Prior Probability of the Resurrection

People have been arguing for centuries over the evidence for, or against, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

What is often forgotten, though, is that the probability of an event requires relating two things: (1) the evidence for that event (which is what we usually think of), but also (2) the prior probability that the event would occur. 

Richard Carrier Proves the Gospel, by Accident

With a little Help from Chinese Tradition . . .

Proof that St. Mark
traveled in China.

Internet Gnu sensation, Richard Carrier, recently had a falling-out with academic historians who study the historical Jesus.  Carrier maintains that, after all, there may be no Jesus to study -- the man likely never lived.  This makes him a "mythicist," and therefore one of the targets of a new book by the yet more influential skeptic, Bart Ehrman: Did Jesus Exist?  The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth.

Doris Brougham, my favorite "televangelist."

Have you seen the scene in Airplane! where the chief air-traffic controller McCroskey, played by Lloyd Bridges, is trying to prevent a jetliner from crashing, manage the media, run his office, and deal with family matters, all at once?

         Hold all takeoffs. I don't want another
         plane in the air. When the 508 reports,
         bring it straight in.

         Put out a general bulletin to suspend all
         meal service on flights out of Los
         Angeles.

         Tell all dispatchers to remain at their
         posts. It's going to be a long night.

Carrier vs. Ehrman: Epic Drama Queen Smackdown!

The world often asks the wrong questions.  "Did Jesus live?" is one that has become popular lately,  The right question is, "Did Jesus live after he died?"  If he didn't, then his life, while no doubt inspirational, might just as well be an inspirational myth. 

Richard Carrier, with a newly-minted doctorate from Columbia shining brightly like a sheriff's badge on his vest, has recently come out guns-ablazing in favor of the "Christ mythicist" position.  Bart Erhman, who is on Carrier's side in the real debate, finds this more than a little ridiculous, and has just written a book to refute the "Christ myth" crowd. 

Isaiah vs. Nostradamus

Does the Old Testament prophecy the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ?  Blaise Pascal, inventor of the probability calculus and therefore an expert judge of odds, considered prophecy a very strong argument for the truth of Christianity.  (He did not simply tell people to gamble on God because the payback is better if you're right, as he is often represented by critics who have not read Pensees for themselves.) 

But it is often claimed that in fact, the Gospel writers, Matthew being most guilty, projected prophecies of Christ onto the ancients.  Isaiah was taken out of context.  He didn't really mean to say anything about a coming Messiah.  He had something (Israel?) or someone (Jeremiah?) else in mind, when he wrote those great and mysterious passages about the "Suffering Servant" (Isaiah 52-53). 

Who is dumbing down our fortune cookies?

The media has been abuzz lately with concerns about Wall Street.   Is Big Oil gouging consumers?  Has Big Auto been corrupted by crony capitalism?  Is the Green Anti-Industrial Complex ruining us for competition with China and India?  Is the 1% somehow oppressing the 99%?

All the while, a far more insidious perversion of the market seems to be taking place right under our noses -- literally. 

Band of Brothers: Gospels as Eyewitness Accounts

Richard Winters

I have lately been reading (or listening to) two books that, like chocolate and strawberries, while very different, go well together. 

The first is Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest, by Stephen Ambrose.  This well-told and moving story centers on several members of a company that paratrooped into Normandy and took out German guns firing on Utah Beach, fought brutal warfare in the frozen trenches of Belgium in the Battle of the Bulge, and waltzed into Hitler's mountain redoubt, sipping on Himler's massive stash of alcohol, and driving Hitler's staff cars, through Bavaria, sometimes perhaps a bit drunkenly, after peace broke out. 

Ambrose is a wonderful historian, and the book is lively, humane, and full of surprises.  The main hero of the book is Richard Winter, ultimately Major Winter, a brilliant battlefield officer, a teatotaller who lets his men drink within reason, a gentle warrior who kills maybe twenty Germans in battle with the weapons in his own hands, but ensured that those who surrendered lived, and refused to shoot an injured Canadian goose. 

The second book is Richard Bauckham's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony.  Bauckham is professor emeritus at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and a fellow of the British Academy.  He's not as colorful a writer as  Ambrose, or even N.T. Wright, but in a slow and steady way, with some repetition, makes a strong, informed case that the four stories of Jesus' "band of brothers" that we call the gospels, are based on eyewitness accounts. 

John Loftus "reproves" Christianity.

Our new e-book, True Reason, just came out yesterday, and already John Loftus, the target of one of my chapters, has responded. To give them credit, they do rise early in Indiana.  (Pity their governor isn't on the Republican ticket -- but 'nother topic, 'nother day.)

So let me match that, and show why John's "Outsider Test for Faith" may "reprove" Christianity rhetorically, in the sense of attempting to show it is wrong, but actually "re-proves" Christianity, in the sense of showing again why it is intellectually fitting that so much of the world has flocked to the banner of Christ.

Real Faith: E-book announcement

An e-book called Real Reason, of which I wrote a good portion, is now available:
http://www.amazon.com/True-Rea...

The thirteen Christian authors of this book rebut what I like to call the "Blind Faith Meme."

William Lane Craig is the best-known contributor. 

Other philosophers, theologians, and historians, and a few younger Christian thinkers, also write chapters. 

Despite the claim that the Christian view of faith is muddled, we did not seem to find agreeing with one another on this subject difficult, writing a coherent defense of Faith and Reason, in 13 different hands. (Well, actually, 26, since none of us were writing in long-hand, I think!)

Aside from writing two chapters, and an appendix (which will probably be added later), I also helped edit two other chapters. My chapters are entitled: "The Marriage of Faith and Reason" and "John Loftus and the Outsider-Insider Test for Faith.")

What most struck me was the continuity of our arguments. (Those that I have read, so far.) 

This book should be an effective, one-stop answer to perhaps the most common misconception about the Christian faith on the market today -- that Christianity promotes "faith in the absence of reason" or "in the teeth of the evidence." 

Having interacted with "New Atheists" now for several years on a daily basis, and with others who held the same false notions of faith long before that, I think one can hardly exagerrate how central the question is today.  Watch popular movies like the Matrix series, or read any great popular science book, and the relevance of faith becomes clear.  In a sense, this question lies at the tipping point between "modernism" and "post-modernism."  I think a clear, biblical view of faith can help us understand life better, and avoid many of the grossest and most common intellectual errors of "this age of the world." 

It's also quite reasonably priced! 

So please: read, enjoy, and pass the word along. 

"How do you test the hypothesis of God?"

A gentleman named Harry Marks asked me this morning:

"David Marshall, How would you test the hypothesis of God?"

Ode to Blind Faith (and John Loftus).

Dedicated to all those who spread the Blind Faith Meme.

God told Abe to camp by Tel Aviv,
While giving no cause to believe
That would satisfy scientists named Steve
Isaac laughed, and Sarah felt empirically relieved. 

Hang-gliding Moses ascended Sinai.
In the face of Reason -- off he did fly!
Jehovah seemed epistemologically shy.  
Madame Ramses stayed home and cried.

Elijah lugged twelve rocks together.
His mind clean at the end of its tether.
"No proof!  And now all this bad weather!
Worse -- the smell of barbecued leather!"

Our Lord refused to give any syn.
Not a single trigonometrical line.
Nor did he heal all the empirically blind.
But three days later, fished Galilee without any line. 

-- David Marshall, 3/9/2012

Contra Hedrick: On Faith & Demographics

Among critics of The Truth Behind the New Atheism, the best-known so far have been Victor Stenger, who dedicated a good part of a chapter in The New Atheism to rebutting my analysis of faith and reason, and Hector Avalos, who attacked me over my claim that the Gospel liberates slaves, beginning with this piece.  (I responded here and here.) Several wild-eyed Internet critics have been even more persistent, but less worth responding to.   

A more interesting Web critic has been Landon Hedrick, a doctoral student in philosophy.