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The Huffington Post recently posted An Open Letter to the Atheist Community by Rabbi Adam Jacobs.

The reason behind his letter is "so that we can understand each other better and possibly "walk back" some of the clamorous dialogue." Sounds reasonable enough -- let's see where this goes. I'll be quoting from his letter throughout this blog post.

The first point I'd like to explore is that there really are no true atheists. It seems to me that in order to claim with certainty that there is no God you would have to have knowledge of the totality of the universe...

This has to be one of the most boring arguments that will not die. My default position is "skeptical" -- and the whole infinite list of hypothetical creatures starts in the "skeptical" column. A creature only gets into the "I have some belief that this creature exists" column via evidence. Guess what, God, Zeus, leprechauns, and unicorns haven't made it out of the "skeptical" column.

You may want to counter that you have many well-regarded and brilliant personalities who have provided more than sufficient evidence to knock theism back to the Bronze Age where it belongs.

I would be tempted to ask for some way of distinguishing your belief in Yahweh from the false belief that Zeus-followers had thousands of years ago. Both you and an ancient pagan believes in some specifics about the supernatural -- and as far as I can tell, you are on equal footing. What have you discovered about Zeus -- or about Yahweh -- that help me to not mistakenly categorizing things that are not alike?

Yet, many of you seem to have a big axe to grind, and I only recently realized why. You believe that we are ruining the world and stunting its progress. You will point out all of the violence carried out in religion's name. We will point out that equally severe evils have been perpetrated by secularists such as Hitler, Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot.

You've got it partly right. Yes, faith-based religions are a scourge on this earth -- and irrational beliefs and superstitions lead to all kinds of unnecessary suffering. The violence and other ill effects are truly the symptoms of the underlying disease. It isn't enough to get religious people to accept evolution, the entire enterprise of believing assertions on bad (or no) evidence needs to be dismantled and ridiculed.

Also, citing Stalin and company doesn't help your case or hurt our case in the slightest. That'd be like arguing against a cure for cancer because "people also die from heart disease" -- if it's a cure for something terrible and wrong, the fact that it doesn't address heart disease is irrelevant. Does religion cause unnecessary suffering on a massive scale? Yes, and I'm trying to fix that. Pointing out that there are other problems is irrelevant.

You deride us as anti-science, to which we respond that we're really not, but, rather, see scientific proof and inquiry as subject to certain inherent limits.

We arrive at the sentence that got me to write this entry up. The scientific method is more concerned with the limits of what it knows and the implications of its knowledge to a degree unmatched by almost any other human endeavor. To claim that the scientific method has limits is true.

Science encompasses human curiosity and rationality -- its limit is at the boundary of human knowledge.

Contrasting with religion where proclamations are made with no (or pathetic) justification, about subjects which cannot be verified. It's equally important to recognize the limits of revealed religion.

Religion encompasses human fear and irrationality -- its limit is at the boundary of human ignorance.

The faith to which I ascribe has brought substantial light and unique meaning to the world... could you be open to the possibility that religion isn't inherently bad?

This is what's known as a non-sequitur. My fundamental argument is that it's not true, not that it's not useful. It's possible that I could get people to give more to charity if I could convince them that the great unicorn in the sky would reward them if they were more generous. This does nothing to establish the existence of the great unicorn.

...Theists look carefully at the astounding complexity and improbable fine-tuning of our universe and conclude that there's no way that this happened randomly, you then turn around and ask us to accept that it is the result of undetectable organizational forces... Isn't your argument every bit an assertion of faith, rather than knowledge?

1. No one thinks evolution or gravity happens randomly.
2. No one (except your fellow theists) will ask you accept things that are the result of undetectable forces.
3. Tu quoque is a fallacy

Speaking for myself: if you think we should understand each other better (and I do) you have to tell us what you think, and why you think it. You have to understand what we think, and why. Telling us that we aren't really atheists -- or that Stalin was an atheist AND did bad things is simply irrelevant to what we believe and why we believe it. No one is an atheist because they think Stalin was a moral dude -- we're atheists because we see no compelling reason to think that any supernatural gods exist.

We (in aggregate) are very fair. You have to use and demonstrate methods of gaining knowledge that we can verify for ourselves -- and if this is too restrictive, we will dismiss your poorly conceived assertions about the real world just like we dismiss the relentless claims to supernatural knowledge that we are bombarded with daily. Just like you dismiss the heartfelt beliefs of ancient pagans as being any sort of guide to describing reality in any interesting way.

I recently walked through a large hostile crowd that had formed around a small group of Christians holding signs talking about the evils of homosexuality.

The people surrounding the sign-bearers were largely upset about the signs -- probably a number of Christians, and definitely a number of atheists, as well.

The interactions were heated, but not mere screaming -- some actual dialogue was occurring. However, the people I agreed with and wanted to win every interaction often had terrible or irrelevant arguments that they were throwing up against the preachers. I wanted to write about a few of the missteps to hopefully head off these avenues before you trudge down them yourself.

The situation was pretty clear: preachers with signs proclaiming the immorality of homosexuality. Their view is also pretty clear -- homosexual acts are sinful actions -- therefore are immoral -- and should be preached against. (Someone asked if they would support legislation to ban or enact laws against homosexuality and they said no).

Arguments that suck:

"Jesus said to love your neighbor as your self" -- as though this means that a Christian isn't allowed to endeavor to "improve" a person. If a person is engaging in an activity that harms himself or his soul, then a Christian can adhere to the teaching and to try to help the fallen by preaching that homosexuality is a sin. Is it presumptive? Yes. Is it offensive? Yes. Is it coherent? Yes, it is.

"What harm does it do?" -- If their version of Christianity is true, then homosexuality is a sin. What harm does it do? A sinful action should be opposed for the very fact that it's sinful, not necessarily any harm that's done. The reasoning is fairly straightforward and valid -- the key point where the argument fails is in its first premise: their version of Christianity is false.

"How come you don't care about people eating shrimp?" -- Christians ignore swaths of the Old Testament (and parts of the New Testament, for example see Jesus' instructions on how to offer a sacrifice on the altar -- Matthew 5:23-24). There are enough reasons to think that the New Testament is against slavery that this charge is largely irrelevant as well.

"You hate homosexuals." -- Could be true, but 1. irrelevant; 2. I dislike telling people the "real reason" that they do/believe something. Just think of the situation with the tables turned. How compelling is it when a Christian says, "You only reject Jesus because you want to live a sinful lifestyle."

"The Bible isn't against homosexuality." It simply is (although not a major theme). Here's the situation: The Bible, when it cares about homosexuality enough to mention it, considers it immoral. As far as I'm concerned, that's another strike against the Bible.

More useful lines of argument

I would argue along two principle lines of reasoning. The first, Christianity is false. The second, Christianity has a terrible track record of answering the question "What is immoral?" -- think slavery -- and its moral guidelines consequently have to be justified on their own merits.

Let me outline the rough approach to the second line of reasoning. I'll put typical kinds of responses in parentheses.

- Ask what they use to determine what is moral and immoral.

(The Bible).

- Ask, do you believe that owning people as slaves is an immoral?

(Of course).

- Where does the Bible say a single word against slavery?

( What about the following:

Galatians 3:28 (NRSV)

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

Doesn't that count?)

- You realize that that verse is talking about how, to God, the human divisions we make between ourselves don't matter to Him? God could care less whether you are a Jew or a Greek; whether you are a male or female; and whether you are a slave or not. This verse makes the point that God does not care about these kinds of distinctions -- which is opposite to the point you want to make, which is that God deeply cares that slavery exists and wishes to declare it immoral.

(Slavery was different back then, it wasn't so bad and race wasn't part of it).

- Ok, regarding the Old Testament rules of owning slaves:

Exodus 21:4 (NRSV)

If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s and he shall go out alone.

The master gets to keep the slave's wife and children!

(That's in the Old Testament and... )

- Let me read one passage from the New Testament then:

1 Timothy 6:1-5 (NRSV)

Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be blasphemed. Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful to them on the ground that they are members of the church; rather they must serve them all the more, since those who benefit by their service are believers and beloved. Teach and urge these duties. Whoever teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that is in accordance with godliness, is conceited, understanding nothing, and has a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words. From these come envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions, and wrangling among those who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.

I'd be wary of getting my morality from a book that can't even figure out that slavery is immoral. As a moral guide, it simply fails. It's possible to pick out a good nugget, but you have to be able to justify it in a way besides the fact that it's in this misguided book.

---------------------------

I think this line of reasoning is, at the very least, better than the arguments I wrote to avoid. Reading that one New Testament Bible aloud is worth doing in practically any argument that involves the Bible and morality. Many Christians have no idea about what the New Testament says about slavery -- and they should be reminded. Let me know any feedback you have -- questions, criticism, or comments!

Two bloggers have been going back and forth with some religious debate. Luke from Common Sense Atheism and Vox Day from Vox Day have been going back and forth via letters between their two blogs. I've witnessed 5 from Luke, 4 from Vox and hundreds of comments. [The 1st letter from Luke; the 1st response from Vox] I was going to link to each and every letter, but if you are compelled enough to read through all of them, the first salvos are enough to get you started.

I'm interested in examining an argument from Vox that I have not encountered before (at least not directly).

When asked why he is a Christian --

Vox Day: Why am I a Christian? Because I believe in evil. I believe in objective, material, tangible evil that insensibly envelops every single one of us sooner or later.

Which does not seem to immediately follow. A person could easily have the same reason for being a Satanist (in the real sense of worshipping Lucifer, the supernatural creature -- not LaVey). "Why am I a Satanist? Because I believe in evil... "

VD continues --

VD: The fact that we live in a world of pain, suffering, injustice, and cruelty is not evidence of God's nonexistence or maleficence, it is exactly the worldview that is described in the Bible. In my own experience and observations, I find that worldview to be far more accurate than any other, including the shiny science fiction utopianism of the secular humanists.

Still isn't clear what having an accurate description about the pain, suffering, injustice and cruelty of the world; therefore worship whatever wrote the description? Seriously, imagine some guy on the street tells you, "So this supernatural being spoke to me last night, and he had the best grasp of the true meaning of evil. He could give a perfect account of the suffering, cruelty, injustice -- just everything rotten about this world. His name is Lucifer, and boy, I cannot tell you how AWESOME this guy was at describing evil. It's like... he's lived it! So, I decided to worship this being."

One might be tempted to say, "Sounds like you've thought a lot about this..."

I think VD's argument from evil is the worst argument for being a Christian that I've seen written in full sentences, but I may be forgetting a couple.

-----------------------

Semi-relatedly, VD goes into his idea of God's morality and chastises Luke for having a non-objective standard of evil. Fair enough, but a little inconsistent from what I can tell.

VD: I believe logic dictates that the Creator alone has the right to set the standards for His Creation. His game, His rules. In keeping with that principle, God always has the absolute right to do as He sees fit, which just so happens to be precisely the answer He gave to Job and company. The answer to Euthyphro's so-called dilemma is that the good is good because it is commanded by God, since there is no objective, supra-divine standard of Good by which His commands may be judged.

VD: I stated there that the arbitrary nature of God's goodness, which has long been a known solution to the first horn of the Euthyphro Dilemma, “can only be considered a genuine problem for those who insist that a fixed principle cannot be arbitrary.”

This is a fairly standard response to Euthyphro. There are some semi-weird consequences, but I'll save those for another time.

Vox then took Luke to task for having a subjective concept of evil:

VD: Applying the relevant definition of objective to your answer - "not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased: an objective opinion" - regarding the nature of evil clearly indicates that you believe evil is a fundamentally subjective concept. In fact, based on your explication of desirism, it is apparent that in your view, evil is not only subjective, but dynamic and transitory as well. Unfortunately, this rejection of the concept of objective evil renders it impossible for us to compare the Christian view of evil with other accounts of it because neither of us can possibly know what your definition of evil is for any single act or individual at any given point on the space-time continuum.

I'll just make the observation that this criticism seems inconsistent with the earlier statements on evil by VD.

VD: "because neither of us can possibly know what your definition of evil is for any single act or individual at any given point on the space-time continuum."

But God, allegedly, has no restrictions on what He calls evil. All right. There is no restrictions or supra-divine standard which His commands may be judged. All right. So God has the right to set the standards for His creation and the absolute right to do as He sees fit. All right.

Does this mean that God could say that murder is good and it would be good?
Yes.
Does this mean that God could say that stomping puppies to death for fun is good on Tuesdays alone, and every other day of the week it is evil?
Yes.
Does this mean that God could exactly flip what was evil and what was good at whim, any time He wanted, as many times as He wanted, throughout the course of all time?
Yes.
Could God flip what was good and what was evil without telling us humans?
Yes.
Could God flip on a daily basis the moral standing of stomping puppies and keep constant our visceral reactions to the same event the same?
Yes.
Is this not a completely arbitrary conception of evil?
Yes.
So what was that again about VD claiming we could not possibly know what is evil for any single act at any given point on the space-time continuum -- non-objective?

These are some of my observations so far; depending on where the Luke/Vox discussion goes from here I may comment on it more in the future.

My last entry was about the phrasing of questions to cut off common retreats from the question itself. The last improvement left the question as:

Atheist: Why do you worship a God that allows suffering?

I mentioned that it's still not a great formulation, and a few comments commented that I was leaving a cliffhanger. What further improvments could be made? Quite a few in my estimation:

Tactic: make specific claims, ask for specific claims. Use clear examples and ask for clear examples.

This 'tactic' is a completely symmetric burden for theist and atheist alike. Add specificity to the suffering. It's much easier to dismiss or trivialize suffering when talked about in the abstract. So take a very specific example of the worst kind of suffering you can come up with: the murder of Jessica Lunsford, the 9 year old girl who was repeatedly raped and then murdered by being buried alive.

Atheist: How can you worship a god that allowed the suffering of someone like Jessica Lunsford?

Now, the question, as it's worded is confrontational, and we're going for conversational. Does this mean blunting the criticism at all? No, but it means delivering the full impact of the punch without giving the person you're talking with a bunch of things to legitimately complain about -- those would just be distractions. So, start the interaction from the right mindset. Let me say now that I have read Christian "witnessing guides" that mention witnessing to non-Christians by becoming their friend so that the target is more accepting the Christian message. I disagree with this tactic profoundly, and I am not advocating that atheists try to befriend a person they argue with the goal of sneaking in a deconversion. The goal ought to be effective communication, and with that in mind, try to keep in mind a few suggestions.

• First, the person you are talking with probably holds the beliefs he does because he believes them to be true -- not to annoy you.
• Second, your first goal should be to figure out what the person actually believes. Think how annoying is it when you are asked, "So you believe humans evolved entirely by chance?" We don't want to be arguing against a belief that he doesn't hold.
• Third, once you know what they believe, try to figure out why they believe what they do. You actually want to know what is going on in their head. You can even word it like:

Conversational Atheist: Help me understand your mindset -- because it is honestly a mystery to me -- I cannot conceive of ever praising a god that had full power to prevent the suffering of Jessica Lunsford, yet stood by and watched it happen. If such a god existed, I might understand withholding condemnation out of deference to some kind of unknowable reasoning. But it is truly inconceivable to me that you could actually praise such a creature. Do you see where I am coming from?

We are getting close to the best approach that I can think of from the starting question, "Why does God allow suffering?"

Few more nuances: So, as I say elsewhere, fight for the argument that is easiest to defend that is contrary to a fundamental belief. I suggest that it's unthinkable to praise such a God without knowing the specific reasons for allowing it, and that it's possible that a person could remain a "is god moral" agnostic. Could I argue that if such a god exists we ought to condemn it? Sure, but there are ways out that the theist has available that take time to wrap up.

Here's how I would deal with the most common response. Notice that I chose a phrasing that anticipates the response, "But, isn't it possible that somehow, God has some kind of plan where... greater suffering was averted by this seemingly atrocious event?"

So many ripe targets from such a response, but don't take the bait. Many atheists are very good at identifying every single logical fallacy and error. They honestly could wrestle every single misstep to the ground, but I'm suggesting that there is considerable argumentative strength in not pursuing every possible argument. Concede as much as you can while retaining a rock solid case on your main point.

Conversational Atheist: Sure, it's conceivable that a creature that had this power could have a good reason; it's also conceivable that a creature is a sadistic and evil being. So, I could imagine withholding judgment, and I can imagine condemnation for allowing what appears to be an unfettered evil occur, but, seriously, how could you praise such a creature without knowing the specific good reasons?

Comments, questions, and suggested improvements welcome! As are, especially, if you have tried this approach out yourself: report and success or failures you've had.

My approach to religious debates aims at making the conversations as effective as possible.

What does it mean to have an 'effective' debate or conversation?

At minimum, an effective debate has to have actually engaged the real thoughts and beliefs of the participants. In what I've witnessed, most religious arguments fail at achieving even at this meager goal.

Beyond a minimal 'meeting of the minds' -- an effective debate will involve real challenges to the real thoughts of the participants.

And, of course, the most effective argument or debate concludes with one side convincing the other of something they had not accepted before.

I have encountered many people who think that any kind of religious debate or conversation is a waste of time.

As I said before, I aim to make religious conversations between people as effective as possible. I am not expecting my ideas to become dogma -- it is almost certain that I have not formulated the perfect recipe that yields the most effective conversations possible -- and so I welcome suggestions, challenges, and improvements on all aspects of my approach.

Over the years, I have had hundreds of conversations with pleasant people from every faith -- the ideas that I share come from my dissecting these conversations and thinking about what worked, and why; what didn't work, and why.

Let me give you an example. Imagine two people, one a committed Christian, the other a committed atheist secular humanist. Let's start with a plausible broadside from the secular humanist.

Atheist: "Why does God allow suffering?"

I have come to think that there are several reasons why this question is phrased terribly. First of all, the atheist is asking the Christian to explain God's behavior. All other considerations aside, if every other piece of the ensuing argument completely destroys every possible reason that the Christian can think of for God allowing suffering there is a huge retreat still available. Namely, the 'why should I know why God does that' 0r some other variation.

Rule 1: Do not let your argument hinge on asking a Christian to explain something he could conceivably say, "I don't know" as a legitimate answer to an argument.

So, how do you tweak the question to ask essentially the same thing, but to close the "I don't know" loophole? Ask the slightly improved question:

Atheist: "Why do you worship a God that allows suffering?"

It's still not great, but notice that answering, 'why should I know why I do that' is not a legitimate answer to the question. You may still hear that answer, but even the Christian will feel uncomfortable about such a lame answer.

In watching other people debate or talk, it's much easier, of course, to be critical of a missed opportunity or a wrong step.

There is frequent noise made about the "New Atheists" and others who refuse to argue against the sophisticated faith of the Theological-Einsteins whose faith is subtle and nuanced. There are many responses that are possible -- among them that the majority of believers do not believe in gods in some sophisticated way.

I have had many conversations, arguments, and debates with ministers, pastors, clergy of different types, and even philosophy professors who happened to be religious. But, I have not had a chance to have an extended interaction with a professional Christian Theologian, and I have been itching for the chance.

I itch no longer.

I have been interacting with a professional Christian theologian who is a professor of historical theology at a Canadian seminary. His name is Randal Rauser -- and goes by RD. He has a blog on christianpost.com: The Tentative Apologist.

On that blog I comment under the handle: ConverseAtheist (because, like so many other sites, ConversationalAtheist is too long to be a valid username -- sigh).

My interaction with him started when he insisted that an atheist is making a positive knowledge claim about the universe, and that as such, requires evidence and justification.

I asked him if he believed in Zeus; or if by being an azeusist he was making a positive knowledge claim about the universe -- and since this requires evidence and justification; what evidence does he have?

After more back and forth than it was worth the response was:

"I am an agnostic about whether Zeus exists as a lesser-spirit being; but an atheist as to whether Zeus is the perfect creator of the universe."

-- Let me fill in some background --

RD has posted some essays that argue for the existence of a being greater than which cannot be conceived. He further posted about how when he prays to Yahweh, coincidences happen; when he stops praying to Yahweh, coincidences stop happening. When asked if these coincidences could hold up to scientific scrutiny, or some kind of rigorous statistical testing -- he wisely concedes that they would not.
I'll let you into my mind as I planned out my interaction with RD.

When dealing with a trained obsfucator theologian, he may employ a vast array of tactics and techniques to evade answering difficult questions.

First, I set up a situation that mirrored, in every relevant way that I could imagine, a parallel religious belief to what RD believes. I also wanted to make that hypothetical belief be intentionally ridiculous. (I wanted motivation for RD to defend his cherished beliefs from being equated with nonsense.)

I proposed a hypothetical person, Bob, who followed a sort of reasoning to get to his religious beliefs.
Bob starts with something like the ontological argument, and believes that the most perfect being exists necessarily.
Bob, while sitting in his car at a stoplight, prays to Zeus to change the light to green. It eventually turns green.
Based on this evidence, Bob believes that Zeus is the perfect creator of the universe that necessarily exists.

I then asked RD whether his Christian beliefs were indistinguishably well-justified as Bob's belief in Zeus.

Why did I try this approach? Well, for one, I was hoping to actually get an account from a supposedly sophisticated believer about why he believes in specific supernatural claims. I actually thought that I might learn quite a bit from the guy. However, the other alternative is, failing that, I would have the admission from a professional theologian that his religious beliefs are as well justified as believing in Zeus because streetlights turn green.

Win-win for me as far as I could tell: I would either learn some impressive justification for Christian beliefs, or get an admission that Christianity is indistinguishably well-justified as pure nonsense.

The first hurdle, though, seemed to be that RD could not view this challenge as anything but a famous previous argument that has an answer written down somewhere. I honestly could not believe the answers that RD gave.

RD started with essentially: Ah, you must mean the famous argument from evil! -- Here is my response to that!

RD followed up with: Ah, you must mean the famous argument from arbitrary belief! -- Here is my response to that!

RD followed up with: Ah, you must mean the famous ontological argument applies to Zeus! -- Here is my response to that! (his actual quote from that one: "A being that owes its existence to other beings cannot be the being than which none greater can be conceived. Zeus owes his existence to other beings. Therefore, Zeus cannot be the being than which none greater can be conceived.")

Here is a representative note from me on August 17, 2009 -- Me: "... you have missed the question entirely. I was not asking if YOU would be equally well justified for believing in either Yahweh or Zeus; but whether bob-Zeus; you-Yahweh is as justifiable for each of you."

And again on August 20, 2009 -- Me: "In fact, you apparently cannot even distinguish the justification for your belief in Yahweh with Bob's belief in Zeus...And I beg you, if you believe that you have a slightly better justification than this, to state it."

And again on August 23, 2009 -- Me: "I am not asking you to believe in Zeus. I am not asking whether it makes sense for you to believe in Zeus. You have never prayed to Zeus for the light to turn green and witnessed the miracle. Thus, you do not have the same reasons as Bob to believe in Zeus -- I agree. I am talking about a guy, who believes that Zeus is the perfect creator of the universe because Zeus answers his prayers about street lights, and because Zeus punishes Christian churches. And I am asking whether you can come up with a defeater for his beliefs. And if not, to at least distinguish the justifications for each of your beliefs. Or, to admit that your Christian belief is indistinguishably well-justified as Bob's."

And yet still, on August 24, 2009 RD says: "ConverseAtheist has been hammering on this point for awhile now, focusing in particular on Zeus. That is, if I believe in the Christian God, why not believe in the Greek God as well? Or why not the Greek God instead of the Christian God? It would seem that from ConverseAtheist's perspective, the basic problem, I suppose, is arbitrariness."And then, after much arm-twisting, RD claims to have more justification that hypothetical Bob.

Ready?

Christian theologian's belief in Yahweh and his life and professional livelihood is more justifed than nonsense because of the following fact: the majority of people who do not believe in Zeus is larger than the majority of people who do not believe in Yahweh.

Take a second to let that sink in.

I asked whether I could use his reasoning as illustrative of the kind of thinking that gives intellectual vindication to Christian faith.

September 4th, Me: "I'm pleading with you to make the case to the ideal disinterested rational listener that your religious beliefs are more justified for you to believe than a person who thinks Zeus is the creator of the universe because the streetlights turn green when he prays to Zeus. Whatever you think an ideal disinterested rational listener should take into account as evidence, present that evidence as though he will take it into account."

I think this is a generally useful idea: write to what you expect would convince the ideal disinterested rational listener. It's win-win -- either you convince your primary target, or other rational people should be able to read the account for themselves and see that the primary is being irrational.

I continued: "When you mentioned that the majority of people who do not believe in Yahweh is not as large as the majority of people who do not believe in Zeus, I gained valuable insight into precisely what a professional theologian counts as a distinguishing justification for his personal religious beliefs over nonsense.

But -- and this is important -- you have free reign. List defeaters to this guy's Zeus beliefs. List evidence for your beliefs. Or not -- I personally do not have an opinion on this apriori. I want to see what you, a professional Christian theologian, think would count to a disinterested listener that is considering the justification that you have for your beliefs versus the justification a Zeus-believer has for his beliefs."

I was explicit in highlighting the fact that RD has free reign to call in whatever justification/evidence/whatever that he wants.

I finished: "I'm not asking you to convince this listener that one or the other has the correct beliefs. What evidence do you have that supports your personal belief? What do you think counts? What do you think counts in favor of your belief and against this hypothetical nonsense?"

Conclusion: A theologian apparently has an absolutely terrible time claiming justification for his religious beliefs from nonsense. The single justification that he claimed gave his Christian beliefs more validity than nonsense was to argue from popularity.

So far, RD has written 4 entries since that last comment and no response to me. I'll update this post if anything happens.

UPDATE:

You won't believe how RD responded to my entry...

Ok, so in this entry, I criticize RD for not responding to my challenge and insisting that I must be making some previously discredited 'famous argument'.

In fact, I list 3 times, where I say RD says, essentially, Ah, you must mean the famous argument ... blah blah blah!

Here is part of his response that he leaves in a comment on his blog: "To put it another way, it sounds like you are aiming for the Great Pumpkin reductio ad absurdum that Plantinga raised in "Reason and Belief in God" and which atheists like Michael Martin have since taken up."

Ha ha ha! I am meaning the famous reductio-ad-absurdum-argument-mentioned-by-Plantinga-and-which-Martin-has-defended! He guessed it, finally, after all these wrong guesses, he finally got the CORRECT famous atheist argument with a canned theist response! </mirth>

RD alludes to the great time and effort that I've put forward as though this interaction is work or something ... I'm having a blast. The only thing I'm regretting is having taken so long to find a theologian to debate!

Some people may get the idea that I have a fascination with Zeus. I find him a useful foil.

I have re-read in recent days the breathless accounts of various "Resurrection of Jesus" evidence. It blows my mind -- and not in the way that the Christian writers want.

I wanted to write up an essay that highlighted one of the more bizarre episodes in the New Testament.

How many people remember the part where crowds think that the apostle Paul is Zeus in human form, and they try to sacrifice an ox to him? Remember what happens next?

The Jews in the surrounding towns come down and stone Paul to death.

Well, they thought they did. Paul was stoned to death, and dragged from the city, where he got up and went on his way. Apparently people were really bad at figuring out just when people had died back then.

Anyway, here my essay that highlights this bizarre series of events: The Resurrection -- of Zeus?

Let me know your thoughts!

I have been engaged in a number of emails with a reader named Marcia. My previous blog entry contained a part of my email response to her and she left the 5th note on that entry.

Her comment included the following: "It is interesting to me that you talk about intellectual honesty but failed to demonstrate this in your discussion of John MacArthur’s article..."

Really? I fail to demonstrate intellectual honesty?

Let's recap with a direct quote of the verses that Marcia claimed, “Jeremiah 31:15 ... prophesied … that Herod would kill the children in Bethlehem”

Jeremiah 31:15-17 (NSRV) “Thus says the Lord: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.
Thus says the Lord: Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for there is a reward for your work, says the Lord: they shall come back from the land of the enemy; there is hope for your future, says the Lord: your children shall come back to their own country.”

Notice the complete lack of the words: Herod, Bethlehem, Messiah, Mary, Joseph, Jesus, prophesy.

If I were exactly as intellectually dishonest as Christians who make the claim that a verse without the word "Herod" in it prophesied that that "Herod would do something", I would argue as follows:

Jeremiah 31:15-17 prophesies that Napoleon Bonaparte would invade Jerusalem. Since Napoleon did not invade Jerusalem, as prophesied in Jeremiah 31:15, Jesus could not have been the Messiah.

I'm sure that you think that that claim is ridiculous and non-compelling. So, show me how to argue with that statement, Marcia. I honestly would like to learn how to get such an idea across in a compelling way.

::EDIT::  I switched hosting servers a few nights ago, and I thought I made it through to the other side unscathed, but I got notified that this entry had disappeared. I've replaced it, and I'm in the process of finding and repopulating it with the old comments.  Special thanks to I Am over at twitter for pointing this out. ::EDIT::

To Billy: if you are going to play the fool verse in an article, be sure that your article is passably cogent.

Billy Graham wrote an article in response to a question about atheists. His article:

Atheism is a Fad only Fools Follow by Billy Graham

I have developed a useful habit where I track the conclusions and the corresponding evidences that people use as they craft an argument. Try it yourself with the closing paragraph:

Don’t be misled by those who claim God doesn’t exist, because he does. And the ultimate reason we know it is because he came down from heaven and walked on this earth in the person of Jesus Christ. Christ was God in human flesh, and he proved it by rising from the dead.

Let’s follow the two arguments and attempt to order them so that they flow from evidence to conclusion.

Billy’s Argument 1:

Evidence: God came down from heaven and walked on the earth in the person Jesus Christ.

Therefore, (conclusion) God exists.

Billy’s Argument 2:

Evidence: Jesus rose from the dead.

Therefore, (conclusion) Jesus was God in human flesh.

The first argument is the most ridiculously circular argument that I have encountered in print.

The second argument is invalid and false — and I don’t think that even Billy believes what he wrote. If he honestly thinks that the statement “Jesus is God in human flesh” is a proven statement, there is no room for faith that “Jesus is God.” There are critical problems with his argument even granting the evidence to be true.

Consider the fact that we do not have direct evidence of Jesus rising from the dead. The absolute best evidence that could even be hoped to be marshaled is: written accounts of his death and resurrection by eyewitnesses who swore under penalty of death that their account was true. (Which, by the way, we don’t have — and if you want to get technical, there is far greater evidence that could exist). But, for fun, let’s grant the absolute best case evidence — the testimony and willingness to die for the testimony is so  overwhelming that it convinces anyone and everyone that this evidence CANNOT be explained except by a supernatural intervention.

How many possible supernatural explanations are available to explain something so precise and amazing as written accounts of Jesus’ death and resurrection by eyewitnesses who swear under the penalty of death that what they wrote was true?

An infinite number of supernatural explanations. There are an infinite number of ways that such amazing evidence could be attained through supernatural means BESIDES the one conclusion that Billy thinks is inevitable: that Jesus is God in human flesh.

Just to get the list started:

1. spirits possessed all alleged eyewitnesses and wrote the accounts and allowed the host body to die for these accounts.

2. Two gods got together and created the universe and the world 50 years ago — and made it look like everything has been around for a long time planting evidence of a continuous (false) history; even gave people older than 50 years false memories of the past.

3. etc.

For all of my criticism, Billy’s article is not a complete waste:  I have a new example for when I teach circular reasoning.

I've posted a new article. Atheists can ask a number of tough questions in the course of a conversation or debate with a theist that quickly lead to some interesting conclusions. The following question can be very effective:

Can God do evil?

It's important to get the types of questions straight. A few entries ago I mentioned that an atheist should focus on asking a theist to explain his own actions rather than God's -- Why worship an apparently evil God? Rather than: Why does God allow evil?

It's another matter all together to ask whether God is actually capable of doing evil. If He cannot do evil (for whatever reason), His omnipotence and praiseworthyness become highly suspect. If He can do evil, then there are some very interesting problems that arise for the theist.

Anyway, I entertain this question in a new article: Tough Questions: Can God do evil?

Let me know what you think!