Monthly Archives: September 2012

Don’t Move the Goalposts, Again

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Christian apologists often bring up unresolved scientific questions and usually conclude with, “Well, if you can’t answer that question, Christianity can! Clearly, God did it.”
Consider questions like: Why is there something rather than nothing? What came before the Big Bang? Why does the universe look fine-tuned for life? How did life come from nonlife?
If you can’t answer those, the Christian can.
Admittedly, there is no scientific consensus on these questions. But a century ago, Christian apologists pointed to different questions if they wanted to put science in the hot seat: Okay, Science, if you’re so smart, how could heredity be transmitted from just one tiny cell? What causes cancer? Where did the universe come from?
And centuries before that, the questions were: What causes lightning? Plague? Drought? Earthquakes? It used these questions to argue that Christianity had answers that science didn’t.
But not only is science the sole discipline that has ever provided answers to questions like these, increasingly only science can uncover the questions. That is, the apologist pretends to inform science of questions that science discovered itself.
If in hindsight “God did it” was a foolish response to the questions of previous centuries—the cause of lightning and disease, for example—why offer it now? Why expect the results to be any different? Wouldn’t it be wise to learn from the past and be a little hesitant to stake God’s existence on the gamble that science will finally come up short?
What’s especially maddening is science-y apologists like William Lane Craig putting on an imaginary lab coat and ineptly fiddling with beakers and turning dials, playing scientist like a child playing house. He imagines himself strutting into a community of befuddled scientists and saying with a chuckle, “Okay, fellas, Christianity can take it from here” and seeing them breathe a sigh of relief that the cavalry has finally come to bail them out of their intellectual predicament. He imagines that he can better answer questions that his discipline couldn’t even formulate.
This reminds me of the fable about Science scaling the highest peak of knowledge. After much difficulty, Science finally summits and is about to plant his flag when he looks over and sees Theology and Philosophy sitting there, looking at him. “What took you so long?” one of them says. “We’ve been here for centuries.”
Uh, yeah, Theology and Philosophy can invent claims, but Science does it the hard way—it actually uncovers the facts and makes the testable hypotheses. It gets to the summit step by careful step along the route of Evidence rather than floating there on a lavender cloud of imagination and wishful thinking. Religion is like the dog that walks under the ox and thinks that he is pulling the cart.
To the Christian who thinks that science’s unanswered questions make his point, I say: make a commitment. Publicly state that this issue (pick something—abiogenesis or the cause of the Big Bang or fine tuning or whatever) is the hill that you will fight to the death on. Man up, commit to it, and impose consequences. Say, “I publicly declare that God must be the resolution to this question. A scientific consensus will never find me wrong or else I will drop my faith.”
If the Christian fails to do this (or rather, when he fails to do this), he then admits that when his celebrated question du jour is resolved, he’ll discard it like a used tissue and find another in science’s long list of unanswered questions. He admits that his argument devolves to, “Science has unanswered questions; therefore, God.” He admits that this is just a rhetorical device, stated only for show, rather than being a serious argument.
He’ll just move the goalposts. Again.

In science it often happens that scientists say,
“You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,”
and then they actually change their minds
and you never hear that old view from them again.
They really do it.
It doesn’t happen as often as it should,
because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful.
But it happens every day.
I cannot recall the last time something like that
happened in politics or religion.
— Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address

(This is a modified version of a post originally published 11/16/11.)
Photo credit: George Hoffman

Public Challenge: Show Me a Miracle

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I recently listened to an interview with Dr. Gary Habermas on the “Christian Meets World” podcast. Habermas talked excitedly about the evidence for miracles. He claimed that eight million Americans have had near-death experiences. And if you’re open to this evidence, why not that for the resurrection of Jesus? They’re the same afterlife, after all.
Habermas cited Dr. Craig Keener’s Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts (2011), in which are documented hundreds of recent miracle claims. Some miracles have MRI evidence documenting the before and after medical conditions. In one instance a spleen was surgically removed but then reappeared after prayer. He guesses that there are 100 million miracle reports from around the world.
When Habermas debates atheists and brings up this evidence, famous atheists have no comebacks. They’ll handwave but have nothing better than, “Well, people report crazy things.”
These are bold statements. Provocative statements. In fact, I feel a challenge coming on.
I publicly challenge Drs. Keener or Habermas to pick their favorite miracle claim and submit it for public analysis.
Gentlemen: out of the hundreds of claims in this book or the millions of claims worldwide, take your best-evidenced claim for a miracle. This wouldn’t be something that’s a known puzzle for modern science (cancer that went away for no obvious reason, for example) but something that science says can’t happen—maybe an amputated limb that grows back. Forget the hundreds of claims; bring the evidence for just your best one.
I see four possible outcomes of such a public critique.
1. The evidence is not researchable. Not all of the evidence exists or it’s impossible to access, or for some other reason a complete story can’t be put together. Maybe records have been destroyed, red tape prevents them from being accessed, the documentation is written in Turkmen or Quechua or some other inaccessible foreign language, or witnesses are inaccessible or deceased.
2. The evidence crumbles. We have a complete story, but the evidence isn’t sufficiently reliable. We can’t be sure that records weren’t deliberately tampered with or memories haven’t faded. Maybe we have the statement of just one person without corroboration or a claim from someone without the relevant qualifications (a layman making a medical diagnosis, for example). Maybe human error can’t be ruled out (inadvertently putting the x-ray from patient X into the folder for patient Y, for example).
3. We find a plausible natural explanation. That story about the spleen that was removed and then reappeared? Spleens can grow back. Amputated limbs that regrow? There have been such claims—the 1640 “Miracle of Calanda” is one example—but, as Skeptoid has shown, natural explanations are sufficient to explain the evidence for this claim. Prayer that stopped an epidemic? As I reported a few months ago (“Claims that Prayer Cures Disease”), the epidemic had run its course by the time prayer started.
Any plausible natural explanation defeats the miracle claim.
4. We have a complete case, and natural explanations are less plausible than a miraculous explanation. This is the happy outcome that Habermas expects.
After public analysis of the Best Claim, I predict that we would see outcome 1, 2, or 3. And once we do, my next prediction is that Messrs. K. and H. will drop that claim like a used tissue and burrow through their files for another one.
Lather, rinse, repeat. Over and over. “Oh, you don’t like that claim? Not a problem—I got plenty more.”
As with UFO sightings, lots of crappy evidence doesn’t equal a little good evidence. It’s just a big pile of crappy evidence.
Gentlemen, may I encourage you to respond to my challenge? You know how to reach me.

Messrs. K. and H. assure the public
their production will be second to none.
— The Beatles, “Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite”

The Prayer Experiment, Week 1

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It’s been seven days. Since seven is the number of completion, I’d like to review how Week 1 of the Atheist Prayer Experiment has gone since I started.
I’ve been keeping a diary in which I’ve jotted the thoughts that came to mind during each prayer. There’s little to report, though the experienced Christians may be amused at my inexperienced approach.
It’s tough to stay focused, and items from my to-do list often float by … a TV in the next room is distracting … I prayed while driving to a church small group meeting, and it made me a more considerate driver … how is simply making myself open to the Deity’s input different from making a specific request? … What if someone saw me—would I be embarrassed? … I imagine calling out to the man in the dark room (from Mawson’s paper).
I’ve been trying to avoid criticisms of the process of prayer itself. I’ve posted about that before and have more to say, but this isn’t the place.
My original post has gotten a lot of comments, and many are from people who object to the entire experiment. What’s been a little surprising are the negative comments from Christians. Do they not know that a Christian organization is behind this? Are they anticipating no conversions and trying to downplay the quality of the experiment so they can tell us, “I told you so” when nothing happens?
They may be jumping the gun. Organizer Justin Brierley (“Atheist Prayer Experiment – Day 4 Update”) reported that one of the participants dropped out because the very act of researching the experiment made her conclude that, “I need Christ in my life.”
About 70 atheists are participating. As an actual scientific experiment, I’ll agree with most of the criticisms raised. But still—could a Christian ask for anything more? Given that I can’t say, “Father, I believe; help my unbelief,” what would a Christian propose instead? From the Christian standpoint, this sounds a lot better than any practical alternative.
The experiment is more than just praying. It asks participants to remain “as open as possible to ways in which that prayer could be answered.” The closest I’ve come was on Day 5, where I was working with a volunteer team at a local Boys and Girls Club. When I came home, I realized that I’d lost my red plastic “Good Without God” wristband that I’ve worn continuously for a couple of years.
Hmm—was God telling me something? But if so, what was it?
Maybe God was saying, “You can’t be good without God!” Maybe he was saying, “That’s what you get for helping a worthy organization! Do it again and I’ll punish you worse.” Maybe this was a general caution to be more attentive to my surroundings so that I don’t lose things like this again.
Even if this was a divine action, we haven’t established that this was the work of the Christian god, and an action as vague as this might mean different things coming from different deities. For example, red in Hinduism is associated with Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and beauty. If she did this, maybe the message was, “Thank you for the red wristband. You will be rewarded.” And so on.
Interpretation is in the eye of the beholder. I’m not satisfied with finding a pleasing interpretation and running with it. Most intellectually appealing is the option that there is no supernatural message at all.
This reminds me of the numerology behind the predictions of our old friend Harold Camping (I’ve written about Brother Camping here and here). He concluded that the time from Jesus’s death until the beginning of Armageddon on May 21, 2011 (oops!) was 722,500 days. But 722,500 factors nicely into 5² × 10² × 17². Jumping into the highly accurate (or completely nonsensical, depending on the authority) science of numerology, 5 = atonement, 10 = completion, and 17 = heaven. So May 21 was the day of (Atonement × Completeness × Heaven) squared. Pretty cool, eh?
But even if you’re on board with Camping’s nutty project, how do you interpret this curious factorization? How about: Since Jesus atoned for everyone’s sin, and the human project is now completed, welcome into heaven, everyone! Why is this any worse than whatever Camping imagines?
And who’s to say what these numbers mean? Why doesn’t the 5 bring to mind the number of stones David picked up before he battled Goliath and suggest his doubt that God was going to help him? Why doesn’t 10 refer to plagues?
I’d rather stay on firm ground. I’ll leave the interpretations to the Jungians and the Tarot readers.
As a parting thought, let me share Mr. Deity’s admission that he doesn’t answer prayer.

Look—if somebody prays to me and things go well, who gets the credit? Me, right? But if they pray to me and things don’t go well, who gets the blame? Not me!
So it’s all good. I’m going to mess with that by stepping in? Putting my nose where it doesn’t belong?

Good deeds are the best prayer
— Serbian proverb

Photo credit: Wikimedia

Mrs. Jesus

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You’ve probably heard of the papyrus document christened by some “The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife.” That’s a big title to put on a scrap the size of a credit card, but note that most of the handful of papyrus manuscripts dated to the earliest days of the church aren’t much bigger.
The phrase of interest in the manuscript is, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife.…’”
Was Jesus saying, “Take my wife, please”? We don’t know the context because the scrap has just 33 words on both sides.
The document is written in Coptic and is thought to have come from the fourth century CE, but it appears to be a translation of a Greek document from the second century.
Though the document has declared authentic by some experts, more work remains before the relevant scholars can reach a consensus. One of the most compelling arguments in favor of its authenticity is that very few people would be able to create such an excellent hoax. The hoaxer would have to be a scholar himself.
On the other hand, this isn’t beyond consideration. The provocative 1973 discovery The Secret Gospel of Mark is thought by many to be a hoax created by the very man who first reported the find.
Many Christians have been eager to discount this discovery. Not only might it be a forgery, there are other issues.

  • “Wife” could simply be a metaphor for the church. This would fit with Gnostic thinking of the time. For example, the third-century Gospel of Philip suggests that Jesus and Mary Magdalene weren’t just work mates.
  • Scholars know nothing about where the manuscript came from, which denies them an important source of evidence to consider.
  • This is thought to be a fourth-century copy of a second-century document. Even if this is authentic, there’s a lot of distance between this document and the historical events. Changes can be added by copyists, and no one knows how the story might have evolved over the decades from Jesus to the original document.

The second century was a time when marriage was debated within the church. The apostle Paul discouraged children. He made clear that marriage was second best and that chastity was preferable (1 Cor. 7). Marriage wasn’t even a Christian sacrament until the twelfth century. The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife could be an important data point in our understanding of the changing views of marriage in the early church.
The Christian commentary that I’ve read is antagonistic to the idea of a married Jesus. That shouldn’t be surprising, I suppose. There’s a lot at stake here. The Roman Catholic Church has reiterated its ban on both women and married men as priests, using the life of Jesus as a model. A married Jesus (which, after all, would have been the state of a typical Jewish man during that time) might also add weight to the Adoptionist view of the early Jesus, where Jesus was simply an ordinary man who was adopted by God because of his sinless devotion.
But Jesus being married shouldn’t cause too many problems since his dad was married as well. Like Father, like Son? The solitary Yahweh is a late development, and before the Babylonian exile (586 BCE), Yahweh was often paired with Asherah (or Astarte, Ashtoreth, or Ishtar). This pairing is explicitly seen in extra-biblical evidence, but we do see clues within the Bible. King Josiah reformed Judaism to allow only Yahweh worship, but these reforms document that Asherah worship happened within the Temple (2 Kings 23:4–7).
Here’s what I find odd about Christian pushback against this new evidence. They skillfully point out the weaknesses in the argument, and good for them. Our goal should be to set agendas aside and discover if this document is genuine and, if so, what to make of it. But why can’t they be just as skeptical about the tenuous claim that the gospel of Mark was written by a companion to Peter, who was an eyewitness (I explore that here)? Or be that skeptical about the “Why would they die for a lie?” claim that the apostles’ martyrdom points strongly to the historicity of the gospel story (I explore that here)?
We all have our biases. Maybe the many Christians who play both sides of this question—earnest about evidence they like and skeptical about what they don’t—honestly don’t see the hypocrisy. But then my job is to gently tell the Christian that he’s got something green stuck in his teeth.

Life is not a warmup.
Live, learn, love, life.
— Randy Rumley

Historians Reject the Bible Story

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You never find the details of the Jesus story in a history book, like you would for Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great. Why is that? Why is the Bible not cataloged in the library in the History section?
Christians correctly point out that the historical grounding for the Jesus story has some compelling points. For example, there are not one but four gospel accounts. The time gap from original manuscripts to our oldest complete copies is relatively small. And the number of Bible manuscripts is far greater than those referring to anyone else of that time.
The enormous difficulty, however, is that historians reject miracles—not just in the Bible but consistently in any book that claims to be history.
Remember the story of Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon? The historian Suetonius reported that Julius saw a divine messenger who urged him to cross. This is the same Suetonius that Christians often point to when citing extra-biblical evidence for the historicity of the Jesus story.
It’s a fact of history that Suetonius wrote about the messenger, but this miraculous appearance isn’t actually part of history.
Remember Caesar Augustus, the Roman emperor who reportedly ordered the census that brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem (Luke 2:1)? Augustus was himself divinely conceived, and he ascended into heaven when he died.
These reports are part of history, but the events are not.
Everyone knows about Alexander the Great, but legends about his life grew up in his own time. Did you hear the one about how the sea bowed in submission during his conquest of the Persian Empire? Or about how ravens miraculously guided his army across the desert?
Ditto—miraculous reports don’t make it into history.
The Alexander story is a plausible natural story with excellent supporting evidence (coins with his likeness, cities with his name, stele with his laws, the spread of Hellenism and the creation of the successor empires, records of his conquests from outsiders, and so on) and a few miracles. The natural part is the noteworthy part; the miracles don’t add much.
Compare this to the Jesus story, an implausible story of a god documented by religious texts and without any supporting evidence. Jesus didn’t leave any writings himself, there is nothing from contemporary historians, and later historians record only the existence of the religion. With this story, only the miraculous part is noteworthy.
Strip away the miracle claims from Julius Caesar or Caesar Augustus or Alexander the Great and you’re left with precisely the story of those leaders that we have in history. But strip away the miracle claims from the Jesus story, and you have just the story of an ordinary man—a charismatic rabbi, perhaps, but hardly divine.
Christians argue that we should treat the Gospel story like any other biography of the time, and I agree—but I doubt they will like where that takes them.

I am the punishment of God …
If you had not committed great sins,
God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you
— Genghis Khan

(This is a modified version of a post originally published 9/6/11.)
Photo credit: Wikipedia

Where is the Islamic Renaissance?

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In the late 1500s, Japan had more guns than any European country, but that ended as Japan entered a self-imposed isolation that lasted over two centuries. This peaceful Tokugawa period was the time of the shoguns and samurai.
That changed in 1853 when U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry appeared in Tokyo Bay with his black ships and demanded that Japan open up as an international trading partner. Realizing that trade was preferred to colonization, Japan signed treaties with many Western powers. By 1868, the emperor became more than a figurehead with the Meiji restoration. Japan began an aggressive period of industrialization, and this former insular country defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. It had become a world power.
From shunning outside influences to mastering them in 50 years—pretty impressive.
Let’s compare that Japan with another region of the world: the Muslim world of the Middle East and North Africa (I’ll refer to this region as MENA). Japan showed that a country can change a lot in 50 years if it is dedicated, and we’ve seen a lot of change in MENA. The Middle East became the world’s largest oil producing region 50 years ago and now receives about $800 billion per year from its oil. So how has MENA used its 50 years?
We can evaluate countries on governance and democracy using Country Indicators for Foreign Policy data, which considers six criteria: democratic participation, government and economic efficiency, accountability, human rights, political stability, and rule of law.
The MENA countries don’t fare well. Half are in the worst 25%, including most of the largest ones: Iraq, Iran, Algeria, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. The Muslim world is grossly underrepresented in science Nobel Prizes, and it is not a source of innovation today.
With the enormous windfall of outside technology and cash, MENA could’ve done so much more. And the incredible thing is, they did. With the support of Islam, this region of the world was a center of civilization during the Islamic Golden Age, 500 years that ended with the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols in 1258.
While Europe stumbled through the Middle Ages, the Muslim world of the Middle East and North Africa built libraries and great buildings, preserved the works of Aristotle and other Greek scholars, and developed trigonometry, algebra, and astronomy. Our numbering system (zero, positional notation, Arabic numerals) was invented in India but introduced into Europe by North African Arabs a thousand years ago. Over 200 stars have Arabic names (Betelgeuse, Rigel, Vega, Andromeda), and some of our scientific words and ideas came from Arabic (algorithm, algebra, azimuth, alchemy).
A thousand years ago, the libraries of Moorish Spain had close to a million manuscripts, and the translation of Greek works, preserved in Muslim Spain, helped fuel the European Renaissance.
Historians can tell us why MENA’s recent history played out as it did. But how plausible were other paths? Is it naïve to wonder if history could have played out other ways with a benign or encouraging flavor of Islam that would’ve allowed a Renaissance in the Islamic world? Will the Arab Spring be seen as a turning point?
One objection to this hope points out that that the Koran has a lot of crazy stuff in it, but so does the Bible. Christians have been able to put that behind them. Whether Christians are consistent or not isn’t the point here—they don’t see in the Old Testament justification for things that modern people simply don’t accept.
If Christian Europe could go through a Renaissance, the Muslim world can too, especially since they’ve done it once before.

The ink of a scholar is more holy
than the blood of a martyr
— attributed to Mohammed

Photo credit: Wikipedia