Order out of Chaos

A FUTILE ATTEMPT TO ORGANIZE CHAOS

This was sent late June or early July I believe.

INTRODUCTION

I have many e-mails from the panel. I have opened them all to make sure they weren't, "Please take me off the list," kind of e-mails. I intend to respond to all of them in detail but it will be some time before that happens for them all. What I would like to do in an effort to get through them all efficiently is offer a few arguments in response to some categories of objections I see emerging.

I do not mean to do this in a dismissive way. I understand that if you wanted to read an apologetics book you know where to find one. The attraction to this activity is in the dialogue. Other people's books and papers are in some sense all straw man arguments. They are an answer to someone else's arguments, not our own. However, there are over three dozen of you and only one of me. I can not be expected to answer the same arguments over and over again just because someone has dressed them up in a different color.

CATEGORY#1 The Bible is not perfect therefore a perfect being could have not produced it.

To support this contention, (a) inconsequential contradictions are pointed out, (b) the estimated age is attacked, (c) ancient myths and old neglected texts are offered as alternatives, and (d) transmission problems are blown out of proportion.

(A) First of all, you have no idea what a perfect being would and would not do. How could you possibly know?

(B) Second, if you applied the same criteria you apply to the Bible to other ancient documents you could not even be sure Julius Caesar and Aristotle were real people let alone have any idea what they actually said. In fact, the Greek grammar I wrote a year ago must be questionable since I no longer have the original. I believe the Bible is a collection of testimonies of credible witnesses. If I am ever accused of a crime I want y'all on my jury especially if I'm guilty. All it would take is one witness contradicting another about some minor point and y'all would be ready to throw the whole case out of court.

(C) Third, whenever I have asked for one you have all consistently failed to provide a reasonable alternative to the Bible narrative. I have an ancient written record to support my views. You believe nothing and support it with nothing. If God did not create the universe where did it come from? If the Genesis flood is a made up story why does almost every ancient culture have one that is similar? The only explanation that fits all the facts is that there was a universal flood. If the Exodus account is not true where did the Israelites come from? If Genesis, Exodus, and the rest of the Old Testament are a bunch of stories why do they agree so well with other verifiable historical and archeological facts? It is true there are stories in there that have not been externally confirmed but there are none that have been proven false. No evidence is not evidence. If the New Testament is a big lie what really happened? Where did Christianity come from?

CATEGORY #2 Doubts that I am telling the truth about my background, suggestions that I am just a poor deluded Christian who has simply been brought up that way and have not yet been enlightened.

My father was Phil Carden. He brought a civil suit against Bible reading in the public schools in the Tennessee State courts in the late 1950's before someone else brought a similar case in the Federal courts in the early 60's. My Dad lost. The later attempt won. It is a matter of public record. You can find it in the Nashville newspapers of the time and there are probably some court records floating around as well.

Dad is mentioned in a an article called. "Reflections on Life Under the Influence of Ayn Rand, Part 2" by Roger Bissell [1991] at http://members.aol.com/REBissell/indexmmm4.html "On our first public sortie, one spring night in 1980, attorney Phil Carden and I delivered a one-two punch at a public hearing on the proposed 1980-81 Metro school budget. I had carefully documented a decade of school spending increases and achievement declines and told them that we should cut administrative positions and overall spending by 25% and eliminate the local sales tax on groceries. The hornets stirred loudly. Phil then told him of his decades of experience with public and private schools, lulling them into silence, before saying that he would be willing to pay the added taxes for a teacher salary increase, if they would stay home and not try to earn it! The fury of the hornets easily doubled its previous volume."

We never went to church until the local Unitarian church joined my father in his anti-Bible in the schools lawsuit. We attended there until the case was lost. I was in the first grade maybe? (It is hard to remember because I was schooled at home until 4^th grade.) My mother taught me Greek Mythology in the third grade. In the sixth grade I was moved from "government" schools to Catholic schools. My mother had decided the Bible was a bunch of old myths and legends because of he Documentary Hypothesis. She had a Bible where she had gone through and marked all the J, E, D & P passages in the books of Moses. She pointed all this out to me perhaps to protect me from Catholic indoctrination. She also explained to me that Christians used circular reasoning - they believe God because the Bible says so and they believe the Bible because God says so.

My parents used to have their Objectivist-Libertarian friends over to the house all the time and I was always allowed to participate fully in the discussions for as long as I can remember. I had Ayn Rand and Betrand Russell under my belt by the time I was 15. My parents helped start the Tennessee Libertarian party in the early 70's. See http://www.tcarden.com/tree/ensor/CardenPhilip.html for more.

Atheism was the first religion to which I was greatly exposed. I studied ancient pagan religions but no one around me seriously believed them. Then I started being exposed to various true believers. Mormanism was first. Then Catholism. Then Luthernism. Then Mohammedism. I have studied, among many other things, history, philosophy and logic at secular universities. Can we stop with the Thor is just a poorly educated Christian, that is too ignorant to know any better, attacks, please?

CATEGORY #3. Attacks on my motives. I'm just here to proselytize you or I have some emotional need for the "crutch" of Christian belief.

In a sense both of these contentions have some truth but not in the way or to the extent that you think. I entertain no fantasies that I will "make converts" here. My hope in this area is that some day if, and when, God has brought you to your knees, that one of the Christian voices you will remember will be mine. And yes, my belief is based on the simple practical need to survive. However, my motives are immaterial. My arguments are valid or invalid, and my evidence convincing or not, each on their own merit. My motives have nothing to do with it.

I am willing to stipulate that I do have more beliefs in common with fundamentalists and evangelicals than any other groupings of which I am aware. My statement of faith may be found at http://www.tntcarden.com/LBC/OurBeliefs.htm. I admit any fair minded person would put me in both of these camps. However, I differ in some particulars that I regard as very important. For instance, would a fundamentalist ever say, "We believe in a pretribulation rapture of His church and a premillennial return of Jesus Christ, the King, but if actual events prove we are wrong we hope we do not sit under the Jonah tree and complain about it," as I do? The typical Fundamentalist's beliefs are petrified. They have ceased to learn. I hope that never happens to me. I share with evangelicals in that I take the Great Commission very seriously, but I take it more seriously, I believe. Many of them proclaim the gospel to the point of brow beating people into acceptance and then too often neglect the teaching part of the commission. My participation in this panel is not about proselytizing. I am not engaging in a fantasy that these arguments will somehow lead to me "winning souls for Christ." I do not mind you calling my beliefs fundamental or evangelical but please do not characterize my behavior or arguments as such.

CONCLUSION

You don't know where you came from or where you are going but you know God is not real. I have never met a Christian with more blind faith than y'all have. I believe the existence of God is intuitively obvious to the most casual observer. I have confirmed Him hundreds of times by answered prayer. My mathematical knowledge is solid. I have taken both Calculus and Statistics in secular universities. I know how to calculate the likelihood of a coincidence. It is going to take a lot more than anything I have seen here to convince me He is not real. I also know how to calculate probabilities and you would have a better chance of convincing me that my wife does not exist.