ProTheism

A few months ago a friend emailed me a clever collection of terms he previously retrieved from a message board called “The Believer’s Dictionary.” The list of terms and descriptions are both amusing and sobering. The dictionary provides an overwhelming sense of familiarity when conversing with skeptics. Anyone who has spent a diminutive amount of time dialoging with petulant internet atheologians will immediately appreciate The Believer's Dictionary. I tried to track down the source of this with no avail. I have a suspicion it’s from a Muslim message board due to some specific annotations; however, I am unsure. Regardless, the material is a *must* read! If anyone knows the source, or is able to track it down, please let me know—I would like to provide a link to the original source if I can.

---

I enjoy reading from The Skeptic’s Dictionary: it’s a useful resource for learning about common nonsense (for example, who first spoke of the imaginary “gray men” aliens, these having been similar to the aliens on an episode of The Outer Limits which had recently aired). All the same, though, I have some bones to pick—more with trendy pseudo-intellectual sorts of skeptics in general than with the Dictionary itself, so I thought I’d list them here as my own dictionary about the common pitfalls of skepticism. So far I have twenty-four entries; with time I may add more. So without further ado, here is The Believer’s Dictionary!

“Ancient = stupid” fallacy: The skeptics’ own version of Erich von Daniken’s famous arguments in favor of the existence UFOs. The absurd misinterpretations and reinterpretations of myths coming invariably from art (poetry, murals, songs, statues, etc.)—which is by definition a nonliteral medium—as being necessarily entirely literal when regarding ancient religions even though modern art is not the same way. This is used as fodder for stereotypes about religion as a universally mythical thing that always ends up getting “explained” by science. (See also THE OL’ SWITCHEROO.) This results in the very most insulting false depictions of ancient people as being dumber than modern people (not more unlearned: dumber)—somehow capable of believing, for example, that lightning is literally the scepter of a god even though it looks nothing remotely like a scepter and sometimes strikes in more than one place at once, or that a chariot literally pulls the sun even though one can never be seen.

Atheist’s catch-22: The tendency of many atheists to adhere to a stereotype about atheists in response to that same stereotype. This stereotype is that they’re all morally wretched: they get so angry about this that they resort to crude, childish, spiteful attitudes in response, often to the point of mockery (a massively popular hallmark of skepticism), and in doing so become morally wretched, and as such by attacking the stereotype they end up feeding it.

“Break it, don’t buy it” fallacy: The specific type of ad hominem attack countless millions of skeptics use as a reason to reject religion, that the atrocities, terrorism, crusades, etc. caused by breaking the rules of numerous religions somehow discredits the value or believability of the religions themselves. (You’d think that if anything, that would indicate the opposite.) This makes about as much sense as rejecting the Bill of Rights because of the Patriot Act that defies them in the name of the same country.

Coincidence-clustering bifurcation: The double standard many skeptics hold wherein if something extraordinary happens once or twice then it’s just a fluke, whereas if extraordinary things happens frequently then it’s due to the mathematical principle known as clustering. In other words, nothing can ever convince these skeptics since every possible situation is seen through its own respective presumption. They’ve left no way for anything ever to convince them that they’re wrong. When believers do this it’s called closed-minded blind faith; when skeptics do the same thing here it’s just seeing things scientifically. How about that? See also SCARBOROUGH EFFECT.

Consciousness: To the average non-soulist, somehow the same thing as the soul or equivalent to it in some way. They see consciousness as defining our being ourselves, our being “in there”, so to speak. For some strange reason it never occurs to them that people are themselves, fully “in there”, when dreaming, and we dream while we’re unconscious. Therefore the self and consciousness can’t be the same thing entirely—when we dream we’d be having a self while having no self. See also SELF.

The Ever-shifting Burden of Proof: The mysteriously changeful criterion for who should have the burden of proof in any discussion between skeptics and believers (for example, over the issue of God’s existence)—now it’s the person *introducing* the claim who has the burden of proof, now the person with the *extraordinary* claim, now the person with the *positive* claim—whatever is most convenient for the skeptic at the particular moment.

Freethinker: An irreligious atheist—after all, we open-minded people all know that no one who disagrees with you can possibly be capable of thinking freely.

God: To a skeptic, the word “God” means “whatever particular theory of what God happens to be like (not who He is) according to the prevailing, orthodox, mainstream ideas where the skeptic lives”. This is why “incompatible properties” arguments for God’s nonexistence never involve merely the basic denotation of “creator and ruler of the universe” that you’ll find in any dictionary (usually in those exact words), and also why so many atheists (many of them intelligent people with English as a first language) claim to disbelieve in God because the word doesn’t really mean anything.

Great Lie of Skepticism: “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Few die hard skeptics who ever say this and then see what seems to be a ghost/angel/whatever are likely to actually change their mind like they more or less promised they would. They’ll just keep on denying, saying that they were hallucinating, dreaming, having their senses play tricks on them, etc. Now of course they may very well be completely correct about that, but my point is not the accuracy or inaccuracy of such a conclusion but the dishonest, closed-minded double standard involved.

Identity crisis: The confusion materialists (in the philosophical sense of the word “materialism”) always make between what something is made of, or how it works, and what it *is*. Without this confusion, materialism probably wouldn’t even be a possible belief.

“Knowledge is power” fallacy: Perhaps the single most irrational argument in the history of human beings, the idea that God either doesn’t exist or isn’t good because He knows what’s going to happen before it happens and therefore nobody is free to do anything else. Why should foreknowledge of another person’s choice (assuming that God goes from one moment to the next along with us in the first place, which is improbable) cancel its being a choice at all? Foreknowledge does not equal causation. We know that the people around us are going to die someday: that does not make us murderers. If we went back in time and watched Lincoln give the Gettysburg address, it would not qualify us as his speechwriters. We all know that the sun will rise tomorrow: that does not mean we’re making it happen. How do intelligent people ever fall into this nonsense?! But then there I go, sounding like a skeptic.

“Lack of belief”: An almost comically nonsensical and incoherent phrase used by many atheists as a redefinition of atheism for their own convenient purposes. Flies in the face of every English dictionary ever printed in the history of planet earth. Is never explained precisely, but apparently refers to nonbelief as opposed to disbelief. For example, the atheists ask, wouldn’t someone who’s never heard of God be an atheist? The answer is clearly and undeniably “no”, since the official definition of “atheism”, used universally by all but these select few atheists (even by most other atheists, from what I understand) is someone who has heard of God and disbelieves in Him. “So what do you call people who have never heard of God?” the label-obsessed people ask? Call me crazy, but how about “people who have never heard of God”?

Mind-reading contradiction: The idea that skeptics hold who profess disbelieve in mind-reading yet nevertheless are themselves capable of reading the minds of believers, knowing impossibly all the supposedly psychological reasons for our belief even if they don’t know us at all. The way I see it: either mind-reading is possible, or it isn’t. If it is, I see no reason why prejudiced pseudo-Freudian skeptics should have a monopoly on it.

Mythicism: The disbelief that Jesus (P) never existed, invariably based on the supposed lack of definitive historical evidence for his existence. The problem here is that history up until the invention of recording devices in the nineteenth century is a huge heap of guesswork for modern people, and so very little of it (if anything) can really be known with a tenth the surety everyone blindly assumes exists. Were the mythicists consistent with their logic, they would disbelieve not only in the existence of Jesus (P) but also about half of the people they ever heard about in history class from grade school through college.

Obsolete: In reference to arguments for God’s existence, this means “rebutted at any time by any disbeliever at any point in history, however poorly, illogically or incompletely”. You can imagine how angry the skeptics would get if we believers flipped it around and said the same thing in reference to their own arguments.

The Old Switcheroo: Replacing the ancient meaningless labels like “the action of spirits” which once “explained” why the universe works the way it is with more modern meaningless labels like “the forces of nature” and saying that we’ve now “explained” what people previously thought was something else. One may as well take something people once “explained” by dubbing it ickywicky and “explain” it by calling it glooberflek instead.

Organized religion: Bizarre redundancy used with enormous frequency by skeptics despite the fact that, just by definition, there could never possibly be any such thing as a disorganized religion.

Razor reverence: Blind, more or less religious faith in Occam’s Razor, a general rule that works best as a last resort rather than what many skeptics think it is, which is a near-absolute rule almost along the lines of a law of nature. One more excuse for not having to accept the complexity of life, perhaps: people of all stripes seem to have a problem with that.

Religion: As skeptics define it: “Whatever religion is the prevailing one where the skeptic speaking lives, because of course no other religions exist in the world”. Western skeptical writers judge all religions by Christianity; those in Islamic countries regard Islam as if its beliefs are the same as all religious beliefs; and so on. Prime examples of this nonsense are H.P. Lovecraft’s charge that his problem with “religion” is the idea of a God of everything caring enough about a cosmic flyspeck to send His only son to redeem it (for as we all know, every religion throughout history has taught just that) and Richard Carrier by his own confession declaring, “Yep, I’m an atheist,” after finishing the Bible (for as we all know, it’s impossible to believe in God without believing in the Bible).

Santa lag: The feeling of weariness and vague nausea a theist gets after approximately the 9,000th time hearing an atheist who thinks he’s real cute compare the existence of God to the existence of Santa Claus—an analogy that’s as inaccurate as it is insulting, since Santa Claus is a deliberate lie which the people teaching it never believe in.

Scarborough Effect: Believing that God/the afterlife/ghosts/entrail reading/whatever aren’t real because there is no scientific evidence for their existence. Since these things are by definition supernatural and therefore outside what science can detect, what this attitude boils down to is, “Because there is no scientific evidence for its existence, we disbelieve in this thing that could never yield scientific evidence even if it were to exist since it is supposed to be outside the parameters of science.” One may as well conclude that Mexico City doesn’t exist because one can’t find it anywhere in Australia. I named this principle after the song “Are You Going to Scarborough Fair?” in which a series of impossible-to-meet criteria are given as the only way for the narrator of the song to be persuaded of something. See also COINCIDENCE-CLUSTERING BIFURCATION.

Scarecrow Syndrome: The stereotype many skeptics hold that no other reasons (even incorrect ones) for religious belief of any kind, or even belief in the existence of God, are possible except intuitive or emotional ones. Apparently we believers are incapable even of false logic; nothing could ever motivate us but our hearts. Similar to the belief many Bible-bangers have that no one can reject Christianity for any reason except some wicked, selfish desire as opposed to disagreement that the religion’s doctrines appear to be true or even believable. I named this principle so not only because of the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz who had a heart but no brain, but also because the syndrome I’m speaking of here is a form of “straw man” argument. See also MIND-READING CONTRADICTION.

Self: To most non-soulists, the same thing as self-awareness. Since when does someone have to be aware of something in order for it to exist?? See also CONSCIOUSNESS.

Superstition: To a skeptic, any belief in anything whatsoever that’s supernatural or paranormal, however ill fitting a label “superstition” may be to the belief in question even from a disbelieving point of view for anyone who knows what the word “superstition” means.

Labels: Atheism, Atheology, Skepticism

Apparently, there is a double standard when it comes to justifying ones own assumptions on presuppositional matters. The Christian must give an account of all affirmations of the Christian worldview, or such assertions are deemed unfounded and are rejected as unsupported beliefs or non-rational lines of reasoning. Conversely, some atheists have excluded themselves from the burden they impose. This special pleading effect is evident in the area of foundational beliefs—such as morality, logic, reason and so on. However, when those foundational beliefs are represented as deductive premises in an argument, they should not be surprised when they are challenged on it. In fact, their case hinges on many unspoken assumptions for which they often offer no supporting argument.

I have found that some unbelievers may even become infuriated when one points out that secularism has no principled basis for morality. This is often pointed out when a non-believer, such as a secularist, uses morality (e.g. problems of ‘evil’ and ‘suffering’ etc…) to argue against Christianity. Nevertheless, rather than supporting their premise of “evil”; they assume the challenge as a type of personal affront. Responses vary from statements such as “I m a moral person” and “I don’t need a book or a ‘god’ to be moral.” Thus, rather than address the question, they regress on to an erroneous trail of personal and observational testimony. However, when I challenge an unbeliever about their moral premises, I am not judging their character, or calling into question their moral behavior; rather, I am questioning the referent they use that governs their moral system. In other words, I am questioning their own yardstick they use to determine what is-or-is-not moral.

For instance, when an atheist uses the existence of evil as an argument against Christianity, the Christian has every right to challenge the premise of their argument. Recently, I have heard an atheist state that the challenge of moral substantiation is a dishonest tactic to trap the atheist, because the theist already deduces that the atheist cannot provide a basis for morality; thus, Christianity is true by default. Yet, this is untrue—at least in my own challenges. Though I do think that secularism cannot provide a sufficient basis to support their premises and always will fall short of grounding morality in something other than oneself; the position leads to moral relativism or nihilism. However, I don’t think that qualifies the secular position as *necessarily* false. So the intent of the challenge is not to entrap per se, but to entice one to examine and substantiate their position. Thus, such arguments should be challenged until demonstrated otherwise, or is recognized to be flawed.

Though I think their argument to be flawed, I do not think it to be meaningless. Interestingly, the meaning within their argument is not recognized by the very person making the argument. In fact, the very argument counters their polemic against Christianity. From the words of C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity:

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. ... Of course, I could have given up my idea of justice by saying that it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist--in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless--I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality--namely my idea of justice--was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

So the moral argument against God and Christianity has meaning, but not with an atheistic worldview (at least not one than I have seen). The atheist must borrow the Christian worldview of morality in order to argue against the Christian worldview. Ironic.

Case In Point

The Reluctant Thinker (A.K.A. the Reluctant Atheist) has become aggravated and eager to avoid grappling with the theistic challenge of a moral framework. I want to look at his post on the subject of morality to demonstrate my point. Before I start though, the Reluctant Atheist is not a reluctant thinker because he does not think, or that he is unintelligent; he is a reluctant thinker because he is reluctant to think about where his position leads and doesn’t lead. I am sure he is an intelligent man, and many intelligent people hold the same position of morality he does—so this not to an affront on him, but an affront on his position and response to the moral challenge. Nevertheless, there are some very intelligent unbelievers who go to desperate lengths to deny the obvious or silence the opposition with backbiting refusal to engage in order to justify their unbelief.

In the beginning of his post, he states:

[S]omewhere, somewhen, there’s some unwritten rule that we atheists are required to explain how it is that we’re moral creatures, without the benefit of having transcendent guidance.

I hate this crap.

I know why this is hated, because every time this challenge is brought up—they cannot substantiate their claims of theodicy. This is basically saying “talk to the hand.” It gets old defending the indefensible I suppose. I have had this discussion with the author before. When pushed against the wall hard enough, he stated, “Truthfully, my position is ad hoc.” Yet, if a position is ad hoc, it loses its deductive power and thus does not provide adequate premises to argue in favor of theodicy.

Secondly, why is it okay for the atheist to avoid justification for their beliefs, while the theist must be substantiate their beliefs?

Continuing…

At some juncture, I just lose interest. Besides which, I think it’s a trap, a pitfall we fall into as a rule. I mean, really, why on earth do I HAVE to explain it? I don’t. I feel that I (and my fellow atheists) best exemplify by example. To wit: the large percentile of crimes committed in this (or for the most part, any other) society is committed by religious folk.

This is a reluctant thinker’s way of plugging his ears to any critique of his position on morality. He says, “why do I HAVE to explain it”; the answer is—you have to explain it when it’s a premises in your argument. If you’re going to go on the offensive, and give Christianity the finger, don’t expect a free pass. Those who state one doesn’t have to answer on this issue are usually indicating that they cannot answer it.

It would be one thing to corner someone to justify morality when they have not given an opinion on the matter; however, the rub comes in when someone uses a moral deduction to argue against Christianity. Thus, one is required (if they want to preserve the argument) to support the premises of the deduction.

Secondly, the author goes to state that “the large percentile of crimes committed in this (or for the most part, any other) society is committed by religious folk.” So what is being said is that atheists have exemplified superior morality than ‘religious folk.’ However, (1) this is an assertion not an argument (2) only gives a descriptive measure of morality (3) begs the question (4) fails to note the center of moral substantiation—that is to substantiate the prescriptive basis of such actions (5) what of the crimes committed by ‘non-religious folks’. The statement means nothing, and solves nothing without giving prescriptive justification for atheists. For if there is no prescriptive justification, then there is no condemnation of not being moral.

Natural Ethics

Continuing, we now explore the paradox of natural ethics:

Thus far, it seems I’m a moral naturalist.

“Moral naturalism is a form of cognitivism derived from applying evolutionary game-theory to ethics. Rather than interpreting morality as the result of negotiations between members of a large group of free moral agents, moral naturalism sees morality as an emergent phenomenon arising as an unintended side-effect of the interaction of those agents in smaller groups. In other words, morality is not to solve a single problem but a number of recurring problems, in the same manner that natural selection adjusts populations of organisms for changing environmental conditions. This puts moral facts in a class with natural facts about the world, which contradicts the assertion of divine command theory that morality is defined by the arbitrary revelation of God.”

I think that covers it very nicely, thanks.

It’s hard to see how giving a definition of moral naturalism provides a substantiation of morality. At best, this is just inches improved over moral relativism as it provided a more cognitive relation to reality than a reconstruction of reality. Ambiguity does not substitute well for rationality. Moral naturalism seems to affirm that moral values are (1) real, (2) an objective property of the natural (or physical) world. Thus (I presume), a moral decision is either “true” or “false”, depending on the facts of the world as it exists. The problem with this view is that the morals are not mere description of human behavior but a prescription for human behavior.

However, moral naturalism is just another way to adopt Christian values without God. With moral naturalism there is a strong emphasis to base morality on ‘facts’. However, moral naturalist still smuggle in a moral premise, namely the principle that it is wrong to do X as a fact without a priori knowledge. To exclusively base morality on descriptive facts is to enter into a never ending circular abyss. To state that X as a fact is wrong and that X is wrong as a fact is a tautology. Having done this, to then say that “pleasure is valuable” would be to affirm a mere vacuous statement, as would “pleasure is good”

Only with moral knowledge already in place does it make sense to say that you can derive a moral conclusion from a set of facts. Hence, you have to have some standard to evaluate the facts themselves. So, moral naturalism does not answer the question of were morals come from in the first place, which is central to supporting their position.

The problem I see with naturalistic principled morality is that it makes morality arbitrary. One wonders, “Why is rape wrong?” The moral naturalist would have to say, “This tendency proved useful in the processes of natural selection.” So, it seems that rape is not *necessarily* morally wrong. I think most people find this entirely odd. Moreover, naturalistic ethics seems to fall prey to a type of genetic fallacy, in that it doesn't give a reason to believe that certain actions or things are right and wrong; rather, it purely tries to elucidate to why we have certain inclinations of morality as we understand it.

Continuing…

I personally believe that morality is an individual choice, and that one’s environment is a huge factor in that choice.

It’s difficult to put your finger on what certain people actually believe, it’s like their trying to derive some theory to explain away their a priori moral knowledge, but end up going all over the map with ‘naturalistic morals’ to ‘personal choices.’ Nevertheless, regarding morality as an individual choice, I presume without any ultimate accountability--that’s true. Considering evolutionary involvement and moral choices, Jeffery has a question for the atheist:

“If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then—then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we, when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing…’”

~ Jeffrey Dahmer

Continuing…

This isn’t to say I was ‘saintly’: most young boys engage in behavior that would be considered Sociopathic in an adult – it’s a matter of whether it’s a touch, or a wholesale wallowing that makes the distinction. I found the flavor wholly repulsive, and turned my face away from that innate darkness that humans have built into their nature. With no help from religion, I might add.

These statements sound an awful lot like the doctrine of original sin. Yet, while recognizing the “innate darkness” humans have, they venomously deny original sin. Secondly, if humans have “darkness built into their nature”, what makes that darkness wrong? Isn’t that what evolutions has brought? If we have evolved to be natural rapists what does it matter? Moreover, how does one turn their face away from something said to be “innate in humans?”

At least Richard Dawkins is honest about his worldview when he says:

There is at the bottom of it all no good, no evil, no purpose, nothing but blind pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music.

So if were honest about atheism, aren’t human beings just what natural selection made us to be? Aren’t we just a higher form of animal; perhaps we are some form of killer apes manufactured by evolution?

So, in short, I’m a morally upright individual – I don’t steal, I rarely lie, I’m excruciatingly honest (to my own detriment, I might add), I understand what the word no means (I feel that rape – the ultimate conscious violation – is perhaps the most disgusting crime one being can commit on another), children absolutely adore me, domestic pets as a rule gravitate to me, I’m about as friendly as another human being can be in person, and I won’t strike another person without due provocation. I also haven’t seen the inside of a cell in approximately thirty years (one time was enough: in some things, I’m a fast learner).

Another thing we see here is the “I am a good person defense”; as if that answers the question of moral foundations. Due to natural revelation, the Image of God imprinted on people, and common grace by God, unbelievers retain a remnant of common decency. This classic response gets old, because the question is not, in the first instance, whether an unbeliever can exhibit common decency, but whether moral absolutes are consistent with, or inherent in, an atheist worldview. Saying you’re a moral person doesn’t cut the cheese.

In fact, this quote explains my sentiments well:

In America, however, most of our atheists are actually thinly disguised Christians, or sometimes thinly disguised Jews, who want to retain the humanism taught by the Creator, without believing in the Creator. They believe in the image of God, without believing in God. They want the Kingdom of God; --- compassion, justice, peace, love, integrity, honesty, and commitment; without God, the King.
-- Michael Novak

Following to the end of this post, we see that evolution is now the source of morality:

Which begs the question (for the theists): from whence came morality?

So I’ll paraphrase myself (I’m entitled to), and add to an earlier quotation of mine:

‘From the womb of evolution sprang religion. From that womb also came morality.’

Because, let’s face facts, folks: any individual of a species that behaves in a manner contrary to the well being of the herd, is cast out. I won’t trot out any scholarship in this regard: I leave it to my readers to investigate for themselves.

If humans are merely complex material, molecules without purpose, if no one piece of matter is any more valuable than any other piece of matter, if we are self-governing (without God), if the circumstances warrants it, and if we can advance our own selfish interests by doing so, could we not lie, steal, maim, or murder at will? If not, why not?

Labels: Apologetics, Atheism, Atheology, Belief, Christianity, Epistemology, Morality, Nihilism, Skepticism

Labels: Apologetics, Atheology, Skepticism

Labels: Apologetics, Atheology, Christianity, Epistemology, Skepticism

There’s a lot of credence given to the Jesus Myth lately. However, the attack on the historicity of Jesus is no surprise. What better way to debunk Christianity that to take away Jesus? Christianity is built upon the person of Jesus. Christianity is not like any other religion in that it rests not on teachings, but rather, Christ Himself.

Though there is plenty of hype given to the Jesus myth; it’s mostly just conspiracy theory. One needs a lot of imagination to come to the conclusion that Jesus never existed. The Jesus myth seems more of hypercritical skepticism—skepticism about everything except skepticism. Nevertheless, since the Jesus myth has taken such a welcome acceptance, I thought I might address some of the issue (though not comprehensively).

From searching the net, an often sited or referenced article on the subject of the Jesus Myth (pro skeptic) was Marshall J. Gauvin’s article called, "Did Jesus Christ really live?." I read Gauvin’s article looking for a solid argument for his case. It was very interesting; however, flawed. Below, I will comment on some of the things of Gauvin’s article I disagree with. There are parts that I left out because they did not warrant response (see link for entire article):

In the beginning of Gauvin’s article he states:

Not only has the divinity of Christ been given up, but his existence as a man is being more and more seriously questioned. Some of the ablest scholars of the world deny that he ever lived at all. A commanding literature dealing with the inquiry, intense in its seriousness and profound and thorough in its research, is growing up in all countries, and spreading the conviction that Christ is a myth.

Gauvin is completely incorrect about historical scholarship. Though admittedly much of scholarship has given up the divinity of Christ; to the contrary, “scholars of the world” have reached the opposite of Gauvin’s conclusion. In fact, the issue seems quit dead. Perhaps, if the proponents of the myth theory consisted of competent scholarly historians, then the realm of historical scholarship might be more persuaded.

Christopher Price has already done the research for me and outlined all persuasions of scholarship with supporting quotes in “Scholarly opinions on the Jesus Myth.” In addition to the already devastating outline, Price also provides A “History of Scholarly Refutations of the Jesus Myth,” just incase one had some restrained doubts.

Gauvin’s motive becomes evident abruptly after his first statements. He obviously has no respect for any intellectual foundation for Christianity. He states:

[Christianity] has stayed the march of civilization, and made martyrs of some of the noblest men and women of the race: and it is to-day the greatest enemy of knowledge, of freedom, of social and industrial improvement, and of the genuine brotherhood of mankind. The progressive forces of the world are at war with this Asiatic superstition, and this war will continue until the triumph of truth and freedom is complete. The question, "Did Jesus Christ Really Live?" goes to the very root of the conflict between reason and faith; and upon its determination depends, to some degree, the decision as to whether religion or humanity shall rule the world.

As can be seen, Gauvin has mad some degrading remarks toward Christianity. It appears that his motives go beyond some inquiry into history, and for whatever reason, into some personal agenda contra Christianity. I find his aforementioned statements a deciding factor in his conclusion regarding the Jesus Myth rather than any historical inquiry.

Gauvin’s first attack is on the gospels themselves:

What, then, is the evidence that Jesus Christ lived in this world as a man? The authorities relied upon to prove the reality of Christ are the four Gospels of the New Testament -- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John… the Gospels themselves do not claim to have been written by these men. They are not called "The Gospel of Matthew," or "The Gospel of Mark," but "The Gospel According to Matthew," "The Gospel According to Mark," "The Gospel According to Luke," and "The Gospel According to John." No human being knows who wrote a single line in one of these Gospels. No human being knows when they were written, or where.

The trick here is that Gauvin has automatically presupposed that there is no objective basis for determining if the Gospels are a reliable source of history. There are methods of dating and using textual analysis of contemporaneous vernacular, recorded events or omission of events, forensic analysis, corroborating patristic writings etc. Gauvin is overstating his case, which becomes a palpable motif of his. The fact that there is no signature or photograph attached to the Gospels doesn’t make them unreliable.

Biblical scholarship has established the fact that the Gospel of Mark is the oldest of the four. The chief reasons for this conclusion are that this Gospel is shorter, simpler, and more natural, than any of the other three. It is shown that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were enlarged from the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Mark knows nothing of the virgin birth, of the Sermon on the Mount, of the Lord's prayer, or of other important facts of the supposed life of Christ. These features were added by Matthew and Luke.

The dating of Mark prior to the other Gospels is a theory based of similarity rather than an established fact as Gauvin asserts. Scholars infer that Mark is used as a reference or source since much of the material is contained in Mathew and Luke. In fact, many scholars infer a document called “Q” as a secondary source for material not in Mark, but found in both Mathew and Luke (however, that’s another trail). Though there are many similarities, there are numerous differences. I don’t particularly take the position that Mark is later than the other Gospels though.

The Gospel of John is admitted by Christian scholars to be an unhistorical document. They acknowledge that it is not a life of Christ, but an interpretation of him; that it gives us an idealized and spiritualized picture of what Christ is supposed to have been, and that it is largely composed of the speculations of Greek philosophy.

Scholars may have differing opinions about the specifics of the Gospel of John; however, Gauvin makes it sound like a complete consensus is contra historical. The Gospel of John is far from unhistorical. His criticism erroneously dismisses the entire corpus of the text based on alleged tampering by early Christians. The dispute within the majority of scholarly circles revolves around theological implications, rather than centering on complete fabrication of the entire text.

There is not the smallest fragment of trustworthy evidence to show that any of the Gospels were in existence, in their present form, earlier than a hundred years after the time at which Christ is supposed to have died.

Though we don’t have any original manuscripts; we do have copies. Papyrus tends to decay after so long; nonetheless, we do have a papyrus fragment called P52 with portions of Johns Gospel. Since it’s is the general consensus that John is the latest Gospel; it can be inferred that there were earlier manuscript of the other Gospels (Mathew, Mark, Luke). This would date the earlier Gospels in time period contra Gauvin’s thesis.

We are told that Mark was written some time after the year 70, Luke about 110, Matthew about 130, and John not earlier than 140 A.D. Let me impress upon you that these dates are conjectural, and that they are made as early as possible.

Gauvin’s dates are highly conjectural. He states that the dating is “as early as possible” for the Gospels. However, I believe he is being disingenuous to other scholarly dating here. Again, with the P52 papyrus fragment, this would push the dates of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John much earlier than he prescribes.

Every leading Christian scholar since Erasmus, four hundred years ago, has maintained that [the Gospels] were originally written in Greek. This proves that they were not written by Christ's disciples, or by any of the early Christians

Gauvin assumes that contemporary Palestinians did not speak or write Greek at the time Jesus was alive, or shortly after. However, this alleged proof is given without any benefit of argument.

In the fifth chapter of J.P. Moreland’s book “Scaling the Secular City” he offers six arguments for the earlier dating of the Gospels. Below is the excerpt:

Six arguments, taken together, provide a powerful case for dating Acts at 62 to 64. First, Acts has no mention of the fall of Jerusalem in 70, and this is quite odd since much of the activity recorded in Luke-Acts centers around Jerusalem. A large section unique to Luke focuses on Jesus' last movement to the Holy city the resurrection appearances occur around Jerusalem (see Luke 24:13), and Jerusalem plays a key role in the structure of Acts. The omission of any mention of the fall of Jerusalem makes sense if Luke-Acts was written prior to the event itself.

Second, no mention is made of Nero's persecutions in the mid-60s and the general tone of Acts toward the Roman government is irenic. This fits the pre-65 situation well. Neither the tone of Acts nor the omission of an account of Nero's persecutions can be adequately explained by saying it was an attempt to appease the Roman government. It was not the nature of the early church to appease anyone-witness conflicts with Judaism and the Pharisees which are recorded in Luke's writings.

Third, the martyrdoms of James (61), Paul (64), and Peter (65) are not mentioned in Acts. This is also surprising since Acts is quick to record the deaths of Stephen and James the brother of John, leaders in the early church. These omissions are even more surprising when one realizes that James, Peter, and Paul are the three key figures in Acts. The silence in Acts about these deaths makes most sense if, again, we assume that Acts was written before they occurred.

Fourth, the subject matter of Acts deals with issues of importance prior to the fall of Jerusalem in 70. The falling of the Holy Spirit on different people groups (Jewish, Samaritan, Gentile), the divisions between Palestinian Jews and Hellenistic Jews, Jewish-Gentile relations centering on circumcision and the law of Moses, and other themes make sense prior to 70. At that time Jewish Christianity was wiped out and the importance of a record of how Gentile pagan converts are to relate to Jews in the church would be much lower than the importance of such a record prior to 70.

Fifth, several of the expressions in Acts are very early and primitive. More will be said about this later. But the phrases the Son of man, the Servant of God (applied to Jesus), the first day of the week (the resurrection), and the people (the Jews) are all phrases that readers would understand without explanation prior to 70. After 70, they would need to be explained. These phrases, therefore, indicate that Acts was intended for an audience which would remember these terms and their usage.

Sixth, the Jewish war against the Romans (from 66 onward) is not mentioned in Acts. As Hugo Staudinger argues, "The Jewish war is an important part of the history of the early Church. The original followers in Jerusalem lose their significance through the war. With the destruction of Jerusalem Jesus' prophecy is moreover fulfilled. If Luke had been writing after 70, it would be incomprehensible that he should break off his narrative shortly before the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy, and not indicate the fate of the followers in Jerusalem."

So a strong case can be made for dating Acts at 62 to 64. But this means that Luke should be dated just prior to that. Further, Matthew and Mark should be dated even earlier, perhaps from the mid-40s to mid-50s. The picture of Jesus presented in the Synoptics is one that is only twelve to twenty-nine years removed from the events themselves. And they incorporate sources which are even earlier.

I find Moreland’s six points persuasive. For me, the omissions of certain historical facts give credibility to an earlier dates since many of them would have been profitable to add to the text had it been written later.

Gauvin actually makes some valid points about textual transmission. However, again, he ignores scholarship of textual critics on the transmission of biblical texts.

The oldest Gospels that we have are supposed to be copies of copies of copies that were made from those Gospels. We do not know who made these copies; we do not know when they were made; nor do we know whether they were honestly made. Between the earliest Gospels and the oldest existing manuscripts of the New Testament, there is a blank gulf of three hundred years. It is, therefore, impossible to say what the original Gospels contained.

Gauvin is piggybacking on the optimism that his late dating is accurate. However, the content of the Gospels clearly shows contemporaneous eye witness data, culture, geography and so forth that provide ample reasons why they are historically valid. It’s the way they are written that’s gives historical validity. In addition, the papyri fragments we have corroborate with later manuscripts available. Moreover, the amount of manuscript we have (over 5,000) helps to distinguish what was in the original manuscript. The fact is that manuscripts copied from different individuals or groups spread over diverse parts of the Middle East and Mediterranean regions actually concur remarkably with each other.

If there were significant allowances of autonomy to add to or take away considerable writings from previous manuscripts, there ought to be a vast amount of departure in later or geographically distant tests. However, what we find is the complete opposite.

If Gauvin or other Jesus Myth proponents applied their hypercritical skepticism to other historical texts, we would have to discard Homer (Iliad), Sophocles, Aristotle, Caesar’s (Gallic Wars) etc. The NT text fair far better (with flying colors) than much of what we would consider history.

If Christ was an historical character, why was it necessary to forge documents to prove his existence? Did anybody ever think of forging documents to prove the existence of any person who was really known to have lived? The early Christian forgeries are a tremendous testimony to the weakness of the Christian cause.

Again, Gauvin overstates his case. Gnostic writings were not written to “prove the existence of Jesus.” Rather, they were heretical spin offs of the original Gospels. These Gnostic gospels and writings were countered heavily. Why would such objection arise if Jesus never existed? For example Origen, in Contra Celsius (Chap. LXI) wrote the following :

And let it be admitted further, that there are some who give themselves out as Gnostics, in the same way as those Epicureans who call themselves philosophers: yet neither will they who annihilate the doctrine of providence be deemed true philosophers, nor those true Christians who introduce monstrous inventions, which are disapproved of by those who are the disciples of Jesus…and these are the twofold sect of Ebionites, who either acknowledge with us that Jesus was born of a virgin, or deny this, and maintain that He was begotten like other human beings

Gauvin moves on to an alleged geographical error regarding Nazareth.

His home was Nazareth. He was called "Jesus of Nazareth"; and there he is said to have lived until the closing years of his life. Now comes the question -- Was there a city of Nazareth in that age? The Encyclopaedia Biblica, a work written by theologians, the greatest biblical reference work in the English language, says: "We cannot perhaps venture to assert positively that there was a city of Nazareth in Jesus' time."

This seems to be Gauvin’s most powerful argument—an obvious argument from silence and an overstatement. Nazareth was no New York, or Los Angeles city. In fact, it was a small and insignificant geographical location. Event in the NT it states, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" (John 1:47). One should not expect compilations of references to Nazareth by early century historians. Historians tend not to write about rat holes, but significant places. Nevertheless, Metacrock, from Christian CADRE (A historian and Ph.D candidate) dismantles this theory in his article “The History of Nazareth.”

Moreover, Richard Carrier, who is a prominent skeptic and sympathetic to the Jesus Myth writes the following in thread on the infidel’s website begging here:

[A]rchaeology has confirmed a stone building in Nazareth of the size and type to be a synagogue, and it dates from the time of Christ. See the entry in the Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land...

The evidence is insurmountable that there were numerous permanent structures--most of Nazareth's buildings even before the 1st century were partially carved from the rock of the hill, in a manner similar to Pella...

I was able to track down on my own the most extensive report, that of Bagatti (Excavations in Nazareth, vol. 1, 1969), and I looked through all the subsequent reports on Nazareth from Excavations and Surveys in Israel, and this is what I found:

(a) Very little of Nazareth has been excavated, and therefore no argument can be advanced regarding what "wasn't" there in the 1st century.

(b) Archaeological reports confirm that stones and bricks used in earlier buildings in Nazareth were reused in later structures, thus erasing a lot of the evidence. Therefore, it is faulty reasoning to argue that there were no brick or stone structures simply because we have not recovered them from the relevant strata (i.e. one of Hoffman's sources assumed that the absence of this evidence entailed mud-and-thatch housing, but that is fallacious reasoning--especially since no clear evidence of mud-and-thatch housing has been found, either).

(c) One example of the above includes four calcite column bases, which were reused in a later structure, but are themselves dated before the War by their stylistic similarity to synagogues and Roman structures throughout 1st century Judaea, and by the fact that they contain Nabataean lettering (which suggests construction before Jewish priests migrated to Nazareth after the war). This is not iron clad proof of a 1st century synagogue (since the pieces had been moved and thus could not be dated by strata), but it does demonstrate a very high probability--especially since calcite bases are cheap material compared to the more expensive marble of structures archaeologists confirmed started appearing there around a century later, i.e. by the end of the 1st century AD (or early 2nd century at the latest, since marble fragments have been found inscribed in Aramaic that is paleographically dated to this period), and more extensively again in the 3rd century (when a very impressive Jewish synagogue was built there, this time using marble, which was later converted to Christian use).

(d) I confirmed beyond any doubt that Nazareth was built on a hill--more specifically, down the slope of a hill, with a convenient "brow" roughly one city block away from the edge of the ancient town as so-far determined archaeologically. Because the town was built down the slope of a hill, we have found numerous examples of houses, tombs, and storage rooms half cut into the rock of the hill, leaving a diagonal slope for structures to be built up around them to complete the chambers (as I described above). Since these structural elements were so completely removed and apparently reused by later builders, no evidence remains of what they were composed of (whether mud, brick, or stone).

The bottom line: there is absolutely no doubt that Nazareth existed in the time of Jesus.

Following, Gauvin becomes overly generous regarding the nobility of the Roman government:

Nothing could be more improbable than the story of Christ's crucifixion. The civilization of Rome was the highest in the world. The Romans were the greatest lawyers the world had ever known. Their courts were models of order and fairness. A man was not condemned without a trial; he was not handed to the executioner before being found guilty… Is it thinkable that the master of a Roman court in the days of Tiberius Caesar, having found a man innocent and declared him so, and having made efforts to save his life, tortured him of his own accord, and then handed him over to a howling mob to be nailed to a cross? A Roman court finding a man innocent and then crucifying him? Is that a picture of civilized Rome? Is that the Rome to which the world owes its laws? In reading the story of the Crucifixion, are we reading history or religious fiction? Surely not history.

Philo ((20 BC- 40 AD), has somewhat of a dissimilar opinion. In fact, he states Pontius Pilate was very hostile and unfair. Moreover, it appears that Pilate feared that the Jewish people would cause uproar resulting in his dismissal by Tiberius. Philo States [Source]:

"But when [Pilate] steadfastly refused this petition (for he was a man of a very inflexible disposition, and very merciless as well as very obstinate), they cried out: 'Do not cause a sedition; do not make war upon us; do not destroy the peace which exists. The honour of the emperor is not identical with dishonour to the ancient laws; let it not be to you a pretence for heaping insult on our nation…But this last sentence exasperated him in the greatest possible degree, as he feared least they might in reality go on an embassy to the emperor, and might impeach him with respect to other particulars of his government, in respect of his corruption, and his acts of insolence, and his rapine, and his habit of insulting people, and his cruelty, and his continual murders of people untried and uncondemned, and his never ending, and gratuitous, and most grievous inhumanity. (303)

Therefore, being exceedingly angry, and being at all times a man of most ferocious passions, he was in great perplexity, neither venturing to take down what he had once set up, nor wishing to do any thing which could be acceptable to his subjects, and at the same time being sufficiently acquainted with the firmness of Tiberius on these points.

So we get a different picture of the practice of Roman law and Pilate’s supposed civility. As I stated earlier, Gauvin likes to overstate his case and at times presents things in a manner that distort the historical record that we have available to us.

Gauvin not only stretches things, he is completely ignorant of Christian theology. He even goes so far as suggesting that Christian art of a lamb on a cross suggests the mythical figure of Jesus emerging out of that caricature. Moreover, he completely disregards the scriptural references on why Jesus is crucified when he states the following:

And let us ask, if Christ performed the miracles the New Testament describes, if he gave sight to blind men's eyes, if his magic touch brought youthful vigor to the palsied frame, if the putrefying dead at his command returned to life and love again -- why did the people want him crucified? Is it not amazing that a civilized people -- for the Jews of that age were civilized -- were so filled with murderous hate towards a kind and loving man who went about doing good, who preached forgiveness, cleansed the leprous, and raised the dead -- that they could not be appeased until they had crucified the noblest benefactor of mankind? Again I ask -- is this history, or is it fiction?

Jews were civilized, but take their religion seriously. Has Gauvin never heard of a Pharisees? They were the religious cream of the crop and were outraged to think that Jesus who accused them of being “hypocritical”, “brood vipers” “blind leaders of the blind” and who threw them out of their own temple, would also claim to forgive sins, and say that God was His Father, and even go as far as saying He was one with God. The Pharisees tried to stone Jesus more than once and kill him saying, "For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God" (John 10:33). What does Gauvin think Paul (as formerly Saul) did before he became a Christian? Is the whole persecution of early Christians by the Jewish leadership fables? No, if there is any fiction, it’s in the mind of Gauvin to explain away history.

Some of the further exaggeration that Gauvin’s supposes, like Paul knowing nothing of Jesus sayings are too nauseating to address. He even goes so far as to suggest that the “very existence of Paul is questionable”. Though he only allows Paul as a historical figure to accommodate his argument. Moreover, he completely discredits the entire corpus of the Gospels because they contain miracles. Prima facie evidence is unnecessary to qualify as history. Every single statement need not be proved with corroborating evidence to support it. What’s even more interesting is that Gauvin relies heavily (again) on the argument of silence—mentioning things that Paul never stated about Jesus in his writings and assuming he never mentioned it in his travels.

If Christ lived, if he was a reformer, if he performed wonderful works that attracted the attention of the multitude, if he came in conflict with the authorities and was crucified -- how shall we explain the fact that history has not even recorded his name? The age in which he is said to have lived was an age of scholars and thinkers. In Greece, Rome and Palestine, there were philosophers, historians, poets, orators, jurists and statesmen. Every fact of importance was noted by interested and inquiring minds. Some of the greatest writers the Jewish race has produced lived in that age.

There are references to Jesus outside of the Gospels, such as Thallus and Josephus. But of course Gauvin is going to disregard any reference to Jesus by Josephus do to some later tampering insertions by some Christians. However, Christopher Price has done a review of Josephus’ reference to Jesus and irrefutably demonstrates that though there were some additions to the text, Josephus did make an original reference to the historical person of Jesus. For anyone who doubts this, they must read “A Thorough Review of the Testimonium Flavianum.” Regardless of Gauvin’s assertions, scholarship is in the majority that there was an original reference to the person of Jesus of Nazareth by Josephus (apparently reverse when the article was written). Also see “Extra Biblical Witness to Jesus before 200 AD” and “The Reliability of the Secular References to Jesus” For further extra biblical references to Jesus.

Gauvin leaves his article in arrogant confidence over his alleged case against the historicity of Jesus. In his closing statement he says:

The Jesus Christ of the Gospels could not possibly have been a real person. He is a combination of impossible elements. There may have lived in Palestine, nineteen centuries ago, a man whose name was Jesus, who went about doing good, who was followed by admiring associates, and who in the end met a violent death. But of this possible person, not a line was written when he lived, and of his life and character the world of to-day knows absolutely nothing. This Jesus, if he lived, was a man; and if he was a reformer, he was but one of many that have lived and died in every age of the world. When the world shall have learned that the Christ of the Gospels is a myth, that Christianity is untrue, it will turn its attention from the religious fictions of the past to the vital problems of to-day, and endeavor to solve them for the improvement of the well-being of the real men and women whom we know, and whom we ought to help and love.

Gauvin hasn’t nearly made his case. He begs the question the entire course of his article. Unfortunately, he must ignore or come up with creative diversionary tactics to explain away history. There are too many issues to write off with the wand of hypercritical skepticism. Gauvin cannot explain to the satisfaction of historians why, Christians would invent Jesus Christ sometime after 100 and have no pagans and Jews who historically have opposed Christianity denied the existence of Jesus. In fact, it’s never even questioned.

Gauvin has artfully tried to claim the alleged theological development (which is an issue that has been disputed) qualifies the entire corpus of the NT as a wholesale invention. More perceptibly, Gauvin has quote mined critical sources and taken his conclusions beyond anything that the critics would have concluded.

Gauvin has misrepresented the apostle Paul claiming he preached a different Jesus than the Gospels. He late dated the Gospels to his convenience. Conveniently, the late dating of the Gospels is the crux of his entire position. He obviously over did it. With the wave of the skeptical wand, Gauvin completely dismissed non-Christian evidences of the historicity of Jesus. His conspiracy theory fails to give a better explanation than acknowledging that Jesus was a real person. I don’t know if any one can—it appears more to be an insurmountable obstacle.

Gauvin reminds me of Holocaust deniers, who deny despite the vast evidence to the contrary. One major problem to deal with is if the Church created Jesus, who created the Church? The fact is, Gauvin and other Jesus myth advocates have to have a lot more imagination than anyone who believes in his existence.

Labels: Apologetics, Atheism, Atheology, Christianity, Skepticism