Debunking Christianity

America’s leading Evangelical Christian philosophers (influenced perhaps by the struggle to find a way to justify the devilish amount of sheer ignorance in the world) are more attracted to ideas of “non-exclusivism” (i.e., people who are not born-again nor confessing Christians can still be “saved”), including even universalism (i.e., everyone will one day be “saved”), than are America’s leading Evangelical Christian theologians, the latter of whom spout relatively more exclusivistic views based on a stricter linguistic interpretation of the Scriptures.

Though Alvin Plantinga is not a universalist, he is apparently a non-exclusivist who is attracted to the idea that more than just born-again or confessing Christians will be “saved.”

Evangelical Christian philosopher, Vic Reppert [who argues on a philosophical basis that there is a likelihood of a “second chance” after death] adds, “There really isn’t a firm quotable statement [regarding exactly what Plantinga’s views are]. However, when I used to attend SCP meeting on a regular basis, I would have to say that exclusivism was very much a minority position. The philosophers, Robert Merrihew Adams and his wife Marilyn McCord Adams, are both universalists, and next to Plantinga, they are the best-regarded [Evangelical] Christian philosophers.” [email from Reppert to Babinski, Tuesday, October 24, 2006]

Victor Reppert at his blogsite also recently posted an entry debating questions concerning God’s “middle knowledge,” titled, Gale, Adams, and universal salvation, that ended with Vic’s observation that “since Adams [mentioned above] is a card-carrying universalist, it looks like he can dodge this objection. Everyone gets saving grace.”

PHILOSOPHY AS ONE BIG “IF”
PART 1

I suspect there are even more “ifs” if everyone looked harder at every argument–from eternal damnationism to universalism to simply death and rotting. I think it would demonstrate that philosophy is one big “if” when it comes to such questions.

Such “ifs” must also include the fact that the Bible is a book of words written by human beings, and such words are not equivalent to visibly seeing God, Jesus, the afterlife. Furthermore, people who claim to have seen God and/or the afterlife are also FEW in number. And many such “sights” are brief at best, or hazy (and they grow either “hazier” or “clearer” with the passage of time, depending on whether one is relying stictly on one’s memory, or continually redefining one’s memory of one’s vision in verbal terms linked to increasingly dogmatic influences and interpretations applied from outside). Even of those few visions that some claim to have seen clearly, there’s a wide variety of things seen, not simply Christian ones. So there is no coherent interpretation that includes and explains all such visions, let alone a “theologically systematic” whole, and as I said, FEW have ever seen such things.

PHILOSOPHY AS ONE BIG “IF”
PART 2
POINTS FOR PLANTINGA AND VIC TO PONDER CONCERNING EVIL AND FREEWILL

1) If freewill was truly free than maybe it’s logically impossible to assert that a God with “freewill” can also be defined as “good,” because a God with “freewill” could also act “evil” by definition of having “freewill.” Such a “God” would then have to be defined first and foremost as “free” and His actions defined as “indeterminate” or “vacillating based on choice.”

2) Even if someone tries to argue that the definition of “freewill” (i.e., “always being able to choose either good or evil”) applies to “God,” then there’s yet another question.

Let’s accept a tri-omni good God exists. The “defense” offered for evil in that case is that anything God creates would be inherently less than God and more subject to temptations toward evil. But such an argument simply redefines the words “less than God,” as “evil,” but there is no proof that such a redefinition is necessarily true. Being “less” than “God” does not necessarily entail a creature becoming “evil,” not anymore than God’s own “freewill” might leave God in the exact same situation of always having to choose between two options. And WHATEVER MAY BE SAID IN THE ONE CASE APPLIES TO BOTH. Whatever keeps a tri-omni good God from never using His freewill to choose evil, could just as well apply to a less than tri-omni creation that came directly out of that same God. I stick by that statement, but Plantinga and Vic deny it on no provable basis that I have yet seen.

CONCLUSION

So there is no way for theistic philosophy to prove it has argued its was to reality or THE truth, because it just tries to redefine “freewill” in different terms for God and man, (or, it tries to equate the phrase “less than God” with “evil,” again without proving that it is necessarily so), just based on PRESUPPOSITIONS THAT IT MUST BE SO. And such presuppositions remain as QUESTIONABLE as any other view.

In the end the idea of evil coming out of perfect goodness remains an unproven proposition.

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All such philosophical arguments also flounder on the fact that we grow up via experiences of this cosmos. We learn about “‘good’ and ‘evil’ and the spectrum of actions lying in the grey area” in this cosmos before we ever learn how to separate those examples and concepts fully from one another in the form of “words,” and claim they are fully and absolutely separate from one another. So the separation takes place afterwards (after one’s mental development and contact with the world), and only after such a separation do philosophers take one of those abstracted concepts and try to build a bridge over to the opposte word and concept:

Perfect goodness—> Evil

When I read about arguments that try to create such a bridge I can’t help noting all of the sheer ingenuity and guess work employed in the process of trying to find a way to bridge those two things that WE as human beings experienced and learned about as they already co-existed together, a world with both good evil and many grey areas of various shades as well. People living in this cosmos in which all those things co-existed, have learned how to pull such things apart mentally, and imagine only one of them existing alone in the beginning, then philosophers try to mentally derive one FROM the other. But that proves nothing about reality itself, the one in which we were raised and in which such things co-existed already.

It’s like beginning with

Perfect Cold—-> Hotness

Perfect Darkness—-> Luminosity

A philosopher can of course argue based on scientific knowledge that the answer in the above cases is that molecules start to move faster, generating more heat and even light. But then the philosopher must also recognize that “perfect coldness” has no molecules that move faster than “perfect coldness” allows. Not if you begin with NOTHING BUT “perfect coldness.” So you can NEVER get to the opposite side or cross the bridge from the initial defining point–you can’t cross the bridge from one word to the other if both are already so well defined to the complete exclusion of the opposite word. (*Don’t misunderstand me, I am speaking in terms of the limitation of going from one abstract word or concept to another, which by definition excludes the former word or concept. I am not speaking in terms of a creationist argument in which the cosmos began in perfect darkness and coldness–and even that argument is fallacious because scientists admit many possibilities not simply the one that the cosmos was created out of an inert cold and dark mass. They admit cosmoses might oscillate, give birth to other cosmoses, there might be an infinity of cosmoses and super-cosmoses throughout infinite time and space. And using “God” to explain the existence of the cosmos is simply to employ an even greater mystery (”God”) to explain a lesser one, a more immediate and universally recognizable one.)

Now consider these questions and how they might be bridged:

Perfect Cold—-> Hotness

Perfect Darkness—-> Luminosity

In nature, coldness can and does sometimes warm up and/or cool down again; and darkness can and does grow brighter, and/or dimmer again. We observe such things happening on earth and via telescopes. So in nature CHANGES OCCUR, including oscillating ones. We observe that to be a fact of which there is no facter. Because there’s a variety and mix of forces and co-existence of forces in the cosmos, all of which exist TOGETHER, side by side, rather than there being “PERFECT cold” or “PERFECT darkness.” Nature, isn’t “perfect” in either respect, and unlike philosophy, nature appears to be multi-sided, changeable and filled with the co-existence of things philosphers simply want to purify down into “perfect” words of which there is no worder.

Therefore, philosophy invents and relies on abstractions from nature that philosophers then further elevate to “perfections” or “absolutes,” but they are picked a bit here and there from nature, like gnats from nature’s hair, and philosophers claim that each particular thing they plucked from nature mentally is the “IT” that began it all.

That’s probably why philosophers continues running into the same debates and obstacles to agreement since the pre-Socratics, because philosophy begins with fragments of the whole natural world of experience and then after fragmenting nature has to try and reunite the fragments back together to get THIS whole cosmos. Philosophy is the Humpty Dumpty rhyme writ large.

Thus the BIG QUESTIONS appear to lay beyond the ability of philosophers to get people to agree upon their answers. Philosophy cannot prove it’s various conflicting explanations for reality, for this cosmos in which things co-exist, mix, and change. Philosophy has so far proven nothing. It is a mere wax nose on the faces of all philosophers, as flexible as their brains that keep alive all sorts of opposing views and viewpoints concerning the BIG questions.

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BACK TO THE QUESTION OF “ETERNAL SEPARATION”

Why speak about “eternal separation” as if change is no longer possible after some point? If there is “freewill” and if “freewill” is so vitally important, then why not retain freewill and that means retaining possibilities of change throughout eternity? Maybe people have their “up” and “down” periods throughout eternity? If you’re looking at options PURELY PHILOSOPHICALL then eternal oscillation with no point of “no return,” remains as good a purely mental option as any. But most people simply want the game of philosophy to end in some definitive way. They don’t even begin to think in terms of life the universe and everything as an INFINITE game (rather than a finite one). I suppose that’s partly because philosophers are lazy like the rest of the primates on this planet. Finish the job, reach the point of no return and get some sleep. (But read James Carse’s FINITE AND INFINITE GAMES too, as well as Alan Watts’s THE BOOK OF THE TABOO: AGAINST KNOWING WHO YOU REALLY ARE.)

Of course, this is nothing new to educated people, but I still read where Christians proclaim the logical problem of evil is dead. What gives? In the future if someone says such an ignorant thing, refer them here, and to the books listed below.

The Logical (Deductive) Problem of Evil is an argument whereby it is claimed that there is a logical (or deductive) inconsistency with the existence of evil and God’s omnipotence, omnibenelovence, and/or omniscience. J.L. Mackie’s argument was that God is either not good, not omnipotent, or evil doesn’t exist. He argues: 1) a good being always eliminates evil as far as it can; and 2) there are no limits to what an omnipotent being can do. Therefore such a God cannot exist–it is a logically impossibility. He asks: 1) “Why couldn’t God have made people such that they always freely choose the good?” And, 2) “Why should God refrain from controlling evil wills?” [“Evil and Omnipotence” Mind, Vol. LXIV, No. 254, April 1955.]

Planting’s Free Will Defense seeks to answer this problem in his book, God Freedom, and Evil (Eerdmans, 1974). He argues that it is logically possible that there is a state of affairs in which humans are free and always do what is right. But he argues that God cannot bring about any possible world he wishes that contain these free agents with significant choice making capabilities. He introduces the concept of transworld depravity: it is logically possible that every free agent makes a wrong choice, and that everyone suffers from it. This is crucial for the free will defense to work. But the whole notion of free will has many problems. Plantinga also suggests that it is logically possible that fallen angels cause all of the natural evil in our world! According Richard Swinburne, such an explanation for natural evil is an “ad hoc hypothesis,” [The Existence of God (Oxford, 1979), p. 202], and as such, according to J.L. Mackie, “tends to disconfirm the hypothesis that there is a god.” [The Miracle of Theism (Oxford, 1982), p. 162)].

Most Christians claim the logical problem has been solved, but there are still versions of the logical problem of evil that have not been sufficiently answered. There are those written by Quentin Smith, “A Sound Logical Argument From Evil;” Hugh LaFollette, “Plantinga on the Free Will Defense;” Richard La Croix, “Unjustified Evil and God’s Choice” [all to be found in The Impossibility of God, eds. Michael Martin and Ricki Monnier (Prometheus Books, 2003)], Richard Gale’s On the Nature and Existence of God (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 98-178, and Graham Oppy’s book Arguing About Gods (Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 262-268, who argues at length for the thesis that Plantinga’s treatment of the logical problem of evil is inconsistent in several respects. See also A.M. Weisberger’s critique of Plantinga’s free will defense in her book Suffering Belief (Peter Lang, 1999), pp. 163-184. Just because Plantinga answered Mackie’s formulation, and just because Mackie admitted it, doesn’t mean that all formulations have been answered, or that others agree with Mackie’s admission.

Christian people like to tout any successes they have since they have so few. But it’s propaganda, plain and simple, and based on out of date information. Besides, even if there is no logical disproof of the existence of God because of intense suffering in this world, that doesn’t say much at all. The reason is that there are very few, if any logical disproofs of anything.

Consider this deductive argument from Richard R. La Croix: “If God is the greatest possible good then if God had not created there would be nothing but the greatest possible good. And since God didn’t need to create at all, then the fact that he did create produced less than the greatest possible good.” “Perhaps God could not, for some perfectly plausible reason, create a world without evil, but then it would seem that he ought not to have created at all.” “Prior to creation God knew that if he created there would be evil, so being wholly good he ought not to have created.” [The Impossibility of God, pp.119-124]. After analyzing La Croix’s argument, A.M. Weisberger argued that “contrary to popular theistic opinion, the logical form of the argument is still alive and beating.” [Suffering Belief, 1999, p. 39].

Why did God create something in the first place? Theists will typically defend the goodness of God by arguing he could not have created a world without some suffering and evil. But what reason is there for creating anything at all? Theists typically respond by saying creation was an expression of God’s love. But wasn’t God already complete in love? If love must be expressed, then God needed to create, and that means he lacked something. Besides, a perfectly good God should not have created anything at all, if by creating something, anything, it also brought about so much intense suffering. By doing so he actually reduced the amount of total goodness there is, since God alone purportedly has absolute goodness.

A proverb is a short, traditional saying that speaks of an obvious truth. It is not mandatory, in that a proverb must always be true, nor is it universal to cover every possible situation. We utilize them to express a brief analogy to explain a propensity.

“Locking the barn door after the horse escapes” reminds us that preventative measures are useless after events have unfolded. “Don’t cry over spilt milk” tells us to not bother whining about the lost horse. “A stitch in time saves nine” tells us, in the future, to put in preventative measures prior to losing the horse. So does “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Of course, because they are not a universal truth, a proverb does not guarantee results. Despite the sayings focusing on prevention, “An apple a day” does not insure keeping the Doctor away. In fact other maxims caution the “Best laid plans of mice and men can go awry.” Even locked barn doors.

The Bible also provides us with numerous proverbs. Many contained within one book appropriately entitled “Proverbs.” I am informed, though, that this book—this Bible, is unlike any other book in the course of history, due to it being the sole written document with divine involvement.

What, then, is the difference between a normal human proverb, and a proverb that God had a hand in?

One of the quickest contradictions claimed in the entire Bible can be found in Proverbs. First we are informed:

Do not answer a fool according to his folly, Lest you also be like him. Prov. 24:4

Without even taking a breath, the very next statement:

Answer a fool according to his folly, Lest he be wise in his own eyes. Prov. 24:5

If these were commands, we would be left scratching our heads, wondering—do we answer a fool according to his folly or not? But of course they are not commands. No, these are proverbs. Pithy sayings that are not intended to be universal truths, nor universal commands.

(And it is poor use of their meaning to claim a contradiction in this context.)

In fact, we expect proverbs, due to their nature of covering all situations, to conflict. “Many hands make light work” flies in the face of “Too many cooks spoil the soup.” Should one be a “rolling stone that gathers no moss” or “still waters that run deep”? When approaching a situation is it “He who hesitates is lost” or “Only fools jump in where angels fear to tread”?

It is therefore not a surprise that even a divinely inspired Proverb would conflict with another.

Which leaves me puzzling as to the difference between a proverb stated by a human, and a proverb stated by a human that is claimed to be touched by God.

Both are not intended to be true all the time. Both are applicable to only certain situations. Both are cute, pithy statements to convey a picture of a fraction of the human experience. Neither is meant to be all-encompassing, always true, always guaranteed.

What makes a stamp of “God-approved” of any real significance? Sure we can be impressed—the fact that one saying is claimed to be from a God, and another is mere human—but if both are of pragmatic equal application, doesn’t that lessen the “God Impact”? The fact that God can do no better than humans when it comes to proverbs?

Imagine I showed you two chocolate cake recipes. One from Betty Crocker herself, the other from a guy named “Fred” down the street. At first, one would expect the Crocker recipe to be better—she has the better credentials. But what if the recipes tasted the same? Do we care, at that point, who has the better credentials?

What if someone claimed they had a cake recipe from God? There could be no higher credential! Yet when we make this cake, what if it is as tasty as any other? Would we start to suspect the person is attempting to give the recipe a greater air of legitimacy by claiming it was divine?

Most of the book could be summed up in “Work hard. Don’t associate with evil people. Use your common sense.” Something humans could figure out on their own. Did we really need divine intervention to recognize that: “A faithful witness does not lie, But a false witness will utter lies.”? (Prov. 14:5) I thought that was the definition of a “false witness” !

Don’t get me wrong—I like many of the Proverbs. I have always appreciated “Like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows, and death, is the man who deceives his neighbor, And says, ‘I was only joking!’” (Prov. 26:18-19)

But I like Aesop’s fables, and Shakespearean sayings as well. Does not make them divine.

What is the distinguishing mark of a God-given proverb? What makes it any more beneficial than a human one?

For centuries people have continued to accept the human claim that what other humans have said involved God’s interaction. Perhaps it is time for them to accept some of their own sayings:

“The simple believes every word, But the prudent considers well his steps.” Prov. 14:15.

Additions to the original article, Debunking Christianity - Women Speak Out! A list of intelligent, compassionate, creative women who won’t keep silent. Picking up where the previous list ended, the latest additions include the following…

22) Julie Galambush–Holds religious-studies degrees from William and Mary, Emory, and Yale Divinity School. Formerly an ordained Baptist minister, she is a convert to Judaism and has written, The Reluctant Parting: How the New Testament’s Jewish Writers Created a Christian Book (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005) Interviewedon Eye on Books. Another interview.

23) Dr. Amy Jill-Levine–Professor at Vanderbilt in the Graduate Dept. of Religion, one of the best-known New Testament scholars in the U.S., and co-editor with Dale C. Allison Jr. and John Dominic Crossan of The Historical Jesus in Context (Princeton Readings in Religions) (Princeton University Press; New Ed. Oct., 2006).

Before teaching at Vanderbilt she was the Sara Lawrence Lightfoot Assoc. Professor of Religion at Swarthmore College and has taught at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Levine’s numerous publications address Christian Origins, Jewish-Christian Relations, and Sexuality, Gender, and the Bible. Her books include Women Like This: New Perspectives on Jewish Women in the Greco-Roman World, and, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (HarperSanFrancisco, Dec., 2006). She has also recorded the “Introduction to the Old Testament” as well as “Great Figures of the Old Testament” and “Great Figures of the New Testament” for the Teaching Company’s “Great Lectures” series. [Her presentations are quite good and keep one’s interest. I heard her first series on the O.T.–E.T.B.] A self-described “Yankee Jewish feminist who teaches in a predominantly Protestant divinity school in the buckle of the Bible Belt,” Levine combines historical-critical rigor, literary-critical sensitivity, and a frequent dash of humor.

24) Kelly Kerney–Raised in a Pentecostal church, author of a novel that reviewers are shouting about in tongues, Born Again. Her book blog is on myspace.com here.

25) Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady–Filmmakers, producers of a documentary titled, Jesus Camp(2006) about an intensively religious Pentecostal/Charismatic Christian camp to which some conservative Christians send their kids. The film’s myspace.com blog is located here.

26) Amy Gattie–Liberal, agnostic filmmaker raised by conservative Christian parents explores this experience in her first documentary film, “The Greatest Commandment is to Love,” which documents mission relief trips to Kosovo that she took with her parents over several years. Gattie chronicles her journey toward understanding and communication with her parents and their beliefs, and makes some interesting discoveries about the nature of love, compassion and friendship that transcend specific belief systems. She even points point out the universal problem with self-righteousness that we all struggle with, conservative religionists and liberals alike. Amy’s interview published in SF Gate appears here.

Interviews with folks other than Amy whose spiritual journeys are interesting can be found in SF Gate’s “Finding My Religion” series. Search their archives for tales of other religious journeys here. You can even E-mail SF Gate with suggestions for interview subjects!

27) Monique El-Faizy–Former Christian fundamentalist, author of God and Country: How Evangelicals Have Become America’s New Mainstream (2006), and journalist for the New York Daily News (her work has also appeared in The Guardian, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and GQ). Her personal profile at amazon.com is located here.

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News story related to Women and Christianity:

Sunday School Teacher Let Go For Being Female
Woman Taught Sunday School For 54 Years
POSTED: August 21, 2006

WATERTOWN, N.Y. — The pastor of a church that has stopped letting women teach Sunday school said that won’t affect his decisions as a city councilman in upstate New York.

Rev. Timothy LaBouf dismissed a female Sunday School teacher this month, saying a woman can perform any job — outside the church.

The First Baptist Church in Watertown dismissed Mary Lambert Aug. 9 after adopting what it called a literal interpretation of the Bible.

The reverend recently dismissed Lambert, who had taught Sunday school for 54 years, citing the biblical advice of the apostle Paul: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.”

Lambert has publicly criticized the decision.

The church board said other issues were behind Lambert’s dismissal, but it did not say what they were.

LaBouf, who also serves on the Watertown City Council, issued a statement saying his stance against women teaching men in Sunday school would not affect his decisions as a city leader in Watertown, where all five members of the council are men but the city manager who runs the city’s day-to-day operations is a woman.

“I believe that a woman can perform any job and fulfill any responsibility that she desires to” outside the church, LaBouf wrote Saturday.

Mayor Jeffrey Graham, however, was bothered by the reasons given Lambert’s dismissal. “If what’s said in that letter reflects the councilman’s views, those are disturbing remarks in this day and age,” Graham said. “Maybe they wouldn’t have been disturbing 500 years ago, but they are now.”

A Christian seminarian (at a Southern Baptist seminary–a conservative inerrantist institution), named Chris Petersen, has composed an article titled, “The Triumph of the Gospel of John in American Evangelicalism,” that includes some questions I too struggled with before I left the fold.

The questions this student raises are not new. They arise whenever students and scholars of the Bible compare the three synoptic Gospels with the Gospel of John. For instance, professor James D. G. Dunn in his most recent monumental theological works on Jesus has acknowledged that the historical Jesus most probably didn’t speak a word of what the Gospel of John portrays Jesus as having said.

Chris also has a five-part series on the discrepancy between the day of the week in which Jesus died according to the three Synoptic Gospels, compared with the day mentioned in the Gospel of John, titled, “The Date of Passover and the Pitfall of Inerrancy.”

(Perhaps J. P. Holding and Dave Armstrong might consider reading Chris’s pieces and offer to explain to the bright young lad why his questions, like Dr. Dunn’s, aren’t worth focusing any serious attention on.)