Edward Falzon Talk Tonight

In about an hour I'm going to a talk by Edward Falzon (his website here). Currently he is on a book tour, and this is his only scheduled stop in Ohio.

Who is Edward? He is the author of the book Being Gay is Disgusting, which has a lot of fun paraphrasing the chapters of the Pentateuch.

And his talk tonight?

To officially launch this "Biblical Morality" book-series, Edward is embarking on a 59-city American tour from July 2012. On the tour, he will demonstrate that we're good people in spite of the Bible, not because of it, and that it's time to set this Iron-age nonsense aside, for good.

Should be a fun and (slightly?) irreverent listen.

Time to Converge

For dinner tonight, I'm going to a grill-out at a a group I am helping my Christian and atheist friends take wing. The idea was started before I came along, but it has a philosophy behind it that I can get behind, and you should too no matter your political or theological position.

The group that is meeting tonight is called Convergence, and it's trying to be interfaith without the barrier of having to have a faith (other terms I have heard used an inter-worldview and trans-faith). And basically, if you like intellectual discussion and trying to find common ground, this is great. If you prefer being divisive, then you will probably not feel comfortable.

Does this go against the ideas growing up in A+? I don't see a necessary contradiction because the folks I work with hold to much the same values as I do (as described by Richard Carrier for A+): rationality, compassion, and personal integrity. Sure I don't agree with the Christians about God and Jesus, but they don't evangelize through Bible-slapping, and on social issues we seem to feel similarly. One of the earlier discussions the group had was whether it is okay for us to live with luxury while so much of the rest of the world has decrepit living conditions (to put it nicely). These are conversations that can and do happen at atheists meetings as well, but to make the changes we want it is necessary to talk to the other 80+% of the country.

This won't reach out to all religious folks, especially those that love their Jesus but don't seem to think the "love my neighbor" stuff is all that literal. Again, the values described above seem to be a prerequisite for making such a group work, be productive, and create a community that unites rather than divides.

Currently the group exists only in Columbus, as far as I know, but we hope that it expands. If you are interested, let me know as we want to make organizations like this grow. It's great for atheists to work with the religious to show we don't all eat babies. It's great for the religious because it shows that the next generation is more tolerant, more reasonable, and more inviting than the previous generation. And I only want that to keep getting better.

But for now, got's to gets to the grillin'!

Recent Appearance on the Magic Sandwich Show

I had the chance to check out and participate in the BlogTV broadcast of the Magic Sandwich Show, named after a food concoctions "invented" to cure just about anything but really to mock an argument against non-belief. The major topic of the show was a look at sophisticated theology, in particular mentioning the famous and respected philosopher of religion Alvin Plantinga.

Plantinga has come out with an argument that suggests there is a inconsistency between naturalism/materialism and the theory of evolution. Basically, if evolution made our brains and sense organs (and this is something Plantinga has doubted at least in the past), it may not have made them such that they will give us correct beliefs. Thus naturalism cannot account for our ability to reason and perceive correctly. He then suggests that God/supernaturalism can provide the reason we can trust our cognitive faculties. The Wikipedia page on the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN) summarizes it well.

I got to participate a bit on that subject as seen in this bit of the video (jump to time 33:14):



I'll summarize my point here. One of the major premises of Plantinga's argument is the idea that our reasoning and sensory faculties are reliable. However, they often do fail us. We know there are many different cognitive biases, and we do tend to see and hear things that aren't there, even if we aren't chronic hallucinators or on drugs. We see patterns where none are, and even more-so when we are stressed. There is a lack of correlation between vividness of a memory and its accuracy, and we do mis-remember things. I also gave the example of the Stroop effect (or test) where we misread color words when the color is different than the word itself. Some of this stuff about our non-so-great minds and senses are discussed in books such as Michael Shermer's The Believing Brain and V. S. Ramachandran's The Tell-Tale Brain. These points also seem to be made by William Ramsey is his essay about EAAN.

So we know that our faculties are not completely reliable. And more interestingly, the sorts of issues our brains have can be explained by our evolutionary history. For example, making false-positives with patterns had an evolutionary advantage as opposed to the opposite error: mistake that there is a tiger and run, no harm done; mistake that there isn't a tiger, and you're dead. Thus we have a selective pressure to make us more likely to see what isn't there. But according to Plantinga, God ensures the proper functioning of our minds.

That leads to two possibilities: the supernatural hypothesis has this evidence against it, or a faulty mind is consistent with the supernatural. The first one obviously isn't good for the case against naturalism, and it means that in fact the argument is for naturalism. So perhaps the God hypothesis can be compatible with faulty thinking faculties. However, this is made initially unlikely because we expected otherwise (Plantinga certainly did). But let's just be favorable and say supernaturalism is 50/50 on whether we would have reliable cognitive faculties. Nonetheless, on naturalism with evolution we expect to have some limitations in the reliability of our ability to perceive and reason, so the probability here is greater than 50%, and closer to 100% (if not exactly 100%). That means on either of the possibilities, the probability of naturalism goes up and supernaturalism down (using a Bayesian inference method).

So that means Plantinga's argument goes against his beliefs. That he uses the argument for his position is the definition of delusional: held with conviction, not significantly changing with counter-evidence (even after years of philosophers showing him errors), and implausible (i.e. the reliability of our faculties; supernatural beings and powers).

And considering how Plantinga is considered (rightly) as one of the best in philosophy of religion yet his arguments have such scientific flaws and similar to bad street preachers (as pointed out by the hosts of the Magic Sandwich Show), it really should indicate how bad the arguments for the supernatural are, at least using armchair philosophy. It's why I'd rather talk about evidence.

The other topic that unfortunately I didn't get to delve into enough was that theology has a huge amount of intellectual capital to use for its cause. Astrology and other pseudo-science and history doesn't have anywhere near the resources of intellectuals to defend them. Astrology used to be that way with support from scientists and church figures, but not so anymore, and their arguments are thus very bad. Religion, on the other hand, has an industry of defending the faith or finding new interpretations. So I am impugning both liberal and conservative religious folk with this; both camps have a lot of power to either defend their dogma with endless apologetics, and liberals have a significant "phase space" of what to focus on in their beliefs or holy books to come up with some more rational position without having to admit their belief or book is no more worthy of being called sacred or inspired than any other of the same type. Again, astrology and astrologers don't have the same luxury of ways to interpret their practices or defend them that stand up to much critical scrutiny; very few have a science or philosophy background in this day and age.

Then again, being a philosopher doesn't mean you won't get the science wrong and think there are no transitional fossils or that irreducible complexity is evidence against evolution.

The Star of Bethlehem & Zeitgeist - Video

As practice in my video editing and to make the material more viewable, I now have made my previous blog posts about the Star of Bethlehem and its treatment in the film Zeitgeist into a short YouTube video.

 

Hope you enjoy!

What is Faith? Baby Don't Hurt Me

Over at Skeptic Blogs, there is a rather long but reasonably thorough look at an attempt to make the term "faith" not antithetical to reason. I just want to give a bit of historical background to the first millennium of Christian understanding of reason and faith.

Scholars that have studied the interaction of science and religion often take an look at the first centuries of Christendom (in periods often called Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages), and David Lindberg is probably the best known and most respected on the subject. What he concluded is basically the thesis of Augustine, that science/philosophy/reason are the handmaiden of religion/theology. Reason can be used to help in theology, but it cannot be used to undermine it. (See his essay in God and Nature.) That seems to have been the position of Christians from earliest times to the Middle Ages and beyond as well.

And that is inherently non-rational: to say that you cannot use reason to see if a major aspect of research or understanding of the world has the gravitas it deserves is obviously not the way to go and be called rational. And that is what the faith part means: trust this source, and do not question it.

Now, it is possible to do science under this sort of constraint (so long as it doesn't contradict the faith at any point), but it also doesn't encourage it. And that is part of why the Scientific Revolution came rather late, even though the Greeks and Romans were doing science. This sort of problem is well-illustrated in Richard Carrier's chapter on ancient science in The Christian Delusion, as well as proving that Christianity was not responsible for modern science as some have argued.

Perhaps it is no wonder then that the early Christians didn't provide reasons for their faith, but did more to insult opponents and beg disciples to believe in things unseen and evidence hoped for (Hebrews 11:1). And that sort of strategy can get you hurt.

Praying the Lies Away? Barton Still Wrong

Previously I mentioned that pseudo-historian David Barton had his book pulled by a Christian publishing company because they lost confidence in its contents. Not least because he makes things up. And of course he is trying to strike back at his detractors. He appeared on Bryan Fischer‘s American Family Radio.



Sorry if you watched that.

But here is the interesting bit to me. Barton attacks the authors of a book that debunks his work, and those authors are themselves conservative Christians. Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President by Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter goes through the sorts of myths people like Barton have propagated (also nicely debunked by Chris Rodda's Liars for Jesus), and Throckmorton gets the biggest barrage by Barton and Fischer. It's odd they attack Coulter less since he is a political science professor, while Throckmorton is a psychologist. Why?

Because Throckmorton used to think that you could change a person's sexual orientation. Yeah, the idea of "pray the gay away." Now, one thinks that such an idea can be refuted simply by asking yourself when you choose to be attracted to the opposite sex (I think it was a Tuesday for me), but Throckmorton did his research over years and finally concluded that it doesn't work. And that is a sin that discredits historical analysis?

To quote Fischer:

[Throckmorton] believed in reparative therapy, for instance, for homosexuals… and it seems like when he changed his mind about that, when he switched sides on the issue of homosexuality, then it was inevitable that in the course of time, he was going to be an enemy of the Truth, basically, in all of its forms.

Oh, the non sequiturs!

Has the Religious Right becomes so anti-empirical that any deviation from their artificial dogma it discounts everything they say?

This is why I make my creed of "where does the evidence point", because anything else just hurts my brain.

Now, this isn't the only counter-attack Barton and his allies have performed. There are also some things going on between Chris Rodda and lackey Rick Green. Green said he would post any substantive response to Barton's work that showed a factual error. And as is predictable to the dogmatic, an attack on an idol is automatically wrong. And Barton is the same; PhD-holding folks that agree with him are right, and PhD-holding folks that don't are liberal, commie, socialist, god-hating, baby-eating monsters that are destroying True America.©


Nonetheless, that a significant number of conservatives are loosing faith in Barton that he can't keep his books on the shelf means things are going against him. Will he be replaced? Stay vigilant.

David Barton on Jefferson too Full of Lies for Publisher

David Baron is a famous (infamous?) pseudo-historian, specializing in early American history. He is a favorite of the Religious Right because he tries to argue from the primary documents that the US was founded as a Christian nation, on Christian values, and not on Enlightenment values. And, heaven forbid, none of the Founding Fathers were deists; in his interpretation, they were nigh-on evangelical (not the denomination, but in the attitude of spreading the gospel).

He has written several books before, and they had be addressed by historians as full of mischaracterization and even fabrications. One of the best volume to read just for that is Chris Rodda's book Liars for Jesus (currently in its first volume). It is thorough, and you will learn some real American history while you're at it.

Nonetheless, Barton published a new book which pretty much repeated the same old, same old, in The Jefferson Lies. The 'lies' were supposed to be those things promulgated by liberal professors to disguise the real Thomas Jefferson. And wouldn't you know it, the book isn't better researched than before. NPR did a review of it, and the verdict is very bad.

How bad? As bad as the publisher pulling the book from shelves! The publisher, Thomas Nelson, received complaints from multiple sources, and then they pulled the book due to lack of confidence in its content.

This may not be the end of the book's life, however. Barton can go to another publisher (there are plenty of publishing houses that don't mind this sort of criticism and even thrive on it), and he could self-publish. Nonetheless, this is a significant and public blow to his credibility. Will it sting long?

You decide!

Hat tip to Hemant Mehta, thanking Greg for the links.

The Real Expelled

Several years ago, it was claimed in the "documentary" Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed that those in science departments were persecuted by their academic counterparts because they held creationist/intelligent design views. Those arguments failed on the merits that they were not true. Nonetheless, the movie showed a common view among creationists: scientific heretical views are purged from universities and research institutes.

However, it is starting to look more and more like psychological projection. This year there are two interesting stories on this point from the evangelical community. First, we have John R. Schneider, a theologian who earned his degree at Fuller Theological Seminary and had taught at Calvin College in Michigan since the 1980s. He had published an article about genetic science and how it relates to the story of Adam and Eve. The gist is that modern genomic research makes the belief that there was ever just two humans untenable, and that a new theological approach is needed compared to the Augustinian view of the Fall of Man. And the result of his attempt to help update evangelical beliefs about this part of the Genesis account? He was effectively kicked out of Calvin College, a forced early retirement (for similar recent cases, see here).

So, here we have a case of origins research, and it is the person taking the mainstream scientific view that is loosing an academic position. Literally, this is the Expelled thesis in reverse. More importantly, as can be seen from Schneider's article, he is not saying that science has proven that the Incarnation and sacrifice of Jesus was in vain because the Genesis story is not literally true, but that the theological position needs to be reconfigured with the new science, not unlike how Christians had to be used to the Earth moving about the sun rather than vice versa. So the question if not about biblical authority but about interpretation, yet that was enough to get Dr. Schneider into how water.

And this isn't the only example this year. Perhaps more egregious, at least to me, has been the recent treatment of Mike Licona, a respected apologist who has written a giant tome defending the historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus. While I don't come anywhere near agreeing with Licona's position, he certainly proves to have done his scholastic homework, and his work had received praise from other big names in biblical scholarship such as Stanley Porter, Craig Evans, James Charlesworth, and Gerd Theissen, along with big names in apologetics such as William Lang Craig, Gary Habermas, and more. However, apparently among the inerrantist community of Christians, those that believe every single sentence of the Bible is true and authoritative, they found a problem, a T that was not crossed.

In Licona's book, he discusses the odd story of the dead saints rising from their graves at the death of Jesus and coming into Jerusalem to be seen by many as recounted in Matthew 27:52-3. It's a story that many point to as unlikely historical (and even laughable). Since Dr. Licona is part of evangelical Christianity that affirms inerrancy, his treatment of this passage ought to have been to affirm its historicity and move on. Instead, he compares the story to other tales outside of the Gospel, especially in the Greco-Roman literature of the time, and figures that the story more likely was given for its symbolic value rather than its historical value. And that is a view that I can get behind, and his supporting materials are helpful to any academic who wants to look into the issue.

However, inerrancy is not a stable construct, because if any support, any verse is found to be questionable, it is viewed as undermining the entire position and theology collapses. Actually, it is more complex that this, as described by Robert M. Price in Inerrant the Wind. Evangelicals have been arguing what the authority of the Bible really is and what must be taken as literal and what is not.

Nonetheless, Licona stepped on an evangelical landmine, especially with the open letters from Norman Geisler, a well-known apologetic author. After a few open letters and a response by Dr. Licona whose response appears like bet-hedging yet holds to his view that it is reasonable to read the account as metaphorical, he is also now out of his job as reported by Christianity today. Licona had received support from others in another open letter signed by a number of popular apologists (the link includes responses by Geisler and Licona), yet the Christianity Today article quotes Paul Copan saying that others support Dr. Licona but are afraid to do so publicly.

This is quite amazing to me. There is a wide-spread fear in evangelical scholarship of getting the right answers, so much so that it causes them to cower away from supporting a fellow academic. Jeffery Jay Lowder similarly notes that this indicates that such scholars cannot follow the evidence where it goes. The incident also shows that the view of the historicity of the Resurrection is not historically defensible but is instead dogma; Licona was brow-beaten into submission, and when that failed he was forced out of his job and the evangelical society he was in; his talks have been cancelled, and who knows what will happen next. Was a case of the historicity of the dead saints presented to Mike? It certainly wasn't done so by Geisler, who simply made his own Condemnation of 1277 against Dr. Licona. The argument against him was simply he came to the "wrong" conclusion. All this is is a modern witch hunt, as characterized by another evangelical, Craig Blomberg, in the Christianity Today article.

Both Drs. Schneider and Licona proved to be courageous in holding to their views even under the pressures on them, and I wish them both well. Nonetheless, these cases demonstrate all too well that the epistemology employed to the branches of Christianity these men belonged to is a failed one which cannot handle even the slightest re-examination by its own members (let alone from outside of it). And when they kick out great minds, especially relatively young folks such as Licona, they are dooming themselves to nonexistence in a short period of time. In the end, the prosecutors shall themselves be expelled, as the last will become the first, and the first become the last.

Going to the Promised Land

Of the many facets of religious observances and traditions, perhaps one of the most universal is that of pilgrimage, the travel to some holy place to better commune with divinity. Our most common images perhaps come from the Christian Middle Ages when pilgrims filled the roads going to cathedrals across Europe because of some saint's remains or other holy incident at that location. Relics and temples are often at the cite of pilgrimages, though a memorial is also common.

However, less commonly thought of are pilgrimages of the Jews before the end of antiquity. How common an activity was this, say in the first century? This discussion came up in part of a review of Earl Doherty's Jesus: Neither God Nor Man by James McGrath. The question was about whether it is plausible that there should have been Christian pilgrims in the first century to sites such as the empty tomb, something absent from earliest records such as Paul's letters. How plausible such pilgrimages would have been and how likely someone would have mentioned such a pilgrimage and then how likely we would have that record won't be discussed here, but instead a fundamental question is worth considering: how common was pilgrimage among Jews at the time of Jesus? James was figuring it was uncommon, but he wasn't certain; in a comment he suggested I look into it. That is what I shall do here.

As noted before, pilgrimages are a near universal in religious cultures around the world. There were numerous holy places in the Greco-Roman world as well, such as the temples of Aesculapius where miracles and cures were often claimed. We also know of medieval and modern Jewish pilgrims, not to mention Christian ones, such even with no evidence one would expect pilgrimages to be part of Judaism just from this general background. With that initial probability favoring Jewish pilgrims, it would force one contending the opposite to justify that position.

However, there are evidences to consider. The most obvious form of pilgrimage in Second-Temple Judaism are the three major festivals that brought Jews from all ends of the Diaspora to Jerusalem. The most obvious festival is Passover, which brought Jesus and his Disciples to the Temple as well. There is no question of the magnitude of these festivals; Josephus wrote of the immense size of the crowds during Passovers, and Philo of Alexandria also wrote of his own pilgrimages to Jerusalem for festivals; we can also supplement rabbinic writings as well to confirm the magnitude of these festivals.

Nonetheless, this is not the sort of pilgrimages that are interest if one wants to compare to later periods or to Christianity. We should be curious if there were other sites that Jews would wish to travel to because of their holiness or other religious importance. For example, did Hebrew pilgrims trek to the tombs of the saints or the location of special events from the Old Testament? What sorts of records do we have? What does archaeology show?

My investigations were helps immensely by Pilgrimage and the Jews by David Gitlitz and Linda Davidson. Their book focuses more on later periods, including Jews travelling to Holocaust sites and memorials, but there is also a fair amount concerning antiquity. They look at much of the Old Testament of holy sites that may have attracted crowds. However, one thing that they did not consider but seems much like Christian relic stories from the Middle Ages, concerns the body of the prophet Elisha. According to Sirach 48:14 even the dead prophet brought about numerous miracles; could the author be thinking of something like relic stories? If 2 Kings 13:20-21 is in view, this makes sense. In this story a dead body is through into the tomb of Elisha, and the dead man returns to life. Perhaps we have here an old sort of relic story. Apparently Elisha had a tomb and people told stories about its miraculous powers. We would then expect people to occasionally show up there as so many did at the temples of Aesculapius.

Another important document after biblical texts is a work often figured to date from the early first century CE, the Lives of the Prophets. This work tells of many stories concerning the numerous speakers for God, and in many cases their death and tomb location is mentioned. The importance of their tombs was apparently worth knowing as the fuller title of this work is The Names of the Prophets, and whence they were, where they died, and how and where they were buried. This work may have been known to the authors of the New Testament, but I won't pretend to know if that's true. Nonetheless, it does give insight into the beliefs and activities of the time.

Here are a few examples from this document. Ezekiel is said to have drawn large crowds while preaching, and at one point does a Moses miracle to the river Chebar in Mesopotamia, splitting it to help his people escape the Chaldeans and then drowning the pursuers. Ezekiel's tomb is described as having a stairway and multiple chambers. The tomb of Jeremiah is said to have the sorts of powers medieval relics had, such as the sands taken from his Egyptian resting place were used to cure snakebites. The tomb of Isaiah is also noted as in the vicinity of Jerusalem, so holy sites were located close and far away from the Holy City. The story of Elisha resurrecting a dead man through bone contact is also retold. These tombs seem to be well known as they help make sense of Luke 11:47 with Jesus talking about the tombs of the prophets. Apparently these places were well-known either to Jesus or the Gospel authors.

Archaeology also supports this period as a time when many came to see the places of various righteous figures of Israel's past and mythology. The Cave of the Patriarchs has been shown to have been refurbished during the time of Herod the Great, as wells as the tomb of David according to Josephus (JA 16.182). (Lest we forget, there was also Herod's elaborate tomb, the Herodium, which he must have hoped people to show up to in remembrance considering the place.) The construction at these places further indicates that they were common places for travelers to visit, so their upkeep would have been good for business.

I have focused on locations and documents whose province is better known to show that indeed in the first century there were Jewish pilgrims to holy places other than the Temple. More uncertain we could add Rachel's tomb, the tomb of Daniel, and others. There is also the Mount of Olives; the fact that Jesus was supposed to have gone up there signifies it's importance, and would also suggest why the unnamed Egyptian rebel in the 60s CE also gathered his troops at this place. John the Baptist's placement at the Jordan has significance, and the people who traveled to him can be said to have been on pilgrimage. Later, the tombs of the rabbis were commonly venerated. All of this strongly indicates that in fact pilgrimage was indeed a commonality of Jewish religious practice in the first century, even beyond that going for festival celebrations.

With that established, we may begin to ponder about the resting place of Jesus' body... temporarily, of course. Would it have become a venerated location soon after his death? Would we have expected the Jerusalem pillars to have "set up shop" outside of this most holy place for tourists? This is a discussion that will need to take place at another time.

Mo Day

A message from Muhammad:

Surah 109

[109.1] Say: O unbelievers!
[109.2] I do not serve that which you serve,
[109.3] Nor do you serve Him Whom I serve:
[109.4] Nor am I going to serve that which you serve,
[109.5] Nor are you going to serve Him Whom I serve:
[109.6] You shall have your religion and I shall have my religion.

...[109.7] Keep it real, yo!

Happy Draw Muhammad Day!

The Miracle-Free God of the Bible

Perhaps I need to pay more attention to the Old Testament prophets, because it looks like there are some interesting gems there.

A blogger, Joel Watts, a theology student has come up with a great passage from the Old Testament that can be quite the dirge against literalist creationists. He noted in Jeremiah 31:35-6 that God says he would not circumvent the regularity of nature lest he end his covenant with his people Israel. Now, he doesn't believe that one should take the whole thing literally, as there are miracles in the Bible, but that's the whole point! If you are a literalist, this passage will contradict a miraculous creation; if you want a miraculous creation, you have to not be a literalist.

Will this convince any Young Earth Creationists? I doubt it, but it is one more example of why students of the Bible are so much more interesting than those that only act like they are Bible lovers.

No Star of Bethlehem--Thus Spake Zarathustra

In a previous post, I began a critique of one recent attempt to explain the Star of Bethlehem as a natural phenomenon, namely a comet. There I showed that in the land in which the Magi were likely to have emerged from, comets, like in most all other cultures, are considered evil omens.

However, one should ask what we know about the Magi and what we know about their interests in astrology. After all, if we are trying to figure out what would have been interesting in the skies to these eastern sages, we need to know what they thought of events in the heavens.

Firstly, the term magos in the Roman world would have meant something other than the peoples of Persia, and it was often used for astrologers in general or various diviners or magicians. In fact, our term 'magic' is derivative of the Greco-Roman term. Also, Christian figures such as Justin Martyr stated that the Magi were from Arabia. Now, this may have been because of his understanding of Isaiah 60, where gifts brought to the Jewish king by various members of regions close to the Holy Land are mentioned, along with a great light. However, Matthew seems to imply that the Magi are in fact from the Parthian Empire. Firstly, the term magos appears in only one book in the Greek Old Testament, in the Book of Daniel. Thus, a reader living in an environment that was dedicated to the holiness and importance of the OT would place the Greek term in the context of eastern soothsayers from the Babylonian Empire. Furthermore, Matthew calls them magi "from the East", which would point in the direction of Babylonia/Persia far more than to Arabia, and this would also distinguish the Magi from the hucksters of the time in Imperial Rome. Thus, it

seems best to think of these Magi as the ones mentioned from the East, especially as mentioned by figures such as Herodotus and Strabo.

Now, the magi were the priests of the Zoroastrian faith, one that is considered even more ancient than that of the Hebrews (Mary Boyce placed the prophet Zoroaster in about 1200 BCE). Also, the Zoroastrians had a cosmic dualistic theology, that there were two

principle gods, Ahura Mazda (the good), and Ahriman (the evil). These are the Avestan names of the deities, and later languages would show modification in the names (compar YHWH to Jehovah). Also, most all our texts for the faith come in later centuries and didn't reach the form we know them until the Sassanian period. Nonetheless, we can learn a fair bit about their beliefs from their texts, along with comparing classical sources, though we must be cautious concerning their quality.

Now, what do we know about Zoroastrian astrological beliefs? (My discussion here is primarily based on that of Gerard Mussies, “Some Astrological Presuppositions of Matthew 2: Oriental, Classical and Rabbinical Parallels” in van der Horst, Aspects of Religious Contact and Conflict in the Ancient World, pp. 25-44.)

From what we can gather, firstly, Greek astrological methods did not become well-known in Persia until the Sassanian period, especially under leaders such as Shapur I who instituted programs to gather and translate Greek and Indian scientific works, namely in areas such as astronomy and astrology. That this translation effort in Pahlavi does not come to be until this time suggests a lack of interest in the sort of astrology one finds in the works of Ptolemy. This of course does much to harm the theories of researchers such as Michael Molnar who depend on their interpretation of horoscopes using Greek treatises. But what is more damning is what Zoroastrians had to say about the main edifice of astrology: the planets.

According to the preserved texts, in the beginning Ahura Mazda had the stars, Sun, and Moon as stationary objects giving off their light, a sign of their purity. Also important where the constellations, especially those of the zodiac. However, Ahriman corrupted the heavens as much as he could, and caused some of the bodies in the sky to move and attack the other uncorrupted bodies. Thus the planets, the wandering stars, were evil, the product of the Evil One. Along with the the five classical planets were the eclipsed Sun and Moon (the normal Sun and Moon were still good), the comet Mush Parig, and the lunar nodes called Goshihr. The key thing is that changing bodies were the corrupted, which those that were regular such as the stars and the normal course of the Sun and Moon were pure and good.

Thus we see in the holy texts a very negative view of the planets. In other texts, we find Zoroaster himself debating with Babylonian scholars about the meaning of heavenly bodies, which implies the debate going on in Sassanid Persia rather than an historical recollection--this of it as a sort of WWJD story, but instead WWZD. We also get a sense for how late this debate is because the most ancient texts, the Avesta, speaks only of major, bright stars such as Sirius, along with the Sun and Moon. The planets are not mentioned until this derivative literature is produced which is from the 3rd century CE or later. There is also no direct evidence of astrological knowledge in earlier periods, and indirect evidence is not persuasive.

What this means is that the sort of object that Matthew describes, one that moves and stops, even a comet or planet, would be considered evil. It is also likely that a supernova would be ominous because of its unpredictability. The only sort of astrology practiced by the Zoroastrian priesthood was most primitive, even when compared to what the Babylonians had done in the Enuma Anu Enlil. Thus, it would be inappropriate to call the Magi 'astrologers' as they would not have cast horoscopes or done judicial astrology. In other words, Matthew's Magi were not the right people to be interpreting the heavens.

This is a major wrench in the works for all attempts to identify the Star because any configuration of planets would be baleful to the magi, and similarly for comets or most anything else considered to be the Star of Bethlehem. Later Zoroastrians would adopt Greco-Indian astrology and make their own innovations, such as the great conjunction system of world history, but all this is centuries too late. This also goes against the historicity of Matthew's tale since his choice of astrologically-minded people is incorrect. However, since it is more likely Matthew was trying to evoke the magi of Daniel, it is likely why he chose the term; his purpose is literary, not historical, as future posts will demonstrate.

Happy M-Day--Drawing Muhammad

Today, May 20th, has "officially" been declared Everybody Draw Muhammad day. The idea has been sparked because of the recent flare-up over the censorship at Comedy Central when the popular show South Park wanted to depict the prophet of Islam or at least joke about the censorship of any depiction of him. After a website posted a sort of death threat if the creators of the show actually revealed Muhammad, Comedy Central went crazy on censorship, bleeping out the very name of Muhammad... er, I mean *********, and bleeping out the monologue that gives the show a sense of morality, at least more so than, say, Two and a Half Men.

This is of course also in response to what had happened after the Danish cartoon incident a few years ago. Even now those cartoonists have to worry about their very lives and have been attacked on multiple occasions. So Comedy Central, after seeing what had happened before did not allow Trey and Matt to do what they wanted.

Then again, South Park had already done this. Back in 2001, ******** was featured in an episode. As far as I know, no one was killed or attacked because of this. Oh, and now Comedy Central has blocked that episode from being viewed on its associated websites.

All of this goes against an almost sacred doctrine in the West, that of Freedom of Speech. By declaring "blasphemy" all of the sudden Islam and its founder are off limits. Well, it's more than shouting. It was in part because of riots, murders, and further threats of violence, all in the name of the religion of peace. It's hypocritical if networks such as Comedy Central allow depictions of Jesus and Buddha, especially in a mocking fashion, but not Muhammad...oh, sorry, but not *********. And yet in the very episode that was censored Jesus watches porn and Buddha does lines of coke. If you didn't get the point of why they did these things, then you didn't really watch the episode. Even with the censorship, the purpose is all too clear.

So, to make up for the self-castration by censorship that major networks have done, it is up to regular folks to proudly depict a major religious figure. Today we draw MUHAMMAD.

Why do this? Simply to insult?

Perhaps for some, this will be the case. The recent videos of Thunderf00t on YouTube suggest that. However, I see a very important reason that is beyond petty blasphemies or mockeries. If thousands stand up and do the thing that so many mobs complain about, the power of the mod will be undone. If threats are made idol and anger begets more or what is undesired, the vehicle of violence will be ripped of its fuel and die on the side of the road. Not all can be attacked, and with so many targets it will overwhelm those that decry free expression all that will happen is tails will go between legs and the stupidly proud mobsters will cower away.

Already the effect is felt. Pakistan has banned access to Facebook because of a group promoting the depiction of the prophet. An entire nation is supposed to be afraid of cartoons now? They have to block one of the largest peer-2-peer networking sights in the world? Well, perhaps once they find out that you can Google images of the prophet they will have to ban the Internet. Yeah, I'm sure abandoning modern technology is the way to go forward and become a first-world nation. With nukes. (Crap.)
(UPDATE: Now YouTube has been blocked in Pakistan!)

Shall I draw Muhammad and potential put my livelihood at risk? No. Not because of fear of violence. Rather, I just suck at art.

Instead, how about letting real artists show us the prophet. In fact, how about Muslims drawing Muhammad?

This is from a 15th century leaflet, depicting the prophet being called upon by the angel Gabriel to speak of the word of Allah.

How could a Muslim possibly depict the prophet? Isn't that against the faith? Is this kosher?

(Note: the Wikipedia page on the subject is very good, especially concerning the response on the editors of the site to those that wished to remove images of Muhammad on the "Depictions of Muhammad" page.)

If you turn to the Qur'an, there is nothing about not being allowed to draw a picture of the prophet. It does not allow idolatry (Sura 21:52-4), similar to that found in Judaism and Christianity. Yet in these religions there are plenty of depictions of Jesus, Moses, etc. Occasionally there are puritans, such as, well, the Puritans that not only forbade the celebration of Christmas and birthdays, but even stain-glass windows in churches.

Now, even non-believers can appreciate the glories of medieval architecture in cathedrals. The minsters of England, Notre Dame of Paris, and so on are beautiful in their own right, even if the religion itself has an ugly side. Similarly, a mosque is marvelous when well-built, and the above piece of art is also masterful.

Yet some Muslims would rather put this page to the torch. In fact, many old Persian pieces of art showing Muhammad were destroyed in the middle of the last millennium. As far as I am concerned, drawing Muhammad is not anti-religious; rather, it is both pro-free speech and pro-art. Why not fill the world with the beautiful? Why destroy that which was made with devotion, especially when it is devotion to your more glorified figures?

It may be the case that South Park's Muhammad is not as masterful as others, but it is not revolting either.

A prophet that can shoot fire from his hands? And has nice threads? I'll sign up!

Oh, but no, this is too much for some. What possible basis can there be for this apparent displeasure with any drawn image of Muhammad?

Since the problem in this case does not stem from the holy book, instead you must look to the traditional literature, the Hadith. These are works that claim a basis in tradition going back to the early days of Islam. And they are about a dime a dozen. Not all hadiths are considered canonical, and historians doubt a better number of their contents. Nonetheless, some of these are held in high regard by Muslim scholars, much like the Talmud in Judaism or the apostolic fathers in Catholicism.

In one of these traditions, it is inappropriate to draw any living creature. Some go so far to ban the painting of anything (Sahih Bukhari, Volume 9, Book 93, Number 648; Sahih Muslim, 24, 5272)! No art at all? Well, that is much like the Taliban's policies, which include the complete removal of music from life. But why on earth remove art from life? From what I can tell, the theological idea is that it is boastful for the human to depict the world that Allah created and call what you had done your own creation. In the first of the cited hadiths, Allah calls the artist unjust and challenges them to create the smallest of things. And so, in the Hanafi school of law, a part of Sunni Islamic world, forbids all depictions of animals and humans.

What could be more anti-human than the walling off of humanities creativity in rendering the world around us. These fundamentalist imams and their like which to starve us off of all the created world in order to focus on their deity and rituals. This is the most strident stand against humanist values, deploring what abilities we have in order to shut out the very thing so worth exploring. It is the death of the soul for the sake of "saving" it. One may cut off a limb to avoid a more serious sickness, but this is a lobotomy as deep into the psyche as possible.

But then why are the Muslims only crying about images of Muhammad when even pictures of people or animals is so terrible? There is one reason that I can see, and that is when these complaints are made Westerners back down and cower to these demands. That weakness has allowed the tyrannical misanthropy of cowards who could not possibly persuade by reason to cripple some of the most important rights in the democratic world. Also, the prevention of depictions of Muhammad stave off criticisms of the religion he represents; if you fear to as much as draw him, do you really have the courage to spit at his beliefs or chide his philosophy?

This is about power, and I for one shall not yield to such barbaric hatred of the human condition. Not only shall I put up pictures of people and places, cattle and the cosmos, I shall put up the image of the prophet Muhammad and the various prophets sacred to the major religions of the world. Not to insult, not to harass, but to empower the human spirit, to let it soar no matter what weights some philistine wants to place on its wings.

The religion of Islam has done much that is vile, but I shall oppose it with the beautiful and of its own creation. Let these fools who prefer medieval thinking to return to caves with their head in the desert sand. Let them hide from the wonders of the universe and the minds that inhabit it, the free minds that will not be shackled by superstition and fear. Let their timidity be writ large as their own symbols of religion destroy them.

LET THEM SEE MUHAMMAD

Paul and the Sayings of Jesus

Recently there has been a considerable smattering of arguments concerning the very existence of Jesus, mostly with a university professor of religion, James McGrath. I have followed some of the back and forth in these battles between McGrath and Neil Godfrey and Thomas Verenna. I have preferred the latter's interactions, especially since he provides lots of good references in his posts. However, one item in a comment on a post by Godfrey got me thinking.

This concerns a passage in 1 Corinthians 7:10. This is a statement concerning divorce amongst Christians converts, namely in Corinth.

To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. (NIV)

Note that the NIV is not necessarily the best translation, but it has some of the easiest prose to follow. Nonetheless, the exact translation of the verse is not of concern. The point is that Paul says that he has a commandment from the Lord concerning the nature of divorce. This is taken as Paul referring to a teaching of Jesus, and so Paul must think Jesus was a person giving such advice. The advice on divorce should have something to do with that found in the Gospels, namely in Mark 10. There Jesus says that a man that divorces and marries another woman commits adultery, and similarly with the woman. A similar sentiment is found in Matthew 5. However, there the simple act of getting a divorce makes the woman an adulteress. Also importantly, this is to be in contrast to Deuteronomy 24:1 which gives the ability to divorce.

So, first note that if Matthew has the original saying of Jesus, it doesn't fit the Pauline version very well. Paul does not say that the mere act of divorcing makes one party an adulterer. In the very next verse

But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.

Now the divorce can happen, but the woman can remarry only one person. So, perhaps we should assume that the Markan version is the older and Matthew has made the condition stronger. Also, Matthew is dependent on Mark, so this appears to be Matthew taking liberty with the text.

However, Jesus in Mark does not simply say that he is the authority in this matter, and therefore you must listen to him. Rather, Jesus quotes the Old Testament for the proclamation that divorce should not be done. In particular Jesus uses Genesis to say that men and women were designed by God to join together and not be separated. Further, Mark says that no man can separate man and woman. This runs contrary to Paul's version as well; Paul allows there to be separation, but Mark says that no man can make this possible. So Mark and Paul are not in agreement.

Now, does Paul need to be saying that Jesus spoke this commandment in a historical time frame? Paul often uses scripture to back up his position, and he may very well believe that his advice is based on his reading of the Old Testament. For example, Malachi 2 gives a strong pronouncement from God against divorce, in particular saying he hates it. The LXX of Malachi 2:16 says this was spoken by the lord (kurios), the same word used by Paul in 1 Cor 7:10.

So a pronouncement from Jesus in the flesh is not necessary for Paul to claim a commandment from on high about divorce. This does not mean that Paul is not referring to Jesus; I only claim is that it is not a necessary conclusion. On the other hand, what is probable? Considering that Paul's understanding of what Jesus said is significantly different from what is recorded in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, this gives no reason to think they refer to a recorded source by the Galilean prophet. Further, Mark has Jesus make a scriptural argument, while Matthew uses the force of Jesus' say-so. It looks like the situation is evolving from theological argument amongst the Christians to dictate by Jesus himself. Jesus originally in Mark quotes scripture, and to use the maxim of Bultmann, who remembers the great man quoting somebody else? Worse yet, Luke and John drop this teaching of Jesus; if it went back to the founder, why did Luke think it wasn't worth repeating? He was using Mark, so apparently Luke doesn't have the same problem with divorce; can this really be the case if this is what the very Son of God actually said in history? If instead the commandment was a determination from the Old Testament and revelation, perhaps then Luke's community didn't buy the scriptural argument; that makes a lot more sense than Luke denying the authority of God on earth! If Mark and Paul are only making arguments based on their understanding of the Old Testament or their personal, subjective impressions of the religion, then Luke coming to a different conclusion makes plenty of sense. This becomes significant evidence in favor of no oral tradition starting with the master.

Let us also consider how this commandment of Jesus could have been passed around. Suppose that Paul is in fact quoting his dead master. This means that the authority of Jesus' statements are sufficient to make a matter settled. This is similar for Matthew's Jesus, at least in this one case. However, Mark's Jesus requires a scriptural argument. How did Jesus get demoted from authoritative despot to exeget only to be bumped up again? The historical situation in Mark 10 is unlikely since Pharisees were not running around beyond the Jordan. This is desert land, not a place that needed priestly figures. The context is very strange. It is hard to say that this can go back to this historical situation. Matthew also places this pronouncement in the Galilee, it seems, so the details of substance and location are amiss. Very strange if this is a recollection.

Now, I have utilized the arguments of Early Doherty concerning this particular passage. This argument (#8) is that Paul can very well be claiming that his source is revelation by God/Jesus rather than an oral tradition. This can also make sense of this passage as well as 1 Cor 9:14 which also says that the Lord commands those that preach the gospel must make a living by the gospel. We should also take to heart what Paul says in Galatians 1:11-12 that says he received his gospel by revelation from Jesus himself; he specifically says that no man taught him these things. This works against the notion that Paul learned about what Jesus said from other apostles, and instead he suggests that his information comes from revelation and scripture.

So, the phrase in Paul alone does not need to indicate that Paul is quoting a historical Jesus, and moreover Paul suggests he gained his knowledge about Jesus through revelation and scripture. Without this latter consideration, the historicist stance explains the statement by Paul about as well as the mythicist, but the extra bit from Gal 1 suggests that the mythicist reading of 1 Cor 7 is not strained while the historicist position requires Paul to exaggerate his claims in Galatians. McGrath often argues that the mythicists propose situations that are less probable and require more special pleading in readings of verses. In this case, it seems that this is in fact true for the historicist camp.

Note, this does not mean Jesus wasn't a historical figure just from this argument; it doesn't even establish probability in favor. What it does do is demonstrate that one can justifiably read passages in Paul that some with to use to prove Paul knew a historical Jesus figure can be validly read without ad hoc assertions that fit in the mythicist paradigm. In some ways, it actually fits better in the mythicist paradigm because of the statements in Gal 1. Nonetheless, passages such as 1 Cor 7:10 cannot be used without further justification against the mythicist case.

Such Lovely Accommodation(ist)s

"Science and religion can be accommodated."

A common claim which you probably have heard. Sure, there are plenty of examples from history where the two come into conflict. Then again, there are plenty of examples of figures that did not see a conflict with their science and their faith. That a person can believe in their religious dogma and scientific facts does not prove that the two ways of understanding the world are coherent with each other--people believe contradictory things all the time; when both have serious holds on the mind and heart of a person, then abandoning one even for the sake of removing cognitive dissonance becomes difficult to say the least.

An empirical study of the interaction between science and religion can only say so much. After all, when one believes in both ways of knowing about the world, one often is compromised for the other. Kepler certainly did great science in promoting the heliocentric model of the solar system, but his reading of the Bible had to accommodate his views of the arrangement of the heavens. Newton was one of the greatest scientists of all time, but he also felt the need to have God intervene in the workings of the solar system (an interventionism abhorred by his contemporary Leibniz), a stance that later astronomers found to be unnecessary. As famously said by Laplace concerning God and physics: "I have no need for that hypothesis."

Today, most scientists agree that God and religion has no place in determining science. Figures such as Francis Collins and Kenneth Miller are both devout Christians, and both argue against including intelligent design into the scientific framework on biology. They both actually believe in ID in some form, but not one that should be published in the peer-reviewed journals of biology. Yet reason and science can be used to demonstrate the truths of theism to these intelligent figures. Collins, for example, believes that scholarship does well in demonstrating the historicity of the acts and man of Jesus Christ, including the miracles. Miller also believes in the Resurrection.

This is the oddity I see. Both would agree that miracles are outside the bounds of science, but it seems they are out of bounds only if science dissuades one from believing.

Take the recent example of a spat between PZ Myers and Jerry Coyne with a newspaper article in which they were interviewed concerning Ken Miller. The editorial choices on the part of the reporter and newspaper certainly deserve criticism; Myers and Coyne both had positive things to say about Miller, but that apparently didn't fit the narrative that the reporter wanted. Such biasing in reporting becomes nigh on propaganda--cherry-picking the statements and facts and carrying not for contradictory statements or contexts fits the category.

What I wish to focus on is a statement by Miller himself, supposing it was accurately reproduced by the reporter. All reporters are liable to not quote a person exactly, and often nuance is something noted only after an article is printed. A simple missing indefinite article could screw up the meaning of a statement. But there doesn't seem to be much reason to suppose that is the case here. The statement in question is this:

But the cell biologist [Miller] also makes explicitly scientific arguments: maintaining, for instance, that quantum indeterminacy — the ultimately unpredictable outcome of physical events — could allow God to intervene in subtle, undetectable ways.

This sort of sly intervention, he argues, is vital to the Creator’s project: if God were to re-grow limbs for amputees, for instance — if God were to perform the sort of miracles demanded by atheists as proof of his existence — the consequences would be disastrous.

“Suppose that it was common knowledge that if you were a righteous person and of great faith and prayed deeply, all of a sudden, your limb would grow back,” he says. “That would reduce God to a kind of supranatural force . . . and by pushing the button labeled ‘prayer,’ you could accomplish anything you wanted. What would that do to moral independence?”

Are faith and science reconciled now? Let's see if things stand up to scrutiny.

Apparently, God can only intervene in such a way that his influence must be undetectable, such as at the quantum level. This seems rather parallel to parapsychologists who argue that the properties of the paranormal is that the harder you look for it, the less it exists. The effect must always somehow remain at the statistical noise level. Miller seems to also want to make God statistical noise.

Just because something is at the quantum realm does not means the effects are indeterminable. For example, physicists with the best equipment in the world (namely at CERN) cannot detect a gluon; they cannot detect a top quark or a Higgs boson. However, we can detect the predicted effects of these particles. A Higgs, for example, should decay in a particular way which can be detected with devices at CERN, such as the ATLAS and CMS detectors. We may have no direct detection of these exotic particles, but we can have indirect methods. Further, a statistical analysis is needed to demonstrate that we are not simply sifting through the noise; a confidence in findings is necessary. Just because the causes of particles cannot be individually determined does not negate the predictability of effects which can be recorded.

Even if God or any force in the universe acted at the quantum level, even if a particular action cannot be determined, such as an electron caused to move in a slightly different angle, the overarching effect should be discoverable. The effect can be investigated if one supposes God has a goal in mind; if God is trying to bring about a certain state of affairs, and such a circumstances would not develop with out intervention, then one can test against the null hypothesis. Only if the goals of God are not definable or the effects too small to be detectable can God remain hidden. But if the goals of God are not definable, when what does anyone mean by the very term "God"? If any state of affairs is compatible with the desires of this being, then there is no understanding of what God is. If a physicist declared the existence of a particle, but could not describe any of its properties then he made no prediction at all. If Miller or any theologian cannot say what properties God has or what circumstances God prefers, then there is no concept to be understood. Unless God can be distinguished between no-God, the null hypothesis, then there is no "God" to talk about.

Besides, having God interact at the quantum level does not undo the fact that God is breaking the laws of physics. Just because a violation is not noticeable does not mean it is not a violation. Just because a rape victim does not report the incident does not mean her rights were not violated. Similarly, if God is going to the subatomic realm to give or take momentum from a particle, even if undetectable, this is still a violation of conservation of momentum; any intervention is a change of the natural state of things. Victor Stenger, a physicist himself, makes this point in his book The New Atheism.

Ultimately, Miller wants his God to perform miracles, but he wants those miracles to be scientifically safe. He is trying to make a proposition that sounds scientific but breaks the cardinal rule of the very philosophy of science: falsifiability. By protecting the interventions of God from such scrutiny he is in the same boat as all pseudo-scientists.

This is also apparent in his excuse for why God doesn't regrow the limbs of amputees. If such a God existed that would regrow limbs and does not, that's a disproved God claim.

However, Miller gives a more philosophical reason why God does not answer prayers for the delimbed. If God did answer prayers such as these, this would take away our moral independence, God now just some supranatural force. Perhaps this makes more sense if prayers could get you anything you wanted, but that is Miller's re-characterization of the problem. The issue that God will do anything at request, but that God does nothing upon request. Every time prayer is properly tested it if found to be no more helpful that nothing, and perhaps even worse than nothing. The problem isn't God doesn't answer all prayers, it's that God doesn't answer prayers any better than chance. Like George Carlin suggested, you might as well pray to Joe Pesci because it's just as likely to happen.

Moreover, Miller does believe that God is a supranatural force, one that acts at the quantum level. Miller thus contradicts himself in no time flat.

What is more hypocritical is that the God Miller believes in has done supernatural actions in the past. Jesus of the New Testament does cure the sick, the blind, and so on. Did their moral independence dry up, or does their self-determination not matter? What about the very unnatural return of Jesus from the dead? And as for loosing moral independence, if you believe that you will be resurrected from the dead to go to heaven simply by believing in the Nicene Creed (remember, Miller is a Roman Catholic), does not that belief remove the will to help the sick if you think they will be fixed up anyways after the Second Coming? All Miller can do is make the miracles happen later instead of now. And what happens to moral independence in heaven, again which Mill believes in? Will there be suffering and limbless souls as well? This stance is simply a cop-out for why prayers fails.

This should also be discomforting to the religious person that does have faith in prayer. Many people do think God answers prayers, and the New Testament makes clear that faith in God does bring about healing (cf. Matt 15, esp. v. 28). So, like all accommodationists, Miller has to discredit some aspect of the faith in order to reconcile it will his philosophy. Miller does not have the faith the size of a mustard seed, but he does have the rationalization of a mountain. Perhaps this is why the strongly religious and irreligious are not moved.

Ultimately, I think the entire stance of Miller can be made much less verbose without the loose of understanding: "God works in mysterious ways." To me, this is unfortunately equivalent to "I have no idea what's goin' on." "God" becomes just a word with psychological baggage for the adherent. Most people come to believe in the mysterious for not-so-smart reasons, and then those beliefs are rationalized as much as possible. Eventually the cognitive dissonance becomes unbearable to many, including one listening to these rationalizations.

This is not to say that there is no argument to be made for the existence of God. Miller and others bring up the fine-tuning of the constants of the universe for life. It is a scientific argument and one that requires research; it is more than simple assertion. Even if unpersuasive, such as argument is a million times better than the ad hoc and post hoc reasons given to reconcile the way one sees how the world works and the way we want to believe the world works.

In this test case, the ideas of science and religion are not so easily reconciled. It seems similar to the rationalizations of Pierre d'Ailly in trying to defend his Christian astrology. Bizarre arguments, such as the stars themselves have transmitted their interactions to the astrologers so that the methods are not so random in reality, are the bread and butter of desperate attempts to justify what has no real good justification. If the will to believe is strong enough, it can overcome cognitive dissonance; however, it cannot make it go away, and that is why Miller really can't win.

The Sublunar Armstrong

Many have become familiar with the work of a religious scholar named Karen Armstrong, a former nun as well who studied at Oxford though not receiving a doctorate in her field of interest. She has written widely on the subject of the history of major religions, especially highlighting the spiritual aspects of the faiths. Most popular is probably her A History of God, but it is her most recent statements and her book, The Case of God, that sparks this post.

Armstrong has tried to save religion both from the conservatives of the faiths as well as the "New Atheists", which includes usually the figures of Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens, along with Vic Stenger and PZ Myers. She must claim that religion is not what it is for the vast majority of people in the United States and much of the Islamic world, where sciences such as evolution are denied, where people are abused for not conforming to scriptures--the lessening of rights for homosexuals, including death as could happen in Uganda, or death for apostasy in some Islamic corners--but that religious faith is something beyond this world. Her theology is more sophisticated than that attacked by Dawkins and company.

What does she actually believe though? Well, this is the real problem because her beliefs are rather vacuous. The spiritual is quite subjective for her, such that the reality of God or gods is not a requirement for her faith. Now, that sounds like weirded-out atheism to me, when the existence of gods is not needed for belief in God. God is a symbol of things transcendent to us, and because it is beyond our understanding we cannot say anything about God.

Well, if nothing can be said of God, then what does it mean to believe in God? Saying anything about what God is or what he/she/it wants and what happens to us because of such beings would certainly undo this stance. In reality, the position Armstrong seems to take is an attempt to make sure her theology cannot be criticized--there is nothing to critique, as there is nothing at all!

Recently, a great critique by Troy Jollimore, an associate professor of philosophy at California State, Chico, has pretty much laid her work to waste. By wanting to take away all attributed to God, including existence, but still finding the subjective nature as valid as anything else, she undercuts herself. To me, it looks as if the whole effort is a defense mechanism, trying to protect that special feeling she gets when she thinks about God. Even a meaningless word or statement can be powerful to a person, and protecting the idea, the feeling, of God is her mission. It is not about the facts of nature or deep philosophy, but the will to believe. Armstrong only has rhetoric and feels powerful, as demonstrated by a reviewer from NPR, Susan Jane Gilman, but there is no real depth.

Even religious scholars seem to scoff at her insinuations, and not simply from the conservative wing. Robert M. Price, a former evangelical, now an atheist-Christian and biblical scholar, simply cannot stand her, as he has made clear to me; and R. Joseph Hoffman, another New Testament scholar, finds her arguments as little more than cliche. Armstrong, in trying to make religion something new, seems to have dropped everything that made it worth while, all for some new-agey product.

It seems Armstrong is the religious homeopath--the less things you believe in when it comes to religion, the stronger the faith. No matter what is coherent or intelligible, for God is beyond all such things. But with such soaring rhetoric, there is nothing to latch upon, no being that is there, no essence other than shear desire. Armstrong, by her want of transendence, has left the wonders of what can be, which should be upsetting to someone of a Buddhist stance. The self-indulgent narcissism is something that will leave you in Samsara; Nirvana cannot be a state of hoped-for desire, but to be beyond such desires. That must include the desires of transcendence which cannot be articulated. Otherwise, you are stuck with the illusion of reality, that which the Buddha warned against. Armstrong has attached herself to that which is not anything at all, and that is worse than at least those that believe in things that can be seen.

Let's compare this to another Armstrong or two. There is the biking-sensation, Lance Armstrong, overcoming both the competition and mortality to become something we admire. And how could we forget the Armstrong that was truly super-lunar? With our hopes and dreams of becoming more than just a species trapped on the surface of a spinning rock, we truly went beyond this world to touch another and understand our place in it. One day we will repeat this feat on the Moon again, and later to Mars and perhaps beyond. This is growth of the spirit, in the capacity of humankind that we can see. As the plaque on the lunar surface says: We came in peace for all mankind. Not bad, minus the sexist language.

Understanding who we are through the sciences has led humanity to an amazing position. We know that we have a history of 13.7 billion years from the fires of the Big Bang to the collection of dust and gas to form the Sun and the Earth. We have a four billion year history of life on this world, and each of us living today comes from an unbroken chain of the winners of nature, those that succeeded in making it to the next generation. We know that we are composed forged matter from stellar furnaces. We are children of the stars! This is all objectively known to be true, not simply a feeling or a desire.

We need no "deepity", to use the phrase from Dan Dennett. In fact, he has given a wonderful lecture of this subject recently:



Note: Dan is the Man!

Seeing is Believing

Often I hear someone mention a line from the letters of St. Paul, namely Romans 1:20

Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.

That is, the ways of God are manifest in all the things of nature. Open your eyes and you will see the ways of the Lord.

Yet, I think it is important to remember how open things are to interpretation. For example, if signs from God are visible in nature, what is the message from this?


Perhaps one will say that this is just a random formation of birds, not a deliberate insult to humans who have randomly take the middle finger to be an insult. If that is so, then doesn't that apply to all things? We see messages in the noise of existence and place purpose there--see the effects of pareidolia for example.

Perhaps instead it is better to make a purposeful noise in this universe rather than trying to find someone else's, especially if they are rude.

The Monster

Out of shear appropriateness, I decided to watch some of the classic horror movies from Universal Studies in the 1930s, namely those of the most famous movie monsters, Dracula and Frankenstein. I wish to focus more on the latter, namely because it is the less supernatural and had the greatest intersection with science.

In Bride of Frankenstein (1935), the sequel to the first, a character is introduced known as Dr. Pretorius, who becomes the quintessential mad scientist--white lab coat, fairly long white and unkempt hair, maniacal laughter, and of course little sense of morals with murderous desire. Along with beakers, henchmen, and crazy electrical equipment, the stereotype was complete. Such mad scientists would become a staple in American horror films, especially low budget films (the Ed Wood film Bride of the Monster with Bela Lugosi comes to mind). Of course, Dr. Frankenstein fits into this archetype as well, a scientist that tries to play god. Ultimately, the plans of these crazed men are defeated and the scientist destroyed, often by their own creation. They reap what they sow.

Most importantly, the Frankenstein films have the common theme that there are things that humans should not explore and should not know. This is hardly isolated to the horror genre, since it is also apparent in, say, Jurassic Park. However, when one crosses the ocean, things change.

Instead of American monsters, who are often created by men and defeated by the people or folk wisdom (i.e. Van Helsing fighting off Dracula with folk remedies), and creating an antagonism between science and society or God, let us look to the king of the monsters: Godzilla. This creature is created not by some wilful act a mad scientist but by a military that had used atomic weapons on Japanese cities and tested them in order to possibly use them on the USSR or other nations. The monster is a product of accident and foolishness. Ultimately, the creature is defeated, not by the military, but by science. Dr. Serizawa in his own elaborate laboratory, discovers a secret power in oxygen. However, he tells no one of this "oxygen destroyer" expect his fiancee because he has not yet discovered a constructive use for it. In its current form, it is an awesome power, as terrifying as the bomb itself. Reluctantly, the good doctor cannot stand what Godzilla had done to Tokyo and what it continue to do until it was stopped. Crafting his weapon, Serizawa dives down to where the monster is to be found in Tokyo Bay, uses the weapon to kill Godzilla, and then commits suicide to guarantee that no one can learn how to have this weapon.

In Japan, the scientist is not mad, but is noble, moral, and uses his powers for the good of all. While Dr. Frankenstein discovers a color beyond violet to create life in order to have a society of slaves, Dr. Serizawa discovers a power for the good of all and kills himself to avoid its possible devastation on the world. Could there not be a stronger contrast?

Now, in some later Godzilla movies, the mad scientist plays a role, such as in Godzilla vs. Biollante where a scientist creates a monster out of Godzilla cells, plant cells, and the spirit of his daughter through DNA (?) because plants have psychic powers (???). However, his intentions are not malicious and it is another scientific effort, the creation of cells that will suck the power out of Godzilla, that is a major focus. The true mad scientist stereotype isn't really here.

The point of this contrast is this: in some contexts, the scientist is seen as treading where they do not belong into the territory of the divine; however, in other stories, the scientist is the hero and even kills a god-like creature. This contrast comes across most strongly to me between American and Japanese culture. Similarly, robots in American cinema often has a menacing role (i.e. The Terminator, The Matrix) but the opposite in Japanese film and television (i.e. Gundam, Astro Boy).

Why is this? Perhaps the American culture with a general distrust of authority poo-poos the scientist because they are elitist and think they know better than others when they lack what most consider common sense and morality. In Japan, with so much focus on the honor of being an engineer or scientist, this may be a possible reason for the positive role that scientists have in their entertainment products. It is science that saves the day. Religiosity also has a role in this, since Americans are very religious overall and many claim that morality and social cohesion comes from on high, so treading on that is blasphemous. Japan is more secular, but the relation between the old belief systems and the new ways of thinking I am not familiar enough to say anything. However, the differences are striking, and one must wonder if the effects of society on the movies is reciprocal. In other words, if the movies and TV series paint a different picture of science and scientists, will that change the ways of the society?

Perhaps that is, so maybe shows like House and The Big Bang Theory can change this. It is certainly worth considering.

Blasphempy Day

Though the news has gotten around, I should do my bit to participate and let it be known that September 30th is to be a day of sacrilege. On this day in 2005, the infamous Danish cartoons were published, eventually inciting hatred, protests, and violence in the Islamic world because the cartoons depicted the prophet Muhammad is a negative light.

The event is also in protest to actions by the United Nations allowing religion a free ride in the world of speech, namely because of Islamic nations trying to make their beliefs insulated from criticism. Further, Ireland has passed law to make blasphemy a crime, so this is hardly a one-religion problem. All beliefs should be subject to criticism, especially when they propose things demonstrably wrong and all the worse when harmful. When some area because free from critical thought, it is degrading to being human. It's degrading to religion itself, because if it needs to be protected it must be a most pitiful institution. I don't think AIG gained reverence when it received bailout money; why should religious institutions be seen differently?

I am certainly a critic of religion, both in an academic as well as less-than academic manner. If such beliefs are actually correct, they should be able to handle the hardest hits any pathetic human can through at the mantel of gods. Or are the gods just clay idols? What is someone's faith if it can only survive by protectionism and twisting facts and truths?

Thus, I am dismissive of the dogmas of institutions, and I think that the reprehensible actions of such attitudes and organizations speak for themselves. If child-molesting priests are defensible because they are "men of God", don't expect me to accept such lunacy.

And in the spirit of the challenge issued by the Rational Response Squad some time ago, I deny the Holy Spirit.

The UN and Religion

Apparently, yesterday the United Nations passed a resolution in the General Assembly that included an amendment to combat the "defamation of religion". Such a title already seems more broad than should be desired by any nation with freedom of speech. When it comes to discrimination of people because of religion, this should easily be called unjust, and the UN already passed such a resolution some time ago.

Okay, first to put this in perspective. The UN has no real teeth. Money and troops come under UN control if other nations are willing to give such things. Much of the money comes from the United States and troops are many from the US and Europe, but hardly exclusively (perhaps not even in the majority?). This resolution was also passed in the General Assembly, not the Security Council which producing much more binding statements. The GA can only produce "symbolic" statements for other nations to take heart, but such resolutions certainly cannot change member-state constitutions. The US can ignore this resolution as it can most things the UN throws out, or as did Iraq according to the run-up statements before the war began in 2003. However, the existence of such a resolution passed by the majority of nations in the United Nations does send out a diplomatic shield to those it would protect. The question is, does the resolution protect those unfairly maligned by the prejudices of kooks and bigots, or does this give cover to nations and organizations with religious zealotry which do harm to citizens of the world?

So, what does the statement even say? Is it going to hinder free speech? I thought that perhaps some had over-hyped the nature of this resolution, making seem worse than it is. I first learned of it through sources such as Christopher Hitchens, a well known opponent of religion, an "anti-theist" by his own admission, so perhaps he was biased in his report for Slate.com. But is he right? Does the resolution want to limit free speech and criticism of religion? Well, yes.

For example, Paragraph 100, Section 5 says that states should

take serious steps to address the contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance and in this context to take firm action against negative stereotyping of religions and defamation of religious personalities, holy books, scriptures and symbols.

So, I'm not supposed to defame religious personalities, holy books, and so on. Of course, I can defame politicians all I want. Why can't I say bad things about the Pope or certain Ayatollahs? Does this mean biblical criticism is off now? Bye-bye Documentary Hypothesis.

The resolution also points the blame at right-wingers against Islam who try to use xenophobia to rack up political points. That ignores liberals that attack this religion, such as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, etc. (I would probably add myself, since I'm no right-winger, but I'm not a hippy as well.) The Dutch MP Geert Wilders seems to be in view of the UN resolution, whose documentary "Fitna" created a large stir on the Internet. I agree with critics of the film that it is more anti-immigrant than a proper critic of Islam, but we don't need to look far to find a Dutch MP producing a documentary critical of Islam.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali created a documentary years ago with a decendent of Van Goeth, and the director was killed! Ali has been under protection of years from a similar fate in the US. Ali is also part of a liberal party in the Netherlands, the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD); Geert used to be a member of this same part, but changed in 2006 to a right-wing group called the "Party of Freedom". Geert left the VVD because it was favorable to Turkey's inclusion into the EU, so he was much more against Islamic nations than the VVD in general. Ali can also give more valid criticism of Islam having been Muslim for much of her life and even chanted death threats to Salmon Rushdie.

Apparently now, if Ali, who was abused under Islam, dares criticize, she can be called a xenophobe because of this resolution. How different from the case of the murdering and raping monster in Austria. Should he be given protections if he declared that his actions were part of his religious tradition? Would criticism of his actions be "backward" and "elitist"? If not, then why not the forced circumsizion of women, the stoning of rape victims, the beheading of homosexuals, the death of apostates? Why does religion get a pass?

Obviously, this resolution is truly backward from what any sensible enlightened institution should produce. Imagine if this was passed in the days of Hume; his discourses on natural religion and human reason would have to be outlawed according to this nonsense. Bertrand Russel would have been sent to jail. The intellectual tradition of Western thought would be against the law, the tradition of free inquiry and the ability of all ideas coming to the free market to see what wins out. Apparently, religion has to be protected. Perhaps because it cannot stand up?

Fortunately, I live in the USA, and my country voted against this resolution, along with Canada, France, Germany, the UK, and even Israel, along with many other European nations. It's odd that nations such as Japan did not vote, and Russia voted in favor. I'm betting any nation I end up living in will most likely be against this piece of tripe. Well, as a citizen of the Red, White, and Blue, I must say, God bless . . . er, good goin', the USA.