Dr. Gary Habermas, world-renowned expert on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, discusses losing his 43 year old wife to stomach cancer. He has a perspective you might not expect. Profound.
Those of you who read Part 1 hopefully understand my concern is that in his book “The God Delusion” Dr. Richard Dawkins has set out to divert people from any religious views they and move them into the world of atheism in what i contend is an inappropriate and inaccurate manner, especially in light of the “world-class scientific” credentials he possesses. Furthermore, I believe people making decisions based on reading this book have the absolute right to have the material presented in a fair, accurate, and honest manner.
In Part 1 I demonstrated how Dr. Dawkins manipulated the available information to skew the perceptions on the effectiveness of intercessory prayer. For Part two, I’m going to jump forward to Chapter 3, Pages 118-120 in the paperback version and focus on the section entitled: “The Argument from the Scripture”.
I’m not saying that I don’t take issue with many of the things Dr. Dawkins says in the in the first two chapters (in addition to the prayer example) but I’ll save commentary on that section of the book until a future post. There are two reasons for this. First, many of the issues I have with this material revolve around the rather subtle wording and style Dr. Dawkins uses, and I think that once I point out some of the more obvious issues farther on in the book it will be easier to go back and pick those items up later.
Second. A large portion of the first two chapters of “The God Delusion” deals with the contention that there are many religious persons (including professed Christians) who have done terrible things. On that point, I agree with Dr. Dawkins, there are. However, the fact that some Christians, Muslims, Jews, or Atheists for that matter do so has no bearing whatsoever on the existence or nonexistence of God. It is, in my opinion, discussed simply to shape the readers perspective leading into subsequent portions of the book.
With that being said, let’s look at what Dr. Dawkins’ has presented in pages 118-120.
We’ll start with his comment in the middle of the page 118 which states:
“A good example of the colouring by religious agendas is the whole heart-warming legend of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, followed by Herod’s massacre of the innocents. When the gospels were written, many years after Jesus’ death, nobody knew where he was born. But an Old Testament prophecy (Micah 5:2) had led Jews to expect that the long-awaited Messiah would be born in Bethlehem”
He goes on to say:
“In the light of this prophecy, John’s gospel specifically remarks that his followers were surprised that he was not born in Bethlehem: ‘Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was?‘ “
To state that John is in any way inferring that Jesus was not born in Bethlehem is totally untrue. You can easily check this for yourself. The Scripture quoted above is John 7:41. However, if you go back just a few lines and check John 7:1, you see that “After That, Jesus went around Galilee, purposely staying away from Judea because the Jews there were waiting to take his life.” The Scriptures state that Jesus traveled regularly and just because he was most recently in Galilee doesn’t mean he wasn’t born somewhere else.
In my mind that’s equivalent to someone trying to dispute my having graduated from Ohio State simply because I moved to Virginia from my previous residence in Maryland after having lived in Ohio, Florida, Texas, and California. (But some said, Shall the Chief Engineer come out of Maryland? Hath not the resume said, that he cometh of the Ohio State Engineering Department and out of the town of Columbus in Ohio, where Woody was?)
Continuing on to pages 118 and 119.
“Matthew and Luke handle the problem differently, by deciding that Jesus must have been born in Bethlehem after all. But they get him there by different routes. Matthew has Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem all along, moving to Nazareth only long after the birth of Jesus, on their return from Egypt where they fled from King Herod and the massacre of the innocents Luke, by contrast, acknowledges that Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth before Jesus was born. So how to get them to Bethlehem at the crucial moment, in order to fulfil the prophecy? Luke says that, in the time when Cyrenius (Quirinius) was governor of Syria, Caesar Augustus decreed a census for taxation purposes, and everybody had to go ‘to his own city’. Joseph was ‘of the house and lineage of David’ and therefore he had to go to ‘the city of David, which is called Bethlehem’.”
Let’s check the sources. Matthew 1:20 details an angel’s words to Joseph: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife…” Mathew 1:24 further states “When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.” (NIV)
So where were Joseph and Mary? While Matthew doesn’t specifically say, a good case can be made that it is somewhere other than “home” since that is where they are told to go. And, where is Joseph’s home…Bethlehem.
Now let’s look at Luke. Luke tells us both Mary (Luke 1:26) and Joseph (Luke 2:4) are in Nazareth. Luke 2:1-3 states: “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register. So, Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David because he belonged to the house and line of David.”(NIV)
Again, let’s ask where were Joseph and Mary? Somewhere other than “home”, but this time we have an answer, Nazareth. And where did they go? To Joseph’s home…in Bethlehem.
From this we can see that what the Scriptures say concerning the location of Jesus’ birth, is nothing remotely like what Dr. Dawkins says in his book. Lets’ keep going.
Still on Page 119, Dr. Dawkins states:
“Moreover, Luke screws up his dating by tactlessly mentioning events that historians are capable of independently checking. There was indeed a census under Governor Quirinius – a local census, not one decreed by Caesar Augustus for the Empire as a whole – but it happened too late: in AD 6, long after Herod’s death.”
There are a couple of items that should be discussed relative to this. For baseline purposes we will use the generally accepted date of 4 BC for Jesus’ birth.
The first item is a matter of translation. The term “governor of” may also be translated as “governing in” and Luke presents his description of Quirinius in the same manner he uses to describe Pontius Pilate’s role as a regional Procurator (i.e. not a “Governor”). (Luke 3:1) Thus it is valid to extend the time period during which Quirinius was serving in some official capacity which has been documented back to as early as 12 BC and leads to a translation describing a census that took place under the direction of Quirinius, before he formally became “Governor”.
Additionally, the Luke uses the Greek word “protos” which in addition to being translated as “first” may also be translated as “prior to” when followed by the genitive case. Thus the implication here is that Luke could also be referring to a census (commonly thought to be the “Oath Census” in the 2-4 BC time-frame) that took place prior to the 6 AD property/taxation census.
While I will agree this is somewhat of a gray area as far as clarity is concerned, Dr. Dawkins again fails to mentions any valid discussion that happens to contradict his absolute vision, thus again leading the reader away from a fair and accurate portrayal of the facts.
The final example I want to point out in this section can be found in the middle of page 120. Dr. Dawkins states:
“Shouldn’t a literalist worry about the fact that Matthew traces Joseph’s descent from King David via twenty-eight intermediate generations, while Luke has forty-one generations? Worse, there is almost no overlap in the names on the two lists! In any case, if Jesus really was born of a virgin, Joseph’s ancestry is irrelevant and cannot be used to fulfil, on Jesus’ behalf, the Old Testament prophecy that the Messiah should be descended from David.”
I’m sure in researching this topic that Dr. Dawkins came across (but failed to note) the widely accepted position that Matthew traces back the lineage of Joseph while Luke traces back Mary’s lineage. No wonder there is little overlap between the two. Also note that Matthew didn’t say there were 28 generations in total from David to Jesus, but rather 14 from David to the exile to Babylon and 14 after the Babylonian exile ended to Jesus.
As for the Messiah being descended from David, that blood relationship is provided through Mary’s ancestry. Joseph, while not the biological father of Jesus, is considered the legal father, and according to the Jewish law, passes on the royal and legal family ancestral link to David and Solomon.
In Part 1 of this post, I showed you how Dr. Dawkins had selectively manipulated the “prayer experiment” to fit the needs of his agenda. In this part, I hope you have seen how he continues to manipulate the facts in a manner the leads people to his agenda.
As with Part 1, I ask only that you take the time to look over this from a neutral point, think for yourself, and ask yourself the following questions relative to The God Delusion:
1. Am I being told the truth or am I being given a rhetoric which is unfairly skewed to lead me (and others) into potentially life-changing decisions?
2. Does Dr. Dawkins (a world-class scientist) present you with a fair, accurate, and ethical document on which to base my life decisions or is he unfairly misleading me into making the decision he wants?
Let me know what you think.
The purpose of this post is not to prove that Intelligent Design is true, nor that it is superior to naturalistic alternatives, but simply to raise awareness over some of the lines of evidence where Intelligent Design seems to be science. Let me also reject in advance those who dismiss ID with casual comments like, “There is no evidence whatsoever for ID,” “ID is creationism in a tuxedo, but still has no ticket for the party,” or “ID is no more scientific than astrology” or the like. These aren’t necessarily ridiculous positions to hold, but they require a lot more substance than most claimants (that I’ve encountered) are usually willing to muster. ID does not necessarily deserve credit or acceptance, but if satisfies the criteria for admission into scientific consideration, then one cannot in good-intellectual-honesty dismiss it out of hand and still claim to be science-minded.
First, ID employs a theory drawn from science, namely, information theory (see, Dembski’s The Design Inference)–information theory is a staple in SETI, Forensics, Archeology, Cryptology, Anthropology, etc.
Second, the problem with ID is not whether information theory is scientific, but whether astronomy, biology, and chemistry are valid fields of applying information theory. Properly casting the nature of this debate is key to understanding the lines of argumentation. Those rebuking ID for elaborating “information theory” should instead focus their argument on the illegitimacy of applying information theory to fields like astronomy, biology, and chemistry.
Third, ID does achieve claims that are, at least on a low level, falsifiable. For example, the Bacterial flagellum may be irreducibly complex if no more basic alternative-use formulations such as a (Type III secretory system [syringe type rod]) can be found which are constitutionally older than the flagellum. Applying ID theory to the flagellum renders a testable prediction, namely the falsifiable theory that if the flagellum is irreducibly complex, then there will never be discovered a simpler same-function form nor an older alternative-function form.
Fourth, neither naturalism nor materialism has been, historically, a necessary precondition for doing science, given the preponderance of religious scientists throughout history. It may be argued, weakly, that if one allows for supernatural causes, one is discouraged or distracted from the hard task of finding natural, reliable, or material causes for natural phenomenon. While that possibility makes sense, it has not been the reality. Despite there being many non-theists (i.e.: no kind of God-belief) in the sciences, there are still a host of theists who have little trouble employing a methodological naturalism for much of their work while suspending that assumption where it might bias the data (such as, dismissing evidence for a miracle claim simply because naturalism demands dismissing all miracle claims). Stephen Jay Gould’s Non-overlapping Magisterium is a nice theory to safely quarantine religion and science from effecting each other, but both make metaphysical claims on history, humanity, and the natural world. And many scientists exist in the overlap for, despite the claims of casual anti-ID theorist, these science-minded theists can readily admit the possibility of an active God without descending into a “magical” irrational view of nature.
Fifth, ID does bear fruit in further predictions and study. We can, for example, study and apply irreducible complexity theory anywhere in biology to see where it fits and where it does not. At a minimum, such applications of ID force evolutionary alternatives to mount a more comprehensive/compelling set of unintelligent mechanisms since the known unintelligent mechanisms fail pretty badly on many cases. Pure evolutionary theory, for example, has the difficulty of explaining the reality of “true belief” given the non-intelligent mechanical causes of Newtonian forces as it’s only physical forces, or, natural selection and genetic variations as it’s overriding biological forces. Sure one can appeal to conceptual models and thought experiments to argue for an evolutionary answer to this problem Plantinga calls “the Evolutionary Argument Against naturalism,” but that effort is bound to circularity, begging the question, since naturalistic answers ostensibly presuppose that intelligence arises from non-intelligence though that is precisely the premise needing defense.
For another example, ID predicts that the more irreducibly complex and higher specified complexity of something, the less capable we will be at demonstrating a viable evolutionary account. By testing evolutionary mechanisms against a given object–such as the Giraffe’s neck or the woodpecker’s tongue–we can see, according to the prediction, whether the known mechanisms of evolution easily explain it or not. If the Giraffe’s neck, which supposedly is irreducibly complex, then there would be no immediate and demonstrable explanation from naturalism for its appearance. If the Giraffe’s neck is slightly or greatly complex, and irreducible in either case, then evolutionary theory will have an easier or harder time, respectively, providing a viable account from natural causes that does not betray the kind of incrementalism espoused by Darwin nor, if one is okay with being in the scientific minority, the punctuated equilibrium espoused later. Remember though, that both sets of theories have their own burden of proof whereby they ought to exceed the (low) test of “explanatory” sufficiency and reach some kind of testability.
Still a third example of how ID is fruitful with testable predictions, ID predicts that high-information content within organisms can devolve, but does not greatly evolve. Hence, we can subject microorganisms to generations of forced mutations to see if any give rise to sustainable gains in specified complexity. Fourth, ID presents tremendous applications for the search for extra-terrestrials (i.e., non-human intelligences), and reapplication of information theory in forensics, cryptology, computer programming, Artificial Intelligence, and archeology. Fifth, and implied above, ID also presents a valuable frame of reference for critiquing the monopoly of evolutionary theory (such that many evolutionists are not aware of any explanatory gaps or weaknesses within evolutionary theory). And what is science if not a free-exchange of alternative theories and findings achieving the market-capitalism of ideas whereby poorly framed hypotheses can be honed and improved, or ground down into oblivion.
Sixth, it is not very scientific to put faith in evolutionary theory to IN THE FUTURE resolve present ignorance. Evolution-of-the-gaps is no less dogmatic and faith-based than is God of the gaps. And frankly, a great deal of force behind the rejection of ID is fueled by faith in evolutionary theory to explain aspects of nature that are yet unknown. Though evolution, according to typical evolutionists, has been well verified on many accounts, scientists pride themselves on respecting no authorities and refraining from all faith or dogma in place of their science. Where evolution has not been DEMONSTRATED to explain a certain phenomenon, it remains a theory, or, at best a hypothesis. But any use of said hypothesis prior to experimentation risks being philosophy or even theology. Scientists are more than allowed to do philosophy; they just have to sacrifice the authority and credibility of “Science-says-so-and-so” when they are philosophizing.
Seventh, NO scientific claim is DEDUCTIVELY verifiable–as that would entail the kind of certainty achieved only in logic and math. It would not be fair to demand of Intelligent Design a degree of certainty that the rest of science rarely if ever achieves. All scientific claims, even the strongest ones, are limited to INDUCTIVE probability never deductive certainty since they are fundamentally empirical (not rationalistic or formalistic in their metaphysics or epistemology).
Eighth, any theoretical streams within science are deemed “scientific” though they conceptually and practically defy testability (whether verification or falsification)–just as Theoretical Physics like String Theory.
Ninth, whatever else “science” means, there would seem to be something inherently unscientific about disqualifying what may be true and treat any related questions as uninteresting since they are not bound by naturalism. Science should not be too proud to investigate the mating habits of insects nor the possibility of non-human intelligence.
Tenth, science itself could not exist without philosophy of science to establish it’s nature and parameters. Truth be told, ID tests the demarcation problem for Science though many scientists themselves may have never known there was any problem demarcating Natural Science from other fields of study like theology or philosophy. Scientists hate to admit this, as there is a generally negative view of metaphysics entire even though every scientist is, by the nature of the field, a part-time metaphysician. To illustrate, it was the philosophy of science that gave birth to the scientific method which gave modern birth science. This point is relevant because the natural sciences rightly incorporate under the title of “science” things that were never purely “science. The scientific method was not hatched in a lab but in the mind of philosophical-theological-scientists. We would sacrifice too much if we cut off any “philosophy” or “theology” as non-science simply because it is not testable in a lab as that would forbid the scientific method itself–which is philosophy, and not itself testable within the parameters of science.
Eleventh, it is a genetic fallacy and a fallacy of association to fault ID for having young-Earthers, religious people (who are presumed “biased”), or otherwise unliked characters among its members. We should remember that early chemists are largely indistinguishable from alchemists–yet we would not want to dismiss their work as “unscientific” just because they were still dabbling in pseudoscience. We would not want to morally fault science for its association among Nazi experimenters in WWII. Abuse does not bar use. And if the ID is abused or genetically tainted by some of its practitioners, we still have the theory itself to deal with lest we mistakenly burn the message because of the messenger. Conversely, we cannot rightly fault the findings of atheistic humanists in science because they, perhaps, have an anti-theological bias or might be “swayed” by their irreligion or humanism or atheism. Biased people can still do good science provided; there’s is not an overriding bias.
In conclusion, a compelling case can be made that ID is indeed a science and therefore, it deserves a hearing among science-minded people.
It is the ultimate responsibility of the scientific and engineering communities to convey information in a clear, honest and accurate manner. To do otherwise is not only unethical but can endanger the health and welfare of people as many of the decisions we make both as individuals and as a society depend on the “facts” reported to us.
While all young scientists and engineers are taught the criticality of this concept, there are far too many cases where publications by allegedly educated, highly reputable professionals contain “facts and conclusions” that are either contrary to or in direct opposition to the supporting evidence.
One might wonder why anyone would anyone would risk publishing such information, especially in light of the peer review process that is supposedly employed in the review of such documents. The general reasons this occurs can include:
- Inexperience or honest errors and omission
- Carelessness
- Deliberate manipulation of the data to support the author’s personal agenda (fame, greed, power, control, etc)
The unfortunate thing is that the greater the author’s education, experience, and skill, the more likely that a publication that repeatedly contains such erroneous treatment of the facts tends to fall into the last category. As the old saying goes, “figures lie and liars figure”.
Such is the dilemma faced by Richard Dawkins, author of “The God Delusion”, whether to accurately and impartially portray the facts surrounding the items he discusses in this book in the hope that they provide support for his position or, to manipulate them in a manner that forces them to support his stated mission states “If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down.” regardless of whether or not they actually do.
Now Dr. Dawkins has impressive credentials. He earned a PhD in Biology from Balliol College, Oxford in 1966. He has served as an assistant professor of zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, a lecturer in zoology and fellow of New College at Oxford University 1970-1990, and in 1995 he became Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford.
Dr. Dawkins’ awards are numerous, well deserved, and include the Zoological Society of London Silver Medal, the Michael Faraday Award, the Kistler Prize, and the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic. He has been awarded several honorary degrees, topped “Prospect” magazine’s 2004 list of the top 100 public British intellectuals, granted Fellowship on the Royal Society and the Royal Society for Literature, and has authored numerous award winning and bestselling books.
There is little question as to the education, knowledge, skills, qualifications, and expertise possessed by Dr. Dawkins. This effectively eliminates Category 1, listed above, as the cause of inaccuracies in “The God Delusion”.
I’ve also eliminated carelessness as a cause since Dr. Dawkins himself notes the critiques of “various drafts” by a qualified (but hardly impartial) panel of experts, states that his wife read “the entire book aloud to me at two different stages in its development so I could apprehend very directly how it might seem to a reader other than myself”, and indicates that in the paperback edition he has “taken the opportunity to make a few minor improvements, and correct some small errors that readers of the book have kindly drawn to my attention.”
Therefore, one can only categorize the omissions, manipulations, and misrepresentation of the facts Dr. Dawkins presents in “The God Delusion” as falling into the third category listed above.
So, what are some of the issues in “The God Delusion” (Note: In discussing this I will only be using the paperback edition). Well, before addressing this, let’s establish some ground rules.
- In this and subsequent postings I will base comments only on documented evidence. While I won’t make philosophical judgments, I will reserve the right to present evidence that may be as speculative as that presented by Dr. Dawkins. This will be done only to offer you the opportunity to question for yourself the validity of Dr. Dawkins’ statements.
- I have nothing personal against Dr. Dawkins. I assume he is a good man who is grounded in his beliefs. I do, however, believe he needs to be held to responsible for his lack of scientific and research professionalism in presenting the information in “The God Delusion”.
- I ask only that you be fair and honest in determining whether or not the information contained within “The God Delusion” is presented in a reasonable and accurate manner. This is a responsibility Dr. Dawkins has to his audience and a right you have as the reader, especially if you are making life changing decisions based on it.
So let’s start by looking at Dr. Dawkins’ treatment of prayer…
On pages 85-90, Dr. Dawkins discusses “The Great Prayer Experiment”, a $2.4 million dollar study funded by the Templeton Foundation performed under the direction of Dr. Herbert Benson, “a cardiologist at the Mind/Body Medical Institute near Boston”. This study was officially known as “The Study of Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer” or more simply “STEP”.
Dr. Dawkins starts this section of his book with a very brief mention of the study done by Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton before jumping directly to the Templeton Foundation study. He describes the basic setup and conduction of the experiment along with what he portrays as the “clear cut” results. Dr. Dawkins states:
“Dr. Benson and his team monitored 1,802 patients at 6 hospitals, all of whom received coronary bypass surgery. The patients were divided into three groups. Group 1 received prayer and didn’t know it. Group 2 (the control group) received no prayers and didn’t know it. Group 3 received prayers and did know it.”
The results of the study, as Dr. Dawkins correctly notes is that there was no statistically difference between Group 1 (received prayer and didn’t know it) and Group 2 (received no prayers and didn’t know it). Surprisingly, Group 3 (received prayers and did know it) had a statistically significant higher incidence of complications.
I won’t present everything Dr. Dawkins states on these pages, you can read that for yourself assuring the accuracy of his words. Also, in keeping with Ground Rule 1, I will not present any opinion on the effects of intercessory prayer. I will only let the facts speak for themselves and let you determine if Dr. Dawkins if presenting an accurate view of the study and giving you facts upon which you should be basing life decisions.
First a little history. While Dr. Dawkins has noted only two studies (Galton and Benson), a 2008 article by Dr. Larry Dossey in discussing intercession prayer experiments in the November/December 2008 issue of Explore, The Journal of Science and Healing, states:
“We can identify around two dozen major-controlled studies in humans, approximately half of which show statistically significant results favoring the intervention group toward whom healing intentions were extended.”
Note, I’m not saying prayer intervention works, only that Dr. Dawkins did not report the existence of any of studies other than Galton and Benson. In fact, the Benson study is considered by many as only the 2nd best known intercessory prayer experiment following a 1988 study by cardiologist Randolph Byrd. The Byrd study (cited as a reference in the Benson study) showed a 5-7% benefit for those receiving prayer (vs. compared to the 7-8% considered statistically significant for Group 3 in the STEP study).
Now as for the study itself, Dr Dawkins incorrect categorizes the groups as “Group 1 received prayer and didn’t know it. Group 2 (the control group) received no prayers and didn’t know it. Group 3 received prayers and did know it.” In reality Benson et al describe the groups as:
- Group 1 – Received prayer, informed that they may or may not receive prayer
- Group 2 – Received no prayer, informed that they may or may not receive prayer
- Group 3 – Received prayers and did know it
Now this seems like a small difference, it can affect the results (i.e. receiving or not receiving prayer and know knowing about it vs. knowing that it is a possibility). In fact, an editorial by Mitchell Krucoff et al that was published in the same issue of the American Heart Journal in which Benson’s STEP paper appeared notes that:
“Patients enrolled in double-blinded arms might still be inclined to guess or even believe they know what their treatment assignment actually was. In elective percutaneous coronary intervention patients enrolled in a double-blinded prayer study, about two thirds of patients not actually assigned prayer believed that they were.”
He went on to state:
“‘Constraints on how intercessory prayer was provided’ excluded all but a handful of prayer groups and may have affected the actual prayers performed by these groups.”
Further, Dossey (in the publication cited above) states that:
“Surveys show that around 80% to 90% of Americans pray regularly when they are well and it can be assumed even more pray when they are sick. Faced with the possible prospect of being denied prayer in the study, the subjects in A [Group 1] and B [Group 2] may therefore have redoubled their personal prayers for themselves. Thus a paradox may have resulted in which A and B received more prayer – not less – than C [Group 3]”.
Also, Manoj Jain, one of the original authors of STEP stated in a 2006 Harvard medical School news release:
“One caveat [of STEP] is that with so many individuals receiving prayer from friends and family it may be impossible to disentangle the effects of study prayer from background prayer.”
Now, in discussing the statistically significant higher incidence of complications in Group 3 Dr. Dawkins casually comments:
“Was God doing a bit of smiting, to show his disapproval of the whole barmy enterprise? It seems more probable that those patients who knew they were being prayed for suffered additional stress in consequence: ‘performance anxiety’, as the experimenter put it.”
Well, in the American Heart Journal editorial cited above Krucoff et al take the experimenters to task by stating:
“While presenting these results clearly and noting them in discussion, the investigators take an almost casual approach toward any explanation, stating only that ‘may have been a chance finding’”.
Ariel et al really drive this home in the May 2008 issue of The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine in which they note that the patients in Group 3 “which had the highest rate of complications, may have been predisposed to do worse”. They state:
“When compared with the other two groups, this group had a higher incidence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (emphysema and chronic bronchitis), a higher incidence of smoking history, a higher rate of three-vessel coronary bypass surgery, and a lower rate of beta-blocker use prior to surgery.”
and conclude that:
“For a fair trial of prayer, the study should have established a level playing field between all three groups through proper randomization, such that no group was worse off than any other going into the study.”
As I noted before, I’m not trying to promote my own beliefs on intercessory prayer. Rather, I’m simply pointing out that the “evidence” cited so glowingly by Dr. Dawkins is, in fact, nothing like he has portrayed it to be. As a scientist routinely involved in both writing and reviewing papers on such studies, it is clearly apparent that he has manipulated the information to further his stated agenda, i.e. “If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down.”
“The God Delusion” has, I believe, sold over two million copies. Unfortunately, Dr. Dawkins has let his disdain for organized religion skew his scientific objectivity. Regardless of your beliefs on this and other topics addressed by Dr. Dawkins, you as the reader have the right to a fair and impartial presentation of the facts on which to base any future decisions you may make, decisions Dr. Dawkins is clearly trying to direct for you.
In the next installment, I’ll give you some more examples of Dr. Dawkins’ misleading presentation of factual information from “The God Delusion”.
The United States Congress was in a rare joint session. All 435 representatives and 100 senators were in attendance, and the C-SPAN-TV cameras were rolling. The members were gathered together to hear a speech by a descendant of George Washington. But what they thought would be a polite speech of patriotic historical reflections quickly turned into a televised tongue-lashing. With a wagging finger and stern looks, Washington’s seventh-generation grandson declared,
Woe to you, egotistical hypocrites! You are full of greed and self-indulgence. Everything you do is done for appearances: You make pompous speeches and grandstand before these TV cameras. You demand the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats wherever you go. You love to be greeted in your districts and have everyone call you “Senator” or “Congressman.” On the outside you appear to people as righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness! You say you want to clean up Washington, but as soon as you get here you become twice as much a son of hell as the one you replaced!
Woe to you, makers of the law, you hypocrites! You do not practice what you preach. You put heavy burdens on the citizens, but then opt out of your own laws!
Woe to you, federal fools! You take an oath to support and defend the Constitution, but then you nullify the Constitution by confirming judges who make up their own laws.
Woe to you, blind hypocrites! You say that if you had lived in the days of the Founding Fathers, you never would have taken part with them in slavery. You say you never would have agreed that slaves were the property of their masters but would have insisted that they were human beings with unalienable rights. But you testify against yourselves because today you say that unborn children are the property of their mothers and have no rights at all! Upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed in this country. You snakes! You brood of vipers! You have left this great chamber desolate! How will you escape being condemned to hell!
Of course such an address never really took place. Who would be so blunt and rude to address the nation’s leaders that way? Certainly no one claiming to be a Christian. Are you sure?
Jesus said something very similar. What? Sweet and gentle Jesus? Absolutely. If you read the twenty-third chapter of Matthew you’ll see that much of my fictitious speech is adapted from the real speech Jesus made to the Pharisees. Contrary to the spineless Jesus invented today by those who want an excuse to be spineless themselves, the real Jesus taught with authority and did not tolerate error. When people were wrong, Jesus corrected them and sometimes he got in their faces to do so.
While Jesus was often more diplomatic, he knew that sometimes you need to be blunt with people. Sometimes you need to be direct instead of dancing around the issues. In fact, if you fail to be direct, you risk enabling people, allowing them to continue on their merry way, destroying themselves and the nation.
“Oh, but Jesus wouldn’t say that kind of thing to politicians,” you say. “He wouldn’t get involved in politics.”
Think again.
Who were the Pharisees? They were not just the religious leaders but also the political leaders of Israel! You mean Jesus was involved in politics? Yes! Paul was too. He addressed the political leaders of his day and even used the privileges of his Roman citizenship to protect himself and advance the Gospel.
But didn’t Jesus say, “Give unto Caesar.” Yes. So what? We all ought to pay taxes. But that doesn’t mean we ought not get involved in politics. In our country, you can not only elect “Caesar,” you can be “Caesar!”
Jesus told us to be “salt” and “light,” and he didn’t say be salt and light in everything but politics. Christians are to be salt and light in everything they do, be it in their church, in their business, in their school, or in their government.
That doesn’t mean establishing a “Theocracy.” Christians should be great protectors of liberty, including freedom of religion. In fact, having Christians involved in government happens to be advantageous for even non-Christians. How so?
It is only the Christian worldview that secures the unalienable rights of the individual in God— rights that include the right to life, liberty, equal treatment, and religious freedom. Islam won’t do it. Islam means submission to Allah and Sharia law. It doesn’t protect individual rights. Neither will Hinduism (the Caste system) or outright secularism, which offers no means to ground rights in anything other than the whims of a dictator. Only Christianity grounds the rights of the individual in God, and also realizes that since God doesn’t force anyone to adhere to one set of religious beliefs, neither should the government.
I often hear Christians claiming that we ought to just “preach the Gospel” and not get involved in politics. This is not only a false dilemma; it’s stupid (how’s that for direct?). If you think “preaching the Gospel” is important like I do, then you ought to think that politics is important too. Why? Because politics and law affects your ability to preach the Gospel! If you don’t think so, go to some of the countries I’ve visited—Iran, Saudi Arabia, China. You can’t legally “preach the Gospel” in those countries—or practice other aspects of your religion freely—because politically they’ve ruled it out.
It’s already happening here. There are several examples where religious freedoms are being usurped by homosexual orthodoxy. This summer a Christian student was removed from Eastern Michigan University’s (a public school) counseling program because, due to her religious convictions, she would not affirm homosexuality to potential clients. A judge agreed (a similar case is pending in Georgia). In Massachusetts, Catholic charities closed their adoption agency rather than give children to homosexual couples as the state mandated. In Ohio, University of Toledo HR Director Crystal Dixon was fired for writing a letter to the editor in her local newspaper that disagreed with homosexual practice.
More violations of religious liberty are on the way from the people currently in charge. Lesbian activist Chai Feldbaum, who is a recess appointment by President Obama to the EEOC, recently said regarding the inevitable conflict between homosexuality and religious liberty, “I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.” So much for tolerance. The people who say they’re fighting for tolerance are the most intolerant, totalitarian people in politics.
Getting involved in politics is necessary if for no other reason to protect your religious liberty, and the liberties of us all. So if you’re a Christian, follow the example of Christ—call out hypocrites and fools, and vote them out on Tuesday!
Oh, I almost forgot. If you’re a pastor and you’re worried about your tax-exempt status, please remember two things: 1) you have more freedom than you think to speak on political and moral issues from the pulpit, and 2) more importantly, you’re called to be salt and light, not tax-exempt.
If you’d like the complete case for Christian involvement get Jesus Is Involved In Politics! by Neil Mammen.
(This article originally appeared at Townhall.com on Oct. 31, 2010.)
Islam is a touchy subject. But it’s also a historical subject, a cultural and worldview subject, and it’s a subject of ethics and politics. For that reason, wisdom demands we discuss and learn about Islam no matter how touchy it may be. As a non-muslim myself, I understand the media’s fear–the fear of an “outsider”–of making matter-of-fact claims about Islam, especially politically incorrect claims.
After all, Islam is a force to reckon with, serving as the common denominator in most world terrorism. Onlookers, like myself, have to put words into the mouths of the terrorists to make them say, “This isn’t ‘true’ Islam.” To what extent can we rightfully tell the muslim extremist that his version of “Islam” is wrong? Is this kind of distinction between “radical” and “moderate” Islam a foreign invasion or a native distinction?Even with the important contributions of Islam in the arts, philosophy, math and sciences those would seem to be the irrepressably beautiful face bloodied and beaten by centuries of violence. Were such violence bygone, these questions might be outdated. But these are urgent and present questions. Hostilities remain hot.
Though I am a professor of world religions, I am no expert on Islam. I speak as an outsider. I approach this topic not as a claim but as a plea for self-proclaimed Muslims to clarify for the onlooking world what grounds do we have for denying the ‘muslim’ terrorist his claim on Islam? Is there a grounds? If so, what is it?There are plenty of ‘moderates’ who teach that Islam or the Qu’ran does not advocate violence. But there are also self-proclaimed “moderates” who refuse to call Hamas a terrorist organization. The same can be said of Hezbolah and Al Quaida. Such “moderates” give true moderates a bad name. Hence, “moderate” is a relative term, confusing to outsiders. Some might consider themselves “moderate” because they’ve never pulled a terrorist trigger themselves, yet they would knowingly and willingly support groups who do. Even “moderate” is ambiguous.
Yet the voice of true moderates is being heard. We wish it were louder, but it’s real and clear for its size. Meanwhile, the extremists and false moderates have their own references in the Qu’ran and Hadith, not to mention a history of Islam which easily suggests militancy. It would be a historical whitewash to think of the Prophet of Islam as anything less than a warlord (though He may have been more than that), or to neglect mentioning the military expansionism of Islam up through the middle ages and today, or to ignore the nagging border disputes in most every Muslim country, nor can we forget the prophecied empirialism where Islam is to be the reigning religion subjugating Jew, Christian, Atheist, and all manner of Kafur. Honest historians widely recognize that most every border to a Muslim-dominant country has been a bloody border. Even admitting the same kinds of bloodshed and empirialism by Jewish and Christian swords in world history, these other Abrahamic faiths have their respective reformations wherein religious militancy took a back seat to democracy and produced such political innovations as “priesthood of the believer,” “separation of church and state,” and “freedom of religion.” There remains a substantive and historical distinction between Judeo-Christian militancy and Islamic militancy. I know of no widespread or overarching reformation in Islam to suggest that this religion has outgrown those warring ways. Scholars reading this, am I wrong? Am I missing something?
I reiterate that there are many non-violent muslims and self-proclaimed moderates who are proud of their Muslim faith and Muslim heritage yet abhor all forms of terrorism, including that of Hamas, Al Quaeda and Hezbolah. I’m thankful for the moderates opposing tyranny and terrorism. So I mean no disrespect, nor hostility. I’m simply asking for a clear and defensible demarcation line between “true” Islam and that espoused by terrorists.
Those of us on the outside looking in desperately want to believe there is a kind of safe Islam that is both true to itself, being faithful to the Qu’ran and the Hadith, but which still represents a reformative split from the darker parts of Islam. The Qu’ran and Hadith ground that faith for the future so it is not enough for a liberalized or compromised form of “Islam” to reduce the Qu’ran and Hadith to pleasant metaphors, or allegorize their content into fairy tales. Islam has been and will be largely defined by it’s holy books, so that true Muslims must rightfully find in those books an Islam that is basically peaceful and uncoercive.Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all imperfect. But there are clearly discernable historically defensible reformations in the first two. Does textual, historical, or theological Islam distinguish “radicals” and “moderates” or are we arbitrarily deciding that the “safe” Muslims represent Islam while the dangerous ones don’t?
Perhaps, true Islam encompasses both so that truly peaceful non-coercive Muslims will have to pioneer their own reformation of Islam before they can effectively distinguish themselves from the ambiguous shades, shy of the middle, and the lunatic fringe of rioting and terrorist outlyers?
Excerpt from “Jesus Is Involved In Politics! Why aren’t You? Why Isn’t Your Church?” Rational Free Press 2010 (c) Neil MammenAvailable on Amazon and at www.JesusIsInvolvedInPolitics.com Socrates (to Euthyphro): “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?”
Plato, The Euthyphro Dilemma
Christian morality is based on pleasing or satisfying the whimsical capricious God of the Bible, with only secondary importance for “doing unto others as you would yourself” and “loving your neighbor.”
Council for Secular Humanism1
Pointy Headed Boss (to Dilbert): “You are not allowed to have internal phone lists on your wall. There are excellent reasons for this policy, and I hope to someday know what they are.”
Later – Pointy Headed Boss (to Catbert, Evil Director of Human Resource): “They’re getting suspicious about the Random Policy Generator.”
Dilbert Cartoon
Why The Law Was Given:Is God Capricious? Is God Good?
Did God arbitrarily make up the laws?
My Hindu friend who always argues with me about religion, had a smirk on his face. Now, you must realize that he was only Hindu by name and by culture, not by conviction. He was a functional agnostic. The fact that we were eating at a vegetarian restaurant was because he’d grown up vegetarian and never developed a taste for meat. “Why is god good?” he asked with that smirk. “Is he good because whatever he does is good? If he said killing infidels was good would that make it good?”
When we try to argue that God’s moral values are applicable to everyone and should be used as a basis for legislation, we have to first prove that God is not capricious. What my Hindu friend had been reading was the atheist claim that God arbitrarily decides what is good and what is bad. That, they say, makes Him capricious and His laws unworthy. Let me provide you with a definition of the word capricious.
Capricious adj.: determined by chance or impulse or whim rather than by necessity or reason; “authoritarian rulers are frequently capricious.”2
The quote at the beginning of this chapter from the Council for Secular Humanism claims God is capricious and whimsical; He randomly decides what is good and what is evil for no good reason. This was Socrates’ question to his student Euthyphro.
Bertrand Russell the avidly avowed atheist formulated the problem this way in his book, Why I Am Not A Christian:
If you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, you are then in this situation: Is that difference due to God’s fiat [decree/command] or is it not? If it is due to God’s fiat, then for God Himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good.
If you are going to say, as theologians do, that God is good, you must then say that right and wrong have some meaning which is independent of God’s fiat, because God’s fiats are good and not good independently of the mere fact that he made them. If you are going to say that, you will then have to say that it is not only through God that right and wrong came into being, but that they are in their essence logically anterior to[prior to/separate from] God.3
In other words, Russell said that if good is good because God randomly decided what was good, then good is not really good. It is arbitrary. But if good is good because of something separate from God, then God is not sovereign because He’s a slave to this goodness and thus goodness is greater than God. Is Russell right? Of course he is not, and I’ll show you how to refute him completely in the next few pages.
Is whatever we do for God good?
Remember the Gestapo Captain and the liberal Rabbi in the Walter Martin story we described in an earlier chapter. The liberal Rabbi who believes there is no objective right or wrong is asked by the Gestapo Captain, “I’m going to kill you, is there any reason why I shouldn’t?”
The liberal Rabbi can’t say, “Because it’s wrong or because it’s inhumane or because it’s bad.”4
In many ways, the Gestapo Captain was a relativistic thinker just like the liberal Rabbi. The Captain thought that whatever he did for the Nazi party or the German people was automatically good and that morality was something that the Nazis, not the Jews, got to define. In the same way if we were to say blindly that whatever we do for God is automatically good, it could lead to relativistic thinking and the claim of capriciousness. So let’s see how we can refute this claim.
Why God is not capricious
First, we must understand that it’s important that the laws that we are given be non-capricious real laws with real consequences. If God were to give us laws that had no real consequences and merely order us to obey them because it was His whim, then He would indeed be capricious. And those laws would be illogical, unnecessary, random and arbitrary.5 Sadly many Christians don’t seem to realize this. I personally didn’t either until I had to respond to an atheist about it. (This is one of the reasons for my zeal for apologetics).
Take the first point: All the laws that God gave us must be real laws with real and negative consequences to humans (I will prove this with examples later). But that means when we sin, we are effectively committing a double crime – that is, doing two bad things. We are hurting ourselves and others, and we are rebelling against the Almighty G
od who created us. The latter being the more serious crime, but understandably not one that we wish to legislate.
Second, we have to understand that the secular atheistic humanists have phrased the problem based on their limited understanding of God. It’s not that God is capricious or that He is beholden to a higher value. What will refute them and Russell is simply this:
God is good.
And that is our second point.
Huh? You ask.
Let me explain. It’s not that God has arbitrarily determined what good is. Nor it is that He is beholden to a higher value than Himself. It’s just that His very nature is one of goodness. God is good. God is by nature good. Goodness is who He is. God could no more decide tomorrow that torturing babies for fun was good than he could ever stop being God. Yes, God is enslaved but He is enslaved by His own nature. He is enslaved to God. He is enslaved to Himself. It’s that vicious cycle similar to God having to be the center of His own praises. God could no more stop being good than He could stop being God.6 Good is good, and God is good. Their sources are the same.
“Ah but,” my atheist friends complain, “you’ve not defined good, you’ve just said that God is good, so your definition of good is God and your definition of God is good. That’s circular reasoning, and you can’t prove it.”
But as we have already shown it is actually circular reasoning if you try to create a definition of good without a supreme moral giver. You need a standard and you need a standard giver.
Since my atheist friends cannot come to a definition of good without a standard, they are in a similar dilemma. At least our theory has explanatory power and is self-consistent.7 Do note, however, that I do not use this methodology to prove the existence of God. There are enough other ways to do this (all outside the scope of this book, see “Who is Agent X? Proving that Science and Logic show it is more reasonable to think God exists,” Neil Mammen, Rational Free Press, 2009).
Since the source of the definition of good is self evident, and the character of God is good, then it follows that God and the source of good can be the same. So there is no capriciousness in God.
But is it circular reasoning? It isn’t, if I can show that God has to be good to be God. It’s not circular reasoning then because being good inherently is a necessary condition for any god to be the God.
A bad god won’t last long
Let’s look at this. God could not be anything but good. In other words, there could not exist a god, who was bad, or a god who was irrational, or a god who was not loving. Why? Because it would not work. An irrational god would self-destruct and could not last for all eternity. An evil god would never survive. A deficient god who was in any way not self sufficient, or in any way destructive, or in anyway not ‘just,’ or not loving could not last for infinity as his own shortcomings would destroy him.
How can I prove this? Quite simply: Bad cannot exist except as a privation of good, bad is a corruption of good. What I mean by that is that there is nothing such as “bad,” bad only exists if good is corrupted.8 If good ceases to exist, bad will cease to exist as well. A good example is a shadow (note, I don’t mean darkness9). A shadow cannot exist without light. If a shadow were to destroy all light, it would destroy itself. All that would be left is darkness, which is not a shadow, it’s nothing.
That means infinite bad cannot exist, as it will cease to exist as soon as it becomes infinite. Since by necessity God is infinite10, He can never be infinitely or perfectly bad, as He will self-destruct (of course, the concept of God self-destructing doesn’t make sense, and that’s why we see that a bad god is impossible).
People can argue about it any way they want, but if they adhere to logic they’ll end up coming to the same conclusion.
I would theorize that even Satan realized that if he were able to survive without God (remember Satan was merely a created being),11 he would inevitably destroy himself as he became fully evil. A deficient evil being like Satan could not become or maintain himself as a universal eternal being. This is further exacerbated by the fact that evil has no definition if good does not exist; yet good, while not being fully appreciated, would still exist without evil. In all evil situations some good must exist. Even in Hitler’s Germany, those who were Nazi’s did good things. They loved their children. They cared for their elderly parents, (though who knows how long that would have lasted with their euthanasia programs?) It is impossible to imagine how the Nazis could have continued to exist if every Nazi was absolutely evil.12
So, as we can see, good can exist without evil. However, evil will destroy itself without good. Thus to exist, God must be good. Good must be a core characteristic of God. It’s not separate. Bertrand Russell has been refuted.
Note too that “Good” as we see, is a transcendent value. Good existed long before a universe existed. Similarly 1+1= 2 long before any universe was created and it will still be true after all universes have died a heat death. There are no possible universes where 1+1 is not equal to 2. Mathematics is a transcendent art. So are truth, justice, logic, rationality, love, reason and well, set theory among others.13 They are all part of the very intrinsic nature of God. They are transcendent and eternal.
Addendum
Do note, this blog is not attempting to prove any of the following: 1. That God is indeed actually good. I’ll leave that argument to others. It only concludes that IF He exists he must be good.2. That God exists (for that evidence please refer to the book “Who is Agent X? Proving Science and Logic show it’s more rational to think God exists.” available at www.NoBlindFaith.com)
End notes:
- www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=columns&page=news
- www.thefreedictionary.com/capricious3. Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian (New York: Touchstone, Simon & Schuster, 1957), 12. As quoted by Gregory Koukl in Euthyphro’s Dilemma on the Stand to Reason website.www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5236
- Yes, yes, I know you are thinking that he could say, “I have information that I can us
e to buy my life…” but let’s assume like most of the Jews who were sadly killed, he doesn’t have anything that the Gestapo Captain needed, that the Captain couldn’t have taken anyway. - Someone could argue that the command by God in the Garden of Eden, “Don’t eat of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil,” was capricious. But that would be presumptuous. Whenever we are dealing with an intelligent agent like God, presuming you know all the parameters as a human is illogical. We can’t argue from the lack of evidence. In addition as mentioned in an earlier footnote, if God did not give Adam the ability and opportunity to reject Him or disobey Him, He would not have truly given Adam freewill.
- Remember as we’ve said in a previous footnote, one of the things that we need to be clear about is that God cannot do anything. He cannot stop being God, He cannot sin, He cannot cease to exist, and He cannot be irrational or illogical. He cannot learn. He cannot make a round two- dimensional square. He cannot make 1+1 = 3. All of those actually are derived from “He cannot stop being God.” For a full logical response to “Can God create a stone so big that he cannot move it” see www.JesusIsInvolvedInPolitics.com and do a search for “Stone so big.”
- William Lane Craig, one of this century’s best debaters and philosophers, has used this argument quite successfully in many debates against atheists. I.e. if objective moral values exist, then God exists. Objective moral values do exist, thus God exists. See www.williamlanecraig.com. I always describe Dr. Craig this way: He’s the guy who, after he’s done debating an atheist, you actually feel sorry for the atheist. In his winsome manner, Craig destroys every single one of their arguments. Most atheists don’t know what hit them.
- One could try to argue that bad is a corruption of an amoral thing as well. For instance, a knife is amoral, for one can use it to kill instead of cut an apple. But the very existence of that knife is “good.” It is good that the knife exists because it is useful and has purpose. Non-existence would be the only truly amoral thing, but non-existence is not an option if anything at all exists.
- Darkness would be nothing or amorality in this example, i.e. neutrality- neither good nor evil.
- 1This can be proved in one paragraph; science agrees that whatever caused the Universe to begin at the point of the Big Bang was outside of time and space. This can only be an infinite being, since you cannot create time if you are in time. For more on this go to www.NoBlindFaith.com and search for “proving God exists without using the Bible.”
- I have a trick question that I use now and then. I ask, “Who is the opposite of Satan?” The answer is not God. Satan is a created being not a creator. He is not omnipresent in time and space and all dimensions. He is not omnipotent or omniscient. The closest opposite to Satan may be one of the archangels. If you ask, “Who is the opposite of God?” The answer is “No one” No one can be the equal and opposite of the Almighty Eternal Creator.This also means that Satan must be of such a mind that either he knowing that he can never destroy God wishes to be a thorn in God’s side till he Satan is destroyed or thinking that he can destroy God is willing to destroy himself to do so.
- This is similar to the concept of Total Depravity. We humans are totally depraved, but we are not absolutely depraved. This means that while we have a depraved sin nature, not everything we do is sinful or destructive.
- Note that physical, atomic, and chemical laws are not necessarily transcendent because they did not causally (that’s cause-ally not casually) exist before the universe was created and one could feasibly reason than a universe could be created with different laws.
A few years ago on an email list that is populated mainly by liberal Christians and non believers, I was challenged by an Atheist (Charles) to explain why there were so many inconsistencies in the Gospel accounts. His complaint was that for example some gospel accounts talk about Mary Magdalene going to the grave of Jesus, another has Mary M and Mary the mother of James. Another has Salome joining the two Marys. One talks about 1 angel, the other about 2 angels and so on.
Rather than waste too much effort on Charles (knowing he didn’t really care and in fact had just blindly copied and pasted the complaints from an atheist site without doing any research himself); I decided to wait a few months until it had slipped out of their collective memory and then use a indirect teaching method to show why there are actually no problems with the gospel accounts; even though they don’t always seem to match word for word.
Now note that my goal was not to “prove” that the Gospels are accurate (for that I refer you to http://reclaimingthemind.org/product/the-historical-reliability-of-the-gospels-audio-download/). My goal was simply to eliminate the silly argument that just because one Gospel report talks about 2 angels while an other only mentions 1 angel and so on, that did not mean they were pure fabrications as Charles maintained. In fact that may actually indicate that they are actual first or second hand reports.
It seems to have done its job; as no one on that email list has ever brought up this feeble excuse since then. Make sure you read through to my “explanation.”
Neil writes:
Hi all,
I was just reading the news last night about that tragic accident in Chicago. One thing occurred to me. I don’t think there really was a crash. Because when I read the story from these 5 different sources they all seemed to disagree with each other. Just shows how the liberal media twists things.
AP – Sat Dec 10,
A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 rests in the middle of Central Ave. Saturday, Dec. 10, 2005 in Chicago. The jetliner, trying to land in heavy snow slid off the runway Thursday at Midway Airport, crashed through a boundary fence and slid out into the street, hitting one car and pinning another beneath it. A child in one of the vehicles was killed. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
– What we know from this: there were only 2 cars, 1 boundary fence and only 1 child was hurt/killed.
Radio@UPEI December 9, 2005
A snowy runway caused a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 to skid off the runway in Chicago Thursday evening. Nobody on the plane was seriously injured, but a 6-year old boy was killed as the plane skid onto the intersection of 55th Street and Central Avenue, and hit the vehicle he was traveling in.
– This one must be false because it only mentions 1 vehicle being hit (the last one had 2) and nothing about going through any fence, but we know there were fences from the first report.
AFP/Getty Images – Fri Dec 9,
Southwest Airlines jet sits on a roadway after it crashed through a security wall the evening before at Midway Airport in Chicago, Illinois. US authorities launched an investigation after the jet skidded off a Chicago airport runway and into a street where it hit two cars and killed a child (AFP/Getty Images)
– This also must be made up because it says the plane went thru a security wall, not a boundary fence like the last one said it did? If a plane went through a brick wall it would have exploded or at least caught on fire don’t you think? Ah you are thinking a boundary/security wall what’s the difference? Well one is a fence the other a wall.
Reuters – Fri Dec 9,
A Southwest Airlines plane bound from Baltimore, Maryland, sits on a road along Chicago’s Midway Airport December 9, 2005, after crashing through a safety barrier while trying to land during a snowstorm in Chicago on December 8, 2005. (Frank Polich/Reuters)
-This story doesn’t mention that someone was killed in this crash. Which is kinda important don’t you think? It talks about a safety barrier not a wall, it also doesn’t talk about any cars being hit. So were NO cars hit? This story totally contradicts ALL the others. What liars these Reuters guys are.
AP Canadian Press – Fri Dec 9,
A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 rests nose first at the intersection of W.55th Street and Central Ave. in Chicago Friday after it skidded off the runway at Midway Airport Thursday. (AP/Charles Rex Arbogast)
– This is a second AP source that doesn’t agree even with the first source. It doesn’t say anything about any cars (forget about 2 of them), it doesn’t mention a fence of any sort, nor does it mention anybody dying. This whole situation sounds like it was made up from the start.
So folks can you help? Are we being snowed by the media? Did this event really happen? Can we trust that it really happened?
Question 1: Did any cars get hit. Two reports don’t mention it, the others do.
Question 2: How many cars did get hit? One report only says 1 car, some say 2 cars.
Question 3: Did anyone really die? Two reports don’t mention any deaths at all.
Question 4: What did the plane crash through, did it crash through anything? Some reports say it crashed through “a security wall,” another “a boundary fence,” and others “a safety fence.” Some don’t say anything about crashing through any sort of wall or fence.
So my conclusion is:
This story is a lie and made up by the liberal media.
There may be some semblance of truth to it, but on the whole it is inaccurate and should not be given any credence. Probably a superstitious myth.
Each of these news “mediums” are deliberately colluding to create a false story and they can’t even get their lies straight.
Besides we all know that if a plane crashes into a car it will explode in a big fireball, so this whole story is just unacceptable. If this was a true story every story would sound identical to the other story. That’s the ONLY way I’d believe it.
Another example of the lies put out by the liberal media. : ) It’s time we wake up.
Neil
First response to my email:
Neil
You have used the term “liberal media” 3 times as if that were something negative. In my understanding, “liberal” means being open to consider a variety of events, ideas, and opinions (it doesn’t necessarily mean acceptance of them), which any worthwhile news media should do. I certainly want to be liberal in my approach to life and to other people. The best news media are open to reporting a variety of events and ideas which have more than sensational or passing importance, mostly the NY Times and Wash Post. The best international news magazine is The Economist (don’t be misled by its title) which I read every week. Unfortunately, most US radio and TV news (even CBS now) now is just sensational and consists of sound bites without depth (except PBS), so I prefer BBC.
Further, 5 reporters under pressure to report sensational news fast are certainly going to differ in their dispatches. Don’t you think that you and I, suddenly observing something and under pressure to send a dispatch, would emphasize or neglect certain aspects?
Your emphasis on logical deduction here has caused you to deny the essence of what actually occurred.
Carl
Second Response:
Neil why don’t you ask the mother of the boy that died!!
Get a better example!! That seems to be your way!! Jesh!!
John
(looks like this guy John fell hook line and sinker for my little trap)
Third Response:
Neil, We all know that the press always contains inaccuracies, anyone who has had anything about them or their families in a local paper knows that even names come out wrong. I think Carl’s reply put it very succinctly, but I would also add that where you are raging against the so called “liberal” press, I must say that I find the right-wing press is not blame- free of inaccurate reporting, particularly that run by Rupert Murdoch.
I won’t bother listing the inaccuracies and omissions of the right wing press on the Iraq war, but I think we all understand that politicians and the press are not reliable sources, and that its always worth checking as many versions of any news story as you can.
Here in the UK we have a variety of broadcast and written media , and I find BBC radio one of the best sources of news, they had a programme about “rendition” about four months ago.
I was also surprised to discover how little the USA is reporting the kidnap of Norman Kember and Tom Fox
Kat
My Response to Kat:
Kat. So which is it? A total fabrication? One car or two? A dead boy or a dead child or none? Some truths some lies some errors? Or all lies? Or all errors? What is it? A myth? Legend?
Neil
My response to Carl and John:
Wait are you saying that despite the slightly different versions that different people gave, the stories are actually true? But don’t they contradict each other? One has 2 cars, the other only has 1 car, one has a wall the other has barrier, one has a dead boy the other has a dead child? Isn’t this contradictory?
Neil
Kat Responds:
a dead boy is a dead child, a wall is a barrier .
Kat
My response to that:
So you are saying they are telling the truth?
Neil
Another person joins in:
Neil,
I think you overrate contradiction.
Ruann
My response:
Ruann,
Are you saying the stories contradict each other? Is API right and Reuters wrong? Is API US accurate and API Canada a lie? Or are you saying there’s no real contradiction?
Neil
Response from Rebecca who has seen right through it all.
C’mon Neil, just spring that trap and get it over with! The tension is too much!
(Also smiling),
Rebecca
I finally explain:
Hi folks,
OK OK Thank you all (and Rebecca): So to summarize what we have garnered from this exercise:
- Multiple eye witnesses and accounts can emphasize different aspects of the story but the story can still be true (thanks Carl).
- Some people may say there were two items of something (e.g. two kids or two/three walls/fences), others may talk about one of the items (one kid)– but neither is contradictory unless one was to say there was ONLY one item (i.e. ONLY ONE kid). Again this does not indicate the story is a fabrication but in fact may indicate the validity of the story and the validity that multiple witnesses were at the event each noting a different portion of the entire event. Certain reporters may have come late and only seen the one kid in the stretcher while his brother was already on the way to the hospital.
- It is possible that there were multiple of some events sometimes given slightly differing descriptions. E.g. there actually was a wall which was both a security barrier and a noise barrier. There was an additional metal fence that it ALSO crashed through. Some witnesses talked about the metal boundary fence, others saw the bricks or also knew the layout better and talked about the security barrier wall. Again the differing witnesses add to the entirety of the account and do not invalidate the event. Note that there were multiple barriers, security fences, boundary fences, walls. They were ALL there. None of the reports were wrong in any of these details!
- If you go back to the actual reports and read the entire news report, some accounts gave estimates e.g. The boy was ABOUT 8 years old (I did not include this in my above snippets but was in some of the reports). Which was correct but not detailed enough. Since the boy was really 6 years old plus a few months. So 8 is “about” there and was based on what they saw. Technically saying the boy was 6 years old would be wrong too, but we realize that 6 means up to 6 years and 11 months and 29/30 days. Again it does not invalidate the account or indicate that it’s made up, but actually indicates more of an authenticity given the intensity of the event.
- Later accounts of the same event may add additional information e.g. Joshua had 2 siblings with him who survived, He was singing a carol at the time of impact. He was from Indiana. There were 4 other people in another vehicle who were also injured (not mentioned in these reports as I didn’t want to go on and on). Thus though earlier accounts are sparse and later accounts more full it does not indicate the accounts are false. Similarly, I also saw later accounts that were paraphrases of the earlier accounts so you can ALSO get a later summary that is less detailed but just as true.
- Some accounts may call something by a different name depending on their background or inclinations e.g. A wall, a barrier. (Thanks Kat). In each case however this does not mean the account is false but that the vernacular is different. A wall IS a barrier after all.
- [Added later] A deeper reading of each of the entire news reports still reflect various facts that were just not included. Someone was arguing that I was only reading the captions. I was not. I read the entire reports and just used these few items as examples. I can only get so much reader attention on an email list. I can’t write three volumes and expect them to follow along. Stay on task buddy.
So we all agree the event really happened. No one was lying and in fact no one was mistaken (i.e. sadly a boy actually died -Thanks John). The facts were all correct. In an event like this it’s natural for differing witnesses to focus on different facts. Had API been the only news service there, ALL the news we read would have been almost identical. The fact that we had multiple sources of the info all slightly different from each other but none contradicting each other both verified that the event probably really happened and that no collusion was taking place (that’s collusion not collision).
Sorry, the rant about the “Liberal Media” was just a red herring; yes this is NOT an example of media bias. I am not that desperate, as there’s plenty of clear examples of bias readily available (read Bernard Goldberg’s book “Bias” for a real example of media bias). As Rebecca said: Let’s spring the trap already…. Of course Bob T and Ruann of course saw right through it. And I want to thank all of you who chimed in to tell me that I was wrong for assuming the story was false thus helping me make the point I want to make now (thanks John, Kat, Chris etc etc and all those who held their tongues but were thinking it : )).
And in case anyone is confused like any rational person I DO believe the story of the SWA accident is true.
I only used it – as Ruann said as a “teaching device”.
Now my point – what was the purpose of my whole “liberal media” silliness?
Well a few months ago Charles (note: Charles is a Missionary Kid who hates the God that his parents dedicated their lives to) had argued the following:
“OK Neil, you have inspired me to search for, and examine some basic truths about the religion into which I was indoctrinated Can you explain the contradictions to the resurrection story, in the Gospels, and why there might be any differences in the telling of the story which forms the BASIS of Christian belief. “
And he gave me a number of what he considered contradictions in the Gospels regarding the resurrection, for instance one angel vs. two angels. Asking how many women went to the tomb etc.
Most of these “apparent contradictions” have been answered by the kind folks on this web site for me indirectly. They aren’t contradictions anymore than the “contradictions” I pretended to make a big stink about on the SWA crash. They were all true.
The above example of multiple witnesses probably answers at least 70% of the questions. Of the remaining, Charles, please pick one or two that isn’t solved by one of the points above and I can deal with those specifically and we can go through the list till we are done. (Neils’ note: Of course Charles never did.)
Meanwhile I’ve included a chronology below that may help: Also please refer to http://www.carm.org/bible_difficulties_5.htm for more details. I’ll attempt to answer or find a new source for any questions that are not answered there.
I should also ask you Charles to read the entire Gospel account because in some places the question you asked indicates you didn’t read the passage. Why do I say that? Because you ask for something in vs. 8 of Mark 16 when it’s answered in the very next verse (vs. 9). So please make sure you read the entire passage instead of blindly copying stuff from anti-theists websites. Do consider doing your OWN research first for crying out loud. Don’t be a blind faith atheist or a mindless fan copying other people’s stuff without doing your own research.
Charles in the past I’ve written you off line, after you made similar statements and I asked you if you were really interested in real solid historical and factual answers, I said I’d be quite happy to go over them one by one with you. But in each case you’ve ignored me. So my suspicion is that you may not really care about answers at this time (either because you are too busy or perhaps indicating that you may be close minded about this despite any evidentiary proof I may provide). Can you validate that for me? But you did say: “Neil, you have inspired me to search for, and examine some basic truths about the religion into which I was indoctrinated.” So based on that with the listing of the accounts side by side from: http://www.carm.org/bible_difficulties_5.htm and let me know if you see any apparent contradictions that are not explained by the “multiple news reporters phenomenon”.
So in conclusion and summary thanks all for helping me.
To emphasize I’ll repeat my points:
- Multiple eye witnesses and accounts can emphasize different aspects of the story but the story can still be true.
- Some people may say there were 2 items, others may talk about one of the items – but neither is contradictory unless one was to say there was ONLY 1 item. In this case all the reporters got it right. None of them had 100% of the story, as we’d expect from any human agent. Again this does not indicate the story is a fabrication but in fact may indicate the validity of the story and the validity that multiple witnesses were at the event each noting a different portion of the entire event.
- It is possible that there were multiple of some events, like the numerous types of barriers. Again the differing witnesses add to the entirety of the account and do not invalidate the event.
- Some accounts gave estimates rather than exacts which do not invalidate the account or indicate that it’s made up.
- Later accounts of the same event may add additional information. Thus though earlier accounts are sparse and later accounts more full it does not indicate the accounts are false. In fact in some cases later accounts may be paraphrases of parts of the earlier accounts so you can get a later summary that is less detailed. And then the reporter can spend the extra space he/she has describing something they think is more important.
- Some accounts may call something by a different name depending on their background or inclinations. In each case however this does not mean the account is false but that the vernacular of that writer/viewer/news reporter is different.
Thanks
Neil
After that one last response came in:
So Neil, let’s grant you that you have very cleverly shown that inconsistent accounts of an event do not necessarily “invalidate the event” itself. And let’s put aside for the moment that we are talking about THE single most important event upon which a religion is based (the accounts of which one could realistically expect not to be riddled with inconsistencies). It seems to me that in your list of conclusions you fail to recognize the possibility that one or more of the writers could simply have got it wrong (e.g. 8 is not 6; one angel is not two angels). If that is a possibility, are we faced with the possibility that the Gospels contain flaws? Are you as content to live with that possibility as you are with the existence of numerous inconsistencies in the Gospel accounts? Or are you not one who believes in the inerrancy of the Gospel accounts?
Bob
Neil’s Response.
Hi Bob,
Actually let me re-repeat my self. In my example there were NO inconsistencies. If you re-read it carefully (and I suggest you do) you’ll see all the stories were correct. Let me say that again. All the facts were correct all the details were correct. Only some emphasized certain parts. For instance some accounts mentioned 2 cars, others only mentioned the car with the 6 year old that died. They said “about 8 years old” which was correct. Some mentioned his brother who was OK, yet others did not mention him. Yet all the accounts were correct. They were not inconsistent since no account says there were no OTHER cars or no brother etc or that he was exactly 8 years old. This is similar in the account of the Gospel. Nobody said there was ONLY 1 angel etc. The overriding facts in the news story were the plane and the child dying. All other events were subsequent to this and thus each witness could choose to mention it or not without any inconsistency. Similarly in the Gospel events on the resurrection for example, the overriding facts are that he died and that he rose. All other events are noted or not, similar to the newspaper accounts when noted they are correct but not necessarily the complete picture. There is no inconsistency nor are there any contradictions – only apparent ones that can be as easily resolved as the SWA flight.
So far the example you gave is not an inconsistency.
Finally let me reiterate. I am NOT I repeat NOT trying to use this to prove the Gospels are accurate. I am only saying that you cannot use that feeble excuse that they don’t match 100% to show that it is a fraud as Charles was claiming. Do not take this blog out of context. I do believe the Gospels are accurate, but I don’t use the contents in this article to prove that. If you want prove that the Bible is accurate go get and listen to this series: http://reclaimingthemind.org/product/the-historical-reliability-of-the-gospels-audio-download/.
Then you can write a rebuttal to it, and if you leave me a comment with the rebuttal, I’d be glad to review it.
I hope that helps.
Neil
I’ve since updated this for clarity and spelling errors etc.
Names have been changed to protect those who would have egg on their faces.
After all that I had yet another blogger still misunderstand my point.
Apparently this reader seemed to keep missing my point in this article. I think that’s because many of skeptics just skim the story without reading it carefully. They may have also gotten confused by the original title of this article. So I renamed the blog to clarify a few things and I thought I’d clarify yet again on the off chance that having 3 clarifications will somehow get noticed by those who are just skimming.
So here is the point again:
- My point has NEVER been to show how reporters get things wrong. It has been to show rather how reporters who while getting it RIGHT, may report on a story and either only highlight what they know at the time or what they think is important at the time. In otherwords, partial facts about a story do not prove or invalidate the story or the facts. Nor do they prove that the story was fabricated later. Remember I’m trying to point out how the Gospel writers just wrote what they knew about and what they considered important.
In this argument it would be silly for me to start accusing reporters of getting the story wrong and use that as the example, because it would imply that the Gospels were wrong too. The Gospels maybe wrong, but the variation on the focus of the report is not a basis for judging accuracy. In fact it helps determine accuracy if all the reports put together never contradict each other, just like the news reports I showed, NONE contradicted each other at all. None! They all merely added and filled out the whole story. - And remember don’t create any strawmen. I know the Gospels may well have been written 30 years after the events while the news reports were written hours after the events. But recall, I clearly stated that this argument does NOT attempt to prove the Gospel records are correct. It only shows that you can’t invalidate the Gospels for this issue of alleged contradictions as the atheist Charles was trying to do. Because they are not contradictions but merely a partial but fully correct report of the events. I repeat: I am not trying to prove the Gospels are true. I am only dispensing with that feeble argument that because one Gospel does not mention one detail but the other Gospel does, that does not prove they are wrong. To prove the Gospel is accurate see the links I provided earlier.
- Note too that all this DOES indeed reflect what the original complaint was by the Atheist Charles who originally challenged me. His point was that some accounts said that there were 2 angels, some only noted 1, others had the only Mary Magdalene coming to the tomb, vs. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James vs both Marys and Salome. Note how there were three barriers in the SWA event, but some reports only mentioned 1 of them others mentioned only two of them. All were correct and some of them may have even known about the other barriers but felt them to be inconsequential to the event or perhaps knew that those had already been mentioned. So John writing perhaps 60 years after the event vs 5-30 for other Gospels may have interviewed Mary Magdalene and knew that Mark and Matthew had already described the other women, so he just focused on Mary Magdalene’s story.
So please remember I’m not using this to prove anything else BUT this point. So stay on task.
And one more time: Remember none of the reports I showed were wrong in any of the reported facts, all the facts were 100% correct, but none were 100% complete (and none will ever be complete because all accounts will be limited in space and reader’s time and interest thus every recorder/reporter/Gospel writer will have to pick and choose with items to report on).
Take a look at the link for a chronology of what probably happened that reconciles most of the issues. The rest we can deal with one by one.
Resurrection Chronology
from http://www.carm.org/bible_difficulties_5.htm
Also see http://carm.org/bible-difficulties/matthew-mark/resurrection-chronology specifically.
[Stepping away from the cultural commentary and scientific or political headlines. This is a philosophy lesson, drawn heavily from 4th century metaphysics. I hope you enjoy this blast from the past, repackaged and reapplied for today]
Evil seems to be real, yet in what sense can we say it “exists”?
Some, of course, say evil has neither existence nor reality. That position is logically possible, and some (otherwise) smart people have advocated it before. But it’s counterintuitive, morally bankrupt, and repugnant to our moral senses when faced with its full implications. One has every freedom to deny the existence or reality of evil. And, by implication, he or she is thereby refusing the privilege [responsibility?] of naming as”evil” the Holocaust, female-genital mutilation, or chatel slavery. But such brave souls should know that they are likely stifling in themselves the very epistemic senses that lead everyone around them to shutter at such hubris. Suppressing knowledge, even if its the amorphous categories of moral knowledge, is hardly laudible and likely misleading. And even though its possible for most people in the world to unite in error, if they unite in disagreeing with you, you might want to check your figures again lest their many minds caught a detail your single mind didn’t.
It is fairly safe then, at least by the limited evidence found in the general consensus of most of the world’s population, that evil is in some sense an existing reality. We are left then to explain how such apparent existence occurs.
One of the classic, and I think, strongest answers to this question is the “privation definition.”
The essence of the privation definition is that every evil exists parasitically, corrupting its host. The host can be thought of as some kind of goodness. That goodness can occur with agents–such as human beings, in which case it is moral goodness and evil would be some kind of compromise or corruption of that moral goodness. Agents can be “good” insofar as that are and do whatever they are SUPPOSED to be or do. If people are supposed to exercise justice, the good moral agent exercises justice.
Or the host goodness can occur as a non-agent like a weather pattern, a tree, or a tiger. Goodness, in that case, is a kind of “ontological goodness” not unlike that described in Genesis 1-2 where God looks on his creation and calls it “good”–even before he made human agents and before any angels or demons are named among creation. This “ontological goodness” refers to the positive existence of things (ie: they add something to the universe). Insofar as they are and add what they should, they are “good.” In the case of ontological goodness, evil would happen when an otherwise “good” natural phenomenon goes wrong, such as a deadly tornado, a tree-fungus, or a tiger attack.
That groundwork having been laid, we can get to the heart of my concern here. Evil is parasitic precisely because goodness is independent.
Put another way, there seem to be independent goods but no independent evils. That is, there are good things that have no need of a more basic evil thing among its causes. A loving man and loving wife can, theoretically, be perfectly committed to each other in love and responsibility and give birth to a cherished little baby. There is no need for “evil” to enter the scenario. But, every evil has some more basic good that it requires in its causal set, such as a good material cause or a good efficient cause. If that baby is born blind, that would be a natural evil–which could not exist if there were no good baby to corrupt (a material cause). You might call this unequal relation a conditional relation (symbolized in logic with the horseshoe). In contrast, we may look at the Taoist or yin-yang view of morality. By the Taoist view, evil and good are more comparable to a biconditional relation, wherein the two parties relate equally and exactly too to each other. For a Yin-yang view to work, good must be just as dependent on evil as evil is to good. But from the baby example, and the examples below we see that it clearly is not.
If a man murders an innocent person, it would have to be voluntary to qualify–legally–as murder. But volition is a good thing (ie: we can roughly translate it as “freedom”). But volition does NOT require murder. Hence, the evil of murder requires a good efficient cause in the form of volition though volition does not require any such evil.
If there were no sexuality (good) there would be no rape (bad), whereas, there is no need for rape to have sexuality. Hence rape requires a good formal cause (ie: healthy sexuality) which does not itself require the evil of rape.
There is no arrogance (bad) without valuing one’s self (good), but valuing one’s self does not require arrogance. Arrogance thus requires a good abstract material cause of valuing one’s self which does not, in turn, require manifestation as arrogance.
There is no football injury (a bad thing) without the sport of football (a good thing), but the sport of football does not require an injury. Hence, football injuries require a good concrete material cause in the sport of footbal though football does not itself require any injuries.
Pretty much every evil I think of operates like this. So the philosophical “privation” definition of evil is fairly defensible when we consider good and evil, not simply as contrasts, but rather with consideration for their causal dependence.
Evil thus proves to be a parasite. Both evil and goodness exist and are real, but evil is always dependent whereas goodness can be independent.
UNC Chapel Hill Professor Bart Ehrman has made quite a name for himself as a critic of the New Testament documents. The conclusions he draws in his popular best-selling book Misquoting Jesus cast doubt on whether we can accurately reconstruct the original New Testament documents. Ehrman appears to be at odds with most New Testament scholars– liberal and conservative– who have long agreed that more than 5,700 Greek manuscripts (many of which you can see here) and over 36,000 quotations from the early church fathers make reconstruction of the original quite certain. In fact, there are relatively few places of uncertainty in the New Testament text and none of them affect any essential Christian doctrine.
Ehrman only appears to be at odds with this conclusion. Once you read his academic works and the appendix of the paperback edition of Misquoting Jesus, you’ll get a different story.
Bart Ehrman was mentored by Bruce Metzger of Princeton University who was the greatest manuscript scholar of the last century. In 2005, Ehrman helped Metzger update and revise the classic work on the topic– Metzger’s The Text of the New Testament.
What do Metzger and Ehrman conclude together in that revised work? Melinda Penner of Stand to Reason writes,
Ehrman and Metzger state in that book that we can have a high degree of confidence that we can reconstruct the original text of the New Testament, the text that is in the Bibles we use, because of the abundance of textual evidence we have to compare. The variations are largely minor and don’t obscure our ability to construct an accurate text. The 4th edition of this work was published in 2005 – the same year Ehrman published Misquoting Jesus, which relies on the same body of information and offers no new or different evidence to state the opposite conclusion.
Here’s what Ehrman says in an interview found in the appendix of Misquoting Jesus (p. 252):
Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions – he is a firmly committed Christian and I am not – we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement – maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands. The position I argue for in ‘Misquoting Jesus’ does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.
So why does Ehrman give one impression to the general public and the opposite to the academic world? Could it be because he can get away with casting doubt on the New Testament to an uninformed public, but not to his academic peers? Does selling books have anything to do with it? I don’t know. I just find the contradiction here quite telling– the man who gets all the attention for casting doubt on the text of the Bible, upon further review, doesn’t really doubt it himself.
For those of you that would like a point by point refutation of Misquoting Jesus, click here for a paper by SES Professor Tom Howe.