Today’s lesson in bad apologetics

September 10, 2008 at 5:40 pm (belief)
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One of the main reasons I’m a follower of no religion is due to religious believers themselves.  Specifically, their arguments, which tend to range from the absolutely fruitcake batty to the…quasi-absolute fruitcake batty.  Today’s exhibit is brought to us by sntjohnny of Anthony Horvath’s Christian Apologetics Ministry, in a blog entitled Why Christians Don’t Believe in Pixies, Fairies, Ancient Legends.

Looking closely at the url of the above, you can see that sntjohnny’s first inclination was to title his blog something along the lines of “Why Christians Don’t Believe in Pixies, Fairies, Flying Monsters”.  Truth be told, it’s a title he probably should have stuck with, because by declaring that Christians don’t believe in ancient legends, he essentially claims that the Bible relates accurate history.  While safe on theological grounds, such a position is untenable on historical ones.  One must search far and wide for any Bible archaeologist who would agree with him.  To quote just one such expert:

With most scholars, I would exclude much of the Pentateuch, specifically the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers…much of what is called in the English Bible “poetry,” “wisdom” and “devotional literature” must also be eliminated from historical consideration…Ruth, Esther, Job and Daniel, historical novellae with contrived “real-life settings,” the latter dating as late as the second century B.C. –William G. Dever

Sntjohnny is perturbed by the skeptic’s argument that the reason we don’t believe in the Christian god is for precisely the same reason Christians don’t believe in Zeus, Thor, Allah, etc.  Such reasoning, declares sntjohnny, is “stupid” and “idiocy.”

Why?  Because the default position one should have is to believe in supernatural agents, until proven otherwise!

The only people assuming that there isn’t a God or supernatural entities before they lift a finger are the atheists…Christians, of course, are already on record believing that ’supernatural’ entities exist.  The clearest example would be angels, and their fallen counterparts, demons.

So, since Christians believe in angels and demons, therefore such agents must exist.  Take that, stupid atheist!

Sntjohnny continues,

It is entirely plausible, according to the Christian worldview, for there to be other agents besides human agents.

Plausible based on…all that evidence of other (supernatural) agents?  Documentary films such as Poltergeist?

Since, however, the Christian proceeds based on evidence rather than presupposition…

Except for Calvinists, but they’re not True Christians™ anyway.

…he might dismiss a recorded instance of a miracle, say, in the Odyssey, not because he knows it can’t be real because the event is so old, but simply because the attestation of that event is very weak.  In other words, the reasons why a Christian might reject such things are not the same as the atheist’s.

You see, ladies and gentlemen, the atheist has ruled out reports of miracles because he has declared such things impossible beforehand.  No, it couldn’t be that their attestation is very weak, because, as we all know, the Bible and everything in it, has been indisputably verified as history.  Further, no Christian has ever become an atheist after a thorough investigation into Biblical claims.  Nope, none at all.

It gets richer.

Allow me to give just one example of how this might work:  Islam.  According to Islam, the angel Gabriel dictated a bunch of stuff to Mohammed.  I have no particular reason to believe that Mohammed didn’t receive a revelation.  But I do know that according to the Scriptures, ‘Satan masquerades as an angel of light.’  So, I am already alert to the possibility that a fallen angel might be up to no good (see also Gal. 1:8, which is more pointed concerning Mormonism, since Islam has no ‘Gospel’ at all).  I note, too, the inconsistencies in Islamic theology with the revelation that has come before, which Islam supposedly believes was delivered.  Finally, there is quite the epistemological bottleneck:  the only testimony here is Mohammed’s.

And there it is. The litany of the fundie. The Bible says it, ergo, it must be true, and everyone else’s supernatural claims, by extension, are false.

Compare that with something like the crossing of the Red Sea, which would have been witnessed by thousands.

Every one of which, curiously enough, failed to note it in any extra-Biblical record…

Compare that with Jesus feeding 5,000 people at a go, teaching publically in the temples, dying before hundreds, and then appearing- with a new body- before hundreds.

Miracles all vastly attested by the copious writings of contemporary Ancient Near East historians, like Philo of Alexandria.  Ok, maybe not.  But, dangumit, the Bible says they happened, so, voila, they did!

With apologetics like this, calling skeptical arguments stupid is actually a compliment.

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Does God like to punish?

September 5, 2008 at 1:51 pm (belief, world affairs)
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Anyone who’s read the Bible knows that punishing people took up a goodly portion of God’s time.  And it didn’t much matter if you actually did anything wrong or not, or if you were under a certain age.  Guilt by association was just as much a crime as the “crime” itself–just ask the Canaanites or the pre-Flood inhabitants.

And if you think the punishments have stopped because we live in some period of grace, think again.  With every calamity–natural or not–some “man of God” dutifully proclaims it divine retribution for one human “sin” or another–gay pride parades, gambling, abortion, dancing–you name it.  Some even believe calamities are a herald of the imminent end times–the fact that the same things have been occurring for millions of years doesn’t seem to phase these people, however.

The funny thing about these prognosticators of doom is that they also believe in a god who sends the unrepentant (read: those who don’t belong to their particular sect, in their particular religion) to eternal suffering in the fiery pits of hell.  Their god, apparently not simply content with punishing us forever and ever after death, also feels it necessary to mete out punishment during our lifetimes.  And if we poor SOBs should die as a result, then tough shit.  Out of the fire, and into the frying pan!

So, you can see, God really likes to punish. And, I gotta hand it to him, in a number of really inventive ways.  A virus which progressively destroys your immune system, leaving you to die a slow and miserable death?  Who da thunk it?!

But what about the the innocent casualties?  You know, those who’re did everything right, muttered the correct magical words, dutifully contributed to the collection plate every Sunday in the red brick church.  Is God punishing them too when they get run over by a hurricane or tidal wave?

Oh, no!  They are merely being “called home.”  At the worst, they should recall that this is a fallen world, righteously susceptible to God’s carpet-bomb justice.  ‘Cause, you know, sparing the good and innocent is too much to ask of the Omnipotent Creator of the Known Universe.  If I was one of those Rapturians–people who believe they’ll be magically beamed into the sky before the real shit hits the fan–I would feel a little worried about this divine tendency to simply blow everyone away.

The really curious thing is the response of these men of God and their fellow believers.  They sometimes actually help the victims. WTF? I can think of no more sinful act than working against God’s justice.  They may think that poor, hungry child in Somalia deserves food, but they should remember, that kid has got sin-tainted blood and is almost certainly headed for hell.  Best to send ’em a Bible instead (only the KJV1611 version will do).

You can’t help but get the impression God is chomping at the bit to annihilate His creation as soon as possible, and is blowing off a little steam in the meantime.  With divine love like this…

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He kinda walked right into that one

August 27, 2008 at 10:46 am (belief)
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I’m having a small discussion at a Christian blog regarding the origins of the universe.  One of the participants wrote,

I worship the Transcendent Uncaused Immaterial First cause of the Material Universe.

We’re celebrate His birthday on Dec. 25th.

He could use a little knowledge of ancient religions.  My response:

Sorry, can’t resist. December 25th is “His” birthday, eh? In that case, “He” could be:

Horus, Osiris, Attis of Phrygia, Krishna, Zoroaster/Zarathustra, Mithra, Buddha, Heracles, Dionysus, Tammuz, Adonis, Hermes, Bacchus, Prometheus, or Jesus.

So, which one is it? “Born of a virgin” doesn’t help narrow the list down. All of these qualify too.

Obviously, he was referring to Jesus, but had no idea how many other deities prior to Jesus tradition holds were born on December 25th.  And why this day in particular?  It’s actually a fascinating story, superbly related in Zeitgeist – The Movie (after about 13 minutes in).

As I eluded, the parallels between Jesus and many other deities now widely regarded as myths go beyond simply birth on December 25th.  For obvious reasons, the Christian church ignores them, but they were patently manifest to pagan critics far back in early Christian history, who chastised the new religion for plagiarism.  Their apologists’ response? Guilty as charged! Justin Martyr (100 – 165 CE):

And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter.

Of course, to admit their god was just another in a long line of mythic deities would not do.  There had to be a reason, and who or what was involved?   Who could it be, I just don’t know. Could it be…Satan!!
 Martyr continues:

For having heard it proclaimed through the prophets that the Christ was to come, and that the ungodly among men were to be punished by fire, [wicked demons] put forward many to be called sons of Jupiter, under the impression that they would be able to produce in men the idea that the things which were said with regard to Christ were mere marvelous tales, like the things which were said by the poets.

The devils… said that Bacchus was the son of Jupiter, and gave out that he was the discoverer of the vine, and they number wine among his mysteries; and they taught that, having been torn in pieces, he ascended into heaven.

It is facts like the above–and this only scratches the surface–which make it impossible to accept the Christian claim that there existed a Jesus as described in the New Testament gospels.

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God as Bumbling Chef

August 20, 2008 at 5:30 pm (belief)
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The theory of evolution has always presented a tremendous number of problems for theists.  Besides the obvious complete upending of the traditional creation myth, the theory elegantly demonstrates how order and design can emerge from mindless chaos, given time.  Previously, only an intelligent agent was thought capable of creating the design we see in nature.  While some theists still deny evolution, others who’ve faced the obvious truth of the theory, many of whom support the idea of Intelligent Design, reconcile their beliefs with the justification that God used evolution to create the diversity of life on earth, “guiding” the process to produce us.

No evidence is actually put forward to support this view; rather, it is surmised.  Since the existence of God is assumed a priori, he must have used evolution in some manner to populate the planet with a diversity of life, and, ultimately, humanity.  Since we are myopic creatures, say these evolutionary theists, who are we to suggest this was not the optimal way?  Evolution and theism are not incompatible, they correctly, if lamely, point out.

Before critically examining this view, let’s step back for a moment and recall how costly and time intensive evolution is.  It took almost a billion years after Earth’s formation for the first pre-life forms to appear, the prokaryotes.  After a couple billion more, the first true cells appeared, the eukaryotes, upon which most current life is based.  It took another 700 billion years for multi-cell organisms to arrive.  Throughout all this time, billions upon billions of lifeforms were born and died.  Finally, humanity appeared, which apparently was the goal all along.

With this in mind, let’s compare how atheists and theists view evolution.

Atheist: Evolution is a natural, mindless, and meandering process, without supernatural direction.

Theist: Evolution is a supernaturally-directed process, but God made it only appear to be natural, mindless, and meandering.

Both views are possibly true, but which is simpler and therefore to be preferred?  I’ll let you be the judge of that.  But the obvious question theists need to answer is, why would God utilize a process that, for all intents and purposes, makes it look like he had no hand in it at all?  What happened to the heavily intercessionist deity–you know, the one who will blow up the world some day–we’ve been told exists all along?  What’s more, evolution means no Adam and Eve, and therefore, no Original Sin, which pretty much collapses the whole raison d’être of their religions in the first place.

As quaky as the theistic creationists are, they’re to be commended for at least adhering to a consistent view of God, one that , according to their holy books, created life, the universe, and everything about 6,000 years ago.  It’s just that creationism is akin to belief in a flat-earth or geocentrism in its total rejection of reality.  Theistic evolution, on the other hand, makes God appear to be some kind of bumbling chef, toiling away in his kitchen earth to finally (!) achieve the dish he intended.  No wonder many creationists wail and gnash their teeth at evolution.

Once again, Occam’s razor trumps theism.

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