(For the Audio and Video versions of this article, see below)
In a recent debate betweenJonathan McLatchie and Alex J. O’Connor (Cosmic Skeptic), O’Connor made
numerous problematic assertions that I would like to address. While I thought
McLatchie handled many of these objections well, because of the short timing of
the debate and the structure, he was not able to address many of the root cause
problems, nor offer substantive rebuttals to everything O’Connor had said. I
will briefly respond to his overall methodological problem, list some problems
that I think McLatchie dispatched rather easily, and then focus on one claim as
the paradigmatic example of the level of research and quality of evidence that
often undergirds the atheistic position, even when they appear erudite, confident
and oh so very British.
I am here only going to examine
the opening statement and initial rebuttal section of the debate (and even here
will only address specific parts of that). I may write a part 2 of this which
will handle other issues raised in the debate, such as the hypothetical of if I
would obey if I thought God was telling me to shoot up a school. Here I am
going to address these few issues from that section.
First, O’Connor’s main
methodological problem is not unique to him. It is nearly universally the stock
and trade of the online infidel community in the 21st century thus
far, and, ironically, there is nothing really new about the “New Atheists” in
this regard. It really is the quite old hat of Logical Positivism wedded to a
kind of Philosophical Naturalism and defended (if we can call it that) with an
arsenal of hyper-skeptical memes to be Gished out upon an unsuspecting
opponent. Anyone even remotely familiar with the tactics of YouTube atheists
like O’Conner and kin, this should not be a new summary so I will not bore with
details here. The one that I would like to address briefly, because it was more
than prominent in the debate strategy employed by O’Connor, is the use hyper-skepticism
to avoid presenting reasonable alternatives.
Daniel Dennett once called
evolution a “universal acid” – an acid that is so powerful that it could
corrode any container that one could try and keep it in. For Dennett, this was
an apt illustration for evolution because he thought evolution, when applied to
any area of knowledge, would radically alter it. Besides that actually being
disanalogous to his own original analogy, there were also major criticisms of the
kind of Scientism of Logical Positivism needed to take a theory of biological
speciation and diversity (even if a good one), and apply it to even other areas
of biology (such as abiogenesis) let alone non-biological and even non-scientific/empirical
questions and disciplines. However, the analogy is a good one for something
like hyper-skepticism precisely because both would destroy any container that
attempts to hold it. Hyper-skepticism is quite rightly compared to the child’s insufferably
repeated question, “why.” The child does not yet grasp different levels of
explanations and causation; they do not understand when burden has been met for
warrant and which does not need to be exceeded; they do not have the awareness
of concepts like conceptual justification in which one need not have an
explanation for an explanation for it to yet be the most adequate one. Children
do not yet know the difference between deduction, induction, and abduction for
example.
Atheists will often say things
like, “when I was a child I had an imaginary friend, but I left that behind as
a child and I do not want a god-sized imaginary friend as an adult.” Well, one
can quite easily look at much of what passes for warrant these days for atheists
and say, “when I was child a had children’s questions that didn’t understand
warrant, and as an adult I don’t want to keep reasoning like a child.” Simply
asking “why” or “what is your evidence of that claim… and that claim… and that
claim… and that claim… and that claim… and that claim….” ad nauseum, may help
the online infidel community reassure themselves that they have the evidence while
theists eschew it because it’s “why’s” all the way down, but it’s not actually
good epistemic methodology. This is because it is a universal acid which
destroys any worldview or conceptual contain which holds it – even the attempt
to justify using it. Why should we ask for evidence? Well because we want to have
evidenced beliefs. What evidence do you have that we should want to have
evidenced beliefs? Well because when we don’t have evidenced beliefs we believe
false things. Well do you have evidence that when we have no evidence we
believe false things? Yes, here is a case X. Well do you have evidence that
case X is a case of something that is false with no evidence? And on and on.
That kind of skepticism is totes adorbs when it can be parroted under the guise
of the Fly Spaghetti Monster, Invisible Tea Pot, or Maximally Great Law of
Nature (all of which reveal a startling lack of understanding on the part of
the atheist), but really it’s a methodology that would cut in all directions.
The instant that we even ask the atheist trying to wield it to defend even
their use of it, even that use is dissolved – and a method that falsifies
everything is useful nothing.
So when O’Connor attempts to use
this kind of method of “yeah but how do you know that,” or the “well I can
think of any absurd counter possibility and no matter how obtuse, it’s clearly
evidence that you’re wrong” then all he is doing is showing that very well
spoken young British chaps may still have some intellectual growing up to do.
Second, there are problems with how
O’Connor not only attempted to reject the Biblical evidence of the
resurrection, but also in how he responded the McLatchie’s rejoinders. For
example, O’Connor made the claim that the gospels contradict on the number of
the women at the tomb. McLatchie showed that in John, while only one woman is expressly
mentioned, the pronouns being in the plural showed that there were more than one
in mind. O’Connor’s hyper-skepticism here attempts to defend this as a “contradiction”
that lends itself as evidence that the Bible is not trustworthy. Why? Because,
he says, that even though it’s not technically a “contradiction” anymore,
surely the transcendent God of the universe would have made it more clear
because it’s the most important event in history. This make several errors.
1. The number of women at the tomb is not the most important event
in history. The resurrection may have been, but that would simply commit the
composition fallacy to think that just because the major event was so important,
that every detail carries the same importance such that anyone telling
it would all tell the exact same details.
2. We do not tell stories, even true ones, this way. I may tell one
person that I went to the store and bought oranges. I may tell another that this
weekend I went with my son to the store because we had to get a lot of
groceries. I may tell another that my wife and I, after going to the park, took
both of our sons to Vons to buy groceries for the week. Does the fact that I did
not include the same details, did not include everyone involved or every place
or time reference mean that this is evidence that somehow the story is an
invention or that they are evidence that I am not a trustworthy narrator? Of
course not. That kind of standard would just be asinine and no one outside of a
band of merry atheists ever use such a standard.
3. O’Connor seems to have a view of inspiration that only the most
anti-intellectual and hardline literalistic fundamentalist would defend. Nearly
every historical statement on inspiration and the authority of the Bible denies
a kind of mechanistic dictation of the Bible by God and sees God as using the
culture, motifs, literary devices, worldview, backgrounds, customs, etc. of the
people to which the original documents were written and of those who composed them.
To think that “God would write it differently” just is for O’Connor to say that
he would write it differently. However, if all the narratives agreed on every
detail, as McLatchie and others have often pointed out, we would then be
defending the gospels against an accusation of collusion and deception to “get
their story straight.” In fact, these kinds of varied details in eyewitness
accounts is precisely the kinds of things that detectives, reporters, and
lawyers look for in authentic testimony. When everyone agrees too much
on ancillary details, collusion is often the prime suspect.
Third, O’Connor then makes one of
the weakest attempts to avoid admitting error that I think I have heard. He had
made the original claim that the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is
a contradiction of the story of Lazarus and the rich man where Jesus did not
raise him from the dead - the exact structure of his argument was quite garbled
to begin with if I ‘m being honest and I have a hard time thinking that he
really thought a narrative was in contradiction to a parable in the historical
sense. I think likely he was trying to make a Carrier type myth development
argument and got lost in the weeds. While McLatchie did an adequate job
responding, I think he could have pushed this far more forcefully. He got O’Connor
to admit that these were likely not the same person (Lazarus was actually a
common name in 1st century Palestine). However, instead of simply
admitting that it wasn’t a contradiction, he admitted that they could be
different men but that the contradiction still existed because in one Jesus
intended to raise Lazarus and in the other, he didn’t. So there is, he claims,
a contradiction of intent. This seems one of the most obtuse things he said in
the entire debate. For what contradiction in intent could there be in Jesus
intentions to raise, in real life based on his ministry and mission to
demonstrate that he is the giver of life, his real friend who really died, and
to a person in a parable used to simply illustrate a point about the efficacy
of the word of God in warranting trust and righteousness, precisely over
miracles like raising someone from the dead? I thought that if I were debating
O’Connor that I would have stopped the debate and asked him to go, in that
precise moment, to get a cup of tea with me. Surely he would have said no, he was
in the middle of something. Well then I could ask if he has ever agreed
in a moment to go get a cup of tea with someone. If he had, then wouldn’t that
be contradiction of intent by his standards? It’s obviously silly. Different
intent in radically different contexts with different people at different times
do not make contradictions. Plus, one of the contexts was a parable. I don’t even
know what it would mean to say that Jesus intended to raise Lazarus in
the parable… it’s a parable. Jesus isn’t in the parable. There is no intent
within the parable. It’s a parable…
Finally, O’Connor made a claim
about the gospels being “riddled with myth” and his best example of this
was to say that the narrative of Cleopas on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24 follows/borrows
from the mythic archetype seen in the myth of Romulus and Remus and the vision
of Romulus seen by Proculus on the road to Rome. The reason that this argument by
O’Connor is so important to note is because it shows the kind of dubious
research and pseudo-scholars he is willing to use (clearly without fact
checking). This demonstrates that while he employs hyper-Skepticism against the
theist, he has zero skepticism for anything or anyone that affirms a position
that he desires to be true.
O’Connor’s source for this claim is
none other than the unemployed blogger himself, Richard Carrier – the darling
of Jesus Mythicists everywhere. Any time an atheist seeks to handle a Biblical
text, one will find that they often never go to the academic literature,
exegetical commentaries, peer reviewed literature on Biblical languages or
backgrounds, etc. but will go to things internet infidel blogs, Reddit, and YouTube,
but when they need to rubber stamp a PhD. on something, they will go to people with
unrelated academic specialties like Dawkins and Hitchens, or to known fringe kooks
like Carrier and Price – who quite literally couldn’t get hired or peer
reviewed by any actual institutions of higher learning, so created their own “think
tank” to self-publish and “peer review” each other’s writings. And this is who
O’Connor turns to, and as such it is not a surprise that he gets carried away
by fits of whimsy and the deep imagination of Carrier.
To make this claim, O’Connor
(really just parroting Carrier’s earlier debate), says that we can see that
this is a mythical borrowing by seeing three facts about both stories:
CLAIM 1: Cleopas means “to
tell” and Proculus means “to proclaim” and thus both give functional names to describe
their role.
REBUTTAL: For anyone
familiar with Koine Greek and Latin, this is laughably false. Cleopas does not
mean “to tell.” Not even close actually. Most think that the name is a
contraction of the common name, Cleopatros (the male version of the name we
often know: Cleopatra). This was a name known at that time and was actually a
contraction of two words κλεός + πατρός which would be
literaly, “the glory of/to the father.” Cleopas is almost certainly a
contraction of Cleopatros. These kinds of names that were original contractions
but then themselves become standalone names are called hypocoristic names and
are common in the New Testament and broader 1st century period (they
still occur today such as anyone with a last name like “Smith” or even my first
name, “Tyler.”) Those who doubt this or who think this is an all to convenient
response simply need to look at the other names in the book of Luke that are
examples of this common practice. The person ascribed to the book as its author,
Loukas (Λουκᾶς), is the shortenedfor of the name(s) Loukanos (Λουκανός) and
Loukios (Λούκιος). The same author, writing in the books of acts has others
such as Silas (Σίλας), which is a contracted version of Silvanos (Σιλουανός)
and, man ythink that possibly Theudas (θευδᾶς) in a contraction for Theodōros
(θεόδωρος).
So, we can see that Cleopas does
not mean “to tell.” While there are a couple of theories about its etymology
not listed here (such as it being a patronym for his city of origin – Clophas),
one thing we do know is that it does not mean “to tell.” But what about
Proculus? Does it mean “to proclaim?” From what I can tell it does not. In fact
we have two ancient sources that tell us the etymology of the word. Plutarch
tells us of one the customs on the Romans in how they named their children. He
writes,
“Another of the same
family was named Celer (the Swift), because of the wonderful quickness with
which he provided a show of gladiators on the occasion of his father's funeral.
Some even to the present day derive their names from the circumstances of their
birth, as for instance a child is named Proculus if his father be abroad when
he is born, and Postumus if he be dead. If one of twins survive, he is named
Vopiscus. Of names taken from bodily peculiarities they use not only Sulla (the
Pimply), Niger (the Swarthy), Rufus (the Red-haired), but even such as Caecus
(the Blind), and Claudus (the Lame), wisely endeavouring to accustom men to
consider neither blindness nor any other bodily defect to be any disgrace or
matter of reproach, but to answer to these names as if they were their own.
However, this belongs to a different branch of study.”
Here, Proculus is used of a child
conceived and born while the father was away – the Latin literally meaning “as
from behind” or something close to that (it could literally be “like the anus”),
but likely refers to it either being done while the father’s back is turned
(not a pejorative) or something like it being done in secret behind his back
while he was away.
Another option given to us by
Festus is that the name is a diminiutive of the term Procus which can
mean either a suitor (possibly again referring to the illegitimacy of being
from a suitor and not the husband who is away), or even a term meaning a prince
(think of parents calling their son, “our little prince.”)
Here we find that neither Cleopas
nor Proculus means anything like “to tell” or “to proclaim.”
CLAIM 2: Both Cleopas (Emmaus
to Jerusalem) and Proculus (Alba Longa to Roma) were traveling in a westerly
direction.
REBUTTAL: Alba Longa was
South East of Rome. This would mean Proculus was traveling North West-ish. While
we do not know the exact location of Emmaus (we have about 9 candidate
location) the various contenders for the location of Emmaus are mostly to the West
of Jerusalem – 6 out of 9 are to the west, but if they meant cites like Ram,
Chemesh, or Artas then it would have been either North or South. Since the text
says that Cleopas and his companion were going toward Emmaus they would
also be traveling in a westerly direction, though depending on the location,
they could be going Northwest, West, or Southwest for five of the possible
locations but not the other three. This means that in this case, maybe
they were traveling in the same direction, but maybe not. At best, this claim
is dubious, and given the range of possibilities that would be considered “westerly”
this would be approximately 1/4th of travel narratives – hardly a motif
making feature of a story.
CLAIM 3: Both trips would
have been 14 miles.
REBUTTAL: This is strange
because Carrier (and thus O’Connor) get it wrong on both accounts. The distance
from Alba Long to Rome was only about 12 miles. In Luke 24:13 we are told that
the distance from Jerusalem to Emmaus was sixty stadia. A stadia was equivalent
to about 607 feet/185 meters for us, meaning that the distance from Jerusalem
to the location referred to as Emmaus in the text would have been just under 7
miles. This comports with 8 out of 9 of the possibilities that archaeologists
give for the site of Emmaus. So not only does Carrier get the distance of both
of them wrong, but they are not even the same distance.
In addition, Luke gives the
distance, while Plutarch does not. It would be the most obscure kind of myth
making motif parallel if the distance had to be 14 miles but not only does a
text not even need to mention distance and fit the motif, but another text
could mention a different distance and still meet the requirement of the motif.
This kind of absurdly misleading parallelism is precisely why no one takes
Jesus Mythicists seriously… well… no one except online atheists like O’Connor.
(UNSTATED) CLAIM 4: We can
see that Luke was borrowing these mythic details from a motif established by
Plutarch’s account of Romulus.
REBUTTAL: This kind of assumption
on the part of Mythicists reveals that in their hunt to find vague parallels to
prop up, basic chronology is left by the wayside. Even if we grant the critical
late dating for the gospel of Luke into the late 70’s, this would be almost
certainly at least a decade prior to Plutarch’s writing, but probably
more (since he probably wrote it in the 1st decade of the 2nd
century). While I could argue for a dating of Luke’s gospel into the 50’s, I do
not need to present that here since even the late dating is almost certainly
pre-Plutarch. So not only is this series of “facts” debunked and does not present
a known mythic motif in 1st century biographical literature, but if
there was any borrowing to bolster a story, the causal arrow would be exactly
reversed from the direction that Carrier, O’Connor and the other mythicists wish
us to accept.
With that, I think I have shown
that not only is O’Connor’s epistemic methodology wildly problematic and not
actually the rationally responsible method to compare and evaluate competing
worldviews or explanations, but also his engagement with Biblical/ancient literature,
historiography, and historical facts is done in the irresponsible manner of the
Jesus Mythicists. This may fly at places like the University of Northern New
Jersey and the Center for Inquiry Institute, but they should not be accepted by
any rational, truth seeking individuals.
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