Letter to a Christian Nation Part II
or
You and me baby ain't nothin but mammals
Here are my notes on pages 46-79. Please feel free to comment, but keep in mind that they are just notes and thus very rough.
Who Puts the Good in the Good Book:
46) "Even if a belief in God had a reliable positive effect on human behavior, this would not offer a reason to believe in God." But we don't believe in God because it is "Good for society," We believe in God because He is there. Christianity's faith in God is not out of necessity for a harmonious society, it is because we are expressing our need to cry out to our Creator. This is a fundamental misunderstanding. Faith in God is not bad for society, but it wouldn't matter if it was. Is Harris suggesting that I think that if I just believe in God every one will be happy? That's preposterous.
47-48) Here Harris describes the Tsunami in 2004 that killed thousands of people. This time he quotes liberal Christians who think that belief in God makes them feel good. He shoots this down with ease and I agree that if we based our beliefs on our feelings, we won't believe in a benevolent God for very long. He then quotes the Christians who believe that the Tsunami was a consequence of God's wrath. He says this makes sense, but then, how is God good? This is a question that has been asked for a very long time. I trust that what God knows is good, is superior to what I (or any other person) think is good. I don't understand why God allows bad things to happen, but if God is God, and I am His creation then I don't need to understand. God is not dependent on my approval to exist. Here Harris displays his relativistic definition of good.
49) "You are using your own moral intuitions to decide that the Bible is the appropriate guarantor of your moral intuitions. You intuitions are still primary, and your reasoning is circular." Where does he get the idea that I believe in God and the Deity of Christ because I agree with Him. I believe in the Deity of Christ because it is reasonable. If I believe that Christ is God, then I must follow His commandments, and make His "moral intuitions" my own. First comes reasonable belief, then comes disciple hood. That is not circular. Here someone like Earlman makes a much better argument against Christianity.
50) "We decide what is good in the Good Book. We read the Golden Rule and judge it to be a brilliant distillation of many of our ethical impulses. And then we come across another distillation of morality:...[paraphrases Deut 22:13-21] If we are civilized we will reject this as the vilest lunacy imaginable." Christians don't pick and choose the passages they like from the Bible, at least they ought not. I don't decide what is good in the good book, I trust God that it is all good. Deut 22:13-21 sounds heinous, but it is there to demonstrate extent of God's love and grace. See the book of Hosea.
50) "The choice is simple, we can either have a twenty first century conversation about morality and human well-being--a conversation in which we avail ourselves of all the scientific insights and philosophic arguments that have accumulated in the last two thousand years..."
"You and me baby aren't nothin but mammals so let's do it like they do on the discovery channel."----The Bloodhound Gang 1998
The Goodness of God:
50-54) Here Harris describes several tragedies, hurricane Katrina is the central theme. His point is dramatically put, that a benevolent God could not do such heinous things. Again, God's existence is no dependant on any one's approval. Many terrible things happen that we do not understand.
54) "Once you stop swaddling the reality of the world's suffering in religious fantasies, you will feel in your bones just how precious life is--and, indeed how unfortunate it is that millions of human beings suffer the most harrowing abridgements of their happiness for no good reason at all." Is this supposed to be comforting? If there is no God, then there is no reason. A place with no reason is...well it's hell. I would rather there be a reason that I don't understand, or even don't agree with, than complete randomness.
55) "But we have seen that human standards of morality are precisely what you use to establish God's goodness in the first place." No God is not good because I agree with Him. Here Harris shows the heart of his fallacy. Goodness is not defined by humans. Goodness is defined by God. Things happen that I don't understand, things happen that I don't like, but God is not seeking my approval. Funny that so many points in his book seem to be well thought out and carefully explained, but he leaves us to glean out the most fundamental assumption that is made; The question of what is Good, and what is not.
The Power of Prophecy:
57) Here he makes the claim that the writers of the New Testament simply looked back to the books of the Old and wrote their fiction based on the prophesies they saw. But the "Old Testament" as we know it did not exist until well after most of the New Testament was written. The books of the old testament were put together based on the scriptures that were most often quoted by Christ. In many cases the writers of the New Testament had little access to the books of the Old.
58) There is a discussion about the Gospel writers disagreeing on the virgin birth. Must do more research.
58-59) Apparent contradictions between Mark and Matthew as to when exactly Christ was crucified, Matt 27:9-10 attributes a saying to Jeremiah which appears in Zacharia 11:12-13
60) "The Bible contains nothing like this [specific prophecy] in fact it does not contain a single sentence that could not have been written by a man or woman living in the first century. This should trouble you." This does not trouble me. The Bible was written by men living in the first century (NT). No where does the Bible claim to be the actual words of God. The word's are the authors (Paul, John etc). It is the ideas that are God's. The Canon keeps coming up in these arguments.
60-62) Now Harris laments the Bible for not giving us specific mathematics and the cure for cancer. God created the capacity for science and reason, the Bible God's answer key. It seems like Harris wants God to be like himself. He has measured his idea of God, and found it lacking. Harris therefore decided that God could not exist. God wants me to be like Himself. He measured my inmost character and found me lacking. So he sent His son to die, so that I could be made Holy.
The clash of Science and Religion:
First of all, there should be no clash between science and religion. Science is a tool that God has given us to better understand His creation and thereby Him.
65) "Religion is the one area of our lives where people imagine that some other standard of intellectual integrity applies."
Maybe so, but this is the fault of believers, not of God. I agree with him to an extent about religion. We Christians ought not to separate our lives into different areas. Rather we ought to go about our whole lives seeking the glory of God.
67) "It is time that we admitted that 'Faith' is nothing more than the licence religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail." Wrong again. My faith in God does not come into play when I question if He exists. I need only marvel at the beauty of my wife, or the Grand Canyon to answer those questions. My faith is used when I question weather or not God will keep His promises to me. That faith is based on the fact that He has kept all of His promises in the past, and that He will continue to do so.
The Fact of Life:
This section talks about the "irrefutable evidence" supporting evolution, yet no specific examples are given. Harris just states that I would be a fool to question them. So in the previous section he scolds me for believing in God despite lack of evidence, then in the next he tells me that I am foolish for not accepting evolution, yet offers no evidence of support for evolution. Make up your mind. I won't defend creationism here, but may comeback to it later.
He further laments the ideas of intelligent design. Well I have a lot of problems with those theories myself and I will therefore take a pass here.
75) "Over 99 percent of the species that ever walked, flew or slithered upon this earth are now extinct. This fact alone appears to rule out intelligent design." Again he does not understand God so he therefore dismisses Him. Fortunately God is not dependent on our understanding of Him, or our acceptance of Him in order to exist. He follows with the idea that since things have gone extinct and "regressed," an intelligent being could not have been behind the design of the cosmos. But the second law of thermo is in perfect conjunction with scripture. Things were perfect when God created the earth, and they have become less so over time (as a result of sin.) Eventually the whole system will revert to chaos, at which time, or before, Christ will return and set things right.
78) Harris then concludes this discussion by describing a few "design flaws" in humans. These "Flaws" cause people to suffer. Thus, according to Harris, they are bad, and could not have come from anything intelligent. He has again confused his inability to understand God with the existence thereof. Also check out whydoesgodhateamputees.com
Religion, Violence and the Future of Civilisation:
It is late, and I am getting lazy, yet here comes the rub of the argument. I will defer to fresh eyes and mind. Tune in tomorrow.
