Clearing Things Up

Till brings a biblicist back down to earth. From the Yahoo group, Alt. Bible Errancy, April 20, 2003:

Gray
Give the slightest objective proof, if possible, that Jesus still

exists, or ever existed, for that matter. You can't.

Larry
Gray, since you believe that he doesn't or ever has existed,

wouldn't you have to prove your point also? Do you believe 
that he doesn't exist, or do you know he doesn't exist? Could 
you give me conclusive evidence that Jesus doesn't exist? 
Maybe it's like trying to prove that you are Steve Gray! How 
would you prove that you are who you say you are?

TILL
Uh, excuse me, Larry, but he who asserts must prove. If I 
asserted that fairies exist, would you feel any obligation to 
prove that fairies do not exist?

Farrell Till

Wanting To Believe In Miracles

by Kenneth W. Hawthorne
A letter I sent to a Church of Christ preacher about 7 years ago:

Christians make the claim that God came to earth in the flesh of a man, Jesus Christ. That he was born of a virgin, performed various miracles while on earth, died and about three days later came back to life never to die again, then forty days later ascended into heaven, and that all or much of this was miraculously foretold by God-inspired prophets in the Old Testament. These are all ontologically positive and distant claims that go against all conventional, community experiences. These Christian claims, therefore, bear an extremely high asymmetrical burden of proof. That means that before someone should believe these claims are actually true, the evidence presented would have to be so profound and so unequivocal that one would be forced to believe these claims instead of believing what he knows happens all the time--and go with something that, as far as his experiences, has never happened.

Unfortunately, what I've seen as evidence for these Christian claims is not even close to being sufficient for the type of claims made. The four Gospels are nothing but hearsay, written by biased, anonymous writers. Certain church "fathers" made a fanciful connection to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John being the authors--but no one really knows who wrote these book. These church fathers amount to no more than what you would consider denominational preachers today--yet you believe them on this essential matter--and would, today, be very skeptical of anything they had to say on the subject of religion. But even if Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were the actual authors they were biased and what they wrote amounts to no more than religious propaganda. None of the  disinterested, contemporary scientists or writers of the time Jesus is said to have lived record anything about Jesus, much less his miracles. Josephus does not qualify because it is obvious that his work has been tampered with concerning his mention of Jesus and is therefore flawed and unreliable. Alexander Campbell had this to say:

Exceptional Claims Require Exceptional Evidence

A short discussion between Farrell Till and a Christian, Brian, on 

the necessity of exceptional evidence for the exceptional claims of 

religionists--which never seem to materialize for some reason. From 

Alt. Bible Errancy discussion list, Jan. 2, 1999:

TILL
Please explain to us what is "monotonous" and "unscholarly 
cynical" about asking for reasonable evidence that exceptional 
claims are true. Muslims make exceptional claims about their 
religion. Hindus make exceptional claims about their religion. 
Mormons make exceptional claims about their religion. Is it
your position that such claims should be accepted without 
question? If not, then please explain to us why you think 
that your exceptional claims about the Bible should be accepted 
without question. In other words, what makes your exceptional 
claims so exceptional that they should be made exceptions to 
the widely recognized rule of evidence that says that exceptional 
claims require exceptional evidence? Would you do us a favor 
and actually try to answer an argument for a change?

BRIAN

Again, the SUBJECT of the discussion is religious war in the

name of GOd. Why don't you stop begging the question and 
answer it?

TILL
Your statement begs the very question of the existence of a 
god in whose name the religious war can be fought. At any
rate, although this may have been the subject of discussion, 
your comments on the subject constantly beg questions that 
you should try to prove before presenting them as assertions
apparently intended to prove your case. Therefore, it is 
appropriate to point out to you this logical fallacy that you
constantly resort to. The fact is that you can hardly write a 
sentence without resorting to question begging.

BRIAN

Because man is a liar and perverts God's truth through his sins,

does that make God a liar?

TILL
This statement confirms what I just said above. It begs the 
questions of (1) the existence of "God's truth," (2) the reality 
of sin, and (3) the existence of God.

Farrell Till

When You Lack Evidence...

Just common sense, really. Something biblical inerrantists are woefully lacking in: 

When you lack evidence, the only way to decide whether or not to believe something is to ask: Is it likely? If you tell me a bird flew past my window, I will probably believe you, even though I did not see it myself and I have no evidence. That is because such a thing is likely. I have seen it happen before. It is more likely that a bird flew past my window, than that you are deceiving me. But if you tell me a pig flew past my window, I will not believe you, because my past experience tells me that such things do not happen, and so I presume that what you reported is false. Thus, where there is no evidence we have to rely on our own past experience of the sort of things that really happen ( Carl Lofmark from What Is The Bible, pp. 41-42).

A Critical Principle Widely Applied to Ancient Documents

From the Errancy discussion list:

If [the] documents assert that which is ordinary and within the realm of empirical experiences, then we tend to give the documents the benefit of the doubt and accept the claims at face value; however, if the documents assert that which is extraordinary and completely beyond the realm of empirical experiences, then we feel justified in rejecting the claims. Even biblicists will apply this principle to all ancient documents except for those that have been selected for inclusion in the Bible.

Farrell Till

The Lack Of Evidence For Jesus Christ

A Dr. Price had rebutted an article by Jim Lippard, "The Fabulous Prophecies of the Messiah", in which Lippard was very critical of these alleged prophecies. Farrell Till responded to Price's rebuttal. Till's initial point in his response was that before one  can entertain the possibility that there were actual prophecies in the Old Testament of Jesus Christ, the alleged Messiah, it first must be proven beyond any reasonable doubt that this Jesus Christ, as portrayed in the New Testament, did in fact exist. From the Errancy discussion list, 8-12-96:

Farrell Till's reply:

Before I begin discussing specific arguments in Dr. Price's article, there is one other prelimary matter that I need to address. Later, I will list and discuss some widely recognized criteria of valid prophecy fulfillment, but to discuss this other preliminary matter, I must jump ahead and focus on one of those criteria. It is obviously true that before a valid prophecy fulfillment can be established, the person claiming prophecy fulfillment must first show that the event or events that fulfilled the prophecy did in fact happen.

This poses a special problem for Dr. Price, because the subject of Lippard's article that Price rebutted was Messianic prophecies. Obviously, then, no valid claim of Messianic prophecy fulfillment can be made until Price establishes beyond reasonable doubt that a Messiah actually existed, because no nonexistent person could possibly fulfill prophecies that were made about a specific person. If, for example, I should claim that Dudley P. Snizzlehoff living in 18th-century Boston, MA, fulfilled certain prophecies made by Michele de Nostredame in 1554, my fulfillment claim would be weak indeed if I couldn't even prove that a person by the name of Dudley P. Snizzlehoff had even lived in 18th-century Boston. This is the situation that Dr. Price finds himself in. He claims that several Old Testament prophecies of a coming Messiah were fulfilled in the person and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth in the first century of the common era, yet neither he nor anyone else can establish beyond reasonable doubt that this Jesus of Nazareth was an actual historical person. This man Jesus of Nazareth was mentioned in New Testament documents, and he was mentioned in certain apocryphal writings.

My Reply To A Church Of Christ Preacher

By Kenneth W. Hawthorne

This is part of a reply (with some editing) to a Church of Christ preacher who claimed in his weekly bulletin that it is impossible to know that miracles are impossible. However, there is absolutely no convincing, verifiable evidence that Yahweh, the god of the Bible has caused any miracles to occur that would attest to his existence. To the contrary, the Bible is full of evidence that Yahweh cannot be God. This blog has many examples of such evidence, especially concerning this alleged god's eternal hell. For example see: An Omni God And His Eternal Hell, A Letter To A Concerned Christian Friend:

Christians make the claim that God came to earth in the flesh of a man, Jesus Christ. That he was born of a virgin, performed various miracles while on earth, died and about three days later came back to life never to die again, then forty days later ascended into heaven, and that all or much of this was miraculously foretold by God-inspired prophets in the Old Testament. These are all positive and distant claims (distant in this context has to do with how close the claims correspond to empirical knowledge such as for the claims "pigs snort" {close} and "pigs fly" {distant}) which go against all personal and community experiences. These Christian claims, therefore, bear an extremely high asymmetrical burden of proof. That means that before a rational person should seriously consider believing these extraordinary claims are true the evidence presented would have to consist of many reliable, disinterested, contemporary witness accounts--of which we have none or involve an immediate, unequivocal, personal experience  so that one would be forced to seriously consider these distant claims instead of believing what he knows happens all the time--and go with something that, as far as his experiences, has never happened.

Unfortunately, what I've seen as evidence for these Christian claims is not even close to being sufficient for the type of claims made. The four Gospels are nothing but hearsay, written by biased, anonymous writers. Certain church "fathers" made a fanciful connection to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John being the authors, based merely on biased speculation and tradition--but no one really knows who wrote these books. These church fathers amount to no more than what you would consider denominational preachers today--yet you believe them on this essential matter--and would, today, be very skeptical of anything they had to say on the subject of religion. None of the disinterested, contemporary scientists or writers of the time Jesus is said to have lived record anything about Jesus, much less his miracles. Josephus does not qualify because he is not a contemporary of Jesus and it is obvious that his work has been tampered with concerning his mention of Jesus and is therefore flawed and unreliable.

Alexander Campbell (Church of Christ icon) had this to say:

“Josephus, the Jewish historian, was contemporary with the Apostles, having been born in the year 37. From his situation and habits, he had every access to know all that took place at the rise of the Christian religion. Respecting the founder of this religion, Josephus has thought fit to be silent in history. The present copies of his work contain one passage which speaks very respectfully of Jesus Christ, and ascribes to him the character of the Messiah. But as Josephus did not embrace Christianity, and as this passage is not quoted or referred to until the beginning of the fourth century, it is, for these and other reasons, generally accounted spurious” (Evidences of Christianity, from Campbell-Owen Debate, p. 312).

The more accurate word Campbell should have used at the end instead of "spurious" is forged.

The Apostle Thomas was allegedly given direct, unequivocal evidence of Jesus's resurrection. Why shouldn't we be given this same type of evidence? The Bible claims that Yahweh shows no partiality, Acts 10:34, so how could he have given this amazing advantage to Thomas and not to every man? Especially since the Bible teaches that Thomas already had several tremendous advantages to cause belief: 1) he had seen Jesus raise the dead, John 11; 2) Thomas, himself, with the rest of the Apostles, was given the power to raise the dead, Mt 10:1-8; 3) Jesus had told Thomas and the rest of the Apostles that he would rise from the dead, Mt 16:21; 4) the culture Thomas lived in was predisposed to believe that resurrections were possible, Mt 14:1-2; Mt 16:13-14.

But this type of direct evidence obviously cannot happen because of all of the other evidence that goes counter to the god of the Bible being the true God, primary of which is that he created man for his glory, knowing man's flawed nature. Knowing that to get this glory that he wanted, but didn't need, untold billions of his beloved (?) humans would have to be tortured forever in the hell that he decided must exist.

Why this fiction, called Christianity, has managed to hold on so long has a lot to do with this admission that you made, "The message of the Bible is such that any rational person will want to believe it. And, wanting to believe it, he will look for rea­sons to be­lieve rather than reasons to dis­believe."  These sentiments are understandable but they are not rational, not scientific and are anything but a blue print for finding the truth. Your admission speaks volumes about why you continue to delude yourself concerning the truthfulness of Christianity. You want to believe that miracle claims associated with Christianity are true and you only look for reasons to believe this. I think this is the problem with most false religions. They too have the same mindset.

That is why the vast majority of people born in Islamic countries are Muslim and remain so throughout their lives--and ditto for countries that are predominantly Christian, Hindu, etc.

Kenneth

The Absence Of Evidence (1)

Farrell Till responds to inerrantist Dave Miller's article in the Skeptical Review:

I commend Mr. Miller for an excellent definition of the Bible inerrancy doctrine and perhaps an even better explanation of the importance of the doctrine to Christianity. Maybe it is a carry-over from my own fundamentalist background, but I have a much deeper admiration for Christians who believe in a divinely inspired inerrant Bible than those who believe in a divinely inspired errant Bible. To the latter, I can only repeat what Mr. Miller said in the foregoing article: "If the Holy Spirit is responsible for what the biblical writers wrote, and if the Bible contains errors in historical details, then the Holy Spirit is the author of error" (p. 2). As Mr. Miller effectively argued, for the Bible to be authoritative, it must be inerrant; otherwise, man is left with an impractical moral guide, for what good is a moral guide that is blemished with errors? If the Bible says X, and one can establish that X is an untruth, then how can he trust anything else it says? 

Mr. Miller may have been on track in recognizing the absolute necessity of an inerrant, "trustworthy" revelation in order to give credibility and authority to a religious system, but he wandered far afield in his attempt to prove that the Bible provides Christianity with such a revelation. An entire section of his article was devoted to a discussion of "the biblical claim for inerrancy," but I have to disagree with his contention that the Bible claims inerrancy, because it doesn't. Every scripture that Miller cited in this section concerned either promises to send the Holy Spirit to guide the disciples in what they should say or claims that the scriptures were inspired of God or that prophets had spoken as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. However, to say that the Holy Spirit was sent to guide men in what to say or that men spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit is not to say that whatever these men said or wrote under the direction of the Holy Spirit was inerrant. To arrive at the doctrine of inerrancy, one must go through the logical process that Miller took us through in his article. A basic premise of this process is that if the Holy Spirit is omniscient and omnipotent, then any document that he verbally inspired would have to be inerrant, because an omniscient, omnipotent deity would be incapable of error.

I would agree with Miller's logic if he could prove three things: (1) an entity known as the Holy Spirit actually exists, (2) this entity known as the Holy Spirit is both omniscient and omnipotent, and (3) this Holy Spirit verbally inspired all of the writers of the Bible in everything that they wrote. Unfortunately for Miller's confidence in Bible inerrancy, these are all very big ifs, none of which he could actually prove if his life depended on it. This underscores the major problem in the Bible inerrancy doctrine: it is based on unprovable assumptions. Any belief founded on assumptions is worthless.

Even if we grant Mr. Miller the first two of his assumptions, he would still have a very high hurdle to clear in the third one. That hurdle, of course, would be to establish the truth of the biblical claim that its writers were inspired by the Holy Spirit. A claim is only a claim and must therefore be examined before its truth can be confirmed. Mr. Miller can never prove the truth of the biblical claim of divine inspiration. Claims of divinely inspired books are almost a dime a dozen. The Book of Mormon claims to be a "latter day" revelation from God; the Avesta claims that it was divinely inspired; the Koran claims that it was revealed to man by the angel Gabriel. So what evidence can Miller give us to prove that we should accept the biblical claim of inspiration over all the many others? Christian apologists have tried to give us such proof, but Miller made no attempt to do so in his article. Like so many Bible fundamentalists, he just made the claim and expected his readers to accept it. In the publication in which his article originally appeared, he could get away with this, because the paper is aimed at a predominantly fundamentalist audience. However, more rational readers, which we believe The Skeptical Review has, will insist on much more than what Mr. Miller gave them in the reprint of his article.