God Blind Spot

Research on the human cognitive and nervous system has revealed a number of interesting endemic flaws. One is well-known. At the center of the eye’s visual field is a blind spot where the optic nerve passes through the back side of the eyeball on its path to the brain. There are no light receptors in this spot, so there’s no vision there. The brain edits what we see so that except under specific circumstances it is invisible to us. But were someone able to cleverly place an object directly in your blind spot and keep it there as your eyes saccade around the room, the object would be completely invisible to you even though it sits right in your visual field. Aliens, in Peter Watts' Blindsight, hide in plain sight using a similar trick. (I highly recommend the book.)

In other studies, test subjects have been given the Wason selection task. Subjects are shown four cards placed on a table. They are told that each card has a colored side and a numbered side. On the table, the cards are 5, 2, blue, and brown. Question: which cards should you turn over in order to determine if this proposition is true: If a card shows an even number on one face, then it has a primary color on the other side? The correct answer is you need to turn over the 2 card and the brown card. If you turn over the 2 card and it is not a primary color on the other side, then the proposition is proven false. If you turn over the brown card and it has an even number on the other side, then the proposition is proven false.

In a number of large tests of this sort, a majority of subjects, sometimes a staggering majority, will get the answer wrong. They typically fail to realize that turning over the brown card is essential to testing the claim. If you turn it over and there’s an even number on the other side, then the principle in question is shown to be false. Many researchers on human rationality have taken these robust results to show that humans are fundamentally irrational, even with regard to some rudimentary logical inferences.

I'll make a suggestion about God that is conjectural and only supported by anecdotal experience. Consider my answer to TheEdge.org 's question: What do you believe but cannot prove? What if, perhaps like the blind spot and the Wason mistake, humans are flawed at the cognitive level or have a blind spot such that we have a very hard time thinking clearly about God, or failing to believe in God? Is it possible that deeper in our cognitive architecture there are some features that render us nearly unable to not believe or not be religious in some form or another? Look at the irrational and emotive sweet spot we have for music.

Could religion exploit a gap in our rational abilities that way? One thing that might support the claim is the almost unanimous adherence to some sort of religious belief among humans on the planet. The vast majority of people polled in the U.S. and in the west claim to believe in God in some form. And among people in the east, some sort of comparable spirituality is as pervasive. Self-professed non-believers and atheists all over the planet are exceedingly rare (perhaps that is more suggestive that atheism is a kind of cognitive pathology than the other way around.) My other reason for suspecting that something like this is the case is seeing in hundreds or even thousands of cases over the years of very careful, smart people go soft when the prospect of criticizing religiousness in any form comes up. When a believer begins to perform the mental gymnastics that some will do in order to prop up their belief, it is hard not to think that there’s something else going on here besides a sober analysis of the evidence.

Could such a hypothesis be tested? I think it could. It should be possible to construct a comprehensive battery of questions involving a variety of inferences, arguments, and forms of reasoning. Many of the questions could be formed without any reference to God. And many could be formed employing God in their subject matter. Then it would be possible to detect if there is any significant shift in people’s ability to reason when God is at stake. Such a test would be very difficult to design well. And even if the results seemed to indicate that there was a systematic change for the worse in God reasoning, why people do it would remain an open question. It may or may not be natural, genetic, or biological. It may or may not be cultural or brought about by some third cause.

In either case, I would be very interested to see the results of such a study. And I think it would help us to navigate our own limitations with regard to the God question. If we could come to understand this widespread and heartfelt attachment that people feel about religious matters, we would be better able to grasp our own relationship with the God idea.

No Moral Truths? No God.

Many people have serious doubts about the objective existence of morality. In fact, more people probably have doubts about morality’s being real than have doubts about God’s being real. The sentiment is that moral values or moral judgments do not have a real status the way facts like 2 + 2 = 4, or “the speed of light is 186,000 per second,” or “the Earth orbits the Sun.” These sorts of claims we can prove. We can investigate empirically and see that they are true. We can reach widespread agreement about them. But moral values, whatever they are, cannot be assessed this way. People rarely agree, there are no empirical tests for what is right or wrong, and they seem unavoidably subjective. It seems more likely that there really isn’t any such thing as real moral truths. There are only different cultures, different eras in history, and different people who have varied views about what is right and wrong. But right and wrong aren’t anything above and beyond those social constructs.

I don’t think this argument is correct, but that’s not my topic here. What are the implications of having this anti-realist view about morality for the existence of God? The answer is that if you don’t think that morality is real, then you should conclude that there is no God.

Premise 1. If right/wrong, good/evil are nothing but social, human constructs, then nothing is really good (good beyond those social, human constructs.)

Premise 2. But if nothing is really good, then no being can be all powerful, all knowing, and really all good.

Premise 3. If nothing can be all powerful, all knowing, and really all good, then nothing can be God, or God doesn’t exist.

Conclusion: 4. So if right/wrong, good/evil are nothing but social, human constructs, then God doesn’t exist.

Premise 3 might be unclear. I’m stipulating, with lots of agreement from others, that in order to be God, to be worthy of the title, a being needs to be all powerful, all knowing, and all good. That’s a widespread view. It’s the foundation of the entire western Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions. But we don’t have to define God as only an omni being. If someone chooses, they could allow that some lesser being is going to be called “God.” If we’re going to do that, then we all need to be clear about the terms and what’s intended by them. One reason to not demote God to some lesser being is that a lesser being, while impressive perhaps, wouldn’t be worthy of worship, and wouldn’t be nearly as significant personally, philosophically, and so on. Another question would be, what grounds do we have for thinking that some lesser being than God exists? The argument above shouldn’t be construed as granting permission to believe in a god as long as it isn’t an all good one. All beliefs need some kind of justification to be reasonable. So that lesser god belief would need substantial support too.

Typically, believers will reject this argument. Many of them will believe that both God and moral values exist. This argument doesn’t preclude that sort of response—although that response has lots of other problems as other posts have discussed. There’s nothing in this argument that prevents us from concluding that moral values are real, but God is not—the moral realist atheist. And there’s nothing here to prevent us from concluding that neither God nor morality are real—the moral relativist atheist. But moral relativism and theism are incompatible. The result here is that if you believe that there really is no such thing as objective moral values, then there is no God.

Monkey Morality or Goodness Isn't Magical

The existence of goodness can’t be explained. Our innate sense of right and wrong can only come from some non-natural source because good and bad, right and wrong don’t exist in the natural world. Love, kindness, generosity, compassion are all behaviors that are contrary to humans base, biological nature. So the fact that we can recognize them and the fact that they exist points to some higher power that must be the source.

These sorts of arguments have been repeated endlessly. Morality seems to be one of the rapidly shrinking gaps that believers insist must be occupied by a magical, invisible super being. But those gaps really are vanishing and there just won’t be anyplace left where we need to invoke God. The concept just won’t be of much use to us, and the liabilities associated with it won’t make it worth it to keep trying.

The morality arguments suffer from persistent circularity. The assumption from the outset seems to be that there is something magical and inexplicable about human morality. Then after some bluster, surprise, it is concluded that there is something magical and inexplicable about human morality.

A sober look at human moral behavior that doesn't presuppose that it is magical, or that there is an invisible, magical being, shows that there's a perfectly reasonable natural explanation.

The question has been addressed over and over in the literature, despite believers insisting that no such explanations exist. Richard Dawkins has written extensively about the evolutionary conditions that would select for virtuous traits in primates. See The God Delusion.

Frans De Waal has argued persuasively that altruism, compassion, emotional contagion, charity, and so on all appear in primates and their presence makes a positive contribution to survival. See Primates and Philosophers. and the Tanner Lectures

Steven Pinker, in the New York Times just a couple of weeks ago, gives a nice overview of the evolutionary foundations and explanations that we now have for human moral behavior. See The Moral Instinct.

The morality argument could pursue this strategy: they could argue that it is impossible in principle to explain human moral behavior in any other way than the existence of the Christian God, or even any old God. That is, it won't be enough to argue that none of the natural explanations are correct. The morality argument theist would need to argue that none of them, and none of the natural explanations we could ever come up with could ever explain the existence of human moral behavior. But that seems utterly implausible. Is the point that not a single one of the brilliant, world-class scientists who is offering natural explanations knows what he or she is talking about? Is there something about morality that is irreducible and inexplicable in natural terms? Even if they turn out to be mistaken, the accounts that are given in the sources above appear to be plausible, at least. Where’s the irreducible, magic part?

Arguments for the conclusion “X cannot be explained in principle by any natural account,” are always puzzling. Have all of the naturalized contenders been considered and rejected? Probably not. What sort of special access to some special non-natural facts does one have that resist explanation? It’s got to be more than a gut feeling or a deep conviction that morality is uniquely non-natural in the universe.

Religious believers have made those sorts of objections to natural explanations for centuries. And in countless cases, after they've insisted that X cannot possibly be explained by science, people who are earnest, curious, thoughtful and who weren’t willing to invoke God as soon as they encounter an intellectual challenge have come up with a correct, natural explanation of X. When a believer insists that “X is impossible to explain in any terms besides God,” and then are those industrious scientists who were making progress on X supposed to just stop going in to work? Should they just capitulate and say, “Ok, I’ll stop looking for any explanation except the Bible one you’re so fond of.” I’m really glad that they didn’t do that about polio, bubonic plague, lightening, drought, birth defects, ghosts, demon possession, the age of the universe, the age of the earth, the origin of life. Imagine the world we would be living in right now if scientists listened every time religious believers warned them that religious doctrine is the only way to explain the world.

Is He Keeping His Distance? Or Is He Just Not There?

Special Guest Blogger Today: Professor Eric Sotnak, Philosophy, University of Akron.

There is a response to arguments from evil to the effect that God does not do more to prevent evil because if he were to do so, this would make his existence too obvious to us. God therefore intervenes in the world only cautiously, in ways that could be seen as having purely natural causes. In this way, God maintains an “epistemic distance” from us, that is necessary if we are to come to love and worship him freely, and if we are to take charge of our own lives rather than becoming dependent on God to do everything for us. There are numerous problems with this “epistemic distance” strategy. Here are just three of them.

First, the view seems to presuppose that one cannot freely love and worship God if one knows with certainty or near certainty that God exists. There is no good reason to accept this, however. I am certainly capable of love for all sorts of people of whose existence I am quite certain. Nor does it seem that I would be less likely to worship a God whose existence is in doubt than a God whose existence is certain. In fact, it seems quite the other way around.

Furthermore, if we are to believe the accounts of holy books like the Bible, people like Moses, and Jesus’ disciples had far better evidence of God’s existence than we do, but that did not prevent them from loving and worshiping God. Even Lucifer is represented as rebelling against God in spite of what we must presume to have been great certainty of God’s existence.

Second, many theists maintain that it is possible to prove God’s existence beyond reasonable doubt. Cosmological, Ontological, Teleological, and other sorts of arguments have been proposed as compelling assent from all but those blinded by sin or irrationality. But if it is possible to prove God’s existence, then epistemic distance would be destroyed.

Third, it seems that certainty regarding God’s existence is compatible with taking charge of one’s own destiny at least insofar as that is possible. Suppose God wants me to gather my own food rather than wait for God to provide me with everything. It might be argued that God would be justified in allowing me to starve to death if I fail to gather my own food. But God is omnipotent. It seems he could also easily enough cause in me powerfully unpleasant sensations of hunger which would motivate me to gather food and would cause powerfully pleasant sensations resulting from eating. These would, it seems, be enough to motivate me to act on my own. There would be no further need for me to die as additional deterrent.

The notion that God must maintain epistemic distance from us for us to have meaningful freedom is unsustainable, and thus cannot plausibly figure in responses to arguments from evil.

The Paradox of the Soul-Building Defense of Evil

According the soul-building defense against the problem of evil, God has an interest in presenting us with a challenging world that rigidly conforms to natural laws. If the world bends to protect us from the consequences of our bad decisions, then we will learn nothing, we will not develop morally, we won’t grown in knowledge and power. Those that would argue that suffering is evidence against the existence of God have a mistaken assumption that a good and loving God would want to put us into a hedonistic paradise where no one would ever endure any pain. If God put us in that world, there would be no challenges, and no opportunities to develop moral virtue. But a world that has natural disasters, disease, violence, pestilence, war, and strife provides opportunities for us to acquire generosity, love, compassion, and moral responsibility.

There are a number of interesting objections to this view, but here’s what I take to be a devastating problem. What the soul-building theodicist is saying is that we are supposed to develop moral virtue in a world where the paragon of moral virtue, God himself, responds to widespread, horrific, and pointless suffering by refusing to do anything about it at all. So in effect, we are supposed to develop our capacities to take responsibility for suffering and prevent it wherever possible while we acknowledging that the most loving and morally virtuous thing that can be done for those that suffer is to ignore their plight completely. That’s what God, in his infinite moral wisdom, has seen fit to do, after all. So I must either deliberately defy God’s own wisdom and his example and try to develop some behaviors that he lacks, or I must emulate his example and leave sentient beings to endure whatever befalls them. Clearly, neither answer makes any sense. And no one is going to develop moral virtue either way.

One response that we might anticipate is someone who offers this sort of justification for God: “It’s the morally appropriate and loving thing for God to leave us in the challenging soul-building arena, but that doesn’t justify us in being complacent nor does it absolve us of our moral responsibilities to help those in need.” But this double-speak didn’t work when your father said “Do as I say, not as I do” and it doesn’t here either. God, or God’s representatives, cannot legitimately claim that it is both the pinnacle of love and care for humanity to neglect them when they face horrible suffering and claim that it is morally virtuous and loving to reach out wherever possible and to help them in their needs. On their view, God, the ultimate example of moral virtue, does nothing to alleviate or prevent pointless suffering in the world.

As with many cases we’ve seen, believing in God actually creates more of an impediment to being moral with these sorts of conflicting messages, rationalized conundrums, and double-standard justifications. Once again, it would appear that only the nonbeliever can acknowledge and pursue real moral virtue.

God and Suffering

Here are some familiar responses to the problem of suffering.

Suffering is deserved. Perhaps the most widespread view, on this account when people suffer it is because they are wicked, sinful, and deserving. They’ve done something that is so evil that they now deserve to have awful things happen to them. They’ve got slow starvation, cancer, drowning, dismemberment, or painful disease coming to them.

Suffering is redemptive. Through suffering, humans become better people, they redirect their lives, they find a more beneficial path in life for themselves and others, and they transcend selfishness and narrow-mindedness. Without it, they’d be far worse off.

Suffering is apocalyptic. God, for reasons we don’t fathom, has withdrawn from us, perhaps for our wickedness or our lack of faith. And in his absence all manner of demons, spirits, disease, famine, and even Satan himself have had free reign to abuse us and create great torment. But God is coming back. Jesus will return and abolish the evil-doers, setting up a new theocratic reign on earth that will be filled with peace, love, and forgiveness, at least for those who will repent of their ways.

Suffering is transient. No matter how profound or deep suffering may be for a person here and now, it all vanishes into insignificance when framed against the backdrop of eternal life and joy with God. The suffering may seem awful now, but it will be nothing in the cosmic scheme of things, and the full breadth of God’s plan.

None of these responses reconciles God’s existence with evil. Far too often, people seem to be satisfied with just any sort of justification that makes the suffering seem less severe or maybe mitigated by some benefit. But of course that’s not the point. The point is: how could a good and powerful God who loves you stand aside, unmoved to action, while such things happen? Believers and too many non-believers get embroiled in protracted discussions of whether or not suffering is really deserved, or if it is really redemptive, as if positive answers would get God off the hook. As long as someone has done something wicked, then not only is it permissible to allow them to suffer, that’s what an infinitely good being would justly inflict on them. Believers are content to absolve God of all responsibility as long as in a few cases, suffering plays a role in getting someone to change their behavior. They offer these justifications as if it would be morally acceptable for God to withdraw and leave us to suffer through the apocalypse, as long as he’ll be back. And they are satisfied that even if things are bad now, as long as existence afterward is going to be much better, then the current suffering would be permissible.

It’s a simple matter to see that suffering is not justified in any of these cases. Imagine a kind and loving parent who infects her child with polio for some rule violation leaving her crippled for life. We would even balk at the cruelty of giving polio to a convicted serial murderer. We would never tolerate that sort of maliciousness, yet God, if we are to believe these justifications, is more cruel than any human who has ever lived. Suppose a sadistic kidnapper defended his actions by arguing that in fact the cruelties that he inflicted on his victims actually had a redemptive effect by getting them to turn their lives around. And imagine that his victims really had benefited in some small way in the end from his tortures. Would we accept that as absolution for what he did to them? Would his actions be morally justified by the redemption of his victims? Imagine Michael Jackson, after engaging in abusive acts with a child for a night, justified the suffering he has caused by lavishing gifts and a comfortable lifestyle on the child to balance it out. Does transient nature of his crime make it seem less like a crime now? Imagine parents abandoning a child to an awful group of criminals, rapists, murderers, and abusers, but promising that they will be back in a few years to straighten it all out to everyone’s satisfaction. Would we insist that they really are loving parents as long as they fixed it all later?

The real challenge created by suffering is not whether or not there will be some benefits too, or whether or not the suffering will ever cease. It’s much more substantial: a good and powerful being would not permit any suffering that he could avoid by some alternative sequence of events that would produce as much or more benefit. The only way that being and suffering will be compatible is if every instance of suffering is optimal such that the benefit it produces could not be acquired any other way, and the benefits that are produced are greater than the losses suffered. When we consider the challenge this way, the four responses above completely miss the point. That suffering will end, perhaps with a wonderful existence in the afterlife, does nothing to show that the torment that sentient beings have gone through was necessary or worth it. In fact, the existence of a joyful afterlife suggests that there is a much better alternative mode of existence that is available to God but that he mysteriously prevents us from having. That some cases of suffering redeem some people does nothing to explain why God would employ suffering to change the lives of a few when he could have achieved complete and perfect redemption directly and without any harm at all.

If There is a Satan, then There is No God

A lot of people figure that a perfectly plausible explanation for the evil in the world is Satan, or maybe evil demons. The idea, I think, is that if Satan’s the cause of some misfortune, then it can’t be God’s fault. We know that Satan is evil, so there’s no incompatibility. But postulating Satan as the source of suffering and misfortune in the world really doesn’t make any headway towards reconciling those misfortunes with God’s existence.

There are really only two possibilities here. Either God can restrict or prevent Satan from inflicting those gratuitous harms or he cannot. If he can and doesn’t, then we still have the classic problem of evil just as much as the cases of human caused or nature caused evil. Inserting Satan as a cause doesn’t absolve God when God, presumably, has the power, the knowledge, and the goodness to want to prevent such things from happening. If one vicious kid whose bigger than the others savagely tortures another weaker kid on the playground, it’s really difficult to argue plausibly that there was a teacher present who knew about it, saw it happen, had the ability to stop it, and is also a perfectly moral and just person. Something’s got to give.

The critic might respond that God tolerates Satan’s inflicting these harms for some greater good. (Although you’d never accept that nonsense from the teacher who stood by and watched your kid get tortured by the bully.) That would be a different sort of discussion, and one that has gotten a lot of attention. If we’re going to discuss the likelihood or the possibility that all suffering that has ever occurred in the world is actually an indispensible means for achieving some greater good that God could not have achieved any other way, then there’s really no need to add Satan to the discussion. Doing so doesn’t absolve God of responsibility here because on this scenario God is fully responsible and intends for all of that suffering to occur. The claim that Satan is the immediate cause of the suffering doesn’t do anything to support the argument that God had a good reason to allowing the suffering and that the greater good could not have been accomplished any other way. If you think that all suffering is part of God’s plan, then Satan is irrelevant.

If Satan causes gratuitous evil in the world, and God could but doesn’t prevent it, then God must not be omnipotent, or omniscient, or omnibenevolent. An omni-being could and would prevent it. So it would follow that there is no omni-being.

The other possibility is that God is helpless to prevent Satan from inflicting all of that misfortune in the world. He would if he could because the things that Satan does are gratuitous evils, but God doesn’t have the power, knowledge, or goodness to stop it. But if we pursue this line, ironically, it becomes clear that there is no God. If a being is omnipotent, omniscient, and infinitely good, then that being would be able to prevent some lesser being from inflicting gratuitous harms. So it would follow that there is no such omni-being. And if there is no such omni-being, then there is no God.

Maybe Satan is omnipotent and omniscient too, but infinitely evil, and God is deadlocked with him? First, notice that this view is a radical departure from most Christian, Jewish, and Islamic doctrines. On those views, Satan is within God’s dominion. God gives Satan permission to torture Job. Or Satan is a corrupt angel cast out from heaven. God is alleged to be the creator of all things—the whole universe. If there’s this other force that God cannot control, then we seem to have a very different sort of religious view, one that few people hold, and one that has a whole host of its own problems.

Furthermore, all of the evidential problems that we have encountered regarding the existence and the nature of God will be as much or more of a problem with attempts to show that it is reasonable to believe that Satan exists. What evidence do we have, besides church doctrine, that such a wild fantasy being exists? If there is one of those, then couldn’t there also be elves, fairies, trolls, demons, ghosts, gnomes, goblins, and magic? Those things are all possible, I suppose, but are they really the most plausible explanation for events in the world given what we know? It’s frequently remarked that the world would be a much better place if the God hypothesis were true. Similarly, if there were a Satan and he was omnipotent or even just very, very powerful, then it seems like things would be much worse than they are. If you take the view from on high, there are bad things that happen to good people, good things that happen to bad people, and so on, more or less at random. There doesn’t seem to be any discernible pattern here that would suggest the existence of this elaborate supernatural pantheon. If we take the big view, the universe just looks ambivalent to our presence. Or at least it doesn’t look nearly as hostile as it would if there were a scheming, powerful, malicious being out there plotting to make you suffer as much as possible.

So if Satan perpetrates some of the gratuitous evil in the world, then if God could prevent it, all of that gratuitous evil in on God’s shoulders. So if Satan perpetrates some of the gratuitous evil in the world, then there is no omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being.

On the other hand, if God cannot prevent it because he lacks the power, knowledge, or goodness to do so, then again there is no omni-being. So rather than explaining away the existence of evil, the Satan hypothesis, if correct, would show that there is no God.

If There is a Satan, then There is No God

A lot of people figure that a perfectly plausible explanation for the evil in the world is Satan, or maybe evil demons. The idea, I think, is that if Satan’s the cause of some misfortune, then it can’t be God’s fault. We know that Satan is evil, so there’s no incompatibility. But postulating Satan as the source of suffering and misfortune in the world really doesn’t make any headway towards reconciling those misfortunes with God’s existence.

There are really only two possibilities here. Either God can restrict or prevent Satan from inflicting those gratuitous harms or he cannot. If he can and doesn’t, then we still have the classic problem of evil just as much as the cases of human caused or nature caused evil. Inserting Satan as a cause doesn’t absolve God when God, presumably, has the power, the knowledge, and the goodness to want to prevent such things from happening. If one vicious kid whose bigger than the others savagely tortures another weaker kid on the playground, it’s really difficult to argue plausibly that there was a teacher present who knew about it, saw it happen, had the ability to stop it, and is also a perfectly moral and just person. Something’s got to give.

The critic might respond that God tolerates Satan’s inflicting these harms for some greater good. (Although you’d never accept that nonsense from the teacher who stood by and watched your kid get tortured by the bully.) That would be a different sort of discussion, and one that has gotten a lot of attention. If we’re going to discuss the likelihood or the possibility that all suffering that has ever occurred in the world is actually an indispensible means for achieving some greater good that God could not have achieved any other way, then there’s really no need to add Satan to the discussion. Doing so doesn’t absolve God of responsibility here because on this scenario God is fully responsible and intends for all of that suffering to occur. The claim that Satan is the immediate cause of the suffering doesn’t do anything to support the argument that God had a good reason to allowing the suffering and that the greater good could not have been accomplished any other way. If you think that all suffering is part of God’s plan, then Satan is irrelevant.

If Satan causes gratuitous evil in the world, and God could but doesn’t prevent it, then God must not be omnipotent, or omniscient, or omnibenevolent. An omni-being could and would prevent it. So it would follow that there is no omni-being.

The other possibility is that God is helpless to prevent Satan from inflicting all of that misfortune in the world. He would if he could because the things that Satan does are gratuitous evils, but God doesn’t have the power, knowledge, or goodness to stop it. But if we pursue this line, ironically, it becomes clear that there is no God. If a being is omnipotent, omniscient, and infinitely good, then that being would be able to prevent some lesser being from inflicting gratuitous harms. So it would follow that there is no such omni-being. And if there is no such omni-being, then there is no God.

Maybe Satan is omnipotent and omniscient too, but infinitely evil, and God is deadlocked with him? First, notice that this view is a radical departure from most Christian, Jewish, and Islamic doctrines. On those views, Satan is within God’s dominion. God gives Satan permission to torture Job. Or Satan is a corrupt angel cast out from heaven. God is alleged to be the creator of all things—the whole universe. If there’s this other force that God cannot control, then we seem to have a very different sort of religious view, one that few people hold, and one that has a whole host of its own problems.

Furthermore, all of the evidential problems that we have encountered regarding the existence and the nature of God will be as much or more of a problem with attempts to show that it is reasonable to believe that Satan exists. What evidence do we have, besides church doctrine, that such a wild fantasy being exists? If there is one of those, then couldn’t there also be elves, fairies, trolls, demons, ghosts, gnomes, goblins, and magic? Those things are all possible, I suppose, but are they really the most plausible explanation for events in the world given what we know? It’s frequently remarked that the world would be a much better place if the God hypothesis were true. Similarly, if there were a Satan and he was omnipotent or even just very, very powerful, then it seems like things would be much worse than they are. If you take the view from on high, there are bad things that happen to good people, good things that happen to bad people, and so on, more or less at random. There doesn’t seem to be any discernible pattern here that would suggest the existence of this elaborate supernatural pantheon. If we take the big view, the universe just looks ambivalent to our presence. Or at least it doesn’t look nearly as hostile as it would if there were a scheming, powerful, malicious being out there plotting to make you suffer as much as possible.

So if Satan perpetrates some of the gratuitous evil in the world, then if God could prevent it, all of that gratuitous evil in on God’s shoulders. So if Satan perpetrates some of the gratuitous evil in the world, then there is no omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being.

On the other hand, if God cannot prevent it because he lacks the power, knowledge, or goodness to do so, then again there is no omni-being. So rather than explaining away the existence of evil, the Satan hypothesis, if correct, would show that there is no God.

500 Dead Gods

If you believe, there should be this nagging doubt in your head. In the course of human history, there have been countless other believers in gods different from and mutually exclusive to your god. They all were sure that their god was the only or best game in town. They felt the same conviction you do. They thought their religion had the privileged place in history just like you do. They didn’t take any of the other gods that other people believe or believed in seriously—those seemed like alien and distant possibilities, just like you feel about their gods. They failed to reflect on the historical, social, and cultural role that their god played in their culture that made it so analogous to all of the other gods and other cultures. They figured that the religious worldview that they happened to be born into also just happened to be the one and only one correct one in the entire history of the human race.

So a reasonable person would have to ask herself: if my god and his relationship to me in history looks just like their god and his relationship to them, and if their god isn’t real, what exactly makes mine different? Is it reasonable to think that mine is different and that it’s only me and the tiny group of people who happen to believe just like I do that got it right?

J.L. Schellenberg, in “Pluralism and Probability,” Religious Studies, 33, 143-159. 1997, argues that the odds are always going to favor the conclusion that your view is wrong in this situation. There are just too many other gods out there that undermine the probability that you’ve got the right one.

H.L. Mencken has a great essay here about the long list of dead gods: Memorial Service

Here's a list of 500 dead gods to get us started:

Aa, Aah, Abil Addu, Addu, Adeona, Adjassou-Linguetor, Adjinakou, Adya Houn'tò, Agassou, Agé, Agwé, Ahijah, Ahti, Aizen Myō-ō, Ajisukitakahikone, Ak Ana, Aken , Aker , Äkräs, Aku, Allatu, Altjira, Amano-Iwato, Ame-no-Koyane, Am-heh, Amihan, Amon-Re, Amun, Amurru, Anapel, Anath, Andjety, Anhur, Anit, Anu, Anubis, Apsu, Arianrod, Ash , Ashtoreth, Assur, Astarte, Aten, Atum, Ayida-Weddo, Ayizan, Azaka Medeh, Azaka-Tonnerre, Azumi-no-isora, Baal, Bacalou, Badessy, Bagadjimbiri, Bahloo, Baiame, Bakunawa, Bamapana, Banaitja, Ba-Pef, Baron Cimetière, Baron La Croix, Baron Samedi, Barraiya, Bata , Bathala, Bau, Beltis, Beltu, Belus, Bernardo Carpio, Bes, Biamie, Bilé, Binbeal, Boli Shah, Bossou Ashadeh, Budai, Budai, Bugady Musun, Bugid Y Aiba, Bunjil, Cai Shen, Ceros, Chenti-cheti, Chi You, Chimata-No-Kami, Chun Kwan, Cihang Zhenren, City god, Clermeil, Congo (loa), Consus, Cronos, Cunina, Dagan, Dagda, Dagon, Daikokuten, Damballa, Dan Petro, Dan Wédo, Dauke, Dea Dia, Dhakhan, Diable Tonnere, Diana of Ephesus, Diejuste, Dimmer, Dinclinsin, Dragon King, Dragon King of the East Sea, Duamutef, Dumu-zi-abzu, Ea, Ebisu, Edulia, El, Elali, Elder Zhang Guo, Elum, Engurra, Enki, Enma, En-Mersi, Enurestu, Erlang Shen, Erzulie, Ezili Dantor, Fan Kuai, Fei Lian, Feng Bo, Four sons of Horus, Fu Lu Shou, Fu Xi, Fūjin, Fukurokuju, Furrina, Futsunushi, Gasan lil, Gasan-abzu, Goibniu, Gong Gong, Govannon, Gran Maître, Grand Bois, Guan Yu, Guangchengzi, Gunfled, Gwydion, Hachiman, Hadad, Hakudo Maru, Han Xiang, Hapi, Hapy, Heka , Hemen, Hermanubis, Hermes , Heryshaf, Hoderi, Hongjun Laozu, Hoori, Horus, Houyi, Huang Feihu, Hung Shing, Iah, Ibong Adarna, Iku-Turso, Ilmatar, Ilmatar, Imhotep, Imset, Iron-Crutch Li, Isis, Istar, Isum, Iuno Lucina, Izanagi, Jade Emperor, Jar'Edo Wens, Ji Gong, Julana, Jumala, Jupiter, Juroujin, Kaawan, Kagu-tsuchi, Kalfu, Kalma, Kara Khan, Karora, Kerridwen, Khaltesh-Anki, Khepri, Khnum, Khonsu, Kidili, Kini'je, Kitchen God, Kneph, Kōjin, Ksitigarbha, Kui Xing, Kuk, Kumakatok, Kuski-banda, Kuu, Ku'urkil, Lagas, Lan Caihe, Lei Gong, Leizhenzi, Lempo, Ler, Li Jing , L'inglesou, Llaw Gyffes, Lleu, Loco (loa), Lü Dongbin, Lugal-Amarada, Maahes, Ma-banba-anna, Mademoiselle Charlotte, Maîtresse Délai, Maîtresse Hounon'gon, Maman Brigitte, Mamaragan, Mami, Mamlambo, Manawyddan, Mandulis, Mangar-kunjer-kunja, Marassa Jumeaux, Marduk, Maria Cacao, Maria Makiling, Maria Sinukuan, Marinette, Mars, Marzin, Matet boat, Mayari, Mbaba Mwana Waresa, Meditrina, Mehen, Melek, Memetona, Menthu, Merodach, Mider, Mielikki, Min , Molech, Mombu, Morrigu, Mounanchou, Mulu-hursang, Mu-ul-lil, Muzha , Na Tuk Kong, Nana Buluku, Naunet, Nebo, Nehebkau, Nergal, Nezha , Nga, Nin, Ninib, Ninigi-no-Mikoto, Nin-lil-la, Nin-man, Nio, Nirig, Ni-zu, Njirana, Nogomain, Nuada Argetlam, Numakulla, Num-Torum, Nusku, Nu'tenut, Nyyrikki, Odin, Ogma, Ogoun, Ogoun, Ogyrvan, Ohoyamatsumi, Ōkuninushi, Omoikane (Shinto), Ops, Osiris, Pa-cha, Pangu, Papa Legba, Peko, Perkele, Persephone, Petbe, Pie (loa), Pluto, Potina, Ptah, Pugu, Pundjel, Pwyll, Qarradu, Qebehsenuef, Qin Shubao, Qingxu Daode Zhenjun, Ra, Raijin, Randeng Daoren, Rauni , Resheph, Rigantona, Robigus, Royal Uncle Cao, Ryūjin, Saa, Sahi, Samas, Sarutahiko, Saturn, Sebek, Seker, Serapis, Sesmu, Shakpana, Shalem, Shangdi, Shango, Sharrab, Shen , Shennong, Shezmu, Shina-Tsu-Hiko, Simbi, Sin, Sirtumu, Sobek, Sobkou, Sōjōbō, Sokk-mimi, Sopdu, Sousson-Pannan, Statilinus, Suijin, Suiren, Suqamunu, Susanoo, Tagd, Taiyi Zhenren, Tala, Tam Kung, Tammuz, Tapio, Tenenet, Tengu, Tenjin, Theban Triad, Thoth, Ti Jean Quinto, Ti Malice, Tian, Ti-Jean Petro, Tilmun, Todote, Toko'yoto, Tomam, Tu Di Gong, Tu Er Shen, Tuonetar, Tuoni, Ubargisi, Ubilulu, U-dimmer-an-kia, Ueras, Ugayafukiaezu, U-ki, Ukko, UKqili, Umai, U-Mersi, Umvelinqangi, Ungud, Unkulunkulu, Ura-gala, U-sab-sib, Usiququmadevu, U-Tin-dir-ki, U-urugal, Vaisravana, Vaticanus, Vediovis, Vellamo, Venus, Vesta, Wadj-wer, Wen Zhong , Weneg, Wenshu Guangfa Tianzun, Wepwawet, Werethekau, Wollunqua, Wong Tai Sin, Wuluwaid, Xargi, Xaya Iccita, Xevioso, Xuan Wu , Yama, Yau, Yemaja, Youchao, Yuanshi Tianzun, Yuchi Jingde, Yunzhongzi, Zagaga, Zaraqu, Zer-panitu, Zhang Guifang, Zheng Lun, Zhongli Quan, Zhu Rong , Zonget.

God's Evil

Many people will look upon the following passages with approval and a sort of grim schadenfreude: "those sinners got what they deserved, and anyone today who goes against God should get the same punishment." I take it as obvious that that sort of attitude is barbaric and not really worth comment. Any minimally decent person who considers the acts or punishments described here without the rationalizations that people's affection for religion often leads them to will find them repugnant and evil. Many people will respond with surprise that God or God's followers ever did such things. Others will respond that the passages are out of context, or that there were historical and social contingencies that made these commandments appropriate. Certainly we can construct less enlightened explanations for why a group of humans 3,000 years ago might have endorsed a commandment for killing witches, or for why they would have been undisturbed by raping virgin girls. But the problem is that this book has been held up again and again as a the paragon of moral guidance, and we are repeatedly told that it is the perfect word of God. We are told that one cannot be a morally decent person without religion. And God is thought to be a morally perfect being who loves us. The only way one can sustain those sorts of views about the Bible is to either avoid reading the book altogether or to carefully cherry pick examples that portray God in this positive light.

I submit that a person looking for moral guidance should not consult the Bible--it's moral recommendations are hopelessly corrupt, convoluted, and contradictory.

God sends 2 bears to devour 42 children for teasing the prophet Elisha about his bald head.II Kings 2:24.

God commands the Israelites to slaughter all of the women who have had sex with men, all the men, and all the boys among the Midianites. God instructs them to save 32,000 virgin girls for their own use. Eleazar, the high priest, receives 32 virgin girls. Numbers 31.

The Lord commands the Israelites to "utterly destroy" nor "shew mercy to" the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. Deuteronomy 7:1‑2.

The Lord commands David to conduct a census. Then the Lord grows angered and gives them a choice of punishments: famine, pursuit for three months by their enemies, or three days of pestilence. David cannot choose, so the Lord inflicts the pestilence. 70,000 people die and in a change of heart, "the Lord repented him [the Lord] of the evil." II Samuel 24.

The Lord gives the Jews a great scare by turning snakes loose on them, and then gives them bizarre instructions for ridding themselves of them. Numbers 21:6.

The Lord visits and impregnates Sarah, Abraham's wife. Genesis 21:1.

The Lord visits and impregnates Hannah, wife of Elkanah. 1 Samuel.

The Lord demands and sanctions human sacrifices. Leviticus 27:28‑29, Judges 11: 29‑40, II Samuel 21: 1‑9.

The Lord kills the first born of every Egyptian family. Exodus 12:29.

The Lord sanctions slavery. Exodus 21:2‑6, Leviticus 25:44‑46.

The Lord commands the killing of witches. Exodus 22:18.

The Lord commands death for heresy. Exodus 22:20.

The Lord commands death for violating the sabbath. Exodus 31:14‑15.

The Lord commands death for cursing one's parents. Leviticus 20:9.

The Lord commands death for adultery. Leviticus 20:10.

The Lord commands death for blasphemy. Leviticus 24:16.

The Israelites are commanded to "utterly destroy all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword." Joshua 6:21.

The Lord allows Satan to kill Job's livestock, destroy his house, kill his children, inflict boils on his entire body. He is ravaged by disease and famine, he is spurned by his friends. The purpose of the trials is to demonstrate the strength of Job's faith to Satan, and the Lord takes the opportunity at the end of the book to remind Job of his great and terrible power. Job is ultimately returned twice as much as he loses during the tests. Job.

The Lord said to Moses, "Take all the leaders of these people, kill them and expose them in broad daylight before the Lord, so that the Lord’s fierce anger may turn away from Israel." . . .The Lord said to Moses, "Treat the Midianites as enemies and kill them. Numbers 25: 4 and 16

Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death. Exodus 21: 17

The Christian doctrine towards women:

"But if they [men] cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn. And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband: but if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let no the husband put away his wife. I Corinthians 7:9.

"But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God." I Corinthians 11:3.

"Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man."

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife. . . Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing." Ephesians 5:22.

"In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array. But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness and sobriety." Timothy 1:9.

Trying To Be Moral Through The Distorted Lens Of The Bible

We are repeatedly confronted with the claim that without religion one cannot be moral. More specifically, the Bible is held up again and again as a source of moral guidance. Unless a person lives their life in accordance with its principles, we are told, they cannot be moral, they cannot be blessed by God, they cannot receive eternal reward.

Even a superficial perusal of the book makes it clear that this position is deeply conflicted. First, there’s a long list of vital moral principles that it has very little to say about. There’s no outright condemnation of slavery, even though that’s clearly one of the most important moral issues confronting the human race. There’s no condemnation of genocide even though that’s consistently been one of the most profoundly immoral things that we do to each other. There’s no condemnation of pedophilia or child sex abuse even though to most people the child sex abuser is the most despicable and evil person they can imagine. There’s no condemnation of child physical abuse. There’s no clear remark on abortion. There are no clear remarks on vital end of life issues like euthanasia. Now consider the biggest and most far reaching moral issues that you will encounter in your life. Most, if not all of these will be on that list.

Not only does the Bible not offer any clear guidance where it is obviously needed, the examples and commandments we do find there are obviously morally repugnant to anyone with any decency. The Old Testament is full of examples of God commanding or God perpetrated heinous acts of genocide. God regularly condones rape, incest, and the physical abuse of women. God issues commands for the Israelites to murder all the men, women, and boys, but to keep the virgin girls for their own purposes. The punishments commanded for the most trivial infractions of arbitrary rules are death. The punishment for violating the 10 Commandments is death. The Old Testament is flooded in gore, torture, cruelty, and injustice either at God’s hand directly or through his commandments. If a person today committed the sorts of horrible acts that God or God’s followers did in the Old Testament, we’d condemn them as the most vile sociopath. The New Testament, Paul in particular, repeatedly endorses sexist policies that subjugate women. Christian slaves are enjoined to be obedient to their masters. The list goes on.

The view that the Bible can offer us any real moral guidance would be laughable if it weren’t so widespread, so ill-conceived, and wasn’t responsible for so many moral crimes itself. The irony is that the people espousing the view invoke many acceptable moral principles implicitly when they cherry pick their examples of moral virtue from the Bible. In claiming that the Bible is the only route to morality, they undermine their own position by selecting those cases that are exemplars of goodness and by refusing to take the multitude of God’s vile commandments and acts seriously. The people who claim that only the Bible can make us moral know in their hearts and on completely independent grounds that genocide, slavery, pedophilia and sexism are wrong, and they bring this autonomous ability to discriminate between right and wrong to their rationalizations and siftings of the Bible. But the moral lessons to be learned there are such a hopeless mess that their ability to separate right from wrong gets hopelessly warped and perverted. If they could abandon their attachment to that source, it would seem that they could be better people than it makes of them, and we could hope to make some real moral progress as a race. Think of how much better off they could be if they weren't expending so much energy trying to rationalize and justify God's various moral crimes in the Bible, and struggling to live by some of those demented principles.

God Doesn't Do Miracles, full version

Brothers and Sisters:


A draft of my full article arguing that God doesn't perform miracles is now posted here:


God Doesn't Do Miracles


Comments are welcome.


Amen.

MM

God Wouldn't Do Miracles

Even if a miracle occurs and there’s compelling evidence for it, what would that show?

Suppose I am confronted with what appears to be a miracle, and all of my earnest efforts to investigate it point to the conclusion that a genuine violation of the laws of nature has occurred. (Let’s leave Hume’s criticisms of these sorts of arguments aside for the moment.) This one really looks like it’s the real thing. What could be going on here, I wonder.

If God were attempting to demonstrate his existence to me I can’t see any obstacle to his doing so. Being all powerful and all knowing, he’d have no problem making his existence manifest if he wanted to. But miracles are always insufficient to this task. Somebody’s walking on water, someone coming back from the dead, healed sick people, floods that wipe out humanity don’t show that the origin of the event was omnipotent or omniscient. A less than all powerful, and less than all knowing being or force could have done it. (Just imagine that the being in question only has enough power to do this one thing, or only knows how to do this one and nothing else.) So the miracle I witness doesn’t show that God (the omni-God) exists. He would do a much better job than this if he was trying to demonstrate his existence.

Maybe God’s trying to accomplish some good in the world with this miracle, right some wrong, reward someone’s virtue or piety? But if God were attempting to accomplish good in the world, then there would be no obstacle to his achieving much more of it than any particular miracle accomplishes. Suppose that thousands of the sick get healed, or the hungry get fed, or the Red Sea parts to save the Israelites, or someone survives a plane crash, or someone has a baby, or someone wins the lottery. These miracles don’t accomplish nearly as much as God could if that’s what he’s up to. So this miracle is can’t be God’s trying to achieve good in the world. He would do much better than this if that was his goal. “Come on, God! Is that the best you’ve got? I’m pretty underwhelmed down here. . .”

Maybe he’s trying to punish the wicked. It’s frequently alleged that he does. Lot’s wife gets turned to pillar of salt for watching the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah when God commanded them not to. They say that Hurricane Katrina was sent to punish sinners in New Orleans. They say that HIV/AIDS is God’s punishment for homosexuality. Lots of people think that when they have a heart attack or a car wreck, God’s trying to tell them to change their lives.

But if God were attempting to exact some punishment or retribution through a miracle, then he wouldn’t arbitrarily single out one individual for some petty misdeed while ignoring so many others, particularly when the crimes of others are so grievous. Nothing stopped the Nazis. Lots of them fled to Argentina and lived out comfortable lives on the beach. Idi Amin died of old age, same for Pinochet and Pol Pot. And lots of completely innocent people have suffered horribly from natural events where God could have violated the laws of nature and didn’t. An omni-being could achieve vast, effective, balanced punishment if that was what he was trying to accomplish. So this miracle cannot be God’s attempting to punish. He’d do a much better job of punishing if that’s what’s going on here.

If God were attempting to accomplish anything unambiguous in the world, then he could. But this miracle is ambiguous. They always are. So this miracle cannot be God’s attempt to achieve any clear goal. He’d do a much better job of accomplishing a clear objective, if that’s what’s going on here.

So for any miracle I encounter, I would have to conclude that whatever is going on here, and whoever or whatever is responsible, it is not God. God doesn’t do miracles.

Grave robbers or Magic?

My apologies in the recent “Should We Believe that Jesus Was Resurrected?” post. A big section of the post got left off of the end. Here’s the full version. It should make things clearer.

I have been working on a paper about the miracles of Jesus. I have put a draft of the paper here and would gladly get input from interested parties.

Problems for the Miracles of Jesus

The central idea is that in order for a person to accept some conclusion p on the basis of evidence E, then he or she needs to be confident that if p wasn't true, some indications of that could show up in E. What that means is that I shouldn't believe sources that indicate p is true unless there's a reasonable expectation that they would have informed me that p was false if that had been the case. Here's the principle:

Counter Evidence Principle (CEP): S would be reasonable in concluding that p is true on the basis of the evidence E only if it is reasonable for S to believe that the evidence E would indicate ~ p if ~p had been the case.

Many people who believe that Jesus existed and was divine believe that the Bible contains a reliable body of evidence that makes it reasonable to believe that Jesus was resurrected. There are 4 briefs accounts of the resurrection account in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

In a nutshell, what I argue is that when you consider the time between the alleged resurrection and the writing of the Gospels, and then the time between the writing to the oldest existing copies of those Gospels that we now have (about 200-300 years), it becomes obvious that those sources can’t be trusted to be telling us the whole story, if in fact there had been any available counter evidence to the resurrection. Suppose that Jesus was a fraud, or that the disciples faked the resurrection, or their enthusiasm led them to exaggerate, or Roman teenagers stole the body as a joke, or grave robbers got it, or the authors and transcribers over the next 300 years altered the story. Would we expect to find a record of that important counter evidence in the Bible that we have today? Is it reasonable to think that if Jesus had not been resurrected, and there was evidence that showed it, then that evidence would still be present in the Bible today for us to consider when making up our minds? Furthermore, is it reasonable to think that the people surrounding the alleged resurrection had the skills, the concepts, the methodology, and the objectivity to adequately investigate the alleged paranormal events?

The answers to these questions are all an obvious no. Hundreds or even thousands of invested, enthusiastic believers had ample opportunity and motive to make adjustments in the story to make it support the “Jesus is divine” conclusion. It would have been the norm for the uneducated, largely illiterate, superstitious people of the time to believe in all manner of omens, spiritual occurrences, ghosts, paranormal events, and miracles. No serious investigation by anyone without a vested interest in the events seems to have occurred or been recorded. Even if one had, they didn’t have the concepts or skills to get to the truth. Consider how many well-educated, smart people today are readily duped by religious charlatans performing easily debunked sleight of hand tricks. And we actually know that there was a great deal of trimming in the composition of the modern Bible to exclude those accounts of the resurrection and Jesus that did not satisfy later religious leaders.
To make matters worse, the four Gospel accounts we have all tell very different stories about what happened. See my recent post:

Perfect Word of God? Reliable Historical Document?

One of the alternative Gospels, the Gospel According to Peter, was deliberately excluded from the cannon of New Testament books. The story it tells of the resurrection deviates even more, and raises more questions about what happened. There, the Jews get Pilate to put Roman guards at the tomb. The guards hear a voice and then see two men come down from the sky and then carry a body out of the tomb. Later, Mary and her friends find someone dressed in white in the tomb who claims that Jesus is gone.

I won’t defend a particular alternative version of the events; my point with the CEP principle is that the Biblical evidence is undermined so that we can’t draw reasonable conclusions about what really happened. But consider that if we include the Gospel of Peter account, then in four out of the five accounts, the tomb isn’t found empty; rather some one or two people (“angels”) are found inside. And in the Peter case, they are even seen removing the body! In John, Jesus is still in the tomb and talks to Mary. If we are really going to take the Biblical evidence seriously, then the obvious conclusion to draw is either that Jesus never left the tomb (suggesting that he was alive all along), or that the people (“angels”) that they found in the tomb took the body. If I walked into a tomb and saw that the body was missing and there were some dudes in there, the first and obvious question I’d ask is, “What did you guys do with the body?” Wouldn’t you? And you wouldn’t take them seriously for a moment if they said, “He magically came back from the dead, and then flew up into the sky to be with an a invisible being who has super powers.”

Long story short: If the Bible is our body of information about whether or not Jesus was resurrected, then we can’t trust it to be telling us the whole story. If there had been some important counter evidence that showed that Jesus was not resurrected, it would not have made it through the centuries to us. So we can’t form a reasonable conclusion about what really happened on the basis of what is probably a doctored, adjusted, tilted, fragmentary, and ill-formed body of evidence.

Should We Believe that Jesus was Resurrected?

I've been working on a paper about problems with believing the evidence for the miracles of Jesus. I have put a draft of the paper here and would gladly get input from interested parties.

Problems for the Miracles of Jesus

The central idea is that in order for a person to accept some conclusion p on the basis of evidence E, then he or she needs to be confident that if p wasn't true, some indications of that could show up in E. What that means is that I shouldn't believe sources that indicate p is true unless there's a reasonable expectation that they would have informed me that p was false if that had been the case. Here's the principle:

Counter Evidence Principle (CEP): S would be reasonable in concluding that p is true on the basis of the evidence E only if it is reasonable for S to believe that the evidence E would indicate ~ p if ~p had been the case.

The principle here is similar to Wykstra’s CORNEA principle that he brings against William Rowe’s inductive argument from evil against the existence of God. Wykstra says,

On the basis of cognized situation s, human H is entitled to claim "It appears that p" only if it is reasonable for H to believe that, given her cognitive faculties and the use she has made of them, if p were not the case, s would likely be different than it is in some way discernible by her.

Wykstra, Stephen J. The Humean Obstacle to Evidential Arguments from Suffering: On Avoiding the Evils of “Appearance”” Int J PhiI Re116: 73-93 (1984).

Stephen Pinker: Instinct for Morality

There's a nice essay about the evolutionary foundations of morality by Stephen Pinker in the New York Times today:

Pinker: The Moral Instinct

Wide Atheism: There Are No Gods Whatsoever

Many people have muddled thinking about atheism. Proving a negative claim, they often say, is impossible. You can’t look everywhere. You can’t convince everyone. You could always be wrong. You can’t possibly give a proof that there is not a God the way that we can prove that the interior angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees. God’s too big, we’re too little, and we’d expect that whatever God would be, it would surpass our abilities to understand. So proving there is no God is short-sighted hubris.

There’s a lot here that worth reacting to, but I’ll confine it to two distinctions:

A wide atheist is someone who think there are no gods, no divine or supernatural beings whatsoever. And a narrow atheist is one who just thinks that there no classic God of the Judeo-Christian, Islamic tradition exists. There is no omnipotent, omniscience, and all good being. But narrow atheism by itself leaves open the possibility that some other sort of divine being might exist.

A lot of people, even skeptics and narrow atheists, think that wide atheism is unreasonable. Wide atheists are a rare and foolish breed, they think. Even among the people who have warmed to the idea that you can make a convincing case against the omni-God, they figure that you could never prove that no gods at all exist.
Wide atheism is correct, however.

Here’s a very brief argument in favor of wide atheism. It’s no more challenging to make a compelling case that no elves, pixies, dwarves, fairies, goblins, or other mythical creates exist than it is to argue that there are no Gods. I don’t have to give a decisive proof against every possible mythological, magical being in order to conclude that none of them are real. At some point, once you’ve thought about, reflected on the general considerations about natural laws, magic, and supernatural entities, it becomes perfectly reasonable to conclude that the whole enterprise is an explanatory dead end for figuring out what sort of things there are in the world. Even though scientific naturalism has managed to explain every single alleged supernatural phenomena in the past entirely in natural terms, should we insist on being agnostic about the few magical beings that people still stubbornly cling to? Surely I don’t have to be agnostic about invisible, supernatural beings that might be responsible for those remaining phenomena that we are still trying to explain. All of the instances of phenomena that were alleged to be supernatural but that turned out to be natural give me as much proof as we can hope for that the God idea should go the same way as evil demons did as an explanation of mental illness.

God Wouldn’t Leave Room for Agnosticism, There Are Agnostics, So There Isn’t A God.

Carlo Sclippa suggested this very interesting argument against agnosticism to me:

The agnostic concludes that neither the evidence for or against God is compelling. So the one thing that they think is reasonable to conclude is that the world is ambiguous concerning God. Is that fact consistent with the existence of God? Would an all powerful, all good, and all knowing being deliberately devise a world in which the evidence for God’s existence is obfuscated to the point that a reasonable person cannot form a clear view about it? That seems implausible. Such a being would certainly have the power to make the evidence clearer one way or the other. It would know how to make the world unambiguous with regard to its own existence. And presumably, if it was all good, or loved humanity, it wouldn’t leave them dangling in the wind, searching for answers but not finding them, depriving them of thing they want the most. So the agnostic has to reconcile the fact that they think the evidence is insufficient with God. God wouldn’t leave the evidential situation inconclusive. So if the evidential situation is inconclusive, then there is no God. The agnostic believes that the evidential situation is inconclusive. Therefore the agnostic should conclude that there is no God.

Here are some very powerful analogies that J.L. Schellenberg gives for why a good God wouldn’t leave the evidential situation inconclusive. This passage is from "Divine hiddenness justifies atheism," in The Improbability of God, eds. Michael Martin and Ricki Monnier.

I. The Hiding Analogy: Imagine yourself in the following situation. You’re a child playing hide and seek with your mother in the woods at the back of your house. You’ve been crouching for some time now behind a large oak tree, quite a fine hiding place but not undiscoverable—certainly not for someone as clever as your mother. However, she does not appear. The sun is setting, and it will soon be bedtime, but still no mother. Not only isn’t she finding you, but, more disconcerting, you can’t hear her anywhere: she’s not beating the nearby bushes, making those exaggerated “looking for you” noises, and talking to you meanwhile as mothers playing this game usually do. Now imagine that you start calling for your mother. Coming out from behind the tree, you yell out her name, over and over again, “Mooooommmmmmm!” But no answer. You look everywhere: through the woods, in the house, down the road. An hour passes, and you are growing hoarse from calling. Is she anywhere around? Would she fail to answer if she were around?

Now let’s change the story a little. You’re a child with amnesia—apparently because of a blow to the head (which of course you don’t remember), your memory goes back only a few days—and you don’t even know whether you have a mother. You see other children with their mothers and think it would sure be nice to have one. So you ask everyone you meet and look everywhere you can, but without forwarding your goal in the slightest. You take up the search anew each day, looking diligently, even though the strangers who took you in assure you that your mother must be dead. But to no avail. Is this what we should expect if you really have a mother and she is around, and is aware of your search? When in the middle of the night you tentatively call out—“Mooooommmmmmmmm!”—would she not answer if she were really within earshot?

Let’s change the story one more time. You’re still a small child, and an amnesiac, but this time you’re in the middle of a vast rain forest, dripping with dangers of various kinds. You’ve been stuck there for days, trying to figure out who you are and where you came from. You don’t remember having a mother who accompanied you into this jungle, but in your moments of deepest pain and misery you call for her anyway: “Mooooommmmmmm!” Over and over again. For days and days. . . the last time when a jaguar comes at you out of nowhere. . . but with no response. What should you think in this situation? In your dying moments, what should cross your mind? Would the thought that you have a mother who cares about you and hears your cry and could come to you but chooses not to even make it onto the list?

Don’t like my tone? Am I being rude?

One of the most common and loudest complaints about the arguments from authors and speakers like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett is that they are bashing religion, they are rude, they are hateful, they are angry, they are encouraging intolerance, or they are prejudiced against religion. (Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion is being investigated in Turkey to determine if it is an attack on religious values, which could lead to the prosecution of the book’s Turkish publisher.) As far as I can tell, and I have read a lot of the reviews of their books, these objections to the “tone,” are just about the most substantial criticisms that anyone seems to have. Justifiably, Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, and Dennett have expressed their frustration because these criticisms don’t have much to do with the substance of what they are saying. If one is presenting reasons for thinking that there is no God, what in the world does the “tone” that you use to do it have to do with the issue?

In particular, religious moderates and lots of otherwise very sharp intellectuals in the scientific and philosophical community have chastised these atheist authors repeatedly for their strident, passionate style. The typical criticism is that when atheist authors are rude or angry, or insinuate that believers are childish idiots, their project will backfire and they will antagonize more than convince. What these critics are actually revealing is not desire to help Dawkins and Harris be more effective or be able to reach a wider audience. They don’t really want the project to be successful at all. More likely these complaints belie the critics’ deep, uncritical affection for religion and their discomfort with anyone who scrutinizes it closely. Making these stylistic complaints seems to concede the content of the arguments by focusing instead on the form. Rather than argue, “yes, there is a God. Here are the reasons for thinking so. . . “ they complain that the atheist authors are smug, and have presented their case with contempt for believers. With so many of these evasions, it makes it hard not to have some contempt. That the atheist authors have been able to stir up this sort of criticism so often from the intelligentsia and nothing much more substantial is a really strong indicator that they are doing something right.

In a recent incident in Janesville, WI, a high school student ripped up a Bible in class as part of a speech he was giving in which he was arguing that the Bible was false. He was trying to demonstrate, among other things, that nothing supernatural would happen to him if he did it. Nothing supernatural did happen to him, but there was a firestorm of protests from the community. The student was suspended for a week. In conjunction with an article in the local paper, dozens of people expressed their outrage at how rude the student was, how intolerant, how arrogant, and how disrespectful it was to act so offensively. http://gazettextra.com/news/2007/dec/20/bible-incident-draws-concerns/

Let’s be clear: a person’s right to free speech is not contingent upon their making their comments in a calm, mild-mannered, polite fashion. It’s a right to free speech, period. Aside from social niceties, a person is under no moral or legal obligation to express themselves nicely, with humility, or even respectfully. There seems to be a confusion for people who think that religious tolerance means never saying anything critical about religion or asking hard questions about it. Being tolerant of religion means that people have a moral and legal right to pursue the religious activities of their choice. It does not mean that they have a right to adopt any insane, unfounded, superstitious nonsense they want to and then expect the rest to remain completely silent about it. Freedom of religion does not guarantee immunity from reason and good sense. Having freedom of religion does not protect you from hurt feelings. Having freedom of religion does not protect you from disagreement.

When atheists are criticized for being angry, or when it is argued that being contemptuous makes the atheists’ argument less effective, the critics are missing the point. Whether those points are true, they only concern successful public strategy. They aren’t relevant to the question of reasonable belief in God. Furthermore, even if being strident or antagonistic will hamper one’s ability to convince, that does not impose any sort of moral obligation not to express oneself that way. You haven’t done something wrong to your targets by being mean. And it certainly doesn’t follow that theism is vindicated by the atheists’ being offensive.

Those people who will be offended would most likely have not been convinced anyway, and they don’t have a right not to be offended. There is no moral or legal right not to have your feelings hurt. What’s more obvious is that if you’re feelings are hurt or if someone’s tone seems intolerant, you’d be well advised to carefully consider the source of those hurt feelings inside of you. If you’ve got attachments to some beliefs that are so emotional that you can’t even listen to or read some words that challenge them without getting bent out of shape, then that’s a very good indicator that those beliefs are irrational and dogmatic and they need to be challenged. If there are people out there for whom the crucial difference between believing in God and not believing in God is whether or not the atheist presented their case politely, then they need to reevaluate their grounds for believing in God.

If you don’t like my tone, then you can go fuck yourself.

Perfect Word of God? Reliable Historical Document?

Countless Christians maintain that the Bible is a special book because God somehow acted to bring about its writing. We will leave aside for now the point that different Christian sects have different Bibles, with different books included or excluded, and they disagree about which translation is best. Let’s focus on the fact that many Christians maintain that the Bible is a perfect, unerring, non-contradictory book. The claim is often that it is entirely consistent and coherent internally.

Contradictions, conflicts, missing details, reversed sequences, and other sorts of glaring internal inconsistencies are easy to find. Consider the first four books of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which give accounts of the life of Jesus. Among other differences, they give four very different accounts of the events at Jesus’ tomb after he was executed:

In the Luke account, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women go to the tomb, find it open, talk to two men in shining garments, and then go tell what they saw to the other disciples.

In the Mark account, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome go to the tomb, find it open, and find one man sitting there in white inside. They talk to him, then they run away in fear and they do not say “any thing to any man; for they were afraid.”

In the Matthew account, Mary Magdalene and the “other” Mary go to the tomb. A great earthquake opens it by rolling the stone away. They go inside and find an angel of the Lord in white. Then they leave with fear and joy and run to bring the disciples word.

In the John account, Mary Magdalene (by herself) finds the tomb open. She goes and gets Simon Peter and the other disciple “that Jesus loved.” The two of them go to the tomb and find it empty. They leave, but Mary stays crying. Then two angels appear to her. Then Jesus himself appears to her. She talks to him and then goes to tell the rest of the disciples.

These starkly different accounts of the alleged resurrection of Jesus should raise serious questions for anyone who thinks that this book can be employed as a reliable historical document or trusted for accuracy concerning Jesus. In addition to these obvious contradictions, there are countless other passages in the book that contain similar problems.