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You Say Miracles Happen? Show Me.

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In an interview on the “Christian Meets World” podcast, Dr. Gary 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. Habermas 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 that Habermas is making. 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 difficult foreign language, or witnesses are inaccessible or deceased.

2. The evidence crumbles. In this case, 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. Or the “Miracle of Lanciano,” another with a natural explanation. Near-death experience? Science understands much of what happens as the brain becomes starved of oxygen (see Scientific American, Popular Science). Prayer that stopped an epidemic? I reported on one such claim (“Claims that Prayer Cures Disease”), but 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, I encourage you to respond to my challenge. You know how to reach me. That you spend your time writing books and giving interviews aimed at fellow believers convinces me that you know the evidence won’t stand up to scrutiny. Science hasn’t been convinced in the past, so why imagine it will now? No, the miracle claims are just superstition with a brittle coating of science.

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

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 9/26/12.)

Image credit: JOPHIELsmiles, flickr, CC

A Defense of a Christian Homophobe

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ISIS homophobia stoning gays David BerzinsI’ve written a lot in support of same-sex marriage and the weakness of biblical arguments against homosexuality. Nevertheless, I want to point out some important areas where pastor David Berzins, in a recent rant in support of stoning of homosexuals, actually has it right.

After a fellow pastor pulled back from a fire ’n brimstone response to homosexuality, Berzins responded first by acknowledging that pastor’s good points.

He believes in the King James Bible, it’s [an] independent fundamentalist Baptist church, he believes homosexuality is wickedness, and he preaches against it.

Wow—what’s not to like? Simply this: “They don’t believe that [homosexuals] should be stoned [to death].”

Do you follow the Bible or not?

Berzins moved on to demand consistency from his fellow Christians.

And this is what drives me nuts: … the same Christians that are complaining about the Old Testament law being thrown out of the courtrooms now will not stand up in defense of a man of God [who] is believing that God’s word is pure and that God’s judgment is righteous on the sodomites.

He’s got a point. Fretting about the Ten Commandments not having a place of prominence in American government is a popular pastime among some Christians today. If the Commandments said only, “Be excellent to each other” (as philosophers Bill and Ted put it), that would be one thing. But in fact, they include demands that we have no other gods but Jehovah, make no graven images, not blaspheme, and keep the Sabbath day.

Is this desire that the government endorse the Ten Commandments just window dressing? Just an empty gesture that Christians can nevertheless feel good about? Of course it is, but let’s take these Christians at their word. Berzins puts them on the spot: why should society follow the Ten Commandments but not all of the Old Testament?

Moral vs. ritual law in the Old Testament

Christians typically get around this by distinguishing moral or divine law, which is still in force, from ritual law, applicable only during Old Testament times. These ritual laws would include kosher food rules and no work on the Sabbath.

It doesn’t work that way in practice. Many Christians, Berzins included, will pick and choose from the buffet as their fancy dictates. They’ll laugh at Old Testament prohibition against mixing fibers in fabrics or crops in a field and they’ll reject rules about slavery, but those rules against homosexuality look tempting. Only extremists like Berzins (and ISIS) go so far as keeping the punishment that goes with the crime.

Berzins is inconsistent about what he keeps and rejects, but that doesn’t make him wrong when he points out Christian inconsistency. Don’t like the gays? Conservative Christians often want to keep prohibitions against homosexuality. Think that stoning to death is just a little much for a civilized country in the 21st century? They’ll drop the Old Testament’s draconian punishments, which in most cases is death.

Stoning for the gays—who’s with me??

By this time in his sermon, Berzins has a good head of steam.

If you think they shouldn’t be put to death, fine. If you don’t think that should be the government’s role, but you believe the Bible and you’re against homosexuality? This is not a cause to break fellowship over. The Bible talks about people who need to be kicked out of the church like drunkards and extortioners and people like that. Yeah—break fellowship with those people. Don’t break fellowship with someone who simply believes that Leviticus 20:13 should be in application in our government today, as it used to be, by the way.

Sure, we’re all singing out of the same hymnal. So I want the government to stone gays to death and you don’t? No biggie, right? We’re still pretty much saying the same thing as long as we shun the drunkards and extortioners.

But once again, I must note where Berzins is right. In a long list of nutty crimes in Leviticus 13 (death for adulterers and rude children, exile for mediums and those who have sex during a woman’s period), God demands death for homosexual men. And at the birth of the United States, male homosexuality was a capital crime in each of the 13 colonies.

Fred “God hates fags!” Phelps was an extremist, but he knew his Bible. He wasn’t just making it up. And David “Stone them!” Berzins has a point when he demands Christian consistency.

For those of you who thought that the biggest problem in this country was not allowing bakers to refuse to bake gay wedding cakes, it’s nice that pastor Berzins is here to set us straight.

Saying someone shouldn’t be gay because it’s against your religion
is like saying someone shouldn’t eat a cupcake
because you are on a diet.
— Unknown

Image credit: Shutterstock

How Do Science and Religion Overlap? NOMA Imagines Not at All.

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Stephen J. GouldCan science say anything about religious claims? Does religion have anything to say in the domain of science?

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) a paleontologist, biologist, and popularize of science wrote of many things, and one was this clash between religion and science (Rocks of Ages, 1999).

Like Rodney “Can’t we all get along?” King, Gould tried to get everyone to play nice. Science and Religion, he said, are two magesteria—that is, areas of authority—that don’t overlap. He described the different domains of these two Non-Overlapping Magesteria (NOMA) this way:

Science gets the age of rocks, and religion the rock of ages; science studies how the heavens go, and religion how to go to heaven.

No one steps on anyone’s toes, and everyone’s happy.

I heard a variation of this in a lecture by Oxford mathematics professor John Lennox (“John Lennox Responds to Stephen Hawking”). Lennox argues that the two domains overlap but overlap contentedly. For example, Isaac Newton had no problem accepted both gravity and God. Gravity could both be studied scientifically and also be the product of God’s hand.

Yet another reaction is by Richard Dawkins. About Gould’s make-nice accommodation, he says in The God Delusion, “Gould carried the art of bending over backwards to positively supine lengths.” About Gould’s quote above, Dawkins wrote:

This sounds terrific—right up until you give it a moment’s thought. What are these ultimate questions in whose presence religion is an honoured guest and science must respectfully slink away?

Lampooning NOMA further, Dawkins imagines that scientists discover DNA evidence that Jesus really did lack a biological father. Would Christian apologists who favor NOMA say that the magesteria still don’t overlap and that scientific evidence is irrelevant to the study of theology? Would they dismiss the scientists with their useless evidence?

Of course not. Within certain circles of Christianity, this would be the discovery of the century. Given the choice of NOMA or evidence, they’ll take the evidence.

Or take the Templeton prayer study. If it had provided evidence of the effectiveness of prayers, you can bet that Christian apologists would telling everyone who would listen. Faith is nice as far as it goes, but it’s second best when the alternative is hard science that supports the Christian position.

Most Christians have learned from the Galileo fiasco and have no problem with evolution, though Dawkins sides with the other Christians. He agrees that they are rightly concerned that evolution and Christianity are incompatible.

NOMA is a nice idea, but given the continued clash between science and science deniers with a religious agenda, it has had little impact.

The Holy Spirit intended to teach us in the Bible 
how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.
— Galileo

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 9/8/12.)

Isaiah 53: Another Failed Prophecy Claim

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Isaiah 53 is the other chapter that apologists often point to as giving an uncanny summary of the death of Jesus, but, like the claims for Psalm 22, we’ll see that this also falls flat.
bible prophecy
First, give the apologists their turn. They’ll point to several phrases in Isaiah 53 (and the last few verses of the preceding chapter) that parallel the crucifixion.

Verse 52:14: “there were many who were appalled at him; his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being.” Some say that this refers to the beatings Jesus received, though his ugly appearance is never mentioned in the New Testament.

53:3: “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.” Jesus should have been recognized as the Messiah, but the gospels tell us that his own people rejected him.

On the other hand, “he was despised” doesn’t sound like the charismatic rabbi who preached to thousands of attentive listeners and had a triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. And “a man of suffering … familiar with pain” might’ve been the life of an ascetic like John the Baptist, but this doesn’t describe Jesus.

53:7: “he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent.” The synoptic gospels agree that Jesus was silent before his accusers, though John 18:34–19:11 says the opposite.

53:8: in response to the trial and sentencing of Jesus, “who of his generation protested?” Jesus was on his own, and none of his disciples tried to intervene.

53:9: “He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death.” This is often interpreted to mean that Jesus ought to have been buried with criminals but was actually buried with the rich. This ties in with the burial of Jesus in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea.

Finally, from 53:5 to the end of the chapter, almost every verse gives some version of the idea of the suffering servant taking on the burdens of his people—“he was pierced for our transgressions … by his wounds we are healed” (53:5), “for the transgression of my people he was punished” (53:8), “he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors” (53:12), and so on.

Taken as this collection of cherry-picked fragments, the case looks intriguing, but taken as a whole—that is, letting the chapter speak for itself—the story falls apart.

First, let’s look at some of the verses discarded by the apologists.

Verse 52:15: “so will many nations be amazed at him and kings will shut their mouths because of him.”

The nations will be amazed and the kings speechless? Nope, not only was Jesus not internationally famous during his lifetime, history records nothing of his life outside the gospels. True, we have evidence of his followers from historians such as Josephus, Tacitus, and Suetonius, but it is curious that we have nothing about the works of Jesus himself from prolific contemporary authors such as Philo of Alexandria, Seneca, and Pliny the Elder. Apparently he wasn’t as famous as imagined prophecy would have him be.

53:10: “he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.” This is a nice thought—Jesus endures great trials but then, like Job, he is rewarded with children, prosperity, and long life. As Proverbs says, “Grandchildren are the crown of old men.”

Unfortunately, this isn’t how the gospel story plays out.

53:11: “my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.” So Jesus, a person of the Trinity and equal to God the Father, is now God’s servant?

Note that “messiah” simply means “anointed one” and that the Old Testament is fairly liberal with the title messiah. Kings and high priests were anointed as messiahs. Heck, Cyrus the Great of Persia was even a messiah (Isaiah 45:1). But surely no Christian can accept the logic, “Well, David was a messiah, and he was a servant of God; why not Jesus as well?” David was a major figure from the Bible, but Jesus was certainly not in the same category as David.

And here’s the big one: “Therefore I will give him a portion among the great [or many] and he will divide the spoils with the strong [or numerous]” (53:12). Like a warrior who gets a share of the spoils of the battle, the servant will be richly rewarded. This servant is just one among many who gets a portion.

Wait a minute—Jesus has peers? He’s one among equals, just “one of the great”? What kind of nonsense is this? Again, this bears no resemblance to the Jesus of the gospels.

This all makes more sense if the “he” of this chapter is seen as Israel, not Jesus—Israel was punished through the Babylonian exile and will be returned to glory and power.

And, as with our analysis of Psalm 22, the point of any crucifixion story would be the resurrection, which is not present in this chapter. Only with the naïve confidence of a student of Nostradamus could this baggy sack of a “prophecy” be imagined to be a trim fit.

Religion is the diaper of humanity’s childhood;
it’s OK to grow out of it
— PZ Myers

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 9/12/12.)

Image credit: Craig Allen, flickr, CC

Does This Atheist Have a Point? Or Is This a Sycophantic Poe?

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William Lane Craig Reasonable FaithI’ve only seen this once before. In 2010, John Steinrucken wrote an article, “Secularism’s Ongoing Debt to Christianity.” Like philosopher Antony Flew’s ghost-written appeal to deism a few years earlier, Steinrucken became a short-lived darling within the Christian apologetics community. Finally, they had found an atheist with a little common sense who could appreciate Christianity as the foundation that Western civilization rests on.

I critiqued Steinrucken’s scattered argument here. His most ludicrous line (which makes me wonder if he’s a Poe—in this case, a Christian pretending to be an atheist) is this one:

Has there ever been a more perfect and concise moral code than the one Moses brought down from the mountain?

Compare your reaction to mine if you’d like.

Déjà vu all over again

And now we have another example. In a rambling email titled, “You’ve Ruined My Life, Professor Craig!!” a gushing fanboy named Adam tells William Lane Craig how fabulous he is. Craig ruined Adam’s atheist worldview by presenting such danged good arguments for Christianity.

Kevin Harris, Craig’s podcast sidekick, said,

Many are, in fact, saying (including myself) this is the greatest letter in the question and answer forum on Reasonable Faith.

The greatest letter? That’s something we must investigate.

Problem the first: nihilism

Adam said that he was a happy atheist who loved philosophy until he read a paper of Craig’s, after which everything changed. Craig declared that the atheist worldview “was worthless in every possible way.”

Adam’s reaction:

It completely shattered my worldview….

What you say the atheistic worldview entails is true. There is no escaping the nihilism as an atheist.

Everything has died for me.

You have ruined my life.

It doesn’t sound like Adam was much of an atheist but more on this later. Adam is saying here that life has no ultimate meaning. Well, yeah. So what?

Adam apparently gets anxious at the thought that God, a billion years from now, won’t leaf through his little notebook, see Adam’s name, and think fondly of the good times they had together during Adam’s brief life on earth. Sorry Adam, but out of the billions of people on the earth right now, you’re not that big a deal. You’re even less important when seen with all of history as a backdrop.

As Neil DeGrasse Tyson observed, “If you are depressed after being exposed to the cosmic perspective, you started your day with an unjustifiably large ego.”

Life has plenty of meaning, just not transcendentally grounded meaning. It has the meaning that we assign to it and that we find for it, not that someone else like a religious leader assigns for us. Most of us find that not debilitating but empowering.

Problem the second: moral grounding

Adam had another concern:

There is no foundation for morality outside of God.

Wrong. He begs the question by assuming that morality means a God-grounded morality. It doesn’t—look it up. Morality is simply the set of beliefs about good and bad, right and wrong. I’ve never seen evidence for objective morality (morality that would be true whether humans were here to appreciate it or not). Examples inevitably offered such as torture for fun are instead examples of shared or strongly felt morality. We don’t need God to explain human morality; evolution does the job.

(I discuss morality here and here. I respond to Christian apologists’ weak arguments about morality here, here, and here.)

Who is this guy?

Kevin Harris assures us that Adam’s letter is what it claims to be rather than a hoax. I find that hard to believe given ingratiating flattery like this aimed at Craig:

You are and always have been my favorite living philosopher. I have seen every debate you have ever recorded and put up on the internet. I watch all your lectures and talks…. I think you are the epitome of what a philosopher should be. You’re uber logical, fantastically clear, and “computeresk” with the speed and precision of your responses to objections against your position, particularly the criticisms you respond to in your debates.

I’m imagining William Lane Craig concert posters taped up on the walls in Adam’s room. As for Adam being a well-educated atheist, I’ll let you weigh the evidence.

And I must disagree with Adam’s assessment. Craig is a good debater and puts on a good show on stage, but that’s about all I can find positive to say. I’ve responded to his unscientific approach to reality here and here.

So why isn’t Adam a Christian?

Adam says that he’s bowled over by the fabulousness of Craig’s deist arguments but can’t take that last step to become a Christian. Still, it sounds like he’s tempted:

The deeper I dive into philosophy, the more the theistic worldview seems more plausible. The concepts or “language” of mathematics seems to “cry out” as you put it for an explanation, objective moral values seem to be real (but they can’t be “real”, if atheism is true), the idea of “existence” nauseates me to no end (just the thought of anything, at all, existing, and especially existing without any reason, frightens me), and I could go on and on.

I’ve responded to Craig’s Argument from Mathematics here, and we’ve talked about objective moral values above. As for Adam’s fear of stuff existing without a reason, I have no idea what he’s concerned about. Doesn’t science explain why things exist? And where it doesn’t (yet), can he be saying that God is hiding in those gaps of science’s ignorance?

This admission of fear tips his hand. He’s not much interested in the truth but in finding a respected scholar who can pat him on the head and assure him that he actually is living in Fluffy Bunny Land, just like he’d hoped.

Adam’s concern

Adam hates his “nihilistic-atheistic world” and sees Christian belief as his salvation. If he simply swapped in a new set of beliefs, these unpleasant thoughts would be gone.

Theism is a dream come true. The world would make sense, the existential mysteries that haunt me would be solved, life would be livable. It is atheism, however, which seems to be true, yet I do not want to live like this. I have become depressed to no end. I have been in a nihilistic rut for years now. I have become utterly recluse. Yet, even with all this, I cannot come to believe in God…. You may be my last hope…. I know the “answer” is Christianity, but as I said, I cannot get myself to believe its truth. I am an atheist who hates atheism. I want there to be a God more than anything, yet I cannot get myself to believe in one.

If Adam is this depressed, he needs therapy. But if he desperately wants Christianity to be true and knows that Christianity is the answer, then he’s a Christian.

That was easy. Adam, be sure to contact me if this becomes a problem again. Please pay on the way out.

Craig’s response

Craig does little besides bask in the adoration, though a couple of his points need a response.

You need to escape the cloying bonds of naturalism by catching glimpses of a transcendent reality beyond the material world.

If anything binds us, it’s religion. Look at a map of world religions to see how the Big Questions get different answers based on where they’re asked.

Genesis 1 tells us that God shaped the earth like Play-Doh, while science tells us that a typical galaxy holds 100 billion stars and that your little fingernail held at arm’s length covers a million of them. Oh—and it backs up its claims with evidence.

If any explanation is cloying (or condescending), it’s Christianity’s childish Bronze Age view of reality.

Craig riffed on Adam’s concern about nihilism:

[Atheists who reject nihilism are] inconsistent with [their] worldview. In fact, I argue it is really impossible to live consistently and happily within the framework of an atheistic worldview. So if you want to be happy you are going to do what your friends do, and that is to live inconsistently.

Thanks for the condescension, but I can have happiness and consistency. There is no ultimate meaning or purpose to the universe, humanity, or my own life. Ordinary meaning and purpose—discovered and invented by humans—works just fine, thanks.

Craig assured Adam that God is chasing him (in a way that made me wonder if Adam might need a restraining order):

He is after you and will continue His pursuit until you recognize in Him all that you are longing for.

Tell that to the ex-Christians whose faith waned and who begged God to reveal himself. Didn’t happen. Read more at Rational Doubt, the blog of the Clergy Project, a safe place for clergy who doubt.

We were born of risen apes, not fallen angels.
— Robert Ardrey

Image credit: David Blackwell, flickr, CC

How Well Do the Christian Claims About Easter Hold Up?

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Easter resurrection crucifixionThe religious side of the Easter story has a number of elements—the crucifixion, the resurrection, women at the tomb as an argument in favor of the truth of the story, the Shroud of Turin (the burial cloth of Jesus), and Paul’s claim that 500 people saw Jesus after his resurrection. I’ve written about these topic in the posts below.

This was only the first of many occasions
in which I came to find that the holding of religious belief
proved an obstacle to the impartial evaluation of evidence.
— Michael Goulder

Image credit: Hartwig HKD, flickr, CC