The God Debates

I miss the loyal opposition. There was a time when political opposition was grounded on principal, and I think both American political parties have strayed from that (and in truth, the Republicans have traded principal for party discipline in a way inconceivable to liberals).

Anyway, I've been trying to find a conservative source of "principaled" opposition for a long time. I can't say that I've found one yet, but every now and again I find an article that speaks to a conservative principal that I can respect.

In this case, the topic is God. I have been intrigued by this debate for a long time for reasons that aren't completely plain to me, except that I am fascinated by the power of faith and the power of reason, which are often placed in opposition to one another. This debate, when argued from principal, is my idea of fun.

I've been watching the SciFi series The 4400, which tells the story about 4400 people that went missing over the last 50+ years and return together in a great ball of light. They, along with everyone else, discover that each of the 4400 now has a "gift", and this leads to a longer arc about the implications of extra-human capabilities for humanity. Anyway, by season four the 4400 and their converts stand in opposition to the forces of the old authority. As I was watching an episode last night, it got me thinking about the view of destruction as necessary to rebirth and renewal. My "beginners mind" view of the literal pantheon of Hindu gods - and in this my understanding is equivalent to an infants - is fascinated by the incorporation of this concept of the necessity of a force of destruction (in the form of Shiva, among the most popular of Hindu gods) to the functioning whole.

As you can see from the above, I have a jumble of thoughts that converge around the idea of opposition. I have inadequately expressed it here, but I wrote this as kind of a reminder of the maelstrom of thoughts and implications they represent for me, and I expect that I will return to improve on the articulation of my perceptions (my way of saying that in re-reading this, it's a mess, but I need to catch it now or lose the thread.)

I see opportunity in the debate over the existence of God a chance to understand how "absolute" opposition might, if explored fully and with principal, lead to some third way, which I believe for lack of a better word, might be termed tolerance. As Galileo notes, I also "do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect intended us to forgo their use." But I know that I am powered by faith as much as reason, which leads to my gravitation towards this particular debate (I should also note that it is not lost on me that this debate places the Christian god in opposition to reason...)

The God Debates

By Troy Anderson, January 30, 2009
As thunder rumbled on the Strip, Christopher Hitchens was inside Bally's Las Vegas this July arguing that religion is the source of most of the world's conflicts and violence. At a Libertarian event billed as the "Friday Night Fight" in the boxing capital of the world, the pugnacious, atheistic writer ticked off a litany of examples, including the looming threat posed by Iran's theocratic rulers. "We have wondered and worried when a messianic regime would manage to get a hold of apocalyptic weaponry," Hitchens said. "Well, it's about to happen."

Dinesh D'Souza, who some call the 21st century successor to Christian apologist C.S. Lewis, conceded that the argument contained a grain of truth, but noted that it unfairly attempted to equate radical Islam with traditional Christianity. "Who is the Christian bin Laden? Where is the Christian al Qaeda? Where is the Christian Hamas or Hezbollah?" D'Souza asked. "The crimes of radical Islam can not reasonably be imputed to any other religion - not Hinduism, not Buddhism and not Christianity - but this false equation has enabled the New Atheists to get quite a bit of mileage."

Reminiscent of the free-wheeling philosophical discussions between Socrates and the citizens of Athens, today's New Atheists and Christian apologists are likewise debating the most profound questions of our time. Offering substantive, yet entertaining dialogues, these so-called "God Debates" offer the public not only an opportunity to hear both sides of the arguments in the debate about the existence of God, the relationship between science and faith, and the religious foundations of Western Civilization—it also offers a glimpse at the foundation of so many controversies that divide the United States.

"People are finally seeing that the line between belief and unbelief is the hidden dividing line of the culture wars," D'Souza said. "For many years, I thought the dividing line was relativism versus objective morality, or as William Bennett puts it, whether you accept traditional morality.

"But even those questions are dependent on a deeper question: Ultimately, what is the source of objective morality? What possible source could it have other than God? Certainly, it isn't evolution. So, I think that these God Debates are seen as not only interesting in and of themselves, but are the underground fissure on which many other issues depend."

In some ways, the God Debates have their origins in the early 1990s, when a group of Bible scholars known as the "Jesus Seminar" concluded only a fraction of the words spoken by Jesus represented what he had actually said. They took their skeptical reading of the Bible out of the ivory tower and into the public square, publishing an array of books challenging the reliability of the Bible. Then in 2003, "The Da Vinci Code" became a bestseller, exposing millions of people to claims first popularized in the 1982 bestseller "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" that Jesus had survived the cross, married Mary Magdalene and had children.

Since then, the conspiracies have multiplied as skeptics questioned whether Gnostic gospels reveal a radically different Jesus or if the Gospel stories were fabricated from pagan myths. Some Bible scholars claim so many errors were made in copying the New Testament that Jesus' original message has been virtually lost to time.

As the commercial success of this phenomenon reached its zenith, atheists like Hitchens and Richard Dawkins stepped into the maelstrom, writing New York Times bestsellers skewering religion on the altar of postmodern skepticism. Joined by Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris - who jokingly refer to themselves as the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" – they have written a spate of books lambasting religion, describing it as a delusion now threatening human survival.
These books include "god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" by Hitchens, "The God Delusion" by Dawkins, "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon" by Dennett and "Letter to a Christian Nation" by Harris.

After the release of his book last year, Hitchens appeared on numerous radio and television shows debating pastors and televangelists. Disturbed by how Hitchens was using his intellectual prowess to run circles around the ministers, D'Souza jumped in to add intellectual firepower and wrote the New York Times bestseller, "What's So Great About Christianity." After its release last year, he challenged Hitchens and the other atheist philosophers to publicly debate him.

"I saw Christopher Hitchens on TV making some preposterous allegations; such as how he says that religion poisons everything," D'Souza said. "Did religion poison Bach, Michelangelo or Dante? A good deal of literature, art and culture of the West is inspired by Christianity. It's moronic to say religion poisons everything. And yet no one was challenging this guy."

D'Souza was joined by fellow Christian apologists like William Lane Craig, Mike Licona and others who are now debating the freethinkers in lively verbal bouts around the globe.

Although Dawkins has shunned requests by D'Souza to debate, Hitchens and others have eagerly accepted, holding back and forths before standing room-only crowds at places ranging from Central Hall in London to Biola University in La Mirada, Calif. to Bally's Las Vegas. D'Souza will debate Hitchens Jan. 26 at the University of Colorado, Boulder and March 3 at Stanford University.

"These sorts of events have become extremely popular," said Craig, a research professor of theology at the Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada. "Frankly, I think they want to see some blood on the floor. There is something gladiator-like and rousing about a good intellectual contest."

Craig, Licona, Lee Strobel and others have written books and made documentaries in response to the onslaught of atheist manifestos, compiling what they claim is a mountain of archaeological and scientific discoveries supporting the existence of God and historicity of the Bible.

"We have impressive new evidence that there was a creator behind the start of the universe, and that this creator has finely-tuned the cosmos to make it habitable for life in a way that defies naturalistic explanation," said Strobel, former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune and author of "The Case for the Real Jesus: A Journalist Investigates Current Attacks on the Identity of Christ." "We also see the evidence of a creator, in a sense the fingerprints of a creator, in every human cell of the body. DNA contains biological information I think points toward an intelligent source."

Even the leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century – Antony Flew – recently announced the "integrated complexity of the biological world" had convinced him a super-intelligence must have played a role in the development of life, Strobel said.

But Dawkins, in an email interview, scoffed at the notion a divine designer created the universe and life.

"An intelligent designer would have to be even more complex than that which he is invoked to explain," Dawkins wrote. "Evolution provides a magnificently elegant explanation of the apparent design of living things. A divine designer completely lacks an explanation of his own. To put it in a nutshell, 'Who designed the designer?"

Drawn by the sagacious questions at the heart of these different worldviews, thousands of people are showing up at public universities, churches and even Las Vegas hotel-casinos to watch the master orators in action. At the Freedom Fest conference at Bally's Las Vegas, two of these people explored one of the most hotly-contested questions in the science-faith debate, "Is There Scientific Evidence for Intelligent Design in Nature?"

As scientists have probed the mysteries of the cell, human genome and DNA, Stephen C. Meyer, director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Seattle, Wash.-based Discovery Institute, argued they have discovered the equivalent of a modern day factory equipped with nanotechnology machinery operated by highly-complex codes.

"Richard Dawkins himself has acknowledged that the machine code in genes is uncannily computer-like," Meyer said. "Bill Gates has added his observation that DNA is like a software program, only much more complex than any we've ever written."

But Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic Magazine, said numerous courts have ruled that intelligent design and creationism are not scientific theories.

"And the fact that evolutionary biologists can't explain all aspects of the natural world doesn't mean they are inexplicable, or that forces we don't understand now can't explain it," Shermer said.

At a Skeptic Society conference at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. in early October, Hugh Ross, founding director of Reasons to Believe, an international, interdenominational science-faith think tank, delved into the scientific and theological arguments surrounding cosmology in a debate entitled, "Great God Debate: Does Science Support Belief in a Deity?"

Ross argued the Bible repeatedly describes the universe as having a beginning, continuously expanding and getting colder as it gets older. For example, Hebrews 11:3 states the "universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible" and Jeremiah 33:25 states God has established "fixed laws of heaven and earth."

"Now, the important thing to realize is that for thousands of years the Bible was alone in making these statements about the universe," Ross said. "You don't find these kinds of statements in other holy books, philosophy texts or books of science. It wasn't until the 20th century that we had a scientific description of these cosmic features."

But Victor Stenger, an emeritus professor of physics at the University of Hawaii, offered an alternative possibility.


"I think it is religious thinking – Moses, the Ten Commandments – that leads us to think the universe itself is governed by a set of laws handed down by God," Stenger said. "Basically, I'm arguing the laws of physics … are human inventions."

Exploring one of the primary arguments against the existence of God, atheist Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University and president of Animal Rights International, argued in April at a Biola debate entitled "God, Yes or No?" that the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition could not possibly exist because of the immense suffering in the world.

"Can we really believe that a God that is described as all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good has created such a world?" Singer said. "I think this is a major stumbling block for belief in a Christian God."

But D'Souza argued God could have created a universe with arbitrary laws, one in which the creator constantly intervenes to prevent suffering. However, D'Souza said, God gave people free will - and while humanity chooses to sin, resulting in suffering – God has offered his son as the ultimate sacrifice to redeem mankind and end its suffering.

"So you seem to be suggesting God could have done better to create a discretionary universe in which, for example, if the ocean tide is rising and a tsunami is brewing God jumps in like a cosmic bellboy and puts a stop to it," D'Souza said.

In February, Mike Licona, director of apologetics at the North American Mission Board, Southern Baptist Convention, debated Bart D. Ehrman at the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary on the topic, "Is the Resurrection of Christ Provable?"

Licona argued that virtually all Bible scholars agree Jesus was crucified and that his disciples believed he rose from the dead and appeared to them and the Apostle Paul converted to Christianity after he too believed he had encountered the risen Christ.

"So, can historians prove Jesus rose from the dead?" Licona asked. "Since it's the best explanation of the known facts, and it beats the others by a significant margin, as historians we may say it's quite probable to very probable that Jesus rose from the dead with enough confidence to hold our conclusion firmly. Stated in more popular terms, yes, historians can prove that Jesus rose from the dead."

But Ehrman, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina and author of "God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question – Why We Suffer," said he once believed what Licona does, but came to the conclusion he was wrong after spending decades studying Christian, Jewish and pagan texts written in the first few centuries after Christ's crucifixion. Ehrman said the Gospels were written 35 to 65 years after Christ's crucifixion, not by the Aramaic-speaking disciples, but by highly literate, Greek-speaking writers who recorded the oral traditions.

"Do I have evidence that the stories got changed?" Erhman asked rhetorically. "Yes, indeed. There is very solid evidence, namely that you have different sources telling the same stories, and in almost every instance when different sources tell the same stories in the New Testament the stories are different – sometimes in little ways and sometimes in big ways."

Near the end of the debate in Las Vegas at Freedom Fest, the world's largest gathering of "free minds," D'Souza explored Hitchens' claim that Jesus never existed. D'Souza pointed out little evidence exists to prove that Socrates - one of Hitchen's favorite philosophers – existed. Yet, D'Souza said, no serious philosopher in the world doubts the existence of Socrates, even though there are only two sources, Plato and Xenophon.

"My point is, when you look at the sources for the ancient world, in almost every case, they are extremely scanty and the sources very often date hundreds of years after the events that were described," D'Souza said.

However, tens of thousands of ancient copies of the New Testament still exist, some dating to the early 2nd century, and independent Jewish, Greek and Roman accounts corroborate many of the events chronicled in the New Testament, D'Souza said.

"At one point, Tacitus, no admirer of Christianity, wrote, 'There was a big hubbub going on somewhere in the outskirts of the empire. This crazy guy name Christos is causing the ruckus. Fortunately, the guy was crucified before he could cause too much trouble.' I'm saying this is the kind of evidence that in any other case would be, without a blink, accepted as legitimate, but because it's Christianity, the academic prejudice kicks in, the bar is lifted and a different standard is applied," D'Souza said.

D'Souza said the greatest proof of Christ's existence involves the mostly uneducated group of dejected disciples who, after Jesus' crucifixion, became convinced they had seen the risen Christ. More than 500 people, according to the New Testament, saw Jesus after his resurrection.

"And these Christians then launched the largest conversion wave ever known to history," D'Souza said. "They go from about 50 at the time of Christ's death to really a majority of the Roman Empire by the 4th century.

"You might say, 'Well, maybe they just believed a lie.' But then you have to remember that the Romans put many of these people to death for what they believed, raising an interesting question. Someone can believe a lie, but why would someone die for something they know is not true."

Hitchens argued the New Testament writers fabricated parts of the Gospel story, including Christ's birth in Bethlehem, calling into question what else was embellished.

But Hitchens conceded the Gospels suggest "there may have been a charismatic, deluded individual wandering around at that time."

"But which is less impressive to you – the fantastic fabrications, the unbelievably inane and inarticulate preachings, or the inconsistencies in his story?" Hitchens asked.

In his final argument, D'Souza asked whether a ragtag bunch of fisherman 2,000 years ago could have created a figure whose sayings are more memorable and powerful than any character developed by William Shakespeare.

"Can you name a single character of Shakespeare's who utters as powerfully, aphoristic, memorable and incandescent statements as Jesus Christ?" D'Souza asked. "So either Christ was made up by a bunch of illiterates who apparently were unknown Shakespeare's of their own time, creating a character more memorable than Hamlet, or as Albert Einstein said: This man of the gospels so pulsates with life that nobody who really encounters him in an open-minded, unprejudiced way will deny that there was such a man walking around."

At the conclusion of the debate, the moderator asked the audience to vote on who won. By a show of hands, the freethinkers and libertines attending this Las Vegas junket favored D'Souza.

"The topic was vigorously argued, really no-holds barred in the sense that they really went out there and made their points," said former presidential candidate Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine and a conference speaker. "I lean toward Mr. D'Souza, but I thought this is the kind of enlightening verbal debate we need more of."

The Spirit in the Sky may have agreed. After the debate, great bolts of lightning lit the sky above Bally's Las Vegas as thunderclaps sounding like distant bombs detonating reverberated amid the Strip's hotel-casinos.