Next From Apple

Surely, Steve and his pals must be busy working on this new item. If you'd like to see more zany ideas of what the MacMakers might be up to, go here.

Hugh Hewitt Takes Up This Debate

Hugh Hewitt, syndicated radio talk show host, political pundit, and one of the fathers of blogging, has a 15 week debate taking place on his radio show. Titled "the Great God Debate" with authors Christopher Hitchens and Mark D. Roberts, you can find the audio here for part one. I intend to provide links to the rest later.

In addition, Mark D. Roberts is critiquing specific facts and assumptions of Hitchens' new book, "god Is Not Great," in his blog.

A commentor bring up a variation on a theme long debated:

Hitchens would have us believe that the first century church not only followed a man who never existed, but they constructed from the hearts of fishermen and tax collectors a collection of proverbs and stories that turned the world upside down. If so, then Jesus’ disciples are more clever in death than they were in life and the greatest miracle of all is that those common people not only corporately imagined Jesus’ life, but they went to their deaths by the tens of thousands for their collective dream; for a man who never lived. Hitchens’ contribution to history is his claim that the fire which consumed the Roman Empire was never struck…

Your thoughts?

An Elemental Impulse: Religion Is So Powerful That Even Soviet Antireligious Policy Failed..... by Paul Gabel

The featured article in this week’s eSkeptic is on the Soviet attempt to eradicate religion by fiat out of the Russian people. The attempt failed utterly. The historical experiment carries an important lesson for those who study belief systems in general and religion in particular: you cannot legislate beliefs and faith. Today’s atheists who are emboldened by Richard Dawkins’ Lennonesque clarion call to “imagine no religion” should read this article (and the book on which it is based) carefully, and then try to imagine another solution to the problems caused by religious extremists, for as another evolutionary biologist — Edward O. Wilson — cautioned us in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, On Human Nature:

Skeptics continue to nourish the belief that science and learning will banish religion, which they consider to be no more than a tissue of illusions… Today, scientists and other scholars, organized into learned groups such as the American Humanist Society and Institute on Religion in an Age of Science, support little magazines distributed by subscription and organize campaigns to discredit Christian fundamentalism, astrology, and Immanuel Velikovsky. Their crisply logical salvos, endorsed by whole arrogances of Nobel Laureates, pass like steel-jacketed bullets through fog.

There is, indeed, something deeply elemental about the power of belief.

— Michael Shermer

The article is reprinted in its entirety here It would be nice to have all the comments back here, rather than under the article, itself.

What Do YOU Fear?

One might criticize me for going a bit afield on this post, but I do think it ties into the debate. However, my purpose has a wider scope, so I would appreciate as many comments on this one as possible. You might even want to post the question on your blogs and get me some additional thoughts on the subject.

The list of possible fears is long and varied, everything from public speaking to spiders and such. However, for the purpose of this survey, I'm looking for the big picture. I will list 10 that I can think of that should set the tone. If these are big for you, let me know. If there are other similar things that are bigger for you, add them.

1. The US devolving into a dictatorship
2. The rapture and God's judgment on earth
   
3. Hell
4. Global Warming
5. Islamic extremism creating global conflict
6. Nuclear holocaust
7. Depletion of critical natural resources
8. The US devolving into a socialist government
9. Overpopulation
10. Underpopulation
11. Too few culturally "Western Civilization" in the population
12. Pollution
13. Nuclear power plant catastrophe - or nuclear waste catastrophe
14. Aliens (from outer space)
    
15. Avian flu or similar disease
16. Scientific advance out of control (e.g. genetic engineering, nanobots, robots with AI)

Mouth's of Babes Department

I regret that I cannot link the source on this quote, but it is reported third hand to me that a book of letters written by kids around ten included this idea: "God why do kill things just so you can make more of them."

Could the question of evil be put any more succinctly. Sure, we humans have divided up killing into all kinds of levels of acceptability and cruelty. But a death is a death. Pain is pain. I've been told by countless women that childbirth is like pulling your bottom lip over your head (that might actually have been Bill Cosby.) So God allows evil, torture, lots of pain, horrific bad things happening to children and cute little animals. But the child above may have whittled the issue down to its essential. What say you?

In The Beginning

Like a good lawyer at trial, I would like to give and ask for a few stipulations:

1. Matter exists.
2. Energy exists.
3. Information exists
4. Rules exist
5. Each of these exist at this moment as a result of cause and effect that stretches back either to some point, or to infinity.
6. It is unlikely that we will ever know whether these first causes of each of these exist or if they are infinite.
7. The human mind is incapable of grasping the idea that any of these came from nothing.
8. The human mind is incapable of grasping the idea that the causes of these things are infinite.

Up until this point in this series of observations/stipulations, there is no advantage to either the God or no God side of the debate.

I suspect that one reason folks tend towards theism is that it is easier to imagine a spiritual world as infinite, and the finite world as being created by the spiritual. Some who have blogged on the no God side here have suggested that time began with the big bang, and that prior to this there was no time. This fits perfectly with the concept that in the spiritual realm there is no time, and thus infinity is no longer impossible to consider.

Also, state elsewhere but repeated here as appropriate to this post, it is impossible for us to grasp matter or energy as have a first cause without a spiritual dimension to "create" it, but it is even harder to imagine how information or rules were included in a godless explosion of matter and energy.

Induced Happiness

Several weeks ago I posted on Happiness vs Joy. It didn't result in much discussion (Ok. No one commented.) This was a bit surprising in a blog where 20 comments is the average. At some level the issues of happiness, joy, contentment, anxiety, angst, fear are at the very heart of the human condition. Wired magazine has a brief essay this month which adds a bit of flavor to the issue from the pharm side of things. I recommend this 3 minute read. But here's an excerpt:

From a distance, pleasure without fear or desire sounds pretty good. But in your grasp, it starts to feel less like paradise and more like soma. A species that shuts out adversity does not survive very long in a Darwinian universe. In the short term, humans with happy-making neural implants would cease to be interesting. Quenching feelings of hardship also means never feeling desire or want. Unpleasant as those emotions can be, they're also the basis for ambition and creativity. "Happy people are not ambitious," Greenfield says. "They do not build civilizations."

One could argue that there is no inherent goodness in building civilization, and I have had some commenters on this and other blogs who feel all this need to grow and build is not the best for human kind. The Jesus People certainly would contend that the constant grasping for material improvement is not of God. Many environmentalists clearly would like to see a return to simpler times.

Now enters the age of Pharma. The article points out that we may be on our way to being able to use various drugs or other tools to completely control our moods. We certainly have taken a number of very large steps down that path with various anti-depressants, anti-anxiety products, ADD and ADHD solutions, and "muscle relaxents." On the surface and case-by-case one has a hard time saying to the chronically depressed person, "You'll get over it," when a couple of tiny pills will give them so much peace. But as a species, is this approach wise?

Taking it directly into the God realm, there is a small and shrinking percentage of the Christian community who proclaim the sufficiency of Christ. This is similar to the Christian Scientist Claim of no medical intervention. However, do we begin to see their point as we move down the slippery slope. (Or should we say slippery slopes...eg. designer babies, gene alteration, or enhancement drugs.) Should we draw a line? Where?

The article concludes with this interesting thought:

Maybe it's no coincidence that some of the happy-making stuff is manufactured in those countries. It's reminiscent of the scenario laid out by another prescient thinker, H. G. Wells. In his book The Time Machine, Wells wrote about a world where the happy, indolent elite — the Eloi — are served by industrious outsiders called Morlocks. The Eloi are also the hardworking Morlocks' food. Grim stuff. And also the exact opposite of what Jefferson was trying to tee up for Americans. Maybe he knew that if you have too much happiness, you don't get life and liberty.

The Question of Evil Takes Center Stage

What is the source of evil in the human condition? Can we ever understand it? Is it possible to eliminate it? Can humans even make a dent in the amount and degree of evil in the world? Many words have been spoken and written on this subject in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech incident. A new book is out on the subject by Phillip Zimbardo, who is famous for his work on the Stanford Prison Experiment, titled "The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil." Allow me a few random scribbles. Then it's your turn.

1. Every single human has done evil things. Christians claim one exception, Jesus.

2. Zimbardo believes that we are almost all capable of significant evil given opportunity, peer pressure, and an certain conditions conducive to the dehumanization of the victims. He also believes there will be some "heroes" that will attempt to undermine such evil, but doubts that they are necessarily endowed with some special "character" that causes this.

3. Some amount of evil seems to be at the hands of individuals who are chemically, hormonally, psychologically, or socially imbalanced. Are we all at least somewhat damaged in this way, and thus inclined to evil?

4. Some evil seems to grow out of the "frog in the kettle" syndrome. This is where the frog is put in a kettle of cold water and the heat is slowly turned up. The incremental increase is such that the frog adjusts and doesn't try to get out. Eventually it kills him. (I've heard that his cannot be proved experimentally.) However it has become a metaphor for the idea of becoming desensitized to messages or images that would have earlier caused revulsion.

5. Desperation can create inappropriate acts. Sometimes we are more inclined to give folks a pass if they seem to be acting out of fear of great loss. However, I think we can find cases where what may have started out as a response to desperation may mature into something more evil or even abjectly evil.

6. A quest for seemingly appropriate ends can provide justification for evil acts...the ends justify the means.

7. Then there is normal human drives that probably produce the most evil on a day-to-day basis. The desire to be liked or loved, admired or even revered; the desire to accumulate wealth, power, or prestige; the fear of loneliness, deprivation, or pain. The evils may start out small in type or degree, but then increase in small steps like drips in a basin. Or the type of evil may be of the type that always needs a newer or greater dose.

OK, enough from me. Add to the list. Challenge the ones listed. Apply it to the blog subject. Offer solutions.

Einstein - Relativity

In reading a review of two new books on Einstein this morning, I had this odd thought. Under the theory of relativity we are able to study the light coming to our planet which bears images of billions of years past. Currently some scientists claim that we are able to see to approximately 500,000 years after the big bang. So with that set up, here is the question: If the entire universe was compacted into this little ball of matter and energy prior to the big bang, at some point there will be no light for the telescopes to see. If there was something prior to the big bang, and it gave off light, will we be able to see past the point of no light to the place where there was light?

Practical Advantages - Health and Well Being

One subject regarding the question of how belief effects daily living has received a fair amount of scientific scrutiny, health and well being. The LA Times has an article in the religion section of today's paper that discusses a newly published study. Here is an excerpt:

A nationwide study released earlier this month found that 85% of 1,144 physicians surveyed believe that religion and spirituality have a positive influence on a patient's health.

"They believe they will do better if God is on their side," said Robertson, chief heart surgeon at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica.

The study, published in Archives of Internal Medicine, found that only 1% of the respondents said religion can have a negative effect on health. Two percent said that religion had no effect, and 12% said positive and negative effects were equal.

The study, which touched on a variety of subjects, also asked whether doctors believed that God or another supernatural being "ever intervenes in patients' health." Fifty-four percent said yes. Twenty-eight percent said no, and 18% were undecided.

Once again, I don't propose that this proves there is a God, and the study appears to be pretty much type-of-god-neutral. And I wouldn't suggest to a non-believer: "Wanna be healthier and have more people show up when your in the hospital? Well, choose Jesus!" It is just one more thing. Maybe 1% of how the decision process might work, keeping believers in the fold. In most cases, it might not even be a conscious idea, merely an underlying understanding.

Practical Advantage of Belief - Unconditional Love of God

From the earliest age we teach the song "Jesus Loves Me" to our kids. Later, it is "Jesus Loves the Little Children." God knows that he has built into each one of us a need to be loved. But when that love is based on conditions, it turns into something that drives us to behave in ways that we think will cause others to love us. These “ways” can be very distructive. Maybe I feel that my Mom will only love me if I perform well in school. That would seem like a good thing. Until I fail, that is. Or until I fail to meet what I believe are her expectations. Now I’m living my life for her, not for me.

Lets say that I believe that God’s love is conditional. How better to live my life than to be constantly comparing what I do to what Ithink God wants me to do? Then I fail, and I will. I think that God’s love is withdrawn. How do I recover from that? Strive harder? Work harder? Or give up in despair? The Biblical God doesn’t intend that. He definitely wants us to work hard and do as he has so instructed us for our own good, not His good. He wants to be there to lift us up when we fail, not abandon us. The knowledge that God will be there, NO MATTER WHAT, even if everyone else has forsaken us, is a phenomenal comfort. If we truly trust in that one thing, it will carry us through much that we might otherwise become self destructive over.

The Golden Rule vs The 2nd Greatest Commandment

My son hates to use the pooper scooper. He says it makes him gag. Under the golden rule, since I wouldn't want someone to make me do a chore that makes me gag, I should find another way to get this done. Under the "Kit" variation of the golden rule, do unto others as you believe they would have you do unto them (I hope I got that right), it would be real obvious that I should not have him pick up the poop.

Under the 2nd greatest commandment, love others as you love yourself, I will take into consideration the need to teach my son to be disciplined (as explained elsewhere in the Bible), and to handle adversity and to not be anxious about it. He would not have any issue with doing the chore, because he would know that he is to obey me out of love and respect.

I bring all of this up, because some who comment here and elsewhere from the non-believer point of view believe that the golden rule covers it all, and that since this concept is found in other religions that predate Christianity, then the Bible isn't special. The 2nd greatest commandment is not the same, by a longshot, as the golden rule.

Let's Take A Poll - All Who Believe Say, "Amen"

A while back, we spent some time on the issue of consensus, and I made it clear that I am not terribly persuaded by the fact that most or many scientists say this or that. However, the folks who create the news, politicians, lawyers, and others can hardly speak without inserting the latest poll. We are supposed to be especially impressed if 100 Nobel Peace Prize winners agree on something. (Like, when was the last person who ever voted Republican given a Nobel?)

This issue has been coming up fairly frequently in this blog, and I wanted to try and get some kind of understanding on the issue.

We use polling in the US to determine a lot of things. Who will make the best POTUS, Senator, Judge, whether a new law is a good idea or not, whether I will get big $$$$ because you broke my car or my arm, and whether or not you go to jail. Then there are the Public Opinion Polls which give us the truth on any number of subjects.

As we search for the "truth" of any proposition we can never be certain of our own perceptions. We might be color blind, tone deaf, or soulless. We can't be totally positive about our experimental results, because we can't be totally certain whether we have considered every variable. We can't be absolutists with regard to our experience, because too frequently my wife remembers it differently. Thus, we poll.

My wife asks three friends about their recollection to prove her point. We ask the others at the table whether the wine was excellent to them. We try and find more witnesses to an event. We get more experts to weigh in with their opinion about where the economy is going, or what happened in Dallas 25 years ago. We do more experiments and we do papers on what the total of all the experiments seem to say. Then we get a panel of scientists to say that this is now the consensus.

Does any of this change the objective truth. No, in my opinion. A well run experiment that seems to point to the truth does not tell us what is true, except for that experiment at that time with what we know in that moment. And we have a laundry list of experiments that seemed to show "truth" that are now overridden by later experiment. The truth is what it is regardless of our experimental attempts to find it.

Just because every human on earth says something is true doesn't change anything. If the truth is something else, all that opinion won't make it different.

But we need some system to try and find truth, even as elusive as truth seems to be. Thus we have various kinds of evidence and ways to measure the usefulness of that evidence. Some of the ways are very strict rules (e.g. hearsay.) Some are more loosely understood to be superior (eye witness v. circumstantial.)

Taking a poll of laypeople or experts is a kind of evidence which helps us to move toward the truth of any subject, in this layperson's opinion. I think if we took a poll, most people would agree with me on this.

Dawkins Can Run, But He Can't Hide

While "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins has been racking up a cool million or so unit sales over the past 30 years (respectable, but not that huge), he has clearly caused more than a million souls to accept some or all of his basic premise: Genes might be the fundamental building blocks of life, and they use various life forms as vehicles to maximize their own future replication. Dawkins goes to great lengths to assure us that this is a mindless pursuit by the genes, but that the genes quite naturally always do that which will accomplish the end of helping them make more little copies of themselves.

In Dawkins' attempt to sell his theory he admitted to needing a very clever title to his book/idea. The selfish gene implies self-awareness and intent, but Dawkins wants us all to be clear that he intends no such implication. Rather the approach is used by him to help us all understand the process, then he wants us to forget the method of teaching, while accepting the ultimate theory or premise. This is all well and good, except for a couple of troubling problems.

#1. Since he uses the anthropomorphising of the gene as his teaching method, he clearly implies that the "vehicles (life forms, including humans)" act in the way that his genes only appear to act. In particular, there is no escaping the conclusion that the self-aware human species which can manifest intent would act in the ways he suggests. If not, then the metaphors would not work as teaching vehicles.

#2. Looking at things through the "eyes of the genes," as he puts it, creates a clear picture for how the vehicles (called "survival machines) they create must act in order to maximize the duplication of the organisms which therefore maximizes the duplication of the genes. That is, short term strategies that are selfish work best.

Dawkins tries very hard in the book to run away from these conclusions, especially since he makes it clear where his politics lie. As a progressive or liberal he has to be in favor of "getting along," or as he stresses "altruistic" behavior. However, he seems to never actually say any act is altruistic, but rather explains that those acts that appear to be so are generally due to ulterior motives. One example includes helping a close kin, so that the genes of the closely related individual can replicate.

In the years following publication, he has tried to stress that many people who read him are just confused by the implications of his work. My sense is that he is too close to it, and just doesn't get it. Whether seen through the eyes of the gene or the survival machines, the best strategy for maximizing lots of children and grandchildren is selfish behavior.

A year after "The Selfish Gene" was published Robert Ringer sold more copies in the first year of his instant hit "Looking Out For #1," than Dawkins has sold to date. Ringer was offering a Dawkins' approach to sales and life in general. Ringer's idea was that we are all self-interested, and we should be, but that commonly our self interest is best expressed by looking out for others.

Ringer was roundly criticized for his title, and very few "got" his message, just like Dawkins. The may both be about how humans act. The question is: what will this message combined with materialistic and naturalistic explanations for life leave us with. I suggest that it leaves not other plan of action than pure selfishness or altruism that is cynical and manipulative.

The final effort by Dawkins to run away from the logical extension of his premise is the use of the prisoner's dilemma. I did original research using this game in my undergraduate work in pscyh, so I'm very familiar with it benefits and shortcomings. This is not a proper forum for explaining the game, if you wish a short primer, go here.

Dawkins uses the game to try and prove mathematically that over many iterations, the biggest winners are those who consistently co-operate and are forgiving. It would take another massive post to show all the holes in this analysis regarding the application to Dawkin's premise, but just consider a few.

1. The prisoner's dilemma is a zero sum game. Life is not.
2. The P/D has only two players, both with intent. Life does not.
3. There is no chance occurrences in P/D. In life, there are many.

Most importantly, the prisoner's dilemma only pays off in money. Dawkins only pays off in replication. We can only hope that your and my neighbors have found more to life than those two issues.

Dawkins - Gene as Demigod

I have received much criticism from forum debaters and blog commenters when arguing science that, "I am out of my league." The idea seems to be that their vastly superior scholarship in the sciences, particularly biology, rend my arguments sophomoric at least. Therefore, I was most pleased to receive a birthday gift from an unexpected source a few weeks ago. Bernardo sent me a copy of Dawkin's, "The Selfish Gene."

The book has been praised by many for being lively and compelling. I am a voracious reader, and my wife will tell you that I almost never fail to complete a book, even if I'm not very impressed. With "Gene" I was pretty excited for about 4 chapters, but had to force myself to continue on, commonly falling asleep mid-sentence.

As I read and reread certain sections, I kept trying to fully form the impression that I was taking out of this work. After completing the book, I Googled reviews and criticisms to see if I could get my arms around my sense of the book. To my surprise I found that my feelings were shared by none other than Stephen Jay Gould. In this essay, John Alcock put it nicely:

Rejecting the usefulness or even coherency of the selfish gene concept, Gould and Lewontin have proposed that the adaptationist programme and sociobiology generates little more than untestable and unfalsifiable speculations about the origins of organismal adaptations, which after Rudyard Kipling’s tale of how the elephant got its trunk they have labelled Just So stories. If this charge where true, then sociobiology would indeed be the pseudo-scientific discipline its critics claim it is.

It seemed to me that Dawkins, having rejected the Biblical God, needed to find some way to explain the complexity and apparent design all around us, in particular within living creatures. He decided the the gene was the creator of complexity by virtue of its desire to self-replicate, and because from time-to-time the self-replication mechanism creates bad copies. The bad copies, under this theory, sometimes were more successful than their producers, thus they became the more dominant replicators, sometimes causing the extinction of the parent gene.

Some scientists believe that the Dawkins approach is simpler than Goddidit. The constant bouncing by Dawkins from examples in nature to "it could have happened this way," to analogies requiring genes to have self awareness and intent, made it absolutely impossible to be believed. I can understand how some, like Dawkins, who are predisposed to naturalism would find this idea compelling. I am not surprised that some, like Gould, have found this approach to be "just so stories."

Sin As Evidence of God

On this Saturday between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday it seems only to appropriate to raised the issue of sin and redemption as evidence of God. Do all men sin? What is sin? Can believers and those who don't believe agree on the what constitutes sin? We could start with 7 of the 10 commandments

1. Don't kill. This is taken to mean don't intentionally kill another human except in some well defined exceptions: Self defense, war, state sanctioned executions of criminals, etc. Jesus later added that the OT definition was to narrow and broadened it to include character assassination.

2. Don't steal. Taking something that doesn't belong to you assumes property rights. Once again this concept requires intention. It is likely that this sin is almost universal in that it would include time, office supplies, and sick days from one's employer. These seem so petty to us today, but should they?

3. Don't bear false witness. Widely misinterpreted to mean don't lie, this commandment has to do with lies that intentionally harm another. Clearly this would not include lying to your wife about whether or not she "looks fat in this outfit." Once again, there are very few of us who can claim to have never gossiped or participated in gossip with the intent to build our self up or tear another down.

4. No adultery. If you are married, you shouldn't have sexual intercourse with another person. Whether married or not you should not have sexual intercourse with a person who is married. The broadest definition would include that no one should have sexual intercourse with someone who is not their spouse.

5. Don't covet. Potentially the most widely forgotten and ignored of the ten commandments, this has to do with envy and materialistic desires. The OT may have intended this to only cover coveting specific things that were owned by your neighbor, but NT broadened the concept. I would suspect that almost every human has even coveted in the OT sense.

6. Don't worship idols. God laid down this commandment in terms of worshipping things (the sun, moon, little wooden statues) ahead of him. The NT has broadened this to deal with the worship of money, people (American idol?), things (1967 red Corvette). Worship might mean such things as bowing down to, singing praises to, making sacrifices to, being enslaved to.

7. Honor father and mother. This one is called the commandment with promise, because it includes a phrase suggesting that if you obey it, your life will be better and longer. I propose that this may have been stated here specifically because of how hard it was and is to obey if the parents seem unworthy of honor. I state this because throughout the first five books of the Bible, God makes clear that all of his commands and rules are designed to increase life's benefits.

I have left out the Sabbath day of rest, since very few have an literal or even figurative tribute to this commandment anymore. It seems like a very, very good idea.

I have left out use of the Lord's name as a curse word. Certainly if one worships something, the use of the worshipped one's name in the form of a curse would seem like sin. For those who didn't worship god "A" using god A's name as a vulgarity might shorten one's life or happiness considerably.

Finally, I have not included the first commandment dealing with worshipping God. However, if God is who He says He is, and we fail to worship Him, this would seem to be a pretty significant sin.

The Bible goes on to say that EVERYONE has sinned. If we were to agree that everyone sins by these or almost any imaginable definition, would this then be evidence that the creator knew of this sin nature, wanted to tell man about how to deal with it, and then offer a redemptive strategy for sin?

Practical Advantage Of Belief - Origins

The issue of where we came from is called origins. Like the other two big questions (purpose of existence and afterlife), it does effect how we conduct ourselves now. If we are just another animal, and the result of relentless biological evolution, where purposeless nature has driven one species to an advantage over others, then we should expect to act in ways that will advance our own gene pool. This might be at the expense of other gene pools, or it might be in cooperation depending on one’s practical view of things. However, we would certainly always be looking over our shoulder at those in other gene pools who may have come to the conclusion that, like a reality TV show, they need to come out on top of our group.

While it would be nice if we could all get along, if our understanding is that it is about natural selection, there will always be those who will ruthlessly pursue an advantage in that game. If we care about our kids and grandkids, should that be our approach to life?

If we were created by the God of eternity, and then he breathed a special spirit into us, we are dramatically differentiated from the other animals. It isn’t about a frontal lobe, an opposing thumb, or self-awareness. It is about having a spiritual dimension, because we were made in the image of God. He created us for a purpose. He wanted to love us, and to be an object of worship by us. Not because he needed to love or be worshipped. However, he wanted to have a relationship with us. And he wanted us to love others, not try and find a gene pool advantage over them.

Evangelism by Atheists and by Christians

One definition of evangelise is to "cause to adopt a new or different faith." In the broadest terms I would propose that this would mean that an unbeliever who encourages a believer to leave the Christian faith in favor of faith in a purposeless, naturalist world is evangelising. I know that this last could be seen as bordering on fighting words, but I don't mean it to be. It is just one more case of trying to take an evenhanded look at the issue. I suggest that in general there is no difference between my effort to convert someone to faith, and an atheist's effort to convert someone to no faith.

On the other hand, I would argue that there are consequential differences. Some of these might even have ethical implications.

I think it can be fairly argued that, at least in America, there are huge benefits to being a Christian. In fact, atheists seem to commonly feel that they are victimized by their minority status in this country: Can't be president, money says God, etc. So, to the extent that being a part of the majority has advantage, being a Christian has at least that one.

In addition, joining something usually has great benefits for humans. It might be Rotary, the PTA, or a book club, but getting together with others who share common ideas, goals, and such is generally good. Joining a church can be said to offer some additional benefits with regard to care and nurture, community sharing of resources, accountability, and a steady flow of teaching on subjects almost 100% of the population would agree are good: love, forgiveness, peace, golden rule, helping the poor. Excellent evidence that church going has benefits is that so many do it.

There are some pretty clear other health and well being aspects to belief in the Christian faith. I won't detail them here, but most of us know what the claims are.

To the extent that an atheist or unbeliever of any kind intentionally attempts to persuade a believer to stop believing and quit his church, these benefits all stop. They might be able, in some cases, to be replaced by Rotary, classes on love, etc., but there is great risk that the end of a person's involvement in church can be detrimental.

Of course, since no one knows or is likely to find out if there really is a Heaven or Hell, the evangelistic atheist also strips that person of his hope of heaven and of heaven itself (if there is one.)

The Christian evangelist, on the other hand, is pretty clear that bringing a person into the fold will imbue them with all the above benefits, plus heaven. If there turns out to be a black void instead of heaven, no one gets hurt.

I almost hate to use the analogy, but it kind of reminds me of the teacher or aunt who decides to take the initiative in telling a 4 year-old that there is no Santa, while the parents were planning on doing so at 8. My fear of using this analogy is obvious, but in the case of Santa, no one suggests there is a real being. In the case of God, many believe He exists, and no one can prove he doesn't. So the person who takes the intiative to destroy faith does so only because, like the teacher or aunt, he thinks it is important to expose the truth (as he or she understands it.)

Whadya think?

My Own Personal Miracle

A major issue that divides believers and those who don't is the issue of miracles. Bernardo has mentioned somewhere here that a miracle to him would be seeing a severed limb miraculously regrow before his eyes. The amazing Randi has offered $1,000,000 to anyone who can prove that a miracle happened (subject to a fair number of restrictions.) What is a miracle? The definition is a bit elusive. Following is a glimpse at something that may not rise to Bernardo's, Randi's, or even the Catholic Church standards, but it strays way outside the bounds of the likely or the expected.

I have an undergrad degree in psych with a specialization in human sexual response. In fact, I almost wrote a book with my professor to debunk "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex." But instead it was off to law school, then into business. I stayed up on sexuality issues, but only as a hobby. : )

23 years later I'm having a little tiff with my wife. I pray for God to show me how to resolve the dispute. Out of the absolute blue, I feel an urging to write a book on teen sexuality. My sense it that this is a directive from God. It is Sept 1992. I have written 3 bicycle industry books, and just finished my first national book on business. It is counterproductive to the writing side of my career to do this book. More business books would be smarter. And importantly, I have had no inclination, thought, or intention to write a book on this subject before that moment.
My credentials were not really substantial enough to expect anyone to publish such a book.

Part of the prayer suggests an urgency to have this book to market by the next Summer. This means research, write, find a publisher, and go through the normal one year lag from completing the manuscript to the actual publication in less than 10 months.

I begin the research and writing while running by business, taking care of my family, and flogging the other books already on the market. The manuscript is almost complete in March, but Warner Books (my publisher) isn't interested. My agent isn't interested either.

I'm very close to self-publishing the book when I do a live and in-person interview on a local Christian talk radio show for my business book. The host would not normally have even talked about a business book, but did so because he wanted to help out with the future sex book. Most of these interviews are done by phone, and this one could have been, but it was only 40 minutes from my office, so I go.

After my interview, I go to my car and turn the radio to the show so I can hear the next guest. This guest spends the first five minutes of the show explaining that his publisher took his completed manuscript to market in 3 months. This information would have been totally useless and boring to anyone on the planet except me. It is hard to imagine one other person in that audience having any knowledge or interest in how long it takes a manuscript to get to market after it is in galleys.

I called the publisher that afternoon. The receptionist was out, so the phone was answered by none other than the editor-in-chief. We discussed the project. I overnighted a manuscript. The next day he overnighted a contract. This just doesn't happen - ever.

In September the book was published. Sales were very poor. However, I did over 200 radio interviews and three television interviews from that book. One of the TV events was with Geraldo on his old daytime show. I was the expert against bisexuality. That show was repeated 7 times, and likely seen by 15,000,000 or so people. Total number of people who probably heard my main premise about promiscuity through TV, radio, seminars, and reviews - Over 20,000,000.

Just a whole bunch of crazy coincidences? A fluke? Or God intended?

The Reason We Don't Have Miracles on a Regular Basis

A guest post from a comment. See her blog.

I would argue that if something is of value (like a miracle - ed) it is valuable because it is not easy to obtain. Precious jewels would be one example. It takes effort and sometimes costs a life to search for some gems or jewels.

Why would people risk thier life to dive deep in the sea to find a particular pearl in a particular cave that is known to be a trap if the silt is stirred by even a ripple of water? That is beyond me...my husband is the diver not me! Anyway.. there is some payoff at the end, something in the experience that makes it worth it.

I believe that God knows the heart of man. He doesn't jump through hoops. How many miracles would it take? How many supernatural acts would convince the world? Using Israel as an example..even though you gentlemen may not agree that the Exodus and other biblical accounts happened... they were the recipients of many supernatural events and still doubted continually. I do the same thing.

In human relationships, in mine anyway, I don't give very much energy to people who are wanting something from me w/o desiring to give much in return. I will help people if they need it but as far as investing time and energy, I save that for people who I can have fellowship with.

The best way for God to reveal himself, in my opinion, is to wait for a person to truly seek to know him, not what he can do - but his being. After a person is in that place they are ready to really listen and hear. Then he can reveal himself. Like the experience of Moses, God was in the quiet, not the obvious. The real transformation of a person's being is the best revelation of God in the world that I have found.

I did have an experience very similar to Saul's on the road to Damascus but it wasn't quick and I was not seeking for answers, just the being I hoped existed and was about to give up on. Christianity came later.