Author Archives: Bob Seidensticker

About Bob Seidensticker

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

10 Tough Questions for the Atheist to Answer (3 of 3)

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BeachChristian apologist J. Warner Wallace has created a list of ten questions so tough that atheists are unable to respond. So far, the ferocious problems haven’t materialized. Perhaps the final questions will be more challenging.

8. Why Do Transcendent Moral Truths Exist?

“We have an intuitive sense of moral ‘oughtness’; we recognize that some things are right and some things are wrong, regardless of culture, time or location. We understand that it’s never morally ‘right’ to torture people for the mere ‘fun’ of it. . . . These moral vices and virtues are objective in the sense that they stand above (and apart from) all of us as humans; they are not simply creations of our liking. Instead, they are independent and transcendent.” Transcendent law requires a transcendent Law Giver.

I’ll use William Lane Craig’s definition of objective morality: “moral values that are valid and binding whether anybody believes in them or not.” I doubt Wallace would object.

Now, back to the question: Wallace asks why objective moral truths exist.

They don’t.

Take, for example, our response to an adult abusing a child. What could explain that moral revulsion? Wallace says that we tap into objective moral truths, but he doesn’t explain where they’re stored, how they got there, how we access them, or if we access them reliably. He confuses a universal response or a deeply held response (which it is in the case of child abuse) with an objective response (which it isn’t). A far more plausible explanation is the natural one: we humans are the same species, so we share the same moral programming.

Wallace also raises the is/ought problem: how do you get an ought (a moral prescription) from an is (a fact of nature)? You can say, “When someone is injured, you ought to help them,” but what grounds this demand?

His error is in imagining an objectively grounded ought. I’ve seen no evidence that such things exist, and Wallace provides none. An ordinary ought works just fine here. Our moral programming gives us this ought, and most other people will share the opinion.

Another way of seeing the problem: if morals don’t come from what is—that is, reality—then where do they come from? Where could they come from? Don’t point to the supernatural before showing compelling evidence that it exists.

Finally, note how morals change with time. We are horrified at the slavery and genocide in the Old Testament, for example, and congratulate ourselves to the extent that we’ve erased them from Western culture. Objective morals that change over time aren’t objective.

(I’ve responded more thoroughly to another of Wallace’s arguments for objective morality here.)

9. Why Do We Believe Human Life to be Precious?

We kill weeds and pests, and we eat livestock, but we’d never consider this for a fellow human. How do we justify this if we’re all just the results of evolution?

Are “it’s wrong to kill a human” or “it’s okay to kill a rat” objective moral statements? Nope. There is no difficulty if there is no objective moral truth to align with. We value our own species more than others because of our biological programming.

Wallace characterizes the naturalist position: “In the true scheme of things, we are no more important (nor any more precious) than the thousands of species that have come and gone before us. Biological life has no intrinsic value and the universe has no purpose.” I agree—life has no absolute value and the universe no absolute purpose. You think it’s otherwise? Show me some evidence.

Wallace also characterizes the naturalist position as saying that only the strong survive.

And here he’s wrong. This is the “nature, red in tooth and claw” caricature. It’s not the strongest that survive, as any high school student who’s studied evolution knows, but the fittest. The fittest for any particular evolutionary niche might be the best camouflaged or the best armored or the fastest. In the case of humans, cooperation and trust can make a stronger society which, in turn, helps protect the people in it. And we don’t see cooperation just in humans—think of any social animal such as wolves, monkeys, or bees.

10. Why Does Pain, Evil, and Injustice Exist in Our World?

“People are capable of inflicting great evil on one another and natural disasters occur across the globe all the time. More importantly, no matter what we do as humans, we seem to be unable to stop evil from occurring.”

Correct. That’s not strong evidence for an omniscient, loving god.

“Atheists often point to the presence of evil as an evidence against the existence of an all-loving and all-powerful God, but all of us have to account for evil in the context of our worldview. Both sides of the argument have to explain the existence and injustice of evil, consider what role it plays in the history of the universe, and come to grips with why justice is often elusive.”

Wrong. The atheist has no Problem of Evil to resolve. That’s your problem.

The Problem of Evil asks: how can a good god allow all the suffering that we see in the world? Wouldn’t he stop more of it—at least the gratuitous suffering? When you drop the god presupposition, this problem vanishes.

“Whatever worldview we adopt, it had better offer a cogent response to the young child who is dying of an incurable disease. Which worldview offers the most satisfying and reasonable explanation for the evil and injustice we see in our world?”

“Satisfying”?! Is that our goal? I thought we were trying to figure out which worldview is accurate! If Wallace wants to rank worldviews based on how happy a story they have to tell rather than how accurate they are, he can do that on his own. I have no interest in participating, but I doubt that Christianity is at the top of the list.

“Christian Theism offers an explanation that naturalism simply cannot offer.”

As does Scientology or Shinto or Pastafarianism. Do I care? I’ll focus on reality.

Summary

For each of his questions, Wallace has explained nothing. He has given us his theology, not evidence. His answers often distill down to nothing more than, “Science doesn’t have all the answers, therefore God.” To this gunfight he has brought a squirt gun.

Sure, science has unanswered questions. It always has. But it has a startling ability to find the answers. If we can look back and see how poorly “God did it” answered the question, “What causes drought and earthquakes?” centuries ago, why continue to apply this discredited answer to the latest series of questions? (More here.)

By being unfalsifiable, “God did it” could explain anything. In so doing, it explains nothing. (More here.)

I’d love to see an apologist show some courage in their claims. Is the riddle of abiogenesis or human consciousness or the origin of the universe so intractable that God is the only possible answer? Will you rest your faith on that claim? Will you say that God must be the answer and, if science does eventually resolve it naturally, you’ll abandon your faith?

Of course they won’t. Science’s unanswered questions aren’t the reason for their faith. But then if these unanswered questions aren’t supporting Christianity for them, why should they for the rest of us? When one of these questions is answered (and, given science’s track record, that’s a safe bet), Christian apologists will abandon it and retreat to whatever new question catches their fancy.

Science boldly pushes into new territory and gives us new insights. Religion follows and says, “Oh yeah, I knew that.” Religion is the dog that walks under the ox and thinks that he is pulling the wagon.

The fact that a believer
is happier than a skeptic
is no more to the point
than the fact than a drunken man
is happier than a sober one.
— George Bernard Shaw

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 11/22/13.)

Image credit: bluesbby, flickr, CC

 

10 Tough Questions for the Atheist to Answer (2 of 3)

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Shadows on crosswalkWe’re exploring ten tough questions from Christian apologist J. Warner Wallace that supposedly provide strong evidence for the Christian claim. Let’s continue.

4. Why Does There Appear to Be Evidence of Intelligence in Biology?

“Most scientists are quick to agree that biological systems often ‘appear’ to be designed. There are many examples of biological ‘machines’ that appear to be irreducibly complex, a sure sign of design. . . . Perhaps the most important evidence suggesting the involvement of an intelligent agent is the presence of DNA and the guiding role that this DNA plays in the formation of biological systems.”

Appearances can be deceiving. ELIZA was a computer program with which users could have a typed conversation, as if with an attentive friend. Originally written in 1966, it could be assigned as a homework problem today. It convincingly mimics intelligence, though it contains none. Perhaps we’re seeing an ELIZA effect when we look at DNA, imagining intelligence where there is none.

Is the marvelous complexity we see in the cell a clue to an omniscient designer? Or is this clumsy, non-optimal Rube Goldberg machine actually evidence for evolution? Biologists are satisfied that evolution explains it. Laymen have no grounds by which to reject the scientific consensus as the best provisional explanation we have (more here).

The claim of irreducible complexity doesn’t convince biologists either. I’ve written more on that here.

As for DNA being strong evidence for intelligence, guess again. In fact, DNA alone demolishes this Argument from Design. DNA is a record of evolution’s sloppy progress, not the perfect blueprint of an omniscient designer.

The Christian might point out that for every instance of information, we find an intelligence behind it. That may be so, but for every instance of intelligently caused information, that intelligence is natural, not supernatural.

Given the long list of things we thought were supernatural but are actually natural (disease, earthquakes, and so on), you’d think that apologists would be more cautious. But no, once science resolves a puzzle, they’ll just retreat to another unanswered question to defend their God of the Gaps.

5. How Did Human Consciousness Come Into Being?

“[As evolution proceeds, naturalists must] imagine that spatially-arranged matter somehow organized itself to produce non-spatial, immaterial mental states. Naturalism has no reasonable explanation for how this might come to pass.”

Ah, but it does: emergent properties. Consider a water molecule. It doesn’t have the properties of wetness, fluidity, or surface tension, but once you get trillions of trillions of them, then these properties emerge.

Or take the human brain. Our brains have roughly 100 billion (that’s 1011) neurons. A single neuron doesn’t think 10–11 times as fast; it doesn’t think at all. Thinking is another emergent phenomenon. (I’ve written more on that here.)

If the point is that we have plenty to learn about consciousness, that’s certainly true. Again, science’s long to-do list of unanswered questions does nothing to support the Christian claim.

Wallace also insists on the existence of the mind as something separate from the brain, but he gives no evidence of this dualism. For every instance that we know of, a mind is supported by a physical brain.

Remember the story of Phineas Gage, the man who had a steel rod shot through his head while working on a railroad tunnel (more here)? Or consider an Alzheimer’s patient. As the physical brain is damaged or deteriorates, the mind is also damaged. The “mind” is simply what the brain does.

If Wallace thinks that the mind (or soul) is something separate or that consciousness is not the inevitable end result of a sufficiently large brain, he needs to show evidence.

6. Where Does Free Will Come From?

Wallace imagines various philosophical problems with free will and then solves them with God as the first mover. Of course, he doesn’t explain the new puzzles that the God hypothesis introduces—where God came from or how God could always have existed or what laws of nature (if any) God breaks to do his miracles. This hypothesis teaches us nothing new. God becomes a synonym for “I don’t know.”

If God is the reason that we have free will, then Wallace is saying that a godless universe would have no free will. I await evidence of this claim.

I have little interest in philosophical puzzles. In the apologetics context, they seem like nothing more than smoke screens. (More here.)

7. Why Are Humans So Contradictory in Nature?

Humans can be altruistic and compassionate, but we can also be hateful and murderous. “Philosophical Naturalism struggles to explain how creatures capable of genocide and cruelty are also capable of compassion and sacrificial generosity.”

What’s puzzling? Humans have a large palette of personality traits and drives. They came from evolution, and we’re stuck with them, though we can try to adapt to modern Western norms.

These drives, both “good” ones like patience and perseverance and “bad” ones like lust or envy, can be useful. The problem arises when any are used too much.

For example, generosity is a good trait because we usually aren’t generous enough, but you need to be a bit selfish so that you don’t damage your own life by giving away too much. Anger is a bad trait because we can be angry too often, but the focus and drive that it gives can be useful occasionally when righting a wrong.

Different conditions create a wide variety of norms (the Nazi prison guard is a classic example) that encourage actions inconceivable in healthy modern society. We don’t need to handwave about Mankind’s fall to explain the good and bad we see in human actions.

Concluded in part 3.

In dark ages people are best guided by religion, 
as in a pitch-black night a blind man is the best guide; 
he knows the roads and paths better than a man who can see. 
When daylight comes, however, 
it is foolish to use blind, old men as guides. 
— Heinrich Heine

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 11/20/13.)

Photo credit: Z S, flickr, CC

 

Movie Review: “Is Genesis History?” (Part 2)

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Is Genesis HistoryIn part 1 of my rebuttal to this young-earth Creationist movie, we looked at the argument that Noah’s Flood lay down thousands of feet of sand, silt, and dead animals that was then cut into a canyon. And then, over a few thousand years, this somehow turned to stone.

I’m a novice about geology, but still I came up with several questions that I think should have been addressed. Unsurprisingly, the fact that conventional geology nicely answers each one was also ignored. Let’s continue.

Philosophical grounding

Our next expert is Paul Nelson, a philosopher. He contrasted the two major views of the history of life and the universe. There’s the conventional paradigm of a 13.7 billion-year-old universe with things happening naturally, gradually, bottom up, and without design. Against that is the Genesis paradigm, which imagines a much shorter time scale and a divine intelligence that designed things. The data we have will be interpreted in different ways, depending on your paradigm.

Let me suggest different descriptions of these two paradigms: one is built on evidence, and one is built despite it. Instead of interpreting data through the lens of a worldview, the honest scholar follows the data and builds a worldview as a conclusion.

And why does this Christian philosopher propose two views? If we’re going to free ourselves from the scientific consensus and cast the net wider, why reach for just young-earth Creationist Christianity for an alternative cosmology? Why not also get the Hindu view and some traditional Native American views and the flat-earth view?

The philosopher stated that Christians have a witness that the scientists don’t have: the Bible. He was dismissed the idea that this approach pits science and religion against each other (a failed attempt that we will see repeated later).

What does the Bible say?

Next was hebraist (Hebrew scholar) Steven Boyd. (Uh, yeah—I always turn to Hebrew scholars when I have a puzzling question about cosmology.) He tells us that the Bible’s authors clearly thought they were talking about real events. Yes, it really was six literal days (yom means “day”). Yes, it really was a global flood (the Flood story has dozens of instances of kol, which means “all”). Only if you impose an agenda-driven, external point of view onto Genesis would you come up with anything else. He asks, Why else would these authors want future generations to learn their history?

You could ask the same of Homer. Why would he want to pass along the Iliad? Presumably to tell his listeners that they were Greeks, descended from gods. But even if Homer thought the Iliad was history, that doesn’t make it so. The same is true for the Old Testament and its authors.

He said that the Table of Nations in Genesis 10, which listed Noah’s sons’ descendants, was more evidence that the flood was global, since it touched on every society. I wonder, though, where the father(s) of the pre-Columbian societies in the Americas are in that list—the Mississippian culture or the Olmecs, Mayans, Incas, Nazca, and dozens of others. Or the other important civilizations far from the Fertile Crescent. How do they fit into the myopic viewpoint of Genesis?

He talks about the genealogy listed in the Old Testament (all the “begats” in Genesis) and the two (incompatible) lists given for Jesus. This again shows the Bible’s historical foundation.

Yeah, if the Bible were trustworthy, this might be good evidence. You’ve done nothing to show that it is.

He said about the Adam and Eve story as the origin of mankind, “The biblical text is not compatible with the conventional paradigm” of evolution.

Uh, yeah, you got that right.

Dating the earth

Andrew Snelling (geologist) was the next expert. He gave several examples of monumental volcanism—the Yellowstone supervolcano (in Wyoming), which sent ash as far south as Texas, or the Deccan Traps, which is a million cubic kilometers of basalt (solidified lava) in central India. He declared that you can’t use today’s rates of volcanism as a standard, because he wants to compress all prehistoric volcanism into little more than one millionth the time that conventional geology gives for it. He didn’t explain why this makes more sense of the data or address the question of how the environment would be different with that much concentrated volcanism.

As for evidence that today’s rates of volcanism can’t be applied to the past, his argument seemed to be (my paraphrase), “Have we had any supervolcanoes in human history?? Well, there you go.”

If volcano magnitude follows a power law distribution (as with earthquakes), it’s not surprising that the last 10,000 years haven’t overlapped with any of earth’s most dramatic volcanic events of the last billion years. (Oops—was it inappropriate to bring up the idea of long time to neatly explain an issue?)

Next on the chopping block was conventional geology’s use of radioisotope dating. We’re told that today’s slow radioactive decay rates can’t be assumed in the past. (Why not?) To prove the unreliability of this dating method, he explained how he had samples from a single rock layer tested using different isotopes. The tests returned dates that were all over the map.

I heard him relate this anecdote in person years ago. My reaction to that is here.

Hold on now—if this powerful new evidence from the Creationists is correct, why hasn’t conventional science accepted it? Haters gonna hate, apparently. Conventional scientists have a “commitment to millions of years.” Here’s how it went down: nineteenth-century geologist Charles Lyell proposed that the earth was millions of years old, and biologist Charles Darwin felt empowered by this to hypothesize millions of years for evolution. Conventional scientists are committed to evolution—not because it’s well supported by evidence but, you know, just cuz—so you must have millions of years.

We’re told at the end, “It’s not a question of science versus the Bible”; rather, it’s two different views of earth’s history.

Right, and the two different views are incompatible. It is indeed science versus the Bible—you can’t have them both. Christians can’t allay their concerns about being antiscientific with the arguments in this movie. They must choose between the option with the evidence and the remarkable track record of telling us about nature and the one with the Bronze Age god who likes human sacrifice.

Pick.

Continue with part 3.

I’m even told sometimes, “You’re attacking the Bible,”
and when I am accused of such I simply say,
“I’m not attacking the Bible. I’m attacking you.
Your problem is that you can’t tell the difference.”
— Pete Enns

Image credit: Web page for movie

10 Tough Questions for the Atheist to Answer

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No one can demand a proof that God does (or doesn’t) exist, but where does the evidence point? Following the evidence without bias is the best we can hope to do.

A number of apologists defend Christianity with the thinking of a courtroom lawyer or detective. One of these is J. Warner Wallace. In his essay “The Christian Worldview is the Best Explanation”* he gives ten tough questions to which he claims Christianity has the better answer. Let’s take a look.

1. How Did the Universe Come Into Being?

Our universe had a beginning, but what caused it? Why is there something instead of nothing?

I don’t know what caused the universe. I don’t even know if asking about a cause (which implies an action through time) even makes sense before time existed. (And I say “I don’t know” simply because I’m parroting the consensus view of physics. If that changes, so will my opinion.)

But there’s nothing embarrassing about pointing out where we don’t know things. Science has plenty of unanswered questions, and highlighting them shows where work needs to be done. It’s not like we’ve ever learned anything new about nature through holy books or divine revelation.

That science doesn’t know something doesn’t mean that Christians do. They still must deliver evidence for the claim “God did it.” Believing by faith won’t do.

Note also that quantum events may not have causes, and the Big Bang was a quantum event. There’s no reason to demand a Big Banger, some supernatural First Cause.

As for “Why is there something instead of nothing?” show us why nothing is the default. Show us that nothing is what a godless universe would contain. In fact, physicist Lawrence Krauss argues the opposite: that nothing is unstable and would spontaneously produce something. (More here.)

More could be said on this and the other questions here, but I’ll keep it short for space reasons. Apologies in advance when I shortchange one or both sides of the argument.

2. Why Does There Appear to Be Design (Fine Tuning) in the Universe?

The constants that govern our universe appear to be remarkably fine-tuned to allow life. What explains that if not a supernatural intelligence?

I’ve responded to the fine-tuning argument before (here, here, and here). The quick answer to this question is the multiverse—an almost infinite number of other universes defined by different constants. Most of them might be sterile, but there are enough to make one or more life giving.

The Christian might imagine frustrated atheists lamenting how the appearance of deliberate fine tuning makes a deity unavoidable and then hitting on the crazy idea of bazillions of universes so that by sheer luck at least one of them will be tuned to allow life. But that’s not how it happened. A multiverse is predicted by well-established physics—both string theory and inflation.

Note also that events and objects aren’t unique in physics. There’s more than one photon, more than one electron, more than one star, more than one object influenced by gravity, and so on. Why must we be limited to one Big Bang?

Wallace says that explaining the appearance of design “is a problem for philosophical naturalists only because they are precluded from considering the possibility of a designer.” If someone is closed minded to the evidence, I agree that that’s a problem. However, I’m happy to follow the evidence where it leads. Science has studied supernatural claims but found only natural causes.

And how designed does the universe look? The vast majority of the universe is hostile to any kind of life that we’re familiar with. Does creating hundreds of billions of galaxies sound like what a cosmic designer would do if life on a single lonely planet was the goal?

Wallace says, “The Christian worldview is founded on the existence and creative activity of a Master Designer, and for this reason, it does not have to struggle with the appearance of design.” Show us that this is grounded with evidence and it’ll be more than just an ancient myth. Until then, not so much.

3. How Did Life Originate?

“Philosophical naturalists are still unable to explain how life began, and more importantly, their work in this area simply reveals how difficult the problem is to explain. . . . This scientifically inexplicable event can be described as nothing short of miraculous; the Christian worldview explains how the long odds against the emergence of life were overcome.”

No, the Christian worldview explains nothing. Christians can show how their theology is compatible with the question, but this isn’t evidence.

The origin of life is called abiogenesis. Though science has lots of ideas, it doesn’t have a good theory. Nevertheless, science not having an answer gives nothing to the Christian side of the question.

And Wallace’s “inexplicable” is a very bold claim. I’m sure biologists will be eager to hear his proof that abiogenesis is impossible by natural means.

Do Christians think that this or any of the scientific questions are fundamental parts of their argument? I doubt it. When science reaches a consensus on any puzzle—and science’s track record for finding answers to nature’s questions is remarkable—they’ll just drop that question and pick up something new and hope that no one notices the switch. Their argument then becomes “Science has unanswered questions; therefore God.”

Continue with part 2.

* The link to this 2012 article at www.pleaseconvinceme.com is now broken.

The universe is simply one of those things 
that happens from time to time.
— physicist Edward P. Tryon

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 11/18/13.)

Photo credit: Wikimedia

Easter Critique: the Bible Can’t Even Get its Own Punch Line Straight (Infographic)

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Christians, what happened on that very first Easter? This is an open-book test, so no pressure. The only requirement is that you must use all of each gospel story. No cherry picking, please—every “fact” claimed from the crucifixion through the resurrection and ascension must be worked into your composite story.

With four accounts inspired by an infallible deity, this should be no problem.

In practice, however, it’s trickier. If you thought harmonizing the two birth accounts (Matthew’s magi and murderous Herod vs. Luke’s census and shepherds) is troublesome, consider the chart below. It lists every claim from each gospel. They harmonize like bickering children.

(Chart reprinted with permission of Atheists and Agnostics of Wisconsin.)

(PDF version of chart here)

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 4/5/15.)

Image credit for chart: Atheists and Agnostics of Wisconsin (used with permission)

Image credit for lamb: moonjazz, flickr, CC

25 Stupid Arguments Christians Should Avoid (Part 13)

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christian apologetic argumentsIt’s time once again to put on our neoprene waders and gas mask and step in, looking for the stupidest arguments by which Christians embarrass themselves.

The list begins here. We’re well past the original 25 and still going.

Stupid argument #42: Why do atheists worry about someone they don’t think exists?

One Christian source expressed it this way: “How can you hate someone you don’t believe in? Why the hostility? If God does not exist, shouldn’t atheists just relax and seek a good time before they become plant food? Why should it matter if people believe in God?”

We don’t care about gods; we care about their followers. Gods don’t cause problems within society, but people who think they’re following gods do.

This argument seems to presume that Christianity is all about doing good works, community, mutual support, and other worthy aspects that no one would object to. It presumes that nothing bad comes from believing false things. They imagine that Christianity has no more destructive impact on society than knitting, but Christianity in America does quite a bit more than just good works. Christians push for Creationism in public schools, demand prayers at government meetings, stand in the way of abortion and same-sex marriage, block the use of fetal stem cells used for research, and make other attacks on the separation of church and state. And that’s just their attacks on society—within their own communities, people can be ostracized for thinking the wrong things or terrified as children with talk of hell and demons.

A variant of this argument wonders why we don’t see a parallel to atheism (an organized movement against something) with, say, stamp collecting. Why aren’t there non-stamp-collecting organizations, blogs, and lectures?

That comparison is poor, so let’s fix it. Make stamp collecting in the U. S. an industry with revenue of $100 billion per year, all of which is tax deductible, but make that revenue secret. That is, require all nonprofits in the country to open their financial records to show that they are worthy of nonprofit status, except for stamp-collecting organizations (more here). Have the leadership of the stamp collecting industry meddle in public affairs, have them complain to their lawmakers when stamp collectors’ perks are attacked, amend Article VI of the Constitution to forbid any public stamp-collecting test of political candidates (but make it a de facto test anyway), add in some financial and sexual scandals, and the comparison becomes more accurate.

Perhaps now it’s clear why atheism exists as a movement.

This is related to Stupid Argument #24: You really believe in God. (You must believe in God because you talk about him so much.)

Stupid argument #43a: For the benefit of the Little People, don’t take away their God

This isn’t an argument that Christians make but I think it’s worth highlighting. The Little People Argument is made by atheists and agnostics against fellow atheists. They scold the cranky atheists for taking God away from ordinary people. These intellectual atheists don’t need God themselves, they assure us, but we mustn’t ruin things for the people who aren’t as smart or stable as we are.

They say that there’s more to a religious claim than just its truth. If believers get benefits from their belief, and their belief is grounded on the (false) claim that it’s true, why rock their boat?

Christianity’s reckless activity within society is why. Remember the problems listed in the argument above—Christians pushing for Creationism in schools, prayer in public meetings, and so on.

Of course, not all Christians are part of the problem. It’s likely a minority. In addition, politicians sometimes abduct Christian thinking for their own purposes, demanding that good Christians must vote for them to end the godless scourge of abortion, same-sex marriage, or whatever. Nevertheless, Christianity must take some blame for allowing this meddling in society.

One variant on the argument is to demand that you not undercut Christianity without something to replace it. Jerry Coyne, whose article was my inspiration for this argument, gives a counterexample: did the Civil Rights movement offer something to replace the idea that whites are superior to blacks? Nope. If you suffered from the realization that you weren’t superior to someone else, you had to get over it. Northern Europe is far ahead of us in pushing out Christianity, and they seem to have muddled through just fine.

Another example: when you’re cured of cancer or malaria, doctors don’t replace that disease with something else; they make you well and send you on your way.

Stupid argument #43b: Religion is useful

Yes, religion can be useful, but that doesn’t help us if we’re trying to find out if it’s true.

(My interest is responding to Christian claims that their supernatural beliefs are true; however, some Christians make no such claim. If a believer doesn’t state that their religion can back up its supernatural claims, then there’s nothing to respond to. I focus instead on those who insist that Christianity is true and want to tell me why.)

I don’t agree with C. S. Lewis on much, but he had a good point when he said, “If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be; if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all.” If religion is useful, let’s acknowledge that and try to understand why. But that shouldn’t hamper efforts to get everyone to agree on what’s true.

Continued with part 14. Find the complete list in one place here.  

Don’t touch the fruit of the tree of historical knowledge
lest it open your eyes to the hooey that the Church professes.
— commenter Sophia Sadek

Image credit: Dan Ox, flickr, CC