…and this is a 
Dawkins/Lennox round 2
Category: Godlessness
Posted on: July 9, 2008 7:26 PM, by PZ Myers
For another example of the religious expressing absurd beliefs, you must listen to this conversation between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox — it's astonishing. Dawkins just probes with a few pointed questions, and Lennox, a theologian, babbles on and on and on, asserting the most amazing things. All those miracles in the bible? They literally happened — he doesn't hide behind metaphor and poetry. Water into wine, resurrections, walking on water…it all actually happened, exactly as written, and further, he claims that all of these accounts represent historically valid evidence. This is the sophisticated theology we godless atheists are always skipping over, I guess.
Oh, he does start to waffle when Genesis is brought up. Those aren't literal, 24 hour days, but still, he claims, the account is compatible with the scientific understanding of the origin of the world and life. He also trots out the ridiculous claim that he made in a prior debate that because Genesis describes a beginning, rather than a universe of infinite existence, it actually got the physics right.
Dawkins played it right, letting Lennox just run off at the mouth and expose the inanity of the theological position.
Comments
Well, doesn't it always work that way?
Theist 1: "I believe N."
Atheist: "N is not a sustainable position, because of x, y and z."
Theist 2: "I don't believe N! You atheists are always arguing strawmen!"
Posted by: Andrés Diplotti | July 9, 2008 7:40 PM
When I heard Lennox claim that while Genesis didn't contain much science, it did at least get the things it mentioned correct, I went and looked up what God did on the first 7 days.
From wikipedia:
Third day: God commands the waters below to be gathered together in one place, and dry land to appear (the third command). "Earth" and "sea" are named. God commands the earth to bring forth grass, plants, and fruit-bearing trees (the fourth command).
Fourth day: God creates lights in the firmament (the fifth command) to separate light from darkness and to mark days, seasons and years. Two great lights are made (most likely the Sun and Moon, but not named), and the stars.
So apparently plants, the earth and the sea are all older than the sun. Well, at least Genesis didn't endorse the steady state model of the universe. If a baseball player hit .500, he'd still be the greatest player who ever lived, so I guess it's unfair to expect God to be hitting 1.000
Posted by: Jason | July 9, 2008 7:49 PM
This discussion is infuriating. As I've said on Dawkins's site, Lennox does not substantiate any of his claims. He has no problem saying that, since the whole Christian hypothetical situation is internally consistent, he accepts that it's true. And more than once, he acts genuinely surprised that it isn't a convincing argument.
Posted by: Big City | July 9, 2008 8:06 PM
Good thing the absolute lack of creation myths in other cultures supports his hypothesis that Genesis must have been divinely inspired.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | July 9, 2008 8:19 PM
Genesis says that daylight existed before the sun. How is that getting any kind of physics right?
Posted by: Ghost of Minnesota | July 9, 2008 8:30 PM
The last bit is what is so annoying.
If he wanted to say that it all happened "in essence" (like transubstantiation is supposed to do), or some such rot, fine, he can hang onto his delusions (can anyway, only we have carte blanche to laugh at his current configuration of delusions).
Historically "valid" ("sound" is a more appropriate term), though? I'm more inclined to believe the apparitions in Homer than the miracles of the Bible. One can't actually deny that Odysseus saw Athena based on the evidence, we just have to go with the most parsimonious conclusion (the story was made up) to deny it.
Even current accounts of miracles are disbelieved--including by most religious folk, provided that another sect or belief is making the claim. There are too many confounding factors.
So we're supposed to believe what 2000 and up year-old accounts say about "miracles"? That's the height of arrogance.
I don't mind the BS about the "remarkable" fact that the Bible noted that the universe began. Not even Genesis actually says so, rather God is acting on apparently pre-existing matter. There, though, he has the "essence" nonsense going for him to accept science and to tell other fairy tale believers to do so. As poor as such "epistemology" is, it beats the alternative, and may lead some to sensibility.
Claiming that the obviously fictional, mingled with historical, tales of the Bible are "historically valid" only undermines the good in his nonsense about taking Genesis "metaphorically". Anyone who wanted to believe in ID instead of science could easily ask him why miracle tales are true in the NT, while not true in the OT. Dembski is stupidly more consistent than is Lennox.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | July 9, 2008 8:31 PM
Couldn't get past the first third or so of the discussion. The usual semantic arguments brought up by theists ("Faith in my wife is evidence-based, therefore faith in a god can be, too."), followed by some creative, although hilariously wrong, goalpost moving ("There are two kinds of evidence.") were too much for me.
Posted by: MGrant | July 9, 2008 8:34 PM
I should have written the second to last paragraph @6 something like this:
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | July 9, 2008 8:35 PM
Water into wine? Walking on water? Wow.
How about sawing a girl in half and restoring her whole? I saw Penn and Teller do that. And I saw Banachek bend spoons! I actually saw this stuff, I didn't just read about it.
WTF is the big deal about "miracles" anyhow?? All the miracles religiots tout are pretty bland. Loaves and fishes? I saw Penn pull real honest to crap money out of a nearly naked girl's ear, and catch a bullet in his teeth! Stupid jesus couldn't even miracle a couple of nails out of his hands. Retard.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | July 9, 2008 8:41 PM
the genesis thing is one way to figure out who's not totally off the deep end, and can at least read the bible and say "now, that can't be right..."
the truth of the matter is, read from an unbiased outsider's point of view (like we'd read the mythology of any other culture), genesis is completely literal, and does describe a 6-day creation in one of its two accounts, and does describe a flat planet with a solid dome of the heavens... and all this is completely incompatible with moder.... hell, let's be honest, even some ancient science. it's just wrong.
the believer who might be capable of some rationality eventually will recognize this and try to cover for it. the completely bonkers kind of believer will recognize it, admit it, and accuse science of being wrong.
Posted by: arachnophilia | July 9, 2008 8:42 PM
Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up: Lennox says "evidence" a lot. Dawkins says, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
It's hard to listen to this because Lennox sounds, well, a bit mad. Touched in the head, y'know? O_o
Posted by: mandydax | July 9, 2008 8:45 PM
I saw Penn pull real honest to crap money out of a nearly naked girl's ear, and catch a bullet in his teeth! Stupid jesus couldn't even miracle a couple of nails out of his hands. Retard.
holy crap that was funny.
Posted by: techskeptic | July 9, 2008 8:54 PM
I hate that SO MUCH.
No fucking beginning!!! It's logically impossible. Period. "The Big Bang" has NO evidence for its being literally ex nihilo. And logic dictates that it wasn't, as it begs the question from whence the Bang?
Posted by: Spinoza | July 9, 2008 8:55 PM
That is to say, all that we can say for certain is that our region of the universe had a beginning. We cannot say whether or not that region got its start from some pre-existing region of space-time. For all we know, the universe has always existed. We have no evidence whatsoever to the effect that the universe as a whole is finite, though it could very well be.
So yeah, not only is it an absurd attempt at pulling out evidence, but we don't even yet know whether or not it's correct.
Posted by: Jason Dick | July 9, 2008 8:56 PM
mandydax @ #11... Outstanding Princess Bride reference! +1
# 5... Nevermind physics... how does the existence of plant life before sunlight not violate the very basic principles of biology?? Or are we supposed to just ignore the whole photosynthesis thing?
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 9, 2008 9:00 PM
I love the part where he said my whole world view and life has been built around the fact that these assumptions are true, yeah, he's impartial
Posted by: eyerock | July 9, 2008 9:05 PM
This is the sophisticated theology we godless atheists are always skipping over, I guess.
You guessed wrong. The genuine sophisticated theology has nothing to do with revelatory texts. It's about anthropic coincidences, questions like why does this possible universe exist and not others (or do they), do laws themselves need explanation outside their own scope of action or are they a given somehow, etc.
Posted by: Neil B. | July 9, 2008 9:06 PM
I saw Penn pull real honest to crap money out of a nearly naked girl's ear, and catch a bullet in his teeth!
I would like photographic proof. At least of the nearly naked girl.
Posted by: Brian Westley | July 9, 2008 9:12 PM
No fucking beginning!!! It's logically impossible. Period. "The Big Bang" has NO evidence for its being literally ex nihilo. And logic dictates that it wasn't, as it begs the question from whence the Bang?
Posted by: Spinoza | July 9, 2008 8:55 PM
Actually, lots of physicists think the universe in effect "came from nothing" - (Hawking-Hartle, Alex Vilenkin, etc.) they get around "logic" by saying it's a closed bubble in space time, quantum "woo" (as many of you would call it were it not going your way) about time being vague or whatever. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you the BB had to be caused by something else, but I wanted you to know that supposedly like-minded folks did not agree with your take.
Posted by: Neil B. | July 9, 2008 9:12 PM
#1: No contradiction there at all. A "straw man" can be a weaker or more vulnerable version of an idea that some people actually propose. It isn't defined as having to be a made up thing. Indeed, picking on people like Lennox, Ken Ham etc. is doing the straw man thing philosophically, albeit granted they are important as part of the socio-political reality and even majority belief system. In that sense they are game subjects to deal with, but intellectually it's like beating up kids. See what you can do with Paul Davies' material if you want real challenge.
Posted by: Neil B. | July 9, 2008 9:17 PM
All those miracles in the bible? They literally happened -- he doesn't hide behind metaphor and poetry. Water into wine, resurrections, walking on water...it all actually happened, exactly as written, and further, he claims that all of these accounts represent historically valid evidence.
I don't understand the logic behind how they can make this claim. If a scientist observes something remarkable in a lab, he not only reports what he saw but he attempts to make a reasonable explanation on how it happened based on emperical facts.
Yet, let's assume for a moment that these miracles did in fact occur. The layman observer should have that same obligation to explain how the miracle took place using empirical facts. God saying, "Make it so" isn't facts or evidence.
Therefore, they have nothing and neither do we some thousands of years later to base these claims. These miracle stories are literally strawmen set up in the wind.
For crying out loud, let's also assume for the sake of argument that Luke had too much to drink one night and made up his own miracle - say, Jesus flew to Bethlehem... 2000 years later, we have no way to verify this claim whatsoever, no more than all the other absurd miraculous claims. If a scientist had too much to drink and reported such an absurd tale with no evidence, he'd be out of a job.
Posted by: Geral | July 9, 2008 9:20 PM
OT- New Scientist magazine has a discussion of the Louisiana "Academic Freedom" bill at:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19926643.300
It makes an interesting and scary read.
Posted by: KenG | July 9, 2008 9:25 PM
PZ, when are we going to see you on Atheist Nexus (http://www.atheistnexus.org/). It is like Facebook but just for nonbelievers.
Posted by: vjack | July 9, 2008 9:27 PM
But they are literal, 24 hour, days.
Apologists will sometimes argue the Hebrew word for day, 'yom,' could mean any kind of a day, such as a 24 hr. day, or a longer, but non-specific, period as in 'back in the day' or 'in days of yore'. How to determine what an ambiguious word means? The best way is to look for context in the nearby words. My translation (actually several of them) of the bible states that on each day the Hebrew god created something, and then a night passed and morning came, bringing the next day.
I am not sure how you get nights and mornings on the days before the sun is created, but it is clear that the bible is plainly referring to 24 hour days delineated by nightfall and daybreak. At least the YECers get this part right. Which makes me appreciate them much more, at least for their honesty on this point, than the dissembling OECers and IDers who have to deny both science and one of the clearest passages in their scripture.
Posted by: Tex | July 9, 2008 9:28 PM
"These miracle stories are literally strawmen set up in the wind."
Er, what straw and what particular wind? Are there any pictures of these straw men? Are they entirely straw or did they put clothes on them like a scarecrow?
Posted by: Rey Fox | July 9, 2008 9:37 PM
As I recall, one of Dawkins' best retorts in his previous debate with Lennox was to this very point, and it was that the universe either had a beginning, or it did not, so it's not terribly impressive that the author of Genesis arbitrarily went with one of the two possibilities. Considering the laughter this elicited last time 'round, why on earth would Lennox bring this up again?
Oh, now that's just pathetic. How difficult is it to understand that you don't get any points for consistency when there's no evidence that any part of your model is actually representative of reality. Why is the universe the way it is? Well, the invisible, all-powerful leprechaun in my sock drawer made it that way. Perfectly consistent; must be true.
Posted by: J Myers | July 9, 2008 9:41 PM
Well, there are three possible ways for the cosmos to be. It can be linear with a beginning, it can be linear and eternal, or it can be cyclical. Genesis had a one in three chance of getting it right, and lots of other cultures got it right too. Greece and Babylon for instance.
While the big crhuch seems to be off and thus there may not be cyclical universes, "brane" theory makes them possible. So maybe the Hindus were right
As for Athena, we honor her every time we call someone a mentor. Athena took on the form of Telemachus' neighbor to instruct him to go on a voyage to learn about his father and the history of the Trojan war. This neighbor was named Mentor and every time we call someone a mentor we honor wise Athena.
I know there are some fundie preachers who encourage their followers to purge their households of items which have pagan religious signifigance. I think they need to stop saying "mentor". They honor the Artful Goddess every time they do so.
Posted by: Bacopa | July 9, 2008 9:41 PM
Plants before the sun - epic fail. Bible is wrong. Game over.
Then God creates all non-human animals of the planet from scratch individually, and then creates man - not from mammals, but from raw dirt - another epic fail. That's not a poetic metaphor for evolution. That's a poetic metaphor for the Bible being retarded (unless you grant leniency because of the time in which it was written, but that's the kind of generosity I reserve for dead religions).
Personally, I'd like to see Dawkins or someone else talk to someone like John Spong, who is in some super-liberal sense Christian, but has no qualms at all about owning up to the straight-up human fallibility, superstition, and internal conflict within the Bible.
Posted by: mothwentbad | July 9, 2008 9:44 PM
Gawds flaming bollocks! That man is stupider than Ted Haggard. I damn near beat my head soft on my desk listening to that. Pleeze PZ no more!
Posted by: Patricia | July 9, 2008 9:49 PM
Genesis says that trees existed before animals, and that aquatic and flying animals appeared at the SAME TIME. You creationists want to prove Genesis? Find a fossil bunny rabbit in the pre-cambrian. Go on, we're waiting.
Posted by: Brian | July 9, 2008 10:06 PM
How in the flaming circles of Hell do these questions, which can only be asked, let alone answered, using all the knowledge of modern physics, have anything to do with theology? One can say with equal merit that they belong to the literary analysis of the Odyssey or the artistic interpretation of Mycenaean pottery — simply trading one Bronze Age myth for another as the target of our prestidigitatory masturbation.
(I've never received a sensible answer to that question, and I'm not expecting one now.)
Posted by: Blake Stacey | July 9, 2008 10:10 PM
To put it another way:
Explain, on theological or exegetical grounds, why three generations of quarks and three generations of leptons exist, why the half-life of the proton is greater than 10^32 years, and whether or not quantum computation in a de Sitter universe can solve NP-complete problems in polynomial time.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | July 9, 2008 10:19 PM
Did he really try to substantiate Luke's credentials as a physician/scientist because he knew that people stop having babies when they get old? Does he really think you had to be a doctor trained at Alexandria to know that?
Posted by: Taz | July 9, 2008 10:22 PM
Bacopa, #27, wrote:
Isn't that pretty much all of Christianity? Just about everything was
stolenborrowed from earlier civilizations - or co-opted into it to help with the indoctrination. IIRC the concept of Satan being horned and hoofed has a lot to do with the Horned One of pagan mythology.Fascinating how people who don't believe in the concept of evolution follow a religion whose existence depends on the exact same principles on a memetic level.
Posted by: Wowbagger | July 9, 2008 10:23 PM
We can't indict Christianity for stealing from earlier civilizations. That's what people always do, and will always do. All of western civilization can trace its roots to Sumeria, and the Sumerians probably got much of what they had from predecessors whose names we no longer remember.
Learning from others and adapting their achievements to suit our own unique purposes is how humanity survives.
Posted by: amphiox | July 9, 2008 10:28 PM
Amphiox,
Oh, I'm not criticising Christianity for borrowing - I'm just pointing out that it's more than a little ridiculous to claim that god told them to hold those beliefs or perform those rituals when history shows they're simply carrying on what was done before.
Posted by: Wowbagger | July 9, 2008 10:34 PM
Re: Penn and Teller
Just you wait, one day there will be a Church of the Sacred P and T. And they will launch holy wars on the followers of the Fundamentalist Sect of Superman, who will lobby their state governments of license plates emblazoned with golden S's. And there will be philosophers insisting on the historical existence of Jor-El of Krypton, walking and flying the earth in the early 21st Century. And there might be Lutherists who secretly worship upside down S's, and some people will see Lois Lane in burnt toast.
Human brains are just hardwired this way. We'd have to clone a being with a different cerebral architecture, and replace ourselves with the clones to avoid some version of this future.
Posted by: amphiox | July 9, 2008 10:39 PM
Plants before the sun doesn't violate any laws. Photosynthesis works with any light of the right wavelengths, regardless of sourse, and "let there be light" is number one.
Still factually dead wrong, of course.
Posted by: amphiox | July 9, 2008 10:46 PM
When I was in school and was forced to do math, it was no good to just give the answer, even if it was right, you had to actually show how you derived the answer.
I guess it's presumptuous to hold bronze age writers to the same standards as 10 year olds when considering if they had a valid scientific view on the origins of our universe.
Posted by: Dutch Delight | July 9, 2008 10:54 PM
Turning water into wine, and feeding a few 10s of people, fish and loaves? That's kid stuff, by Hindu standards! The early missionaries in India felt terribly shabby with their skinny rib "miracles", as they found the heathens talking about deities with trillion year life cycles, playing football with entire planets, and swallowing up the sun. So they soon and quickly, to this day, dub them "unscientific" or fanciful, or simply plain corrupted fable! Look who's complaining?
Posted by: rimpal | July 9, 2008 11:05 PM
amphiox @ #38
Plants before the sun doesn't violate any laws. Photosynthesis works with any light of the right wavelengths, regardless of sourse, and "let there be light" is number one.
Reaching. Let's try this another way. Is there any way that plant life on this planet survives via photosynthesis from any source of light other than the sun? Sun created after plants still fails AFAIC.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 9, 2008 11:14 PM
And I know you're not really defending it, amphiox... I just wanted to disagree on that point.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 9, 2008 11:16 PM
Speaking of Dawkins, I'd like to point out this survey. Would somebody smack those "atheists"?
Posted by: Sir Jebbington | July 9, 2008 11:17 PM
#3 - The Bible isn't even internally consistent. There are often two, contradictory, versions of the same story. Not to mention the logical inconsistency of the whole Jesus story. Why should Jesus have to die just so that God can decide to repeal his own irrational punishment for Adam's sin? If God wants to do something, He could do it! And if he wanted everyone to follow him, why talk only to one tiny Middle-Eastern tribe?
Posted by: Paper Hand | July 9, 2008 11:19 PM
If we go with day-age theory bullshit, there's the plants-before-sun problem, and that doesn't square with the scientific account.
If we go with 24-hour days, then those plants just have to go 24 hours without freezing to death somehow, and we're in the "Satan with a shovel burying fossils" situation, anyway.
Posted by: mothwentbad | July 9, 2008 11:21 PM
Brain Damage.
Posted by: andrew | July 9, 2008 11:23 PM
You know, I've heard of people trying to create general relativity theories of how the day-age thing is both literal 24 hours AND billions of years. The upshot, obviously, is that we should be able to infer WHERE GOD LIVES. THINK ABOUT THAT! Don't just pray, you lazy ass. Send a message by spaceship! We have his home address! IT'S IN THE BIBLE!
Posted by: mothwentbad | July 9, 2008 11:26 PM
Amphiox wrote:
-"Plants before the sun doesn't violate any laws. Photosynthesis works with any light of the right wavelengths, regardless of sourse, and "let there be light" is number one."
Here is an exerpt from an article which I posted over at the 'Debunking Christianity' blog, in response to some of Dinesh D'Souza's blatherings about the Genesis account of creation, and Yahweh's command "Let there be light";
-"Three millennia later and the universe had reached its 3000-year birthday. Before this, the universe was dominated by radiation. However, while the density of matter drops as an inverse-cube law (volume), radiation density drops as an inverse-quartic (volume plus a red-shift effect). At this ripe-old age, matter took over as the dominant expansion material and the matter era began; the universe was on the order of 105 K at this point.
The universe continued to expand and cool, but if we were to have existed back then (baring the fact that our atoms would not have yet been formed), we would not have been able to "see" anything. The universe was opaque to light and radiation.
This is because all of the electrons were still too energetic - too hot - to be bound to nuclei, and therefore were able to roam freely about. This means that photons - particles of light - could not move about freely, for they kept being absorbed and re-emitted by the electrons.
When the universe had aged to 380,000 years, it had cooled to approximately 3000 K (5000 °F). Electrons no longer had enough energy to overcome the attractive force of atomic nuclei, and became bound to atoms. Light could now stream forth unimpeded. This process is called "recombination," and this "first light" is what we now see as Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation."
http://burro.astr.cwru.edu/stu/advanced/cosmos_history.html
If Yahweh ever really said "let there be light", then according to modern cosmologists, it took about 380 000 years for the universe to respond to his command. : D
This Lennox guy doesn't appear to be any better than D'Souza in his interpretation of Genesis.
Posted by: DingoDave | July 9, 2008 11:52 PM
Genesis actually doesn't try to describe a beginning, despite the bad translation of Genesis 1:1 that most of us are familiar with. It's not "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Rather, it says something like this: "When God began to create heaven and earth ... God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light." According to the author of Genesis 1, any number of things could have happened before this point. But this doesn't interest him. He is only describing what God supposedly did when he decided it was time to create the heavens and the earth.
The Gen 2 creation account begins with a similar statement: "When the LORD God made earth and heaven ... the LORD God formed man from the dust of the earth." Again, it's not described as an ultimate beginning, just a starting point for the story being told.
There is absolutely no justification for the belief that Genesis describes a creation ex nihilo and that the Big Bang theory is in harmony with Genesis. Genesis simply does not describe, does not attempt to describe, the ultimate beginning of all things.
Posted by: Arthur | July 9, 2008 11:57 PM
You creationists want to prove Genesis? Find a fossil bunny rabbit in the pre-cambrian. Go on, we're waiting.
Sigh. You really think this is any kind of real challenge?
Surely you realize that God tests our faith by burying all those fossils so it looks as though the plants and animals from whence the fossils came lived and died over millions of years, instead of the actual Biblically verified 6,000.
It's simply another one of God's many many many tests of our faith. He's tricky. And he gives a lot of tricky tests.
Posted by: bastion | July 10, 2008 12:07 AM
I liked the way Dawkins played this, as well. It reminded me of letting creationist Matthew Harrison Brady stammer and bluster himself into embarrassment at the end of "Inherit the Wind."
Posted by: Kevin | July 10, 2008 12:21 AM
Arthur:
" Genesis simply does not describe, does not attempt to describe, the ultimate beginning of all things."
I know several theologians from Dallas Baptist Seminary and Perkins School of Theology (SMU) that woud disagree with you, in fact, they would say you're completely wrong. I'm sure I could check with more than a few from TCU, Baylor, Harden Simmons, etc that would contradict you too. In fact, I would wager it's safe to say that 90% of the Southern Baptist Conference members would say you're wrong. I'm sure the majority of Church o' Christers concur, along with an overwhelming majority of Weslyans (Methodism, safe and bland). I can't speak for the Presbyterians or Lutherans but since the number above represents the largest number of Protestants, I'd say your opinion was in the minority. Can you support your assertions?
Anyway you slice it, it's still baloney.
Posted by: j | July 10, 2008 12:31 AM
Ghost of Minnesota wrote at #5...
Genesis says that daylight existed before the sun. How is that getting any kind of physics right?
I believe God has his back turned to the Earth, and was bending over at the time...
Posted by: Dale | July 10, 2008 12:45 AM
It's Creo-to-English Translation Time.
Creo: "Got the physics right."
English: "Won a coin toss."
Posted by: Kseniya | July 10, 2008 12:48 AM
Arthur,
According to Genesis, God literally spoke the universe into existance, blessing his work each day (And God saw that it was good...)
There is a specific order of work cited (they're contary to any known laws of physics, but hey, whatcha gonna do?)
Adam and Eve are specifically named as actual creations, as are their progeny and the generations following (Tons of very specific begotting).
Trying to reconcile or spin the text of Genesis as not describing the beginning of all things is disingenuous at best; at worst....well, I've insulted enough people today.
Posted by: J | July 10, 2008 12:52 AM
"I believe God has his back turned to the Earth, and was bending over at the time..."
Um, Dale? That would be the MOON...
Posted by: j | July 10, 2008 12:54 AM
I like to precis the beginning of the universe whilst at the same time taking the mickey out of genesis with
"In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was
KABOOM!"
Posted by: tim Rowledge | July 10, 2008 1:15 AM
If the act of observation changes the observed... does the quality of who is observing have any effect on the observed? And if everyone has started paying attention to metareality like reality tv, does this mean reality may have been changing because the wrong people are watching it?
I'm trying to find some hypothesis to explain my country. Help would be appreciated.
Posted by: ReallyMadScientist | July 10, 2008 1:19 AM
Here's the thing I've been noticing more and more lately.
The cyclical assumptions they make are just absolutely astounding. Each point they make must be made off of the assumption that another point they make is true. "water into wine makes sense if the resurrection makes sense." "The resurrection makes sense if the virgin birth was true."
Posted by: JayB | July 10, 2008 1:26 AM
I think I've got it figured out! God was using a BSP level editor.
You start with an empty map -- no terrain, just the water plane.
1. The default map is unlit, so Let There Be
# fullbright
2. Add a skybox.
3. Generate some terrain, and add some scenery objects. (trees, grass etc)
4. Throw in an omnilight to properly illuminate the scene.
5. Drop in some
monsterscreatures to wander about.6. Add a couple of player starts.
7. And on the seventh day, He playtested.
Posted by: Kagato | July 10, 2008 1:36 AM
Kagato, as a mapper for HL2, you just made my day.
Posted by: Adam | July 10, 2008 1:49 AM
Ghost @5:
I assume that light getting here before its source was even switched on is intended to be further proof of god's mad causality-violating skillz. Alternatively, of course, one could argue that it demonstrates the backwards thinking common among this set.
Posted by: BetentacledBrad | July 10, 2008 2:00 AM
Kagato,
Wow, I must congratulate you on the nerdiest comment I've read on Pharyngula. And that's saying a lot!
:)
Posted by: info_dump | July 10, 2008 2:03 AM
#63
Aww, come on, he didn't even mention triffids
Posted by: Jason | July 10, 2008 2:09 AM
He says that Adam's naming of all the animals is a mandate for science. If Adam naming all the animals is a mandate for science, then I wonder what the destruction of Jericho would be a mandate for! That poor man has lost all ability to think straight about his religion. He even brought up the ol' liar lunitic lord stuff.
Posted by: 386sx | July 10, 2008 2:58 AM
Kagato,
Wow, I must congratulate you on the nerdiest comment I've read on Pharyngula. And that's saying a lot!
That's like being the fattest guy at fat camp or the whitest guy in the Gap.
As for Lennox, his arguments are better than the usual religious ones, but there are still very weak. The abililty to rationalize is strong in this one.
Finally, is it just me or are British people much more polite in debates. I'm used the debates being shouting matches between two very angry people.
Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 10, 2008 3:03 AM
The views expressed by John Lennox are his own and do not necessarily represent those of his maker.
Posted by: God | July 10, 2008 3:13 AM
Kagato, it works the other way around in the Unreal BSP editor. There, you carve out space from a universe of matter. The sort of thing that might make a theologian's head explode.
Posted by: Lee Brimmicombe-Wood | July 10, 2008 3:13 AM
This Genesis stuff is nothing. If you really want inconsistency: How can ace be both one and eleven? What kind of God would allow that?
Posted by: aleph1=c | July 10, 2008 3:18 AM
Jesus, Lennox! How can a man spout so many words and say so little? The sophistry is nearly unbearable.
Posted by: Jay | July 10, 2008 3:19 AM
Wow, I listened to this last night, and I was absolutely gobsmacked. By the end of the recording I just wanted to say to him:
"Actually, you haven't described any scientific evidence whatsoever, all you've done is told me that you take at face value the profoundly incredible, non-reproducible claims of a two thousand year old document, the early publishing history of which is so ambiguous that we can't even take the document's own claims about its authorship seriously. Imagine you read of a paper by an unpublished author claiming to have squared the circle, except that the nobody has the paper, only copies of copies of copies of it, and none of the copies agree with one another on the details of the process, and, incidentally, the author claims exclusivity in the feat by virtue of unique circumstances surrounding his or her self."
I loved the bit where Lennox said that scientific evidence has nothing to do with preference, as though... what? I don't even know how this person is a mathematician, that really was scientific suicide. It was actually akin to scientific seppuku before a live audience. Or, even better then, the part where Lennox very earnestly asked Richard what sort of factor caused him fail to see that the Christian side has evidence. Wow. Smoking pieces of scrap irony indeed.
Posted by: JM Inc. | July 10, 2008 3:25 AM
Wow, I listened to this last night, and I was absolutely gobsmacked. By the end of the recording I just wanted to say to him:
"Actually, you haven't described any scientific evidence whatsoever, all you've done is told me that you take at face value the profoundly incredible, non-reproducible claims of a two thousand year old document, the early publishing history of which is so ambiguous that we can't even take the document's own claims about its authorship seriously. Imagine you read of a paper by an unpublished author claiming to have squared the circle, except that the nobody has the paper, only copies of copies of copies of it, and none of the copies agree with one another on the details of the process, and, incidentally, the author claims exclusivity in the feat by virtue of unique circumstances surrounding his or her self."
I loved the bit where Lennox said that scientific evidence has nothing to do with preference, as though... what? I don't even know how this person is a mathematician, that really was scientific suicide. It was actually akin to scientific seppuku before a live audience. Or, even better then, the part where Lennox very earnestly asked Richard what sort of factor caused him fail to see that the Christian side has evidence. Wow. Smoking pieces of scrap irony indeed.
Posted by: JM Inc. | July 10, 2008 3:25 AM
It doesn't matter what Genesis got right. It's still not based on evidence gathered from observations of reality. Proper science trumps anything else.
Posted by: Dr Strangelove | July 10, 2008 3:26 AM
Frak, sorry all; accidentally hit the button twice.
Posted by: JM Inc. | July 10, 2008 3:26 AM
@ Jason #2
It's worse than that. Just about every bit of explicit ordering in there is wrong - including putting plants before animals (which is exactly the sort of mistake you'd expect an ignorant primitive to make merely on superficial observation of food chains).@ Neil B. #17
No, I think you missed PZ's actual point behind the remark - which was that real believers and even many of those in leadership or academic theological positions, ie nearly every believer anyone is going to encounter(!), aren't the "sophisticated" theologians that some apologists would like to pretend they are when claiming the real arguments aren't being addressed. The pathetic arguments of the overwhelming majority of religious nutters are the true (coal-)face of the religion. The evaporating (and also bad) apologetics of the vanishingly tiny minority are not the reality of the situation.Posted by: SEF | July 10, 2008 3:41 AM
Has the man never heard about serious Biblical historians ? The kind of guys who can explain to you the real, metaphorical meaning of each element in the text ?
For instance, I had one recently explain me that mentions of animals actually mean peoples. For instance, the lions (as in Daniel in the lions' pit) actually represent the Babylonians. I told the guy about the famous story of the prophet calling two bears to maim and eat the children mocking him. He said that the bears must represent the Medes, and that the story should not be interpreted as a narrative, but rather as some sort of prophetic threat.
I guess the conclusion is that anybody who considers anything told in the Bible as having literally happened is terribly, terribly naive. Even if he considers himself sophisticated.
Posted by: Christophe Thill | July 10, 2008 4:47 AM
On the basis that the likes of Lennox and SquarePants McGrath are so badly infected but can't be taken down behind the barn and shot - then I suggest we should not engage with them whatsoever and just let them die out naturally. There are not the young ones coming thru to replace them.
Posted by: Paul Young | July 10, 2008 4:52 AM
Have you seen this?
http://www.neatorama.com/2008/07/09/cthulhu-fhtagn-octo-pied-building-by-filthyluker-and-pedro-estrellas/
Posted by: The indefatigable frog | July 10, 2008 5:46 AM
Christopher Thill@76
Are you being serious? True, the literal meanings are generally absurd, but once you go to allegory and metaphor, who's to say what any of it means?
"He said that the bears must represent the Medes"
On what evidence?
Posted by: Nick Gotts | July 10, 2008 6:05 AM
It must be quantum. Schrodinger's black(cat)jack - where you can't tell if you've won or lost until you go to cash in your chips!
Posted by: MPG | July 10, 2008 6:07 AM
Talking of miracles, you never hear of a (Christian) miracle where someone grows back an amputated limb. Strange that.
Bringing people back to life, yes. Casting out demons, yes. Feeding 5,000 people from the contents of a small lunchpack, yes. Growing a limb? Nope.
Posted by: DiscoveredJoys | July 10, 2008 6:22 AM
I especially enjoyed the part where Dawkins points out that any god could be just as imaginary as the next one, Jesus could be just as fictional as Thor, and Lennox replies something like "Prove it!".
At times I almost felt sorry for Lennox, he really seemed like a confused dementia patient who was forced to answer to questions he didn't understand, with the gasping and stuttering.
If I remember correctly he really started to babble around the "Disciples vs 9/11 attackers" argument, saying something like "Christianity can't be a fraud, because if it is then there could be all kinds of frauds in the world!".
That'll surely shut any atheist up...
It's just sad that every time I hear a priest talk, they're either quoting the Bible or making up complete gibberish themselves. At one point I was under the impression that 'qualified' priests had some sort of philosophical education and general understanding of the world, but seeing them talk just makes me even more certain that their speeches are not only gibberish to the listeners, but also to themselves.
Posted by: geru | July 10, 2008 6:54 AM
1) Because pi = 3;
2) Because God made it that way;
3) Jesus