The Bible is a Masterpiece

This is something that I hear Christians say a lot, and Atheists will say it a lot as well. They will say that the bible is this amazing book, Christians will urge you to just read it and you will believe, atheists will often say that while it isn't true or anything, they will often concede that it is a great book.

This is so often repeated, I just assumed it was true for years. When I was a Christian I was still a kid and I hated reading in general, so I obviously hated reading the bible. I would read a verse here and there for sunday school, but I never read through the book. I would hear how wonderful it was and just took it for granted. I assumed it was true for years, and I even remember having a touch of trepidation when I started this blog and my bible reading project. I "knew" that the bible was this amazing book and I was afraid that I wouldn't have much to say about it. I really didn't want to just skip over the good bits and harp on the bad. I really wanted to highlight both the good and bad and just see how things stack up. But what if there is hardly any bad to write about?

This fear was allayed pretty much immediately. I very quickly found myself worried that I was being too negative and I was having trouble finding much good stuff to talk about. I wanted to be fair, but I could barely find anything good to talk about. Even the things that people usually found as a good thing, I had something bad to say about it. A lot of the things that I recall being praised when I was in church were based on the idea that we should be obedient and faithful, both of which I consider a negative rather than a positive.

For a while, I figured that most people who talk about the virtues of this book are like I used to be, they take for granted that it is good because everyone tells them it is, but they haven't read it themselves. This makes sense for your average Christian, at least for the Christians I have known in my life, very few of them ever actually read their bibles (beyond a few verses here or there). But there are obviously some people who have studied the book intensely and still find it an amazing book. What is the deal with them?

Ever since I started reading Genesis this thought has been in the back of my mind. I know that this book has been studied and revered for thousands of years, and yet I find it to be really terrible. I try to look at it from every angle I can think of, but I really find it awful. I really have trouble understanding how anyone can actually read this thing and find anything redeeming about it, let along call it a masterpiece. But I know people do, so I would like to get in their head and see how they see the book and how they can possibly see it as a good thing.

So I was very happy recently to see an episode of atheistically speaking on my podcast app where Thomas is talking to a Christian about biblical interpretation. They spent some time talking about how the bible is a "literary masterpiece". I was very excited when they started talking about it, and yet I thought the Christian's arguments fell completely flat. It really seemed like he had decided it was a great book ahead of time because he is a Christian and then he was trying to justify it. He even said that he didn't think he expressed himself very well and did an episode of his own podcast to clarify, but I still didn't think his argument was very good.

I still really do want to find a good explanation as to how someone can see this book as good. I have so far failed to find something that I really find acceptable. Don't get me wrong, I doubt I will agree in the end, but I have a hard time even seeing how someone else can even think that. I'd be happier if I could say "I see your point but I disagree" rather than what I have now which is just confusion. To be fair, I have been very busy with work and family for a while so this whole project is on the back burner and I haven't done a proper look for various justifications, but I have definitely been on the lookout.

Hopefully once I have some time to get back into this stuff, I can find some interesting arguments.

Even In an Infinite Regress, the Distance Between Any Two Points is Finite

aleph_0, smallest infinite cardinal
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today's Podcast (For a non-bible post? That's new!)

Let's start by considering the set of all positive integers {1,2,3,4,...}. Notice that there are infinitely many numbers in this set, and yet the difference between any pair of numbers is always finite. Even though we have an infinite set, there is no member of that set that is infinitely big, there is no integer of size infinity. Of course if we include negative numbers (and zero) to get all integers {...,-3,-2,-1,0,1,2,3,...} the same holds true. We have a set which limits to negative infinity in one direction and positive infinity in another, and yet every number in the set is some finite distance away from zero. This type of thing is very common when we deal with infinities and it demonstrates that precision and care is very important. Your first instinct when considering this infinite set is that there must be some point in that set which is infinitely far away from zero. However, by looking at it from this perspective, I hope it is easy to see that it's not quite right. (Although what you can say is that for any number N, there is some integer which is more than distance N away from 0)

While arguing with apologists, I will commonly see it very casually mentioned that an infinite regress is impossible. Although the explanation is typically quite sparse, I've luckily had a few good conversations with apologists lately where they have tried to explain themselves more fully on this topic. The first such conversation took place on my blog in a comment from The Rational Zealot

Let’s say the past is represented by negative numbers, zero is the present, and positive numbers are the future. Let’s say you never start counting but have been counting from an infinite past. An infinite amount of time later, you are still counting negative numbers. An infinite amount of time after that, you are still counting negative numbers. An infinite amount of time after that? Still negative numbers. To say otherwise means you haven’t really been counting from negative infinity, but have changed infinity into a number.

So the situation we find ourselves in is an infinite regress. Every moment has a moment before it. If we take the entire timeline at once we have an infinite number of moments. I would argue that there is nothing wrong with this, there is an infinite past, so what? Every moment has an infinite number of moments preceding it, and yet the distance between any two moments is finite. Strange for sure, but there is no contradiction here. Let's look at The Rational Zealot's argument one step at a time.

Let’s say you never start counting but have been counting from an infinite past.

I'm with you so far, we have been counting forever into the past, there was no start.

An infinite amount of time later, you are still counting negative numbers.

Here is where he loses me. An infinite amount of time later from when? It seems that we have assumed a starting point at negative infinity (we'll explore what this means in a moment). He continues

An infinite amount of time later, you are still counting negative numbers. An infinite amount of time after that, you are still counting negative numbers.

I believe this is the key problem to this conversation every time I have it. Every point on the timeline is a finite distance from the current moment. There is no point on the timeline from when I can count for an infinite amount of time and still land on the timeline. Again, every pair of points on the timeline are a finite distance apart. So what does it even mean to count for an infinite amount of time?

Sometimes for convenience we will compactify the space and put a point at infinity. In the case of a line we will probably put a point at negative infinity and another point at positive infinity. These two points are not standard, they are instead a mathematical abstraction. They are special points very different from the mundane numbers on the rest of the timeline. One way to look at this is that starting at negative infinity in the compactified space is the same as saying that you have always been counting without a start in the non-compactified space. Similarly, saying you will end on positive infinity in the compactified space is the same as saying that you will never stop counting in the non-compactified space. It is sometimes nice to translate "I will count forever" into a more manageable form.

If we do allow these points at infinity and we allow ourselves the ability to actually count an infinite number of moments, there are three possibilities as far as I can tell

1. You start on the timeline and after an infinite number of moments you are at positive infinity
2. You start at negative infinity and after an infinite number of moments are at positive infinity
3. You start at negative infinity and after an infinite number of moments are anywhere on the timeline

To say that we count for multiple infinities worth of counting and still are at negative numbers makes no sense.

To say otherwise means you haven’t really been counting from negative infinity, but have changed infinity into a number.

Ultimately, I believe that the mistake that has been made is to assume that this special point at infinity exists, but then treat is as a standard point in some ways. The easiest way to solve this problem is to not allow this point at infinity. Only consider normal points, even though there are an infinite number of points, there is no first point and any pair of points is a finite distance from one another. The complaint evaporates because there is no start, there is no point from which we can count an infinite amount of time and still be in negative numbers.

Humblesmith provided a very similar complaint over on his blog where he discusses an example of an infinite string of dominoes that is falling over. At first I thought the addition of physical objects would make things more complicated (where did the dominoes come from, etc), but if we ignore those problems, having dominoes set up does wind up being instructive. He was talking about various problems with such a setup and we get to his third point

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Third, as we observe this string of dominoes falling over, if it were infinite, we must ask ourselves “how did the falling get to me?”  If the line of dominoes were infinitely long, it seems the falling would always be an infinite distance away from me. The atheist might reply, “Well, the ones currently falling over have to be somewhere. It just so happens that it is next to you.” But this misunderstands infinites. If the line were truly infinite, then the falling would always, at all instances, be an infinite distance away from any one point on the line. Pick any domino, and the falling would have been an infinite distance away. Since the falling is happening in sequence, it is impossible to select a domino where the falling is not an infinite distance away. The dominoes are always falling, but never arriving anywhere, which is an absurdity.

This is essentially the same objection, we have an infinite string of dominoes, which have been falling forever, and therefore the falling cannot get to the current position. But we have a similar problem, it seems to me that what is happening is they are trying to put a domino at that "point" at negative infinity, flick it, and say it can never hit any of the other dominoes. But there is no domino at negative infinity, the fact that we have an infinite number of dominoes just means that every domino has one before it. To say that this string has been falling forever simply means that every domino has been hit by the one before it. Let's again, highlight the real misunderstanding here

If the line were truly infinite, then the falling would always, at all instances, be an infinite distance away from any one point on the line.

No, this is incorrect. Every domino is on the line, so if any dominoes are falling then the falling is somewhere on that line. If the falling is an infinite distance away from the domino that I am standing next to, then which domino is falling? Remember, every domino is a finite distance from the one I'm standing next to, if falling is happening it has to be happening to some domino. Either the falling is some finite distance from my domino, or no dominoes are falling and it doesn't really make sense to say that falling is happening at all. Falling can't be happening an infinite distance away because there is no domino at distance infinity from mine.

In both cases here, the key is to ask what is meant when things are happening "at infinity". If we count for an infinite amount of time and are still stuck at negative numbers, then when did we start? If a domino is falling an infinite distance away, where is that domino? The problem here seems to stem from the same counter-intuitive notion that we can have an infinite number of points such that every pair of points is actually a finite distance from one another.

But WHY Did You Leave Atheism for Christianity?

I recently saw a post on the Thomistic Bent blog about an atheist who converted to Christianity. It is definitely an interesting topic to me, atheists and Christians argue back and forth all the time, but people actually changing their minds is pretty rare. What would make someone actually change their mind is certainly something I would like to read about. Furthermore, the opening line of the post is the following

(credit: 1/25 Stryker Brigade Combat Team)

Another person has become Christian due to being faced with the message of the Bible and the strong evidence of Christianity.

Great! I would love to see what this evidence is. I of course expect that it will be the same apologetics that we typically see, but who knows. Perhaps it is something I've never seen before. Or maybe it's just put in a new way or something. I don't know, but I am definitely intrigued. He talks about how she fought to keep away from God but in the end God won out. Not what I'm looking for, but luckily he links to an article that she wrote about her conversion. Great! Now I can go find out what this evidence was.

There are a few ways this could go, as I said above it could be the standard apologetic arguments, another is personal revelation. But this one went the most annoying way (and unfortunately what seems to be the most common). She describes all of the strong evidence for Christianity that got her to convert, but she doesn't actual tell us what any of that evidence is. Here are some excerpts:

Tim Keller's sermon was intellectually rigorous, weaving in art and history and philosophy.

Care to tell us what was in those sermons? Guess not.

Each week, Keller made the case for Christianity. He also made the case against atheism and agnosticism. He expertly exposed the intellectual weaknesses of a purely secular worldview. 

What was the case for Christianity? What was the case against atheism and agnosticism? If he made the case so well why not repeat it to us?

After about eight months of going to hear Keller, I concluded that the weight of evidence was on the side of Christianity.

Care to tell me what a single piece of that evidence is?

Then one night in 2006, on a trip to Taiwan, I woke up in what felt like a strange cross between a dream and reality. Jesus came to me and said, "Here I am." It felt so real. I didn't know what to make of it. I called my boyfriend, but before I had time to tell him about it, he told me he had been praying the night before and felt we were supposed to break up. So we did. Honestly, while I was upset, I was more traumatized by Jesus visiting me. 

Bible Study 1 (Photo credit: DrGBB)

Is this the real reason she converted? It seems to be, it's the only reason she really described in detail. Anyway, she had trouble processing the experience and a friend told her to go to a bible study, this is what she said about it [emphasis mine]

I remember walking into the Bible study. I had a knot in my stomach. In my mind, only weirdoes and zealots went to Bible studies. I don't remember what was said that day. All I know is that when I left, everything had changed. I'll never forget standing outside that apartment on the Upper East Side and saying to myself, "It's true. It's completely true." The world looked entirely different, like a veil had been lifted off it. I had not an iota of doubt. I was filled with indescribable joy.

So this bible study completely changed her view of the world, but she can't remember what was said in there at all. This completely betrays that her reasons for converting were largely (if not completely) emotional. How can it be logical and based on reason if you can't recount what those reasons even are? How can it be based on evidence if you don't even remember what the evidence was? If you want to change your entire belief system based purely on emotion and personal revelation so be it, but don't try to tell me it is based on reason, logic, and evidence.

Is An Actual Infinite Possible?

I recently got into a conversation about infinities with humblesmith spanning a recent post on his blog and an old post on mine. He made some interesting comments on my post and it got my mind working a bit. As I was writing my reply, I realized it was a bit long for a comment so I thought it would be suitable as a post on it's own instead. It will actually spawn a couple of posts, as my long time readers will know, I love talking about infinities.

In this post, I want to address the claim made in the Kalam cosmological argument (and elsewhere) that "an actual infinite cannot exist". I'm not 100% sure what is meant by this, but it seems to be referencing the limit definition of infinities. So let's take a moment to discuss limits.

Infinity as a Limit

Let's say you have a series of numbers, for example:

hastily made with wolfram alpha

¹/₂,²/₃,³/₄,⁴/₅,...
The pattern here is simply that the n^th number is ⁿ/_n+1. There are a few interesting things about this sequence, first, no matter how large 'n' is, the fraction is less than 1. Secondly, you can get as close to 1 as you wish by picking a large enough n. (for example, if you wish to be less than 0.01 away from 1, you can do it with n=100). We say that 1 is the limit of this sequence, the fact that we never get there is irrelevant, what we care about is that we can get as close as we wish.

So that's how a limit to a finite number works, what about limits to infinity? Simply put, we say a sequence has infinity as a limit if it grows without bound. In other words, for every number A there is some integer n such that every number in the sequence past the n^th is bigger than A. Take for example the sequence of the powers of 2 (2,4,8,16,...), no matter how big a number you pick for A, there is some point when the rest of the sequence is bigger than A. So the limit of the sequence is infinity.

We 'Never' Reach Infinity

I'm pretty sure that this is what people are talking about when they say actual infinite doesn't exist. To borrow William Lane Craig's example in the post that started this whole thing, suppose I am piling up baseball cards one at a time and I continue doing this forever. We can describe the number of cards in the pile as a sequence (1,2,3,4,5,6,...), it's a pretty boring sequence, but it's trivial to see that the limit is infinity. However, there is no point in time when there are an infinite number of cards on the table, therefore, infinity doesn't exist. I am pretty sure this is the idea that is referenced with the statement "an actual infinity doesn't exist".

There is something to this, and it is a very interesting topic for investigation. We say the limit is infinity, and yet we never reach it at any point on the actual timeline. But this is the way it has to be, because once you pick a specific time on the timeline and examine it to see whether or not there is an infinite number of cards, you have cut off the sequence. You have changed the situation to a finite limit of finite numbers, of course the result will be finite. So it is true that in this situation there is never a moment where we have a pile containing an infinite number of things. In this setting perhaps it is reasonable to say that an actual infinity doesn't exist, but to extend that to all situations where an infinity might come up is a bit hasty.

Part of the difficulty here is that infinities can do some crazy things, and you have to be really careful with them, especially when you have multiple infinities interacting with each other, and that's sorta what we have here. "Never" and "forever" are both words that may or may not contain an implicit infinity, depending on how they are used. When we say that we will continue doing this "forever", do we really mean forever or do we mean for an arbitrarily large finite amount of time? What about never, is this referring to an arbitrarily large finite time or a limit? My intuition suggests that never is talking about an arbitrarily large finite time and forever is really talking about in the limit, in this sense we have a disconnect. [Although I'm a mathematician, so who knows how my intuition will line up with yours :)]

Let's Dispense with the Cards

Using the example of piling up cards does seem to illustrate some points, but it also creates some problems (Where do we get the cards? Does this assume infinity from the start? Where do we put them? Will they collapse into a black hole eventually? etc) So let's shift our example to just counting up time that has passed. We will count up seconds "forever", much of what we said above with the cards will transfer over, do we ever get to a point where we have counted an infinite number of seconds? No, we don't for the same reason as above, once we look at a point in time we have restricted ourselves to the finite. What if we step outside of our own universe and look at the whole thing all at once? I would say that in this case we can say that an infinite number of seconds is possible.

One of the things that humblesmith challenged me with is that my argument is circular, and I think this is a good spot to address it. In a sense I have started by assuming infinity is possible (when I said that we could count seconds forever), and now I have concluded that infinities can exist. In a sense he is right, this only works if forever exists which we assumed from the start. However, the key here is that I'm just trying to argue that this is a possibility. As far as I can tell, there are two possibilities, the universe ends at some point in the future (like a big crunch) or it doesn't (heat death for example). If the big crunch happens then my argument wouldn't work, and even from a perspective outside of our universe with a broad view we would not be able to observe an infinity. But if there is heat death (or some less boring eternity in our universe) then we could see infinity from the outside perspective. But again, I'm only arguing for this to be a possibility, so even if it doesn't work in our universe, I think we can argue that it could exist in some universe. Arguing that something is possible is much easier than arguing that something is impossible.

Infinite Regress

Turtles all the way down
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Often when this comes up the claim is that an infinite regress is impossible. As far as I can tell, the argument for this is some version of the baseball card example above. However, an infinite regress of causes is more akin to the infinite number of seconds than the infinite number of physical objects. The only difference is that we are talking about an infinity going backward in time rather than forward. This might seem like a bit of a leap, but it's honestly not that different. By looking forward in time, we can see that an infinite number of moments is possible, why can't we just orient causation backward and have the same thing. Once again, I am not claiming that this is how it is, or that this happened, just that this is a possibility. Remember, the apologist claim is that an infinite regress is impossible, the opposite claim is not that is did happen, just that it could have happened. My assertion is simply that an infinite regress is still on the table.

Any Apologists Reading?

I have seen the claim that an infinite regress is impossible in many places. However, I have never actually seen it explicitly spelled out why that is the case. When it is hinted at, it always seems to be referencing the limit definition of infinity, so that is what I ran with. If there is a different argument as to why please let me know. I'd love to check it out, and if it gives me another excuse to write about infinities, all the better.

You Don't Know What I'm Thinking

I was having a conversation on twitter with a Christian who was using the tired old line that atheists just want to sin, they know God exists but they pretend he doesn't so they can do whatever they want. I see this line of argument a lot and it gets under my skin so I figured I would engage. I asked him if he thought it was possible for someone to simply not believe God exists. He said no, everyone knows God exists, then cited a bible verse as proof. I told him that I don't believe in God and asked if he thinks I'm lying. He tried to avoid the question but ultimately said yes, I must be lying.

photo credit: wikipedia

This really gets on my nerves, and demonstrates that they are not interested in conversing or understanding our position, they simply want to preach to us (I know, I know, big surprise). They have their idea about what is going on in my mind and there is nothing I can say that will disabuse them of it. It's quite insulting and arrogant of them. I have my ideas about what is going on in the heads of Christians, but I am constantly trying to find out if I'm right. I like to ask them what they think about things and see what they say. It isn't terribly uncommon for me to find new Christian perspectives on various topics, honestly, understanding how people think is one of my favorite things about blogging. Sometime people are deceptive, but for the most part I believe people when they tell me what they think about something. I just wish they would extend me the same courtesy.

I Want Video Evidence of Evolution

pic source

I was recently browsing twitter and stumbled upon a Christian who was asking for video evidence for evolution. Of course, anyone who knows anything about how evolution actually works can immediately see how ridiculous of a demand this is. It is so silly in fact that the first instinct for many people might be to simply call him an idiot and move on. It's tempting to assume they are just screwing around, making demands that are impossible just to derail the conversation. If you've thought a lot about evolution these ideas become second nature, it's easy to forget that many people don't have the slightest idea how evolution works. Add to this misinformation they are getting from Church and various bits of media, it's not terribly surprising that some pretty huge misconceptions are out there.

pic source

Evolution doesn't happen to an individual. An animal doesn't evolve into another animal. If you didn't know anything about evolution, but you watched pokemon, perhaps you might think the first picture I linked is supposed to be the evolution of an individual instead of the evolution of species. If that has happened at some point in the past, and there are still monkeys, why couldn't it happen again in the future? Why couldn't we get it on video at some point? It's interesting how a potential misconception can snowball and lead to such a ridiculous question, and yet, with this incorrect starting point, why not? It's a shame pokemon didn't use the word metamorphosis instead of evolve, it seems to match what is happening much better. Is that the mistake this person made on twitter? I don't really know, it's the only thing I could really come up with though. How else could they expect we could get evolution on video?

So the question becomes, how do you respond to these types of ridiculous requests? As I said, it can be tempting to just call them idiots and move on. I see this as a missed opportunity. It seems much more useful to explain that evolution happens to populations and not to individuals. No individual ever evolves, you have the same genes you were born with you entire life. Will they absorb this information when you tell them? Probably not, but hopefully it will sink in. And of course, there is always the possibility that someone else is watching who isn't so invested in the argument that can learn from the exchange. Once you call them an idiot it's game over.

The Bible Has Been Scientifically Tested

As I mentioned a few days ago, in a recent twitter conversation a Christian claimed that the bible has been "scientifically tested for authenticity". I asked for a source and I'm happy to say that she provided a couple. One of them was the In His Steps Ministries page on evidence. There are a number of pages there that seem worth looking at, but it's a bit much for one blog post. The page that seemed the most relevant to our conversation is the page on the validity of scripture.

They don't get off to the best of starts, it starts off by noting that many people wonder why there isn't more historical evidence and says

Here is something to consider. There is no need for more evidence because the Holy Bible itself is historical evidence.

Starting the page dedicated to the evidence that the Bible is accurate by claiming no evidence is needed is really not the way to put your best foot forward. We should do our best to not let this cloud our judgment too much though.

There are over 24,600 manuscripts of the New Testament and over 24,000 original manuscripts of portions of the New Testament.

pic source

I would need to see them substantiate this claim. I have heard many people cite the fact that there are no original manuscripts remaining, and this does include plenty of Christians, not just atheists. I guess it also is important what "portions of the New Testament" means. But even if this were true, even if we have a good number of original manuscripts, it doesn't mean the events within really happened.

Some will argue that you can't trust the Bible because it was written by those who believed in God or Jesus. They will say that the authors were bias, so they did not write accurate information. If you were to use this argument regarding autobiographies, biographies, and history books (this is what the Bible is like), you would like to remove all these books off the library selves.

Many biographies are written by people who loved the person they are writing about, but we do not question their validity. Yes, we may see some prejudices or favoritism in a biography, but we can overall trust most biographies, because if they were inaccurate there would be an uproar from others. So, why toss out portions of scripture that are biographical? Unless we have proof they are inaccurate, we need to give them the same trust we would a modern day biography. 

I agree with this 100%. We should give the bible the same trust we would give any other book that claims a man walked on water, turned water into wine, and caused a zombie uprising when he died. We trust things based on how reasonable the claim is that is being made. If a someone writes a biography about his business partner and talks about how he was a nice guy, I am probably going to believe it. If the guy has a reputation of being an asshole I would probably guess that he was always nice around the author, or that the author has no empathy for the "lower people" around them and it didn't register when "the peasants" were treated poorly. If that same biography says the dude can fly it loses all credibility unless there is some pretty convincing proof apart from what is in the book.

There is something that is unique about the Bible compared to any autobiography, biography, or history book - the Bible is the inspired, infallible Word of God. This means it was God breathed. The authors of the Bible wrote what God had them to write.

That's just another claim, I thought we were here to talk about evidence. Simply asserting that it is God breathed really doesn't do anything for me. This statement needs justification.

One of the ways to prove the Bible is accurate is to explore the concept of prophecy.

I'm not completely versed in prophecy from the Bible, but every time I've looked into it very deeply at all it all turns out to be very vague and Jesus is often shoehorned in.

So significant is Jesus in man's history that the Encyclopedia Britannica has 20,000 words in describing Jesus. His description took more space than was given to Aristotle, Cicero, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed or Napoleon Bonaparte. Why would there be so much material on a man who was never born?

and

Jesus is recorded as a fact, as is His death, burial and missing body in the Reader's Digest Book of Facts, 1989.

Case closed, I guess we are done here! Seriously though, the Encyclopedia Britannica talks a lot about Jesus so he must have been real? People believe in him so he's a significant figure, whether he was real or not. That's why he's in there. And Reader's Digest? Are you kidding me?

So the only real evidence given here is that we have a lot of original copies of the New Testament. Even if that were true it doesn't substantiate the claim that Jesus performed those miracles. "Early copies exist" is a far cry from "the bible has been scientifically tested". If anyone out there thinks that I've missed the point, there is evidence I'm just looking in the wrong place, please let me know. I'd love to look into it, just please give me something with a little more teeth than this.

We Can't Wear Crosses

Recently I was reading Teach Not Preach (a great blog btw, a high school teacher has a comparative religion class and blogs about it). Included in a post he had a funny fake letter to Dr. Laura Schlessinger which I will include here. It attacks the idea of a biblically reasoning for being against homosexuality by pointing out many other things that could be argued for biblically. It was amusing, but also accurate based on the bible.

Not surprisingly, some Christians take issue with this type of thing, and one such person commented. I thought about responding, but I was afraid it would turn into quite an argument and I didn't want to do that on someone else's blog unless he got it started. Alas, he did not. But I'm going to complain here :) Let's get started

Do you show videos about “everyday Christians”? The ones who are prevalent, questioning, challenging, compassionate? The majority of Christians and not the extremists? I think a critical look (and sometimes a comical look is just fine) is important, but it’s also important to truly understand the person next door… or next desk.

I agree that most Christians are not extremists, but I don't think most do a lot of questioning about their faith. Of course this depends a lot of location, but I certainly know that the people I grew up around absolutely did not spend much time questioning, and this seems to be fairly common in a lot of places. But I understand, he doesn't want his group to be misrepresented. And honestly, most Christians don't really follow the bible, which is why the items brought up in this letter are such a surprise to them.

The many (most) Christians who(m?) I know who(m?) support marriage equality, who(m?) abhor discrimination?

Again, I think this depends on which population of Christians you look at, but I certainly don't see a lot of evidence that most Christians "abhor discrimination". Who is against marriage equality but the religious (and in America that pretty much means Christians). Sure, it's possible that most people he knows are all for gay marriage, but it seems this isn't typical.

What disturbs me most about curriculums today, is that it is not appropriate to reflect Christianity in a positive light, but it’s okay to discuss from a negative or comical perspective. 

Much to the chagrin of the religious right, I don't think there is officially much religion being taught in schools at all, which is exactly why this guy's class has a blog at all, because it is such a rarity. Plus, after following his blog for a fairly short time, it seems that his class looks at both the good and bad aspects of religion, both for Christianity and for other religions. But now he really loses it

We can’t wear a cross or call it Christmas, or use “God”, but we must accept and celebrate minority religions without discrimination or prejudice.

Are you kidding me? People wear crosses everywhere. The war on Christmas thing is utter bullshit, people just got up in arms when some businesses tried to be more inclusive and instructed their employees to say "happy holidays" instead of "merry Christmas". And what minority religions is he talking about? Because I don't know a single other religion that gets by without discrimination in this country. This statement is a perfect example of Christian privilege.

Joseph is like Jesus?

I'm repeatedly amused at how hard the Christian commenters try to shoehorn Jesus into the old testament. Most recently I was reading Genesis 41 and at the end of Guzik's commentary he has a 34 point list of how Joseph and Jesus are similar (it's at the very bottom). I found the list funny, but didn't get into details at the time because it was long and I figured it deserved a post of its own. So here we go. (oh hey, let's keep score. Actual good comparision out of attempts)

1. Was a shepherd

Was Jesus a shepherd? I thought he was a carpenter, or perhaps a "fisher of men". Although Joseph wasn't really a shepherd either, he worked for a family of shepherds but he was given a robe of many colors indicating that he is something of an aristocrat rather than a grunt worker. (0/1)

2. Loved by his father

 Is it really so significant that someone is loved by their father? It's not everyone, some dads are horrible people, but it's not terribly rare either. Also, this is a different use of father, Joseph's actual biological father versus God as Jesus' father. (0/2)

3. Sent unto his brethren

Joseph was sold into slavery. Does this phrase mean something other than what I think it means? (0/3)

4. Hated by his brothers

Joseph was hated by his actual brothers. I suppose Jesus was hated by the people who had him crucified, are those his brothers? Seems like a different use of the word brother doesn't it? (0/4)

5. Prophesied his coming glory

I feel like prophesies were a dime a dozen back then, but whatever, they both made prophesies. (1/5)

6. Rejected by his brothers

This is a repeat of point 4, and again, different use of "brother". (1/6)

7. Endured unjust punishment from his brothers

Unjust punishment seems pretty common in these stories (Noah's ark anyone?) but sure, they both received unjust punishment.  (2/7)

8. Sentenced to the pit

"The pit" for Jesus is hell, "the pit" for Joseph is a well he was thrown in for a few hours? Hell no you aren't getting that point (2/8)

9. Delivered to the pit, though a leader knew he should go free

Who is the leader for Joseph? Is it his brother Reuben? I went back and looked at the text and he really doesn't seem to be a leader at all, they just seem to be a bunch of brothers. You could make an equally good argument that Judah is the leader. (2/9)

 10. Sold for pieces of silver

Is this really impressive? They were both sold for the currency of the day. If I was trying to argue that two financial transactions happened in the united states, I wouldn't think I would gain my sway by saying "they were both purchased with dollars". (2/10)

 11. Handed over to the Gentiles

Weren't there Jews as well in the crowd that wanted to crucify Jesus? (2/11)

12. Regarded as dead, but raised out of the pit

But this is only similar because of peculiar wording. Jesus actually died and came back to life. Joseph was thrown in the pit, then brought out of the pit and sold into slavery, THEN it was told to his father he was dead. The order of events isn't even right. (2/12)

13. Went to Egypt

Jesus went to a ton of places. But fine, they both went to Egypt (3/13)

14. Made a servant

Jesus wasn't forced into slavery. He offered himself up to serve, but it's totally different. (3/14)

15. Tempted severely, but did not sin

Jesus broke the old laws, isn't that sinning? Except he is God, so by definition he didn't sin. Also, Joseph lied to his brothers. How do they have to define sin so this works? (3/15)

 16. Falsely accused

Fair enough (4/16)

17. Made no defense

Jesus refused to give a defense, Joseph had no opportunity. That's not the same (4/17)

18. Cast into prison, and numbered with sinners and criminals

First of all, you can just say prison. Second, was Jesus in prison? I suppose it's possible that he spent a few minutes in prison before he was crucified, but as I remember the story he got captured and went right to the crucifixion. At any rate, Joseph was in prison for years, it's barely comparable (4/18)

19. Endured unjust punishment from Gentiles 

I'm not giving you points for this and falsely accused. Besides, Jesus was punished by the Jews as well (4/19)

20. Associated with two other criminals; one is pardoned and one is not

Except with Jesus, he was one of the prisoners, with Joseph, we are talking about 2 other people. This is ridiculous! (4/20) Also, this point has a sub-entry

20a. Some associate the butler, with his wine, and the baker with the elements of communion. Along the same lines, some associate the three-day period before their case is resolved with the three days before the resurrection of Jesus. 

Are you fucking kidding me? First of all, make your holy symbols basic food and drink and they will come up everywhere. Secondly, butler=wine? I feel like I should deduct points for this.

21. Showed compassion

Most people do this at some point. But fine. (5/21)

22. Brought a message of deliverance in prison

Does this mean they were eventually let out of prison? If so, the prison for Jesus must be hell, in which case the comparison is quite a stretch. (5/22)

23. Wanted to be remembered

Yeah, so does everyone else who ever existed. Might as well say they both breathed air (5/23)

24. Shown to have divine wisdom

Joseph was a prophet, he relayed messages from God about people's dreams. Does this translate into divine wisdom? He seemed like an idiot with his family. The only thing I can see with Joseph that we could count as wisdom is storing the grain from the time of plenty, but that is the obvious move given the information. Is this the measure of wisdom now? (5/24)

 25. Recognized as having the Spirit of God

This is based off a comment in chapter 41, I pointed out then why it was a silly conclusion to make. (5/25)

 26. Betrayed by friends

Joseph was betrayed by his brothers. This overlaps again with 4 and 6. (5/26)

27. Glorified after his humility

This is true of anyone in power, or who was martyred, but fine (6/27)

28. Honored among Gentiles while still despised or forgotten by his brethren

Let's think about how this applies to Jesus. There were Jews, some of them rejected Jesus and stayed Jews, others accepted Jesus and became Christians. So all it really says is that some people like him and some don't. Not so impressive put that way is it? (6/28)

29. Given a Gentile bride

What the hell? Jesus wasn't married, in fact he told his disciples to abandon their families. This must be some metaphor nonsense (6/29)

30. Was 30 years old when he began his life’s work

Didn't Jesus talk to some church elders as a child? Maybe that's not actually in the bible, I can't remember. Regardless, we simply don't know what he was doing before 30, perhaps we was growing a following (6/30)

31. Blessed the world with bread

Refer to my point on 20a (6/31)

32. Became the only source of bread for the world

Again with the fucking bread! First off, there was a shortage and Joseph had a healthy supply, doesn't mean it was all of the bread in the world. Secondly, the "bread of Jesus" is a fundamentally different thing. (6/32)

33. The world was instructed to go to him and do whatever he said to do.

Also true of every king, pope, and mob boss. What's your point? And people don't go to Jesus in the same way they went to Joseph. One is a spiritual thing and one is real. We are comparing apples and oranges here. (6/33)

34. Was given the name “God Speaks and He Lives.”

I don't even understand what this means. And I'm tired of this stupid list.

---

Well, that's it. I thought it would be more fun, but it's so bad I just wound up getting kinda irritated. Let's gather the items which I gave him points for

5. Prophesied his coming glory
7. Endured unjust punishment from his brothers
13. Went to Egypt
16. Falsely accused
21. Showed compassion
27. Glorified after his humility

Oh I stand correct. Clearly they are EXACTLY the same! Seriously though, it makes me wonder if these lists are even meant to be read. It's terrible. But perhaps it's just there so people can say "oh yeah, Jesus and Joseph were very similar, I saw a 34 point list about their similarities" and the other person would go "neat" and then repeat it to someone else without ever seeing the list.

In closing, I'm going to make an equally impressive list comparing Joseph and Jesus

1. Both were born
2. Both breathed air
3. Both ate food
4. Both used words for communication

Non-overlapping magisteria

Non-overlapping magisteria is the idea that science and religion each have their own place where they work but they shouldn't try to interfere in the other's area. Science can tell us about how physical things work, religion can tell us about spiritual things, but neither really should be weighing in on the other's domain. This argument seems to be primarily used by people who are either trying to avoid a conversation (if they aren't interested in this type of discussion), or want to end a conversation already in progress (if they are losing).

Other than a desire for the conversation to go away, the declaration of non-overlapping magisteria seems to stem from a misunderstanding of what science really is. I think when the average person thinks of "science" they imagine a chemistry set and a chalkboard full of equations. But really, science is all about testing hypotheses and refining ideas with new information. If you make a testable claim, you are in the domain of science. So to say that science and religion don't overlap is to say that religion makes no testable claims. Is this true? Absolutely not! I can think of a handful of claims that religions make right off the top of my head.

Prayer. God supposedly answers prayer, this is clearly a testable claim. If prayer to God does anything at all, then we should be able to see an effect. religious people should win the lottery more often, their loved ones should be in fewer car accidents and they should get more raises at work, and of course when they get sick, they should recover faster. This last one has been studied pretty extensively and no effect has been found except when the studies are methodologically flawed, and even then the result is quite weak.

Miracles. The religious make miracle claims all the time. These claims are often some version of "this can't happen naturally, it must be God's doing". The claim of "this is impossible" is perfect for science, where the goal is to figure out how it happened. A perfect example is the weeping statue of Jesus which turned out to be a broken water pipe along with capillary action.

I'm sure there are other obvious things to add, but that's good enough for now. Let's move along to the next point, when religion tries to invade the domain of science. The most obvious one is evolution vs. creation. The evidence for evolution is staggering and yet many religions deny it anyway. They literally intrude on the domain of science, trying to get creation taught in science class along side evolution, or ideally instead of it. They don't really want science and religion to occupy separate places in society, they just want science to back off and let religion get away with as much as possible.

I love Jesus and Mo

There's one last place where I've seen people try to apply non-overlapping magisteria, and that is to some sort of deist god. In this case I would agree that science really doesn't have much to say about such a nebulous God, but honestly, neither does religion. This isn't a situation where science has nothing to say but religion can enlighten us, it's a situation where god has been defined away to the point where neither can contribute anything useful. As far as I can tell, non-overlapping magisteria is garbage no matter how you slice it.

Nothing Can Interfere With God's Will

I've recently seen this statement made by a few Christians on twitter. If you think about it this is just a restatement of God being all powerful, but it somehow seems to drive the point home a little more. It's clearly supposed to be a rallying cry: "God can do anything he wants, isn't that great? Someone is looking out for us no matter what!" My mind of course goes toward the negative implications, why not think about them one at a time?

• The Problem of Evil

This is the first thing that comes to my mind when I see these types of statements. If nothing can interfere with God's will, then why do bad things happen to believers (or anybody for that matter)? And we are not just talking about skinning a knee or some other hardship where a lesson can be learned. I don't even have to go to big events like Sandy Hook or the Boston marathon, we can just think about all of the people who die on a daily basis from cancer or getting hit by a drunk driver or any other number of random things. All of this apparently random tragedy is part of God's will? Many times the answer to this is that God doesn't want to mess with people's free will. This would seem to contradict the statement that "nothing can interfere with God's will", but we can just go to my next point

• Natural Disasters

People are hurt and killed in natural disasters all the time. My wife and I watched the recent Tsunami movie last weekend, so I have a handful of images in my head about this right now. It's really hard to imagine that all of that destruction and hardship was part of the will of an all loving God.

source

• Hell

It seems that most Christians believe in hell, and the people who wind up in hell are tortured forever. If nothing can interfere with God's will then this is completely according to plan. Some people say this is man's doing for not accepting Jesus, or that it is the devil's work that hell is such an awful place, but whatever justification you have, it is all according to God's will. He doesn't let everyone into heaven and he doesn't blink the bad people out of existence. Nope, he wants people to be tortured for all of eternity. This is God's will.

source

That Miracle Was a Hoax, But Real Ones Exist

I've recently come across a handful of miracle claims, often times there is a knowledgeable person commenting who can explain why the supposed event is not as miraculous as it is claimed to be. What I find really interesting is the response that is given by the believer when this happens. The first thing they try to do is of course challenge the explanation, but if that fails they will often fall back to "Well fine, maybe that miracle wasn't real, but real miracles do exist".

While I disagree with their conclusion, they do have a point, debunking a miracle claim does not prove that miracles don't happen. No matter how many miracle claims are shown to be false, we can't say for certain that other miracles don't occur. This goes for pretty much any debunking that we do, whether it be horoscopes, water dowsing, or psychics. No matter how many times you show a claim to be fraudulent or simply mistaken, there is always the possibility that the real deal is out there somewhere.

wikipedia

These thoughts reminded me of something that I haven't thought about in years, when I was a kid I believed in UFOs. Why not? As a kid I didn't really have a good way to tell reality from fantasy. Nobody around me was a skeptic, as far as I could tell everyone believed in UFOs, why shouldn't I? I remember I watched a show on the discovery channel about crop circles. They showed a crop circle, showed how amazing it was, talked to a bunch of "experts" who explained that it would be impossible for humans to make and it was proof of UFOs visiting, then they shows a time lapse video of the crop circle being made by 2 (or 3?) guys over the course of a few hours. I was floored, it was the first time I had seen anything anything critical of UFOs that was done in a convincing way.

Of course, I didn't immediately stop believing in UFOs, this was just a stunt by the discovery channel. The fact that humans can also make crop circles doesn't prove that UFOs can't make them. I remember watching other shows which also debunked other UFO stories, and for a long time I just figured that UFOs are cool, and people will want to create their own, and hoaxes are probably fun to create and trick your friends with them. Even if 99% of UFO claims are shown to be fraudulent, it doesn't prove that the last 1% are also fake.

But then I started to ask myself what I thought was more likely, that the rest of them were also hoaxes or that aliens really are hanging out around our planet and hiding. It seems much more believable that some people creating hoaxes are just really good and set things up in such a way that it is nearly impossible to debunk. Also, once I learned about how big space is, it really doesn't make sense that an alien race would screw with us for decades but never reveal themselves. If they were to travel all that way, you would think they would make contact. Ultimately I decided that believing in UFOs was silly.

source

I think these miracle claims are very similar, no matter how many miraculous statues are shown to be the simple result of a broken water pipe, it's always possible that there is another one that is the real deal. But at what point does it seem more likely that the next miracle claim will also be fraudulent?

I Can Cherry Pick Your Bible But You Can't

It's no secret the Christians do a lot of cherry picking of the bible. They will focus on verses that support their ideas and completely ignore verses that go against them. Take for example the current gay marriage debate going on in this country. Christians will often cite bible verses to support their argument that being gay is bad, but will ignore the fact that nearby verses also prohibit eating shellfish.

Christians don't tend to like having these facts pointed out to them, when confronted they will often try to turn the tables and point out that atheists focus on all of the negative things in the bible. The claim is that we have no high ground here, we cherry pick just as badly as they do. The problem is, we aren't making symmetric claims.

Many Christians claim that the bible is inerrant, that it is the perfect word of god and that it is the source of all morality. These are very strong claims, and really, a single counterexample creates big problems. Ignoring parts of the bible which contradict these claims is unacceptable.

Atheists on the other hand don't claim that the bible is 100% bad. If we did, our cherry picking would be a problem as well as we would be ignoring the evidence against our claim. However, our claims are generally that the bible is not perfect and that the God depicted in the bible is not a strong moral character. To support these claim it is not necessary to show that good stuff is absent, we merely need to show that bad stuff is present. That is why we will often cherry pick the bad items, because all we need to do to prove our point is to show such items exist.

Abortion Isn't Eugenics

I recently had a pretty annoying conversation on twitter (surprise surprise). It started with @bidenshairplugs who wrote to #atheism saying that if you are really an atheist it isn't rational to waste time arguing about it. I said that even though God isn't real belief in him causes real harm. Then @Jennyruskie decided to jump into the conversation to say that not believing in God causes worse harms and cites eugenics as evidence. I pretty much face palmed at this point, my guess actually is that she heard someone associating the Nazis with both atheism and eugenics and made the connection, of course we all know that this is ridiculous as hitler was most certainly not atheist. Anyway, I decided to simply point out that basically no one is in favor of eugenics. So she hits me with this gem.

@hausdorff80 @bidenshairplugs 50 million aborted babies beg to differ.
— Jennifur Kat (@Jennyruskie) April 2, 2013

I must say I was pretty shocked at how terrible this reply was. First of all, lets start with the fact that atheists are not getting all of the abortions. I don't have any statistics at my fingertips, but I'd be willing to bet that abortion rates are fairly constant across religious lines. But more importantly, abortion and eugenics are not the same thing. Granted, a eugenics program could include forced abortions, but those are clearly not the abortions that we are talking about here.

So what does eugenics mean? It's basically the manipulation of the gene pool in an attempt to make a better human. Usually it involves not allowing a perceived lesser group of people to breed, this could mean sterilization, forced birth control, or forced abortion. These are the kinds of actions taken by a madman trying to create a master race, not a scared teenager who doesn't want to screw up her life by having a kid that she isn't prepared to take care of. Forced is the operative word here.

pic from wikipedia

Equating eugenics and abortion is ridiculous, and connecting them to atheism shows just how dishonest these people are. But what really bothers me here is that I'm sure @Jennyruskie didn't just come up with this argument on her own, someone out there must be promoting this faulty logic. I guess when you have no logically sound argument you have to just make crap up about the other side.

How Can the Gospels be both Copied and Contradictory?

I've been trying to read more Christian blogs lately in an effort to branch out a little bit, I certainly don't want to live inside a bubble of my own making. As a result I have been coming across a fair number of apologetic arguments, which quite often aggravate me because of how ridiculous and stupid tend to be. This particular argument is bad enough that I would normally completely ignore it, except that I have seen it a few times in the last month. It is an attempt to make atheists look silly by asking how it is possible that the gospels can be contradictory and also be copied. Of course the answer is simple, there are parts of the gospels that are copied from each other and other parts that are contradictory. Nobody is claiming that the entirety of Mark (say) is an exact copy of Matthew, but that certain passages are copies of other passages.

What really bugs me about these kinds of claims is that the people making them know they are bullshit. Of course it is possible for a book to have copied passages as well as contradictory ones. But they don't care, they can straw man our arguments until they are unrecognizable and make fun of the result and their listeners will believe it is representative of what we say because they are trained to not question their leaders. They aren't supposed to think critically about things, they are supposed to have faith.

I think the real reason I have such a reaction to this kind of thing is because I know that when I was a kid/teenager I would have totally fallen for it. If my pastor or a religious person my parents were listening to on the radio said something, I'd believe it. Why not? They are men of God, I can trust them. If they say that atheists make these stupid arguments who am I to question it? Luckily I eventually grew up and realized that I had been lied to, but most people never do this for some reason. It's part of the reason I started writing this blog, I'd like to think if I had come across this type of writing when I was still a Christian I could have left the religion sooner.

All Bible Contradictions Have Been Answered

Bible Contradictions. I think I found the
original source

I was listening to a Christian podcast this week and heard this one. It really drives me crazy because it is so transparently false, and yet people will believe it anyway. It comes from a source they trust, and it is a lie they will hear from many people in the church and many, many times. Add to this the idea of faith, they are told they are supposed to believe without evidence, so they are prime targets for this type of lie.

Other lies along these lines are that scholars all agree that the bible is factual, there is historical evidence for the miracles in the bible, and that there are plenty of good proofs that God exists. When I was a kid I heard these types of lies a lot, and I believed them because people whom I trusted brought me this information. I think that is why these types of statements really drive me crazy, part of me is embarrassed that I fell for them when I was younger, and I am angered that I believed a lie for so long. I don't want anyone else to experience the same thing, and it pisses me off when I see people spreading misinformation.

The real question becomes whether or not the people perpetuating these lies believe it themselves, or if they realize it is false but they spread it anyway because it is good for spreading their religion. Although we can never know for sure, my suspicion is that most people spreading these lies believe them, they have just never thought about it critically or looked into the claims themselves with any depth. Of course there had to be someone who started the lie, who had no evidence but just claimed it was there (fuck that guy), but I bet most people just trusted the word of someone else and perpetuated the lie on accident.

How much does faith play into this? I think that the idea that believing things without evidence definitely has a hand in how easy it is to perpetuate these types of lies. Anytime I hear a new claim, one of the first things I want to know if how they got to that claim. Depending on how much I care and how much time I have, I may or may not ask them for their evidence, but it is way up high on my list of standard follow up questions. I don't think this is true for people who are used to operating on faith. If your standard operating procedure is to accept things with no good reason, you are much less likely to ask how someone else reached their conclusions. As far as I'm concerned, faith is mental poison.

Have You Been Harmed by the Church?

Note: this post is inspired by a recent post by Cephus about a challenge from a Christian.

It's not terribly uncommon to come across a religious person who thinks that I am an atheist because I have been harmed by the church in some way. They will often think I am an atheist because I am angry at God, because I have seen Christians do terrible things, because I think my entire childhood was somehow damaged because of the inclusion of the religion. They will then challenge me to put aside the painful emotions associated with these things and consider returning to God.

The thing is, there is some truth to the things they are saying here. I absolutely was harmed by the church in my childhood (luckily I didn't have to deal with molestation or physical abuse like so many people have to deal with, but let's just say telling a child they are evil to the core will give them some psychological problems). I have seen plenty of horrible things done in the name of God, I would even say that I am an atheist today because at some point in the past I had a very strong hatred for God. But it's not as simple as being angry and then suddenly being an atheist, it is the start of a long journey.

I was angry, very angry with God and religion in general. This anger led me to question everything and look for the truth of the matter to the best of my ability. I investigated the real source of my belief in God and thought about what would have happened if I had been born in a different part of the world, or at a different time. I looked for any proof of God I could get my hands on and tried to analyze if I thought they were worthwhile. I talked about these matters with as many people as I could. Ultimately I have concluded that there are no good reasons for believing in God. My own reasons for believing were all based on the fact that I had been told these things by everyone around me since birth, and the same was clearly true for all of them.

So back to the initial question, have I been harmed by the church? Absolutely! Am I an atheist because of that harm? Well yes, but probably not in the way you mean, it's not a simple connection. I was harmed and therefore motivated to seek the truth about religion, further, due to the anger I felt for the church, I was motivated to keep looking into things for about 10 years until I was satisfied that I had seen and rejected pretty much every argument out there.

In the Christian challenge linked at the top, he asked atheists to put aside their emotional baggage and look at the evidence. But for me, and many other atheists I've talked to, the emotional baggage is what motivated us to look at the evidence in the first place. Emotion played a big part in getting us started, but we have already answered this challenge on our own.

Someone Smarter than Me Probably Knows This

Reading the bible is hard. It is a very old book, so much of what is written in there can be difficult to interpret. Who knows what figures of speech have been lost to time. Add to that the fact that it has to be translated into our language, and the possibility of misreading the real intent of the text becomes fairly high. When a Christian comes across a passage that seriously challenges their preconceptions, their first instinct is often that their understanding of the passage must be wrong. To determine that their understanding is indeed wrong takes a lot of work, and often they will simply assume that such work would yield answers and simply move on without giving it a second thought. This seems like a terrible thing.

But in the interest of fairness I tried to come up with an analogous situation for me to come across. The best example I can think of is in the realm of quantum mechanics. There are a lot of things in quantum mechanics that are really counter-intuitive. It is quite possible that I could read a fact about quantum mechanics which doesn't sound right to me. I would assume that I am most likely wrong and my knowledge of quantum mechanics is lacking. Chances are that I would not go to the trouble to learn enough about quantum mechanics to fix these gaps in my knowledge, I would simply assume that such a search would lead to an answer and be on my merry way. I don't really think anyone would begrudge me for this.

Am I being unreasonable to the Christian, or is there a significant difference in these 2 situations? The more I think about it, the more I think the problem here is that I haven't given enough information. One the surface, it seems that these 2 situations are the same and show that I am being unfair, but I think if we add more details to make 2 people more analogous, and the expectations of them will turn out roughly the same.

I think a key factor is how the Christian came across the confusing verse. If someone (perhaps an atheist like myself) approaches them and shows them the verse out of the blue, I think it would be reasonable for the Christian to just shrug it off and assume that an experienced theologian would have an answer. This situation feel analogous to a random person like myself coming across a confusing fact about quantum mechanics and just moving on with their life. If either person gets curious and pursues the matter further, great. But I don't think they should be expected to follow every confusing thing they come across in life, our time is limited after all.

On the other hand, if the Christian came across the verse reading the bible on their own, or perhaps during a bible study, I think it would be somewhat reasonable to expect them to reflect on the problem and try to find a real answer. If they are doing these things, they are presumably trying to better their understand of the bible and their religion. I think it would be somewhat disingenuous of them to continue on 'studying' other parts of the bible when they have already come across an interesting item and they have ignored it. This seems analogous to a physics student who comes across a difficult section in their textbook which they don't understand, and instead of going to the trouble to figure out the details, they just turn the page and keep on going with the next section. I think we can all agree that this is a description of a bad student.

The last group that I want to think about is any Christian who is trying to "spread the word". These are people who are out actively trying to get people to convert to Christianity, and honestly probably the group of people I was thinking about in my first paragraph. For them, I think it is reasonable to expect that they actually have an answer (or at least are willing to go out an seek an answer) for the troubling things that come up in the bible. It is simply not okay for this group to completely ignore difficulties with their religion and assume that other people have the answer that they don't. This would be analogous to me trying to go around and convince people that quantum mechanics is correct. If I were to take on a role as a teacher, you would definitely expect me to understand these details. Once again, we see that if we alter these two situations to make them truly comparable, there is no real difference in expectation.

Eye witnesses are unreliable

I've seen some people recently claim that evidence for Jesus lies in the eyewitness accounts in the bible. Of course I have seen people argue with this that the gospels were written much later than when Jesus supposedly lived, so any potential eyewitness would be very old by the time it was actually written, and more likely, it is second or third hand stories of people who knew these eye witnesses. Furthermore, the stories from the gospels are so spectacular, that if they were true you would expect it to be big news of the time, and yet there are no extra-biblical accounts of those events.

But that is not actually my main concern today, what if we were to assume that the gospels were first hand accounts of what four separate people saw and wrote about. What if they were simply writing down events as they recall? Would this mean that all of those things really happened? I would argue that no, it does not mean that what they think they saw happened. Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable, I feel like I have seen a huge number of news stories lately where people are determining that eye witness testimony is faulty. We can see this pretty quickly at wikipedia or at the innocence project webpage. Also, anyone who has been to a magic show can tell you how convincing the tricks were, even if they knew it was fake, it looked real. And how many people have been taken in by psychics who are just doing a cold reading?

No, eye witnesses are certainly not all the proof we need for anything. They provide a good place to start looking, but we need more evidence to make any actual conclusions. If you want to see a great example of eye witnesses failing miserably, watch this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBPG_OBgTWg
(well, the video isn't exactly eye witness testimony, but it sort of makes my point...just shut up and enjoy, Derren Brown is awesome)