Spotted in this weekend in Raleigh, North Carolina:
Nope, faith and science clearly aren’t in conflict . . .
h/t: Jennifer Lim & Andrew Berry
Happy Darwin Day from our friends in faith!
February 13, 2011 • 4:18 pm
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
You read it all wrong, they support Lymarckian evolution. 🙂
I get the sense that members of the Victory Baptist Church get a little wet/hard at the thought of others burning for all eternity in hellfire.
JESUS IS DEAD
NOW HE KNOWS NOTHING
Jesus is fictional.
he never knew anything to begin with.
🙂
QFT
Never understood this. I could understand those of a scientific bent arguing that Jesus couldn’t have performed his ‘miracles’. That he wasn’t really the son of God. That he died and then… well, just stayed dead.
What I can’t grasp is why some ‘rationalists’ seem to feel so threatened by the idea that this man existed at all, and so put so much effort into asserting that he didn’t, there’s no proof he did, you’re ridiculous if you believe in him, and so on.
Back then, prophets and chosen ones were ten a sestercius. It seems far less rational to argue that one of them couldn’t possibly have been a Jew called Jesus (or local equivalent) preaching about the meek inheriting the Earth.
There are scholars who think that there wasn’t a single historical Jesus or that Jesus was created from whole cloth later on probably by Paul. It’s not an indefensible position.
The best argument I’ve heard for a historical Jesus is the argument from embarrassment. It goes like this. The messiah needed to be born in Bethlehem, so the nativity stories come up with a most likely ahistorical census to get a Nazarene family to Bethlehem for Jesus’ birth. If the historical Jesus never existed the Gospel writers probably would have just had him born to a family that lived in Bethlehem, but it appears that people knew that his family lived in Nazareth so an explanation was necessary to make him fit the messianic prophecies. It’s obviously not an ironclad argument, but it makes sense to me.
I thought the most recent text research on this suggested that there was no town called Nazareth; that Nazerene referred to one of the numerous cult extant at the time…
Why do you assume people who say Jesus didn’t exist say it because they feel threatened? Maybe they have good historical arguments. You should ask them.
The problem is that there’s no theory that can even pretend to account for all the evidence except the one that Jesus is entirely a mythical fabrication — indistinguishable from all the other pagan gods of that era.
Go through everything the early Christians wrote, and, though they can’t agree on even the most trivial of details, they all agree that Jesus was the biggest thing to happen not just to Jerusalem, but to the whole world.
Go through all the documentary and archaeological evidence from the period, and there isn’t even a trace of a hint of anything that could remotely be mistraken for Jesus. That includes the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo of Alexandria, Pliny the Elder, the Roman Satirists, and on and on and on.
Did I mention? Even according to the most unrealistically optimistic of Christian scholars, nobody wrote a word about Jesus until at least a generation after it was all supposed to have happened, and the “authoritative” “biographies” were penned more than an average lifetime later — not until after decades of unrest with Rome that ended with a devastating war.
It’s hardly a controversial position, either. No less a figure than Justin Martyr devoted page after page equating Jesus in explicit detail with his pagan counterparts; read what he wrote about the “Sons of Jupiter,” and the obvious and inevitable conclusion is that there’s not a single original element in Jesus’s story other than the geography. It was all unashamedly copied, wholesale, from the other gods of the region.
And that itself is exactly what one would expect; it’s how those gods themselves were created. Scholars who lived centuries before the invention of Christianity had already identified Osiris and Dionysus as having been created in exactly that fashion. Serapis was created like that in the intervening time in a well-documented manner. And, if there’s one foundational myth that the Jesus myth draws upon more than any other, it’s Osiris / Dionysus.
So, if academics of the time knew that the ancient stories that the Christians stole from wholesale were made up, what makes you think that, alone of all the gods, Jesus was real and based on historical events and people?
Cheers,
b&
This Sons of Jupiter theory of yours seems to be just that, a theory of yours. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else suggest that what Justin Martyr wrote demonstrated that much of the material of the NT was copied “wholesale” from surrounding available myths. If you read what he wrote, and I’m assuming you have, he’s making an apologetic argument (one that wouldn’t be well accepted today) that because there are some pagans who have some ideas that aren’t all that different from Christian beliefs, you shouldn’t feel that it is impossible to believe what Christians believe.
<snort />
I suppose you also agree with Martyr that the reason all those Pagan myths are indistinguishable from the Christian ones is because of time-travelling demons who were on a mission to discredit Jesus before his arrival by planting those stories?
Grow up.
Cheers,
b&
Plus a demon that was sent back to kill him as a child, and stopped by a reprogrammed demon resembling Ahnold?
Theology must have been much more entertaining back then.
“some ‘rationalists’ seem to feel so threatened by the idea that this man existed at all … you’re ridiculous if you believe in him”
Here is the One True God’s truth of what Jesus knows in heaven:
Jesus is not fit to intercede with God on your behalf—he will tell you to seek Muhammad. And because Christians will burn in hell for asserting that God is three, they need intersession from Muhammad.
It’s God’s word.
penn – theory of embarrassment: There may be something in that, too.
jose: Heard the arguments before (it’s not the first time I’ve tried to make this point), but got a good overview again from Ben Goren, thanks.
As to why I assume they feel threatened, it’s because they always make a point of dismissing the idea that Jesus – whoever he was – might have existed in some form, in favour of the hypothesis that there can have been no historical figure on which the subsequent mythology was based. If they just weren’t that interested, I’d expect less effort.
Meh. I sometimes imagine people in a couple of thousand years having the same arguments about Elvis.
Ben Goren: You assume I think that Jesus, “alone of all the gods”, was real and based on historical events. Well, putting aside the paganism that leads me to acknowledge quite a number of the gods you refer to, I don’t pretend to know whether Jesus existed or not. My point is that his existence as a man doesn’t seem too implausible; yet it’s often denied flat out, and I wonder on what basis. You put him alone amongst all the gods – what about just one amongst countless preachers?
stvs:
“It’s God’s word.”
And since I don’t believe in that particular god: thanks, but it’s not relevant to me. Good luck to you, though.
If they just weren’t that interested, I’d expect less effort.
*scrolls up to the post you originally responded to*
It’s all of 2 lines.
not much of an effort.
your thesis is in tatters.
“since I don’t believe in that particular god: thanks, but it’s not relevant to me”
I hope you understand that facts are true whether you believe them or not.
When God tortures you forever for saying that He is three, how is that not relevant to you?
How old is the Earth? How old is the universe? How do you know?
No, they (we) dismiss the idea of a historical Jesus because quite a lot of research in several fields has been done – and it all points to the conclusion that there was no Jesus. Ben’s done a good job summarizing it here and on other threads. It’s not because we feel threatened, and are trying to stick our heads in the sand.
Do you really suppose that the reason people have undertaken good and bias-free research into the matter is because they feel threatened?
But heck, you know what? Come to think of it, I don’t really have any compunction about admitting that I feel threatened by the myriad assaults on personal liberty and the “pursuit of happiness” entailed by a belief in Jesus.
If by that you mean to indicate that you believe that Osiris, Perseus, Mithras, and the rest were real…then I ain’t got nothin’ for ya, except to suggest that you check yourself into a mental health institution.
If you’re confident that they’re all myths, then about all I can tell you is that all the reasons that people are confident they’re myths apply equally well — in spades, even — to Jesus.
There’s no objective criteria you can apply that would have you conclude that Bacchus was ahistorical that wouldn’t also result in the same conclusion of Jesus, or that could conclude Jesus was real that wouldn’t also have you concluding that Dionysus was real.
The only difference is that the Abrahamic myths still have a large number of adherents, whereas all the rest of the Mediterranean religions have become unpopular over the past several centuries.
Cheers,
b&
Ichthyic: 2 lines is roughly 2 lines more than no lines. I didn’t specify Herculean effort. And it’s not a ‘thesis’ – just something I’ve often wondered about and the impression I get. Particularly with reference to those such as yourself that tend to take a more aggressive, somewhat less civil attitude (no doubt with what they think is plausible justification). You’re the only one so far who’s employed the ‘…or STFU’ argument.
stvs: Sure, I realise that facts are facts regardless of belief. But here I have to side with the antis: if you want me to accept your belief as fact then you have to provide me with reason. I will defend your freedom to believe and express your belief because I contest the common, simplistic claims that religion is automatically and universally dangerous, abusive and/or indicative of illness. But I’m not universally tolerant: contrary to appearances I do in fact strongly oppose attempts to impose religious belief. If your God wanted me to believe, I would believe. The idea that God would require human assistance to get His message across is ridiculous, and insulting to God. If He exists, then He has a different plan for me, and you are in no position to contradict Him.
JS1685: That, I think, is the problem. In their determination to deny the *belief system* based on this character, some people just tend to go a little further than the facts can rightly take them. I’ve heard and accept all the comparisons between Jesus and Mithras, and so on, and it’s true: he might well be entirely mythical. My only point is that there’s no real reason for anyone to pin all their objections on that assertion, when he might have been just one preacher amongst many at the time.
Ben Goren: I don’t profess belief in the gods as anything other than the forces at work in the world we live in. It’s purely a question of perception. I don’t know how the universe came to be – I heard that Stephen Hawking (a man I have enormous respect for) said recently, as he’d hinted before, that gravity essentially created itself. I tend to file that under ‘no idea’ and wait for an update. But I certainly see no conflict between my paganism and the information that science (as far as I understand it) is giving me. I suppose you might call it a sort of poly-deism, if you like. The universe is what it is, whatever has caused it.
And yes, you’re right: Jesus the Son of God, sacrificed to redeem human sin, offering salvation and eternal life at God’s side? I think he’s entirely mythical. Jesus the Jewish preacher guy? I just don’t know, but I see no reason to exclude the possibility.
Tiro, the reason to reject “Jesus the Jewish preacher guy” is twofold.
First, there’s not one piece of positive evidence supporting such a theory; second, all the extant evidence contradicts it.
I’ve yet to find a single orthodox or heretical ancient Christian document in which the concept of Jesus as a mere mortal would have been anything other than the utmost blasphemy. Indeed, in many of them, even taking on physical form would be antithetical to all Jesus stood for. In the more down-to-earth ones, such as the Fab Four Gospels, there’s nothing left if you strip out all the fantastical or spectacularly public stuff. Literally nothing — take away the supernatural stuff like the virgin birth and the zombies, and you’re left with the sermons and the trial; the sermons were preached in front of huge crowds that we know weren’t there, and the trial was a monumental miscarriage of justice we know didn’t happen. At that point, there’s nothing left.
In short, Jesus is nothing if he didn’t tower over the sociopolitical landscape, and we know he didn’t tower over the sociopolitical landscape. The conclusion of the syllogism is left as an exercise for the reader.
Cheers,
b&
I find it interesting that they say it’s “a lie” as opposed to “wrong,” “untrue,” “unfounded” or something similar. It’s a pretty adversarial comment.
It was written by an imbecile. If evolution were a lie, then Darwin would already know.
I see your point – it doesn’t make sense. Unless of course it was Satan that gave him the idea…
Darwin is burning in hell so Satan would have to tell him the truth, and truth-telling isn’t satan’s strong suit.
On the other hand, God could be the liar to test Darwin’s faith—a test Darwin failed. And as before, Darwin would nnot be privy to the truth while roasting in the flames.
This sign is FAIL no matter how you turn it.
“Conspiracy theory” crazy often goes hand in hand with “religious” crazy. Indeed, the two crazies are cut from the same cloth.
Darwin invented, and every subsequent atheist perpetuates, the Lie of Evolution. The LoE is somehow supposed to garner us power, ruin everybody’s life, and further the Atheist/Liberal Agenda in general.
damnit!
I worked so hard to perpetuate the LoE myself!
why hasn’t it worked?
I am not emperor of the world.
Jeezis, how squalid – stupidity, venom, ignorance, dishonesty and Schadenfreude all mixed together in one short vomit of words.
Nicely summarised. Does the Victory Baptist Church distance itself from the Westboro Baptist Church, I wonder, with its website image of Matthew Sheperd burning in Hell? Or is Victory’s Schadenfreude acceptable because Darwin’s mother is not still alive?
Of course it becomes perfectly understandable when you remember it’s all the fault of the gnu atheists.
I’m so glad those nice liberal christians will speak out against this…
I don’t think Victory Baptist is on speaking terms with liberal Christians. The latter after all support evolution, female ministers, gay ministers, non-literal views of the Bible (Victory almost certainly has non-literal views of some portions of the Bible [you have to to reconcile some of the contradictions] but they probably won’t admit it), possibly are universalists (everyone saved), etc.. However the liberal Christians I know seem to be careful to draw the differences between their views and those of Victory Baptist.
When it comes to strutting their ignorance, Baptists seem to have few peers.
It shows how bad it has become then, that the Rethuglican Presidential Candidate for the last election officially changed his religion to Southern Baptist before the primaries, eh?
no kidding.
McCain actually changed his religion from Episcopalian to Southern Baptist before the last election.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012085.php
When you see politicians needing to actually change their official religion in order to court votes, there is a BIG problem.
Wow! (Thanx!) Somehow I missed that at the time.
what’s even sadder, is that McCain himself recognized the reliance on the religious right was a BIG problem for the republican party, and made mention of it specifically when he ran for nomination in 2000.
It cost him the nomination.
He “wised up” for his second attempt.
In fact, it was one of the things that really convinced me I was doing the right thing saying goodbye to the US.
the neocon strategy of manipulating the religious right into a republican voting block in the 70’s and 80’s has now officially backfired in the new century.
the republicans can’t get elected WITHOUT them now, and they have given 2 generations of utter morons the idea that their inanity has political and societal value.
there’s no ideological way to change it now, and McCain sadly had to realize this himself.
the only way is to slowly let these people lose influence over the next 50 years or so.
I myself was not willing to wait.
fucking stupid ass politicians.
Stay classy, Victory Baptist Church!!
And, for some reason, I just spent two minutes trying to decipher the “logic” of this message (i.e. So God told Darwin that it’s a lie? But, wait… according to their logic, wouldn’t Darwin be in Hell with Basement Cat? If so, then who told him? Wtf??)
Those are two minutes I will never get back.
Satan passed on the memo. Satan is evil enough to do God’s dirty work.
Have they not caught on that the whole God/Satan thing is the original Good Cop/Bad Cop routine?
Clearly the Victory Baptist church needs to have a visit by a few accomodationalists to set them straight on their faith, as they obviously have got the nuance wrong.
Yes, the accommdationists can tell them how their view is naïve, not what real Christians believe.
The struggle to make themselves believe.
Is that a snake draped over the cross?
It wouldn’t surprise me.
that area probably has some pentecostal influence.
http://www.suite101.com/content/serpent-handling-pentecost-christians-a213121
..but I think it’s something else, anyway.
something about ribbons on a cross rings a bell, but I can’t quite recall…
I think the red ribbon is supposed to symbolize how Christ “sacrificed” by shedding his blood on the cross.
*shrug*
Wait. Didn’t Darwin have a deathbed conversion? (Actually nobody claims that anymore. Sometime in the 20th century, they realized that, if they continued to push that myth, they wouldn’t be able to spit on the man’s grave, which had become very important to them.)
I have a lot of heavily faith-drenched friends and I thought the likes of Ken Miller might help show them that they could accept science and retain their faith. Over the past ~2 yrs. reading your blog website, I’ve come to agree that science and faith simply aren’t compatible. I mean, yes you can study the habitat use of species X (for example) without really having to see the conflict, but in general, I think you’re right on this point.
unfortunately, all examples like Miller and Collins show us is that people are good at compartmentalizing disparate ideas.
they are not any kind of support for the idea that religion and science are compatible epistemologies.
there simply isn’t any support for that, which is why so many of us have rightly come down on the poor rationalizations of the accomodationists.
The TACTICAL accomodationists at least can demonstrate political value to ideas like NOMA, but the REAL accomodationists, the ones who truly think there is compatibility are just nuts.
Anyone wanting to tell Pete what you think of his sign, you can email his dumb ass at pgable@nc.rr.com.
MrLokiNight, who’s having trouble posting, asked me to post the following:
________________________________________
From their www here:
http://victorybaptistchurch.wordpress.com/what-we-believe/
7. We believe that the wages of sin is death, but
the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ
our Lord. We believe that salvation is the gift of
God and it is received by grace through faith it is
not earned.
8. We believe Satan is a fallen angel who leads the
hosts of darkness. We believe he and his demons will
spend eternity in the Lake of Fire along with all
the lost.
9. We believe in the Resurrection of the saved and
we believe in the resurrection of the lost; the
saved unto eternal life and the lost unto eternal
damnation.
10. We believe in the Genesis account of Creation as
a literal, historical account of the direct and
immediate creative acts of God, without the
involvement of any evolutionary process.
###
There is a link on their site to here:
http://www.cbmw.org/About-Us
Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW)
“In 1987, a group of pastors and scholars assembled
to address their concerns over the influence of
feminism not only in our culture but also in
evangelical churches. Because of the widespread
compromise of biblical understanding of manhood and
womanhood and its tragic effects on the home and the
church, these men and women established The Council
on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
In opposition to the growing movement of feminist
egalitarianism they articulated what is now known as
the complementarian position which affirms that men
and women are equal in the image of God, but
maintain complementary differences in role and
function. In the home, men lovingly are to lead
their wives and family as women intelligently are to
submit to the leadership of their husbands. In the
church, while men and women share equally in the
blessings of salvation, some governing and teaching
roles are restricted to men…”
###
“This above all else – to thine own self be true”
From their www here:
http://victorybaptistchurch.wordpress.com/what-we-believe/
7. We believe that the wages of sin is death, but
the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ
our Lord. We believe that salvation is the gift of
God and it is received by grace through faith it is
not earned.
8. We believe Satan is a fallen angel who leads the
hosts of darkness. We believe he and his demons will
spend eternity in the Lake of Fire along with all
the lost.
9. We believe in the Resurrection of the saved and
we believe in the resurrection of the lost; the
saved unto eternal life and the lost unto eternal
damnation.
10. We believe in the Genesis account of Creation as
a literal, historical account of the direct and
immediate creative acts of God, without the
involvement of any evolutionary process.
###
There is a link on their site to here:
http://www.cbmw.org/About-Us
Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW)
“In 1987, a group of pastors and scholars assembled
to address their concerns over the influence of
feminism not only in our culture but also in
evangelical churches. Because of the widespread
compromise of biblical understanding of manhood and
womanhood and its tragic effects on the home and the
church, these men and women established The Council
on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
In opposition to the growing movement of feminist
egalitarianism they articulated what is now known as
the complementarian position which affirms that men
and women are equal in the image of God, but
maintain complementary differences in role and
function. In the home, men lovingly are to lead
their wives and family as women intelligently are to
submit to the leadership of their husbands. In the
church, while men and women share equally in the
blessings of salvation, some governing and teaching
roles are restricted to men…”
###
“This above all else – to thine own self be true”
Wow! That’s a lot of christian for one sitting, it might even be enough for two meals.
Once again I must apologize for my state. Sorry. There are at least some parts that aren’t completely nuts.
Yes. I attended a great Darwin Day at the NC Museum of Science in Raleigh Saturday.
That church is about 20 minutes from the downtown museum.
20 minutes and 200 years.
We even had Richard Dawkins give a lecture at Duke a few months ago too. There is a surprising amount of science in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area, its just that if you drive a few miles in any direction you get right back to the Old South.
Whose lie? No one’s! No one is telling it; it just oozes out of a 4.5 billion year old Earth! Now, you want a lie? A road sign in the northwestern part of Florida on Route 19 states, “The Uninted (sic) States was founded as a christian nation. None of our founders were christian! Darwin just told it like he saw it with contnued apologies to the BELIEVERS in another of the thousands of mythological, stories of semi-literate ancient persons.
“Nope, faith and science clearly aren’t in conflict . . .”
You’re right, they’re not. The problem is that too many right-wing religious nuts feel threatened by science, and too many scientists are willing to indulge them.
Some elements of some religions are contradicted by science. Some religions are built on sand and can’t withstand the pressure of scientific discovery. If you believe that the world was made in six days a few millennia ago and you base your entire worldview on that, you’re going to be pretty fearful of something that comes along and proves that you’ve got it all wrong. If that basic tenet is wrong, maybe everything you believe is wrong. Scary.
On the other hand, if you believe that the rules that run the Universe were designed by some higher power for some reason and that you’re a part of that creation – where’s the incompatibility? Right or wrong, the universe ends up being the same for all practical purposes.
What you have here in the photo you’ve posted here is some spiteful, prideful ‘community’ full of their own self-righteousness and – crucially – willing to ignore *their own holy text* which says that pride is a sin. Anyone’d get confused over what religion is if they use people like this as a benchmark.
“On the other hand, if you believe that the rules that run the Universe were designed by some higher power for some reason and that you’re a part of that creation – where’s the incompatibility? Right or wrong, the universe ends up being the same for all practical purposes.”
The religion you described there is deism. While not supported by science it at least doesn’t contradict science and doesn’t ask for special instances where the laws of nature are suspended to allow for miracles specific for one religion.
This type of ‘religion’ is usually excluded from the anti-accomodationist claim of ‘incompatibility’ – which generally relates to theism (with it’s personal God who frequently intervenes with nature)
Sigmund & Insightful Ape: Deism as I understand it is the belief that God was, but is now the Universe. But yes, that’s one example. As a pagan I may be biased, but really, just about any religion that’s based on an divinity immanent in nature, rather than a transcendent one watching and directly controlling events on Earth would seem to have little trouble with science. By definition in such cases, what nature is, ‘God’ is. Incompatibility is not actually possible.
But yes, I’m aware of the tendency to make non-conflicting religions ‘not count’ somehow. It’s unfortunate.
Kismet: You don’t know – but that’s what religion’s about. It’s not something you measure and analyse: it’s something you feel. Like love, or beauty, or art, all those other unscientific things.
As for compatibility with a rational or scientific mindset, well, I guess the only question there is whether a scientist’s deism (or something similar) is on its own enough to dismiss their work.
(Incidentally, I don’t think it’s a tenet of deism that everything was “created for us”, is it? Or “for some reason”, aside from that the ‘creator’ wanted to do it. I may be wrong.)
Ichthyic: Indulge them with arguments. Creationists in particular see this as giving them legitimacy.
It is not that compatible religions are undercounted. Reality is, they are an endangered species.
As Dawkins once said, there are some religions that don’t have miracles, but they don’t have large congregations.
The only religion not in conflict with science (an it happens to be what Tiro is describing) is deism. Except that it is not considered a religion at all by many people.
But even deism still seems so god damn naive (how do you know?), egocentric (“all created for us/for some reason”) and unparsimonious.
I would be hard pressed to call it compatible with a scientific or rational mindset.
A scientist would be more or less agnostic towards a deistic god.
The problem is that too many right-wing religious nuts feel threatened by science, and too many scientists are willing to indulge them.
willing to indulge them?
with what?
specific examples of indulgences, please.
or STFU
So in other words, faith and science aren’t in conflict, because this is bad faith anyway.
And just what makes something good or bad faith? Their comparative compatibility with science! All those people who actually use The Bible to inform their worldview are doing religion wrong.
Where are the Rosenaus and Matzkes in this thread ?
I find this more comical than offensive.
Also, I wonder what would happen to this church if it was pointed out that they carried the name of a Roman goddess?
(I wondered the same about Mars Hill…)
Okay, I’m going to stop spamming your comments page now, sorry. :o)
“Nope, faith and science clearly aren’t in conflict . . .”
You fool, Jerry. You should know that this is an example of bad faith. Good faith is where science doesn’t conflict with it, and there’s plenty of scientists who are quotable on this. Because the marker of good faith and bad faith is their scientific compatibility. 😉