Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts

Sunday, November 26, 2017

Review of Bertrand Russell's Lecture "Why I am not a Christian" Part 1

So, two instigating factors drove me to read this famous lecture given by Bertrand Russell in 1929 (or at least the text I have was copyrighted in 1929). The first was a conversation online with a skeptic. We were discussing the moral argument for God. To be more specific we were discussing whether or not the skeptics I was engaging (on a Facebook site specifically for discussing religion) were actually atheists or "simply lacking belief in God." The discussion was started by the page owner sharing a post that said there were only three options, you either accept the proposition that there is a God, reject the proposition, or just don't care or know. This kind of discussion comes up all the time as modern (New Atheists) online skeptics often like to shirk the burden of proof (or really any responsibility in their position) by saying that they don't believe that God doesn't exist, they simply lack the belief that any god exists. Basically they often try to claim the null view, as opposed to a negative view. Anyways, that's backstory. One of these atheists quoted Russell's famous lecture as a response to my posting of the moral argument for the existence of God. Then, Friday night I met up with a small apologetics discussion group to watch the recently released movie, The Case for Christ. I'd seen the movie before, but on this viewing it struck me that Lee Strobel had once been strongly influenced by Russell's teachings (he specifically references this lecture). I then decided that if this was a good enough lecture for them, I ought to know what this great lecture actually taught. I didn't expect it to dissuade me from Christianity, but I want to know what Russell actually taught rather than hearing it secondhand. Without further ado, here we go.

I'm going to tackle each section separately:

"What is a Christian?" -- Here I actually appreciate Russell's honesty. He is clearheaded enough to not attack a straw man. He talks about watered-down Christianity that was, and still is, popular. He's right to say that Christianity is more than just "... a person who attempts to live a good life." I disagree that "The word does not have quite such a full-blooded meaning now as it had in the times of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. In those days, if a man said that he was a Christian it was known what he meant. You accepted a whole collection of creeds which were set out with great precision, and every single syllable of those creeds you believed with the whole strength of your convictions." I know Christians that could be described that way, in fact, I consider myself to be one! I also disagree with the notion that a Christian can believe that Christ was the "best and wisest of men." A fundamental doctrine of Christianity has to be that Jesus Christ was more than just a wise man, but that He is divine. If Christ isn't divine then Christianity is false, and the surety for that truth is the truth of the resurrection. I also agree with his point concerning the abandonment of the doctrine of Hell. While I accept that Christians can, without abandoning Christianity altogether, have different views of Hell. There still needs to be some kind of understanding of an afterlife, which generally entails Hell and Heaven at the least. It's interesting from a rhetorician's point of view that while he here says that he's not going to include belief in Hell as part of fundamental Christian views, but later he does attack the theology of Hell saying that, "I do not myself feel that any person that is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment." So, believing in Hell isn't fundamental to Christianity, but it is a fundamental teaching of Christ and Russell can't be humane and believe in Hell at the same time. Despite what seems like Russell going back on his statement that Christians don't have to believe in Hell to be Christians, let's move on.

"The Existence of God" -- I was hoping that this would be where his really heavy-hitting arguments against God would start to come out, but alas this section is more about how this is too big of an argument to condense into such a short space (this was a lecture), and that he was only going to summarize his position. It is curious though that he brings up the Roman Catholic Church's teaching "that the existence of God can be proved by the unaided reason." This is a bit confusing because it seems like he's lambasting the Roman Catholic position as being about faith without reason, but then he says that he's going to take on only a few of their arguments here. I am puzzled. If their position is that it's a matter of faith and not reason, then why would they have arguments at all? Arguments are a feature of rational inquiry and persuasion, not blind faith.

"The First Cause Argument" -- Here we go, finally. His first critique of this argument is to call into doubt the concept of causation entirely. He says, "The philosophers and the men of science have got going on cause, and it has not anything like the vitality that it used to have; but apart from that, you can see that the argument that there must be a First Cause is one that cannot have any validity." I don't appreciate the hubris. He hasn't made an argument yet and yet he's already assuring us that it cannot have any validity!? Also, it seems he's trying to say that science has somehow removed the need for a First Cause. How so? He hasn't offered any explanation of that, just a throwaway phrase that "men of science" have somehow debunked this argument. If anything, this argument has only gained traction in the area of science. Big Bang theory has exploded (yes a pun) on the scientific scene as a cosmology that destroys Russell's claim that "men of science" have reduced the vitality of this argument. They have demonstrated quite convincingly that there was an ultimate beginning to the universe, which plays right into the Christian's hand. In Russell's defense Big Bang cosmology was still young in the 1920's but he still doesn't have a scientific leg to stand on here. In addition to floundering scientifically, I think Russell just hasn't contemplated the philosophical arguments against a temporally infinite universe. He says that "the philosophers" have gotten at this as well, but still doesn't address how there could be an infinite past.

After this failure Russell commits probably his worst philosophical argumentation misstep (at least so far), he sets up an easy straw man. He says that when he was eighteen he was convinced by John Stuart Mill's autobiography that there is this question that kills the First Cause argument: "Who made God?" Really? That's your knockout blow? His parody (well, I wish it were a parody, apparently he take this seriously) is, "If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument." First, no theist ever says, intentionally, that "everything must have a cause." There are different varieties of this argument, so I can't include them all, but suffice it to say that Christian theologians/apologists who use First Cause arguments aren't so stupid as to clearly paint themselves into a corner with "everything must have a cause." The phrase that I've heard from most is, "Everything that begins to exist has a cause." That is a fair premise and it doesn't sound anything like Russell's straw man of First Cause arguments.

This next section was particularly humous to me so I have to point it out. He tells of how the Hindus believe "that the world rested upon an elephant, and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, 'How about the tortoise?' the Indian said, 'Suppose we change the subject.'" And, then proceeds to do the very same thing! He says, "The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our imagination. Therefore, perhaps, I need not waste any more time upon the argument about the First Cause." In a sense, he's saying that we're just too naive to see how something could not have a beginning, and like his imaginary Indian says, "suppose we change the subject." Let's hear it, what is your best argument that the universe did not have a beginning. It's no use saying that we're just not imaginative enough to see how that's possible. That's like saying that we've never observed anything starting without a cause nor have we seen anything be infinitely existent, nor could we even imagine what that would look like, but it certainly is just our lack of imagination, it is possible. Just saying that something is possible doesn't make it so. I could say that a married bachelor is "possible" all I wanted, that doesn't make it so. I've said too much on this one part, let's keep going.

"The Natural-law Argument" -- This one is a more interesting one to me because I think Russell has something going for him, at least in part. These types of arguments are commonly called teleological arguments, arguments from design, or fine-tuning arguments. Russell is trying to take on what is, in my opinion, one of the strongest arguments for God. Unfortunately for Russell he didn't have modern science to again demonstrate just how delicately balanced the universe really is. He speaks of the popularity of these types of arguments in Sir Isaac Newton's day as they appealed to the "laws of nature" and that those laws are best explained by the existence of God. He does get something quite wrong here though. He says that once people had God as their explanation that it was "a convenient and simple explanation" and that it "saved them the trouble of looking any further for any explanation of the law of gravitation." Really? He even says that "Nowadays we explain the law of gravitation in a somewhat complicated fashion that Einstein has introduced." But, if we now explain gravitation differently, how did we get to that new understanding if we stopped looking for any further explanation of the law of gravitation back in Newton's day? He contradicts his own position! I will read him with a bit of charity here though and say that what he's really trying to say is that we've now come to understand gravitation differently and that it's not the law that we used to think it was. That's fair enough. "We now find that a great many things we thought were Natural Laws are really human conventions. You know that even in the remotest depth of stellar space there are still three feet to a yard. That is, no doubt, a very remarkable fact, but you would hardly call it a law of nature." This is his strongest point, though it misses the mark.

His strongest point is that what we call "laws" of nature, are really just as subjective as the length of a yard. This is a good point because it cuts out the common phrase (I've heard it from numerous Christians, I've probably even said it) "if there's a law, there must be a lawgiver." The tact that many try to take here is that the laws of nature are like the governing laws of humans. That God wrote the, if you will, constitution of the universe, which included things like the law of gravity. I think this phrase, "laws require a lawgiver," is wrong-headed. I think Russell (and others) have a point. The law of gravity is, at its heart, just a human construct. It's not that gravity would go away if we didn't know about it or if our law were wrong (clearly we've had numerous wrong scientific ideas in the past). However, here's where I think this strongest point misses the mark. The teleological/design/fine tuning arguments don't rest on what we call "laws." What these arguments are really pointing to is the fact that the universe has qualities that only make sense given a divine Designer. Take the law of gravity, it's one of many that has to be a certain strength or the universe would collapse. Cosmologist have techniques and computer models where they have simulated, using complex mathematical modeling, what would happen if any one of the universal constants were somehow different than it is. It's not that there's some law that requires a lawgiver, per se, it's that there's a delicate balance that could only have been set up on purpose.

Russell points out that "Human laws are behests commanding you to behave a certain way, in which way you may choose to behave, or you may choose not to behave; but natural laws are a description of how things do in fact behave, and, being a mere description of what they in fact do, you cannot argue that there must be somebody who told them to do that, because even supposing that there were you are then faced with the question, Why did God issue just those natural laws and no others?" I believe I've sufficiently answered his question in my previous paragraph, but let me summarize it. In cosmological modeling there are very few that will "work" that is, there are very few settings on the cosmological dial that will actually allow for the existence of a universe at all. So, while Russell is right to point out a distinction between human laws and natural laws, we're talking about a different situation altogether. One could say by way of analogy that the universe does seem to be running by a set of laws not unlike a country runs by a set of laws. And, just as a country needs a good set of laws to keep running a universe does as well. Only a perfectly knowledgeable, powerful Creator could set up laws and enforce them in such a way that keeps the whole universe running. Here's another important point that I think Russell gets completely wrong, "if there was a reason for the laws which God gave, then God himself was subject to law, and therefore you do not get any advantage by introducing God as an intermediary." This doesn't take into account what it means to be all-powerful. It seems that Russell is taking omnipotence to mean "able to do absolutely anything." Again, he's breaking with Christianity. Christianity teaches that even God is bound by His own nature, logic. Nonsense is still nonsense even when spoken of about God (I think that someone smarter than me said that, but the closest quote I can find is from John Lennox "Nonsense remains nonsense, even when talked by world-famous scientists.") God can no more make a married bachelor than you or I, because the very concept is nonsense. God chose to use gravity, atoms, quarks, strings (maybe), photons, strong and weak nuclear forces, etc. etc. to build His creation. Those physical things are limited by their natures to be physical. As physical things they have to be arranged in a certain way or else they wouldn't be anything. That is the design. Less like "laws," and more like a delicately balanced masterpiece.

"The Argument from Design" -- He starts off his critique of design arguments with a lot of silly things that people say things are designed for, but they are clearly misconstruing the purpose for which things are designed. Yes, we who hold to a design argument will need to give an accounting for this. If we say that such and such a thing was designed, we have, in a sense, said that we know for what purpose that thing is made. This is obvious with man-made objects. The lamp sitting beside me is clearly purposed to give light to an area. Knowing that purpose I can then say whether or not it was designed and if it was designed well. But, there is another level that Russell doesn't even attempt to address here, probably because it destroys his whole counter to design arguments. He says, "When you come to look into this argument from design, it is a most astonishing thing that people can believe that this world, with all the things that are in it, with all its defects, should be the best that omnipotence and omniscience have been able to produce in millions of years. I really cannot believe it." While I support the first part, we can't speak to the mind of God and say for what purpose the universe was designed (except with God's revealed truth, that is, God has told us some of His purpose for creating), we also cannot speak to whether or not that design is good or bad without knowing the mind of God. But, that is just what Russell is doing. He's saying that the design is bad. How could he know whether the design is good or bad? This is like an ordinary child looking at the design of the so called "Bird's Nest Stadium" (the actual name is the Beijing National Stadium) and saying that the design was bad! Who knows how to design a stadium better, the architects that built that amazing structure or this snotty, haughty child? God is many, many orders of magnitude above our understanding of design than the architect is above the child. So, who is Russell to say that the design is bad?

In addition to claiming to know that this design is bad, Russell also seems to think that the idea that this world will come to an end someday is a point against God's designing the earth. Once again it seems that Russell has fallen into his own trap. He has implied that we can't know something is designed without knowing for what purpose it was designed. But, here Russell has implied that God probably didn't design the world or at least didn't design it well because it will someday be dead and lifeless. Does Russell know for what purpose God made the world? If and only if one knows the ultimate goal of the existence of the world can one say that its dying is a bad design. Think of an analogy here, a lightbulb. It gives light and works. Is it poorly designed if it eventually wears out and stops working? Russell seems to be implying that an omniscient/omnipotent God would be able to design a lightbulb (from our analogy) that can last forever. But, again, does he know God's goal in making the lightbulb? Maybe, and I don't know for sure, God wanted the lightbulb to last only this long and no longer. Only if one knows when something is supposed to go defunct can one say whether or not it performed as expected or not.

When I first started writing this I had hoped I would be able to keep my comments to one entry. But, as I reach this point I realize I should have broken this up into multiple entries. So, I'll do just that. This is part one. Come back tomorrow for part two!

Ancient Okinawan Village on Ikei Island

Sunday, September 17, 2017

The Book of Job

The following synopsis of the book of Job was posted by a friend of mine the other day expletives edited out:

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The Book of Job in a nutshell:

Job is a rich guy with tons of bling. Hot wife, loads of kids, all kinds of stuff.

God and Satan are talking. Satan's like, "Job only likes you cuz you gave him an easy life. Take it away and he won't like you anymore."

God's like, "You're on. Let's [mess] up his life."

So they do.

Now the cliffnotes version of the story you'll hear in a [bad] church is that Job remained faithful, so
God gave Job all his [stuff] back.

The ACTUAL version that's ACTUALLY in the Bible does not say that.

In the actual version God and Satan wreck Job's [stuff]. Job is like, "man, this... really sucks. I'm not being flippant here. My kids are all dead. I am... I am not in a good place right now."

Job's friends show up and are like, "DAMN, dude! God is seriously pissed at you! What did you DO?"

And Job says, "Nothing, seriously. He just wrecked my life and killed everyone I loved for... as far as I can tell, literally no reason at all."

And Job's friends are all, "Ok, there's no way. God would only do this to you if you REALLY sinned. You'd better beg for forgiveness."

And Job says, "I've got no forgiveness to beg for. I didn't do anything. This all happened for no reason."

And his friends, "No, this definitely happened for a reason. God liked you so he gave you a good life, now God doesn't like you so he screwed your life up, obviously you sinned and he's angry with you, you need to apologize so he'll give you back the high life to which you were so sweetly accustomed."
And Job says, "No. I didn't do anything. I'm not apologizing for [stuff] I didn't do."

And his friends are like, "Man, [forget] you. Not only did you sin, like, MASSIVELY, you aren't even repentant. You suck. I don't know how we didn't notice this before."

And then they bail on him because no one wants to hang out with a secret pedophile or whatever they thought Job was.

So Job sits there and is all, "Ok... God? I'm not fooling here. I'm in pain. Do you not... do you not understand that people... hurt? When you hurt them? Do you not... get what suffering is? Do you not understand what you've... what you've done here? Are you just so far away that you... don't... understand how fragile we are? Or that you can't... care?"

So God here's this and is SUPER PISSED. Because he just told Satan that Job was all pious and [stuff[ but now Job is calling him out. So he shows up and SCREAMS at Job. He goes on this big rant about all the monsters he's killed and the things he's seen and how amazing he is and HOW DARE JOB QUESTION HIM! He gets super into it, and REALLY threatening.

And Job just falls on his face and begs forgiveness because seriously what else is he going to do, he doesn't think he can take God in a fight.

So God takes some deep breaths and counts to ten and goes to his happy place for a minute and gets himself under control again.

Then he says, "Ok, ok... so... we all gotta move on from here... Tell you what. You did tell the truth about me, back there. That's worth something. You at least get me, even if you don't always RESPECT. So I'ma give you new women and kids and cows and [stuff]. Not your old ones, Satan and I killed those. New ones though. These are gonna be better, I swear. And, what else. Oh yeah, your so called friends. They didn't tell the truth about me. So I'ma murder them all."

And Job begs God not to do that, because Job really is a stand up guy, that's been established. And God lets them live.

So... the thing Job did that was telling the truth about God was stating that God sends good and evil to us without respect to our righteousness. And the thing that Job's friends did that was telling lies about God was claiming that God sends wealth and easy living to the righteous, and misery to the unrighteous.

In other words, the moral of Job is that if you believe in the prosperity gospel God will straight up ice you unless Job asks him to chill.

Just kidding, God's not real.

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First, I want to admit that I failed at how I handled the subsequent discussion. I was overly critical of some of the comments that others posted and I didn't offer much in the way of answering the challenge. Now, let's have a quick rundown on orders of causes/effects. A first order cause, is the actual, immediate cause for a certain effect. Now, think of a row of dominoes. A second order cause would be the next domino in the chain of dominoes, the one that knocked down the one that knocked down the final one. Then of course it goes on and on up the chain. In addition to this causal chain there's cause by inaction. In our example, a person standing by a chain of dominoes could stop the chain, but doesn't, that person could be said to have a secondary cause or at least secondarily culpable  for the final effect. But, think about how this works. Am I culpable for my inaction concerning abortion doctors? I'm not actively intervening by stopping abortion doctors from going to work, am I responsible for their evils? If I buy a latte from a company that supports an organization that supports abortion, am I causing abortions? Clearly not. Now let's look at the passages from the book of Job and see how the parallels go. First act that God does in chapter one is God talks to Satan. What did God say? He asked Satan what he's been up to. Then asks if Satan had considered Job, since he's blameless and upright, fearing God. Then God says, "Behold, all that he has is in your power, only do not put forth your hand on him." (All my quotes will be from the NASB.) The only actions God has actually done so far is speak. However, what actions were taken against Job in the first chapter? The "Sabeans" (apparently it refers to people from "Sheba") kill the servants and steal all his oxen and donkeys. Here we finally have something else God does, or do we? The phrase translated "The fire of God fell from heaven." It could be translated "a mighty fire" or "a divine fire." Again, this doesn't actually say that God did _____. It says that a divine fire came from heaven and killed the sheep and the servants watching them, which is not the same as God killing them, especially since we have Satan in the beginning of this chapter being given permission to test Job. Then the "Chaldeans" kill the servants and steal all his camels. Lastly, it says, "a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on [Job's children] and they died ..." We've come to the end of the first chapter and God hasn't done anything to Job.

Before we move on, let's compare to the summary given above. The summary gets that Job is rich; that is clear. The description of the interaction between Satan and God starts out as a more or less a decent summary. Then everything is completely wrong in the next phrase. God does not say, "You're on. Let's [mess] up his life." And, "so they do," is a completely inaccurate description of the way the story is actually described. "They" don't do anything really (at least so far in the story). God permits Satan to test Job, but God hasn't done anything to Job.

Now we come to the second chapter. It starts in basically the same way as the first chapter. Satan now says that Job still has his health and that's the only reason he still worships God. So, again, God gives permission to Satan to tempt Job this time, he's permitted to harm Job but not kill him. Then another key phrase: "7 Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head." Again they didn't do anything, Satan did. Job's wife is actually the first one to counsel Job. She says, "Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!" Then Job replies with the real message of the book: "Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?" On to the third chapter. Job laments his birth. Then the lectures from his friends start in chapter four. Their themes are: innocent people aren't punished by God, God is just, God, and a rebuke. Now, each one is answered by Job and their lectures are a bit of a read. I don't blame the author for criticizing the book. It is a bit of a rough read. The longest portions of the text are the series of lectures and they're somewhat repetitive in theme. You've sinned, Job, confess, Job replies that it doesn't work like that, and then they renew their attack. Quite possibly the most famous line is, "Though he slay me, I will hope in him," which is vital to the message of the book. Again, the above summary completely misses that point. It's interesting to me that the summary above completely misses so much of the points made in Job's responses to his "friends." He says in many ways that no matter how bad things are, he honors and loves God. Yes, Job laments and tempers flare, but the goal is all about how God is truly in control.

Now we come to the part when God shows up. God speaks to Job and rhetorically asks (in a way), "Who are you to question me?" Now, we come to one of the clearest mistakes in the summary. This line: "Oh yeah, your so called friends. They didn't tell the truth about me. So I'ma murder them all." Where is that in the text? The closest thing is God saying to one of the friends: "My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has. Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, and go to My servant Job, and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves, and My servant Job will pray for you. For I will accept him so that I may not do with you according to your folly, because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has." Maybe the phrasing is unclear, but it reads as God saying, "I'm unhappy with you, make a sacrifice and repent." There is a consequence of disobedience, that is, "that I may not do with you according to your folly." No, that's not, as the summary says, "I'ma [sic] murder them all." Job didn't beg God not to do that. They offered sacrifices and God followed through on the promise.

Just what is the moral of the story here? Yes, part of the point is that good and evil happen to both good and evil people. As Jesus said, God "sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." But, the other main point is that God is in control and yet will I praise Him. One other important point to not miss is that God never chastises Job for lamenting. Getting to the end here and the original post betrays that it's all a troll. There's no real point in the summary except to illicit anger from, I presume, Christians. At the risk of feeding the troll, I have written this as a reasoned response to an unreasonable, emotional post.