Last Night's Religious Talk

Disclaimer: this topic is about religion. If you can't handle any perceived criticisms contained herein, then please do not read this blog update. Thank you.

So I attended Purdue's "10 Bad Arguments Against Religion" guest speaker event last night. I will provide you with as unbiased a viewpoint as possible first, and provide my personal (and thus biased) commentary below the second divider. As a polite reminder, I have kindly condensed for you 90 minutes into approximately three pages' worth of text. I agree that it is quite long, but you must appreciate that over 50% of the sentences below are 10-word written summaries of 1-to-2 minute talking points.

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Introduction
The guest speaker was Greg Koukl. He briefly introduced himself as the founder of the organization "Stand to Reason", the leader of a radio talk show, and a former-atheist-turned-Christian. We picked up bits and pieces about his personal life throughout the night. Some of the ones which I remember include: he was formerly a carpenter in the Los Angeles area; he is currently married and has two young children (ages 4 and 1); he must at least be in his mid-50s, as he commented that the last time he watched a pro basketball game was in the '60s; he co-authored a book with Francis Beckwith (possibly also called Stand to Reason); and other minutiae.

He began the talk by mentioning the names of two prominent critics of religion as well as two prominent converts. These were, respectively, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens (for the atheists) and Antony Flew and Francis Collins (for the converts).

Argument #0. (see comments for numbering explanation)
"There is no scientific evidence for a soul."

Mr. Koukl's response: "then explain why/how humans have motives."

Argument #1.
"There is no truth."

Mr. Koukl's response: "Is that claim, then, true?" He would spend this time talking about moral relativism versus moral absolutism and how, in his view, pure moral relativism cannot be correct because of the logical paradox required:
- if you say the statement "there is no truth" is true, then the statement is false -- because you have just claimed that an incontrovertible truth exists in this world
- if you say the statement "there is no truth" is false, then it is false, and we agree that we live in a world which must have some objective morality.

Argument #2.
"The existence of evil in this world proves that the Christian model for God is wrong."

Mr. Koukl's response: "This is another argument of moral relativism." He would then go on to (re-)explain why moral relativism is wrong. He reached the main rebuke when he then claimed, "You cannot deny the existence of God on the basis of the world containing things that you personally find distasteful." He provided the hypothetical example of an atheist defending his non-belief in God because the world contains brussel sprouts and the atheist-defender does not care for them.

From here, he continued to develop the following claim: that the presence of evil in the world in fact proves God's existence. He began by citing Christopher Hitchens as a well-known atheist who is also an outspoken moral absolutist, i.e. he believes that there is Universal morality of some form in this life but that it is not something which requires God's existence. Koukl's response to Mr. Hitchens is summed up as, "Where did the objective scoring of good and evil originally come from?" He provided an analogy: in bowling, how one bowls stylistically (granny-style, flashy, average) has no bearing on whether we'd ultimately say someone is a good bowler or not. Ultimately, we only care about the end score. 300/300 is perfect, 200 is amazing, 100's not shabby, and 20's a poor rookie. He said, "Where did that scoring system come from? Somebody made it up." He went on to claim that, similarly, if an atheist like Christopher Hitchens agrees that there is an objective level of morality in this world such that very specific things like murder, rape, theft, obsession, apathy, etc. are criminalized by the moral court, then it must follow that the code which decided that these were bad in the first place was put into place by a lawmaker; and not that the laws came about on their own.

Argument #3.
"Science has made religion obsolete." / "We have scientifically disproven religion."

Mr. Koukl's response: one does not use a yard stick to weigh a chicken (see comments); and similarly science is not the appropriate tool by which to evaluate religious truths.

Without citing the specific article, Mr. Koukl made mention of "an article [he] read in a science journal" which made the following claim: "we [the authors] know that there is no soul because (1) we have not been able to find it; and (2) there is no available space for it in the brain."

Q&A Session
Six or seven questioners had an opportunity to pose questions to Mr. Koukl. All but one was a member of Purdue's so-called "Anti-Theist League", a Purdue student organization for atheists who take issue with religion. The final person to ask a question identified himself as a teacher of philosophy at Purdue. (See comments below.) In no particular order, although I will attempt chronology where possible ...

Question #1.
"What if I told you that Jesus Christ was just made-up? That the life of Jesus Christ was all just a myth?"

Mr. Koukl's response: invocation of Christian historicity (i.e. taking the Bible as a primary historical resource which at the very least validates the existence of the man called Jesus of Nazareth); but prior to this, even, he asked the boy, "Well where did you hear that?" The young man replied that he had been told it by others. To which the audience -- theist and atheist alike -- erupted into laughter at the irony of the statement and the ignorance of the speaker. Mr. Koukl did not laugh and instead politely encouraged the boy to conduct some real research of his own, on both sides of the fence, mind you, and to reach his own conclusion as to whether or not he thinks Christ was a person who really existed.

Question #2.
Not really a question; more of a stated rebuttal. I don't remember the student's exact words, but the gist of what he said was, "You say you believe in a soul; but I say I believe that the archaic concept of a 'soul' can be explained with modern understanding of neurobiology." The two men clashed over various points, Mr. Koukl ultimately finding defense in the fact that a belief in an immaterial soul cannot be destroyed by evidence-based science which examines the material world; and the young man finding his own defense in the logic, "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then we have good reason to believe it's a duck."

Question #3.
A former philosophy student at Purdue took the mic and asked two questions of Mr. Koukl.
a) I cannot remember. I apologize. If I remember then I will provide it.

b) He asked how Mr. Koukl could rationalize his belief in a human soul given our knowledge of neural plasticity and (to a commoner understanding) the fact that a person's personality, their very identity and worldview can change as the result of physical changes made to the brain.

Mr. Koukl's response: "I agree with everything you've said about strokes and brain surgeries having these sorts of effects; but I really don't see what that has to do with disproving the immutability of the human soul. Let me put it to you this way: let us suppose, as I do, that we have a soul which interfaces with the human brain. The equation, then, is S + B = T, or soul plus brain = thoughts that ultimately come out. It is the sum of both the soul and the brain which produces your earthly mentality, actions, etc. I agree that changes to B will produce changes in T; but I fail to see how you can claim that changes to B produce changes in S; or that changes to B provide incontrovertible prove that S is equal to 0."

Question #4.
Another young man asked this question of Mr. Koukl: "how do you reconcile the genesis story of Christ [i.e. his birth and the events surrounding it] with the genesis stories of so many other deities from that region of the world? [cited various deities from Egypt, Persia, Sumeria, and India] They were all born on the 25th of December. They were all born of a virgin. All the stories make mention of wise men following a star's guiding light and making their way to the god-child's place of birth. Don't you think that's a little suspicious?"

Mr. Koukl's response: let us suppose that a man who looks like Fred Meyer, has Fred Meyer's driver's license and birth certificate, recounts to me the life and tale of Fred Meyer to great detail, etc. approaches me and claims, "I am Fred Meyer." I may be suspicious of his claim if I have met 16 other men who all previously made the exact same claim and provided much of, if not all of, the exact same evidence. I would be a fool to not be suspicious! But it also does not mean that I can say with absolute certainty that I know that this 17th man is not the real Fred Meyer. He must be evaluated all on his own.

The questioner's response: "So what you're saying, then, is that it's all just a big coincidence that Jesus, who was the genuine article, was born not before but after so many other regional deities with the same genesis stories as his? Your argument might hold if we could prove that Christ had always been, from time immemorial, the genuine claimant to the 25th-of-December, born-of-a-virgin, etc. etc. genesis story, but--"

Mr. Koukl's response: "You must realize that many of the deities you are listing do not share in common with Christ nearly so many events as you think they do. I encourage you to go back to the primary sources or to find a scholarly book by an authority you respect who has himself or herself consulted those primary sources. [e.g. Egyptian hieroglyphics on the life of Horus] Because from what I have studied myself, I have found that a lot of popular belief exists on the Internet that Christ's origin story is a complete copycat of so many other deities--"

"It is."

"But it's not, you see? You need to look at the original sources."

The question-and-answer continued for some time with neither man relenting until eventually the evening's event organizer called time.

Question #5.
"If man can't do it, why should God be able to?" (e.g. "thou shalt not murder" to Moses, yet God has encouraged and performed murder countless times)
Mr. Koukl's response: "Two things. First, you are assuming that God is bound by the same moral obligations that we are bound by."
"Well, he is."
"No, he is not. And here's why. A father tells his son, 'You're not allowed to stay up past 10.' Is it fair that the father then stays up past 10 himself? Not if he and his son are equals, no, it isn't fair: but they're not equals! The father is superior to his son in terms of social hierarchy."
The questioner began to sputter rejections, so Mr. Koukl shifted gears to a different analogy:
"Let's say that you're not allowed to drink until you're 21. Does that mean that I can't drink? I'm older than 21. I should be able to drink. The restrictions that apply to you do not apply to me. We are subject to the same rules; but the rules make clear that different people have different permissions. We are both subject to the law 'you may not drink until you are 21 years old', but it just so happens that I am over 21 while you are not, and so we see a dichotomy between what I am permitted to do and what you are permitted to do.
"Second," said Mr. Koukl, "there is an important distinction to be made between murder and killing. Murder means 'wrongful killing.' It implies that under certain circumstances, killing is justified. Unless you are a complete pacifist, you must believe that there are certain circumstances in which you would rather worsen someone else's situation in life than have your own become worsened, e.g. killing in self-defense. I cannot tell you what to believe, but if you do believe that killing is acceptable under at least some circumstances, then you can at least appreciate the rationale behind my belief:

"God is allowed to kill men because he is above men. Men are created by God. Men are in effect God's property, to do with as he will. It would be no different from you deciding to tear a piece of paper into two. But if I came up to you and tore your homework into two, you would have a moral complaint against me. Similarly, if mortal men kill one another -- in other words, if they rob from God that which is God's -- then they have committed a moral offense against God. Men do not have the authority to take away that which is God's; but God, as a superior and non-equal being to Men, most definitely has the privilege of doing whatever it is that he wants. This is merely presupposition, but if we presuppose that God were to want to eradicate every last man from the face of the earth, then he would be within his moral right to do so. If he wanted to erase the entire Creation, he would be within his right. We, as part of that Creation, are subject to God's will; and as such, he has the authority to tell us to not do certain things which he himself retains the privilege to do."

To this, there was thunderous applause in the audience from all of the Christian attendees. The questioner, unsatisfied with this answer, was bade to sit down and give up the mic for the next student.

Question #7. (the last question; I'm missing one)
A red-bearded young man of about 26-30 years of age took the mic. He introduced himself as a teacher of philosophy from Purdue, though whether this meant a philosophy student who had gone on to become a schoolteacher or whether it meant that he was a Purdue faculty member, I do not know. He may well have been a faculty member, (a) given his remarkable intelligence and well-spoken demeanor, and (b) given his intimate familiarity with the event organizer, a student seeking a Ph.D. in philosophy at Purdue. But he was quite young! Quite young indeed! So it's remarkable to consider that he could be a faculty member. Who knows. Moving on!

The red-headed philosopher started by congratulating Mr. Koukl for "debunking moral relativism." He explained that as a teacher of philosophy himself, the post-modern concept of "there is no such thing as an absolute truth" irks him to no end, and he felt Mr. Koukl did a sufficiently powerful, if brief, job of deflating the extreme moral relativist's balloon.

That stated, he went on, he took issue with Mr. Koukl's third argument of the night (listed by Mr. Koukl as Argument #2. up above). The issue he took was this: "You [ref. Mr. Koukl] seemed to imply tonight that we must either believe that there is no moral code in the world or that there is; and that if there is, that it was created by a lawgiver who preceded Creation, i.e. God. However, there are many philosophers throughout the ages" (he mentioned Plato, but I am afraid none of the other names he mentioned have stuck) "who have proposed that while there is some absolute truth in the universe, it need not require the existence of a lawmaker to make it; that instead it is possible for the Universe to have always been, and for the moral laws which exist within the Universe to also have always been, to be as inextricable from the fabric of space and time as space and time themselves."

To this, there was exuberant applause from the atheists scattered throughout the auditorium. Several Christians joined in, and eventually a good 1/3 or so of the auditorium was applauding the young man for exposing this serious bias in Mr. Koukl's presentation. However, a counter-responsive murmur of confusion, frustration, and disgust rose to a rather audible pitch, and so Mr. Koukl sought to quickly address his audience and his questioner:

"I did not mean to imply that it was either A or B. You are right that there are numerous other possibilities. However, I personally believe that the most likely candidate is God. You are right, of course, that a godless model such as Plato's et al. could explain a world with moral truths in the absence of a truth-maker, i.e. God."

The philosophy teacher went on to press a few more questions, and Mr. Koukl obliged, and the two men had a productive and enjoyable point-counterpoint discussion. I wish I remembered more of what they said, but I've been writing for the last 30 minutes or so and I'm afraid I just don't remember.

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Go ahead and get up and take a break. You've earned it!

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I want to go do something else with my Saturday morning now. @_@ I hope that you will make good use of this summary of last night's talk, and I hope that it is fairly unbiased. For now, I will provide a very abridged version (in case I get lazy and never re-update this) of my own opinions. You'll notice that my opinions get longer as we go on, as I couldn't resist writing them out. @_@

Argument 0. Mr. Koukl's loss. My answer: neurologic construct, evolution favors creatures with motives/desires over those with none, "it's the brain, not the soul," etc.

Argument 1. Mr. Koukl's strong win. Very cool.

Argument 2. Mr. Koukl's loss, in no fewer than two ways. (to be gone into later)

Argument 3. Mr. Koukl's loss. He is outside his element neurobiologically and his failure to cite a specific journal article all but invalidates his claim to having read such a shoddy piece of academic research (were it to be real). But as to his main point, he claims that science cannot disprove religion (true) and that it therefore should not be allowed to enter in to the assessment of a religion's veracity (FALSE!). Science can and should be used to prove or disprove stories and claims recorded in holy texts, e.g. it should be used to explain how the Flood may not have been a global flood but may have indeed been a real "flood" caused by a massive meteor hitting the Indian Ocean around 3000 B.C. and causing ocean waters to go inland all around the civilizations of the day -- Mesopotamia, Egypt, and India -- but without reaching China, which has no record of any such "flood"; or most of Europe (ditto) and the Americas (ditto).

Question 1. I agree with the questioner, but he was clearly an ignorant sheep-child, a sacrificial lamb sent by his club's senior members to set the stage so that their later questions would at least look comparatively more intelligent. As for how I would have answered had I been the one up there, the reason I suspect that Christ may be to a great extent a fabrication by the early (Romanized) church is that:
a) when the Romans absorbed Christianity, it is far more logical to assume that they did so with the intent of absorbing their enemies via a war of attrition than to assume that they did so with the genuine conversion of Constantine to the Christian faith.
b) there is countless evidence from around the world that rulers have invoked selection by God as their justification for rule. In Europe, we have the Divine Right of Kings, and going as far back as 1000 B.C. to the Zhou Dynasty, we have China's Mandate of Heaven. It is in a ruler's best interest to convince his ignorant populace that there is an all-knowing, all-powerful God in the heavens (a veritable Big Brother, if you will); and that if you sin against him, he'll smite you; and that if you do as he says, you'll be rewarded; and that oh, by the way, the king is God's chosen man on Earth at this time, so whatever the king wants you to do is also what God wants you to do.

It makes social, political sense for Christ to be a means to an end (i.e. Roman subjugation of the Empire's people by means of unifying them through one common faith) than for the Roman aristocracy to have sincerely been converted en masse from their ancient beliefs to those of distant sand-villagers in Judea. The Romans simply traded in one false set of gods for another, and for this they gained compliance from previously-rebellious paupers out east.

This is not proof of Christ being a myth: it merely provides substantial evidence to at least suspect that he may be an artificial construct designed by the ruling class to subjugate the rebellious slave class.

Question 2. I agree with the questioner, and do not believe in a "soul" insofar as the term is meant to mean an entity separate from human consciousness, identity, self. I believe the self is plastic and that it is defined neuronally.

Question 3b. I agree with the questioner's line of thinking, but applaud Mr. Koukl for his solid defense of his own belief. It is true: changing B should have no effect on S in the equation S + B = T. The only debate I and Mr. Koukl have is, is the equation truly S + B = T at all? or is it merely B = T?

Question 4. Jay first brought this to my attention a year or two ago. I must confess a fair degree of ignorance on the topic, and further confess that to the extent that I have read anything, it has all been online on Wikipedia and whatnot. So I'll have to say for now that this is a tie, because if Mr. Koukl is right, then it's his win, but if the questioner is right that the parallels are far too many and far too similar, then it's a pretty good case against the historicity of Christ's birth and would strongly suggest an after-the-fact genesis story created by proponents of Christianity attempting to justify Jesus as the Messiah.

Question 5. Mr. Koukl's win, impressively but also easily. I had had a similar thought to the questioner's, but Mr. Koukl convinced me that if one believes in the Christian God as portrayed by the Old and New Testaments, then he not only can believe but must believe that God is superior to us and thus superior to the rules he puts into place for us; and that God cannot be accused of murdering as he cannot be accused of wrongfully killing. All of his killing is depicted as righteous, e.g. purging the world of sinners with the Flood or laying waste to Sodom and Gomorrah or sending the plague to Egypt, etc.

Question 7. Easily the red-head's "win," though Mr. Koukl didn't lose per se, either. He merely dodged the question by apologetically saying that he had never meant to impress upon people the notion that it was black or white, lawless world or lawful world w/ laws written by God. Personally? I think that was a little dishonest. His talk made it very clear that he felt it was black and white, and the philosophy teacher simply called him out on that.