I was going to put this into words, but Wayne Jackson has already done it in a far better fashion than I can. His article is short and sweet.
Referring to the historical records of Jesus’ life and the New Testament accounts of the Gospel in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; Wayne Jackson presents the question,
“How do skeptics address these historical records? Generally speaking, they assert that the New Testament writers fabricated the accounts. The writers knew that Jesus did not do these things; they simply invented the stories.
Will this charge stand up in the light of logical inquiry? Let us think about it for a moment.
Logically speaking, either there is existence after death or there is not…”
This is an exert from the middle of this article “A Problem No Skeptic Can Explain”. Click here to read this concise article.
Seeing God's Breath 
I’m sorry that you feel that way in struggling for a response. I’d like to think that this is a long road of providence. I don’t have a definite answer for you, but you still question Creationists. Why? For this, I think that you have some interest, which might be just annoyance. I think that you keep running into one of the forms of the Christian Faith that just does not add up to you. Why not try thinking within a belief of God and Jesus
and see what you can accept?
I believe that I have knocked and the door was opened to me. I want you to also know that the “blind” faith that many Christians present regarding their Faith is not only the only path for belief in the Bible. Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” What evidence? Many Christians believe that their Faith cannot be proved factually, but I believe otherwise. So, you test all things. This is a principle of the Christian Faith that many Christians won’t do (1 Thes. 5:21).
I see differing interpretations between us on the same facts while both beliefs being the most reasonable answers in truth. If I were not a Christian, then I would be a Deist. I am convinced on many points on the existence of God, but the three that confirm my faith are the order and beauty of Creation that I see, the best people that I could ever know are Christians of my fellowship, and the existence of my conscience regarding right and wrong. I have other things evidently from my blog that I think help in convincing. I like to try to interpret things from the perspective of my kind of atheism from the fundamental thought excluding the ideas of atheism that I understand to be wrong. What if you did that from Christianity as much as you could accept it? What about the Creationist who accepts an old age of the Earth like John Clayton (doesGodexist.org)?
I want to challenge you regarding empirical data. Can all facts be proved by empirical testing? Are there any parts of history that you accept as fact but can’t test empirically? Are their any memories or thoughts that you cannot test but you know these are facts?
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Believe me, I have knocked in all the ways I know of that one can knock, asked in all the ways one can ask, and searched every way one can search, and haven’t heard an answer.
The doors I mentioned hinge on faith. I simply can’t, in good conscience, accept simple faith. I could easily give it up to faith, but I would never know if I was self deluded in accepting that faith. The only way I can know I am alive is to question my world. To leave questioning out of one area of my life would seem a bit incongruous to me. To not question things that by any objective standard are fantastical and could easily be a communal fantasy born of a fear of death seems like a travesty. If a God is unable to deal with the many ways of questioning his existence, including mine, I’m not sure he is worth the trouble and is certainly not worth subjugation. I’m not afraid enough of an afterlife to think that subjugation is necessary for me.
That isn’t to say that the various religions don’t have a good basis upon which to build a moral life. Being human I draw on the cultural and written basis of this morality every day. I just don’t think that there is any basis to believe that any of them, the gospels included, were written by divine inspiration when thousands of years of smart people thinking about morality would arrive at similar conclusions without the exclusivity and hatred that religion has created. I’m OK with being wrong if something comes up to prove it otherwise, but I’m not going to go opening the door everytime I get a feeling something might be there. Call it self centered if you want to but all I know is what I can sense and I haven’t sensed anything to lead me toward God, nor have I seen empirical evidence so I’m left waiting for this elusive being to reveal itself.
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“Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you.”
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Ah…yes mabye he has. Do you answer the door to someone who doesn’t knock?
From my perspective I have multiple doors that I could open. They are labeled with Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Mormonism, Christianity, etc… Only one has a God behind, so I’m told. I’m trying to figure out which one it is I should open. So far I haven’t heard any noise behind any of the doors, there are no shadows projected under the crack of the door, no movement or light through the keyhole. When I call I get no response, the same with slipping notes under the door. I’ve tried wording the notes and calls in the ways that people who proport to have seen these Gods say they like to recieve them and still no reesponse. There could be Gods behind all of them, but if they don’t make themselves known they are essentially non-existant.
A blind man can open his door everytime he thinks someone might be there, but it might be more productive to wait until he hears a knock.
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Jens,
Has God not presented Himself more than sufficiently to you according to His standards?
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“What person lied or made up by mental disorder in inventing this belief? Why did the Gospel writers believe the miracles that Jesus did? Did Jesus believe them or did He deceive the disciples? Were all their minds deluded in religion? Someone had to have invented the idea of Jesus being resurrected to explain the empty tomb.”
Does it matter who might have thought these things? Who thought them up in the Salem witch trials, noone knows really who sowed the seeds of the witch story? Noone needs to have purposefully lied for Groupthink and communal reinforcement to take place, that’s the whole point. You are correct that it could explain any belief system in the world which is based on faith. Faith in empirical evidence is harder to shake by group thought processes since the numbers don’t change. There are as many reasons to explain the tomb being empty as there are that the tomb didn’t exist, the point is it takes faith to believe the writings, which are not corroborated outside the faith.
“Hell just suits his argument in this case especially for those ignorant of Christian motivations.”
So the ends justify the means? Picking and choosing arguments like that points to the fallacy of the argument. Hell being a deterrant is central to his point. All the other reasons of love and all that don’t satify his central conclusion so they must be peripheral to the belief system in his mind. Unless he’s cherrypicking his arguments to try to bend the reality to fit his liking. “The Apostles wouldn’t have lied because they feel love toward their fellow man’ doesn’t really fit the bill does it? Love is not a deterrant and his argument hinges on the deterrant factor.
“By title, atheist is dogmatic as a person who believes there is no God”
You are talking about the philisophical distinction between hard and soft atheism. Take a look at the Wiki page I cited before, I would doubt that you have even looked at it or you wouldn’t persist in your dogged argument to put atheists in such a narrow bucket.
“In what field of study might one look to prove God’s existence to you?”
Maybe incontrovertible is too strong a word. I would settle for statistically probable and peer reviewed. I might start with Creationism or ID doing some actual research rather than spending all thier time trying to debunk others work. If they can find solid, statistical, and peer reviewed evidence that God alone could have created the universe I would jump on the bandwagon in a minute. Unfortunately, as you might know, there is a sum total of zero bench tested ID or Creationist theories. Micheal Behe has never presented any of his own basic cell research to back up his claims, he’s a writer not a scientist in that regard.
Of course, God being omnipotent and omnipresent he/she could present himself to me. I’d probably listen to a voice in my head if it could tell me things which were true which I had no way of knowing before they happened and I could subject this voice to a blind trial enough times to be sure its ability to predict was above a P value of 0.05. Or he could appear to everyone in the world as a firey phantasm in the sky and let us all know that he is king. I don’t see that happening, but if any of that happened I’d be willing to believe. Worship in the other hand would be an open question. I don’t easily bend to accomodate dictators who’s intentions are not completely clear so I would need some amount of dialogue before I started subjugating myself.
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Jens,
You’re close. Salem witch trials might explain acceptance of all the different beliefs in the world including atheism and so on. It does not explain the invention of 1st century Christianity. What person lied or made up by mental disorder in inventing this belief? Why did the Gospel writers believe the miracles that Jesus did? Did Jesus believe them or did He deceive the disciples? Were all their minds deluded in religion? Someone had to have invented the idea of Jesus being resurrected to explain the empty tomb.
Groupthink and communal reinforcement explains the way in which people unintentionally accept true and false beliefs, but to maintain these beliefs with a sound mind takes some more effort. Do you think my beliefs are the result of Groupthink? I don’t think your beliefs are though I believe them to be partly false.
I remember you scoffing at the idea of Hell in past comments, so I commented back that you may have some respect for it. Yes, Jackson does point out Hell, but I know Wayne Jackson would refer to some other motivations as well on the topic of Christian motivations. Hell just suits his argument in this case especially for those ignorant of Christian motivations. What if Jackson used love or Heaven as motivation? The point is just not made hard enough without Hell. Notice again what Mr. Jackson wrote especially the word “more”, “he will be more inclined to act in a morally responsible way in this life.” Clearly, the non-believer is motivated, while the one believing in Hell tries to not to practice lying.
I absolutely agree that skeptics can be of other faiths. I would say that I have been skeptical of many beliefs at one time, but this did not refute my first belief in God. I am not a skeptic regarding Islam. I have no doubts that it is a lie. I still don’t see how someone can be an atheist hence “a” (no) – “theist” (God, theos) and a skeptic both doubting God’s existence while believing that God does not exist. By title, atheist is dogmatic as a person who believes there is no God. “You seem to be placing atheism in this narrow little bucket of belief when there is quite a variation in the levels of dogmatism in atheistic belief.” You’re right.
You mentioned “incontrovertible evidence” to prove the existence of God. In what field of study might one look to prove God’s existence to you? What would be an example of such evidence?
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“Could atheism be held to your standards, Joe? What if it was scrutinized by the same standards?”
It is and it does. There is no evidence to support the existence of gods or anything supernatural. The only reasonable thing to do then is to with hold belief in any supernatural claim until such time as convincing evidence presents itself.
“Since all knowledge is tentative and subject to revision and nothing can be known to absolute certainty, then you have erased the basis for fact, knowledge and belief altogether.”
Actually “All knowledge” was an overstatement. What I meant was all knowledge about the external world. No because things can be known with varying levels of certainty. The things that we have mounds of evidence for and have tested thoroughly are known to a very high certainty.
“Therefore, this discussion is worthless if nothing can be learned or gained from it since actual knowledge is forfeit.”
In fact such discussion are MORE important because we can never be sure we know the way things are. Therefore we have to continually question and test what we think we do know about the world.
“Can skepticism itself even exist? Can we believe it exists? Can we know it exists?”
Since skepticism is a thought process in our brain we can be very certain of its existence, however we certainly can’t be sure we accurately understand its nature. There are still many mysterious about how our brains operate.
“By your standards, I’m a bit skeptical.”
Good!
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Scott,
One example might be the Salem witch trials. There is decent evidence that the girls who did the accusing were not mentally disabled but rather made a childhood fantasy of witchcraft into a huge deal because of the snowball effect of the pressure within their group and the inward pressure of the community. They brought a superstition up into a belief which was acted upon without any real evidence of the act ever occuring. Sounds like lots of religions I can think of as well as most seances, palm reading, and other paranormal routines.
Groupthink does not rely on leadership, in fact leadership is irrelevant. You should check your facts. The whole point of the psychology of groupthink is that people behave differently in groups and will subsume thier intellect to go along with a group psychology of concensus.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility) The starkest example is the passive form of groupthink, the bystander effect. People in a group are often less likely to help someone in danger, thinking that others will do what needs to be done. There was noone telling the neighbors of Kitty Genovese not to call the police when they heard and saw her being stabbed and killed outside their apartment, yet noone did anything.
Take a look at the idea of communal reinforcement. This would easily explain the phenomenon of the New Testament. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_reinforcement)
Scott, the writer of your article makes the point that hell is what keeps people in line. I was not the one to bring that point into the discussion, you posted the article, I assumed you agreed with the arguments. He doesn’t mention Hell in particular but judgement in the afterlife which necessarily presupposes Hell for liars in a Christian context. Here is the quote from the piece.
“If there is no post-earthly existence, it matters not what one does in this life. If, however, one believes that he will be held accountable for his earthly conduct in eternity, he will be more inclined to act in a morally responsible way in this life.” Wayne Jackson
As for this ridiculous argument about whether atheists are skeptics you all should read the wiki page on agnosticism. It is broader than just agnosticism and goes through the entire spectrum of atheistic belief. I put a link to it in my own blog post explaining my beliefs a few days back.
There are many types of atheist. There are indeed some that are very dogmatic. If you read Joe’s blog for even a second you will realize he is not one of them. There is the logical possibility to be a skeptical atheist. There is also the philisophical argument that all atheists are by definition skeptical of religion. It depends on how you cut the cake. If one comes to an atheistic belief through a lack of evidence of a god then would it not follow that that person is skeptical given that their belief is based on evidence?
Braden, you’ve attenuated the argument to the point of logical oblivion. You are smarter than that, I know from your other posts. Joe’s point is that knowledge is tentative in that it is replaced with better knowledge as such knowledge is found, not that everything about the fact that we exist is up for groundless debate.
As for evolution and science, the point is not that evolution has holes. If that is your argument you are arguing from a position of complete lack of knowledge of the scientific method. The point is that science gives quantitative evidence which contradicts many of the Biblical assertions, while the Bible does not offer up any quantitative evidence to support it’s assertions of a God. Most atheists base their belief in part on quantitative or empirical evidence. If you don’t need empirical evidence to base your belief on that’s fine. However, most of the argument for atheism is philosophical, not scienctific. The basic questions of creation are beyond science at the moment. You can’t equate science with atheism, it doesn’t work.
Scott, you are correct that confident atheism excludes doubt. You forget that that exclusion of doubt is soley focused on ones own belief. Would you say you are skeptical of Islam? Without logical arguments to convince yourself of the solidity of your belief compared to Islam there would be no distinction between the two. The fact that Joe or I am atheist does not preclude our finding evidence to back up our claims, even if we were dogmatic about it, which I’m not. You seem to be placing atheism in this narrow little bucket of belief when there is quite a variation in the levels of dogmatism in atheistic belief. It is very possible to be atheist based on lack of evidence, and thus skeptical. I would say most atheists would come around to Gods existence given incontrovertible evidence, there just isn’t any incontrovertible evidence out there.
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Joe, you said “All knowledge is tentative and subject to revision, that is the crux of skepticism.”
Since all knowledge is tentative and subject to revision and nothing can be known to absolute certainty, then you have erased the basis for fact, knowledge and belief altogether.
By your standards, you couldn’t know if you yourself existed, if this blog existed, if the earth existed, if ANYTHING existed. If everything was as questionable as you claim, the world would be one big Matrix-esque scheme where man is reduced to a mere possibility rather than an actual being. Your standards eliminate man’s ability to know, believe, or prove anything.
Therefore, this discussion is worthless if nothing can be learned or gained from it since actual knowledge is forfeit. Can skepticism itself even exist? Can we believe it exists? Can we know it exists?
By your standards, I’m a bit skeptical.
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