IDHEFTBAA - Chapter 3 - Rebuttal (part 2)

This section I would have loved to title Creationism Under Fire, but it would then make the titles of my rebuttals to the book I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist out of whack, and it is also the case that this section is a direct follow-on from the previous post discussing this chapter.

In this post I won't discuss a direct point the authors have raised, but I will discuss the general vibe of the chapter so far (only three pages in). This will focus on two points:

1) The origin of the term 'Big Bang'.

2) Creationism In Crisis, or, How Christians View The 'Big Bang Theory' Depending On How Literally They Interpret Genesis.

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1) The Origin Of The Term 'Big Bang'.

I find it slightly amusing that Geisler and Turek use the term 'Big Bang' to their take on Biblical cosmology, considering how the term 'Big Bang' was first coined. And for this, we need to thank Fred Hoyle.

Did Hoyle believe in an expanding universe? Actually, no. He coined 'Big Bang' as a pejorative to the idea that the universe had a beginning - Hoyle was a Steady-State theorist, much like Einstein was until his fateful trip to Mt Wilson.

So this is where the 'Huh'-meter gets turned up: Einstein, a person who actually changed his mind in accordance with the evidence, becomes the butt of an incredibly childish remark by the authors because of an error that Einstein eventually owned up to (and some have speculated may not be an error after all), whereas Geisler and Turek see no irony in using a term originally created as a pejorative for their theory, by the guy who didn't change his mind according to the evidence, much like religious people do whenever they are confronted with evidence that goes against their book (Answers In Genesis, anyone?).

Hoyle stubbornly attempted to reinterpret the data to make it fit his model - and has been shown to be incorrect through numerous studies.


2) Creationism In Crisis.

I'd love to see what Ken Ham would say to Geisler and Turek about all this if we got them in to a room to slug it out.

But why is it in crisis? Well, Geisler and Turek, in trying to side with science when it shows that God created the universe, use the fact that Einstein observed that the universe is moving apart from a central point (thus discovering The Truth ™), comes in direct conflict with Ken Ham and Answers In Genesis who state that there was no Big Bang - God merely created the universe in one day and that's all there is to say about that!

So which one is it? Did God use the Big Bang, or didn't he? As it is logically impossible for both something to happen, and for that something not to happen at the same time as well, Christianity needs to make up its mind, and those who want to speak for Christianity need to kick harder against those who destroy its reputation from within.

And this is where we come to the crisis - I can tell you now that God isn't going to tell anyone the answer. Considering the advances in science that improve health and prevent humans from dying unnecessarily such as vaccines, germ theory, mental illness treatment, food refrigeration, et al, had to be discovered by humans and not by God handing these things down on a scroll from heaven, it's pretty safe to say that God isn't going to reveal how the universe was actually created.
Someone speaking on God's behalf may give an answer, but then this leads to the next question - how do we verify that what God's person is telling us is factually correct?

Three scenarios:

a. If God's prophet/prophetess tells us that God created the universe just like the Big Bang model describes, then we didn't actually need God to tell us that - science has already taken measurements of the universe and come up with a theory to fit the data, hence God is useless.

b. If God's prophet tells us that God created the universe as we see it and did it all in one 24-hour period, then if that really is the case - God created everything in an instant - then God has deliberately set up a faith that requires us to disbelieve our senses, our capabilities and our technologies, thus making God either irrational at best, or deceitful at worst.

But the follow-on from this is an absurdity: we have galaxies that are billions of light years away, which means that the light from a particular galaxy has taken 13'000'000'000 years, travelling at maximum speed, to reach us. What the Creationists want us to believe is that those galaxies that were created on the fourth day, and would have to have been seen by Adam and Eve, somehow travelled 13'000'000'000 light years away in the space of less than 6'000 years - which means either light somehow travelled faster than what understand the speed of light to be (but this has the unfortunate effect making mass proportionally decrease to infinitesimal values, as per E=m c-squared, so if c increases by a factor of at least 2.16 million, mass has to decrease by as much to keep the energy value the same), or that God is playing tricks with our telescopes.

Why else would God create the entire universe in one day, leave all this evidence that the universe was created billions of years ago, then make it your fault that you don't believe in this God based on the evidence?

Or a third scenario - a prophet tells us God created the universe neither in one day, nor using the Big Bang model, but an alternate model of the beginning of the cosmos. For this to be proven correct, we would need to acquire tools, technology and skills to verify this alternate model.
And until that model is proven correct, or at least explains the available data better than the Big Bang model, God is at best unverified, or at worst unverifiable.

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I accept the Big Bang Theory as the best explanation so far for how the observable universe came to be the way it is, and it looks like many Christians do as well, so I am glad to see that we have something in common.

But my contention is this: just because the universe had a beginning does not mean that Jesus rose from the dead.

To say that there was an intelligence or a super-power behind the creation of the universe does not mean that that intelligence or that super-power is the Christian God. You, the Christian, have to conclusively prove that it was your God who indeed created the universe before you casually out-of-hand dismiss the creation claims of other religions.

A Muslim could just as quickly say that it was their god that created the universe. Atenists could just as easily argue that the universe was created due to the actions of the pantheon of Egyptian gods. A Bahai could also argue that their god is so majestic and powerful that the only way to explain the universe's existence is because of the glory of their god.

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Until next time, have a good Christmas and New Year, stay safe, don't eat too much...or don't eat too much for too long!

-Damien

IDHEFTBAA - Chapter 3 - Rebuttal (part 1)

Geisler and Turek now start to move away from philosophical arguments, into arguments that have co-opted science and/or scientists to the Christian fundamentalist cause.

Thus begins their chapter 3, which is titled "In The Beginning There Was A Great SURGE", and the reason surge is in capital letters is because it is an acronym for a 5-fold argument that they hope to explain that the universe had a beginning, and that God is the only possibility for that beginning.

And thus begins my rebuttal which will focus on two points:

1) The co-opting of Albert Einstein to the Christian cause.

2) How Einstein came to see The Truth™.

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1) The co-opting of Albert Einstein to the Christian cause.

The leading quote for this chapter comes from no less than Albert Einstein:

Science without religion is blind. Religion without science is lame.

And already, I see a problem - when Einstein says the word 'religion', he was in no way referring to the Christian religion. Throughout Einstein's lifetime, he complained that his quotes and views on religion have been co-opted to either make him seem like a devoted Christian, or at the very least make him incredibly sympathetic to the cause.

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

So for Geisler and Turek to take a quote that could equally apply to any religion, from a man who adhered to no organised religion, and then polish it and shine it up so that it props up their religion is incredibly disingenuous to say the least!
But again, what is truth and adherence to the facts when there are atheist strawmen to be burnt down?

The only way in which Einstein could even be imagined to be supportive of Christianity lies in two facts:
One, he was raised Jewish and went to a Catholic high school, and two, he wasn't antagonistic towards Christianity in the same way Richard Dawkins is.

And that is it! He grew up around Christianity and didn't explicitly hate it or attack it, therefore every time he mentions religion, he is obviously speaking about Jesus THE KING 0F KINGS AND LORD 0F LORDS AMEN!!!

Give me a break...

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2) How Einstein came to see The Truth™.

[Before I expand on this, there is a reason why I cheekily use the Trademark symbol alongside Truth with a capital T - Christian apologists have a bad habit of thinking they have the truth The Truth simply because their book tells them they have The Truth - no need to rely on evidence, but feel free to ride the coat-tails of science when science backs up conclusions they're comfortable with].

The next part of Geisler & Turek's co-opting of Einstein comes in a story of how Einstein came to see that the universe is indeed expanding.

To tell this, they recount the story of how Einstein was uncomfortable with the implications of his Theory of General Relativity, so he introduced what is described as a 'fudge factor' to cancel out the effects of gravity that would lead to either an expanding or contracting universe. The driving force behind this was the idea that the universe has been, and should be, in a steady-state.

Then into the story comes Alexander Friedmann who exposed some errors in Einstein's calculation. Geisler and Turek here take a cheap-shot at Einstein by writing:

By 1922, Russian mathematician Alexander Friedmann had officially exposed Einstein's fudge factor as an algebraic error. (Incredibly, in his quest to avoid a beginning, the great Einstein had divided by zero - something even school children know is a no-no!)

[As an aside, is this is how Christian apologetics is done in the modern era? Make snide remarks about a person who has contributed more to society in half of one lifetime than what most people will do in five lifetimes, including these two authors? Well done, guys.]

But au contraire, again, Geisler and Turek don't give you all of the story or all of the facts, something I suspect I will see much more of in this book. That's OK - allow me to explain a bit.

It simply isn't the case that Einstein put a zero in his equation because he was looking God in the face and he had to turn away - the way Freidmann showed that Einstein put a zero in the Theory of General Relativity was by using a hyper-specific instance of Einstein's Theory that ended up making of the one denominator's equal to zero. Simple as that.

Friedmann then demonstrably showed that Einstein had things wrong, to which Einstein is reported to have said:

It was the biggest blunder of my life.

And again, this is the beauty of science. You prove someone wrong, you make history!

But again, Geisler and Turek don't give you the complete story - there are some scientists who believe Einstein's fudge factor may have been correct all along. Space.com have an article from November 2010 stating as such.

The rest of the anecdote regarding Einstein shows that he went to the Mount Wilson Observatory in California and used the massive telescope they had there to indeed see first-hand the red shift, which indicates that intergalactic objects and bodies are moving away from our vantage point on Earth, indicating that they are all moving away from a common point.

They're all moving away from a common point? Well, that must mean that the universe had a beginning! And the Bible says that God made everything, which means the universe had a beginning! Therefore, Einstein discovered The Truth! Hallelujah! Amen! Praise God!!!

But everything we see in this anecdote from Geisler & Turek highlights exactly what is wrong with religion, in particular Christianity, and everything that is right about science and the scientific method:

For Einstein to see that he was wrong, all someone had to do was show him how he was wrong. And someone did exactly that. No reliance on inerrant scripture. No referencing sermons or preachers or proto-orthodox church fathers or long-dead theologians (or even currently living theologians). Someone went out, did the maths, came back and showed Einstein was wrong, Einstein admitted he made a mistake with the maths, then he went to an astronomy lab and saw for himself, seeing the evidence first-hand, that he had made a mistake in his working model.
Einstein then went and changed his believe in accordance with the evidence.

And this is exactly how science works - someone observes a phenomena, creates a hypothesis, gathers data, determines a method of testing that hypothesis against the data, checks the results, writes up a report, shares that report with other experts in their field who then discuss and criticise it, but the process doesn't stop there - if someone has a better idea than you, a contradictory idea, a competing idea, revised working of your idea, or a better method, or anything of that sort, then they can prove you wrong - and if you prove someone wrong, you get credit and prizes (Nobel, anyone?).

Christianity has nothing like this! In Christianity, the more fundamental you are, the less likely you are to accept that there are even any mistakes in the Bible, let alone fundamental errors, and that is because to fundamentalists, the Bible is God, God is the Bible, and neither could ever be wrong about anything.
This is exactly the point of Creation groups like Answers In Genesis, whose own Statement Of Faith confirms that they will not accept any evidence, from any field of science, if it makes the Bible look bad.

Furthermore, in Christianity, if you doubt something is wrong, it's YOU who has the problem - not the church, not the church leadership, not the Bible, not God, not nothing, and I know this from first-hand experience!

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Until next time, keep having a merry Christmas, a happy new year, and work hard for your dreams!

-Damien

IDHEFTBAA - Chapter 2 - Rebuttal (part 1)

My apologies for skipping ahead with my rebuttal to I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist. However, as I have misplaced my notes that I kept when I was reading through the previous pages, and that the pages I am reading now annoy me, I may as well write my say on it, and if I do find my notes, I'll be sure to write them up.

The title of Chapter 2 of this book is titled 'Why Should Anyone Believe Anything At All?', and lo and behold, it actually makes some points I agree with. Truth is something that can be known, or as far as human capacity goes, understood to the point of effective usage, and that it is better to believe something that is true rather than something that is false.
However, while this chapter makes some points I agree with, the authors continue the fallacies of:
1) the progressive atheist straw-man, and;
2) the fallacy I like to call 'nihilism is the opposite of God' - this is where Turek and Geisler (as well as fundamentalist Christians in general) make the inference that anyone who does not believe in any god whatsoever (but specifically their God) is automatically a nihilist, i.e. they have no morals, purpose or direction in life. 
This is patently untrue. I would argue (from personal experience, if that is to be considered an argument at all) that being an atheist has made me a better, more caring and considerate person and has allowed me to find my own direction in life, which is reaping financial benefits.

One of the points I do agree with with comes in a section titled 'Western Logic vs Eastern Logic' where Ravi Zacharias (of all people) makes a point that not all logic systems are created equal or are equally useful (my paraphrasing). Completely agree!
But of course, Turek and Geisler keep on shooting at those mythical moral relativist university professors, the same ones I would also take issue with (if I could find any), and then act as if they have defeated every atheist - the very definition of the strawman fallacy. I know it shouldn't upset me, but it does - Turek and Geisler keep shooting down the irrational atheists and the progressive atheists and the atheists who are atheists because it's fashionable, but they are yet to (so far) take on arguments from rational atheists.
It wouldn't annoy me too much if they titled their book "I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Irrational Atheist" or "I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be A Liberal Progressive Atheist", but they call their book "I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist", and then Christians keep telling me that this book is the best argument against atheism in general when (so far, two chapters in) it clearly isn't.
The fact that they keep defeating and then trumpeting victory over progressive idiot atheism, then acting as if that defeats atheism as a whole - especially my kind of rational atheism - annoys me. It annoys me to the point I went out and bought this specific domain name to create a website to refute their arguments.

Turek and Geisler's next argument then comes in trying to apply The Roadrunner Tactic to David Hume and Imannuel Kant, no less.
The Roadrunner Tactic, you ask? It's their word-play game that shows that some statements made by atheists (read: moral relativists) are self-defeating and useless. Well, surprise surprise, I agree with that as well. That's why I don't subscribe to irrational atheism which uses self-defeating statements.

So their schtick is to make Hume's Principle of Empirical Verifiability out to be self-defeating by recounting a story of when one of the author's attempted to be a smart-alec during a university course and state that because Hume's Principle was not either true by definition or verifiable empirically, it was self-defeating and thus false.

Just to recount, Hume wrote:

If we take in our hand any volume — of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance — let us ask, “Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?” No. “Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?” No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

Which then leads to the statement that there are only two kinds of meaningful propositions - those that are true by definition (i.e. mathematical, logical, et al), or those that are empirically verifiable. This forms the basis of study called Logical Positivism.

So Geisler, trying to make Hume sound self-defeating, he actually misses Hume's point. By resorting to word games and sophistry to make Hume seem wrong, it shows he hasn't got any arguments to prove Hume wrong on the point he actually made. All Geisler has to do to prove Hume wrong is to show that there are meaningful propositions that aren't true by definition, or that there are meaningful propositions that aren't empirically verifiable - but of course, Christians cannot win on logic or facts, so they do the Presuppositional tactic of twisting definitions to make the square peg fit in the round hole.

But all this misses yet another point - Hume is, at the end, correct! Hume, in stating that meaningful propositions are ones that are true by definition, is the definition of his Principle!

And again, Geisler and Turek miss yet still another point - by (thinking they have succeeded in) defeating Hume, they think they have defeated atheism. They have not defeated atheism, because atheism is not defined by or owned by one person. You can defeat as many people as you want and as many logic positions as you want, but if you cannot prove a god exists, you have not defeated atheism.

Memo to the enemy: If you want to defeat us atheists, all you have to do is either show us a god (whichever one it is you want to prove to us) which would prove that a god exists, or prove beyond objective doubt (i.e. not relying on sophisticated philosophy) that there is a god.
We will no longer be atheists. We may not worship the god you show us, but you will have convinced us our atheism is wrong.

The next part of the chapter takes a swipe at Immanuel Kant, who is quoted as saying, "The structure of your senses and your mind forms all sense data, so you never really know the thing in itself. You only know the thing to you after your senses and mind form it".

And the problem here is what exactly? Kant isn't wrong. The truth about reality is that your brain is a reality interpretation machine. Everything you sense is because your brain facilitates the senses for you.
I was never a big reader of Kant, so the rest of the stuff they write about Kant to refute him, I don't really care for. They can talk as much smack about Kant as they want, but again, just because they defeat one proposition from one atheist at one point in time doesn't mean they've defeated all of atheism for all time.

Anyway, this chapter goes on and on about truth and logic stuff, plays the straw-man a bit more, then ends with this prescient point:

"The bottom line is this: regardless of what the real truth is concerning religion and morality, our lives are greatly affected by it today, and perhaps even in eternity".

Yep. And in my view, theists are yet to prove their god exists, but have no problem in making sure we act as if their god exists.

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Until next time, merry Christmas, happy new year, look after yourselves and each other.

IDHEFTBAA - Introduction - Rebuttal (part 3)

Wow. The introduction to I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist is giving me more writing material than I bargained for.

That's OK. The more material, the better. Just like what Donald Trump is to the mass media, IDHEFTBAA is the gift that keeps on giving!

In this post, I want to look at a series of statements that Geisler & Turek make in a heading called What Kind Of God?, where they classify every single world's religion in to three broad categories:

Theism, pantheism, and atheism.

And then, the real reason I wrote this post, a picture they use in order to represent how God interacts with the world in each theistic category.

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1) The classification of the world's religions.

Geisler & Turek not only have created their atheist strawman out of imaginary moral relativists, but they also simplify to the point of misrepresentation.

This happens in four ways:

a) The theism classification really should be broken up in to polytheism and monotheism. This is because firstly, it isn't the case that monotheism is just simplified polytheism with all the basic tenets carry across. The polytheistic and monotheistic religions of human history are all very different. Secondly, the Abrahamic monotheist religions are actually polytheistic henotheist or monolatrous religions, depending on your definitions - God is the supreme god over a number of lesser divinities that have their own powers/abilities/domains, thus by definition making them gods as well, hence polytheistic.

b) Hinduism is so polytheistic that the number of gods in their religion numbers in the millions. 

c) Atheism isn't a religion. It's a position with regards to religious claims. As I have written before on this blog, atheism isn't a faith.

d) Under atheism, they put religious humanism. It would have been simpler and more accurate to just say Humanism, as there is some (though little) distinction between religious humanism and secular humanism.

But this leads to the question - why did they not use the simpler and better term Humanism? What were they trying to convey by saying 'religious humanism' instead?

Either another oversight by the editor, or a small falsehood that has been allowed in to try prove a bigger point - the enemy of my enemy is my friend?

But this kind of argumentation confirms my suspicions that Geisler & Turek are not committed to accuracy and reason, but in pushing an agenda, thus they concede the middle ground and cannot make themselves out to be reasonable and fair.

2) The view of the world with regards to theistic categories.

This got a small chuckle out of me.

Geisler & Turek attempt to show that with theism, God holds the world in his hand, in pantheism, God IS the world, however in atheism, there is no God holding the world.

Question: If we sent a rocket to outer space and took a picture of earth from tens of thousands of kilometres away, what would it look like?

It would, funnily enough, look a lot like this.

Do you see a god holding the world up with his hand? No.

Which theistic category of Geisler & Turek does this picture closest represent? Atheism.

By trying to present God as necessary to the world's existence, they've accidentally accurately represented what the real world actually looks like.

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Until next time, be good, stay warm and be healthy.

-Damien

IDHEFTBAA - Introduction - Rebuttal (part 2)

Continuing on with my rebuttal to the Introduction to I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist:

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The whole point of the Introduction chapter is to tell us that God is the box-top to the puzzle of life. The analogy they are trying to convey is two-fold:

1) When you are trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle, you refer to the picture on top of the box that the jigsaw puzzle came in to see what the completed puzzle looks like, thus you have an overall idea of what you are trying to do.

2) The puzzle box-top is what keeps the packaging all together - one box with a lid keeps all the little pieces together (which follows on from the 'unity in diversity' tripe from the page before).

The implications I think the authors are trying to draw here are that a) non-Christian religions have the wrong box top, thus getting an incorrect overall picture, and b) atheism has no box top, thus atheists are aimless.

This, combined with their imagined culture war against moral relativists (whoever and wherever they are), sets up a very big and convenient strawman - make atheists out to be people who don't believe in truth, imply they have no clue about life because they have faith in something nebulous and irrational, attack that atheism as if you have referenced and covered all atheists, then declare victory - "See, atheism doesn't make sense - but our God does!".

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This is flawed reasoning, for a couple of reasons (aside from the complete mischaracterisation of atheism):

1. Let universities teach and let the philosophers waste paper.

The box-top analogy follows on from the assertion that 'unity in diversity' is what universities should actually be teaching (not this scholarly research and experimention crap) i.e. that when you go to university, what you learn there should be part of a wider field of unified scholarship that gives the answers to life itself (the box-top to life, you see).

Um, no (#1). When I went to university, I just wanted to know as much as I could handle about my chosen field. Why should I, studying mathematics, be forced to know how mathematics also ties in with what the physics, the economics or the liberal arts departments are teaching with regards to the philosophy of life.

If I want philosophy, I'll study philosophy, dammit.

Um, no (#2). Maybe in Christian universities, it is acceptable to railroad the students in to unifying their studies towards a greater political purpose, but ideally you want your studies to be as applicable as possible to the real world where not everyone will share your biases.

Wishful thinking at best. Hopelessly out of touch at worst.

2) Why does there have to be a box-top to life? 

I don't quite get why Geisler & Turek think life needs an overarching picture, and why it is God of all things that gives the overarching picture. 

This all reminds me of a theistic argument I once heard that God exists because there must be some sort of cosmic justice in the universe - the good guys must always win and the bad guys must always lose (even if this has to happen in the afterlife), only the Christian God is big enough to provide that cosmis justice - therefore God!

I'm sorry, but you don't just get to make stuff up just because you want it to be true. Your beliefs should be concordant with the best objective evidence available.

And the best evidence available shows that life is not some long-running episode of The Twighlight Zone where, no matter how bad and strange things get, there is an imaginary scriptwriter who ends the story with justice being served every time. 

Any rational look at the genocides of the 20th and 21st century, or at the torture that Christians have inflicted on heretics during the last two millennia should put paid to this idea.

But it is this kind of wishful thinking that Geisler and Turek have delved in to - "There has to be a God tying all things together! Otherwise, life makes no sense!".

To Dr. Geisler and Mr. Turek, I say this - life has no scriptwriter - you have to write your own.

As a famous man once said, "The truth will set you free - but it may slap you in the face first".

3. The opposite of God is not nihilism.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, theists of all kinds (but particularly Christians) have it in their belief system that the moment you reject their theistic worldview, you automatically subscribe to a worldview that is nihilistic.

And what I mean by nihilistic is that:

a) Without moral absolutes you have no morals, therefore all the nasty things like rape, murder and torture are acceptable.

b) Life has no meaning, therefore you may as well die.

This, I find completely absurd, as well as factually incorrect. In response:

a) People of all walks of life have found reason to hurt and do harm to one another. Do I need to mention that the Catholic Church has been running a paedophile protection racket for decades? Do I need to mention the Puritans of the 1600's who were torturing people for thought crimes? Do I need to mention the human right violations that took place during the 1800's in the American South?

b) Life is what you make it. If you can't find a meaning to life, then you need to see a mental health professional.

From my personal experience, being an atheist has been liberating, not detrimental.

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Until my next post, be good to each other and to yourself.

-Damien

IDHEFTBAA - Introduction - Rebuttal (part 1)

Turek and Geisler start off the Introduction to their book with the heading "Finding The Box Top To The Puzzle Of Life", and begin with a story about Turek attending an Old Testament Studies class at University of Rochester.

The story goes that the professor warns the students beforehand that he was going to challenge their beliefs, but that he was also going to be as objective as possible.

As the course continued, a religious zealot in the class increasingly took offence at the professor, which culminated in him accusing the professor of nothing less than desecrating the word of God and storming out, never to return.

After the last class finishes in the course, Turek walks up and says to the professor, "I enrolled in this class to find out if there really is a God or not...well, is there?". The professor answers, "I don't know", to which Turek was stunned and incredulous.

Turek then follows this up with:

"I later learned that my expectations were too high for the modern university. The term 'university' is actually a composite of the words 'unity' and 'diversity'. When one attends a university, he is supposed to be guided in the quest to find unity in diversity - namely how all the diverse fields of knowledge fit together to provide a unified picture of life". (paraphrased, emphasis added)

We're only three pages in to the introduction and already there are a handful of logical and factual fallacies.

Guys, strap yourself in - going through this book is going to be a long journey!

Thus begins my response to IDHEFTBAA, starting with Turek's anecdote as reproduced above.

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a) You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. 

Turek, without realising it, has become the zealot he was ridiculing in his anecdote - he now believes that his God is the master of the universe, that atheists aren't really atheist (just closet agnostics who aren't really sure of themselves), and that if you are an atheist, you also think paintings somehow create themselves.

He is so convinced of his faith that he feels the need to write a book to convince you of it as well.

I posit that if Turek were to time travel back to that course and listen to what that religious studies professor was saying, I have little doubt that he would also accuse the professor of desecrating the word of God - or be very, very inclined to - just like the zealot in the story.

b) Turek's (lack of) acceptance of his professor's answer.

After reading the anecdote, I actually applaud the professor - the professor gave the most honest answer he could. As confusing and unpleasant as it may sound, sometimes 'I don't know' is the best answer to give.

I would rather say "I don't know!" than give an answer I believe is misleading or unable to be substantiated.

Maybe Turek would have preferred his professor lie to him to make him feel comfortable?

This mindset is actually symptomatic of what I find with Christians in general - when it comes down to it, Christians prefer the comfortable lie rather than the inconvenient truth.

God answers prayer - except for all the times when he didn't or hasn't.

God knows everything - but never bothered to tell us that germs cause disease.

God is everywhere - but yet we still can't see him.

God is merciful - except when he orders his enemies to be killed en masse.

God does miracles - except when there's a camera or a skeptic around.

Put it like this - if Christians were able to be persuaded by facts and logic, there would be no Christians.

c) The etymology of the word 'university'.

Turek may be trying to be cute in making a point by giving his take on the word university, but it is so completely and absolutely wrong that it actually makes me wonder how their editor didn't pick this up, and what other falsehoods the two authors will or are trying to slip in.

To see how bad this analogy is, if I use Turek-speak, the word studying is a composite of the words 'student' and 'dying'. It's funny, poignant, but utterly false (unless you ask my teenage daughter!).

For accuracy's sake, the etymology of the word 'university' comes from the Latin word "universus", meaning 'whole' or 'entire' (with regards to a body of knowledge) - nothing about 'unity in diversity'.

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But I still don't get this thing about 'unity in diversity'. It makes no sense, unless they're trying so hard to fight a culture war that I don't think is happening that they will strawman not only atheists, but university scholars as well.

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One last observation I will make is the lack of references and notes. Where I want references, I just find assertions. As a comparison, as well as reading IDHEFTBAA and The Case For Christ, I am also reading On The Historicity Of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason For Doubt by Richard Carrier.

OTHOJ is so well-referenced and footnoted that on some pages, the footnotes and references take up 2/3 of the text space available, but IDHEFTBAA has relatively few notes or references in comparison - there are almost as many references and footnotes for the introductory chapter of OTHOJ than there are in the Introduction and Chapters 1 & 2 combined of IDHEFTBAA.

I know that they are two different styles of book, but I can't help but admire that OTHOJ is so well referenced that it makes IDHEFTBAA look like a personal rant in comparison.

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I want to be objective and fair to G&T, but I can't help, but ask: what is truth when you have numerous atheist strawmen to defeat, like Turek and Geisler do?

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To my dear readers, until my next post, be kind to yourselves and each other.

-Damien