Fat Chance: Why Pigs Will Fly Before Ray Comfort Writes an Honest Critique of Atheists (Part 2)

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Ray Comfort Fat Chance book review This is part 2 of my book review of Ray Comfort’s new book, Fat Chance: Why Pigs Will Fly Before America Has an Atheist President. In Part 1, we reviewed the poll results showing that Americans won’t vote for atheists (unfortunate but true), explored the reasons why (Christian bias, if Ray’s sources are to be believed), and reviewed some of the church/state separation lawsuits by which Ray thinks atheists cross the line (but are justified pushback against Christian excesses).
I emailed Ray with a link to my critique but got no reply. That’s odd—he’s usually so responsive …
Keep in mind that Ray has positioned his pig book as an evangelistic tool, a book that is supposed to convince atheists of the rightness of the Christian position. Let’s push forward to see how well Ray meets his goal.
Ray Comfort, mind reader
Ray acts as psychiatrist and psychic as he tells us what makes atheists tick:

The hatred that many atheists have for Christianity is very real. In part, this is because the idea of a God to whom we are accountable threatens every sinful sexual pleasure for which most atheist males live.

So it’s all about the hedonism? It couldn’t be about there not being a God?
With no God, the idea of sin goes away, but the idea of harm doesn’t. Sexual pleasure is a problem when it hurts someone. If the only person hurt is a nonexistent God, then it hurts no one.
Ray sees Christianity as the Big Answer to life’s problems, but there have been many civilizations besides the predominantly Christian West, including many that came before and did just fine without Christianity—Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indus Valley, China. If you point out that those civilizations were imperfect, that’s true, but remember that Christian Europe had issues as well (more here and here).

Atheism gives them license to feast on porn, indulge in fornication, engage in homosexuality, and commit adultery without any sense of guilt. It means that they can lie to meet an end, love money, blaspheme God’s holy name, and steal if they think they can justify it. They believe there’s no absolute right or wrong, so if something makes them happy, then it’s fair game.

That’s a lot of different things lumped into a single confused list. Some things can be fine when done consensually and without harm, such as premarital or homosexual sex. Some can be fine but can also become unhealthy obsessions—porn or money. Some hurt people, such as adultery and stealing. And some only hurt a thin-skinned god that Ray hasn’t bothered to show exists like blaspheming “God’s holy name.”
Ray is right that I see no evidence for absolute right and wrong (more here and here), but obviously it doesn’t follow from that that my pleasure is all I care about.

Atheism removes any sense of guilt. For a sin-loving sinner it’s a delirious dream come true, so he will say anything to defend those pleasures, including deny that which is as obvious as the nose on his face: the existence of God. We all have enough light to see that He exists.

Ray cites Romans 1:18–20 (“people are without excuse”) as his proof. He’s citing a book that he hasn’t bothered to show is either correct or inspired by a god, a book that non-Christians think is a manmade book just like all the rest.
The pig book hits this hedonism thing a number of times. Reading so much about sinful pleasures makes me wonder if Ray’s working out some frustrations or wrestling with temptations. It was like hearing someone talk too much about their own personal sexual interests, like I want to wash my hands afterwards. Consider therapy, Ray.
Stop being mean to Ray
Ray complains about the “disgusting lies” spread about him, but don’t feel too bad for him. He cites Matthew 5:11–12 to argue that this verifies that he’s on the right path. And to show that he’s truly a good Christian, he turns the other cheek and insults atheists back. (Oh, wait—that’s not what “turn the other cheek” means. Unless I’m confused and it’s not cheeks on the face that he’s thinking of.)

[Atheists] are proud, untrustworthy “haters of God.”
Atheists hate Christians for the same reason criminals hate the police…. The policeman stands for what is right, while the criminal loves to do what is wrong. Atheists, like criminals, are similar to creatures of the night that scatter when light shines.
[An atheist] is someone who has willfully turned off the inner light that God has given to every man.… [That] is a fearful state in which to be, because it leads to a “reprobate mind,” where God gives us over to darkness. This is what we often see in contemporary society. Women are viciously raped and murdered and the perpetrators have no remorse. Teenagers kill their parents, gunmen shoot down schoolchildren …

Now that he’s charmed us with his flattery, Ray points out the one-star reviews of previous projects, a book You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can’t Make Him Think and movie Audacity. Must’ve been atheists just being mean—those bad reviews couldn’t have been deserved.
But I was inspired by Ray’s example to leave a one-star review of this book. And—what a privilege!—I was the first one. So here was Ray’s pig book after I left my review:
Book reviewSorry, Ray—I felt this is what it deserved.
Continue with part 3.

In the course of my life, I’ve had sixteen death threats,
but never by an atheist.
— Bishop John Shelby Spong,
AHA Conference 2016

Image credit: Paul Sableman, flickr, CC

Fat Chance: Why Pigs Will Fly Before Ray Comfort Writes an Honest Critique of Atheists

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Ray Comfort Fat Chance book reviewThe evening before the Reason Rally on June 4, I attended a Christian event at which several Christian apologists coached about a hundred Christian evangelists to spread the gospel to atheists (supposedly) hungry for the Word®. Attendees were given a copy of Ray Comfort’s new book, Fat Chance: Why Pigs Will Fly Before America Has an Atheist President. I stood in line to have Ray sign mine—it was the highlight of my life.
At about 15,000 words, it’s a modest little book with much to be modest about. Since it’s positioned as an “evangelistic” book, let’s take a look to see if it provides convincing arguments. Fasten your seat belts, atheists.
Surveys show atheists are unelectable
(Ray quotes a number of sources to make his argument. I’ll be careful to identify which quotes are Ray and which come from articles.)
He leads off with studies that show that many Americans won’t vote for atheists.

A Pew Research survey conducted in May [2014] found that Americans consider atheism the least attractive trait for a candidate to possess, with voters more likely to back a candidate who smokes marijuana, has never held office, or has had an extramarital affair than a self-professed atheist. (Source)

So Americans rank the adulterer higher than the atheist, concerned that atheists might be “untrustworthy, insensitive and morally rootless” (source), despite the fact that the adulterer has proven that they have poor morals? Clearly just because a voter has an opinion doesn’t make it logical.
Thankfully, we have Ray to unpack things for us. Here’s the Christian’s logic: “While the words ‘God-fearing’ are often maligned, we know that if a man truly fears God he won’t lie to you, steal from you, or kill you.”
Suppose you offered the counterexample of a bad Christian—the majority of inmates in U.S. prisons, for example. Ray would doubtless respond with the No True Scotsman fallacy: Ah, but that person wasn’t a true Christian! But then what good is someone who claims to be God fearing?
Different Christians define “God fearing” differently. In the happy world where Ray was king, he could impose his Christian beliefs, and his claim might then be true. Unfortunately, Christianity now has 45,000 denominations, a number expected to grow to 70,000 by 2050, and a single Christian definition of “moral” isn’t possible.
And this only argues that Christianity is useful, not that it’s true. Let’s figure out that one first.
Ray undercuts his argument
He gives evidence (that we’re all familiar with) that atheists are scorned, but is this phobia based on anything? Ray gives this quote:

Surveys find that most Americans refuse or are reluctant to marry or vote for nontheists; in other words, nonbelievers are one minority still commonly denied in practical terms the right to assume office despite the constitutional ban on religious tests.

One wonders if Ray reads his own authorities. That’s right: the only statement in the original Constitution about religion is to limit it. There can be no official religious test for public office. Christians can vote however they want—they can flip a coin to decide—but Christians reluctance to vote for atheists seems like nothing more than xenophobia, fear of the Other.
Ray then paraphrases sociologist Phil Zuckerman: “[Zuckerman] surmises that atheists are disliked by so many Americans because of prejudice—since we equate atheism with ‘being un-American and/or unpatriotic’—and because believers are basically insecure and nonbelief threatens their ‘shaky’ faith.”
Right again, Ray. Christians’ snubbing of atheists certainly sounds like simple bigotry.
Atheists slap Christians’ hands when they cross the line—must we apologize for that?
Ray moves on to argue that atheists are mean and like to rain on the Christian parade. He lists sixty lawsuits filed by atheist groups. Most sound like important corrections to Christian excesses—no God in presidential inauguration, encouraging the IRS to sanction churches who flout nonprofit rules, Christian symbols on government property, and so on. These Christian excesses outrage me, so I’m not sure why Ray listed them. If his audience is atheists, does he not know that they will also want them corrected?
Admittedly, a few of the lawsuits make the atheists sound like spoilsports. For example, “School cancels toy drive for the poor after atheists threaten to sue.” A public school had an annual project to encourage students to provide shoe boxes with toys for poor children.
The facts behind the project are a little darker. The parent organization is Samaritan’s Purse, Franklin Graham’s evangelical Christian organization. From the AHA, the organization that threatened the lawsuit:

Because the purpose and effect of Operation Christmas Child is to induce impoverished children to convert to Christianity, the school’s promotion of this program violates the Constitution….
It is a clear constitutional violation for administrators of a public school to push students to participate in a proselytizing religious program….
The boxes of toys are essentially a bribe, expressly used to pressure desperately poor children living in developing countries to convert to Christianity and are delivered with prayers, sermons, evangelical tracts and pressure to convert.

Here’s another: “Atheists sue every retail store in mall over ‘Happy Holidays.’” This time, it looks like Ray got fooled by a fake article. The bad guy here is the Foundation for Equality, Atheism & Resistance (FEAR), a nonexistent organization whose spokesperson is Merda di Pollo (Italian for “chicken shit”). The article says that atheists are furious over the use of the greeting “Happy Holidays.” According to the spokesperson, “Hearing ‘Happy Holidays’ is painful for us since we don’t have any holidays coming up, no parties to look forward to, nothing to celebrate. It’s discriminatory.”
Be a bit more skeptical next time, Ray. I haven’t looked in detail at all of them, but it sure looks like this is an excellent list of atheist good works (or a rogues’ gallery of Christian privilege).
Ray summarizes the big picture problem: “Atheists are suing their fellow Americans for things they hold dear, and it’s all done under the guise of loving the Constitution.”
Atheists’ legal actions are done under the guise of loving the Constitution? What a dick. What does he suppose the real reason is—that our hearts are two sizes too small? Yes, Ray, we really do it to protect the Constitution, predominantly the First Amendment. God knows you won’t.
Taking a broader look at the legal landscape, remember also that the ACLU’s religious lawsuits are predominantly in defense of Christians (more), despite what many Christians want to believe.
Here’s a helpful way to evaluate these lawsuits. Change the Christianity in each of these to Islam. Now the lawsuits are focused on removing Allah from the presidential inauguration, removing Muslim symbols from government property, stopping public schools from supporting Muslim evangelistic charities, and so on. Are these still a problem, Ray? Or do you have a little more appreciation for the principle of the separation of church and state now?
Continue with part 2.

Ethiopians say that their gods are flat-nosed and dark,
and Thracians that theirs are blue-eyed and red-haired.
If oxen and horses and lions had hands …
each would make the gods’ bodies
the same shape as they themselves had.
— attributed to Xenophanes

 

Checking Back on Dire Predictions About the Boy Scouts Allowing Homosexuals

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The Boy Scouts of America first allowed openly gay scouts in January, 2014 and openly leaders and employees in July, 2015. Let’s look back on an article written in protest, immediately after the national council voted to allow gay scouts: “Why my family is quitting the Boy Scouts.”
It begins with an introduction of the author.

John Stemberger is an Eagle Scout and president of On My Honor, a coalition … united in their support of Scouting’s timeless values and their opposition to open homosexuality in the Scouts.

I was also an Eagle Scout. Patrol Leader. Order of the Arrow. Philmont. Scouting was a big part in my life and, more importantly, a big part of my father’s life. My grandfather died when my father was three, and to a young man growing up fatherless in New York City, Scouting was fundamental in shaping who my father became. I’m an Eagle Scout because he was, too. I understand how important Scouting can be to someone.
Mr. Stemberger doesn’t pull any punches in his critique of the policy.

This organization that has stood the test of time will probably be destroyed now that they have decided to admit openly gay boys as Scouts.

Why? Was marriage destroyed when they let black folks and white folks marry each other?
Membership in Boy Scouts is declining, but it’s been declining for decades (2.4 million now from a high of 6.5 million in 1972). Society changes, and apparently Boy Scouts has become valuable for fewer boys. Almost three years after that prediction, there’s no evidence that their policies have “destroyed” the organization.
Stemberger is now the chairman of the board of Trail Life, a Christian alternative to the Boy Scouts that unsurprisingly forbids homosexual boys and leaders. He apparently sees homosexuality as something that society can keep in the closet. He’s taken the divisive approach, going home to start his own club. In his mind, he’s standing for moral principles. However, in the judgment of history, I suspect that he’s backed the wrong horse, and his principled stand will be seen like George Wallace’s principled stand for racial segregation.
Stemberger seems to imagine Boy Scouts as an immutable organization, built perfect a century ago with no need to change today. But it has evolved as society has evolved. For example, its rule on race in the early days was that local scouting organizations should follow the local school district’s policies, which meant that troops were racially segregated if the local school system was segregated.
But that rule was changed. Sometimes change is good.

The policy fails to respect or revere the religious beliefs, values and theology of the vast majority of Christian churches, which charter more than 70% of all Scouting units.

What if a church had a racist policy for leadership—should that be respected when picking a scoutmaster? What if a church rejected conventional medicine in favor of prayer—should that be respected when a boy is injured on a hike?
Religion isn’t a trump card in a society governed by a secular constitution. “However free the exercise of religion may be, it must be subordinate to the criminal laws of the country” (1890 Supreme Court case Davis v. Beason).

The new policy also leaves all Scouting units with no options and no legal protection if they refuse to allow open homosexuality among the boys of their units.

Troops would also be without legal protection if they wanted to discriminate based on race. Does that trouble you as well?

Most important, the new policy robs parents of Boy Scouts, like me, of the sole authority to raise issues of sex and sexuality with their kids.

I hate to tell you, but the issues of sex and sexuality will be raised among teenage kids whether you like it or not.
You do know that these open homosexuals are attending public school with other kids, right? Of course parents have the right to steer their boys on the path that they think is best, but unless your kids are in solitary confinement, don’t imagine that they won’t be exposed to—and even seek out—information on sex from other teens. If you’re concerned about misinformation, talk to your kids early, often, and honestly about sex.
And what do you fear will now be discussed around the campfire? Sex? It can’t be news to you that sex has always been a topic of interest with teenage boys.

[My wife and I] are concerned for the safety and security of our boys, as are many other parents who are considering leaving as well.

Safety? Is homosexual rape what this is all about? I’m pretty sure that the new policy doesn’t condone that. Why think that rape would be any worse after the new policy, when gays can be out, than before the policy, when gays were closeted? Surely there have always been gay boys in scouting.

I love the Boy Scouts and want my boys to enjoy the same great experiences as I and millions of others have had over the years. That’s why I regret that Thursday’s vote refused to keep sex and politics out of the Boy Scouts and stand firm for those timeless principles.

What timeless principles?
Slavery used to be legal, polygamy used to be legal, racial discrimination used to be legal. Now, not so much. Society changes. Don’t you applaud at least some of society’s changes?
The Scout Law says that a Scout is brave. The oath from which your organization takes its name includes this obligation: “To help other people at all times.” How about showing a little of that bravery and commitment to doing the right thing?
Maybe instead of digging in your heels, you could see how our future leaders could learn from this. We can’t go back to the fifties and fight to end to Jim Crow laws, but we’re right in the middle of another civil rights issue. We have a small opportunity to nudge society in a better direction. Why shield your boys from that? How about instead give them front-row seats to social change, a change that surely won’t be society’s last?

The truth of the matter is that 
you always know the right thing to do. 
The hard part is doing it. 
— General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 5/24/13.)
Photo credit: Wikimedia

Reason Rally Undercover

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I’m back from the Reason Rally.
I can’t resist an opportunity to engage in apologetics, so on the evening before the Rally I attended the Reason Rally Outreach, a strategy meeting of roughly 100 Christians who planned to engage with the atheists. I only have one Jesus-y shirt, earned at the completion of the Alpha course, so I wore that one to blend in.
Andrew Rappaport (Striving for Eternity) seemed to be the organizer of the event. Apologist Matt Slick (CARM) presented a couple of arguments (including TAG) that probably weren’t useful to anyone who hadn’t heard them before.
Ray Comfort was the primary speaker, and he was interviewed on stage for a Christian podcast. I got a signed copy of his new book, Fat Chance: Why pigs will fly before America has an atheist president, and I missed out on getting a selfie with the Wolfman himself (see a recent photo of Ray if that reference is confusing).
I may critique the book if there’s anything interesting in it.
Ray Comfort’s upcoming “The Atheist Delusion” movie
We saw a 10-minute excerpt of Ray’s devastating new conversion tool, which will be released July 29. It was done in his usual interview style. We are introduced to maybe ten atheists, and Ray asks them if they think that a book could’ve just come together by random forces, without intelligence. They agree that it couldn’t. Then he drops the bombshell: with human DNA having more information than a shelf of books, how could that have come about without intelligence? In other words, it’s an argument from incredulity. The crowd loved it.
That’s the argument, and now you don’t have to see the movie. You’re welcome.
If the crowd thought that that was a good response to evolution, you can see how well prepared they were to engage people who have actually thought about the relevant issues.
Not having seen the entire movie, I don’t know if Ray responded to the concerns that a thoughtful person would have. Or whether he defined “information.” Is he measuring Shannon information? Kolmogorov information? Knowing Ray’s uncompromising and relentless journalistic nature, I’m sure he will explore the issue thoroughly. Or not.
Ray noted that in atheist critiques of his previous movies, atheists hadn’t bothered removing the gospel because they don’t realize its power. He imagines that the gospel is magic, and this carried over into the gospel pitch they encouraged the attendees to use: you’re created sinful and broken, and you need to accept the sacrifice of Jesus to get salvation.
You can imagine the response of the typical atheist. First, they’ve already heard this. Second, no one cares about the theology until you show me that this god exists. He looks as made up as all the rest.
Another argument: atheists don’t exist. Ray knows because the Bible tells him so (Romans 1:18–21). He said, not joking, “You can’t tell me the organizers of this event aren’t praying for no rain.”
With that kind of preparation, these Christian soldiers went out to battle armed with blanks. It reminded me of the 13th-century Children’s Crusade, the traditional account of which tells of 30,000 children walking to the Holy Land with the idea of peacefully converting the Muslims. Instead, many died on the trip, with the survivors sold into slavery.
At the Rally, Ray’s robots were walking around, wearing atheistmovie.com shirts or carrying atheistmovie.com signs. (They were permitted to be near the Rally by the police only if they kept moving and weren’t noisy or disruptive.) That URL was a good choice because it was deceptive. At first glance and given the context, it looks like a pro-atheism movie.
I heard that Ray was interviewing atheists during the Rally for the movie. Though I like engaging with Christians, I saw no upside. At best I would flummox him with thoughtful responses and get edited out.
“How imbecilic can one get with just one head?”
Let me summarize my interaction with one guy stationed in a group on the north of the Lincoln Memorial. His argument was basically, “But as an atheist, you have no meaning in your life.” I corrected him, saying that I see no absolute (or objective) meaning in my life, but of course I have plenty of the ordinary kind. Just look up the word in the dictionary. I have plenty of that, just like he might. And for the same reasons.
And he continued, “But as an atheist, you have no meaning in your life.”
A little frustrated this time, I made the point using more words. Over here (waving left hand) are absolute or objective things—meaning, morality, purpose, good and bad, and so on. And over here (waving right hand) are the regular kind, as these ideas are defined in the dictionary. If you’re going to talk about the atheist position, only talk about meaning, morality, and purpose over here (waving right hand).
And then we’re back at square one, no wiser than before. I’m not exaggerating—I think I went through some variation of this cycle this eight times. I don’t think he was doing it just to be annoying. He was indeed very annoying, but I think he just didn’t get it somehow. He didn’t see the distinction.
We get this error from well-known Christian apologists as well, from today’s big names back to C. S. Lewis.
It’s times like this when I despair of bridging the gap with Christians.
(h/t to Ignorant Amos for the “just one head” line)

I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame,
a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the starless night,
blown and flared by passion’s storm,
and yet, it is the only light.
Extinguish that, and nought remains.
— Robert Green Ingersoll

Image credit: Bob Seidensticker

An Attack on My Naysayer Argument

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Strange Notions is a web site that aims to be “the central place of dialogue between Catholics and atheists.” Shortly after it was created, I was invited to submit one of my posts, which I understand was the first atheist contribution. I applaud that goal, and I was honored to have been be asked.
I offered my “10 Reasons to Just Say Nay to the Naysayer Hypothesis.” A day later, Father Dwight Longenecker, author of the Patheos blog “Standing on my Head,” wrote a reply. Here’s my response.
You’re welcome to read my post about the naysayer hypothesis for full details, but let me summarize it here.
The Christian argument
Many apologists say that Christianity surviving its early years is a testament to its truth. If the gospel story (written or oral) circulating in the years after the death of Jesus wasn’t true, there would’ve been people who would’ve objected. They would’ve said, “Hold on—I was there, and that’s not what happened.” These eyewitnesses would’ve been able to shut down a false story. An eyewitness account would’ve been much more credible than that of someone who simply passed on a story.
Rejection of the naysayer hypothesis
Let’s imagine that. Let’s imagine that Jesus was an ordinary rabbi and that there were eyewitnesses of him not being a miracle worker. The apologist claims that Christianity would’ve been squashed. And let’s be clear here, they can’t be content with a lukewarm, “Well, naysayers might have shut down Christianity.” That’s hardly a foundation on which to build the remarkable claim that God created everything and that Jesus was his emissary on earth who was raised from the dead.
I argue that this naysayer hypothesis is false. That is, we can easily imagine naysayers in the early years of Christianity and the religion surviving just fine. There’s much more in that post, but briefly: the handful of people who followed Jesus closely enough to know that he didn’t do any miracles would’ve been unable to spend their lives stamping out the brush fires of Christianity popping up throughout the eastern Mediterranean. They wouldn’t have even been a part of the Greek-speaking Christian community to know about the error. And why imagine that they would’ve cared enough to devote any meaningful time to eradicating Christianity?
Since rumors take on a life of their own today (for example, it took over two years for the fraction of Americans who believed that Saddam Hussein had something to do with the 9/11 attacks to drop below 50 percent), why imagine that the poorer communication of the ancient world would’ve stopped false rumors any better?
My response to a response
One more bit of housekeeping before we get to the response. Here are the facts that I think Dwight and I share.

  1. The gospels and epistles exist. We can agree on what each English translation says.
  2. These books were written in the first century, and Christianity is a first-century movement.

Dwight seems to have additional starting assumptions, but I can’t think of any that I’d share with him. In particular, I don’t take as fact that anything in these writings is true. And that’s only prudent—we accept that the epic of Gilgamesh exists, but we don’t immediately take its claims as history. You want to claim that Gilgamesh is actual history? Or the Iliad? Or the Bible? I’ll listen to your argument, but remember our starting point: that these books exist and their age, nothing more.
Dwight makes clear that my problem is

basic false assumptions, rooted in some very elementary ignorance of the facts of New Testament scholarship, historical scholarship, and what actually happened. Of course, if false, these assumptions make [Bob’s] conclusions irrelevant.

With that scolding ringing in our ears, let’s soldier on.

We don’t ask if there were any naysayers around to disprove the gospels from 70 AD onward. We ask whether there were any naysayers around when the gospel was hot and fresh when the apostles were preaching—first in Jerusalem and then around the Empire.

That’s fair. For simplicity, I wrote about just naysayers responding to the gospels, but yes, the fuller hypothesis imagines naysayers at the beginning of the ministry. (There would be less for these supposed naysayers to work with if they were responding not to the gospels but only to the oral version.) This touches on points 2 and 3 in my argument, but it does nothing to refute the overall argument.
Next, he spends a surprising amount of time arguing about the date of the gospels.

He repeats the tired old idea that they must date from after 70 AD. The only reason for this dating is the modernist scholar’s assumption that Jesus could not have prophesied the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, which happened in 70 AD. Why? Simply because prophecies of the future are impossible. Why? Because they say so.

I’ve heard this argument many times from conservative scholars. He sees Acts written before 65 AD, and Luke before that, and Mark before that. However, this isn’t the scholarly consensus. (I write more about the dating of the gospels here.)
But this is a red herring. I don’t much care when you date the gospels. My concerns still stand: you have decades of oral history before the gospels were written, then centuries of turmoil within the Christian community before our earliest full copies in the fourth century. That’s not much firm ground on which to build Christianity’s incredible claims.
Dwight then argues that there were naysayers, but that they were ineffective.

Let’s look at the facts: when the gospel was hot and fresh in Jerusalem in the days after the Resurrection there were plenty of people there who knew Jesus, knew what had happened, and were ready to dispute with the disciples.

Yes, that is what the story says. No, that doesn’t make it history.
Dwight talks about the bit in Matthew where the Jewish leaders say that disciples must have stolen the body, but why imagine that that story circulated days after the death of Jesus? All we know is that it appeared in a gospel decades after the death of Jesus. And I’m still scratching my head trying to understand Dwight’s point. Why imagine that the naysayers would be motivated to stamp out this false teaching? Why imagine that “That’s nonsense!” would stamp out a religion? Has it ever?
Let me propose an alternative explanation that explains the facts nicely without having to conjure up a supernatural claim. Jesus was a charismatic rabbi. Maybe supernatural stories were told about him during his lifetime, maybe not. Paul writes his epistles two decades after the death of Jesus, within which the gospel story is very minimal (I’ve written about the gospel of Paul here). Like a transplanted species that thrives, Christianity adapts and takes on elements of its new Greek environment, a culture full of supernatural stories. The Jesus stories grow with the retelling, and the gospels are snapshots at different places and times within the eastern Mediterranean.

Our point is not that there were no naysayers but that there were plenty and that they still couldn’t disprove what the apostles were saying.

(It’s not that Dorothy had no obstacles to returning to Kansas but that she had plenty and that she and her friends still overcame them.)
It’s a story. Both the Wizard of Oz and the gospel are stories. Yes, the gospel trots out naysayers and then says that the church withstood the attack. Show that the gospel is actually history, and then that argument will be compelling. Until then, not so much.
Conclusion
Let me try to summarize Dwight’s rebuttal:

  1. The action started right after the crucifixion, not at the writing of the gospel. You’re right, but that doesn’t affect the argument.
  2. You dated the gospels wrong. I doubt it, but let’s use your dates.
  3. The gospel story documents that naysayers existed who, despite their best efforts, could do nothing to defeat Christianity. So what? This means nothing until you show that the gospel story is history.

Dwight concludes by comparing me to someone explaining why there are no lunar landing deniers in NASA.

You may come up with ten astounding reasons why there are no lunar landing deniers at NASA, but it might just be because there was a lunar landing and the people at NASA—along with most other people—accept the simple facts of what really happened.

Yeah. We should accept the simple fact that Jesus was raised from the dead by the omnipotent creator of the universe (an Iron Age polytheistic deity) who demanded a human sacrifice to assuage his sense of injustice that humans are imperfect, like he made them to be.
Or not.

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run 
by smart people who are putting us on 
or by imbeciles who really mean it.
— Mark Twain

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 5/23/13.)

Where’s God? He’s Harder to Find than Waldo.

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The history of the abolition movement in the West isn’t complete without William Wilberforce. His drive was instrumental in abolishing in Britain the slave trade in 1807 and then slavery itself in 1833. There’s much more to the story than just Wilberforce, of course, but the story wouldn’t be complete without acknowledging his work.
What does a central figure look like?
Martin Luther King has a similar position within the U.S. civil rights movement. The story doesn’t begin and end with him, of course, but the story wouldn’t be complete without noting his substantial contribution.
Or Gutenberg in publishing. Or Einstein in physics. Or Shakespeare in English literature. Or Charlemagne in the history of Europe. Perhaps their fields would now look to us roughly the same without them; perhaps others would’ve stepped in. No matter—these great leaders were central figures in their fields. You can’t explain the facts of the history of their fields without them. A history book without these figures would have holes, like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing.
Who gave the “I have a dream” speech? How did the Slave Trade Act get through Parliament with so much opposition? Who developed the theory of relativity? Did the printing press just poof into existence?
There aren’t partisans here, with some historians of science acknowledging Einstein (or Darwin or Newton) and others saying that these figures never existed. Historians might rate their importance differently, but that they were important isn’t questioned.
How does God fit in?
Now that we know what a central figure looks like, consider God, the central figure in reality. He’s behind life, the universe, and everything. No historical figure so dominates their field as God dominates reality—or so we’re told.
Imagine God removed from reality, like the story of abolition without Wilberforce, or an Einstein-less history of physics. Beyond a superficial summary, we simply can’t explain abolition without Wilberforce or the history of physics without Einstein. So what of reality can no longer be explained without God?
Nothing!
Admittedly, we have riddles at the frontier of science. How did abiogenesis happen? What caused the Big Bang? What causes consciousness? But surely the Christian’s argument is more than, “Science doesn’t have all the answers, therefore God.” And, of course, Christianity doesn’t have any better answers. It can wrap a scientific puzzle with “God did it,” but that explains nothing. Science continues to deliver while Christianity continues to not deliver, but even if science delivered no more, that would say nothing about God’s existence.
Hot water
Have you heard about the recipe for making boiling water? First put a pot of water on a hot stove, then stir with a magic spoon (just once, clockwise), and then wait for the water to boil.
God is the magic spoon. He’s not necessary. He only complicates the explanation. Invoke Occam’s Razor and drop both the magic spoon and God.

The problem with quotes on the internet 
is that it is hard to verify their authenticity.
— Abraham Lincoln

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 5/13/13.)
Photo credit: Wikipedia