Randal Rauser's Blog, page 72

The Day Christopher Hitchens Battled Five Christian Apologists

I started blogging at the Christian Post in March 2009. (My website and blog were born a couple of years later.) My first article was titled “Atheism in Dallas” (reprinted here) and in it, I recounted my reflections after seeing the late Christopher Hitchens pitted against five (five?!) Christian apologists.

As I recounted in the article, Hitchens didn’t have well-formed arguments and he offered nothing by way of rebuttal to his critics. Nonetheless, he owned the podium by waxing indignantly about the problem of evil and strawmanning his opponents. As I observed, this ill-fated exchange was a reminder that apologetic debate and dialogue are about much more than valid arguments with (plausibly) true premises.

Yesterday, I found this clip from the event online. It’s only a 7-minute excerpt edited by what clearly appears to be a Hitchens fan, but it illustrates my point: Hitchens strawmanned his opponents (e.g. asserting that “heaven” is “indifferent” to human suffering) with a righteously indignant moral fervor. And the pitting of 5-to-1 merely worked in Hitchens’ favor. Check it out for yourself:

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Asking Atheist Apologist Pinecreek Doug some Questions

Yesterday, I was tweeting back-and-forth with Doug when he invited me back onto his show. Fifteen minutes later, we were recording again. Here it is:

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Is doubt virtuous? Is certainty arrogant?

I just read a Twitter profile that declares: “I believe doubt is a virtue that can lead to humility and certainty can lead to arrogance.” It’s the profile of Pinecreek Doug who just interviewed me.

And I’d say, sure, just so long as we recognize that doubt can also lead to arrogance and certainty to humility.

For example, doubting that anybody knows more than me is a straight path to arrogance. And being certain that I don’t know everything is a straight path to humility.

The lesson is that doubt and certainty are not absolute values. Rather, their value and virtue (or disvalue and vice) are contingent upon the context in which our beliefs are formed and the substantive content of that of which we are doubtful and certain.

So when Doug’s profile also says “Doubt is a virtue,” he’s incorrect. Doubt simpliciter is not a virtue. The virtue, rather, is in the ability to regulate one’s belief with the proper proportion between doubt and credulity or disbelief and certainty.

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Talking hell, the Bible, biblical violence, and lots more with an atheist apologist

Remember Pinecreek Doug? If you don’t, you can get up to speed at “A street apologist puts me in my place” and “My Response to the Pinecreek-Doug-Dilemma.”

Today, Doug had me on his show. He seems like a very nice fellow, but it also seemed to me that he had an inordinate and ultimately unhelpful focus on gotcha questions. He was also not interested in defending his own views, alas. But hey, it’s his show!

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My Summer Read: A review of Lake of the Ozarks

Bill Geist, Lake of the Ozarks: My Surreal Summers in a Vanishing America (New York: Grand Central, 2019).

Everybody needs at least one beach read every summer. For 2019, this was mine: author and journalist Bill Geist’s new memoir of working at a summer resort in the 1960s. I picked up Lake of the Ozarks as a way to end off my summer with a shot of literary nostalgia and whimsy in the vein of Garrison Keillor.

This is my first Geist book, and while I can’t say that he is the literary equal of Keillor, the book definitely has its share of nostalgia and whimsy as he narrates working summers at Arrowhead Lodge on Lake of the Ozarks. At times, Geist’s narration approaches the lyrical. Consider this passage where he recounts taking the boss’s speedboat out to the Larry Don, a “barge-like vessel” which would take nightly cruises on the lake:

It couldn’t have been more than a Schlitz or two later that Jim shouted: “Thar she blows, mateys! The USS Larry Don!”

And what a vision it was, ethereal, slowly towing the reflections of its colorful lights that danced on the inky water.

Jim, not one to be enchanted, was. He turned off the engine and we sat there, bobbing slightly, taking in this apparition. What’s more, it was accompanied by dreamy music. Not the rock’n’roll that we relied on at home to transport us to more exiting states of mind. Little Richard, Buddy Holly, and Jerry Lee Lewis were not called for here. The band on the Larry Don was playing “It Had to Be You,” a mellow number for slowly dancing, designed to make you swoon and sway.

Jim pulled the speedboat alongside the Larry Don and tossed a rope to a deckhand. The six of us leaped from the speedboat to the mother ship, into the arms of our colleagues.

They cheered us as heroic partiers willing to do whatever it took.

Dana gave me a big hug and her best kiss yet. “You did it!” she cried. “What an entrance!”

The band played “Put Your Head on My Shoulder” and couples on the dance floor melted into each other’s arms.

Dana and I climbed the stairs to the second deck. We sat and hugged in the summer breeze, in the moonlight that glistened on the water. And I fell in love. With love. With having someone to hold. With the summer breeze, with the moonlight. With that moment. All of it. (121-22)

The book has several other passages written with an intensity that you can practically smell the pines and hear Paul Anka wafting on the evening breeze.

But it also has some tracts of more pedestrian prose which left me tempted to skim the page. That, perhaps, is what keeps Lake of the Ozarks from earning a place right beside Lake Wobegon.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book is found in the literary tension between nostalgia and reality. Geist recalls working as a bellhop (one of several jobs he performed at the Lodge over eight years) and he notes how, while walking guests to their rooms, he would occasionally be asked about the rank smell of mildew in the lower hall. Geist’s response was to pretend he didn’t smell anything.

After reading Lake of the Ozarks, I was left wondering whether that description was intended to have a deeper thematic significance. The book recollects many charming, dreamy, and amusing recollections of another time. But if you pause, you can smell the mildew. Consider, for example, how Geist notes that this world was largely oblivious to the burgeoning Civil Rights movement, in large part because this region of Missouri was almost uniformly caucasian. In short, Geist observes that nobody was racist because there were no visible minorities to be racist towards: I’m quite sure that was intended ironically. It certainly gives a mildewy taint.

The odor of mildew is discernable in other areas, too. Geist observes how the owner of the hotel, Uncle Ed, flouted labor laws (if there even were any) in firing a lefthanded waitress for holding the tray with the “wrong” hand and in paying several employees a meager dollar a day. But that’s not Uncle Ed’s only sins. He would also toss out paying customers for relatively trivial infractions like taking a watermelon to their room. (“The customer is always right” was unknown at Arrowhead Lodge.) Ed was an alcoholic who downed about a fifth of alcohol a day for decades. And he was also a lecher who hired pretty young waitresses to serve as eye candy and even hid his wife’s ashes on the plane flight home from her funeral so that he could sweet-talk his seat-mate in the airplane.

In short, while Ed may have been a larger-than-life personality, Geist certainly follows Cromwell’s advice: he painted everything, warts and all.

More mildew: at one point, Geist recalls how driving a few miles away from Lake of the Ozarks would bring you deep into a lawless hillbilly country where you could be thrown through a window just for looking at another man’s gal. And when there was an apparent murder in a washing machine at the lodge, the police expended no effort in launching an investigation. As Geist notes, this was not the age of CSI … or even Sherlock Holmes.

I could go on: car seatbelts were for sitting on; the waitresses wore “squaw” uniforms which might escape the 21st-century charge of cultural appropriation due to the fact that they were a caricature unrelated to any actual indigenous culture; and in a world blissfully unaware of such charges as “date rape”, amorous young men regularly plied their dates with beers.

For the most part, Geist seems well aware of the limitations of the era he is romanticizing. Indeed, the examples I noted above seem to be included as his own tacit acknowledgment that the scent of pines is mingled with the odor of mildew.

All of that is true and important. But Lake of the Ozarks remains an unapologetic exercise in nostalgia just the same. And so, while the breeze may be laced with a hint of mildew, you are forgiven for focusing on the intoxicating aroma of pine as the stars twinkle overhead and the band begins to play “A Summer Place.”

You can purchase Lake of the Ozarks at Amazon by clicking here.

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A simple way to rate the skepticism of atheists and agnostics

Ask your atheist or agnostic friend to consider the following scenario and then consider at what point she would conclude that God had answered the prayer and thus that God exists.

So here’s the scenario. Your friend calls you up to say that she just received an unexpected bill for $4353.43 which must be paid this week or she will be evicted from her home. So you say, “Why don’t we pray about it?” She looks incredulous so you add, “Hey, what do you have to lose?” Begrudgingly, she concedes that it is worth a try and so you pray, “Lord, please provide a means for my friend to pay her bill!”

Later that day, your friend goes home, opens her mailbox, and sees a letter from a lawyer. She opens it up and discovers a check in her name from the estate of an obscure relative that she has never met. The check was mailed one week ago and contains a sum which she can use to pay off her debt (or some portion thereof). Which of the following amounts would be sufficient to persuade your friend that God possibly exists, that God probably exists, or that God definitely exists?

The more one is willing to check “Definitely exists,” the lower their skepticism. The less willing one is willing to check at least “Possibly exists,” the higher their skepticism. Thus, the person willing to say that God definitely exists after receiving a surprise $4000 check has a relatively low threshold of skepticism. Meanwhile, the person who dismissively attributes even a check of $4353.43 to chance, and thus who is unwilling to concede that even this specific amount would provide reason to consider that God possibly exists, has a very high degree of skepticism.

The question is, where on this chart is the rational threshold in which it is proper for one to move from doubt to the possibility, probability, or actuality of God’s existence?

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Turning the tables on the problem of evil

Today, I had an extended back and forth with atheist video blogger (and actor) Scott Clifton. I wanted to post one bit of the exchange here because I address a very common type of question about the problem of evil.

Clifton: Can you name a good—any good—that can’t be brought about by an omnipotent being without millions of children being raped?

Rauser: That’s not how it works. Imagine that you start the first day of a five-year apprenticeship with a master of a trade. At noon, you call your wife and say “He had me sweeping the floor all morning. It’s a joke!” Your wife replies, “Maybe he has a reason for that.”

So you reply, “Can you name a reason that the master would have me sweep the floor on the first morning of a five-year apprenticeship?” The thing is, however, is that the onus isn’t on her to give a reason for the command. Rather, the onus is on you to argue that the master couldn’t have a reason. And frankly, three hours into a five-year apprenticeship, you’re not at all in a position to make that judgment. What makes you think you’re in a better position relative to the purposes of an omniscient being?

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Four Pitfalls for Apologists Defending Biblical Violence

Over the last decade or so, Christian apologists have directed significant effort in defending morally problematic biblical violence including texts which attribute prima facie evil actions to God as well as prima facie evil actions which are commanded or commended by God.

For example, Christian apologists offer various justifications of the texts that appear to convey God commanding genocide (e.g. Deuteronomy 20; 1 Samuel 15). In this article, I will briefly (very briefly) summarize four common pitfalls for these apologists.

Divine command theories of moral value

First, while Christian apologists may adopt a divine command theory of moral obligation, it is far more problematic to adopt a divine command theory of moral value given that this appears to entail that, counterfactually, God could have commanded that morally evil actions (e.g. rape and torture for pleasure) are morally good.
Cultural relativism
Second, Christian apologists often argue that we should understand the morality of these actions relative to the ancient near eastern context in which they appear. While there is undoubtedly wisdom in recognizing that our moral beliefs and knowledge are always fallible and historically conditioned, one should be careful not to stumble from that point into a culturally relative account of morality according to which an act like genocide, slavery, or rape was literally morally permissible at T-1 but is no longer morally permissible at T-2.

Utilitarianism

Third, many Christian apologists adopt defenses of biblical violence by way of appeal alleged outweighing moral goods. For example, the claim is made that the Canaanites had to be eliminated to ensure that the Israelites would not be corrupted by their wicked Canaanite culture. In other words, genocide can be justified by appeal to greater goods.

Suffice it to say, at this point, the apologist is in danger of backing into an act utilitarian account of ethics according to which virtually any act can be justified based upon outweighing goods. But is this type of utilitarianism really consistent with Christian belief? I think not.

Moral Skepticism

Finally, the apologist will point out that our moral knowledge is indeed fallible and limited. Thus, they conclude, we shouldn’t assume that just because we think an action is wrong that it really is wrong. We ourselves have been wrong about many things: why not this, too?

However, one should be careful about using a legitimate point about human fallibility and limitation to call into question our most basic moral convictions, such as the conviction that it is wrong to target non-aggressive non-combatants (e.g. infants). If human beings really are wrong about a moral intuition this basic and intuitive, it is difficult to see why we should trust any of our moral intuitions at all. Needless to say, at this point, the apologist who chooses to question our basic moral knowledge is in danger of countenancing a deep moral skepticism.

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Standing up to bullies is cool

The other day, I was walking through a store when I started thinking whimsically about my favorite movie scene as a kid. To put a finer point on it, I thought this was the coolest scene I saw as a kid. (Needless to say, coolest entailed favorite.)

YouTube is great for instant gratification, so I began to type into the YouTube search: “Genera…” and the autofill completed the sentence, “General, Would you care to step outside?” (As an aside, it’s a bit scary, how much YouTube knows about my viewing habits that it figured out what I wanted to watch based on “Genera”. But it’s also convenient. Scary and convenient!)

Anyway, here is the clip, and frankly it hasn’t aged that well, especially after umpteenth Marvel movies and Nolan’s Batman triumvirate. Regardless, here it is, Superman confronting General Zod in Superman II:

That got me to thinking about my second favorite clip from my youth. It comes from the 1980 film My Bodyguard. Here is the best scene in which the bullied Clifford (Chris Makepeace) confronts the bully Moody (Matt Dillon). (In case it isn’t clear, Moody has been bullying Clifford and others at the school, and now it is time for payback.)

That scene has definitely aged better than Superman vs. Zod, not least because it retains a raw visceral verisimilitude. (And yeah, that scene also features a very young Joan Cusack.)

Finally, it got me to thinking about one of my favorite scenes from a 1990s movie. As with Superman vs. Zod, this scene has not aged well: the idea that Will Hunting appears to know everything about everything is a classic case of overkill: it would have been more believable (and effective) if he had simply been a math wizard. But of course, then we wouldn’t have this scene where he puts this smarmy graduate student in his place:

The common thread, of course, is that in each of these scenes, somebody stands up to a bully. And that is definitely cool.

You might retort: isn’t this rather retributive for a Christian worldview? No, I don’t think so. We still want the bully to repent and reform, of course, but standing up to bullying as it occurs is always cool.

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Don’t be a misleading (and thereby dishonest) apologist

This is a topic I’ve addressed before, but it came to mind again this morning. And I should stipulate, the issue is not with Christian apologists in particular, but with apologists generally. Indeed, as you will see anon, it could be with all sorts of speakers: this kind of dishonesty has no relationship, per se, with apologetics.

That said, I do see this dishonesty among Christian apologists. Indeed, I suspect I have been guilty of it myself, at times.

One more thing: this type of dishonesty is not, by any means, what I would call egregious, but it is misleading and thus is best avoided.

But that’s enough by way of set-up: what’s the problem?

The problem is when a person says something like this: “I was recently lecturing at Harvard University.” You see, while that may be literally true, the statement carries the clear implicature that one was lecturing under the auspices of Harvard University. In other words, one is lecturing at the invitation of Harvard and for Harvard’s community. Needless to say, that is impressive, not least because Harvard is one of the most prestigious universities in the world. If you’re invited to speak at Harvard, you must really be something!

Now here’s the reality: a student group at Harvard rented a room and invited you to speak to them. Still a great opportunity. And literally speaking, you still are lecturing at Harvard University. Nonetheless, you are not invited to lecture under the auspices of Harvard, at the invitation of Harvard, and for Harvard’s community. Thus, to describe your participation in this event with a description that carries prestigious implicature that you know to be false is dishonest.

So what you should say is something like this: “I was invited to lecture by a student group at Harvard.” That is not misleading and still impressive, even if it is not anywhere near as impressive as lecturing at Harvard simpliciter. But it is never worth it to buy your credibility by way of misleading and thereby deceptive description.

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