I just finished reading Michael Shermer’s book, “Why People Believe Weird Things.” It’s very long-winded — the book could easily be 1/10th its size and still make the same points — but it did make me realize one thing. The book discusses alien abduction as an example of a weird thing that many people believe, and points out that it is based entirely on anecdotal stories without a single shred of physical evidence. As I read this, I realized that the same can be said of Christianity or, indeed, any other religion. There is as much physical evidence for Christianity as there is for alien abduction: i.e., none. Indeed, if we consider the scars that supposed abductees claim were caused by alien medical experiments, there is actually more physical evidence for alien abduction than for Christianity.
Moreover, the mental processes that leads to both beliefs are remarkably similar. Both depend upon a leap of faith based on highly improbable stories told by people of unknown credibility. Both heavily rely on dreamlike visions: abductees call them “memories,” Christians call them “prophesies” or “revelations.”
And, significantly, both beliefs gained popularity during times when contemporaneous events caused large numbers of people to be receptive to the belief. It cannot be mere coincidence that the rate of reported alien abductions grew dramatically during the 1960s and 1970s, when the NASA space program — and the idea of space travel — was capturing attention around the globe. Likewise, Christianity arose at a time and place in human history when many people were claiming to be the Messiah, and many more were claiming to be prophets sent by God. The belief in witchcraft during the 17th century fits this same pattern.
Does this mean Christianity is invalid? No, but it does mean Christianity has a lot more in common with alien abduction and witchcraft than it does with, say, Darwin’s theory of evolution.
I think it was back in 1985 or 86 when Bud Hopkins began publishing his "abduction" books that I came to see this whole phenomenon the same way–people desperate to have something of the divine or extraordinary in their lives and unable to cope with the mundanity of their lives, traumatized by "something" that they manage to rework into–this.
There is a book called "Watch The Skies" (author escapes me at the moment) that chronicles the UFO phenomena in this country. It doesn't take a position, just relates the history, and you can see that in many ways the government was its own worst enemy in that everything it did, even when designed to refute the UFO myth, fueled the fanaticism.
Hopkins, for his part, I believe, has much to answer for. An artist by trade, he began practicing hypno-therapy on abductees and telling them that their "experiences" were real–that they had been adbucted by aliens.
I left the whole UFO craze long ago when it became clear, even in the Seventies, that these folks are far more invested in what they wish to believe and in any kind of fact-based truth.
One wonders if the same kind of "sorting out" happened in the 1st and 2nd century between skeptics and christians.
Here's another interesting character in the alien abduction story: John Mack, a Harvard psychiatrist who seemed to take his patients' claims of alien abduction at face value. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edward_Mack
Something else that Christianity and alien abduction have in common is a conspicuous lack of eye witnesses. Every time someone has claimed he or she was abducted by aliens, the alleged event occurred in some remote location, conveniently far away from any independent third-party witnesses who could confirm it. Likewise, every time the Bible describes someone being visited by God or his angels (e.g., God giving Moses the Ten Commandments, an angel in the form of a burning bush talking to Moses, the angel Gabriel telling Mary she will bear God's child, God talking to Jesus in the desert, God resurrecting Jesus from the dead, etc.), the event occurs conveniently far away from any independent third-party witnesses. Not that it would make much difference, I suppose, if there were independent third-party witnesses, given that God supposedly speaks through dreams and visions, but it certainly is convenient.
"What about when God parted the Red Sea so the Israelites could escape the pursuing Egyptian army?" you might ask. Well, as we see in Exodus 14, Pharoah's *entire* army was conveniently exterminated by the alleged event, so the only eye witnesses were the Israelites: people whom we would expect to confirm the story. I don't know about you, but I would find the story much more convincing if God had only killed half the army and allowed the other half to report back to Pharoah…and leave an independent written record of the event.
Moreover, one would expect that if the Red Sea were parted in the manner described, then other people living or working on the sea would have noticed and remarked on it…and maybe left an independent written record…yet there appear to be no such independent accounts.
So, here's my question: if God is so eager to have everyone go to heaven, then doesn't it seem strange…even inconsistent…for God to have given us with so little proof of the stories told in the Bible? Why, for example, do none of us get to see heaven until after we die? Wouldn't it make more sense for God, instead of going through all the (conspicuously unsubstantiated) storytelling in the Bible, to simply snatch each of us up just once in our lives (i.e., before we die) and show us heaven? I would bet that would be a whole lot more effective at creating Believers than would anything God can do with the Bible.
Indeed, imagine a parent telling her young children to meet her somewhere — say, to be picked up after school. Isn't the parent going to make absolutely certain that the children understand where and when she will meet them, and leave absolutely no uncertainty in the children's minds? Why, then, if God is supposedly eager for all of us to go to heaven, has God left His children with so much uncertainty? Wouldn't it make much more sense for God to behave like the good parent, and be so clear and unambiguous that the children could not possibly fail to be picked up?
Is it surprising that the reported number of attempted alien abductions and reported personal appearances of angels, Gods, ghosts, elves and all manner of other-worldly beings seem to have dropped precipitously now that almost everyone has access to a camera (often on their always-toted cell phone) or video camera?
Now that everyone has the means to document (or disprove) real appearances, Gods and angels only seem to want to communicate through voices in our heads.
I find it intriguing that theres about as much evidence if not more for aliens than there is for any other religion on this planet. I believe in 2012 the mayans predicted the age of enlightenment. Or the annunaki or Elohim will return. If they do not, I still think they will in the future either that or our own advancements will help us stubble across them. This is a big universe, and who knows how many paralell ones there are aswell… Any thing is possible until we have evidence, or the formula.
I don't subscribe to any "beliefs" per se: once you accept something as the truth you are by definition disbelieving all contrary ideas. However, I like to entertain the idea that both Christianity and the Alien Phenomenon are plausible and that have so many parallels that are just as likely to be intertwined as they are to be mutually exclusive.
If one day, for instance, it was officially announced that Aliens are real and are proven to be in contact with humanity then imagine the outcome on peoples' belief systems. People who did not believe in God would believe these that these Aliens fit nicely into the accepted scientific Darwinist view of life. In fact many Christians would no doubt also lose their faith, also seeing Aliens as proof for Darwinism and against Creationism. Combine this with any revelations of knowledge/technology that these Aliens might divulge and the Christian viewpoint could look even more redundant.
A lot of the New Age accounts of spirit channelling and alien abductions fit nicely within what Christianity documents as being demonic possession. So think about this: if Aliens were in fact Demons, then there prerogative would be to misrepresent themselves to Man as being "of nature" (albeit space) more so disproving the existence of God and not proving his existence by being Demons (I'm guessing you can't have demons without a God).
So to take this further and bring in the Christian Bible Armageddon/Second Coming prophecies – Aliens would fit the bill exactly for the demons/antichrist that would appear with all the false profits and try to Man from return of true Saviour.
Now I am no Christian so I will not regurgitate any bible passages etc – so have a read of the Book of Revelations or any books on the subject (there are a few alien books that I know that take the religious POV and correlate the prophecies etc). I have however seen an alien (I may have been abducted too – hey it might even have been a dream) and this was without a doubt the most fearful experience of my life and it looked pure evil (unlike a man in a space suit it reminded me of a spirit in a "matter suit").
If you can prove the existence of Biblical "evil" then you have proof of God. If you have proof of aliens then you may well also have proof of God. If aliens were announced on the 6 o'clock news or by a public address of the President, I will be next in line for a quick baptism…
Grumpy discounts anyone's stated experiences as not credible unless they are scientifically corraborations with acceptable third party witnesses that happened during an age of unbridled skeptecism.
His words are:
"Likewise, every time the Bible describes someone being visited by God or his angels (e.g., God giving Moses the Ten Commandments, an angel in the form of a burning bush talking to Moses, the angel Gabriel telling Mary she will bear God’s child, God talking to Jesus in the desert, God resurrecting Jesus from the dead, etc.), the event occurs conveniently far away from any independent third-party witnesses.
Lets see, what the Bible actually says about a few of these matters.
The people who saw the fire and smoke (when Moses received the ten commandments on the mountain top) assumed Moses was toast, so they wanted Aaron and company to give them something to worship because no-one was going to go up and figure out if Moses was dead or alive.
On many occassions when Moses was interacting with the presence of God in the shekinah glory, the people around him knew this had happened because of the appearance of Moses' face. However as time went by the glory upon his countenence would slowly fade away. Moses face shown so much that the people insisted he do something about it.
Gabriel first appeared by name in Daniel 8:15-17 and in Daniel 9:21-24.
The same angel Gabriel visited, Zachariah concerning the birth of John the Baptist. Luke 1:11-19.. A multitude of witnessses verified that something very unusual happened in the temple that day. The man physically could not speak until the child was named at the dedication in the temple.
The same angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Luke 1:26-35
As for the resurrection of Jesus this is one you apparently really don't believe the written words in scripture because they clearly discount your ideas.
Eyewitness testimony of the resurrection, as recorded in the New Testament, is the basis of faith in Jesus as Christ. In John 15:27 and Acts 1:8, Jesus tells His apostles that they were to be witnesses. Peter speaks to the others in Acts 1 of David's prophecy that God swore He would bring forth Christ and raise Him up. Peter said (2:31-32) he saw Jesus before the resurrection and "God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact." (Also read Acts 3:15,4:33, 10:39-41.)
However, the apostles were not the only ones who saw the risen Jesus. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James were the first (Mark 16). Paul lists several witnesses in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. Among Jesus' disciples, there were 500 other witnesses. And the Jewish Law of Moses required at least two or three witnesses (Deuteronomy 17:6). Saul, later to become Paul, was an enemy of Jesus who was persecuting those who were witnesses of the resurrection when he was struck to the ground blind in the presence of others and he himself was said to have seen and spoke to Jesus in his full ascended glory. Those with Saul, had no clue what was happening, they simply stated that could not understand what they had seen or heard.
So how credible were all the "witnesses" claiming to have actually seen the resurrected Son of God? Their accounts have withstood the test of time (over 2000 years). Many of them were put to death since they stubbornly refused to renounce their testimonies of His resurrection. But are these recorded testimonies enough? No, No they are all suspect because they are folk tales by people with vivid imaginations.
I wrote, "…every time the Bible describes someone being visited by God or his angels…the event occurs conveniently far away from any independent third-party witnesses."
Karl writes, "Lets see, what the Bible actually says about a few of these matters." [sic]
Well, Karl, in the examples you mention, the "witnesses" either did not actually witness the event (e.g., people inferring things about smoke on a hilltop, people inferring the presence of god by the expression on Moses' face, people inferring that something unusual had happened inside the temple, etc.) or they were not independent observers (e.g., the people who supposedly confirmed the resurrection of Jesus were already his apostles).
Karl continues, "So how credible were all the “witnesses” claiming to have actually seen the resurrected Son of God? Their accounts have withstood the test of time (over 2000 years). Many of them were put to death since they stubbornly refused to renounce their testimonies of His resurrection."
Well, Karl, people of many faiths have been put to death for stubbornly refusing to renounce their beliefs, so that argument has no merit. Likewise, withstanding "the test of time" doesn't prove anything, especially when when one is dealing with events that are entirely based on anecdote and for which there is no objective evidence.
Grumpy
It is as I said:
"But are these recorded testimonies enough? No, No they are all suspect because they are folk tales by people with vivid imaginations."
Your level of proof requires a level of direct en mass observation by witnesses to historic events which to you will refuse be able to place a degree of confidence in because you think the witnesses are discredited. I have already rebutted your specific claims in claims in my recent post:
http://dangerousintersection.org/2006/04/27/what-…
I would suggest that you need to subject your trust in your scientific imagination concerning historical events as well. You do not possess the same level of direct witnessed proof you require of Christianity for evolution yet you consider the evidence overwhelming.
Wake up and smell the coffee. Your willing suspension of disbelief allows you to believe a just so story concerning naturalism and any possible time frame necessary, but actual recorded eye witness testimony you are greatly lacking. I'd say you have to have moew faith to believe in evolution than in the events you stated in the Bible were misinterpreteted by presently discredited witnesses.
By the way, there were more witnesses concerning the Resurrection that weren't Jesus' disciples, they all tried to explain it away as something else as well.
Responding to Karl's last comment, I will simply point out the notorious unreliability of so-called "eyewitness" testimony. Consider, for example, the eyewitness testimony that persuaded the population of 17th-century Salem, MA, that it was infested with witches. Or, the eyewitness testimony that convinced much of the U.S. population that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. History is full of examples of people deluded into believing things that were not true. Try googling "fallibility of eyewitness testimony" and you'll find more than 25,000 hits. Here is just one of them: http://home.att.net/~whtbailey/blinder.pdf/. According to that article, eyewitness testimony is highly esteemed by juries but, paradoxically, it is perhaps the least reliable. Thus, while many people are willing to put great faith in eyewitness accounts of supposedly miraculous or divine events, I am not among them.
As regards evolution, the fallibility of eyewitness accounts is far less of a concern because research on evolution relies on the scientific method — and, unlike eyewitness accounts, the scientific method has proven to be very reliable.
The method is relieable within limits, which you seem to think that there aren't any.These limits include should include actual observable that are measureable and repeatable in time. space and imagination.
Imagination rules when it comes to the extent of the application of the scientific method to items of any time frame, proportions of space and human skepticism. Naturalism seems to have as vivid an imagination as you claim religion does in in these regards. At least someone claims to have been there and done that in the Bible.
Actually, Gibbon pointed out that all miracles were attested only in succeeding generations—the stories were/are third or fourth generation removed accounts of events handed down orally by someone who knew someone. Gibbon sort of traced this phenomenon in his "Decline and Fall…" regarding miraculous events supposedly occurring in the christian era and then followed through to Old Testament accounts. In short, there are no eye witness accounts in the Bible.
Karl, the "imagination" that science uses to extrapolate is called mathematical rigor. This is similar to the dichotomy between the scientific meaning of "theory" (tested and proven) and the popular one (an idea).
The extensions from the observable in science are based on sternly tested mathematical models, not flights of fancy and wishful thinking. Given the continuity principle always observed in all natural phenomena, mathematical models are falsifiable. If a model matches all known observations, it is reasonable to assume that it also matches points not yet observed beyond the ends.
Dan says:
"As regards evolution, the fallibility of eyewitness accounts is far less of a concern because research on evolution relies on the scientific method — and, unlike eyewitness accounts, the scientific method has proven to be very reliable."
Why in the world can anyone within reason say reliable eyewitnesses are needed in one regard (recorded historical observations), but that extrapolated sciences like evolution get a special passes in this regard?
Oh, I see the method could happen, so it must be true. That's imagination at work to me, or as skeptics would put it a flying spagetti montser has been found in the works. How ever one can chose to call this one reliable if that's one's preference.
Karl seems to think that scientists aren't first-hand witnessing the results of their experiments and field observations.
Further on the subject of Karl's so-called "reliable eyewitnesses" to the alleged resurrection of Jesus, why should we only consider Jesus? History is loaded with "recorded historical observations" of supposedly resurrected deities. For example, Wikipedia lists more than three dozen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-death-rebirth_d….
Of course, we should consider that a minimum number of resurrections, because we don't know how many "historical observations" of other resurrections the early Christian church destroyed after declaring them to be heretical. Early Christians were, as we know, very diligent about destroying records of things that contradicted their doctrine. We should also assume they were very diligent about inflating the truth when it suited them, just as many Christian preachers today declare their utterly subjective beliefs about alleged supernatural events to be "the truth."
Erich stated:
"Karl seems to think that scientists aren’t first-hand witnessing the results of their experiments and field observations."
I'm referring to extrapolated assumptions that are well beyond first hand eye witness proofs of what they state are logical conclusions.
Evoution is supposedly science, but it can not be observed as an historical even. Its evidence constantly shifts and morphs to make it appear reasonable.
Scientists can make observations galore, many of these mean they know very little about the why of their science, all they can describe is the who, what, where, when, and sometimes how.
They ceratinly use their imaginations to describe what casues many of the observatons they believe are reliable.
Examples:
1) Gravity exists, and something causes it to exist that either is or is not mass dependent. A case can be made for either use of the imagination.
2) Genetics of organisms are either independent or dependent upon the environment. A case can be made for evolution that necessitates inheritable genetic changes being influenced by environmental factors. A case can also be made that inheritable genetic changes are only the result of mutations that may sometimes be caused by environmental influences.
What kind of history is reliable to a skeptic who trust no one to tell the truth. What kind of recorded events are potentialy true and which are potentially false?
Karl, that the evidence shifts and morphs IS the basis of the theory you are denigrating. Evolution has been observed, both in the lab and in the field, in the brief time since the theory was first suggested, 60 years before Chas. Darwin was born.
New traits appear out of nowhere. Populations shift to be dominated by descendants of members possessing beneficial traits. The genetic structure of an individual is not affected by the environment (contrary to the theories of Lamarck and Lysenko), yet the genetics of a population distinctly are (Darwin's theory). Observed and documented over and over again in live species as well as in fossil studies.
Read "Once again, Egnor and Tautologies", not so much to see one of the common fallacies of a currently popular anti-evolutionist debunked, as to read the epilogue. That is a personal story illuminating how ignorance of the principles of evolution actually kills people.
Karl, please take a freshman physics course. Gravity is one of two properties of mass. The other is inertia. Either property may be used to determine what the mass of an object is. They are inter-defined. No one has ever measured mass in such a way as to get a different reading of inertia than from attraction to another mass.
Where do you get, "Gravity exists, and something causes it to exist that either is or is not mass dependent. A case can be made for either use of the imagination"?
As with many of your assertions, I ask: Find me a case, any case, any evidence, anywhere from any time to indicate that gravity may not be dependent on mass.
Ooooh, ooooh, I know this one teacher!
Narratives written down from centuries-old oral traditions that go against all the laws of physics are probably NOT accurate historical accounts.
Dan,
If an eye witness shifted or morphed his statements you'd discount their iinitial statements and then everyone thereafter now wouldn't you.
A theory that says it can be morphed to never be proven false is a piece of work. Bravo, I complemnt you on scientific rigor.
Gravitational fields are not dependent upon the mass of the object placed in a specific location around the centralized object.. Only the mass of the object for which you are calculating the field strength is needed.
Newton's Law of universal gravitation is a specific functon that assumes object have inertial rest mass regarding each other. It appears to have validity if objects are considerd stationary rest point masses with no initial motions regarding eqach other. Put one or both objects into motion regarding eachother and the force somehow can act, cause a change of motion yet be considered to be doing no work when an object is in orbit around the central object.. Explain how that can be.
Inertail balances measure relative rates of osscillations between obects that are connected elastically. This is not observing or measuring gravitational mass, this is observing inertial imass which we try to equate with gravitational mass.
As for an over active imaginatio how can new genetic traits appear out of now where? This would certainly be a supernatural statement of belief by your standards because you can not prove this. You did not witness this first hand , or could it have just been a "hidden natural law that you assume was undetectable therefor when it appeared (or was resurrected from the ash heap) it obviously occurred because that's the only way to make the theory work?
Vicki, I know which "folk tales" you refuse to truct. You still didn't answer what historical records you would trust.
Karl exhibits that he has never had a science course that required calculus. Newtons equations of motion describe the behavior of inertia and the attraction between masses, proved accurate to a dozen decimal places in all conditions of rest, motion, and acceleration. Einstein added another dozen or so decimal places, thus "morphing" the theory.
Gravity is the attraction of mass to mass. Period. Mass, in motion or otherwise, is attracted to mass proportional to the product of the masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the centers of the masses.
Anyone who knows some calculus sees how silly this supposition of yours that Newton assumed masses at rest. The first public display of his equations was to show exactly how a comet would move across the sky. Not at rest by any means.
I've seen a demonstration of the attraction of mass using 4 barrels of water, to show how low tech a direct demonstration of this attraction can be. The attraction between mere barrels of water can be seen, even in the overwhelming (10<sup>23</sup> times greater) perpendicular field of the mass of the Earth. Of course, one had to be careful of air currents and electrical effects in order to see the subtle effect of gravity.
As to how do new traits appear out of nowhere, it helps to know some chemistry. But in brief, three of the frequent types of DNA replication errors are duplication, substitution, and transcription. That is, a stutter in the process creates duplicate copies of part of a gene, or a base pair is swapped with another, or a wrong pair is inserted in the copy. Read the actual paper behind this post: Historical Contingency Proven in Labs… It shows a carefully observed multiple site genetic mutation resulting in a beneficial trait not present in any ancestral genotype nor phenotype.
Like Newton's laws, the much more detailed theory of evolution does change. Each time it "morphs", we gain a metaphorical decimal place in the accuracy of our understanding. The basic idea that modern species have evolved from extinct predecessors hasn't changed since decades before Darwin learned to read.
Karl writes:—"Gravitational fields are not dependent upon the mass of the object placed in a specific location around the centralized object.. Only the mass of the object for which you are calculating the field strength is needed."
Mark responds: Say what…?
Dan,
Show me where all this has been measured in a non-inertial reference frame?
I stated that Newton's laws assume non-inertial reference frames, but that can not be shown to exist anywhere.
Karl, please define your understanding of "a non-inertial reference frame".
Newtons laws assume attraction of mass, and inertia. Where within that definition is an inertia-free space possible? If there is no inertia, then any force immediately imparts the maximum velocity. There is no field nor medium necessary to his definitions. Einstein took it a step further, postulating no medium for electromagnetic effects, either.
The non-inertial reference frame is used to try to explain the laws of motion without using calculus, and to conceal the essence of relativity. It usually leads to bad assumptions, like observing "centrifugal force" and "Coriolus force" as if they are real forces rather than simple derivatives of existing motions (<sup>dV</sup>/<sub>dT</sub>)
Newton, the discoverer of basic calculus, did not use that pre-calculus framework to derive his formulas. Nor is it used to prove them.