Apologetic Arguments Analyzed.

Apologetic Arguments Analyzed.

I have noted that most debates revolved about philosophical apologetic arguments. I think this is a good thing because philosophy and logic is a common ground with premises agreed upon by almost all people. When one pulls logic out of it, if someone argues along the lines of logic and then makes the claim that god (or science) is outside of logic, then the common ground shatters. But imagine that the claim that god (or a field of science) can be logically shown upon agreed premises to be outside of logic. That would be a different story. In the case of god, I think the only way this has been attempted or could ever be is through a definition of god as simply being outside logic. Unfortunately, this is never going to work because no unbeliever will agree to the premise of the existence of a god and moreover one that is outside of logic. That would make the unbeliever a believer [of god] in the first place. In the case of science, logical derivations are not what concludes the validity of science. Science is worked upon from observations and hypotheses that work and the test of that working is the correct and accurate predictions of results. Theories that would most come to mind if one needs to think of a science that is close to illogical would be quantum theory and perhaps theories of the multiverse and such. While I don't know about the multiverse or whether it is even claimed a theory in the sense evolutionary and gravitational theory are held (rather than the school textbook's often definition of the word theory as something still needing to be proved before becoming a law), quantum mechanics are far as I know uses mathematics which is very much logical. The predictions of quantum theory have been tested and proven. I don't know if the theory of 10 dimensions share that status. And god? Can he also be proven without explicitly logic but through observations and predictions? Perhaps we would like to give a new set of rules by which we explain god rather than adopt the scientific method? Yes. We may. And there we have the apologetic arguments outside the realm of philosophy, though like science often still relying inherently on logic. And a new set of rules? Well, only if non-believers accept that new set of rules. It would be too much to ask for by saying, "We don't believe god should be proven through the narrowness of science. We propose a new way. We will pray for rain and if it rains, we have working evidence for god." Unreasonable? I think so, since we know that rain could have still happened even if you didn't pray or if you prayed to a bottle of beer. Miracles? Sure, only if they are indeed miracles beyond a doubt. To be fair, I would say this is a difficult basis for argument for god because, as mentioned in an earlier post "Does God Exist? : Turek vs Hitchens" in small blue font, science is always fallible. So what may seem a miracle will always be doubted by skeptics who believe we have an incomplete understanding of the universe.

Let's take a look at non-philosophical apologetic arguments as listed in...of course, Wikipedia. For now I'll assume what it writes is accurate until I have time to research more on these non-philosophical arguments in apologetic sites. I hope you will agree this is not a biased approach.

4 types are listed:

Historical and Legal Evidentialism
Defense of Miracles
Prophetic Fulfillment
Biblical Apologetics

Now, we can shelf prophetic fulfillment first because it relies on the accuracy of the events in the bible. This means accuracy of the bible because in overwhelming cases, the bible is the only source of the events. Disagree? Then we'll have to first discuss biblical apologetics and historical and legal evidentialism. That is why I shelf prophetic fulfillment temporarily. It must be preceded with the two other apologetic arguments mentioned above.

Defense of Miracles argues that miracles are possible. I don't know the arguments yet, but it would likely be a direct clashing against science. Can't say much on this now.

Biblical apologetics and historical and legal evidentialism are arguing the truth of the bible. Ah! This is the heart of the problem. This is the VERY heart of the problem. I once had 2 good friends who recommended reading Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ". That night, I found 5 connecting videos on it. My issue with it was this. Strobel spends the early section proving the validity and truth of the bible. The remaining 80% are arguments based on that validity. But, the proving was really not adequate proof. In other words, the biblical apologetics and historical and legal evidentialism evidence was not convincing and advancing any arguments based on them was impossible. This exposes the very necessity of the truth of the bible in apologetics. If one believes the bible, then really, there is NO argument. The bible says Jesus is our Saviour. Then He is. The bible talks about the end times. Then there will be such end times. Again, as I mention in an earlier post "Does God Exist? : Turek vs Hitchens" under point (1), apologetics should remember that their opponents do not believe in the bible the way believers do. The contents of the bible should not be used as a source of evidence in arguments until their opponents believe in the bible, after which I think there's really no battle anyway.

So why then do people not believe the bible? It doesn't take heresy or the selling of one's soul to find the bible difficult to hold as undisputable truth. Any theology, religion, or bible school student should know the problems with the bible.
The inconsistencies.
Who wrote the bible? Latin version, Greek version, rushed version, apocrypha.
Were there personal agendas? Status of women. Contempt for jews.
Were there accidents or translation issue. Was it a virgin or a young woman?
Why is there no historical evidence that Jews were in Eygpt.
Who wrote about Moses? He himself writing about his death?
What did the women see when they entered Jesus' tomb? What did they do after?
Why is Jesus traced through Joseph who isn't even the biological father?
Many more.
Recently, Bart Ehrman has become a popular source for people to read up on this and having read one of his books, "Misquoting Jesus", I highly recommend his works. They are easy to understand and he merely states facts that agreed upon by all scholars. It is Bible 101. Worried that Ehrman is lying and distorting facts? Well, it's always good to be skeptical and do research rather than trust one source. My input to this is that I took an Introduction to the Bible course in a Christian college in the states that is directly tied to the "Church of God" denomination, although technically they are non-denominational. I was new to all this back then and I struggled to make sense of the bible. I became an apologetic, I might say a very good one, without even reading apologetic material. I created my arguments, I looked at them as achievements, I made countless assumptions, I lost my faith without knowing it while thinking I was striving for the truth, I was mother teresa feeling no presence of god and believing it was a test, then I suddenly was no longer orthodox, to many I was speaking heresy, and then like Kafka's character in The Trial, I could choose to fight but never win, to concede, or to put the trial on infinite hold. Subconsciously, I put it on infinite hold and just as Kafka writes, there will be moments when you are forced again to make the decision. One day, I stopped putting it on hold. What this Intro to the Bible class taught me, the beginning of truth, is very simple and no different from what Ehrman writes about. Don't take my word for it. Find out more about biblical textual criticism.

After all...

Education is not about filling the bucket. It's about lighting the fire.
Fire's burning my bucket and giving me new vision.

So there we go. The non-philosophical apologetic arguments.

The philosophical arguments are more fun, though they are actually arguments for the existence of God, a generic one, rather than a specific one.

Cosmological argument.
First cause...unmoved mover...etc. Once again, I discussed this in some length in "Does God Exist? : Turek vs Hitchens" under point (2MORE).

Teleological argument.
The fine-tuning argument. This is really an appeal to your imagination or lack thereof.

Say I grab 100 stack of cards and I shuffle them. The resulting order of the 5200 cards is very unlikely to occur considering the millions of other possible ordering. But, it WAS random. Now that the cards are in that order, the probability of it being that way is of course 1. I didn't actually order them in any way on purpose.

Say we imagine that there are billions of worlds (within a single universe). Billions of galaxies and freaking a lot of stars and such. Is it hard to imagine that somewhere the conditions are fine tuned for life? Even this can be misleading. It only needed to be fine-tuned for the way we developed, for amino acids to form and for us as humans to survive. But let's not forget that we are also fine-tuned for the world. we may be how we are because the world where the building blocks of our life started adapted for this world. And we don't know if other types of life (non-carbon based...etc) are impossible. Where did life start from? Well, this isn't really the teleological argument, but it might interest you to research the Miller-Urey experiment and similar topics. The very fact that we exist, that the probability of our existence is now set to 1 simply because we DO exist, is why the universe is observed to be fine tuned for our existence. I believe this is the gist of the anthropic principle.

Say we stumble across a watch in the gobi desert. What on earth...this could not have just happened? This must have been designed! Hence the argument for intelligent design. What about our anthropic principle? Since the watch does exist, it...could have come by chance out of unlikely odds right? Ugh...this doesn't sound convincing even though it's not impossible. But, we have a better explanation. It was designed! Fortunately for us, we now understand natural selection and evolution. A watch is now a bad analogy because, well, it WAS designed - we know that. The probability of it having come together by chance is irrelevant because we know it wasn't come together by chance. Let's look at a human being. Surely very complex. Designed? Understanding evolution, we now don't have to think so. Millions of years could have evolved us to be this complex being. It also better explains why sometimes we're born with 6 fingers, no skin, 3 boobs, stuck together, and always with vestiges like tailbones and appendixes. Irreducible complexity? That would pose a problem. I believe biologists, like Darwin, think that irreducible complexity would indeed challenge evolution severely. But there just hasn't been any thing of that nature yet. The eye, immune system, and bacteria flagellum have been shown to not be of irreducible complexity. The bombardier beetle too.

Ontological argument.
The concept of god means that god exist. Very much like [one of] Socrates' argument for the soul.

Imagine that you are walking around Paris. Now, you're seeing yourself from 3rd person point of view right? Hmm...what is this..."consciousness" that is watching "me" move about Paris?
Imagine that you're asleep, and your soul or some inner essence of you gets up and looks at your body. Wait, now what's watching this soul? Hmm...more thoughts.
Imagine instead, that you get up from your bed. You stand up and look at your bed, and you see yourself, sleeping. You look down and see nothing, you ain't got no hands or legs. You walk/move to the corridors and into the bathroom. You stand in front of your sink and look into the mirror. What do you see? Nothing. But you're looking.

Here, we have the concept for a soul. We also have the concept of consciousness although whether consciousness can be independent of the soul (or the body) is another question. Now, since we have a concept of the soul, souls must exist. Otherwise, we can't imagine it. Aristotle defines nothing as "that which rocks dream of". But we can picture our soul can't we?

Well, I can have a concept of a unicorn. Do unicorns exist? I think not.
Hey, wait a second...you're being tricky here aren't you. The reason why you have a concept of a unicorn is because you saw a picture of a unicorn, so it DOES exist to some extent, as a picture!
Okay...but wait, I've never seen a unicorn animated to drink Guinness stout, but I can imagine it.
Ho ho!! wait there! More treachery! You have a concept of drinking stout and a concept of a unicorn. You're just mixing them. It's like saying you've never heard the sentence "I eat gravity" but you can utter it, meaning the sentence can exist, because you've got the nouns, verbs, and linguistic tools to form the sentence.
Wait, i'm confused. are we running in circles? You see, I said I have a concept of unicorns but that unicorns don't exist. Later, you said it does but what you meant was my previous sighting of unicorn pictures. It still doesn't mean that real unicorns exist!

Exactly.

Likewise, souls don't have to exist. Take the contrapositive: Atlas, the man carrying the world, doesn't exist. Therefore, you can't have a concept of him. Certainly not true (unless we go into metaphysics and say oh that's not REALLY a concept...etc but i'm not skilled in excessive metaphysics).
Applying this from souls to god, we don't have an argument for the existence of god. No, not at all.

Moral argument.
If there are morals, they must be derived from an absolute. Like Plato's perfect forms.

Why must they be derived from an absolute? Even if so, why God? I disagree with the premises of the argument.

When we draw a circle, it's not really a circle. It's kind of imperfect. It's a reflection of a true form. A true circle. Imagine you're watching a screen, and there is a fire behind some rocks. And all you can see are the shadows, the representations of the rocks on the screen. But that is not the screen itself. That's more or less Plato's discussion of perfect abstract forms.

While the abstract idea can exist, the form need not. And applying this to a slippery thing like "moral" makes it much less simple. Yet, this argument is in my opinion a very interesting one because even if you don't believe in a god or an absolute, this question will prick you unceasingly: on what basis is morality? is all permissible? (this is one of the great explorations of Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov) Why should I not just go out and steal and kill? In fact, I notice I still DON'T do it. Why? Is there some absolute morality still in me? Some remaining god?

When people quote Dostoevsky to illustrate how this is a great problem with taking God out of the equation, remember that Dostoevsky was a believer. I won't spoil the novel by talking about it here on this topic, but keep in mind that Dostoevsky was an author (a very good one) but not an absolute divine authority on existentialism, nihilism, morality, meaning...etc. Be cautious.

Some convincing notions against a necessity for God for morality is what everyone now calls the zeitgeist. The "spirit of the age". We are not moral because of religion. Christianity was used to understand the acceptability of slavery. Sexism can be justified in the bible. Martin Luther King Jr. may have be a Christian, but by no means can we say that it was nothing but the book that inspired his struggle. The moral environment of our time is pushing our standards of morality, not the holy books. Search up videos or works of Dawkins discussing this.

Another thing is that morality increased survivability. In fact, religion seems to have been important for us to become what we are today. The principle of cooperation was worked out by showing that when individuals worked together, they tended to succeed as a group over individuals who worked for themselves. Of course cooperation came at prices to the individual. But lest we think that concern purely for the self is the natural state of affairs outside of morality, we should note that in biology many creatures work for the good of the group and it is argued that this the for the survival of not only their phenotype but their extended phenotype.

Morality is not that elusive.

Transcendental argument.
Our ability to think and reason require a god.

Presuppositional argument.
Basic beliefs in theists and non-theist require a god as a pre-condition.

Alvin Plantina's argument that belief in God is properly basic.

Pascal's wager.
If even an argument at all. But this is often used almost as a last line of defense. As an argument for a specific god, it fails because wagering on Jesus is not wagering on Allah (presumably you can't wager on too many especially since we're living in monotheistic times). You're also not wagering on Buddha, the Dalai Lama even, or obsolete gods like Zeus, or mother earth, although one could argue that you don't really suffer a penalty for not believing in Zeus or Baal (well, maybe you won't be fertile or have rain, but you don't go to Hell). And even if we bend it such that the wagering of your soul (if any) on God X has 99% chance of a good post-death result, there is no evidence for God X. We're still talking pony unicorns and space meatballs.

Does God Exist? : Turek vs Hitchens

Another great debate. The apologetic side is strong and articulate. One problem is Hitchens seems to fall into self-complacency and arrogance once the informal section of the debate starts. he avoids the question of the source of morality...or what might be called "why morality is moral"...which Turek claims derives its properties from God. There are many arguments for morality without religion as a necessary reference. Although none of them are fully comprehensive as yet, I think Hitchens should have not let it appear as if there is a massive black hole in non-religious explanations for morality.

Start the video from the 5:00 point of the first of the 15 videos for the debate.

If you are new to religion vs atheism sort of debates, I think a few things to think about, come to your conclusions and opinions on, and keep in consideration as you enjoy the video are:
(the video is below all this)

1) Remember that atheists do not believe in the inerrant bible, nor that it is the albeit man-handled word of God. Well, they don't even believe in god in the first place. Imagine a theist arguing, as Turek does, that
"Yes religious people make up a lot of the evil people in the world now. But that's exactly what the bible says. The Pharisees and..."
Sounds like a good comeback. But what are we really trying to achieve here? Whether the bible says that or not, and whether it was a true historical record of what a holy man said - what does this do? It does not mean that the bible is true or that god exists, or that christianity is the true religion. The actual consequence is nothing. I liken it to what LSAT takers call a shell-game.
Imagine a perhaps more likely and damning argument you might hear:
"The bible says that people will turn away and they think they are wise, but are fools. They rely on their own wisdom but it is he wisdom of man which is bound to fail against the wisdom of god..."
So the atheists were anticipated. Haha! We knew you were coming, atheists. We knew you would be like this. And our bible predicts it just as you are. Stop your futile attempts!
But really, nothing is proved. If the bible was the inspired word of god as it stands, then there you have an argument. But remember, crucially, that the atheist does not believe that in the first place. This argument against them is as much as saying that people in the future will turn away from technology because of irrational fears that technology will turn them into cheese. If 200 years from now, people really turn away from technology, and even if they really do so because of the fear of turning to cheese, it does NOT prove that the fear that technology will turn them into cheese is indeed irrational. substitute "turn them into cheese" to "lead to the demise of their civilization" and the argument is exactly the same - an empty one.

2) The Aquinas "proof" and its many modernized versions. Everything needs a cause and there must have been a first cause. The unmoved mover as Aristotle says. The big bang needed something to bring it about. Can't be natural because "natural" doesn't exist until the big bang brings forth the laws of physics and all these natural science properties of the universe. So, it has to be supernatural.
That first cause...
That unmoved mover...
That supernatural thing...
...is GOD

The problem is this. Are those arguments leading to a compatible proof of God as already defined? Or, are these statements defining "God"?
It is the latter, and because of that, it is circular logic. It is assuming what it sets out to prove. It is saying:
"I'm so full. To be full I must have eaten something. Let's call that something food. So we proved that I ate food".
"Food" was defined and then proved. Meaningless.

Apply that analogy to the first of the 2 questions: is the argument leading to a compatible proof of God as already defined? No. It does not. It is equivocating on the semantics of the word "God"; or it is not compatible.
Equivocating? Yes. It is like the food analogy. We define the something that I ate as food. Then we say we proved I ate food, but this second one is unmentioned but defined as something like "organic material that is edible and digestible by the human". It is not the same definition as "the something that I ate" which could have been a toilet roll.

So they are not compatible in my analogy. But the argument was about God, not food. Are they incompatible? As far as the claims go, maybe not incompatible so I shouldn't say that, but there is no proof that the two instances of the word "God" (or food) refer to the same thing. The first was
God: The first cause. Unmoved mover. That supernatural force.
The second would be something like:
God: The Judeo-Christian God that listens to my prayers, that has some kind of Trinity relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Is Jesus and is the god of Moses and Abraham. Died on the Cross and saved me from my sins.
or it could have been "Allah", or "the flying spaghetti monster"...etc

Where is the connection between God 1 and God 2 ?
That is something the argument fails to follow up on, and no connection seems to be made by modern times apologetics who use this argument.

2[more]) But let's roll back a little and also ask the question: Why should the first cause/unmoved mover/supernatural thing be God? Say someone proposes "an inert onion" to be the first cause. Why not? Because we don't think an inert onion can be a cause-er or move-er. Say we propose it was a kind of energy, a wind that we call "the great wind". Why not? Because we immediately think a wind needs a medium to exist in, is in fact an abstract manifestation of the properties of the medium itself, and also should have needed a cause of its own. Who blew the wind from an initially non-moving position?

This reveals more problems being the "first cause" argument for God. A medium? Well, wouldn't God too need a medium? No it will be argued. God is outside of all these logic and ways we know the universe. He is beyond our understanding. But a wind...it needs mediums. It's the way we know winds. It is a manifestation of differences in pressure in the medium. Well well...to this I say, we have not disproved "the great wind" (nor proved it). We merely have a unfitting analogy between God and wind. We generously attributed the "unknowable" properties to god when we can't explain things, but not to wind. We give the term "god" the benefit of the doubt....whenever there is any doubt. That is why the analogy doesn't work. God needs no movement from an initial position. Wind does. Well, Turek makes this a little confusing in the video by talking about a "choice" that god had to make at first to become a living thing or to come into being. So, chicken or egg? choice or god first? confusing, but unnecessarily so. The problem is the question. Unlike the chicken and egg, we don't know that a choice was made even if we assume that we somehow know that god does. It is the benefit of the doubt given into the definition of the word "god" as used by proponents of god being the first cause that makes sense of why the first cause could not have by itself been the inert onion, the great wind, or more practically...the big bang itself.

BUT, hold on one second again! Why did there have to be an initially non-moving position in the case of wind? If Turek is right about the choice made by god to come into being, he would have to assume that god was first (we furthermore would need to assume time) a sort of non-being. Why these assumptions? The infinite regression arguments of cause and moving led to the "conclusion" that there was a first point of some sort. But this is not tight. As Aquinas argues that something is caused by something, and this latter something itself was caused by something, so on and so forth, so there must have been a first cause. Well, what's he's done is extrapolate through the pattern of one cause itself needing a cause and gone backwards infinitely. Note: the extrapolation is not absolutely logical because we may observe only white swans for as long as we had known swans and yet it is possible (as it did) to find a black swan. However, in reality we accept such extrapolation because often it has practical results. A consequence of this is that science is almost always fallible. Maybe in the future there will be an object with mass but that is immune to the effects of gravity. Maybe natural selection, the very mechanism behind evolutionary theory, will be conclusively disproved. Maybe the next time I sing the vibrations will spark chemical fusion of sound waves and the result teleports itself both back in time and into the future, then back behind me as 3 iodine molecules which alone form together and create a nuclear explosion that wipes out everything on the planet except any strand of hair that has the length of a pi to the power of any prime number according to the 1 millimeter units. Science doesn't actually claim 100% proof (it is said only mathematics can do that), but its models are often accurate for its time and are improving. A man's vision of god, or my studied opinion of an interviewee's personality, surely cannot claim the 100% guarantee that god, the vision, my opinion..etc is true, unless the claim turns out to be correct. In other words, gravitational theory as we know it can be 100% correct if it is indeed correct. Circular? Exactly. But, Aquinas ends his regression unfairly. He only extrapolated until he got sick of extrapolating, biased perhaps to think that there must be a linear pattern with a start rather than a form of circular or abstract infinite regression with no start point. The reason why the First Cause needs no cause of its own is different from why the second cause needed a first cause for apparently no real good reason at all. Say "God" is the First Cause. We have no good reason to say that "God" needed no cause of its own. It's all problems in the definitions. So unlike the previous paragraph, i'm not arguing that the big bang is just as good a First Cause as god. Here, i'm arguing that they are just both as bad! Not because there is a problem with god or the big bang, but because there is a flaw in the presupposition that there must be a First Cause. There is a flaw right away in the infinite regression argument for a finite beginning, with Aquina's proof, Aristotle's argument, and the many variants of it.

and...back to the video:

The End of Faith, Sam Harris

the first chapter was very promising. but it seems like the level of engagement was not going to last throughout the book.

Sam harris talks about how religion is crazy and how things are getting dangerous with modern technology. his main problem is with islam which he identifies as a kind of death-cult. why? because of the bountiful phrases in the koran which he cites that talk about killing non-believers and taking over the world. islam as peaceful? no, he says. there is little in it toward peace but phrases or verses can always be found (just like in the bible) to justify a certain point of view. Harris claims that Islam is definitely much more inclined toward war if one follows the koran. assumedly, more verses in one direction would mean that the religion is more inclined in that direction. he disagrees with liberals that claim the problem in the middle east is not religious but political and the likes. this is one of his original points in the book as he argues against chomsky and like-minded views. this may be a little premature. Harris believes that the literal interpretation of the koran (and he shows some relevant verses that can hardly be taken metaphorically) calls for deeds like conversion of the world and the victory of islam over non-believers, killing non-believers, and because of this literal interpretation, a strong muslim state or world will be still be violent. unfortunately, what he doesn't realize is that the interpretation of these "holy books" are often subjective according to the environment. If the middle east was the great super-power of the world, religion may not need to be leaned upon for identity or security, or as an reaction toward the outside. As it is, nationalism and religion often arises as a response to threats from outside or are used (and possibly with the users honestly believing in it as an ends and not a means) to resist these outside forces. Saudi arabia is rich and powerful and they are secular.

Harris' worries are not to be taken lightly however. George bush had prayer meetings in his white house and had many advisers who based their worldview on christianity. belief, as harris takes an entire chapter to illustrate, perhaps excessively, affects the decisions we make. these major monotheistic religions have a strong focus on the "end times" and especially in christianity, the end is enthusiastically looked forward to. A war in the middle east is seen by the fundamentalists as bringing the return of Christ and the end of the world closer - a good thing to them. America did not fall to a fundamentalist theocracy under Christianity, at least not completely and not yet. However, if a strong country like Saudi Arabia develop nuclear weapons while secular, and then fall into the government of a fanatical Islamic group that genuinely believe in doing the will of Allah by killing unbelievers and such, then a real danger arises. People of the major monotheistic religions think that everything is working according to the way their religion predicts the end and they make sense of everything in that light. but take a step away from religion and one sees a world bringing itself to destruction, of civilization being undone with no afterlife as a consolation.

Is Islam basically the problem? I think we should not try to answer the question in hypothetical worlds. The current situation is deadly and what is the problem. Surely not religion alone. Religion may have been the tool used and it may be a tool that never stops, leading to the destruction of the world. But Harris attempts to tackle the international situation too trivially. Definitely there are other causes. Definitely nonetheless, should religion be removed from society because it is such a deadly tool when used in this manner. Now, of courses believers will resist the destruction of their truth. But non-believers don't see any truth and any heresy or inherent satanic crime in destroying the religion. It is a danger to be gotten rid of. Of course there is the "utility" argument of religion - religion is useful, it gives people hope, lets society get along, has probably played positive roles in the advancement of civilization...etc. But utility is not truth and religion claims truth, not utility. Not just truth, but absolute truth. Religion has become dangerous and outlived its usefulness, or it should and a better substitute, if necessary, should be found and used.

Yes, religion demands absolute truth. Religion is not tolerant, not by nature. It is very much intolerant. The seeming tolerance comes from religious moderates which Harris calls a very immoral position. He says moderates are why religion is not being razed down in society. Moderates make concessions and really cannot be said to be "true believers". True believers unfortunately are the dangerous manifestations of religion and without moderates, religion would be seen in its full glory and deadly claws, and civilization would fight for its survival and tear it apart. Moderates interpret their religion to fit the zeitgeist, which is the argument for morality rather than religion, and distort the dangers of religion. Ok, not all religions are dangerous. Harris talks about Janism. But the discussion is largely limited to the 3 major monotheistic religions of our time.

The overall message is that religion is dangerous madness. I would edit that to say the current manifestations of major and influential religions is madness and has potential for more danger. It must be destroyed. Harris writes pessimistically about the future of our existence without immediate attention to this, and I do not think he is being overly dramatic. The truth is as he writes it. Fanatics with weapons of mass destruction for the concoction of self-destruction. As Hitchens touched upon, religion is at the core of many conflicts. Shia and Sunni? News forgot to talk about the Catholics. Hinduism and Islam in Asia. As long as respective conflicting religious views are adhered to, conflicts are bound to exist and it only takes a moment and a few decisions of a few men to herald the demise of hopefully only a portion of our global civilization. Harris also believes in science opening new doors in the near future with regards to how we think and what constitutes morality. This is important and is also discussed by Dennett.

While dawkins is concerned with education and religion's impediment of it, and hitchens is restless blazing brit blasting away at the evil deeds of religions, harris is the most concerned about the future. The truth is simple. Wake up. See the world outside eyes of religion. Where are we headed? The end of the world? This is NOT a good thing. Remember Pascal's wager? Well, what is religion is wrong? What if there IS NO afterlife? What if this is all we have got? And we are going to blast ourselves out of qualification into the Drake equation. Will the only message an alien civilization pick up from our solar system be an enormous smoldering collapse of a planet, its civilization and its millions of variants of life?

"god is not Great", Christopher Hitchens

The book rants about the evils of religion. In cases where the topic is something I have read about or know somewhat a bit of from elsewhere, I agree with him.

In The "Case" Against Secularism, he discusses the religion supporters', what he calls "last ditch" (page reference needed here), arguments against secularism. My readings have been overlapped with other material such as the works of Dawkins and interpret it to refer to the extremely common case where people say secularism or atheism has brought about great evils. I do not think it is always necessary to extend this to the, unfortunately thanks to dawkin, easily destructible argument that Hitler and Stalin were atheists who brought about the worst atrocities in the 20th century. Nonetheless, these are often the claims. As Dawkins would explain, Hitler was not a atheist. He was a Roman Catholic. Stalin on the other hand is clearly an atheist. However, before we get excited, Dawkins makes it clear that it does not even matter whether they were religious or were atheists. Their motivations were not religious or atheist-ic. Hitchens touches on this but in fact claims that the Catholic church was very much an ally of Nazism. From pages 235 to 252, he discusses how religion played a dirty role with fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism.

But let's not forget the East, to where many Westerners appear to be drawn to in search of spirituality, possibly "those who become bored by conventional 'Bible' religions". In There is no "Eastern" Solution, Hitchens puts Buddhism at fault (though surely not the sole fault, one must always be careful to say lest everything gets simplified) for violent manifestations of the Japanese during the period of WWII. He also criticizes the Dalai Lama (something that makes me smile) and in brief shows that there is nothing any better in Eastern religions. An interesting albeit irrelevant-to-my-discussion anecdote he mentions and I paraphrase goes:

"Make me one with everything." requests the Buddhist humbly to the hot-dog vendor.
The Buddhist hands a 20-dollar bill to the vendor and, in return for his slathered bun, waits a long time for his change. Finally asking for it, he is informed that "change comes only from within."

He puts down the Koran as nothing but badly sewn together myths from the Jews and the Christians. He slams them as having draconian laws out of their insecurity and hardly gives them a breather as he criticizes them to absurdity for their claims to be "final" and for the ridiculous story of Mohammad's night flight.

Of course, Christianity can never be left out in a discussion of this nature especially in America. Many books go into details of the inconsistencies and absurdity of the bible. Hitchens focuses more on the evil stories within them, largely with the stories of mass murdering and forced child sacrifice (almost).

But proofs are not what this book is essentially about. It is a collection of cases which Hitchens argues to be evil caused by religion. Rightly so, since his book is subtitled How religion poisons everything. I feel like I hardly remember anything from this book unfortunately. I need to start taking more notes and talking to myself more when I read more non-fiction.

Does God Exist: Wolpe vs Harris

Great debate to watch from 1 to 11.

Wolpe is extremely sharp and unlike other videos of debates or interviews between the religious and the atheist camps, especially those with dawkins, this exchange has a balanced feel that will be a good ride for viewers. A religious person inclining on the side of Wolpe will not be turned off, nor an atheist on the side of Harris too comfortable. To make things better, Wolpe is a Jew, not a Christian or Muslim (these 2 religions being the most anti-atheist, if that word makes sense without being a double negative, within the online community), and Harris is not the hardened to "science solves everything" kind of guy. If he is, he doesn't come across that way with his (correct me if i'm mistaken) openness to spirituality. I believe he endorses "rationality" rather than pure objective and quantifiable "science".

What this means is that a dogmatic scientist and a faith-filled christian isn't tied down to the words of either speaker. We are excused to hide and watch the debate from a purely observing position.

In a way, Harris is perfect for the debate against Wolpe, in terms of entertainment. Among the "four horsemen", Dawkins is the scientist, Hitchens the hands-on journalist in international relations and political situations, Dennett the one I know nothing about because of his boring beard, and Harris must be the philosopher. He is the best candidate to play on common ground with religious arguments that more often than not fall within the realm of philosophy and outside of everything else. Had this been a creationism vs evolution debate, Dawkins would be your man.

About BOOKS

misquoting jesus*
god delusion*
god is not great*
end of faith - sam harris*

blind watchmaker - richard dawkins
selfish gene - richard dawkins
missionary position: mother teresa - christopher hitchens
breaking the spell - daniel dennett
cosmos - carl sagan

jesus interrupted - bart ehrman

history of god - karen armstrong
evolution of god(?)

why faith matters - david wolpe view from religious camp (utilitarian argument?)

reason driven life humanism?
the satanic verses fiction discussing the claimed "satanic verses" of the Koran

crime and punishment(?) dostoevsky
portrait of a young man(?) joyce
to the lighthouse(?) woolf
1984 - orwell
lord of the flies - golding
east of eden - steinbeck

jehovah
YHWH
Yahweh

Virgin births...and the quantum Y chromosome.

Virgin Births
are NOT miracles,
or are at least common ones.

Jesus to Mary (though Jesus is traced through Joseph's family)
Perseus to Danae through Jupiter
Buddha
Huitzilopochtli to Catlicus
Attis to Nana
Genghis Khan
Krishna to Devaka
Horus to Iris
Mercury to Maia
Romulus to Rhea Sylvia


With virgin births, we don't need men anymore, or do we? Ironically, only males are conceived (thus far) through virgin births. Breakthroughs in science have shown that they occur via the elusive quantum Y chromosome which combines with the virgin egg X chromosomes.

The quantum Y chromosome has not been found to reappear for a long time and according to basic statistics, the likelihood of it doing its work is increasing with every day that it doesn't. Yet, the scientific community claim that the quantum Y chromosome might be quantum to the extent that it does not follow statistics and probability. Others have claimed that the reason behind the apparent poverty of the Y chromosome is the knowledge and technology of abortions. It is argued that a virgin birth may be embarrassing for women and they many abortions may have followed silently.

Many supporters of this view blame this on the increasing percentage of Asians in the world population and their mentality for favoring male children over female ones. Feminist outrages have so far been sporadic. Less racist feminists protest against the sexist nature of the quantum Y chromosome. Scientists have dismissed that as a waste of time as the Y chromosome is by nature sexist. Itnow appears that genes may be selfish and sexist. Still others argue that the theory is sexist as it does not take into account a quantum X chromosome. The French scientist Laplace, who was crucial in the development of this theory, has said, "Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse", which translates to "I had no need of that hypothesis." Less arrogantly, a team of graduate students in California have claimed to have proof that the X chromosome would be too large to operate under the mechanism of quantum mechanics.

Cdesign proponentists have argued this to be further evidence for design in the universe. "It is not by chance that virgin births only give rise to male offspring. A man is necessary for normal fertilization to give rise to female offspring." Yet some young earth creationists argue against this saying that the quantum Y chromosome is still a controversial theory within science that lacks evidence. They insist that virgin births are divine. Billy Redneck of Alabama explains, "when you see a pregnant woman, you know that she got in the haystack with a man. For it to happen just by chance is liberal donkeys." Asked how his statement can explain the virgin birth of Jesus, he continues, "that's divine as written in the Holy Bible."

Pro-choice opinions increased dramatically on the internet but has reached a state of confusion, by expanding the term often unintentionally but mistakenly, to include the choice of getting pregnant. Various religious groups have different takes on the matter, the most vocal of which is from a prominent religious institution which takes the fatalistic stance and opposes human intervention against the will of god.

Conservative groups in the United States held protests last Monday outside various institutions of higher education demanding that further research into what they call "the sexual nature of God" be stopped immediately. Televangelist Robert Patterson announced on Wednesday, "...to the good citizens of the scientific community: if you have a disaster in your sex life, don't turn to God. You just outraged his modesty." Most scientists are not worried about this as they claim that viagra and artificial insemination usually solves the problem. One recent ad by pharmaceutical company Sex On Drugs in Britain has the theme "No talk, just action". It shows 2 men and one smoking hot woman in a little crisis. One man goes to the corner and starts praying and engaging in glossolalia. The other pops a little blue pill and gets it on with the lady. At the end of the commercial, the lady gives a satisfied smile at the camera and says seductively, "it's not your fault you're in a bit of a jam. Pay the toll and get on the highway to heaven."

The quantum Y chromosome discovery has been hailed as a momentous event in science because it is the first time an organic structure, whether this constitutes life is debatable, is found to be able to operate within quantum mechanics. This opens the possibility to future quantum entanglement of other organic cells and eventually full living complex organisms such as human beings. This would mean teleportation. Slightly more controversially, this has allowed the field of science and religion to meet although in dangerously unpredictable waters.

great quotes from Christopher Hitchens' book

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

One thing I always remember is what Milan Kundera once wrote, that we uses quotes because we can't express these feelings ourselves. Maybe we're unable, not confident enough, or just lazy to say it in our own words...creatively.

Whatever the case, I don't think it is necessary for me to embrace this need to invent a new way of saying what's already been said just because i'm insecure as a quote copy and paste-r. What's nice about the quote is not simply the skeletal point of the quote. We probably already know that old methods are for old times and new times with new and more effective ways should be taken when they come without romanticizing with the obsolete ways and striving to retain them. What's great about the quote is the analogy and literary "style", also likely the fact that it is a quote, and moreover, a quoted quote.

More blatant taking of quotes. Too many quotes. I'm taking them all almost...not even compiling a select group. Why minimal-ize? This is not some high school teaching of academic writing which prescribes the criteria of 3 quotes, a bibliography, intro, middle, conclusion, structure, balanced arguments for and against, paraphrasing...

let's digress


check out 3:10.
Also, the irishman-englishman thing is hilariously...well...i'll let you choose your adjective...

You might be thinking...what the hell is so funny anyway...this author doesn't even argue that he HAS citations or evidence. This is not good journalism. This is not good science and if you are on the side of Hitchens, then you can't argue that intelligent design has no evidence! This is just plain bad and untrustworthy nonsense!

That's a good thought. If it sparks your interest, i'm glad.



"I am a man of one book."
-Thomas Aquinas

and that's why you are your followers are stuck with the blind man crossing a freeway when an overhead bridge has been built.

"Reason is the Devil's harlot, who can do nought but slander and harm whatever God says and does"
-Martin Luther
(Not Martin Luther King Jr.)

So the reason why i'm not dying in infancy to diseases is because of the devil's works in science and medicine. The reason i'm not condemned to be practically blind since the age of 13 is because the devil craftily introduced the reasoning leading to concepts of changing the direction of light through satanic glasses to bring my image into focus. Yes, the fallen angel had worked against God's divine punishment which I had brought upon myself for maybe watching too much TV or reading under dim lighting.


fair enough, i'm picking on old scholars who couldn't have known better.

"I had no need of that hypothesis."
Laplace to Napoleon on why Laplace's theory of the solar system had no mention of the Creator

finally, let's compare and contrast the quotation above from Heine (in orange) with this:

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me."
1 Corinthians 13:11

edit: 100 percent mid-term!!

to the lighthouse - virginia woolf

Kirby!

end of faith/letter to a christian nation - sam harris
blind watchmaker - dawkins
the missionary position - christopher hitchens

goodbye lenin

cdesign proponentist

of pandas and people

Misquoting Jesus.

Review of book.

New Testament approximated to be written in 70 AD, with the main source being Mark. Matthew and Luke were written with Mark and possibly some other source (outside of book, called Q). Including Q, this is called the two source hypothesis. Nonetheless, it is pretty much accepted that they were all written not during Jesus' time which we can assume to be around 0-40AD.

Problems with the new testaments. (need to check first)
Genealogy inconsistencies. Also, Matthew tries to fit the generations into multiples of 14 marked by an important figures or events (Abraham, David, exile, Christ). Speculation is that 7 was treated as a holy number and double of that was perhaps doubly-holy, 14.
Mark does not write as if Jesus was God.
What happened after death? Was the tomb empty? Different versions.
Where was Jesus born?
Historical records do not show a empire wide census but a localized one. It is claimed to be absurd for Joseph to be required to return to his ancestral home in Bethlehem which is supposed to be his home many centuries ago. Furthermore, the census did not occur during Herod's life.

Transcription issues.

Scribes may have ulterior motives.
Theological - Is there a Trinity?
Social - Gender roles. Trying to play down women.
Accidental - see ehrman's book for details.