Quotes in Religulous: A Criticism

There have been two occasions I have counted on Real Time With Bill Maher where Maher has used a popular, misattributed quote (probably unintentionally). One occasion was quoting Einstein as saying something about bees disappearing resulting in the collapse of society and the other I cannot recall.

At one point in Religulous, he quotes three of the Founders as having scorn for Christianity. One such quote came from Thomas Jefferson:

Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man.

I suspected this wasn't the first time I had seen this quote, but, nonetheless, I knew it must be falsely attributed to Jefferson. This quote which appeared in Religulous is a bogus quote. It has not, to date, been found in any of his writings.

Jefferson had quite the affinity for the teachings of Christ (minus all the bogus supernatural and miraculous claims). As such, he edited the New Testament to glean such ludicrousies out; which Religulous correctly explained. So, when Jefferson speaks on being a Christian or Christianity, he often doesn't refer to the church or its teachings as "Christianity," unless he explicitly states it. Otherwise, it would be confused with the teachings of Christ, which he did not despise.

Jefferson confirms this in a letter:

No doctrines of [Jesus] lead to schism. It is the speculations of crazy theologists which have made a Babel of a religion the most moral and sublime ever preached to man, and calculated to heal, and not to create differences. These religious animosities I impute to those who call themselves his ministers, and who engraft their casuistries on the stock of his simple precepts. I am sometimes more angry with them than is authorised by the blessed charities which he preached.

It's clear his gripe is with Christians and not with Christ. The Jefferson Encyclopedia cites the following as the possible basis of this misattributed quote:

[A] short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, & perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in church & state: that the purest system of morals ever before preached to man has been adulterated & sophisticated, by artificial constructions, into a mere contrivance to filch wealth & power to themselves, that rational men not being able to swallow their impious heresies, in order to force them down their throats, they raise the hue & cry of infidelity, while themselves are the greatest obstacles to the advancement of the real doctrines of Jesus, and do in fact constitute the real Anti-Christ.

Don't let his affinity for Christ mislead you into thinking he's a believer of the New Testament and simply rejects the Church's teachings (such as the Jehovah's Witnesses). He liked the teachings attributed to Christ, but did not like all the fantastic supernatural, divine content (which is why The Jefferson Bible came about). Many Christians like to quote mine Jefferson where he speaks highly of Christ and his teachings as evidence he was a Christian. In fact, in one passage Jefferson actually calls himself a Christian:

I, too, have made a wee-little book from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus; it is a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of d blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said nor saw. They have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man, of which the great reformer of the vicious ethics and deism of the Jews, were he to return on earth, would not recognize one feature.

You can actually search for "'i am a real christian' jefferson" and you'll find many Christian sites quote mine this. He is speaking on his revision of the New Testament, though, and is clearly indicating that. If one is to claim Jefferson is a real Christian and we are to define "Christian" as what Jefferson believed, then everyone alive today who calls themselves a Christian are false Christians. They are as close to Jefferson's version of a Christian as I am to Ray's version of a Christian.

This post went off on a bit of a tangent, but I think his use of the Founders' quotes is going to be heavily attacked by critics of the film. There were much better quotes to use and from many different Founders. I found the quotes that he did use from all three were poor selections and misleading.

To conclude on a poignant quote:

Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. -- Jefferson

Oh, wait a minute. That doesn't sound quite as I remember it...

EDIT -- 4/06/2009
Before commenting about what a dumb Christian I am, you should do yourself the favor of reading my subsequent posts on Religulous/Bill Maher and realize that you can constructively criticize that which you side with. Hold nothing sacred.

The Case Against the Case Against Religulous
Is Bill Maher an Atheist? No.
The Case Against Beliefnet: Bill Maher's Fundamentalism

Response to MrFreethinker #A-1: Jesus' Resurrection

Hey MrFreeThinker,

These are my preliminary questions regarding your submission to convince me of Christianity. You have submitted an argument for the resurrection of Jesus. Again, these are preliminary questions to get some extra information and explanation before I fully evaluate the argument. Most of my questions are simply regarding your sources.

When you reply to these, could you please number each of your responses respective to how I have numbered them here?

A) How did Jesus get out of the tomb and what evidence do you have for it? If I understand the story correctly, he was resurrected as a man and appeared before people. How, then, did his body leave the tomb?

B) You cite that 98% of historians accept facts 1, 3, 4, and 5. Who are these historians (i.e. is their field relevant to this discussion) and where do you get this figure? For the question about who these historians are, it's often the tactic, I've found, of creationists to appeal to authorities who have no authority in the field. For example, in the Discovery Institute's list of scientists who disagree with Darwin, they have listed someone with only a PhD in agricultural economics.^[1] I am not accusing you of this; I'm only explaining the question.

C) You cite that 75% of historians accept "fact" 2. Assuming that these historians have relevant credentials and that the same historians polled above are the same ones polled here, why the stark discrepancy? Fact #2 is that the tomb is empty -- a pretty big claim. Why, if they accept that there is sufficient evidence to support claims 1, 3, 4, and 5, do they not accept that there is sufficient evidence to support claim 2?

D) As a note of the statistics, I would expect to see high figures for them. Those who take up as scholars on the New Testament would, ostensibly, most be Christians and would, therefore, agree with these claims. This isn't an argument against the claims (as the claims may still stand on their own); it's just an argument against the appeal to authority. For example, I would expect to see a high level of acceptance among scholars on the Qur'an that Muhammed ascended to Heaven and/or that his followers believed he did.

E) For the first claim, you mention the "other 3 gospels" as sources in passing. Could you give chapters and verses (so as only to assess your arguments)?

F) You mention the following sources in your argument:

[Source] [Times mentioned] [Claims]
Luke 5 1,2,3
Matthew 5 1,2,3
John 4 1,2,3
Corinthians 3 1,2,3
Mark 3 1,2,3
Acts 2 3,4
Galatians 2 2,4
Josephus 2 1,5
Justin Martyr 1 2
Lucian 1 1
Tacitus 1 1
Tertullian 1 2

So, most of the claims find their support in five books of the Bible. I need to know the weight of these sources before I can consider their content as evidence. As such, I'd like to know, for my consideration:

i) Why should I accept these books of Bible as evidence of a historical event?
ii) Are they reliable?
iii) How are their integrity? Were they contemporary accounts?
iv) Are the authors authenticated?
v) If they are accurate accounts of what happened, why are there so many contradictions and discrepancies between them?
vi) Why shouldn't I discount these sources due to the above contradictions and discrepancies?


G) You cite Josephus as an extrabiblical support, and you note that it is disputed among scholars. Why should I accept this, then?

H) You mention that the empty tomb is attested to by all four Gospels. Could you cite the chapters and verses?

I) Under "Enemy Attestation" you seem to address the Stolen Body Hypothesis as evidence the tomb was empty. What contemporary Jews made this argument? And, if they made the argument, were they explaining why the tomb was empty, or were they assuming the tomb was empty for the sake of argument? You advance Matthew's account of the Jews bribing the guards for a cover-up; is this mentioned in any other account?

J) On the same topic: a recurring theme in your argument is "why would they lie?" Why, then, would the Jews bribe the guards to cover it up? You argue that if Christians were making this claim, surely the Jews would go check the tomb. If the tomb truly was empty, then the Jews would have found it empty. Further, the only explanation is that Jesus had been resurrected (since the guards wouldn't have moved the body). Assuming all of this, then, why would the Jews commit this mass cover-up and lie?

K) You cite three of the Gospels and Acts as evidence in claim three but give no reference. Further, why, if these are accounts I should accept as reliable, does this third claim not appear in one of the Gospels?

L) You cite several "early church fathers" as corroborating that the apostles claim that they saw the resurrected Jesus; where did they corroborate it?

M) You give sources for Peter and Paul dying for their beliefs. Could you give an online resource so that I can read the accounts myself?

N) You state that no one ever dies for a lie -- this is untrue. If I start a cult and claim that I have spoken to God and if they all commit suicide they will ascend to a higher plane of existence -- this is a lie. If I gain followers, they believe me, and kill themselves, they have died for a lie. This is a documented scenario. It is better stated that no one willingly dies for something they believe is false (which, even then, there are conceivable scenarios where there are exceptions).

O) What skeptics make the claims indicated in the third claim? (I want to know if they are legitimate or straw men.)

P) I have sitting on my shelf the Gnostic Gospels (including the Gospel of Mary, Thomas, Truth, and Philip). If I accept the other books as evidence, why shouldn't I consider these as evidence? Why don't you consider these as evidence?


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scientific_Dissent_From_Darwinism#Affiliations_and_credentials

Christian Response #A-1: Jesus' Resurrection

As mentioned, MrFreeThinker has accepted my challenge to Christians to convince me of Christianity. I am posting below his original submission for preservation. The original can be found here.

I will evaluate the submission in posts to come and what I think about it. I invite everyone else to post or comment on it as they please.

---

PREFACE

I have recently taken it upon myself to respond to a challenge here for Christians.

“What reason is there to believe in the authenticity of the Bible, its message, and/or Christianity?”

My post will be focusing on the Resurrection of Jesus as a historical event.

Before I actually address this issue I will explain what I will not be doing and what I will attempt to do and what responses I will not accept lest I be misunderstood.

What I will be doing

1. I will be using facts accepted by the majority of historians (at least 75%) and that are multiply attested.
2. I will be using historical criteria like the criterion of embarrassment , earlyness and multiple attestation to lend credence to these facts

What I will not be doing

1. I am not “using the bible to prove the bible” or appealing to the inerrancy of scripture. I do not argue,” the bible says so -so it was true.”I just appeal to the gospels and epistles of Paul as normal ancient documents and biographies.
2. I am not using just “the bible as a source”. The New testament documents were a group of ancient documents by different writers.They can be used as multiple attestation.The epistles of Paul and Gospels are different sources

Responses I will not accept

1. “The resurrection is false and can never happen because resurrections don’t happen”- Don’t question-beg naturalism in your answers.
2. “Jesus never existed”-This is a fringe and outdated position held by a group of German philosophers in the 18th century and popularised by uncredentialed popular writers like Earl Doherty and Acharya S. No serious historian takes these writers and their Jesus myth thesis seriously.
3. “The accounts are contradictory so they cannot be used”-Wrong. Even if the accounts of the resurrection were contradictory- historians use cntradictory sources all the time. A good example would be the usage of Polybius and Livy’s accounts of Hannibal’s crossing .

SUBMISSION

I am sure many readers are familiar with the minimal facts approach used by a certain historian called Gary Habermas (to which I am indebted to for this post). I will be using his material .

The minimal facts approach takes facts accepted by the majority of scholars[1] and multiply attested.

The Facts are:-

1. Jesus died by crucifixion
2. The tomb was empty
3. Jesus’ disciples were disheartened after he was dead.However they had experiences that led them to believe that Jesus had physically risen from the dead and appeared to them.Thwy were so convinced they suffered and some were martyred for their belief.
4. Paul ,who was a persecutor of Jesus had an experience that led him to convert and believe in the risen Jesus
5. James, the skeptical brother of Jesus, suddenly converted to Christianity.

Fact 1-The crucifixion

We begin with the crucifixion. The crucifixion is multiply attested in and outside the Bible. It is attested by Paul:

(1 Corinthians 1:23) but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,

Mark’s Passion Source (I will provide evidence for the existence of a pre Markan passion source if it is challenged by the negative)

(Mark 15:23-24)

and the other 3 gospels

And for extrabiblical attestation we have:

Flavius Josephus[2]

(Antiquities 18.3.3) And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross

Cornelius Tacitus

(Annals 15.44) Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus

Lucian of Samosata

The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day–the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account.Lucian of Samosata, The Death of Peregrine 11-13 (, 49)

The evidence is so strong that even John Dominic Crossan of the Jesus Seminar( the most liberal group in historical Jesus studies today) concedes that the crucifixion is an undisputed fact of history .

Fact 2-The empty tomb

This facts is agreed on by 75% of historians. There are many lines of the evidence for the empty tomb.The first is that it is attested to in all 4 gospels. Before I present the other evidence let me discuss the 1 Corinthians 15 creed. There is a gap between the start of Christianity and the first written documents of the New testament. The way historians bridge this gap period is examining the oral creeds that are found in the New testament. Creeds were meant to pass along important information in a manner that would make the information easy to memorize. These creeds would have been recited by Christian communities prior to them being put in written from in the New testament. In the places in the New testament where creed are cited- we can see the syntax and flow of the sentence in Greek written and changes in language. One of the creeds cited in the New testament is the 1 Corinthians 15 creed.

3 For I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received - that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, 4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

1 Corinthians 15:3-5

The phrases Paul uses “I passed on to you…what I also received” were used a way of passing oral tradition is rabbinical literature.Linguistic factors also indicate the creed was probaly translated from Aramaic.The use of non-Pauline words coupled with the Aramaic leads most scholars to believe Paul received the creed from Peter and James in the Jerusalem church during his visit (in Galatians1- 2). If ths is the case- Paul most likely received the creed around 33-35CE( within 5 years of the crucifixion) from 2 eyewitnesses. Even the liberal Jesus seminar concedes that the creed was probaly formulated n the early 30’sCE.

The Early evidence

The creed clearly says Jesus was buried, and rose. (The word used here in Greek anastasis strongly indicates a physical rising from the dead as seen in its usage in the Septuagaint ,Greek literature and the New testament itself).If Paul says Jesus had physically risen after he was buried-the logical implication would be that his body was no longer in the tomb. The 1 Corinthians 15 creed provides early attestation (within 5 years) of the empty tomb

Enemy Attestation

This is common sense- but it is used in historical methodology too. If your enemy admits something- it is more likely to be true.The fact that the tomb was empty is admitted even by enemies of Christianity. Matthew records that the Jews paid some to say that the disciples had stolen the body (28:12-13). Justin Martyr and Tertullian record the same

So the polemic goes like this:
Jews: The disciples stole the body!
Christians: No, the guards would have prevented that!
Jews: The guards fell asleep!
Christians: You bribed them to say that!

The Jewish polemic presupposes the fact that the tomb was empty. This would not be the case if the tomb was still occupied.

Testimony of women and the criterion of embarassment

The first witnesses of the empty tomb were women, as recorded in all four Gospels . Were the narratives madeup, it is unlikely the made-up testimony would have included women, and certainly not as the primary witnesses to the empty tomb, since women were looked down upon in the cultures of that time.Even Luke 24:11 admits the disciples had a hard time believing the women.The best explaination is that the gospels were just faithfully recording what happened.

The Jerusalem Factor

Jerusalem is the place where Jesus was publicly executed on the Roman cross. It is there that He was buried, and there that His resurrection was first proclaimed.Imagine the early disciples telling the Jews that their master who had been shamefully executed had been risen and his tomb was empty.A group of Jews go check it out and find the tomb to be occupied. Christianity would be crushed. Christainity could not have spread in Jerusalem if the tomb was still occupied.

Fact 3:The appearances

The appearances are attested in the early 1 Corinthians 15 creed. They are also recorded in the gospels of Matthew , Luke and John. Testimony is also found in the speeches of the aposles in the book of Acts.

The testimony of the early church fathers( Polycarp, Clement of Rome, Ignatious of Antioch) agrees that the apostles claimed to have seen the resurrected Christ. In many cases, these early church fathers knew the apostles themselves, or knew someone close to the apostles.This can be taken as historically certain.

Some skeptic might conjecture that the apostles were lying. However this is unlikely as the disciples were wiling to be martyred[ 3] for their beliefs. No-one knowingly and willingly dies for a lie.(Note that a comparison with Muslims matyrs would be unwarranted as I never claimed their beliefs were true because of their persecution.I claimed that they were sincere in there beliefs because of their persecution.)

Another theory skeptics will propound is that the appearances were hallucinations.I will address this theory more fully in another post- but I will point out that had the disciples hallucinated -they would not interpret it to be physical experiences of the kind the New testament claims but visions. The hallucination theory also does not account for the fact that Paul and James , who were skeptics and did not want ot see Jesus- did see him.

Fact 4:-Conversion of Paul

22 But I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23 They were only hearing, “The one who once persecuted us is now proclaiming the good news of the faith he once tried to destroy.”Galatians 1:22-23

Paul’s conversion is attested in his own letters and in Acts.Paul was converted not as a neutral observer, but as an enemy of Christ. What’s more, his conversion was not the result of his friends trying their best to convince him of Christianity, but of what he believed to be a personal encounter with the risen Christ.

Fact 5-the conversion of James

The gospels record that James was skeptical of Jesus during his ministry( this fits under the criterion of embarrassment as it was embarrassing in 1st century Jerusalem for a rabbi’s family to reject his teaching) . However later became Christian after the appearance of thew risen Christ. He was a skeptic.But he eventually was martyred for his strong faith (Josephus(Antiquities 20:200),Hegesippus).

So in summary there are 5 facts. As with all good historical situations we look at theories and see which has the greatest explanatory power. I contend that the resurrection is the best explanation for these 5 facts. The tomb was empty because Jesus was risen and James, Paul and the disciples saw Jesus because he was really there. The documentation for this is in the New testament. Other naturalistic theories fail to account for all of the facts. Once we conclude that Jesus rose from the dead- the most parsimonious explanation is his own deity.

The counter-challenge- Provide a different theory that provides a superior explaination for all the facts and provide documentation for this theory.

For further reading check out “The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus” by Gary Habermas and Mike Lincona.

A video series by Veritas48 and KabaneTheChristian is availible here

[1]Facts 1 and 3-5 are accepted almost unanimously(over 98%) by historians. Facts 2 is accepted by 75% of historians.The figures come from gary Habermas’ survey of more than 1400 scholarly articles on the historical Jesus that were written in English, German and French.

http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/J_Study_Historical_Jesus_3-2_2005/J_Study_Historical_Jesus_3-2_2005.htm

[2]Some scholars question the authenticity of parts of the Testimonium Flavianum.However according to a study done by Louis Feldman- most Josephan scholars will accept the passge as authentic with some minor embellishments.The Tacitus passage is undisputedly authentic.

[3]Clement of Rome indicates that Peter and Paul suffered and died for their beliefs. Ignatius of Antioch, who was also most likely personally acquainted with the apostles reports that the apostles were unafraid of martyrdom in his letter to Smyra, and Polycarp reports in his letter to the Philippians that Paul and all of the apostles suffered. Dionysis of Corinth also reports, (as cited by Eusebius in book 2, chapter 25, verse 8 of Ecclesiastical history) Tertullain reports in Scorpiace chapter 15, and Origen in Contra Celsum .

Returning From Religulous

I saw Religulous with my atheist group Friday night. We descended on the theater in a swarm of thirty.

Religulous surpassed my expectations. It was quite delightful. I'm a big fan of Bill Maher -- especially his stand-up -- and the film was somewhat of a stand-up documentary. Even the scenes from the trailer were funnier in the film as there was more to them.

Have you ever been to a film where there's so much noise in the audience that you can't hear what's being said in the film? That was my experience with Religulous -- but in a good way. People, myself included, were laughing so hard and so frequently that I missed out on a lot of dialog.

I'll definitely see it again (again, big fan of Bill Maher). I'm looking forward to the DVD to see all the bonus footage. I read that Rael was supposed to be in the film, but I didn't see him, so hopefully that will be there.

H2thyphrO's Dilemma

MrFreeThinker (don't let the name mislead you) has taken up my challenge for Christians to convince me by arguing for the historicity of Jesus' resurrection. I will be replying to him later once I have a little more time.

He has left a comment here, though, and also posted a response to my fellow Raytractor Dave attempting to resolve logical contradictions. Regarding the rock-so-heavy argument, MrFreeThinker attempts to resolve it by saying that it is trivial -- like saying can God make a female horse that is a stallion. It is trivially false because by definition it doesn't exist. He fails to understand a paradox, though.

He tried to resolve Euthyphro dilemma in the same way:

I am holding a glass of water in my hands.Is this H20 because it is water, or is it water because it’s H2O?

(Meant to demonstrate the meaninglessness of Euthrypo’s dilemma.)

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the Euthyphro dilemma. That dilemma is often phrased as:

Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God.

To phrase it differently, does God command some action because he recognizes it is wrong or is it wrong because God commands it? If you understand the dilemma it is anything but meaningless.

The importance of it is especially relevant in the "how can you be moral without God"? Some sort of appeal to absolute morality -- without God morals would be relative, or something along those lines. The Euthyphro dilemma is fatal for this argument.

If we take the former case, that God says something is wrong because he recognizes it is wrong, the argument against atheism/for God fails because there is a morality independent of God and we atheists can help ourselves to this absolute standard.

If we take the latter case, that things are wrong because God says so, renders morality arbitrary and relative as well -- because it's moral just because God says so. He might as well just have flipped a coin to decide is something is moral or not to command it (and it seems this is what he did in the Old Testament).

To be consistent with the argument, morals must be independent of both ourselves and God.

If the latter option is chosen, though, that it's dependent on God, then we have a whole other avenue to stroll down of divining just what those morals are.