The Secular Outpost

Checklist: Evaluating Claims about Jesus - Part 3

2012-05-16T13:40:00.001-05:00

This is an excerpt from Part 17 of my Argument Against the Resurrection of Jesus posts:
=================================
Doubting the Doubting Thomas Story

Why doubt the Doubting Thomas story? There are three different kinds of considerations that support a skeptical view of the Doubting Thomas story.

1. General Problems with the Gospels – including the Fourth Gospel
a. It was written by a Christian believer with the purpose of promoting Christian beliefs.
b. It was probably not written by an eyewitness.
c. It was composed decades after the crucifixion of Jesus.
d. It provides no attribution of specific stories or details to named and known eyewitnesses or sources.
e. It was written in Greek rather than Aramaic (the language Jesus and his disciples used).
f. It appears that the words and sayings of Jesus were preserved in oral traditions that failed to reliably preserve the original situations or contexts of those words and sayings, thus opening the door to misunderstanding, distortion, and corruption of the original meaning of Jesus’ words and teachings.
===============================

Point (1b) suggests a specific applicable question/criterion:

(SAC3) Was the author of the account an eyewitness to the events in the life of Jesus contained in the account?

Why is this question relevant to an evaluation of the historical reliability of a Gospel or any other account of events? It is relevant because being an eyewitness to an event is a good way of obtaining accurate and detailed information about an event. An eyewitness to an event is (in general) in a good position to know lots of relevant details about that event. So, this question relates to the credibility of the author concerning the events that are described in the account.

Point (1d) suggests a related specific applicable question/criterion:

(SAC4) Did the author obtain information about the events in the life of Jesus in the account directly from one or more alleged eyewitnesses to those events?

A general question related to these specific applicable criteria would be:

(GQ3) How did the author of the account obtain the information about the events in the life of Jesus contained in the account?

One good way to obtain information about an event is by being an eyewitness to the event, but there are other good ways to obtain such information. Another would be to carefully interview an eyewitness shortly after the event occurred (like a newspaper reporter or a detective would interview an eyewitness to an event or crime).

It is important to recognize that eyewitness accounts are not completely reliable. Physical evidence, such as fingerprints and DNA evidence, is becoming more important in criminal trails, because it has become increasingly clear that many innocent persons have been convicted of serious crimes, such as rape and murder, on the basis of erroneous eyewitness testimony. This is also not merely a matter of dishonesty or deception on the part of alleged eyewitnesses, it is also a matter of the unreliability and corruptability of human memory.

Some very general questions related to the above specific and general questions and to the credibility of the author would be:

(VGQ3) How did the author of the account obtain the information about the events in question?
(VGQ4) How reliable in general is that way of obtaining information about events?
(VGQ5) How reliable is that way of obtaining information for events or details of the type in question?

CONCLUSION:
The credibility of an author of an account depends heavily upon how the author obtained the information about the events contained in the account. Ideally, the author would be an eyewitness to all of the events in the account. But there are other generally reliable ways of obtaining information about events, such as carefully interviewing one or more eyewitnesses of an event.

Checklist: Evaluating Claims about Jesus - Part 2

2012-05-14T00:11:00.000-05:00

This is an excerpt from Part 17 of my Argument Against the Resurrection of Jesus posts:
=================================
Doubting the Doubting Thomas Story

Why doubt the Doubting Thomas story? There are three different kinds of considerations that support a skeptical view of the Doubting Thomas story.

1. General Problems with the Gospels – including the Fourth Gospel
a. It was written by a Christian believer with the purpose of promoting Christian beliefs.
b. It was probably not written by an eyewitness.
c. It was composed decades after the crucifixion of Jesus.
d. It provides no attribution of specific stories or details to named and known eyewitnesses or sources.
e. It was written in Greek rather than Aramaic (the language Jesus and his disciples used).
f. It appears that the words and sayings of Jesus were preserved in oral traditions that failed to reliably preserve the original situations or contexts of those words and sayings, thus opening the door to misunderstanding, distortion, and corruption of the original meaning of Jesus’ words and teachings.
===============================

Point (1a) actually suggests a couple of specific applicable questions/criteria:

(SAC1) Was the author a Christian believer?
(SAC2) Was one of the main purposes of the author to promote Christian beliefs?

Why are these questions relevant to assessing the historical reliability of an historical document/source about Jesus? The concern here is about objectivity and bias. The point of view of an author can and usually does introduce bias into an account of events, and the purpose of the author in creating the document also relates to the possibility and likelihood of bias in the account.

If a primary purpose of an author of an account of the life of Jesus is to promote Christian beliefs, such as the belief that Jesus was the divine Son of God, and the Savior of humankind, then that purpose introduces certain biases into the account. Such an account will tend to select events that support this point of view and tend to exclude or downplay events that undermine or dis-confirm that point of view. An author with such biases will tend to accept without question stories and details that support these beliefs, while tending to reject without good reason other stories and details that dis-confirm or cast doubt on those beliefs.

Two general questions related to the above two questions would be:

(GQ1) What assumptions and beliefs does the author have about Jesus, and how might those beliefs introduce bias into the historical document or account of events?

(GQ2) Is one of the main purposes of the historical document or account of events to promote certain beliefs about Jesus or beliefs concerning some of the (alleged) teachings of Jesus?

Very general questions related to the general questions would be:

(VGQ1) What sort of ideological or philosophical or theological beliefs does the author have, and how might those beliefs introduce bias into the historical document or account of events?

(VGQ2) Is one of the main purposes of the historical document or account of events to promote certain ideological or philosophical or theological beliefs?

These fairly general questions relate to the categories of objectivity and bias.

CONCLUSION:
In evaluating the objectivity or bias of an account of events, one should consider (among other things) questions about the beliefs and assumptions of the author related to the subject matter of the account, as well as the purposes of the author in writing the account.

Sean Carroll's List of 6 Arguments Used by Science Denialists

2012-05-12T23:33:00.003-05:00

Sean B. Carroll is a noted evolutionary biologist, author, and vice-president for science education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. I haven't read his book, The Making of theFittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution, but I'm told it contains a summary of 6 arguments used by science denialists that could be applied to most any subject.

Here are the 6 arguments.

Cast doubt on the science.
Question the scientists' motives and integrity.
Magnify any disagreements among the scientists; cite gadflies as authorities.
Exaggerate the potential for harm from the science.
Appeal to the importance of personal freedom.
Object that acceptance of the science would repudiate some key philosophy.

Since this hadn't been previously mentioned on this blog, I thought readers might find it of interest.

THE HYPERBOLE EXCUSE

2012-05-10T10:36:00.000-05:00

Check this out: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/pastor-sean-harris-beat-gay-children-sermon_n_1474510.html?ref=gay-voices Typical. Whenever an extremist is called out for making violent and hateful remarks, the response is always the same: "Just kidding. Hah hah. I was only using hyperbole to make a point." OK, well, I guess sauce for the goose... I think a 320 pound, heavily tattooed, leather-clad gay biker should collar Rev. Harris, beat his bigoted butt with a baseball bat, and then bend him over and teach him a new lesson about how to love one's neighbor. Just kidding. Hah hah. I was only using hyperbole to make a point. Actually, I WAS just using hyperbole to make a point, so, for the sake of fairness, let's assume that Rev. Harris was too. The problem is that in any communication there are two parts: (1) what was meant, and (2) what was actually heard. Even if the Rev. Harris was intentionally indulging in rhetorical excess to achieve an oratorical effect, I sincerely doubt that every bubba in his congregation was properly parsing each nuance of homiletical phrasing. Fundamentalist folk tend to be, oh, a tad literal-minded, and so when the pastor says to beat the gay out of your kids, should anyone be surprised if someone actually thinks he means it?

Checklist: Evaluating Claims about Jesus – Part 1

2012-05-09T09:55:00.000-05:00

A comment by ‘Pulse’ on one of my recent posts about the resurrection, has sparked an idea: the need for a checklist of historical criteria for claims about Jesus. One purpose for such a checklist is to enable others to think critically about claims about Jesus. Another purpose would be to enable one (myself included) to think more systematically and objectively about such questions, to avoid ‘cherry picking’ the relevant evidence.

Jesus scholars often discuss and use criteria of authenticity to separate out history from fiction in the Gospel accounts, so there are lists of such criteria offered by various Jesus scholars. But historical issues surrounding the Gospels are more extensive than what those criteria cover, so I think it would be useful to assemble a broader and more comprehensive list of criteria that can and should be used to evaluate the historicity or probability of a particular claim about Jesus.

I can think of at least three areas where historical criteria can and should be used concerning Jesus:

Criteria of Authenticity (of Jesus’ sayings and events in Jesus’ life)

Criteria of Historicity (of the existence of Jesus)

Criteria of Historical Reliability (of a Gospel)

So, discussions of these three sorts of issues can be used as input for assembling a more comprehensive checklist.

I envision a checklist that has two or three levels of abstraction:

1. Specific readily applicable criteria (e.g. How many years between time of event and time that the historical document was written?)

2. More general categories or criteria that subsume various ‘specific readily applicable criteria’

3. Possibly one more level of abstraction higher that encompasses two or more of the general categories/criteria.

The purpose of the more general categories is to provide some logical organization and to help in identification of logical gaps, to make the checklist as comprehensive as possible.

I propose to start by examining specific points made in support of a skeptical view about the authenticity or historicity of certain claims about Jesus, or about the unreliability of a Gospel, and identify the questions at issue (i.e. the specific readily applicable criteria that are being used), and then abstract more general categories or criteria from those specific criteria.

Next, to make sure that my list is comprehensive and not skewed in favor of skepticism about Jesus, I will examine specific points made by Christian apologists in support of the authenticity or historicity of certain claims about Jesus, or in support of the historical reliability of a Gospel, and identify the questions at issue (i.e. the specific readily applicable criteria that are being used), and then abstract more general categories or criteria from those specific criteria.

I think by going through such an exercise, I can produce a useful checklist for the evaluation of historical claims about Jesus, which might also help with evaluation of other historical issues.

Argument Against the Resurrection of Jesus: INDEX

2012-05-03T01:00:00.000-05:00

PART 7
http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2011/12/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_07.html

I think the best way to make a case for my skeptical view of the resurrection, is to develop a dilemma, following the lead of the great Enlightenment skeptic David Hume.

The main question at issue is: Did God raise Jesus from the dead? But at the crux of my skeptical argument will be the following claim:

(JAW) Jesus of Nazareth was alive and walking around unassisted on the first Easter Sunday.

PART 8

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2011/12/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_08.html

2. (JAW) is not true.
If we suppose (2) to be correct, does that in fact favor or support a skeptical view of the resurrection of Jesus?

PART 9

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2011/12/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_09.html

4. (JAW) is false.
On this supposition, there are three logical possibilities:

A. Jesus was not alive on the first Easter Sunday.
B. Jesus was alive on the first Easter Sunday but did not walk at all that day.
C. Jesus was alive on the first Easter Sunday but was walking only with assistance from others.

PART 10

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2011/12/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_10.html

A. Jesus was not alive on the first Easter Sunday.

Now lets consider supposition (A). The most obvious way that (A) would be true, would be for Jesus to have been dead on the first Easter Sunday. Since (JAW) implies that Jesus was alive for at least a portion of the first Easter Sunday, Jesus being dead for only a portion of Sunday would not contradict (JAW).

PART 11

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2011/12/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_17.html

(JAW) Jesus of Nazareth was alive and walking around unassisted on the first Easter Sunday.

This claim is either true or it is not. In posts 7 through 10 of this series, I have been examining the implications of the supposition that (JAW) is not true. This supposition appears to represent five different logical possibilities, as illustrated in the following diagram.

PART 12

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2011/12/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_23.html

Now I'm going to start looking into the implications of the supposition that (JAW) is the case.

There are many ways to divide up the logical pie, but I propose to analyze(JAW) into eleven different logical possibilities...

PART 13

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2011/12/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_27.html

Another key claim made by Christian apologists concerns the alleged crucifixion of Jesus:

JWC = Jesus was crucified on Friday of Passover week, just before the first Easter Sunday.

In proposing a probability of .9 for the truth of (JWC), I am taking into account not just the NT evidence, but also the non-Christian historical evidence (see The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona, p.49) from Josephus (Antiquities 18:63), Tacitus (Annals 15:44), Lucian of Samosata, (The Death of Peregrine, 11-13), and the letter of Mara Bar-Serapion.

PART 14

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/01/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus.html

The Fourth Gospel plays an important role in determining the probability of the claim that Jesus died on the cross.

Two of the key injuries allegedly inflicted upon Jesus are documented only in the Fourth Gospel:

1. Jesus' hands and feet were nailed to the cross.
2. Jesus was stabbed in the chest with a spear while on the cross.

PART 15

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/02/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus.html

But it is not just the liberal scholars of the Jesus Seminar that doubt the historical reliability of the Fourth gospel and the traditional view that John the apostle wrote the Fourth gospel. Several Evangelical NT scholars and conservative Jesus scholars and moderate Jesus scholars doubt or reject the view that the apostle John wrote the Fourth gospel, and doubts about the historical reliability of the Fourth gospel are also common among NT and Jesus scholars who are moderate or conservative scholars.

PART 16

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/02/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_13.html

One key factor determining the probability that Jesus actually died on the cross is the probability (or improbability) of the following claim:

(NTC) Jesus' hands (or arms) and feet were nailed to the cross.

Crucifixion does not necessarily involve nailing the victim to a cross, and the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion don’t indicate how Jesus was attached to the cross. Binding the victim to the cross was more common than nailing.

PART 17

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/03/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus.html

DSW = On Friday of Passover week, just before the first Easter Sunday, Jesus received a deep spear wound to his chest (i.e. the tip of the spear penetrated at least 3” deep, measured perpendicular to the surface where the spear entered his chest).

HAF = On Friday of Passover week, just before the first Easter Sunday, Jesus’ hands and feet were nailed to a cross.

The probability of both of these claims rests in large measure on the historicity and reliability of the Doubting Thomas story in the Fourth Gospel.

PART 18

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/03/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_20.html

Because the occurrence of each alleged major wound significantly increases the probability that Jesus died on the cross on the same day he was crucified, the non-occurrence of each major wound significantly decreases the probability that Jesus died on the cross on the same day he was crucified.

But we don't have certain knowledge on any of these claims about the major wounds/injuries allegedly suffered by Jesus, so a rational approach is to examine the evidence and it's quality and make a probability assessment for each claim about an alleged major wound or injury. Once we have assigned an estimated probability to each claim about an alleged major wound or injury, then we can attempt to draw some general conclusions about the probability that Jesus died on the cross on the same day that he was crucified.

PART 19

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/03/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_23.html

Before I say anything more about this specific passage, I would like to take a closer look at Chapter 19, where the spear wound story is found. If Chapter 19 is as questionable and problematic as the Fourth Gospel in general, then we would have additional good reasons for doubting the historicity or reliability of the spear-wound story from that Chapter.

PART 20

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/04/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus.html

In addition the Gospel of John reports that one of the guards pierced Jesus to confirm that he was already dead (see John 19:34-37), a practice likewise mentioned by Quintillian, a Roman historian in the first century.
(Michael Licona, from "Can We Be Certain that Jesus Died on a Cross?" in Evidence for God, p.166)

There are at least two problems with Licona's claim:
1. Quintillian was not a Roman historian,
and
2. Quintillian probably did not write the passage that Licona references.

PART 21
http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/04/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_27.html

PART 22

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/05/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus.html

Given the brevity of the quotation, one should not simply accept Reincken's and Humber's interpretation of Origen. One ought to first examine the passage that this short phrase came from, to see the context and to form one's own interpretation in view of that context. That is why it is especially sloppy and careless for Reinckens and Humber to fail to provide a specific reference to where this phrase appears in Origen'sCommentary on Matthew.

New Chick Tracts

2012-05-02T10:20:00.000-05:00

Jack Chick celebrates hell, and shows that his version of the Christian God is a seriously nasty character.

The sheer obnoxiousness of the divine moral order as envisioned by Chick may even call into question atheistic attempts to use evil to argue against the existence of an omnibenevolent God. If someone can endorse this sort of hell, and such an arbitrary way of consigning people to hell, as central to the schemes of an omnibenevolent God, they shouldn't have too much difficulty shrugging off other atrocities as well.

Argument Against the Resurrection of Jesus - Part 22

2012-05-01T13:32:00.000-05:00

In Joseph "Rick" Reinckens's webpage A Lawyer Examines the Swoon Theory we get a short snippet from Origen:

In his Commentary on Matthew, Origen, one of the early Church Fathers, says the lance thrust to Jesus was administered "according to Roman custom, below the armpit." (See Humber, Thomas. The Sacred Shroud. New York, Pocket Books, 1977)

Neither Reinckens nor Humber give us details about where this comment is to be found in Origen's Commentary on Matthew.

Note that the quoted phrase "according to Roman custom, below the armpit" does not specifically mention the following: (a) crucifixion, (b) Roman soldiers, (c) spears, (d) lances, (e) spear wounds, (f) execution, (g) coup de grace, or (h) Jesus. Nor does it say anything about how Origen obtained this information.

Furthermore, there are textual and translation issues involved here. I'm no expert on Origen, but I understand that he wrote his Commentary on Matthew in Greek in the final years of his life, ( around 246-248 CE). Recall that the brief quote from Origen is from Latin, according to Humber:

Origen, in the Latin translation of his Commentary on Matthew, says that the lance thrust was administered 'according to Roman custom, below the armpit.' ..."
(The Sacred Shroud, p.60)

If this commentary was written in Greek, then why are we given an English translation of a Latin translation of this passage from a work in Greek? Why not translate straight from the Greek text?

Apparently, a significant portion of this commentary no longer exists in Greek, but does exist in a Latin translation:

Of the twenty-five books of the Matthew commentary, eight survive in Greek (books 10-17), which comment on Matthew 13:36-22:33. More of the work survived in an anonymous Latin translation of the late fifth (or early sixth century), ... . The Latin version begins at the point of the Greek text that corresponds with Greek book 12, chapter 9 (relating to Matthew 16:13), but as it develops after that there is no way of telling where one is in terms of the original Greek volume structure. The Latin version carries on more or less to the end of Matthew (Matt. 27:66) omitting Matthew 28.
(Westminster Handbook to Origen, by John McGuckin, p.30)

Assuming that Origen's comment occurs in the context of discussing the crucifixion scene in Matthew, it would be a comment concerning Chapter 27 of Matthew, and thus would indeed be from the part of Origen's commentary that only exists in "an anonymous Latin translation of the late fifth (or early sixth century)...".

The section of Origen's commentary that only exists in the Latin translation is known as "the Commentariorum Series". One standard Latin text that is based on the ancient Latin translation is available in GCS (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte - The Greek Christian Writers of the Early Centuries ). This is a series of German books with scholarly editions of ancient Greek works by Christian writers. I was unable to locate the GCS volume with the Commentariorum Series in the state of Washington, but found a copy available at UCLA in California and arranged for an interlibrary loan through a local public library (in Bellevue, I think).

I don't read German or Latin, but based on the headings that indicate what section of Matthew is under discussion, I was able to locate the pages that cover Matthew 27, and I then located the apparent source of the brief quote given by Humber in The Sacred Shroud.

To be continued...

INDEX of Argument Against the Resurrection of Jesus posts:
http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/05/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_03.html

Liberal pseudoscience

2012-04-29T15:33:00.000-05:00

You have to wonder about American liberals, as represented by the Democratic party. Their foreign policy difference from Republicans is that they claim to be even better at slaughtering Muslims and erasing civil liberties. Their economic difference is that their version of neoliberalism tilts more toward certain Wall Street factions and Silicon Valley, rather than other Wall Street factions and extractive industries.

I will admit, however, that liberals in power have been more reluctant to attack science. I doubt this is for any principled reason—mainstream science has become the establishment view in much of education, and no liberal would ever dream of criticizing anything established. Nonetheless, there is a real contrast here with those American right-wingers who have lost contact with reality, acting as a prime constituency for anything from conspiracy theories to global warming denial to creationism.

Still, I don't entirely trust liberal support for science either. American liberal circles have long had a soft spot for their own variety of pseudosciences. They just happen to be the more Newagey sort rather than the Religious Right variety.

Here's an interesting recent example. Mario Beauregard is that very rare creature, a dualist neuroscientist. This has naturally associated him with the intelligent design movement, which more usually goes together with hard right politics. (See his book The Spiritual Brain, written with ID hack Denyse O'Leary—it's a weird, weird thing.) But lately, he's written a new book, which apparently takes a more Newagey angle on his dualism, using Near Death Experiences as alleged evidence of nonmaterial souls. So a few years ago, when he was doing an intelligent design version of dualism, he was celebrated in right wing circles and web sites. (I ran into him first through the Discovery Institute.) And now, he's doing much the same thing, but with a Newagey coloration, so I ran into him on a prominent liberal site, Salon.

So yes, we've had a "Republican war on science." But maybe it's just a historical accident that we haven't had a Democratic war on science. After all, it's mainly an accident that our post-9/11 war on Muslims and civil liberties was initiated by Republicans and later intensified by Democrats in power. It could have easily been the other way around.

I don't want to say there's no difference. Our conservative-identified pseudosciences are global warming denialism and creationism. Our liberal-identified pseudosciences are alternative medicine and progressive evolution. And that is a difference—if I were forced to choose between sets of religion-linked bullshit beliefs, I would in fact choose the liberal ones. They seem less harmful. But they're still bullshit.

Demographics on our side?

2012-04-28T15:22:00.001-05:00

These days I often run into the notion that in the US, demographics is on the side of nonbelief. The excessive politicization of the Religious Right has turned off the poor, minorities, and the young. The new generation of "millennials" or whatever is less identified with organized religion. So if we just ride out this latest, last-gasp wave of theocratic politics such as attacks on contraception, time is on our side.

I'm dubious. For a long time now, I have also regularly run into a version of this demographic argument in a political rather than religious context. Demographics, we have long been told, favors Democrats over Republicans. Conservative Republicans rely on a constituency of wealthy, middle-aged white males, turning off the poor, minorities, and the young. The new generation is less identified with conservative politics. So if we just ride out this latest wave of conservative politics like the Tea Party, time is on the Democrats' side.

And yet, in the past decades, the Republicans have flourished even though they have been less and less embarrassed to present their fascist aspects in public. Democrats, whatever their advantage among the young or women, have themselves become in most respects a right-wing party. They represent a technocratic version of neoliberalism rather than a desire to directly turn everything over to business interests, but the practical difference is not exactly huge. And with Democrats, what we usually see is a passive politics of being not-as-bad as Republicans, or overtly being Republican-lite, rather than, say, presenting an alternative stance robustly defending the notion of non-market public goods.

And so it may be with religion. Ostensibly we are poised for a decline in conservative religiosity and a uptick in the fortunes of more liberal approaches to faith, including outright nonbelief. But again, there is also an air of passivity in the expectations resting on demographics. There is little out there that both presents a real alternative to the faith-soaked nature of American public culture and has a hope of making serious inroads into that culture. So we sit back and hope that demographics will work its long-term magic in our favor. But if recent political history is any indication, we may just end up with a culture that is superficially more liberal religiously, but as deeply mindless as anything in a megachurch service.

Argument Against the Resurrection of Jesus - Part 21

2012-04-27T00:38:00.000-05:00

Another bit of historical information allegedly supporting the spear-wound-of-Jesus story in Chapter 19 of the Fourth Gospel is a quote from Origen. I think I originally came across this information five years ago from a website called A Lawyer Examines The Swoon Theory. The website is still available:

http://www.godonthe.net/evidence/swoon.htm

The Origen quote is still on the above web page:

Roman custom required stabbing under Jesus' circumstances. It wasn't a coincidence.

Most people, even most theologians and historians, believe it was pure coincidence that a Roman soldier stabbed Jesus. Most people believe the soldier stabbed Jesus to make sure He was dead. Usual Roman practice was to leave the corpses of crucified victims on the cross to be eaten by wild animals or to rot in public view—after all, crucifixion was intended to be the ultimate degradation and humiliation ... and a warning to others! Interestingly, there was an exception. According to Quintilian, a first-century author, a victim's relatives were permitted to take down the body and bury it if the victim was first pierced by the executioners. In his Commentary on Matthew, Origen, one of the early Church Fathers, says the lance thrust to Jesus was administered "according to Roman custom, below the armpit." (See Humber, Thomas. The Sacred Shroud. New York, Pocket Books, 1977)

From the bottom of the web page:

This site and page written by Texas attorney Joseph "Rick" Reinckens.

Note that there are no quotation marks in the above paragraph, except for the phrase quoted from Origen. Note that the quote is not taken directly from a book by Origen, but is from a modern book by Thomas Humber, who provides the quote in English. The use of a secondary source like this (when a primary historical source is available) is our first hint that Mr. Reinckens is not a competent historian nor a competent scholar.

If you read my previous post (Part 20), then you know that the comments about Quintilian are mistaken and provide only very weak and sketchy support for Mr. Reinckens's claim in bold above the paragraph by Mr. Reinckens. This is our second hint that Mr. Reinckens is not a competent historian nor a competent scholar.

The third hint that Mr. Reinckens is not a competent historian nor a competent scholar is that he does not even bother to provide the page number for the secondary source that he has used. And this web page has been up for at least five years, but he has never bothered to correct that obvious failure to provide basic information about his source.

So, I ordered a used copy of Humber's book, The Sacred Shroud, and went searching through it for the quotation of Origen. The book is over two hundred pages, but I found the quote of Origen on page 60, as well as Humber's discussion of Quintilian. You don't have to go digging around for a copy of this book from 1977; I will give you the relevant passage (an actual quotation, not a paraphrase):

"Usually the victims of crucifixion were left on their crosses to be devoured by wild beasts or birds of prey or to rot. According to a Roman law of the imperial period, however, it was possible for the families of the deceased to obtain the bodies for decent burial. In such cases a single reference of antiquity suggests that the executioners were required by law to administer a sort of coup de grace to the crucified--even when they were apparently dead--before giving over the remains to the mourners. Quintilian, an author of the first century, writes: 'Crosses [or the crucified] are cut down, and the executioner does not forbid the burial of those who have been smitten [or pierced, presumably with a sword or javelin].'
Origen, in the Latin translation of his Commentary on Matthew, says that the lance thrust was administered 'according to Roman custom, below the armpit.' ..."
(The Sacred Shroud, p.60)

It is easy to see that Humber is also not a competent historian nor a competent scholar. Humber does not indicate what book or source the Quintilian quote comes from, and although he does give a general indication of where the Origen quote comes from, he does not cite the specific edition, translation, section, or page where he found the Origen passage. It is unclear whether he is citing an English translation of a Latin text, or if he himself has provided the translation from Latin.

To be fair to Humber, we should take into account the very first sentence of his book:

"I am neither a scholar nor a scientist, and this book is largely the product of secondary research, an attempt to present clearly in one accessible volume the complex story of the Shroud of Turin."
(The Sacred Shroud, 'Acknowledgments', p.7)

So, Mr. Reinckens not only fails to cite a primary source (a work by Origen) in support of his historical claim about the spear-wound story, but the secondary source he uses to obtain the quote from Origen and information about Quintilian is not only not a competent historian nor a competent scholar, but is a person who in the opening sentence of his book states that he is not a scholar and that the book is itself based on secondary research. Humber is obviously not even a solid secondary source, given that he fails to provide basic information about the texts or editions or works where he gets his quotations of Quintilian and Origen.

To be continued...

INDEX of Argument Against the Resurrection of Jesus posts:
http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/05/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_03.html

Assessing evidence for the existence of Jesus

2012-04-25T02:57:00.001-05:00

Here is an argument that I present and examine in my paper "Evidence, Miracles and The Existence of Jesus", published in Faith and Philosophy, April 2011. Volume 28, Issue 2. Pages 129-151). The defence of premises P1 and P2 is in the paper, which can be viewed here.

William Lane Craig's response is here.

In the paper, I make a case for being sceptical about the existence of Jesus (though I am no less scepticial about the mythicist position). The paper challenges the consensus among Biblical scholars and historians that the existence of Jesus has been established beyond reasonable doubt.

1. (P1) Where a claim’s justification derives solely from evidence, extraordinary claims (e.g. concerning supernatural miracles) require extraordinary evidence. In the absence of extraordinary evidence there is good reason to be sceptical about those claims.
.
2. There is no extraordinary evidence for any of the extraordinary claims concerning supernatural miracles made in the New Testament documents.

3. Therefore (from 1 and 2), there's good reason to be sceptical about those extraordinary claims.

4. (P2) Where testimony/documents weave together a narrative that combines mundane claims with a significant proportion of extraordinary claims, and there is good reason to be sceptical about those extraordinary claims, then there is good reason to be sceptical about the mundane claims, at least until we possess good independent evidence of their truth.

5. The New Testament documents weave together a narrative about Jesus that combines mundane claims with a significant proportion of extraordinary claims.

6. There is no good independent evidence for even the mundane claims about Jesus (such as that he existed)

7. Therefore (from 3, 4, 5, and 6), there's good reason to be sceptical about whether Jesus existed.

Notice that this argument is presented in the context of a discussion of what it is or is not reasonable to believe on the basis of the historical evidence. The argument combines P1 and P2 with three further premises - 2, 5 and 6 - concerning the character of the available evidence. These are the premises on which historians and Biblical scholars are better qualified than I to comment.

Clearly, many historians also accept something like 2 and 5. A significant number remain sceptical about the miracle claims made in the New Testament, and so they, at least, are clearly not much tempted by the Presuppositions Move outlined above (which involved the suggestion that, for those coming to the evidence with Theistic presuppositions, the New Testament miracle claims need not, in the relevant sense, qualify as “extraordinary”). Michael Grant, for example, says: “according to the cold standard of humdrum fact, the standard to which the student of history is obliged to limit himself, these nature-reversing miracles did not happen.” . What of premise 6? Well, it is at least controversial among historians to what extent the evidence supplied by Josephus and Tacitus, etc. provides good, independent evidence for the existence of Jesus. Those texts provide some non-miracle-involving evidence, of course, but whether it can rightly be considered good, genuinely independent evidence remains widely debated among the experts.

So, our empirical premises – 2, 5 and 6, – have some prima facie plausibility. I suggest 2 and 5 have a great deal of plausibility, and 6 is at the very least debatable.

My suspicion is that a significant number of Biblical scholars and historians (though of course by no means all) would accept something like all three empirical premises. If that is so, it then raises an intriguing question: why, then, is there such a powerful consensus that those who take a sceptical attitude towards Jesus’ existence are being unreasonable?

Perhaps the most obvious answer to this question would be: while many Biblical historians accept that the empirical premises have at least a fair degree of plausibility, and most would also accept something like P1, few would accept P2.

I'll provide the argument for P1 and P2 in a separate post.

Fazıl Say to exile himself; Turkish "secularism"

2012-04-23T20:50:00.000-05:00

Since earlier I mentioned the trouble Fazıl Say, a famous Turkish pianist, has run into due to his open atheism, here's an update. Apparently he has decided Turkey has become too intolerant of religious dissent, and that he would live in exile in Japan. (Where, let's face it, a classical pianist will be much better appreciated anyway.)

And still, at the end of the news story, there's the obligatory lazy comment that "Turkey is an officially secular country."

Well, maybe. Under some loose definitions of secularism, I suppose.

But even before the Islamization starting in the 1980's, Turkey's "secularism" included officially organized and supported Sunni orthodoxy (with a slight reform twist). Turkey had, and still has, a powerful Directorate of Religious Affairs through which the state and religion are closely intertwined, an extensive parallel religious schooling system organized by the state, and a pervasive understanding throughout state institutions, including the military, that "our religion" is Sunni Islam. Turkey has never been a state that belongs to all of its citizens equally, regardless of religion.

On top of that, add three recent decades of state-sanctioned—often state-imposed—Islamization. Turkey is not a secular country. Don't confuse a history of violent conflict over issues such as the role of the de facto clergy in government with a move toward really separating mosque and state.

Podcast Available

2012-04-23T10:48:00.001-05:00

My interview with Nelson Brooke for ThinkAtheist is now available:

http://www.thinkatheistradio.com/albums/dr-keith-parsons/

The talk ranged over a number of issues--really more on philosophy of science than anything else.

Does it matter how people reject religion?

2012-04-22T20:33:00.000-05:00

By and large, I'd prefer it if more people did not hold supernatural beliefs—or at least, if they did not hold politically potent supernatural beliefs. (While I'm at it, I'd also like world peace, for my knees to suddenly not show the effects of my age on the basketball court, and so on and so forth.)

I'm not sure it matters much how such nonbelief would come about. Given my general cynicism about the human race, I don't expect that any widespread nonbelief would be due to careful, reflective rejection of supernatural claims. Sometimes I run into hopes that better science education, for example, might help—if more people absorbed a scientific outlook, they should be more critical of unsubstantiated fantastic claims about gods and revelations. But then, my experience suggests that broad-based, in-depth, quality science education is too resource-intensive to be realistically possible any time soon. And even for those small segments of the population today for which science education is available, I'm not sure it can make a lot of difference. Thinking scientifically across the board is too difficult, and religion too easily finds the many loopholes it can exploit to insinuate itself into normal human minds.

A better suggestion is that perhaps if life circumstances improve for many more people, if we generally have more secure lives, religiosity will also decrease. I guess it might, at that. And in some locations, Jesus may well become not the "done thing" anymore, while politically impotent dabbling in shamanic "wisdom" and alternative medicine drivel-of-the-month will become more common.

I can't get much excited about such a scenario either. In any case, we're almost certain to continue to collectively behave like morons. If religion were to wane, we'd just have one color fade a bit in a wide spectrum of human folly.

Free speech for Muslims?

2012-04-20T21:28:00.000-05:00

I often complain about how conservative Muslims' overdeveloped sensitivity to religious insult erects barriers to the freedom of speech, and particularly speech criticizing anything Islamic. That's a serious problem for nonbelievers and anyone who cares about freedom of expression.

But here in the US, where we so love to posture about how we're so much freer than those benighted Muslim countries, our paranoia about terrorism has created an environment where American Muslims cannot feel free to speak their minds for fear of the possible consequences.

These consequences unfortunately include imprisonment for nothing but speech. The recent conviction of Tarek Mehanna is an illustration, already remarked on by civil libertarians.

I can predict some of the Muslim responses, especially those accusing Western critics of hypocrisy when they call for Muslim governments to loosen up on the freedom of speech.

But I'm also curious about how atheists, particularly atheists convinced that conservative Islam is a major barrier to certain political liberties, are going to respond. Are we really concerned about freedom of speech, including speech we think is thoroughly obnoxious, or are we going to figure Islamists deserve everything coming their way?

Turkish pianist under investigation for atheism

2012-04-12T22:04:00.002-05:00

Fazıl Say, a Turkish pianist of international renown, apparently has a twitter habit and a tendency to say what he thinks. And since in a couple of tweets he has expressed atheism and engaged in some light mockery of Islam, he is now under investigation by the office of the Public Prosecutor, under suspicion of violating a Turkish law against insulting religion.

Once again, reason to be thankful I don't live in a Muslim country.

Argument Against the Resurrection of Jesus - Part 20

2012-04-11T23:44:00.005-05:00

Before I continue to examine the historical reliability of Chapter 19 of the Fourth Gospel, let's take a step back and consider some historical evidence from outside the Gospels on the question of whether Jesus was stabbed in the chest with a spear while on the cross:

In addition the Gospel of John reports that one of the guards pierced Jesus to confirm that he was already dead (see John 19:34-37), a practice likewise mentioned by Quintillian, a Roman historian in the first century.
(Michael Licona, from "Can We Be Certain that Jesus Died on a Cross?" in Evidence for God, p.166)

There are at least two problems with Licona's claim:
1. Quintillian was not a Roman historian,
and
2. Quintillian probably did not write the passage that Licona references.

I'm a bit surprised that Licona made the first error, because in a previous book defending the resurrection that he co-authored with Gary Habermas, the claim about Quintillian was more circumspect:

The Roman author Quintillian (A.D. 35-95) reports of this procedure being performed on crucifixion victims.
(The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, p.102)

However, in The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, no actual quote is provided; the footnote gives only the following reference:

53. Quintillian, Declarationes maiores 6:9.

From the fact that Quintillian is referred to merely as a Roman "author" one can reasonably infer that Quintillian was NOT an historian, and one would be correct to draw that inference in this case. Furthermore, the fact that no actual quote is given in The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, as well as with the reference to Quintillian in The Historical Jesus (by Habermas, see p.74), and also in The Son Rises (by William Craig, see p.38) should raise suspicions that the evidence is not as clear as Licona and Habermas and Craig would like us to believe. This reasonable suspicion turns out to be correct as well.

The fact that Licona refers to Quintillian as a "Roman historian" indicates that Licona literally does not know what he is talking about. If Licona simply understood the meaning of the title of the work that he cited, he should have known that Quintillian was not an historian, but was instead a rhetorician:

As we have received them in the textual tradition, the Major Declamations are a collection of nineteen entire fictitious courtroom speeches of accusation or defense which were composed sometime during the Roman Empire. These controversiae, as they are technically termed, were composed by one or more professional teachers of rhetoric, although they have been ascribed since late antiquity to Quintillian (ca. 40 AD -- ca. 96 AD)., the noted orator, teacher, holder of the Imperial Chair of Rhetoric...
[...]
For nearly six centuries the capstone of any young Roman male's education in preparation for a career in either public service or private gain was the school of rhetoric. There, under the tutelage of a professional rhetorician, he spent the years of his teens composing and delivering practice speeches. These declamations, as they were called, fell into two categories: suasoriae, speeches of advice to historical figures, and controversiae, the more elaborate and demanding practice judicial speeches intended for advanced students. In these, the teacher assigned a hypothetical court case involving usually one law or sometimes two, and a specific situation regarding a supposed violation, with the requirement that the student compose and, after suitable revision, deliver a full speech for one of the parties to the case.
(Lewis Sussman, The Major Declamations Ascribed to Quintilian: A Translation, p.1)

Licona was not quoting from a Roman historian named Quintillian, rather he was quoting from a practice speech for a fictitious court case composed by an unknown Roman rhetorician who wrote the speech at some unknown date during the Roman Empire, and which was later ascribed to a famous Roman orator and rhetorician named Quintillian.

Although Licona demonstrates his own ignorance about the source he is quoting from, he does at least, give us the quotation (in a footnote), unlike Habermas and Craig:

As for those who die on the cross, the executioner does not forbid the burying of those who have been pierced.

Note that there is no mention that a Roman soldier is the one who does the piercing. Note that there is no mention of a spear being used to do the piercing. Note that there is no mention of the location of the piercing on the body of the victim. Note that there is no explanation of the purpose of the piercing (i.e. it is not stated to be a test for determination of death nor to be used as a coup de grace). Given the lack of details and clarity, it is now obvious why Habermas and Craig don't bother to actually quote this passage from Declarationes maiores.

But the evidence is even weaker and more ambiguous than that, because the translation given by Licona may well be incorrect. There is only one modern full English translation available of the Major Declamations Ascribed to Quintilian, and that translation does not agree with the translation provided by Licona. Lewis Sussman has provided the only modern full English translation of this work, and here is how he translates the passage in question:

But bodies are cut down from crosses, executioners do not prevent executed criminals from being buried...
(The Major Declamations Ascribed to Quintilian, translated by Lewis Sussman,p.75)

Note the absence of the key word 'pierced'. The Latin word 'percussos' is translated by Sussman as 'cut down' rather than as 'pierced', though the word can have both meanings.

So, we have a passage not written by a well-known Roman historian of the first century, but rather written by an unknown teacher of rhetoric sometime during the Roman Empire. And we have a passage that does not clearly describe a Roman soldier piercing a victim of crucifixion in the chest with a spear as either a test for determining death or as a coup de grace, but rather we have a possible reference to some person or other piercing a victim of crucifixion on some body part or other with some implement or other for an unknown reason, and the best available translation does not even mention piercing, but rather speaks of cutting down the victim, meaning removing the victim from the cross.

So, the next time you read a Christian apologist citing some ancient historical source but not providing the actual quote, you can reasonably infer that the actual quote is probably unclear or ambiguous. And even when the apologist gives the actual quote, you need to be suspicious of the accuracy of the quote, especially if they are giving you a translation of a quote that was originally in another language.

INDEX of Argument Against the Resurrection of Jesus posts:
http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/05/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_03.html

Religious reason for secularism

2012-04-08T11:23:00.002-05:00

Here's a religious rationale for some degree of secularism, as expressed by famous creationist Harun Yahya:

“Muslim writer and intellectual, Harun Yahya, believes that “secularism is the safeguard of Islam.” Instead, he says, of the hypocrisy of women with very little religion, dressed in long black robes, or men in white robes and long beards, we must distinguish Muslims by the integrity of their lives and the goodness of their characters. Secularism, he believes, allows those with no religion to be identified as such, whilst sincerely believing Muslim men and women are allowed the freedom to practice their faith.”

I've often run into the rationale that when there is no state pressure to adopt a religion, the believers you see will believe out of sincere conviction rather than just put on an outward appearance. But it's interesting that ease of identifying nonbelievers can also be part of the rationale. I wonder if that's because nonobservance is then more easily identified with lack of piety, and hence it's easier for the pious to to avoid corruption due to association with the ways of the irreligious.

Did Jesus Exist?

2012-04-05T20:46:00.000-05:00

Bart Ehrman has published yet another book on Jesus: Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth.

Ehrman is a New Testament scholar who has published many books on Jesus and the New Testament that are aimed at a general audience. He started out as a fundamentalist, attending Moody Bible Institute, but then moved on to Evangelical Christianity and graduated from Wheaton College in 1978. He received his PhD and M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary. After being a liberal Christian for more than a decade, he left the Christian faith, and now considers himself an "agnostic with atheist leanings" (Did Jesus Exist?, p.5)

Ehrman defends the historicity of Jesus, but does so from a fairly skeptical viewpoint about the historical reliability of the Gospels. Ehrman, for example, concedes that there are no eyewitness accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus (p.46-47), and thus that none of the Gospels was written by a disciple of Jesus or an eyewitness of the life and ministry of Jesus.

The books seems interesting and somewhat unique based on a couple of observations Ehrman makes:

1. NT scholars do not take mythicists (those who argue that Jesus never existed) seriously. (p.20)
2. Some mythicists (e.g. G.A. Wells, Robert Price, Earl Doherty, and Richard Carrier) deserve to be taken seriously.(p.21 and 30).

Ehrman is right on both accounts, so he is attempting to fill this gap, and to present an intelligent and critical defense of the historicity of Jesus, and to do so while taking seriously the arguments and objections of the intelligent defenders of the mythicist view.

I have just started reading Ehrman's book, so I don't know how well he does filling the gap that he is attempting to fill, but I suspect he will do better than anyone has up until now.

Pressure on secularism

2012-04-01T00:09:00.000-05:00

I don't know if secularism was ever as much a consensus position as we sometimes think. But I do think it's weaker today. Consider some recent examples of conservative religious pushback against even rather mild secularist political positions.

First, the United States. Take a look, if you can, at "In Defense of Religious Freedom A Statement by Evangelicals and Catholics Together." There's an awful lot of theological blather in it about justifying "religious freedom," which tries to make it to be an obvious order of God, setting aside the history of Christianity as a religion notoriously intolerant of the freedom of non-Christians. But they still don't subscribe to the same notion of religious freedom as secular liberals, as paragraphs like the following make clear:

While the Supreme Court has protected the right to determine religious leaders, the capacity of religious believers to form and sustain distinctive institutions is threatened today. The United States Department of Health and Human Services has proposed “preventive services” regulations that require provision of FDA-approved contraceptives, including abortifacients like Ella, and sterilization. These regulations threaten the religious freedom of insurers, employers, schools, and other religious enterprises that conscientiously oppose contraception and abortion. Limiting conscience protections to those in religious institutions that serve only their own members, as some have proposed, criminalizes the public witness of religious organizations such as Catholic universities and other religious social welfare institutions.

Administrative and regulatory policies pose further threats to religious freedom. Christian doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other health-care providers are being put at professional risk by policies that compel all health-care workers to undertake procedures and provide prescription drugs that many of them regard as immoral.

We also note that the attempt to redefine marriage through coercive state power has already brought pressure to bear on Christian ministers, despite exceptions provided in legislation. Further, in no state where the redefinition of marriage has passed the legislature has the religious institution exception provided all the religious freedom protections needed for individuals and groups that oppose the legalization of same-sex unions in those states.

Such statements suggest that "religious freedom" as understood by conservative Christians should be interpreted as protecting their ability to impose their views about morality on a large scale, including where many people who do not belong to their religious tradition are involved. Public policy, in other words, should be solicitous of conservative Christian notions of moral purity, otherwise the freedom of Christian communities to live fully according to their religious conscience will be violated.

This is not entirely implausible—people who identify first and foremost with their religious community or institution will naturally be concerned when a broadly applied public policy fails to align with church-supported views. It may even be true that if they don't get their way, their purity of religious living will be compromised. (Treating the hell-bound equally has a way of doing that.) But at the least, this notion of "religious freedom" conservative Christians are defending is then something quite different from an individual freedom of conscience. It seems closer to a desire for religious communities or institutions to be free of constraints that derive from secular public policy.

Here are a couple of Islamic examples as well.

In Egypt, there's a minor crisis going on while drafting a new constitution. The secularist minority in the relevant commission is boycotting the Islamist-led process which is leading toward a stricter application of Islamic law. Some Islamists now accuse the boycotting liberals of attempting to impose a Western liberal ideal on a Muslim country—charging them with a tyranny of the minority. Many conservative Muslims genuinely feel that their religious freedom is violated by secular policies, as it interferes with their ability to fully live in compliance with Islamic ideals as a community. Hence, according to their concept of religious freedom, it is secularist interference with their ability to impose their moral ideals through public policy that constitutes a violation of religious freedom.

Meanwhile, in Turkey, conservative Muslims in power see provision of religious education in state schools as a duty. Fatma Şahin, the Minister of Family and Social Policies, says that an elective course on the Quran and the Holy Prophet is appropriate, since "humans don't just have material and physical needs; they are material and spiritual wholes." Apparently "a social state [their watered-down notion of a welfare state] has the duty to meet humans needs in order that they live happily and in peace," and this includes meeting spiritual needs as understood by a dominant majority of the population.

Secularists typically confine legitimate public policy to meeting the worldly needs of citizens. But then, why should not a democratically affirmed religious government not recognize "spiritual needs," declaring that the strict separation of material and spiritual needs is an artificial imposition?

Again, I should emphasize that views that demand recognition for the "rights" and "needs" of people in the context of religious communities they are attached to do not merely coopt secular liberal language about religious freedom and so forth. Religious conservatives have developed, under the influence of liberal political language, partly overlapping but also partly rival and incompatible notions of freedom. Those of us who prefer secular, liberal, and individual conceptions of rights and needs have a significantly different view about religious freedom.

None of these notions of freedom are necessarily more genuine—we have, I think, to take this seriously as a political rivalry. If the political environment I live in recognizes and protects my version of liberty, this will be at least in part at the expense of conservative religious people who will not be able to fully live their religious commitments as a cohesive community. And in an environment that favors their version of religious freedom, people like me will be more easily pushed around by religious institutions.

Messianic Prophecy - Update

2012-03-31T13:08:00.000-05:00

On my own blog, I have begun examining eight alleged Messianic prophecies, presented by Peter Stoner in his book Science Speaks. I have reached a conclusion about the first of the prophecies and will share that here. For supporting arguments and details, you can read the posts at my blog.

http://crossexamination.blogspot.com/

According to Peter Stoner, Micah 5:2 should be interpreted as making a specific prediction:

(1) The correct interpretation of Micah 5:2 is that it predicts that 'The Messiah will be born in the town of Bethlehem.'

Stoner also claims that Jesus fulfilled this prediction:

(2) Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem.

So, Stoner asserts a conjunctive claim:

(3) The correct interpretation of Micah 5:2 is that it predicts that ‘The Messiah will be born in the town of Bethlehem’, AND Jesus was in fact born in the town of Bethlehem.

I argue that the probability that Stoner’s interpretation of Micah 5:2 is correct is about .2 (two chances in ten), and that the probability that Jesus was in fact born in the town of Bethlehem is about .2 (two chances in ten).

Setting aside the (question-begging) assumption that Micah 5:2 was inspired by an omniscient deity, we should view these two claims as independent, as having no causal (or logical) connection. So, the probability of (3) can be determined by use of the simple multiplication rule: .2 x .2 = .04.

Conclusion:

The probability that Stoner’s conjunctive claim about Micah 5:2 is correct is less than .1 (less than one chance in ten).

Conservative anti-science

2012-03-30T11:04:00.001-05:00

Chris Mooney has an interesting post, citing recent research by Gordon Gauchat that shows a noticeable decline in trust in science among political conservatives in the United States, over the past few decades.

There isn't much that I know of in this sort of research that would help me estimate what the contribution of conservative religiosity is to the lack of trust in science. It could be interesting to disentangle, say, a supernaturalist reaction against the naturalistic tendency of modern science, and a right-wing libertarian worship of capitalism and consequent anti-environmentalist thinking. (Though it's also interesting how many conservatives seamlessly combine the two.)

Does anyone know of any research relevant to such a question?

Swinburne's Case for God - Part 4

2012-03-28T18:50:00.001-05:00

Does the utterance of the words 'God exists' amount to a meaningful utterance? Does this utterance express a statement? Two considerations support the claim that this is a meaningful utterance:
1. 'God exists' is a grammatical sentence.
2. The word 'exists' has an established meaning.

The main question to consider is whether the word 'God' has a meaning.

Many utterances of the form 'X exists' are obviously meaningful utterances that express a statement:

Chickens exist.
The Earth exists.
Oxygen exists.

Plenty of false and implausible statements are of this form:

Unicorns exist.
Ghosts exist.
ESP exists.

But such false and implausible assertions, are still utterances of meaningful sentences. In fact, we can know such assertions to be false or implausible only because we understand what they mean.

But what about the word 'God'? Does this word have an established meaning?

No doubt the word 'God' is a bit unclear apart from some context. There are a diversity of views and beliefs about 'God' and about religion among human beings. But if the assertion 'God exists' is placed in the context of traditional Jewish or Christian religious belief and theology, then that narrows the possible meanings considerably.

There is a core concept behind the term 'God' that provides an initial clarification of this term:

Definition 1: Something is God if and only if it is the only perfect person.

This definition is somewhat unclear, but it seems to me to be clear enough to show that the utterance of the words 'God exists' in the context of traditional Jewish or Christian belief/theology is a meaningful utterance that expresses a statement.

This concept of God is somewhat unclear and problematic because the word 'perfect' is a normative term, and given the diversity of norms and values among human beings, it is less than obvious what would constitute a perfect person. However, the unclarity and ambiguity here is not so extreme that we have no idea what the phrase 'perfect person' means.

In any case, in the context of traditional Jewish and Christian belief, we have a pretty good idea of some of the implications of the idea of a 'perfect person' and can cash out this concept in somewhat less problematic terms:

Definition 2: Something is God if and only if it is the only person who has unlimited knowledge, unlimited power, and unlimited freedom.

This definition contains the divine attributes that Swinburne sees as the core divine attributes. Other divine attributes are inferred from these core attributes.

These core divine attributes are not perfectly clear; each of these attributes is itself in need of careful definition, if one is to think clearly about the existence or nature of God. But one does not need to acheive the crystal clear conception of a philosopher of religion in order to understand the meaning of 'God exists'. Clarification is an iterative process, and a learning process that requires time and effort. One must start somewhere, and it seems to me that Definition 2 provides a good starting point for thinking about 'God' and the assertion 'God exists'.

If one does not buy Swinburne's attempt to derive the divine attribute of perfect goodness from the three divine attributes in Definition 2, then we can just modify the definition to specify this other attribute:

Definition 3: Something is God if and only if it is the only person who has unlimited knowledge, unlimited power, unlimited freedom, and is perfectly good.

There is enough meaning and clarity here to start engaging in intellectual enquiry into the question 'Does God exist?', and that implies that the words 'God exists' make a meaningful sentence that expresses a claim or statement, an idea that is true or false, accurate or inaccurate, probable or improbable, supported by available evidence or not supported by available evidence.

The divine attribute of 'perfect goodness' brings back the issue of normative concepts (i.e. moral goodness). Human beings hold a diversity of beliefs and values concerning morality and ethics, so the attribute of 'perfect goodness' brings some unclarity and ambiguity into the concept of 'God'. One can choose, like Dawkins does, to simply cut out the normative aspect of the concept, and define 'God' in purely descriptive terms (e.g. as the creator or cause of the universe), but this is a significant departure from the concept of God in traditional Jewish and Christian religious belief and theology. So, I prefer to maintain the normative aspect of the concept, and to remain cautious and aware of the problematic and ambiguous nature of general normative concepts like 'moral goodness'.

Perhaps it is best to think about the assertion that 'God exists' as a mixed claim that makes both a descriptive claim, and a normative one:

Definition 4: Something is God if and only if
(a) it is the only person who has who has unlimited knowledge, unlimited power, and unlimited freedom, AND
(b) that person is also perfectly good.

This definition might not be satisfactory as a technical definition for professional philosophers, but it is sufficient to show that the utterance of the words 'God exists' constitute a meaningful sentence that expresses a statement.

Argument Against the Resurrection of Jesus - Part 19

2012-03-23T16:56:00.003-05:00

One of the major alleged wounds inflicted upon Jesus during the crucifixion is a deep spear wound:

DSW = On Friday of Passover week, just before the first Easter Sunday, Jesus received a deep spear wound to his chest (i.e. the tip of the spear penetrated at least 3” deep, measured perpendicular to the surface where the spear entered his chest).

This claim is based on a couple of passages from the Fourth Gospel. One passage concerns the Doubting Thomas story, that I previously argued was fictional or at least historically unreliable in its details. The other passage is specifically about the infliction of the spear wound:

Since it was the day of Preparation, the Jews did not want the bodies left on the cross during the sabbath, especially because that sabbath was a day of great solemnity. So they asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and the bodies removed. Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.
(John 19:31-34, NRSV)

In part 17 of this series, I gave reasons for viewing the Fourth Gospel as historically unreliable, and I also briefly mentioned some specific problems with the passage quoted above.

Before I say anything more about this specific passage, I would like to take a closer look at Chapter 19, where the spear wound story is found. If Chapter 19 is as questionable and problematic as the Fourth Gospel in general, then we would have additional good reasons for doubting the historicity or reliability of the spear-wound story from that Chapter.

There are four sections in Chapter 19:

1. The conclusion of Jesus's trial before Pilate (19:1-16)
2. The crucifixion of Jesus (19:17-30)
3. The spear-wound story (19:31-37)
4. The burial of Jesus (19:38-42)

There are grounds for reasonable doubts about the alleged facts presented in each one of these four sections, which in turn reinforces the general problem of the historical reliability of the Fourth Gospel, and casts further doubt on the spear-wound story.

Let's start with the first section, and work our way slowly through Chapter 19 of the Fourth Gospel, verse-by-verse, section-by-section.

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged.
(John 19:1)

The very first verse of Chapter 19 is problematic. There is nothing unusual about a Roman governor having an accused person flogged. However, the timing of the flogging of Jesus in the middle of the trial before Pilate is inconsistent with the other Gospels.

There is no flogging of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke; Pilate merely offers to have Jesus flogged and let him go, but "the chief priests, the leaders, and the people" refuse this offer and demand that Jesus be crucified (Luke 23:13-25).

In Mark, the earliest of the four Gospels, Pilate has Jesus flogged, but does so after giving in to the demand of "the crowd" to crucify Jesus:

So, Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified. (Mark 15:15).

The Gospel of Matthew follows Mark on this point (Matt. 27:26). In the Fourth Gospel, the flogging happens first, and then comes the demand of the crowd for the crucifixion of Jesus.

Some conservative Evangelical scholars argue for two floggings, one prior to the demand of the crowd for Jesus to be crucified and one after Pilate gives in to the demand of the crowd. But none of the four Gospels indicates that Jesus was flogged twice, and it seems more plausible that there would be just one flogging of Jesus prior to his crucifixion.

If as a matter of faith, one insists that there are no errors in any of the Gospel accounts, then one must postulate two floggings to reconcile the various accounts. But we are not here assuming the inerrancy of the Gospels; we are treating them as ordinary historical documents. In treating them as ordinary historical documents, the most likely scenario is that at least one of the accounts of the flogging of Jesus is incorrect (either Mark or John), and both might be incorrect (if there was no flogging of Jesus, as suggested by the gospel of Luke).

It might be the case that the Fourth Gospel is correct on this point, and that Mark and Matthew are wrong. However, since Mark is the earliest of the Gospels, and since the Fourth Gospel is the last of the Gospels, and since the Fourth Gospel has significant general issues of reliability, we should favor Mark and Matthew over the Fourth Gospel, unless there is a good reason to doubt Mark on this specific point or to believe John on this point. I'm not aware of such a good reason, so I conclude that it is probable that John 19:1 incorrectly places the flogging of Jesus prior to the demand of the crowd for Jesus to be crucified. Jesus was probably either not flogged at all (as in Luke) or was flogged just prior to being crucified (as in Mark and Matthew).

INDEX of Argument Against the Resurrection of Jesus posts:
http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/05/argument-against-resurrection-of-jesus_03.html