A Debate Over Naturalism

There's been a running debate between me and mathematician Dr. James A. Lindsay. There has been first, second and third parts on his blog God Doesn't; We Do which can read by following the links. I have included my main response to his third post below:

I never asked you to prove that naturalism is true because you’re right it is unreasonable to think that you could prove that it is true to all rational people. What I asked you is why you think that the probability that naturalism is true is nearly 100% (although I’m also asking you think why it’s even plausible). This arose out of our conversation three posts back where I responded to your argument that the probability that God exists is zero almost surely by creating an inference to the best explanation argument where I showed that, “Given our background knowledge about the state of the world, God is the best explanation for motion in the universe; the finely tuned universe and everything in it; the existence of objective morals and duties; and consciousness.” The argument showed that theism is highly probable while naturalism is implausible to highly implausible, and you didn’t even try to refute the argument. That would have been fine if it ended there, but you’re still acting like God’s probability is essentially zero while the probability of naturalism is essentially 100% without defending the extraordinary high probability you place on naturalism.

I think that you are a conflating the concepts of atheism and naturalism. I think that the definition of naturalism that you presented is pretty good, but you don’t seem to realize that naturalism is a positive world view that needs to be argued for just like Christianity, Islam and pantheism. Naturalism is not a negative view like atheism which says that God doesn’t exist. Naturalism makes the very bold claim that the universe and everything in it arose from naturalistic causes. So, when I ask you to defend why you think that naturalism is very highly probable or even just plausible I’m not asking you to prove that supernaturalism is false, I’m asking you why you why any rational person should think that it is likely that the universe and everything in can be explained through naturalistic causes.

The Implausibility of Naturalism:

To help you see why a theist (or really anyone who follows where reason leads them) finds naturalism so implausible I’ve created a dialogue between Bob and Dan to illustrate my point:

Bob: “I have some amazing news. Some experts have told me that my great^20 grandfather was not born; he just existed as a brute fact. So, the beginning of my family began with my great^20 grandfather who fathered my great^19 grandfather and eventually my father fathered me.”

Dan: “Wait a minute, Bob, what you’re saying doesn’t make any sense. We all know that people don’t just exist as brute facts—people are caused to come into being by their parents. Why should I believe your story? Why is your great^20 grandfather existence just a brute fact while everyone is born from their parents?”

Bob: “Well, my great grandfather is an exception. It’s the only way that the experts could think of to explaining how my family came to be, so the existence of my great^20 grandfather has to be a brute fact.”

Dan: “Hmm, it sounds like you’re engaging in special pleading.”

Bob: “Oh no, just because we see that things in the universe have a cause doesn’t mean that everything has a cause. I mean look at subatomic particles they’re popping into and out of existence all the time.”

Dan: “That’s not really true, just because we can’t KNOW with exact certainty where a given subatomic particle will be at any point it doesn’t follow that the particle is popping into existence uncaused out of nothing. David Albert wrote, ‘Relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical vacuum states — no less than giraffes or refrigerators or solar systems — are particular arrangements of elementary physical stuff. The true relativistic-quantum-field-­theoretical equivalent to there not being any physical stuff at all isn’t this or that particular arrangement of the fields — what it is (obviously, and ineluctably, and on the contrary) is the simple absence of the fields! The fact that some arrangements of fields happen to correspond to the existence of particles and some don’t is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that some of the possible arrangements of my fingers happen to correspond to the existence of a fist and some don’t. And the fact that particles can pop in and out of existence, over time, as those fields rearrange themselves, is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that fists can pop in and out of existence, over time, as my fingers rearrange themselves. And none of these poppings — if you look at them aright — amount to anything even remotely in the neighborhood of a creation from nothing.’ So, subatomic particles are not an exception to the rule that physical things like your great grandfather have a cause. Do you actually have any scientific proof that your great grandfather existed as a brute fact?”

Bob: “No, but look at the success of science, scientists will one day explain how my great grandfather was not born and yet is the cause of my family.”

Dan: “Just because science has successfully explained many things it doesn’t mean that it will explain how your grandfather was not born. Besides, I thought that you said the uncaused existence of your great grandfather was just a brute fact. Brute facts have no explanation.”

Bob: “See, there it is! My great grandfather just exists as a brute fact. Just wait someday science will prove me right.”

Dan: “Well, Bob, that may be so, but I find your story to be wildly improbable.”

So, whether it is the universe itself or subatomic particles and the natural laws I think we should regard the claim that any of these objects exist as brute facts as implausible. There is nothing in the nature of these things that are necessary—all could very conceivably not exist. We also know that everything we see around us has a cause of its existence—even the elements did not exist prior to the big bang.

Add to that the fact that as Alexander Vilenkin has said, "All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning." This means that either a) the universe popped into existence uncaused out nothing which is a ridiculous notion, b) contingent objects such as subatomic particles, which just exist as brute facts, are the cause of the universe or c) a necessarily existent, uncaused, immaterial agent caused the universe to come into being. I think that c is by far the most plausible scenario.

Why Current Neuroscience Doesn't Show that Free Will is a Myth

John Loftus at Debunking Christianity wrote a post claiming that, "Neuroscience is making it extremely difficult for believers to still claim that by freely choosing to believe we are saved (or condemned), that we freely choose to sin, or that there is a wrathful God who will judge us on the last day." Here is my response:

I think that we need to avoid the two extremes of the positive thinkers, who believe that anyone who sets their mind to something can achieve anything, and naturalists, who view people as no different than billiard balls who are powerless to resist the trajectory they’ve been set on, when interpreting the results of these studies. The former should be avoided because, quite obviously, someone who was born with severe cerebral palsy isn’t going to be a starter in the NFL no matter how badly they want to. The latter should be avoided because the information that we have does not warrant abandoning a properly basic belief in free will.

As my old Sociology professor would say, “Correlation is not causation,” and the crime statistics you’ve provided, John, are a mere correlation. Sure, given a genetic predisposition towards something like alcoholism and the wrong environment the chances that someone is going to become an alcoholic are quite high, but it doesn’t follow that the person is completely powerless not to drink. After all, if free will does not exit, then we could be as sure about anyone’s actions as we are of the velocity of a struck billiard ball, but that’s not what we see. We see alcoholics give up drinking and we see people who know they are genetically predisposed to alcoholism avoid drinking altogether. We also see people with the “dangerous” Y chromosome who grow up in tough environments become upstanding citizens.

Now, you’ve also provided some extreme case studies of people with a more limited free will. Someone with Chorea doesn’t have full control of their body, but it doesn’t follow that they have never made a free choice in their life, and it certainly doesn’t follow that, when I raise my arm, that I couldn’t have done otherwise or that I was destined from the big bang to raise my arm at that moment.

In order to have a defeater for my properly basic belief that I can generally choose to do otherwise we would need clear and conclusive evidence that my seemingly free choices are an illusion. We simply don’t have that evidence, at this point, so I have epistemic warrant to conclude that I do have free will until a true defeater is presented, and quite frankly, I think this should be the position of all rational people.

What we should do with this data from these studies? I believe that we should use it to try to prevent people who are predisposed to violence from making poor decisions. We should do what we can to ameliorate their environments and lives so that they won’t be so prone to violence. We should also make allowances for people, as I’m sure God does, with more limited free will, that truly can’t do otherwise.  

Why it Can’t Be the Case that the Plausibility of God’s Existence is Zero Almost Surely

My critique of Dr. James A. Lindsay's, mathematician and author of God Doesn't; We Do, argument that the plausibility of God’s existence is zero almost surely is below:   

Given our background knowledge about the state of the world, God is the best explanation for motion in the universe; the finely tuned universe and everything in it; the existence of objective morals and duties; and consciousness. If God is the best explanation for these things then God’s existence is very likely. Since God’s existence is very likely, it can’t be the case that the plausibility of God’s existence is zero almost surely. If God is the cause of motion in the universe; the finely tuned universe and everything in it; the existence of objective morals and duties; and consciousness then God can’t possibly be an abstract object as abstract objects have no causal power.

The Argument from First Motion:

1. Some things are changing.

2. Whatever is changing is being changed by something else.

3. The prime mover can be either A) just potential, B) a mix of potential and actual, or C) just actual.

4. The prime mover is pure actuality.

5. Therefore the prime mover is pure actuality.

Experience shows that contingent material objects like people, trees, cars and stars are caused to change by something else. However, this chain of contingent cause and effect can’t go back to infinity because if there is no necessarily existing agent/object that is pure actuality to actualize everything that is a mix of potential and actual then everything in the chain of causality will cease to change and exist. However, since there is change and motion in the universe there must be a prime mover that is pure actuality. Since all material objects in the universe are changing and appear to be contingent it is improbable that the prime mover is a material object. However, God is said to be a necessarily existent, immaterial mind and so is more likely to be the prime mover with pure actuality.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore the universe has a cause of its existence.

The Argument from First Motion deals with a potential eternal universe, but current scientific research shows that the universe has existed for ~13.7 billion years and arose out of the big bang and so it not eternal. This means, most likely, that the universe had some sort of cause for its existence. It is very, very, very unlikely that the universe popped into existence uncaused out of nothing as nothingness has no causality. Also, it would be strange that nothingness causes something to pop into existence only once every 13.7 billion years-or-so; after all we don’t observe mountains, planets and people just popping into existence uncaused.

Another naturalistic explanation for the origin of the universe, that the laws of nature caused the universe to come into being, is implausible because laws of nature are abstract objects that can’t, in of themselves  cause anything—abstract objects are causally inert. Another implausible explanation is that subatomic particles and natural laws caused the universe to come into being. This explanation is implausible because everything we can see with our eyes has a cause of its existence, and even microscopic things like the elements didn’t exist prior to the big bang, so necessarily existent subatomic particles would fly in the face of what we know about the universe. Even natural laws seem to be contingent in that they could easily be different than they are. Positing subatomic particles and natural laws as the necessary entities that caused the universe to coming into being is also un-parsimonious as we would need to assume that there are physical objects and abstract objects that need to exist necessarily in order to be the cause of everything else.

On the other hand, positing God as the transcendent being that exists necessarily is more plausible because an un-embodied mind has no parts that need to be formed or created and needs nothing in order to exist. Positing God is also more parsimonious as we need to assume that only one necessary being needs to exist in order to cause everything else to exist.

The Teleological Argument:

1. The fine tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance or design.

2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.

3. Therefore, it is due to design.

Observations about the universe show that the cosmological constants are exquisitely fine tuned and that if many of them were only slightly different than they are then the universe would be devoid of stars, planets and life. Oxford physicist Roger Penrose calculates that the odds of the special low entropy condition having arisen by chance alone in the absence of any constraining principles is a least as small as about one part in 10^10(123) in order for the universe to exist. It is very, very, very improbable that the fine tuning that we see in the universe arose by physical necessity or chance. Positing an agent, such as God, who designed the universe in such a way so that life could arise, is much, much, much more plausible than naturalistic alternatives.

News Flash: The Euthyphro Dilemma Is Dead!

It seems like ever since Plato wrote the dialogue called “Euthyphro” around 400 B.C. the Euthyphro dilemma periodically resurfaces as an atheist argument against the idea that God grounds morality. The Euthyphro dilemma has recently resurfaced in the debate between William Lane Craig and Alex Rosenberg and in an article in Aeon by Troy Jollimore entitled “Godless yet good” which was mentioned in the New York Time’s “The Stone” series. The dilemma that Socrates posed to Euthyphro in the dialogue goes something like this: does God arbitrarily decide that a particular action is immoral or does God declare that a particular action is immoral because it is inherently so? If an action such as murder is arbitrarily chosen as wrong by God then why is it necessarily wrong? If murder is inherently wrong then there is no need for God to command that it is wrong. The problem is that this argument is a false dilemma. A third option is that objective morals and duties flow out of God’s perfectly good being. So, God is the metaphysical ground for the existence of objective morals and duties. The truth is that the Euthyphro dilemma has been a dead argument for some time now.

The Genetic Fallacy of “Bias and Heuristics in Religious Thinking”

I recently watched Professor Matt McCormick’s Youtube video titled “Bias and Heuristics in Religious Thinking” and read through his PowerPoint slides that were featured in his video on his blog called Atheism:Proving The Negative. In the video Matt discusses come psychological findings that point to errors in human thinking that he believes particularly pertain to people of faith. I did find the presentation interesting and believe that there are findings that are instructive to people in general. I was pleased that Matt was generous enough to say that these findings do pertain to everyone, but I was disappointed that he applied these findings particularly to religious people and committed one of the most common atheist fallacies, the genetic fallacy.

Matt commits the genetic fallacy

Matt discusses how the hyperactive agency detection device (HADD), a mechanism that he claims was evolved to help man agents such as predators, and how our HADD causes us to see agents where they aren’t. He believes that HADD causes us to perceive gods who aren’t there. The problem with this assertion is that it commits the genetic fallacy because assuming that we have this evolved device it could actually be pointing us to God, in fact if God exists then it is quite probable that he gave us (either through evolution or some other means) this device in order to detect him. In any case the existence of HADD does not mean that God doesn’t exist or that the origin of the belief that he exists is incorrect.

There is no prayer fallacy

Later on in the presentation Matt discusses prayer, and calls theist’s claims that God answers prayers with yes, no or maybe later a fallacy. The problem with this is that it presupposes that God is an omnipotent genie that must grant all prayers no matter how ridiculous or harmful they are. Bob could pray to be Supreme Dictator of the Universe so that he can torture and execute anyone who doesn’t bow down to him and the genie god would have to grant his prayer. What if Fred prays the same thing? This is a logically impossible situation, not to mention the fact that one of these prayers being granted would be a downright scary situation. The fact that all prayers aren’t granted does not prove that God doesn’t exist, or that prayer doesn’t work. God is not obligated to answer any prayers. God is a free agent who can decide which prayers should be granted and which shouldn’t, and he has the freedom to grant them when he sees fit. As an omnipotent, timeless being he has a better perspective then we do about which prayers should be granted and which shouldn't.

Are skeptics really open minded?

Next Matt talks about defense layers for Jesus vs. actively open minded thinking. The funny thing about this his belief that atheists/skeptics generally exhibit actively open minded thinking while religious believers are close minded, dogmatic defense lawyers for Jesus is that skeptics, who are generally naturalists, are closed to the possibility of God and miracles. How can a proponent of naturalism claim that they can make an objective open minded investigation into religious claims when they start with the presupposition that God doesn’t exist and miracles are impossible? The answer is they can’t. That is why proponents of skepticism/naturalism will always favor naturalistic explanations, even if those naturalistic explanations are farfetched, because supernatural explanations are seen to be impossible. In fact it is kind of ridiculous to equate skepticism with open mindedness because the whole idea of skepticism is that it is a way to avoid possible mistaken beliefs by filtering out beliefs by demanding near if not absolute proof for that belief. So, the project of skepticism is the opposite of being open.

The difference between possible and probable

Next Matt says that believers argue that God possibly exists. Perhaps some believers do argue this but I think most sophisticated believers say that God’s existence is highly probable. There is a huge difference between possible and highly probable because just about anything is possible, but far fewer things are highly probable. When I say that God is highly probable it is because I’ve looked at the world and concluded that God is the cause of the finely tuned universe and is the ontological foundation of objective morals. I have reasons for believing that God exists. However, I realize that it is not possible to absolutely prove God’s existence because we don’t have enough information to do that.

Is Reasonable Faith an Oxymoron?

There have been a series of posts by John Loftus on his Debunking Christianity blog where he argues that reasonable faith is an oxymoron. John defines faith as, “An attitude or feeling whereby someone attributes a higher probability to the evidence than what the evidence calls for.” Is this a good definition? On one hand, yes, John is right to talk about probabilities because the only thing that we can know with absolute certainty is that we exist, everything else must be believed or rejected with varying degrees of certainty. On the other hand, I think that John’s definition is not very precise because how can we know how high a probability has to be?

What are some other definitions of faith? Merriam-Webster dictionary defines faith as, “Firm belief in something for which there is no proof.” I’m taking the Merriam-Webster definition as referring to absolute proof. The philosopher, Immanuel Kant defines faith as, “A rational attitude towards a potential object of knowledge which arises when we are subjectively certain it is true even though we are unable to gain theoretical or objective certainty.” Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” I think these definitions work better. From these definitions I think there is a faith element to all beliefs outside of the belief in our own existence. This is something that John disagrees with, but I think this is largely because of the religious connotations of the word faith, and his aversion to anything religious.

Now let’s get back to John’s discussion of faith. He writes:

I do not deny that at any given time we must assume some things since we cannot place on the table everything we think is true and examine them all at the same time. This is especially true about our notions that we exist, are communicating with other minds, that our memories represent the past, that there was a past, that there is a material world, that our senses give us accurate input that we are not dreaming right now, etc. What I deny is that we accept any of these things by faith. We might be wrong, but faith isn’t what allows us to accept such things. Scientific reasoning does. I can defend each one of my conclusions about such things though, and I do. These prior conclusions provide the background knowledge I have when involved in any discussion, and I’m allowed to have them.

John is right that we must make assumptions such as a universe exists outside of my mind but this assumption cannot be proven scientifically. John goes on to talk about our fairly reliable memories, archaeological evidence and scientific evidence for the Big Bang. It appears like we have these things, but what if all this stuff are just elaborate fictions fed to our minds by an evil genius who is trying to deceive us? What if Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin and their work are just literal as Don Quixote, Sherlock Holmes and Bilbo Baggins? There is no way to be certain, but the fact that I can’t be absolutely certain that the world, which appears to surround me, literally exists doesn't dissuade me from being confident that the world exists because I can rationally make the assumption that there is no good reason to doubt the universe’s existence.

Negating the Negations: My Objections to Russ’ Debate Strategy with Christians

John Loftus published a post where he reposts an argument from his friend Russ. Russ’ debate strategy is to affirm theological statements from a theologian, who in Russ’ example is Bishop John Shelby Spong, that conflicts with traditional Christian theology. The idea is that if God is true then all theologians should agree about His attributes. However, there are multiple problems with this argument—it is formally and informally fallacious.

1. 1.       The first problem is that the argument is formally fallacious because it has the form of denying the antecedent. The argument can be formulated as follows:

1.       If Spong agrees with all the theological claims of traditional Christianity then Christianity is true.

2.       Spong does not agree with all the theological claims of traditional Christianity.

3.       Therefore Christianity if false. (from the formal fallacy denying the antecedent)

                This is argument is invalid because the conclusion does not follow from the premises. There are many reasons why traditional Christianity could true even though Spong disagrees with it. Spong’s sensus divinitatis or God sense could be off causing him to incorrectly perceive God’s nature. He could just be wrong or confused. He could have an agenda against traditional Christianity. In any case, this form of argument is always fallacious.

1. 2.       This argument is informally fallacious because it is an appeal to authority. Although Spong is an expert in his field, his position does not represent the general consensus of experts in the field of Christian theology. Russ even says that thousands of Christian theological heavyweights disagree with Spong’s opinion.
2. 3.       Just because an expert, like Spong, is highly decorated and went to prestigious schools doesn't mean they are always right. Take Dr. Albert Einstein, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, who argued for some time for a solid state universe, which was eventually shown to be false. If one of the greatest intellectual giants in the history of mankind can be wrong then anyone, including graduates from Harvard and Oxford can be wrong sometimes.
3. 4.       Just because people have disagreements about the nature of something doesn't mean that thing doesn’t exist. Saying that God doesn't exist because there are some disagreements about his nature is like saying that because there were disagreements about whether the earth is flat or spherical the earth doesn’t exist. People were walking on the earth and looking at the same earth but came to different conclusion about the nature of it. The flat earthers were just wrong.        
4. 5.       Even if this argument wasn't formally and informally fallacious, what kind of atheist are you if you are affirming the position of someone who believes in God? The Wikipedia article that Russ refers to says, “He [Spong] states that he is a Christian because he believes that Jesus Christ fully expressed the presence of a God of compassion and selfless love and that this is the meaning of the early Christian proclamation, "Jesus is Lord" (Spong, 1994 and Spong, 1991). Elaborating on this last idea he affirms that Jesus was adopted by God as his predilect son, thus embracing (at least at linguistic level) a form of the ancient adoptionist heresy (Born of a Woman 1992), and yet in an orthodox way he says that this would be the way God was fully incarnated in Jesus Christ.” Even if Spong has some unusual theology he still believes that God exists. It is strange, as an atheist, to embrace a position that says that God exists and then turn around and say that God doesn't exist because there are some disagreements about God’s nature. Nonexistent things don’t have natures to disagree about.

For all these reasons Russ' argument completely and utterly fails. 

My Response to Bradley Bowen’s Skeptical View of Jesus’ Resurrection

I have continued to be in dialogue with Bradley Bowen on The Secular Outpost throughout his Argument Against the Resurrection of Jesus series. He wrote in part 10 of the series:

A key claim made by Christian apologists who defend the resurrection goes like this:

(JAW) Jesus of Nazareth was alive and walking around unassisted on the first Easter Sunday.

We are considering the implications of the following supposition:
4. (JAW) is false.
On this supposition, there are three logical possibilities:
A. Jesus was not alive on the first Easter Sunday.B. Jesus was alive on the first Easter Sunday but did not walk at all that day.C. Jesus was alive on the first Easter Sunday but was walking only with assistance from others.

Here is my response:

If A is true then the Apparent Death Theory (ADT) is not true. Since the Gospel accounts and historical records agree that Jesus was crucified we know that Jesus was subjected to a life threatening situation. This means that Jesus would have to survive scourging, crucifixion and very likely a spear thrust to the side that pierced his heart. We know that Suetonius, Josephus, Cicero and Livy all documented cases where people died during or shortly after scourging, and that scourging of non-Roman citizens was common before crucifixions. We also know that the Romans executed thousands of people via crucifixion, and so were very good at it. This means that Jesus would have to survive two life threatening events.

Jesus also very likely received a spear thrust to the side. John 19:32-34 says, “So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.” This accords with what the South African Medical Journal wrote in "The history and pathology of crucifixion."  They wrote, "The attending Roman guards could only leave the site after the victim had died, and were known to precipitate death by means of deliberate fracturing of the tibia and/or fibula, spear stab wounds into the heart, sharp blows to the front of the chest, or a smoking fire built at the foot of the cross to asphyxiate the victim."  So, it seems likely that Jesus would have to survive a spear thrust to the side as well.

Even if Jesus was somehow alive after sustaining a massive amount of trauma, he would have to survive three days in critical or serious condition in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb without the medical care he would desperately needed. Even if someone made it past the Roman guards and rescued Jesus he would have to go sometime without medical care and the care who would have eventually received would be very primitive by today’s standards.

Most NT scholars agree that Jesus was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Even the agnostic scholar Bart Ehrman said, “The earliest accounts we have are unanimous in saying that Jesus was in fact buried by his fellow, Joseph of Arimathea, and so it’s relatively reliable that’s what happened.” This means that since the highly experienced and disciplined soldiers that crucified really believed that he was dead. 1 Peter 1:3, 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 and the Gospel accounts all indicate that Jesus followers also believed that Jesus died on the cross. So, everyone around Jesus believed that he really died on the cross. It also means that if Jesus’ body never made it out of the tomb then it would be obvious to everyone involved that Jesus was dead and not resurrected.

Roman historians also validate the Biblical accounts. Tacitus wrote:

Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.  

Tacitus confirms that Jesus was executed by Pontius Pilate.

The Gospel accounts also accord with what Josephus’ history He wrote, “At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. His conduct was good and (he) was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die.” Again, it is confirmed that Jesus was crucified by Pilate.

So, taken all together there is a lot of evidence that suggests that Jesus died after being scourged, crucified and speared. This is why physician C. Truman Davis writes, “Apparently, to make doubly sure of death, the legionnaire drove his lance between the ribs, upward through the pericardium and into the heart. John 19:34 states, ‘And immediately there came out blood and water.’ Thus there was an escape of watery fluid from the sac surrounding the heart and the blood of the interior of the heart. This is rather conclusive post-mortem evidence that Jesus died, not the usual crucifixion death by suffocation, but of heart failure due to shock and constriction of the heart by fluid in the pericardium.”

This is why I think that the ADT is probably not true. Jesus would have to have to survive an extraordinary amount of trauma and three events that could likely kill him. However, Jesus’ empty tomb and post mortem appearances greatly lower the chances that A is true. All four Gospel accounts, Acts 1, Acts 13:28-32, 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 and 1 Peter 1:3-4 all claim that Jesus rose from the dead.  

Negating the Negations: My Objections to Bradley Bowen’s Argument Against the Resurrection of Jesus

Bradley Bowen over at The Secular Outpost wrote an interesting article that questions whether Jesus really died on the cross. Although this approach is more novel then the usual skeptical claims against the resurrection of Jesus I think that when you analyze the amount of trauma the human body would have to endure from a Roman scourging and crucifixion I don’t see how Jesus could have survived. I will also question Bowen’s argument that Jesus wan not raised from the dead.

The brutality of scourging

The Gospels (Matt. 27:25; Mark 15: 15; John 19:1) state that the Jesus was scoured or flogged before being crucified. This was a common Roman practice that was only inflicted on non-citizens. Scourging was an extremely brutal and bloody process where the victim would be stretched out over a pillar and then whipped repeatedly with lashes that had pieces of bone and metal which would rip and tear the victim’s flesh. They would often reach a state of hypovolemic shock due to loss of blood.[1] Roman historians such as Josephus and Livy write that victims of scourging have died while still tied to the post. Jesus’ back would have been torn to shreds and he would have lost a massive amount of blood even before being nailed to the cross.

The horrors of crucifixion

The Gospels say that on the way to Golgotha Jesus was forced to carry the cross beam that he was going to be crucified on (a common crucifixion practice), and that he stumbled and collapsed under the weight of the beam. If Jesus fell chest first with the beam, which weighed about 100 pounds, on top of him then this could generate enough force to bruise his heart as some people in the medical community have hypothesized from observing car crash trauma.

Then once Jesus got to Golgotha nails were driven into his wrists and feet adding a considerable amount of pain and a significant amount of blood loss. A common way that crucified people die is by asphyxiation as they have difficulty breathing as the muscles of chest are hyper-expanded. However, Dr. C. Truman Davis believes that Jesus died of heart failure due shock and the constriction of fluid in the pericardial sac called a pericardial effusion.[2] This makes sense because John 19:34 states that the Roman legionnaire who presided over the crucifixion drove his spear up into the side of Jesus causing blood and water to come out of his side. This indicates that the pericardial sac had burst and the fluid inside leaked out of Jesus’ side. This is a coup de grâce that would almost certainly kill anyone.

The Romans were masters of crucifixion

Crucifixions were performed by experienced teams of Roman soldiers who specialized in execution. The Romans performed thousands of them as the ultimate show of force. Even though the centurion who lead the crucifixion of Jesus wasn’t a medical professional he would have been a master executioner and could be counted on to get his grisly job done. The penalties for incompetence in the Roman army were severe and could include execution so the centurion would have ample reason to not be lackadaisical about Jesus’ execution.

The Incoherence of Scientism

The more that I dialogue with proponents of New Atheism the more I find that scientism, the epistemological theory that scientifically proven facts are the only source of true knowledge, undergirds their response to theistic arguments. They generally just dismiss theistic arguments with something like Christopher Hitchens slogan, “That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence,” or if they deal with arguments their critiques are often full of blunders such as Richard Dawkins asking who made God. The problem with believing that science is the sole source true knowledge is that it is self-refuting and incoherent idea.

We can see this when we look at this argument:

1. 1.    If scientism is true then scientific facts are the only source of true knowledge.
2. 2.    Scientific facts are not the only source of true knowledge.
3. 3.    Therefore scientism is false.

First of all, scientism is self-refuting because it can’t be scientifically proven that we should only believe scientific facts, and since scientism isn’t a scientifically proven fact it should be rejected.  

Scientism destroys science        

Secondly, scientism destroys science because it rejects principles that science relies upon. Science makes several assumptions such as there is an observable universe outside of our minds and that universe behaves in a uniform and repeatable way. These assumptions can’t be scientifically proven true so without the justification of philosophy these assumptions would have no logical merit. Inductive reasoning, which is the epistemological heart of science, can’t be scientifically proven. Inductive reasoning says that events will probably proceed as they have in the past, but there is no way to support this presupposition as events could change at any time. 

Also, scientism invalidates the mathematics which science relies upon since math can’t be scenically proven. Mathematic proofs such as 2+2=4 are taken to be necessarily true. If scientism invalidates inductive reasoning and mathematics then it destroys the only source of truth that it claims is true.

Did Adam and Eve Literally Exist?

After converting from agnosticism to Christianity I at times felt that Adam and Eve are not to be taken literally since I have long believed in some form of evolution. I especially questioned them when I learned that genetic records show that the human population was never below 10,000. However, after learning about Hylemorphic dualism from reading Edward Feser’s work I have come to take them literally.

I view the first few chapters of Genesis much as I do Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” as both have elements of poetic form. Tennyson’s poem is about a real British cavalry unit in the Crimean War, and discusses their real ill-fated charge. In much the same way Genesis poetically deals with the heart of the Creator as he forms the universe and life. This is not a science textbook that explains how God did it—it is science’s job to write that book. Much like Tennyson’s poem deals with a real cavalry unit, Genesis deals with a real Adam and Eve.

Negating the Negations: My Objections to Stephen Law’s Evil-God Challenge

In his recent debate with William Lane Craig and in his paper “The Evil-God Challenge” Stephen Law, an atheist philosopher from Heythrop College in London, concedes, for the sake of argument, that arguments like the cosmological arguments and fine tuning argument show that a creator God is possible. However, he asserts that these arguments don’t tell us anything about that god’s character and that these arguments could be in support of an evil god. This observation is quite obvious and wouldn’t be refuted by most apologists, including myself, as these arguments were never intended to show all of God’s attributes. That’s why apologists like William Lane Craig advocate the moral argument for God. While Law’s twist on the classical problem evil is ingenious I will show that his argument falls short by using a twist on Craig’s moral argument.

First of all, I’m not even sure that evil is really a thing—it seems like evil is an absence of good much like coldness is an absence of heat and darkness is an absence of light. Aquinas, in his Fourth Way, argues that, “Since all existent things can be compared to such qualities as degrees of goodness, there must exist something that is an Absolutely Good Being.” So, evil god would just be an absence of goodness.  

Law argues that you can turn all the usual theodicy arguments such as the free will argument and character argument into theodicies for the evil god. He argues that evil god would allow free will so that people could freely choose to do evil even though this means that people could also choose to do good. I think there is a slight problem with this reversal because theists usually argue that a major reason why God would choose to give humans free will is so they can choose whether or not to love and worship him. Free will is necessary for authentic relationships. I’m not sure that it follows that evil god would give us free will in order to be in relationship with us. It seems that evil god would just want people to torture—he wouldn’t care about how we feel about him.

However, I don’t want to focus on the theodicies for the good and evil god that seem to make each god plausible—I want to focus on objective moral values. In his debate with Craig, Law concedes that it seems that we intuitively know that objective moral values exist and that it would take a very powerful argument to challenge this intuition. We all just seem to know that killing innocent people is wrong. If we intuitively know that objective moral values exist then wouldn’t we intuitively know that evil objective morals would exist if evil god existed?

1. 1. If evil god exists then evil objective moral values exist.
2. 2.     Evil objective moral values don’t exist.
3. 3.    Therefore evil god doesn't exist.

Why Aphilatelism Is A False Analogy

There is a popular analogy amongst the online atheist community comparing non-stamp collecting to atheism. There is an atheist who calls himself the Non-stamp collector and others who call themselves aphilatelists. The claim is that atheism is not a belief, philosophy or religion. That they don’t believe in God just like somebody could not believe in stamp collecting. The problem with this doge of intellectual burden of proof for atheist claims, and yes they do make claims, is that to be an atheist you must believe that theists and their arguments are wrong.

If someone where an Aphilatelist they would be someone who does not collect stamps. I personally do not collect stamps because it is a hobby that does not interest me. However, I do not think that stamp collectors are crazy, stupid, dangerous, delusional or wrong. I do not think that their hobby is a make believe fairytale. Some atheists, on the other hand, have said these things about theists. Even atheists who are not as confrontational and blunt as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens or John Loftus must, by virtue of being an atheist, believe that theists and their arguments are wrong about God. Often there are other beliefs tied to atheism such as naturalistic materialism which are opposed to what theists believe.

Atheists will claim that they have a non-belief, but with all the books such as “The God Delusion,” “God Is Great,” and “The Christian Delusion” which attempt to show why theists are wrong it sure does seem like atheists believe something. It this belief that theists are wrong that makes the comparison of aphilatelism to atheism a false analogy. Since atheists do indeed believe something they are responsible for defending the belief that theist’s arguments fall short of proving that God’s existence is likely and that theists are wrong to believe in God.

Is God’s Existence Just As Likely As Unicorns?

I have seen numerous comments from atheists that say that God’s existence is just as unlikely as unicorns, ferries and Santa Clause—they might even make the claim that they are aunicornists. There are a few problems with this line of thinking. The first is that we can use the Santa Principle to determine that unicorns don’t exist on earth. The second is that unicorns are not necessary beings while God is.


The Santa Principle says that a person is justified in believing that X does not exist if all of these conditions are met:

1. the area where evidence would appear, if there were any, has been comprehensively examined, and

2. all of the available evidence that X exists is inadequate, and

3. X is the sort of entity that, if X exists, then it would show.

So, using premises one and two we can say that unicorns don’t exist on earth because we have never seen any evidence of them. Since unicorns are said to be physical beings we should have found some evidence of them by now. Even if you assume that they are hiding in some very remote region then we should have at least found a unicorn skull that would verify their existence. However, we haven’t found any evidence of them so we can say with near certainty that unicorns do not exist on earth. Notice, however, that the Santa Principle says that the, “Area where evidence would appear, if there were any, has been comprehensively examined,” so we can’t say that we have searched the entire universe for unicorns. It could be possible that a planet 1,000 light years away has unicorns running around on it. Now, when we turn to using the principle to test whether God exists there are problems. God is said to be an immaterial being who does not reside on the earth. Since we currently do not have the ability to perceive immaterial beings we can’t say that the area where God exists has been comprehensively examined. God could very well exist in heaven, but we simply do not have the capacity to see him.

Could Christians Be Wasting Their Lives?

Hahah keep wasting your lives you crazy christians... you only get one, no afterlife, just this one pass. This one life you guys are wasting away praying to magical invisible sky daddy. HAhahahaa

--Anonymous commenter on Intellectual Feast

From time to time I run into comments from atheists, like the one quoted from the anonymous commenter, which deal with their belief that Christians are wasting their lives following a supposedly nonexistent God. I have even heard intelligent atheists like Daniel Dennett say that there is no easy way to tell believers that they have been wasting their lives on their faith. These comments show that the atheist commenter obviously hasn’t seriously thought about the implications of life without God in a materialist universe. If God doesn’t exist then our lives are brief, absurd and futile.


For centuries theists and atheists have been locked in a stalemate where neither side can conclusively prove or disprove God’s existence. Since this is the case, the atheist’s assertion that God or the afterlife doesn’t exist is an unfounded belief. However, for the sake of argument, let’s suppose that the big bang was spontaneously uncaused and that matter popped into existence out of non-matter, and that we are here by chance as there is no God. What implications would this have on our lives? As the atheist says there is only one pass through life. In fact, when compared to the 13.7 billion years the universe has existed, our life span of zero to 120 years is incredibly ephemeral. Not only will each one of us die, but the entire human race is doomed to extinction as entropy causes the universe to die a slow heat death. If this is the case then how can one properly put their life to good use? Is it propagating my genes? No, as I said the human race will eventually be wiped out of existence so that is futile. How about accruing happy memories? Even if you don’t lose your memories as you grow senile with age, you will eventually lose all your memories when you die—it will be like they never existed. What about achieving fame through great works? Even if you are fortunate enough to be one of the few people in history to achieve greatness, your work will eventually be lost like the work of Shakespeare, Picasso, Plato and Mozart will be lost as the human race perishes. So, we see that in an entropic, materialist universe life is ultimately meaningless and futile.

The Limits of Naturalism

This is my response to Shelby Cade’s excellent blog post titled “Our limited friend” on Flatland Apologetics:


Nice article Shelby. I often hear naturalists say there is as much proof for Santa Clause, ferries or unicorns as there is for God. We actually can rule out some of these entities with the Santa Principle which says that a person is justified in believing that X does not exist if all of these conditions are met:

1. The area where evidence would appear, if there were any, has been comprehensively examined, and

2. All of the available evidence that X exists is inadequate, and

3. X is the sort of entity that, if X exists, then it would show.

This works for supposed physical entities such as Santa, unicorns and Sasquatch because we should be able to find them in the world but haven’t been able to. This doesn’t rule out God because he is immaterial being that can’t be detected by our senses or current technology. We also can’t rule out the multiverse because we have no way to perceive any universe besides our own.

Immateriality is a crucial attribute of God because in a pre big bang world with no physical building blocks a god composed of physical matter couldn’t exist. An omnipotent, immaterial necessary being is needed to spark the big bang and form the universe.

Dr. William Lane Craig vs. Dr. Lawrence Krauss

On March 30th, at North Carolina St. University, Christian philosopher Dr. William Lane Craig debated theoretical physicist Dr. Lawrence Krause on the question of is there is evidence for God. You can watch the debate here (skip to 16:00 for the debate introduction of 20:00 for the start of the debate).

The contrasting style and expertise of the debaters was interesting. Craig is a polished debater while Krause is not. Craig’s specialty is philosophy while Krause was uncomfortable talking about anything by physics.

The debate really hinged upon Craig’s assertion that a hypothesis is more probable given certain facts then it would without them. He formulates this with Bayes’ theorem Pr (H| E & B) > Pr (H|B) where H=a hypothesis; E=some specific evidence; B=our background information. He then goes on to present his usual five arguments:

1. The Leibnizian cosmological argument.

2. The Kalam cosmological argument.

3. The fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.

4. Objective moral values and duties in the world.

5. The historical facts concerning Jesus of Nazareth.

Answering the “Challenge to Theists”

NonStampCollector posted a video on YouTube in which, after about eight minutes of rambling on, he challenges theists to explain how there is one God of the universe as opposed to three, 15 or x number of gods. I couldn’t resist a challenge like this, so I formulated an answer. Basically, if there are many gods of the universe then the world would be a much more chaotic place as each god would want to form and rule the universe in a different way. The competing gods would likely oppose each other like they do in Homer’s “The Iliad.” Since the universe is orderly we can conclude that there is just one God who formed it.


Here is my Monotheistic Argument:

   Premise 1—If there are many gods of the universe then the universe would be very chaotic and able to  support physical laws, as each god would oppose how the others formed and rule the universe.

   Premise 2—However, the universe obeys laws and is very ordered.

   Premise 3—If there are many gods of the universe then there would be many competing sets of objective moral values.

   Premise 4—However, there is one set of objective moral values.

   Therefore—Since the universe is orderly and there is one set of objective moral values there is just one God of the universe.

Say that god A wants a universe without stars so they, after the big bang, set the strong nuclear force stronger so that hydrogen and therefore stars couldn’t form. God B on the other hand wants a universe with stars so they set it at the current level so that stars can form. If these two gods were equally omnipotent who would win this disagreement? What if god C wants a universe without gravity, but god D likes gravity? Since there is gravity that allowed planets to form by causing matter to lump together we know that god C didn’t win that argument as the universe was forming, but say C decides to eliminates gravity and then D reestablishes the law of gravity. If this were the case the law of gravity wouldn’t be a law because gravity would exist at one moment and not exist at another moment—the world would be a very chaotic place. Since the world is orderly we can conclude that one God formed and rules the universe.

In the same way, say god A rules that raping and murdering people is a virtue while B rules that these acts are an abomination. Which god would win this argument? Since most everyone knows deep down inside that raping and murdering people is wrong and that being loving your neighbor as yourself is a good thing we can conclude that one God established objective moral values.

The Illusory Optimism of Secular Humanists

To the Apologists: Have you ever had the courage to contemplate your existence without "God?" Of what are you so deathly afraid without having this construct? What would be missing?


I have and my guess is that most of the skeptics on the site have also contemplated their worlds without religion. I have concluded that a world without Gods is in all reality the same as with them. Except of course the world without would be far, far, far, more peaceful.
—Fritz, a commenter on Debunking Christianity.

As an ex-atheist I have indeed considered what life would be without God—it is one bleak existence. If there is no God then we are here by chance and will lead short lives before our existence is wiped out. The second law of thermal dynamics says that our sun and the universe will die a heat death making life impossible. This means that our lives are futile as all of our memories and work will be wiped out like they never existed. That being said, where does this rosy optimism of secular humanism come from? If it could be proved that God/gods don’t exist and that all religion is false would the world turn into a peaceful utopia as people cast off religion? I resoundingly say no because secular humanists have an unrealistically optimistic view of human nature.

The idea that most conflict is caused by religious strife is false. Most wars (if not all) are waged for control of  scarce resources (such as land, water and oil) and power. The utopian vision of secular humanists where the human race renounces religion and begins hugging one another while singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” would crack as soon there was a serious shortage of fresh water, food or oil. How long would it take for humanity to go from hugging one another to tearing each other apart over needed resources? As Richard Dawkins says, “We are survival machines—robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.” Even if resources aren’t scarce there will always be the next Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, or Qaddafi who will use extreme violence to take or maintain power. The possibility of being a godlike dictator has always captivated mankind and there is no reason to think that will change.