I thought about titling this article “Jesus is More Jewish Than You,” because most people don’t understand just how Jewish Jesus and the early church were. I just want to point out some things from history that may strike you.
Along with all the teachers of the Law of God, given to Moses, many of whom had their disciples, Jesus was a wandering rabbi who debated the interpretation of the Law with other rabbis. So, if we think about the debates between schools’ interpretations during First Century Judaism, there is nothing unusual here. Gamaliel is probably the most famous of the other rabbis of that period (Acts 5:34). Paul was a member of Gamaliel’s school.
Jews praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur. (1878 painting by Maurycy Gottlieb) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Jesus never violated the Law. He never ate pork or shellfish or anything forbidden. He participated in the Passover and all other feasts in the Hebrew cycle. He tithed to the Temple. All his followers did the same. The disciples continued to worship at the Temple after Jesus’ crucifixion (Acts 2:46 – 5:25). The proof of just how Jewish Jesus was is written in Acts 10, which happens about 9 years after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, when Peter is given a vision of all kinds of animals, and told to “Rise, Peter, kill and eat.” But Peter protests, saying:
“No, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.”And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has cleansed, you must not call common.” This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.
It turns out this vision has nothing to do with breaking kosher laws, but it has to do with allowing Gentiles to become part of the Church. You see, up until that time, none of the Jewish believers considered Gentiles to be able to become part of their fellowship because they were NOT Jewish! So for 9 years after the death of Jesus, none of the believers considered themselves anything but Jewish and Kosher. Right after this vision, Peter is asked to come visit a devout Gentile named Cornelius, who gives alms to the Jewish people. Peter’s response is interesting. He says,
And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered; and he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit any one of another nation; but God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me,” Acts 10:27-29
So here too, we see that there is nothing the disciples learned from Jesus that caused them to question the exclusiveness of their Jewish faith. Their Jesus was Jewish through and through. This expectation of this faith being only Jewish was so strong, that when Gentile believers started being admitted into the fellowship, there was a debate among them whether any of these Gentiles could be saved without being circumcised. (Acts 15). In the end, the Jewish leaders decided that what was happening was a fulfillment of Isaiah and the promise to Abraham, that in Abraham all the nations (peoples, tribes, Gentiles) would be blessed (Gen 18:18), and that Isaiah 49:6 says: “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” And rather than impose upon them the whole kosher law system that was part of Israel’s special calling, the Gentiles were to follow the covenant of Noah (no murder, theft, etc.), to refrain from eating strangled meat, food offered to idols, blood, and to not engage in sexual immorality (Acts 15:20). In other words, the Gentiles could become part of the fellowship without having to become Jews. But even after that decision there were many disputes over whether Gentiles could be full members of this Jewish faith. Many of Paul’s letters were written in response to this controversy. But the fight was still among people like Peter and Paul (a rabbinical scholar) and other members of the Elders like James, Jesus’ brother.
So what got Jesus into so much trouble? Well look at the record of the prophets from Elijah to Malachai. Where is there a record of the Israelites obeying rather than resisting the prophets, or worse, having them killed? The prophets of Israel always confronted the people with their sins and declared the righteousness of God. Jeremiah said judgment was coming in defeat and exile, and he got thrown into prison. Samuel was ignored by the people who wanted a king instead. Elijah was persecuted by the king and queen, who wanted his head. Jesus was no different. Jesus attacked the hypocrisy of the ruling class, who were being religiously rigorous by tithing even from their herb gardens, but who had no qualms stealing homes from widows and orphans, (Matt 23:23, Mark 12:38-40).
Do you realize that when Jesus overturned the money changers’ tables in the Temple that he threatened the entire economic system of Jerusalem? There were an estimated 70,000 priests who depended upon the Temple as a business for their food and livelihood. When Jesus saw the corruption of this corporate, commercial enterprise taking place in the very precincts of the Temple, he was filled with rage, as any prophet would have been under the anointing of the Spirit of God. Jesus, was a very effective prophet against corporate interests that were using the money system to oppress the common people, turn the Lord’s house of prayer into a “den of theives” and he drove them out:
“So the multitudes said, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee.” Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ” –Matthew 21:11-13
Just think if a prophet today could go in and kick out all of Congress, the regulators and their agencies, and the Federal Reserve. Who would be angry then? Politicians? Bankers? Lobbyists? How long do you think he’d be allowed to live? Well, in effect that is just what Jesus did when he kicked over the tables. The money went flying everywhere except into the hands of money traders and the priests.
Although born in Bethlehem in Judea, he lived his whole life in Galilee. Do you know that the word “Jew” actually means Judean or “person of Judea.” The New Testament is full of the words like “the Jews.” But you have to realize that all of Jesus’ first followers were Galileans. This was not a case of outsiders against Jews, or “Christians” against Jews. This was a case of Galilean Hebrews against Judean Hebrews. There was a huge dispute going on about the nature of the religious law. The Judeans considered the Galileans uncouth and uneducated hillbillies, kind of like the East & West Coast people may look on people from West Virginia. Well, Jesus’ Galileans saw a bunch of stuck up hypocrites that had no compassion on the poor or the broken; as legalists and sticklers for the Law but who had no mercy. And the Galileans were challenging the right and authority of the upper class Judeans, or the “Jews.”
So forget about all the anti-Semitism that appears to take place in the New Testament. All the fighting is between one set of Jews and another, and in the beginning, for years, the Judeans had the upper hand. The established political and religious heirarchy, which rejected Jesus’ prophetic call for reform and repentance, crucified him.
They got the Galileans (and Judeans who agreed with them) who believed Jesus was the promised Messiah, kicked out of synagogues, thrown into prison, beaten, stoned, and killed – not just in Jerusalem but in many parts of the Roman Empire. It is one thing to disagree with someone’s interpretation of the Law, but when you start killing them over it, you have much more than infighting, you have a real problem on your hands. But you have to remember, if anyone was hurt by this treatment and upset with the Judeans, it was their fellow Jews. The new synagogue of the Messiah members were upset with their brothers who were treating them so. And the New Testament is a record of that conflict. It is unfortunate, to say the least, that the modern translations did not distinguish between Judean and non-Judean Jews with a better word.
Now here is the final prophecy of Jesus. Like Jeremiah, he prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem and a new exile for the rebellious remnant. And like Jeremiah, he also prophesied a restoration, which has come true 2000 years later!
Jesus, as prophet, accused the leaders of the children of Israel and those who followed them of Covenant Breaking, and he foretold of God’s Covenant Lawsuit against the rebellious house.
“Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. “For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, “and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” Then He went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house is a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’” Luke 19:41-46
“Thus you witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all this will come upon this generation. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken and desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down,” Matthew 23:31-Matthew 24: 2 .
This prophecy came to pass in 70 A.D. when the Romans came and destroyed the city. But before his crucifixion, Jesus also prophesied a time of restoration that would come after the new exile:
“For this is the time of punishment in fulfilment of all that has been written. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled,” Luke 21:22-24
Now 2000 years later, the Jerusalem is back in Israeli hands and the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled. If you say, we didn’t do anything to deserve this exile, you haven’t read the prophets. Never did the people of God believe that they deserved correction or rebuke by God, yet Jeremiah, Isaiah, Amos, Ezekiel, and many more prophesied the first exile. Was this prophet wrong for exposing the corruption and giving those words? It cost him his life to say so.
Just a note to say, if you want to understand what all the discussion and disagreement was about, the entire New Testament, except for Luke-Acts, was written by Jewish believers, arguing their rabbinical school’s case with other Jews, Hellenists (Jews from the Diaspora in the Empire who spoke Greek), and to explain Jewish history to gentile converts. Luke traveled with Paul and writes down Paul’s debates and encounters and conflicts with his fellow Jews in the Book of Acts. He also relates what he had not witnessed from the early days of the Jewish fellowship in Jerusalem. His Gospel was for a Gentile readership, but follows Matthew and Mark in style. However, if you want the deepest overview and insight into the debate, the Letter to the Hebrews is probably the best place to start. As nearly as we can figure it, it is possibly written by a Jew from the Alexandrian school, who is named Apollos. Written in high Greek (Attic) which was the language of the highly educated, but whose use in speech had died out about 330 B.C. Paul’s letters, by contrast, were written in common Greek (Koiné). Think of it as if, Hebrews was written in King James English, while Paul’s letters were written in American English.
Roger Bacon (c.1214–1294) is sometimes credited with the modern establishment of the scientific method, following Aristotle.
From the previous articles, we have shown that no one can disprove the existence of God, and that atheists believe there is no God but cannot know for sure, and so their belief is unsubstantiated. We have also shown that because the supposed nature of God as Creator of all things, if He exists, is trans-dimensional, exists outside of the 4 palpable dimensions of time and space, and not subject to the causal laws of material physics. Therefore, the scientific method has no means of verifying or measuring the reality of God. In other words, God is supernatural and axiomatic and therefore not subject to testable hypotheses or “proofs.”
Furthermore, we have demonstrated that atheist objections to the existence of God often rest upon assumptions about the nature of God illegitimately acquired from a Judeo-Christian worldview. The idea of justice and fairness, for example, assumes too much, if one starts with the assumption that the creation is evolutionary and accidental. This God could be just as uncaring and uninvolved in human affairs as we are in the life of ants. Therefore, the question of God’s goodness does not have anything to do with the question of whether God exists or not. God could exist and not be good, as we define goodness.
Now, however, we come to a fulcrum; a question. If God exists, how can we or could we know him for sure? Since we cannot know him by examining matter, because he is not material; and since we cannot know him by theory, or testing, or by any human endeavor of scientific enterprise, how could we know that what we know he is indeed real?
The problem, my friends, is that you are asking the wrong question. You are assuming you can discover what is hidden, what is supernatural, what is not available to human senses through the discovery process, but that is backwards. It isn’t what you discover, but how you are discovered.
Let us start with an assumption: This God is fully self-conscious, self-aware, the Creator of all things seen and known, and unseen and unknown to us. This God started the universe and all the things within it. Yet because he dwells outside our experienced dimensions of time and space, he must, in order to communicate with us, penetrate time and space and reveal himself to us in some way. Surely, if he is the creator of all, he must be able to disclose himself to us if he so chooses to do so? A mute God is no god, if he cannot make himself known.
Yet this God does not disclose himself by natural means, normally, although he is able to do so if he so chooses. This God is able to communicate directly with our minds and our souls by his Spirit, supernaturally. We call this communication “revelation.” It is not susceptible to human investigation because it takes place immediately between the soul and God: direct speech as it were between a human being in relationship with a divine being. Just as intimately as a husband and wife making love, so too the intimacy of the soul with God is beyond description and explanation. Yet the reality of it is so real that it is more real than anything the senses can provide. Just as we know we exist, and cannot question it, so too, we who have been touched by God know that He is and can no more doubt his reality than we can doubt our own existence.
What I am saying is the only way to know the truth is to know by encounter the Truth Giver – to know the One who is Truth itself. This God who is self consistent and self-aware has the capacity to reveal himself to human beings. He reveals himself as He sees himself so that we can know him in truth. It is the only way to know the truth of the universe: it is the only way to now the reason for existence which is Love: to love and be loved. Love is the reason for the Creation. And no once can know Love until one is known by God, who is Love.
This is our testimony: over the ages, God has revealed himself to mankind, and the Bible is the written record of those encounters between humanity and God. Whether that be revelation of words, or signs and wonders and miraculous deeds, or the sweet counsel of meditation and understanding, or the songs and psalms of love and adoration – these are the records of that human and divine marriage. Finally, what God has done, since Love cannot be revealed by a formula, or explained by philosophy, or reasoned with by logic, God came himself in human flesh to show what love looks like and acts like. There is “no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” God came among us, and walked in human flesh, to show what perfect love looks like. He came as Jesus, but politicians, the greedy, and those with selfish interests put him to death. Yet he loved us so much, he died for us. He died so that he could impart that love to us by his Spirit when he rose from the dead and breathed on us new life.
If you want to know the truth and to know God, there is only one way: to experience Jesus personally and for yourself through the revelation of God’s own nature to your soul. Ask for it and you will receive, because he longs to have fellowship with you, but is only waiting on your permission to accept his invitation.
Atheism is a faith just like any other faith. It is founded on a belief, not on fact or science. The word “atheism” means “no belief.” However, atheists actually do believe; it is just that they believe in “nothing.” They believe that there is no God. In spite of all their claims to the contrary, atheists must still rely upon the same resources for their convictions as do all other believers: namely, their faith. The only difference is their faith is directed towards nothing. They believe there is no “thing” out there. No God. No supernatural. No Devil. No purpose or meaning to life. Yet, they are no more rational in their beliefs than Christians are in theirs. The atheist’s lack of belief in God is simply an article of faith.
The problem atheists face is that you cannot prove that “nothing” exists. Nothing is the “absence” of some-thing. It isn’t a thing. It isn’t there, so you can’t show it. You cannot prove “nothing” is true. At most, you may find nothing where you are looking, but it does not mean there isn’t that thing somewhere else! For the same reason, you cannot prove the non-existence of God, because then you’d be trying to prove that “nothing” exists, which can’t be done. In fact, even to be an atheist and believe that God isn’t, you must first assume that God is, or you have nothing to not believe in! So, the idea of God’s existence is necessary in order for anyone to not believe in him. Atheists need God to have a faith that there is no God.
By all traditional definitions, God is not material. He can’t be tasted, touched, seen, or felt. He can’t be measured or put under a microscope. You cannot subject him to the scientific method, because you cannot measure by material science that which is Spirit. God isn’t earth, wind, or fire. He isn’t lightening or gravity or the vacuum of space. So, how on earth could you “prove” that God is not? All you can do is point to what you can see, hear, or feel and say, “that is not God,” or “I don’t see him.” You may speak of what you know, but you cannot really speak of what you do not know. And if you don’t know God, how can you speak about him at all, either for good or ill?
The realm of our experience is so limited and finite, all we could hope to say with any certainty is: “I haven’t experienced God.” But just because we haven’t experienced God does not mean he does not exist. We are not omniscient or omnipresent, so our experience is limited and tiny. All we know is in our small realm. For us to assert then, that “there is no God” requires a tremendous leap of faith. Maybe it requires even more faith to believe that there is no God than it does to believe that there is one. Listen to the faith of the atheist: “I, from my limited and tiny dot of existence on this small planet, am certain that there is no God. Even though I have not experienced all the vastness of the universe, I am certain I am right because I am so perceptive that I know what the rest of the universe holds.” Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But that is just what the atheist is asserting when he declares that there is no God. My question is always, “How on earth could he know?” The truth is, he can’t. He is acting in faith. If faith is your only evidence, then you might as well believe that He is as believe that He isn’t!
I realize that many people are driven to the conclusion of unbelief because they are grieved over the evils of this world, or the death of loved ones, or by a thousand other causes of private pain. I cannot answer the pain with reasons why. It is beyond me. But the fact God does not put a stop to human freedom or suffering proves nothing about whether he exists or not. At most, we might wonder about his compassion, but his lack of action does not prove his non-existence. For instance, if I choose not to go to work tomorrow, I may be missing from my office and others may not see me, but it doesn’t mean I’ve ceased to exist. In the same way, we cannot prove God’s non-existence by his apparent inaction.
In the Old Testament, the Jews didn’t even have a word for unbelief or doubt. The word they used was lo-Amen, or “no Truth.” A person who doubted or did not believe was a person who lacked the truth. It wasn’t until the Arabs came up with the number zero that we were able to take this nothing, this lack of truth, and make it into a something. A zero is a symbol that represents nothing, but we treat a zero as if it represents something real. A zero represents the absence of something. In the same way, atheism is built upon the zero, and so, we make atheism into something when it is not. It has no reality in itself, but it pretends to be something. It can never be proved and it can never be affirmed. It is the belief in nothing, or, as the Bible says, it is the absence of the truth.
Atheism cannot exist without God, just as a lie cannot exist without the Truth. The only difference, then, between the Christian and the atheist is not their faith, but in what they believe. And Christians have a better ground upon which to stand, for they have encountered the God of the Universe. They base their faith on something, or rather should I say Someone they have experienced; not on something they haven’t. They have heard God speak to them, so their faith is based in unmediated knowledge. How do we hear from this God of the Universe? Well, that’s another story …
Objection 1:
Right. And Easter-Bunny-Atheism cannot exist w/o the Easter Bunny. I love the logic. As long as someone doesn’t believe in Thor, The God of Thunder, he must exist.
As an atheist, I do not believe in nothing. I believe in science, I believe in the laws of nature, I believe in truth, I believe in logic, I believe in common-sense. I believe in reality, not fantasy.
Response:
You believe in Quantum physics even though the actions of electrons violate the laws of cause and effect? That electrons move from shell to shell without passing any point between and without the passage of time? That they appear here and then there without any time in between? You accept that as true even though you cannot experience it nor make sense of it. It defies common sense and Newtonian physics. There is much to reality that is not reducible to human understanding; but that doesn’t mean it is fantasy. It just means the human mind and sense experience cannot grasp it.
The material world, you assert is true, but by definition, the material world is more space than atoms; yet you don’t experience the world as space but as constant friction.
Einstein posited a 5th and 6th dimension that probably makes the narrow experience of our 4 dimensional universe seem quaint. Yet the common sense of natural laws is probably just as limited in terms of reality as Newtonian physics are to Relativity.
Using the Easter Bunny counter-argument is called the logical “fallacy of many questions.” It is committed when someone proposes something that has not been proven or accepted by all the people involved — i.e., a premise is included which is at least as dubious as the proposed conclusion. For example, the statement that walking in the woods alone at night is unwise because fairies are likely to bewitch unsuspecting individuals, presupposes that fairies exist — a dubious proposition.
This fallacy is often used rhetorically, so that the question limits direct replies to those that serve the questioner’s agenda.
My point is that by ignoring the major proposition and alluding to a dubious minor, you are ignoring the first cause to try to make it seem a ridiculous argument by forcing a decision about derivatives. The existence of God has been a major premise throughout the world and philosophy. Fairies are a localized and regional sub-premise.
Whether or not fairies exist is irrelevant because it creates the logical fallacy of the illicit minor and the converse fallacy of accidents. If Fairies exist, it would not prove or disprove the existence of God. If they don’t exist, it would be the same result.
My initial argument relates to the entire metaphysical structure of the universe, and is a major premise. If God, then can we either prove or disprove his existence by material, empirical means. Since, if God, God is not subject to matter but the creator of matter, by what means can you measure that which is infinite and subject it to a finite test?
Most proofs against God are an exercise of hubris. They commit the fallacy of faulty generalization and specifically, the biased sample: “I have not experienced or seen God. He makes no sense to me: Therefore, I conclude, God does not exist.”
The “I” is the problem in the sample. From finite experience, a short life span, and limited knowledge of things beyond even our own planet, and in many cases, our own country or state, a person makes a sweeping generalization about the structure of the entire universe: that God cannot or does not exist. The statistical sampling and the selectivity of the data is too small to be of any value empirically.
A corollary of this approach is also hubristic: If there is a God, I demand that He prove himself to me and show me miracles.
If someone demanded I show up in his office tomorrow to prove I existed, I am not likely to show up on command. I find it completely unnecessary to prove I exist; nor would I want to submit to someone’s arrogant approach to my person. On the other hand, if someone asked for my help because they were truly in need, I am much more likely to come willingly.
Objection 2:
As an atheist, I do not believe in nothing.
Response:
You believe there is no God. Since you are not omniscient and since you cannot prove that God does not exist, you accept it on faith. You believe there is no God. It is an article of faith.
If you were to approach this problem from an empirical standpoint, you cannot devise a test to test your theorem; especially since the proposed nature of God is not material but extra-dimensional. For God to have created a relativistic universe where time and space are bounded dimensions, God would be beyond our causal, Newtonian universe, and the laws of creation would be subject to Him, not the other way around. Even if God were existing in a 5th or 6th dimension posited by Einstein, we have no measurements by which we can encompass those realities or subject them to exhaustive examination. So we cannot know all the facts.
So, rather than believing there is no God, a more rational approach would be agnosticism. Since you do not “know” there is no God, and cannot know that since you are not omniscient, then agnosticism is a more reasoned approach.
Objection 3:
If you counsel me to agnosticism about God, shouldn’t you also at least be agnostic about God Allah and God Vishnu? By your own advice rather than believing there is no Allah or Vishnu, a more reasoned approach to be agnostic about them both, would be appropriate, would it not?
My other question to you is, why would you separate Fairies or Thor by excluding them, contrary to your own advice? Exempting them for reasons of a fallacy looks like a cop out.
Response:
You seek to promote the fallacy of the irrelevant conclusion: instead of arguing the fact in dispute, the arguer seeks to gain his point by diverting attention to some extraneous fact. The fallacies are common in platform oratory, in which the speaker obscures the real issue by appealing to his audience on the grounds of popular sentiment, that since no one believes the Easter Bunny is real [except children], therefore God also must not be real, and therefore, belief in God is as ridiculous as belief in the Easter Bunny. Therefore any argument in favor of agnosticism regarding God must also result in agnosticism about the reality of the Easter Bunny.
The whole argument is specious.
However, once you enter into competing claims of revelation, whether that be Muslim, Hindu, Christian, or otherwise, you are no longer in the realm of empirical verification and you must evaluate the claims by other means. That is another topic.
God is the Axiom: the Unconditioned Ground of Being
Emmanuel Kant wrote of the unconditioned ground of being. The idea that something is infinite means by its very nature that you cannot subject it to the laws of cause and effect, because what is caused is finite, by definition, and not infinite. It is conditioned: dependent upon something else for its existence.
In morality, he wrote that you cannot provide an ulterior motive to make someone value the good. It must be valued for its own sake. In other words, if you say, you should be good because you will get a reward: money, power, fame, eternal life, etc. then the reason the person does what is good is not because it is good in itself, but because of self-interest. The selfish motivation taints the purity of the reason for the good. So, the idea of the good is axiomatic to morality, and a person ought to want to do the good because it is good in itself and for no other reason.
In the same way, the idea of God is axiomatic. What cause can cause the existence of God? If there is a cause, then by definition, God is not God, but would be created by some other agent. But God, by common definition, is uncreated and infinite. Since the empirical method can ONLY measure things by using the law of cause and effect [things that are created by causes], the very tools by which it attempts to measure, are incapable of measuring God and incapable of proving or disproving the truth of God’s existence. They cannot measure the uncaused Cause of all things. The very means of empiricism would try to subject the infinite to the finite. It would be trying to prove an axiom, which by definition cannot be proved but must be accepted. If one accepts the axiom that God exists, then all else can follow. If one does not, then nothing one says, would prove the case, for the case relies upon the first premise: that God is the uncreated Creator of all things.
Corollary 1. Why Doesn’t God Heal Amputees?
or Why Doesn’t God Do Miracles?
Although there are documented miracles that defy scientific explanation, all the evidence in the world will not be convincing to someone who is so sure they are right that they reject out of hand the idea that miracles are possible. Just as there are none so blind as those who will not see, it is pointless to try and present any of these incidents to someone who is bound and determined to reject them as a possibility. Evidence will have no effect on someone who BELIEVES that miracles don’t exist. You cannot shake a person’s faith who is already set in his beliefs. What is that old line? “Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up.” So, I won’t try to make the case for miracles. I will take the contrary proposition:
So what if there are no miracles? The apparent lack of miracles is not a counter argument to the existence of God. If we follow from the primary argument, that an atheist cannot make an assumption as to the character or nature of God, then it follows that the existence of God is not determined by whether God chooses to act supernaturally or not. If God is not concerned about human life, and is allowing natural selection to be part of the evolutionary process, then healing the sick only allows the weak to continue and undermines the health of the human race. Better to let the weak die off so as to preserve the fittest among men and women.
Again, the idea that God is a loving God who works among men to heal and make whole is the product of a Judeo-Christian worldview, but the atheist has no right to assume these values in making a case for the existence or non-existence of God or of a god. The atheist must consider the possibility that God is not involved in the day to day affairs of such small and insignificant creatures on this dust ball planet. And therefore, if God is such as this, there is no reason to assume he would be doing miracles on this earth, and if not, the lack of miracles says nothing about the existence of God. God can exist and not do miracles because he has no desire to do miracles. The lack of miracles is not a positive evidence against the existence of God. It is an argument from silence and uses the unspoken assumption that God must be such and such as the Christians describe.
The primary evidence for miracles is perhaps life itself, whether evolutionary or not. The improbability of spontaneous creation of life has led even noted atheists such as Richard Dawkins posit that life was created on earth by an alien civilization. The problem with this theory, in terms of logic, is that it is only begging the question. If life was not possible through natural processes here, how could it arise elsewhere in the universe spontaneously?
The conclusion is that these two supposed proofs of the non-existence of God are based upon assumptions as to the nature of who or what God must be like… an assumption based more upon a Judeo-Christian worldview rather than an evolutionary empirical worldview. These arguments fail because they are both:
Argumentum Ad Ignorantiam (“arguing from ignorance”) — A fallacy that occurswhen someone argues that because we don’t know something is true, it must be false, or because we lack proof that a statement is false, it must be true. Ignorance or lack of evidence doesn’t necessarily mean a position or claim is true or false. Common Examples: “No one has ever proven that UFOs exist. Therefore, they don’t exist.” (Something can exist despite the absence of confirmation. Lack of proof is justification for caution or even skepticism, but not dogmatic assertions.) “There is simply no proof that God exists. Therefore, God doesn’t exist.” (God might exist even though there is no way empirically to prove it.)
I used to be an “atheist.” So I know all the in’s and out’s of atheism. I could argue with the best about religion and it’s irrational delusions, about the “proofs” that there is no God, and about how everything can be explained scientifically, and that the idea of God and the need for God are just the products of a primitive worldview. I learned from history how the Church persecuted scientists like Galileo because of perceived threats to religion, and how religious wars were responsible for all the suffering in the world. Evolution showed that all life was accidental but occurred naturally without the need for a divine intervention or creation myth. Yada-yada-yada. Knowing these arguments first hand and believing in them wholeheartedly, I can now say that most atheist arguments are illegitimate, made with bad premises and indefensible assumptions.
I like what Adam Carolla says about being atheist. He wants to be an atheist because he is lazy and he wants to be left alone. He doesn’t understand angry or proselytizing atheists, because they are guilty of doing the very thing they accusing religious people of doing: namely, making a big deal out of religion. In other words, those who are zealous atheists and have an axe to grind have something else going on in their lives that has nothing to do with atheism or religion.
I call this argument the argument of theodicy: If God is exists, why doesn’t he stop or prevent evil, sickness, disaster, and injustice? Since he does not prevent or stop these things, it proves he does not exist.
For an atheist to make this argument, it is usually used against the existence of God, but it really isn’t a valid argument, because the entire premise rests upon Judeo-Christian assumptions about the nature and character of God. In other words, atheists have to assume that God is both good and omnipotent, fair and just. Such an argument would not work against Hindus, who have a manifestation of God as a violent and vengeful goddess named Kali. Nor could it be used against Sunni Islam, because while Allah is called merciful, he is also not bound to any human ethical standards nor required to be consistent in all his ways. For an atheist to make this argument, therefore, he must be assuming that God, if he exists, must be both Good and Just. He is illegitimately using Christian beliefs as the foundation of his argument… which implies he holds some innate, and internal value system that is based upon Christian morality and beliefs. More on that later…
The problem with this premise is that there is no guarantee that God is good or just. From their evolutionary belief system, for example, it could be argued that God is not personally involved or concerned about individual human beings any more than we are concerned about spiders and gnats. From the washout of dinosaurs, it could be interpreted that God or a god is merely experimenting with creation with emotional disinterest. Or it could be argued, as Deists did, that God set it all in motion and then sat back and did not interfere, watching how it all plays out. God could be amused by human suffering and take some perverse pleasure in it, as did the The Gamesters of Triskelion, or the Vorlons and Shadows of Babylon 5. In other words, atheists have no right to raise a moral question regarding the existence of God, because it assumes too much what God must be like. It assumes a Christian worldview.
However, it could be argued that the very need to argue for a just and compassionate, good God is evidence of a moral conscience and a confession of belief in the way things ought to be, if there were justice and goodness in the universe. This anger or disquiet in the atheist’s mind over injustice is perhaps the very best evidence we have for the existence of God. For why should the atheist expect or want this justice unless he or she has some intimation of the way things ought to be and that reality is not conforming to this ideal? It is a sense that things are out of balance, that evil, selfishness, and injustice do indeed prosper, and they ought not to. If an atheist truly believed that there is no God, then he should not be bothered by the appearance of accident, injustice, sickness or disaster, war or survival of the fittest, because that is just the way things are in an evolutionary and accidental universe. In fact, if he does believe in an accidental, evolutionary universe, he or she should not be troubled by the rich taking advantage of the poor, the weak being ruled by the strong, or the smart taking advantage of the simple, because it means the genes of the strong and the intelligent are prospering, while the weak are wasting away.
If one is committed to an evolutionary world view, one should also not be a liberal democrat either, for providing money and services to the poor in the form of charity only increases the weaker elements of the human race to survive, based not upon merit but sloth. By viewing nature, “red in tooth and claw,” the atheist should conclude that power and might rule by natural right, and that we should not interfere with this natural mechanism lest we undermine the evolutionary survival progress.
A true evolutionary belief system would agree instead with Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planed Parenthood. Sanger viewed welfare as a detriment to society because it increased the number of poor blacks and foreigners.
Margaret Sanger Deutsch: Margaret Sanger (* 1879) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“Organized charity (modern welfare) is the symptom of a malignant social disease… increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents, and dependents. My criticism, therefore, is not directed at the ‘failure’ of philanthropy, but rather at its success.”3 The urban poor, and their increasing numbers, she called, “an ever widening margin of biological waste.”4 Welfare, she believed, encouraged the breeding of the poor, or “human waste,” as she called them. She feared that welfare would encourage the urban poor to give birth to those “stocks that are the most detrimental to the future of the race…”5 Therefore, she believed the government should actively encourage the sterilization of those who are unfit to propagate the race, using as her motto: “More (children) from the fit, less from the unfit.”6
What I am saying is that an atheist may have a moral conscience and a sense of right and wrong based upon some assumption of a universal standard, but he has no basis for it in an atheist world view of an accidental universe, guided by the instinctive and unconscious forces of evolutionary mandates. In fact, all morals could be seen, as an impediment to the survival of the fittest and actually be preventing the successful evolutionary process. Take for example a hemophiliac who can survive with drugs, but passes on hemophilia to succeeding generations. Whereas if he were not treated and died without reproducing, the genetic weakness would die out. In this case, charity is actually damaging the health of the human race. Note. I am being purposefully cruel here to show the consequence of true atheistic principles which are diametrically contrary to the compassionate principles of Christianity, and indeed of most other religions.
I argue instead that because such a proposal of heartlessness is revolting even to the majority of atheists, it proves in a sense that atheists don’t really exist (except perhaps psychopathic ones). Atheists, by their general desire and belief in a moral system, and by their frustration with a world that does not display this justice, are in fact confessing a faith in an ultimate moral standard which must be upheld by a universal ethic that can only find its foundation and justification in the existence of a good and just God, who represents the created order as it ought to be, not as it presently is. This innate longing for justice and the good, is indeed evidence of an awareness of the nature and character of God planted in every human being. And while not all humans share a Judeo-Christian set of ethics, all cultures display morals and standards and ethics that are not to be violated by their tribe or community. While atheists may argue that such morals are evidence of the self-preservation of the species and the gene pool, in fact, such morals and standards protect the weak from those who are stronger, and who could take what they wanted by power if not by “right.”
Why then, are atheists angry and mad at the idea of a good and just God? Well, if we take Adam Carolla’s view, the reasons may have more to do with personal issues than with actual objective principles of logic. I know a lot of people who reject faith of any sort due to loss of a loved one, failure to see healing from disease, or accidental death, or the tragedy of crime or war. They have personal loss which they cannot reconcile with the idea of a caring God. Others have political motivations. They hate the moral standards that represent constraints upon behavior, whether that be fidelity in marriage, respect for the life of the unborn, or heterosexual norms. They hate the Christian idea of God, but they would have no reason to hate the Hindu gods, whose morals are more flexible. So really it is Christianity and Christians they hate, and that works towards an ironic form of intolerance. While claiming to be tolerant and asking for tolerance, these same folks often are so intolerant of Christianity that they would like to see them rounded up and killed. The vitriol is everywhere evident on any comment section of any online newspaper.
Yet none of that angry proselytizing, or disappointed sorrow actually becomes a valid argument against the existence of God. It may allow one to question whether God is indeed good or not, but the moral argument fails to prove or disprove the existence of a God who may be totally unconcerned with human existence.
I am working on under an NDA for some software companies doing beta testing. While a team of testers evaluate and work on the products, we keep running into small and inconsistent errors. They aren’t repeatable or reproducible, but they are there. While we clamor for fixes, we are also aware that the employees in charge of development are under product deadlines and under the thumb of the corporate bigwigs, set on getting the product out the door to meet revenue projections. Those macro decisions are considered more important than the minor bugs they can clean up “later” after the product is released, when the entire market becomes a huge beta market!
Facebook has turned a corner and run into a wall. The new Timeline, being forced upon Users and Business Pages alike is a complete disaster. People are screaming mad.
“Timeline is overly complicated and ugly. It looks like Myspace and dozens of other crappy social networking websites that people specifically came to Facebook to AVOID. By forcing this overly complex layout on us it takes away exactly what we all liked most about Facebook. This site was never meant to be a scrap booking website, it is meant to be a social networking site where I can communicate in the most direct and concise format possible. Once that is taken away from us then we really have no further reason to be here.”
My first Facebook business page for a client, UsedGunsPa.com, is set to have people click into the Web Page rather than the Wall. The wall is for ongoing comments, but the web page is a mockup of his regular website. It seems that you can now get to the web page, but you cannot direct your clients to it. Now, if you don’t post every single week, your page starts to look neglected on your Timeline. So, while Facebook forces this new direction on everyone, it will be interesting to see how many businesses give up on FB. I already advised a client today not to bother with FB for now. Other friends and business partners have told me they hate the new model.
But that isn’t the worst part of Facebook. Facebook’s ad policy is very arbitrary. I see ads on FB for rifle scopes and hunting equipment from big advertisers like Cabela’s, and tons of ads for self defense and concealed carry organizations, but when we have tried to advertise accessories like rifle scopes or the new Slide Fire Solutions’ Conversion Kits for AR-15’s, all our ads get shot down. There is no appeal and no one to talk to. It is very arbitrary. The policy actually states:
Ads and Sponsored Stories may not promote firearms, ammunition, paintball guns, bb guns, fireworks, explosives, pepper spray, knives, tasers, or weapons of any kind, including those used for self-defense. Ads and Sponsored Stories may not directly or indirectly link to landing pages where users can purchase any of these products.
What is so hypocritical about this is that Cabela’s website sells rifles, ammo, and other weapons, including knives, but their ads get a pass, while our ads get disapproved. Could it be that the amount of money you are willing and able to spend causes FB to look the other way? And why can we not advertise what is legal: arms for self-defense. After all, it is those arms, and those in the hands of the military, that allow FB the freedom to pursue its business in the first place.
One of my companies uses cloud hosting on ASMALLORANGE.com for 4 websites, three of which are high volume vBulletin sites: IGOTASUBARU.COM, IGOTAEVO.COM, IGOTASTI.COM, and IGOTACOMMUNITY.COM. All of them are offline as I write this piece. Although ASO is trying its best to recover from this disaster, it is costing us thousands of dollars in memberships and vendor fees, because not only will we be down for a couple of days with no explanation to our customers, but when the cloud crashed, it lost ALL of our data. Fortunately, we have full backups 5 days old, so our initial loss will be small, but our service and reputation will have been greatly harmed. We have lost some of our customers and vendors, far more than we will get in recovery from our host company. I will reprint our hosting company’s explanation below. I’d like to find out who their third-party cloud provider is so that I know never to use them.
This failure confirms my suspicions of using the cloud for stored data for its stability and security. If someone hacks the cloud, for example, everything you hold dear is in some off site, universally accessible open-ended cloud.
While ASO has been very apologetic and their tech is working to restore our sites, I am hoping their move to in-house servers will provide us a much safer and secure experience in the future. Another catastrophe like this and we’d have no choice but to find another provider or set up own rack servers.
Because all of our account information was lost, we were fortunate to have done a full backup from our cPanel for each of our vBulletin sites. It is actually easier to restore from scratch with a full backup than partial backups of the customary Home, MySql, and email scripts separately. Now on to the ASO explanation of this failure:
I want to apologize for the lack of updates on this issue – it has taken us a while to fully look at the situation before we had any information to release, much longer than would have hoped.
The cloud storage configuration, which is made up of a 16 disk SANarray, can tolerate one drive failure and continue to operate normally. This automatic failover provides the reliability that has made cloud platforms popular. In last night’s incident, however, the SAN array had two drive failures, which is beyond the tolerance fault level of the system.
Currently, attempts are being made to rebuild the array and regain access to the data, but this is a tedious process due to the nature of the failure and the methods of recovery. At this time, we have no definitive ETA for when this will be completed.
We will update you as soon as we have more definitive information regarding the state of the drives and the array.
The Eclectic Rant 