Neddy Merrill over at The Edge of the American West has pointed out just how shabby that pretense really was:

Worst non-ex-Muslim ever
[...]
What makes this story so interesting is that he’s terrible at playing a Muslim. Or, more accurately, that he got as far as he did while being so terrible. Check out these videos, posted by one of the bloggers who’s been on this for a while: he gets the Shahada wrong. He thinks there are 40 days in Ramadan. He confuses “insha’Allah” and “alhumdulillah.” The Christian equivalent would be like saying Jesus rose on Christmas– just a straight-up, WTF howler to anyone who’s even casually Muslim.

I’m trying to imagine what the atheist equivalent would be. It would have to be like saying, “I’m an atheist, but Jesus loves me anyway.”

Despite this, a few other evangelical apologists like Norman Geisler, co-author of I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (which our friend Deacon Duncan has recently finished demolishing), are sticking by him.

The Holy Bible, King James Version, is the Word of God in the English language. It is superior to all other holy books. It is higher than all other philosophies. When any man’s words contradict the Bible, the Bible is ALWAYS RIGHT, and those who disagree are ALWAYS WRONG. God’s Word is the most beautifully written book. It contains the best poetry; it reveals the most practical wisdom; it clearly reveals man’s sin problem, as well as God’s solution in Jesus Christ. Besides all this, it is the only book that is RIGHT! If you believe everything you read, you better stick with the Bible!

The Bible is superior to the Koran because it IS the written Word of God. It is superior to the Book of Mormon because its geographical landmarks actually existed. It is superior to the evolution textbook because it is filled with facts, not a bunch of words like “approximately,” “perhaps,” “could have been,” “possible that,” and other indefinite wordings. The Bible is the ONLY source of absolute truth. God Almighty is clear, concise, and definite when He speaks.

You may disagree with God’s Word, but know this: God’s Word will be the last word! God’s Word will be final and forever!

And sadly, this is real, not a Poe. It sure does sound like one though!

One of the worst apologetic arguments for the authority of the bible is that the bible is unique in its continuity. That is, although the books in our modern bible were written over a stretch of centuries, they all speak as if from the same voice. Clearly, that is the voice of God.

This argument hinges on the notion that the books are “thematically consistent;” that they are all in agreement as to their major themes of morality and theology. This is pure bunk, and the argument fails. The books of the Bible are in conflict, pure and simple.

For example, one of the themes of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah is that the Israelites should remain ethnically pure and not intermarry with foreign women:

“And Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have trespassed and married foreign women, and so increased the guilt of Israel. Now then make confession to the LORD the God of your fathers, and do his will; separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives.” (Ezra 10:10-11)

Now, compare that with with book of Ruth, where the Moabite Ruth becomes the ancestress of line of Jesse, David and Jesus. Does this story square with Nehemiah 13:1, “On that day they read from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people; and in it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God”?

This is likely not an accident; the book of Ruth may have been intentionally written as an argument against the ethnic purity themes of the earlier works.

Consider also the fact that Moses, the greatest hero in the OT, marries into a Midianite family. Of course, in the book of Numbers, Moses wages war against the Midianites, kills the men and captures the women and children. I suppose that’s one way to deal with your in-laws.

This is just an example; just one of the ways that the OT is in tension with itself. But now consider the NT and all the ways that the gospels conflict. Let’s take a subtle one: compare the eschatologies of Mark and John.

Mark famously has a straight-forward apocalyptic tone: “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.” In contrast, John has a more complex “revealed eschatology,” in which Jesus’s ministry is part of the end times: “Truly, truly, I say to you he who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has eternal life; he does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life”

In Mark, the second coming is something that will take place in the near future. In John, it’s something that is here now, and yet is still to come. It’s not a pure conflict, but it is one of the ways that the Gospels are inconsistent with each other.

Of course, the apologists have another card up their sleeve: they know what each of these passages really means. They’ve already decided that the books are thematically consistent, and they’re prepared to strap any straying passage into Procrustes’s bed and make it fit.

Mark, the earliest Gospel, says that Jesus died on the day after the passover meal:

On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to him, “Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?” [...] As soon as it was morning, the chief priests … bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate…. It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. (Mark 14:12; 15:1, 25 NRSV)

But John, the latest Gospel, says Jesus was crucified on the day before the passover meal:

Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover; and it was about noon. [Pilate] said to the Jews, “Here is your King!” (John 19:14)

So in Mark, Jesus was nailed to a cross at 9am the day after the Preparation of the Passover. In John, Pilate is about to send Jesus to his death at 12pm on the day of the Preparation for the Passover.

Those timelines just don’t add up. At least one is false; both cannot be true.

Why would John change the day Jesus was crucified from the earlier Mark narrative? Bart Ehrman gives an interesting theory in Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium:

Possibly the author of John, our last Gospel to be written, is actually trying to say something, to make a “truth-claim” about Jesus in the way he has told his story. Readers have long noted — and this can scarcely be either an accident or unrelated to our present dilemma — that John’s is the only Gospel that explicitly identified Jesus as “the Lamb of God.”

In fact, at the very outset of the Gospel, Jesus’ forerunner, John the Baptist, sees him and says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (1:29); and seven verses later, he says it again: “Behold the Lamb of God” (1:36). John’s Gospel thus portrays Jesus as the Passover lamb, whose blood somehow brings salvation, just as the blood of the Passover lamb brought salvation to the children of Israel so many centuries before. [...]

John, or someone who told him the story, made a slight change in a historical datum in order to score a theological point. For John, Jesus really was the Lamb of God. He died at the same time (on the afternoon of the day of Preparation), in the same place (Jerusalem), and at the hands of the same people (the Jewish leaders, especially the priests) as the Passover lambs. In other words, John has told a story that is not historically accurate, but is, in his judgement, theologically true.

That’s the best explanation I’ve heard. John was either told the story slightly differently or changed it to fit his theological point (purposely or accidently).

What I find so refreshing about “liberal” biblical scholarship is its honesty. Fundamentalist scholars are usually apologists — they’re just defending what they want to be true. They are not willing to consider that this, for instance, is a real contradiction. They explain it away with theological smoke and mirrors.

The truth is we don’t know when Jesus died. We only have accounts written generations later, and what we have agree on some parts and disagree on others.

Did Jesus die at 9am the day after the Passover meal, or after 12pm on the day before the Passover meal? I don’t know. You don’t know. Scholars don’t know. And certainly the Christian knocking at your door doesn’t know.

But don’t expect Christian pastors and priests to tell you that this weekend. They’re not in that business.

[For a fuller explanation of this, you can read Ehrman's chapter on it.]

(via Dinosaur Comics)

Overcoming personal bias can be one of the most difficult tasks in searching for the truth. The particular experiences and influences in our lives are – to a large degree – out of our control and yet they play a huge role in shaping our beliefs. And it’s not as though we can reboot our lives, remove the biasing agent, and see what we end up believing (we would also have to do it a few hundred times so we can get a decent confidence interval).

A first step is acknowledging our biasing factors, but how do we wrap our minds around it?  Alicorn at Less Wrong gives a great example:

During one of my epistemology classes, my professor admitted (I can’t recall the context) that his opinions on the topic would probably be different had he attended a different graduate school.

What a peculiar thing for an epistemologist to admit!

Of course, on the one hand, he’s almost certainly right. Schools have their cultures, their traditional views, their favorite literature providers, their set of available teachers…
<snip>
But on the other hand… but… but…

But how can he say that, and look so undubiously at the views he picked up this way?

It’s an uncomfortable position.  Now, for all I know, the professor was discussing preferences and not an objective truth claim. I don’t have as big of a problem with the notion that, had I been raised in the South, I would find grits more delicious than waffles (how absurd!). It’s more of a problem when we acknowledge that personal factors are affecting our so-called universal claims of objective truth.

As usual, my mind took the question to religion.  Most people continue to believe the religion they were taught as a child. As it happens, I was raised in a secular household without much discussion of God and grew up to be an atheist. But let’s revisit the scenario in which I was raised in the South (eating foul grits). If I had been raised by Evangelical Christians would I still be an atheist today? It’s conceivable that I would be a Christian apologist, writing philosophical papers for God’s existence and arguing on blogs. That image troubles me – and not just because it’s at odds with what I think right now. I want to be confident that my beliefs are an accurate reflection of reality, not the result of where I was born. The counter factual makes me wonder.

It’s difficult not to sound hypocritical. I believe that, by coincidence, I was raised by parents who were correct. But I’ve heard religious people of all faiths say similar things. What can we do to cut through the biasing influence of our upbringing? How can I be confident that, unlike them, I really WAS coincidentally born into a household which was correct? Obviously, this question applies to everyone, not just me and not just atheists.

All I can see to do is foster critical thinking skills – the conscious effort to overcome bias. I’m trying my best to keep an open mind, give other views a fair hearing, and pursue the truth. So far, as I’ve done that, I’ve found the evidence for the existence of gods to be pathetically flimsy.  I know I can never fully free myself of bias, but at least I’m doing what I can.  It’s my impression that as people learn critical thinking skills, they’re more likely to become atheists. That certainly boosts my confidence.

I know many of you had religious influences growing up and would have a completely different perspective on the issue. I would love your take.

Christian: You are telling me that you used to believe? Well then, by all means, what changed your mind?

Skeptic: I loved to read and I always thought that I should read the strongest arguments I could find, this included arguments for Christianity, and skeptical arguments against Christianity. This way I was always competent in defending my faith.

Christian: So you read books that argued against what you believed?

Skeptic: I did.

Christian: But why would you do that?

Skeptic: Because I want the truth, even if it goes against what I desire.

Christian: But you used to believe, and you used to persuade skeptics that Christianity was true?

Skeptic: I did.

Christian: And now you no longer believe, and you seek to persuade Christians that Christianity is false?

Skeptic: Well, I tell them why I choose not to believe, if you call that seeking to persuade Christians that Christianity is false then I guess I am guilty.

Christian: And all of this came about because you read non-Christian books?

Skeptic: Something very close to that, yes. Of course, I also understood them and I also sought to refute them, but in the end, they only further exposed the inability of what I believed.

Christian: My goodness, I am never going to read non-Christian books!

Skeptic: And yet, another manifestation as to why I reject Christianity.

Jersey Flight is a former Christian minister and the founder of The Skeptic Thinker

I have some Mormon acquaintances that I have had some very lengthy discussions with. The Book of Mormon makes claims that are demonstrably false based on tested empirical evidence (DNA lineage of Native Americans for example). If I were to go after the validity of the Book of Mormon, would these sorts of empirical issues be a good first target, or do they fall under the “science” realm that is too easily shoveled aside with the “just have faith” response? If so, could you perhaps clarify a little on what the best ways to go after a religious book might be? Are we looking for internal contradictions, philosophically problematic statements, wildly magical or unreal stories that are so outlandish we would never believe them today?

What do you think is the best way to convince someone their holy book… isn’t?

When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.

—Henry Morris (founder of Institute for Creation Research)

Mark Driscoll

I give that quick introduction in case you didn’t know anything about Mark the Cussing Pastor (as he was so dubbed in Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz).

Making the Case

Driscoll is now blogging occasionally at Newsweek’s On Faith blog. One of his recent articles is on how to make the best case for God to skeptics. This is an excerpt from his answer:

So, as Christians, our aim is not to convince people of some god in general, but to introduce them to Jesus in particular….

Helpful to this end is using the evidence for a personal Creator who handcrafted our world for human life by explaining the principles of intelligent design and such things as the fine-tuning argument and the argument for irreducible complexity….

It is also important that people learn to understand how God speaks uniquely and authoritatively through the Bible. Acts that can aid in this include giving away Bibles (along with helpful Christian books) as gifts for people to simply read, bringing people to church to listen to the Bible preached, inviting people to small groups and classes to ask their questions about the Bible, and recommending good podcasts that would bring the Bible into the daily rhythm of their commutes, exercise workouts, and the like….

On a more practical level, acts of truly selfless compassion–done not for fame, notoriety, or to merit God’s approval, but done out of love for someone–help to reveal a small measure of God’s loving, merciful, compassionate nature.

Those methods lead up to telling the unbeliever about Jesus, who Driscoll believes is so amazing that just hearing his story can convert us poor sinners (at least the ones who are chosen, of course).

In other words, Driscoll is saying the best way to convince skeptics is:

1. Give evidence of God by using the argument for intelligent design.
2. Help others read and learn about the Bible.
3. Show compassion.
4. Tell people about Jesus.

Breaking it down into points makes it a lot easier to see what what poor advice this is for convincing skeptics.

Bad Advice

First, skeptics are not convinced by the intelligent design argument because it’s bullshit. It’s an argument from ignorance — it stems from ignorance about evolution, and it labels anything we don’t have the answer to as “GOD OF THE BIBLE.” The intelligent design argument will make no headway against an educated skeptic. This was once an important and convincing argument — before Darwin. Strike one.

Driscoll says that reading the Bible helps convince skeptics. Yet for many of us, studying the Bible is what lead us away from Christianity. For instance, there are no reasons to think any of the miracles in the Bible happened. You’ve got Noah’s Ark where all of earth’s millions of species — plus all the millions of dead ones in the fossil record — fit two by two on a boat, along with a year’s worth of food. Ax heads float, people rise from the dead, the sun stops in the sky (meaning the earth stopped rotating), water turns to wine, people walk on water. It’s typical mythic history, but not historical events. Then on top of all the miracles, there are the contradictions, the scribal insertions, the historical errors, and the fact that the earliest gospel about Jesus was written generations after Jesus died by an anonymous author. It’s not a reliable book to base belief about a deity or a religion. Strike two.

Then Driscoll says showing compassion can help convince skeptics. This is nonsense. There are Christians who are jerks and there are Christians who are nice — neither have anything to do with the historical claims of Christianity. Strike three.

Notice that everything Driscoll has said so far could apply equally to any religion or cult. These are common methods of converting someone to a cult — convince them of your deity, teach them about your holy book, and be nice to them.

The only one that is specific to Christianity is telling people about Jesus. But the problem is, where does that information come from? How do we know it is true? What evidence is there for his miracles and resurrection? The earliest source talking about the life of Jesus is an anonymous gospel written around 70AD  — generations after Jesus had died. I repeat, that’s the earliest source. The next gospel (“Matthew”) is based on Mark and also anonymous.

Why should we trust these gospels, when their entire purpose is to convert others? These writers had every incentive to make Jesus look miraculous to compete with the other Messiahs and gods. It’s playing a game of telephone with people who think burning animals make gods happy and demons make people sick. After a week, the stories would be inflated. After 40 years, people are raising from the dead and walking on water.

Driscoll is a disappointment. His advice will not inform people to convince skeptics — and perhaps that will further the cause of skepticism. With any luck, some fundamentalists will wake up and realize that if this is the best way to convince skeptics, maybe they’re not right after all — maybe they’re involved in a cult.

One can hope.

109. ARGUMENT FROM LACK OF DISPROOF, a.k.a. ARGUMENT FROM SHIFTED BURDEN OF PROOF
(1) You can’t prove God doesn’t exist!
(2) Therefore, God exists.

(source)

An Italian scientist says he has reproduced the Shroud of Turin, a feat that he says proves definitively that the linen some Christians revere as Jesus Christ’s burial cloth is a medieval fake.

The shroud, measuring 14 feet, 4 inches by 3 feet, 7 inches (4.4 by 1.2 metres) bears the image, eerily reversed like a photographic negative, of a crucified man some believers say is Christ.

“We have shown that is possible to reproduce something which has the same characteristics as the Shroud,” Luigi Garlaschelli, who is due to illustrate the results at a conference on the para-normal this weekend in northern Italy, said on Monday….

Carbon dating tests by laboratories in Oxford, Zurich and Tucson, Arizona in 1988 caused a sensation by dating it from between 1260 and 1390. Sceptics said it was a hoax, possibly made to attract the profitable medieval pilgrimage business.

But scientists have thus far been at a loss to explain how the image was left on the cloth. Garlaschelli reproduced the full-sized shroud using materials and techniques that were available in the middle ages.

They placed a linen sheet flat over a volunteer and then rubbed it with a pigment containing traces of acid. A mask was used for the face.

The pigment was then artificially aged by heating the cloth in an oven and washing it, a process which removed it from the surface but left a fuzzy, half-tone image similar to that on the Shroud. He believes the pigment on the original Shroud faded naturally over the centuries.

There’s more information about it here. The only thing I’m surprised about is that someone didn’t do it earlier.

Oh wait… they did.

One of the standard arguments we hear for the historicity of the resurrection is the martyrdom of the apostles. Would the followers of Jesus really have sacrificed themselves for a lie?

The argument has a number of weaknesses. One of the greatest is the fact that all the details of this martyrdom comes down to us through tradition, and we have no way of knowing when the traditions originated. They may be early or late, literary or historical.

Acts gives a few stories, like the stoning of Stephen (Act 8:54-60) or the death of James, brother of John (Acts 12:1-2), but nothing of the deaths of the major apostles. The first mention we get of the deaths of Paul and Peter come from First Clement, one of the first popular works of the community, dated between 90-140 CE. But the story is extremely vague, told to fit the theme of jealousy:

There was Peter who by reason of unrighteous jealousy endured not one not one but many labors, and thus having borne his testimony went to his appointed place of glory. By reason of jealousy and strife Paul by his example pointed out the prize of patient endurance.

After that he had been seven times in bonds, had been driven into exile, had been stoned, had preached in the East and in the West, he won the noble renown which was the reward of his faith, having taught righteousness unto the whole world and having reached the farthest bounds of the West; and when he had borne his testimony before the rulers, so he departed from the world and went unto the holy place, having been found notable pattern of patient endurance. (1 Clem 5:4-6, Lightfoot)

Pullquote: There may also be a kernel of history about the execution of the apostles — or there may not. We just don’t know.

Notice there are no details. As far as we can tell from this text the two chief apostles may have died of old age. And what sort of jealousy are we talking about here? The jealousy of the Jews is one traditional answer. The jealousy between their rival factions is another guess. But maybe it was a more prosaic kind of jealousy.

Consider the apocryphal Acts of Peter, dated to the last half of the second century. Look at what is has to say about the persecution of Peter:

And a certain woman which was exceeding beautiful, the wife of Albinus, Caesar’s friend, by name Xanthippe, came, she also, unto Peter, with the rest of the matrons, and withdrew herself, she also, from Albinus. He therefore being mad, and loving Xanthippe, and marvelling that she would not sleep even upon the same bed with him, raged like a wild beast and would have dispatched Peter; for he knew that he was the cause of her separating from his bed. [...]

And whereas there was great trouble in Rome, Albinus made known his state unto Agrippa, saying to him: Either do thou avenge me of Peter that hath withdrawn my wife, or I will avenge myself. And Agrippa said: I have suffered the same at his hand, for he hath withdrawn my concubines. And Albinus said unto him: Why then tarriest thou, Agrippa? let us find him and put him to death for a dealer in curious arts, that we may have our wives again, and avenge them also which are not able to put him to death, whose wives also he hath parted from them. (Acts of Peter, XXXIV, MR James)

Peter is executed for convincing women not to marry or have sex. The same theme is found in the apocryphal Acts of Andrew, with Andrew being executed for coming between a woman and her fiancee. The Acts of Paul has a similar story, with Paul being imprisoned for preaching that maidens shouldn’t marry. Paul isn’t executed until much later, when he mouths off to Emperor Nero.

Is this the sort of jealousy to which First Clement refers? The jealousy of a man spurned by his betrothed? I’d guess not. These three noncannocical works all date last half of the second century, and probably represent the arguments that were going on at the time. These stories may only tell us that there was a faction of the community that considered celibacy extremely important, and so they wove that theme into their traditions about the apostles.

There may also be a kernel of history about the execution of the apostles — or there may not. We just don’t know.

Related Post: Martyrdom Does Not Establish Truth

1. We should believe the Bible because Christ believed the Bible.
2. We should believe the Bible because it accurately explains and powerfully changes our lives.

As far as arguments go, I’m afraid I must classify both as terrible.

Christ Believed It

Pullquote: Christ is trustworthy and He trusted God’s Word. So should we.
Aaron Menikoff

Regarding the first point, Menikoff says:

Such reasoning may sound circuitous or circular. It is not…. If Jesus Christ is trustworthy, then His words about the authority of the Bible should be trusted as well. Christ is trustworthy and He trusted God’s Word. So should we. Without faith in Christ, you will not believe the Bible is the self-disclosure of God. With faith in Christ, you cannot help but believe the Bible is God’s Word.

So we should believe the Bible is a reliable guide to the truth about Jesus… because Jesus believed the Bible? Sounds like a circular argument to me. And even if it could be shown that Jesus thought the Bible was reliable, what Bible would he be referring to? Certainly the New Testament wasn’t written when Jesus was alive, so he can’t be referring to that, which is the topic of discussion. We’re asking if the New Testament can be trusted about it’s extraordinary claims about Jesus — you can’t answer it by saying the Jesus of the New Testament trusts the Old Testament, therefore we know we can trust the New Testament. Only a believer could swallow that kind of circular reasoning and then have the audacity to repeat it, insisting it’s not circular.

Menikoff may want the logic to not be circular, but wishing doesn’t make it so. You can’t make logical fallacies go away simply by closing your eyes and insisting they don’t exist.

It’s Life Changing!

Pullquote: People of all religions — and even those of us who are not religious — have life-changing experiences. It’s part of being human.

In my experience there is only one argument that remains for why people believe in the Bible and Christianity — the argument from personal experience. This is known as a “testimony” and evangelism classes teach proselytizers to use them because “they are the one thing that cannot be argued against.”

Which is true, in a way. There’s no reason to argue that a person didn’t have an experience. People of all religions — and even those of us who are not religious — have life-changing experiences. It’s part of being human.

But they don’t always interpret their experiences rationally. A person may have stopped drinking a bottle of vodka a night, but that doesn’t mean Jesus had anything to do with it. They might claim that at first, saying “I once was a drunk, until Jesus picked me up out of the miry clay and changed my life. Thank you Jesus!” Yet if you dig a little deeper, it ends up there is a lot more to the story — usually you’ll find they had the help of a substance abuse program, a new community of friends to help keep them accountable, and/or a new-found religious obsession to take the place of their old addiction.

My life was changed by Christianity. It has also been changed by books I’ve read and experiences I’ve had. One of my favorite books is East of Eden by John Steinbeck, which powerfully describes human nature. Does that mean it’s divinely inspired because it gives insight into our common struggles? Of course not — it’s just a good book.

The Bible is a myth — a sweeping narrative that tries to explain the human condition. Some people (including myself at one time), find it speaks powerfully and provides a framework for understanding the world. It’s a superstitious framework, but it’s better than nothing. For people who are wandering aimlessly, have trouble being moral, or are in a time of crisis, it can be a stabilizing influence. And I’m glad it works for them!

Yet people have the same experience with the Koran, the Book of Mormon, the Vedas, and others. Does that mean we must take them all to be reliable guides to truth and their holy prophets? If so, then what truth should we believe — they all contradict each other!

These arguments will not convince someone who is searching for truth. His points will get head nods from the choir, but they are not challenging or persuasive to a skeptic. He’s talking in a different epistemological language that unfortunately makes us talk past each other.

Menikoff already knows his arguments fail. That’s why he says, “Without faith in Christ, you will not believe the Bible is the self-disclosure of God.” In other words, you have to already believe the Bible is reliable to know it’s reliable — which doesn’t help any of us who question it’s reliability.

But who needs facts, when you can stick your head in the sands of faith?