Today in History: The Great Fire of Rome Leads to Christian Persecution

On this day, 1,944 years ago, the Great Fire of Rome began.

The fire was devastating. It burned for six days and seven nights, utterly destroying four of fourteen districts in Rome and severely damaging most of the rest. The palace of Emperor Nero and some prominent pagan temples were destroyed in the blaze.

Some accounts claim Nero "fiddled while Rome burned," but it is more likely that he was not in the city at the time. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, however, in response to rumors that Nero himself started the fire, Nero blamed the Christians in Rome.

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.

Annals XV.44.

It is interesting how this disaster lead to one of the earliest non-Christian accounts of Jesus and the early Christian movement.

Evolution: Following the Facts . . . Unless they Lead to God

Dinesh D'Souza, author of What's So Great About Christianity, a book I've been meaning to read, has written a blog entry on Newsbloggers entitled The Dogma of Materialism. In the blog, he discusses his upcoming debate on July 21, 2008, with Richard Dawkins, one of today's biggest popularizers of Darwinian evolution and the view the religion is bad for the world, and elaborates upon one of the issues he intends to raise in that debate: the non-theists' blind commitment to naturalism. (Should Dawkin's book have been entitled "The Blind Naturalist"?)

In the course of the blog, he points to several quotes from the bombastic Dawkins about the obvious failures of evidence to support this widely accepted theory, and then concludes with a quote that I had read previously by Richard Lewontin, Ph.D., a proponent of evolution (while criticizing some approaches to the issue), which is worth repeating (with emphasis added).

Consider [Richard] Dawkins himself, rebutting the claim that there are significant "gaps" in the fossil record. Dawkins concedes that there are such gaps, but then writes this: "The gaps, far from being anoying imperfections or awkward embarrassments, turn out to be exactly what we should positively expect."

In other words, the absence of evidence for evolution is itself proof that the theory is correct! This is so bizarre that it makes one wonder what the presence of evidence might do to this theory. Would a complete fossil record without gaps be evidence against Darwinian evolution, as we hear that Dawkins and his fellow biologists "exactly" and "positively" expect that such evidence should not be present?

Dawkins finally puts his cards on the table by saying of evolution: "Even if the evidence did not favor it, it would still be the best theory available." And if Dawkins is dismissed as a crank, here is Harvard cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker making the same point. "Because there are no alternatives, we would almost have to accept natural selection as the explanation of life on this planet even if there were no evidence for it."

We have here the weird spectacle of so-called scientists who are so wedded to a theory that they cannot even imagine it not to be true. This is a level of dogmatism that would embarrass any theist. Even the strongest religious believer can imagine the possibility that there is no God. So how can these self-styled champions of reason adopt so closed-minded an approach?

The short answer is given by Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin, who in a 1997 essay in the New York Review of Books makes a revealing admission: "We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant proises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment--a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation for the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori commitment to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, the materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."

The idea of following the evidence wherever it may lead -- something that popularizers of evolution such as Carl Sagan have promoted -- seems to disappear when the evidence leads to God. If one concludes that the evidence leads to God (or, at least, a designer of some sort), that person will be treated as if he has lost his mind (e.g., Antony Flew).

Dr. Lewontin's quote is refreshing for its honesty, and worth remembering when today's versions of Darwin's pitbulls argue that those who claim not to believe in evolution (according to Dawkins) are "ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)."

ReligionLink: Resources for Religion Writers

I recently came across a website called ReligionLink: a resource website for religion writers. The page features a large number of links to articles, resources and information related to topics that may be of interest to religion writers. Concurrently, it provides articles, resources and information related to topics that may be of interest to apologists.

For example, while there is no link to a page entitled "apologetics", there are links to topics that can be used for apologetics. Thus, there is a page on the Apostle Paul entitled The Apostle Paul: Saint of the public square. The ReligionLink page discusses the "New Perspective on Paul." According to the page:

Given his prominence in the early Christian movement, Paul, like Jesus himself, has been the focus of renewed scholarly exploration in the past century that has sought to reread his role in light of historical criticism and new discoveries about the Holy Land of the first century. But the so-called New Perspective on Paul, or NPP, a school that seeks a radical reinterpretation of Paul’s letters and theology, was given a boost by the publication of E.P. Sanders’ 1977 book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism. Since then a spate of books has elaborated on this “New Perspectivism” with arguments that often run contrary to accepted views of Paul as the archetypal Protestant who eschewed “works righteousness” and focused on salvation by grace alone. Even Paul’s reputed misogyny and purportedly anti-Jewish writings have come in for critical re-examination. The NPP school is broad, and its participants often disagree. But it continues to produce a great amount of popular and scholarly work on Paul.

For an overview of the New Perspective on Paul, see the Theopedia entry on the New Perspectivism, or NPP, which characterizes the movement as “a system of thought in New Testament scholarship that seeks to reinterpret the Apostle Paul and his letters. In brief, the NPP is a reaction to the Reformation perspective on Paul (i.e. the traditional interpretation of him).” Theopedia is a Wiki-based resource, so its contents should always be double-checked for veracity. Another useful resource is The Paul Page.

The link in this paragraph to The Paul Page led to a page entitled The Paul Page: Dedicated to the New Perspective on Paul. Now, personally, I know very little about this New Perspective. I certainly welcome a re-visitation of the life of Paul if it will help remove the unfounded charges of misogyny and other nasty accusations leveled against him. However, I am fearful that this new movement is simply a variation of the Jesus Seminar.

Still, the information that I glean from these sources will more than allow me to get an overview of the issues linked and give me resources to contact if I get hung up on an issue. ReligionLink is definitely worth a look.

Dutch Radical Criticism Part II: The Verdict of Schweitzer

In the first post of this series I sketched the main contours of the school of Dutch Radical Criticism, which challenges the authenticity of all the Pauline epistles as witnesses to the earliest form of Christianity. Dutch radical scholars usually argue that the epistles were written sometime in the 2nd Century in the context of ongoing disputes between anti-nomian and more legalistic branches of the Christ cult (this does not of course exhaust the options by any means; there are just about as many solutions offered to the Pauline problem as there are Dutch Radicals; in addition some scholars take a middle ground, where the Pauline epistles may contain an authentic core of Pauline writing but they have been overlaid and interpolated many times so that redactional layers should be discernible, just like with the Synoptic gospels).

Mainstream scholars by and large are unaware of this school these days, which has only a handful of supporters. The most articulate and erudite is undoubtedly Hermann Detering, whose work I will be interacting with extensively in the future. But around the turn of the century, Dutch Radical Criticism was the center of the most important conversations in New Testament studies. One of the first mainstream scholars to take the school seriously was Albert Schweitzer. He is known primarily for his seminal survey of Jesus studies from Reimarus to Wrede, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. But after that he wrote a similar book on Pauline studies, Paul and His Interpreters, and he devoted a whole chapter to the work of the Dutch radicals. Schweitzer applied his razor-sharp intellect and unflagging intellectual integrity to an objective, thorough examination of the their views, so his conclusions are worth pondering.

According to Schweitzer, the roots of the Dutch Radical movement were found in the work of F.C. Baur. Baur famously declared only four Pauline epistles to be authentic (Galations, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans). Certainly most conservative or moderate scholars thought that he had gone way too far in his radical skepticism. Others, however, thought that he had not gone far enough: "Once the rights of such a [radical] criticism are admitted, nothing can prevent it from working itself out to its limit, and seeking to explain all the Epistles as products of a school which went under Paul's name." (p.118) In Baur's wake a number of critical examinations of the Pauline epistles were published, starting with Bruno Bauer and his theory that Christianity was really the invention of an alliance between Roman authority and Jewish religion, and moving on to the writings of Allard Pierson, A.D. Loman, Rudolf Steck, W.C. Van Manen and others. They pointed to both external and internal difficulties with the mainstream paradigm of Pauline studies (namely that we have some letters directly from Paul and some which were written by his school after his death, all before or around the end of the 1st Century). The usual culprits are named: the discrepancy between the portrayal of Paul in the Acts of the Apostles (which has no knowledge of Paul as letter-writer, and portrays a conciliatory view of the tension between Paul and Peter) and in his letters (which are more fragmentary with respect to the chronology of his life, and show much more inconsistency in his views on a variety of subjects, such as the Law and salvation), the lack of external attestation before Clement, Ignatius (whose letters the Dutch Critics thought inauthentic) and Marcion, etc. Another common argument for a late dating of the Pauline epistles which finds some echoes in the work of Earl Doherty is the time scale involved. In the view of the radical critics, the letters of Paul represent an intense Hellenization of Christian ideas which (according to the mainstream view) was supposed to have been the work of a single person (Paul) over about 20 years of ministry. They argued that this was impossible: "Could a Christology of this [Hellenistic] kind come into being a few years only after the death of the historical Jesus? Is an intense anti-Judaism in primitive Christian times intelligible? Can Greek, Gnostical ideas be assumed to have existed in the first generation?" (p.131) Thus it was more likely that Paul's letters come from a later stage in the development of Christian thought, around the middle of the 2nd Century.

So according to the Dutch Radicals, the mainstream paradigm of Pauline studies faces too many difficulties to continue to be accepted. But what paradigm should be put in its place? We have already noted that there are as many different solutions as there are scholars. One of the more interesting hypotheses, put forward by Steck and Van Manen, was that the Acts of the Apostles was prior to the epistles, since its story of Paul is simpler and more internally consistent. The Pauline epistles were written in the 2nd Century as weapons in a bizarre ideological warfare between the catholicizing and Judaizing tendencies in early Christianity, in which both sides projected their current conflict onto the historical apostle to the Gentiles to give them legitimacy. There is disagreement over why Paul was chosen to represent this conflict. After all, if we reject the mainstream view of Paul as the single most important Christian missionary of the 1st Century, it becomes hard to see why he would have carried enough subsequent weight to authorize an entire epistolary corpus.

From this summary of their views Schweitzer moves on to assess their arguments. Although he praises the Dutch Radicals for having the intellectual honesty to take Baur's skeptical arguments to their logical conclusions and for being very insightful close readers of the texts (He says of Steck and Loman: "This is the element of greatness in [their writings], that they did not forget the duty of asking questions, when it had fallen out of fashion among other theologians." (p.138)), overall he finds their views to be untenable. As regards external attestation, "the position is not so favorable to [the Dutch Radicals] as Loman wished to represent it." 1 Clement attests quite clearly to some Pauline letters and is to be dated no later than the beginning of the 2nd Century. If the Ignatian letters are genuine, "the attestation of the Pauline Epistles is in much better shape than was formerly supposed." Furthermore, "that Acts says nothing about the literary activity of the Apostle has at most the value of an argumentum e silentio." (p.135)

As regards to the internal arguments and the attempt to derive a redaction history of the Pauline letters on the basis of alleged inconsistencies, "the development which culminates in the antinomianism of the Epistle to the Galatians cannot be proved from the texts; the evidence is read into them by the exercise of great ingenuity." (p.136)

But Schweitzer thought that the main weakness in the views of both the Dutch Radicals and the mainstream theologians who challenged them was the unquestioned assumption that Paul's theology represented a Hellenization of Christianity. As we have seen, this forces the question of how such revolutionary developments could have happened in such a short time frame (as the mainstream paradigm suggests) under the influence of only one man? "How is it conceivable that a man of the primitive Christian period could, in consequence of a purely practical controversy regarding the observance or non-observance of the law by Gentile believers, go on, as Baur and his successors represent-to reject the law on principle? How could it be possible that, at that time, doctrine should take a frankly Gnostic shape, and in deliberate contempt of the tradition of the historical Jesus, should, under the yes of the men who had been His companions, appeal only to revelation?" (pp.137-138) Schweitzer argues that accepting those assumptions logically compels a scholar to raise the question of 'space and time' and argue that more time was necessary for such radical shifts to take place:

"The more the theologians who derive from Baur emphasise the Greek element in Paulinism the more helpless they are against the [radical] critics. For it is after all merely a matter of clearness and courage of thought whether they venture to raise the question about space and time. The moment they take this step they are lost. Nevermore can they find the way which leads back through the green pastures of sound common-sense theology, but are condemned to wander about with the revolutionaries in the wilderness of flat unreason. Wearied with problems, they come at last, like Steck and Van Manen, to a condition of mind in which the wildest hypothesis appeals to them more than rational knowledge..." (p.137)

So according to Schweitzer, the real roots of the Dutch Radical views were not primarily exegetical but rather presuppositional. Indeed many leading Pauline scholars have flatly rejected the above assumptions. Dunn, Wright, Sanders and others have all argued for viewing Paul as a solidly Jewish thinker with much more continuity with the historical Jesus than has often been assumed (see also David Wenham and Paul Barnett). These scholars generally do not find traces of gnosticism in Paul's thought either. Once these assumptions are rejected, the mainstream view becomes more plausible.

Of course Schweitzer had his own axe to grind with regard to Pauline studies: he was pushing his solution of 'thorough-going eschatology' in the face of both the radical critics and the mainstream theologians. But his criticism and insights are very valuable as we move forward in examining the arguments of the Dutch Radical critics, and a sobering reminder that, in New Testament studies as in other fields, there is rarely anything new under the sun.

The Extraordinary Claims Maxim: Toward Rational Understanding of Evidence

I have a page dealing with this concept on Doxa, but it's not very good. This is a better version. I will combine the two eventually.

Carl Sagan made this statement popular in its current form, it was originally used by Hume, Laplace and other early theorists, but atheists have sense taken it as a major slogan for their decision-making paradigm.

Marcelo Truzzi tells us:

In his famous 1748 essay Of Miracles, the great skeptic David Hume asserted that "A wise man...proportions his belief to the evidence,"and he said of testimony for extraordinary claims that "the evidence, resulting from the testimony, admits of a diminution, greater or less, in proportion as the fact is more unusual." A similar statement was made by Laplace, and many other later writers. I turned it into the now popular phrase "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" (which Carl Sagan popularized into what is almost the war cry of some scoffers).

This slogan allows atheists to raise the bar for any Christian claim, while lowering it for their own purposes. Ed J. Gracely explains the basic logic of the bromide.

First, it is important to understand that the strength of a conclusion is a function both of the quality of the evidence provided in its support and the a priori probability of the claim being supported. Thus there can never be a single standard of "acceptable evidence" that will suffice to render every claim equally plausible. Suppose, for example, that a reasonably reliable source tells me (a) that President Clinton has vetoed legislation that places restrictions on trade with China and (b) that Newt Gingrich has switched to the Democratic party. Most people would be much more confident of the truth of the first report than of the second, even though the source is identical. The difference lies in the a priori plausibility of the claims.

A more precise formulation requires us to cast the a priori probability of a claim into the form of "odds" in its favor. A proposition with 90% probability of being true has 90 chances of being true for every 10 of being false. Thus the odds are 90 to 10, which reduces to 9 to 1. A proposition with 20% probability of being true has 20 chances of being true for 80 of being false. The odds (in its favor) are 20 to 80 or 0.25 to 1. It is more natural to translate the latter case into odds of 4 to 1 against the proposition, but the calculations require us to work with odds "in favor of" a proposition, even if they are fractional. Pieces of evidence alter the odds in favor of a proposition by a multiplicative factor in proportion to the quality of the evidence.

While it is clear that not all evidence weighs the same, some evidence is better than other evidence, nothing in this explanation indicates why evidence must be stronger for “extraordinary claims” than for “normal claims.” Assuming we can even indicate what “extraordinary evidence” is, what makes it more proven than “ordinary” evidence? The statement above merely indicates that probability is higher for a proposition backed by more direct evidence, nothing more. The rationale says that the least likely proposition is less probable, then the assertion that the evidence must be more “extraordinary” (whatever that means) rather than just accurate or valid or to the point is not demonstrated. Most assumptions about what makes evidence “extraordinary” or “ordinary,” or a proposition likely or unlikely is going to be largely a matter of prejudice. Consider the following statement, also by Gracely:

The principle is clear; the difficulty lies in the application. How likely, for example, is it that homeopathy or therapeutic touch really work? Proponents argue that we need to open our minds to new possibilities and grant these systems a fairly high a priori probability (say, 50-50 odds). Then, even modest-quality evidence would make the claims quite probably true. Skeptics argue that these systems violate known laws of physics and their validity should therefore be considered remotely improbable.

Who decides how likely it is that homeopathy is valid or invalid medicine? One would need a statically average for cure rates to compare with controlled group using orthodox practices to see this. He admits that “modest quality” evidence would be proof if it is granted a high probability. Without the proper studies why not so grant? What if one has found such treatments effective already in one’s own life? This is nothing more than prejudice to judge something improbable on the basis of guesswork and matters of taste. Why shouldn’t a standard of evidence adequate for proof of the issue under consideration, be the issue?

I have yet to find an atheist who can tell me what extraordinary God evidence is. I’ve seen attempts on message boards, where they argue absurdities like “why can’t God make all the stars spell out the phrase 'burn pain is the worst pain', 'Jesus is Lord, convert now.' Or "God could appear at the UN and hold a press conference." I have yet to see an atheist give me a valid option for “extraordinary evidence.” More importantly, we are talking about God, not about finding Bigfoot. God is off-scale for empirical investigation. How can the basis of reality be studied as though just another “thing” in creation? What could be used as a basis of comparison? How could one ever establish a base line comparison to determine probability of God? Dawkins tries it but he merely assumes God would be on a par with any other physical object. What basis is used to establish the probability of something that is said to be beyond our understanding?

Gracely argues:

An alternative I have heard suggested is to drop the extraordinary proof argument and instead to hold paranormal and alternative medicine claims strictly to the ordinary requirements of replicability and good research. This approach sounds sensible but it has a serious flaw. Skeptics are not willing to accept the plausibility of most paranormal claims unless the evidence is extremely strong. We risk being perceived (correctly) as disingenuous if we call for solid quality research, then revert to the extraordinary claims argument should it in fact appear.(Ibid)

This standard is the one I have been proposing for years. The term he doesn’t use, the proper term for “ordinary” level of proof would be a “prima facie case.” He may have a point if we are talking about acupuncture or UFOs but the flaw he sees in it is attitudinal, not logical or methodological. The attitude of skeptics is out of line anyway. Atheists are not willing to accept any level of evidence. The experience studies are fine studies, they are scientific and a huge body of work backs them up. For all practical purposes, they are “extraordinary evidence.” Let us not forget there is no set standard any skeptic can offer to define that term. Skeptics are quick to brush aside the experience studies as “subjective” without reading the studies or thinking about the arguments. They never define what “extraordinary” evidence would be. Gracely observes that skeptical attitudes are similar even in other areas:

In some areas of paranormal investigation, such as extrasensory perception (ESP), the research is already often better done than much orthodox scientific research, with controls and double-checks most scientists would regard as overkill. Skeptics mostly still feel that the intrinsic implausibility is so great that nothing short of airtight and well-repeated research would be sufficient to support ESP. Little or none of the existing research rises to that level, so we remain skeptical. (Some recent work has been of high quality, see Ray Hyman's article, "The Evidence for Psychic Functioning: Claims vs. Reality", in the March/April 1996 Skeptical Inquirer, pp 24-26.) Had skeptics said some 40 years ago that all we wanted was reasonable quality replicated research, we might now be having to eat our words.

Skeptics are never satisfied. I have seen this problem over and over again. When their demands for evidence are met, they just raise the bar again and again. The tyranny of “extraordinary evidence” so long as one never defines it, allows for this sort of abuse all t he time. More importantly, why should God be subjected to the same standards of proof as empirical objects? Here the skeptic is just in the position of arguing “God is improbable because I don’t believe in him.” Truzzi documents the “catch 22” designed into the extraordinary proof standard:

But it is important to remember that the proponent of the paranormal has an uphill battle from the start. The chips are stacked against him, so his assault is not so threatening to the fabric of science as scoffers often characterize it. In a sense, conservative science has "the law" on its side.
In law, we find three varieties in the weight of burden of proof:
1. proof by preponderance of evidence,
2. clear and convincing proof, and, in criminal law,
3. proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
In conventional science, we usually use (1), but when dealing with extraordinary claims, critics often seem to demand (3) since they demand all alternative explanations must be eliminated before the maverick claim is acceptable. This demand sometimes becomes unreasonable and may even make the scoffer's position unfalsifiable. Since the anomaly proponent is already saddled with a presumption of "guilt," it would seem to me that (2), clear and convincing proof, might be the best standard, though proponents may reasonably wonder why standard (1) should always be denied them.(Ibid)

But we must also keep in mind that God is not “paranormal.” Truzzi and Gracely are speaking in general of any sort of “paranormal” claim, including the claims of alternative medicine. God is not paranormal, but is status quo, normative for human belief. Nor is God a scientific question. It is absurd to expect us to limit evidence to only the scientific when the question about belief is epistemological. More on this aspect of belief and it is important for evidential standards below.

But this does raise a further question about the extraordinary evidential standard:
In addition to defining the term “extraordinary evidence” there is also a need to define the term “extraordinary claim.” Why is God an extraordinary claim? Here the atheist is truly in the position of arguing “God is improbable because I don’t believe in him.” Atheists make up 3% of the world’s population at best. The overwhelming majorities of people alive today, or who have ever lived, believe in some form of God. Our brains are hard-wired to have thoughts of God. Our physical and mental health work better when we believe in God (as will be seen in latter chapters). Obviously we are fit for belief, why would belief be extraordinary? Why should we allow the minor little 3% minority to define what is normative for humanity? Belief in God is is far more than just the average belief; it is normative as a standard of human understanding. It forms the basis of our psyches, it forms the basis of our legal system; it is the chief metaphor regulating meaning and morality. Belief in God illustrates all the aspects of a prima facie case. This is at least so for RE. Marcelo Truzzi makes the same point:

The central problem however lies in the fact that "extraordinary" must be relative to some things "ordinary." and as our theories change, what was once extraordinary may become ordinary (best seen in now accepted quantum effects that earlier were viewed as "impossible"). Many now extraordinary claims may become more acceptable not when they are replicated but when theoretical contexts change to make them more welcome.(Ibid)

Skeptics have argued that religious experience is not regular or consistent because such experiences are all different. Not only do you have so many different religions, but also even from mystic to mystic things differ. Over the years as one develops a disciplined life of prayer, one does encounter growing diversity and newness, but a certain sense of the familiar as well. Experiences become regular and consistent in that the presence of God is usually found in prayer, the sense of the presence is always the of the same quality (although varying intensity) and the sense of God can become familiar enough that it is always recognized as the same, This sense of the familiar is communicable and can be recognized form one believer to another. The mystical and devotional literature presents a kind of ordered sameness. One can read accounts as different form one experiencer to another as those between St. Augustine and A.W. Tozer and still find passages that seem to be talking about the same things. This is amplified times millions of believers in the history of the church who have experienced the same things. Even though there is diversification and difference there is still sameness. This is not even confined to mystics. The same can be said of conversion accounts that the same aspects keep popping up. Once can recognize the work of God from one person to another, form one time to the next, from one culture to all cultures. But, the skeptic will ask, what about the vast array of different religions? These differences are due to cultural constructs. One experiences God beyond words, and when one tries to speak of such experiences one must encode them in a symbolic universe, that is to say, in culture. These differences in symbolic universes over time have spelled out the differences in the many religions. But there is a cretin unity even between all the differences in religion. The data presented long term effects of religious experience (see articles on RE in this blog) represents typologies, which can be used to compare "peak experience" with that of other phenomena. The Peak experiencers can be grouped together into a collection of those who have experiences X. They are not isolated assortments of differing phenomena. These studies do represent differing cultures and times. Thus, religious experience has a consistency to it even between cultures.

Archetypal symbology universal.

Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences. Abraham H. Maslow
Appendix I. An Example of B-Analysis

"...Jungian archetypes which can be recovered in several ways. I have managed to get it in good introspects simply by asking them directly to free associate to a particular symbol. The psychoanalytic literature, of course, has many such reports. Practically every deep case history will report such symbolic, archaic ways of viewing the woman, both in her good aspects and her bad aspects. (Both the Jungians and the Kleinians recognize the great and good mother and the witch mother as basic archetypes.) Another way of getting at this is in terms of the artificial dream that is suggested under hypnosis. It can also probably be investigated by spontaneous drawings, as the art therapists have pointed out. Still another possibility is the George Klein technique of two cards very rapidly succeeding each other so that symbolism can be studied. Any person who has been psychoanalyzed can fairly easily fall into such symbolic or metaphorical thinking in his dreams or free associations or fantasies or reveries.

Archetypal Symbology linked to Peak experience.

The link from Archetypes to religious experience is supplied by Maslow as well, in a quotation already sited in Religious Experience Arguments. He argues that the ability to relate "B knowlege" to "C knowlege" where the female (Or the male) is blanced in the perception of the other between goddess and whore, and the proper ego relation is sorted out, is the managing of the sacred and profane. He points out that anyone can learn to see in this manner and that it is indicative of permeative people in their religious experiences as they explained the world through the sense of the numenous.
d) Anyone can have peack expirence --universal to humanity

Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences
Abraham H. Maslow
Appendix D. What is the Validity of Knowledge Gained in Peak-Experiences?
"To summarize, the major changes in the status of the problem of the validity of B-knowledge, or illumination-knowledge, are: (A) shifting it away from the question of the reality of angels, etc., i.e., naturalizing the question; (B) affirming experientially valid knowledge, the intrinsic validity of the enlarging of consciousness, i.e., of a wider range of experiencing; (C) realizing that the knowledge revealed was there all the time, ready to be perceived, if only the perceiver were "up to it," ready for it. This is a change in perspicuity, in the efficiency of the perceiver, in his spectacles, so to speak, not a change in the nature of reality or the invention of a new piece of reality which wasn't there before. The word "psychedelic" (consciousness-expanding) may be used here. Finally, (D) this kind of knowledge can be achieved in other ways; we need not rely solely on peak-experiences or peak-producing drugs for its attainment. There are more sober and laborious—and perhaps, therefore, better in some ways in the long run—avenues to achieving transcendent knowledge (B-knowledge). That is, I think we shall handle the problem better if we stress ontology and epistemology rather than the triggers and the stimuli."

2) Why Does God seem Hidden to SO many people?
a) God is not strictly speaking "invisible."

According to Hartshorne, "[o]nly God can be so universally important that no subject can ever wholly fail or ever have failed to be aware of him (in however dim or unreflective fashion)." Now the issue of why God doesn't hold a "press conference" has do do with the fact that God does not communicate by violating normal causal principles. In process terms, the "communication" of God must be understood as the prehension of God by human beings. A "prehension" is the response of an occasion to the entire past world (both the contiguous past and the remote past.) As God is in every occasion's past actual world, every occasion must "prehend" or take account of God.

It should be noted that "prehension" is a generic mode of perception that does not necessarily entail consciousness or sensory experience. In previous postings I explained that there a two modes of pure perception --"perception in the mode of causal efficacy" and "perception in the mode of presentational immediacy." If God is present to us, then it is in the presensory perceptual mode of causal efficacy as opposed to the sensory and conscious perceptual mode of presentational immediacy. That is why God is "invisible", i.e. invisible to sense perception. The foundation for experience of God lies in the nonsesnory nonconscious mode of prehension. So now, there is the further question: Why is there variability in our experience of God? Or, why are some of us atheists, pantheists, theists, etc.? Every prehension has an initial datum derived from God, yet there are a multiplicity of ways in which this datum is prehended from diverse perspectives.

I agreed with Hume that sense perception tells us nothing about efficient causation (or final causation for that matter). Hume was actually presupposing causal efficacy in his attempt to deny it (i.e., in his relating of sense impressions to awareness). Causation could be described as an element of experience, but as Whitehead explains, this experience is not sensory experience. From Hume's own analysis Whitehead derives at least two forms of nonsensory perception: the perception of our own body and the nonsensory perception of one's past.

b). Atheists basically deny the validity of religious experience because they assume that all perception is sense perception. r, they deny sense perception to theists when they actually presuppose it themselves (Hume is a case in point).

c) All people experience the reality of God or the "Holy" all the time. But this is at an unconscious level. However, in some people, this direct prehension of the "Holy" rises to the level of conscious experience. We generally call these people "mystics". Now, the reason why a few people are conscious of God is not the result of God violating causal principle; some people are just able to conform to God's initial datum in greater degree than other people can. I don't think that God chooses to make himself consciously known to some and not to others. That would make God an elitist. Now, the question as to why I am a theist as opposed to an atheist does not have to do with me experiencing some exceptional religious or mystical experience. Rather, I believe that these extraordinary experiences of the great religious leaders are genuine and that they do conform to the ultimate nature of things. It's not necessarily a "blind leap" of faith, as my religious beliefs are accepted, in part, on the basis of whether or not they illuminate my experience of reality.

The upshot of all of this is religious belief is normative for human behavior. It is not merely "normal" but "normative" meaning it sets the standard. Belief is basic to human psyche, to our understanding of the good, of meaning in life, the ultimate limits of reality, the grounding of nature and being itself, there is no way belief in God can be thought of as an extraordinary claim! We might think of it as extraordinary in the the sense of being unique, like no other claim, but in that case it makes no sense to subject it to the regular canons of science as though God's presence is given in daily empirical data. Obviously the more intelligent evidential standard is that the evidence has to be fit for the claim. Fit, not dazzling, not impossible, not amazing, no beyond our ability to produce, but it has to fit the case. It has to be rational, and able to stand a prima facie burden, and it has to fit the proof attempted.

===============
sources:

Marcelo Truzzi “on some unfair practices toward claims of the Paranormal.” This article was published in slightly edited form in:Edward Binkowski, editor, Oxymoron: Annual Thematic Anthology of the Arts and Sciences, Vol.2: The Fringe, New York: Oxymoron Media, Inc., 1998. It is also found on the website Skeptical Investigations: http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/anomalistics/practices.htm visited 7/7/08

Ed J. Gracely ”Why Extraordinary Claims Demand Extraordinary Proof. This article first appeared in the December 1998 issue of Phactum, the newsletter of the Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking (PhACT). Dr. Gracely is Associate Professor of Community and Preventive Medicine at the MCP*Hahnemann School of Medicine in Philadelphia. This article was posted on July 24, 2003. It is now found on: Quackwatch http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/extraproof.html

Abraham MaslowReligious Values and peak Experience,
text online: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/maslow.htm

see also My RE argument

The Atheists True Colors

I apologize for language in this post. I think it's important for all to see the true colors of the atheists. If BK wishes to take it down it will be on my blog too and I will understand.

On Debunking Christianity, a site devoted to bullying Christians, to mocking and ridiculing all who do not cow-tow to mob rule, an atheist named Ty starts a dialog with me. Supposedly he intends to rationally discuss my arguments.

He says this:

On your website you wrote, "I'm no longer an inerrentist." This was in an argument of how to handle God's atrocities against the innocent in the Bible.

Okay, this is a fairly liberal view by your own admission.

I respond thusly:

No it' not. Real liberals tell me I'm neo Orthodox.

He says this:

So, I want to know what standard you use to determine what is true in the Bible and what is not

.
Now I wrote three long responses. Three because his overall post long, at this point it was all very civil. I said this:

same way you would determine that in any document. We have to assume that miracles are taken on faith. Is it always important to understand the miracles as literal? Use historical analysis and literary cit to understand what is mythology and what is real history. Seek the theological point because that's the real truth content that is being communicated.

have you read my peice on Doxa about
The nature of Biblical revelation?

10:15 AM, July 11, 2008
Delete

We also discussed having a debate and some other things. Then he came back with this astounding bit of brilliance (with some of the language edited by BK for crudity):

Joe,

you're an a*****e.

On your f***ing website you wrote, "My views on this section ar fairly liberal" in refering to your views of the canonical gospels. I was merely quoting your website and you write me back about your own words the following bu****it, "No it' not. Real liberals tell me I'm neo Orthodox."

Well, f*** you and the horse you road in on. Debate is about honest intellectual discussion, not the bu****it you're tyring to pass off as debate.

"why don't you go to college, take some literure clases and ask the teacher how to read?"

Again, you're an a*****e.

What was the reason for this? Because on my site I said my view was liberal and on their blog I said real liberals think I'm neo-orthodox. How in the hell does that warrant this kind of childish tantrum? Do you really think that someone who blows his cool so easily had anything to say about matters philosophical, theological, scholarly and complex? Isn't it clear what atheists are by now? They are a hate group. They exist to brow-beat anyone who disagrees with them, to mock and ridicule religion and anyone who gets in the way is a fool and will be promptly disposed of through psychological methods of ridicule and brow-beating.

I don't think it's possible to have rational discussions with these people. I don't see the reason to even try. I beg my fellow Christians on the net. Stop trying to communicate with them. have nothing to do with these God-hating violent creeps who cannot think or reason or have an intelligent discussion.

Or was it just that he got himself into a position to have a formal debate before his cronies could tell him I would have him for lunch, then he did this to back-out without saying "Oh, I can't debate you; you know too much." So he just stages a blow-up. Now they are going to be saying "Oh, that Metacrock; he's so insulting." They are going to turn it to be my fault. I know they will. They will make out that I started it and they will spread the word all over the internet that I began the insults.

I said nothing insulting. to prove it I will post the three sections I wrote to him in the comment area and you tell me what is insulting?

The Blind Gift-Giver

Yesterday afternoon, I happened to be channel-surfing while driving when I came across The Michael Medved Show. His guest was atheist poster-child Dan Barker who was discussing his group, the Freedom from Religion Foundation's, campaign to erect billboards in various cities with a line derived from John Lennon's childish ode to Utopianism, "Imagine". The line used? Why, "Imagine No Religion", of course. (The phrase, "Imagine no religion" is actually not directly stated in the song, but in the second verse Lennon actually sings, "Imagine there's no country/it isn't hard to do/Nothing to kill or die for/And no religion too." So, the sentiment is there even if the words aren't exactly as stated on the billboard.)

Now, personally, I could care less about the sign. After all, the founders of this group seem to believe that I will sit back in my car as I drive by the sign and say, "Gee, wouldn't the world be a better place without religion?" But I know that's not my reaction. Whenever I think about the line "Imagine . . . no religion too" in Lennon's ode, I think what an impoverished place this planet would be. I think history has amply demonstrated that when atheism rules, bad things follow. Michael Medved pointed this out to Barker, but Barker simply brushed it aside believing that the examples of tyrannies arising out of officially secular regimes (North Korea, USSR and the French government following the French Revolution) were unrelated to the idea that God had been removed from the picture.

Much could be said about Barker's hour-long appearance. Obviously, I disagreed with Barker on a lot of issues. Medved said he was lying at times (such as when Barker made the obviously erroneous attempt to tie Adolph Hitler's regime to Roman Catholicism -- an implication that he denied that he was trying to make), but I don't agree that he was lying. I just thought he was misinformed, mistaken or flat out wrong on virtually everything he said. But one particular thing he said caught my attention.

During the course of the discussion, the issue came up of belief in God and foreign countries. Barker pointed out that people in poorer countries tended to have higher levels of belief in God than wealthier countries. Barker reasoned that it was because people who were poorer needed God more and so cling to an imaginary God. Actually, Barker is almost right on this one. However, it isn't that people in poorer countries need to cling to a made-up God. Rather, it's the case that people in wealthier countries tend to think more highly of themselves and tend to see less clearly the need for God. Of course, Barker's view actually supports my earlier argument that belief in God is not so much associated with IQ as level of poverty. (Thanks for the support, Dan.)

The conversation then turned to the issue of Western Europe's declining birth rates. In the course of the conversation, Medved asked Barker whether he understood that part of the reason that birth rates in poorer countries were higher than in wealthier countries was due to the fact that religious people in the poorer countries saw children as a gift. Barker responded that atheists generally (caveat: I don't recall whether he was speaking only from his point of view or for atheists generally although I believe it was the latter, hence the reference) agree that children are a gift. Medved then asked rhetorically about the idea (supported by many atheists who are largely pro-abortionists) that children were a choice. At this point, I arrived at my destination and didn't hear the next few minutes. Hence, if Barker responded, I don't know what he had to say.

But as Barker said that children were a gift, my wife, who was in the car, turned to me and asked an obvious question, "A gift from whom?" After all, a gift implies that someone is giving and someone else is receiving. Obviously, the couple having the baby are the recipients of this gift, but who is the giver? Is Barker's Gift-Giver the same as Richard Dawkin's purposeless watchmaker? How does Dawkin's vision of irrational forces fit with Barker's Gift-Giver? Let's see:

All appearances to the contrary, the only [Gift-Giver] in nature is the blind forces of physics [and biology], albeit deployed in a very special way. A true [Gift-Giver] has foresight: he [creates his gift with care], and plans [the recipients], with a future purpose in his mind's eye. Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of [Gift-Giver] in [child birth], it is the blind [Gift-Giver].

So, children are a gift? Not in Barker's world -- not if he is being consistent with his view. Still, it is my belief that he is using language that he actually knows to be true, i.e., that there is a gift-giver, but which he has suppressed in his desire to evangelize for atheism.

New Book Out Refuting the Jesus Myth

In this volume, edited by prominent Internet apologist James Patrick Holding, a team of Christian authors provide a series of essays giving detailed answers to those who argue for the "Christ myth."

CADRE members Dr. James Hannam, Kevin Rosero, and I are contributors. Dr. Hannam wrote the introduction, which compares the Christ Myth to the theory that Shakespeare did not write the works attributed to him. He also provides a historiography of the Christ Myth. Mr. Rosero examines the contention that an early sect of Christians who denied a historical Jesus gave way to Christians who affirmed a historical Jesus. I contribute the first chapter, arguing that Josephus wrote twice about Jesus in his History of the Jews. The first reference is partially authentic in the form it came down to us. The second reference is completely authentic and also refers to Jesus' brother, James.

"Here's a clear and compelling rebuttal to fallacious claims that keep resurfacing in books and on the Internet. It's well-researched, expertly presented, and ultimately convincing." - Lee Strobel, author, The Case for the Real Jesus.

Insights from the Formerly Unchurched

In Surprising Insights from the Unchurched and Proven Ways to Reach Them, Thom S. Rainer shares the results of his in depth research of a group he calls the formerly unchurched. Rather than ask the unbeliever what might make them want to go to church, his team interviewed over 350 people who previously did not go to church but now do so regularly, regarding the cause of their change of heart and mind. The idea is that surveying such people gives an important insight into factors that are actually leading people to join churches and become Christians. Dr. Rainer also interviewed pastors of “effective evangelistic churches,” churches that have had at least 26 conversions per year and a conversion ratio of less than 20:1 (membership/annual conversion). The churches and interviewees cross denominational and geographical boundaries.

I have read through and read again the part of the book dealing with interviews with the formerly unchurched. I am still working through the rest of the book which focuses on the interviews of evangelistically successful pastors. The first issue I will discuss the numbers for is the reason the formerly unchurched ended up choosing the church they joined. This is a different, albeit related, issue than why the person may have given church a chance at all. The book does not seem to spend as much time on that issue, although it does emphasize that an important reason for many of the formerly unchurched who decided to visit was that they were going through crisis in their lives, such as a divorce, custody battle, or loss of a loved one.

When asked what factors led the person to choose the church they joined:

90% -- Pastor/Preaching

88% -- Doctrines

49% -- Friendliness of Members

42% -- Other Issues

41% -- Someone from the church witnessed to the person

38% -- Family Members Attend

37% -- Sense God’s Presence/Atmosphere of Church

25% -- Relationship Other Than Family Members

25% -- Sunday School Class

25% -- Children’s/Youth Ministry

12% -- Other Groups/Ministries

11% -- Worship Style/Music

7% -- Location

The importance of pastors may seem obvious at one level, but just what was it about these pastors that proved so decisive in drawing the formerly unchurched into their churches?

The most common response about the pastor was that he preached in a way that teaches, such as expository teaching about the Bible. The formerly unchurched were interested in learning about the Bible. Next up was preaching that applies to the person’s life. Other important pastoral characteristics were the authenticity of the pastor, the pastor’s conviction, the communication and leadership skills of the pastor, and having had personal contact with the pastor.

Dr. Rainer also studied what issues were important to the formerly unchurched after the visited but before they joined. In other words, what first impressions made a difference:

-Adequate parking

-Clean facilities

-Modern facilities

-High-quality preschool/nursery

-Variety of quality programs

-Relevant and quality music

-Clean bathrooms

-Friendly people

-Outgoing greeters

-Clearly marked and functional welcome center

-Good signage

-Comfortable pews/chairs

-Attention-holding preaching

Dr. Rainer also writes about certain “myths” that his research contradicts. Here are three of them.

1. The Unchurched are Turned Off by Denominational Name Brands

80% of respondents said that the name of the church had little or no influence on their decision to join the church. To the extent the name had an affect, 66% of the time it was a positive one.

2. Deep and Involved Biblical Teaching Turns off the Unchurched

The unchurched, even more than the transfers from other churches, were concerned about the doctrine of the church. 91% of the formerly unchurched said the beliefs of the church were an important factor in choosing the church they joined. Contrary to many people’s thinking, the formerly unchurched were more interested in small groups and Sunday School than transfers from other churches.

3. The Most Important Evangelistic Relationships take Place in the Marketplace

Focusing on the marketplace is a common emphasis of evangelism courses and books. This is understandable, because for many of us that is where we are most likely to have sufficiently close relationships to share the gospel with some hope of getting a hearing. However, when asked which person was the greatest influence in the formerly unchurched deciding to join a church, “coworker” was the answer for 8% of respondents. Number one was “Family Member,” at 43%, with 35% of those being wives, 18% being children, and 9% being parents.