What do you consider the biggest contradiction in the Bible?

Because of just how many apparent Biblical contradictions have been documented on various websites, atheists almost face “an embarrassment of riches” when asked to name a single significant contradiction they’ve found in the Bible. We’re so used to seeing them in large groups all bundled together that it’s hard to pick out just one. So in this post, I wanted to step back from linking to various pages that have long lists of contradictions, and just kinda surgically pick a couple that I consider to be some of the most dramatic.

Don't the predictable laws of nature point to a god creating them?

From where I'm standing, I see no reason why an all-powerful deity, who created the whole universe, would need to be limited by everything working the same way every time. If a being was truly all-powerful, then "micro-managing the universe" (exerting his will directly over the movement of every single atom and particle) wouldn't be any sort of strain at all. So if such a god wanted to make a billiard ball move when it was struck one time, and not move another time, and absorb the other ball into itself a third time, that would be absolutely no problem for a god. But it would be a huge problem for naturalistic physical laws. From where I'm standing, physical laws that don't have a god behind them would have to be consistent and predictable, because there's no magical entity jumping in and changing them. Without a god, atoms are just doing what atoms do, so of course they would do the same thing every time. How could it not be regular and limited to a certain range of effects? 

Now, I'll even grant you that it wouldn't make sense for a loving god to be enacting an unpredictable universe, because it would make us be essentially living in a worldwide carnival funhouse. But if you're just talking about a generic "ordering intelligence," then I see no reason why that intelligence (if it cared more about itself than humans) wouldn't just have fun being disordering instead. In other words, I feel like the percentage of possible worlds without a god, where the laws of nature are unpredictable, would be 0. Whereas, the percentage of gods who might make the laws of nature unpredictable would be much greater than 0. Therefore, I think the existence of unpredictable laws of nature would actually make it more likely that a god exists, and the existence of predictable laws of nature do not.

Are you an anti-theist?

I wouldn’t say I’m precisely an anti-theist, but I do feel some solidarity with them on a lot of issues. I believe that most people would be better off without religion, provided they had the intelligence and intellectual commitment to see that religion really isn’t necessary for things like providing a moral foundation or giving your life meaning. But there are a lot of people who simply wouldn’t get to that point if they weren’t religious. So in some ways, I guess I feel like religion almost functions as a kind of “easy mode” for providing answers to those difficult, haunting questions of existence. And, to that extent, I can’t really begrudge people that.

But in society as a whole, it doesn’t just stop there. I recently read through the 2016 Republican Party platform, and it’s loaded with appeals to the value of faith, advocating “faith-based programs,” and pushing for policies that seem to only have religious reasoning behind them. In other parts of the world, fundamentalist Muslims are committing persistent acts of terror and mass murder, because they believe their religion gives them the right to rule the world.

What would it take to convince you that Jesus rose from the dead?

This was written for the “What Would It Take” challenge (see an explanation of what that is here). Since this challenged was posed by a Christian, my references to “you” in this post should be taken as referring to someone in that demographic.

1) The first, absolutely essential, thing required to convince me that Jesus rose from the dead, is that I would have to be convinced that it is possible for people to rise (or be risen) from the dead.

I think we can both agree that is simply impossible in naturalistic terms, so it would follow that I’d have to accept the existence of the supernatural (and probably the existence of God), for a resurrection to even be possible. I do not think that I could ever be convinced in the other direction (be convinced that God exists only because I was already convinced that Jesus rose from the dead), because even William Lane Craig has admitted that resurrection is only the most plausible theory for the “minimal facts” if you already accept that some type of God does exist. (I've delved further into the problems with using miracles as evidence that God exists here.)

Of course, this is a necessary but not sufficient condition. If I became convinced that some supernatural force existed which could raise people from the dead, it still doesn’t mean that Jesus was such a person.

2) If you have first convinced me that God or the supernatural exists, then I think the additional step required would be to convince me that a historical account which includes the claim that Jesus rose from the dead was a historically accurate document. There are a few different ways I can think of that you could achieve that result:

2a) I think probably the most effective way would be to convince me that the gospels were inspired by God.

2b) Even if I didn’t believe that the gospels were inspired, I would still have to believe that Jesus rose from the dead if I was convinced that the gospels were purely-human documents that were nonetheless accurate. There’s no reason that couldn’t be possible without inspiration; they don’t necessarily have to be God-breathed for them to be conveying true events of history. Convincing me of their inspiration just seems like the most direct approach, since the belief that they are inspired seems like the most common reason that people believe they are historically accurate. But it’s not essential, so if I could be convinced that they were accurate histories without believing that they were inspired (which wouldn’t be out of the question, if I had already come to accept that some type of supernatural does exist), then I would be convinced that Jesus rose from the dead.

But bear in mind, it’s not enough to point out some historical facts that the gospels got right, and then expect me to accept the miracle claims as well. I would have to be convinced that at least one of the gospels was thoroughly accurate for this to convince me.

2c) If there were authentic non-Christian sources which reported that Jesus rose from the dead, then I would think that would be pretty compelling evidence (if I already believed that resurrection was possible). I’m including this for the sake of completeness, even though I appreciate that it’s quite a long-shot. Naturally, it only makes sense that if  someone believed that Jesus was raised from the dead, then they probably would become Christian, so then that wouldn’t be a non-Christian source anymore. 

That may seem like setting too high a standard, but I don’t think I should be expected to accept a miracle claim just based on the testimony of that religion’s adherents. There are plenty of mutually-exclusive religions which have plenty of adherents who devoutly believe in that religion’s miracle claims. I contend the reason why that’s the case (even though they can’t all be true) is that these believers first accept belief in the religion for other reasons, and then they accept belief in the miracle claim because they already believe in the religion.

Of course, I understand that in the case of the resurrection, the claim being made is that the earliest Christians (particularly the apostles) only came to believe because they directly experienced the risen Christ. But that is just a claim. Since there have been so many other religions that have sprung up over the course of human history, I cannot accept the argument that the rise of early Christianity could not be explained without postulating that they really saw Jesus risen from the dead. So, ultimately, it’s just hearsay.

That’s why I specify non-Christian sources here. Of course, I understand this is incredibly unlikely, and I’m only including it for the sake of thoroughness, but if it happened to be the case that somebody back then wrote something like, “sure, Jesus appeared to me after I saw him crucified, but heck, Caesar rose from the dead too, so I’m just gonna keep following the Roman gods, because they’re more cool,” then that would go a long way toward convincing me. Of course, you would have to further convince me that any such document was authentic, since there is an established history of the early church screwing with secular documents.

I want to say that I understand and appreciate how this answer might be frustrating to a believer. Because it make sense that anyone who did believe the resurrection was real would become a Christian, it’s bordering on the toupee fallacy to say that I’ll only consider evidence from non-Christian sources. I want to point out, though, that I did previously state that convincing me the gospels were true would be a valid way to change my mind on this issue, so I’m not completely ruling out Christian sources. I’m just saying that some random guy who happens to be Christian writing about how the resurrection was absolutely a real historical event is not gonna sway me, because of course a Christian is gonna believe that. A Mormon will just as dependably believe that Joseph Smith received the golden plates from the angel Moroni; it doesn’t mean they have actual evidence that such an event really occurred, it’s just an article of faith for that religion.

Who are you to judge God?

This seems like the type of question that any atheist blogger should be prepared to answer, so I figured I’d just get it out of the way now. In my experience, when this question is asked, it usually arises from the mindset that the reality of God’s existence is just obvious, and so atheists are really trying to say that God is evil, not that God isn’t real.

Even thinking about it from that perspective (of God being real, and just criticizing what kind of job he’s doing), the question still doesn’t make sense to me. Imagine it’s time for a presidential election, but unlike the current 2016 race, there’s an incumbent who’s running for reelection. Imagine how nonsensical it would seem if you told someone that you were voting against the incumbent, and that person said, “who are you to judge him [or her, potentially]? He’s the president of the whole freaking United States, the leader of the free world, and you have the unmitigated gall to pass judgment on whether he’s doing his job well or not?”

How can you complain about evil if you don't believe in objective morals?

Moral evil actually proves the existence of God. For we may argue in the following way:

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.

2. Evil exists.

3. Therefore, objective moral values exist. (Some things are evil!)

4. Therefore, God exists.

--William Lane Craig

I was thinking about writing down some of my thoughts on the Problem of Evil, but I figured it would make sense to head off this potential objection before it comes up. This seems like a common retort, in my perception, that Christians act like you have to believe in objective moral laws (and therefore a moral lawgiver) before you can have permission to be bothered by the existence of evil in the world.