William Lane Craig and Wikipedia

I have come to the conclusion that I don't update this readily enough to even draw in traffic. To few (if any) readers who do manage to read this message, I apologize. For the past month and a half I have been reading up on "intelligent design" creationism. The process seems to draw away what little time I do have between my studies and work.

Anyways, personal business aside, I was reading over the quantum mechanics article at Wikipedia earlier this evening when a memory crossed my mind. When I attended the Future of Atheism conference I had a great misfortune of interacting with William Lane Craig. During the course of our discussion, he insisted, quite adamantly, that there existed more than ten different versions of quantum mechanics. I must stress versions, as he attempted to imply that there existed multiple mathematical formalizations to quantum mechanics. Though I called him on his bullshit at the conference, I didn't have the means to show him his error. As well, lacking a formal training in physics himself (as he did admit to me), simple words or even a marker and a whiteboard would not have suffice to convince him of his error impromptu.

It is well known that there is only one version of quantum mechanics. A wave function is a wave function, a state is a state, and an exchange force is always an exchange force. What he probably meant to say was there are different interpretations. After having read the Wikipedia article, it seems clear to me that Craig, when doing his research on quantum mechanics, simply used Wikipedia. This especially became clear to me when I compared my notes to the article itself. That is, his wording and the wording on the page sounds so similar, I cannot help but make this association.

I doubt Craig reads this, but in case he does, I should let him in on a little secret. The Copenhagen interpretation is the one most supported by experimental data and is less bulky in complex or abstract thought. I say this lightly, because quantum mechanics itself is a rather abstract art, but indeed the Copenhagen school seems to always wins. That is, we live in an indeterministic world in which particles are in constant supposition of states. A particle can be anywhere prior to measurement, and the measurement only tells you where the particle is at the time of the measuring event. Any time after the event or any time before the event cannot be determined except with another measuring event. But then you only have the particle's position in that time; therefore, you cannot extrapolate where the particle will be at all times but only where it was at those times. This is a peculiar interpretation, but the one most accepted by physicists (including a vast majority of Noble Prize winners) as well as most supported by measuring events.

Bohm's hidden variables, which Craig attempted to attribute to God (under his breath in mutered nonsense, it seemed), holds no ground. Sadly, I cannot elaborate very well at the moment on why Bohm's interpretation is a bit off. But for the time being, Ill be brief. Bohm's interpretation fails to give an account of quantum field theory as well as makes spin a very difficult topic to approach conceptually. For this reason, and a number of others, Bohm's interpretation is not taken seriously. These and other reasons are why R.F. Streater listed Bohm's interpretation as a lost-cause.

Finals are this week, so expect no more posts from me. This summer, I plan on attacking head-on the mathematics and philosophy of "intelligent design" creationism.

Dissenters Accosted at DI Retreat

Recently, our dear friends at the Discovery Institute held a conference at Southern Methodist University. For an organization that preached persistently how they have been censored, it speaks volumes for them to bully dissenters. The article below discusses a group of students from SMU whom came to protest the DI's presence in a peaceful manner: Darwin vs. Design conference - The Mix.

If you desire a full review of the speakers, vist the following reviews:

From Goosing the Antithesis, articles by Zachary Moore:

• Lee Strobel
• Jay Richards
• Stephen Meyer
• Michael Behe
• Q&A
• Final Thoughts
  

From Jason Rosenhouse's Evolutionblog:

• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three
• Part Four
• Conclusion

Fred Phelps, WBC, and VA Tech Funerals

I'm glad to see that Fred Phelps and Co. can take times out of their busy schedule of protesting army funerals, blaming the lose of the soldier on God's wraith for a variety of nuances, to protest at the funerals of victims of the VA Tech violence. The protest is not for upping gun control or campus security; such noble causes are above Phelps and Co. It seems, rather, their only intent is to drive home their sole message:

"God is punishing America for her sodomite sins and for persecuting Westboro Baptist Church for warning America of her doom."

Indeed, Mr. Phelps. America is doomed, but not because of our sin nature. America is being held hostage by bad politicking and stupidity, something your co-patriots contribute to greatly.

In the beginning...

"In the beginning was the logos, and the logos was with God, and the logos was God."
- John 1:1

Greek is an interesting, complex langauge where words can take on many different meanings. Just to show you the complexity within Greek, I have decided to entertain a nice little excercise. The above Biblical passage is often recited by certain evangelists as a proof positive of the legitmacy of the Bible. Notice, though, I have replaced "Word" with logos.

Logos can easily mean word. However, logos has a number of different meanings. Now, I know why translators choose 'word' as an all encompassing term. However, I'll leave it as an excercise for the reader to discover why translators do as such (Hint: It has to do with an apocryphal work).

he following are different definitions of the word logos:

1. reason
2. account
3. story
4. report
5. praise
6. utterance
7. statment
8. precept
9. prophecy
10. converse
11. speaking
12. sentence
13. question
14. tale
15. inward thought
16. oracle
17. assertion
18. promise
19. resolution
20. condition
21. command
22. speech
23. discourse
24. myth
25. fable
26. prose
27. oration
28. proposition
29. position
30. principle
31. thought
32. opinion
33. expectation
34. plea
35. consideration
36. due proportion
37. analogy

Those are just to name a few. It's interesting, that without proper knowledge of Greek and the context of what's written, one could easily translate logos into any of the above. Just think, what if John 1:1 read as follows: "In the beginning was the myth, and the myth was with God, and the myth was God."

That doesn't seem to bode very well with Christianity. What about plea or fable or opinion? It escapes me how counter-intuitive the extremely religious can be. Considering their outright dislike of science for fear of it ruining their religion, they attempt to suppress knowledge from their young. To me, it seems very much like they are waging a war with knowledge. However, they fail to realize that God does not speak Enlgish and nor did the prophets. Why on Earth would they wage war on knowledge when they themselves rely upon it to understand their religion?

Perhaps, then, they only desire selective knowledge, as if their intellect were at some buffet sampling entres and desserts. This idea of picking and choosing seems short-sighted, and it is simply gross to consider them willfully abandoning true knowledge (such as the theory of evolution) over patently false concepts (such as Biblical Creationism).

I promise to post some more enlightening stuff soon. I've been a bit busy writing my book, unfortunately. Perhaps soon I will be confident enough to post a chapter, or at least a provocative section or two.

Rosie O'Donnell the Conspiracy Theorist

Rosie O'Donnell is, sadly, more fun to laugh at rather than laugh with. This is especially true as I grow older, wiser, and more knowledgeable of the world around me.

It seems that O'Donnell has written on her blog some interesting information. By interesting, I mean controversial but by no means accurate. She writes in her blog:

at 5 30 pm
9 11 2001
wtc7 collapsed

for the third time in history
fire brought down a steel building
reducing it to rubble

hold on folks
here we go

In which the following paragraphs and bulleted list are common 9/11 conspiracy theorist literature.

This is frustrating. Not because O'Deonnell has evidently been bought into crap spewed out by the same kind of people who talk as if Area 51 houses aliens. That is a different kind of sad (i.e. a more pathetic sadness). No, the real sadness is that people are willing to be diverted from the real problem with the Bush administration.

The real problem is not some mangled conspiracy theory. In all honesty, the Bush administration is not competent enough to have pulled off such a great feat without bungling it up. Their handling of Iraq is proof enough. People need to stop buying into the garbage of conspiracy theorists and start realizing the truth behind 9/11. That is, the terrorists were not some religious fanatics but killed themselves to end American support of Israel. People also need to realize that the Iraqi War (aka Operation Freedom) was not some humanitarian interest but an illegal war to satisfy special interests in Congress. People need to shut up about conpsiracy theories and actually read the entire 9/11 Commission Report and realize that America brought 9/11 upon herself.

There is this guy on YouTube who publishes videos that outline this and the fact that Bush has been lieing to us about why we're in Iraq. He also has a blog on the internet. He desires media reform and is attempting to show everyone that Bush is essentially a war criminal. Visit his website and subscribe to his YouTube videos. Thank you.

An Analysis of "Some Thoughts on New Atheism" and Comments

It seems that Douglas Groothius has commented on 'New Atheism' on his blog, The Constructive Curmudgeon [1]. 'New Atheism' is best described by the website with the same namesake [2]:

Intolerance of ignorance, myth and superstition; disregard for the tolerance of religion. Indoctrination of logic, reason and the advancement of a naturalistic worldview.

The more infamous article from Wired gives a more expanded picture of this definition [3]. To help keep things concise, people consider the forefront of New Atheists being Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett [4]. My main concern is not an analysis of this 'New Atheism', but if I were to give a sound-bite it would be the following. To call this movement 'New Atheism' is akin to calling a new religion the 'New Theism'. It is really bothersome to read literature concerning atheism and notice the continuous misuse of the word. In short, an atheist is anyone who does not believe in a god. A modern Buddhist is typically an atheist. A modern Taoist is typically an atheist. Not every atheist is an ascribed naturalist, though perhaps these are the most common in America and other secular nations. The gross over-generalization of these groups simply need to end. The Buddhist holds no more sentiments with the naturalist's pursuit of answering reality than the Taoist feels for the dharma of Buddhism. I would use a more descriptive term for the three. Rather than the 'New Atheism', why not the 'new rationalists' or the 'New Naturalists'? Or rather, and this is perhaps the most descriptive of all, the 'New Popular Critiques of Religion'?

But I digress. I skimmed Groothius' log entry. I understand he was simply outlining his criticisms, so I will not hold the fallacy of ambiguity against him. Now, I will enter into a format which I rarely utilize, but for brevity and ease of reading I will engage each point presented. The first point follows:

These two books (The God Delusion and Letter to a Christian Nation) are offering nothing new by way of critiques of theism or specific religions. Christian philosophers and biblicla (sic) scholars have responded to all the charges before. What is different is their severe tone. Religion is not just wrong, but terribly dangerous. It should scarcely be tolerated. To demonstrate this, one must argue that a belief is both false and deleterious. That doubles the intellectual load--and produces a fair amount of bombast.

To be fair to Dawkins, I think he presents an excellent case against organized religion. Currently, I am working on a review of the book myself, so I will not divulge too much information here. However, one case to consider is the comparison of the beliefs of the cargo cults to modern orthodox religions [5]. Though Dawkins does not make an outright comparison, he is sly in allowing the reader to fully comprehend what he is attempting to portray. That is, the beliefs of the cargo cult is equally as ridiculous as the claims of modern orthodox religions in light of rational scrutiny. The short amount of time for the development of the story of the cargo savior is analogous to the time frame for the story of, say, Mohammed's ascension. And just as their exists people devoted to this cargo savior not because they ever met the savior personally but because they learned of him vicariously from other supposed witnesses. This predicament is similar to when unnamed rabbis and pagan skeptics would contend with the early Christians [6]. Often, it took either a letter or visit from Paul to attempt to answer and rebuke skepticism, an individual who only knew of Christ vicariously from the apostles [7].

So, in conclusion, in terms of Dawkins, I have yet seen a religious scholar, known or unknown, address certain points in his book, and some of the points addressed are simply inadequate. For brevity, I can only recommend one reads my hopefully upcoming review of Dawkins' book.

Item two reads:

Harris especially assumes that all believers are fideists or rely on the worst possible arguments. This is false. A debate with Bill Craig would demonstrate this in short order.

I have had a great misfortune of interacting with William Lane Craig as well [8]. I do find a bit of humor, though, that Groothius cites Craig. Indeed, I believe if Craig were to ever face a theoretical astrophysicist in a debate rather than biologists or philosophers he would falter and revert to a very faith-based argument as his natural theology is rushed from underneath him. Sadly, the physics community knows of his mutilation of recent models of cosmology. I state sadly because physicists do not like to deal with people who show a lack of understanding in a certain topic and a will to never understand it correctly.

I digress [9]. I wish to remark in the irony of Craig being mentioned in the same paragraph as Harris being charged with overgeneralizng. In Craig's debate with Richard Taylor [10], he confuses egotism with naturalism. In fact, though I will not demonstrate this, his projection of egotism onto a natural basis of morality ignores the simple observance that we are social creatures by nature. However, this steers further from the course of this analysis, but the point had to be addressed. I find it ironic to recommend someone who over-generalizes to seek out someone else who over-generalizes as well.

Item three is uninteresting in this analysis, as he simply confirms the authors. Item four will be addressed after item five, which reads:

Harris and Dawkins are wrong in saying the religious moderates (this probably includes evangelicals to them) give safe haven to religious extremists, such as jihadists. Their reasoning seems to be that moderates give religion a pretty face and insulate it from rational testing. That means that radicals' religious beliefs cannot be intellectually critiqued either. Some moderate may make this claim to intellectual immunity, but I do not. As an evangelical (or historic Protestant) I believe that (a) religious beliefs should hold water philosophically and historically, (b) that Christian fulfills the condition of (a) and that (c) Islamic militants' religion is at once false, irrational, and dangerous. I fail to see how my "moderate" religion encourages, shields, or emboldens radicals in any way whatever.

Though I disagree with claim that Christianity passes the historical and philosophical litmus tests, I will not enter into this discussion. Dawkins, when he introduces the blame on moderate and liberal believers, charges them for allowing the perpetuating of extremism. I gathered from Dawkins that he was essentially blaming moderate believers for simply allowing the existence of extremists, and that from modern thoughts sprang forth extremist ideals. In other words, the moderate religious basis gave rise to the extremists at large. I will not expand any further on this, because hopefully this is self-explanatory.

Lastly, we come to the most interesting part; item four read:

Harris in particular conflates all religious claims: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim. They are all of a piece in being irrational, false, and dangerous. He thus commits the fallacy of hasty generalization. Believing that one will receive the ministrations of exactly seventy two virgins after dying in a jihad is an order of belief far different than believing that since Jesus Christ rose from the dead in space-time history, one who believes in him will enter paradise after death as a martyr (which precludes anything resembling jihad). Christianity is well supported apologetically; Islam, which denies the central tenets of Christian (sic), is not. For example, it denies that Jesus was crucified--a fact affirmed by virtually every biblical scholar in the world today. The fact that both are "religions" says nothing about their relative epistemic status.

Harris' equating the Abrahamic faiths is a bit better conveyed in his book The End of Faith than his opuscule Letter. Now, since Groothius throughs in the epistemic card, I challenge him to read the works of some prominent apologists and historians of Islam. I also challenge the reader. As an atheist, i will admit that reading the apologetics of different beliefs only reaffirmed my atheism. Nearly every apologist makes the same claim concerning their religion. that is, the Islamic apologist can pull out textual credibility and integrity that would embarrass the average Christian apologetic. The Islamic claim of Mohamed ascending into heaven is no more as ridiculous as Jesus' ascension or Elijah's ascension. Islamic history is better chronicled around the start of the religion as compared to the history of the Apostolic Church. I am amazed, simply, how Groothius can make such a claim. Then again, it is not surprising when he reduces the religion to a straw man.

In the comments, he defends his position impromptu. I will not reproduce them here, but I will only affirm that the first few premises made me chuckle.


Notes
1. Groothius, Douglas. "Some Thoughts on New Atheism". The Constructive Curmudgeon. [Accessed 3/2/2007]
2. the New Atheism
3. Wolf, Gary. "The Crusade Against Religion". Wired. Oct. 23, 2006. [Accessed 3/2/2007]
4. Even after reading all his books and meeting him in person, I do not think it's justified listing him amongst Harris and Dawkins.
5. see Chapter 5, p 202
6. Thus far in my knowledge. there is a shortage of named criticisms on Early Christianity. The Earliest, most famous skeptic is Celsus, who went unanswered until ~80 years after his death. This situation is analogous, but I find the analogy to be a bit of a stretch. If anyone knows off-hand of any named criticisms of Christianity during the development of the Early Church, I desire to know.
7. Certainly, if one believes in his spiritual encounter, it is plausible one could formulate he knew of Jesus. However, a quick heuristic argument can be shown that Paul would not have known all of Jesus at Damascus. If we trust John that Jesus' ministry lasted three years, this is nearly 900-1000 days worth of preaching, if we allot some for travel and non-preaching activities. Amongst this time-frame, it is safe to assume that Jesus said a lot more than what is written in the New Testament, which amazingly only comprises of about three to four hours worth of speeches and sermons. It is difficult for one to reasonably believe that Jesus exposed to Paul his entire ministry in the short encounter at Damascus.
8. I interacted with W.L. Craig briefly at the 2007 Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum after his ~40 minute defense of natural theology. The meeting was unfortunate to me because I had to hear him essentially make a mockery of the natural sciences via his lack of knowledge and formal education in the respective fields, especially theoretical physics. His time will come for my critique of both his presentation and papers.
9. As one can tell, I have a serious qualm with W.L. Craig with his latest bolstering of theoretical physics as a proof positive for a finite universe.
10. Craig-Taylor Debate. [Accessed 3/2/2007]

Review of "The Future of Atheism"

One of the most powerful religions in the United States is the NFL.
- Daniel Dennett

This past weekend I attended a short convention at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS). The Greer-Hear Point-Counterpoint Forum: Exploring the Tensions of Faith and Culture hosted a dialogue between Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett called The Future of Atheism. McGrath is Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University and is better known for his recent books: The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World, Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life, and The Dawkins Delusion [1]. Daniel Dennett is University Professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University. Dennett is known academically for his physicalist approach to the philosophy of mind and his staunch defense of Neural Darwinism. His recent book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, is Dennett's book aimed at inquiring whether religion can be studied by science and an investment in the possible origins of modern-day religions. Other noteworthy speakers at the conference were William Lane Craig of Talbot School of Theology, Keith Parsons of University of Houston, Hugh McCann of Texas A&M, and Evan Fales of University of Iowa [2].

McGrath and Dennett at their podiums

I will admit that I missed the beginning of Dennett's presentation to the audience. However, from a friend who was present, he assured me that Dennett simply presented a quick overview of his book. The only thing worth mentioning for the sake of this review is Dennett's presentation of how secularism is the fastest growing identity in the United States, and perhaps even the world [3].

McGrath, however, I saw his full presentation. One of my Christian friends was simply disappointed in McGrath's dialogue. I do not blame my friend, because McGrath committed himself fairly ambiguous attacks on atheist thought. He gave a short rant concerning Dennett's use of hypothesis over empirical evidence in some parts of Dennett's book. He challenged the concept of the meme, arguing for a better defense for the concept by its adherents [4]. McGrath mentioned Stalin's communism, Stalin's atheism, and the link between his atheism and communism that drove the atrocities of communism. He made a valid point that the driving force of communist USSR was not atheism per se but fanaticism, and it is this fanaticism which religious leaders need to subdue if they desire to reconnect their people with their god. McGrath asked the question if whether science is able to sort out the 'God question,' and his position is the negative. Lastly, McGrath charged that atheism faces a potential internal coherency due to the increase in religiosity and religion's influence on society over the past few years.

Though the above is McGrath's presentation in a nutshell, I wish to add a few commentaries. For one, I am in agreement with him that fanaticism is a dangerous ideology. However, it was not the USSR's atheism which drove the atrocities to occur no more than it was President Bush's Christianity that drove us to war with Iraq or Afghanistan. To reduce the actions of leaders to a cultural identity without properly contextualizing the actions committed with the entire worldview pictures by the individual does violence to the cultural identity. Namely, Communism calls for a removal of religious dependency to achieve the greatest possible governing state. It is the government which controls the people, not the people's religiosity. This form of atheism is in no way comparable to secular humanism, the ethical philosophy held by most atheists, than apples can be compared to bricks [5]. It is simply a non-comparison.

Another point of contention I have with McGrath's presentation is his argument that naturalism is circular in reasoning [6]. He presented naturalism in a overly simplistic way which contradicts what most naturalists state. That is, he charged that naturalists first state that science cannot detect non-natural entities, and then comes back to say that since the data does not support the existence of non-natural entities than non-natural entities do not exist. This is a poor simplification of the creed of naturalism. It is not that the supernatural cannot be explained by science. It is simply that there has been no observable data to conclude the existence of the supernatural. As Daniel Dennett pointed out in his rebuttal to McGrath, all it would take would be a complete failure on the part of naturalism to allow the succession of belief in the supernatural as a truth and component of reality. However, as several other authors have pointed out before, no such data has been collected to conclusively support the notion of the existence of the supernatural [7]. So, the construction of the naturalist's argument isn't that by fiat the supernatural cannot be studied. The naturalist allows for the possible existence if the evidence suggests it. However, since the data does not support the conjecture, then it is not necessary at this time to conclude that the notion of the existence of the supernatural is valid.

Dennett addressed two of the major points McGrath brought attention to in his presentation. The response to the argument of circularity was mentioned earlier. Another point addressed is McGrath's opposition to memes. Dennett responded that in his opinion some of the critics of memetics offer nothing worthwhile to the conversation, and he feels that he has addressed the major critics in Breaking the Spell. He implicitly pointed out McGrath's straw man against memetics. That is, McGrath argued that memes are only irrational entities deemed by those who support memetics but other rational entities are not memes. Dennett assured McGrath that literally everything is a meme, including language [8]. In other words, the meme is not a euphemism for a delusional or irrational belief. The meme is a belief, a social construct, which social beings pass on to offspring. Lastly, Dennett admits that in Breaking the Spell there is speculative langauge. However, Dennett argued that his speculative language is simply asking questions to help see what needs to be answered. He hopes that one day his speculation will either be verified or falsified empirically, and his speculation is in the right direction to begin proper research.

McGrath gave a rather complex rebuttal to memetics that made it difficult to give accurate notes. Essentially, McGrath asked if memetics are a reflection of culture, then how does one explain how religion morphed into culture [9]. McGrath also charged that memes are possibly self-destructive. That is, if memetics is a meme, then memetics tells us nothing on the behavior of memes as the entity is subservient to the laws of nature, or the meme is apt to suffer from the consequences of memetics. To McGrath, this gets us no where near to some sort of truth on cultural development and evolution. Lastly, McGrath charged that atheism, in a sort of paradoxical fashion, is a religion [10].

Dennett's closing remarks for the evening were very enlightening. The epigraph for this entry was the first thing Dennett said after McGrath ended his oratory. Afterwards, Dennett laid out a beautiful rebuttal to McGrath's chare against memetics. "Manifestly, religions are beautifully designed," said Dennett. The theory that there was a purposeful designer is a failure. For example, the idea that conniving priests developed Christianity from scratch cannot explain the commonality Christianity possesses with other religions of that time era. Dennett stated that these traits existed prior to such clever priests. With this observation, one can see how instead of a design theory memetics can be utilized to explain the development and evolution of these older ideals. As well, memetics can be utilized to explain the historical development of Christianity from the days f the apostles to today. Essentially, Dennett proposed the utility of memetics in this example, and he further argued that memes are rationally neutral. Memes are better explanations for the unexplainable elements currently found and considered in other models.

Dennett closed with an interesting remark. In the past he has gotten emails from individuals claiming the familiar mantra of how everything must be taken on faith. To Dennett, the faith card is a declaration of sitting out of the discussion for truth and reality. To Dennett, those who sit on the sidelines holding their faith card do a disservice to their religion by believing out of sheer believing. I am forced to agree with Dennett due to my experiences in the past. The faith card is an excuse and a white flag. There is no victory but an admission of defeat to those who pass it off as a genuine answer.

McGrath concluded the first night with a quick admission that he enjoyed the discussion of the designer. However, he also conceded that he still did not think memes are a viable means to describe how cultural information is passed on to future generations.

Overall, the conference was entertaining and enlightening [11]. Both Dennett and McGrath are highly intelligent and articulate men, both worthy of praise of their oratory capacities. McGrath was a jovial Brit, and Dennett was a charming Santa Claus. I learned a lot from this convention, and it left me desiring to read more from both sides of the argument.

But what about the namesake of the convention? That is, what about the future of atheism? The entire conference was centered not around its namesake, it seems, but about different positions held by naturalists and Christians [12]. However, during the question and answer session of the first session, someone asked Dennett what he thought the future of atheism entailed. Dennett gave a witty remark, and I will end this entry with his answer:

No, [there will be no future for atheism] because we will destroy our planet before the future comes.

Daniel Dennett

Notes
1. I think it is rather funny that when asked what he thought of McGrath's criticisms, Dawkins responded: "Alister McGrath has now written two books with my name in the title. The poet W B Yeats, when asked to say something about bad poets who made a living by parasitizing him, wrote the splendid line: 'Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?'" (Source) [Accessed 2/26/2007]
2. I plan on interacting with the other speakers in a later post.
3. American Atheist. "Survey Indicates More Americans 'Without Faith'". [Accessed 2/26/2007] (This was not his source, but it gives a good outline)
4. McGrath has inspired me to research memetics and analyze the criticisms from respected cultural anthropologists and other such scholars.
5.
6. It is interesting to note that McGrath is possibly attacking methodological naturalism, which is fairly agnostic concerning the existence of God, versus other forms of naturalism, such as metaphysical naturalism, which concludes that the current data does not support the existence of the supernatural. The distinction is signifcant but always overlooked.
7. For an example, read Richard Carrier's Sense and Goodness without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism. Though I do not ascribe to Carrier's vision of aesthetics, it is an enjoyable read.
8. From the viewpoint of etymology, I see how this makes sense. Language evolves, literally, under a Darwinian model of 'best fit' words in cultural context. Words which do not fit are phased out, whereas words that do fit remain.
9. I apologize for the lack of notes on this. However, I am too poor to purchase the convention's CD.
10. Though I disagree with McGrath that atheism is a religion under strict definition of a religion, I do admit that there are many atheists whom procliaim their atheism with great vigor.
11. I will address the other speakers in different posts, especially William Lane Craig.
12. During the entire conference, 'atheism' and 'naturalism' were used interchangeably. This practice agitates me to no end. Typically, what happens is a clever theist projects a worldview held by some atheists (for example, egotism or hedonism) and generalize this worldview to apply it to all atheists.

Jesus Christ the Shepherd: Is He a Good One a Bad One?

The imagery of Jesus as a shepherd has its roots in the Jewish Bible and the heritage of the Jews of the region. But its roots and how it made the Jews who would hear about Jesus feel is lost to the feelings invoked by modern Christians. That is, as opposed to an analogy the imagery simply brings comfort to modern Christians. However, to me, I only see an error.

It is the shepherd who takes care of the flock. This is perhaps what gets Christians feeling genuinely good about their Savior as he is proactive in their lives, just like the shepherd is proactive with his flock. However, it is the good shepherd who ventures forth to find his lost members. To the good shepherd, every member of the flock is important, and the good shepherd would do anything in his power to find his lost sheep.

Yet, only about a third of the world's population is Christian, and roughly half of that amount are non-religious [1]. With this information, I find it difficult to believe that Jesus is the shepherd of humanity, and if he is than I am not convinced that he is a good shepherd. Certainly, if he were the shepherd of humanity, the non-religious population counts as the most lost of the sheep, especially the atheists which comprise of that group. And it would be for this group which the shepherd may need to go to extremes to reclaim.

I can foresee, however, the Christian responses: "Jesus is not obligated to help those unwilling to find him;" "Jesus is above the demands of humans and the calls for experiential evidence from non-believers;" "Jesus has already done that which would qualify as evidence [2]." Though these could possibly be true, I can think of a counter-example which dismantles these responses. The counter-example is Paul's experience.

It is fascinating to consider this example. Paul, whom is claimed to have persecuted Christians [3], was literally knocked off of his horse by Jesus on his way to Damascus. This kind of show of power is expected for God or a messenger of his. Yet, why does he not do this often? Again, if Jesus was a good shepherd of humanity, why does he not show his great power to everyone like he does to Paul? Why does he not knock me out of my chair and speak to me, taking the shape of a ball of light, and to tell me to stop writing this blog entry?

Of course, the Christian would respond that I am demanding too much from Jesus or God. However, I do not think so. It is the duty of the shepherd to maintain his flock and to find his lost sheep. In terms of Christianity, I am a sheep who is misplaced from the flock. Unless Jesus is only the shepherd of Christians and could care less about humanity as a whole, he is obligated as a good shepherd to find me and bring me to his flock. Yet, he has not.

Now I see another response coming forth from the crowd: "But what about the Bible? It is a map to join the flock". Though this is potentially true, would this still be the mark of a good shepherd? Does the shepherd give his flock a map and hope they return to him at the end of the day? Of course not. The good shepherd is proactive, and though I hear many tales of Christ's presence in the Christian's life, I hear of none from the non-believers. Though I hear plenty of him guiding the members already present in his flock, I hear little about him venturing forth and gathering his lost members.

A map is hardly good enough for those of us who demand experiential evidence. For an entity that had the capacity of appearing before Paul and knocking him of his horse, I would assume such a feat is possible to occur again and again to different people. Sadly, this day has not come for roughly two-thirds of the population of this world. The cynic within me doubts it ever will, and it even doubts that it happened to Paul.

So I leave my readership with this thought. Anytime you hear Jesus being called a shepherd, remember that a shepherd is one who is proactive with his flock. So, is Jesus the shepherd of humanity as a whole, or only for the select few who call themselves Christians?

Notes
1. CIA World Factbook - 33.03% Christians vs. 14.39% "non-religious". I combined the 12.03% non-religious with the 2.36% atheists listed in the World Factbook. (Accessed 2/16/2007)

2. John 10:11 reads "I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep." Though I disagree with this interpretation, you can read "The Good Shepherd: Expositional Study of John 10:11" by Fred G. Zaspel to understand where my contrived response comes from. (Accessed 2/16/2007)

3. "Conversion of Paul" - Wikipedia Article (Accessed 2/16/2007)

Beauty and the Ugly

First, the beauty. I must thank my friends Mark and Frank for showing me a video of two lovely young ladies in their late adolescence denouncing the truth of the Bible. Sadly, embedding has been disabled for this particular video. So, instead, click this link.

Now, aside from the girls being obviously facetious about the subject material with their silly grins and banter, I can't help but find fault in the video. I nearly died of a heart attack when the brunette, Jessica, showed a close-up of the Holt Physics textbook by Ray Serway and Jerry Faughn. Now, do not get me wrong. I appreciate the work of Serway and Faughn, but the particular edition of Holt Physics held up to the camera should not be labeled as 'truth'. Actually, in my personal opinion, Holt Physics is one of the blandest introductory textbooks for physics. I personally approve of either Cutnell and Johnson's Physics or Halliday, Resnick, and Walker's Fundamentals of Physics. Obviously, the latter is the most prominent text to choose from for an introductory course as it requires foreknowledge in calculus, but for those lacking in such a toolkit would find satisfaction with Cutnell and Johnson.

Now, if I had to choose one book to label as 'truth', I think it would be a toss up between the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics or the Merck Index. However, it is simply too hard to indicate one book as 'truth'. Truth encompasses many topics of concern, from anthropology to zoology. I guess one ought to go through the entire list of subjects and pick out the most exemplary form out of that topic.

Now, the Ugly. Alistar McGrath and William Lane Craig will be in New Orleans next weekend for the Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum held by the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. I have been doing some side work on Craig's infamous Kalam cosmological argument. I am tempted to attend the forum to not only see Craig and McGrath possibly becoming trapped in a corner, but to see their adversary and guest speaker Daniel Dennett. I have read most of Dennett's works save his last one, so I've become quite familiar with his style, thinking, and worldview. It will be an interesting forum to attend, in my opinion, to see Dennett, one of the more prominent defenders of Darwinian thought, go up against Craig, champion of the incredulous intelligent design, and McGrath, the self-proclaimed adversary to Richard Dawkins. If I attend, I will let everyone know what I thought of the two day forum. Perhaps I can even get one of those men to sign something so I can sell it on EBay for college or book money.

A Lull in Publishing

My apologies for disappearing for an entire month. School has started in full swing, and I am not exactly in a position where I can dedicate a lot of time to this blog. I plan on revamping some of my old notes from discussion boards I used to attend daily and placing them here. I do not know when I'll have the time, but hopefully it will be soon.

Until then, I plan on commenting in full on this individual's attempt at satire. Also, I recommend reading this website and see how the Bush administration has been mixing political agendas in with scientific reports. My opinion is best described by a statement by Stu Ostro, Senior Director of Weather Communications at the Weather Channel: "PHYSICS, CHEMISTRY, AND THERMODYNAMICS ARE NEITHER LIBERAL NOR CONSERVATIVE." To this statement, I would also add physiology and ecology. Essentially, science is apolitical, and it is ludicrous to believe that men in suits playing government have an obligation to censor scientific findings that go against personal and political ideologies.