Did the Apostle Paul “Invent” Christianity?

Did the Apostle Paul “Invent” Christianity?

The writer of Ecclesiastes instructs his students “…of making many books there is no end.” (Eccl. 12:2) and this is certainly true. A similar thing could certainly be said in responding to the continual flow of misinformation and outright falsehoods about Christianity from popular books, media and television documentaries. This is the second blog-article I am writing in response to the History Channel’s recent documentary “Mankind: The Story of All of Us” which I had the opportunity to appear as a guest speaker. In Episode 3 titled “Empires” the producers present the advent of Christianity as essentially the invention of the Apostle Paul and the result of an historical stroke of luck in which early Christians used Roman infrastructure (cities, roads, etc..) to spread the Christian message.

To be fair, not everything in the episode was wrong or misleading. There were, however, several statements made by the commentators which need to be answered. First, were statements by Muslim writer Reza Aslan (prominently featured in the episode about the early Church) about Paul and early Christianity. Reza made statements that are flatly incorrect. The first statement he makes is that the Apostle Paul is “…the man who fundamentally defines, invents even, what we now call Christianity” (emphasis mine). Aslan further states “For Christianity in the Jerusalem church, Christianity is Judaism. For them, to become a follower of Jesus, you must be a Jew. Paul has a completely different view. He argues that Jesus obliterates the Law of Moses” (emphasis mine). Secondly, were statements made by historian Henry Lewis Gates Jr. that are somewhat misleading. He stated that Christianity was, “…a religion for the dispossessed, for the extremely poor, for the slaves, and for many women. Basically anyone who didn’t have a voice in Roman society could find a voice in the Christian movement.”

Paul of Tarsus and the Early Christian Message

            To say that Paul of Tarsus is an important figure in the Early Church is no understatement. Without him two-thirds of the New Testament would not be there. Perhaps it is for this reason that so many people believe that the Christian message is essentially his invention.  But, was the Christian message Paul’s invention or was he merely proclaiming the same message Jesus’ disciples first preached? Furthermore, did Paul preach and exhort the obliteration of the Law of Moses rather than its fulfillment and completion in the person of Christ? To answer these questions we must first note Paul’s background and conversion experience.

Before he was Paul, his name was Saul whose Jewish family settled in Tarsus the principle city of Cilicia in Asia Minor (a Roman provence). When he was of the proper age, his parents sent him to Jerusalem to learn the Torah under the famous tutelage of Gamaliel, who according to New Testament historian, F.F. Bruce, “…was the most distinguished disciple of Hillel, and succeeded him as head of the school which bore his name.”[1] In his Epistle to the Philippians (3:5) Paul described himself as “…a Hebrew among Hebrews.” As he advanced he eventually became a Pharisee. Reflecting back on that time, he writes of himself, “I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers (Gal. 1:14).” No one could doubt Paul’s Jewish credentials or training. But as Henry Chadwick points out, “Judaism was not monolithic. There were differences between the Pharisees and Sadducees that could become sharp.”[2] Which raises the question as to which version of Judaism was Paul repudiating when he preached the Gospel of Jesus?

When Paul went through his conversion experience (recorded in Acts 9), he certainly understood the implications for his Jewish tradition and specifically for Judaism as it had been interpreted (or rather misinterpreted) by the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. From the very beginning of his ministry Paul proclaimed the message that Jesus was the Son of God; that He was risen from the dead and that He was the promised Messiah of the Old Testament, fulfilling the Law of Moses rather than contradicting it, to the Jews specifically in synagogues (Acts 9:19-22). Bruce believes that after the risen Christ had appeared to Paul on the Damascus road, the man who went from persecuting Christians to becoming a Christian convert himself, probably reasoned this way:

The disciples had been right after all: the ‘hanged man’ had indeed risen from the dead, and must consequently be acknowledged as Lord and Messiah. The pronouncement of the divine curse on the hanged man still stood in the Law; it must therefore be accepted that the Messiah incurred this curse, but now this paradox had to be considered and explained. Sooner rather than later, Paul saw the solution to the problem in the argument which he expounds in Gal. 3:10-14, where he says that Christ, in accepting death by crucifixion, voluntarily submitted to the divine curse which the law pronounces on all who break it (Deut. 27:26) by ‘becoming a curse’ on their behalf.[3]

So Paul’s message – the Christian message – did not originate with Paul, it originated first in the Old Testament and then with the first disciples of Jesus who themselves, experienced their Master who had risen from the dead. In his first letter to the Christians in Corinth Paul reminds them, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas [Peter], then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are alive, though some have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:3-6) (emphasis mine). If Paul received the message, then it wasn’t original to him. It came from those who were eyewitnesses and could approve or disapprove what he was teaching. As New Testament scholar Gary Habermas observes:

The fact that Paul’s message was checked and approved by the original Apostles (Gal. 2:1-10) reveals that he was not teaching a message contrary to Jesus’. Such official apostolic recognition was not only given to Paul’s original message but also to his epistles, which were written later and immediately recognized as Scripture (2 Pet. 3:15-16; See Clement of Rome, Ignatius and Polycarp in A,10 above).[4]

Paul never taught or preached the obliteration of the Law of Moses, but rather against its misuse and abuse. Later in his ministry, Paul addressed a sect that arose in the early church called the Judaizers. The Judaizers taught that in order to be a follower of Christ, one had to keep the Old Testament laws (which included circumcision) – even Gentile converts! Ouch! Imagine that gentlemen! On second thought – don’t imagine that! So, in Galatians Paul once again, clarifies the relationship of the Christian Gospel message to the Law of Moses. (Incidentally, to this day, there are still Christians who insist and burden other Christians with keeping Old Testament dietary and ceremonial laws!). But, in Galatians 2 Paul writes:

When Cephas [Peter] came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party… But when I saw their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas [Peter] before them all, “If you though a Jew, live like a Gentile, and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?” We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified – (Galatians 2:11-16) ESV.

In summary, Paul did not invent Christianity, but he certainly influenced it perhaps like no other early follower of Christ. Paul’s relationship between early Christianity perhaps might be analogous to Thomas Jefferson and the founding of America. Jefferson was certainly a very well-read intellectual who, in essence wrote down and articulated what America was all about in the Declaration of Independence. But no historian would say that “America” was Jefferson’s invention. In the same way, Paul was the early church’s intellectual. Paul was the early church’s Jefferson. Paul’s epistles (Scripture) would be like what the Federalists Papers were to the U.S. Constitution. They provide clarification and elaboration on what the Gospel of Christ is and how Christians should live and conduct themselves because of it. When understood in its proper context, Paul’s theology is in perfect accord with the Law of Moses and the Old Testament, and not an obliteration of it.

The Social Strata of Early Christians

            Finally, in response to Henry Lewis Gate’s Jr.’s statement that early Christianity was [quote], “…a religion for the dispossessed, for the extremely poor, for the slaves, and for many women” misses the mark and is quite misleading. Certainly Jesus did come to preach the good news to the poor, not just the financially poor, but also the poor in spirit whatever their social status. In Luke 4:18 Jesus quotes the Old Testament prophet Isaiah 61:1 “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.” One of the best works on the social makeup of Paul’s day is Yale professor Wayne A. Meek’s book, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (Yale, 1983). As to the social strata of early Christians, Meeks writes:

The evidence we have surveyed is fragmentary, random, and often unclear. We cannot draw up a statistical profile of the constituency of the Pauline communities nor fully describe the social level of a single Pauline Christian. We have found a number of converging clues, however, that permit an impressionistic sketch of these groups. It is a picture in which people of several social levels are brought together. The extreme top and bottom of the Greco-Roman social scale are missing from the picture. It is hardly surprising that we meet no landed aristocrats, no senators, equites, nor (unless Erastus might qualify) decurions. But there is also no specific evidence of people who are destitute – such as hired menials and dependent handworkers; the poorest of the poor, peasants, agriculture slaves, and hired agriculture day laborers, are absent because of the urban setting of the Pauline groups. There may well have been members of the Pauline communities who lived at the subsistence level, but we hear nothing of them.[5]

What is not in dispute, is that the early Christian message did not resonate and find an audience with the meek and lowly of Greco-Roman society.  It certainly did. But that is not the complete picture. Paul and the other apostles often traveled on Roman roads; worked at odd jobs in Roman society (in carpentry and tent-making, etc…) and before Facebook or Twitter, they used the natural networks of Roman cities, friendships and families (the Roman Pater Familias) to spread the Christian message. Oftentimes there were wealthy patrons who helped Paul and his missionary endeavors. It was a message that resonated across all social levels.

But no matter how much we analyze the reasons, the how’s and the why’s of Christianity’s success in the Roman world and in Roman society, we must acknowledge the supernatural element in it. Without God’s supernatural help through the coming of the Holy Spirit (at Pentecost, Acts 1:8 & 2:1-13), the nascent Church would have died out long ago under the persecution of the Roman Caesars. The first two hundred years of the Church were some of the most violent and dangerous in her history, yet the church thrived and grew eventually becoming the official religion of Rome under Theodosius I (A.D. 379-395). As sociologists, historians and scholars continue to muse  and debate over Christianity’s rise, it will remain a fact of history that without God’s supernatural help, the Church would have never been established.

[1] F.F. Bruce, New Testament History (New York: Doubleday, 1971), 236.[2] Henry Chadwick, The Early Church, Revised Ed. (London: Penguin Books, 1993), 13.[3] Bruce, Ibid., p. 241.[4] Gary R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1996), see p.283 Appendix 2, An Apologetic Outline.[5] Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1983), 72-3.

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Israel & Footsteps of Paul Trip this Summer

Have you ever wanted to see the Bible come alive by visiting actual biblical sites?  When I co-led a Footsteps of Paul cruise last year with my friend Bob Cornuke (the REAL Indiana Jones), the experience was even more enriching than I had anticipated.  So this year we are going to do it again.  Except in addition to following in the footsteps of Paul, we’re going to follow in the footsteps of Jesus as well!

We’ll start in Israel on May 27 and visit the major sites in the Holy Land for four days.  Then we’ll fly to Istanbul to board a beautiful 600 passenger ship– which just the right size for a comfortable trip– and see the places where Paul actually ministered:  places such as Ephesus, Troas, Athens, Corinth and Malta.  We’ll also stop at the breathtaking Island of Santorini as well.

Our group will be around 50.  Check the one minute video above and this site (LivingPassages.com) for all the details. I hope you can join us for this once in a lifetime trip!

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DNA Replication: An Engineering Marvel

Recently I have been reviewing some literature on the elegant molecular mechanisms by which DNA is replicated. As an undergraduate biology student, I recall being struck by their sheer complexity, sophistication, and intrinsic beauty. As I read about such a carefully orchestrated process, involving so many specific enzymes and protein complexes, and its extraordinary accuracy, it was almost as though the word “design” jumped off the pages of my textbook and slapped me in the face. The rate of DNA replication has been measured as a whopping 749 nucleotides per second (McCarthy et al., 1976) and the error rate for accurate polymerases is believed to be in the range of 10^-7 and 10^-8, based on studies of E. coli and bacteriophage DNA replication (Schaaper, 1993).

I want to provide here a brief overview of the central processes involved in DNA replication. In subsequent articles, I will examine the individual components in more detail.

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Was the Old Testament Invented During the Babylonian Exile? The Answer is NO.

Just recently the History Channel aired the six-part docu-drama, “Mankind: The Story of Us.” Perhaps you might have watched it. Last year I was contacted by the producers and asked if I would like to participate as one of the “experts.” While I certainly don’t consider myself an expert, I thought it would be a great opportunity to give some reasonable and more conservative responses to what are typically liberal slanting programs. So last April I flew to New York where I was interviewed for approximately 2 hours with about thirty questions which would be posed on the “Mankind” series. Here is the second question sent to me by the producers.

“Describe how the Hebrew Bible originates during the exile in Babylon. How significant a moment do you think this is?

I have often wondered how most Christians would answer this. I did have an answer ready but when I began to give it the interviewer stopped me and said that he was “looking for a different answer” and that the series “wasn’t going to be focusing on controversies and debates” and such. So, I had to politely refuse to answer the question – which of course, “begs the question” on the origins of the Bible as well as Hebrew monotheism.

So I would like to set the record straight and publicly but briefly respond to what the “Mankind” series program promoted as well as what many other popular documentaries teach and promote on Israel’s early history. There are actually two major views among archaeologists and Bible scholars on Israel’s early history. One view is called biblical maximalism which holds that the Biblical text, archaeological and historical data are in general agreement. The other view is called biblical minimalism and holds that there is virtually no correlation between the Bible and history at all. Biblical minimalists are historical revisionists and believe that much of what we think we understand about the Old Testament needs to be completely rewritten. The Old Testament is epic poetry, and nothing more.

In the documentary (see above clip) Dr. Reza Aslan, an Iranian born, Shia Muslim writer, states in essence, that the Jews didn’t actually believe that the God they worshipped (Yahweh) was the “one true God for all of mankind” until after their experience in Babylonian captivity in 604-586 B.C.. Another point made in the episode dealt with the origins of the Hebrew Bible itself. The selected experts in no uncertain terms, either stated or implied that Hebrew monotheism, the Bible, and the stories contained therein such as Abraham, Noah, David & Solomon, etc… “emerged” from the experiences of the Jews during the Babylonian exile.

Unfortunately and not surprisingly, this view is not new. It’s been around for quite some time, at least since the late 19th Century when the German Old Testament scholar Julius Welhausen was making some inroads into biblical studies with his new “Documentary Hypothesis” on the authorship and dating of the Pentateuch. More recently it has emerged again in a more radicalized form under scholars such as John Van Seeters, Thomas Thompson and N. Peter Lemche under the unofficially titled “Copenhagen school.” The Copenhagen school is essentially the application of postmodern philosophy & hermeneutics applied to the study of the Old Testament.

So what’s the answer? How do we answer this charge against the Old Testament? Well, first we have to keep in mind that there are no simple answers, or short answers, but there is an answer. In this blog post I can only offer the beginning of an answer, as it would be impossible to bring to bear all of current conservative Old Testament scholarship to bear on these questions. For a more in-depth treatment on this subject and on the general trustworthiness of the Old Testament, I would recommend these two excellent books. On the Reliability of the Old Testament (2003), by Egyptologist, Professor Kenneth A. Kitchen and the insightful volume, Israel: Ancient Kingdom or Late Invention? (2008), Edited by Daniel I. Block.

To begin with, the claim that the Hebrew Bible, and monotheism began during the exile ignores or overlooks literally tons of epigraphic and archaeological evidence to the contrary which reveals that Hebrew Bible and the nation Israel have roots deeply embedded in real history. The first artifact discovered which referred to Israel as a people was in 1896 by the British archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie. The find by Petrie was called the “Merneptah Stele”[1] and is also known as the “Israel Stele.” It got its name from the fact that the main text on the stele commemorates the Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah’s victory over the Libyans and their allies. In line 27  “Israel” is mentioned by name as one of the people groups who were conquered. What is significant is that in Egyptian hieroglyphics the determinative for “people” is used which indicates that there was a group of people who identified themselves by the name “Israel” in the 13th Century B.C..

In recent years there have been an increasing number of artifacts and inscriptions which have come to light that indicate that there was indeed a Hebrew people along with their most well known kings such as David & Solomon. During the 1993-1994 excavation season at Tel Dan in Northern Israel, archaeologist Avraham Biran discovered fragment of a stele (fragment A) which clearly mentions the ‘house of David’ in ancient Aramaic providing the very first solid extra-biblical authentication of the existence of King David.

Most recently – Israeli archaeologist Yosef Garfinkel of Hebrew University, who is now excavating a site known as Hirbet Qeiyafa, located in the Judean hills not far from the modern-day city of Beit Shemesh.— has uncovered two model shrines, one of clay and one of stone. This discovery echoes elements of Temple architecture as described in the Bible and strengthens his claim that the city that stood at the site 3,000 years ago was inhabited by Israelites and was part of the kingdom ruled from Jerusalem by the biblical King David. In addition to this, according to the excavation project website, “The city has the most impressive First Temple period fortifications, including casemate city wall and two gates, one in the west and the other in the south. The gates are of identical size, and consist of four chambers. This is the only known city from the First Temple period with two gates.”[2] This evidence certainly doesn’t sound like an “invented” history.

Secondly, upon closer examination the Babylonian exile is not where Israel invented her past or started preaching and promoting monotheism. What and where exactly were the Israelites exiled from? They were exiled from Jerusalem and the Temple where they had practiced worshiping God as the sole God since the time of Abraham. As British scholar, Simon J. Sherwin correctly observes, “…it is unlikely that the crisis of the exile in itself could have turned polytheistic Israelites into monotheists. This is as true for those who were nationalists and those who where not. In order to maintain a distinct national religious identity it only necessitates the worship of Yahweh, not the denial of all others.”[1]

Finally, I readily admit that Israel’s early history is not easy to reconstruct from archaeological and extra-biblical epigraphic sources alone, but it is there. But there’s something else to keep in mind and it is that a meticulous reconstruction of the ancient past is not just a problem with Israel’s early history, but all of ancient history. The further back in time we go, the more unclear things become. It takes hard work, but we can get at the past. Israel was a small nation, so we wouldn’t expect to find huge urban centers such as we find in Mesopotamia or monumental architecture such as the great pyramids of Egypt. Yet, as the archaeologist’s spade & trowel continues sifting through the sands of history, a picture of early Israel is emerging from the artifacts that very closely resembles what we read about on the pages of the Old Testament.

Lastly, we must keep in mind that there is still much that we do not know. As one scholar once observed, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” As the much respected archaeologist Dr. Edwin Yamauchi reminds us:

1. Only a fraction of the evidence survives in the ground.

2. Only a fraction of possible sites have been detected.

3. Only a fraction of detected sites have been excavated.

4. Only a fraction of what has been excavated has been thoroughly examined and published.

5. Only a fraction of what has been examined and published makes a contribution to biblical studies.[3]

What we have discovered about the Bible both epigraphically and archaeologically is impressive indeed. And who knows what future excavations will reveal?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merneptah_Stele (accessed, January 5, 2013)[2] http://qeiyafa.huji.ac.il/ (accessed, January 5, 2013)[3] Edwin M. Yamauchi, The Stones and the Scriptures (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1972), 146-62

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Tragedy Then Hope: Like the First Christmas

I was physically sick when I heard the news. The mass murder of children and adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut is shocking and sadly too common. Evil is a reality in our world, and, tragically, evil has been perpetrated on children for centuries.  Just before the birth of Moses, Pharaoh commanded that all Hebrew males were to be killed (Ex. 1:3). When Israel entered the Promised Land, the Ammonites practiced child sacrifice, offering their newborns to the god Molech (Lev. 18:10).  And at the Birth of Christ, the very first Christmas, King Herod commanded that all male children born in Bethlehem, two years old and younger, be put to death (Matt. 1:16-18).

God allows evil because this is a moral universe where our free choices really matter.  Without free will evil wouldn’t exist, but neither would love. While we don’t know the reason why God didn’t intervene to stop this particular evil, we do know what the reason can’t be—it can’t be because He doesn’t love us.  The glorious truth of Christmas is that God so loved the world that He sent us His only begotten Son in the form of a child to save us.  The eternal Logos (Word) of God entered human flesh (John 1).  He entered the sphere of human suffering, tragedy and death and took it upon Himself.  In His human life on earth Christ was  “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3), and it is for that reason that He is able to heal and comfort those who grieve. The very purpose of His birth and life was to defeat sin and death by serving as a sacrifice for our sin.

Now marinate on that thought:  Because of His love for us, the Creator of the universe did not spare Himself from suffering!  Christ suffered and paid it all.

So as we grieve this Christmas as many did at the first Christmas, we need to praise God. It is because of Christ that death doesn’t get the last word. He defeated death and evil by rising from the dead (Luke 24:1-12). With Christ there is victory and hope beyond this world riddled with evil and death.

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More Functions for “Junk DNA”

A new paper has just been published in the journal Genome Biology by John Rinn and David Kelley, identifying a role for transposable elements in gene regulation in stem cells.

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Life of Pi, Only 3.14% Accurate

Life of Pi,

Only 3.14% Accurate

Scott Symington

An interesting encounter at sea is reported in the Naval Institute’s official magazine, Proceedings. A battleship had been at sea on maneuvers in heavy weather. A lookout reported a light in the distance, so the captain had the signalman send a message: “We are on a collision course. Advise you change course 20 degrees.” Minutes later a signal came back: “Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees.” The captain angrily ordered that another signal be sent: “I’m a captain. Change course 20 degrees.” Again came a reply: “I’m a seaman, second class. You had better change course 20 degrees.” Furious by this point, the captain barked a final threat: “I’m a battleship with a full naval escort. Change course 20 degrees!” The signal came back: “I’m a lighthouse.” The captain changed his course.1

Truth is like a lighthouse, both in the way we may stand on it as a foundation in the midst of the waves life consistently brings, and in the guidance it offers to navigate effectively through life. There are many sources of power, which that light of truth can draw upon, two of which, science and religion, are focused upon in Yann Martel’s, Life of Pi.

I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I expect it to be interesting, touching, an opportunity for incredible visuals, and a thoughtful movie – as long as you leave your logic at the concessions stand. Throughout the story, phenomenal symbolism and beauty are used in this fictional account to put a favorable spotlight on postmodernism, the belief that includes ideas such as: there is no absolute truth or authority to provide objective truth about reality, and all ideas are equally open to interpretation. Hinduism, relativism and other beliefs have added corollaries, such as: it is warranted to stand on whatever belief you want, and all beliefs can lead to the same top of the mountain experience. This article follows the tradition of countless prior works, which attempt to close the curtain on this nice sounding, but invalid belief, and will do so in three parts: 1) explain the beliefs the Life of Pi preaches, 2) discuss the appeal and 3.14% accuracy of that belief, 3) and briefly note why the incoherence of this idea needs to be recognized for the good of your non-fictional life.

Pi’s Postmodernism

Pi (his birth name comes to be replaced by this mathematical term) is raised in India by his parents, who are portrayed as secular modernists believing primarily in the power of science. Science comes into play often in the zoo his parents run. Pi’s favorite teacher shares the worship of science in his atheism. In addition, part one of the book also shows Pi as thirsting for spiritual knowledge, and after a visit to a Hindu temple, a Catholic church, and a visit with a Muslim baker, converts to all three faiths. Well “converts” isn’t the right word, because Pi accepts and incorporates all three faiths.

In one fortuitous incident, Pi’s pandit (Hindu scholar), priest, and imam (a Muslim leader) all run into Pi at the same time and argue over both him, and whose religion is best. Pi ends the embarrassing display by answering, “Bapu Ghandi said, ‘All religions are true.’ I just want to love God.”2 Pi is shown as meekly giving a heartfelt answer, and simultaneously silencing all discussion on the issue, which endears the audience to him and his views.

Pi evidently doesn’t care to, or even realize that such a claim can be tested for validity and philosophical soundness. His statement is treated in the book as a conversation ender, but that is where real thinking, and scientific, historical, and philosophical interaction with the differing ideas need to engage. Instead of any mental heavy-lifting with these issues, Pi is just supplied with religious appearances and pantheist unity with nature experiences.

So now we have a mathematically named child from secular upbringing, who simultaneously is so spiritual (whatever the author means by “spiritual”) that he adheres to three other worldviews. This is grasping postmodernism by the horns and attempting to ride that bull through the life struggles that follow. Will having one foot (well, one foot on one, one foot on another, and each hand on the remaining two worldviews, like worldview twister) on four different worldview foundations benefit or harm Pi, and validate or invalidate postmodernism? The remainder of the book places Pi in the fantastic position of having to survive on a lifeboat in the Pacific, and with a Bengal tiger passenger – postmodernism is put to the test – fictionally, which is fitting.

Part two of the book covers over two hundred days at sea, with numerous instances that require the productive utility of science and faith. Pi uses science to keep the tiger tamed, and provide food and water. But even with that use of science, at times survival seems lost, requiring Pi to utilize resources from religion, including religious experiences. So based on the experiences of Pi, all worldviews seem to have truth, great things to offer, and can all harmoniously be used for the benefit of one’s life: science to explain how things work in life, and when it reaches a limit, all the religions come into appropriate use for guiding one’s life.

The author is drawing an animated picture of the NOMA theory of the late Harvard professor, Stephen J. Gould, who provided a good description of a very common thought regarding science and theology. Gould claims that the two great tools of human understanding (science and religion) compliment each other in their totally separate realms: science as gaining knowledge and understanding about the factual state of the natural world, and religion when considering spiritual meaning and ethical values. While the eminent professor has credentials longer than this article, he was simply wrong, and in a four-part article I will post later, NOMA will be disproven and the real relationship between science and theology (a Symbiotic relationship, SOMA) will be explained.

Martel, however, has boarded Gould’s boat. The two characters, Pi and Richard Parker (name of the tiger) are on opposite sides of the boat on their journey, yet they have to get along. This is an allegory symbolizing science and religion being separated. Now I am unsure if Pi represents the spiritual side, as this kid is so super-spiritual he has three faiths, and the tiger is the science of raw nature, or the tiger represents divine-like beauty and power, and Pi represents science as he uses it on the tiger and ocean to survive. But either way, both science and faith are used to get along, and Pi even becomes more like Richard Parker along the journey.

A further connection is made within Pi himself, as the two passengers he carries within himself, science and faith, are reconciled during the journey.

Part three of the story brings another promotion of postmodernism. Investigators question Pi about the ordeal. Initially Pi tells the story, but the detectives do not believe him. Pi comments how our perceptions determine much or reality, which is right out of the postmodernist handbook, but eventually retells the story without the animals. That second story is terrible. Instead of the animals involved, his mom, a cruel cook, a young sailor, and a lot of beastly actions are involved.

Now the question is posed to the investigators, and to us, what story do you prefer? And while there are details in the account with the animals that are problematic, such as the carnivorous island, the readers, and the investigators in their final report, are challenged and encouraged to accept the “better story.” And so it goes with God is the connection we are encouraged to make in our own lives. Maybe science is all that is needed to explain the story, but we have to force faith to fit in too, because it makes for a better, more easily livable story.

Bottom-line: Pi shows no need to make a decision between contradicting belief systems, on the contrary, it is actually useful to bring them all into the boat. This is an apologetic for NOMA, Hinduism, and postmodernism.

Pi is 3.14% Accurate

There are appealing features of Pi’s postmodern approach: you can believe whatever you want; all ideas have inherent validity and value; others who disagree with you do so only from their perspective, not from truth, facts or real knowledge. It’s like a world where we are all of the same political party, or rooting for the same team. A nice thought, the only problem with it is logic and reality. The comfortable features may be what allows this idea to survive longer than actual merit warrants.

Don’t take this the wrong way, I would argue that every person has inherent value, and even those whom we disagree with must be treated with the dignity, respect and love that follows from their inherent worth. However, while all people are created equal, all ideas are not, and as Frank Turek has noted, ideas are in the free marketplace, where cross-examination is appropriate and beneficial. Tolerance does not mean we cannot disagree, on the contrary, tolerance occurs when we disagree with someone, yet still treat them as we hope others will treat us. In fact, if one cares about another person, they will not hold up, but instead put down inaccurate beliefs, which have a reasonable likelihood of leading to negative consequences. Caring for and respecting Pi would be especially easy, he is a lovable character, and Martel even writes in a soft, but insightful and engaging way. Excellent read, but the message leaves a bad taste in the mouth, err, mind.

Examination of Martel and Pi’s perspective reveals a small percentage of truth. There are some good things in each of those religions, but is that surprising? If nothing appealing were in those belief systems, those systems would likely have folded long ago. Also, religious beliefs, even if false, may provide “spiritual” feelings, experiences, and even hope in a situation where one has nothing else – an actual Marxist opiate. The non-controversial point that science provides factual knowledge about the physical world is also included, but not central to the primary postmodernist contention. These account for the approximately 3.141592% accuracy in the primary claim being promoted through Pi’s experience. I round off to 3.14% because I do not want to exaggerate my level of certainty. After all, you can make numbers say anything you want, 31.4% of all people know that. Seriously, a quantitative approach is not really applicable here, and the belief in postmodernism is refuted at an even more basic level, logic.

What Martel, and unfortunately many readers and movie goers, fails to realize is the real contrast wasn’t horizontally in the boat between the boy and the tiger, it was vertically between the very deep ocean and the very shallow thinking in the boat. Five examples are given below.

The Shallow Thinking in the Deep Ocean

First, Pi buys into the shallow connotation of “faith” common in our culture. Many have come to believe faith means having some vague or insubstantial belief, based on feelings or just hopes, entirely empty of supportive reasons. While that type of “faith” is demonstrated by people in diverse areas of life, to conflate all “faith” into that version is very narrow-sighted. Faith always has three parts: 1) The object of faith (for example, a chair), 2) The content of the faith (I believe the chair will support me), 3) And the reason(s) for the faith (haven’t been dropped by a chair yet, it looks sturdy, I don’t see Ashton Kutcher from Punk’d).

When Pi accepts the three religions, he does so based on a singular experience or feeling, because he liked something he saw, or felt and wanted to satisfy a spiritual need. He had a paucity of reasons, and simply assumed that was inherent with faith in a religion. Good thing Pi didn’t run into Marshall Applewhite of the Heaven’s Gate cult, or before ever getting on that fateful boat we may have found Pi laying on a bed wearing Nike’s and with an empty glass of poisoned Kool-Aid.

If we make a choice without any supportive reasons, aside from feelings or wishful thinking, then we are acting in the “blind faith” fitting both what our culture commonly associates with faith, and Pi’s acceptance of three religions. Sometimes we even believe in something against the available evidence, which is another type of faith, delusional faith. But, when we do not have certainty, and trust in something based on supportive reasons, then that is the most common faith we operate on throughout life – a reasoned faith.

We do not claim to be sitting or career agnostics, and refrain from using chairs or working a job because we lack certainty. We use the reasons we do have, and make our choices. Pi never attaches faith to science though (unless I missed it), event in his later studies in science and religion. Yet even those working in science recognize that many of their understandings and beliefs are far from certain, but can be trusted or used for direction based upon sufficient supportive reasons. We all exercise faith in almost all the decisions we make, and even Pi’s atheist dad and teacher exercised faith in animal taming and teaching biology theories respectively. Pi himself, in utilizing science to survive, was exercising faith that those techniques would work. Therefore, to relegate only the religious beliefs to faith, and to assume it must be blind faith is short-sighted. Belief in God (called theism), belief there is no God (atheism), belief we cannot know if God exists or not (agnosticism) are ALL faith beliefs.

Religious beliefs make claims about the factual state of reality, and therefore, can be tested scientifically, historically, philosophically, etc. Pi was given only religious appearances or subjective experiences to bolster his faith, which fits right in line with postmodern claims. If those experiences are the only support for his beliefs in God, then the kid should consider a psychiatric visit as his contradictory beliefs cannot all be true and validated. This brings us to a second error in Pi’s reasoning.

Second, the belief in the three contradictory religions is not blind faith, but delusional. Ghandi may have been a social-activist-visionary, but logic was not his strong point when it came to beliefs. “All religions are true,” violates a basic law of thought or logic, the law of non-contradiction. Contradictions are impossible, like a one-ended stick, or “My biological sister is an only child.”

Different paths to the top of a mountain are possible because they do not contradict each other, but different beliefs do. Wherever beliefs contradict each other, only one at most can fit reality and be true. The world religions may have some similarities, but it’s the differences that make all the difference.

You are offered two pills: both are white, the same size, color, smell, and taste, except that one is aspirin, and the other includes arsenic. So, one will cure a headache, and the other can kill you. The difference(s) make all the difference. If worldviews differ on even one of the big questions in life, tremendous impacts will follow, and religions differ not in marginal areas, but in the central points.

I personally would want to know the false ingredients, even in the belief I currently accept. If Jesus was crucified for our justification and resurrected, then there is truth and reality supporting a life lived on that foundation. If not, as Islam, atheism and other belief systems claim, that is catastrophic to Christian beliefs, and if one does not want their choices, thoughts, responses, priorities, goals, and direction in life to fall into the consequences of inaccurate guidance, then another foundation better be sought.

A third entirely false idea is the Hindu, relativist, and postmodern claim that there is no absolute truth. Two simple tests expose this idea. First, apply the claim to itself, in any of its common iterations, as shown below, and in I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.

1. There is no truth . . . Is THAT true?

2. You can’t know truth . . . How do you then know that is truth?

3. All truth is relative . . . Is that a relative truth?

4. It’s all just opinions . . . Is that just your opinion, or is that truth?

5. No one has the truth . . . But one, you, claim to have the truth?

6. It’s true for you, but not for me . . . Is that true for everybody, including you and me?

7. You ought not judge, or be intolerant . . . Isn’t that a judgmental statement, intolerant of those who do show judgment?

8. Whatever, I’ll do what I want . . . Cannot argue that, you can do what you want,

and you will slam against the hard reality of ignored truth.

There is also the Hindu belief in maya: ultimate realities are an illusion. If so, how does one holding this belief claim the ultimate reality of maya, if ultimate realities are not knowable?  Maybe they are falling for an illusion in believing maya. The claims are contradictory, and their proof would be their disproof. While Pi is an irrational number, it doesn’t contradict itself as Martel’s Pi repeatedly does in trying to support his belief claims.

Another test is to attempt to use any of these claims in court, when trying to fight a ticket for being clocked at 100 in a 50 mph zone. After a third oncologist notifies you of your serious stage of cancer, which needs to be dealt with, will declaring no one knows the truth, there is no truth, you ought not judge, or any other variation alter the reality of your situation? The claim doesn’t work in reality.

If there is one instance of absolute truth, then absolute truth exists. Anything that goes against something that is true – goes against reality – and is excluded from being true. Some people expected the Patriots to win the Super Bowl for the 2011 NFL season, others really wanted the Giants, and some sad fans even hoped the Lions would win. There were even similarities between the three teams, but there were also differences, and the differences are going to play out on the day where it counts. The bottom-line is that final scoreboard. The Giants won that year, that truth is universal, true for all people, in all places and times, and excludes ALL contrary claims. It is not being narrow-minded, intolerant, arrogant, or mean, it is simply the truth.

The beliefs espoused by Pi would also reject universal truth. Universal truth is true for all people, in all places, and at all times. But universality is in the nature of truth. People may look at things with different opinions, cultural perspectives, or hypotheses, but different views do not change the truth. Do not confuse truth and reality with opinions, perceptions, etc. Different cultures and times may not believe an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan – but the truth that it did happen is still the reality for all people, in all places, and for all time.

The fourth error is another logic mistake, a false dilemma. Pi supposedly sat in his boat on the horns of a dilemma, science or faith, as though believing in either was mutually exclusive to the other. The whole dichotomy between science on one side and faith on the other, both in the boat and within Pi, is a false dichotomy. A third option splits the horns of the dilemma: science and theology could already be joined together in a mutually supportive view of reality. This third option I support in an article on NOMA v. SOMA, mentioned earlier.

For now, we can point out that the conflict Pi was experiencing was not between science and faith as he supposed, it was between atheist naturalism, which atheists and naturalists like to equate with science, and theism and pantheism. Resolution of that conflict is impossible as atheism and theism contradict each other; one is true, the other false.

Pi, however, resolves the conflict by not even challenging atheist naturalism, assuming science explains everything in the physical world just fine without God, and simply hypothesizes spiritual things can and must exist outside the grasp or limits of science. This resolution is supported by Martel providing untestable religious experiences, and almost desperate claims that we need the spiritual when all other hope is lost, or to make sense of an otherwise terrible world. This all amounts to a very strained plea for the postmodern case, which is all the support such a delusional belief can hope to have.

It’s desirable to hear that we all create our own realities, there is never one true story, and since we have a choice, why not chose the more beautiful one and just add God in on the side (where God won’t interfere with what you want). However, wants do not create truth. If they did, then Lebron would be both in Miami, and in Cleveland still.

Instead Pi should have applied science, history, philosophy, and other fields of study on all four worldviews involved: Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and atheist naturalism (scientism and relativism could be included too), to ensure he was founded on truth, which would not melt away when reality and consequences washed up against him. But that would not make for a best-selling book, exciting movie, or pander to what the public seems to be hungry to hear. Bringing us to the fifth problem.

Finally, Pi argues that we should believe what makes for a more comfortable life and good story now, rather than concerning ourselves with truth and consequences overall. Pi exclaims, “I know what you want. You want a story that won’t surprise you. That will confirm what you already know. That won’t make you see higher or further or differently. You want a flat story.”3 He is onto something, there is endless evidence of people frequently placing a higher priority on comfort – what they want to believe – than on the truth and overall consequences. Smokers or people in bad relationships come to mind. Those believing the link to cancer is not proven, or that he will treat me better once we get married, and letting confirmation bias take over, are people who want to stay in comfort in the short-term, regardless of evidence of long-term consequences. This can be observed with people in their worldview beliefs too. My contention is that one would only accept the beliefs espoused by Pi for exactly the reasons given in Pi’s quote above.

Pi’s last two sentences lead into the purpose for the quote. He used that quote with the investigators in part three of the book, and is basically saying the factual experiences won’t be changed whether you believe the story with the animals or without, however, the story with the animals is more appealing, and that is reason enough to accept it. The same applies to God, in his view. He is arguing that if there is something beyond the physical universe, we can’t know, and it won’t have an impact except to make for a better view of life. How does he know that we can’t know? Has he looked into the evidence available?

In the classic book by the renowned authority Huston Smith, the following observation is given: “If we were to take Hinduism as a whole – its vast literature, its complicated rituals, its sprawling folkways, its opulent art – and compress it into a single affirmation, we would find it saying: You can have what you want.”4 Isn’t that true of Pi’s perspective? Isn’t that the case with postmodernism in general? And true in all of us to an extent, but there need to be limits. Do you really want to be so open-minded your mind falls out? The limit should be when the belief will have significant consequences on our lives, or the lives of others, and when it is shown to be invalid or inferior to a better-supported belief.

If I were one of those investigators, I would investigate. Has a tiger been found in Mexico where the boat landed, what’s on the ship’s manifest, examine Pi’s boat, search for a carnivorous island, and obtain psychological examination supporting either the animal or non-animal account? The findings may not impact me much, whichever account I found to be true. On the other hand, how much more should we investigate the claims of the worldview we ourselves stand on? Whether an almighty authority created us with a purpose and has expectations of us, or not, will have an impact on us. Whether we are basing our choices, actions, responses, priorities, goals and direction in life on a worldview that is accurate, or one that is inaccurate – will have serious consequences on us.

Conclusion 

Postmodernism, Hinduism, and Pi paint a nice story, but is it accurate and reliable? Based on just the handful of errors presented in this article, it seems the answer is no. While it may have helped Pi in his boat, all of us are in our own survival and growth journey. And when talking about our real lives, we want the ending that is best for us, and that depends on founding lives on valid ideas.

Every decision takes us down different paths. Sure there are similarities regardless of the path, but the differences make all the difference. So the worldview you take (trying to take them all is also a path, a twisted one) will carry you along a specific path, and every path brings different overall consequences, good and bad, to your life, and possible after-life.

I can predict this overall impact of worldview choice on you, your own scoreboard, and present this an a much briefer blog to be posted later, Your Obituary in Advance: The 4 Quad Approach.

It seems that our culture is still stuck in modernism, and I heard it argued that the last bastion academically for postmodernism is the English Literature department, but postmodern talk does flare up when some people attempt to appear politically correct, and in some popular media. It is legitimate for an author to explore different ideas, encouraging others to further evaluate potentially useful and relevant ideas. The problem with Life of Pi, and the motivation for this article is, postmodernism is neither relevant nor beneficial, and is evidentially bankrupt. In fact, bringing up an idea that has been disproven long ago through proof of logical incoherence, adds to the confusion and dumbing down of culture. Present any foolish idea in a catchy way, and some will be caught, as Goebbels displayed. People can sometimes be as shallow in their search as Pi, especially when reinforced with the idea that no authoritative truth exists anyway (except that authoritative truth).

I was actually on a ship that ran into a lighthouse. The judgment-impaired captain followed an incorrect path. Worldview truth can be just another immovable obstacle that we may ram up against in our existence, and in the collision between us and truth, we receive all the consequences. Or, truth can be a lighthouse to found our decisions and path upon, and provide the reliable foundation of support to ensure we are traveling a path that is best for us, and for those close to us.

Notes

1)   Frank Koch, Proceedings, as cited in Max Lucado, In the Eye of the Storm, Word Publishing, 1991, p. 153.

2)    Yann Martel, Life of Pi, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2001, p. 69

3)    Martel, p. 302

4)     Huston Smith, The World’s Religions, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991, p.13.

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Intergenic Retrotransposons Can Serve Long-Range Functions

Retrotransposons (which include LINEs, SINEs, and ERVs) are known for the ability of their long-terminal repeats (LTRs) to serve as promoters and enhancers for regulating the expression of genes that are immediately downstream (Conley et al., 2008; Dunn et al., 2005). The majority of retrotransposons, however, are located considerable distances from genes (often hundreds of kilobases away) — and this has often been taken as evidence that the majority of these retrotransposons are, in fact, non-functional.

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The Design of the Complement Cascade

When I was an undergraduate biology student, one of my favorite topics was the complement system in immunology. The complement cascade is an array of sequentially interacting proteins that serve a vital role in innate immune responses. The complement cascade can be activated via interactions with antibody-antigen complexes. Proteins involved in the complement cascade react with one another and with components of the target cell, marking pathogen cells for recognition by phagocytes or inducing cell membrane damage, leakage of contents, and cell lysis. 

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Asteroid Belts and Planet Biohabitability

 asteroids.jpg

A new study by Rebecca Martin of the University of Colorado finds that “Solar systems with life-bearing planets may be rare if they are dependent on the presence of asteroid belts of just the right mass.” Science Daily summarizes:

“They suggest that the size and location of an asteroid belt, shaped by the evolution of the Sun’s protoplanetary disk and by the gravitational influence of a nearby giant Jupiter-like planet, may determine whether complex life will evolve on an Earth-like planet.

This might sound surprising because asteroids are considered a nuisance due to their potential to impact Earth and trigger mass extinctions. But an emerging view proposes that asteroid collisions with planets may provide a boost to the birth and evolution of complex life.

Asteroids may have delivered water and organic compounds to the early Earth. According to the theory of punctuated equilibrium, occasional asteroid impacts might accelerate the rate of biological evolution by disrupting a planet’s environment to the point where species must try new adaptation strategies.

The astronomers based their conclusion on an analysis of theoretical models and archival observations of extrasolar Jupiter-sized planets and debris disks around young stars. “Our study shows that only a tiny fraction of planetary systems observed to date seem to have giant planets in the right location to produce an asteroid belt of the appropriate size, offering the potential for life on a nearby rocky planet,” said Martin, the study’s lead author. “Our study suggests that our solar system may be rather special.””

Moreover,

“Martin and Livio suggest that the location of an asteroid belt relative to a Jupiter-like planet is not an accident. The asteroid belt in our solar system, located between Mars and Jupiter, is a region of millions of space rocks that sits near the “snow line,” which marks the border of a cold region where volatile material such as water ice are far enough from the Sun to remain intact. At the time when the giant planets in our solar system were forming, the region just beyond the snow line contained a dense mix of ices, rock, and metals that provided enough material to build giant planets like Jupiter.

When Jupiter formed just beyond the snow line, its powerful gravity prevented nearby material inside its orbit from coalescing and building planets. Instead, Jupiter’s influence caused the material to collide and break apart. These fragmented rocks settled into an asteroid belt around the Sun.

“To have such ideal conditions you need a giant planet like Jupiter that is just outside the asteroid belt [and] that migrated a little bit, but not through the belt,” Livio explained. “If a large planet like Jupiter migrates through the belt, it would scatter the material. If, on the other hand, a large planet did not migrate at all, that, too, is not good because the asteroid belt would be too massive. There would be so much bombardment from asteroids that life may never evolve.””

This discovery can be added to the constantly expanding list of factors that make our planet’s position in the universe pretty special.

Cross-posted from Evolution News & Views.

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