Benjamin Radford Livescience's Bad Science Columnist–
With the upcoming disaster film "2012" and the current hype about Mayan calendars and doomsday predictions, it seems like a good time to put such notions in context.
Most prophets of doom come from a religious perspective, though the secular crowd has caused its share of scares as well. One thing the doomsday scenarios tend to share in common: They don't come to pass. Here are 10 that didn't pan out, so far:
The Prophet Hen of Leeds, 1806
History has countless examples of people who have proclaimed that the return of Jesus Christ is imminent, but perhaps there has never been a stranger messenger than a hen in the English town of Leeds in 1806. It seems that a hen began laying eggs on which the phrase "Christ is coming" was written. As news of this miracle spread, many people became convinced that doomsday was at hand - until a curious local actually watched the hen laying one of the prophetic eggs and discovered someone had hatched a hoax.
The Millerites, April 23, 1843
A New England farmer named William Miller, after several years of very careful study of his Bible, concluded that God's chosen time to destroy the world could be divined from a strict literal interpretation of scripture. As he explained to anyone who would listen, the world would end some time between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844. He preached and published enough to eventually lead thousands of followers (known as Millerites) who decided that the actual date was April 23, 1843. Many sold or gave away their possessions, assuming they would not be needed; though when April 23 arrived (but Jesus didn't) the group eventually disbanded-some of them forming what is now the Seventh Day Adventists.
Mormon Armageddon, 1891 or earlier
Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon church, called a meeting of his church leaders in February 1835 to tell them that he had spoken to God recently, and during their conversation he learned that Jesus would return within the next 56 years, after which the End Times would begin promptly.
Halley's Comet, 1910
In 1881, an astronomer discovered through spectral analysis that comet tails include a deadly gas called cyanogen (related, as the name imples, to cyanide). This was of only passing interest until someone realized that Earth would pass through the tail of Halley's comet in 1910. Would everyone on the planet be bathed in deadly toxic gas? That was the speculation reprinted on the front pages of "The New York Times" and other newspapers, resulting in a widespread panic across the United States and abroad. Finally even-headed scientists explained that there was nothing to fear.
Pat Robertson, 1982
In May 1980, televangelist and Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson startled and alarmed many when - contrary to Matthew 24:36 ("No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven...") he informed his "700 Club" TV show audience around the world that he knew when the world would end. "I guarantee you by the end of 1982 there is going to be a judgment on the world," Robertson said.
Heaven's Gate, 1997
When comet Hale-Bopp appeared in 1997, rumors surfaced that an alien spacecraft was following the comet - covered up, of course, by NASA and the astronomical community. Though the claim was refuted by astronomers (and could be refuted by anyone with a good telescope), the rumors were publicized on Art Bell's paranormal radio talk show "Coast to Coast AM." These claims inspired a San Diego UFO cult named Heaven's Gate to conclude that the world would end soon. The world did indeed end for 39 of the cult members, who committed suicide on March 26, 1997.
Nostradamus, August 1999
The heavily obfuscated and metaphorical writings of Michel de Nostrdame have intrigued people for over 400 years. His writings, the accuracy of which relies heavily upon very flexible interpretations, have been translated and re-translated in dozens of different versions. One of the most famous quatrains read, "The year 1999, seventh month / From the sky will come great king of terror." Many Nostradamus
devotees grew concerned that this was the famed prognosticator's vision of Armageddon.
Y2K, Jan. 1, 2000
As the last century drew to a close, many people grew concerned that computers might bring about doomsday. The problem, first noted in the early 1970s, was that many computers would not be able to tell the difference between 2000 and 1900 dates. No one was really sure what that would do, but many suggested catastrophic problems ranging from vast blackouts to nuclear holocaust. Gun sales jumped and survivalists prepared to live in bunkers, but the new millennium began with only a few glitches.
May 5, 2000
In case the Y2K bug didn't do us in, global catastrophe was assured by Richard Noone, author of the 1997 book "5/5/2000 Ice: the Ultimate Disaster." According to Noone, the Antarctic ice mass would be three miles thick by May 5, 2000 - a date in which the planets would be aligned in the heavens, somehow resulting in a global icy death (or at least a lot of book sales). Perhaps global warming kept the ice age at bay.
God's Church Ministry, Fall 2008
According to God's Church minister Ronald Weinland, the end times are upon us-- again. His 2006 book "2008: God's Final Witness" states that hundreds of millions of people will die, and by the end of 2006, "there will be a maximum time of two years remaining before the world will be plunged into the worst time of all human history. By the fall of 2008, the United States will have collapsed as a world power, and no longer exist as an independent nation." As the book notes, "Ronald Weinland places his reputation on the line as the end-time prophet of God."
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Why I Don't Buy The Resurrection Story-by Richard Carrier
Today I am going to tell you why I don't buy the resurrection story. By that I mean the tales in the Gospels, of Jesus physically rising again from the grave. As a professional historian, I do not believe we have anywhere near sufficient evidence or reason to believe this, and I've been asked by the Yale College Humanists and Secularists to explain why. If any of you want to know more about this than what few points I can cover in thirty minutes, I have several writings on this and other subjects on the Secular Web. But here I will cover the most important reasons why I don't buy the resurrection story.
It actually begins with a different tale. In 520 A.D. an anonymous monk recorded the life of Saint Genevieve, who had died only ten years before that. In his account of her life, he describes how, when she ordered a cursed tree cut down, monsters sprang from it and breathed a fatal stench on many men for two hours; while she was sailing, eleven ships capsized, but at her prayers they were righted again spontaneously; she cast out demons, calmed storms, miraculously created water and oil from nothing before astonished crowds, healed the blind and lame, and several people who stole things from her actually went blind instead. No one wrote anything to contradict or challenge these claims, and they were written very near the time the events supposedly happened--by a religious man whom we suppose regarded lying to be a sin. Yet do we believe any of it? Not really. And we shouldn't.[1]
As David Hume once said, why do such things not happen now?[2] Is it a coincidence that the very time when these things no longer happen is the same time that we have the means and methods to check them in the light of science and careful investigation? I've never seen monsters spring from a tree, and I don't know anyone who has, and there are no women touring the country transmuting matter or levitating ships. These events look like tall tales, sound like tall tales, and smell like tall tales. Odds are, they're tall tales.
But we should try to be more specific in our reasons, and not rely solely on common sense impressions. And there are specific reasons to disbelieve the story of Genevieve, and they are the same reasons we have to doubt the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection of Jesus. For the parallel is clear: the Gospels were written no sooner to the death of their main character--and more likely many decades later--than was the case for the account of Genevieve; and like that account, the Gospels were also originally anonymous--the names now attached to them were added by speculation and oral tradition half a century after they were actually written. Both contain fabulous miracles supposedly witnessed by numerous people. Both belong to the same genre of literature: what we call a "hagiography," a sacred account of a holy person regarded as representing a moral and divine ideal. Such a genre had as its principal aim the glorification of the religion itself and of the example set by the perfect holy person represented as its central focus. Such literature was also a tool of propaganda, used to promote certain moral or religious views, and to oppose different points of view. The life of Genevieve, for example, was written to combat Arianism. The canonical Gospels, on the other hand, appear to combat various forms of proto-Gnosticism. So being skeptical of what they say is sensible from the start.[3]
It is certainly reasonable to doubt the resurrection of Jesus in the flesh, an event placed some time between 26 and 36 A.D. For this we have only a few written sources near the event, all of it sacred writing, and entirely pro-Christian. Pliny the Younger was the first non-Christian to even mention the religion, in 110 A.D., but he doesn't mention the resurrection. No non-Christian mentions the resurrection until many decades later--Lucian, a critic of superstition, was the first, writing in the mid-2nd century, and likely getting his information from Christian sources. So the evidence is not what any historian would consider good.[4]
Nevertheless, Christian apologist Douglas Geivett has declared that the evidence for the physical resurrection of Jesus meets, and I quote, "the highest standards of historical inquiry" and "if one takes the historian's own criteria for assessing the historicity of ancient events, the resurrection passes muster as a historically well-attested event of the ancient world," as well-attested, he says, as Julius Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon in 49 B.C.[5] Well, it is common in Christian apologetics, throughout history, to make absurdly exaggerated claims, and this is no exception. Let's look at Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon for a minute:
First of all, we have Caesar's own word on the subject. Indeed, The Civil War has been a Latin classic for two thousand years, written by Caesar himself and by one of his generals and closest of friends. In contrast, we do not have anything written by Jesus, and we do not know for certain the name of any author of any of the accounts of his earthly resurrection.
Second, we have many of Caesar's enemies, including Cicero, a contemporary of the event, reporting the crossing of the Rubicon, whereas we have no hostile or even neutral records of the resurrection until over a hundred years after the event, which is fifty years after the Christians' own claims had been widely spread around.
Third, we have a number of inscriptions and coins produced soon after the Republican Civil War related to the Rubicon crossing, including mentions of battles and conscriptions and judgments, which provide evidence for Caesar's march. On the other hand, we have absolutely no physical evidence of any kind in the case of the resurrection.
Fourth, we have the story of the "Rubicon Crossing" in almost every historian of the period, including the most prominent scholars of the age: Suetonius, Appian, Cassius Dio, Plutarch. Moreover, these scholars have a measure of proven reliability, since a great many of their reports on other matters have been confirmed in material evidence and in other sources. In addition, they often quote and name many different sources, showing a wide reading of the witnesses and documents, and they show a desire to critically examine claims for which there is any dispute. If that wasn't enough, all of them cite or quote sources written by witnesses, hostile and friendly, of the Rubicon crossing and its repercussions. Compare this with the resurrection: we have not even a single established historian mentioning the event until the 3rd and 4th centuries, and then only by Christian historians.[6] And of those few others who do mention it within a century of the event, none of them show any wide reading, never cite any other sources, show no sign of a skilled or critical examination of conflicting claims, have no other literature or scholarship to their credit that we can test for their skill and accuracy, are completely unknown, and have an overtly declared bias towards persuasion and conversion.[7]
Fifth, the history of Rome could not have proceeded as it did had Caesar not physically moved an army into Italy. Even if Caesar could have somehow cultivated the mere belief that he had done this, he could not have captured Rome or conscripted Italian men against Pompey's forces in Greece. On the other hand, all that is needed to explain the rise of Christianity is a belief--a belief that the resurrection happened. There is nothing that an actual resurrection would have caused that could not have been caused by a mere belief in that resurrection. Thus, an actual resurrection is not necessary to explain all subsequent history, unlike Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon.[8]
It should be clear that we have many reasons to believe that Caesar crossed the Rubicon, all of which are lacking in the case of the resurrection. In fact, when we compare all five points, we see that in four of the five proofs of an event's historicity, the resurrection has no evidence at all, and in the one proof that it does have, it has not the best, but the very worst kind of evidence--a handful of biased, uncritical, unscholarly, unknown, second-hand witnesses. Indeed, you really have to look hard to find another event that is in a worse condition than this as far as evidence goes. So Geivett is guilty of a rather extreme exaggeration. This is not a historically well-attested event, and it does not meet the highest standards of evidence.
But reasons to be skeptical do not stop there. We must consider the setting--the place and time in which these stories spread. This was an age of fables and wonder. Magic and miracles and ghosts were everywhere, and almost never doubted. I'll give one example that illustrates this: we have several accounts of what the common people thought about lunar eclipses. They apparently had no doubt that this horrible event was the result of witches calling the moon down with diabolical spells. So when an eclipse occurred, everyone would frantically start banging pots and blowing brass horns furiously, to confuse the witches' spells. So tremendous was this din that many better-educated authors complain of how the racket filled entire cities and countrysides. This was a superstitious people.[9]
Only a small class of elite well-educated men adopted more skeptical points of view, and because they belonged to the upper class, both them and their arrogant skepticism were scorned by the common people, rather than respected. Plutarch laments how doctors were willing to attend to the sick among the poor for little or no fee, but they were usually sent away, in preference for the local wizard.[10] By modern standards, almost no one had any sort of education at all, and there were no mass media disseminating scientific facts in any form. By the estimates of William Harris, author of Ancient Literacy [1989], only 20% of the population could read anything at all, fewer than 10% could read well, and far fewer still had any access to books. He found that in comparative terms, even a single page of blank papyrus cost the equivalent of thirty dollars--ink, and the labor to hand copy every word, cost many times more. We find that books could run to the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars each. Consequently, only the rich had books, and only elite scholars had access to libraries, of which there were few. The result was that the masses had no understanding of science or critical thought. They were neither equipped nor skilled, nor even interested, in challenging an inspiring story, especially a story like that of the Gospels: utopian, wonderful, critical of upper class society--even more a story that, if believed, secured eternal life. Who wouldn't have bought a ticket to that lottery? Opposition arose mainly from prior commitments to other dogmas, not reason or evidence.
The differences between society then and now cannot be stressed enough. There didn't exist such things as coroners, reporters, cameras, newspapers, forensic science, or even police detectives. All the technology, all the people we have pursuing the truth of various claims now, did not exist then. In those days, few would even be able to check the details of a story if they wanted to--and few wanted to. Instead, people based their judgment on the display of sincerity by the storyteller, by his ability to impress them with a show or simply to persuade and "sell" his story, and by the potential rewards his story had to offer.[11] At the same time, doubters didn't care to waste the time or money debunking yet another crazy cult, of which there were hundreds then.[12] And so it should not surprise us that we have no writings by anyone hostile to Christianity until a century after it began--not even slanders or lies. Clearly, no doubter cared to check or even challenge the story in print until it was too late to investigate the facts.[13]
These are just some of the reasons why we cannot trust extraordinary reports from that time without excellent evidence, which we do not have in the case of the physical resurrection of Jesus. For on the same quality of evidence we have reports of talking dogs, flying wizards, magical statues, and monsters springing from trees.[14] Can you imagine a movement today claiming that a soldier in World War Two rose physically from the dead, but when you asked for proof all they offered you were a mere handful of anonymous religious tracts written in the 1980's? Would it be even remotely reasonable to believe such a thing on so feeble a proof? Well--no.[15] What about alien bodies recovered from a crashed flying saucer in Roswell, New Mexico? Many people sincerely believe that legend today, yet this is the modern age, with ample evidence against it in print that is easily accessible to anyone, and this legend began only thirty years after the event.[16]
Even so, it is often said in objection that we can trust the Gospels more than we normally would because they were based on the reports of eye-witnesses of the event who were willing to die for their belief in the physical resurrection, for surely no one would die for a lie. To quote a Christian website: "the first disciples were willing to suffer and die for their faith...for their claims to have seen Jesus...risen bodily from the dead." Of course, the Gospel of Matthew 28:17 actually claims that some eye-witnesses didn't believe what they saw and might not have become Christians, which suggests the experience was not so convincing after all. But there are two other key reasons why this argument sounds great in sermons but doesn't hold water under rational scrutiny.
First, it is based on nothing in the New Testament itself, or on any reliable evidence of any kind. None of the Gospels or Epistles mention anyone dying for their belief in the "physical" resurrection of Jesus. The only martyrdoms recorded in the New Testament are, first, the stoning of Stephen in the Book of Acts. But Stephen was not a witness. He was a later convert. So if he died for anything, he died for hearsay alone. But even in Acts the story has it that he was not killed for what he believed, but for some trumped up false charge, and by a mob, whom he could not have escaped even if he had recanted. So his death does not prove anything in that respect. Moreover, in his last breaths, we are told, he says nothing about dying for any belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus, but mentions only his belief that Jesus was the messiah, and was at that moment in heaven.[17] And then he sees Jesus--yet no one else does, so this was clearly a vision, not a physical appearance, and there is no good reason to believe earlier appearances were any different.
The second and only other "martyr" recorded in Acts is the execution of the Apostle James, but we are not told anything about why he was killed or whether recanting would have saved him, or what he thought he died for.[18] In fact, we have one independent account in the Jewish history of Josephus, of the stoning of a certain "James the brother of Jesus" in 62 A.D., possibly but not necessarily the very same James, and in that account he is stoned for breaking the Jewish law, which recanting would not escape, and in the account of the late 2nd century Christian hagiographer Hegesippus, as reported by Eusebius, he dies not for his belief in a physical resurrection, but, just like Stephen, solely for proclaiming Jesus the messiah, who was at that moment in heaven.[19]
Yet that is the last record of any martyrdom we have until the 2nd century. Then we start to hear about some unnamed Christians burned for arson by Nero in 64 A.D.,[20] but we do not know if any eye-witnesses were included in that group--and even if we did it would not matter, for they were killed on a false charge of arson, not for refusing to deny belief in a physical resurrection. So even if they had recanted, it would not have saved them, and therefore their deaths also do not prove anything, especially since such persecution was so rare and unpredictable in that century. We also do not even know what it was they believed--after all, Stephen and James did not appear to regard the physical resurrection as an essential component of their belief. It is not what they died for.
As far as we can tell, apart from perhaps James, no one knew what the fate was of any of the original eye-witnesses. People were even unclear about who the original eye-witnesses were. There were a variety of legends circulating centuries later about their travels and deaths, but it is clear from our earliest sources that no one knew for certain.[21] There was only one notable exception: the martyrdom of Peter. This we do not hear about until two or three generations after the event, and it is told in only one place: the Gnostic Acts of Peter, which was rejected as a false document by many Christians of the day. But even if this account is true, it claims that Peter was executed for political meddling and not for his beliefs. Even more important, it states that Peter believed Jesus was resurrected as a spirit, not in the flesh...[22]
Which brings us to the second point: it seems distinctly possible, if not definite, that the original Christians did not in fact believe in a physical resurrection (meaning a resurrection of his corpse), but that Jesus was taken up to heaven and given a new body--a more perfect, spiritual body--and then "the risen Jesus" was seen in visions and dreams, just like the vision Stephen has before he dies, and which Paul has on the road to Damascus. Visions of gods were not at all unusual, a cultural commonplace in those days, well documented by Robin Lane Fox in his excellent book Pagans and Christians.[23] But whatever their cause, if this is how Christianity actually started, it means that the resurrection story told in the Gospels, of a Jesus risen in the flesh, does not represent what the original disciples believed, but was made up generations later. So even if they did die for their beliefs, they did not die for the belief that Jesus was physically resurrected from the grave.
That the original Christians believed in a spiritual resurrection is hinted at in many strange features of the Gospel accounts of the appearances of Jesus after death, which may be survivals of an original mystical tradition later corrupted by the growing legend of a bodily resurrection, such as a Jesus that they do not recognize, or who vanishes into thin air.[24] But more importantly, it is also suggested by the letters of Paul, our earliest source of information on any of the details of the original Christian beliefs. For Paul never mentions or quotes any of the Gospels, so it seems clear that they were not written in his lifetime. This is supported by internal evidence that suggests all the Gospels were written around or after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., well after Paul's last surviving letter, which was written around the year 58.[25]
Yet Paul never mentions Jesus having been resurrected in the flesh. He never mentions empty tombs, physical appearances, or the ascension of Jesus into heaven afterward (i.e. when Paul mentions the ascension, he never ties it to appearances in this way, and never distinguishes it from the resurrection event itself). In Galatians 1 he tells us that he first met Jesus in a "revelation" on the road to Damascus, not in the flesh, and the Book of Acts gives several embellished accounts of this event that all clearly reflect not any tradition of a physical encounter, but a startling vision (a light and a voice, nothing more).[26] Then in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul reports that all the original eye-witnesses--Peter, James, the Twelve Disciples, and hundreds of others--saw Jesus in essentially the same way Paul did. The only difference, he says, was that they saw it before him. He then goes on to build an elaborate description of how the body that dies is not the body that rises, that the flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and how the resurrected body is a new, spiritual body. All this seems good evidence that Paul did not believe in the resurrection of a corpse, but something fundamentally different.[27]
Finally, when we examine the Gospel record closely, it becomes apparent that the physical nature of the resurrection was a growing legend, becoming more and more fabulous over time, a good sign that it wasn't the original story. Now, we don't actually know when any of the Gospels were written, but we can infer their chronological order. Luke and Matthew both copy whole phrases from Mark and arrange them in an identical order as found in Mark, so it is clear that Mark came first among those three. Scholars dispute whether Luke preceded Matthew or the other way around, but it seems to me that, since they show no apparent awareness of each other, they were written around the same time, though scholars generally hold that Luke perhaps wrote later than Matthew. John presents the most theologically elaborate of the accounts, suggesting a late development, and even earliest Christian tradition held that this Gospel was the last to be written, and scholars generally agree on this.
So we start with Mark. It is little known among the laity, but in fact the ending of Mark, everything after verse 16:8, does not actually exist in the earliest versions of that Gospel that survive.[28] It was added some time late in the 2nd century or even later. Before that, as far as we can tell, Mark ended at verse 16:8. But that means his Gospel ended only with an empty tomb, and a pronouncement by a mysterious young man [29] that Jesus would be seen in Galilee--nothing is said of how he would be seen. This was clearly unsatisfactory for the growing powerful arm of the Church a century later, which had staked its claim on a physical resurrection, against competing segments of the Church usually collectively referred to as the Gnostics (though not always accurately). So an ending was added that quickly pinned some physical appearances of Jesus onto the story, and for good measure put in the mouth of Christ rabid condemnations of those who didn't believe it.[30] But when we consider the original story, it supports the notion that the original belief was of a spiritual rather than a physical event. The empty tomb for Mark was likely meant to be a symbol, not a historical reality, but even if he was repeating what was told him as true, it was not unusual in the ancient world for the bodies of heroes who became gods to vanish from this world: being deified entailed being taken up into heaven, as happened to men as diverse as Hercules and Apollonius of Tyana, and Mark's story of an empty tomb would simply represent that expectation.[31]
A decade or two passes, and then Matthew appears. As this Gospel tells it, there was a vast earthquake, and instead of a mere boy standing around beside an already-opened tomb, an angel--blazing like lightning--descended from the sky and paralyzed two guards that happened to be there, rolled away the stone single handedly before several witnesses--and then announced that Jesus will appear in Galilee. Obviously we are seeing a clear case of legendary embellishment of the otherwise simple story in Mark. Then in Matthew a report is given (similar to what was later added to Mark), where, contrary to the angel's announcement, Jesus immediately meets the women that attended to his grave and repeats what the angel said. Matthew is careful to add a hint that this was a physical Jesus, having the women grovel and grab his feet as he speaks.[32]
Then, maybe a little later still, Luke appears, and suddenly what was a vague and perhaps symbolic allusion to an ascension in Mark has now become a bodily appearance, complete with a dramatic reenactment of Peter rushing to the tomb and seeing the empty death shroud for himself.[32a] As happened in Matthew, other details have grown. The one young man of Mark, which became a flying angel in Matthew, in this account has suddenly become two men, this time not merely in white, but in dazzling raiment. And to make the new story even more suspicious as a doctrinal invention, Jesus goes out of his way to say he is not a vision, and proves it by asking the Disciples to touch him, and then by eating a fish. And though both Mark and Matthew said the visions would happen in Galilee, Luke changes the story, and places this particular experience in the more populous and prestigious Jerusalem.[33]
Finally along comes John, perhaps after another decade or more. Now the legend has grown full flower, and instead of one boy, or two men, or one angel, now we have two angels at the empty tomb. And outdoing Luke in style, John has Jesus prove he is solid by showing his wounds, and breathing on people, and even obliging the Doubting Thomas by letting him put his fingers into the very wounds themselves. Like Luke, the most grandiose appearances to the Disciples happen in Jerusalem, not Galilee as Mark originally claimed. In all, John devotes more space and detail than either Luke or Matthew to demonstrations of the physicality of the resurrection, details nowhere present or even implied in Mark. It is obvious that John is trying very hard to create proof that the resurrection was the physical raising of a corpse, and at the end of a steady growth of fable, he takes license to make up a lot of details.[34]
We have no primary sources on what was going on in the forty years of the Church between Paul in the year 58 and Clement of Rome in the year 95, and Paul tells us almost nothing about what happened in the beginning. We only conjecture that the Gospels were written between Paul and Clement, though they may have been written even ten or twenty years later still. But what I suspect happened is something like this: Jesus died, was buried, and then in a vision or dream appeared to one or more of his Disciples, convincing them he had ascended to heaven, marking the beginning of the fast-approaching End Times as the first to be raised, and then what began in the simple story of Mark as a symbolic allusion to an ascended Christ soon to reveal himself in visions from heaven, in time led some Christians to believe that the resurrection was a physical rising of a corpse. Then they heard or came up with increasingly elaborate stories proving themselves right. Overzealous people often add details and color to a story they've been told without even thinking about it, and as the story passed from each to the next more detail and elaboration was added, securing the notion of a physical resurrection in popular imagination and belief.
It would have been a natural mistake to make at the time, since gods were expected to be able to raise people bodily from the dead, and physical resurrections were actually in vogue in the very 1st century when Christianity began. Consider the god Asclepius. Doctors associated themselves with this god, and many legends were circulating of doctors becoming famous by restoring the dead to life, as recounted by Pliny the Elder, Apuleius and others.[35] Asclepius was also called SOTER, "The Savior," as many gods were in that day. He was especially so-named for being able to cure the sick and bring back the dead, and since "Jesus" (properly, Joshua) means "The Savior" in Hebrew it may have been expected that his resurrection would be physical in nature, too. After all, so was that of Lazarus, or of the boy raised by Elijah in 1 Kings--a prophet with whom Jesus was often equated.[36] Jesus' association with many healing miracles may also have implied a deliberate rivalry with Asclepius, and indeed, Jesus was actually called SOTER, and still is today: we see the Christian fishes on the backs of cars now, containing the Greek word ICHTHUS, the last letter of which stands for: SOTER. Not standing to be outdone by a pagan god, Christians may have simply expected that their god could raise himself physically from the grave.[37]
Then there is Herodotus, who was always a popular author and had been for centuries. He told of a Thracian religion that began with the physical resurrection of a man called Zalmoxis, who then started a cult in which it was taught that believers went to heaven when they died. We also know that circulating in the Middle East were very ancient legends regarding the resurrection of the goddess Inanna (also known as Ishtar), who was crucified in the underworld, then rescued and raised back to earth by her divine attendant, a tale recounted in a four thousand year old clay tablet from Sumeria.[38] Finally, Plutarch writes in the latter half of the 1st century how "Romeo-and-Juliet-style" returns from the dead were a popular theme in contemporary theatre, and we know from surviving summaries and fragments that they were also a feature in romance novels of that day. This trend is discussed at some length in G. W. Bowersock's book Fiction as History.[39]
So the idea of "physical resurrection" was popular, and circulating everywhere. Associating Jesus with this trend would have been a very easy mistake to make. Since religious trust was won in those days by the charisma of speakers and the audience's subjective estimation of their sincerity, it would not be long before a charismatic man, who heard the embellished accounts, came into a position of power, inspiring complete faith from his congregation, who then sought to defend the story, and so began the transformation of the Christian idea of the resurrection from a spiritual concept to a physical one--naturally, calling themselves the "true church" and attacking all rivals, as has sadly so often happened in history.
Lending plausibility to this chain of events was the Jewish War between 66 and 70 A.D.[40], which ended with the complete destruction of the original Christian Church in Jerusalem, and much of the entire city, after all Judaea itself was ravaged by war. It is likely that many if not all of the original believers still living were killed in this war, or in Nero's persecution of 64, and with the loss of the central source of Christian authority and tradition, legends were ripe for the growing. This would explain why later Christians were so in the dark about the history of their own Church between 58 and 95. It was a kind of mini-dark age for them, a time of confusion and uncertainty. But what exactly happened we may never know. However it came to change, it seems more than likely that the first Christians, among them Paul, believed in a spiritual resurrection, and not the resurrection story told in the Gospels.
So this is where we end up. We have no trustworthy evidence of a physical resurrection, no reliable witnesses. It is among the most poorly attested of historical events. The earliest evidence, from the letters of Paul, does not appear to be of a physical resurrection, but a spiritual one. And we have at least one plausible reason available to us as to why and how the legend grew into something else. Finally, the original accounts of a resurrection of a flesh-and-blood corpse show obvious signs of legendary embellishment over time, and were written in an age of little education and even less science, a time overflowing with superstition and credulity. And, ultimately, the Gospels match perfectly the same genre of hagiography as that life of Genevieve with which I began. There the legends quickly arose, undoubted and unchallenged, of treeborn monsters and righted ships and blinded thieves. In the Gospels, we get angels and earthquakes and a resurrection of the flesh. So we have to admit that neither is any more believable than the other.
It should not be lost on us that Thomas was depicted as no less righteous for refusing to believe so wild a claim without physical proof. We have as much right, and ought to follow his example. He got to see and feel the wounds before believing, and so should we. I haven't, so I can't be expected to believe it.[41] And this leads me to one final reason why I don't buy the resurrection story. No wise or compassionate God would demand this from us. Such a god would not leave us so poorly informed about something so important.[42] If we have a message for someone that is urgently vital for their survival, and we have any compassion, that compassion will compel us to communicate that message clearly and with every necessary proof--not ambiguously, not through unreliable mediaries presenting no real evidence. Conversely, if we see something incredible, we do not attack or punish audiences who don't believe us, we don't even expect them to believe--unless and until we can present decisive proof.
There is a heroic legend in the technology community about the man who invented elevator safety brakes. He claimed that any elevator fitted with his brakes, even if all the cables broke, would be safely and swiftly stopped by his new invention. No one trusted it. Did he get angry or indignant? No. He simply put himself in an elevator, ordered the cables cut, and proved to the world, by risking his own life, that his brakes worked.[43] This is the very principle that has delivered us from superstition to science. Any claim can be made about a drug, but people are rightly wary of swallowing anything that hasn't been thoroughly tested and re-tested and tested again. Since I have no such proofs regarding the resurrection story, I'm not going to swallow it, and it would be cruel, even for a god, to expect otherwise of me. So I can reason rightly that a god of all humankind would not appear in one tiny backwater of the Earth, in a backward time, revealing himself to a tiny unknown few, and then expect the billions of the rest of us to take their word for it, and not even their word, but the word of some unknown person many times removed.
Yet, if one returns to what was probably Paul's conception of a Christ risen into a new, spiritual body, then the resurrection becomes no longer a historical proof of the truth of Christianity, but an article of faith, an affirmation that is supposed to follow nothing other than a personal revelation of Christ--not to be believed on hearsay, but experienced for oneself. Though I do not believe this is a reliable way to come to a true understanding of the world, as internal experience only tells us about ourselves and not the truth of the world outside of us,[44] I leave it to the Christians here to consider a spiritual resurrection as a different way to understand their faith. But I don't see any reason to buy the resurrection story found in the Gospels.
It actually begins with a different tale. In 520 A.D. an anonymous monk recorded the life of Saint Genevieve, who had died only ten years before that. In his account of her life, he describes how, when she ordered a cursed tree cut down, monsters sprang from it and breathed a fatal stench on many men for two hours; while she was sailing, eleven ships capsized, but at her prayers they were righted again spontaneously; she cast out demons, calmed storms, miraculously created water and oil from nothing before astonished crowds, healed the blind and lame, and several people who stole things from her actually went blind instead. No one wrote anything to contradict or challenge these claims, and they were written very near the time the events supposedly happened--by a religious man whom we suppose regarded lying to be a sin. Yet do we believe any of it? Not really. And we shouldn't.[1]
As David Hume once said, why do such things not happen now?[2] Is it a coincidence that the very time when these things no longer happen is the same time that we have the means and methods to check them in the light of science and careful investigation? I've never seen monsters spring from a tree, and I don't know anyone who has, and there are no women touring the country transmuting matter or levitating ships. These events look like tall tales, sound like tall tales, and smell like tall tales. Odds are, they're tall tales.
But we should try to be more specific in our reasons, and not rely solely on common sense impressions. And there are specific reasons to disbelieve the story of Genevieve, and they are the same reasons we have to doubt the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection of Jesus. For the parallel is clear: the Gospels were written no sooner to the death of their main character--and more likely many decades later--than was the case for the account of Genevieve; and like that account, the Gospels were also originally anonymous--the names now attached to them were added by speculation and oral tradition half a century after they were actually written. Both contain fabulous miracles supposedly witnessed by numerous people. Both belong to the same genre of literature: what we call a "hagiography," a sacred account of a holy person regarded as representing a moral and divine ideal. Such a genre had as its principal aim the glorification of the religion itself and of the example set by the perfect holy person represented as its central focus. Such literature was also a tool of propaganda, used to promote certain moral or religious views, and to oppose different points of view. The life of Genevieve, for example, was written to combat Arianism. The canonical Gospels, on the other hand, appear to combat various forms of proto-Gnosticism. So being skeptical of what they say is sensible from the start.[3]
It is certainly reasonable to doubt the resurrection of Jesus in the flesh, an event placed some time between 26 and 36 A.D. For this we have only a few written sources near the event, all of it sacred writing, and entirely pro-Christian. Pliny the Younger was the first non-Christian to even mention the religion, in 110 A.D., but he doesn't mention the resurrection. No non-Christian mentions the resurrection until many decades later--Lucian, a critic of superstition, was the first, writing in the mid-2nd century, and likely getting his information from Christian sources. So the evidence is not what any historian would consider good.[4]
Nevertheless, Christian apologist Douglas Geivett has declared that the evidence for the physical resurrection of Jesus meets, and I quote, "the highest standards of historical inquiry" and "if one takes the historian's own criteria for assessing the historicity of ancient events, the resurrection passes muster as a historically well-attested event of the ancient world," as well-attested, he says, as Julius Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon in 49 B.C.[5] Well, it is common in Christian apologetics, throughout history, to make absurdly exaggerated claims, and this is no exception. Let's look at Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon for a minute:
First of all, we have Caesar's own word on the subject. Indeed, The Civil War has been a Latin classic for two thousand years, written by Caesar himself and by one of his generals and closest of friends. In contrast, we do not have anything written by Jesus, and we do not know for certain the name of any author of any of the accounts of his earthly resurrection.
Second, we have many of Caesar's enemies, including Cicero, a contemporary of the event, reporting the crossing of the Rubicon, whereas we have no hostile or even neutral records of the resurrection until over a hundred years after the event, which is fifty years after the Christians' own claims had been widely spread around.
Third, we have a number of inscriptions and coins produced soon after the Republican Civil War related to the Rubicon crossing, including mentions of battles and conscriptions and judgments, which provide evidence for Caesar's march. On the other hand, we have absolutely no physical evidence of any kind in the case of the resurrection.
Fourth, we have the story of the "Rubicon Crossing" in almost every historian of the period, including the most prominent scholars of the age: Suetonius, Appian, Cassius Dio, Plutarch. Moreover, these scholars have a measure of proven reliability, since a great many of their reports on other matters have been confirmed in material evidence and in other sources. In addition, they often quote and name many different sources, showing a wide reading of the witnesses and documents, and they show a desire to critically examine claims for which there is any dispute. If that wasn't enough, all of them cite or quote sources written by witnesses, hostile and friendly, of the Rubicon crossing and its repercussions. Compare this with the resurrection: we have not even a single established historian mentioning the event until the 3rd and 4th centuries, and then only by Christian historians.[6] And of those few others who do mention it within a century of the event, none of them show any wide reading, never cite any other sources, show no sign of a skilled or critical examination of conflicting claims, have no other literature or scholarship to their credit that we can test for their skill and accuracy, are completely unknown, and have an overtly declared bias towards persuasion and conversion.[7]
Fifth, the history of Rome could not have proceeded as it did had Caesar not physically moved an army into Italy. Even if Caesar could have somehow cultivated the mere belief that he had done this, he could not have captured Rome or conscripted Italian men against Pompey's forces in Greece. On the other hand, all that is needed to explain the rise of Christianity is a belief--a belief that the resurrection happened. There is nothing that an actual resurrection would have caused that could not have been caused by a mere belief in that resurrection. Thus, an actual resurrection is not necessary to explain all subsequent history, unlike Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon.[8]
It should be clear that we have many reasons to believe that Caesar crossed the Rubicon, all of which are lacking in the case of the resurrection. In fact, when we compare all five points, we see that in four of the five proofs of an event's historicity, the resurrection has no evidence at all, and in the one proof that it does have, it has not the best, but the very worst kind of evidence--a handful of biased, uncritical, unscholarly, unknown, second-hand witnesses. Indeed, you really have to look hard to find another event that is in a worse condition than this as far as evidence goes. So Geivett is guilty of a rather extreme exaggeration. This is not a historically well-attested event, and it does not meet the highest standards of evidence.
But reasons to be skeptical do not stop there. We must consider the setting--the place and time in which these stories spread. This was an age of fables and wonder. Magic and miracles and ghosts were everywhere, and almost never doubted. I'll give one example that illustrates this: we have several accounts of what the common people thought about lunar eclipses. They apparently had no doubt that this horrible event was the result of witches calling the moon down with diabolical spells. So when an eclipse occurred, everyone would frantically start banging pots and blowing brass horns furiously, to confuse the witches' spells. So tremendous was this din that many better-educated authors complain of how the racket filled entire cities and countrysides. This was a superstitious people.[9]
Only a small class of elite well-educated men adopted more skeptical points of view, and because they belonged to the upper class, both them and their arrogant skepticism were scorned by the common people, rather than respected. Plutarch laments how doctors were willing to attend to the sick among the poor for little or no fee, but they were usually sent away, in preference for the local wizard.[10] By modern standards, almost no one had any sort of education at all, and there were no mass media disseminating scientific facts in any form. By the estimates of William Harris, author of Ancient Literacy [1989], only 20% of the population could read anything at all, fewer than 10% could read well, and far fewer still had any access to books. He found that in comparative terms, even a single page of blank papyrus cost the equivalent of thirty dollars--ink, and the labor to hand copy every word, cost many times more. We find that books could run to the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars each. Consequently, only the rich had books, and only elite scholars had access to libraries, of which there were few. The result was that the masses had no understanding of science or critical thought. They were neither equipped nor skilled, nor even interested, in challenging an inspiring story, especially a story like that of the Gospels: utopian, wonderful, critical of upper class society--even more a story that, if believed, secured eternal life. Who wouldn't have bought a ticket to that lottery? Opposition arose mainly from prior commitments to other dogmas, not reason or evidence.
The differences between society then and now cannot be stressed enough. There didn't exist such things as coroners, reporters, cameras, newspapers, forensic science, or even police detectives. All the technology, all the people we have pursuing the truth of various claims now, did not exist then. In those days, few would even be able to check the details of a story if they wanted to--and few wanted to. Instead, people based their judgment on the display of sincerity by the storyteller, by his ability to impress them with a show or simply to persuade and "sell" his story, and by the potential rewards his story had to offer.[11] At the same time, doubters didn't care to waste the time or money debunking yet another crazy cult, of which there were hundreds then.[12] And so it should not surprise us that we have no writings by anyone hostile to Christianity until a century after it began--not even slanders or lies. Clearly, no doubter cared to check or even challenge the story in print until it was too late to investigate the facts.[13]
These are just some of the reasons why we cannot trust extraordinary reports from that time without excellent evidence, which we do not have in the case of the physical resurrection of Jesus. For on the same quality of evidence we have reports of talking dogs, flying wizards, magical statues, and monsters springing from trees.[14] Can you imagine a movement today claiming that a soldier in World War Two rose physically from the dead, but when you asked for proof all they offered you were a mere handful of anonymous religious tracts written in the 1980's? Would it be even remotely reasonable to believe such a thing on so feeble a proof? Well--no.[15] What about alien bodies recovered from a crashed flying saucer in Roswell, New Mexico? Many people sincerely believe that legend today, yet this is the modern age, with ample evidence against it in print that is easily accessible to anyone, and this legend began only thirty years after the event.[16]
Even so, it is often said in objection that we can trust the Gospels more than we normally would because they were based on the reports of eye-witnesses of the event who were willing to die for their belief in the physical resurrection, for surely no one would die for a lie. To quote a Christian website: "the first disciples were willing to suffer and die for their faith...for their claims to have seen Jesus...risen bodily from the dead." Of course, the Gospel of Matthew 28:17 actually claims that some eye-witnesses didn't believe what they saw and might not have become Christians, which suggests the experience was not so convincing after all. But there are two other key reasons why this argument sounds great in sermons but doesn't hold water under rational scrutiny.
First, it is based on nothing in the New Testament itself, or on any reliable evidence of any kind. None of the Gospels or Epistles mention anyone dying for their belief in the "physical" resurrection of Jesus. The only martyrdoms recorded in the New Testament are, first, the stoning of Stephen in the Book of Acts. But Stephen was not a witness. He was a later convert. So if he died for anything, he died for hearsay alone. But even in Acts the story has it that he was not killed for what he believed, but for some trumped up false charge, and by a mob, whom he could not have escaped even if he had recanted. So his death does not prove anything in that respect. Moreover, in his last breaths, we are told, he says nothing about dying for any belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus, but mentions only his belief that Jesus was the messiah, and was at that moment in heaven.[17] And then he sees Jesus--yet no one else does, so this was clearly a vision, not a physical appearance, and there is no good reason to believe earlier appearances were any different.
The second and only other "martyr" recorded in Acts is the execution of the Apostle James, but we are not told anything about why he was killed or whether recanting would have saved him, or what he thought he died for.[18] In fact, we have one independent account in the Jewish history of Josephus, of the stoning of a certain "James the brother of Jesus" in 62 A.D., possibly but not necessarily the very same James, and in that account he is stoned for breaking the Jewish law, which recanting would not escape, and in the account of the late 2nd century Christian hagiographer Hegesippus, as reported by Eusebius, he dies not for his belief in a physical resurrection, but, just like Stephen, solely for proclaiming Jesus the messiah, who was at that moment in heaven.[19]
Yet that is the last record of any martyrdom we have until the 2nd century. Then we start to hear about some unnamed Christians burned for arson by Nero in 64 A.D.,[20] but we do not know if any eye-witnesses were included in that group--and even if we did it would not matter, for they were killed on a false charge of arson, not for refusing to deny belief in a physical resurrection. So even if they had recanted, it would not have saved them, and therefore their deaths also do not prove anything, especially since such persecution was so rare and unpredictable in that century. We also do not even know what it was they believed--after all, Stephen and James did not appear to regard the physical resurrection as an essential component of their belief. It is not what they died for.
As far as we can tell, apart from perhaps James, no one knew what the fate was of any of the original eye-witnesses. People were even unclear about who the original eye-witnesses were. There were a variety of legends circulating centuries later about their travels and deaths, but it is clear from our earliest sources that no one knew for certain.[21] There was only one notable exception: the martyrdom of Peter. This we do not hear about until two or three generations after the event, and it is told in only one place: the Gnostic Acts of Peter, which was rejected as a false document by many Christians of the day. But even if this account is true, it claims that Peter was executed for political meddling and not for his beliefs. Even more important, it states that Peter believed Jesus was resurrected as a spirit, not in the flesh...[22]
Which brings us to the second point: it seems distinctly possible, if not definite, that the original Christians did not in fact believe in a physical resurrection (meaning a resurrection of his corpse), but that Jesus was taken up to heaven and given a new body--a more perfect, spiritual body--and then "the risen Jesus" was seen in visions and dreams, just like the vision Stephen has before he dies, and which Paul has on the road to Damascus. Visions of gods were not at all unusual, a cultural commonplace in those days, well documented by Robin Lane Fox in his excellent book Pagans and Christians.[23] But whatever their cause, if this is how Christianity actually started, it means that the resurrection story told in the Gospels, of a Jesus risen in the flesh, does not represent what the original disciples believed, but was made up generations later. So even if they did die for their beliefs, they did not die for the belief that Jesus was physically resurrected from the grave.
That the original Christians believed in a spiritual resurrection is hinted at in many strange features of the Gospel accounts of the appearances of Jesus after death, which may be survivals of an original mystical tradition later corrupted by the growing legend of a bodily resurrection, such as a Jesus that they do not recognize, or who vanishes into thin air.[24] But more importantly, it is also suggested by the letters of Paul, our earliest source of information on any of the details of the original Christian beliefs. For Paul never mentions or quotes any of the Gospels, so it seems clear that they were not written in his lifetime. This is supported by internal evidence that suggests all the Gospels were written around or after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., well after Paul's last surviving letter, which was written around the year 58.[25]
Yet Paul never mentions Jesus having been resurrected in the flesh. He never mentions empty tombs, physical appearances, or the ascension of Jesus into heaven afterward (i.e. when Paul mentions the ascension, he never ties it to appearances in this way, and never distinguishes it from the resurrection event itself). In Galatians 1 he tells us that he first met Jesus in a "revelation" on the road to Damascus, not in the flesh, and the Book of Acts gives several embellished accounts of this event that all clearly reflect not any tradition of a physical encounter, but a startling vision (a light and a voice, nothing more).[26] Then in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul reports that all the original eye-witnesses--Peter, James, the Twelve Disciples, and hundreds of others--saw Jesus in essentially the same way Paul did. The only difference, he says, was that they saw it before him. He then goes on to build an elaborate description of how the body that dies is not the body that rises, that the flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and how the resurrected body is a new, spiritual body. All this seems good evidence that Paul did not believe in the resurrection of a corpse, but something fundamentally different.[27]
Finally, when we examine the Gospel record closely, it becomes apparent that the physical nature of the resurrection was a growing legend, becoming more and more fabulous over time, a good sign that it wasn't the original story. Now, we don't actually know when any of the Gospels were written, but we can infer their chronological order. Luke and Matthew both copy whole phrases from Mark and arrange them in an identical order as found in Mark, so it is clear that Mark came first among those three. Scholars dispute whether Luke preceded Matthew or the other way around, but it seems to me that, since they show no apparent awareness of each other, they were written around the same time, though scholars generally hold that Luke perhaps wrote later than Matthew. John presents the most theologically elaborate of the accounts, suggesting a late development, and even earliest Christian tradition held that this Gospel was the last to be written, and scholars generally agree on this.
So we start with Mark. It is little known among the laity, but in fact the ending of Mark, everything after verse 16:8, does not actually exist in the earliest versions of that Gospel that survive.[28] It was added some time late in the 2nd century or even later. Before that, as far as we can tell, Mark ended at verse 16:8. But that means his Gospel ended only with an empty tomb, and a pronouncement by a mysterious young man [29] that Jesus would be seen in Galilee--nothing is said of how he would be seen. This was clearly unsatisfactory for the growing powerful arm of the Church a century later, which had staked its claim on a physical resurrection, against competing segments of the Church usually collectively referred to as the Gnostics (though not always accurately). So an ending was added that quickly pinned some physical appearances of Jesus onto the story, and for good measure put in the mouth of Christ rabid condemnations of those who didn't believe it.[30] But when we consider the original story, it supports the notion that the original belief was of a spiritual rather than a physical event. The empty tomb for Mark was likely meant to be a symbol, not a historical reality, but even if he was repeating what was told him as true, it was not unusual in the ancient world for the bodies of heroes who became gods to vanish from this world: being deified entailed being taken up into heaven, as happened to men as diverse as Hercules and Apollonius of Tyana, and Mark's story of an empty tomb would simply represent that expectation.[31]
A decade or two passes, and then Matthew appears. As this Gospel tells it, there was a vast earthquake, and instead of a mere boy standing around beside an already-opened tomb, an angel--blazing like lightning--descended from the sky and paralyzed two guards that happened to be there, rolled away the stone single handedly before several witnesses--and then announced that Jesus will appear in Galilee. Obviously we are seeing a clear case of legendary embellishment of the otherwise simple story in Mark. Then in Matthew a report is given (similar to what was later added to Mark), where, contrary to the angel's announcement, Jesus immediately meets the women that attended to his grave and repeats what the angel said. Matthew is careful to add a hint that this was a physical Jesus, having the women grovel and grab his feet as he speaks.[32]
Then, maybe a little later still, Luke appears, and suddenly what was a vague and perhaps symbolic allusion to an ascension in Mark has now become a bodily appearance, complete with a dramatic reenactment of Peter rushing to the tomb and seeing the empty death shroud for himself.[32a] As happened in Matthew, other details have grown. The one young man of Mark, which became a flying angel in Matthew, in this account has suddenly become two men, this time not merely in white, but in dazzling raiment. And to make the new story even more suspicious as a doctrinal invention, Jesus goes out of his way to say he is not a vision, and proves it by asking the Disciples to touch him, and then by eating a fish. And though both Mark and Matthew said the visions would happen in Galilee, Luke changes the story, and places this particular experience in the more populous and prestigious Jerusalem.[33]
Finally along comes John, perhaps after another decade or more. Now the legend has grown full flower, and instead of one boy, or two men, or one angel, now we have two angels at the empty tomb. And outdoing Luke in style, John has Jesus prove he is solid by showing his wounds, and breathing on people, and even obliging the Doubting Thomas by letting him put his fingers into the very wounds themselves. Like Luke, the most grandiose appearances to the Disciples happen in Jerusalem, not Galilee as Mark originally claimed. In all, John devotes more space and detail than either Luke or Matthew to demonstrations of the physicality of the resurrection, details nowhere present or even implied in Mark. It is obvious that John is trying very hard to create proof that the resurrection was the physical raising of a corpse, and at the end of a steady growth of fable, he takes license to make up a lot of details.[34]
We have no primary sources on what was going on in the forty years of the Church between Paul in the year 58 and Clement of Rome in the year 95, and Paul tells us almost nothing about what happened in the beginning. We only conjecture that the Gospels were written between Paul and Clement, though they may have been written even ten or twenty years later still. But what I suspect happened is something like this: Jesus died, was buried, and then in a vision or dream appeared to one or more of his Disciples, convincing them he had ascended to heaven, marking the beginning of the fast-approaching End Times as the first to be raised, and then what began in the simple story of Mark as a symbolic allusion to an ascended Christ soon to reveal himself in visions from heaven, in time led some Christians to believe that the resurrection was a physical rising of a corpse. Then they heard or came up with increasingly elaborate stories proving themselves right. Overzealous people often add details and color to a story they've been told without even thinking about it, and as the story passed from each to the next more detail and elaboration was added, securing the notion of a physical resurrection in popular imagination and belief.
It would have been a natural mistake to make at the time, since gods were expected to be able to raise people bodily from the dead, and physical resurrections were actually in vogue in the very 1st century when Christianity began. Consider the god Asclepius. Doctors associated themselves with this god, and many legends were circulating of doctors becoming famous by restoring the dead to life, as recounted by Pliny the Elder, Apuleius and others.[35] Asclepius was also called SOTER, "The Savior," as many gods were in that day. He was especially so-named for being able to cure the sick and bring back the dead, and since "Jesus" (properly, Joshua) means "The Savior" in Hebrew it may have been expected that his resurrection would be physical in nature, too. After all, so was that of Lazarus, or of the boy raised by Elijah in 1 Kings--a prophet with whom Jesus was often equated.[36] Jesus' association with many healing miracles may also have implied a deliberate rivalry with Asclepius, and indeed, Jesus was actually called SOTER, and still is today: we see the Christian fishes on the backs of cars now, containing the Greek word ICHTHUS, the last letter of which stands for: SOTER. Not standing to be outdone by a pagan god, Christians may have simply expected that their god could raise himself physically from the grave.[37]
Then there is Herodotus, who was always a popular author and had been for centuries. He told of a Thracian religion that began with the physical resurrection of a man called Zalmoxis, who then started a cult in which it was taught that believers went to heaven when they died. We also know that circulating in the Middle East were very ancient legends regarding the resurrection of the goddess Inanna (also known as Ishtar), who was crucified in the underworld, then rescued and raised back to earth by her divine attendant, a tale recounted in a four thousand year old clay tablet from Sumeria.[38] Finally, Plutarch writes in the latter half of the 1st century how "Romeo-and-Juliet-style" returns from the dead were a popular theme in contemporary theatre, and we know from surviving summaries and fragments that they were also a feature in romance novels of that day. This trend is discussed at some length in G. W. Bowersock's book Fiction as History.[39]
So the idea of "physical resurrection" was popular, and circulating everywhere. Associating Jesus with this trend would have been a very easy mistake to make. Since religious trust was won in those days by the charisma of speakers and the audience's subjective estimation of their sincerity, it would not be long before a charismatic man, who heard the embellished accounts, came into a position of power, inspiring complete faith from his congregation, who then sought to defend the story, and so began the transformation of the Christian idea of the resurrection from a spiritual concept to a physical one--naturally, calling themselves the "true church" and attacking all rivals, as has sadly so often happened in history.
Lending plausibility to this chain of events was the Jewish War between 66 and 70 A.D.[40], which ended with the complete destruction of the original Christian Church in Jerusalem, and much of the entire city, after all Judaea itself was ravaged by war. It is likely that many if not all of the original believers still living were killed in this war, or in Nero's persecution of 64, and with the loss of the central source of Christian authority and tradition, legends were ripe for the growing. This would explain why later Christians were so in the dark about the history of their own Church between 58 and 95. It was a kind of mini-dark age for them, a time of confusion and uncertainty. But what exactly happened we may never know. However it came to change, it seems more than likely that the first Christians, among them Paul, believed in a spiritual resurrection, and not the resurrection story told in the Gospels.
So this is where we end up. We have no trustworthy evidence of a physical resurrection, no reliable witnesses. It is among the most poorly attested of historical events. The earliest evidence, from the letters of Paul, does not appear to be of a physical resurrection, but a spiritual one. And we have at least one plausible reason available to us as to why and how the legend grew into something else. Finally, the original accounts of a resurrection of a flesh-and-blood corpse show obvious signs of legendary embellishment over time, and were written in an age of little education and even less science, a time overflowing with superstition and credulity. And, ultimately, the Gospels match perfectly the same genre of hagiography as that life of Genevieve with which I began. There the legends quickly arose, undoubted and unchallenged, of treeborn monsters and righted ships and blinded thieves. In the Gospels, we get angels and earthquakes and a resurrection of the flesh. So we have to admit that neither is any more believable than the other.
It should not be lost on us that Thomas was depicted as no less righteous for refusing to believe so wild a claim without physical proof. We have as much right, and ought to follow his example. He got to see and feel the wounds before believing, and so should we. I haven't, so I can't be expected to believe it.[41] And this leads me to one final reason why I don't buy the resurrection story. No wise or compassionate God would demand this from us. Such a god would not leave us so poorly informed about something so important.[42] If we have a message for someone that is urgently vital for their survival, and we have any compassion, that compassion will compel us to communicate that message clearly and with every necessary proof--not ambiguously, not through unreliable mediaries presenting no real evidence. Conversely, if we see something incredible, we do not attack or punish audiences who don't believe us, we don't even expect them to believe--unless and until we can present decisive proof.
There is a heroic legend in the technology community about the man who invented elevator safety brakes. He claimed that any elevator fitted with his brakes, even if all the cables broke, would be safely and swiftly stopped by his new invention. No one trusted it. Did he get angry or indignant? No. He simply put himself in an elevator, ordered the cables cut, and proved to the world, by risking his own life, that his brakes worked.[43] This is the very principle that has delivered us from superstition to science. Any claim can be made about a drug, but people are rightly wary of swallowing anything that hasn't been thoroughly tested and re-tested and tested again. Since I have no such proofs regarding the resurrection story, I'm not going to swallow it, and it would be cruel, even for a god, to expect otherwise of me. So I can reason rightly that a god of all humankind would not appear in one tiny backwater of the Earth, in a backward time, revealing himself to a tiny unknown few, and then expect the billions of the rest of us to take their word for it, and not even their word, but the word of some unknown person many times removed.
Yet, if one returns to what was probably Paul's conception of a Christ risen into a new, spiritual body, then the resurrection becomes no longer a historical proof of the truth of Christianity, but an article of faith, an affirmation that is supposed to follow nothing other than a personal revelation of Christ--not to be believed on hearsay, but experienced for oneself. Though I do not believe this is a reliable way to come to a true understanding of the world, as internal experience only tells us about ourselves and not the truth of the world outside of us,[44] I leave it to the Christians here to consider a spiritual resurrection as a different way to understand their faith. But I don't see any reason to buy the resurrection story found in the Gospels.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Truth vs. Wishful Thinking
The 20th and 21st centuries have seen an unprecedented explosion in human knowledge. Whether it was the discovery of our cosmos or the discovery of ourselves, there is no doubt that human ingenuity and old fashioned, blood, sweat, tears and luck has given us more knowledge about ourselves and our place in the universe than any other time in human history.
We have had great minds discover such things as penicillin, DNA, and the beginnings of our universe. We have created robots and rockets that can not only get to other planets but explore them. We have unlocked the natural makeup of our own genetic coding, cloned living creatures in a Petri dish, discovered millions of fossils of strange and fantastic creatures that once ruled the Earth. And furthermore we have discovered the bones of our earliest humanoid ancestors that give us an insight to our very own history.
So why are there still people who believe that Adam and Eve were created by God out of dirt and clay? Why are there still people that think Noah really built a boat big enough to save two of every animal on Earth? Why do people still think that praying will bring about a miraculous intervention by the divine? There can only be one response: wishful thinking.
Given all of the remarkable discoveries we have seen, there is no doubt that the world created by the bible is shrinking. We understand, for instance, that the world is indeed not flat. That people indeed do inhabit the other side of the world, that the moon is in fact spherical, that the Earth revolves around the sun and that man is a descendant of an ancestor that also spore the ape.
The evidence for the natural world around us screams out against the prevailing religious views that permeate our lives. So why do the pious continue to ignore the obvious? From my own interactions with friends and family the answer is simple, because it makes them feel better. People want so much to escape from their unavoidable death, so much in fact that they are willing to brain wash themselves into believing there is a way out, a cosmic "get out of jail" card. As a non-believer myself, I wish to see my family and friends in good health and spirits long after I pass away. The idea of heaven intrigues me and I do wish it were true, but I would be denying the evidence. There is no reason to believe that we fly to a cosmic resort (or to a prison camp filled with eternal torture and fire) after our bodies and minds disintegrate into time.
I too understand the ‘want’ for things to be different; for there to be justice handed out to evil doers and for good people to be rewarded. These things would make me feel better no doubt, but it’s just not being honest. I chose to have truth over my innate desire to defy death. And I believe, more than people of faith would like to admit, that there are a significant number of doubters in their ranks that know they are playing mind games with themselves. My advise to them is don't be ashamed.
When believers find out I am Atheist or when I hear radio programs or TV media talk about us pesky Atheists, I often hear things like they are ‘selfish’ and 'elitist'. That they are arrogant and want to deny God because it is too inconvenient for them. These accusations confuse me as I feel like none of these things apply to any non-believer I know. I don't feel like I am the center of the universe, that I have a divine plan just for me. That I have a hidden purpose- ordained since the beginning of time. I certainly don't feel elitist and I can tell you that being a non-believer is not 'convenient' in any way. Instead, I believe that I am the lucky winner in the game of cosmic survival. I belong to a long line of ancestors who successfully adapted to their environment and passed on their genetic code to me so that I may continue the lineage into the next generation. There is nothing more humbling than to know I am, in the grand scheme of things, a speck in the universal wind. I don't feel more enlightened than anyone, I simply feel like I am on the right side of a lopsided argument.
To continue believing in the biblical world is to admit ignorance. In this day and age of knowledge and discovery, there are no excuses for not knowing the realities of our universe, our world and ourselves. If half the amount of time was invested learning science instead of biblical teachings, we would all discover a world of wonder that goes far beyond the one described in scripture. So to coin a Christian saying, “seek the truth and yee shall find it!” Begin your search now and discover wonder beyond wonder. Good luck and light’s speed.
Your Friend and Fellow Human
We have had great minds discover such things as penicillin, DNA, and the beginnings of our universe. We have created robots and rockets that can not only get to other planets but explore them. We have unlocked the natural makeup of our own genetic coding, cloned living creatures in a Petri dish, discovered millions of fossils of strange and fantastic creatures that once ruled the Earth. And furthermore we have discovered the bones of our earliest humanoid ancestors that give us an insight to our very own history.
So why are there still people who believe that Adam and Eve were created by God out of dirt and clay? Why are there still people that think Noah really built a boat big enough to save two of every animal on Earth? Why do people still think that praying will bring about a miraculous intervention by the divine? There can only be one response: wishful thinking.
Given all of the remarkable discoveries we have seen, there is no doubt that the world created by the bible is shrinking. We understand, for instance, that the world is indeed not flat. That people indeed do inhabit the other side of the world, that the moon is in fact spherical, that the Earth revolves around the sun and that man is a descendant of an ancestor that also spore the ape.
The evidence for the natural world around us screams out against the prevailing religious views that permeate our lives. So why do the pious continue to ignore the obvious? From my own interactions with friends and family the answer is simple, because it makes them feel better. People want so much to escape from their unavoidable death, so much in fact that they are willing to brain wash themselves into believing there is a way out, a cosmic "get out of jail" card. As a non-believer myself, I wish to see my family and friends in good health and spirits long after I pass away. The idea of heaven intrigues me and I do wish it were true, but I would be denying the evidence. There is no reason to believe that we fly to a cosmic resort (or to a prison camp filled with eternal torture and fire) after our bodies and minds disintegrate into time.
I too understand the ‘want’ for things to be different; for there to be justice handed out to evil doers and for good people to be rewarded. These things would make me feel better no doubt, but it’s just not being honest. I chose to have truth over my innate desire to defy death. And I believe, more than people of faith would like to admit, that there are a significant number of doubters in their ranks that know they are playing mind games with themselves. My advise to them is don't be ashamed.
When believers find out I am Atheist or when I hear radio programs or TV media talk about us pesky Atheists, I often hear things like they are ‘selfish’ and 'elitist'. That they are arrogant and want to deny God because it is too inconvenient for them. These accusations confuse me as I feel like none of these things apply to any non-believer I know. I don't feel like I am the center of the universe, that I have a divine plan just for me. That I have a hidden purpose- ordained since the beginning of time. I certainly don't feel elitist and I can tell you that being a non-believer is not 'convenient' in any way. Instead, I believe that I am the lucky winner in the game of cosmic survival. I belong to a long line of ancestors who successfully adapted to their environment and passed on their genetic code to me so that I may continue the lineage into the next generation. There is nothing more humbling than to know I am, in the grand scheme of things, a speck in the universal wind. I don't feel more enlightened than anyone, I simply feel like I am on the right side of a lopsided argument.
To continue believing in the biblical world is to admit ignorance. In this day and age of knowledge and discovery, there are no excuses for not knowing the realities of our universe, our world and ourselves. If half the amount of time was invested learning science instead of biblical teachings, we would all discover a world of wonder that goes far beyond the one described in scripture. So to coin a Christian saying, “seek the truth and yee shall find it!” Begin your search now and discover wonder beyond wonder. Good luck and light’s speed.
Your Friend and Fellow Human
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
He Said, Thee Said - A Conversation With a Christian
A couple of years ago, I had begun a conversation with a very good friend of mine. He is a devout believer in Christ and leads a very fruitful, productive life. He is one of the most intelligent people I know, very rational and analytical by nature. While hanging out at his house we began to discuss his religion and my irreligion. The debate was entertaining and educational and like all good conversations, it spilled over into an email conversation. Below are the back and forth emails I had with him relating to ideas such as did God create evil, did he send evil angels down upon man, can freewill and predestination coexist and lastly, is the bible real history or legend? His emails/replies are in blue italics.
Hey Mike,
Here is what I was referring to when we spoke about God sending evil spirits (1 Samuel 16:14-16:23). From the writing, it is quite clear that this spirit came from God and it was evil. You can make your own judgment of course. I included the texts before and after the verses so that we have the context in which they were used. **It is no wonder that Jesus had powers over evil spirits (he cast them into pigs on one occassion) since God was the one sending them. Interesting to think about since traditionally we are all led to believe that God is not capable of evil.
1 Samuel 16
13 So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came upon David in power. Samuel then went to Ramah.
14 Now the Spirit of the LORD had departed from Saul, and an evil [b] spirit from the LORD tormented him.
15 Saul's attendants said to him, "See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. 16 Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the harp. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes upon you, and you will feel better."
17 So Saul said to his attendants, "Find someone who plays well and bring him to me."
18 One of the servants answered, "I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the harp. He is a brave man and a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man. And the LORD is with him."
19 Then Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, "Send me your son David, who is with the sheep." 20 So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them with his son David to Saul.
21 David came to Saul and entered his service. Saul liked him very much, and David became one of his armor-bearers. 22 Then Saul sent word to Jesse, saying, "Allow David to remain in my service, for I am pleased with him."
23 Whenever the spirit from God came upon Saul, David would take his harp and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.
Excellent question – really I am glad you asked. But before I answer, I hope that you did not get to frustrated the other night at my house. I really did enjoy our conversation and I think you ask great questions, and I always enjoy an intellectually challenging debate. I realize it is not personal – two people should be able to be friends and disagree. Keep in mind being an engineer and very analytical myself I have asked many of the same questions. I hope we can have more talks but not with the crowd around to jump in J I honestly did not know how to answer your question when you asked it so I had to do some research. When I read the below it made total sense to me – take a look I am curious what your feedback is. It really comes back to freewill and that God could make us do what he wants, but he does not. In this case he departed Saul and then allowed Satan to control him. Finally I do believe that God is not capable of Evil, but he does allow evil for his ultimate purpose – which in my little mind I can not possible understand.
Take care,
Mike
But the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him (1Sa 16:14).
What does that mean "an evil spirit from the Lord?" Well, I guess it means an evil spirit from the Lord, but that is difficult for us to reconcile in our minds.
Now I don't want you all to get up and leave in a huff because I say something that may sound very radical. But I am convinced that in a unique and unusual kind of a way, Satan is actually serving God. He is serving purposes of God. If it were not for Satan then we would have no power of choice. If we had no power of choice, then God wouldn't know if you really loved Him or not.
Satan could not exist unless God allowed him to exist, and the very fact that God allows him to exist means that he must be serving a purpose for God, otherwise there would be no reason of having Satan around at all. If he were not serving a purpose of God then God surely wouldn't allow him his freedom today. But because he is serving a purpose of God, in order that you might be tested, in order that your love for God might indeed be a love of free choice, God has allowed Satan the liberty for he serves a purpose of God.
So in a broad sense all of creation is still serving the purposes of God. Even Satan, in his rebellion, for God has a purpose in that. You see, to give us the power of choice, and yet if there is no choice to make, what value is it to have a power of choice? "Here choose what book you want out of my hand."
"Well there is no choice."
In order to exercise choice there has to be the opposing side. So God has allowed Satan's rebellion, has allowed Satan to go on, has allowed Satan the freedom, has allowed Satan the freedom to come and to tempt you and to hassle you, and to work on you, and to make it difficult for you to serve God. So that as you serve God, it is because of choice of serving God in spite of the obstacles, in spite of the difficulties. "God, I do love You." My love for God is more or less proved by my choice to love Him in spite of the difficulty and obstacles that are placed in my way. Thus, God is assured that my love is genuine and my love for Him is true.
If I would say to my son, "Stay in the backyard while I go downtown." and I go out and chain him to the big tree. When I get home, I go in the backyard and unlock him and say, "Aha, I'm proud of my boy; he's obedient to his dad. Stayed right there in the backyard. Good boy." Proud father.
My neighbors say, "You should've heard him cursing and screaming trying to get free." He had no choice. There has to be the open door, the possibility, the opportunity to disobey in order that obedience is meaningful.
God wants from you meaningful love. Therefore, the choice must be given. Thus "an evil spirit from the Lord" or God allowed, perhaps, if that fits you better, an evil spirit to come, the spirit of the Lord.
Now I am convinced when the Spirit of God departs from your life, the door is open for evil spirits to really come. So an evil spirit allowed by the Lord, at least, came and began to harass Saul. The Spirit of God departed from him. What a sad time in a person's life when God's Spirit departs from his life. "And an evil spirit began to move in, and it troubled him."
Hi Mike,
I appreciate the feedback. I really was not in any way frustrated. I know, as I have had numerous experiences with it, that any talk of religion is going to invoke deep rooted emotions. Kathy is a riot! Spirituality is a very powerful thing. So, I agree, just because you don’t see eye to eye on something, doesn’t mean you have to stop being friends or even stop discussing it. Dialogue usually results in more understanding…and besides, it’s fun. So really, I enjoyed the “debate” and we should talk more often. I think we all could learn a lot from each other. Anyway…I examined your reply and just as with anything worth talking about, the answers created more questions (for me). Here are my thoughts:
You said-in rebuttal to my observation about God sending evil spirits-that “In this case he (God) departed Saul and then allowed Satan to control him”. So in other words, God did not “really” send the evil spirit, he just allowed it to enter Saul. Now, I appreciate the stance on this, however, the passage simply does not state this. If God created this Bible as a roadmap for his teachings, why encode the meanings? If he meant for us to think that he withdrew his spirit from Saul, would he not have told us that? Keep in mind the lowest common denominator: the layman-which encompasses a large part of God’s audience. God is reaching out to all of us (allegedly) and for him to not really mean what he says becomes very confusing. Now, I am not disputing that there may be other instances in the bible where God did withdraw his spirit, but in the passages I “copied” from the bible and presented, this was not the case ( I am a bit confused to which verse you mean here, in 1samuel 16:14 below id does say that God’s spirit departed him from your copy- let me know what verse you mean) . Which then leads me to other passages-in the Bible- that are even more clear-cut that God creates evil.
Here are few:
Psalms 78:49 He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels [among them]. (Evil angels? Interesting.) Actually yes Satan once was an Angel that turned his back on God because of his arrogance and led about 1/3 of the angels in rebellion against God. So demons, devils are really angels gone bad J - that whole free will thing. In order for us to have free will we have to be capable of choosing between right and wrong (or good and evil) – Could God have created a perfect world with no Evil, yep but we would not have free will – What he chose to do is create beings with free will – let them use that free will – ultimately God will create the perfect world for those that chose him of their own free will.
Now this leads into one of the greatest theological debates among Christians. Free will versus Predestination. How can the bible say that we have free will and that God chose us before the creation of the world Now the logically mind can not comprehend that both of these are true. If he chose us then we can not choose him and do not have free will, if we have free will then he did not choose us. (This is one of my personal favorites and love to argue both sides of the argument, but ultimately believe both to be true – How you ask? Next time we talk lets discuss this lets just say that while in College going to engineering school, I learned some things about Electricity that made it all clear to me – you will like this one!
Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these [things]. (No confusion here.) Yep this makes the point I made earlier that God is in control of everything and created everything – but by giving the angels Free will and Man free will he allows Evil In Gods unlimited Wisdom he uses evil for good. Let me give you a real world example – Disciplining your kids (not sure where you stand on this, but I assume you do some kind of discipline) From the kids perspective it is bad and mean of you, but you are doing it for their greater good. Similar to God Most of the bad things that have happened in my life have in the end turned out to be good things and made me a better person. In fact I now thank God that he let me have those difficult times because I appreciate the good so much more. Now of course this does not answer the larger “evil” things like killing women and children. Again let me flip this into a question, if a murderer was found guilty of killing your family, is it wrong / evil to have them punished? If you say yes to that then I think this is a hopeless conversation, but somehow I do not think you would object to punishing them. That said All people are guilty of sin and the punishment for sin is death. So if God chooses to kill some people, he is giving them their just punishment. Now of course this assumes that you believe in Sin and that there is punishment for it. But the point being that God is Being justified in his actions, but the actions from our point of view may be viewed as evil. – I can already think of 5 or 6 counter arguments to these statements, so write them down so we can discuss them not via email, because this is hurting my fingers J
Jeremiah 18:8 If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. (God was about to do evil.) Again this is discipline and punishment from above ( I am on a plane and will do some word study on the use of evil here. The one thing I have learned in studying the bible that words in English are not always as intended – I have 1000’s of examples but let me give you a famous one. The word Love – in English has all kinds of definitions (I love Pizza, I love my wife……) But in Greek there were 3 different words for love. Hopefully I get them right from memory. You have Agape – which is like unconditional Love, Philos – which is love like a brother, close friend, and then there is one more can’t remember that is Love for your wife (intimate Love). All 3 are translated Love, but very different meaning is meant. The other thing is cultural context, like the eye of the needle thing.
Now I don’t presume to know everything about Biblical scripture, but in Isaiah 45:7, GOD himself declares he creates evil. So, if God creates evil, what does Satan do? In all my readings, I do not recall passages about Satan destroying cities or killing millions of men, women and children. That is the work of God. (before you think it, I am NOT a Satan worshipper). Intriguing isn’t it? There are a lot of questions here I will try to answer them one at a time.What Satan does is try to keep us from knowing God hence incurring his wrath and punishment – he is the one that deceived Adam and Eve and influenced the first sin – Free will again. If it were not for Satan then we would all follow God and there would be no evil, but then there would not be free will again. So in order for free will to exist Satan must be allowed to tempt us and trick us. Now from your perspective the worst thing ( or close to the worst thing – torture and such may be worse) anyone can do to someone is kill them. But from my perspective the absolute worst thing bar none that can be done to anyone is to keep a person from a relationship with God. Hence why your Christian friends get so emotional about this, because while death sucks – eternal separation from God is 100000 times worse. For the record I have no doubt you are not a Satan worshiper – you do not worship anything except maybe logic and reason.
Anyway, I read something that the speaker said and found it quite peculiar. He says, in his explanation of why God needs Satan, that “If we had no power of choice, then God wouldn't know if you really loved Him or not.” Now, I don’t know if you caught this the first time around or not, but doesn't it just jump out at you now? As you already know, God is (allegedly) all knowing. So why wouldn’t he know if we truly love him or not? What this man is saying is that God is either NOT all knowing OR he is not who he says he is. Ultimately this sounds to me like a desperate argument for an issue that Christians have been unable to explain away (no disrespect intended). – Actually you have made my point to a degree about freewill and predestination. God knew before the creation of the world who would be saved and who would not, but he also gave us free will so we can choose. Makes no sense huh, but this again was a huge question for me until I was in College and began to stud the theory of Relativity. Now this is probably the single most difficult thing to understand I have ever studied and I took a whole semester worth of advanced physics classes on this subject. But in essence time is relative. It is not linear – this by the way is not logical. But it is very true. So what can seem like 1 day to me could be 1Million years to someone else depending on their relative position in the time space continuum. That said what is 65 billion years to us could be 1 billionth of a second to God or even faster. In fact if you take the theory of relativity to its maximum and there is something that exists outside of the space time continuum then time does not exist for that person and the past – present and future are all the same. Since God created time he exists outside of it and there fore Predestination and freewill are both true. I hope this makes sense, I am happy to spend time just discussing relativity with you if need be. Now most Christians do not have the ability or desire to even comprehend this so they just accept that both are true and admit they can not comprehend it. I feel like I have a vague understanding of it but by no means can I say I master the concept. So in answer to your question God Says Both He is all knowing and he gives us free will to choose and he knew before we were created how we would choose, but does not make us choose him. It is a paradox I admit – but by the way there are at least 2 things in the measurable world that exist but are not possible J electricity again - we will talk.
Additionally, I find his arguments very intriguing about the value of choice. He says “So in a broad sense all of creation is still serving the purposes of God. Even Satan, in his rebellion, for God has a purpose in that. You see, to give us the power of choice, and yet if there is no choice to make, what value is it to have a power of choice? Here choose what book you want out of my hand. Well there is no choice. In order to exercise choice there has to be the opposing side.” In my experience, making a choice does not require an opposing side, but rather a different choice. Who’s to say that there can’t be two choices that are equally good? For instance, I have $5000 that I want to give to charity. I have thousands of charities to pick from. Does this mean that there is one good charity and the rest are bad? Or even that a few of the charities are “bad” choices? I presume not. Again, he is reaching and using arguments that don’t apply to logic. Having the freedom of choice does not require you to always choose between good and evil. Oh I agree that having freedom of choice does not always force you to choose between good and evil. For instance I can choose to eat Oatmeal or French toast. That is not what we are talking about. He does say all creation is serving God’s purposes, but that does not mean 100% of the time. I do not see any flaw in the logic, do you not agree that if you have only one charity to give to you have no choice as to who to give it to? That is the point. In order to have choice there must be at least 2 options. So we have a choice follow God or Not – by the way this is a daily / hourly / by minute thing all humans make. Do I choose to follow God every time, No way – I wish I did but I can’t nor can any person and when we chose to not follow him we sin. Don’t get to literal on this – I am not talking about choosing clothes or choosing charity. In Ephesians it talks about putting off the old self and putting on the new self – choosing to stop being who I am in my nature and choosing to submit to God and be a better person. Now this is where the personal experience of Faith comes in. You say it is a person deciding to be better so they are. From my point of view it is me deciding to stop being who I am and submitting to God and letting him change me. Let me be the first to say This is the major difference – let me give you an interesting stat – drug rehab – these %’s are close but not exact, again going from memory – the average drug rehab success rate is 1 in 8 – one person in 8 gets off drugs, and this is programs that are voluntary. Did you know that there is a Christian drug rehab program that gets no government funding because they use the bible. The success rate is 7 in 8. Why because The Holy Spirit (God) changes them when they let him. I believe people can change their lives by sheer force of will, but I know God can change People in amazing ways when they submit to him, In my personal life he changed me in ways I never wanted to be changed, but now I am glad!
I hope I don’t come off as disrespectful as that is not my intention . For me, I believe there are a lot of things to consider about the Bible and what it says before one begins to “believe” in it. There are a number of issues that the Bible presents that even I (a man without God driven morals) wouldn't consider good for public consumption. And as we spoke about before, the “historical” data the Bible presumes to contain is in most cases unreliable and more importantly (in my opinion) illogical. Read the story about Sampson and you will know what I mean.
No disrespect taken, as I said earlier I asked many of the same questions myself and have no bone to pick with people asking questions. I agree also you have every right to ask what the bible says before believing it – Just keep an open mind. I will respectfully disagree the bible is illogical – I think I am very logically and have met very few people that can analyze stuff like I do – by the way you are one of them. The more questions you ask the more answers I have to think of, which actually strengthens my faith. And if you think my answers illogical then lets talk about them, because I want to understand where my logic broke down, or where you are missing a step on my logical progression. I know the story of Sampson, I am curious what you are referring to, because so far every time you use the bible to make a point, I think I have been able to counter answer it – Honestly this was fun, my flight went supper fast – I want you to know I do not judge you other then to say you have a very good intellect and we will see where these conversations go. Maybe nothing, maybe something either way I am sure we will both benefit from them.
Hey Mike,
I agree- it is growing to a large size and perhaps these issues would be better left to conversation, but I do want to at least respond to your rebuttals and to elaborate on what I meant by the lack of historical evidence-using Sampson as an example.
First, I want you to know I do not think your thought process is illogical. I have been following your thought process and you have made some interesting arguments. That does not mean I agree with you, but I can at least see where you are coming from. Obviously you are a very intelligent guy and I would never consider you “illogical”.
The question of whether God created evil or not to me is a simple one. To break it down to its simplest form, I feel he HAD to have created evil because God created ALL things (according to the Bible). This means he also would have created things such as happiness, sadness, joy, pain, jealousy etc. All of which are human emotions conjured up as a result of choices. I realize these are intangible creations, but if there was nothing to begin with, then these are no less his doing than the creation of a tree, or a bug. God created emotions, and if it weren’t him that created it, then who?
Now going by the Bible which states God knows everything, we can agree that he knew his invention of evil (or the opposite of love as I have been told) would create major atrocities upon human kind. Take into consideration the wars, diseases, natural disasters this world has seen (of course my take on these events are purely objective and natural). A Christian might say that God didn’t perform this evil…it was a man/men who chose not to love God and therefore evil resulted. If that be the case, then we have another difficult issue to address: If He knew this would happen, why didn’t he stop it? He has stepped in and intervened with human history before (according to the miracles in the Bible). Why not do it again to stop these events? He allowed these things (Katrina, World Trade Center, Holocaust, etc) to happen much like an onlooker or witness to a crime that refuses to call for help. Perhaps he was trying to teach us a lesson. Or perhaps these horrible events are part of a much larger purpose and we may never know why they happened. This is where I tend to jump off the ship where as you as a Christian might stay on. For me, I need to fill in the blanks. I can’t accept that God, an all loving-all powerful being, has a larger purpose for the terrible things he “allows” to happen. If anything, he is only loving some of the time. For me there are better ways to get someone to genuinely love you than the way He is purportedly doing it. That is, God does not need to use death and destruction as his prime motivator, but he chooses to. How you can see this as love is extremely difficult for me to comprehend.
One thing that I will never accept is the notion that I would love God less if I had proof he existed. Do you think Tanya would have more love for God as opposed to me if I were to find out he truly existed? I don’t believe so. Beleive me when I say, if there was proof of the Christian God, I would be the first one in the pews everyday!
As for Samson, his legend is beyond the realm of reality. Samson was a very strong hero who gained his strength through the length of his long hair. Once his hair was cut, he lost his strength. He was then jailed, he had his eyes poked out and was made a slave of the Philistines. Following these torments, he was brought to a temple where he miraculously regained his strength and pulled down two towering pillars, killing multitudes of Philistines with him. This alone seems implausible, but let’s not discount the other feats of Samson: he killed 1000 Philistines at one time; he ripped off the doors of the city and carried it up a tall hill, and there were countless Hollywood movies made of his adventures (j/k). All in all, are we take this as real history? I think not.
Anyway, I must impart you with one last observation. We have had all this talk of good and evil and whether or not predestination can exist alongside freewill. But most striking is the conversation we had about God as his evil doing. You don't believe that he cast evil demons down on his creation, but rather he removed himself from their presence- allowing evil to come in. I am curious, if God truly can pull himself away from someone of someplace as you have suggested, then would he not cease to be omnipresent? Food for thought.
Until next time.
Chad
Hey Mike,
Here is what I was referring to when we spoke about God sending evil spirits (1 Samuel 16:14-16:23). From the writing, it is quite clear that this spirit came from God and it was evil. You can make your own judgment of course. I included the texts before and after the verses so that we have the context in which they were used. **It is no wonder that Jesus had powers over evil spirits (he cast them into pigs on one occassion) since God was the one sending them. Interesting to think about since traditionally we are all led to believe that God is not capable of evil.
1 Samuel 16
13 So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came upon David in power. Samuel then went to Ramah.
14 Now the Spirit of the LORD had departed from Saul, and an evil [b] spirit from the LORD tormented him.
15 Saul's attendants said to him, "See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. 16 Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the harp. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes upon you, and you will feel better."
17 So Saul said to his attendants, "Find someone who plays well and bring him to me."
18 One of the servants answered, "I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the harp. He is a brave man and a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man. And the LORD is with him."
19 Then Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, "Send me your son David, who is with the sheep." 20 So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them with his son David to Saul.
21 David came to Saul and entered his service. Saul liked him very much, and David became one of his armor-bearers. 22 Then Saul sent word to Jesse, saying, "Allow David to remain in my service, for I am pleased with him."
23 Whenever the spirit from God came upon Saul, David would take his harp and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.
Excellent question – really I am glad you asked. But before I answer, I hope that you did not get to frustrated the other night at my house. I really did enjoy our conversation and I think you ask great questions, and I always enjoy an intellectually challenging debate. I realize it is not personal – two people should be able to be friends and disagree. Keep in mind being an engineer and very analytical myself I have asked many of the same questions. I hope we can have more talks but not with the crowd around to jump in J I honestly did not know how to answer your question when you asked it so I had to do some research. When I read the below it made total sense to me – take a look I am curious what your feedback is. It really comes back to freewill and that God could make us do what he wants, but he does not. In this case he departed Saul and then allowed Satan to control him. Finally I do believe that God is not capable of Evil, but he does allow evil for his ultimate purpose – which in my little mind I can not possible understand.
Take care,
Mike
But the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him (1Sa 16:14).
What does that mean "an evil spirit from the Lord?" Well, I guess it means an evil spirit from the Lord, but that is difficult for us to reconcile in our minds.
Now I don't want you all to get up and leave in a huff because I say something that may sound very radical. But I am convinced that in a unique and unusual kind of a way, Satan is actually serving God. He is serving purposes of God. If it were not for Satan then we would have no power of choice. If we had no power of choice, then God wouldn't know if you really loved Him or not.
Satan could not exist unless God allowed him to exist, and the very fact that God allows him to exist means that he must be serving a purpose for God, otherwise there would be no reason of having Satan around at all. If he were not serving a purpose of God then God surely wouldn't allow him his freedom today. But because he is serving a purpose of God, in order that you might be tested, in order that your love for God might indeed be a love of free choice, God has allowed Satan the liberty for he serves a purpose of God.
So in a broad sense all of creation is still serving the purposes of God. Even Satan, in his rebellion, for God has a purpose in that. You see, to give us the power of choice, and yet if there is no choice to make, what value is it to have a power of choice? "Here choose what book you want out of my hand."
"Well there is no choice."
In order to exercise choice there has to be the opposing side. So God has allowed Satan's rebellion, has allowed Satan to go on, has allowed Satan the freedom, has allowed Satan the freedom to come and to tempt you and to hassle you, and to work on you, and to make it difficult for you to serve God. So that as you serve God, it is because of choice of serving God in spite of the obstacles, in spite of the difficulties. "God, I do love You." My love for God is more or less proved by my choice to love Him in spite of the difficulty and obstacles that are placed in my way. Thus, God is assured that my love is genuine and my love for Him is true.
If I would say to my son, "Stay in the backyard while I go downtown." and I go out and chain him to the big tree. When I get home, I go in the backyard and unlock him and say, "Aha, I'm proud of my boy; he's obedient to his dad. Stayed right there in the backyard. Good boy." Proud father.
My neighbors say, "You should've heard him cursing and screaming trying to get free." He had no choice. There has to be the open door, the possibility, the opportunity to disobey in order that obedience is meaningful.
God wants from you meaningful love. Therefore, the choice must be given. Thus "an evil spirit from the Lord" or God allowed, perhaps, if that fits you better, an evil spirit to come, the spirit of the Lord.
Now I am convinced when the Spirit of God departs from your life, the door is open for evil spirits to really come. So an evil spirit allowed by the Lord, at least, came and began to harass Saul. The Spirit of God departed from him. What a sad time in a person's life when God's Spirit departs from his life. "And an evil spirit began to move in, and it troubled him."
Hi Mike,
I appreciate the feedback. I really was not in any way frustrated. I know, as I have had numerous experiences with it, that any talk of religion is going to invoke deep rooted emotions. Kathy is a riot! Spirituality is a very powerful thing. So, I agree, just because you don’t see eye to eye on something, doesn’t mean you have to stop being friends or even stop discussing it. Dialogue usually results in more understanding…and besides, it’s fun. So really, I enjoyed the “debate” and we should talk more often. I think we all could learn a lot from each other. Anyway…I examined your reply and just as with anything worth talking about, the answers created more questions (for me). Here are my thoughts:
You said-in rebuttal to my observation about God sending evil spirits-that “In this case he (God) departed Saul and then allowed Satan to control him”. So in other words, God did not “really” send the evil spirit, he just allowed it to enter Saul. Now, I appreciate the stance on this, however, the passage simply does not state this. If God created this Bible as a roadmap for his teachings, why encode the meanings? If he meant for us to think that he withdrew his spirit from Saul, would he not have told us that? Keep in mind the lowest common denominator: the layman-which encompasses a large part of God’s audience. God is reaching out to all of us (allegedly) and for him to not really mean what he says becomes very confusing. Now, I am not disputing that there may be other instances in the bible where God did withdraw his spirit, but in the passages I “copied” from the bible and presented, this was not the case ( I am a bit confused to which verse you mean here, in 1samuel 16:14 below id does say that God’s spirit departed him from your copy- let me know what verse you mean) . Which then leads me to other passages-in the Bible- that are even more clear-cut that God creates evil.
Here are few:
Psalms 78:49 He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels [among them]. (Evil angels? Interesting.) Actually yes Satan once was an Angel that turned his back on God because of his arrogance and led about 1/3 of the angels in rebellion against God. So demons, devils are really angels gone bad J - that whole free will thing. In order for us to have free will we have to be capable of choosing between right and wrong (or good and evil) – Could God have created a perfect world with no Evil, yep but we would not have free will – What he chose to do is create beings with free will – let them use that free will – ultimately God will create the perfect world for those that chose him of their own free will.
Now this leads into one of the greatest theological debates among Christians. Free will versus Predestination. How can the bible say that we have free will and that God chose us before the creation of the world Now the logically mind can not comprehend that both of these are true. If he chose us then we can not choose him and do not have free will, if we have free will then he did not choose us. (This is one of my personal favorites and love to argue both sides of the argument, but ultimately believe both to be true – How you ask? Next time we talk lets discuss this lets just say that while in College going to engineering school, I learned some things about Electricity that made it all clear to me – you will like this one!
Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these [things]. (No confusion here.) Yep this makes the point I made earlier that God is in control of everything and created everything – but by giving the angels Free will and Man free will he allows Evil In Gods unlimited Wisdom he uses evil for good. Let me give you a real world example – Disciplining your kids (not sure where you stand on this, but I assume you do some kind of discipline) From the kids perspective it is bad and mean of you, but you are doing it for their greater good. Similar to God Most of the bad things that have happened in my life have in the end turned out to be good things and made me a better person. In fact I now thank God that he let me have those difficult times because I appreciate the good so much more. Now of course this does not answer the larger “evil” things like killing women and children. Again let me flip this into a question, if a murderer was found guilty of killing your family, is it wrong / evil to have them punished? If you say yes to that then I think this is a hopeless conversation, but somehow I do not think you would object to punishing them. That said All people are guilty of sin and the punishment for sin is death. So if God chooses to kill some people, he is giving them their just punishment. Now of course this assumes that you believe in Sin and that there is punishment for it. But the point being that God is Being justified in his actions, but the actions from our point of view may be viewed as evil. – I can already think of 5 or 6 counter arguments to these statements, so write them down so we can discuss them not via email, because this is hurting my fingers J
Jeremiah 18:8 If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. (God was about to do evil.) Again this is discipline and punishment from above ( I am on a plane and will do some word study on the use of evil here. The one thing I have learned in studying the bible that words in English are not always as intended – I have 1000’s of examples but let me give you a famous one. The word Love – in English has all kinds of definitions (I love Pizza, I love my wife……) But in Greek there were 3 different words for love. Hopefully I get them right from memory. You have Agape – which is like unconditional Love, Philos – which is love like a brother, close friend, and then there is one more can’t remember that is Love for your wife (intimate Love). All 3 are translated Love, but very different meaning is meant. The other thing is cultural context, like the eye of the needle thing.
Now I don’t presume to know everything about Biblical scripture, but in Isaiah 45:7, GOD himself declares he creates evil. So, if God creates evil, what does Satan do? In all my readings, I do not recall passages about Satan destroying cities or killing millions of men, women and children. That is the work of God. (before you think it, I am NOT a Satan worshipper). Intriguing isn’t it? There are a lot of questions here I will try to answer them one at a time.What Satan does is try to keep us from knowing God hence incurring his wrath and punishment – he is the one that deceived Adam and Eve and influenced the first sin – Free will again. If it were not for Satan then we would all follow God and there would be no evil, but then there would not be free will again. So in order for free will to exist Satan must be allowed to tempt us and trick us. Now from your perspective the worst thing ( or close to the worst thing – torture and such may be worse) anyone can do to someone is kill them. But from my perspective the absolute worst thing bar none that can be done to anyone is to keep a person from a relationship with God. Hence why your Christian friends get so emotional about this, because while death sucks – eternal separation from God is 100000 times worse. For the record I have no doubt you are not a Satan worshiper – you do not worship anything except maybe logic and reason.
Anyway, I read something that the speaker said and found it quite peculiar. He says, in his explanation of why God needs Satan, that “If we had no power of choice, then God wouldn't know if you really loved Him or not.” Now, I don’t know if you caught this the first time around or not, but doesn't it just jump out at you now? As you already know, God is (allegedly) all knowing. So why wouldn’t he know if we truly love him or not? What this man is saying is that God is either NOT all knowing OR he is not who he says he is. Ultimately this sounds to me like a desperate argument for an issue that Christians have been unable to explain away (no disrespect intended). – Actually you have made my point to a degree about freewill and predestination. God knew before the creation of the world who would be saved and who would not, but he also gave us free will so we can choose. Makes no sense huh, but this again was a huge question for me until I was in College and began to stud the theory of Relativity. Now this is probably the single most difficult thing to understand I have ever studied and I took a whole semester worth of advanced physics classes on this subject. But in essence time is relative. It is not linear – this by the way is not logical. But it is very true. So what can seem like 1 day to me could be 1Million years to someone else depending on their relative position in the time space continuum. That said what is 65 billion years to us could be 1 billionth of a second to God or even faster. In fact if you take the theory of relativity to its maximum and there is something that exists outside of the space time continuum then time does not exist for that person and the past – present and future are all the same. Since God created time he exists outside of it and there fore Predestination and freewill are both true. I hope this makes sense, I am happy to spend time just discussing relativity with you if need be. Now most Christians do not have the ability or desire to even comprehend this so they just accept that both are true and admit they can not comprehend it. I feel like I have a vague understanding of it but by no means can I say I master the concept. So in answer to your question God Says Both He is all knowing and he gives us free will to choose and he knew before we were created how we would choose, but does not make us choose him. It is a paradox I admit – but by the way there are at least 2 things in the measurable world that exist but are not possible J electricity again - we will talk.
Additionally, I find his arguments very intriguing about the value of choice. He says “So in a broad sense all of creation is still serving the purposes of God. Even Satan, in his rebellion, for God has a purpose in that. You see, to give us the power of choice, and yet if there is no choice to make, what value is it to have a power of choice? Here choose what book you want out of my hand. Well there is no choice. In order to exercise choice there has to be the opposing side.” In my experience, making a choice does not require an opposing side, but rather a different choice. Who’s to say that there can’t be two choices that are equally good? For instance, I have $5000 that I want to give to charity. I have thousands of charities to pick from. Does this mean that there is one good charity and the rest are bad? Or even that a few of the charities are “bad” choices? I presume not. Again, he is reaching and using arguments that don’t apply to logic. Having the freedom of choice does not require you to always choose between good and evil. Oh I agree that having freedom of choice does not always force you to choose between good and evil. For instance I can choose to eat Oatmeal or French toast. That is not what we are talking about. He does say all creation is serving God’s purposes, but that does not mean 100% of the time. I do not see any flaw in the logic, do you not agree that if you have only one charity to give to you have no choice as to who to give it to? That is the point. In order to have choice there must be at least 2 options. So we have a choice follow God or Not – by the way this is a daily / hourly / by minute thing all humans make. Do I choose to follow God every time, No way – I wish I did but I can’t nor can any person and when we chose to not follow him we sin. Don’t get to literal on this – I am not talking about choosing clothes or choosing charity. In Ephesians it talks about putting off the old self and putting on the new self – choosing to stop being who I am in my nature and choosing to submit to God and be a better person. Now this is where the personal experience of Faith comes in. You say it is a person deciding to be better so they are. From my point of view it is me deciding to stop being who I am and submitting to God and letting him change me. Let me be the first to say This is the major difference – let me give you an interesting stat – drug rehab – these %’s are close but not exact, again going from memory – the average drug rehab success rate is 1 in 8 – one person in 8 gets off drugs, and this is programs that are voluntary. Did you know that there is a Christian drug rehab program that gets no government funding because they use the bible. The success rate is 7 in 8. Why because The Holy Spirit (God) changes them when they let him. I believe people can change their lives by sheer force of will, but I know God can change People in amazing ways when they submit to him, In my personal life he changed me in ways I never wanted to be changed, but now I am glad!
I hope I don’t come off as disrespectful as that is not my intention . For me, I believe there are a lot of things to consider about the Bible and what it says before one begins to “believe” in it. There are a number of issues that the Bible presents that even I (a man without God driven morals) wouldn't consider good for public consumption. And as we spoke about before, the “historical” data the Bible presumes to contain is in most cases unreliable and more importantly (in my opinion) illogical. Read the story about Sampson and you will know what I mean.
No disrespect taken, as I said earlier I asked many of the same questions myself and have no bone to pick with people asking questions. I agree also you have every right to ask what the bible says before believing it – Just keep an open mind. I will respectfully disagree the bible is illogical – I think I am very logically and have met very few people that can analyze stuff like I do – by the way you are one of them. The more questions you ask the more answers I have to think of, which actually strengthens my faith. And if you think my answers illogical then lets talk about them, because I want to understand where my logic broke down, or where you are missing a step on my logical progression. I know the story of Sampson, I am curious what you are referring to, because so far every time you use the bible to make a point, I think I have been able to counter answer it – Honestly this was fun, my flight went supper fast – I want you to know I do not judge you other then to say you have a very good intellect and we will see where these conversations go. Maybe nothing, maybe something either way I am sure we will both benefit from them.
Hey Mike,
I agree- it is growing to a large size and perhaps these issues would be better left to conversation, but I do want to at least respond to your rebuttals and to elaborate on what I meant by the lack of historical evidence-using Sampson as an example.
First, I want you to know I do not think your thought process is illogical. I have been following your thought process and you have made some interesting arguments. That does not mean I agree with you, but I can at least see where you are coming from. Obviously you are a very intelligent guy and I would never consider you “illogical”.
The question of whether God created evil or not to me is a simple one. To break it down to its simplest form, I feel he HAD to have created evil because God created ALL things (according to the Bible). This means he also would have created things such as happiness, sadness, joy, pain, jealousy etc. All of which are human emotions conjured up as a result of choices. I realize these are intangible creations, but if there was nothing to begin with, then these are no less his doing than the creation of a tree, or a bug. God created emotions, and if it weren’t him that created it, then who?
Now going by the Bible which states God knows everything, we can agree that he knew his invention of evil (or the opposite of love as I have been told) would create major atrocities upon human kind. Take into consideration the wars, diseases, natural disasters this world has seen (of course my take on these events are purely objective and natural). A Christian might say that God didn’t perform this evil…it was a man/men who chose not to love God and therefore evil resulted. If that be the case, then we have another difficult issue to address: If He knew this would happen, why didn’t he stop it? He has stepped in and intervened with human history before (according to the miracles in the Bible). Why not do it again to stop these events? He allowed these things (Katrina, World Trade Center, Holocaust, etc) to happen much like an onlooker or witness to a crime that refuses to call for help. Perhaps he was trying to teach us a lesson. Or perhaps these horrible events are part of a much larger purpose and we may never know why they happened. This is where I tend to jump off the ship where as you as a Christian might stay on. For me, I need to fill in the blanks. I can’t accept that God, an all loving-all powerful being, has a larger purpose for the terrible things he “allows” to happen. If anything, he is only loving some of the time. For me there are better ways to get someone to genuinely love you than the way He is purportedly doing it. That is, God does not need to use death and destruction as his prime motivator, but he chooses to. How you can see this as love is extremely difficult for me to comprehend.
One thing that I will never accept is the notion that I would love God less if I had proof he existed. Do you think Tanya would have more love for God as opposed to me if I were to find out he truly existed? I don’t believe so. Beleive me when I say, if there was proof of the Christian God, I would be the first one in the pews everyday!
As for Samson, his legend is beyond the realm of reality. Samson was a very strong hero who gained his strength through the length of his long hair. Once his hair was cut, he lost his strength. He was then jailed, he had his eyes poked out and was made a slave of the Philistines. Following these torments, he was brought to a temple where he miraculously regained his strength and pulled down two towering pillars, killing multitudes of Philistines with him. This alone seems implausible, but let’s not discount the other feats of Samson: he killed 1000 Philistines at one time; he ripped off the doors of the city and carried it up a tall hill, and there were countless Hollywood movies made of his adventures (j/k). All in all, are we take this as real history? I think not.
Anyway, I must impart you with one last observation. We have had all this talk of good and evil and whether or not predestination can exist alongside freewill. But most striking is the conversation we had about God as his evil doing. You don't believe that he cast evil demons down on his creation, but rather he removed himself from their presence- allowing evil to come in. I am curious, if God truly can pull himself away from someone of someplace as you have suggested, then would he not cease to be omnipresent? Food for thought.
Until next time.
Chad
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Life As We Know It Nearly Created in Lab
Wednesday, January 14, 2009 FoxNews.comBy Robert Roy Britt
One of life's greatest mysteries is how it began. Scientists have pinned it down to roughly this:
Some chemical reactions occurred about 4 billion years ago — perhaps in a primordial tidal soup or maybe with help of volcanoes or possibly at the bottom of the sea or between the mica sheets — to create biology.
Now scientists have created something in the lab that is tantalizingly close to what might have happened.
It's not life, they stress, but it certainly gives the science community a whole new data set to chew on.
The researchers, at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., created molecules that self-replicate and even evolve and compete to win or lose. If that sounds exactly like life, read on to learn the controversial and thin distinction.
Know your RNA
To understand the remarkable breakthrough, detailed Jan. 8 in the early online edition of the journal Science, you have to know a little about molecules called RNA and DNA.
DNA is the software of life, the molecules that pack all the genetic information of a cell. DNA and the genes within it are where mutations occur, enabling changes that create new species.
RNA is the close cousin to DNA. More accurately, RNA is thought to be a primitive ancestor of DNA.
RNA can't run a life form on its own, but 4 billion years ago it might have been on the verge of creating life, just needing some chemical fix to make the leap.
In today's world, RNA is dependent on DNA for performing its roles, which include coding for proteins.
If RNA is in fact the ancestor to DNA, then scientists have figured they could get RNA to replicate itself in a lab without the help of any proteins or other cellular machinery. Easy to say, hard to do.
But that's exactly what the Scripps researchers did. Then things went surprisingly further.
'Immortalized'
Specifically, the researchers synthesized RNA enzymes that can replicate themselves without the help of any proteins or other cellular components, and the process proceeds indefinitely.
"Immortalized" RNA, they call it, at least within the limited conditions of a laboratory.
More significantly, the scientists then mixed different RNA enzymes that had replicated, along with some of the raw material they were working with, and let them compete in what's sure to be the next big hit: "Survivor: Test Tube."
Remarkably, they bred.
And now and then, one of these survivors would screw up, binding with some other bit of raw material it hadn't been using. Hmm. That's exactly what life forms do ...
When these mutations occurred, "the resulting recombinant enzymes also were capable of sustained replication, with the most fit replicators growing in number to dominate the mixture," the scientists report.
The "creatures" — wait, we can't call them that! — evolved, with some "species" winning out.
"It kind of blew me away," said team member Tracey Lincoln of the Scripps Research Institute, who is working on her Ph.D. "What we have is non-living, but we've been able to show that it has some life-like properties, and that was extremely interesting."
Indeed.
Knocking on life's door
Lincoln's advisor, professor Gerald Joyce, reiterated that while the self-replicating RNA enzyme systems share certain characteristics of life, they are not life as we know it.
"What we've found could be relevant to how life begins, at that key moment when Darwinian evolution starts," Joyce said in a statement.
Joyce's restraint, clear also on an NPR report of the finding, has to be appreciated. He allows that some scientists familiar with the work have argued that this is life.
Another scientist said that what the researchers did is equivalent to recreating a scenario that might have led to the origin of life.
Joyce insists he and Lincoln have not created life: "We're knocking on that door," he says, "but of course we haven't achieved that."
Only when a system is developed in the lab that has the capability of evolving novel functions on its own can it be properly called life, Joyce said. In short, the molecules in Joyce's lab can't evolve any totally new tricks, he said.
One of life's greatest mysteries is how it began. Scientists have pinned it down to roughly this:
Some chemical reactions occurred about 4 billion years ago — perhaps in a primordial tidal soup or maybe with help of volcanoes or possibly at the bottom of the sea or between the mica sheets — to create biology.
Now scientists have created something in the lab that is tantalizingly close to what might have happened.
It's not life, they stress, but it certainly gives the science community a whole new data set to chew on.
The researchers, at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., created molecules that self-replicate and even evolve and compete to win or lose. If that sounds exactly like life, read on to learn the controversial and thin distinction.
Know your RNA
To understand the remarkable breakthrough, detailed Jan. 8 in the early online edition of the journal Science, you have to know a little about molecules called RNA and DNA.
DNA is the software of life, the molecules that pack all the genetic information of a cell. DNA and the genes within it are where mutations occur, enabling changes that create new species.
RNA is the close cousin to DNA. More accurately, RNA is thought to be a primitive ancestor of DNA.
RNA can't run a life form on its own, but 4 billion years ago it might have been on the verge of creating life, just needing some chemical fix to make the leap.
In today's world, RNA is dependent on DNA for performing its roles, which include coding for proteins.
If RNA is in fact the ancestor to DNA, then scientists have figured they could get RNA to replicate itself in a lab without the help of any proteins or other cellular machinery. Easy to say, hard to do.
But that's exactly what the Scripps researchers did. Then things went surprisingly further.
'Immortalized'
Specifically, the researchers synthesized RNA enzymes that can replicate themselves without the help of any proteins or other cellular components, and the process proceeds indefinitely.
"Immortalized" RNA, they call it, at least within the limited conditions of a laboratory.
More significantly, the scientists then mixed different RNA enzymes that had replicated, along with some of the raw material they were working with, and let them compete in what's sure to be the next big hit: "Survivor: Test Tube."
Remarkably, they bred.
And now and then, one of these survivors would screw up, binding with some other bit of raw material it hadn't been using. Hmm. That's exactly what life forms do ...
When these mutations occurred, "the resulting recombinant enzymes also were capable of sustained replication, with the most fit replicators growing in number to dominate the mixture," the scientists report.
The "creatures" — wait, we can't call them that! — evolved, with some "species" winning out.
"It kind of blew me away," said team member Tracey Lincoln of the Scripps Research Institute, who is working on her Ph.D. "What we have is non-living, but we've been able to show that it has some life-like properties, and that was extremely interesting."
Indeed.
Knocking on life's door
Lincoln's advisor, professor Gerald Joyce, reiterated that while the self-replicating RNA enzyme systems share certain characteristics of life, they are not life as we know it.
"What we've found could be relevant to how life begins, at that key moment when Darwinian evolution starts," Joyce said in a statement.
Joyce's restraint, clear also on an NPR report of the finding, has to be appreciated. He allows that some scientists familiar with the work have argued that this is life.
Another scientist said that what the researchers did is equivalent to recreating a scenario that might have led to the origin of life.
Joyce insists he and Lincoln have not created life: "We're knocking on that door," he says, "but of course we haven't achieved that."
Only when a system is developed in the lab that has the capability of evolving novel functions on its own can it be properly called life, Joyce said. In short, the molecules in Joyce's lab can't evolve any totally new tricks, he said.
Has Evolution Been Proven?
No, it has not been.
Many creationists would be content to end this essay there, but in reality, the situation is not so simple. To argue against the theory of evolution by saying that it "hasn't been proven" is to demonstrate a severe misunderstanding of the nature of science, which this essay will endeavor to correct.
It is true that the theory of evolution has not been proven - if, by that term, one means established beyond any further possibility of doubt or refutation. On the other hand, neither has atomic theory, the theory of relativity, quantum theory, or indeed any other theory in science. The reason for this is that science does not deal in absolute proof, only in the balance of the evidence.
To see why this is and must be true, imagine that we are scientists seeking to explain some feature of the natural world. Based on the evidence available to us, we can construct a hypothesis - an educated guess - which we offer as that explanation. If more evidence turns up that supports our hypothesis, if our hypothesis is testable and falsifiable, and if our hypothesis can be used to make predictions which turn out to be correct - if all these things are true, then our hypothesis graduates to the status of a theory and, in time, becomes accepted scientific wisdom.
But how do we really know the original hypothesis is true? What if it completely misses the mark, but gives the right answers just by coincidence? Or what if it is just an approximation, giving generally correct answers while failing to capture the true reality of what is going on? How can we ever be sure that these things are not the case?
The answer is, of course, that we cannot know this. This is why no scientific theory, including evolution, is ever considered to be proven. The more evidence that accumulates to support a theory, the more our confidence in it grows. Eventually, a point may be reached where the quantity of evidence supporting the theory is so vast, so overwhelming, that further attempts to deny or question it would be futile and unfounded. This is the case with the theory of evolution, as it is the case with the other theories, such as the atomic theory of matter or the theory of plate tectonics, that form the pillars of modern science. But this is not absolute proof. Not even the best-supported, most thoroughly verified theories of science are put on a pedestal and considered infallible, since at any time, some shocking new piece of evidence might turn up that completely contradicts accepted knowledge. We have no way of knowing that this will not happen in the future.
This is not to imply that the theory of evolution is in any way tentative or uncertain. On the contrary, it is extremely robust, backed by over a hundred years of research, experiment and observation. In all that time, not a single piece of evidence that seriously contradicts any part of it has ever turned up. Within the scientific community, evolution is not at all controversial and is no longer questioned; it is considered to be a fact, as simple and indisputable as gravity. While it can never be absolutely proven, it has come as close to attaining this status as it is possible for any scientific theory to be. To attack evolution by labeling it an "unproven theory" misses the point entirely. There is a saying in some scientific circles: "Proof is for mathematics and alcohol."
Survey: Americans switch faiths early, often
By ERIC GORSKI, AP
Religion Writer Eric Gorski, Ap Religion Writer
– Mon Apr 27, 12:45 pm ET
The U.S. is a nation of religious drifters, with about half of adults restlessly switching faith affiliation at least once during their lives, a new survey has found.
And the reasons behind all the swapping depend greatly on whether one grows up kneeling at Roman Catholic Mass, praying in a Protestant pew or occupied with nonreligious pursuits, according to a report issued Monday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
While Catholics are more likely to leave the church because they stopped believing its teachings, many Protestants are driven to trade one Protestant denomination or affiliation for another because of changed life circumstances, the survey found.
The ranks of those unaffiliated with any religion, meanwhile, are growing not so much because of a lack of religious belief but because of disenchantment with religious leaders and institutions.
The report estimates that between 47 percent and 59 percent of U.S. adults have changed affiliation at least once. Most described just gradually drifting away from their childhood faith.
"This shows a sort of religion a la carte and how pervasive it is," said D. Michael Lindsay, a Rice University sociologist of religion. "In some ways, it's an indictment of organized Christianity. It suggests there's a big open door for newcomers, but a wide back door where people are leaving."
The report, "Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S.," sought to answer questions about widespread religion-changing identified in a 2007 Pew survey of 35,000 Americans.
The new report, based on re-interviews with more than 2,800 people from the original survey, focuses on religious populations that showed a lot of movement: ex-Catholics, ex-Protestants, Protestants who've swapped denominational families within Protestantism and people raised unaffiliated who now belong to a faith.
The 2007 survey estimated that 44 percent of U.S. adults had left their childhood religious affiliation.
But the re-interviews found the extent of religion-swapping is likely much greater. The new survey revealed that one in six Americans who belong to their childhood faith are "reverts" — people who left the faith, only to return later.
Roughly two-thirds of those raised Catholic or Protestant who now claim no religious affiliation say they have changed faiths at least twice. Thirty-two percent of unaffiliated ex-Protestants said they've changed three times or more.
Age is another factor. Most people who left their childhood faith did so before turning 24, and a majority joined their current religion before 36.
"If people want to see a truly free market at work, they really should look at the U.S. religious marketplace," said Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
Sixteen percent of U.S. adults identified as unaffiliated in the 2007 survey; 7 percent of Americans described being raised unaffiliated, suggesting that many Americans end up leaving their religion for none.
About half of those who have become unaffiliated cited a belief that religious people are hypocritical, judgmental or insincere. Large numbers said they think religious organizations focus too much on rules, or that religious leaders are too focused on money and power.
John Green, a University of Akron political scientist and a senior fellow with the Pew Forum, classified most unaffiliated as "dissatisfied consumers." Only 4 percent identify as atheist or agnostic, and one-third say they just haven't found the right religion.
"A lot of the unaffiliated seem to be OK with religion in the abstract," Green said. "It's just the religion they were involved in bothered them or they disagreed with it."
The unaffiliated category is not just a destination. It's also a departure point: a slight majority of those raised unaffiliated eventually join a faith tradition.
Those who do cite several reasons: attraction of religious services and worship (74 percent), feeling unfulfilled spiritually (51 percent) or feeling called by God (55 percent).
The survey found that Catholicism has suffered the greatest net loss in all the religion switching. Nearly six in ten former Catholics who are now unaffiliated say they left Catholicism due to dissatisfaction with Catholic teachings on abortion and homosexuality. About half cited concerns about Catholic teachings on birth control and roughly four in ten named unhappiness with Catholicism's treatment of women.
Converts to evangelicalism were more likely to cite their belief that Catholicism didn't take the Bible literally enough, while mainline Protestants focused more on the treatment of women.
Fewer than three in 10 former Catholics cited the clergy sexual abuse scandal as a factor — a finding that Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl cited as an example of the faith's resilience.
"Catholics can separate the sins and human failings of individuals from the substance of the faith," Wuerl said in a statement.
Wuerl noted a finding that getting teenagers to weekly Mass greatly improves their chances of staying in the fold; the same holds true for Protestant teens attending services.
The survey found that 15 percent of Americans were raised as Protestants but now belong to a different Protestant tradition than their upbringing. Nearly four in 10 cited a move to a new community, while one-third said they married someone from a different background.
Religion Writer Eric Gorski, Ap Religion Writer
– Mon Apr 27, 12:45 pm ET
The U.S. is a nation of religious drifters, with about half of adults restlessly switching faith affiliation at least once during their lives, a new survey has found.
And the reasons behind all the swapping depend greatly on whether one grows up kneeling at Roman Catholic Mass, praying in a Protestant pew or occupied with nonreligious pursuits, according to a report issued Monday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
While Catholics are more likely to leave the church because they stopped believing its teachings, many Protestants are driven to trade one Protestant denomination or affiliation for another because of changed life circumstances, the survey found.
The ranks of those unaffiliated with any religion, meanwhile, are growing not so much because of a lack of religious belief but because of disenchantment with religious leaders and institutions.
The report estimates that between 47 percent and 59 percent of U.S. adults have changed affiliation at least once. Most described just gradually drifting away from their childhood faith.
"This shows a sort of religion a la carte and how pervasive it is," said D. Michael Lindsay, a Rice University sociologist of religion. "In some ways, it's an indictment of organized Christianity. It suggests there's a big open door for newcomers, but a wide back door where people are leaving."
The report, "Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S.," sought to answer questions about widespread religion-changing identified in a 2007 Pew survey of 35,000 Americans.
The new report, based on re-interviews with more than 2,800 people from the original survey, focuses on religious populations that showed a lot of movement: ex-Catholics, ex-Protestants, Protestants who've swapped denominational families within Protestantism and people raised unaffiliated who now belong to a faith.
The 2007 survey estimated that 44 percent of U.S. adults had left their childhood religious affiliation.
But the re-interviews found the extent of religion-swapping is likely much greater. The new survey revealed that one in six Americans who belong to their childhood faith are "reverts" — people who left the faith, only to return later.
Roughly two-thirds of those raised Catholic or Protestant who now claim no religious affiliation say they have changed faiths at least twice. Thirty-two percent of unaffiliated ex-Protestants said they've changed three times or more.
Age is another factor. Most people who left their childhood faith did so before turning 24, and a majority joined their current religion before 36.
"If people want to see a truly free market at work, they really should look at the U.S. religious marketplace," said Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
Sixteen percent of U.S. adults identified as unaffiliated in the 2007 survey; 7 percent of Americans described being raised unaffiliated, suggesting that many Americans end up leaving their religion for none.
About half of those who have become unaffiliated cited a belief that religious people are hypocritical, judgmental or insincere. Large numbers said they think religious organizations focus too much on rules, or that religious leaders are too focused on money and power.
John Green, a University of Akron political scientist and a senior fellow with the Pew Forum, classified most unaffiliated as "dissatisfied consumers." Only 4 percent identify as atheist or agnostic, and one-third say they just haven't found the right religion.
"A lot of the unaffiliated seem to be OK with religion in the abstract," Green said. "It's just the religion they were involved in bothered them or they disagreed with it."
The unaffiliated category is not just a destination. It's also a departure point: a slight majority of those raised unaffiliated eventually join a faith tradition.
Those who do cite several reasons: attraction of religious services and worship (74 percent), feeling unfulfilled spiritually (51 percent) or feeling called by God (55 percent).
The survey found that Catholicism has suffered the greatest net loss in all the religion switching. Nearly six in ten former Catholics who are now unaffiliated say they left Catholicism due to dissatisfaction with Catholic teachings on abortion and homosexuality. About half cited concerns about Catholic teachings on birth control and roughly four in ten named unhappiness with Catholicism's treatment of women.
Converts to evangelicalism were more likely to cite their belief that Catholicism didn't take the Bible literally enough, while mainline Protestants focused more on the treatment of women.
Fewer than three in 10 former Catholics cited the clergy sexual abuse scandal as a factor — a finding that Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl cited as an example of the faith's resilience.
"Catholics can separate the sins and human failings of individuals from the substance of the faith," Wuerl said in a statement.
Wuerl noted a finding that getting teenagers to weekly Mass greatly improves their chances of staying in the fold; the same holds true for Protestant teens attending services.
The survey found that 15 percent of Americans were raised as Protestants but now belong to a different Protestant tradition than their upbringing. Nearly four in 10 cited a move to a new community, while one-third said they married someone from a different background.
What the Founding Father's Said
“Educate our children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society.”
Benjamin Franklin
"Religious institutions that use the government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights."
Thomas Jefferson, 1808 to the Virginia Baptists
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law."
Thomas Jefferson, Feb 10th 1814
"Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience."
James Madison
"The religion, then, of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and that it is the right of every man…"
James Madison, June 20th 1785
"Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative."
James Madison
Benjamin Franklin
"Religious institutions that use the government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights."
Thomas Jefferson, 1808 to the Virginia Baptists
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law."
Thomas Jefferson, Feb 10th 1814
"Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience."
James Madison
"The religion, then, of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and that it is the right of every man…"
James Madison, June 20th 1785
"Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative."
James Madison
Friday, April 17, 2009
A Reasonable Acceptance Speech
Wow, this is really an honor. Thank you so much to the Academy for giving me this award. I don’t know what to say…I am overwhelmed.
I guess I should first and foremost say ‘thank you’ to my one true supporter…Me. For without Me I wouldn’t have convinced myself to bust my ass every day to get myself into this position. There were times when I felt like taking the day off, but my inner voice kept telling me to push on. So I did… and here I am getting this very prestigious award. Without question, I wouldn’t be standing here if it weren’t for Me. Thank you ‘Me’.
To my Mother, who has always been my number one fan. You kept things real for me and helped me remain humble. I saw by your example how to stay focused on my goals and not to be swayed off course. Thank you for that.
My wife…where is she? There you are! Thank you for your understanding during those long nights and hard days. You shared my vision with me and this award is as much yours as it is mine. I love you!
I would like to thank my personal trainer, my hairstylist, my publicist, my agent, my lawyer, and my extended family for being there for me when I needed you the most. Thank you so much!
Oh! And one last person, whom I could never forget, the one that stood by me and always knew the right thing to do when I didn't...my Dad. Without your countless hours of listening and guiding me, I would likely not be here today. I knew if I ever had a problem, you would be there for me to help sort things out. Hell, you even fixed some things for me that no one else could. I appreciate your vigilance in taking me to my auditions without asking me how long it would take, and for picking up the bill for a lunch when I couldn’t afford it. Now I got the lunch bill…for the rest of my life! ‘Thank you’ for all your sacrifice.
Thank you!
Moderator: Is there anyone else you are missing?
Nope. That pretty much covers everyone.
Moderator: Are you sure?
Ummmm, yeah. That's it.
(Applause)
I guess I should first and foremost say ‘thank you’ to my one true supporter…Me. For without Me I wouldn’t have convinced myself to bust my ass every day to get myself into this position. There were times when I felt like taking the day off, but my inner voice kept telling me to push on. So I did… and here I am getting this very prestigious award. Without question, I wouldn’t be standing here if it weren’t for Me. Thank you ‘Me’.
To my Mother, who has always been my number one fan. You kept things real for me and helped me remain humble. I saw by your example how to stay focused on my goals and not to be swayed off course. Thank you for that.
My wife…where is she? There you are! Thank you for your understanding during those long nights and hard days. You shared my vision with me and this award is as much yours as it is mine. I love you!
I would like to thank my personal trainer, my hairstylist, my publicist, my agent, my lawyer, and my extended family for being there for me when I needed you the most. Thank you so much!
Oh! And one last person, whom I could never forget, the one that stood by me and always knew the right thing to do when I didn't...my Dad. Without your countless hours of listening and guiding me, I would likely not be here today. I knew if I ever had a problem, you would be there for me to help sort things out. Hell, you even fixed some things for me that no one else could. I appreciate your vigilance in taking me to my auditions without asking me how long it would take, and for picking up the bill for a lunch when I couldn’t afford it. Now I got the lunch bill…for the rest of my life! ‘Thank you’ for all your sacrifice.
Thank you!
Moderator: Is there anyone else you are missing?
Nope. That pretty much covers everyone.
Moderator: Are you sure?
Ummmm, yeah. That's it.
(Applause)
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
The Teacher Has Entered The Classroom
KRS One has been a leading voice in the Hip-Hop community for decades. He is known as "The Teacher" to his fans because he writes lyrics that are intelligent and thought provoking...often reminding his fans and critics that you may not like the truth he raps about, but the TRUTH doesn't care how you feel about it. It is what it is. Here are his lyrics from his record "Fourth Quarter":
Yeah, listen to the lyrics
We are the ones prophesized to return
My main concern is for all of you to learn
How to live, yes through the lyrics I give and send my friend
This age is coming to an end
Not the world, but the age is ending
Ending, listen to the astrological message Im sending
Im sending, tell em
Truth is truth, whether or not you like me
We are living now in the age of pisces
When pisces is over, at the year two thousand
When the sun of god, changes his house and
Enters the age of aquarius
The sun of God as man is hilarious (okay)
When you think of jesus, think of the sun
The flaming sun, thats where they stole this concept from
Stop believing and read your Bible logically
The new testament is really old astrology
Jesus is the son of God no lie
But they might be talking about the sun up in the sky
The sun, that hangs on the cross of the zodiac
The zodiac with twelve signs to be exact
Each sign is a house, and you should keep in mind
Each house equals, a period of time
The time, two thousand years and thats a fact
Its called an age or a house in the zodiac
The twelve disciples, are twelve months of reason
The four gospels signify the four seasons
When jesus fed the multitude with two fishes
It signified the age of pisces, not fish or dishes
If you read the Bible astrologically its clearer (no doubt)
The next age will be the age of the water-bearer
Its called the age of aquarius (word)
When logic and truth will take care of us
So in this age, of spiritual dignity
Youll see a rise in femininity
And creativity, meshed with masculinity
You got to get with me, this is your true her-story
Do you wanna go higher...
Yeah, listen to the lyrics
We are the ones prophesized to return
My main concern is for all of you to learn
How to live, yes through the lyrics I give and send my friend
This age is coming to an end
Not the world, but the age is ending
Ending, listen to the astrological message Im sending
Im sending, tell em
Truth is truth, whether or not you like me
We are living now in the age of pisces
When pisces is over, at the year two thousand
When the sun of god, changes his house and
Enters the age of aquarius
The sun of God as man is hilarious (okay)
When you think of jesus, think of the sun
The flaming sun, thats where they stole this concept from
Stop believing and read your Bible logically
The new testament is really old astrology
Jesus is the son of God no lie
But they might be talking about the sun up in the sky
The sun, that hangs on the cross of the zodiac
The zodiac with twelve signs to be exact
Each sign is a house, and you should keep in mind
Each house equals, a period of time
The time, two thousand years and thats a fact
Its called an age or a house in the zodiac
The twelve disciples, are twelve months of reason
The four gospels signify the four seasons
When jesus fed the multitude with two fishes
It signified the age of pisces, not fish or dishes
If you read the Bible astrologically its clearer (no doubt)
The next age will be the age of the water-bearer
Its called the age of aquarius (word)
When logic and truth will take care of us
So in this age, of spiritual dignity
Youll see a rise in femininity
And creativity, meshed with masculinity
You got to get with me, this is your true her-story
Do you wanna go higher...
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