In my pathetic attempt to coin a bon mot, I was inspired by the famous statement of Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion.
“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”
(Yes, I know that someone said it before him.)
Here’s my try, inspired by the idea that nearly all religious believers have some non-negotiable beliefs, although others are Biblical literalists about nearly everything. For more liberal believers, the divinity of Jesus and his resurrection is the last but firmly held redoubt of their faith. But it remains a form of fundamentalism.
So here’s my statement, which is mine (Professor Ceiling Cat):
“Some believers are fundamentalists about everything, but every believer is a fundamentalist about something.”
And yes, I know that there are some “believers” who don’t accept any form of supernaturalism, though they’re thin on the ground.
That works.
Dawkins’s quote traces it history back to Stephen F Roberts, should you be interested.
Cheers,
b&
How about this:
“Most Christians are able to recognise that large parts the Bible are nonsense and can be safely ignore much of it … some people are just able to extend this approach for a few pages more”.
Works for me.
Hmm, your bon mot may well be true about most believers in the US, but is not necessarily true about many “believers” in the UK.
There would be many CofE-style believers in the UK who would consider themselves “Christian” and/or “religious” and “spiritual” but who might interpret the resurrection symbolically (as a famous example, former Bishop of Durham David Jenkins).
That’s the way I was taught religion in a CofE primary school, just interesting stories and metaphors about how one should live their life. Any historical truth of these stories was never mentioned. It’s no wonder so many younger people are atheists here.
Similar model in Ireland, Coel. Very many people will describe themselves as Catholic and send their kids to Catholic schools to learn the sacraments, etc. It’s a largely cultural thing though. Many of those people will not believe in transubstantiation but still make a big deal of their kid’s First Communion. They’ll know that the priest will say it is a mortal sin to miss Mass on a Sunday but they will never see the inside of a Church between weddings and funerals.
I think I’ve seen a number of people refer to themselves as ‘culturally CofE’. We have a lot of ‘cultural Catholics’ in Ireland.
I was going to a Methodist church at the time that David Jenkins hit the press with his comments. The minister at the time backed up the metaphorical interpretation of the resurrection. So not just CofE.
When I get asked why I don’t believe in god I usually reply “for the same reason you don’t believe in Brahma.” Sometimes it’s a different god/goddess. It really confuses most theists, I have fun watching them reply, they struggle to understand they could be considered atheists to other religions. Interesting things happen when you see every god, prophet and religion to be equal.
Right on. Comparative religion should be a required part of every high school curriculum.
“And yes, I know that there are some “believers” who don’t accept any form of supernaturalism, though they’re thin on the ground.”
Believers in what?
Believers in belief (credit: Dennett).
Which in practice are many accommodationists and agnostics, who are formally atheists.
Speciation is a devious (devilish?) thing.
In my opinion, “Believers in belief” are a particularly icky group of people. Basically they are saying that they themselves are lofty persons who function just fine without woo but most others are lesser beings who must have that supernatural crutch. Bleech!
Whatever those people believe in who posted above that they belong to the Church of England!
Ha, ha–exactly!
One needs to inquire of those Christians for whom a belief in the resurection is non-negotiable what that belief constitutes intra-psychically, what wishes, knowledge it touches. The mere need to be in a mental state of belief is an altogether other matter.
I like it!
It’s an interesting way of seeing it. Probably most moderate practitioners wont accept that there is a bit of fundamentalist in them.
As Helen Mirren’s character said in one of my favorite movies, O Lucky Man: “All religions are equally true.”
I think the sentiment behind Dawkins’ aphorism above is possibly THE key approach in getting the religious to understand the atheist mindset.
Too often atheism is seen variously by the religious as ‘antichrist’, opposed to the good, and/or, imbued with evil.
The religious fail to see that for many atheists there is simply an indifference to their particular god. But that indifference is shared by the religious when talking of gods past (and present).
The indifference a Christian has for Thor is exactly the indifference the atheist has for God and Thor.
The indifference the Hindu feels for Ra is exactly the indifference the atheist feels for the various Hindu gods and Ra.
The indifference the Muslim and Christian feels for the Hindu gods is exactly the indifference the atheist feels for God, Allah and the various Hindu gods.
The problem is that many Christians aren’t merely indifferent to those other gods; they see them as antichrists as well. So, to those in that mindset, you’re basically calling Jesus a demon, which then confirms to them that you really are a demon worshipper intent on deceiving them into your web of lies.
Not that that’s ever stopped me from using such an argument…but it is why I generally prefer the, “Aren’t you a bit old to still believe in those sorts of faery tales?” approach.
Tell them that Jesus is just like all those other gods, and it confirms that Jesus is a serious player; he’s just the baddest of the bad-asses. But tell them that Jesus is just a childish fantasy, and they now have to demonstrate why they should be permitted near the big people table.
Which, of course, they shouldn’t be.
Cheers,
b&
Hi Ben,
Whilst I’d agree that the ‘religion as a comfort blanket’ approach is true, in my experience the religious can be VERY sensitive to such a direct approach and calling their religion a fairy tale (whilst correct), will usually get you labelled as strident or an ‘aggressive/militant atheist’.
I think that the ‘Jesus is just like all those other gods’ approach is generally more useful because the religious (at least in the UK), think that all other religions – Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Norse – are myths and fairy tales. So perhaps in this way, it combines our two approaches.
I guess there can be no ONE approach to this matter because as we know, you cannot reason a person out of a position they did not reason themselves in to!
Regards,
C
And don’t forget the effectiveness of the “good cop / bad cop” treatment.
Plus, far too often, too much emphasis is put on being “nice” to convince people. Warm-n-fuzzies are what draws you into cognitive traps like theism in the first place. Cognitive dissonance is what gets you out of those traps, and that only works by increasing the dissonance, not decreasing it.
And that’s all before we get to the question of honesty, and of having the respect to expect adults to behave as adults….
b&
Good Cop/Bad Cop is definitely in my arsenal!
Another approach that seems to set the theist thinking (but takes more time), is to outline how simply unoriginal the Abrahamic religions are (there was a good link somewhere to a site which compared modern religions and Harry Potter – wish I could find it!).
Using Joseph Smith as a ‘cautionary tale’ also seems to light the fire of atheism underneath some people rather than trying to ’empty the pail of faith’.
(Oh and +1 for your comment “they now have to demonstrate why they should be permitted near the big people table”).
Cheers,
C
Christopher wrote: “you cannot reason a person out of a position they did not reason themselves in to”
So that means that your own atheism is not based on reason, since you werent ‘reasoned out’ of an unreasonable faith?
ATHEISM is not a position one needs to reach via any other “reason” than observation. The roots of religion are animistic projections and identifications based on the eternal wish to know, also “who am I?”
oh, the religious can be the sweetest people, so can people on all kind of benign drugs.but the opposite holds true as well, there is crank of all kinds.
I would not think that atheism is something one is ‘reasoned into. Most people believe what they were taught from early childhood, and most of them are too busy handling the necessary bits of life (spouse, children, rest of the family, finding a job and/or more education,buying food, etc) to give the more weighty concerns a whole lot of thought. Most of their belief is generally contained in “Oh Thank God!” Most of us started out with canned beliefs and/or faith given to us during our families or who/whatever had the responsibility of raising us. Atheism is reached once we get to the ‘Age of Reason.’ The undoing of the faith knots can be difficult and scary. Changing one’s belief system must be done with eyes opened and brain engaged; we must be ‘reasoned into’ it alone.
“So that means that your own atheism is not based on reason, since you werent ‘reasoned out’ of an unreasonable faith?”
It is impossible for any of us to state we’ve reasoned ourselves out of every conceivable proposition. It is for the religious to make a reasoned case for me to believe. I’ve yet to see such a reasoned case. So there was NEVER any need for me to be ‘reasoned out’ of faith.
I’d imagine that VERY few Christians have had to reason themselves out of a belief in Ganesh or indeed any other of the myriad supernatural beings out there.
Looking at it another way, if you imagine skiing as a faith, you cannot train for non-skiing.
Mikerol wrote: “ATHEISM is not a position one needs to reach via any other “reason” than observation”
Science cannot draw any conclusion regarding the existence of God, or of the supernatural. Science is limited to naturally occurring phenomena and process.
Absolutely
Not true, depending on which of the myriad possible definitions of “god” one might choose. Many people believe in the existence of one who will answer prayers for sick people. One can test for the effectiveness of such prayer. The experiment has been done. No such god has been found in the tests.
Many people believe that some folk have clairvoyance, a supernatural ability. It is not difficult to do scientific tests of such claims and tests of this sort have been done.
Now, I expect you’ll shift the goalposts and claim that THAT’S not the kind of god/supernatural you were talking about.
gbjames wrote:
“One can test for the effectiveness of such prayer. The experiment has been done. No such god has been found in the tests.”
No scientific test of prayer has ever, or will ever be done.
First of all, as I have discussed previously, in these experiments you refer to (yes I am quite familiar with them) there is NO standardization of the prayer, NO scientific definition of the thing you are supposedly testing.
Further, even if you were to conduct a test where the prayer was standardized, and it was verified that that prayer and only that prayer was used…..the results would only indicate the effectiveness (or not) of that particular prayer.
And besides ‘saying the right words’, are there any other conditions necessary for effective prayer? Yes, nearly all practitioners of prayer will tell you its not just a matter of mouthing the correct words.
gbjames wrote:
“Now, I expect you’ll shift the goalposts and claim that THAT’S not the kind of god/supernatural you were talking about”
Actually, thats exactly the kind of supernatural I am talking about.
Now, am I saying that prayer cant be tested at all?
No.
I am saying you cant test it scientifically.
Prayer is an entirely selfish activity, whether performed fervently, or as a routine. However, I imagine that as an activity that involves wish fulfilment it can have a placebo effect. Done in company, in church for example, it evidently is a form of social glue, and not a bad one! It can be very reassuring, even though it will not avert a single distaster.
Tim, that is simply nonsense.
And, yes, you just moved the goal posts. (Not that prayer! Some other prayer.)
You clearly have little understanding of scientific method.
gbjames wrote: “Oh! I got it! We haven’t seen a test of all possible forms of prayer!”
Thats correct.
You havent even seen a scientific test of even 1 possible form of prayer. Not 1.
To do so, you would need a scientific definition of what prayer is and isnt. (I’ll save you time, there isnt such a definition)
Then you would need to verify that only such prayer was used in your test (standardization). This has never been done or even attempted in any of the so-called studies of prayer that you cite.
mikerol wrote: “it will not avert a single distaster”
How do you prove that negative Mike?
If someone prayed that they would not ‘have a disaster’, and they didnt then how does that prove your point?
(btw I’m not even saying it proves their prayer specifically was or wasnt ‘answered by God’ in this scenario. But how does it prove your point?)
So, you’re vociferously arguing for the fact that there is no possible reliable method of prayer, and yet also somehow arguing that it’s possible that prayer could actually be reliable?
Um…that’s another perfectly clear example of why science doesn’t even bother with the supernatural. It’s generally so incoherent that even its own proponents can’t explain what it’s supposed to be or do.
b&
Ben Goren wrote: “So, you’re vociferously arguing for the fact that there is no possible reliable method of prayer…?”
nice strawman
Except it isn’t a strawman. Your exact words:
If you don’t understand…again, let me refer you to a dictionary.
Here — you can borrow mine:
Cheers,
b&
Ben……………..
go back and read dude
“you would need a scientific definition of what prayer is and isnt”
isnt the same as your imagined equivalent “there is no possible reliable method of prayer”
not. even. close.
Tim, if such a definition existed — and you’ve repeatedly confirmed it can’t even theoretically exist — then prayer would be reliable. If prayer was reliable, then there would be a definition of what, exactly, it is that’s reliable.
I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time with elementary introductory logic, but these really are matters that should have been covered in your primary school education. This really isn’t the place for remediation, so if this doesn’t do it for you, there’s not much else for me to add.
Cheers,
b&
Ben Goren wrote: “Tim, if such a definition existed — and you’ve repeatedly confirmed it can’t even theoretically exist — then prayer would be reliable. If prayer was reliable, then there would be a definition of what, exactly, it is that’s reliable. ”
I think the word you are looking for is ‘verifiable’ , not ‘reliable’.
And you are incorrect, I’ve not said that a verifiable (i.e. scientific) definition of a particular prayer isnt possible.
I said that such a definition doesnt currently exist, has never been used in an experiment, and I predicted it never will be used in an experiment to verify the efficacy of a particular prayer.
Yes, you COULD design a scientific experiment by writing out a prayer, stating ‘this prayer and this only constitutes prayer for the purposes of this experiment’ (definition), and then verify that your participants use only that prayer and nothing else during the course of the experiment (standardization).
What you would have when you were done would be verification that the prayer you wrote either did or didnt ‘work’. Thats all you’d have. It wouldnt say anything regarding the efficacy or ‘reliability’ of any OTHER prayer….because you didnt use any other.
But again, I predict that such an experiment will not be done.
Okay, Tim.
Enough dancing ’round the bushes.
Please offer an example of a type of prayer you sincerely think is at least potentially effective and why it would be impossible for science to determine its efficacy.
If you can’t offer any such examples, then all you’re doing is proclaiming that science can’t disprove the existence of gleeblefarbs even though nobody — even you — knows what a “real” gleeblefarb is or how to identify one.
But the simple fact of the matter is is that all common and reasonable types of prayer have been tested, and not a one is effective. It doesn’t matter if it’s Catholics praying for the life of some unfortunate child or some back-bush shaman gutting a chicken to bring rain; it’s all been either specifically tested and found ineffective or else it’s been dismissed by more encompassing understandings the same way astrology has.
Cheers,
b&
Ben Goren wrote: “Enough dancing ’round the bushes.
Please offer an example of a type of prayer you sincerely think is at least potentially effective and why it would be impossible for science to determine its efficacy. ”
Ben, it doesnt matter what I or anyone else says. You are convinced, against all evidence to the contrary (I cited several reputable scientific sources), that science can disprove the supernatural.
You apparently also believe that research on something that has no verifiable definition can verifiably rule out its existence.
Until you get a better understanding of the limits of science, there’s nothing I can do for you.
If you don’t even know enough about something so as to be able to define it, then it is of the utmost arrogance to declare yourself enough of an expert on it that you can dictate what others might or might not know about it.
Using the typical dictionary definition:
there is but no question that prayer, as defined by the dictionary and as understood by those who engage in the activity, is precisely as effective as homeopathy.
Cheers,
b&
Ben Goren wrote: “If you don’t even know enough about something so as to be able to define it”
Strawman. I never said that there is NO definition, or that I can not define it. I said there is no scientifically verifiable definiton. Do you understand the difference?
Ben Goren wrote: “Using the typical dictionary definition”
Thats not a scientific definition.
Ben Goren wrote: “there is but no question that prayer, as defined by the dictionary and as understood by those who engage in the activity, is precisely as effective as homeopathy.”
That may be your belief, but its not based on any scientific evidence because you havent got any.
I’m going to note that, empirically, you don’t have a clue as to what prayer is or how it’s defined. The evidence for my conclusion is that you haven’t even attempted to offer up a definition.
You can either give us your definition of prayer for us to continue the conversation, or you can continue to add to the already-convincing empirical case for your ignorance.
Cheers,
b&
Well, Tim, we are still waiting for you to provide a coherent definition of god that is scientifically untestable.
Crickets.
gbjames wrote: “Well, Tim, we are still waiting for you to provide a coherent definition of god that is scientifically untestable.
Crickets.”
By definition, God is scientifically testable.
You may claim that you can test God scientifically. But thats not what science does, gbjames.
“Do gods exist? Do supernatural entities intervene in human affairs? These questions may be important, but science won’t help you answer them. Questions that deal with supernatural explanations are, by definition, beyond the realm of nature — and hence, also beyond the realm of what can be studied by science” science website UC Berkeley
“science is precluded from making statements about supernatural forces because these are outside its provenance.” National Science Teachers Association
““Supernatural entities, by definition, operate outside of natural laws and so cannot be
investigated using scientific methods” (American Association for the Advancement of
Science
What that means is that you dont understand the limits of science.
Tim, you can give up on the “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” routine. It doesn’t even work in the movies, let alone real life.
Cheers,
b&
Ben Goren wrote: “I’m going to note that, empirically, you don’t have a clue as to what prayer is or how it’s defined. The evidence for my conclusion is that you haven’t even attempted to offer up a definition.
You can either give us your definition of prayer for us to continue the conversation, or you can continue to add to the already-convincing empirical case for your ignorance.”
There ya go. Pull out the ad homs and call them ignorant if you cant refute their argument.
Nice one Ben. Ad homs are so convincing right?
I’ll be sure to add “logical fallacies” right after “intercessory prayer” on your list of topics you know little or nothing about.
But thanks for continuing to confirm that you are either unable or unwilling to offer a definition of the word, “prayer”! Curious that somebody so ignorant or distasteful of a subject as you are about prayer would be so passionate about demonstrating your incompetence.
Cheers,
b&
About time to throw a water on these guys.
Tim, I’m weary of playing your childish game. Come back when you grow up enough to put your definitions on the table.
@ Tim
Oh, please! The UC Berkeley, NSTA and AAAS statements are clearly political (accommodationist), not philosophical.
The topic has been thoroughly discussed in other posts on this website. Please use the “Search” box at the top left of the page. Search, for example, for “maarten boudry”. Anything that interacts with or influences the natural world is amenable to scientific investigation.
/@
ant wrote:
“Oh, please! The UC Berkeley, NSTA and AAAS statements are clearly political (accommodationist), not philosophical.”
These are mainstream science organizations.
Science cant support your personal bias, ant.
Science investigates that which it can verify by natural means. God and the supernatural are, by definition, not in that category.
Since we’re having a battle of the dictionaries, mine says this is what science is: “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.”
So, if science by definition cannot investigate gods and the supernatural, then, by definition, the gods and the supernatural are not part of and in no way influence the structure or behavior of the physical or natural world. No gods or anything supernatural played any role in the origins of anything in the natural world and, since that time, no gods or anything supernatural have influenced or interfered with the natural working of the physical world.
I would most emphatically agree with at least that much of a statement. If you would, too, then any further discussion about gods or the supernatural become as much moot as the means by which Harry Potter flies on a broomstick or Luke Skywalker navigates hyperspace.
Cheers,
b&
@ Tim
“These are mainstream science organisations.”
And therefore political!
You’re just demonstrating your ignorance of topics that have been thoroughly discussed and dissected on this website before.
Did you even do as I suggested? Your response makes me strongly doubt that.
Either gods (any supernatural agencies) can interact with and influence the natural world, in which case they are amenable to scientific investigation, or they can’t, in which case they’re not worth even fleeting consideration.
/@
Ben Goren wrote:
“So, if science by definition cannot investigate gods and the supernatural, ”
yes so far so good
Ben Goren wrote:
“then, by definition, the gods and the supernatural are not part of ”
yes ok
Ben Goren wrote:
“and in no way influence the structure or behavior of the physical or natural world. ”
no sorry, this doesnt follow
an entity need not be ‘part of’ a system in order to ‘influence’ that system
Why is that so difficult to grasp?
gbjames wrote: “And, yes, you just moved the goal posts. (Not that prayer! Some other prayer.)”
No moving of goalposts here.
I didnt say ‘not that prayer’
Go ahead and scientifically test ‘that prayer’ if you can. But you havent and no one else has, so dont pretend that a scientific study has been done. It hasnt.
If you succeed in eliminating ‘that prayer’ that doesnt mean you’ve eliminated all prayer.
Got it?
Yes I understand the scientific method, far more than you realize, gbjames.
You havent seen a scientific test of prayer, and I doubt you will ever see or do one.
Oh! I got it! We haven’t seen a test of all possible forms of prayer!
Can I say, “Oh Jesus!”.
I’m sorry, Tim, but there simply isn’t any magical faerydust aura that surrounds the supernatural that causes methodical observations to fail. And, if there was, we’d at least see evidence of that.
The reason science can’t find any evidence of gods or the supernatural is the exact same reason science can’t find any evidence of the Luminiferous Aether or the Loch Ness Monster.
Cheers,
b&
Ben,
Its important to understand that science has limits.
“Do gods exist? Do supernatural entities intervene in human affairs? These questions may be important, but science won’t help you answer them. Questions that deal with supernatural explanations are, by definition, beyond the realm of nature — and hence, also beyond the realm of what can be studied by science” http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12
“science is precluded from making statements about supernatural forces because these are outside its provenance” National Science Teachers Association http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=5787&page=124
Sorry, Tim. We’re not big into argument by authority here — and that goes triply when the quoted “authorities” aren’t.
Those statements are simple declarations, devoid of justification, reason, or evidence. Which is a pretty good summary of your own arguments on the subject, come to think of it….
b&
Ben Goren wrote: “We’re not big into argument by authority here — and that goes triply when the quoted “authorities” aren’t”
yeah, the science dept at UC Berkeley and the National Science Teachers Association know nothing of the scientific method or its proper limits and application
LOL
Jerry, I think you do an injustice to many liberal Christians. There is every reason why a Christian might want to preserve aspects of the Christian tradition, and yet hold the creedal beliefs to be susceptible to a figurative reading. The resurrection, for example, as it is presented in the gospels, is not clearly the actual raising of a dead man to life. There is every sign in the gospel stories that the resurrection was, from very early times, understood in a purely spiritual sense, as pointing to the end time (which, of course, they thought of as very near). It is an eschatological “mystery,” and so can easily be interpreted figuratively or mythologically. The same goes for the incarnation, which in plain language makes no sense at all. Indeed, in a very real sense, the doctrine of the incarnation effectively acknowledges that the story of God is a human story, contained in the narrative of one exemplary man. (How exemplary is, of course, another question, but once you have brought God down from heaven to earth, the narrative itself becomes a human story, a human creation, and therefore open to continual interpretation and reinterpretation.) I can tell you that I have never believed in the incarnation in any other sense than a figurative or metaphorical one, and the same goes for the resurrection. (Belief in the incarnation is arguably impossible, for the doctrine is itself unintelligible.) Indeed, for many years I taught the “faith” in this sense. The breaking point for me had nothing to do with the “articles of faith”, which have long been seen, in liberal circles, in terms of myth, parable and story; for me, the trouble arose from the way the church interpreted its morality as uniquely revealed, without noting that, if that is true of the morality, you can no longer without contradiction accept the liberal interpretation of other Christian beliefs. Christian “atheology” is much more common than you think — though, in response to the eruption of Islam into the Western consciousness, the rich, subtle liberal hermeneutic has been largely laid to one side, and there has been a growing tendency to become less liberal and more “literal” in the way people understanding of standard Christian beliefs. But this increasing literalness is of relatively recent provenance. Christianity, traditionally, has been far more talkative and interpretive than that. That does not mean that Christians never believed in a real God “out there”, or in Jesus’ real relationship to this being; but it does mean that the story has been far more hermeneutically diverse than is allowed in either contemporary Roman Catholicism or evangelical Protestantism. It is important to remember that in the not too distant past, Roman Catholicism was embedded in different cultures. The prominence and singular power of the Vatican are relatively recent phenomena, largely created by modern communications. At one time Roman Catholicism was far more culturally diverse, something like the Anglican Communion.
Eric, I think you might be letting the many obfuscatory layers of apologetics that have accumulated over the years cloud your perspective.
I don’t see, for example, how the last couple chapters of John, complete with Thomas fondling Jesus’s intestines, can be read in any way as other than the actual raising of a dead man — complete with fatal wounds — to life. Or, for that matter, how you could read Justin Martyr’s extensive exhortations on the subject as to the validity of actual history. Yes, of course, there’s an otherworldly spiritual component to all of this, but it’s clearly intended as an actual sincere recording of the spiritual realm really and truly imposing itself upon the material physical world, with all the miracles really having happened which is how you can trust that they’re proof of the supernatural.
It’s easy to forget from our modern perspective that, a couple thousand years ago, people didn’t have the benefit of modern scientific empiricism. Yes, there were a few enlightened individuals back then — Democritus springs to mind — who weren’t susceptible to that level of gullibility. But, even to this day, we still see huge swaths of America literally believing in the actual physical resurrection of Jesus — and that cuts across the entire sociopolitical spectrum.
I’ve done gigs at a moderately conservative well-funded Catholic church that hosts one of the best academically-acheiving private high schools in the state where the priest gave an extended sermon on John 20:24-29, and the whole point of the sermon was that this event really happened and it’s possibly the most important evidence a Christian has upon which to base confidence in the faith. I’ve also done gigs at a very liberal small UCC church that does some really good work on immigration rights and marriage equality where the pastor regularly gives sermons recounting Old Testament passages where YHWH makes personal appearances and he wistfully wishes he could have been there to witness it.
In my experience, it’s only the Christians so liberal in their theology that they’d be just as much at home at Unitarian services that see anything metaphorical or allegorical about Jesus. Not all of them will insist that every word is the exact literal truth, and many will admit that the written record is fuzzy, but all would be shocked at the suggestion that maybe none of it actually happened. Especially the Resurrection — for every Christian I know, that’s the literal bedrock of their faith: that Jesus actually did die on the Cross and really, honestly, truly did rise from the dead on Easter Sunday Hallelujah. Maybe we don’t have his actual last words on the Cross; maybe we don’t know the order of events between the Resurrection and the Ascension; maybe there’s a fair amount of poetic license in the Sermon on the Mount; maybe the numbers fed by the Loaves and Fishes aren’t precise; and so on. But the heart and soul of the story is literally, actually, sincerely, really true and an independent witness there at the same time would have reported the exact same events (with, of course, the same types of minor variations).
Cheers,
b&
Hi Ben, again, you’re looking at Christianity as it is the US, and it is different in places like the UK.
A liberal CofE Christian might reply to you that the earliest versions of the earliest gospel (Mark) do not have any bodily resurrection, they only have a suggestion of a spiritual resurrection.
Further, Paul’s writings and Acts are more about a spiritual resurrection (the appearances are described as being akin to the Road to Damascus episode).
From there, John (which is likely much later) can be read as an embellished and literalised account, and so can be taken metaphorically. Afterall, it’s hardly a first-hand account.
Well, of course I’m looking at it from an American perspective!
But, even still, what you’re seeing with the average “cultural” Christian in the UK isn’t actual religious Christianity. Instead of considering the average Brit on the street who hasn’t set foot inside a church since the last wedding or funeral, think of the (vanishingly few) people who still actually do go to service every week.
In the States, it’s still not uncommon for a newly-introduced stranger to ask you, by way of making polite conversation, “So, what church do you go to?” Note the phrasing: yes, it assumes that you go to church, and is asking which physical campus you could be expected to be found at on a Sunday morning. Its usage has dropped off over the past decade or so, but it still wouldn’t be considered noteworthy. As often as not, the spam people rubber-band to your front doorknob is about this-or-that local congregation as it is about a newly-opened Chinese takeout place or high-speed Internet or the like.
And, for those people, telling them that the Resurrection was something the authors of the Bible intended to be representative of a spiritual metaphor and not something that actually happened would be greeted with the same reaction as telling them that baseball bats are made of cherry-flavored Jello.
Also, as I noted, it’s not an historically accurate claim, either. Contrary to popular modern liberal apologetics, early Christians really were batshit fucking insane, and they sincerely believed what they wrote every bit as much as the Raelians sincerely believed the aliens hiding behind the comet were coming to beam them up.
Don’t believe me?
Read the apologetics from the second century, and read the Pagan descriptions of Christians from that time.
Cheers,
b&
You’re right about the nominal Christians who don’t go to Church, but you’re not so right about some of the Christians who do go to church.
Some of those really would take all the supernatural stuff metaphorically or symbolically.
Of course there’re exceptions. But you’re looking at insignificant single-digit percentages amongst regular Christian churchgoers.
Yes, yes. That would be a common opinion amongst Unitarian Universalists, but they’re not Christian except culturally. And, at least stateside, the UU movement is tiny, a fraction even the size of Judaism. Hell, there’re probably a lot more Muslims that UU members.
Aside from Karen Armstrong or John Shelby Spong, I dare you to name somebody your average American might recognize who takes the position you’re suggesting is common. And, for every one you do, I’ll see you and raise you at least a dozen Pat Robertsons and Rick Warrens and Jesse Jacksons and Tim Tebows and Barack Obamas and Jimmy Carters and on and on and on and on, all of whom would be (at least publicly) mortified if you suggested that they didn’t think the Resurrection was an actual, historical event.
Cheers,
b&
Not in the UK, in the UK it would be many more than single-figure percentages of church goers.
You’re right about how things are in the US (as far as I know that is), but not about the UK, where the culture is different in this regard.
My personal experience doesn’t really mesh with that – I was raised in the UK by a religious family. We moved around a lot, due to my dad’s job, meaning that I saw the inside of a fair few different churches (mostly of various Baptist/Methodist persuasions), and the canonical position, shared by pastors and congregation alike, in all of them was that Jesus did physically and corporeally live, die and rise. It might be that CofE goers have a different approach, and I wouldn’t have so much experience of that, but I still don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who has a real belief in Christianity – as in, more than just “Jesus seemed cool, and as long as you’re a good person it’ll be fine when you die, clouds and harps and so on” – but not in a physical resurrection.
If they are taking it metaphorically and symbolically and not literally, they should also look a little deeper and understand that christianity is derived from prior religions, it is not unique and is fraudulent. They need to reflect on why they think fraudulent activity should be positively supported. Why shouldn’t christianity in that non literal sense be held valid while other frauds are criminally punished? It seems to me that excusing the fraud of christianity a society becomes confused as to what it should value and which people should receive respect generally. Hence, the deceptive natural of politicians as an example.
The early Christians were disinterring an old Judaistic corpse when they revived the Resurrection story. Moses and Isaiah passed through death, resurrection and ascension; Enoch and Elijah are depicted as rising direct to the latter, without the deep inconvenience of the first and the relief of the second. Elijah and Elisha resurrected two children; they are the only two ‘ordinary’ persons in the OT whom I know of, to have visited Sheol twice.
There does seem to have been a dispute amongst early Christians about whether the resurrection actually happened; how else does one explain Ignatius’ Letter to The Magnesians, 11 (early 2nd century)? In which he positively affirms the historicity of the resurrection? There must have been wobblers amongst the members of the early Church for him to affirm so vehemently such an idea.
Barnabas also believed in the literal resurrection (Epistle: 5:1-2) (ca. 70-131 BCE). The many references by numerous NT authors to ‘incarnate’ and ‘made flesh’ (many times in the context of resurrection) also testify to their belief in the literal life of Jesus.
But in popular prophetic Judaism the idea of resurrection in no way appeared out of place. Whilst Palestinian Jews held the idea of bodily resurrection, the Greek-speaking diaspora, in Platonic fashion, promulgated the concept of the liberated soul, relishing in divine bliss, freed from the transient, debased body.
You can see the tension there between the Logos of Hellenistic Judaeo-Christianity, Christ as the incarnate, but pre-existing Word or Wisdom, close to (but simultaneously the intellectual opposite of) the Platonic idea of forms (for Johannine Christianity proceeds from the general to the particular and Platonism derives the general from the particular): and you can also observe that tension in the Judaistic Jesus as the mere messiah, as anointed by God like King David, Israel or even Cyrus the Great; Jesus as the instrument by which God intervenes in the world.
For the Jews, God really did intervene to make a difference: the Babylonians were the instruments of God’s will to punish apostate Israel; equally Cyrus, the Persian deliverer from the Babylonian exile, was a messiah, God’s anointed one.
It was entirely within the Judaistic world-view for the resurrection to have really happened; for God to have intervened in early 1st century Palestine. That is why so many early apologists thought that the resurrection occurred.
And, partially, why some Christians today believe the same thing.
No need to get extra-Biblical; what I’m sure must be the shortest book in the Bible, 2 John, contains a clear-as-day example of the contention: “For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.”
A few things become clear if you make even a cursory survey of the subject.
Most importantly, there are exactly as many different Jesuses as there are Christians. Each Jesus is its own unique snowflake and is fundamentally irreconcilable in at least one way with each and everybody else’s Jesus, though there are certainly many broad generalizations common with significant proportions of early Christendom.
Also important is that, in each and every case, Jesus’s life and times, wherever it took place and whatever its nature, really did happen and was an event that transformed the world. Granted, for some, Jesus did all he did on a timeless spiritual plane not of this Earth, but, for them, this timeless spiritual plane was, if anything, even more real than the familiar world around us. I’m not aware of a single example of an early Christian conceiving of Jesus as a metaphor or a parable or a made-up story or anything like that. Even the most phantasmagorical of Jesuses really, truly did exist and do whatever that particular Jesus did; it’s just that he did it in a Judeo-Christian analogue of Olympus.
(Parenthetically, nobody but Christians were even aware of Jesus and his impressive deeds, no matter how substantial the professing Christian insisted his own particular Jesus really was.)
The last thing to note is that, whatever the original distribution of types of Jesuses, the branch which survived to establish itself as the official version, and the branch from which all major denominations are derived, is one whose Jesus was an actual historical figure whose incarnation was in early first century Palestine. See the various Credos for the details.
(And, yes, there are some modern revivals of pre-Constantine flavors of Christianity, including Gnosticism and other forms of Christianity where Jesus is less substantial than in more modern varieties. But those, regardless of modern interpretation, were all originally literal Jesuses, just with Jesus doing his thing somewhere other than on Earth. And then there’s the modern liberal re-synthesis in which it’s all a fantastic morality play that never really happened…until, of course, the Christian in question gets into church and recites that particular officially-sanctioned Credo and drinks the vampire blood and eats the zombie flesh. Yes, I’m pointing to every Archbishop of Canterbury in living memory.)
Cheers,
b&
Ben, I think you’re confounding your Krazy Kults: It was the Heaven’s Gate group that believed there was something (the spirit of the leader’s deceased wife, IIRC) in the comet Hale-Bopp’s tail. The Raelians would never believe something crazy as that.
I also think Eric has a point, in that the essential foundational dogmas of Christian belief — the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the Ascension — are not simply scientifically suspect, but totally incoherent. (What is it that was supposed to have actually happened at Jesus’ conception anyway? Where did His X chromosome come from? Did the Archangel Gabriel show up at Mary’s pad with a flash-frozen canister of the Holy Ghost’s semen, and a First Century version of a turkey baster, and do the artificial-insemination deed? Or did he wiggle his nose and poof a divine sperm into her fallopian tube, Bewitched)-style?)
These tales are so obviously incoherent that, rather than give them any serious thought, most self-identifying Christians simply drop them in a box labeled “miracles” and never give them another moment’s consideration. And who can blame them? What’s really at stake in getting it right — only the eternal wellbeing of their immortal soul? What’s that compared to the outcome of this week’s big ballgame? If Christians really believed their own doctrine, wouldn’t we expect to see them live much different lives?
Sorry, I meant Y-chromosome. His X obviously came from his Perpetual Virgin mom.
I certainly wouldn’t argue with you.
But I would point out that 99 44/100% of churchgoing Christians, including the heads of the various churches, weekly and publicly recite one or another Credo that reaffirms the penitent’s belief at least one, and often all three, of your listed incoherencies.
And I would also point out that, at least in the States, those same Christians will tell you to your face that they really do believe those events actually happened.
That may well be.
But, if you ask them, they’ll still tell you that they’re really true, and that they really happened, even if they also make note that they’ve not easy to understand, even if they get upset if you push them on the details.
Cheers,
b&
Matthew’s taking up of the Septuagint mistranslation of ‘virgin’ (Isa 7:14 in Mat 1:23) is more complicated and interesting than it at first appears. The late fourth century Sinaitic Syriac manuscript (a translation into Syriac of the Gospels) runs through Matthew’s genealogy, ending with, “Joseph to whom was betrothed the virgin Mary, begot Jesus.” It further adds, “she (Mary) will bear a son for you”, referring to Joseph: a common expression denoting paternity.
How can this Syriac – Semitic – allege that a virgin gave birth in the normal post-rumpo way? Well, it depends on the contemporary Jewish definition of a virgin.
There were two: one is our normal definition of virgo intacta, the second that a girl is a virgin until she reaches puberty, that it ends with menstruation. The Mishnah describes a virgin like that: as a girl “who has never seen blood even though she is married”. So if a girl past the legal majority of 12 was married, it was possible, and socially acceptable, for her to conceive after her first ovulation, but before the first period. A saying attributed to Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus in the late first century CE, confirms this. Hence, a virgin mother.
It was possible to conceive this idea within Jewish thought. BUT, there is no example of a virgin birth in the OT: it was not an allegation of Deuteronomic or Prophetic history. The idea of Virgin Birth fits perfectly, instead, with Greco-Roman mythology; it was not so difficult for Matthew and Luke’s mainly Gentile audience to swallow the idea. Further evidence that the Virgin Birth notion was not an original foundational Christian dogma is that it was nowhere else referred to in the NT – the fetishization of Mary, who is almost a cypher in the NT, occurred much later; amongst the Apostolic Fathers only Ignatius refers to the Virgin.
The problem, from an early Christian perspective, is that that Matthew’s genealogy (alleging a Virgin Birth in the commonly accepted interpretation of virgo intacta) presents a contradiction; Joseph not being the natural father means that Jesus wasn’t in the Davidic line because descent went through the males in the line. Jews knew this; and so, probably, did the scribe of the Sinaitic Syriac – and Semitic – palimpsest. Hence his deliberate and theologically significant edit, possibly referring back to another Judaistic early Christian source; that Joseph was Jesus’ natural father.
Even the story of the Virgin Birth reveals a theological battle between the Judaistic Christians and the Hellenists.
“the essential foundational dogmas of Christian belief � the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the Ascension � are not simply scientifically suspect, but totally incoherent.”
Demanding ‘natural’ evidence of the ‘supernatural’ is illogical.
These so-called supernatual events have their bases in very simple natural wishes and fears. VIRGIN BIRTH = UPTIGHT ABOUT INTER URINAM & FAECES.Z
RESURRECTION = FEAR OF DEATH, OF DUST TO DUST.
DITTO FOR “ASCENCION” WHICH MIXES IN A BIT OF GRANDIOSITY.
“Demanding ‘natural’ evidence of the ‘supernatural’ is illogical.
Ergo, the supernatural is illogical.
…beat me to it.
Either the supernatural does stuff to the natural world and is thus detectable — indeed, not only is science powerfully finely tuned for exactly those sorts of exercises in detection, but we’ve exhaustively searched all possible spaces where any hidden unknown forces that could influence macro-scale events could lurk and found no room for anything else — or else it’s undetectable because it doesn’t interact with the natural world.
Or, either we searched the whole broom closet and found no stampeding herds of angry hippos or else we naturally shouldn’t expect to find evidence of the hippos because they’re imaginary.
I’m cool with either.
b&
Diane wrote: “Ergo, the supernatural is illogical”
So 1000 years ago before man could give evidence of the potential of nuclear power, would it have been ‘illogical’ to think such a thing might be possible, Diane?
of course not.
The whole ‘absence of evidence’ nonsense is just that. Nonsense. You are trying to prove a negative based on your finite ability to perceive something outside the known spectrum.
Ben Goren wrote: “but we’ve exhaustively searched all possible spaces where any hidden unknown forces that could influence macro-scale events could lurk and found no room for anything else ”
wow you know it all, then? or ‘we’ collectively know it all?
uh, no. Thats not even a scientific position, much less a reasonable / logical one.
Seems you’re waaaaaaay behind the curve, Tim.
The laws underlying the physics of everyday life are completely understood.
Cheers,
b&
Ben Goren wrote: “Seems you’re waaaaaaay behind the curve, Tim.
The laws underlying the physics of everyday life are completely understood. ”
Nice two step there, Ben. You’d be a successful used car salesman.
There’s a big difference between ‘macro scale events’ which you referred to earlier and ‘everyday life’.
Tim, you need a dictionary.
The macroscopic scale is explicitly defined as the realm of everyday human life.
See Wikipedia, for example.
Cheers,
b&
Ben Goren wrote: “Tim, you need a dictionary.
See Wikipedia”
LOL
Ben, Could you cite some of “the apologetics from the second century, and read the Pagan descriptions of Christians from that time.”? I was under the impression that there was much diversity of opinion among early christians whether jesus was man, god, or both etc.
I’m not sure what types of citations you’re looking for.
Just to be clear, my points are that all early Christians thought that Jesus was really real and a really big deal; however, they all disagreed as to the nature of that reality (corporeal or spiritual? terrestrial or heavenly?) and the details of his biography.
And…even those who argued that he was human never argued that he was merely human. Even the Gospels have plenty of ink spilled devoted to his humanity, but always in a setup demonstrating how he transcended humanity. Plenty of extra-Biblical sources, naturally, do the same — and especially those of the “it all physically happened in early first century Palestine” camp.
For a textbook, almost poetic, summary, read the Testamonium Flavanium that Eusebius “helpfully” interpolated into Josephus’s work.
Cheers,
b&
Paxton, you’re right; there was a huge range of early Christian interpretation of the nature of Jesus. Was he a man, a god, both or somewhere in between? That’s the spectrum.
The Jewish Ebionites, who appear to have survived in pockets until the 5th or 6th century, believed him a man. They seem to have used a harmonized version of the Synoptic Gospels and to have edited out the start of Matthew, the allegation of the Virgin Birth.
Imagine a scale, on the left of which is the Messiah, a human, (God’s anointed one, the Christ – King David, Israel and Cyrus the Great were anointed ones in Jewish history) and on the right of which is Jesus as God.
On the left are Polycarp, the Didache, 1 Clement and the Acts of the Apostles affirming Jesus as God’s servant. Luke, in Adoptionist fashion, appears further to the right, asserting Jesus’ messiahship, adopted as God’s son only at the Transfiguration (according to the oldest manuscripts), and in contradiction to his assertion of the Virgin Birth. All the Synoptics merely asserted Jesus’ Messiahship, and therefore his human nature, and enjoying a special relationship with God; irrespective of the miracle tales, commonly associated with contemporary Jewish charismatic preachers – Honi the circle drawer, his two grand-sons, Abba Hilkiah and Hanan the Shy, and Hanina ben Dosa.
For Paul, Jesus was adopted as Son of God (i.e. Messiah) only at the resurrection.
By the time you got to John’s Gospel, Jesus has become the pre-existing Word incarnate, not even adopted by God. A sort of god taking on human form; the first hint of the idea of Trinity, therefore appeared in John, but the quotation is disputed, and probably a later interpolation by the proto-orthodox.
Moving to the right came Marcion in the middle of the second century, who asserted that Jesus Christ (and by then the moniker was viewed almost as a surname) only appeared human – Docetism; that he was a divine being in human form.
Related to that idea were the Christian Gnostics who alleged Christ’s spirit rising out of the body of Jesus the man at the crucifixion and laughing at the poor dolts below who didn’t understand what was going on; that Sophia, the demiurge created the world and that only those with Gnosis, the knowledge, the divine spark, could comprehend enough to escape this evil world and return to man’s true home, the land of the spirits. Cerinthus is an early exegete.
Contra Marcion, who was very influential (and the first to propose a canon of Christian scripture), the proto-orthodox affirmed Christ’s dual nature; with several exceptions, after the victory over Marcionism, proto-orthodoxy honed, over the next 2 or so centuries the Christological allegation of his human/divine nature.
Until the Athanasians and the Arians butchered each other for decades in the 4th century regarding the nature of the Trinity – assassins on the head of a pin.
Very schematic, and I haven’t mentioned Separationism, Patripassianism, Theodotianism, Nestorianism, the Ophites, the Coptic, Syriac, Armenian or Ethiopic versions, Ignatius, Barnabas, Justin Martyr…
Dermot, I have no clue where you get this ludicrous notion that early Christians thought Jesus was a man and only a man.
Even your own examples proves you laughably worng in their very opening verses. Take Acts, which probably everybody is familiar with; it bloody starts with the Ascension, fer chrissake! And it’s merely the continuation of G. Luke — and that opens with the Virgin Birth and the Magnificat!
You’ve clearly got a significant library at your fingertips, but it’s quite clear that you’ve no more actually read the texts in question (as opposed to the Church’s official Cliff’s Notes versions) than the typical Christian has.
Chers,
b&
Very funny, Ben.
On the Ascension, Jesus shares that privilege with Moses, Isaiah, Elijah and Enoch; not therefore necessarily, in Jewish thought, evidence of pure divinity, but certainly of a human’s close relationship with God.
I posted about weird early Jewish ideas on Virginity in an earlier comment.
I was surprised to learn from you that I haven’t read the Bible, too many early Christian and contemporary texts, as well academic analyses of them. Your ability to determine my previous and current reading habits from 5,000 miles away is almost supernatural. Come off it, Ben!
As for Cliff’s notes, never heard of ‘em.
Cheers.
Then, in that case, you’re simply uncritically accepting the standard apologetic line and not even pretending to consider the texts from an objective anthropological perspective.
If Prometheus and Pandora are gods — and they clearly are — then, so, too, are Adam and Eve. If Romulus and Remus are gods, then Abraham and Isaac are gods.
And if Mercury, AEsculapius, Bacchus, Hercules, Perseus, Bellerophon, and the rest are all gods, then Jesus, whose biography was unquestionably lifted from all of them, was, himself, too, most unquestionably a god.
And — dude! Virgin birth! YHWH impregnating Jesus’s mother! That is the textbook definition of a demigod!
Cheers,
b&
Thanks Dermot. This is very helpful. Gives me some great googling targets. Any suggestions of histories of these issues? I’m an atheist with a fascination about how christianity arose out of the welter of beliefs in the Roman empire of the day to become a dominant cultural force for the next two thousand years. Might provide some lessons for making a succesful transition away from supernaturalism and superstition. But toward what? Atheism alone seems too thin a gruel for a mass movement.
I would take everything Dermot wrote with a huge grain of salt. He claims, for example, that Acts depicts Jesus as a mortal human and completely ignores the fact that it opens with the Ascension.
Look up the references he provided, yes, absolutely. But don’t for a moment think that Dermot even vaguely accurately characterized a single one of them.
Cheers,
b&
Yes, Paxton, I, too, think atheism – in the sense of not-Godism – is too thin a gruel for a mass movement; like Hitchens, I prefer the term anti-theist.
However, who would not feel privileged to be able to comment on the website of a top evolutionary biologist? Of a man who, although I have never met him, radiates charm, teaches me a helluva lot (for free!) and who strives to keep the rules of debate on his site as civilized as possible. And Jerry’s a bloody good writer.
Anyway, I do know a little about early Christianity, although I am by no means an expert, and so feel a tad fraudulent in offering this as starter reading matter.
The Bible – it has to be done. In the OT, the Epicurean-inflected post-3rd century BCE Ecclesiastes is the high point in an eternal Russian steppe of apparent featurelessness; it also inspired Dickens’ magnificent opening prose-poem paragraph to ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ (It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…). In the NT read the Gospels in the order in which they were probably written, Mark, Matthew, Luke, John. For the first 3, contrast the many ways in which they interpret the same story. For Mark, be aware that the end, 16: 9-20 is a later interpolation, summarizing Jesus’ later resurrection appearances.
The Oxford History of the Biblical World OUP 1998 (so a bit dated) – reference book background on Bible allegations and archaeological and literary-critical refutations or, occasionally, confirmations.
On OT historical minimalism, that the OT is next to useless for determining the history of ancient Israel, see works from Universities of Copenhagen and Sheffield.
The early extra-canonical works of the Apostolic Fathers in the 1st and 2nd centuries include 1 and 2 Clement, the Letters of Ignatius, Polycarp, the Didache, Barnabas, the epistle to Diognetus and my advice is to skip the interminable ‘The Shepherd of Hermas’ – like reading Shakespeare’s tendentious bore Polonius forever.
Justin Martyr’s First Apology from about the middle of the second century, addressed, with the usual Christian absence of humour, irony or self-knowledge, rather astonishingly to the Roman Emperor. Fantastically bonkers attempt by a Christian to claim every Hellenistic genius to have been touched by the word of the Jewish God, Moses and Jesus.
Philo’s ‘Embassy to Gaius’ – a brilliant, now terrifying, now uproarious, account of the Alexandrian and Hellenistic Jew’s interview with Rome’s Stalin, Caligula, in around 40 CE. Gives you a flavour of the world-view of the highly-educated Jewish diaspora.
For modern popular works:
Bart D. Ehrman – ‘Lost Christianities’ and ‘The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture’ – how theologically-motivated early scribes altered the ‘sacred’ texts.
Geza Vermès – ‘Nativity – Passion – Resurrection’ and ‘Christian Beginnings…’ Excellent in describing how the early observant Jew would interpret the early Christian claims.
For the mythicist (that Jesus the man never existed) view: see Robert M. Price or the very impressive Richard Carrier online; or Earl Doherty’s, ‘The End of an Illusion…’, a rebuttal of Ehrman’s ‘Did Jesus exist?’, to which the latter’s answer was ‘yes’.
On youtube, see any debate with Christopher Hitchens – his closing speech in the William Dembski video will make you cry.
Cheers.
To this list, I would add: search for Pagan authors that mention Jesus. There’re at least a couple lists out there of a dozen or two “usual suspects,” including Suetonius, Tacitus, Lucian, and others. It’s worth reading the actual passages, in context, as it becomes instantly clear that they’re not reporting on Jesus as an actual historical figure but rather as an object of worship by the Christians…and the portrait they uniformly portray of the Christians is of a lunatic nutjob cult indistinguishable from the modern Raelians.
Particularly noteworthy on those lists is Lucian’s delightful On the Passing of Peregrinus, which not only viscously lampoons Christians, but lays forth a typical example of how new religions develop. There’s little doubt but that Peregrinus had a pseudonym amongst the Christians that remains famous to this day. Some suggest he was Ignatius, but my own suspicion is that he was none other than Paul himself.
Also, when reading Philo, take extra special note of every time he mentions Jesus. And remember that Philo was there on the scene at the time, and not only a member (by marriage) of the Royal (Herod Agrippa II) family that reigned during the period in question, but did, as Dermot noted, serve as an ambassador on behalf of the Jews to Caligula to protest the unjust treatment, including extrajudicial executions, of Jews at the hands of the Romans.
Oh — and to get an idea of some of the heresies that were, in the beginning, just as popular as what survived as orthodoxies, go ahead and read some of them. Marcion is a good example; his Jesus is nothing like the one you’re familiar with. And for the especially outré, look up the Ophites.
…and the (lack of) mention of Jesus and Christians in the Dead Sea Scrolls is also particularly significant….
Cheers,
b&
Re: Qumran Scrolls, Geza Vermès’ ‘The Complete Dead Seas Scrolls in English’ 7th edition, 2011, Kindle and Penguin for 10 quid is the most er…complete.
Thank you Dermot and Ben! This could be a syllabus for the rest of my life.
It appears to me that atheism was just as widespread in the Roman Empire at the time of Jesus as it is in the western world today. So what went wrong? How did we get stuck with theism for the next 200 years? The Christians of the first three centuries obviously appealed to the masses in a way that Stoicism, say, did not.
The challenge for atheists, as I see it, is not to intellectually discredit theism; that has been done long ago and many times. The challenge is to develop a compelling social, moral, and psychological alternative, consistent with evidence and reason, to religion. Is Humanism it? I see no evidence that the various humanist visions are lighting a fire under anyone.
Paxton:
One word answer, as Hitchens used to say: Constantine.
It’s very difficult to know, in general, how popular any of the early religions and cults were amongst ordinary people. You can trace for example the geographical spread of shrines to certain Greco-Roman gods, but determining the extent of their influence in the locals is tricky.
In the case of first century Palestine, Josephus numbers the four main strands of Judaism as very low in relation to population; the Sadduccees, the numerically insignificant keepers of the Law, the Pharisees, around 6,000 and the Essenes 4,000; he gives no figure for the otherwise obscure Fourth philosophy in a population estimated by current scholars of a few hundred thousand at most (all this from memory, the numbers may be wrong, but the general view is accurate).
Then again, you have to bear in mind Josephus’ motives in writing the piece, in order to produce a History of the Jews acceptable to his Roman pay-masters.
On why we bother and what we hope for, I can only second Hitchens’ closing peroration, which I mentioned before:
Btw: I strongly suspect that Hitchens was leaving a last, deeply ironic reference, in his second paragraph, to St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians 4:8:
I wouldn’t put it past the old pattern-seeker.
Cheers.
“It appears to me that atheism was just as widespread in the Roman Empire at the time of Jesus as it is in the western world today.”
Think about that for a while. Variation tends to remain in a population to the extent that it is adaptive…
What’s the point of a Christianity that is stripped of its supernatural elements and reduced to a set of stories or metaphors regarding the human condition? It’s just atheism dressed up in religious clothing.
The point is a mixture of: long tradition, culture, moral teachings, the social aspects of belonging to the church community, nice music and choirs, providing for ceremonials for hatching, matching and dispatching, et cetera.
In other words, it’s a social organization, not a religion. So they should just drop the pretense that they’re Christians.
I just did a “dispatching” on Sunday. We “dispatched” my mom’s ashes in a lovely rural cemetery on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. It was a fine and memorable day according to those of us who attended, with nary a mention of supernatural beings and no “official” coordinator/director/priest.
Since I was the guy who had organized the thing, and being the eldest son, it fell to me to do most of the talking. I did it unscripted and while I had never done this sort of thing before, it turned out to be fairly easy to say decent things about my mom, her history, and a bit about the other ancestors who had been planted in the cemetery years before. And nobody was there to say stupid things because they were supposed to talk without actually knowing the deceased.
So… right about now I don’t see why non-believers would feel the need to rely on churches for ceremonials. We are all humans and we can provide all of that without the burden of any religious cruft at all.
My condolences, GBJ.
My brother, sister and I did the same for my father, with literary readings, Joyce, Shakespeare, self-penned songs, Mozart, Bach, Danny Boy (we’re from Derry); all delivered by the family in front of our mix of Catholic mates and lapsed versions of same.
It did us good and was very moving, especially as dad, a Catholic atheist, was done down so badly by the Derry Catholics.
A friend’s Catholic dad died; at his funeral, the priest pronounced his surname wrongly throughout the whole service – disgraceful.
I hope that you will feel over the years that you did the right and beautiful thing by your mum. My brother, sister and I feel that way about my dad’s ceremony.
Indeed. In fact, if you want a ceremony that largely avoids saying nice things about the departed. Three years ago, I sat in a church and watched my wife deliver a beautifully inspiring eulogy on the occasion of the death of her best friend. She said very little about God or religion. In contrast, the pastor of the church (who had known the deceased for many years) gave a ritualistic sermon – devoid of emotion and significance. The only purpose of his words, as far as I could tell, were to use the death of my wife’s friend as another occasion to proselytize and to numb the mourners with ritualistic, generic incantations. After my wife spoke, even he must have sensed the shallowness of everything he’d said.
The first sentence should have read:
…if you want a ceremony that largely avoids saying nice things about the departed, do it in a church.
My condolences.
My father’s (religious) funeral 13 years ago was a dog’s breakfast; the man the chaplain was describing was no-one I knew. Looking back, I wish I’d done better by him.
/@
Reminds me of my dad’s funeral for which I wasn’t involved in the planning… Sort of a comedy of stupid ritual… funeral director saying things at were just false, priest who didn’t know him performing magic… I skipped out on the Catholic Mass but still was embarrassed by the whole thing. This one (my mom’s) was honest. Send me off honestly when my time comes, please.
BTW… Eric expanded a bit over at Choice in Dying.
http://choiceindying.com/2013/09/04/musings-on-atheism-and-liberal-religion/
I like it! I think it is a nice rebuttal to the argument that atheists just go after the crazies. Even liberals and moderates are fundamentalists about something, and while these beliefs might be benign, the fact that they are closed off from science and evidence, and perhaps questioning, is problematic.
“Every human is born atheist. One generation leaving well enough alone would save the world.
…and the second generation would invent a band of stupidities just as bonkers as that which came before (see Jove –Jehovah..)
It’s true! Even if they are just fundamentalist about faith in belief having a positive societal outcome. The evidence doesn’t support their claim.
I’ve been waiting for a topic that was appropriate for a question of anyone who might understand why this statement was deleted from my comments at the Telegraph site:
I posted the comment under one of the recent articles that criticized atheists for being honest about gods and christianity. The first time I posted the statement the whole comment was deleted. The second time I stated that I didn’t understand why it was deleted while asking the moderator to explain why. In that case the moderator edited the comment to remove only the above statement, without explanation. They allowed me to include “christ on a stick” in my comments and other atheists were making somewhat similar statements “disrespectful” of the christian idols. Also, the christians were being their typically rude selves, even making statements that were personally attacking other commentators.
Does anyone understand why the above statement is particularly offensive to the christian? Is it the words “cross dressing” or “convicted” that got their pampers twisted?
That pesky bible tends to contradict itself, so I don’t think strictly speaking anyone can be fundamentalist about everything in it. Even those who self apply the fundamentalist label are running with very recent interpretations of scripture, even thought they will deny it is so.
I like the saying though, all and all. You cannot argue for divinely inspired revelation and pick and choose verses as right and wrong at the same time. Not without cognitive dissonance, anyway.
Sure people can be fundamentalist about the whole thing! They just get arrested within about five minutes.
Ehrman’s crack ain’t bad: fundamentalism – not enough fun, too much damn and completely mental. Or summat like that.
short and cogent: (to a faithist)
“I believe in one less god than you.”
Believe it or not, but many Muslims love to take that sort of thing as a launching point for proselytizing. You see, they start their favorite prayers with, “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.” And they’ll say that they love talking to atheists because they’ve already Dgot the first half of the important part down already, and all they need to do is get them to add on the “but Allah” bit and they’re home free.
Cheers,
b&
And I say the Quran would be an excellent book if they’d just edit out that messy bit after the first four words.
To be fair, the last two words aren’t particularly objectionable, either.
b&
?
Sura 114:6: From among the jinn and mankind.
b&
Thanks!
Some of us have non-negotiable beliefs* about everything, but everyone has some non-negotiable beliefs*.
* Belief: a state of mind relative to some proposition inclining the mind to accept the truth of the related proposition.
sean s.
Claim in need of reference.
But what would that have to do with supernatural beliefs?
Torbjörn;
A supernatural belief is one kind of belief; there are others. We all have non-negotiable beliefs of some kind. It’s as much a fact as any other generalization (such as the one that started this thread).
If you say you have no non-negotiable beliefs; is that belief (about yourself) non-negotiable?
sean s.
“A man’s got to believe in something. I believe I’ll have another drink.”
W. C. Fields
Torbjörn;
A supernatural belief is one kind of belief; there are others. We all have non-negotiable beliefs of some kind. It’s as much a fact as any other generalization (such as the one that started this thread).
If you say you have no non-negotiable beliefs; is that belief (about yourself) non-negotiable?
sean s.
Something else Dawkins said seems appropriate here:
“It is often said, mainly by the ‘no-contests’, that although there is no positive evidence for the existence of God, nor is there evidence against his existence. So it is best to keep an open mind and be agnostic. At first sight that seems an unassailable position, at least in the weak sense of Pascal’s wager. But on second thoughts it seems a cop-out, because the same could be said of Father Christmas and tooth fairies. There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can’t prove that there aren’t any, so shouldn’t we be agnostic with respect to fairies?”
Open minded agnosticism is not a cop-out. I am “open mindedly agnostic” about gods, Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, etc. About gods people argue passionately; about the others not so much so we give them little thought. Like gods, if Fr. Christmas or fairies can be demonstrated, I’ll have to reconsider; until then I see no reason to take any other stand.
sean s.
If you think through the fundamental, definitional claims of what the gods are supposed to be and are, you’ll discover that they’re universally guaranteed to be incoherent.
It’s not just a matter of going to the North Pole, searching every square inch, and finding no Santa — which, incidentally, has been done.
It’s a matter of being told that Santa is the married bachelor who resides north of the North Pole and who lives death in a splendidly decrepit hovel of a mansion.
Just how “openly minded agnostic” are you willing to be about such an entity?
Cheers,
b&
Until I have definitive proof, not just the lack of proof, I will be “openly minded agnostic.”
Well, that’s just it.
If the god in question is defined as able to do anything, the proof is trivial. Said god cannot commit suicide, for it would then be ultimately incapable of doing anything in the future after offing itself. (At this point, the theist typically vigorously agrees that there are huge swaths of activities these gods are incapable of doing, but somehow insists that not being capable of doing all sorts of things does not disqualify the god from claims of being all-capable.)
If the god in question is merely defined as at least somewhat competent and knowledgeable and has our best interests at heart, every time some horrific crime happens and said god fails to call 9-1-1 is rock-solid evidentiary proof that the god is not as described; it is incompetent, ignorant, malevolent, or some combination thereof — assuming, of course that it exists at all. And the theist would generally agree that, whatever said god might be, it can’t possibly be any of those things, which irrefutably places it in the “imaginary” category.
And thus it continues for, quite literally, each and every god claim I’ve ever encountered.
Try it yourself: can you think of even a single deity that’s actually seriously worshipped that doesn’t suffer from some sort of fatal flaw?
And, if not…why would you therefore refrain from lumping gods in with married bachelors?
Or are you an “openly minded agnostic” about married bachelors, too?
Cheers,
b&
Ben;
Regarding: “‘Just how “openly minded agnostic’ are you willing to be about such an entity [as God or Santa Claus]?”
Are there degrees of being open-minded? I think not. Either you are open-minded or you are not. Claims about Santa Claus are improbable enough that I simply regard them as … improbable. (cue http://instantrimshot.com/). If someone comes forward with significant new evidence, I will reconsider.
BTW, I’ve heard a lot said about Santa Claus, but that he was a “married bachelor” is new to me. Santa is improbable enough; this “married bachelor” claim seems a bit extraneous to me. May I ask where it comes from, or why I should consider it valid or significant? Being open-minded, I am interested in what you have to say.
In your reply to lisa, you make some interesting and valid observations about gods, which have been discussed here before. I’d be happy to engage in a longer discussion here, but I’m not sure that would be appropriate. Let us know what you want to do.
Suffice to say your observations about gods in general are not enough to establish the certainty of their non-existence. I agree they are improbable, but that is not enough for me to assent to your belief.
You asked lisa if she was an “openly minded agnostic” about married bachelors; I’ll let her answer that but I am not aware of any significant belief in the existence of “married bachelors” so it seems a shiny-object distraction; a mere contrived oxymoron. If someone actually claims that such married bachelors exist, then I can ask them what they mean. ‘Till then: meh.
sean s.
sean, let’s take it one step at a time.
Assume somebody told you about this fantastic guy who was a married bachelor. And they sincerely and truly meant exactly that, with no metaphors or secret code words or the like: this guy is literally married, and literally a bachelor. At the same time, which is what makes him so fantastic.
Would you take said person seriously? Would you think there might actually be one or more married bachelors?
Or would you, like me, question the person’s sanity, sincerity, or cognitive abilities? Indeed, I’d nominate such a person’s portrait to accompany the dictionary’s entry for, “doublethink.”
If the former, then I’d nominate your own portrait to accompany the encyclopedia’s entry on, “a mind so open his brains have fallen out,” and there’s likely no further point to the discussion.
But, if the latter…well, each of the standard non-negotiable definitional descriptions of gods is, once you cut through the newspeak, exactly as logically incoherent as, “married bachelor.”
Most modern gods are “omnipotent,” yet an all-powerful being is incapable of powerlessness — say, suicide, or merely ceding the position to a successor. The concept of “the ultimate power” is as incoherent for all the same reasons and in exactly the same way as the concept of “the largest prime number,” a concept Euclid conclusively proved incoherent millennia ago.
Most modern gods are also defined as “omniscient,” yet Turing and Gödel conclusively demonstrated that there are truths that are impossible for any entity, no matter how smart, to know…and, yes, that’s an oversimplification, but the net result is the same for the purposes of this discussion. For example, take the popular narrative proof of the Halting Problem, and re-write it with Jesus and Satan and a Matrix-style computer simulation; the inevitable conclusion is that “omniscience” is the same as the magical program that solves the Halting Problem, and that program no more exists than the largest prime number.
And all gods ever proposed throughout all of human history have been defined as at least somewhat powerful and somewhat knowledgeable and somewhat interested in human affairs, yet every time a crime happens and no god calls 9-1-1 is yet another bit of evidence that the gods are powerless, ignorant, callous…or simply imaginary.
If you remain unconvinced and wish to pursue the discussion further, it would help if you could offer even just a definition of the term, “god,” that is both recognizable and coherent.
Cheers,
b&
I cannot believe I have found you after all this time! Everyone I talk with (virtually or not) has always insisted upon an absolute yes/no. Every year we (‘we’ as in interested or employed by science) find out how much we do not know nor understand. If we lose that, we will be doomed to ignorance forever. Anyone who believes they know the truth will stop looking for it. SO glad there are more ‘I’ll decide when I have seen ALL the data.’
lisa;
I decide what I think about things as the data comes in; I doubt we will ever see ALL the data.
I have seen others comment similarly on this thread; tho’ they do tend to be quiet as we are not quite welcome here; at best the reception is chilly.
sean s.
Perhaps you find it chilly because you don’t realise how cold the cold, hard facts are. In fact, the recent results from the LHC and Planck rule out any intercessionary creator gods (i.e., the kind conceived of by pretty much any theistic religion).
/@
Ant wrote: ” the recent results from the LHC and Planck rule out any intercessionary creator gods ”
Nonsense.
Science cannot draw any conclusion about the existence of God, or the existence of the supernatural.
Science cannot investigate the supernatural as long as the latter has no impact on the natural world. But as soon as such impact is claimed, the supernatural enters the world of the natural and thus the domain of science. S if you believe in a do-nothing god he (she?) may be immune from the long arm of science. Which does not prevent your belief from being a fantasy.
paxton,
I’ve cited mainstream scientific organizations which say that science cannot draw conclusions about the supernatural. How did you get it so right but mainstream science get it so wrong?
Divine revelation perhaps, Tim?
paxton wrote: “Divine revelation perhaps, Tim?”
So paxton, are you lobbying the National Science Teachers Association to change their position and allow the supernatural into the science classroom?
“science is precluded from making statements about supernatural forces because these are outside its provenance” National Science Teachers Association
Tim,
I actually agree with keeping the supernatural out of the science class room. But I don’t agree that science is precluded from drawing conclusions about supernatural forces when those forces are claimed to have have accomplished things in the real world that science has rejected. Such as young earth creationism. My preference would be to keep this out of the classroom, but if it is introduced to show all the evidence science has accumulated to disprove it.
I suspect that statement “science is precluded from making statements about supernatural forces because these are outside its provenance” by the National Science Teachers Association was forced on them by the same religious groups who are pushing to distort the science in our textbooks. They don’t want to keep the supernatural out of the science classroom, they just want to deny the authority of science to contradict it.
paxton wrote: “that statement…was forced on them by the same religious groups who are pushing to distort the science in our textbooks.”
So the NSTA, and the AAAS, and UC Berkeley are all under the thumb of the Religious Right? LOL
Tim,
See http://ncse.com/book/export/html/2425 and check out the sentence before the one you quoted: “Because science is limited to explaining the natural world by means of natural processes, it cannot use supernatural causation in its explanations.”
Also: ” NSTA recognizes that evolution has not been emphasized in science curricula in a manner commensurate to its importance because of official policies, intimidation of science teachers, the general public’s misunderstanding of evolutionary theory, and a century of controversy.
Furthermore, teachers are being pressured to introduce creationism, creation “science,” and other nonscientific views, which are intended to weaken or eliminate the teaching of evolution.”
paxton wrote: “check out the sentence before the one you quoted”
yes I read it
paxton wrote: “teachers are being pressured to introduce creationism, creation “science”
yes and the full quote shows that , contrary to your statement, they arent yielding to any pressure to include the supernatural in science.
You however apparently are.
Well, you’re not Dorothy Parker, but it isn’t bad.
“I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be. – Isaac Asimov, in ‘The Roving Mind’ (1983)
Exactly.
sean s.