C.S. Lewis and "Liar, Lunatic, or Lord"

C.S. Lewis, the famous 20th century Christian apologist, has this very famous quote:

"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse…. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

Also called "Lewis' Trilemma", it is sometimes abbreviated as the "Lunatic, Liar, or Lord" argument. Lewis attempts to show that "lord" is the right answer. He did not want people to patronize Christianity by allowing them to content themselves with the "Jesus was not god, but was a great moral teacher and philosopher". He did not want to allow this cop-out: people should either accept Jesus as the savior, or reject him. There was no in-between for Lewis.

Although the argument is popular with non-experts, actual religious scholars don't spend time thinking about it. It is really aimed at the masses because it is so concise and easy to understand. But with its simplicity comes its problems.

Lewis' quote is a three pronged version of the "false dichotomy" logical fallacy. However, instead of being forced into one of two mutually exclusive choices, Lewis requires that we commit to one of three choices. But he doesn't do a good job of showing why lunatic/liar/lord are the only options. There are other options:

• Many religious experts question the reliability of the New Testament scriptures regarding Jesus' claims. There is good reason to believe that intervening interpretations and translations have exaggerated the actual life of Jesus as a hagiography (as was done for Joan of Arc, St Francis, Thomas Aquinas, and many others). The early Christian boosted Jesus reputation to support their newly formed religion, and glorified Jesus beyond what actually happened during his life. Christian scholar, Bart Ehrman, argues that "there could be a fourth option — legend". By this he means that stories have been built up around Jesus in the time since he lived which made claims for him that he never made, himself. The only documentation of his life are the scriptures, which were written decades after Jesus lived, and written by people with an agenda - build a new religion. There is a broad consensus among New Testament scholars that the proclamation of Jesus' status as a god was a development within the earliest Christian communities.
• These same religious experts also have objections to the New Testament claims for Jesus being the "son of god". Neither now nor in the past did this use of "Son of God" refer to a biological father/son relationship. For modern Christians, it means that Jesus is the single pathway to heaven. "Son of god" was not necessarily interpreted that way 2000 years ago. The phrase, "Son of God" was applied to the nation of Israel, to Solomon, and to other men who had a special relationship with God. The Jews of that era did not have exactly the same relationship to their god as modern Christians do today. Even if Jesus had used words of this sort, it could possibly have meant something far less than the one and only savior. For example, the word "messiah" had a very specific political meaning back then that no longer has today (there had been several recognized messiahs before Jesus, such as David, Alexander, and Cyrus). A large number of modern experts do not think that Jesus claimed the kind of unique divinity that modern Christians ascribe to him.
• It is possible that, if indeed Jesus did claim to be the savior, he may have simply been mistaken - not insane or insidious. He may have misinterpreted events in his own life, and ideas that he had as meaning more than they actually did. He may have been making a good-faith mistake resulting from sincere, but flawed efforts at reasoning. This is to say, he was not a lunatic, but just severely mistaken in this one set of claims, as have many other self-proclaimed saviors since Jesus. There are many faith healers and preachers, past and present, who have made the same mistake. They think they can perform miracles, their audiences think they can perform miracles, and so they conclude they have a special relationship with god or the gods.
• Others have argued that if Jesus did claim to be divine, he may have really just been claiming to be what today we would call a "guru", and felt that in some since, everything was touched by the divine, we all are "sons of god". Jesus was not the only prophet claiming to be divine. He just had the most success over the last 2000 years. History is full of teachers and gurus who had inflated and unrealistic views of their connection to god. Jesus may have just been another of these. Or those who interpreted his teachings just didn't quite grasp exactly what his claims were.
• Jesus could have had other problems that don't force him into the liar/lunatic slots. He might have simply been confused about his role as a god, or opportunistic, a good-faith charlatan (pious fraud), or just plain narcistic.

Finally, if this Trilemma applies to Jesus, how do we evaluate the claims of the thousands, possibly millions, of other self-proclaimed saviors, prophets, cult-leaders, and saints. How are we to choose Jesus as the only legitimate, divine son of god and write off all the others? Are they also liars, lunatics, or lords? How do his claims put him out in front of similar claims made by others across time, and across the many other religions of the world? They do not.

Hume's objections to christianity

To many counter-apologists (i.e, non Christians who try to show how Christianity is wrong), 18th century philosopher, David Hume, did practically everything that could be done to demonstrate the errors in the Christian theist position. But here we are, 250 years later, and Christianity (along with many other religions) is still going strong. What happened? Why did Humes supposedly ultra-compelling philosophical arguments fail to settle the issue? To quote Massimo Piggliuci from his "Rationally Speaking" blog, when discussing a lecture by famous "new atheist" Richard Dawkins:

"Dawkins still appears to be convinced that religion will be defeated by rationality alone. Were that the case, David Hume would have sufficed."

What does this mean? What did David Hume do that should have put the nail in the coffin of Christianity? In a nutshell, he didn't succeed because Christians are not swayed by the kind of proof and evidence that philosophy and science can provide. You can't deconvert someone using logic. In general they don't believe in Christian dogma because of the evidence in support of it - they believe because they were raised believing, they want to believe it, because everyone around them believes it, or because it feels good to believe it. As Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels, put it:

"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."

So, what were Humes arguments that, as compelling and sound as they were, didn't succeed? David Hume (1711-1776) was a Scottish philosopher and empiricist (someone who thinks that knowledge comes through experience and evidence). He argued that a belief, such as Christianity should only be believed if it is supported by evidence, and he attempted to show that the evidence for Christianity was lacking.

The anti-religious works for which Hume is most remembered are found in two publications. The first is in his short book "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion". The text for it can be found here:
    Text of Dialogues
A good summary of it is here:
    Summary of Dialogues

The second is "Of Miracles" (found here) which is really just a single chapter from a larger work, "An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding". I will summarize the "Dialogs" first, and then follow up with "Of Miracles".

Dialogs Concerning Natural Religion

Hume pits three ficticious characters, Demea (a believer who thinks we can logically deduce god's existance, but can never know gods nature), Cleanthes (a believer who thinks we can use empiricism and evidence to draw conclusions about god's nature), and Philo (a religious skeptic) against each other in a friendly debate on the existance and nature of god. Complete descriptions of the work can be found elsewhere. Here, I will only present the briefest summary of Hume's arguments.

Hume (thought to be speaking through Philo) puts forth his most well-known arguments against Christianity (i.e., the ones that should have, but did not, work):

1) Cosmological argument

There are many forms of deductive logical arguments where a god is shown to be logically necessary - that the lack of such a god would cause a logical contradiction. These are called cosmological arguments. The core of these arguments generally centers on the idea of a "first cause" or "unmoved mover" (which would be god). The most famous of these were introduced by Thomas Acquinas, but there have been many other versions.

There are a number of problems with cosmological arguments, but Hume was among the first to begin picking holes in them. He argued, "Why may not the material universe be the necessarily existent being?". That is, if the cosmological argument assumes god is the first necessarily existent being, what can't one instead assert that the universe itself, is the first necessarily existent being (or entity). He showed that nothing can be proven to exist using only a priori (purely logical) reasoning. You could only prove God's necessary existence using logic if its opposite (non-existence) generated a contradiction (which it doesn't).

As another example, using Anselm's Ontological argument, non-existence of a perfect being is just as viable as its existence. Simply imagining a perfect being doesn't cause that being to exist. Evidence is needed to establish a claim of existence. In other words, arguing the existence of an entity in the world requires evidence - it cannot just be reasoned out.

He makes the distinction between “relations of ideas” and “matters of fact” (very much like Kant’s later analytic vs. synthetic judgments) “God exists” and “God does not exist” imply no contradiction. They are not “relations of ideas”, but are “matters of fact”, not unlike asserting that carrier pigeons exist or carrier pigeons do not exist. This expresses an assertion about a state of affairs in the world that can only be discovered through evidence, not through deduction.

On the other hand, a statement like “Triangles have 4 sides”, “2+2=5”, and “bachelors have several wives” are “relations of ideas” and cannot be possibly be conceived as true because they involve internal contradictions. One can and should use deduction to conclude whether or not these are true or false. Conversely, assertions like “It is raining” and “it is not raining” are matters of fact. Both are conceivable, and neither cause contradictions. We cannot deduce what the weather is outside, but must rely on evidence. “God exists” is also a matter of fact. All matters of fact require evidence, and cannot be deduced. Therefore all purely logical arguments about the existence of god are insufficient. A priori arguments can't be used to prove existence.

2) Argument from design

The argument from design is an argument by analogy, which is generally regarded as a very weak type of argument. In this analogy, the universe is compared to a machine or other artifact designed and built by humans. But even as an analogy, it doesn't hold water. The universe and a human-designed machine are not analogous phenomena because they are not independently existing entities. The universe is a whole and a machine is a part of it. The universe contains everything, including any human-designed machines. The "whole" is not the same as a "part" of the whole, just as a flock of sheep is not the same as a single sheep. For example, a sheep has a mother, but a flock of sheep does not have a mother. They are not the kinds of things that can be compared because they are different classes of entities.

Philo says some order, such as that found in organic bodies, is caused by generation and vegetation. There is no reason, then, to think that just because the world is ordered, it is necessarily a result of intelligent design. He says an inductive argument (that is, an argument that argues for a conclusion based on past evidence), which the argument from design is, requires repeated experience of the phenomena in question. Our universe happened just once, so no pattern of creation exists from which we can draw conclusions.

Philo takes up another line of attack. He argues that the claim that God is an intelligent designer does not even succeed in explaining why the world is ordered. It is no easier to understand how God's thoughts might set the world in order than it is to understand how the material world might be its own source of order.

He argues that even if we can infer anything from the argument from design, it is not what we want to be able to infer. Given the evidence we have from nature we have no grounds on which to conclude that God is infinite, that God is perfect, that there is only one God, or even that God lacks a physical body. Thus even if the argument from design were valid, the evidence we get from the nature of the universe provides us with no knowledge about God's nature. Rather, we might infer that there are many imperfect gods because in the real world, different objects have different creators, and many of objects that God is argued to have created have flaws and faults (such as disease, decay, death, malfunction, deformities, etc), so we might conclude that the creators also made lots of mistakes, and were imperfect, themselves. Therefore, the argument from design doesn't allow us to reach any firm conclusions about a god or gods.

Philo attempts to show that there are many other possible analogies, other than the analogy to machines, that are equally well supported by the evidence we find in nature. For instance, the universe can be analogized to an animal body and God to its soul. It is therefore arbitrary to choose the analogy between the universe and a machine. One could just as easily say that since a baby kangaroo comes out of a mother kangaroo's pouch, then the universe is like a baby kangaroo, and god is like a mother kangaroo's pouch.

Philo argues that if nature contains a principle of order within it, the need for a designer is removed. The last 250 years of science has shown (most convincingly in Evolutionary Theory) that nature does, indeed, contain principles of order. Evolution, which appears to have an intrinsic order and organization, occurs without any external guiding intelligence. The same seems to be true in all other branches of science.

The design argument (that complex order and beauty of our universe can only be explained by positing the existence of an intelligent designer) uses a faulty analogy with man-made objects (which we know are designed). Unlike man-made objects, we have not witnessed the design of a universe, so do not know whether the universe was the result of external design or not. Inductive arguments of this type need repeated observation, but we have just one example of a universe being created. We have no experience of other universes being made and so cannot discuss a single universe’s cause intelligently. Cannot make an inference based on a single occurrence.

It is not possible to argue from causes within the universe to causes of the universe as a whole. This is the "Fallacy of Composition". The analogy between machines and the universe is weak at best, and as such any reasoning based on this analogy must also be weak.

Philo's (and Hume's) conclusion

Philo (and Hume) conclude that cannot even look at the world and infer from the evidence that God is at all good, wise, and powerful. Philo attacks organized religion as morally and psychologically harmful. Instead, he argues that only true religion (that is, a philosophical belief in some higher power, that is, a "natural religion") should be accepted. So, Hume was not arguing for atheism, but was arguing against organized religion, and promoting the idea of "natural religion", which is basically a deist belief in some kind of "higher power".

Philo describes a depressing view of the world. In contrast to the perfectly harmonious machine that Cleanthes considers the universe to be, he tells us that it is actually a miserable place, filled with evil. As Philo puts it, if the universe is a machine, its only goal is the bare survival of each species, not that any species be happy. Given how much evil, pain, and destruction there is in the world, we cannot possibly look at the world and infer that God is infinitely good, infinitely wise, and infinitely powerful.

Most modern philosophers who study Hume conclude that his refusal to simply come out as an atheist must have been the result of a simple fear of the troubles such a professed disbelief would have caused him. "The great infidel" as James Boswell called him, stopped short of embracing atheism for purely pragmatic reasons.

As stated in the online Encyclopedia Brittanica:

"When we consider Hume's philosophy from the perspective of his fundamental irreligious aims and objectives it is entirely understandable why his own contemporaries did not hesitate to label him an “atheist”. What they recognized, throughout Hume's philosophical writings, was his effort to show that religion, in almost all forms that his own contemporaries would be familiar with (i.e. Judeo-Christianity), was permeated with philosophical absurdity and corrupt and confused practices. What Hume aimed at, in other words, was to “unmask” religious doctrine and institutions. It was his general ambition to expose the groundlessness of their doctrines as well as the destructive nature of their influence on human life. In pursuing this end — i.e., to free humanity from the yoke of religion, - Hume follows in a tradition that can be traced, before him, to Lucretius, Hobbes and Spinoza and, after him, to thinkers such as D’Holbach, Marx and Nietzsche. Whatever label we place on this tradition (i.e., “atheist”, “irreligious”, “anti-Christian” etc.), there is no doubt that Hume's contributions stand among its greatest achievements and, for the most part, represent it in a particularly humane and measured voice."

Of Miracles

"Of Miracles" is a single chapter from a larger work, "An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding". It, along with the chapter following it, were not originally included in the book, because Hume thought they were too controversial. This was probably a correct assessment, since the concept is still controversial today (at least it is a point of controversy between believing Christians and non-Christians). Modern editions of the book do contain this chapter, but for years it was published alone as a separate piece. He wrote at least one letter to a friend confessing that he removed it so as to not give offense to the reading public - he accurately gauged how explosive his ideas were.

He starts by explaining that facts about the world ("matters of fact" as opposed to "relations of ideas") must be supported by evidence. The statement, "God Exists" and "God does not exist" are matters of fact, just as "it is raining outside" and "it is not raining outside" are matters of fact. Logic will not answer a question about the current weather conditions. You can't deduce the weather - you need to look outside and gather the evidence. In the same way, logic alone will tell you nothing about a god's existence. You can't deduce that answer. Evidence is needed. In one of his most remembered and often cited quotes, he wrote:

"In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of ... evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence."

Hume explained that the only way that we can judge a truth claim about a fact is to evaluate the evidence for it. The confidence we can have in the occurence of an event or existence of a thing is based on the quality of the evidence for it. Our belief or trust in that fact should be proportional to the quality of that evidence. The quality of evidence is a established by the its reliability, completeness, type of evidence, likelihood of the event, number/quality/gullibility/motivations of witnesses, and many other factors. With regard to religions that claim a god or savior, he thought the evidence for them was lacking.

He then went on to address miracles and supernatural events, which are at the core of most established religions. He defined a miracle as "a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent." Contrasted with miracles was the natural operation of the universe, controlled by the laws of nature, which both do not require and, in fact, exclude a resort to miracles. In another quote, he said:

"Nothing is esteemed a miracle, if it ever happen in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden: because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle, that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country."

Well, whether it has been observed or not is not clear to some people. Christians believe that there were many witnesses to the resurrection of Christ. Hume says, though, that even if dozens or hundreds supposedly witness a miracle (and the resurrection is just one of thousands of miracles from all religions across the world), there are far more witnesses and evidence for the law of nature which the miracle violates. If sheer volume of evidence or number of witnesses is to be a deciding factor, then nature can boast far more of these than violations of nature.

Hume claims that no miracle has ever had sufficient numbers of witness of sufficient reliability, honesty, integrity, objectivity, and knowledge who can be trusted to correctly report the miracle. He has very little confidence in reports of miracles for several reasons (and these are summarized from numerous websites in which they are repeated as follows):

• People are very prone to accept the unusual and incredible, which excite agreeable passions of surprise and wonder.
• Those with strong religious beliefs are often prepared to give evidence that they know is false, "with the best intentions in the world, for the sake of promoting so holy a cause" (this has been sinced called the "pious fraud")
• People are often too credulous when faced with such witnesses, whose apparent honesty and eloquence (together with the psychological effects of the marvellous described earlier) may overcome normal skepticism.
• Miracle stories tend to have their origins in "ignorant and barbarous nations" either elsewhere in the world or in a civilised nation's past. The history of every culture displays a pattern of development from a wealth of supernatural events. Prodigies, omens, oracles, judgements" which steadily decreases over time, as the culture grows in knowledge and understanding of the world.

As Hume ends this chapter, he shows that belief in miracles leads to a logical problem. All religions have their miracle stories. No one religion has more convincing miracles than another. Since they all are equally believable (or unbelievable), it would be reasonable to either believe all of them or none of them. Since the religions are mutually contradictory, then we cannot believe all of them, so the only available option is to believe none of them.

In summary, "Hume's Maxim" summarizes his skepticism of miracles:

"The plain consequence is ... that no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact which it endeavors to establish ... When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.

See also:

http://www.cengage.com/philosophy/book_content/0495094927_feinberg/introductions/part_1/The_Existence_of_God/hume.html

http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/understanding/section10.rhtml

http://reasonablefaithadelaide.org.au/miracles-weeping-statues-and-aliens/

Boulder Atheists

This is the text from the Boulder Atheist handout. I like their condensed set of bullet points that describes what they are all about.

• What is atheism?
  The word derives from theism, which means the belief in a god or gods. By placing an 'a' ahead of it, it denotes 'not' a believer ina god or gods. Atheism has no Holy Book, dogma or prescribed set of beliefs that must be adhered to.


• Who are atheists?
  An atheist is anyone who does not believe in the existence of a god or gods. This may include anyone holding a strictly naturalistic view devoid of supernatural beings or forces and those who identify as secular humanists, agnostics, freethinkers, skeptics, or rationalists.


• Do atheists believe in nothing?
  Anyone can believe in anything that they choose to. Atheists can possess many, if not all of the beliefs that a religious person does, such as love of family and friends, a desire to help others in a time of need or simply wish to do no harm to another person. The only thing that sets them apart from a religioius person is their disbelief in the existence of a god.


• Do atheists hate God?
  Some people misinterpret atheists' disbelief in a god as anger at, or hatred of God. Atheists are not all alike and while some feel that there is no reason to stand against religion, others may believe that the world would be a better and more peaceful place without religion. In general, atheists tend to advocate the use of reasoning, logic, and science to guide them on a daily basis oin their decision making process.


• Can a person be moral without God?
  Morality is the ability to make decisions about what is right or wrong. To determine this a person only needs to take into consideration how their actions will affect others or society as a whole. Empathy towards others can play a major role in determining what is moral and what is not. Most atheists will agree that morality is achieved by doing what is right regardless of what they are told, and not by following a set of guidelines found in ancient manuscripts that include the promise of reward or the threat of punishment in an afterlife.


• Do atheists want to prohibit religion?
  While there are some atheists who feel that religions should fade away, many others respect the role that religions communities can play in society. Atheist support freedom of religion, which includes freedom from religion.


• Is atheism just another religion?
  Theistic religions are comprised of specific doctrines and teachings that must be believed in without any supporting evidence to substantiate that they are in fact true; this is the very definition of faith. Atheism is simply the rejection of the claim that a god exists due to the lack of evidence to support such a claim. Atheism itself is not a philosophy, ideology or worldview but it can be part of a philosophy or worldview.

Presuppositionalism

Presuppositionalism ("presup" from here on) holds that belief rests on presuppositions. Presups attempt to bring coverts by arguing that the only rational, coherent worldview is that which begins by presupposing the divinity of the Bible, the existence of God, and the reality of Christ’s sacrifice. They argue indirectly for God, rather than directly as classicists and evidentialists do, by trying to prove "the impossibility of the contrary," i.e., attempting a reductio ad absurdum on the opponent's worldview. In other words, Presups say that one must assume Christianity to argue against it. All the seemingly non-religious, secular knowledge and skills we possess (science, reason, morality, love, logic, naturalism, atheism) - all of them presuppose a belief in the god of the bible. As crazy as that sounds it allows them to respond to every criticism with something like, "you just proved my point - by using logic (an invention of god), to argue against god, you are proving god exists!"

Presups argue that the evidence we experience in the world is simply facts and pieces of data that must be interpreted through a worldview, and that the only way to consistently interpret these facts is through the Christian worldview. In other words, a person looking at facts and evidence will not necessarily be led to Christ; rather, one must start by assuming the truth of the Bible in order to find Christ.

Actual evidence in the here and now does not matter to a Presup. All that matters is the assumption that the Bible is true. However, if you simply assume your beliefs are true and throw out any use of evidence at all, if there is no possible evidence or experience that could disprove your beliefs, you will never really be able to test if they are true - there is no real-world testing of the deductions of Presup. All evidence is either denied, ignored, or reinterpreted to fit with the Presup worldview.

Problems with Presup include:

• The logic is circular: you prove something is true by assuming it is true.
• Presup could be used to “prove” any religion, or even atheism.
• Just because a worldview is coherent doesn’t mean it’s true.
• There are many things about the Christian worldview that are arguably not coherent.
• There are other worldviews that also explain the existence of reason and logic.
• You can’t actually know something is true if you simply discount evidence entirely.
• Finding truth involves not making presuppositions, but trying to rid yourself of them.

What does an Atheist believe?

Christians may ask, "as an Atheist, you either believe in something or you believe in nothing. Which is it?"

First of all, that is a "False Choice". Beliefs and attitudes are more nuanced than an all-or-nothing dichotomy. Christians frequently throw out the jibe, "your lack of belief in god is just another belief". That is hardly worth addressing, but I will. Failure to hold a belief is not a belief. Where a Christian would have an active belief system aimed at a god, the atheist has nothing, a null. It is a void of belief.

It is a misconception to think there is just one kind of atheist - there are many kinds, just as there are many kinds of Christianity. I can't speak for all atheists, just myself. My atheism is a strong lack of belief in a god or gods, because of the compelling and overwhelming absence of convincing evidence. I am not "certain" that atheism is the correct view, but I think it is much more likely than theism because of the crushing lack of support for it. As far as the theists who claim certainty about what their faith tells them, I think they are fooling themselves into following a collection of fairy tales. And it's not just me...

All we know of the truth is that the absolute truth, such as it is, is beyond our reach.
- Nicholas of Cusa

This only is certain, that there is nothing certain.
- Pliny ("The Elder")

People use the word, "belief", in many ways. It can mean a type of religious faith, either entirely or largely in the absence of supporting evidence (or even in the presence of strong counter evidence). It also can be used in place of trust (well supported expectations about how the world works), such as having trust that the sun will come up, or that a dropped apple will fall, or that there is a statue of Admiral Nelson in Trafalgar Square. Belief can also refer to core personal values. I do not have belief of the first type (religious/supernatural). I do not "believe" in things for which there is not strong, uncontroversial evidence. I have no religion, and (as far as I can tell) I am not superstitious. However, when I catch myself falling into a supernatural belief trap (or someone points it out), I attempt to correct it.

I do have belief (or trust) of the second type. I trust evidence that is reproducible, not controversial, and for which there is no strong competing explanation. I have trust of this type because that trust has been shown to be well founded in many, many prior tests. I put my faith in the power and process of open inquiry and investigation. For atheists, the question is not really about belief. Do we believe in ESP or UFOs? It doesn't matter whether we believe in those things. The only thing that matters for these types of claims is what evidence exists for ESP, or for UFOs? The religious skepticism we atheists practice is a method of inquiry. It is not a set of conclusions, not a set of beliefs.

I think that we humans have the ability (even the need) to experience meaning, awareness, and joy. I believe that, as social animals, it is important to form strong groups, work together, and help each other. Without that we become loners, outcasts, and miserable, unhappy creatures. I believe in our human ability to work together rather than against each other, and that it is better to do that because the results are so much more agreeable than the results of discord and chaos. This can all happen without a god directing the program.

I also have beliefs of the third type - personal values. I have thought a lot about personal ethics/morality. Since no single moral/ethical system seems work in all situations, I have adopted a "cafeteria plan" morality. I put a lot of emphasis in "virtue ethics" for most of my actions, in that I try to do the "right thing". But I see the value of Utilitarian ethics when working with other people, and even respect deontology when it comes to just sustaining our social integrity and stability - in other words, obey the law because it is the law. I also accept the Lockean view of natural individual rights. Rights (e.g., life, liberty, happiness, autonomy) are difficult to justify, philosophically, and (I think) impossible to deduce. For this reason, I accept their existence axiomatically, or as the Declaration of Independence says, they are "self evident" without further proof (which of course, anyone is free to disagree with, since I offer no proof). And as we all do, I rely on "reflective equilibrium" - which is a fancy way of saying that I do "gut checks" to determine if an action or thought feels like the right thing to do, based on all my other beliefs. I admit this is not rigorously logical, but it is a natural and effective way for humans to resolve their moral dilemmas. I see no other reasonable choice, given that individual and social moral codes appear to have evolved along with our human nature - they are "pre-logical", that is, they exist outside logic. We have moral and ethical norms that we subscribe to, but our later logical justifications for them are just a veneer on top of a deeper cultural, human, and pre-human set of built in standards.

If you live life without belief of any type (such as belief in the external world), then you will find yourself immobilized. As Russell, Hume, and many other philosophers have emphasized, we cannot have "absolute certainty" even in things we must take for granted (the external world, the existence of the past, the existence of other minds, the reliability of induction, etc). But we can have "reliable knowledge" that these things exist. We can have enough confidence in them to allow us to get out of bed in the morning and proceed with the process of living our lives.

Another important aspect of my "belief system" - I would rather call it my "world view", the filter through which I interpret my experiences - is a strong sympathy for the Philosophy of Science concept of "Structural Realism". This is the belief that underlying our models and theories about the world, there really is something "out there", which our models attempt to describe, but frequently fall short or are inaccurate in varying degrees. In other words, there really is something we think of as a real, external reality. Note that atheism does not contribute very much to my world view - it is just a way of clearing the stage that has been muddied by religious blather so that better, more productive conversations and ideas can be discussed.

Our best theories and models change over time. They sometimes get thrown out and replaced, or amended, or fleshed out with more detail. They get refined and and enhanced with more time and information and better tools to investigate with. But the "structural" aspects of the underlying reality they describe persists, despite the changing models we create to describe them. Take, for example, a very topical issue that receives lots of attention these days - the different climate models that exist. We know there is something out there called "climate", and we attempt to understand it. We give provisional assent to the prevailing and most advanced climate models we can come up with, but we know that they are only approximations of the set of phenomena called "climate". Just because one climate model is invalidated or shown to be lacking, we don't then disbelieve in the thing called climate. We improve our theory.

The clearest example (for me) has been our evolving definition of the "atom". Democritus deduced his atomic theory, completely without empirical evidence, over 2000 years ago. In more modern times, Dalton used empirical methods to create the first physical model of the atom (a hard, indivisible sphere with no internal structure). That was replaced with the Thomson plum pudding model, which soon fell to the Rutherford (orbital/planetary) model which proposed a positively charged nucleus surrounded by orbiting electrons. Then Bohr and others enhanced that by adding proton/neutrons, quantum electron shells, and other details to the mix (which is what I was taught in high school). Then we arrived at the modern models which include electron "clouds" of probability, and the atomic particles themselves now have internal structure (i.e., quarks).

We don't progress through these models and think we were naive to have believed a previous, out-of-date model - it was the best we could do at the time. We just continue moving forward through (hopefully) better and more accurate representations of the thing which has always been out there - the atom. Structural Realists understand our models are provisional and subject to change. The structure of the atom, and the relationships it participates in continue to exist, despite our progression through different theories. The structure of the phenomena persist, though our theories and models change. So it is with the world, in general. We become comfortable with conventional explanations that work for us, which are accepted by almost everyone, until something comes along to disrupt that understanding. We should be open to new interpretations of the world when the old ones are shown to be in need of repair or replacement.

My de-conversion

I don't have any horrific stories of being beaten by nuns, made to kneel on gravel, or otherwise tortured by church authorities. Really, the church never did anything bad to me. I more or less enjoyed church. So, my story is not really that interesting. I was raised for the first 6 years as a Unitarian (in those days in the Kingston Trio early 1960s it was mostly a bunch of beatniks smoking cigarettes, banging bongos, wearing turtlenecks, talking up communism, reading poetry, and drinking nonstop coffee). Unitarianism was probably my Dad's idea. In those days, very few people would out-and-out declare their atheism, but he was a pretty well read guy, and he knew a lot about how different cultures saw the world. I got the impression over the years he was mostly secular, but in more of a fuzzy, deistic, generic "higher power" sort of way.

I would sometimes pray as hard as I could for super-powers, like superman (who was my hero), or for a particular Christmas present. Mom said that that was selfish and that god would not grant me those kind of wishes. I could sort of understand me not getting a prayer like that answered, but it seemed like he must eventually give at least one deserving person the ability to fly, or X ray vision, or super strength, but as far as I could tell that was never happening. I began to think that praying just didn't work, period. I had only recently learned the truth about Santa Claus, and was mentally prepared to accept that, along with him, our other invisible gods didn't really exist.

In grade school my Church-of-Christ mom started feeling guilty for not doing something about our souls, and got us going to the local First Christian Church. No excuses worked, and there was no getting out of it.

At around 12 or so, she got me enrolled me in the baptism preparation class for pre-teens. I was the only one in the class to refuse to go through with the baptism at the end. God seemed too much like the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus to me. I couldn't verbalize it, but it felt phony and the pressure I was feeling to admit a belief I didn't have made me angry and rebellious. But in high school (during the peak of the Jesus Freak movement, around the time of "Jesus Christ Superstar"), I got involved in a church based teen night club, "En Rapport", at the local Methodist Church. In addition to smoking pot and chugging beer in the parking lot, dancing and hanging out, and hooking up with girls, we got preached to quite a lot by the hip youth minister.

In spite of all the partying, this cool youth preacher convinced me to get baptized. I went through with the baptism, and immediately after (that same day) I just felt awful - like I had made a big mistake, sort of like when you ask a girl to go steady and instantly wish you had not! To combat my doubt, I read the old and new testaments all the way through, and would struggle to get into that "believing" state where for a few moments you felt like it was all true. But that took a lot of effort, and the feeling never lasted. At some point soon after, I remember going into our back yard and challenging god to strike me dead with lightning if he was so god damn powerful. Nothing happened, so I cursed and challenged him soundly and loudly for several months to kill me if he wasn't a complete pansy wuss. Definite fighting words! Obviously, still nothing happened. From that point on, it has been pretty much non-belief for me. If he wouldn't respond to prayers or to insults, I decided that he probably wasn't even there.

During college I went to a couple of those new "atheist/christian" debates and watched the atheists get their asses kicked (they didn't know how to debate at that time). I almost got sucked back in, but managed to steer clear. But it made me really interested in understanding the intellectual reasons why non-belief made sense. If it were true, then how come it was so hard to prove??? Been interested ever since.

Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Christ is Weak

Note: This entire blog entry was written by my friend, Chris Lyons

One of the techniques historians use to determine if something occurred in the past is knowing the source of the information and determining if that source is reliable. In the case of determining facts about an individual person, ideally the source should be a contemporary or near contemporary of the individual in question. We have this in the case of someone like Socrates. Xenophon, Plato, and Aristophanes were all contemporaries of Socrates who gave various depictions of what Socrates was like. Aristotle, who was a near contemporary of Socrates, also gave an account of him. We do not have reliable sources in regards to Jesus. The gospels are anonymous which means historians cannot determine anything about the possible motivations of the writers. Moreover the gospels are not likely written by contemporary sources. The biblical account places Jesus death sometime around 33 CE whereas the first of the gospels are not believed to be written until around 67 CE. That is a 34 year gap in time which decreases the likelihood that it was written by someone who personally knew Jesus though it doesn’t completely eliminate the possibility.

Another guideline historians use to determine the reliability of an account is the principle of non-contradiction; if an account contradicts itself, archaeological evidence, or other sources of historical information, then it is less likely to be accurate than an account free of such flaws. In the case of the resurrection, the five accounts we have contradict each other. According to Acts 1.3 Jesus appeared to the Jews for 40 days after his resurrection, but according to Luke 24.51 Jesus arose to heaven the same day as the resurrection. According to Matthew, when Jesus died an earthquake in Jerusalem resulted in the dead arising from their graves to walk among the living. Though not exactly a contradiction, it is surprising that all other accounts of the resurrection lack any reference to the walking dead. Unless, that is, one includes Jesus Christ in that category. According to Mark, three women came to Jesus’s grave Easter morning, Matthew says it was two women and John says it was one woman. According to Mathew and Mark, Jesus told his disciples to meet him in Galilee. According to Luke and Acts, their meeting spot was Jerusalem. The gospels also give three different accounts of what Jesus’s last words were. And these are just a few of the contradictions found in the biblical accounts of the resurrection.

In addition to the problem of poor sources and inherent contradictions, one must also consider alternative theories for how the resurrection account came into existence. Josephus mentions the names of several Jews who declared themselves to be messiahs, some of whom were then killed by the Romans. These Jews were Simon of Peraea, Anthronges, Menahem ben Judah, John of Giscala, Judas of Galilee, Simeon bar Giora and Theudas. Another Jew that could be included in that group is John the Baptist whom Herod is said to have killed. We also know from biblical sources that the Jews of that era believed in resurrection. In Mark 6:14 and Matthew 14:2 it is stated that Herod believed that Jesus was the resurrected form of John the Baptist. And in Luke 9:18-19, Jesus’s disciples tell him that the people believe that he is John the Baptist, Elijah, or an ancient prophet raised from the dead. Thus another explanation for the resurrection account found in the Bible is that it is based off other dying and resurrected messiahs such as John the Baptist.

Another alternative theory that should be taken into account was developed by Dennis Macdonald who argued that the original gospel story was a transvaluative hypertext. A hypertext is any work that somehow relies on a written antecedent, or hypotext. For example, the book, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a hypertext of the book, Pride and Prejudice. Hypertexts were very popular in Roman times, particularly hypertexts of the Iliad and the Odyssey. The most famous of these hypertexts is the Aeneid by Virgil, but there were others such as the Argonautica, the Posthomerica, and the Dionysiaca. There were even Jewish examples such as On the Jews by Theodotus and the book of Tobit. In his book the Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark, Macdonald contends that the original gospel story was another example of a hypertext of the Homeric epics. According to this theory, the original gospel story was not an historical account at all. Rather it was a work of literature. Macdonald has several examples of textual evidence to support this conclusion. For example, he cites several similarities between the brothers Castor and Polydeuces and the brothers James and John. The following is a list of comparisons he uses to prove his point.

Castor and Polydeuces	James and John
Sons of Tyndareus	Sons of Zebedee
Also known as Dioscouri, lads of Zeus	Also known as Boanerges, sons of Thunder
Argonauts	Fisherman
Castor died a violent death	James died a violent death
Polydeuces could have lived forever	John was thought to live until the parousia (second coming of Christ)
Polydeuces asked Zeus if he and Castor could share a single immortality	The brothers asked to sit at Jesus's right and left hand in his glory
Zeus consented	Jesus refused

This is but one example Macdonald uses as textual evidence. And his arguments, taken together, are quite compelling. In the case of the resurrection story, Macdonald argues the last supper was modeled after the feast with Circe found in Odyssey 10, Jesus’s suffering death and burial was modeled after Hector’s suffering death and burial, and the rolling of the stone to gain access to Jesus tomb is modeled after the stone that prevented Odysseus and his companions from escaping the Cyclops’s lair.

One more factor to consider in regards to the resurrection account has to do with its supernatural character. Usually when someone is said to do something that is supernatural historians attribute this something as being mythical. For example, we have written accounts of Asclepius curing the blind, the lame, the mute, and raising the dead. Historians regard these as myths even though Asclepius may have been an historical personage at one point in time. Another example is King Sargon, an Ancient Akkadian king who is believed to have conquered the Sumerian city states. We have access to texts which describe how King Sargon was placed in a reed basket when he was an infant and then was placed in a river. This account is believed to be mythical by historians even though the existence of King Sargon is not in doubt. There is more reluctance for historians to take the same approach to the Gospels, but, if one is to be truly objective, then one must follow Thomas Jefferson’s example and cut out everything that appears mythical. And that includes the resurrection account.

In summation, the resurrection is not based in strong historical evidence because the gospels are written anonymously; the accounts of Mark, Luke, and Matthew contradict each other; alternative theories can account for the resurrection such as the idea that it is based off of beliefs about John the Baptist’s resurrection or Hector’s death and burial; and the supernatural character of the account lends credence to the belief that it is mythical.