The Tekton Canon Is Now Closed

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Christian Behrend Doscher's $20,000 Promise

One of Christian Behrend Doscher’s most egregious attempts to deceive me took place in 2008 while he was posing as “spirit5er” on TheologyWeb. It took me until 2016 to find out the whole truth.

While I was engaging him in debate on TheologyWeb in 2008, Doscher challenged me to a debate in front of my church and said he would pay me $20,000 for that debate. Because of a crash, the TheologyWeb version of that thread no longer exists except for a bit of it in an archive. But Doscher preserved a version of those events on an atheist forum that same year. Here’s what he said in a message dated October 6, 2008:

I accepted Holding's $20,000 price tag for an oral debate at a location, date and time of his choosing, on a biblical subject of his choosing, in front of any audience of his choosing, then asked for the name and number of his pastor to facilitate the deal, guarantee his promise to debate and transfer the money. Nope. He refused to give the information on his pastor (like Holding really goes to church?!), unless I PM'd him with an electronic scan of my bank statement showing I had at least $20,000 in my account. When I objected that people sending bank statements to people they don't know on the internet is absurd, and they can be easily photoshopped anyway (bank statements being little more than letters, lines and numbers, how hard is that to alter?), he replied that he knows experts who can tell whether a scan that shows my name and money-amount, has been photoshopped or not. As if the prospect of meeting personally with his pastor to facilitate this deal upon his agreement to debate, was somehow more prone to deception and falsification than his ridiculous face-saving suggestions.

http://bcharchive.org/2/thearchives/showthreadc69e-2.html?t=253929 (message #7)

I had plenty of suspicions about “spirit5er” so I never told him a thing. I also strung him along about his offer of $20,000, knowing that it was likely to be false. I had no idea just how false it was until 2016, when I started collecting documents from Doscher’s old lawsuits in the midst of his libel lawsuit against me.

By way of background, in 2007, Doscher briefly worked for Swift Transportation, a leading trucking company. He resigned from that job on July 31, 2007, over an issue involving a traffic ticket and a refusal to drive his truck. In June 2009, he filed the first of a series of lawsuits related to these events. I won’t get into details on those cases here. What I want to highlight is this snippet from a document he filed in that case:

(Doscher v Swift, Motion for Summary Judgment, October 2010, p. 60)

So, let’s put the pieces together. In 2008, the same year he was often homeless and living in his car, Doscher was also offering me $20,000 to engage him in a live debate. This was in spite of the fact that he couldn’t even afford to spend the money for gas needed to turn the heat on in his vehicle in the dead of winter.

It’s kind of ironic. In 2008, he offered me $20,000 he didn’t have to pay me for a live debate. In 2016, a judge ordered him to pay me just over $20,000 to cover my attorney fees. One way or the other, he’s destined to pay me that amount someday. It just remains to be seen how.

Storage Wars Parody Contest: Answers

Here's the answer key to the Storage Wars Jerusalem contest last week. All answers left to right.

1:49 Peter Breitbart, who appeared in several vids; any of those titles are acceptable. Crazypills2 the Clown, who also appeared in several vids.

1:55 Unnamed lady robot (though I used the working name of Sephia) who appeared in four vids related to cosmology. Gilligan and the Pett Bomber, from Rescue from Pett Bomber Island. Obelix, appeared in Tacitus Says Christ Mythers Have Gaul.

2:01 Batman, appeared in Did the Bible Blunder 3. ReligionFreeDeist in his jackass costume, from Plumber Under Pressure.

2:10 Bart Ehrman, who has appeared in dozens of vids. Faith, from Paul's Angels: Faith. Cult of Dusty, from ForBibleTruth and Cultof Dusty Hammered by the Historians.

2:25 Pres. Bartlett from President Bartlett Gets Pared.

2:32 Dorothy from Penn and Teller's Bible Bull Ripped. William Lane Craig from Dawkins' Dodge.

2:38 Rebecca Watson and Richard Dawkins from Thunderf00t’s Strategic Assessment (Dawkins has appeared in others as well).

2:41 Ray Comfort from If Ray Comfort Were a Fundamentalist Atheist.

3:12 Dr. E from Dr. E: Jesus vs Attis (or Osiris would be acceptable).

3:18 Norman Geisler from Geisler's Christmas Carol or Rise of the Ehrmanator. ChristianRoadWarrior from WYTW Raw: ProfMTH and violently graceful Lose Their Job

3:30 Unnamed elephant from The Tale of Jephthah. DarkMatter2525 from several vids, though he has only appeared in that form in Dark Doesn't Matter.

3:35 Mike Licona from Geisler's Christmas Carol.

3:45 Unnamed Borg from Social Concepts 4: Submit to the Collective. Kittenkitoko from Jephthah in the Hot Seat or Dawkins' Ironic Hypocrisy.

3;58 Joan from Social Concept 3: Shame vs Guilt. Unnamed guy from Wah Wah World 4.

4:03 Unnamed clown from Plumber Under Pressure.

4:09 Unnamed bull from Who Authored Luke-Acts? Thessalonians 2 from The Man Who Wrote THAT!

4:50 Troi from Why is the Man's Head Shiny? or Submit to the Collective.

4:59 Penn from Penn and Teller Bible Bull Ripped. Scram Man, from several vids. Barry the atheist from Symphathizes with Wolves.

5:08 Count Blarg from Did the Bible Blunder 3. Unnamed assistant to Confucius from Be a Moron Onto Others.

5:12 Sheila from The Great Bombini.

Office from Tryouts for the Trinity.

Bartimaeus healing scene from Social Concepts 2.

Dumpster scene from Plumber Under Pressure.

PWNAGE II: The Return of the Symph-athizer

On TektonTV today, I offered a followup vid as a reply to the same emergent Christian to whom a prior vid and Forge post was addressed (link below). There was little in the way of new argument from him this time; what he did offer was mostly a sustained rant, peppered with personal accusations, vacuous slogans, and angry re-assertions of defeated premises (I spent a lot of time referring to prior arguments he ignored or was unaware of!), but this gave me a chance to make a few things clear about my use of harsh language towards certain opponents, as well as address a few other issues.

“All the Time.” The emergent made the rather vague charge that I used harsh language “all the time”. How this is rated is not explained. Obviously, since e.g., comments on YT engage me less than a total of 15-20 minutes a day, and at least 70-90% of those on any given day are not to fundy atheists, “all the time” seems hyperbolic to say the least.

In reality, most of my time these days is spent on writing projects such as an e-book on the atonement and articles for my e-zine (the current article on my docket is on Orthodoxy). It seems rather that the emergent is so obsessed with the idea that it is all he thinks about “all the time.” As I explain in the vid, though, my use of harsh language is governed by occasions brought TO me. I don't go looking to pick fights with fundy atheists in the YouTube comments. In every single case, they come to MY channel -- or to one my work is hosted on -- to pick fights with ME. 

This simple point erases a good number of complaints from the be-nice bellowers:  Those who comment know very well from watching the vids that they're not going to be given a free ride with a song and dance. Most (not all) of the vids contain sarcastic humor, so there's very little chance fundy atheist commenters do not know what they're getting into.

In contrast, a point I do not address in the vid: Although I don't go picking fights in comments, I do sometimes appear to do so when I produce vids. Of the current set of 175 vids, a fair number are directed to a position held by someone who made another vid; of that, a fair number are directed towards persons who "threw the first punch."  Some, however,   are towards persons who had nothing to do with me before -- mostly, two YT users designated ProfMTH and NonStampCollector. 

But hold for the caveat: I picked those two as targets on request of YT users who were distressed by their arrogance and the bullying. So however you look at it -- I'm almost never, if at all, the one looking for trouble. My work is almost completely reactionary.

That's how it was when I wrote articles for Tekton years ago, too. Nothing has changed. If you're an atheist who does civil discourse, and doesn't go out of your way to do poor research or to deceive, you have nothing to worry about and will get the red carpet from me. If you do get called down by me, and acknowledge your mistakes and show a willingness to dialogue and improve your effort -- as has happened with a few atheists over the years -- the same carpet comes rolling out.

But if you're a fundy atheist who doesn't care about the truth, who continues to use sources like Wikipedia or Acharya S or Robert Ingersoll; who makes excuses such as "Christian scholars are too biased so you can't use them" -- I'll roll up that carpet and knock you over the right field wall with it.

As noted in that last entry, Christians like this emergent one who enable such behavior are no better. You'll see in this vid samples of comments from such fundy atheists, who this emergent lunatic has the temerity to say are just "asking questions in the name of God." Which god, I ask? Loki? Eris? (Is there an Aztec god of discord and destruction they're following, maybe?) And I also point out a great irony: By enabling these wolves, the emergent is actually insulting honest seekers and being a “poor witness” to them.

Offensive Christianity. I allude to Christianity being profoundly offensive in its social context. This is the sum of what I call the Impossible Faith thesis. There’s a link below explaining some of the points made in the vid. This thesis formed the basis for one of the sections in my book Defending the Resurrection. It’s been criticized by a couple of atheists (including one who was paid $5000 by another atheist to write a refutation of it!), and I have replied in turn.

Personal Testimony. There’s a link below to a series on my other blog about evangelism and apologetics, and how Christians have placed themselves in a trap of sorts by making personal behavior a judging standard for the truth of the Gospel.

Reading Lists. The emergent coddled a fundy atheist who refused to do assigned reading I offered so that they could comment more intelligently. I should note that I did this specifically to this critic precisely because they were not willing to learn and be inquisitive. Most viewers will not have done the reading before commenting; but most readers will also not rail off with misplaced objections, either. There’s a difference between the way I treat willing learners and those who steadfastly remain willfully ignorant.

To address a related point: I don’t attack disagreement. I attack willfully and stubbornly unintelligent, misinformed, tendentious disagreement. And fundy atheists specialize in that (as is to be expected, since that was their mode as fundies, too).

Seeking Weak Christians. One thing the emergent fails to grasp – being too ensconced in his role as an enabler of bullies – is that the set of fundy atheists I deal with are “anti-evangelists” who are specifically seeking weak victims. Very few openly state that they are out to deconvert Christians; John Loftus is one of those who does. This set of fundy atheists has a strategy set, which includes the “guilt trip” of declaring that you sure are unloving if you don’t just accept their manipulative ways and become their doormat. They also tend to use “reason, logic and evidence” – the words, not the actual products – as a bludgeon. Used their way, this becomes an insult in itself (as it indicates to the Christian, “you are oblivious to reason, logic, and evidence”).

There’s no basis for doormat Christianity. Even acts like giving your clothes away to someone who sued you was in fact an act designed to shame your opponent – just like Gandhi shamed the British with his non-violence (which I expect escapes the emergent sorts as well). The emergent uses the Message “translation,” which, as the vid notes, offers the ridiculous rendering that you are to “gift wrap” your item of clothing and make it a present. That not only adds a great deal of words to the text, it also adds our cultural presuppositions.

As part of their anti-evangelism, I noted, these fundy atheists will even leave comments on vids that are just devotionals. Now I imagine it will be said that Christians will also evangelize on vids that have to do with eg, evolution. And that’s true. But it’s also just as inappropriate and not an excuse.

Millennial Change. In close -- as TektonTV approaches 1000 subscribers, I have decided on a solution to the problem, one that will shut down the complaints once and for all -- though not in a way you might expect. You can look for that once TektonTV passes the magic number. My final note on this is a clue – I design my riposte such that those who take themselves least seriously will have the least problem with it. That’s all I’ll say – those who have ears to hear, will hear.

Link: Prior vid

Link: Resurrection defense

Link: Evangelism series

All About Pwnage: Supplement

Today on TektonTV, we've added a vid laying the law down on a species of professed Christian which is set to bury the Western church as it lays on its deathbed. We've had many occasions to answer the denizens of the emergent church (Brian McLaren, Carl Medearis, and others) but this is the first time (apart from a few comments on Amazon to Medearis) I've addressed any directly. This one objected to my use of "pwnage" against fundy atheists and those who destroy the truth. Nothing unusual there. (I'd better add here for qualification, since otherwise it will be assumed: I don't mean here reasonable atheists. I mean open, bold, deceivers and profaners.)

Since there's nothing particularly unusual about any emergent -- seen one, seen them all -- we won't bother to name them, but will present here their (typical) responses for commentary. 

"We have to made God and Jesus attractive!"

We do? That's funny. God did all he could to make Jesus UNattractive in the first century: A crucified man (the highest form of shame known, in a society where honor was highly valued and shame desperately avoided), who came from Nazareth in Galilee (from the wrong side of the tracks, and a land known for being the Afghanistan of the day), and was resurrected (when pagans thought the idea of resurrection repugnant, and Jews thought no one would be resurrected until the end of the age)...need I go on? I compiled a huge list of reasons precisely why God and Jesus were NOT attractive in the first century; and a minor league arrogant, or any emergent, is going to say we need to make Jesus "attractive"? What do they want us to do, add lipstick to the crucified Christ?

The fact is, the Gospel is not "attractive". It is not personal therapy. It is not for the purpose of making you feel good, or so you can have "experiences" in church (most of which are self-induced euphorias anyway).  It is not an "I Can Only Imagine" song where we get to dance and sing. It is erasure of sin for sinners; it is eternal service and work on behalf of the Kingdom.  The faithful servant didn't get ten cities so that he could go on vacation in them.

"We need to listen to the grievances of these fundy atheists!"

No we don't. For one thing, they're all old news. For another, they've all already been answered. Fundy atheists -- not "regular" atheists necessarily -- aren't raising these objections because they want an answer. They are raising these objections to annoy, frustrate, and anger Christians. They are raising them as a way of undermining Christians' faith and in turn undermining their support for causes they (the fundy atheists) support -- whether it be abortion, same-sex marriage, or keeping the Ten Commandments out of their offended vision.

The fact is that these “grievances” have been postulated since Ingersoll, since Paine, in some cases since Celsus. The answers have been around just as long. It does not take a great deal of effort (with most of them) to discover that they are bogus. However, fundy atheists as a whole have an aversion to reading. I have offered to buy three of them a free book – only one has taken the offer, and that was one who I’d consider right on the cusp of rational (as opposed to fundy) atheism. So we don’t need to listen to their grievances – because they’re not looking for solutions.

"These fundy atheists are people who have been hurt by the church!"

Oh really? If we allow in trivial or manufactured offense, including that willfully exacerbated by a refusal to look for answers (as above), then that might work out. As for REAL offense, well -- when I did an article on witnessing to apostates, I found a survey on a leading fundy atheist website (a forum, though the thread is now defunct), and the largest portion (28.5 percent) of atheists cited “theological/doctrinal problems” as their reason for questioning their faith. Another 27 percent claimed that their faith “no longer made sense” or that they “grew out of it.” Ten percent cited “Bible contradictions” as their reason to initially question Christianity.

Where did "hurt by the church" come in? Fourth. Way fourth. About 6 percent. Not that this is an excuse to spread crap like "Jesus didn't exist" or "the Inquisition killed 24 million people." 

"We need to show the love of Jesus!"

Ah yes. Love. Now that’s an error not unique to the emergents; like most of the church today, they define love in terms of sappy sentimentality and universal politeness to even the most despicable despot. It’s not that; and that is nothing at all like the agape understood by first century peoples, in which the greatest good was always at the fore – even if that meant having to crack a few noggins for the sake of the whole. Emergent love would send Saddam flowers and gently (so as not to offend) ask him to repent. Agape love would depose Saddam, put him on trial, and justly execute him – for the greater good of his people, and the world at large. That’s the difference between modern individualism and collectivism.

Not surprisingly, with that sort of view of love, emergents have no idea what to do with Biblical passages where God says he'll smear dung on people's faces, or where God orders the Canaanites destroyed. They wring their hands and profess to be disturbed by them and to be trying to figure it all out, but the traditional hell will freeze over before they arrive at a real solution. The only solution they have, as Medearis says, is to keep pointing at Jesus and hope no one notices. (McLaren tried some sort of incoherent approach that claimed some sort of misunderstanding, but it is awful hard to misunderstand, "these people must be evicted from the land, or die.")

"If you don't know a person, you have no right to tell them they are wrong."

Ah yes. There's another of those made up emergent rules. Last I checked, right and wrong was determined by accordance with facts and truth, not whether you "knew" a person. The emergent church is obsessively relational, insisting you need to become close to and familiar with a person and earn their “respect” to be able to have the "right" to correct them. 

The problem is that the sort of personal familiarity they describe has been unknown until the modern era; in agonistic, collectivist societies like the world of the NT, people did not "get to know" each other save in rare circumstances, and “respect” as we know it was unknown; honor was the closest analogue, and by that reckoning, an inferior could not correct a superior, but a superior was free to correct an inferior, and equals could correct each other only with caution. Which means, by the emergent view, almost no one had the right to correct anyone else until around 1867.

“You can’t judge someone’s heart. Jesus could, and that is why he was allowed to insult the Pharisees! You’re not Jesus, pal!”

By this reckoning, as Douglas Wilson has noted, we also can’t do anything else Jesus did – because who knows what’s actually going on? We can’t help people either – how do we know they’re not evil, and going to abuse us or others if we help them now?

Beyond that, if we want to appeal to Jesus, let us remember that he also said that we could know people by their fruit, and Jesus himself didn’t call on any divine knowledge to judge the Pharisees – he said that by the overflow of their hearts, their mouths spoke (Matt. 12:34). He didn’t have to dip into the divine knowledge well to get that – so why would we need to?

I’ll add a side note. It seems emergents are especially enamored of Bible “translations” like “The Message” which are actually pretty poor paraphrases, because they find in them the sort of relational or sympathetic twist they’re looking for. That’s typical of their mistakes. As John Kohlenberger sums it up, in a Christian Research Journal article on The Message:

So how are we to view The Message? It is an expansive paraphrase that is not so labeled, as is The Living Bible. Beset with inconsistencies, its idiom is not always “street language”; its terminology is often idiosyncratic to its author. Compared by noted literary figures to the groundbreaking translation of J.B.Phillips, I believe The Message often lacks Phillips’s creativity and conciseness.

In the introduction, Eugene Peterson compares his pastoral ministry to his work as a translator: “I stood at the border between two languages, biblical Greek and everyday English, acting as a translator, providing the right phrases, getting the right words so that the men and women to whom I was pastor could find their way around and get along in this world” (p.7). Much of The Message reads like a sermon: text plus interpretation and application. Unlike a sermon, however, the reader does not know where the text ends and the sermon begins.

 

Because of its interpretive and idiosyncratic nature, The Message should not be used for study. If read for enlightenment or entertainment, the reader should follow the advice of Saint Augustine, as quoted in the original preface to the KJV, “Variety of translations is profitable for finding out the sense of the Scriptures.” Acts17:11 commends the Bereans for evaluating Paul’s teaching with the Old Testament Scriptures. In the same spirit, The Message needs to be evaluated against more consistent and traditional translations, especially when its renderings evoke a response such as, “I didn’t know the Bible said that!” or, “Now I understand what it means.”

In sum: while the phrase “the Message” is Eugene Peterson’s translation of “the Gospel,” not everything in The Message should be treated as gospel.

I’ll say this in close. Emergents, with regard to fundy atheists, have a parallel in the secular world. Our school systems are enduring what some have called an epidemic of bullying, as the weak are preyed on by the strong, and the strong receive nothing but slaps on the wrist, counseling, and “understanding”. To enable a bully is far more despicable, however, than the bullying itself. 

Emergents who insist on being nice to fundy atheists and other destroyers or deceivers are enablers, and their act in so being is therefore more wicked than the first. 

Appeasement doesn't work. The emergents need to learn a lesson from Neville Chamberlain.

Test Answers

We'll get to the Forge post early this week as I'm using it to post answers to a "test" I offered on TektonTV to arrogant fundy atheists who think they're hot stuff because they aced the Pew religious knowledge test. This vid is not a challenge to my Christian readers, so feel free to watch and check the answers if you're one of those.

Answers:

1) b) probatio

2) c) Jesus was a created being

3) b) Quintillian,

4) a) Ma’at

5) b) F. C. Baur

6) Philo, Josephus, Tacitus, Cassius Dio

7) b) beheading

8) d) Theodosius

9) b) John Yoder

10) d) The Wise Man, the Artisan, and the Slave

11) b) the timing of the resurrection

12) a) Robert Gundry

13) c) codex

14) d) Sejanus

15) b) musical instruments

Waaah Waaah World

Today’s entry is a companion to a YT vid I just loaded in which I highlight examples of Skeptics and fundy atheists who make absurd demands of God based on the premise that if He’s omnipotent, He ought to just go ahead and do whatever they find convenient. This post explains where each of the four real-life examples I gave came from.

Example A – the source for this is J. E. Hill, who had said, precisely:

When I read that "lack of paper" defense, I just shook my head, and wondered why Yahweh didn't give them enough writing material to eliminate all the confusion.

Fundy atheist Farrell Till added to the idiocy with this comment:

…why would an omniscient, omnipotent deity, who had performed for the Israelites such wonders as the parting of the Red Sea, the sending of manna down from heaven for a period of 40 years, the gushing forth of water from rocks, etc., etc., etc., just so that he could get his "chosen ones" from Egypt to Canaan, not have lifted a finger to make sure that "John" and the others who were recording his "plan of salvation" for all mankind throughout the rest of human history, had adequate scroll materials to tell everything about that plan that was necessary to make it credible and understandable, but he doesn't seem to be too eager to answer that question.

Example B – this one comes from a Skeptic of the Acharya S variety, J. B. McPherson, who, in her Holey Bible – Old Testament affected the part of a Mark Twain and said several things like, “Why not just zap the whole kit and kaboodle over to the land where he wanted them and save all the time and trouble involved?” throughout her book.

Example C – happened right on YT recently at the time when I was doing my responses on Elisha on the bears.

Example D – this example came to me by way of a personal email, so I will not disclose the name of the source. But you can see at this link that there are people who think this is God’s obligation.

The Secular Web's Great Tinfoil Age

Someone wrote me the other day about The Jury Is in, asking if I could refute it.

Ha ha. Of course I can, I already did. TJII, formerly the showcase project of infidels.org, was my second major online refutation project back in the late 90s (the first being a comparison of Lincoln biographies), and from it grew much of the content of my books. You'll still see remnants of it here and there on the site, too.

I still check infidels.org now and then to see if there's anything worthy of attention. Uploads seem to be a lot less frequent there than I remember, though, and it seems quality control over there has gone clockwise down the loo.

A good example of this is an item by one Daniel June, a professed former Assembly of God believer -- and still one mentally, to judge by his performance -- who offers an extended rant on Revelation and the horror of dispensational end times scenarios.

I can't do much more than laugh at most of June's extended rant, for more than one reason. To start, of course, as a preterist, I don't hold to the position June is ranting about, so my own refutation could stop at, "YAWN -- what else you got?" There's a lot of argument by outrage, which as usual seems to comprise at least 50% of any presentation by your average run of the mill Skeptic who believes that there's no reason to waste time arguing rationally when there's a chance to throw blood and guts in the reader's face. I'm especially amused inasmuch as June also whiffs past me with the whole "eternal torture" in hell tango.

So, of course, June's miserific paean over allegedly wholly innocent people (eg, "elderly men and women, who have worked to put their children through college, and are enjoying their golden years spoiling their grandchildren", blah blah blah -- all we need is for Fred Rogers to waltz in and change his socks) being ransacked by Jesus on his white horse pretty much falls on deaf ears for lack of relevance. One would hope that infidels.org would someday get enough quality control to sift out people like June who still carry this kind of emotional baggage. But as I've said, a fundy atheists hasn't really changed from being fundies; it never occurs to them that their idea that Revelation preserves a doctrine of only "a few thousand Christians" being saved (!), and their absurdly literalistic reading of apocalyptic language (so backwards that it would warrant a collection of high-five noogies from the Essene community) was a joke when they believed it and is even more of a joke now that they're critiquing it. Maybe the reason infidels. org doesn't filter such people out is because it would leave them with only enough writers to count on one hand.

One might also have hoped that June would have checked out some scholarly commentaries on Revelation to set him straight, but his first source is...er...Harold Bloom. On the virtue of his being someone who "has probably read more books than any man living, and published more literary appraisals than any scholar I have heard of..." That probably speaks more to June's lack of exposure to scholarship than to any virtues Bloom may actually have, but the fact is that Bloom remains a patent ignoramus on the interpretation of first century Jewish apocalypse, and his opinion of it -- which assumes as grossly literalistic a reading as June does -- deserves little more than a laugh track.

It doesn't get much better later, as Jung and Nietzsche (!) are called in for comment; obviously neither expense nor time was spared by June in engaging the most reputable Biblical scholarship available. Harrumph. NOT.

From there it doesn't get much better in terms of content either. June engages an extended screed on end times movements and their failures; on supposed parallels between Revelation and Genesis which he apparently swallowed as a Christian (and which owe far more to homiletics than to contextualizing scholarship); and a series of frankly dumb statements like this one:

The gospel of John calls the Jews "sons of Satan," and this John calls the Jews "the synagogue of Satan," though Yahweh had put a curse on anybody who cursed the Jews...

Um....no. The Gospel of John does no such thing, actually. It calls certain Judeans (natives of the nation of Judaea), whom Jesus specifically addresses, sons of Satan; and that's the sort of riposte folks back then used without being the least bit sensitive about it (read: Jesus to Peter, “Get thee behind me, whatsyername!”). So likewise the "synagogue of Satan" reference in Revelation; the modern ignoramus like June gets into hissies over such language, but for the first century reader, this is raindrops fallin’ on their head while they take a few moments to think of a better riposte to throw back. June is walking straight into a contest of the dozens and having a cow over these guys making such offensive comments about each others’ mothers. His gross literalism, a rebound from his ignorant fundamentalist past, erupts like a geyser of pus from the overinflated pimple of his mind; and to grasp the depth of his absurdity, try to imagine him taking what I just said literally, too.

June further laments a "confused young man" he knew who "wouldn't touch anything electronic because 'Computers are the Beast.' " What he fails to grasp is that he has become no more grown up in his exegetical skills than those people have. He amuses himself with all the variations made upon 666, but had he more of a mind than to quote someone as ignorant of such matters as Thomas Jefferson (!) and Thomas Paine (!!) he might have discovered that -- golly! -- Nero does indeed fit that bill quite well, thanks. And it doesn't take the Riddler to figure it out, either.

Seriously, folks. This is meant to be the cream of the crop at infidels.org these days? This is what they allow to write for them? It's almost enough for me to demand that James Still and Jim Perry come back. Or maybe even (gulp) Stevie Carr. Stupid as they were, not even they were bozo enough to rant about Revelation as the product of a "half-wit, no-talent writer". Nor were they of such childish mind as to think that a yards-long blood and guts rant substituted for the legwork of textual analysis. (On the other hand, Stevie did sometimes think quoting someone of the level of Paine was a good idea.)

I guess the Golden Age of the Secular Web has been given over for the Tinfoil Age. It’s too bad they don’t have better hats than that.

Morons and Omissional Sin

I received an email this week, typical of a handful I have received over the years -- fewer of late than earlier -- objecting to harsh language used on a commenter at the Ticker blog who had been making a set of the usual foolish arguments we've seen from American churchgoers these past few years -- the sort which insinuate that the Spirit is one's own personal instructor and sometime therapist, and makes any pew sitter as competent to exegete and interpret Scripture as (say) N. T. Wright. I also got a YouTube PM from someone who made similar objections to harsh words accorded to YT atheists, using the standard emotional claptrap and poor exegetical reasoning. When I pointed out that I had heard all this before, and linked to my article, the complainer merely reasserted his arguments as though nothing had been said.

After all these years, there's nothing in the mindset of such complainers that seems at all comprehensible. It seems that they're quite tolerant of those who spread error, or bully the innocent, or even cravenly devour the faithful with falsehood; but call one of these wolves a name like stupid or ignorant, and you may as well have announced that you made a hobby of dropping live puppies into boiling water.

It's an ironic sort of sickness that considers harsh words the greater sin. It isn’t, but let’s just grant the premise that is it, just for the sake of argument. I would like to ask such people a simple question.

Let's say you were transported back to 1958, and were brought face to face with a young pastor named Jim Jones. Yes, that one: He who would in 1978 caused over 900 of his followers to kill themselves.

Let's say also that you knew that to halt that career from happening, all you had to do was berate and mock Jones to the point that he became unnerved, lost his confidence, and from them on would become nothing more than a minor cult leader that few people paid any attention to.

Would you call him names? Or would you decide it was sinful because Jones was a human made in God’s image; or because you had been insulted once yourself and felt bad about it? (That was the two main arguments used by my detractors – bad as they are.)

Complainers of this sort lack the perspective this story implies. No, I am not saying that every fundy atheist wolf, or ever wacky Christian who thinks the Spirit is a personal hotline, will end up being a Jim Jones. I am saying, however, that we have foolishly convinced ourselves that harsh and confrontational language -- the sort of thing that can and does effectively break down such people before they can reach their prime -- is a sin, and a worse sin than what such wolves and Spirit-mongers go on to do.

Can anyone honestly say that we'd have been worse off had someone confronted and berated an insecure and foolish young Joyce Meyer so that she never got to the point today where she teaches to millions such nonsense as that the Spirit instructs Christians to do things like make fruit salad and open their eyes during sexual intercourse, but instead remained an obscure nobody who taught nothing greater than a home Bible study – which is frankly the most she really deserves to be?

I expect the whiners will say that not everyone I call an idiot will have such influence. Assuredly, that is so -- but let's reduce the stakes and see if it gets any better for them. Is it better to allow even ten people to be deceived out of eternal life just because you're squeamish about telling someone they're being -- well, stupid? How about five? How about one?

I also expect the complainers to say that well, maybe you will turn someone INTO a Jim Jones by insulting them. I rather doubt that; the arc of behavioral psychology doesn't make that very realistic. But even if it were possible, odds are far better you'd create a Jim Jones by ignoring him or being nice to him than by berating him. Do spoiled children get spoiled because they've been spoiled -- or because they've been disciplined?

Wake up, folks. We're in this mess we're in now because – among other things -- for too long we've turned insults into something more to be avoided than letting wolves run amuck. And the problem is still the same – either Jesus was a hypocrite, or else it is indeed not a sin in certain circumstances.

After all these years, no one’s given me a good argument against that point, either.

Pastor Tim Rogers, Godly Man in Authority

Today’s post requires background from the Ticker.

Relating to the Licona-Geisler controversy, Dr. Thomas Howe issued a blog entry of interest. For reasons unknown at the time, the blog entry was removed some days later, and then returned, updated.

In between, another Geisler supporter, one Pastor Tim Rogers (of a small church in NC) took it upon himself to reprint Howe’s posting in full. I’ve watched Rogers for a while and have been duly unimpressed; his support of Geisler earned him a spot in my vid Geisler’s Christmas Carol (see pic), and he’s a guaranteed chicken when it comes to being confronted with his errors, as shown below. (By the way, he also refuses to allow Nick Peters to post on his blog, and gives varied excuses for that as well.)

Those that know me what came next.

I posted as a comment on Rogers’ blog:

Do you have Dr. Howe’s permission to reprint his entry?

If not, do you know what “intellectual property rights” are, or is that sort of moral concern beneath your radar as a “godly man in authority”?

I knew the answer, of course. “Godly men in authority” like Rogers don’t respect the intellectual property rights of others, especially when they think that some higher purpose of theirs is at stake. In what followed, Rogers hemmed and hawed and dodged the issue, with such pointless questions as to whether I was asking for myself or on Howe’s behalf; he responded at one point to my detailed exposition on why he was wrong with nothing but a “Merry Christmas” greeting. That's a Santariffic way to dodge the issue, isn't it?

To be fair, though, Rogers in reply comments demonstrated a dismal ignorance of copyright law as well – which is just a further hallmark of the ignorance of such “godly men in authority”. Among other things, Rogers:

1) Implied that it didn’t make any difference because Howe had taken the blog entry down. (Wrong. Howe is still the owner of the intellectual property of his blog entry.)

2) It was “in the public domain.” (No, it was not. This manifest ignoramus
apparently thinks that “public domain” means “it’s publicly available.” It does not. It means a work where the copyright has either expired, or the author has freely released the work to be used by the public. The music I use for my TektonTV vids is an example of the latter. Neither of those descriptions applies to Howe’s post. And though I corrected Rogers on this point, he later reiterated the same asinine understanding of “public domain” to another commenter.

3) He gave full credit to Howe as author. (Also does not matter. “Fair use” means credit is a good idea – it’s not always required, depending on the circumstances -- and it also means you can’t reprint the whole work, as Rogers did.)

4) Later, he also suggested that it was Howe’s responsibility to contact HIM and let him know he didn’t want it used. That too is false. Copyright law is quite clear on this matter:

How do I get permission to use somebody else’s work?

You can ask for it. If you know who the copyright owner is, you may contact the owner directly. If you are not certain about the ownership or have other related questions, you may wish to request that the Copyright Office conduct a search of its records or you may search yourself. See the next question for more details.

How much of someone else’s work can I use without getting permission?

Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports. There are no legal rules permitting the use of a specific number of words, a certain number of musical notes, or percentage of a work. Whether a particular use qualifies as fair use depends on all the circumstances. See FL 102, Fair Use, and Circular 21, Reproductions of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians.

Somebody infringed my copyright. What can I do?

A party may seek to protect his or her copyrights against unauthorized use by filing a civil lawsuit in federal district court. If you believe that your copyright has been infringed, consult an attorney. In cases of willful infringement for profit, the U.S. Attorney may initiate a criminal investigation.

Could I be sued for using somebody else’s work? How about quotes or samples?
If you use a copyrighted work without authorization, the owner may be entitled to bring an infringement action against you. There are circumstances under the fair use doctrine where a quote or a sample may be used without permission. However, in cases of doubt, the Copyright Office recommends that permission be obtained.

By the way, the Government's stuff isn't covered by copyright...so I can quote THAT all I want.

Additionally, one of Rogers’ airheaded supporters – also a pastor of the same mold – arrived at the ludicrous conclusion that the same objections ought to have applied to eg, 2 Peter and Jude (whoever copied whom). Not only is that absurd because it applies laws and concepts that did not exist for another 1800 years at least; it is also oblivious to the point that the Bible, ultimately inspired by God, is God’s property to freely inspire others to use – or, even if you are not one who believes in the inspiration of the Bible, the Bible is itself the property of the community (Body of Christ), and so its members are free to reproduce it. Morever, if the Bible’s purpose is to evangelize and exhort everyone (in line with the Great Commission), that would be the equivalent of a “public domain” purpose.

The same airhead also professed that it was not as simple as I made it out to be with the Internet in the mix. That’s true – the Internet makes it much easier for moral indigents like these pastors to get away with, and engage in, such wholesale intellectual theft. But has it made it any less immoral or illegal? Nope.

In the end, Howe’s updated reposting of his entry saved this poor schlep the moral question of what he ought to do and enabled him the ultimate dodge on the central issue. But it didn’t save him from exposure as a moral failure. All he had to do, really, was say, “Oh. OK. I’ll ask Howe by email/phone. Be right back.” That wouldn’t have been that hard.

But no, that is not how it is with “godly men in authority.” They are godly, so their rule is law. They can’t be troubled to make sure they’re doing right, or to look up things like “public domain”. Everyone else can take the rule of law and stick it somewhere dark and comfy when they’re busy with their work for the Kingdumb. Shut up, you idiot, I'm preaching the Word of God.

If you ever wonder why I’m so insistent on making an issue of authoritarian bullies – look no further. They’ll help kill the church in America faster than even John Loftus can.

***

Update: Hours after this post, Rogers professed to have in hand the permission I requested to reprint. Notably, he very carefully failed to indicate that he only got this permission AFTER being called down for his moral failures.

What Is Atheism? Part 7

Nick Peters now has this portion ready for us, and since I'm still stoned (ha ha -- kidney stoned) we'll use it this week.

***

We return again to our study of Krueger and “What is Atheism?” Krueger is going to attempt to answer the charge today on “Wouldn’t someone need to know everything in order to say that there is no God?” Granted, this is not the kind of argument I’d use, but Krueger does attempt argumentation here, so let’s see what he says.

Krueger starts off with ECREE, which is “Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence” and that someone needs strong evidence to show that God exists. He tells us most people believe it is common sense that an extraordinary claim is false until evidence is shown for it.

Well, no. It’s just not proven true. That’s a long ways from saying that it is false. Has it been proven true that X committed the crime in the court? Well, no. Therefore, we ought to believe it is false? No. I have no problem with skepticism. It will not work to say that because one side has insufficient evidence, then the other side must have sufficient evidence.

Krueger also defines extraordinary claims as those that would require us to drop a common sense belief. What is a common sense belief? Considering most people today and throughout history have believed in some form of theism, then it would seem that Krueger is the one who has the extraordinary claim. Upon what basis can he say “Common sense says there is no God.”?

I could point to what most people believe in order to say that this is a common belief. This does not make the belief true. Many people can believe something and be wrong. Many people could have terrible reasons for believing in God, and in fact I’d say they do. That also does not make it wrong.

To the atheist, that God exists is an extraordinary claim, but to someone like myself, the claim that God does not exist is an extraordinary claim. Why should Krueger’s common sense belief not be considered an extraordinary claim, but my claim should be considered one?

And here we have the problem with ECREE. ECREE is way too subjective. Besides, what is considered extraordinary evidence? Does it glow? Does it leave you feeling minty fresh? Does it provide a burning in the bosom? Would it not be best to say a belief should not be believed without sufficient evidence instead?

Krueger decides to defend God’s existence by saying it is an extraordinary claim according to Christians. Pascal is said to have implied that some people needed to dull their reason to become Christians and Luther is said to have said that reason should be destroyed in all Christians. I would love to respond to these, but unfortunately, as expected, Krueger gives no citation. In what writing did Pascal and Luther say this? Who knows? What is the surrounding context? We don’t know.

There’s even a problem on the face of it. This is talking about becoming Christians and not becoming theists. One can be a theist without being a Christian. Is Krueger trying to claim all non-Christians for the side of atheism? Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Mormons, etc. would all be interested in knowing they’re atheists.

Furthermore, what is meant by reason? Luther used reason in a number of ways and he didn’t necessarily mean the thinking facility. Pascal’s usage could have been the same seeing as in their own right, both of these men were intellectuals.
Krueger then tells of a book by Michael Jordan (Not the basketball star) called “The Encyclopedia of Gods” and asks why Christians don’t think about those gods and wonder if they exist. The problem is that Krueger assumes the reason we don’t believe in those gods is the same reason that he doesn’t. His reason is because he has already ruled out the belief in any gods. Our reason as Christians is that we know that there is only one true God and we have strong evidence He exists, thus eliminating any competing theories.

Krueger claims that the criteria for evidence is different for Christians with their God than with other gods. This could be the case, but this needs to be argued for and not assumed. Can Krueger tell what my criteria is? Krueger thinks the atheist alone is being consistent. I will say the atheist is being consistent with regards to how he treats all theistic claims, but not with how he treats all claims. If he accepted evidence for the historical claims of Christianity and metaphysics, the way he accepts other claims, I believe he would be a Christian. It is because he raises the bar when it comes to other beliefs that he does not accept them.

Krueger now wants to show that the concept of God is incoherent. Krueger starts by saying that all religions disagree on their claims and they cannot all be true. True enough. The conclusion he reaches is there can be no being described by these religions. It does not follow. They could all be seeking to describe the ultimate being, but some of them are describing him wrong.

He says the same is true of Christians. Some Christians say that God knows the future and therefore there is no free-will. (Krueger overlooks that a lot of us do believe God knows the future and that we have free-will.) Some Christians say God does not know the future. Both of these views cannot be true. Certainly. No problem with that. Saying both cannot be true does not show that both are false. Let us look at it this way.

Either mankind is here by a purely naturalistic process or mankind is here by a process of creation.

Both of these views cannot be true.

Therefore both are false.

Krueger would not accept such poor argumentation in any field. Are we to say that because contradictory things are believed about something, that that something cannot exist? Could it not be the simpler explanation that someone is just wrong?

Of course, Krueger tells us about the other great contradiction in Christianity, namely that 1 = 3, meaning the Trinity. Had Krueger actually read someone on the Trinity who was informed, he would have not made such an embarrassing blunder. See link below on the Trinity.

What about omniscience? How could it be that God knows some things that supposedly have to be known by experience? To begin with, it is an assumption to say one has to have experience to know something. There is a subjective knowing and an objective knowing here. My main stance with omniscience is simply that God knows all propositions that are true. God could know all experiences however by knowing all persons. All this would show is that omniscience is a difficult concept. It does not show it is false.

With omnipotence, Krueger asks the classic “Can God create a rock so big He can’t lift it?” Yes everyone. Someone wrote a book with an objection that’s high school level as if it was a powerful argument. Well, Krueger: If you’re reading this, I’m going to give you a simple answer to your question.

No.

And I say that saying God is omnipotent because power cannot do contradictions.

God is able to do anything that power can do and nonsense does not cease to become nonsense because one adds the words “God can” before it, as C.S. Lewis said.

What about God being eternal? Can God act in time if He is eternal? Yes. God’s actions just take place eternally. God does not progress on the timeline but rather God is always acting in all things at once as He is not limited by time. Right now, God is creating man and judging the world both.

Krueger goes on to list that the Bible says God is male, but He cannot be if He has no body. To begin with, I think the body is an expression of maleness, but that is a reflection of an aspect of man that is male. (At least in men.)

Furthermore, the Bible does not say God is male (In fact, it explicitly says in passages like Hosea 12:9 that God is not a man.) but rather He is described in male terms. One might as well think our planet is female since we think of Mother Nature and ask where her female parts are.

Finally, Krueger goes with the problem of evil. I have written on this before in my review of John Loftus’s usage of the Problem of Evil. See link below.

Krueger returns to the Bible now to support nonbelief assuming the Bible is the only reason for believing in God with the objection of “Why did God not cause Bibles to rain from the sky.” JPH has written extensively on thinking like this with examples of the blue fairy and such. See link below.

From this point on, I don’t consider the arguments against the Bible relevant as it is a dismissal of the theistic arguments I do not believe Krueger has dealt with.

Next time I write will close up this topic.

http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2008/07/21/why-i-rejected-christianity-review-natural-evil/

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/trinitydefense.html

http://www.tektonics.org/uz/vector01.html

What Is Atheism? Part 6: What About the Theistic Proofs?

Nick Peters continues his review.

***

As we continue our journey through Krueger’s work on atheism, we come to his chapter on theistic proofs. Keep in mind that Krueger has an allergy to citing in this book. Who are the people giving the arguments? We don’t know. Where do they say them? We don’t know. How do they defend them? We don’t know.

Krueger starts with the design argument. I won’t say anything about the science aspect of this. I am not a scientist and if someone wants to read that side, there are plenty of books on the topic. In some ways, I agree with Krueger. If all you have is “The universe is designed” it is not enough to establish classical theism. Philosophy has to take over at that point. I do agree that it can be a good start and that would be fine.

Krueger does say that God in Genesis uses magic words to create the universe, a comment laughable in itself. No surprise that he uses the argument of “Who designed God?” The argument assumes God is designed, something I dealt with in my argument of Dawkins and the 747 Boeing. (See link.)

Krueger does have some criticisms as well on what the argument does not show. It does not show that this God is the Christian God. It does not show that there is only one creator. It fails to show that God still exists, is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, or omniscient. I agree with all of those. However, I do agree that it establishes likely some kind of theism and that is all that is needed.

Next we move to the cosmological argument. At least at this point he does mention Aquinas, but like Dawkins, Krueger does not understand Aquinas. One hopes that there is some glimmer of light coming through when Krueger says that a contingent being is that which is caused to exist by something other than itself. A necessary being is not caused to exist by another. I could disagree with some aspects of that, but I will explain that soon. The problem is that Krueger states that a necessary being is caused to exist by its own nature. If he is speaking of God, God is not caused by anything. I do agree that something could be necessary but always be dependent on another. I don’t think this is the case, but I am open.

Krueger says that it does not follow that there is only one first mover. With this, Krueger shows he does not understand the argument and likely is thinking motion refers to physical motion when it refers to any change whatsoever. There can only be one being who is being itself for if there was another, they would have to differ in some aspect of being and how could pure being differ from pure being?

How can it be sure that God still exists? Because the first mover has divine simplicity and cannot change and going out of existence would count as a change. He is eternal and outside of time. The same kind of thing can be said for all of Krueger’s other objections and had he actually read the Summa Theologica, he would have seen that Aquinas argues for the love of God, the knowledge of God, and the power of God from reason.

Krueger also says that Aquinas assumed an infinite regress was impossible. He did no such thing. In fact, he was open to an infinite regress. He would disagree with Craig today in saying that the universe cannot be proven to have a beginning by an infinite regress argument that is horizontal. This is stated in Question 46, article 2, of the Prima Pars of the Summa Theologica. Aquinas believes the universe had a beginning because Scripture says so. He says philosophy cannot show that.

But some of you are saying “But in his divine proofs, he does say we have to avoid an infinite regress.”

You are correct, for there are two kinds of infinite regresses. The first is a per accidens. In this one, the existence of that which is present in no way requires the current existence of that which was past. Suppose my wife and I want to start having children and while deciding this, in a horrible tragedy, our parents die in car accidents. Does this mean we cannot have children? In no way. Our ability to have children does not depend on our parents.

Now suppose a chain of gears is moving and they are all being moved by one big gear. This is going on for eternity. Then all of a sudden, we find a way to remove the big gear. Do the little gears stop? Yes they do. Their motion is dependent on the big gear and this is a different kind of regress called a per se regress.

Aquinas’s classic example is a hand moving a stick that is moving a rock. If the hand goes away, all movement stops. This is the kind of regress he is speaking of in his divine proofs. There has to be something that is the cause of motion in all other things to explain their motion, yet it itself is not in motion.

Could the first cause have been the universe itself as Krueger says? No. The universe is material and that which is material in Aquinas is that which is always in a state of potential and thus cannot be purely actual. Again, this is really basic Aquinas and that Krueger writes on this shows he does not understand the basics of Aquinas.

These are the only kinds of arguments dealt with. Krueger might think he’s dealt with other arguments like the moral argument or the argument from the resurrection, but he does not. He also seems to coalesce all of Aquinas’s arguments into one, but they are each different in their own way.

Chapter 7 next time.

Link

What Is Atheism? Part 5: Krueger and Miracles

Nick Peters continues his series:

***

In our continuing look at Krueger’s “work” the fifth chapter is about miracles. Do they prove that God exists? You know that it’s going to be a highly errant look at the topic when the first sentence is just wrong.

“A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature because of supernatural influence.”

Well, no. A miracle is what happens when God intervenes in a situation that disrupts what would normally happen had He not intervened. It is not a violation of the laws of nature as the laws of nature still remain intact. The loaves and fishes were miraculously created, but the digestion process went on as normal. God created a sperm in Mary for the virgin birth, but the birth process went on for the same nine months.

Such a way of phrasing the topic poisons the well. Unfortunately for Krueger, he cites no theological or philosophical dictionary that gives such a definition. Make it a point readers to watch the way people define terms. Often they can set it to win at the outset with just how they define their terms.

Of course, the argument is Humean (see link below) and has been dealt with. By this point, most every Christian philosopher and their mother has answered Hume. Still, his ghost keeps coming back. (Hmmm. Perhaps that should be considered a miracle.)

As an example of the idea, Krueger says that if we hear about a man who was holy and floated in mid-air because he was in a trance, we must either believe everyone has been mistaken about gravity, or that the report misunderstands or is lying. Instead, it could simply be that if said case was true, God was working but not violating a law of nature as gravity still holds throughout the universe. One can believe in gravity and also believe a higher power can cause something to float that normally wouldn’t.

Interestingly, Krueger goes on to say the laws of nature are not known completely. While I agree with this tentatively (I still hold out questions on if we can really speak of laws of nature), I see this as a great weakness in the argument. It means that whatever happens, Krueger can just say “Well that’s not a miracle. We just don’t understand the law yet.”

So if Krueger is presented with evidence that he cannot deny that Jesus rose from the dead, he’s really going to try to look for a law of nature that will explain one resurrection that took place at one point in time rather than thinking about eschatological fulfillment, the honor-shame dynamic, etc.?

Keep in mind, we theists are the ones who are supposed to examine our claims.
Krueger says there are also always alternative explanations. Sure. So what? That doesn’t mean they’re right. One shouldn’t go with an explanation because it’s an alternative to one you don’t like. You should go with it because it is true. In a revealing sentence at the end of the page on this part he says “Almost any other proposed explanation for a seeming miracle would be more likely to be true than theism because the other claims would not assert the existence of a supreme being, a situation which would place the theistic proposal at a great disadvantage.”

In other words, we have to assert any possibility that could be true except theism and since we cannot accept the theistic claim, that puts theism at a great disadvantage.

No joke. Really?

Krueger also says that even if the laws were violated, it would not show God’s existence since gods are usually thought to bring about events by magic powers or uttering certain words and that it could never be established that one god chose to do a miracle instead of another.

Well, maybe unless we could do something like establish that only one God exists which has been done….

Krueger also dismisses any biblical testimony since he thinks he’s shown the Bible to be unreliable. (See link to previous blog post on that topic)

Finally, Krueger says all such claims outside the Bible have not held up under examination. He tells about CSICOP, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. An example worth mentioning is the Shroud of Turin. I have not seen word yet of this being refuted. Even if one does not accept it, there are a lot of unanswered questions about it. I wouldn’t use it in an apologetic argument, but it is something fun to think about.

I conclude that Krueger is simply dismissing every miracle claim too fast not also aware that even the Catholic Church has its own branch to investigate miracle claims thoroughly.

Not much here today folks. We’ll see what chapter 6 has next time.

On Hume

What Is Atheism? Part 4

We're back to Nick Peters taking on this dreary little tome. Maybe we could make Krueger more entertaining by drawing him in a monkey outfit.

***

For our fourth installment, the argument Krueger wishes to look at is if the Bible proves that God exists. This is not often an argument I see being used although I do think if one can establish prophecy, that counts for something, but that can turn into debates on textual criticism and hermeneutics way too easily. If there was any argument I’d use, it’d involve the Bible as a historical document and use it to establish basic facts about the resurrection of Jesus and from there show that God exists.

Krueger starts with prophecy and says that before we show a prophecy is truly what it is, we must rule out every other hypothesis. In a revealing statement on page 95 he writes “Given the extraordinarily strong claim about the nature of the theistic god, however, it would seem that almost any other explanation would be more likely than that of theism. Time-traveling human beings, amazing coincidences, carefully planned hoaxes, all would be more likely explanations for the supposed fulfillment of a prophecy than the god hypothesis because these claims are weaker than the theistic claim.”

Such a statement says much about Krueger. Because of the nature of the God claim, he is ready to believe anything else other than that. Do we have evidence of time-traveling human beings? No. They’re more likely however. Do we have any evidence of a major hoax the Jews had been planning on humanity for thousands of years? No. It’s more likely though. Krueger will say that we also lack evidence for God. We will deal with that later.

Kreuger then lists five criteria for prophecy.

#1-It must be clear and contain sufficient detail to make fulfillment by a wide variety of possible events unlikely.

On this one, I’d have some concerns about what is meant by clear. Does Krueger want everything to be spelled out? I would consider it sufficient to show it was understandable to the people of the time.

#2-The event that can fulfill it must be unusual or unique.

I really don’t have much issue with this one.

#3-The prophecy must be known to have been made prior to its fulfillment.

Obviously no problem.

#4-The event must not be what could be the result of an educated guess.

I would think it less likely to be divine, but in some cases, I could accept such an event. To have an educated guess fulfilled hundreds of years in the future however seems quite unlikely.

#5-It cannot be staged or manipulated by those aware of the prophecy.

No problem with this either.

Before we get to this point, Krueger has some statements about the Bible. In the midst he says that most of the books of the Old Testament were written centuries after the death of the person for whom it is named. Krueger states this as “known” but he gives no source whatsoever for this claim. He goes on to state the same of the NT saying the gospels were written decades afterwards.

Now of course in a sense, that’s true. 30 years later for some would count as decades. What Krueger does not state however is that in the ancient world if you had an account written decades after the event, scholars of ancient history would be drooling with excitement to see such an account so close to the events.

For some false prophecies, Krueger cites 2 Kings 22:20 and Ezekiel 26:3-36. (See links below) Krueger also thinks Jeremiah 31:4 could only point to 1948. It is doubtful that Krueger is aware that this event was fulfilled much sooner by the return of Judah from captivity.

For the New Testament, Krueger points to Jesus being supposedly in the heart of the Earth for three days and three nights. (See link below again) Next is Jesus being born a Nazarene in Matthew 2:23. (See link below) Of course, there’s Isaiah 7:14 being misunderstood. (See link below)

Krueger is unaware of preterist interpretations as he cites Matthew 16:28 and Matthew 10:23. It’s odd that he’d do this seeing as he believes the gospels were written late. Does he believe that they were written afterwards and with prophecies in them that would have been known to be false? Of course, there’s also that Jesus got the time of His second coming wrong, something I would most certainly disagree with. Of course, to make it most hilarious, Krueger recommends Callahan’s book on Bible Prophecy for those doubtful.

Krueger next wants to show that the Bible is unreliable and says that “The best unbiased bible scholars hold that there are good reasons to believe that the books of the bible are unreliable sources.” To begin with, this seems like a No True Scotsman Fallacy. How do you recognize the best unbiased scholars of the Bible? They hold that it is unreliable. Second, who are these scholars? What are their books? Where can I read their arguments? Your guess is as good as mine. Krueger gives no information.

Well what are Krueger’s reasons?

#1-Almost all the books of the Bible are anonymous. (Tekton has several articles on this issue according to book.)

#2-They were written decades after the events recorded. (Likewise, and note that this is still a blip in the ancient world)

#3-We have no original documents. (Likewise)

#4-The NT was written in Greek. (This isn’t a problem, and note that Krueger begins this part saying “If Jesus did exist.”

#5-At some points in church history, lying to promote Christianity was not only not discouraged but encouraged. There is unfortunately no source on this.

#6-Documents critical of Christianity were sought out and destroyed. (See link below and how this relates to textual criticism is anyone’s guess. Note his source on this is Joseph Hoffman.)

#7-Some manuscripts are different from copies of the same book. Krueger doesn’t say that this is the same for any ancient work and seems to think he’s ripped a hole into Christianity by pointing out that 1 John 5:7 is an interpretation. (See link below)


#8-Most NT books are known to be forgeries. There is no source here given. It is simply assertions. (See link below)

#9-The gospels are not independent accounts. This is amusing since he complains so much of contradictions, but if there was literary dependence going on to this level one would think there would be no contradictions.

#10-The development of the Bible undermines its reliability. For this, we have troubles with canonization saying that the first attempt to canonize the NT text was in 367, unaware there was for all intents and purposes an accepted canon at the time. Ironically, Krueger says this while on the very next page mentioning the Muratorian Canon and references to other fathers. His dispute of some is along the lines of “But they did not include Hebrews.” That the topic was even being discussed however shows that canonization was being attempted and that there was criteria.

#11-Biblical accounts contradict facts about nature and the ancient world.

For this, he has a few subheadings. To start with, he questions the credibility of the destruction of Ai based on an article in Biblical Archaeology Review. Second, Darius the Mede becoming king when Cyrus conquered the throne. Third, Daniel was written in the second century B.C. Also, that the conquest narratives are unhistorical with only a citation of William H. Stiebing Jr.

For other errors, there’s Leviticus 11:6 and Deuteronomy 14:7 stating hares chew the cud, the usual canard about bats being birds, Leviticus 11:23 about insects having four legs, (You think no one in thousands of years ever picked one up and counted?) and the events of Genesis 30:37-42.

Then, there are events such as the sun standing still in Joshua and the verses used to condemn Galileo. Finally for the OT, there are counting discrepancies between Ezra and Nehemiah. No shock that Thomas Paine’s opinion is cited. (Needless to say, Tekton's had articles on all these issues for quite some time; sample links below.)

For the NT, there’s the lack of mention of the atrocity of Bethlehem, and the darkness over the Earth and the mass resurrection in Matthew 27. Krueger states that historians like Philo-Judaeus lived in Jerusalem at the time but don’t mention Jesus or resurrections. There is no source that shows he was living there at the time.

#12-The Bible contains many contradictions.

Of course, this is a favorite one. What do we have? The following, all of which are again old news (sample links below):

Does God repent?
Does God punish children for the sins of their parents?
Is anyone righteous?
Are we justified by faith or works?
Does God keep his promises?
Is everything possible with faith?
Will all who call upon Jesus’s name be saved?
Will god always be there in times of need? (Hard to believe Matthew 27:46 and Psalm 10:1 are used here.)
Was Jesus God?

This last one needs to be expanded on. To begin with, Krueger says that in John 8:42, Jesus says he is sent by God. Krueger tells us that if he is sent by God, he cannot be God. He also reminds us that he admits he did not send himself as he did not come on his own. Krueger has done two things here. First, he has given us a good argument against modalism. Second, he has revealed his own ignorance. Note to atheists out there wanting to write a book against Christianity. Make sure you get the basic information right. I can easily say Krueger is an unreliable source on Christianity at this point due to mistakes such as these.

Of course, Krueger compounds this by asking who Jesus prayed to if he was God. Does he honestly think no one in thousands of years of church history notice that Jesus prayed?

Krueger goes on to state about how enlightened Christians don’t take the Bible literally because of this. Well some of us don’t take it literally in some parts simply because we pay attention to genre.

After this, there is nothing new and worthwhile in this section. It would help Krueger to actually cite what his opponents say and show some understanding of the text. He does neither.

http://www.tektonics.org/TK-2KIN.html
http://www.tektonics.org/uz/zeketyre.html
http://www.tektonics.org/af/bucknerj01.html#days
http://christianthinktank.com/fabrach.html
http://christianthinktank.com/fabprof2.html
http://www.christianthinktank.com/qburnbx.html
http://www.tektonics.org/af/comma.html
http://www.christianthinktank.com/pseudox.html
http://www.tektonics.org/af/danieldefense.html
http://www.tektonics.org/af/batbird.html
http://www.tektonics.org/lp/paydaddy.html
http://www.tektonics.org/gk/jamesvspaul.html