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Post by MarkByDesign on Jun 26, 2004 11:03:05 GMT -5
Title: A Case Against God
Author: George H. Smith
ISBN: 0-87975-124-X
Publisher: Prometheus Books
I do not claim to be an unbiased critic of this book. I took up a challenge against Maverick. He agreed to read, Goldstein, "God, Gödel and Grace" and I agreed to read "A Case Against God."
I am sincerely interested in understanding Atheistic "truths". I've read about 1/3 of the book so far and I would not be honest with you if I said that it has not challenged my faith.
But this book does more to seal my convictions in Christianity then the books on Christian apologetics. It has clearly uncovered the emotionalism and subjective viewpoints that surround atheism. One of the greatest examples of the use of emotionalism comes from the atheistic assertion that theology doesn't hold up to materialistic attitudes of science. I have a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering. I cannot deny what science has taught me and I require no conflict with science and faith, or my faith will parish. But I also realize that to study science, you need the right tools. Theology is science, and it doesn't use Galileo’s telescope.
In order to support the claims that science is at odds with faith, Smith invokes a rather conflicted (and irrational) attitude by stating outright "I will not accept anything based on faith." He also states that "A rational man will be without theistic beliefs." Using examples of the Catholic Church against Galileo he attempts to show that science is at odds with faith, he states: "Christianity is peddling an inferior product, one that cannot withstand critical investigation."
So what justification does Smith offer for throwing away all the scientific tools needed to evaluate Christianity? And how can he form a valid opinion if refuses to acknowledge these tools? He had better come up with a good reason to throw away these tools (faith, biblical claims and overwhelming personal experiences) if he does, but he doesn’t.
In this day and age of non-locality theorems, atomic theory, relativity and string theory there is more reason then ever for man to take what we know about the world we live in, on faith. Many physicists will tell you that if you don’t find nature truly bizarre (speaking at a sub-atomic level) you probably don’t understand it. Scientists have to take their subatomic models on faith, because there is no better explanation about it. Scientific models of wave-particle duality and the simultaneous repositioning of electron spin, are irrational explanations. But they are what they are. If this is at odds with and makes Christianity irrational, I’d like Smith to try and encompass quantum theories in his rational treatment of epistemology.
The emotionalism and tactics he uses in his case against God are so blatant that it should be used as an example of the human rationalizations that plagued the Church in the 1300-1500’s. There is more rationalizations in this book, then anything I’ve read of late. He twists and turns historic fact around so much, that if his idea of objectivity was “normal” we’d still be living in the dark ages.
Most notably was the context use to show that Christianity (and theology) are supposedly the root of evil. He quotes, St. Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologica, “that a heretic should be exterminated by death after the third offense.”
This is an attempt to blame God (real or imagined) with all the evils of the world! In actuality, the teaching of the Church (during St. Thomas’s lifetime) was at odds with his “Summa Theologica”. (Much as it is today with a vast majority of Christians concerning abortion and capital punishment.) And St Thomas acknowledges his disagreement with the Church in the paragraph right above where Smith took his quotation! It was the Churches teaching (and in accordance with the unmistakable teaching of Christ) that we should not kill the heretics. The Church taught that we should use persuasion and only persuasion to reach non-believers. It was through the rationalization of St Thomas and so many others of the day, that heretics were killed.
As I continue reading the book, I would hope Smith would present a rational explanation of why Christ died on the cross that doesn’t conflict with undisputable historical fact. But given his poor treatment of historical fact so far, I doubt he is capable of doing this.
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Franc28
Seasoned Citizen
Posts: 144
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Post by Franc28 on Jun 26, 2004 11:29:59 GMT -5
Wow. Talk about not being able to read what you disagree with. Mr. Smith's book is about as far as you can get from "emotionalism and subjective viewpoints". Funny you didn't point out any.
As for "scientific tools needed to evaluate Christianity" and objectivity being regressive, I'm just going to assume you're joking, because that's just sad otherwise.
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Post by MarkByDesign on Jun 26, 2004 13:08:55 GMT -5
Mr. Smith's book is about as far as you can get from "emotionalism and subjective viewpoints". Funny you didn't point out any. "I won't take anything of faith!" is sheer emotionalism and intellectual bigotry. |
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Post by vertigo on Jun 26, 2004 15:04:32 GMT -5
Mark, he goes on to say why that is. You are looking at it out of context. If yuo are prepared to believe that God exists, only because a book tells you, then do you also believe that Puff the magic dragon exists? What about Winnie the Pooh? You can't just believe stuff on faith alone, there has to be some reason, some evidence to suggest it. That is his point, that we wait for the evidence rather than positing things we have no reason to believe.
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Post by AuntieSocial on Jun 27, 2004 0:20:31 GMT -5
MarkByDesign
There is no historical evidence to support the notion that Yeshua died on a cross. How can someone offer a reason for the crucifixion when historians (outside of the Christian theologians) failed to record the event?
If you are looking for a reason (other than what the Church teaches about absolution), ther eis only one reason that the Romans crucified anyone. Insurrection against the Empire. IF Yeshua existed (which also can't be established from the archeological and historical evidence), he was executed for leading uprisings against Rome in Jerusalem ...
As for Smith's book, I have it ... I haven't yet read it ... I have a stack of no less than 30 books sitting on my bookshelf that are awaiting my attention (time permitting). I have moved this one to the top of the pile and will read it as soon as I finish Sophie's World. I just wanted to comment the "undisputed historical fact" of Yeshua dying on a cross.
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Post by MarkByDesign on Jun 28, 2004 14:02:07 GMT -5
If you are prepared to believe that God exists, only because a book tells you... No. My personal experience tells me that God exists. After I read and learned enough about Christ, I took a leap of faith and tried it on to see if it works for me. I remained objective and non-critical such as C.S. Lewis recommends in "An Experiment in Criticism" "The first demand any work of art makes of us is surrender. Look, Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way. There is no good asking first whether the work before you deserves such a surrender, for until you have surrendered, you cannot possibly find out." |
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Post by MarkByDesign on Jun 28, 2004 14:52:54 GMT -5
There is no historical evidence to support the notion that Yeshua died on a cross. How can someone offer a reason for the crucifixion when historians (outside of the Christian theologians) failed to record the event? The cause of your disbelief is not because the evidence is lacking, but because of you wont accept the facts. Our understanding of ancient times comes from historical evidence that is far less substantial then the documents recording Christ life and His divinity. The fact that they say that He is God, the fact that He performed miracles, is what you can't accept. There are lots of non-christian accounts of what happened. The persecution of early Christian is well document. To kill Christianity off, all the Jews and all the Romans had to do would be to present Christ's remains to the people. Instead, and it is well documented, the Romans and Jews resorted to genocide, terror and suppression. Some of the apostles were beheaded, hung, and crucified. Not one of them "spilled the beans" and said it isn't true. What better testimony is there? In addition, there was one Jew who hated the Christians hunted them down and killed them. His name was Paul, St Paul. His story is record in Acts and many letters to Corinthians, Romans and Thesolonians. If you use the same criteria to throw out historical records of what happened to Christ, then you must throw out most of all we know about ancient history. Non-believers simply do not apply the same criteria to weighing the facts as they do with just about any other "knowledge" they posses. Do you want to engage in endless messages after message, or can we take an objective look at historical events and determine their merit, even if the historical record is called a bible? Call it something else if that makes it easier. And please just tell me honestly if any of you can read the bible and take it in the context it was written and with an objective viewpoint? |
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Post by MarkByDesign on Jun 28, 2004 15:56:57 GMT -5
As for Smith's book, I have it ... I haven't yet read it ... I have a stack of no less than 30 books sitting on my bookshelf that are awaiting my attention (time permitting). I have moved this one to the top of the pile and will read it as soon as I finish I wish I could be as effective at getting you to read "God, Godel and Grace" by Goldstein (or the bible for that manner) as I am at getting you to read this trash.  (Just Kidding.) God Bless, till next time... |
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Post by droskey on Jun 28, 2004 16:07:16 GMT -5
MarkByDesign
I'm not a history buff, but I'm not sure that anybody claims that we have a whole slew of detailed information ancient individuals. We know pretty well what societies were doing, but only a few individual people really stand out. Those people are usually either rulers or learned men who left behind written record.
MarkByDesign
The Bible is given plenty of weight as a historical text. It gives us an idea of what the times were like when it was written. It gives us an idea of what the authors valued.
But the issue that I think that you are driving at is not whether the Bible is given "weight" but whether the Bible is trusted on the detailed information that it reports. And, like many ancient single ancient sources, it is not reliable in this way. One reason for this is the way in which the various pieces of the Bible came together. The oldest manuscripts of the New Testament are some of the letters of Paul (I Corinthians, I believe). If I remember correctly, they date to around A.D. 60. As such, they are a good source for trying to figure out what it was that Christians believed at that time. The rest of the new testament was written much later. Therefore I contend that the New Testament is a good record of what Christians believed, but it isn't a good record for what actually happened.
So why all the scrutiny. Why not just take the New Testament at face value and assume that it accuratly describes events. For one, that just wouldn't be intellectually honest. We can't say for sure that the New Testament is an accurate record of events. It wasn't written when the events occured. Second, the New Testament makes incredible claims. The garden variety of evidence just won't do. For instance, the Bible doesn't just say that Jesus was a great teacher and here is what he teaches. It claims that he is the Son of God (whatever that means) and that he is the way to heaven. Jesus didn't just send his disciples across the sea and walk around the other side to meet them. He walked on water, calmed a storm and climbed inside with them. These are the claims that are typically dismissed. They are not supported by evidence.
As far as eye witness testimony in the New Testament, that's a problem as well. The truth is that we don't have an accout of hundreds of people seeing the risen Jesus after his death. We have one account written well after the alleged event that claims that hundreds of people were witnesses to it. No other corroborating evidence.
So in summary, the Bible is not typically dismissed out of hand as being unhistorical. However, miraculous and outrageous claims are generally relagated to the land of myth just like all such claims (i.e. the Illiad, the Oddessy, Gilgamesh, Beowulf, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, etc.)
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Post by droskey on Jun 28, 2004 16:11:54 GMT -5
MarkByDesign
I realize that this wasn't directed at me but I will mention that though I haven't read "God, Godel and Grace" I have read the Bible, Mere Christianity (which was very good) and other not so good works of apologists (Case for Faith, Case for Christ). I only read selections in these last two. I also read Faith of a Physicist by John Polkinghorn, which I found very interesting.
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Post by AuntieSocial on Jun 28, 2004 18:50:58 GMT -5
I wish I could be as effective at getting you to read "God, Godel and Grace" by Goldstein (or the bible for that manner) as I am at getting you to read this trash. (Just Kidding.) God Bless, till next time... Okay, I know you claim to be kidding with this comment, however, I do not restrict my reading to "this trash", as you so eloquently phrased Smith's book. I have a very large library of religious, philosophical and historical books. I have some theology books dating back to the mid-1800s. I also have a CD-rom that has thousands of religious texts from several religions. If you want to see what is on the CD-rom, I would suggest you visit The Internet Sacred Text ArchiveThere are extenuating circumstances that have lead to my recent decline in reading. I have already made a couple of posts (in the Mafia thread) detailing the difficulties I faced in April. The situation has resulted in no less than 5 hours of medical appointments a week for the unforeseeable future, on top of full-time employment. I don't want to make excuses, but your condescending words required a comment. Some of us have things going on in our lives that take away from the things we would like to be doing ... for me, reading is one of my real joys. As I mentioned earlier, I have over 30 titles that are sitting on my bookshelves awaiting my attention. These books range in topic and many of them are theistic. I take my research seriously. I am an atheist because I have not found any corroborating evidence (external of the Bible. You can read an essay I wrote on my website that will explain why I cannot accept the Bible as the solitary source of evidence). I was raised in a very religious home and did missionary work and worked prayer lines, all the while, I didn't have faith, I am incapable of accepting things on faith. My lack of faith is not restricted to religion, either. I question everything, and I am glad that I do. The evidence supporting the existence (let alone the divinity of Yeshua is extremely lacking. There are no contemporary historian accounts that have not been accepted to be fraudulent (even the Biblical scholars admit that the account of Jesus in Flavius Josephus was an addition). The reference to Christians (and the persecution of Christians) is irrefutable. So what? We know that Christians exist. You are evidence of that. What we don't have is evidence that the early church fathers (beginning with James and S/Paul) built their religion on an actual personage. What is more over-whelming is the parallels of the Jesus story to older religions that were well established in the 1st Century CE. It is undisputed that the Christ story mirrors that of the Indian Krishna, or the Persian Mithras. Even Osiris and Horus of Egypt share vast amounts of events in common (Osiris raised El-Azuras from the dead ... quite the miracle!) What happened to the Christians was horrible, if it indeed happened to the extent the church would like us to believe. However, you must understand that the Christians were deemed to be ... if I use the word would you accept it? ... atheists. Yes, they were considered atheists! It is another example of the killing done in the name of a god (or gods). The early Christians were no better. How many Gnostics were executed as heretics? How many pagans died in the name of Yahweh? (Which I suppose if as Yahweh wants it. He commended this course of action in the Bible). There are simply no "facts" that do not come from the Bible (which was selectively constructed by the Council of Nicea in the 4th Century. I have added your suggested book to my reading list, and will give it priority after theose that I am currently reading, and Smith's "A Case Against God", since a thread has already started for this book and I already have it. When I have time to read the book, I will comment. P.S. With respect to the Bible, I have read three different translations. I can't say that it left me feeling loved by a supernatural creator being, especially being a woman ... |
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Post by droskey on Jun 29, 2004 10:43:25 GMT -5
I realized I made an error in one of my previous posts. I lumped the Book of Mormon in with the Odyssey, the Illiad, the Koran, Gilgamesh and Beowulf. The Book of Mormon does not actually represent the time in which it was written. It is a book that is written in a way to suggest that it describes an earlier time. However, the other books in the list do reflect the times in which they were written.
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