God is not the answer

Reflecting on some apologetics I've been listening to recently, and on a book I'm reading at the moment, I have realised that quite often "God" is not an adequate answer to the question posed.

For example, how did life emerge out of non-life? Or how did consciousness arise out of non-consciousness? Or where do 'objective' morals come from?

In each of these questions, and many others like them, the apologist finds the answer in God. But God is not a satisfactory answer to any of these questions. God cannot explain the origin of life, because we assumed that God is and has always been living - God merely gives inanimate matter a property he already possesses. Similarly with consciousness, it is assumed that God has always been conscious, so consciousness really has no origin. Likewise, God has always been moral, so morals never began anywhere. 

So the God answer does not actually answer the question. In each case, proposing God as the solution is really saying "you're asking the wrong question, that thing you think had an origin really didn't and has always been." So the question is never answered.

The next layer of questions, however, are never asked. How did God become living? When did God become conscious? How did God develop his morality? The believer assumes that God never became living, or conscious, and he certainly didn't ever develop any of his attributes.

For the believer, therefore, the fundamental essence of reality (i.e. God) has always possessed a complex set of attributes and properties. Kind of like the so called 'fine tuning' of the universe, a set of fundamental properties that must have been there since the outset, and could not have changed or developed.

So which is it, did all of reality start out with a complex set of improbable parameters, or did all of reality start out with a complex set of improbable attributes and personality traits and sentience?

Both options seem ridiculously improbable, and yet here we are. What I can't see is a good reason why the complex personal set of attributes should be more likely than the complex impersonal set of parameters. Indeed, if I had to weigh up the two seemingly improbable options, Occam's razor might suggest we should cut off the 'more complex' option including personhood. But there's not a lot in it.

Where we end up is one of those places where 'I don't know' is a perfectly valid answer. Indeed, it is impossible to truly 'know' one way of another, using only this line of thinking. But with regard to this issue alone, there is no compelling reason to choose theism over atheism.

By the way, "42" is not a satisfactory answer to the questions either...

Life beyond belief

It looks a lot like I have written a book.

Or rather, someone else has written a book which, essentially, says everything I would write in a book, if I had the time to actually write a book about my journey through belief in the past decade.

The book is "Life Beyond Belief: A Preacher's Deconversion" by Bob Ripley. Aside from the details that Bob Ripley is about 15 years older than me, is Canadian, has had a divorce and had no interest in science as a teenager, the rest of the story of his loss of faith pretty much mirrors mine. He read similar books, he wrestled with the same issues, many of which came from actually taking the Bible seriously, and he came to the same conclusions - that the Bible is the work of men, not of a God, and that the God described therein is a fiction. There may be a god, but if there is, he isn't the God of the Bible.

He starts with a chapter describing his life, growing up in the church, his calling to the ministry and his life as a pastor, eventually beginning to doubt the words he was preaching. After this, the book deals with various themes, chapter by chapter, as if he dealt with them in turn. I expect that, much like me, many of these doubts were simultaneous and jumbled together, not in a coherent linear progression, but it does make for a more readable book this way.

Chapter 2 dives right in and addresses the subject of the God of the Bible, in all his jealous, bloodthirsty and unreasonable glory, head on. This chapter will be a hard read for many Christians, but as it is completely Biblically based, they will find it hard to actually disagree with the evidence presented, even if they will reject the conclusion. After this comes a chapter where he goes through several bits of the Bible that don't get expounded from the pulpit very often and you certainly don't get in Sunday school. The point being that the Bible is not the 'good book' its cracked up to be.

In Chapter 4 he turns to the New Testament and Jesus and goes through the evidence, such as it is, for a historical Jesus. Here he actually doesn't stray as far from orthodoxy as I was expecting, but still we come away from here with a very human Jesus who wasn't the son of anyone divine. For Bob Ripley, Jesus was a historical preacher who got on the wrong side of the Romans and was executed. And stayed dead.

Following this, we wander through some of the more unpleasant bits of church history - the atrocities committed by believers in the name of God. It is a hard read, and it is very simple to say that these people weren't really Christians, but then again they got their direction from the Bible and the list of offenders includes heroes of the church like Luther & Calvin. A chapter on morality and related themes follows this, showing that you don't need God to exist to know the difference between right and wrong.

Chapter 7, somewhat unusual in a book like this, tackles the subject of prayer. Does it work? How do we know if it works or not? He gets to the feedback loop that I have blogged about before. If the believer prays for something (no matter how mundane) and it happens, the believer's faith is boosted. If the believer prays for something and it 'isn't granted', the believer's faith isn't reduced, so whatever happens, the net effect of prayer is to boost faith, even if there is nobody to hear them. Chapter 8 goes further into this and looks at faith.

Chapter 9 seems to me to be the big mis-step in the book as he looks at science. To me, a scientist, this chapter is a bit simplistic, but after all the good stuff before, and still to come, I forgive this.

The final chapter is the longest and possibly the most interesting. It looks at the question I am still wrestling with; where do I go from here? What is life after belief like? The thing I liked most about this chapter is the very strong defence he gives of the claim that he is still exactly the same person he was as a pastor - he has the heart of a pastor, the generosity of a pastor, the compassion of a pastor, etc. In every way that matters he is exactly the same person as he was 20 years ago. Why should the fact that he considered some facts and as a consequence changed his beliefs change his personality? It shouldn't and it didn't.

In summary, I like this book, it is a little short and doesn't go into as much detail of the issues as I would have liked, but if you want to know what I think about god, the universe and everything, then this is about as good a summary as I could write myself.

If you are a Christian, I recommend you read this book as it shows clearly why some people have come to the point of rejecting faith, and it does it in a clear and easy to read manner. There is nothing anti-Christian in here, but there are some real issues that Christians should really think about.

The Apostate's Creed

The Apostles' Creed goes like this:

I believe in God,
the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.  

I believe in Jesus Christ,
his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.  

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

Suffice it so say, I don't believe all that anymore. I was raised to believe it all, and for a while I did believe most of it, but having looked at the evidence for some of this myself, I just don't see sufficient evidence to persuade me back into belief about most of the above. (Note, I don't think you can make yourself just believe something or, for that matter, just stop believing something. In order to believe something you must either hear compelling evidence or trust that the person who tells it to you has good reasons for believing it.) 

I had planned on going through this creed, line by line, and giving my reasons for why I don't believe each part of it anymore, but I realised that if I started at the start, there would be no logical flow. I didn't shift to a position of agnosticism of much of the above by starting with God the Father, so I'll not start this post there either. I'll aim to cover all of the above beliefs, but not following the original order. Here goes:

I believe in I'm not sure about Jesus Christ

For one thing, I don't think there ever was a man called 'Jesus' who was known as 'Christ' within his lifetime. If you look at the early church (or rather, early churches, as I don't see much evidence for a unified church until the end of the 2nd century) you find quite a range of beliefs about Jesus. One of these beliefs, which appears to be quite widespread, is that Jesus became the Christ when he was raised from the dead. In other words, he hadn't been the Christ before this, so would never have been called Christ within his earthly lifetime. Another belief which can be identified is that Jesus will return as Christ - that is, he isn't Christ yet and won't be until his second coming. So again, he couldn't have been known as Christ within his lifetime. Of course, some will say that those believers were simply wrong and we have biblical evidence that Jesus was known as 'Christ' during his ministry - the gospels say as much. But this is a quite naive conclusion based on only part of the available evidence. If Jesus was widely known as Christ during his ministry, how would the alternative beliefs have arisen so quickly after his death? Its not easy to explain. However, the converse is much easier to explain. If Jesus came to be understood as Christ after his death (and apparent resurrection) it is not unreasonable for some later author, writing his biography, to have (anachronistically) named him Christ when he wrote his gospel. The author knew Jesus as 'Christ' in his time, so he simply called Jesus 'Christ' in retrospect. So as I said above, I think it seems quite likely that the man Jesus, if he ever lived (see below), was not known as Christ during his time on earth. So I don't believe in a historical Jesus-Christ.

Moving on, if there was a historical Jesus (not-Christ), was he believed to be the Son of God during his lifetime? That's a tricky one and involves a lot of discussion about what "Son of God" actually meant to the people in the supposed time of Jesus. See quite a few of my recent posts, including this one. The evidence and reasoning I've read brings me to the point of believing that whatever it was that 1st century 'Christians' thought was meant by the phrase 'Son of God' it was not the 'second person of the Trinity' belief that is held by most Christians today, and appears to be implied in the Apostles' Creed. So I don't believe the 'Son of God' bit either, unless you mean in the sense of a prophet, messenger or leader sent by God, like Moses, David or Elijah, and even then things get complicated when we look at the 'sent by God' bit, see what I say about God, below.

Is Jesus Lord? Well, that's a matter of perspective. I believe that Jesus is Lord for all Christians who believe in him and follow his teachings. This doesn't actually entail his existence. Krishna is Lord for millions of people who follow him, and so on. So when the Apostles' Creed says 'our Lord', it is true, from the point of view of the Christian saying it. Is Jesus Lord over all the universe? Well, that's a different question that I'll deal with when I get to the issue of God, the Father.

I believe in I'm really not sure about the Virgin Birth
This is one of those red herring debates that is simply not worth getting into. There is precisely zero evidence that Jesus's mother was a virgin before (and, indeed, after) his conception. The gospel stories are just that; stories. There is no conceivable way to verify the claim, and some do argue that the gospels themselves don't actually mean to say that Mary was a virgin. So if it can be shown that Jesus is/was divine, then maybe it becomes reasonable to start wondering about this, but if Jesus's divinity is in doubt, then his virginal conception has to be even more in doubt.

I believe that I don't know if he suffered under Pontius Pilate
This starts with a big if. If there was a first century preacher at the root of all the gospel stories about Jesus, then yes, it appears likely that he suffered and was crucified under Pontius Pilate. But there are some odd lines of evidence to suggest that this isn't as definite as some folk, including the vast majority of Christians, think. Whichever way you slice the NT evidence, it is clear that none of the earliest epistles to be written know about Pilate. He only appears as a named character in one of the Pastoral Epistles, which many people are convinced are pseudepigrapha, that is, Paul didn't write them. Most people who acknowledge that Paul didn't write the pastorals are also reasonably convinced that these were written late - either very late 1st century, or even well into the 2nd century. Either way, these letters probably get their information about Jesus's sufferings from the gospels, not independently of the gospels. Which, of course, brings us to the gospels.

It is clear that the very earliest gospel, Mark, has Jesus suffering and dying under Pontius Pilate. Most folk (other than apologists) seem to think that this gospel was written somewhere between 70 and 90 AD, and probably written in Rome. Other documents from about the same time (e.g. 1st Clement) have the same opinion expressed. It is just a bit odd that none of the earlier NT writings, all the 'authentic' Pauline letters, Hebrews, etc. have a historical setting for the crucifixion. Richard Carrier has just written a big book (which I have yet to read) presenting and explaining all the evidence that points to an early Christian belief in a non-historical, mythical crucifixion event, which was then historicised in the very late 1st Century (by Mark, followed by others) as events which had happened a couple of generations earlier. I don't know if I am yet convinced by this case, but at least I am convinced there is a case to be made, so I face two rival hypotheses, one that the stories of Jesus are based on what happened to a man circa 30 AD, and one that the stories of Jesus are a fiction, based on earlier myths, written at the end of the 1st century. At present I don't know all the facts, so actually can't choose between these two options. For now, this really has to stay in the realms of I don't know...

If he was crucified, it is pretty likely that he also died and was buried, so I don't really need to get into any debate there.

I believe that I'm not sure if he descended to the dead
Oh Hell! Hell is such a tricky subject. If Jesus descended to hell, that would, of course, be reliant on there actually being a hell to go to. I mean, if there is a hell, and it is a place that some dead people go to, then it is not unreasonable to assume that Jesus might have gone there if he died. Coming back out of hell is a different matter entirely, but we'll get there in a moment. But first I want to question the reality of hell.

Why should there be a hell? What kind of a God would devise such a place? And, most importantly, do we have any evidence of hell's existence?

Well, with regard to the third question there, no. We have no evidence. We have claims of visions, both inside the bible and outside of it, but nothing beyond that. Furthermore, if the evidence of near death experiences actually counts for anything (and I'm not sure it does, there's a big difference between nearly dead and actually dead), then pretty much all accounts of the afterlife are happy and positive things, seemingly irrespective of the prior beliefs of those who have the experience. I've never heard tale of a NDE where the 'returning' person emerges talking of the horrors of hell. But even if there are such stories, it still wouldn't provide any real evidence for the reality of hell, beyond the human imagination, that is.

Why should there be a hell? Well, I think that the whole hell concept emerged when people were trying to reconcile the injustice observed in the world with the idea of a just God. Something bad needs to happen to bad people who had enjoyable and luxurious lives, right? Well, only if you think that the world is, or needs to be, a just place. If you accept that there is no justice, then there is no need for hell. Probably no need for heaven either, as the two go hand in hand. If there is some kind of afterlife, it is probably more of the same, neither heaven nor hell. For what its worth, I don't think the idea of hell is actually consistent with a God of justice, as no finite amount of badness can ever balance with an infinite extent of hell. In other words, if hell is the punishment, then the punishment never fits the crime.

I believe that I very much doubt that on the third day he rose again
Dead people stay dead. Of course, some people who have been technically dead for minutes or occasionally hours can be resuscitated. This has nothing to do with resurrection. The Christian view of resurrection is not that Jesus was simply reanimated, but rather that he returned to life in a transformed body that was radically different from the body he had before. In his new body Jesus can sometimes walk through walls, but sometimes eat solid food. He can appear and disappear, apparently at will, and he can fly into the air. Of course, there is no actual evidence for all of this, merely stories, and somewhat contradictory stories too. Does the story of the empty tomb provide evidence for the resurrection? Well, not really, the story tells of people who hadn't previously been to the tomb finding an empty tomb two or three days after the crucifixion event. What is more likely, that they went to the wrong tomb (and found an empty one) or that someone who had been dead for three days came back to life in a transformed body? Any way you slice it, it is far, far, far more likely that fallible humans made a mistake and found an empty tomb, while the filled tomb lay still occupied nearby. I'm not saying I believe that happened, I'm merely saying that we know people make mistakes and/or make stories up, so either of these possibilities are far more likely than resurrection, which we're pretty certain doesn't happen in every other circumstance.

I believe that I very much doubt that he ascended into heaven
Given that it is highly unlikely that he died, it is also highly unlikely that he ascended. When I looked into this a couple of years ago, I found that there is no ascension in Matthew, Mark, some manuscripts of Luke, John or any of the epistles. It is only in Acts and some manuscripts of Luke, and even there only in a single verse. In the epistles, by the way, the resurrection and ascension seem to be merged into the single concept of Jesus being 'raised' - apparently directly from death to the right hand of the Father. Or rather, given that the epistles came first, it seems that Matthew, Mark & John reinterpreted Paul's "raised" to mean resurrected back to life, and Luke-Acts was the one that split the concept into the two components.

But the main reason I doubt the ascension is that there is nowhere up there where Jesus could have flown to. Its a long way to the moon, or to Mars, or wherever, but there is certainly no physical heaven for him to go to, so the idea of a physical ascension is utterly meaningless.

I believe that I doubt that he is seated at the right hand of the Father and will return as judge
This doubt really follows from all the others, so doesn't need any particular justification in and of itself. We'll get to the issue of God the Father in a moment. The thing about the second coming and the final judgement arises out of an apocalyptic view of history that seems to pre-date Christianity, but wasn't originally part of the ancient Hebrew religion. As far as I can tell from what limited reading I've done on the subject, the apocalyptic worldview became merged with Jewish thinking following the return from exile in Babylon. It was originally part of the Zoroastrian religion, which the "exiles" were indoctrinated into, and which they apparently borrowed bits from when they "re-established" (perhaps reinvented) Judaism in Judah on their return.

So that's about it for Jesus, the supposed 2nd person of the trinity. Let's think about the 3rd...

I believe in the Holy Spirit
The eagle eyed readers among you will have noticed that I haven't done that thing in the heading there, scoring out one bit and highlighting another. That is because I do believe in the Holy Spirit. But perhaps without the capital letters. I see no reason to doubt the existence of the holy spirit, because you can see the evidence of its existence in the lives of Christians. Yes, I said 'its' there, not 'His'. You see, while I believe that there is something there, that Christians call the 'Holy Spirit', I'm not convinced it is a person in any meaningful way, and I have no reason to suppose it is divine. The holy spirit is simply that consensus, or unity, or harmony, or one-ness, or whatever, which emerges where Christians are gathered together to worship. It could be purely psychology at work. It could be a lot more than that, but I don't know. The spirit apparently provides guidance to some, and purpose to others, and strength to others, but actually has a pretty poor record of giving anyone accurate insights into the future or actually doing the miraculous.

When Christians get together to worship, and all believe the same things and sing the same songs, with conviction, and believe that God is present, there is a sense of elation, there is a feeling of something transcendent. It may be nothing more than a sense or a feeling, but the experience is real, and I'll call that the holy spirit.

Now take this concept back before the dawn of Christianity. I expect people had similar experiences back then. They experienced the 'Spirit of God' or the 'shekinah' and this confirmed their belief, not in the third person of the godhead, that concept hadn't evolved yet, but of the first... God the Father.

I believe in I'm not sure about God the Father and that he is the creator
I think the ancient belief in God (the Father, although that bit was added later) arose pretty much out of the experience of what I've called the holy spirit, above. People experienced something they though was divine and started telling stories about this 'person' God. I think belief in this God arose out of experience long before anyone thought about the concept of creation, but when the idea of a beginning to all things emerged, then God must have been there before the beginning, and therefore must have been the creative force. Its easy to see how that belief could have developed.

I'm not convinced by modern apologetics arguments that claim various philosophical proofs that God must have pre-existed the big bang and must have been the first mover. There are holes in all the arguments. That's not to say that I have a hole-free argument for the origin of all things myself, but if there was an origin of all things, then it must have been the origin of all things, including any transcendent life forms that may or may not exist. To speak of God (or anything else) existing before time and space came into being is meaningless. If there was no time, there was no, erm, was. There was no time or space for God to exist in, and no time during which he could do any kind of creative act. If there was a time in which he was able to create, then the creation wasn't the beginning of all things and so we need to go up a level of reality and find the beginning of that... and so on. God doesn't offer a solution to the mystery of beginnings, he merely shifts the mystery up a level. I think it is better to say "I don't know" than to postulate an agent with no explanation for how that agent came to be.

I believe in the Catholic church, although it isn't very holy
Nuff said.

I believe in the communion of the saints
I do. It is the same as the holy spirit I talked about up there. The other bits of the creed aren't really worth discussing here, so I'll leave it at that. So here's my creed:

I'm not sure about God,
or in what sense he is supposed to be the Father almighty,
or, indeed, if he created anything.  

I'm not sure about Jesus Christ,
if he was even a real person,
how he was conceived,
although I doubt he was born of a Virgin.
He might have suffered under Pontius Pilate,
and if he did it is likely that he was crucified, died, and was buried;
but I'm not sure what 'descended to the dead' even means.
On the third day he probably stayed dead;
I doubt he ascended into heaven,
and there is no seat up there for him to be sitting on,
given that, it is unlikely that he will come back to judge the living and the dead.  

I'm not sure about the Holy Spirit,
although there is something that Christians experience,
but probably not the third person of the Trinity,
I believe in the catholic Church, although it isn't very holy,
there might be something in the communion of saints,
I believe in forgiveness, but not necessarily in sins,
I doubt the resurrection of the body,
and nothing lasts forever. Erm, amen.

The package deal of faith

I seem to have heard or read a few discussions / debates / articles touching on the subject of "what is faith?" recently. Generally, atheist types claim that faith means something like "claiming to know things you don't know", while Christians tend to emphasise the role of evidence and reason in faith.

I've found myself thinking recently that 'faith' is more of a kind of package deal than most Christians (and probably most atheists too) actually realise. Christian faith (and I guess this applies to other religions too, but I'm just talking about the belief system I have been part of) contains beliefs about many different things which all seem to come lumped together into the package of faith. Some of the individual beliefs are things for which there is (or may be) evidence. But there is no evidence at all for others, those must be taken 'on faith'. What I have noticed in the various debates, etc., that I have been reading and hearing is that Christians (generally) don't seem to notice that there are different categories of belief within faith. Just because some aspects of faith can be evidence based, it doesn't follow that all aspects of faith can be evidence based.

Here is a list of ten (randomly selected) beliefs that form part of the faith of most Christians that I know (different beliefs are available within what some define as Christianity, but lets not go there just now):

1. Jesus Christ is the Son of God
2. Jesus was crucified and died
3. Jesus was bodily resurrected
4. Jesus is now (physically, in a body) in heaven
5. Jesus is part of the everlasting Trinity
6. Jesus was the agent through whom the universe was created
7. Jesus gave the Holy Spirit to his followers; you can experience the indwelling of the Holy Spirit today
8. Followers of Jesus will go to heaven after they die
9. Those who don't follow Jesus will go to hell after they die 
10. Jesus acts in the world today to heal people, transform lives and do other miraculous things

I would argue that most of that list is a package deal. As a teenager I was already a believer in a few of those points (by upbringing), but it was when I came to believe in 10 and 7, on the basis of evidence, that I finally decided to become a Christian. I casually accepted the rest of the package without much scrutiny, it all just came as part of a package - if 2, 3, 7 and 10 were all true then (I assumed) 1, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9 must also be true.

It was only a few decades later that I came to question individual beliefs in isolation and realised that there are no good reasons for believing most of the things that are part of Christian faith.

Looking back at that list, I now realise that, for example, item 2 is a matter of history. Given sufficient historical data it would be possible to confirm this belief. (I'm not going to get into the issue of whether or not there is sufficient data in this post.)

Item 7 is a different matter. This is something which is, or should be, testable in the present day. Experience should provide evidence to support or deny this claim. And I think there is evidence to support this claim (whether the same evidence also supports alternative beliefs is a different question, which I will address in the next post). Item 10 is much like it, although with an unseen causality chain built in. Someone's life being transformed is not necessarily evidence that the transformation was due to some action by Jesus.

But there can be no evidence to allow us to decide on the truth of claims 4, 5, 6, 8 or 9. Not just that there is no evidence, but there actually can be no evidence. These are articles of pure faith. Which have to be either accepted or rejected with no evidence. It is impossible, literally impossible, for us to know what will happen in the future. We have precisely no data on what happens to people after they die (note: Near death experiences don't count; I'll be addressing them in another post soon). You believe this as part of a package deal, or you don't. That's it. Future prophecies are unconfirmed, by their very nature, and thus don't provide evidence for anything. What happens after death must be taken entirely on faith.

What happened at the origin of all things is also something that is forever beyond our reach. There is no contemporary evidence that can prove, one way or another, whether any god was involved in the initiation of our universe, let alone give us any evidence as to which god it was. Again, belief in any creation or creator is a purely faith based position.

For the Christian, the only 'evidence' for the majority of claims made as part of the Christian faith is the words of the bible. "The bible says it, I believe it, that settles it" as the saying goes.

I'm afraid that, for me, that doesn't settle it anymore. When I came to realise that some things in the bible were outright fiction and some biblical prophecies have (demonstrably) failed to come true, I had to give up on a bible-based faith. It took a long time (best part of a decade) for me to work through the implications of that realisation. But finally the package deal fell apart and I realised that most of what I had been taught to believe was based on false premises. One by one I have had to reassess and give up on my old beliefs. I'm afraid not much is left.

So where do you go without faith? Well, onward into the unknown. What I found when I lost the certainty that comes with faith, was that the uncertainty left behind leads to all the same places. The same sun shines down, the same rain falls, just as many bad things happen, just as many good things happen, I 'get lucky' just as often, and oddly enough all this is quite comforting. There's a big unknown 'final frontier' out there. Might as well boldly go where no-one has gone before...

The God of Christian experience vs. the God of the Bible

A recurring struggle I have faced over the past few years as I wrestle with (my) faith is the apparent discrepancy between the claims the bible makes about God and the reality I have experienced and observed as a Christian for over twenty years. 

You see, the God of Christian experience (GCE) seems considerably different from the God described in the bible (GTB). So much so that I have to wonder if the God of the bible is an amplified and exaggerated version of the 'real God' as distorted through the rose tinted lens of faith. Of course it is equally possible that the characteristics of the 'real God' are distorted by experience too. Taking a skeptical position, we might also have to consider the possibility that GCE is purely an illusion based on misunderstood experience.

But anyway, here are a few of the characteristics of the God of Christian experience, based on my experiences and observations of others:

• GCE seems to be a source of comfort for many.
• GCE seems to provide some form of guidance sometimes, though this is often ambiguous.
• GCE seems to answer certain prayer requests, sometimes.
• GCE seems able to perform a range of mostly minor healings, sometimes.
• GCE seems to be able to strengthen and embolden people, sometimes.
• GCE seems to be a source of joy, even in otherwise joyless circumstances.

Most, if not all, of these characteristics appear to be sporadic; sometimes being in evidence while at other times being seemingly absent. The characteristics which most commonly appear active are also those in which it is hardest to be sure that there is any real external influence, such as the comfort, joy and emboldenings. The skeptic could write all of these off as being 'purely psychological' and having no supernatural source. It could be that God provides genuine comfort to the believer, or it could be that believing in God - in itself - is the source of comfort.

But what of the others? Answered prayers are common, but rarely does a believer calculate the probabilities of the things they ask for happening 'by chance'. Indeed, for many believers there is no such thing as chance, so if what they prayed for actually happened, then it must have been God at work. And if the thing prayed for does not happen, then it must have been against the will of God, so he didn't do it. I've commented before about the positive feedback loop here - if the prayed-for thing happens, the believer's faith is boosted, if it doesn't happen, their faith is not lessened, so as long as prayed-for things happen occasionally, the net effect is a boost of faith. If the believer prays for lots of possible things on a regular basis, they will see answered prayers fairly frequently, whether or not there is a God involved.

Surely if there is a real God then it should be possible to observe his actions consistently? The GTB is frequently portrayed as consistent, unchanging, and so on, yet GCE seems to act with no consistency, except perhaps in influencing the feelings of his followers.

Before I started taking a properly critical look at (my own) faith, I would have made the claim (had I thought to express it this way) that the real God was broadly the same as GTB and the reasons that GCE appears to be smaller and less powerful than GTB were that something (either the devil, my puny faith, or some unrepented sin in my life) was blocking the full experience of God from breaking through. I guess this is pretty standard Evangelical belief. Its certainly consistent with the picture of reality expressed by most of the evangelism programmes that I've seen or been part of. The problem is sin, our sin gets in the way. In other words, most of the time, the reason GCE appears so small is my fault. The picture would be something like this:

But when you look at the holiest people you know (and, having been in some good churches for many years, I have known a good many truly godly people) you will see that they have exactly the same experiences as you. Something seems to block God from getting through, so GCE is so much smaller than GTB, even for those spiritual giants. Of course, they would never say it in those terms, but this is my observation.

I eventually, through observations like the above, and through a critical reading of certain bible passages, came to view things a bit differently. While still convinced that the real God was there, I considered that GTB was an exaggeration. The real God, while still powerful, wasn't omni-anything. But I never really reconsidered the presupposition that something in me was also blocking the full reality of the real God, so for many years I guess I believed that the real god was somewhere in between GTB and GCE. Like so:

But then I came to wonder whether there was any actual evidence that the real God was any more powerful than GCE. The claims in the bible are simply that, claims. The more I looked into the evidence for things claimed in the bible, the more I found that the bible itself is the only evidence for all the miracles up to and including the resurrection of Jesus. I've recently posted several thoughts on the so called 'evidence' for God [see here, or here] and it all eventually boils down to assuming that the reporting of events as presented in the bible is fundamentally accurate and true. Without that assumption, all arguments defending biblical miracles, including the resurrection, fall apart.

For several years two things kept me believing that the real God was greater in power than GCE (though less than GTB). These were the firm belief that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead, and the belief/observation that 'miraculous' healings continue to happen today. Let's look at both of these:

Firstly, contemporary miraculous healings. I've been through this issue recently on the blog. The issues here for me remain that while healings undoubtedly and indisputably happen in the world today, these don't appear (as far as I can tell) to happen more in a Christian context than in contexts associated with any other religion or belief system. The other issue is that almost all of the healing claims I have heard of are well within the realms of possible natural occurrences. That is, if someone experiences a remission from cancer, how do we know if this was due to God's healing power or was 'just one of those things' that happen? What we observe is that healings happen, and that the claimed power of these healings comes from some supernatural source, for which there is usually little or no other evidence. What if there is some other explanation other than the involvement of a God? Which is more likely - that some people have some inherent 'magical' healing ability, or that some God chooses to channel his 'magical' healing ability through some people? Given that we don't know the mechanism in either case, Occam's razor would tend to prefer the former option; invoking a God is not required as a source of the unknown ability, that only multiplies the entities involved.

Of course, if this is true, then we are attributing 'natural' healing ability to God which doesn't come from him. Thus actually CGE is greater in power than the real God:

That's an uncomfortable thought, but one we must face if we're really serious about examining the validity of (our) faith. Even if there is a God, if we attribute things to him which he has no part of, then our picture of God ends up positively skewed and we imagine him to be bigger than he actually is.

And so, all that remains is the resurrection of Jesus. If this happened then it would fundamentally endorse the things he taught and go much of the way to proving the existence of God, and not merely any god, but specifically the Christian God. For me, this was the last remaining support holding up my faith. But, like all the other things, I found that this belief didn't really stand up to scrutiny. The evidence for the resurrection is simply not strong enough. All that we can really be sure of is that there were folk who came to be known as Christians who believed that Jesus died and rose again. We can be sure these people believed this a couple of generations after the time of the alleged events. What we can't do is bridge the gap between the beliefs in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries and the supposed events of about 30AD. Nobody wrote anything for at least a generation, and the things written by the first generation of writers were rewritten by subsequent generations.

You can see where I'm going with this. Eventually, I have come to the conclusion that as we can't be sure if the resurrection actually happened, we can't use this as anything remotely like evidence for the existence of God, whether we're talking about GTB, GCE or the real God.

I'm still open to the possibility that there is a 'real' God. But the more I consider the evidence of Christian experience, the smaller he appears to become. Is this really a God worth believing in? Or, more crucially, is this really a God worth trusting, following, or committing your life to? All the truly important aspects of God, which would make him worthy of praise and commitment, are those aspects which are claimed in the bible, but are not evident in Christian experience. These evaporate as we look critically at God.

The Christian Delusion - Review

Having just read a large volume by NT Wright (review/thoughts coming soon), and seeking to hear the opinions from the other side of the debate, as it were, I have been reading a book called 'The Christian Delusion' edited by John W. Loftus.

The title of the book deliberately nods to Dawkins's 'The God Delusion' (which I still haven't read) but this book is more focused in its aim - to demonstrate that (specifically) the Christian faith is unreasonable and irrational, rather than Dawkins's attack on religious belief in general - and is written by a number of different authors, with different viewpoints and specialities, the majority of whom once were bible-believing Christians, but for various reasons have now rejected their former beliefs. I'm far more interested in their opinions on Christianity than on Dawkins's as he never saw Christianity (or any other religion, for that matter) from the inside.

The collection is edited by John Loftus, who used to be an evangelical preacher and church pastor. The foreword is by Dan Barker, who also used to be an evangelical preacher and church pastor. What drives such people out of the church? What causes them to reject a belief in God? Could it be that belief in God is really a delusion?

This seems to have, unintentionally, turned into a very long blog post, sorry about that. Below you'll find comments on all of the chapters individually, but I think I'll summarise the main points and my conclusions here. So, if you want to read the whole thing you can, but if not, you'll get the gist here and can skip the remainder.

So, in conclusion:

This book is a very mixed bag. It contains a few chapters of really fascinating and thought provoking stuff, a few chapters of responses to Christian/Apologetics stuff which does not make for great reading if you haven't read the original books or articles, a few chapters on interesting but largely irrelevant topics and a few chapters which have clearly just been added to bulk the book up. As I read the Kindle edition, I couldn't see how thick the book looked anyway.

So, is this a Christianity killer? Well, if anyone in Churches (other than me, of course) actually reads it, it could do some damage. In the midst of this there are a couple of excellent anti-Christian arguments that I don't think have decent pro-Christian rebuttals. I'm specifically thinking of chapters 6 & 7 (see my comments below). Between them they do a pretty good job of demonstrating to the reader that (a) the bible is flawed, contains errors and fabrications and is certainly not inspired, and (b) that the history of Christianity demonstrates that if there is a God then he cannot communicate to his people at all.

The weight of all the other chapters certainly adds to the overall case that the Christian worldview is not consistent with the actual world in which we live, and so, I suppose that this is strong evidence that Christianity actually is a 'delusion'. No proof here, of course, but some of the arguments are compelling.

So where does this leave me? Well, it leaves me confused (as ever) and even less sure who Jesus was than I was before I started reading this. The writers of this collection of chapters have all gone the whole hog, departing Christianity and turning to atheism. I'm not there. This book does nothing to convince me that there is no God. However, it does go a long way to convincing me that if there is a God, then he isn't Yahweh/Jesus, at least not as presented in the Bible. (Interestingly enough, in Loftus's follow up collection of writings "The End of Christianity" there is a chapter called "Can God exist if Yahweh doesn't?" - I suspect the author comes to the answer 'no' but I'll be interested to read it anyway.)

So should I give up calling myself a 'Christian'? I'm not sure. Should I stop going to church? Likewise undecided. There's more to read on both sides of the debate, and a lot of thinking to be done, before I make any big life changing decisions. I have to 'count the cost', again. But I am not the sort of person who can choose to believe things that are contrary to the evidence. I need reasons to believe. I'm still looking for those reasons. Keep reading the blog to find out what happens...

And now the full review:

Part I: Why Faith Fails

Chapter 1: The Cultures of Christianities by David Eller, PhD
The first thing to say is that most of the chapter authors in this book have 'PhD' after their names. This is quite unnecessary and is only there to say "look, atheism is an intelligent position, we have doctorates here, you should be impressed". I have a PhD too, and know just how little that can mean regarding intelligence... but anyway.

This chapter sets out to demonstrate a few things:

1. That Christianity is just a culture like any other.
2. That Christianity itself is aware of this and uses it to its own advantage in mission / evangelism.
3. That actually it is not one culture, but a collective name for a widely diverse collection of cultures, many of whom would not include some of the others under the same collective umbrella as themselves. i.e. there is no such thing as Christianity, there are only Christianities.
   
4. That Christianity, much like other religions in other pars of the world, has such power over culture because it is institutionalised and has cultural dominance over birth, death, marriage, sexual practice, etc.

So, its fairly interesting, but nothing really ground breaking. I wasn't sure where the book was going to go from here, this seemed like such an odd start. And, indeed, the book doesn't really progress in a coherent and inter-linked way.

The chapter concludes with an interesting quote which is the most memorable thing in it, and which I'll repeat here:

"Christians are not easily reasoned out of religion, since they are not usually reasoned into it."

Chapter 2: Christian belief through the lens of cognitive science by Valerie Tarico, PhD.
Yes, another PhD, I'm still not impressed. This one is a psychologist. She makes a case that humans are not rational and that certainty is a feeling which is independent of truth or facts. She also demonstrates that the 'born again' experience is not unique to Christianity and actually is replicated in many other religious and non-religious contexts. I found this chapter more interesting than the previous one and more compelling in its reasoning against the case for faith. I don't really have much to say on the issue though, so I'll just give a few interesting quotes from the chapter:

• "Arriving at belief in an infallible God by way of an inerrant Bible requires an unwarranted belief in yourself."
• "Certainty is a confession of ignorance about our ability to be passionately mistaken."
• "it is not enough to be well intentioned - even joyfully, generously so. We also have to be right."

Basically, the chapter shows how people can come to any one of the range of religious beliefs, and believe passionately in it, without any of them being actually true. This doesn't mean that there is no God or Christianity is false, but it does mean that there is an alternative explanation for why there is Christianity without the need for there to be a God.

Chapter 3: The malleability of the human mind by Jason Long, PhD
I really have to add 'PhD' to the end of my name on all things I write, it would give them such gravitas. Anyway, this is more psychology. The chapter starts with this quote, which is quite parochial in its scope:

"Why do the majority of Americans believe in the ability to predict specific details in the distant future, the existence of winged messengers living in the sky, the worldwide flood as told in genesis, and the resurrection of a man who had been dead for over a day? How can these people believe they are enlightened enough to insist upon the veracity of these outlandish beliefs when studies show they know so little about them? They believe simply because they want to believe, they believe because they always have believed, and they believe because others around them believe. The vast majority of those who believe such things will stick to those beliefs throughout life despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary"

Hmmm. This chapter basically claims that the majority of believers of any variety are indoctrinated into it, usually in childhood, then have the belief reinforced, so that when the belief is eventually challenged, the default position is to defend the belief rather than question it:

"If the Christian were genuinely interested in the truth, he would analyze the argument critically and thoroughly to see if it adequately addressed the points of the skeptical objection. But he is not questioning, he is defending."

The chapter goes into cognitive dissonance and that sort of thing and shows, once more, how reasonable people can believe weird things. He even quotes Michael Shermer's well known line:

"Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons."

This chapter by itself is nothing astounding, but this book is clearly aiming for a collective impact from all the different strands tied together.

Chapter 4: The outsider test for faith revisited by John W. Loftus
No PhD? This chapter must be worthless then. This is where you realise this book is not intended to be a stand-along work. This chapter does not really present the 'Outsider test for faith' (OTF), which comes from Loftus's earlier book, but seeks to defend it from the attacks made after the earlier book. It would really help at this point if I'd read Loftus's previous book, which I haven't.

The basic point of the OTF is that if you seriously want to question the Christian faith (or any other faith, for that matter) then you must do this from outside of the preconceptions of the faith itself. That is, view it as an outsider would. If you do this, then you start to see some doctrines, etc. as entirely arbitrary and start to see the holes in some pieces of reasoning.

I don't really have much to say here, except that this is pretty much what I am doing on this blog at the moment. However, the way the chapter is constructed makes it seem like it is part of an ongoing debate, of which I haven't heard all the earlier bits. Which is slightly a shame. I'd have preferred it if this was a presentation of the OTF, taking the earlier criticism into account. Nice quote in here, in passing is: "If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby" (David Eller).

Part II: Why the Bible is not God's Word

Chapter 5: The Cosmology of the Bible by Edward T. Babinski
Another with no PhD, sigh. This is an odd chapter. It makes its point clearly, but I think the majority of Christians out there would think "so what?" about this. The point being made is that the view of cosmology is entirely contrary to modern science. Basically, the writers of the bible (both old and new testaments, but more clearly in the old) believe the earth to be flat, the sky to be something solid (the 'firmament'), which the stars are fixed onto, and above which are 'waters' (which sometimes leaks through, hence rain). The earth is supported upon pillars, and there are waters under this, and so on. God is presented as living in 'the heavens' which is up in the sky, hence the way the floor in heaven is presented as being sapphire (the sky is blue, after all).

The point is that the writers of the bible present the world in a way which is entirely consistent with the beliefs and views of the surrounding cultures, and there is noting 'inspired' here, and certainly nothing 'infallible'. By itself this argument will not achieve very much, but when heaped with all the other chapters it piles up to make the overall argument (that the bible has no divine author) seem more compelling.

Chapter 6: The bible and modern scholarship by Paul Tobin
This chapter sets out to demonstrate 5 points, that the Bible:

1. is inconsistent with itself
2. is not supported by archaeology
3. contains fairy tales
4. contains failed prophecies, and
   
5. contains many forgeries

The chapter makes its points fairly well. Part 1 quotes several contradictory pairs, including the following two verses: Romans 3v28 (A man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law) and James 2v24 (A man is justified by works and not by faith alone). And I basically agree with the point, while many of the contradictions can be explained away, the best explanation is not that they come from one infallible inspired source, but rather they come from a diverse bunch of people with contrasting and contradictory opinions.

In part 2 he demonstrates that there is no evidence for the Israelites alleged stay in Egypt, or the subsequent exodus. Furthermore, while there are stories in the bible that can be tied to real places or events, the chronology from the bible is totally at odds with the chronology from archaeology. For example, Abram came from 'Ur of the Chaldees' about 800 years before there were any Chaldeans, as far as we can tell from archaeology. The point made seems to be that almost all of Israelite history before the return from exile is totally out of sequence, exaggerated, or just plain made up.

Parts 3, 4 and 5 all do their jobs very well as well, but I don't need to give details here. Suffice it to say that this chapter is a very strong case for the non-inspiration of the bible.

The chapter ends with an interesting and, again, fairly strong argument against liberal Christianity as well. I think the author feels that he has dealt a death blow to Evangelicals (to be fair, he pretty much has) and so might as well attack the other branch of Christianity as well.

This chapter is basically a summary of Tobin's book "The Rejection of Pascal's Wager", which I think I'll read sometime (although, it is the best part of £30, so I'm in no hurry to buy it). The summary is quite interesting, thought provoking, and challenging so the full book should be worth a look.

Chapter 7: What we've got here is a failure to communicate by John W. Loftus
This chapter is also pretty compelling. The basic idea is that the history of Christianity clearly demonstrates that Christians (as a collective, not necessarily as individuals) are generally unable to hear from God. If God were able to communicate clearly to his people, then there are certain events in history that simply would not have happened, for example the many wars and persecutions between Protestants, Catholics and Anabaptists in the aftermath of the reformation - if God's message had been clearly conveyed, none of this would have happened. Furthermore, what about things like polygamy or slavery - the bible is at best ambiguous on these issues and generally seems to be in favour of them, and yet most Christians today would be strongly against both practices. So is the inference in the bible the message from God or is the evolved modern practice which goes against it really what God wants? Of course, there is a lot more in this chapter, which only serves to strengthen the case.

The chapter also considers all the usual explanations used to explain away these observations, and shows why none of them is particularly compelling. In summary:

"Christian theologians cannot even come to a consensus on what the Bible requires them to believe - that's why there are so many denominations and 'cults'. They cannot even come to a consensus on how to interpret the Bible in the first place. What is the best explanation for this? In the light of such confusion and disagreement, can anyone take seriously the idea that God communicated his perfect will to his believers?"

Chapters 6 and 7, by themselves, are the heart of this book. They make a very strong and compelling case against the inspiration of the bible, by using the bible itself. The rest of the book is just supporting evidence.

Part III: Why the Christian God is not Perfectly Good

Chapter 8: Yahweh is a moral monster by Hector Avalos, PhD
This chapter is a response to something I haven't read written by Christian author Paul Copan. Avalos demonstrates that OT morality is not significantly different from, or superior to the morality expressed in the Code of Hammurabi (Summerian law code) or various Hittite law codes we know from the time of the OT and earlier. Indeed, Avalos contends that the Bible is actually inferior to the other codes. The bible (or at least parts of it) condones genocide, infanticide and child sacrifice amongst other immoral things. The chapter makes its points clearly and compellingly, and then degenerates into a direct criticism of Copan's writings, rather than promoting its own message. Which makes this chapter fairly pointless if you read it in isolation.

Chapter 9: The Darwinian Problem of Evil by John W. Loftus
I've heard this argument before. I've heard it responded to before. But this is a clear and compelling discussion of the issues around animal suffering. Basically the point is that animals, through no moral fault of their own, suffer and die, all the time, sometimes in pretty horrendous ways. The question posed is basically 'What sort of creator would design this?'

The chapter states and then refutes the eight main arguments used by theists to defend the creator for causing or allowing animal suffering. The theist arguments are basically as follows:

1. Animals were herbivores before the fall. That is, man is morally responsible for animals eating each other.
2. Satan corrupted the beasts before the fall of man.
3. Animals have no souls and don't feel (much) pain.
4. God doesn't care about animals, why do you think he should?
5. God is indifferent to animals as he is much more interested in human soul making. Animals and their suffering are merely by-products of this process.
6. Its OK, as animals will be resurrected to a heavenly afterlife.
7. That animal predation and suffering is necessary to create the right environment for human development and moral decision making. (I'm not clear how this differs from number 5 above)
8. We simply don't know.

All of these are discussed, taken apart and more or less refuted. Loftus makes a good case and I've not really heard a good response by a Christian (in debates, etc.) yet.

Part IV: Why Jesus is not the Risen Son of God

Chapter 10: Jesus, Myth and Method by Robert M. Price, PhD
This chapter is another response to something else that I haven't read. In this case, its "The Jesus Legend: A case for the historical reliability of the synoptic tradition" by Greg Boyd and Paul Eddy (which is on my 'to read; eventually' list...). The book is Boyd and Eddy's look at 'The Christ Myth Theory' (CMT) which, of course, they reject. Price is, of course, one of the most vocal proponents of the CMT and some of his reasoning is compelling. However, this chapter is mostly a response to Boyd and Eddy rather than a straight defense of the CMT.

As with the other 'responses' in this book, this would be much better if I had read the original book. As a stand alone it makes a few points, and makes then well, but is not -by itself- particularly a compelling case for anything much.

Chapter 11: Why the resurrection is unbelievable by Richard Carrier, PhD
This chapter basically expands the often repeated statement that 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence' and demonstrates (fairly well, I must say) that the evidence for the resurrection is actually rather mundane, and is not sufficient to warrant belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

He starts with discussing the story of the Persian Wars, written by Herodotus about 50 years after the event. Herodotus was well educated and claims to have consulted eye witnesses in compiling his accounts, and yet there are fantastic claims in there of magical things happening.

Compare this to the gospel accounts - written some decades after the events, by well educated men, who claim to have consulted eye witnesses, and containing fantastic claims of miraculous events, the greatest of which is, of course, the resurrection of Jesus.

If you dismiss the former stories, why do you still believe the latter ones?

Carrier lays out the evidence we have for the resurrection, in detail, and then demonstrates that this evidence is insufficient to be compelling. The implication being that if you believe this reasoning that you are a bit gullible and have been convinced of something that you shouldn't have been. He appears to have a point.

Chapter 12: At best, Jesus was a failed apocalyptic prophet by John W. Loftus
This chapter takes the surprising presupposition that the New Testament is historically reliable and that Jesus existed, pretty much as described. From there it shows that the NT presents Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, who clearly predicted the end of the world was coming within his own generation. Given that we are looking at this nearly 2000 years later, it is clear that this didn't happen and therefore Jesus was (at best) a failed apocalyptic prophet.

Its a good point, well made, and certainly adds to the weight of the evidence of some of the other chapters in this book.

The problem with this chapter is that it treads on the 'historical Jesus' debate, which I've touched on in other posts, where only some of the main opinions of Jesus claim that he was an apocalyptic prophet. But this chapter is not written as part of that debate, this chapter was written to be read by Bible-believing Christians, and so - assuming any of them ever read it - it kind of works in that context.

Part V: Why society does not depend on Christian Faith

Chapter 13: Christianity does not provide the basis for morality by David Eller, PhD
Finally we come to three chapters that feel a bit like a 'grab bag' of an appendix. The moral argument doesn't fit in anywhere else, so is thrown in here. The chapter explains how morality and religion are different and don't depend on each other. It also shows a few examples of immoral things done in the name of God/Christianity for good measure. But, for me at least, this is not that interesting.

Chapter 14: Atheism was not the cause of the Holocaust by Hector Avalos, PhD
Can I just say, I never thought it was? But the chapter makes a good case for the Holocaust being the end result of centuries of Christian antisemitism, not the end result of any form of atheism. Indeed, Hitler was not an atheist but a Catholic with some strange views. Other important figures in the Nazi party had other theistic viewpoints. This chapter is just here for bulking the book out.

Chapter 15: Christianity was not responsible for Modern Science by Richard Carrier, PhD
And finally, a chapter that does exactly what it says on the tin. It overturns the quite common Christian belief that the advances of science in the past two thousand years are in some way dependent on Christianity, without which they would never have happened. On the contrary, the chapter demonstrates that at certain points in history, Christianity has hindered scientific advances, meanwhile 'pagan' cultures have promoted scientific advances. Again, this is interesting stuff, and adds to the overall weight of the argument, but I'm not sure this chapter was particularly essential.

And there you have it. My conclusions were near the beginning of the post, if you can remember that long ago. Thanks for reading to the bottom. You really are a glutton for punishment! (Hello Mike!)

Agnostic Christian

Being a Christian does not mean having all the answers. It does not mean that you have no doubts. It means seeking to follow Jesus wherever he leads.

One of the things I find myself considering and re-considering at the moment is the Bible. What is it? What is its role in the life of the Christian? Here's what I'm thinking:

The bible is not a book of answers, rather, it is a guide book - containing a pattern of how to live or what to do, rather than actually answering the big questions in life. In fact, I'd go further than that and say that it isn't so much a guide book as a record of what believers in the past did and believed. Sometimes the stories are there as a warning rather than as a guide.

Amazingly, its now over four years since I wrote this post about the role of the Bible and this post about 2 Timothy 3:16-17. I was basically thinking the same stuff back then, although I'm probably about to be a little bit more heretical now than I was then...

You see, I don't think I can consider the Bible as, in any way, a proof of anything anymore. I'm not sure I was ever of the opinion: "The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it", but I'm now a bit further from that opinion. I'm now more like: "The Bible says it, that shows us something of what the person who wrote that bit of the bible believed, that opens up a whole heap of interesting questions..."

You see, for many years I read the Bible, and occasional books by apologists about the Bible, and occasional 'sound' commentaries on the Bible, but all stuff written from the perspective that the Bible is the inspired Word (with a capital 'W') of God.

More recently (and I guess this goes back to about 1994, when I read Robin Lane Fox's "The Unauthorised Version", if you call that 'recently') I've been reading some books which take a more 'liberal' or 'critical' look at the Bible and the more I read, the more layers of interesting (yet 'heretical') stuff I begin to see in the Bible. Stuff that's always been there but that I was prevented in seeing from my 'Evangelical' perspective.

The problem is, the more you read, the less sure of the Bible you become. Take, for example, the first couple of chapters of Genesis. I was taught to read this as one continuous creation story, and yet when you look at it closely, there are two different stories which are completely irreconcilable. In one, God creates everything, with man being the pinnacle of creation - made in the very image of God - to rule over creation. In the other, God creates the world and sees that it needs a caretaker, so he creates man to work in the garden, and gives strict commands to the man to work and stay in his place. Basically, God has not created a ruler, but a slave. And its into this situation that the Prometheus character comes, offering the man the chance to break his chains and become free. Not a devil, but the one who frees mankind from slavery. These are two conflicting and contradictory versions of the character of God. The weird thing is that most modern Christians believe that God has the character from the first story, but that we originated in the second...

Here, viewed 'critically', it is clear that there were (at least) two different ancient stories, which some later editor lumped together into one edited work. As far as I can tell, based on some of the things I have read, this editor lived in the time of the Babylonian exile, possibly later than that. That is, several thousand years after the events he's compiling a book about. I wonder what stories he left out? Presumably ones that didn't fit with his world view?

But if this is an edited work, representing the beliefs of the editors, that means that quite a lot of information may be missing, and the 'facts' may be nothing of the sort.

So where does that leave us now?

Doubting.

That means I have to be agnostic on many issues. Many, many issues. Almost everything, if we're honest.

Lets go for a biggie... Did God create the universe?

I dunno. The bible says that he created 'the heavens and the earth' (Genesis) or 'the worlds' (Hebrews), but as the bible doesn't count as proof, and nothing I can experience of God now can tell me about events thousands or millions of years ago, I have to remain agnostic on this one. God might have created utterly everything, or he might be part of that everything and only have created a little bit of it, or he might not be the creator, but still be God. (I said I was going to get heretical, didn't I?)

While I'm not denying the actual reality of God, through his Spirit, in the here and now, I'm beginning to perceive a fairly large chasm between our current experience and the written word. No current experience can count as evidence for any historical claim.

The problem with that statement above is that all we know about the relationship between 'God' and 'his Spirit' comes from the book that I've just said we can't be sure about.

Hmmm. Seems like I don't know anything anymore. I am agnostic.