Rather, young Christian students must be taught that there is no need to choose between the findings of science and one’s faith.
Even though it is actually true. Science finds that humans are not born without sexual reproduction, dead people do not come back to life, water does not turn into wine, people cannot walk on water. Moreover science depends crucially on logic, but the doctrine of the hypostatic union is logically impossible. You BioLogosians are just the same in your attitude as the creationists: both schools of thought pick and choose where they will apply critical reasoning, they just pick and choose differently.

Knockgoats,
I’m going to mirror my comments from the other thread here, for the sake of those readers who may have just tuned in to this post. I believe the comments are just as relavent to your assertion…
To call oneself a Christian means that one accepts (and acts on) certain propositions by faith. The essential doctrines are the person and work of Christ and his death and resurrection. I will be the first to stand up and admit that no matter how you construct a heirarchy a plausible explanations for why Christ’s tomb might have been empty that morning, the the dead getting up and walking out would have to be last on the list, right below aliens abducting his body.
But nevertheless, whatever happened on that Sunday morning turned the world upside down. Believing that Christ was God and was raised from the dead is a tall order for those, like myself, who are naturally skeptical and consider themselves critical thinkers. So to conflate the Christian hope and faith with things are patently and demonstrably false, like a recent creation ex nihilo or recent global flood is to erect unecessary barriers to Christian faith.
The mission of BioLogos, if I might be so bold as to speak on their behalf, is to remove the unecessary rational barriers to faith placed there by Young-Earth Creationism and Intelligent Design, so that the the only offense to reason is the Cross itself.

The mission (and ministry) of BioLogos is clear.
Science is the doctrine of salvation.
Fundies must be crushed.
Yeah, I get it.

Gordon J. Glover,
Good idea – I’ll do likewise.
To call oneself a Christian means that one accepts certain truths by faith. The essential doctrines are the person and work of Christ, and his death and resurrection. I will be the first to admit that no matter how you construct a heirarchy a plausible explanations for why Christ’s tomb might have been empty that morning, the the dead getting up and walking out would have to be last on the list, right below aliens abducting his body.
This concedes my point: you haven’t a leg to stand on when criticising creationists for dropping their critical faculties when they become inconvenient.
But nevertheless, whatever happened on that Sunday morning turned the world upside down.
No, it really didn’t. The rise of Christianity took place over centuries, and we have no good evidence that anything at all out of the ordinary took place “on that Sunday morning”. It is clear enough from more recent events that religions can arise on the basis of nothing supernatural, and generate their own “wonder stories” retrospectively as they do so.
Believing that Christ was God and was raised from the dead is a tall order for those, like myself, who are naturally skeptical and consider themselves rational.
But like the White Queen, you set out to “believe six impossible things before breakfast”. Why?
That someone considers themselves rational is not, in general, evidence that they are: we must look at how they behave and whether they adjust their beliefs appropriately in the face of evidence and argument. Someone who maintains that something which they concede to be logically impossible (the doctrine of the hypostatic union) is nevertheless true, is very far from rationality.
The mission of BioLogos, if I might be so bold as to speak on their behalf, is to remove the unecessary rational barriers to faith placed there by creationsim and Intelligent Design, so the the only offense to reason is the Cross itself.
But why is that mission worth undertaking?

The anonymous author of the article rhetorically asks: “Could it simply be that half of all Americans are ignorant of modern science?”
Yes, it could well be that half of all Americans are scientifically illiterate, willfully ignorant or gullible – take your pick. Organized religion has been pushing creationism: creation in 4004 BC, Noah’s Ark / Noah’s Flood, etc. – for far longer than science has been around. It will take a while to repair the damage this Bronze Age mythology has done – and unfortunately there are saboteurs in our midst who want to keep the mythology and destroy science.
Whether one believes in Young Earth Creationism or Old Earth Creationism or the Dishonesty Institute’s latest religious pseudoscience, intelligent design creationism – none of it is science, and none of it is true. If you want to see what’s really going on here, read Dr. Barbara Forrest’s paper, “Understanding the Intelligent Design Creationist Movement: Its True Nature and Goals,” available at http://www.centerforinquiry.net/uploads/attachments/intelligent-design.pdf

I’ve asked this of young-Earth creationists, and never gotten a coherent answer:
Finding oil is a very important and high-stakes issue for oil companies. Literally trillions of dollars are riding on it. Exxon’s exploration budget alone is around $20 billion per year. When the chips are down and they need to find the most likely spots to drill – what kind of geology do they use? Flood geology, or mainstream? Which one actually delivers the goods?
Let’s assume the Earth is only a few thousand years old. Where did the oil come from? Was it created in the ground with the rest of the Earth? If so, is there a way to predict where it might be found? Or perhaps it really did form from plankton (with a few plants and dinosaurs), but about 10,000 times faster than any chemist believes it could? Any way you look at it, a young Earth and a Flood would imply some very interesting scientific questions to ask, some interesting (and potentially extremely valuable) research programs to start. How come nobody’s actually pursuing such research programs?
Why don’t creationists put together an investment fund, where people pay in and the stake is used as venture capital for things like oil and mineral rights? If “Flood geology” is really a better theory, then it should make better predictions about where raw materials are than standard geology does. The profits from such a venture could pay for a lot of evangelism. Why isn’t anyone doing this?

Science finds that humans are not born without sexual reproduction, dead people do not come back to life, water does not turn into wine, people cannot walk on water.
No, science only claims that these things don’t naturally occur. But no Christian would disagree with that assessment. That is why these things are called “miracles”, and are far beyond science’s competency to examine.

Knockgoats,
Why is it, that there are so many gay (and usually atheist) activists attached to so many places where Christians interact?
I, as a Christian activist, am not at the places where gays and atheists hang out.
What’s the deal?
Logically speaking.

Knockgoats, let’s continue here and abandon the previous thread…
“This concedes my point: you haven’t a leg to stand on when criticising creationists for dropping their critical faculties when they become inconvenient.”
There is a difference. The claims of creationism are demonstrably false. To believe them means you must also believe that God removes evidnece of what he does and replaces it with evidence of something he never did — all the while commanding us to believe that which he supposedly did?
For the theist who believes that there is a God who can exercise some measure of top-down causality over the material world, there is nothing impossible about the possbility of Christ being raised from the dead. Now if his dead body were paraded through the streets after he allegedly ascended to heaven, then Christianity would indeed be an falsifiable belief system. But that didn’t happen.
In summary: to believe that Christ rose from the dead doesn’t require one to reject vast amount of data to the contrary (as creationism does). It only requires faith that God could exercise enough top-down causality to make such a thing happen.
We already know that a 3 pound lump of organic material, when arranged a certain way and fed simple sugars and oxygen, is capable of abstract thought, moral reasoning, art, music. Do you ever stop and think how absurd that sounds? But here we are. Moreover, by viture of being wired to other systems, this 3 pound lump can become a causal agent without any outside non-physical influences whatsoever. The emergence of mind and free will from ordinary matter shows us that the physical universe provides a framework for counter-intuitive phenomena that have no sufficient bottom-up (reductionist) explanation. Why then are we so quick to dismiss any possibility of a cosmic intelligence who, by viture of being wired to other systems through quantum entaglement, photon exchange, or other means, could also become a causal agent having a limited capacity to affect physical reality in counterintuitive ways?
“But why is that mission worth undertaking?” — Have you ever been part of a genuine Christian community?

No, science only claims that these things don’t naturally occur. But no Christian would disagree with that assessment. That is why these things are called “miracles”, and are far beyond science’s competency to examine. – Larry
No, they are not. Similar events, usually called “paranormal” rather than miracles, are scientifically examined, and so far none has stood up to scrutiny. Similarly, the alleged healing power of prayer (which would be a miracle) has been scientifically tested and found wanting. We can also discover (both through everyday observation and through social science) that every religion generates its own miracle stories (Muhammed flying to heaven on a horse, Hanuman bridging the strait between India and Sri Lanka, etc.); and a basic principle of science is to treat like cases alike. Are you prepared to accept the miracle stories of all religions? If not, it is anti-scientific to accept those of any one.
Why is it, that there are so many gay (and usually atheist) activists attached to so many places where Christians interact? – Mere_Christian
Why is it that bigots always assume anyone who disagrees with their bigotry is a member of the group they hate and despise? What’s the deal? Illogically speaking?

No, they are not. Similar events, usually called “paranormal” rather than miracles, are scientifically examined, and so far none has stood up to scrutiny.
There is a difference between “para-normal” and “miracle”. The para-normal is generally considered to be part of nature, just beyond what conventional science can, as yet, explain or deal with. The miraculous involves the supernatural, something beyond nature. Tell me, how would you go about falsifying the idea that the Incarnate God could not walk on water if He so chose? Or that the Creator of the universe would be stymied by a missing “Y” chromosome?
By the way, if you ask any theologian about the design of those prayer experiments that you’re so proud of, the only reason she wouldn’t laugh in your face would be politeness. God cannot be placed into a test tube, and is not obligated to cater to a sceptic’s lack of belief. God will not allow himself to be objectified in the manner that science requires.

Gordon J. Glover,
There is a difference. The claims of creationism are demonstrably false. To believe them means you must also believe that God removes evidnece of what he does and replaces it with evidence of something he never did — all the while commanding us to believe that which he supposedly did?
Omphalos.
It is in any case at most a matter of degree: according to you we are commanded to believe in the resurrection, even though there is nothing approaching convincing evidence it happened, and in the face of huge amounts of evidence that says things of that kind do not happen.
The emergence of mind and free will from ordinary matter shows us that the physical universe provides a framework for counter-intuitive phenomena that have no sufficient bottom-up (reductionist) explanation.
Yet. Given current progress in neurophysiology, evolutionary biology and related sciences, there is no reason to believe a full explanation will not be developed. Moreover, we already know that interventions near the “bottom” have causal effects “upward” to the mind and will – ethyl alcohol is a remarkably simple compound, as is nitrous oxide. We have no such evidence whatever for a top-down influence. It’s not logically impossible – but then again, maybe it’s the fairies that are responsible for maintaining the illusion that there’s a gravitational force.
“But why is that mission worth undertaking?” — Have you ever been part of a genuine Christian community?
So the motivation is that you want to go on believing in Christian doctrine because other people do, even if it means fooling yourselves? Evidence does not suggest that societies with a high level of Christian belief are happier or healthier for it.

Knockgoats,
You ARE a gay activist and an Atheist.
And here you are. In a place of Christian interaction.
It’s obvious that you are not here to change, so why are you here?
And, obviously, the charge of bigotry would fall unfounded. As, here you are.

You ARE a gay activist and an Atheist. – Mere_Christian
I am an atheist (we don’t need an upper-case “A”). I am not, as it happens, gay: I’m a happily-married heterosexual, I have never had or wanted a sexual encounter with another male, and I have been monogamous since I met my wife 18 years ago. Nor, even if you want to say that heterosexuals can nonetheless be “gay activists”, can I reasonably be counted among the latter, since I neither campaign actively for gay rights, nor contribute money to that cause. I express disapproval of bigotry such as yours when I meet it, just as I do of misogyny, racism and antisemitism.

B-L guys,
So far, to date, I am excited to see intelligent design proven through your zealous evolution-based ministry. God used evolution as proof of an Intelligent Designer. Woohoo. But after Adam to Jesus, we are to pursue the Gospel preached. Are we not?
But Charles Darwin? That is incompatible and is inappropriate to promote him as a role model for Christians. He’s no different than Andrew Sullivan or Christopher Hitchens in that department.
I mean, even a child molester can hold down a respectable job.
When, or where, is your outreach to the lost? So far, you go after your fellow Christians with quite the passion, but what about the lost?

Knockgoats,
“Given current progress in neurophysiology, evolutionary biology and related sciences, there is no reason to believe a full explanation will not be developed.” — Agreed. And perhaps many of the things attributed to “spirit” or to “supernatural” will someday be found to have material-based explanations. But that doesn’t make them any less real than my own perception of self. To discount them categorically at this points (in our epistemological infancy) seems premature.
“Moreover, we already know that interventions near the “bottom” have causal effects “upward” to the mind and will… We have no such evidence whatever for a top-down influence.” — But we do. Every concious mind has the ability exercise top-down influence over it’s constituent parts (both voluntarily and phychosomatically). The mind-from-meat phenomenon is an emergent property of our complex neurobiology. While each cell follows only local rules, their complex interaction gives rise to an entirely different level of reality. And this emergent agency can exercise real causal effects over itself. I can act on a thought and change the natural course of some part of the natural world. Certainly the cosmos, with its 10^80 fundamental particles all exchanging photons, gluons and gravitons with one another is no less complex than a single human brain.
“…but then again, maybe it’s the fairies that are responsible for maintaining the illusion that there’s a gravitational force. — Not sure what you mean by fairies. But the mechanism for gravitation, while entirely material, is in fact quite elusive.
“So the motivation is that you want to go on believing in Christian doctrine because other people do, even if it means fooling yourselves?” — I won’t deny that there are social factors for why people believe or disbelieve. But if that were the extent of it, I could find other things to spend my time and money (and Sunday mornings) on.

I was raised on Dr. Dobson, and have just sent him a letter requesting his assistance to help me stop loosing faith in the Christian Church. My Mom respects Dr. Dobson as much or more than any other Christian leader, and she is interested to see his response. I only started learning the truth about the 9/11 attacks last fall. It took me an entire year to convince my own parents to listen to me, and begin reviewing the evidence for themselves. Now that they have thoroughly and objectively taken a fresh look into all the available evidence, they too are now aware of how badly we have been deceived. They now fully support my mission to find out what really happened to 2,993 of our fellow countrymen that fateful September morning. My mom is very interested to see if/how Dr. Dobson will respond. Please read my open letter to Dr. Dobson and share your thoughts at………
http://blandyland.com/?p=459
Does Christ’s Church really stand for TRUTH & JUSTICE? That is the question!
Daniel Edd Bland III
http://www.BlandyLand.com

Gordon J. Glover,
But that doesn’t make them any less real than my own perception of self.
I’m not denying that perception. I don’t see the relevance of this point.
As for “top-down influence”, I agree with you so far as the emergent mind is concerned (although I would add that I see no reason to think it can act independently of its material substrate – if I’m right there would always be a bottom-level network of material causation, although this may only be describable in practice at the psychological level). I was referring specifically, as I understood you to be, to God poking the celestial finger into the physical world. Ah, reading on, you seem to be suggesting some sort of “universal mind”, whose “brain” is the entire cosmos – correct me if I’m wrong. But we have good evidence that our own minds evolved through natural and sexual selection – there is no reason to think the cosmos is the product of such a process, and so no reason to think it has a mind. My reference to fairies was facetious – they, like gods, are among the things that might exist, and be responsible for features of the universe, but which there is simply no reason to believe in.
I won’t deny that there are social factors for why people believe or disbelieve. But if that were the extent of it, I could find other things to spend my time and money (and Sunday mornings) on.
But neither you nor the BioLogosians have given rational grounds for believing Christianity to be either true, or a net social benefit.

Knockgoats,
“…we have good evidence that our own minds evolved through natural and sexual selection – there is no reason to think the cosmos is the product of such a process, and so no reason to think it has a mind.” — Obviously not a mind like ours for the very reasons you gave. Our intelligence is derived. But there is no reason to deny the cosmos that which we grant ourselves, when our individual minds are by logical extension less complex than the universe we find ourselves in.
Our faith tradition refers to man as being created in God’s image, but if our (and any other intelligent) being turns out to be the necessary outcome of a rational universe (as many non-theists even entertain), then that finding would seem to shed a modern light on an age-old tradition.
“But neither you nor the BioLogosians have given rational grounds for believing Christianity to be either true, or a net social benefit.” — Hey, cut me slack. I spend a good deal of time wrestling with my own doubts – so I don’t have a lot of spare time to wrestle with the doubts of others (unless of course it helps me work through some of my own issues).

“Rather, young Christian students must be taught that there is no need to choose between the findings of science and one’s faith. The two can and do exist in harmony.”
How can anyone say faith in the Resurrection, which is the most important belief of Christianity, is in harmony with science?
Let’s be honest. Christianity, like all other religions ever invented, is extremely anti-science. Every single Christian belief, especially the disgusting childish belief in the Resurrection, is scientifically impossible.
The choice is Christianity or science. A normal person couldn’t possibly accept both.

But there is no reason to deny the cosmos that which we grant ourselves – Gordon J. Glover
Except that there’s no evidence it does, and (unlike the case of our own minds) we know of no mechanism that could have brought it into existence. Everything we know so far indicates that complexity builds from the bottom up, and intelligence evolves because, in certain environments, it aids survival and reproduction.
Hey, cut me slack. I spend a good deal of time wrestling with my own doubts – so I don’t have a lot of spare time to wrestle with the doubts of others
Oh, I have no doubt at all that Christianity is false, so you’re not wrestling with my doubts! There is strong evidence that it is socially pernicious. Those (secondary to my enjoyment of a good argument) are the reasons I continue to comment here – an attempt to spread the light of reason to the benighted theists

KG (and Daniel),
I think that there are many compelling and objective proofs for God and the Christian faith, and I would be glad to share them with you if you are interested.
I come from a Jewish background and had been repulsed by both the idea of faith and Christianity. Consequently, I had to endure the weight of my own deeply entrenched skepticism in order to come to the rest where I now find myself.

Knockgoats,
OK. You’re an atheist activist.
And opposing homosexuality and it’s adherants is a loving thing for Christians to do. Based on the evidence in the New Testament.
Jude 1:
Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.
For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you.
They are godless men, who change the grace of our God
into a license for immorality
and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.
////
Though I realize you don’t believe that there is a God per . . . whatever.

Daniel Bland,
I just read your letter to James Dobson about the 9/11 evidence. In fact, I recently watched a 2-hour DVD presenting the evidence for a conspiracy and would welcome a fuller investigation and disclosure.
However, I can understand the silence of the church regarding 9/11. Although there are physical phenomena that I can’t explain, things that look suspicious, it’s just too much of a leap for me to consider that our government was in some way responsible. There just seems to be too many insurmountable considerations weighing against this proposition. Therefore, I can’t fault the church for its silence, especially in light of the fact that there are so many very clear-cut problems that need to be addressed that aren’t. And this is the case in all of our lives.
However, it’s the many failures that I find in my own life that increasingly endear me to my Savior and His gift of forgiveness and salvation. Each time I see my faults, it causes me to cry out to Him, “Thank You Lord for Your love to one who doesn’t at all deserve it.” Ironically, it’s this brokenness that gives me the strength to stand up again, confess my sins, and go forward.

Mere_Christian,
I can honestly say you are one of the least “loving” people I have ever interacted with; and from what others have said on this site, that is not just my opinion. Your completely groundless assumption that I am gay is clear evidence of your bigotry – as if any more were needed. It is the mark of the bigot that they find it hard to believe that anyone who is not a member of their despised and hated group does not share their feelings – and so they assume that anyone who gives evidence of not doing so is either a member of that group, or is concealing their real feelings.

Daniel Mann,
As I recall, you did give a list of ten “proofs” that were nothing of the kind, and to which I responded. If you have anything else, and want to post it, I will read it and respond.

Knockgoats,
“Except that there’s no evidence it does, and (unlike the case of our own minds) we know of no mechanism that could have brought it into existence.” — I don’t think you’ve fully considered this. See James Gardner’s “Intellignet Universe” or Seth Lloyd’s “Programming the Universe”. And you should know, a lack of descernable machanism is not necessarily grounds to dismiss a phenomena as natural (ie: gravitation, quantum entanglement, etc…).
“Everything we know so far indicates that complexity builds from the bottom up, and intelligence evolves because, in certain environments, it aids survival and reproduction.” — Agreed. I don’t see how that argues against anything I’ve suggested. Even so, “everything we know” can’t amount to more than a drop in the bucket, especially if conciousness is a quantum phenomena.
“Oh, I have no doubt at all that Christianity is false…” — then indeed there is little reason for me to offer you any reasons for belief. If this were a private conversation, I probably would have moved on to football, family or politics by now (as I’m convinced we would still enjoy eachother’s company). But since others might be profiting from our banter, I keep rolling the stone up the hill.
Sisyphus

Knockgoats,
You answered, “As I recall, you did give a list of ten “proofs” that were nothing of the kind, and to which I responded. If you have anything else, and want to post it, I will read it and respond.”
I didn’t give you a list of 10 proofs, but very broad categories of proofs and asked you to choose from the list which ones might be of interest to you. If I remember correctly, you dismissed all but one with one-liners. The other category seemed to be of little interest to you.
However, I reiterated the offer of proofs because you complained that no one could give you any good reasons to believe in Christ.
Sadly, the problem is rarely a lack of evidence but a lack of willingness. Wherever we turn, we are confronted with the presence of a God who will not leave us alone. The logic you use has His fingerprints indelibly stamped on it. An evolutionary worldview – molecules in motion – can’t account for such an unchanging and vitally necessary tool. Likewise, chaos can’t account for moral absolutes, consciousness, freewill, life, DNA, the laws of physics, the fine-tuning of the universe… Only intelligence and design can account for these.

Rather, young Christian students must be taught that there is no need to choose between the findings of science and one’s faith.

Depends upon what one has faith in, doesn’t it?

Could it simply be that half of all Americans are ignorant of modern science? Is poor science education to blame?

Likely that’s part of it, in fact. It’s fair to assume that the great majority of Americans actually know something about what science states is the age of the earth and of the universe, but they frequently do not know how and why this conclusion was reached. So when they hear that other “experts” say the earth is 10,000 years old or less, well, why not?
Seriously, you only have to discuss age issues and evolution to recognize that most creationists (including IDists) are horribly ignorant of science and of epistemology. If science really were merely a matter of learning “truths” or facts, you might say that lack of science knowledge couldn’t be responsible for science denial in America. When you acknowledge that science is about actually setting preconceived notions aside and following the evidence using rigorous methods, well, the ignorance of Americans certainly plays a considerable role in science denial.
Then too, religious preconceptions and biases also have a lot to do with Americans’ ignorance of science.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

“An evolutionary worldview – molecules in motion – can’t account for such an unchanging and vitally necessary tool. Likewise, chaos can’t account for moral absolutes, consciousness, freewill, life, DNA, the laws of physics, the fine-tuning of the universe…”
Daniel, God-of-the-Gaps is not evidence for anything but ignorance on our part (of which we are well endowed at the moment). I hope you will somedoy see what an empty argument that is. Is that why you believe? Because without God you have an existential crisis of being? You would lose all sense of moral responsibility? Before you came to Christ, did you really lose sleep over how DNA could possibly exist without a creator? Please.
“Only intelligence and design can account for these.” — and yet, in the case of each human being, it is these very things (ie: DNA, life, physics, fine-tuning, etc…) that account for our intelligence. Hmmm….

Daniel Mann,
I didn’t give you a list of 10 proofs, but very broad categories of proofs and asked you to choose from the list which ones might be of interest to you. If I remember correctly, you dismissed all but one with one-liners. The other category seemed to be of little interest to you.
Choose what you consider the strongest of your proofs, and present it.
However, I reiterated the offer of proofs because you complained that no one could give you any good reasons to believe in Christ.
No, I didn’t. I observed that neither Gordon Glover nor the BioLogosians had presented any.
The logic you use has His fingerprints indelibly stamped on it. An evolutionary worldview – molecules in motion – can’t account for such an unchanging and vitally necessary tool. Likewise, chaos can’t account for moral absolutes, consciousness, freewill, life, DNA, the laws of physics, the fine-tuning of the universe… Only intelligence and design can account for these.
But if this is what you think counts as “proof”, I’m unlikely to be convinced. Do you really think I haven’t heard this sort of nonsense a thousand times?

Gordon,
You cite the God-of-the-Gaps allegation as if it’s a home-run:
“Daniel, God-of-the-Gaps is not evidence for anything but ignorance on our part (of which we are well endowed at the moment). I hope you will somedoy see what an empty argument that is. Is that why you believe?”
Ironically, it is you who are making an empty charge for numerous reasons:
1. Many scientists actually concede that the gaps in our knowledge are actually increasing! The more we know, the more we realize how much we don’t know!
2. A better charge would be naturalism-of the-gaps! There are no natural evidences for anything! Our formulas, equations and predictability are best accounted for by laws that originate and are sustained within the Mind of God rather than by natural, unintelligent and independent laws.
3. Even if there are natural laws, they are only capable of explaining formulaic, non-informational phenomena. Intelligence would then have to be introduced to explain the rest, thereby violating simplicity.
4. Supernaturalism is preferable to naturalism for many reasons. For one thing, it has much greater explanatory power – both in terms of its adequacy and breadth.
Your personal attacks do not compensate for the inadequacy of your argumentation, nor will they obscure it. You merely are providing a poignant demonstration of what happens to morality when Jesus is compromised by Darwin.

OK Knockgoats,
Let’s start with one piece of “enemy” testimony – one of my favorites:
In “Why the Jews Rejected Jesus,” Orthodox Jew, David Klinghoffer, writes (pg. 117),
“The Talmud states that from forty years before the Temple’s destruction [from the time of the Crucifixion in 30 AD to 70 AD] and onward, there were supernatural omens of the disaster to come–that is, starting from the inception of the Christian religion following the death of Jesus. The eternal fire of the Temple altar would not stay lit. The monumental bronze Temple gates opened by themselves. Josephus confirms the Talmud’s account of the inner Sanctuary’s east gate and its mysterious openings. He adds other portents from these years: a bright light shinning around the altar and the Sanctuary at three in the morning, a cow brought for sacrifice giving birth to a lamb, apparitions of chariots and armies flying through the sky above the whole land of Israel.”
All of these portents ceased at the destruction of the Jewish Temple, when the warnings were fulfilled. The East gates mysteriously opening and the lights going out seem to symbolize God telling Israel, “I leaving and taking my protection with Me!”

Daniel Mann,
The Talmud was written between approximately 200 C.E. and 500 C.E. What it says about supposed portents more than a century before the earlier of these dates is not evidence any historian would take seriously, unless already a convinced believer. Of course after a disaster like the destruction of the temple, stories would grow up of dreadful omens in advance of it, even if there were none. Are you really as naive about human psychology as you appear?

Larry,
Tell me, how would you go about falsifying the idea that the Incarnate God could not walk on water if He so chose? Or that the Creator of the universe would be stymied by a missing “Y” chromosome?
*Sigh* Someone else who thinks that if something cannot be falsified, science has nothing to say about it. Wrong. Science cannot falsify the idea that the world is run by shape-shifting alien reptiloids, as David Icke believes. Science cannot falsify the claim that the universe was created last Thursday, complete with all the evidence of age. Science cannot falsify the idea that the Flying Spaghetti Monster has touched me with his noodly appendage. There’s this useful thing called “Ockham’s razor”, which in its original form said “Do not multiply entities beyond necessity”. Until we need to hypothesise any supernatural agency, the scientific attitude is to assume that there are none.
But OK, if you’re happy for your religious ideas to be on an epistemological par with David Icke, Last Thursdayism and Pastafarianism, fine.
By the way, if you ask any theologian about the design of those prayer experiments that you’re so proud of, the only reason she wouldn’t laugh in your face would be politeness.
I’m not sure about theologians, but believers in the power of prayer were involved. You can bet your life that if the experiments had turned out positive, theologians would have been shouting it from the rooftops!

Knockgoats,
Try not to let Mere “Christian” get you too riled up. Just so you know, he/she seems to think that anyone who isn’t a young earth creationist is a gay atheist. Mere “Christian” even said that I was a gay atheist who only believed in evolution because I wanted to have abortions! (I guess Mere Christian doesn’t even understand reproduction, since he thinks gay people often get pregnant and have abortions).
I find it very funny that while Mere Christian in bellowing furiously about how evil all us evolutionists are, he/she doesn’t seem to see that the atheists on this site are much more Christian in behavior than Mere Christian is. I assure you that Mere Christian is not representative of most Christians, and certainly not representative of Christ.

http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/gods-existence.htm
Can You Prove God Exists?
Before we answer this question, we must distinguish five questions that are often confused.
First, there is the question of whether something exists or not. A thing can exist whether we know it or not.
Second, there is the question of whether we know it exists. (To answer this question affirmatively is to presuppose that the first question is answered affirmatively, of course; though a thing can exist without our knowing it, we cannot know it exists unless it exists.)
Third, there is the question of whether we have a reason for our knowledge. We can know some things without being able to lead others to that knowledge by reasons. Many Christians think God’s existence is like that.
Fourth, there is the question of whether this reason, if it exists, amounts to a proof. Most reasons do not. Most of the reasons we give for what we believe amount to probabilities, not proofs. For instance, the building you sit in may collapse in one minute, but the reliability of the contractor and the construction materials is a good reason for thinking that very improbable.
Fifth, if there is a proof, is it a scientific proof, a proof by the scientific method, i.e., by experiment, observation, and measurement? Philosophical proofs can be good proofs, but they do not have to be scientific proofs.
I believe we can answer yes to the first four of these questions about the existence of God but not to the fifth. God exists, we can know that, we can give reasons, and those reasons amount to proof, but not scientific proof, except in an unusually broad sense.
There are many arguments for God’s existence, but most of them have the same logical structure, which is the basic structure of any deductive argument. First, there is a major premise, or general principle. Then, a minor premise states some particular data in our experience that come under that principle. Finally, the conclusion follows from applying the general principle to the particular case.
In each case the conclusion is that God exists, but the premises of the different arguments are different.
Etc., etc., etc..

Daniel,
1. Many scientists actually concede that the gaps in our knowledge are actually increasing! The more we know, the more we realize how much we don’t know!
Sigh… I gues I shouldn’t expect anything more from somebody who admits to knowing next to nothing about science.
2. A better charge would be naturalism-of the-gaps! There are no natural evidences for anything! — If your strategy here is to say things so absurd that none of us even know to answer you, congratulations. That one takes the cake!
3. Even if there are natural laws, they are only capable of explaining formulaic, non-informational phenomena. Intelligence would then have to be introduced to explain the rest, thereby violating simplicity. — a perfect example of God, or “intelligence” of the gaps. There is entire field of complex (non-linear) dynamics that proves you wrong. You are obviously unaware of this field of study, and therefore can not conceive of how novelty could arise from necessity; so you posit a supernatural intelligence to fill in the gaps in your understanding of nature. Classic argument from ignorance.
4. Supernaturalism is preferable to naturalism for many reasons. For one thing, it has much greater explanatory power — well of course it does. It answers any question you want without risk of being disproved. It’s the explanation for anything that lacks explanation. Again, classic example of God of the gaps.
“You merely are providing a poignant demonstration of what happens to morality when Jesus is compromised by Darwin.” —zzzzz…..

Daniel Mann,
Hope you don’t mind me jumping in and countering some of your anti-naturalism arguments.
“1. Many scientists actually concede that the gaps in our knowledge are actually increasing! The more we know, the more we realize how much we don’t know!”
Your statement is illogical. In the first sentence you say the gaps in our knowledge are increasing. In the second you say that we DO know more than we did before. Those ideas are mutually exclusive. We do know more about the world than we did before, that’s a fact. The gaps in our knowledge are decreasing, the fact that we are really beginning to see how complex the universe is does not mean that now we know less than before. Anyways, just because we see how complex the universe is doesn’t mean that it doesn’t follow natural laws.
“2. A better charge would be naturalism-of the-gaps! There are no natural evidences for anything! Our formulas, equations and predictability are best accounted for by laws that originate and are sustained within the Mind of God rather than by natural, unintelligent and independent laws.”
Again, this is the difference between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism, which we have explained to you time and time again. It is perfectly within the scope of the Christian doctrine of Providence that there are natural laws that God sustains. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a natural explanation for anything.
If you really believe that “There are no natural evidences for anything” than I am certainly glad you are not a doctor, or a researcher, or a police investigator, a judge, a journalist, or work in a forensics lab. I also hope you never get on a jury. I find it puzzling that a Christian who believes that God created the natural world does not believe in natural evidence.
This “naturalism of the gaps” counter was invented by the Moonie Jonathan Wells. I hope you haven’t been reading much from that charlatan. You would be much better of reading Michael Behe. Behe is very wrong, but I think he is trying to be honest, unlike Wells (Wells is a terrible quote-miner too, his books sicken me).
“3. Even if there are natural laws, they are only capable of explaining formulaic, non-informational phenomena. Intelligence would then have to be introduced to explain the rest, thereby violating simplicity.”
Your declaration is not based on evidence. This is an intelligent design argument that has been completely demolished. Information can be build through evolutionary processes (just look up gene duplication’s role in evolution). I have several peer-reviewed journal articles that show instances of evolution increasing complexity and creating new “information.” If you want I can give you the references.
The term “information” is very nebulous when used in your post’s context. Usually only ID people use that term in this way, and they won’t define it clearly. Anytime I have pointed out the dozens of articles I know of that demonstrate evolution increasing complexity they just say “that isn’t really information.” But they will never define information in the first place. It’s an interesting creationist shell game.
“4. Supernaturalism is preferable to naturalism for many reasons. For one thing, it has much greater explanatory power – both in terms of its adequacy and breadth.”
Supernaturalism doesn’t explain anything in a detailed way. It is a completely trivial, dismissive non-explanation. Which explanation for cancer to you think really has greater application and explanatory power? “You got cancer because of you exposure to high levels of radiation” or “you got cancer because God wanted you too”. Which of these explanations is better? Which explanation, natural or supernatural, helps us really understand the world? Which leads to better treatment and prevention of disease?
Which line of research do you think will lead to us understanding the cell better? Thinking that cells behave in natural ways through laws that can be understood experimentally (even if we don’t understand them completely yet), OR thinking that cells operate through magical powers that aren’t regular and can’t be explained through any type of experiment? If one nation researched cells through methodological naturalism, and another relies on supernatural superstitions to explain the cell, which do you think will have better medical procedures. Which would REALLY understand how the cell works?
A supernatural explanation for everyday phenomenon is just a cop out. It doesn’t explain anything, and it doesn’t help technology, medicine, or science advance. That is why science has come so far since METHODOLOGICAL naturalism has taken over for dismissive supernatural explanations for the way the world works.

Dan,
Don’t worry, I don’t take Mere_Christian’s peculiar obsessions as representing all Christians, although they do seem to be quite common. I wasn’t offended at being identified as gay, just puzzled, until I realised what the explanation was.

*Sigh* Someone else who thinks that if something cannot be falsified, science has nothing to say about it. Wrong. Science cannot falsify the idea that the world is run by shape-shifting alien reptiloids, as David Icke believes. Science cannot falsify the claim that the universe was created last Thursday, complete with all the evidence of age. Science cannot falsify the idea that the Flying Spaghetti Monster has touched me with his noodly appendage. There’s this useful thing called “Ockham’s razor”, which in its original form said “Do not multiply entities beyond necessity”.
To start with Ockham’s razor is not scientific, it is a philosophical, epistemic heuristic, it cannot in any sense be considered scientific. Further William of Ockham, the Christian monk, would likely disagree with you on the necessity of God. The point I was trying to make, probably fruitlessly, was that there are other ways of knowing besides science. “Non-scientific” is not a synonym for “fairy tale” and there are many forms of evidence and knowledge that are not scientific, and even the most virulent science-head must use them (seeing as science is not self validating).

I mean, even a child molester can hold down a respectable job.

Good for you, mere_christian, finding a job in this recession!

From the original posting, “young Christian students must be taught that there is no need to choose between the findings of science and one’s faith. The two can and do exist in harmony.”
Back to the topic at hand, who is willing to work with their local science teachers of Christian schools, or homeschool associations, or others yet, to help them understand how science and faith can exist in harmony? (I’m here talking to Christians who believe this, not atheists or Christians who don’t believe science and faith can be harmonized, so don’t bother responding if you don’t fit in this category.)
And how can there be developed science curriculum for primary and secondary homeschooling that is as user-friendly as the YEC Apologia curricula? Who will develop this? Of course, there also has to be a market for it, which goes back to the second paragraph.
At least for American Christianity, there is a lot of work ahead for those who care about good science and good faith together.

Larry,
To start with Ockham’s razor is not scientific, it is a philosophical, epistemic heuristic
It is scientific in the sense that it is a key part of scientific method – and it has become so because experience has shown that it leads to fruitful science.
Further William of Ockham, the Christian monk, would likely disagree with you on the necessity of God.
*Sigh* I know William of Ockham was a monk. He’d have disagreed with me, and you, about a lot of things. So what?
The point I was trying to make, probably fruitlessly, was that there are other ways of knowing besides science.
Of course there are: most obviously, mathematics. But religion isn’t one of them. If it was, there wouldn’t be over 30,000 Christian sects, let alone all the other religions there are and have been.

Gordon J. Glover,
“Except that there’s no evidence it does, and (unlike the case of our own minds) we know of no mechanism that could have brought it into existence.” — I don’t think you’ve fully considered this. See James Gardner’s “Intellignet Universe” or Seth Lloyd’s “Programming the Universe”.
I haven’t read these, but from the parts of Gardner I skimmed at Google, and summaries of Lloyd’s ideas by Lloyd himself, they fall somewhere between the speculative and the loopy. They certainly don’t establish that anything like a “Cosmic Mind” could exist.
And you should know, a lack of descernable machanism is not necessarily grounds to dismiss a phenomena as natural (ie: gravitation, quantum entanglement, etc…).
In those cases (And we could argue about whether quantum entanglement is itself a mechanism) we have excellent evidence that they exist. Where we have no evidence, and only the vaguest, most speculative attempts at describing a mechanism, as with a Cosmic Mind, the rational stance is disbelief.
“Everything we know so far indicates that complexity builds from the bottom up, and intelligence evolves because, in certain environments, it aids survival and reproduction.” — Agreed. I don’t see how that argues against anything I’ve suggested. Even so, “everything we know” can’t amount to more than a drop in the bucket, especially if conciousness is a quantum phenomena.
There’s no reason to think it is, and good reason to think it isn’t.

Knockgoats,
I’m truly saddened by your reaction. While this piece of evidence – confirmed by both the Jewish historian Josephus and the Talmud – is just one piece of evidence, it does carry weight among trained historians. The fact that you dismiss it so cavalierly betrays your lack of openness to consider the facts. But you had already admitted as much.
I wish instead you had more appropriately stated, “Very interesting, but that’s just one isolated fact. I need to see more, much more!”

“Very interesting, but that’s just one isolated fact. – Daniel Mann
That people long after the time of the supposed omens said there were omens is a fact; that there were actually omens, is not. For that to be established, we would need reliable reports dated from the time the omens are supposed to have occurred, of specific events occurring, and of people at that time interpreting them as fortelling the destruction of the temple, or at least of some dreadful forthcoming disaster.
Being told I’m not open to considering the facts by a YEC is like being called ugly by a naked mole rat!

Dan,
Let me respond back to you according to the original numbering:
1. Although I gladly admit that our understanding is growing, many point to the fact that the gaps are growing at even a greater clip! Therefore, there is no illogic as you allege.
2. We have no argument about methods but rather explanations – Are the laws of physics natural and unintelligent or intelligent, emanating from the Mind of God? I have argued that there is no evidence that there is even one law being natural and independent. Furthermore, by questioning the nature of law and our formulaic explanation of things in no way impedes science. In fact, this discussion might add a very helpful dimension to the sciences, perhaps redirecting research into more fruitful venues.
3. I’d be glad to see your references for papers that demonstrate how natural laws can explain things that don’t occur in formulaic and predictable patterns.
4. “Supernaturalism doesn’t explain anything in a detailed way. It is a completely trivial, dismissive non-explanation. Which explanation for cancer to you think really has greater application and explanatory power? “You got cancer because of you exposure to high levels of radiation” or “you got cancer because God wanted you too”. Which of these explanations is better? Which explanation, natural or supernatural, helps us really understand the world? Which leads to better treatment and prevention of disease?”
Dan, evidently, you’ve missed my point. By positing that the laws are supernatural in no way impedes the normal, mechanical ways of doing science. It’s merely a recognition of the Nature of the laws. Investigating how they work is equally the provenance of both camps. Hence, your following statement misses my point entirely:
“A supernatural explanation for everyday phenomenon is just a cop out. It doesn’t explain anything, and it doesn’t help technology, medicine, or science advance. That is why science has come so far since METHODOLOGICAL naturalism has taken over for dismissive supernatural explanations for the way the world works.”
Once again, recognizing that the laws have a supernatural origin does not interfere with the grist of science. You must demonstrate your point if it is going to carry any weight.

Once again, recognizing that the laws have a supernatural origin does not interfere with the grist of science. Daniel Mann
In many case, such as those of YECs and cdesign proponentsists, it very clearly does. Trying to argue that supernatural beliefs do not interfere with science when you have said that no evidence whatever would convince you Genesis 1-11 are not historically true, is simply ridiculous.

And how can there be developed science curriculum for primary and secondary homeschooling that is as user-friendly as the YEC Apologia curricula? Who will develop this?

Karl,
Curriculum development is one of the things BioLogos will be doing.

Of course there are: most obviously, mathematics. But religion isn’t one of them. If it was, there wouldn’t be over 30,000 Christian sects, let alone all the other religions there are and have been.
And how do you know that science and mathematics are valid ways of knowing?
How many sects of evolutionists are there? Maybe not 30,000, but still quite a few. Does that disprove science as a way of knowing?
Also, when dealing with the infinite Other, differences in our apprehension are to be expected, maybe those 30,000 sects are necessary, or at least inevitable, because of our own limitations. The sin and tragedy occurs when we let differences in our view God cause us to be uncharitable or even violent.

Larry,
And how do you know that science and mathematics are valid ways of knowing?
Because they have systematic procedures for detecting and correcting error, and as a consequence, they work. People with different initial assumptions, different political and even religious beliefs, different cultures, can and do reach common conclusions. Hence, unlike religion, they make progress. Are you using a computer to leave your comments, Larry, or do you just pray they will appear?
How many sects of evolutionists are there?
None. Disagreements among evolutionary biologists (not “evolutionists”) are pursued, and in time settled, by evidence and argument. This is entirely different from the way the squabbling sects of Christianity pursue their disputes.
Also, when dealing with the infinite Other
You have good evidence this “infinite Other” exists? Do share. Or is the upper case “O” in “Other” supposed to prove it?
The sin and tragedy occurs when we let differences in our view God cause us to be uncharitable or even violent.
Which has been the case whenever and wherever the devout have been able to make it so. Christians began killing and torturing each other (and non-Christians) as soon as they gained state power, and never left off until they lost it.

Because they have systematic procedures for detecting and correcting error, and as a consequence, they work.
So does theology. I would be careful about adopting pragmatism as a test for truth, a lot of truly evil things can be said to work. It would appear that you no actual knowledge of how theology works and progresses.
Hence, unlike religion, they make progress.
Religion makes progress, too. Do you really think that the contemporary church is much like the first century church? I should also point that this so-called “progress” include nuclear weapons, weaponized anthrax, VX gas, eugenics and lots of other stuff that threaten to destroy humanity. Progress?
None. Disagreements among evolutionary biologists (not “evolutionists”) are pursued, and in time settled, by evidence and argument.
Please, evolutionary science, like all science, advances one funeral at a time. It’s a lot like theology in this respect. There is no shortage of squabbling between scientists over science, look at the current dispute over the validity of string theory for an example, or over Gould’s punctuated equilibria, for another.
You have good evidence this “infinite Other” exists? Do share.
Sure, there is plenty of evidence for the existence of God, it may not be scientific evidence, and we should not even expect science to be able to do this, but there is plenty of evidence. Documentary evidence, testimonial evidence, philosophical evidence, historical evidence.
Which has been the case whenever and wherever the devout have been able to make it so.
Nonsense, while the church, and religion in general, may not be guiltless when it comes to using or promoting violence, religion is not, in general, a large cause or source of violence and actually inhibits its use. The body count of religious persecutions and religious wars is insignificant compared to what secular causes and regimes have racked up. Even the dreaded Spanish Inquisition, leaving aside that it was an instrument of the secular state of Spain, only managed to kill around 3000 people over its 345 year history. The thoroughly secular Pol Pot killed more people in an average afternoon.

Knockgoats (and Dan),
It is understandable that you deny the possibility of omens. You have bought into a naturalistic religion that denies the possibility of such a thing or any form of supernaturalism for that matter.
However, you haven’t answered my challenge whether you have any support for naturalism. I’ve charged that there is no scientific evidence or any form of evidence that the laws of physics function naturalistically, independently and unintelligently. In contrast, I can offer thousands of pieces of evidence for Supernaturalism.
From every respect, the Supernaturalistic worldview is preferable – in its explanatory power (both in its power and its breadth) and evidence. However, you and the TEs have found it easier to “bait and switch.” We start talking about naturalism and you shift the subject to YEC, something that I have never argued in favor of.

Larry,
So does theology.
Oh yeah? What are these alleged methods?
Religion makes progress, too. Do you really think that the contemporary church is much like the first century church?
Which contemporary Church would that be? The ones that still claim the Earth is 6000 years old? The one that has systematically protected child-abusing priests and lied about condoms? The ones that are murdering “child witches” in Africa? The ones (almost all of them) that still deny equality to women and persecute gays?
Please, evolutionary science, like all science, advances one funeral at a time.
False. See for example the rapid conversion of the entire science of geology to plate tectonics in the middle of the last century, that of evolutionary biology to the endosymbiotic theory of eukaryotic origins toward the end of that century, the abandonment of “flood geology” in the early 19th century, the acceptance of the Big Bang and more recently cosmic acceleration, more practically the acceptance that cigarettes cause cancer and HIV causes AIDS… I could go on indefinitely. On punctuated equilibria, by the way, there is now a general consensus that evolution sometimes proceeds in this way, and sometimes more smoothly. Settled by the evidence.
Documentary evidence, testimonial evidence, philosophical evidence, historical evidence.
Be specific. Present what you regard as the strongest piece of evidence for an “infinite Other”.
Nonsense, while the church, and religion in general, may not be guiltless when it comes to using or promoting violence, religion is not, in general, a large cause or source of violence and actually inhibits its use. The body count of religious persecutions and religious wars is insignificant compared to what secular causes and regimes have racked up. Even the dreaded Spanish Inquisition, leaving aside that it was an instrument of the secular state of Spain, only managed to kill around 3000 people over its 345 year history.
Garbage. 2000 years of persecuting Jews. Wars and persecutions against pagans, Arians, Donatists, Nestorians, Monophysites, iconoclasts, Bogomils, Albigensians, Hussites. The Crusades. The wars of religion following the Reformation (the 30 Years War, largely a religious struggle, killed 1/3 of the population of Germany). The conquest of the Americas, enslavement and massacre of its peoples, and the African slave trade once the supply of Native Americans ran short – all justified in the name of Christianity. The depredations of the missionaries, destroying local cultures and spreading disease. In the 20th century, the close alliance between the Catholic Church, and many Protestants, and fascism in its various forms (the German Army in WWII went into battle with the legend “Got mit Uns” on its belt-buckles, while the Pope signed concordats with Mussolini and Hitler.
Daniel Mann,
However, you haven’t answered my challenge whether you have any support for naturalism.
Naturalism is the default hypothesis: if there is no evidence for something (gods, fairies, leprechauns, ghosts, souls), it is rational to assume it does not exist. The evidence for naturalism is that naturalistic science works; supernaturalist hypotheses have been discarded because they turned out to be useless. If and when this ceases to be the case, and a supernaturalist hypothesis leads to productive science, I will abandon naturalism. You have not provided any worthwhile evidence whatever for supernaturalism: all you have done is make bald assertions, without argument, that this that and the other cannot be explained naturalistically. Nor have you provided any evidence for omens – only for the fact that people believed there had been omens, long after the events supposedly foretold. Well, colour me astonished, I’d never have guessed.
Are you denying you are a YEC? If so, what is your stance?

Daniel Mann, you write, “The Talmud states that from forty years before the Temple’s destruction [from the time of the Crucifixion in 30 AD to 70 AD] and onward, there were supernatural omens of the disaster to come…”
Do you believe that Pheidippides met the god Pan on his run (that became the source of the term ‘Marathon’ today) as Herodotus records?

Larry – you write, The body count of religious persecutions and religious wars is insignificant compared to what secular causes and regimes have racked up.
Let’s just point out that there have been a lot more people, period, in the last century or so compared to any previous time, along with more efficient means of killing them. Imagine that either side of the Crusades had possessed a nuclear weapon – would either side have hesitated to use it? Ask the Albigensians… oh wait, you can’t, because there aren’t any more.
But even that is beside the point. I’ve pointed out before that as a rate or percentage, violence and wars have been decreasing for centuries: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker07/pinker07_index.html
Worse, even the body count of the ‘secular’ regimes is massively inflated by their rejection of science. Look up Lysenkoism, and its relationship to the famines that killed millions under Lenin and Mao…

Oh yeah? What are these alleged methods?
There are plenty of books written on the theological method, pick one. You might particularly like T.F. Torrance, who compares theological methods to scientific ones.
Which contemporary Church would that be?
Just about all of them. No contemporary church is at all like the first century church, even those that claim to be restorationist.
False. See for example the rapid conversion of the entire science of geology to plate tectonics in the middle of the last century, …
Similar claims could be made in the theological arena, involving the doctrine of the Trinity or in the area of Christology. Your claim that science is all about evidence fails both epistemologically (evidence has to be evaluated), and also pragmatically (see Kuhn).
Garbage. 2000 years of persecuting Jews. Wars and persecutions against pagans, Arians, Donatists, Nestorians, Monophysites, iconoclasts, Bogomils, Albigensians, Hussites ….
I get it, you hate Christianity, and view all of history through that prism. How about the founding of hospitals, or the very creation of the idea of a hospital, caring for the poor, women’s rights, the idea of the dignity of work and of the worker, modern concepts of charity, universities, and the very idea of a university, for that matter. By the way, slavery was a universal human institution until Christianity came along and without Christian presuppositions there is not much that can be said against it.
(the German Army in WWII went into battle with the legend “Got mit Uns” on its belt-buckles,
Please, that had been on the belt buckles of the Wehrmacht since the 19th century, at least. But this does seem typical of your interpretation of history, which is twisted, to say the least. Just as another example, if the 30 years war was ‘largely a religious struggle’, could you explain why Protestant Sweden was aligned with Catholic France? Or could it be that some European leaders were using religion to excuse their imperial ambitions? Religion gave them their excuse, but that was all it was. I could also point out that the Crusade against the Albigensians didn’t begin until after some Albigensian nobles began acting against the Catholic church (and the king of France), previously the church had been content to use rhetoric and persuasion.
But even that is beside the point. I’ve pointed out before that as a rate or percentage, violence and wars have been decreasing for centuries: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker07/pinker07_index.html
Yes, you keep on bringing that up, but I suspect that it says more about modern medicine than relative rates of violence. It is much harder to kill somebody nowadays. This has an effect on murder rates.

Imagine that either side of the Crusades had possessed a nuclear weapon – would either side have hesitated to use it?
Yes, just about all conceivable uses of nuclear weapons are a gross violation of Just War doctrine, which dates from the time of Augustine.

There are plenty of books written on the theological method, pick one.
You raised the subject. Unless you can at least summarise what those methods are, it’s reasonable to assume they are rubbish, like the rest of theology.
Similar claims could be made in the theological arena, involving the doctrine of the Trinity or in the area of Christology. Your claim that science is all about evidence fails both epistemologically (evidence has to be evaluated), and also pragmatically (see Kuhn).
Claims can always be made: the question is, are they true? The nature of the Trinity was settled by who had political power, not by argument. I made no claim that science is “all about evidence”, because it isn’t. And believe it or not, Kuhn is not the last word in philosophy of science.
Please, that had been on the belt buckles of the Wehrmacht since the 19th century, at least.
The fact remains, the vast majority of Hitler’s armies, and those who carried out the Holocaust, were Christians. Hitler drew on the long, long Christian tradition of antisemitism – that charming gentleman Martin Luther published a book entitled On the Jews and their Lies, while Catholic priests were prominent in leading pogroms across the centuries – and returned to this fine tradition recently in Rwanda, victimising Tutsis rather than Jews.
if the 30 years war was ‘largely a religious struggle’, could you explain why Protestant Sweden was aligned with Catholic France?
So? As I said: “largely a religious struggle”. It grew out of conflicts between Catholics and Protestants in Germany, and most of the powers opposing the Emperor were Protestant – France being the main exception.
I suspect that it says more about modern medicine than relative rates of violence. It is much harder to kill somebody nowadays. This has an effect on murder rates.
Absolute tosh. It is much, much easier to kill people, either singly or in large numbers, with modern weapons.

Knockgoats,
I admire your honestly in admitting that there isn’t any evidence for philosophical naturalism. However, you defend it on the basis of pragmatism:
“The evidence for naturalism is that naturalistic science works; supernaturalist hypotheses have been discarded because they turned out to be useless. If and when this ceases to be the case, and a supernaturalist hypothesis leads to productive science, I will abandon naturalism.”
Although we both believe in the progress of science, I wouldn’t ascribe any of it to philosophical naturalism! In fact, I’d argue that this philosophy has wasted a lot of time and money on trying to prove things such as chemical evolution and the naturalistic origins of life. What findings can you cite that are peculiar to naturalism?
Meanwhile, I’d be glad to argue that there are multiple considerations that argue in favor of Supernaturalism.

Yes, just about all conceivable uses of nuclear weapons are a gross violation of Just War doctrine, which dates from the time of Augustine. – Larry
A pity no-one told Truman.
We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark. – Harry S Truman’s diary

Ray,
This is weighty historical evidence since this Talmudic (and Josephus also) admission is self-indicting. It acknowledges what the Christians and the NT have long maintained – that the Crucifixion was intended by supernatural signs and wonders – things that have other independent confirmations.
In addition to this, the Talmud acknowledges that Jesus was a miracle worker (although it claims that He did so by the power of Satan), that He was crucified on the Passover. It also acknowledges other miracles associated with the Cross. Why would the Talmud, as opposed to Christianity as it is, acknowledge such signs? Simply because they were incontestable and the best the Talmud could do was to offer alternative explanations.

Daniel Mann,
Naturalism is, as I said, the default: that there are no supernatural entities. Tell me, Daniel, what is your evidence for aleprechaunism – the belief that there are no leprechauns? What is your evidence that the Flying Spaghetti Monster does not exist?
What findings can you cite that are peculiar to naturalism?
Almost all of of biology, paleoanthropology, geology, neurophysiology, astronomy…
All these have been developed in the teeth of supernaturalist obscurantism. The supernaturalists kept geocentrism, adherence to Biblical chronology, “vitalism” and dualism alive as long as they could, obstructing scientific progress.
I see you lack the honesty to say straightforwardly what your stance on the age of the Earth and the reality of evolution are.

Daniel Mann,
Contrary to what you say, there is no consensus that the Talmud even mentions Jesus, let alone attributes miracles to him (the “Yeshu” and “ben Stada” identified with him appear to have lived at different times both form each other, and from the supposed lifetime of Jesus). The passage referring to Jesus in Josephus is universally considered by reputable historians to be at least in part a 4th century forgery.

Larry, you seem to have mixed up some of my words with KG’s in one of your replies. Anyway…
I think you need to carefully read the article again. It’s talking about violence, not survival rates. And the terrible recent incident at Ft. Hood illustrates just how easy it is now to kill. Four centuries ago, one man strolling in, killing twelve other soldiers and wounding dozens in a matter of minutes, would have been a legendary accomplishment – horrifying, of course, but nearly superhuman. Today we have 20-round magazines.
Secondly, I mentioned the Albigensians very specifically: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensians#Massacre
Somehow the doctrine of the “Just War” doesn’t seem to have been scrupulously applied there. Just sayin’. Whether Arnaud actually said “Kill them all, the Lord will recognise His own”, he certainly had that effect.
I wonder if I could find other examples of “Just War” practices not being followed?

Imagine that either side of the Crusades had possessed a nuclear weapon – would either side have hesitated to use it?
Yes, just about all conceivable uses of nuclear weapons are a gross violation of Just War doctrine, which dates from the time of Augustine.

Geez, I love this Beliefnet software! The last post was not right. Here is what I intended to post …
I think you need to carefully read the article again. It’s talking about violence, not survival rates. And the terrible recent incident at Ft. Hood illustrates just how easy it is now to kill. Four centuries ago, one man strolling in, killing twelve other soldiers and wounding dozens in a matter of minutes, would have been a legendary accomplishment – horrifying, of course, but nearly superhuman. Today we have 20-round magazines.Unless you can at least summarise what those methods are, it’s reasonable to assume they are rubbish, like the rest of theology.
Since many of the methods parallel those of science, looking at the evidence, peer review, creating models and so on, I would be careful of saying things like that.
The nature of the Trinity was settled by who had political power, not by argument.
Nonsense, if Nicea had been a put-up job by Constantine they would have produced an Arian creed, which reflected Constantine’s beliefs and was much friendlier to emperors, especially those of Rome. You really need to find another source for your history other than Dan Brown. That the final vote at Nicea was so overwhelmingly for the orthodox formulation, something like 3 dissents out about 300 delegates, also argues against it being a political settlement.
while Catholic priests were prominent in leading pogroms across the centuries
They were also instrumental in ending them, see Bernard of Clairveaux, for instance. Who was responsible for the anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union? Not Catholic priests, that’s for sure. All these evils that you insist on listing are not the result of religion so much as just the result of the human condition, the church is far from perfect, but that is because it is made up of humans. I believe that an objective look at the church and what it has done shows that the church is, overwhelmingly, a force for good in the world.
As I said: “largely a religious struggle”. It grew out of conflicts between Catholics and Protestants in Germany, and most of the powers opposing the Emperor were Protestant
If the Thirty Years War was primarily religious, as you state, then the Catholic German princes would have sided with the Emperor, but for the most part they did not. They were just as anxious to be out from under a dying empire as their Protestant counterparts were. The Thirty Years War is better understood as a struggle between secular nation-states, it is much easier to understand who did what to who and why if it is viewed in those terms. As I said, the Reformation provided an excuse, and the war likely would not have happened without the Reformation, but the motivations behind most of the combatants were secular.
It is much, much easier to kill people, either singly or in large numbers, with modern weapons.
It is also much, much easier to heal them, aided by modern medicine and transportation. In wars before the modern era huge numbers of the casualties actually died days or weeks after the fighting ended, or died from things that are easily repaired nowadays. In a sense its easier to kill somebody using modern weapons, but you have to kill him outright, in the past a wound that would be considered trivial today was often fatal.
A pity no-one told Truman.
Why would you expect the decisions to drop the bombs would be made by Just War criteria when the prosecution of the rest of the war was not? I find it a strange argument that someone would posit the use of nuclear weapons in the medieval era as an indictment of the church when the only actual use of nuclear weapons has been at the hands of thoroughly secular United States.

I think you need to carefully read the article again. It’s talking about violence, not survival rates.
I did read the article, and the author is using rates of violent death as a measurement for violence. But a society can still be violent and not kill as many people. Hell, if science could perfect a means of resuscitating the dead there could be almost limitless violence without any deaths at all. Science is not quite at that point yet, but Pinker’s argument still has a lot of holes. But consider, even if his argument is valid, the time frame for this reduction in violence corresponds very closely to when Christianity was in the ascendancy.
Somehow the doctrine of the “Just War” doesn’t seem to have been scrupulously applied there. Just sayin’. Whether Arnaud actually said “Kill them all, the Lord will recognise His own”, he certainly had that effect.
He didn’t say that, its a myth see, “Those Terrible Middle-Ages” by Pernoud for a complete explanation. Regarding the conduct of the Albigensian Crusade, there have been many times when Christians haven’t lived up to everything that they should have, or have acted in ways contrary to church doctrine. This is not new, and is actually in accord with Christian doctrine. We are not perfect, and should not claim to be. The original question wasn’t “would they use nukes”, which nobody could know the answer to, but “would they hesitate to use nukes”, which is a different question and one more easily answered.

Knockgoats,
First of all, there is nothing all at “dishonest” about not taking a stand on YEC. I don’t have to have a position on everything in order to have integrity. However, as you know, I am solidly opposed to macro-evolution.
Although I agree with you that Theists have taken some foolish positions, these positions aren’t inherent to the Supernaturalistic paradigm. Nor is spontaneous generation inherent to naturalism (or is it?). We’re talking “apples and oranges.” So I must repeat my question: What findings can you cite that are peculiar to naturalism?
It’s not enough to answer, “Almost all of biology, paleoanthropology, geology, neurophysiology, astronomy…” What are the findings and how are they endemic to the philosophy of naturalism? What makes naturalism superior to supernaturalism?
Regarding the Talmud: These references are unmistakably about Jesus as just about any Orthodox Jew will admit. (Scholars agree that there was a Talmudic aversion to mentioning Jesus by name!) They even approach me with the rhetorical question, “Do you know what the Talmud says about your Jesus?” They like to reiterate what the Talmud says – that He was a deceiver in cahoots with the Devil. They have even admitted to me that some of the most rancorous charges against Him had been deleted in the Middle Ages because they had been too provocative.
Josephus: Although you are correct that there is a contested passage from Josephus, it’s not the one that I had cited. Here’s how the disputed one reads:
“Now there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, a doer of wonderful works. ..He drew over to him both Jews and Gentiles. He was the Christ and when Pilate ….condemned him to the cross, those who loved him did not forsake him…; for he appeared to them alive on the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other things concerning him…” (Antiquities 18.3.3)
But I should add that it is disputed, not because of any hard evidence, but merely because Josephus calls Jesus the “Christ” (“Messiah”). Most scholars are simply unwilling to believe that a Jewish historian would call Jesus the Messiah.

Larry – It’s my contention that “the conduct of the Albigensian Crusade” shows clearly that the people prosecuting it would not have hesitated to use nukes. They were demonstrably quite willing to slaughter many thousands by hand, in direct and gruesome fashion, “regardless of rank, age, or sex” (and Arnaud definitely said that). What about that indicates to you an unwillingness or even reluctance to use weapons of mass destruction?
Remember, this is a culture where people would set fire to cats for fun… and that’s just one of the practices whose frequency has been in documented decline. Let’s quote Pinker from the article: “To be sure, any attempt to document changes in violence must be soaked in uncertainty… even for events in the historical record, statistics are spotty until recent periods… Yet, despite these caveats, a picture is taking shape. The decline of violence is a fractal phenomenon, visible at the scale of millennia, centuries, decades, and years. It applies over several orders of magnitude of violence, from genocide to war to rioting to homicide to the treatment of children and animals.”

Remember, this is a culture where people would set fire to cats for fun
Sixteenth century Paris is not medieval, there is not much comparison between it and the culture that produced the medieval crusades. I can find no evidence of it being done during the Medieval era.
‘s my contention that “the conduct of the Albigensian Crusade” shows clearly that the people prosecuting it would not have hesitated to use nukes.
It shows no such thing, different people were involved, with different aims. Note that I am not claiming that they wouldn’t have used them, but they would have thought about it, “hesitated”, so to speak. Also, slaughters like the one you are referencing were often the result of commanders loosing control of their troops, and then trying to save face afterwards, that is, the slaughter wasn’t planned, nor thought about beforehand, it simply happened.

Daniel Mann,
It’s not enough to answer, “Almost all of biology, paleoanthropology, geology, neurophysiology, astronomy…” What are the findings and how are they endemic to the philosophy of naturalism? What makes naturalism superior to supernaturalism?.
I’ve answered your questions. If your reading comprehension is poor, that is not my fault. You are too cowardly to answer mine straightforwardly: either you accept the findings of geology that the Earth is more than 4 billion years old, or you don’t. You say you are “solidly opposed to macro-evolution”. On what scientific grounds? If you are basing your opposition on the Bible, that is a clear instance of the superiority of naturalism: it does not tempt people to deny reality on the basis of a collection of ridiculous myths.
These references are unmistakably about Jesus as just about any Orthodox Jew will admit.
You only have to google “Jesus Talmud” to find a number of Jewish sites which explicitly deny that these references are to Jesus.
Most scholars are simply unwilling to believe that a Jewish historian would call Jesus the Messiah.
For the very obvious reason that an Orthodox Jew would not do so. Moreover, no Christian (or other) writer from before the 4th century cites this passage, although its value to early Christianity, if it was genuine, would clearly have been immense. What is this other passage you refer to. According to the sources I have consulted, the only other passage in Josephus that may refer to Jesus, includes the words “Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others” [emphasis added]. This passage, unlike the other, was referenced by Origen, but some scholars think the words I have italicised were added later.

Also, slaughters like the one you are referencing were often the result of commanders loosing control of their troops, and then trying to save face afterwards, that is, the slaughter wasn’t planned, nor thought about beforehand, it simply happened. – Larry
But, but… these troops were all Christians Larry. They surely wouldn’t have done such a thing unless they were only following orders, like the Christians who carried out the Holocaust.

Larry said: What about that indicates to you an unwillingness or even reluctance to use weapons of mass destruction?
They were Roman Catholics weren’t they? Why then would they countenance the destruction of the mass?
They also have a very seldom used mass known as the “Critical Mass”. A prototype of it may have been used at Sodom and Gommorah to devastating effect. As for nukes why resort to a secularized version of the “Critical Mass”? This must remain a matter of faith and not be another area ceded to science.

Daniel Mann,
I’m sorry, but it is completely illogical to say that the gaps in our knowledge are increasing and also that we know more than we did before. I’ll try to help you see this with an example. An early grade-school kid only understands addition and subtraction, while a freshman college math major who is well versed in geometry, basic calculus, algebra, and statistics might realize that he doesn’t understand linear dynamics, functional analysis, information theory, advanced calculus, probability theory, and partial differential equations. According to your logic that would mean that the college freshman has more gaps in his mathematical knowledge than the early grade-school child! Obviously, that is illogical. The vast mathematical gaps in his knowledge (calculus, algebra, etc) are there whether the grade school child knows it or not.
Here is another example, for a long time people thought that Newton’s classical ideas of physics where pretty much a complete description of the world. Then we found out about relativity, quantum mechanics, particle physics, and possibly string theory. According to your logic, you could say that Stephen Hawking has more gaps in his physics knowledge than Isaac Newton did, simply because Newton didn’t know about the modern questions in physics. I hope you see that statement is ridiculous. Again, the gaps in Newton’s knowledge were there regardless of if he recognized it or not. Modern physicist don’t know exactly what the Higgs Bosom is (or even for 100% sure if it exists), that doesn’t mean they have more gaps in their knowledge than Newton did, who didn’t even understand ANY of particle physics. Again, your statement, that we know more than we used to and that the gaps in our knowledge are increasing, is illogical. The gaps are there if we know it or not. Science laws and principles don’t spring into existence the moment we realize that we don’t know everything about a particular subject, they were always there.
We keep pointing out to you that saying that there are natural laws has zero to do with whether a supernatural power designed them or not. It is very frustrating that you really can’t seem to grasp the difference between philosophical naturalism and methodological naturalism. I have told you several times about scientists that are 5-point Calvinists that still believe in quantum mechanics and evolution. I strongly suggest you go to the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and read their article on “naturalism.” You might be surprised to see how widely the term is used, and that in most uses it does NOT say that God does not exist, or that the natural laws weren’t designed by a supernatural power. Please read it, it should clear up a lot of your confusion.
Here are some articles that show evolution building complexity. Since you teach at a college, you should be able to access most of these articles through your library. Most college libraries have subscription to most of these journals. You can also search for them on the internet (like in Google Scholar) and read the abstracts, and for a few even read the whole paper from home.
“The Origin of New Genes” by Long, Betrán, Thornton, et al in Nature Reviews Genetics, v 4 Nov 2003, pages 865-873.
“Evolution by gene duplication: an update” by Jianzhi Zhang in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, V 18(6) June 2003, pages 292-298.
“Evolution of a TRIM5-CypA Splice Isoform in Old World Monkeys” by Newman, Hall, Kirmaier, et al in PLoS Pathogens 2008 Volume 4 Issue 2.
“Evolution After Gene Duplication: Models, Mechanisms, Sequences, Systems, and Organisms” by Roth, Rastogi, Arvested, et al in JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL ZOOLOGY (MOL DEV EVOL), 308B:58–73 (2007)
“A Pessimistic Estimate of the Time Required for an Eye to Evolve” by Dan-E. Nilsson and Susanne Pelger in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, v. 256 (1345) (Apr. 22, 1994), pp. 43-58.
“Difference in Plumage Color Used in Species Recognition between Incipient Species Is Linked to a Single Amino Acid Substitution in the Melanocortin-1 Receptor” by Uy, Moyle, Filardi, and Cheviron, In v 174(2) of The American Naturalist, August 2009, pages 244-254.
“Rapid large-scale evolutionary divergence in morphology and performance associated with exploitation of a different dietary resource” by Herrel, Huyghe, Vanhooydonck, et al in PNAS March 25, 2008 v 105(12), pages 4792-4795.
“FGF signaling delineates the cardiac progenitor field in the simple chordate, Ciona intestinalis” by Davidson, Shi, Beh, et al in Genes and Development. 2006 20: 2728-2738
Sorry that the format is a bit sloppy, I copied and pasted the info from PDF’s I have downloaded and didn’t edit it very much, so the formats a bit different for each journal.
You especially might want to read the last one (FGF Signaling…), it talks about a single chambered heart in the sea squirt evolving through a mutation into a functional multi-chambered heart. Please read them and look up any terms you don’t understand. I don’t think anyone who read and understand just these few articles could say that evolution could not build complex systems. You can also search for Nature’s article “15 Evolution Gems” which are overviews of a few interesting papers that they have published. Also keep in mind that there are literally thousands of papers that show evolution in action, I just picked out a few that I have read and found interesting. I am very encouraged that you said you were interested in the articles that show evolution can increase complexity. I hope you are as interested and informed by the articles as I was. Enjoy.

Oops, sorry for the misspelling of the Higgs Boson particle.

Knockgoats (and Dan),
Here’s another interesting piece of “enemy” testimony from the Talmud as quoted from the website of anti-Christian missionary, Rabbi Tovia Singer:
“In Tractate Yoma 39b, the Talmud quotes a Baraisa that discusses numerous remarkable phenomena that occurred in the Temple during the Yom Kippur service. More specifically, the Talmud states that there was a strip of scarlet-dyed wool tied to the head of the scapegoat which would turn white in the presence of the large crowd gathered at the Temple on the Day of Atonement. The Jewish people perceived this miraculous transformation as a heavenly sign that their sins were forgiven. The Talmud relates, however, that 40 years before the destruction of the second Temple [approximately 30 AD – the time of the Crucifixion] the scarlet colored strip of wool did not turn white. The text of the Talmud which [Christian ] missionaries quote states:”
“’The Rabbis taught that forty years prior to the destruction of the Temple [approximately from the time of the Crucifixion, 30 AD] the lot did not come up in the [high priest’s] right hand nor did the tongue of scarlet wool become white [signifying God’s forgiveness of Israel’s sins].’”
It is so revealing that the Talmud would concede that at approximately the time of the Crucifixion, this miraculous event ceased occurring. It is almost as if God was saying, “Now that the ultimate sacrifice has been accomplished, I am no longer merely passing over sins through animal sacrifices.”
I know that the above won’t impress you. Your naturalism prevents you from accepting anything supernatural into your worldview. Once you do so, your naturalism would come tumbling to the ground.
I come from a family of staunch philosophical naturalists. Many years ago, we all were witnesses to the most incredible demonstrations by two girl cousins, 10 and 12. They reluctantly did the ouiji-board — blindfolded — moving the disk to the letters with coordinated and supernatural speed, answering questions they were naturally incapable of knowing. No matter how many things we did to stymie them, they were still able to perform incredibly.
Denying the spirit world is no more than a Western bias. Rather, it is so plain that we can only see a very narrow spectrum of reality, a narrow spectrum of light and of time. We can see the second-hand on a clock move, perhaps the minute hand, and not the hour hand. If the second hand was to move a 1000 times faster, we wouldn’t even see it at all. We’re very limited creatures who have the presumption of knowing just about everything.
Dan, thanks for the references!

Daniel Mann,
Your credulity is quite astonishing. I got a good laugh from your latest drivelings – thanks! If your family were so easily taken in by a bit of ouija board trickery, they were most certainly not “staunch philosophical naturalists”, and I can see where your credulity comes from. Don’t you know that pretended reluctance to perform, and finding out by perfectly normal, if underhand means things they “could not possibly know” are the psychic fraud’s stock in trade?

Knockgoats, I am very sympathetic to your arguments. They have substance and are generally well presented. That said: It is distracting to see insults directed towards Daniel. It will cause many readers to ignore or discount your otherwise strong points, and I don’t think that is your intent.
Please continue to use your sharp analytical mind to produce devastatingly rebuttals which are immune to being discounted by the reader on the grounds of sympathy for your opponent, whom as it stands you quite obviously hold in disdain. People respond emotionally as well as intellectually, and it is woefully easy to lose an argument while having the intellectually superior argument. Attack the argument, not the person. Be empirical. If your audience responds negatively to the tone, it means you are making no headway in convincing them of the merits of your position.

Albert the Abstainer,
I’m here primarily for amusement – if anyone is convinced to abandon Christianity – or better still, religion as a whole – as a result, that’s a bonus, but I’m not holding my breath. As it happens, I think a bit of honest scorn can sometimes wake someone from the sleep of unreason. I haven’t bothered to argue with you because it would be like trying to wrestle with blancmange.

Knockgoats (and Albert),
You predictably responded, “Don’t you know that pretended reluctance to perform, and finding out by perfectly normal, if underhand means things they “could not possibly know” are the psychic fraud’s stock in trade?”
I know these girls. They had become terrified of the Ouiji Board. We adults had to force them into doing it. Believe me (although I know you won’t believe me), it was no ruse! None of us even began to suspect that it might be such. Instead, we all left shaken. Even to this day, my skeptical family has no naturalistic explanation whatsoever (and they read THE SKEPTICAL INQUIRER!). But of course, you, who weren’t there, know better!
You told Albert that you are conversing for amusement sake. Well then, let me suggest that you amuse yourself by visiting spiritistic cultures and hear their stories, if you have an ear to hear, if you are willing to set aside your Western biases for just a moment – for amusement sake, of course!
Or perhaps you might amuse yourself by interviewing the vast number of people who have had after-death experiences, after the EKG stopped registering any brain-waves whatsoever. Listen to their stories about how they were able to recall conversations and events which they were physically incapable of hearing or seeing.

Oh dear, Daniel Mann, can you possibly be for real? If what you are saying about the two girls is true, this was a serious case of child abuse, and I must consider reporting you and your family to the relevant authorities. There is no statute of limitations on such crimes in most jurisdictions. Are you sure you want to stick to this story?
I have read a considerable amount about both “spiritistic cultures” and so-called “after death experiences”. For your information, there is no machine that can reliably detect whether people are capable of hearing (the last sense to go before one becomes unconscious). No-one has ever demonstrated an ability to discover things they could not have known during “out-of-body” experiences. These illusions can now be fairly reliably induced in the laboratory – see http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-08/ucl-foe081407.php.

Daniel,
Just in case your credulity is even greater then I think – of course I’m not serious about reporting you – but you really should think about what a wicked thing it was to force (as you thought) young children into “occult” activities.
By the way, if your family were all so sceptical, why on earth would they do such a thing? I haven’t the slightest interest in ouija board demonstrations – why did they?
Do you not see that your statements that “I know these girls”, and “it was no ruse! None of us even began to suspect that it might be such” strengthen the case that that is exactly what it was? If you knew them, that would give them (or their parents) plenty of opportunity to find out things you would not expect them to know, and guess what you might ask. If none of you ever began to suspect it was a ruse – that’s the deceiver’s job three-quarters done.

Daniel Mann,
Not sure why you think my naturalism won’t let any supernaturalism in my world view. I have told you several times that I am an orthodox Christian, I believe the Apostle’s Creed, and I think Jesus existed, was the Son of God, and rose from the dead. I’m not sure why you are quoting the Talmud (which I think are very weak arguments) and Josephus (which I think the one passage that Knockgoats pointed out is a good argument for Jesus’ historicality, the other definitely does seem to be a later addition). I believe that Jesus existed and was the Son of God, so why are you pointing these quotes at me?
The naturalism I am advocating just says don’t cry miracle everytime we can’t explain a scientific question right away. Thats not anti-supernatural, its just smart, considering how many “miracles” have been explained due to natural laws (that I do think God is behind). Scientific questions should be approached with methodological naturalsim, because thats the way to understand natural processes. The claim the Jesus was God and rose from the dead is not a scientific question, it is a historical and philosophical question.
I’m just saying that naturalism as a proximate cause for scientific phenomenon is critical for science to develop. Your idea that supernatural proximate explanation helps science is illogical.
Again Daniel, please read that article I referenced earlier on naturalism. You are still very mixed up on what it is.

Daniel Mann,
What I find interesting about what you call “after-death” experiences is that each person usually sees the deity that they believe in. Since you are a Christian, I assume you don’t think all those deities exist (Hindu Gods, feeling of being reincarnated, seeing shamanistic animal gods, etc).
Unless you think these deities are real, the logical conclusion is that the “after-death” experiences are not real. Well, I guess I shouldn’t say that they aren’t real, but they are only internal subject tive processes, and not representative of external reality. Also, why do all the people that you think aren’t saved usually still have an experience of their personal view of heaven? If you accept the veracity of “after-death” experiences you would have to say that hell was not real and there are many gods. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t say that.
And as Knockgoats pointed out, these after-death visions can be purposely induced in labs.
You might not want to use this as evidence for the supernatural. Since if it is true it would only show that each person makes their own heaven and that many gods exist. The more logical and naturalist view is that these experiences are a physical part of the death process (this also is more in line with Christian doctrine than there being many gods).
Also, you wrote “EKG stopped registering any brain-waves whatsoever.”
EKG’s measure heart activity, not brain activity.
You probably meant EEG, which are not perfectly precise (like any test), and aren’t in use during the vast majority of codes. A negative EEG doesn’t mean that there is absolutely zero brain activity. It just would show that there was too little to measure.
Hope you are enjoying the evolution papers I referenced earlier.

Dan,
It was actually OOBEs (out-of-body experiences) that can be induced according to the link I pointed to – not quite the same as what are usually called NDEs (near-death experiences), although the two overlap. Some features of the latter (like the “tunnel” and “bright light” components often reported) have physiological explanations in the responses of the visual system to hypoxia. Interestingly some drugs, such as ketamine, can apparently induce visions of Hell – ketamine is a very safe anaesthetic, but is now largely discontinued for human use because of some patients’ reports of such frightening experiences. Since it is also used as a recreational drug, presumably it doesn’t always do so!

Knockgoats said:
Albert the Abstainer,
I’m here primarily for amusement – if anyone is convinced to abandon Christianity – or better still, religion as a whole – as a result, that’s a bonus, but I’m not holding my breath. As it happens, I think a bit of honest scorn can sometimes wake someone from the sleep of unreason. I haven’t bothered to argue with you because it would be like trying to wrestle with blancmange.
I don’t think I would provide a very satisfying argument for you. It takes a lot to get me to lose my cool, and my positions are not dogmatically fixed. I am a strong proponent of modern physicalism (see http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/andrew_melnyk/physicalism.html). This includes that religious forms as much as human minds ultimately rest upon a physical base. I don’t particularly have an argument with people who find meaning through religious forms, nor do I have a problem with people desiring to have Primary Religious Experiences. What I do have a problem with is projection of religious form upon the physical, which strikes me as backwards. And most importantly I have a problem with religious intolerance and closed-mindedness, and most especially when a group attempts to impose their religious views upon others in a way which deprives others of fundamental rights. I find religious hypocrisy distasteful, and especially when it leads to abuses of authority under religious auspices.
Free will I see as illusory and persistent even to those who are determinist. It is a useful fiction in the realm of law and ethics, and so I act as though free will were true, even though I hold that to be physically true it requires an independence from physical causation. This of course is where theism gets itself into big trouble, since if God is, then ultimate causality reverts to the One thing which is in itself. Everything else, no matter how abstracted is bound to that, and hence God, if God, is the agent for all events, not man. This is very unsettling to a great many theists because it means that God is not exclusively all-good, but must also be all-evil. These dualisms (good-evil; self-other; et cetera) are monadic with respect to such a God.
Sorry for all the text, but I thought I might clarify my views in light of your response. My hope here is to learn and to teach, to advocate a position which permits a person to be inspired but not bound to interpretations and beliefs which are nonsensical.
If a religious person has faith in God, they must surrender their attachments to ideas of what God is. God, if God is not bound to belief, or belief would be primary and God secondary. That is why I hold that to avoid idolatry/projection and hubris, a seeker must be willing to put aside their beliefs. Putting aside attachment to belief permits a co-existence of scientific methodology and the quest for God. God without projected form becomes non-theistic, non-dogmatic and thoroughly inclusive. The most faithful religious seeker knows he knows nothing about God, including whether God exists, but is passionately drawn to explore the unknown spaces be they interior or exterior. It is the drawing which is real, the process which is valuable, and not some set of markers, symbols and talismans. Knowing that one cannot understand the is-ness of God, (including the question of whether God is), without collapsing into idolatry is key. These are not easy things to ask of a person or people who have been conditioned to a high degree of attachment to beliefs about God, and especially where the carrot and stick of heaven and hell are used to become guards around the cell of belief. Certainty has a great deal of psychological appeal, and dogmatic religious forms cater to that. False certainty, however, is extremely damaging and especially as a person comes to the realization that the things to which they have bound themselves to begin to fall away. It is like a child discovering that Santa Claus is not real, but on a far greater scale. I did not like the process of de-converting, even though the end of being free from religious manacles is welcome, wonderful and beautiful. It is my hope that more people find that freedom and that it enables them to become happier, less violent and less damaging to the health of the biosphere. (Yes, I am a hopeful optimist. It is my greatest sin.)

Knockgoats,
You’re right, I should have said that out of body experiences have been demonstrated in the lab. I have seen several scientists say that near death experiences are specific types of out of body experiences. It does seem to be the case since life memories, a view of loved ones, a feeling of peace, a feeling of flying, and visions of a god (usually the god that one believes in) are components that sometimes appear in both near death and out of body experiences. Michael Shermer wrote about this in one of my favorite books, “Why People Believe Weird Things.”
I’ll never understand why Christians use this as evidence for the Christian God, considering people normally see the deity their culture has exposed them to. If near-death experiences where real it would just show that there are many gods, or that all ways lead to heaven, which most Christians certainly don’t believe.
Daniel, there is a fairly short, interesting review article called “Phenomenology of Near-death Experiences: A Cross-cultural Perspective” by Belanti, et al in TRANSCULT PSYCHIATRY 2008; 45; 121-133. It should demonstrate how widely variable near death experiences are, and therefore why this is a very bad argument for the Christian God.

Albert the Abstainer,
I appreciate your thoughtful comments as always. I’m trying to understand your last post a little better. Concretely, what did you mean when you said “What I do have a problem with is projection of religious form upon the physical” Do you mean believing in a personal God? Also, I’m having a hard time understanding your description of a God without projected form as “non-theistic, non-dogmatic and thoroughly inclusive”. Do you have such a belief?
I am in the midst of deconstructing old beliefs of God and have no idea where this will take me so I am very interested in how others construct/deconstruct their own beliefs.
You also wrote, “Free will I see as illusory and persistent even to those who are determinist”. I, too, feel that free will is an illusion and this has proved to be a vexing theological problem for me, though for reasons apart from your discussion of free will lacking independence from physical causation. I’m not well versed in modern physicalism, though the article you referenced was helpful.

Hi Amy:
An example of projecting a religious form upon the physical would be those who believe that a worldwide flood and Noah’s ark were real historical events rather than strictly religious narratives which should be interpreted metaphorically.
Believing in a personal God requires a little more explanation, as it is an example of projection but not upon the physical. It is projection in as much as God is looked upon as personal with human characteristics. I see that as an attempt to understand God, but it reduces divinity to a human form. I think that is problematic.
As Meister Eckhart (the great medieval German theologian) said:
Oh wonder of wonders, what noble suffering that is, that the essence of the soul can suffer nothing but the bare unity of God…! One master [St Augustine] says: ‘If I had a God I could understand, I would no longer consider him God’. So, if you understand anything of Him, that is not He; by understanding anything of Him you fall into misunderstanding, and from this misunderstanding you fall into brutishness, for whatever in creatures is uncomprehending is brutish. So, if you don’t want to become brutish, understand nothing of God the unutterable.
— ‘Oh, but what should I do then?’.
You should wholly sink away from your you-ness and dissolve into His His-ness, and your ‘yours’ and His ‘His’ should become so completely one ‘Mine’ that with Him you understand His unbecome Is-ness and His nameless Nothing-ness.
Eckhart holds that to approach God requires the dissolution of self. It is then not an understanding of God which one realises but an experience of unity via the dissolution of the self.
The article on modern physicalism is an excellent one. It speaks much more precisely and completely on the subject than I feel I would manage here. If you have any specific questions, we can of course discuss them.
And by the way: Keep exploring and searching deeply Amy. I cannot say what you will uncover, but I can assure you that the process/journey is what is essential, not the beliefs you may or may not come to hold. I know some will consider that a terrible thing to say, but while some look at shadows on cave walls; others turn to look into the light of direct experience. Hence, these types of differences are inevitable.

Albert the Abstainer,
I’m quite willing to argue with you when you say something clear enough to agree or disagree with! Losing your cool is not required.
This includes that religious forms as much as human minds ultimately rest upon a physical base.
For example, I’ve no idea what you mean by this – something I find with a lot of what you write.
Free will I see as illusory and persistent even to those who are determinist.
I think you are wrong here: the types of free will that can be given a coherent description are compatible with physicalism and determinism (although in fact the universe does not appear to be deterministic). It’s not clear why an “independence from physical causation” would make any difference: either this would mean some other form of causation – so we’re back to determinism – or a chance event, which does not seem to have any connection with responsibility and choice. No coherent third alternative has ever been given, to the best of my knowledge (“agent causation” is just magic by another name). We recognise, in everyday life and in law, the differences in responsibility between a mentally normal adult acting with full intention, and a range of cases which lead us to attribute partial, or no responsibility for actions. Once we think in detail about why we recognise these differences, it makes perfectly good sense to say that the former are acts carried out with free will and the latter, to varying degrees, are not.
You give no reason to think that the kind of “faith” you advocate is a good thing. In practice, even religions which start out much as you advocate, such as Buddhism, develop into authoritarian, intolerant, misogynist and exploitative social formations. At least among rich countries, the happiest, least violent and most environmentally aware also seem to be the least religious, in any sense.

By the way, slavery was a universal human institution until Christianity came along and without Christian presuppositions there is not much that can be said against it. – Larry
I only just noticed this. Both parts of it are tosh. Hunter-gatherer societies rarely if ever have slavery, and that was the only form of society for most of human existence. What can be said against slavery without any presuppositions whatever is that it causes immense human suffering. Need justification for objecting to unnecessary human suffering? Then you’re a psychopath.

Hunter-gatherer societies rarely if ever have slavery, and that was the only form of society for most of human existence.
Hunter-gatherers can barely be said to have a society, but yes, since they didn’t have much in the way of an idea of property they also didn’t have human property.
What can be said against slavery without any presuppositions whatever is that it causes immense human suffering.
Not necessarily, most slave owners werent’ Simon LeGree types. Aristotle (a psychopath? Who knew?) would argue that slavery causes less suffering than the alternatives.

Larry,
Hunter-gatherers can barely be said to have a society
Dear me, your bone-headed racist ignorance is showing, Larry. Try reading a bit before you make such an idiot of yourself again.
Not necessarily, most slave owners werent’ Simon LeGree types.
I suggest you don’t try that line on an African-American audience, Larry. Your racism becomes more evident with every sentence: for a normal human being, the deprivation of liberty in itself causes great suffering.
Aristotle (a psychopath? Who knew?) would argue that slavery causes less suffering than the alternatives.
Your reading comprehension could do with work too. If Aristotle was arguing this, then he was showing (at least apparent) concern about human suffering, wasn’t he? Assuming his sincerity, he was just factually wrong, possibly because the only alternative he considered was wholesale massacre of war-prisoners. It is people who cannot see that causing unnecessary human suffering is wrong whether or not their imaginary Sky Daddy says so, whom I consider psychopaths.

Dear me, your bone-headed racist ignorance is showing, Larry.
From the Random House dictionary:
a highly structured system of human organization for large-scale community living that normally furnishes protection, continuity, security, and a national identity for its members: American society.
Hunter-gatherer “societies” are not typically highly structured, nor large-scaled, nor do they furnish a national identity, nor much in the way of security. Nor is there anything “racist” in saying so. You, in fact, are showing your racism by assuming the hunter-gatherers have to be of a specific race.
I suggest you don’t try that line on an African-American audience, Larry. Your racism becomes more evident with every sentence: for a normal human being, the deprivation of liberty in itself causes great suffering.
Actually, your racism is what’s becoming more evident, by assuming all blacks everywhere think the same way, and are incapable of evaluating the evidence. Your parochialism is also very evident in thinking of slavery only in terms of the American south, when, in reality, as I pointed out above, it was feature of every human society worthy of the name prior to the advent of Christianity. People allow themselves to be deprived of liberty all the time, for all sorts of reasons, jobs, love, family, and on and on. I trade some of my liberty for a paycheck, as do most people. Loss of liberty doesn’t necessarily cause the suffering that you ascribe to it, in fact most people scarcely notice it.
If Aristotle was arguing this, then he was showing (at least apparent) concern about human suffering, wasn’t he? Assuming his sincerity, he was just factually wrong, possibly because the only alternative he considered was wholesale massacre of war-prisoners.
No, Aristotle argued that some, actually most, people were by nature slaves and were happiest when in that state. By your standards this makes him a psychopath. As I said, who knew?

Larry,
Actually, your racism is what’s becoming more evident, by assuming all blacks everywhere think the same way
So, a bare-faced liar as well as a racist. Nothing I said bears this interpretation.
I trade some of my liberty for a paycheck, as do most people. Loss of liberty doesn’t necessarily cause the suffering that you ascribe to it, in fact most people scarcely notice it.
To compare paid employment which you can leave to chattel slavery is utterly contemptible.
Hunter-gatherer “societies” are not typically highly structured, nor large-scaled, nor do they furnish a national identity, nor much in the way of security.
Hunter-gatherer societies are extensively discussed in the anthropological literature. The fact that you can find an incorrect dictionary definition of “society” is irrelevant. You show your racism in your contempt for current hunter-gather societies, as well as your attempts to palliate slavery.
it was feature of every human society worthy of the name prior to the advent of Christianity
False, as already established. Christian societies, of course, retained it for nearly two millennia, and the Bible has nothing whatever to say against it.
No, Aristotle argued that some, actually most, people were by nature slaves and were happiest when in that state. By your standards this makes him a psychopath.
You really are incapable of reading, aren’t you? If Aristotle honestly believed that most people would be happier as slaves, then he was showing concern to avoid unnecessary human suffering, and was therefore not a psychopath. Got it yet?

I hope everybody can forgive me for allowing myself to be dragged down to the level of invective. It was wrong and shouldn’t have happened. Since this conversation has gone so far off topic and beyond civilize bounds I am withdrawing. Again, my apologies.

Larry,
Since many of the methods [of theology] parallel those of science, looking at the evidence, peer review, creating models and so on, I would be careful of saying things like that.
What “evidence”? If what you are talking about is reconstructing what – say – early Christians believed, then fair enough: very difficult, but the same methods can be used as in trying to make any similar reconstruction. But if you are talking about discovering the “nature of God”, you might as well claim to be discovering the “nature of the tooth fairy” or the “nature of leprechauns”.
“The nature of the Trinity was settled by who had political power, not by argument.”
Nonsense, if Nicea had been a put-up job by Constantine they would have produced an Arian creed, which reflected Constantine’s beliefs and was much friendlier to emperors, especially those of Rome. You really need to find another source for your history other than Dan Brown. That the final vote at Nicea was so overwhelmingly for the orthodox formulation, something like 3 dissents out about 300 delegates, also argues against it being a political settlement.
I’ve never read Dan Brown. I was talking about the subsequent wars between Athanasians and Arians, not Nicaea itself.
Who was responsible for the anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union? Not Catholic priests, that’s for sure.
No, it was a hangover from the Tsarist era, when Orthodox priests were to the fore in killing Jews. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was produced in Russia under the Tsars, not the Bolsheviks. Remember “His blood be upon us, and upon our children”? Antisemitism is at the very core of Christianity.
I believe that an objective look at the church and what it has done shows that the church is, overwhelmingly, a force for good in the world.
Yet you have been unable to counter the long list I gave of evils for which the churches (there isn’t such a thing as “the church”) have been responsible. Their misogyny and homophobia still kill many thousands if not millions every year.