Response to Apologetics, as portrayed by Kristen Godeau
While using Google Scholar, I came upon a paper from Kristen Godeau that succinctly describes Christian Apologetics. Instead of responding to works hundreds of pages long over a medium such as this blog, I’m going to take this much shorter paper and respond to that. It’s nine pages long, but there is still a lot of things to cover.
To begin with, here is a link to the original paper:
Why I am a Christian
I’ll start at the beginning and work my way through, putting the quotes from the paper before my responses.
“One of the most prominent antagonists in individuals finding true Christianity is the popular belief that religion must be found by faith alone. This belief is derived from the nature of fideism, which says that there is no logic or verifiability in religion. This separates topics such as history, science and philosophy from religion, making it very difficult for intellectuals to find truth and a deeper meaning to life.”
He starts out great. This is exactly the problem that is faced. I maintain that the case has yet to be made that religion is verifiable, but we’ll see throughout this response.
Kristen goes on to talk about how normal Christians never even try to solve this problem, and how that opens the religion up to numerous criticisms. Once again, I completely agree. Ignorance reigns with the common Christian. He goes on to claim that “there is a philosophical, historical, and scientific basis for these beliefs.” This is where we begin to disagree.
The next few paragraphs give a personal story, and then talks about the nature of god. How “He created our minds, the world around us, and the dimensions of science that even scientists cannot explain.” I only object to the wording “cannot.” There is nothing in the natural world that exists where we can never find the answer to. The basis of science is that we can figure out exactly how the world works through observation and empirical evidence. There are things we cannot answer _as of yet_, such as the specific origin of life, or combing relativistic gravity with quantum gravity, but that is a big difference between saying, “an answer outside of god does not exist.” Perhaps Kristen was not saying this, but I want to make this clear in any case.
Kristen then goes on to say that “I believe that when one studies science alongside the Bible, he will see that they do not contradict each other.” As one who has both studied the bible extensively and studied as much as I can of science, I cannot see this at all. Luckily, Kristen provides examples which I will get to in a moment.
Earlier Kristen stated, “a scientist will refute a Christian by saying that the creation theory is nothing more than a myth.” Kristen then states that science and Christian religion augment each other. However these are mutually exclusive. Even if you say that god used evolution for his creation, it still takes the creation story including adam and eve out of the realm of the literal and into the realm of the symbolic. By definition, the creation story as told in Genesis becomes a myth. A myth does not imply “false.”
Kristen then talks about how many of the great scientists of the western world have been Christians. This I do not debate, but I would point out that the number of Christian scientists contributing seriously to the scientific world has steadily declined ever since the theory of evolution was introduced. Also, Thomas Edison is given as an example, when Edison was an Atheist.
The next thing that is discussed is how the Universe’ order and precision is too perfectly placed in order for them to occur naturally. Sometimes the word used is ‘randomly,’ or by chance, though Kristen does not use these words.
The problem with this is that Evolution is not about random chance at all, but a specific order, called Natural Selection. The constants and forces in the Universe are not formed out of random chance, either, but had to evolve in specific steps. The field of cosmological evolution studies these steps. To claim that the mere presence of order and precision is evidence of a supreme creator is to display your ignorance of modern scientific theory.
Likewise, Kristens example of biological evidence for a creator is explained away by natural selection. Kristen claims to examine the scientific evidence, but never even mentions natural selection. He is still stuck in the past, where we did not yet have the mechanisms to explain these things, and does not seem to want to look at them seriously, even though the premise of his paper resides around that very thing.
This ignorance is plainly evident a few paragraphs down, where the he proclaims, “It makes far more sense in my mind to believe that God created all that is around us than to believe that it just appeared one day, with no source, and no one to organize it all.”
Evolution does not claim that at all! To make that sentence shows the highest form of ignorance of even the most basic principals and ideas of evolution. The universe did not “just appear one day.” How can one even answer this monstrosity?
Kristen then goes on to talk about Christ specifically. He begins with “Archaeology is one aspect of historical studies that points to the truth of the Bible.”
False. Plain and simple. Unless you take into accounts those crackpots who claim to have discovered Noah’s Ark 6 different times now. Please show me some articles from peer reviewed journal. I don’t care if it’s Christian scholars or secular scholars, just show me the articles.
It continues, “There is physical proof of people who we learn about in the Word of God. This is something that makes Christianity different from many other belief systems. For example, there has never been any physical evidence proving the existence of tribes or individuals described in the Book of Mormon.” The first part of this is true. There is archeological evidence for people we read about in the bible. The second part is false. There is physical proof of people we read about in other belief systems. I do not know about Mormonism, however.
Again, “The Bible, on the other hand, has physical proof of historical validity, as well as extra-Biblical writings that have been passed down among Christians and non-Christians.” If you’re talking about Josephus, you can quit, because that’s been pretty well debunked. There exist _no_ first hand accounts of Jesus Christ. Please send me a list of texts if you have otherwise.
Then onto Prophecy: “Another aspect of history that verifies Christianity is Biblical prophecy. Very specific prophecies that were given during Bible times took place over the years to come after the canon of scripture was already complete and in circulation.”
Once again, this shows very ignorant scholarship. Prophecy is one of those things that have not been proven. Prophecies are usually vague enough that they can apply to a large number of things. Or they have been twisted to change their meanings into something else, such as the author of Matthew did at the beginning of the gospel.
Then Kristen goes on to his final impeachment: “The Bible is never altered. Scripture has never been changed, with the exception of possible grammatical alterations.”
Blatantly false. I understand that “Misquoting Jesus” is a pretty good book for talking about this sort of thing. I’ve not read it, but that’s what I’ve heard. There are other examples as well, however, such as the multiple changes to the Old Testament over the Hundreds of years, as well as the false authorship assigned to Moses of the first five books of the bible. Bible scholars and secular scholars alike agree that there have been many changes to the bible over the years.
Kristen goes on to talk about a few other things:
“What other religion can give valid accounts of a human walking on water or seeing someone raised from the dead?” Both have occurred in other religions, sometimes predating Christianity. The idea of “valid accounts” is suspect, because there exists no first hand accounts of any of these things; they are all the product of oral tradition, except perhaps in the case of Appylonius.
“Who can refute a man who walks out of a tomb after the brutal death of crucifixion?” Once again, no first hand accounts.
“Who would even want to stop a man from praying for a leper who is completely healed and restored?” I don’t know what is being said in this sentence.
“How can you argue with a man whose God just brought down fire from heaven to consume a wet altar just to prove that He was real when other gods were simply a figment of the peoples’ imaginations?” Ah, the old testament prophets. I don’t have an answer for this one, other than you have to take the story on faith alone.
“There is never an unfulfilled promise in the Word of God.” Actually there are several. The Skeptics Annotated Bible outlines them. It’s available for free online. Take a look.
“Man would not create a religion in which he was never getting the victory.” Evidence for this statement? I didn’t know that the field of Human Psychology was well developed enough to state something like this as fact.
“The apostles were so impacted by His miracles, teachings, and bodily resurrection that they were willing to give everything they had and suffer even unto death.” You see accounts of this same sort of thing in other religions. It is not unique to Christianity.
“They sacrificed it all for the sake of the Kingdom of God, not for their own personal gain.” This is not evidence for anything, although, I would point out that the bible does speak about ‘treasures in heaven.’ Also, wouldn’t this be evidence for Allah, seeing the modern day prevalence of suicide bombers?
Kristen begins to wrap it up: “When nonbiased study, an open mind and heart, and critical thinking skills are applied, the outcome is almost inevitable.” I agree, but I haven’t seen any of this in the paper. It’s why I’m now an Atheist.
“When all the evidence is spread out on the table, I believe it takes far more faith to disprove the God of the Bible than it does to believe in Him” What evidence?
“I believe that God would rather us believe in Him because we have tested and proven Him, than simply to follow after His followers with a weak heart and a weak faith, trusting only because we have been told we should trust in Him.” Once again, I completely agree. If god exists, this is what he would want. Only, these tests and proofs have not been presented to me, nor have I been able to locate them.
“This is the very reason why I choose to believe in the one true God, because His character and His teachings can stand up to any test.” How about the “ask and it shall be given” test? Or the “when two people are gathered together” test?
“He is always victorious, even when we cannot grasp the fullness of His purpose or mode of victory.” This is the equivalent of saying “God wins even when it looks like he doesn’t.” This is something that is faith based, and completely excludes evidence.
Overall, I am still completely unconvinced. I enter these things with an open mind, but I’m getting tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. The biggest problem is that these people seem to be very very ignorant of what the theory of evolution is, as well as what science in general is all about, or the methods of archeology and historical study, or the formation of the canon and the early evolution of Christianity. Yes, the god who “is the same yesterday today and forever” has ‘shown’ us many different faces over the years. Being ‘two-faced’ is not a compliment unless you’re talking about god, then it is just another example of his awesome perfection.
Perhaps I’ll find something better tomorrow.
And so ends my longest blog post to date. I hope it made sense.
Theology
Atheism, christianity
