On the Op-Ed page of the Wall Street Journal today, Daniel Henninger takes Barack Obama to task today because his message is "a downer." "What one hears is a message that is largely negative, illustrated with anecdotes of unremitting bleakness." Henninger thinks that Obama's failure to talk "sunshine in America" is going to make him vulnerable in the general election. Of course Henninger invokes Ronald Reagan as the right kind of optimist.
What Henninger doesn't get is that the Republicans have succeeded in generating an awful lot of bleakness for the average American. People are having a hard time figuring out how to pay for their houses, their health care, their kids college education, and their retirements. They see an economy sliding and an endless war. Henninger also seems to forget that Reagan's refreshing optimism was only refreshing because everyone felt everything was so crappy in the late 1970's. Ronny would have been a fool to go out and tell people how well they were doing under Jimmy Carter.
If the cluelessness of the Wall Street Journal is representative of Republicans in general, I don't see how McCain has a chance.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Agnosticism, Atheism, and Proof
I consider myself an agnostic rather than an atheist because I am just as unsure that there is no God as I am that there is a God. There are many religious beliefs that I consider foolish or harmful, including the belief in the Bible as some sort of magic book, however, I do not share the belief of many of the militant atheists who see all religious belief as inherently irrational and destructive.
Evangelical Christians frequently assert that atheists have a double standard in that they demand proof of God before they will believe, but they don’t require proof of God’s non-existence before they disbelieve. I consider this to be an absurd argument because such Christians don't require proof of the non-existence of leprechauns, pixies, gnomes, flying reindeer, unicorns, the abominable snowmen, the Loch Ness monster, or Suzy Snowflake before they disbelieve in those beings. I will leave it to the philosophers to decide whether their non-existence even could be proved.
After considering the similarity between my basis for rejecting the existence of leprechauns and my reasons for doubting the existence of God, I can't decide whether I am really an atheist or whether I am simply an agnostic regarding leprechauns as well.
Evangelical Christians frequently assert that atheists have a double standard in that they demand proof of God before they will believe, but they don’t require proof of God’s non-existence before they disbelieve. I consider this to be an absurd argument because such Christians don't require proof of the non-existence of leprechauns, pixies, gnomes, flying reindeer, unicorns, the abominable snowmen, the Loch Ness monster, or Suzy Snowflake before they disbelieve in those beings. I will leave it to the philosophers to decide whether their non-existence even could be proved.
After considering the similarity between my basis for rejecting the existence of leprechauns and my reasons for doubting the existence of God, I can't decide whether I am really an atheist or whether I am simply an agnostic regarding leprechauns as well.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Strobel's Intellectual Dishonesty
In surfing the blogosphere yesterday I ran across this on the Zondervan Quote of the Day:
"If Darwinism is true, then there are five inescapable conclusions: there's no evidence for God, there's no life after death, there's no absolute foundation for right and wrong, there's no ultimate meaning for life, and people don't really have free will."Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator.
Strobel knows perfectly well that this is not true and anyone who has read his book should know this is not true. In fact, Strobel's book contains many arguments for God's existence based on cosmology, astronomy, and physics that are not effected in the slightest by the truth or falsity of Darwinism. Strobel himself finds each and every one of these arguments inescapably convincing.
The only thing that is effected if Darwinism is true is Strobel's irrational insistence upon a literal interpretation of Genesis.
"If Darwinism is true, then there are five inescapable conclusions: there's no evidence for God, there's no life after death, there's no absolute foundation for right and wrong, there's no ultimate meaning for life, and people don't really have free will."Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator.
Strobel knows perfectly well that this is not true and anyone who has read his book should know this is not true. In fact, Strobel's book contains many arguments for God's existence based on cosmology, astronomy, and physics that are not effected in the slightest by the truth or falsity of Darwinism. Strobel himself finds each and every one of these arguments inescapably convincing.
The only thing that is effected if Darwinism is true is Strobel's irrational insistence upon a literal interpretation of Genesis.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
What's that Smell?
Consider the following three statements:
(1) Commenting on John McCain’s speech to at the Conservative Political Action Conference today, former House Majority leader Tom Delay told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: “He laid out a good treatise on what conservative principles are, but then he didn’t apply those principles to the issue of global warming for instance.” When asked the conservative position on global warming, Delay went on to say: “Man is not causing climate change. . . . It is arrogance to suggest that man can affect climate change.”
(2) Leading apologetics scholar, William Lane Craig says: “The way that I know Christianity is true is first and foremost on the basis the witness of the Holy Spirit in my heart. This gives me a self authenticating means of knowing Christianity is true wholly apart from the evidence.”
(3) Leading apologetics popularizer Josh McDowell says: “Postmodernism is a worldview that asserts that external, absolute truth—that is, a truth that is true for all people, in all places, and at all times—cannot be known through reason or science because truth is either nonexistent or unknowable.”
So there you have it. Delay denies the findings of the climatologists on the basis of political ideology. Craig rejects historical evidence in favor of his subjective religious feelings. Nevertheless, McDowell claims that it is the postmodernists rather than the theists who reject the idea of objective truth.
"There ain't nuthin' more powerful than the smell of mendacity!" Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams.
(1) Commenting on John McCain’s speech to at the Conservative Political Action Conference today, former House Majority leader Tom Delay told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: “He laid out a good treatise on what conservative principles are, but then he didn’t apply those principles to the issue of global warming for instance.” When asked the conservative position on global warming, Delay went on to say: “Man is not causing climate change. . . . It is arrogance to suggest that man can affect climate change.”
(2) Leading apologetics scholar, William Lane Craig says: “The way that I know Christianity is true is first and foremost on the basis the witness of the Holy Spirit in my heart. This gives me a self authenticating means of knowing Christianity is true wholly apart from the evidence.”
(3) Leading apologetics popularizer Josh McDowell says: “Postmodernism is a worldview that asserts that external, absolute truth—that is, a truth that is true for all people, in all places, and at all times—cannot be known through reason or science because truth is either nonexistent or unknowable.”
So there you have it. Delay denies the findings of the climatologists on the basis of political ideology. Craig rejects historical evidence in favor of his subjective religious feelings. Nevertheless, McDowell claims that it is the postmodernists rather than the theists who reject the idea of objective truth.
"There ain't nuthin' more powerful than the smell of mendacity!" Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Who Wrote the Gospel of Mark?
What is our evidence that Mark, the companion of Peter, wrote the Gospel of Mark?
The gospel is written somewhere around 65-70 A.D by an author who does not identify himself.
In 125 A.D., a man considered somewhat stupid, wrote that he had heard from unnamed sources that Mark had written down Peter’s teachings in no particular order. This man does not indicate that he had seen the gospel and he does not quote from it.
In 180 A.D. another man identified Mark as the author of the Gospel that now appears under his name in the New Testament. The second man does not indicate his basis for believing that Mark wrote this gospel. He does indicate his basis for believing that there are no more or less than four gospels, which is that there are four winds and cherubim have four faces.
That’s it. That’s our evidence for Markan authorship. We have Papias, who church historian Eusebius considered a man of "very limited understanding," writing a half century after the gospel was written. Papias does not give us any information that would confirm that the book he heard about is the same book that we identify as the Gospel of Mark and in fact gives us some reason to doubt it. Then we have Irenaeous writing a full century after the gospel was written. He does not provide us with his reasons for believing in Markan authorship, but he indicate the types of reasons that he finds convincing when it comes to questions of the authority of the gospels. These reasons do not inspire confidence.
What brings this to mind is Craig Blomberg’s statement in The Case for Christ that the gospel “is obviously based on eyewitness material” and Lee Strobel’s claim that he sought out Blomberg because he was looking for someone who would not make “the kind of sweeping statements that conceal rather than deal with critical issues.”
I don’t think Strobel found his man.
The gospel is written somewhere around 65-70 A.D by an author who does not identify himself.
In 125 A.D., a man considered somewhat stupid, wrote that he had heard from unnamed sources that Mark had written down Peter’s teachings in no particular order. This man does not indicate that he had seen the gospel and he does not quote from it.
In 180 A.D. another man identified Mark as the author of the Gospel that now appears under his name in the New Testament. The second man does not indicate his basis for believing that Mark wrote this gospel. He does indicate his basis for believing that there are no more or less than four gospels, which is that there are four winds and cherubim have four faces.
That’s it. That’s our evidence for Markan authorship. We have Papias, who church historian Eusebius considered a man of "very limited understanding," writing a half century after the gospel was written. Papias does not give us any information that would confirm that the book he heard about is the same book that we identify as the Gospel of Mark and in fact gives us some reason to doubt it. Then we have Irenaeous writing a full century after the gospel was written. He does not provide us with his reasons for believing in Markan authorship, but he indicate the types of reasons that he finds convincing when it comes to questions of the authority of the gospels. These reasons do not inspire confidence.
What brings this to mind is Craig Blomberg’s statement in The Case for Christ that the gospel “is obviously based on eyewitness material” and Lee Strobel’s claim that he sought out Blomberg because he was looking for someone who would not make “the kind of sweeping statements that conceal rather than deal with critical issues.”
I don’t think Strobel found his man.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
William Lane Craig's Double Standard Regarding Evidence.
I recently ran across a video on YouTube in which William Lane Craig, makes the following statement:
Apologists are always claiming that they just follow the evidence wherever it leads, but in fact, the rule for Christians is: Follow the evidence whenever it leads to Christianity; otherwise follow your subjective feelings.
The way that I know Christianity is true is first and foremost on the basis the
witness of the Holy Spirit in my heart. This gives me a self
authenticating means of knowing Christianity is true wholly apart from the
evidence. And therefore, if in some historically contingent circumstances,
the evidence that I have available to me should turn against Christianity.
I don’t think that that controverts the witness of the Holy Spirit. In
such a situation, and I should regard that simply as a result of the contingent
circumstances that I am in, and that if I were to pursue this with due diligence
and with time I would discover that in fact that the evidence—if I could get the
correct picture—would support exactly what the witness of the Holy Spirit tells
me.
Apologists are always claiming that they just follow the evidence wherever it leads, but in fact, the rule for Christians is: Follow the evidence whenever it leads to Christianity; otherwise follow your subjective feelings.
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