Dealing with contradictions in Genesis 1 and 2

Hi Rhology, I have finally got a bit of spare time after a very busy month or so to write you a response.

It seems to me this is a reasonable summary of the ideas put forward in your blogpost:

1. Absolutely no harmonisation must be possible
2. Gen 1 and 2 are composed by the same author, with no insertions and so on
3. The narrative may be non-linear in Gen 2
4. There may have been a 2nd series of creations between man and woman

1. As I have pointed out, the person making the claim needs to find some way to choose between mutually incompatible harmonisations, and to be able to provide something in the way of evidence that any of these hypotheses actually happened. It would also be possible to come up with an utterly absurd harmonisation (eg Aliens from the planet Grok dropped off some more beasts of the field) - of course, no reasonable person on either side of the debate would buy this, so it doesn't seem obvious that simply because a harmonisation is possible that it should be believed. This backs up a point I have made before - an explanation is not the same as the explanation. One source for dealing with biblical contradictions you referred me to was Gleason Archer's Encyclopaedia of Biblical Difficulties. On p15, Archer states:

Be fully persuaded in your own mind that an adequate explanation exists, even though you have not yet found it. The aerodynamic engineer may not under-stand how a bumble bee can fly; yet he trusts that there must be an adequate explanation for its fine performance since, as a matter of fact, it does fly! Even so we may have complete confidence that the divine Author preserved the human author of each book of the Bible from error or mistake as he wrote down the original manuscript of the sacred text.

Where to start with this? I am not even sure I need to write anything to highlight the appalling reasoning being employed here - circular logic: assume the bible must be inerrant, so there must be an explanation, so that means there is, therefore the bible is inerrant.

Secondly, the proposition that a bee can fly is a demonstrable fact that I'm sure everyone would agree on. The inerrancy of the bible is not by a long shot, nor is it an assumption anyone should be expected to take as fact on the say so of the believer. The fact a bee can fly is not assumed to be true prior to actually demonstrating it - if I have never seen the animal in question fly before, that could simply be because in fact it is unable to do so. Similarly, it's quite plausible prior to subjecting it to examination that the bible does contain errors of some description, hence the reason no explanation has been put forward.

Finally, to put it bluntly, it appears to be an open invitation (particularly in Dr Archer's first sentence that I have put in bold) to believers to simply make allowances for whatever bullshit they can dream up - anyone who thinks imagination = actual turn of events cannot be taken seriously. Of course, this is one of the problems of appeal to the supernatural - reality becomes indistinguishable from fantasy if we start accepting a method that considers absolutely any state of affairs is possible.

http://www.bible.ca/b-alleged-bible-contradictions-refuted.htm

More of Archer's operating assumptions are detailed above - there is no way what he proposes is a remotely objective means of analysing the bible. Without even reading his book, I'd be willing to bet substantial sums of money on what his eventual conclusions are based on these assumptions alone. For example:

That is to say, all the testimonies of the various witnesses are to be taken as trustworthy reports of what was said and done in their presence, even though they may have viewed the transaction from a slightly different perspective.

Consult the best commentaries available, especially those written by Evangelical scholars who believe in the integrity of Scripture.

Only injustice would be served by any other assumption-as, for example, that each witness is assumed to be untruthful unless his testimony is corroborated from outside sources. (This, of course, is the assumption made by opponents of the inerrancy of Scripture, and it leads them to totally false results.)

I think it is a fairly good idea to check a witness statement or historical claim against as many sources and evidential lines as possible, to be confident of accuracy - doing so does not require the base assumption that the witness is untruthful, unlike Archer states here, it simply reduces the likelihood of erroneous conclusions and enhances the probability of the claim being accurate. I honestly can't see any reason not to do this - simply assuming the authors are reliable (they may well be honest, but disseminating 2nd or 3rd hand info that is not accurate), that they haven't promoted any agenda and that they are who tradition says they strikes me as poor scholarship. The general approach here is simply baffling. I would honestly be amazed if a credible historian's approach is anything like this. The latter part where we are told 'this approach leads [them] to totally false results' is again simply based on Archer's say so as a spokesman for evangelical Christianity - as soon as people start getting conclusions that inerrantists don't want to hear, then it must be the person doing the analysis and not the inerrantists' own questionable/biased working assumptions that are wrong.

I'd also highlight that the bolded sentence of Archer's and your own claim that if any harmonisation is possible then no contradiction exist causes a big problem for you - the same method could be applied to just about any 'holy text' or worldview position, or indeed any internal inconsistency in a regular book. Thus, because we can either a. imagine that there must be an explanation or harmonisation possible even if we haven't thought of it and b. if no harmonisation can be ruled out completely, we must be prepared to accept the absurd to harmonise any contradiction/incoherency. This would apply to all non-Christian texts - which you claim hold internal contradictions. However, if we simply presuppose their inerrancy, then they could be proven coherent by the same means that you and Dr. Archer appeal to.

Going back to your blogpost, the dictionary definition of eisegesis is as follows:

Eisegesis - an interpretation, esp. of Scripture, that expresses the interpreter's own ideas, bias, or the like, rather than the meaning of the text

Exegesis seems (as far as a layman such as myself can tell) to promote objectivity and relies on not reading one's own version of events into the text - clearly your assumptions and methods are not radically different from Dr. Archer's, which I have pointed out can hardly be considered objective, and would be better described as eisegesis.

On a side note, I'd also add that Archer appeared to endorse an Old Earth view (or was at least amenable to the idea), something you consider untenable if exegesis is done properly.

2. This assumes Gen1 and Gen 2 had the same author - some scholars do attribute the stories to a single source of authorship. However, many others consider there to have been more than one source of authorship. Even surface level investigation reveals this, yet it is nowhere obvious that you have taken this into consideration:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_according_to_Genesis#Composition

"Today virtually all scholars accept that the Pentateuch "was in reality a composite work, the product of many hands and periods.”[35] In the first half of the 20th century the dominant theory regarding the origins of the Pentateuch was the documentary hypothesis. This supposes that the Torah was produced about 450 BC by combining four distinct, complete and coherent documents, known as the Yahwist (“Y” or “J”, from the German spelling of Yahweh), the Elohist (“E”), the Deuteronomist (“D”), and the Priestly source (“P”). Genesis 1 is from P, and Genesis 2 from J.[36]"

"Other scholars, particularly those ascribing to textual criticism and the Documentary hypothesis, believe that the first two chapters of Genesis are two separate accounts of the creation. (They agree that the "first chapter" should include the first three verses and the first half of the fourth verse of chapter 2.) One such scholar wrote: "The book of Genesis, like the other books of the Hexateuch, was not the production of one author. A definite plan may be traced in the book, but the structure of the work forbids us to consider it as the production of one writer." (Spurell xv). For some religious writers, such as Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, the existence of two separate creation stories is beyond doubt, and thus needs to be interpreted as having divine importance."

As I have stated, there are obviously people who object to this idea (see link), but it is definitely worth pointing out.

3. Regarding whether Gen2 is a linear narrative or not, there is quite a thorough examination of Genesis 2 in this paper in the Journal of Biblical Literature, which I will take a couple of instructive points from. As far as I can tell, this is a good quality journal (for example, Vanderbilt University lists it on their essential resources for their New Testament courses).

The author (David Carr) states that both Genesis 2:6 and 2:10-14 are thought to be insertions from independent sources. On p584 of the article, Dr Carr outlines the structure of the basic creation story, minus these insertions - it is essentially identical on the major points I provided in my summary. Of course, this order is contradictory to the one presented in Genesis 1. He describes it as a linear story (ie the events are occurring in the order presented), which would rule out a jumbling of the chronological order presented as a potential harmonisation. This is a view also put forward in Tryggve Mettinger's book The Eden Narrative on p13 (Mettinger is a Professor of Hebrew Bible at Lund University, Sweden), where he states that Gen 2:4-24 is linear in fashion. A virtually identical summary of the order of creation I listed is described on a chart on p17 of the book, referencing the work of a scholar called Terje Stordalen. Likewise, I couldn't see an obvious reason it wouldn't be considered as such. To me the best reason for this seems to be that the narrative presents a series in the format of pointing out a problem then a solution to that problem (eg a lack of companion for Adam then, following that, the creation of a companion as a solution), which would appear to indicate a linear progression.

4. Dealing with more of your blogpost:

AntonBatey: The order of creation is contradictory. Chapter 1 says animals were made first, then humans simultaneously, then Chapter 2 says clearly that Adam was make, THEN animals, and then Eve die to Adam's boredom.

(No, I don't know what he means by that last phrase.)
Rhology: Where does the text rule out the animals in Chapter 2 just being one animal per kind, created *again* for Adam to name?

My guess is that he meant 'due to Adam's boredom'. Anyway, the question is not 'where does it rule it out' - there's no place the text rules out the handiwork of aliens from the planet Grok either, but somehow I doubt it is a valid proposition. The onus here is on you to demonstrate where (if anywhere) exactly the text alludes to a 2nd creation. As far as I can tell, it doesn't do this at any point.

AntonBatey: Because it doesn't say that, lol. It's pretty clear. Chapter 1 says in verse 24 that "THEN God" made the animals, and verse 26 says "THEN God" made man and woman simultaneously, and then Chapter 2 comes along and claims in verse 7 that God took the dust from the ground and made man, verse 18 says "THEN " God made "every wild animal", and verse 22 says, "the LORD God THEN" made Eve. It's clear, man.

Rhology: So the answer is "it doesn't rule it out," then? Thanks. What makes your 'clarification' necessarily the case? Why couldn't it go either way?

The fact that God states he needs to create then bring animals to Adam suggests that none were already there - otherwise he'd just have to bring him some of the extant ones, rather than creating them all over again. There is also zero mention of a double creation - if you have evidence that there was, feel free to present it. After all, as I state, there are plenty of other options that aren't ruled out, but I doubt you'd be willing to accept them.

AntonBatey: No, it does rule it out. Notice it kept saying "THEN", an adverb that indicates order. Well, the "order" is contradictory. So no, it's not possible what you proposed.


Rhology: Great, it says THEN. But the stories are different, different foci. The narrative doesn't continue on to Chapter 2. And you still haven't proved that these animals in Ch 2 aren't just MORE animals.

Actually, the real dilemma is that you have done nothing to show that there was an earlier creation. If you can demonstrate the place where it says there was a double creation of animals, please do so, otherwise we are just working on your say-so - of course if we rely on what is actually there, we end up with two contradictory accounts. Genesis 1 makes it fairly apparent that the creation of man and woman was simultaneous, with God's previous creations having been prepared in order for their arrival on the scene.

AntonBatey: But Chapter 2 says "every" animal.
Rhology: "Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man" So He did it again, after the 1st creation. Good try, thanks for playing.

Nowhere in the text does it say there was a 2nd creation. Particularly as God seems to realise the need to make and bring animals - really, if they already existed, there would be no requirement to make more - a selection of animals could simply be taken from the existing populations if they already existed.

Genesis 1 vs Genesis 2

I've been rereading the opening parts of Genesis over the last couple of days, and making a few notes regarding the apparent inconsistencies in Genesis 1 and 2 (after my previous post). The view that they contain contradictions/inconsistencies is apparently not uncommon amongst academics - for example, historian Robin Lane Fox discusses them in his book The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible, stating that

The two stories, the seven-day sequence and Genesis 2:5-3:24, tell of two different Creations, both of which cannot be true because their details contradict each other. Man, beasts and plants are created in two different sequences, and man and woman are made in two different ways

A Biblical/Hebrew scholar named Robert Alter (who has done translations of parts of the Old Testament, including Genesis) also discusses them in this article, where he says

You could say, as many scholars have, that J is an old authoritative text. But how could the author of P do something so stupid as to put together the J story with his own when the two so clearly contradict each other in certain significant elements? I think there is a kind of perspectivist maneuver here. The stories are placed side by side, and, in the matter of the creation of woman, for example, there is a blatant contradiction. In P human creation is simultaneously male and female, in J woman is made out of the humans spare parts. What's at stake is two different cultural perceptions of woman's role. Woman is perceived in terms of a patriarchal culture in which she's subordinate, but nevertheless she is very powerful.

Alter also brings up the contradictory nature and the purpose of the two stories in his book The Art of Biblical Narrative. So my opinion that the stories are contradictory doesn't seem to be a particularly crazy viewpoint, as far as I can tell. Below is my attempt at a short examination of the two stories - I have left out parts (mainly from Genesis 1, which is broader in scope than Genesis 2) that are not important in dealing with the question of contradictions .

Genesis 1


[9]And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so.
[10] God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

God creates the land and seas

[11] And God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth." And it was so.
[12] The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

[14]And God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years,

God creates plants and trees, followed by the stars and sun and moon

[20]And God said, "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the firmament of the heavens."
[21] So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

God then creates all the sea creatures and birds


[24]And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so.
[25] And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the cattle according to their kinds, and everything that creeps upon the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

God then goes on to create land animals, such as cattle

[26]Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."
[27] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.


God creates mankind and makes them master of the animals of the world. He creates them in his own image - man here seems to mean 'mankind' as opposed to male, presumably, since God states that he wishes to make man and wants to let them (as opposed to 'him') have dominion over the animals. However, in Gen 2 (see later) the woman is not created as the man is (from dust), but instead is created from the man's rib.


[28] And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."
[29] And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.
[30] And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so.

Finally God points out to them what he has set up for them to tend to - ie it is all in place for their arrival, it does not appear if any more creating is required.


Genesis 2


[5] when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up -- for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground;
[6] but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground --
[7] then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.


Initially it appears that there was no plant life - the next part stated as an aside provides an explanation as to why, and seems to show God is preparing for man's arrival by watering the ground: there is no mention of anything actually growing yet. God then forms man as this watering is taking place.


[8] And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
[9] And out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

God creates the GoE once he has created man, places man there and then causes various trees to arise to provide food. Man here seems to refer to the male (Adam) as opposed to mankind, since he is described as the man.

[15]The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.
[16] And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;
[17] but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."

God had not originally created plant life, as there was no man there to tend it. His intention here appears to be for man to tend to the plant life, hence its creation after man.

[18]Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him."

Following on from the creation of plants, God notes that man is alone and requires a companion - the fact that he needs to make him a companion suggests none has already been made, since God would just presumably bring it to him without requiring that it be made (since it would already exist), as he eventually does once he is finished creating the animals (next section). Obviously as man is alone and requires a helper to be made, it suggests man was there before the beasts, birds and fish

[19] So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
[20] The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him.

God then forms all the animals, but none are suitable companions for Adam.


[21] So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh;
[22] and the rib which the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
[23] Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man."

God then creates woman, well after all the beasts of the field and sky have been made, and there definitely appears to be a hierarchy of importance here - in Gen1 the creation seems to put them on an even footing, where they are both made in God's image. Here, the woman is composed from spare parts from the man.

Summary

Genesis 1 orders the creation as follows

1. Land and seas
2. Plants and trees
3. Sun, moon and stars
4. Sea creatures and birds
5. Land animals
6. Man and woman, in God's own image

Genesis 2 orders the creation as

1. Land and water (or mist) - at this point it seems there is nothing growing
2. Man, who is alone
3. Plants and trees
4. Animals (birds and land animals)
5. Woman (from parts of the man)

Response to Steve #2: making 'War and Peace' seem like a pamphlet

I didn't realise until now (or likely I would have responded before now) that Steve from Triablogue had written a reply to one of my previous posts. This was from quite a while back (nearly 6 months ago now), so my memory is a little hazy on some of the details, but since he took the time to reply I will respond now. Steve's points are in italics, mine are in Trebuchet font, and my original points are in regular Georgia font in quotation marks.

I will actually start with Steve's closing sentiment:

Why does Funkenstein keep aiming at specious targets? Is he too dim to follow the actual argument? Or is his problem that he has no counterargument, so he simply “responds” to an argument his opponent never made in the first place?

(Of course, the danger of Steve posting something like this is that it assumes he never does the same thing he's being critical of...)

Part of the problem, Steve, is that sometimes you present a point where the reason it is being presented is not entirely clear. For example, recently regarding a post on chromosomal fusions, your 'argument' simply consisted of namechecking Dembski and Wells (neither of whom are particularly well regarded in their respective fields of maths and biology, respectively, it should be said).

Therefore, the debate opponent (in this case me) is left guessing as to which specific issue he/she is supposed to be dealing with - after all, I know nothing about you beyond your posts on your blog and at the time of our initial discussion, I had never read your blog and therefore was not familiar with your specific views. Obviously I was not deliberately trying to argue against something you are not promoting, and perhaps on some of your points I should simply have asked you to clarify, but at the same time I am not a mind reader. Additionally, I will happily concede much of this subject is new to me, so I will of course make errors. However, I am happy to rectify my views in instances where I am shown to be incorrect. Anyway, on with the show...

“Obviously I'm not familiar with every ... happily have read them.”

Here’s your reading assignment for today: http://christiancadre.org/topics/cosarg.html

Thank you, I will read it in due course - that was all that was required in the first place.

“Contrary to what he suggested I did in fact read the psychology journal he posted - possession is not recognised as a valid psychiatric illness by the 2 major psychiatric boards in the US.”

Notice that “Funkenstein” dodges the concrete evidence presented in the article by retreating into a tendentious appeal to human authority. As usual, Funkenstein is either too dim or too dishonest to follow his own argument. This was his original claim: ““Can I shout 'viewpoint discrimination' if psychiatric journals won't allow me to publish my demonic theory of mental illness?” So I cited a counterexample. When, however, I answer him on his own grounds, he changes the subject. This is typical of the way in which Rintintin-cum- Funkenstein behaves. When you meet him on his own turf, he shifts ground.

“It is curious that he would present a (fairly obscure) peer reviewed journal on the subject as evidence, when he would no doubt dismiss one on common descent, natural selection and the like as being scientific dogma.”

This was not an attempt to dodge the issue - I was working on the assumption that you considered possession to be a genuine psychiatric illness, and this was what you were using to back it up - the reason for this being that (as I recall), you accused me of not reading it. Therefore, I presumed you were using its content to back up a view you held to - otherwise why would it really matter if I had read it or not? However, to deal with your actual point:

• It is considerably easier to get work published in journals with little or no status (which is partly judged by impact factor, but there are additional criteria for this), such as the one in question (the Hong Kong Medical Journal).
• Peer review is usually fairly strict for reputable journals in the US and Western Europe (as I am annoyingly having to deal with, having had a request for additional work to be done on a paper I submitted recently) and rejections are common even for high quality work - most scientists attempting to produce high quality work submit to these, whether they are from the regions in question or not. This often leaves a number of local journals where the standard of work is sometimes questionable and not subjected to particularly stringent review - it appears that the HKMJ also falls into this criteria, based on this analysis written by a clinical epidemiologist (PDF link at top is easier to read). That's not intended as disrespect to the HKMJ, but it doesn't appear to be publishing an especially high standard of work generally speaking.
  
• A search for 'demonic possession' on PubMed (a biomedical journal database), which is where I normally source journals from, reveals only 28 references - this is out of a total of what I gather to be around 18,000,000 publications. A quick scan reveals most of those to be irrelevant in terms of actually showing its reality as a cause of disease and most simply remark that some respondents thought the cause of their illness was possession of some description (eg in cases of facial twitching or epilepsy)

Finally, as we can't all be polymaths with all the answers to life's questions as you apparently style yourself, sometimes we simply have to defer to the relevant authority on the matter. As a non-expert in psychology/psychiatry I don't see anything wrong with citing the expert views on such matters - it is in fact something you seem to do reasonably frequently on a variety of scholarly matters, so I can't see why you are complaining about it.

“Some of the points I responded to where Steve mocked my biblical exegesis - ... I am not a mind reader, so being unaware of Steve's specific beliefs my statements might not be applicable to him personally.”

Funkenstein is debating me, not Ken Ham.

More to the point, it’s irrelevant how some Christians interpret Genesis. Funkenstein is attacking Genesis. So his attack depends on his interpretation, not theirs. As such, it’s incumbent on his to justify his interpretation, using grammatico-historical exegesis, and interacting with alternative interpretations in the standard exegetical literature.

Actually, Steve, at the time I was debating Rhology, who does in fact hold to a global flood. Secondly, it was on a public blog (and not even your own one for that matter) where many people were participating, not just you - as I say, I am not a mind reader who somehow knows what all your views are. I don't feel any view I presented on the flood, serpent etc was particularly unreasonable.

“On the subject of the serpent, my statement that it seems ludicrous was met with a reply that Bronze age people wouldn't have had access to it either... Jesus performs a veritable plethora of miracles throughout the Gospels for example.”

Here he betrays his self-reinforcing ignorance of Scripture. Miracles aren’t commonplace in Bible history. They cluster around major redemptive events. Because the Bible, like any historical work, is selective, and because it’s primarily concerned with the history of redemption, miraculous events are disproportionately represented. But in other historical books of scripture which narrate less epochal periods, miracles are few and far between.

I find this fairly astonishing - OK, some of the bible deals with laws, genealogies etc, and it doesn't document every event in history, but substantial parts feature miracles of some description or another often witnessed by thousands of people - at least to the point where they couldn't be considered uncommon in ancient cultures. The gospels feature too many to count, as does Genesis, all the prophets at the end of the OT feature some sort of direct communication with God, Paul experiences visions as does John in Revelation, Moses parted the Red Sea in front of thousands of Israelites in Exodus etc etc.

This is yet another example of his self-reinforcing ignorance. If you go out of your way to avoid religious experience, you will likely succeed. But miracles didn’t end with the death of the Apostles.

I don't particularly go looking for or try to avoid miracles or religious experience. I've been to church quite a few times, both in school and the boy scouts. I quite like visiting cathedrals and churches etc when I go to places like Spain or France. If they don't happen, I'm unlikely to see them - there's not much I can do about that I'm afraid. I offered you an example of what I would unquestionably consider a miracle (all pancreatic cancer patients suddenly recovering). I could list more - the Twin Towers reappearing fully built with all the dead folk resurrected tomorrow, etc etc. If it's barely distinguishable from day to day occurrences or anything you'd see in a Vegas magic show, why be convinced it was a miracle? You believe in an omnipotent God who created and is ultimately in control of everything that exists - these things are presumably not beyond his capabilities.

“Seeing as the basic argument is that God...Speaking personally, I had no awareness of God until someone told me about the idea when I was a child.”

Presuppositional apologetics doesn’t content that God is self-evident. Rather, the basic argument in presuppositional apologetics is that God supplies the necessary truth-conditions for anything to be true, provable, probable, or knowable.

That’s not the same thing as claiming that God’s existence is self-evident. That’s not a psychological claim, but a metaphysical claim.

Presuppositional apologetics also stresses the noetic effects of sin. Even if God were self-evident, an unwelcome truth will be suppressed.

I'll concede the point here that I had the understanding of PA wrong at that time - I have since rectified this.

“I'm genuinely curious to know how theologians know so much about God outside of what is in the bible ... 'emperor's new clothes' to me, but maybe that's just my ignorance.”

Yeah, that’s just your ignorance, all right. Try brushing on up on natural theology.

“Van Til states that ‘God must always remain mysterious to man.’ But obviously not to him and various theologians past and present it would seem. Curiously these theologians with access to knowledge of God don't all agree with each other.”

i) Don’t all agree with each other about what? The doctrine of God? Traditionally, there’s a fair amount of agreement among Christian theologians about the divine attributes.

And where there’s disagreement, it’s generally due to the attempt to reconcile the divine attributes, which they agree upon, with some extraneous precommitment regarding the nature of human freedom.

Theology isn't restricted to Christianity though - there are theologians etc in religions such as Islam and Judaism that claim to know the mind of God, as well as in polytheistic religions, and modern day cults and so on. Furthermore there are considerable disputes between hundreds if not thousands of denominations and sects of Christianity as to the actions and character of God. This isn't a big deal, but many of them do all seem absolutely certain that their knowledge of God is correct - obviously most of them are incorrect due to mutual incompatibility.

ii) Of course, scientists don’t all agree with each other. Therefore, by Funkenstein’s criterion, scientists don’t have access to knowledge of the natural world.

Scientists (generally - I don't think guys like Dawkins are overly helpful in the way they state their case sometimes) don't make claims of absolute truth, as well as recognising the provisional nature of many conclusions/observations. However, in some instances, agreement is nearly wholesale (eg there are apparently no working geochronologists who dispute the age of the Earth as being ~4.5bn years old, and almost all life scientists accept common ancestry)

“I believe Greg Bahnsen attempted to provide a way of 'knowing the supernatural' while he was alive - yet from reading his words, they gave no real indication of how one would do this or separate it from one's own imagination.”

This is so vague that there’s nothing to respond to. Bahnsen believed in divine revelation. That was the primary way of “knowing the supernatural.”

So how does he (or anyone else) distinguish revelation from wishful thinking or their own imagination? After all, as I pointed out Frame simply states 'we just know'. I can guarantee that you would be raking me over the coals if I gave an answer like that to support my own views, and I've also pointed out that many people you would consider to be wrong 'just knew' they were receiving divine revelation.

And Bahnsen presented a transcendental argument for the existence of God.

He didn't really present much of an argument though - I've listened to some mp3s of his stuff, as well as seen the presuppositional script read from enough times. I'd add that guys on your own side, yourself included it would appear, don't even seem to think the TAG holds up (or at least has obvious problems) if these links are anything to go by. I would present TAG as such:

P1: If X exists, God exists (X being logic, science, morality etc)
P2: X exists
C: Therefore, God exists

Obviously the conclusion follows from the premises, but I have almost never seen people who use it provide a defense of the first premise (the 2nd premise is a little less contentious, but there are often still objections that can be brought up). It also has a tendency to leave the apologist indulging in 1984esque doublespeak to have both sides of the argument in TAG, such as here (comments section) and here in this series of posts on Stephen Law's blog.

“Furthermore, as Frame explains how he knows God illumines ... don't exactly seem like rock-solid foundations either.”

i) Frame is simply drawing a distinction between preanalytical knowledge and analytical knowledge. There are many things we know at the level of tacit knowledge that we haven’t bothered to prove. And, in some cases, we couldn’t prove it even though we know it. How does Funkenstein recognize the voice of a friend on the phone?

You're right when you say there are plenty of things we don't bother (or care) to prove, but again can you honestly say if I had posted 'I know atheism is true, I have no idea how, but I just know' you wouldn't be giving me a hard time for it? Remember, presuppositionalists are very quick to make claims of absolute certainty and about how their worldview explains everything, so statements like these are quite telling. Consider the TAG as an example - the whole premise is based around accounting for eg the Laws of Logic. When the atheist fails to do so, or provides what the theist considers an inadequate response, the theist then declares his worldview the winner - if I had replied 'well, I just know logic can be accounted for in an atheist worldview, but I've no idea how' I'd be surprised if you'd let me off the hook with that. Since 'knowing the supernatural' is predicated on divine revelation as you say, it doesn't seem to have much to distinguish it from the cult leader in this day and age who 'just knows' some kind of god is imparting revelation to him.

ii) In addition, Frame doesn’t leave it at that. He marshals arguments for the existence of God. Read the AGG.

“We're also always expected to make concessions for God that would never be made by theists for the alternative - God can 'just exist', ...The universe needs a cause, since things that exist are caused - yet God does not. I don't see any reason we should agree to these concessions just to suit theists.”

As usual, Funkenstein betrays his self-reinforcing ignorance of Christian theology. The cosmological argument was never that every *existent* is caused, but that every *event* is caused. Everything that comes into being (or goes out of existence) requires a cause. Since God is timeless, he has no temporal origin: hence, no cause.

OK, but as I'm saying why not have the universe as the 'uncaused cause' - it's like the Hindu belief that the Earth can't suspend itself, so it needs to sit on the shoulders of an elephant. But then the elephant can't suspend itself so it stands on the back of a giant turtle. Really, why bother playing these unnecessary extra cards that aren't adding anything more on to the initial assumption - why not just let the buck stop at the universe itself being the uncaused cause?

Second, there are events in this universe that are thought to begin to exist in a non-predetermined fashion (eg radioactive decay of atomic nuclei).

“A common PA argument for Christianity (often used by Rhology, which is taken from Bahnsen as far as I remember) against atheism is 'the impossibility of the contrary'. But how exactly would someone prove that we couldn't be sitting here having this conversation without a deity of some description?”

Well, if Funkenstein actually bothered to read Bahnsen or Frame for himself, he might be able to answer his own question.

Surely the PA has a duty to present this argument in a fashion coherent to anyone who wishes to debate with them? Since the ones I've seen on blogs generally don't (eg Cook in the Witmer debate or on the Hallq blog, Rhology, SyeTenB etc) I can't really be blamed for the fact that they simply want to follow a script without any effort to explain. Generally all they do is say 'Everything depends on God. Why? The impossibility of the contrary' and that's about it - it took me a while to get Rhology to attempt to expand his answers beyond that. Paul Manata's posts even seem to accept that the case hasn't been made in terms of the impossibility of the contrary - a reasonably common complaint is usually that noone actually holds these alternate views (eg Fristianity), but that's beside the point since

a. At one time noone believed in Christianity either
b. At certain points God had not imparted particular revelations to his followers, they were not all laid out in one instance, they were done over a period of time - therefore, there's no reason those could not have been false and modern day revelations purported to be from a different god being correct, since there's no real reason other than special pleading to assume that revelation needs to start/stop at a particular moment in history
c. Truth isn't really predicated on the number of people who believe something - it could be that only one person receives accurate divine revelation through the course of the world's existence
d. Whether anyone holds to the alternate view is irrelevant - the point is that using Christian theism in TAG is purely arbitrary. Parody religions can be used to illustrate this as well.

“More to the point how would someone prove that we do indeed need the Christian God - after all Frame's piece simply claims knowledge of the existence and attributes of said God despite there being no way to separate it from pure imagination, then ironically critiques a worldview where an assumption is made then everything shoehorned around it.”

That’s hardly an accurate description of Frame’s position. Read the AGG.

This was all taken from an article written by Frame, where he makes all these points in his own words as a summary of PA. I think the link is on the first of my responses to you.

“I've yet to talk to an apologist who doesn't assume everything presented to them that offers a contradiction to their beliefs must be wrong by default (perhaps they might say that of me of course) or can be explained away by ad-hoc miracles.”

Once again, this is too vague to merit a response. What contradictions in particular? What ad-hoc miracles?

I'm not sure how much you read of Rhology and my debates, but he frequently resorts to ad hoc miracles (eg he subscribes to the Omphalos hypothesis, for example). The Flood geology model of Morris and Whitcombe admits to reliance on miracles that aren't described anywhere in the bible.

“A perfect example is the harmonisation of Genesis 2 with Genesis 1.”

It doesn’t require any ad hoc miracles to harmonize.

This post by Rhology seems to suggest otherwise, he hypothesises a 2nd creation not mentioned in the story in order to bring the discrepancies in the order of creation in to line.

Rhology: Where does the text rule out the animals in Chapter 2 just being one animal per kind, created *again* for Adam to name?

Now I know that Rhology knows his bible - so perhaps, since it requires no ad hoc miracles to be concocted, why he is doing just that in this post?

Just basic reading ability. Gen 1 is a global creation account while Gen 2 is a local creation account. Gen 2 is concerned with the creation of man and his immediate habitant (the Garden of Eden and its “furnishings”). It corresponds to Day 6 on Gen 1.

If this is his “perfect example,” then it shows you what a pitifully weak case he has against the Bible.

I've read the account, and I'm aware of what bits are what. Likewise, a fairly knowledgeable Christian (Rhology) seems to see the discrepancy as well, hence his need to speculate to harmonise them.

Secondly, I see on your review of Dawkins' God Delusion that you cite Robin Lane Fox favourably, describing him as "a bonafide biblical scholar". Since Lane Fox also maintains that the 2 Genesis stories are contradictory (and he's not the only scholar who does), it appears I am in fairly good company on this matter.

“Why should I assume this attempt at harmonisation to be true unless I have a prior commitment to Christianity being true?”

Why should I assume this attempt at harmonization to be false unless I have a prior commitment to Christianity being false?

Because my version simply relies on what evidence there is (ie 2 contradictory stories), the harmonisations rely on making up another version of events that there is no evidence to support, purely to confirm a viewpoint that simply must be adhered to at all costs. Equally someone could make up a harmonisation that contradicts yours (in the event you use one).

Anyway, a Christian could have good reason for his prior commitment to the truth of Christianity.

I'm sure s/he could, I'm not disputing that.

“For a book that is supposed to be the inerrant word of God, having all these vagaries in the first 2 pages doesn't exactly inspire confidence for me.”

It doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in Funkenstein’s competence when he commits so many elementary blunders.

Like I say, there are scholars who agree with my point, including some you apparently respect. Or are they also guilty of elementary blunders?

“A lot of the argument on Steve's post centres around Alvin Plantinga's EAAN - some of his work seems like a kind of 'presuppositional apologetics lite' from what I can gather, since it posits a deity as opposed to the Christian God specifically.”

Plantinga doesn’t “posit” a God. He argues for God’s existence.

And he attacks naturalism on its own grounds. His argument against naturalism isn’t predicated on the existence of God. Rather, Plantinga is mounting an internal critique of naturalism. God would be the alternative.

I'm now a little more familiar with Plantinga's views thanks to a post Rhology did on it and some of the debates on IIDB, so I was no doubt incorrect in many of my views of it previously. However, judging by some of the responses, it isn't this problem free route to proving theism generally, and in particular Christian theism specifically (as pointed out by Fitelson and Sober).

“As one of the commenters defending my posting said, Plantinga's argument was simply presented as a factual statement, despite there being a lot of critiques of it.”

And Plantinga responds to his critics on a regular basis. Funkenstein is trapped in his self-reinforcing ignorance.

Plantinga does respond to his critiques frequently, and they to him, I know. However this wasn't my point, as you are not Alvin Plantinga (as far as I know, anyway) - you simply presented EAAN minus any explanation as being indisputable truth.

“Henry pointed out that legs didn't initially evolve in tetrapods for walking in land, nor did feathers evolve for birds flying - but would anyone say that they aren't useful for those functions? “

“Useful for x” is a teleological evaluation. Methodological naturalism forbids that.

Moreover, this fails to salvage your claim about the reliability of the senses. Reliability is a teleological concept. As an atheist, you can’t apply teleological explanations to the natural world.

In what way am I unable to say, for example, that my legs are useful for walking as an atheist? It genuinely is not clear as to why you think this - after all, my large textbook wasn't intended as a doorstop, but it works pretty well for that task. I think Gee gives an example of the paintings in the point that the archways meet on the roofs of domed building.

Likewise, Moses didn’t need to be an eyewitness to creation or the flood to know about it if he was a recipient of divine revelation.

If knowledge of the world is dependent on direct observation, then Funkenstein doesn’t believe that cosmology or evolutionary biology or historical geology can tell us anything about the prehistoric past.

There are plenty people even now that claim to be receiving divine revelation. Obviously, you'd almost certainly dismiss most of them, as would I. So if it's clearly apparent that some people simply have an overactive imagination, mental dysfunction or are just liars, that leads them to believe this, how do you determine whether the likes of Moses weren't simply guilty of the thought process?

Secondly, creationism could quite conceivably be supported by science also in the manner evolution/geology are.

“This is interesting for 1 reason. Science can investigate these gaps by hypothesising, collecting data, analysing it and drawing conclusions. The same cannot be said of blanks looking to be filled by supernaturalism, which is basically guesswork.”

What’s the difference between “hypothesizing,” and “guesswork”? Isn’t the former just a euphemism for the latter?

Not quite since, the hypothesis is derived from previous discoveries/theories and is very focussed (usually). Supernatural guesses are generally wild stabs in the dark only limited in scope by how fertile the person in question's imagination is. Second, do you disagree with the latter parts of my point?

“I also responded to this before by pointing out Newton's reference to angels pushing planets, which was later supplanted by Laplace's work.”

Why not stick with biblical theism?

Because it illustrates the general thought process behind supernatural explanations - ie if there is a lack of an answer, fill it with the supernatural. Moses, if indeed he was the author of Genesis, probably wouldn't have known anything about genes, fossils, more than a couple of hundred species at best, he would have known nothing of continental drift, biogeography, cells, atoms, molecules, proteins etc etc. Those are some sizable knowledge gaps - now given the propensity for filling gaps with the supernatural that people (even genii such as Newton) have displayed even until relatively recently (and still often do), it's not inconceivable that Moses (or whoever) simply made up a story with the only explanation he considered possible. Although they are separated by a few millenia, the thought process in both instances is largely identical.

Secondly, the debate actually began centred around ID, which I gather you contend has no underlying ties with biblical theism.

“Theists also have a very selective application of supernaturalism - I see no reason it should be any less applicable to computer science or engineering than it should be to biology, geology or cosmology.”

There are specific reasons for miracles in Scripture. Ordinary providence does just fine most of the time. Funkenstein takes a simple-minded, all-or-nothing approach.

I'm not saying it's all or nothing, I'm just asking where its application stops and how you determine this - after all, Newton thought it applied to planetary motion in addition to the supernatural events from the bible. There are no doubt plenty of others who thought non-biblical events were dependent on the supernatural too.

Funkenstein is also fixated on Tiktaalik. But he never answered my question about how he distinguishes between an evolutionary intermediate and an ecological intermediate. If, for example, an organism occupies an ecological zone that has a mixed habit, it’s not surprising if the organism is designed to function on land and water (to take one example) or air and water (to take another example), or land and air (to take another example). This is perfectly consistent with special creation.

Tiktaalik is certainly interesting, but I wouldn't say I am fixated - you presented a link regarding the fossil that really didn't say an awful lot, so I responded to point that out. In fact, as I stated, the link then linked to a DI post that (in a roundabout fashion) seemed to be on the verge of admitting exactly what scientists were saying - and I have to say for an organisation that claims to have no problem with common ancestry, they do go to great pains to oppose any potential support for it, almost as if they were creationists one might say... It also doesn't deal with why the researchers chose that specific location, as opposed to (say) a riverbank in Chicago (where Shubin's lab is) - after all there are plenty of fossils in the US, and under creationism there's not any real reason not to expect that pretty much any fossil will be found in any strata that were formerly thought to be river zones (would have saved numerous trips to a desolate, frozen outcrop in Canada and several $1000 dollars into the bargain).

Moreover, special creation doesn’t exclude adaptive variation.

But this presents a problem, since if enough gaps get filled in (as Henry Gee points out) the lines between eg birds and reptiles, or fish and tetrapods, or indeed humans and chimps become blurred. If you believe adaptive variation occurs, then for what reason is a transition from reptiles unreachable since the evidence seems to support the possibility? For example, I've seen a conference presentation where data was provided showing that some chimps in a group had lower energy costs when walking upright compared to on all 4s. Obviously, this is a variation that selection can act on that has been documented in the here and now - but then this is the sort of thing creationists deny can happen eg the possibility of bipedal animals coming from populations that were originally non-bipedal.

In which case, you have to posit a limit to adaptive variation. Of course Michael Behe has tried this in the Edge of Evolution, which is similar to his publication in Protein Science, which has some major and fundamental problems (which I'm open to discussing, but it will require a bit of a wait until I can devote enough time to it). Secondly, creationists believe in distinct units of kinds, particularly when it comes to humans. The more the lines become blurred, the harder and harder it gets to draw that demarcation point - for example, birds are usually posited as a 'kind'. You're a Gee fan, so you'll be well aware that he points out this is not the case based on the fossil record. Ed Babinski did a good post along similar lines with more reference to genetics and molecular biology.

“Yes, I have - it wasn't exactly supportive of an anti-evolutionary view despite the claims made on its behalf.”

No one said that Gee is antievolution.

I do actually know one person who thought he was. However, this is irrelevant as I didn't say that Gee was anti-evolution here (use those basic reading skills you exhorted me to apply earlier, Steve!). I said the book is being used to support an anti-evolution viewpoint. Which it is - why else would creationists such as you and Rhology make such a fuss about it and bring it up in every discussion on the fossil record?

But he undermines the evidence for common descent. It you can’t establish lineal descent, how do you establish common descent?

From the pattern presented by cladistic analysis and the patterns of distribution of fossils. After all, there have never been any mammalian-bird fossils discovered. There's no reason to expect these shouldn't exist under creationism. Secondly, there is more to the theory of common descent than just fossils - the theory is based on the totality of evidence from multiple fields, not just paleontology. Besides, as he points out, you couldn't pick out a human fossil and have any way to claim it as a lineal ancestor. However, neither of us dispute that we share a common ancestor with it.

Here are some examples from his own book:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/05/evolutionary-mirror-reading.html

I've read both the book and your quotes. I'll take one that I've answered previously as an example, since it's a long list and this post is taking a lot of my time:

The finds are 4.4 million years old and come from a place called Aramis. “This is the earliest-known hominid,” says White, proudly, but with a touch of self-deprecating humour that demonstrates a sensitivity to the inevitably piecemeal nature of human fossil remains, in which all the evidence for the hominid lineage between about 10 and 5 million years ago—several thousand generations of living creatures—can be fitted into a small box. But this obviously ignores many things:

a) Namely all the other hominid fossils that also exist eg Homo Ergaster, Homo Heidelbergensis, Homo Neanderthalensis and many more besides - and since many (but not all) have multiple finds, the ^^^ quote appears to be an attempt to deliberately mislead.
b) Since ISoDT was written 9 years ago, did you check that more of the fossils in the quote had not been found, or that other hominids in that 10m-5mya gap had not been discovered? I'd guess no, since Sahelanthropus Tchadensis and Orrorin Tugensis fossils have both been discovered since then and fit into that gap.
c) These are just the ones that did fossilise - it's no great leap of the imagination to consider that there may be have been even more hominid species that we'll never discover.
d) In some cases, such as Homo Neanderthalensis, we even have DNA samples to allow more thorough investigation


“Furthermore, it was pretty clearly against a biblical literalist view and typological thinking. Interesting how that was never pointed out when Gee's name was touted as proof 'Darwinism' was in disarray.”

No one ever said that he was a young-earth creationist, or any sort of creationist. Once again, we have to explain to you what an internal critique is.

Gee’s argument is predicated on geological time-scales. A young-earth creationist would reject that.

But if we accept that for the sake of argument, then the extant fossils are so isolated in time that you can’t properly sequence them.

How many times do we need to walk you through the basic principles of logical argumentation before the point sinks in? Has atheism left your faculties so atrophied that you can’t follow a simple explanation—or even follow your own argument?

Again, I am not saying Gee is. You are holding the book up as supportive of an antievolutionary viewpoint, the alternative in your eyes presumably being the Genesis creation story. However, the content of the book provides comments that (if true) show that the fossil record cannot conceivably support the Genesis creation story. You appear to consider Gee the authority on paleontology - do you therefore agree that the fossil record is good evidence against the sort of observations that would be expected were the Genesis story true? I have asked Rhology this before (for example when Gee stated that he considers that microevolution scales up to macroevolution) - on what basis do you accept and dismiss Gee's expertise other than them aligning with your personal preferences or not?

Secondly, the book deals with a scientific means by which to investigate the fossil record, providing hypotheses that can be tested against reality.

“Why does my lack of ability mean that other design is not poorly done?”

You’re in no position to say that a design is defective unless you—or someone else—can design a superior alternative. Unless you experiment with the alternatives, you don’t know if there are any viable alternatives, much less superior alternatives.

I'd imagine it would be possible to model these things mathematically or on a computer sim for a start, or via comparisons against other species that have the same features more efficiently 'designed'. Some of them we know could have been better designed eg the pharyngeal nerve in the giraffe would definitely be more efficient with a more direct route to its target based on action potential conductance velocities etc as we know superior alternatives exist based on these sorts of factors.

Secondly, surgical manipulations or gene therapy are just two means by which we have actually improved on the original 'design'. Besides, ethical considerations aside, I would not be surprised if scientists are eventually capable of creating life from scratch during the next few decades, it isn't that far over the horizon given the current state of play.

“Note the assumption here - the 'establishment' ...totally uncritical acceptance of a fairly questionable research program on Steve's part.”

i) As usual, Funkenstein isn’t responding to what I actually wrote. I didn’t say that I agreed with Sheldrake. I merely pointed out that he studies natural phenomena that the scientific establishment routinely ignores since such phenomena constitute an embarrassment to the dominant paradigm.

You stated that some natural phenomena refuse to play by the rules. Presumably as you said this along with reference to Sheldrake you agree with his work, since it makes a claim of a natural phenomenon that apparently does just that. What other reason would you make that statement for? But then I provided you with 2 links as well as some reasons as to why there seems to be good reason to reject his claims.

ii) Sheldrake isn’t investigating the “supernatural.” He’s investigating the paranormal.

That was probably the wrong choice of word on my part .

iii) And, as a matter of fact, members of the scientific establishment, like Richard Dawkins, do indeed act as if they’re running scared:

http://www.sheldrake.org/D&C/controversies/Dawkins.html

I'm no Dawkins fan, but that whole article is just he said/she said. This is similar to the way you presented Plantinga - it's merely enough that they said it, no data or outline of their argument needs to be provided apparently. There's not much to go on bar Sheldrake's word it happened. I have nothing against Rupert Sheldrake, but then plenty of people claim to have evidence (eg that vaccines cause autism) that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

Secondly, it's pretty irrelevant as to Dawkins' opinions on that matter, as famous as he is, he's far from the be all and end all of science - really, as Sheldrake points out, the debate has to be settled on the evidence - since I provided links to 2 easy to digest explanations, as well as a few of my own observations, as to (potential) problems with Sheldrake's thesis it appears there is good reason to consider that his claims are not on firm ground.

“Although not directly related to Sheldrake's work... yet no amount of objective evidence will convince them of things they don't want to be true.”

Sheldrake isn’t making “supernatural” claims. He’s pointing to evidence for phenomena like animal psi.

Again, wrong choice of word on my part.

And I never took a position on his claims.

Your exact words after posting the article were:

Folks like Rupert Sheldrake study natural phenomena which the scientific establishment ignores because some natural phenomena refuse to play by the rules.

The bit in bold would suggest that you in fact did take a position on whether you agreed with him or not. Nowhere does it say something along the lines of '...because, in Sheldrake's opinion,...', so I can only assume that it is in fact your own opinion.

I merely pointed out that he’s investigating natural phenomena which the scientific establishment dismisses out of hand.

Except they didn't - one of the links I provide (as far as I remember) tried to replicate some of his results, which they were unable to do. They also pointed out methodological problems in his approach. The other pointed out that he was competing against results that had been observed by thousands of independent researchers in thousands of different locations, so from a mere probability standpoint as well as from well established physics he's considerably more likely to simply be wrong.

Secondly, I actually started my undergraduate as a psychology student before switching to biology. The psych department that I was in conducted research on aspects of the paranormal, such as ESP and psychic ability - and have been doing so for more than 20 years now. Similarly, large scale studies have been done relating to other debatable ideas such astrology. So it is fairly apparent that researchers at reputable institutions are quite willing to investigate challenges to the norm.

Just for a little fun, I'll finish with a summary. In blog posting, most people make a few silly mistakes here and there, bad points, misread arguments etc etc. Usually, I, like most people just let it slide or try to offer correction and so on. However, Steve likes to make a big song and dance about it then insult his opponents (of course, you never catch him chastising other believers who share his views for the same faults), whether they be Joe Q Atheist or professional scholars such as Dr Hector Avalos - therefore you'd assume he's never guilty of these things himself? Well...

1. Complains about other people's appeal to human authority in a case where I cite expert views on psychiatry/psychology - then cites Plantinga, Dembski, Wells, Gee and Sheldrake minus any real defense of their views, and in some cases amounting to little more than a namecheck. In two of those cases (D&W), neither is even considered an authority or expert in their subject area (Maths and Biology, respectively).

This was similar to a previous accusation where he complained of me referring to the work of' hostile popularisers' that were against the ID movement, failing to note that the ID movement are also hostile popularisers against evolution - of course, I have the luxury of having access to and having actually read some of the primary literature that both sides cite so I can check whose claims hold water or if the data is being represented faithfully. I wonder if Steve has done the same?

2. Complains about people's failure to follow their own argument - then denies having said he supports Sheldrake's views, despite his comments clearly appearing to do just that.

3. Complains about vagueness, but makes no attempt to explain the arguments of Wells/Dembski eg here or Plantinga etc (beyond essentially stating that eg Plantinga's conclusions are true)

4. Complains about others' lack of counterargument, but as mentioned does little more than namecheck in many instances, or provide links such as this that don't appear to contain anything in the way of argument

5. Often accuses others of failure to do elementary fact checking - then (as the Gee quote earlier shows) posts information that is several years out of date.

6. Generally likes to accuse his opponents of stupidity any time they make a mistake - hey, I may be dumb, but at least I can do basic probability calculations (see final comment in comments section).

7. Accuses others of inability to read properly - then claims I am stating that he thinks Henry Gee supports creationism (what I actually said is that his book, not him, is being touted as support for antievolution views, which is clearly not the same thing)

So, I look forward to Steve creating a hoopla about his own intellectual deficiencies ;-D

Anyway Steve, being more serious again, I thank you for your input. You are welcome to respond here if you like, but if you'd prefer to reply on your own blog, just post a link in my comments section so people can read it. However, I think I will definitely make this my last post as I honestly find it difficult just to match your word count - this took me several hours to complete and I probably could have easily added more, and no doubt you have other things to do with your time like I do.

Increasing information in the genome - #1: discussion of the challenge

In response to Rhology's challenge to provide examples of increasing genetic information, I decided to write a brief summary of examples and mechanisms. This isn't an easy task, as many of the explanations can be quite complicated and lengthy, but I will try to provide a straightforward outline. I will approach it as a series of parts in order to make sure the arguments are on the correct track at each stage.

The criteria Rhology laid out were as follows:

1. Has been observed in an organism NOT IN A LAB (b/c that would inject intelligence into the equation, and I'm after full nature here
2. Has increased the USEFUL information in the genome
3. Has been BENEFICIAL for survival in the organism's natural habitat
4. Which occurred without ANY human intervention whatsoever
5. And which has been observed repeatedly.

The best thing to do is run through these conditions first. I wrote some stuff on this thread when he first posted it, but that was quite a while ago so I may be repeating myself in places here.

The criteria seem extremely strict, and are more or less designed (no pun intended...) to hamstring the possibility of any pro-evolutionary conclusion via laboratory experimentation.

Intelligence is not really well-defined here, nor is what it is capable of or the mechanisms by which it exerts its effects (the impression I am getting is that it is comparable to a small scale version of God like creative ability, where the mind can simply will things to happen, but I may be incorrect on this assumption). For example, other animals we consider intelligent (chimps, dolphins etc) often interact with their environment in a manner we recognise as similar to our own actions - where is the benchmark being set for what qualifies as intelligence? Presumably, the more intelligent a person, the better their results would be - would Einstein conducting the experiment have allowed the outcome of the experiment to be more favourable to the organism than someone of more moderate intelligence? Anyway,I shall deal with the 5 specific criteria as best I can:

1. Why this is a big deal I am not sure. A salmon in a river is still a salmon if you drop it in a fish tank. Humans don't get assigned to a new species when they go from strolling out in the countryside to heading indoors to a semi-detached bungalow. All bacteria do in a lab is grow on media plates that provide their minimum nutrient requirements - the same as if they grew on the chicken dinner you left out for a week, in your gut or on the skin of fish. In fact, quite often there is the danger they will grow where they are not wanted, hence the need to mix antibiotics into culture media to prevent this in many experiments.

If the argument is that the mere presence of the researcher causes some kind of favoured direction on the outcome of the experiment (eg imbues bacteria with the ability to digest citrate), this raises a series of obvious questions: why would humans not utilise this astonishing capability on themselves (or since we are talking evolution, their offspring)? Surely it would spell the end of birth defects, genetic disorders, susceptibility to disease etc etc if we did indeed possess such abilities. As this clearly isn't the case, you'd have to accept that the mere presence of an intellect or the act of conducting an experiment is not sufficient to ensure any preferred outcome.

Other questions I have considered are posted on Rhology's blog, but briefly:

• Lab experiments are conducted with controls - the researcher is present in both, the only difference will be the environmental variable(s) provided by the experimental treatment

• No outcome is guaranteed in an experiment - the expt. could fail, give the opposite to the hypothesis or do nothing at all - if the conclusion is guided to a desired outcome, how can this be the case? The researcher has no control on which solution the organisms will hit on to adapt, if indeed they do actually manage this at all

• Some experiments take vast amounts of time to conduct (years in some cases) - assuming ID, why go to this effort via letting the experiment 'free run' when selective/forced breeding or genetic manipulation would do the job quicker and with a much higher chance of the desired outcome being reached?

2. How information is being defined here is not clear - is it sheer number of bases? Or simply a new or enhanced property conferred via an alteration of the genome of any sort eg a base substitution? Deletions can confer useful new properties or functions (eg the CCR5 delta 32 mutant is a deletion of 32 bases in a chemokine receptor that confers resistance to HIV (and possibly other diseases) in humans) - so it may be considered that there is new 'information' in terms of new functional properties, but there is a loss in base number. Some benefits in one regard come with a slight cost in another regard (eg loss or reduction in another property, but with an overall net benefit to the organism) - for example, mutations that confer resistance to malaria may also make people more susceptible to HIV infection. However, it may also slow the progression of AIDS after HIV infection. Would these count? Hard to tell. Or possibly information is being considered in a more mathematical fashion?

3. Habitats are not always static, and what may be useful in one environment may be hopeless in another. Some organisms such as bacteria and archaea are capable of occupying just about every environment you care to think of, so which one qualifies as their natural habitat isn't entirely clear here. Also, quite often an adaptation will allow a population to cope with a new environment, as opposed to simply being more successful in its current one.

4. Assuming here that intervention means any kind of genetic manipulation (eg gene knockouts, transgenics, forced artificial breeding etc) as opposed to simply being in the general vicinity of the organisms being studied or examining genomes etc via sequencing methods and so on? This seems to tie in with point 1, discussed above.

5. This is not clear how repeatably is being quantified - does he mean in all the organisms in a population, or just 2 and upwards? Or in multiple different populations?

This briefly deals with some of the points of the challenge as well as attempting to clarify some of the definitions a little better. Hopefully this will generate some discussion before moving on to dealing with aspects such as genetic changes and evolution.

Theistic package deals: all a person's needs neatly rolled into one whopping assumption

I read over your claims, Rhology, and have made a summary of some of what I disagree with:

First, it is quite easy to set up a system of logical beliefs that follow from an arbitrary, incorrect or ridiculous starting assumption (and you'll not be surprised to hear that I consider TGOTB to be all 3!) eg John Frame's example of the student that believes everyone is trying to kill him is perfect - of course his starting assumption is nonsense, but then what follows from that assumption (eg people being nice to him are actually disguising their ulterior motives) is perfectly logical. As discussed before, it is possible to even start with another equally arbitrary god figure that shares the necessary base requirements with TGOTB but has enacted a completely different set of events in our world - after all, anytime the evidence is lacking, one can just appeal to a completely different set of unsupported miracles of one's own choosing.

Second, when you say 'account for' logic (or morality, or existence, or whatever you prefer), what do you actually mean? After all, you have previously agreed that you don't know the ins and outs of how it all happens (bar using the term 'supernatural' mechanism, which is a very vague term, referring as the supernatural does to all manner of questionable feats and phenomena such as God(s), demons, telekinesis, ghosts etc). As I've discussed at length with you, packaging these things under the bracket of 'Goddidit' doesn't really explain an awful lot, if anything. To look at it from another angle, we all agree that the respective computer screens in front of us exist, but I have no idea how mine was put together, how the electronics in it work and the physics underlying the operation of the semiconductors etc. ie I can't 'account for' it, you may say. This doesn't mean any explanation I can concoct out of thin air is valid. However, it would be perfectly legitimate for me to simply admit that I know the fact that it exists, without knowing the specifics of how and why. That doesn't really fly in the case of God, since millions of people claim to 'know' the fact that mutually incompatible gods all exist(ed), or that various facets of reality depended on his/their existence. Furthermore, you have the issue of problems originally attributed to the supernatural through history that now have plausible alternative solutions (eg psychological diseases etc and demonic possession - this still is the case in some places, for example in this study some people thought their facial twitching was a result of possession. Obviously, we can provide many more realistic explanations as to why it is happening). Not being able to provide an answer is not the same as showing an alternative to be correct, and nor does it by extension show other views the person may hold (such as the lack of existence of God(s)) to be wrong.

Moving on, theists essentially believe that reality is as God wants it to be and that he has a plan for us - ie if God has good reason for suddenly blinking my computer screen out of existence, then that's what'll happen whether I expect it or not. The problem is, this renders reality completely subjective, a little like being in a movie where the director/animator/etc can make the project take whichever direction he or she pleases. Really, it's impossible to know anything if you make the assumption of a subjective reality as your starting point - and this is before we get into miracles, the Devil/evil forces and spirits, the prospect of an evil God masquerading as a good God etc etc that just further add to the subjective nature of theistic reality. So what use is that to us in our quest to know things about the world? How would you be sure you knew anything about God or the bible if those facts themselves are reduced to being subjective due to your starting assumptions? So the whole enterprise becomes self-refuting, since because reality is subjective (ie dependent on whatever God wishes to happen), you can't even be sure if your God belief is real or not, or whether any facts actually obtain as you think they do.

There are more problems that I can see regarding God being the source of morality. Divine Command morality, for example, runs into the Euthyphro dilemma (DCM is also listed under Subjectivism in philosophy regarding metaethics). You've countered this before by saying that morality flows from God's nature - in which case, large parts of the bible become unnecessary or pointless (eg the 10 commandments) if people can know morality without commands. All you've really done in terms of Euthyphro is switched 'divine command' for 'God's nature'. The problem remains essentially exactly the same. Your criteria were:

1) consistent with atheism (of whatever flavor)
2) objective, and
3) not arbitrarily based on what that individual says or a collection of individuals says.

Obviously God's commands are consistent with theism, so your viewpoint's version of (1) is fine, but (2) and (3) just shunt the burden as you've outlined it from 'because human(s) say so' to 'because God says so'. Again, other than begging the question by simply asserting 'God is good', you also have to deal with the very problem you feel atheists have to face.


You'd also have to wonder why, if God's nature imbues the universe or us with morality, morals are not and have not been uniform through society/history? Even the most despicable acts you can think of, you can easily find groups or individuals who didn't bat an eyelid when carrying them out. Or you could take drug use as an example of a contentious moral issue. Some people think there is nothing whatsoever wrong with people being free to take drugs (eg Libertarians). Others think it's a heinous crime worthy of the death penalty (eg the government of Singapore). You also run into the problem that if we/the universe has some ingrained source of morality, that it may be that it's arisen as a result of some arrangement of particles or natural process - something that could therefore conceivably have happened as the result of eg the Big Bang, evolution or any other possible natural process such as those mooted by Senapathy, Lamarck, Schwabe etc - it just runs into the 'brute fact of the universe' complaint again, like we discussed before with logic. Again, the evil God card could be played here too.


Finally, a criteria you have used previously for validating a 'worldview' is internal critique, stating that the inerrancy of the bible is validation of the truth of your starting assumption. But this just runs into massive problems. For example, the numerous numerical inconsistencies it has (eg 1 Chronicles 21:5 vs 2 Samuel 24:9), the difference in the day of Jesus' death in John versus the other gospels, basic factual errors such as what sort of classification bats fall under, the completely different endings the 4 gospels have, as well as known embellishments that have been added down the line (eg the extra verse(s) in Mark) and many, many more. You also have problems with appealing to harmonisations - since there is no way of validating these, instances where 2 or more different harmonisations can be made up just cause rather than solve problems. Really, gap filling of this sort (eg in the Genesis stories) is just making up one's own version of events, which anyone can do. The claim of inerrancy is also hampered by the fact that none of the autographs actually exist, so how can anyone know this with certainty?

Other claims don't really match up to any sort of reality that we know - eg that Christians can pray for things and receive what they pray for. Of course, thse 'unmistakable' answers to prayer are always for things that are at least feasible in the first place (such as a relative recovering from illness, or an end to a war etc). This is quite easy to refute - all a true believer has to do is pray for my computer screen to turn into an apple, and I personally will send them a cheque for $1000 if and when it happens (or something equally unlikely - they could even do it for something that will happen in front of a large audience such as the fully rebuilt Twin Towers popping back into existence from nothing at ground zero). After all, an omnipotent God should have no trouble with this sort of thing - unless of course there is no omnipotent, prayer answering God to back up the grand claims made on his behalf.

Anyway, these are some fairly simple objections to what you have posted - obviously don't feel you need to reply to all of them, as it is quite long (I'm also not too sure how much time I will have to respond in the next few weeks as I am in the middle of quite a busy period with work, etc) but I would be interested to hear your responses.

Religulous

I went to see this on its opening night last night, and thought I'd offer my opinions.

First of all it's fairly entertaining: Maher is not someone I was that familiar with before I saw it, but he seems quite a funny guy at times. The problem is though, despite the fact the movie isn't intended to be an overly serious examination of religious belief, a fair percentage of the interviews are with the more crackpot element of various religious factions, making it a little too easy to poke fun:

• Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, who claims he's the 2nd coming of Christ (a claim that is demonstrably false, since if it was true it would mean non-believers such as myself would be sitting somewhere rather warm right now)
  
• A team of Rabbis who have constructed some elaborate technology to circumvent laws regarding acceptable behaviour on the Sabbath
• A minister of a black Baptist church with a suspiciously expensive taste in clothing and jewellery

One of the more unusual parts of the film was the interview with a Catholic priest at the Vatican, since he seemed to consider pretty much all of the tenets of Christianity he was asked about as being totally ridiculous. Father George Coyne of the Vatican observatory wasn't quite as dismissive, but did happily explain that most of the scientific claims in the bible are completely without foundation. At which point I found myself wondering why exactly either of them were members of the priesthood if they considered the bible to be so seriously in error?

Another segment I had a bit of an issue with was the comparisons with other religions and deities (eg Mithras and Horus). These claims crop up quite frequently in movies such as 'The God who Wasn't There' and 'Zeitgeist' as well as on the web, but quite a number of the claimed similarities don't seem to be true - for example, the claim that Jesus was born on December 25th like the others isn't actually claimed to be true by any knowledgeable Christians, it's simply a date that was assigned later to align his birth with ancient festivals. There are actually many parallels to Jesus' character/actions that can be found in the Old Testament (eg apocalyptic prophecy in Micah, raising the dead in 1Kings by Elijah, feeding large numbers of people with a small number of loaves of bread by Elisha in 2 Kings) that might have served as better and more accurate examples of precursors to Jesus' characteristics.

In summary, it's worth seeing as long as you just want a few easy laughs and to see interviews with some interesting characters, but if you want a serious examination of the faults of various religions I'd look elsewhere.

The wonders that the internet has brought us

I think the 'but somebody is wrong on the internet' gif has a new rival. Kind of sums up blogging/posting opinions on forums when you think about it!