Collaborators in the exciting search for truth

27 Comments

1. To me, this just seems confused.

   The word “evidence”, like just about any other English word, has a range of meanings. It could mean “that which I find personally persuading” or it could mean “that which would be accepted in a peer reviewed scientific article.” Those are two very different meanings.

   I am not aware of any atheists who are demanding to be allowed into Church to present their evidence against God. I am not aware of atheist groups demanding that highway billboard promoting theism be removed.

   The main place where there are disagreements, is in the demands by some theists, to present their “evidence” in the science classroom. But surely, it is the scientific understanding of evidence that should apply in the science classroom.

   I would guess that if a teacher brought up fine tuning as evidence for an abstract God in a philosophy class, there would not be a lot of opposition from atheists. In the USA, if they bring that up as evidence for the Christian god, and if they do this is a public school, there will be objections due to the constitution limitations. But a philosophic discussion of whether it is evidence for an abstract deity would be allowed.

   The alleged “zero-concession” is mostly to do with attempts to insert into the science classroom, evidence claims that do not meet the requirements of scientific evidence.

2. The reason other bloggers who are non-christians can’t have a meaningful conversation with you is that your Jesus totally blocks your ability to have this conversation. Your mindset is “win at all cost” , “always have the last word” and use phrases like “overwhelming evidence” when there is little or none.

   I might believe in Jesus if he were to come to earth and prove himself to me. You on the other hand would NEVER accept an alternative religious figure if they did.

   The only truth you are looking for is any piece that can support your belief system. I wouldn’t call that being open to or seeking the truth where ever it might lead you. You would NEVER allow the truth to lead you away from Jesus.

   You can talk about how unreasonable deists and atheists are but you might want to pull the log out of your eye before commenting on the splinters in our eyes.

   My comments are just my observations. I mean no disrespect .

3. I reckon Ken just about scored a bullseye here, and I am beginning to suspect you are perfectly aware of what you’re doing when you put up such contentious posts.

   There really is only one area of major disagreement – Jesus.
   You want us to believe there is sufficient “expert” opinion/evidence that he was an historical figure? Fine, smile….you got it.

   But let’s get one thing straight, once and for all.
   There is not a single non-christian in the world that will accede to the belief that the Jesus, as portrayed in the bible, and later, for religio/political reasons was turned into your God by the Church is anything but a narrative construct.
   That is faith. Nothing else, and this you have to deal with. If you can square away such a fantasy based on the fallacious and obviously erroneous nature of the gospels, and your are happy, that’s wonderful. Truly.
   But, please, play nice and don’t teach this to children? Okay?

4. Thanks guys for reading and commenting.

   Neil, of course you are right that “evidence” has a range of meaning, but Vic in his blog I referenced gave his definition, a Bayesian one: “evidence for hypothesis H exists if there is something that is more likely to exist given H than not-h”.

   In this case, he was reacting to a discussion by John Loftus here.

   Ken, thanks for the “disclaimer” in your last sentence. I won’t be replying to those personal comments further. Likewise Far King I won’t be replying to your personal comments either, but I will touch on one important matter.

   “There is not a single non-christian in the world that will accede to the belief that the Jesus …. is anything but a narrative construct.”

   I’m glad to clarify something that you may not have noticed. I always try to distinguish between factual matters (in the case of Jesus, this means the findings of the best secular historians) and the opinions or beliefs we each might draw from those facts.

   I try to avoid asking anyone to accede to any belief. I leave that to each person to decide for themselves. Instead, I mostly try to give facts and sometimes I offer my beliefs based on those facts.

   If you keep that distinction in mind, it may save you some keyboard time! 🙂

5. While you are perfectly entitled to blog in any fashion you choose, your approach , as with all Christians, presupposes that the biblical character you worship was real. You then merely bolster this belief with a carefully selected number of secular historians to ”pad” out the your faith.

   While your approach might seem, on the surface, to be one of integrity it really isn’t as the character certain secular historians claim existed and the one described in the Bible are two entirely different individuals, and the only thing they likely have in common is they are probably both fictional – most certainly one is.

   As I am sure you would prefer to be considered as a person of integrity in the regard, it would be a lot better if you made it perfectly clear that there really is no evidence for the biblical character and this belief is based purely on faith.
   If you keep this distinction firmly in mind, it may also save you some keyboard time.
   Just a thought…

6. “Ken, thanks for the “disclaimer” in your last sentence. I won’t be replying to those personal comments further.”

   “Likewise Far King I won’t be replying to your personal comments either, but I will touch on one important matter.”

   Of course you won’t. This is your typical way of dismissing anyone or anything which doesn’t agree with your belief system. This is a perfect example of why Christians like yourself can’t have a meaningful discussion with a “non-believer” .

   But then again…….it is your blog . When I was a child, I would go with other kids to play in the sandbox of one of our friends. He always stated the rules by which we would play. The rules were always weighed in his favor and were usually unreasonable. After a while he was left playing in his sandbox all my himself. 🙂

7. “Of course you won’t. This is your typical way of dismissing anyone or anything which doesn’t agree with your belief system.”

   Ken, are you able to tell me, please, what response I could make to your personal comments that would satisfy you?

8. I’m not looking for satisfaction. If you want meaningful discussion you can’t dismiss other’s views and be absolute with your own.

   I’m not the first to share these views with you. Many people from other blogs have done the same.

   I just find it odd that you are so dismissive of this.

9. Ken is correct in his observations. Evidence in this regard has changed perspectives about the bible and continues to do so.
   Only extreme fundamentalists hold to the inerrancy of the texts amid evidence to the contrary.
   Your arguments are not really looking for truth but rather a form of truth that enhances your faith.
   Yoo posit a belief in a divine being – Jesus – and proceed from there.
   That the Pentateuch has been demonstrated to be fiction has serious implications for all monotheism, and belief in Jesus as a god/creator.
   However, scientific findings are not widely circulated (for obvious reasons) and the respective faiths appear to be either steadfastly ignoring the evidence or marshaling their beliefs to find a way to tackle such issues with the minimum impact for believers.

   There will more than likely come a time when current religion is merely regarded as a quaint part of history, much like you, unklee might regard the worship of Mithra, or Zeus.

   What will the next batch of biblical experts bring to the table?
   In fact, have any of the current experts over the past 100 years enhanced religion’s standing in the world?
   Based on the evidence, emphatically no.
   And as scientific investigative techniques improve the likelihood that religions such as Christianity or Islam will be vindicated are diminishing all the time.

10. I just find it odd that you are so dismissive of this.

    Ken, I am trying to build a bridge to you. So I will try to explain my actions,and hope you will accept it as “just my observations. I mean no disrespect”.

    I have generally found you a pleasant person to discuss with. But several times now it has happened that, when I respond to one of your comments with some quotes from experts and a critical analysis of references you have given, you have become upset with me, accusing me of “always being right” and the like.

    Now in a way I take that as a compliment, because I do try to get to the bottom of matters, but obviously I’m not happy that I’ve upset you. So I try to remedy the situation, by being more careful about how I express myself, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference.

    I have said to you that I would rather make a friend than win an argument. I even once asked you how you wanted me to respond and promised I would do whatever you asked, within reason (and I meant it), but you didn’t reply to that.

    So finally I decided it was best if I just stopped discussing matters in any depth with you and simply say thank you for commenting, etc. That is what I have done on this post. Your response has been to insult my motives and make statements about me which you cannot possibly know, and which I know to be incorrect – e.g.

    “Your mindset is “win at all cost”
    “The only truth you are looking for is any piece that can support your belief system.”
    “This is your typical way of dismissing anyone or anything which doesn’t agree with your belief system”

    I could make similar personal and insulting comments back to you, but I refuse to do so. As I say, I would rather try to build a bridge.

    So I ask you again, what do you want me to do? If I answer you, you say I “always have the last word”. If I don’t answer you, you say I’m being dismissive. It is apparently OK for you to insult my motives, but not OK for me to respond either way. It seems that the only thing I could do to please you would be to give up my beliefs and think the same as you.

    So, may I ask you please to consider why you come to this blog, what you expect of me, and tell me clearly. I will listen and consider, and we may be able to go from there. Like I said at the start, Ken, I think you are a decent person, but I don’t think you have been fair in this case.

11. unkleE, you can’t build a bridge with someone when you think you are the only one who can accurately read the blue prints.

12. The problem with the quoted section is that it assumes the so called problem of evil IS a problem. Let’s make a difference between personal and natural evil. It is not so crucial because all are caused by the fall but anyways let’s do it. Personal evil is explained very well by the sin of man. So only natural evil remains to be problemlike. But to argue it counts a a problem against God is not good enough. It must be separate evidence, but natural evil can in theory be a consequence of the way the universe works. Yes, we know that evil didn’t exist before fall but if atheists assume evolution they must be consistent. Saying that natural evil, or any evil, is a problem is assuming the conclusion by atheists. So his argument is not correct.

13. The above is a Poe by me, to give the Far King and Ken an impression how a real dismissive Christian response would be. (I actually am less conciliatory than UnkleE at that point, for your knowledge.)

14. Hi IgnorantiaNescia, I was about to respond to Crapule before I caught on – yes I know, I’m slow, but I am 68! Then I laughed a lot. Thanks. But what is a Poe?

15. Please forgive me for such a lengthy post, but I have no way to provide a “Link” as I pay a membership fee for this site. Bishop John Shelby Spong “Gets it”. This is something all Christians should read and question about themselves.

    My Great Mentors – Number Seven
    Clifford L. Stanley
    He was my Professor of Theology, teaching me for two of the three years I was in Seminary. For me he was the major voice on that 1950′s faculty that had broken new theological ground. Most of the others were still locked in the dated Neo-Orthodoxy of Karl Barth, which was rooted in the despair and inhumanity of World War I. I have always been suspicious of any movement that adopts “neo” as part of its name. It usually reflects the last gasp of what it was supposed to revive. Neo-Orthodoxy was clearly the last gasp of traditional Christian Orthodoxy in the 20th century. For the Neo-Orthodox movement, God was still envisioned as “a being” supernatural in power, dwelling somewhere external to this world, usually depicted as “above the sky.” Prayer was still an effort to make God serve our wills. Heaven and hell were still part of a massive behavior-controlling religious mechanism. Sacraments were still the means of divine grace, controlled totally by the religious institutions and capable of being celebrated only by those who bore the institution’s imprimatur, called ordination, which was buttressed by a fanciful authority claim known as “Apostolic Succession.” Except for this lone professor the faculty of my seminary was still caught in the prison of pre-modern thought. It has not changed much since, for the label of “Neo-Orthodoxy” has only been replaced by the slogan “Progressive Orthodoxy,” an oxymoron if ever I heard one. “Progressive Orthodoxy” reminds me of the political slogan, “Compassionate Conservatism,” which turned out to be little more than profound conservatism. I find “perfumed orthodoxy” no more appealing than “unperfumed orthodoxy.” It is designed to change nothing, but only to make the old things smell better, that is to make it appear to be relevant.

    This professor’s name was Clifford L. Stanley. He had gained his Doctor of Theology degree at Union Seminary in New York City, studying under the great German Reformed theologian and refugee from Nazi Germany, Paul Tillich. Cliff was a thorough going Tillichian and he laid for me a theological foundation that would shape my entire career. Like most seminarians in my generation, I entered my preparation for the priesthood with a pious, Sunday school God. He, and God for me then was clearly a “he,” was very much the old man in the sky. Oh, we gussied up that definition with all kinds of sophisticated rhetoric, but when one peeled back the rhetoric, the old man in the sky, looking down, keeping record books, rewarding, punishing and deeply desirous of receiving the flattering praises of worshipers, was still there.

    Cliff Stanley became a powerful force in the life of my class in our first year, not because we were studying with him yet, but because of an intense and painful personal experience. His wife, Helen, diagnosed with leukemia, died in that first year. My class, probably because our religious devotion was the highest and our understanding of God was the lowest, decided to engage Helen’s sickness as if it were inflicted upon her by the demonic forces of evil. We cast ourselves in the role of God’s warriors, aligning ourselves against that evil. Our weapon was prayer– passionate, long, unrelenting prayer. We were determined to roll back that disease with the power of God at our disposal in our prayers. We organized prayer cycles around the clock. Every minute of every day some member of our class was storming the gates of heaven in prayer for Helen. The real question was not whether Helen would survive, but whether she would survive long enough to see our efforts ended by physical exhaustion. She did not. The prayer vigil failed; leukemia won. Helen died in the middle of the night, leaving us in a faith crisis of failure and leaving Cliff and his children wracked with grief. The mood on that campus was solemn when we arrived that morning as the news of her death spread. To our amazement when we met our first class that day on the Old Testament, Cliff Stanley was there and taking over that class, he addressed us with his voice still breaking and his tears still apparent.

    He tried to affirm our devotion and our love, without offending our zeal and immaturity. He tried to tell us that we should not see our efforts as failure. He suggested that maybe the world did not operate the way we assumed with God and the Devil battling over the souls of each of us. He tried to suggest that God might be far more than we were yet able to imagine. He told us that what really mattered was not the outcome of the events of life, but rather the realization that when we are forced to the depths of human existence, where pain and death both confront and embrace us, we discover that we are not alone; that God is not “a being” who comes to our rescue, but the “Ground of Being” in whom we live and from whom we cannot be parted. No, we did not understand all of his words that day, but we did see one whose faith had a depth that gave him the courage to be himself in that moment and to reach out to us as the ones who were really in need. It was for all of us an indelible and life-changing experience.

    Paul Tillich shaped Clifford Stanley, who in turn shaped me. Tillich brought together the Christian symbols with aspects of our human experience. He correlated God with Being, Christ with existence and Spirit with life. He challenged the old myth of Christianity that postulated an original perfect creation, a subsequent fall from perfection into original sin, the need for rescue, which presumably was achieved on the cross and the subsequent restoration of our fallen humanity back into the perfection for which it had been created. That myth had not held water for hundreds of years, but that news had not reached even our seminaries, to say nothing of the pews of our churches. Yes, we talked about the Copernican revolution and the work of Galileo, which had removed the planet Earth from the center of the universe and had rendered homeless the God who was presumed to live above the sky, but these truths had not yet sunk in. We talked about the work of Isaac Newton, who revealed a universe that functioned according to immutable laws, which left little room in it for miracles or magic, leaving God for the most part unemployed. We were, however, still seduced by seemingly miraculous cures or visions of the virgin that we could not explain. Even today, we make a best seller out of a book entitled Proof of Heaven by a neurosurgeon who had a visionary experience. The human heart so desperately wants to believe in some supernatural, protective power despite all the evidence to the contrary, that we grasp at straws and, if that straw is offered by a learned man like a neurosurgeon, so much the better. On the other side of this debate, we can read the work of people like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, who have made fortunes writing best-selling books that demonstrate the absurdity of our theology with its “old man in the sky” concept of God. These writers do not seem to know that in professional theological circles, these concepts have been abandoned for generations.

    Perhaps the most amusing thing to observe in the modern theological struggle is the deeply emotional resistance in Christian circles to the work of biologist Charles Darwin. Darwin said there was no original perfection so there could be no fall from perfection and thus no original sin. If no fall, there is no need for a savior to come to our rescue. The idea that God required the death of the divine son to pay the price of our sinfulness and thus to bear the punishment we deserve, is a barbaric idea that turns God into a monster, Jesus into a victim and you and me into guilt-filled pockets of gratitude.

    All of these juvenile theological concepts Paul Tillich addressed, Cliff Stanley taught and we absorbed. Did we understand it? Not at first but all of my professional life has been lived inside the forced dialogue between the superstitious religion of my youth and my engagement with the modern world under the guidance of Paul Tillich through Cliff Stanley.

    Cliff was a brilliant, functioning, but neurotic man. This showed up primarily in the preparation he demanded of himself. No matter how often he gave his lectures they were always fresh, powerful and meticulously outlined. He did not welcome interruptions for questions in his classroom. The classroom was his stage. He saw himself as one who was performing a work of art. Such a performance could not be stopped because someone in the audience did not understand! He also lived in a world of incredible order. Even when grocery shopping, his shopping cart was masterfully stacked and ordered when he came to check out. He tolerated chaos and disorder poorly. When the rebellion of the 60’s swept across America, he could not understand it. He saw Jack Kennedy as the nose under the tent of the Vatican’s quest for world power. He called some of the Vietnam protesters “draft dodging punks.” This man, who earlier in is career had been called a socialist, maybe even a communist, swung politically far to the right and he began to place his political hopes in a spokesman for General Electric, a former Hollywood B film actor, whose name was Ronald Reagan long before Reagan ran for Governor of California.

    Cliff Stanley was largely unpublished because he would not allow an editor to change any of his beautifully crafted sentences. He laid out for me, however, the foundation that had enabled me to probe my Christian faith in ways that I could not have once imagined as a young man. The result has been a profound lifetime of search, study, wonder and excitement and my church has opened great doors of leadership to me. I am still a committed Christian believer, but I have forced that faith system into a dramatic dialogue with reality. Because Cliff Stanley was my great teacher and mentor, I can join in saying what an old retired bishop once said to me: “The older I get, the more deeply I believe, but the less beliefs I have.” Faith deepens with age, while specific beliefs become more and more inadequate.

    ~John Shelby Spong

16. I tried to post something but your site didn’t allow me to. Just testing.

17. Here is a paragraph I found interesting about the “Mentors” of Bishop John Shelby Spong.

    Paul Tillich shaped Clifford Stanley, who in turn shaped me. Tillich brought together the Christian symbols with aspects of our human experience. He correlated God with Being, Christ with existence and Spirit with life. He challenged the old myth of Christianity that postulated an original perfect creation, a subsequent fall from perfection into original sin, the need for rescue, which presumably was achieved on the cross and the subsequent restoration of our fallen humanity back into the perfection for which it had been created. That myth had not held water for hundreds of years, but that news had not reached even our seminaries, to say nothing of the pews of our churches. Yes, we talked about the Copernican revolution and the work of Galileo, which had removed the planet Earth from the center of the universe and had rendered homeless the God who was presumed to live above the sky, but these truths had not yet sunk in. We talked about the work of Isaac Newton, who revealed a universe that functioned according to immutable laws, which left little room in it for miracles or magic, leaving God for the most part unemployed. We were, however, still seduced by seemingly miraculous cures or visions of the virgin that we could not explain. Even today, we make a best seller out of a book entitled Proof of Heaven by a neurosurgeon who had a visionary experience. The human heart so desperately wants to believe in some supernatural, protective power despite all the evidence to the contrary, that we grasp at straws and, if that straw is offered by a learned man like a neurosurgeon, so much the better. On the other side of this debate, we can read the work of people like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, who have made fortunes writing best-selling books that demonstrate the absurdity of our theology with its “old man in the sky” concept of God. These writers do not seem to know that in professional theological circles, these concepts have been abandoned for generations.

18. unkleE, the Christian Bishop Spong seems to be running in a different circle of theological professionals than you are associating with. You might want to read some of his books and compare notes. He too uses references.

19. Hi Ken, thanks for that info. I have read one book of Spong’s.

    When you suggest we “compare notes”, do you mean you want me to say what I think of Spong as theologian and New Testament scholar? Just checking.

20. You’ve already shared what you think of him before. I’m saying he uses references for his statements in his books which seem to differ from the references you use. He is a “professing Christian” just like you. And yet he has a different understanding of NT scripture and claims your concept of the scriptures has been abandoned by professional theologians for generations.

    When a non-believer reads works from a Spong and an unkleE , can you understand why they would be confused ?

21. Yes, I can understand why confusion arises, but I think there is a very simple answer.

    1. This quote appears to be from his book, Here I Stand, which is his autobiography. In the section you quote he is discussing his theological inferences. Theology (put simply) is ideas about God. But when I quote experts on the NT I am talking about history. The two are very different.

    2. In other places, Spong talks about NT history. But he is not a qualified NT historian and some of the views he espouses are contrary to the conclusions of the consensus of NT historians.

    So if you want to get expert opinion on NT history, we cannot get it from Spong. I am not talking about theology, which is what Spong is talking about.

22. So you are saying theology has little or no historical evidence to back it up ?

    Refresh my memory, what historical evidence do you have again which supports Jesus as divine ?

    Why would people like Bishop Spong not be convinced of this evidence and believe like you ?

    Again you are determining who is a qualified NT Historian. As I have told you before , I can and have provided just as many NT Historians who believe differently than yours do. Again Geza Vermes was the “Premier” NT Historian of all time. “He attributes positive references to Samaritans in the gospels not to Jesus himself but to early Christian editing. He suggests that, properly understood, the historical Jesus is a figure that Jews should find familiar and attractive. This historical Jesus, however, is so different from the Christ of faith that Christians, says Vermes, may well want to rethink the fundamentals of their faith.”

    How do you determine that the consensus of NT Historians support your views ? Is there a “Score Card” I can look at which says “NT Historians who support Jesus’ Divinity (23) vs NT Historians who do not support Jesus’ Divinity (22) ” ???

23. @Ken aka kcchief1

    How do you determine that the consensus of NT Historians support your views ? Is there a “Score Card” I can look at which says “NT Historians who support Jesus’ Divinity (23) vs NT Historians who do not support Jesus’ Divinity (22) ” ???

    If one cares to peruse some of the blogs where various scholars are “Answering” or “Refuting” each others papers/books and various other works the gloves often come off and the “Discussions” can sometimes become quite intense. No doubt a similar picture can be found in the “real” world.
    And let’s be honest, tenure or a Nobel Prize is not to be sniffed at.

    In light of such accolades on offer, I suspect that within the highly competitive world of scholarship there is more than a grain of truth in this “divvying up ” of experts. 🙂

24. Ken, I think you have misunderstood what I have been saying. I’m sorry if I haven’t been sufficiently clear. To make sure I explain it clearly, I have written a new post – What do the leading secular historians say about Jesus?

    BTW, it wouldn’t be true to say that “Geza Vermes was the “Premier” NT Historian of all time”. It would be more accurate to say he was one of the most respected historians of the past few decades. EP Sanders, who I quote in the post, would have a similar reputation and comes to similar conclusions.

    Hope all that helps.

25. About Geza Vermes from wikipedia, “He was one of the most important voices in contemporary Jesus research,[1] and he has been described as the greatest Jesus scholar of his time.[2]”

26. Yep, “one of” and “has been described as”. There’s no absolutes here. But he is a major figure, no doubt about it. But that doesn’t change anything I have written. Did you read the new post?

27. Ken, I just discovered in my spam queue the original post you couldn’t get to appear. I’m sorry, it had been filtered out, I think because it was long, and I didn’t notice it. I have approved it now, sorry it took so long. I must try to check the spam queue more often.

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