Giving Stenger The Sting

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Just to let everyone know, I will be reviewing here some of the works of Victor Stenger, starting with his book "The New Atheism: Taking A Stand For Science and Reason." (You know it'll be great when the title makes you laugh)

Hopefully, Stenger himself will come here. It would be a lot of fun.

[jpholding]

Hopefully, Stenger himself will come here. It would be a lot of fun.

As I told ya via email, I give him 5 posts before he pulls a Bob Price and has a temper tantrum.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

For the record, Stenger has yet to reply to my email. For now, I will begin my review of his *ahem* work. Let's start with just the preface to "The New Atheism: Taking A Stand For Science And Reason"

The link can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/the-new-atheism-a-review-preface/)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we continue our dive into the ocean of truth! Tonight, we finally begin that project I spoke of which will involve tangling with one of the so-called sharks. As far as I’m concerned, this shark really has no bite and not even much bark. We’ll be looking at two books by Victor Stenger. The first one will be “The New Atheism: Taking A Stand For Science And Reason.”

You know it’s going to be good when even the title is logically fallacious.

For one thing, Stenger has begun by poisoning the well. The conclusion he wants the readers to follow is that defending atheism is the same as defending science and reason. In turn then, to defend that which is contradictory to atheism, namely theism, one is going against science and reason. So, if you are a theist, you are automatically opposed to science and reason.

Now I will grant that sadly, this is the approach that a lot of Christians do take and I even more sadly grant that a lot of these Christians are in the ministry. It is fine to oppose some proposed truths of science and reason, but these should be opposed on the grounds of science and reason. For too many, there’s just “The Bible tells me so” which leads us to a supposed battle between science and religion, which is exactly what the new atheists want.

Even more, the title will make someone who is exceptionally religious not want to go into science. The new atheists might think that all the better, except there can be no doubt that many of the greatest minds who have ever lived have been people who are theists. If it is stated that one either has science or one has religion, then those who think religion to be a greater good, and I think all Christians should, will not go into science and science will be diminished for this.

Nevertheless, let’s start getting into the book some. We will simply start with the preface tonight. In this, Stenger gives a history of some of the books that the new atheists have written. It is interesting to note that while the first mentioned is Sam Harris who wrote after 9/11 and seeing the destruction caused by followers of Islam, Harris decided to include Christianity and in fact, most of the book, The End of Faith, was devoted to attacking Christianity instead of Islam.

After all, the fruit of Christianity has been an increased spread of literacy, increased study of medicine, the scientific revolutions, the teaching that we should love our neighbor as ourselves, the belief in the equality of human beings ontologically, praying for your enemies, and giving to those less fortunate.

Yep. Definitely Christianity is the worst of the two.

Now some could object that in recent history there have been attacks on abortion clinics by Christians.

Yes. There have been. There have been so many you could count the number on one hand.

Meanwhile, how many attacks have their been by Islamic terrorists in the same time frame?

You could also note that Christians routinely condemn those attacks on abortion clinics. How many Muslims are doing the same? Have we seen statements from terrorist organizations denouncing the attacks on innocents?

Of course, you could also bring up the Crusades and the Inquisition. Absent from mention of the Crusades usually is the point that they were often defensive and the Muslims made the first attack. Now granted, not all that went on in the Crusades was good. At the same time, not all was evil, but rare is the atheist that has read anything scholarly on the Crusades. As for the Inquisition, it too was not the bloodbath it is often painted to be as recent looks at the period show. The reader is referred to the work of Henry Kamen as an example. Some reports have the Spanish Inquisition, the greatest of them all, having around 3,000 deaths. Indeed, 3,000 too many, but not the hundreds of thousands we’re normally told about.

To get back to Stenger, he goes on with the history of the movement of new atheism and writes the following:

All of us have been criticized for not paying enough attention to modern theology. We are more interested in observing the world and taking our lessons from those observations than debating finer points of scriptures that are probably no more than fables to begin with.

To begin with, if all of you are criticized for this, could it be because there is some truth to the criticism? I challenge the reader to go through a book by the new atheists and see how often they really tangle with the best ideas that theologians have put forward. Even a look at the bibliography of Sam Harris’s work “The End Of Faith” would be enough to see there is little or no interaction. It is almost as if no one is opposing atheism. Granted, Stenger does make some attempts to do such, but they are poor attempts as he seems to have chosen the weakest defenses.

If you want to criticize a worldview, you need to know the reasons the leading minds in that worldview hold to that worldview. One wonders if Stenger would accept it if I decided to go after evolution but said “I have been criticized for not paying enough attention to modern arguments for evolution. I am more interested in observing the world and taking my lessons from those observations rather than debating finer points of a scientific theory that’s probably a fable to begin with.”

I don’t care what your stance on evolution is. That would not be a valid approach to take. Stenger, Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, and Hitchens would all condemn such an approach and rightly so. However, it is the exact same approach that the new atheists take to theology. Even if you think it’s nonsense, it’s not enough to just assert that. You have to demonstrate that.

Note also that they think all the points are made from the Scriptures. Leading Christian philosophers will argue for the existence of God without the use of Scripture. Now there are times you have to use Scripture. If you are arguing for the historicity of Scripture, you will need to use Scripture. However, that is not the topic mainly in the works of the New Atheists. Absent however is serious interaction with members of the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Arguments are waived away as if they’re nonsense on their face.

Why assume the only recourse these thinkers have is to say “The Bible says so?” Probably because Stenger and others have not interacted with these thinkers to really know what they say. They have simply written them off as nonsense because these thinkers are religious.

Finally, Stenger says the accounts are probably no more than fables to begin with. Absent is any reason to think this is the case. Now it could be the Scriptures are fables, but why presuppose that? It is once again a bifurcation that has been drawn. If you believe in the Bible, you must be irrational.

In writing later on about morality, Stenger says “Furthermore, we do not see morality as god-given but rather the result of humanity’s own social development.”

Development into what?

A better community? But we can only have a better community if we have some standard outside ourselves that we are progressing towards? As soon as Stenger sets up an ideal for the way humanity should be, he is positing something beyond humanity that humanity is to attain, which is the very reality he is denying.

If there are no ideals, then Stenger and his ilk need to drop their condemnation of the Old Testament and any other teachings they don’t like. They need to drop how some Christians supported slavery. They need to drop any supposed evils of the church. That was just the way society was at the time.

Of course, it could be that one society is better than another.

But then, that would only be determined by some standard outside of societies by which that can be determined.

We cannot even say modern society is better. Which one? The society of the Christian church in America? The society of secularism in England? The society of Catholicism in the Vatican? The society of atheism in Russia? The society persecuting Christians in China? Which one is better? By what standard?

But we will have more on this when we get to the chapter on morality.

Harris also says that the most unique position of the New Atheists is that faith, which is belief without supporting evidence, should not be given the respect and even deference it obtains in modern society.

Question Mr. Stenger.

Do you have any evidence that that is the definition of faith?

I challenge you to find one biblical dictionary that cites “Belief without supporting evidence” as the definition of faith. I cite you to find any authoritative source on the Greek language that tells me that that is what the word “pistis” means. If you cannot do this, then the conclusion I reach is that you are believing something without supporting evidence, the very act that you condemn.

Indeed, this will be pushed again on Stenger when he defines faith in another chapter. It is not only false, it is again poisoning the well, a logical fallacy. It’s quite odd that there are so many logical fallacies from those who think that they are the champions of reason. As we shall see, the new atheists are hardly reasonable and are in fact more emotional than anything else.

There have been several words written so far, and we are just in the preface! It will be interesting to see just how much we have to say about the new atheism as we continue going through. Keep in mind I’m also trying to only hit highlights. Much more could be said and I hope many will read the works of the new atheists, simply in to see how pathetically weak they are.

We shall continue tomorrow.

[Leonhard]

Is it possible to ask questions, or is this a Stenger only thread?

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Is it possible to ask questions, or is this a Stenger only thread?

Ask away, but I'd prefer it be on material discussed.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

On to chapter 1.

The link can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/the-new-atheism-review-atheism-on-the-offensive/)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we dive into the ocean of truth! We’re right now going through one of the books of Victor Stenger. Right now it’s “The New Atheism: Taking A Stand For Science And Reason.” We’re going to review the first chapter tonight on atheism on the offensive.

In this chapter, Stenger makes it clear that he wishes to go after the God most often seen is some variation of the God of the three great monotheistic faiths. Interestingly, he traces their origin to Abraham who he describes as a mythological figure who probably lived 4,000 years ago.

He follows this by saying that if Abraham lived at all, he would have been polytheistic, as were all the people in Canaan at the time. He also states that Judaism did not become monotheistic until after the return of the Jews from exile in 530 BCE. (Of course, he says BCE. I have no problem saying B.C.)

There is no source given for this. Whose scholarship should I go to to see about Abraham? Where is the evidence that Judaism was polytheistic until the return from the exile. (You know, for guys that are supposedly so big on evidence, you think they’d actually learn to use some.)

Instead, Stenger is relying on JEPD theories that were popular at the time of Welhausen in the 19th century with the idea that writing didn’t show up until the time of Amos which was when the Pentateuch was written. I am once again reminded that atheists sadly usually only study biblical ideas only to find something to disagree with and then go from there. The difficulty is that I have no idea which sources Stenger is using for this claim that is certainly not a scientific claim. Maybe he just wants me to take it on faith.

Stenger says that atheists view science as the best means humanity has yet come up with for understanding the world. To an extent, this is correct. If you want to study geology or astronomy or botany or biology, science is great. That’s what it’s designed for. If you want to study history or philosophy or theology however, science is only a secondary source.

Stenger routinely denies that the new atheists are believers in scientism. However, while this claim is made repeatedly, the opposite is shown the most. There is a constant reminder of how scientific evidence is needed and that a claim is not scientific. The problem is some claims are not scientific in fact and so no scientific evidence is there. My wife loves me. That is not a scientific claim. You could not find scientific evidence for it. Jesus rose from the dead is not a scientific claim. The date of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon is not a scientific claim. Now that one definitely used a lot of science, but the date itself is not scientific.

Stenger claims that his fellow scientists who are believers compartmentalize their thinking into scientific and religious. When they go to church, they enter a compartment that shuns critical thinking and devil’s advocacy that came with their scientific training. Once again, it’s simply an either/or fallacy. The new atheists just can’t imagine anyone with any critical thinking would be religious.

Which rules out several of the great philosophers in history and many great thinkers today. If Stenger actually interacted more with the great thinkers of the day, he might realize this. It is assertions like these that get me to the point where I can’t really take the new atheists seriously.

Stenger says that science just makes models anyway and does not require nor does it use any metaphysics. As far as science can tell, the universe is matter and nothing more.

Science however is used to study matter and cannot tell about anything beyond matter. To make such a statement is to overstep the bounds of science. Also, science does require metaphysics. The very statement that the universe is matter and nothing more is in fact a metaphysical statement. It is saying that the nature of all being is material in some way.

Metaphysics is properly understood as the study of being as being. The sciences study one type of being. Biology studies matter that is living for instance. Physics studies matter in motion. Astronomy studies matter that is heavenly in nature. Botany studies plant matter. All of these contribute to our study of types of being, but metaphysics studies what it means to be, which encompasses all of them.

Stenger states that atheists appreciate the beauty of art, music, and poetry as much as believers. They also appreciate the joys of love, friendship, parenthood, and other human relationships. I have no doubt that atheists do enjoy these. My question to Stenger is first off, what are the bases for these realities? What is the standard of beauty, for instance? Second, why should these be appreciated.

It is ironic that Stenger ends the paragraph stating that a claim about the world should be tested by science and reason. Reason can study these things, but science cannot study anything just mentioned. It can study some qualities of the things, but it cannot study the things in themselves.

It is my contention that atheists are too often falling back onto theistic standards when their worldview has no basis for such standards. Now you can value those things, yes, but what is the basis for valuing them? I have no problem with saying they can be enjoyed, but can their existence be explained?

Stenger also argues that religion is given an exemption from the requirement of rationality applied in other areas of discourse.

I’m not sure where he’s getting his information from. Especially since I as a theist often do get chided for being irrational. Now I don’t mind this at all. If someone thinks I’m irrational, better for them to go ahead and say it. I happen to think atheism is irrational and I make no bones about it.

Stenger says that atheists are pilloried for hurting people’s feelings when deepest doubts are cast that somebody born of a virgin rose from the dead 2,000 years ago or question that a book contains all the truths that anyone will ever need to know.

First off, people like Stenger do not hurt my feelings. Instead, they tickle my gag reflex. If someone is having their feelings hurt, then they need to get tougher. I do think Christians should be able to answer Stenger and frankly, they should be able to answer him easily.

Second, the use of the virgin birth and resurrection as automatic nonsense only work if all miracles are prima facie nonsense. That is the atheist worldview however and it does no good for Stenger to go to the theist and say “Your worldview does not match with the atheist worldview and is therefore false.” Now if the atheist worldview is true and mine does not match, then yes, my worldview is false. That must be demonstrated. It is this kind of technique that shows the bankruptcy of the arguments of the new atheists. They do not see the presuppositions which they approach theistic arguments with and thus do not take them seriously.

Now do I believe in every miracle claim that has happened? No. Not at all. It is not because they are miracle claims however, but it is because they have insufficient evidence. This includes claims that could back my own Christian beliefs. I have often been accused also of only allowing miracles in my own religion. That is also false. I am open to miracles taking place in other religions. It’s just that just like my own religion, I like to see the evidence.

Finally, it is a straw man to say the Bible contains all the truths that anyone ever needs to know. If you want to study science, I do not believe in picking up the Bible first. Now I do not think the Bible will contradict with truth claims found outside of it, but it is not the source. If I was teaching someone math for instance, I would not go to the Bible to begin. I would get a math textbook. Christians do not deny there is great truth to be found outside the Bible. I do not want my doctor to prescribe a psalm if I am sick. I want him to prescribe medicine.

Much of what comes after this is simply a look at points and counterpoints in the literature of the new atheists. However, I again pick up my interest when he talks about a review in the Times of the work of Dennett. Stenger says of the choice of reviewer “The Times should not be asking a literary editor to review a book on science any more than they should ask a scientist like myself to review a book on Shakespeare.

I have no problem with that.

I just have a problem with Stenger thinking however that he’s still qualified to speak on theology and philosophy. The new atheists make a big deal out of someone without the proper training commenting in the area of science and I agree, but they don’t seem to give the same respect to theology or philosophy. A classic example is a work Stenger defends in this book, The God Delusion.

As one trained in theology and philosophy, I find it amazing that anyone takes that book seriously. Dawkins wrote on an area he is not skilled in. It shows through and through.

However, Stenger wishes to allow himself to comment saying that religion is a social phenomenon that is observable and thereby amenable to study by scientific means just as tribal customs in the Amazon or the culture of the Internet.

The scientific aspects? Perhaps. You can study the physical interaction that takes place between a husband and wife and study their brains to see what happens in their love for one another, but you cannot use science to determine their love for one another or what that love is.

I could just as well also say that I can observe seeing an apple somewhere and then another one and realizing that there are two apples. I am observing that, but the counting of the apples is mathematical. It is not something that is testable by science. Science cannot tell me about the nature of numbers. It uses numbers, but it is not about numbers.

Statements that Stenger makes like that however are the reasons why I do believe he really does hold to scientism. Everything can be broken down to science, which would make sense if matter was all there was. However, that is what he is presupposing and it has yet to be shown.

Interestingly, Stenger partially realizes this as he says “Certainly science is not in a position to answer metaphysical questions about the nature of God, such as whether he exists outside of time.”

I agree, but somehow, Stenger has no problem with Dawkins’s aforementioned book where he made a metaphysical claim about the nature of God being complex. We will look more at the idea of the testing that can be done when we study another of Stenger’s works, but Stenger should realize he is commenting outside of his area.

Such does not stop the new atheists however. It is because of the belief that science is the ultimate authority and all knowledge must bow to the scientific method. The scientific method I affirm is an excellent method….when you’re studying science! To say it applies to every area is the problem.

Tomorrow, we shall get into more content of actual claims, but for now, Stenger might have given a nice history lesson, replete with errors on other topics along the way, but so far, there has yet to be anything demonstrating that theism is opposed to science and reason. Don’t be surprised when we uncover nothing that indicates that and find out that really, it is the new atheists who are people of “faith.”

We shall continue tomorrow.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

On to chapter 2.

The link can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/the-new-atheism-the-folly-of-faith/)

The text is as follows:

Welcome back to Deeper Waters, where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Right now, we’re dealing with the work of Victor Stenger. At the moment, it’s his book “The New Atheism: Taking A Stand For Science And Reason.” Tonight should be an entertaining look at the chapter on the folly of faith.

In the very first paragraph, Stenger asks why people of faith should be deemed worthy of esteem. After all, he says “Faith is belief in the absence of supportive evidence and even in light of contrary evidence.”

Which makes me think the chapter could more refer to Stenger’s definition of faith. If there is a folly here, it’s on Stenger’s part. Well, let’s play Stenger’s little song and dance. Let us condemn any belief that is wished to be held in the absence of supportive evidence or in light of contrary evidence.

First, do we have any supportive evidence given for this claim?

Well, Stenger says that’s what it means, but he gives no source. I suppose he wouldn’t object on those grounds to my saying “Jesus was a historical person” and give no source.

Consider the following here (http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/pistis.html)

What do we see listed?

conviction of the truth of anything, belief; in the NT of a conviction or belief respecting man’s relationship to God and divine things, generally with the included idea of trust and holy fervour born of faith and joined with it
relating to God
the conviction that God exists and is the creator and ruler of all things, the provider and bestower of eternal salvation through Christ
relating to Christ
a strong and welcome conviction or belief that Jesus is the Messiah, through whom we obtain eternal salvation in the kingdom of God
the religious beliefs of Christians
belief with the predominate idea of trust (or confidence) whether in God or in Christ, springing from faith in the same
fidelity, faithfulness
the character of one who can be relied on.

I also recommend the excellent work of James Patrick Holding on “What is faith?” available here (http://www.tektonics.org/whatis/whatfaith.html).

Based on this, I consider Stenger a man of faith. He has no supportive evidence and there is contrary evidence to his viewpoint.

By his standard, he is not a person to be held in high esteem then.

A few pages later, Stenger goes on an economic rant on how neocons dismantling the New Deal policies of FDR leading to the economic fall in 2008. Also, the neocons had a movement of anti-intellectualism that only benefited the rich.

It’s nice, but as one who does read on economic theory, I still have one question.

Evidence?

Stenger gives no footnotes. No sources that state what economists agree with his position. He is not an economist. He is a physicist. Since he is speaking on economics, he should cite some authorities in economics. He merely wants to make an assertion and hope the assertion counts as evidence.

Sounds like a man of faith.

He goes on to write later about philosopher Michael Novak’s opinion of the new atheists where Novak says that the new atheists are “difficult to engage” on religion since “all of them think that religion is so great a menace that they do not show much disposition of dialogue.” Stenger replies “This enables him to make sure the dialogue is on his terms.”

Kind of like giving a definition of faith that can’t be found in any authoritative source on the topic.

If anything makes the new atheists difficult to engage, it is not their understanding of theological matters. It is their lack of understanding. They are blinded by their own ignorance so much so that they refuse to look up that which is contrary to their view, all the while condemning their opponents of doing the same. They think they know all about the other side simply by reading their own partners.

Stenger goes on to complain of faith-based organizations who are allowed to break the law and the constitution by hiring only those of their faith.

This is a violation how?

Again, Stenger doesn’t say.

That’s a pattern showing up consistently. It’s because the new atheists are men of faith.

Stenger goes on to talk about the Seventh-Day Adventist church founded by William Miller.

Um. Not exactly.

The SDA church is an off-shoot of the Millerite movement. It would trace its origins to Miller in a sense, but its foundation really lies more with its alleged prophetess Ellen G. White.

On page 58, Stenger starts talking about evidence and the laughs really take off. In talking about Jesus he says “There is not a single piece of independent historical evidence for the existence of Jesus or the veracity of the events described in the New Testament.”

While Stenger relies on Ehrman, even Ehrman would tell Stenger at this point he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. No one takes the Christ-myth seriously in scholarship. Stenger talks about the reference in Josephus and how almost all scholars accept it as a forgery.

Evidence given? Not a one.

I refer the reader to the work by the Venerable Bede found here (http://www.bede.org.uk/Josephus.htm)

Completely absent is any mention of the second passage in Josephus that is not considered questionable. There is no mention of Tacitus, or Pliny the Younger, or Seutonius, or Mara Bar-Serapion, or anyone else.

There is no reason given that the gospels or the testimony of Paul cannot be seen as eyewitnesses.

But as we’ve said, Stenger is a man of faith.

He later refers to Remsberg’s book asking why Philo doesn’t mention Jesus.

Yes. Remsberg. This is the guy who has a list of all these people who lived at the time of Jesus that don’t mention him and internet skeptics love to throw this around as if it was a trump card. Instead, most of these had good reasons for not mentioning Jesus, especially since some were not even historians! Philo’s case is likely because he wasn’t in Judea at the time but was rather living in Alexandria and would have remained as skeptical of the claims of Jesus if he heard of them as Stenger is.

For more on Remsberg’s list, I recommend the following (http://www.tektonics.org/qt/remslist.html)

Stenger goes on to say that science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings.

Science also enables us to fly over cities and drop bombs on them. It enables us to release biological warfare. It enables any one with evil intent to pick up a gun and rob a store. It enables someone to use the internet to commit crimes. It makes it possible for someone to do identity theft.

Religion meanwhile has also promoted the spread of morality. It has helped with the teaching of literacy and its spread. It has made people want to study the world and learn all about it that they can. It has taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves and seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

The new atheists never give both sides of the picture. Yes. Science gives us good things. It also gives bad. Yes. Religion has brought about some bad things. It’s also brought about good.

Maybe it’s a strange leap, but could it be that good people use good science and good religion for good means and evil for evil means?

Could it be the problem is not religion or science but people?

And if it comes to people, personally, religion has a better method for transforming evil people into good.

Stenger replies also to the claim that Christianity says that God has revealed Himself in creation, our hearts, and history. He seems to think it a defeater to ask “Then why are there any non-Christians?”

The biblical claim is not that it’s a lack of evidence. It’s a repression of evidence. It is not as if you present the evidence and people automatically act accordingly. We have much evidence today that smoking is harmful to your health, but how many people do you know who know that and still smoke?

The Bible tells us that the real problem is in the heart of man. He is a sinner. Man doesn’t want to bow a knee to God but would prefer to be his own God.

Stenger replies to an argument later that comes more from Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. Stenger seems unfamiliar with Plantinga however. The argument is that evolution could give us beliefs that help us survive, but there’s no reason to think those beliefs are true. You cannot use reason to prove reason. (This argument is also found in C.S. Lewis’s “Miracles.”) What says Stenger to this?

“On the contrary, every successful scientific experiment that results in a practical application demonstrates the utility of basing our theories on empirical evidence. As explained above, whether or not it is “true” in some metaphysical sense is irrelevant, as long as it works.”

There are some things these guys say that I wonder I even have to respond to them.

So basically, Stenger has told us that with science, it doesn’t matter if the results are true, so long as they work.

Which is the very problem Plantinga is saying. Based on the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism, one cannot know that one’s beliefs are true. They can only know that they work.

And yes, the quotation marks in the quote around the word true are found in Stenger’s own words.

Finally, Stenger complains that one apologist has belittled the scientific method by saying it has nothing to say about God, meaning, and purpose.

Well, yeah.

For the new atheists, it’s just unthinkable to say that there’s an area that science is not an authority on.

Science is great for studying matters that are scientific, such as beings that are material. Beyond that, it’s not so great. It can provide data that helps in other areas, but it’s no longer the final arbiter in those areas.

I conclude this chapter the way I began. If there is any folly here, it is on the part of Stenger, who is, by his definition, a man of faith, someone not to be held in esteem.

[jpholding]

GAG.

Philip Johnson used Stenger as an example of the arrogance of the new atheism, and I can see why.

I have nothing to add to the factual aspects (especially with all those links -- heh heh, thanks), but would remark one big reason the likes of Stenger and Dawkins who give credence to the "Jesus didn't exist" theory that they hold so little weight for me as proponents of materialist evolution. If they're such gullible stooges when it comes to the issue of Jesus' existence, how can we be sure they're not screwing up the evidence and logic when they make a case for materialist metaphysics? Is this someone who cares about evidence? Obviously not.

I'll bet he makes a big deal about how few scientists accept stuff like ID too. Huh huh....how many historians believe in the Christ myth? :lolo:

[ApologiaPhoenix]

GAG.

Philip Johnson used Stenger as an example of the arrogance of the new atheism, and I can see why.

I'd be interested in reading this.


I have nothing to add to the factual aspects (especially with all those links -- heh heh, thanks), but would remark one big reason the likes of Stenger and Dawkins who give credence to the "Jesus didn't exist" theory that they hold so little weight for me as proponents of materialist evolution. If they're such gullible stooges when it comes to the issue of Jesus' existence, how can we be sure they're not screwing up the evidence and logic when they make a case for materialist metaphysics? Is this someone who cares about evidence? Obviously not.

Part of it is also tearing a big gap between science and philosophy. These two have to work together. Dawkins and Stenger do not understand thinking outside of the realm of science and find it unbelievable that there can be any greater truth than that of science. (Granted, if matter is all there is, I'd say they're right, but to know that itself is not even a scientific statement)

On Unbelievable, for instance, Stenger went on about how people rely on one authority only as a bad thing, which I agree, and then later on went on to say about the Bible "I rely on Bart Ehrman."

I once heard someone say that when it comes to the media and there's a Republican and Democrat debating, liberal media will cover what the Democrat said, and then what a Democrat says about what the Republican said. Stenger and the other new atheists do the same with atheism and Christianity.


I'll bet he makes a big deal about how few scientists accept stuff like ID too. Huh huh....how many historians believe in the Christ myth? :lolo:

ID is simply saying that we need to restore final causes to science and I believe that while there could be some flaws in the movement, that the idea of restoring final causality is certainly true. Of course, I find it hilarious that the way it was proved the idea is bunk was in a court case.

[jpholding]

I'd be interested in reading this.

It's in Against All Gods, the book I reviewed for CRJ last issue. You'd probably like it all.


Dawkins and Stenger do not understand thinking outside of the realm of science and find it unbelievable that there can be any greater truth than that of science.

It's that complicated? I was just gonna blame simple stupidity. :hehe:

[ApologiaPhoenix]

It's in Against All Gods, the book I reviewed for CRJ last issue. You'd probably like it all.

I'm sure you can understand I haven't gone near a CRJ issue in some time.




It's that complicated? I was just gonna blame simple stupidity. :hehe:

There is a relation between the two.

It's odd as I was considering it since Dawkins in The God Delusion assumes that if God created the world and is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, etc., then God must be more complex than the world.

Why is that interesting?

Well first off, he's assuming a materialistic understanding of God as if he has parts.

But second, consider this in light of evolutionary theory. In evolution, we're told that complex things came from the simplest things of all.

Instead, when Dawkins puts forward this argument, he's going just the reverse. He's assuming that what comes before us must be MORE complex than we are. Why doesn't he follow the trail of his evolutionary theory and say that God must be the simplest of all?

To which, he'd be correct. I absolutely hold to God's simplicity ontologically. (I am not saying he is easy to understand so no one present that straw man)

Of course, if Dawkins really believes complex things must come from more complex things, then he undermines his evolutionary belief. If he does not believe that, then God does not need to be more complex and so he has no argument to begin with.

Dawkins could avoid making such blunders if he had any understanding of theology whatsoever. I keep getting amazed at this. The new atheists don't want uninformed people to speak on science, to which I agree as I'm sure you do as well. However, it never seems to stop them from thinking their being uninformed in our fields means they shouldn't comment.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

On to the Sword of Science!

The link can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/review-of-the-new-atheism-the-sword-of-silence/)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Right now, we’re reviewing Victor Stenger’s book “The New Atheism: Taking A Stand For Science And Reason.” Tonight, we’ll be looking at the chapter on the sword of science.

Stenger early on quotes a Christian apologist named David Marshall who says the new atheists don’t recognize the limits of science. Stenger replies that Marshall quotes no atheist who holds such a view.

I’ll quote one. How about Victor Stenger? What did he say on page 63 just five pages prior?

“And again, science is belittled. ‘Scientific method by definition has nothing to say about God, meaning, values, or purpose.’ By whose definition? I will have a lot more to say about science and God in this book. But for now let me comment that science and reason can be applied to anything and everything that involves some sort of observation. This includes the ‘inner’ observations we make in our minds.”

Maybe it’s just me, but it sounds to me that Stenger is saying that if anything is observable, even if only mentally, it’s the topic of science somehow. If the universe is all there is and there is nothing other than matter ultimately, then somehow, everything is observable and everything is scientific.

Now if there are some realities that are immaterial in nature, Stenger will need to explain those realities and how they exist.

Even if I am incorrect, one cannot blame Marshall for the viewpoint with the constant trumpeting that we have of science by the new atheists as if it was the final field of study, which is the exact opposite of thinking beforehand. Science studied a type of existence in the past but not existence itself. Stenger may say “I am not a belief in scientism”, but everything he types says otherwise. He wants to eat his cake and have it too.

In writing about the benefits of science, (To which he doesn’t deny the negative realities we have that I listed yesterday) Stenger lists the internet which has become invaluable to writers and scholars as an easily retrievable information source.

Now I will admit of course there is a lot of good stuff on the internet, such as this blog. It should not be our main resource however. I have a library with several books. There is much good on the internet, but with that, I highly recommend checking authoritative works and good internet sites will often point to such works for further reading.

This is important in an age where Wikipedia is cited as a source. Google is good for basic checking, but it is not good for building a foundation. However, as we will see, Stenger relies on web sites that are not authoritative far too much.

Stenger soon quotes the Christian apologist Tertullian who said “I believe because it is absurd?”

Wait. Did he?

Maybe Stenger should have done some checking. First, I refer the reader to the work of Roger Pearse at Tertullian.org that can be found here (http://www.tertullian.org/quotes.htm). Pearse says the following:

This is usually misquoted, “Credo quia impossibile” (I believe it because it is impossible), and used together with the Athens/Jerusalem quote as evidence of Tertullian’s irrationalism, and advocacy of blind faith as a reason to believe. But neither idea is under discussion. The context is actually an argument with the heretic Marcion, who believed in the resurrection, but didn’t believe Christ had a real body, and that the flesh was shameful. Tertullian points out that Christ himself said that worldly wisdom was not to be trusted on such things, so if Marcion was following it, he must be in the wrong. The idea of irrationalism as such, as opposed to ‘the wisdom of the world is foolishness’ does not arise. See also Sider, R.D., Credo quia absurdum?, Classical World, 73, 1980, pp.417-9 (reviewed CTC 80, §45) briefly discusses both ‘quotes’ and puts them in context, with an interesting suggestion that Tertullian was here using Aristotle.

And he also refers to another page here (http://www.tertullian.org/articles/sider_credo.htm)

Stenger should surely have been able to find such information. He’s just told us how great the Internet is after all.

Stenger also writes about the detrimental effects of religion supposedly, such as supporting slavery (Which Aristotle said some were slaves by nature and Christianity ended slavery twice in history), the oppression of women (How he demonstrates this at a later time is hysterical), ethnic cleansing, serfdom, the divine right of kings, and extraction of testimony by torture.

Sources cited? Not a one.

Now I’ll grant that several Christians I’m sure did do such things. The question is, does Christianity? Is it in line with the teachings of Christ? Can Stenger demonstrate this?

On the other side, Stenger says religion has opposed anesthetics, lightning rods, sanitation, vaccination, eating meat on Friday, and birth control.

Source given? Not a footnote is listed. Just what a colleague says. I would not be surprised to see a work behind this view however such as that of Andrew Dickson White’s, which is now highly outdated. If Stenger would just give some sources for some of these, that would be great.

I’ll also grant that some are opposed today. The Catholic Church and some protestants do oppose birth control, but they also have their reasons for doing so. Whether one agrees or disagrees with that stance, it should be realized that there are reasons for holding that stance.

Later, Stenger asks about why we haven’t found any evidence that God exists. (The Christian answer is that we have and Stenger represses it.) He says the trying to explain why we haven’t found such evidence is called “apologetics” and that Christians have a lot to apologize for.

Stenger needs to apologize for a terrible sense of humor. With a remark like this, he is hoping his readers don’t know what apologetics really is and will never pick up a book on apologetics at all lest they find out that Stenger doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about.

The word apologetics comes from the Greek word “apologia” and refers to a defense. Plato has a dialogue called the Apology that is Socrates’s trial before the government of Athens. Justin Martyr wrote a defense of Christians that was called “The First Apology.” Stenger himself is participating in apologetics. He is doing apologetics for atheism.

And Stenger has a lot to apologize for considering how badly he misrepresents his idealogical opponents.

The next point to touch is that Stenger responds to the theistic claim that the new atheists have an unjustifiable faith that the world is rational. His reply is “What’s the alternative? An irrational world.”

Why yes. I would believe that would be the case.

And Stenger gives no reason why we should think the world irrational. He asks how irrationality can lead us to any knowledge. Of course it can’t, but how can he know he has any knowledge at all unless the world is somehow rational. Stenger entirely misses the point. Yes. Either the world is rational or irrational. Why should it be rational instead of irrational? It’s not “Which option do we prefer?” It’s “Which option is true?”

Why should it be that these ideas I have in my mind that is supposedly the result of an accident can correspond to a universe outside of my mind that is also the result of an accident? If these mathematical laws are accidents, why is it that they seem to work so wonderfully?

In the next section, Stenger answers if we can trust our minds and says “The new atheists do not trust any minds, including their own.”

Yes folks. I’m not making this up. He says that.

To which I say, “If you don’t trust your conclusions that your mind is reaching, why publish them and why should I keep reading?”

But I do because someone has to and it is amusing.

Stenger tells us however that that is in fact why we need the objective standards of science and reason.

How did he come to know that science and reason are objective standards? I suppose he used his mind, that tool that he says we can’t trust. How is it he thinks he has performed experiments rightly? I suppose by using his mind, that tool that he can’t trust. How is it he is sure he has interpreted his conclusions rightly and drawn them out to the best inference?

You see the pattern.

Stenger says that his theistic critic however gets his values the same way, by using his mind.

Um…..yeah.

The difference is, we have a basis for reason being objective and able to tell us information about the world. Stenger’s reply is that we don’t listen to the Bible about stoning disobedient children.

Unfortunately, Stenger did no research and did not note that that takes place in the theocratic society of Israel. It was not just six year old Joseph failing to clean his room. It involved a child who was a drunk and glutton and constantly rebellious. (Last I checked, most little children don’t have a problem with being drunks) A child was a valuable part of the work force of the family that kept them sustained and this would have been the last resort in dealing with a child who was a threat not only to the family but society as a whole.

But hey, the new atheists never have cared about research in religion.

Later, Stenger goes on to write about the warfare between science and religion and who does he cite? You guessed it! Andrew Dickson White, along with the other writer of his time who did the same, J.W. Draper. He states that there have been many attempts to minimize or eliminate the conflict. What’s his source? Paul Kurtz’s book he edited on the topic. Let’s look at what Amazon’s summary of the book said:

Over the past two decades, science and religion have been seeking common ground through ongoing dialogue. The contributors to this volume provide a dimension to the conversation that has seldom been heard. Most of these essays originated as papers delivered at a 2001 conference in Atlanta sponsored by the Center for Inquiry, which is committed to the use of science and reason to conduct free inquiry into all areas of human interest. The very simple thesis of the collection is that science and religion can never be compatible. Rich and suggestive essays by such well-known thinkers as Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins and Arthur C. Clarke range over topics from intelligent design to sociobiology and creationism. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg opens the book by declaring that a dialogue between science and religion cannot be constructive, for science has made it possible for people to be not religious. Botanist Massimo Pigliucci argues that the newly popular theory of intelligent design is a kind of “neocreationism” trying to get into public school curricula by the back door. Finally, philosopher and editor Kurtz (Skeptical Odysseys, etc.) contends that science and religion are minimally compatible, for where science has provided an understanding of the vast and mysterious cosmos, religion is “dramatic existentialist poetry,” a product of humankind’s creative imagination designed to overcome fear and uncertainty with hope and love. Although some will dismiss most of the essays as arrogant and contentious, they nevertheless present important and provocative voices too often drowned out by the move to assert complete compatibility between science and religion.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In other words, his source for the reply was a book with articles by atheists and published by Prometheus. You would think if he was getting the counter-reply, he would recommend books that were actually by theists who disagreed with the claim. Not one is listed. For a response to Draper and White (Yes Stenger, in over 100 years there have been responses, see the work of the Bede here (http://www.bede.org.uk/conflict.htm)

Stenger goes on to refer to the philosophy of Hume and says “We cannot use our experience in this universe, with its laws and constants, to infer what is possible in another universe with different laws and constants. The universe is not fine-tuned for life. Life is fine-tuned for the universe.”

It would be great if Stenger actually followed this rule, but in the next book we will review, he constantly makes a contrast between what the universe would be like if there was a God. How he came to this knowledge? I have no idea.

Stenger then says “Why would a perfect God make a universe so uncongenial to life that he would have to then turn around and fine-tune it? Earth-like planets should be everywhere.”

This is not a statement of science however but of theology. Not one basis is given for it. To begin with, no one says God created the universe and then he altered it by fine-tuning it. It was created with the fine-tuning built in.

Furthermore, why should we expect Earth-like planets everywhere? Are we saying that if God creates a large universe, he has to fill every inch of it with life? Why? What is the theological basis for such? There is nothing in Christianity that demands such a thing and there is nothing in the claim that contradicts a single doctrine of Christianity.

He then speaks about Francis Collins who was converted in part through the writings of C.S. Lewis. He chides Collins because his primary piece of evidence was not scientific but was the belief in the moral law written on the heart.

Keep in mind everyone. Stenger does not believe in scientism. He just wants all your arguments to be scientific in nature. What a catastrophe that you make a decision on any other grounds but science!

Stenger’s reply? Nothing about the moral argument here but saying Collins should have read the latest on cosmology and evolutionary psychological and to consult theological sources besides an author of children’s literature.

Way to treat an Oxford Don who was a great philosopher in his own right.

Stenger then says “While a favorite among Evangelical Christians, Lewis is not highly regarded today by either theologians or philosophers.”

It was no shock when I saw that Stenger’s only source for this was John Beversluis’s work on C.S. Lewis. This is a work that Peter Kreeft, a Lewis enthusiast, referred to as the worst biography on C.S. Lewis that he had ever read. It wasn’t a shock to see this because to the atheists I know, this is the only book on C.S. Lewis that there is.

Sorry Stenger. I do know theologians and philosophers and we do still take Lewis seriously.

He then gets to the question of if science can disprove God’s existence. Stenger speaks of the definition of proof and of God but then says “I won’t get too pedantic and ask for the definition of existence. We all have a pretty good idea what that means.”

No Stenger. We don’t.

As a Thomist, I take the doctrine of existence seriously. Did Stenger ever consult a work like Joseph Owens’s “An Interpretation of Existence?” Are any books on metaphysics cited? What does it mean to be really? Stenger takes the most important question here and then just waives it away.

Stenger tells us the best theologians and philosophers can do is show some assumptions about God are logically coherent or incoherent. For thousands of years logical proofs have been offered to demonstrate God’s existence, but all they do is show that there is consistency in presumed attributes of God.

Really?

Of which arguments do you speak Stenger?

I don’t know. Why? You never list any. There’s nothing about the Kalam Cosmological Argument. There’s nothing about the five ways of Aquinas. There’s nothing about the moral argument. There’s nothing about Augustine’s argument from mind. There’s nothing about the argument from beauty. There’s nothing about the ontological argument.

Stenger is a man of faith.

Of course, Stenger does say this isn’t useless. You can prove an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God doesn’t exist by the gratuitous suffering in the world.

Okay. I like proofs. Prove that gratuitous suffering exists Stenger. In order to do this, you must demonstrate somehow that there is no good reason whatsoever to allow evil X to occur. In fact, since your standard is the sciences and that should be our primary piece of evidence as you chide Collins for going against, then please scientifically demonstrate that X evil is gratuitous.

If you can’t, then I mark you down again as a man of faith.

Of course, for more amusement, we can see how Stenger shows the first cause argument has been refuted. His source is John Allen Paulos. Paulos says the following:
“If everything has a cause, then God does too, and there is no first cause.”

That’s not the first cause argument however. The first cause argument does not say everything has a cause. It says that everything that begins to exist has a cause.

Paulos asks why the physical world can’t be the uncaused cause. The theist answers that it is because this world is in a state of flux seeing as it has matter and matter has potential and thus has various modes of existence. Since it moves from one type of existence to another type, it is not its own basis for existence.

That Stenger thinks such an argument is convincing shows how easily he is convinced by bad argumentation.

It also shows why I shouldn’t trust his reasoning, but that’s okay because he’s said earlier he doesn’t trust his own mind.

In conclusion, if Stenger has a sword, it’s a plastic one he bought at a fair. The pen of the philosophers and theologians throughout the years is definitely mightier than a scientist who tells me to not even trust his mind.

We shall continue tomorrow.

[Leonhard]

I won't comment on whether or not Stenger is right on what he says about the bible, or the ancient near east. I'm not historian, and I'm not gonna pretend to be one. If he's gotten the theology of Christianity wrong, or ancient history, then he deserves whatever flack that can be flung against him.

However I'm detecting a strawman fallacy in your criticism of what he wrote on rationality. I wish I had the book so that I could read the passages for myself. It is the case, that we are not entirely rational. In fact most of the time we are irrational. We often engage in logical fallacies, which as you know are one of the first things we learn about in philosophy. We suffer from confirmation bias, where we tend to latch onto one type of explanation and ignore the evidence that goes against it. This has been known for hundreds of years, and confirmed by recent sociological experiments. Heck, they even managed to show recently that if you go out and debunk a misconception, then a few years later when people remember back you've actually strengthened their prior misconception. (see if I can't dig up the papers)

In other words I don't think Stenger was trying to show that we can't use reason, or that reasoning can't be trusted. Just that it can't be trusted uncritically. An extreme example would be a lone holocaust denying crank, who doesn't interact with other historians but relies on his own judgment of his ideas.

I agree that epistemological you run into some very interesting self referential problems. Like, how can we know that our reasoning is faulty, if it is indeed faulty. That's what I want to know.

However these problems do exist. Are Christians somehow exempt from having to account for his reasoning in light of these problems, as a naturalist must. A Christian might take a short cut and say that God created man with reason, but a Christian still has to contend with the idea that his reasoning is very flawed.

Science is all about weeding out human errors. First by ensuring that our results must be verifiable, we ensure the results are objective; Independent of anyone's personal view. An experiment should give the same result no matter who performs it. Secondly we peer-review eachothers articles, perform eachothers experiments under different circumstances. That means that whatever reasoning that is accepted by one person, must be accepted by all others as well.

I'm not sure how one could explain that people could come to the same conclusions if reasoning was entirely impossible. Wouldn't you see them diverging from eachother in that case? Coming to different conclusions from the same evidence? Then again I haven't read much philosophy on epistemology yet. Just starting actually. You wouldn't happen to know any good books on the subject? Right now my lineup is rather secular, gonna throw Plantinga's Warranted Christian Belief into it.


Which is the very problem Plantinga is saying. Based on the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism, one cannot know that one’s beliefs are true. They can only know that they work.

Are you gonna defend the EAAN? Do we just assume that it is true in this response to Stenger? My being cheeky I'll ask if you're relying on the authority of Plantinga?


but would remark one big reason the likes of Stenger and Dawkins who give credence to the "Jesus didn't exist" theory that they hold so little weight for me as proponents of materialist evolution.

Isn't that about as strong an argument as propping up Kent Hovin and Banana Man Ray Comfort, as reasons for why one would distrust religious people? For every dumb atheist, I'll give you a dozen dumb Christians. Is the case for Christianity weakened by the number of morons who are Christians?

Given that you don't trust Stenger on evolution, then how about Stephen J. Gould or Michael Ruse who never had much if any beef with religion? How about the many Christians who are evolutionary biologists? Even if Dawkins, and PZ. Myers were stricken from the list of reliable witnesses, then you're still left with the rest.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

However I'm detecting a strawman fallacy in your criticism of what he wrote on rationality. I wish I had the book so that I could read the passages for myself. It is the case, that we are not entirely rational.

I have no idea where I denied this.


In fact most of the time we are irrational. We often engage in logical fallacies, which as you know are one of the first things we learn about in philosophy. We suffer from confirmation bias, where we tend to latch onto one type of explanation and ignore the evidence that goes against it. This has been known for hundreds of years, and only confirmed by recent sociological experiments. Heck, they even managed to show recently that if you go out and debunk a misconception. Then a few years later when people remember back you've actually strengthened their prior misconception. (see if I can't dig up the papers)

No problem with this.


In other words I don't think Stenger was trying to show that we can't use reason, or that reasoning can't be trusted. Just that it can't be trusted uncritically. An extreme example would be a lone holocaust denying crank, who doesn't interact with other historians but relies on his own judgment of his ideas.

No problem with this either.


I agree that epistemological you run into some very interesting self referential problems. Like, how can we know that our reasoning is faulty, if it is indeed faulty. That's what I want to know.

If matter is all there is and there's no transcendent source of truth outside of us, I see no way you can.


However these problems do exist. Are Christians somehow exempt from having to account for his reasoning in light of these problems, as a naturalist must. A Christian might take a short cut and say that God created man with reason, but a Christian still has to contend with the idea that his reasoning is very flawed.

Yes. It could be. However, he does have a basis outside of himself. He has a reason for believing his reason is valid, it is created by God. The reasoning of that created by an accident should be seen as valid because....?


Science is all about weeding out human errors. First by ensuring that our results must be verifiable, we ensure the results are objective; Independent of anyone's personal view. An experiment should give the same result no matter who performs it. Secondly we peer-review eachothers articles, perform eachothers experiments under different circumstances. That means that whatever reasoning that is accepted by one person, must be accepted by all others as well.

This isn't much different from any other field. It's just that we don't have "experiments" we can necessarily do in philosophy or history or other fields.


I'm not sure how one could explain that people could come to the same conclusions if reasoning was entirely impossible. Wouldn't you see them diverging from eachother in that case? Coming to different conclusions from the same evidence? Then again I haven't read much philosophy on epistemology yet. Just starting actually. You wouldn't happen to know any good books on the subject? Right now my lineup is rather secular, gonna throw Plantinga's Warranted Christian Belief into it.

Pojman's "What Can We Know?" is a good one. Of course, the Summa Theologica as well when it talks about our knowledge.




Are you gonna defend the EAAN? Do we just assume that it is true in this response to Stenger? My being cheeky I'll ask if you're relying on the authority of Plantinga?

I find the EAAN a good argument, but my point is that Stenger seems entirely unaware of it and if he is going after the argument, why not go after its main proponent?

I'll let JPH answer the rest as its addressed to him.

[jpholding]

Isn't that about as strong an argument as propping up Kent Hovin and Banana Man Ray Comfort, as reasons for why one would distrust religious people?

I wasn't expanding it to the whole group -- just to individual proponents like Dawkins. In that sense it certainly does expand to people like Hovind and Comfort as individuals. Notice I said: "one big reason the likes of Stenger and Dawkins who give credence to the 'Jesus didn't exist' theory that they hold so little weight for me as proponents of materialist evolution." I didn't expand to "all evolutionists."

That said:


Given that you don't trust Stenger on evolution, then how about Stephen J. Gould or Michael Ruse who never had much if any beef with religion?

I have not read Ruse. I read some Gould ages ago and found a few odd comments on Christianity though nothing as extreme as the Christ myth. I do think his idea of non-overlapping magesteria is a copout.


How about the many Christians who are evolutionary biologists?

I'd like to give them individual tests in critical thinking. :hehe: Actually I do that with all my sources. With and Wright didn't get to the top of my heap by saying silly stuff.

[jpholding]

Stenger soon quotes the Christian apologist Tertullian who said “I believe because it is absurd?”

Wait. Did he?

Another Pope Leo X fiasco....Stenger obviously doesn't care about being accurate. Credibility rating = negative 65.


On the other side, Stenger says religion has opposed anesthetics, lightning rods, sanitation, vaccination, eating meat on Friday, and birth control.

This is jimbo level stuff, for pity's sake. BTW I did a big article on the lightning rods issue ages back... http://www.tektonics.org/lp/norods.html -- wonder if he's ever heard of Prokop Divis?



It was no shock when I saw that Stenger’s only source for this was John Beversluis’s work on C.S. Lewis.

Beaverslice is an idiot anyway....I'll be doing a critique of his book after October.



In conclusion, if Stenger has a sword, it’s a plastic one he bought at a fair.

It's also one that has a band on it that he can use to make it look like it's stuck in his head.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

On to chapter 4.

The link can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/the-new-atheism-the-design-delusion/)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters, a blog where we dive into the ocean of truth! We’re right now reviewing the book of Victor Stenger’s called “The New Atheism: Taking A Stand For Science And Reason.” Tonight, we review chapter 4, The Design Delusion.

Upfront, I will say I am not a scientist and do not intend to enter in any depth into the scientific areas. I believe that is supposed to be the area of those with that kind of expertise. Would that the new atheists did the same with philosophy and theology.

To begin with, Stenger quotes Richard Dawkins for the chapter header saying the following:

We are trying to understand how we have got a complicated world, and we have an explanation in terms of a simpler world, and we explain that in terms of a slightly simpler world and it all hangs together down to an ultimately simple world. Now, God is not an explanation of that kind. God himself cannot be simple if he has power to do all the things he is supposed to do.

Those like Dawkins can only think in terms of science and everything is scientific. That Stenger gives this any authority shows me the kind of thinker I’m dealing with. Dawkins’s argument assumes that God must be a physical being. He must be highly complex in order to do the things that he is able to do.

If you think back to our look at the doctrine of God based on the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, you’ll recall that we constantly spoke of the simplicity of God. God is being by nature and therefore not composed of parts. He can do all things for he can do all that being is capable of doing and he can know all the ways that being can be.

Hard to understand? Yes. Dawkins’s objection however is not a scientific objection but a theological one, and it is built on very bad theology. We could attempt to excuse Dawkins for ignorance, except in “The God Delusion” Dawkins does go through the five ways of Thomas Aquinas and the very next section after the five ways is on the simplicity of God.

Looking through this chapter, much of what Stenger says is scientific. As I said, I will not get into that. However, he comes to history and says that evolution immediately came under attack from religious spokesmen because it clearly conflicted with Genesis.

Source please?

In contrast, a good friend of Charles Darwin’s was the botanist Asa Gray, who was also a devout Christian. Charles Kingsley, a minister, wrote to congratulate Darwin on his theory because it brought great glory to the creator who built machines capable of building more machines.

Richard Dawkins in his own work on “A Devil’s Chaplain” wrote of his education and his teacher Sanderson, who happened to be an evolutionist and a devout Christian. The new atheists readily list examples of Christians who find no conflict between evolution and science, but they still play the same card over and over. Now as for me, I don’t personally believe the theory on a macro scale, but if I was wrong, it wouldn’t matter to me. It’s not a major issue.

The problem however for the atheist is what Alvin Plantinga pointed out. As it stands right now, evolution is the only game in town so naturalistic evolution must be true then. I, as one who believes in creation, can say that I can think of any number of ways God could have created and whichever one is right is fine with me.

Stenger goes on to explain why Intelligent Design should not be taught in schools. Stenger says it is a science, but it is a wrong science. It should not be taught any more than that the Earth is flat should be taught, which he says that the Bible implies.

Any reference given? Not a one. It’s amazing atheists like Stenger chide Christians for taking the Bible literally and what do they do? They turn around and take the Bible literally. The Bible uses language to describe phenomena in ways people can understand. I have no more problem with the four corners of the Earth than I do with the idea of the sun rising.

Stenger ends the chapter with Dawkins’s argument about how God must be more complex than anything else if he created this world.

Now this I find interesting as evolutionary theory always has it that complex things come from simpler things and even simpler things. If Dawkins was being consistent, he would say that God is absolutely simple since he brought about the most complex things of all. If he said that, he would actually be right.

Instead, he goes against what he has taught about evolutionary theory and instead says that in this case, what is complex must have come from something even more complex. If he wishes to believe that that is the case, then I will say “Fine. Show me the more complex things that the complex things we have today came from.” If he does not, then I will say he has no objection.

To say God is not an answer however is not to do science, (Remember science? It’s what Stenger said Collins should have based his argument for belief in God on. Apparently, you’re supposed to use science to believe in God, but it’s okay to use philosophy to disbelieve in God. Amazing how Stenger picks and chooses.) but it is rather to do theology and this kind of understanding involves philosophy as well.

In this case, it is bad theology and philosophy. Why should I assume God has a body? Now it could be the case that he does, but Dawkins gives no reason to think such. Does he cite any theologians who believe such a thing? Does he give any biblical references? Not a one. He assumes his scientific understanding and applies that to theology and philosophy. As has been said, the scientific method is an excellent way of discovering truth….if you are doing science. It is not the way to do philosophy or theology.

I will conclude then with my own thoughts on the matter of design. I am a believer in design and in that case also believe in teleology. There is a purpose behind this universe and a reason why things are the way they are. Some things are wrong in this world because of the fall. I accept that.

I believe that to know something is designed, you don’t have to know who designed it, or how, or for what purposes. I’m not against finding the answers to those questions, but it should not be that we eliminate design because we do not know the answers to those questions. In fact, not knowing those answers gives us all the more grounds for further inquiry. It allows science, philosophy, and theology to work together.

I accept simply that I have numerous wonders around me that are technological that I do not doubt were designed. I also realize however that the most amazing work I see around me is that which I see in the mirror. Not me specifically, but humanity. I realize the uniqueness of the human mind and the DNA sequence and think “No. This is not an accident.”

I also realize the implications of it being an accident. There is no teleology then to anything and therefore no purpose. Such is not the world we live in for we do things with purpose regularly and believing that we are serving a purpose beyond ourselves. Evolution is about the survival of the fittest, but for what purpose? That their genes may be passed on. For what purpose? Even evolution has creatures seeking an end, the end of survival.

But if that survival is pointless, then why even bother? It makes no difference whether you die out or not. If however we have a purpose, then our survival is good and it is on a scale above other animals and the bacteria that we wash off of ourselves whenever we take a shower.

If you believe you are here for a reason, even if you don’t know that reason, I see enough reason for you then to believe in design. I see the only reason someone denies design to be that they have a worldview prior that cannot allow for that.

We shall continue tomorrow.

[Leonhard]

Just to be clear if I'm misunderstanding something. You agree with me that Stenger is right in bringing up the ways our reason can fool us. Both Christians, and naturalists have to deal with the fact that we can be fooled. What is it exactly that you're criticizing? Is it your point that he hasn't given what you see as sufficient reasons to believe that the world is rational? I just want to know what you're criticizing. If that's true and he did an inadequate job of doing that, then I have no further comment.


The new atheists readily list examples of Christians who find no conflict between evolution and science ... Now as for me, I don’t personally believe the theory on a macro scale, but if I was wrong, it wouldn’t matter to me. It’s not a major issue.

Are you sure? I get conflicting reports on this from Christians. How does the fall work, given that humans descended from apes through entirely naturalistic means? If I could demonstrate to you that throughout all history there have been human struggles and wars, famine and disease all the way from the early hominids to Australopithecus all the way to the Old World Apes from which we descended. How does original sin work in such a world?

I'm asking because you often say that you wouldn't have any theological problems if natural evolution was true.


The problem however for the atheist is what Alvin Plantinga pointed out. As it stands right now, evolution is the only game in town so naturalistic evolution must be true then. I, as one who believes in creation, can say that I can think of any number of ways God could have created and whichever one is right is fine with me.

Unless you mean merely to give a bad reason why atheists believe in evolution, this constitutes a poisoning of the well fallacy (http://www.fallacyfiles.org/poiswell.html). Even if true that atheists have an inherent bias towards evolution because its 'the only game in town', that would not actually show that the theory of natural evolution is false. You'd have to argue for that on a separate basis. Is Christianity proven false, by Christians having motivations for believing that are emotional ala Way of the Master and praying for a warm feel ala Mormons?

And you still have to contend with the fact that most evolutionary biologists are Christians, and that even if atheists were secretly pushing the naturalistic evolution, you'd still have "open-minded" Christians who could correct them. Why isn't this happening? One of the biggest enemies of creationism in all its forms including intelligent design, who was one of the main witnesses during the Dover Trials was Kenneth Miller, a devout Roman Catholic. You yourself cite Christians who are evolutionists.

And I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to find an article I've heard about, written by Alvin Plantinga, where he compares how probable evolution is to be true given a Christian or atheistic worldview. Have you heard of it by any chance?

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Just to be clear if I'm misunderstanding something. You agree with me that Stenger is right in bringing up the ways our reason can fool us. Both Christians, and naturalists have to deal with the fact that we can be fooled. What is it exactly that you're criticizing? Is it your point that he hasn't given what you see as sufficient reasons to believe that the world is rational? I just want to know what you're criticizing. If that's true and he did an inadequate job of doing that, then I have no further comment.

Yes. He has given me no reason to believe the world is rational.




Are you sure? I get conflicting reports on this from Christians.

Yes. After all, my report is based upon my personal belief and not what others believe. If some believe that if macroevolutionary theory is true then Christianity is false, that's their problem.


How does the fall work, given that humans descended from apes through entirely naturalistic means? If I could demonstrate to you that throughout all history there have been human struggles and wars, famine and disease all the way from the early hominids to Australopithecus all the way to the Old World Apes from which we descended. How does original sin work in such a world?

I would say "Of course it does. The only perfect human ever was Christ. Either Adam and Eve fell, or the first ones with a divine spark that became Adam and Eve fell.


I'm asking because you often say that you wouldn't have any theological problems if natural evolution was true.

Correct.




Unless you mean merely to give a bad reason why atheists believe in evolution, this constitutes a poisoning of the well fallacy (http://www.fallacyfiles.org/poiswell.html). Even if true that atheists have an inherent bias towards evolution because its 'the only game in town', that would not actually show that the theory of natural evolution is false. You'd have to argue for that on a separate basis. Is Christianity proven false, by Christians having motivations for believing that are emotional ala Way of the Master and praying for a warm feel ala Mormons?

My point is that an atheist can have more of a vested interest in having to prove some theory to hold a worldview that is prior. There is no other option. Atheism by definition MUST exclude several options. Theism doesn't have to.


And you still have to contend with the fact that most evolutionary biologists are Christians, and that even if atheists were secretly pushing the naturalistic evolution, you'd still have "open-minded" Christians who could correct them. Why isn't this happening? One of the biggest enemies of creationism in all its forms including intelligent design, who was one of the main witnesses during the Dover Trials was Kenneth Miller, a devout Roman Catholic. You yourself cite Christians who are evolutionists.

My contention is not with Christians advancing macroevolutionary theory but with atheists making religion vs. evolution an either/or.


And I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to find an article I've heard about, written by Alvin Plantinga, where he compares how probable evolution is to be true given a Christian or atheistic worldview. Have you heard of it by any chance?

Not that I've heard of. Philosophickle, whatever name he's going on by here now, might know about it.

[Leonhard]

My point is that an atheist can have more of a vested interest in having to prove some theory to hold a worldview that is prior. There is no other option. Atheism by definition MUST exclude several options. Theism doesn't have to.

And I repeat what I said. The way you used it constitutes a poisoning of the well. Its a short attack on the intellectual integrity of atheists. All I have to respond is that you can argue rationally for evolution, without appeal to prior commitments of atheism or theism. Both are arguing for evolution, both can argue for evolution and both can evaluate alternative claims.

Its not quite clear what your argument actually was. Its hard to get what exactly your point is by sifting through your post. All I saw was that you said that Stenger wanted everything to be based on science, then you brought up some example of Christians not dismissing evolution out of hand, then you said that its a problem for atheists.

What prevents an atheist from evaluating theistic claims and worldviews? For example Intelligent Design Creationism talk about finding signatures of intelligent design. I'll go so far as to agree that some atheists argued, that since ID wasn't natural it didn't constitute science. Mind you that Kenneth Miller did the same. Still, it was also shot down because ID never made any verifiable claims or predictions. Getting an IDst to actually admit what 'complex specified information' is turned out to be impossible. At most you can get that 'complex specified information' is information that can't come about by natural processes... well duh... how do we know it can't come about from natural processes? You will either find a definition of 'specified complex information' that's insufficient to identify it in the natural world. Or you'll find definitions which are inconclusive as to whether blind natural forces suffice. An example of the latter is William Dembski's Intelligent Design and No Free Lunch.

You also have creationists who argue against the validity of the fossil record, genetic evidence, the determination of age and so forth. However all those disputes are about natural facts, that are as accessible to an atheist as it is to a Christian. The atheist might be biased towards evolution, but she could still evaluate criticism of it. As I've said, all of the fossil records could turn out to be inconclusive and it wouldn't touch the theory of evolution. So even an atheist wouldn't be preset against criticism of the fossil record, even if they were compromised intellectually with prepositional bias. So why is the fossil record a stable of evolutionary biology, part of the whole concept of common descent, in spite there being a large Christian presence within the halls of biology and evolution standing with or without the fossil record?

An atheist is just as free as a Christian to evaluate the fossil record, and all the other evidence for evolution. And both sides come to the same conclusions. Exceptions? Yes, and again they are on both sides. The Discovery Institute wheels out David Berlinski, to show that they have an atheist in their ranks every now and then.

And finally, aren't you assuming that atheism is a presupposition not based upon anything? One could in fact have simpler presuppositions and then derive atheism as an empirical and/or logical conclusion, ala what Richard Carrier does in Sense and Goodness without God. Now I know you don't buy any of the arguments, but an atheist of that type wouldn't necessarily evaluate the likelihood of evolution based on his atheism, but on whatever epistemology he has for figuring out claims of truth.

Do you presuppose that Christianity is true? Or do you arrive at that as a conclusion?

[ApologiaPhoenix]

On to chapter five.

(For all waiting here for me to reply, the only post I make on Sunday is this one.)

The link can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/the-new-atheism-holy-smoke/)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters, the place where we constantly dive into the ocean of truth! We’re going through Victor Stenger’s book “The New Atheism: Taking A Stand For Science And Reason.” Tonight, we’re going to be going through the fifth chapter, “Holy Smoke.”

Stenger begins by saying that the Roman world was not steeped in sin prior to Christianity. Core values of polytheism were religious liberty and diversity.

Which explains the testimony of Tacitus about what Nero did to the early Christians and the testimony of Pliny the Younger on what he was today with the Christians he had captured.

Sources Stenger gives on the first-century world? Not a one. Nothing is mentioned about how families would have little girls left out in the wild to die simply because the father did not want to raise a girl. Nothing is said about how it has been said that one of the great miracles was that there even was a church in Corinth. Nothing is said about the sexual practices of the mystery religions.

We are told polytheism did not have holy wars, inquisitions, and crusades.

Although I would have thought crusades and holy wars were the same….

The world prior to Christianity had war just like any other time and it would often have been seen as the gods of one nation fighting against the gods of another nation. The very actions that Stenger will condemn in this chapter are the ones that were actually commonplace back then.

Stenger cites Jonathan Kirsch on the history of warfare between polytheism and monotheism. Kirsch says the following:

The men who hijacked and crashed four civilian airliners were inspired to sacrifice their own lives, and to take the lives of several thousand “infidels,” because they had embraced the simple but terrifying logic that lies at the heart of monotheism: if there is only one god, if there is only one way to worship that god, then there is only one fitting punishment for failing to do so: death.

In a way, Kirsch is right. If there is one God and one way to worship Him, the fitting punishment for failing to do so is death. The part where he errors is where he assumes that a religion will have its followers take that judgment into their own hands rather than waiting on God to judge.

The logic that lies at the heart of monotheism is simply this: There is one God. That doesn’t necessarily mean “Kill all who oppose.” In fact, for Christians, it means the opposite. Gather as many as you can into the fold of the one God so that all can find shelter in his arms.

We can readily show several examples of Islamic terrorism, but how numerous are the examples of Christian terrorism? When an abortion doctor gets shot, it makes headline news. One reason it can do so is because it is something that is extremely rare. Christian charities being formed around the world however don’t get any mention. In fact, speaking of the Crusades as Stenger does, there were people know as Hospitalers then who made it their goal to help the sick. In fact, reading about them in Jonathan Riley Smith’s “A Short History of the Crusades,” I can imagine some people would want to be injured for the fine cuisine and the excellent sleeping conditions. (I am not using sarcasm at all in this.)

Keep in mind that it’s not even brought up if this belief is true or not. It’s simply a belief with a consequence that is not even true that isn’t liked. I am a monotheist because I believe that is true and not because I necessarily like the view. I also see problems with atheism and polytheism.

Stenger claims that religious terrorism is found in the Bible. His first citation is Deuteronomy 13:6-11.

6 If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), 8 do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. 9 You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. 10 Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 11 Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.

This isn’t terrorism. Terrorism is one group trying to strike fear in another group. By this standard, a police force could be considered terrorist. Israel however lived in a theocracy and to live in the covenant with YHWH meant to live by the rules of YHWH. Anything against that was seen as treason. This was a charge that is still taken seriously today, and all the more seriously in a society ruled by God. The Israelites were not told to go out and slay the pagan nations around them for being pagan and engaging in polytheism. Preach against them? Prophecy against them? Sure. They were instead told to be priests for all the nations.

Stenger would have his readers believe this is to be a precedent for all time that all Christians are to take someone who comes into their home telling them to worship the Mormon god or the Islamic god outside and stone them. This is not the case. This is only for a theocracy.

Stenger then says Israel’s enemies were given no mercy, not even the innocent. Consider Exodus 12:29-30.

29 At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. 30 Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.

Okay boys and girls. What is Stenger leaving out? That’s right! He’s not mentioned that the Israelites were in Egypt at that time suffering under conditions of slavery. He also does not mention that this was after nine other plagues where God had shown his power to Pharaoh. He completely misses as well that God had even said that anyone could avoid the effects of this plague by the blood of a lamb on their door.

But no, Stenger just says Israel’s enemies were given no mercy, not even the innocent. Absent is any context. Had Stenger spent a few minutes looking at the surrounding context, he might have had a clue.

Stenger next tells of how the people of Betshe’mesh weren’t spared. What did they do? They looked into the Ark of the Lord. Stenger has a text that says the number killed was 50,070. It is questionable whether this is the actual number. However, these were Israelites also (Stenger places this right after Israel’s enemies not being spared so it’s unclear whether he’s ignorant that this was part of Israel). They would have known about the holiness of the Lord and how such actions were to be avoided.

Stenger also tells about how the Israelites suffered when a plague was sent when King David had a census. The plague took the lives of 70,000.

Absent from this is any mention that censuses were to be avoided. Absent is any mention on how plagues were normally far more devastating so what happened was light in comparison. Absent is any mention that the king suddenly dying with enemies all around would have been far worse for the nation as a whole. No. YHWH takes a life and he is automatically in the wrong. (It is amazing that those who often complain about evil complain just as much when God judges evil)

And of course, there’s a classic account these types always love to bring up. That is the judgment on Midian in Numbers 31. The text cited is as follows:

15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the LORD’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

Obviously, the Israelites were keeping the women alive who were virgins so they could be sex slaves.

Or maybe not….

Could it be that in Numbers 25 this nation had tried to bring about ruin for Israel by bringing about the judgment of God through seducing them sexually and leading them to worship other gods? Could it be that the virgins were spared because they had not taken part in the act? There is no context given to the statements by Stenger.

For a fuller look, I recommend the excellent article by Glenn Miller of the Christian-thinktank that can be found here (http://christian-thinktank.com/midian.html)

After all of this, Stenger gives his source. What is it?
See for yourself. (http://www.nobeliefs.com/DarkBible/DarkBibleContents.htm)

Any scholarly material? Any commentaries? Any real attempts to study the text? Not at all. Stenger would not appreciate it if we treated his science as light-heartedly as he treats the Bible.

Moving on to the New Testament, we see the constant reference is Dan Barker’s “Godless” and Luke 12:47-48 is used to show that Jesus approved of slavery.

Or it could be Jesus was using a practice at the time in the Roman world that would have been understood.

We’re also told Jesus never spoke out against poverty. (Despite all he told about how money can lead to much evil and one should not be bound to their possessions and condemned those who robbed the poor and said that when we threw a banquet we should invite the poor) Stenger tells of the time ointment was sacrificed on Christ that could have been sold for a year’s wages. Stenger says in reply to Jesus’s words that we would not have Him with us always but we would the poor, “Pretty selfish and arrogant for a benevolent God, wouldn’t you say?”

Yes. After all, we should not honor God as God while He is with us. It is the kind of mindset at work that thinks it’s egotistical for God to expect us to worship Him. Instead, it is simply that we are to treat Him as the highest good because He is in fact the highest good.

Stenger then uses the example of Luke 19:27 and the slave to be beat in the presence of the king and tells us that Jesus is comparing Himself to that king. He precedes this by saying that this is the opinion of Dan Barker “who has studied the Bible far more deeply than I have.”

Nothing like second-hand research is there? Any contrary opinions cited? Not a one.

It’s the same situation however. This is referring to a king Israel had recently gone to protest being their king and was made their king anyway. Jesus is indeed making a comparison and speaking of judgment coming on those who oppose Him as the ruler He is. He is not advocating going out and beating with many blows political dissidents.

In defending the notion that atheism does not lead to deaths of innocents, he talks about the holocaust and says the reason that six million Jews died was because they were Jewish. If there were no religion, no one would be killed for being Jewish. Therefore, it is the fault of religion that six million Jews were killed.

So I suppose that if Muslims wanted to blow up a country of atheist infidels, it would be the fault of the atheists for being infidels. No. In this case, it would be the fault of the Muslims for being Muslims.

Thus, the deaths in the holocaust are blamed on religion.

Amazing the twisted logic that takes place.

Stenger also wants to talk about the atrocities of the Dark Ages. First off, no historian today would call that period the Dark Ages. It was a name given to set it in contrast to the Enlightenment. The so-called Dark Ages actually had a lot of light to them and were the foundation of what we have today.

For a look at supposed atrocities, I recommend the Christian crimeline found here (http://www.tektonics.org/af/crimeline.htm). Naturally, I also have no problem with further study on any of these topics. A local library can be of great help here.

Stenger goes on to list atrocities that took place with Mormonism, and I do not deny those. I think there is clear evidence of the Mountain Meadows Massacre and I have a number of problems with the Mormon church. Stenger’s approach however is to show one case in the Mormon church that is by nature extreme, and then think that all other cases must be like this.

On a sidenote, he has a statement in this section about choosing a Mormon event since Mormonism is about 180 years old and ancient history is harder by comparison. He states that we know Joseph Smith existed but “We cannot be anywhere near as sure for Muhammad and Jesus, for whom there is really little if any historical evidence, and we can almost say for sure that Abraham and Moses are not historical figures.”

Again, no source listed on this. No citation of a scholar in history who really takes the Christ-myth hypothesis seriously.

Stenger says that the extreme example above however is “a detailed demonstration of how anyone who thinks he possesses absolute truth is capable of any horrible act, which is justified in his mind by that belief.”

First off, notice that Stenger does not say “absolute religious truth” but “absolute truth”, which would mean that the problem is not being religious but rather with having a truth claim. Of course, not all truth claims are created equal. I believe absolutely you should love your neighbor as yourself. Does that mean that I will commit horrible acts as a result?

Second, all people believe claims to be absolutely true. Statements like this just make me not take Stenger seriously. If he doesn’t think his position is the absolute truth, why on Earth is he writing a book trying to promote it?

Stenger does however make a statement eventually that I can sadly agree with.

Christians do not read the Bible either. If they did, they wouldn’t be Christians. They listen to selected verses read from the pulpit and taught in so-called “Bible Study” sessions.

I will say I have read my Bible. I have read it a number of times. However, I do agree that most Christians do not. Most Christians only know the verses their pastor reads. Most do in fact have so-called “Bible Study” sessions where it’s more studying our interpretations of the text rather than the text itself.

And these Christians don’t have a clue what to do when someone like Stenger or Barker comes up to them with the nonsense that we find in this chapter. The only reason Stenger can get away with this in any sense is because he is counting on his audience to be ignorant, and sadly, they usually are.

Let this be a call to Christians. We don't need to be ignorant. A lot of these passages are tough. No doubt We need to look at them however and realize saying “I don’t like it, therefore it didn’t happen” isn’t an argument (For an excellent look at different views on the kind of texts spoken of here, I recommend “Show Them No Mercy.”).

The only reason atheism is gaining a foothold here is because Christians dropped the ball and got more interested in studying ourselves than studying the God who we claim to worship. We can do better.

We shall continue tomorrow.

[jpholding]

Still, it was also shot down because ID never made any verifiable claims or predictions. Getting an IDst to actually admit what 'complex specified information' is turned out to be impossible. At most you can get that 'complex specified information' is information that can't come about by natural processes... well duh... how do we know it can't come about from natural processes? You will either find a definition of 'specified complex information' that's insufficient to identify it in the natural world. Or you'll find definitions which are inconclusive as to whether blind natural forces suffice. An example of the latter is William Dembski's Intelligent Design and No Free Lunch.

As an information broker myself I don't think its that hard to detect "specified complex information" -- it's just hard to explain it in a comprehensive way because information can be presented in so many varied and coded expressions. That's probably why it is "impossible" to define it -- it's like asking someone to define "the laws of the state of Florida." No definition of "the laws of the state of Florida" can be anything but a meaningless tautology unless and until you report each and every state law in the FL statutes.

The only way to define "specified complex information" is within an information system in which the comprehensive parameters are known. The only way to "define" these things is by example but even this can run into problems because information can be presented in so many ways. To wit:

My ministry partner like to use the example of an arrowhead versus a rock with a vaguely arrowhead-like shape. The former would be hard to designate as not intelligently designed. The latter would be hard to designate as intelligently designed. Still, the shapes are simple enough that someone opposed to ID might make a fuss and argue that the manmade arrowhead COULD have been shaped by natural forces (a hard coincidence to swallow), while a very clumsy caveman might have "designed" the one designated as not designed.

A more definitive example he uses is that of Stone Mountain, GA, with its carving of Confederate heroes on one side, and its plain surface on the other side. Now it becomes impossible to say one side was not designed (the carving, of course), while the other side is hard to designate as anything but non-designed.

I can see some disgruntled anti-IDer trying to argue that the blank side of Stone Mountain COULD have been designed, it just may be a simple design. Don't know if they would argue that, since it seems it would undercut their purpose. But at that point we ask, why would we think the blank side was designed? For what purpose? The carved side has a clear purpose. What's the purpose of the blank side?

In any event, if nothing else, the definition of "specified complex information" is difficult because the nature of the question requires case by case consideration -- not because it is an incoherent concept incapable of being defined.

[jpholding]

We are told polytheism did not have holy wars, inquisitions, and crusades.

Of course it did. State and religion were thoroughly interwined in the ancient world; EVERY war was a "holy war".



Stenger cites Jonathan Kirsch on the history of warfare between polytheism and monotheism.

Kirsch = idiot journalist. The supposed distinction is actually between monolatry and polyalatry. In addition, polytheists hardly were tolerant of every god in every pantheon. The Romans hated Jewish monolatry and also despised the superstitions of Egypt and of the druids. It's just as simple to say that only a certain cluster of gods are the right ones.



Stenger then uses the example of Luke 19:27 and the slave to be beat in the presence of the king and tells us that Jesus is comparing Himself to that king. He precedes this by saying that this is the opinion of Dan Barker “who has studied the Bible far more deeply than I have.”

Dan Barker as a source? Pfft...and he refers to the "Dark Ages"? This guy is a physicist? Did he write his dissertation in crayon?

[ApologiaPhoenix]

And I repeat what I said. The way you used it constitutes a poisoning of the well. Its a short attack on the intellectual integrity of atheists. All I have to respond is that you can argue rationally for evolution, without appeal to prior commitments of atheism or theism. Both are arguing for evolution, both can argue for evolution and both can evaluate alternative claims.

One worldview however rules out a priori anything contrary. If one is an atheist, then it must be explainable by scientific means so that if fiat creationism was the way living beings came about, then one worldview automatically can never know the truth. The atheist has to use scientific means and right now, evolution is the best scientific explanation. If the atheist wishes to hold to his atheism, then he must defend that.


Its not quite clear what your argument actually was. Its hard to get what exactly your point is by sifting through your post.

I'm not making an argument so much as responding to a pseudo-argument.


All I saw was that you said that Stenger wanted everything to be based on science, then you brought up some example of Christians not dismissing evolution out of hand, then you said that its a problem for atheists.

Yes. The Christian can base his worldview on more than just science. We don't have to have everything be scientific because not everything IS scientific. Now there are some things that are scientific and science is great for studying them, but there are some things that are not.


What prevents an atheist from evaluating theistic claims and worldviews? For example Intelligent Design Creationism talk about finding signatures of intelligent design. I'll go so far as to agree that some atheists argued, that since ID wasn't natural it didn't constitute science. Mind you that Kenneth Miller did the same. Still, it was also shot down because ID never made any verifiable claims or predictions.

I also believe some such claims could be outside the realm of science but would require the working of science with other fields such as philosophy and theology. It is simply saying there is a final cause for these things, a teleology. It's not arguing against mechanism. In fact, if you believe in a final cause, you believe in a mechanism to develop that final cause.


Getting an IDst to actually admit what 'complex specified information' is turned out to be impossible. At most you can get that 'complex specified information' is information that can't come about by natural processes... well duh... how do we know it can't come about from natural processes? You will either find a definition of 'specified complex information' that's insufficient to identify it in the natural world. Or you'll find definitions which are inconclusive as to whether blind natural forces suffice. An example of the latter is William Dembski's Intelligent Design and No Free Lunch.

I like JPH's answer here. I'd also say it's just as difficult to determine what is meant by the word "random."


You also have creationists who argue against the validity of the fossil record, genetic evidence, the determination of age and so forth. However all those disputes are about natural facts, that are as accessible to an atheist as it is to a Christian.

Correct.


The atheist might be biased towards evolution, but she could still evaluate criticism of it. As I've said, all of the fossil records could turn out to be inconclusive and it wouldn't touch the theory of evolution. So even an atheist wouldn't be preset against criticism of the fossil record, even if they were compromised intellectually with prepositional bias. So why is the fossil record a stable of evolutionary biology, part of the whole concept of common descent, in spite there being a large Christian presence within the halls of biology and evolution standing with or without the fossil record?

Because they believe it does support their theory, and again, those who disagree are free to criticize it.


An atheist is just as free as a Christian to evaluate the fossil record, and all the other evidence for evolution. And both sides come to the same conclusions. Exceptions? Yes, and again they are on both sides. The Discovery Institute wheels out David Berlinski, to show that they have an atheist in their ranks every now and then.

Which should show it's not driven by theism alone. Is it so awful to think there could be a reason why things are the way they are?


And finally, aren't you assuming that atheism is a presupposition not based upon anything?

No.


One could in fact have simpler presuppositions and then derive atheism as an empirical and/or logical conclusion, ala what Richard Carrier does in Sense and Goodness without God. Now I know you don't buy any of the arguments, but an atheist of that type wouldn't necessarily evaluate the likelihood of evolution based on his atheism, but on whatever epistemology he has for figuring out claims of truth.

I find atheists give the reasons why Christianity cannot be true such as "I do not see God" or "There's too much evil", but when hard-pressed to give independent reasons for atheism, they have nothing. They only have their response to contrary worldviews.


Do you presuppose that Christianity is true? Or do you arrive at that as a conclusion?

You should know. I'm in no way a presuppositionalist. I conclude Christianity is true because Jesus rose from the dead.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

On to the Problem of Evil:

The link can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/the-new-atheism-suffering-and-morality/).

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters, the blog where we dive into the ocean of truth! The ocean diving sometimes means dealing with sharks. Right now, we’re dealing with Victor Stenger in his book “The New Atheism: Taking A Stand For Science And Reason.” Unfortunately, this shark doesn’t have much of a bite. Tonight, we’ll see what he says on suffering and morality.

Stenger starts with the story of Bart Ehrman. (And you’ll notice whenever someone is referred to by the new atheists on the matter of biblical criticism, it is always Ehrman) Ehrman also wrote the book called “God’s Problem: How The Bible Fails To Answer Our Most Important Question — Why We Suffer.”

Now maybe it’s just me, but that has not been the most important question to me and I see that as a question that makes everything to be all about me. It’s saying “What I want to know about the universe is why do I have to suffer in it?” Why not seek the nature of the universe first or if there is a God behind the universe?

For Ehrman, it was really the problem of evil that led him away from his faith, and Ehrman himself would say this. It is a poignant question and very often, it is more emotionally driven than it is logically driven. Why is it that we are going through X suffering? We can think of no good reason and therefore we conclude that there is no good reason.

I will also add that while I believe Christians should give general reasons, it is the burden of proof of the objector on this one. They must show that there is no good reason. They must also deal with all the positive arguments for Christianity and the existence of God. I can say “I do not know the answer to that, but I do see this positive evidence for God’s existence and it overpowers what I see in evil.”

Ehrman points to God judging in Amos 3 and says that this is not the God of love. This is a fierce God who will punish his people for not worshiping Him. In his words, “God is a fierce animal who will rip His people to shreds for failing to worship Him.”

Well, yeah.

These were the people of the covenant. They had bound themselves to Him. This was compared to committing adultery on your spouse. It was the height of betrayal and for that, God abandons his people and leaves them to their other gods to save them, which they are incapable of.

God is a judge. He is never said to be one who sits up in Heaven and lets us get away with whatever we want to get away with. God is a serious judge because sin is a serious matter. If someone doesn’t realize that they don’t realize the holiness of the God Scripture tells of, the heinousness of sin, or both. These same people are thankful we have prison systems I’m sure to lock away criminals who would seek to harm us, but when it comes to our own personal sins, God better not judge!

To make a case on how the Bible treats the threats and promises of God, Stenger first cites Proverbs 11:19.

The truly righteous man attains life,
but he who pursues evil goes to his death.

He then cites Proverbs 12:21.

No harm befalls the righteous,
but the wicked have their fill of trouble.

Stenger then says we can scientifically test both of these and see that the good sometimes suffer while the wicked go through, therefore, the Bible is falsified by the data.

Stenger is a fundamentalist with the Bible.

Proverbs were not meant to be ironclad promises. None of the Jews interpreted them in such a way. They were general principles for how one was to live their life. It is better to live a life of good than a life of evil. If you seek God, you will be benefited by that. If you don’t, it is the way that leads to destruction. It might not be in this life, as Stenger expects, but it will be in the after-death.

Stenger brings up the free-will defense but also asks about natural evil. Why is there that kind of suffering? Once again, Stenger must make the case. He will chide the Christian when they plead ignorance and say “Therefore God”, but he will find it just fine to not know a reason for an evil and say “Therefore atheism.”

Natural evil I find to be a misnomer. Nature is not a moral agent. Still, why should I expect the world to be perfect? From what I see in Scripture, God created this world good, but he did not create it perfect. This is because he knew about the coming fall and created the world knowing what was coming and I would say as the battleground between good and evil to determine who would and who wouldn’t choose God.

A lot of natural evil is also the result of human evil. Consider the Haiti earthquake as an example. Similar earthquakes have hit similar cities and not done as much damage. This one did because of the poor living conditions due to the wickedness of the government keeping the people in poverty. With the tsunami, there were people who knew that it was coming in the area because they understood nature and could identify the signs. Some natural disasters are also essential. Earthquakes help replenish topsoil. Hurricanes held deal with carbon dioxide and bring nutrients to the surface for plants. An excellent look at the question of pain and why it is allowed can be found also in C.S. Lewis’s “The Problem of Pain.”

Stenger then looks at redemptive suffering and says that perhaps some suffering can be redemptive. Then says “Let us again adopt the scientific perspective and look at the data.” The first problem is, that’s not the scientific perspective. Philosophers look at the data. Mathematicians look at the data. Ethicists look at the data. Theologians look at the data. Historians look at the data. There is no scientific test you could do on suffering in this case.

Stenger then goes on to say “What was the redemptive value of the Crusades or the Black Plague or the Holocaust? What is the redemptive value of one child dying of leukemia or millions of children starving to death?” The implication is that first off, if you don’t know it, then there can’t be any redemptive meaning.

However, Stenger is making an error which he should realize. He spoke of this kind of suffering as redemptive suffering meaning he knows there are other kinds. Not all suffering is redemptive suffering. He is wanting to say that if this suffering is not redemptive suffering, then it is not just suffering, while he has admitted that there are other kinds of suffering.

Some of these kinds are free-will suffering. Evil people are doing evil things. We have enough resources right now to end world hunger for instance. Often, it’s evil governments that keep people from getting the food that they need and greedy people elsewhere not distributing as they ought. (I am not speaking in government-forced distribution but generous giving for the sake of giving)

We can also say that any time someone commits an evil act, the evil act itself is never justified. Sinners are justified. Sin never is. However, the evil act itself can be allowed because there is a greater good to come about by that evil. It is not a greater good for God, but for his creation. God cannot be improved in any way. It could bring Him glory, but that is not so He will be better, but also so His creation will see Him as He is.

Stenger also tells about the solution in the Bible is ultimately that God will judge the world and make everything right. Of course, Stenger raises the question here of if Jesus even existed. However, when it comes time to reply, he asks what a scientist is to make of all of this.

Once again, Stenger does not want us to think he is an advocate of scientism, but when he keeps saying this kind of statement over and over, one cannot help but think that he is. A scientist is not an ethicist or a theologian or a literary critic. He can be all of those in some form, but it is not insofar as a scientist, but it is rather in being human.

Stenger says that actually the good suffer sometimes and the wicked don’t and therefore the Bible is falsified. He also says the predictions of the Second Coming are wrong. There is no interaction with different perspectives on interpreting the passages. Nothing about a preterist or futurist response to these passages. It is just assumed without any examination of contrary material.

Stenger goes on to discuss how other religions answer the question, but that is not relevant to our purposes here. (And isn’t it again interesting that while the New Atheists keep saying that Islam is the biggest threat, they spend most of their time pointing their guns at Christians)

Stenger then moves on to morality itself and says “First, it is a tautology to say God is good and defines for us what is good and bad.”

This is a view some hold, but it is not my view. My view is I start with Aristotle and say that the good is that which is desirable for its own sake. Everything desires its own perfection. The ultimate good then is the ultimate perfection and the ultimate perfection is found in God who is goodness in essence. (See my series on the goodness of God in the Summa Theologica) Again, Stenger does not interact with different positions on the matter. He just assumes one.

Second, he tells us that there aren’t any moral principles that are not also embraced by atheists and agnostics. By and large, I would agree with this and wonder “Who claimed otherwise?” In fact, Scripture itself says otherwise as Scripture speaks of the law written on our hearts and that we all know the first principles of right and wrong. This is a position held strongly in Christianity throughout the ages. Stenger is unaware of this. He does not understand the Natural Law tradition and thinks that he has raised an objection. In fact, I would say he has given evidence of my view. There is a morality that transcends us all so much that we all know it. We all know moral truths.

If there are moral truths, then where do these truths reside? Truth is a relationship between the intellect and reality when the intellect has grasped reality as it is. It is saying that there really are moral facts that exist independently of us. We can know them. What is the basis for these facts however? If we create them, they do not transcend us and we can change them. If we do not, then we submit to them and they come from a source beyond us.

Stenger does not understand the debate. His third problem is that despite doctrinal differences, religions all seem to agree on some moral principles. Well of course they do! Morality is not considered under special revelation. You do not need special revelation to know it’s wrong to torture babies for fun. That is general revelation so all religions should have that.

Stenger tells us that the Bible tells us to love our neighbor, but does not point out how one’s neighbor refers to one’s own tribe only supposedly. Where does he get this? There’s no source, but it’s quite likely he’s reading the same article that Richard Dawkins referred to in The God Delusion.

No reference of course is given to the Good Samaritan where Jesus clearly indicated that it is beyond one’s tribe that one is to love. The neighbor was the one that a good Jew at the time would have despised the most. It’s just another example of the limited study of Stenger.

So what’s Stenger’s source for morality? Evolution.

But what is evolution? We are often told that evolution in the atheistic sense is purposeless, in that it only brings about the survival of the fittest without having an end goal in mind, but how can we say that society is progressing through evolution then? Evolution cannot be about progress as that implies progress towards a goal. It is simply change. It would be the same way with morality. Moral principles may change, but how can they become better or worse without the standard?

When we hear from atheists that society is evolving, we understand it to mean that morally we are becoming better and better. We are progressing. Progressing towards what? Where is the ultimate perfection? Is it better for us to love one another, but at the same time for the animals to kill one another? We may say it will result in dysfunctional societies, but that implies also a right way for society to function. What is the basis for such a way?

The problems are manifold. Evolution can explain how we act and some reasons for why we act that way. It cannot tell us however if we are acting the right way. It cannot answer the question of truth because moral claims are about truths of the universe as a whole. It is saying that this is a moral universe and in this universe are moral truths. If you come about them through evolution, fine. However, just saying evolution does not explain the existence of the truths but only the discovery of the truths.

If someone wishes to state the goal, they will need to demonstrate how an amoral universe can have moral truths in it, these truths can be eternal and unchanging, and at the same time reside ultimately in something that is not eternal and unchanging. If the good is constantly changing, we are progressing perhaps, but only towards different targets. There is nothing good in itself. It is just the direction we are going at the time.

We shall continue tomorrow.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Chapter 7.

The link can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/the-new-atheism-the-nature-of-nature/)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters, a blog dedicated to diving into the ocean of truth! Right now, we’re going through Victor Stenger’s book “The New Atheism: Taking A Stand For Science And Reason.” Tonight, we look at chapter 7, “The Nature of Nature.”

We begin with a quote Stenger gives of Thomas Edison saying “Nature made us–nature did it all–not the gods of the religions. Religion is all bunk and all Bibles are man-made.”

This was a quote that struck me as odd thinking that something about it doesn’t seem like something Edison would say and indeed, no record can be found that he did say it. Of course, if someone can find the quote, I will be glad to retract it. I will want to see it in an original source from Edison’s own writings.

Stenger goes on to speak of the nature of the universe and says “According to our best current knowledge, the substance of the universe is matter and nothing else.”

I wouldn’t have a problem really with this statement. The universe is material and thus, it’s material cause will be matter. The question is, “Is the universe all that there is?” That is a question science cannot answer as science can only be authoritative on matter. Now inferences can be drawn, yes, but as soon as inferences are drawn, one is entering the areas of philosophy and theology. It is fine for scientists to make such statements, provided they realize they are stepping outside of the authority of science and are speaking as lay-philosophers, as it were.

Now much of what Stenger goes on to say in this chapter is in his area of expertise, physics. If some physicists wish to comment on that, that is fine. I will not attempt to refute the claims of physics for I am not a physicist. However, when they step outside of their bounds into my area of philosophy, that is where I will deal with them.

Stenger takes part of this time to go against miracles seeing them as violations of the laws of nature with the statement of “No reliably documented miracles have ever been reported in history or science.”

One wonders what is meant exactly by reliably documented. There are several cases were miracles have been documented. It does not mean they are true. One cannot doubt however that they have been documented. To check whether the miracle happened or not is not the area of science. It is the area of philosophy and theology.

When Stenger speaks against miracles, he is not speaking as a physicist, but as a philosopher, and let us remember that C.S. Lewis said that he believed good philosophy needs to exist if for no other reason, than that bad philosophy needs to be answered. Philosophy is unavoidable as is theology and science and history. We will all participate in these fields in some way. The question is, are we going to do bad at them or good at them? Stenger is repeatedly showing, he is a bad philosopher. (As well as bad at theology and history to buy Dawkins’s argument on the nature of God and to buy into the Christ-myth hypothesis)

Were I to speak to Stenger, I would point to the resurrection of Christ from the dead, documented in numerous sources. Now we could dispute those sources and if they happened, but it would be the one I would point to to see if he could give a naturalistic explanation for why Christ rose from the dead.

Stenger is correct when he says matter does not perform miracles but spirit does and if we ever saw a miracle, that would confirm a spiritual being exists. However, the lack of a miracle does not prove the non-existence of a spiritual being. Now I do believe in miracles of course, but I just wish for readers to know that a lack of miracles does not mean a lack of God.

In explaining the origin of the universe, Stenger says there is no need to violate any physical law to account for the universe. Again, I really don’t have much problem. I believe God could use a mechanism that would work by entirely natural means to create the universe. Of course, I also believe he set in place those laws of the universe by which the universe runs, but I have no problem with the early origin of the universe not having to have miracles. (Although I would say the coming into existence of the universe would be a miracle)

Stenger claims to give an account on where the laws of physics come from, but he never does. He simply says they’re not handed down by God but are human inventions. Now it could be I’m being too nit-picky, but the laws themselves aren’t human inventions. The descriptions of them are. The laws themselves are not. Stenger’s poor wording here however I find revealing. He does not understand the way his greatest critics will think about what he has to say.

Stenger’s position is still that the universe came from nothing and it is a point I cannot help but wonder why people think it. Nothing can mean something different to a physicist I’ll grant. However, nothing properly understood is simply non-existence. non-existence is incapable of causing existence. Non-existence cannot be acted on nor can it act on anything else. To say something just popped into existence is not a claim we’d accept for anything else, but we’re to accept it for the universe?

I am amazed that this is supposed to be the rational position. Nothing does not have any properties as has been said so how can science begin to say anything about it. We are always asked how God created the universe, but I would like to know how nothing brought about the universe. At least when understood God has a mind and power. Nothing has, well, nothing.

His final conclusion then on the laws of physics? “They can very well have come from nothing.” Now if you go to our study on the Summa Theologica and the existence/essence distinction, I will argue why God does not need a cause seeing as He is His own being. I bring this up because to many atheists, to say God is the first cause is nonsense, but why on Earth should I posit nothing as the first cause?

I find it amazing that the idea of taking a stand for science and reason means believing in the power of nothing.

We shall continue tomorrow.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Onward!

The link can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/the-new-atheism-the-nature-of-mind/)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters, a blog where we dive into the ocean of truth! Tonight, we’re still tangling with a shark but so far, it hasn’t been much of a battle. We’re looking at Victor Stenger’s book “The New Atheism: Taking A Stand For Science and Reason.” Thus far, I conclude if Stenger was truly standing for science and reason, those two would be in a lot of trouble. Tonight, we’re looking at his chapter on th nature of the mind called simply “The Nature of Mind.”

Stenger gives a brief history of the doctrine of the soul. Of course, he has a lack of sources as he always does when dealing with religious topics. However, I do not wish to nit-pick at that point. It is when he gets to the content of the chapter on the arguments for an immaterial aspect of man that I wish to raise objections.

To begin with, he asserts that theologians believe that religious experience is evidence for a soul. Stenger doesn’t seem to treat this seriously, but I will first off say that this is something that should be considered. It wouldn’t be my first argument, but if one wants to make it, then let them feel free to.

However, absent from that part are any arguments put forward by dualists. I realize some readers might be Christian physicists here (Not in the profession of physicists but in believing that there is not an immaterial aspect to man). However, I also realize that such would admit that there are arguments for dualism. They just don’t think the arguments work. That is quite different from just ignoring the arguments. If the best Stenger has is “religious experience”, then he’s lacking.

His first response is about near-death experiences. Now this is one of the first pieces of evidence I would present to a non-believer for the existence of the soul (Naturally, I could point to biblical passages for a Christian, but this is dealing with the non-believer so we will use the grounds that philosophy recognizes, reason).

Absent in this from Stenger is any example of a near-death experience. He tells us to take such reports of NDE’s with a large bag of salt and then just says “Every such report that has been examined by skeptics has a simple, natural explanation.” No argument given. No link. We are told later to look at another one of his books for his sources, but why can’t Stenger give us some source here? He could have at least pointed to the work of Keith Augustine.

Absent is any reference also to any work by those studying in the field of near-death experiences. There is no looking at Melvin Morse or Michael Sabom or anyone else. None of the cases brought forward by Gary Habermas or J.P. Moreland are mentioned. Apparently, Stenger wants us to take what he says by faith. One wonders what he would think if I simply said “All examples of transitional fossils have been investigated by skeptics and found to be false.” Now I am not asserting that, but surely he would call foul if I just said that, and rightly so.

Now I am also not against being skeptical of near-death experiences. I think we should always be questioning people who have them, but there are cases that have great evidential value and again, I refer the reader to the works of people like Habermas or Sabom for reference.

Stenger goes on to talk about thoughts and matter citing the theologian Thomas Crean who says he cannot think of how thoughts could come from matter. Crean asks how a material thing could cause an immaterial thing to exist.

Stenger first off says this is an argument from ignorance. Second however, he says that a computer is a material thing that can solve mathematical problems and write poetry indistinguishable from that by humans. It can also produce beautiful art and music.

What’s also amazing is that Stenger thinks this is a valid analogy.

Computers are also programmed by human beings with immaterial information and they act on that information. I do see information as immaterial. It is just often transmitted through material means. Right now, I am transmitting information to you. If it was something entirely physical, my giving it to you would mean that I am losing it. I am still retaining the information that I have which you are gaining as well.

The computer does not produce new information. It simply churns out in an altered form that which was already programmed into it. It is not a produce but a transmitter more than anything else. One wonders how Stenger’s worldview even explains the existence of anything immaterial.

If matter is all there is, then matter must act on matter according to the laws of nature. Are the laws of nature capable of bringing out of matter that which is not material? It would be interesting for Stenger to tell us how this would come about. It would seem to be a miracle, which his system cannot allow.

However, while Stenger says Crean uses the argument from ignorance, he goes after theistic philosophers Goetz and Taliaferro because they do not know how exactly it is that an event in the brain that is nonphysical can bring about a physical action. Stenger argues that they don’t even have a model.

So note this everyone. When a theologians says he cannot see how matter can produce the immaterial, therefore matter is not all there is, he is using an argument from ignorance. When Stenger says he does not see how the immaterial can affect the material, therefore matter is all there is, he is not using the argument from ignorance.

There is no doubt that both sides have difficult questions to answer, but to chide one’s opponent for what one is guilty of himself is a huge double-standard. This is especially evidence since Stenger attacks Crean on one page for doing something and then defends himself against Goetz and Taliaferro the same way on the next page.

Stenger also says that theologians just say “God did it.” Scientists say “We don’t know, but we’ll try to find out.” This is simply false however. The history of science has been loaded with numerous theists who wanted to figure out how God did it. They always asserted God as the efficient cause somehow, with good reasons for believing in the existence of God, but they also sought to know the instrumental cause. How is it that God does what he does? Newton thought his system of mechanism did not detract from God but rather increased the glory of God. Kingsley praised Darwin for a mechanism that produced machine-making machines.

Theists are not against mechanism. They are simply saying that mechanism does not rule out God as an efficient cause nor does it eliminate the possibility of final causes. I as a non-scientist will say of creation that God did it, because I believe he is a divine creator. I leave it to the scientists to find out the instrumental means. However, my lack of knowledge of an instrumental cause or maybe even a final cause does not rule out knowing the efficient cause. An example of this would be to watch or read a mystery sometime. You can know who did the crime without knowing how or why.

Stenger then mocks mind-body dualism as a common sense belief. He asks us if we know what those are and tells us that those are the same beliefs that tell us that the world is flat. Ironically, that common sense did not seem to be for those in the ancient and medieval period. They knew the world was a sphere and most could tell you its circumference.

Stenger quotes Goetz and Taliaferro again who say the following:

If a person is convinced that his reasons for believing that he is a non-spatial entity and that he causally interacts with a physical body are better than any reasons he is given for believing that there can be no non-causal pairing relations between a non-spatial soul and a physical body that makes possible causal interactions between the two, then he will be justified in asserting the existence of such a relation even though he does not know what it is.

How does Stenger interpret this? “In other words, a person can believe whatever he wants to believe even if he doesn’t know what it is he believes.”

It is a wonder how Stenger gets that out of that.

What Goetz and Taliaferro are saying is that one can have reasons that are primary for believing in something without knowing all the secondary reasons. For instance, I believe there are strong arguments for the existence of God, such as the existence/essence distinction and the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. In light of this, I’m allowed to believe despite secondary problems that I don’t know all about, such as why God allows possible evils to occur. I believe if a naturalist thinks he has reasons to believe in naturalistic evolution, he’s allowed to do that even if he doesn’t have an explanation yet for the origin of life. He believes answers will come to secondary questions because primary ones have been answered.

Stenger believes an immaterial force acting on the brain violates laws of conservation of energy and asks why these laws can be violated but not other laws such as the forbidding of homosexual marriage or condoms.

First off, not all evangelical and orthodox Christians think the use of condoms is a sin. Orthodox Catholics do, but not all Protestants. Second, let’s suppose somehow physical laws are broken. I’m not convinced they are. Stenger gives me no reason to think such. Why is it that those can be broken but not moral laws?

It is because moral laws refer to something that is unchanging, God’s nature which is goodness itself. Physical laws do not as they apply only to the universe and could have been other than they are. Goodness could not be other than it is. Stenger’s reply could have been answered at the level of high school apologetics. This is basic stuff.

Stenger goes on to ask that if we have a soul and it is that which sins, then shouldn’t the soul be punished? His thought after this is that the more we learn, the more incoherent religious beliefs become.

It only takes a moment’s reflection to see the nonsense in this reply. The soul sins through the medium of the body and through the information it receives in the body. The sin of lust is a sin of the mind for instance, but it is a sin done through the information received through the body. The soul is punished and often through the medium of the body. I assure you when I feel pain, I do reflect on it and a lot of the agony is my mental awareness of what I am going through physically.

Stenger asks why the soul isn’t punished. The Christian response is “IT IS!”

Stenger also goes after Mario Beauregard saying that Beauregard relies on the argument from ignorance. I simply defy and reader to go get a copy of Beauregard’s “The Spiritual Brain” and see if he is simply using an argument from ignorance. Stenger repeatedly thinks he can just hand-waive away anything that he disagrees with with one statement. It doesn’t work here.

Now none of this is proof of the existence of the soul. That would be a whole other work. My point here is to show that Stenger’s arguments here simply do not work and his argumentation is simply shoddy. He is following reductionistic thinking with the idea that everything must be reduced to scientific means. Now it could be that everything is physical in nature and science can explain all, but Stenger gives no reason to believe that.

We shall continue tomorrow.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

And we continue:

The link to tonight's blog can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/the-new-atheism-the-way-of-nature/)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters, where we dive into the ocean of truth! Right now, we’re going through Victor Stenger’s book “The New Atheism: Taking A Stand For Science And Reason.” So far, not much of a stand has been made yet. Tonight, we’re looking at the chapter called “The Way of Nature” which is simply a look at the way we should live.

A bulk of this is spent looking at the way other worldviews have treated the way of life. How have great thinkers suggested we should live. Stenger will then contrast that with the atheistic worldview and tell us how it is that an atheist should live. Of course, he’s not too far in the chapter before another statement of faith shows up. Stenger says the following about the time of the Jews in and around the exile:

Having lost everything that was external, the people of Israel began to turn inward. The exiles in Babylon also reoriented their view. The book of Job may have been written there. Since YHWH behaved so badly in that story, this may indicate that the exiles were losing faith in him. Other parts of the Old Testament may also have been written then–almost certainly Genesis, which is at least partially based on the Babylonian creation myth.

Sources cited? Not a one. Again, Stenger would not put up with deep scientific claims being made without some backing behind them. He’s quite fine however with making claims about history, and particularly religious history, without bothering to tell a source for the information.

To begin with, if the exiles were losing faith in YHWH, it’s a wonder that when they returned, the first thing they did was begin to build a temple starting with the altar so that they could offer sacrifices. Does he have any indication that the Jews decided to abandon their heritage in this time?

Also, what evidence is there that Genesis was written at this time? Absent is any look at biblical archaeology with data on dating the Old Testament books. No mention of the work of evangelical scholars like Walter Kaiser or Meredith Kline. There isn’t even a mention of the JEPD theory which Stenger seems to be alluding to, nor is there any response from those who contend against it.

Furthermore, if Genesis was written then, why would the book include commands about what Abraham’s children were to do which Israel failed to do? Why would it focus on YHWH entirely when the people were supposedly losing faith in YHWH? This doesn’t mention the other books ascribed to Moses that repeatedly chronicled the failures of Israel and how they were to be holy.

Why say God performed badly in Job? Does Stenger know that Job is commonly said to be the oldest book there in the Bible? Does he refer to any scholarship in the book of Job so that he can understand what is going on? No. It is enough for Stenger to just assert.

But he is a man of faith after all.

Finally, what evidence is there that the Genesis account of creation was a copy of the Babylonian account? Stenger does not give any sources. Not only does he not give any sources, he acts as if there were no rebuttals. It’s hard to take Stenger’s side seriously when he seems ignorant of what his opponents are saying.

Stenger also says science would have continued on the rise had it not been for the dark ages. First off, what historians today refer to the period as the dark ages? Second, the reason many sciences were not on the rise was that they were not seen as practical. Medicine continued well because medicine had an impact on day to day life for people. Knowing how the planets moved, on the other hand, did not. Now I’m not saying that’s unimportant. There is much we can learn. However, most of us would prefer that if any money be invested, it would be invested in the medical field more than other fields since we rely on medicine so much more.

The church was not hostile to science and many great scientists rose up in the church, but that was after the church made it possible to have more leisure time. Prior to that, most families spent the majority of their time just trying to survive. Progress was made in agriculture that enabled people to get a good supply of food with less time and effort on crops. The printing press came which allowed for the distribution of ideas faster and more efficiently. Thus, more people were educated and able to study.

For further research, I recommend Rodney Stark’s “The Victory of Reason.” I also recommend the material that can be found at the site of the Bede here (http://www.bede.org.uk/historyindex.htm)


Stenger goes on to write about other worldviews but of course, his worst criticisms are saved for the monotheistic faiths of the West. He says:

In the West, this emphasis on the ego is even more pronounced. Jews continue to regard themselves as the chosen people of God. And who could be more self-centered than Muslims and Christians, who believe that for a few simple duties for a short period on Earth they will live forever in perfect bliss!

Do Jews regard themselves as the chosen people of God? Sure they do. That proves they’re not how. Now if there is no God, of course they’re not. Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean they believe that for self-centered reasons. They could believe the Old Testament texts are reliable for various reasons and if that’s what they say, then they are to believe them.

However, where does he get his view of Christian faith? Stenger is making the mistake of thinking what the believers believe is supposed to be all about them. Now in a sense, the modern church can grant that impression and I will give Stenger that. That is the fault of the modern church however.

The offer of God is not meant to show how incredible His followers are. It is meant to show how awesome and wonderful His love and grace are. When the Christian speaks of the way God loves him, it is not meant to emphasize the Christian, but God. God loves someone so much who does not deserve that love. The proper response to the love and grace of God is not pride. It is humility.

In going on to talk about spirituality, Stenger brings up psychic phenomena briefly, which he doesn’t believe in. He brings up the question of how a mind is possible in a material world. Stenger replies “As we saw in chapter 8, while we do not know the answer yet, there does not seem to be any obstacle to a purely material mind.”

Now it could be that there is a purely material mind, but Stenger has evoked a naturalism of the gaps in contrast to a God of the gaps. What evidence has Stenger presented for his naturalism? I could grant all he says about physics and still not have a problem (I do not grant his inferences of course). We’ve seen repeatedly that Stenger is also lacking in his criticisms of theism, and particularly Christian theism. Stenger does have faith indeed, and it is a faith that is built on sand.

Stenger continues to say that being an atheist, it means that one is free to live their life as they wish without anyone telling them what to do or think. Since there is one life, they live it to the fullest.

Meaning what?

There is a best way to live life? How can that be unless there are ways that are better than others? Who is to say Stalin did not live his life to the fullest? Stenger will require an objective moral standard in order to make this claim and thus far, he has yet to give one or seriously interact with theistic arguments for one.

He also says the observable facts are that atheists are at least as moral as theists. Maybe so. But on what grounds? I contend that a lot of atheists still live this way because we live in a world that has been Christianized with morals that our ancestors in pagan times did not observe.

Furthermore, the claim theists make is not an argument about “Who lives better?” although I think we as Christians are put to shame when those without the Holy Spirit live better than we do as a whole, but who has the basis for morality. This is the same mistake often made by both sides when they ask “Who’s the most educated?” or “Who’s the happiest?” Those are interesting areas to study, but they do not change the truth content of the beliefs.

Stenger can enjoy his life, but even to enjoy means that there is something good to enjoy, and he has yet to establish that.

Tomorrow, we shall finish the book with his final chapter.

[Petersean]

Stenger gives a brief history of the doctrine of the soul. Of course, he has a lack of sources as he always does when dealing with religious topics. However, I do not wish to nit-pick at that point. It is when he gets to the content of the chapter on the arguments for an immaterial aspect of man that I wish to raise objections.

To begin with, he asserts that theologians believe that religious experience is evidence for a soul. Stenger doesn’t seem to treat this seriously, but I will first off say that this is something that should be considered. It wouldn’t be my first argument, but if one wants to make it, then let them feel free to.

New atheists like Stenger seem to be entirely ignorant of the classical theological arguments.

Does Stenger give any indication of being aware of Aristotle's De Anima or the argument for the soul offered by St. Thomas Aquinas [e.g., Part 1, Q. 75]?

Does he know that there are arguments other than near death experience, or does he just discount all other arguments ab initio as being "dualistic"?

[ApologiaPhoenix]

New atheists like Stenger seem to be entirely ignorant of the classical theological arguments.

I think you could easily replace "seem to be" with "are."


Does Stenger give any indication of being aware of Aristotle's De Anima or the argument for the soul offered by St. Thomas Aquinas [e.g., Part 1, Q. 75]?

Don't be silly! That would mean he'd have to interact with Christian thinking and it would also mean he'd have to admit thinking exists in Christian community. We all know it couldn't until the scientific age came along so who needs to listen to those pre-scientific idiots?

btw, since you came here through Deeper Waters, and thanks for the comment on my blog, I did do recently on there a blog review of the doctrine of God using the Summa Theologica.

[QUOTE]Does he know that there are arguments other than near death experience, or does he just discount all other arguments ab initio as being "dualistic"?

If he does, he gives no indication of it. For Stenger and others, the only reason people believe religious beliefs is because of blind faith.

Along those lines, I love Thomistic arguments, and I'll uphold them, but be warned that around here, some atheists think it's enough to say "13th century monk" as if that refutes the great thinker.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Final Chapter.

The link to tonight's blog can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/10/01/the-new-atheism-the-future-of-atheism/).

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Tonight, we’re going to do the final chapter in Victor Stenger’s book “The New Atheism: Taking A Stand For Science And Reason.” In this chapter, Stenger looks at the future of atheism.

I recall the words Ravi Zacharias said once that he got from an unnamed professor of his. Ravi stated that prediction is always difficult, especially about the future.” Stenger and I predict very different things about the future. I will give mine another day, but for now, let us spend our time examining his.

To begin with, Stenger starts with a history of religion. He tells of how supernatural forces were invoked as leaders sought to control the people. What’s missing? You guessed it! Sources! Stenger gives a just-so story that does not have any documentation and sounds more like a Freudian idea (Which has no backing) than any actual reading of history (Of course, we already know if he had read scholars of history, he would not treat the Christ-myth idea seriously).

Stenger also tells us that religion and morality have always gone hand in hand, but is this the case? The Greeks, for instance, believed in objective moral values, but never seemed to tie them to God. Their gods were often just as depraved as they were, if not more so! Such happened also with gods in other religions. More often, it was about power more than morality. When Sennacherib marches against Judah for instance, he says it is because God told him to. It was the drive for territory and power rather than the goal of being a righteous people.

Stenger instead relies on the social contract idea and says that religion often leads to the breakdown of the conflict. Any examples given? Not one. The problem with social contract theories is that the only reason I should abide by them is that I don’t want to get punished. It’s not because I seek the good of my fellow man. If I can do X and get away with it, then why not?

What about the reformer’s dilemma? What happens when someone wants to change the contract for how we live. Gandhi did. Martin Luther King Jr. Did. The abolitionist movement did. Yet each of these are seen as heroes and if we see ourselves as better, then we have a standard outside of the contract we are pointing to.

Morality without a referent is flawed. Anyone can change the rules at any time and no change is better or worse than another change. In theis, there is a transcendent basis that says that man is good because he exists and existence is good because that is the very nature of God.

How does one live without religion? Stenger tells us that we make our own meaning and meaning, value, and purpose are human ideas. Does he really believe this? Did Charles Manson and Timothy McVeigh and others make their own meaning by determining what lives were of value? If I decide that life has no purpose, then who is to say that I am wrong if that is a human idea? If it has no purpose, why not obliterate my neighbor rather than love him? Now I could instead love him. There’d be no reason to do so. There’d be no reason to not do so. It’d just be something to do.

What about Stenger’s own words? Can I determine my own meaning for them? Could I close the book and say “Stenger wishes we were all theists and thinks atheism is bankrupt!” We rightly decry the postmodern movement, but could it be that the postmodern movement is, as Nietzsche saw, the logical outworking of man’s murdering God?

In talking about religious views, Stenger says it is not coherent to kill for your religious beliefs. Now I do agree my Christianity condemns the taking of innocent life, but if Stenger believes that killing for religious beliefs is incoherent, I’d like to know why. I’m not saying it is. I’m just wondering if he could make an argument for it. The only way would be to describe a way that the universe is in a moral sense and a way we ought to act in response in an obligatory sense. His worldview denies both of those!

In reply to evil, Stenger says the big questions of evil are not answered by theism. Now I believe they are, but my question to him is, are they by atheism? What answer does atheism give? Bertrand Russell once asked what a Christian will say by the bedside of a dying child. That’s a good question! Here’s one that was asked in reply by William Lane Craig. What will Bertrand Russell say?

One reason for adopting a worldview should be the explanatory power that it possesses. If you are going to adopt atheism as your worldview, you need to do so because it can answer questions others can’t. If atheism has no such answers, then I would say be an agnostic instead. It’s far more reasonable.

In summarizing the new atheism, Stenger again repeats the mantra that faith is believing something without evidence. As we have shown, this proves that Stenger is a man of faith since he believes his definition of faith even though he has given no evidence to support it.

Stenger also says many biblical practices such as slavery and the subjugation of women are immoral by modern standards. Now we could argue what slavery is in the biblical period and I think Stenger would come up dreadfully short on what he thinks the Bible is talking about. The most in-depth review online can be found here (http://christian-thinktank.com/qnoslave.html). I also recommend the book by Walter Kaiser “Towards Old Testament Ethics.” Subjugation of women will wait for the next book we review.

What I’d like to comment on however is this idea of modern standards being the source. By this standard, we can simply say everyone else is wrong because they’re different. It is congratulating yourself for reaching a goal and that goal is defined by the place you’re at. Who says modern man is right? Now he could be, but he could also not be and we can’t know unless we have something beyond modern man.

Ironically, Stenger next says that this shows that morality is not constant but evolves with time. Evolves to what? Are we reaching some goal? But if that is the case, then this is no longer naturalistic evolution as that would exclude a final cause, especially in the area of morality. We could agree that morality is changing, but without a standard, it is doing just that. It is not changing for better or for worse. It is just changing.

Finally, Stenger says that religious believers are driven by fear. Stenger reveals more about himself than about his opponents. My life is not lived in the fear of God but the joy of the adventure of learning more every day. I wonder how many religious people Stenger has really talked to to come to this conclusion. I know his research has been lacking, but when I meet someone who is Christian and driven by fear, they are definitely the anomaly.

Stenger has hope for the new atheism. What’s my response to the future of the new atheism?

That will be in my conclusion tomorrow.

[Petersean]

Ironically, Stenger next says that this shows that morality is not constant but evolves with time. Evolves to what? Are we reaching some goal? But if that is the case, then this is no longer naturalistic evolution as that would exclude a final cause, especially in the area of morality. We could agree that morality is changing, but without a standard, it is doing just that. It is not changing for better or for worse. It is just changing.

This puts me in mind of what Chesterton said in Heretics about skeptics who invoke the idea of moral progress:


Progress, properly understood, has, indeed, a most dignified and legitimate meaning. But as used in opposition to precise moral ideals, it is ludicrous. So far from it being the truth that the ideal of progress is to be set against that of ethical or religious finality, the reverse is the truth. Nobody has any business to use the word "progress" unless he has a definite creed and a cast-iron code of morals. Nobody can be progressive without being doctrinal; I might almost say that nobody can be progressive without being infallible-- at any rate, without believing in some infallibility. For progress by its very name indicates a direction; and the moment we are in the least doubtful about the direction, we become in the same degree doubtful about the progress.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Chesterton rocks!

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Time to conclude this book.

The link to tonight's blog is here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/10/03/the-new-atheism-conclusion/)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Sorry about last night, but I had some business that I needed to take care of. If the blog doesn’t come up, there’s no need to assume the worst. Tonight, I’d like to give my conclusions after reading Stenger’s book on the future of atheism.

I see the future of atheism as bleak, and this is largely based on the work of the new atheists. The new atheists come at their topic being unfamiliar with the arguments hoping to prey on a people who are unsuspecting and do not know why they believe what they believe well. It is banking on the ignorance of man.

This is also because of the age of the internet. In many ways now, the internet has been good to us. We do have ready access to much information and one can read scholarly articles online. It is also a good place to have the public exchange of ideas, such as how this blog reaches an audience through Theologyweb.com as well.

However, it has also been said that when ignorance meets ignorance, you simply get more ignorance. This is often why our Bible studies don’t go well as we just sit around and discuss what the text means to us. How many Bible studies get at what the text means? How many sermons really dig into the meat of the Word rather than just go straight to application?

On the internet, this happens often through wikipedia and youtube. With Wiki, anyone can edit anything and ignorance can become fact easily. Who wrote that article? You don’t know. Now I will look at wiki at times for simple basics or at things in the entertainment industry, but not for a real scholarly debate.

YouTube can be a tool for good, but you need to look at who’s making the video? Do they have the credentials that they need? Are their arguments sound? Remember, the presentation of the argument can blind you to the actual argument. This is a way the images can come to do your thinking for you.

In a culture of such ignorance, I think the new atheists will reach some. However, the more informed people are the ones who will not buy into their argumentation. I’m not saying that’s only theists. I admire the atheists who have the guts to come out and say the new atheists are hurting the cause of atheism, and I have seen some atheists write and speak about how bad the books of the new atheists are, and I’m grateful.

Lest anyone misunderstand me, such ignorance is also bad from the theistic perspective, as I’ve hoped to show in speaking about our Bible studies and about our sermons. Too many theists have based their whole worldview on how they feel. In fact, that is where our culture is going entirely. We often make the most important decisions of all based on nothing but feeling.

The problem with the new atheists is not only that they do not know theism. I also do not think they know atheism. An atheist like Nietzsche if he were around today would be tough as nails on the new atheists. He would tell them to get rid of this silly idea they have of morality being a reality apart from God. I disagree with Nietzsche’s conclusions, but he at least had the guts to stand by them.

The new atheists pull ideas of morality and truth out in the air without anything to support them. In this, they make the same error Christians can make. They do not argue at the level of presuppositions. They argue at the level of application. They take as a given morality and objective truth and the knowability of the world through rational means. They do not give a framework for these.

This is also what is done with the problem of evil. The debate does not even start with the basis of good and evil. Instead, the new atheists just assume that something is evil. In many cases, I will agree with them. When they speak of murder done in the name of Christ, I agree that that is evil. I just ask if there is a basis for that.

This is also why so many debates are so simplistic. Consider the creation/evolution debate. It is assumed by many in the debate that if evolution is true, then Christianity is false. I am not a scientist, but I know enough to know that evolution is not the end of the story and it’s a mistake for atheists and theists to think it is. I have no problem with atheists being critical of movements like ID or Christians being questionable of evolutionary theory. We need to examine the reasons.

This also applies with miracles. The atheists often make the case that these are the accounts of people who were superstitious and believed anything. If you begin with the presupposition of naturalism, of course a miracle is going to be ridiculous. That presupposition is what needs to be discussed. Someone is not foolish for believing in a miracle. You could make the case for them being foolish for believing in a miracle blindly.

Stenger thinks the future looks good for atheism. I disagree. I see it more as a knee-jerk reaction to a theism that is not satisfying, and that is the fault of those of us who are Christians at times as well. We Christians need to be living the light, but we need to do more than live it. We need to know it. A faith that is devoid of content and simply a list of rights and wrongs is not going to convert the world.

My call to Stenger and the new atheists and myself and fellow Christians and other theists is to return to the debate. Books like those of the new atheists do not take the debate seriously. The new atheists do not interact with the material and that will be their downfall. Whether it comes at the hands of theists or other atheists, I do not know, but those who treat the new atheists as serious debaters simply do not know the debate, and they only drag it down to a polemical level.

Tomorrow, we shall start a new book.

[Leonhard]

My bachelor project is eating up a lot of my free time, so I'm gonna forgo asking any new questions of Phoenix's writings and just respond to his last response. Sorry for the delay.

To answer Holding, my contention was not that Complex Specified Information failed, but rather that the failure of CSI could be evaluated by both a Christian and an atheist. If CSI is incoherent, makes no testable claims, or is inconclusive as to whether blind natural forces suffice to create it, then it constitutes failed evidence for Intelligent Design. There are no presuppositions that a Christian or an Atheist has that prevents them from making that judgment. All it requires is a case by case evaluation of whether the different definitions of CSI are coherent, could produce testable claims and exclude blind natural explanations.

If I were to actually demonstrate that CSI as a scientific concept constitutes a failure, I would have to go through a case by case evaluation: Getting Stephen C. Meyers definition, as well as Behe's and Dembski's, so forth and examining them in detail. That would be a whole different discussion.

On a different subject, I agree that Mount Rushmore would be a good example of something for which one could make a case of 'unnaturalness' (for lack of a better word). Though I'd be careful to note that the main reason why it is so easy to see it as an artifact is that we instantly recognize human faces; We know from experience that mountains don't resemble humans, and we know that a human artist can sculpture rock into the likeness of a face. A completely alien, but still sentient creature might not know what the shapes of the rocks corresponded to, but it would be evident to it that the shapes of the rocks could not have been formed by natural processes. Its a bit of a challenge to the ID proponent, to define CSI in such a way that it is blind as to the nature of the designer. You can't smuggle in 'human assumptions' into the designer.

There are of course counterexamples of things we highly suspect are natural formations for which we do recognize semantic content. The alien face (http://www.coverups.com/photos/mars_face.jpg), kermit the frog (http://www.tampabayskeptics.org/Mars_Kermit.gif) and the smilie face (http://yeinjee.com/discovery/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/mars-smiley-face.jpg) on Mars, various pareidolia (http://www.skepdic.com/pareidol.html).

As for Nick's response that if one is atheist the origins of species MUST have a scientific explanation, I don't think that would be the case either. If it could be shown that the scientific case for evolution is utterly void, that would just show that we don't know how the different species on Earth came into existence, and how they developed. That's of course in the extreme case that everything we know about evolution turned out to be wrong. Most creationists accept modern evolutionary theory to some degree. So we might still know how most species came about, but not how the original common ancestors came into existence.

I still haven't seen why an atheist must accept evolutionary theory in its current form, even though it has been revised significantly starting with the Neo-Darwinian synthesis as well as Gould's additions of punctuated equilibrium. Evolution has been changing, and atheist haven't exactly said "Gosh, I guess everything we believe is null and void now".

I think what you're trying to say is "Atheists exclude the possibility of God supernaturally intervening and creating things" ... well duh... That's why I asked whether you argued that atheists assumed atheism as a presumption, or whether they arrived at it as a conclusion. If they arrive at it as a conclusion, then its merely a conclusion that God hasn't created any species or directly tinkered with DNA. If its a presumption then sure, then they exclude automatically that a God could have done so, but since you agreed that it wasn't a presumption, then why are atheists bound to that idea? In that case then it might be possible to make a case for Divine Intervention that should be strong enough to convict an intellectually honest atheist. However then you'd agree that an atheist could evaluate claims about for example ID, but this would be a contradiction to what you said originally.

So what is it? And finally, the last question was rhetorical.

[jpholding]

To answer Holding, my contention was not that Complex Specified Information failed, but rather that the failure of CSI could be evaluated by both a Christian and an atheist.

Yes...obviously. Though it remains that complexity isn't a simple thing for just any person to evaluate, especially when they evaluate an object or process outside their field.



If CSI is incoherent, makes no testable claims, or is inconclusive as to whether blind natural forces suffice to create it, then it constitutes failed evidence for Intelligent Design.

That's fine. But I have seen no evidence that it is any of those things.

Let's just take "incoherent" to start. Please produce an "incoherent" statement by an ID advocate and explain why it is incoherent.


If I were to actually demonstrate that CSI as a scientific concept constitutes a failure, I would have to go through a case by case evaluation: Getting Stephen C. Meyers definition, as well as Behe's and Dembski's, so forth and examining them in detail. That would be a whole different discussion.

Isn't this essentially an admission that you have not actually analyzed any cases which would show that failure has occurred?


A completely alien, but still sentient creature might not know what the shapes of the rocks corresponded to, but it would be evident to it that the shapes of the rocks could not have been formed by natural processes. Its a bit of a challenge to the ID proponent, to define CSI in such a way that it is blind as to the nature of the designer.

I fail to see why. I need not smuggle in any human assumptions. Maybe some Hearthstonian ones. :wink:


There are of course counterexamples of things we highly suspect are natural formations for which we do recognize semantic content. The alien face, kermit the frog and the smilie face on Mars, various pareidolia.

Mmm...no. I wouldn't buy that for any of those cases. Artistically those couldn't possibly be mistaken for intelligently designed objects; at best they would be mistaken for the art of a very small child, or an infant (or someone pretending to be one of those). They simply lack any evidence of intelligence -- poor detail , no symmetry, etc.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

As for Nick's response that if one is atheist the origins of species MUST have a scientific explanation, I don't think that would be the case either. If it could be shown that the scientific case for evolution is utterly void, that would just show that we don't know how the different species on Earth came into existence, and how they developed. That's of course in the extreme case that everything we know about evolution turned out to be wrong. Most creationists accept modern evolutionary theory to some degree. So we might still know how most species came about, but not how the original common ancestors came into existence.

That depends on what you mean by scientific. I am here critiquing Stenger who has a view of science as answering all the questions about the material universe and if we don't have them yet, those answers are available. Now it would depend on the type of science, but no science allows for miracles in general practice, which is fine. When a scientist does his work, he does it assuming that there is no outside interference. For instance, an object thrown will travel X distance at Y speed provided either I don't catch it or God doesn't burn it up in mid-flight.

Of course, that doesn't mean miracles are impossible nor does one need to assume such. This is just about what we would generally expect to happen. If there is no way to get life from just matter alone, then I think atheism is in a world of trouble.


I still haven't seen why an atheist must accept evolutionary theory in its current form, even though it has been revised significantly starting with the Neo-Darwinian synthesis as well as Gould's additions of punctuated equilibrium. Evolution has been changing, and atheist haven't exactly said "Gosh, I guess everything we believe is null and void now".

Who said anything about current form? I was just saying some form of it right now is the only option that there is from a naturalistic perspective. If you know other theories from an atheistic perspective explaining who we are and where we came from, feel free to show them.


I think what you're trying to say is "Atheists exclude the possibility of God supernaturally intervening and creating things" ... well duh... That's why I asked whether you argued that atheists assumed atheism as a presumption, or whether they arrived at it as a conclusion.

That is the key question now isn't it?


If they arrive at it as a conclusion, then its merely a conclusion that God hasn't created any species or directly tinkered with DNA.

Okay. Let's suppose that from a scientific perspective everything in a work such as The Blind Watchmaker is right. I'm not agreeing with his inferences, but I'm agreeing with the data for the sake of argument. If that is the case, theism is not in any danger. Theism can accept macroevolution as theistic evolution. Thus, if evolution is proven true, it does not disprove theism. I hope you would agree with this.

Thus, I don't see how you can say "Evolution occurred, therefore God does not exist." A scientist cannot reach the conclusion of God's non-existence by studying evolution. A person can, but it will not be so much on scientific grounds as it would be on bad philosophical grounds. I'm not saying a scientist does not often reach that conclusion, but I'm saying the conclusion does not follow from the evidence.


If its a presumption then sure, then they exclude automatically that a God could have done so, but since you agreed that it wasn't a presumption, then why are atheists bound to that idea?

No. I think it is a presumption. Macroevolution is the best explanation we have that does not evoke miraculous intervention. That's fine. However, to say it is the best explanation that does not evoke miraculous intervention does not necessarily mean it is the true one.

Example: Suppose it is a fact that Jesus rose from the dead by the power of God and this not through secondary natural means. If that is the case, a person who accepts them will be searching in vain for a naturalistic means. Even if they find the best naturalistic explanation, it is not the true explanation. On the other hand, there are good grounds for believing that miraculous intervention took place.


In that case then it might be possible to make a case for Divine Intervention that should be strong enough to convict an intellectually honest atheist.

Only if intellect was the only option in play. I don't say that it is. I don't see atheism as intellectual so much as I see it as moral and volitional, and I also base that on Scripture that I do have good reason to believe.


However then you'd agree that an atheist could evaluate claims about for example ID, but this would be a contradiction to what you said originally.

No. An atheist can evaluate claims. I have no problem. This is the way the system best works. Both sides put forward arguments and address one another in the public square. My problem is the macroevolutionary theory side wants to control the public square through such means as courtroom battles.


So what is it? And finally, the last question was rhetorical.

I'm honestly not even sure what you're asking at this point. My stance has been the same.

[jpholding]

Oddly enough while waiting for a doctor today I read in a science magazine how it's being discussed how vague the concept of "species" is. The funny thing -- it sounded a lot like discussions over defining intelligent design.

It also reminds me a lot of discussions over defining words like "resurrection" when made in copycat claims.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Oddly enough while waiting for a doctor today I read in a science magazine how it's being discussed how vague the concept of "species" is. The funny thing -- it sounded a lot like discussions over defining intelligent design.

It also reminds me a lot of discussions over defining words like "resurrection" when made in copycat claims.

Species is a tough one to define. It's the problem of universals.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

On to the next book!

The link can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/god-the-failed-hypothesis-a-review/)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Tonight, we’re going to start another book of Victor Stenger’s. This time, we’re looking at “God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist.”

You know it’s going to be fun when the title is even a category fallacy.

That, of course, is something we’re going to get into.

To begin with, Stenger wants to make the case be entirely scientific. He says that philosophy and science have played their roles, but science has sat on the sidelines. I agree in some ways. However, that is because of what science is. Science isn’t capable of settling the debate once and for all either way. I don’t think theists can use science to prove God. I don’t think atheists can use science to disprove God. That doesn’t mean science is useless in the debate. Inferences can be drawn. An atheist can infer from what he believes to be a sound case from macroevolution to atheism being true. I don’t think that’s sound, but he can. The believer in Intelligent Design can infer from that a designer, which I do think is more sound since the ID believer is positing intelligence and the case of macroevolution does not rule out intelligence.

This is my first problem with Stenger. Stenger places science over these areas which happens to be the problem of American culture today. It is assumed that the scientists are the ones who know the best and religious people are those who know the least. Granted, many religious people have abandoned the intellectual grounds of their faith, but for those of us who bear the name of Christ, that is not because of a command of Christ but of not following the command of Christ. I’m not saying we should all be intellectuals. We’re not all meant to be. I’m saying we can all however know what we believe and why and realize blind faith is not even faith at all and is certainly not a virtue.

Stenger says he is aware that sophisticated theologians have developed highly abstract concepts of a god they claim to be consistent with the teachings of their faith. Stenger says that this can be abstracted enough to be beyond the realm of scientific investigation, but your average believer won’t recognize this deity.

First off, we do not just have sophisticated concepts of God, but also arguments for them. For many people for instance, when they read about how Aquinas believed God is simple, they just assume that he just thought that up without any reason whatsoever. At this point, I don’t care if Aquinas was right about what he said, even though he was. I care that he did have reasons for believing what he believed and that was based also on his epistemology. He argued like a philosopher.

Second, the church has not had a history of ignoring science. I also don’t just mean that they saw science as a threat. They didn’t. They saw science as an aid to understanding the glory of God in creation. When philosophers made arguments for God, it was not because they were afraid of the realm of science.

Third, Stenger should really not be seeking to just speak to the typical believer, which is a point I was getting to last night with the new atheists not wanting to take on the toughest arguments but appeal to only those who do not know their faith well. Throughout the works of the new atheists, you will consistently find that they do not interact with what their opponents say. They consistently make the same mistakes, such as none of them has a valid definition of faith that is based on a study of the ancient languages.

Stenger’s case in fact is built entirely on the God of the Gaps. He states that “If God exists, he must appear somewhere within the gaps of scientific models.”

Why think this however? It is as if to say that if Shakespeare does not appear in any gaps in his plays, then he does not exist. This doesn’t mean that God cannot step in, but there is no requirement that says that he must. For instance, a deistic concept of God is still God and it would not be ruled out.

In fact, for centuries, Christians doing science were pleased when they filled in the gaps and saw more of the glory of God. Consider what Proverbs 25:2 says:

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter;
to search out a matter is the glory of kings.

I have several times seen the question of atheists of why doesn’t God do something like tell us immediately all that we need to know. He doesn’t because part of the joy for us is discovering more about Him. This is also for those who want to know Him. I do not wish to enter the debate about the so-called hiddenness of God, but for early Christian scientists, they believed that they were revealing further the glory of God by doing their science. For too many atheists, showing an instrumental cause is the same as disproving an efficient cause.

Stenger’s main point isn’t even valid in the Preface. I will condemn a God-of-the-gaps mentality just as much. I am against it in the sense that because we have an unknown, we should not automatically try to put God in. However, this does not rule out that God could be what does fill in some gaps. I don’t think there’s wrong in thinking that. I think there’s wrong in thinking that without having sufficiently examined alternative explanations. It does no harm to God considering those of us who are theists have good reasons to uphold his existence such as the existence/essence argument, the argument from beauty, the moral argument, the kalam cosmological argument, etc. or we can believe in times that he did act in the past with sufficient and justified reason such as the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

But it would not be sufficient to just end here and say “Thus, we have no reason to read further.” By all means, let us let Stenger make his case, but as he wishes to examine the data as a scientist, so we wish to examine the inferences he makes from the data as philosophers and theologians.

Let the challenge begin.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Chapter 1:

The link is here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/god-the-failed-hypothesis-review-models-and-methods/)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Tonight, we are continuing our look at the work of Victor Stenger in God: The Failed Hypothesis. We will review the first chapter titled “Models and Methods.”

In this chapter, Stenger lays out the methods that he plans to use to examine the evidence. He mentions good criteria like protocols need to be clear so possibilities of error can be evaluated, the idea being tested must be clearly established prior, the least biased people should be doing the study, the ones making the hypothesis must know how it could be falsified, and results can be independently replicated.

This works great for science, but not necessarily for everything else. What of falsifiability? Can that concept be falsified? What would it mean if it was. There are some principles that cannot be proven wrong by their definition such as the Law of noncontradiction. If you think you have, then you have proven that B is true as opposed to non-B positing a difference between B and non-B which relies on the LNC.

Stenger states when speaking of falsification in fact that God is supposed to be everywhere so if we look inside of a box we should find his, thus confirming his existence, or not find him, refuting his existence.

Yes. He really says that.

It is a category fallacy as we say that God exists but he does not exist as we do and His being everywhere does not mean He is spatially everywhere. He is in all places as He is the cause of that place existing and He is sustaining it. Does Stenger really think we should see that which is immaterial by looking in a box?

Stenger does say that some who want to limit science to natural forces provide “unwitting support for the assumption that science is dogmatically naturalistic.”

I don’t know anyone who assumes that it is. I do know several people, myself included however, who believe that some scientists are dogmatically naturalistic, and I would include Stenger. I have no problem with science being the study of natural causes. Would Stenger tell me what kind of scientific experiments he thinks he could perform on God if he found God’s existence?

Stenger makes the case that many giants in history of science were not dogmatic (Although I could argue that Galileo was). I do agree that science requires being demanding and not believing claims blindly. I do believe it is difficult and requires work. However, none of that rules out that scientists can be dogmatic because they are unaware of their own presuppositions that they bring, which includes Stenger. To be fair, it can include Christian scientists as well.

Stenger asks why a scientist would object to data for the supernatural. I answer that it is more than just a question of the intellect but also of morals and volition. There is no reason that the concept of God would hinder scientific research. If anything, it gives more meaning to it as one comes to discover the glory of God and the pursuit of science becomes a branch of theology in a way studying the greatest mind of all.

Stenger goes on to argue what he believes are some definitional disproofs. The first is the virtue argument. The premise I first disagree with is that God being great includes the greatness of virtue. This is based on Anselmian thought of the greatest possible being. I do believe God is the greatest being there is, but we must have a definition of greatness prior. Aristotleanism gave us that which Aquinas used. This was looked at in our study of the doctrine of God and of goodness based on the Summa. God being a moral agent treats morality as something God ascribes to that is above Him. God is all good and all He does is good but not because He has to do good based on something beyond Himself, but because His own being is goodness and He cannot violate Himself. Hence, I do not believe God has to overcome pain and suffering to be good. He is good by nature.

The next is that of worship and moral agency. Stenger says that no being could be a fitting agent of worship since worship requires the abandonment of one’s role as an autonomous moral agent.

I have no idea where Stenger got that definition from. I find the entire argument incoherent.

Next is the problem of evil. I have written about it elsewhere on this blog, but the problem of evil does not follow from the premises and most atheists have dropped it. Note also Stenger never gives a basis for good or evil.

Next is the argument that all that a perfect creator creates must be perfect, but the universe is not perfect. I recommend seeing the work done on perfection in the Summa here, but that which is totally perfect would have to be its own existence. Everything else is imperfect in someway though it can be perfect according to its mode of being, but it must not be necessarily so.

Stenger’s argument just doesn’t follow.

Stenger also says omnipresence is impossible. A transcendent being cannot exist anywhere in space and an omnipresent one must exist everywhere in it. Stenger just does not know his terms. Transcendent does not physically exist and omnipresence does not require that. God is omnipresent in that He is the cause of the existing of all places.

Stenger’s next argument is that a non-physical being cannot be personal. It would have been nice for him to have given an argument that a requirement of being a person is being physical. None was given.

Finally, the objection of “God cannot create a rock so big he can’t lift it.” That Stenger comes to this level shows how weak his argumentation is. Christian theologians have long said God cannot do nonsense. God is incapable of making contradictions because reality does not function in contradictions.

These are all the disproofs Stenger gives, and he does not deal with the counterarguments for God’s existence at all.

Interestingly, Stenger makes this statement later on:

The elements of scientific models, especially at the deepest level of quantum phenomena, need not correspond precisely to the elements of whatever “true reality” is out there beyond the signals we receive with our senses and instruments.

Paging Immanuel Kant anyone?

And here all this time I thought science had the goal of understanding reality. Stenger’s statement seems to indicate otherwise. Consider this also in light of what Stenger says on the same page:

Metaphysics has surprisingly little use and would not even be worth discussing if we did not have this great desire to understand ultimate reality as best we can.

Yes. The doctrine of being is of little use in understanding existence….

Stenger states that it would not be worth discussing if we did not have this great desire to understand ultimate reality. We do have this great desire however, therefore metaphysics is worth discussing. It would seem then that metaphysics is needed to understand ultimate reality, and yet Stenger says it is of little use.

Stenger tells us also that God models are human inventions. Stenger finds it amazing that so many people in a sophisticated and modern age cling to primitive and archaic images from the childhood of humanity.

First off, I had no idea Aristotle was so primitive.

Second, we also still hold to ideas like the objectivity of truth, the existence of objective moral values, there is a world outside of our minds, evil ought to be punished and good ought to be rewarded, etc. Using a calendar does not refute an argument and Stenger does not understand the arguments he attempts to refute.

But ignorance has never stopped the new atheists.

So Stenger has set forward his method and his models. Unfortuntely, his method doesn’t really apply and his arguments just don’t work. Maybe we’ll see some more substance later on.

We shall continue tomorrow.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Chapter 2

The link can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/10/06/god-the-failed-hypothesis-the-illusion-of-design/)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are continuing to dive into the ocean of truth! We’re continuing our look at Victor Stenger’s book “God: The Failed Hypothesis.” Our subject tonight will be the second chapter, “The Illusion of Design.”

Early on, Stenger has a great section on how before the age of science, religious belief was based on faith, tradition, Scriptures, and teachings of holy men and women specifically selected by God. However, science began to erode these teachings such as a flat Earth and the planet being at the center of a firmament of stars and planets. People then began to look to science for proof of a supreme being apart from revelation.

It’s a fascinating paragraph. What’s most interesting about it is how wrong it is. As we saw in the other book, Stenger has a problem when speaking on history that he does not use sources. He tells a story, and this story is just wrong.

For instance, the theologians of the early church and the medieval period were willing to use reason to make their case without Scriptures. This is not to deny they saw authority in the Scriptures and in the teachers that came before them. Indeed, every field recognizes authorities in that field. Stenger’s own field would recognize Einstein and Newton as authorities to not take lightly. Hear for instance what Thomas Aquinas said in the second chapter of the first book of Summa Contra Gentiles:

Secondly, because some of them, as Mohammedans and Pagans, do not agree with us in recognising the authority of any scripture, available for their conviction, as we can argue against the Jews from the Old Testament, and against heretics from the New. But these receive neither: hence it is necessary to have recourse to natural reason, which all are obliged to assent to. But in the things of God natural reason is often at a loss.

If I debate with a Jehovah’s Witness, that person recognizes the New and Old Testament as an authority so I can use that. For the Jew, it is just the Old Testament and I can use that. For the Muslim, atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, etc., it would be reason or any holy book of theirs that I could use.

But what does Aquinas mean to say natural reason is at a loss? It is not that natural reason is bad. It is that it requires much reasoning to reach the knowledge of God and few have the time or intellectual power to do it. Aquinas does go on to give reasons for belief apart from the New Testament.

Second, Stenger believes in the flat earth myth. The truth is, the church knew the Earth wasn’t flat. The ancient Greeks knew it. The medievals knew it. Most people could even tell you its circumference. How? It wasn’t from the holy books, but from using science. In Article 1, Question 1, of the Summa Theologica, we have an example of this:

Sciences are differentiated according to the various means through which knowledge is obtained. For the astronomer and the physicist both may prove the same conclusion: that the earth, for instance, is round: the astronomer by means of mathematics (i.e. abstracting from matter), but the physicist by means of matter itself.

Atheists have been spreading this myth for so long that they’ve come to believe it themselves.

Did they believe Earth was at the center? Yes. They got that from Aristotle and at the time, it was good science. The Ptolemaic system worked and it worked well. Copernicus’s objections were not only questioning the understanding of Earth but that of motion. It took time for the new idea to be accepted and this is the way changes take place in science. An excellent look at this is Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.”

However, the center was also not a good place to be. God was seen in Aristotlean thought as on the outer edges. At this point in time, Aristotle had been practically canonized. Galileo’s most difficult battles were not fought with the church but with the secularists of the day who were accusing him of bad science and frankly, the evidence wasn’t there at the time. We can say now that Galileo was right, but we cannot say a theory in the past should have been accepted by modern standards. The question is if those people at that time had sufficient evidence to believe the new theory and they didn’t.

Finally, what evidence does Stenger have of people using science to try to prove a supreme being as if it was the final authority? When did this happen? Who were the minds behind this? Stenger gives no examples. The reason he doesn’t is most likely that he has none.

Stenger of course brings up Paley and then counters with Darwin, to which I have the same objection. A different instrumental cause does not prove a different efficient cause. Now I do not believe God used macroevolution to achieve His purposes, but if He did, my faith would not be damaged.

Stenger also says the Bible describes creatures being made in fixed and immutable forms. It would have been nice to have seen a verse of Scripture that actually teaches this. None is given. It is the idea of fixism that was replaced by Darwin’s idea. The idea was based more on philosophy than on Scripture however.

The movement of ID does not depend on fixism either. It would not even necessitate the destruction of macroevolutionary theory. It simply says that it could be that there is a guiding intelligence involved and if so, we can look at the world around us as the result of intelligence and seek to understand why things are the way they are, which is the question of teleology. Now teleology exists in some extent already in macroevolutionary theory in the idea of survival of the fittest.

The solution then is to look at the claims and realize science cannot rule out the idea of a designer. Let sides present their case in science labs and not in courtrooms as has recently been the case. To bring the court into this is to say that what is to be considered science should be determined by someone outside of the field of science. If the idea is bad, it will surely die out a natural death. In the meantime, it will raise objections that will help the true side. If the idea is good however, it will open up further ideas of research and I would add could make those of a more religious nature prone to enter science and enrich it with their ideas.

Stenger also writes about those who think simple organisms cannot explain the complex lifeforms we have today. He writes that “Simplicity easily begets complexity in the world of locally interacting particles.” Fair enough. I’ll grant it for the sake of argument. I just want to know if Stenger is willing to take this to the realm of metaphysics.

If he is, then he will need to dismiss Dawkins’s 747 argument against God’s existence, that God must be very complex to have all the attributes He has. Dawkins assumed a material understanding of God. If Stenger thinks God must be complex, I will ask him the metaphysical basis for such a statement. What is his training in that field and his qualifications?

In talking about complex specified information, Stenger says that Dembski can walk into his garden and see petals on a flower that follow the Fibonacci sequence and realize that this came about by a natural process.

Dembski would easily answer however that this is begging the question. Stenger says there is no God and there is complex specified information. How did it come about? Simple. It came about by natural processes. How do we know this? There is no God. In fact, I think Dembski could in fact thank Stenger for giving an example of intelligent design and how there is then an intelligent designer behind the universe since so much follows a mathematical code.

Stenger believes that simple rules are enough. Now I do not believe that to be the case, but I will grant it. He then says that for these, at most, a simple rule maker of limited intelligence is required.

I wonder how he would respond to someone who said this. “I am an atheist, but I believe that outside of the universe there is a simple rule maker of limited intelligence.” If Stenger wants to start at just that level, I’ll take it. My theism is still around then, but atheism is not.

Stenger also brings up bad design and says how a properly designed human should look. The question is “properly designed for what purpose?” To ask if something is properly designed assumes that there is a purpose for which that thing is designed. To speak of improper design is even to speak of proper design. Stenger is bringing in teleology and to bring in teleology is to bring in God. Also, if Stenger does not know the purpose to man, how can he speak of humans being designed wrong? If he says there is no purpose, then how they’re designed doesn’t really matter.

Stenger concludes saying that the universe looks exactly as it would be expected to look if there was no God. How does he make this comparison statement however? Does he know of a universe where there is God and he can then compare? Stenger has earlier used the idea of fixism, but could it be Stenger is a victim of his own theology?

That’s right. Even atheists have a theology. They have an idea of the kind of God they disbelieve in. This God possesses certain attributes and does not possess others. As soon as Stenger says “If God exists, he would do things X way,” then he is arguing theology and not science and I can say “Very well. Now let’s look at theology and philosophy and see how good your idea is.”

For someone who is wanting to use science to disprove, Stenger is really slipping in more presuppositions than anything else. That is the problem with his worldview. It is not the science. It is the presuppositions that he brings with that science that is really driving the science.

Stenger has claimed to show the illusion of design, but in reality, he has not made an argument against design, but made the illusion of an argument.

We shall continue tomorrow.

[JB]

Species is a tough one to define. It's the problem of universals.

Speaking of which, I just ran across a book on Amazon titled The Species Problem: A Philosophical Analysis (http://www.amazon.com/Species-Problem-Philosophical-Cambridge-Philosophy/dp/0521196833/). Sounds like it'd be up your alley.

[jpholding]

Leo, if you choose to respond please wait until the 18th or so, I'll be offline for a few days.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

The link to tonight's blog can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/god-the-failed-hypothesis-review-searching-for-a-world-beyond-matter/)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’ve lately been looking at the work of Victor Stenger, one of the new atheists. Tonight, we’re looking at the chapter of “Searching For A World Beyond Matter.”

As is normal for Stenger, we have the usual problem of a lack of sources. For instance, Stenger said that the ancients believed the heart was the center of being and intelligence. Now it could be that this is the case. I’d be willing to grant it for the sake of argument. However, he gives no sources. For a man who raises a battle cry against blind faith, he expects his readers to have blind faith in what he says.

For Stenger, the ancient view of man began to change around the time of Descartes. Once that was done, Europe abandoned blind obedience to authority that had stifled progress for centuries. Instead, people began to rely more on empirical data.

This isn’t really the case. Aristotle was an empiricist and Aquinas followed that tradition. It was around this time that some began to complain against empiricism. Descartes himself was a rationalist. Authorities were also not followed blindly. The teachings that had been handed down had worked for years.

Consider Stenger in his own field. Is it likely that most physicists today have read Ptolemy’s Almagest or works of Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton? It’s quite unlikely, and in some ways, understandable. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Most scientists want to read the latest work in their fields that can be found in their journals and work is built on the foundation of the great scientists of the past.

Philosophy is based on principles more and these are the principles of thinking that tend to trace back to either Plato or Aristotle. There are two competing schools of thought with variations in between them. In theology, it is important to read the ancient texts of the deity one worships and older can be better.

Science on the other hand was not held back. People just did not have the resources or finances to do science until some practical issues were dealt with. These included agriculture and medicine. Knowing the motion of the planets just wasn’t relevant to someone who had little leisure time and simply wanted to keep his family alive.

Going through this chapter, much of what is said isn’t relevant to our purposes until we get to the studies on prayer. Now I will grant I am skeptical of these prayer studies because I do not believe a free-will agent such as God is required to act in such and such a way. However, I also disagree with Stenger that God does not exist based on these studies.

To begin with Stenger, tells us that published findings showing prayer has a positive value have been found unconvincing. He simply points to another book of his to demonstrate this. No reason otherwise is given. It would have been nice to have seen somewhat of an argument.

The numerous problems are ones such as we cannot control all the people praying. Different people are praying for people even if they are not in a “prayed-for” group. These people surely know some other people who are praying for them. You might find one or two who don’t, but it’s likely most people today know a Christian who is praying for them, especially in America where these studies often take place or other developed nations.

Second, God is not forced to answer any prayer and his refusal to do so says nothing about His existence or non-existence. God’s existence is best established by sound argument rather than by experiments of this nature. I believe Christians should stick to the traditional arguments.

Finally, prayer’s greatest benefit will not be seen in the miraculous healing, but in the changing of lives. Prayers may not always change external circumstances, but they will change our relationship to those circumstances. They can change us more than they change the world. Growing in holiness is the best purpose of prayer.

Much of the case showing Stenger’s problems with Near-death experiences and the existence of the soul I have written about elsewhere. I recommend the reader go here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/the-new-atheism-the-nature-of-mind/)

We shall review the next chapter tomorrow.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Chapter 4.

The link can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/10/08/god-the-failed-hypothesis-review-cosmic-evidence/)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’ve lately been reviewing some of Victor Stenger’s books and tonight, we’re dealing with chapter 4 of “God: The Failed Hypothesis” on the case of cosmic evidence.

This chapter is a search of the cosmos for evidence of God’s existence and it right off starts with miracles. Now I would think a chapter like this should have started with a discussion of the cosmos, but okay. Stenger claims that cosmological evidence should show evidence of well-established laws of nature or a causal ingredient not understandable in material or natural means alone.

To begin with, why should there necessarily be miracles throughout the history of the cosmos in order for God to exist. Is Stenger saying that if there are no miracles, there is no God? A deist would have just said “Of course there are no miracles, but there is still God.” This is not science then but theology. It is saying that if God exists, He must act in such and such a way and to say how He must act is theology. As for whether the universe itself needs a cause, we’ll look into that as we go on.

So let’s do that. The first is the creation of matter. Stenger tells us that matter can be created out of energy and disappear into energy. Where does energy come from? Stenger does grant that it has to come from somewhere. Stenger doesn’t say where. He just says that the positive and negative energies in the universe cancel each other out. Once again, the question is where did those energies come from? Stenger doesn’t say. Instead, that the universe is so finely balanced seems to argue more for an intelligence than anything else.

What about order? Stenger tells us that since we have a universe starting in a Big Bang, then there wasn’t order. It started as chaos and then turned to order.

However, Stenger is again doing theology. Upon what basis does he argue that God must begin with everything orderly instead of God using laws of physics to bring order to the universe? Why must God create the exact way Stenger wants Him to create to exist? Stenger should keep in mind the title “Big Bang” was at first a pejorative title for the theory. This wasn’t a chaotic explosion but an orderly event.

Does the universe have a beginning? Most of us use the Kalam argument to demonstrate that and we use the horizontal version (Although I prefer the vertical one). The argument includes the point that if the universe existed for an infinite number of moments in the past, we would never reach today because we would have completed an infinite number of moments and an infinite set can’t be completed.

Stenger’s answer is that we can always have one event precede another and one event come after another.

This is why people who do physics should stick to physics instead of philosophy. Stenger doesn’t even get the point that it is being argued that an infinite set can’t be completed. To say “We can add one more before that” does not deal with the Kalam argument

Stenger also gives us the syllogism for the Kalam argument.

Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Stenger tells us that William Lane Craig, famous for defending this argument, takes the first premise to be self-evident. He also says Craig does this with no justification other than common every day experience. This is the same experience that teaches us that the world is flat. In reality, events at the atomic and subatomic level are observed to have no evident cause.

First off, anyone who has actually read Craig notes that Craig is well-aware of objections to the first premise and defends against them. Many Christians have read the Lee Strobel books and this is an argument that Craig even deals with in “The Case For A Creator.” That Stenger is unaware of this indicates to me he hasn’t really read Craig’s material.

Second, common experience teaches us many beliefs that we hold to be true that we would be hard-pressed to prove. For instance, I believe there is a world outside of my mind and I believe that matter is real. I believe it’s self-evident that it’s wrong to torture innocent children for fun. To say that common experience is not a good teacher is simply false. It is where most of us learn our most basic beliefs.

Third, Stenger is again falling for this flat Earth myth which shows me just what kind of researcher he is when he steps out of his field. Aristotle taught the Earth was a sphere. The ancient Greeks knew it well. The medieval church continued the tradition. However, we have known for some time that Stenger is a man of faith.

Finally, to say that the events at the atomic and subatomic level have no evident cause is not the same as to say they are uncaused. Either causality, a principle we’ve understood for years, is in error, or else we are lacking in our understanding of a field that’s still relatively new. I’ll wager for the latter.

Stenger asks that even if the universe is caused, why does that cause have to be something other than a natural cause? That’s the point however. The argument is that nature itself needs a cause and nothing is self-caused. Not only that, matter is always in a state of potential moving from one mode of existence to another. It has limited existence and not pure existence. It is limited by something greater than itself. We have covered this in our look at simplicity in our study of the doctrine of God in the Summa.

Stenger eventually gets us to where the laws of physics came from. What’s his explanation? I’ll quote him here.

“They came from nothing!”

Hard to believe Christians are supposed to have the absurd position when Stenger believes laws can just come into existence from non-existence. I am even more amazed that some people find this to be an explanation. Let me spell something out Stenger. Nothing is non-existence and it is incapable of causing anything.

Why is there something rather than nothing? Stenger comes to this question and quotes a philosopher who says the answer is “There has to be something.” Why? Why does there have to be anything?

Stenger asks about conceptual problems. How do we speak of nothing. What are its properties? This has already been answered. Nothing is non-existence. It does not have properties. It has no causal power, aside from in the atheist universe where apparently it can somehow make everything.

Stenger also asks why is there God instead of nothing? The answer is that God is the basis of existence itself because He is being without limits. God’s existence is not caused but rather He is His existence. His unawareness of history answering this objection or even presenting any arguments shows me the lack of research on Stenger’s part.

Stenger instead tells that the transition from nothing-to-something is a natural one because nothing is instable. Again, it isn’t. It is just nothing. You cannot say what nothing is other than describing it as nothing. However, for Stenger, that something exists is evidence enough that there is no God.

Because if there was a God, there would obviously be nothing…..

Except God is something…..

We shall have to see if the rest of the work is more pleasing> For now, Stenger just gives cop-outs and has lazy research on his topic. Let him stick to physics, for he cannot do philosophy or theology.

We shall continue tomorrow.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Chapter 5.

The link can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/10/09/god-the-failed-hypothesis-review-the-uncongenial-universe/)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters, the blog where we dive into the ocean of truth! We’ve lately been going through Victor Stenger’s book “God: The Failed Hypothesis.” Tonight, we’re looking at the chapter on the Uncongenial Universe.

Most of you reading this are probably reading it on a computer assuming someone didn’t print it out for you. It is traveling around the world to reach you, likely as you sit in your own homes with heating and air conditioning, indoor plumbing, and a steady supply of food. Many of you sleep safely and have cars to drive you around. You live your life without major worries of life and death.

That’s not all. There are some exceptions, but by and large, life is usually good. We tend to get around well on this planet and so now having said that, I’m going to start discussing Stenger’s chapter meant to show the bad thinking behind such productions as “The Privileged Planet.”

To which, Stenger had a problem with the Discovery Institute wanting the Smithsonian to show the film. The Smithsonian did eventually, but they did not accept payment. Why is this a problem? Because the sectarian motives of the film were not overtly made known and we sure can’t show religious material.

It’s something that’s rather confusing. Whether you like the Discovery Institute or not, I always thought that science was supposed to be based on the evidence and not the motives behind a worldview. Sure. DI could be entirely wrong, but they are not wrong ipso facto because they could have “religious motivation.”

Of course, if we accepted religious motivation as a standard, we would have to throw out Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, etc. None of these men saw religion as a hindrance to science but rather saw it as a great aid to science, or rather believing in God gave them reason to do science, but that science benefited their religion overall by showing the glory of how the creator created.

The next section to deal with is life in the universe and how common is it. Naturally,we know for sure of no other life, at least life as we know it, beyond ourselves. Often we can be told that this is a cause to not believe in God for if God existed, surely he would not create a universe of just empty space! On the other hand, if there were life on other planets, we can be sure we would be told that this is why we can see how easy it is for life to arise up by natural processes and therefore there is no need for God. The argument can work both ways.

It’s for reasons like that that I prefer other arguments. Now if someone can argue the science well, by all means go for it. I believe Christianity is established on better grounds, but I would hope atheists would at least be consistent.

Stenger in this section tells of how we hear the sun is a typical star, but this isn’t true, and I agree with him on the sun. I disagree with him on how we hear it is a typical star. For his ranting against The Privileged Planet, you’d think he’d know that in the book, a good portion of chapter seven is spent arguing that this is not the case. The writers want to stress that the sun is no ordinary star.

Stenger goes on speaking of the authors of the book to say “The very reasons that Gonzalez and Richards give for Earth being ‘privileged’ make it very unlikely that humans could survive without extensive life support, even on those planets that might otherwise be suitable for some kind of life.”

Why, yes. I do believe that’s what they mean when they say our planet is privileged. The book is called “The Privileged Planet.” It’s not “The Privileged Planets.”

So I suppose Stenger thinks stating the case of Gonzalez and Richards is somehow an argument against them.

Stenger goes on to say:

Obviously, if the physical parameters of our environment were just slightly different, life as we know it on Earth would not have evolved here.

Note: This is something obvious. You should obviously know that life being here as it is is something unique and incredible.

Last I checked, That’s what DI is saying.

Stenger goes on to explain this however that since the universe contains so many planets, we would expect one of them to have life. We just happen to live on that planet!

Earlier, Stenger had gone after Hugh Ross for mentioning the probabilities of factors of our universe that make it unlikely that we are an accident and increases the likelihood of theism. Stenger said that Ross did not give a probability of divine design itself being right or wrong however.

Yet when Stenger gives a probability here, he can say “Pretty good” and that counts.

The claim of Ross and others is not a God of the Gaps argument. Instead, it is saying that God has explanatory power because there’s reason to believe there is a God behind it since there are marks of intelligence. Ross is not positing God because he is stumped on life. He is positing God based on positive evidence.

As for Stenger, he has given the problem Richard Swinburne spoke of. Swinburne asks us to imagine ourselves sentenced to death. We are tied to a post and blindfolded and before us are one hundred sharpshooters with laser sights on their rifles. At the command of “Fire!”, they shoot. If something goes wrong, it is considered justice that we can go free.

So you are there and you hear the command and you hear one hundred rifles go off. However, you realize you have not lost consciousness. Someone comes and undoes your blindfold and your ropes and you find out that while the guns went off, somehow, you didn’t die. A friend later sees you and comments on your luck to which you say “Nothing lucky about it. Surely sometime all of them would miss!”

If you said that, your friend would rightfully find you crazy. We all know that the reason one hundred of them would miss is because of some intelligence wanting them to miss. Maybe they were all given blanks or maybe they were all bribed. Either way, it wouldn’t just happen. That’s the point. To say “We just happen to be on the right planet” is to come up with an excuse. We are wondering if there is a why as to why we are on the right planet. Now it could be this is a fluke, but the more evidence we can find, the more that will seem unlikely.

Now Stenger goes on to discuss fine-tuning, to which I think in the examples, he more indicates fine-tuning than goes against it. I will not argue the points however since that is in the area of physics and I am not a student of physics. I study philosophy, theology, and history. Thus, let us move ahead to the parts where he discusses theology and philosophy.

To begin with, he speaks of waste, which is again implying a theology. It is saying that if God existed, he would surely have planted life on all these planets. To have waste however is to have something not fitting its purpose, to which Stenger never gives the purpose. As for an example of waste, Stenger says “Why would God send his only son to die an agonizing death to redeem an insignificant bit of carbon.”

Now maybe I’m mistaken on this, but Stenger has said that Sam Harris started writing because of 9/11 and the new atheists are worried about the dangers religion brings. I wish I had known earlier that these dangers were simply dangers to an insignificant bit of carbon. That’s a good question then Stenger! Why should anyone care if all we are is an insignificant bit of carbon?

Of course, it could be we are not, and that could be based on the belief that man is more than just the material that makes him up. There is something in humanity that is inherently good and this is not based on just his material. It is based on his very existence. Man is not insignificant. In fact, the biblical view says just the opposite. Man is that who bears the image of God.

Stenger goes on to tell of how the universe bears no resemblance to what is described in Genesis. Genesis tells of Earth as a flat and immovable circle at the center of a firmament or vault of fixed stars, circled by the sun, moon, and planets.

I wonder what translation Stenger is reading. I don’t see that. Of course, these are the people who complain about people who take the Bible literally and whenever it comes their time to interpret the text, they always interpret it literally. Never mind that we could actually try to understand the historical context, the words used, the way knowledge was communicated, etc.

With reasoning like this, it’s a wonder if any of the new atheists could ever pass a class on literature.

Continuing his bad theology, Stenger says:

In fact, when you think of it, why would an infinitely powerful God even need six days? Wouldn’t he have the ability to make everything in an instant? And, why would he have to rest when it was all done?

There are times it’s hard for me to imagine how someone could be more ignorant of his opponents’ views while writing against them.

To begin with Stenger, you’re not the first to think this. Augustine himself knew that God didn’t need six days. He believed in an instantaneous creation. Why six days then? (I am not at this point discussing if they were literal 24-hour days or long periods of time) God need not do everything immediately simply because He can. I would argue that God was getting the Earth ready for life and using a gradual process rather than an instant one. I would also point to poetical ideas in the first chapter. For instance, in the first three days, the habitats are made and in the corresponding last three days, they are inhabited. An excellent look on this can be found in the book “The Genesis Debate.”

Why rest? That is not to be taken literally but to show the importance of taking time out from work. The Jews were commanded to do this. It was a time to appreciate what was done. Stenger takes this text literally and thus creates a straw man. I do not know of any evangelical, young-earth or old-earth, who would say God literally needed to rest because He was tired.

Maybe Stenger could point me to them.

In conclusion, I see Stenger again as unfamiliar with what he critiques and I am left once again believing that the Earth is designed and in fact, Stenger has given me more reason to think such.

We shall continue tomorrow.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Onward!

The link to tonight's blog can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/god-the-failed-hypothesis-review-the-failures-of-revelation/)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters, where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’ve lately been going through Victor Stenger’s book “God: The Failed Hypothesis.” Tonight, we look at the title called “The Failures of Revelation.

Stenger’s point in this chapter is the failure of revelation in Scriptures to give information that can be empirically verified. He states that there are three areas. He first states that no information has ever come through a religious experience that could not have been known beforehand by the individual. Second, there are gross errors of scientific fact. Third, not a single risky prophecy can be objectively shown to have been fulfilled. Unfortunately, the term "risky" is not defined.

The first problem is that Stenger says he’s going to use scientific criteria to measure these. That might have some possibility with the first, but with the second, he’ll also need to make sure he has good skill in studies of literature to make sure he’s not reading like a fundamentalist. As we have seen however, he usually is. The third one is not scientific however but is rather historical and he will need historical information to determine the truthfulness or falsity of the claim that a Bible prophecy has been fulfilled.

Stenger even says “Personal testimonials and anecdotal stories have little or no value as evidence for the truth of extraordinary claims.” Why should this be the case? For instance, suppose I played the same lottery numbers every week and a friend knew those numbers and he came up to me one week and said “I was watching the news! Your numbers got picked!” That would be just his personal testimony on what has happened, but I would accept it and be ready to cash in my ticket.

Now to an extent, I don’t think testimonies alone can seal the deal. I think there is something definitely to the power of Christ to change a life, but several people can point to Buddhist teachings changing their lives or a self-help seminar. I believe in what C.S. Lewis recommended. Let your arguers go forward first in evangelism to break down the walls blocking belief, and then send forth people with testimonies to show the practical value of Christianity.

Stenger’s look at religious experience is lacking. Discussing such stories of foretelling the future he says “Despite many stories, however, no such report has stood up under scientific scrutiny.”

I wonder at this point if I was to write a chapter in a book defending inerrancy how it would be if I just said “Despite many objections, no supposed biblical contradiction has stood up under scrutiny.” Then, I just left it at that. No sources. Nothing. Would Stenger accept it? No. I wouldn’t blame him. Would you? I hope not! Stenger however does just that here. He gives no sources for these claims. Where were these studies done? Who was studied? Who did the studying?

There is nothing. Stenger doesn’t even cite a single source. If I wrote the above in a chapter and at least provided a footnote or endnote with books listed, you could grant me that I at least pointed to references. With Stenger’s work, I don’t even know where to go for more information.

In looking at creation stories, Stenger says there are several but just a few will be selected, to show the Bible is not the sole source of creation narratives.

I wasn’t aware any apologist was making that claim….

That Stenger doesn’t know something like that tells me that he is indeed not researching his opponent’s opposition.

It’s a fair objection seeing as when Stenger even goes on to list some folk narratives from other cultures, he does not give a single source.

So what about the biblical account? Stenger tells us that the Bible teaches the world was created around ten thousand years ago and all kinds of things were created that remain immutable and the universe sits as a firmament above a flat, immovable, Earth.

His source here is to point to various Scripture passages. Gone is any mention of a commentary. In fact, the first reference early in this chapter was a quote from Gleason Archer in the Encyclopedia of Biblical Difficulties. Naturally, Stenger did not consult said encyclopedia on these passages.

To begin with, the firmament does not refer to some metal canopy, but rather to an expanse, as Archer himself says. Stenger did not bother to check and likely is banking on the hopes that his readers are ignorant. Other passages do not speak of the Earth being unmovable in a physical sense, but rather that God’s intention will take place.

For example, 1 Chron. 16:30 (Stenger only has Chronicles. One wonders if he knows there’s a first and second of that book.) says that the Earth cannot be moved. However, before that, it is speaking about it being established. The Psalm is not speaking about geographical movement but about God’s sights as it were being set in a favored position on our planet and how God is focused on what’s going on in our world. It would not make much sense for David to say “Praise God! The Earth is not moving through the universe!” It would have been nonsensical to those around him. The same is going on in Psalm 93 and 96 and 104 is clearly full of symbolism, seeing as the Hebrews did not believe God literally rode in a chariot. I frankly do not see the issue with Isaiah 45:18. As for Isaiah 40:22 describing the Earth as a circle, the Hebrews simply had no word necessarily for a sphere at the time. The same word was used for any circle.

It seems more likely that Stenger just went to a website like Skeptics’ Annotated Bible and didn’t bother doing his own research on the topic.

Not like such hasn’t happened before.

As for these references to immutability in species, again, I would love to see the references for that.

Stenger later goes on to cite the objection of how the Bible says the value of pi is 3. Ironically, in the same paragraph we find the following:

Ancient peoples cannot be expected to have understood the language of modern science or have needed an exact value of pi (except for the builders of great monuments like the pyramids).

Here, Stenger is actually correct, but then he fails to apply this to all he said. It gives the impression that Stenger is more interested in having a certain interpretation that he can easily prove wrong, rather than seeing if there might be a truer interpretation that fits with the literary and historical context of the passages. The Bible must be taken in a wooden literal sense for that is the only way it can be debunked so easily. Let’s not risk actually studying it.

For more information on Pi, I refer the reader to this (http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/52573.html)

For prophecy, Stenger believes that there should be something esoteric in the Bible that is not understood until a future date when it becomes true. (Yet ironically, he says prophecies have never been fulfilled. By his demands, maybe he should just wait longer?) He gives this example. Suppose the Bible said:

Before two millennia shall pass since the birth of our Lord, a man will stand on another world within the firmament and he will smite a tiny orb with his staff such that it will fly from sight.”

Honestly, I wasn’t even sure what Stenger was referring to until he went on to talk about how men in Jesus’s day could have anticipated men being on the moon nor known anything about golf.

So Stenger would have a saying remain in Scripture for 2,000 years that would be absolutely nonsensical and handed down. Personally, I prefer Jesus’s idea. Speak to the people in language that they understand so that when the events happen, they can be sure of their fulfillment.

Stenger cites Genesis 3:15 as its often used a fulfillment of the birth of the Messiah and says “I am not sure what the prediction is here; that Jesus was to be born of a woman?”

Any commentaries cited? Not a one. Stenger says “I’m not sure.” There’s nothing wrong with being unsure of what a passage means. The best way to remedy that is to go to those learned in the Bible and find out what they say about what the passage means. Stenger doesn’t do so. Had he done so, he could have found out that seed is often attributed to a man and Jesus is said to be of the seed of woman rather than the seed of a man, a hinting at his virgin birth.

In a statement even more humorous, Stenger says “I would not be too far off base to note that Jesus sitting on God’s right hand has not been verified scientifically.”

It’s hard to imagine how someone can even think that way.

Heck. Whether I’m sitting in my own chair is not verified scientifically. You don’t have to do repeated experiments to see if I’m sitting at my computer as I write this. I wonder since Stenger is married if he says the same thing. “Well, when I scientifically verified that I loved my girlfriend at the time, I proposed to her and today, she is my wife.” Does he say “I know my children are special because I’ve scientifically verified it.” ?

The statement of Jesus at the right hand of the Father is not a scientific statement. It is a theological statement and a specifically ontological one as it describes a relationship between the Son and the Father. Of course, a literalist like Stenger is probably wondering if anyone has counted the number of fingers on God’s right hand.

In looking at fulfilled prophecies, he brings up the account of Jesus being born in Bethlehem and says “We have no reason outside the New Testament to believe Jesus was born in Bethlehem.”

There’s this great double-standard in history that if any other source makes a claim, that claim can stand on its own, but if that claim is found in the Bible, it has to be backed by something else in order to be verified. The gospels were written in the time of the eyewitnesses. Had Luke and Matthew made it up, witnesses could have said “You’re changing the story! We know where he was born!” Stenger needs to have a reason for thinking the Bible is wrong other than “It’s the Bible!”

His source for his criticism is Randall Helms’s “Gospel Fictions.” Helms is not accepted as an authority among mainstream historians. For more information on Helms, I recommend a start with this particular book here (http://www.tektonics.org/gk/helmsr01.html)


Stenger also brings up the slaughter of the innocents of Bethlehem and asks why it wasn’t mentioned elsewhere. The reason is that Herod was simply a bloodthirsty king who regularly murdered possible threats to his throne. This slaughter would have killed about a dozen boys. With all that was going on at the time with Roman occupation and the Jewish wars, this was something small not worth mentioning.

Stenger also treats seriously the pagan copycat thesis. His source for this? “The Jesus Mysteries.” This is a book I have as well and a critique of it has been written by the Bede that can be found here (http://www.tektonics.org/books/jesmystrvw.html) and also includes other links within it. It’s sources like these that tell me Stenger is just looking for sources that agree with him and going on from there. The above books mentioned are cited again by Stenger throughout the rest of this chapter. He will not cite mainstream historians, Christian or non-Christian.

In conclusion, Stenger does not make his case. There is nothing scientific in this chapter, odd for a book supposed to be about science.

We shall continue tomorrow.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Time for a favorite! A discussion on morality!

The link to tonight's blog can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/god-the-failed-hypothesis-review-do-our-values-come-from-god/)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters, where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’ve been going through some books of Victor Stenger lately. Right now, we’re on “God: The Failed Hypothesis.” Tonight, we get to discuss the topic of morality, one of my favorites!

The chapter is titled “Do Our Values Come From God?” In a sense, I’m going to agree with Stenger. No. Our values don’t often come from God. Values is a more subjective term. I value many things that I ought not to value, I value some things more than I ought to value them, I value some things less than I ought to value them, and I don’t value some things that I ought to value. We’re all in that boat. Values refers to our subjective stance on the world outside of us. Of course, I value something because I perceive it as a good, but that is very different from it being good in itself.

However, if you ask “Does our morality come from God?” then I will answer “Yes.” By our morality, I do not mean American morality or Western morality, but the objective moral law that we all submit under, even if we don’t know every in and out of it. We all know that some actions are good and some are not.

Stenger first looks at public data and says that the Federal Bureau of Prisons says that Christians make up 80% of the prison population

Now I will grant this for the sake of argument, but I see a number of problems anyway with such a statistic. To begin with, the number of Christians is vastly more than the number of atheists in America. It makes sense that in a general look at the population, there would be more Christians.

Second, we are not told here about the religious lives of these Christians. Are they ones that are devoted to their faith or are they Christians in the sense that they grew up in a church and would just if they had to choose a religion to identify themselves with, would choose Christian?

And third, and probably most important, how many of these became Christians while in prison? I did at one time work for a ministry that interacted with prisoners and I found that a number of prisoners come to Christ after they come to prison, as they have often hit rock bottom and are willing to put their faith in Christ.

Finally however, this would not say anything about the truth of objective moral laws being based on God. Stenger could easily win the battle here and lose the war. It could prove a lot of Christians are hypocrites. Very well. (To some extent, we all are) What does that have to say about the source of the objective moral law? If we found that 80% of accountants cheated on tax forms, would we conclude the problem was with the tax laws?

Stenger next goes to common standards and says that preachers tell us that morals can only come from one source, and that’s God. He then goes on to say “The data, however, indicate that the majority of human beings from all cultures and all religions or no religion agree on a common set of moral standards.”

I’m sorry. Is that actually supposed to address the argument? In fact, there is a great source that agrees with Stenger’s argument. It’s called “The Bible!” Here’s what Paul said in Romans 2:

14(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, 15since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)

So thank you Stenger for agreeing with the Bible! No one is saying you have to be aware of God in order to know the moral law. It is being said instead that morality comes from Him even if one does not know of Him. How we know the moral law does not say anything about the source of the moral law. We expect people to have agreement on general revelation. It’s special revelation that we have exception on.

Stenger tells us that stealing and lying were seen as virtues, then the results to society would be terrible. I agree. He tells us that this knowledge does not require divine revelation. I also agree. The problem for Stenger is he thinks he’s making a point, but he isn’t because he doesn’t know the side he’s arguing against. This is especially evident when he says “The only precepts unique to religion are those telling us not to question their dogma.”

No source is listed for this. Let’s see what Scripture says. Why were the Bereans in Acts 17 considered more noble than others?

11Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

What about 1 Thessalonians 5:21?

21Test everything. Hold on to the good.

And Proverbs 1? Why was Proverbs put together?

1 The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:
2 for attaining wisdom and discipline;
for understanding words of insight;

3 for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life,
doing what is right and just and fair;

4 for giving prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the young-

5 let the wise listen and add to their learning,
and let the discerning get guidance-

6 for understanding proverbs and parables,
the sayings and riddles of the wise.

7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools despise wisdom and discipline.

No Stenger. My religion tells me in fact to examine everything and think critically. I have no problem with questions. In fact, I don’t have a problem with people who question Christianity. I have a problem with people who don’t question it.

Stenger also says that when Christians decide what is right and wrong. They go to the Bible. Well that’s true Stenger, but we are not saying morality comes from the Bible. We are saying moral statements are found in the Bible. It would be like saying that mathematical truths come from Math textbooks. They can be FOUND in those books, but those books are not the source of the truths. The truths exist independently of the books. A lot of it comes from sound moral philosophy.

Stenger in looking specifically at the Bible however says that many killings were performed under God’s orders. He says the only way that can be squared with the sixth commandment is to say assume that the command must be restricted, such as don’t kill within your own tribe instead of applying it to all of humanity.

Or we could try the other route which two minutes of research would have given and said that killing and murder are two different things. Murder is an act of hatred. It is also the taking of life where there exists no right to take that life. Killing is often restricted to just war, self-defense, and capital punishment.

Stenger moves on to the second commandment and asks how many believers realize they are breaking that commandment when they take a photograph or draw a picture.

Stenger is apparently unaware that great workers of art were commissioned to do work for the Ark of the Covenant and the Temple of the Lord. No Christian has a problem with that. The only time your camera is a problem is if you take a picture of something and bow down and worship that picture. If you’re not doing that, you’re okay.

What about slavery? Slavery was a staple in the society at the time and was akin to our job agency. Jesus did not speak out against it because His message was about spiritual salvation and not political salvation. His teachings would however lead to the establishment of a society that would eventually abandon slavery, as they did with Clovis II. For more on the issue of slavery, I recommend here (http://christianthinktank.com/qnoslave.html)

Stenger also says the church taught oppression of women. His prooftext? It’s from Ephesians 5:

22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.

When I told my wife I was oppressing her and cited the text Stenger used, she just laughed.

Did Stenger look at what the passage said for the men?

25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

So as a husband, what am I to do?

I am to LOVE my wife. (Hint Stenger. If I am truly loving her, I won’t do anything she won’t mind submitting to and I won’t use submission as a bludgeon.)

How? As Christ loved the church. How did he love the church? He was willing to die for the church and indeed did.

I am also responsible for the holiness of my wife. If she is falling into sin, I am somehow responsible. If she has unholy attitudes, I am somehow responsible. Granted, she has her own role, but the Word says I am the spiritual leader of my family. I’m not only responsible for my spiritual well-being but hers as well.

I am also to present her to the throne. That’s right. I don’t have to give an account to God of just how I did in my own life. I am to give an account of my family and how well I did.

And finally, my love again is to be compared to the love of my own body. When I look at that, that is a serious call and I am very much daunted by it because I honestly see how fall I far short.

By the way Stenger, my wife believes in biblical submission and she knows I do not use submission as a bludgeon. I can’t think of anything I’ve done in fact that she’s had trouble submitting to.

Stenger also wants to bring up biblical atrocities, saying that Jesus said he didn’t come to bring peace, but a sword. This is the problem with Stenger being a wooden literalist. The sword was not a literal sword. It was saying his message was divisive and people would divide in families based on how they responded to Him.

There is one issue worth looking at. Stenger says “Of course, no one of conscience today would think it moral to kill everyone captured in battle, saving only the virgin girls for their own pleasure.”

Stenger refers to Numbers 31. Some problems.

First off, the Midianites had seduced Israel earlier in Numbers 25 and come from a great distance in order to do it. They literally went out of their way. This was judgment on a people whose only purpose in doing what they did was to lead Israel astray from their God.

Second, this was also not a total annihilation. In fact, the Midianites were still around in the time of the Judges to war against Gideon.

Third however, nowhere does the text speak of the women being captured as sex slaves. The virgins were spared because they obviously weren’t responsible for seducing the Israelites seeing as they hadn’t had sex. How was it known they were virgins? Because virgins wore special garments back then to identify themselves.

For an in-depth treatment, I recommend this (http://christianthinktank.com/midian.html).

Stenger’s explanation of morality is to look to natural morality. What does he say?

Vampire bats share food. Apes and monkeys comfort members of their group who are upset and work together to get food. Dolphins push sick members of a pod to the surface to get air. Whales will put themselves in harm’s way to help a wounded member of their group. Elephants try their best to save injured members of their families.

I’m not going to dispute any of this. However, notice some traits Stenger left out? Cats, for instance, can eat their own young. Would Stenger like us to adopt this practice as well? Animals will also urinate in public places and eat their own waste. Would Stenger like us to adopt this?

It is fascinating that Stenger is suggesting we look to the animals for examples of morality. If he says they come from our common humanity, which he does, then why point to animals?

Also Stenger, what makes us all common in our humanity?

Stenger says we have taught ourselves right and wrong. Hold on to that for now. I wish to comment on it at the end.

Stenger refers to the fourth way of Aquinas which says “There must be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection, and this we call God.”

Now let’s bring that point about teaching ourselves right and wrong. Aquinas is not giving the traditional moral argument. He’s not talking about goodness. He’s talking about perfections, that is, grades of being. There must be one who is pure being who embodies what it means to be. For him, goodness, truth, and beauty were identical with being. As far as you are, you are good, true, and beautiful.

Morality then is based on what IS good in itself first and then the proper response to that goodness in relation to how it stands in the chain of goodness.

I support this simple idea. Let’s take this position.

“It is wrong to torture babies for fun.”

Now I want to examine the truth-content of this claim. It is either true, false, or nonsensical. How could it be nonsensical? It would be if a term was not understood.

If there is no objective morality, it is nonsensical because wrong really has no meaning. If there is however, the statement is either true or false. If you say “It is wrong!” you are appealing to an objective morality since wrong has meaning. If you say “It is not wrong!” you are doing the same since wrong also has meaning. (You also need to seek counseling.)

These are moral truths and we either create these truths or discover them. If we create them, then like any other rules we create, such as rules of a game, we can change them. If we discover them, they exist independently of us.

Truths exist in a mind.

Which mind would you say they exist in Stenger?

We shall continue tomorrow.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Now the argument from evil!

The link can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/10/12/god-the-failed-hypothesis-review-the-argument-from-evil/)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’ve lately been going through a couple of books of Victor Stenger. Tonight, we’re going to continue our look at “God: The Failed Hypothesis” as we look at chapter 8, “The Argument From Evil.”

This is the most common argument given against God, and that is understandable, as we tend to think more emotionally than anything else. Stenger in describing this rightly calls the defense of God’s existence in the face of evil as theodicy. However, he then goes on to say:

So far, this attempt has proven unsatisfactory in the judgment of the majority of philosophers and other scholars who have not already committed themselves to God as an act of faith.

First obvious problem; Stenger gives no sources whatsoever for this claim. Who are these philosophers and scholars? Where can I read their writings? I don’t know. Stenger doesn’t tell.

Second, I thought this was about science. Interestingly, Stenger does not refer to scientists but to philosophers and scholars. Now some scholars could include scientists, but if this work is supposed to be about science, then shouldn’t we see arguments from scientists instead?

Third, his statement implies that if the non-believers are not convinced by the arguments of theodicy, then those arguments are not good. Okay. Believers are unconvinced by the arguments of unbelievers. Does it follow that those arguments are invalid? When you look at an argument, a valid appeal to authority can be done based on who believes or doesn’t believe an argument or why, but most important is the argument itself.

Fourth, he poisons the well by saying that some have committed themselves by an act of faith. Implicit in this would be his belief that faith is believing something without evidence. I believe in the existence of God based on evidence so that even if I don’t understand evil in the world, I understand there is primary evidence for God’s existence. For instance, because I might not be able to explain something like the Haitian earthquake, it does not follow that God did not raise Jesus from the dead. Those are separate questions. If God raised Jesus, Christianity is true and even if I can’t think of an answer to the question of the earthquake, I know there is one. Even if I knew of a good reason for the earthquake in reverse, it would not follow that God raised Jesus from the dead. When dealing with this argument, the burden is on the atheist as the one saying this is a defeater and he must prove that there is no good reason to allow an evil.

Stenger tells us that the argument from evil begins with an empirical fact. First, evil exists, which he defines as “bad stuff.”

Very good definition….

I wonder if I could define good as “good stuff.”

Second, he considers the existence of evil a scientific statement.

What is scientific about it? It is a philosophical statement, unless Stenger wants to posit evil as a material reality such as a property of matter or a way of describing relationships between matter qua matter. I agree that evil exists, but that is a metaphysical statement. It is not scientific.

Let’s look at the reasons he gives why people believe in God in the face of evil and how he responds. The first is that evil is a result of human free will. Stenger however says not all evil falls under this category and there is unnecessary suffering as a result of natural disasters.

Unnecessary? Really? Is Stenger going to demonstrate that there is no good reason to allow some suffering? Remember, the burden is on him to prove this. For a look at my answer to natural evil, I recommend this (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2008/07/21/why-i-rejected-christianity-review-natural-evil/)

The second is that some suffering is necessary to help us develop. Some moral values exist only in response to suffering. Stenger’s answer is “This could be accomplished with a whole lot less suffering than exists in the world.”

To begin with, not all suffering is of this type. However, if Stenger wishes to have this as his viewpoint, then by all means, let’s see it demonstrated.

The third is that good and evil exist as contrast and one cannot exist without the other. This is not a Christian position so it will be skipped. The fourth is like it and will be skipped as well.

The fifth is that perhaps God has different concepts and what we think of as evil is really good.

This is not a view I would put forward and I don’t think Christians should, as God has told us His views. I want to note what Stenger says in the response however.

“Good” and “evil” are our words and they name our concepts. It is confused thinking to suppose that some God’s opinion would make any difference in our concepts.

These are our words, yes, but are the concepts ours? Do the concepts derive from us or from something beyond ourselves? Also, if God exists and is omniscient, which is the view Stenger is arguing against, what sense does it make to speak of God’s opinion? He does not have opinion. He has facts.

The sixth is that perhaps there is some purpose and we don’t know it. Have faith.

This is a straw man. We should not ask people to believe blindly. Believe based on the miracles that have taken place and the evidence of the empty tomb. However, Stenger asks why God would give us a nature that finds His actions so reprehensible? The truth is, He didn’t. The problem lies with our falling from what we were meant to be. Also, despite what Stenger says, we are not to blindly believe there is no good reason. We believe there is good reason because we have independent evidence outside of this that God exists.

The final arguments speak of the devil as the cause of evil or as God being limited somehow. I do not think any of these arguments are plausible and so I will skip them.

Stenger continues to describe God as evil in the Bible. We saw this yesterday so there’s no need to repeat much here. He does bring up Isaiah 45:7 in the RSV saying “I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe. I am the Lord, who do all these things.”

Well yes, it says that. The idea is of a parallel. God can bring blessing on a city or judgment. It’s always the same with the problem of evil it seems. People like Stenger complain about why God doesn’t do anything about evil. Then, when He’s done something about it, they accuse Him of genocide.

This chapter is surprisingly short. Stenger has claimed to make a scientific case, but there is nothing scientific in this chapter. That’s fine with me because I don’t believe it’s a problem of science. Stenger may wish to say it’s science, but saying it is doesn’t make it so.

We shall continue tomorrow.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Onward.

The link to tonight's blog can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/god-the-failed-hypothesis-review-possible-and-impossible-gods/)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters, where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Lately, we’ve been going through some books of Victor Stenger to see what the other side has to say in defense of atheism. So far, it hasn’t been much. Tonight, we’re going to continue that look by examining the ninth chapter of “God: The Failed Hypothesis” which is called “Possible and Impossible Gods.”

Early on this chapter, Stenger says “Belief aside, at the very minimum the fact that a specific God does not agree with the data is cause enough not to assume the existence of that God in the practices of every day life.”

I agree. I agree 100%. The problem is, Stenger thinks the only way people believe in God is they just assume that he exists. It is his false definition of faith. I believe in God because I do believe the reasons for belief are sound and any alternatives fail to give explanations for what we see. I believe our belief systems should be based on good evidence and able to be lived out practically. Christianity has both.

Stenger also reviews past chapters and there are some highlights to point out. For instance, he says that there could have been given as evidence someone who would be given a date for the end of the world and it happens right on schedule. It seems however that if that happened, it would be a bit too late for everyone to suddenly believe in the God this man is a prophet for. Surely Stenger could have thought of a better example than that!

He also has this highlight:

The void might have been found to be absolutely stable, requiring some action to bring something rather than nothing into existence.

Bringing nothing into existence?

Do I really need to comment on that?

Stenger goes on to say later that:

Serious theologians not committed by faith to their own dogma have gradually begun to accept the absence of objective evidence for God and have been forced to conclude if a god exists, he must purposely hide himself from us.

Who are these serious theologians? What are their names? What writings of theirs can I read? I would love to know, but unfortunately, I can’t. Why? The same reason again. Stenger does not list any sources. As he so often does, these are referred to as some realities out there that we must simply accept by faith. For me, it’s just simply accepting that Stenger is not wanting to do proper research into the beliefs of Christians, as his work shows.

In speaking about evil, Stenger says:

The problem of evil remains the strongest argument against a beneficent God, one that theologians have grappled with for centuries without success.

Again, I want to know the names of these theologians who have tried to argue without success. Instead, I am referenced to two atheist books. I have no idea which books Stenger himself has personally read on the topic. Does he know about Augustine’s debates in his age? Does he know about Aquinas’s equating goodness with being? Does he really know about Plantinga?

Or does he only know what he reads in the atheists about them?

To continue his blind faith, Stenger says:

God does not wish to spend eternity with all human souls, but only the chosen few who, by blind faith, in the absence of all evidence, accept a Jewish carpenter who may or may not have lived two thousand years ago as their personal savior. Of course, this is hardly a new idea but was essentially the teaching of John Calvin.

What we have is once again a total straw man. One wonders also that faith is believing something without evidence, what good does it do to say that it is blind and to say that it is in the absence of all evidence, unless Stenger likes redundancies for some reason? Also, this is not just the teaching of John Calvin. The teaching of belief in Christ for forgiveness of sins is something Calvinists and Arminians can agree on. Christ is the savior of all who believe.

Stenger also says:

To Christians of this persuasion, Mahatma Gandhi is burning in hell, along with the six million Jews killed by Hitler and the billions of others who have died without accepting Jesus.

This is simply an appeal to emotion, but let’s suppose we said “Alright Stenger. We’ll play your game. You can go to Heaven if you live a life as good as Mahatma Gandhi. Any less and you go to Hell. Do you measure up? Are you as selfless as he was? Are you willing to do all that he did?

Let’s set up a point system. How many points should be allowed to receive forgiveness? How many points will you get for each action that’s good? How many will you lose for each action that’s bad? Why should the count be set where it is? Exactly how good is good enough and how will you know?

God doesn’t ask you to be better than Mahatma Gandhi. He doesn’t ask you to be better than your neighbor. He asks you to be perfect and he also realizes you can’t reach that. That’s why he actually provides a simple way for you. All you have to do is accept the work of His Son on your behalf. Essentially, for us, God made salvation easy. All it costs us is the pride we relinquish when we bow down and admit that He is God and we are not.

Personally, I’m thankful the system’s that way. If I had to be as good as Mahatma Gandhi, I would worry if I’d qualify and frankly, atheists would be saying that God is setting the standard way too high. The reality is, God set the standard as high as it could go, but he also provided the way for us to freely make it.

And if God sets the rules of the game, complaining about that won’t change it. The best thing to do is see if He exists. It’s not about whether you like that He exists or whether you agree with His system or you think He’s running the show right. It’s about if He exists and if He has revealed Himself in Christ. If He does and He has, then the best thing to do is trust Him on what you can know instead of refusing to believe based on what you don’t know.

A wise man would make a decision based on what he knows and not on what he doesn’t know.

Be wise.

We shall continue tomorrow.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Chapter 10.

The link is here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=2277&action=edit&message=6)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Tonight, we’re going to go through the final chapter of Victor Stenger’s book “God: The Failed Hypothesis” looking at the chapter on living in a godless universe. Don’t expect blogs tomorrow or Saturday night. I’ll be at the National Conference on Christian Apologetics. When I return I plan on a final summary.

How is an atheist like Stenger to live? (I find this interesting. If this is the way we all naturally are, why not just go with the song and just “act naturally”) Well, Stenger thinks apparently that he has to explain how to live. In a sense, he does, since life ultimately will have no meaning. However, let’s see what he says in this chapter.

He early on tells of theories about a God module in the brain or a God gene. My problem with this is that even if such was the case, that says nothing about the truthfulness or falsity of the belief. This also gets into Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism. If evolution gave us the belief in religion to help us survive, then why should we not believe the same now? It is not about true beliefs then. It would be evolution is helping atheists like Stenger survive now, but we have no way of knowing if that belief is true. The only way is to look beyond the brain. Could we have a God module? Sure. I’m open to it. It doesn’t affect God’s existence either way.

He also says that if religion is a naturally evolved trait, we have an argument against God. How? No reason is given. Could it be that if God used evolution, he arranged it so that our brains would work in such a way that we would come to believe in him? If that is the case, could it be the atheists are the ones then with the faulty brains? Evolutionary belief in God could then be an argument against God. Of course, the atheist could counter that our brains are meant to give us true beliefs, but then he is bringing teleology into the picture and where does he get that from?

He goes on to condemn Justice Scalia for the belief that government gets its authority from God saying that Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of Independence was a deist and not a Christian.

And the point is?

Even deists believed that God was a necessary foundation for morality. Jefferson would have agreed with Scalia on that point.

Stenger also says most Americans believe the constitution is a living document that evolves as society evolves and tells us Scalia sees that as a fallacy. He says “For him, the text is fixed in meaning what it always meant.”

Well geez. You know what? That kind of makes sense. Maybe Stenger I should just say the Bible doesn’t mean what you say it means and call it a living document, or could it be you think the meaning of the text is in the text? Maybe a few years from now, I can call your book a living book and say it was written as an argument for theism in that it was a mock atheist apologist work.

Stenger even goes on to say that if slavery which was not forbidden in the Constitution still existed today, Scalia would probably vote against its abolition. This is simply an ad hominem that is entirely tasteless for someone wanting to produce a serious argument.

He finally says that Scalia believes that God rules over a society that must remain unchanged because change implies perfection in the original creation.

I have no idea where he gets this stuff…..

When asking about charitable giving, Stenger says that perhaps religious people who give would just give anyway. “Perhaps.” In other words, “Let’s just hope that that’s true because it fits in with our conceptions of the world even if there is no evidence for it.” When a Christian does that, it’s blind faith. When an atheist does it, it’s good science.

As for meaning, Stenger says that what happens now is what matters. Okay. Why? Why should this block of time be more important than the next? Why should tomorrow matter less than today and why should yesterday also matter yes. This present moment matters. For what? For what purpose?

We are told that Aristotle believed that the life of contemplation was the best because that matches those of the gods. Stenger says he supposes that he wasn’t thinking of the gods in the Iliad.

Well, no. All you have to do is read Aristotle to find he was a monotheist and he got darn close to the Judeo-Christian idea of God. You know Stenger? The one you’ve been railing against?

Stenger also tells us of the advice of Peter Singer of “We can live a meaningful life by working towards goals that are objectively worthwhile.” Who says they are? Why should I believe any goal is objectively worthwhile?

Overall, there really isn’t much that Stenger offers that isn’t simply self-help that could be true for anyone. I as a Christian could agree with much of it. I do think it’s more difficult for an atheist who accepts that as “good” without any basis.

We shall conclude Sunday.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Time to conclude for now.

The link can be found here (http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/god-the-failed-hypothesis-review-conclusion/)

The text is as follows:

Hello everyone. It’s good to be back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! I had a highly enjoyable time at the Conference and I hope some of you were there. Tonight, we’re going to wrap up our look at Victor Stenger’s book “God: The Failed Hypothesis.”

My conclusion to this is that this book should be called instead “Stenger: The Failed Philosopher.” Now some of you might be saying “But he’s a scientist! He’s not writing philosophy! False. There is scientific data but the interpretation of that data is working out inferences to the best possible explanation. Now if he’s studying natural causes, then yeah, science is being done. He’s not. He’s talking about realities beyond matter. Now granted, he doesn’t believe those realities exist in actuality, which is his point, but to speak beyond matter is to speak out of his area. He is no longer doing science at that point, but philosophy.

Note this. I am not against science. I am also not against philosophy. However, I believe whichever one we do, we should do well. Our ability in one area does not necessarily lead to skill in another. Atheists often wish theists who are ignorant of science would stay out of the debates on science. I agree entirely. The problem is, as I have said before, that the atheists don’t return the favor. They in fact often speak on Christian theology without any understanding of it.

Do you think this is a baseless assertion? If you do, then simply go to a bookstore and get a book by the new atheists. You don’t even have to purchase it. Just open it up and look in the bibliography. Go through and see how many evangelical scholars you see listed. Contrast this by going to many an evangelical Christian work questioning atheism and see how many non-Christians they cite.

Stenger’s research methods I believe are poor. Now it could be his skill in physics is better, but as a philosopher, I question the very idea of something coming from nothing. The reason for his poor research I believe is that he is dealing with pop Christianity. If atheists think Christians believe things without evidence, we Christians must admit that it could be because several Christians have sadly given that impression.

Unfortunately, this has also led to atheists thinking Christianity is nonsense prima facie. I don’t just mean that they think it’s wrong. They think it’s nonsense. There’s really no content to it that’s worth studying. If you were an intelligent person, you’d just look and realize that it’s nonsense.

Unfortunately for them, this is not the case. I do not believe Islam is true for a second, but at the same time, I also believe that it’s important to study Islam if you want to evangelize Muslims. In fact, one of the strangest religions I know of is Mormonism, but yet, I don’t ignore the arguments of them. I have a number of books here so that when I dialogue with the Mormons, I can get their beliefs right.

The new atheists like Stenger don’t do this. This lets them go after the gullible who sadly could be Christians, Christians who have not been raised well and do not know better. This is also the fault of the Christian church. After all, if we say “Our children are not being raised Christian” who are we going to blame that on? We may not control what goes on in the school system, but we surely have some control over what goes on in our own households.

It also affects atheists who seem to repeat without considering it what the new atheists say. I don’t know how many atheists I’ve met who are skeptical that I’ve read The God Delusion. Why be skeptical? Because if you had, how could your faith survive? Isn’t Dawkins devastating? You just didn’t understand it if you read it.

The problem is I did understand it. I understood it was terrible argumentation, but the atheist has often written this off prima facie. The Christian cannot have a good answer. He just can’t! Why? Because atheism is true! Everything else is just nonsense on its face and so there’s no point in studying it!

In the end, atheism is a position of faith and frankly, the kind of faith Stenger believes in.

And in the end, Stenger is a failed philosopher and his case does not hold.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

So I was just checking our Seminary library to see more on my post here (http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showpost.php?p=3094157&postcount=48)

Stenger makes the claim that according to Biblical Archaeological Review, that we can definitely say that David and Solomon never existed. This is in Vol. 31 #1, pages 15-16.

I went and looked it up tonight. What do I see?

What is really being reported is a covering of some minimalists speaking on archaeology and this is the opinion of one of the minimalists.

I really consider this quite disingenuous on Stenger's part. I really hope it was lazy research on his part that made him not check his sources, as I have seen this posted in other places, notably by a "Boris" who I think could have been the one who got himself banned quickly here.

If it was not lazy research, then this is just intentional deception to present the minimalist position as ipso facto the position of BAR.

It would be wonderful if Stenger would come here to explain this.

[jpholding]

I really consider this quite disingenuous on Stenger's part. I really hope it was lazy research on his part that made him not check his sources, as I have seen this posted in other places, notably by a "Boris" who I think could have been the one who got himself banned quickly here.

If it was not lazy research, then this is just intentional deception to present the minimalist position as ipso facto the position of BAR.

Chances are Stenger never had a copy of BAR in his greasy little hands and just accepted an interpretation of the article by some monumentally ignorant freethought publication of the sort put out by angry apostate preachers whose degrees were in English.

Now who do I have in mind with that I wonder? :lol: