The Worst Book Ever? Raphael Lataster's "No Jesus, no God."

If you are about to order this book, STOP! Think of your loved ones! Think of your cat! You will die of embarrassment for having fed this young man's purse and ego. Especially if you are Australian, or have any affiliation with the University of Sydney.

 It should be called, "THERE IS NO GRAMMAR, I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO WRITE THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE."

 Or maybe,

 "EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT THE HISTORICAL JESUS, I LEARNED FROM RICHARD CARRIER AND ROBERT PRICE."

 Or perhaps,

 "SEE HOW MANY TIMES I USE THE WORDS 'SCHOLARLY' AND HOW I PATRONIZE MY PRESUMABLY EVEN LESS-LITERATE READERS? THAT'S BECAUSE I'M WORKING ON MY PHD AND AM A REAL-LIFE, GENUINE SCHOLAR!"

OK (remember, you were warned), now for some of the ugly details.  Here's how to write, against stiff competition, The World's Worst Book on the ("non") Historical Jesus.  (And a potential contender for overall worst book, ever.)


Step One: Mess with your readers' minds, and reveal your own limitations, in the bibliography.

First, you must begin by being innovative with your bibliography.  So list some books beginning with the last name of the author, like this:

Carrier, Richard. Not the Impossible Faith . . .

Then for variety, reverse the order of the author's names for the next or previous book:

Richard Carrier. "Proving History! . . . "

To keep the reader guessing, in fact, go ahead and list three of Carrier's works the first way, and four the second.  Then mix around Robert Price's writings, too.  Then while we're trying to keep readers on their toes, throw in a bunch of references that seem at first glance to totally fall outside the alphabet.  Thus between "Droge, Arthur J" and "Ehrman, Bart D" we get, "The Huffington Post. 'Did Jesus Exist'" and then "NPR. 'Did Jesus Exist?'"  Make the reader notice for herself that the next eight books are by Bart Ehrman, and then intuit that the two previous works, listed by site instead of author, are also by him.

But what, you ask, does the quality of books cited tell us?  To write a truly awful Historical Jesus book, you must reference numerous books.  (Given that the genre you are satirically aiming at is the "pseudo-scholarly mythical Jesus panegyric.")  A few books by people who actually believe in Jesus can be included, so long as your notes weigh heavily towards fringe figures.  More established scholars who attack Christianity can be presented as your "conservative" opponents, so that you can slip in statements like, "Even Bart Erhman admits that the gospels are pretty bogus," as if you had to water-board him to make him say that.

Aside from seven works by Richard Carrier, five by fellow Jesus mythicist Robert Price, two by Hector Avalos, and two by Earl Doherty, we thus find ten works by Bart Ehrman cited.  We find a liberal smattering (fittingly) of Jesus Seminar scholars -- Borg, Crossan, Funk, Meyer.  We find Karen King, James Robinson, and Elaine Pagels.

What of Christian scholars, you ask?  Philosophers William Craig, Alvin Plantinga, and Richard Swinburne are named.

The only conservative Christian New Testament scholars I noticed in the bibliography are Richard Burridge, who writes on genre, John Dickson, and Edwin Yamauchi.  There is no mention of such major figures as NT Wright, Richard Bauckham, Ben Witherington, Craig Keener, Craig Evans (aside from a bibliography), or Craig Blomberg.

This latter omission is telling.  On page 13, Lataster cites Richard Carrier as saying "Craig Blomberg argues that one should approach all texts with complete trust unless you have a specific reason to doubt what they say" (The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, 1987, p.240-54.)

Knowing Dr. Blomberg well enough to doubt that was really his position, I checked Carrier's source.  Sure enough, while one could snatch a single sentence out of context and make it seem to support that view ("Unless there is good reason for believing otherwise, one will assume that a given detail in the work of a particular historian is factual" [240]), read in context, Blomberg certainly did not mean "one should approach all texts with complete truth unless you have a specific reason to doubt what they say."  His issue, rather, is burden of proof.  Blomberg describes three approaches to historical sources, and argues that historians most often place the burden of proof upon those who deny the factuality of a given claim.  This being at the end of Blomberg's book, he also reminds the reader that he has given numerous reasons why the gospels have earned "an overall presumption of reliability." (242)

So what does that show, in regard to Lataster's bibliography?  Simple.  Blomberg is absent from it.  In other words, Lataster simply took Carrier's word for what Blomberg said, apparently without checking the original source.  And by doing so, he grossly misrepresents Blomberg, as did Carrier.
Which shows the reader that we have a bad satire on scholarship here, not the real thing.


Step Two: Write abysmally poor English

I used to find it a bit mystifying when my professor, who was head of the History Department at the University of Washington, took some of his precious time to mark in red mere lapses in spelling on my part.  What does that have to do with the substance of my argument?  I used to wonder.  Why does a scholar who records the fate of millions under the evil Joseph Stalin, bother to correct something so trivial as a letter or two out of sequence?

As a teacher myself, I begin to understand.  He or she who writes sloppily, usually thinks sloppily.  If you cannot present your thoughts on paper grammatically, there is a strong chance your thoughts are not yet worth presenting.

Lord, please send Raphael Lataster such a professor.  Don't let him earn his doctorate (I was working on my BA), before he learns how to write well in English.

We begin at the beginning, with the title and first sentence:

Title: "There Was No Jesus, There Is No God."

Page One: "Is is not my job, intention, or desire to prove atheism true, whatever that means."

But what atheism means is the title Lataster chose for his book: "There is no God."  If it isn't your intent to prove your title is true, Raphael, why did you pick it?  Were you trying to fool your readers with a tease, and now you are disavowing the goal your title clearly sets forward?  Or do you not know what you are doing?

And if you don't know what the first twelve words in your book MEAN, or that they directly conflict with the title of your book, why did you write them?

We're in trouble already.

"As a scholar working in the academic field of Studies in Religion who specializes in the arguments for God's existence . . . it is my job to examine the evidence / arguments presented by various religious apologists and to share my analysis with all who will hear it . . . "

Experienced readers recognize when an author is trying to drumbeat his readers into submission.  That seems to be the case here.  The subtitle of the book is "A Scholarly Examination of the Scientific, Historical, and Philosophical Evidence & Arguments for Monotheism."  A few words into the book, and the author is already repeating the word "scholarly" and adding the word "academic."
A young author who does not have his PhD yet ought to realize that such a heavy-handed drumbeat is likely to draw the readers attention to his youth and inexperience, relative to the scholars he intends to debunk.  Phrases like "with all who will hear it" underscore the bathetic tone of preachiness he thus establishes.  This will not be a dialogue, apparently, but a sermon, by a writer who does not know how to disguise his didacticism.

Also, in written English, we use the symbol "or" or the symbol "and," or the symbols "either . . . or" when we present two possibilities, one or both of which we want to deny is realized.  It is bad English to use the symbol "/" instead.

On page two, we find that Lataster plans to capitalize the word "god" even when it refers to a generic supernatural being: "They wish to argue for their specific God."

One page three, Lataster unexpectedly inserts his author bio.  Even more strangely, in the first two of three paragraphs of this author bio, Lataster writes about himself in the third person ("A former fundamentalist Christian, Raphael Lataster is a professionally secular PhD researcher . . . at the University of Sydney.")  He then switches without warning to the first person ("Please note that this is not an appeal to (my) authority.  The qualifications, intelligence, character, popularity, sexual appeal, etc, or the arguer is (sic) not what is truly important . . . ")

Aside from the larger confusion of this switch, the use of the lame noun "arguer," and the use of a singular verb with a plural subject in that last sentence, Lataster commits a basic and gross grammatical error in the second of these two paragraphs.  (One that I warn my Chinese SAT students against, and they learn to avoid in a foreign language at the age of 16.)  Watch the verbs carefully:
"For his doctoral work, Raphael is analyzing the major philosophical arguments for God's existence (as argued by [Craig, Swinburne, Plantinga, and Aquinas], attempts to demonstrate the logical implausibility of the monotheistic concept, explores the theological tendencies of Philosophy of Religion, considers the plausibility of pantheistic worldviews, and ponders the sociological impact of certain sophisticated apologists, such as Craig, whom he dubs the 'New Theologian.'"
Heaven help Sidney University.

First of all, any competent supervisor ought to have squashed the notion of taking on such a meandering, ephemeral program of studies, that purports to add to human knowledge in philosophy, theology, and sociology, within the first week of Lataster's study, if not sooner.  A doctoral study requires clear focus, a coherent research question to answer.  That is not in evidence here.
But back to grammar.  If all these verbs are describing the same program conducted at the same time, why aren't they all in the same tense?  I see no grammatical reason for switching from "is analyzing" to "attempts."

And how can anyone speak of "the theological tendencies of Philosophy of Religion?"  How did this fellow reach college, let alone grad school, without someone informing him that real scholars do not "explore tendencies" of an entire, vast field -- that's like telling NASA "Apollo 15's mission is to explore the moon's surface" -- good enough for vague PR, maybe, not good for a government grant, or description of a serious research project.

And finally, how can one write of the "sociological impact of certain apologists, such as Craig, whom he (sic) dubs the 'New Atheists?'"  What, is Craig possessed by a legion of devils, that we refer to him in the plural?

And now we're up to Page Four, and you've understandably run out of patience with my review.  So what if the man can't write?  This book is supposed (according to its cover, anyway) to refute God and Jesus.  Lataster does not claim to be William Shakespeare.

But scholarship also bares norms and stipulations for the writing craft.  I am presently reading sociologist Rodney Starks' new book as well.  When I turn from this clumsily-spilled series of ink stains to Stark's clear and stimulating prose, it is like stepping out of a playground and entering a symposium by a philosopher.  Poor writing may not always go with weak thinking.  But what are the odds that a young Aussie student who can barely write, and who has not bothered to read much yet on the subject he is writing about, nevertheless solves a problem that has taxed the minds of such thinkers as Origen, Blaise Pascal, Ernest Renan, C. S. Lewis, John Crossan, William Lane Craig, and N.T.Wright, and shows that they are all dead wrong?

One in a million?

One in 5.3 trillion?

Either way, don't waste that dollar on this dodo.


Step Three: Be Bombastic, Dismissive, AND Gullible

"Before we begin our sober and scholarly investigations on Jesus, we shall consider the scholars, their methods, and why their claims are based on foundations of sand." (9)

Wow!  So much, in 27 pages?  "The" scholars?  All of them?

"Sober and scholarly?"  Lataster doth protest over-much.

"The minority non-Christian Biblical scholars (generally taken more seriously by secular -- ie 'real' scholarship) -- rejects the Biblical Jesus, and tend to champion the historical Jesus." (9)

Oh, OK.  So Christian scholarship is "not real."  Glad we have that out of the way, already, on page 9.  Who can stand in the face of such sober analysis?

"Many top scholars will be referred to, with three modern scholars in particular: New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman, theologian and former minister Robert Price, and historian Richard Carrier." (10)

Bart Erhman is arguably a "top scholar," though most of his writing is popular.  But Richard Carrier and Robert Price are in no serious estimation or reasonable measure, "top scholars."
"Carrier then uses Bayesian methods to show that the authenticity criteria used to authenticate sayings and deeds of Jesus are either invalid, inappropriately used, or superceded by Bayesian reasoning . . . " (16)

Carrier attempts something like that, but does not succeed.  A sober scholar should keep his distance from such wild claims, until he has given strong reason to think they are true.  Lataster thinks he does this: he does not.  Neither does Carrier.  (See my Amazon review of Carrier's book.)
". . . the ridiculous supernatural claims made about Jesus . . . " (26)

In a book debunking religion, shouldn't "miracles are ridiculous" be a conclusion, rather than a premise?  I mean, if we all begin by knowing miracles are ridiculous, why are we arguing about Jesus in the first place?

"Furthermore, using the Gospels to argue for Jesus' existence is to use circular reasoning.  Arguing from external (non-Biblical) sources produces a much more convincing case." (26)

Huh?  The gospels are the four earliest sources, all from the First Century, which tell about Jesus' life.  Is Lacaster seriously trying to tell us that we should just toss them out because they were written by Christians?

This is not, in fact, how historians work.  If they did, they'd have almost no history to write, since ALL sources are biased, including good and essential sources.

Scientists are biased, too -- for one thing, they generally make money from their work.  For another, as Kuhn showed, they can be very pig-headed about their own theories.  So should we toss out scientific reports, as well?  In an effort to undermine the gospels, Lataster seems to be asking world scholarship to commit intellectual suicide, here.

"Believing Bible scholars who are often seen as lay people with a few letters after their name, by 'real scholars.'" (28)

Yes, Lataster often is that childish.  He doesn't even seem to KNOW any "Biblical scholars," or at least not the main ones, yet he declares them all frauds, including those vastly more experienced and competent than himself.

"Miracles are by definition the most improbable explanations.  They are considered to be miracles because they overturn scientific laws." (31)

This is uncritical Hume worship, without a hint that Lataster has ever even heard of any of the many philosophers who have long since debunked this reasoning -- which really is circular.  Tim McGrew gives a good overview in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on miracles.

"We can only speculate why (most of) the more liberal scholars do not allow for the possibility that all of the gospels could potentially be dismissed as unreliable.  This may have to do with personal motives, ego and job security . . . " (32)

"Ehrman is clearly confused.  Christian believers or not, these Bible scholars don't always come off as logical and level-headed." (33)

Pot: "Gee, that kettle takes on a dark shade in this light."  It is sleazy, as well as intellectually illegitimate, to dismiss the scholarly consensus by questioning the motives of mainstream scholars.  But if mythicists insist on going down that road, if they ever get any traction -- and reading this book, that seems unlikely -- then they should expect the same sorts of "arguments" to be thrown back at them, and they will have no cause to complain when their motives are assumed to be devious, as well.


Step Four: Argue Poorly

Bad arguments are inevitable here, given the apparent fact that Lataster has not read opposing arguments, at least not by Christians.  It turns out he cites Burridge just to make the point that no one really knows for sure what genre the gospels belong to.  (Even though Burridge argues in great detail, and with force that has persuaded many eminent scholars, that the gospels are typical Greek bioi or biography.  I show in more detail in Why the Jesus Seminar can't find Jesus that for many reasons, they are more credible than most other bioi.)  Lataster dismisses Plantinga -- that's Notre Dame's highly esteemed Dr. Alvin Plantinga -- with a wave of his hand, by crudely paraphrasing his argument even by his own admission.  So it appears that even those very few books by Christians that Lataster has read, he has not read well.

But his arguments here are bad, even given the author's patent ignorance.

Typically, Lataster will make Claim A.  He will support Claim A with a scoffing comment from a fringy mythicist "scholar."  He will add a few of his own scoffs.  He may also add a "supporting" comment from a liberal scholar like Ehrman or one of the Jesus Seminar crowd, often taken out of context and ill-defined, sometimes adding, "Even Ehrman / Crossan / Borg admits," as if they were hostile witnesses from whom the truth were being painfully extracted by the rhetorical magic of Perry Mason.  (He never addresses Christian counter-arguments, even to the most elementary and banal claims, since he doesn't know what they are.)  Then later he will refer back to that mess of an "argument" by saying "I proved A earlier," and add another snarky comment or quasi-supporting quote.  Lataster continues "supporting" his opinions this way, in dribs and drabs, like fronds on a pond for a frog to hop around a bit, without ever putting his webbed feet anywhere near solid empirical earth.


Step Five: Repeat old skeptical clichés about the gospels, as Gospel. 

Make it sound like you discovered them yourself.  Do not, of course, ask if they are true, still less inquire of opposing scholars about that truth.

"Younger (sic) than the earliest Pauline writings, the gospels are (sic) written around forty or more years after the supposed death of Jesus, which could also eliminate the possibility of them being written (sic) by eyewitnesses, long after the fact (considering life expectancies in the first century)." (48)

For my own mental health, let me begin by translating this mess into better English:

"The gospels were written later than the Pauline letters, at least forty years after the alleged death of Jesus.  This fact precludes the possibility that they were written by eyewitnesses, especially considering the short life expectancies people of the First Century experienced."

Lataster has not apparently read any scholars who think Mark (or even John) were written before 70 AD, though the former are thick on the ground.  But let's leave that one alone for the moment.
Jesus died, and rose, at a young age.  His disciples would have been mostly younger than he, given that peripatetic revolutionary movements tend to consist mostly of young people.

If a disciple was born in 10 AD, how long could he be expected to live?  Is there anything improbable about early Christian reports that Peter's memoires were recorded in the Gospel of Mark, or that John's disciples recorded his account in his waning years?

Let's see.  70 minus 10 is 60.  70 minus 15 (some of Jesus' disciples would have been that young) is 55.  95 minus 15 (John was supposed to be the youngest of the Twelve) is still only 80.  My grandmother was writing poetry at 95 or so.  My father-in-law recalls events at the end of World War II in Japan, which are now almost 70 years ago -- that would correspond to 100 AD!  By analogy, it is probable that SOME of Jesus' first disciples would still have been around to be interviewed, if one could find them in the close-knit Christian community (shouldn't have been that hard), decades AFTER the first gospels were written.

But what about life-expectancies in those days?

Short life expectancy was largely (not entirely) due to infant mortality.  If adults died off too quickly, the human race would not have been able to self-propagate, still less grow naturally.  (Especially given abortion, infanticide, war, and sadistic "games" in the Roman Empire, that artificially kept the population down.)

Indeed, when one checks the biographies of scientists whom Richard Carrier, Lataster's favorite scholar, names as important in this era, one finds that many of them lived lives long enough to write gospels, had they been among Jesus' early followers.

So baloney on this old cliché, which Lataster repeats ad nauseum.

"The  New Testament Biblical books all appear several decades to a century after the alleged events of Jesus' life.  None of these sources are contemporary, nor can they be assumed to be penned by eyewitnesses." (39)

False.  Some of Paul's epistles were written a mere two decades after those events.  Two is not "several."  At which time, of course, some of Jesus' first followers would still have been in their 30s!  And no NT books was written as late as 130 AD.  (One might technically excuse Lataster here by supposing he was talking about the birth narratives, but that interpretation would make the final sentence above a non sequitur, since the authors of the gospels could still have been contemporaries or even eyewitnesses to the ministry of Jesus, which is the main focus of the gospels.)

"One of the most curious problems the historian faces when researching Jesus is not posed by the sources, but by the lack of sources. There are no extra-Biblical references to Jesus that are contemporary and by eyewitnesses." (37)

"Another popular defense against the argument of silence may be that modern historians cannot reasonably expect primary sources.  Various scholars reject this claim, asserting that if Jesus was a historically significant figure, someone would have written about him, in a time when there were ample historians and authors (such as Philo of Alexandria), and especially considering the Biblical claims of Jesus' fame, controversies, miracles, and other great achievements." (42)

This is an astoundingly stupid argument, whoever made it.  (It is telling that Lataster is not able to name the scholars who debunk it, and is apparently not even sure if anyone has done so, while appearing unwilling to name the alleged "scholars" who offer it.  Earl Doherty?)

Of course when trying to think of "historians" who should have mentioned Jesus, the best Lataster can come up with is Philo.  Surviving works by Philo say almost nothing about contemporary Israel.  They are mainly philosophical in character.  If Philo barely even names contemporary Jerusalem, why in the world should he be expected to name one particular popular preacher, who mostly preached up-country in the Lake District?

How often do modern historians like Paul Johnson or even Philip Jenkins mention even famous preachers like Mark Driscoll?  Almost never.  If two thirds of their works were lost, the chances of finding references to one particular modern preacher would become insignificant, even if he was famous and controversial.

In fact, I agree with Bart Ehrman, whom Lataster quotes and then childishly derides, when Ehrman writes about how amazing it is that we have such wonderful sources for Jesus:

"Historical sources like that are pretty astounding for an ancient figure of any kind." (38)

It really is astonishing, how many early sources we have for this one particular Jewish preacher.  Their quality and historical force are even more astonishing, for reasons I give in Why the Jesus Seminar can't find Jesus, and Grandma Marshall Could.  Of course this amateur does not even seem aware of any of my positive reasons for trusting the gospels as generally credible sources.  Still less does he lay a finger on those arguments.

So back down from the ledge! Your life still has meaning! Your cat loves you, in as much as cats can love anyone! Don't do anything rash, like buy this book!  Buy a book about the mating habits of porcupines.  Christmas ornaments glazed with sand from Mount Saint Helens.  Futures in a Martian colony.  Anything.

This book is not dangerous to your soul -- but it may well cause you terminal cringing.

"Eastern" and "Western" religion: two ridiculous notions that sound absurd together.

Recently, a radio talk show host accused me (off the air) of credulity and stupidity for suggesting that the categories "eastern religions" and "western religions" are incoherent, and that these adjectives are better employed to describe directions, not ideas.  He failed to ask what I meant, or why I think that way.  But let me explain, anyway:


(1) All the main "western" religions arose in the "Middle East."  (You can stop there, if you like.) 


(2) What does Africa belong to, West or East?  Why?  If you don't know, is that because the world's second-most populous continent is not important?
(3) Most Christians today live OUTSIDE of Europe and North America.



(4) What do you mean by "east?"  Just India?  India and China?  India and China and Tibet and Japan and Korea?  All those, plus the thousands of tribes scattered around Asia?  Plus the what, 700 million Muslims of Asia?  Or do we leave those out, even though the founder of Islam was born in the "Middle East?"  And do we leave Asia's hundreds of millions of Christians out, even though Christ was also born in the "Middle East," his birth heralded by astrologers from the same tribe that trekked the Silk Road with the Gospel 600 years later? 


(5) What are the teachings of Confucius, Lao Zi, the Rig Veda, the Upanishads, Buddha, and Mozi supposed to have in common? 


(6) If "Eastern Religion" means pantheism, why not say pantheism?


(7) Except that most Asians disbelieve in pantheism?


(8) And some Europeans have believed in it, all the way back to the ancient Greeks? 


(9) Also reincarnation. 


(10) The world has six continents.  Australia and Asia (including Siberia) are in the East.  Africa and Europe are in the middle.  North and South America are in the West.  So what, Australians and Siberians are half again as pantheistic as Africans, and twice as much as Indians in the Amazon rain forest?  Who says? 


(11) Or if these familiar terms are unrelated to geography, why use such terms?


(12) The assumption seems to be that Christianity and Islam are similar to one another.  Are they?  Granted, both say God created the world.  But one tells us to follow (at least) the best person who ever lived.  The other tells us the greatest prophet of God was a fellow who couldn't keep his hands off women, threatened them with hell if they talked back, assassinated his critics, raped, enslaved, started wars, and murdered those he suspected of imperfect loyalty en masse. 


(13) Buddha, by contrast, at least preached compassion.  (Whatever he meant by that.) 


(14)  Confucius, who also believed in God, also seemed to practice compassion.  He was also looking for a savior, a lot like Jesus.  What if I think he was more like Jesus, in a limited but important ways, than Mohammed was?  Confucius lived way over near the eastern seashore of China, in a province called "East Mountain," or "East of the Mountain."


(15) Lao Zi, from the same neck of the woods, also hinted at something like forgiving one's enemies.  I also see him as a theist.  More "Eastern Religion?"


(16) Many tribes along the western shore of the Pacific Ocean, including the Polynesians, the Koreans, and the Chinese, had a strong and sometimes fairly personal notion of a Supreme God.  So did many Australian and Southeast Asian tribes.  Eastern religion, again? 


(16) "I'm really into Eastern Religion" usually means, "I'm into pot-smoking, faux Native Americana, American and European and Indian gurus who know squat about real Asian religions but sound cool, and 60s like, radical stuff."


(17) Your typical Asian would look at your typical "I'm into Eastern Religion" hippy and say, "These westerners are so weird."      

Beijing and Hunan: photos from China

A couple pictures from China.  Here on the right is a surprisingly deep lake in Zhangjiajie, western Hunan Province.  (Which is in the south of China, two thirds of the way to Hong Kong.)  Imagine being at sea in waves that choppy. 

Below is the Summer Palace in Beijing, last winter.  (You may notice a few open leads in the water; shortly after this, one could walk on the ice, and this one did.)  Here the emperors of Qing China would come to "get away from it all."

Don't be fooled: this is merely an oasis in a desert, an island of peace in a sea of buildings.  In all directions just past that hill, or to my right or to a lesser extent behind me (it is not far in that direction to the Fragrant Hills), spreads a vast city of some 20 million people.  And when the ice was frozen more solidly, it acquired a layer of precipitated smog, grit and grime, that kept one from slipping on the ice.  But still, it was nice to visit such islands, which I would do before work in the morning, the front gate of the Summer Palace just past that hill, being just five or so subway stops from the high-tech mecca in northern Beijing where my company was based.  Beijing University is about halfway between the two, and with its traditional architecture and landscaped lake (used as a skating rink in winter), was also a good place to stroll in the morning. 

After a month and a half in Beijing, I was sent to work in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province.  Zhangjiajia is several hours by train to the west of the provincial capital. 

Hindu Texts on Women II: The Ramayana

Back from China yesterday, I'll try to put up a few posts during my visit to the US.  (China blocks BlogSpot, for some obscure reason.) 

Here we continue our ongoing series on "How Jesus Liberates Women."   Since this series has now been spread over several years, it may help to recap the argument to date before continuing it, and provide links. 

I began the series by describing the challenge, from John Loftus this time as it happens, that precipitated it.  I then told the story of how I became interested in the subject, as a missionary confronted with forced prostitution in Southeast Asia.  We looked at the strong sociological correlation between the influence of Christianity on a society and the high status of women in that society, around the world.  I described historical evidence that it was in fact the Gospel that changed things for the better, and not just in "Christian" countries.  We thoroughly examined the gospels, and found the life and teachings and example of Jesus in fact provide a very plausible  cause of that effect.  Then we looked at Acts, and found that while not quite as revolutionary as Jesus' own teachings, early Christians tended most of the time to further the revolution that he had set in motion in liberating women.  (We have not yet gotten to the letters of Paul, though I intend to analyze them as well.) 

The first several arguments above having generated hundreds of responses on various sites, we took a pause and amused ourselves by looking at ten amusingly lame "rebuttals" to my arguments, including by John Loftus and Anne Rice.  (Not many very good responses have come yet, but I do plan to get to those eventually, as well.)

The conversation then shifted to what other religious texts say about the status of women, or their role in society.  First, I read the entire Qu'ran, and cited and analyzed every single important passage related to women, and almost every minor passage, first in answer to Karen Armstrong, then a second analysis, then a final one, in which I concluded that traditional Christian criticism of Mohammed and his book was on the money.  It turned out that Mohammed was even a greater cad, and a more shameless and selfish manipulator and abuser, than I had realized before reading the Muslim holy book.  Then I offered a similar analysis of the Hindu Rig Veda, which turned out to reserve for women quite conventional roles of highly subservient wives and seductresses.  The gross abuse of later centuries had not yet been justified, but neither can one find in the sections analyzed (I did not read the entire text, which is quite long and often boring) any special compassion or liberation for women.


How Jesus Liberates Women: The Ramayana

Retold by Krishna Dharma

Now we turn to the great Indian epic, the Ramayana.  This is a story about Rama and his wife, Sita.  Briefly, it tells how the god Vishnu, the greatest god among a panoply of divine figures, incarnates as the son of a king of vast and wealthy state.  His goal is to defeat the great demon, Ravana.  The demon, who already has a huge harem, and who easily defeats the gods in battle, kidnaps Rama's wife, Sita, and demands that she marry him.  She refuses, and Rama goes to war, aided by an army of humans, monkeys, and some bears, on the demon stronghold across the ocean. 

Not surprisingly, there is quite a bit about relations between the sexes and the role of women in such a tale.  While women are still allowed to move about to some extent -- Sita accompanies her husband to live in the forest when he is banished by his father -- hints of increasing oppression, perhaps even justification for such oppression, is liberally scattered about the text.  It is made clear that a woman's only good is to look to her husband with starry eyes.  Several times it is even suggested that if he should die, the best she could do would be to go ahead and roast herself to death to follow him. (Though this is never carried out.)

(Note: apparently it actually was carried out in the oldest extant version of the tale.  Here is a feminist and secularist take-down of the influence of The Ramayana on women in India which goes into more scholarly detail than the more naïve present piece will do.)

Here's the play-by-play, and commentary:

2. "As Ravana sat idly . . . he suddenly noticed a lady sitting in meditation.  This was most unusual.  Women were rarely seen in those mountains.  Sometimes the rishis would have their wives with them."  

"She would make an excellent addition to his other consorts."

Ravana, as a demon, can perhaps be allowed a bit of sexism.  But notice the background assumption: it was still possible for religious ascetics to bring wives, but rarely done.  Of course, in Buddhism it would become impossible.

4.  "Looking down in shyness she said, 'I was born as an incarnation of the holy Vedas.'"

So women can also be divine -- that is never doubted -- though even divine women should express a kind of public deference, should not assert themselves.


Mother's Day

83.  "The greatest piety lies in serving one's father.  Indeed, O gentle lady, greater still is service to the mother, according to sacred texts." 



Treat your women with love.

48.  Janaka loved his daughter Sita, raised her with love.  

53. Janaka: "My dear Rama, I now give to you Sita, my own beloved daughter . . . She will always remain exclusively devoted to you ad wil follow you like your own shadow."

 54.  Gives daughter 100,000s of cows and elephants, horses, chariots, and foot soldiers as a dowry.  Millions of pieces of silk, cotton, also carpets, gold, silver, jewels, "and hundreds of richly adorned maids for each of the brides."

Good men in the Ramayana thus do love their daughters and wives, more or less.  However, this is perceived as very much the love of a superior to an inferior:


General subservient role of women

19. "His senior wife, Kaushalya, gently massaged his feet, while Sumitra and Kaikeyi fanned him with snow-white chamara whisks."

These are the king's three named women, fulfilling their roles.

21. "Dasareth was perturbed that he had no son."

He did not, apparently, worry about daughters.

136. "Sons would disobey their fathers and wives their husbands."

156.  "Beautiful young maidens attended upon the soldiers, washing them and massaging their feet and bodies with fragrant oils."

176.  The god Indra is fanned with whisks by two beautiful young girls.  

206.  "The nature of women is to be fickle and given to sentimentality."

However, women should not be treated with violence, but be protected: 


Don't do violence to women.

36. Yaksha woman named Tataka, "as powerful as a thousand elephants and able to assume any form she desired."  "Virtuous Rama was hesitant to attack a woman."

The impropriety of attacking a women is mentioned several times in the Ramayana, though this reluctance is in this case rightly overcome, the woman in question being a deadly demon.

150.  "Even when sinful, women should never be slain." 

386.  Ravana advised, "No good can ever come from killing a woman, for it is condemned by everyone."


Rape is Wrong!

6. Parvati's eyes turned red as she replied to her powerful husband.  'As this wretch has frightened a woman by his violence, his death shall be caused by a woman."

"Ravana was not at all concerned whether she was married or not.  He had stolen the wives of gods, Gandharvas and demons everywhere . ."

10.  "But this beautiful girl did not reciprocate his advance . . . (He rapes Rambha)  "If he ever again rapes another maiden he will immediately fall dead."

Rape, then, is a recognized evil.


Sex Happens

249.  "Even great sages in the forest were sometimes overcome by lust."  

250.  "Even the great Vishvamitra had once lost himself in sexual pleasure for a hundred years, thinking it to be a day."



Polygamy and its consequences

61-73.  Hunch-backed maid Manthara appears to be the only commoner in the book.  She's the villain who precipitates all the troubles.  As senior maid to king Dasareth's beautiful younger wife, Kaikeyi, she "enjoyed special privileges." "Kaushalya had long been snubbed by the king in favor of Kaikeyi."  She would get revenge when Rama became king, the maid argued.   Dasarath: "I have always neglected that godly lady in favor of you.  Remembering my acts now gives me great pain."

86. "That pain will be compounded by the cruel words of a junior wife - What could be more painful for a woman?" . . . "Kaushalya thought how she had always been neglected by her husband in favor of Kaikeyi."

So even in the ideal kingdom, it is recognized that polygamy cannot help but result in quarrels and in-fighting and misery, afflicting the next generation.   No hint it given, however, that it is therefore wrong or ought to be discontinued.

If both sages and sagely kings will grab when they can, and women should be protected, one should one do to protect them?  Well, you might try keeping them inside the house.


Guard Your Women -- by shutting them indoors?

Given that any man may give into lust, and given the apparent dearth of protections against rape

213.  Ravana kept his wives in an inner section in Lanka, with Rakshasas guarding them.

276.  "Protecting one's wife was always the duty of pious men."

The central dilemma of the Ramayana is that the divine wife of the incarnation of Vishnu has been kidnapped by the ruler of the demons, and has stayed in his home for a year.  In fact, she has adamantly refused his advances, and repined in sorry by herself, despite many cruelties visited upon her by his attendants.   But the appearance of evil is enough for him.  He cannot even be perceived as trusting his wife to refuse a rival's advances, because his people will not forgive him for being so weak. Therefore:

408.  Rama: "The people desire to see her and that is not condemned by scripture.  A house, a veil or a costume are never the protection of a chaste woman.  Her character alone is her shield. "

But that, apparently, was not enough.  The demon had held Sita at least in the act of kidnapping her:

409.  "I have not undergone this endevour out of a desire to again have you as my wife.  You have long dwelt in the house of another.  How then can I take you back into my house?  Your good character has become suspect.  Ravana clasped you in his arms and lookd upon you with a lustful eye.  Therefore, my attachment for you has ended."

So a wife need not actually commit adultery for her husband to ditch her.   She needs merely to have the possibility or suspicion of adultery.  And then he MUST get rid of her, or the neighbors will begin to talk, and he will lose their respect.

From which it follows, that the only solution is to lock women indoors.  And if you can afford it, have men who have been mutilated and cannot have sex with them guard your women.

Husband = God

92.  "So long as the king lives you should render him service, for this is the eternal moral code.  For a married woman the husband is her deity and her lord."

"The queen listened in silence as Rama, invoking the ancient religious codes, described the fate of a woman who does not serve her worthy husband . . . A woman who devotedly serves her husband, even without any other religious practices, will reach the highest heaven."

95.  She had been trained in all the arts of service.

96.  You have always instructed me that a wife can never be independent from her husband, O Rama, indeed she is half of his very self.

The husband was the wife's supreme deity.  Sita quoted the scriptures. 

107.  Whether wealthy or without any means whatsoever, he is always your worshipful deity. 

"As a lute is useless without its strings or a chariot wihout its wheels, so a wife is destitute when separated from her worthy husband . . . the husband is a veritable deity."

426.  "For a chase woman the husband is the master, deity and preceptor." 

The moral of perhaps India's most influential epic is clear, here: wives should serve their husbands as gods.  That's how to get to heaven.  Now I wonder which gender thought up that rule? 


A Good Woman should not want to live after her husband is gone!

136.  "Only Kaikeyi, casting all propriety to the winds, could live happily after seeing her husband die in agony."

148.  Although they both longed to ascend the pyre and follow their husband . . .
 

317.  Sita: "The death of a husband before his wife is declared to be a catastrophe."

318.  "Kill me at once, O demon. Lay my dead body on top of Rama and unite a husband with his wife."

242.  "I too shall enter the fire along with Vali.  I have no desire for life without my husband."
 
403.  Ravana's wife: "When I was always your devoted servant, why did you long for Sita?  Alas, my life is useless as I could not satisfy my lord."
 "As my husband has renounced me in a public gathering, I shall enter fire and give up my life."

Sita does just that.  But the fire god Agni protects her, and she emerges from the fire hale and hearty.  However, her divine husband then dumps his innocent wife for the sake of propriety.


Conclusions

The status of women in the Ramayana is not, then, utterly black, with no chinks of light.  Men should not be violent against women, even evil women.  They should, rather, be kind to their daughters and wives.

However, women are clearly inferior to men, and should serve them in just about every way.

Furthermore, the good principle that women should be protected, is easily manipulated into a desire to control, enslave or abuse them.  Just the appearance or possibility of betrayal by their wives is enough for even a great incarnation of Vishnu to ditch his beloved wife, even after she has suffered great pains for her love for him.  The obvious solution is to follow the course of the demon Ravana, and keep one's women locked up indoors -- as the Indian upper classes would come to do.  Then one can love them (if that's really what one wants to do -- incentive is lost without a market economy in love!) without fear of betrayal.

Meanwhile, the influence of the Law of Manu, or similar texts (which we may analyze later), is already strong upon the Ramayana.  A truly faithful women, it is said again and again, will throw herself into the fire upon her husband's death, or even if he ditches her, or even just doubts her.

This is not liberation, it marks the course of enslavement that women would undergo over some two millennia, until the Good News of Jesus arrived in the subcontinent.

As we have already seen, Jesus treated women in an entirely different way.  And Jesus' teachings and examples would liberate women enslaved by the increasing degradation of women in the evolving Hindu tradition -- of which the Law of Manu provides even clearer evidence.

True Reason -- now out!

(Writing from Hong Kong, where I'm renewing my visa.)

Well, our new book, True Reason, is now out.  The book has about two dozen reviews on Amazon already, in just a few days (Tom Gilson's hard work, no doubt), and seems to be selling pretty well, so far.  One of the nice things about the book that the reviews demonstrate, is that different chapters appeal to a variety of readers -- lots of chapters are described as "my favorite," appealing to people with various interests.  That must be gratifying to the editors. It shows they did an excellent job of finding good writers and balancing interesting and important topics.  Reviews also show that so far most readers have also really liked the book.

I think you probably will, too!

This version is frankly much better than the e-version we put out two years ago, for two reasons: (1) It includes two new chapters, including one by Tim McGrew and myself on how early Christians understood faith and reason; (2) The other chapters were also mostly updated and improved.  (I helped edit them myself, as a matter of fact -- including adding a bit of a response to John Loftus' reply to my chapter rebutting his Outsider Test for Faith, and showing why the Gospel passes that test four times over.  Truthfully, John didn't offer my arguments too much of a challenge, but there were other things that needed improving, anyway.)

So far, my OTF chapter has attracted quite a bit of attention from reviewers, both positive and negative.  Here are most of the comments to date.  I especially appreciated David Hedges' critical comments, and hope to respond to them in more detail later -- see also his comments on the Amazon site.  He really tries to understand my position and represent it accurately -- not always the case with my critics!  But of course he's still wrong. :- )

Of course I also greatly appreciate the favorable comments -- they are very encouraging.  Thanks!

Anyway, here are some of the comments on my chapters:

True North: My favorite contributor to this book is David Marshall. He is a very engaging defender with a unique sense of humor, a down-to-earth writing style, and reasoning that is really easy to understand. In "John Loftus and the Insider-Outsider Test for Faith," Marshall points out that he actually gave Loftus the very tools Loftus used in formulating his Outsider Test for Faith! Marshall also authored "The Marriage of Faith & Reason," showing how the Christian concept of faith is intellectually exciting, and explains the complex world we live in. Marshall co-wrote an article with Timothy McGrew, "Faith & Reason in Historical Perspective," wherein they reason that Christianity compels itself to the rational mind.

David Hodges: I do admit to not being entirely satisfied with David Marshall's contribution to this category, since its effort to show wide agreement in non-Christian religions with Christian truths is phrased in such a way as to risk suggesting that Christianity is less exclusively "the true faith" than it is, or suggesting that false religions are not the culpable efforts to evade the whole (Christian) truth that Scripture seems (notable in Romans 1) to say they are. My difficulty with Marshall's piece is more rhetorical than substantive, though of course bad rhetoric can lead to substantive errors if left uncorrected.

Jason Livingstone: At its best, it boasts impressive scholarship, thoughtful evaluation of the arguments to which the authors are responding, and an invitation to the reader to do his/her own thinking (the contributions of David Marshall and Randall Hardman fit this description well).

Writer Rani: Chuck Edwards, David Marshall, Peter Grice, and the other Christian authors did such a wonderful job of presenting the information that lay-people and scholars alike will be able to learn a lot from their essays.

I was very surprised when I read the quotes from Loftus, and others on how weak their arguments were. They seemed to have nothing to base their arguments on and they contradicted what they were saying. The Christian authors had facts and history to support their ideas. It shows me that the New Atheists claim of reason is truly a weakness. Christianity has a lot more going for it.

Randal Everist: One of the essays I found to be most fascinating was David Marshall’s on John Loftus’ “Outsider Test for Faith” (hereafter OTF). OTF is as follows:

1. “People who are located in distinct geographical areas . . . overwhelmingly adopt and justify a wide diversity of religious faith due to their particular upbringing and shared cultural heritage, and most of these faiths are mutually exclusive.
2. To an overwhelming degree, one’s religious faith is causally dependent on brain processes, cultural conditions, and irrational thinking patterns.
3. Therefore, it is highly likely that any given religious faith is false.
4. In practice, one should hence test one’s religion ‘from the perspective of an outsider, a nonbeliever, with the same level of reasonable skepticism believers already use when examining the other religious faiths they reject.’” (p. 77)

Now, the point of Marshall’s essay is to show that Loftus’ contention that OTF is opposed by Christians because they know Christianity will fail is demonstrably false, historically. This we will return to in a moment. First, Marshall casually mentions that (3) doesn’t follow from (1-2); I think, however, we can rescue OTF pretty easily from this malady. Consider:

OTF1. If, to an overwhelming degree, one’s religious faith is causally dependent on brain processes, cultural conditions, and irrational thinking patterns, then it is highly likely their religious belief is false.

It’s worth noting Loftus might resent this oversimplification, because he wants to include all other religions as live options for complete pictures. So let’s include that fact in our consideration of (OTF1). Marshall mentions that (OTF1) is nonetheless an example of the genetic fallacy (p. 78). I think this is less than clear. Why? Because Loftus includes, in (OTF1), that irrational thinking patterns have helped causally inform particular religious beliefs. Surely we wouldn’t want to say, given that such-and-such a belief is formed in an irrational manner, that it is just as likely true as false? If I bang my head into the wall four times, and announce that on this basis I now am a devotee of the Easter Bunny, you’re just as likely to suspect I have a concussion as anything else—but surely you (nor I) don’t thereby gain some support for the premise that the Easter Bunny is real. I think that, all things being equal, if a belief is formed for irrational reasons, we can safely say, epistemologically, that there’s no reason to regard it as true, and even some reason to say it is false.

The crucial question then becomes two-fold: Are all things equal?, and Do people form their belief in God in an irrational thinking pattern? The latter question demands that we see reason to think that we have been irrational in our thinking about God. That will require an account of rationality and that our belief in God has arisen from something contrary to rationality (or irrationality). As Alvin Plantinga has argued, it’s not even clear this can be done without appealing to the de facto question of whether or not God exists. The former question is evidential: we can only conclude that our religious beliefs are false or very likely false if we don’t have countervailing evidence (of course, if we already have these evidences, it’s very unlikely we meet condition [2] of Loftus’ argument, and so [OTF] doesn’t really have any application for us).

The rest of Marshall’s essay, however, is an excellent discussion on other world religions and conversions. I was especially happy to see his reference of the great African scholar John Mbiti. One should charitably read Marshall at this point in saying that other world religions do in fact contain shadows of truth; the true God’s witness of Himself in the real world, even if it has been diluted and perverted.

Jason: David Marshall puts ex-Christian John Loftus's "insider-outsider test for faith" to the test and gives it a failing grade while showing how the claim that most people who view Christianity from the outside will reject it is unfounded. I can attest to this as a person who grew up with a secular worldview and did not accept the truth of Christianity until adulthood. Marshall concludes by making a case of how Christianity passes the tests of history, prophecy, transformation, and lo and behold, the insider-outsider test for faith.

David Marshall skillfully expounds upon how faith and reason are the product of a marriage undefiled. After properly defining faith (which has nothing to do with blindness) he unpacks seven different ways that the New Testament ties faith to reason. Touching on topics such as historical investigation, critical accounts of Jesus's life, and the resurrection, Marshal combines logic, philosophy, and careful exegesis to explain how no man can put faith and reason asunder.

David Marshall and Timothy McGrew provide a thorough review of how Christians—including the early church fathers and modern-day scholars—have historically viewed faith. They use contextual analysis to set the record straight against false characterizations of Christian faith as an uninformed, lazy default position.

Peter Boghossian sees through everybody.

I've almost given up blogging, since I'm now in China, which seems to have an inexplicable grudge against amiable American web sites, that one included.  But I did happen to notice that Randall Rauser and Tom Gilson have both  been posting on Peter Boghossian, the veritable reincarnation of Socrates in Gnu form, lately.  Readers may have seen my account here of what happened when I challenged Peter to debate long before his book came out, "Peter Boghossian sees through me."  Apparently he's seen through these other guys, too!  He has apparently refused to debate either of them publicly, Rauser on the Unforgettable show that I have also appeared on in the past, on the grounds that he is not a real scholar, or something. 



Good on Peter.  Those of us whose vision has lessened as we grow older, can only feel profound respect for those who gain such powers as the ability to see thoughts over thousands of miles through inches of thick (and in my case, thickening) cranial tissue, and discern the true quality of scholarship they have never read, from otherwise apparently respectable institutions.  (I would be satisfied with a much lesser superpower, like reading two books at the same time with two different eyes.)



Which brings us to Randal's recent post, which made unfortunate light of the esteemed sage (I mean the contemporary one) by comparing him to comic book knights.  I have to say, I think that's all wrong, unnecessary, and even rather mean of our friend Randal.  The real comparison is to a Jedi Knight.  Like the Jedi, Dr. Boghossian knows that he understands Christianity most clearly with a blindfold over his eyes.  This is one of those cases in which perception of the evidence, say by physically reading what Christians say about faith, for instance, would merely distract someone with Jedi powers from what he knows, with unassailable certainty, from serendipitous truth internally mediated, about that pernicious superstition. 



And this is, let me add, a great advantage that Gnu scholars like Boghossian hold over primitive sages like Socrates.  Socrates seemed, poor fellow, to ask people questions because he wanted to know the answers, because he recognized his own ignorance and sought to ameliorate it.  That is hardly any better than asking the way to the train station because you are lost!  Whereas Boghossian asks questions because he knows the vast majority of humanity consists of deluded fools, and he seeks to enlighten them about their foolishness, and offer the Good News that God does not love them, after all.  To me, that is the position a true sage must take.  And here lies  the difference between Randal or I or our readers and a real scholar, like Peter Boghossian: you had to read this post to find out what I think, whereas Dr. Boghossian knows already, without opening his computer, that the likes of you and I hardly engage in anything that can be called "thought" at all.  I have no idea what Justin was thinking, inviting Rauser on with the likes of Peter Boghossian.  Of course, I'm sure Peter knows. 

Headline News: Stalin was kind to Christians!

Just as physicists seek to unite Quantum Theory and Relativity, for the New Atheists the Holy Grail of historicism is to find some way of proving that while Christianity was fully responsible for every inquisition, act of imperialism, racial slur, and poorly-cooked Big Mac in western history, atheism was wholly innocent of the hundred millions of kulaks, workers, priests, and assorted perpetrators of Bad Think and class error who were murdered from about 1917 to about 1989 under the aegis of dialectical materialism.  The Search for this Unholy Grail is a common thread in the mythologies of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Victor Stenger, and reaches something of a fever pitch in the writings of Hector Avalos -- along with other Gnus too numerous to mention, especially since I'm at the other end of the world right now and can't leaf through my office library. 

Stenger chooses as his dialogue partner on this subject one Vox Day, an interesting and entertaining writer, but not a scholar of communism, as have been some other critics of atheism on this score, like David Aikman, Alister McGrath, or myself.  (Stenger cites me extensively on other topics, so he could have challenged me here if he had wanted to.)  Not to worry: this is not a football game, the line between players and fans is loose, and some unpublished Gnus HAVE gone after me on this subject. 

Including, today, one PJ Shelton, a sometime-traveler in China.   

Shelton wrote an accerbic critique of Vox Day's book, The Irrational Atheist, magnanimously entitled, "Headline News: The World's Dumbest Christian Discovered."  Among other things, like blaming everyone but Iran for Iran's international isolation, Shelton made the following remarkable set of comments:

"Here's another laughable error from "TIA," from a man who claims to be a libertarian: '[The] communisms of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Mengistu, and Kim Il-Sung all differed in the details. While each of the six dictators identified themselves as communists, the only belief these mass murderers held completely in common was an atheism more militant than that of Harris himself."

Shelton replied:

"No, all those commie mass murderers had at least one other belief that they held completely in common, a big one: GUN CONTROL, in the sense that only agents of the state, senior party members, and other 'trusted' classes could legally own guns. Kind of a big thing for a so-called libertarian to ignore, but - as with the Iran thing above - you'll find Beale does this sort of thing a lot in "TIA."
"Readers, answer me this: which of the below Two Things that totalitarian communist countries forced their citizens to do, do You think added the most human lives to the final body count?

"A - Give up their religions

"B - Give up their guns"

I responded:

"The reason Stalin murdered tens of millions of people, was because Peter lost his wolf-hunting gun and couldn't shoot back, not because Marx, Engels, Stalin and every other communist leader hated religion and were deeply influenced by atheistic promethean thought that radically transformed the very shape of their thinking.

"I'd have gone with "B" on that one. But what do I know? I only studied Marxist policies on religion for my BA under a leading historian of communism, reading what they actually said, when I could, in the original languages. (And also read David Aikman's very enlightening Atheism in the Marxist Tradition, which details the facts.)"

Shelton wrote me a sizzling e-mail, most of which I will reproduce below, along with appropriate responses to his historical claims.  

"Mr. Marshall,
"I have read the foolish comments you made regarding my review of "The Irrational Atheist," and have responded to them thereunder.

"Given your life’s work, you must know a lot about China’s recent history, as a result of the many in depth historical discussions I’m sure you have had with the Chinese."

Well, yes, that and a few books. 
  
"As for myself, I lived in China a few years in the late 1990s. Among the people I met during my time in China was Sidney Rittenberg, author of the autobiographical The Man Who Stayed Behind.  Dr. Rittenberg was even kind enough to give me a free copy of his book when we met. As my work continued, we struck up a friendship, and through him I was introduced to a number of his Chinese friends; contemporaries of him and his wife, who, like the Rittenbergs, were eyewitnesses to China’s disastrous Cultural Revolution.

"During various discussions of the Cultural Revolution, Rittenberg and the other eyewitnesses described armed gangs of young Red Guards going round all the neighbourhoods, attacking those they deemed "counter-revolutionaries." The overwhelmingly majority of their targets were the working professionals: doctors, community organisers, scientists, writers, academics... basically any and all "intellectuals" that failed to be "100% revolutionary" in their brand of intellectualism.

"In other words, the Red Guards were attacking the exact same groups of people that Theodore Beale - and, to a lesser extent, you - verbally attack in your blogs: scientists, writers, academics and "intellectuals," all of whom dissent from the narrow views which you and Beale propound."

Funny, I thought I WAS a "writer, academic, and intellectual."  Does that mean I must "dissent" from my own views? 

And does Sheldon even know what they are?  Has he been reading my blog, or my own books?  What attack on "writers, academics and intellectuals" as a class has he found in any of them?  Of course, criticizing other academic arguments is what academics do -- is that all he means by "attack?"  So all academics are themselves enemies of their own class, because they tend to disagree with one another?  And pointing out errors is the same as herding people you don't like into the Gulag, or pushing them into the sea on barges and then sinking the barges? 

And does that make Sheldon a genocidal maniac, too, since he's "attacking" me? 

But let's read on.

"All of the violence the Red Guards perpetrated during the Cultural Revolution was demonstrably founded upon exactly the same disposition to fly rabidly at differences of opinion, a disposition which I’ve observed in you, in Beale, and in christian apologists the world over, despite your being proved wrong again and again."

I deny the capacity to "fly," and deny ever having done so "rabidly."  But note the tone of Sheldon's own remarks.  Santa forgot to give someone a mirror for Christmas. 

Again, criticizing error is not the same as murdering your enemies -- or if it is, Sheldon is a mass murderer, if that is he has found any actual errors.  Again, we read on in hope. 

"Moreover, none of the Red Guards hatreds were founded on anti-religionism, according to all the eyewitnesses I met. Not once did an eyewitness describe attacks which targeted christians or other religious groups. I asked them specifically about it, and according to their accounts, this persecution on religious grounds simply did not happen in China during that time."

Who brought up the Cultural Revolution?  Not me, that was Sheldon.  WE were talking about communism in general.  But SOMEONE destroyed most of the Buddhist temples in China after 1949, and it wasn't Muslims.  SOMEONE shut almost every church in the land, and put thousands of pastors in prison, and tortured them there -- I'm talking about people I HAVE met, in some cases -- and it wasn't Hassidic rabbis or Jains on a rampage.   

"The worst of it: armed gangs of revolutionaries would go at it in the streets; first, by lining up at opposite ends of the street, then, they'd start arguing by all-in-unison shouting their (100% contradictory) slogans from Mao’s Little Red Book at each other, before coming together in huge altercations. Per the eyewitness accounts, the slogans they shouted back and forth all related to the need for a "people's revolution," the need to eliminate those whose "support for the collective" was inadequate, and suchlike social, political and economic lines of rhetoric; namely, their targets were social and political thinkers of the time whom the Red Guards had adjudged to be "not 100% in support of Mao" and his skewed vision of things."

That's because religion had long since disappeared from public in China.  Anyway, only some one in 400 Chinese was a Christian by this time.  But the survivors went through hell, whether or not PJ Sheldon heard about it.

Note an interesting contradiction in the Gnu line, here.  When distancing themselves from "religion," they define religion as belief in God or in a supernatural world.  When trying to blame the Gulag on "religion," somehow, they turn around and define religion in terms of fervency or lack of reason or some other moral weakness, rather than in terms of belief.    

"Not once did I hear an eyewitness relate how he’d heard religion-bashing slogans, or anything at all to do with religion, during any of the violence perpetrated during the Cultural Revolution."

Whereas I interviewed a communist official who himself witnessed a mob tear the cross off a church.  One of the people who tied the rope to the cross fell to his death, and the official asked me, "Do you think that was the punishment of God?"

"Simply put, direct persecution of religion did not happen in China."

All those tortured and murdered for their faith will be relieved to hear that.   

I doubt he can read Chinese, or I might recommend Zhao Tianen's work on Christianity under communism to him.  But Tony Lambert describes the communist policies, and their effect, in his works well, as do numerous other writers who know what they're talking about. 

"Anything that the Red Guards deemed "antiquated," they indiscriminately destroyed; what any of the destroyed icons may have represented in the religious sense was never touched on, per the eyewitness accounts. It was destroyed because it represented the counter-revolutionary past, not because it was intrinsically religious."

"Read The Man Who Stayed Behind.  I defy you to show me one instance of Chinese religious persecution anywhere in Sidney Rittenberg’s book."

Who cares?  Heavens Above!  Does Shelton imagine that historical reality is to be constrained by the limits of his accidental reading?  The sheer narcisism of the argument is astounding.   

"Similarly, my reading of history has revealed to me that the world’s most violent communist revolutionary acts were levied primarily against people whose beliefs were "insufficiently radical" for the time, against those who failed to exhibit "100% support for the Party and all its policies." Ignorant christians have extrapolated this into the false notion that the communists assiduously targeted religious believers. They’re half right; communists essentially targeted anybody and everybody who refused to accept the "truth" that happy, joyous communism would lead us all to a brighter future, if only we'd all believe in it unquestioningly."

No one claims that the communists limited the scope of their persecutions to religious believers.  But anyone who thinks they did not purposely and methodologically try to destroy religious faiths, is deeply ignorant of 20th Century history, and should close his mouth until he catches up.

Start with Aikman, Atheism in the Marxist Tradition.  The details are rich, and there is no gainsaying them: Marx and his allies hated Christianity with a passion, from the get-go.   Then read Richard Wurmbrand, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Lambert and Zhao and hundreds of other detailed accounts from the real world.  Go and talk to the pastors who were themselves imprisoned, and to this day are sometimes hounded and put behind bars. 

"Rather like the christians, who continue to proclaim that if everyone would just curl up, thumb-in-mouth, and believe 100% in jesus christ as the Messiah, then the world would automatically become a better place. Meanwhile, 1500 years later, christianity has not ended war, cured crime or erased poverty; it hasn’t even come close. Even at the apogee of christianity’s cultural and political dominance, the historical record incontestably reveals that a christianised paradise filled with people "loving one another" was still a long, long way off."

The world HAS become a much better place, because of the Gospel.  Readers of this blog, and of my books, know that I do not make that claim without a great deal of support to back it up. 

"Throughout history, the biggest persecutors of christians have always been other christians."

Nonsense.  The biggest persecutors of Christians under the Jews were Jews, under the Romans, pagan Romans, under the Muslims, Muslims, and under the communists, communists.  There HAVE been periods when Christians (real or imagined) have persecuted other Christians.  But "always" is patently false. 

"That’s how we know for certain that christianity is not "of God." If it truly were of God, how come christianity has completely failed to achieve even a modest manifestation of the tinsel-coated sentiment it has paid lip-service to through the centuries? Love one another, as I have loved you.

"So much for all that rubbish," said the christians. "We want power, the power to judge others."

"Just like the communist revolutionaries. And the results, despite the centuries of lip-service christians have paid to loving one another, were more of less the same."

Not at all.  For all the crimes of Christendom, which have indeed been considerable, and which as the Bible itself predicts ARE based on pride and the love of power, the Gospel has indeed transformed the world in radical ways for the better.  Communism mostly made things much worse, though it was not completely bereft of useful acts.  (Such as improving health care at times, and raising the status of women, under the prior influence of the Gospel.)
      
"Mr. Marshall, I base the above contentions on interviews with Chinese eyewitnesses, as well as the account of Sidney Rittenberg, a respected American expert on a foreign power who did not merely study China’s history, he lived it for half a century."

That "argument" is subjective and entirely negative.  Sheldon did not hear about persecution of religion.  Yeah, well, the communists almost wiped it out, destroying tens of thousands of religious houses, killing millions of believers.  Solzhenitsyn heard of them, and met them -- "prisoner transports and graveyards, prisoner transports and graveyards" -- they challenged him, till he became a Christian himself, finding that Christians were the only one to whom the camp philosophy of "Who to Whom" did not stick.  But Sheldon, the sometime traveler to China and reader of a book, has not heard of any of this, therefore it did not happen. 

"On what do you base yours? Books written by sessile (?) "China watchers" who rarely step outside their libraries? Or, a patchwork of start-stop conversations with your broken Chinglish-speaking students in various Bible-study groups? The ignorance you showed of Iran's history in your comment on my Amazon review was simply astonishing. I presume you've a similar perspective when it comes to your reading of the history of China?"

I was traveling China, and speaking to its inhabitants in their own language, years before this silly fellow swarmed onto those shores and began gossipping with a few of its inhabitants in "Chinglish," apparently. 

And what I said about Iran was accurate, too.   

"BTW, I’m sure those young "christian" Chinese that hang out with you do so out of their desire to learn more about your false, never-risen jesus, and they’ve no interest in those extracurricular hours spent "practicing their English conversation" with a native speaker, or anything of the sort. They know far more than you think they do, Mr. Marshall; never underestimate the Chinese."

I don't.   Tens of millions have come to know Christ in recent years, for good reasons, and I expect great things from them.

I don't think I'll inflict the entire discourse on my patient readers.  Let's skip to the final few paragraphs, the climax of Shelton's high dungeon, where he reveals most clearly the emotions that move him: 

"The feeble apologetics of you and your cronies are nothing new. Throughout its history, christianity has consistently stood against scientific discoveries that have revealed the true nature of the universe. Until, after grudgingly admitting that Galileo et al were not in fact heretics whose discoveries warranted death by fire and torture, christians finally started reconciling each new scientific discovery with their increasingly proved-wrong faith, and ascribing each to some new, increasingly vague theistical plan - that is, to use plainer language, altering religion to suit science and making of God a plastic character, to be remodeled whenever the obvious truth disproves one of His original legendary attributes."

Uh, Galileo was neither tortured nor put to death.  Neither was "et al," whoever that is supposed to be.  (This charge is best left vague, as Oxford historian of science Allan Chapman demonstrates.)

And Christians invented modern science, as Rodney Stark clearly shows in For the Glory of God, as have many qualified historians. 

"All of which mirrors your ludicrous, ham-handed attempts to equate Confucianism with christianity and Shangdi with the judeo-christian jehovah-god. It’s a syndrome I have actually seen before, the attempt to salvage one’s christian faith by bringing the Chinese - the world’s longest-standing non-christian holdout - on board with your fake, plastic mythology, clumsily reconciling your religious faith with the philosophies of the Chinese, shaking your magic rain-dance stick at them and shouting: "Poof! You’re all in fact christians! Hallelujah!"

People who hate, said C. S. Lewis, render themselves incapable of seeing.  This is clearly demonstrated when a would-be critic simply imagines or invents positions for those he hates, failing thereby to read and recognize and understand his target's actual position.

Of course I do not "equate Confucianism with christianity."  (Why does the former merit a cap, but the latter does not?  Another proof of this fellow's deep and unreasoning hatred.)  And many non-Christian Chinese have recognized the close resemblance between Shang Di (caps) and the "judeo-christian jehovah-god" (none.)  Speaking of "clumsy" and "ham-handed," how petty can one get than to ignore the rules of grammar in this absurd manner?  If anyone is "clumsy" for confusing Shang Di with God, though, then blame Matteo Ricci, then the great Chinese converts, then the greatest emperor in Chinese history -- the Kang Xi emperor -- then the greatest western scholar of ancient Chinese religion, James Legge, then the communist authors of modern Chinese-English dictionaries.

Lots of "blame" to go around.  Why start with "clumsy" old me?

Nor, of course, do I claim believing in God alone makes anyone a "christian." 

"A mere knowledge of the approximate dimensions of the visible universe is enough to destroy forever the notion of a personal godhead whose whole care is expended upon the tiniest of dust-specks that is mankind, and whose only true and original Messiah was dispatched to save the insignificant vermin, or humans, who inhabit this one relatively microscopic globe. It’s true that science fails to positively refute religion - instead, it causes religious points of view to appear so senseless and so thoroughly improbable that a large majority of men see religion for what it is: false revelation, through and through."

Well now the whole human race is "insignificant vermin."  Which reminds me of Chesterton's observation that people who hate Christianity begin to deny sense, reason, morality, humanity, even their own existence, in their attempts to blot God out.

Though as Lewis pointed out, the tininess of Earth was common knowledge to the Medievals, already. 

"And Chinese mainlanders, even the ones who will do anything for the opportunity to practice English conversation with a native speaker, generally agree with me. Your blindness to the truth notwithstanding... "

Shelton is under (how many false assumptions is this now?) that I am some sort of an evangelist in China, that I am starting Bible studies here, and that the tens of millions of Chinese who have come to Christ in recent decades are doing so so they can practice English with me.  I'll have to share the joke with some of them.