Let's Talk About Christian Apologetics

Okay, let's start out with a quick explanation of just what Christian Apologetics is.  In a nutshell, Christian Apologetics is when someone defends the Christian religion by coming up with explanations for problems with Christian belief and Christian doctrine that rational thought and skeptical analysis bring up when such thought and analysis are leveled at Christianity.  The word "apologetics" has its roots in the Greek word apologia, meaning "a speech made in defense."  In Ancient Greece, it referred to a defense made during a trial.  After the accusation, the defendant was allowed to refute the charges against him with a reply to the accusation.  Up until the 1700s, the word "apologetics" was used to indicate any sort of intellectual defense made against accusations.  Right around the middle of the 18th Century, however, the word started to be applied only to the defense of religious doctrine and belief, and it is that narrower definition that continues to be used to this day.  Christian Apologetics is specifically the defense of Christianity.

So in a nutshell, that's Christian Apologetics.

The one thing to always keep in mind when discussing Christian Apologetics is that its basically made up nonsense.  The apologist relies on logical fallacy and semantic games to make his point, and counts on the general ignorance of science and the need of most unthinking Christians to have an easy answer to the "blasphemous" accusations made by the skeptical about their religion.  Supposedly, Christian Apologetics is based on "evidence," but the truth is that most of the so-called evidence is nothing more than personal opinion on the part of whatever "scholar" produced it in the first place.  (And producing this supposed "evidence" is a multi-billion dollar a year industry).

Two favorites of the apologist are Lee Strobel and his book The Case For Christ, and Josh McDowell and his book Evidence That Demands a Verdict.  It should be noted that both of these men are ministers.  Neither pretends to any scientific impartiality, objectivism, or unbiased opinions.  Oh sure, both make claims to objectivity, and claim to be looking at Christianity from the viewpoint of scholarly truth, but in practice they are as biased in favor of their own religion as any other believer, and are willing to make the most befuddling leaps of faith (pun intended) to support that religion as they find necessary.  The truth is, both men are snake oil salesmen selling a con game to the gullible.

But then, conning the gullible is the basic essence of religion.

Christian Apologists have nothing to support their personal opinions other than more personal opinion.  They have no access to documents written by Jesus (because no such documents exist), no museums full of Jesus artifacts (because no such artifacts exist), no supporting documents by other writers (because none such documents exist).  In short, they have nothing to support their words but logical fallacy, supposition, guesswork, and -- to put it bluntly -- their own ability to convince people that what they are saying isn't just a big pile of bullshit.  What they do have, though, is faith.  And its faith that not only keeps the pile of bullshit from falling over on itself, its what convinces the gullible to actually buy into it.

The primary source of the so-called "proof" that Apologists use to convince the general public that their arguments are sound that their storybook hero is real is the storybook itself.  The Bible is given the special privilege by these people of being able to confirm the truth of itself.  Unique among all other historical documents, Christians hold that the Bible is "historically reliable" simply because the Bible itself says that it is true.  Yes, that's right.  The Bible is true because the Bible says that it is true.  That's a handy little concession, isn't it?  Now, is there any sort of actual justification for this belief?  Does the Bible give accurate chronologies and verifiable facts about people, places, and things contained within it?  Are there avenues of research that clearly show that the Bible is accurate when it comes to the things it says?

Not at all.  Like any fictional story, the Bible describes a series of unlikely events using a plethora of characters and a mass of completely unverifiable fictional details to tell its story.  Oh sure, the setting for the story, Roman-ruled Judaea, was a real-enough place.  First Century Palestine certainly existed (you can, after all, hop a plane to Israel and visit the ruins).  But that said, fictional stories set in real-world locations do not cease to be fictional.

The central question is this:  Did a Jewish Carpenter walk on water, raise the dead, piss off the authorities, get crucified, and somehow get resurrected and taken up to heaven, just like the Bible describes?  Unfortunately for Christians, the only evidence -- the Biblical "facts", legends, history, and the vast number of "witnesses" -- we have saying that such a person really lived and did all those things are other characters in the same story giving testimony that the Jewish Carpenter in question actually existed.

As Dr. Kenneth Humphreys once put it, "This is rather like proving the existence of Batman by quoting the words of Robin the Boy Wonder."

Think about it.  As evidence of the "divine birth" of Jesus, we have the Book of Luke's testimony of the shepherds and the angels (Luke 2).  Never mind that Luke was written between 90 and 105 years after the supposed birth of Jesus.  The writer of Luke steps forward as a witness to dialogue quoted verbatim.  Jesus turning water into wine?  Well, we've got the writer of the Book of John as our key (and in fact, only) witness, writing his story nearly 140 years after the fact.  And who do we have to vouch for the resurrection?  Evidence for the "risen Christ" actually comes from Paul's testimony of "500 witnesses", none of whom are actually identified, the sightings of 12 apostles, and himself (1 Corinthians 15).  Of course, Paul's testimony contradicts the Book of Matthew, which only has two unidentified women and eleven of the twelve apostles.  The Book of Mark raises Matthews tally to three women and names them (Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of James, and Salome), two random passers-by, and the eleven apostles.  The stories don't even match up, but we are expected to take them as if they were unshakable truths, written in stone.  Sure.  Pull the other one.  The entire core belief of Christianity -- the resurrected savior -- rests on just under five hundred self-contradictory words written over a period of 180 years in an ancient and thoroughly discredited book.  Perhaps the writers of the Bible simply expected people to believe as they were told and never question anything.

In addition to the argument that the Bible is true because it says it is true, Apologetics also cite early Christian scholars as evidence.  No, I don't mean they cite the works of these early Christian fathers, they cite the existence of such people.  The supposed lives of these men are used as evidence supporting Christianity, not just what they put down on paper.  For example, Ignatius of Antioch, who lived some time between 50 AD and 115 AD (we're not sure, precisely) has become the lynchpin of the Roman Catholic claim to world mastery.  According to the story, Ignatius was martyred when Emperor Trajan (a man for whom an astonishingly large amount of historical records exist, and who was, in truth, a relatively benign and harmless man as far as Roman Emperors go) took offense to the man for some unexplained reason, and rather than having him tried and executed in Antioch sentenced him to be killed by wild beasts in the Colliseum of Rome.  (This is doubly odd, given that, if that's what Trajan wanted to happen, Antioch had a Colliseum of its own that they could have used.)

We are asked to believe that the Emperor, who was at the time assembling his armies for the coming war with Parthia, took time out of his war preparations to assign an entire battalion of soldiers to bring bring Ignatius to Rome by way of a long and circuitous land-route that gave Ignatius the opportunity to meet and greet notable Christians nearly every step of his way.  Supposedly along this four month long journey, Ignatius wrote fifteen letters to various individuals, including the Virgin Mary and a Christian bishop who wasn't even born by the time Ignatius supposedly died.  Miraculous!

Of course, the importance of these supposed letters is not to supply historical accuracy to the story, but to bolster Catholic doctrine.  Ignatius's letters are filled to the brim with Fourth Century orthodoxy, telling the faithful how they are supposed to live their lives under the benign rule of the Church, how they are supposed to follow the doctrine supplied by the church, and how they are supposed to live their lives as good Christians.  Note I saidFourth Century orthodoxy.  Coming from the supposed pen of a Second Century martyr.  Amazing how that happens.  In addition, Ignatius is used as the "connecting authority" between the early so-called "Christian Jews" and the first true Christians.  (The first Roman bishop to identify himself as "Pope", Anicetus (who reigned over the church between 156 and 166 CE) -- did so supposedly after being named as such by Ignatius.  Similarly, Clements, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus are all used in a similar manner to Ignatius, as if the fact that they existed at all validates Christian doctrine, as if, somehow, the fact that a person living in the Second or Third Century somehow proves that a person in the First Century actually existed.

The problem with this being that evidence of belief is not evidence of fact.  If the fact that lots of people believe something means that the belief is automatically true, then that would validate the Hindu gods a lot better than the Christian one, given that Hinduism pre-dates Christianity by three thousand years.

Then there's the "sheer quantity of documentation" argument.  It goes something like "There is only one manuscript copy of Caesar's Gallic Wars and that dates to the Tenth Century.  In contrast there are twenty thousand manuscripts of the gospels in various languages, dating from the Sixth through Twelfth Centuries.  Doesn't that PROVE the correctness of the New Testament?"  Uh, no, it doesn't.  A lie repeated a hundred times does not stop being a lie, and a truth told only once does not stop being a truth.  But what this does show is how few Christian manuscripts -- or even scraps of Christian manuscripts -- managed to survive from before Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.  Whole libraries full of ancient wisdom and learning -- Pagan wisdom and learning -- were burned to the ground by Christians.  For centuries, by order of the Christian church, the only approved literature was the Bible.  Everything else was forbidden and destroyed.

And modern Christian Apologists have the brass balls to claim that this self-generated lack of documentation for anything other than Christianity is proof of their own religion.  That's sort of like a Nazi saying that the lack of Jewish art is proof of the supremacy of the Nazi cause.

The Apologetics argument that really gets my goat is the one where the Christian asks, "Why would the apostles of Christ have suffered and died for a fake religion?"  Are you kidding me with this nonsense?  Seriously?  People "suffer and die" because they are told lies every single day.  Tell me, Mr. Christian, if suffering and dying for your faith is evidence of the truth of that faith, does that mean the terrorists who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 go immediately to heaven, as the Koran said they would?  Even better, one early Christian king in what would become Germany is known to have tortured and murdered nearly ten thousand pagan Germans in an effort to force them to convert to Christianity.  Does the fact that they suffered and died prove the existence of Wotan and Thunor?

And that's ignoring the fact that there is precisely zero evidence that the "apostles of Christ" actually even existed, much less were tortured and murdered by the Romans.  At least not until the Christians started turning its attention to burning heretics at the stake.  Paul, for example, never refers to the execution of a single apostle.  Not once.  Though of course that does nothing to diminish the often repeated story of how the Emperor Nero "put Christians to the torch" in a pogram for which no historical evidence exists at all.  Religious-inspired murder proves nothing.

Now, normally, we could all just sit back and laugh at the gullible rubes who get conned into believing this nonsense.  Problem is, this is as rational as some Christians ever get.  And these people vote.

The thought of a truly Christian government in the United States scares me like no other nightmare scares me.

Feminism's False Dichotomy

"I'd like every man who doesn't call himself a feminist to explain to the women in his life why he doesn't believe in equality." -- Louise Brealy

Ladies and gentlemen, let me direct your attention to this statement by British actress, writer, and journalist Louise Brealey.  I call your attention to it because it is indicative of modern feminist thought.  It is also a perfect example of what intelligent people call the "False Dichotomy Fallacy."


Putting it quite simply, the False Dichotomy Fallacy is when a person frames their arguments as if there is only two possible options to choose from.  That is, they frame their argument so that either A is the truth, or B is the truth, as if there are no other possible options, despite the fact that its perfectly possible for any of the options C through Z to actually be true.


In this case, Ms. Brealey is saying "If you do not support feminism (Option A) you must oppose gender equality (Option B)."  Her statement makes it quite clear that, in her opinion, at least, you cannot believe in and support gender equality if you are not a feminist.  And the reason why this is a fallacy (that is, the reason why it is bad logic) is simple:  it is absolutely possible to not favor "Feminism" (a specific political movement) and yet still be in favor of "gender equality" (a specific political ideal).


If you're wondering how such a thing is possible, I beg of you:  open your mind and stop drinking the Kool-Aid for a moment and listen.  It is possible for several reasons.


First, it is entirely possible to be a proponent of gender equality, yet not agree with the methods by which the feminist movement goes about achieving gender equality.  Remember the push to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, back in the 70s and early 80s?  There were several pro-women groups -- groups made up of women campaigning on behalf of the rights of women -- who opposed the ERA because they opposed the specific language involved in the proposed amendment.  They were not opposed to the idea of gender equality -- they just didn't like the fact that the Amendment, as it was written, infantilized women and implied that they (women) were second class citizens.


In addition, several of those women refused to describe themselves as "feminist" and did not support the ERA because they didn't go for the "sexual politics" part of the movement (and by that they and I mean the actual "sex" parts of the politics -- the free access to birth control, the support of abortion, and so on) while supporting the "gender politics" parts of it (equal pay for equal work, no second class citizen status, and so on) involved in feminism,  These women still supported gender equality, but didn't agree with the entire platform built by organized feminism and thus would not identify themselves as feminist.


Second, it is entirely possible to dislike the "enshrining female privilege" aspects of the modern feminist movement without wanting to end equality between the genders.  The modern feminist movement opposes -- and I am not making this up, they actively OPPOSE -- any attempt to bring more public awareness to male victims of rape or domestic violence, or equal access to recovery resources for male victims of rape and domestic violence.  The movement apparently sees such efforts as "taking the resources away from women", who are apparently more important than men simply because they are women.


They also oppose doing anything about leveling the playing field for men in Family Courts (thus giving men the rights and consideration already enjoyed by women) or the problem of false accusations of rape and abuse being used as weapons in divorce cases (to put it bluntly, the feminist movement claims that there are no false accusations, and that women would never stoop so low as to use a rape or abuse claim as a weapon against a man).


They oppose doing anything about the fact that the percentage of men graduating from college is dropping swiftly.


And they oppose -- and this one get's me fucking angry, guys -- they actively lobby against the increase of governmental funding for research into so-called "men's health issues" like testicular cancer and the like despite the fact that men's health research is only funded to the tune of a tenth (1/10th) of how women's health research is funded.


And remember, while they are fighting to stop anyone doing anything about these problems, they are screaming to the rooftops about how society as a whole is ignoring "women's problems".  Which makes their opposition to men's causes a little suspect to me.


Now, realistically, I cannot say that every single feminist on the planet opposes all of these things.  As individuals, I'm sure that they don't; I'm sure that there are feminists out there who are perfectly willing to campaign for more assistance to male domestic violence victims, or to level the playing field in family court.


But...


However...


That said...


Unfortunately, the feminist movement -- organized feminism as an overall whole -- actively and effectively does oppose these things.


And on that basis alone, it is perfectly reasonable for a lot of people to look at the actions of the organized feminist movement, think about it a little bit, and then come to the conclusion that they just can't get on board with that.  It is perfectly reasonable for them to say "Sorry, but I am not a feminist if feminism means treating male rape victims as jokes to be ignored at best and insulted and abused at worst."  Or say "Sorry, but I am not a feminist if being a feminist means thinking that there's no reason to do anything about men dying ten to fifteen years earlier than women, or committing suicide four times as often, or dying of cancer twice as often."


Which, to bring it back to the point I started on, means that anyone saying "You're either a feminist or you're a bigot who opposes equality" is either an idiot (which Ms. Brealey isn't) or has some sort of agenda that would benefit from people not thinking about just how much damage the feminist movement is truly doing to our society.


Think about it.

Why Relativity is True: A Basic Primer on How We Know It Isn't Bullshit

This is subtitled "An Open Letter to Michael Heilman.  Mr. Heilman, you see, is of the opinion that the theory of relativity is nonsense and has called it all "bullshit."  He is further of the opinion that science in general cannot be trusted and that the only things humanity really needs to know can be found between the covers of the Bible.

Michael, before I begin explaining how it is that we (that is, intelligent humans) know that the Theory of Relativity is true, you should know that the generic term "Relativity" actually refer to two related theories, known as the Theory of General Relativity and the Theory of Special Relativity.  General Relativity has to do with the effects of the bending of Space/Time by massive physical objects, while Special Relativity deals with effects like the changes a physical object undergoes when it moves at speeds approaching the speed of light.

There have been a variety of experiments over the years that have shown the Theory of General Relativity was accurate, and as the years have gone on, these experiments have only made the Theory better and better understood.  The best example of a supporting experiment would probably be the one that earned Dr. Russell Hulse and Dr. Joe Taylor the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics, when the two discovered the binary pulsar known to astronomers as 1913+16.

This binary system consists of two neutron stars which are orbiting around their common center of mass so quickly they complete an orbit every 7 hours, forty-five minutes.  That’s amazingly fast for stellar objects.  Over time, these two neutron stars are getting closer and closer to each other due to their mutual gravitic attraction.


This attraction was predicted by General Relativity.  (That would be the same Relativity you said made no predictions, Mr. Heilman.)

The strongest direct evidence for Special Relativity comes from particle accelerators.  Since its clear that you know less than nothing, let me explain what those are:  particle accelerators are machines that fire streams of subatomic particles and accelerate those particles to speeds that are to within a few inches per second of the speed of light.  We can then observe, very clearly and accurately, the changes in these particles as they accelerate.  We can, for example, tell when one of these particles dramatically gains mass as it approaches the speed of light (just like Special Relativity says that it should).  In fact, these particles gain so much mass that heavier particles can be created from lighter particles by making counter-rotating beams of both electrons and positrons and causing these particles to collide head on.

As I said, there are mountains of other experiments that confirm Relativity.  The ones I mentioned are merely the ones I consider to be most notable and important.  And I am not even a physicist.  My formal education in physics stopped at the High School level.  Everything I've learned since has been through reading the literature.

Speaking of reading literature, perhaps if you took your nose out of your Bible for two minutes, you might learn something.  And if you learned something, you might stop saying silly things like "Relativity is a myth."

Sincerely,

Jack V. Butler, Jr. 

Sorry, But I'm Not Even a Little Stumped...

A gentleman by the name of Richard Bushey, who describes himself as a "a student of religion", though my investigation has so far revealed no actual source of formal education that the man has ever attended, has set a challenge to atheists.

When I first discovered his challenge, I decided that I'd give Mr. Bushey the benefit of the doubt in the hopes that maybe he'd turn out to be educated and intelligent.  Mr. Bushey runs a blog called "Therefore God Exists," the purpose of which he describes is "to help struggling Christians receive answers to the difficult questions, including God’s existence, the truth of the scripture, the truth in orthodox doctrines and so forth."

Laudible goal, I suppose.

Problem is how Mr. Bushey goes about it.

Turns out, I shouldn't have got my hopes up.  You see, after spending some time poking around his blog and reading what he has to say, I've been convinced that Mr. Bushey is just another semi-educated victim of the Dunning-Kruger Effect who has convinced himself that he is much smarter than he actually is.

Now to the point.

One of Mr. Bushey's blog entries is entitled 5 Ways To Stump An Atheist.


This piece of Christian apologist "reasoning" is yet another example of what I call "pigeon chess."  With this article, Mr. Bushey has effectively declared himself the winner of the argument before the argument has even started, in typical fundamentalist fashion.  Its easy to win an argument when what you're doing is cooking the books and rigging the game and declaring it over before the other side get's its shot.

Fundamentalist Christians suck at rational thinking, and Mr. Bushey provides a perfect example of what I mean.  The last line in the article reads, "Atheists are afraid to comment on this article because they are stumped by all of these questions."  But then you read the comments and you find several atheists responding clearly and intelligently to the questions, giving rational answers.  Several of the responses include a comment about how they "weren't stumped."  I'm not stumped either, for the record.  No intelligent person would be.

My friend Dave Foda, who brought this article to my attention, points out that Question #2 and Question #3 contradict each other, and that both questions are contradicted by Question #4.  Dave also points out, correctly, that all five questions are Straw Man Arguments, and as such are nothing more than logical fallacy.

Normally I don't bother answering logical fallacies, but I'm going to do it anyway, this time.  Here are my answers to Mr. Bushey's attempt to stump atheists. 

Question #1:  Ask how they (atheists) know that God has no reasons for allowing evil.

This question is based in a classic theological argument known as "The Problem of Evil."  This argument goes something like this:

1. God exists.
2. God is omnipotent (all-powerful)
3. God is omniscient (all-knowing).
4. God is omnibenevolent (perfectly good).
5. If God is omnipotent, he would be able to prevent all of the evil and suffering in the world.
6. If God is omniscient, he would know about all of the evil and suffering in the world and would know how to eliminate or prevent it.
7. If God is perfectly good, he would want to prevent all of the evil and suffering in the world.
8. If God knows about all of the evil and suffering in the world, knows how to eliminate or prevent it, is powerful enough to prevent it, and yet does not prevent it, he must not be perfectly good.
9. If God knows about all of the evil and suffering, knows how to eliminate or prevent it, wants to prevent it, and yet does not do so, he must not be all- powerful.
10. If God is powerful enough to prevent all of the evil and suffering, wants to do so, and yet does not, he must not know about all of the suffering or know how to eliminate or prevent it—that is, he must not be all-knowing.A4. If evil and suffering exist, then God is either not omnipotent, not omniscient, or not perfectly good.
11. Evil exists.
12. Therefore, God is either not omnipotent, not omniscient, or not perfectly good.

I'd like to point out that this is not an argument atheists use to demonstrate that God does not exist.  Especially given that the first assumption in the argument is "God exists."  Personally, I can't think of anyone who's ever argued that, if God existed there would be no evil, and since evil exists, there is no God.  (That's not a very good argument, because it ignores the possibility that God is a sadistic asshole who enjoys tormenting people for His own amusement.)

On the other hand, I have personally made the argument that if there is a God, and he's the God from the Christian scripture, then he's ultimately the reason why evil exists.  This God of the Christians is supposedly omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omni-benevolent (all loving); not only that, He supposedly has a plan that determines the course of events for all eternity.  Thus, He not only created evil (which would not exist if he did not allow it), he planned for it and encouraged it.  Which means that God is the ultimate cause of all suffering and hardship.

Suffice to say, this has caused Christians a lot of heartburn; since their God is supposedly omni-benevolent, how could such a being allow pain and suffering.  Thousands and thousands of pages have been written trying to justify the fact that people suffer with the idea of a God who is all-loving, but no matter how you spin it, it always boils down to the fact that this supposedly all-loving deity is hurting people.

Mr. Bushey's question specifically asks, "How do atheists know that God has no reasons for allowing evil."  We don't.  We can't.  But we can guess.  And as I've said, the best guess is that he's not omni-benevolent, but is rather a sadistic bastard who gets his jollies out by hurting human beings randomly.

Question #2:   Ask what they would accept as evidence for God’s existence.

In his elaboration of this question, Mr. Bushey suggests that atheists are unreasonable people who will not accept any evidence that God exists.  The problem is, this is another Straw Man argument.  Its not that atheists won't accept any evidence, its that these sorts of Christians (the ones who think they are smarter than they really are) like to dress up logical fallacy and personal opinion as "self-evident proof" that their God is real.  They'll say things like "Nothing can be created without a creator; the world was created, therefore God," ignoring the fact that they haven't demonstrated that the world was created in the first place.  Or they'll base their entire argument on the Bible, and then defend the Bible's authoritative nature by referring to the Bible itself in a brilliant example of Circular Reasoning.

All that said, let me answer Mr. Bushey's question.  What would I, personally, accept as evidence for God's existence.  I've been asked this before, so many times I have an itemized list.

Verified, specific prophecies that couldn’t have been contrived.   If the Bible had a verse that read something like, "On the eleventh day of the ninth month, two thousand and one years after the birth of the Son of God, a great nation now unknown shall be attacked by the sons of Esau, destroying the center for world trade and laying that nation low and causing them to abandon their freedom for security; and the nation's leader during this attack shall be one of low-intelligence and cunning who shall work this tragedy to his personal advantage," I'd have become a firm believer on September 11, 2001 when the World Trade Center fell.Now, I should note that there are some restrictions on which prophecies I find believable and which ones I don't.

• If the prophecy is vague and easily interpreted in a dozen different ways, I'm not going to be concinved.
• If the subject of the prophecy is trivial (anybody can predict its going to be cold next winter), then I'm not going to be convinced.
• If the prophecy is obviously contrived for other reasons than cooking the books to be accurate, I'm not going to be convinced.  Lots of kings had a court astrologer tell them that their reign would last forever and that they'd have many sons and never once mentioned the fact that the king was a tyrant and a rebellion was brewing, because the court astrologer knew better than to piss off the king.
• If the prophecy is self-fulfilling (meaning the mere fact that the prophecy exists will cause people to try and make it come true) then I'm not going to be convinced.
• I will not be convinced by prophecies that "predict" events that have already happened, if you cannot prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the writing of the prophecy predates the event it predicts.
• I will not be convinced by prophecies that "predict" events that have already happened, if you cannot prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the events it predicts actually happened.
• And lastly, if the prophecy is the lone success in a mountain of failed prophecies, I'm not convinced.  Throw enough mud at the wall, and eventually some of it will stick.

Personally, I think these conditions are reasonable and are only what would be expected of a true prophet, should one ever come along.

Scientific knowledge in holy books that wasn’t available at the time.  If the Bible contained an accurate description of some piece of scientific data that couldn't possibly have been known at the time of the writing of the Bible, I'd be a believer.  And I mean specific and accurate descriptions, not something vague that might possibly be interpreted as scientific if you tilt your head and squint.  I'm looking for something akin to a Bible verse that says, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee that thine energy is as thine mass times the speed of light multiplied unto itself.”  And as with the prophecies, there has to be independent verification that this piece of knowledge was written well prior to when it was actually discovered by science.

Miraculous occurrences, especially if brought about through prayer.  And by "miracle" I mean something improbable and flashy.  Your mom's cervical cancer suddenly going into remission is wonderful news, but its not a miracle, especially if she's been seeing an oncologist since her diagnoses.  No, I mean something like the next time Pat Robertson says God will smite San Francisco because of its gay community, San Francisco explodes and leaves behind nothing but a crater.  If a plane crashes and all the Christians on board are surrounded by a golden aura of light that protects them from harm, leaving only the non-Christians to die.  If anything like this happened, I'd convert in a heartbeat.  One wonders why Christians find this so hard to accomplish.

Any direct manifestation of the divine.  I’m not that hard to convert, really.  If God shows up in person and tells me to get with the program, and does so in such a way that I can be convinced He's not a hallucination or an elaborate practical joke, I'm sold.

We meet an alien race who has the exact same religion as we do.  Yeah, I know this one sounds a bit weird, but think about it.  If humanity were to contact an extraterrestrial civilization, and those extraterrestrials were Christian before meeting humans, I'd become a believer in a heartbeat because obviously some next level shit was happening.

Question #3:  Ask if they would believe in miracles if they saw one.

I've already answered this one.  If I saw a true miracle, and there was absolutely no way that this miracle could be explained through any scientific means at all, I'd become a believer.  Now, that said, to be convincing a miracle would have to be genuine, verifiable, and represent a real and inexplicable divergence from the ordinary.  We're talking "tangible violation of the laws of physics" time.  Anything that can be explained by peer pressure, the power of suggestion, stage magic, favorable coincidences, courageous acts performed by normal human beings, or the placebo effect does not count as a real miracle.What I am saying is that a true miracle cannot be described by someone saying "Wow, that was close."  A miracle is about someone raising their hand and calling down the impossible.  Seeing the Virgin Mary on a water stained napkin or Jesus in a pug's ass isn't impressive to me.  Nor is speaking in tongues, "faith healing" (if a faith healer wants to impress me, have him restore a lost limb to an amputee), people falling over because they were "slain in the spirit", or anything that can be chalked up to showmanship and over-exuberance.

Question #4:  Ask them if the cause of nature could be natural.

This is a God of the Gaps argument.  "You don't have an answer for this question, therefore the answer is God did it."  We know nature exists.  We know the universe exists.  We have natural explanations for many of its functions.  The actual first cause of the universe and the singularity from which it formed may never be known, but science accepts "I don't know yet" as a perfectly acceptable answer.

The true problem with a God of the Gaps argument is that, over the last several thousand years, there have been many phenomena that we couldn't explain... until we could.  We used to not know how lightning worked.  Then we figured it out.  We used to not know how tides worked.  Then we figured it out.  Disease?  We figured it out.  Gravity?  We figured it out.  And on and so forth.  Just because we don't have an answer for a question today doesn't mean that we won't have one tomorrow.  And the truth is, we know a lot more about how the world really works than anyone who hasn't been specifically educated in science knows.  The gaps that these Christians insist their God inhabits are getting smaller and smaller and fewer and farther between.

Question #5:  Ask if they believe that people who do bad things deserve to be punished.

At the heart of this question is the assumption that God, and only God, is the source of moral and ethnical behavior.  That it is impossible to hold a standard of good and evil unless one concedes that the God of Christianity exists.  The problem is, there has never existed, in all of the long history of human society, a standardized definition of good or bad that has been universally held by all people and at all times.  And let's not even get into the problems with claiming that a God who, in the Bible, casually orders his followers to commit murder, rape, torture, and genocide.  Is a God who allegedly is punishing the entire human race for the actions of only two specific humans really moral?  Can we really accept the moral judgment of a being who clearly has no sense of proportion or justice when it comes to handing out punishment?

As I pointed out earlier, Mr. Bushey ends his blog with an arrogant assertion that these questions will stump an atheist.

Mr. Bushey, my name is Jack V. Butler, Jr.  I'm from Orlando, Florida, and I've been taking on people like you in the arena of ideas for a long time.

And I'm not stumped by any of your questions.

The Scientific Method For Dummies

I've had a couple of the usual suspects, plus a few new ones, come at me with variations on the "Science is a work of Man and therefore can't be trusted; God's word is eternal" and "You can't trust science because it always changes its mind" theme.

These two statements are evidence that there is a real lack of understanding on just how science works out there.  We're falling down on the job when it comes to educating our children, folks.

Anyway, in the hopes that someone will read this and understand it and become less confused about science in general, I'm going to try and give a short, to the point explanation of just what the scientific method is.  Now, I'm not a scientist except in the broadest definition of the term, so if I get some details wrong, I invite the professional scientists I am honored to call friends to correct me.

Anyway according to the dictionary, the "scientific method" is:

Principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experimentation in search of an explanation for the problem, and the formulation and testing of a hypothesis that explains the problem.

Seems simple enough.  Let's go step by step through the process:

1. I identify a problem I want to solve.  In this case, I want to answer the question, "Do objects of different masses fall at differing rates?"  Seems pretty intuitive, right?  Heavier objects should, intuitively, fall faster.  But we can't just go by intuition, so we're going to seriously investigate the question.
2. I collect data through observation and experimentation.  For example, I notice that two oranges of different sizes fall from the same tree and about the same speed and hit the ground at the same time.  Likewise, when I drop a relatively lightweight tennis ball and a much denser chrome ball bearing from the same height, they hit the ground at just about the same time.  I repeat this enough time to have a representative sample.
3. I formulate a hypothesis:  I think all objects fall at the same rate, regardless of their mass, so I create the hypothesis, "In a vacuum, all solid bodies fall at the same rate regardless of their mass."  I specified "in a vacuum" because wind resistance and friction can cause some objects to fall more slowly.
4. I devise an experiment to test my hypothesis.  For example, I can rig up two airtight tubes, one containing the aforementioned tennis ball and the other the aforementioned feather.  I'll suck all the air out of the tubes, creating a vacuum in each, then rig an electronic device that drops both the tennis ball and the feather from the top of the tube simultaneously.  I'll set up a high speed camera to record the results, then start dropping the objects from the top of the tube.
5. After reviewing the data, I discover that every single time, the feather and the tennis ball hit the bottom of the tube at the same time.  In addition, every time I changed out the objects for different objects (nails, scissors, chicken eggs, my car keyes, my cellphone, whatever), the objects would nevertheless hit the bottom of the tube at the same time.  
6. Conclusion:  All objects fall at the same rate in a vacuum.

I have, in fact, just confirmed my hypothesis.  You'd think that would be the end of it, but no.  Its just the beginning.

Now that I have my conclusions, I submit all my findings to my peers (that is, the other scientists).  These other scientists review my data, go over my findings, read my notes, watch endless reels of film wherein I drop everything from a salt shaker to a Buick Skylark from the top of a vaccum tube.  These other scientists will go over my work with a fine toothed comb.

They will not be kind or generous, because its their job to PROVE ME WRONG.

Yes, you read that right.  "Peer review" is a polite term for inviting every other human being... not just the scientists, but everyone who wants to give it a shot....  to try and overturn my work and prove me wrong.

So these peers who are reviewing my work will try and find errors in my methodology, or in my analysis of the data.  Some will build vacuum tubes of their own and drop their own ball-bearings and car keys and Buick Skylarks, just to see if they can get different results from the ones I got.  They will try their damnedest to show I am a fraud and a huckster and a bad scientists by trying to find something.... anything.... with my research.

And if they do, I go back to step one and start all over from the beginning.

On the other hand, and this is important, if my conclusions survive the process, then the hypothesis will be considered valid.  Now, it still won't be a theory.  Its still just a hypothesis; one that most people think is true, but it still needs further experimentation and observation to try and refine the idea, to make it even better and even more accurate.  And even after decades of research, when my hypothesis is still accepted as a theory, it will still be subject to testing and observation.

And if, at any point, even centuries after my idea has been accepted by the world in general as true, someone discovers that no, its not true after all, my theory will be abandoned for the new one.  This is how the scientific method works.  This is why no scientist worth the name ever claims to have all the answers or the definitive truth or the unquestionable truth.  Because something can always come along later on and force us to rethink our theories.

As Maya Angelou says, "We do better when we know better."  That's the very guideline by which science works.

The fact that scientists occasionally prove themselves wrong and change their mind isn't a weakness.  On the contrary, its the greatest strength of scientific inquiry:  when you have new information that changes old ideas, you change the idea to fit the new information.  You don't ignore the new information that overturns the old idea... that's how religion works, not science.

People who are familiar with science and how science works understand that we don't know everything.  We can't know everything; new things to learn are always out there.  The world would be a boring, boring place if we knew everything there was to know, and we'd no longer need science if we did. The real challenge and joy of science is that there is always something new to learn, new hypotheses to test, new conclusions to draw.

Science is a never ending pursuit to find better answers to how the world we live in works.  That's all it is.  There is no absolute truth.  The uneducated and overly-religious see this as a sign that science is not to be trusted.

This just shows how ignorant they truly are.

My Thoughts on "Rape Culture" in the United States

There has been a whole lot of talk about how this country (the United States) is ruled over by a "rape culture," and that because of it, no woman is safe.

Just so we're clear, let me quote Wikipedia:

"Rape Culture is a term which originated in women’s studies and feminist theory, describing a culture in which rape and sexual violence against women are common and in which prevalent attitudes, norms, practices, and media condone, normalize, excuse, or tolerate sexual violence against women. Examples of behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming, sexual objectification and rape-apologism."

The problem with the "rape culture" myth in this country is that it is just that:  a myth.  And the primary facet of the myth is that every single woman or girl in this country is in danger from every single man or boy in this country.  And that is just nonsense.

Now, I will openly admit to not reading every single news item that floats down the stream, and I don't watch every single talking head on cable news.  But I do try to pay attention, and I honestly cannot remember ever hearing anyone try to seriously excuse rape in this country.  Not once have I ever heard anyone try to claim that the victim of a rape deserved it.  Not ever.  Not even when the victim was a man.

On the contrary, our society portrays rape as one of the most horrific crimes that can be visited on a woman or on a girl by men and boys.  When people make light if it, they are publicly shamed for their insensitivity and thoughtlessness.

And yes, I specified women and girls as the victims and men and boys as the victimizers specifically and on purpose.  Why was I gender specific?   For a very simple reason.  The myth of "rape culture" in this country ignores the existence of male rape victims.  Completely ignores it.  Of course, male victims of rape not only actually exist despite no one talking about them, they exist in greater numbers than female rape victims.  The people who talk about rape culture as if every female human in the country is an inch away from being raped never ever mention the male victims.

Except when they're making jokes about prison, that is.

But there is a definite double-standard at play here in this country.  Think about this for a moment:  a teen-aged girl is raped by an adult man, society goes ape-shit.  We cannot get that man convicted and in prison (or better yet, executed) fast enough.  But when a teen-aged boy is raped by an adult woman, a lot of people, including people who ought to know better, start snickering to themselves and each other about how the male victim just won the lottery.  I heard one woman actually say that one teenaged male rape victim should "stop complaining" because he obviously "wanted it."

He wanted to get raped by an adult woman?  Really?  And why did he want this?  Apparently because he was male and was a teenager and no man ever turns down sex!  Didn't you know that?

It has been argued that "rape culture" produces the idea that a male victim of a female rapist "got lucky", in the same manner that it produces the idea that a female victim was "asking for it."  I don't think either attitude is systematic of the culture, because the overwhelming majority of people of either gender would consider such attitudes unacceptable if one were to ask for opinions on them.  I think, instead, what is happening is that once again a small number of assholes (again, of both genders) are being used to paint the overwhelming majority of people with a very broad brush.

The majority agrees with neither the attitude that the woman was asking for it, nor that the man was just getting lucky.  The overwhelming majority holds that rape is one of the most traumatic experiences a person can visit on another.  No one with any sort of moral sense or credibility even attempts to excuse away a rape.

That's not a "culture".  That's a logical fallacy.

Though it is interesting that the majority of the assholes who do agree with either of those sentences more often tend to agree with "the man was getting lucky" than "the woman was asking for it."  Just saying.

I mentioned jokes about prison earlier.  Here's the truth.  The number of men raped each year in prison is higher than the number of women who are raped regardless of their circumstances.

Yes, you read that right.  More men are raped in prison than women are raped anywhere.

In 2012, there were approximately 300,000 reported rapes of men in federal and state prisons across the country.  Also in 2012, there were 240,000 rapes of women, either in or out of prison, across the country.  Now, it is true that there are no hard and fast numbers regarding the number of men who were raped outside of prison, but even if it were just one man a year raped outside of prison, 300,001 male rape victims still outnumber 240,000 rape victims.  And no one ever mentions this.

And notable among the people who never mention this are the people who keep talking about "Rape Culture" as something set up to persecute and endanger women.

What's more, when a woman is proven to have made false rape allegations, our culture is quick to make excuses and protect her.  The same people who rant and rave about "rape culture" go to war to defend the woman who made the false report.  Aren't we supposed to protect victims of crime and not the perpetuators of crime?

I know this is going to come as a shock to you, but when a false rape allegation occurs, the victim is the man who was falsely accused, not the liar who destroyed that man's life.  Punishing false accusers will not discourage future rape victims from coming forward, it will discourage future liars from lying.

We don't live in a rape culture.  What we live in is a culture that says that men and boys are criminals because they are men and boys.  It says that violence against men and boys is common and acceptable.  Our culture is one in which the prevalent attitudes, norms, practices, and media condone, normalize, excuse, or tolerate all forms of violence against men and boys.  Examples of behavior commonly associated with anti-male violent culture include victim blaming, sexual objectification, rape=apologism, and false rape allegation-appologism.

The reality is, men have much more to fear from women in our culture than women have to fear from men.

No one would ever think of laughing at acts of domestic violence against a woman or a girl in a movie or television show if they want to keep their jobs, their friends, and their family.  But commercial after commercial after commercial, television show after television show after television show, movie after movie after movie all show men and boys as the proper object of cultural ridicule.  Violence and abuse against men in commercials, television, and movies is so common no one even notices it anymore, and when it is noticed and complained about, apologists leap from the woodwork to defend it.

When was the last time a man murdered his wife and children and then had his crimes excused and explained away by someone because the man in question had been abused as a child or because he suffered domestic abuse at the hands of his wife?

Never, that's when.

Remember the so-called "burning bed" defense?  A woman was acquitted of first degree murder because she said she had been so horribly abused by her husband that the only way she saw to escape the hell she was living in was by setting him on fire while he was asleep?  Lifetime Movie Network made a film about this woman.  She was played by Farrah Fawcett in what many people believed to be that actresses' greatest performance of her life.

Well about that same time that the woman was setting her husband on fire, a man was on trial for first degree murder.  He, too claimed that he was such a victim of abuse that the only way out was to murder his wife.  So he waited for his wife to fall asleep, took her gun (note, it was her gun), and shot her in the head.

The woman who set her husband on fire was found not guilty due to circumstances.  The man who shot his wife was sentenced to the electric chair.

Yeah, sounds like a culture women need to live in fear of to me... 

The pervasive fear of men in our culture is based on nothing.  It is utterly unfounded.  Its bullshit.  It is an intentionally generated product of calculated political theater and feminism, which has become an ideology of hate.  And because there are certain individuals and groups that have profited greatly from perpetuating the myth that men are evil, the myth will, unfortunately, continue.

So now comes the hard part.  Now that we have identified the problem, what do we do about it?

I think the first step is for people (all people, men and women) to realize that life is not a race to see who the biggest victim is.  This is not a "male vs. female" situation where there's only so much care and support to go around.  This is a human thing.  So understanding that neither gender has the high ground (which is a horrible way to put it, but I hope you get what I'm meaning) is the right place to start.

The second step is for people to realize that the "common assumptions" regarding gender relations in this country are, for the most part, cooked up by people who have a seriously financial state in keeping men and women at each other's throats.  I call them the "Professional Women Are Victims Industry,"  because that's basically how they make their money:  convincing women that they are victims, always will be victims, and cannot ever be independent strong human beings, while simultaneously telling men that they are monsters who should be ashamed to exist because they were unlucky enough to not be born female.

This is why I think some of the loudest and most effective voices in the Men's Rights Movement are women, despite the "feminist party line" that all MRAs are hairy-knuckled rapists and misogynists.  These women have taken a look around and seen that the "official party line" of feminism has gone from being a fight for gender equality (a goal for which me must all strive) to a fight to protect and enlarge female entitlement and privilege no matter how much doing so hurts men.

Which brings me to the third thing.

Modern feminist thought must become open to criticism without the critic being immediately lambasted with the misogynist brush.  That's a shaming tactic that needs to stop immediately.  As Carl Sagan once said, "When you are no longer allowed to ask questions, freedom of thought stops."  The idea that the only people who would question the actions and intentions of the modern feminist movement are misogynists denies the existence of women who gladly describe themselves as "anti-feminist" simply because they believe that there is no such thing as an improper question.

We need to stop living in a culture of overblown fear and artificial hysteria.