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Commentary

The logical contradictions in Richard Dawkins’ worldview

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From Uncommon Descent. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

In River out of Eden : A Darwinian View of Life Richard Dawkins wrote:

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. As that unhappy poet A.E. Housman put it: ‘For Nature, heartless, witless Nature Will neither care nor know.’ DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.

In a 2007 New Scientist/Greenpeace Science debate, Dawkins said:

Far from being the most selfish, exploitative species, Homo sapiens is the only species that has at least the possibility of rebelling against the otherwise universally selfish Darwinian impulse . . . If any species in the history of life has the possibility of breaking away from short term selfishness and of long term planning for the distant future, it’s our species. We are earth’s last best hope even if we are simultaneously, the species most capable of destroying life on the planet. But when it comes to taking the long view, we are literally unique. Because the long view is not a view that has ever been taken before in whole history of life. If we don’t plan for the future, no other species will . . .

Well, which is it? Is there right and wrong or isn’t there? Are we selfish or aren’t we? Do we have free will or don’t we?

Is this why Dawkins refuses to debate William Lane Craig? Is his schtick just about selling books to gullible atheists who don’t understand the laws of logic?

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Commentary

Report on Licona-Patterson debate on the resurrection

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This after action report was sent in by commenter Aaron as a comment to another post about the debate on the resurrection that was held last night. I apologize for the formatting!

LICONA-PATTERSON DEBATE: A BRIEF REPORT AND ANALYSIS
HELD ON 3/31/2010

A few hours ago my wife and I attended a debate on Jesus’ Resurrection between Mike Licona and Stephen Patterson (a Jesus Seminar scholar) at FSU in Tallahassee, FL. What follows is a brief report and analysis of the debate.

******A BRIEF REPORT

I. Opening

A. Licona presents 5 facts (taken solely from Paul’s undisputed writings) and 4 criteria (method) for concluding that Jesus was physically raised from the dead.

5 Facts
1. Paul was an eyewitness (hostile).
2. Paul knew Jesus’ disciples.
3. Paul taught what the disciples taught.
4. They taught appearances to individuals and groups, to friend and foe alike.
5. They and Paul taught Jesus was physically raised.

4 Criteria
1. Explanatory Scope
2. Explanatory Power
3. Less Ad Hoc
4. Plausibility

The Resurrection hypothesis passes numbers 1, 2, and 3 with flying colors; and it neither passes nor fails number 4 (plausibility).

B. Patterson claims he believes in Jesus’ resurrection, but he does not believe that God raised Jesus physically. For Patterson the bottom line of the debate is whether or not the dead Jesus got resuscitated.

-When Paul uses “according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3-4), he meant God cares for his people according to Hebrew Scriptures. In Jewish terms, resurrection meant “vindication.”

-Patterson asks, “How did Jesus appear to Paul?” and quotes Gal. 1:16, stating that God reveals His Son “in me” (Greek: en emoi), not “to me.”

-“Flesh and blood cannot enter God’s kingdom” (1 Cor. 15:50) contradicts “flesh and bones” (Luke 24:39) of Jesus’ getting back to God’s kingdom. Therefore, it follows that Paul did not believe in physical resurrection of Jesus.

-The ancient may believe a person comes back to life and then goes to heaven, but we—the modern man—no longer believe this because our worldview does not allow it.

II. First Rebuttal

A. Licona reviews his facts/method and points out that Patterson disagrees with his number 5 fact, namely, Paul taught that Jesus was physically raised. Licona says:

-Patterson’s appeal to Jewish meaning of resurrection to be “vindication” is irrelevant. In fact, Patterson himself says—Licona quoting him here—that 1 Cor. 15 should be the basis for knowing the earliest Christian traditions.

-Patterson’s translation of soma psuchikon—as “physical” body—(1 Cor. 15:44) is untenable, because there is zero basis for this. “Natural body” is more like it.

-“Flesh and blood” means “mortality” not “physicality.”

-Patterson’s translation of en emoi –as “in me”–(Gal. 1:16) is not strictly “in me.” Gal. 1:24 says, “And they praised God because of me [en emoi].” 1 Cor. 14:11c says, “he is a foreigner to me [en emoi].” The en emoi cannot always legitimately be translated “in me.”

B. Patterson abandons his en emoi=“to me” argument and resorts to saying that Paul’s relation with Jesus was a matter of “spiritual envelopment.”

Patterson tries to resuscitate his soma psuchikon=“physical body” argument, but he could not get it back to life.

Patterson admits that the whole debate is all about worldview. Making a reference to Licona’s fourth criteria, he finds Jesus’ physical resurrection to be implausible because he believes dead people do not come to life. Jesus’ coming to life cannot be an exception, and neither is it necessary.

III. Second Rebuttal

A. Licona reminds the audience of the two major building blocks for the resurrection: facts and method.

-Licona reiterates his points on “to me” versus “in me” and the issue on the use on some psuchikon (natural body) and soma pnematikon (spiritual body).

-Licona says Patterson’s is a worldview problem—a metaphysical bias, not a historically based argument.

B. Patterson is reduced to asking if Paul believed the way the apostles believed, since early Christian proclamation (found in the gospels) was ambiguous.

IV. Closing
A. Licona answers Patterson’s question

B. Patterson’s main conclusion was that if Licona’s view of Jesus’ physical resurrection makes you a better person (e.g., treating your fellow with love, etc.), then stay with it and ignore Patterson’s view.

V. Q and A Session

Only the first question, addressed to Paterson, will be mentioned here:
“Given that this is a worldview issue to you, what is your philosophical justification—since you have no historical justification—for [sic] believing that a dead person does not become alive?” Patterson answers, “Mine is a biological—not a philosophical—justification.” The questioner follows up, “What is your philosophical justification for your biological justification that people will not become alive in the future?” Patterson answered, “I think it’s a good guess.”

*******A DEBATE ANALYSIS

No doubt, Mike Licona killed Stephen Patterson here—it was embarrassing. This is perhaps Licona’s biggest win. The case for Jesus’ resurrection obtains—big time!

There were moments one could tell that Patterson was greatly rattled, and he seemed to be merely going in circles, as though at a loss as to what he was trying to say. Also, there were a few times that he sounded like he was conceding a number of points that Licona had used to demolish his arguments. Frankly, I felt bad for Patterson because he was such a very nice guy and had exercised lots of grace, despite the fiasco.

Basically, having abandoned all his initial arguments (including criticizing the gospels—straw man attack), Patterson was reduced, literally, to making a baseless assumption that “a dead person does not become alive.”

After the debate I personally spoke to Patterson and asked him, “Since you have no historical justification for believing that a dead person does not come to life, you really cannot say—as a historian—that Jesus’ resurrection is implausible.” He responded something to this effect: “Well, we have to use biology and gravity, and historians draw from these.” I said, “So then, you would be using historical justification, not merely biological justification.” His answer seemed rather incoherent, and then he said, “Well, that [biology] is all we have to work with.”

Commentary

James Spiegel explains what really causes atheism

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I spotted this sample chapter from James Spiegel’s new book “The Making of an Atheist” at Apologetics.com.

Here’s the part I found the most interesting:

The eminent twentieth-century historian Paul Johnson describes his Intellectuals as “an examination of the moral and judgmental credentials of leading intellectuals to give advice to humanity on how to conduct its affairs.” Thus begins a 342-page historical expose that recounts behavior so sleazy and repugnant that one almost feels corrupted by reading it. Most disturbing are not necessarily the details of the sordid lives described by Johnson but the fact that the subjects are often regarded as intellectual heroes. Not merely successful people of letters in their day, they were scholars whose influence was, and continues to be, felt worldwide. They mastered their crafts as novelists, poets, playwrights, and philosophers and set forth ideals and values for ordering society.

So for most readers it comes as a bit of a shock to learn that so many leading intellectuals were self-serving egotists,whose ostensible interest in humankind generally was belied by their callous disregard for those nearest and dearest to them, especially familymembers.

The upshot of Johnson’s book is that not only do many leading modern intellectuals fail to live up to their billing as moral visionaries, but their moral perversity should cause us to question the legitimacy of their ideas. This is because one’s personal conduct impacts one’s scholarly projects. And, as Johnson shows, the works of these intellectuals were often calculated to justify or minimize the shame of their own debauchery.

Among the diverse vices that characterize the intellectuals studied by Johnson, brazen sexual promiscuity is the one recurring theme. So it is not surprising that most of these men explicitly rejected the Judeo-Christian worldview. Indeed, many of their scholarly and creative works openly challenged the values of this tradition, which condemns the sorts of lascivious behavior that dominated their lives.

Aldous Huxley, another significant modern intellectual, had much to say on this point. In the following quote he refers to a nihilistic worldview, but this could as easily be supplanted by Marxism, Sartrean existentialism, or Shelley’s vision of a religion-free society:

For myself as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation.The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality.We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.

Elsewhere in this same essay, Huxley is even more candid:

Most ignorance is vincible ignorance.We don’t know because we don’t want to know. It is our will that decides how and upon what subjects we shall use our intelligence. Those who detect no meaning in the world generally do so because, for one reason or another, it suits their books that the world should be meaningless.

As Paul Johnson argues, the philosophical systems and social ideals of many modern intellectuals were decided by their will to be immoral, not their quest for truth. They wrote the books they did to suit their personal lives, not vice versa.

The interesting point from the sample chapter here is that for atheists, the sin comes first, especially sexual sin. Now, pretty much everybody has some trouble with sin. No one can be perfect all the time. But atheists try to lie to themselves and others by re-imagining the world in such a way as to remove God as moral lawgiver. And it doesn’t matter how far they have to go to speculate, assume or imagine their way out of reality. If they have to deny the big bang, they will. Deny the fine-tuning, no problem. The origin of life? Aliens did it. The resurrection? Unknown identical twin of Jesus. It’s brute facts all the way down.

Consider this quote from an honest, respectable atheist philosopher named Thomas Nagel:

“In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper–namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers.

I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”
(”The Last Word” by Thomas Nagel, Oxford University Press: 1997)

They don’t want to admit that they are doing anything wrong, and they don’t want to be bothered by God’s design for them. They don’t think there is any way they ought to be other than “happy”. Their new alternate universe allows them to do whatever they want (however destructive) while trying to make themselves happy for a few years apart from God. And their new moral standard requires that everyone call that selfishness “good”, or else. And finally, if anything goes wrong, then the government is right there with someone else’s money to fix it, so they never feel any shame or guilt.

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