July 1996 Feedback

Internet Infidels: Feedback: 1996: July

[This message was in response to "The Jury Is In: The Ruling on McDowell's 'Evidence'," edited by Jeff Lowder.]

I have been reading some of your stuff and related pages on trying to debunk Josh Mcdowell and his God. After reading your comments (thought there is more to read) I find your arguement shallow. For example you say that Josh Mcdowell putS up straw men just to knock them down to make his arguements look good. That comment in itself is very childess. If his arguement is true or logical it doesn't need to "look good." You must prove the straw men, not say they are there.

Daniel was written about 150 yrs before Christ? For one I know much evidence eternal and external that disagree's with this. 2nd the people who support this that I have saw are liberal theologians, and you athiest\agnostics should not need to solicit there help when they follow no hermenuetical principles what- soever.

3rd, IF YOU GO WITH 150 YRS BEFORE CHRIST, IT IS BEFORE CHRIST, THAT MAKES IT A PROPHECY.

Gents and Ladies of Infidels Amassed:

Bravo to this link!! The arguments are sound and the tone is humble, even among violent, disagreeing minds; I commend u and yours.

I have a question, do you have or know of any listing of a group or groups that deal with a 12 step program that is SECULAR and NONRELIGIOUS in nature(the agnostic/atheist/humanist/unitarian, etc. version of the original A.A. god-based program), for alchohol and drug addiction?

Thanks for your time,

In Peace

Internet Infidels' Response:

I've heard of two such groups: Rational Recovery and S.O.S. Unfortunately, I do not have any information on them, not even a contact address. Maybe one of the other readers can pass along some contact information.

Jeffery Jay Lowder

Thanx!!

[This message was in response to "Din Adamlari" by Ilhan Arsel .]

Merhaba Nasilsiniz! (There, I've used my two Turkish words--I think that's considered to be a polite greeting.)

A translation of the documents by Ilhan Arsel would be very welcome--it's great to see Islam discussed, but too bad I can't read it. Perhaps this is something that can be added in the future. (Alternatively, English-language documents by other authors discussing Islam would be welcome.)

Cheers

[This message was in response to " Critique of New Testament Reliability and 'Bias' in NT Development" by James Still .]

I ran across your web page, bias1.html and one thing on it struck me as odd. You remarked "Jesus would have been an instant hero to the Zealots just for the sheer symbolic stab at authority that his actions represented...". This sounded odd because Josephus tells us that the Zealot party only came into being around 50 AD.

But nice page anyhow. You certainly develop the topic well (although I disagree with some of it -- like anybody agrees about the "historical Jesus").

Internet Infidels' Response:

It is certainly true that the Zealots as a party became an organized force against Roman authority just prior to the First Jewish Revolt (66-70 CE). However, like all counterrevolutionary political movements the roots of the various terrorist groups that banded together against colonial authority often precede official recognition of the State by many decades. Prior to the revolt, the Zealots were called variously "bandits" or "sicarii" (dagger people) and in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus many terrorist groups were led by Messianic figures and would-be kings. See Richard A. Horsley and J.S. Hanson, Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs: Popular Movements at the Time of Jesus (Minneapolis, 1985) for an excellent study in this area.

Regards,

James Still

Hello. I visit your sites quite often now, trying to find information to argue my atheistic point of view with my evangelical and fundamentalist christian girlfiend (opposites attract, no?). Well, other than saying that your site is one of the greatest places to visit on the web, I have a little something that you guys might enjoy.

Well, I was in art class lastt year in my Catholic High School. I am talking to my atheist best friend at the time (she has since moved away), and I had an idea. I was looking at all the Jesus fish things in the parking lot, thought about the Darwin fishes, and I had an idea of my own. Now that I am a sophomore in high school (when I came up with it, it was my freshman year), I had some time to finish it on my computer. I hope you like it and help me distribute it (I would LOVE to make it a shirt/bumper sticker/actual metal pin-type-thing for your car!). Thank you.

[This message was in response to "Josh McDowell's Charade" by Gordon Stein .]

Greetings

I recently read the article by Gordon Stein, PhD in which he critiques Josh McDowells book More Than a Carpenter. I agree with Dr. Stein that there is some slopiness in McDowell's approach. However, there are several concerns I have regrading Dr. Stein's assertions regarding the New Testament and Jesus of Nazareth.

1) Dr.Stein says there is no information about Jesus at all outside of the New Testament. This is incorrect. There are a number of references to Jesus outside the New Testament dating very early, which should satisfy Dr.Stein, and the skeptic who believes Jesus never perhaps even existed.

Ancient Non-Christian Writers
-Josephus Flavius - Jewish historian, Antiquities (~37-100 A.D.)
-Cornelius Tacitus - Roman Historian, Annals (b.52-54 A.D.)
-Lucian of Samosata - Syrian-Greek satirist, (c.120-c.190 A.D.)
-Mara ber-Sapion-Syrian prisoner writing to his son about Socrates, Pythagoras & Christ (afetr 73 A.D.)
-Pliny the Younger
-Seutonius
-Jewish Talmuds (100-500 A.D.)which speak negatively about Jesus

Ancient Christian Writers, that were either companions of the apostles or their disciples, talk about christ and his teachings-these give us a more sure link to Jesus himself, not necessarily giving us any "new" information but rather corroborating what we have in the New Testament
-Ignatius, bishop of Antioch (37-107 A.D.)
-Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna (70-156 A.D.), disciple of John and companion of the Apostles
-Papias, bishop of Hieropolis (c.130 A.D.)
-Clement, leader at Rome (30-100 A.D.), companion of Paul the apostle
-Justin Martyr (c.155 A.D.)
-Irenaeus, disciple of Polycarp (130-202 A.D.)

If exact reference are desired, then i will gladly give them.

It is very true that these authors do not furnish us with any new information. We should not be surprised that we do not have volumes on Jesus from non-Christian sources because, after all, he was a preacher in a rather obscure part of the Roman empire. Who was interested. If we are not able to trust the eye-witnesses, if the New Testament was written by them--and yes this is a matter of debate--then who can we trust. Most of established history needs to be tossed out then.

Furthermore, Dr.Stein's assertion that we have no copy of any gospel until Codex Siniaticus in 350 A.D. is incorrect. We need not be so sloppy. The Chester Beatty II papyri (200 A.D.) which contains the full text of all 4 gospels and Acts, and earlier still we have most of the gospel of John (125-155 A.D.) in the John Bodmer papyri. Earlier than that we do have a number of fragments. Should we be surprised that we do not have the originals? Papyri cannot survive that long in non-dry surroundings. Besides, is having the originals the only way we can establish historical facts and ascertain faithfulness to the originals? What do we do, then,with established facts from Plato, Caesar (Gallic Wars), Tacitus (Annals), Sophocles, Aristotle, Homer, etc., in which the only copies that survive come 500-1400 years AFTER the originals, and there are very few of those at all. The best is Homer's ILIAD, 643 copies at 500 years after the originals. But do we question whether we have substantially the orignal text. No, because textual criticism has establish that only about 2-5% of the 16000 or so lines are in question. What about the New Testament? Well, of the 20000 lines only 40 are in question (0.5%). So, what can we say? On a textual ground the New Testament far outweighs other ancient writings. Whether we believe what Christ is made out to say, or whether the authors were eye-witnesses, is another question altogether. This should not stop us from making rational judgments on the text itself. I can pass on references if need be to these ascertions.

On the question of dating the gospels, scholars fall on either side of 70 A.D., the year in which the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and expelled its inhabitants. Why do some say before, some after? Well, Jesus is hown predicting the destruction of Jerusalem and, as many believe, this type of supernatural activity never happens, so the texts must have been written BEFORE 70 A.D. This a priori anti-supernatural (or pro supernatural) bias should not be brought into scholarly investigation. Rather, dating should be done on established guideposts, thinsg we know happened and exactly when. For example, we know Paul the apostle died in 64-68 A.D., James the stepbrother of Jesus died c.62 A.D., Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D., etc. Now, since there is no mentions whatsoever of Jerusalem's destruction in the New Testament, and the deaths of the apostles Paul and James are not mentioned, leading figures in the early spread of Christianity, is it unreasonable to say that almost all of the NT wa written before 70 A.D.? This is the substance of John A T Robinson's argument (Robinson, Redating the New Testament, 1976).

Even if the NT was written mostly in the post-70 A.D. period, this does not necessarily imply that legend and myth had by that time permeated the accounts of Jesus' life. Why? There are two main reasons. First, contrary to the layman's popular opinion re: oral tradition, the Jewish had a fairly robust system of memorization that could be reliably be transmitted to their pupils and subsequent generations. In fact, ,many ancients preffered oral to written transmission because of the "permanency" of any errors that would be transmitted via written documents. Second, the rate of legendary accumulation in the Near East has been commented on by Roman historian AN Sherwin-White in his consideration of the writings of Herodotus and Thucydides (5th century BCE). He concludes that from 2 generations (say 40 years) to 100 years is not enough time for legendary elements to prevail over the hard historical core of a major event (the book is Roman Law and History (?), but i have the book at home and can give the proper referencing if anyone wishes).

Finally, I am not defending McDowell. He does some things well in his books and other things poorly. This we certainly] can agree on. If one sees McDowell as biased, then one shoudl not be surprised to note that we ALL have our biases and this will colour our investigations re: Jesus identity etc. I have mine too. We need to recognize this and do the best we can. However, the various comments by Dr.Stein needed clarification and in some cases correction.

I am not a "fundamentalist" Christian, but I am a follower of Christ and believe him to be God-manifested-in-human-form. This belief should not cause me to be viewed by others as either narrow-minded (for that is intolerant too) or as immediately biased re: the New Testament. Let's engage in some real dialogue. Let's stop "reacting" and "pulling" against each other. Thanks.

Internet Infidels' Response #1:

Hi! :)

I'm not Dr. Stein, but I'd like to address a couple concerns you have.

You mention...

>1) Dr.Stein says there is no information about Jesus at all
>outside of the New Testament. This is incorrect. There
>are a number of references to Jesus outside the New Testament
>dating very early, which should satisfy Dr.Stein, and the
>skeptic who believes Jesus never perhaps even existed.
>
>Ancient Non-Christian Writers
>-Josephus Flavius - Jewish historian, Antiquities (~37-100 A.D.)
>-Cornelius Tacitus - Roman Historian, Annals (b.52-54 A.D.)
>-Lucian of Samosata - Syrian-Greek satirist, (c.120-c.190 A.D.)

[snip]

Certainly, there are people who, outside of the New Testament, refer to the person called "Christ." I don't know of Flavius -- it seems I recall that those small passages which refer to Jesus were considered interpolations by later men. As to the others' writings, as I've not studied them, I can't say whether or not you are telling me the facts.

Nevertheless, I am an atheist, and I believe Jesus did exist. Perhaps not as an incarnation of God, nor as a miracle-maker, but at least as a man. :)

>Furthermore, Dr.Stein's assertion that we have no copy of
>any gospel until Codex Siniaticus in 350 A.D. is incorrect.
>We need not be so sloppy. The Chester Beatty II papyri (200 A.D.) which
>contains the full text of all 4 gospels and Acts, and earlier
>still we have most of the gospel of John (125-155 A.D.) in the
>John Bodmer papyri. Earlier than that we do have a number
>of fragments. Should we be surprised that we do not have the
>originals? Papyri cannot survive that long in non-dry surroundings.

Interesting, to say the least.

>and there are very few of those at all. The best is Homer's
>ILIAD, 643 copies at 500 years after the originals. But do
>we question whether we have substantially the orignal text. No,
>because textual criticism has establish that only about 2-5%
>of the 16000 or so lines are in question. What about the New
>Testament? Well, of the 20000 lines only 40 are in question (0.5%).

Well, most scholars believe there is no "original text" of Homer's writings in existence: the original text, if there was one, had undergone many changes before it arrived in the form we know of in the recovered fragments and copies.

>destroyed Jerusalem and expelled its inhabitants. Why do some
>say before, some after? Well, Jesus is hown predicting the
>destruction of Jerusalem and, as many believe, this type of
>supernatural activity never happens, so the texts must have
>been written BEFORE 70 A.D. This a priori anti-supernatural
>(or pro supernatural) bias should not be brought into scholarly
>investigation. Rather, dating should be done on established
>guideposts, thinsg we know happened and exactly when. For example,

Indeed, dating should be done that way. On the other hand, to state that there is some "anti-supernatural bias" is to disregard the fact that the existence of miracles has not been established. Even if a person were to remain neutral on the issue, neither pro- nor anti-super- natural, the best we could do is throw out the evidence, which would possibly be seen by pro-supernaturalists as just another form of anti-supernaturalism. Have you a suggestion?

>Even if the NT was written mostly in the post-70 A.D. period,
>this does not necessarily imply that legend and myth had by
>that time permeated the accounts of Jesus' life. Why?
>There are two main reasons. First, contrary to the layman's
>popular opinion re: oral tradition, the Jewish had a fairly
>robust system of memorization that could be reliably be
>transmitted to their pupils and subsequent generations. In fact,
>many ancients preffered oral to written transmission because
>of the "permanency" of any errors that would be transmitted
>via written documents. Second, the rate of legendary accumulation
>in the Near East has been commented on by Roman historian
>AN Sherwin-White in his consideration of the writings of
>Herodotus and Thucydides (5th century BCE). He concludes
>that from 2 generations (say 40 years) to 100 years is not
>enough time for legendary elements to prevail over the hard
>historical core of a major event (the book is
>Roman Law and History (?), but i have the book at home and
>can give the proper referencing if anyone wishes).

Ah. Then I suspect you believe the accounts of Joseph Smith's miracles are true? And those of both Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar are equally true? There are many people besides Jesus to whom miracles are attributed; given your line of reasoning here, we must therefore conclude that all figures from history to whom miracles are attributed must be true, knowing that legend and myth would not permeate, not prevail, over any hard historical core. Are you willing to step thus far?

stephen B^)

Internet Infidels' Response #2:

Hi. Thanks for your thoughtful and courteous message. While I don't pretend to speak for Dr. Stein, I wanted to respond to some of the comments in your message.

You wrote:

Have you seen my article on "Josh McDowell's 'Evidence' for Jesus -- Is It Reliable?"

(http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/chap5.html)?

I agree with you that Josephus provides independent confirmation of Jesus; but I do not agree with you about the other authors.

>Ancient Non-Christian Writers
>-Josephus Flavius - Jewish historian, Antiquities (~37-100 A.D.)
>-Cornelius Tacitus - Roman Historian, Annals (b.52-54 A.D.)
>-Lucian of Samosata - Syrian-Greek satirist, (c.120-c.190 A.D.)
>-Mara ber-Sapion-Syrian prisoner writing to his son about
>Socrates,Pythagoras & Christ (afetr 73 A.D.)
>-Pliny the Younger
>-Seutonius
>-Jewish Talmuds (100-500 A.D.)which speak negatively about
>Jesus

As I argued in the above-mentioned article, none of these authors except Josephus provide confirmation of Jesus that is independent of Christian sources. Let me briefly summarize why I reject the other ancient sources:

Tacitus: (i) the date of Thallus' writing is not known and therefore the reference could be based on Christian sources; and (ii) we do not even know whether Thallus specifically referred to Jesus' crucifixion.

Lucian of Samosata: (i) it is quite doubtful that a satirist like Lucian was especially concerned with historical accuracy; and (ii) Lucian's writings are relatively late and probably derived exclusively from Christian sources.

Mara bar-Serapion: (i) 'Wise king' probably does not refer to Jesus; (ii) the dating of this passage is problematic -- it might be as late as the third century; (iii) the passage contains historical errors.

Pliny the Younger: (i) there is no evidence that Pliny had independent sources of information; and (ii) the tenacity of second-century provides absolutely no support for the historicity of Jesus.

Suetonius: there are good reasons to believe 'Chrestus' does not refer to the Jesus of the New Testament;

Jewish Talmuds: (i) these are late -- written between the second and sixth centuries; (ii) these are almost certainly polemical responses to Christian tradition. My understanding is that these documents are not histories and were not intended to be used as such.

>Ancient Christian Writers, that were either companions of
>the apostles or their disciples, talk about christ and his
>teachings-these give us a more sure link to Jesus himself,
>not necessarily giving us any "new" information but rather
>corroborating what we have in the New Testament
>-Ignatius, bishop of Antioch (37-107 A.D.)
>-Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna (70-156 A.D.), disciple of John
>and companion of the Apostles
>-Papias, bishop of Hieropolis (c.130 A.D.)
>-Clement, leader at Rome (30-100 A.D.), companion of Paul
>the apostle
>-Justin Martyr (c.155 A.D.)
>-Irenaeus, disciple of Polycarp (130-202 A.D.)

Not only do these sources fail to give us any "new information," they are late and were quite possibly derived exclusively from Christian tradition. To put it another way, I do not know of any evidence that these Christian writers used non-Christian sources.

Thanks again for your message. Take care!

Jeff Lowder

Internet Infidels' Response #3:

>Greetings

Hello! and thanks for writing. I guess Jeff has already responded in his subject area (extra biblical references to Jesus) so I'll confine my remarks to your other concerns.

The Apostolic Fathers are indeed the best extrabiblical source to the Jesus movements in the Diaspora, but what concerns biblical scholars today is how close they were to the historical Jesus. Jesus's brother James took over the movement in Jerusalem after Jesus's crucifixion (as you know from Eusibius's account and elsewhere) but these "Nazarenes" were largely wiped out during the Jewish Revolt of 66-70 CE. As a result, we have very little information about the Jesus movement that was closest to its founder; it doesn't help that the Ebionites--who survived the destruction of Jerusalem--were regarded as heretics in the second century for not believing in the divinity of Christ. Since most of the NT was written outside of Nazarene influence (and we only have hints of the Jerusalem community's conflicts with Paul's Hellenizing of Christ) it may not be correct to portray the NT or the Apostolic Fathers as representative of the historical Jesus and his original goals and aspirations. We must take into account the post-Easter mythologizing (the kerygma) that occurred in the Diaspora after Jesus's death. I would argue that it is not as simple a matter as "trusting the eyewitnesses" because the kind of trust you speak of is a matter for theologians not historians.

When Dr. Stein asserts that we do not have a copy of a gospel until Siniaticus in 350 CE he is referring to a complete canonical text. It is not true that the Chester Beatty collection (P45, P46, P47, P66) "contains the full text of all 4 gospels and Acts." P45 (which is a mixed manuscript tradition--Caesarean in Mark, Alexandrian and Western elsewhere) contain parts of all of the gospels and Acts but only a few scattered verses of Matthew. P46 (200 CE) is an excellent collection of ten Pauline epistles and contains 86 out of the original 104 leaves but no gospel accounts. P47 contains only Revelation 9:10-17:2 and P66 contains only portions of the Gospel of John.

>Besides, is having the originals the only way we can establish
>historical facts and ascertain faithfulness to the originals?
>What do we do, then,with established facts from Plato, Caesar (Gallic Wars )
>Tacitus (Annals), Sophocles, Aristotle, Homer, etc., in which the
>only copies that survive come 500-1400 years AFTER the originals,
>and there are very few of those at all. The best is Homer's
>ILIAD, 643 copies at 500 years after the originals.

It is a grave mistake in text criticism to compare sheer numbers of manuscripts with other traditions. See my reply to McDowell's Evidence, Chapter Four, for a full treatment of historicity viz. extant manuscripts:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/chap4.html

>On the question of dating the gospels, scholars fall on
>either side of 70 A.D., the year in which the Romans
>destroyed Jerusalem and expelled its inhabitants. Why do some
>say before, some after? Well, Jesus is hown predicting the
>destruction of Jerusalem and, as many believe, this type of
>supernatural activity never happens, so the texts must have
>been written BEFORE 70 A.D. This a priori anti-supernatural
>(or pro supernatural) bias should not be brought into scholarly
>investigation. Rather, dating should be done on established
>guideposts, thinsg we know happened and exactly when. For example,
>we know Paul the apostle died in 64-68 A.D., James the
>stepbrother of Jesus died c.62 A.D., Jerusalem was destroyed
>in 70 A.D., etc. Now, since there is no mentions whatsoever
>of Jerusalem's destruction in the New Testament, and the deaths of the
>apostles Paul and James are not mentioned, leading figures in the
>early spread of Christianity, is it unreasonable to say
>that almost all of the NT wa written before 70 A.D.? This is
>the substance of John A T Robinson's argument (Robinson,
>Redating the New Testament, 1976).

You raise a lot of interesting points. Concerning Mark's gospel, the reason it is dated terminus a quo of 65 CE is because Irenaeus said that Mark wrote his gospel after Peter's death which tradition places at 65 CE. Scholars do not know when Mark wrote his gospel so a date of 65-75 CE is an excellent guess considering that he likely didn't start writing the day Simon Peter died. There is no "anti-supernatural bias" involved. Due to controversial passages which predict the destruction of the Temple (in chap 13) and Luke's reference to the siege of the city in 21:20, scholars feel comfortable with placing Mark at 70 CE. This is just common sense, however, since it would be very uncritical to assume a miraculous prediction during a time of war in which Jerusalem was under attack. For example, it would be no miracle at all to predict the fall of Berlin in 1943. I am not sure how you understand the NT to be ignorant of the fall of Jerusalem (consider Luke 21:20 above for example) and I would advise against taking Robinson's argument uncritically. Indeed it is unimaginable that epistles such as Titus or the Timothies could have been written before 70 CE; such a thesis is out on the fringes at best. And since Matthew and Luke rely upon Mark we already see how they have come to be written after 70 CE (never mind the still later Gospel of John at 120 CE or so).

>Even if the NT was written mostly in the post-70 A.D. period,
>this does not necessarily imply that legend and myth had by
>that time permeated the accounts of Jesus' life. Why?
>There are two main reasons. First, contrary to the layman's
>popular opinion re: oral tradition, the Jewish had a fairly
>robust system of memorization that could be reliably be
>transmitted to their pupils and subsequent generations. In fact,
>,many ancients preffered oral to written transmission because
>of the "permanency" of any errors that would be transmitted
>via written documents. Second, the rate of legendary accumulation
>in the Near East has been commented on by Roman historian
>AN Sherwin-White in his consideration of the writings of
>Herodotus and Thucydides (5th century BCE). He concludes
>that from 2 generations (say 40 years) to 100 years is not
>enough time for legendary elements to prevail over the hard
>historical core of a major event (the book is
>Roman Law and History (?), but i have the book at home and
>can give the proper referencing if anyone wishes).

Yes this argument in an old apologetical one and has not been taken seriously by biblical scholars for years. Not to say that you may not be correct, but I suspect that your sources are treating the data very uncritically. In 1707 John Mill published a Greek NT which took into account the discrepancies of over 100 mss. and writings of the early Church Fathers. He listed over 30,000 variants in readings. Leon Wright (Alterations of the Words of Jesus, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952) did an excellent study on the hundreds of discrepancies between the second-century Apostolic Fathers and the fourth-century canonical texts concerning the words of Jesus (never mind the biblical narrative accounts which would be too enormous an undertaking for one man!) What the data suggests is that quite contrary to your source's understanding of Torah transmission, the oral tradition was an organic, thriving, body of stories and tales that changed much over the two centuries of Wright's study. One quick reading of the Gospel of Thomas (and the reconstructed Q) also shows a different Jesus from the canonical portrayal. Only the Fundamentalists in North America insist on a pure textual transmission of the actual words of Jesus; most Christians realize that the NT contains the *spirit* of Jesus, not his actual words.

>Finally, I am not defending McDowell. He does some things
>well in his books and other things poorly. This we certainly]
>can agree on. If one sees McDowell as biased, then one shoudl
>not be surprised to note that we ALL have our biases and this
>will colour our investigations re: Jesus identity etc. I have
>mine too. We need to recognize this and do the best we can.
>However, the various comments by Dr.Stein needed
>clarification and in some cases correction.

You are correct in that Dr. Stein did not produce an error-free study. However, what is important is that unlike McDowell, Stein produced a critical study of the data in the NT. No one is expecting a perfect paper, but we should all expect each other to treat the data critically. In fact we must do so or else we no longer engage in scientific research. As for a tu quoque defense of bias I can only say that critical research and peer review is the best remedy for this danger.

>I am not a "fundamentalist" Christian, but I am a follower
>of Christ and believe him to be God-manifested-in-human-form.
>This belief should not cause me to be viewed by others as
>either narrow-minded (for that is intolerant too) or as
>immediately biased re: the New Testament. Let's engage in
>some real dialogue. Let's stop "reacting" and "pulling"
>against each other. Thanks.

I could not agree more with you! In my opinion, the single biggest failing of freethought today is that it unconsciously attempts to dogmatize its own axioms while ridiculing the beliefs of Christians. This is unacceptable in a society which values the free exchange of ideas and my side must correct this. You must be allowed to hold your beliefs without ad hominen attacks while (hopefully) keeping in mind the consideration that they may be in need of revision or correction. (And I must do the same.) However, many times the Christian will go to the critical material out of curiousity, read it, become offended and put up a psychological defense in which they perceive that they are under "attack." Putting up a psychological defense to keep long-held beliefs intact is what the insecure do to block out challenging ideas, but this does not mean that there is a real extrapersonal assault underway. (Consider the pitiable cry of the homophobe who asks that gays "just leave him alone....") In any case, it is my hope that freethought and Christianity can come together in a nonconfrontational, yet critical exchange of ideas because I believe that Christianity cannot withstand a critical examination of the evidence. Petty ad hominen attacks and dogma will only detract from the debate.

Regards,

James Still

Internet Infidels' Response #4:

Your correspondent stated that the Chester Beatty II papyrus contains the entire four gospel and Acts, dated to 200 CE.

This is incorrect. The following web page contains a table of NT manuscripts, listing the date or century of papyri, with the list of chapters and verses in each.

Papyrus 46, listed here as Chester Beatty II, is indeed dated to ca. 200, but only has assorted passages from Romans through Hebrews.

http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/mss/table_gkmss.html

According to Moule, Birth of the New Testament, p. 256, the Chester Beattie Papyri, together, can be used to place use of the four gospels to about 250 CE. (Again, we do not have a complete text, as the person alleges.)

Larry Taylor

PS. The writer of the letter follows McDowell's persistent mispelling of SUETONIUS.

Kudos for your great site!

A small thought on the term 'Atheist', which has come to imply a rabid fanatic, a 'reverse fundamentalist', as it were.

Since no one, not even the most pious fundamentalist, can approach defining his 'God', other than the knowledge that He shares all of the fundamentalist's own prejudices, it becomes somewhat difficult to define just what you don't believe in.

Now, the first definition of God in Webster's dictionary defines God as 'the ultimate reality' - and who's to say that that doesn't exist? I rather like Joseph Campbell's response, which I have now adopted as my own, when a fundamentalist student asked him whether he believed in God.

'Why, of course, I believe in them all!'

Internet Infidels' Response:

Actually, I'm not convinced that the concept of God is undefinable, incoherent, or both. Richard Swinburne, in his _Coherence of Theism_ (Revised edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), appears to have succeeded in providing a coherent definition of God.

With apologies to Kai Nielsen,

Jeffery Jay Lowder

[This message was in response to "Giving the Jehovah's Witnesses a Broadside" by Mark Vuletic.]

Regarding the article: Giving the J.W.'s a Broadside...

What IS the "clear of intent" of Daniel 4 ?

--The author didnt give this an explanation and I wondered just what it is?

Thanks,

In Peace

P.S.
it is nice to know that there are ppl who can acutally *think* about the 'nature of god.' keep up the work.

Internet Infidels' Response:

Hi,

Actually, I believe I did answer your question in my paper: Daniel 4 contained three parts - (1) Nebuchadnezzar's dream, (2) Daniel interpreting the dream (as the temporary deposition of Nebuchadnezzar until he recognizes God as his superior), and (3) Daniel's interpretation of the dream coming true. Since Daniel's interpretation actually came true, there doesn't seem to be anything deeply mysterious about the dream - it was a prophecy with the content Daniel attributed to it. Whether or not there is a deeper, less obvious meaning to the prophecy that was actually supposed to be present there at the time it was recorded, is something I can't possibly know. But the 1914 interpretation seems to be a little too tortured to have been a real level of intent in Daniel 4.

I hope this answer is satisfactory. Thank you for your letter.

Mark I. Vuletic

[This message was in response to "What Is An Agnostic?" by Bertrand Russell.]

Thanks for a very nice walkthrough of the concept. I'm now a convinced agnostic :-)

[This message was in response to "The Scientific Case Against Immortality" by Keith Augustine.]

Hi Keith,

I can understand why scientist try to explain away that, which they don't understand, such as UFO's and NDE. When I was with AOL, I told many folks at the Atheist message boards, you can't re-create NDE in the labs unless you are going to kill someone. Susan Blackmore had a so-called OBE and later came to the conclusion that it was an hallucination due to the fact there were discrepancies in her observations. As I have said before, how could a person who was blind since birth, describe instruments and people in detail for whom she had never seen before, and confirmed by her doctor? Yet this takes place everyday and scientist try to come up with theories to explain away what they can't explain. Theories change with the weather. They still don't know what consciousness is. Just try to attend a formal gathering on consciousness and watch the fireworks begin. Everyone has their own idea what it is. If a person is blind and describe exactly, the instruments and people involved and corroborated by their medical team than why try to explain away the obvious, 'That NDE is real.' You can create NDE effects in the lab artificially by stimulating the right temporal lobe but that is where the difference ends. Ask someone undergoing the test to describe things in the surounding area while blind folded. They can't. Yet in a real NDE, people have done just that basically and confirmed by the medical teams and published in some medical journals as fact, weather they were blind, had a flat EEG, (no brain waves or activity) or were without oxygen at room temperature for as long as an hour and declared dead. No telling how long those who woke up in morgues, were without oxygen until they revived. Atheist are going to have to come to the conclusion sooner or later that NDE is real. As I said earlier, if a woman who was blind since birth and awkwardly describe in detail her surroundings and the objects and people, than there is nothing to explain it all away. Throw in the documented miracles--some of which James Randi admits he can't explain--then you get what I am saying. Throw in my own experience and then you know as fact that what ever scientist say to try to explain away NDE, is nothing more than wishful thinking in an attempt to save their position as far as there scientific views is concern. If you experienced what I did, than you wouldn't be a non-believer by any means. You have to have the real thing, not the artificial experiments in the labs. Brain chemicals have already been proved as not being responsible for causing NDE. Halluciantions maybe, but not a true NDE. Ask Melvin Morse, M.D. about that. He has it all documented and published in a couple of medical journals.

I also wanted to mention that all of the experiments in the labs that you mentioned failed to unlock what consciousness is. That should have been a clue as to figure if NDE is real or not. Everyone has theories based on their own observations but it conflicts with others who have their own ideas of what consciousness is. In short, nobody knows what consciousness is. Have you read Consciousness Explained? The author, Daniel Dennett, was so sure of his theory on consciousness, he wrote a book on the subject based on his observations in the lab. Well, his colleages jumped on him with no mercy because his theories conflicted with theres. One colleage said, "That wasn't consciousness explained, that was consciousness explained away." So you see, all of the experiments have failed to explain away consciousness eventhough you can open a book and say, 'Based on this info, consciousness is this.' Well, that is not the case and scientist are going to come to grips with reality, and that is: NDE is real. Take in account the miracles that James Randi can't explain away and the condition of the bodies of Staints on display in Europe--some over a few hundred years old--than it can be safely answered that God exist. No question about it in my mind and I have the experience to prove it. No hallucination on my part, because hallucinations couldn't account for what happened. That is why I have said all along that the idea of hallucintions as being responsible for NDE is all wrong and I am not a scientist, but I have something better, a personal experience and the knowledge to know that it was real and can't be explain away.

Best reqards

Internet Infidels' Response:

>I can understand why scientist try to explain away that, which they don't
>understand, such as UFO's and NDE.

I think that scientists try to understand near-death experiences and unidentified aerial phenomena in plausible scientific terms, rather than trying to "explain them away".

>When I was with AOL, I told many folks at the Atheist message boards, you
>can't re-create NDE in the labs unless you are going to kill someone.

Actually, The Learning Channel's Mysterious Forces Beyond once did a program on NDEs where a nurse was trying to perform experiments similar to those I mentioned in The Scientific Case Against Immortality. If you recall, parapsychologists have done extensive experiments trying to show that people who report having out-of-body experiences can retrieve information impossible to obtain from the position of their bodies through ordinary sense perception, presumably through some kind of remote viewing which would suggest that something (a soul or astral body) actually leaves the body in out-of-body experiences. However, the experimental evidence failed to show that subjects can actually obtain information through paranormal means. Similarly, the nurse on Mysterious Forces Beyond reported that the experiment was designed so that an electronic screen displayed a sentence that was changed everyday by someone not connected with the experiment in any other way then generating the sentences. The screen was placed in the cardiac arrythmias room, and no one in the hospital knew what the sentence was. The screen could not be seen from the vantage of a patient nor by any of the staff. When someone had an NDE, all they had to do is repeat what the sentence said. Then the staff could report what the NDEr said to independent judges to determine if there was a match. The nurse reported that several months of experiments to determine if NDErs could paranormally acquire information from a remote location had been "inconclusive".

Secondly, there is an abundant evidence that near-death experiences can occur even in the absence of any real life-threatening condition of a patient. Some of this evidences consists in the fact that NDEs can be induced by various drugs: OBEs can be induced by intravenous injection of the anesthetic ketamine and hashish can cause users to experience all stages of the NDE in sequence. Furthermore, the euphoria (presumably the effects of endorphins on the brain), mystical feelings, panoramic life review, and personality transformations can occur even when there is no real threat of death, only a *perceived* threat-- that is, some NDE features occur when people believe they are about to die but are in no real danger.

>Susan Blackmore had a so-called OBE and later came to the conclusion that
>it was an hallucination due to the fact there were discrepancies in her
>observations.

Which suggests that her OBE was a completely psychological phenomena.

>As I have said before, how could a person who was blind since birth,
>describe instruments and people in detail for whom she had never seen
>before, and confirmed by her doctor? Yet this takes place everyday and
>scientist try to come up with theories to explain away what they can't
>explain.

And as I have stated before,

I suggest you take a look at the OBE Frequently Asked Questions.

Look at the entry categorized as "What are the features of OB vision?". This FAQ was written by an individual sympathetic to your point of view, yet the experimental evidence from out-of-body experience experiments was consistent enough to force him to conclude the following:

"All these experiments were aimed at finding out whether subjects could see a distant target during an OBE. Although the experimental OBE may differ from the spontaneous kind, a simple conclusion is possible from the experimental studies. That is, OBE vision, if it occurs, is extremely poor."

This kind of conclusion, which is a virtual consensus among parapsychologists (again, researchers sympathetic to your POV), does not support your claim that NDErs can see things they cannot normally see. I also suggest you take a look at Susan Blackmore's NDE book Dying to Live , especially chapter 6, titled "But I Saw the Colour of Her Dress". Within that chapter, there is a subtitle "NDEs in the Blind" from p. 128-133 which separates fact from legend in regards to claims of remote viewing in blind NDErs. There is even a quote by Kenneth Ring acknowledging that at the time this book was published (1993) there was no evidence whatever of accurate perception among blind NDErs.

>Theories change with the weather. They still don't know what consciousness
>is. Just try to attend a formal gathering on consciousness and watch the
>fireworks begin. Everyone has their own idea what it is.

None of this has any relevance to whether NDEs can be explained in physiological-psychological terms or not.

>If a person is blind and describe exactly, the instruments and
>people involved and corroborated by their medical team than why try to
>explain away the obvious, 'That NDE is real.'

These cases simply do not exist. There is no corroboration for anecdotes about NDErs having inexplicable knowledge of events they couldn't acquire by ordinary sensory means.

>You can create NDE effects in the lab artificially by stimulating the right
>temporal lobe but that is where the difference ends. Ask someone undergoing
>the test to describe things in the surounding area while blind folded. They
>can't. Yet in a real NDE, people have done just that basically and confirmed
>by the medical teams and published in some medical journals as fact, weather
>they were blind, had a flat EEG, (no brain waves or activity) or were without
>oxygen at room temperature for as long as an hour and declared dead.

If the evidence is as decisive as you say it is, it is hard to imagine why parapsychologists do not consider NDEs good evidence for life after death and why medical professionals, by and large, consider NDEs to be hypoxia-induced hallucinations.

First and foremost, if there is one fact anyone should know about NDErs, it is that they have never been totally brain dead. If there had been no electrical activity in the brain at all, they wouldn't have come back from "death's door". Brain death is irreversible. Anyone in the medical profession will testify to that fact. EEGs measure only electrical brain activity occurring a short distance from the scalp. Electrical activity in the deeper brain structures, such as the limbic system (where endorphins are found) does not register on these EEGs, but the electrical activity has to be there, otherwise the patient would never recover from death. This fact is rarely stated in pro-afterlife NDE books; it is very deceptive of some of these researchers (e.g., Raymond Moody) to say that EEGs are flatline and measure no electrical activity without qualifying that by informing their readers that EEGs only measure neural activity directly under the scalp and not the deeper structures as well as the fact that had NDErs actually been brain dead, they would not have been around to report an NDE.

>Take in account the miracles that James Randi can't explain away and the
>condition of the bodies of Staints on display in Europe--some over a few
>hundred years old--than it can be safely answered that God exist.

The "incorruptable" saints are far from it. The preservation of the bodies of saints is due mostly to embalming, natural preservation (as in tombs), and restoration--such as the use of a wax mask to cover the face of St. Bernadette in Lourdes. An excellent source of factual material regarding "incorruptable" saints and miracle claims in general is Joe Nickell's Looking for a Miracle, published by Prometheus Books .

Regards,

Keith Augustine

You guys are doing a great job at promoting reason in the spirit of history's greatest infidel, T. Paine. This website is wonderful and I hope you continue this for a long time. I am curious as to why you are spending so much time and effort into critiquing something as subjective as McDowell's book. His arguements are based solely on the bible, which is hardly a reliable historical reference. Criticizing McDowell's "research", it seems to me, is analogous to critiquing a barking dog. That dog ain't gonna stop barking no matter how long or convincingly you try to convince it otherwise. I would really be interested in seeing some critiques of legitimite biblical scholar's works. You know what I mean, some real meat! Not this cheese and cracker stuff. For instance, what about John Crossan's position that Jesus was a Medeterranean Jewish Cynic...how much did that Pagean Philosophy influence the Jesus Movement? Or E.P. Sanders' speculation on Jesus' rejection of the institution of marriage?

Internet Infidels' Response:

We spend so much time on Josh McDowell because he appears to be one of the most influential apologists. We are well aware that there are better Christian apologists than McDowell, but McDowell seems to be the most popular Christian apologist.

Jeff Lowder

[This message was in response to " Critique of Reasons Skeptics Should Consider Christianity" by James Still .]

I've just read your interesting article on the McDowell book "Reasons". I am a Christian myself (in the historic sense of the term - i.e. one who believes in the historic life, death and resurection of Jesus) and have a copy of the book in question.

In large measure your critique is fair and accuate. When I read the book I was embaressed by the basic failure to answer the question proposed by the title. I suspect the book was written (in fact) for those on the fringes of Chrisitanity, not genuine skeptics.

None the less, you also are guilty of some logical fallacies. In several places you give examples of normal linguistic use as 'contradictions' - for example, the centurian contacting Jesus through his friends can equally be described as him saying to Jesus.. (this is known as agency, and is a standard method of reporting). If you doubt this, take a good look at some incident reported a few (quality) newspapers.

Intrigingly, your approach to the biblical interpretion bears close comparison with the unfortunate, particulaly wooden method of interpretion of which McDowell seems to be an exponent. He (I think) means well, but needs to step back from certian traditional assumptions about how the texts should be read. The same traditional assumptions lead him to see (a particular kind of) authority and you to see a 'contradiction'.

The other point you might wish to consider is your statement that "It is well known that the ancient Hebrews believed the world to be flat and held up by four "pillars" at its corners". Well known? By whom? If you wish to make an assertion of this sort some kind of reference is the minimum defence required!

Perhaps more seriously, I agree using McDowell's name in the way that seems to be rather common is not excusable (although this practice seems to be more common in the USA than here in the UK anyway). However, one name I will mention - if you're interested in a serious picture of the historical Jesus - is one N T Wright, particularly his series Christian Origins and the Question of God (First volume, "The New Testament and the People of God", Second volume "Jesus and the Victory of God" - volumes on Paul, the composition of the gospels and conclusions to follow) published in the US be Fortress and in the UK by SPCK.

Wright (unlike McDowell) is not an easy read and certianly made me think and change my mind on a number of issues. I found his section on epistomology particularly good.

In any event, a skeptical mind is a good asset, and I trust that skeptisism of not only Christianity but of the various alternative belief-systems will eventually lead you to the One who offers Life.

God bless (if you don't mind the expression)

Dear Freethinkers,

Congratulations to your felicitous web page. I was very positively surprised that there exists such interessting pages for internet infidels.

Hope for all freethinkers that they can create a further forums for discussing their ideas on the net.

Best wishes to all

I was told I might be able to contact other single atheists/humanists/freethinkers and others through your mailing lists. Do you have such a list ? How do I get to it?

Sincerely into secularism

Internet Infidels' Response:

Check the Secular Singles mailing list. To subscribe, e-,ail with "sub singles " in the body.

Also, there is an IRC channel on DALnet called #atheist_singles that is sometimes active.

THOUGHTfully Yours,

Clark D. Adams

If you would do some real research into the supposed contradictions of Saul's conversion experience (ie. go to the original languages) you will find there is no contradiction. One states (in the original language) that they heard, but did not understand the voice. The other states that they heard the voice but did not see anyone. No contradiction there, just in the translation.

I also take issue with your criticism of Mcdowell for doing his research while having a definite opinion of the scriptures Everyone has a definite point of view. Your opinion of scriptures is clearly stated in your paper by your eagerness to disprove McDowell's findings. So what is the difference between your opinion and his? The point is there should be an objective study of what the scriptures and history tells us about Jesus. I think McDowell is an acomplished scholar, deserving of an open-minded examination. Not an opinionated review that is clearly based in an antagonistic view point.

Internet Infidels' Response:

Please read http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/ and then explain to me why you consider Josh McDowell a scholar.

Jeff Lowder

Please add my name to your mailings. I have been an atheist since 1953 and am intrested in communicating with like thinkers. thank you.

Good to see such great work being done by my old School. I graduated in '83 with a degree in Philosophy from A&M. Are there Humanist groups still active there? I was asked to speak on religious Humanism (I am an Ethical Culture Leader, only the 2nd in the state), but I could never orchestrate a day when they were also able to meet. Let me know if there is still an organization there.

Take care and keep up the good work,

Peace to your home

Great website. I made it here via the talk.origins archive while reading the FAQs. Anyways, the add URL option doesn't seem to work so I'll include my webpage address in this message. You see, I'm the head of a new religion called Last Thursdayism. Last Thursdayists believe that the universe was created Last Thursday by my cat, Queen Maeve. I've managed to attract a few followers from talk.origins but being listed on your website would do wonders for us. We plan to develop a school cirriculum that we will demand to be taught along side creationism and evolution. I'm even working on our own flood myth.

I mean, if you're going to believe in a god, then why not one with a warm fuzzy belly?

Oh, and thanks to you guys, I found that article by Jenn Shreve(the "Jesus should have been aborted one") that I heard so much about here at the UW.

Anyways, great website and keep up the good work. It's heartening to see that I'm not alone in my beliefs.

I love your page ("The Secular Web").

I love even the CONCEPT of your page!

Those non-seculars cannot run and hide now, they cannot control the debate, and what they say the whole world will hear.

I, myself, have chosen to pursue a field where I do not have to concern myself with such nasty debating. You see, according to my world view, there is only one absolute in the universe of thought: that unbounded entity: Abstract Mathematics and Formal Logic.

It is good to know that others (like the Internet Infidels) have the patience to endure Dogmatic Arguments, stupidity, and the Mob Mentality.

-Thank You for making me feel at home.

I stopped by your atheism webpage and gave it a cursory look. While as a thoughfully devout Catholic, I am not an atheist and disagree with your position, I likewise do not think that you are an ignorant, hellbound, evil, pinko commie as more than a few Fundamentalist types have probably informed you.

Bearing in mind that I only spent a few minutes purviewing your website, a few questions come to mind. I noted that in the area devoted to explaining atheism, you spend a fair amount of time attacking not so much theism in general as Christianity in particular. I would remind you that there are other theistic religions in the world and would ask: are you more anti-Christian or more genuinely pro-atheistic- and thus presumably an equal opportunity denier of all theistic faiths?

In this same section you presented several arguments against the Christian faith. As a dilettante of Christian apologetics, I was familiar with all of them, and noted that you attacked rather weak arguments for the existence of God and the truth of Christianity. The arguments you cited are widely acknowledged by thoughtful Christian apologists for their lack of substantive proof and/or logical rigor. Is this not knocking down a straw man? Why not take on some of the really tough arguments, especially the ones in favor of the existence of God?

Finally, one of your fundamental tenets seems to be based on the premise that if God exists, it is up to the theists to prove it. You cite by crude analogy the tradition of English common law - innocent until proven guilty. Very well then, I cite the traditions of French law and the Napoleonic Code - guilty until proven innocent. If God does not exist, it is up to the atheists to prove it.

Neither line of reasoning is valid. You can not just say to your oppposition, "Show me, prove it - because I say so." The method you choose is rather convenient for you and hard on your opponents. You decide to place the burden of proof on theists, while avoiding the very same burden yourself.

Well constructed, logically rigorous arguments in favor of and opposed to the existence of God are very hard work. Show me some good arguments opposing the existence of God and I'll show you a few to the contrary.

Cordially yours

Internet Infidels' Response:

Hi! :)

You write...

>Finally, one of your fundamental tenets seems to be based on the premise
>that if God exists, it is up to the theists to prove it. You cite by
>crude analogy the tradition of English common law - innocent until proven
>guilty. Very well then, I cite the traditions of French law and the
>Napoleonic Code - guilty until proven innocent. If God does not exist,
>it is up to the atheists to prove it.
>
>Neither line of reasoning is valid. You can not just say to your
>oppposition, "Show me, prove it - because I say so." The method you
>choose is rather convenient for you and hard on your opponents. You
>decide to place the burden of proof on theists, while avoiding the very
>same burden yourself.

Your advice is well taken. I'm God. Under the Napoleonic Code, you must assume I'm God until proven otherwise. As your God, I order you to desist from all other activity and draw for me a round square. You may not do anything else, eat, sleep, bathe, work, or otherwise until you have done as I have commanded.

And once you've completed your task, you must explain to me why "guilty until proven innocent" is good reasoning.

In my name,

stephen B^)

Internet Infidels' Response #2:

Thanks for your message. I appreciated your sober, patient tone. I'm going to assume that your comments were written in response to the "Atheism Web" as I respond in turn to your message.

First, concerning the weakness of the theistic arguments addressed in the Atheism Web, I fully agree with you that the arguments addressed there are relatively weak when compared to arguments like the kalam cosmological argument. But the Atheism Web contains the Atheism Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for the *.atheism newsgroups. The arguments addressed by the Atheism FAQs are the most popular arguments for theists who post to the *.atheism newsgroups. Lest I come across as taking the easy way out, allow me to remind you that the Secular Web does contain refutations of some of stronger theistic arguments you allude to.

Second, in response to your claim that both theists and atheists share the burden of proof, this depends on how one defines the term 'atheism.' If one defines 'atheism' as the positive belief that there is no God, then I fully agree with you that atheists share the burden of proof equally with theists. But if one defines 'atheism' in such a way that it becomes synonymous with the term 'nontheism,' then atheists have no burden of proof, for the mere lack of a belief never requires proof. And this latter definition is precisely the one adopted in the Atheism Web, as well as by leading philosophical atheists, including Michael Martin, Keith Parsons, George H. Smith, Antony Flew, et al.

For more information, I recommend God and the Burden of Proof: Plantinga, Swinburne, and the Analytic Defense of Theism by Keith M. Parsons (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1989). This books provides a scholarly, yet easy-to-read treatment of the burden of proof issue from the atheistic perspective.

Sincerely,

Jeffery Jay Lowder

VERY INTERESTING READING OF A FEW OF YOUR THOUGHTS OFF THE INTERNET LAST NIGHT. HAVE YOU DONE ANY OTHER TEXT? THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME

[This message was in response to "The Jury Is In: The Ruling on McDowell's 'Evidence'," edited by Jeff Lowder.]

Your are wrong. Thee jury is not yet in. You should check Dr. Ernest L. Martin's new book The Star that Astonished the World which has classical evidence from Roman history and archaeology that shows that Luke was right.

All the best to you and have a happy day.

An interested person. You are certainly a scholar.

Hay, STOP wasting time discussing how many angles danced on the head of a pin.

When, you grasp a primary fact of existence - "conservation of energy", and its meaning - "Existence always was, is and always will be" - or "there was no beginning and will be no end to existence", then you realize the obvious, "there is NO creator, NO god".

The primary problem with the world today is a matter of two competing standards of truth: "Anothers mind" or "existence".

Unfortunately, uncritically accepting the contradictory contents of "anothers mind" as truth (belief), seems to be the dominate method of peoples mental mis-functioning today.

The standard - Existence, "I am from Missouri, show me" puts existence in your hand. Look to the world for truth, not anothers mind.

The proper battle is to pursuade individuals to alter their standard from belief to EXISTENCE.

P.S. God is just an empty word, like the sound of just wagging your jaw and saying "yah yah yah". Look to existence for truth, laugh at the emptyness of belief.

Internet Infidels' Response:

Tell me, if God is just an empty word, what exactly are you talking about?

stephen B^)

[This message was in response to "The Jury Is In: The Ruling on McDowell's 'Evidence'," edited by Jeff Lowder.]

only a fool has said "there is no God". So Josh may not be perfect or even close. But who is ,or should we ask who was and is to come?

Internet Infidels' Response:

My article, Josh McDowell's 'Evidence' for Jesus -- Is It Reliable?, never claimed that there is no God. So your quotation of Psalms is besides the point.

The point is not whether Josh is perfect. The point is whether Josh can accurately represent contemporary scholarship when he writes a book on something.

Obviously no one's perfect, but there have been lots of people who nonetheless have been able to accurately represent the views of other people.

Jeff Lowder

I don't know who to thank, but the Internet Infidels page is a fine piece of work. It is the one best link to such materials I have found, and it is sensibly designed and easy to use.

Just located your forum and find it a very well put together source for information. I'm especially interested in coming info on atheistic parenting; the schools in our town are great, but Christian Coalition run (ok, almost everything in our town is). Our first kid starts kindergarden in sept. Thank you for taking the time to put this site together, it is very appreciated.

I have just today discovered your pages. Well done, and encouragement for the future. I am living in Thailand presently. Are there any other pages I can access? Do you have a 'chat page'

regards

[This message was in response to "The Jury Is In: The Ruling on McDowell's 'Evidence'," edited by Jeff Lowder.]

Hello, I am a graduate student in German history at Princeton. I am an atheist who has only in this last week found his way around the atheist pages in the Web. I am delighted to find some living atheists instead of having to content myself with dead ones such as Nietzsche or Russell or the like. I think all the activity by atheists on the Internet is fantastic. I want to let you know your material is much appreciated.

I have read the beginning parts of The Jury is In and thought you might want some more quick ideas. I have never read McDowell's book. I am picking up the line of thought from the material in The Jury is In . If you do not want such letters as mine then just write back and tell me not to bother you. As I said, I have not gone over everything, so I am sorry if I am repeating something I would have found if I had gone through all the chapters before writing this. If you like it, let me know if there is a better way or transmitting it than sending it from Word Perfect to e-mail to you.

On the subject of the Bible being the best selling and most widely read source of truth: A person cannot compare the books of the Bible itself, to Shakespeare when trying to demonstrate the authority of the Bible through its popularity. Shakespeare and other authors in literature were not trying to present truth. Comparing the Bible to works of literature is side-stepping the issue of truth entirely and, unintentionally on the part of McDowell, puts the Bible in the category with myths and story telling, fiction, where Atheists know the Bible belongs.

It is understandable when McDowell and others compare the Bible to other religious works which provide spiritual guidance. It is significant that most people find more solace in reading the Bible than in reading the Tao Te Ching. (I for one think this reflects poorly on humanity rather than positively on the Bible.) One source of truth, however, other than books on how to live life, that might have been overlooked in the discussion, but is nevertheless essential to judging the value of the Bible, are the books of the Sciences. The Bible as a source of truth should be compared to its obvious compeditor, Science.

Science and the Social Sciences try to get as close to the truth as possible. The sciences have a readership and approval greater than the Bible could ever hope for. Science is, barring extremely few exceptions, universally accepted. The volumes in the canon of mighty science are innumerable and found in almost every language you can imagine. No matter what religion, sex, race, nationality, etc. a person is, he or she looks to science for some truth, and there is only room for the natural, not the supernatural, in science. There is no room for the Bible or resurrection or other superstitious nonsense in the sciences, other than when the social scientist takes into account the affects of such belief on religious people when analyzing how those people behave.

When McDowell goes to the doctor he is going to heal his wounds by seeing a shaman of almighty science. When McDowell gets in his car to go give a lecture, he is mounting the steed designed by engineers who are the initiates, the chosen, of science. When McDowell relies on the carbon dating of artifacts to make his time lines, he is using and admitting the undeniable truth value of science. When McDowell or anyone else supports the validity of the Bible or any other religious writing, he or she runs into direct conflict with the sciences, ... science which he or she takes for granted in almost every aspect of his or her life.

Science is also not devoid of lessons on how a person can lead his or her life. While science is not in the habit of dealing with morals, there are some answers to difficult questions in some of the sciences. For example, when a person considers that homosexuality, something portrayed by many religious believers as unnatural and evil, is found by specialists to be a natural part of the animal kingdom, science has gone a long way to dispel a myth and a prejudice against gays and lesbians. Modern knowledge of diseases, explaining the spread of the plague by fleas on rats, dispelled some myth and prejudice against Jews who were, Christians thought, spreading the plague by deliberately poisoning wells. When science first found that the sun does not revolve around the earth and then went over to relativity and explained it is all just matter of which point of reference you take, science was taking the wind out the ego-centric garbage which in the Bible makes man so all-important There are morals to be learned from science.

At this point a religious person will try to assert that science is sometimes wrong and does not always have all the answers. This is easily granted. This is true, but, on this point I have to remind the slow person like McDowell, who always manifests this type of anti- intellectualism, this anti-academic attitude, that when a person weighs how often science is correct in relation to how often it is incorrect, the ratio is overwhelmingly to an extreme degree in favor of science. The difference is again, that everyone agrees on the truth of science, as an evolving source of truth, always revising itself, always improving, and most important, universally accepted, while the Bible remains some relic of the past, a static collection of myths written by ignorant, superstitious people.

I would also remind a reader that he or she is everyday, a thousand times a day, affirming the power of science. I cannot stress this point enough. No matter what the fundamentalist does, he or she admits the primacy of science. An apple he or she eats is the symbol of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, and the symbol of evil temptation, the symbol of all which can ruin a close relationship with the Christian god. Today that apple is provided by knowledge, by science. From the horticultural sciences which taught the farmer how to grow mass amounts of apples and gave him the machines to do all the work, to the trucks which carried that apple from the orchard to store and the scanning machine which scanned the apple bag to get the price, science is correct and good and useful. The fundamentalist is blinded to its presence, suddenly, conveniently, when he or she wants to support Creationism or the Resurrection or something else in contradiction to the science he or she lives, eats, sleeps, and breaths every minute of everyday of his or her life.

Science still does not have all the answers. I do not propose that reading a physics book is going to provide the personal guidance a person looks for in collections like the Bible or Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not A Christian. While the Sciences may not have a complete alternative to the Bible, they do have something vital the discussion of McDowell's ideas. Science provides a set of beliefs in which there is practically universal acceptance, acceptance even by McDowell himself, and in which there is no place for truth through revelation. McDowell and others do not see the hypocrisy and the contradiction in a world where people like him accept scientific method, while at the same time accept the Bible with all its tales of the supernatural founded, on truth through revelation. They do not see the oddity of having the McDowells of the world dismissing the existence of the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus and dismissing the value of psychic readings and the reading of Taro cards and all other non-Christian superstition, while holding onto their own superstition.

On subject of the idea that there are no moral teachings anywhere which are of the caliber found in the Bible, I would beg to differ. Because the Sciences do not have the answer to some questions does not mean a person has to go back to the Bible. A person can find moral values in secular Humanism, or in Dr. Suess, or on Sesame Street. A person can find answers to difficult questions in life by talking things out with mothers and fathers and with sisters and brothers and with good friends. A person can get the advice of especially wise persons through good books, as opposed to poor quality books, such as the Bible. A person can be sure that society agrees on some morals and principles by laying them down in statutes made by legislatures voted in by the people and in laws protected by the peoples' police. There are so many ways in which a person can find meaning in his or her life and act on that meaning without resorting to superstitions laid out by some ignorant crackpots ages ago. I prefer the ethics instilled in people by Sesame Street to the confusing mishmash in the Bible of forgiveness for sins on the one hand and the constant gory bloodshed suffered by the enemies of God on the other.

Mankind could hypothetically lead a full life and deal in philosophy and other deep questions without running contrary to science as is so blatantly the case with the Bible. One sad note is that the social sciences tell us that mankind has never in any culture done so and is highly unlikely to do so. Mankind, it would seem, is doomed to wallow in its own ignorance and stupidity, and rely on the McDowell's of the world to lead them in cult antics. Mankind will not be as lucky as the scarecrow and get a brain, it will remain in awe of the works of the mental midgets of the species, , works such as the Bible.

On the massive numbers of Bible which are published being any basis for its value as a source of wisdom: McDowell and others in awe of the success of Christianity would have a person believe that people make a conscious decision as to which religion they belong to. They would have a person believe that a person shops around, investigates the relative merits of many different religions, and then makes and intelligent, inspired, informed decision based on person convictions. This is more often than not an implicit idea when McDowell express their awe at wide circulation of the Bible. People rarely choose the Bible in this way. Most people, by far, are stuck with the Bible because their parents and their parents' parents and their parents' parents' parents' used it. The ignorant and illiterate are just passing on the Bible without having ever read competing sources of wisdom such as the Tao Te Ching.

What of the converts to Christianity? How did people get the Christianity establish itself to become tradition to be passed down from generation to generation? Were the first generations of converts the ones who made some reasonable, intelligent, conscious decision that the Bible was a great book? No, they did not. McDowell and others do not adequately examine the process by which Christianity was spread through the use of force. Not only was Christianity a religion which was the persecutor far, far more often than the persecuted, the religion was spread through European conquest. People do not wake up one day and speak a different language or adopt a different religion. They do so because they are threatened with the sword. Why does South and Central America and Mexico speak Spanish and worship in Catholic churches? Catholic Spaniards decimated native populations with guns and with the diseases they carried, in short - European conquest. Why is North America Christian and English speaking? European conquest. A good historian, which McDowell is not, knows that conquest is what spread Christianity and Islam. You pick a place on the earth were you find Christianity, you with find a history of European conquest. Missionaries followed the ships full of mercenaries. Missionaries followed the slave ships. Missionaries follow merchant ships. Why is North Africa Muslim? Islamic conquests. Why is Southern Spain left with must Muslim influence in its architecture, language etc. Muslim conquest. Why is they a Muslim Pakistan right next to a Hindu India? Creation of a separate nation through Muslim guns. Why is there so much French influence in the English language? Early French conquest and rule of England in assimilation of the language of the rulers. Why is English spoken around the world? The sun never set on the British Empire. Where the Europeans went, so too did the Bible. Where Europeans went so too did the now widespread Spanish, English, and French. Is this because these languages are any better? No, they were simply the languages of the people with the biggest guns or the longest swords. There are a hundred and one reasons for the wide circulation of the Bible. Many of these reasons are evil and they are something the McDowells of the world would rather not discuss.

(While I have nothing against doing well and being affluent, it is apropos to mention that the Bible's own aversion to world riches could be used in this area to its own detriment. One good reason some of the major religions of Africa and the rest of the Third World cannot publish competing world views, is that people have a perfectly adequate oral tradition in which their traditions are handed down. The Third World has a hard enough problems getting the resources to fight typhoid and other common diseases the West has eliminated long ago, without having time to worry about some competition to spread the word as the Gideon Society does. The Third World has no money. Europeans and their descendants do. It is as simple as that. The Bible is the book of the rich man. I wouldn't know the exact wording of the phrase, but did't someone say in the Bible that it is easier for a camel to enter into the eye of a needle that for a rich man to enter the gates of heaven.)

On the ability of the Bible to survive persecution: Science, as in Darrow and Galileo etc. as was pointed out already the pages of your work had been persecuted heavily and yet has been astonishingly successful. Galileo's teachings as well as those of his fellow scientists throughout the ages are far more successful than the Bible. McDowell should not be so proud that Christianity has survived a great deal of persecution. One of the most glaring, obvious reasons for this is that other than in its very earliest history, Christianity has been a major source of persecution itself. The Crusades and the Holocaust come immediately to mind.

On the ability of the Bible to stand the test of time. Scientific method was going strong in Egypt long before Christ, and is now practically ubiquitous in the modern world. A person like McDowell might assert that Christianity was a dominant force in the West long before science ever was. He or her might say that science is a product of the modern age, only coming into its own during the Industrial Revolution. I would argue that when a person puts two and two together and discovers how to make fire and uses fire as a tool, he or she is using a rough form of the scientific method. Science is something which has only recently in human history been consciously glorified because people have become much better at it and have become much more self-conscious about it, but science in whatever form, whatever people called it, be it a base term such as common sense or a technical term such as scientific method, I would assert was has been part of humanity all along.

On a different note concerning time, civilization has been around for maybe 5500 or 4500 years or so, but man and woman have been around for millennia before this. In the history of the universe the earth has been around for only a tiny span of time. Likewise in the history of mankind, civilization has been around only for a short time. Man did not appear on the earth with complex societies. Space travel is something people identify as being quite recent. In the larger scheme of things, civilization itself is also a recent part of man's experience. In the larger scheme of things, the Bible has had a relatively short life span. McDowell does not take into account smple oral traditions and religion which might have been much longer lived in the period before civilization, and he certainly does not mention that man has lived almost his entire existence without the Bible and without his precious Jesus. Man has lived forever without Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Buddha, Zeus, Odin, the Christian God, the Jewish God, and every other recent concoctions made since civilization came about. Primitive man had his own superstitions which McDowell rudely leaves out of the competition for uniqueness through longevity.

Anyone trying to pull the bullshit of trying to portray Christianity and the Bible as being too sophisticated to be mentioned in the same breath with such old superstitions as those of cave men should be reminded of how base Christianity really is. From thinking demons caused the convulsions of the epileptics to ringing church bells to keep away the frequent lightning bolts sent from demons to rain down on churches, to people putting holy water on their cars or carrying a symbol of St. Christopher, when traveling, Christianity is a simple minded and superstitious as the worst animal spirits and the spirits of the elements. Christianity is even worse because it really has answers to such puzzles as epilepsy and lightening and evolution and space travel and yet still languishes in the mire of ignorance or old. There is no way around it. Christianity is as ridiculous, when it comes to truth value, as any other faerie tales and it is only a recently popular fairy tale which will come and go like many others.

[This message was in response to "Giving the Jehovah's Witnesses a Broadside" by Mark Vuletic.]

If you're going to persist in preaching against the Witnesses of Jehovah then at least do your research. You are using information that is outdated and noneffectual. The light of Jehovahs truth gets brighter and brighter....I guess you must have been a disfellowshiped person... why base your religion on downgrading another...Sad very very Sad

Internet Infidels' Response:

Dear Sir,

In fact, before you sent this message, I added a disclaimer about the Jehovah's Witnesses change of doctrine onto my personal copy of the paper at http://icarus.uic.edu/~vuletic/mv-jw-prophecy.html. The Secular Web has not yet, however, made the change to their copy of my paper. Of course, since I wrote the paper when the JWs still did adhere to the doctrine I criticize, and they did abandon that doctrine, you should be praising me for my foresight rather than scolding me for making an accurate criticism of your cult.

As for the "brightening of the light," as far as I can tell the Jehovah's Witnesses have historically not been making any progress towards the truth, but have simply been adopting one bad doctrine after another. They have already mispredicted the return of Christ about four times - with a track record like this, and with scholarship as poor as what they demonstrated in the interpretation of Daniel that they just abandoned, one must seriously question their handle on "Biblical truth" as a whole.

Hopefully, sir, the light will become bright enough for you to see that, if there is any truth in the Bible at all, it is not to be found through the Jehovah's Witnesses.

More information on the Jehovah's Witnesses can be found at "The Watchtower Observer" at http://www.nano.no/~telemark/DnSEng.html .

Mark I. Vuletic

[This message was in response to "The Jury Is In: The Ruling on McDowell's 'Evidence'," edited by Jeff Lowder.]

Just read your Jury. Excellent! Please keep the good work!

Ive been looking over your material and you seem to want to discount the research that has been done by people with a bias. For instance George Wright, Albright's student. And if we are to toss out all research done with a bias I guess I'll have to toss out yours as well.

[This message was in response to "The Jesus of History: A Reply to Josh McDowell" by Gordon Stein .]

Hello, Gordon,

I am glad that you are questioning Josh McDowells writings. But something causes me to want to ask, if you know so much about the Bible, how is it that you are NOT a Christian?

respectfully

Really, relly, nice page.

It explained agnosticism really well.

That's one problem I always have. When I tell people I'm agnostic I ALWAYS get this (atleast the x-ians) "Why Don't you believe in god?" or "You're going to hell" So, then I have to go through this long thing explaing everything, this kinda sums things up better than I ever could.

Well anyway, thanx again.

[This message was in response to the "June 1996 Feedback".]

--Dear Infidels,

Thank you for the most refreshing discussions on the World Wide Web. The recent dismemberment of Mr Green was particularly interesting. Not because I have a problem with Islam in particular, but because I have read or heard every argument for the Christian religion. Don't you get bored with these soft targets? Anyway, keep it up. I had despaired of ever finding such cogent debate on the Web.

[This message was in response to "June 1996 Internet Infidels Newsletter" by Jeff Lowder.]

Hey, I want to say something in regard to your newsletter, recent one. You were talking about being an atheist in the christian chat rooms I'd like to say that when I was w/ prodigy, I was using the name "Athiest" noticed the i and e are awitched, well anyway, I would always go into the christian chat rooms to talk with them. Most of them would sit down and talk to me. Most were nice. One guy even wrote me a 5 page letter to my house. Only a few people started things when they saw my names. I am now a proud agnostic though and no longer use prodidgy, but would like to say I didn't really encounter any trouble with that subject.

hey, reply!!!!

Nice job, folks!

Hi!

I just bought my first computer about 6 months ago, and started searching the web. I was raised as a fundamentalist baptist, but I've always had a lot of doubts about religion. I finally admitted to myself that I'm an atheist a couple of years ago, but I mostly kept it quiet and never had any type of support. Finding your web-site was fantastic! I spend a lot of time here. I had no idea there were so many like-minded people out there, and such a wealth of information.

I've since joined the FFRF, and subscribed to the Skeptical Review. Keep up the great work!!!

If I'm right, I gain a lot and you're in a heap of trouble.

If you're right, I loose nothing.

I like those odds.

Internet Infidels' Response:

I wouldn't quit your desk job for an exciting career as a professional gambler in Vegas. The argument you are stating is popularly known as Pascal's Wager , even though there is doubt as to whether Pascal is in fact the one who invented it. Also, I have read some pretty convincing arguments that Pascal's Wager is not intended to be an argument for the existence of God -- even though most theists and atheists interpret it as such -- but rather an attempt to make people want to believe in God. That's something quite different from showing that God exists.

Pascal's Wager fails to consider other possibilities in which the Christian is the one who suffers, the non-Christian does not suffer, or both.

Jeff Lowder

Published on November 24, 1859, Charles Darwin's book The Origin of Species forever demolished the premise that God had created the earth precisely at 9:00 a.m. on October 23, 4004 B.C. -- and that all species of living creatures had been immutably produced during the following six days.

We are enjoined in Micah to do justly and love mercy. In Exodus we are forbidden to commit murder. In Leviticus we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves, and in the Gospels we are urged to love our enemies. Yet, think of the rivers of blood spilled by fervent followers of the books in which these well meaning exhortations are embedded.

If you accept the literal truth of every word in the Bible, then the Earth must be flat. The same is true for the Koran. Pronouncing the Earth round then means you are an atheist. I meet people all of the time that are offended by evolution, who passionately prefer to be the personal handicraft of God. For me, it is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion.

It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil. The stage is too big for the drama.

When a child's spleen is ruptured, perform a simple surgical operation and the child is completely better. But take that child to a faith healer, and he or she is dead in a day. When faith healers treat serious organic diseases, they are responsible for untold anguish. The healers become killers. The scientific treatments are hundreds or thousands of times more effective than the alternatives. And even when the alternatives seem to work, we don't actually know that they played any role. The sword of science is double edged.

We share many features with apes that we don't share with many animals. For example, apes and humans have hands that can grip things by opposing the thumb to the fore fingers, and we both lack a tail. In 1974, anthropologists unearthed one of the links between apes and us, "The Famous Lucy", a 3.2 million year old ancestor of ours that walked upright. In 1995, a member of the Famed Fossil Finding Clan discovered a new human ancestor in Northern Kenya that walked erect one million years before Lucy. But the most persuasive evidence for the common ancestry of apes and humans comes from the molecules we share. In the 1980's, molecular biologists confirmed that we share 98.6% of our DNA with chimpanzees. All of the observed differences between chimps and us, the differences between brain size, body hair, and our ability to talk can be ascribed to that tiny 1.4% of DNA.

I was born not knowing and have only had a little time to change that here and there. You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here. I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell. It doesn't frighten me.

Best Regards

Thank you for compiling all of this information about the Bible. Although I was already firmly an atheist, I have had little in the way of biblical verses to help in my arguments with christians. If there is anything else you can recommend, or if you would like any help with research, writing, activism, etc., I will be happy to oblige.

Say it out loud . . .

I'M INFIDEL AND PROUD!!!

(But you folks need to update your pages more frequently -- I can't find anything in here more recent than May, and here it is July. :)

[This message was in response to "The Parable of the Insane Dog Breeder" by anonymous.]

I am a recent visitor to your site and I have noted that you guys have been prayed for and damned to hell in a 1:3 ratio. These christians always seem to know what's best for you, be it hell or their own ability to help through prayer ( which would be quite a achievment considering your atheism). I am writing to you having just read the Parable of the Insane Dog Keeper, which though amusing, I believe will give you guys more flak than is worth taking. Believers have always put loads of value upon good will and sacrifice, the parable I think distorts the message the supposed life of Jesus means. If it were true and had worked it would have meant the "salvation" of the entire human race. Comparing it too the feeding of ravenous dogs too shallow. Were I God, the sacrifice would have been a worthwhile attempt, after all Jesus was but one. I myself like your site very much, yet take care not to be superficial and aggressive, as in the Parable, even though these "good" christians don't follow the examples they so much venerate and send you to hell.

In the december letters, a girl asked why you guys kept attacking christ, and that "destroying a good thing was wrong." You should have answered that the fact that we live in a mostly religious society means we have to take all kinds of crap. Many laws are religious oriented and affects us atheists in various manners. I myself as a Brazilian citizen live in a country where abortion is forbidden, the only effect being that the poor women die of badly done abortions, and the rich girls have to submit to the humiliation of illegal abortions. In the US the use of abortion as a political tool has achieved levels of ridiculous manipulation and discussion. Why? Because some people have strong religious views, unrelenting and unshakable. How do you discuss with the deaf? Shouting sometimes work, unfortunately one of the few means. Religion does and has created great evils. If you believe in jesus, etc.. remember others don't, they have been burnt in the past, and those who did it were followers of your God of Love and Compassion. So we athiests have to do our bit of nasty stuff too. Beware christians for the enemy lies within you!

Thanks for the chance to talk, sorry for the length, you may cut my letter up if it makes it easier to publish it. Congratulations and good luck.

Hi!

Nice site! well done!

Regards

Thank you very much for providing such a great page...It is my source of information for great heated arguments against my believing friends...In fact, I believe I have converted at least one of them to Atheism. =)

[This message was in response to "The Jury Is In: The Ruling on McDowell's 'Evidence'," edited by Jeff Lowder.]

This business about uniqueness really fractures me. If you think about it for even a moment you will realize that it is not possible for something to exist and not be unique in some way. Because if it were not unique it would be exactly like something else. And if it were exactly like something else, it would be something else!

[This message was in response to "Din Adamlari" by Ilhan Arsel .]

Merhabalar,

SCT (soc.culture.turkish) 'de Ilhan Arsel'in "Seriat ve Kadin" adli kitabina cevap vermekteyim (KADIN ve SERIAT "Ilhan Arsel'e cevaplarim). Cevap verirken kitaptan alintilar yapma gereksinimi duydugumdan ve kitabin herhangi bir yerinde boyle bir eylemin yapilamiyacagina dair bir yazi bulunmadigindan su ana kadar iki-uc kere alinti yaptim. Fakat gozumden kacmis olabilecegini dusunuyorum. Boyle alintilar yapmama yasal engel olup olmadigini tarafima bildirirseniz sevinirim. Suskun kalmaniz tarafimdan yasal bir engel olmadigi seklinde yorumlanacaktir.

Iyi gunler dilegiyle

Internet Infidels' Response:

Translation:

Greetings,

I am answering [I presume in the sense of "refuting"] Ilhan Arsel's book "Woman and Islamic Law" on SCT (soc.culture.turkish). Since I have needed to quote excerpts from the book while answering it, and since there is nothing within the book which says this is not to be done, I have used excerpts two or three times. But I think perhaps something may have escaped my attention. I would be gratified if you could tell me whether there is a legal barrier to such excerpting. Your silence will be interpreted by me as there being no legal barrier.

Wishing you good day

Translation by Taner

[This message was in response to "Two Ways of Proving Atheism" by Quentin Smith .]

infidel,

First things first-- the secular web is a blessing. Very stimulating. I was a bit dissapointed with Smith's article. He sets out to prove athiesm. (Almost as pointless as proving god) Allowing for his understanding of Hawkings theories that the universe is uncaused and that coming into existance is not based in present reality, I come to my problem with his conclusions.

"Now Stephen Hawking's theory dissolves any worries about how the universe could begin to exist uncaused. He supposes that there is a timeless space, a four-dimensional hypersphere, near the beginning of the universe. It is smaller than the nucleus of an atom. It is smaller than 10^-33 centimeters in radius. Since it was timeless, it no more needs a cause than the timeless god of theism. This timeless hypersphere is connected to our expanding universe. Our universe begins smaller than an atom and explodes in a Big Bang and here we are today in a universe that is still expanding. Is it nonetheless possible that God could have caused this universe? No. For the wave function of the universe implies there is a 95% probability that the universe came into existence uncaused.

--> Maybe this Vortex thing is God. If one can imagine it as the truth of existence why not call the truth of existence God? Still trapped by a non-transcendable timeless fate Smith has freed himself from nothing.

If God created the universe, he would contradict this scientific law in two ways.

--> Oops, Theory becomes law with no explination.

First, the scientific law says that the universe would come into existence because of its natural, mathematical properties, not because of any supernatural forces.

Second, the scientific law says the probability is only 95% that the universe would come into existence. But if God created the universe, the probability would be 100% that it would come into existence because God is all-powerful. If God wills the universe to come into existence, his will is guaranteed to be 100% effective."

--> Maybe god willed (or doesn't will at all) all possible universes to come into existence and Smith being who he is, is only able to comprehend his experience with one of them. But as I would say things are how they are. Whether someone calls the glue god or science is fairly unimportant.

Thank You

Are you opposed to liberal to radical Christians who 1) take freedom of conscience to be the foundation of their faith, 2) believe in freewill as the natural (i.e., "created") state of humankind and 3) therefore posit freethought as the reality of human-divine dialogue? Perhaps, you might define what you all mean by freethought, it may be helpful to me. Thanks.

Internet Infidels' Response:

What is meant by freethought? Hmmm. It's a good question, one I'll begin answering by quoting Bertrand Russell:

"Free thought" means thinking freely.... To be worthy of the name (freethinker) he must be free of two things: the force of tradition, and the tyranny of his own passions. No one is completely free from either, and in the measure of a man's emancipation he deserves to be called a free thinker.

(The Great Thoughts, George Seldes, 1985, p. 362)

I agree with Russell somewhat, only to the extent we recognize the hold tradition and emotion have on us and try to keep both at bay when thinking, rationalizing, matters through. I don't believe we should do away with emotion, nor do I believe we can do away with tradition -- we may begin new ones, and disguise old ones, but we can never rid ourselves of tradition.

Using what I said and quoted Russell as saying above, I guess I would say a "free thinker" is one who recognizes the limits of his thought and attempts to bridge his limitations. These limitations almost always involve emotion or tradition, and many times a combination of the two, and then the emotion involved is most times fear. Russell, I think, wishes us to be free of emotion and tradition when thinking; I think we are free to recognize the force both emotion and tradition have on us, and we are free to downplay or change them.

How does one go about this? For me, I realize that at any time I could be wrong, and that I must be ready to change my views according to the evidence which passes my way. I live my life with a tentative approach: I take many of my beliefs for granted, but am ready to change given the right circumstances. I think the hardest part in living this way came at the beginning, when I first realized how many of my cherished beliefs could be wrong. It's been awhile since I came to this understanding, so I'm pretty comfortable with it. The downside of living like this is that I can never take comfort in any Absolute Truth, whatever Absolute Truth is, and must spend the rest of my life trying to make sense of everything. 'Course, is this really a downside? =)

So to your other questions. I am not opposed to anyone except those who would impose by force their view of things on me. Is that answer good enough for you?

It's a good question, sir, what "freethought" is exactly. Tis one I'm sure to think of for awhile.

stephen B^)

I was reading some of the atrocities of the Bible. I am disgusted. The worst of these things were done by the "gracious lord" himself. How could anyone have faith in anything so horrible. This is suprising to me because I am a ex-Hindu and have neer heard such things in religous context.

Internet Infidels' Response:

Yes, it is amazing isn't it, that a person could believe that a god were perfect and all good, and--at the same time--be the author or supporter of such horrendous atrocities as are reported in the Bible?

The way that Christians usually explain this is that their god is also perfectly just, so these people who suffered the atrocities had it coming to them (i.e., it was deserved)!

Regards,

Don Morgan

I read a portion of your seditous literature, and all I can say is "AMEN". I love this country, but the religious aspects keep us from fulfilling our potential.

[This message was in response to "The Dark Bible" by Unknown.]

Have you actually gone back to the original text to understand these, partial text's of the Bible, or is this your translation?

[This message was in response to "Josh McDowell's Charade" by Gordon Stein .]

A question on,

Josh McDowell's Charade by Gordon Stein, Ph.D

I read in some book that the great commission (which should be known as the great ommission) is not in any manuscript that dates before 325 a.d. Is this your understanding as well?

By the above statement do you sugguest that there is not an entire copy of each or any of the gospels until 350 a.d. I would assume then we only have bits and pieces.

Thanks.

[This message was in response to "The Jury Is In: The Ruling on McDowell's 'Evidence'," edited by Jeff Lowder.]

Personally, I find these comments to be selfish. I I'm sure they don't bother Mr. McDowell. I haven't read all of the comments...I got sick after a while. But, I will be praying for you and for Mr. McDowell.

Love in the Lord Jesus Christ

Internet Infidels' Response:

Thanks for visiting our site and for offering to pray for McDowell and I. Although I do not believe that there is a god to answer your prayer, I appreciate the gesture.

However, your comments indicate that you are unwilling to reason with nonChristians. This is inconsistent with your worldview. If one believes that Christianity is true (as I assume you do), then presumably one also believes that:

1. God commands Christians to reason with nonChristians:

(a) The Bible commands Christians to give a defense of Christianity to nonChristians (1 Peter 3:15).

(b) Jesus commanded Christians to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Matt 22:37).

2. Jesus and the apostles did not simply pray for nonChristians; they appealed to evidence in support of their claims:

(a) Paul's approach was to present reasons for the truth of Christianity (Acts 17:2-3; 19:8; 28:23-4).

(b) Jesus appealed to miracles and to fulfilled prophecy to prove that his claims were true (Luke 24:25-27; John 14:11).

(c) The apostles appealed to fulfilled prophecy and Jesus' miracles (esp. his resurrection) when dealing with Jews (Acts 2; 14:17; Rom 1:20; 1 Cor 15:3-8).

I do appreciate your interest in our work.

Sincerely,

Jeffery Jay Lowder

I am writing in response to r. Lippard's feedback regarding scientific theories.

In his letter he states that science doesn't call anything 'fact', but rather calls it 'theory'. I think that is what makes Science so perfect. It has the ability to bend and reshape...That doesn't mean that it changes for conviniences sake, but for understanding that it *IS* possible to be wrong in our calculations.

This is one of the biggest reasons I am an atheist. (there are a lot more, believe me!)

Whereas, in religion..this is our book..this is what we believe..this is how it is. "Well then, why is it this way?" "Well, because that's god/allah/ buddha's way of saying so"

I'm degressing in this next statement, but I just want to say this...I believe that religion in general is logical in that it would be almost impossible for any new human society to fill in the gaps left by their non- understanding of the way things are. If I had no instruments to tell me otherwise, and I was just born yesterday, I could look up at the sun and ask myself: "Why is that there?" Without the technology, I'm sure I would believe somebody if they told me that "The god of Goulash" put it there.

So, through that tradition, and through foolish pride, people of theistic background will *NEVER* admit that they were wrong, whereas good science can find mistakes, admit them, and make attempts to correct them.

How many wars were started over Einstien's theory of relativity? And how many people were put to death for blasphemising the idea that speed has no limits? NONE! More people died FROM the cross, rather than on it!

As I was reading along, I found some interesting comments - keep them coming! There is one thing that I would like to commemt on is the discussion about the Quran. Does the gentleman who brought up the subject realize that there is more to atheism than putting down the Bible? A disbelief in God includes a disbelief in Allah. After all whether you are saying "god", "allah", or "dieu" you are saying the same thing only in different languages (English, Arabic, and French).

But on to something a little lighter. A fundie told me once that the next day was going to be warm and sunny because the sunset was red that evening. I said the sunset was red because it was clear when the sun went down. I was promptly told that in Proverbs it says that a a red sun an night was a sure sign of fine weather the next day. All right, a warm day I'll concede (July usually is warm in North America). Well the next day dawn with a lightly overcast sky which just kept getting darker until it finally rained! Ah, sweet justice.

Hi Infidel,

My sister and I were raised in a pretty secular Jewish family. We both turned out to be apathetic to religion. A year ago though my sister married into a conservative Jewish family. Being only 21 (and probably very impressionable) she started changing, in a way that kind of scared me. She became extremely observant. She seems to have tossed away all her aspirations of going to collage and becoming a journalist or a writer. Her thoughts and attitudes seem to have been molded by the people she has been living with and have become in my opinion very narrow-minded.

Is there anything I could do? Is there anything I should do? Is it too late? Is there a book you could recommend me to give her?

I would appreciate any suggestions. I enjoy web site a lot. Keep up the good work!

Internet Infidels' Response:

If I may give some negative advice first: whatever you do, DON'T give her a book.

My next bit of advice may seem a bit strange, and again negative, but let me explain myself after I give it: don't do anything.

Like all people, your sister is/was probably searching for meaning in her life. And like all people, she should be allowed to pursue the course she thinks best. At this time your sister may find the conservative Jewish approach very appealling; she may live the rest of her life a conservative Jew. In my opinion there's no wrong in this, as long as she does not interfere with or destroy the lives of people around her because of her beliefs.

Furthermore, because she now lives her life according to the way she sees fit, trying to "help" her may be tantamount to being intolerant of her views. Put youself in her shoes: if a close relative or friend tried to convert you to their way of life, giving you books, exposing inconsistencies in your beliefs, and etc., what would you think of them? If anything, you may just push your sister farther away from you, and everybody, you, your sister, your family, would lose. I don't think that's what you want.

Perhaps you should ask yourself a different line of questions. Instead of, "What should I do to help her?" you should ask, "Will I be there for her if she needs me?" Your sister may one day decide the road she's taken to be a dead-end. Will you be there if she needs you?

I hope this helps. :)

stephen B^)

Writer Response:

Stephen,

Thanks for your advice. It helped me out!

I was very delighted to stroll around your site. coming from a place where elections are decided by who gets more blessings & omens from rabbies (Israel) it seems unreal that there are other free thinkers who are willing to dedicate time & work to promote rationalism & scepticism. I could not find use to most of the stuff since I am not interested in christianity but if you ever decide to give some critical review to judaism I would be delighted to get E mailed by you/ go on doing the good work