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I came across an interesting NY Times article from a link on Uncommon Descent, one of the more infamous ID blogs, about paleontologist Marcus Ross, currently a professor at Liberty University. Ross received his Ph.D. from the U of Rhode Island, hardly a “young Earth” type of school. As the article explains, his doctoral dissertation was on the disappearance of some species of marine reptiles 65 million years ago, even though he personally holds to a “young Earth” position. No matter which side of the issue you are on this does seem a bit oxymoronic.

Now, let me say up front that I have my own prejudices, and have a hard time taking seriously anyone who would be associated with Liberty U, the school founded by Jerry Falwell. It’s true - I hear “Liberty U” and I immediately think, “wacko fundamentalist.” I can’t help it; Falwell has done such a great job of developing that reputation over the years.

However, it seems that this is all the better for exploring the question about whether someone with extremely conservative theological views can be an impartial scientist. Based on the Times article, it would seem that this might be the case. Dr. Ross, so far, seems to be able to deal with the data, even if it doesn’t seem to mesh with his presuppositions.

Now, if we can get a few of these folks together with a few neo-Darwinists who are also able to set aside their materialist presuppositions, perhaps some of the wrinkles could be ironed out of the evolution v ID debate.

Anyway, the NYT piece is interesting, and at least worth a read.

Today is Easter, at least the date we celebrate it in our tradition. For Christians, although many don’t really get it, Easter is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Cor. 15:14-19:

And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. … And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

There you have it in a nutshell; all of the claims of Christianity, the good moral teaching, etc., etc., are all fluff, if in fact Jesus was not raised from the dead on the day we now call Easter. The origins of the name and so on are another story that is quite irrelevant; the issue is whether the event happened, not how it came to be named or calendared.

All of the radical, “fundamentalist” atheists who are trying to disprove Christianity only have to focus on this one thing, according to Paul’s own testimony, which we accept as part of the Word of God. That’s it; this is the line in the sand.

Why would anyone stake an entire religion on this one, absurd claim? It really is, of course, absurd from a “common sense” standpoint. Seriously - the thought that God Himself became incarnate, died and then rose again is absurd. Camus has nothing on God when it comes to absurdist theater. Here, I guess, I’m sounding rather Kierkegaardian, but I think he had a glimpse of something: when compared to man’s ability to reason, God can be quite absurd. Now, I know many theologians who will take issue with that, and I think alot of it has to do with semantics. But, here it is from God’s own word, as spoken through Paul:

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength. - 1 Cor. 1:18-25

Now, this does not mean that the Christian faith is irrational; far from it. The historical basis for the resurrection is quite strong, as strong as many things that we accept. In fact, we accept many historical accounts that do not stand up near as well as this story. Yet, to rest an entire belief system on something so seemingly unbelievable - we have to ask ourselves, “why?”

And of course, this is “it” for the Christian: this is essentially all we have to do, to believe in this event, in order to “be saved,” go to heaven, be “right with God” or whatever other terminology you wish to use. Certainly a religion could do better; perhaps add in a few rules or things to achieve - and many religions indeed have. So again, why this simple resurrection story?

The very simple answer - which understandably frustrates people - is that this absurd tale is simply true. The “faith” part of the equation, as I mentioned earlier, is not that we have to make a faith-leap to believe the story. What takes real faith is to believe that this death and resurrection is simply enough for us to be forgiven.

In the words of the ancient liturgy, “Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed!”

I have earlier linked to a recent article by Sam Harris entitled God’s dupes which is subtitled, “Moderate believers give cover to religious fanatics — and are every bit as delusional.” Some atheists seem to be distancing themselves from Harris, and this article is probably a good example of why this is so. While Harris has plenty of attitude, he doesn’t seem to have a good grasp on logic.

Harris states, “The truth is, there is not a person on Earth who has a good reason to believe that Jesus rose from the dead…” Now, on its face this is a ridiculous statement, which has to be based solely on Harris’ presuppositional belief that there is no god, and therefore no one can possibly have good enough reason to believe in one. If he would just say this, then we could all just accept this as his opinion. I can disagree with him based on my own presupposition that God exists, and therefore everyone has a reason or reasons to believe. However, it appears as though his appeal here is to reason and logic, so it needs to be evaluated on that level.

The mystery person known as Mike Gene over at Telic Thoughts has a bit of fun with this, pointing out the obvious problems with making such an outrageous claim. Follow the last link and read it for yourself.

The big issue here is, as MG points out, is that Harris has apparently established his own subjective standard for what is a “good reason.” He is no doubt aware of the plethora of books and articles written on the reasons for faith - some more subjective (such as Francis Collins’ The Language of God), and others more objective from people like Josh McDowall and Lee Stobel. You or I might not buy all of their arguments, however many of them would qualify as “good reasons.”

For example, in spite of the many liberal theologians and others (I almost said “crackpots” but I’m trying not us resort to using pejorative language to show how fair and balanced I can be) who try to pass off the Gospels as little more than myth, there are a number of very good reasons to believe they are accurate, contemporary accounts of the ministry of Jesus. Richard Bauckham has written a recently published book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, that provides “good reasons” to believe that these were actually eyewitness accounts. For an interesting review and summary of the book, you can read A. E. Harvey’s review at Times Online. (So much to read, so little time…) As I said in my Easter post, the historical basis for the resurrection is quite strong.

So, back to Harris. The thesis for this article is that religious moderates are just as bad as religious extremists, because they support the basic theme that extremists distort and abuse. A quote:

Christian moderates, by their lingering attachment to the unique divinity of Jesus, protect the faith of fundamentalists from public scorn. Christian liberals — who aren’t sure what they believe but just love the experience of going to church occasionally — deny the moderates a proper collision with scientific rationality. And in this way centuries have come and gone without an honest word being spoken about God in our society.

What’s wrong with this picture? Or, what’s right with this picture? Can anybody not see the flaws in this thinking? Why, then, can’t Harris? He might just as blame everyone who flies the major airlines for the 9-11 attacks.

Harris drifts a bit in his article, moving onto another illogical argument, that because atheists can change their lives for the better, too, the changed life of a Christian is not evidence of God’s existence. Now, a changed life may not be objective proof - given that there can be other factors - does not mean it is not evidence of God. Just because deer tracks can be faked does not mean that most deer tracks are evidence of a deer.

Harris also states, “there are better reasons to help the poor, feed the hungry and defend the weak than the belief that an Imaginary Friend wants you to do it. Compassion is deeper than religion. … It is time that we acknowledge that human beings can be profoundly ethical — and even spiritual — without pretending to know things they do not know.” Here again, Harris relies on his presuppositions about what everyone else (in his opinion) cannot know. Just because he doesn’t know my middle name doesn’t mean that other people don’t know it. There is no way to prove what all other people do not know - it is at best a presumption based upon a presupposition as to what cannot be known.

Unless of course Sam Harris is omniscient and therefore a god … but then, he couldn’t be an atheist.