious people know the familiar fallback, "you must freely choose to love (or fear or submit to) God/Jesus." The fallback, again, says more about the woman's fear and need to cope.

Indeed, the woman says almost nothing of substance about her loved one. In the end, her message has nothing to do with her loved one or God/Jesus. It's all about her and her oh-so-valiant struggle to fight the devil. It's about her telling us to look at her and admire her being tied to the train tracks.

She's like the lyric from the Offspring's great song, "Self Esteem":

The more you suffer,
The more it shows you really care.

And this is where I have a real problem with this woman's outlook and the religious context from which she draws. All of her "suffering" is self-inflicted and totally unnecessary. Any moment she really wanted to, she could remove herself from her marriage and just get along with her life. She could, and she'd probably be happier. Look, I take marriage and divorce very seriously, but when the two people in the marriage are not happy they should separate.

It takes more than love to make a happy marriage. It takes attitude, communication, effort, flexibility, giving, reflection, teamwork, and more. In a happy marriage, no one is "suffering" because of the other partner. On a personal level, there is no freaking way I would ever want or allow my wife to suffer because of me--and I'm sure she feels the same way. We didn't get married to be sources of suffering to each other; we married to be constant sources of comfort, encouragement, and support. For this reason, marriage partners do not need to share the same religious beliefs any more than they need to support the same political candidates or parties.

But if your beliefs or your politics cause you pain if your spouse isn't in the same camp, then you need to re-assess those beliefs and politics. And if those beliefs and politics turn out to be more important to you than your spouse, then break away from the relationship. I doubt your spouse wants to be a pre-text for your suffering.

New Atheism looks at some types of religious narrative--such as that of a world engulfed in spiritual conflict--and religious characters--such as the devil--and argues that these are not only ungrounded but poisonous. The woman who wrote the email I've examined here is one case, but notice all the assent and agreement she gets in the comments section. Instead of advising the woman to chill out and then do something productive for herself, the comments are all of a "me too" variety (although there are some disagreements on bits).

If suffering is avoidable, it should be avoided. If happiness is attainable, it should be attained. These statements seem commonsensical, but in practice we often act against common sense.

Rabbi Shmuley on the Disabled

A collage to illustrate a bit of the man.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is a celebrity clergyman, notable mainly for an ignominious association with pop-star Michael Jackson and for a best-selling advice book called Kosher Sex. His latest book, Kosher Jesus, is causing some undulations in the worldwide Orthodox Jewish community because the orthodox don't want to hear anything having to do with Jesus--and Boteach is apparently running as a Republican for a spot in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Recently, he wrote in the Huffington Post on why God allows some to be born with mental or physical disabilities. This seems to be the payoff paragraph:

I have no idea why G-d would allow any child to come into this world with severe mental or physical disability. What I do know, however, is that He shouldn't. Children deserve to be born with all their faculties and with all their abilities. All children deserve to be healthy. Those who come into the world with mental handicaps are, of course, beautiful children, the equal of every healthy child, deserving of infinite love, equality and rights. Indeed, given their special needs they require more of our love, more of our attention. What they do not deserve, however, and what they certainly have never earned, is our contemptuous effort to justify their suffering and their challenges by ascribing them to some unknown and lofty divine purpose.

This explanation is remarkable for several reasons:

1. "I have no idea." This line of thinking might be considered refreshingly honest. Nevertheless, the statement runs counter to what religion is fundamentally supposed to offer: resolution into a larger, purposeful order. This statement confesses total ignorance where many others would soften the admission to "The Lord works in mysterious ways." I cannot see how such a confession would satisfy many people, who generally want to think of their clergy as knowing the intentions of the supreme being. Perhaps Boteach thinks confessing ignorance allows him to relate better to a person in pain, but I imagine that one reason a person would consult a rabbi is to be led from pain to a better sense of normalcy.
2. "He shouldn't." I imagine that many Christians raise their eyebrows at this statement. They cannot handle criticizing the supreme being because it violates the celestial hierarchy. People have no standing and insufficient knowledge--allegedly--to challenge anything the Yahweh does. I find the audacity of the statement silly, mainly because it contradicts the earlier "I have no idea." You cannot claim that X is morally wrong while not knowing God's reasons for doing X--unless you care to admit that God can commit wrongs.

3. "Children deserve to be born with all their faculties and with all their abilities. All children deserve to be healthy." This is bullshit. When Boteach says "All children deserve to be healthy," I hear the response from Clint Eastwood's character in the movie Unforgiven: "Deserve's got nothin' to do with it!" None of us deserves health, just like none of us deserves tallness, a zit-free adolescence, natural gifts in music, or x-ray vision. We "get" health by a fortunate convergence of body development, mental and physical traits, and external social perception of normal health.
4. "Those who come into the world with mental handicaps are, of course, beautiful children, the equal of every healthy child, deserving of infinite love, equality and rights." I don't believe Boteach here. Maybe I'm unfair, but he comes across like the person who professes not to be racist--just before launching into a vicious black joke.
5. "What they do not deserve, however, and what they certainly have never earned, is our contemptuous effort to justify their suffering and their challenges by ascribing them to some unknown and lofty divine purpose." Boteach is just posturing here with trumped-up moral outrage. Trying to justify suffering--and I by no means grant that disabled people by and large experience life as suffering--can hardly be called contemptuous. Many people justify suffering as a way to cope: we sympathize with a person or their family but don't feel like it's enough. I have no idea by what right Boteach describes disabled children as "suffering." Surely, he's projecting, but he doesn't know what he's talking about. Disabled people and their families find and make happiness. It happens all the time. What's more, plenty of so-called "normal" people are very unhappy.

Boteach's is a muddled and ill-conceived article, and while the man tries to position himself as bringing religion's reason to modernity, what he delivers is essentially a secular ethics that retains reference to traditional religion:

Why does God allow the innocent to suffer? I have no idea. He shouldn't. But our job is to fill in the empty spaces G-d seemingly vacates in His universe and to act in G-d's stead, being as human and loving as we can.

The notion of God here ends up as a huge, unnecessary distraction. People need to step up and act, Boteach says. People must assume the role that otherwise would be reserved for God because God is apparently out of the picture. Boteach is but a scintilla away from jettisoning God altogether: God's not protecting innocents and not minding the store here on earth. Why keep the fucker?

Theology or atheology aside, Boteach's passage above shows the unfortunate fact that he focuses not on the disabled and the realities of their lives but rather on "normal" people like himself. He preaches to "normal" people, for "normal" people, teaching them how to sound properly enlightened. With this focus and armed with religious opinions, he wrote an article that he thought said something, maybe even something profound. The article actually added nothing but detritus.