h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Interesting article, I do wonder how far some people think they'll get by quoting scripture left, right and centre (OK so Jesus was known to do so, but he was talking to people who believed in the scripture at the time).

Just one thing confusing me: You talk about "freethinkers", does this mean atheists? Without wishing to get on any sort of high horse I don't see that someone who thinks God doesn't exist thinks any more freely than one who does.

The term "freethinker" means pretty much what it says; one who thinks for his or herself, analyzing the available evidence and arriving at their own conclusions. Atheism is one of the many conclusions that a freethinker may arrive at, but there are many,many more. The term is exclusive of anyone who accepts a dogmatic religious cosmology. It is possible to be a freethinker and be theistic, but it is impossible to be both a freethinker and a Christian, for example. Theisms that are compatible with freethinking (to some degree, anyway) are Wicca, Buddhism, Hermeticism, Satanism, and the silly ones like Discordianism.

Impossible to be a Christian and a freethinker? If that's about the dogmatic bit, we're not all that bad.

I expected this to generate some confusion, so I was awaiting your response, to see where I messed up...

The term freethinker is one that generally applies to cosmology. Christianity is a pre-packaged cosmology. It therefore requires little thought. And, in the mind of those who reject it, it is a closed-minded cosmology. My girlfriend is a freethinker who became so exactly because her church discouraged her from asking questions. It's easy to say that her church is an exception, but that has not been my observation or experience. Christian theists get rather rigid on their beliefs, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, and use circular arguments and double-standards to support their positions. If they thought about them more, free of their dogmatic preconceptions, they'd see that their arguments just don't work.

It is possible (and even likely) that a Christian thinks about things like politics without getting dogmatic about them, and so the term freethinker could apply to them in that area. But the term has been invented by the people who label themselves as freethinkers, all of whom exist outside the established cosmology. The terms Christianity has historically pinned on us include the unflattering "heretic," "unbeliever," "infidel," and "heathen." All of these words carry strong negative connotations. "Freethinker" is the positive term we heathens have chosen to seperate ourselves from the believers.

Therefore, one is either a Christian, a freethinker, or neither. One cannot be both.

I still get the feeling that you're lumping all Christians together somewhat. I would, however, have to allow that I didn't get to Christianity by reasoned argument, nor do I believe there is one (apart from the facile one about protecting yourself just in case it's true). Also, you're American aren't you? Frankly a lot of the American Christians scare *me*.

There you go. If you get to your cosmology through reasoned argument, you're a freethinker. You've just admitted that Christianity has none. That's the primary difference.

Yeah, I'm American. And yeah, they scare me, too. That's why I like to spark these kinds of debates. At first, it was to challenge my own cosmology, to see if my own arguments had any merit. I feel pretty confident about them now. So instead of seeing if I can be convinced, I try to get people to think about their own arguments, to see that they're lacking. But I believe I said all that stuff at the end of the article, so I won't beat a dead horse.

OK, but I don't see how you prove atheism (I never like the idea that science & religion are opposed and I've heard it pedalled by both "sides") or indeed any of the others you mention. Surely to insist on proof in cosmology (to use your term, I always thought cosmology was like astronomy) is to be an agnostic. That's what confuses me.

Actually, there is little difference between atheism and agnosticism. I've even read an article on an atheist website that contends that they are one in the same... but that the agnostics went looking for a nicer term after the believers finished casting aspersions on the word "atheist." It has such a powerful negative connotation that my own aunt was stunned when I told her I was an atheist. "But you're such a good person!"

An agnostic believes that you cannot prove theism, but neither can you prove atheism. An atheist believes that you cannot prove theism, and therefore, it is untrue. An atheist sees no reason to "prove" atheism, since the atheist makes no outrageous claims. The burden of proof lies with the theist, and their absolute failure to prove it proves that their claims are invalid.

As a mathematician I would have to disagree with the idea that absence of proof is a proves the converse, indeed Gödel tells us that some mathematical problems may be unprovable. OK, that's slightly off the point, but I still don't like that bit of reasoning.

Well, the atheist rejects the theist standpoint on more than one level. The theist cosmology would at least merit consideration if it did a reasonable job of explaining the world around us. It doesn't. Not only does it fail to explain "creation," but it also fails to explain itself, since it is mired in self-contradiction.

As a theist yourself, you've applied these same rational considerations to other theisms. You don't accept the Roman gods just because there is no evidence for them. They're also a poor cosmological model. The same goes for the Norse gods, Hinduism, and any other religion that you have been personally exposed to. The difference between you and I is that I expect Christianity to pass these same tests.

Does Christianity offer any evidence for itself? No.
Does Christianity provide a workable model for existence and human behavior? No.
Does Christianity even provide a coherent model? No.

Hmmm. Not convinced by those points, I'm afraid. I'm a Christian I certainly believe that I have a workable model for human behaviour.

I don't want to be rude, but it does seem that you're mainly rebelling against the US Christian right.

That's an ad hominem argument. My personal motivations don't make my points any more or less valid.

You say that you have a workable model for human behavior. And you're probably right. However, it has been my experience that Christians take bits and pieces from the Bible to put their model together. When taken as a whole, the Bible contains many self-contradictory bits. Plus, most of the morality in the Bible is irrelevant to today's society.

Well, I suppose I have the meaning of "Freethinker" explained, which was the point, rather than to get into an argument over Christianity. Still, I can't resist replying to the points you made:

I think your motivation is important. A supposed logical argument can often be invented/accepted after the fact to explain what you believe, but it's often not the reason why anyone would believe such a thing. I hasten to point out that Christians can often be the most guilty of this.

Personally I do try to take the Bible as a whole, though not by according every word the status of an instruction from God. As you say, much doesn't apply; also a lot is stories of people who aren't necessarily great role models, etc. I hope that makes some sense.

I still disagree about the motivation. You are correct in the belief that people can arrive at whatever truth they desire, and then construct a rationale to fit with it. However, that rationale has to be justified logically. It either is right, or it is not. I offer my rationale. It can stand or fall on its own merits, without regard to my motivation.

Your idea about the Bible makes perfect sense. Much of it is immoral. Much of it should not be taken as literal truth. The problems begin when Christians discuss which bits are moral, and which are not, which should be taken literally, and which should be understood as symbolic lessons. That's why there are hundreds of sects of Christianity, all of which teach you to distrust the others. It is my understanding that you cannot be a Christian without believing in the ressurrection of Jesus as a literal truth. I don't see any compelling reason to believe a word of it, and several good reasons why it should be treated as mythology.

Well, I think it's probably clear already that I don't think your reasoning works. *shrug* Ah, well.

I do think that to be a Christian is to believe in the resurrection. Without that you can certainly believe that Jesus was a great teacher and try to follow his instruction, but it seems to me that someone who did that is missing something. Of course theologians still argue about the exact nature of Jesus' resurrected body, but that seems a somewhat pointless exercise to me (as does most of theology )

I don't think all denominations tell you to distrust the others; certainly Methodism never did (my own church, we broke away from the Church of England more-or-less by accident) and there's a lot of ecumenism (cooperation between churches) that goes on.

I'm inclined to agree with Bagpuss, I was bought up a catholic (uk) and left the faith for a while when I was in my early teens, but decided a few years ago to return.

You ask us to prove the ressurection of Jesus, I ask you to disprove it... I would be interested in any literature that can 'prove' Jesus didn't rise again. Bearing in mind how little was written down at the time, the bible included hence the inconsistancies, I doubt there is any solid proof either for or against the bible. But I am open minded enough to read/hear anything you have to show/say.

Mel

Bagpuss: You believe my logic doesn't work... would you care to say why not?

Mel: In any court case, the burden of proof rests on the one making a claim... the prosecution has to prove that so-and-so committed a crime, the plaintiff in a civil suit must prove that so-and-so is responsible for damages, etc. They must provide conclusive evidence to win their case.

Christianity makes the claim that a man was nailed to a tree, then rose from the grave. This is an outrageous claim, because it violates our understanding of the world and how it works, and so requires outrageous evidence. What evidence have we got? The heavily edited 4th century accounts of 1st century... this evidence wouldn't even convince the jury on the OJ Simpson case.

However, even though I do not have the burden of proof, I will offer an argument against it. The gospel accounts of the resurrection are fiction, just like all mythology. Because we have four different accounts of the same story, we can trace the evolution of the myth. We have a rough dating of the gospels, and we can see that the tale becomes more embellished with each telling. More importantly, however, is that the stories of the resurrection resemble each other in almost no details. Four witnesses watching the same event will vary in their telling of the same incident to some degree... some will notice something the others do not, things will be misremembered... but only in the small details. On the whole, a coherent picture will begin to emerge... otherwise, police would never bother to interview witnesses at all. The gospels, from the point of Jesus' death, cannot be brought together into a coherent picture. I've challenged educated theists to do this, and they've all failed. That's because it can't be done.

Just the moment of the discovery of the tomb shows us how incoherent the accounts are, and shows us how the myth evolved. I'll summarize, in chronological order:

Mark: Three women come to the tomb at dawn. The stone is already rolled away. A young man in white sits inside, and tells them that Jesus is bound for Galilee. The women flee, and tell no one.

Luke: An unnamed number of women (more than three) approach in the morning, and the stone is rolled away. Two men in "shining garments" are inside, and tell them that Jesus is not there. The women report immediately to the disciples, but they do not believe, so Peter goes for a look himself.

Matt: Two women come to the tomb at dawn, to find the stone still in place. An angel comes down, sets off an earthquake, and rolls away the stone. The angel tells them they will find him in Galilee. The women inform the disciples, but Jesus intercepts them on the way.

John: Mary Magdalene goes alone to the tomb before dawn. The stone is already rolled away. She does not go in, but fetches Peter and an unnamed disciple. They peer inside, then step inside to examine the scene. They went home convinced, while Mary sat down to weep. Then two angels appeared in the tomb, and talked to her. While she was distracted, Jesus popped in behind her.

The accounts of this one scene agree in no detail, other than the presence of Mary Magdalene. What time was it? Was it already morning, was the sun dawning, or was it before dawn? How many women were present... one, two, three, or several? Was the stone already moved or not? Who was in the tomb? When did they meet Jesus? Did the disciples believe or not? When four accounts of the same event do not agree in any detail, at least three of them are lies. It is my conclusion that all four are fabrications.

Oh dear, I honestly wasn't intending to get into an argument like this, but since you ask, your points from higher up the thread were:

>Does Christianity offer any evidence for itself? No.
This depends on what evidence you want. I agree that there is no scientific proof, but it's a more personal thing than that. If you have no experience yourself, what about other people's testimonies?

>Does Christianity provide a workable model for existence and human >behavior? No.
Well a great many people have based their behaviour on Christian teaching (I do take your point about just taking what suits you, but see below).

>Does Christianity even provide a coherent model? No.
The Bible isn't a handbook of how to live, though it can teach morality. I mentioned before that not every sentence is an instruction from on high and I think its only by assuming that it is that you can say "So-and-so says you shouldn't do this, but then someone else does it."

I might comment on your comments to Mel at some point, but it seems like too much work to me.

I've read your comment CS and do you really feel it necessary to repeat everything you've already said in this thread?

I asked for proof why Jesus couldn't rise from the dead, why miracles don't happen. Not for disproof of the bible, disproving the bible does not prove it didn't happen. It instead shows that the bible is an old book, written many centuries ago which has been carried by word of mouth for a long time before it even got into print. Something I think most people already know.

Mel

I guess I have to, if you're going to ask the same questions. The question you asked was "You ask us to prove the ressurection of Jesus, I ask you to disprove it." By showing that the gospels are lies, and showing how they relate to other things we have written off as myths, I am proving that nothing in the gospels can be believed.

Now you're asking a different question... and I'll answer it with some questions of my own:

1) Why does rain fall down and not up?

2) Why doesn't the sun rotate around the earth?

3) A "historian" named Mar Serapion said that Jesus rose from the dead. He also said that Augustus Caesar did the same. Why do people instantly reject the idea that Caesar did it, but believe Jesus did?

And to answer them all, because doing so would violate the known and proven laws of the universe. Gravity pulls rain down, smaller bodies rotate around larger ones, and people don't rise from the dead. Why people believe Jesus is an exception, I have no idea.

And for the second part of your question, why miracles don't happen... because if they did happen, they would be commonplace... and therefore would not be miracles. Of course, lots of things have happened that people have called "miracles," but they usually just involve people beating odds by working hard or getting lucky. Anyone who claims to make miracles on purpose, however, can have their claims investigated by the James Randi foundation. He's been offering a million dollars of his own money to anyone who can prove any sort of ability of this nature. His 20-some year search has been fruitless.