TF - Chapter 4 part 5

The next section of the book is just patently false.  It is called "The Rejection of Truth Undermines Cultural Development".  Really?  Wow, just wow.  Apparently, according to Colson, Christianity has created "the greatest society in human history."  It was during the 18th century that the enlightenment destroyed the truth and culture and led to the Holocaust, somehow.  He doesn't connect how these things caused the holocaust but that they did in his imaginary world.  He is also trying to rewrite history saying that America is a Christian nation founded by Christians.  This is such bullshit and I have debunked it before, but right now I will just point out Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli:

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. (emphasis mine)

I know this won't stop the revisionists but you can't put it any better than that.

He starts off talking about how the Romans adopted Christianity, then jumps over a large expanse of human history, and starts mentioning the enlightenment.  Now why would Colson jump over the middle ages?  Maybe just maybe because Christianity ruled supreme during that time and culture was lost.  You know all that culture that the Greeks and Persians made before Christianity, without Colson's "Truth".  The middle ages ended when people started to look back at what the Greeks had learned before Christianity burned everything away (quite literally at times).  The Renaissance changed all this by going back to the Greek philosophers and growing the culture that had been stubbed and decayed by Christian "Truth".  The Age of Enlightenment followed the Renaissance in time and direction.  Colson wants people to think that the Enlightenment was the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages were the Enlightenment.  As much as Colson tries to separate the US from the Enlightenment, it just can't be done.  Go ask a historian about famous men of the Enlightenment, you will hear the names Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin. The US Constitution is an excellent example of an Enlightenment document.

This is also a very Euro-centric view of the world and fundamentally racist.  Middle Eastern countries, where Islam was flourishing, gave us Algebra (it is an Arabic word, Al-Jabr).  While the Far East was producing black powder and had created many cultural advances not found in Europe.  Colson is not directly comparing, but he doesn't have too, to African societies and American societies.  It is implied that they are just some savage races that needed white men to come teach them everything.  Mesoamericans couldn't come up with things like the number Zero on their own.  Africans couldn't create one of the longest standing civilizations ever in Egypt.

There is only one response to this kind of racism: Fuck you, Chuck Colson.

Now what factors really lead to the Holocaust?  Could it have possibly been antisemitism prevalent in Europe that stemmed from protestant Christianity taken to the extreme by the Nazis?  Well I would need evidence of that now wouldn't I?  How about from Martin Luther, the founder of protestantism, himself?  From his book entitled Von den Jüden und iren Lügen, which in English translates as On the Jews and Their Lies:

There is no other explanation for this than the one cited earlier from Moses — namely, that God has struck [the Jews] with 'madness and blindness and confusion of mind.' So we are even at fault in not avenging all this innocent blood of our Lord and of the Christians which they shed for three hundred years after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the blood of the children they have shed since then (which still shines forth from their eyes and their skin). We are at fault in not slaying them. Rather we allow them to live freely in our midst despite all their murdering, cursing, blaspheming, lying, and defaming; we protect and shield their synagogues, houses, life, and property. In this way we make them lazy and secure and encourage them to fleece us boldly of our money and goods, as well as to mock and deride us, with a view to finally overcoming us, killing us all for such a great sin, and robbing us of all our property (as they daily pray and hope). Now tell me whether they do not have every reason to be the enemies of us accursed Goyim, to curse us and to strive for our final, complete, and eternal ruin! (emphasis mine)

 There were many factors that lead to the Holocaust and Christianity was one of those factors.

The next and last section is called "Rejecting Truth Leads to False Gods".  This whole section is based on the assumption that people have the need to worship something.  If it isn't Colson's brand of Christianity then they must be worshiping a false God.  Colson goes on to tell you what it is that you in the modern age worship:

The postmodern age has anointed secular tolerance as its god.  Tolerance once meant listening respectfully to all points of view, freely discussed in our common search for the truth.  But the creed for the new god of tolerance is that knowing truth is impossible.  So everyone is free to think and act as he likes, with one exception: those who have the audacity to believe that they know the truth, particularly if they think God has revealed it to them, are not tolerated.  The result is that those who crowned the new god of tolerance have become the absolute arbiters of culture.  The new god of tolerance becomes, in the guise of liberalism, an absolute tyrant.

 I could spend several posts on this paragraph alone.  It is made up of straw men, red herrings, false dichotomy, persecution complex, outright lies, projection and is one giant Gish gallop.

Breaking it down, I want to know where the temples are to this new god known as Tolerance or a statue or just some altar of some kind.  I do like the use of anointed, which anointed one in Hebrew is messiah, that is the first bit of projection.  Where has the meaning of tolerance changed?  Miriam-Webster dictionary? Tolerance.  Dictionary.com?  Tolerance.  Can someone point me to where this has changed?  Because using the phrase "once meant" means it has changed.  Wait, when did truth have anything to do with tolerance?  So is it just maybe that Colson is changing the definition of a word so that he can attack that definition?  What is the definition of straw man, again?  I have already discussed his straw man of "knowing the truth is impossible", there would be no reason to do any kind of science or study if that were true.  There is a difference between doubt and reasonable doubt.  Well yes people are free to think and act as they like, but they are also held responsible for those actions.  In some cases it is the government in the form of laws and law enforcement that hold the person responsible and in other cases it is other people (people won't trust a known liar, just so you know Mr. Colson).  Oh yes, it is the Christians that are being persecuted and they are the only ones trying to keep real tolerance alive.  You know tolerance like Proposition 8, the Manhattan Declaration (Colson helped write this as I have mentioned many times before), trying to overturn Roe v. Wade, and various other "tolerant" actions.  Maybe Colson should go back and look at the actual definition of tolerance again.  Or is it just tolerance for those that believe the same as him in his world (which is pretty much the opposite of tolerance)?  Now point to me where secular laws are being made to undermine the rights of Christians.  Just one example, like those three I just gave off the top of my head.  Those three examples where Christians are taking and trying to take the rights of others away.  I also love the random attack against liberalism in the last sentence, remember Republicans equal good, Democrats equal evil, no reason ever given for this.

Moving along, and even ignoring where Colson compares the right to choose whether to have an abortion or not to molesting a child or not (yes he is a disgusting troll).  No I want to talk about this next statement:

The only thing the god of tolerance hates more than Christians making truth-claims is Christians proving them.  Beginning with a facility in Houston, Prison Fellowship now runs  residential programs, "spiritual boot camps," within prisons in locations scattered across the country. This is called the InnerChange Freedom Initiative - or IFI.  We have, since the beginning, contended that these demonstrate the truth of the Gospel in transforming lives.  In 2003, the first peer-reviewed academic studies validated our claims.  University of Pennsylvania researchers reported that IFI graduates had an 8 percent re-incarceration rate versus 20 percent in a comparable control group (and 67 percent nationally).  Prison officials were astounded.

It was the first empirical evidence that this faith-based approach to correction works - in other words, that the Gospel is true.  And that's when Barry Lynn of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State decided to sue.  To prove our truth-claims proved an outrage that tolerance could not abide.

First the court case.  Prison Fellowships was not sued because it was true.  It was sued because it was using government money.  In other words the state was endorsing a religion, which is unconstitutional. There is no one trying to stop IFI from offering their services, which is what would happen if they were trying to stop the IFI.  IFI lost that case and had to pay back 1.5 million in tax payer money and Colson even admits this in a end note.

Second, if the IFI numbers are correct (notice how quick he is to point out peer-reviewed when it fits his conclusion, but those same peer-reviews are wrong when they don't i.e. the theory of evolution) then there is something to the work.  Obviously Colson believes that the numbers prove his religion too.  Now if I can prove the numbers are actually statistical manipulation, then would that disprove Christianity to Colson.  I seriously doubt it (remember my post on falsifiability).

So looking at the study (you can read the whole thing here), notice on page 5 that it says:

Among the total number of IFI participants, 24.3% were incarcerated compared to 20.3% of the comparison group during the two-year post-release period.

 That says that recidivism for Colson's group was higher than the control, but Colson is claiming that only 8% of his group were re-incarcerated. Where does Colson get his 8% number from?  Easy, Colson defines who graduates from his program and who doesn't.  Then Colson only had the graduates compared to the control group.  Considering there are several factors for graduation from the program, including getting a stable job (a major factor in re-incarceration) and not getting arrested for 2 years (so if you get arrested you don't get included in Colson's numbers to see if his group gets arrested less).  Colson is stacking the deck.  He is conveniently leaving out bad data to suit his needs.  This is also called lying by omission.  Colson proves he is a liar again.

TF - Chapter 4 part 2

The next session is about the Question of Truth and Colson starts right out of the gate with a straw man. He claims that western culture dismisses the idea of truth and reality. Especially Colson's definition of truth as "a common and knowable reality that exists independent of our perceptions". He even claims that mentioning truth and reality to a university professor will bring scorn from them.

Science is (according to Webster's dictionary) "knowledge attained through study or practice," or "knowledge covering general truths of the operation of general laws, esp. as obtained and tested through scientific method [and] concerned with the physical world." The purpose of science is to produce useful models of reality. Science is all about learning truth and reality. The more we can learn about what is going on the more we can shape our lives to better serve life as we know it.

After making that straw man, he claims it exists because rebellious human nature doesn't want to obey a higher authority, especially God. I have no clue how he got to this conclusion. Apparently 1 + 1 = 4,000,000,000 in his world. People don't like to obey a higher authority? Really? I guess that is why Anarchy reigns and people just do whatever they want, disobeying the law because it comes from authority. So really what Colson is saying is that one straw man plus another straw man equals God is awesome. Yeah, it still doesn't make sense.

To prove this point, Colson discusses the Bible story of Jesus before Pontius Pilate. Colson tells a different story than that I have ever read in any of the Gospels (which you can read here, here, here and here). Colson makes this claim:

For educated Romans like Pilate, as with many of today's intellectuals, religion was only an expression of culture and a means of securing political allegiance. Imagine his reaction to this pretender to the Jewish throne, this Jesus who claimed to have cornered the market on truth. How presumptuous, and what a threat to Pilate's pretension. Pilate no doubt believed above all else in the truth of the Roman garrison - in skepticism's refuge, power.

Now go back and read all those accounts of Jesus and Pilate. The only one that discusses truth is in John (which was the last Gospel written at around 100 CE that is 70 years after what it talks about occured). There Pilate is so furious with Jesus that he tries to free Jesus without causing a riot. In all of the Gospels, Pilate finds no reason to convict Jesus. This tends to go against what Colson is claiming, that Pilate was upset and thought Jesus was a threat, because if that were true he would have agreed with the masses right away and crucified him without hesitation. COLSON LIES ABOUT WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS! Why should I ever believe this man? Why should I trust that he has the "Truth" when he can't even tell me the truth about things within the Bible? These are things I can easily look up or things that every Christian growing up should know anyway and Colson has the gall to lie straight up about them. What a fucking self righteous cock.

As to that last part of the quote, "in skepticism's refuge, power", what does that even mean? Is this some kind of projection, saying that skepticism is authoritarian in nature, when in actuality Colson's brand of Christianity is far more authoritarian? Skepticism is just a questioning attitude. Someone who just wants some hard evidence to back up claims, even ones that people have believed to be true for a long time. Where does power come into this? There was a time when those in authority made skepticism of religious subjects all but illegal. That was during Medieval period and Christianity was the only authority. That time period set us back in technology and advancement. It wasn't until the Renaissance period did people begin to question and enlightenment followed shortly behind. Does Colson want to go back to the Middle Ages? Or does Colson just write without thinking?

TF: Chapter 4 part 1

"Truth" - with a capital tee

Colson starts this chapter by saying because he has proved that God exists and that the Bible is the word of God, then we can know that there is some ultimate Truth (with a capital tee). He also says that a Christian can know truth, which he defines as "the way things really are", through the Bible and three other ways: Truth in the book of nature, Truth through reason, and Truth through conscience.

Truth in the book of nature is described as look at the beauty in nature, see since it is beautiful there is a God. This of course ignores the ugly side of nature, which I pointed out in chapter 2 when he put forth the same exact argument.

Truth through reason is about reasoning the why's of creation, to Colson. He even makes this beautifully cognitive dissonant statement:

Christianity does not consist of a hidden body of teachings disconnected from everyday realities, nor does it insulate itself in a realm of subjective notions that cannot be disproved.

Colson does not live in reality. That is what that sentence says to me. He lives inside his own head and does not know what reality even looks like. The only reason I will continue on with this book is because my mother asked me to read it. If I was reading this on my own, I would have stopped after reading this sentence. Because it is that divorced from reality.

Gos is the ultimate unfalsifiable entity. No matter what the facts show God could have done it that way. You can't prove that God didn't do it the way science discovered, especially when you posit that God exists outside of our space-time. God has always been and will always be an unreasonable answer, because it is unfalsifiable.

Truth through consciousness. God exists because people know good from evil. Ignoring the fact that the idea of evil has evolved over the last few years and even more so over the last few thousand years (look at slavery, human sacrifice, and equal rights movements), Colson states that there are moral absolutes "written on our heart". Then they must also be written on the hearts of every social animal in the world, because dogs, chimps and monkeys all show signs of knowing good from evil. So how do they fit with the idea of morality coming from God for humans? Colson never mentions them, instead he attacks a straw man of moral relativism. Colson claims that because people think it is wrong to kill Jews or to push an old lady into oncoming traffic, then that means that postmodern relativism is wrong. In fact this proves that morals are relative. In Nazi Germany many people determined that it was okay to kill Jews. Before that many Christians, including Martin Luther (Luther advocated the killing of Jews also), thought that Jews were lesser people. These ideas have changed and evolved, morals have changed over time. Just because a majority of people are against the murder of Jews, does not mean that that has been the case throughout history. Morals are relative to the time, place, and situation.

Colson himself holds a moral view that is slowly going the way of the dodo. He was one of the authors of the Manhattan Declaration. He thinks that allowing same-sex couples to marry is immoral. Currently he is in the majority, but support for same-sex marriage is showing an increase in support over the last 2 decades. It is becoming less immoral overall in America. There could come a time (personally I hope it will be very soon) where it will be immoral to deny this right. Much like when it was finally legal to marry someone of a different race. It seems crazy to us now, but at the time it was hotly debated. Again it was a change in morality.

If I was being more optimistic, I would say that Colson just doesn't know what he is arguing against. I think Colson is knowingly lying for Jesus. It is an ends justify the means tactic. His lies also grow from his self-righteousness too. Fred Clark covered this (here, here, here, and here) so much better than I ever could on his blog, Slacktivist (which I cannot recommend reading enough).

Before I go on, I want to talk about the Code of Hammurabi which Colson mentions here. Hammurabi was a Babylonian King who ruled from 1796 to 1750 BCE. Hammurabi claimed that he talked to the Gods and that they dictated these laws to him on top of a mountain. This is one of the first recorded set of laws in human history (there are a few others from the same area that predate it but not by much). This code predates Mosaic Law. The two sets of laws are very similar and even the story have how they were received are similar. It is almost as if the ancient Hebrews borrowed the story and the laws from the Babylonians.

TF - Chapter 3 part 2

The last half of this chapter is a rehashing of things I have covered before on my blog. Instead of posting about them again I will just link to what I wrote before.

The first of these last two sections is on Textual Criticism. Colson is not theologian nor is he a biblical scholar. I would think it is a safe bet that he cannot read ancient Greek nor can he read ancient Hebrew. Colson has a law degree. Yet, in this section, Colson makes no references to any outside materials. The one end note in this section just talks about the date of P52, which is a small fragment of the Gospel of John. Even then he is dishonest with it, not mentioning that it is only a fragment of a few verses. He also doesn't seem to know about textual and higher criticism, which are two separate things. Instead he treats them as if they are the same thing.

The first claim he makes is:

Beyond the archeological discoveries, the truth claims of the Bible are supported by the uncanny coherence and unity of the Bible itself. It consists of sixty-six books, or seventy-three, as in the Catholic tradition, written over 1,500 years by forty people in three different languages, and yet there's a remarkable harmony and consistency in the overarching story. The ancient manuscripts possess an astounding consistency and integrity.

I have heard this claim before and it is ridiculous from the premise. First off it is not really that hard to add to a series that you have read. Fanfic exists for a reason. Also, has Colson or anyone who makes this claim ever looked in the Fantasy/Science Fiction section of a bookstore? In the Star Wars section alone there are several authors who have read the previous work (or at least glanced at it) and created a "coherent" arching story line through it all. Does this mean Star Wars is true now? I can hear the objections already, well that doesn't go over 1,000 of years and different languages (actually it does go over different languages) and the original author is still alive. So let's use the example of the Vedas. They were compiled from 1500 BCE to 500 BCE. That is 1000 years which is close to 1500. They were of oral tradition before that, much like the Tanakh. The original authors are unknown but the Vedas claim to be directly from Brahma. It is highly likely that there were several authors involved in the creation of the Vedas. So why should I take the Bible as truth and not the Vedas?

Next, does the Bible contain an "uncanny coherence and unity"? Let's refer to the skeptic's annotated Bible. They have a list of 442 contradictions found in the Bible (that is not counting the near 1500 absurdities they have listed also). That doesn't seem very coherent or unified to me. Also what is the overarching story in the Bible? I see the claim that the overarching story is the same throughout but no one bothers to say what that story is? Is it Good Vs. Evil in God's triumph over Satan and sin, or is it how God wants to have a personal relationship with everyone, or is it about the prophecies of the end of the world, or maybe something else? What is it? Each of these things I listed are in the Bible and they are each very different stories.

Colson never talks about his claims or present evidence, he just makes the claim and expects to be believed. I am sorry that is not enough for me, especially from someone who has been convicted of obstruction of justice for his actions in the Watergate scandal. That was before Colson was "born again" so surely he has changed now. He would not make any hypocritical responses or show no reason to not be trusted today, would he? If Colson expects to convince anyone of what he is saying, he needs more than words, he needs facts and evidence. This is the problem for most fundamentalist evangelicals, facts and evidence. I am expected to take their word on everything they say because they are speaking for God. Well there are a lot of people speaking for God what makes you so different than the others? I want facts and evidence. If you don't bring those you might as well leave.

For his next claim, Colson compares apples with oranges. He goes on about how there are so many copies of the Bible and not the Iliad or other random works of fiction that are not considered the word of God today. I have covered this before here and here.

He ends his section on textual criticism with the claim:

Why are the manuscript copies of Scripture so accurate? Jewish tradition provides one answer. According to Hebrew practice, only eyewitness testimony was accepted; and when copying documents, the Jews would copy one letter at a time - not word by word, not phrase by phrase, not sentence by sentence.

Again no notes on where he got this information. Is it really that hard to document your sources? I can't find a source for this anywhere. What I have found are talks about how Jewish copyists did things during the Middle Ages and brief overview of Textual Criticism in the Jewish study Bible. If anyone can find where Colson got this information from let me know.

The next part of the chapter is about how the Bible has changed lives. This is suppose to mean that the Bible is true. Ignore all the stories from every other religion in the world of people whose lives were changed by them (here, here, here, here, etc). This line of reasoning makes every religion true and atheism true, which is just not possible. So what does Colson do to show that this is true only for Christianity? Absolutely nothing, instead he goes off on Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris:

The latest wave of atheist literature of the Dawkins-Hitchens-Harris genre ignores the centuries of careful scholarship and evidence; taking verses and sections out of context, these authors argue that the Bible is a dreadful book filled with violence and war, and reflects a mean-spirited God who represses people - a "celestial dictatorship," in Hitchens's words. (The principles of interpretation these authors employ have been scorned even by secular peers.)

The article that Colson is quoting is "An Atheist Responds" from the Washington Post July 14, 2007 (Colson actually cited this source). Here is the quote:

It's uncommonly generous of Michael Gerson[" What Atheists Can't Answer," op-ed, July 13] to refer to me as "intellectually courageous and unfailingly kind," since (a) this might be taken as proof that he hardly knows me and (b) it was he who was so kind when I once rang him to check a scurrilous peacenik rumor that he was a secret convert from Judaism to Christian fundamentalism.

However, it is his own supposedly kindly religion that prevents him from seeing how insulting is the latent suggestion of his position: the appalling insinuation that I would not know right from wrong if I was not supernaturally guided by a celestial dictatorship, which could read and condemn my thoughts and which could also consign me to eternal worshipful bliss (a somewhat hellish idea) or to an actual hell.

Hitchens is calling God's rule a celestial dictatorship, because that is what it is. A dictatorship refers to an autocratic form of absolute rule by leadership unrestricted by law, constitutions, or other social and political factors within the state. How is that not describing God's rule?

Also point out where they are quote-mining. Show don't tell. Give examples, because I can point to several places in the Bible where what they say is absolutely right (the Book of Judges and Daniel 4:24-26 come to mind).

I also love the appeal to unnamed secular sources at the end. Again I ask how hard is it to list sources or even just names of some of these "critics"?

He follows that up with a list of questions:

I would ask Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins, and company, if this book is so evil, how has it survived all of these years?

I don't really fall into any of those categories but I can give answers. By force. It survived long enough to become the state religion of the Roman Empire. Then it was mandated to the people. After the fall of the Roman Empire, we have the Middle Ages, where Christianity ruled supreme. The inquisition, the crusades and colonization of the world forced people to accept Christianity or die. After that, most people accepted it as the truth because they never questioned it or looked into it very deeply. Low educational standards helped to keep people from looking into it also. The more educated a country the less religious they are, with the US being the only real exception to that rule and religiousness in America is falling.

Edit: This is not the only way Christianity flourished. I would also say a cult of personality helped it at many times (much like most mega-churches today, that struggle when the pastor leaves or dies), plus many other sociological reasons. It is not a simple answer to give.

Why has it been the bedrock of forming the most humane civilization in history?

I have no idea of what civilization you are talking about. The only civilization ever formed on the Bible was Europe in the Middle Ages, I doubt you would call that humane. If you speak of America, I wouldn't call us the most humane (death penalties, high crime rates, health care for only the elect few, etc) and it would be extreme revisionist history to claim the US was founded on the Bible. Just point to where the Bible or Jesus is mentioned in the US Constitution or even the Declaration of Independence (God and Creator are mentioned in the Declaration but Jefferson's God and Creator was not the Christian God, but it does not specify which God or Creator).

How does it continue, if it is mean-spirited, to spread love around the world and turn hard-hearted criminals into gentle lambs?

Psychological reasons of the human mind. Christians cherry-pick what they read in it and into it. The same reason some Muslims can find peace and love for all things in the Koran and others find justification for killing infidels. The Crusades were a Christian undertaking. The killing of abortion doctors has been a Christian undertaking.

How could reading it have resulted in such people as Augustine and St. Francis?

How could reading the Koran resulted in such people as Benazir Bhutto, André Carson, or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. This is a retarded question and can support any religion or just about anything.

Why would the Chinese, in the midst of atheistic madness, turn to it as their refuge?

Don't try and load the question or anything there Colson. Define atheistic madness. Mao was power hungry and it had little to do with atheism, except that Mao disliked religion (Christianity was never outlawed in China). Most people didn't turn to Christianity. So how did those people survive?

Finally Colson says that because people have predicted the death of Christianity and it hasn't happened yet, then it must be divine influence keeping it around. Non sequitur much? So by that logic, since people have predicted the death of atheism, then it must be divinely inspired also (possibly even more so since atheism is on the rise)...

That is it, that is all his evidence for the Bible being true and infallible.

TF - Chapter 3 part 1

Chapter 3 is entitled "He Has Spoken". I want to point out the title and the purpose of this book because Colson follows neither of these here. Instead he continues his Quixote-esque crusade against the army of straw men he constructs. He employs a plethora of logical fallacies, old arguments and make believe to destroy these straw men. Let's just dig right into it all.

Colson starts off with the story of a man named Speratus. There is great detail about how Speratus lived and interacted with his family and community. What he dreamed and hoped of for the future. Finally his brave efforts in preserving part of what we would call the New Testament. This is all just part of Colson's make believe world. Colson is trying to reference the Scillitan Martyrs. The thing is, all we have of what happened to them is what is the equivalent of a court transcript. We know nothing of their lives except there response to being told to "Swear by the genius of our Lord the Emperor." To which they refused. Speratus did quote Paul's letter to Timothy and did have a satchel containing letters of Paul. What they were being asked to do was to swear loyalty to the Empire, they were not asked to renounce their faith. They were put to death as traitors to the Empire. The actions of the government seems very similar to the right-wing 9/12 project and tea party movement going on in America right now, which Colson is a part of (see the Manhattan Declaration). Speratus and his fellow Christians died for being un-American un-Roman. I find it amusing that Colson, who has called people un-American, is hoisting these men up.

Colson talks about the house churches of China in the 70's. He makes it as if these people are being persecuted for their religious beliefs, which is true for the time period he choose. That time period was a ten year period between 1966 and 1976, when even registered churches were being closed. Currently, if the church is registered with the government it can continue operation, albeit with some influence from government officials. Churches have never been officially outlawed in China. Colson never says that people were martyred for their belief but implies it. From what I have read the common punishment for underground unsanctioned churches is heavy fines and sentencing to forced labor camps. I do not advocate these things and I think they should be allowed to worship how they please, but this is not execution.

Wang Mingdao is mentioned specifically by Colson. It is never mentioned why Mingdao was arrested but again Colson implies it has to do with his Christianity. In actuality, Mingdao was arrested for speaking out against the government and not registering his church with the government. I think it was wrong that he was imprisoned and I believe in the right to free speech, but this man was not arrested for his beliefs. He was arrested for being un-American un-Chinese.

Even if both of these groups died for Christianity, that does nothing to prove that Christianity is true. I can cite martyrs from every major religion. Martyrs just show that some followers are willing to give their life for what they believe to be true. Notice the word believe in that last sentence, that is the important part. Martyrdom is not a statement of truth but a statement of belief. Every Christian in the world could die for their beliefs and it would not prove whether Christianity was the truth or not.

Colson writes all this so he can pull the Christian persecution card. He equates the persecution people face in the Middle East for being Christian (which is punishable by death in some Muslim countries) with The Da Vinci Code being printed in America.

Just as in ancient North Africa, Christianity today in North Korea, much of the Muslim world, and elsewhere risk violent punishment for even possessing the Scriptures. Pakistani Christians must hide their bibles or endure severe attacks by imams and roving gangs.

In America and elsewhere in the West, the Bible continues to be attacked, if more subtly. Every Christmas and Easter the media runs programs with titles like "Who was Jesus?" Their advertising suggests that new scholarly discoveries transcend the narrow confines of faith and provide a greater truth devoid of the supernatural. Conspiracy theory books like The Da Vinci Code and articles related the publication of ancient Gnostic texts like the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas abound.

That first paragraph was the entirety of the paragraph. The second paragraph continues on. Colson shows that he is more concerned with what is happening in America than with what is going on elsewhere in the world. He is just using the first paragraph, the one of actual persecution, to make it seem like American Christians are being just as persecuted as all the other Christians around the world. My response is to quote a book:

The LORD detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished. - Proverbs 16:5

Colson continues on for another 2 paragraphs about how Christians are persecuted in America. How people make fun of them for saying they believe in Jesus and so forth. I personally have never seen this where I live. Instead people ostracize you if say you don't believe in Jesus. I have heard it is different on the East Coast but that is not all of America. Last I checked the most populous religion in America was Christianity. There have been a few non-Christian presidents but only early in American history (Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe come quickly to mind). A list of the presidents and their religious affiliations can be found here. In recent polls, it seems that the last person most Americans would vote for is an atheist ( Gallup poll, and yes the percentage is changing but it is slow). Colson's claims of persecution, especially after listing real persecution, is just ridiculous. I don't see him going to jail or being beaten to death for writing and publishing this book.

The next section of Chapter 3 is the claim that the Holy Spirit helped write the Bible. Colson makes the statement that the New Testament was decided to be written by the apostles and they started writing about Jesus' life 20 years after Jesus' death. He provides no evidence to back this up. What we do know is that the earliest of the Gospels, Mark, was written around 70 CE, that would be close to 40 years after Jesus died. The purpose of the writing was not to create the New Testament, but to convert Greeks to Christianity and strengthen the beliefs of current Greek followers. It was a Chick tract, albeit much better than anything Jack Chick has ever thought about printing. Paul's letters started appearing around 40 to 60 CE but they say very little about the life of Jesus.

This book was written for believers, so I will grant some slack when Colson takes the Bible as exact history. Personally, I would want secondary evidence backing up the stories presented in the Bible. Especially things like the day of Pentecost and the resurrection of 500 on the day Jesus was crucified.

Next, Colson covers his version of the canonization of the New Testament. I say his version because he cites no references for his claims and I have never seen anyone seriously make the claims he does. Let me quote:

The young Church first embraced the written records from Paul's careful explication of Jesus' teaching. Paul's letters to individual churches were copied and exchanged among all church communities. Not long after his death in AD 66 or 67 every new center of the Church had a set of the most recognized letters of Paul. In the same way, manuscripts with the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, circulated and were copied by the churches and were quickly accepted as authoritative.7

Notice the reference note. Here is the end note:

7. The differences in the four Gospels were duly noted. The early Church Fathers could see that the evangelists present the life of Christ in different chronological orders. They also represent Jesus' teachings from different angles with a particular audience in mind. Rather than being disturbed by this, scholars int he early Church understood that the different accounts broaden and enrich our understanding of Christ's life. They also served as proof against the one-sided interpretations that characterized false teachings in that day - and ours as well.

In other words, Colson is pulling this garbage out of his ass. Then he adds an end note to make it look he referenced a real scholar, but it turns out to be more apologetics pulled directly from his ass. I am so glad that Colson has mind reading powers that can actually travel back in time. Instead of doing things like, I don't know, listing the letters and documents where the "early Church Fathers" talked about this. Things that would give his story some credibility.

I might also take back that part where Colson is writing for believers. Unless he believes his believing readers are completely retarded, which would explain some things, then there is no reason to mention what books the Gospels are. I know for a fact that this is beaten into children in Sunday school as soon as they can understand words. Of course, this would imply that Colson is writing to the straw man atheist that has never heard of Jesus or Christianity also. I notice a lot of fundamentalist writers do this, just go back and check out any of those Chick tracts. It is a weird idea that atheists are only atheists because they haven't really looked at Christianity. Most atheists I know, not all, grew up in Christian households. Even the ones that didn't, especially the Americans, still hear about Christianity because it is the world's largest religion.

Colson next claims that Archeology proves the Bible is flawless. He uses the Hittites as an example. For a long time the only evidence that these people existed was in the Bible. So many scholars believed them to be imaginary. Well absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and in recent years there have been some findings of these people. The Hittites were real. This in no way means that every story in the Bible is real, it just means that it wrote about a real group of people called the Hittites. By Colson's logic, and the logic of many other fundamentalist evangelicals, this means that Spiderman and every Marvel comic is real. I have an X-men comic with the character Rogue blowing a kiss to President Reagan as he flies by in Air Force 1. Since Reagan and Air Force 1 are real that must mean that Rogue is real also.

Shortly after admonishing scholars for dismissing the Hittites because of a lack of evidence, Colson writes this:

The Book of Mormon, for example, talks about a civilization in North America in 400-600 BC. Not a single artifact of that civilization has ever been discovered.

Hello, Pot, this is Kettle speaking, you are black. Again absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There are many other reasons to not believe the claims of the Mormons. Just like there are many reasons not to believe the claims of Genesis, Exodus and Judges, besides an absence of evidence. A lot of it has to do with evidence we have of other cultures in the area. Egyptian culture has no break or mention of there ever being a mass of Jewish slaves or their escape. There is an absence of evidence of any movement of the Jews across the desert for forty years. The land of Canaan did not fall in the matter of a few years by a conquering force. Instead archeological evidence shows that it fell from internal revolt or peasant uprisings. (Watch this show from the NOVA series on PBS).

So from what I am seeing the Bible's stories are shown to be based on real countries, but the archeological evidence is showing that in the very least a few of these stories are made up and I am not even talking about the obvious made up stories of Noah's Ark, the Tower of Babel and 7 day creation. (There is just so much wrong with the Noah story, languages evolved separately in different places, and the earth with all its life formed over a period of 4.54 billion years.)

Colson's only real claim in this section is:

Then there is the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls revealed that Psalm 22, which predicted Christ's crucifixion, was indeed dated well before the Maccabean era. For several generations, Bible scholars had believed Psalm 22 could not have been written before the Maccabean era because the practice of crucifixion, which it had referred to, had not been invented.

Now here is a real claim, that could prove the Bible. Apparently Psalm 22 talks about crucifixion of Jesus before crucifixion had been in invented. If this is true it gives the Bible some real evidence.

So first let's look into the history of crucifixion. Crucifixion started around the 6th century BCE, 600 to 501 BCE. Herodotus describes a crucifixion taking place in 479 BCE, in his Histories, Book IX, as "they nailed him to a plank and hung him up...this Artacytus who suffered death by crucifixion." So that gives a rough lower limit to how long crucifixion has been going on.

Next, here is Psalm 22:16-18 (the main verses dealing with the crucifixion prophecy, verse 1 is quoted also in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34):

Dogs have surrounded me;
a band of evil men has encircled me,
they have pierced my hands and my feet.

I can count all my bones;
people stare and gloat over me.

They divide my garments among them
and cast lots for my clothing.

Okay the first stanza is supposed to be the actual crucifixion. The word crucifixion is not used there, just they have pierced my hands and feet. The second verse is supposed to mean that his bones weren't broken. The third verse is about the guards betting on Jesus' clothes.

Now, let's look at when the Maccabean era was. The Maccabees ruled from 164 BCE to 63 BCE.

Finally, let's see the date of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls generally date between 150 BCE to 70 CE.

Now putting everything together, starting with the claim: Psalm 22 predicts Christ's death by crucifixion and predates crucifixion which was invented in the Maccabean era.

Crucifixion was started in the 6th century BCE, which is well before the Maccabean era and well before the Dead Sea Scrolls. So the last two claims are easily found to be false. The Dead Sea Scrolls do not date well before the Maccabean era. They date around the same time and after. So that claim is false also. The final claim is that Psalm 22 predicts Christs death by crucifixion. I will quote Chuck Colson:

But remember, Jesus and His disciples were well versed in and abided by the Old Testament.

So the early Christians knew the Old Testament or the Tanakh. Then some 30 to 70 plus years after Jesus lived, they wrote stories about his life. Is it so hard to fathom that these writers, who had learned the Tanakh, wrote their stories to fulfill messianic prophecies? I could write a story about my friend Steve that fulfills all the "prophecies" also. Especially if I can set the story 30 years before and considering the technological level of the time, there would have been no way to prove it didn't happen. Considering the average life expectancy in the first century was 49 to 62 years old, would mean that most of your eye witnesses would have died by then too.

Once again, Colson is fractally wrong.

tUPoC - Chapter 1 Section 4

This is a book by Dr. Jason Lisle of Answers In Genesis (AiG). Here is a short background on him posted on Amazon's page for this book.

"Dr Jason Lisle is a research scientist and speaker with Answers in Genesis Ministries. He holds a bachelor's degree in physics and astronomy from Ohio Wesleyan University and a master's degree and PhD in astrophysics from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Dr Lisle is currently planetarium director at the Creation Museum near Cincinnati, and written a number of books and journal articles, as well as the programs currently being used in the planetarium."

I was able to see his talk on this same subject while visiting the Creation Museum in Kentucky run by AiG. I know PZ has covered the first chapter but I wanted to take a shot at, especially after hearing Lisle's speech. Chapter 1 of his book is available online here. I will be using part of this book in accordance with the Fair Use Copyright Laws within the United States of America.

Evidence and Rescuing Devices

"The scientific evidence certainly confirms biblical creation and appears to defy evolution. Many other evidences too numerous to list could also have been used as examples. It may seem that evolution stands refuted. It may seem that we have proved beyond doubt that scientific evidence proves biblical creation and disproves the notion of evolution. But this is not the case."

What evidence? The stuff you made up before that was easily refuted? If there is so much then show it, don't off handedly mention it and say take my word. From what I have read so far, Lisle's word is far from trustworthy.

"The above illustrations are very good arguments indeed. But they are not an ultimate proof. They do not actually prove biblical creation, nor do they utterly refute evolution or billions of years. The reason is that an evolutionist can always invoke what we might call a “rescuing device.” That is, an evolutionist can invent a story to explain away apparently contrary evidence. Let’s see how this works with the comets’ argument for a young solar system."

Notice the terminology here. An evolutionist can "invent" a story to explain away apparently contrary evidence. Sorry Lisle this is utter bullshit as we will see in your upcoming example. Scientists start with the evidence and determine what the evidence says from there. They do not start with their conclusion and just ignore contrary evidence, that is what creationists do. Lisle is just projecting here. If what Lisle said was right, there would be no evolution. We would all be talking about creation, because science started with creation and young earth that had the sun orbiting around it. The facts changed things. The idea of an old earth, which was backed up by more and more data, which moved the age of the earth further back until we reached the current age of the planet. This was not the work of an "evolutionist" as Lisle is claiming, instead it was the work of people like Lord Kelvin, a creationist, who spoke out against T.H. Huxley. So already this idea of coming from a predetermined position is on shaky ground.

"The evolutionist astronomer believes that the solar system is billions of years old, yet he sees comets within it. He can observe that comets disintegrate quite rapidly, and he computes that they can only last 100,000 years or so. How is he to resolve this dilemma? “Obviously,” says the secular astronomer, “there must be a source that generates new comets to replace the old ones as they disintegrate.” So secular astronomers have proposed that there is an “Oort cloud” (named after its inventor, Jan Oort). The Oort cloud is an enormous hypothetical sphere of icy masses surrounding our solar system. It is supposedly far beyond the most distant planets, beyond the range of our most powerful telescopes. Secular astronomers propose that occasionally, objects in the Oort cloud are dislodged from their distant orbit and thrown into the inner solar system to become brand new comets. Since these new comets continually replace the old ones, the solar system could be billions of years old after all."

Now we see what Lisle means by rescuing device. In science we call these predictions. In other words scientists realize that comets only last a 10,000 years or so, but the fact is that the universe is around 14 billion years old, based on convergance evidence from testing of separate sites and methods. Then there is a prediction, based on these two seemingly contradictory facts, that there is a place where comets are continually formed, the Oort cloud. Now here is where you are going to find a big difference between creation "science"'s "rescuing device" and science's predictions. Scientist are actively trying to identify the Oort cloud. They have determined some objects they believe to be inside it, but they are still actively seeking it. If they don't find any evidence of an Oort cloud then they will scrap it and look for another explanation for comets. This is a strength of science, being able to change when new evidence comes forth.

"Now keep in mind that no one has ever seen an Oort cloud. By construction, it is supposedly much too far away to detect the small objects within it. Currently, there is no observational evidence of any kind for an Oort cloud. So, as a creationist, I have no particular reason to think that there is such a thing. As far as I’m concerned, the Oort cloud exists only in the mind of evolutionists. It’s just a rescuing device that “saves” the evolutionist’s view from evidence that would otherwise seem to refute it."

Actually, objects have been observed in the area of where the Oort cloud should be. Oort cloud objects (OCOs) are showing up more and more as our telescopes increase in strength.

Argument from personal incredulity is still a logical fallacy. Just because you don't believe it doesn't mean it is not possible. Later, Lisle will show that no amount of evidence will change his mind, as he knows he is already right. So I ask which seems more sensible, taking what you know and developing ideas based off that and changing those ideas when new evidence arises or starting with your conclusion and cherry picking evidence that fits your conclusion to the point of ignoring and ridiculing any new evidence that doesn't support your conclusion? The first is what science does. The later is what AiG and every creation/intelligent design (ID)institution does. AiG is just more forward with stating that is what they do.

"Likewise, the evolutionist could also explain away the other arguments above by appealing to a rescuing device. Perhaps there is some kind of unknown mechanism that has contaminated the diamonds and other samples, creating new C-14 in them — in which case such things can be very old after all."

Or it could be like I posted, instrument contamination.

"Perhaps there is some as-yet-undiscovered mechanism that produces new information in DNA."

No need, duplication and mutation takes care of it just fine, like I showed previously.

"Perhaps nothing is truly irreducibly complex; it just seems that way due to our inability to imagine the stepwise process."

Actually you haven't shown anything to be irreducibly complex. No one has. Everything considered so far has shown to be not near as irreducible as creationists and IDers claim.

"The reason that mere evidences do not persuade people is that people can always invoke the unknown. This is why the above arguments do not really prove creation. Any evidence can be explained away by invoking a rescuing device."

True and creationists have the ultimate rescuing device, "God did it". How was every animal created? God did it. How did every animal on the planet reach the middle east to board Noah's ark? God did it. How did "information" get put into DNA? God did it. How do you verify this? Uhmmmm, prayer?

How do you verify there is an Oort cloud? Well through calculations, models, observations and building better telescopes that can identify smaller objects than what was possible before.

Notice the answer to the Oort cloud question is not an ending. Instead, we are still studying and trying to verify and learn more. Once a creationist says God did it, what is left to study? You have stopped, it is ended it is over nothing more to see here. That is the major difference between what Lisle calls "rescuing devices".

Now Lisle will try to justify rescuing devices because he knows he has the biggest end all rescuing device of all.

"Is a rescuing device unacceptable? Should we criticize the evolutionary astronomers for inventing a mere conjecture to rescue their opinion of vast ages rather than simply accepting the evidence at face value? My response may surprise you. The answer is: no — a rescuing device is not necessarily wrong. The fact is, we all have rescuing devices. We all have a way of thinking about the world — a worldview. Our worldview contains our most strongly held convictions about how the world works: how it came to be, the nature of reality, the nature of truth, and how we should live. No matter what worldview we have, there will always be some evidence that does not seem to fit it — at least on the surface. And therefore, everyone (whether creationist or evolutionist) must occasionally invoke a rescuing device in order to maintain rationality in his or her worldview."

Now we are starting to get to the heart of his real argument, worldviews or presuppositions.

"So I would not necessarily criticize the secular astronomers for inventing an Oort cloud (even though I don’t believe in one). After all, I don’t know for certain that there is not an Oort cloud either. The fact that we have no evidence for an Oort cloud does not prove that it does not exist. Absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence, so we cannot instantly dismiss evolutionary conjectures as necessarily impossible or irrational."

I am not criticizing them for putting forth the hypothesis of an Oort cloud, I just said I think it is a figment of evolutionists imagination. That is not derogatory at all, except when atheists say the same about God. Hypocrisy is so easy to find among Christian fundamentalists.

He is right absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Instead we can lower the probability of something being true or real. Like for say a deity. The fact we have found no evidence of any deity does not mean one does not exist. The fact still remains that people claim to talk to a deity or deities and know what the deity/deities want. These people can't even agree when they are talking about the same deity much less other opposing deities. In fact they often contradict each other on the nature of the same deity. So they cannot all be right. They can all be wrong. In fact it is better percentage-wise to assume they are all wrong, especially without any corroborating evidence to any of their claims.

"Nonetheless, a conjecture must not be arbitrary. If I simply asserted that “the core of Jupiter is made of green cheese” simply because no one has proven otherwise, this would be an unacceptable position. In logical reasoning, no one is allowed to be arbitrary — to just assume something without a good reason. After all, if we’re just going to assume something with no reason, then we could equally well assume the exact opposite. Rational debate would be impossible if people simply assumed whatever they wanted and felt no need to provide a reason for their position. Therefore, people must have a reason for their rescuing device if it is to be considered rational."

Of course if the core belief is not rational, then I can reject any rescuing device your present no matter if it is reasonable through your core belief. This would be a false premise.

"As an example, consider the “distant starlight problem.” This is the argument that the universe must be billions of years old since it apparently takes a very long time for light from the most distant galaxies to reach earth. How would a creationist respond to this claim? As of the writing of this book, there is not a definitive, verified solution to distant starlight. Therefore, creationists must invoke a rescuing device to explain distant starlight. Several good models have been proposed that can potentially solve this difficulty. But since none of them have been conclusively proved, they remain conjectures — rescuing devices — at this point in time."

Has anything ever been conclusively proven by creationists? I am asking seriously.

What kind of studies are being done by creationists on distant star light? I would like to see this.

"Is this arbitrary? No, the creationist has a reason to believe that there is an answer to distant starlight. As a creationist, I am convinced that the Bible really is what it claims to be: the Word of God. As such, the Bible accurately describes the creation of the universe. My Christian worldview requires that God really did create in six days, just as He said He did. Therefore, I have a good reason to think that there really is a rational solution to distant starlight (possibly one of the existing models, or perhaps one that is as yet undiscovered). My reason for my rescuing device is that my worldview insists on one, and I have good reasons to know that my worldview is true."

Remember that false premise thing I mentioned earlier. I reject your premise that the Bible is entirely accurate. In fact I know of several Christians that do the same. So not only is this a false premise but a false dichotomy too. The Christian worldview does not require what you say, no it is a fundamentalist "literal" reading of the bible worldview that claims this. Of course if you point this out to them then they will fall back on the no true Scotsman fallacy, claiming that those people are not real Christians.

"So a rational person will appeal to his worldview as the reason for his rescuing devices. But then, of course, he must have good reasons for his worldview. Evolutionists (and other believers in vast ages) are perfectly justified in believing in an Oort cloud if, and only if, they appeal to their worldview. But appealing to one’s worldview is only rational if one’s worldview is rational. The debate over origins therefore must ultimately boil down to a debate over competing worldviews. As such, we must give some thought to the nature of worldviews and how to judge competing ones."

So now he finally gets to false premise. The next section is on worldviews and this is the bulk of his argument. Honestly I don't know of any scientist that claims there is an Oort cloud because of their "worldview". Instead it is because of facts and evidence, but we will get to all that when I cover the next and final section of Chapter 1.

I am not buying the book to cover more chapters, I will see if they have it in the local library though. Plus my mom gave me a Charles Colson book to read, claiming I owe her since she read the two Ken Miller books I gave her. So I may cover that instead.

The Ultimate Proof of Creation - Chapter 1 - Section 2

This is a book by Dr. Jason Lisle of Answers In Genesis (AiG). Here is a short background on him posted on Amazon's page for this book.

"Dr Jason Lisle is a research scientist and speaker with Answers in Genesis Ministries. He holds a bachelor's degree in physics and astronomy from Ohio Wesleyan University and a master's degree and PhD in astrophysics from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Dr Lisle is currently planetarium director at the Creation Museum near Cincinnati, and written a number of books and journal articles, as well as the programs currently being used in the planetarium."

I was able to see his talk on this same subject while visiting the Creation Museum in Kentucky run by AiG. I know PZ has covered the first chapter but I wanted to take a shot at, especially after hearing Lisle's speech. Chapter 1 of his book is available online here. I will be using part of this book in accordance with the Fair Use Copyright Laws within the United States of America.

Section 2 is all about Irreducible Complexity.

"Another argument that is often waged against evolution concerns the incredible complexity found in living things. Darwin could not possibly have anticipated the astonishing intricacy of even the “simplest” single-celled organism. Every living cell of every organism contains a host of complex biochemical machines, each cooperating with the others to enable the survival of the entire cell. The parts of the cell are interdependent; if any one of them malfunctions, it can lead to the death of the entire cell. In multi-cellular organisms, the cells themselves are specialized, each performing a different task to contribute to the survival of the whole organism. Hearts, kidneys, and lungs all work together — without one the others could not survive."

Because no one believes that cells evolved. Instead that cells have always been the same throughout history (/sarcasm).

We can just look at one of his examples. Hearts there are several animals that have no heart, instead they use locomotion to move the blood cells around in their body. Likewise, there are animals, like some worms, that don't have a heart but have some muscles around one part of a blood vessel that squeeze the blood vessel making blood flow through the body. In other words, a precursor to a heart. We can see the evolution of the heart just in comparative anatomy of animals today. This is what Charles Darwin did with the eye in explaining how it could have evolved.

"Interdependent parts challenge the idea of particles-to-people evolution. Evolution is supposed to happen in a gradual, stepwise fashion.One by one, mutations are supposed to gradually change one kind of organism into another. So we must ask the question: which evolved first — hearts, kidneys, or lungs? Each is useless without the other two. A stepwise evolutionary process for any interdependent system would seem to be impossible at the outset."

Really, this is all you got? I just pointed out there are animals without hearts. Only a few fish have lungs, and several animals don't use blood for the dispersal of oxygen anyway. I can show examples of animals without one or two of these organs, so his statement that each is useless without the other two is just blatantly false.

"Even within a single living cell, how could the various parts have come about in a gradual fashion? Each part cannot survive without the others. Such a system is said to be “irreducibly complex” because its complexity cannot be reduced without destroying functionality. Any irreducibly complex system cannot have come about by an evolutionary process, since every piece requires all the other pieces at the same time."

What parts? Name some. Of course you won't do that will you? That would mean someone could come along and prove your statement to be false. Instead using amorphous terms you can never been pinned down on exactly what you mean and thus can never be proven wrong. Unlike what you did with the heart, lung and kidney example.

"Many machines made by human beings are also irreducibly complex. A car does not work unless all of its essential parts are functioning. Since many of the parts of a car are irreducibly complex, it would be logical to conclude that a car is not made by an evolutionary process. It is skillfully planned and made by people who have designed every part to function with all the others. Likewise, living beings have been designed by a Master Planner who has skillfully prepared every part to
function together with all the other parts."

Actually we know a car is made because, it can't reproduce on its own, we can go and see it being made in a factory and the manufacturer usually puts a stamp on it saying it was made, by whom it was made and where it was made. None of it has to do with irreducible complexity.

The other thing about the car example is that there is coworker of mine that has a Harley Davidson poster in his office. The poster is the evolution of the Harley Davidson. It starts with motorized bicycles and goes all the way to present day motorcycles. You can see the gradual changes in design that over a long time accumulated into something that looks nothing like the original. Changing these parts that Lisle is calling irreducibly complex, which are necessary now, but not in the past on some of the first bikes. So even his example is not of irreducible complexity.

That is all Lisle has on irreducible complexity and it is quite weak. His argument is basically one giant argument from personal incredulity, I don't see how it can happen so it must not have happened. This is a logical fallacy, which Lisle spends an entire chapter of this book on logical fallacies and how to identify them. I find it telling that he then also uses so many fallacies himself. It reminds of a passage of the bible:

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." - Matthew 7:3-5


Dr. Ken Miller's page on irreducible complexity of the Flagellum as described by William Dembski. A very good read and deconstruction of irreducible complexity.

The Ultimate Proof of Creation - Chapter 1 - Section 1

This is a book by Dr. Jason Lisle of Answers In Genesis (AiG). Here is a short background on him posted on Amazon's page for this book.

"Dr Jason Lisle is a research scientist and speaker with Answers in Genesis Ministries. He holds a bachelor's degree in physics and astronomy from Ohio Wesleyan University and a master's degree and PhD in astrophysics from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Dr Lisle is currently planetarium director at the Creation Museum near Cincinnati, and written a number of books and journal articles, as well as the programs currently being used in the planetarium."

I was able to see his talk on this same subject while visiting the Creation Museum in Kentucky run by AiG. I know PZ has covered the first chapter but I wanted to take a shot at, especially after hearing Lisle's speech. Chapter 1 of his book is available online here. I will be using part of this book in accordance with the Fair Use Copyright Laws within the United States of America.

Now into the Chapter.

It starts off claiming that creationists and evolutionists use the same evidence but come to different conclusions based on their presuppositions or worldview. This is the standard canard for AiG. They forget to mention all the facts that creationists ignore when looking at the evidence. I will get to that later when he is actually talking about the evidence. This is also a straw man argument by Lisle. Creationists do insist that the Bible trumps the facts and that you should make the facts fit what the Bible says, but this is not how science works. If it was then we would all still believe in special creation, geocentric universe, a young earth, humors, leeching to get rid of "bad blood", etc. Instead science, all science, looks at the facts and follow them to the conclusions wherever they may lead. This is basic stuff, and Lisle, having a PhD from Colorado, knows this. Which leads me to believe that he is a liar for Jesus.

"One of the most compelling, commonly used scientific arguments for creation involves the field of information science. In this technological age, we are inundated with all sorts of information every day, but few people stop to consider what information really is, and where it comes from."

Well, I have a degree in Management Information Science so this should be good. Except for the first sentence, I am in total agreement.

"Scientifically, we can define information as a coded message containing an expected action and intended purpose."

Anyone can guess where he is going with this. I want to point out that he is already affirming the consequent in his definition. By calling it coded, he can say it needs a coder, much like Ray Comfort's 'creation requires a creator' bullshit.

Wikipedia has a good article on Information. Here is just a bit of it but will become important as we go here.

"Information is a term with many meanings depending on context, but is as a rule closely related to such concepts as meaning, knowledge, instruction, communication, representation, and mental stimulus. Simply stated, information is a message received and understood. In terms of data, it can be defined as a collection of facts from which conclusions may be drawn. There are many other aspects of information since it is the knowledge acquired through study or experience or instruction. But overall, information is the result of processing, manipulating and organizing data in a way that adds to the knowledge of the person receiving it.

Information is the state of a system of interest. Message is the information materialized.

Information is a quality of a message from a sender to one or more receivers. Information is always about something (size of a parameter, occurrence of an event, value, ethics, etc)."

This is what Lisle will use, information as a message. Here is Lisle on DNA.

"DNA also contains information. DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is a long molecule found within living cells and resembles a twisted ladder. The rungs of the ladder form a pattern of base pair triplets that represent amino acid sequences — the building blocks of proteins. DNA contains the “instructions” to build the organism. So different organisms have different DNA patterns. DNA qualifies under the definition of information: it contains an encoded message (the base pair triplets represent amino acids) and has an expected action (the formation of proteins)and an intended purpose (life)."

At first glance this seems right, but he has changed the definition of information. In this sense information is "a type of pattern that that influences the formation or transformation of another pattern" (from Wikipedia). For this definition there is no need for a sender or receiver, in essence it is a chemical reaction or like the cogs of clock. When one moves the other has to because of the interlocking relationship. This is similar to how chemical reactions work, in which DNA is a chemical (two polymers with sugar and phosphate bonds to be specific). There is a lot of work going on in understanding DNA and I don't want to get bogged down in technicalities here, so I differ to Wikipedia (DNA) again.

"Whenever we find any sort of information, certain rules or “theorems”
apply. Here are two such theorems:

1. There is no known law of nature, no known process, and no
known sequence of events that can cause information to originate
by itself in matter.

2. When its progress along the chain of transmission events is
traced backward, every piece of information leads to a mental
source, the mind of the sender."

Lisle's wonderful source for these theorems (which I never heard either of these in college) is Werner Gitt (I wish I was making that name up). They are both from Gitt's book In the Beginning Was Information. It is a creationist book. Gitt is a yec and amazingly works for AiG, just like Lisle.

Both of these theorems are garbage. Scientists have observed the duplication or doubling of strands of DNA, followed by mutation affecting a single one of those strands changing it into something entirely different than what was there originally. This would be the adding of "information." As for actually originating "information" this would be covered under abiogenesis. In which some remarkable studies are going on. Recently a new article was published on a very likely way in which RNA (a precursor for DNA) could have formed on a very young Earth. This would be a complete natural origin for "information".

Theorem number two is just weird. Every source of information? Well I guess it again depends on what you mean by information. Where is the source of the "information" that tells an oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms to bond together to form water? This is yet another straw man.

"In one sense, these theorems are hardly profound; we take for granted that when we read a book it has an author. No one reading this book would conclude that it was generated by a sequence of typos that gradually accumulated over time. Now certainly this book might be a copy of a copy of a copy, but you take it for granted that a mind is ultimately responsible for the information therein (regardless of whether you agree with the information!). The theorems of information science confirm this."

Argument from personal incredulity or argument from common sense, yet another logical fallacy. First it is a false analogy. Books do not reproduce on their own. Humans guide the process of recreating books, often at great extent. Yet they still get transmission errors. I guess in Lisle's world God is actually guiding every chemical reaction that is involved in reproduction, no wonder he has no time to answer prayers.

Lisle has also set up Gitt's theorems like they are the widely accepted in the field of Information Science, this is far from the truth. From Wikipedia on Gitt and Tom Schneider's works:

"Tom Schneider of the Molecular Information Theory Group at the National Institutes of Health, an expert on the application of evolution to biology similarly criticizes his use of unproved 'theorems', use of circular reasoning, self-contradiction, 'Gitt has gotten Shannon backwards' and that Gitt falls into a 'standard misunderstanding that information is not entropy, information is not uncertainty'"

To trot out Gitt's work like it is highly respected and contains actual theorems (theorem - a statement that can be demonstrated to be true by accepted mathematical operations and arguments) is deluded at best and dishonest at worst. Thus going back to my original opinion that Lisle is intentionally lying for Jesus.

"Likewise, these theorems tell us that life cannot have come about as the evolutionists claim. The information in DNA cannot have come about by mutations and natural selection because the laws of information science tell us that all information comes from a mind. But the information in DNA makes sense in light of biblical creation. It was by the mind of God that the initial information was placed in the DNA of the original organisms on earth. That information has been copied many times, and some of it has been lost. But the information in our DNA ultimately comes from God, not by a random chance process. The laws of information science confirm creation."

This is only true if these "theorems" are true, which Gitt nor Lisle have done anything to prove them. Thus this argument relies on a faulty premise and fails before it even starts.

Also by the definition of information as a message (information is a message received and understood), the second part of that definition requires the receiver to be able to understand the message. In other words the receiver has to have a mind also. Otherwise it would be akin to a person writing detailed messages and then throwing them into a furnace to be destroyed without anyone ever reading them. So by Lisle's definitions each cell of our or any living body must have a mind.

"Sometimes evolutionists will object to this and will point out that mutations occasionally have survival value; they “improve” the organism under certain circumstances. This is true, but it is not relevant to the argument. Mutations have
never been observed to add brand-new information, and thus they cannot be the driving mechanism of evolution. Sometimes mutations will cause a section of DNA to get duplicated, but does this really increase the information? Not at all. By analogy, a copying error in a book may cause a paragraph to get duplicated. But surely it adds no new information. After all, could you learn anything from the duplicated paragraph that you couldn’t learn from the original? Creative information cannot spontaneously increase by chance. It is always the result of intelligence. The theorems of information science tell us this, and our experiences confirm it."

Now Lisle, you are just being obtuse. Ever thought about combining these two processes?

1. We take a sentence:
The dog hates cats.

2. We duplicate it:
The dog hates cats. The dog hates cats.

3. We add a beneficial mutation to the addition:
The dog hates cats. The dog hates cars.

UH-OH! We now have new information about the dog, through the two processes you just said couldn't create new information. You might want to rethink things.

That is it for Information Science section of Chapter 1, next section the thoroughly debunked idea of Irreducible Complexity.

I also want to add, I love the pictures. Notice he pulls a Jack Chick, not as prominent as Chick does though, in that he makes the evolutionist look uglier than the Christian.

Historical Revisionists

This has become my new pet peeve. In America it seems to revolve around the idea that America is a Christian nation, besides all the evidence to the contrary. A new low has been crossed. One group is now intentionally making up phrases and attributing them to Founding Fathers. They have even admitted to doing so. This is beyond disgusting. These actions are called lying.

This was brought to my attention by the blog Computing Intelligence and his post entitled "Well, he could have said it...".

There is a recent article in the St. Petersburg Times over some new billboards in the area. The article, "Christian group's billboards denounce separation of church, state", contains the following comment from one of the activists, Terry Kemple, involved in making the billboards.

Others carry the same message but with fictional attribution, as with one billboard citing George Washington for the quote, "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible."

"I don't believe there's a document in Washington's handwriting that has those words in that specific form," Kemple said. "However, if you look at Washington's quotes, including his farewell address, about the place of religion in the political sphere, there's no question he could have said those exact words."

I cannot find the words to express my utter disgust and contempt for people like Mr. Kemple. Not only is he lying, he knows he is lying.

Mr. Kemple's organization, Community Issues Council (of which Mr. Kemple is the only employee in Tampa), has this statement as one of their goals.

America's government was made only for people who are moral and religious.

Personally, I do not believe that lying is immoral in all situations. Fundamentalist Christians, like Mr. Kemple, always tell me otherwise. In this situation, lying to further one's personal agenda at the expense of others, I think Mr. Kemple is acting immoral. So by his own standards, Mr. Kemple needs to GTFO! Buh-bye, sayonara, adios, hasta luego, bon voyage, seriously get the fuck out of the United States now.

Revisionist History Part 3

This is really starting to become a pet peeve of mine. As some of the readers know, I still work the sound board for my parent's church once a month (because of a promise I made a few years ago before I fully deconverted). I always do the first Sunday of the month. The service around July 4th is always great for some revisionist history.

The actual sermon was secular, there was no mention of God, and I quite enjoyed it. One of the local doctors, who has served in the Navy and retired as a 2 star Admiral, gave a speech on the lives of each of the men who hoisted the flag at Iwo Jima and why it was important for America and World War II.

My issue was a little 3 minute video, played during the song service. You can find the video here. I didn't have a chance to go through each of the quotes while there but have gone through them now.

First quote is Alexander Hamilton.

"I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man."

This quote is real. Hamilton made this claim. I would love to see the evidence he speaks of though.

Second quote is James Madison.

"The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded."

This quote is without citation or any record. It is similar to another quote made up by Christian revisionists and seems to be part of that. It is well dissected here.

Third quote is Thomas Jefferson. (Yeah Jefferson supporting Christianity, you already know it is fake.)

"The reason Christianity is the best friend for government is because Christianity deals with the heart."

There is no record of Jefferson every writing or saying anything like this (here).

Fourth quote is Andrew Jackson.

"The Bible is the Rock on which this Republic rests."

This quote is real. So what? Jackson had nothing to do with the founding of this country. It just shows that Christian Theocrats have been trying to take over the country for awhile now.

Fifth quote is Patrick Henry. (It is a longer quote than what I post but you can get the gist.)

"This great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians"

Another spurious quotation. These words appear nowhere in the writings or recorded utterances of Patrick Henry. You can read about it here, along with quotes used by Sally Kern in her recent revisionist history here in Oklahoma. Patrick Henry was a believer, so making up quotes is just odd. You can find support for Christianity from him easily, but you can't find support for America being founded as a Christian nation.

Sixth quote is Daniel Webster.

"If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity."

I honestly can't find anything about this quote, except a lot of Christians use it. Again so what? Webster had as much to do with the founding of this country as Jackson.

Seventh and final quote is Woodrow Wilson.

"America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scriptures. Ladies and gentlemen, I have a very simple thing to ask of you. I ask of every man and woman in this audience that from this night on they will realize that part of the destiny of America lies in their daily perusal of this great book of revelations. That if they would see America free and pure they will make their own spirits free and pure by this baptism of the Holy Scripture."

Wilson said it. Again, so what? Wilson obviously had no clue about the founding fathers.

So let's tally up the quotes.

Real quotes: 4
Fake quotes: 3

Of the real quotes, how many were founding fathers? 1.

Lying for Jesus is fun.