Here’s another version of the rejection of Pascal’s Wager that seems very interesting, informative, and comprehensive. This, again, is part of the resources that I’m sharing with my sister. Such excerpts are:
In the seventeenth century the French mathematician and theologian, Blaise Pascal (1623- 1663) put forward a wager in his Pensees (Thoughts): If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having, neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is … you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then without hesitation that he is.
Indeed , there is now so much contrary evidence against the historical accuracy of the Bible that the term “biblical archaeology” has now been discarded in professional archeology! [The preferred term now being Syro-Palestinian archaeology. The whole paradigm of archaeology in the Near East has shifted away from thinking of the Bible as a reliable archaeological field guide to that of a collection of ancient fairy tales and legends.
Now let us look at the gospel stories in more detail. We start with the Nativity, the stories surrounding the birth of Jesus told in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. We note that there are many problems with the stories…
Furthermore, critical historical research over the past two hundred years have shown that our “Luke” cannot be considered a very reliable historian. In the twentieth century, with the advent of new methodologies of historical and literary research, scholars made another startling discovery: that the speeches in Acts are unhistorical and are essentially the literary invention of the author. Scholars have also noted that the picture of Paul as presented in Acts is not completely compatible with what we can derive from the genuine Pauline epistles…
One of the myth is that the superior teaching of Christianity compared to paganism helped it spread rapidly and permeated all classes of society. The spreading of the religion was supposed to be supernaturally guided such that its rise became inevitable. Another popular myth is that, through no fault of their own, the early Christians were consistently and repeatedly persecuted and many were killed or executed. A careful examination of history however shows these myths to be what they are religious fairy tales.
Thus we have reviewed the full range of arguments for God’s existence from the philosophical to the “scientific” to the folksy. None has succeeded. The reader is asked to pause for a minute here. If any one of the above arguments actually provides proof of god’s existence, there would have been no need to keep coming up with new ones! Thus this continued generation of new arguments for god’s existence is a tacit admission that all previous arguments have failed.
Of course Christianity today (and for that matter-since its inception) is not monolithic. There are literally thousands of variants. At the last count there were over 20,000 Christian denominations! Within this diversity we can, of course, simplify these into a few major groups…
5, February 2009 at 1:59 pm
I respect your right to disagree with Christianity and the Bible, but I want to check some of your information.
You mention that “critical historical research” says Luke is unreliable and the speeches in Acts are inventions. Is this research you’ve actually read? Or is it information you’ve read that someone else has read about something someone else has read? I’m sure you see where I’m going with this… you don’t cite the critical research, so I can’t take it as fact.
If the accounts of Jesus were written after the eyewitnesses were dead, no one could verify their accuracy. But if the New Testament accounts were written while the original apostles were still alive, then their authenticity could be established. Peter could say of a forgery in his name, “Hey, I didn’t write that.” And Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John could respond to questions or challenges aimed at their accounts of Jesus.
The New Testament writers claimed to be rendering eyewitness accounts of Jesus.
A major part of the New Testament is the apostle Paul’s 13 letters to young churches and individuals. Paul’s letters, dated between the mid 40s and the mid 60s (12 to 33 years after Christ), constitute the earliest witnesses to Jesus’ life and teaching. Will Durant (look him up on Wikipedia) wrote of the historical importance of Paul’s letters, “The Christian evidence for Christ begins with the letters ascribed to Saint Paul. … No one has questioned the existence of Paul, or his repeated meetings with Peter, James, and John; and Paul enviously admits that these men had known Christ in the flesh.”
The skeptical scholar John A. T. Robinson dates the New Testament earlier than even most conservative scholars. In Redating the New Testament Robinson asserts that most of the New Testament was written between 40 A.D. and 65 A.D. That puts its writing as early as seven years after Christ lived. If that is true, any historical errors would have been immediately exposed by both eyewitnesses and the enemies of Christianity.
More than 5,000 manuscripts of the New Testament exist today in the original Greek language. When counting translations into other languages, the number is a staggering 24,000—dating from the 2nd to 4th centuries. Compare that with the second-best-documented ancient historical manuscript, Homer’s Iliad, with 643 copies.
Phony documents either leave out eyewitness reports or are inconsistent. So outright contradiction among the Gospels would prove that they contain errors. But at the same time, if each Gospel said exactly the same thing, it would raise suspicions of collusion. It would be like co-conspirators trying to agree on every detail of their scheme. Too much consistency is as doubtful as too little.
Eyewitnesses to a crime or an accident generally get the big events right but see it from different perspectives. Likewise, the four Gospels describe the events of Jesus’ life from different perspectives. Yet, regardless of these perspectives, Bible scholars are amazed at the consistency of their accounts and the clear picture of Jesus and his teaching they put together with their complementary reports.
If these writings had been mere inventions of the apostles, phony names, places, and events would have quickly been spotted by their enemies, the Jewish and Roman leaders. This would have become the Watergate of the first century. Yet many of the New Testament details have been proved true by independent verification. Classical historian Colin Hemer, for example, “identifies 84 facts in the last 16 chapters of Acts that have been confirmed by Archaeological research.”
In the previous few centuries, skeptical Bible scholars attacked both Luke’s authorship and its dating, asserting that it was written in the second century by an unknown author. Archaeologist Sir William Ramsey was convinced they were right, and he began to investigate. After extensive research, the archaeologist reversed his opinion. Ramsey conceded, “Luke is a historian of the first rank. … This author should be placed along with the very greatest historians. … Luke’s history is unsurpassed in respect of its trustworthiness.”
Acts chronicles Paul’s missionary voyages, listing places he visited, people he saw, messages he delivered, and persecution he suffered. Could all these details have been faked? Roman historian A. N. Sherwin-White wrote, “For Acts the confirmation of historicity is overwhelming. … Any attempt to reject its basic historicity must now appear absurd. Roman historians have long taken it for granted.”
From the Gospel accounts to Paul’s letters, the New Testament authors openly described details, even citing the names of individuals who were alive at the time. Historians have verified at least thirty of these names.
Overall, at least seventeen non-Christian writings record more than fifty details concerning the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus, plus details concerning the early church.” This is astounding, considering the lack of other history we possess from this time period. Jesus is mentioned by more sources than the conquests of Caesar during this same period. It is even more astounding since these confirmations of New Testament details date from 20 to 150 years after Christ, which is quite early by the standards of ancient historiography.
The reliability of the New Testament is further substantiated by over 36,000 extrabiblical Christian documents (quotes from church leaders of the first three centuries) dating as early as ten years after the last writing of the New Testament).
Boston University professor emeritus Howard Clark Kee concludes, “The result of the examination of the sources outside the New Testament that bear … on our knowledge of Jesus is to confirm his historical existence, his unusual powers, the devotion of his followers, the continued existence of the movement after his death … and the penetration of Christianity … in Rome itself by the later first century.”
What distinguishes myth from reality? How do we know, for example, that Alexander the Great really existed? Supposedly, in 336 BC, Alexander the Great became king of Macedonia at 20 years of age. A military genius, this handsome, arrogant leader butchered his way through villages, towns, and kingdoms of the Greco-Persian world until he ruled it all. In a short eight years Alexander’s armies had traversed a total of 22,000 miles in his conquests.
It has been said of Alexander that he cried when he ran out of worlds to conquer.
Before he died at age 32, Alexander reportedly accomplished greater military deeds than anyone in history, not only of the kings who had lived before him, but also of those who were to come later, down to our own time. But today, other than a bunch of cities named Alexandria, a film by Oliver Stone, and a few books, his legacy is all but forgotten.
Historians believe Alexander existed because of three primary reasons:
- written documentation from early historians
- historical impact
- other historical and archaeological evidence
The historicity of Alexander the Great and his military conquests is drawn from five ancient sources, none of whom were eyewitnesses. Although written 400 years after Alexander, Plutarch’s Life of Alexander is the primary account of his life.
Since Plutarch and the other writers were several hundred years removed from the events of Alexander’s life, they based their information on prior accounts. Of the twenty contemporary historical accounts on Alexander, not one survives. Later accounts exist, but each presents a different “Alexander,” with much left to our imagination. But regardless of the time gap of several hundred years, historians are convinced that Alexander was a real man and that the essential details of what we read about his life are true.
Keeping Alexander as a reference point, note that for Jesus there are both religious and secular historical accounts.
I know I’ve written too much, and I doubt you’ll actually approve this comment to your blog. I hope I came across as informative rather than critical – apologies if I did. As I said, it’s totally your right to believe there’s the Bible is fake, but have you done your own research?
5, February 2009 at 4:45 pm
I mention it, but it is a quote from the page that seemed interesting to me. A bait, as it was. It was an invitation to research the link I gave. The quotes pulled from that site seemed to intrigue me and were meant to invite research. Did you look at the site? Here is the link to the page that questions Luke. I’m fascinated to see all of your sources for your arguments. However, I have a good feeling that they come from the internet, as googling bits of your speech wholesale seem to come up with more than a few snippets. Is this argument largely copy and pasted from here?
The Right Reverend Dr John Arthur Thomas Robinson is a priest, or so it seems. That hardly makes it an entirely unbiased view, while liberal in his Christian theology. My issue is that none of the original manuscripts can be found. We have no idea how many replications the oldest manuscripts we have are deep. Just because a thing is old, does not mean it’s true.
Just because we have thousands of old copies does not make a manuscript truth, unfortunately. If the numbers of publication were all we needed, then I’m sure Harry Potter would be truly canonized by now.
From the research I have done, it seems that Christians were largely considered a crazy sect until Constantine decided to make it the official religion. From what I’ve read, Paul didn’t even know Jesus, so his can be discounted as an eye witness report.
Unfortunately, being able to name countries, cities, and islands does not make the accounts of supernatural things accurate. Troy exists, but I doubt that Achilles was truly immortal except his heel.
Do you have any scholarly links (.edu/.org) and such supporting the secular references? Unfortunately, shedding the much lauded doubt on Alexander does nothing to help prove the Bible’s case.
In science, unfortunately, it is not sufficient to say “you cannot disprove this” and get away with your hypothesis being counted as true theory. The less reasonable a claim is, the more proof it requires… and the bible makes some seriously unreasonable claims. Under the “you cannot disprove this” theory, we have just as much evidence for the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
5, February 2009 at 5:44 pm
Sorry, I didn’t see the link to the site. On my monitor the black of the text and the grey of the link were too close in colour. Otherwise I wouldn’t have asked you what the link was…
Yes, I did take large parts from Y-Jesus, but from a magazine I have from them. I found their arguments and positions valid and sensible. Their comments are reflected by many other writers (yes, Christians, but I don’t expect atheists to write how the Bible is true. Likewise, you won’t find Christians writing how Richard Dawkins’ position is true – it’s counter to each one’s beliefs). I’ll look around for .edu and .org sites as well (although to follow some of your arguments, just because an edu or org site says it, doesn’t mean it’s true. As well, unless it’s a Christian institution, statements of Biblical truth and accuracy are not welcome in education). Regardless of whatever source you or I find, you’ll believe what you believe, and I’ll believe what I believe… we can’t logic each other into changing our minds.
From what I understand, the earliest Christians were considered atheists, because they abandoned the Roman polytheistic beliefs and only believed in one God, which was heresy back then. Their support and protection of women, mixing of social classes, and aid to the poor and sick were all items that made them seem “crazy” to the mainstream. It’s a legal religion now, and people still think Jesus followers are crazy.
I don’t know how many were Christians at that time, but definitely Constantine being the first to make Christianity an “official” religion must have brought a sigh of relief to those who were following it. Under his rule, for the first time in 300 years, they wouldn’t be persecuted. But even if he hadn’t, I believe followers would have grown in number.
Something being unofficial doesn’t make it wrong. Christianity is outlawed in many countries, but people still follow it in those countries.
At this site http://debate.org.uk/topics/history/bib-qur/bibarch.htm some of the facts engage some of the Pascal’s wager site claims.
Thanks for your comments – this is interesting!
5, February 2009 at 11:18 pm
The link is in read via my layout if you’ve visited it, but I suppose the weird green color is a little less visible.
The problem is there is no scientific proof to support your evidence. Every atheist has a list of things that you could give them that would prove your religion to them. No Christian I have ever met has had a similar list… and we’re considered the closed minded ones. Give us proof… and we’ll believe you.
.edu and .org sites are just a little more reliable than any schmo with a website. End all be all? Nope… but it’s a better source.
I’m sure they were considered savages, but atheistic means believing in no god. It is difficult to be considered civil when your deity is the way he is. I can give you passages, if you’d like that condone murder, genocide, infanticide, rape, and incest.
It is just as wrong for the Romans to have been slaughtering Christians as it is for the Christians to be slaughtering those of other religions (for that’s pretty much what they did afterward). It is hard to stamp out any sort of faith like that. Faith defies logic. The methods of arriving at your conclusion are not of logic. If you believe they are, explain it. If sufficient, I’ll convert. Otherwise, I’d be happy to explain the logic errors via the established, tested, and agreed upon scientific methods.
No, something being unofficial or unpopular doesn’t make it false. Unfortunately, there is not enough evidence to prove this religion over any other. FSM has their own theology, holy book, and tenants. Care to disprove it on it’s own merits?
I challenge you to approach it from the other side as well. Here is a good place to start.
6, February 2009 at 11:05 am
I agree with you that believers should examine their own faith and doubts. The sites http://www.y-jesus.com and http://www.y-origins.com I find useful and succinct explanations of “logic” and “science”. The evidence for the Bible and God seem, to me, significant. I do not have that background, research or training, but around the world there are many, many respected, highly intelligent people who are Christians – doctors, professors, researchers, archeologists, scientists, politicians (hang on… is that last one an oxymoron?
) and so on. Which leads, as you say, to the faith part. Part of my belief in God is experiential. The things I’ve seen, the “unexplanable”, the answers to prayer, the way stuff has just “worked out” and many other things complement my logic and help me believe in my God. And that’s not something I can ever use as a logical answer as you don’t have the same frame of reference. There is no logic to it. If you’ll permit the metaphor, I can’t describe a view to a blind person.
I’m not sure if you read my blog or my About Me, but I was an atheist for quite some time. I did wrestle with the whole “there can’t be a God” through to “Why is Christianity so exclusive” and “God can’t be good because He permits evil”. My own journey brought me to faith. Yours may not.
To quote Timothy Keller from The Reason for God (a book I recommend you read, as well as A Case for Faith by Lee Strobel): “But even as believers should learn to look for reasons behind their fith, skeptics must learn to look for a type of faith hidden within their reasoning. All doubts, however skeptical and cynical they may seem, are really a set of alternate beliefs. You cannot doubt Belief A except from a position of faith in Belief B. For example, if you doubt Christianity because “There can’t be just one true religion,” you must recognize that this statement is itself an act of faith. No one can prove it empirically, and it is not a universal truth that everyone accepts. If you went to the Middle East and said, “There can’t be just one true religion,” nearly everyone would say, “Why not?” The reason you doubt Christianity’s Belief A is because you hold unprovable Belief B. Every doubt, therefore, is based on a leap of faith.
The only way to doubt Christianity rightly and fairly is to discern the alternate belief under each of your doubts and then to ask yourself what reasons you have for believing it. How do you know your belief is true? It would be inconsistent to require more justification for Christian belief than you do for your own, but that is frequently what happens. In fairness you must doubt your doubts.”
I will definitely check out The Rational Response Squad, thanks for the link.
From a paraphrase from Josh McDowell’s “Evidence that Demands a Verdict” – “if I could prove to you beyond the shadow of a doubt that Jesus was the Sond of God who came down to die on the cross for humankind’s sins, and that to believe in Him and make him the Lord and Leader of your life is how you get to heaven, would you convert?”
Cheers
6, February 2009 at 11:38 am
Logic and science, on that site, likely should be used with quotes.
The fact that there are intelligent, respected people who believe is something is not necessarily a vote in it’s favor. It’s a logical fallacy to say that something is true just because Mr. X and Ms. Y believe it. People have believed that women were property, slavery was right, and the world was flat. Respected, intelligent people. That does not make those things any truer or more valid.
The burden of proof ultimately falls on the individual who is trying to prove the ludicrous claim. They must do so with empirical evidence, logical deduction, and repeatable experiments. It is just as easy to prove the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Invisible Pink Unicorn (as well as faeries) as it is to prove YWH. They all fall into the same sort of traps. Each claim is just as ridiculous as the other and has as little empirical evidence.
Science is based on PROVEN facts. Is a conscious, omnipotent deity disprovable 100%? No, because there will always be things we likely do not know because our technology is insufficient. However, it can be proven extremely unlikely.
The beauty of science is that a thing must be repeatable, studied, and come to the same conclusion several times to be considered true. Isolated, individual events do not qualify. Science is subject to review, to scrutiny, and that which is found to be false is thrown out. It is discredited and removed from the spectrum of truth. The thing most people don’t seem to realize is that atheists (and most agnostics) are more than willing to lose an argument for the sake of the truth. It is the truth and the evidence of it that matters more than winning an argument. One of the major differences between science and religion seems to be the ability to admit when we’re wrong or we don’t know.
As far as prayer goes, there have been several studies. Check out the John Templeton Foundation and the research they did a little study on the power of prayer. Have you recorded everything you’ve ever prayed for? Have you gone through and looked for the more obvious sources of the fixes you’ve been “supplied” with? Have you checked the record of successes and silence with the list?
If you were wresting with the questions, then you were still agnostic, or in the I-hate-you-religion phase. That makes you about as atheistic as Kirk Cameron. There is no empirical, testable proof of one divine over another.
I’m actually gathering my “show me these and I will convert” list. You’re free to make a stab at it once I get it up there. Keep in mind that I have no problem with a pantheistic or “god in physics” sort of deity. That’s a literary technique and can be quite fascinating.
6, February 2009 at 3:51 pm
This is an interresting conversation. I like the fact that the tone is civil. To most of us sientific facts or theories are too complex to comprehend. That is why people often choose to “believe” in them rather than really understand them. It is the simple fact that theology is still considered a “sience” that deludes us. It follows none of the maxims or regulations of other siences, because it starts from a disarguable fact. It is more important what results of a belief, than why something is believed. Cause does not benefit the means. The culprits are not only the fanatics that go killing or supressing other people of wrong faith or other world wiev, but also us common people who give our quiet acceptance to these wrongdoings, in the name of our faith/world wiev.
I have to comment on the Alexander the Great example. Would the fact, that there are several accounts where he is proclaimed son of a god, prove him as a deity?
There are thousands of different christian churches that claim theirs as the only way to salvation. Just make your choise in this lottery, chanses are you get it wrong anyway.
In my opinion all christians who think the bible as a monotheistic tome have gotten the bible somehow wrong. It is clearly a pantheistic book. For alltough it claims one should not keep other gods, exept Jahve,other gods are mentioned constantly. There is even a mentioning in the psalms about Jahve entering a gathering of gods, where he calls the other gods stoopid and weak. I cannot remember where in the psalms it was. I can not find an internet link for it, for I have only read the book, and can’t even remember the chapter/verses, but it is there. Look for your selves.
9, February 2009 at 7:52 am
I am saddened, your having a debate on religion and didnt tell me about it?
Saddness!
9, February 2009 at 9:45 am
I checked your blog you dork, but my browser didnt populate the comments number. =/
Bad network..
9, February 2009 at 8:53 am
It’s what you get for not checking my blog more often, you lump.