Skeptics in the Planetarium

(Now that I've booked my own tickets for this event, I'm happy to spread the news...)

It's going to be amazing — just look at that line-up! Crispian Jago has all the lovely details, so go to his site for further links and info about the performers.

 There's also a Facebook event page to confirm your attendance (if you want to) and see who else is going. Oh the anticipation...

Moral imperatives explained

It's been a while since I embedded Morality 2, but here's the third instalment of QualiaSoup's excellent YouTube series on morality:

http://youtu.be/sN-yLH4bXAI


Seventeen minutes of astounding moral clarity — definitely worth the wait. So far this series has turned out to be the most lucid, concise and comprehensive analysis of morality I've seen.

Biblical authority in doubt?

Ben Witherington III follows his previous chapter in Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God with "Jesus as God", in which he quotes so extensively from the Bible that I wonder if the editors put the sections of their book in the wrong order. This, the third section, is titled The Question of Jesus, but I can't help wondering if it should have come after the fourth (which I've yet to read), titled The Question of the Bible.

I query this because the book is supposed to be directed at skeptics as well as believers. To quote from the back cover:

Challenges to belief in God as he is revealed in the Bible have always existed, and today is no exception. In Evidence for God, leading Christian scholars and apologists provide compelling arguments that address the latest and most pressing questions about God, science, Jesus, the Bible, and more, including:

• Did Jesus really exist?
• Is Jesus the only way to God?
• What about those who have never heard the gospel?
• Is today's Bible what was originally written?
• What about recently publicised gospels that aren't in the Bible?
• Is intelligent design really a credible explanation of the origins of our world?
• and much more

All but one of those bulleted points rely on the Bible, so shouldn't the Bible's provenance be addressed first? Perhaps the editors felt that the arguments in support of the Bible would not be as convincing as those from science and philosophy. We shall see.

Meanwhile I can summarise chapter 31 as, "Jesus is God because he said so, though he was sensibly cagey about it in certain circumstances."

Not very convincing.

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4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbjesus.aspx?pageid=8589952873

Does it matter how Jesus prayed?

Chapter 30 of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God is "Son of God" by Ben Witherington III. It seems mostly to be an argument for the idea that Jesus was God's son — because he was reported, in the Bible, to have said as much. The whole thing is so confused, however, that it's hard to draw any conclusions from it.

Witherington points out that Jesus prayed to God using the term "Abba", which is a term of endearment. This, he says, shows that Jesus thought of himself as the "son" of God as distinct from the prevalent usage where kings were also considered "sons" of God. But Witherington immediately undermines this proposition by stating that Jesus also taught his disciples to pray to God using the term "Abba". So this term does not, after all, denote a special exclusive relationship of the kind usually claimed for Jesus.

Added to which, the chapter doesn't address the issue of reliability that's inevitably triggered by a passage such as this:

There can be no doubt however, that Jesus did not view His relationship to God as simply identical to the relationship King David had with God. For one thing, it tells us a lot about Jesus that He prayed to God as Abba which is the Aramaic term of endearment which means dearest Father (see Mark 14:36, Abba is not slang, it does not mean "Daddy.")

We have no records of anything Jesus wrote. We cannot know how he prayed, only how he was reported to have prayed. Witherington's entire chapter is scuppered by his very first sentence:

One of the big mistakes in Christian apologetics is just focusing on what Jesus publicly claimed to be.

There's been much discussion over two millennia about Jesus' public statements — how accurately they were reported, whether his chroniclers' agenda influenced the slant of their reports, or even whether their memories were reliable given that they wrote nothing about Jesus for decades. What Witherington is talking about, however, are Jesus' private prayers. What chance have we of reliably knowing anything about those? And even if we did know, what difference would it make?

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4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbjesus.aspx?pageid=8589952901

Miraculous irrationality

Last Saturday's Unbelievable? was a discussion between Gary Habermas, Christian, and Geoff Campos, atheist, recorded during the Bethinking apologetics conference at Westminster Chapel, as part of William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith Tour. I listened with mixed feelings, as there had been a brief possibility that the three Pauls of Skepticule Extra could have been the ones in conversation with Gary Habermas, rather than Geoff Campos. In the event I think Geoff gave a good account of himself and his position with regard to the question at issue — which was, "Is it rational to believe in miracles?"

Nevertheless I found myself at times disagreeing with everyone in the conversation. A good deal was said about Geoff's stance on the status of the "supernatural", and Justin Brierley — moderating the discussion — made the inevitable point about denial of supernature closing off options, suggesting that perhaps Geoff was being closed-minded if he did not accept that supernatural events were even possible.

This is an invidious position to hold in the face of theistic miracle claims, but I think it's a result of not defining one's terms. Though the definition of "supernatural" was explored, I don't recall anyone clarifying what was meant by "rational". For an event to be rationally believed in, that event must conform to reason and logic. Its causes and effects must be capable of description in rational terms, and those causes and effects must lie entirely in the physical realm — because the physical realm of causes and effects is the only realm in which rationally observed phenomena have been verified to occur.

So the question posed by Justin for this show contained the seeds of its own irrationality. It's not rational to believe in miracles, because by definition miracles are effects without rational causes.

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Streaming audio here:
http://www.premierradio.org.uk/listen/ondemand.aspx?mediaid={B9C493B0-276B-492F-82B7-C2C5D5F06EFA}

Download mp3 here:
http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/f4ac58fb-9cf3-4ad7-aa49-1392546b275f.mp3

Burnee belated links for Thursday

William Lane Craig on Radio 4 - steve's posterous
It was Andrew Copson who made the comments Steve Zara refers to. That such comments are finding a wider audience (in the light of Craig's UK tour) will surely lead to more exposure of his disingenuous debating techniques.

Whom does God really endorse, anyway? | The Atheist Experience
This is a really obvious question. Will it ever be asked?

Mason Crumpacker and the Hitchens reading list « Why Evolution Is True
This is an awesome blogpost.

C4ID still doesn’t understand science. | Wonderful Life
"It looks designed." Therefore, what — scientifically speaking?

Mississippi’s shame | Pharyngula
P. Z. Myers gets to grips with a skewed understanding of "personhood".

Why I am an atheist – Cathy Oliver | Pharyngula
P. Z. Myers is currently using his blog to publish people's affirmative atheism stories. This is an excellent example.

will someone rid me of this turbulent language | Robinince's Blog
The right to freedom of speech also incurs some duties.

Theology crushed

This is a debate between John Haught and Jerry Coyne, on the question of the compatibility of science and religion. The video contains one speech from each, and then cuts off as the Q&A begins. But never mind that — Jerry Coyne's comprehensive take-down of the follies of theology is a joy to behold:

http://vimeo.com/31505142

2011 Bale Boone Symposium - Science & Religion: Are They Compatible? from UK Gaines Center on Vimeo.

Jerry Coyne pulled no punches here, and apparently his uncompromising stance has upset his opponent.

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UPDATE 2011-11-05:  The Q&A session is now available:

http://vimeo.com/31599587

Science and Religion: Are They Compatible? October 12, 2011 Q+A with Jerry Coyne and John Haught from UK College of Arts & Sciences on Vimeo.