Waiting For Andromeda

Christopher Hitchens, having demonstrated to everyone's satisfaction that blind salamanders disprove the existence of God

Silly really.

He could have just used you. and this blog.

Posted by Douthat the Hack | July 22, 2008 7:59 AM

"Hitchens and Tim LaHaye both shouting in perfect unison: See, I told you so!"

We wouldn't be able to hear them

for all the evangelists loudly blaming homosexuals for it.

Posted by James | July 22, 2008 8:02 AM

Hahaha. Hitchens just solved the fundamental question of metaphysics!!! Thanks, Hitch!

What an overrated imbecile.

Posted by Philip Marlowe | July 22, 2008 8:54 AM

And me shouting "Why did I contribute so much to my 401k."

Posted by MH | July 22, 2008 9:10 AM

For those with a serious interest in this stuff:

I heartily recommend Terry Eagleton's recent lectures at Yale on Christianity and philosophy. He flays Dawkins and Hitchens. Hysterical. Eagleton actually knows something about philosophy and theology, which helps when talking about this subject.

The lectures can be found on ITunes.

Posted by Rich | July 22, 2008 9:17 AM

The real question is whether either will be the ultimate contrarian and be the first person to say "I should have spent more time at the office"?

Posted by LK | July 22, 2008 9:20 AM

I'm no fan of Hitchen's writing on faith, but in this article I think he's got a point, the beginnings of one anyway. He's right that humans, both religious and secular, tend to think of processes like evolution as having some sort of teleology, but really, they're just the sum of many local events.

Hitchens even falls into this trap a bit by framing his discussion about salamanders who've lost their eyes as a reversing down the evolutionary path. Nope, they're still improving their fitness relative to their environment, one salamander at a time.

Ross is right though that the most ardent of unbelievers, like Hitchens and Dawkins sound an awful lot like their religious counterparts.

Posted by TW Andrews | July 22, 2008 9:51 AM

I am an astrophysicist (actually, at the same university as Lawrence Krauss). At least from this brief excerpt, it doesn't quite seem like he knows what he's talking about. Especially when he gets into "the not-so-far-off collision of our own galaxy with Andromeda". He is correct that this is going to occur, but he is quite confused if he thinks that it implies that our own galaxy will be "replaced with nothing". While it will drastically alter the structure of our galaxy (and I daresay it will make for some absolutely gorgeous stargazing), fundamentally the event will involve change, not destruction.

Posted by Craig | July 22, 2008 10:12 AM

What we're really waiting for is your Iraq post.

Quite a lot has happened recently. You've been really quiet about it.

The Surge! Run on the surge!

and gee, people seem to be spotting that if you go on about being right about the surge, it highlights you were wrong about the war.

thread derail, and it's not about race and IQ, so probably deleted in short measure.

Posted by James | July 22, 2008 11:00 AM

Ah,

it's been posted on the current.

good to see you have maintained your 'double down' strategy of maintaining idiotic advice.

and to finish off with looking to hillary clinton for domestic inspiration is fantastic - the moment at which you recognize and accept you have no principles at all, save winning.

Posted by James | July 22, 2008 11:14 AM

Why should the possibility that life on earth be extinguished mean that the question, "why is there something rather than nothing?" can and must be replaced by the question, "Why will our brief 'something' so soon be replaced with nothing?"

I just don't get it. It's not as though, "why is there something rather than nothing" has only the theistic answer as an option. There's also, for instance, necessitarianism (the idea that there is something rather than nothing, as well as this particular 'something' rather than nothing, or some other something, because there must be), the multi-verse hypothesis (there is something rather than nothing because the fine-tuning of our universe is best explained by the hypothesis that all logical possibilities are actually exemplified, and there is this something rather than some other something because this is the something we observers happen to be in), the brute fact hypothesis (it's just a brute fact that there's something rather than nothing, and there's no explanation for it), as well as other hypotheses (John Leslie's, Derek Parfit's, Peter van Inwagen's, etc.). I cannot see why any of these is falsified by the possibility that a meteor will hit the earth.

I hate to say this, but I think Hitchens made a bad point.

Posted by Questioner | July 22, 2008 11:29 AM

I'm confused. Are you saying there is any shred of evidence for a Sky Fairy? 'Cause I haven't noticed any just yet. Is this an Emperor's New Clothes Situation?

Posted by ed | July 22, 2008 11:29 AM

OK, I am also an astrophysicist, and I actually wrote the paper with Lawrence Krauss which is being discussed here:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0221
It does not have the philosophical implications that are being ascribed to it.

Posted by Bob | July 22, 2008 11:44 AM

I'm no fan of Hitchens' belligerent atheism, and the last paragraph is pretty silly. But your flippant dismissal of the rest of the article as "having demonstrated to everyone's satisfaction that blind salamanders disprove the existence of God (or something like that)" is as boneheaded toward evolutionary biology as Hitchens is toward theology.

The insight in this article, which is new to Hitchens but hardly original, is not one that claims to "disprove the existence of God." But it does cut sharply against philosophical arguments in favor of a "purpose" to life, whether coming from a Christian or from a social Darwinist with a teleological, progressive view of evolution. There was neither an instantaneous creation by a brilliant designer, nor a glorious progression from lower life forms to staggeringly complex higher life forms. There are only adaptations driven by local conditions. Simplicity often prevails.

As for any skeptics who wonder where "light-sensitive cells" came from in the first place... all cells are light-sensitive to some extent. Light is energy. All chemicals absorb light at specific wavelengths, based upon their molecular structure, and colored pigments are chemicals that absorb light in the visible range. Photoreceptor cells are simply cells that contain pigments--chlorophyll in plants, rhodopsin and iodopsin in the vertebrate eye--and do something productive with the energy they absorb. The eye works because these pigments initiate a signal cascade that travels through the optic nerve to the brain. The processes involved in the mere awareness of light are far less complicated than many others in the body.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | July 22, 2008 11:46 AM

Quote: "...we can grasp the gross stupidity of those who repose their faith in divine providence and godly design."

Yes, gross stupidity is astounding, Mr. Hitchens' certainly is!

I never fail to be astonished at those who cite 'evolution' as evidence that God does not exist - simply by virtue of contradicting a few short paragraphs in the Bible.

The God in which I believe, is bigger than the Bible, and far beyond any theorem that can be proved, or disproved, by humankind.

Unlike Hitchens' light-bulb moment with lowly, blind salamanders, I found myself drilling further down, contemplating implications of life as we know it, sprung from boiling-hot primordial soup - from bacteria and single-cell creatures incapable of thought.

What gave, and continues to give, every living form on this earth that very thing... the will to live? To me, the very essence of life is the desire to to stay alive. From that stems each creatures attempts to flourish, procreate, and yes, evolve, in an attempt to continue their perpetuation.

Plants compete for light, space, water, etc., germs, bacteria and viruses battle for existence.

But why? How does science explain this? Certainly words like 'will-to-live', desire or choice, can not be ascribed to brainless, non-thinking entities. They have no will or choice in favor of living, instead it seems a "live force" is embedded, hard-wired into everything. To my thinking, that is the miracle at our foundation, besides the one that caused minerals & chemicals to 'spring to life".

We are wise to only look to science to unlock the 'Hows', not to explain the 'Whys'. For if the universal truth were indeed God-less, the only answer Mr. Hitchens and others of his ilk can ever provide to the question of 'Why'... is 'because'.

Posted by M.Marshall | July 22, 2008 11:52 AM

"I heartily recommend Terry Eagleton's recent lectures at Yale on Christianity and philosophy."

Eagleton? Heh. That poseur douchebag thinks the Emperor's new clothes are just dreamy.

To Mister Bits above, we're all glad your invisible friend gives you the meaning you yearn for. Don't mean squat to anyone else, unfortunately.

Posted by Soma | July 22, 2008 12:07 PM

To observe the finest and highest expression of Christian metaphysics simply go here:

http://www.divine-interventions.com/baby.php

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | July 22, 2008 12:22 PM

I have always enjoyed Hitchens. I remember watching him on book tv when his biography of Jefferson came out and he said "A lot of people like to write about Jefferson as if he didn't have a penis which he most certainly did." I respect his ability to analyze and disect the human element behind different personalities and provide insight into how people think the way they do.

However, I completely agree with Ross on this one. Hitchens does have a tendency to slip into the same sort of self-rightousness that he so obviously detests in other people. I think this comes from a willfull refusal on his part to see the evolution of human knowledge and to understand how people pass from a-b. In short Hitchens begins his diatribe about evolution and the existence of god with enlightenment rationalistic principles and fails to see how the theological scholastic arguments of an earlier era laid the intellectual groundwork to allow us to advance to a place where we find fault with their arguments and their analogies.

To use an analogy from the ancient world Anaxagoras postulated that not only was the sun not the earth the center of the solar system but also that the sun wasn't a god but "Merely a large ball of fire many times bigger than the Peloponesus." However the geo-centric view won out until Copernicus and even then Martin Luther Called Copernicus "That fool who would reverse the entire order of the universe, for Joshua bade the earth stand still and not the sun." Martin Luther's refusal to adopt an idea that to us makes sense should not invalidate the achievements that this rather remarkable man had upon the course of human history. (Arguably --For most history is comprised of arguments-- Luther was more influential than Copernicus and possibly even Charles Darwin.)
The point is that the creation myth isn't a true story per-se it's a truth story. People don't necessarily seek explanations of the world around them in order to understand it so much as they look for explanations in order to rationalize their lives and their existance in an uncertain world. Most people who believe in creation and divine providence aren't stupid. Far from it, rather they derive no comfort from an explanation of the world that is mechanistic and impersonal. So much like the early animists they see the guiding hand of god --whom they unknowingly create in their own image-- at work in a cold impersonal world because they feel the need to find comfort in the thought that there is not only an order to the universe but also a personal creative maker behind it that they can identify with.
In this regard the deist resembles the rationalistic atheist or agnostic, because belief in divine providence supplies the same sort of grounding that belief in natural law does.

Natural law and the belief in natural processes allows those of us who believe in it (I place myself in this category) to make sense of a world in which we live without resorting to belief in a diety. Both beliefs ultimately serve the same purpose, and are equally valid --if only in the emotional and subjective sense-- because they serve different emotional purposes. Evolution does no more deny the existance of god than an apple denies the existence of an orange.

Ultimately the existence of god must be taken on faith even the apostle Paul tells us in Romans that "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith." Faith is seperate from observed reality, in the same way that a man's character may be known through his actions but his inner lived experience may never be known by an outside observer. Hitchen's concludes his essay with the following thought:
"It's only once we shake our own innate belief in linear progression and consider the many recessions we have undergone and will undergo that we can grasp the gross stupidity of those who repose their faith in divine providence and godly design."

Here Hitchen's is on the right track, and I would urge him to apply the same standard to understanding human knowledge and understanding. People as a group are no more linear in their thought patterns than the evolutionary chain he describes above. Certainly the story about Anaxagoras points to the fact that there have been many advancements and recessions in human knowledge and that human history is no mere linear progression from ignorance to knowledge or barbarism to civilization. Perhaps the gross stupidity is not on the part of those who continue to believe in god, but on the part of those who practice and believe in the principle's of enlightenment rationality and yet fail to understand those who cling to a much less knowledgable yet in many respects far more enduring picture of the universe.

For myself a person's disbelief in evolution doesn't affect my personal opinions and I have no need to convince them of the rightness of my belief. After All as Galieo once said about the earth so also about Evolution and human thought in general Eppur si Muove.

Posted by Sorn | July 22, 2008 12:25 PM

"But your flippant dismissal of the rest of the article as "having demonstrated to everyone's satisfaction that blind salamanders disprove the existence of God (or something like that)" is as boneheaded toward evolutionary biology as Hitchens is toward theology."

When Douthat writes an entire book attacking evolutionary biology, despite an embarrassing lack of familiarity with the topic, then he will be as boneheaded as Hitchens is towards theology.

Posted by rab | July 22, 2008 12:29 PM

People don't necessarily seek explanations of the world around them in order to understand it so much as they look for explanations in order to rationalize their lives and their existance in an uncertain world.

Right. Like blowing up Brown People, for example. As the Right Republican Jerry Falwell said of the Iraq War, "Kill 'em all in the name of the Lord." What a great guy.

Most people who believe in creation and divine providence aren't stupid.

That's a pretty sweeping and ultimately meaningless statement. But I'm willing to wager that people who elect to believe in Natural Selection etc. and deny divine providence (on basic scientific grounds) are, on balance, way smarter than those who don't. I like my chances there.

Posted by ed | July 22, 2008 12:36 PM

Ed wrote "Right. Like blowing up Brown People, for example. As the Right Republican Jerry Falwell said of the Iraq War, "Kill 'em all in the name of the Lord." What a great guy. "

I never said that intolerance wasn't a force to be reckoned with in human affairs. However there are many forms of self justification and intolerance stemming from a failure to understand.

Through most of history people have been blown up in the name of something. God, Money, Politics, Race. I don't necessarily think religion always euals intolerance. Your argument sir is a non-sequitter.

Posted by Sorn | July 22, 2008 1:01 PM

ed quotes and writes: "Most people who believe in creation and divine providence aren't stupid.

That's a pretty sweeping and ultimately meaningless statement. But I'm willing to wager that people who elect to believe in Natural Selection etc. and deny divine providence (on basic scientific grounds) are, on balance, way smarter than those who don't. I like my chances there. "

Just imagine the average IQ of the fundamentalist nitwits who go to the Creation Museum in Kentucky.

I like your chances, too.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | July 22, 2008 1:03 PM

So much for Ferret and his calls for civility.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | July 22, 2008 1:32 PM

I never said that intolerance wasn't a force to be reckoned with in human affairs.

And I never said you did. Never meant to imply that you did. Only expanded on what you said. That's it. That's all. Oh, and Jerry Falwell was a horrible person. Just so we cleared that up.

Posted by ed | July 22, 2008 1:32 PM

ed, you are really, really dumb, whether God or Nature intended it, it is so.

No, you're dumb! (Who's the doody-head now, notsmart guy?)

(Also, there's not one shred of legitimate evidence for God. The emperor has no clothes. Don't take it out on me, I'm just the messenger.)

Posted by ed | July 22, 2008 1:41 PM

Seeing these sorts of discussions make me so glad I am an agnostic. I have more important things to worry about than either a collision with another galaxy that is millions or billions of years out, or the process that produced the big bang over ten billion years ago. Astronomy and cosmology are wonderful scientific disciplines and I wish them the best in figuring this stuff out, but there's no reason for either religious folks or secular types to throw temper tantrums about it.

What I do know, and can say with certainty, is that the stories told by the monotheistic religious traditions for many centuries about cosomology have proven to be filled with errors, which is consistent with the thesis that humans came up with that stuff, not a God. If there is a God, She has surely not revealed Herself to any human civilization yet.

Posted by Dilan Esper | July 22, 2008 1:52 PM

Maybe all that Hitchens is getting at is this:
Those who worship God presumably believe him to be a caring person or superperson who looks out for our interests.

But, the problem of everyday evil aside, we know from the history of the earth--past massive extinctions--and from astrophysics--the possibility of catastrophic life-on-earth-destroying events--that the universe contains no guarantees of the continuance of human life. The species has only been around for a couple of hundred thousands years, and the way things work it may be over in another couple of thousand or less.

How could a caring God worthy of our worship allow such an arrangement, have so little regard for our importance as to put the continuance of the human race at risk?

Posted by CharlesHubble | July 22, 2008 1:56 PM

LaFollette Progressive,

I fail to see how "adaptations driven by local conditions" is a problem for teleology.

Now someone may say that there is no evidence for a god, and that's fine with me.

But to say that there was no instantaneous creation by a brilliant designer seems to go beyond what you're warranted in saying.

As for progression, it seems true that we can't say that there are any scientific facts which confirm the idea that evolution by natural selection in inherently progressive, but humans are quite an impressive result, don't you think?

Posted by Jay J | July 22, 2008 2:18 PM

CharlesHubble,

Some believers deny God's omnipotence.

Do you think you're question near the end of your post applies to them?

Posted by Jay J | July 22, 2008 2:20 PM

But to say that there was no instantaneous creation by a brilliant designer seems to go beyond what you're warranted in saying.

Who is suggesting this? I will go out on a limb and say that there is zero scientific evidence for instantaneous creation by a brilliant designer. You do understand the difference, right? Don't make me go all Spaghetti Monster on you.

Posted by ed | July 22, 2008 2:24 PM

ed,

I acknowledged quite clearly that there were no facts confirming the belief in an instantaneous creation by a brilliant designer (I wonder why you didn't quote that part).

This is different than saying that there is no instantaneous creation by a brilliant designer.

I understand very clearly the different between disproof and a lack of evidence for, and this too should have been obvious by my post, since I said that I have no problem with people who say that is no evidence for the existence of a god.

Just don't act as if it's an irrefutable fact.

It's sufficient to tell the believer that they have no evidence to offer.

And you can get Spaghetti Monster all you like...

Posted by Jay J | July 22, 2008 2:32 PM

ed - my comment was a lifetime achievement award for your past contributions. I stay out of this particular argument because I care about your view about as much as you care about mine. I just find it odd that you and other atheists need to mock people who disagree with you.

Posted by Ferrell | July 22, 2008 2:41 PM

Just don't act as if it's an irrefutable fact.

Who is acting as if it's an irrefutable fact?

Posted by ed | July 22, 2008 2:42 PM

Ed,

The person who wrote as if it were an irrefutable fact was the person my post was responding to.

If it's still not clear go back and read it.

The post you quoted me from started by addressing another poster. Go check it out, then maybe you can hunt down the post I was responding to.

Posted by Jay J | July 22, 2008 2:44 PM

Ferret says: "I just find it odd that you and other atheists need to mock people who disagree with you."

Thank the sky fairy that there's no history of theists mocking anyone!

Sheesh. Go ride that triceratops in Kentucky, Ferret.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v108/weirdpixie/ollapodrida/bb_tricertp.jpg

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | July 22, 2008 2:51 PM

I just find it odd that you and other atheists need to mock people who disagree with you.

Hey, whoa, I'm not mocking people who disagree with me, just trying to help them see the light. And please do not call me an atheist. When did I ever declare that I was one? I'm a non-practicing agnostic and proud of it.

I do, however, feel the need to mock the following:

--Blog commenters who write things like, "you are really, really dumb" without a single bit of supporting evidence

--Anyone who still thinks the Iraq Invasion was a good idea.

--Anyone who doesn't think George W. Bush is a horrible president and all-around bad, spoiled, coddled, rich asshole, narcissistic frat-boy.

--Southern Strategy Republicans.

Posted by ed | July 22, 2008 2:53 PM

Whenever someone says there's no evidence for the existence of God, I always want to know what he means by "evidence." My guess is that by "evidence" he means something that is, at least in theory, empirically observable. Unfortunately I now have to ask what "empirically observable" (and perhaps also what "at least in theory") means. Does "empirically observable" mean "observable by a normal human using just his or her senses"? Or does it mean "observable using scientific instruments"? If the latter, then which scientific instruments--our current ones or ones further on down the line, say, the ones we develop when we have finished science (or as is sometimes said, when we have an "ideal physics")? If by "evidence" you mean "empirically observable given the scientific instruments of an ideal physic," then I haven't the foggiest idea how you know that there is no evidence for God's existence. There could be lots of evidence and we just don't have the instruments to measure it yet. On the other hand, if by "evidence" you mean "in principle observable by a normal human using his or her unaided senses," then there may very well be evidence for the existence of God. For instance, the physical resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth or any number of religious experiences people have claimed to have.

Of course, even if you mean "evidence" in either of the above ways, why think that a proposition about a concrete entity should be believed only if we have evidence? Why not think that its being a good explanation for a wide variety of phenomena is a reason to believe in its existence?

Posted by Questioner | July 22, 2008 2:59 PM

Ed wrote that he felt the need to mock "--Anyone who still thinks the Iraq Invasion was a good idea."

I'm supprised you get along so well with Hitchens.

Posted by Sorn | July 22, 2008 3:01 PM

ed, kindly explain WHY your fellow germs, viruses, etc. are compelled to select, naturally or otherwise?

I'm going to go with

only the organisms best adapted to their environment tend to survive and transmit their genetic characteristics in increasing numbers to succeeding generations while those less adapted tend to be eliminated.

But that doesn't mean I haven't entirely ruled out a Sky Fairy. Not entirely. Next question.

Posted by ed | July 22, 2008 3:10 PM

Questioner,

If someone has a revelation that God exists, or an experience which seems to go beyond what science can explain, then I guess it would be rational for that person to believe in God or whatever it is that goes beyond science.

But we also have public means of finding out what's true, and this I think is the meaning of the word "fact" that can be given any sense.

The word "fact" to me, in other words, is an epistemic word, rather than an ontological one.

If someone hasn't shared a revelatory experience, then I think it's intellectually responsible to stick to out collective, public efforts at establishing facts. If someone has seen the Risen Christ, good for them, they can believe that's true.

But since the vast majority of people on Earth haven't had this experience, it seems sensible enough for them to lack belief.

Posted by Jay J | July 22, 2008 3:11 PM

Hi Jay J,

You write, "If someone has a revelation that God exists, or an experience which seems to go beyond what science can explain, then I guess it would be rational for that person to believe in God or whatever it is that goes beyond science."

I'm guessing it's the fact that a religious experience is not publicly confirmable that makes it "[go] beyond science"? If so, then some putative religious experiences don't go beyond science--e.g., the event described by Paul in 1 Corinthians where 500 people think they saw the risen Jesus. So I'd like to know what you mean when you talk about "go[ing] beyond science." I'm guessing you mean something like "not obviously compatible or even inductively ruled out by the best contemporary science we have."

You also write: "But we also have public means of finding out what's true, and this I think is the meaning of the word 'fact' that can be given any sense.
"The word 'fact' to me, in other words, is an epistemic word, rather than an ontological one."

That's interesting, but I think "fact" has an ontological sense, even for you...all you're saying, it seems to me, is that we use an epistemic category (public means of finding out what's true) to determine which things have the ontological status of facts.

Alternatively, you may mean something stronger: namely, that if something isn't publicly accessible to us, then it isn't a fact. On this view, there may be no fact of the matter about, say, whether there is any thing outside the concatenation of events in space-time we call the universe, or whether string theory is true. But if this is what you mean, then I'd say this is a use of "fact" to which I'm rather unsympathetic (it seems Rortyian, no?).

You further write:

"If someone hasn't shared a revelatory experience, then I think it's intellectually responsible to stick to out collective, public efforts at establishing facts. If someone has seen the Risen Christ, good for them, they can believe that's true."

I was actually talking about the historical means people have used to try to argue for the claim that Jesus rose from the dead. For a good online presentation of this argument, see Tim and Lydia McGrew's "A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth", available through this site:

http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2007/11/a_cumulative_case_for_the_resu.html

Posted by Questioner | July 22, 2008 3:28 PM

Whenever someone says there's no evidence for the existence of God, I always want to know what he means by "evidence."

Ooh. I love this game. OK, you give me the evidence, and I'll tell you whether or not it's bulljive, capice? And don't just quote a Bible. That's Jim Bakker lever argumentation.

Ready? Begin.

Posted by ed | July 22, 2008 3:42 PM

Hi Questioner,

Let me lay out my view with a little more precision.

I've been drawn to Hilary Putnam's "warranted assertability" for a while now. I think our beliefs aim for the capital "T" Truth, but all we can ever really say to the skeptic is that we're warranted in believing what we do given the evidence (whether that evidence is 1st or 3rd person). The future will always have a claim on whether our views are actually true in some robust, Cartesian sense.

So I think we're making claims about the way things actually are (ontology) but all we can ever say with certainty is that we're warranted in what we believe (epistemology).

I agree that the 500 people who claimed to have seen the Risen Christ is a public event which may have been amenable to scientific discovery. In principle, if we could have tested the dead body for Jesus, and then seen that the person with the exact same DNA was then alive days later, then we would have good scientific reason to believe in the resurrection (provided Jesus didn't have a twin).

But it happened so long ago, that I don't think people should be expected to have allot of confidence in 500 people's eye-witness. It seems like all kinds of alternative explanations may serve just as well as explanations as believe that Jesus was actually resurrected.

I think in order for us to believe in the resurrection now, we would have to be able to have repeatable, experimentally controlled observation of other resurrections. But hey, if one of my loved ones who has passed away appears to me, I won't just assume I'm crazy, so in this way I'm open to using primary experience (the experience of the individual) as a source of evidence.

But if someone hasn't had any such primary experience, then I don't think the primary experience of others qualifies as persuasive. In these situations (which is the one we find ourselves in most often) we appeal to our public efforts which have collective control and checks and balances. So far, science seems like the best collective project for discovering truth, more precisely, warrant.

I don't want to say that something can't be true if it isn't accessible to us, I just want to say that we aren't publicly warranted in asserting something unless it has been through the steps of scientific experimentation, or if we're asserting it to others who shared our experience (the 500 could have talked about seeing Jesus to one another, for example, but that experience is not evidential to me).

I hope I responded to what you were getting at, feel free to call me attention to anything I've missed.

And I'll take a look at that link later on...

Jay

Posted by Jay J | July 22, 2008 3:51 PM

Jay J writes: "I agree that the 500 people who claimed to have seen the Risen Christ is a public event which may have been amenable to scientific discovery. In principle, if we could have tested the dead body for Jesus, and then seen that the person with the exact same DNA was then alive days later, then we would have good scientific reason to believe in the resurrection (provided Jesus didn't have a twin).

But it happened so long ago, that I don't think people should be expected to have allot of confidence in 500 people's eye-witness. "

Especially when we don't know who these 500 were and we don't have their testimony. We have a book making an unsubstantiated claim about there having been 500 and that's it. A book, I might add, that is riddled with internal contradictions.

Posted by Might oeLarryAndJesus | July 22, 2008 4:02 PM

Hi ed,

I gave a link to a paper by Tim and Lydia McGrew above. Do you think the sort of considerations they forward in that article count as evidence, or would count as evidence if you accepted, for the sake of the conversation, their background claims?

As for other considerations that might count as evidence, here's what Alexander Pruss and Richard Gale call the "New Cosmological Argument." Here's a link to their paper:

http://bearspace.baylor.edu/Alexander_Pruss/www/papers/NewCosmo.html

Here's my summary (it's been ages since I read their paper, so I can't vouch for the accuracy of my summary of it):

A contingent fact is a fact that may or may not be or have been the case. For example, it is a contingent fact that I exist; it's perfectly possible that my parents never met, and if they hadn't, then I wouldn't have come into being. "2+2=4," by contrast, is not a contingent fact, but a necessary fact--this means that there is no state of affairs in which 2+2 equals something besides 4. Take the set of all the contingent facts there are. Call this set of facts "S."

Let's further assume that, in this world (where "world" refers to a maximally large set of causally connected events), which we'll call "W1," S has no explanation.

Now, here's a question: do you think it's possible that S could have had an explanation? That is, do you think it's possible that there is some world, W2, where S is explained by some other fact, "P"?

If you don't think it's possible, then why not? If you do think it's possible, then let's continue.

In W2, P explains S; in W1, S is not explained by P. Consequently, since P explains S in W2, and since it cannot be the case that P both explains S in W2 and doesn't explain S in W1, it follows that P doesn't exist in W1. Thus, in W1 "not-P" (i.e., "~P") holds.

But now here's the rub: if ~P holds in W1, but P holds in W2, then both P and ~P must be contingent facts. But if both P and ~P are contingent facts, and S is the set of all the contingent facts there are, then ~P must be part of S. If ~P is part of S, though, then S couldn't have been explained by P. After all, P can't explain something that includes ~P. But now we're in the situation where either S couldn't have had any explanation, or where, if S possibly has an explanation (P), then it necessarily has an explanation; so S necessarily has an explanation.

This reasoning requires some unpacking. First, let's assume that ~P is part of S in the actual world. If ~P is part of S, then, as I said above, S couldn't have been explained by P. But "P" is just a placeholder for something that explains S. If ~P is part of S, then nothing could explain S. But if nothing could explain S, then it is necessarily true that S has no explanation. But if it is necessarily true that S has no explanation, then ~P is a necessary fact, and not a contingent fact that is part of, or could be part of, S. So, ~P can't be part of S.

If ~P can't be part of S, though, then it necessarily can't be part of us. So ~P is necessarily false. But if ~P is necessarily false, then P is necessarily true. But this just means that the set of all the contingent facts there are necessarily has an explanation. So, if something contingent exists, it follows that something necessary exists.

All the above follows if you grant the assumption that, possibly, there is an explanation for all the contingent facts there are. The thing is, this seems like a very plausible thing to believe. And what's further interesting is that if there is a possible explanation for why all the things that might not have been in fact are, then it follows that something necessarily exists, i.e., a concrete being or beings must exist in all possible worlds.

Now, we're not yet at God, but we're at a necessarily existing being. That's step 1. But before getting to step 2--showing that this necessary being is all-good, all-powerful, singular, etc., I want to know: what do you think of the considerations above? If true, do they amount to evidence?

Posted by Questioner | July 22, 2008 4:18 PM

Hi Jay,

Thanks for your response. I don't mean to say that the claims of the 500 are indeed good evidence for believing that Jesus rose from the dead. I just wanted to see if their claim was the kind of claim that you think has warrant. I don't quite know why we need to bring DNA, etc., into it; after all, I see people all the time and confidently pronounce on their identity without ever knowing their DNA.

That said, I imagine what you're getting at is what I'll call "The Proposition": a resurrection (or any other "supernatural event") goes against the weight of our observations, so we would have to have special evidence for believing it.

Here we get to lots of stuff about Bayesian decision theory and Hume's argument that's beyond me. I know that the atheist philosopher of physics and probability theory, John Earman, wrote a scathing attack on Hume's argument from miracles entitled Hume's Abject Failure where he goes into the problems that arise when we try to sort out precisely just what The Proposition means.

Here's where we get to your sentence: "I think in order for us to believe in the resurrection now, we would have to be able to have repeatable, experimentally controlled observation of other resurrections." I imagine that that claim could be challenged, and I'll say I find it implausible, though I don't know the literature well enough to explain what my problem is with it. Here are some worries, though:

Imagine that the largest examplefish ever found weighed 40 lbs. Now, you hear about someone, an extremely trustworthy friend of yours, who caught a 60 lb. examplefish. You, however, have not caught such a fish yourself. Are you epistemically within your rights if you believe that he caught the examplefish? Moreover, don't you have to admit, ceteris paribus, that your friend's testimony provides some evidence for the claim that examplefish can get bigger than 40 lbs.? I think so.

Obviously, resurrections bring in other complications, like people's penchant for believing self-flattering or fantastical things, as well as our lack of experience with people coming back from back from the dead in risen bodies. I don't want to downplay those. But like I said, we'll have to give more precise reasons to see why I can't believe in such things on the basis of a very trustworthy friend's testimony.

Posted by Questioner | July 22, 2008 4:29 PM

Questioner,

I'm not ed, but may I interject?

I think there is a difference between empirical evidence and a philosophical argument. Arguments may be very persuasive, but I'm not sure if they qualify as "evidence," per se.

As to whether it is an interesting question whether the universe is contingent, or if there must be something behind it motivating it, I'm sympathetic to your view that it is an interesting question.

In other words, it's not obvious that philosophical naturalism provides intellectually satisfying answers, and it's not obvious that to me that it's irrational to wonder.

On the other hand, if a naturalist says they don't care, or that we can never know the answer (since the value empirical evidence over philosophical argument) then we seem to be having nothing more than a subjective disagreement. The naturalist isn't as obviously right as he imagines himself to be, but I'm not sure if there is any adjudicating between the views at this level.

As for me, I'll bite:

Why must this fundamental thing be *a* being, rather than impersonal being?

Posted by Jay J | July 22, 2008 4:32 PM

ed mocks --Blog commenters who write things like, "you are really, really dumb" without a single bit of supporting evidence

As evidence, ed, I present your usual posts to the blog. I rest my case. And I didn't even have to pull out my Bible.

Posted by Ferrell | July 22, 2008 4:39 PM

Questioner,

I'm now participating in a couple of different threads with you, I'll try to keep them straight.

My assertion about DNA wouldn't apply if in fact I was there when Jesus was resurrected. In other words, "Doubting Thomas" probably had about enough evidence anyone could ask for. But I wasn't there, (neither was anyone I know), and it was a very long time ago, in which case I think getting into DNA would be necessary for subsequent generations to believe in the extraordinary event.

And if I had a trustworthy friend (who did not have a tendency to exaggerate) then I suppose I would have *some* evidence in 60Ib examplefish. I not sure what that commits me to, but if it commits me to anything, then I suppose you'll tell me?

Posted by Jay J | July 22, 2008 4:42 PM

Hi Jay J,

I welcome any and all interjections from you! I briefly skimmed your exchanges with Bloggin' Noggin', so I know you're an informed fellow. (On Bloggingheads I post under the name "Bobby G.")

That said, I can certainly see a view according to which arguments might not constitute evidence. But if that's true, then one wonders: why I care only about evidence? If someone wants to, that's fine, but then they're probably appealing to some non-evidential epistemic principle, like "when it comes to existence-claims about concrete beings, accept only those supported by empirical evidence." Which is perhaps fine, but I worry whether it runs into a practical contradiction.

As for the argument I gave above, I should say that I don't myself think it's all that great an argument. I presented it mainly because I wanted to see whether ed thought it provided evidence for the existence of God or not, and if not, why not, and also if not, why we should care only about evidence. I'm actually persuaded by Kant's moral argument for belief in the existence of God.

Nonetheless, my response to your "bite" above is simple enough: if we want to avoid necessitarianism, then the necessary being will either have to be an agent with a will, who brings this contingent universe into existence through a libertarianly free act, or it will have to be some sort of universe-generating principle that randomly generates universes but itself exists necessarily.

Note, though, that there is some reason to think that whatever it is, being or impersonal being, it will have to exist outside of space-time. After all, if it exists in any sort of space-time, it seems like its existence is just as contingent as the space-time it's in. But if it's existence is contingent, then it's not necessary. On the other hand, if it's outside of space-time, then it will exist timelessly. If it exists timelessly, then it seems that it can only undertake one creative act (as the Thomists say, it would itself be "pure act"). If it can only undertake one creative act, though, then this principle that randomly generates universes would generate all of reality in one creative act.

But now we have to ask, "why did it generate this reality rather than another?" If you give a full explanation in response to this, then you end up with necessitarianism (i.e., this principle generated this universe because it had to; this principle has to exist, and it has to generate just this universe, so therefore, only this universe, in all its particularities, could exist, so there is no such thing as contingency).

On the other hand, some philosophers (Randolph Clarke and Alex Pruss) have interestingly, and perhaps even plausibly, argued that an event's coming to be as a result of a libertarian choice is one that has a full explanation (along the lines of, "event E happened because agent A wanted it to, and that's all there is to it"), but also one that could be used to explain some other event F. (I confess, I don't really follow their arguments, but I can give you bibliographic information about, and perhaps even links to, the articles in which they make these attempts.) If all this is right, then the only explanation of why there is something rather than nothing that avoids necessitarianism is the theistic one.

Posted by Questioner | July 22, 2008 5:01 PM

Jay J asks, "And if I had a trustworthy friend (who did not have a tendency to exaggerate) then I suppose I would have *some* evidence in 60Ib examplefish. I not sure what that commits me to, but if it commits me to anything, then I suppose you'll tell me?"

This doesn't commit you to much, other than that we could potentially have some evidence for believing in the resurrection of Jesus, namely the testimony of the people who claimed to witness the risen Christ. Of course, to have the evidence you would have to be convinced that the witnesses were reliable, which is the point of the McGrew and McGrew article.

Posted by Questioner | July 22, 2008 5:08 PM

Speaking of evidence, there's pretty strong evidence that whenever there's a high comment count on one of Douthat's posts, I can be pretty much guaranteed some of you bickering clowns are here, duking it out with aplomb.

Ignore me if you've been making fair-minded comments.

Posted by Geoff | July 22, 2008 5:38 PM

Hi Questioner (aka Bobby G)!

Yea Bloggin will run you ragged if you don't watch out. I'm not complaining, I enjoy the discussion, and it's been edifying, I'm only saying that I'm finding out the value of precision more and more all the time.

As for the necessary being existing outside space-time, I'm hope I don't sound like too big of a philistine, but I just can't wrap my head around that. I mean, when I get to trying to understand Einstein's STR or GTR, my head spins. The thing is, I think that's a natural reaction... I think allot of what Einstein had to say was obviously revolutionary, but somewhat unintelligible, or at least so counterintuitive to be inert philosophically, except of course as a knife through the heart of the Newtonian world-view. Dito for QM or String Theory. Going back to Putnam, he said that QM was valuable scientifically in predicting physical behavior, so there's probably something fundamentally right about it, but we don't want to give up our standards of intelligibility completely.

I'm not accusing you of invoking QM, STR, etc, I'm only saying that the more I think about space-time the more I think that I wouldn't know what it would mean for something to exist outside of it. I mean, I can't understand a will, or any kind of decision, unless I posit time. That's only one example of the puzzles which plague me.

True enough if this universe isn't the most fundamental thing, then whatever caused it exists outside space/time, but in that case I'm willing to sort of just scratch my head.

Also, when I think about the difficulty of understanding how the "hard problem" of consciousness could be reduced to the material constituents of this world, I'm not so sure something more fundamental than space/time couldn't exist quite happily alongside it, interacting with it, in which case there would be some sense in which this thing was *in* space and time.

As for the theistic option, I hope this isn't too much of a fudge, but when I said impersonal, perhaps I should have said something like "not-discursively aware" or "not based on subject-object metaphysics" etc. Your point about a will of some sort being fundamentally involved seems sensible enough, but I don't know that this must mean that this will is somehow like ours. I mean, it seems to me that when we get down to ants, or worms, or even bacteria, it seems these things have some sort of will. In other words, positing that intentionality could be a fundamental building clock of the universe does not necessarily mean to me that theism is the only way to understand this...

Anyway, what do you think? I don't want to say that the fundamental thing is a person, but I suppose I accidentally rob it of something when I call it "impersonal." I guess you can see my semantic dilemma?

Posted by Questioner | July 22, 2008 5:41 PM

Hi Questioner (aka Bobby G)!

Yea Bloggin will run you ragged if you don't watch out. I'm not complaining, I enjoy the discussion, and it's been edifying, I'm only saying that I'm finding out the value of precision more and more all the time.

As for the necessary being existing outside space-time, I'm hope I don't sound like too big of a philistine, but I just can't wrap my head around that. I mean, when I get to trying to understand Einstein's STR or GTR, my head spins. The thing is, I think that's a natural reaction... I think allot of what Einstein had to say was obviously revolutionary, but somewhat unintelligible, or at least so counterintuitive to be inert philosophically, except of course as a knife through the heart of the Newtonian world-view. Dito for QM or String Theory. Going back to Putnam, he said that QM was valuable scientifically in predicting physical behavior, so there's probably something fundamentally right about it, but we don't want to give up our standards of intelligibility completely.

I'm not accusing you of invoking QM, STR, etc, I'm only saying that the more I think about space-time the more I think that I wouldn't know what it would mean for something to exist outside of it. I mean, I can't understand a will, or any kind of decision, unless I posit time. That's only one example of the puzzles which plague me.

True enough if this universe isn't the most fundamental thing, then whatever caused it exists outside space/time, but in that case I'm willing to sort of just scratch my head.

Also, when I think about the difficulty of understanding how the "hard problem" of consciousness could be reduced to the material constituents of this world, I'm not so sure something more fundamental than space/time couldn't exist quite happily alongside it, interacting with it, in which case there would be some sense in which this thing was *in* space and time.

As for the theistic option, I hope this isn't too much of a fudge, but when I said impersonal, perhaps I should have said something like "not-discursively aware" or "not based on subject-object metaphysics" etc. Your point about a will of some sort being fundamentally involved seems sensible enough, but I don't know that this must mean that this will is somehow like ours. I mean, it seems to me that when we get down to ants, or worms, or even bacteria, it seems these things have some sort of will. In other words, positing that intentionality could be a fundamental building clock of the universe does not necessarily mean to me that theism is the only way to understand this...

Anyway, what do you think? I don't want to say that the fundamental thing is a person, but I suppose I accidentally rob it of something when I call it "impersonal." I guess you can see my semantic dilemma?

Posted by Jay J | July 22, 2008 5:42 PM

Forgive my double posts.

I had addressed my comment to "Questioner" but had also unconsciously named myself that!

I thought I caught it time, and reposted, but instead I double posted.

Feel free to delete one, monitor...

Posted by Jay J | July 22, 2008 5:45 PM

Questioner writes: "Imagine that the largest examplefish ever found weighed 40 lbs. Now, you hear about someone, an extremely trustworthy friend of yours, who caught a 60 lb. examplefish. You, however, have not caught such a fish yourself. Are you epistemically within your rights if you believe that he caught the examplefish? Moreover, don't you have to admit, ceteris paribus, that your friend's testimony provides some evidence for the claim that examplefish can get bigger than 40 lbs.? I think so.

Obviously, resurrections bring in other complications, like people's penchant for believing self-flattering or fantastical things, as well as our lack of experience with people coming back from back from the dead in risen bodies. I don't want to downplay those. But like I said, we'll have to give more precise reasons to see why I can't believe in such things on the basis of a very trustworthy friend's testimony. "

The usual response to this sort of thing is that extraordinary claims (such as a sky fairy incarnating in the womb of a virgin and performing miracles such as raising the dead before dying and resurrecting himself) require extraordinary proof.

I suspect that even if a very good friend told you he'd been abducted by aliens and probed anally by dozens of pseudopods you'd be a wee bit skeptical. At least I hope you would be. I've known plenty of people who claim to "have a personal relationship with Jesus." I consider this to be a sign of wackiness, not a form of evidence for the existence of this Jesus.

I'd respond the same way to someone claiming they'd seen a ghost.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | July 22, 2008 6:11 PM

For "the fool said in his heart, 'there is no God'" (Ps. 13:1, 52:1)? But certainly that same fool, having heard what I just said, "something greater than which cannot be thought," understands what he heard, and what he understands is in his thought, even if he does not think it exists. For it is one thing for something to exist in a person's thought and quite another for the person to think that thing exists. For when a painter thinks ahead to what he will paint, he has that picture in his thought, but he does not yet think it exists, because he has not done it yet. Once he has painted it he has it in his thought and thinks it exists because he has done it. Thus even the fool is compelled to grant that something greater than which cannot be thought exists in thought, because he understands what he hears, and whatever is understood exists in thought. And certainly that greater than which cannot be understood cannot exist only in thought, for if it exists only in thought it could also be thought of as existing in reality as well, which is greater. If, therefore, that than which greater cannot be thought exists in thought alone, then that than which greater cannot be thought turns out to be that than which something greater actually can be thought, but that is obviously impossible. Therefore something than which greater cannot be thought undoubtedly exists both in thought and in reality.....And you, Lord God, are this being.

Indeed.

-St. Anselm of Canterbury

Posted by Hector | July 22, 2008 6:40 PM

For "the fool said in his heart, 'there is no God'"

Indeed. Did someone here write this?

Posted by ed | July 22, 2008 7:07 PM

Here's what I had in mind:

Scientific method refers to the body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. It is based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.[1] A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.[2]
Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, identifiable features distinguish scientific inquiry from other methodologies of knowledge. Scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena, and design experimental studies to test these hypotheses. These steps must be repeatable in order to dependably predict any future results. Theories that encompass wider domains of inquiry may bind many hypotheses together in a coherent structure. This in turn may help form new hypotheses or place groups of hypotheses into context.
Among other facets shared by the various fields of inquiry is the conviction that the process be objective to reduce a biased interpretation of the results. Another basic expectation is to document, archive and share all data and methodology so they are available for careful scrutiny by other scientists, thereby allowing other researchers the opportunity to verify results by attempting to reproduce them. This practice, called full disclosure, also allows statistical measures of the reliability of these data to be established.

Posted by ed | July 22, 2008 8:59 PM

I've got to say, Douthat has a way of connecting brilliantly with the common man. The consensus I've gathered from the workaday crowd I run with is that atheists in the media are getting every bit as annoying as evangelicals when it comes to forcing their beliefs on people who, frankly, could give a d%^& about the religious beliefs of stangers.

I will add, though, that I've picked up some great atheist league jargon in reading the comments section. I'll no doubt be fully prepared for the whole "emporer's new clothes" allusion when I next host those of my friends who have been unable to escape the academic life. Forgive me for interrupting the flow of the debate on the page, its just that I'm confident enough in my faith to care more about the blog's main point than the endless bickering over the existence of God.

Posted by MistahCahhteah | July 22, 2008 9:40 PM

MistahCahhteah writes: "I've got to say, Douthat has a way of connecting brilliantly with the common man. The consensus I've gathered from the workaday crowd I run with is that atheists in the media are getting every bit as annoying as evangelicals when it comes to forcing their beliefs on people who, frankly, could give a d%^& about the religious beliefs of stangers."

What "atheists in the media" are "forcing their beliefs" on your poor stupid friends? Hitchens is a columnist and writer with no established television or radio outlet. Dawkins and Harris aren't especially omnipresent, either. If your friends can't handle the free exchange of ideas then they're idiots.

Perhaps these nasty, pushy atheists are sick and tired of the Christian right and Islamic nutjobs - both of whom actually DO force their beliefs on people. I wonder if your stupid friends got sick of them first.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | July 22, 2008 10:41 PM

St. Anselm of Canterbury's little mental exercise also works well for Xenu, Sol Invictus, and Mithra too.

Posted by EndOfTheWorld | July 22, 2008 10:54 PM

Trust the Right to say the apocalypse will come for religious reasons and the Left for economic reasons.

Posted by Luis A. del Valle | July 22, 2008 11:23 PM

Fair points, Moe, but settle down and find peace. I can prove God to you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ET8zhjeYMs&feature=related

Now, "Mr. Kotter" is right, let's chill out a bit.

Posted by Norman | July 23, 2008 12:04 AM

If the some religious folk are to claim that something in place of nothing is proof of the existence of God, then it should follow that nothing in place of something is not. The specific example of our impending galatic collision with our neighbor may be sloppy, but the eventual heat death of the universe is not. If nothing else, it should put to bed the notion that the universe was made with our existence in mind.

Be you believer or non-believer, if it is your stance that something in place of nothing is not proof of anything, then bloviating from one Christopher Hitchens ought not matter one way are the other. However, I do not think that Hitchens, in this single flitation, remotely compares to an author who makes his living on the endtimes. Rather, it seems to me a strech on Ross' part to propogate what I fear is becoming a sort of dogma among religious liberals, religious moderates and even atheists who "believe in belief": that staunch atheism and staunch theism are equally destructive. From where I am sitting, one is most certainly a greater threat than the other.

Posted by Rossiss Exy | July 23, 2008 12:43 AM

Google Video broadcast of a debate between Hitchens and Rabbi Boteach. Relevance to topic starts at 0:11:50 and ends a minute after.

Posted by Rossiss Exy | July 23, 2008 5:25 AM

Re: . The specific example of our impending galatic collision with our neighbor may be sloppy, but the eventual heat death of the universe is not.

Until and unless the eventual heat death of the universe actually happens we should not be using it as metaphysical proof of anything. It's speculation based on limited information about current conditions. We have no proof that these conditions will remain as they are, or that we have all the cards on the table as to what may happen eighty billion years from now.

Posted by JonF | July 23, 2008 6:34 AM

End of the World,

Re: St. Anselm of Canterbury's little mental exercise also works well for Xenu, Sol Invictus, and Mithra too.

Er, no it doesn't. Sol Invictus wasn't a "perfect being", nor did the Romans ever claim he was. None of the gods of a pantheon is, by definition, perfect. St. Anselm's exercise only works for people who believe in one God (or arguably, one good and one evil God since only one of those beings would be perfect in the moral sense).

As for the Mithraists, I don't know much about them but weren't they a heresy of Zoroastrianism? Zoroastrianism is dualistic, not polytheist, and there have been quite a few people who believed that the Zoroastrians- like Muslims, Jews, and Platonist- had a partial and/or imperfect knowledge of the true God rather than worshipping some being who wasn't a God at all. See "Cyrus was a servant of the Lord" and so forth.

I confess to having no idea who your Xenu is.

Posted by Hector | July 23, 2008 8:35 AM

Yes, it would seem (according to Tertullian) that Mithra was believed (around 200 BC) to be the earthly incarnation of the Zoroastrian God, Ahura-Mazda, who would be born of a virgin, and apparently would be resurrected as well. Tertullian believed that this was the work of the Devil, but I disagree. It would seem to me that this is evidence for Christianity, more than anything else: that the mythology surrounding Mithra was a vague and garbled memory of actual visions and revelations, given by God or his messengers to the Persians, and concerning the real Man who would die and be resurrected, Jesus Christ. Mithra was the vague and dimly grasped prophecy: Jesus Christ was the myth become fact.
The relationship between Jesus and Mithra is the relationship between the light of the moon and the moon's reflection in a lake.

You see, what the agnostics don't grasp is that you have to explain not just why people believed in the resurrection of Jesus, but also why people in so many other cultures had visions and prophecies of Someone who bears such marked and uncanny resemblances to Jesus. If you accept that the testimony of the four evangelists was correct regarding the miraculous resurrection, then you have an explanation at once not just for why the early Christians believed in resurrection but also why the Persians did.

Posted by Hector | July 23, 2008 8:52 AM

MoeLarryandJesus writes "Perhaps these nasty, pushy atheists are sick and tired of the Christian right and Islamic nutjobs - both of whom actually DO force their beliefs on people. I wonder if your stupid friends got sick of them first."

I think we're in agreement here, there is an obvious sense of give and take be

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