Christianity as literary criticism

In a Facebook thread about the Sunday Assembly I mentioned (in the most vague and general terms) my concerns about its pseudo-religious components. A link was posted to the transcript of Dave Tomlinson's contribution to one of the Sunday Assembly's events, which expressed the kind of indeterminate non-theology that I find pretty vacuous. I responded on Facebook as follows:

Tomlinson is equivocating. He's using "truth" in the sense of truth that doesn't have to be factually true. This is all very nice and fine — I value "story" greatly myself — but it's no more than literary criticism. How do prayers and miracles relate to the kind of "truth" Tomlinson talks about? What about the bodily resurrection of Christ? Is the Easter story no more than "story", containing the kind of "truth" that doesn't have to be actually true? It's all very wishy-washy, and can be made to mean anything anyone fancies it means.

Harry Potter is true, in the sense Tomlinson means. But it's not factually true. If there's a manual explaining how to perform the spells related in JK Rowling's series, I'm not going to believe the spells actually work unless someone can demonstrate that they do.

In the face of a claim that "the meat of Christianity is the teaching of Jesus and his following through on it to the cross"  — and the implication that miracles and prayer are side-issues — I followed up with this:

I have no problem with learning life-lessons from literature or myth or anything else we might categorise as "story" — and as far as I'm concerned there's nothing in literary criticism that I need to be skeptical about. I am skeptical about miracles and prayer as portrayed by those who say miracles are more than mere interpreted legend — that actual supernatural events took place — and those who say prayer is actual two-way communication between human and supernatural entities, rather than some kind of objectified meditation. I appreciate that there are many gradations of "Christian" — from the inerrantist literalist fundamentalist to the "sea-of-faith" virtual atheist who thinks Christianity is a-nice-idea-shame-it-isn't-true. Each to their own, I say. The kind of Christian I find annoying, however, is one who espouses the metaphorical view when challenged about miracles and prayer, only to claim intimate knowledge of the mind of God when challenged about scriptural morality in the public square.

As usual this is an ongoing thread. Check it out for any further developments.

Cold cases solved by magic? — J. Warner Wallace's Cold Case Christianity

I got the Kindle version of this book for free a few months ago. It's divided broadly into two sections, the first dealing with the techniques of criminal detection, with specific reference to "cold cases" — unsolved crimes (usually murders) where the original witnesses are no longer available, although there is documentary evidence of what they said during the original investigation. Wallace draws parallels between these cold cases and the claims of Christianity where, likewise, the original witnesses to the life of Jesus are no longer available, although there is documentary evidence of what they saw and heard. This is fine as far as it goes, but there is a glaring mismatch in the kind of evidence we should be looking for. Murders are commonplace; resurrections are not. So although being convinced "beyond reasonable doubt" ought to be as sufficient to draw an inference regarding a resurrection as it is regarding a murder, the real question is what counts as "reasonable" in either scenario. The kind of evidence it is reasonable to expect for an event as extraordinary as a resurrection, is a different order of extraordinariness from that for a commonplace murder. From that perspective it appears Wallace is presenting a false equivalence.

It seems sensible enough, however, to use skills honed in the investigation of cold cases and apply them to the historicity of the New Testament, even if the subjects of investigation are not directly equivalent. But there's a nagging doubt that irked me throughout Wallace's anecdotes about cases he's worked: he appears certain that his techniques always produced a correct result — that he always got his man. I can recall no anecdotes in the book about cases where the defence was successful — where the accused was found not guilty. Presumably such cases exist (unless Wallace's skills are 100 per cent "successful"); it would have been interesting to read Wallace's interpretation of why he failed to secure a conviction. Perhaps he would say that the jury got it wrong. This is an important consideration, given that at the beginning of the book he makes much of the investigator's presuppositions and how they can influence the interpretation of evidence.

The presupposition Wallace seems most concerned about when considering evidence for the historicity of Jesus is the skeptic's alleged presupposition against supernaturalism. This concern is often expressed by religious apologists, and one can understand why, but here it appears a bit incongruous. Did Wallace have a presupposition against supernaturalism when working his cold case murders? If not, I'd like to know how he would deal with supernatural claims in witness statements. It's possible — even probable — that no witnesses ever made supernatural claims, so perhaps the question would not have arisen.

There's a reason such a question is likely not to have arisen, and that's because we do not see credible supernatural occurrences in the modern age. Ancient literature may report magical occurrences as if they are all in a day's work. These days, however, not so much. The vast majority of reported modern miracles, when properly investigated, turn out to be not supernatural. It is therefore entirely reasonable to presuppose that supernatural events reported in ancient literature were not, in fact, supernatural.

With regard to the motivations of the apostles, martyred for their beliefs, we must consider the possibility of self-delusion and hysteria. We know from modern studies of cults (religious and otherwise) that group dynamics and psychology can make people behave in very strange ways, including changing their beliefs. This could easily result in a kind of mass delusion about what really happened after the crucifixion. And even if some accounts were written down as early as a mere five years later as Wallace suggests, that's still plenty of time for memory to play some very cruel tricks. Some skeptics contend that the disciples engaged in a conspiracy regarding the resurrection of Jesus. Wallace devotes several pages to the infeasibility of large scale conspiracies without mentioning one obvious fact: large scale conspiracies always fail, except for the successful ones. But it's the successful ones we never hear about.

The second half of the book is an examination of the New Testament text, in an effort to show that as a collection of reports of what actually happened it is reliable, despite apparent contradictions, omissions and barely credible occurrences. This is necessarily compressed, presumably to fit some deep study into a limited word-count, but the compression contributes to a certain air of desperation exhibited in this section of the book. Wallace makes much of the correlations and consistency between various copies of the original autographs, claiming that these show that we can be reasonably sure what those autographs actually said. But as far as I'm aware the copies do not state what generation they are. Even if there are thousands of early copies that say the same thing, we cannot know whether or not they all derive from a very few (now lost) first or second generation copies that all contained the same errors or distortions.

J. Warner Wallace was the guest on Unbelievable? yesterday, answering questions from two skeptics. Having made a special effort to finish the book before listening to the programme, I didn't really gain anything extra from hearing the author précis his case, so the programme was a bit disappointing. I remain skeptical of the claims of the New Testament, and continue my presupposition against supernaturalism.

Who needs truth when you have apologetics?

Last week's Unbelievable? aired a talk given by Premier Radio's favourite Christian apologist William Lane Craig, at the 2011 Bethinking conference as part of the Reasonable Faith Tour of the UK.

I understand that this talk was given to Christians, so I was concerned to hear Craig begin by misrepresenting the meaning of secularism. In fact he seemed to base his whole talk on an incorrect premise: that the "secularisation" of Britain was a bad thing because it was based in a naturalistic philosophy that denies God. But secularism is merely the idea that matters of religious belief should be independent of government (and vice versa) — and as such is as beneficial to those who hold religious beliefs as it is to those who don't.

Later on — in what might be classed as an appeal to non-authority — Craig quoted Satan, further damning any credibility he might have otherwise retained in my view. Perhaps he just doesn't see how risible his arguments sound when he plumbs such depths; he seems happy enough blowing his own trumpet about how easily he can fill a hall with an audience. Sure, he's preaching to the converted and trying to inspire them, and I appreciate that a little hyperbole can go a long way.

But Craig shouldn't be let off the hook for playing fast and loose with facts. He describes the Crucifixion as the one historical fact about Jesus of Nazareth that is universally acknowledged among historical critical scholars. This is of course true, so long as your definition of "historical critical scholars" includes only those who acknowledge the Crucifixion as a historical fact.

Craig also seems very fond of referring to "The Church" as if it were a single homogenous entity, when we all know that this couldn't be further from the truth. During the Q & A he was asked about evangelising to Darwinists and postmodernists, and he advised skirting around such issues:

My evangelistic strategy is to set the bar as low as you can; make it as easy as possible to become a Christian. There are very few things you need to believe to be a Christian: you've got to believe that God exists, that Jesus Christ is divine, that he died for your sins and rose from the dead, and that you will be saved by grace, through placing your faith in his atoning death — and really that's about it, you know?

Huh? Is that all?

The final question was about Christ being the "second Adam", and how this could be true if Adam didn't actually exist as a real person. Craig said he affirmed the historical Adam, but for those who don't, the phrase "second Adam" would be purely symbolic. For me, this lackadaisical attitude to facts exemplifies so much of Christian apologetics, and is why I find it utterly unconvincing.

A challenging way to prove you're a True ChristianTM

Skepticule co-host Paul Thompson has issued a challenge to all Christians (and two in particular) calling for them to prove with hard cash that they are indeed True Christians^TM in accordance with the teachings of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament:

http://skepticalprobe.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/eric-and-sye-only-in-it-for-money.html

So head over to The Skeptical Probe to monitor progress as these True Christians^TM show what they're made of.

Or alternatively, anticipate the prospect of porcine aviation.

Christian faith is like soup*

Mark Vernon

In the Guardian, Mark Vernon comments on new books by Rowan Williams and Francis Spufford, beginning by asking, "What's it like to be a Christian?" He expands this to mean, "...what is faith as experienced?"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/aug/19/rowan-williams-francis-spufford-christian

On Spufford's Unapologetic:

A central worry for him is not that the rational justification for belief has been undone. Faith is not about that anyway: as Coleridge noted, the best argument for Christianity is that "it fits the human heart".

As if "fits the human heart" means anything. Don't get me wrong, I'm quite the fan of metaphorical language. But metaphor (along with simile, its more straight-talking cousin) is useful only up to a point. Great for feelings, intuition and opinion, but not much cop at conveying fact. Metaphors and similes are useful for pointing out near equivalencies, but unless one is aware of the inevitable mismatch between the metaphor and the thing for which it is metaphorical, one can be easily misled — or unknowingly uninformed — as to the actual nature of the thing being discussed.

On Williams' The Lion's World:

None of this proves the existence of God in the way a science would demand because its evidence arises from the inner lives of individuals.

Evidence of what? Indigestion? More imprecise mystery-mongering.

It does, though, reflect a strand in the philosophical discussion of God, often forgotten today. Pascal drew attention to the problem God has in revealing himself to creatures he has made to be free, because if God were to offer irrefutable evidence then that would force a relationship of coercion, not love. God's solution, Pascal proposed, is to "appear openly to those who seek him with all their heart, and [to remain] hidden from those who shun him".

How very … convenient.

Williams' book is largely about C. S. Lewis, so the preponderance of what Daniel C. Dennett calls deepities should not be a surprise.

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*You didn't notice your soup bowl is directly under a leaking roof. No wonder it takes you so long to finish it, and no wonder it's so … thin.

"You're a plagiarist!" "Well you're a liar!"

Catching up with Unbelievable? this evening (which means I'm only a week behind) I listened to a debate between Robert Spencer and Adnan Rashid on the subject "Did Muhammad Exist?" I'm not particularly bothered whether he existed or not — I'm more interested in what Muslims believe and why, and what effect those beliefs have on the personal autonomy of individuals.

But as an advert for calm, rational discourse between people of different faiths, this radio programme was, to say the least, unedifying. Outright accusations of plagiarism and lying have no place in such discussions if they are to be at all productive.

The impression I came away with was that the evidence (or lack of it) on either side of the argument is flimsy, with neither participant able or willing to substantiate his claims, and so the discussion descended into name-calling.

Not Unbelievable?'s finest hour.

Download the mp3 audio of the show here (if you must):
http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/8d42bd9a-f9ff-4bf5-b7bb-d96d5c19f526.mp3

Choosing Hats or choosing facts?

It's time for the Choosing Hats blog to change its name. In a post by Matthias McMahon (a mad hatter I've not encountered before¹) titled "But They're All The Same" an attempt is made to show that Christianity, amongst all religions, is exclusively the correct one.

What McMahon does not address here is why it's necessary for any of them to be correct. He begins with a statement that might, however, be true:

"It is often alleged by many atheists that all religions are the same, and all religions are false, and since Christianity is a religion, therefore Christianity must also be false."

Perhaps some — even many — atheists allege this, but it's not a line I would take. My problem with Christianity is not that it's a religion amongst many, it's that the truth-claims of Christianity are insufficiently substantiated. McMahon then offers a decidedly odd proof:

"Legend has it there was a tree dedicated to Thor many years ago. It was said that cutting this tree down would incur the wrath of Thor. A Christian missionary proceeded to cut the tree down, and to the surprise of everyone but the Christian, Thor did not appear in his thunderous array and strike down the missionary. If cutting down that tree should have incurred the wrath of Thor, and it ultimately did not, then it’s reasonable to conclude Thor does not exist."

"Legend has it…"? Did the missionary establish the veracity of the dedication before using it to disprove the existence of Thor? If I was a follower of Thor I might claim that the legend was misinterpreted, or that Thor's wrath would be manifest in other ways than a rather crass strike of thunder. This smells of a straw man.

Then we get our regular dose of PABS²:

"“Facts” of reality are interpreted underneath the umbrella of “Nature of Facts.” Facts are secondary to the meaning or nature of Fact. This explains much more fully the out-of-hand rejection of religion and gods by certain atheists. It’s not, “I’m not convinced that this religion is true,” but more like, “No religion is true. Therefore any fact supporting any religion isn’t valid.” But he seldom articulates this, because he is often unaware that he possess his own take on the Nature of Facts. His feigned neutrality is in reality a plain bias rooted in sinful suppression of his knowledge of the truth of God."

This straw man is rotting so much it will spontaneously combust. But McMahon gallops on regardless, head down, PA blinkers on:

"The Christian religion is so robust as to include claims regarding the very reasoning abilities of the atheist in his denial of Christianity’s truth. Indeed, there is nothing the atheist can do or say that *can’t* be explained by Christianity. The the scheme of Evolution, the most popular  fallback reason for the non-Christian, depends upon ideas and preconditions for which the atheist cannot account. The moment an atheist (or any other non-Christian) opens his mouth to utter a syllable in denial of Christianity, he has begged the question in favor of Christianity’s truth."

And then this:

"But, just so that I’m being perfectly clear: I’m not alleging that Christianity is just the best explanation for reality. I’m asserting that it is the *only consistent* explanation for reality, and therefore the best. And since the doctrine of Christianity is the formulation of reality given to us by the very God who created reality, it’s only appropriate to affirm such, unashamed. As such, it has never been refuted. Particular historical facts surrounding events in the Bible have been questioned, but only by men who on better days would admit their reasoning isn’t perfect all the time, and their hyper-skepticism regarding biblical history consequently destroys all knowledge they could possibly hope for, resulting in special pleading on their own part. Grand “scientific” schemes have been constructed as an allegedly viable alternative to the Biblical account, but these constructs fail to be either consistent with themselves or comprehensive enough to stand on the same ground of Christianity in competition."

Yeah, we know; Goddidit. There's more of course, but frankly I can't be arsed. I'm done with this crap.

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¹Turns out this is McFormtist without the wacko username.
²Presuppositional apologetic bullshit.

What's in your head counts more than what's on it

Those headgear option selectors are at it again. Talk about parading your blatant obscurantism for all to see. All together now — assert with me:

"Christianity is a process. It is a commitment, a vow, a pledge. It is a complete overhaul and reformation. The creatures of God, created for the purpose of living and breathing the truth and glory of their Creator: that is Christianity."

Inevitably the presup spiel bursts forth (though McFormtist manages to achieve this without using the word "account"):

"As difficult as it may be to admit, even unbelievers are creatures of God and hence bear His image, and so due to common grace they are aware of such things as double-speak and hypocrisy, even if they aren’t consistent in their application of that judgment to themselves."

I'm wondering (again) exactly what "...bear His image" actually means. Like a tattoo? A brand? An earmark? And amongst the professed gratitude for atheistic criticism we of course we get the usual PA claim (which can never be delivered without its hallmark smugness):

"Along the same lines of our response to the problem of evil, we should be thankful whenever we see unbelievers calling these things out. It demonstrates unbelievers’ recognition of evil. We must be careful to call evil “evil” and not make excuses for it. We must agree that evil is evil, but we must also be ready to make specific qualifications for what exactly constitutes it. We need to show them that they have no basis to call anything evil on their own terms, and that only on ours can they make any sense of evil and have a reason to fight against it."

Sez you.

(Reposted from Facebook.)

Judas: the ultimate betrayal of Dembski and Licona

So we come to the end, the final chapter, the ultimate culmination, the concluding, cogent case for the existence of God. At least, that's what I'd expect, in a tome touted as convincing evidence for the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, everywhere-present and perfectly good deity who created the universe. Evidence for God: 50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy, and Science, edited by William Dembski and Michael Licona, begins with this introduction (copied from Google Books):

 

Given the intention of the book as stated by the editors in their introduction, I'm surprised to find that the final chapter (number 50) is Craig A. Evans' "What Should We Think About the Gospel of Judas?" Evans' conclusion is that the Gospel of Judas should be pretty much ignored as non-canonical and untrue, so it makes for a limp ending — almost as if the editors ran out of material to make up their 50 "arguments". The chapter itself is not uninteresting, being a narrative of the discovery and subsequent chequered history of a papyrus manuscript, but it's entirely inappropriate as a concluding chapter to a book with such lofty declared aims. I can't help wondering if its editors lost not only interest in their project but also their will to live.

The story told of Judas Iscariot in this gospel is at odds with the Judas from the canonical gospels, and therefore has a fascination of its own, but it's irrelevant to the book's stated purpose, so it seems pointless to go into it any further. Evans says the story isn't true, for a variety of reasons (which with a little thought — and honesty — could also be applied to most of the New Testament).

So what are we left with? This book was presented as good evidence for faith, for God, for Jesus, for the Bible. It's none of those. If this is the best that Christian apologetics can produce, those students in Bart Ehrman's class are destined to be atheists.

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4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbbible.aspx?pageid=8589952746
Click here for my reviews of the other 49 chapters...

Of hats and horses

It is always amusing to hear some of the language that non-Christians, and especially atheists, use in their assaults on the Christian faith and defenses of their own position.

Thus begins a post by Chris Bolt at Choosing Hats. Interesting to see that “Christianity is a Man-made Religion”— the title of the post — is considered an assault, when it's no more than a statement of belief — an interpretation of reality, based on the available evidence.

Presumably the atheist thinks it is somewhat problematic and perhaps even insulting to the Christian to dismiss his or her position as “man-made.” We can set aside the obvious “problem” with using “man” this way in the current academic climate. We can also set aside that the unbeliever almost always merely asserts without argument that Christianity is man-made. We may then note that the statement as it stands is no insult or argument against Christianity anyway, for there is a sense in which Christianity is man-made. The Bible, for example, was written by men. But it does not follow that it was not also God-breathed.

Presumably? Why presume, when one can ask? I'll save Chris the trouble and state that no, saying Christianity is man-made is not meant as an insult. It is, however, problematic more than somewhat, in that there's a lack of evidence for Christianity being other than man-made. (This is most clearly embodied in the statement, "Man is made in the image and likeness of God," when an impartial observer of Christianity can see that the reverse is obviously the case.) Chris then switches horses to claim that an accusation of being man-made is not, in fact, an insult or an argument anyway, but switches back again to use "man-made" as an argument against atheism. It's all very confusing:

But turn the apparent attempt at an objection around. What is it about unbelief and atheism in particular that is not man-made? Logic is generally considered conventional. It is man-made. Science is one of the greatest tools for advancement that the human race has ever devised. It is, of course, man-made. Morality is often thought to be subjective. It is man-made. And even where different approaches to logic, morality, and science appear in the atheist bag of tricks they are ultimately reducible to the allegedly autonomous subject. Take away autonomy and you do not have atheism anymore. Everything in atheism is made up. By definition.

Most of that could be true, but the last two sentences don't make sense. The definition of atheism I use is "lack of belief in a god or gods". There's nothing to make up there. My atheism does of course imply more than just a lack of god-belief; my worldview, based on lack of such belief, involves founding my beliefs about the real world on what I can reasonably infer to be an accurate representation of that reality. This is the exact opposite of making stuff up.

Of course the immediate response is that the empirical world somehow dictates our logic, science, and morality to us. But the view that the empirical world speaks to us in such a way that our thoroughly theory-laden approaches to knowledge do not come to bear upon our understanding of it is helplessly naïve. Atheists are out to set us back hundreds if not thousands of years with that ridiculous suggestion!

Methinks the godly are too tied up in notions of diktat to appreciate that the empirical world is not in the business of dictating to anyone — in logic, science, morality or anything else. I, on the other hand, do indeed appreciate that I'm a product of my environment, and it behooves me to be mindful of my evolutionary heritage.

Chris's next few paragraphs delve into a series of strained analogies that I can't be bothered to unravel, save to suggest a fable of my own: when Chris and his PA ilk eventually get to Heaven they'll find it's a very small place bounded by an unscalable high wall, which God has built around their particular patch of Paradise to fool them into thinking they're the only ones there.*

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*Not a statement of belief.

Engage with PA BS? No thanks.

There's a reason practitioners of presuppositional apologetics (PA) use the word "presupposition". They presuppose not only the existence of the Christian God (which to an unbeliever is a frankly laughable methodology), but also that logic and reason are in some sense supernatural or "transcendent". That's why PA is based on the TAG — the transcendental argument for God.

The presuppers admit their argument is circular, but claim everyone else's is circular too, challenging people to account for their ability to reason, but without using reason to do so. Another ploy is to demand people explain how it is possible for them to know anything, if they don't claim to have absolute certainty: "Is it possible that you could be wrong about everything you claim to know?" Any claim that absolute certainty is impossible is met with "Are you absolutely certain of that?" — to which the answer, logically, is no. It all boils down to basic epistemology: how do you know anything?

At bottom, the only thing that anyone can claim to know with anything approaching certainty is that "thinking" is going on somewhere, somehow — because the acknowledgement of that fact is simultaneously its demonstration. Beyond that, we have only inferences from our perceptions to guide us in assessing the reality of the external world.

We could indeed be wrong about the external world, and it seems likely that we have been wrong about it in the past and to a certain extent remain wrong about it in the present. But we use our perceptions to build mental models of reality that appear to be largely self-consistent. This doesn't of itself make the models "true" — in the sense of being accurate representations — but Okham's razor demands that we do not multiply entities unnecessarily. Okham's razor is also why we do not unnecessarily posit supernatural agency in the absence of evidence for such agency.

Similarly, if we hypothesize that we are living in the Matrix — which is a possibility that cannot be definitively refuted — we have multiplied entities unnecessarily in order to explain our perceptions: we have the world as we perceive it (which gives us the illusion of reality) plus the world of the Matrix in which our reality is but a simulation. Our mental models fit both these "realities", and Ockham's razor should encourage us to discard the one that includes the superfluous entity. (It doesn't stop with the Matrix — the world of the Matrix could itself be a simulation within another world, which could be a simulation within yet another ... and so on. Ockham is our essential friend here.)

Parallels can be drawn with the Christian theistic worldview, in which we have the world as we perceive it, plus the world containing such additional entities as God, the Devil, angels, demons, miracles, Heaven and Hell. The world "as we perceive it" does not include these additional entities, because they don't actually impinge on our senses (that is, there's no evidence for them), and so positing them as part of a worldview is a gratuitous violation of parsimony — to which Ockham shall apply his blade.

The central foundation of PA, and its fundamental misconception, is the matter of absolutes. The TAG is based on absolutes and that's why it fails. Logic and reason are not absolute, objective entities existing "outside" of the Universe — they are intrinsic to existence, to cause and effect, and therefore to ask someone to "account" for logic and reason without "using" logic and reason is like asking someone to describe something without using adjectives, or to speak without speaking, or to think without thinking. The point here is not that these things can't be done — the point is that they're not necessary.

Did L. Ron Hubbard take lessons from St. Paul?

And so we come to the end of the penultimate section in Dembski and Licona's Evidence for God. The section entitled The Question of Jesus ends with "Did Paul Invent Christianity?" by Ben Witherington III, and I can't help thinking it's a filler as it doesn't seem to be relevant to any matter of evidence.

Be that as it may, what does Witherington have to say about the idea that Christianity was invented by Paul?

One can say that Paul was a catalyst which helped lead the Jesus movement out of Judaism and into being its own religious group. Paul was not the inventor of Christianity, but in some senses he was its midwife, being most responsible for there being a large number of Gentiles entering this sectarian group and not on the basis of becoming Jews first (i.e. having to keep kosher, be circumcised, keeping the Sabbath) which in turn changed the balance of power in the movement everywhere in the empire except in the Holy Land.

Saying that Paul was in some sense Christianity's midwife seems to be just another way of responding to the question with "Yes." Other passages in this chapter appear to confirm this:

At the end of the day, Paul's view of the Mosaic law and whether it should be imposed on Christians most clearly reveals that Paul understood that being in Christ meant something more and something different from being "in Judaism". This is why in an elaborate argument in Galatians Paul compares the Mosaic law to a child minder or a nanny, who was meant to oversee the people of God until they came of age, but now that Jesus has come they are not under that supervisor any more (see Gal. 4). Paul even goes so far as to say that one of the main reasons Jesus came born under the law was to redeem those under the law out from under its sway (see Gal. 4:5). Those under the law are seen as being in bondage to it, until Christ came and redeemed them. Now this is clearly enough sectarian language, the language of a split-off group from Judaism. Paul insists in Galatians 2:21 that a person could be set right, or kept right with God by the observance of the Mosaic law then "Christ died for nothing." He even urges his converts "every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law" (Gal. 5:3 NIV). This is also why, in a salvation historical argument in 2 Corinthians 3:7-18 he speaks of the Mosaic law, and even the Ten Commandments, as a glorious anachronism, something which was glorious in its day, but which is rapidly becoming obsolete.

Seems like Paul appointed himself high priest and went on to define what it is to be a Christian. In what way is this not inventing Christianity?

In the end, one can say that Paul was a shepherd leading God's people in new directions and through uncharted waters to a new promised land where Jew and Gentile would be united in Christ on the very same basis and with the very same discipleship requirements. Though Paul did not call this end result Christianity, he more than any other of the original apostles was responsible for the birthing of the form of community which was to become the early church. Though he did not invent its doctrines or even its ethics, he most consistently applied its truths until a community that comported with these truths emerged.

Notwithstanding that last sentence, the answer to Witherington's question — based on the arguments in this chapter — seems to be "Pretty much."

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4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbbible.aspx?pageid=8589952740

ASA rules against faith-healing claims

First it was the BBC:

Bath Christian group's 'God can heal' adverts banned

A Christian group has been banned from claiming that God can heal illnesses on its website and in leaflets.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said it had concluded that the adverts by Healing on the Streets (HOTS) - Bath, were misleading. It said a leaflet available to download from the group's website said: "Need Healing? God can heal today!" The group, based in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, said it was disappointed with the decision and would appeal. HOTS Bath said its vision was to promote Christian healing "as a daily lifestyle for every believer".

But the BBC was cagey about the origin of the complaint:

The ASA said it had been alerted to the adverts by a complainant, and concluded that they could encourage false hope and were irresponsible. HOTS Bath said: "It seems very odd to us that the ASA wants to prevent us from stating on our website the basic Christian belief that God can heal illness.

It's not odd, it's the law. HOTS Bath may consider it a "basic Christian belief that God can heal illness" but unless they can substantiate that claim they have no business putting it in an ad on a website, and therefore the ASA ruling is correct.

The ASA didn't reveal the identity of the complainant. Said complainant, however, was understandably aggrieved at the statement subsequently placed on the HOTS website:

It appears that the complaint to the ASA was made by a group generally opposed to Christianity, and it seems strange to us that on the basis of a purely ideological objection to what we say on our website, the ASA has decided it is appropriate to insist that we cannot talk about a common and widely held belief that is an important aspect of conventional Christian faith.

Hayley Stevens, well-known skeptic and paranormal investigator — and the complainant in this case — decided to put the record straight on her blog, Hayley is a Ghost, despite the adverse publicity likely to result. This was then taken up by the Bath Chronicle, which quotes Hayley on her reasons for making the complaint to the ASA. Still HOTS Bath fail to understand the issue at hand, illustrating the de facto privileged position religious faith continues to enjoy — and expect — in the UK. They maintain the ASA (and by extension Hayley Stevens herself, as complainant) are objecting to their ideology, when in fact it's a simple matter of evidence for claims made.

The story then appeared on the Daily Mail website, together with an invitation for reader comments. The article itself is reasonably (and unusually) dispassionate — but the comments, as might be expected, are something else.

Hayley Stevens is to be applauded for not only making the complaint in the first place, but also for standing up to be counted despite the unwelcome attention she must have known it would bring.

---

A short interview with Hayley Stevens, conducted after the recent Beyond the Veil one-day conference at Conway Hall at which she spoke (and before the ASA ruling discussed above), will be featured in the next episode of the Skepticule Extra podcast.

Storm in a teacup at Unbelievable?

I listened this evening to Justin Brierley's interview with Mark and Grace Driscoll (though Grace's participation was relatively minor). What have I, an atheist, to say about what is essentially a conversation between Christians about matters of tone and style? Isn't that kind of discussion irrelevant to me? Here's the streaming audio:

http://www.premierradio.org.uk/listen/ondemand.aspx?mediaid={B568EE6E-C425-4285-BCE0-BE1CF6A6DF31}

In other circumstances I would have no interest in an interview of this type, concerned as it was with differing interpretations of Christian scripture and how they are to be applied to Christian ministry. But the audio of this interview was released on the Unbelievable? podcast feed, apparently as a response to some statements Mark Driscoll made on his blog regarding how the interview was conducted. Justin states in his introduction that the audio now aired is the full interview, and as someone who's been in the position of recording an interview (or at least a conversation) that has subsequently been the subject of comment by all participants, I have some sympathy with his apparent wish to put the record straight with the complete version of what transpired.

Having read Mark's blogpost I'm at a loss to understand his complaint. He's written (with his wife) a controversial book, and I would have thought he would want to promote it. Doing interviews for radio programmes and magazines is an obvious path to fulfilling this objective. Interviews about a controversial book will naturally focus on the most controversial parts of the book. Those parts are inspired by the authors' controversial views, so the interview will also deal with those views. But here's an excerpt from Mark's "A Blog Post for the Brits":

I have a degree in communications from one of the top programs in the United States. So does my wife, Grace. We are used to reporters with agendas and selective editing of long interviews. Running into reporters with agendas and being selectively edited so that you are presented as someone that is perhaps not entirely accurate is the risk one takes when trying to get their message out through the media.

With the release of our book, Real Marriage, we have now done literally dozens of interviews with Christians and non-Christians. But the one that culminated in the forthcoming article was, in my opinion, the most disrespectful, adversarial, and subjective. As a result, we’ve since changed how we receive, process, and moderate media interviews.

This does make me wonder what those "literally dozens of interviews" were like. Justin was entirely respectful of his interviewees while asking the questions his audience would want him to ask. I also wonder what good Mark's degree in communications did him when he seems so upset by Justin's quite reasonable questions and appropriately probing approach. For his part Justin did not flinch when Mark turned the tables at the end of the hour and probed him on his personal theology. Given the style of preaching Mark declares himself to use, his characterisation of Justin's interview as "the most disrespectful, adversarial, and subjective" beggars belief.

Justin's response on Christianity Magazine's website (his interview appears in the magazine) includes this:

My wife is a church minister so I asked the final question of the interview a bit tongue in cheek (for my own curiosity really). Pastor Mark then turned the tables and started asking me questions; we discussed whether my wife's church was the poorer having a woman up front. We disagreed on that! Then he asked me my view on Eternal Conscious Torment ‐ I admitted I side with John Stott ‐ an annihilationist. He asked me if I believe Penal Substitution ‐ I said it’s valid and one of a number of ways to view the cross, but can be expressed in an unhelpful way. He said I was wishy washy for qualifying things like that. That's just me, I'm not overly dogmatic on that issue.

Storm in a teacup? Probably, but it's a useful lesson for interviewers — including those doing interviews for podcasts — that one should distinguish facts from opinion, and be prepared to release one's original recordings.

The entire Christian faith is a gigantic lie

"We will be examining the history and beliefs of the major religious movements of the world; but let me say at the outset, we will begin with the pre-supposition that everyone of them is a legitimate expression of the cultural, social, psychological, and existential experience of its adherents. Though they may differ in external and formal statements of doctrine and practice, they all express a similar essence of the awe and mystery in life and the universe. Furthermore, we will assume that each of the founders of the religions were all, in their various ways, expressing similar and universal moral and spiritual concepts. Thus, we will assume they are all equal in their authority and revelational validity."

This — shock horror — was what greeted a 19-year-old Southern Baptist when he enrolled in a comparative religion class at his university, as related by Tal Davis in "Is Jesus Superior to All Other Religious Leaders?" — Chapter 38 of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God. The student, however, was undeterred by this unexpected revelation and went on to convince himself (it took several months) that "all religions were not equal and that Jesus Christ was and is superior to the founders of the other major religions of the world. His conclusion was based on five lines of truth."

So let's go through these five lines of truth:

1. Jesus Christ is the only major world religion founder who had no beginning in time or space.

The evidence for this assertion consists of a slew of Bible quotes — so it boils down to Jesus had no beginning because it says so in the Bible. (Even if it were true, I fail to see the link between timelessness and superiority. It sounds like an extreme example of the argument from tradition.)

2. Jesus Christ is the only major world religion founder who came into the world as He did.

This is all about the virgin birth, which (as above) happened because it's reported in the Bible. Moreover, Davis claims this is unique to Jesus. Presumably Krishna, Buddha, Marduk and Huitzilopochtli don't count because their births were not exactly like that of Jesus (though each could be described as unique). Mithra beats them all of course, as he was born from a rock, which, you know, rocks. (Again we have an inexplicable link between superiority and being some kind of freak of nature.)

3. Jesus Christ is the only major world religion founder who lived a perfect and sinless life.

There's a bit of a problem here, deriving from the Euthyphro dilemma. It's very easy to claim that your deity is sinless if you define everything he does as good. If goodness is his very nature, it's impossible for him to have sinned, because sin is defined specifically to exclude anything he is reported to have done.

4. Jesus Christ is the only major world religion founder who died as a sacrificial atonement for the sins of humanity.

Lots of religious leaders die. If your religious leader dies a particularly humiliating death it can be somewhat deflating to the high hopes of the movement. Disappointed followers will desert in droves unless you can think of something to lift their spirits and convince them prospects aren't as bleak as they appear. Transforming an ignominious death into the potential saving of the whole of humanity is the kind of public relations coup that should — if you can pull it off — do the trick.

5. Jesus Christ is the only major world religion founder who rose from the dead to demonstrate His power and authority.

Given the success of number 4, this one should be a doddle.

The student in question apparently took several months to investigate all this, but I assume that's how long it took him to read the whole of the Bible (he had, I expect, other classes). But it comes down to one simple principle: Jesus is superior to all other religious leaders because it says so in the Bible.

Muslims, however, believe the Qur'an is superior to the Bible because the Qur'an came after the Bible. No doubt Jews believe the Old Testament is superior to the New Testament because the Old Testament came before the New Testament. These arguments are individually bullet-proof because they are completely self-contained — anything that contradicts them also confirms them, just as evidence against a conspiracy theory automatically (in the mind of a conspiracy theorist) confirms the conspiracy theory as true.

Christianity does not stand or fall on its moral principles or depth of mystical experience. If that were true, then it would be no better than any other religion in the world, and Jesus Christ would be only another great religious or moral teacher. No, Christianity stands or falls entirely on the person and work of one man: Jesus Christ. Either He was who He claimed to be, the Lord of the Universe, who came to earth as man, lived a sinless life, died on the cross as an atonement for our sins, and rose again from the dead, or the entire Christian faith is a gigantic lie.

Thanks for making it so clear.

---

4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbjesus.aspx?pageid=8589952893

Unbelievable?: The Conference — Big Questions Stream

The Big Questions Stream is the last of three DVDs in this boxed set of Premier Christian Radio's one-day apologetics conference held in May this year. (I have already reviewed Disc 1 and Disc 2.)

Disc 3 begins with Mark Roques and his talk entitled: "Is Jesus the only way?"

It's a dynamic lecture, if a little unfocussed and with iffy sound. Roques claims that all people live by faith, giving as an example some rat-worshippers in India. He says there are four types of response to rat-worship, each conforming to a specific type. The first is that of, for example, James Bond, who would describe rat-worship as irrational. Roques claims this is a "modernist", secular worldview and what he describes is essentially a materialist worldview that denies the existence of anything supernatural. But as a first example it shows how ill-advised it is to use fictional examples to explain what you are claiming as fact. Religionists seem to do this a lot, as if they can't see how it's likely to be interpreted. By picking a fictional example you are essentially basing your factual claims on something that has been made up. If Bible-believers want to convince people that scripture is more than "made up" they should stop doing this.

The second example is the response of Paul Merton, who visited some rat-worshippers during a TV documentary. Merton apparently described rat-worship as "true for them" — which Roques says is a post-modernist worldview, in which everyone is entirely autonomous.

The rat-worshippers' response, however, is that rat-worship is "true" — which is Roques' example of the third type of response.

Roques' fourth type of response is exemplified by Christianity: "Don't worship rats, worship Christ."

He then goes on to list four views of salvation. The first is the "exclusivist" or "restrictivist" view, in which only those who have been called by God will go to eternity in heaven, while everyone else goes to eternal punishment. The second is an "inclusionist" but not "universalist" view, which allows even some people with no knowledge of Christ to be saved. The third is "theological pluralism", which holds that all religions can lead to God, and the fourth is the "universalist" view where everyone will be saved. Unsurprisingly there's disagreement on the matter, but as it's theology there's no way of conclusively resolving the issue — because theology is mostly fabrication. Incidentally Roques says he holds to the "inclusionist" view of salvation.

During a Christian apologetics conference there's bound to be a good deal of dissing of other religions, but some of those other religions have their own conferences, and what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Mark Roques is also guilty of conflation when he claims that for James Bond the god is science, and when later on in his talk he claims people have made "money" their god. Many religionists seem to do this, giving the impression that they are locked into a mindset in which it is impossible for anyone not to believe in a god of some kind. For such religionists, there's no such thing as a true atheist.

Roques is very big on story-telling (likening this to the parables of Jesus), but he needs to be clearer on the distinction between factual and fictional stories, otherwise people will be inevitably drawn to the idea that the whole of scripture and theology is just a series of stories. For myself I'm glad that in this lecture he used his faux "common" accent only once.

---

Next on Disc 3 is a two-hander with John Lennox and David Robertson on the question "Is there evidence for God?", and it has the assertions, the atheist-bashing, and what I can only describe as self-congratulatory smugness — coupled with attempts at mitigating false modesty — coming thick and fast. I found it difficult to keep up, abandoning my use of the pause button for note-taking purposes and just let the whole thing roll over me.

The usual canards are in abundance: atheists have no grounding for moral judgements, they are closed-minded to evidence by a priori assumptions, and they don't understand the meaning of faith. But throughout their discussion neither Lennox nor Robertson explain what precisely their subjective experience of God is. It's all a tacit admission of mysterious ineffability. They say much but convey little, and I found it frustrating waiting for either of them to deliver even one thing that might be a serious challenge to atheists — either "new atheists" or the plain vanilla variety.

Lennox makes a good point, however, about "nothing buttery" when decrying materialism, but I don't think he realises that he is actually validating the materialist view when he makes it.

So in response to the question "Is there evidence for God?" the answer must begin with "It depends what you mean by evidence." And if you're after compelling evidence, rather than just a subjective feeling, forget it.

---

Finally we have (again) Mark Roques, with "What about suffering?" beginning with the tale of Cornish Christian boy Thomas Pellow, captured by Turkish pirates and forced to be the slave of the Sultan. He converted to Islam (to save his own skin), and returned to his parents 30 years later. He was, we are told, sustained by his Christian faith.

Roques quotes David Hume's distillation of Epicurus's paradox — according to which an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God is an incoherent concept. Roques goes on to say, "I want to try and respond to this with some perhaps fresh material." This sounds promising but ultimately leaves us high and dry, as in delivering his talk he often seems to get diverted down side alleys, never returning to the place whence he came.

Asking the question, "Is it possible to be an atheist and also affirm the existence of evil?" Roques then examines materialism, quoting Richard Dawkins in River Out of Eden on the "blind, pitiless indifference" of the universe, as well as Dawkins' response to the 2006 Edge Annual Question — "What is your dangerous idea?"

Dawkins' contribution was "Let's all stop beating Basil's car" in which he floats the (not original) idea that just as Basil Fawlty's defective car is not to blame for its deficiencies, neither are we as material humans "at fault" for our own shortcomings. Given that these essays for the Edge were supposed to be radical and iconoclastic, it's disingenuous of Roques to point to Dawkins and claim that materialists deny that humans have any moral responsibility. The problem — as usual with debates of this kind — is that key terms haven't been properly defined. What does Roques mean by "evil" or "moral"? He's speaking to a largely Christian audience, so he may consider these terms don't need defining. But this is an apologetics conference and the audience will be going out to defend their faith. Without rigorous definition of terms, their efforts could well come across as unconvincing or even sloppy.

Here's an example of what I consider egregious sloppy thinking:

"Materialism declares that only physical things exist and so it is not possible to speak about purpose, goodness and wickedness. Evil is an illusion."

First off, we need to know what Roques means by purpose, goodness, wickedness and evil. By this measure we could claim that thoughts, being "non-physical", don't exist — when they clearly do.

"Evil does not exist. It is an illusion. A delusion. A toothfairy. This is what many atheists believe. It's their religion."

This is the worst kind of straw man fallacy, and teaching it at an apologetics conference is doing nobody any favours. Roques belabours his "no responsibility in materialism" point, but without saying what he means by responsibility. When we consider ideas of materialism and determinism in human action we must be careful what we dismiss. It is possible to hold to a materialist, determinist worldview in which free will does not depend on substance dualism, and still maintain that we are responsible for our actions. The question then becomes not what do we mean by "responsible"? but what do we mean by "we"? The entity — the human — held to be "responsible" comprises the sum total of who "we" are — our current thoughts and disposition, our memories, our experiences, our genetic make-up, our education, even our present environment. Such questions are way deeper and more subtle than Roques portrays in his talk.

Roques may even be going out on a limb relative to his religionist cohorts. He claims that Anselm and Aquinas were wrong about goodness, and that Plotinus — and Plato before him — were bad influences on early Christianity. He makes this challenge:

"If naturalism/materialism is true, then surely both goodness and evil are illusions. So where do you get your notions of evil and goodness from as you rail against God?"

See how disingenuous his approach is? "Rail against God?" This may be a reaction to Dawkins' deliberate caricature of the Old Testament God in The God Delusion, but such emotive language is inappropriate to an honest examination of the problem of evil.

Roques may be a dynamic speaker (despite seeming to lose his way several times in this talk), but the thrust of his argument is superficial. When pressed he is revealed — as far as I could see — to have nothing original or indeed useful to add to the morality debate. In the Q&A the first questioner asks why God allowed evil in the first place:

"There's a sense in which I don't know the answer to that deep question."

And as he offers nothing more of substance in response, there's a pronounced lack of any other sense in which he did know the answer.

---

So what did I get out of these three DVDs? I could have attended the conference itself, but I would still have needed the DVDs in order to see the parallel streams. The cost of the DVD set is comparable to the cost of the conference, but if I'd attended I would have needed to add the same again in travelling expenses. In any case I think I might have felt uncomfortable in an audience of mostly believers.

On the whole I found the talks as presented on the DVDs disappointing, but also — on another level — heartening. Much was made of equipping Christians for defending their faith in the wider world, but the armoury provided here appeared clumsy, outdated and ineffective. Not once did I find myself thinking, "Gosh, there's an argument I really must look into further." Maybe these evangelicals will be effective in converting teetering agnostics who are confused by recent new atheist literature — or maybe not. It's seems clear, however, that anyone who is happy to self-identify as an atheist on the basis of honest enquiry into the God-question will not find anything challenging on these DVDs.

Why I call myself a humanist

This is essentially a response to a post by Clio Bellenis on the Hampshire Skeptics Society blog, "Why I do not call myself a humanist". I'm posting it here as well for completeness, but any comments ought to go over there.

Ever since I came to consider myself an atheist (that’s many decades ago now) I’ve maintained that my atheism is nothing more than the lack of belief in any gods. My atheism is not a worldview, though my worldview is necessarily derived from atheism — and I find humanism is the closest fit to that worldview. The “good without God” issue is a clear and straightforward one for me now, though I struggled for a long time with the persistent notion that my moral grounding had to be rooted in Christianity. These days I consider the idea of moral values being based on scripture to be an admission of moral failure — that blindly and unquestioningly following rules handed down from above is an abdication of moral responsibility. It’s far better, in my view, to examine moral decisions based on context and consequences, even if such decisions flout so-called moral rules.

The point about “humanism” being the obvious default stance is a valid one, but humanism as a consensus view needs to be seen in the light of what it’s up against. This is especially important in relation to the question of morality. The Christian view, in this officially Christian country, is that it may well be true that one can live a good life without religion, but that the ability to discern good from evil (even when atheists do it) is only possible because of religion (or to use the jargon — because everyone, even an atheist, is made in the image of God). It’s this erroneous view that humanism endeavours to correct, and why I’m happy to label myself a humanist.

Anarchy in the UK — can I blame the Christians?

Reports of violence, looting and arson in many places throughout Britain in the last few days is met by peace-loving, right-thinking people with nothing short of bewilderment: what on earth do these looters think they're doing? How can they possibly believe they have justification for lawlessness and criminality of this kind? How can they do these things and live with themselves?

Perhaps I can offer a hypothesis. Nothing more — this is not a researched analysis, just a thought, based on recent discussions in various places (notably on the Skepticule Extra podcast).

The perpetrators of these crimes, it would appear from news reports, are mostly young. Where do they get their moral guidance? In days gone by they would have received it from religious sources, in school, in church, from their parents. These days, however, young people see through the associated baggage that accompanies religious morality. They see that the God-myth is just that — an unsubstantiated fantasy with little relevance to their everyday lives.

Recognizing the God-myth for what it is may not be difficult. But there's a harder question, which is this: where does morality come from?

The answer given to this question, I contend, may lead to a mindset allowing the lawlessness witnessed this week. Religious apologists — in this country mostly Christian — insist that without God-given morality you have no basis on which to distinguish right and wrong. Advocates for humanism have long argued that such a claim is unfounded, but Christians stick obdurately to the idea that without God, "everything is permitted". This is false, but enduring. It's this nihilistic notion that appears to have permeated the minds of lawless youths tossing petrol bombs into high-street shops. They've rejected the God-myth, but unfortunately bought into the Christian proprietorial account of morality.

But you can be good without God, and the insistent Christian denial of this fact has, in my view, contributed to the current trouble.

"Objective" morality — not all it's cracked up to be

This week the podcast of Premier's Saturday discussion programme Unbelievable? was available for download the day before broadcast. The show's description reads:

This week on Unbelievable : Is the Bible Unbelievable? Leslie Scrace & Chris Sinkinson

Former Methodist minister turned atheist Leslie Scrace stopped reading the Bible after he lost his faith. 20 years later he read it again and wrote a book-by-book account of how he views it as an atheist called "An Unbelievers Guide to the Bible". Leslie criticises parts of the Old Testament that he sees as primitive and immoral while praising other parts of scripture that illustrate humanist values. Chris Sinkinson is a church pastor and teaches Old Testament and Apologetics at Moorlands Bible College. He responds saying that the Bible can't be dissected in the way Leslie attempts and that taking God out of the morality of the Bible robs it of its meaning. They discuss books such as Job, Joshua, Song of Solomon and the Gospels. Chris also challenges Leslie on whether his humanist morality has any objective foundation.

It's that last sentence that irks. Christians — and others of a religious persuasion — seem to be obsessed with the idea of "objective" morality. Justin Brierley exemplified this attitude in his uncharacteristic interrogation of Leslie Scrace towards the close of this week's discussion. He repeatedly questioned the basis on which Leslie judged certain parts of the Bible to be immoral. The vice-like grip of this mindset was evident in the way both Justin and his other guest Chris Sinkinson claimed that morality must be "objective" or else it isn't morality. When Leslie suggested that Epicurus was a better moral teacher than Jesus, and treated women better than Jesus did, Justin responded thus:

Where does the "better" come from? This is the whole problem, for me, of the humanist perspective — that they talk about better this and better that, all the while denying that there is this standard that the better is getting closer to.

And when Leslie said he thinks the human race hasn't arrived at a proper treatment of women, Justin replied:

But you haven't explained what this proper standard is and how it exists independently of evolution and everything else.

Let's nail this persistent accusation. Where do Christians get their "objective" morality? Obviously it comes from scripture. Often the Ten Commandments are cited as a repository of moral standards. Disregarding for the present the obvious moral flaws within the Decalogue, let's just examine the idea of having a list of written rules — however the list may have originated. A set of laws, literally set in stone, inflexible and unquestionable, will inevitably lead to their inappropriate application, as all such laws do. The Ten Commandments can be described as "petty bureaucracy gone mad" — insistence on their application in all cases without exception is akin to the pompous official who says, "Sorry, I sympathise, but rules is rules. It's more than my job's worth to make an exception in your case."

There's huge irony in the religious insistence on blindly following a rule book, while at the same time decrying those who attempt to make moral judgements based on circumstances and consequences. The humanist approach is to consider notions of fairness, and the effects our decisions will have on those around us and on the wider world. The religious idea of morality is to follow an ancient text regardless of the moral consequences, and to hell with anyone who disagrees. That's not morality, "objective" or otherwise.

Look at it this way: who is exhibiting greater moral responsibility — those who attempt to derive and construct moral guidance from the circumstances the human race finds itself in, for the furtherance of human well-being, or those who ignore such efforts and stick rigidly to a list of obviously outdated "laws"?

"Rules are made to be broken." It's a cliché, but it's true. Rules — including moral rules — are not the be-all and end-all of how we should act. A list of rules is merely a handy aide-mémoire — a short-cut to help in knowing what to do in a wide range of circumstances, but not all circumstances. There will be times when the rules won't fit the circumstances, and we'll have to decide for ourselves how to act. Those who have taken it upon themselves to consider moral questions from the humanist perspective will clearly be better equipped to deal with such situations than those who rely slavishly on a list of supposedly inerrant rules.

Religious morality is no more "objective" than humanist morality. Humanist morality is founded on continuous study of circumstances and consequences — a morality that evolves, and is progressively honed by scientific knowledge, moderated by individual and group desires and aspirations, and a consideration of the well-being of the global human race. Religious morality on the other hand is "founded" on ancient texts of dubious provenance — it is, to all intents and purposes, arbitrary.

Denying the evidence of declining UK Christianity

http://youtu.be/zerVCx1Cnbc


Ann Widdecombe is on a mission to persuade us that reports of the demise of Christianity are greatly exaggerated. Her case, however, is severely hampered by the examples she chooses to highlight in this BBC1 documentary, which — contrary to her statements — suggests that congregations are indeed dwindling. She gives two examples of churches that have increased attendance, but these are clearly the result of massive amounts of local immigration. This isn't growing or even maintaining Christianity, it's simply moving it around; it also creates a disturbing tendency towards ghettoisation.

Maybe the Church really does want a congregation to be all but swallowed up by East European immigrants, or even to be completely replaced with immigrant African Pentecostals. Of course, the effect of such immigration could indeed be seen as an increase in Christianity in the UK, but to me it seems more equivalent to claiming that the best answer to the UK's dwindling manufacturing base is to have more stuff imported into the country.

In the interests of balance (one assumes), Johann Hari and Evan Harris are interviewed during the programme, but as dissenting views (dissenting from the Widdecombe views, that is) they are given short shrift. This is frankly not surprising — she's done this before in TV documentaries: if she gets an answer she doesn't agree with she simply ignores it, with little or no comment.

One of the reasons Ann Widdecombe converted to Catholicism was Anglican support for female clergy, so it's ironic to watch her interviewing a female cleric on whether or not Christianity is declining (and agreeing with her). She also interviews Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and agrees with him despite her "devil's advocate" questions, while presumably at the same time believing he's practising the wrong faith. But cognitive dissonance is no stranger to the blinkered Widdecombe thought-processes; she's quite happy to believe the Exodus really happened (because it's in the Bible), despite the total lack of archeological evidence that would have to be there if such a thing actually occurred.