Burnee links for Sunday

National Secular Society - Prime Minister’s dissembling, hypocritical and disingenuous speech to religious leaders
Has David Cameron been dangling the carrot, merely to whip it away at the crucial moment?

Sunday Sacrilege: Sacking the City of God | Pharyngula
God-botherers will have a field-day with this — PZ's speech to 4,000 at the Global Atheist Convention. Let 'em.

Free will or not free will? | Talking Philosophy
Russell Blackford on free will books.

Jerry Coyne on free will | Talking Philosophy
Russell Blackford on Jerry Coyne on free will. This is the first of Blackford's reviews of several articles on the subject — see his post for relevant links. (Is free will the next hot topic, now that morality has been thoroughly thrashed around?)

What should a book be these days? (Review of Why Are You Atheists So Angry?) | The Uncredible Hallq
Another review of Greta Christina's new book, plus some ruminations about writing. All good stuff.

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(Some of these links are old ones, gleaned from a hasty catch-up of blogs I'd let build up in Google Reader.)

An unreliable assessment of the reliability of the Gospels

In Craig L. Blomberg's "The Historical Reliability of the Gospels" — chapter 46 of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God — one can almost sense the rose-tinted spectacles through which the author apparently reads his Bible, carries out his research and writes this essay on how he really, really wants the Gospels to be true, and how everything discovered about them confirms that they are indeed true, or are probably true, or more likely true than false, and how any evidence that suggests the Gospels are "unreliable" cannot itself be relied on because it has come up with the wrong answer.

Can the major contours of the portraits of Jesus in the New Testament Gospels be trusted?  Many critics would argue not.  The Jesus Seminar became the best-known collection of such critics during the 1990s as they alleged that only 18 percent of the sayings ascribed to Jesus and 16 percent of his deeds as found in the four canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, plus the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, bore any close relationship to what he actually said and did.  At the same time, a much more representative cross-section of scholars from about 1980 to the present has inaugurated what has come to be called the Third Quest of the Historical Jesus, in which a greater optimism is emerging about how much we can know, from the Gospels, read in light of other historical cultural developments of the day.

I can't help wondering what this "much more representative cross-section of scholars" is representative of. Most likely it's representative of scholars who believe the Gospels are reliable. The fact that Blomberg states that "a greater optimism is emerging" shows that he's not assessing the evidence from a neutral standpoint. I accept that he has a view on the matter, but his phraseology here indicates he's in the grip of confirmation bias.

He goes on to reiterate a claim that has appeared previously in Evidence for God — that the sheer number of copies of manuscripts counts towards their accuracy, which simply (and obviously) isn't the case. If I have an unreliable document and photocopy it a hundred or even a thousand times, the reliability of that document remains unchanged.

Blomberg also mentions archeological evidence, but this was dealt with in the previous chapter and is similarly unconvincing — or irrelevant — as far as the supernatural claims of the Gospels are concerned. He then discusses the differences between the Gospel accounts, attempting to have his cake and eat it. Where they agree, the Gospels demonstrate their reliability. Where they disagree, that's entirely what he would expect, given their mode of transmission. On the one hand we have variations due to the vagaries of the oral tradition, on the other we have remarkable veracity due to the reliability of the oral tradition.

But first-century Judaism was an oral culture, steeped in the educational practice of memorization.  Some rabbis had the entire Hebrew Scriptures (the Christian Old Testament) committed to memory.  Memorizing and preserving intact the amount of information contained in one Gospel would not have been hard for someone raised in this kind of culture who valued the memories of Jesus' life and teaching as sacred.

I dare say a scholar or rabbi could have done this, as I'm sure could Derren Brown today. But the people who are alleged to have performed this feat of recollection were not known to be rabbis or scholars. Matthew, we are told, was a tax-collector, or maybe a publican, Mark was possibly Jesus's half brother. John was a fisherman, and Luke may have been a "compendium" character used for narrative effect and who never actually existed. Not that we even know that the Gospels were authored by the men whose by-lines they bear. Given what little we do know of these characters, therefore, it's stretching a point to suggest that the reliability of the Gospels can be founded on feats of memory the authors were unlikely to be able to perform.

Taking all the above into account, it would appear that the historical reliability of the Bible can be reliably assessed as "not reliable".

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4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbbible.aspx?pageid=8589952775

Skepticule Extra 23 available for your listening pleasure

Skepticule Extra 24 will be recorded tonight, if all goes to plan. But while you're waiting for that one to go live, listen to our previous show!

Skepticule Extra 23 features a surprise guest (at least, it's a surprise if you can't be bothered to check out the shownotes, or if you skip over the intro).

Lots of meat in this episode: 9/11, ID, dowsing for a million dollars — along with plenty of other delights...

http://www.skepticule.co.uk/2012/04/skepextra-023-20120325.html

A Thought for the Day — any day soon, please?

Evan Davis, one of the hosts of Radio 4's morning news radio show, The Today Programme, shared his views about Thought for the Day in a brief profile article in the Independent recently, subsequently picked up by the British Humanist Association, which has long been campaigning for the daily four-minute slot to be opened up to non-religious speakers:

Today programme host: ‘Thought for the Day’ should have secular voices

This is so obvious it should have been done years ago, but the BBC have a blind spot about their religious programming. They even claim that the "faith" content of TftD is balanced by the "non-faith" of the rest of the Today Programme. It's just part of an insidious insistence that morality is the exclusive preserve of religion, which is not only false but profoundly so. An excellent case can be made that religious considerations of moral questions are inherently lacking in morality, and that the only truly "moral" approach to such questions is a secular humanist one.

Nelson Jones (aka "The Heresiarch") took up the matter in New Statesman:
New Statesman - God's Morning Monopoly
...giving a comprehensive overview and a reasoned argument that, today, thoughts don't have to be religious.

New Humanist chimed in with the following:
New Humanist Blog: Time for atheists on Thought for the Day?
Not just time. It's long overdue.

Guy Stagg

So far, so unanimous. But then Guy Stagg penned this staggering drivel in the Telegraph:
Secularists on Thought for the Day will expose the loneliness of atheism – Telegraph Blogs
(Via HumanistLife.) 

There’s so much wrong with Guy Stagg’s article one hardly knows where to start. We'll try the beginning:

Evan Davis has called for Thought for the Day to be opened up to secular contributions. The Today programme presenter thinks that the show is discriminating against the non-religious. Davis probably thinks this would strengthen the role of secularism in society, but in fact the opposite is true.

Naked assertions do not an argument make.

Thought for the Day is one of the better things about the Today programme. In comparison with some of the indulgent and irrelevant slots that fill up the three hours, Thought for the Day is consistently focused and intelligent.

Stagg obviously misses the ones I hear, which are mostly woolly and platitudinous.

What is more, as most atheists recognise, faith has plenty of lessons for religious and non-religious alike.

Secularism has plenty of lessons for people of faith (and no faith), so let's hear some of those too.

Finally, Radio 4 gives lots of space to secular contributions – a few minutes of God in the middle of the morning is hardly a victory against the Enlightenment.

But this is exactly the point — where else in the Today Programme's three hours can we hear secular views on ethics and how-we-should-live? Restricting TftD to only God-based views is clearly discrimination.

There are also practical problems with Evan Davis’s idea. Who would be invited onto the new Thought for the Day? Davis suggests “spiritually minded secularists”. I guess that would include philosophers and academics, but presumably poets and lifestyle coaches as well. The question is: who does it exclude?

Why should it exclude anyone?

There is something a bit immature about the idea, like a schoolboy trying to get off chapel. It belongs to the same category of silly proposal as Alain de Botton’s secular temples, or Dawkins's rebranding of atheists as “brights”. It shows that, although secularists have realised that they cannot simply be defined by opposition to religion, nevertheless they have little to offer in its place. Crucially the secular tradition has no successful institutions to preserve and spread its principles.

Stagg hasn't done his homework. "Brights" did not come from Richard Dawkins, though he and Dan Dennett have promoted the soubriquet, which hasn't found much favour among secularists. Secularists, however, have plenty to offer the Today Programme's listeners, if given the chance. As for replacing religion, if one has a cancerous tumour surgically removed, one does not seek to insert something in the body to replace it. And what does Stagg mean by "the secular tradition", if he's claiming secularists have no successful institutions? Is he not aware of the well-established British Humanist Association? The National Secular Society?

This is something that few secularists admit: atheism is quite lonely. Not just existentially, but socially as well. Secularism does not offer the sense of fellowship you find in religion. Watching old Christopher Hitchens debates on YouTube with a like-minded sceptic is entertaining, but I doubt it's as nourishing as Sunday Mass.

There's a reason secularists don't admit that atheism is lonely, at least not in Britain today. Because it isn't, neither existentially or socially. (On the global scale, is Stagg unaware of the Reason Rally? If so, he seems quite unqualified to write this article.) And I've no idea why Stagg thinks a secularist would find Sunday Mass in any sense "nourishing".

This doesn't make the claims of religion true.

He gets that bit right, at least.

For what it’s worth, I doubt them as much as Evan Davis. But I recognise that atheism has a long way to go to provide a complete and compelling alternative to religion. And it will take a lot more than inviting some yoga teachers onto the Today programme.

There's no reason why atheism ("lack of belief in a god or gods") should be an alternative to anything other than god-belief. Secular humanism, however, holds that it is possible to lead an ethical, fulfilling and meaningful life (the only life we have) without religion. I am without religion, and I see no need for anything in its place. And it may well take more than yoga teachers on TftD to convince people of that fact. So let's do it.

---

As mentioned above, the BHA has an ongoing campaign about Thought for the Day, and they are once again urging secularists, humanists and others to write to the BBC trustees. Here's my effort, sent on 2 April:

BBC Trust Unit
180 Great Portland Street
London
W1W 5QZ

Dear Sirs,

In today's Independent, Evan Davies, one of the presenters of Radio 4's Today Programme, is quoted thus:

===
Davis, an atheist, feels strongly about Today's "Thought for the Day" slot. A decade ago he complained that it was "discriminating against the non-religious". Now he says: "I think there's a very serious debate about whether the spot – which I would keep – might give space to what one might call 'serious and spiritually minded secularists'. I don't think "Thought for the Day" has to only be people of the cloth."
===

The BBC has over the years received many calls to restore balance to this slot but has not done so. The calls keep coming.

As a listener to the Today Programme for several decades I would like to add my own strong feelings that "Thought for the Day" should include secular views. The consideration of ethical questions is not the sole purview of the religious, and given that the slot is not called "Religious Thought for the Day" its content remains unbalanced. I urge the trustees to rectify this as soon as possible, in line with what is likely to be the majority view of the programme's audience.

Yours faithfully,

Paul S. Jenkins

---

I sent this via email, to trust.enquiries@bbc.co.uk
(...and only now, on pasting this in, do I realise I spelled Evan Davis' name incorrectly.)

Burnee links for Easter Monday

Myra Zepf - Bunnies, chicks and brutal torture | New Humanist
A difficult call, but in this example it appears that children can't be indoctrinated if they don't care.

Three posts on the Reason Rally from Adam Lee:
Reason Rally Wrap-Up, Part 1 | Daylight Atheism | Big Think
Reason Rally Wrap-Up, Part 2 | Daylight Atheism | Big Think
Reason Rally Wrap-Up, Part 3 | Daylight Atheism | Big Think

And a fourth:
Christian Responses to the Reason Rally | Daylight Atheism | Big Think

Pondering a universe without purpose - Los Angeles Times
OK, we know Lawrence Krauss has a book to promote, but it's always refreshing to read his clear prose. (Just don't bother with the comments unless you have a predilection for purposeful misunderstanding.)

Tennessee Goes Monkey Again - Katherine Stewart - RichardDawkins.net
Amazing that supposedly sane, rational people can allow — indeed be in support of — such madness.

In Defense of Dawkins’s Reason Rally Speech | Camels With Hammers
Dawkins was not being unreasonable at the Reason Rally.

As far as the Bible is confirmed as true, it is mundane

"Archaeology and the Bible — How Archaeological Findings Have Enhanced the Credibility of the Bible" is chapter 45 of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God. John McRay's claims for such "enhancement", however, put too great a strain on the word's meaning. The archeology he cites in this chapter only enhances the Bible's credibility if cherry-picking and confirmation-bias constitute valid reasoning.

The Bible is a collection of many kinds of documents written over a period of about fifteen hundred years. Beginning with the composition of the first five books (the Pentateuch), the sixty-six total documents were completed by the end of the first century A.D. They were composed in the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek languages in various geographical settings and different historical periods. Archaeological discoveries relating to these settings and periods have enlightened the cultural context in which many of the recorded events occurred and enhanced the credibility of the Biblical record, both the Old and New Testament periods. For example, many events recorded in the last one hundred years of this period of biblical history, during which the New Testament documents were written, have been illuminated through significant archaeological discoveries. Following are some of these impressive finds. Space limitations will not allow discussion of the fourteen hundred years of Old Testament sites.

In this first paragraph we can see McRay already narrowing his focus to exclude inconvenient facts. He's not going to discuss the Old Testament, so the absence of any archeological evidence for the Exodus is conveniently glossed over. And note his wording: discoveries have "enlightened the cultural context" and "enhanced the credibility of the Biblical record." He's clearly admitting that these discoveries are not proof that the Bible is true.

The findings he cites are these (using his headings):

Pool of Siloam
Rolling Stones at Tombs
Tomb of Caiaphas
Capernaum Synagogue
Acts 17:6 and Politarchs in Thessalonica
Erastus in Corinth
Romans 13:3 Inscription in Caesarea Maritima
Paul before Gallio at the Tribunal in Corinth

These appear remarkably mundane — some location mentioned in the Bible actually existed; some official mentioned in the Bible appears on ancient inscriptions; some of the events described in the Bible actually occurred. Note, however, that none of these attests to miracles or supernatural beings. The Bible may well contain some "truth", but as far as that truth is confirmed by archeology that truth is ordinary.

One might be tempted to suggest that though there are events in the Bible that have yet to be confirmed, and places in the Bible whose existence has yet to be confirmed, archeological evidence may arise in the future to confirm them. But one should not report all the so-called confirmations, dismissing items still to be confirmed, while actively ignoring positive evidence that contradicts the Bible — such as the the problems mentioned by Daniel B. Wallace in chapter 43:

Which evangelical would not like a clean harmony between the two records of Judas’ demise, uniform parallel accounts of Peter’s threefold denial of Jesus, or an outright excision of the census by Quirinius? And who would not prefer that in Mark 2.26 Jesus did not speak of David’s violation of the temple as occurring during the days of “Abiathar the high priest”? These are significantly larger problems for inerrancy than the few, isolated textual problems—and they are not in passages that are capable of facile text-critical solutions.

Some scholars, it seems, are prepared to admit there are problems. John McRay's approach, however, appears to be a disingenuous attempt to suggest that there is good evidence for the truth of the whole of the Bible. There isn't.

---

4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbbible.aspx?pageid=8589952738

Greta Christina has a list of things

Greta Christina is an atheist-writings powerhouse. Her blog — ingeniously named "Greta Christina's Blog" — is always worth reading. She writes about things other than atheism, such as gay rights, feminism, sexism, and indeed sex, but it's probably her atheist writings for which she's best known, and not only on her blog: she also writes for AlterNet, Free Inquiry and other publications.

Her posts are nothing if not comprehensive — she's a take-no-prisoners, leave-no-stone-unturned kind of writer. And now she's written a book.

It started as a blogpost, became a rousing talk at Skepticon 4 and most recently was a speech to 20,000 rain-soaked but nonetheless inspired atheists at the Reason Rally. Greta Christina is an activist, and her activism appears mainly to take the form of writing. Her goal is to persuade and convince, and she is crafting her writing career to do just that.

Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless begins with the Litany of Rage, comprising a list of those 99 things — and there really are that many of them. For unbelievers of an accommodationist persuasion this list should be an eye-opener. Unbelievers should not be tolerating wacky beliefs if those beliefs give rise to the things that Greta Christina is angry about. In the light of those 99 things, this is no time to be making nice with the peddlers of irrationality — if that irrationality leads to harm. Which it does.

The language of this book is simple, straightforward and clear. Greta Christina makes much use of repetition to drive her central point home, and perhaps some readers might tire of this rhetorical device over a whole book. But it's her established style, which readers of her blog will recognise, and it's no doubt effective in hammering her points home.

The book is as yet available only digitally (I have the Kindle version), but it will soon be in print and audio. Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless is an atheist call-to-arms — and all campaigning, activist atheists should themselves be armed with it.

---

Here's a promotional video for the book:
http://youtu.be/8E4RbDx3Kvk


Here's Greta Christina's talk at Skepticon 4:
http://youtu.be/GUI_ML1qkQE


And here's her speech at the Reason Rally:
http://youtu.be/-9Up_Beqmq4

Burnee links for Sunday

Mostly the Reason Rally...

Face to faith: Richard Dawkins, rationalism, and religion as a team sport | Comment is free | The Guardian
Lois Lee's piece is refreshingly calm, and apt in the light of the recent Reason Rally. (Some of the comments, however, feature the usual mix of banality and inanity.)

Can the Reason Rally resonate in this most religious of democracies? | Sarah Posner | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Making up for Lois Lee (above) not mentioning the Reason Rally...

The Reason Rally, and Why It’s Good to Keep Hammering On About Diversity | Greta Christina's Blog
Could this be the watershed moment for diversity in the "atheist movement"?

Live Blogging the UK C4ID Lecture 2011
Instant reaction to Stephen C. Meyer's lecture — the same one I recently watched on video and talk about on the next episode (#23) of Skepticule Extra.

Atheist Richard Dawkins Celebrates Reason, Ridicules Faith : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
Barbara J. King is a mildly hostile interviewer, but Dawkins is well used to her kind of passive-aggressive approach. Audio here:
http://public.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/blog/2012/03/20120326_blog_rd.mp3

Textual transubstantiation

"Why All the Translations?" is the question Denny Burk asks in the title of chapter 44 of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God. It's a good question; it seems likely that we have more translations of the Bible than of any other ancient text (Beowulf, say, or the works of Chaucer, Homer, Plato, Omar Khayyám...). The only reason for this I can come up with is that many people have been dissatisfied with the extant translations and thought they could do better — and believed it was important to do better.

Burk points out that there are three approaches to translating the Bible: formal equivalence, dynamic equivalence, and paraphrase. The King James Version is apparently a formal equivalence or word-for-word translation, while the New International Version is a dynamic equivalence translation, which Burk describes as a thought-for-thought rendering. This gives a clue as to why there are so many ways one can interpret scripture. The version I see cited most often is the New International Version, which according to Burk is not a word-for-word translation but one where the translators have endeavoured to get inside the heads of the original authors. This in itself requires a degree of interpretation, so it's not surprising that when Biblical scholars are engaged in exegesis they feel free to contribute their own interpretations.

The third option — a paraphrase translation — isn't really a translation at all. Burk quotes Paul D. Wegner in The Bible in Translation, describing a paraphrase as a "free rendering or amplification of a passage, expression of its sense in other words."

All this concern over different translations cannot help but raise the suspicion that the real reason there are so many is that no-one knows for sure what the original really said, let alone what it meant.

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4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbbible.aspx?pageid=8589952760

"Nature Deficit Disorder" is not a medical condition

The Today Programme is the BBC's premier morning news radio show. It lasts three hours (from 6 till 9) but inevitably some its subjects are given minimal coverage. One such was this morning's discussion about a report recently released by the National Trust. "Natural Childhood" is authored by Stephen Moss, who was on the programme to support his contention that children are missing out by not spending enough time outdoors. This is all very fine and dandy — I'm in favour of kids getting up close and personal with nature — but unfortunately the National Trust have fallen into the all-too-common view that the way to promote their services (and providing services is what they do by charging admission to their properties) is to spin the reduced outdoor-time as some kind of medical condition.

Taking up an invented syndrome and running with it is a bad way to promote yourself; as a member of the National Trust myself I find this tactic regrettable. "Nature Deficit Disorder" is not a recognised medical condition — Stephen Moss's report even acknowledges this, so why is he using it to spin the statistics to indicate that children are being harmed?

Aleks Krotoski has ably covered this in the Guardian, and she was on the Today Programme to debunk Stephen Moss's disingenuous PR:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9709000/9709957.stm

The report itself is available here:

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/servlet/file/store5/item789980/version2/natural_childhood.pdf

It has over 100 references and notes at the end, appearing appropriately scholarly for its 28 pages. I noticed, however, that one of those references was to something by Aric Sigman, which did not inspire confidence (it prompted a search for the word "Greenfield" — though thankfully that yielded no results).

The Reason Rally — A Secular Celebration (video)

Too late for yesterday's Burnee links, so it gets its own post. This nicely produced eight-minute video by The Thinking Atheist seems to encapsulate the flavour of the Reason Rally.

http://youtu.be/d11tcjO--70


I hope that eventually all the talks will be available in video quality to match this. The fact that many people flew hundreds of miles to stand for six or more hours in the rain — and maintain that it was totally worth it — speaks volumes about the significance of this event.

Burnee links for Thursday

When the rug is pulled | The Crommunist Manifesto
Read it. That is all.

Episode 109 | Righteous Indignation
Hayley Stevens talks about her recent trip to investigate a brace of Nessies, accompanying the world's premier paranormal investigator — the incomparable Joe Nickell. (And Michael Marshall talks about his recent visit to Sally Morgan's stage show — sorry Marsh, interesting though your piece undoubtedly was, it was pre-emptively upstaged by Hayley's hobnobbing with a living legend.)

MPs try to overturn 'God can heal' ad ban | Total Politics
Three MPs make twits of themselves. I posted this comment:

"Gary Streeter (Con), Gavin Shuker (Lab) and Tim Farron (Lib Dem) say that they want the Advertising Standards Authority to produce "indisputable scientific evidence" to say that prayer does not work - otherwise they will raise the issue in Parliament."

And I want indisputable scientific evidence that the invisible pink unicorn does not exist and that the government are not spraying tranquilisers into the air using chem-trails and that Messrs Streeter, Shuker and Farron are not twelve-foot tall lizard aliens in disguise — otherwise I will raise these issues with Deepak Chopra. (If David Icke happens not to be available.)

Martin Robbins takes them to task at the Guardian:
Hapless MPs defend faith healers

10 Amazing Practical Jokes « Richard Wiseman
For anyone who thinks Professor Wiseman spends far too much time on frivolities...


Triablogue: Outreach Report: Reason Rally 2012
The presup account. For some reason they don't think they're wasting their time.

The Most Astounding Fact About The Universe, As Told By Neil DeGrasse Tyson (VIDEO)
Grasp it:

(Via Project Reason.)

Adam Rutherford's Darwin Day lecture — pictures

Given that I've started to post my photographs of QEDcon it's about time I got round to posting some of my previous pictures. So here are those I took at this year's Darwin Day lecture. I won't reiterate what Adam Rutherford said as I've already talked about it on Skepticule Extra, and if you want to hear (and see) the lecture yourself there are links below.

My pictures:
http://flic.kr/s/aHsjyDPEct


Watch the lecture here:
http://youtu.be/VEsK6hZjOcQ


Or listen to the audio only, but complete with introductions and Q&A:
http://poddelusion.co.uk/blog/2012/02/13/darwin-day-lecture-2012/


Enjoy!

Burnee links for Sunday

Jourdemayne: Profanity and Nuptials, or, Get Your Hands Off My Words
"It is inhumane to deny gay couples equality. I never want to hear another religious person tell me that their beliefs are primarily about ethics ever again."

Graveyard of the destitute set to be site for plush new London flats | Metro.co.uk
Prostitutes were licenced? By the church?!

It's my way or the highway: Christians and atheists in religious road row | World news | guardian.co.uk
These Christians don't know when they're being wound up. (But it's so easy...)

A vision for a secular America - Guest Voices - The Washington Post
Many if not all of Sean Faircloth's ten points ought to apply to the UK, but we'd have to disestablish the Church of England first...

The reports are trickling in | Pharyngula
A useful initial source of links to videos of the Reason Rally.

Divine law and gay marriage

Every single argument I've heard against the legalisation of same-sex marriage has been fundamentally flawed in every particular. Here's yet another example, which I highlight not just because it's an easy target, but because young-earth creationists are at least honest about where their dogma originates. This is the latest "Creation News Update" from our very own (and local) Creation Science Movement.

Firstly, we note that it is already legal for gay partners to enter into civil partnerships, as sort of secular contracts, and if that is what humanists and secularists want then it doesn't have an impact upon the spiritual aspect of human life. In an open society we do not oppose secular civil partnerships if that is what people living in the world want. However, we would suggest that a secular society has all it can want in the concept of civil partnerships, so why try and change the meaning of marriage, if it is not an attack on religious belief and religious communities?

What about the concept of equality? CSM are saying here that gays can have a kind of second-class marriage, but not "proper" marriage, which CSM want to reserve for partnerships between opposite sexes. Note that they assume that gay marriage is "an attack on religious belief and religious communities" without backing up this assertion.

We need to recognise that marriage is a covenant relationship between a man and a woman that has a spiritual dimension - it transcends, or goes beyond, secular civil contracts (even if unrecognised by participants) - as the saying goes, 'marriages are made in heaven.'

Why not a covenant relationship between a man and another man, or a woman and another woman? And marriages are made in heaven? (See what I mean about an easy target?) Note that they claim a "transcendent" quality of marriage "even if unrecognised by participants". This is a classic instance of religious dogma being applied to those who don't share their religious convictions. In the same paragraph CSM talk about a secular state having no mandate to change spiritual laws. To my mind a secular state has no business making "spiritual laws" at all. State law should be entirely secular.

Of course people may point out that not all cultures have upheld monogamous marriage between men and women. Some religions allow a man to marry four or more women, and even homosexual marriage has been known in the past. The Greeks and Romans allowed such marriages, Nero for instance married a male freed slave, but it often also occurred between grown men and young boys. However, Rome was a brittle kingdom and struggled to maintain social cohesion due to its brutality and inconsistencies (Nero also murdered his own mother and wife).

The Roman Empire fell, and by the way Nero was a murderer. Therefore everything the Romans did was invalid. Spot the fallacy.

The lesson from this is that if secularists and populist governments seek to overthrow the order that Christianity brings to society, for instance by undermining the Mosaic ordinance of marriage, it will be sadly Britain that collapses, and not the Church which will stand as a beacon of hope in the darkening land. By undermining Christian values and principles, for instance in marriage, what principles will society have other than those based upon fickle human sentiments?

I can't make up my mind whether that's a threat, a vain hope, or a simple misunderstanding of the origins of human morality — or all three.

We are not to be slaves to our thoughts and feelings; instead we are volitional beings. So we do not believe that people are born gay, but gay sentiment arises through other factors, particularly through biased media propaganda that closes down honest debate. ‘Gayness' then is not intrinsic to the human condition, but is extrinsic and arises according to a lifestyle choice. It cannot then be a human rights issue. 

This is simply false. CSM may not like the idea that people are indeed born gay, but that doesn't change the facts.

Marriage is a sacred union between two human temples, one man and one woman, for the purpose of bringing forth children. One wonders about the arrogance of politicians who think they can alter divine law. 

I'm not interested in changing divine law, nor, I believe, is David Cameron. It's the secular law that needs changing, for the sake of human equality.

My QED 2012 experience — part 1

For me the stand-out features of QED this year were the range of speakers and the socialising. Unlike last year I didn't stay at the conference hotel so I had to carry everything for the day with me — which turned out to be a raincoat and a fairly large camera bag. These, I'm happy to report, didn't impede me much.

Like last year I arrived on Friday, catching an earlier train than I'd expected from Euston, and took my time ambling from my lodging to the Mercure Piccadilly Hotel for a relaxed meal before the Mixer, which was scheduled for 8 but seemed to be in full swing some time before that. By 8, however, wandering through the packed bar area was like swimming through a sea of skeptic celebrities. It's not called the Mixer for nothing and is one of the things that makes QED special. Whether or not they had read Hayley Stevens' blog, many people seemed to be taking her advice about talking to 'strangers'.

As for the event itself, I shall blog about it in short bursts, with photographs:



On Saturday, after Andy Wilson's official opening — not much more than a welcome and some housekeeping, Deborah Hyde kicked off with the historical context of the werewolf myth. Being the first speaker at an international conference can be, I imagine, a bit daunting, but Deborah displayed no sign of nerves even as her microphone was replaced or adjusted only seconds into her talk. Last year's first speaker was Bruce Hood, and I seem to remember he did take a few minutes (though not many) to get into his stride.

Deborah's talk was a new one, though she had given us a sneak preview at Portsmouth Skeptics in the Pub about a month earlier. In her QED talk she outlined the popular myths, and how it might have been reasonable, given the context and specific examples, to believe that werewolves were real. Bringing the myth down to earth, she included some real wolves.



Next was Steve Jones, explaining what is meant by natural selection — immediately illustrating the diversity of speakers and topics at this year's QED: from an investigation into the historical basis of popular myths we had moved on to why evolution, as understood by Charles Darwin (though he never used the word in his Origin of Species), is an undirected process. The example Steve used was the generation of effective shapes for nozzles used in the industrial manufacture of powder, by applying random but small variations to successively more effective shapes, thus refining the efficiency and durability of the nozzles without knowing precisely why they work. It's apparently an engineering technique still in use today.



The last speaker before lunch was David Aaronovitch. I was particularly keen to hear what he had to say as I attended the CFI Conspiracy Theories day at Conway Hall, at which David was scheduled to speak, but he had to withdraw due to ill health. So I was not entirely pleased when he began by announcing that his talk would be completely new and unike any of his previous talks. Nevertheless it was lively and off the cuff — conspiracy theories are everywhere so it's not as if there's a dearth of material — and well worth hearing. He spoke mostly about the conspiracy theory that's grown up around the affair of Dominique Strauss-Kahn — that the allegations against him of attempted rape are part of a sting organised by the French government (or more particularly by factions loyal to Nicolas Sarkozy).

After an equally lively Q&A session it was time for lunch. Topics had already ranged far and wide. More next time.

(Click here for part 2.)

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This is my 600th blogpost. I thought you'd like to know.

Doubtful text is no standard for doctrinal accuracy

"This chapter addresses a popular argument that is used against those who hold to an inerrant Bible. Essentially, the argument is posed as a question: How can you claim to have an inerrant original text when we don't even have the original text? On its face, this argument has seemed so compelling that some people never get beyond it. This chapter will show what are the underlying assumptions behind this question and why they are fallacious."

A laudable goal, don't you think? Unfortunately Daniel B. Wallace does no such thing. His chapter — "Inerrancy and the Text of the New Testament — Assessing the Logic of the Agnostic View" (the second in the final section of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God) —  says much the same as did David Instone-Brewer at Unbelievable?: The Conference. Which is, we don't have the autographs but we know what they (mostly) said. This, it turns out, amounts to little more than wishful thinking. As I pointed out in my review of the previous chapter, the lack of the original manuscripts throws everything else into doubt, because there is no provenance for any of the copies. At one point Wallace claims that there are almost 10,000 Latin manuscripts, but it makes no difference how many there are if you don't know from what they were copied. Suppose they're all derived from an early but inaccurate copy — there may be differences between them that can be ironed out by scholarship and statistical analysis, but the resultant agreed text will be nothing more than a reasonably accurate representation of something that itself could be wildly inaccurate.

Wallace spends many words (indeed this chapter is the longest in the book so far) on whether acknowledged discrepancies are significant, and claims that in terms of doctrine they are not. But he's basing his judgement of what conforms to doctrine on the text that he's trying to validate. This is begging the question. If the doctrine happens to be stated in the missing or disputed text, he cannot know whether the text conforms to doctrine or not, because the doctrine itself is therefore in doubt.

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4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbbible.aspx?pageid=8589952779
PDF available here:
http://www.kintera.org/atf/cf/%7B3B69BDFD-EA8B-40FF-9448-410B4D143E88%7D/NTTCinerrancyNAMB.pdf

Intelligent design in the pub

Today I received email from someone willing to give talks on their chosen subject, anywhere in the UK, for free. This person is also "happy to participate in more intimate settings like a dinner or supper event."

Sounds to me a bit like Skeptics in the Pub, so I'm wondering if I should suggest this person to Trish — the convenor of my local (Portsmouth) Skeptics in the Pub — as a possible future speaker. My emailer's subject is one that concerns many skeptics, and is often discussed when skeptics get together.

The talks seem likely to be of a professional standard, after all the email states: "I have a number of illustrated presentations which are suitable for college, university, church or public audiences..."

Seems too good to be true, although that fleeting reference to "church" might give one pause. Perhaps I should write back to the sender, thanking him for his kind offer, and (after consulting with Trish) suggest a few dates. Of course I'd have to come clean as to my own identity and my own stance on his particular subject, as I've blogged about my emailer before — which might make him think twice about travelling the length of the country in order to give a talk to an audience who would most likely disagree with him.

So despite his claim that he's happy to "speak at any event, anywhere in the UK, which you may wish to organise," I think this is one invitation Dr. Alastair Noble, Director of the Centre for Intelligent Design, would probably decline.

Religious comfort at my expense

"As the NHS looks to find at least £20bn of savings between now and 2015, could the provision of chaplains be one area where the service could save money? Edward Presswood, a doctor of acute medicine based in North London, and Rev Debbie Hodge, chief officer of Multi Faith Group for Healthcare Chaplaincy, debate whether there is a place for spirituality on hospital wards."

This was a brief discussion on BBC Radio Four's Today Programme this morning, and though four and a half minutes isn't enough to explore the issues in detail, it proved sufficient to reveal the underlying concerns of both sides. Edward Presswood made the point that a religious chaplain could not cater for the "spiritual needs" of someone who was of a different or no religion, though he stated he wasn't against hospital chaplains on principle — only their being funded by the National Health Service.

Debbie Hodge offered a similar argument to that used by the Lords Spiritual when attempting to justify seats in the House of Lords for Anglican bishops: that "religious" care isn't the forefront of the care they provide, but their religiosity gives them unique expertise. This ties in with the suggestion that clerics have some special spiritual power that only they have access to, perhaps because they have a hotline to the Almighty. Unjustified assumptions like this lead to taxpayers funding hospital chaplains to the tune of £29 million per year. Edward Presswood ably skewered the assumption with his football-fan analogy.

Listen to the discussion here (fast forward to 2h45m — available for a week):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01dhqfb/Today_22_03_2012/

Given more time, I'd like to have heard the Rev Hodge explain precisely what she means by "spiritual care" as it seems this is a term bandied about with little idea of what it's actually supposed to be.

Incomprehensible actions for unknown reasons

There is a theme in the affairs of apologists, which taken at the flood, leads on to incoherence.*

At Choosing Hats, contributor McFormtist considers what constitutes successful apologetics. As the type of apologetic usually in question at Choosing Hats is "covenantal" or "presuppositional" apologetics, and my own limited encounters with presuppositionalists have led me to the conclusion that presuppositonal apologetics is spectacularly unsuccessful in the declared purpose of apologetics in general, naturally my interest was piqued.

Early on in the piece comes this:

1. Our theology dictates to us that it is God who changes men’s hearts. As Reformed Christians, we understand that God in His Holy Sovereignty is superintending everything that comes to pass, including the salvation of men, and that the conversion of men starts and ends by God’s active working in their hearts, and this moving is not dependent in any way upon man’s efforts, whether they be those of the evangelist or of the one being evangelized. (Eze. 36:26, John 3:8)

...which I found puzzling (emphasis in the original). If "...this moving is not dependent in any way upon man’s efforts, whether they be those of the evangelist or of the one being evangelized," then apologetics would seem to be irrelevant. If the moving of men's hearts is not dependent in any way upon man's efforts, the whole enterprise seems redundant. I posted as much (albeit briefly) as a comment to McFormtist's post.

McFormtist was good enough to reply, and it was in the reply that I saw the recurrence of a theme I've encountered before when Christians are questioned about their evangelism. They don't do it because of its results — the purpose of apologetics is indeed irrelevant to its effect. They do it because God told them to do it. It's all about obedience. Men must do what God tells them to do, regardless of whether it makes sense or leads to unintended consequences. That's unintended by man, of course: God works in mysterious ways — who can fathom the depths of His intention?

This theme is also present in the Westboro Baptist Church. When Shirley Phelps-Roper and her husband Brent were guests on the Skepticule Extra podcast, they made it clear they were not concerned with the effect their uncompromising brand of evangelism (if you can call it that) might have on the people they were picketing. The results of what they did were irrelevant to them and their purpose. Their only purpose — a purpose they appeared determined to pursue regardless — was to obey God. Anything else was a side-issue and of minimal importance.

So, coupling God's "mysterious ways" with His commands interpreted from scripture, we end up with groups of devout believers earnestly carrying out incoherent actions for reasons they accept they cannot understand. These people are doing incomprehensible stuff and they don't know why.

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*With apologies to William Shakespeare

Christianity's seminal documents still missing

We come at last to the final section of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God, which is entitled The Question of the Bible. But I have to ask, why did the editors consider the question of the Bible to be the final thing worth addressing after the foregoing sections on Jesus, on Science and on Philosophy? Much of the book has already quoted copiously from the Bible, and yet only now are we to consider if the Bible is ... what? Reliable? True?

Of course it's possible Dembski and Licona take the truth of the Bible as self-evident, and only included this section as an afterthought. Unlikely? Perhaps, but nevertheless I feel that The Question of the Bible should at least have come before The Question of Jesus.

Now that we are addressing the biblical question, what does Andreas J. Köstenberger have to say in his chapter, "Is the Bible Today What Was Originally Written?" Two things: the Bible was transmitted accurately, and it has been translated accurately. The latter can be — and is — continually debated. Translation from one language to another is never set in stone as long as the original language text is available to be re-translated by anyone who feels, for whatever reason, that another translation is necessary.

But the availability of the original language text remains problematic, for one very simple reason: we do not have any original autographs. All we have are copies, and no matter how much comparison of different copies is done in an effort to recreate the original, we can never be sure that it is actually the original that we are recreating. What all the careful comparisons might be achieving is a reasonably faithful re-creation of an early — but erroneous — copy. It's impossible to tell. All the arguments about the number of copies — and how similar or different they are — cannot get us reliably closer to the actual originals, because we have no way of knowing for sure if the re-creation is accurate.

Köstenberger, however, appears unfazed by this towering uncertainty:

Today, when someone opens any English Bible (NKJV, NASB, NIV, ESV, TNIV, HCSB), he or she may know that generations of faithful scholarship have managed to preserve and protect that Bible as it was originally given.

He may devoutly desire that to be the case, but merely asserting it doesn't make it so.

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4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbbible.aspx?pageid=8589952765

Skepticule Extra 22

Late (as usual) but all the more superbly great for having to be waited for. (And yes I know that a conjunction is something you're not supposed to end a sentence with.)

It's Skepticule Extra, episode 22! (that's an exclamation mark, not a factorial — which incidentally would be 1.12400072777760768 x 10^21 according to Wolfram Alpha).

In this episode the three Pauls discuss, among other things, skeptical and godless conferences, non-skeptical (but highly lucrative) books, and debating delusion.

http://www.skepticule.co.uk/2012/03/skepextra-022-20120226.html

Burnee links for Sunday

Some belated (most from over a week ago) Burnee links. (Sorry, but I've been busy. I went to this QED thing in Manchester...)

Why Richard Dawkins is still an atheist - Guest Voices - The Washington Post
Dawkins an agnostic? Well, that's a surprise! (Actually it isn't.)

‘It’s time to quit the Catholic Church’ - Freedom From Religion Foundation - FFRF.org
If only.

Why I am an atheist – A Texan | Pharyngula
Another story of enlightenment — short but inspiring. The born-again religious tell these kinds of stories too — for belief going in the opposite direction — but we don't seem to hear so many of those.

The Fireplace Delusion : Sam Harris
Sam's analogue should make you think.

Debunking Corner: Origins Exposed: Latest Crypto-Creationist Pamphlet Debunked by Paul Braterman | British Centre for Science Education
Quote-mining, misrepresentation of legitimate science (deliberate or otherwise) and incredulity (aka failure of the imagination) are the orders of the day.

What Nonbelievers Believe | Psychology Today
Dave Niose keeps it simple.
(Via Paul Wright.)

Question.Explore.Discover your media here

On Monday evening after returning from QED in Manchester I posted this tweet:

and received this response from Geoff Whelan:

Glad to see suggestions being considered. But you know what? I'm not going to wait. Think of this as a temporary repository for QED media. If you've posted images (photos, sketches, scans), video or audio, or blogged about QED, post links to your content in the comments below and I'll list everything on a special page, which the QED organisers can use or not as the fancy takes.

The page is here:

http://www.evilburnee.co.uk/p/qed-2012-media-links.html

I've put a few links in already, to kick things off.

The beam in thine eye and dogmatic projection

So Chris Bolt accuses me of dogmatism. Whether I am actually dogmatic, however, cannot be deduced from the blogpost of mine that Chris references. My blogpost is 116 words long, not counting the link to the Unbelievable? audio stream, so Chris must really, really want to believe it contains dogmatism. What I actually wrote about Hell was that I could think of an alternative explanation for believing it was real — alternative, that is, to its actual existence. I did not claim — dogmatically or otherwise — to know that Hell doesn't exist. Chris, on the other hand, does claim to know that Hell exists. He writes:

Hell is incomprehensibly awful. I am deeply troubled by the thought of people going there, but they will, and they do. However, it is the wicked who go to hell, and they deserve the punishment they receive there.

This isn't a suggestion of a possible alternative view, nor is it speculation on different interpretations. It's a claim of knowledge based on nothing but scripture — otherwise known as dogmatism. Go read his piece, then see if this slightly altered version of one of his eight paragraphs (of nearly a thousand words — that's a response ratio approaching ten to one) wouldn't be nearer the truth:

One might question how Chris is so dogmatically certain that hell exists. Of course it does not matter how certain Chris feels he is with regard to the alleged existence of hell if hell doesn't in fact exist. It does not matter how strongly opposed one is to the existence of terminal cancer if one has it. One’s beliefs do not affect such states of affairs. The cancer is going to win out in the end. So also Chris’s opinions about hell do not matter in the end if hell is indeed a fantasy. It would serve Chris well to give more critical thought to how he knows that hell exists.

In short, Chris dogmatically claims that Hell exists, while accusing me of dogmatism for merely suggesting an alternative explanation for belief in it.

Eternal conscious mild inconvenience

A while ago I had occasion to doubt the usefulness of a certain kind of discussion, which I characterised as piffle. Understandably my doubt was challenged, but the challenge didn't change my view on the matter. I chose not to pursue it, as I didn't expect such pursuit to be fruitful.

I shall not be pursuing this either:

http://www.premierradio.org.uk/listen/ondemand.aspx?mediaid={71DF5283-40AD-40B4-AF6E-1FEE9B98ACE9}

It's about whether Hell is "eternal conscious punishment" on the one hand, or "annihilation" on the other. Other options are given short shrift, if considered at all. The alternative that occurs most obviously to me is, "Hell doesn't exist — it's a horror story told to children to stop them being naughty."

Not just piffle, but risible piffle.

Burnee links for Wednesday

Just to prove this blog hasn't actually died, here are a few (somewhat belated) Burnee links:

The BBC's problem with science | Martin Robbins | Science | guardian.co.uk
The BBC should treat science with the equality it deserves.

New Statesman - Sayeeda Warsi, secularism and the Pope
What on earth does she think she's doing? In the light of the recent poll on what self-identifying Christians actually believe, Cameron should put a stop to Warsi's meddlesome antics.

Baroness Warsi and Religious Identity | HumanistLife
A timely warning from David Pavett.

How To Edit Wikipedia Part I: Set up your account « Skeptical Software Tools
Tim Farley has started a series on editing Wikipedia. I've previously mentioned that this is something I've considered, but been daunted by its apparent complexity. A series of tutorials will be very welcome.

No blood on the carpet. How disappointing. [Also in Polish] - Richard Dawkins - RichardDawkins.net - RichardDawkins.net
Dawkins' (oft-stated) agnosticism surprises no-one who's actually read his books or listened to what he says.

Skepticule Extra 020

Skepticule Extra 021 will be with you shortly, but meanwhile why not listen to number 20, in which the three Pauls talk about blasphemy, ghosts, and the posthumous baptism of atheists by morons  Mormons — amongst other things. The episode also features an interview with Hayley Stevens about the ethics of ghost hunting (the subject of her talk at the CFIUK Beyond the Veil conference).

Go on, you know you want to.

http://www.skepticule.co.uk/2012/02/skepextra-020-20120129.html

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