two or three . net

Ontology of the Devil

I recently listened to apologist Peter S. Williams (blog) deliver this talk at the 2010 European Leadership Forum on the topic: Arguments for Theism, and finally understood the Ontological Argument for God's existence.

However, it brought up a question in my mind, which I submitted to William Lane Craig's website.  I'll post the answer if I get one, but here's the question:

If the Ontological Argument assumes that God is the maximum quality of attributes of goodness and greatness:

1. Which category does 'being' or 'existence' fall into?  Goodness or greatness?
2. If that is an attribute of greatness, could we not then use this argument to argue for the existence of a maximally great and maximally evil (instead of good) being, then conclude that that being must also exist?

Comments?

What is the Evangelical position on Biblical Inerrancy?

I was recently in a discussion at the skeptic site NW Ohio Skeptics, and got into a discussion about the differences between Evangelicals and Fundamentalists, and one topic that came up is that of inerrancy.  While I think all Fundamentalists hold to a plenary inerrancy, I don't think that that position is the only one among evangelicals.

First check out Daniel Wallace's great essay My Take on Inerrancy.

Then, check out the diagram I made comparing the different types of Christianity and their stands on different doctrines, including inerrancy - Neo-fundy Doctrines?

Now, you are ready to read my explanation of how I view inerrancy, and how I think many Evangelicals view it - but I bet there is a bit of diversity on this topic in Evangelicailsm.

He is (NOT) risen!

I didn't know he was lost.  Seriously though, if they found him, I can tell you where.  Supposedly, his body is buried in the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina.  However, the point is, he is dead, but Jesus rose from the dead. And may I add, Momo's words bring death, but Jesus' bring life. 

Not sure that Jesus actually rose from the dead?  You can always listen to William Lane Craig or Lee Stroble defend that proposition.

GUIDE: Books on Christianity and Science

Here's my list of resources for those interested in the history of religion and science, both pro and anti-religious.

THEIST

For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery by Rodney Stark

Stark argues that faith in God encouraged Christians to invent science. Having read other books making the same claim, I think Stark's approach to this question is one of the best. Not only does he go over the development of technology in the so-called "Dark Ages," and show how the "Enlightenment" picture of Copernican era science is a myth, he studies 52 key early scientists, and shows that more than 60 % were "devout," while only 2 were skeptics. The critic below who asks why Christianity did not produce science in Russia did not read attentively: Stark argues that faith in God was a necessary, but not sufficient, cause of the rise of science. Other factors were also involved. ~ From this excellent review

Richard Dawkins drops the F-bomb

In one of my classes, we have been watching The Atheism Tapes, a BBC series where atheist Jonathan Miller interviews other prominent atheists on their disbelief and other related topics. Today, we watched his interview with Richard Dawkins.

I was surprised at who poorly Dawkins handled Miller's God's-advocate (as it were) questions. Miller was obviously not pushing the theist point of view, but he asked Dawkins questions from what he believed to be a theistic view point in order to elicit a pro-atheistic answer from the former professor at Oxford. When he was unable to explain his rationale for holding a certain position, Dawkins surprisingly to me fell back on what he so often attacks in others - faith.

Hitchens argument is not great

"What can be asserted with no evidence can be dismissed with no evidence." - Christopher Hitchens

It sounds so convincing, so logical and seemingly so devastating to religious belief. However, I can guarantee that Hitchens most assuredly beliefs something with no evidence and all I need to prove it is the statement I just quoted.

Guide: Best Atheist / Secularist / Anti-theist Podcasts?

I love the whole debate scene, and I have listened to a lot of Christian and non-Christian news podcasts, and narrowed down my favorites to Guide: Favorite Podcasts for Christians. Now, I want to venture out into the land of my ideological opponents.  Here's my list so far.  Most of these I got from the list at Podcast Alley.

Last Update:  03.01.10

Does it take a miracle to believe in the supernatural?

Miracles have long been a stumbling block for many investigating Christianity and other religions. Why would a person living in the 21st century believe that the miraculous not only could happen, but did happen?

The Jesus of History

Much has been made of the phrase "Jesus of history." Many liberal theologians have attempted to argue the Jesus of the Bible is different from the Jesus of history. They most often do this by appealing to the Gnostic Gospels and the version of Jesus they present.

That was always struck me as strange. Why would they use documents written hundreds of years after Jesus lived and died to refute documents that were written within decades of His life, if they were truly concerned with an accurate historical presentation of Jesus?

At this point, those skeptical of the Christian claims of Jesus will point out, "I do not believe any of those descriptions of Jesus since they were written with a religious bias." What would the picture of Jesus be if we simply examined the historical, non-Christian records?

Why no empirical test for God? Perhaps quantum science will provide it

Atheists are full of good questions, one of which was recently broached at Common Sense Atheism in the post A question online theists refuse to answer? - that question is

“Can you prove to me that God exists in a way that will also show that Zeus does not?”

I initially responded by citing my series on Pascal's Wager, explaining that, while there is no direct empirical evidence for the existence (or non-existence!) of God, there are plenty of other methods for showing a difference in the believability of the various Gods. 

One atheist responded that I had missed the point, writing:

What you *really* want here is an experimental test. Show us this goddy thing, and let us fire protons at it…

So let me take another stab at it - rather than giving him the sensible argument I gave (there is no empirical test, but that does not mean that we don't have other methods by which to distinguish between metaphysical claims), I'll try another valid one - that is, empirical science is not yet able to measure the spiritual - it can barely quantify, measure, or understand the psychological realm, so what makes us think we can evaluate the spiritual?

Letter To Tim Challies / Luke - Part II

In the six part interchange between Tim Challies the Christian and Luke the atheist, it looks like Tim took a different approach than me, which seems to take offense at Luke's confident declarations of Biblical problems.  I agree with Tim a little, such declarations are a bit too definitive and value-laden to allow for discussion of cooperation within an umbrella of mutual respect, but I also agree a bit more with Luke that they were spoken in context of his personal journey and feelings in his 'deconversion' process.

So Luke also went sort of in Tim's direction, although I think he is trying to redirect things back to 'how can we work together?' which I tried to address in Letter To Tim Challies / Luke - Part I.  Luke has written a second Letter to Tim Challies, to which I now respond.

Letter To Tim Challies / Luke - Part I

Luke over at Common Sense Atheism is engaging in a letter exchange with Tim Challies which should be really great.  I am not Tim Challies, but I endeavor to be.  All I need is to publish my own book and read a few hundred books to catch up, right?

Anyway, here is my response to Luke.  I know that he may not have the time or the desire to answer me as well, since I am less influential.  However, I think Luke asks good questions, and I have praised his blog before, as well as trolled commented on it.

So here's my response to Luke's first letter.

God's cartoonist - Jack Chick

You either love or hate 'Chick Tracts' - this documentary is interesting.  Imagine this - over 1 Billion of these have been printed, in over 100 languages.  Jack Chick may be the most successful cartoonist, in numbers of items sold, ever.  And yet, he is not that well known. 

Are you a Christian because of your experiences, or because of logic?

In Why do some Christians become atheists?, I discussed five reasons why some Christians may have abandoned faith to become atheists - some noble reasons, some not.  The ensuing commentary helped me see that these same principles can be applied to any faith or anti-faith decision.  Here are those now six ideas, but I wanted to also ask the question - is Christianity primarily or first a decision of the heart or head?  I argue that, to the chagrin of logicians and empiricists, Christianity is a religion of the heart - that is, conviction of the intuition and conscience, not an intellectual decision of the mind.

You are a Christian because (choose all that apply):

1. You were raised that way, and have never seriously considered any other viewpoint, nor seriously questioned your faith.
2. You made an emotional decision to become Christian during a dark time in your life.
3. You felt a deep conviction and a reality in the presence and peace of God that led you to receive Christ.
4. Your conversion was based on the first good argument you heard, and you came from a position of weak ideological commitment - again, you may have never seriously considered any other viewpoint.
5. You are caught up in the novelty of your new Christian world view mostly because it is different, and will leave it when the novelty wears off.
6. Reason and experience have led you to your conclusion that Christianity is true.

Pascal's Wager Part IV - debunking minor objections

In Part I,I discussed Pascal's Wager as a risk calculation, similar to how we estimate risk in project management.  In Part II, I attempted to debunk the anti-intellectual and narrow view that all religions are essentially equally improbable and ridiculous.  In Part III, I used the criteria that I suggested for evaluating faith systems to show that there is a difference between the faith claims of Chrisitainity, Islam, Zeus, and the FSM.

In this last part, I address some remaining objections, and recommend to you Christian Philosopher Peter Kreeft's book Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal's Pensees.

Did God create evil?

This video is actually much theologically deeper than one might assume.  When Christian theologians try to solve the problem of evil (), this is, I think one of the best (but no tonly) argument.  God did not CREATE evil, because evil is not a thing, but the ABSENCE of something - that is, the absence of good.

Crazy Love Campaign and Catalyst Podcast focus on Adoption of Orphans

The Bible says that true spirituality involves caring for orphans and widows.  But how much do we actually take this seriously?

James 1:27 (New International Version)
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

LongHollow Church, a multi-site church in Tennessee, has decided on a Crazy Love fund-raising campaign that aims to, among other things, raise $200K for a Haiti orphanage, and $10K to create means for helping people adopt orphans (doesn't that sound backwards? - Shouldn't they spend MORE money on the means to make them ex-orphans?).

Also, the Catalyst Podcast is focusing on adoption, trying to get American churches to really pursue adoption of orphans - they're pushing Orphans and the Church, a Rick Warren/Saddleback effort.  Here's an interview with Kay Warren talking about it.  She discusses how she became passionate about it as she was researching how to help HIV victims in Africa.  Really interesting. 

You can also check out Kay Warren's book Dangerous Surrender: What Happens When You Say Yes to God.  You can also check out my interesting afterthought after the break.

Former Atheists: A. N. Wilson

Andrew Norman Wilson (b1950), is an English teacher and award winning writer.  His biography of Tolstoy won the Whitbread Award (now the Costa Book Awards) for best biography in 1988.

Wilson entered Oxford on the path of ordination in the Anglican Church, but quit after the first year, and in the 1980's came out as an atheist.  In 1991 he published a pamphlet entitled Against Religion, and wrote other historical and fiction books critical of religion, including God's Funeral: The Decline of Faith in Western Civilization (2000), his 2004 Jesus: A Life, which is critical of the historicity of the gospels, and his fictional piece My Name is Legion, a satire attacking both the British Press and the Anglican Church.  But it seems that all those opinions may now be his FORMER positions on such matters.

Quote of the Day #024: Christianity and the Mystery Religions

I came across this while reading today (yes, it was pleasure reading ;):

It is this same basic question of historicity, moreover, that sharply distinguishes Christianity form the mystery religions that flourished in the Middle East at much the same time and with which it has often been compared.  There are, of course, certain parallels and similarities between them, although these have been much exaggerated, as B.M. Metzger and others have shown.  Many of the supposed parallels, indeed, result from an arbitrary amalgamation of heterogeneous elements drawn from a number of different religions, out of which is built up, in Albert Schweitzer's words, "a kind of universal mystery-religion which never really existed, least of all in Paul's day."

The NT, moreover, was written almost esclusively by Jews, whose "strict monotheism and traditional intolerance of syncretism" would have militated strongly against any wholesale borrowing from pagain cults. 

But the fundamental difference is the historical basis of the Christian faith over against the mythological character of the mystery religions.  The deities they proclaimed were no more than "nebulous figures of an imagineary past," whereas the Jesus of the apostolic kerygma has a historical person who had lived and died only a very few years before the first NT documents were written. 

The mystery religions essentially celebrate a dying nature god who then, like the coming of spring, is revived or reborn.  There is all the difference in the world between this and the resurrection "on the third day" of a historical figure to whose resurrection appearances many could testify from personal experience. 

It is significant, moreover, that the references to a three-day gap between death and revival that we find in regard to Attis (possibly Adonis according to one account) and Osiris cannot be dated earlier than the second century A.D., while the tradition about the resurrection of Christ on the third day, as recorded in 1 Corinthians 15, can be traced back to well before the middle of the first century. 

So, if borrowings were made from one religion to another, it is tolerably clear which way they went.

-- Sir Norman Anderson in The Expositors Bible Commentary, Volume 1, pp. 145-6.

See also Did Christianity Borrow from the Mystery Religions?

Defense of the Resurrection

Over at HonestUncertainity, there is a challenge of sorts to demonstrate why you believe (or do not believe) in the literal resurrection of Jesus.  (Perhaps, some here - on both sides - would like to send in a submission.) As we approach Easter, I thought I would post my response to the challenge here.

Pascal's Wager - Part III: Evaluating the gods

In Part I of this series, I examined Pascal's wager as a risk calculation exercise.  In Part II, I proposed some criteria by which one could evaluate various faith claims, even though those criteria were outside of direct empirical observation.  In this part, I perform a heuristic, self-reinforcing example of how said evaluation might look when comparing the claims of Jesus, Buddha, Mohamed, Zeus, Superman, and the FSM.

Admittedly, I have not backed up my Yes/No assertions with argumentation and data.  And for the sake of this exercise, I will not.  The point is, when evaluated by important, empirical and non-empirical criteria, faith claims can be differentiated, and some may be eliminated as serious candidates for faith, while others remain under consideration.  And that is the point.

No faith can be 'proven,' that is the point of having faith.  But some may be eliminated as pretenders, as not worthy of faith.  Click on the chart in the image to see a full sized version.

In Part IV, I address the host of minor objections.

Pascal's Wager - Part II: debunking the 'all religions are equally improbable' ruse

In Part I, I generalized that, since the impact of being wrong about God is high, it doesn't matter how unlikely it is, it is still a high risk.

But that oversimplification is not entirely true.  If it was, that would mean that all unconfirmable claims about the life to come, by any and all religions, would be equally binding, or just as important or risky.

If the Biblical God makes demands with consequences we can not confirm with empiricism, are they any different from the claims of Buddhism, Islam, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster?  

What we really need is a better measure of how likely such claims are to be true.  Can that be done without direct empirical evidence?  YES.  We must not ignore historical, ethical, and logical support for or against faith claims, and in so doing, discriminate between pretenders and contenders.  

Below, I address this objection, which can be stated The lack of empirical support for faith means ALL FAITHS ARE EQUALLY IMPROBABLE and on par with fairy tales.

Pascal's Wager - Part I: why apatheism and atheism are unreasonable choices

Pascal's famous 'wager' is often misunderstood, and maligned by anti-theists as an argument from lack of evidence, or worse, merely a threat of hellfire. 

But on closer inspection, this theological conundrum elucidated by the great scientist, mathematician, and Christian well known for his intellectual Christian apologetic Pensees, is a masterful logical rebuke of atheism from a probability perspecitve - and Pascal is basically the father of the discipline of probability.

Blaise Pascal provides a serious evaluation of the reasonableness of seeking for God rather than foolishly betting against the odds that God exists.

Did Christianity Borrow from the Mystery Religions?

Recently, one of our regular commenters brought up a common fallacy, recently popularized by the erroneous history in The Davinci Code - the fallacy that Christianity's miracles are made up because they are derivative of earlier similar stories in pagan religions.

Probe Ministries, an excellent Christian apologetic ministry with a great podcast, answered this claim in a couple of posts, which I would like to excerpt from:

• The Pagan Connection: Did Christianity Borrow from the Mystery Religions?
• Did Christianity Borrow from Pagan Religions?

A Conversation with Peter Kreeft

Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C.S. Lewis & Aldous Huxley By Peter Kreeft / Inter-varsity Press

Back when I was in college, Peter Kreeft's book Between Heaven and Hell was essential reading for anyone interested in apologetics. Now the book has been reissued in an expanded format. National Review's John J. Miller has a fascinating conversation with the author on his book, how it was written, and why it's just as revelevant today as when he first wrote it. Check it out.

Blind watchmakers can't tell time

Suppose you are wandering through a forest and you find a watch. (Yes, I know that you feel like you have heard this one before, but stay with me.) You have two logical options.

You can assume that because of the design of the watch, there must be a designer. If there's a watch - there's an intelligent watchmaker.

You can also assume that the design is the product of random chance and natural phenomenon acting on present materials to produce something that simply appears design. If there's a watch - there's a watchmaker, but "he" is blind and uncaring as to what is produced.

Spinoza's problem of evil

Spinoza's concept of God seems to offer a rationalists dream, particularly since Einstein seemed to endorse the idea, however it raises more logical consequences than would seem to be present at first blush.

Consciously pointing to God

"There is no god."

The fact that a person can hold to that opinion amounts to evidence to the contrary.

Jindo's Moses Miracle

Skeptics of Biblical miracles need to be more open minded about how such things could easily happen in nature, and that such miracles are miraculous because of their providential timing, and usually not because such things are impossible.

Case in point?  The bi-annual appearance of a land bridge between Jindo and Modo islands in South Korea (click through both links to see the amazing pictures - those dots in the image at right are people!).  Twice a year, a 2km land bridge appears at low tide, and people walk between the islands in a celebration.  This same type of bridge has been identified in the Red Sea crossing.  The more you do your archaological and historical research, the more you realize the stunning accuracy of the Bible.

Conscious decision to see more

While the battle over ID and evolution rages on in a more public manner, the concept of consciousness is possibly the biggest threat to the theory of Darwinism according to JP Moreland.

Answering the 'crimes' of Christianity

I have previously discussed why the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition are not really very good objections to Christianity, and pastor D. James Kennedy addresses them nicely in his recent podcast Crimes In the Name of Christianity.  In a succinct 26 minutes, he addresses:

• The Crusades:  "Which crusade are you talking about?  The one where the Muslims forcibly took the Holy Land and all of the sacred places of Christianity [destroying half of them], or the later crusade of Christians to take them back?  Are you only interested in the latter crusade?  Why is that?"
• The Inquisition: "We as Protestants had no part in the Inquisition, and ... frequently it was evangelical Protestants who were on the receiving end of the inquisition, and never on the giving end.  We must understand the distinction between true Christians and nominal Christians, which even Jesus distinguished."  That is, you my blame institutional Christianity of the time (Catholicism), but not Christianity itself.  In fact, true Christianity broke out of the Catholic church in the Protestant reformation.

Related Posts:

• The Real History of the Crusades
• Atheist Atrocities

Crossing of the Red Sea - The Evidence

Here's some good stuff I got in a religious 'spam' letter on the feasibility of the Red Sea crossing by Moses and the people of Israel.  Enjoy.

Exhibit 1 - Chariot Wheels Found in Red Sea

The Star of Bethlehem - the astronomical explanation

I was watching the Christmas special Miracles: Fact, Fictions and Faith (a Fox News special, check your local listing, it will repeat tomorrow, Christmas day), and as part of it, they interviewed Michael Molnar, astronomer and author of The Star of Bethlehem : The Legacy of the Magi.  He had long accepted the astronomical explanations of others who had addressed this subject, until he came upon a coin from the Roman empire.

Molnar believes that the star was actually Jupiter, which was involved in an eclipse with the moon in 6 B.C.  While the eclipse, or "occultation," would not have amplified Jupiter's brightness, it would have indicated to astrologers that a king was coming.

Apologetics in a postmodern world

As I argued yesterday, atheism may be the current philosophy du jour, but it will struggle to win over followers the farther our culture moves into a postmodern era. How else can you explain the fact that 75% of Americans, including over 2/3 of college graduates, believe that Jesus literally rose from the dead?

Does God have an ego problem?

I have been following and posting on a recent Scott Adams (Dilbert creator) post on Pascal's Wager.  A couple of objection to the gospel that have come up are:

If he truly loves us as much as postulated in the bible then we should all be going to heaven regardless of our mistakes.

So to sum up, being a good person all your life is not enough to get you into Heaven, you have to ACKNOWLEDGE God!!!  Hey, sounds like God has an ego! Was he a rock star in his youth?? What a load of BS!

"The New" gets help from the old

The discovery that danielg mentioned has found its way into Biblical translation discussions, as the lesser figure mentioned on the tablet is only named in three translations - none of which are the KJV.

Archeology in the British Museum

Why go on a dig when you can find "the most important biblical archaeology find in 100 years" in the basement of the British Museum?

The London Telegraph reports that Vienna professor Michael Jursa found a cuneiform tablet in the British museum which dates back 2,500 years.

Jursa says the tablet bears the name of the chief eunuch of Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon.

It's the same name found in the book of Jeremiah 39.

A British museum expert says, "a throwaway detail in the old testament turns out to be accurate and true. I think that it means the whole narrative of Jeremiah takes on a new kind of power."

Evaluating God's Righteousness, Part I - Underestimating Sin

A recent commenter documented an impressive list of biblical "absurdities" which, in his or her mind, make the Biblical account of God seem foolish, primitive, and in some cases, immoral.  And while each proposed "bible difficulty" has an associated biblical apology to match, such apologies might not seem convincing to our mindset.  So before jumping into "answers," I thought that I might outline some of the principles which Christians, and perhaps others who are considering putting "God on trial" ought to consider.  Modern humanists might not agree with these principles, but they are part of the foundational assumptions underlying the biblical approach to judging the righteousness of the Biblical God and his people.

Before we decide whether or not, for example, God's killing of the firstborn in Pharoh's Egypt was just, we should consider the biblical viewpoints on sin, righteousness, and justice.  The first reason why we may not yet be equipped to judge God's actions, instructions, or inaction is because WE OFTEN UNDERESTIMATE THE EGREGIOUSNESS OF HUMAN EVILS.

God debate

The aforementioned debate between Mark Roberts and Christopher Hitchens happens today. *Ding, Ding, Ding* Round One!

Wrap-up of ABC's God debate

SBC Outpost pretty much sums up my feelings about the debate between Christians Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron and atheists Brian Sapient and Kelly.

Spiderman 3 - more religious than The Passion

While that may be a bit hyperbolic, the latest in the Spiderman franchise provided it's record breaking audience with themes and concepts that have been more familiar in a Sunday School lesson than on the screen in a Hollywood blockbuster.

"Is Christianity good for the World?"

Christopher Hitchens, author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and Douglas Wilson, author of Letter from a Christian Citizen, seek to tackle that question at Christianity Today.

HT: Hot Air, who also details the Hitchens v. Sharpton debate, with the good Rev. Al unfortunately falling back on personal experience and not logic.

God-sized mismatch

While I respect Kirk Cameron for his stance for Christian principles, I'm just not sure if he and his cohort, Ray Comfort, are up for their latest challenge. They will be debating the creators of Blasphemy Challenge on ABC News' Nightline.

There are dozens of people on both sides of the issue that would better defend their stance than these four, but I guess the former Growing Pains star's name draws more people than Ravi Zacharias' does.

I hope I'll be pleasantly surprised by all four of the participants, which right now would not be hard because I am not going into this with much in the way of expectations.

Big Question #1

Is there such a thing as an absolute moral law?

What happened on Easter? Pt 5

In probably the most popular explanation today, many say that nothing extraordinary happened immediately after his death, but years later a resurrection legend was added the accounts of Jesus.

What happened on Easter? Pt 4

Some self-professing Christians try to make the resurrection less offensive or far-fetched by claiming Jesus was resurrected in spirit, but not in body.

What happened on Easter? Pt 3

Next we will examine the oldest explanation: the disciples (or others) came and stole the body from the tomb.

What happened on Easter? Pt 2

The next alternative theory supposed by some is that the women and disciples went to the wrong tomb on the first Easter Sunday.

10 Principles For Doing Apologetics

Here's a nice "Art of War" for apologetics, in list form, entitled Truth Tactics.  Nice tips for those of us defending Christianity.  If you like the list below, go and read his entire post.

Christians are privileged to be emissaries of the living God, heralds of hope, and defenders of divine truth. This is why it is imperative for them to approach apologetics in an intelligent fashion.  Certainly, a good portion of this effort will involve the discovery and implementation of important apologetic strategies.

What happened on Easter Sunday? Pt 1

Each year, I look at the evidences for the bodily resurrection of Jesus on what is now called Easter Sunday almost 2,000 years ago. During that time, various reasons have been given as to why Jesus did not rise from the dead. During this week after Easter I want to examine them.

Part 1 examines: Jesus did not actually die on the cross.