Lee Strobel strikes out six times in a row…

Lee Strobel has written many populist books called “The Case for” something or other (The Case for a Creator, The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith, The Case for Easter, and some books preying on children also), where he interviews his fellow Christian believers to provide “answers” in a one-sided pseudo-journalistic fashion. As such, he is the darling of believers, who always try to reduce complex moral, epistemic and historical issues to the level of witty little answers. He is also a so-called “ex-atheist.”

The readers of Friendly Atheist sent in questions for a three-part series, taking him to the task about his “ex-atheism,” his ridiculous methodology, and the vacuous nature of Christian apologetics. His answers are, as expected from a champion of Christianity, very arrogant and self-centered (you may read all of them here), as are his books. The interesting part, however, is the last one, for which he asked a number of prominent Christians what they thought the best questions to use on “skeptics” was, and relayed these to us. With his typical arrogance, he claims that “[i]f [these questions are] considered fully with all of their implications, they might indeed plant some seeds [of doubt].”

Is that really true? How troubling are Strobel’s questions? Will they “plant some seeds” of doubt in your average atheist? Let’s check it out.

Just so I am clear here, what mainly interests me in this entry is how much doubt these questions would elicit in the average atheist, not whether the questions can be answered or not. I have in fact already answered many of these questions in the past on this blog.
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Historian Gary Habermas: “Utilizing each of the historical facts conceded by virtually all contemporary scholars, please produce a comprehensive natural explanation of Jesus’ resurrection that makes better sense than the event itself.”

These historical facts are: (1) Jesus was killed by crucifixion; (2) Jesus’ disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them; (3) The conversion of the church persecutor Saul, who became the Apostle Paul; (4) the conversion of the skeptic James, Jesus’ half-brother; (5) The empty tomb of Jesus. These “minimal facts” are strongly evidenced and are regarded as historical by the vast majority of scholars, including skeptics, who have written about the resurrection in French, German, and English since 1975. While the fifth fact doesn’t have quite the same virtual universal consensus, it nevertheless is conceded by 75 percent of the scholars and is well supported by the historical data if assessed without preconceptions.

How is this meant to plant a seed of doubt in atheists’ minds? In order to plant doubt now where none was before, we need to be presented with some new fact or some new way of seeing an already-known fact. Does Hadermas think Western atheists are not aware of what Christians believe about Jesus, or that atheists somehow have never thought about the fact that Jesus is said to have resurrected? The claim that Jesus is our saviour, that he was crucified for our sins, and then came back from the dead is only, well, the very first fact everyone learns about Christianity.

Atheists reject the Bible as a book of historical facts on the overwhelming counter-weight of the moral, ethical, scientific and historical evidence that contradicts it. Some atheists see the Bible as a book of mythology, some as a book which contains sparse facts but mostly myths, and some as nothing more than make-believe. On that basis, how can these so-called “historical facts” give pause to any atheist who has any sort of conviction about the Bible? Either one accepts the Bible or one doesn’t. Unless actual historical evidence can be presented for any of these “facts,” atheists will continue to consider them myths, myths mixed with some truth, or make-believe.

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Philosopher Paul Copan: “Given the commonly recognized and scientifically supported belief that the universe (all matter, energy, space, time) began to exist a finite time ago and that the universe is remarkably finely tuned for life, does this not (strongly) suggest that the universe is ontologically haunted and that this fact should require further exploration, given the metaphysically staggering implications?

I can’t believe that we still have to talk about the fine-tuning argument, but here we are. I can see that this might plant some doubt in atheists who haven’t given any thought whatsoever to the subject, but the theory of evolution, which most atheists are familiar with, provides a simple and clear counter-argument: life adapts to its context (the world, the universe), not the other way around.

The fact that a contemporary so-called philosopher invokes fine-tuning is rather mind-boggling. David Mills compares this to a person who looks at a map, realizes that major cities are always along some body of water, and concludes that it is so nice that water conforms itself to the patterns of human habitation. How can this be explained? The answer is that this hypothetical person has his causality upside-down. It’s people who adapt to the pattern of bodies of water, not the reverse.

Using this sort of reasoning is a sign that someone is very unfamiliar with the basic principles of causality, and probably cannot reason very well. Of course, there are atheists who do not reason very well, so I concede that this line of questioning might be mildly effective.

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“And, second, granted that the major objection to belief in God is the problem of evil, does the concept of evil itself not suggest a standard of goodness or a design plan from which things deviate, so that if things ought to be a certain way (rather than just happening to be the way they are in nature), don’t such ‘injustices’ or ‘evils’ seem to suggest a moral/design plan independent of nature?”

I grant that this question will definitely plant seeds of doubt in atheists who have not given any thought to the basic moral issues, and that is a fairly large contingent. Anyone who does not have a conception of where morality comes from, or who relies on the authoritarian narratives which tell us that morality comes from obedience, will be vulnerable to believing in the Christian concept of “might makes right” (God will send you to Hell if you don’t obey, so obey God’s commandments). However, this is doubt born from ignorance, not from healthy skepticism, which apparently doesn’t bother our “philosopher.”

Anyone who has read my blog for any period of time will know my answer, which is supported by all the data we have: the concept of good and evil is part of human nature itself, it is innate. There is no great plan or mystery to this issue at all. Evolution tells us that the tribes, species and groups of species ruled by free cooperation (which is pretty much the diametrical opposite of Christian morality) survive and flourish better than those tribes, species and groups of species that do not. This is why free cooperation is part and parcel of the genetic code of most animals, including humans. It is why we reject murder, theft, and lies, and seek to cooperate with our fellows.

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Talk show host Frank Pastore: “Please explain how something can come from nothing, how life can come from non-life, how mind can come from brain, and how our moral senses developed from an amoral source.”

How do you expect to plant seeds of doubt in someone when you don’t even try to understand what that person believes? Most atheists do not claim to know astrophysics, abiogenesis, or neurology. None of these scientific disciplines are necessary to be an atheist. Therefore this question is a complete failure at making atheists doubt. No atheist believes that he must know everything in order to be an atheist.

Equally importantly, neither is it necessary to know everything to be a Christian. Can Frank Pastore “explain how something [the universe] can come from nothing, how life can come from non-life [clay], how mind can come from brain, and how our moral senses developed from an amoral source [God]“? If not, why should we? If all he has to offer is “God did it,” which is not an explanation, then why should atheists feel like they have to offer explanations? Of course, a “talk show host” would probably have some glib, side-tracking response to these questions, but the fact remains that Christianity in itself absolutely does not answer these questions.

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Historian Mike Licona: “Irrespective of one’s worldview, many experience periods of doubt. Do you ever doubt your atheism and, if so, what is it about theism or Christianity that is most troubling to your atheism?”

This is a different tack, for sure, but a dubious one. After all, if the goal here is to instill doubt, why ask a question that would only really apply to people who already have doubt? If one does not doubt one’s atheism, then the answer will simply be “no,” and the question is irrelevant.

Should an atheist doubt his atheism? Maybe so. But since atheism is a negative position, what is there to doubt exactly? Should one wonder whether the Christian God just might exist after all? But how can an atheist change his mind on the subject unless some new evidence is presented to him? Merely asking what troubles you is not new evidence. One may be troubled by plenty of things, but if one already deconverted despite these troubling things, it is of little use to rehash them.

If we accept this line of reasoning, then there is one equally problematic issue. If the atheist is a materialist as well, then what evidence could he accept for the existence of a non-material being? Any evidence presented could equally be evidence for the existence of some material being or process. Therefore, to a materialist, any such argument is necessarily an argument from ignorance. To the Christian, the fact that any evidence for their God is, from a logical standpoint, equally justifiable as evidence for natural processes should be “most troubling.”

In short, this question does not at all introduce doubt, since it only applies to atheists who have doubts in the first place.

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Author Greg Koukl: “Why is something here rather than nothing here? Clearly, the physical universe is not eternal (Second Law of Thermodynamics, Big Bang cosmology). Either everything came from something outside the material universe, or everything came from nothing (Law of Excluded Middle). Which of those two is the most reasonable alternative? As an atheist, you seem to have opted for the latter. Why?”

I have already grappled with Koukl’s rhetoric before, where I refuted his attempts at rationalizing the Problem of Evil. He has the unfortunate tendency of oversimplifing issues using cutesy analogies and false dilemmas, and he is doing the same thing here.

If we look at what Pastore said, Koukl is doing the same thing here but using more sophisticated terms: he is trying to equate atheism with astrophysics, and make atheists feel guilty for not knowing astrophysics as well as he thinks he does. As such, it no more instills doubt than Pastore’s questions. No atheist I know equates atheism with knowledge of astrophysics.

In fact, to answer both Pastore and Koukl’s implicit premise, there were atheists far before the development of astrophysics or biology. What would these two pulpit-bashing Christians make of Epicurus, who first conceived of the Problem of Evil millenia before the principles of evolution or the Big Bang were discovered? What would they make of that great man, Robert Ingersoll, who lived and died before all these advances of science, and yet advanced ideas so powerful that they resonated with the United States of his time? What about the innumerable atheists that came before either of them? Were they all crazy? And what about the Pirahã tribe in Brazil, whose people have never known science and yet hold no supernatural beliefs whatsoever?

The fact is that all of these people don’t really have that much more knowledge of the scientific issues than Pastore and Koukl do, who look at science strictly to rationalize their archaic beliefs. Pastore and Koukl can no more explain how a God-centered universe can produce good or evil than Epicurus or Ingersoll could explain the eras of the Big Bang, and yet we hold neither side to their scientific ignorance. Why therefore hold present atheists to their scientific ignorance?

The fact that atheists and Christians are both perfectly content even in a situation of scientific ignorance prove that people can make up their minds about things with or without science. Science is a fine adjunct to any sound reasoning process, but unless we are looking for answers about the functioning of some natural system, science cannot replace sound reasoning.

I said that I would examine each of these points, not for their truth, but for how much doubt they might generate in your average atheist, as they were promised to do. The end result? I find none of these questions particularly troubling or conducive to doubt. Only atheists who have given no thought to any of these issues might be shaken and might have to ask someone else to explain some of these points. But atheists with the merest understanding of philosophical issues will not be troubled. This is a major failure for Strobel.

George Carlin The Ten Commandments Broken Down

Pollution: the major cause of death?

According to one researcher’s work, pollution may directly or indirectly cause 40% of deaths worldwide.

Among the study’s other main points:

* Nearly half the world’s people are crowded into urban areas, often without adequate sanitation, and are exposed to epidemics of such diseases as measles and flu.
* With 1.2 billion people lacking clean water, waterborne infections account for 80 percent of all infectious diseases. Increased water pollution creates breeding grounds for malaria-carrying mosquitoes, killing 1.2 million to 2.7 million people a year, and air pollution kills about 3 million people a year. Unsanitary living conditions account for more than 5 million deaths each year, of which more than half are children.
* Air pollution from smoke and various chemicals kills 3 million people a year. In the United States alone about 3 million tons of toxic chemicals are released into the environment — contributing to cancer, birth defects, immune system defects and many other serious health problems.
* Soil is contaminated by many chemicals and pathogens, which are passed on to humans through direct contact or via food and water. Increased soil erosion worldwide not only results in more soil being blown but spreading of disease microbes and various toxins.

Forget about global warming- this is the real pollution holocaust.

They Live – Obey, Consume, This is your God

“Your ideas can only work on a small scale!”

There is a certain kind of criticism against radical ideas that is difficult to answer, not because the criticism is a good one but because it is so vague and insubstantial that it’s hard to just get a grip on what exactly it implies. This criticism is the one which states authoritatively: “your idea sounds good in theory, but it can only work on a small scale!”

I have heard this sort of objection for a long time, but there seems to be only one justification given for it, when the person bothers to give a justification. This is the idea that such radical ideas depend on people trusting each other, and so they can only work when every member interacts directly with every other, otherwise… some terrible thing will happen. People will start cutting corners, keep other people out of the loop, caring less about those they are supposed to help, making others do what they don’t want to do, not be able to take good decisions because they are disconnected from the context, and so on.

The first thing you might notice from reading this laundry list is that this is in fact a perfect description of the capital-democratic system! Those who are in charge are completely disconnected from the targeted context of their own decisions. They keep other people out of the loop, they don’t care about those they are supposed to help, and they certainly make others do what they don’t want to do. And at the core, it is certainly true that they don’t work directly with every single person they affect with their decisions.

Therefore, if this is an argument for, say, Anarchism being only good on a small scale, then it is much more so an argument for capital-democracy (or any other hierarchical system where some people take decisions that affect vast swaths of others people) being only good on a small scale! Anarchism is still vastly preferable to any statist system based on this criterion.

Do some systems only work on a small scale? Yes, those that require homogeneity. Once you expand these systems to encompass large populations, people will inevitably differ in some important ways. Ironically, democracy is a good example of such a system, since it can only function peacefully if people are in general agreement over political issues. Otherwise, ideological conflict, secession, and force used to prevent both, inevitably result.

Where does this belief in “only works on the small scale” come from? Is it based on the belief that people would, if not restrained by the personal effect of direct contact, cheat and hurt each other? If so, then it is only a corollary of the belief in man being innately evil.

While it is very true that being physically close to someone will make us consider their needs to a greater extent, in the way that seeing those needs on a piece of paper does not, it is not at all clear that not being physically close to someone will make us completely ignore their needs. For example, people give to charities even when they have never seen the future recipients of the proposed aid. So a case must be made for this before we accept it as fact.

I definitely know that some of this comes out of gross misunderstanding of what Anarchism is about. For instance, one so-called Anarchist told me that Anarchism only works on a small scale because Anarchists don’t believe in stopping people from stealing each other’s stuff, so everyone needs to trust everyone else. Where this person got this strange belief, I have no idea. I have never heard any other Anarchist who believes this. But this person is so adamant in this misunderstanding that he has come to this conclusion that Anarchism cannot possibly work on a large scale.

However, I can say that the argument is true in one sense; insofar as the geo-political units we know today are gigantic beyond measure, unsustainable, and anti-individualist in their scope, any rational way of organizing society must break them down into much, much smaller units. In that sense, we definitely want to “work on a small scale,” not on the gargantuan scale of nation-states. We want an ideology which can help us make sense of society, not fog issues by positing that millions of people somehow belong to the same unit that and that we are abstractly bound together by some arbitrary borders.

But the accusation that Anarchism, or any other radical system, cannot scale up is nonsensical. The federative model, in which groups send representants to a higher-level group, which itself sends representants to a higher-level group, and so on, is very much scalable. This is a popular form of generalized Anarchist organization, but only one of many.

The federative model gives its members the power of accountability, something which is quite neutered in a democracy. And this is really all you need for any system to be scalable: accountability and transparency. As long as the abuses in a system can be observed and corrected, there is no reason to fear the mental or physical distance between the people who take higher-level decisions and the people who are subject to those decisions. Of course, one would rather not have to live within such superstructures, but we all live on one world and our decisions affect everyone else, so we really have no choice in the matter.

If we look at the issue from a theoretical standpoint, we know that cooperation spreads once people are made to realize its benefits. This has been observed to be true many times as well. People can be conditioned to cooperate and thus see others positively, but they can also be conditioned to compete and thus see others negatively. Both modes of operation are scalable without limits. Whole societies can be built on trust or built on the desire to control, depending on how they are structured. Neither of them are ingrained in the nature of large-scale groups or society itself.

The Terrorism Quiz

See how many questions you can get right on the terrorism quiz. Fuck the US Army.

9. True or False: Revenge is an important cause of terrorism.

-True. For example, “The University of Toronto sociologist Robert Brym carefully studied all 138 suicide bombings between September 2000 and mid-July 2005. He concluded that in the vast majority of cases the suicide bombers themselves—whatever their ideological predispositions, or the groups that claimed responsibility—had lost a friend or close relative to Israeli fire. They acted, he wrote, ‘out of revenge.’” (Bernard Avishai; The Hebrew Republic; Harcourt; New York: 2008; p. 255.)