A Facebook exchange on hellish religious language

Here's a Facebook conversation from a few days before Christmas. The thread (of which this is a part) is now buried deep down in the Unbelievable group and therefore probably not worth reviving, but I wanted to record my final comments for the sake of completeness, and to clarify my own thoughts:

Daniel Smith Sam, some Christians argue that language of hell and eternal torment is figurative for cessation of existence; it does not refer to literal conscious torment for eternity. This view is called annihilationism.

Other Christians, like myself, take the imagery of hell (fire and brimstone, etc....) to be symbolic. After all, it is difficult to see how there could be "outer darkness" in a literal furnace, so one of these texts at least must be understood non-literally. if humans were made for relationship with God, then to be separated from God for eternity would be a type of torment, albeit self-inflicted.

And as you guessed others, perhaps most, think that a literal furnace exists where the damned suffer eternally.

Point being, there is a range of views, and the issue is not at all settled, especially between the second and third conceptions of hell.
19 December at 05:07 · Like

Paul Jenkins ‎@Daniel, this is why I find religious language unhelpful. If someone threatens to beat me to a pulp, and I interpret that "figuratively" as nothing more than a threat to scowl disapprovingly at me, at the very least this indicates a failure of communication.
19 December at 09:42 · Like

Daniel Smith Paul,

I think your language is just as unhelpful. Figurative language is not "religious language." It's jut the way humans communicate. I don't say that I find scientific language unhelpful because "the sun rose at 6:53 A.M." is not literally true. Or at the end of a long day of work, "I am dead tired" is not literally true. Or "sometimes my wife has to whip me into shape," is (usually) not literally true. The fact that religious texts use language which all of us use every day is neither a defect in religion nor in religious language.

If someone threatens to beat you to a pulp, you take them literally in that you think they literally will beat you, but not literally "to a pulp." So even this implies a bit of figurative speech which needs to be interpreted. Easy to point the finger at religion, though. Maybe you should acknowledge that things just aren't always as clear as you want them to be.
19 December at 19:24 · Like

Paul Jenkins Daniel,

I acknowledge that things aren't always as clear as I'd like, and that there is a difference between being "beaten to a pulp" in the figurative sense and being beaten to a pulp in an electric blender. Both the figurative sense and the literal sense, however, would involve blood and mangled flesh rather than, say, superficial bruising. Therefore I maintain that my figurative use of "beaten to a pulp" is a legitimate use of language that conveys my intended meaning with a degree of accuracy.

This cannot be said of the difference between "literal conscious torment" in the "fire and brimstone" of a literal furnace on the one hand, and "cessation of existence" on the other. The two are not remotely comparable. The claim that one is a symbolic expression of the other contributes more to obfuscation than clarity.
20 December at 00:31 · Like

Daniel Smith Therefore you maintain that your use of language, while not literally correct, is correct enough in the context you're using it and for the audience you're communicating with.

I agree with you that annihilationism does not seem to be what passages about fire and brimstone teach. That view is based on other passages. Nevertheless you've conceded the most important thing: that figurative language is constantly is use. This makes it difficult to criticize the Bible on the basis that there are debates about what some passages contained therein really mean to say. I mean, we have the same debates in America about the constitution. This must prove that political language is totally worthless and imprecise, right?
20 December at 22:21 · Like

I do concede that figurative language is in constant use — it's part of what makes conversation interesting and expressive, and it certainly doesn't make political language worthless (although it can adversely affect its precision). But if "fire and brimstone" is figurative or symbolic language, and annihilationism is "based on other passages", at least one of these must be wrong, and in either case the language used to justify them is, indeed, unhelpful.

Absence of corpse isn't evidence of resurrection

I'm unsure why the "empty tomb" is supposed to be a big deal. If an inanimate object is placed at a particular location, and is subsequently not found where it was placed, one does not normally jump to the conclusion that the object moved of its own accord. Being inanimate, incapable of independent locomotion, the object — or rather its lack — is most likely to be explained by having been moved by a person or persons unknown. If the location in question is a tomb, and the object a corpse, the most plausible explanation for the corpse's absence is that it's been stolen.

Be that as it may, Gary R. Habermas expends some additional words in "The Empty Tomb of Jesus", Chapter 34 of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God, on the "criterion of embarrassment" — that reports of the empty tomb came from women, whose testimony was at the time held to be generally less reliable than that of men. The problem with the criterion of embarrassment is that it cuts both ways, and is therefore worth very little: we can just as easily say, "it must be true because it's so incredible" as we can say, "it must be true because it's so credible." (Would the gospel accounts of the empty tomb be any more believable if they contained the reports of known liars, or children, or perhaps even talking donkeys? I think not.)

Unfortunately Habermas goes one worse, and like Michael Licona in the previous chapter engages in circular reasoning:

Fourth, most recent scholars seem to agree that, while Paul does not explicitly mention the empty tomb, the early tradition that this apostle reported to others in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 implies an empty tomb. The listing of the Gospel content moves from Jesus' death, to his burial, to his resurrection from the dead, to his appearances. This sequence strongly suggests that, however it may have been transformed, Jesus' body that died and was buried is the same one that was raised afterwards. Thus, what was placed in the ground is precisely what emerged. In short, what went down is what came up. Such a process would have resulted in the burial tomb being emptied.

That Paul does not specifically mention the empty tomb keeps this from being as strong a point as it could have been. Still, to say so clearly that Jesus' dead body was buried, raised, and appeared would be a rather strange process unless the tomb had been vacated in the process.

Habermas is implicitly using the empty tomb as evidence for the resurrection of Jesus (that's presumably why this chapter is included), but the paragraphs quoted above appear to use accounts of Jesus's post-mortem appearances as evidence for the tomb being empty. Do I need to point out again that this is a circular argument?

Then Habermas uses the well-worn trope of "would they die for a lie?" without examining the possibility that disciples might very well die for a delusion if they were sufficiently indoctrinated. The fact that the disciples were prepared to die for their beliefs has no bearing on whether those beliefs were true.

It does seem likely that the tomb was empty, but this only shows that the tomb did not contain a body. I find this unremarkable, and I'm at a loss to understand why Habermas is even concerned to establish it. Too bad I didn't get that chance to ask him myself.

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4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbjesus.aspx?pageid=8589952861

Brainy stuff

Pinkish grey and vaguely reminiscent of an oversized walnut, the human brain is composed of brainy stuff, which allows it, by means that are far from fully understood, to do brainy stuff. Currently screening on BBC Four TV this week (and available on iPlayer) this year's Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are delivered by Professor Bruce Hood, who is inviting us to "Meet Your Brain".

Here's a trailer, from the RI Channel website:
http://www.richannel.org/christmas-lectures/2011/meet-your-brain#/the-christmas-lectures-2011--trailer

The Christmas Lectures 2011 - Trailer from The Royal Institution on Vimeo.

There are lots more videos relating to the Christmas Lectures on the RI Channel, including some snippets recorded well before the lectures themselves. Worth a browse.

As an unexpected bonus, Professor Hood's new book The Self Illusion — not due to be published until April 2012 — is partly available as a free Kindle download from Amazon (remember you don't need a Kindle to be able to read Kindle ebooks — there are free software readers for Mac, Windows, iOS and Android).

The last time brainy stuff was the subject of the Christmas Lectures they were delivered, if I remember correctly, by Susan Greenfield. Presumably she went on to carry out rigorous, detailed research — fully documented in respected peer-reviewed scientific journals — into the effects on the brain of activities such as video-gaming and internet social networking. Or something like that.

Burnee links for the Tuesday after Christmas, containing much stuff I should have posted quite a long time ago...

Science, Reason and Critical Thinking: Skeptic Trumps: Rhys Morgan
The Welsh boyo has arrived.

New Humanist (Rationalist Association) - Half of Britons now non-religious, finds respected British Social Attitudes survey
Progress in Great Britain at least.

Dr. Coyne gets religious pushback « Why Evolution Is True
Jerry Coyne gets first hand experience of anti-evolutionism at the chalkface.

Horrifyingly delusional anti-vaxxers in Australia | Pharyngula
Meryl Dorey is dangerously deluded.

A common atheist delusion | Pharyngula
Social glue, or a disastrously stupid collection of bad ideas?

Hitch is not in heaven | Pharyngula
We are all "living dyingly".

Spilled Ink
As comprehensive takedowns go, this is as comprehensive as it gets.

The Blog : Hitch : Sam Harris
A favourite writer on a favourite writer.

A Modest Proposal « The New Adventures of Stephen Fry
Maybe the time is right for repatriation of some items whose expatriation was made possible by the civilisation from which they were expatriated in the first place.

Happy Ada Lovelace Day 2011 | Sarah Angliss
I'm linking to this (belatedly because I've only just found it) not because it's Ada Lovelace but because it's Daphne Oram, whose "Oramics" electronic music machine I saw when I visted the Science Museum on the day I attended the Last Night of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall this year.

The dangers of video games | Pharyngula
Let that be a lesson to you...


The scandalous video that could not be shown on TV! Here! Now! Uncensored! | Pharyngula
Another from YouTube linked by PZ Myers.


Next year, we must wage the War on Christmas harder | Pharyngula
PZ Myers disagrees with John Lennox and Alister McGrath. This is not a surprise — these two epitomise some extremes of theology: confident but utterly unsubstantiated pronouncements from the former and waffly vacuity from the latter. (Once upon a time I thought it might be helpful to read a primer on theology, but changed my mind when I discovered most of them were written my Alister McGrath.)

Christopher Hitchens, 1949 — 2011

http://youtu.be/mQorzOS-F6w


"The metaphysical claims of religion are untrue."

It's been a sad and sobering day. We shall not see his like again.

Circular logic is circular in Evidence for God

Michael R. Licona, one of the editors of Evidence for God (the other being William A. Dembski) contributes Chapter 33, "Can We Be Certain That Jesus Died on a Cross? — A Look at the Ancient Practice of Crucifixion". Certainty in this matter is apparently important because if Jesus didn't die on a cross he couldn't have been resurrected, and "without a resurrection, Christianity is falsified." So Licona presents "four reasons that support the credibility of the claim that Jesus died as a result of being crucified."

First, he mentions reports about Jesus's execution, some by non-Christians, and he goes on to say:

The fact that these non-Christians mentioned Jesus in their writings shows that Jesus' death was known outside of Christian circles and was not something the Christians invented.

That's stretching it a bit. Licona himself states that the reports were late first century, early second century, early to mid-second century, and second to third century. Even the earliest would presumably have been decades after the event reported, so it's unlikely they were reliable eye-witness accounts. They could even have been second-hand reports based on the same source — but how reliable was that source itself? Maybe the story of Jesus's death was known outside of Christian circles, but the existence of those reports is hardly proof that they are all true.

Second, Licona goes into gory detail about crucifixion and concludes that people who were crucified were highly unlikely to survive it. I'm not sure why this needs to be stated — execution isn't something one is expected to survive.

Then we get this:

Third, professional medical opinions are unanimous in concluding that Jesus certainly died as a result of being crucified.⁷

Licona gives the following reference for the above statement:

⁷A number of these are mentioned in Raymond Brown, The Death of the Messiah, Volume 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 1088ff.

Now, I'm not disputing that Jesus probably died as a result of his crucifixion, but I have to point out Licona's appallingly shoddy logic in the above claim. What, precisely, does he mean by "unanimous"? Has he consulted every professional medical opinion? Apparently not — he says "a number" are mentioned in his cited reference. It seems therefore that he's using "unanimous" in the sense that all of the professional medical opinions that conclude Jesus died from crucifixion are unanimous in that opinion — which is at best tautologous.

Licona may have been perilously close to the edge of logic with that last "reason", but with his fourth he steps right off the cliff. He attempts to use Jesus's post-mortem appearances as evidence for him dying on the cross. This is begging the question. What Licona is trying to establish in this chapter is that Jesus died on the cross, because if Jesus didn't die on the cross he couldn't have been resurrected. Licona can't use the resurrection as proof of the crucifixion and then use the crucifixion to prove the resurrection, because — this is elementary stuff — that's a circular argument.

Argumentation of such low calibre is fatal to Licona's credibility here. Dembski should have spiked it.

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4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbjesus.aspx?pageid=8589952883

Burnee links for Sunday

Sophisticated theologians circumvent Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality « Why Evolution Is True:
Jerry Coyne: "I’m starting to realize that there is no sophisticated theology." He's referring to a post by Jason Rosenhouse, who concludes with this on Leviticus:

"If you want to use the Bible as a moral guide then you are stuck with it. The text is not infinitely malleable, and you cannot reasonably interpret X to mean not X. Rather than try to twist the text to fit modern moral sensibilities, which despite their denials is precisely what Friedman and Dolansky are doing, why don't we simply discard this particular ancient book and move on to more promising approaches to morality?"

Amen!

Islam, Charles Darwin and the denial of science - Telegraph
Steve Jones on the point of despair as students reject evolution.
(Via David Jenkins*.)

Rationally Speaking: A handy dandy guide for the skeptic of determinism
A decidedly triumphal post from Massimo Pigliucci on the pervasive idea that determinism has been determined. (I need more understanding of philosophy...)

More on free will: Dr.^3 Pigliucci weighs in, I respond « Why Evolution Is True
Maybe I really should learn more philosophy if I want to get to grips with jousts like those Jerry Coyne and Massimo Pigliucci engage in.

Best photos of the year 2011 | Analysis & Opinion | Reuters
100 pictures — the best of photojournalism (some very graphic).
(Via Luke Muehlhauser.)

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* Yeah, he's my dad.