An Analogy for my Christian and Atheist Friends

18 Tuesday May 2021

Posted by Joe in apologetics, atheism, epistemology, metaethics, philosophy, religion, Uncategorized

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apologetics, Atheism, Christianity, epistemology, philosophy

This blog is primarily about my own thoughts on what it means o be reasonable or rational. In looking at that question it can be asked what is the goal we are rationally pursuing? My goal is to live rightly. Others seem to put their concerns on other things as I discussed here. But for me my goal is to live rightly as best I can. And by live rightly I mean my goal is to live morally as best I can. And yes I mean “real” morality not subjective morality or something we just make up. Do I have other goals? Yes but the goal of living rightly is the most important one that trumps all other concerns.

I would think many people would agree with that goal although not all. But even if you agree, the question is how do we do that? Follow the guidance of Mohamed? of Christ? other religious leaders? of Sam Harris or Peter Singer? I have argued that due to the nature of moral truth it is not something we can learn by science. I think the process is much more of a mixture of instinct, emotion, intuition, and reason/logic. But reason alone can’t get us there – we need starting premises and we need to weigh different values – logic won’t give those starting premises or weights. From my own observations and studies of history as well as other fields I think it is silly to think another natural person will give us guidance unless they are getting it from a supernatural source.

But how sure do we need to be there is an actually way to live? Is there a burden of proof that real morality exists? Should we or even can we believe things if they do not seem “more probable than not”? etc. I have written this analogy that I believe can help people understand my view and understand the importance I place in living rightly.

Imagine you come to realize you are lost in a large desert and you are short on water so your time is limited. You see a woman and she says you need to go this way follow me. Now do you believe her? Maybe you ask “why do you think I should go this way?” And she doesn’t answer. Maybe she looks shifty or is even in a prison uniform so you think maybe she is a criminal. Do you think the direction she is going is “more likely than not” the true way you should go? Does it matter if you believe her in a technical sense of “it is more likely than not true that she is going in the correct direction”? I don’t think it matters. I think the only question is whether it is possible she is better informed than you as to which way to go. Because you know you have no clue, it is certainly possible she is better informed than you are. So if she is possibly better informed it seems rational to follow her.

To the atheists: Maybe you will say I don’t really “believe” her. That is maybe you would say “I don’t think she is more likely than not telling the truth because ‘it is just her say so.’” Or maybe you will say I should “withhold belief.” And here I think we are to some extent questioning what it means to “believe.” But I think you would all agree that you would “take what she said as true” with respect to very important actions in your life. And here one of the most important actions that day will be to walk in a certain direction. So yes I can agree with your view that maybe you don’t “believe” her but I don’t agree that it is rational to walk in a different direction or just sit there waiting for someone else to come before you die of thirst. If you will walk with her until something more certain comes along, I agree. But in the meantime you should follow her.

To Christians: You might say Joe you are not a Christian if you do not believe in God. And by that you may mean I fail to think God’s existence is more likely true than not. I am not always sure what percentage I put on God’s existence. When I tried to calculate it I found it was very hard, and my calculations seemed to vary from day to day for little or no reason. I stopped trying to calculate it a long time ago. Decades ago?

But I will say that if I follow the woman I am having “faith” in her in a very important decision. I think I make very important decisions in my life based on taking Christ as the true guide. Of course, I admit my faith is not perfect, I have not given everything I own to the poor as Christ said one should. And I admit my not being perfect may be due to doubts. But I do pray, I do try to understand and follow scripture I do go to church, I am raising my children in the faith, I try to build love for God and others and I do firmly have faith in Christ more than anything else.

I trust him more than anyone. Do I wish I had more evidence? Yes sometimes I do. If I told you I never wished I had more evidence who do you think I would be fooling? But I also admit I am happy to get the Luke 12:47-48 pass for my behavior due to ignorance. Following Christ is not always easy. I think I am confident enough in Christ, and I don’t necessarily wish to up the ante.

Now I talked about belief and I do agree that when I say I “believe” something it tends to mean that I think it is more likely true than not true. But if we want to understand what Paul or the other scripture writers were getting at when they said “believe” or have “faith” in Jesus I really think they meant something more like what I am doing. That is they want us to walk the walk. Jesus himself often talked how our actions matter. (both our actions in a physical sense but also our actions in forming our conscience.) I have been and still remain firmly in that stage of trying to follow his guidance.

I believe plenty of scripture supports my view. I won’t go into all of it but consider Matthew and the sheep and goats.

Also consider this passage:

“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”

John 14:12

Now it seems pretty clear from “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing…” “belief in Jesus” does requires works. If I were to say “those who believe in Jesus will not do the works he has been doing” it would seem I am pretty clearly contradicting Jesus and teaching the opposite of what he said.

However, to be fair Jesus does not address whether “belief in him” requires other things – at least not here. And some might interpret this passage as suggesting Jesus is saying people will do greater miracles. But I think that is not simply not true to the actual words used.

“Works” is the Greek “erga” which Is translated as works – deeds – actions.

https://biblehub.com/greek/strongs_2041.htm

John of course used another word “semeion” sign to refer to miracles of Jesus which translates as signs.

https://www.biblehub.com/greek/se_meia_4592.htm

https://www.biblehub.com/greek/4592.htm

Jesus showed he was from God by both doing good works and performing miracles/signs. If John thought Jesus was referring to his miracles in this passage he would have used the terms that mean miracles. He used different words and it is hard to see why – except for biases – we should say he really meant to use this other word.

Moreover Matthew also makes it clear that Christ is more interested in our doing good and not evil than he is in our performing miracles.

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”

Mathew 7:15-23

The debate could go on. But if at the end of my life God says Joe even though you tried to live and form your conscience as Christ instructed (again I admit I could do better and I am sure that will be obvious to all at judgment day but I also think it will be obvious I *tried* to follow Christ, I tried to love my neighbor, I tried to live as he wanted, “I ran the race” as Paul said) but you know the probability you gave of my existing was too often below 50% based on an evaluation of the evidence (or it was below 50% at the instant of your death) so “adios down you go!” Well then ok. I really find that scenario pretty absurd. I think this view only seems to hold so much sway now because of the Catholic Church’s abuses and the Protestant views of “faith alone” and “belief versus works” over-corrected beyond any common sense understanding of scripture.

Again I don’t say it is impossible that my lack of credence/probability has no effect on my behavior I think it does. But really I don’t think there is much more I can do about where I put the evidence of God’s existence. I trust God is fair (if he is not then again what can any of us do?) and if he is fair he will not blame people for things beyond their control. So some can say I am not a Christian or a Catholic. But I think there are other more important things I need to do, to align my mind and actions with the way Christ wants other than just try to keep going over arguments about the probability of God’s existence.

Moreover, I have long ago hit a sort of equilibrium when it comes to those arguments. Not much has drastically changed in the overall weight of these probabilistic arguments in decades and the slight changes that do happen from reading about them are not always favorable to God’s existence anyway! Even when I read an argument that is supposed to be in favor of the probability of God I may find it weak or flawed and it may if anything slightly decrease the probability I put on God existing. I am not saying it should have that effect, but I think it does. In any case the importance of where we draw the line of probability is grossly overblown. It is much more important to understand the context of our decision whether to follow Christ and this desert analogy is the best way to express my understanding of the context.

It is interesting that Catholicism makes it clear that atheism is not always a mortal sin. And the reason for this is Catholic teaching is that God will treat us fairly and not expect us to do things beyond our ability.

Notice I am not saying it is ok to believe God does not exist. I am not adopting the view that no supernatural things like God are possible so Jesus was just a wise person. I think that would be like following the woman even if you knew she was just as lost as you are. I am saying I am adopting a position that Jesus was divine or at least guided by the divine in a way normal people are not guided. That is really all I am looking for. Did he perform every miracle recorded in scripture? That is not important. The important question is whether he performed *even one* miracle which would show that he has moral knowledge beyond other natural humans.

Our situation of how to live rightly is not properly evaluated by believing things that have over a 50% probability of being true. It is a comparison between options. In this scenario it is best to go with the guidance that has the best chance of being correct even if that chance is below 50%.

What about comparing different religions that have some evidence of being supernaturally inspired? It depends on the action and the judgment of the religion as to that action. But when it is the same moral command by different religions such as giving alms to the poor then the percentages reinforce each other. But when there is a disagreement I think we need to weigh the evidence as to which moral guidance is actually from God. And here I think the most direct way to see if something is from God is to compare the evidence of miracles.

If you are a Christian like me and have some doubts about whether the probability of God existing is over 50% then I would recommend the same thing I do and what I recommend to atheists. Keep following Christ until a more sure moral guide to how you should live shows up. And by that I do mean you should consider the chance that Mohammed or Confucius or Sam Harris, or you yourself know better how you should live than Christ. In making that judgment you should consider how anyone might even be able to reliably understand what we should do in a moral sense and who might possibly be in a better informed position. My evaluation of these factors has lead me to be a Christian.

Theism’s Role in the Roots of Political Disagreement

06 Thursday Aug 2020

Posted by Joe in apologetics, atheism, christianity, law, metaethics, Morality, philosophy, politics, religion

≈ 13 Comments

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Atheism, Christianity, law, meta-ethics., metaethics, morality, philosophy, politics, religion, rights, Shapiro

In the last few blogs I have posted about some economic data that I think is relevant to political discussions in the US. I have also commented on Eric’s blog trying to explain why some Christians may vote republican and why Jesus was not a socialist. We quickly got in the weeds about data and why we think our data is more important and why we think the facts we mention are more important etc. I think all of those arguments are important in political debate. But neither Eric nor I are really trying to run a political blog. I want my blog to be more philosophical with an aim to show why being a theist is more intellectually fulfilling and coherent than being an atheist.

That topic will necessarily cover a wide variety of subtopics from meta-ethics, morality, to free will, to science, history, scripture, and yes politics. I think Eric and I would both agree that certain political views are anti-christian. But my disagreement with him was that we shouldn’t consider people who vote for one party or the other as Christians. Each party has a wide range of policies that they adopt and rarely are you going to find a party that perfectly matches our christian views. To the extent we are going to say political views on certain policies are christian or anti-christian those policies need to be considered individually. That is why I think Christians can be Democrats or Republicans or even Socialists.

The Catholic Church I believe has done a decent job (although far from perfect) of navigating these debates in this way. It has taken specific stances on issues that it believes are anti-christian but by and large has not emphasized certain political parties as being “Christ’s party” or the “anti-christ’s party”. It should be obvious to anyone reading the Gospels that Christ was not a politician and he was not preaching a political agenda. This is a difference between Islam and Christianity.

But part of the debate between theists and atheists is more centered around which view leads to better government. This is a much more philosophical question. So you might ask if Jesus was not a politician why would we say a theistic outlook is could lead to a better government? And the answer is because the theist has a fundamentally different view of what they are and how they get rights than the atheist. And this fundamentally different view has led to various issues over the past couple of centuries.

All laws are intended to promote certain goods. So questions of about whether morals exist, what they are, and how we know them, will be foundational for any government that is enforcing laws. Most of my blog explains why I believe an atheistic worldview completely fails to establish a coherent view of morality. Without real morality debating laws is essentially the same as debating whether red or white wine is preferable (relativism) or whether batman would beat the silver surfer in a fight (factionalism).

The foundational belief that all humans are made in the image of God is the great equalizer and has provided a basis to reject slavery, racism and killing humans deemed undesirable. Rejecting the idea all humans are made in the Image of God removes a massive barrier to these practices. Efforts to create any similarly sized barrier have not yet materialized.

Theism supports the belief that our rights come from God and therefore the state can violate them. Atheists will often argue that rights are a creation of the state. This is a very different view and has had catastrophic consequences throughout history.

I am not saying Atheists can not run a government or have a moral society. But since they reject the notion that we are all made in the image of God that can be a severe foundational problem. We see this foundational crack play out in many different policies from racism, life issues, free speech, animal rights versus human rights, the relationship between the government and the individual, the relationship between church and state, and many more.

I have drafted a few blogs about some of these issues and hope to post about them in the future.

But for now I would recommend a pretty interesting interview that touches on some of these concerns. Ben Shapiro is a Jewish political commentator that worked his political views back to philosophy. (Yes many of the philosophical arguments I make would also support the Jewish theism.) Whereas I think I worked out philosophy to its political implications. So I think we sort of came at it from different directions but ended up meeting on some common philosophical ground. Now my goal is not to say people should adopt Ben Shapiro’s political views. I do think he does a good job representing conservative positions but I also think people should make sure they understand the positions of democrats and socialists.

But rather I recommend this video for the more philosophical aspects of his discussion. This is mostly covered in 20:00 to about 47:20 so if you are not interested in his personal life you may want to skip there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZETvBSlu1tg&t=3914s

Viable Scenarios and Rationality

13 Thursday Feb 2020

Posted by Joe in apologetics, atheism, Athesism Christianity, Catholic, christianity, epistemology, metaethics, philosophy, religion, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

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apologetics, Catholic, Christianity, logic, metaethics, philosophy, rationality, religion

A common view is that we are rational when we weigh the evidence for and against any belief we hold, and if the weight of the evidence says it is more likely than not true we can/should continue to believe it. If not, then we shouldn’t continue to believe it. Another approach is to say we should “apportion our beliefs to the evidence.” These approaches are different from each other, but as far as they go they seem ok and I am not trying to parse them out here. Instead I want to suggest there is more to having rational beliefs than simply following either of those approaches.

Consider the various Cartesian skeptical scenarios. These scenarios force us to ask how we know anything about the external world. ( BTW throughout this blog I am using “know” as imprecise short hand for “reasonably believe.” I think “knowing” something does require more certainty that what we “reasonably believe” but my sentences are awkward enough so I am sticking with the term “know”) We might be dreaming. Some god or evil genius may be manipulating a brain in a vat somewhere causing us to have these experiences etc. If that was the case it would seem there is still something (a thinking thing) having an experience and so in some sense “I” (this thinking thing) would still exist, but nothing external to my mind would need to exist as I perceive it. This is where we get the famous “I think therefore I am.”

Perhaps the easiest way to start getting the idea of these scenarios is the dreaming argument. Everything I know about the external world is due to my experiences. However, since I have had dreams where the experiences were such that I couldn’t tell I was dreaming it seems at least possible that I could be dreaming now. Do I have “evidence” I am not in a very detailed dream? We can’t step outside of our experience to see what is causing our experiences, so no I do not. Yet I believe I am not in a detailed dream. So that would seem to violate the notion that rationality involves “apportioning belief to the evidence.”

Moreover, my rejection of the dreaming argument seems to violate a notion of parsimony. Every time I have the experience of oncoming headlights traveling opposite my direction on a highway, not only do I have that experience, but I also believe there are physical people with minds and lives of their own in those vehicles. And not only that I think those people will pass headlights and behind those headlights will be real people with real lives and concerns etc.

We do not think there actually are physical things (that may have their own minds) that correspond to the imagery we experience when we dream. We just think there is the experience of seeing people in our dreams, but those people don’t really exist with minds of their own. It is possible there are material things existing somewhere that somehow correspond to the dream experiences we have, but our experience does not require that these material things actually exist. It seems absurd to think any material things exist somewhere corresponding with our experiences – at least when we are talking about “dream experiences.”

But when we talk about experiences we have when we believe we are awake, we somehow think the opposite. Belief in all those extra material things and minds suddenly seems justified – even though we know from dreams – we could be having the experience without the extra material things or minds existing.

My point is not to try to convince people we should believe we are in a dream or other skeptical scenario – I generally don’t try to convince people of things I do not believe myself. But rather I want to point out that it is not the “evidence” that is apportioning our beliefs here. The various skeptical scenarios take up a very small percentage of real estate in my mind. Most of my beliefs are formed around the notion that I am a real person moving around with other real people with minds of their own. I do this even though I have no evidence against one of the skeptical scenarios being true. So in doing that I am certainly not “apportioning my belief to the evidence.” So if it is rational to believe I am not in a skeptical scenario then there must be more to rationality than “apportioning belief to the evidence.”

I think there is at least one other reason we do not orient our beliefs towards a Cartesian Skeptical scenario. That is because it is hard or impossible to know what we should do in such a scenario. The converse is also true. If we did know exactly what we should do if we were in one of these Skeptical scenarios then it would be a much more rational to orient our beliefs to account for this scenario. It would be a possibility we could better account for because we would have an understanding of how we should deal with it. Thus whether we could have some idea what we should do in a scenario is important to whether we should consider it a viable scenario. But without any understanding of how we should deal with or act in such a scenario, that scenario seems a dead end. It is only rational to orient our beliefs to viable scenarios not dead end scenarios.

Now let’s get back to reality as we believe it exists. We see things and believe many of them exist in a material form independent of our experience of them. But does having this “materiality” actually answer how we should deal with this scenario? Some would say it does, but I don’t think knowing about how things are tells us how they should be. So I think just adding materiality to the scenario accomplishes very little if anything.

But regardless of where you stand on that question, you still may agree with me that the viability of a scenario does depend on whether we have any hope of knowing what to do if we are in that scenario. If we don’t know what scenario we are in then, any scenarios where we would have no clue how to act anyway should be discarded from consideration in orienting our beliefs/actions. This is because by definition whatever beliefs or actions we orient to would not be better or worse than any other in those scenarios. So a rational person focuses on the possible scenarios where we could know what to do and form their beliefs based on the possibility of those scenarios being true. Those are the “live options” or what I call the “viable scenarios”.

But do we have to “really” know what to do or can we make up what to do? That is, do we have to be a “moral realist” or can we be an anti-realist and just admit we are making things up based on our experiences. It seems to me that if we can just make up morality through a form of constructivism it wouldn’t matter that we are in a real world as opposed to a skeptical world. It would seem we could just as easily make up morality if we are dreaming or a brain in a vat. It is also at least possible that there is real morality even though we are a brain in a vat. And it is also possible our beliefs and intended actions are morally relevant. But the important point is that if the real world we think we live in does not offer anything better than a form of anti-realist morality, then it is no more “viable” than a Cartesian skeptical scenario.

It seems to me a “viable scenario” requires that 1) moral realism is true and 2) we have a way to know what morality requires. That is we have a way to know how we should act and what we should believe. A scenario where we can’t possibly know what to do in it, is not a viable scenario. Whether viability is an on off switch, or more of a sliding scale may not be all that clear. But let’s just say any scenario where 1 and 2 are not met is not a very “lively” scenario. They would share the same trait that makes the Cartesian doubt scenarios non-viable.

Now consider the possibility that naturalism is true. We can look at the possibility that naturalism is true without any preconditions and we might say the probability is X. But then let’s consider the probability that naturalism is true if we are in a scenario where moral realism is true. Some, myself included, would say that if they knew Moral realism was true then they would think the probability naturalism goes down. So on moral realism the probability of naturalism becomes X minus Y. Others might not agree. But one thing I am fairly certain of, is that if the scenario we are in, includes 1(moral realism is true) and 2 (we have a reliable way to know what morality requires) then the probability of naturalism being true is very low indeed.

The logic of the arguments made by Sharon Street, Mark Linville and Richard Joyce demonstrate this. They persuasively argue that if naturalism and evolution is true, even if moral realism is also true, we have no way to reliably know what morality requires. Street and Joyce believe in naturalism so they reject the idea we can reliably know what moral realism requires even if it is true. Linnville, and I, think that in light of this sort of argument we should reject naturalism.

For the reasons I stated above I think rejection of naturalism is the more rational option. That is because holding on to naturalism leads to believing in a non-viable scenario, and rational people orient their beliefs around viable scenarios, naturalism should be rejected. If naturalism is a scenario where the probability of 1 and 2 is extremely low, then naturalism implies a scenario that shares the same trait that makes the Cartesian skeptical scenarios non-viable.

Of course, people can dispute whether 1 and 2 are necessary for a viable scenario. They can also disagree whether 1 and 2 make the probability of naturalism low and vice versa. But I think this is the best way to understand the structure of my moral argument for God.

We Can’t Control Ourselves but We can Control Others?

05 Wednesday Feb 2020

Posted by Joe in apologetics, atheism, Catholic, christianity, law, metaethics, Morality, philosophy, politics, rationality, religion, Uncategorized

≈ 8 Comments

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apologetics, Atheism, Christianity, epistemology, ethics, free will, government, law, philosophy, politics, religion

Do we have free will? I don’t have anything more to offer as far as evidence. But I do think it is clear that morality and our justice system is a complete flop if we don’t have free will. Most proponents of determinism agree that, if they are correct, we are not morally responsible/culpable for our actions. But they still might believe there is a right and wrong way to act. So, they don’t completely abandon hope of morality or a rational justice system.

In my opinion determinism allows only a crippled view of morality. It doesn’t matter what direction morality points us we are on a train going wherever we are going and we can’t get off anyway. Our hope for a rational justice system would also seem to rely on dumb luck. How might our meta-ethical views concerning determinism impact our criminal justice system?

Traditionally criminal laws were grounded on four different notions, vengeance, retribution, deterrence and/or rehabilitation. Retribution has replaced vengeance, although sometimes people fail to draw a distinction between the two. I am not aware of anyone who believes in hard determinism but still maintains we should keep retribution as a grounds for our criminal justice system. Retribution is the most important aspect of our criminal justice system but that will be the topic of another post. Here, let’s consider the claim that even if determinism is true we can still pass laws for deterrence or rehabilitation purposes.

For example, Sam Harris says if you are a determinist like him: “We could forget about retribution and concentrate entirely on mitigating harm. (And if punishing people proved important for either deterrence or rehabilitation, we could make prison as unpleasant as required.)”

https://samharris.org/life-without-free-will/

He like many determinists agree retribution is out. But he claims we can still hope to achieve two other goals of our criminal justice system – rehabilitation and deterrence. Deterrence is the idea that we can prevent people from committing crimes if they think undesirable things will happen to them as a result of those crimes. So we can pass laws with punishments that are unpleasant and thus we make it less likely people will commit crimes. Rehabilitation, at base, is the notion we can do things to criminals such that they will act in a way we want in the future.

So, if we accept determinism and still think deterence and rehabilitation are viable, we find ourselves saying we have no influence or control over our own behavior, but we do have influence and control over other people’s behavior. Traditional wisdom suggests the opposite. Common sense suggests we have more influence over our own actions than we do over other’s actions. Is it possible that we can have no influence over our own actions, yet we are still be able to influence other people’s actions? No, not in any meaningful sense.

I think this is an example of people not fully appreciating the far reaching implications of their position. If determinism is true then even saying “we could make prison as unpleasant as required” plays on an ambiguity and is not actually accurate. The ambiguity is in the term “could.” “Could” can mean: we have the option. Or “could” might mean: it is possible.

In Harris’s usage he seems to suggest “we have the option to make prison as unpleasant as required.” But of course, on determinism we have no options. We must do what we are going to do, and can’t do otherwise. So that meaning of the word “could” leads to a contradiction in his beliefs.

If he means just that “it is possible that we would make prison as unpleasant as required….” Then we might ask so what? It may be possible, but we have no influence over our actions so we have no way to make that possibility a reality.

Our very sense of self is obliterated by determinism. We are like ping pong balls in a lottery machine. Yes we “could” bounce into other balls causing them to jostle and become a winning number. In the sense of “could” that “it is possible” that happens. But, of course, those ping pong balls have no control over themselves so it is not an option they have.

It makes no sense to take the perspective of the ping pong ball. If we throw out free will then we throw out our whole notion of self. It is no longer even sensible or meaningful to think in terms of what we “can” or “could” do. We are just parts of a system that must act however we are going to act.

For those who are interested in the free will debates I highly recommend this set of lectures:

https://www.audible.com/pd/Great-Philosophical-Debates-Free-Will-and-Determinism-Audiobook/B00DGDBO2Q?qid=1580847985&sr=1-1&pf_rd_p=e81b7c27-6880-467a-b5a7-13cef5d729fe&pf_rd_r=FNSXY98EKBP6E5CPEM6G&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1

Love of the Gospels and Mark in Particular

04 Wednesday Dec 2019

Posted by Joe in apologetics, atheism, Catholic, christianity, philosophy, religion, scripture, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

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bible, Catholic, Christianity, Faith, philosophy, religion, scripture

I started to question my faith at least by junior high. I still vaguely remember arguing with a friend who was a year older – he was in a Catholic high school and I was in a public junior high. We were basically arguing the free will issue and whether it could exist if God knew everything . It came up because that was something they were discussing in his freshman high school religion class. It wasn’t something we did often – and in fact it may have just been that one time with that particular friend. But I do recall feeling, that I set my friend straight that the Christian perspective couldn’t work and excited to attend the same Catholic High School and take this up with the teacher.

And it all came to pass splendidly. I did discuss/argue this with the teacher at that Catholic High School. And the thing is I think the teacher enjoyed the argument and discussions as much as I did. Of course, he was probably very happy to have a student engage the material. And I was happy to find some school material I wanted to engage.

But I certainly never thought any questions were out of bounds for any of my Catholic teachers. And I have to say my experience with adults in the Catholic Church tended to be that way. It could be that I would pick out adults with a interest in the philosophical. I guess if just blindly picked people my experience wouldn’t be so good. But as it was, I never had the experiences many seem to have had where the adults in their Church just want to avoid the tough questions.

In my experience Catholics tend to fall in two camps when it comes to these philosophical questions. Camp one: I will give them a big analysis of how God couldn’t exist and they will shrug and say “yeah maybe.” Camp two: I give the analysis and they will share their own arguments pro and/or con. But I don’t recall every getting the Aretha Franklin “Don’t you blaspheme in here, don’t you BLAAAASPHEME in here!”

In my opinion this is good. But of course it does mean it was easy for me to fall away from the faith. And I did. I never decided to declare I was an atheist, but I certainly didn’t go to church on Sunday or particularly care about what the church thought was sin. But my love of philosophy never faded. So I majored in it and took classes in epistemology and philosophy of religion, reasoning and logic etc. I spent quite a bit of time reading, learning and thinking about philosophical issues.

About the time of College I started hearing all sorts of odd views from protestants on Christianity (“Faith alone” “actions don’t matter” etc etc.) and atheists. And all of them would have bits and pieces of scripture that would seem to support their views. So I really started to question if I knew what Christianity even was. Whatever they were talking about seemed foreign. I knew quite a bit of scripture from the times I went to mass but did the church leave big parts out?

So what to do? I wasn’t interested enough to read all 73 books of bible. And I knew Paul’s letters were there to address specific concerns of churches. I decided to read a Gospel. After all it is through the gospels that we learn about Jesus and spread the faith. It is through the Gospels that we learn the most about Jesus. But which Gospel?

Mark doesn’t have the wonderful “Sermon on the Mount” like Matthew, nor the “Prodigal Son” or “Good Samaritan” like Luke. And it doesn’t have the adulteress or any of the wonderfully poetic and touching narratives in John. But it did have one thing that was the most important at the time. It was short enough to easily be read it in one sitting. I had no excuse.

I still remember some trepidation at the time not knowing what this gospel would say. Would it have what I considered some pretty nutty doctrines atheists and protestants were espousing? Was I really that ignorant? I had to find out. So I read it, with the intention of learning about Jesus’s life and what he wanted us to learn according to Christian Scripture.

What did I think? First, it is beautiful. The narrative is fantastic for any time but especially when compared to other ancient writings. Second, it depicted the Jesus I grew up learning about in Catholic Churches and Schools. I followed up with the other Gospels. There were no surprises and I definitely felt my Catholic upbringing accurately represented Jesus and his teachings. I found many protestant and atheist views were very hard to square with what Jesus taught in the Gospels. I now understand why protestants often appeal to other parts of the new testament (such as Paul’s letters) and atheists appeal to the old testament.

As a Catholic we have scriptural readings that we rotate through every three years. You can know what scripture Catholics read every day around the world at church by picking up a missal or looking here online. I believe Catholics read from a Gospel every Sunday, if not every day. So we tend to cover the Gospels and therefore Jesus pretty thoroughly.

Although I can’t quote chapter and verse by heart, I can often tell what the story is by the name of the gospel general chapter number which is announced, and the first sentence or two as well as the prior readings. Catholics who try to attend mass on Sundays and pay attention will learn the Gospels and therefore what Jesus taught.

Now that I go to mass every Sunday I am often amazed how the priest will have a new insight into the same text. Often it is how passage might relate to our lives, but it also could be based on how the Greek is translated, or its connection with Old Testament scripture, or history, or just a small detail in the text.

Lately I have been introduced to some podcasts from Travis They take a more secular approach to the Scripture and I know at least one is an atheist. But they all seem to also have a great appreciation for the Gospels and an interest in what deeper meanings the writers may be trying to convey. I have been blasting through them and really enjoying them.

Of course, I am familiar with the historical Jesus research and especially Dr. Ehrman’s popular work which I recommend to people as well. But with all due respect to Dr. Ehrman I think he often misses the forest for the trees. Why are the gospels so important? I suggest it is not because we can find inconsistencies between the gospels or from copies of the gospels. All of that is interesting and worth being taught. But I think if you had a teacher teach you Shakespeare and the majority of his focus was on picking nits of plot inconsistencies and whether the copies accurately reflect what Shakespeare wrote, you would be missing out. Of course, Dr. Ehrman was a Moody Bible institute graduate and so his background does suggest his approach. Nevertheless, when I listened to his classes he starts out saying these texts are hugely important to human history. And I agree they are. But I don’t think his class really conveyed how that came to be.

What is my point? Read a Gospel. But don’t read it with the intent of trying to nit-pick flaws or justify doctrine or politics. Just read what happened to Jesus and try to understand what Jesus is trying to teach us. And then, regardless of your religion or lack of religion, you will begin to understand why Jesus has had such an impact in human history.

Christ’s “Moral Direction” Versus “Moral Rules” Approach: Surpassing “Every Jot”

09 Wednesday Oct 2019

Posted by Joe in apologetics, atheism, Athesism Christianity, Catholic, christianity, metaethics, Morality, philosophy, rationality, religion, Uncategorized

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Atheism, bible, Christianity, ethics, Faith, philosophy, religion

I have a few blogs drafted on understanding the Old Testament. A common attack on Christianity will be to take a passage out of the Old Testament and try to use it a sort of “Gotcha!” statement. And sometimes it will be a gotcha statement for people who are raised Christian because Christians usually do not dwell on these passages – for good reason. The reason is because God himself in the body of Jesus gave us instruction on how we should understand the Old Testament. So by focusing on Jesus’s teaching we can see the Old Testament as God intended. I Hope that by reading these blogs atheists and theists will gain a deeper understanding of how Jesus calls us to live.

Quite a few atheists will ask questions like: Why doesn’t Jesus say it is wrong to have slaves? Why doesn’t he say it wrong to discriminate based on [insert category]? Why didn’t he command [insert rule]? This is what I call the “rules model” of moral behavior. Certainly, taking individual actions and saying you must (or must not) do X is one way to inform people how to act. But Jesus overwhelmingly took a different approach. He gave us a moral direction not more rules. That is why early Christians were “followers of the way” rather than “keepers of the code.”

Both models have their advantages and disadvantages. The atheist complaint that there are a lack of more simple minded rules, that the rules model offers tends to misunderstand Christianity at a fundamental level. But that is not to say I do not understand where they are coming from. There is a certain comfort in having a set of rules and believing as long as I follow these I am ok. Regardless of the authority figure, parent, police, referee, school teacher it seems obvious and fair to have the rules set forth in a plain way. So we see that just as we want to know the rules today, Jesus was also asked for the rules. What are the rules to get past those pearly gates?

But there is another reason we want the rules. And here we are getting into a drawback. We want to know the minimum. We don’t pay more for items than the price tag, we don’t overpay taxes, etc. We often think of morality as a restriction similar to a lack of money – in that it can limit our pleasures and increase our suffering. We really don’t want that. We don’t want to give up more of our worldly pleasure than is necessary. This focus of living a life of earthly self-centered pleasure and avoiding suffering is often understood as a form of slavery in Christianity. It can keep us from living a life of love, and service to God and others.

Because “rules model” tend to make moral minimums the bar, it makes sense Christ would not dwell on specific rules. That model tends to cap off our goodness. With rules you only have to go so far and you can comply with a code/rule, but Jesus wants us to always strive to go further in a moral direction. Does anyone really think they are a good person just because they do not own slaves? It is obvious that Christ wants much more.

Yet often Christians – including myself – when we think about whether we will go to heaven we will naturally at least go through the ten commandments and consider if we have kept them. Jesus does not entirely discourage this, but obviously he goes beyond that. see e.g., Matthew 19:16-28 We should love each other so, obviously, we shouldn’t murder. But we are not ethical just because we follow the rule and do not murder someone. Jesus wants more from us than a simple minded rule model suggests. Jesus teaches the basis of the rules and then tells us to take the basis to the fullest. Because his moral directional teaching does not put a cap on our morality like rules based morality Christianity has lead to unprecedented moral progress in the west where Christianity has had the longest and most intense effect.

“Rules models” have at least four downsides. First, As explained above and below they tend to suggest we can cap off our morality.

Second, They are subject to gamesmanship in interpretation e.g., what is slavery? Are indentured servants slaves? Are all workers in communist countries slaves? Is saying if you don’t work you don’t eat forced labor? Is slavery ok in prisons or for prisoners of war? There are many questions we could ask just about slavery. The bible might have to be an infinitely thick rule book to cover all the different and wide ranging moral questions. Human laws are always restricted by our lack of ability to understand someone’s true intentions. We can only make inferences about their intentions from their behavior. Thus people often play games and try to technically comply with rules even though they violate the spirit of the rule. See e.g., Jesus healing on the Sabbath. Unlike human laws that can only deal with what humans can learn, God’s law addresses our intentions and scripture consistently makes it clear that we should not think we can fool God. “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7 God does not have to rely only on the outward behavior we can observe, so his judgment is not so limited.

Third, people want to know the reasons for the rules not just have a list of dos and don’t “because I said so.” We don’t want to do things that seem arbitrary.

Fourth, by addressing who we are and why certain moral rules exist we can understand and develop many moral understandings. So not only do we go further than each rule we can develop our own rules on different issues. For example understanding that all human life is sacred and made in God’s image not only prevents murder but it can, and has, lead to much more, including the understanding that slavery and discrimination is wrong.

Where is the scriptural evidence that Jesus ended the rules model of the old testament but not the moral commandments in a directional sense? It was the point of his statement about “the smallest letter or least stroke of the pen” from Matthew. It is perhaps one of the most quoted passages from Jesus by atheists trying to buttress their “gotcha” verses by claiming it means that Christians must follow every “jot” of the old testament in a literal sense. But that takes Matthew 5:17-20 way out of context and can even contradict Jesus. First here is the passage:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:17-20

What is the context? Jesus said this near the beginning of his famous “Sermon on the Mount.” And we have three full chapters of Jesus himself explicitly elaborating what he means by that quotation. Those chapters are Mathew 5, 6, and 7. And indeed when you understand that statement in the context of rest of the sermon on the mount, you will see why atheists not only misunderstand the context but often try to use that quotation to contradict what Jesus explicitly said when he elaborated on what he meant.

In that sermon Jesus famously blew the “cap” off of many Old Testament moral commands. He kept the intent but insisted we go further in our moral development. He explicitly says how we are called to not just meet the morality of pharisees and teachers of the law but “surpass” them. He then goes on to specifically articulate how we should “surpass” them.

I always encourage people to read the gospels but here, I won’t quote all three chapters but rather just paraphrase with citations. Not murdering is not sufficient don’t even get angry or disparage others. Mathew 5:21-22 Don’t just avoid literally committing adultery. Do not even look at another woman with lust. Mathew 5:27-30. Not only should you be required to give a bill of divorce before leaving your wife, you shouldn’t divorce her at all. Mathew 5:31-32 Not only should you not violate your oaths but you should always speak the truth. Mathew 5:33-37 Not only should you limit your vengeance based on the violation you suffer (“eye for an eye”) but instead you should not take any vengeance and instead give your enemy more than they wrongly took and the beggar more than what they ask for. Mathew 5:38-42 He expands the love of neighbor to everyone even enemies. And directs us to love our enemies. Mathew 5:43-47 “Be perfect…” Mathew 5:48.

Don’t just give to the poor but give to the poor silently without a big show. It is to be done out of love of others not to improve your image. Mathew 6:1-4 Likewise pray but your prayers should be for your relationship with God not in order to make you look holier than thou. Mathew 6:5-6 Forgive everyone like you want God to forgive you. Mathew 6 9-15. Fast but do not do it so others will be aware of your holiness but again make the sacrifice without letting everyone know. Mathew 6:16-18 Desire for money and greed should have no place as they will control you instead of God. Mathew 6:24 In all things rely on God and don’t be a slave to worldly possessions Mathew 6:25-34.

Notice Jesus specifically rejects the atheist interpretation of the harsh punishments of the old testament and specifically that we should not to judge others. “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” Matthew 7:1 and we see this theme of not retaliating but instead forgiving throughout the above sermon. He says we should focus on our own moral shortcomings rather than those of others and understand that we are always biased to think we are morally better than we really are. Matthew 7:1-5.

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 7:12. “When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.” Matthew 7:28-29

Amazing indeed. He changed our morality from the simple minded view of “ok just don’t do these things and you’re good” that atheists often claim to want, to the much more challenging call to love others as best you can. This change in approach has lead to moral progress never seen before or since and of course will lead us to even greater moral progress if we continue in this direction.

Slavery and Christianity: The First Known Abolitionist Speech.

01 Monday Jul 2019

Posted by Joe in apologetics, atheism, Catholic, christianity, history, law, metaethics, Morality, politics, rationality, religion, Uncategorized

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apologetics, Atheism, Catholic, Christianity, ethics, history, law, metaethics

Understanding the ancient world is often difficult for those who were raised in a Christian Culture. It is very hard to believe that slavery was ubiquitous in the ancient world. Why did they tolerate it? It seems like they just treated it as we treat different roles. Some people will own the restaurant some will bus the tables and some will cook etc. People can own animals, and people are animals, so why not? Aristotle expressed this view:

“And indeed the use made of slaves and of tame animals is not very different; for both with their bodies minister to the needs of life.”

Aristotle, Politics

At first blush Paul’s exhortation to seems take the view that being a slave is just another role people have:

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.

And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.”

Ephesians 6.

At one level this passage seems to accept these roles. At that level this passage reminds me of my father telling me he didn’t care what I did just whatever I did I should, do it well. Of course, today we don’t see slavery as just another role.

But, he says “And masters treat your slaves in the same way” right after he describes how a slave should treat their master. What?!? This is often overlooked by people when they are trying to be critical of Paul and Christianity. So how should a master treat his slave “the same way” Paul wants a slave to treat his master? Well let’s fill that in:

“Obey your earthly [slaves] with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.”

Whoa, that’s pretty crazy stuff for his time. But, of course, it naturally follows from the view that “the first will be last and the last will be first” Mathew 20:16 and “I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Mathew 25:40. I mean if this is really what that God wanted us to believe you would expect him who has power over us to come and do something like wash the feet of his own creation. John 13.

Paul and Christ are doing much more than arguing for a change of legal codes. They want our heart, mind, and soul to point in the direction of love for another as opposed to us seeing others as tools. They want us to view our relationships with other people in an entirely different way that cannot be captured in law and works regardless of the laws we live under.

Clearly this passage like so many others in Christianity turns what was the common view on its head. We are all to be servants of Christ and by that we do what he wants which is to be servants of each other. Not because we are forced but because of the love he wants us to build for each other.

But slavery was accepted everywhere for so long, why did people change their view and start thinking peopled should not own other people? We see Paul is starting to really upset the apple cart but he still seems to accept the institutional roles themselves at least superficially. How did we start to see this differently, and start to see the institution of slavery as immoral? Of course If morality is defined as whatever we want then it seems the change would just be arbitrary like the wind.

One way to at least approach an answer to this question, is to examine the reasons given by the first person we know of to argue against Slavery as flat out being immoral. This will give us an idea of the original grounds to break from that long established but immoral tradition.

There were certain Stoics who took a view somewhat similar to Paul’s, in that we are meant to be free in a spiritual sense and this can be extended to the physical sense. And indeed the Stoic Dr. Piggliucci quotes, Seneca the younger, was so loved by early Christians that he was often referred to as a proto-christian Saint by them!

I would liken some of these statements from Stoics to some of Paul’s. E.g., Paul asks Philemon that he free his slave out of love rather than have him order to do what he ought to do, and there is no such thing as slave or free in Christ, and that it is good that slaves become free and that they stay free First Corinthians 7:21-24. Paul like these stoics stopped short of giving a giving lengthy attack on slavery itself.

Dr. Piggliucci says “That said, it is certainly the case that no Stoic questioned the very institution of slavery. But it is rather unfair to criticize Stoicism in particular for this failure. Every single ancient philosophy and religion, including Christianity, has incurred in the same failure.” He may be right about other ancient philosphys and religions but based on what I say below I think Christianity is indeed different. Even if we don’t count the teachings of Jesus and Paul as making slavery obsolete we have at least one Ancient Christian attacking slavery.

I would also question Dr. Piggliucci suggesting racism had nothing to do with ancient justification for slavery. He says:

“The Colonial idea of slavery was intrinsically racist, founded on the conceit that some people are literally sub-human, not worthy of the same consideration as the rest of us. That was not the case in Ancient Greece and Rome, where one could become a slave by losing a battle.”

Consider this quote from Plato:

“…nature herself intimates that it is just for the better to have more than the worse, the more powerful than the weaker; and in many ways she shows, among men as well as among animals, and indeed among whole cities and races, that justice consists in the superior ruling over and having more than the inferior.”

Plato, Gorgias

Moreover, Aristotle specifically addressed this case and said that if a person who was not naturally a slave was made a slave after being captured in battle (a legal slave) it would be wrong for them not to be freed. And if a person who was a natural slave was freed by law that would also be wrong not to re-enslave him. See politics book 1 part 6.

What made someone naturally a slave and another naturally a ruler? That is somewhat unclear but he seems fairly sympathetic to the view that “Helenes” (Greeks) are fit to rule. Whereas non-Greeks “barbarians” have no one fit to rule as they are all natural slaves. “But among barbarians no distinction is made between women and slaves, because there is no natural ruler among them: they are a community of slaves, male and female.” Politics book one part 2.

Aristotle also talks about the inability to understand certain things would make someone more fit to be a slave. But whatever the details it is fairly clear he sees the natural slaves as inferior to the natural masters. Here is a quote that also gives us some insight as to some other moral views Christianity inherited from the ancient world:

“And it is clear that the rule of the soul over the body, and of the mind and the rational element over the passionate, is natural and expedient; whereas the equality of the two or the rule of the inferior is always hurtful. The same holds good of animals in relation to men; for tame animals have a better nature than wild, and all tame animals are better off when they are ruled by man; for then they are preserved. Again, the male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules, and the other is ruled; this principle, of necessity, extends to all mankind.”

Aristotle politics book 1 part 5.

It is for these reasons I would question Dr. Piggliucci’s statement suggesting the bigotry of the later centuries was not around in ancient times.

In any case the first known assault on the very notion of slavery comes from Saint Gregory, the Bishop of Nyssa. He lived from @335- @395 AD. I quote a translation of his attack on slavery from a homily on ecclesiastics where the person boasts of owning slaves. I will offer a rather lengthy quote because it is important to get the reasoning. The reasoning of the first people to take a different view is evidence of what caused the gradual change to our current views. Moreover, the first known argument against slavery is in my opinion a text worth reading in its own right.

…..as for a human being to think himself the master of his own kind? “I got me slaves and slave-girls”, he says, and homebred slaves were born for me.

Do you notice the enormity of the boast? This kind of language is raised up as a challenge to God. For we hear from prophecy that all things are the slaves of the power that transcends all (Ps 119/118,91). So, when someone turns the property of God into his own property and arrogates dominion to his own kind, so as to think himself the owner of men and women, what is he doing but overstepping his own nature through pride, regarding himself as something different from his subordinates?

I got me slaves and slave-girls. What do you mean? You condemn man to slavery, when his nature is free and possesses free will, and you legislate in competition with God, overturning his law for the human species. The one made on the specific terms that he should be the owner of the earth, and appointed to government by the Creator – him you bring under the yoke of slavery, as though defying and fighting against the divine decree.

You have forgotten the limits of your authority, and that your rule is confined to control over things without reason. For it says Let them rule over winged creatures and fishes and four-footed things and creeping things (Gen, 1,26). Why do you go beyond what is subject to you and raise yourself up against the very species which is free, counting your own kind on a level with four-footed things and even footless things? You have subjected all things to man, declares the word through the prophecy, and in the text it lists the things subject, cattle and oxen and sheep (Ps 8,7- 8). Surely human beings have not been produced from your cattle? Surely cows have not conceived human stock? Irrational beasts are the only slaves of mankind. But to you these things are of small account. Raising fodder for the cattle, and green plants for the slaves of men, it says (Ps 1041 103,14). But by dividing the human species in two with ‘slavery’ and ‘ownership’ you have caused it to be enslaved to itself, and to be the owner of itself.

I got me slaves and slave-girls. For what price, tell me? What did you find in existence worth as much as this human nature? What price did you put on rationality? How many obols did you reckon the equivalent of the likeness of God? How many staters did you get for selling the being shaped by God? God said, Let us make man in our own image and likeness (Gen 1,26). If he is in the likeness of God, and rules the whole earth, and has been granted authority over everything on earth from God, who is his buyer, tell me? who is his seller? To God alone belongs this power; or rather, not even to God himself. For his gracious gifts, it says, are irrevocable (Rom 11,29). God would not therefore reduce the human race to slavery, since he himself, when we had been enslaved to sin, spontaneously recalled us to freedom. But if God does not enslave what is free, who is he that sets his own power above God’s?

How too shall the ruler of the whole earth and all earthly things be put up for sale? For the property of the person sold is bound to be sold with him, too. So how much do we think the whole earth is worth? And how much all the things on the earth (Gen 1,26)? If they are priceless, what price is the one above them worth, tell me? Though you were to say the whole world, even so you have not found the price he is worth (Mat 16,26; Mk 8,36). He who knew the nature of mankind rightly said that the whole world was not worth giving in exchange for a human soul. Whenever a human being is for sale, therefore, nothing less than the owner of the earth is led into the sale-room. Presumably, then, the property belonging to him is up for auction too. That means the earth, the islands, the sea, and all that is in them. What will the buyer pay, and what will the vendor accept, considering how much property is entailed in the deal?

But has the scrap of paper, and the written contract, and the counting out of obols deceived you into thinking yourself the master of the image of God? What folly! …

The Bishop’s indignation is palpable. So while many of the ancients seemed to see people as an animal that would have value often based on traits they had no control over, such as intelligence or race etc. Christianity and Judaism introduced a different way to understand who we are separated by God from the other animals and things of creation.

Humans are priceless. God gave us everything in the world and that is priceless and so as owners clearly we are priceless.
God gave us authority over animals and plants but not other people. Our God given authority does not go that far.
The least shall be first and first shall be last, and how we treat the least is how we treat God himself. (This one was not in the Bishop’s text but permeates the Christian message.)
And yes we are made in the image of God! Jesus built on this idea in saying we should refer to God as our Father. Hence, we are all children of God. We don’t try to analyze the worth of human being based on traits like race, ethnicity, intelligence or ability/disability. We are all Children of God made in his image. We all know we would not want our own children to be used and thought of as tools for someone else, we can rest assured God does not want that for his children made in his image either.

These are the seeds that lead inevitably to the assured destruction of slavery. So long as we hold to these principles it seems impossible that people would ever treat other people as property again. But we can also see how the reasoning of the pre-christians (that can indeed lead to our value being reduced based on certain traits) is slipping back into the ethical discourse. As people, for whatever reason, want to distance their views from Christianity they seem to be saying personhood and our worth is based on certain traits we have rather than affirming the four principles I list above that reveal the sanctity of all human life regardless of the traits that person has.

It took far too long because our views were so different from God’s. The Christian (or Jewish view when you consider the arguments from Genesis) view was not the view held by any other ancient people. We believe all humans are connected to God in important ways. For others mastery of everything was good. So what could be better than mastery over other humans? “And there are many kinds both of rulers and subjects and that rule is the better which is exercised over better subjects- for example, to rule over men is better than to rule over wild beasts;” Aristotle Politics Book 1. To the ancients, people were fungible and their value was assessed by their traits, like the value of any other animal or thing.

But once we started to understand our role and that of God’s it was inevitable slavery would go. So long as we hold onto that understanding it can never return. Genesis was a huge part of this understanding. Those who read Genesis as nothing but a scientific text miss so much. (or even primarily a scientific text) It portrays us differently than other myths in important ways. But when people just read it like any other creation myth they miss out on the most important parts.

Saint Gregory, the Bishop of Nyssa, offered his congregation good reasons to reject slavery when he wrote that Homily. Many of the views would be repeated today and throughout history to provide the truest and best foundation for humanism generally.

If I said I am in favor of banning slavery based on the arguments presented by Saint Gregory would I be charged with “forcing my religious views on others?”

Scientific Knowledge is Overrated

14 Tuesday May 2019

Posted by Joe in apologetics, atheism, Catholic, metaethics, Morality, philosophy, religion, Uncategorized

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apologetics, Atheism, Catholic, epistemology, philosophy, religion, science

In our culture saying the title is almost like saying “I hate children.” How dare anyone suggest that scientific knowledge is overrated? Clearly the only acceptable view is that science could never be over-rated and it could only possibly be under-rated. But if we would allow that it is at least possible, then I suggest we consider how highly we rate both the scope of science as well as the value of scientific knowledge.

The claim that religion was there as a “stand in” until science could take it’s place is likely the oddest claim I have heard more than once. It reveals what I think is a bizarre bias of our time. Some people think that science and how nature works is so important to know, that they naturally think that was what religion was there for. God revealed himself in the bible to explain lightening and how the mountains were made.

Our current culture values these sorts of “what is” or “how does this thing work” beliefs way out of proportion so we shouldn’t be surprised that people in our culture come to such an odd view. The assumption seems to be, of course, the most important parts of any scripture are the ones that might overlap with science. The fact that such a small fraction of scripture even deals with anything even arguably scientific is just more proof religion is misguided.

My life didn’t really change much after finding out how mountains were made. Getting a scientific understanding of tectonic plates changed very little in my life and to that extent is not really important to me. The very notion that Christianity or any religion existed to help us explain the natural world reveals how off kilter the importance we place on this knowledge of the natural world. Christianity is a religion that helps us address the more important question – “how should we live?”. The answers science can provide are interesting and sometimes they can help us address that important question. But science does not address that question directly. The major religions that exist deals with that directly. That is the point of these religions – and really it is quite obvious to anyone who knows them.

It seems some people see the question “how should I live?” as a sort of afterthought. They are so full of reasons to believe this or that is the case and so concerned about having evidence for this or that view of the state of things that when the question comes up it’s almost like would like to wave it away. Like oh yeah if you want to talk about that silliness then here is my view…. And what follows is often some sort of poorly thought through mantra that demonstrates how little time they spend on it compared to the scientific “what is” questions they want really to get back to.

People now seem to think the most important thing is to fill our heads with beliefs that are more likely true than not and expunge those beliefs that do not pass that evidential muster. There seems no concern with what seems obviously just as an important question. How should I live? Science has taught us many things but that does not mean it is the source of the most important information.

Overrating science is also done in that people try to claim science can answer questions it clearly can not answer. We saw some of this scientific morality with the Nazis and communists. But even today we see scientists taking the stage to talk about morality or other philosophical issues. I am not interested in celebrity views on politics or science or philosophy, but I can see some people are curious about the views of their favorite celebrity. But scientists are not celebrities, yet we see them selling books or lecturing on philosophy. Why? Is it good philosophy? No, it’s because the scope of that field is overrated.

Science can help us live longer. However, it does not teach us what to do with the extra time. Religion does. There is such a thing as useless knowledge. And all knowledge is on this spectrum.

I feel like a conversation with certain atheists goes like this: Why do you collect these acorns? So I can plant more oak trees. Why do you want to plant more oak trees? Because they produce more acorns. So why do we care they produce acorns? Well we can then collect the acorns. Why do you …. Oh wait. Or why do you learn science? Science will help us survive longer. Why should we want to survive longer? So we can learn more science. I want to survive longer and I like oak trees, but I hope you can see my point. It’s fine if you want to argue King Sisyphus is happy. But, many of these same atheists saying we should live longer for the sake of living longer, also want to convince me that there is so much evil and misery in the world, God should be indicted.

Even studying in philosophy the focus was so much on Does God exist? And we also focus on how and what it means to “know” a proposition concerning the external world. (See Cartesian Skepticism, and the Gettier problems) After thoroughly trying to answer those question I ultimately decided it doesn’t really matter how we define “knowledge” as the fundamental problems presented by Descartes and similar arguments still have weight. I think this time spent in philosophy was well spent because it dealt with a my understanding of a huge amount of beliefs. It helped me learn that life does indeed have uncertainty and we need to deal with it. Trying to define the problems away is not helpful. It also helped me see the obsession our culture has with knowing “what is”.

I hope that is changing. At the time I was in college majoring in philosophy there were no classes offered in what is now called meta-ethics were we could even start to ask “How should I live?” and what do we even mean to live rightly? I had to pursue those questions on my own. I think and hope this is changing. Answering the question how we should live should not be an afterthought.

Problem of Evil Answered with Logic and Scripture

01 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by Joe in apologetics, atheism, Catholic, christianity, logic, metaethics, Morality, philosophy, religion, scripture, Uncategorized

≈ 16 Comments

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apologetics, Atheism, Catholic, Christianity, philosophy, religion, scripture

The problem of evil is a common objection to Christianity and with some good reason. I would even admit that certain evils in the world seem to me to amount to some evidence against the Christian God. But I think the evidence can be shown to be fairly weak when looked at logically and with the aid of scripture.

When explaining my view on this problem I always start with this question: Does God’s omnipotence mean he can violate the rules of logic? If we answer yes then a the problem of evil is not a problem for God because it is a logical problem – and he is not bound by logic. So let’s say that “omnipotence” of God means something short of breaking the laws of logic. Once we understand God is so constrained then we see cracks form in the problem of evil.

Knowledge can’t be good and not good.

Ignorance can’t be bad and not bad.

God can’t have us know what evil is and not know what evil is.

God can’t let us be ignorant of evil and not be ignorant of evil.

We can’t know what the consequences of evil are, if there is no evil to be found.

If suffering is the result of evil then can we really know what evil is unless we know the experience of suffering?

So can we know the experience of suffering without experiencing suffering?

And what about the results of good which often are the opposites of suffering – peace, joy etc.? (there seems no clear cut antonym for all the different aspects of suffering) Can we know what they are when we don’t understand the opposite? Can we know what it means to be taller or as tall as without also having an idea of shorter (or not as tall as)? It seems to me we can’t know these states without knowing something of the opposites. I can’t understand heat unless I have some concept of lack of heat, i.e., cold.

So if we think Knowledge is good then we might agree that even knowledge of evil is good. Even if this good is logically linked to our experience of evil. Now we may think well the good of knowing evil does not outweigh all the suffering evil brings. God seems to agree. But nevertheless we would still have to say knowledge is itself a good. And if we think it is good to allow us to experience all goods then we can’t exclude some goods. So it does seem there are logical restraints that means some goods entail evil.

So what does this have to do with scripture?

What was that tree God forbade Adam and Eve the fruit of? Was it an apple tree or a pear tree? No, it was the fruit of the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”. In Genesis God commands “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Genesis 2:16-17. I mean at first that seems a very odd sort of tree, and not one I remember seeing at the arboretum. I think this should be a sign that the author of the story is not just telling us some literal event from history but is trying to make a different sort of statement about God. What does it even mean to taste the fruit that comes from the knowledge of evil? The fruit/result of knowing evil is, as we have said, suffering. Can we have knowledge of evil unless we know what it produces? I don’t think so because such knowledge would be warped. Some things that may be evil might sound pretty good if it weren’t for the suffering it caused. Knowing evil without knowing suffering is not really knowing evil. (“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.” Genisis 3:6.)

Someone can’t know suffering without knowing suffering. If someone says I know what it is like to be burned over 80% of my body – well the only way he could know that is if he was so burned or at least had that experience. If he didn’t we would say no you actually don’t “know” that kind of suffering.

But this was our decision – not God’s. He wanted to save us from this fruit. Are we to think the author just randomly chose the name for that tree or is the author inviting the reader to explore a very deep philosophical issue? What is “the fruit” of knowing good and evil that we wanted to taste? When people are so caught up in literal readings that they argue whether the fruit was a pear or an apple my stomach sinks. They are missing so much.

The text invites us to explore deep ideas about our experiences here in this life and our situation existing in this world as we do. How can we know good and evil without knowing evil? And how can we know evil if we can’t experience it? And how can we experience something that is nowhere to be seen? So the fruit of knowledge of good and evil implies the experience of evil. But the Bible expresses that God did not want this for us. But he also wanted us to be free.

God is portrayed as our parent who loves us. Every parent understands this tension between wanting our children to avoid pain but also allow them to choose their own path. Don’t go down that path, but recognizing there is value in letting us learn so giving us autonomy.

We can’t have freedom and not have freedom.

Freedom can’t be good and not be good at the same time.

God can’t have us overcome adversity without us overcoming adversity.

We can’t over come adversity if there is no adversity

Overcoming adversity can’t be good and not good.

We cannot experience all that is good if we can never experience certain goods.

I can go on and on with logical constraints that imply evil is required for some goods.

But isn’t God overdoing it with all the evil in the world? In other words we might agree we have to experience some evil and suffering to have certain goods but why so much suffering? Couldn’t God have done it better? So how should it have been done? Well we should expect the suffering should be a finite time. And of course all our lives are indeed finite – that is we die. And indeed scripture explains that our life is finite – because we chose to taste the fruit of the tree.

“22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side[e] of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.” Genesis 3:22-24

Beautiful language expressing that God knew it was best we not live forever in this state that the fruits of this knowledge would bring to us. God knew that knowledge of good and evil would entail suffering. Is it a coincidence that death was brought into the world at that time? Some would say God having death enter the world at that time is really a punishment. I think the opposite. He is helping us with the mess we got ourselves in. Making our suffering here finite is the most loving thing to do. It is only after the time that we chose to know good and evil that God prevents them from living forever.

Isn’t that what we would do for those we love. We would say ok I don’t want you to go down that path because it will cause pain. But if you choose that path of pain, then you will learn, but we would try to limit the pain. And then we would make our own sacrifices to help those we love get out of the rut and back on the path where evil and its fruit (suffering) is avoided. Moreover we would want the benefits of our knowledge to be used. Good and loving relationships can be better appreciated thanks to this knowledge. That is the story of God and humanity in a nutshell.

I am reminded of a friend in college who said to get a good grade just read the first and last chapters of the book to get the overall point and then memorize a few facts in the middle that you can throw in your test or paper to impress the teacher. This is close. Jumping from the first 3 chapters of Genesis and then reading a Gospel will give you a decent idea of Christianity.

Two final notes:

Scripture is not saying knowledge is to be avoided. Remember the metaphor of a tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the *only* tree we were forbidden to eat from. “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Genisis 2. So only the tree that allows us to know these particular opposites was off limits. This suggests that any other sort of knowledge (science history etc.) would be good and not have a negative trade off. It is only this particular tree of knowledge that is off limits. That fruit logically had to be packed in a can of worms. Not necessarily the fruits of other knowledge.

Also, notice that God warns of the actions he will take – that they will die. However, he does not go into detail about why he will take that action or why knowledge of Good and evil will cause so many problems. Of course, for any such considerations to be appropriately understood by them he would need to give them knowledge of good and evil – exactly that which he was trying to avoid.

Answering the Many Gods Problem

10 Wednesday Apr 2019

Posted by Joe in apologetics, atheism, Athesism Christianity, Catholic, christianity, philosophy, rationality, religion, Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

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apologetics, Atheism, Christianity, God, philosophy, religion

One of the common questions Christians run into is this: Even if you think God does exist how could we possibly know the Christian God is the correct one? This might come up when addressing Pascals wager but it comes up in other contexts as well. They will sometimes then go about naming every type of god or spirit that they can find on the internet. (Let’s call these hitherto unknown gods “the gods of the internet”). This appears to be an invitation to start wasting much more time than this argument should take. It also seems like an attempt to overwhelm us. Don’t be waste time or be overwhelmed. This question can actually be a great invitation to explore how quite a bit of evidence supports the Christian God.

If we get to the point that for whatever reason we accept we should believe there is a God, but we need to which god it is, then we should consider “good reasons” to believe one way or another. As I indicated before, “good reasons” to believe something generally fall into one of three categories. 1) It is theoretically rational to believe (ie. There is evidence that the belief is true.); 2) It is pragmatically rational to believe (that is, weighing the consequences of being wrong or right on this issue favors belief); and 3) It is logically consistent to believe. With this criteria we can start comparing the gods/religions and see which one wins.

What we should not do is try to talk about some imagined “burden of proof” and then try to think if the evidence for this or that god “meets the burden” or does not. This is not a rational way to choose between multiple different exclusive alternatives. This is because when we are choosing between multiple exclusive choices we do not necessarily choose the one that is more likely than not true. It is rational to choose the one that is simply best supported by good reasons even if it is not more likely than not true. In other words if at the end of the day we say the Islamic God has a 15% chance of being true the Jewish (non-christian) God has 30% of being true the Christian God has a 31% chance of being true and several other gods add up to the remaining 24% we can still say we should choose the Christian God. Of course pragmatic and logical considerations can come into play but to the extent those are equal then it would be rational to choose the Christian God even though we only give the Christian God a 31% chance and not over a 50% chance of being correct.

Getting back to proper reasoning one thing rational people should do in determining whether to believe in one God versus a different God would be to compare the evidence for each. Of course I think pragmatic rationality can play a role in this as well, but lets set that aside for now and focus on theoretic rationality. What sort of thing would even be “evidence” for a particular God?

Well lots of things could be evidence for God for different people. If the atheist refuses to believe anything could be evidence for God then ok you are probably dealing with a mind so closed no amount of rational discussion will help. If that is the case maybe you could use pragmatic reasons. But let’s say they are at least willing to agree some things could be evidence, what would evidence of God be?

Miracles are the thing asked for as proof of God most often. I know it is what I would want. Asking for “signs” (the bible’s term for miracles) seems to have been around since at least Judaism itself. The Gospel of John couldn’t be more clear that he is relating the signs in his Gospel for this very purpose. He flat out says:

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of [his] disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may [come to] believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name. “

John 20:30-31

So the God that offers the best evidence of miracles would seem to me to be the main consideration if not the dispositive one. What sort of evidence do we have of miracles supporting Zeus or the God of Islam or the Christian God or the other “gods of the internet”?

People may have had a miracle in their own life (or the life of someone they know well and trust) which can serve as evidence. And considering the application of such an event would seem to be very rational thing to do. But what if you don’t think you, or anyone close to you, has had a miracle happen or even if it did, you don’t know that it points to one God as opposed to another? Then I think we should look at history and how such miracles are evidence for a particular religion.

As far as the miracles actually being proof of one God or another. It should be clear the miracles done by Jesus himself would support the Christian God. As it would be clear that miracles done by Mohamed would support the Islamic God. But even if we grant that lightening striking a particular ship at sea is a miracle, why should we think it is proof of Thor? So we would need to consider that when looking at the evidence.

Now then we have different historical miracle claims that are assigned to different religions. How do we analyze the competing historical claims? I suggest we use the same analysis historians generally use. Bart Ehrman gives several criteria that historians consider when evaluating whether something in history occurred. Using this criteria seems like a good way to evaluate different miracle claims.

Dr. Ehrman says these are the typical criteria historians use in evaluating historical claims:

1) Multiple sources

2) Preferably Independent sources

3) Non biased sources

4) Contextual credibility

5) Close in time to the events

6) No contradictions/internally consistent

They seem to be rational criteria. So I would suggest that people when considering what God is most likely “the true God” take these criteria into account in evaluating the various historical miracle claims.

So, for example, let’s take the “close in time to events.” Sometimes people argue that those who wrote the new testament did not themselves see Jesus. They at best could have seen elderly eye witnesses who saw the event. Ok Ill grant that for argument’s sake. But now let’s compare that to Zeus. Who saw Zeus perform a miracle and how long was it between the person who saw Zeus and the person writing about the event? As we start to go through the list of criteria we may wish the Christian God was better supported but when we compare it to gods like Thor or the various gods of the internet well we see that the Christian God really does do quite well. Jesus performed many miracles proving his religion.

If for example we have records that say someone on a clear day said “Let Thor’s power Strike this ship!” and then the ship was struck by lightening, ok, I would agree that would indeed be some evidence of Thor. But how do such accounts hold up under historical criteria? Who claims to have seen it and when was it recorded in relation to the event, are there multiple independent sources? etc etc. Encourage your atheist interlocutor to rationally compare these various gods of the internet against Christ’s multiple miracles using this criteria. Let them decide for themselves whether the Christian God is the most rational God to believe in. Let them see for themselves that there is good reason to believe in the Christian God.

I think that any rational person who actually takes the question of what God is the true God, seriously and pursues the matter in a rational way will almost certainly end up with only a few Gods if not one. Whether a rational person will be left with 4 or 2 or 1 well I am not arguing that right now but clearly there will not be this bewildering number of gods.

So just by considering the theoretical rationality we are likely to narrow down the number of Gods dramatically. We should of course also consider practical rationality. This might or might not further sort out some Gods. And then you have the more narrow questions of deciding between the few remaining Gods and in the case of Christianity you have to sort out all the different denominations. And of course you should do this in a rational way as well. But we can leave that for another blog.

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Category Archives: religion

An Analogy for my Christian and Atheist Friends

Theism’s Role in the Roots of Political Disagreement

Viable Scenarios and Rationality

We Can’t Control Ourselves but We can Control Others?

Love of the Gospels and Mark in Particular

Christ’s “Moral Direction” Versus “Moral Rules” Approach: Surpassing “Every Jot”

Slavery and Christianity: The First Known Abolitionist Speech.

Scientific Knowledge is Overrated

Problem of Evil Answered with Logic and Scripture

Answering the Many Gods Problem