On "Cherry Picking"

I would like to give some basic thoughts on I respond to an oft posed atheistic objection: Do I eat shellfish? Absolutely. Do I wear clothes of mixed cloth? I am right now.  Well then, according to the atheist, I must be “cherry picking” from the Bible the verses that I want to believe and the ones I don’t, especially those from the Old Testament Mosaic Law. This is another very common mistake that many lay skeptics make. Ironically this was not a big complaint from atheists in generations past because they were familiar with the Christian theology of the New Covenant. Basic theology and hermeneutics was commonly part of primary education. However, many modern Atheists just do not take the time to actually familiarize themselves with Christian theology and the history of interpretation before they begin blindly flailing about with their objections, hoping that something, anything, will stick.

The reason why Christians do not adhere to these kinds of laws from the Old Covenant has literally nothing to do with some kind of textual cherry picking. This again is a long standing theological distinction made based on the New Testament and Covenant Theology. Again, you do not have to believe that the Bible is TRUE on this, but you can at least attempt to understand what it says and means. Christians do not have just the Old Testament. We also have the NT and read the entire book as being a continuous whole (diverse as it may be). Anyone who has read Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, and Hebrews will know immediately that the answer to why we do not follow the OT Levitical law in detail is theological. I’ll try to keep this as brief as I can but such atheists are basically asking a question that involves the relationship between the Mosaic Covenant with the Nation of Israel and the New Covenant with a redeemed people (not a geo political nation). I’m gonna do this in simple list format to make it more brief and easy to respond to specific points if you so choose.

1.      Christians have, since the earliest writers (we see it in the 4 NT books I listed above as well as other places like Acts 15) seen a distinction between 3 different KINDS of OT Laws: Civil/magisterial laws (taxation, penal code, kingship, etc.), ceremonial/priestly laws (sacrifices, clean/unclean, holiness codes, structures of worship, etc.) and moral/ethical laws (decalogue/10 commandments, etc.) Again, this distinction did not arise as a response to the challenge of “Cherry picking” but has been a long standing theological distinction since Paul and even Jesus. We will see in the next few points why this distinction is important to keep in mind.

2.      In addition to the distinction of the KINDS of laws in the OT, the Bible also has a strong emphasis on the spirit of the law, that is, that even behind the civil and ceremonial law there is an ethical principle operating. So for example, in Deut 22:8 we find this law:

"When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, so that you will not bring bloodguilt on your house if anyone falls from it.”

      Now, is the intent of this law that it is morally good in and of itself just to have a parapet (a small fence) around one’s roof? No. The ethic behind this is clearly that we are responsible to make sure that our properties are safe and that if we do not adequately build or maintain our properties then we are liable when someone gets hurt on our property due to our neglect. It is basically an early version of building safety codes.

3.      The next concept is that many of these laws are used as something like “life illustrations.” This is a hard concept for modern hearers to grasp because we don’t really have laws like this anymore. These laws are meant to be kept to remind the Jews of their need to be holy and not give in to other religions or immoral practices. So when they only wore unmixed clothing they were to be reminded of their need to not mix their lifestyles with the lifestyles of the Canaanites for example. So some laws are in place as life illustrations and reminders to the Jews of their history and their standing as a distinct and hopefully holy people. When they went into other lands and had to be particular about the food or the cloth that they bought at market, it would be a reminder to them and possible even a way to share God with other people.

4.      The Bible is structured around the ANE legal practice of covenants: Adamic Covenant, Noahic Covenant, Abrahamic Covenant, Mosaic Covenant, Davidic Covenant and the New Covenant. Now what is a covenant? It is like a treaty, or an agreement between two or more people. In the ancient world it was often structured around the following format (or some close variation thereof):

a.       Preamble – the initiating party involved says who they are and what they have done.

b.      What the agreement is – the obligations of each party.

c.       The blessings and consequences for keeping/breaking the covenant.

Now covenants can be either conditional or unconditional. A conditional covenant basically says that the covenant is only valid so long as the parties are faithful to their respective obligations. If they are faithful then the blessings from C are received. If they break it then the consequences of C are received and the covenant ends.

An unconditional covenant is long standing regardless of the faithfulness of the 2^nd party. It is a unilateral promise of the initiating party to the receptive party. This means that regardless of the faithfulness of the receptive party the initiating party would continue to give the blessing. Again we will see why this concept is important to keep in mind.

Now to tie those four points together we can begin by looking at a common formulation of Jesus: “You have heard X, but I tell you Y.” This is a common formulation in the sermons of Jesus. Jesus seems to be drawing on the fact that there are moral and ethical underpinnings of each law and that our moral obligations are to THOSE ethical underpinnings (which are often HARDER to keep than the original law even if they are less “culturally” derived.)

We also see that the Civil and Ceremonial laws were given as part of the conditional covenant of the Mosaic covenant specifically for the regulation of the theocratic state of the Nation of Israel. When Israel fails to uphold its faithfulness to the covenant, they undergo the consequences stated at the end of the covenant (found in Deuteronomy). However, we then find the New Covenant beginning to form in Jeremiah 31 (though we see hints of it as early as Genesis 3) which is an unconditional covenant meant to overcome the faithlessness of Israel. Yet in order to make this New Covenant unconditional, God does away with the obligation of the civil and ceremonial obligations of geo-political Israel by extending the blessings to all people. No longer does a person have to become a national Jew in order to be a citizen of God’s kingdom but they still must become “clean” to enter. Yet since we cannot be sinless on our own (since sin is the violation of the moral law – of which we are all guilty of) we must still be redeemed by an act of grace. This is what Jesus does – he is the culmination of the law – the perfect prophet, priest and king. The one who wraps up all the loose ends and fulfills obligations and yet takes the Mosaic curses due to us on himself. But what does this mean for non-Jews and Jewish Christians? We see this very discussion happening in Acts 15 with the so called Jerusalem counsel. We see in Acts 15 that the early church got together to discuss whether or not a gentile must first become a Jew before they became a Christian – i.e. must they follow all the OT law to become a Christian? This was the conclusion that they came to:

²⁸ It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: ²⁹ You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

Notice that it was based on theological reasons of what the gospel is, not some desire to avoid the accusation of cherry picking that they came to the conclusion that Gentiles were not required to keep the laws of Geo-political Israel. We even see Paul say this in Galatians 2:

¹⁴ When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

Paul here condemns Peter (Cephas) for forcing gentiles to adhere to the OT ceremonial laws – he says that it is actually contrary to the gospel to force Christians to live by the OT civil and ceremonial laws.

Now, I know this has been somewhat long, but the point is that when an atheist wants to say that Christians are just “cherry picking” when they do not live according to OT law it shows that they are just not familiar with NT theology and the long history of covenantal theology.

I’m also not saying that one cannot read the Bible for themselves. I am simply saying that in order to understand what an ANE author MEANS takes some study precisely because it is so foreign to us. I like to use the example of Dante. If you read Dante without a critical edition with all the footnotes it is almost impossible to appreciate the meaning of most of the text. Sure you might be able to come up with the overall theme and narrative flow of the book, but almost every stanza is chalk full of allusions and historically derived images and themes.

So for example, in Canto I Dante writes:

“of that sad Italy for which Nisus died

And Turnus, and Euryalus, and the maid Camilla

He shall hunt her through every nation of sick pride.

One would NEVER be able to say that they have understood what that stanza meant if you do not study the history of it. So why do we think that the Bible which is written in a completely different time, on a different continent, in a different culture in every possible way, in a dead language, from a different worldview would not take study to even understand what the author meant?

So again, all of this does not mean one cannot read it on their own, but it does mean that in order to interpret what the text MEANS, it will often take quite a bit of study into the backgrounds and contexts of the texts we are dealing with.

“Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.” – Henry Louis Gates

On a post about morality on atheist apologist David McAfee’s group page, I was in a discussion with David’s girlfriend and another gentleman and was pointing out the difference between ontology and epistemology (that iron rods remain solid because of what iron IS and not due to what we believe/know about it or how we come to that belief/knowlege).

This was his GF response:

“"Why will the iron stay solid?" Of course it will, know why? Because we've tested it.”

Initially I gave her the benefit of the doubt that she merely phrased it wrong and that she was still simply confusing ontology with epistemology – that she was just trying to say how we know that an iron bar would remain solid. After I tried to get her to see that the iron remains solid because of what iron IS and not BECAUSE we’ve tested it (that is that the tests are how we may know or confirm that iron will remain solid but do not cause it), she swung into a rage, refused to answer any questions and started calling me:

1. a dishonest f*ck.

2. a lonely old man

3. unmarried, because I am so pathetic no one would ever marry me.

4. unhappy at a dead end job

5. anti-science

6. uneducated and ignorant of anything

7. unable to use “big boy” evidence

I responded by apologizing if I had said something to offend her, and continued to try and keep the conversation civil and honest and simply asked for more clarifications about her answer and if she really did think that it was the testing that caused the metal’s solidity. Her hostility simply escalated.

After this, NJ Bruzzese (naturalist, agnostic/functional-atheist host of The Skeptics Testament) then joined in and also tried to help her see that this distinction between ontology and epistemology and that this is not a point of contention for any philosophers and is not something that really is distinctively Christian or theistic. We both tried to point out to her that this is really basic philosophical categories and nothing to get bent out of shape about. Another atheist, Brandon Christen, also read the thread and noticed the nature of David’s girlfriends comments – he would later respond to the controversy.

The thread was suddenly, and without warning, deleted. NJ accidentally posted his comment on the main page not knowing the thread was deleted and then at that point, NJ, myself and the other atheistic member of that group continued the conversation very openly and honestly and with great civility. David McAfee suddenly posted that he would like this new thread to end and promptly deleted the post and then BANNED NJ and myself from the group.

Following this Brandon then commented on the group’s page that he was surprised, and somewhat disappointed, that a group that was supposedly dedicated to free thought and reasonable dialogue, would not only delete multiple threads challenging the views of the group’s administrator and his GF – and not even religious one’s but basic philosophical understanding of what ontology and epistemology are…) would be censored and banned, whereas  the commenters who routinely mock and ridicule and launch personal attacks against people do not even get so much as a slap on the wrist. Brandon was told by David McAfee that he could go elsewhere and was banned from the group as well.

For those who where in any doubt that there are anti-theistic fundamentalists, this is evidence for you. He censored a theist, an agnostic and an atheist, deleted multiple threads and banned us from his group after allowing his followers to resort to nothing but ad hominems, personal attacks, and derogatory rhetoric. Why? Because we pointed out that there is a difference between ontology and epistemology that might (MIGHT) challenge one of his views.

Nothing like censorship to show one is a “free thinker”. 

Undesigned Historical Coincidences in the Gospels

(I will give total credit for this to Dr. Timothy McGrew from Western Michigan State University who I am simply synthesizing the information in some of his interviews for publication here on Logical Theism.)

Often when we are reading the Gospels we miss, or rather, skip over certain statements that are made in passing. These statements frequently add nothing to the narrative or even might raise questions that the narrative is unable or uninterested in answering. It is only when we compare them to the parallel account found in another of the gospels that we find some details that explain them. That is, that these stories are told in ways that the inconsequential details dovetail together in such a way that show that neither was copied from the other but also that they reveal real and reliable testimony. They are undersigned but no gospel writer was writing something intentionally inconsequential hoping that one day another writer would come along and fill in the necessary detail only for a third person to come along and piece it all together just to try and fool people to believe that the original document wasn’t forged. These narratives fit together in such a way to show that there is a real event that the witnesses are describing.

This raises a problem for those liberal scholars who would like to say that the stories developed as myth, are allegory, are not the result of eyewitness testimony or were produced far to late to be reliable. We will see as we examine just some of these “undersigned coincidences” that they are the hallmark of good eyewitness testimony and indicate reliable authorship rather than forgeries.

1. The Transfiguration

First lets look at Luke 9:36: “And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.”

This is found in the story of the Transfiguration. So Jesus takes three of his disciples up onto the mountain and after a while they fall asleep. When they wake up they find Jesus glowing and talking with two guys who have come down from heaven! Then a cloud covers them and they hear the voice from heaven, then “when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.” But I’m sure most of you have a question at this point.

The question that this story almost screams out for an answer is why did they not tell anybody? If you or I were to see such an event, we would undoubtedly tell people, and a lot of people, about it. So why did they not tell anyone? Luke simply doesn’t tell us.

Now flip over to the same event as it is told in Mark 9:9: “And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.”

So what Mark is recording (which some scholars think is actually the testimony of Peter as Peter is reporting it to him) is that Jesus actually commanded the disciples not to tell anybody. So what we find in Mark is a detail not found in Luke that gives a fuller picture of what Luke was reporting. It explains something puzzling about Luke’s account. This also gives rise to a problem with what is known as Markan Priority, that is, that Luke is copying from Mark. If Luke was copying from Mark, why would he leave out a detail from the narrative that would explain a very puzzling fact that he left in? Why hold on to the part about the disciples not telling anyone but leave out the reason why they didn’t tell anyone? If Luke was coping from Mark, he would have carried over the detail that Jesus had commanded them not to tell anyone.

2. Herod’s household

In this next passage, Jesus has begun his ministry and Herod has become aware of it and wants some more information on it. So we read in Matthew:

Matthew 14:1-2: “At that time Herod the tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus, 2 and he said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead; that is why these miraculous powers are at work in him.””

Now the question comes up, why does Herod, with all the resources at his disposal, go to the servants in his household to get information about Jesus? Right if Obama wants information about what is going on in Egypt, he doesn’t go to the cleaning crew. But that is what Herod does. Now why would he do that? Why would he think that his servants would have the answers? If you look through Matthew you will not find the answer. It is simply an off the cuff comment that Matthew makes when reporting the narrative, that Herod goes to his servants.

But now flip over and look at Luke 8:3. Before we look at it we should point out that this is not meant as a passage to explain Matthew 14. It is not found in a parallel passage. It is not addressing why Herod asks his servants. It is what Tim McGrew calls “fly over territory”. These are the boring parts that are almost totally inconsequential and we like to just skip over.

But look at what Luke says in an off the cuff comment totally unrelated to Matthew 14. Luke 8:3 says in listing some of the people who were followers of Jesus, “and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.”

In other words, in passing, Luke drops the information in passing that Jesus had followers who had family that worked in Herod’s household. And a household manager or steward is no lowly position. And Herod is not a fool. He would know this. He would undoubtedly know that he had followers of Jesus, or at least the family of followers of Jesus at his disposal in his own household. If he has questions about Jesus, like he did, he wouldn’t have to go further than his own household. So this passage explains what is going on in Matthew 14. Why is he asking his servants? Because he knows that they know.

3. The Feeding of the 5000

Here we will be looking at John 6:5 in the set-up for the feeding of the 5000. We find Jesus and his disciples just arriving on the opposite shore of the Sea of Galilee and becoming confronted with a large crown gathering. Now at this point John does something rather strange.

John 6:5: “Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?””

If you were going to forge a story or make up details, you would bring up well known characters. Well here Jesus doesn’t not address Peter or John or even Judas (who we might expect since we know that Judas was the one responsible for the group’s money bag), but rather he addresses Philip. Outside of the calling of Philip told in the gospels, Philip is only mentioned 2 times, in this story and then again basically as just a messenger in John 12:21-22. This is not a heavy hitter in the NT. And yet this is who Jesus looks to when he wants them to buy bread. Why?

Well we know from John 1 and John 12 that Philip was from Bethsaida. John 12:21 says, “They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee” or John 1:44 that says, “Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida.”

But now let’s look at the parallel passage to the feeding of the 5000 in Luke 9:10. Here Luke is telling the same story about Jesus and the disciples trying to get away from it all but he adds an important little detail that John leaves out. Luke says, “On their return the apostles told him all that they had done. And he took them and withdrew apart to a town called Bethsaida.”

Well what John doesn’t tell us is that the feeding of the 5000 happens not just in Galilee (where most of disciples were from) but specifically in the town of Bethsaida – where Philip is from. So in effect, Jesus was asking Philip, “Hey, you’re from around here… Where can get some bread?”

But notice that whereas John doesn’t mention the setting of the miracle, Luke doesn’t mention Philip. So neither is copying from the other. They are not taking details from each other.

(Here McGrew makes a helpful interjection at those who would be tempted to say that these are just two legends that developed congruently. He points out that we would never open Treasure Island to try and help us fill in details in Moby Dick.)

But it goes further. If we look at Mark’s account of the story we read in the prologue this in Mark 6:30: “The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.”

Well the question is raised, why there is suddenly so many people out and about? Skeptics have actually tried to use this to find an error in the passage pointing out that we wouldn’t have thousands of people from one small town coming out to hear a sermon. So where are all these people coming from? Well turn back to John 6.

We read in John 6:4-5, “Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. 5 Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him…”

So whereas Mark simply tells us about the crowd, John fills in the details and tells us that this event took place right before the Passover. This would mean that there would be thousands and thousands of sojourners traveling on their way to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem. So this does not mean that there were thousands of people living in this little town of Bethsaida, but that this crowd would have been from all over Israel.

Again, this is simply another historical detail that one author leaves out but another author provides to dovetail all these accounts together.

4. Peter, do you love me?

Here we find Jesus chatting with Peter after the resurrection and he asks him what comes across as a pretty harsh question.

John 21:15 reads, “When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?””

Why is Jesus picking on Peter? Why does he not ask him if he loves him as much as the other disciples? Why does he put Peter on the spot and ask him if he loves him more? Well search high and low in John and you wont find the answer. But look to a pretty well known passage in Matthew 26:33 and we find, “Peter answered him, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.””

Now when we see the two passages together, why is Jesus asking Peter if he loves Jesus more than any others? It is because Peter had boasted that he would be more faithful than anyone else, but he hadn’t. But we don’t get any of that in John, not even in his telling of the same upper room narrative in John 13. It is only when we fill in the blanks from Matthew that we see the whole picture.

5. Jesus before Pilate

In this next scenario we will be looking at the passage in John when Jesus is brought before Pilate. He has been accused and arrested by the Chief Priests and now is standing before Pilate and they begin to have a conversation where Pilate asks Jesus in v33, “are you the king of the Jews?” Now, for those following the narrative in John, this is NOT one of the accusations that the Jews have been using to get Jesus arrested in the gospel. They accuse him of being a troublemaker and of blasphemy but never of claiming to be king of the Jews. Pilate might as well have asked him if he was the Mr. Universe of the Jews. It was just a question that in John is completely out of left field.

But now flip over to Luke 23:2-3 where Luke is telling the same story and gives the charges that the priests actually present to Pilate: “And they began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.” 3 And Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?””

Now, Pilate’s question make sense. It is not that John got the question wrong. It is that John simply left out a piece of historical detail that would make the question make more sense that Luke fills in for us. A Roman Procurator has to take the charge of someone claiming to be king had to take care of. So Luke gives us a detail that John leaves out, that helps us better understand John.

But it gets better. Let’s keep reading in Luke 23:3-5

“3 And Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” And he answered him, “You have said so.” 4 Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no guilt in this man.” 5 But they were urgent, saying, “He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee even to this place.””

Now when Pilate asks Jesus if he was king he responds with a normal Greek idiom. In our translations it says something like “you have said so” or “you say it is so” or something like that. It actually was a common idiom something like our “from your mouth to God’s ears.” Basically he is saying “yup, you said it buddy.” It’s an admission.

So this raises a huge problem in the text. Here is a Jew, accused of claiming to be king, one of the biggest offenses in Roman society, and a Roman procurator saying that he finds no guilt in the man? What? No guilt? He just admitted to it! So what is going on? That doesn’t make sense in Luke by itself.

But now go back to John 18. After Pilate asks if he is king, they have a little back and forth and in v36 we find Jesus saying, ““My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”” Then after a little more back and forth at the end of v38 we read, “After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him.”

So now it is a fact that is missing from Luke that we find in John that explains the narrative. They both find details in the other account that help us understand the story itself. We don’t know in John why Pilate asks if Jesus is a king, but we don’t know from Luke why he says that Jesus is innocent. Neither one is copying from eachother or they would have left those details in but neither one is making up an event on their own because the other source assumes some background information that is not essential to their own version that happens to fill in the other version.

6. Healing the sick

In Matthew 8 we have Jesus at Peter’s house and he heals his mother in law. Then we are told in 8:16, “16 That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick.”

Now anyone familiar with gospels knows that healings were not isolated events. They were large crowds, cutting open roofs, pushing through crowds. So why is it that these people didn’t come to Jesus until evening? Why werent they standing in line like the new iPhone was coming out?

Well flip over to Mark 1 where the parallel is we read this in Mark 1:21, “And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and was teaching.”

After this we are told that he did some healings in the synagogue and then went to Peter’s house and healed his mother, then in v32 we read, “That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. 33 And the whole city was gathered together at the door. 34 And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons.”

So why do people wait in Matthew to come to Jesus at sundown? Well Mark tells us. It was the Sabbath. Well at this time who was the dominate sect in the Jerusalem at the time? It was the Pharisaical sect and they taught that you could not work on the Sabbath, not even carrying someone to be healed or walking more than a few hundred steps outside of your house. So the people wait until sun is down then immediately start leaving their houses and carrying their sick to Jesus. This is a trivial statement in Matthew that people did not come until evening, but it is fully explained Mark.

I am working on documenting more of these but I will post these for now.

The Problem With the Problem of Suffering

The most persistent, and probably the strongest, argument against the existence of the Christian God is the argument from evil (or pain). The first major formulation of the argument is the logical problem of evil. This argument seeks to prove that the existence of evil (or pain in some formulations) and the existence of the Christian conception of God are contradictory. It can be stated as follows (first as a simple modus tollens, then as more complex series of syllogisms):

1. If God exists, then there would be no suffering.
2. It is not the case that there is no suffering.
3. God does not exists

Or more complexly,

1. God exists.
2. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good.
3. A perfectly good being would want to prevent all evils.
4. An omniscient being knows every way in which evils can come into existence.
5. An omnipotent being who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence has the power to prevent that evil from coming into existence.
6. A being who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence, who is able to prevent that evil from coming into existence, and who wants to do so, would prevent the existence of that evil.
7. If there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good being, then no evil exists.
8. Evil exists.
9. God does not exist. (reductio ad absurdum from 1-3)

The second formulation, the Evidential problem of evil, while not insisting that evil and God are contradictory, does seek to show that the existence of evil makes the existence of God highly suspect if not entirely untenable. Two major formulations are by William Rowe and Paul Draper. They are:

Rowe:
1. There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
2. An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
3. There does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.

Draper:
1. Gratuitous evils exist.
2. The hypothesis of indifference, i.e., that if there are supernatural beings they are indifferent to gratuitous evils, is a better explanation for (1) than theism.
3. Evidence prefers that no god, as commonly understood by theists, exists.

We could add another third kind of formulation, a probabilistic version, which would merely affirm that the existence of some kind of severe evil or evil at certain volumes counts as evidence against God such that the level of evil and suffering we see in the world makes the existence of God improbable.

Yet one more can be added. So I do not appear to be setting up a straw man, I believe that the atheist has an even better argument that they often do not even consider using because to assume it, is to intentionally borrow a Christian doctrine. What better example of suffering is there than eternal damnation in the fires of hell? The existence of hell cannot be attributed to human free will, even if  the reason why any humans are sent there may be. That is, God created hell.

So what can we say to this? What is a proper response? Let me first say that I do not intend to respond to this pastorally. I would never use this line of reasoning to comfort the afflicted or to show kindness to the widow who just lost a spouse to seemingly senseless tragedy, or someone who lost a child who who is suffering with horrific kinds of abuse and victimization. So if this comes across as cold and logical, that's not what I intend but often is how these kinds of logical arguments can feel.

With that said, I do believe that the answer to this logical dilemma is actually surprisingly quite easy. The basic answer is that the problem of evil (in nearly all forms) is a false dilemma.

How so?

The question of evil presupposes God in order to deny his existence. It is like the small child who must crawl onto his father’s lap in order to slap his father’s cheek.

The problem of evil is only a potential problem in a theistic universe. In an atheistic universe, there can be no basis for absolutely morality other than something like “social contract” or “herd preservation.” Yet these are not absolute foundations for morality but are expressions of Darwinian necessity. For the strong to survive, the strong must cooperate so to speak. This then makes a moral fiction. There is no real morality only a kind of social code that we ascribe to. So if a man decides to forcibly take another man’s wife, he is not actually breaking an absolute moral law, but rather is creating his own social contract, albeit and unpopular one. We do not say that the lion is immoral for eating the sick and aged in the herd, we say it is survival. Thus, the atheist, no matter how much they attempt to find an absolute basis for a relative morality, can never find one.

So when an atheist points to suffering and calls it “evil” he is actually borrowing a truth from the theistic worldview. But if the theistic worldview is necessarily correct in order to make the argument, he must either relinquish his insistence on the argument as a false dilemma, or give up his atheism as a false worldview. Either God exists and his denial of God is in error, or God does not exist and the problem of evil is invalid.

Yet who would look at a child suffering from seemingly meaningless starvation and think, “oh that’s only the appearance of evil.” Who would be a victim to brutal assault or rape or attempted murder and then turn to the nurse and say, “I don’t mind, there is no such thing as real evil. That man was just acting out of his own moral system that happens to be different from mine.”

We all know that there is such a thing as real, absolute evil, but the question is “Why?!”

The answer however, is not to deny the existence of God as incompatible with the pain. The answer is to realize that evil points to us that this is not how the world is meant to be, and that one day God will make things right again. God is not oblivious to our suffering and he sent his own Son to take our suffering onto himself so that one day we would enter his rest where there will be no more pain or sickness or suffering.

So the next time an atheist tries to use pain and suffering and evil to discredit the existence of God, don’t be afraid to show him that he is borrowing our worldview. Don’t let him.

TED Bans Talk Challenging Scientism

This was a talk BANNED by TED... how does a group dedicated the Free Thought and skepticism BAN a talk that challenges the worldview of Scientism in order to make science more free? What's next? A science inquisition?! "Burn the witch!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKHUaNAxsTg

 I was just so surprised to find out an institution like TED would ban such a talk. I wonder if Nagel will ever get invited to speak given his recent book expressing major doubts about naturalism and materialism...