We Are The Change We Seek

Email Subscriptions for my new Liberal Geek Site

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com (kenny) — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 18:56:00 GMT

Hi all!

I have finally put together email alerts for new posts on my new blog site liberalgeek.com!

For your convenience, I will start a new subscription for you on the my new site. It will still require you to "verify" your email address (You'll get a confirmation email with a verify link which you will need to click).

If you don't want to be subscribed, then just ignore the email and you won't receive any more emails.

The new site is cooler and allows you to subscribe to specific topics, so you can get just my Personal posts or just my Political posts or just my Geeky posts, or any combination of the available topics (that is not a complete list).

I will by default subscribe you to all of the topics, because that's the equivalent of the subscription you had here on my old blog. If you would like to change your preferences, there will be a link at the bottom of all "new post" emails with a link to change your topics...

Or you can just go to http://liberalgeek.com/subscribe and subscribe directly and your new subscription will overwrite your old subscription. :)

Moving to LiberalGeek.com

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com (kenny) — Tue, 4 Sep 2012 00:15:00 GMT

Hey all,

I'm in the process to moving my blog over to my new domain: LiberalGeek.com.

For many years (like 11 years?) I have been using JournalScape because I wanted to "eat my own dog food", which is an industry phrase describing using one's own product so that you can tell if it's good, bad, broken, etc.

However, JournalScape has been running smoothly for years without any real intervention from me. JournalScape is also designed to be very, very simple to make it easy for the user base. 11 years later though, I would like something more powerful for myself and I don't need to babysit JournalScape. So, I'm starting to blog on my new website.

I don't yet have email subscriptions working on the new site, but bear with me. I'll post here again once email subscriptions are working on that end.

So, if you want to find Kenny Wyland you can find me at the new site.

Please Help Me raise money for the Make-a-Wish Foundation and St Jude Children's Hospital

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com (kenny) — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 21:54:00 GMT

I am working, as part of In A Day Development, to raise money for the I Survived Real Estate event which benefits the Make a Wish Foundation and St Jude Children's Hospital.

Even if you can only spare $5 or $10, it goes toward a good cause!

Please help the Make a Wish Foundation and St Jude Children's Hospital!

Easter, Satan and Wanton Speculation

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com (kenny) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 11:23:00 GMT

Since the Christian world just celebrated Easter, I've been talking with folks about the holiday and its origins. Anyone who really thinks about it should be confused because what the hell do the name of holiday and eggs and rabbits have to do with the resurrection of Jesus?

Well, nothing. Easter was likely a pagan fertility goddess. Rabbits and eggs are symbolic of fertility and the celebration happens in the Spring.

It's always confused me that the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Jesus would have such odd symbols attached to it. The resurrection of Jesus is undoubtly the most important aspect of the Christian religion as it is considered to be the proof of divinity as well as the culmination of the scapegoating sacrifice Jesus made to save everyone. (supposedly)

So, shouldn't Christians be very uncomfortable mixing pagan festivals in with their Christian traditions? Easter pagan rituals were adopted into Christ's resurrection. Other pagan rituals were adopted into Christ's birth. There seems to be a lot of pagan corruption of these holy days...

And indulge me in a bit of wanton speculation.. assuming Yahweh and Satan are real.. wouldn't it make PERFECT sense for Satan to do something like the above? What better way to draw people away from God by corrupting the Church itself so that the Church will corrupt people for you? The devout THINK they are all saved and protected when in reality Satan has injected pagan worship into all of the major Christian holidays.

Then after I think about that, I continue to stoke my conjecture train and wonder how far part it would have started? Well, let's talk about Saul of Tarsus... a guy who never met Jesus and was known for persecuting Christians. Let's say you hate Christians and, despite your best efforts, they keep growing. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em... and then change their beliefs. But they aren't going to believe you without a miraculous conversion story and you'll want to change your name to reduce some of the emotional effect of the name Saul (just like South Central in Los Angeles changed its name to South Los Angeles to avoid being connected to the Rodney King riots). Once you've convinced them you can start writing letters to the different congregations and giving them new rules to follow, tell them what to do, etc.

Like... women aren't allowed to talk in Church. Jesus never said anything like that... Paul did. Or that homosexuality is wrong. Jesus never said anything like that... Paul did.

But that's a naturalistic explanation of Paul's behavior, something humans would do to control other humans. Let's put Satan back into the mix. Satan, Lucifer, the most beautiful of all angels, the Morning Star. If he appeared to you on a road, claimed to be Jesus and struck you blind... Wouldn't you believe? Now he's got a fully devout, miraculously-converted patsy in the Christian church and he can start perverting the beliefs.

I know. Crazy. Like I said, indulge me in some wanton speculation... but if Satan is the ultimate deceiver, doesn't that seem like a great strategy for getting people to turn away from God? Get them to THINK they are worshipping God when in fact they're not? Around 300 CE the Christian church had a major schism over whether God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit were a Trinity or three separate beings. Those who didn't believe in the Trinity were branded as heretics... if my wild, WILD conjecture is going in the right direction, it sounds to me like Satan just convinced all Christians to worship Jesus as God instead of Yahweh, taking a false god for themselves... and in a way becoming polytheists.

A crazy idea to be sure... but it's a damn good strategy to use.

To paraphrase and adapt the Usual Suspects... The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world they were worshipping the right God. ;)

Rapist Christians Go to Heaven, Atheists Go to Hell

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com (kenny) — Thu, 5 Apr 2012 09:49:00 GMT

I'd like to take a moment and share with you the main problem with dogmatic thinking:

I've been tweeting with Ben recently. He's a young Christian and I'm happy to say he is actually very progressive minded.... until religion gets involved. As far as I can tell he's a devout Christian, but he believes the Earth is billions of years old, he believes in Evolution, and I think he is willing to believe in the Big Bang (but only if he can believe that God made it happen).

He totally accepts science as long as he can make an excuse and make room for his religious beliefs. His views of morality, unfortunately, are not being kept in check by science... and this is where he goes completely off the rails. I asked him a common question regarding religion and morality.

If an atheist is a REALLY good person, can they get into Heaven? If I behaved even BETTER than every other Christian in the world, but didn't believe in Jesus, do I deserve to be tormented for eternity? Does that seem right? He kept avoiding what he felt about the rightness of it and kept repeating "that's just the way it is." So I asked for clarification...

... and it turns out that he feels Christians who are Serial Child Rapists SHOULD go to Heaven if they ask for forgiveness but an Atheist who is loving, caring, never hurts anyone, is charitible, and helps their fellow humans... DESERVES to be ETERNALLY TORMENTED in Hell.

He feels that refusing to accept Jesus is a violation of God's Law and therefore a sin. This acceptance of Jesus is merely a thought. All behaviors can be the same, the only difference is this thought. I asked him how lacking this one thought, even in the face of all of this good behavior, was a large enough sin to warrant eternal torment in Hell. His response was shocking:

I couldn't believe it. All sin is the same? That's MADNESS. How can anyone hold such a thought in their head and still claim to be moral in ANY way.

This is the problem with dogmatic thinking. It isn't based on any sort of sense or logic. You have a set of rules written by unknown authors from an ignorant culture and it leads you to believe monstrous ideas.

I hope that Ben realizes this method of thought is insane. I hope he realizes it soon.

Screenshots of tweets with Ben in context

Douglas Adams and a Puddle

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com (kenny) — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 17:52:00 GMT

This is a favorite quote of mine from my favorite author, Douglas Adams.

Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking,

"This is an interesting world I find myself in - an interesting hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!"

This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise.

I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for. We all know that at some point in the future the Universe will come to an end and at some other point, considerably in advance from that but still not immediately pressing, the sun will explode. We feel there's plenty of time to worry about that, but on the other hand that's a very dangerous thing to say.

A-Week: Testimony of the Evangelists: Quality of Testimony: Part 5

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com (kenny) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:12:00 GMT

Continuing my posts about The Testimony of the Evangelists by Simon Greenleaf...

As I covered in my previous post, Greenleaf attempts to show that the authors of the Gospels were eye-witnesses, but utterly fails to do so. Let's continue on, however, and look at his eye-witness argument because it leads us to a very important point.

Here are the legal criteria Greenleaf uses for his eye-witness argument:

In trials of fact, by oral testimony, the proper inquiry is not whether it is possible that the testimony may be false, but whether there is sufficient probability that it is true. (pg 28)

A proposition of fact is proved, when its truth is established by competent and satisfactory evidence. (pg 28)

In the absence of circumstances which generate suspicion, every witness is to be presumed credible, until the contrary is shown; the burden of impeaching his credibility lying on the objector. (pg 29)

The credit due to the testimony of witnesses depends upon, firstly, their honesty; secondly, their ability; thirdly, their number and consistency of their testimony; fourthly, the conformity of their testimony with experience; and fifthly, the coincidence of their testimony with collateral circumstances. (pg 31)

Then Greenleaf attempts to prove his case by making an argument for the honesty, ability, consistency, conformity and coincidence of the Gospels.

Sufficient Probability and Credibility

Let's say I'm giving testimony and I claim to have a car. Can we and should we assume I'm telling the truth? Well, I live in the United States in the year 2012 and I'm generally well-off business owner with a couple pieces of real-estate. Of course it makes perfect sense to assume I'm telling the truth without the need for hard evidence. After all, cars exist. We've all seen them. Everyone reading this probably has one. It's very very VERY common.

Now let's say I claim I have 10 cars. Well, I'm not Mitt Romney or anything, but maybe I love cars so I have a bunch of them. Are you willing to accept that claim without evidence? Probably, but not as much as you would be willing to accept I have one car.

Now let's say I claim I have 1000 cars... and each of my cars is gold-plated... and they can fly... and instead of emitting carbon monoxide and other dangerous chemicals, these cars just produce wonderfully crispy bacon. (Great, now I'm hungry.)

Do you need to see some evidence yet? The absurdity of my increasingly crazy claims inherently generate suspicion, as well they should!

Once again reaching back to Carl Sagan...

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

If the Gospels simply claimed that a dude named Jesus existed around this time period and that he got in trouble with the religious establishment for calling them hypocrites... just told people that its good to be nice to each other and take care of our fellow man... and then those religious leaders he was insulting manuevered politically to have him killed... I would have NO trouble saying: "I don't know if it all happened for sure, but it seems reasonable enough."

However, add the virgin birth, casting out demons, ressurecting from the dead, walking on water, rising from the grave and ascending to heaven.... even if you disregard all of the inconsisties of the stories, it is unreasonable to accept those claims without evidence. No court would assume I was telling the truth if I claimed my friend walked on water... or if I claimed my friend raised someone from the dead.

Honesty

Were the authors being honest? Maybe. I don't know. Was Mohammad being honest? Was Joseph Smith being honest? Greenleaf says:

... men ordinarily speak the truth, when they have no prevailing motive or inducement to the contrary. (pg 31)

Mohammad and Joseph Smith certainly had motive to lie, didn't they? After all they became very powerful in their times and locations. What about the Gospel authors? Well, we don't know who they were, but we do know that if you are considered to be the agent of the divine... that people will do what you say and power is a very corrupting influence. Do I know if that's what happened? No, absolutely not. Could they be telling the truth? Yes and I'm willing to accept all of their ordinary claims as reasonably true, but for their extraordinary claims, I'll need to see some evidence. If you don't agree, then I'd like to sell you one of my flying, gold-plated, bacon-emitting cars. Contact me privately and we'll discuss terms.

Ability

This claim is merely that we can assume, in general, that a witness is of sound-mind and reasonable intelligence until shown otherwise. That seems like a fair rule to me, I have no problems with it in general and I'm ok with assuming the authors were of sound-mind and reasonable intelligence for their time and place.

Number and Consistency, Conformity, and Coicidence with Collateral Circumstances

Greenleaf makes the argument that the inconsistencies found within the Gospels prove that they are not the product of collusion. So he attempts to use inconsistency to prove his case for consistency.

This chart is a favorite of mine:

The Gospel of John is... well, just doesn't match up well with any of the other three Gospels. This chart shows what are known as the Synoptic Gospels and how the information contained within is shared between the others.

How well do the shared parts coincide?

As I described before, Matthew and Luke put the year of Jesus' birth 10 YEARS apart.

What about the most important part of the Gospels of Jesus?

Matthew: Mary Mag and Other Mary go to the tomb. The stone is still in place, but an earthquake moves the stone and an angel appears and sits on it outside the tomb. There were guards at the tomb. The women tell the disciples who meet Jesus on a mountain in Galilee. No ascension is mentioned.

Mark: Mary Mag, Other Mary and Salome go to the tomb. The stone is NOT in place, the women go inside the tomb and find one angel. No guards. The women never tell anyone... or in the other version of Mark, Jesus appears to Mary Mag and she tells the disciples he has risen. Jesus appears to the 11 Apostles at dinner, then ascends to Heaven.

Luke: Mary Mag, Other Mary, Joanna and others go to the tomb. The stone is NOT in place, the women go inside the tomb and find TWO angels. No guards. The women tell the apostles, but the apostles don't believe (except Peter). Jesus appears to them in Jerusalem, then ascends to Heaven.

John: Just Mary Mag goes to the tomb. The stone is NOT in place, Mary doesn't go in. Leaves, comes back with men, then while staying outside sees two angels inside. No guards. Jesus appears to 10 Apostles in a locked room, but Thomas wasn't present. A week later, Jesus appears again to all of them. Jesus performs many other signs for the apostles, but John doesn't document them. No ascension is mentioned, although Jesus says to Mary earlier in the book that he will at some point ascend.

So, to be clear, these four bits of testimony cannot agree on who went to the tomb, the state of the tomb, whether or not there were guards at the tomb, how many angels were seen at the tomb, where those angels were standing at the tomb, when Jesus first appeared to people, who Jesus first appeared to, what city Jesus appeared to them in, and whether or not he ascended.

Considering this event is one of THE most pivotal moments for Christianity, arguably THE most important, if this testimony really was divinely inspired by God, don't you think this story would match up even a LITTLE bit better?

A-Week: Testimony of the Evangelists: No Eye Witnesses: Part 4

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com (kenny) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 11:06:00 GMT

Continuing my posts about The Testimony of the Evangelists by Simon Greenleaf...

The remaining thrust of Greenleaf's attempt to qualify the Gospels as real evidence has to do with rules surrounding eye-witness testimony. He feels that his previous arguments for the validity of accepting the Gospels as evidence can be used to equate these writings with eye-witness testimony. First, he reviews who each of the supposed authors of the Gospels were according to the stories and then reviews the legal rules he'll base his eye-witness argument upon. Let's review the Gospels:

Matthew

Greenleaf states that Matthew is considered to be the author of the first Gospel written (pg 19) between 37-64 AD. To be fair, this was a generally accepted belief in the 1800s. However, modern scholarship which has used more information, better attempts at analysis, etc. disagree with that assessment. The majority opinion of Biblical scholars states that Matthew is NOT the author of this Gospel and that it didn't come first either. It is generally considered that the majority of content of Matthew is taken from the Gospel of Mark as well as what is known as the Q source or Q document. (Q is short for the German 'Quelle' or 'source')) The Gospel of Mark is now considered to be the earliest of the Gospels.

Mark

The current majority opinion, again something not available to Greenleaf, is that the author of the Gospel of Mark is unknown. It is considered to be the first Gospel, written after 70 AD (that's about 40 YEARS after the supposed death of Jesus).

Mark is simply not an eye-witness. The Gospel of Mark is supposedly Mark re-telling the stories from Simon Peter. Mark was not present for the events described in this Gospel. Greenleaf attempts to overcome this problem by stating that Simon Peter "dictated" the gospel to Mark, however, modern scholars conclude that Simon Peter was killed in 64 AD around the time of Nero and the Great Fire of Rome... but Mark wasn't written until after the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed which happened in 70 AD.

So, Mark is unlikely to be the author. The Gospel was written years after the death of the person who supposedly "dictated" it... there is just no eye-witness here for Greenleaf to even try to apply his rules to.

Luke

There is no majority opinion about the identity of the author of the Gospel of Luke. Some say it was Luke some say it couldn't be, some just say the author is unknown. What we DO know is that the author of Luke was self-admittedly NOT an eye-witness to the events. Greenleaf attempts to overcome this obvious problem with his argument by claiming that it can be inferred that he was an eye-witness based on certain translations of the above verses claiming "perfect understanding" of the events. However, that directly contradicts the verse before it which says that the original eye-witnesses passed the information down.

John

During Greenleaf's time, John was considered to be the author of this Gospel, however, the majority opinion of Biblical scholars today do not believe this Gospel to be written by John or any other eye-witnesses. It's not Greenleaf's fault, the information that modern scholars have access to hadn't been uncovered in Greenleaf's day. Some scholars (not a majority opinion) think the Gospel of John was composed over a long period of time, by several different people, creating a layering effect throughout the Gospel. Some scholars think composition started before 70 AD (so before Mark was written) but continued to be changed until 100 AD (after all the other Gospels had been written).

The whole point? Not a single one of the Gospels was written by an eye-witness. Not a single one. Any possible argument that Greenleaf puts forward to show the truth of these accounts based on their eye-witness nature falls flat because none of them are even written by eye-witnesses. I'm still going to post one more entry about his eye-witness arguments, but given the above, we already know his arguments will fail.

A-Week: Testimony of the Evangelists: Extraordinary Claims: Part 3

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com (kenny) — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 10:12:00 GMT

Continuing my posts about The Testimony of the Evangelists by Simon Greenleaf...

Before I move on to Greenleaf's further attempts to submit the Gospels as evidence in a courtroom, I want to revisit these three quotes from the previous posts. I wanted my previous post to remain on a certain topic and it was already getting too long, so I'm giving this topic a post of its own.

Every document, apparently ancient, coming from the proper repository or custody, and bearing on its face no evident marks of forgery, the law presumes to be genuine, and devolves on the opposing party the burden of proving it to be otherwise. pg 16

The persons ... who multiplied these copies, may be regarded ... as the agents of the Christian public ...; and on the ground of the credit due to such agents ... the copies thus made are entitled to an extraordinary degree of confidence, and ... it is not neccessary that they should be confirmed and sanctioned by the ordinary tests of truth. pg 17 (emphasis mine)

... it is quite erroneous to suppose that the Christian is bound to offer any further proof of their genuineness or authenticity. It is for the objector to show them spurious; for on him, by plainest rules of law, lies the burden of proof. pg 18

Let us assume that the above is a perfectly valid legal argument and that the burden of proof would normally rest on the objector. Beyond the fact that I did provide proof in the previous post, these rules of law are based on natural occurance.

As examples of the above rules, Greenleaf refers to several ancient legal documents like the Domesday Book and the Ancient Statues of Wales. He says that since they don't appear to be forged and these documents were kept in places you'd expect to find them, etc. that the burden of proof is on the objector.

For documents like that? Sure, I have no problem with that.

Let's say we're in court 2000 years from now and my diary is being submitted as evidence of something. (Let's also say I have a diary *smirk*) If the diary says something mundane like:

I went to the grocery store.
My girlfriend and I went out dancing.
I was a small-business owner.

Then it seems reasonable to me, assuming Greenleaf's assertions about the legal rules of evidence are correct, that my diary would be accepted as some kind of evidence and that the claims within the diary would generally be regarded as true. That's because all of the things in the diary ARE reasonable! They are commonplace things that we all experience. They are ordinary claims.

However, if my diary said something like:

I walked across the surface of a stormy sea to get to the grocery store.
My girlfriend was dead for 4 days, but I told her to be alive again and she was instantly ressurected.
I am the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present Creator of the universe.

Well... THOSE claims aren't ordinary and cannot be accepted without evidence. I don't know of any court which would simply accept such claims as truth.

As Carl Sagan once said:

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Continue to Part 4...

A-Week: Testimony of the Evangelists: Contradictory Gospels: Part 2

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com (kenny) — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 18:31:00 GMT

Continuing my posts about The Testimony of the Evangelists by Simon Greenleaf...

He writes very long sentences with many subclauses, as lawyers do, so quoting him succinctly is difficult. In order to make things more readable, I will omit some of the subclauses by using ellipsis but not change the content or intention of the statement.

Regarding the authenticity and authority of the copies of the gospels passed down throughout time, he has this to say:

The persons ... who multiplied these copies, may be regarded ... as the agents of the Christian public ...; and on the ground of the credit due to such agents ... the copies thus made are entitled to an extraordinary degree of confidence, and ... it is not neccessary that they should be confirmed and sanctioned by the ordinary tests of truth. pg 17 (emphasis mine)

Sorry, no. I can't speak to whether or not modern law would accept such a claim, but any claim of "it is not neccessary that they should be confirmed and sanctioned by the ordinary tests of truth" should be immediately rejected. No claim is above the need for confirmation. If you demand that the truth of your claims should not be submitted to "ordinary tests of truth" then I'm going to assume you're lying. If your claims CAN stand up to "ordinary claims of truth" then you should have no problems with them being tested. Evidence is something subjected to tests of truth. Just because an item or account can be admitted into a court case does not make it true. All evidence submitted to the court is, and should be, evaluated for its truth-value by the judge, jury, etc.

Greenleaf goes on to say...

... it is quite erroneous to suppose that the Christian is bound to offer any further proof of their genuineness or authenticity. It is for the objector to show them spurious; for on him, by plainest rules of law, lies the burden of proof. pg 18

Ok, if you say so. I can provide others, but here's a good example, Luke 2:1-7:

¹ In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. ² (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) ³ And everyone went to their own town to register.

⁴ So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. ⁵ He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, ⁷ and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

Everyone knows this story, right? Couple of problems...

First, Quirinius didn't become the Governor of Syria until 6/7 AD which is when the so-named Census of Quirinius was performed. So, this means either Jesus was 6/7 years old at the time of the census that supposedly preceeded his birth... or the year numbering on the calendar is wrong. For a moment, let's assume the year numbering is wrong.

The "Anno Domini" year numbering that we use today was based on the words of Dionysius in what is now known as 525 AD. How he came to that number we really don't know, so the most likely explanation is that he simply guessed or did the math wrong and should have put 1 AD a few years later so that it lined up properly with the census.

Problem not resolved...

Let's review a few more points of history and of Bible Story:

As we all know from the Gospel of Matthew, after Jesus was born, King Herod found out that a new King had been born among the Jews and ordered the deaths of all of the children in and around Bethlehem under 2 years of age.

¹ After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem ² and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him."

...

¹⁶ When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.

...

¹⁹ After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt ²⁰ and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child's life are dead."

²¹ So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. ²² But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, ²³ and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.

To recap:
- Jesus was born.
- King Herod slaughtered all the infants in Bethlehem.
- King Herod dies.
- Archelaus, Herod's son, reigns over Judea.
- Archelaus is banished when Rome takes over direct rule and places Quirinius in charge.
- Quirinius institutes a census in Judea, etc.

The numbering on our calendar may have shifted incorrectly one way or the other (maybe 1 AD should be 7 AD), but these events are all able to be compared by their relative times. Regardless of which number we put on the year, we still know that some things happened before other things.

The problem:

The Gospel of Matthew says Jesus was born in the time of King Herod who died in 4 BC (according to our current numbering).
The Gospel of Luke says Jesus was born in the time of Quirinius' reign as Governor which took place in 6/7 AD according to our current numbering).

Regardless of what numbers you place on what years, Herod came before Archelaus who came before Quirinius. Both stories cannot be true.

It is for the objector to show them spurious; for on him, by plainest rules of law, lies the burden of proof. pg 18

Done.

Continue to Part 3...

A-Week: Testimony of the Evangelists: No Evidence Found: Part 1

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com (kenny) — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 15:58:00 GMT

To finish off A-Week I am going to post a multi-part series about a book called The Testimony of the Evangelists by Simon Greenleaf. Todd Pitner is a Christian who uses Twitter to preach to atheists and you may be familiar with him if you follow me on twitter or have read my previous blog post which mentions him. When he first started preaching to me, I asked him for the first thing I ask any preacher:

Evidence of God's Existence

Todd asked if I would read a book that he'd buy and send and I said yes. He sent me a copy of the book mentioned above. He claimed this book contained evidence for the existence of God. The author, Simon Greenleaf, was a lawyer (died in 1853) and is supposedly providing evidence that would stand up in court. It took me awhile to start reading it because I was in the middle of reading the Qu'ran at the time. Greenleaf puts forward a set of criteria which are needed to be met by old documents/manuscripts for them to be admissible in court, so I'm going to address those criteria in these posts. It's a little different in tenor from my other A-Week posts, but since my reading of the book coincides with A-Week, I might as well post them as part of it.

However, I was disappointed that at the very beginning of the book, Greenleaf explicitly states that he won't even be addressing evidence for the existence of God.

The proof that God has revealed himself to man by special and express communications, and that Christianity constitutes that revelation, is no part of these inquiries. pg 13

So, no evidence is going to be presented in this book. Ah well. Let's move on to his requirements for accepting text as evidence.

Every document, apparently ancient, coming from the proper repository or custody, and bearing on its face no evident marks of forgery, the law presumes to be genuine, and devolves on the opposing party the burden of proving it to be otherwise. pg 16

He admits in the following pages that discrepancies among copies of the Gospels have been introduced over time, but dismisses those discrepancies as "slight" and says they do not corrupt the original.

Slight? Let's take a look at the Gospel of Mark.

It is considered to be the first Gospel written, approximately 40 years after the death of Jesus and is no longer considered to be written by Mark. The author of this Gospel is generally considered to be unknown. Greenleaf didn't have access to the archaeology which changed our view of this Gospel. Not his fault, but still. However, his argument is primarily about the content, not the author.

Let's take a look at Mark Chapter 16:

¹ When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. ² Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb ³ and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?"

⁴ But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. ⁵ As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

⁶ "Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. ⁷ But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.'"

⁸ Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

They said nothing to anyone.... so then how did anyone know that happened? Well, that's how the Gospel of "Mark" appeared in the 1st century. That's NOT how it appears today... at some point it was more than DOUBLED in size and had the ending completely changed.

⁹ When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. ¹⁰ She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. ¹¹ When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.

¹² Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. ¹³ These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either.

¹⁴ Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.

¹⁵ He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. ¹⁶ Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. ¹⁷ And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; ¹⁸ they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."

¹⁹ After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. ²⁰ Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.

You can see this for yourself, just go grab your Bible off the shelf and check. There should be a footnote in there. It's in all of the Bibles I have. They all mention that the second half of the chapter does not exist in the oldest manuscripts.

Another example is the Gospel of John chapter 8:

¹ but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
² At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. ³ The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group ⁴ and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. ⁵ In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" ⁶ They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. ⁷ When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." ⁸ Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

⁹ At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. ¹⁰ Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

¹¹ "No one, sir," she said.

"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

Everyone knows this story, right? The only problem is that it doesn't exist in the original manuscripts.

I can continue, but I think my point is clear. In a general sense, the stories presented in the Gospels have been changed over time, written by people not present for the events they describe, etc.

To respond to Greenleaf's particular rule of evidence: There is plenty of evidence of tampering with the stories in the years between original authoring and now.

Continue to Part 2...

A-Week: Evolution

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com (kenny) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 21:32:00 GMT

Evolution is a controversial topic among the religious-at-large, but it isn't among scientists (many of whom are religious). When I talk about Evolution to people who do not believe in Evolution, I usually find that they don't actually understand the Theory of Evolution. So, I'd like to address a couple of misconceptions about Evolution and then talk about why I would like you to take some time to sincerely consider the case for Evolution. There is some technical info below. If you tend to get lost in such discussions, bear with me, I'll try to make it as understandable as possible. :)

Let me take a moment to reinforce the following idea: I am NOT trying to disprove Creationism here. I'm not looking to take anything away from you. I'm merely hoping to add something wonderful to your world. My goal here is to clear up some misunderstandings about Evolution and hopefully get you to at least consider the possibility that Evolution is true.

Common statements I hear about evolution (these are not strawman arguments, this are real quotes from people):

"So, you think we all just came from monkeys? Why don't we see half-monkey-half-humans walking around?"

No, I do not think we came from monkeys and the Theory of Evolution doesn't say we do either. According to the Theory of Evolution, we have a shared ancestor which is a very different thing. We didn't evolve from monkeys. Both we and monkeys evolved from the same starting point a long, long time ago. For example, I supposedly am descended from Charlemagne (at least that's what my grandmother's cherished ancient family tree says). If you were also descended from Charlemagne, it would be ludicrous to say that I came from you... and that's why it sounds so ludicrous when you hear people say we descended from monkeys. We simply have a shared ancestor.

We might actually be seeing some evolution (natural selection) in progress! Artic temperatures are getting warmer and some of the ice barriers that have separated species for a long time are melting away allowing those species to mingle. The coolest, and most frightening, inter-species breeding that I've heard of is Polar Bears and Grizzly Bears. I kid you not. GROLAR BEARS! Imagine the carnivorous and unrelenting nature of a polar bear and now give it the climate adaptibility to come down from the snow into your hometown! Holy crap! :) Unlike inter-breeding between horses and donkeys which create mules who are unable to produce offspring, the Grolar Bears are continuing to spawn children. We have evidence of 2nd generation Grolar Bears. We could be seeing a new species emerging right now.

Another example has to do with African Elephants. It appears that the African Elephant population is losing its tusks. This isn't because the elephants just decided to stop growing tusks. Some elephants naturally do not grow them and those elephants aren't targetted by poachers who want to gather ivory. The dead elephants who had tusks have less and less chance to produce offspring, while the tuskless elephants have plenty of opportunity to produce offspring. This causes more and more of the elephant babies to be of the tuskless type. This is an example of an environmental pressure that causes changes over time. If we continue to hunt and kill elephants for their ivory for a long enough time, elephants without tusks might become the "normal" elephants. (I'll provide some light, humorous reading on this topic at the bottom!)

While random chance does have an influence in evolution (natural selection) over time, these types of environmental pressures and breeding opportunities to pass on genes are really the largest driving factor. So, don't think about it as a random occurance. The changes make a lot of sense when you can see the whole situation.

"It's only a theory."

That's true, but it's misleading because of a difference of language between scientists and non-scientists. Want to know what else is only a theory?

Gravity.

You've no doubt heard the phrase "Law of Gravity" which is a reference to Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation (the technical name), so you might be thinking "But gravity isn't a theory, it's a law!" Well, it was until Einstein came along and showed us all it was wrong. Newton's equations about gravity work pretty darn well for most intents and purposes that you and I encounter, but they break down on very small and very large scales. All modern gravitational physics is based on Einstein's Theory of General Relativity.

My point here is that "theory" to a scientist doesn't mean "just a guess." It is something backed up by observational evidence. It is something which is able to successfully explain a question at hand, hopefully in the simplest method possible, and is supported by observation, experimentation, and other forms of evidence. When a scientific idea reaches the status of "theory" it has been thoroughly tested. When you think about the probability that a theory is true or not, this isn't a 50%/50%... it might be true, it might not be true. Just like our Theory of Gravitation based on Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, the Theory of Evolution is able to explain our natural world to 99.9999% accuracy.

"There is no evidence for evolution."

This is a difficult response to overcome, not because it is true, but because there is so much evidence for evolution it is unlikely that anyone who has already ignored all of that evidence will accept any evidence I present to them. And yet... I will continue to try. :)

I could choose from lots of things, but I'm going to talk about one that I've been reading a lot about lately. It's called the Recurrent laryngeal nerve. It's the nerve that goes from our brains to our larynx. It's a pretty short trip, obviously, since our brain stem is at the back our skulls and is pretty darn close to our throats! The weird part though is that this nerve travels all the way down the throat, travels deep into the chest, and under the heart! It doesn't attach the heart at all, just travels underneath the aorta and THEN all the way back up the chest and into the throat to the larynx. It's quite a trip! This nerve exists in pretty much all mammals. Even in giraffes! This nerve is like 15 feet long in a giraffe because of the length of their necks! This nerve exists in other types of animals as well, even fish. It attaches to the gills instead of a larynx, but it comes from the same section of the brain and branches off of the vagus nerve just like in mammals.

Ok, but why is that important?

Well, in fish the path of this nerve makes perfect sense. Due to the position of the fish heart in comparison to the gills and brain, this nerve takes a very direct, short path. So, why does it take such a weird path in humans and mammals? Well, consider that evolution is true for just a moment and indulge me. Imagine a fish with this short, direct little nerve. Now change that fish just the TINIEST bit by making its neck a little longer. That nerve grows a little longer. Then make it a TINY bit longer and the nerve gets a little longer. At some point, the angle of the head starts to change in the TINIEST TINIEST bit. As this continues, we get to a certain point where it makes more sense for that nerve to be completely re-routed so it doesn't go under the heart as the animal is getting longer, neck is changing shape ever so slightly, etc. However, to completely change the path of that nerve requires a HUGE change! It's much, much easier to just grow another millimeter longer and continue to go under the heart than it is to completely grow in a new direction.

So, while it doesn't make any sense that this nerve should travel SO far in mammals (15 feet for giraffes!), it does make sense if you look at those mammals as the product of tiny, tiny, TINY changes over a very long time.

Again, it is not my goal to tell you Creationism is wrong. I'm not making that argument. I'm only making the argument that Evolution is true and explains the natural world very, very well. I'm hoping you'll take some time to sincerely think about the ideas I've presented above. See if you can find a way to accept the amazing process of Evolution into your mind. No need to make it destroy something else... maybe just find a way to hold it as true in your mind along with your religious beliefs.

Your promised humor: 7 Animals That Are Evolving Right Before Our Eyes

A-Week: Can you define "good" or "bad" without a God?

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com (kenny) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 17:19:00 GMT

This is the "A Week" ... an attempt to raise awareness about atheism. I'm going to be posting a few things during the week about atheism, religion, etc. It would mean a lot to me if you'd take a few minutes to read over them. I'll be respectful and hopefully prompt some thoughtful discussion. Some have already been posted to Facebook, but I'll try to back-fill and post those here as well.

The single most common and persistent argument regarding religion has to do with the idea that morality is impossible without God. That good and bad have no meanings without God to define them. As part of A-Week, I would like to provide you with some food for thought so if you feel this way currently that you might consider a different point of view. I have one common response to this, but today I'll provide you instead with a response from Sam Harris, a philosopher and neuroscientist, that he put forward in a talk he gave at the University of Oxford.

Can you define "good" or "bad" without a God?

Take a moment and imagine a world in which every human being is currently suffering the worst possible misery one can imagine and will continue to suffer this worst possible misery for as long as possible... every conscious creature in the world, all simultaneously suffering a state of absolute misery as defined by each creature which lasts as long as imaginably possible. He calls this the "worst possible misery for everyone."

Sam Harris says, and I agree:

The worst-possible-misery-for-everyone is 'bad.' If the word 'bad' is going to be mean anything surely it applies to the worst-possible-misery-for-everyone. Now if you think the worst-possible-misery-for-everyone isn't bad, or might have a silver lining, or there might be something worse... I don't know what you're talking about. What is more, I'm reasonably sure you don't know what you're talking about either. The moment you admit this, the moment that you admit that worst-possible-misery-for-everyone is the worst outcome, then you have to admit that every other possible experience is better than the worst-possible-misery-for-everyone so a contiuum opens up... and because the experience of conscious creatures is going to depend in someway on the laws of nature there are going to be right and wrong ways to move across this contiuum.

I think this is a rational and very accessible argument for a non-supernatural, non-Godly absolute basis for good vs bad. If you feel there needs to be an absolute basis on which to judge your moral actions, this continuum of bad-to-good/misery-to-well-being should be able to substitute for an absolute morality handed down from a deity. He goes on to make the point that it is still very possible to make decisions which you _think_ will improve the well-being of people, but fail, which is just a problem of navigation across this contiuum from misery to well-being.

If you give me a little more of your thoughtspace, I put forward to you that Harris' suggested absolute basis for morality has the opportunity to lead us to a better state of well-being than the absolute basis put forward in the Bible (or the Qu'ran, etc.). For example, while religious folks certainly work hard, through charity and such, to reduce the misery that many people live in, the religious precepts of these various moralities actually _cause_ much of the misery we see in our world today (not anywhere near all, but much). For example, the Catholic Church may work diligently to help impoverished people in Africa, but at the same time, damn many of them to a life of misery due to their efforts to prevent distribution of condoms and other forms of birth control. Through education and accessibility to condoms in the USA we have been able to make great strides in preventing the spread of AIDS, but in Africa it is running rampant.

Another example would be the personal misery people are subjected to, and even subject themselves to, because they are gay and condemned by the Abrahamic religions. I have a friend who is gay and a devout Christian. She sincerely prays frequently, sincerely reads her Bible, sincerely attends Church weekly (sometimes more often). Her faith is unassailably strong... and she is emotionally tortured by the fact that she is gay. She didn't choose to be gay, she just knew it was true from a very young age. She is emotionally tortured because she believes she will be condemned to Hell and that she is inherently evil and bad because of the absolute morality provided by the Bible. I wholeheartedly believe that her misery could be eliminated by shedding just this _one_ belief. She could remain a Christian in every other sense of the word, but her happiness and fruitfulness in life would skyrocket absent this one bit of Bronze Age morality.

These are just two arbitrary examples, and while I'm sure you could try to provide a counter-argument for these specific situations I ask that you take some time to really think about these concepts and try to consider the idea that God is not necessary for morality in general, not necessary for an absolute basis for morality and that potentially we could form a system of morality that is better than those presented in the Bible/Qu'ran/etc. No doubt the first response from a Christian or Muslim point of view will be that being tormented for eternity in Hell is by definition the worst-possible-misery-for-everyone, but that then leads to requirements for evidence of the existence of such a place, etc, etc. I'm not trying to make that argument today.

All I'm asking is that you take the time to sincerely consider the idea that real judgements of what is good and what is bad can be made entirely based on the natural world and without the existence of God and/or a supernatural basis for morality.

Here is the entire talk, and subsequent discussion, with Sam Harris at the University of Oxford. It is long, but it's VERY good.

He begins talking about his theoretical universe with absolute misery vs well-being at the 10:40 mark.

Artemis, 2000-2012

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com (kenny) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:42:00 GMT

In November, Artemis started to have some problems. They appeared to just be an injured leg. She kept getting worse though and she hurt herself trying to claw at something in the back/top of her mouth. We discovered a lump located behind her eye, in her sinuses and in the roof/back of her mouth. Many tests were taken and while the test results came back with many different results, they were indicative of cancer. We did a full body CT scan which supported that conclusion. The lump was making it near impossible for her to eat or drink. The only treatment option for the type of cancer and the location of it would most likely leave her blind. It would take an entire month of painful radiation treatments and the oncologist said it would most likely return in 2-6 months. She was living in extreme pain every day, so we made the hard decision.

We loved her so much and miss her terribly. :(

From Artemis

Prophet, Liar or Lunatic?

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com (kenny) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 09:25:00 GMT

(This is an open letter to Todd Pitner, because Twitter is too limited to really have a conversation.)

Todd,

I'm writing you here because I cannot seem to find any way on twitter to get through to you. Please read this and try to comprehend.

I am not trying to lure you into a trap. This whole thing is not a ploy. It was supposed to be the start of a conversation. This is how the whole question originally came about so that you can understand I'm not trying to trap you, I'm just trying to glean information about how you think.

You mentioned at one point in the past that you believed Muhammad spoke with either a demon or Satan himself, not the angel Gabriel. I found that to be _fascinating_ that your assumption was that Muhammad was preaching Islam sincerely, instead of assuming he was a guy lying about talking to an angel in order to build a group of followers and become powerful in his community.

So it started me thinking about how you, and others, evaluate claims of revelation. I honestly do not know what your answer is, I'm not expecting a certain answer. I'm not trying to illicit a particular response so that I can then smack it down. I just don't know what the answer is and wanted to find out your answer was.

So, I asked. It was just that simple:

If someone, let's call him Joe, says that God speaks to him in his dreams. How do you determine if Joe is a true Prophet, a liar or a lunatic?

Your first response, which was to be expected, is to ask about Joe's religious beliefs. I THOUGHT I would make the question more simple by giving Joe the same religious beliefs as you. However, it has apparently caused you to spin out of control and refuse to discuss the issue at all repeatedly demanding to know what Joe's specific religious beliefs are.

I don't know how else to get through to you. The specifics of his beliefs are unimportant, because it's not about specific beliefs. The question is about how you evaluate claims of divine revelation. If you were a Muslim, Joe would be a Muslim. If you were a Jew, Joe would be a Jew. If you were a Zoroastrian, Joe would be a Zoroastrian.

It became apparent recently that you thought that I was saying Joe and you are the same person. I'm not. Joe is a different person from you. I'm not asking if YOU are a Prophet, Liar or Lunatic. I'm asking how do you determine if SOMEONE ELSE is. I thought it would make it an easier discussion if Joe believes the same things about God that you believe. Clearly that didn't work, because you've astonishingly and stubbornly asked again and again what Joe believes about God.

From the very beginning I have repeatedly answered that whatever YOUR answer to the question is what Joe would answer. I don't understand why you keep asking. It doesn't make any sense to me. You know what Joe believes, because it is the same thing you believe. More importantly though, it _doesn't matter_.

This isn't a trap. There is no ploy. I just had a basic question and you've turned it into a circus.

I don't understand the process that you, and others, go through to determine if a person who claims divine revelation is a true Prophet, a liar, or a lunatic.

Can you please, for the love of non-existent Zeus, just answer that question?

EDIT:

Joe answers your belief questions exactly as you would answer them. Meaning:

If Joe is a true Prophet, it would make sense to you that he answers the same way as you.
If Joe is a liar, then Joe is just smart enough to answer the way he knows you want him to.
If Joe is a lunatic, then Joe isn't actually hearing God, but he sincerely believes and happens to share your beliefs.
If Joe is actually hearing a voice, but it's a demon or Satan, then Satan is smart enough to deceive Joe and get Joe to answer the questions to gain your trust.

So regardless of what Joe is, he gives the same answers and those answers match up with your beliefs.

Prophet? Liar? Lunatic? Deceived by Satan?