Bush-God Told Me to Invade Iraq

This is an old article, but does illustrate the dangers of having a President that thinks God speaks to him. I'd sooner trust that The Onion has God's ear, as this appears to have been prophetic.

Einstein-Religions are Childish Supersitions

Many Christians with a superficial understanding of history like to invoke Einstein as a person sympathetic to their belief in God, and Hitler as if he was an atheist. I've discussed Hitler previously. A letter that was recently made public from Einstein helps clarify his views. He writes:

"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."

and also:

"For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions".

Meet and Greet with Professional Christian Apologists

Some of my family members suggested I come to church recently to listen to a former atheist turned Christian give a talk. I was absolutely interested. I'm never having more fun then when I debate with these kinds of people. I had recently gone out of my way to meet Gerry Matatics in Ann Arbor give a talk, and I spent some time discussing things with him after his talk was finished. He promised to get in contact with me afterwards, but I never heard from him unfortunately. He even told me he'd send books, and I would have read them. But it didn't happen.

So I arrived at church wondering if the speaker would be someone that I would recognize. It turned out that it was. It was Randall Niles, from All About God. I was familiar with him. I've read books from Frank Turek, and I know Turek is associated with Niles. They work in a ministry that focuses on the fact that high school graduates are rejecting their own faith during college.

Niles was one such person apparently, but he returned to Christianity due to his mother's battle with cancer.

What is interesting to me is that Niles focuses on answering objections from skeptics and providing evidence for his faith. Yet these activities appear to have had nothing at all to do with his re-conversion. That's odd to me. When I discuss with Christians reasons for rejecting Christianity I usually focus on things that I found to be troublesome. Why would Niles form a ministry that develops tools that didn't even work on him? I have my theories, but I'll save that for another post.

It's interesting listening to Christians discuss skeptics when they don't believe there are any skeptics present. To me there was a sense in which Niles would try to elicit a "boo, hiss" type of reaction at the mention of an atheist. This is not a big deal to me, because I know the same thing is true if you get a bunch of skeptics in a room and they discuss Christianity. But it's fun for me to burst that bubble and let them know that there are skeptics in the room.

Niles took questions afterwards from the audience, and this is where I let the room know that I was present. I declared myself a skeptic and this is what I asked as best as I can recall. "Randall, would you agree the extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? There are a lot of outlandish claims made in historical books in antiquity. The Temple of Delphi defends itself with technicolor armaments. There is a mass resurrection of cooked fish. We have other people supposedly healing the sick and turning water into wine. We all dismiss those claims without really looking into them, because we understand that these claims were common back then, and the evidence needed to justify them would be substantial. You're telling me that 2000 years ago a man rose from the dead and he was able to walk through walls, teleport, etc. Can you agree that I shouldn't believe you unless you can provide extraordinary evidence?"

Niles replied that he did agree, and he then proceeded to offer some of that evidence. He talked about how people died for this belief, that women are reported as discovering the empty tomb and this is likely to be true because if the story were invented they wouldn't invent women because that would be embarrassing. He also talked about how God is not limited by our 3D world. He illustrated this by talking about how a person in a 2D world it would be unable to understand what we, in a 3D world, were capable of doing, and in the same way walking through walls and teleporting is not a huge deal when you start talking about other dimensions.

These are all points I'd love to debate, but there were others that wanted to ask questions, so I wasn't about to start into it in this venue. I replied that I was glad that he agreed with my point. I sat down to wait and hopefully discuss things further afterwards.

What is interesting is the whole point of Niles ministry is to equip people to answer the objections of people like me. So here I am. Give it a shot. Nobody came anywhere near me. I sat in my pew and nobody came within a 10 ft radius of me.

After the talk I sprinted up to the front to converse with Niles further. About 5 others converged on him along with me. He called on every single other individual before he looked towards me. He even called on a woman that had been seated and rose to stand along with us long after we had started standing. It turned out she didn't have a question, but was there with someone else that had been standing.

Finally it's my turn, and the room is mostly empty. I told Niles that I was glad that he came, and I'm not here to beat up on Christians, but I do enjoy debating with learned Christians that are willing to debate, and so since he's here I'd like to give him maybe just one thing to think about.

I said that he had pointed to Christians dying for the belief that Jesus rose. I explained that we can't assume that the people that died believed exactly like he does about the physical resurrection. In Peter's supposed writings he never says that he believes Jesus is physically raised. He says that Christ died in the flesh, but was raised a life giving spirit. Now, maybe he did believe that Christ was raised physically, but he never says that and what he does say at least suggests the opposite. Paul said that Christ was raised as a spiritual body and that flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God. He says that Christ appeared to him, but Pentecostals say this as well. Once again, maybe Paul did believe that Christ rose physically, but we don't know that he was an eyewitness to that and his writings at least suggest that he didn't believe that. Nothing in his writings suggests he did believe Christ rose physically. Not even Mark, our earliest gospel, says that anybody believed that Christ rose physically. It is only with Matthew, Luke, John, and Acts, our very latest texts, that this is asserted, and this accords very well with typical legendary growth; i.e. later texts are more impressive. So the skeptic has no trouble explaining that people were willing to die for belief in the resurrection. People have experiences where they think Christ appeared and rose, and they might be willing to die for such experiences. We simply don't know what those that died for Christianity actually believed, and this is key to this argument.

Niles responded by saying that by "spiritual body" Paul meant orientation, not the substance of the body, and also that hallucinations are not group events. He said a few other things that I don't remember. None of it really dealt with what I was saying.

So all in all, it was a good time for me. I get the impression that Niles is not quite up to the level of sophistication of someone like William Lane Craig or Greg Koukl. Craig will not admit that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and he has better spin on the physical resurrection issue. I can kind of tell from Niles' website that it's more of a surfacy treatment of the issues. Apparently that's his niche, which is fine with me. For my part I'm looking forward to the next Christian apologist that wants to descend into my region of the country. And I keep track of their schedules.

Me and Greg Koukl

Greg Koukl is a full time Christian apologist that runs a ministry called Stand to Reason. Of course I'm a skeptic, but as a skeptic I have a lot more appreciation for Koukl's apologetic ministry than for a lot of others. Christian apologists often take an "us vs them" mentality. Atheists are simply evil people without morals that reject Christianity out of rebellion. This is what many Christian apologists think. Koukl's goal is to develop Christians to have a different attitude. He wants Christians to be intelligent and appealing, and he recognizes that this hostile attitude so common amongst Christians is not appealing to the skeptical world. He wants Christians to be "Ambassadors for Christ" and he understands that an ambassador needs to present a positive portrayal.

I suspect he has a lot of success. His ministry seems on the growth path as far as I can tell. Of course I think it's probably best that people not embrace Christianity, but if they are going to embrace it I say it's better to embrace this style than the hostile, buried in your own fortress unwilling to engage the outside world style.

For the skeptic if you like to engage in debate in discussion forums, try the str blog. Some of us I know leave discussions with a bad taste in our mouths after having been insulted and otherwise treated rudely, though we are trying our best to have friendly dialogue. You are unlikely to be treated rudely at str, because I think Koukl and his staff are having success training Christians to interact in a pleasant and engaging way.

Anyway, Greg has a radio show, and so what the heck. I thought I'd call in. If not me, then who, right? I've called in twice to this point and I'll call in again. It's a lot of fun.

Greg is a little funny on the radio though. He's into microphone dominance. Bill and I call him a steam roller. If he gets it in his mind that he wants to say something, it doesn't matter if you're in the middle of a thought or if you're trying to clarify a misunderstanding he has. He's just going to keep right on talking and you will not be heard. This is especially noticeable in my first call to him. What I try to do when I call in is if I feel like the host has said something that I'd like to respond to I'll just say something quickly, like "but." Then I'll go silent. I do it just to let him know I'm there and let him know I'd like to get a word in. Where James White would finish his thought and yet allow me to come back and respond fully, Greg will just keep on going like nothing has happened.

Not that I'm complaining. It's his radio show and this is just the nature of the beast. But when you call in to these shows your just going to have to be content with the fact that you've got a major disadvantage going in. It's unavoidable.

The first call more is just about my presentation of a question. I was cut off because I ran into the commercial break that comes at the top of the hour. Greg came back at the top of the hour and discussed my call a little further, and I've included that portion as well. During the second call I had a better chance to offer a rejoinder.

Discussion #1
Discussion #2

Me and James White

James White is Reformed Protestant that hosts a live webcast a couple of times a week where he discusses issues related to his ministry. He's a very smart guy that I read a lot of while I was a Christian. I have several of his books. Many of them are thoroughly highlighted. I decided to call in to his webcast a few times and so I'm posting those conversations here.

Conversation #1
Conversation #2
Conversation #3

White is a very interesting character. He's often accused of arrogance and being mean spirited. He's called rude. All that may be true, but I find that I kind of admire him anyway, and here's why. First and foremost, he's smart, and to me that's admirable. Second, he is principled. This is a guy that's not afraid to tell others that they are on their way to hell. I kind of respect that. Many are offended when they are told they are going to hell, and some Christians in an effort to be nice shy away from saying what they really believe. Personally I don't mind being told I'm going to hell. I mean, what if these Baptists are right and all of us skeptics are going to hell? When you're engulfed in flames and molten sulfur in hell, what do you think you might say to those "nice" Baptists that were afraid to tell you what was in store for you? They should be warning us if they really believe what they say.

The other reason I like James White is because he is fair in debate. I've watched many of his professional debates, and though he is sometimes treated unfairly he does not return the favor. He doesn't interrupt his opponents. He lets them make their point clearly. They sometimes refuse to answer his questions and he still remains very professional. He gave me plenty of time (the first call went 40 minutes) and didn't interrupt. This is especially noticeable in Conversation #3, where early on he allowed me to talk and explain a situation that he already understood. He could have cut me off and told me he already knew all about it, but he allowed me to go forward and only informed me that he already knew all this stuff after I took the time to explain it. So he treated me very fairly.

As far as the conversations themselves though, I wasn't real happy with the way I performed (if "performed" is the right word). I think White engaged in some spin, and I didn't call him out on it real well, especially in the first conversation. But he's a professional and I'm not. These guys are good at what they do. I learned from it and applied that lesson to my calls with Bob Dutko.

Dutko however was not as good at allowing me to make my points without interruption, so I view him more as winning debates by simply dominating the microphone.

I might have more to say about these conversations later.

Me and Bob Dutko

Bob Dutko is a Christian apologist and advocate of Republicanism that hosts a 3 hour radio program in Detroit every day on 103.5 WMUZ. I disagree with him most of the time, but it's interesting radio. I've spoken with Bob three times so far. I'm going to try and provide links to each of the conversations for your listening pleasure. Let's see if this works.

Conversation #1
Conversation #2
Conversation #3

Government is the problem

It's difficult to identify major problems that exist in our country that weren't caused by the government. Resentment in the Middle East is mostly due to U.S. interventionism. The U.S. imposed the Shah on the Iranian people, and he killed many. The U.S. imposed Saddam on the Iraqi people. The U.S. encouraged Saddam to do battle with Iran, and supplied him with weapons. Even chemical weapons, which he used on Iranian civilians. Likewise the U.S. provided weapons to Iran as well to fight against Saddam. The U.S. used the money from the sale of weapons to Iran to fund the Contras, who were busy attacking Nicaragua. Likewise, elsewhere in Latin America U.S. interventionism is largely to blame for resentment there. In Panama the U.S. imposed another CIA operative, Noriega, on the Panamanians. When the U.S. decided Noriega was a problem he was ousted violently, and many civilians in Panama were slaughtered.

The same thing is true with regards to the economic crisis that currently exists. Is capitalism the problem? Do we need more government intervention? In fact what we need is the very opposite, as Ron Paul explains well here. Notice how Ron Paul, speaking in 2002 long before the housing bubble had really burst, explains why a housing bubble is to be expected. The central planners that manipulate the value of money create the mal-investment that leads to the irrational financial decisions that are made. If the market were permitted to function without government regulation, then the true value of money is reflected in the price. When the central planners set the price, the market information is lost, and people make wrong, uninformed decisions.

It is the government involvement that caused the problem in the first place. But what politicians will do is use the current crisis to pile on more regulations that will lead to even greater problems. As Paul writes: "The only decision now before the central planners in Washington is whose special interests will continue to benefit from the coming pretense at reform."

If we don't get government out of the way things could get very bad in the U.S. Unfortunately neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are willing to fix the problem. I'm concerned that this is all going to end at some point in the near future. And it will end badly. Unless people wake up and we get the government out of the way.