OLD-TIME ATHEISM

Bayes Theorem and the Resurrection of Jesus

2012-02-16T14:38:00.000-08:00

It seems like every few years somebody tries to make a Bayesian argument for the existence of God. Some of them argue for the divinity of Jesus, and some for other Philosophical arguments, like the argument from fine tuning. Richard Swinburne has made many of these arguments, and has now made a Bayesian argument for the Resurrection. So, he's gonna prove that the odds the resurrection occurred are 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1, right? Fortunately, unlike the Mcgrew's, he doesn't make stupid claims like that, so he'll probably just say it is "more probable than not".

Now, as I have repeatedly said, I am not a philosopher by anyones standards. I can, however, check out his empirical claims, and see if they have merit. After all, a Bayesian argument is only as good as the facts plugged into it, right? For example, in the Mcgrew's essay, they attack the Hallucination hypothesis since there were too many to have occurred naturally. They also attack it because the hallucinations would have to have lasted for very long periods of time. The problem, however, is that this is only true of you accept that the details of the Gospel accounts are accurate, which they do. If you believe that the appearance stories are legendary, than all of a sudden these criticisms disappear. Furthermore, if you actually read the current information of bereavement hallucinations, you'd find that it is not at all improbable that, after Jesus' death, many people claimed to have seen him alive. I have argued this elsewhere, so I will not repeat myself.

So, I will have to pick up his book and see if he challenges naturalistic alternatives like the Mcgrew's do. From what little I've read on Amazon, the book mainly deals with Jesus' divinity, so I doubt there will be much of an attack against the hallucination hypothesis.

Happy Valentines day, bloggosphere!

2012-02-14T15:14:00.000-08:00

Personally, I hate this stupid holiday. Than again, I am single.

Pat Robertson says that Twilight is demonic

2012-02-13T15:57:00.000-08:00

I know Twilight sucked, but that doesn't mean it's evil.

Interesting survey on Prosblogion

2012-02-13T07:12:00.000-08:00

I know I rarely discuss philosophy, but this is too interesting to pass up. I'll have to do a post discussing the results too- although I doubt they will be surprising. I mean, most Philosophers are atheists, remember? Still, it would be interesting to see just how many Theists still put stock in arguments for the existence of God.

Happy Darwin day!

2012-02-12T07:20:00.000-08:00

Now make sure you watch Inherit the wind, or something evolution related.

Skeptic magazine defends Hallucination Hypothesis

2012-02-03T09:39:00.000-08:00

You can read the article here. I have to admit, I am somewhat envious of this guy for being able to defend the hallucination hypothesis from a psychiatric perspective. I am happy that he avoids speculative group hallucinations, and uses the empty tomb to strengthen his case. Furthermore, I am happy that he decimates the often poor criticism of Evangelicals like Craig and Habermas. The problem with them, as I've stated elsewhere, is that they rely on outdated scholarship that knew next to nothing about hallucinations. Now adays, we know that hallucinations occur commonly to normal, sane people experiencing bereavement.

The thing, however, that impressed me most was his proposal that the disciples may have believed in the physical resurrection theologically and not on the basis of evidence. In other words, the disciples could have believed that Jesus could be touched and seen by many people, without actually having been seen/touched by many people at once. As an example, lets just say that the disciples were all sleeping together. One of them gets up and hallucinates Jesus. Another wakes up and also hallucinates Jesus. When the rest wake up, he disappears. Only two of them see Jesus- yet, only two of them were in a position where they could see him. This could lead an ancient to conclude that, had they all been awake at the same time, they could have all seen Jesus. But it doesn't follow that, because they all could have seen Jesus, they all did. This is an important point which hasn't been properly critiqued, in my opinion anyways.

One thing that did irritate me, however, was the authors denial of William Lane Craig's favorite argument- that there was no precedent to individual resurrection in the ancient world. Although it is true that, according to the gospels, Jesus raised the dead- these were viewed as resuscitation's, not resurrections. The formerly dead would not stay alive forever; Resurrected people, however, would enjoy eternal life. I can't fault this essay too much for this inconvenience, however, since many evangelicals agree with me. Habermas himself admits that he puts little stock in the argument since, according to many, prophecies of a dying and rising messiah can, in fact, be found within the old testiment.

Despite the small flaw, this essay is a very impressive one. I hope that eventually, serious biblical scholars will take notice.

HT to John Loftus

Harold Camping VS. Jesus Christ

2012-01-31T06:45:00.000-08:00

This is quite possibly the funniest thing I've read all day.

Andyman409 miracle detective: A real life exorcism!

2012-01-30T14:48:00.000-08:00

Here is an interesting little thing I found online a while ago. According to the article, a trained Psychiatrist and a team of Catholic priests and nuns actually witnessed a real life exorcism! That's right- not one of those phony baloney ones done by those protestant nut-cases; but a real, true blue one! Just like the film the exorcist, the team reported several strange phenomena including: Levitation, Super-human strength, clairvoyance, Xenoglossy, and psychokinesis.

Amazing huh. The only problem is... they recorded none of it! That's right- all these crazy things happened, and nobody ever thought, just for a second, to actually use a video camera. Furthermore, the only two news sources I was able to find this incredible story on were "New Oxford review", an exclusively Catholic magazine, and "World Net Daily", a bunch of hyper-conservative right wing Birthers. Beyond these two very questionable news sources, we haven't a shred of evidence that any of this actually happened.

Furthermore, even if we were to use these sources, the pertinent details are severely lacking. They briefly mention some of the supernatural happenings in passing, but that's all. For example, they report that objects "flew off the shelves on their own"- but they never tell us any of the details, like exactly which objects did so, or how they could tell there where no naturalistic alternatives. The worst part, however, is that these articles never even tell us the identity of the woman being possessed. If this case were to have had no paranormal phenomena, than I could imagine her being afraid of accusations to her sanity. But supposedly psycho-kinesis and levitation occurred! Surely any un-justified criticism by pseudo-skeptics would be deflected by eager parapsychologists. Super-naturalist friendly America would have embraced her- not ridiculed her. But, once again, the biggest problem with this case isn't the lack of evidence per se, but the fact that, had this event actually occurred, we should expect the evidence to be a lot better. The fact that the details are so sorely lacking is either the result of very poor scholarship- or very deviant fraud. Or perhaps both.

After all, naturalistic explanations can be applied to several of the purported "supernatural occurrences". Tricksters have been known to move objects in order to deceive others- which is the cause of many poltergeist cases. Furthermore, Pseudo seizures sometimes produce violent movements that can be confused for levitation (a short discussion on this can be found here). Furthermore, the intense emotional stress these types of events generate often lead to mass hysteria, in which strange collective delusions can form. Michael Cuneo, a skeptical sociologist, sat in on over 50 exorcisms while he was writing his book "American exorcism- Driving out demons in the land of plenty". During the events, many strange things would be reported, such as levitation. Cuneo, however, would be unable to see the phenomena, even though others present could (see here and here).

So in conclusion, I think we can safely say that, even if exorcism does work and demons do exist, we simply have no way of finding out until more serious research is done. It's just a shame that it will most likely end up yielding no results.

Resurrection Sundays: Scholarly rejection of naturalistic hypothesis

2012-01-29T05:27:00.000-08:00

I am proud to declare that Resurrection Sundays are returning! Hooray! However, they are not going to be weekly events, as they were originally. I will release new segments on Sundays- but not always once a week. I plan to focus the bulk of my energy on other subjects, such as sociology. With that said, let me return to the post.

Apologists like William Lane Craig and Gary Habermas like to rub in that contemporary scholarship still snuffs naturalistic alternatives to the resurrection. Here is a quote from the former illustrating my point:

"Down through history various alternative explanations of the facts have been offered, for example, the conspiracy theory, the apparent death theory, the hallucination theory, and so forth. Such hypotheses have been almost universally rejected by contemporary scholarship. No naturalistic hypothesis has attracted a great number of scholars."

Indeed Craig is right- no naturalistic hypothesis has attracted a great number of scholars. However, what really irritates me is the part about these hypothesis being universally rejected by contemporary scholars. As these apologists point out- even skeptics tend to avoid defending any particular hypothesis. The same point is brought up in Habermas' article "The Late Twentieth century resurgence of naturalistic responses to Jesus resurrection".

So, why do most scholars, including the skeptical ones, avoid using these hypothesis. My guess is that it's because all the traditional ones really are terible! The swoon theory is one I've never found persuasive at all- although not for the same reason most apologists do. Most apologists like Craig don't find it persuasive since they question how a half dead Jesus could be glorified to the status of a God. Personally- I think the biggest problem with it is that Jesus would have eventually died anyways. Another thoery I find no weight in is the wrong tomb theory. I don't know- I just find it hard to believe that, after Jesus' body dissapeared, the disciples never once thought to ask Joseph of Arimethea about it. I admit that the conspiracy theory is at least possible- although I'm not exactly a fan of theories that are un-provable and un-falsifyable.

As you should all know, the only theory I put stock in is the subjective vision theory. According to it, Jesus stayed dead- shortly afterwards, his disciples hallucinated him alive. Sadly, this theory is equally rejected by most scholars. However, there is one version of this theory which hasn't been totally rejected by scholars... this being the bereavement experience. First created by Gerd Ludemann, this theory relies not on ordinary hallucinations, but on bereavement hallucinations. There big difference. Although regular hallucinations require certain emotional and physiological conditions to occur (such as lack of sleep or food), bereavement hallucination dont seem to require anything (other than, of course, bereavement).

Fortunatley, it is very easy to show that, after Jesus' death, Peter and "the twelve" (and possibly Mary) where most likely in a state of grief. Furthermore, it is possible that James was also in this state. Although it is universally conceded that James was at some point a skeptic, it is impossible to know how long he was a skeptic for, or when he actually converted. So, if we make the mild concession that James was a disciple before his vision, we already have half of the appearances covered in terms of emotional precedent. When it comes to the twelve- we can speculate an appearance to some of the disciples (perhaps late at night), in which several of them hallucinated at the same time. The ones that didn't see Jesus perhaps went along with them- or they were in a different room. In the end, it was decided that the appearance was objective since the few disciples capable of seeing Jesus saw him. We do have precident for these sorts of appearances- at least in the apparitional literature Allison so fequently cites.

Furthermore, it doesn't seem like a stratch to assume that the vision to the "500" was a later occurrance, perhaps an elvis sighting/mass delusion, that happened a signifigant amount of time after the first three. Perhaps the vision to the "rest of the disciples" was of the same nature. Neither of these appearances appear anywhere else, so I can't say much about there historicity. Finally, a year or so later, one can argue that the appearance to Paul, was due to either temporal lobe epilespy, a conversion disorder or even some sort of guilt complex a la Ludemann. See- we pretty much have all the appearances covered! It's not as good an explanation as the resurrection hypothesis, but hey- it's something.

However, the problem is that, misfortunatley, most scholars aren't aware of the fundamental differences between the bereavement hallucination theory and the regular hallucination theory. As Habermas points out, the hallucination theory was considered to be refuted in the 19th century- a time when bereavement hallucinations weren't even known to exist! Dewi Rees started his research into bereavement hallucinations in 1971. Furthermore Gerd Ludemann was the first biblical scholar to actually recognize them over 20 years later! So as we can see, it isn't a surprise that this theory hasn't gotten a fair hearing from the majority of scholars- it's only been in existence for about ten years!

So what does this mean for the future of the Hallucination hypothesis in biblical studies? For the time being, not much. However, I like to imagine that, after Dale Allison released "Resurrecting Jesus", the hallucination hypothesis, gained a little more credibility. I mean, even Gary Habermas admitted afterwards that naturalistic explainations were at least possible.

"Perhaps due to this, my perspective is from the angle of the affirmative case, even though, like Allison, I am well aware of the inability to close the door completely against alternative suggestions"

Coming from Habermas, a quote like this does mean a lot. Craig similiarly responds in his response to Allison. I can only hope that, in the future, this theory gets a more fair hearing than it has in recent years.

Was Jesus the only dying and rising Messiah?

2012-01-26T13:18:00.000-08:00

Here's a fascinating article which mentions that the idea of a dying and rising messiah may have existed before Jesus. Interestingly enough, in is written by Gary Habermas.

Gone fishing

2012-01-21T06:22:00.000-08:00

This is just a brief announcement that for the next few days I'll be very busy- so dont expect any substantive posts. I won't give away any of the details of my plans (as they are somewhat personal), but they involve applying to a "continuing education" program, editing a short film, fixing my sleeping schedule and reuniting with some old college buddies. Anyways, I'll try to keep the posts interesting, so don't miss out on them. Upcoming posts include a review of E.O. Wilson's "Sociobiology", an analysis of Philip Weibe's critiques of Altered states of Consciousness, and finally a response to a paranormal claim from none other than Mike Licona himself.

Oh, and I'd like to apologise in advance to Chris Halliquist for not making that banner. Sorry, but I didn't think I'd be so busy.

Sociology, Psychology and Religion

2012-01-18T00:52:00.000-08:00

As many of my readers know, I spent a good portion of my time blogging about Miracle claims and the Paranormal. I wont lie- it has been an exciting topic to post about. However, it got boring relatively fast. It seems like all Paranormal claims fall into three categories: the things that happened but where mispercieved (hallucinations), the things that happened but where exaggerated (false memories), and the things that never happened at all (legends). Once and a while, something really impressive comes up. But, from my readings, these events are few and far between. And BTW, I visited many Paranormal blogs and forums, so it's not like I only looked at the popular cases. In the future, I will post on the Paranormal under the title "Andyman409: Miracle Detective"- but for now, I will put significantly less emphasis on it. It's high time this blog did something different, so from this post onward I'm gonna study the Sociology and Psychology of Religion.

Seem random? Well, I've been interested in these subjects for a while now. Really, I have. Anything that has to do with what and how people think is fascinating to me. It's just a pity that I never thought about actually seriously studying them until now. I guess my research in Miracles and the Resurrection distracted me. But, since that chapter is over, I have the time needed to seriously look into this field.

I think I'm gonna begin my odyssey by reviewing E.O. Wilson's magnum opus "Sociobiology". Yes, it seems like an odd book to review, I know- but bear with me, it is an important book. Plus, I just so happen to own a copy, so reviewing it will be that much easier. My review is primarily going to focus on the last chapter of the book, which is on Human nature. This short chapter was quite controversial at the time the book was released, and still is today. However, that doesn't mean that it doesn't have it's insights. I look forward to posting my review of this legendary book in the future.

"Visions of Jesus" Review

2012-01-15T07:00:00.000-08:00

Yes, here is the review of Philip Wiebe's book "Visions of Jesus". For anyone who doesn't already know, "Visions of Jesus" is a book about contemporary visionary experiences with Jesus. One can really say it is a two part book. In the first part, the author, thru the use of magazine ads, fan letters, etc collects 30 stories in which individuals of all Genders, ages and (nominal, conservative, etc) and theological opinions claim to have seen Jesus. Than, he goes thru church history, and cites a few more "Christic Apparitions" that have supposedly occurred. However, as Ken Pulliam briliantly reminds us in his own review of the book, there are far, far more Marian apparitions than Christic apparitions. The second part of the book is a critical analysis of psychological and neurological theories on hallucinations, and why Wiebe feels that they alone cannot account for certain details in the accounts. Misfortunatley for me, Wiebe's grasp of cognitive science and Psychology is far above my own, so I will not be commenting on this part of the book much. However, I will comment about the first part.

Now to begin, I'd like to challenge Weibe's claim that cases like these may be under reported since many of them came from his home province of BC, and some live near him (Pg 40). This is true, but one also has to keep in mind that he sent magazine ads to Religious magazines in Canada, America, Britain and Australia, as opposed to trying to stay within a geological boundary. So, it seems to me that he merely cherry picked cases that were impressive, and ignored ones that weren't. Also, considering that there were only 30 cases included, I think it's more coincidental that many stories come from BC and places near him than that they are significantly under reported. If there were 1000 cases studied, than this would be good evidence- but not 30.

Anyways, after reading the thirty modern cases he documents, I couldn't help but notice the interesting qualities they exhibit. For instance, in one of the cases, Jesus was seen and felt, and temporarily replaced a piece of furniture the visionary was currently leaning on. In another case, the Visionary could see Jesus, regardless of whether her eyes where open or closed. In most of the appearances, Jesus appeared as a solid figure, much like Apparitions supposedly do. Many cases also included him talking- sometimes without his lips in sync with the dialogue! In a few visions, Jesus could also be touched- feeling "warm". All these features remind me (and Wiebe) of the New Testament visions of Jesus in which he was supposedly solid and capable of communication and touch. And if that isn't enough, one case (Case #4) featured someone who supposedly "hated God" having an experience of Jesus himself after quietly one night admitting that Christianity might be true. Sounds like a possible candidate for Paul?

Wiebe, however, argues that these cases prove that Jesus was resurrected, and still appears to his followers today. I see them as evidence for the contrary. Anyways, despite Wiebe's argumentation in the later chapters, I still found one glaring problem with the accounts- one that makes me fairly sure that these are just hallucinations- and that's that they are all extremely Private occurrences. Of all 30 cases he brings to the table, only one features a collective apparition. And even that sole case is extremely dubious, to say the least. Furthermore, some of these cases occur in public, with many people present- yet, only one person can ever see them. Of all the cases I read, there are only five cases in which the Christic apparition leaves some sort of a trace on the environment:

Case #1. The recipient fell unconscious at church and had a vision of a heavenly city with Jesus, who offered her wine. When she woke up, she appeared to be drunk, and other church members claimed that they could smell wine coming from her mouth.

Case #2. The recipient battled an evil creature while in a state of being half awake/half asleep. Jesus occasionally appeared to him to help him, but was rejected, until the demon got too powerful and he finally accepted Jesus' help. During the "battle", his hysteric wife claims to have seen him levitate. Strangely enough, the wife never sees Jesus or the demon, and the man never noticed that he was levitating. The pets and children slept thru the whole thing.

Case #25. The recipient has a vision of Jesus in 18" deep snow. The spot where Jesus stood, about 3' in diameter, was bare ground, with no tracks leading to it or away from it. The visionary was unsure whether Jesus was transparent or not.

Case #26. The recipient had a skiing accident, in which he injured his neck vertebrae. He saw Jesus in the hospital and made a miraculous recovery. Jesus appeared somewhat transparent.

Case #27. The recipient saw Jesus standing over the bed of a sick friend, but looking at him. The recipient tried to touch Jesus, but he disappeared, touching the sick friend as he left. The sick friend jumps up, healed, and reports that he felt something touch him when it happened.

The cases are rather interesting. But, as I said before, we have no good reason to think that these coincidences are of divine origin. For all I know the rain gutter could've released a bunch of water that made the spot in the snow. And the little girl in church may have drank grape juice before the event, leading some to think it was wine. After all, the church she went to wasn't allowed to drink wine, remember? How would they know what it smelled like. Furthermore, Wiebe himself admitted that he could not verify the details of each account. And we all know how bad memory can be.

Anyways, there was one case that was very impressive. Apparently, according to Case #28, an entire congregation and a Pastor all saw Jesus appear in the middle of a sermon. And if that isn't enough for you, the apparition was filmed! Although this case may seem impressive now- the entire case looks far more like deliberate deception when you look at it more closely. Ken Pulliam had a very good response to this case (here) which I will not spoil for you. Another fierce critique of this case comes from, strangely enough, a Christian apologist (here).

As I've said before, the second part of the book is far too complex for me to critique. What I do know, however, and what Pulliam points out quite rightly is that Cognitive scientists are learning more and more every day- so we shouldn't feel bad just because we don't have an answer now. Perhaps in the future, when we understand how the brain works better, will we be able to come up with a more complete theory that accounts for the types of experiences honest people like these have. After all, most Psychologists are atheists.

I'm gonna review "Visions of Jesus"

2012-01-11T20:07:00.000-08:00

After reading Chris Halliquists review of Craig Keener's "Miracles", I decided that I should probably get around to doing a book review. So what better book to review than Visions of Jesus from Philip Wiebe. I first heard of this book from a reader, Chris W. Later, I discovered that it had been quoted by Dale Allison, Maurice Casey, Gerald O'Collins, as well as several other scholars in various other books. When I think back, I wonder why it has taken me so long to review this book. So I went on my computer and started reading parts of the book thru Google books. Yes, that's how I read books in which I have no plans to buy. However, after reading a few samples of the book, I was impressed enough to go and get my own copy of it, so I could read it in it's entirety.

So, I'll do a proper review of the book when I get a copy and finish reading it. As a heads up, I doubt I'll be able to interact much with the material, especially his in-debth criticisms of psychological and Neurological explanations for apparitions, since I lack the scientific expertise needed. For the time being, I suppose you can all wet your appetite on the late Ken Pulliams crit iques of this book on his blog. They are very good.

Biola University Center for Christian thought- what is Christian thought?

2012-01-09T13:09:00.000-08:00

As I'm sure you've heard by now, Biola University was just given 3 million dollars to set up a "Center for Christian thought". Jeff Lowder asks why; I ask what. What exactly is this "Christian thought"? I recall Alvin Plantinga mentioning something about there being no conflict between Religion and Science and, if anything, there being a serious conflict between Naturalism and Science! So, if that's true, than good secular science should give use biblically friendly results, right? Well, I guess according to the Templeton foundation we need even more Theologians to analyse the findings of science.

I always thought that the Templeton foundation upheld a sort of "Non Overlapping Magesteria", like I and many Atheists do. I mean, in all honesty, can one really prove that the Universe wasn't "created" ex nihlo, or that it doesn't have a "purpose"? Of course, one does not need to do so in order to be an Atheist- but I understand that, in order for science and Religion to be in conflict, Religion has to make claims that can be tested and proven false. And Religion, for better or worse, likes to discredit the claims proven false and relish in the claims that are unproveable. So, with that said, I don't see why the Templeton foundation decided to throw three million dollars at this non-problem. And just so you know, that's a three with six zero's!

I'm not completely heartless. I can understand Christian universities hosting Theology programs which, more or less, reconcile science with faith. Fair enough. These organisations also study the nature of the soul, the trinity, etc, so it's not like it's the only thing they do. Plus, being the biggest Religion in the world, I'm sure many wealthy Christians care about whether their faith can be intellectually justified or not. But six million dollars for one aspect of Theology which isn't even considered an issue anymore? In my old Catholic high school, they liked to remind us about how a few cents could feed an entire family in africa. Why does the John Templeton foundation feel the need to set up this program, because I haven't a clue.

Gerald O'collins on Dale Allison, Part 2

2012-01-07T20:20:00.000-08:00

I asked Gerald O'collins for a copy of his essay criticising Dale Allison, and much to my surprise he immediately sent me a copy. I have to admit, despite remaining totally unconvinced by his arguments, I was nonetheless very impressed by his level of scholarship. Now, I agree with him that ordinary Bereavement experiences are not enough to account for the resurrection belief- However, where we part ways is in how useful we think they are. I think there are enough parallels so that, combined with pre-easter prophecies and an empty tomb, the disciples would have concluded he was resurrected. O'Collin's, on the other hand, does not think there are enough parallels with these kinds of experiences.

After reading his essay, I only felt two of his arguments were convincing. The first one is that bereavement experiences tend to occur weeks after the persons death, not within days. The second argument is that 40% of bereavement experiences last for several years. To the first argument, I can only point out that, although many don't start this early, some do, such as Allison's own case (as recounted in Resurrecting Jesus). Furthermore, positing that the disciples had bereavement visions a few weeks (perhaps two) after the crucifixion just doesn't seem like a big stretch to me. For all we know, they could've have pushed the appearances back a little to make it seem more convincing.

The latter criticism of the two is a hard one to solve. I think, as Allison does, that a good explanation may be the fact that there was some expectation. Jesus declared that he would be resurrected. So, the disciples would have classified certain visions as resurrection appearances, and other ones as mere visions. O'Collins foresees this objection, but responds to it by appealing to the lack of Jesus visions in later material, such as the book of acts. Sorry, but I just don't feel like this criticism is particularly good. There may have been many postmortem visions of Jesus that simply were never recorded. I know it's an argument from silence, but it's still a strong possibility. Another possibility is that, as many scholars have suggested, the visions ending after "forty days", is allegorical, and really means "a long time".

I just want to conclude by saying that, although studying bereavement experiences in the modern world can be very useful, I am skeptical of how far they can really take us in terms of understanding the Resurrection. In the cases documented by Dewi Rees, only widows and widowers were interviewed. The disciples, as O'Collins rightly points out, are very different than widows and widowers. The disciples had not only a lot of grief, but a lot of messianic expectations and possibly even an empty tomb to account for. Furthermore, they lived in a different time with a different mindset. For example, Rees' study showed that the bereaved rarely ever talk about their experiences. However, in ancient times, these sorts of experiences were well understood; as a matter of fact, the gospel writers went thru great pains to emphasize that Jesus was not one!

So, despite himself, O'Collins is right- just for the wrong reason. We have no precedent for what the disciples went thru, so we shouldn't be surprised if their testimony seems a little bit different than what we see in these kinds of modern surveys. And as a final note, O'Collins reassured me that his criticism of Bereavement experiences was so far the only one done by a professional scholar. So, if you want a copy of O'Collins essay, just send me an email.

UPDATE

O'Collins didn't send me his essay from the Irish Theological quarterly, but his arguments from the appendex of his new book, Believing in the Resurrection: The Meaning and Promise of the Risen Jesus. Nonetheless, the document still contains all the arguments from his earlier essay, as well as some new ones.

Garald O'Collins on Dale Allison

2012-01-05T18:18:00.000-08:00

Theologian Gerald O'Collins has very recently written a critique of Dale Allison's hypothesis that the visionary experiences of the disciples could be explained away as typical bereavement visions. In his paper, he claims that the similarities between bereavement visions/apparitions and the resurrection appearances are too few to be significant, and are therefore useless in explaining away the resurrection appearances. Misfortunatley, Gerald's essay is unavailable on the web (unless you pay a fee), so I cannot comment on it or it's arguments. If you know of any of his arguments, comment on this post immediatley!

Fortunately, Mike Licona's (Pg's 623-641) and JP Holding's (Pg's 317-318) books on the resurrection briefly mention a few of O'Collin's criticisms of Allisons theory. Misfortunatley, the issues they bring up are quite easy to rebut. For instance, in Holdings book, Jonathan Kendall asserts (Pg 318) that in order for the Apparition theory to be viable, the visions would have had to have stopped immediately after 40 days. This criticism is exceptionally weak when we look at cases in "Resurrecting Jesus"- especially in Allison's own case in which:

"Of the reports I received of apparitions of my late father, half came during the week immediately following his death, and all came during the following months; and nothing has happened since"

So, at least we know that in some cases, people have apparitional experiences within the first week of the persons death. Isn't that enough? As Allison suggests in his essay- The disciples could have easily interpreted early Apparitions as "appearances" and later ones as "visions from heaven". I see no reason why conservative Christians can't at least acknowldge this scenario as a possibility. Also, Licona states in his book that, according to O'Collins, Apparitional experiences would not be a good explaination since they never cause their recepients to start a new Religion (Pg 636). To this criticism I am shocked. Who's saying that visions alone changed the disciples lives? Let us not forget the empty tomb and pre-easter expectations, which I thick would certainly get them exited. I don't think I need more examples to prove my point.

On a final note, in another essay "Doubt and the resurrection of Jesus" (which can also be found here), the author claims that Gerald isn't the only person who has critically evaluated Allison's Apparition theory.

"There has been a concerted effort recently to show the similarities between postdeath apparition experiences and Jesus' resurrection appearances"

Misfortunatley, the snipit that I aquired had little information on exactly how much interest has gone into this, or how many scholars have actually listened to it. Considering the poor responses from Habermas and Craig, I doubt that these critiques of Allison have garnered much popularity. Still, a part of me wants to know what kind of critiques these are, and how serious they are to Allisons theory. After all, if I am wrong about the Resurrection, I would certainly like to know about it. So, once again, if any of my readers knows anything about this, I would be very grateful.

God dreams

2012-01-04T23:45:00.000-08:00

Rather recently, John Loftus shared with us a blog post titled: The Power of the Delusion is Maddening. Experience Reigns Even Over Former Skeptics. The post is about an Atheist (herien refered to as A) who converted to Christianity after having an experience I refer to as a "God Dream". To put it bluntly, God Dreams are dreams in which the dreamer suddenly feels as though they are "experiencing God". The dreamer will see a white that is "brighter than white" and will feel a sense of powerfulness and pleasure beyond anything they have ever felt before.

I first started taking interest in the phenomena of God dreams about six months ago, on one dark and stormy night. If you haven't guessed it already, the reason why I'm into them is because I myself had one of these dreams. My God dream was very similiar to A's- except that I had no feeling of physical pain afterwards. I did, however, have a lingering feeling of awe for several minutes after the dream. Hell, I think it took me about week to finally forget about it entirely. Much like the aformentioned case, I considered converting to Christianity during that week. Unlike A, however, I did not convert.

I did, however, grow interested in why it may of happened. So I sent out emails to a few Psychologists and laymen alike, and was surprised by how little I got back. Finally, I decided to start from the ground up and use google. Anyways, after a short and lousy set of results, I found another guy who, like me, was an atheist who experienced a "God dream" here (although I haven't been able to find the article since).

Anyways, since I couldn't find much of value on the web in terms of "God dreams", I instead decided to look into regular dreams. My brother (which I mention far too many times on this blog), has done some research into dreaming, and I intend to check it out. I wish I could give you a comprehensive debunking of the phenomena- but at this current point in time I simply do not know enough to. I hope to be able to provide a follow up on this post in a few days/weeks.

Greetings new viewers.

2012-01-03T01:15:00.000-08:00

I recently received an email stating that I am now a part of the Atheist blogroll! Now, not only can I put the little red "A" on the side of my blog- I also get free advertising; and advertising means new readers. So, to all of you new readers out there: hello. My name is Andrew Scicluna, although my alias is Andyman409. I tend to blog about the paranormal, the Resurrection of Jesus, and other empirically verifiable phenomena that would count as evidence for the supernatural. I rarely speak about Philosophy or Intelligent Design- although my brother, currently studying Neurobiology at UofT, may occasionally post on it. If you would prefer that I post about something else, vote for it on the table, and I will try to get around to posting on it.

Also, here is a link to my "Resurrection Sundays" series. I am also working on another, less frequent series devoted to debunking individual miracle claims called "Andyman409-miracle detective". I plan to post about the divinity of Jesus and OT history at a later date, but for now, I have been focusing on Parapsychology and the Paranormal. Once again, if you'd prefer I do something different, don't be afraid to ask.

Happy new years

2011-12-31T00:58:00.000-08:00

Just a quick, belated happy new years to my readers. I'll have to start regularly posting soon, won't I?

Miracle apologists

2011-12-27T01:36:00.000-08:00

I don't have a clue at what the hell this guy is talking about. The only people who take miracle claims seriously are Parapsychologists- and it as a discipline has been on the decline since the 80's. Plus, even if we were to include their findings as evidence for the supernatural, we'd have to deal with contradictory claims that seem to be incompatible, such as Reincarnation and NDE's. Plus, many Paranormal enthusiasts cite angel encounters as evidence for new age beliefs, and don't even believe in exorcisms.

Anyways, out of curiosity, I visited the website they were affiliated with to check out some of their miracles claims. I'll admit, they have some interesting claims. I found this one in particular somewhat impressive, but that's about it. As usual, they put heavy emphasis on healing miracles and miracles from third world countries. In the end, I felt like I wasted my time. But then I had a valuable revelation. If these Religious miracles are so great, why hasn't anyone bothered to carefully document them. For christsake, the recipients of the supposed "miracles" would pretty much write it down for you themselves (or orate it if they're illiterate). Christians love miracle stories- especially in Charismatic denominations. All the missionaries would have to do is store the documents they receive in a sort of encyclopedia.

After that, we could subject these claims to all sorts of scientific tests. We could tell, for instance, whether the rate of miracle cures matches the rate of spontaneous remissions. We could tell whether or not most angelic encounters occur when the recipient is in a hypnogenic state. Hell, if we increase our efforts we can at least get some insight on the psychological profiles of these miracle recipients. All these miracle apologists have to do is organise their resources a little better. Just some paper and tape recorders should suffice. A few digital cameras wouldn't hurt either. They could really give a skeptic like me a run for his money- if, that is, these miracles really are going on everywhere.

Suddenly, I had another thought- what if the miracle claims just aren't that impressive. Maybe eyewitness testimony is more rare than apologists lead on. Maybe healing don't happen at an abnormal rate. Maybe a part of them knows that, if they try to organise, they will be wasting time and money. Or perhaps not- after all, Craig keener recently released a book documenting modern day miracles. I have heard of some rather impressive miracle claims myself just by using the Internet. For example, here are two cases in which a person not only claimed to have had witnessed a deceased person, but also were given a service by them.

A skeptic could say that these two cases were strange coincidences coupled with theistic expectations and invented memories as the experiencers retold their story. In the first case, the pastor may have just assumed the taxi driver was the father due to his emotional investment- for all we know, he could've been a family friend, or a bystander who had heard of the story and wanted to do a kind deed. Even more humorously, the cab driver could've given the preacher the wrong room number, causing him to enter another childs room instead. Perhaps in the second case, the mother merely told the doctors the name of the wrong hospital. After all, how well could she have known it if she wasn't aware that it closed? Or, again, it could've simply been a matter of getting dates wrong. What if the hospital closed down and the nurse died only a few days after the child used it, and a few days before the kid went to the hospital? I mean, most stiches are removed ten days after they are added- more than the "couple days" the man claimed. It seems a little far out to claim that 2 years may have been 2 days, and several months may have have been several days, but I'm just saying it's a possibility. Besides, this account came from when the man was 8 years old- hardly a reliable source.

Any of these alternate theories is certainly possible. It's just a shame that the recepeints never give us strong enough evidence. They never mention how long they spent looking for the Taxi driver after he "vanished", or whether the mother returned to the clinic and discovered it was, in fact, closed. Miracle apologists just never inculde important details like these- they just assume they re correct. And this really irritated me. So, in conclusion, I think it would be very interesting to see more apologists do what Craig Keener did and document these phenomenal events. I seriously doubt they will- but I hope they at least try,

Christmas and the Virgin Birth

2011-12-25T20:55:00.001-08:00

I apologise for being late, but merry Christmas/ Happy Holidays to you all! This year, I got to enjoy spending Christmas eve in a Pentecostal church watching a (rather bad) Nativity play. While I was watching it, I was thinking about the Virgin Birth- a topic I hadn't really put much thought into. I mean, it is one of the most Theologically important parts of the bible, yet it appears in only two Gospels. Plus, to make matters worse, there are quite considerable discrepancies between the two accounts. Today, I was planning on doing a post on why I didn't believe in the Virgin birth. However, as I began typing, I started asking myself "why"? I'll put it this way: even Robert Turkell doesn't think he can prove it. If you ask me, that's pretty good evidence against it's historicity.

Now, Skeptics and Religious Liberals have always used an array of arguments to undermine it's literal history. Likewise, Conservatives usually retaliate with some sort of "you can't say it didn't happen" shtick. In the end, neither side gets any closer to the truth of the matter. Want to see what I mean- here is an example.

A popular argument against the virgin birth is that it only appears in two of the Gospels. Conservatives argue that, because each of the stories were intended for a specific audience, blah blah blah. If you want to see an example of a Conservative answer, you can find one from JP Holding here. Now, I can understand certain miracles not being mentioned for this reason, but not one as significant Virgin Birth! By this logic, should we be surprised that the Resurrection was included, considering that everyone already knew about it? Furthermore, I don't think it really explains why Paul never mentioned it, even when he was evangelising. I am no Pauline scholar- but I am highly skeptical of anyone who puts politics before evidence of the miraculous. After all, the Gospels do include a particular story of women finding a particular empty tomb, remember?

As we can see, they are arguing that the Virgin birth possibly happened, not probably. They will say that, because so much of the Gospels are reliable, we ought to believe the parts in which there is little evidence, even when we'd expect more. But this is clearly pulling the cart before the horse! These stories should indicate the exact opposite- that we should be less trusting of our source, because they are willing to include things so obviously false! Anyways, at the end of Holdings essay, he makes an interesting and revealing remark.

"Objections against the validity of the virgin birth are based mostly on preconcieved notions - in the main, that the miraculous is impossible. There is no reason, other than pre-conceived notions, to reject it as historical; and to be fair, no reason other than own's own perceptions to accept it as such. It simply depends on our starting point.
-JPH"

The reason I point this out isn't because of his spelling error (the "E" goes after the "I" in Preconceived). No, I point this out to show the reader what this is really about- that we atheists don't believe in miracles. It's never about whether or not their is sufficient evidence- it's just about having a philosophical prejudice against them. Now, I'll be the first person to admit that the Resurrection is usually denied due to philosophical prejudice. However, I hardly see how this relates to miracles like the zombies of Matt 27, of which there is no confirmatory evidence for. This just seems to me to be philosophical prejudice against Naturalism.

The Creation-Evolution debate summed up in 30 minutes

2011-12-21T18:02:00.000-08:00

It's pretty hard to find in-depth Creation-Evolution debates online. Serious scientists usually ignore creationists, believing them to be unworthy of their time. Sadly, Creationists have mistaken this silence as a sign that they have somehow won. Fortunatley, we still have some fine chaps like this guy to stick it to them! Plus he's Canadian :)

Christopher Hitchens- an Obituary

2011-12-18T03:14:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know- pretty much every atheist blogger has done a post on the death of Christopher Hitchens. I've been resisting the urges to write a post about it- but I cant help but share a few thoughts. I have to admit, I've seen very little of Hitches work. As many of my readers will know, I have never been a big fan of the new atheists or the new atheism movement. They are frequently criticised for not fully understanding the doctrines they criticise, for their rudeness, etc. And I agree with some of the criticism aimed at the new atheist movement. For instance, I really wish they'd stop supporting Jesus mythicism as a position on the Historical Jesus. I also wish that they'd be more specific when they accuse believers of having blind faith. While the majority of pew dwellers are guilty of the charge, it doesn't apply to the believers who think arguments for Theism work.

So as one can imagine, when I heard of Hitches death, I felt very strange. Here is a man who I hardly even knew, but meant so much to so many atheists. I enjoyed his book on Mother Teresa and his heat filled debates on such political issues as the separation between church and state, the war in Iraq, etc. He was a fantastic writer, simultaneously hilarious and serious, unlike any one else I had ever read. It's just too bad I never really appreciated his work before he died.

This whole year has been a strange one for us atheists. We've had to cope with the deaths of Pulliam and TG Baker, two of the smartest Internet atheists on the web. And the bad news doesn't stop there. Turns out I have a mild form of OCD- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I've always known this, but I never did anything about it since the urges were small and manageable. However, several months ago, they started to interfere with my life. I won't share the details of the affair with you, but I will say this- if you think you may have OCD, check it out and don't wait 6 months like I did for it to get alot worse. And don't feed small habits either. They can get pretty out of control.

So, this has turned out to be a pretty lousy Christmas. Of course, as a wise man once said, it always gets darkest before the dawn... and the dawn is coming.

The wise man that said that is Batman.

Andyman409: Miracle detective- 3 demons, an angel and Satan himself

2011-12-14T03:24:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I know. I've written so many posts about the Paranormal I'd might as well make an entire series devoted to debunking them. So, here is my brand new series, Andyman409: Miracle Detective. It will not be periodical like Resurrection Sundays, but it will occasionally appear.

Todays story (here) is about a guy who calls himself Tassadar who claims to have spoken with 3 demons, an angel and Satan himself. He claims that the demons told something he couldn't have possibly known- their names. You see, they were named Cefwyn and Tiskrel- which are the names of two satanic princes according to the Catholic church. He also mentions that the demon made a Holocaust reference "Kristenalcht was only the beginning" (Kristenalcht being the first Jews to be gassed), but never states that he could've have known it, so I don't really count it as evidence. Anyways, after analysing the case he made, I have come to a conclusion: this guy is either extremely gullible, extremely crazy, or both. In a later post specified one of his visions:

"Yeah dude but it wasn't an alter ego because like the 3rd demon that visited me visited me at 3:15 when i was at a park by myself an he tried to get me to go to the Jewish Community Center and give some of the kids a ride home... He even took me there and showed me the kids and at least 20 minutes must've passed while we were arguing over theological issues.. Like I asked him why he defied God because he must've known it wouldn't work. and he/it said "I had faith my Lord Lucifer, The Prince of Your World" I made a mistake by threatening him 'cuz i lost my temper and started cussing him out and he showed me 30 ways he could kill my family and friends and i got really angry and told him "In the name of my Lord and your Creator Jesus Christ of Nazareth leave this place and never return" Again, like Tiskrel, I never saw him again but i didn't get his name... definetly a Cheribum though, four wings and a big sword. The freaky thing is that after all fo that it was still 3:15 and i was sitting under the same tree at the same park and no time had passed and instantly i had this giant memory, i ran home, wrote it down and called up my pastor.. WE talked for liek 3 hrs. thatz it 4 that time"

Funny he should mention that bit about no time passing at all. This is exactly what we'd expect if he'd just been dreaming, wouldn't it? Elaborating on the dream hypothesis, we also know that this guy saw Satan himself and the angel during the same night, so it seems possible that these two cases were the result of either lucid dreaming or Sleep Paralysis induced hallucinations.

Of course, another explanation could be that his Youth Pastor did what many Psychoanalysts do and made him recall fictitious memories. We have much precedent for memories of UFO abductions to be "created" by the patient, due to the influence of the Psychologist. Now, I suppose if we knew what he had actually written down, it would help us alot; and luckily enough, he did promise his readers that he'd write it down. But he didn't- and I searched the whole damn site using their search engine too (just type in "Tassadar" and see for yourself).

Although this explanation covers the first experience, it doesn't do much to explain his other appearances. That's why I hesitantly lean towards a different hypothesis- that he is insane. It doesn't make me happy to make such an accusation, but I feel I must. I mean, his writing style and bizzare attitude towards the events is certainly evidence in favor of the crazy hypothesis. Also, the private nature of the revelations and the distances in between them also adds to my suspicions that this guy is just a loon. His episodes seem like those of a schizophrenic- they just kinda come and go, and never really personally effect him. The details and stuff he "couldn't of known" could be the things his priest "suggested" that he saw, later causing him to believe them. I mean, the only ones he mentions are the demons names. For all I know, the Youth Pastor could've been familiar with the names, suggesting them to Tassadar, and only later asking his Vatican friends to verify them. Obviously I can't prove that he's insane- but I can point out that, throughout this conversation, he never once mentioned seeing a Psychologist. He just says "btw im not crazy lol" once, and expects us to take him at his word. He also briefly stated that he was also "into the the hwole destroy the NWO and kill the aliens thing"- make of that what you will.

Of course, we don't have to go to this extreme. It's also possible that all of his encounters were just the result of false memories being recalled in a similiar manner to those of alien abductees. Personally, I think a bit of both were involved, mixed in with a bit of a hyper active imagination. Sadly, we'll never know for sure, for he gives out no contact information. All I can say is that this doesn't even match our standards for ordinary evidence, much less extraordinary evidence.

Happy birthday to me!

2011-12-10T03:10:00.000-08:00

Firstly, I'd like to apologise once again for the empty space in my blog. It's Christmas season, and I've found it very hard to find time to blog in between my video games and Christmas shopping. I'd also like to apologise for not doing any posts on the Divinity of Christ of the Old Testament. I promise I'll do some posts on them after Christmas. Anyways, for those that didn't know, today is my birthday. Typically, I don't celebrate my Birthday that much. Actually, if it were up to me, I wouldn't celebrate it at all! I know it must sound alien to you but trust me- having a birthday close to Christmas sucks. Everyone is stressed out from Christmas shopping and you always get the shitty gifts that weren't good enough to go under the tree.

Today, however, was a very different Birthday. My brothers and two other friends decided to do some drinking. We don't drink often, but when we do, we like to experiment. This time, we tried out Jagger-bombs. I'm still trying to figure out what the hell was I thinking! I didn't feel the intoxicating effects of the Alcohol, so I kept drinking, thinking that I'd eventually get drunk. Well, my body never quite did get drunk, but my head certainly did. During the party, I hollard like a maniac, play fought, and even broke my friends $30 wooden katana by swinging it like a madman (Yes, I know a bit about sword fighting). In my intoxicated state, I agreed to pay for the Pizza's and some of the alcohol; if you include the compensation for the sword I broke, I spent almost $100! We did a few other things too- but I'm not going to share them with you... ever.

Anyways, when I got back at 1:00 AM, I crashed and immediately fell asleep. 3 hours later, I woke up in the middle of the night, feeling like a truck hit me, and having this horrible feeling of dread around me, like an evil spirit was trying to possess me. I tried to remember what happened, but I could only recall a little bit- mostly the stuff I didn't share with you. I've never had a hangover before- but it didn't seem like one based on what I've read on them.

Why am I sharing this story with you. Simple- because, at that very moment in time while I was lying in bed- I started wondering whether there was a God or not. I remembered JP Morelands angel encounter, and was wondering whether that counted as evidence in the affirmative. Than I was wondering whether Satan was behind the party. Interestingly, all my friends and brothers are Atheists and Agnostics, despite the fact that we attended Catholic school. During the party, we started talking about Religion- something we don't talk about much, and all publicly denounced it. Later on, I called my friend Satan, my Brother Screwtape, and myself Beezlebub. Later on, one of my friends started questioning whether Jesus even existed, much to my dismay. Needless to say, It was the most sacrilegious night I've ever had.

Now, I don't know why I felt so strange after waking up. A part of me wants to say it was just the Alcohol- but I think that's too simplistic. Perhaps there's a psychological reason why I still felt accountable for my actions while I lied there in bed. Perhaps it's as a result of being conditioned to feel guilty when I do bad things. Perhaps my brain was trying to make sense of a phenomena it had never experienced before. After all, I've never had a hangover. I suppose I'll never know what happened to me last night. It's just a pity that, unlike my party debts, the experience went away.

Should I send an email to JP Moreland?

2011-12-07T02:50:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking quite a bit about whether or not I should send JP Moreland an email, to find out whether the details of his miracle story are accurate. Many skeptics (myself included) have suggested that he simply misremembered what the old woman claimed she saw. I mean, according to Morelands own account of the events (pages 155-156), the student was the first person to explain what he saw (3 angels, 1 taller one at the back and two at the sides). It seems like, if Moreland were to have experienced a faulty recall, it would have been at this exact moment. He would have taken the students report, and molded his memories of the old woman to match it. I mean, he WAS expecting a miracle, right?

So, as long as Moreland's report is accurate, this naturalistic explanation should explain away the miracle. The only problem is, I don't know if his report is accurate. It's quite clear by the way Moreland tells his story that he knows little about the power of suggestion and memory. If he did, he'd try to counter critics such as myself. But he doesn't. So, for all I know, there may crucial details he didn't mention that make his case a lot stronger.

However- there's still a catch. If I were to question Moreland on the details of his story, he may just end up just altering his memories to suit my demands! I know it sounds cynical of me, but I noticed that in his Closer to the truth interview, he said the angels stuck around for 10-15 minutes. However, in his book, he said they lasted 5-10 minutes. Contrary to what some of you may believe, this makes a big difference in determining whether regular hallucinations can account for the event. If the student reported that the vision was 5-10 minutes in length, was can reduce it to about 1-3 minutes, due to exaggeration/inability to perfectly record time, etc. But, If the vision were 15 minutes long, stretching it this much may look unrealistic. Details like this need to be sorted out if we want to come up with a conclusion as to whether this event really was miraculous or not.

So readers, do you think I should carry out this crazy plan? Do you think it will matter? Any feedback- positive or negative is appreciated.

What I'm up to now

2011-12-03T23:08:00.000-08:00

I haven't been up to much lately. I had a great conversation with Kevin Brown (AKA Diglotting) on miracles that you can follow here. Turns out his experiences and my own were almost one and the same! For anyone that wants to know about my own strange experiences, I blogged about it here. I'm not sure which one of use had the stranger claims; I mean, my mom heard voices and smelled cooking on a few occasions! But than again, Kevin's experiences audio manifestations while awake, while I did not. What I found most fascinating, however, was that we had the exact same phobia of the dark and horrible dreams afterwards, which we both associated with our experiences in the house. The main difference between us was that my phobia gradually went away, while his went away all at once during his "born again" experience. Anyways, I hope to hear from him in a few months, when he's back from his vacation. It seems like, apart from the veridicality of our experiences, we agree on pretty much everything else!

In other news- I look forward to seeing Halliquist review Keeners book on miracles. Don't know how he got the idea to review it *cough cough me*, but I'm happy he did. Halliquist is popular in Atheist circles. When he reviews the book, it'll get a lot more attention from other skeptics, who will hopefully also take a closer look at it and Africa miracles in general. Also, I'd like to thank the commenter Rick for reminding me of the book. For some reason, the first time I heard about it, I just didn't care to probe it. Sorry, but Keener is a biblical scholar- not a Psychologist. He may know a bit about memory and the value of testimony, but not about hysteria, delusions, hallucinations, etc.

Finally, I'd like to say a few words on behalf of the late Tommy Baker. I never mentioned him on this blog- but I did read his posts, and even talked to him a few times. He was a smart guy who really did help raise the quality of Loftus' blog with his posts. Even though I disagreed with him on the Historical Jesus (he was a minimalist; I'm a moderate), I still found his posts very interesting. However, the thing I admired most about him was his dedication to informing the Skeptical movement.

This may seem random, but let me share a story with you. When I first started attending the Mississauga free thought association- I found that there were only three Philosophers. I asked one of them, an Epistemologist, why this was. He said he didn't know. I suggested that they, perhaps, didn't want to be associated with the New Atheist movement. He laughed affirmingly. It's sad, but many smart guys just don't care enough to blog or wrte about Atheism. This causes problems since, well, anyone with eyes can tell that there are far more apologetic books and blogs than skeptical ones. I remember when I first started to investigate the historical Jesus- I had to sift through tons of credulous apologists before I could find even a few skeptics like Carrier and Price- and even longer to find skeptics that were actually respected by scholars, like Vermes and Ludemann.

People like Tommy and Loftus are invaluable to the Atheism movement since, quite frankly, most Internet Atheists are uncritical and credulous. They need someone to at least point them in the direction of good arguments for and against Christianity. Now, as aforementioned- I disagree with them sometimes- but that doesn't matter. What matters is that they are at least trying- and I think that alone is commendable.

An open letter to Kevin Brown (AKA: Diglotting)

2011-12-02T02:03:00.000-08:00

A while ago, I ran into a post from Kevin Brown (AKA: Diglotting) where he reviewed Loftus' book The End of Christianity. During the review, he stated that he experienced a genuine miracle. Intrigued, I scrolled down into the comments to look at the specifics. Sadly, Kevin didn't really say anything specific about it, other than that he and his family had "visual and audio manifestations of the same entity". When I first read this, I thought he said "at the same time". He did not. So I commented a few times on his blog, hoping to find out more about his experience. After all, if multiple people really did have the same visual/audio manifestations of the same entity at the same time multiple times- I think that would be almost conclusive proof that the supernatural exists.

Anyways, I commented on his blog a few times under the alias "DarwinFish", so that I wouldn't give away my identity. I know it sounds immature, but cut me some slack! Diglotting is one of my favorite Christian Bloggers. I didn't want to potentially make an ass out of myself for asking him about something undoubtedly personal.

Anyways, Kevin didn't respond to the posts. A few days later, The review of "The End of Christianity" was removed from the "reviews" section of his homepage. This coincidence convinced me that Kevin was intentionally ignoring me- so I sent him a rude comment and than wrote up the blog post "Kevin Brown's miracle claim". A week later, however, Kevin commented on my blog, informing me that the whole thing was a misunderstanding. He ignored the first few comments because they were anonymous and looked insulting. The later ones that were more serious ended up in his spam folder, so he never read them. He also informed me that the review of "The end of Christianity" was removed from the front page since it was rotational- and he was reviewing another book.

This whole experience shocked me. I was so certain that he was ignoring me that I was willing to write a blog post about it. publicly accusing him of deceit. And why? Because of a coincidence. I know that I like my blog neat and tidy. I also know that emails and comments go into spam all the time. Hell, one of my long-time readers had the same thing happen to his comment! I guess I just put two and two together.

Anyways, To anyone that's interested, Kevin responded to my question in the comment section. I'll let the reader decide whether it constitutes as powerful evidence for the supernatural or not. I have a few ideas of how I could explain away most of the phenomena- after all, I also believed that I had lived amongst evil spirits. However, as Kevin rightly says, I wasn't there, so I can only offer possibilities at most. Fortunately, because I know at least some of the details, I can say that something else possibly happened- before I could not.

I would also like to thank Kevin for being so open about his experiences, and would like to apologize for the rude remarks. Unlike so many Atheists- I care about truth. That is why, unlike many Atheists I have ever met, I will investigate these types of claims, to see if naturalistic explanations are at least possible. I hope there are no hard feelings about this misunderstanding.

Demons of stupidity

2011-11-30T03:31:00.000-08:00

I know one of my readers is gonna hate me for it, but today I am gonna do a post on exorcisms. Exorcisms, while rightly frowned upon by Psychologists, are maintaining their popularity amongst the masses. Hell, even some Religious intellectuals like philosopher JP Moreland and Biblical scholar Clint Arnold claim that not only are exorcisms real, but that they can prove them. Believers will usually state that, although most exorcisms are frauds or psychiatric- a small few are genuine. According to Moreland, genuine exorcisms are ones in which the possessed has Clairvoyance, can levitate, can toss objects with their mind or exhibits other supernatural powers. In other words- the only real exorcisms are the ones where the possessed act like the girl from The Exorcist.

Honestly- I'm amazed at how arrogant some of these demon believers are. To say that they are certain of it should entail some pretty strong evidence. But that's not what we get. We get testimony. Oddly enough, no one ever thinks to enter an exorcism with a video camera. I remember reading an article from Joe Nickell in which, during one exorcism that was filmed, four priests were holding down a small girl claiming that, if they let go, she would've levitated! It makes me wonder why they let go of very good evidence when they had the chance to use it, doesn't it? Of course, these could be cases of mass hysteria, in which the small group of people become extremely excited and misinterpret mundane events into supernatural ones. This is well documented and, surprise surprise, scientifically verifiable through experiments!

Of course, Moreland is correct in that some very smart people not only believe in exorcisms, but also claim to have seen the supernatural side-effects of them personally. What he doesn't do, however, is give a comprehensive list of psychologists that believe in them. You see, Moreland seems to believe that anyone that's gone to college can be a credible witness to a supernatural event. He is wrong. And to make matters worse, the above study was actually done on college students who would, by his criteria, be credible witness'!

Now, I'd expect psychologists to take claims of exorcisms less seriously than, well, a Philosopher like Moreland or a historian like Clint, since they are aware of the limitations of human memory- and the capacity for invention, exaggeration, etc; Non-surprisingly, even a simple visit to Wikipedia reveals that:

"Demonic possession is not a valid psychiatric or medical diagnosis recognized by either the DSM-IV or the ICD-10."

So professional Psychologists say no. Now, I'll grant supporters that maybe, just maybe, these Psychologists just haven't seen the evidence. I don't know. What I do know, however, is that emphasis on cases that defy the psychological explanations should be given. I have read some of 3 Crucial Questions about Spiritual Warfare and Kingdom Triangle: Recover the Christian mind, Renovate the Soul Restore the Spirit's power, so I know what kind of cases they make. They'll claim the demon could see into the exorcists past- but they don't like to share how accurate or vague the claim was. They will also say that objects flew, yet not even bother with corroboratory testimony to ensure the witness' saw the same thing. Overall- they just don't demonstrate a strong understanding of the Psychology necessary to deem something a miracle.

Now to conclude, I just want to point out that exorcisms are not exclusive to Christianity. According to that Wikipedia entry I quoted earlier, they occur in many of the world Religions- especially in Africa, where they are healed by Shamans. Most reasonable exorcist apologists, however, avoid this by stating that 99% of exorcisms are "true" exorcisms, while the rest are fantasies. All I ask is to go 1% further.

JP Moreland's angel encounter

2011-11-28T02:22:00.000-08:00

As many skeptics are probably aware, JP Moreland has recently claimed to have had an angelic encounter. Although never actually saw the angles (and still hasn't, page 157), he has a little story about how he now "knows" they are real. According to his book and this report, he claims that an old woman at his church saw 3 angels around him. At first, he thought the woman was crazy. 8-10 months later, however, Moreland experienced a tragedy of some sort and decided to pray not only for the angels to protect him, but for God to verify the angels' existence to him. Less than a week later, a student claimed to have seen 3 angels hovering around Moreland in, apparently, the exact same manner described by the woman (pages 155-156). Hallelujah!

Now- what could've happened? Well, I'm sure even Moreland would agree that it could have been a very large coincidence. However- I think that, if we properly scrutinize the story, the coincidence in the end will not be that impressive. we'll begin by breaking the miracle claim into 3 separate parts- the Old woman, the prayer, and finally, the Student.

First off, lets keep in mind that he thought the old woman was crazy. Why was that, a skeptic will rightly ask? Could it be, perhaps, because the old woman was slightly crazy? It's not like it's hard to tell the difference between a crazy person from a sane person- they just don't look right. Also, we don't have evidence that the angels were in a sophisticated position- one that could not otherwise be guessed. According to the book, one angel stood by each of his sides, and another behind him. This position doesn't sound that complicated. In fact, it's really the only photogenic way three angels could huddle around someone! The only thing that seems strange is that the angel behind him was taller than him. Then again, it would look kinda funny if the angel behind him were shorter than him- since you wouldn't be able to see him! Plus, Moreland appears to be fairly average height, at least according to this video (The first few seconds). Therefore, I doubt the backmost being taller is really that implausible to guess.

Moving on, lets look at part two of the miracle- the prayer. Now, it does seem somewhat odd that Moreland would think of the angels in his prayer- after all, he did say that he was experiencing a hard time. And remember, the first part of his prayer was for the angels to help him. Only later did he decide he wanted proof. In addition, keep in mind that Moreland only prayed that God would verify the angels' existence. He never instructed God in how this would happen. Moreland could've accepted anything as evidence for angels, as he never set up any limits.

Finally, we get to the icing on the cake. Why that student say 3 angels as opposed to two or four is beyond me. However, we must keep in mind that the old woman told Moreland of her vision 8-10 months ago, remember? For all we know, she could have seen two or five angels, and Moreland ended up changing the numbers in his head. She could have also said something ambigous, like "a few". Same thing for the details. Ten months is a lot of time to change the details- and he never mentions anything about going back and verifying what the old woman saw. He let 8-10 months pass, and thought very little of the experience, admitting that he "wasn't even sure if it was real". The details, like the angels height or even numbers could have been retrofitted. We do have precedent for this sort of thing happening- and 8-10 months is a hell of a lot of time.

I admit, this is all speculation, of course. What I do know, however, is that sane people regularly experience hallucinations. They typically occur when the person is tired or stressed out- conditions not uncommon in a university classroom. However- even sane people can and do experience hallucinations of strange things they don't even understand. Now, keep in mind that most hallucinations are of faces or humans. We all have an innate ability to detect patterns- and the most common ones tend to be faces. This is why we see faces in toast and why we see other people when we hallucinate (I will add a relevant link later). Interestingly enough, the angels all looked like regular people. Also, at least in the case of the student, the vision only lasted 5-10 minutes. Now, if we consider how bad human memory is, we can probably say the vision was closer to 5 minutes. Sound like a Hallucination to you? It does to me. Also, curiously enough, in this video, he claims that the vision from the student was "10-15 minutes", as opposed to the original "5-10 minutes". We can clearly see him changing the numbers.

So, I would like to conclude by saying that this case is an interesting one. It is the only angel case I have seen in which different people see the same entity(s) at different times. It is also rather strange that the student's angel appearance occurred at such a similar time to Moreland's prayer. According to Moreland, the student's vision occurred a few days prior to his sending the email to Moreland, which happened less than a week after the prayer. This means that, if Moreland can be taken at his word, the student saw the angels 2-4 days after the prayer. Although the angels's and their details don't impress me at all, it's the timing of the second prayer that makes me feel bad about dismissing the case entirely. Of course, I find it very strange that Moreland doesn't give out any numbers at all. All he says is "less than a week later", and "a few days earlier". I don't know why he wouldn't just give us hard numbers as opposed to estimates. It could be because, although he knows when he got the email, he forgot when he made the prayer request. If this is true, than the students email could've occurred much later, and, once again, Moreland was just retrofitting his memories to suit his expectations. It seems possible to me. According to Morelands "Closer to the truth" interview, the visit with the angel happened "2 years ago". Therefore, the miracles would have happened at least a year prior to the filming of that episode. I don't know when the episode was released, but I think it would be safe to say that the reports of his "miracle" came in about a year after they occurred- more than enough time to polish them off for apologetic purposes.

By the way, sorry for not doing a post on the OT. I was going to post a link to the documentary "Unearthing the bible", but found that the video was removed from YouTube. I'll try to get a copy of it at the library.

Kevin Brown's miracle claim

2011-11-24T01:42:00.000-08:00

For the last few weeks, I've been looking for impressive miracle claims. Events that, if true, would totally shatter my deeply held world-view. I looked all over the Internet- I honestly have. But so many of the stories are just lame. The vast majority of them are miraculous healings that could easily be explained by spontaneous remissions. There are some nature miracles- but they are far and few. For the most part, I haven't seen a single miracle that CANNOT be explained naturally. Now, I am agnostic as to whether the best explanation for the combined sum of miracles leans toward Atheism or not- but I think it can at least explain them all away. Well, all except one...

One of my favorite Christian bloggers Kevin Brown (AKA Diglotting) made a rather large claim in the comments sections of one of this posts. He claimed that only himself, but his entire family witnessed a supernatural entity on not only once, but several occasions. When I first read it, I immediately responded by saying that perhaps, in the future, a naturalistic explanation will be discovered. A few days later, however, I just couldn't keep it on the back of my head. I knew that this claim was different than the other ones. For one thing, he is an eye-witness- rarely do paranormal investigators and skeptics get the privilege of speaking directly to the ones who were involved. Secondly, I know that Kevin isn't a primitive, superstitious African tribal prone to hallucinating due to lack of food and clean water. Thirdly, there isn't much of a reason to lie.

All these factors made me want to investigate the claim further. I mean, I only have my immortal soul at stake, right? So, I commented on Kevin's post under the alias of "Darwinfish" in order to get some information out of him. Yes- I know the employment of alternate accounts is seen as dishonest in the bloggerspere, but cut me some slack, will you? I wanted to know the truth- even if it meant getting dirty and forcing it out of him. And so, I didn't want to stain my reputation with what I was planning to do to extract information.

Anyways, I waited for a few days; He didn't respond. Frustrated, I sent him two other comments, just to make sure he got the first one. Again, I got no response. Finally, I sent him a longer comment, accusing him of withholding valuable information that, according to him, could save my soul. At this point, I was extremely offended. How dare he let someone suffer for an eternity due to their ignorance. What kind of messed up, holier than thou attitude is that? Anyways, this time he deleted my comment, as well as every comment made under my alias of "Darwinfish".

Even when I pointed out the consequences of his actions, he still chose to ignore me. What the hell. At this point I am debating in my head whether he really did see a "supernatural entity". Did he make it up? Did he exaggerate his story so that he'd have something to fire at Papalinton, who he was debating in the comments section? I don't know- and I doubt I ever will. But this unproductive attitude isn't uncommon amongst miracle believers.

One middle aged woman claimed that her mother in laws arm miraculously grew one and a half inches longer right in front of her eyes. However, when one commenter suggested that she report the event to a skeptical investigator, she stated that she "didn't want to test God". Really? If God doesn't want us to be convinced by his miracles, why the hell does he permit them? The New Testament puts heavy emphasis on Jesus' faith healings, so I see no reason why Jesus would all of a sudden change his mind. To me, a better explanation is that people like her just don't want to challenge their beliefs. They'd rather believe in a miracle than admit to being mistaken. In the case of the woman, I found this video from Randi, explaining how faith healers do the elongated limbs trick.

Now, this whole preference to supernatural explanations seems innocent at first- I mean, I'm sure that old woman is enjoying thinking she's been healed out of what is obviously a sham. However, when you consider how many people like may change their minds- you realise it's a cruel, cruel thing they are doing. They are maintaining their comfort at the potential expense of other peoples eternal suffering. This attitude insults, degrades and belittles my worth as a human being.

So Kevin, if you are, by some miraculous coincidence reading this post, I am not accusing you of putting your feel-good beliefs before of my eternal soul. All I am saying is that it looks an awful lot like that from this perspective. Also, I don't really care if you find out that "Darwinfish" was me this whole time. Why should I? I just wanted answers. Your the one possibly sending me to hell. Something tells me I'm not visiting your blog anytime soon. And finally, thank you to the anonymous gent who asked me to blog thru the Old Testament. I would love to crack open the history books and look at a few of the sillier parts of the Bible in greater detail.

HT James McGrath for the picture

UPDATE

The information in this post is now outdated. Read this for more. I will keep this post up to serve as a lesson on how powerful coincidences can be.

Resurrection Sundays: Concluding thoughts

2011-11-20T02:09:00.000-08:00

As promised, here is this weeks "Resurrection Sundays" post. It will be a special post since, in addition to being quite late, it will also be my last one. Don't get me wrong- I will always post on the Resurrection. However, it will be the last one with the name "Ressurection Sundays", and the last one to be posted strictly on a Sunday. I had fun making this little series, I really did- but now it's Christmas season, and I have Christmas shopping and The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim playing to do. So until further notice, Resurrection Sundays are on hiatus. However- as a little Christmas gift, I will put a poll on the side of my blog, allowing you to suggest to me what topic I should post on next.

Now for the post. To begin, I would like to state that, throughout my posts, I have never claimed to have "debunked the Resurrection". I have never even claimed to be infallible- after all, there is only one pope. However, I do think that I have sufficiently demonstrated why the Resurrection cannot be proven on historical grounds. Alternate scenarios cannot be ruled out. We know that many people can come to hold a false belief. We also know that tombs can become emptied in non-miraculous ways, and that stories of empty tombs have been invented. Long story short, there are alternative explainations that, at minimum, explain away the Resurrection without appeal to the divine.

As mentioned beforehand, we have precedent for claims of visionary experiences from multiple people. Hell, according to this article, angels have been seen and experiences not only Christians, but by Jews and Muslims as well. Although these angel cases are totally anonymous and of extremely poor evidential value, they can still be tell us alot about how easily people will accept unsubstantiated stories. Skeptics have usually argued that these cases arise due to the witness' altering their memories subconciously. Often, when these cases are scrutinized-it is revealed that only one person actually saw the entity, while the others, in a state of hysteria, just went along with it. In faith communities, especially conservative Christian ones, miracle claims are quite celebrated, and it becomes almost a contest of who has the better miracle story. Does this sound like the early Christian church to you? Add some end of the world prophecies to the mix, and I think it does!

Also, when it comes to the empty tomb, it could've been made up. Why not? According to Dale Allison, we have precedent for stories of empty tombs being discovered back in the day. Even if it can be proven improbable- it will always remain a possibility. Of course- the tomb could have been emptied naturalistically as well. For instance, what if the Jews were to have entered the tomb and stole Jesus' remains. Perhaps they didn't parade the corpse around the streets, as they merely wanted to deny Jesus a proper burial- perhaps in protest of Joseph of Aremathea's descision to let him be buried. Going even further, what if this is the controversy Matt 28:11-15 alludes to? Now, I'm not saying this is what happened- but I am saying that a scenario like this is certainly possible- and perhaps even probable. As Allison maintains througout his excellent book and article on the Resurrection, there are many ways in which a tomb can be emptied naturalistically.

Finally, to conclude this post, I want to remind apologists that the sources we do have come only from believers. We haven't a shred of evidence that any non-Christian living at Jesus' time thought of him as being "unique". To them, he was the same as any other false messiah. He helaed a few people and was eventually killed. I have always felt that this is the very best argument against the divinity of Christ (and by extention, the Resurrection). Jesus' life was just simply unremarkable. He held common false beliefs at the time; he performed the same type of Psychosomatic healings other Pagans and false messiahs did; legends arose around him after he died; etc.

Overall, I think that the case for the Resurrection is strong. However, I also think that the evidence for alien encounters and angels are strong too. In all of these cases, we have groups of people claiming to have seen the same thing. However- angels are often affiliated with New age beliefs incompatible with Christianity, and Aliens are just hard to fit into a world where Theism is true. All these strange phenomena just don't seem to lead anywhere and, as I have argued before, all seem to be incompatible. And that's it for Resurrection Sundays! I hope that you all enjoyed these little posts as much as I have.

Resurrection Sundays: Night of the living saints

2011-11-13T23:00:00.000-08:00

There is one argument against the historicity of the empty tomb that I have always found extremely persuasive. I call it the argument from Matthew 27:52-53. That's right, the passage that got Licona sacked; The passage in which many zombies raise from their graves and terrorize Jerusalem. Now, the idea behind this argument is simple: since stories like this made it into the Gospels, we should be skeptical of other stories in the Gospels too- particularly the stories of the empty tomb being discovered, especially since stories of empty tombs being discovered weren't uncommon in the ancient world.

Now, most reasonable Christians will admit that Matthew 27: 52-53 was an invention of the early church. Even the most conservative Christians will commonly admit that this passage is "tricky". NT Wright, for instance, admits it in his tome on the subject:

"Some stories are so odd that they may just have happened. This may be one of them, but in historical terms there is no way of finding out"

So, as a heads up to people who think that this event actually happened, keep in mind NT Wright can't even affirm it with any confidence. Now, although most learned Christians will agree with me on the historicity of this passage, some have always been impervious to new ideas. One of these people is Jason Engwer from the infamous Triablogue. He has written several posts such as this one arguing not only in favor of the historicity of Matthew 27: 2-53, but against skeptics using it as evidence against the empty tomb.

After reading it, I was amazed. It seemed to me that most of his "arguments" were geared towards how the event in question was merely possible- not probable. The only positive argument he used was that, apparently, a few other hostorical sources may be alluding to this event (Ignatius, Letter To The Magnesians, 9; Quadratus, in Eusebius, Church History, 4:3). I am not familiar with any of these sources, so I will have to look into them in the future. Anyways, other than that, the rest are just mere possibility arguments.

For example, he argues that the resurrected saints may have not been recognised when they entered Jerusalem. Perhaps they looked just like regular people, as opposed to decaying zombies. Perhaps they had clothes on, as opposed to being naked. Perhaps they entered Jerusalem in small numbers, in order to remain inconspicuous. If we grant the inerranist this much, it seems very possible that, if this event occurred, only one known Gospel would record it. But a possibility is not the same as a probablity.

Jason's strategy, as well as the strategy of every conservative inneranist, is to prove that their position is just possible. Creationists will argue that the age of the earth might be wrong, since the age of the earth has "changed" as technology as progressed. Yet they give us little, if any evidence that we should favor their hypothesis over a better, simpler one.

So Jason, I concede that it's possible that the saints entered Jerusalem undetected. Hell, they could've been invisible and microscopic for all I know. But that doesn't mean they probably were. For one thing, the story only appears in one Gospel. Also, it is accompanied by claims of a great earthquake and eclipse, both of which there is even less evidence for. Arguing that the early Christians understood the Gospels as literal history is just pulling the buggy before the horse, for these passages should, if anything, challenge that assertion.

So, my readers shouldn't be surprised that I think this event never happened. How could I? Now, I acknowledge that it could've happened. After all, the zombie saints could have been microscopic or even disguised as regular Jewish peasants. They even could have disappeared milliseconds after they entered Jerusalem to avoid being seen. I can't prove that they didn't- but it's not my job to, either. This event never happened- and only the most fringe level conservative apologists would say otherwise.

Pitting incompatible Supernatural beliefs against each other, Part 2

2011-11-11T23:21:00.000-08:00

Religions, other than Christianity, have made miracle claims. This fact is unavoidable. Even Christians acknowledge that miracle claims are often made from members of other Religions. Some examples of miracle claims in the names of Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism can be found here, here and here. New agers have a substantial amount of miracle claims, so I wont bother linking to any. So, how do Christians deal with this diversity? Well- some of them just throw their arms in the air and claim agnosticism. During a discussion on miracles at Victor Repperts blog, one commenter claimed that miracles done in the name of other Religions can actually be proof for Christianity, since, apparently, God had no quips about deceiving people into the wrong faith. And of course, many Christians will just outright deny the validity of other Religions' miracle claims, and happily affirm their own.

Now, I am not a trained theologian, so I can't really conclusively comment on the success of any of these strategies. However, that doesn't mean I can't hold a inconclusive opinion. For one thing- how can we determine which Religion is correct if they all make similar claims? If every miracle ever documented were done for and by Christians, than that would be good evidence that Christianity is the true faith. However, what we see instead are many miracles being claimed by many religions. The only possible scenarios I see are that, either God allows miracles to happen that inevitably draw people away from Christianity, or that these things all have natural causes. Well... I guess one can argue that there exists an all loving, Universalist God that does miracles for everyone. But even this scenario doesn't seem to fit in with the Christian concept of hell and atonement, does it? In the end, it just seems intuitive that all these miracle stories are false.

Also, even if we granted that miracles occur in Christianity alone- one would have to ask why they even exist in the first place? What is the criteria in which someone is allowed to witness a miracle, and someone is denied that opportunity? Because it seems to me that the person who witnessed a miracle will have a better chance of being/remaining a Christian than the person who does not- giving them an unfair advantage. A Theist could claim that God works in mysterious ways, or that he rewards people who would've believed anyways, using his Omniscience. Answers like these are clearly sound- but that doesn't mean they are good. For one thing- they are both unfalsifiable, and cannot ever be tested or proven false.

Just to conclude, I wanted to mention NDE's again- since they are generally considered the best evidence for an afterlife. I have argued before that, since NDE's occur to members of other faiths, they are probably of naturalistic origin. Ed Babinski argues this at length during the conversation about miracles he had on Victor Repperts blog.

"Same with Near Death Experiences, the majority of which are positive, even for people who do not become orthodox Christians. In fact Mormons have a journal devoted to recording and studying the Near Death Experiences of Mormons (some of them saw Lincoln in the afterlife, and guess what, Lincoln converted and became a Mormon after he died), which sometimes are quite detailed and involve a trip to a very Mormon-looking heaven. Betty Eade wrote several books about her Mormon NDE that were on the bestseller lists about ten years or so ago. "

Surprisingly, many commenters agreed with him that Miracles can't be used as evidence for the existence of God! I chalk that up as a victory for Atheism.

HT to Russ, Ed Babinski and the many other anonymous commenters

I'm cleaning up some of my blog posts

2011-11-11T02:18:00.000-08:00

I'm sure some readers noticed that some of my blog posts have been changed since they were first posted. I have learned a few new things from skeptics like CSICOP since my first post in September, so I figured I'd update my older posts to include them. Plus, I forgot to use spellcheck a few times. Recent posts to have been renovated include "Should we pay attention to miracle claims", "A very personal Poltergeist case" and the newly renamed "Christian entity encounters". I guess that's kinda like writing up a real post, right? Alright, I'll right up a real post tomorrow.

Licona loses his job?!

2011-11-09T15:49:00.000-08:00

Here is the story (and Here is Jeff Lowder's thoughts on it). Licona lost his teaching position since he denied the historicity of Matthew 27. I have to admit- I feel really bad for Licona. Sure, I make fun of him alot for his inconsistent denial of group hallucinations- but really, does anyone deserve to lose their job over a ludicrous passage like Matthew 27. A passage in which a bunch of dead people came back to life and terrorized Jerusalem- only to disappear from the archaeological record completely. A passage in which an earthquake occurred, yet was unrecorded by other ancient historians. A passage that has all the obvious signs of fabrication, yet is still taken seriously by some extremely superstitious, credulous Zeleots; Zealots that found the need to immediately oust him without even a trial- without even considering the evidence that they may, in fact, be wrong. Licona owes it to himself to apply to a real University- one that doesn't require him to affirm to Biblical Literalism in the guise of Inerrancy. That is not honest scholarship- that is denying the truth when it is right in front of your nose.

Pitting incompatible Supernatural beliefs against each other

2011-11-07T23:36:00.000-08:00

Supernatural claims are a dime a dozen now adays. Many of them can be consistent with Christianty, like NDE's, Apparitions and Poltergeists. However, many aren't as adaptable, such as Reincarnation and Alien sightings. Furthermore, amonst the phenomena that are consistent with Christianity, I think that many cases can be shown to be incompatible with it as well- such as non-Christians having NDE's featuring members of their Religion. I have used this strategy in various posts, such as this one, this one and this one.

Here is an interesting article I discovered recently that illustrates my point. What makes it interesting, however, isn't the story itself- but the couple starring in it- Sarah & Michael Feeley. These two claim that they experienced angelic visitations. Now, angelic visitations aren't incompatible with the truth of Christianity- as a matter of fact, they are what we'd expect if Christianity were true! Therefore, this couples experience serves as evidence that Christianity is true, right?

Wrong! In addition to the beliefs they hold that support Christianity, they also hold many absurd claims that don't gel as well with it- such as that they experienced ascended masters, energy meditations and even alien encounters. They also believe that they had past lives in Egypt and Atlantis- a claim that is completely in conflict with most forms of Christianity since it removes hell from the picture.

So- if we were to assume that an angel did, in fact, visit them- one would have to ask why they hold all these absurd beliefs- some of which are irreconcilable with Christianity. Perhaps a demon disguised as an angel decieved them. That's a possible explaination- but than, how can ever we know whether "genuine" religious experiences are authentic? After all, they have just as much evidential merit as this couples experiences, don't they? Plus, the demon hypothesis can't be disproven, so it's on quite shaky ground. Only two other possibilities stick out in my mind- that they are all correct beliefs, or that they are all incorrect beliefs- and I think we all know what the answer is.

Now, as well as a being a good example of pitting incompatible beliefs against each other, this couple should also shed light on the power of belief. For those that have read the article, you'll know that these two aren't just superstitious tribals- their ex-police officers! This should demonstrate how even the most credible of witness' could be utterly, utterly deluded.

Resurrection Sundays: The historicity of 1 Corinthians 15

2011-11-06T01:02:00.000-07:00

A little while ago, I promised to do a post on 1 Cor 15. Well- that promise has come true! However- before I do so, I would like to justify myself on the lack of attention I've given to the empty tomb. You see... I just find it hard to care about it. I mean sure, 75% of scholars think it's historical- but so what. In a field filled with very conservative Christians (Like that one I make fun of here regularly), 25% is a fairly impressive number. Plus, even if the empty tomb were most certainly historical- that still doesn't prove that God raised Jesus from the dead. There are theories on how the body could of been moved or stolen. Anyways, I'll blog about the empty tomb on another Sunday. For now, I will discuss the historicity of 1 Cor 15.

For those that don't know, 1 Cor 15 is our earliest historical source that documents the Resurrection appearances of Jesus. However- most skeptics are rather uncomfortable with the fact that of all six appearances Jesus made, three include more than one witness. Most NT scholars take them pretty much at face value. I, however, have recently become very skeptical. My skepticism of the creed, however, did not occur when I started researching this passage; on the contrary- I found out that the passage could be as early as a few years after the event! No- my skepticism of the creed actually started to develop a week ago, when I started to research the Paranormal.

The first thing I noticed when doing my research was that most people who believe in "entities" (ghosts, angels, etc) relied on the testimony of witness'. They would spend most of their effort writing down witness reports, in order to validate their claims. However- most skeptics, like the members of CSICOP, have a far better approach- they investigate the origin and development of the belief. See, unlike in biblical studies, psychology plays a major role in investigating supernatural "appearances"- and if there is one thing psychology has proven- it's that humans are lousy witness'.

For one thing, we almost always interpret our evidence in accordance to our worldview. For example, if one already believe in ghosts, than a cold spot will be interpreted as evidence for a ghost. Also, in accordance with the above point, we also tend to alter the evidence we have in our heads to match the phenomena we are trying to prove. For example, Person A may see something fly in front of a window very quickly. Later on, when they recall that moment- they may recall it as an angel instead of, say, a bird. Perhaps they do this because they are long time angel believers- that are looking for evidence to prove their already held belief.

In addition to this- one may come to the false belief that other people near him also saw the entity. Although it sounds odd to say it- there are many paranormal cases in which many people will claim to see the same thing when they, in fact, did not see the same thing. This can be determined by interviewing the witness' individually, and seeing how similar their combined testimonies actually are. One example would be the "Timor revival", in which many miracles were reported, many of which including multiple witness'. However- when the witness' were interviewed independently, it became obvious that they had observed no such thing. Many other excellent examples can be found in Joe Nickell's book Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons and other alien beings.

So, my critique of 1 Cor 15 is that, even if it accurately preserves what the witness' claimed to have seen- it says little about what they actually saw. As mentioned earlier, multiple people have claimed to see the same thing, even though they did not. What makes the disciples any different than these cases is beyond me.

HT to Richard Carrier for the story of the Timor Revival

The incredible Gef

2011-11-03T01:05:00.000-07:00

On September, 1939, the Irving family had started hearing strange sounds. At first, they thought they were the victims of a horrible Poltergeist! However- they later discovered that the source of the commotion wasn't a scary ghost- but a cute little Mongoose named Gef. Now Gef wasn't your average, ordinary Mongoose- oh no, he was far more special than that. You see- Gef was a Mongoose that could talk! Don't believe me? Well, to all you nay-sayers, we have tons of evidence that Gef not only could talk, but did, in fact, exist!

Firstly, we have the eye witness testimony of the entire Irving family that they did, in fact, see and communicate with Gef. Also, in addition to this testimony, we also have the testimony of five outsiders. The first being their neighbour, Charles Northwood- who claims that he personally heard Gef talk- and that his voice was definitely not of natural origin. Two local Teenagers, Harry Hall and Will Cubbon, also heard Gef speak, as well as a nameless reporter and Government official which all claimed the same thing- that Gef's voice was too high pitched to be natural. The only people to have heard Gef's voice and not be convinced were two journalists, who visited Gef for the sole purpose of hearing him speak.

"Suddenly there was a shrill squeak from the corner of the room where Voirrey, the daughter, was sitting. Mr Irving, in great excitement, gripped my arm and pointing to the opposite side of the room, whispered: 'He's there! Did you hear him?'"

"Evans and I gazed at each other in sheer amazement... We were again conducted to the door and the squeaks at intermittent intervals continued. Each squeak was kindly translated by Mr Irving to mean: 'They don't believe' or 'I want to back a horse', etc. The squeak in every case was of a particularly short duration"

"On our way down, I noticed Voirrey had a tendency to hang behind, and once again we heard a piping squeak with Mr Irving again wildly gesticulating and pointing to the hedge and whispering: 'He's there, I tell you. He's there!'"

Now obviously. the Irvings faked this one. But come on! Just because they faked one doesn't mean they faked them all! I mean, we have a Government official that heard Gef's voice! They are highly educated in science and stuff, aren't they?

Anyways, in addition to testimony, we also have a sample of Gef's hair and of Gef's paw prints and teeth made in Plasticine! Now, I know what you're thinking- obviously the Irvings could've used any old Mongoose's teeth, paws and hair, right? Wrong! We can tell these samples are authentic because, according to tests carried out by scientists Reginald Innes Pocock and F.Martin Duncan - they don't match those of any known species of Mongoose! As a matter of fact, the only type of animal that these samples even come close to matching is a that of a Sheepdog- coincidentally the same type of Dog as the family pet. However, not to stray away from the point- the paw print is unique and, therefore, must be proof that a unique animal made them.

Now to conclude this post, I must say that, although we all know Gef is real, some will look at the story of Gef with doubt in their heart. Some will say that the people who heard Gef speak must have been mistaken since two reporters didn't believe it. They'll say that the hair and paw prints matched the families dog because it was from the families dog. They'll even say that the daughter, Viorrey, caused the whole thing, perhaps with the help of her dad, since most of their neighbours suspected that was the case. However- these charges do not belittle my faith in Gef- and they shouldn't belittle your faith in Gef, too.

A very personal Poltergeist case

2011-11-01T23:59:00.001-07:00

Poltergeists, as well as any empirical evidence for the supernatural, fascinate me. Although I don't believe in any of that stuff personally- I've always found it more interesting than, say, philosophical arguments for the existence of God. There just seems to be more of an evidential pull with flying utilities than there is with an unmoved mover. For that reason, I have been looking more into the case for the supernatural than I did at the beginning of this blog. If you'd rather I post about the historical Jesus more- just tell me. I have some interesting posts relating to the Old and New Testaments that I can't wait to post.

But to get back on track- I have a Poltergeist story I would like to share with you. Than, I will analyze it and demonstrate why I think it, as well as many other poltergeist stories, are obviously false. This story begins with a family that all start to experience strange phenomena. Their son starts having horrible dreams, often about death, hell and a possessed knight statue. The mom starts losing things at a high rate- claiming that the objects must of "moved by themselves" while she wasn't looking. At nights, she reports hearing things bump and bang against the floor. Now, the dad is a genius- with an IQ of 140. He doesn't believe in any of this stuff. However, one day, while half asleep, he sees a ghost, sitting on the side of his bed. He suddenly turns white, as the ghost disappears. Eventually, after a few years, they move out, as the dad has been saving up and can now afford a bigger house. They never contact the family that moved in.

I can testify, however, that the family was never haunted in the first place. This is because I was the son in this family. My old house, located on Harlow Road in Mississauga, Ontario, was believed by my family and I to be haunted. However- I stopped believing that it was a while ago, most probably since everything that we experienced could be explained naturally. For instance, my mother is a klutz that still loses things frequently. When we lived in the old house, she was a new parent who had more responsibilities than she was used to. My belief is that she simply couldn't keep track of everything as well as she usually could due to the new heads. Also, my brothers and I had probably moved things from time to time. When it came to the supernatural noises- we did have a dog. Also, there are drafts, rats, and even cars and trucks outside. My fathers experience isn't that hard to explain either. He was groggy by his own admission, and when he saw the apparition, his vision was unfocused. It seems to me that he could have just saw something that looked like a ghost and experienced Pareidola, perhaps due to a shirt hanging on the doorknob, or some such thing.

My experiences, however, were the most strange. I was terrified of even leaving my room at night to use the bathroom. Although I never heard or saw anything supernatural at all, I had these bizarre hell dreams. Once, I dreamed of sliding down a slide to hell with my brother. Most often, however, my dreams featured a living knight statue, that would trick me into being all alone, and than would chase me. These dreams left me feeling terrified, even after I woke up. However- I do not regard these as being supernatural at all. The reason why I don't is because, even after the haunting stopped, I still had them occasionally. You see, although it's embarrassing to admit- I had a small speech impediment when I was a kid. I still speak too speak fast, and I can barely pronounce the "r" sound. As you could imagine, I was teased a lot for it, and this caused me a lot of anxiety when I was young. When the dreams started, I was in 5th grade, the time when most of my friends started teasing me. I stopped having the dreams when I was in the 8th grade. As time progressed, I had less and less of them, until they eventually reached a full halt. Humorously, in one of my very last "scary dreams", I punched the knight statue in the face after I realised I was dreaming. I think at that point I stopped believing they were anything other than a nuisance.

It seems to me that, at least in my own poltergeist case, the evidence looks strong at first since we have no background information. However, once we start to dig a little deeper, my case, as well as every other reported case, all of a sudden looks a lot weaker. For example, my hell dreams look more normal when you consider the fact that they persisted long after everyone else's experiences. Also, my whole family, including myself, were devout Catholics, who attended church regularly. I went to a Catholic school, and in it, I thought about God all the time. It was our expectation as Christians that this sort of thing occur once and a while. Also, my mom was very superstitious back than. For instance, she believed that the Ghosts came because she and a friend once played with an Ouija board in the living room. Nobody else in the family believed her, and eventually she stopped believing it as well.

In conclusion, I think the reason we stuck around with the house so long was because we were so fascinated with the possibility of it proving God 's existence. If any of us really believed the house was possessed by spirits or demons, we would've ran the hell out immediately. But we didn't. We acted as if we were the hero's in a horror film. It made for great conversations at social gatherings, with other superstitious people would recall stories they heard about exorcisms and the like. In conclusion, we believed in the poltergeist so long as it benefited us, as I suspect many other superstitious people do.

Do Poltergeists exist outside of the movies?

2011-10-31T15:38:00.000-07:00

To start this post off- I'd like to say happy Halloween to all my readers. If you are going out for Halloween, or assisting someone else in going out, than I salute you. Not enough people are celebrating this truly brilliant holiday anymore, and that makes me very sad. On the upside, I'll be able to dress up as Elder Price this year, since it's not like any kids will see me.

Anyways, to get back on track, this post is about Poltergeists. Poltergeists, which translate to "noisy ghosts" in German, are pretty much just that- evil ghosts that have nothing better to do than screw around with the living, by lingering around their homes and breaking things. Now, haunted houses have always been great settings for horror movies- from classics like Poltergeist to, well, The house that drips blood on Alex. Of course, the purpose of this post isn't to talk about my favorite horror films. The purpose is to determine whether Poltergeists are strong evidence for the supernatural or not.

Now before I begin, I'd keep in mind, as the Skeptics dictionary does, that there are too many of these events to look into- so don't expect a comprehensive debunking of every Poltergeist ever reported. However, we can certainly look into the similarities of each Poltergeist case, and see if plausible natural hypothesis can be administered to each and every one of them. Anyways, here are the three most common things that occur during Poltergeists: Objects moving on there own, Supernatural noises and Cold spots.

Now, we all know that cold spots are common, and often caused by completely natural phenomena. For instance, old houses often have drafts. This theory works well since the vast majority of Poltergeist cases happened at least 100 years ago, thus in old houses. Of course, someone could also have left a window open, or just had the placebo effect due to the fear of being in a "haunted house". The same applys to the supernatural noises. We must not forget the power of the imagination. Of course, people could hear strange sounds from outside their homes, and interpret them as being from paranormal agents inside. We must keep in mind that laymen and paranormal investigators usually lack the scientific expertise to properly identify strange sounds.

This bring us to our final occurrence- the moving of furniture "on it's own". Various alternatives have been given- such as strong drafts, electro magnetic feilds, high-frequency radio signals, and even simple explainations like loose bolts and phone cords. Hallucinations are often commonly associated to these experiences as well. Others think that they are caused by some kind of negative psychological energy like Dr. William Roll- although this view seems to be rejected by most Ghost hunters and scientists alike. However- I think the best explanation for most cases of this phenomena is usually fraud. For one thing, one has to wonder why the families experiencing these events are so contempt to stick around for the show. I'd assume that a rational person would run the hell away, and call a paranormal detective after they were a safe distance away. After all- some Poltergeist victims claim the Poltergeists were trying to kill them!

Of course, this reason alone isn't why I think most cases are frauds. It's also the fact that so many cases actually were frauds. The Amityville Poltergeist and the Columbus Poltergeist are good examples of very popular Poltergeists that turned out to be frauds. Even the Amherst Poltergeist and Enfield Poltergeist are now considered to be frauds by many Psychologists. Keep in mind that all these Poltergeists were, at a time, considered the best cases ever documented. One of the reasons why these people are motivated to do what they do is because of the media attention- although historically there have been many strange motives behind these events. In the case of The Columbus Poltergeist, the teenage daughter, Tina Resch, was caught on tape hoaxing the investigaters. James Randi investigated the case, and discovered that Tina was not only adopted, but using the media coverage to find her long lost parents. She was also arrested for killing her own children several years later.

Of course, Paranormal enthusiasts have always claimed that these were perhaps only partially faked. It seems possible. However, we have to ask ourselves- why did these families find the need to exaggerate their claims? Could it be because, perhaps, their original claims just weren't that good to begin with? Also, keep in mind that the media also exaggerates an awful lot in order to make these cases more marketable. For instance, only a handful of people could testify for all the huge claims that were made during the Amherst Poltergeist- and of them, I don't think any one claim had more than one witness. I know that Amherst happened over a hundred years ago- but really, we are talking about a case in which a church got possessed at one point. The whole thing had been all but invented by the media and a few unreliable witness'.

As a final thought, many Poltergeists may also be caused by a phenomena called Dissociation. Dr Walter F. Prince, for instance, makes the case for Dissociation as the cause of the Amherst Poltergeist. Dissociation is an altered state of consciousness in which you act without having any memory of it. In a way, it is kind of like amnesia- and often goes hand in hand with it. And of course, other explanations most certainly exist that I haven't looked into, and more will come into existence in time. Keep in mind that most serious Scientists and Psychologists still haven't reached a view in favor of these being authentic. As a matter of fact- paranormal studies as a whole have been on the decline since the 80's (see here), due to the criticism it's recieved by other, real scientists. Most of them believe that the evidence for the paranormal is most certainly bloated by the media, by the victims' active imaginations, and by mankinds supernatural expectations- just as I do.

Resurrection Sundays: Lack of Veneration and Early Jewish Polemic

2011-10-30T00:13:00.000-07:00

Here are two more arguments in favor of the empty tomb. The first one states that, because the tomb was not venerated, Jesus' remains were not in it; therefore, it was found empty. I have always been confused by this line of reasoning, since it is ultimately an argument from silence. As Allison rightly points out in his book, the early church may have very well venerated Jesus' remains at some point in time. Also, according to other scholars like Maurice Casey, veneration wasn't only about honoring the corpse- it was also about honoring the site of the burial. With that said, this argument can be flipped on its head and used against the empty tombs historicity! For even James Dunn admits that the lack of veneration is simply "striking". It seems to me that, even if there was no body to venerate, the early Church would at least want to preserve the location of the tomb to use as evidence. After all, this is what William Lane Craig seems to believe when he uses the early Jewish Polemic argument.

Which brings us to our other argument, the argument from early Jewish Polemic. This argument relies on Matt 28:11-15:

¹¹ While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. ¹² When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, ¹³ telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ ¹⁴ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” ¹⁵ So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

This passage is supposed to recall a controversy in which the ancient Jews claimed that Jesus body was stolen. In response to this claim, the early Christian movement decided to add this rather absurd story to their Gospel. However, the point is that the Jews aknowledged that his tomb was empty when formulating their naturalistic alternative, rather than stating that his body was still in the tomb. Now obviously this argument can be countered by stating the obvious fact that we have no idea when this controversy took place. It could have been a very recent one, originating just after Mark's Gospel and before Matthew's. This would make sense, considering that it doesn't appear in Mark and only appears in Matthew. Also, because the story doesn't appear anywhere else, it seems probable that the controversy was small and perhaps not representative of what most Jews thought. Perhaps there were skeptics of the empty tomb who never had a chance to get their opinion written down.

Resurrection Sundays: The Women as witnesses

2011-10-23T00:03:00.000-07:00

Any critic of the empty tomb is probably aware of this argument. The way it goes is to first argue that women were considered to be sub-par when compared to men, at least in terms of testimony. The second point is to argue that, with this consideration in mind, the Gospel writers would have had no reason to make women discover Jesus' empty tomb first- unless women really did discover the empty tomb first. Now, most critics will not bother with the first part of the argument. As Licona would say, it is "part of our historical bedrock". The second point is the one that Critics attack.

One of the common skeptical responses to this argument is that the Women may have had a symbolic reason to have been included in the story. Anyone who has read David Straus (or Ehrman's Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium) should be aware of his theory- that certain events of the New Testament are "true", even though they never happened. In other words, they were meant to be taken metaphorically, not literally. This makes a few of Jesus' miracles make sense, like the raising of Lazarus- which would undoubtedly appear in all four Gospels if it were historical. Proponents will say that the women were part of a "reversal of expectation" motif- in which the lowliest of the low found God- while the rich and even Jesus' own disciples were clueless and didn't get it. This view is certainly possible- although as you can see, it largely depends on whether you think the Gospels were intended to be literal history or not. I know that ancient biographies commonly included miracle claims- but anything further is beyond my expertise to comment on.

Another common response to this argument is that the inventor of the story had no choice but to make women discover the empty tomb, since they were the only ones left in Jerusalem. The Disciples all fled, remember? The counter argument to this, though, is that if someone were to have invented the story- they would have invented a male disciple whole cloth before they'd allow a woman to find the tomb. They could also have made Joseph of Amirathea find the empty tomb- at least in the later Gospels, where Joseph was elevated to the role of "secret disciple". Despite it's shortcomings, however, this argument can easily be combined with the above one to increase it's explanatory power.

A third scenario, proposed by the late scholar Michael Goulder, was that the story of women finding the empty tomb could've been invented by the early church to explain why the empty tomb wasn't previously known- because the women messed it up by running away and "telling nobody". This scenario has some force, since it at least tries to explain why the Gospel of Mark ends with the Women running away, telling no one "because they were afraid". However- there are many scholars who believe that the Gospel of Mark does, in fact, have an original ending- one that is missing, and will probably never be found again. Also, another argument against this hypothesis is that, had this account been made up, the real Mary and anyone who knew her would have spoken out. Sadly, I can't really comment on this since I don't know much about the politics of the early church. I do question, though, whether she could have reacted to the story. Mary probably died before Marks Gospel was completed (considering the very short lifespans of ancient Jews), and her family and friends could have been either totally unaware of the stories existence- or have been far too old or weak to speak out against it. Women were considered inferior to men, remember?

Although these three scenarios are the most popular ones, Maurice Casey came up with a new, more powerful scenario that may account for the Women discovering the empty tomb. Casey argues in his book that a vision of an empty tomb was what started the belief in Jesus' resurrection, not a real event. A vision from none other than Mary herself! This idea certainly sounds weird at first- but keep in mind that visionaries were quite common in Jesus' time, and that they were often Women. This alternative scenario certainly looks possible- but I have yet to see any scholars critically evaluate it in depth. If you want to know more, read the book, as well as this review of it here.

The argument for the empty tomb via the testimony of female disciples is defiantly the strongest argument in support of the empty tomb. If you must know, this argument is the reason I remain agnostic on the matter. With that said, I think that every other argument in support of the empty tomb is nowhere near as good as this one, and next week, I will explain why.

Dawkins VS. Craig

2011-10-21T23:26:00.000-07:00

This Thursday, Richard Dawkins finally revealed to the world why he won't debate William Lane Craig. Word got out quickly, and within a few days every big-named Theist/Atheist blogger started talking about it. It seems like this is the biggest news since Flew's conversion to Deism. My only question is- why? Why do Theists want to see it happen- and why do we Atheists want to prevent it? Sorry- but I think that Craig being an "apologist for genocide" is hardly a sufficient reason. I have a hypothesis- but even I don't like it. I think it might be at least partially true. I think that the reason people are so worked up about it is that- simply put- this debate will make Atheists look really, really bad. See- the common Atheist is usually quite a fan of Richard Dawkins. Likewise, the common Theist tries to avoid him. They see him as a bully and, misfortunately, representative of Atheism. So imagine what will happen if ignorant Theists and Atheists watch this debate. Yes- a lot of doubt will emerge amongst the doubters, and faith amongst the faithful.

Now, this explanation may seem strange- but I can't help but put it out. Atheists are already disliked quite a bit in the public sphere. I remember the first time I told someone that I was an Atheist.Surprisingly, their first reaction was one of disgust, since atheism was apparently "loud and obnoxious". I don't even think I bothered correcting him. I was more surprised that this is what common Theists believe- that we Atheists are all the same.

And apparently, it's not just common, uneducated Theists that think this way. Just look at this article, which is actually written by an Oxford research fellow, and printed by a reputable Newspaper. In it, the author writes an annoying diatribe about how bad Dawkins is and how great Craig is. Now- I understand the author, undoubtedly a Christian, wants revenge- I mean, Dawkins has been calling them delusional for many years. However, that's not what his concluding remark suggests:

"In Craig, Dawkins met his match. Like Jonah, he was confronted by the truth and he ran away."

Hold on a second- the truth? Why is that? Is Christianity so obviously correct that the rest of the world is just simply delusional? This is sounding exactly the same as the New Atheist message! Now, I don't know if this is a joke or something- but he ought to know that non-Christians of all creeds and beliefs will find this comment belittling and degrading. And if that bit sickened you, imagine how much worse it would be if Dawkins actually did debate Craig and lost!

So all in all, I really don't know whether this debate will be good for Atheism in general. After all, it could knock some sense into those rebellious New Atheist teens. However- I also see the social ramifications as being very large. Personally, if you ask me, this whole scenario could've very easily been avoided. We Atheists have a lot to be proud of. Rather than belittle Theists, we should celebrate the great Atheist Scientists, Philosophers, Artists, Writers and public intellectuals that represent the very best of Atheistic thought. Maybe, to quote a well known Atheist, we should Give Peace a Chance.

Image from here.

Should we pay attention to miracle claims?

2011-10-21T02:07:00.000-07:00

In my opinion, yes. It is a shame that miracles claims aren't investigated more vigorously. Most Atheists set their "skeptronimers" to 11, and most Christians don't even have one. In other words, Atheists ignore them, and Christians accept them totally uncritically. Here is a small example of what I mean. In this article on faith healing, the author mentions a few cases in which patients were cured, seemingly by prayer. The author than lays out the two strongest possible scenarios:

"Only two explanations appear reasonable - either they were spontaneous remissions which coincidentally occurred after prayer, or they are genuine healing miracles. "

Spontaneous remissions which coincidentally occurred after prayer- really? Did the author forget that most Medical Doctors are Religious? This means that most Doctors, like most Religious people, will most likely pray for their patients to get better. With that said, I think we should really focus on how many of these prayer recipients died, not how many survived. For according to the "spontaneous remissions theory, a relatively small group of patients will always resuscitate! It seems to me, however, that with the "miracle theory", we should expect more people to survive.

Now not all cases are the same. In one case, a doctor named Chaucy Crandall claims that he heard a "voice" in his head, telling him to pray. Firstly, I'd like to know what he means by "voice". If he means a sort of intuition, I can relate to him. On several occasions, I have felt a strong need to do something- often mundane, and often with no reward. Also, according to this news report, he prays for every patient he sees. Now with that in mind, doesn't it seem at least plausible that he just panicked at the sight of his patient and prayed out of desparation?

In addition to healing miracles, there are also miracle claims regarding dreams and visions. A particularly unimpressive one can be found here. In it, a Muslim man sees Jesus in a dream and converts to Christianity. Why do I think it's unimpressive, you ask? Well, according to the video, the guy already doubted his own Islam, as he said he wanted to know the "true God". Also, he started attending Christian mass prior to his dream. And if that isn't enough to cast doubt on this miracle claims authenticity, the physical description he gives of of Jesus doesn't even match what a first century Jew would look like. If anything, it sounds like it was influenced by the Christian paintings and popular media so common in the modern day! The only miraculous part of the story was when his children claimed to see Jesus. However, their two visions were private and they occurred at night- so it seems like this is a case of "waking dreams"- a type of hallucinatory experience that is caused due to just waking up. Another possibility is that the visions were nothing more than dreams as well. This claim, like most miracle claims out there, is just not very well testified.

Now, despite my strong opinion of the last few cases, I do believe that there are some miracle claims that are difficult if not impossible to explain without appeal to the divine. Look at this one for example. Now how the hell can an Atheist prove this one false? I think CS Lewis' liar, lunatic or lord scenario sums up the skeptics dilemma quite well. So, what do I make of it? I think the liar branch is quite plausible. His crying was a bit over the top, if you ask me. Plus, psychic powers are empirically testable. He could easily force choke a grip if he really wanted to convert people. Not supplying us with evidence when you can is either being lazy or disingenuous with your supposed "gift". Also, I'd like to know whether there are other Muslims (like he was) that believe they have psychic powers given to them by Jinn. I mean, lets look at it this way- there are a dozen Muslim psychics. One of them becomes a Christian. Does this mean the eleven other Muslims are being deceived by Demons- or perhaps the one Christian? Either way you look at it, this miracles seems just too strange to believe.

Wait a second... there's evidence for Reincarnation?!

2011-10-19T23:57:00.000-07:00

Are there intelligent people that believe in Reincarnation? Well, according to this very interesting blog post, yes. And not only that- but they do research into it, too. And I would read that research too- except that, as I have said before, Reincarnation really isn't a problem for Atheism. Christians are the ones with specific beliefs regarding the afterlife, not Atheists. Of course, that doesn't mean a belief in Reincarnation can't be reconciled with Christianity- it just means that it isn't my problem. In addition to the book mentioned in the above post, this webiste also has valuable information in support of Reincarnation.

Christian entity encounters

2011-10-19T01:16:00.000-07:00

There are some Christians out there who claim to have experienced miracles. Well, the Christian understanding of a miracle has always been that it is an event that brings the recipient closer to God. No, when I say a miracle, I mean an event that is far harder to explain in naturalistic terms than by an appeal to the divine. Anyways, these miracles usually involve seeing and/or communicating with Angels, Demons, Jesus and Apparitions. Skeptics usually label these visionary experiences as entities- and usually group them together with UFO's, Bigfoot, and other strange, supernatural beings.

However, despite the popularity of entities amongst laymen, intellectuals rarely mention them, if ever. Really, the only ones I have ever heard even mention these kinds of events are Gary Habermas, Mike Licona and JP Moorland. And even they say little of value about them. I suspect the reason why they are unpopular in academia would be because, sadly, these events rarely have any evidence other than bare testimony. Even Habermas, who has argued in favor of these Miracles, admits this here.

"In my own study of apparition cases, in spite of my very positive mindset, I hardly ever saw a case for which there were not several potential alternative theses. In fact, when even the best cases are studied, something regularly seems to be lacking"

Usually the problem with entities are that they never interact with the environment (ie: leave footprints) and that they are usually experienced using one sense (usually sight, but they are sometimes heard, see here). However, there are exceptions, such as cases in which the supernatural entity is seen and heard, and/or appears to multiple people. These experiences are challenging to fit into a naturalistic worldview, but they are not impossible. Many explanations have been put forward from skeptics, such as Pereidola and false memory recalls. Personally, I think that some cases can also be explained by some form of group hallucinations. The experiences themselves tend to be very simplistic and short, so it seems plausible that many Apparition reports can be explained with them. Also, don't forget that Christians of all creeds- and even non-Christians (see here and here) claim to have these types of experiences! Dale Allison is certainly open to the possibility of group hallucinations- and he supposedly experienced one himself!

Just as a final thought, I'd just like to say that, if there really were supernatural entities out there- why haven't they ever been photographed or caught on film? Bill Nye makes an excellent point in this video that, only a little while ago, car collisions were considered impossible to catch on film. Nowadays, there are so many traffic cameras out there that they are captured regularly. So, my question is simple: why do so many of these entities appear when no one else is looking? There should be far more entity reports than there were several years ago, simply because of the fact that we now have the means to record them. Yet nothing unexplainable has turned up. This is a real problem for believers indeed.

Resurrection Sundays: An Overview of the Empty Tomb

2011-10-16T01:06:00.000-07:00

It is believed by many historians that, on the very first Easter, a group of female disciples discovered that the tomb of Jesus was empty. Some atheists believe that this event, in conjunction with later visionary experiences and prior prophecies from Jesus himself, eventually led to the belief in Jesus' corporeal resurrection from the dead. However, there is a large and respectable minority of scholars holding the view that the empty tomb story is fictional- and that the Resurrection appearances alone caused the belief of the early disciples.

Just how large and respectable is this minority, you ask? Well, according to a study carried out by Gary Habermas, as many as a quarter of scholars think that the story of the empty tomb is fictional. Yeah- an entire quarter. That means that, unless a quarter of professional Jesus scholars are desperate non-believers- at least some Christians must hold this view. This consideration gives us at least some prima facie evidence that the arguments against the empty tomb must have at least some force. But what if most scholars are, in fact, non-believers? After all- Mike Licona says just that in his interview here. Well- wouldn't that be even better for Atheism's case?

Anyways, before I write any posts that actually examine the arguments, I just want to be upfront about my opinion on the empty tomb. For decades, Apologists have used this as an argument for the Resurrection. But to me this tactic seems like sleight of hand. For even if the body went missing- why must we infer a Resurrection? We have the traditional hypothesises, like the reburial theory or the stolen body theory. On top of this, we have other, less conventional explanations we can appeal to. For example, an earthquake could have caused the ground under Jesus' corpse to open up and swallow it! Atheists do not require one specific theory to serve as their official explanation- any number of possible scenarios will suffice. After all- the Bible only records theological interpretations of these events- not the underlying events themselves. Those are lost in history forever.

So that's about it. If you want to learn more about the empty tomb's historicity at a popular level, I would recommend James McGrath's Burial of Jesus: History and Faith and Kris Komarnitsky's Doubting Jesus' Resurrection: What Happened in the Black Box. At a more scholarly level, I would recommend the books of Michael Goulder, Gerd Ludemann, Maurice Casey and Dale Allison. And of course, if you haven't read it yet, also get a copy of Dale Allison's 2008 Philosophia Christi essay, which responds to arguments from William Lane Craig and Gary Habermas.

NDE's and universal salvation

2011-10-13T00:39:00.000-07:00

Remember my post on Apparitions? Well, everything I said about them can be applied to NDE's. Also, we just so happen to have an NDE report from a member of the Baha'i faith. I wonder how Christians will respond to this?

The "New Christian" movement?

2011-10-12T23:25:00.000-07:00

Prior to Sam Harris' "The end of Faith", nobody in there right mind would ever call an atheist an idiot purely on the basis of their atheism. The informed Theist would know full well that most philosophers and scientists were atheists. Usually Theists regarded atheism as an emotional rejection of God- not an intellectual one. However, recently a whole slew of Christian apologists (see here and here) have been going around declaring atheism both an emotional AND an intellectual defect! They claim that the existence of God is so obvious that one would have to consciously lie to themselves to avoid believing in him. So, how did such an attitude begin? Okay, I'll stop being coy- we all have a pretty good idea of what happened. The New Atheists came into the picture and made us all look dumb. Don't get me wrong- Dawkins is a brilliant scientist, and Dennett is popular in the Philosophy of Mind. But they aren't authorities in the History or Philosophy of Religion; and to put it bluntly, they put no effort into trying to be. They chant catch-phrases and ignore their critics.

So, how did Christians counter the new atheists? Well- they practically joined them! Apologists wrote books responding to the New Atheists- books which were highly polemical apologetics with little substance (see here and here). Other, less informed Christians bought these books under the influence that Dawkins and co somehow represented the best in Atheistic thought. After all, why else would a Christian waste their money on a book debunking literally useless arguments? Anyways, I guess some of these ignorant Christians decided to "stand up" against the New Atheists, using their new books, filled with equally poor arguments and rhetoric, and as a result ended up starting a new movement- one I like to call "New Christianity". Philos71 and KabaneTheChristian from YouTube would be a great examples of these "New Christians". Of course, there have always been aggressive atheists like Bertrand Russell- but they lived way before the reign of Plantinga- during a time in which the non-existence of God was practically a fact. Now, I agree that this enlightenment attitude against religion that the New Atheists have espoused is both embarrassing and inappropriate- but honestly, does that give Christians the right to be just as rude in retaliation? Maybe we could figure out a way to critique the New Atheists without all the collateral damage?

Resurrection Sundays: The Twelve, The Five Hundred and the rest of the Disciples

2011-10-09T11:13:00.000-07:00

I think it is fair to say this is the only area where the Christian has a significant advantage over the Atheist when it comes down to explaining away the resurrection. While hallucinations were common enough back in Jesus' day, collective visions were and still are rather rare. Many New Testament scholars remain agnostic about it, while others like Gary Habermas are militantly opposed to them as even being possibilities. Before I go any further in this post, I will briefly argue that group hallucinations are not only real- but more common than we'd suspect. Also, keep in mind that I am, for the sake of argument, assuming that the early church Creed found in 1 Cor 15 is 100% reliable. I will blog about that in the future.

The common argument against the "Group hallucination" hypothesis is that it is impossible for two people to share a hallucination, since hallucinations are projections of the mind; and obviously two people hallucinating the exact same thing is improbable, right? Well- I cringe when I hear apologists say this, since that isn't what the group hallucination hypothesis proposes at all! Actually, the best work on this phenomena states that the hallucinaters experience an "altered state of consciousness", or a type of trance. The trance alone does nothing- it's the hallucinaters that decide what they are seeing- and usually the dominant opinion is the one that comes out on top. They are also not as improbable as we'd think. Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh's great book, "Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels" quote this study:

"Erika Bourguignon, who compiled a sample of 488 societies in all parts of the world, at various levels of technological complexity, and found that ninety percent of these societies evidence 'altered states of conciousness' Her conclusion: "Societies which do not utilize these states are historical exceptions which need to be explained, rather than the vast majority of societies that do not use these states" (cited by Pilch 1993)."

For more information, see here. Now, it's important to note that, although these experiences can feel "more real than reality" at some times, the Hallucinaters usually disregard the experience when they are over. However, if we add some pre-Easter prophecies and expectations, it makes sense out of why the disciples would not only believe their experience was genuine, but also re-interpret it the way they did. Lets not forget that the creed is silent on whether Jesus talked or did anything, so it seems likely to me that Jesus just appeared to his disciples and than vanished- just like a hallucination! Now, this fits the data that we have for the group appearance to the twelve, but the appearance to the five hundred seems a bit improbable. Plus, I don't even know where to begin with "the rest of the disciples". So lets consider the appearance to the 500 next.

Well, the appearance to the 500 is a notorious one since it is full of mysteries. For example, the 500 are nameless. William Lane Craig argues that because Paul says "although some of them have fallen asleep", that means he must've known at least some of them personally. I am surprised an otherwise smart man would say this. Maybe he did know someone involved, so what? That hardly means he knew them personally. And even if he did- Paul certainly doesn't share any of the details. We don't know any of the recipients names, we don't know where it happened, or even if they were drinking bad water or something. What little we do know seems to say the opposite! Now, if Paul knew some of them, why would he chose to mention that they had died, rather than name names? He could easily say that the appearance was to "Ralph and 499 other followers" or something like that. Perhaps he says this because the event happened a long time ago (AKA 10-12 years ago), so logically someone would have had to have died by than, considering that people in his day only lived until the ripe old age of 40!

But even if Paul did mention this information, we still have one big problem- it's not mentioned anywhere else in the New Testament! This is prime evangelising material, people! How a story this incredible could evade the quills of the New Testament authors are beyond me. Now, if we consider the "Group Hallucinations" explanation, we know that often, the visions are discredited afterwards. As a matter of fact, this argument is used by apologists like Habermas arguing against the "Group hallucination hypothesis". So with that in mind, it's easy to imagine a scenario in which a large amount of people had an experience that some members considered Jesus. these ones reported it, and the rest discredited it. Eventually the dissenters are heard, and the appearance is later removed from the creed, and thus from scripture (Maurice Casey makes this argument here).

The same can be said of the group appearance to "the rest of the disciples". It's just sad that we don't know how many people were involved. We know that very early Christianity was fairly small, so it couldn't have been that big an appearance (considering a supposed 500 followers already saw him). Still- the fact that they give no number almost seems to imply that it isn't impressive, or isn't even a group appearance at all. At least they added some details to the appearance to the 500, like that some of them died. I'll have to look into it in more detail later, but it seems like at worst it's another massive group appearance that can be explained away in the same manner as the appearance to the 500. Of course, it may not be- but just relying on the text alone doesn't help us much. I'll have to devote a post to this topic in the future.

Is the Hallucination Hypothesis improbable?

2011-10-07T00:26:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not posting much recently, my dear readers- um, reader. I have recently contracted some sort of nasty virus which makes me feel dizzy and think not-good. My brother got it a few days before me, and is already better- so I doubt it'll take much longer for myself. Anyways when I checked out my blog, I got this comment from Chris W:

"So, do you think we have to simply go down the list in 1 Cor 15 and explain each appearance? Or do you think there might have been an earlier historical core on which the list is based on--one with less fantastic group visions and no additions like 'according to the scriptures'? "

As soon as I read it, I hastily sent off a response, admitting that I don't know, and that I usually concede that the creed is accurate, for the sake of argument. For me, it's nice to have a theory that accounts for all of the potential data- and hallucinatory experiences seem to do that. However, after thinking about it a bit- I realised that he has a point. This theory does seem kinda improbable.

Of course, I believe that no naturalistic theory for the resurrection has ever been "perfect"- that is, none have ever accounted for all of the available data at least as well as the "resurrection hypothesis". However, I don't think a naturalistic explanation needs to be exactly on par with a supernatural explanation for it to be considered, let alone favored over it. For one thing, if one is a naturalist, and finds it extremely difficult to fit God into the universe, the probability of the resurrection completely plummets, until anything is more probable than it. Also, if one has a religious experience incompatible with Christianity, they would also consider Jesus' resurrection to be very improbable.

Of course, I am not saying that we need to believe in space aliens or evil twins to remain skeptics- quite the contrary, I believe that some alternative explanations for the resurrection actually account for different pieces of information better than the resurrection hypothesis- for example, they explain the nature of the visions very well. They also explain away failed prophecies and the early disciples false scientific beliefs- but I'll save that for a later post.

All that I intend to do is show is that skeptical hypothesis aren't too implausible to believe. For one thing, apparitions are quite well known- and studied from a secular perspective (see here and here). However, I don't want to spoil too much since I plan to blog about them in the future. All that's important is that they happen more often than we'd think. We also know that visionary experiences (including group visions) were actually very common in Jesus' day- in fact, they were so common they were considered "normal". We also know that in many of these instances, the seers don't see the same thing, even though they initially think they do- which seems much more probable according to a naturalistic hypothesis than a supernatural one.

Just as a concluding thought- I want to discuss apologists that undermine the hallucination hypothesis. William Lane Craig, in spite of his ego, usually accepts that they are at least possible, stating that he feels that they are ad-hoc and improbable. Fair enough. Some other scholars, however, are much more antagonistic towards it. These scholars are most notably Gary Habermas and Mike Licona. For one thing, Habermas denies that they can even happen! Being a protestant, I wonder how he'd explain away the Marian Apparitions? Licona falls into this same trap as well. As a matter of fact, during his debate with Bart Ehrman, he once again claims ignorance as to how the Marian apparitions came to be, once again stating he hasn't seen the evidence! This is academic dishonesty, plain and simple.

How to comment on your own blog posts

2011-10-04T01:33:00.000-07:00

Until recently I had not been unable to place comments on my own Blog posts. Whenever I would try to, a message would come up saying "Input error: Cookie value is null for FormRestoration". However, thanks to this article, I can now post comments on my own blog! Apparently, you aren't supposed to check the "stay signed in" box when you log in. Keep that in mind readers.

The Shroud of Turin is deader than Jesus!

2011-10-03T01:55:00.000-07:00

I was initially going to publish a post detailing all of the pro-shroud and anti-shroud arguments I have found on the web during my last week of research. However, I have recently found even more damning evidence that the Turin shroud cannot possibly be authentic anyways, due to this article. Long story short, the original 1988 Carbon dating test was accurate after all.

Of course, I was already pretty sure that the shroud was a fake. For one thing, the initial carbon dating test of 1988 dated the shroud to have been produced in between 1260-1390. This fit the medieval dating perfectly, as it coincides with the shrouds first appearance in history in 1353. Other evidence against it's authenticity included a report in 1390 from a bishop named Pierre d'Arcis who declared that it was a forgery, and that the artist confessed. Also, curiously enough, the good bishop claimed the author "cunningly painted" it, implying a complicated technique.

However, the shroud's proponents have used a variety of arguments to defend it. They would claim that the image on the shroud is anatomically perfect; They would claim that they found blood on it; They would claim that no skeptic has ever been able to perfectly replicate it; etc, etc, etc. However, the biggest argument they would use was that, in 2005, former Shroud skeptic Raymond Rogers published an article stating that the Carbon dating tests were inaccurate due to an invisible patch. He also composed his own test to date the Turin Shroud, which stated that the Shroud must be at least 1300-3000 years old. However, considering the article I found and aforementioned, I doubt that the Shroud will convince skeptics anytime soon.

Apparitions of the dead: Can they disprove Christianity?

2011-10-03T00:27:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about Apparitions of the dead. They are an interesting phenomena that can very adequately explain away Jesus' resurrection in natural terms. However, they are also a double sided sword. For if they can be proven to be veridical- than that not only becomes evidence in support of the Resurrection, but against Naturalism itself! So, I think that before we cling to apparitions data for support, we better first try to prove, at least to ourselves, that the apparition data fits a naturalistic worldview. Sadly, most ~~atheists~~ scientists just ignore apparitional data; hell, according to Dale Allison, Theologians do too!

"Now I share Gary's fascination for NDEs, and I am nonplussed that theologians by and large seem content to ignore them"

However, these scientists may have good reason to ignore them. Here is a great article on this sort of phenomena here. As Gary Habermas admits in his essay here, may of these events do not have very good evidential merit.

"In my own study of apparition cases, in spite of my very positive mindset, I hardly ever saw a case for which there were not several potential alternative theses. In fact, when even the best cases are studied, something regularly seems to be lacking."

So it seems to me that, by Gary's own admission, the burden of proof lies on the Theist to explain why they think that these apparitions constitute as proof of an afterlife, and not of vivid Hallucinations. However, I think that, even if one where to concede that apparitions are strong evidence in support of an afterlife, that they could still turn around and mount a powerful attack against traditional Christianity. To do this, one has to show that the apparition data is inconsistent with the Bibles teachings and thus, Christianity. The doctrine that stands out most quickly to me is the doctrine of hell. Traditional Christianity has always taught that not all will enjoy salvation. However, if within the vast amounts of apparitional data we find at least one case of a non-Christian enjoying his/her stay in the afterlife, than that should constitute as damning evidence against the doctrine of hell and, by extension, traditional Christianity as we know it.

Now, I'm not sure what Theologians would make of this sort of argument- perhaps they would find it convincing. Perhaps, just perhaps, it is why they are so hesitant to embrace the data in the first place! Personally, I see apparitional data as being, if anything, quite relieving to the atheist, since it offers some hope of an afterlife, even if we don't believe it.

Resurrection Sundays: How strong is the Hallucination hypothosis?

2011-10-02T01:50:00.000-07:00

Now that we've briefly discussed the Hallucination hypothesis, it's time to apply it to the visions of Jesus. According to 1 Corinthians 15:

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas,[b] and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 Than lastly, he appeared to me

So, according to the formula, Jesus made 6 appearances. 3 of these appearances where to groups of people. Also, if we accept the empty tomb as historical, it is possible that Mary had a vision of Jesus as well (William Lane Craig argues for that here). The argument that is put forth is usually that this appearance is multiply attested, and would have been omitted from the creed due to her being a woman. I agree, although I am still pretty agnostic about about the visions. For one thing- Our earliest resurrection narrative doesn't mention Mary witnessing the risen Jesus- she only observes the empty tomb. According to Mark:

1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” 4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. 6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” 8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.[a]

So as we can see, if Mary saw Jesus, the first gospel writer was silent about it. And this problem becomes even bigger if Markan priority is correct- since the later Gospel writers could have easily fabricated the appearance. Anyways, now to explain the appearances away. Now, if you recall my in my earlier post Mike Liconas demon haunted world, I argued that sometimes naturalistic explanations can make more sense than supernatural explanations. Well, with the Resurrection appearances, supernatural explanations do make a lot of sense. For one thing, we know what God's motive would be for raising Jesus. However, that doesn't mean the hypothesis is perfect. For in this post I would like to specifically address one oddity about the resurrection appearances, and that is the strangely short nature of the appearances. If we alone follow the creedal formula in 1 Cor 15, it becomes apparent that the appearances are in someway disconnected. After all, why else would the formula treat vision as a separate event? If Jesus were to have actually stuck around for forty days, why wouldn't the creed mention it?

Now, the Hallucination hypothesis is unique in that it actually fits in with this data rather well. As a matter of fact, if we were to just ignore the group appearances, it would fit like a glove! We have good reason to think that the "appearances" were short and simplistic in nature, which is what we'd expect if they Hallucinated. We also know that the disciples doubted their own visions, which is also what we'd expect if they Hallucinated. Also, if one were to believe that Jesus actually predicted his own death and vindication, than that would give the disciples a great reason to assume that their visions were veridical. And finally, if he were to have predicted that he'd be bodily vindicated, in a quasi apocalyptic way, that would also explain why the disciples would later interpret their visions in a bodily manner. Plus, if we believe that Mary had the first vision of Jesus, that would only strengthen the Hallucination hypothesis. You see, while we have no information of use regarding Peter's psychiatric health, we do have some for Mary's- for according to Luke 8:2, Mary had seven demons pulled from her.

2 and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out;

As we all know, James, brother of Jesus and Paul of Tarsus were skeptics. They did not believe that Jesus was divine- and therefore, wouldn't have hallucinated Jesus. Well, when it comes down to James, we really don't know how skeptical he was of Jesus- plus, we don't know how how antagonistic he was to the movement. However, even if we assumed, for the sake of argument, that James loathed Jesus and his cult, I think I might have a good explanation for why they had the vision. Influential scholar Gerd Ludemann contends that Paul was a secret Christian, who persecuted Christians due to a secret desire to join them. This seems silly to me, but I can see another avenue for this type of argumentation. What if, and this is purely speculation, these two men actually found the evidence for Christianity persuasive?

Many ex-Christians will talk about the intense stress that occurs when they started to doubt their faith. They will describe in detail how they desperately clinged onto whatever they could to maintain their beliefs. The same is true of people switching Religions to/from Christiany. Now, we have to keep in mind that James converted after the vision to Peter, the twelve and the 500. So now imagine being James, trying to figure out how they could proclaim these wonderful things. Imagine adding possible biblical prophecies, Jesus' pre-crucifixion predictions and even an empty tomb to the mix. Finally, lets add a wee bit of gilt over the harsh treatment of his brother and voila! I think it may very well solve this mystery, if not shed some light over it. And of course with Paul's case, we can add all these appearances plus the appearance to James and the rest of the disciples, for his vision came last.

Now, I am not claiming to have solved the case once and for all. Quite the contrary, I am not even certain if what I have produced is accurate. I certainly haven't done as much research on James or Paul as a real scholar. All I am trying to do is consider other possibilities; and by extension, make the case for skepticism just a bit stronger.

The Peanut-butter argument for the existence of God

2011-10-01T15:17:00.000-07:00

I guess I'll have to convert to Christianity, now won't I?

Mike Licona's demon haunted world

2011-09-29T23:53:00.000-07:00

I know it's old news, but I want to comment on Mike Licona's interview with Luke Muelhauser. To anyone who hasn't watched the interview, here is a link to it. To anyone who has watched it, watch it again. Watch it as many times as you need to until you get the joke in the title. Anyways, the reason I urge the viewer to watch this interview is not because of what it directly says- but because of what it indirectly says about the Resurrection and Christians in general. There is a specific point in the interview where Luke mentions the Hallucination hypothesis as a viable naturalistic explanation for the resurrection appearances. Mike Licona dismisses them instantly, as he believes that Hallucinations, as subjective projections, cannot explain away the visions to multiple people. Than, later in the interview, Luke mentions examples of events believed to be hallucinations, of which were experienced by multiple people, such as the Marian apparitions, and the dancing sun at Fatima. He presses Licona to explain them away in a reasonable manner. Than, it hits the fan for Licona, as he literally shoots his own foot in his answer.

So, what is his answer, you may ask? Well- he says that he doesn't know. He also states that, unlike a naturalist, he is open to supernatural explanations. Now this attitude seemed to really confuse me. I mean, I agree with the first part of his answer- I agree that we can be agnostic about these claims since we really don't know much about them. However, words cannot describe how much I disagree with him on his second point. Why does an event with an unknown cause have to be supernatural? How can you possibly make that judgement? And even if one is open to the supernatural, what would a supernatural hypothesis look like. Let's just say for arguments sake that our supernatural Hypothesis would be "God did it". Well, does that fit well with our evidence? For example, why would God cause sightings of the Virgin Mary if Protestant Christianity is the correct division (as Licona believes). Also, Why the hell would he make the sun dance around in the sky. Even if we further posit that we could never understand God's reason, it still seems to me like the explanation "gawdidit" is ad-hoc at best.

So, How does Licona avoid this problem? Easy- he uses a magicians trick called misdirection. He mentions a scary story about a demon that tried to strangle his friend because he was proclaiming the word of God. Now, how could a skeptic explain that away without recourse to a miracle, you may ask? Well, to be honest, I don't have a clue. It could be a hallucinatory experience, for all I know. After all, none of the Christian turned Muslims saw the event. A bigger issue to me, however, is how such a remarkable event could completely slip past the news. If that were to have happened, surely someone would have written about it. I mean, JP Moreland has no problem sharing his experience- why not this guy? Even if us hardheaded atheists were to ignore it, surely paranormal investigators would be all over it! Now, I am fully aware that this is an argument from silence- but honestly, this is a very damning silence that can't be ignored. All we have is the bear claim it happened by just one person- and that's really un-incredible evidence if you ask me.

Now, lets go back to the dancing sun and Marian apparitions; except this time, lets humour Licona and consider the demon hypothesis. Now, why would a demon want to fool people into seeing the blessed virgin Mary? Perhaps, as some Protestants like Ray Comfort believe (here), Catholics are so un-christian, they are comparable to Mormons- and likewise will not be saved. If that were the case, the Devil would be tricking believers into going to hell- kinda like how the Bible claims Satan will deceive many by "appearing as an angel of light". This explanation seems possible- although still I don't find it convincing at all. Considering that most Christians are Catholics, it seems silly to believe that God's plan would involve them being damned for all eternity alongside us atheists, wouldn't it? And yes, the Marian apparitions bring it's recipients closer to Catholicism, not Protestantism, so they never get that sacred "born again experience" so necessary for salvation (check this out for more). And last but not least, Demons have no reason to cause the sun to dance around in the sky supernaturally, as if that needs spelling out. So, it seems to me that an appeal to naturalistic explanations may be quite justifiable- and maybe even preferable in some circumstances to supernatural explanations like these ones

More thoughts on the Shroud of Turin

2011-09-29T00:52:00.000-07:00

This stupid peice of Linen has caused me much stress lately. Although I still don't buy it, I would certainly like a straight answer on how the hell it came into being. It seems to me that there are two camps- those that think it was created by a body, and those who think it was created by an artist. Both parties seem plausible to the layman at first- but once you do a lot of research, things get a bit murkier. For one thing, the shroud advocates have to deal with the initial 1988 Carbon dating tests on the shroud which proved that it was created in the middle ages. Even William Lane Craig admits that the initial Carbon dating is a problem here.

"I think one can’t say that the shroud is authentic. You would need to have those tests somehow shown to be erroneous. Apart from those tests, the signs of authenticity on the shroud are quite remarkable."

They also have to come up with some fairly empty theories as to how the shroud could've actually made it from ancient Jerusalem into the hands of the french crusader Geoffroi de Charny in 1353-1357. On the other hand, critics need to figure out how to create a perfect replica of the shroud- and so far they haven't (although they may have gotten close, see here ).

So, how the hell could such a conflict exist, you may ask? In a world of science, we should already have the answers to this conundrum, right? However, there is one point we need to consider, one that shroud supporters and deniers will agree with me on: that the Vatican is not allowing scholars to study the Shroud of Turin enough. Indeed, this whole controversy could end tommorow if the Vatican were to just let some more scholars re-date the damn thing. Then, we can all finally go home. Of course, I am still agnostic on whether the Shroud is authentic or not- but I tend to lean towards it being a hoax- for at least the re-creations of the shroud are getting better. Plus, even if it is authentic, so what? Many false messiahs were crucified back in the day. Surley one of them went through the physical conditions necessary for the shroud to develop, right? For some more brain food, check out this link here. It leads to an article reviewing a documentary on the subject called "Remaking the Shroud". I will try to find a link to the film online for you all to watch.

So the Shroud of Turin is just a hoax, right?

2011-09-27T20:03:00.000-07:00

Well, I really don't know anymore. It's common knowledge that in 1988 the artifact known as the Shroud of Turin was carbon dated to be created in between 1260–1390 AD, with 95% confidence, by an elite group of scientists. What seems to be unnoticed by the skeptical community and by many Christians, however, is that the infamous medieval dating of the Turin shroud has actually been disputed. Some scientists, mostly believers, now believe that the real age of the shroud is unknown, and that it is probably somewhere between 1300-3000 years old. Apologists rejoiced, as this new dating now made it at least possible that the Shroud really did once cover Jesus' body. But for skeptics, that doesn't help the Christian case much, as that still gives us 1699 other possible years for the shroud to have been produced- if indeed the tests were erroneous, which I and many scientists don't believe. Most certainly, a secondary argument needs to be mounted to establish that the Turin shroud is authentic- and that case is also an interesting and equally under-appreciated one.

Believers in the Shroud will have a plethora of arguments to appeal to- although I personally find only three of them persuasive. The first one is that the Turin shroud is unlike anything we've ever seen. They will point out the disturbing fact that nobody has ever replicated it in perfect detail. This argument is only half true though- scientists have created similar replicates using primitive medieval tools- but nothing that is EXACTLY the same. It's an argument from silence, but I guess that's better than nothing.

The second argument is that is that the image on the shroud of Turin must have come from a corpse; although once again other scientists deny this (see this article). The third argument is that, in conjunction with the second argument, the figure on the shroud has very similar injuries to the historical Jesus- so it couldn't have belonged to anyone else. For example, it has head injuries that look like they were caused by a crown of thorns. The body also appears to have remained under the sheet for very little time, as the shroud contains no traces of decay. Also, they will point out that if the shroud were removed from the body in a conventional manner, the blood stains would have looked slightly different. For more information of these arguments, check out Gary Habermas' article here.

Well- there are many ways a Skeptic can retain their skepticism even if they do accept the validity of the above arguments. For starters, some shroud scientists believe that there are theories as to how the image could have gotten into the shroud in a purely naturalistic way. For more information, I would recommend these articles from Raymond Rogers, a popular, pro-authentic scholar of the Shroud of Turin here, here and here. Secondly, if the shroud's image is proven to be from a corpse, I can only guess at why the figure seems to resemble the biblical depiction of Jesus. Perhaps it is from Jesus after all (although the image got there in a naturalistic way). perhaps the shroud was stolen off another corpse, that suffered a similar fate to Jesus. Other shroud supporters have pointed this out (see the bottom of the page here). Or perhaps, as many have suggested, the whole thing is a hoax, and we've wasted our time. I don't have a clue as to how a naturalist can prove the Shroud of Turin is inauthentic; but then again, most shroud advocates admit that they likewise cannot prove that it is authentic. As Dan Porter, owner of a pro-authenticity website states (in this article):

"About 100 scientists, archaeologists and historians representing a broad spectrum of Catholics, Anglicans (Episcopalians), Protestants, Evangelical Christians and non-Christians attended the conference. Most are academics. Many are retired and have time to devote to many hours to the study of the shroud. Almost all believe at some level that the shroud is genuine, even if they cannot prove it."

So I suppose all we can do now is sit back and watch the Skeptics and Believers duke it out, as they always do

Dale Allison's article on the Resurrection

2011-09-27T14:09:00.000-07:00

Published in the Journal Philosophia Christi three years ago, this article is very hard to come by- but totally worth it if you haven't read it yet. It is a written response to two articles also published in Philosophia Christi, one be Gary Habermas and one by William Lane Craig. It produces, in my opinion, the very best case for skepticism since the book "Resurrecting Jesus" (also written by Allison). If you haven't read it yet, get your hands on a copy and read it! You will thank yourself later. I can get you a copy of Allison's article if you email me at andy.scicluna@hotmail.com.

Resurrection Sundays: An Overview of the Hallucination Hypothesis

2011-09-25T00:35:00.000-07:00

In order to get my new blog up and running, I decided to start a new Web series called "Resurrection Sundays". Every Sunday, I will explore a little piece of the evidence in support of the Resurrection and see if it really holds as much weight as Christians claim it does. Also, to all you Christians out there, I am NOT claiming that I'm debunking the Resurrection. I am merely seeing if alternative scenarios are at least possible.

The Hallucination Hypothesis is actually a very old hypothesis that has been around since the very beginning of Biblical studies. It posits that the post-mortem visions of Jesus could have been perfectly natural hallucinations. It was popularised by the great biblical scholar and theologian David Strauss, and enjoyed a long life in academia until the latter half of the 20th century, when the secular alternatives to the resurrection began to be rejected. However, very recently these alternative theories have resurfaced and are once again being critically challenged.

Recent defenses of the Hallucination Theory can be found in the works of Gerd Ludemann and the late Michael Goulder. However, the best defense of the theory can be found in Dale Allison's book Resurrecting Jesus (2005). Although a Christian, Allison believes that the Resurrection appearances can be plausibly explained away as a part of a wider phenomena- apparitions of the dead. Whether they are veridical or not, this data seems to indicate that people can experience visions of the recently deceased, and that these visions often appear very physical in nature. Regardless of whether you find this theory persuasive, it is a must read for anyone interested in the Resurrection. Indeed, even famed apologist William Lane Craig admits in his review of Allison's book that:

"I’ve never seen a better presentation of the case for scepticism about Jesus’ resurrection than in Allison’s Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and Its Interpreters (New York: T. & T. Clark, 2005). He’s far more persuasive than Crossan, Lüdemann, Goulder, and the rest who actually deny the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. "

So, if you are interested in the Hallucination Hypothesis, I would suggest reading Dale Allisons book Resurrecting Jesus. Than, I would suggest reading William Lane Craig's two reviews of the book here and here, as well as Gary Habermas' review here. Finally, try to get your hands on a copy of Dale Allisons own essay further defending his views called "The Resurrection of Jesus and rational apologetics". Email me if you if you want a copy of it here.

About me and my blog

2011-09-22T19:02:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but whenever I visit a blog for the first time ever, I usually look for a short biography of the person running the blog. So, I hope this post will satisfy your curiosity.

My name is Andrew Scicluna. I have recently graduated from college and now have the rest of my working life to look foward to. I like to chat about atheism, so I made a blog dedicated to it. Just keep in mind that I am by no means a professional philosopher, scientist or Historian. I am a layman; and I blog exclusivley from a laymans perspective. However, just because I'm not an expert doesn't mean I can't turn to the relevant experts for answers, right? And indeed, I do this very often- for I value truth above all else. However, I have come to the conclusion that not every atheist sees things from my perspective.
I spend a lot of my free time trying to understand why Theists reject Atheism- and the common responses to these attacks. For example, usually Theists argue against Naturalism, and than claim that since naturalism isn't true, only Theism can be true. I find this reasoning to be strange, since according to the recent Phil Papers survey, there are actually more atheists that don't call themselves naturalists than there are Theists in professional philosophy.

However, some Atheists are only interested in atheistic apologetics- like the works of the "Four Horseman", or the most recent publication from Prometheus Books. They think religion is poison, that Jesus never existed, and other silly ideas that most intellectual Atheists try to distance themselves from. These people are usually called the "New Atheists". They have garnered much criticism for their lack of understanding when it comes down to Philosophy, Theology and History, and have attracted several Apologetic responses. Now don't get me wrong- these atheists have done some good. They have probably inspired more people to "come out" with their atheistic beliefs than anyone else- even the patron saint of Atheism Bertrand Russell. However, they have also been a constant embarrassment to me- and to many other Atheists. For even Philosopher Michael Ruse admits in his endorsement of "The Dawkins Delusion":

"... "The God Delusion makes me embarrassed to be an atheist, and the McGraths show why." (Michael Ruse, Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Program in the History and Philosophy of Science, Department of Philosophy, Florida State University )"

So, if you agree with me that Atheists should be more intellectually responsible, than this is your site! However, if you think that Acharya S is a serious historian, than maybe not.