There's a not so new kid on the block

There's a New Kid On the Block, Thom Stark, So Watch Out Now
By John W. Loftus at 8/15/2010

"Look at the advanced [sic] praise for Thom Stark's book, The Human Faces of God: What Scripture Reveals When It Gets God Wrong (forthcoming with Wipf & Stock Publishers). This is some very good stuff, reminiscient of James Barr's book Beyond Fundamentalism. The only reason evangelicals still exist is because most of them simply do not read. Those who do read don't read works like his. The few who do read works like his don't do so to learn anything. They already have their blinders on from a few years of indoctrination in an evangelical college of their choice. In my opinion when it comes to understanding biblical scholarship the phrase "educated evangelical" is an oxymoron."

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2010/08/theres-new-kid-on-block-thom-stark-so.html

Advance Praise

"Thom Stark’s book, The Human Faces of God, is a refreshing exception. It presents many of the obviously problematic aspects of the Bible – polytheism, human sacrifice, genocide, mistaken eschatological expectations. It breaks no new ground in the historical critical understanding of these problems; Stark’s objective is not to advance new hypotheses, but to focus on the significance of that which has already been established."

http://thomstark.net/?p=1549

Fanaticism

Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.

– George Santayana

Thom Stark does his level-best to emulate Santayana’s definition of a fanatic:

Copan next moves to salvage 2 Kgs 3:4-27, the story of King Mesha’s defeat of the allied forces of Israel, Judah, and Edom.

Mesha is up against a formidable foe and needs a divine boost if he’s going to come out with a victory. So he does what any heroic Israelite would do: he offers a human sacrifice to his deity in exchange for support in battle. But not just any sacrifice. Mesha already knew what Jephthah learned the hard way: deities wanted a real sacrifice. So Mesha sacrificed his firstborn son, heir to the throne, to his god Kemosh.  But we know how the story’s going to end, right? After all, Yahweh had already promised Israel victory over Moab, boasting that it was a mere “trifle,” easy pickings. And Yahweh is the only real God anyway, right? Kemosh isn’t even real. Mesha’s wasting his time, sacrificed his son for nothing. That’s what happens next, right?

And great wrath came upon Israel, so they withdrew from Mesha and returned to their own land.

Oops! Wait a minute. Israel gets a beatdown and retreats? Turns out it wasn’t “easy pickings” like Yahweh said it was going to be? Turns out Elisha the prophet prophesied falsely? Turns out Kemosh is a real god after all? Turns out the narrator of the Bible believes that human sacrifice really works? 

http://thomstark.net/copan/stark_copan-review.pdf

What makes Stark fanatical? Well, what's his aim?

His ostensible aim is to show that Yahweh is morally repugnant. And one way of showing that is to show that Yahweh condones human sacrifice. Indeed, that’s what the chapter (from which I quoted the above) is about.

Consistent with his ostensible aim, you’d expect Stark to cite 2 Kgs 3 to show that Yahweh condones human sacrifice. Yet Stark’s actual argument doesn’t show that.

After all, it doesn’t show the Israelites performing a human sacrifice to successfully elicit Yahweh’s support in their military campaign. Rather, on Stark’s own reading, it shows pagans performing a human sacrifice to successfully elicit the support of Kemosh.

Moreover, it doesn’t show the narrator condoning the action of Mesha. Indeed, the narrator elsewhere condemns human sacrifice (2 Kgs 16:3; 17:7; 21:6).

Mind you, Stark has a habit of explaining away counterevidence by relegating the counterevidence to hypothetical redactors. Classic special pleading.

Instead, Stark raises two tangential objections:

i) Elisha’s prophecy failed.

ii) Human sacrifice really works.

But even if (arguendo), we concede (i-ii), how is that relevant to Stark’s contention that Yahweh is morally repugnant? Suppose human sacrifice works? How does that prove Stark’s contention?

Let’s play along with his reading. It would mean that a pact with the devil sometimes works. That occult practices sometimes work because they do, indeed, get in touch with powerful, malevolent forces.

Even if that’s the case, how does that validate Stark’s indictment of Yahweh? What’s the connection?

Likewise, even if we grant, for the sake of argument, that Elisha was mistaken, how does that make Yahweh morally repugnant? After all, Stark doesn’t think Yahweh ever spoke to Elisha.

And assuming (arguendo) that Elisha was wrong, how does that condone human sacrifice, which is point of the chapter (in Stark’s rambling review)?

Mind you, Stark’s interpretation is dubious. On the face of it, the narrator regards v25 as a fulfillment of v19. So the narrator believes the terms of the oracle were fulfilled. 

Stark is like a rattlesnake that keeps snapping after it’s been decapitated. It doesn’t bite for a reason. That’s a purely reflexive action.

Stark alternatives

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2011/06/richard-hess’s-response-to-thom-stark/

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2011/06/is-god-a-moral-monster-revisited-preliminary-replies-to-thom-stark/

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2011/06/matthew-flannagan’s-interactions-with-thom-stark/

Does Scripture condone child sacrifice?

Thom Stark wrote a longwinded attack (“Is God a Moral Compromiser?” available online) on Paul Copan’s Is God a Moral Monster?

Stark is a “Christian” of the John Spong variety. He’s a theological soul mate of Randal Rauser, who’s often written sympathetically about Stark’s material. I’m going to concentrate on one of Stark’s prooftexts:

After quoting Ezk 20:23-26, Stark says:

Some Israelites were appealing to the law of Moses to justify the institution of child sacrifice. Exod 22:29b says: “The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me.” With good reason, Israelites interpreted this as a command to sacrifice their firstborn children to Yahweh.

Ezekiel admits that Yahweh did in fact command the Israelites in the wilderness to sacrifice “all their firstborn” to him. But Ezekiel reinterprets this as a “bad command”… (89).

Stark’s analysis suffers from multiple confusions:

i) He assumes that Ezekiel is alluding to Exod 22:29. However, that’s not the only passage which uses this type of language. As one commentator points out:

Part of the vocabulary of v26 (“every opening of the womb,” “make over”) echoes the law of the redemption of the firstborn particularly represented in Exod 13:12-13. It ruled that, whereas firstborn male sacrificial animals were to be sacrificed, firstborn sons were to be redeemed with money paid to the sanctuary. L. Allen, Ezekiel 20-48 (Word 1990), 12.

If that’s what Ezekiel is actually alluding to, then that’s hardly a command to perform child sacrifice. Just the opposite: it’s a command to redeem firstborn sons.

ii) But even if Ezekiel is alluding to Exod 22:29, Stark misconstrues that passage. As one commentator explains:

The giving of the firstborn of animal and child to the Lord has already surfaced in Exodus (13:1-2,11-13), and will appear later in 34:19-20. There is one major difference between the data in chap. 22 and that in chaps. 13 and 34. Both chaps. 13 and 34 urge the parent to “redeem” (with a sheep maybe?) every firstborn son (Exod 13:13b; 34:20b). Exod 22:29 omits any reference to the “redemption” of the firstborn son.

In response, I say that the primary emphasis on these two verses is on giving to the Lord the first and best of one’s agricultural and animal products. The statement about the giving of the firstborn son is terse and almost parenthetical. Hence, the data is truncated and is to be “filled in” with the fuller data from chaps. 13 and 34.

Second, there are other passages in the Bible of individuals “given” to the Lord with no mention of their being “redeemed.” For example, when Hannah prayerfully vows, “If you will…give [me] a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life” (1 Sam 1:11), does she mean “sacrifice” the child, or dedicate/hand over the child? Similarly, Num 8:16 refers to the Levites as those “who are to be given wholly to me.” “Wholly given” surely does not mean “sacrificed,” but “dedicated.” V. Hamilton, Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary (Baker 2011), 418-19.

In other words, Exod 22:29 is just a shorthand statement, qualified by other statements of the same kind in the same book.

iii) Stark has Ezekiel deliberately opposing the Mosaic law. Yet Ezekiel revered the authority of the Mosaic law (Ezk 22:26). His indictment of Israel in Ezk 5-6 invokes the curse sanctions in Lev 26. His indictment of Israel in 8:5-18 has its background in the Mosaic prohibitions contained in Exod 20:3-6, Num 33:52, Deut 4:1-20, 5:1-12, and 17:2-5.

iv) Ezekiel is addressing the exilic community. But why were the Jews exiled in the first place? Because they were covenant-breakers. Because they disobeyed the Mosaic law.

And they were exiled, not merely because they disobeyed God’s law. Rather, their disobedience took a specific form. They disobeyed God’s law by defiantly doing the very things which God solemnly forbad. By emulating the abominable practices of their pagan neighbors. That’s the very thing which the Mosaic law forewarned them to studiously avoid (e.g. Lev 18:21, 20:1-6; Deut 12:31, 18:9-13).

Now, on Stark’s interpretation, he has Ezekiel telling the Jews that God banished them, not for disobeying his commands, but for obeying his commands. According to Stark, God originally commanded the Jews to practice child sacrificed, the Jews complied, then God punished them for obeying his command. Of course, that interpretation is utterly nonsensical.

v) As one commentator notes, 

Some interpreters even take 20:26 as implying that Yahweh commanded the Israelites to sacrifice their children to Molech, but it is clear in 16:20-21 that Jerusalem acted against Yahweh's will and express command when, as the folding baby girl turned whore, she slaughtered the children she had borne to Yahweh by making them pass through the fire (the same act of which the people are accused here. H. Hummel, Ezekiel 1-20 (Concordia 2005), 596-97. 

vi) Finally, Stark has a tin ear for Ezekiel’s morbid sarcasm, which he employs for shock value. As one commentator observes:

Ezekiel is being horrendously controversial in this whole chapter, creating a rhetorical parody of Israel’s history in order to highlight its worst side. In a context of such sustained sarcasm and irony, we cannot suddenly take a verse like this as a face-value doctrinal or historical affirmation. C. Wright, The Message of Ezekiel (IVP 2001), 160.

An "extraordinary" achievement

First, I think Thom Stark deserves recognition for his achievement. A three hundred page review of a two hundred page book is an extraordinary thing. I always thought there was an unwritten rule that book reviews should not exceed the length of the books they are reviewing, but Stark has boldly challenged that rule.

http://randalrauser.com/2011/06/reflections-on-the-thom-stark-paul-copan-debate/

How’s that an extraordinary achievement? Nowadays, books are written on computer. It wouldn’t be very hard for Stark to copy/paste a lot of stuff from his book on The Human Faces of God to his review of Copan, with minor editing. Does Rauser imagine Stark did this all from scratch? 

Is Stark a moral compromiser?

I’m going to make two brief observations about Thom Stark’s bitter review of Paul Copan’s book Is God a Moral Monster:

i) For 300+ pages, Stark waxes indignant over Copan and the OT. Yet Stark never bothers to lay the necessary framework for his knee-jerk moralizing. What is the metaphysical basis for Stark’s value-judgments?

ii) Stark automatically appeals to source criticism and redaction criticism to discount evidence that’s inconvenient for his thesis. So he indulges in special pleading. Contrary evidence is outsourced or redacted out of existence. The remaining evidence just so happens to agree with him.  

Orwellian doubletalk

I accept the plenary inspiration of scripture. I accept meticulous superintending divine providential activity as the primary means by which all these human writings were produced and recognized in a single canonical form called God’s authoritative Word which is uniquely authoritative for the community of faith.

http://randalrauser.com/2011/08/on-bible-haters/

A nice specimen of Rauser’s Orwellian doubletalk. For Rauser, “plenary inspiration” includes plenary falsehood. A “fully inspired” Bible that’s full of moral, historical, and scientific errors.

It’s only “inspired” in the sense that all these errors are somehow purposeful errors–according to Rauser’s makeshift explanation.

This is a man who expressed his “gratitude” for the “outstanding” collection of essays in The End of Christianity.  This is a man who praises Thom Stark’s slash-n-burn attack on Scripture.

So what’s the problem? The problem, apparently, is that I interpret the texts differently than Mr. Hayes [sic]. And for that I get called a “Bible-hater”.

i) Even if that were true, to say it’s just a difference of “interpretation” is a standard ruse among theological liberals who deny the inspiration and authority of Scripture. They seek to change Christianity from within. They seek to liberalize the church.

Although they think the Bible is a dangerous, hopelessly antiquated book, they know that it’s more tactically persuasive to recast their opposition in terms of competing “interpretations.”

An open attack on Scripture would provoke opposition. By contrast, if they package the issue as a matter of competing interpretations, that tends to disarm opposition. It doesn’t trigger the same defensive reaction.

ii) However, Rauser is dissembling. This is not a matter of interpretation, and he knows it. Here’s a genuine example of competing interpretations. Richard Hess argues that the “genocidal” passages have been traditionally misconstrued. He takes the position that the apparently sweeping language is idiomatic hyperbole. He also takes the position that sites like Jericho were military compounds staffed by men. Women and children weren’t on site.

We can debate the merits of his position, but he’s presenting an alternative interpretation.

iii) By contrast, that’s not how Rauser has cast the issue. To the contrary, he interprets the “genocidal” passages in the same way they’ve been traditionally understood. From what I’ve read, he’s highly critical of the way in which Copan, Hess, and Matt Flannagan reinterpret the offending passages.

Rauser interprets the offending passages the same way as Thom Stark, Hector Avalos, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens. He admits that the narrator really did attribute these commands to Yahweh. And he thinks these command really are “genocidal” in scope.

For Rauser to belatedly reframe the issue in terms of competing interpretations, then backdate his ex post facto spin as if that’s what he’s been saying all along, is palpable prevarication on his part.

iv) Rauser’s fundamental position doesn’t turn on what the “genocidal” passages mean, but whether they are true. He doesn’t believe that God actually issued those commands, even though the narrator attributes those commands to God.

What is more, he doesn’t believe God issued those commands because he doesn’t believe God is morally capable of issuing those commands.

Since he takes the “axiomatic” position that “genocide” is intrinsically evil, it would be evil of God to command genocide. God would be evil if God commanded an evil deed.

v) This denies the inerrancy of Scripture at a radical level. For on Rauser’s view, Yahweh is an evil God. The OT depicts Yahweh in terms which, if true, make him evil.

And that’s another way of saying Yahweh is a false God. Yahweh couldn’t be the true God if, according to Rauser, Yahweh commands evil (i.e. “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing”).

Now think about that for a moment. One of the central themes in the OT is the revelation of the true God. Restoring the knowledge of the one true God. Worshipping the one true God.

That stands in explicit contrast to idolatry. Worshipping false gods. Throughout the OT you have a running antithesis between Yahweh as the one true God over against the pagan pantheon.

However, Rauser is putting Yahweh on the same plane as Dagon or Molech. Rauser is repudiating nothing less than OT theism. The holiness of God over against the unholiness of the Canaanites. They can’t be allowed to coexist.

And in so doing, he is repudiating NT theism as well. Yahweh isn’t merely the God of the OT prophets, but the God of the NT apostles. Jesus acknowledges the God of the OT as truly God. Indeed, Jesus is, himself, the God of the OT.

vi) Rauser is the modern counterpart to false prophets like Zedekiah (1 Kg 22) and Hananniah (Jer 28) who opposed God’s prophets. They tried to discredit God’s prophets. They urged the people to disbelieve the prophets whom God sent in his name.

When Rauser tells people to reject what OT writers say about Yahweh, he’s reprising the classic role of the false prophet.

Incompetent book blurbs

I am not a biblical scholar and am simply not equipped to challenge on historical grounds the reconstruction of the social and political forces which led to the Hebrew canon we recognize today.

http://randalrauser.com/2011/07/one-word-in-many-many-words-a-review-of-thom-stark’s-“human-faces”-part-2/

Should Christianity end? I think not. But unthinking Christianity definitely should. For that reason I am grateful to the authors of this outstanding collection of essays.

https://sites.google.com/site/theendofchristianity/home/blurbs

If Randal Rauser isn’t qualified to evaluate Thom Stark’s attack on Scripture, how is Rauser qualified to endorse The End of Christianity’s attack on Scripture? 

Thom Stark’s Sweeping Claims

http://christmyredeemer.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/thom-starks-sweeping-claims/

King of the munchkins

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KSiyaqnZYs

i) I’m a bit surprised that Carrier has taken so much friendly fire from his fellow infidels (pardon the alliteration). His critics include Joseph Hoffmann, James McGrath, Thom Stark, and Chris Hallquist. Why is he so unpopular among his natural allies? Do they think he’s harming the cause by attacking Ehrman? Do they find his vanity insufferable? Do they bridle at his pretensions to be a Renaissance man?

Whatever the case, Carrier badly miscalculated. It must come as a shock to him to realize how friendless he is. And he’s damaged himself in the process, as his secular critics turn on him and proceed to expose his gaffes.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/hallq/2012/04/24/on-carrier-on-ehrmans-huffpo-piec/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/hallq/2012/04/26/dear-richard-please-admit-you-screwed-up-with-your-review-of-bart-ehrmans-latest-book/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/did-jesus-exist_b_1349544.html

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/03/responding-to-richard-carriers-response-to-bart-ehrman.html

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/04/carrier-and-other-mythicists-reacting-to-ehrman.html

http://religionatthemargins.com/2012/04/the-death-of-richard-carriers-dying-messiah/

http://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/mythtic-pizza-and-cold-cocked-scholars/

ii) To my knowledge, Carrier wasn’t always a mythicist. As such, it’s self-incriminating for him to be so condescending when he attacks those who still reject the very same position he himself used to reject. But Carrier was one of those blinkered individuals who is both dogmatic and double-minded. He’s changed his views on various issues over the years, yet he’s equally dogmatic about whatever position he currently champions. Having been on both sides of this and other issues, the question naturally arises: was he foolish then, or is he foolish now? On second thought, that’s a false dichotomy.

iii) Like other crackpot causes (e.g. 9/11 Truthers), mythism has the lunatic fringe benefit of distinguishing its little coterie from the rest of the rabble.. If Carrier wasn’t a mythicist, he’d  be yet another justly neglected, third-tier militant apostate screaming for attention. But by wearing the Cuban heels of a brave iconoclast, he hopes to stand an inch or two above his fellow munchkins.

Paul Copan on common ground

Second, Christians share common ground with unbelievers, who are likewise made in God's image, which is not erased by the fall. Someone has said, "A person who believes in total depravity can't be all that bad!" Yet in some Reformed circles, the doctrine of total depravity seems to leave no trace of the imago Dei. The Scriptures affirm otherwise (Gen. 9:6), and God can and does speak to unbelievers through reason, beauty, moral failure, and the existence of evil. As a cloud of apologetical witnesses can testify, God has used philosophical arguments for his existence, scientific supports for the universe's beginning (Big Bang) and its fine-tuning, and historical evidences for the resurrection of Jesus to assist people in embracing Christ---just as God uses the preaching of the gospel (Romans 1:16) or the loving character of a Christian community (John 13:35). These are all part of the holistic witness to the reality of God and the gospel, all of which the Spirit of God can use to lead unbelievers to embracing Jesus Christ.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/03/12/questioning-presuppositionalism/

Several problems:

i) No mainstream Reformed theologian thinks the fall effaces the imago Dei.

ii) Copan is using the imago Dei as a cipher to pour in gallons of psychological properties. But I don’t think that’s exegetically sustainable. In Scripture, the category of the imago Dei doesn’t have all that psychological content. Take David Clines’ classic monograph:

http://98.131.162.170//tynbul/library/TynBull_1968_19_03_Clines_ImageOfGodInMan.pdf

iii) Presuppositionalists like John Frame and James Anderson don’t object to deploying a variety of different arguments in Christian apologetics.

iv) Common ground is person-relative. Take the abortive debate between Alvin Plantinga and Daniel Dennett:

http://prosblogion.ektopos.com/archives/2009/02/an-opinionated.html

http://www.apologetics315.com/2009/02/alvin-plantinga-daniel-dennett-debate.html

D. Dennett & A. Plantinga, Science and Religion: Are They Compatible? (OUP 2010).

That went nowhere because Plantinga and Dennett don’t share enough common ground to build a bridge.

v) This brings us to the noetic effects of sin. Depending on where you come down on that issue, you will have different views about the unbeliever. Some professing Christian apologists think it’s rational to be an atheist. An atheist is a sincere truth-seeker. He is arguing in good faith. The problem is insufficient evidence.

But on another view, the impediment is less intellectual than ethical or emotional–less a matter of reason than will (or willfulness). The unbeliever is a rebel. His problem is not a lack of light or enlightenment, but turning his back on the light.

As a result, the unbeliever will try to rig the game. Impose arbitrary rules of evidence to filter out evidence that challenges his unbelief. And this isn’t just theoretical. Some unbelievers are clearly evasive. Try to find common ground with Richard Carrier, Robert Price, Keith Parsons, David Hume, or Ernst Troeltsch.

Or consider the recent debate between Paul Copan, Richard Hess, Thom Stark.  There’s no room for constructive dialogue. No way to advance the argument.

vi) This doesn’t mean apologetic dialogue is futile. Rather, there is no presumption regarding how reasonable or unreasonable any particular unbeliever will be. A Christian apologist will do the best he can, but some unbelievers give him nothing to work with.

vii) The rules of evidence are frequently far from “neutral.” Take methodological naturalism. That’s a prejudicial stipulation. A Christian apologist can’t operate within that framework–and he shouldn’t. That needs to be challenged, not accommodated.

The fine art of shoe-eating

With his permission, I'm posting some correspondence I had with Dr. Richard Hess today.

Dear Dr. Hess,

How do you interpret 2 Kings 3:27? I ask because some reviewers of Paul Copan's Is God/Yahweh a Moral Monster have been critical of how he handled this passage. Here are some concrete examples:

The unity of Scripture

i) Arminians have their prooftexts, and when Calvinists present alternative interpretations, they accuse Calvinists of twisting Scripture. 

One issue is whether we think the Bible is consistent. After all, Calvinists have their prooftexts too. So the question is whether it's proper or improper to seek a consistent interpretation of Scripture. 

Put another way, if you subscribe to the inerrancy of Scripture, then that commits you to pursue a uniform understanding of what Scripture teaches. You try to harmonize Scripture. 

Arminians think Calvinists try to explain away problem passages (problematic for Calvinism), but Calvinists think Arminians try to explain away problem passages (problematic for Arminianism). 

ii) It's difficult to show how a predestinarian interpretation of Scripture is inconsistent. For if predestination is true, then whatever happens is consistent with predestination. That's why it happened the way it did. 

When some people believe the Gospel while others disbelieve the Gospel, Arminians chalk that up to our freedom to do otherwise. But, of course, that reaction is perfectly consistent with predestination. Some (the elect) believe because they were predestined to believe while others (the reprobate) disbelieve because they were predestined to disbelieve. 

When some people keep the faith while others lose their faith, Arminians chalk that up to our freedom to do otherwise. But, once again, that reaction is perfectly consistent with predestination. Some people keep the faith because they were predestined to keep the faith while others lose their faith because they were predestined to lose their faith. 

Arminians like Jerry Walls think it's clever to tell a Calvinist that they were predestined to be Arminian. So what? The Calvinist was predestined to tell the Arminian that his position is false. And God predestined Arminians to play the foil, to better contrast the doctrines of grace with defective theological positions. 

iii) Especially in modern times, we have Arminians who reject the inerrancy of Scripture (e.g. Randal Rauser, Roger Olson, William Abraham, Frank Spina, Robert Wall, Bill Arnold). Of course, that's not confined to Arminians. It's a generic liberal outlook (e.g. Thom Stark, Peter Enns, Kent Sparks, Eric Seibert).

On this view, the Bible is a collection of conflicting theological voices. It reflects theological diversity rather than unity. On this view, you could say Isaiah is predestinarian, Ecclesiastes is deistic, and the Joseph cycle (Gen 37-50) is fatalistic. 

On this view, you could say some books or chapters of Scripture present a pagan view of God. A Zeus-like deity who's finite in knowledge and power. A bipolar God who's prone to violent mood swings. An embodied God. A God who shares much in common with his ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman counterparts. 

iv) Or course, that has it's own problems. On that view, the canon of Scripture is arbitrary. Peter Enns is an OT scholar, yet why does his canon include Genesis, but exclude Babylonian and Egyptian creation myths? Why include Daniel, but exclude 1 Enoch? One can't really appeal to inspiration, for liberals have such a diluted view of inspiration. 

Given their outlook, why is the Bible Scripture but the Koran is not? Or the Upanishads? Why not take the next logical step and embrace full-blown religious pluralism, viz. John Hick, Huston Smith, Mircea Eliade?

Let's consider another example. They take an evolutionary view of the afterlife in Scripture. They think this represents a late development in the OT. And it's tied to an obsolete cosmography of heaven above and the netherworld below. 

But in that case, there's no reason for them to continue believing in the afterlife. This isn't a divine revelation, but a human idea. Wishful thinking. This life is all there is. 

Ethnic cleansing and exobiology

As a starting point, it is helpful to think of ETI as trying to maximize some sort of value function.2 Specifically, they are trying to maximize intrinsic value, which is something that is valuable for its own sake.  Intrinsic value contrasts with extrinsic value, in particular instrumental value, which is valuable because it causes additional value.  One can place intrinsic value on many different things, such as life, ecosystems, happiness, knowledge, or beauty. Human ethics is often anthropocentric in the sense that it places intrinsic value only on human phenomena, such as human life, human happiness, or other human factors.  Such anthropocentrism is selfish on a civilizational scale because it involves humans only placing intrinsic value on the interests of their own civilization.

 

We see two types of scenarios in which ETI might intentionally harm us.  The first scenario involves hostile, selfish ETI that attack us so as to maximize their own success.  This scenario suggests a standard fight-to-win conflict: a war of the worlds.  The second scenario involves ETI that are in no way selfish but instead follow some sort of universalist ethical framework.  ETI might attack us not out of selfishness but instead out of a universalist desire to make the galaxy a better place.

 

Just because an ETI civilization holds universalist ethics does not mean that it would never seek our harm.  This is because ETI may be quite different from us and could conclude that harming us would help maximize whatever they value intrinsically [34]. For example, if ETI place intrinsic value on lives, then perhaps they could bring about more lives by destroying us and using our resources more efficiently for other lives.  Other forms of intrinsic value may cause universalist ETI to seek our harm or destruction as long as more value is produced without us than with us.  Novelist Douglas Adams captures this scenario vividly in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, where ETI place intrinsic value on civic infrastructure (or, more likely, on some consequence of its use) and destroy Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass.  At the heart of these scenarios is the possibility that intrinsic value may be more efficiently produced in our absence.

 

An interesting and important case of universalist ethics in this context is when civilization itself holds intrinsic value.  ETI that support this ethical framework would seek to maximize the total number of civilizations, the diversity of civilizations, or some other property of civilizations.  All else equal, such ETI would specifically wish for our civilization to remain intact.  But all else may not be equal.  It is plausible that such ETI might try to harm or even destroy us in order to maximize the number/diversity/etc. of civilizations.  This could occur if our resources could be used to more efficiently to generate or retain other civilizations, though this possibility seems highly remote given how efficiently tuned humanity is to its environment.  Alternatively, such ETI could seek our harm if they believe that we are a threat to other civilizations...if ETI doubt that our course can be changed, then they may seek to preemptively destroy our civilization in order to protect other civilizations from us.  A preemptive strike would be particularly likely in the early phases of our expansion because a civilization may become increasingly difficult to destroy as it continues to expand.

 

Another recommendation is that humanity should avoid giving off the appearance of being a rapidly expansive civilization.  If an ETI perceives humanity as such, then it may be inclined to attempt a preemptive strike against us so as to prevent us from growing into a threat to the ETI or others in the galaxy.  Similarly, ecosystem-valuing universalist ETI may observe humanity’s ecological destructive tendencies and wipe humanity out in order to preserve the Earth system as a whole.

http://sethbaum.com/ac/2011_ET-Scenarios.pdf

This “scenario analysis” was greeted with much derision when it became public. However, I’d like to examine the analysis from a different angle.

You have infidels like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens who inveigh against the “genocidal” passages of the OT. Loaded words like “ethnic cleansing” are also used. You also have wolfish sheep like Thom Stark and Randal Rauser who copycat the same objections. They assure us that the “genocidal” passages conflict with our fundamental moral intuitions.

However, the “scenario analysis” I just quoted was written by card-carrying secular scientists. They share the same worldview as Hitchens, Dawkins, et al.

And they’re discussing human rights from an exobiological standpoint. Hostile aliens have no moral compunction about committing “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing” against the human species. They don’t share our moral intuition about human rights. And that’s because they aren’t human. Our moral intuitions are anthropocentric or speciesistic. Human rights is anthropocentric or speciesistic.

Put another way, a superior alien species has a godlike view of lower animals like human beings. They view us the way we view chickens.

On this analogy, the Israelites were simply making Canaan a better place. It was a preemptive strike to protect the Israel from her enemies. Moreover, the Israelites were making more ecofriendly use of the natural resources, viz. crop rotation. 

Christian atheism

Friday, December 14, 2012

Randal Rauser Nails It: Church-State Separation Not to Blame for Today's Massacre

Posted by Jeffery Jay Lowder . . at 12/14/2012 10:18:00 PM

Labels: church-state, Randal_Rauser, religion_and_politics

Matt DeStefano • 11 hours ago

Kudos. Rauser's fast becoming one of my favorite Christian bloggers - I'll have to migrate over there more often.

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/12/school-shooting.html

It, of course, comes as no surprise that atheists like Rauser’s brand of Christianity. They know their own kind when they see it.

This is a wonderful summary illustration of the kind of alternate universe that religious conservatives like Mike Huckabee live in.

I happen to think Huckabee’s reported statement was premature. At this stage we don’t know enough about the shooter’s motives to say why he did it, much less extrapolate from that case to a larger pattern.

It is a universe in which Bible thumping pastor-politicians like Huckabee court the NRA by calling themselves “a gun-clinger and a God-clinger” as if Jesus came to set us free to pack heat without government restriction.

So what is Rauser’s point? That this wouldn’t happen if we had stiffer gun-control laws, or had outright gun bans (as well as confiscating guns)?

Even if we had draconian gun-control laws, how would that make guns any less accessible than controlled substances? Illegal drugs are readily available, despite the “war on drugs.” Why think banning guns would be any more successful?

 It is a universe in which the Bible is read to justify the stoning of misbehaving children and the slaughter and sacrifice of misbehaving societies.

Notice that Rauser adopts exactly the same posture towards the Bible as militant atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins.

In addition, there’s nothing unique to “religious conservatism” that reads the Bible that way. Atheists and theological liberals generally interpret the Bible the same way.

That’s just what the Bible says. The OT does, in fact, authorize capital punishment for juvenile delinquency. (Keep in mind that not all death penalties were mandatory penalties. That establishes the maximum punishment, but in some or many cases that could be commuted.)

The OT does command mass execution of the Canaanites inside the promised land–if they refuse to leave.

And since these are divine commands, what they command is, by definition, morally justifiable.

Of course, Rauser is a subdermal atheist. He has an epidermal layer of Christianity, but just under the surface he’s an atheist down to the bone. That’s why he constantly attacks Christian faith in Scripture. Like his pal, Thom Stark, Rauser is a throwback to Thomas Altizer and Paul van Buren.

I live in a country that is much more secular than the United States. (Heck, in terms of secular ethos Canada might as well be bordering Scandanavia [sic].) Thirty years ago I heard the Bible read every morning in my public elementary school. The Bible was removed long ago, and interestingly we didn’t see a spike in gun violence as a result.

Well, if he can appeal to personal experience, so can I. I attended public school K-12 during the 60s and 70s.

I’ve been reading some recent accounts about school safety. For instance:

Schools nationwide have increased security measures since the shooting at Columbine. Many have installed metal detectors, developed detailed crisis plans, implemented policies to keep doors locked and accessible only by buzzer, and put teachers and staff through training on how to recognize and deal with threats.

A letter sent to Sandy Hook parents earlier this year described a new security protocol at the school. Most visitors are required to show identification and ring a doorbell to gain entry to the school’s front entrance, which is locked after 9:30 a.m.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323297104578179271453737596.html

Well, Randal, we didn’t have that when I was a kid. We didn’t need that when I was a kid. So something has changed.

Now, it’s worth exploring why society seems to be more dangerous than it used to be.

What I do see when I visit my daughter’s elementary school is an institution that is much more aware — and intolerant — of bullying and racism than my Bible reading school was thirty years ago.

What does Randal even mean by “bullying and racism” at an elementary school? Does he mean the rough and tumble of young boys at play?

And what was the ethnic composition of the Bible reading school he attended as a boy? 

Bowdlerizing the Bible

Rauser offers a selective, deflective response:

http://randalrauser.com/2011/08/if-the-bible-is-not-a-childrens-book-then-why-do-we-have-childrens-bibles/

Steve Hays of Triablogue wrote a response to my discussion of teaching biblical genocide to children called “Scout’s Honor!” It includes all the hallmarks of Hays’s critical analysis (or lack thereof) including the claim that I accept the UN as my “moral authority”. (How’s that supposed to work exactly?! “Hmm, has the UN addressed whether I can cheat on my taxes? No? Then I guess I’m good to go!”)

He took the position that the UN trumps the Bible on POWs.

So how does Hays explain the fact that the market is flooded with “children’s Bibles” which include the R-rated bits but attempt to obscure the horror with things like talking parrots? Isn’t his quibble with Zondervan rather than me?

i) I don’t have to explain that fact since that does nothing to refute my contention. That does nothing to show that I’m either inconsistent or mistaken. That's a red herring. 

I assume children’s Bibles are published because there’s a market for that demographic niche. It’s profitable.

ii) Moreover, his counterexample makes no sense even on his own terms since he immediately qualifies his counterexample by saying children’s Bibles present a bowdlerized version of events. But if that’s the case, then publishers don’t think everything in Scripture is suitable for children. They don’t give kids the straight skinny.

iii) Does Rauser think the Bible was written to or for children? Does he think Romans was addressed to 5-year-old? Was Hebrews, Lamentations, or the Song of Solomon written for children? Was that the implied reader? Is that the intended audience?

And the fact is that kids in Sunday school are fed all sorts of R-rated Bible stories. It is just that they are airbrushed to the point of egregious distortion. The drowning of millions of people and animals in a mass flood becomes a playful bedtime story in which animals march onto a big boat two by two, driven by a jovial Santa Claus with sandals and staff. David killing and decapitating Goliath becomes the equivalent of giving the bully a knockout punch at the bike racks. The genocide of Jericho is taught with a joyful ditty that makes it sound like we’re cheering on our favorite basketball team: “Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho….” And all depictions of the atonement — understood as a human sacrifice to appease the wrathful deity — is rendered as bloodless as the death of Aslan in a certain big budget, family friendly film.

So how does that disprove my point?

I can understand that Hays would think these are not age appropriate stories. So does he believe we shouldn’t teach children about Noah and the flood, David and Goliath, Joshua and Jericho or Jesus and the cross?

And if you think we should teach these stories, how do you do so in a way that is age appropriate without hopelessly distorting the R-rated realities that they convey?

i) I didn’t single out any particular instance. I merely made a general observation. If you want some concrete examples, I don’t think children need to read stories about incest (Gen 19:30-38), prostitution (Gen 38), dismemberment and gang-rape (Judges 19), or war brides (Deut 21:10-14).

That’s not because it’s wrong for the Bible to record these incidents or have regulations mitigating the fate of wartime widows. But it’s not relevant to children. It’s not something they need to know about.

ii) As to what’s appropriate, I’d draw a broad distinction between boys and girls. As a boy, I used to play cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians–with other boys. We had toy cap guns. But what’s suitable for boys might not be suitable for the average girl (unless she’s a Tomboy).

Of course, given his radical chic ideology, Rauser would probably disagree. If he fathered a son, Rauser might wait to let his son choose his/her gender–or transgender. Dress him in a frilly pink skirt. Let him play with dolls instead of cap guns.

Speaking for myself, both boys and girls should be taught the metanarrative of Scripture. Both boys and girls should learn about the life of Christ–including the Crucifixion.

Children have an instinctive understanding of penal substitution. Indeed, they grasp that better than Bible-haters like Randal Rauser, Thom Stark, James McGrath et al.

In the meantime, Rauser dodges the larger issue I raised. Why does he believe in God if Yahweh is unbelievable? Why not be an atheist?

When the Bible attributes something to God that Rauser finds too repugnant to believe, he relegates that story to the realm of fiction. That never happened. Whew! What a relief!

That’s his way of domesticating the Bible. Making it safe for his flower power faith. Insulating his flower power faith from abrasive truths. So he has his own way of bowdlerizing the Bible.

Yet all sorts of equally horrible things happen outside the Bible. And unlike the Bible, he doesn’t have the luxury of salvaging God’s reputation by relegating these events to the realm of fiction.

He doesn’t believe any children really perished in Noah’s flood. That’s fictitious. Yet he believes many children perish in coastal flooding from tsunamis.

He doesn’t believe women and children really died in Jericho, or Sodom and Gomorrah. Yet he believes real women and children die in aerial bombardments.

Why is God believable outside the Bible, but unbelievable inside the Bible?