What's wrong with science as religion

Piercing a Communion wafer with a nail and throwing it in the garbage, as one crusading biologist recently did, does science no favors.

Jul. 31, 2008 | PZ Myers is a true believer, a science crusader with the singled-minded enthusiasm of a televangelist. A biologist at the University of Minnesota at Morris and a columnist for Seed magazine, Myers has earned notoriety with his blog, Pharyngula, in which he reports on new developments in biology and indiscriminately excoriates those he views as hostile to science, a pantheon of straw men and women that includes theologians, journalists and churchgoers. He is Richard Dawkins without the fame or felicitous prose style.

Currently, Myers is under fire from his university and an army of righteous Catholics over his self-proclaimed "Great Desecration" caper. On July 24, he pierced a Communion wafer with a rusty nail ("I hope Jesus' tetanus shots are up to date," he quipped) and threw it in the trash with coffee grounds and a banana peel. The nail also cut through pages of the Quran and Dawkins' "The God Delusion." He featured a photo of the "desecration" on his blog, and wrote, "Nothing must be held sacred. God is not great, Jesus is not your lord, you are not disciples of any charismatic prophet."

Religion is dangerous, he wrote; it breeds hatred and idiocy. It is our job to advance humanity's knowledge "by winnowing out the errors of past generations and finding deeper understanding of reality." There is no wisdom in our dogmas, Myers warned, just "self-satisfied ignorance." We find truth only in science, looking at the world "with fresh eyes and a questioning mind."

As a fellow scientist (I have a Ph.D. in physics), I share Myers' enthusiasm for fresh eyes, questioning minds and the power of science. And I worry about dogmatism and the kind of zealotry that motivates the faithful to blow themselves up, shoot abortion doctors and persecute homosexuals. But I also worry about narrow exclusiveness that champions the scientific way of knowing to the exclusion of all else. I don't like to see science turned into a club to bash religious believers.

When Salon interviewed me about my new book, "Saving Darwin," I suggested that science doesn't know everything, that there might be a reality beyond science, and that religion might be about God and not merely about the human quest for a nonexistent God. These remarks got me condemned to whatever hell Myers believes in.

Myers accused me of having "fantastic personal delusions" that could actually lead people astray. "I will have no truck with the perpetuation of fallacious illusions, whether honeyed or bitter," Myers wrote, "and consider the Gibersons of this world to be corruptors of a better truth. That's harsh, I know ... but he is undermining the core of rationalism we ought to be building, and I find his beliefs pernicious."

Myers' confident condemnations put me in mind of that great American preacher, Jonathan Edwards, who waxed eloquent in his famous 1741 speech, "Sinners at the Hands of an Angry God," about the miserable delusions that lead humans to reject the truth and spend eternity in hell. We still have preachers like Edwards today, of course; they can be found on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. But now we also have a new type of preacher, the Rev. PZ Myers.

Impressive scientific progress has spawned these new preachers in the centuries since crowds sat spellbound under the judgmental voice of Edwards. Like their traditional counterpart, the new preachers speak with great confidence that their religion -- science -- contains all the truth we need to know and all the truth that can be known. They call us to worship at the altar of science, a summons of which I am skeptical, to say the least.

The best-known men of scientific cloth are Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, but Dawkins' Oxford colleague, chemist Peter Atkins, gets my vote for best preacher. Atkins' provocative sermon, aptly titled "The Creation," invites the reader on a journey back to the ultimate origins of everything. On this journey we learn that "there is nothing that cannot be explained, and that everything is extraordinarily simple." Like the religious journeys Atkins invokes, it is a journey of faith, but not too much, since faith is like a tumor -- the smaller the better. "The only faith we need for the journey is the belief that everything can be understood and, ultimately, that there is nothing to explain," he writes.

After summarizing what we know about origins in elegant but breathtakingly speculative prose, Atkins borrows biblical language to address the deep question implied by his title: "In the beginning there was nothing. Absolute void, not merely empty space. There was no space; nor was there time, for this was before time. The universe was without form and void."

Eventually, as we journey with Atkins, stuff happens -- stars, planets, life, people, music, art, magazines. But how did it start? How did the universe go from being "without form and void" to this fascinating place we see today? "By chance" says Atkins, "there was a fluctuation."

Excuse me, Rev. Atkins, but could you please be just a bit more specific? Can you tell me what you mean by "absolute void"? Is that an empirical, testable concept? It sounds suspiciously like a metaphor for something in which you want to believe. As a matter of fact, the suggestion that nothing can naturally fluctuate into everything sounds a lot like a faith statement on a par with belief in God.

Stories like those told by Atkins in "The Creation" are passed off as science, as if our best physics, chemistry and biology lead naturally to these conclusions. The new creation stories are reworded to make it clear that these new scientific stories are replacements for their religious predecessors. Rather than "In the beginning was the word," where word, from the Greek logos, meaning "underlying rational structure," is identified with God, Atkins gives us, "In the beginning there was nothing."

Don't get me wrong. Atkins tells a great story. And telling stories is the way we communicate meaning, whether it's oracles making pronouncements or Carl Sagan explaining how the cosmos came to be. Sometimes these stories are true and sometimes they are not; sometimes we can't tell. But our human tendency is to embed meaning in stories, and all great preachers have been great storytellers. Jesus spoke in parables, not theological discourses.

Our affinity for such stories, says evolutionary psychologist Edward O. Wilson of Harvard University, is helped along by hard-wired religious impulses, created by millenniums of evolution. Wilson says our minds have "mythopoeic requirements" -- a need for stories that provide meaning and purpose.

Wilson's personal story testifies to the mythopoeic power of both religious and scientific stories. Raised Southern Baptist, he gave his heart to Jesus as a boy, and worshiped the biblical God -- until his studies at the University of Alabama convinced him that his religious faith was incompatible with his emerging new scientific faith.

Like the so-called new atheists, with their out-of-the-confessional aversion to traditional religion, Wilson now argues that if we are serious about the salvation of our race, we had better turn to science. "The mythopoeic requirements of the mind," he says in his Pulitzer Prize-winning "On Human Nature," "must somehow be met by scientific materialism." In "Three Scientists and Their Gods," Wilson told Robert Wright that we must learn to "worship the evolutionary epic."

Wilson, along with Atkins, Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and others, persuades us that science has, for thinking people, discredited religion. Nevertheless, they are quick to borrow from a religion they reject and take delight in using biblical metaphors. And as their science evolves to meet the "mythopoeic requirements" of their minds, it increasingly resembles religion.

During Wilson's teenage crisis of faith, he didn't just shrug his shoulders and bid his childhood Christian beliefs farewell, as he had done some years earlier with his belief in Santa Claus. Instead, he reconstituted his faith. He replaced the Genesis story with a modern scientific creation story; he replaced Christian ethical directives with ones derived from ecology; and he replaced the worship of God with the worship of the grand story of evolution. It was a new package, informed by better evidence and logic, and it appears to have worked well for him. But it does require faith that the study of nature can provide ethical directives, and not just descriptions of natural phenomena. Showing that species are going extinct faster now than in the past does not automatically obligate us to any particular behavior.

Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg, a physicist at the University of Texas, concludes "The First Three Minutes" with these cheery words: "The more the universe is comprehensible, the more it seems pointless." The universe that we optimistically call our "cosmic home" is nothing of the sort, says Weinberg. Our existence is a "more-or-less farcical outcome of a chain of accidents." The human story is a tale told by idiots suffering from delusions of both purpose and grandeur, and we are all actors in this grand farce.

Yet even as gravity pulls Weinberg into the black hole of bleakness, he suggests that there is, perhaps, a ray of hope -- a sliver of salvation -- in science, which "lifts human life a little above the level of farce and gives it some of the grace of tragedy." Weinberg, like poor Job in the Old Testament, finds the world troubling. But his response, like Job's, suggests that the dreariness of the world has not completely extinguished his mythopoeic impulse.

Science, it would appear, has the raw material for a new religion. Trust traditionally placed in God can be relocated to science, which is reliable and faithful, as well as ennobling. Life can be oriented in a reverential way around the celebration and protection of the great diversity wrought by the evolutionary epic, a diversity that has produced creatures capable of reflecting on this grand mystery.

The grand creation story at the heart of this new religion of science inspires reverence among those invested in its exploration. The world disclosed in this story rests on a foundation of reliable and remarkable natural laws. These laws -- gravity tethering our planet to the sun, fusion reactions producing sunlight, chemistry enabling our metabolism -- possess the capacity to bring forth matter, galaxies, stars, planets and even life, all within a framework of natural processes that we can understand. And as we decipher these processes, their marvelous character only enlarges. No matter how well we understand them, they still evoke awe and surprise. The modern scientific creation story is so much more than a mere alternative to the traditional biblical myth of Adam and Eve; it is a genuinely religious myth with an astonishing depth and a proffered competence to meet the needs of the religious seeker -- the needs that draw millions of Americans to their houses of worship every Sunday morning.

The other pieces of the new religion also fall naturally into place. Our existence is a gigantic miracle, billions of years in the making, and way more interesting than any magical conversion of water into wine. The atoms in our bodies were forged in the furnaces of ancient stars that exploded, seeding our galaxy with rich chemistry. Our planet and its life-sustaining sun formed from this recycled stellar debris. "We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion-year-old carbon."

The scientific creation story, unlike the parochial accounts in our religious texts, belongs to all of humanity; it is the story of the Hindus, the Buddhists, the Jews, the Christians, the Confucians, the readers of PZ Myers' blog. We share this story with otters, giraffes, hummingbirds and the stars overhead. Atheist theologian Loyal Rue sees in the universality of the scientific story hope that a fragmented and suspicious humanity might find common ground on which to build a global village of trust and cooperation. "We are, at the moment, in many different places, with many histories and hopes," he writes in "Everybody's Story: Wising Up to the Epic of Evolution." "But we are now called together to one place, to a shared history and to a common vision of enduring promise. If there are saints enough among us, we shall survive."

So there it is -- a brand-new religion, courtesy of modern science. We have a creation myth, ethical directives and a meaningful place for humankind within the grand scheme of things. These are the ingredients that "constructive theologians" like Gordon Kaufman of Harvard Divinity School tell us are common to all religions. As a bonus, we have science to guide us into truth and assure us that we can find solutions to our problems. And we have inquisitors like Myers to ferret out heretics and martyr them on his Web site when they appear.

But is this going to work? Can a religion be built on nature and science, rather than God and sacred texts? And, if it could, would it be better than the old-fashioned religions it is replacing? If our present religions, like milk in our refrigerators, have all expired, we need a replacement to meet our mythopoeic needs. Can science do this for everyone, and not just the residents of ivory towers?

For starters, getting people to worship the new scientific creation story will be no easy task. A few dynamic speakers, like Brian Greene and, until recently, Stephen Hawking, can fill auditoriums with gee-whiz scientific stories of hidden dimensions and many universes. But most people prefer to watch sports and, perhaps not surprisingly, even more attend conventional religious services. Darwinism and big-bang cosmology have never been near and dear to human hearts, especially those filled with old-time religion. Sure, there are true believers who find these scientific ideas awesome in the most literal sense of that word. I am happy to place myself in this group. I can be moved to tears by the transcendent beauty of a math equation.

For science to become a true object of worship, it must elbow aside the reassuring and seductively simple belief that "God loves you." This deeply personal faith statement would have to be replaced with one that says something like: "The cosmos worked really long and hard to create you and you should be really appreciative."

But let's assume for the moment that this is possible -- that science can be canonized, moralized, transcendentalized and politicized into a replacement religion, with followers, codes of conduct, celebrated texts and sacred blogs, houses of worship, "saints" of some sort and inquisitors of another sort. And let's suppose that it's possible for this new religion to move out of the ivory towers of academia, where it lives now, to take its place alongside the other "world" religions, attracting hundreds of millions of adherents drawn from the main streets of the world and all walks of life. What would this new religion be like once it became institutionalized? After all, if religion fills a genuine human need, something has to fill the hole created by its passing -- something that appeals to billions of people.

Could we be sure, for example, that this new scientific religion would not give rise to the extremism and aberrant behavior that plague conventional religions? Would concern for the diversity of life, for example, inspire vegetarians to blow up slaughterhouses, and run the local butcher through his or her own meat grinder? Would reverence for the cosmos reinvigorate astrology? Would appreciation for natural selection bring eugenics back out of the closet? In other words, if science dismantles the traditional religious content that people use to satisfy their impulses -- many of which are quite passionate -- will we really be better off?

There is also no compelling way to get ethical directives from science. To be sure, religion has a version of the same problem, but that simply points up the challenges they both face, not the superiority of science over religion. Even Stephen Jay Gould, the peacemaking agnostic, suggested that religion should make the ethical calls.

On a practical level -- and I write as someone who works in the trenches at an evangelical college -- I am worried that attempts to treat science as if it is a religion will only drive the big, abrasive wedge currently between science and religion even further into the chasm of misunderstanding. What we should hope, instead, is that science can become a more congenial guest in the house -- church, temple, mosque -- of religion and not be so determined to proselytize or even evict all of the current occupants. There is much in religion that need not trouble the scientist and much that the scientist can value. Scientists must learn to live with that.

In order for many of us to truly feel at home in the universe so grandly described by science, that science needs to coexist as peacefully as possible with the creation stories of our religious traditions. I share with Myers, Dawkins and Weinberg the conviction that we are the product of cosmic and biological evolution, that Einstein and Darwin got it right. But I want to believe that, through the eyes of my faith, this is how God created the world and that God cares about that world. Does this belief, shared by so many of our species, make me dangerous?

I am incredibly impressed with the achievements of science. But I don't think science is omniscient and I am not convinced that science will ever know everything. I am not convinced that science is even capable of knowing everything. That we can know as much as we do seems rather miraculous, in fact. Is it so dangerous to believe that there is a bit more to the world than meets the scientific eye, that behind the blackboard filled with equations there is a rational, creative and even caring mind breathing fire into those equations?

Sorry to be so late in getting back to this thread.

Soliton at 251: You don't seem to understand the meaning of faith. I wouldn't be surprised if my chair broke. It has happened before. It has never happened because of supernatural reasons however.

It appears you have faith in the natural but not in the supernatural.

I suspect that “reality” for you begins and ends with your sensory perceptions and reasoning.

metmom at 254: Not true. You [Soliton] believe that science can prove things and lead one to the truth. That takes faith..

Indeed. It also takes faith to believe that he exists and that science exists.

betty boop at 266: Why do you [Soliton] think that Christians "are rude, semi-literate goobers?" Do you not know the magnificent history of the Church, its amazing legacy to mankind in the sciences and in philosophy? Which originally conceived the idea of the university? And whose members have articulated the most profound discoveries WRT man and his place in the universe over the past centuries? Who is the "semi-literate goober" here, Soliton?

LOLOL! But not surprising that he excludes inconvenient historical evidence. He appears to be very selective.

YHAOS at 278: May I say something here? I don’t think being a rude, semi-literate goober is necessarily a Christian characteristic (or that of an Atheist, etc). It’s a human characteristic that afflicts Christians and Atheists alike (Evolutionists even). So whenever I get assailed as “a rude, semi-literate goober” (actually, I’ve never been hit with those particular pejoratives), I’m pretty well assured that something else is bugging my assailant, and, you can be reasonably certain that a drive for political domination plays its part in the assault.

So very true – people assault others for cause, often because they are seen as a threat or needing to be controlled in some sense. Others are rarely noticed at all, like the background in a portrait.

TXnMA 283 quoting Soliton: "Looks like God Himself timed His days to the rotation of the earth."

TXnMA: That is the simplistic, childish, man-centered viewpoint. With a FRname like, "soliton" are you not familiar with relativistic time? How could God's timeframe be Earth; He existed before he made Earth (and everything else)... (Interesting how you "nonbelievers" can't resist referring to the Bible... ;-) Good for you!)

I very strongly agree with you on both points, dear brother in Christ!

The word concept of “day” in Creation week has deeper meaning. First the prophetic meaning in Scripture:

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. – Genesis 2:17

And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. – Genesis 5:5

For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. – Psalms 90:4

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. - 2 Peter 3:8

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath [days]: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body [is] of Christ. - Colossians 2:16-17

And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath. – Mark 2:27-28

And the early Christian understanding of the prophesy from the ancient manuscript The Epistle of Barnabas:

Of the Sabbath He speaketh in the beginning of the creation; And God made the works of His hands in six days, and He ended on the seventh day, and rested on it, and He hallowed it. Give heed, children, what this meaneth; He ended in six days. He meaneth this, that in six thousand years the Lord shall bring all things to an end; for the day with Him signifyeth a thousand years; and this He himself beareth me witness, saying; Behold, the day of the Lord shall be as a thousand years.

Therefore, children, in six days, that is in six thousand years, everything shall come to an end. And He rested on the seventh day. this He meaneth; when His Son shall come, and shall abolish the time of the Lawless One, and shall judge the ungodly, and shall change the sun and the moon and the stars, then shall he truly rest on the seventh day. .

Yea and furthermore He saith; Thou shalt hallow it with pure hands and with a pure heart. If therefore a man is able now to hallow the day which God hallowed, though he be pure in heart, we have gone utterly astray. But if after all then and not till then shall we truly rest and hallow it, when we shall ourselves be able to do so after being justified and receiving the promise, when iniquity is no more and all things have been made new by the Lord, we shall be able to hallow it then, because we ourselves shall have been hallowed first.

Finally He saith to them; Your new moons and your Sabbaths I cannot away with. Ye see what is His meaning ; it is not your present Sabbaths that are acceptable [unto Me], but the Sabbath which I have made, in the which, when I have set all things at rest, I will make the beginning of the eighth day which is the beginning of another world.

Wherefore also we keep the eighth day for rejoicing, in the which also Jesus rose from the dead, and having been manifested ascended into the heavens. - chapter 15:3-9

And additional insight into the meaning of the ancient Hebrew terms for evening and morning in the words of Jewish Physicist Gerald Schroeder:

Age of the Universe

Nachmanides says the text uses the words "Vayehi Erev" - but it doesn't mean "there was evening." He explains that the Hebrew letters Ayin, Resh, Bet - the root of "erev" - is chaos. Mixture, disorder. That's why evening is called "erev", because when the sun goes down, vision becomes blurry. The literal meaning is "there was disorder." The Torah's word for "morning" - "boker" - is the absolute opposite. When the sun rises, the world becomes "bikoret", orderly, able to be discerned. That's why the sun needn't be mentioned until Day Four. Because from erev to boker is a flow from disorder to order, from chaos to cosmos. That's something any scientist will testify never happens in an unguided system. Order never arises from disorder spontaneously. There must be a guide to the system. That's an unequivocal statement.

The words of God are spirit and life. The words of men are neither spirit nor life.

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. – John 6:63

For that reason, the words of God can only be spiritually discerned. The ones Jesus is addressing below were physically hearing Him but they could not spiritually hear Him:

Why do ye not understand my speech? [even] because ye cannot hear my word. – John 8:43

But we Christians do hear Him:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: - John 10:27

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned. - I Corinthians 2:14

To God be the glory!

Do you accept Jewish legal rulings as fact?
***I accept them as historical evidence, which apparently you do not. In historical documents, real historians consider it extremely significant that there are some facts that are agreed to by both opposing sides in a dispute.

“The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian as the historicity of Julius Caesar. It is not historians who propagate the ‘Christ-myth’ theories.”~F.F. Bruce.

Historian Durant: “In the enthusiasm of its discoveries the Higher Criticism has applied to the New Testament tests of authenticity so severe that by them a hundred ancient worthies—e.g., Hammurabi, David, Socrates—would fade into legend.”

Greco-Roman historian Michael Grant, who certainly has no theological axe to grind, indicates that there is more evidence for the existence of Jesus than there is for a large number of famous pagan personages - yet no one would dare to argue their non-existence. Meier [Meie.MarJ, 23] notes that what we know about Alexander the Great could fit on only a few sheets of paper; yet no one doubts that Alexander existed. Christian authors wrote about Jesus soon after the events. By way of contrast, Plutarch’s biography of Alexander the Great, considered trustworthy by historians, was written more than four centuries after his death. Charlesworth has written that “Jesus did exist; and we know more about him than about almost any Palestinian Jew before 70 C.E.” [Chars.JesJud, 168-9] Sanders [Sand.HistF, xiv] echoes Grant, saying that “We know a lot about Jesus, vastly more than about John the Baptist, Theudas, Judas the Galilean, or any of the other figures whose names we have from approximately the same date and place.” On the Crucifixion, Harvey writes: “It would be no exaggeration to say that this event is better attested, and supported by a more impressive array of evidence, than any other event of comparable importance of which we have knowledge from the ancient world.” [Harv.JesC, 11]

Some excerpts from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_jesus

[edit] Jesus as myth
Main article: Jesus myth hypothesis
Further information: Jesus Christ and comparative mythology
A few scholars have questioned the existence of Jesus as an actual historical figure. Among the proponents of non-historicity have been Bruno Bauer in the 19th century. The non-historicity thesis was somewhat influential in biblical studies during the early 20th century, and has recently been put forward in popular literature by a number of authors. Arguments for non-historicity have been advanced by George Albert Wells in The Jesus Legend and The Jesus Myth. Popular proponents have included the writers Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy in their books The Jesus Mysteries and Jesus and the Lost Goddess. Other proponents of non-historicity are Robert M. Price and Earl Doherty (The Jesus Puzzle ).

The views of scholars who entirely reject Jesus’ historicity are summarized in the chapter on Jesus in Will Durant’s Caesar and Christ; they are based on a suggested lack of eyewitness, a lack of direct archaeological evidence, the failure of certain ancient works to mention Jesus, and some similarities between early Christianity and contemporary mythology.[71]

Michael Grant stated that the view is derived from a lack of application of historical methods:

…if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus’ existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned. ... To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ myth theory. It has ‘again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars.’ In recent years, ‘no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus’ or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary.[72]
Overall, the unhistoricity theory is regarded as effectively refuted by almost all Biblical scholars and historians[73],[74] & [75].

[edit] Mainstream scholarly reception
The idea of Jesus as a myth is rejected by the majority of biblical scholars and historians. The classical historian Michael Grant writes:

To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ myth theory. It has ‘again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars.’ In recent years, ‘no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus’ or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary. [52]
The points below highlight some of these criticisms.

Some scholars, like Michael Grant, do not see the similarities between Christianity and pagan religions to be significant. Grant states that “Judaism was a milieu to which doctrines of the deaths and rebirths, of mythical gods seemed so entirely foreign that the emergence of such a fabrication from its midst is very hard to credit.”[52]
Christianity was actively opposed by both the Roman Empire and the Jewish authorities, and would have been utterly discredited if Jesus had been shown as a non-historical figure. There is good early evidence in Pliny, Josephus and other sources of the Roman and Jewish approaches at the time, and none of them involved this suggestion.[18]
In response to Jesus-myth proponents who argue the lack of early non-Christian sources, or question their authenticity, R. T. France, for example, points out that “even the great histories of Tacitus have survived in only two manuscripts, which together contain scarcely half of what he is believed to have written, the rest is lost” and that the life of Jesus, from a Roman point of view, was not a major event.[18]
Parallels between Christianity and Mystery Religions are not considered compelling evidence by most scholars.[53][54]
Those who do not hold to the Jesus-Myth disagree with the notion that the Apostle Paul did not speak of Jesus as a physical being. They argue that arguments from silence are unreliable and that there are several references to historical facts about Jesus’s life in Paul’s letters,[18] such as that Jesus “who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David” (Romans 1:3, TNIV).

***********************
My article from several years ago
************************

Date: 24-OCT-1994 14:28:12.94
From: “Kevin O’Malley”
Reply-To: k3oma...@sisko.sbcc.cc.ca.us ()
Subj: RE: Evidence that Jesus Claimed to be God Part 1

Since I do not subscribe to this newsletter, please reply/comment by email.

Evidence that Jesus claimed to be God.
*************************************

Three books I would recommend and which I will be quoting/borrowing from:

More than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell Abbrev: MTAC
Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell Abbrev: ETDAV
Jesus: God, Ghost or Guru? by Jon Buell & O.Q. Hyder Abbrev: JGGG

His actions:

He forgave sin that had been committed against others. In Mark 2 a paralytic was lowered through a hole in the
roof and Jesus said, “My son, your sins are forgiven.” The response of the scribes who were present was “He is
blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone?”(Mark 2:7)
According to JGGG, “...there isn’t a single verse in the Old Testament (or other Jewish literature) that
clearly designates for the Messiah the power to forgive sins, although the same literature does ascribe this power
to Jehovah!” (JGGG 23)

He accepted worship.

Matthew 21:16. Jesus’ answer to the chief priests and scribes was to quote Psalm 8:2 “out of the mouth of
infants and nursing babes Thou hastprepared praise for Thyself”

When Thomas felt his wounds after the resurrection, he cried out “Behold my Lord and my God!” (John 20:26-29)
Jesus commented on Thomas’s unbelief rather than any misplaced worship — very significant for average 1st century
monotheistic jews.

According to JGGG, other examples include Peter’s acclaim (Matt 16:16) accepting the title Son of the living
God, and the worship of the disciples afloat on the Sea of Galilee (Matt 14:33) and again just prior to being
commissioned in Matt28. According to MTAC Jesus demanded to be worshipped as God in John 5:23, “compare Hebrews
1:6, Revelation 5:8-14”.

Jesus’Words

His use of the hebrew phrase “ani hu” which gets translated into greek variously as “I am He” or “I am”. The
roots of the phrase, according to JGGG and Ethelbert Stauffer in “Jesus and His Story” are from various Old
Testament scriputes such as Psalm 50:7 + 113-118, Isaiah 43, Deut 32 + 39 , 26:8, 5:16, etc. Ani is a self -
disclosure term used by Jehovah. Hu is the emphatic form of the personal pronoun “huah”, which means “he”, and
often used in the 1st century as a substitute for Yahweh.
In Mark 13:6 Jesus warns that counterfeits saying “Ani Hu” would arise impersonating HIM.
In John 13 Jesus says, “From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you
may believe that I am He (Ani Hu).”
Finally, in front of the highest court in his land, Jesus responds
to the question of whether he is the Messiah by saying, “Ani Hu” (Mark 16:61-62).
Furthermore, Jesus follows up this claim by saying, “And you shall see the Son of Man seated at the right hand
of Power coming on the clouds of Heaven.” Here Jesus quotes Daniel 7 and Psalm110:1. Jehovah is the only One in
the Old Testament who comes on the clouds of Heaven, and being seated at the right hand of someone is an expression
meaning to have equivalent status as that person. It’s important to note that Jesus was sentenced to death for who
he claimed to be.
John 10:30 Jesus says “I and the Father are one.” The jews who heard this rightly heard a claim to deity and
tried to stone Jesus.

John 8:58 Jesus says “Before Abraham was, I am”, again followed by an attempted stoning.

John 14:9 Jesus says to Philip “He that has seen me has seen the Father”

Jesus’ response to the scribes John in 5:16-18 when he said “My Father is working until now, and I Myself and
working” when he was accused of breaking the sabbath. According to MTAC, the cultural context is important and he
is effectively saying ‘God is MY Father’ and they sought to kill him.
MTAC: “The reason is that Jesus said ‘my Father,’ not ‘our Father,’ and then added “is working until now.’
Jesus’ use of these two phrases made himself equal with God, on a par with God’s activity. The Jews did not refer
to God as ‘my Father.’ Or if they did, they would qualify the statement with ‘in Heaven.’ However, Jesus did not do
this. He made a claim that the Jews could not misinterpret when he called God ‘my Father.’”

The basic phrases where Jesus claims to be one in essence with God.
John 12:45 — He who beholds me beholds the One who sent me; John 8:19 — If you knew me, you would know my Father
also; John 5:23 — He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him;

Opposing Sources

Per Stauffer: “For if a confrontation of witnesses yields statements that agree on some points, then these points
must represent facts accepted by both sides. This principle certainly holds true if the historical traditions of
the two groups of witnesses are independent of each other. But it holds true almost as completely in cases where
the traditions intersect. For it is highly significant that the witness for the prosecution admits that the witness
for the defense is right on certain points; that he agrees with his opponents about certain common facts.”

Justin Martyr and Eusebius mention a circular letter issued by the Sanhedrin.
Martyr Quotes from it:
“...a certain Jesus of Galilee, an apostate preacher whom we crucified; but his disciples stole him by night
from the cross; they did this in order to persuade men to apostasy by saying that he had awakened from the dead and
ascended into heaven.” Per JGGG jewish tradition for at least a century afterwards independently continued to
reject Jesus on the basis of his claim to deity.

Lucian, Greek satirist in 2nd century commenting on Jesus.
“...the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world.... Furthermore,
their first lawgiver persuaded them that they were all brothers one of another after they have transgressed once for
all
by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws.” Per JGGG,
“notice that Lucian specifically pins the blame for the worship of Jesus on ‘their first lawgiver himself.’

Pliny the Younger. (A.D. 61-112) Per JGGG
After killing christians, he sought advice from Trajan, mentioning that christians “affirmed, however that the
whole of their guilt, or their error, was that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it
was light, when they sang in alternate verse a hymn to Christ as to a god...”

Jewish Polemic in commentary of Rabbi Eleazar Hakkapar (ca 170 a.d.) per JGGG.
“God saw that a man, son of a woman, would come forth in the future who would endeavor to make himself God and
to lead the whole world astray.... For it is said: ‘A man is not God.... And if he says he is God, he is a liar.
And he will lead men astray and say that he is going and will come back again at the end of days.’ Is it not so
that he spoke thus, but he will not be able to do it. “

Jewish Polemic : Per JGGG, Rabbi Abbahu of Caesarea (ca 270) puts the words of Jesus into Balaam’s mouth:
“If a man says, ‘I am God,’ he is a liar, if he says I am the Son of Man,’ his end will be such that he will
rue it; if he says, ‘I shall ascend to heaven,’ will it not be that he will have spoken and will not be able to
perform it?’”

From JGGG:
“The first independent test of the validity and integrity of of the reports that we have discussed is a
telltale silence in all contemporary literature concerning the claim of Jesus’ deity. There is a complete ABSENCE
OF REBUTTAL. Although much was said to deny his deity, nothing was said to deny that he claimed it. (In fact, the
first real threat to the infant Christain church came from the Gnostics who wanted to deny his HUMANITY!) ....Paul,
writing within thirty years of the events themselves, confidently challenged his readers to check with any
eyewitnesses if they wanted to confirm the truthfulness of his message (1Cor. 15:5). THE FACT THAT JESUS CLAIMED
DEITY IS WITHOUT A CHALLENGER IN THE FIRST-CENTURY HISTORICAL RECORDS.” (emphasis changed from italics to CAPITALS)
This may be an argument from silence, but it is issued as a challenge.

Biblical evidence—Just a touch

Since most of the rest of the Bible was written before A.D. 90, there were many people who witnessed the events who
could have stepped forward if the Gospels, Paul’s epistles, etc. were unfactual. (per JGGG with citation of
demographic study)

Paul’s epistles include the following per JGGG:
1) that Jesus was the preexistent Creator of the universe (Col 1:15-16)
2) that Jesus existed both in the “form of man” and in the “form of God” (Phil.2:5,8)
3) that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead, and thereafter was seen by over five hundred eyewitnesses
(most of whom were alive when Paul wrote) (1Cor 15:4,5)
4) that prayer could be directed either to God the Father or to Jesus (1Cor 1:2)
5) that one day Jesus would return to earth as the divine judge of humanity (2Thess. 1:7-10)
“No first-century Jew — especially one steeped in Jewish orthodoxy as was Paul, trained by the great Rabbi
Gamaliel, fiercely monotheistic, a member of the sect of the Pharisees, and possibly even a member of the Great
Sanhedrin ... would teach these things about anyone but Jehovah Himself.”

Hebrews 1:8
“But unto the son He says,’Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a scepter of righteousness is the scepter
of Your kingdom.”

John

John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” v.14: “And the Word
became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory...”

Mark
The beginning of the gospel of Mark quotes Malachi 3:1 with a significant alteration: “Behold I will send my
messenger, and he shall prepare the before me.” Mark-—>”The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of
God. As it is written in the prophets, “Behold I send my messenger before thy face...”

From ETDAV: Indirect claims of deity

of Jehovah Mutual Title or Act Of Jesus

Isa 40:28 Creator John 1:3
Isa 45:22,43:11 Savior John 4:42
1Sam 2:6 Raise Dead John 5:21
Joel 3:12 Judge JJohn 5:27 cf.
cf Matt 25:31 ff

Isa 60:19-20 Light John 8:12
Exodus 3:14 I AM John 8:58, cf 18:5-6
ps.23:1 Shepherd John 10:11
Isa 42:8, cf48:11 Glory of God John 17:1,5
Isa 41:4,44:6 First and Last Rev1:17;2:8
Hosea 13:14 Redeemer Rev 5:9
Isa 62:5 Rev 21:2,
+ Hosea 2:16 Bridegroom cf: Matt 25:1 ff
Ps. 18:2 Rock 1 Cor 10:4
Jer 31:34 Forgiver of Sins Mark 2:7, 10
Ps 148:2 Worshipped by Angels Heb 1:6
Thru out O.T. Addressed in Prayer Acts 7:59
Ps. 148:5 Creator of Angels Col 1:16
Isa 45:23 Confessed as Lord Phil 2:11

Kevin O’Malley k3oma...@sisko.sbcc.cc.ca.us

Socrates is mentioned in documents written by three people who were alive during his purported lifetime. Whether the three writers worked independently of one another cannot be known with certainty. On the face of things, it is not obvious that any of them influenced the others, but it is hardly inconceivable that they could have. Socrates appears as a character in at least two of Aristophanes’ plays. He appears as an interlocutor in a substantial portion of Plato’s writings, and he plays a similar role in some of Xenophon’s work. Xenophon’s material is similar to some of Plato’s but not entirely consistent.

Aristophanes’ work is clearly satirical, not biographical. From the play itself, we cannot know whether he was making fun of a real philosopher known to his audience or ridiculing certain ideas that were much discussed at the time and using a fictional character to embody them. The former does seem prima facie more likely, but the latter cannot yet be ruled out.

Aristophanes produced his plays while Socrates (if he existed) was still alive. Plato and Xenophon did their work after his purported death, both of them including Socrates’ defense against the charges that led to his execution. Both writers give the impression that they had known Socrates and studied under his tutelage.

These writers are our best evidence for Socrates’ historicity. If they do not suffice to overcome reasonable doubt, then no other documents in which he is mentioned can make up for their lack.

We are not concerned here with the accuracy of any particular detail in any of the documents. Plato’s dialogues are certainly not transcriptions of actual conversations between Socrates and other people. The occasional autobiographical comment attributed to Socrates might or might not be factual. The modern historical consensus is that, especially in the later dialogues, the Socrates character is speaking Plato’s mind more than Socrates’ own. But we’re asking whether the man was real, never minding for the moment how accurately Plato and the others portrayed him.

A writer who falsely portrays a certain individual existing in a certain place at a certain time may have one of three mind sets. He might think his portrayal is truthful and want his readers to believe it. In that case his writing is simply erroneous. He might know his portrayal is not truthful but want his readers to believe it anyway. In that case his writing is fraudulent. He might know his portrayal is not truthful but not expect his readers to think otherwise. In that case his writing is fictional.

We’re probably safe in dismissing as absurd the possibility that all three of these writers made a mistake. They were not passing on legends or oral traditions. They were writing of a man who achieved fame and was executed in their lifetime. They could have misquoted him. They could been mistaken about a lot of things. It is unlikely they could all have made a mistake about his existence.

There is no apparent motive for fraud and no way it could have succeeded. The documents were produced in Athens for Athenian readers. Those readers would have known whether Aristophanes’s Socrates was parodying any real philosopher. They would have known whether Plato and Xenophon were writing about any execution that had really occurred within living memory. Barely a generation after Plato wrote the Apology, though, Athenians were talking as if they took Socrates’ historicity for granted. Aristotle, a pupil of Plato, made straightforward references to him. There is also a reference to Socrates’ execution and the reasons for it in a speech attributed to an orator called Aechines less than half a century after the event.

For about the same reason, it is improbable that Socrates was simply a fiction. People can believe and have believed in the historicity of fictional characters even when the characters’ creators did not intend such. The setting has to be somewhat removed from the readers’ own lives, though. Athenian trials were very public, and their juries had 500 members. If Socrates was not real and Plato expected his readers to know he was not real, he had good reason. Athenians would indeed have known that their city had not actually executed any famous philosophers within recent memory. (The same reasoning could be used against the error hypothesis if it were not already so implausible.)

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