Author Archives: Bob Seidensticker

About Bob Seidensticker

I'm an atheist, and I like to discuss Christian apologetics.

A Defense of Premarital Sex

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Avoiding sex before marriage isn’t much of a problem in a society where people get married shortly after they become sexually mature. Unfortunately, the West isn’t such a society. Take a look at how things have changed.

Medieval marriage

Centuries ago, first marriages in Europe were typically at 25 years, with brides a couple of years younger than grooms. Yes, Shakespeare portrays Juliet as only 13, but that was uncommon. Noble folk typically married earlier, but Juliet would’ve been young even for a noblewoman.

Onset of puberty in the 1800s was about 16–17 for girls and a year later for boys, with sexual maturity requiring another five years.

This meant that young people typically had just a few years between sexual maturity and marriage. Even so, premarital sex was common (though out-of-wedlock births were frowned upon). Until the mid-1700s in Britain, betrothed couples could live together and have sex, and pregnant brides were common and accepted. Customs in Colonial America were about the same, and a third of New England brides were pregnant.

Marriage today

The average age at first marriage in the U.S. is now 27 for women and 29 for men, a bit older than centuries earlier. The bigger difference is the age of sexual maturity. Onset of puberty is now 10–11 for girls and a year later for boys. The process is complete about five years later.

While the cause of this change in puberty is debated—some combination of improved nutrition and hormone-like chemicals in our environment?—this means an average of over a decade of sexual maturity before marriage. Abstinence before marriage is now much more of a trial.

What does the Bible say?

The Bible has a lot to say about sex. It talks about a girl who is presented as a virgin but isn’t. It talks about adultery. It talks about when rape is okay. It talks about how to take captured women as wives. It talks about which relatives you may not sleep with. It even talks about which relatives you must sleep with. (More on the Bible’s crazy marriage and sex customs here.)

The Bible also has plenty to say about premarital sex. Or nothing, depending on your interpretation. The issue revolves around the Greek word porneia.

The New Testament uses this word a lot. It’s clearly a bad thing, but it’s not clear exactly what it means. It’s often translated as “fornication,” which is consensual sex between two persons not married to each other. That includes premarital sex, so the Bible prohibition appears to be clear.

But explore other translations, and the issue is trickier. Some define the word as “prostitution,” because the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament) used it this way.

A popular translation is “sexual immorality,” though this ambiguous. Even if the sins in this category were clear in Paul’s mind, they’re not clear in ours, and we are only projecting our own biases when listing what this prohibition must mean. No, “sexual immorality” doesn’t clearly prohibit premarital sex, and it’s not included in the long list of sexual sins in Leviticus 18 and 20.

Even if premarital sex were prohibited in the Bible, so what? The Bible celebrates genocide, polygamy, and slavery, and yet we reject them. You might say that God was bound by the customs of the time, and that’s why they’re allowed. But no matter—they’re not allowed today. Similarly, if a ban on premarital sex makes no sense for modern society, drop it.

The Christian response

One approach, often adopted by conservative Christians, is to get married early. You want sex? Fair enough—just get married first. But a rush to marriage driven by a desire for sex can make for a poorly grounded marriage. A Barna study came to similar conclusions as earlier studies when it concluded, “divorce rates are higher among people who are members of conservative Protestant faiths,” and “divorce rates were lower for people who described themselves as atheist or agnostic.”

Just as sex-driven marriage isn’t the best approach, neither is abstinence-only sex education. More knowledge leads to less risky sexual behavior. Not teaching safe sex or discouraging teens from the HPV vaccine is like banning fire extinguishers because otherwise everyone will set things on fire.

Another approach

Let me propose a different approach. Nature will give adult bodies to teens whether we like it or not. We don’t give them the keys to the car without driver’s education, so give them the owner’s manual to go along with their adult bodies as well (more).

Instead of a one-size-fits-all demand that premarital sex be off limits, society should (1) provide sex education that minimizes unwanted pregnancy and STDs, (2) make contraception and condoms easily available, (3) emphasize that “No” means no in a relationship, and (4) teach that sex alters a relationship and shouldn’t be treated lightly. Finally, have abortion available as a backstop.

Yes, there can be harm with sex, but there can be harm with cars and the internet, too. Sexual compatibility is an important component of a strong marriage. Should the couple figure that out before or after committing their lives to each other?

The gap between sexual maturity and marriage has gone from a couple of years to more than a decade. The ban on premarital sex is naive, especially when it’s just a tradition and isn’t in the Bible. This is like female genital mutilation in predominantly Muslim societies—it’s only a tradition, and it’s not in the Quran.

There’s nothing inherently harmful in premarital sex, and the sin of premarital sex is one of those rare problems that you can simply define away.

We are living at a time where some people . . .
want to test whether the milk is good before they buy the cow.
— John Sentamu, Archbishop of York
(commenting on the decision of Prince William and Kate Middleton
to live together before their wedding)

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 12/23/13.)

Photo credit: Wikimedia

 

Argument for God from Differential Equations

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equations

No serious mathematical understanding, aptitude, or even interest is required to enjoy this post. There’s a fascinating thing that I want to share with you, but there’s a bit of mathematical throat clearing we need to get through up front.

Here’s an example of a differential equation (seriously, this isn’t on the test):

E1

This differential equation describes a damped oscillator. Imagine a weight on a spring. Drop the weight, and it bounces up and down, but less each time until it comes to a stop. That motion is described by this equation. Here it is in graphical form:

damped_osc

Equation 2 is a simplified representation of equation 1 (the dots represent a derivative with respect to time):

E2

Move some terms around for one last simplification:

E3

Analog computers

Okay, now it gets interesting. Decades before the early room-sized electronic digital computers like ENIAC, there were analog computers. They solve differential equations like this one.

Analog computers are made from elements like integrators, multipliers, and adders (I leave as an exercise for the reader why integrators make much more sense than differentiators).

To solve the equation above, we first assume that we have ẍ.

Crazy, right? We just proceed blithely along after first assuming that we already have the second derivative of the thing we’re trying to find.

Stick with me and see how this turns out. First, integrate it twice (each integration removes a dot—that is, one derivative of time). The signal moves from left to right through two integrators:

analog computer 1

Okay, we’re almost there. We use the analog computer to create the right side of equation 3:

analog computer 2

Magic time!

And here’s the fun part. We’ve now computed the right side of equation 3. But wait a minute—that’s equal to ẍ ! So that bizarre, unfounded assumption—we just assume that we have what we don’t have—was actually justified. We feed that output back in as ẍ and we’re done. Here’s the final layout:

analog computer 3

Ah, if only faith worked like that in religion.

Augustine’s contribution to differential equations

Augustine (354–430 CE) didn’t have much to say on this subject, but see if this sounds like our analog computer project: “Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.”

Just believe. Don’t worry about it making any sense—understanding will come with time. It’s like solving a differential equation with an analog computer: assume the result, and you will be rewarded.

The problem, of course, is that it actually works with an analog computer. Every time. By contrast, “just believe” is terrible advice when evaluating a claim with poor evidence—fairies, leprechauns, Oz, the Force, and so on.

Begging the question, Christian style

We see a similar assumption of the conclusion with many responses to challenges against Christianity. For example, we see in the gospels just what we’d expect to see if the resurrection were true. Therefore, the Christian apologist says, the gospels are important evidence for the resurrection being true.

Or, take the order and beauty we see in the world. The apologist tells us that this is just what we’d expect if there were a god.

But is this approach justified? Take an analogous argument:

  1. If space aliens caused car accidents, we’d see car accidents.
  2. We do see car accidents.
  3. Conclusion: we now have more evidence that space aliens cause car accidents.

The Gigantic If

Or (for a different kind of rationalization) take the Problem of Evil, the puzzle of why an all-good god allows so much bad in the world. An all-knowing god could have his reasons, couldn’t he? That you skeptics don’t understand is hardly surprising—your finite mind may just be incapable of understanding it from that god’s perspective.

In other words, assume the Christian position and rearrange evidence to support it rather than start with the evidence and then reach a conclusion. This is the Christians’ Gigantic If: an argument that begins, “if God exists . . .” or “if objective morality exists . . .” or “if Jesus resurrected. . . .” (I’ve discussed this in more detail as the Hypothetical God Fallacy.)

Yes, Mr. Christian, if God exists then you win the argument, but you don’t get to just assume God or any other fanciful claim. Simply showing that your claim is compatible with the facts counts for nothing. You must do it the hard way, like a scientist or historian, showing the evidence that leads us unavoidably to your conclusion. I’ve seen the Gigantic If so often that it’s like fingernails on a blackboard for me, and I hope that it will be for you, too.

Assuming the conclusion works great when solving differential equations, since we have evidence that it works. The opposite is true for supernatural claims.

 In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, 
blind physical forces and genetic replication, 
some people are going to get hurt, 
other people are going to get lucky, 
and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. 
— Richard Dawkins

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 12/11/13.)

Image credit: Bryan Alexander, flickr, CC

 

The World Will End Soon! Again! (2 of 2)

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hagee blood moons atheismWe’re looking at pastor John Hagee’s breathless new book, Four Blood Moons. For the introduction and a summary of the three terrifying instances of “blood moons” that Hagee claims have already happened in history, see part 1.

What does Hagee see in our future?

The focus of Hagee’s book is the four blood moons beginning with Passover 2014 (April 14) and ending with Sukkot 2015 (September 28). Yes, the date for this prediction has come and gone, but I’d like to revisit this ludicrous “prophecy” to hold Hagee’s feet to the fire as well as see what a modern prophecy looks like.

Let’s see if Hagee’s frantic warning is worthy of concern.

Problem 1

Hagee’s claim that “a world-shaking event that will happen between April 2014 and October 2015” was a pretty safe bet. The same is true for his ominously nonspecific subtitle, “Something is about to change.” Find any 18-month period in the last century where you couldn’t cobble together some argument for a “world-shaking event” somewhere. The time period is too wide and the claimed event too imprecise for this to be an interesting prophecy. It’s amazing that the omniscient and omnipotent creator of the universe who Hagee says is “literally screaming at the world” can’t be more specific.

Maybe instead of his prophet hat, Hagee grabbed a dunce cap.

Given enough vague predictions of unspecified terrible things, eventually something will stick. Another Chernobyl or Fukushima disaster? Another Banda Ache or Haiti earthquake? Another 9/11 attack or influenza pandemic or world war? Sure, those are possible. But applying Christian mysticism obviously doesn’t help show the future if Hagee’s argument is an example.

Problem 2

Wouldn’t the eclipses need to be visible in the Promised Land? The four coming up beginning in 2014 won’t be (though there may be a glimpse of the last one). The same was true for previous instances—few of the “blood moons” were visible in Israel.

What good is a blood moon if God’s chosen can’t see it?

Problem 3

Did anyone notice these celestial fireworks in the past? God was screaming, after all. Did anyone in Israel notice that it was spooky to have had blood moons in other parts of the world (though not Israel) after the Six-Day War was already over? Did they conclude that God was speaking?

If these earlier blood moon events happened without notice, God’s screaming is pretty feeble.

Problem 4

I challenge Hagee to go back further in time. There are four additional tetrads (instances of four consecutive lunar eclipses) that lined up with Jewish festivals since the birth of Jesus. Tell us, Dr. Hagee, what monumental events in the history of the Jewish people do those coincide with?

Many Christians know of the First Jewish-Roman War (66–74 CE), during which the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. 1.1 million Jews were killed, according to Josephus. Two other lesser-known wars, the Kitos War (115–117 CE) and the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–136 CE) were also fought with the Romans. Surely one or all of these are represented in God’s prior tetrads?

Of course not. The dates of the four tetrads that Hagee doesn’t want you to know about are 162, 795, 842, and 860. Like the Holocaust, God apparently didn’t think that these wars merited a magical light show.

Problem 5

What could God possibly be saying with this? What could the message be to the Jews exiled from Spain? “Something bad already happened”? Yeah, I bet that was helpful. How could you possibly get any useful information from such a nonspecific and tardy message? And how does the independence of Israel fit in, since this is clearly a good thing?

Apparently, blood moons mean, “Something bad will happen! Or is happening! Or maybe it’s something good. Or maybe it’s already happened. Or something.”

Tell God I said thanks.

Hagee delights in taking a pre-scientific view of nature, like the Normans who interpreted Halley’s comet to presage the death of English King Harold and the success of William of Normandy. How is Hagee’s thinking useful? How can anyone in the twenty-first century take it seriously?

The world will end!

In Hagee’s brief video introduction, he has yet more nutty stuff to say. He quotes Mark 13:24–6 as somehow relevant to what we’re going to see during the upcoming four blood moons phase:

But in those days, “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light.” At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.

He wants to say that the world will end and Jesus will return, but not in any measurable way—y’know, just in case. He tap dances away from any accountability by omitting an important part. Actually, the quoted bit in Mark goes like this:

“the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.”

Stars falling from the sky? That’s something you wouldn’t miss. I can see why Hagee would delete mention of anything specific that will hang around to embarrass him in 2015.

Hagee finds another verse relevant. Luke 21:28 says, “your redemption draws near.” Of course, four verses later, Jesus says, “This generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” Oops—that didn’t happen! At least Hagee will be in good company if his own prophecy fails.

Hagee also says, “the sun and the moon will eclipse at the same time.” This isn’t possible in our reality, and Hagee doesn’t say how this is supposed to happen (no, I’m not going to buy the book to try and find out).

Other prophets

Eager followers can be pretty lenient, and many Christians seem determined to avoid learning from past failures.

Other failed prophets have been able to bounce back, from Christians like Harold Camping and Hal Lindsay, to psychics Jeanne Dixon, Edgar Cayce, and Sylvia Browne. Browne was way off even in her prediction about her own age at death.

I wrote my first novel about the Azusa Street Revival in 1906 in Los Angeles. This was in the early years of the Pentecostal movement. A nutty church was creating waves, and a reporter went to check it out. Someone in the church predicted terrible destruction, and that story appeared on the front page of the LA Times on the very day of the Great San Francisco earthquake and fire.

Given enough tries, a few random predictions will stick.

If a god is screaming at the world and no one hears it,
is he really making any sound at all?
— commenter wtfwjtd

If John Hagee is mooning the world and we call him out on it,
does he still make a ton of money?

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 12/7/13.)

Image credit: Stiller Beobachter, flickr, CC

 

Christians’ Secret Weapon Against Evolution (2 of 2)

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ButterflyThis is the conclusion of a critique of a Greg Koukl podcast about the death of evolution (part 1 here). Since some Christians refuse to stop embarrassing themselves with this stupid argument, I will continue to see it a civic duty to laugh at them.

The problems with evolution

After much overconfident bluster about why evolution has breathed its last in part 1, Koukl finally gives the three reasons supporting this conclusion.

1. Abiogenesis. “First you have the insurmountable problem of getting living stuff from dead stuff. . . . This is not just a problem. This is an insurmountable problem.” (17:45)

Yeah? Insurmountable? Write your paper detailing the proof and collect your Nobel Prize. (It’s true that there is no Nobel Prize in Biology, but I’m sure that will change once Koukl shows that abiogenesis is impossible.)

What will you do if a consensus view for abiogenesis does develop over the next decade or so? Let me guess: you’ll not apologize, you’ll sweep under the rug the fact that you backed the wrong horse, you’ll hope that no one remembers, and you’ll stumble forward grasping for some new as-yet-unanswered question within science, learning absolutely nothing from the experience.

2. Cambrian Explosion.

Koukl focuses on the basics, which is that he doesn’t like evolution and thinks that the Cambrian Explosion is fatal to it. He’s not so good on details like when it happened (he’s off by about a factor of six; in fact, it began roughly 541 million years ago and lasted for 20–25 million years).

The big deal about the Cambrian Explosion is that most of the 30-some animal phyla (the top-level category, which defines the basic body plans) appear for the first time in the fossil record in this relatively brief period.

Here are some reasons why this rapid emergence of phyla isn’t a nail in evolution’s coffin.

  • The phyla had to appear at some point. Some estimates say that animals began to exist 650 million years ago. Is it hard to imagine that the outline of this new kingdom would be mostly completed in about 4% of the total time (25 million years out of 650 million), with the individual species added and deleted gradually after that point?
  • While we’re most excited about animals, being animals ourselves, we must not miss the big picture by singling out the Cambrian Explosion to the exclusion of the rest of evolutionary history. This period had an impressive bit of evolution, but there is a lot of other diversity besides just animal. Let’s have some humility.

Tree of life

Source: Wikipedia

  • To take one additional example of evolutionary change within animals, the Great Ordovician Biodiversity Event was another relatively brief period of change, and it created many more genera (“genuses”) than did the Cambrian (more).
  • The starting gun in the Cambrian Explosion may have been when the ocean finally became relatively transparent and vision became useful for the first time (all animals were aquatic during the Cambrian Period). This triggered an arms race—better sight meant that animals had to protect themselves with armor or speed, or they could arm themselves with teeth or strength (more). This struggle for survival may explain the suddenness of the development of phyla.
  • Maybe it wasn’t that the evolution of new phyla happened only during that time; perhaps instead the conditions had changed to allow fossilization to happen. That is, the suddenness might apply to fossilization, not the development of phyla.
  • Biologists (remember them—the ones who actually understand this stuff?) haven’t responded to the Cambrian Explosion by rejecting evolution.

3. Genes don’t explain everything. Mutation of DNA is a key part of evolution, but DNA only codes for protein. That’s only part of the picture, Koukl tells us—how do you get the body? That requires epigenetics. That’s not in the genes. “Now, they’re working on it, trying to figure it out, but if it’s not in the genes, if the genes aren’t doing the work, then natural selection doesn’t do its work on genetic mutations, then that is neo-Darwinism, and it’s dead” (22:10).

I’m not sure what Koukl is getting at. Embryology is fairly well understood, and we can see a single cell develop according to the body plan defined in its DNA. Magic isn’t necessary. And, yes, epigenetics is a new and exciting aspect of genetics. There is much to be learned. But how does this destroy evolution?

Creationists’ goal

Taking a step back, I see several problems. One is the unstated idea that if evolution can be defeated, Creationism will step in to take its place as the explanation of why life is the way it is. Nope—Creationism can only replace evolution when the evidence shows that it can better explain the facts.

Scientific theories stand on their own merits, not on the failure of other theories (h/t commenter epeeist).

That Koukl is talking to the public and not to scientists reveals both his agenda and his impotence. He’s got PR, not evidence.

The other problem is that this entire tantrum seems to be semantic. His agenda seems to be finding a loophole so that you can’t call it “the neo-Darwinian Project” anymore (ignoring the fact that no one except him calls it that).

In Koukl’s wildest dreams, biology would develop in radical new ways so that evolution taught twenty years ago, say, will be seen as inadequate in important ways. But how does that help? Once Koukl’s smoke screen clears, the naturalistic discipline that explains how life developed on earth (whatever you want to call it) is still there, with no role for God to play.

I’ve written about two related issues, the Rube Goldberg appearance (rather than appearance of design) of life and the question of information in DNA.

Science’s unexplained “Big Bangs”

Koukl next brings up atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel, who says that evolution won’t allow for consciousness.

This is yet another question that might get answered, as tends to happen with scientific puzzles. Koukl’s argument is nothing more than: Science has unanswered questions; therefore, God. Again, he forgets that a weakness in science (I see no weakness here, but let’s pretend there is) does nothing to support the God argument.

He concludes by ticking off the unanswered questions—abiogenesis, the Cambrian Explosion, and the evolution of consciousness—and concludes, “Incidentally, these are no problem whatsoever for our point of view.”

Yeah—“God did it” explains everything. Of course, you’ve given us no good evidence for the God side of the question, but never mind. The real problem is that “God did it” is unfalsifiable. You could apply it to anything, and I couldn’t prove you wrong. Therefore, it’s useless. By explaining everything, it explains nothing.

Koukl’s podcast reminds me of Michael Denton’s 1986 book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. His recent 30th-anniversary edition is titled Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis (emphasis added). Creationists keep predicting that evolution is dead, and it keeps not being dead. Perhaps there’s a message in that.

What we have in Koukl is a popular Christian apologist (who has a religious agenda) who talks with a popular Christian science-y person (who has the same agenda) about their rejection of the scientific consensus. They reassure each other that they’ve indeed backed the right horse, and they shore up their argument with smug confidence.

Popularizing science is one thing, but rejecting it is another. I put them in with the anti-vaxxers.

The difference between a cult and a religion: 
in a cult there is a person at the top who knows it’s a scam, 
and in a religion that person is dead.
— seen on the internet

Image credit: Phil Fiddyment, flickr, CC

Christians’ Secret Weapon Against Evolution (1 of 2)

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Christian apologists have a secret weapon against evolution: confidence. This isn’t the confidence you’re familiar with, grounded in evidence, the consensus of experts, and all that. No, this is the empty, groundless kind. Still, it’s confidence just the same, and it can sound pretty compelling.

I started my path to atheism with the evolution/Creationism debate, so I like to check in occasionally. I recently critiqued the recent young-earth Creationist movie Is Genesis History? here.

Status update on evolution

Let’s move on to a recent podcast by Christian apologist Greg Koukl, “Why Neo-Darwinism Is Dead.” He was all abuzz from a recent meeting with Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, an anti-evolution think tank, and Koukl quickly made clear his conclusion:

The Darwinian model of biological evolution is dead. It is dead. (@9:05)

Why should I care? Should I reject the consensus view of science from someone who is no expert in the field he’s rejecting?

Koukl doubles down on his claim:

The academic crowd on the inside at the highest levels know the facts and know that it’s dead. When I say “the Darwinian project,” I mean very precisely what has come to be known as the neo-Darwinian synthesis, okay, and that is simply that evolution is driven forward by genetic mutation being acted on by natural selection. (9:15)

Let me first get a quibble out of the way. What the hell is “the Darwinian project”? Who says that? You could call it the “modern synthesis,” but that term comes from a 1942 book, and it refers to the integration of Darwin’s ideas with other pioneers’ work from even earlier in the twentieth century.

I assume that the attraction of the word “Darwinism” is that it has that scary -ism suffix like other wicked terms such as “Marxism” or “Maoism.” Tell you what, Greg—let’s follow the lead of the people who actually understand the science and call it “evolution.” How does that sound?

But back to the point of the quote: Koukl tells us that the biologists who really understand evolution see not just unanswered questions, not just gaps—no, they know that the theory is completely dead.

Call me skeptical, but I’ll wait to hear about that from someone who’s not a Christian apologist who gives every indication of having an anti-evolution agenda. Y’know, like a biologist. Even better: the consensus view of the entire field of biology. Last time I checked, evolution was still firmly in place (see the appendix at this post). If Koukl knows that the biggest names within biology are on his side, I wonder why he doesn’t list them. It’s almost like that list doesn’t exist.

Liars gonna lie

Koukl is way ahead of us. He says we can’t trust the biologists to honestly follow the evidence.

They’re not letting go of their presuppositions. They’re not letting go of their metaphysical religion. (10:40)

Hmm—methinks the lady doth protest too much. Perhaps you should look in a mirror, Greg. I share your concern about people who let their religion constrain what they can think, but are you sure it’s the biologists who have the problem?

Koukl tells us that Stephen Meyer said that:

In the academic circles and among the professionals in the know and who work closely with the facts, they see the serious, debilitating problems of the Darwinian model of origins. (11:20)

Stephen Meyer, you say? Is that the Stephen Meyer who rejects evolution but whose doctorate is in history and philosophy of science, not biology? The one who works for an organization whose mission statement begins, “The mission of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture is to advance the understanding that human beings and nature are the result of intelligent design rather than a blind and undirected process”? Yeah, I’m sure he’s a reliable, unbiased source.

I always question “research” that comes from a person or an organization bound by a faith statement. My approach is that the research should come first and then the conclusion, not the other way around, but maybe that’s just me.

Evolution in schools

He moves on to rant that criticism of “Darwinism” isn’t allowed in textbooks.

I wonder what kind of criticism he’s thinking of. I’m just guessing here, but I suppose a current debate might be the various approaches in physics to unify the four fundamental forces. If string theory is explained, for example, I’d expect that the textbook would make clear that it is just one of several approaches.

But there is no equivalent within biology. Evolution is the consensus. There is no other side of the issue.

In the rejection of criticism of evolution in textbooks, Koukl sees a clue. “When someone tries to silence opposition” or when they use the power of the system (courts, legislature, the school system, media), you know they have a weak case.

Knowing they had no scientific case, legislatures and school boards have tried to slip Creationism into public school classrooms in myriad ways—is that what you’re referring to, Greg? Since your opposition actually has the science on their side, I don’t think it works in the other direction.

If the battle were within the scientific community, then Greg would have a point, and we should let the facts decide the issue. But he’s already lost that battle, so he wants to fight in the court of public opinion. But when organizations like the National Center for Science Education respond in kind, pointing out the tricks used to slip Creationism in where it doesn’t belong, he cries foul and cites it as a clue that they’re trying to “silence the opposition.”

In a final example of the pot calling the kettle black, he tells us that the not-Christian position warns that the Creationist arguments mustn’t be read (16:50). By contrast, he’s happy to have Christians read the other side. “Our case can take it.”

Let’s just say that I have a different view on the matter.

To be concluded in part 2 with Koukl’s explanation of evolution’s failings here.

Insanity is believing your hallucinations are real.
Religion is believing that other peoples’ hallucinations are real.
— seen on the internet

Image credit: Dmitry K, flickr, CC

The World Will End Soon! Again!

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end of the world hageeI enjoy writing books, but the marketing part isn’t my strength. I sit at the feet of the master when I marvel at the work of John Hagee. He declared in 2013 that the world would soon end and that only his book Four Blood Moons had the details. (Why didn’t I think of that?)

Of course, that didn’t happen. I’m sure he knew it wouldn’t happen. But why let that stop you? The Bible makes predictions that didn’t come true, so Hagee was applying a proven formula. If I could just get past my darned compulsion for honesty, who knows what I might accomplish?

In his book trailer, Hagee said:

I believe that the heavens are God’s billboard. That he has been sending signals to planet earth, and we just haven’t been picking them up. . . . God is literally screaming at the world, “I’m coming soon.” The coming four blood moons points to a world-shaking event that will happen between April 2014 and October 2015.

What the hell is he talking about?

The phrase “blood moons” is taken from Joel 2:30–31: “The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” Hagee interprets “blood moons” simply as lunar eclipses, since the moon in total eclipse usually looks dark red.

Hagee’s four blood moons refer to eclipses at the start of the Jewish festivals of Passover and Sukkot (also called the Feast of Tabernacles), twice each, all in a row.

You might think that this is an incredible coincidence, but remember that these two holidays start on the day of a full moon by definition, and lunar eclipses can only happen during full moons. There are 2.3 lunar eclipses per year out of 12.4 full moons per year. (If more than two lunar eclipses per year sounds high, remember that they don’t last long. If the eclipse is happening during the day in your part of the world, you obviously won’t see it.)

That any particular Passover or Sukkot begins with a lunar eclipse isn’t surprising, though four of these eclipsed holidays in a row is much less common.

Hagee puts on his prophet hat to interpret. He says that in the past five centuries, there have been three such coincidences, and each has happened during an important event in the life of Israel. He said, “This is something that just is beyond coincidental.”

Time for audience participation

See if you can guess what three events are most important in the life of Israel since the fifteenth century. Guess what God rearranged the heavens to tell us.

Got your answer? Let’s see how you did.

And the first instance of a blood moon is . . .

We start in Spain in 1492. For this date, Christian history typically points to the end of the eight-century-long expulsion of the Muslims from Christian Spain. This “Reconquista” ended with the fall of Granada on January 2, 1492.

But no, Hagee says that God was focusing on the expulsion of Jews from Spain. The Edict of Expulsion was issued on March 31, 1492, and it gave Jews four months to leave. An estimated 100,000 Jews or more were forced to leave.

One small problem is that Hagee’s first blood moon didn’t happen until almost a year later (Passover, on April 2, 1493).

Remember that the “four blood moons” take about 18 months to play out (starting with a Passover and ending two Sukkots later). So God’s celestial exclamation point took place in slow motion after the problem had already come and gone.

Example two

Next up is the establishment of Israel on May 14, 1948. Okay, that sounds like a big development.

However, we have yet again the small problem that Hagee’s first blood moon didn’t happen until almost a year later (Passover, on April 14, 1949).

Example three

The last one was the Six-Day War, June 5–10, 1967. God must’ve been paying attention this time, because the first blood moon had already happened (on Passover, April 25, 1967).

But why this war? Since independence, Israel has had lots of conflicts. In particular, why not the Yom Kippur War in 1973? That war was a surprise, and there were more Israeli casualties.

And what about the Holocaust? How does this not make the list?! Israel lost less than 1000 dead and 4500 wounded during the Six-Day War. In the Holocaust, six million Jews were killed.

God was apparently also unmoved by any of the anti-Jewish pogroms. In Ukraine, for example, as many as a quarter million Jews were killed after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

Let’s be clear, too, that the idea of “blood moon” = natural eclipse is Hagee’s invention. More importantly, the idea that eclipses occurring on Jewish holy days is meaningful in a cosmic sense is an invention. As is the idea of four in a row (instead of two or seven, say). The Bible mentions the moon turning to blood; it says nothing about four of them. “Four blood moons” is a marketing concept, not a biblical concept.

But we’ve just begun to laugh at Hagee’s expense, and there’s too much nutty stuff for one post.

To be continued.

When you get the urge to predict the future, 
better lie down until the feeling goes away.
— Forbes magazine (1978)

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 12/6/13.)

Image credit: Lene Melendez, flickr, CC