If I see Francis Collins’ pious, simpering facade one more time, I’m going to get really pissed off. Can someone please give that man a Templeton Prize and let him retire to the Cascades, where he can stare at waterfalls to his heart’s content? CNN has an article on “Why this scientist believes in God”, and it’s just more vapid crap distilled from his vapid book.
But OK, let’s take him at his word. He claims to be presenting reasons to believe … what are they? Do they meet any kind of scientific standard?
I’ve thrown out most of his essay, and pulled out just those parts that actually address the issue. Not much was left.
…I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God’s language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God’s plan.
This is an empty tautology. He sees something as a product of a god, therefore he believes in a god…but he offers no reason to see it as a god-product in the first place. If the reason for that is “elegance and complexity”, then he is making the intelligent design argument. We know, however, that complexity is a consequence of accumulating randomness, and that elegance is honed out of the noise by selection. No gods are required for either, this is not a reason to believe.
I had to admit that the science I loved so much was powerless to answer questions such as “What is the meaning of life?” “Why am I here?” “Why does mathematics work, anyway?” “If the universe had a beginning, who created it?” “Why are the physical constants in the universe so finely tuned to allow the possibility of complex life forms?” “Why do humans have a moral sense?” “What happens after we die?”
After the first bogus argument, it’s hard to believe it could get worse, but it does.
There are questions that science can’t answer because they are meaningless or make false assumptions. People once wondered whether the miniature human embryo was present in the sperm, or in the egg; the answer was neither, because preformation was false. It was not a failure of science that it couldn’t pick one of the two answers that were thought up, it was a failure of conception on the part of the questioners.
Same here. Some of those questions are nonsense (“What is the meaning of life?” There is no meaning beyond what you give to it), some are more tautologies (“Who created the universe?” Why assume it was a who?), and some have been answered or can be answered by science (“Why do humans have a moral sense?” Look up the word “altruism” in an evolution text, buddy.)
Most damning of all, though, why would an inability to answer a question cause one to turn from science to an alternative, religion, that is spectacularly unqualified to answer any of the questions posed? Religion cannot tell you what happens after you die in any meaningful way. The religious have no answers, nothing that someone trained to think scientifically can trace back to the evidence — they have assertions, and every one seems to make a different claim.
…was astounded to discover, initially in the writings of the Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis and subsequently from many other sources, that one could build a very strong case for the plausibility of the existence of God on purely rational grounds.
And these rational, plausible reasons are … ? That was the job of this essay, to summarize the reasons to believe, and simply saying that some other author somewhere made a strong case is inadequate … he’s passing the buck.
And, unfortunately, I’ve read C.S. Lewis. His arguments are as flimsy and evasive as Collins’.
after a search to learn more about God’s character led me to the person of Jesus Christ. Here was a person with remarkably strong historical evidence of his life, who made astounding statements about loving your neighbor, and whose claims about being God’s son seemed to demand a decision about whether he was deluded or the real thing. After resisting for nearly two years, I found it impossible to go on living in such a state of uncertainty, and I became a follower of Jesus.
Now we get to the ahistorical lies. There is a poor historical record of Jesus—nothing he wrote survived, all the accounts are second hand, there is no contemporary documentation of his existence. Loving your neighbor is not a remarkable claim, nor is it one first made by Jesus; the golden rule has been around for ages. Atheists can say it, so it’s certainly no evidence of divinity. Claims about being a god’s son, though, are evidence of insanity. He has presented no reason that he would resolve his uncertainty by supporting the claim of kinship with a deity (which has innumerable logical problems already), rather than deciding he was yet another tinpot messiah making ridiculous claims.
And how does a search to learn about God’s character lead to a Hebrew priest, anyway? Why should we assume God even has a comprehensible character? Collins is another example of someone who believes there is “some great big person up there”, one of those naive hicks Elaine Pagels disparages.
I would suggest that this argument by Collins would be better answered by supporting the divinity of Julius Caesar. His existence is far better supported than that of Jesus; we even have examples of his writings preserved, with monuments and first hand personal accounts of his life. He allowed himself to be called a god — Deo Invicto, no less — and his successor built temples to the Divus Julius. It’s awfully silly that Collins thinks the argument that either Caesar or Jesus was a god generates uncertainty, that he resolves in one direction for one of the pair, and in the other direction for the other.
And that’s it. Collins is given space to make an argument for the existence of his god, and this is the best he can do: nostrums, nonsense, noise. He should have been more honest and simply said he believes because he wants to believe, and he has no evidence, scientific or otherwise, to give his belief greater credibility than that of any unlettered church-going yokel.
At least he spared us the waterfall excuse this time, but it’s still all the same insipid mewlings he’s been giving to a willing and anxious media since his awful book came out.
There is one God and that God is Bunjil the Eagle – see http://myopinionsareimportant.wordpress.com/2007/03/26/bunjil-the-creator-watches-over-us-all/
(Sorry.)
The question isn’t whether his arguments meet any kind of scientific standard, but whether they meet any rational standard. As PZ ably points out, when it comes to his religion, Collins simply checks his brain at the door, and repeats the trite fallacies common in sermons and apologetics. This has nothing to do with science, or Collins being a scientist, but is simply another example of the extent to which people can compartmentalize their mental lives.
PZ said: “He should have been more honest and simply said he believes because he wants to believe…”
I suspect he is incapable of seeing it like that. I believe he really thinks those things are the reasons he has for believing in God, and that they are good reasons for doing so.
PZ said: “He should have been more honest and simply said he believes because he wants to believe…”
I suspect he is incapable of seeing it like that. I believe he really thinks those things are the reasons he has for believing in God, and that they are good reasons for doing so.
He was on CNN-TV last night and I thought I caught a glimpse of some sort of equal time given to an ID advocate. Did anyone catch what was on the TV? All I know is that Collins was singing at one point, I had better things to do with my son at the time…
Either these people need to invent new arguments, or I need to spend more time doing actual work instead of blog-surfing. I’ve said before, “Collins provides an ‘argument’ for God which is little more than Paley’s Watchmaker in disguise” — and I’ve said it at bloody great length, too. I should stop this before it boosts my blood pressure beyond repair, or at least until somebody pays me to write these things.
The trouble with these types of arguments is that the Bible never argues it’s case; it just states it.
Nor does any spokesman in the Bible try to argue their case, except by pointing to other Scripture; people were meant to believe because they had seen a miracle, rather than on evidence of the actual claims presented.
I have an important theological question:
Most of the advocates of the existence of a Supreme Being also tend to agree that any proof of its existence is purposefully vague. Thus there is no glowing message orbiting the Earth reading, “Hey, this is God, I created you.” Has to do with their complicated arguments about free will.
Yet they keep seeking to find the subtle proofs of God’s existence in either cosmology or biology.
(A) Are these people saying that their Supreme Being is INCAPABLE of creating the universe or earthly creatures in such a way as NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER remains of a magical intervention?
(B) Are these people attempting to counter their own God’s will, who apparently (according to their logic) chose NOT to leave proofs around of its own existence?
If you forgive an Offtopic comment: Quick, quick, That Dilbert-guy has written up another (very bad) caricature of how science supposedly works. It’s awful, and I’d love to have it seen teared up. ;)
This is exactly what Martin Gardener did, though his belief did not seem to me to be the “Big Person” that Collins seems to believe exists. IIRC, I came across it in Gardener’s collection _The Night Is Large_. He called his position Fideism (but it did not seem consistent with the Protestant concept of salvation by faith exclusively that also goes by that name.)
George-
You may have seen the “debate” on the validity of teaching religion in science class between Rob Boston from Americans United for Separation of Church and State and some hack shill from the Family Research Council. I can’t remember her name. She repeated, as expected, the same clches about teaching the controversy.
Boston made a comment about ID being simply a way to get Genesis creationism into class, and that probably 90% of the FRC are YEC’s. Cooper then asked the FRC person if she beleived in 6 day creation and a 6,000 year old earth, which she evaded. Boston tried to follow up and get her to answer it, but the segment ended without a response.
“nostrums, nonsense, noise”
A nice symmetrucal countir to C.S. Lowis’ “lard, lyre, lonatic” trylemma of fuckang ballshit. Exept that yaurs is aditive, and Lowis’ is fals.
The problem of course is that arguments for the existence of god, and similarly for belief in god, do not need to meet any rational standard. Religious faith requires one to ignore some facet of reason and logic.
Furthermore, all logical arguments require some set of assumptions or axioms. One assumption amongst most scientists and philosophers is that “answers” obtained from rational thought hold the most value. However, while religious followers may get baited into trying to construct rational arguments (and will inevitably fail), ultimately their beliefs stem from a system which places minimal value in logic.
Believing to know god’s will is a prime example. Assuming god exists, there’s still no rational way to create the bible or any holy scripture. Love thy neighbour (i.e. do unto others..) makes sense on rational grounds – it’s in the interest of self-preservation. But that gays are evil? That we should go to church once a week? That eating certain types of meat on certain days is bad?
For that matter, even if there is a god, how do you construct a rational argument that concludes that he (arbitrary choice of pronoun) wants to to believe in him? A person of faith doesn’t need to do this thought because they start with the axiom that “god wants us to believe”.
I had to admit that the science I loved so much was powerless to answer questions such as “What is the meaning of life?” “Why am I here?” “Why does mathematics work, anyway?” … “What happens after we die?”
There are deep existential questions that science may never answer. But why do you never hear religious people ask questions like, “why is nature so utterly cruel and indifferent?” Assuming an objective reality, the amount suffering and misery in nature, on any given day, is enormous. Is the “creator” of such a system worth praising? Or does such praise come from fear rather than love?
This is my stock answer to Pascal’s Wager. What if God is a rationalist — what if God rewards, to paraphrase Jefferson, honest doubt and punishes unreasoning faith? Why should I think this less likely than the other way around?
In one way I have some respect for the fideist position — they don’t pretend to have reason on their side. More so if it is conceded that when evidence and faith are in direct conflict, faith must yield.
The only thing resembling a reason or logical argument in this essay was that it is impossible to disprove a negative. Well done, Francis, but if that’s your most rational argument for the existence of god, does that not make your god-belief right on par with Descartes’ Imp or classic brain-in-a-jar solipsism?
Why doesn’t Francis Collins believe we are in The Matrix? Is Jesus that much more charismatic than Lawrence Fishburn?
In the end, it’s a waste of time to break down these pseudo-arguments, as Collins comes right out and says that god-belief requires a leap of faith, i.e. irrationality.
Perhaps you should forgo commenting on Collins any more, perhaps he has reached the point where you can just say, “Look, the idiot is talking again” like Luskin or Egnor. It’s really too bad that Collins has done good science and still believes the bullshit that comes out of his mouth. The cognitive dissonance must be killer.
What evidence would be acceptable? It seems that Collins provides “evidence” that is being rejected since the “evidence” does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that there is a God. The most common evidence that has been presented to me is that of revelation and miracles. For a believer, that evidence is quite compelling. For an atheist, that evidence is generally dismissed as fantasy or delusion (i.e. revelation and miracles don’t actually occur, if you think they do then you haven’t looked closely enough).
As an atheist, what evidence would convince you to believe in a God?
dave writes:
This is actually a very common question asked by religious people. The problem of theodicy is ancient and included in the canonical texts of Judaism and Christianity. Where this becomes pernicious is when material benefits are associated with being in or out of God’s favor. To help counter that tendency there is the book of Job.
If I looked through a telescope, and saw thousands of galaxies arranged to spell out “Yes, Tulse, I do indeed exist. Signed, God”, then I would definitely revise my estimation of the likelihood of God’s existence.
I challenge a believer to come up with any evidence that they say would cause them to disbelieve.
If I see Francis Collins’ pious, simpering facade one more time, I’m going to get really pissed of…
PZ, it can’t be good for you to hold back like that. C’mon. How do you really feel?
Seriously, I think I’m developing the same thing. Heard him on the CBC’s ‘spirituality’ program Tapestry a while back (radio was on, I was driving, no I didn’t seek it out), and by a few minutes into the interview I was getting into the cringe pose. You know… that ‘I know… any second he’s going to say another maddeningly stupid, sanctimonious thing, and my black atheist’s blood is simply gonna clot solid throughout my body’ thing. Hands clenched on wheel. Finally just hadda turn it off.
There are deep existential questions that science may never answer.
Yeah. That pretty much answers why people turn to religion and philosophy. Somehow being called stupid and snapped at with “There is no meaning beyond what you give to it” when someone asks “What is the meaning of life?” has no more resonance with most people than a Chinese fortune cookie.
(not that I have anything against Chinese food…far from it)
And if religious people left the issue with finding meaning in their own life, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. But they also feel compelled to impose their world view on others, and in many cases (especially in the US) using the full armamentarium of the State to do so.
As soon as religious people stop worrying about whether others can: get an abortion, do stem-cell research, get married if they’re gay, get educated about science, get HPV vaccinations, get useful information about AIDS prevention, etc. etc. etc., then I’d be happy to ignore them and not call them anything. If they want to address their personal existential questions through a belief in God, or Thor, or the Tooth Fairy, I have no problem with that, but when such beliefs become the basis of public policy decisions, your darned right I’m going to speak up and call them stupid.
My first thought upon reading this was “Surely Lewis did not write so badly?” Then I realized that it was Francis, not Lewis. How did this hash get by an editor? Awkward, stilted, lame. Perhaps a pastiche? “remarkably strong historical evidence of his life” sounds like a back-cover blurb.
Glad to know how you feel about that, but what I said was “has no more resonance with most people”, not “most religious people”.
And the important difference that makes to the argument is…?
Just to add to the set, should anyone be collecting data, There is no meaning beyond what you give to it has enormous resonance with me.
I like that. I find it positively inspiring, even.
No, you’re not a rat in a divine maze created by Brahma or by Yahweh or by Loki, following arbitrary and bizarre rules, working toward reincarnation or salvation or forgiveness. You’re a bit of starstuff that dragged itself up by its bootstraps over billions of years (or got tossed up by the waves of chance and held there by the sand of natural selection over billions of years… either way). You are alive to contemplate your own universe, your own fate, learn as best as your senses and reason allow how it is put together, where it’s going from here. You may do with it as you will. Or, at least, as you can.
While the universe can be capricious, it is also neither malicious nor benevolent, and there is no divine will out there for you to appease, nor before which you should prostrate yourself, nor which will do you favours nor do you harm. You are, in a sense, a wildly lucky little bit of matter to get where you are, now, but what you do with that luck from here, that’s up to you. There’s no one to tell you what your life is about. You decide that.
What baffles me is what the hell is inspiring about any of the religious cosmologies I’ve ever encountered. Full of petty tyrants with pettier rules, deities concerned with whether women wear hats on Sundays or not, jealously demanding blind obeisance or they will their flock to Hell or an eternity of lives as a roach. And it seems to that even the fuzziest, least tyrannical still ultimately say: believe in me ‘cos… well… ‘cos I say so. Which, frankly, I think is nothing short of a disgusting way to treat a lucky bit of sentient matter occasionally possessed of the ability to work things out on its own.
I don’t think that kind of ultimately authoritarian ugliness really resonates with anyone, except in an nasty, base, manipulative sense. I think that’s just a rubber pacifier and gag stuck in folks’ mouths and minds. Appeals to the part of the hindbrain that likes to be told what to do, is all.
“As an atheist, what evidence would convince you to believe in a God?”
That’s easy, a verifiable miracle that cannot be explained by any known laws of physics would be very strong evidence in favor of god(s). A demonstration of god(s) would be, in my estimation, no more difficult than a demonstration of Karma, or fate or luck or something to that effect. The physical manifestations such a thing should have are not ambiguous. It’s the claims some make to experiencing them that are usually dubious, and/or perfectly explicable by mundane phenomena.
Is it only me that see’s the parallel between some of those who “have faith” and the “loyal Bushies”? Legions of sheeple who follow their shephard. Why is critical thinking such a scarce commodity? A bi-product of a homogenus world??? (bi & homo in the same sentence… Bet that will ruffle some wool)
One very frustrating experience I imagine is common to those who teach in the humanities is that often you’ll have a nice discussion going, ask as gently as possible for some explanation as to why someone might think some claim is true, and you’re told ‘For religious reasons’. To say ‘for religious reasons’ is like saying ‘for personal reasons’. It is simply to refuse to specify the reasons while inviting the hearer to accept on faith that they’re good. The trouble is that we’ve seen enough Seinfeld to know that these (putative) personal reasons are never any good, and the religious reasons I can only imagine are worse.
In response to Jeff, you are of course quite right that entire forests have been felled to address the problem of evil from a religious perspective. Unfortunately, none of the responses seem particularly good. Even if there is some lesson to be learned from the book of Job, I don’t think that the lesson is that the God of the book of Job is a good guy (e.g., the good guys in movies don’t traditionally kill someone’s wife and kids in order to teach them an important lesson). If you do the charitable thing and focus on the God of the philosophers as Dawkins does, it does not seem that there is as of yet any good explanation as to why God would sit idly by while genocide occurs or while the lives of hundreds of thousands are threatened by a tsunami. I’ve read lots and lots and lots of them. All are terrible, and most are offensive insofar as they force us to think of the terrible suffering of others as wholly acceptable losses in the completion of some mysterious divine plan.
As for miracles, haven’t you read your Hume?
Mothers, teach your children: Ultimate truth can not be found in the pages of a science fiction book.
Although if Francis had discovered L-Ron before he did C-Lew, his rant might at least be less pedantic.
AJ Milne (#26):
Preach it to ’em, freethinker! :-)
Coleman raises an interesting point: Perhaps you should forgo(sic) commenting on Collins any more, perhaps he has reached the point where you can just say, “Look, the idiot is talking again” like Luskin or Egnor.
Really. WHY do you waste your time on this issue if it is so nonsensical to you?
I keep coming in here as it is the most popular ScienceBlog, and I keep coming up on posts not involving science, but rather screeds on the heathen Christianites.
Makes one wonder if I haven’t instead stumbled upon a scientific analogy to the homophobic minister; one so terrified that he might be gay himself that he spends all of his time and rhetoric excoriating homosexuality.
Just a thought. And now, having seen the reaction commentators show to differing viewpoints, I will now batten down the hatches.
Oh, as an aside. As a personal favor to someone you’ve ever met, can I please ask the atheists and agnostics to STOP saying that belief in God is illogical, against logic, etc… Can I also request that you stop demanding a ‘proof’ for God’s existence. You must realize that you’re just tossing out red meat for the God squad.
There is simply no ‘facet’ in logic (whatever that is) violated by believing in God, unicorns, or Santa. The claim ‘God exists’ violates neither a logical rule, nor a grammatical rule. Try this instead: the belief is false, and its falsity is bloody obvious.
Similarly, when you ask for ‘proof’, you are just asking, begging, pleading for those with white belts in apologetics to ask you to ‘prove’ you have hands, that you’re not dreaming, etc…
Well, folks, there are a lot of great comments. I must admit, PZ’s criticism is pretty much dead on.
But you know what? It’s all irrelevant because as an evangelical Christian I really can’t help myself. If I don’t spew my bullshit beliefs, then Jesus won’t like me. That’s the deal. It’s all in the Bible.
A rather strong claim for someone who wonders what logic is.
Similarly, when you ask for ‘proof’, you are just asking, begging, pleading for those with white belts in apologetics to ask you to ‘prove’ you have hands, that you’re not dreaming, etc…
Hey, that’s a good one. I’ll be sure to pass that along to my attorney friends so they can try it in court.
I don’t know, offhand, what sort of specific event would get me to believe in God. When someone asks “What evidence would get you believe in God?” I usually like to answer “God’s supposed to be pretty smart, I’m sure he’ll think of something.” Why do I need to be the one to give advice to the all-knowing all-powerful super-being on the best way to convince me he exists?
Secondly, it is said that God doesn’t give undeniable proof of his existence to everyone because doing so would violate free will. In the Bible, at least as interpreted by modern Christians, it states that at Judgement Day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. I assume that at that point God has managed to give everyone undeniable evidence of his existence. So, ask your local Christian: Will God violate free will on Judgement Day? If the answer is no, and God can prove himself to everyone without violating free will, you have to wonder why he doesn’t just get it over with now and save everyone the trouble of sin and hell. If the answer is yes, you have to ask why God gives such a rat’s ass about free will on Earth when he doesn’t care about it in Heaven. I’ve asked that before, and have never really gotten an answer.
To say ‘for religious reasons’ is like saying ‘for personal reasons’. It is simply to refuse to specify the reasons while inviting the hearer to accept on faith that they’re good.
What about “deeply religious reasons”? Surely that is 100 times more persuasive.
You are alive to contemplate your own universe, your own fate, learn as best as your senses and reason allow how it is put together, where it’s going from here. You may do with it as you will. Or, at least, as you can.
I thought we were alive to reproduce. Where did this warmed over pseudo-Sagan fluff come from? The universe doesn’t need to contemplate itself. Frankly neither do you. Why substitute one watered down faith for another?
I must agree with PZ on most counts except the first. His answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything – “There is no meaning beyond what you give to it” – is no less meaningless and unfounded than any answer the evangelical Collins would give you. What PZ fails to understand is that some questions will always lie beyond the purview of science because they will always be reformulated over time, because they are trying to get at the ‘meaning’ of everything (including science) and thus will necessarily always elude a clear and distinct answer – but will always require some attempt at an answer because the questions are important, because the questions are asking about the meaning of meaning.
There might be nothing that will forever lie beyond the explanatory grasp of science. But (1) science has not yet proven that proposition and (2) that certainly does not mean that there are not questions that at the moment remain completely beyond scientific understanding.
Atheists – uppity atheists that is – often forget that their atheism is on the same metaphysical playing field as religion – not one level above it. Atheism might be more coherent, but some the questions that religion asks require unscientific answers and if atheism tries to answer them anyway, it will have to come up with its own unproven claims.
House,
Your retort is peculiar one. The very point of this post is that Collins’ “reasons” for believing are utterly vapid from a scientific perspective, yet he presents them as if they were a valid means of reconciliation of inanity (“faith”) and rationality (science). For you to imply that this is not a valid topic of discussion among scientists assumes the very deferential stance the Weinburgs, the Dawkins, the Stengers, etc. are vigorously fighting against.
If it is your position that those damned uppity heathen scientists should shut up and lay off religion, you’re not going to get very far here. As scientists, prospective scientists and scientifically minded people, most of those frequenting this board are sick of that attitude. I see religion and science (as well as rationality in general) as deeply in conflict. If you do not, the devices of argument are always available to you. Shrill denunciations such as your are singularly meaningless to me and, I suspect, just about everyone here.
I thought we were alive to reproduce.
Well, man, if that’s all your neurons happen to be up to, you feel free.
Where did this warmed over pseudo-Sagan fluff come from?
Cute. Didn’t really want an answer, tho’, did you?
The universe doesn’t need to contemplate itself. Frankly neither do you.
Umm. Speak for yourself. I do. But, you know, you go run along and reproduce, if that’s what works for you.
Why substitute one watered down faith for another?
Ah. Of course. If you actually try to establish a meaning on your own, that’s a ‘faith’. It’s a delightfully malleable language for rhetoric, if you don’t actually concern yourself with definitions terribly, isn’t it?
Pretty convenient for Collins that the religion he chose also happens to be the one he’s immersed in. He wanted some sense of ultimate purpose, but he didn’t want to put too much effort into finding that purpose. Collins appears to be an adherent of the “I’m not gonna pay a lot for this muffler” school of theological thought.
John Farrell:
Wow…someone’s been brushing up on his creationist talking points…wanna accuse the darwinists here of eating babies too?
So you’re saying just because something isn’t *needed*, it shouldn’t be done?
Preach it to ’em, freethinker
Thanks, man. Seems the internets were down a few rants. Was just doing my part.
My long quest to actually find a living strawman atheist has come to an end. It is the younger Francis Colins. At last!
I’ve also read Lewis (specifically Mere Christianity) and a person would have to be desperate to believe to find it even remotely convincing
You might as well ask, what evidence would convince you to believe in unicorns?
For me, as with everything else, the specific evidence doesn’t matter, as long as it is empirical, repeatable, objectively corroborated — and, most importantly, stronger than the amount of evidence supporting any other alternative.
There could be verified unicorn sightings, there could be biological discoveries that show horses’ abilities to grow horns …
What evidence would convince you that the miracles you mention are true accounts? What evidence would convince you that God is partial to people who do not believe those miracles (perhaps he’s just trying to weed out the gullible and send them to hell — or Kansas)?
What evidence would convince you that Apollo pulls the sun? Or that walking under a ladder is unlucky? Or that you should create a rhyme in honor of my third cousin’s left big toe, which, according to my belief, is the creator of the universe — and enjoys poetry.
PZ says:
… when he should have said:
Collins says:
… thereby reinforcing the stereotype that the religious cling to their religion because they just can’t bear to admit to themselves that there’s something they don’t know.
The Science Pundit:
Wait, doesn’t this quote suggest that Francis Collins’ method of arriving at conclusions hasn’t changed after all these years?
Younger Collins: “I know there is no God”
Present day Collins: I know there is no real conflict between science and faith, particularly *my* faith
The latter really isn’t a quote from Collins. It’s just a trimmed-down version of Collins’ “scientific” arguments. “I know…”
Wow…someone’s been brushing up on his creationist talking points…wanna accuse the darwinists here of eating babies too?
Oh, brother. Yeah, whatever you say. That’s certainly me all right.
itchy writes:
Since I don’t believe in miracles, I can’t think of anything that would convince me that a miracle occurred. If it is repeatable then it isn’t a miracle. If it can’t be repeated then it seems more likely to me that there is a misinterpretation of the event (or experimental error).
I ask the question about evidence because it has been my experience that the same evidence that leads someone away from faith can strengthen the faith of someone else.
Clayton writes:
Yes and I loved this response. Thanks.
I find the book of Job interesting partly because the description of God is so appalling that I’m amazed that the book was included in the Christian and Jewish canon. I think it may have been included because it is patently obvious that the world does not act in accordance with Deuteronomic justice. The book of Job partly addresses that disconnect.
” There is simply no ‘facet’ in logic (whatever that is) violated by believing in God, unicorns, or Santa.
A rather strong claim for someone who wonders what logic is.”
I don’t wonder what logic is, I’ve taught it. There is no such thing as a ‘facet’ in logic, just as there is no such thing as a ‘widget’ in the law. Saying that religious belief violates a logical ‘facet’ is akin to saying it violates a legal ‘widget’. You’re just asking for a snarky reply from apologists who knows this much (and not much else).
PZ wrote:
“Some of those questions are nonsense (“What is the meaning of life?” There is no meaning beyond what you give to it)”
Imagine my surprise at seeing such a comment on a science blog of such repute. This has nothing to do with science; its philosophy. Nevertheless, can anybody help with a sound philosophical (sans ridicule) argument to support the answer given?
1: calling “what is a the meaning of life?” a nonsense question misses the mark. People are interested in that question. If you think that the question has a particular answer, i.e. that people create meaning (through their societal roles, families, accomplishments, etc.) well that’s fine. I agree that the meaning of our lives is created, but it doesn’t follow that the question is “nonsense,” i.e. that there is no sense in asking it.
2: regarding the historicity of Jesus, you demonstrate your lack of training in historical inquiry.
“…nothing he wrote survived, all the accounts are second hand, there is no contemporary documentation of his existence”
We have no idea whether he created documents or not, so saying nothing he wrote survives is nonsense. Do we have documents written by (insert name of ancient historical figure here, e.g. Hannibal)? No. Well, I suppose he/she didn’t exist either. CDNF-conclusion does not follow. Moreover, the claim that there is only second hand documentation of him, i.e. no contemporary documents, is also largely irrelevant. First of all, you seem to be unaware that ancient writers had access to written records that we do not have anymore (e.g. they often reference so and so’s work on such and such, and we don’t have it, it’s not extant anymore; stupid scribes and library fires), so even if *we* only have second hand sources about Hannibal, that doesn’t mean everything we have is BS. Second of all, the earliest gospel that we know of, Mark, was probably (based upon text critical analysis) written about a generation or so after Jesus’ crucifixion. That is not that far removed, with the result that it’s not really tenable to say “we don’t know shit.”
You know, I’m an agnostic. I don’t think Jesus is/was divine, or Odin, or whatever. I think the idea of a virgin birth back then is rediculous, and there were lots of claimants to that back then. But it makes atheists look dumb when they start down the road of “he didn’t even exist.”
I agree that the meaning of our lives is created, but it doesn’t follow that the question is “nonsense,” i.e. that there is no sense in asking it.
Actually, it does follow, in the same way that there is no sense asking “What is the meaning of my turd?”
The answer is the same as the “deep” question posed by allegedly “great thinkers.”
It doesn’t matter that “some people are interested.” Some people like to eat human shit for sexual excitement. So what?
The fact is that many humans — PZ, myself, and countless others — grew up and realized that questions such as “why are we here” are the sorts of things pondered by people who have either run out of useful things to consider or who are simply confused.
When your brain fails to get oxygen for a certain period of time, your shit is over. That’s the “meaning” of life. Now go in the corner and cry for a few minutes, ask your mommy to wipe your ass, and go weed my garden.
But it makes atheists look dumb when they start down the road of “he didn’t even exist.”
Bullshit. There is no proof for his existence. Just because you’re not sure, doesn’t mean that reality isn’t sure, either. Jesus, for all intents and purposes, did not exist. Believing he did doesn’t make it so. Believing he might doesn’t make it so. Knowing that there is an utter lack of contemporaneous evidence for “his” existence… priceless.
How do you decide what is “useful?”
The confusion comes not in asking such a question, but in asking it of science, or in not parsing it properly.
Why as in “for what purpose?” Well who in the world could have a purpose which would be addressed by our presence? (By asking this question you’ve already pretty much assumed that there is a figure for whom “we” serve some sort of deep purpose, ie God).
It seems to me that most of these “big questions” are nothing but a way of sneaking in the assumption of a God.
On the other hand the pervasiveness of this question says something important about people. Collins is symptomatic, and it would seem to me that what we ought to be wondering is not “How can we disparage Collins?”–like a lot of scientists, he’s a rather bad philosopher. So what?–but “What, precisely, is Collins symptomatic of?
How do you decide what is “useful?”
The same you decide.
On the other hand the pervasiveness of this question says something important about people.
It says that we have too much time on our hands and it says that brains as big as ours are somewhat extraneous. Is that important? I don’t think so. What is important is that people who thought that the question was important and who thought they had the answer to that question used my money to kill a lot of innocent people on the other side of the world.
So what?–but “What, precisely, is Collins symptomatic of?
Religion-induced psychosis.
Christianity is a really really fucked up pile of crap and all over the world it is getting shoved into the brains of children.
Reap the whirlwind.
The Cascades? Aw, why you want to send him out here, PZ? There are plenty of waterfalls, in, say, Papua New Guinea.
Sort of weird that for as long as we have records the majority of people in the world have been psychotic. Because, Christianity isn’t really uniquely screwy, at least as far as I can tell.
Judging by your posts, it may be wroth considering that you are suffering from some sort of delusional psychosis. Particularly the part where you imagine you know what I think is useful and that it serendipitously happens to coincide with your own approach to that problem.
Did God tell you these things?
Oran the Moran,
Judging by your posts, it may be wroth considering that you are suffering from some sort of delusional psychosis.
Likewise. The difference is that I’m not telling five year old kids that if they don’t share my delusions they risk spending eternity being tortured by a monster in hell.
I think that is an “important” difference. What do you think, Oran? Actually, just go fuck yourself.
Tukla in Iowa (comment #42) wrote:
Nice one; now there is Diet Coke on my keyboard :)
As for whether science can answer whether or not there is a “meaning” to Life, or a purpose for our existence, I think that depends on what sort of meaning or purpose people are talking about.
Imagine two teenager boys, A and B. A’s parents conceived him by accident. They don’t care what he chooses to do with his life. Whatever he wants, is up to him.
B’s parents had their son for a purpose. They needed an accountant. They deliberately conceived him with the specific goal of his someday becoming a CPA, that he might be able to help them with their taxes. His sex was specifically selected, because they wanted their accountant to be male. They have a plan for his life.
By examining empirical evidence, you could indeed discover that teenager B has a meaning for his life, and a purpose. Teenager A’s life, on the other hand, has no meaning. He was not created for any purpose.
I think asking if there is a “meaning for life” or whether we have a “purpose for living” is only an empirical question which science can address if this is the sort of meaning and purpose you’re talking about.
While I am not necessarily averse to your suggestion, I suspect my physiological limitations make it impossible.
As to hell and demons, I’ve never met anyone who was particularly frightened at the prospect. Most of the believers I know either blithely assume they’re going to some other place or they believe that God will prove merciful in the final event.
I have fairly good memories of my childhood, when I was a believer and I don’t recall wasting much time worrying about hell. I don’t recall my friends doing so either. I think it’s probably true, that like a lot of terrifying stories that have been told to youngsters over the years (see for instance, fairy tales), hell only gets a limited amount of traction.
Take it back a notch, GWW.
Y’know what would get me to believe? Pat Robertson being killed by lightning.
Seriously. Pat Robertson regularly invokes God’s wrath on some hotbed of teh gay or another, and God’s wrath never actually smites said hotbed. That’s false prophecy.
Deutoronomy 18:22:
If God exists, He seems awfully apathetic about those who falsely claim to speak in His name. If He lets Pat Robertson blaspheme unscathed, surely He’ll cut me some slack. He damn well didn’t let people get away with that shit in Moses’ time, I tell you what.
Sort of weird that for as long as we have records the majority of people in the world have been psychotic.
For as long as we have records, people communed with their “gods” by ingesting drugs and/or alcohol. And “priests” have appointed themselves to control who gets to possess and consume the “holy” substances and when.
Yes, it is “sort of weird.”
But indoctrinating little kids by scaring them with stories about monsters sending them to hell forever and forever, without mommy and daddy, if they don’t believe in bloody Jesus the white zombie who rose from the grave? That’s about as fucked and wrong as the shit gets on this planet.
Take it back a notch, GWW.
Sorry, boss. I was on the other side of the barn.
See, *other* historical figures all have evidence in the form of documents from “multiple” sources, evidence that things *actually* happened in the places they are supposed to have been, etc. With Jesus you get the equivalent of a Wag the Dog story. He did X here, Y there, Z at the next place, but no one *in* any of those places mentions him, claims to have seen him, has physical evidence that any such person where ever there, etc. Its a con job. Real history has multiple sources of verification, ranging from artifacts (we have none), to secondary accounts (we have none of those either), to prior documents (also none). Could all of that lack of evidence be overturned by *one* scrap of real evidence, well.. maybe, but only as long as its real evidence, and not the BS kind that churches come up with all the time, like fake blood, fake shrouds, crying statues, or the most recent idiocy where they found that the remains of Joan of Arc are part of Egyptian mummies:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2050361,00.html
For some of us, constantly reading about how damn near everything and everyone one that historical data implies “might have” existed eventually produces conclusive evidence they did (or that they are entirely made up legends), Jesus, for which we have no conclusive proof just looks way more likely to be one of the later. We know more factual information able the people that cleaned the clothes of Roman’s than we have evidence of Jesus, and we can even show you where some of their families shops where. We can’t prove that Jesus ever existed, nor anyone else around him. The closest we have come are some burial locations that we can’t even be sure at this point where not faked by people trying to manufacture evidence centuries after the fact, and in which there is *still* no evidence beyond some boxes with organic residue in them, none of which can be traced to anything, since there are no seeds, pollen fragments, pottery fragments, actual bones, or anything from presumed decendents that would could compare anything too, even if we could find DNA to make comparisons with.
We might as well try to “prove” the existence of the people in Hemmingway’s, “Ten Little Indians”, for all the evidence there is. So, just wondering.. What possible reason is there to believe that its even likely that he existed, any more than say, “Hercules”, for which there is probably actually more mention, outside of the main tales he appears in?
Re: #17 — “As an atheist, what evidence would convince you to believe in a God?”
First, I’d have to have a description of this god-thingie, a definition, a delineation — something I can compare the putative “evidence” against, to see if it matches up.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a consensus about gods, so how am I to evaluate any evidence?
The ball is back in the theist’s court.
— CV
Note to atheists, agnostics and theists alike: There ARE several valid disproofs by professional philosophers of a God with the traditional attributes of omnipotentence, omniscience and omnibenevolence. For a sampling of some of the better ones, consult the recently published “Impossibility of God”, Prometheus Books, Monnier and Martin, eds. Most of these disproofs show that a God with these attributes leads to a logical contradiction (argument ad absurdum), leaving God with the existential status of a square-circle. I’m often surprised that even notable atheists seem totally unfamiliar with this literature (e.g., Dawkins, Harris) and repeat the knee-jerk “truism” that it is impossible to prove (via logic) the existence of God one way or another. Yes, it’s true that you cannot not prove or disprove that ANY God exists, but the traditional omni-God of the monothesitic tradition has been shown to be logically impossible several times over.
I have fairly good memories of my childhood, when I was a believer and I don’t recall wasting much time worrying about hell.
Why would you have worried? You believed.
hell only gets a limited amount of traction.
Huh. It’s “weird” that it remains a central part of the Christian religion if it’s as trivial as you make it sound. Perhaps you’re completely mistaken and wish to engage in weak apologetics on behalf of those you love.
Don’t think I actually love anyone who believes in God, actually. Like, maybe.
What people actually believe (as opposed to what they say they believe) is a difficult thing to ferret out. The fact that hell has been around so long is probably more directly a function of the fact that the keepers of doctrine would like people to believe in hell, rather than a measure of its actual degree of plausibility.
Also, people might get a lot of pleasure in believing (hoping!) that certain other people are going to hell (say, Stalin or the producers of American Idol), but they do very little to govern their own behavior so as to avoid going there (at least judging by their basic religious doctrines).
Why not if they believe in the eternal torment of hell!? Because they don’t believe in it in the same way that they believe, say, that the cable company will cut off their service if they don’t pay (well, even that’s kind of provisional).
So what status hell? A very good question with no immediately obvious answer.
Belief in miracles? The ability of some being to bend the laws of physics? THAT is what most people mean by God? Wow, I guess I am an atheist after all. And I have been since I was, oh, nine years old.
It is precisely the orderliness of nature, the fact that I am made up of spent star fuel ejected into space by supernovae billions of years ago, the fact that a complex chemical system arose three hundred million years after the heavy bombardment phase of this planet’s history would go on to be the common universal ancestor of all the amazing, sublime life forms on this planet, the fact that my mind, mere matter, is able to behold the great symphony of the cosmos and life on this planet: these are why I can call the infinite reality we are in God, and what a God that is. It is the God of Spinoza and Einstein. It is far more worthy of awe and reverence than some the angry sky king of some iron age death cult.
Mere matter. What an arrogant phrase. Matter is magical. Miracles? Existence is enough of a miracle. A violation of the laws of physics would not be a violation – it would simply mean that our equations are wrong. I’m glad we live in a comprehendable universe, and not some medieval Ptolemaic nightmare.
Really, Collins is smart. Why cling to such bullshit as a centuries-old dogma? The sense of awe it can provide is nothing next to modern physics, cosmology, geology, and molecular and evolutionary biology.
Also: As some book reviewer said, Collins does not give evidence for belief; he gives instead evidence of belief in God. That pretty much sums up his book.
Those gods are not the ones the majority of Americans worship, or enact public policy over. For that matter, it isn’t clear that those gods aren’t just “wonder at the universe”, rather than some actual entitiy. If those were the only gods in dispute, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
So what status hell? A very good question with no immediately obvious answer.
The answer is immediate and obvious. I’m not surprised that you want to pretend otherwise but go right ahead. Let me know when the references to hell and Satan are removed from the New Testament. You might have a valid point then. Should I hold my breath?
Really, Collins is smart. Why cling to such bullshit as a centuries-old dogma?
So as he lays on his deathbed he can comfort himself thinking that he will soon be with Mommy, Daddy and Fido.
Matt wrote:
It’s certainly a lot more tenable than trying to claim there’s “remarkably strong historical evidence”. It appears Collins is telling a deliberate lie when he says this, but I don’t think he would do that. This must just an example of how irrational people are when they go into believer mode.
Are you sure a little ineffability can’t weasel around all of this?
——————-
GWW, what kind of Christianity are you familiar with? It seems to be some American fire-and-brimstone evangelical phenomenon and not, say, Catholicism as taught today in western Europe. In the latter some people go around saying they hope hell is empty and they don’t consider that possibility unlikely, and nobody seems to disagree with them in any kind of public.
Are you sure a little ineffability can’t weasel around all of this?
——————-
GWW, what kind of Christianity are you familiar with? It seems to be some American fire-and-brimstone evangelical phenomenon and not, say, Catholicism as taught today in western Europe. In the latter some people go around saying they hope hell is empty and they don’t consider that possibility unlikely, and nobody seems to disagree with them in any kind of public.
Catholicism as it is taught, or as it is practiced?
My (outsider’s) view of the matter was that practiced-Catholicism has become a lot more ‘liberal’ in the classical sense. Lots of people dig the Pope, yet they ignore what he says about contraception, et cetera.
Not that it really matters from the rational perspective. All of the religions, up to and including the UUs, are irrational, and they’re usually quite stupid as well. None of them stand up to even casual investigation.
What a pity, Caledonian, that you are content with ‘casual’ investigation. Whatever.
BTW, why is it, “Calendonian”, that you do not have balls to sign your own name to you posts?
Of course, I’m sure there’s a practical reason.
Catholicism as taught today in western Europe.
Yeah, that’s a *tad* different from what we’re dealing with here in the US, not only in doctrine but in scale. That’s religion in survival mode, doing whatever it can to remain palatable to its dwindling adherents. On the other hand, if you blink it’ll be co-opted by the nutjobs and turned into a political sledgehammer wielded by the retarded and semi-retarded, just as it has become here, because the foundation is more or less the same.
they hope hell is empty and they don’t consider that possibility unlikely
I suppose Hitler is in “purgatory”? Whatever. The entire mythos is so silly and contrived, whether hell is empty or full does not make it any less annoying. The point is to convince the adherent that after the adherent’s brain stops working, the adherent will be sent to a place where all or some of the previous adherents are bored, tortured or basking in eternal bliss. It’s obvious why people WANT to believe this crap but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s crap.
What is interesting is that religious freaks themselves rarely engage in this kind of basic middle-school level self-reflection, even while they are begging others to “get off drugs” and “get off porn” — activities which provide essentially identical distractions from the drudgery of solving the inherent problems that humans are confronted with every day (e.g., figuring out where the next meal is coming from, avoiding being killed by disease or accident, etc.) And that’s the thing about religion that is most disturbing and least acknowledged in a serious fashion by Americans: it’s tendency to turn into a tool for power abuse by corrupt sickos.
John Farrell,
They don’t stand up to intensive investigation, either.
Who’s they, Isaac?
Lack of reading comprehension and short-term memory problems For The Win!
Well that solves everything.
For reference, everyone, that is what an actual troll looks like.
Accept no substitutions, imitations, or people-that-you-are-offended-by-and-so-you-call-them-trolls. Demand the genuine product!
Like I said, that solves everything. Caledonian, when you have the balls to identify yourself, feel free to email me.
RE: #55
there are more/other meanings of the word “meaning” than you are allowing for, such as an interpreted goal or end. So that a person might, for instance, search for a “meaning” in their life and this “meaning” turns out to be working with disabled people, or whatever. Have a little imagination.
RE: #56
I didn’t say there was “proof” of his existence. Knock down some other straw man.
I’m not all that concerned about Jesus in particular as a figure in history, to be honest. The reason I responded to PZ’s post at all was because it displayed obvious ignorance regarding how historians go about their business, i.e. how sources are used, what may or may not be available and why, etc.
“Just because you’re not sure, doesn’t mean that reality isn’t sure, either.”
What?
RE: #69
You mean like brief mentions in Tacitus, Josephus, in addition to the gospels? I’d call that “multiple.” True, we have no artifacts. False, we do have secondary documents. And what the hell are “prior” documents? Do you mean “primary?” Otherwise I don’t know how people would write about someone before that person is around.
Like I said in my earlier post, I don’t believe in any of this Christian stuff, but to go from that to suggesting Jesus probably didn’t exist, as PZ suggests by his comments about Julius Caesar, and others on this board have flatly stated, is not supported by the available evidence. We DO have multiple lines of evidence that aren’t that far removed. The evidence suggests he existed. I mean, does that really bother you all? I still don’t think he was god. He just evidently had a big impact on some people and they formed a cult to him. It’s not as if we don’t have evidence of that happening before Jesus, let alone since.
“monothesitic tradition has been shown to be logically impossible several times over . . . Are you sure a little ineffability can’t weasel around all of this?”
It’s hard to weasel around the fact that the attributes usually attributed to God cannot logically coexist – like God is both one and three, or God is both infinitely good and sends people to burn in hell, or God is both the infinite ground of all existence, and a person. That last one, by the way, is decisive. As Jason Kuznicki has written, the personal qualities of most descriptions of God contradict the infinite, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent qualities God is supposed to have. It is not merely that God as a being can or cannot exist as an empirical matter, it is that the concept of God itself is meaningless and impossible: it must not exist, since the attributes of God cannot logically coexist.
The God hypothesis: so bad, its not even wrong!
“After resisting for nearly two years, I found it impossible to go on living in such a state of uncertainty . . .”
Collins was involved in the human genome project for at least 10 years before the higher quality ‘rough draft’ was completed (I may be garbling this, being sadly over my head here, but y’know what I mean) in ’03, to say nothing of the more polished ’06 version – and that, of course, is just the very first baby step. How could he bear the uncertainty?!
Seriously. A two-year state of uncertainty? I’m not a scientist, but isn’t that fairly small potatoes in terms of normal research involving fairly complex problems? And wouldn’t deciding, apparently in a completely arbitrary manner, in favor of one specific answer because one couldn’t deal with the ambiguity be a bit . . . unusual?
I mean, yes, of course, neither science nor anything even resembling that kind of thinking has anything to do with his beliefs – which isn’t really surprising or unusual – that bit just sorta jumped out at me.
“You mean like brief mentions in Tacitus, Josephus, in addition to the gospels? I’d call that “multiple.”
My very rough and untutored understanding was that the very brief mention in Josephus was generally regarded to be at least significantly corrupted, besides being published some 60 years after the events in question.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus
Apparently it’s been suggested that the equally brief mention by Tacitus in (according to wikipedia) a work written in about 116 CE was actually a later addition, although there appears to be some debate over this. Regardless, that bit:
“Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus . . .”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Jesus
is a bit weak. Was this a manner of public record? Was he merely repeating the Christians’ claims, assuming a basis in fact? Etc. We’re now at 80 years after the events in question. It’s as if the only independent textual evidence we had for the existence of Joseph Smith – centuries from now – were two very brief and questionable asides – neither mentioning any real documentation – from the early 20th century. Of course, it may well work out like that – but in that case, some skepticism as to his historical existence – to say nothing of angels and gold plates – would not be unreasonable. Etc.
I to once thought like Matt but now understand I may have been in error. He said:
I was kinda flabbergasted by this comment. 20-25 YEARS later isn’t that far removed. Try remembering the correct details of things that happened 2 years ago, hell 1 year ago. With the conflicting accounts it lends to the appearance of a story told and repeated with all it’s variances.
Likewise the ‘outer’ sources are very problematic. Did he exist? I lean on yes. Is it a strong case, I have a hard time seeing how. But I hope he did.
RE: 95
Regarding the corruption of the Josephus text. I completely agree it’s been corrupted, but as even the wiki article states (and I do take it from your post that you’re not taking wiki entries as the last word, thankfully), most scholars think he said *something* about Jesus (probably just a minor figure mentioned in passing) and then later Christian scribes put in all the business about being the christ and whatnot.
Again, with Tacitus, the mention is short and sketchy, but can’t be dismissed out of hand.
These passages, in addition to the gospels, etc., suggest he existed.
And since we’re referencing wikipedia, how about this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
which includes a quote in an endnote stating,
“The nonhistoricity thesis has always been controversial, and it has consistently failed to convince scholars of many disciplines and religious creeds. … Biblical scholars and classical historians now regard it as effectively refuted.” – Robert E. Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), p. 16.
Again, my previous question is still why does Jesus have to not exist for some people? Does that really bother your atheism or agnosticism if he did exist? It appears to touch a nerve. I’m about as certain as I can be that Augustus and a whole lot of other emperors existed (as Gould might say, we would be remiss to conclude otherwise, at least provisionally), and were worshipped as gods after their deaths. I don’t think Augustus ever became a god, but he existed and some people thought he was a god. It’s that simple.
RE: #96
I didn’t vouch for all the contents and details of Mark, or any of the other gospels. Textual critics have made good arguments that some of the gospels’ contents were almost certainly inserted long after their original writing and are very unlikely to be authentic to Jesus. See Bart Ehrman’s work as an example.
I do indeed think it is possible to remember things 25 years after the fact. There are known problems with oral history, of course, but it cannot be thrown out completely as a default. And again, like PZ, you fail to distinguish between Mark as the earliest *extact* writing on Jesus, and Mark as the earliest writing on Jesus. Just because Mark is the earliest (so far as we can tell) extant gospel we have about Jesus, it does not follow that “Mark” was really the first time someone wrote anything down about Jesus after he was executed. We do not have everything that existed in antiquity, consider the debate on the Q source, as an example.
And since I forgot to mention it before, Paul’s letters are even closer than the gospels. Of course, some of these are later fabrications as well, but not all of them are thought to be.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_St._Paul
And if people simply want to throw out any document that is actually from this particular religion as being hopelessly suspect, given that the copies that we have are not the first copies, and are copies of copies, well then I suggest that they dump a whole lot of classical texts in the Medieval Forgery garbage heap as well. If people want to believe it’s all some big conspiracy, that’s their business.
Again, my previous question is still why does Jesus have to not exist for some people?
I don’t know about “some people” but when I question his “existence” I am not doubting that some popular rebel existed 2000 years ago. Rather, I am doubting that he said and did 95% of the baloney that is attributed to him, and 100% of the miracle baloney.
As for gaping Jesus-peddling assholes like “Paul,” well of course they existed. In droves.
“I suggest that they dump a whole lot of classical texts in the Medieval Forgery garbage heap as well”
Gladly. What the hell difference could it possibly make to anyone except a historian whether they were forged or not?
Do I care if Beethoven “actually” wrote the Last Quartets?
Nope.
that should be “Late Quartets,” friends.
RE: #100
“Gladly. What the hell difference could it possibly make to anyone except a historian whether they were forged or not?”
Um, I wasn’t referring to the question of authorship. I was referring to what was actually written. If you will gladly throw those historical sources in the dump as madeup, then you are throwing away what we know about the past. You are throwing away history. Considering that we still teach history, I’d say that’s one important difference throwing out history could make. Do you really think history doesn’t matter? Or just classical history?
Things yes, accurate things less so. This has been proven time and time again in various studies of human memory. It’s just not realistic to expect details to be conveyed accurately.
This is true BUT it is all we have and while Q is interesting and in alot of ways compelling it is unproven.
If you think hell gets only a limited amount of traction you haven’t visited the south. I was raised as a very mild Methodist and I can say my conversion to an atheist was largely brought on by the idea of hell. It is invoked on a regular basis in this culture and is regarded as real by the vast majority of the populace. My extensive extended family is made up largely of southern Baptist and the fear and guilt that so many of them have is really sad. I had a brother-in-law who recently died of cancer and the biggest issue among many of the family was the fear he was going to hell because he wasn’t “saved” (he didn’t give a shit).
Jim
that should be “Mark as the earliest *extant* writing” in post 98
The big draw to all religions is the promise that you and everyone you have ever known and loved will not cease to exist. It is difficult for any other ideas–such as “your mom and dad are worm food”–to get much traction when the afterlife/reincarnation fictions have been on the bestseller list for millennia. I suspect that if there’s anything that will compel people to abandon the insanity of religion in this century, it will not be an appeal to reason but rather a marketing campaign that paints theists as pussies who are scared of death and/or too self-important to conceive of a universe in which their existence does indeed end when they die. I’m just skeptical that reason or evidence (or talk of lacking evidence) will mean much in an age when perhaps the majority of humans (as many have astutely pointed out here) think that “evidence” and “knowledge” are interchangeable with “feelings” and “beliefs.” While the works of Harris and Dawkins serve to invigorate the choir to which they preach, I think we’ll need to sell the non-theistic life a little better. Right now we just look like a bunch of angry scientists, when obviously one doesn’t need to take a single science course to NOT believe in magic men and hooved subterranean ghouls. For example, we could talk about how much lighter life can feel if you are not encumbered with the pressure of pleasing a deity who may or may not reveal himself to you when you kick the bucket.
I believe the Feline Anti-Defamation League would have something to say about that…
Matt:
Not a whit. During the post-exilic and Hellenic periods of Judean history, there were plenty of barefooted longbeards running around the place claiming to be the Messiah. The question I’m most interested in is why did this particular one — whose contemporary paper trail is just as sketchy as all the rest, and whose preachings were not fundamentally different from any other Bronze Age mystery cult — wind up with such a big and nutty fan-club?
Jesus himself, if the Gospel accounts can be trusted, wasn’t even particularly interested in preaching to non-Jews (Matthew 10:5-6). It was Paul who came along and fucked things up for everyone else.
If any of it turns out to be made up out of whole cloth by people who lived 1500 years after the fact, then no, those parts don’t matter. Not as history, anyway.
In fact, taking any pre-industrial historical text as literal fact requiring no further corroboration is inherently problematic. The modern concept of history as evidence-based inquiry into the past simply wasn’t in operation until well into the Enlightenment.
On the subject of meaning:
It is surely correct to claim that the sentence “What is the meaning of life?” is itself meaningful. On all plausible accounts of what gives meaning to words (not you Vienna!), this qualifies as a meaningful statement. To argue that it doesn’t have any meaning is to give in to chumps like Alister McGrath who claim that because sentences like “What is the meaning of life?” clearly are meaningful and science claims they’re not meaningful, it must be the case that there are some important factors which are beyond the realm of science.
The mistake people make is in arguing that Science cannot satisfactorily answer this question. IT DOES! The scientific method shows us that the answer to “What is the meaning of life?” as it is normally understood is:
THERE IS NO MEANING!
We can give meaning to our own lives but this clearly is not how the question is usually construed – it’s understood to be asking if there is any overall meaning/purpose to the whole of life (e.g. non-human purpose). The scientific method tells us that THERE IS NO GOOD REASON TO BELIEVE THAT THERE IS ANY OVERALL PURPOSE TO OUR LIVES.
I hope PZ never decides to accept a debate challenge on the historical Jesus or the historical grounds for the resurrection. According to his comments here, he would not fare well.
Kevin Harris
Why’s that, Kevin? Found any evidence that managed to escape everyone’s notice for the last 2000 years?
Or, and I’m taking a wild stab here, “IT’S IN THE BIBLE!” plus Josephus. Close?
Don’t allow someones belief in believing to substitute for evidence for a belief!
That is what Collins is doing.
the historical grounds for the resurrection.
It happens all the time! Why just last night I coulds’ swore my poor dog was dead. I couldn’t even see her breath.
And this morning? A miracle! She came back to life!
Don’t tell me she was only sleeping.
Wow, minimalist! Doesn’t look like you’d fare too well either!
Yes, there’s so very much evidence that some person came back from the dead. So very much that we can simply keep saying how poorly people would do in debates instead of actually specifying what the evidence is.
Kevin- put up or shut up. Put your cards on the table.
Matt (#97)
I think you miss the point. The issue is not “have to not exist”, or
even existence itself that is relevant, but what the evidence is, or what we have
good reason to believe. While there may be a few folks wandering about who want
to insist that Jesus did not exist, the “standard” position that I have seen is
something like “and there is precious little evidence that the Jesus of the Bible
even existed”.
No doubt someone existed. As Dan points out in (#108), there
certainly was no shortage of people claiming to be a prophet or messiah at the
time. Further, it seems clear that something happened that had a profound
effect on a group of people. That the apostled did what they did, and were even
willing to die for what they “believed” indicates that something affected
them. But note that the fact that the Branch Davidians were willing to die does
not count as evidence that David Koresh was the new messiah, or that his
teachings are anything but the ravings of a madman (if perhaps a charismatic one).
The problem is that the evidence for the Biblical Jesus (as opposed to
“someone” who existed or “something” that happened in the early part of the first
century, CE) is shockingly thin, indeed, nearing non-existent. The Gospels tell
of someone who was (at least for a short time), at least a minor “public figure”,
and who performed spectacular public miracles — and yet, there is no contemporary
evidence or account that such events even occurred. Indeed, the only
accounts available are “movement” hagiographies, written a generation or more
after the supposed events, and probably second-hand (or more removed) at that; so
far as we (or at least I) know, there are no corroborating accounts from
outside the “movement”. [Note: unless I am mistaken (and I welcome correction
if that is the case), the writings of Josephus and Tacitus are evidence for
people calling themselves “Christians” — and not evidence for the Biblical
(or any other) “Jesus”.]
Re. Hell, FYI Jesus talks about Hell in a number of places, and he often refers to it as a fiery place; so modern “liberal” Christians, Catholic or otherwise, who regard Hell as “separation from God” or whatever, are ignoring what Jesus said about it.
As a longtime atheist, I have spent much time reading philosophy, in particular about theories of ethics. A few years back I did an exercise in Bible Study, to find out what Jesus said about ethics: I went through the four Gospels and collected everything Jesus is reported to have said about what we should DO. Skipping the biography, the travelogue, the miracle stories, and all that. It turns out that Jesus’ reported teachings on ethics DO have an underlying logic to them. See http://www.rationalatheist.com/Articles/ethics_jesus.html
It seems to me that the reported words of Jesus would be the ultimate authority on what “real” Christianity consists of. But most contemporary Christians don’t even KNOW what Jesus taught, much less FOLLOW it.
Atheists should know the actual content of Jesus teachings also. They are useful for getting rid of evangelist pests. Qoute Jesus to them, about accumulating wealth, fighting evildoers, and following the Law of Moses, and they will run away and never come near you again.
Concerning evidence that Jesus existed and did at least some of what is attributed to him.
First, we do have the Bible. Yes, it consists of “movement” hagiographies. It doesn’t follow that it is not evidence. Second, to say that these were “written a generation or more after the supposed events, and probably second-hand (or more removed) at that” is misleading at best. On the one hand, “a generation or more” might mean a number of different things. Insofar as it suggests that there would have been no surviving witnesses from the time of Jesus’s ministry, when the scriptures were written, it is a mistaken claim. First of all, some of the Pauline letters date from about 20 years after Jesus’s ministry, and according to those letters themselves some of Jesus’s immediate disciples were alive at the time of their writing. Now, it’s true that the Pauline letters do not contain a lot of details of Jesus’s life, but they do attest to his crucifixion, resurrection, and the institution of the Eucharist. Furthermore, the earliest Gospel (Mark) is commonly dated to around 70 A.D. This would place it about 40 years after Jesus’s ministry. It is plausible that some of Mark’s sources were alive at the time of Jesus’s ministry (if they were younger than Jesus himself they could have been adults during his ministry and still in their early 60’s in 70 A.D.). So there is no need to posit on this basis that even the gospels were written based on “probably second-hand (or even more removed)” testimony. A recent book which argues that this is not the case even for John’s gospel (usually considered the most recent gospel) is Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.
As to other ancient sources: Josephus mentions Jesus by name, not merely his followers. He mentions him in two places that I know of. The first is the so-called Testimonimum Flavianum which explicitly describes Jesus as the Christ. This has been argued to be a later interpolation, but the current scholarly consensus seems to be that Josephus did write something about Jesus, although it has been corrupted by later additions. The second passage is a reference to the trial of James, the brother of Jesus (named by Josephus as the brother of Jesus). Again, the scholarly consensus seems to be that this is authentic, although possibly corrupted. The point is that the scholarly consensus is that Josephus mentions Jesus by name in one and possibly two places, writing around 93 AD, although these passages as we now have them contain claims about Jesus that were probably interpolated at a later date. There are skeptics who dispute this but they seem to be in the minority, especially with respect to the second reference to James the brother of Jesus. (The Wikipedia article “Josephus on Jesus” summarizes the controversy and give references to non-Wikipedia sources including a 2003 book on the Testimonium Flaviarum, a 2000 paper by the same author, a book on James the brother of Jesus, as well as more skeptical sources. I’ve read about this in a number of places — some skeptical, some not, some online, some published books. I’m not a scholar of this material but just reporting what any educated person can find pretty easily by googling. For example, see this: http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/jdtabor/josephus-jesus.html
This is from James Tabor at North Carolina, a promoter of the “Jesus tomb” who is certainly not a defender of orthodox Christianity — he argues plainly that people don’t rise from the dead, so there was no resurrection — but obviously a scholar who accepts the historicity of the person of Jesus — otherwise why look for his tomb? The maximally skeptical position seems to be represented by such sites as http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/scott_oser/hojfaq.html. However, as far as I can tell, this site gets things wrong about the “scholarly consensus” when it states “Many Biblical scholars reject the entire Testimonium Flavianum as a later Christian insertion. However, some maintain that Josephus’s work originally did refer to Jesus, but that Christian copyists later expanded and made the text more favorable to Jesus.” It seems to me the “many” and the “some” should be changed to “some” and “most”. Also, it seems to me misleading when this article refers to “the consensus, if there is such a thing” later on. At least that’s my opinion based on what I’ve read. Ask your local expert.)
Paul’s letters conflict with the accounts given in the Gospels. Nor do they even provide enough information to determine whether Jesus was considered to have been an actual person or a fictional creation at the time of their writing.
By your reasoning, we have evidence that Mithras was born out of a stone.
Uber, Caledonia, minimalist,
I try to limit myself to debate at one place on the net rather than start long threads all over the place and try to keep up (short ones like this are even hard to come back to).
First, please come to carm.org and look for “Kevin H” on the Apologetics and Atheism Boards. We can debate or discuss freely and fairly.
Or, I’m willing to consider any forum outside the net. I think these issues should be debated and I’m seeing a lack of information here, starting with PZ himself.
Kevin H
We can do all those things just fine right here.
Kevin-
With all due respect what I’m seeing hereis someone who doesn’t understand evidence and apparently is afraid to answer the simplest questions.
Hmm…Jesus Christ and Julius Caesar…both with the initials “JC.” Coincidence? Maybe…
Well, I suppose that you could say that second-hand (or more removed) stories
recorded long after the events they purport to describe by highly-biased reporters
are indeed some sort of “evidence” — but such “evidence” would normally be
considered shockingly weak, and demand some sort of corroboration if it is to be
taken seriously.
Further, whatever might be said about Paul (and there is no doubt a great deal
that could be said about Paul), and whatever his letters might purport to “attest
to”, Paul is not a contemporary witness, and indeed is not a “witness” at all
to those things he “attests to”. In addition to being biased, the problem with
Paul’s “testimony” is the same as that with Josephus and Tacitus: the only thing
he can “attest to” is that someone told him something. Indeed, even if we were to
take the Josephus text as fully original (which has its own problems), this would
provide “evidence” only of what he was told by others.
The thing is, no one (I don’t think) questions the fact that there was a
Christian movement (or, probably more accurately, several “Christian” movements)
in the first few hundred years, CE. And I don’t think that anyone doubts that
something must have happened to set it off. But the mere fact that some
stories were recorded (long after the fact, by biased “witnesses” who were not
themselves witnesses to the events in their stories), does not provide anything
more than the most doubtful possible “evidence” for the reality of the events they
purport to describe. Which is not enough to conclude that the the purported events
did not happen as described (although there are some other reasons to think
that such is the case), but it does mean that the value of such stories as
evidence very closely approaches zero.
Can you guys come over to the CARM chat room for a bit? Let’s discuss some evidence.
Kevin H
Caledonian,
I don’t know what letters of Paul you’ve been reading. Sticking only to the letters of undisputed Pauline composition, mine tell me that Jesus was a human being (Romans 5:15-17, Philippians 2:7-8), a descendant of David (Romans 1:3), who was betrayed (1 Corinthians 11:23-25), and who on the night of his betrayal broke bread, declared it to be his body, shared out wine, declared it to be a new covenant in his blood, and asked his followers to do this as a remembrance of him (1 Corinthians 11:23-25), and who as a result of his betrayal was put to death through crucifixion (I don’t need references for this do I?) by the Jews (1 Thessalonians 2:14-16). Of course, Paul also claims repeatedly that Jesus was divine and that he rose from the dead.
I don’t know where the contradiction with the Gospels is supposed to lie in all of this. Nor do I see why this gives us no information about Jesus’s life. True, it isn’t like the detailed Gospel accounts, but Paul was writing for a different purpose to people who knew the story and were very close to the actual time being described by Paul.
Please note that I am not here trying to make a case for the historicity of such claims as the resurrection. Merely a case that Jesus is a historical figure in a way that Mithras, say, is not. I think Jesus-existence-skepticism, unlike skeptical atheism, is just plain silly. I don’t think the same thing about the skeptical atheism popular around these parts, even though I disagree with it.
Greg,
I don’t think you read my remarks carefully.
I don’t think that the Gospel writers wrote down things that were reported to them at many removes. And I think “long after the fact” distorts things again. I think it’s entirely possible they wrote down things told to them by people purporting to be eyewitnesses, that they wrote down things *in living memory*. This is entirely compatible with things being written down 50 years after they happened. Anyone who has ever listened to their grandparents reminisce about the end of the second World War knows this is possible and that the reports they give aren’t entirely to be dismissed, even if they don’t agree in all details.
For example, perhaps Mark wrote down what Peter told him (as tradition has it). Now, if that’s right, well, Peter couldn’t write, so Mark wrote for him; but how different is that from Peter writing out his own memoirs? Eventually, of course, we only have what someone has told (or purports to tell) *us*, but then the same goes for Julius Caesar, or Socrates.
As to Paul, he clearly was alive during Jesus’s lifetime as he was a grown man persecuting Christians within a few years of Jesus’s lifetime. He was a part of that culture and he would know of Jesus in the same way that I know of things going on in my culture that I haven’t witnessed personally.
Again, the issue right now isn’t whether everything recorded in the Gospels is accurate. I don’t claim that all that Mark wrote down was true — I am granting for the moment, for the sake of this argument, that Peter may have imagined a lot or fabricated a lot.
I would be happy for the moment if this much was conceded: There was a man named Jesus who was an itinerant preacher and wonder worker in early 1st century Palestine. He gathered around him a group of followers. Eventually, he was put to death by the Romans, by the standard technique of crucifixion. His followers believed that he rose from the dead and came to identify him as divine.
Some people are skeptical that even this much is historical truth. They think some people in the second half of the 1st century CE made up the story of Jesus in order to promote their own new mystery religion.
This, I think, is silliness.
Just for the record, CARM is the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry.
Wonder worker? Strangely enough, we have little evidence that anyone has ever worked actual wonders and miracles. We have lots of evidence of magicians and con artists, though.
The evidence indicates at most that some people believed and repeated the claim that there was a person named Jesus etc. etc.
There isn’t even enough evidence to demonstrate that such a person actually existed. For all we know, he could have been made up.
Kevin Harris wrote:
We’ll do it right here. But we’ll go ahead use some apologetics from CARM. Here’s the beginning of the conclusion in an article at CARM titled “Was Jesus just a myth?”:
That’s it, four accounts written decades later and no clue who wrote them. That’s remarkably weak historical evidence for anything. Considering that Jesus is claimed to be a god that came to the planet via a virgin, there should be tons of physical as well as documented evidence. We should at least be able to go to Bethlehem, or wherever it was he was supposedly born, and view his placenta.
Caledonian: I put in “wonder worker” to allow for the possibility of his being a scam or con artist or ordinary magician (the sort who works with tricks and diversions). I simply meant “one who works wonders,” that is, one who does things that others (at the time) can’t understand.
But really, to all you Jesus-existence-skeptics: do you have doubts about the existence of Socrates? All we have is other people telling us about him, and the oldest manuscripts are considerably more removed from Socrates’s time than the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels are from Jesus’s. And the reports tend to be written by fans of Socrates. So why believe in Socrates?
The accounts of Socrates do not include tales of magic powers, godhood, and personal encounters with Satan.
Although I should state that I agree that the existence of a Jewish mystic who was executed in first century Palestine sounds like a perfectly plausible thing to me, as long as the tales of magic powers, godhood, and personal encounters with Satan are discounted. That tends to piss off Christians, too, though.
Ok so someone comes and tells you they have seen a ghost 20 years ago you accept this as evidence that they did? Not to mention virtually every single memory study ever done shows how quickly and easily details change and intermingle with other memories.
It’s not whether he actually existed but rather could a largely superstitous and illiterate people really understand the world as we would now. They knew what they knew and compared with today that simply wasn’t enough. GIven the rampant superstition of totday and the claims made by such whats the difference between then and now?
No, it is a virtual certainty that the name Mark was assigned to the book not the name of the actual author.
And they should be skeptical. The fact that more aren’t perhaps is more of a problem. I think he existed but one cannot say everything you list is to be taken as a given simply because all we have is the gospel story and that may have come from one source. It’s simply not enough to be remotely certain.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Mohammed is more like the Jesus story. But I disagree that it is pure silliness. That would be say catholism. I don’t buy the Jesus as pure myth myself but it is not silliness and some of the arguments they present are not easily dismissed.
In other words, Kevin’s evidence is “IT’S IN THE BIBLE!” plus Josephus.
Can I call it or can I call it?
Not like it’s difficult, mind; not like we haven’t hard it already 100,000,000 times over…
And none of that addresses the evidence for the resurrection in the slightest, which is what Kevin originally promised. At best, he has weak evidence for a historical personage around whom cult legends have sprung. Nothing more.
YES. Especially since the story about his death may have been the inspiration for the Jesus story.
One of the interesting things about Mark is that the author probably never set foot in Palestine. On at least two occasions the author gets the geography mixed up. Geography is one of the things we can check contemporaneously; if the geography is wrong, it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the text.
Caledonian says that he doubts Socrates’s existence “especially since the story about his death may have been the inspiration for the Jesus story.” What can I say? That is amazingly bad logic for such a self-proclaimed rational thinker.
Uber thinks “it is a virtual certainty that the name Mark was assigned to the book not the name of the actual author.” I think that “virtual certainty” is way too strong. But, grant that — let us just use the name “Mark” as the label for the author of that book, then (without assuming any identification with an individual named “John Mark” in the Gospels). The real question is whether, as tradition has it, “Mark” was basing his Gospel at least in part on direct reports from Simon Peter.
PZ: Well, actually, there are things in Socrates’s biography that might give you pause. Famously, he was set on his path by the Delphic oracle’s riddling claim that he was the wisest man in the world. And he heard a voice, his “daemonic sign,” that he credited with helping him to avoid errors at crucial moments. I don’t know of any miracle cures, though.
And, since the only record of Socrates’ existence is found in the writings of one of his supposed students, it is entirely possible that he never existed at all and was simply made up by Plato.
Similarly, there was no Uncle Remus, and there may have been no Aesop.
Do you believe in S. Morgenstern and the unabridged version of “The Princess Bride”, too?
“the existence of a Jewish mystic who was executed in first century Palestine sounds like a perfectly plausible thing to me”
Indeed.
Rabbi Akiva
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbi_Akiva
Bar Kokhba
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_bar_Kokhba
Correction: right link for Rabbi Akiva
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Martyrs
My understanding is that there are various contemporary (pre-hemlock) references to Socrates – the very thing that’s missing in this case. Now, when you get down to it, I do think it is entirely probable – quite likely, in fact – that someone more or less matching the description Michael sets forth in the 1:14 comment existed – even named something that would be ‘Joshua’ in modern English and Jesus in an odd English transliteration of a Greek transliteration of a Hebrew name. It certainly seems less likely that the entire thing would just be made up out of whole cloth, without any historical core. But there isn’t really anything one can point to as independent evidence, besides the two extremely brief, probably corrupted, and decades-later references mentioned above. Indeed, I had always assumed that there was quite solid evidence for a historical Jesus, and it was a bit of a surprise to find out that this was very far from the case. Given that we’re supposed to accept very unusual claims about the fellow, I find it at least rhetorically rather striking that his very existence is sorta unsupported. Otherwise, I tend to think, like Greg, that it’s more the case that something happened, but we’re probably never going to be able to confidently reconstruct exactly what. My hunch is if you take the gospel accounts, (obviously) strip out the supernatural stuff, shrink it down a good bit, and squint so that everything blurry, they might well be more or less the right shape, but that’s the point – even with a good bit more expertise, a hunch is probably the best one can do (although I may be overstating this a bit).
Now, the details of Socrates’ death, I’m definitely doubtful about, and some of the details of his philosophy as well . . .
“Do you believe in S. Morgenstern and the unabridged version of “The Princess Bride”, too?
Of course! What are you, some sort of heretic? : )
Think about it: a very wise and humble man tried to show people the error of their ways, gathered various followers to him, was put on trial for embarassing the wrong people, and sentenced to death unjustly.
It’s Socrates’ supposed tragic death that makes him so memorable, and probably did a great deal to cement his story and teachings into the Greek mind. Then we have a fusion of Jewish beliefs and Greek philosophy, and who’s the center figure?
A very wise and humble man who tried to show people the error of their ways, gathered various followers to him, was put on trial for embarassing the wrong people, and was sentenced to death unjustly.
The Christ story is Socrates with less philosophy and more miracles.
This is nonsensical. If I grant your ascertion it still isn’t an eyewitness. Your making to many leaps to make a serious argument. You would have to establish Peter relayed the story, that he was actually a witness, and that there was a story to tell. Thats a tall order. Then he’d have to be credible and supported by other sources. It simply isn’t there.
Not to mention that many parts of the story Peter couldn’t have witnessed. This is all rather beside the point though. I doubt you’d be making the same claims about Mohammed and his ascention to heaven despite the more recent date and more reliable historical writings of the Koran. If you find your argument compelling(and I frankly can’t see how) then you must be blown away by the Islamic argument and the Mormons and Joseph Smith must make you all tingly.
Bottom line all ‘eyewitness’ accounts of supernatural events seem to follow the same suspect pattern.
And I think virtual certainty is the correct word usage above.
That’s one of the things that always got me about the “eyewitness” claim fundies often try to pull. Even if you grant that the gospels were written by the actual historical apostles, there are aspects of the story to which they were clearly not eyewitnesses anyway: offhand I can think of the Nativity (indeed all of his history prior to meeting the 12 disciples), praying alone in the Garden of Gethsemane (how do they know what he said?), the temptation in the desert, his post-resurrection discovery by the Maries, etc.
There’s no way around it: they have to admit that a significant portion of those books is not eyewitness testimony. How reliable would they find it then? It’d be interesting to see how they respond.
Michael Kremer, I am reading your remarks carefully; the problem is
that they don’t serve to accomplish what you want them to accomplish.
Yes, memories from 50 years in the past “aren’t entirely to be dismissed” — but
they are likewise not uncritically to be accepted. We know that memory can be
inaccurate, even over the short term, and particularly so over the long term and when
some particular version of events is in the interest of the person “remembering”. Let
us assume (though I think that there is precious little reason to accept even this
assumption) that some apostle told the stories to someone else 50 years after the fact.
What we then have is someone who has been active in the movement for 50 years, telling
the story that attempts to justify his life. Here is the problem with memory: even if
this person really believes what he is saying, there remains considerable ground for
skepticism regarding the accuracy of his memory.
My father has told me stories about naval action in the Pacific at the end of WWII,
and I have every reason to believe that they are truthful (that is, honest recollections
of what he remembers), as well as no reason to believe that they are not at least mostly
accurate (that is, accurate accounts of what actually happened), as they recount the
normal experiences of a sailor of the time, and are completely coherent with everything
that we/I know about the time and place. However, if he were to tell a story about how
his PT boat single-handedly sunk a Japanese Battleship, then I would be somewhat more
skeptical, as such would be an extraordinary event (not impossible, but exceedingly
unlikely). And if it turned out that there was no evidence of his PT boat being at
that place and time, no evidence of any action by his (or any other) PT boat at that
place and time, and indeed no evidence of any Japanese battleship being sunk at that
place and time, then I would be (rightly, I think) exceedingly skeptical — at
least about the accuracy of his report, even if he appeared truly to believe it. And
this illustrates the relevance of independent contemporary evidence, even with regard
to first-hand testimony.
And we don’t have even this. If we accept your assumptions, then we have a case of
one person telling a story as told by another person about events long in the past.
Further, that story is one that has been told and retold many times since the events
it purports to describe, which events further are truly remarkable — but remarked
nowhere in the historical record. None of which, of course, proves that the account
is not accurate, but it does mean that as evidence, the account is staggeringly
weak. And this is under the best possible assumptions!
And none of this even approaches the problems of attempting to cite Paul, or
Josephus, or Tacitus, as evidence. It is not correct to say that Paul “would
know of Jesus” — unless by “know of Jesus” you mean “know what those in the movement
said about Jesus”. As I noted before, what Paul writes about the events can
only “attest to” or “be evidence for” what someone told him (and this is — again —
given the best possible assumptions). As a parallel: I cannot meaningfully “attest
to” the events in NYC on September 11, 2001, as I was not there. I can only “attest to”
what has been reported to me. Granted, given the quantity and quality of information
available, I think that I have a reasonably good picture of those events — but even so,
any report of mine is only “evidence” of what has been reported to me. I can
“attest to” (at least some of) the events at the last Tompkins Square riot of 1991,
as I was there. I have no doubt that my account would be partial and quite probably
inaccurate in some ways, but at least it would be a report of what I witnessed, rather
than a report of what I was told.
As for what the evidence shows, I submit that there is sufficient evidence to
suggest that there was an itinerant preacher who gathered together a group of
followers, and no good reason to doubt that his name was ‘Jesus’/’Jeshua’. This
evidence is circumstantial — we know that there were itinerant preachers at the time,
we know that the group of followers existed, and the followers say that their leader
was ‘Jesus’ — but on balance seems reasonable to accept. The problem is that the
evidence for anything more than this is exceedingly thin. A “wonder worker”?
Unfortunately, the only “evidence” for such are second-hand (or more removed) reports
by biased reporters long after the fact. And more problematically, the “wonders”
reported are in some cases truly spectacular and noteworthy– yet there are no
contemporary accounts. One might well conclude (on the basis of the circumstantial
evidence) that he was probably charismatic, but one can’t go any further.
Careful, you seem to be presenting a false dichotomy. To the best of my knowledge,
there are but a handful of people who assert that “Jesus” (in some form or
another) did not exist — at all. As I noted previously, the issue is that the
evidence for the Biblical Jesus is astonishingly weak. Circumstantial evidence
would suggest that there was indeed a charismatic leader, and the documentary evidence
plainly shows that people eventually came to believe all manner of things about him —
but what these people “came to believe” fifty, or one hundred, or two hundred years
later is not any sort of “evidence” that what they “came to believe” was true,
nor that the stories they told were accurate.
In short, the problem is that, even under the most favorable plausible assumptions,
the most that there is evidence for is that “some charismatic leader existed”
and “people later came to believe things”. As any sort of “evidence” for the
Biblical Jesus (meaning: the ‘Jesus’ as described in the Bible), this very closely
approaches “none at all”. There was a Kingdom of Mycenae, and there may well have been
a King Agamemnon, but this is not evidence that the Iliad is a true story.
Greg Byshenk, you say “To the best of my knowledge, there are but a handful of people who assert that “Jesus” (in some form or another) did not exist — at all.”
Well, there have been four of that handful who posted above: Chris Gruber, Kagehi, Caledonian, and Colugo (I count Colugo because in answer to the claim that “the existence of a Jewish mystic who was executed in first century Palestine sounds like a perfectly plausible thing to me” he cites two individuals who were executed long after the Jesus movement was underway. In fact neither of these individuals was executed in the first century = before 100, but that just shows you Colugo’s grasp of history.)
My argument was with them, and in that argument I have presented no false dichotomy.
Caledonian: about Socrates, Plato isn’t the only source. There is quite a lot in Xenophon.
Uber: about Mohammed, and Joseph Smith: on the level at which we’re debating now (see my previous post for the “we”), namely whether Jesus existed, I don’t doubt that Mohammed and Joseph Smith existed. Nor do I doubt that they had visions of some kind and that those visions were connected to the production of the Koran and the book of Mormon. These seem like historical facts to me. But I doubt the supernatural provenance of their visions. You may go on to ask me why I don’t have similar doubts about the Bible. But actually I don’t think the Bible itself has a supernatural provenance. It was written by human beings. I do believe that it describes events that actually happened and that have a supernatural significance. But that’s not an argument I was trying to make, or am now trying to make, and I won’t get into that here.
There are three sources of information about Socrates: Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle. Aristotle likely never met the man, and the preceding two were supposedly his disciples.
As I said, it is entirely possible that he never existed. It is also possible that he existed, but things were merely attributed to him.
And the evidence for his existence is much stronger than that which exists for Jesus Christ.
Michael Kremer, let me first say that none of the examples you list are those
who assert that ‘”Jesus” (in some form or another) did not exist — at all.’
But a great deal turns on what exactly one means to assert. That is, if the
question is: “is there reason to believe that there was someone named Jeshua in the area
of Jerusalem around 30 CE?” then the answer is almost certainly ‘yes’. On the other
hand, if the question is “is there reason to believe that the Biblical Jesus
existed?” then the answer is almost certainly ‘no’. And, in relation to those you noted,
I see no reason to interpret what they have written as saying anything other than what
I have written; that is: the evidence for the Biblical Jesus very closely
approaches zero.
Second, let me add that you have not in any way addressed the matter of the false
dichotomy, and further, whether or not those you mention (or anyone else) would assert
that “Jesus did not exist” has no bearing on that false dichotomy. The false dichotomy
you presented was between accepting a certain (in some respects highly questionable)
“historical truth” and “some people […] made up the story of Jesus”. And this is
a false dichotomy, because one can accept a certain more limited “historical truth” as
reasonable to believe, and therefore reject both your questionable “historical
truth” and idea that it was entirely “made up” (and there are other alternatives,
as well).
Third, I will only note that you did not address the main part of my argument at
all.
Perhaps the following new scholarly initiative will get us closer to a definitive answer on the historical Jesus:
Center for Inquiry Committee Launches New Jesus Project
Amherst, New York (February, 06 2007)–The Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER), a project of the Center for Inquiry/Transnational, announced at the conclusion of its January 25-28 “Scripture and Skepticism” conference at the University of California at Davis that it will begin an international research project called “The Jesus Project.” The new effort will be devoted to examining the case for the historical existence of Jesus, based on a rigorous application of the historical critical method to the gospels and related literature.
Unlike the “Jesus Seminar,” founded in 1985 by the late University of Montana Professor Robert Funk, the new Project regards the claim that Jesus of Nazareth was an historical figure as a “testable hypothesis.” R. Joseph Hoffmann, chair of the Committee since 2003 and former lecturer at Oxford University, said that the project has been called for by a number of scholars who felt that the first Jesus Seminar may have been–for political reasons–too reluctant to follow where the evidence led. “When you have pared the sayings of Jesus down to fewer than twenty, one begins to wonder about the survivors,” Hoffmann said.
According to Hoffmann, the goal is not to “disprove” Jesus or to sensationalize the question of his existence, but to acknowledge the question and examine it impartially–without theological or apologetic constraints. “The Jesus Project is an attempt to evaluate every scrap of evidence for the historical Jesus, but it is also an attempt to evaluate the quality of the evidence itself–something that earlier projects did not do explicitly. This new project will be more inclusive and rigorous in its approach. It will include scholars from a variety of areas outside biblical and religious studies, including archaeologists, social historians, classicists and people in historical linguistics,” said Hoffmann.
The Jesus Project will be limited to 50 members; scholars plan to meet twice a year, with geographical venues changing each year. The meetings and discussions will also be open to the public. The work of the seminar will consist of the writing of unanimous opinions, and where that is not possible, majority and minority opinions, written as articles, which will be gathered and published once a year under the CSER imprint with Prometheus Books. The work of the Project is limited to five years; at which point a final report will be issued by the committee members.
The work of the Project is being financed through sponsors and donors. Patrons of the committee receive certain benefits; members in the associate category receive free admission to the open sessions of the Jesus Project. Information on becoming a patron, sponsor, or associate of the Jesus Project is available by writing to the project administrator, Gwyneth MacRae, at gmacrae@centerforinquiry.net.
CSER was founded in 1983 and is a research committee in the Religion and Science division of the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, New York. CSER encourages the use of the historical and applied sciences in the study of religion and provides educational programs for the public as part of its religious-literacy initiatives
John Bach: that sure sounds like a group that hasn’t made up its mind yet… Prometheus Books is sponsoring this, eh? They have a nice balanced set of publications on this sort of issue, don’t they? And CSER is a branch of the Center for Secular Humanism. And this group accepts that the Jesus Seminar has already pared down the possibly legit sayings to 20 — as if there’s no controversy about their claims among legitimate scholars…
Why should I suppose that this inquiry will actually shed light on anything whatsoever? I already know what the results will be — don’t you?
MK: They are legitimate scholars:
>Members of the Project include James M. Robinson (senior consultant), editor of the international Q Project and of the Nag Hammadi (Gnostic) Library project; Van Harvey, a leading philosopher and historian and chair emeritus of Religious Studies at Stanford University; Gerd Luedemann, a Jesus Seminar veteran and professor at the University of Goettingen; Robert Price, editor of the Journal of Higher Criticism; and other leading scholars in biblical studies, classics and ancient history, social anthropology and archaeology.< Attack their arguments when they appear, but let's not condemn the idea of a group of biblical scholars focusing on the historicity issue without being restrained in a theological straight jacket. Barring some decisive piece of new evidence, the issue isn't likely to be resolved definitively one way or the other. But let's listen in for the next five years as the left-leaning scholars make their case.
Shermer this is more than a little dishonest:
The men will follow the evidence and be vetted by 50 members. Your attempt to demean them before they start shows your bias and inability to be fair minded. Perhaps you are projecting your way of thinking onto others.
There isn’t alot of question on the 20 among top scholars. Of course folks writing in the pews may not like it but the arguments are pretty strong. And no I don’t know what the results will be. But I expect honest men to produce honest results. By your comments here I suspect at your core your are to emotionally attached to whatever dogma you where raised to see this issue clearly. Folks like you never seem to understand that it is entirely possible for honest scholars to seek the truth. People attached to dogma are less likely to do so simply becuase they NEED for their beliefs to be true. Why that is you can decide for yourself.
Agreed then BUT the evidence for both is much stronger than for that which we are discussing.
Of course you do because you where raised with this religion in this culture the same as I. Likewise for a mormon or muslim. The thing is you discount the events in those books with nary a thought while embracing your own dogma with credulity.
And of course given enough time you’d start the two step on a variety of issues regarding that which you say you think happened above.
Uber: my name is not “Shermer” — for some reason I think you’ve done that before. A curious confusion.
I don’t think I was dishonest. A bit quick on the draw, I agree. I reacted a bit too quickly. I am suspicious, though, when such a venture is sponsored by an organization that has an obvious bias on the issue. I’d be equally suspicious if it was sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. It’d be nicer if it were sponsored by some or other major university.
That said, the mere fact that there will be 50 members proves not very much. It matters how representative they are. John Bach provides some names. This list is somewhat promising. At least the list doesn’t consist entirely of Jesus-existence-skeptics. In fact the work of the first three is all of the let’s-find-out-what-Jesus-really-said-and-did type that presupposes that Jesus actually existed. Only Price is a genuine Jesus-existence-skeptic. So I take it back — I am willing to concede that the conclusion this group will reach is not foregone.
Nonetheless, there is not a single conservative scholar on this list (NT Wright, Luke Timothy Johnson, Darrell Bock, Ben Witherington, Richard Bauckham, etc — the people who believe Jesus existed and that a considerable amount of what the Gospels report is true).
So I will indeed wait five years and see what they come up.
Uber: “There isn’t alot of question on the 20 among top scholars.” I take it this means that among “top scholars” there isn’t much question that at most 20 things reported to have been said by Jesus in the Gospels were actually said by him. That sure depends on who you count as “top scholars.” I strongly doubt that there is a consensus on this that would include the more conservative “top scholars”. Who do you count as “top scholars,” and who do you exclude? What’s your standard?
PS: I am not actually sure what Van Harvey believes. I am hardly an expert on biblical scholarship, just someone who reads around in his spare time, and I hadn’t heard of him before today. So I am prepared to be corrected about his work, which I just acquainted myself with in the past hour or so through a quick look on Amazon. He may be the conservative on the panel, in which case the strength of my opinion that the panel is biased will go down several more notches.
M. Kermer,
Or someone who skims quickly, I apologize.
I must disagree here. That company is just a publisher, they will publish the result. They are not precluding any finding one way or the other. I find them relatively unbiased. From what I know and have learned the panel is fairly representative. Of course in truth so was the Jesus seminar and that got bashed also. Why? Because their objective findings made them ‘liberal’ to people attached to dogma. I’m pretty certain many would self identify as ‘conservative’. Whats wrong with finding the truth? why does that make people afraid?
Could it be that is because the men you list while good are not generally considered on par with the others?(with the exception of Wright to a degree). And what exactly makes one ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’ here? To be honest it baffles me how anyone can state with any conviction historically that the gospels are true in the supernatural sense and maintain creditibility among anyone. You want to make the case for a historical person, make the case but to go beyond that seems to me, well, silly.
One could list an endless stream of things(as minimalist has done above) that would have been impossible for a witness to write down in the gospels.
The consensus among biblical scholars is that the number is fairly representative of what is likely correct. Here again you go ‘conservative’ vs ‘liberal’. I think this reveals your mindset again. I don’t care what they call themselves. I look for the better line of evidence and argument. It appears to me you prejudice just about everything from the get go. It’s a poor way to find the truth.
Happy Easter!
I really must slow down.
I apologize again Michael KREMER! :-)
“As an atheist, what evidence would convince you to believe in a God?”
I’m not asking for anything more than Saul, Peter, or Thomas got.
Is that a problem? Is expecting the same amount of evidence that God’s favorites got asking too much?