A symbol for Heathens in Canada. Combining the Canadian Flag and a mjolnir into a shield. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A bit ago an out-of-the-closet atheist submitted his ‘heathen manifesto‘ in an attempt to clarify the atheist position and to dispel the caricature that has been created off the back of Richard Dawkins’ defense of atheism. Here are his headline points:
- Why we are heathens – we admit that there is a human problem and that we don’t know everything.
- Heathens are naturalists – we actively believe that there is no such thing as the supernatural
- Our first commitment is to the truth
- We respect science, not scientism
- We value reason as precious but fragile
- We are convinced, not dogmatic
- We have no illusions about life as a heathen – sometimes life’s just hard
- We are secularists – we value a state that doesn’t force people to believe in anything supernatural
- Heathens can be religious
- Religion is often our friend
- We are critical of religion where necessary
- This manifesto is less concerned with distinguishing heathens from others than forging links between ourselves and others
Ok. Now here’s the thing. I don’t have a problem with this guy because of point 2; he acknowledges that active faith is required in order to be a heathn. But the manifesto I find to be fundamentally flawed.
Although the final point specifically says that this isn’t here to distinguish heathens as ‘different’ from others, that is exactly what it does. Each point is very clearly an attempt to put people into a box: if you’re religious, you belong in the ‘religion’ box, and you’re therefore different to me. But many of the points in the manifesto could very well appear in a Christian manifesto (valuing truth, respecting science, valuing reason, being convinced not dogmatic), with only one difference, which is highlighted in this quote from point 3:
Although we believe many things about what does and does not exist, these are the conclusions we come to, not the basis of our worldview.
Wrong.
Everyone has a worldview, and that informs how you interpret the evidence available to you. If I showed a heathen part of the Bible which said ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,’ he would undoubtedly say, ‘No He didn’t because I don’t believe there’s a God.’ If I said ‘look at this plant, doesn’t it demonstrate God’s creative power?’ he would probably say, ‘No, it simply shows me that the plant came to be.’
So, yes, the heathen comes to his or her conclusions but they are only based on the heathen worldview; that’s what distinguishes the heathen from anyone else.
Heathen: if you value reason, consider the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. It requires more faith to ignore it than it does to believe.
There is absolutely no independent evidence for Jesus’ resurrection and it takes a huge amount of faith to believe in it. (I fully discuss the issue here http://robertnielsen21.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/was-jesus-real/)
On a separate note, although I’m an atheist, I disagree with the idea of a manifesto. The whole point of being an atheist is that we don’t have rules we have to obey or telling us what to believe, the whole point is that we make up our own mind.
Define ‘independent evidence’. And your article, although interesting, doesn’t actually address the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, it simply says that you deny it…which is a statement of faith. Saying that you’re going to cast aside the single best preserved historical document ever means that logically you should also deny every other historical document, which would seem to be a bit overkill.
In response, would you mind reading this article and actually addressing the evidence?
By independent evidence, I mean someone who is not heavily biased in favour of praising Jesus, as his disciples were. So if the census recorded Jesus or his family or if Roman records noted that one of the people they executed was still alive or if one of the writers of the time saw/heard of Jesus’ miracles.
I don’t simply deny the story of Jesus, I point out the contradictions, such as with his genealogy, the census, the virgin birth, the fact some of his most famous deeds are only in the later gospels, etc
The evidence for the resurrection is very scanty. Each Gospel tells a radically different version. They also only give a few lines to describe such an important event. The writers were in no way unbiased and the documents were openly to manipulation (as only monks initially kept records)
Your article simply claims the Bible is reliable, therefore true. It claims it is 99.5% reliable, but where did that number come from?
Ok…so you want evidence that Jesus rose again from someone who doesn’t believe he rose again. That’ll probably be difficult, like refusing to take directions from someone who knows a town you’re visiting. Currently there is not a single piece of evidence of any sort that contradicts the Bible’s accounts of events, which were in fact (contrary to your misinformed beliefs) written by eyewitnesses; Matthew was one of the twelve and John was Jesus’ best friend, and 1 Corinthians 15 talks about a group of over 500 people who witnessed Jesus’ resurrected body at one time, ‘most of whom are still alive’.
I’d love for you to point out one of these contradictions to me please, but in doing so please bear in mind that I’ve already looked at many ‘contradictions’ and have concluded that they’re not. So come at it as if you believed and needed convincing.
I’d like you to clarify what you’d actually expect – all four Gospel authors agree on the key fact: Jesus came back to life. That’s probably the one you should be concerned about disproving. I’m not sure how they’re biased because they all came to faith that Jesus had rose from the dead independently, and in terms of manipulation the New Testament is the single best maintained historical document ever! Here’s one little example:
Caesar’s Gallic Wars is a well-respected historical document, and we have 10 different copies dating from within a thousand or so years of the original text, so we can compare them and come to a conclusion as to what Caesar actually said. The New Testament has over 25,000 different copies in three different languages dating from only a couple of hundred years after the originals were written. If some monk wanted to change the text they’d have to learn the different languages and change a whole lot of writing…that needs more blind faith than I have I can muster up I’m afraid! So that’s where the 99.5% comes from.
2. Heathens are naturalists
The above is a big leap beyond what atheism is about, since atheism only considers there are no anthropomorphic gods, and was never defined as a rejection of superstition. I am a naturalist, I have an interest in nature, but I also am an agnostic, which means I will consider that there may be the possibility of supernatural events out there.
Ok, the disciples of Joseph Smith believed he was a prophet of God, but I’m going to presume you don’t agree. Why not? Because they’re not independent. Lets say 10 of his friends say they saw him after he died, though they cant agree on the details. Would you except this as sufficient evidence and become a Mormon?
You say Corinthians claims 500 witnessed his miracles. Well if one of them recorded what they saw it could be counted as evidence. To my knowledge none have, but then maybe they felt the miracles weren’t worth recording or telling people about. Also none of the Gospels mention him appearing before 500 people
You mention the Gospels, but the thing is we don’t know who wrote them. It is accepted that they were not written by the people they are named after. So the Gospel according to Mark wasn’t written by Mark etc
The Bible is literally riddled with contradictions so I’m surprised you would make such a sweeping statement that its perfect. If we take just one incident, Jesus’ crucifixion, we can see significant differences between the Gospel accounts. The first one, Mark tells a story where Jesus is filled with despair and asks why God has forsaken him (which to me says he didn’t know he was going to be resurrected). Each new Gospel makes him braver until John has him supremely confident and in complete control of the situation. http://robertnielsen21.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/crucifixion-contradictions-or-how-did-jesus-really-die/
Yes there are many copies of the Bible in existence. This proves no more that the fact that there are many copies of the Koran in existence. The 25,000 came from a small number of few originals which could easily be changed either deliberately, by mistake or due to mistranslation. After all as you said there is a gap of several hundred years.
Everything you’ve said shows that you have as much faith in what you’re saying as I have in what I’m saying. Allow me to address your points though (for what it’s worth):
Joseph Smith claimed (1) to hear the voice of God in private and (2) to be the only person to understand what God was really saying – compare that to Jesus of Nazareth, who claimed to be God himself, performed miracles that were witnessed by many and recorded by four independent biographers (and that’s astounding in comparison to every other homeless carpenter born of a single teenage Mum in the first century), and ultimately rose again from the dead. There’s literally no comparison.
Your comment about the 500 is an absolute joke (with all due respect). If one of the 500 had written an eyewitness account would you believe? You wouldn’t, because there are eyewitness accounts (John, Matthew, Mark) and you’ve written them off.
You say it’s ‘accepted’ that the Gospels weren’t written by those they’re named after. I’m not sure quite who has ‘accepted’ that but it’s not me or any other Christians I know, so it’s probably a non-Christian…who clearly believes the Bible’s a waste of paper anyway, so their opinion isn’t really relevant, is it?
‘The Bible is literally riddled with contradictions’…yet your example of this is that four different eyewitnesses perceived the same situation happening in different ways. Again, I’ll ask you: if the four were identical in every detail would you believe? No, of course not! You’d accuse them of conspiracy!
And, yes, there could have been mistakes or intentional changes…that’s why the fact that there are so many of them is so important! If there were 10 copies, that would be an issue. But there aren’t. And they’re in at least three different languages.
So let me ask you: what would it take for you to actually believe?
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