Gapfilla God

A conversation about a moving God
 

John	So you believe in God?
Mary	Yes. Of course. Can't you see him all around, in the birds and trees. Isn't it wonderful?
John	Quite wonderful. So God is in all the natural things around, even the ground. How do I tell him apart from the natural world? Sounds like you mean God is the wonder you feel when you observe that natural world.
Mary	No, no silly. God isn't the trees and bees. He's in them but isn't them.
John	Rather confusing really. So if I keep investigating the universe by looking further and further inside, I will come to God. We haven't got there yet. So, in the mean time, how can you be certain he is there?
Mary	Of course, he's not in there in a sense that science can find. He's in there sustaining the universe, beyond the reach of science.
John	Ah, a kind of force behind everything. Still, we've found them before. Must be a matter of time before we find him. Meanwhile, how can you be certain?
Mary	No. You've missed the point. You won't find him, because he's outside the natural universe. We can't find him with science.
John	Oh, I see. An unknowable God outside what we know and can know. Makes it rather hard for you to know he's there. If he's unknowable, he might be anything, like a large bird or a fart from a monkey.
Mary	Now you're just being silly. He's not either. He's God - unknowable and beyond the universe.
John	Still, you speak so confidently. As if you do know. Rather a contradiction, don't you think?
Mary	Not at all. God has revealed himself to me.
John	How?
Mary	Well, he wrote a book called the Bible. It tells me all about God.
John	Not bad for an unknowable God. How did you know it was God writing?
Mary	Of course it was. It says so in the book.
John	But it might have been a clever person masquerading as God.
Mary	It wasn't. It is inspired writing. No person could write that.
John	How was it inspired?
Mary	Well. It talks all about where the world comes from, who were the first people and their descendants and the wars and the travels.
John	That's inspired? Sounds like most history books and myths written by people throughout the ages.
Mary	No, God wrote it. In it he claims he is God.
John	Are you sure? Don't humans claim he is God, like you are doing.
Mary	But I know its God.
John	How?
Mary	God revealed himself to me.
John	OK. What was that like?
Mary	I had a moment of great inspiration. God said to me "I am here"
John	Wow. That must have been exciting. How did you know it was God?
Mary	He spoke to me.
John	But what if it wasn't God? What if were a trick or something in your head?
Mary	Of course I wasn't. It was God.
John	What did he sound like?
Mary	He didn't sound like anything. I just knew it was him.
John	So you just recognised him?
Mary	Yes
John	So, you must have seen him before.
Mary	Yes, all around me in creation. In the birds and the trees.

Burning witches

Recently, my brother-in-law 'gleefully' posted this apparent rationale for believing in God.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-folly-of-scientism by Austin Hughes.

I was less than impressed and, in my Facebook response, a little immoderate in my language. This is my simplified reply:

Reason has no regard for categories such as scientism. It rejects anything unreasonable. Reason requires no falsifiability. It is reasonable to accept as fact that I am the father of my children, given all available evidence.

Maths does not require falsifiability, as it is propositional by nature. It does not poll real circles to arrive at a relationship of radius to circumference (Tau) - it simply proposes an ideal circle, then applies a proof to that. This is then overlaid onto the material universe and found to be profoundly useful. Is Maths wicked 'scientism' because it has explanatory power and utility?

Forensic science begins with an outcome and verifies the likelihood of a set of beginning states and events producing this outcome. Historical discovery does the same. 'Fact' in these studies is necessarily provisional and makes claims only in a limited way. I don't think we ought to load sets of people in aeroplanes and crash them in order to establish the cause of the crash. That would be unethical, without even having to ask a scientist or a sciencismist.

That sort of science IS unethical and also stupid, precisely because we already know the outcome and therefore prediction is unnecessary. But you have to be bold to tell those folk doing the investigation that they are just products of that rampant fad 'scientism'.

Ethics should not be bridled by scientific experimentation but it would be stupid to ignore its contribution. Ethics without science can simply tell me an alcoholic is a bad person. Ethics with religion can tell me an alcoholic is a bad person because he sins. Ethics with science can tell me an alcoholic has a mechanism that I share and thence I can boldly claim "there, but for the grace of god, go I" (ie. true grounds for forgiveness). Woops, guess the professor didn't want his shallow evaluation of Harris busted.

Name-calling is boring. Hughes should stick to science, which, on the evidence, he is brilliant at. He should leave reason, ethics and discourse to the rest of us, because he is bad at it. Did he not talk about the "typical scientist seemed to be a person who knew one small corner of the natural world and knew it very well, better than most other human beings living and better even than most who had ever lived. But outside of their circumscribed areas of expertise, scientists would hesitate to express an authoritative opinion." but somehow manages to critique the work of Hawking, the physicist? Mmm, that seems a little inconsistent.

Facts help as well. No falsifiability required, but 'memes' were a tiny element of Dawkins' work, mainly referring to work others had done. Meanwhile, he devoted several books and a three part series to debunking superstition via reason. Forgot to notice that part of Dawkins' work? Woops, do we see spin in the good professors critique? He's not very good at it if a quick Google search can prove otherwise (and expose his naked arse); maybe he should stick to science.

Oh, and he is oft quoted by the ID people. Where did he mention them as the peddlers of superstition that they are? I guess he couldn't bring himself to a balanced assessment of scientism. Still a good atheist bashing has the same delightful smell as a witch-burning.

Dear, dear. Rather a large member exposed when his pants are so low! Now, there's a bit of hard science that could be done, Austy. Do we really go blind with too much masturbation? How would you do that science?

The folly of (stupid) scientists.

How stupid of him to trust the plumber when he said the toilet was fixed. No, Austin. Get down and dirty and lets find out if it is fixed using hard science. Don't go believing that 'cold reading' plumber who just said something to please your superstition that the toilet worked. No, no. Don't apply reason or experience or probability or even pragmatism. Only 'hard science' will do!

Abandon logic all who enter this argument

Some reject Sam Harris's ideas because he is an atheist and they are single-minded theists. Some even consider his ideas as representative of 'pop science' (Hughes:  The Folly of Scientism, http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-folly-of-scientism).  Some simply question whether, on occasions, in pursuit of a point, Sam Harris simply abandons logic.

As Sam admits, "I own several guns and train with them regularly." Nothing is quite so compelling in holding an opinion than personal investment in one side of the argument. In what appears superficially to be a well thought and balanced response to the events of Newtown, Sam writes what turns out to be one of his most poorly argued pieces yet - but one so entirely predictable, given he lives in the US.

Just to paint a quick picture of some of the ridiculous arguments, let us look at Sam's ' self-defense arguments in aggregate. "Had an armed guard been at the school, this could have allowed for a defensive response." Although this quote is taken out of context, it does faithfully represent Sam's notion that being armed in self-defense provides an advantage if your weapon and training is greater than your opponent's.

It is a narrow and ultimately stupid argument, even if initially emotionally compelling. An average Year 5 class, given 10 minutes, could come up with arguments that would knock it out of the water.
First, the principle of "he who shoots first, wins." Regardless of Sam's investment in his own protection, quite understandable though irrational, if I hold a shot gun even at a reasonable distance and I shoot first, I have a very good chance of rendering him defenseless because he is either dead or in pain or blind.

Second, the principle of "he who has least to lose is the most dangerous". If I am a disgruntled student of a school, confronted by an armed guard who will almost certainly kill me before I can wreak havoc, my best strategy is to play on a vulnerability that all good people have - the protection of others. As I walk into the school with my concealed handgun, I target the most innocent of children and hold a gun to their head. Despite the officer's superior training, more accurate or effective weapon, if I have nothing to lose (I'm going to shoot myself in my drug addled brain anyway) and I know he will respond properly by laying down his weapon, I win.

Third, the principle of "three vs one wins".  Confronted by 3 armed intruders in a home invasion, unless Sam conveniently employs 2 other armed guards 24/7, then even if he is good enough to take out 2 before he is shot, he is still dead.

Fourth, the principle of "if you can't see me, you can't shoot me".  In a home invasion, a heat triggered siren, flashing searingly bright and blinding lights and a pack of enraged dogs trumps the best weapon because of the confusion of the intruder. Why put yourself in harms way?

To follow Sam's logic to its logical extreme, if we really want security at our home, we will of course deploy land mines around our house. After all, the concern expressed by my neighbours will only prove how un-American they are. And our children would go to school in a tank and be educated in bunkers.

But this is only one posture that Sam adopts in this debate that is premised in shabby logic. Consider the argument from "the context of other risks".  Certainly, the drama of a Newtown not only elicits specious claims from both sides, (as well as dumb blogs), claims that ignore the simple fact that we are surrounded by risks and we accept many activities more risky.

But risk is more nuanced that simple quantitative comparisons. If you want a really dumb comparison of risk numbers, compare those who die from gun massacres to those who die of old age in hospital. Clearly living beyond 70 should be avoided at all costs because of the very real risk of dying abruptly. So many more people die of old age than guns - can't we just understand the relativities? 
Risk falls into two general categories - those we choose and those we don't. We choose to travel in speed and comfort along roads where other vehicles hurtle towards us at 200km/h (relative). We choose to urinate in public toilets. These are risks that we endure for convenience and comfort sake. Broadly, we call them lifestyle.

Other risks, like home invasions and school shootings , don't have a choice component. The parents of a six year old probably doesn't send their child to school contemplating the risk of a shooting (although they might choose to live in the US, which makes this incredibly more likely). The risk of their child falling from the monkey bars, slipping on concrete or stepping under a vehicle seem like the risks that are actively embraced for the convenience of having a child at school.

Of course, risks that are chosen are usually those which are analysed, legislated upon and which simple protocols and procedures can all but remove. Teaching kids hand washing procedures minimises risk of contagious diseases, supervision on monkey bars and protocols that constrains the sizes of children who play together usually bring risks to an 'acceptable' level. Creating drop-off zones and properly structuring spaces and times for children to be in the vicinity of traffic usually stops these kinds of accidents.

Comparing (and thus confounding) risks is a fairly worthless activity because each kind of risk requires a proper assessment, not the kind of 'folksy' analysis that Sam brings to bear. We can and should examine the risk of guns pretty much in isolation if we claim any kind of care for their victims, just as we examine in great detail each aircraft crash, even though we know, without equivocation, that travelling by plane is the safest form of transport in comparative terms and way safer than extreme sports.

The only riddle I can extract from Sam's piece is his inexplicable lapse into pop logic. Why is knowledge of guns even remotely relevant to the discussion of gun control? I really do not have to be aware of a vehicle's engine size or top speed in order to form an opinion on traffic control. And even with such knowledge of guns, I may easily fall on the side of gun control. Thus, of itself, relative knowledge or ignorance of guns doesn't qualify one to enter the debate, nor negate the worth of what one might say even from the point of ignorance. This is a classic failure in Sam's reasoning  that a class in Logic might solve - Fallacy #7.

Once upon a time, when I lived out west in Queensland, Australia, I went roo shooting. Everybody went shooting. I had a high powered rifle which was lethal to a kilometre. My best shot was a monster red kangaroo at 800 metres. I could barely see it through my scope. But I was a very average shot.

The property on which I went shooting was owned by a Sri-Lankan family. The youngest member of this family could make a head shot on a moving kangaroo with a (legal) revolver with his left hand while riding a motorbike at speed. It was a wonder to behold. I guess, if you have done this a thousand times, it is habitual. No-one needs to think a highly trained autonomic nervous system is not capable of breath-taking accuracy.

I reloaded my own cartridges to make them more powerful than standard over-the-counter cartridges. The skins of the kangaroos I shot were tanned and became good mats (kangaroos skin has it all over bovine hides for leatherwork) and the meat was loaded into the fridge as almost-free dog meat for the next x months. In a time when the zeitgeist says that shooting kangaroos is unacceptable, I am a dissenter.

When I moved to the rural area in the quiet valley in which I now live, one single shot with my rifle convinced me that it was not acceptable to shoot in this valley with this weapon. I simply had no way of telling where the projectile would end up, especially in ricochet. There are simple too many houses, people, horses, dogs and cows around in the thick vegetation to make it responsible to own this weapon any more.

I traded this weapon for a pump-action shotgun. In my mind, I wanted a second go at the wild dogs that roamed the area in which I live and I didn't want to miss, regardless of the condition of the wounded animal. In fact, I wanted to make sure I didn't wound a wild dog and not be able to kill it. That seemed inhumane.

As I stood in the gun shop, the attendant beside me was dealing with a man who was boasting of a cache (he mentioned a shipping container) of semi-automatic weapons he was selling. Since that was illegal, the attendant was, predictably, nervous. This convinced me that no place on earth is immune from nut-jobs who will happily break the law in relation to guns.

Later, in the gun buy-back that should prove to the world that gun control is both possible and practical, I handed in my gun and made a tidy profit on my original purchase. The wild dogs have been poisoned and have largely disappeared, I have educated my children to run away from snakes and I still battle with goannas who steal eggs. I could, if I pleased, legally purchase a shotgun and control "vermin".  But I haven't, because, in the end, the dangers of a gun outweigh the benefits.

On the surface, my experience would seem to serve Sam's arguments. The responsible citizen and the dangerous nut-job. Gun control only limits the responsible citizen. But, of course, that is bullshit. Responsible citizens limit themselves. Laws empower police and magistrates to make the balance of power marginally in the hands of the state. No-one even pretends that a determined killer will not kill. Gun laws are not about certainty but about probability. The equations are surprisingly simple. Access to guns increases the chances of them being used.  The use of guns is more likely to cause death than other means. If it proves nothing else, Newtown shows how legally held guns can be put to horrific use through no other mechanism than access.

Regardless of the nuances of context, gun type, relative power, gun training and state of mind, the common element of school shootings in Norway, German and the US is access to guns. The common element to homicides world wide is access to guns. You don't introduce gun laws to prevent homicide, you introduce them to reduce them, considering  each life saved worth the inconvenience.

The most insidious bit of spin that the gun lobby has produced and to which Sam subscribes is that gun controls do little except restrict the freedoms of law abiding citizens. In Australia, the work of Baker and McPhedran is toted by the gun lobby as proof that the gun buy-back in Australia, where 600 000 guns were recovered from a population of about 18 million (making it possible that at least 1:30 guns in the US, or 10 000 000 weapons, could be recovered), was ineffective in changing homicide rates where guns were used.  Baker and McPhedran's work is both academic and mischievous.

They are careful to fully disclose their association with gun groups, as if that then necessarily means their arguments will be without bias. While they are happy to tout ABS figures to support their flawed conclusions, they make quite a case for these statistics being  suspect in relation to suicide. It seems they like the idea of having their cake and eating it too.

Their conclusion is superficially credible. The trend in both homicides and homicides where guns were used, derived from the graph shown on page 3 of this document, "clearly indicates" a downwards trend prior to the 1996 buy-back in gun-related homicides. This, they conclude, shows that the sharp drop after 1996 can just as easily to attributed to a general trend as to the buy-back.  They somehow manage to ignore the Victorian gun law reform of 1988; but then, don't let fact get in the way of the conclusion you wish to make.

Before I address this 'finding', let us first consider the notion of trends. Imagine you are a ship builder from early last century. As a result of better communication and detection systems, rates of collisions ships on icebergs has trended downwards for about 2 decades. As it is clear that communication and detection is the key, do you now decide that building your Titanic without separate flotation chambers is worthless?

Since a failure of detection and communication was at the core of the sinking of the Titanic, such thinking would be foolhardy. Clearly, downward trends do not provide an exhaustive reason for any decision - only careful analysis, such as that demonstrated so elegantly by the aircraft industry and its crash investigators, can really provide a substantial claim in regard to the effectiveness of measures. Additionally, legislators do not wait for the next disaster to act - even if the outcomes of their legislation don't immediately 'stack up'. This is erring on the side of caution, a strategy that does so well in keeping us safe and secure.

The major error, however, in Baker and McPhedran's work, is not in the logic of how trends should translate in legislation. It is more fundamental.  It falls within the scope of the "lies, damned lies and statistics" problem. An easier-to-read graph can be found at the AIC's http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide.html and a similar erroneous conclusion (beneath the graph), which perhaps Baker and McPhedran simply took 'as read'.

Fluctuations up and down, considering the low number of homicides anyway, are likely to appear dramatic. If you were to ask me what the rate of gun related homicides in Australia was in the first half of last century, I would say about 35%. The number of peaks above is roughly equally to the troughs. The period from 1930 - 1950 roughly matches the period 1975 - 1995. Both have a high followed by a low, with fluctuations . The first period is followed by 10 years of relatively high and the second, if we extend it to 2010, a sustained period of low; in fact, a continued downward trend to 13% in 2010. After a century of 35%, how do we make a 23% difference virtually permanent? Why does the trend continue downwards and not rebound to its 'normal' level of 35%?

Only two factors feature in homicide that can possibly be relevant to this trend - preference of weapon and access to a weapon. Don't be distracted by the total number of homicides, as this is a proportional figure.  No doubt, the total number of homicides  would be susceptible to community attitudes or policing methods. But these attitudes can't explain the change in the proportion of gun homicides.

Are we really meant to believe that murderers for the last century have chosen guns and that only now a small percentage choose guns? That's right, 'choose'.  Implicit in the notion of this being a trend downwards, that  was already in place and therefore a continuation of this trend is not significant, is the necessary notion that murderers have changed preferences. Or is the other factor - access - more likely to provide an explanation of the change.

Baker and McPhedran would have us believe that social attitudes towards guns have changed and this could account for lower rates. Apart from affirming that legislation may well work by changing social opinions, can we consider that as the agent of a permanent 23% change? Frame this in your imagination for a moment. "Murderers don't use guns to murder anymore because its not socially acceptable. " I intend to kill you, but I'm squeamish about shooting you? Credibility is strained somewhat.

Prior to Victoria's 1988 legislation, gun ownership was relatively unrestricted and access fairly loosely controlled. Since the 1988 legislation, the tightening of access to weapons progressively across Australia has made access difficult. This translates directly into lower gun homicide rates. No reasonable person would conclude otherwise.

Sam Harris's personal feeling shape his rhetoric.

"But when I contemplate atrocities of this kind, I do not think of "gun control"-because it seems extraordinarily unlikely that a deranged and/or evil person will ever find it difficult to acquire a firearm in the United States. Rather, I think of how differently the situation might have evolved if the school had had an armed (and, I have to emphasize, well-trained) security guard on campus. I also think of how differently things might have gone if the shooter, who seems to have shown signs of mental illness for years, had been more intrusively engaged by society prior to the attack."

This is not an unrealistic response; just irrational.  Conceiving big events as incredible doesn't make them incredible - the USSR disarmed unilaterally. False hopes of a saviour in the form of a guard don't wash when it comes to public policy decisions. Intervention in mental illnesses, although having come a long way to managing these illnesses, doesn't actually work unless you lock these people in jail for the term of their natural life. Kneejerk reactions don't make good arguments.

I have faced an 'atrocity' of far less consequence than Newtown but one in which the same principles applies.  Two young workers on a building site at the school that my children attend began calling out sexual innuendo and, according to some students, exposed themselves to some of the girls. Whatever the facts of the event in regard to sexual assault, these two youths found two key weaknesses in the security and supervisory structures of the school. First, they were legitimately on the campus and second, they waited until supervising teachers were out of sight to act. I know that, because I was the teacher on duty.

In the end, no amount of 'guarding' can keep our children safe. Those who set out to harm will probably manage it.  Harm reduction, by procedures, protocols and vigilance are our primary tools. Changing the ability of the harmer to harm is the a parameter along which we can surely achieve some measure of success. Glass-free zones takes a weapon out of the hands of crazed football fan, but football fans can still wreak havoc. Removing alcohol from a driver reduces harm but doesn't prevent accidents. Taking a gun from a lunatic makes harm less likely but won't provide certainty.

The arms race was never won, but it was pursued with a vigour that is unquestionable. The doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction arguably kept us safe during the Cold War. You can probably depend on someone who is better armed to have something over someone who is armed with something less powerful but matching someone else's arms gives you some persuasive power.
In the world of crime, the mentality of ever increasingly powerful weapons comes into play. If you are going to commit a crime, knowing that you have a bigger weapon than the victim is important.

Most criminals don't go armed with intent to be killed first. The argument put forward by the gun lobby that criminals will simply choose the least protected sites cuts both way. If everywhere is equally protected by ever vigilant guards, the criminal must choose a weapon of greater accuracy, reload or ability to be concealed. The long term outcome is more weapons and more danger. War zones prove this daily.

The saddest element of Sam's piece is his lapse into simple name-calling and ad hominem.

" The liberal commentariat seems to have no awareness of what "well-trained" signifies. It happens to include an understanding of what to do and what not to do when the danger of shooting innocent bystanders exists. The fact that bystanders do occasionally get shot, even by police officers, does not prove that putting guns in the hands of good people would be a bad idea. Gun-control advocates seem always to imagine the worst possible scenario: legions of untrained, delusional vigilantes producing their weapons at a pin drop and firing indiscriminately into a crowd."

In the end, even if liberals happen to say stupid things or religiously follow a doctrine in a thoughtless way, the rules of logic tell us this does not negate their propositions. The irony of Sam's name calling is that the most conservative prime minister in Australia's recent history introduced gun law reform. Your political views are a poor measure of your opinion on gun control and an even poorer measure of how well-formed the arguments will be. The NRAs gob-smackingly stupid argument regarding placing guards at schools and transforming schools into warzones can be assessed as dumb for all these reason I outlined throughout this blog. The NRA alignment with Republicans is largely superfluous and introducing this political angle is about creating spin, not argument.

I have already written a piece on the historical reasons for the high gun ownership in the US and the peculiar (in the sense of being unique, not stupid) mentality of self-defense in the US. I am not unsympathetic to a cultural position derived from three centuries of tradition. Changing this tradition is not something that is likely to occur in my lifetime.  But even minor changes are unlikely while smart people like Sam Harris relinquish logic to private investment in the arguments over gun control.

When you have nothing else, go for the straw man

John Dickson might just be proof that, even if you have a blog on the ABC, you can still be a twat. His latest Christmas special, A fight they can't win: The irreligious assault on the historicity of Jesus, which is already too verbose just in its title alone, manages to compose an elaborate straw man which is fastidiously dismantled. Too bad its totally irrelevant to the irreligious or the religious.

Talking about the 'historicity' of Jesus to the religious is a perfect waste of time. No matter who Jesus was as a Jew from Nazaret, he has been progressively buried in layers of doctrinal sediment. Each new Biblical scholar 'discovers' Jesus 'anew', with all the awe of a kiddy opening presents from under a Christmas tree. A new revelation is entirely par for the course - it certainly guarantees a following amongst the gullible.

Talking to the irreligious about Jesus is likewise futile. Since Jesus is quite likely to have been the unremarkable son of a craftsman who 'fell into' fame, as many second rate performers do and certainly not a god, prophet or miracle worker, this line of conversation will probably elicit "Uh-huh".

Where Dickson shows his capacity for spin is in his denigration of Dawkins. If in doubt, a glorious ad hominem may cover the singular lack of argument. Supposedly, "Richard Dawkins says 'a serious historical case' can be made that 'Jesus never lived at all,'" and from this "no doubt receives applause from his followers". Of course, few of Dawkins followers are so woefully ignorant of his words as Dickson. In fact, on page 122, Dawkins does say

"IT IS EVEN POSSIBLE to mount a serious, THOUGH NOT WIDELY SUPPORTED, historical case that Jesus never lived at all, as has been done by, among others Professor G. A. Wells of the University of London in a number of books, including Did Jesus Exist? Although Jesus PROBABLY existed." (My capitalisation, for the selectively blind)

What is even more pathetic is that Dickson cherry picks this book as many Christian commentators are want to do to the Bible. If lacking an argument of substance, simply ignore the thesis of the book in preference to a selective quote that can be easily refuted (if you even quote it accurately).

The substance of the God Delusion is that belief in God is delusional - that is, it demonstrates the same characteristics as a belief as any other beliefs considered to be delusional beliefs. Dickson probably laughs at spiritualism; a seance is a magic trick. Yet up until Houdini comprehensively exposed spiritualism it was accepted as within the realms of possibility by many of the educated and scholarly. These days we might section someone who consistently insisted on the delusional belief that granny was following him around.

Some of Dawkins arguments are weak on evidence or generalise religion when a more specific analysis is necessary. However, Dawkins has shifted his posture in this regard, as is evidenced in his 'concillitory tone' in

Sex, Death And The Meaning Of Life

Dawkins has moved on, but Dickson prefers the 'straw man' of the person he presumed Dawkins once was.

But, even as an historian, Dickson manages an epic fail. Few people in history have had quite as much opinion and pure speculation written about them as Jesus. Jesus has been both an agent of a vengeful God and the Prince of Peace. He has been both a social radical and affirmation of a long tradition of law. He has been both the humble human and the miracle working superman. If you seriously think you are going to do novel or significant historical work, forget Jesus.

If amongst the 'noise' of 2 millenia of propaganda you can still get any sense of an historical person with some authenticity, then you are either a liar or magician. But the historicity of Jesus is entirely a red herring. Literary criticism is much more useful inn trying to understand Jesus than the historical process of confirming secondary sources with primary sources.

All claims about Jesus and all Jesus' claims can only be seen through a lens of interpretation. In regard to Jesus' claims about himself, letting a character in literature make a case for their own existence or character is absurd. Nobody expects to verify that Julius Caesar was a historical figure by reading in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar that he makes claims to be Julius Caesar. Such claims must be externally verified. Thus, as historians, we cannot accept Jesus' claims about himself, under any circumstances.

We can, however, construct a profile premised in his words and actions as they are recorded. All literature that speaks about an historical figure positions the audience to believe a particular set of precepts. This is a fundamental aspect of all literature. Thus, even if we have witnesses to Jesus' life, we must take into consideration that they will have an agenda in speaking about Jesus.

There is little virtue in even addressing Cathcart's stumble or Nobbs and Judge's correction or an inflated sense of the importance of your own tweets, nor the religious affiliation of an historical author, as Dickson does.  They might help you sound 'terribly scholarly' but add precisely nothing to the real debate - which version of Jesus can actually be authenticated? To this debate Dickson adds precisely nothing. This is because he has precisely nothing to say.

There is even less virtue in lame anecdotes about boxers. For Christ's sake, Dickson, can't you even make it slightly funny!

Why Eugenie is talking good sense

This is a reply to the blog: Eugenie Scott says there’s No Contrary Evidence about Evolution and Global Warming at http://www.c4id.org.uk/scott

Greetings Mr Noble. Yours was a polite and clearly written response to Eugenie's talk. However, it lacks in a few signfiicant ways. Before I reply, in the interests of full disclosure, I will confess I am an atheist, although I prefer to call my self an a-God-ist, as I am likewise an a-LochNessMonster-ist. That is, I find no particular reason to believe anything without evidence or a good reason.

First, a little defence of some of the labels Eugenie uses. While 'creationism' is often used as a derogative, I believe Eugenie's use is much more precise. The notion of an external agency to the universe that can interact with the universe is most frequently found in religion. Spiritualism does not necessarily require an external agency, so this can't be considered to be the source of this concept.

In religion, external agency is found in creation myths. Usually the agent has unnatural powers and is able to operate independent of time. Thus, a label of this external agency as creationist is very accurate. The connotation of young earth creationism with the crass right-wing evangelicalism is unfortunate and not of Eugenie's making; and history shows a clear lineage of ID from this position.

However, if we accept your proposition that ID does not suggest religious belief, then it behoves ID to declare the belief premise for its position. For example, the belief premise may be revelation. ID proponents may believe that they have recieved a special message from God. On the other hand, this revelation may simply be a hightened awareness of the natural world - a kind of 'uh-ha' moment.

Each of these has significant challenges. Special revelation has no verification mechanism, by definition. Thus, this is not belief, but belief that belief need not be verified in order to be pronounced truth. Now, such a belief system is simply incompatible with science. Science begins with the proposition that ALL belief is able to be challenged, albeit by proper means.

Challenges that are simply taking a contrary position do not constitute a challenge; a counter-thesis is not an argument nor evidence for a counter-thesis. Unfortunately, ID has frequently suggested that all counter-theses must be considered, including amongst them ID. On this ground, any suggestion (such as The Matrix - all reality is an illusory product of a super-intelligence) must be conteplated and methodically eliminated.

Since resources for winnowing the infinite number of counter-theses are few, science uses common sense to begin investigation; usually experience. This is not fool-proof but is effective. All that aside, special revelation must eliminated (from a scientific point of view) because it is contrary to science doctrine.

Which only leaves revelation through the natural world. Here, ID faces an irresolveable conundrum. If an agency external to the universe is observable via natural means, on what grounds can we claim it to be external? It must, by definition, be natural - thus, accessible to scientific investigation. If it is not observable, then its existence is entirely speculative, and we return to the point of winnowing an infinite number of guesses at why the universe exists.

Analogies are drawn in an attempt to winnow the possible theses. Human design is used to suggest extra-universal design. But why should a process observed on earth necessarily apply anywhere else, especially external to the universe? Unfortunately, the analogy pre-supposes natural processes occurring outside of nature, an impossible proposition logically.

But suppose, for open-mindedness sake, we were to test the thesis of ID - an external agency made the universe. How do you begin to test that? All tests require natural constraints, so all test results would be suspect. Thus, testing this proposition is impossible. What ID proponents rely on, then, is a fallacy of argumentation - namely, failure to disprove does not offer proof. I cannot disprove that you are an alien, therefore I must entertain the proposition that you are an alien?

The final 'bastion' for ID is 'signs of design' (that is - no test will be successful, but we can see signs, like we see footprints). This proposition suffers from a fallacy of argumentation - that of circularity. To be able to identify these signs, one must first know what to look for. Knowing what to look logically means prior knowledge  of God without the assistance of the signs. Hence, the original knowledge of God comes from another source. If that source is the signs themselves, then the argument is circular. If the source is something like a script or witness of another person, it faces the problem of revelation (described above).

The simple issue is this. Put up or shut up. If there is natural evidence to challenge elements of evolution, let us see them and use them to modify our understanding of evolution. Since not other explanations have credibility at any level, entertaining them comes only from one motivation - to keep our religious friends happy.

The terrible price of sovereignty

Sovereignty is generally understood as a country's right to determine its future and control its affairs. Defending sovereignty is a reoccurring theme of history, not just because 'sovereigns' wanted to maintain power, but because people in general like to feel they have some measure of control over their own destinies, even if that is only in checking the power of their own king, emperor or leader.

Its not general knowledge that, during the Civil War, Union General  Ulysses Grant was a prominent slave owner or that Lee, that wily general who led the 'Southern' forces to so many victories, fought for Virginia, not the CSA  (The Confederate States of America) or for maintenance of slavery, but for the state of Virginia. Mechanisation was already looming in the cotton fields and slavery may have ended quite naturally once the industrial North bought out the South.

Not many of us are aware that The American Civil War was fought over sovereignty, not slavery. It was Lincoln's resolution to keep the Union together that drove the conflict, not a difference in opinion on or his sympathy for the plight of the black population.  Although the more famous of his speeches address emancipation, his real political imperative was holding the Union together for security and economic purposes. Slavery simply provided moral high ground to convince those who wavered.

 

Virginia, once a proud colony of her majesty, after whom she was named, was foremost in adopting the notion of the United States as a bond to overthrow the British control of Virginia and as a bulwark against the looming Spanish colonies.  No-one in Virginia considered themselves a 'citizen of United States'.  Men fought for their state and military units were named by state. The establishment of West Point was about trying to integrate armies before it was about producing elite officers. The 'United States' was a pragmatic arrangement to protect state sovereignty from Great Britain.

 

This sense of state sovereignty continued into the lead up to the Civil War. Jefferson Davis asserted state sovereignty, in a speech to the Senate, as moral grounds for secession. This was no "southern" phenomena - Davis refers to the tension of many states in resolving state rights and sovereignty and the bond with other states  of a United States. For Davis, the control of slaves, not their ownership per se, was the stick that broke the secessionist back. Slaves were 'bleeding' into the North where they became an underclass of labour for Northern states (often living in worse conditions), making the South less attractive to investment. Retrieving these slaves was vital and Federal law stood in its way.

"I then said, if Massachusetts, following her through a stated line of conduct (he is referring to the nullification of a federal law on slavery), chooses to take the last step which separates her from the Union, it is her right to go, and I will neither vote one dollar nor one man to coerce her back, but will say to her, Godspeed, in memory of the kind associations which once existed between her and the other states." (A Final Adieu, Jefferson Davis, January 21, 1861)

Secession to protect state rights was a very 'American' political posture. Texas was an independent country for a fleeting moment. In a decade, it was part of four countries. States maintained militia for the express purpose of preventing the will of the Federals being forced onto a state. Fundamental to maintaining this militia was the notion of being 'ready' by allowing every citizen to own and carry a gun. (Such was the level of ownership of guns that many species became extinct through over hunting. The Eternal Frontier, Tim Flannery)

In the American psyche, the ownership of guns equates with independence and control of one's affairs, not with criminality or war. Thus, high levels of ownership are generally tolerated by most. Of course, the litany of shootings in recent years has exposed this tolerance to another imperative - the need to protect your children. This is the list for the last 6 months of 2012.

1. Newtown, CT, December 14, 2012, 20 children, 6 adults, 1 gunman
2. Chicago, IL, October 21, 2012, Two men, ages 28 and 30, were killed. A 25-year-old pregnant woman was wounded. 1 gunman
3. Brookfield, WI, October 21, 2012, Radcliffe Haughton shot and killed his estranged wife Zina Haughton and two other women and himself. 1 gunman
4. Casselberry, FL, October 18, 2012 Three women were killed and one was wounded. Gunman Bradford Baumet, who later killed himself at another location.
5. Winter Springs, FL, September 30, 2012, Multiple shooters killed two and wounded one.
6. Minneapolis, MN, September 27, 2012, Andrew Engeldinger opened fire, killing five and wounding four before killing himself.
7. Compton, CA, September 10, 2012, A still-unidentified shooter opened fire killing one and injuring two others. Gang-related.
8. Old Bridge, NJ, August 31, 2012, 23-year-old Terence Tyler shot and killed two coworkers at a Pathmark grocery store.
9. Chicago, IL, August 24, 2012, Eight people ranging in age from 14 to 20 years. Unrelated shootings bring the weekend total of August 24 to 19 people.
10. Laplace, LA, August 16, 2012, Two police deputies were killed and two were wounded in a shootout in a suburb of New Orleans
11. August 13, 2012, A 30-minute shootout near the Texas A&M University campus resulted in the deaths of a police constable, a bystander, the shooter, and the injury of four others.
12. Oak Creek, WI, August 5, 2012, Seven people were killed, including the gunman and three injured at a Sikh temple in a Milwaukee suburb.
13. Aurora, CO, July 20, 2012, Twelve people were killed and 58 were injured in Aurora, Colorado during a sold-out midnight premier of the new Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises" when 24-year-old James Holme unloaded four weapons' full of ammunition into the unsuspecting crowd.
14. Tuscaloosa, AL, July 17, 2012, Nathan Van Wilkins stood outside of a crowded downtown bar and opened fire from two different positions early Tuesday, sending patrons running or crawling for cover. At least 17 people were hurt.
15. Chicago, IL, July 11, 2012, Four youngsters are among the latest victims caught in Chicago’s gun violence epidemic, including two middle school-aged girls.
16. Dover, DE, July 9, 2012 At a weekend soccer tournament in Delaware three people died and two were wounded.
17. Chicago, IL, July 6, 2012 Three people were shot, a 19-year-old man was shot in the calf, a 34-year-old man was shot in the back and a 24-year-old man was shot in the thigh.

(Brady Campaign)

To remove guns from the US, the whole orientation of people across the country would have to shift in a way that would be as profound a change as a majority of Australians deciding to arm themselves to fight against the government. It overturns 3 centuries of cultural narrative.

There is no doubt that many Americans would love to see gun control. They don't buy the line of the gun lobby that people not guns kill. But they have such a historical barrier to overcome that it may never happen.

Fantasy, Myth, Religion and Spin

I was fascinated to watch as the world's leading and probably most wealthy fantasy writer, Jo (JK) Rowling investigated her family heritage in the documentary series "Who do you think you are?" What separated JK Rowling from others I have watched is the juxtaposition of three traditions - the making of fantasy (I use that word 'making' deliberately, rather than 'creation', to indicate a kind of 'making' akin to 'making a sandwich'), the evolution of myth and the forensic investigation of myth.

First, I disclose that I despise Harry Potter and I have not been able to stomach more than a couple of pages of reading Harry Potter and the movies are only as interesting as the special effects. I find the characterisation thin, the plot formulaic and the settings overly romantic (in a kind of English way also found in those other famous fantasy writers, Lewis and Tolkein).

Don't get me wrong or cast me too thinly. If Harry Potter had emerged from somewhere 30 years early when I was a child, I would have gobbled it up, as I did the Narnia series and the Lord of the Rings tome. To live in a fantasy world is blessed; a childish indulgence that switches time off and takes you away from the pressing concerns of the world. We must, I fear, have fantasy to keep us sane. It is the refuge that we can no longer find in many quarters.

A fantasy character must not be too real. They must not be sordid. No addiction, no homelessness, no hopelessness. How delightfully ironic is it that Kirsten Stewart, star of Twilight, was recently sacked from a film because her 'real' life (or the life that the media spun) become too 'sordid' because she (gasp!) become someone's mistress? Heavens! How could wowser Stephanie Meyer ever approve of a character that, well, was sexually flawed?

No, authors that nuance characters to resemble real life just don't sell. They just aren't fulfilling our lust for escapist serenity; of our timeless moment with a two-dimensional world. And here I disclose again, in the interests of fairness. I spend far too much time in a two-dimensional world of Age of Empires.

But, back to someone genuinely interesting - JK Rowling. According to the documentary, she inherited a family myth of a war hero amongst her ancestors, a young man who came to England in the 19th century and made his way in world of hospitality, working his way through the ranks at the Savoy Hotel. Later, in the war, he performs acts of bravery for which he is awarded France's equivalent of the Victoria Cross.

The story of her ancestry twists and turns, but her attention is caught by a young girl from Alsace who loses her father at a young age and struggles in poverty in a large family to make her way in the world, eventually falling pregnant while working as a maid (as many maids did, too often to their masters). The characters are large, alive and compelling. At times, despite editing, JK Rowling is visibly overwhelmed and at other times exuberant. These people provide a satisfaction incomparable to Harry Potter.

Even more compelling, however, is Rowling's journey through myth. In crude terms, all myth is the embellishment of the truth of events with details that make the narrative flow, thus making it accessible and transferable. We add fantasy to experience. But myth does not suffer the 2-dimensionality of fantasy. Myth must have concrete referents, objective evidence that can be verified. No-one inherits a family myth about ancestors who lived on the moon, nor one where Texas has ceded from the US, despite both of these being credible elements of fantasy.

Rowling is surprisingly relentless and forensic in uncovering that the Louis that she has down as a war hero is actually, incredibly, a man of the same name but a different person to her forefather. This 'imposter' to her myth is certainly a war hero, but certificates prove conclusively he is not related to Rowling. Laughably, the 'war medal' that the family has carefully harboured turns out to a badge that identifies his membership of a trade union. You can see that this revelation has a kind of crushing effect on Rowling. Her spontaneous reaction (laughing) is then matched by a resolve to pursue the family myth deeper; to validate her family's memories.

Myth does this. When we discover that a cherished element of myth is quite plainly 'bullshit', our reaction is not to set it aside and move on. It gets under our skin. We are determined to separate truth and fantasy for the sake of our identity. It drives us to scientific endeavour - to uncovering, systematically, those primary historical sources which either add to or deny the narrative we have inherited.

In an unimaginable coincidence (one no novelist could conceive), Rowling's Louis, after being raised first as the illegitimate son of that maid, and leaving the family to find his way in England, living for years in England and raising a family from which he is alienated by sad circumstances, but returning in his thirties to serve in the French army in WWI, turns out to be a reluctant hero when the war came unexpectedly to a part of France defended only by 'old men', poorly trained and reserved to defend bridges. Rowling's delight at finding that her Louis is, in fact, a hero of greater standing than the 'imposter', is palpable. The family myth is validated beyond expectations.

But some curious elements of Rowling's investigation of her family myth are just as telling as this evidentiary support for the myth. Rowling is determined not to be German. Rowling is clearly fluent in French, reading it and translating from historical documents with surprising ease and fluency. Her blunt reaction when encountering an offcial document written in German is, "Oh. What's this language!", betraying a deep animosity towards anything German.

Despite the maid's surname being Schuch, there being a real possibility that she spoke German and the national identity of people of Alsace being somewhat blurry, Rowling seeks to 'ethnically cleanse' her heritage of Germans. Shades of "don't mention the war". A Prussian army marching through the village of Schuch's youth is considered sinister. Fantasy, it seems, continues to be layered upon that forensic evidence to bolster a sense of deep seated tribalism.

I confess to be entirely taken with Rowling. She is intelligent, engaging and not at all arrogant, despite her fabulous success. Her polished English accent occasionally lapses and we hear some the accent of her youth, especially in her emotional reactions. Most certainly, she is English, through and through, yet identifies so determinedly as French.

Myth can never really be 'untangled' nor properly analysed to determine what might be claimed as historical and what as gratuitous embellishment. Rowling's quest was never really going to myth-busting. Instead, the already rich mythology of the family narrative was further enriched and expanded and new, more provocative and endearing characters were added.

As humans have journeyed through space as a curious species on a lonely island in our galaxy, the trillions of narratives have been woven into the fabric of myth. No surprise, then, that religion, with its formidable arsenal of cultural mechanisms, was able to distil myth into a coherent world view by which humans could contextualise their personal narrative. As surely as the Internet and social media, this curious social animal was going to create the myth of 'the universe and everything' and this myth was going to be carried along through generations of telling and further creative embellishment.

Of course, embellishment had to serve tribal prejudice. It was not sensible to add aliens from the cosmos who came to earth to erect communication beacons. Embellishment must reinforce that others are 'baddies' and we are good. Embellishment must establish our eating practices as clean and others as dirty. Religion as systematic mythology settled into codes of conduct and became a handy mechanism for opportunistic despots to rule. In Constantine's quest to become the one emperor, the pervasive theology of One God was fortunate 'grist'.

But to dismiss myth as a kind of plague on culture or historical memory is to neglect the baby kicking and screaming in the bath water. Myth, and its aggregating mechanism, religion, creates in us a  most compelling drive for verification. As Montgomery discovered in debunking creationism in The Rocks Don't Lie, the very engagement with myth drives humans to search for objective verification. We are never properly satisfied with myth without some 'hard evidence'. Rowling's quest is an entirely human quest.

Of course, such engagement leads inevitably to scientific method as the means of verification. Science grows directly from myth. Ptolemy's precursor to the heliocentric model of the solar system, buried so comprehensively by Christendom, is most certainly resurrected by someone driven to claim an objective truth behind the story they have inherited, whether it be about stars or conquerors. As surely as myth breeds fantastic embellishment, so myth drives our deep seated desire to 'know the truth'; a truth, that Colonel Jessop reminds us in A Few Good Men, we are deeply uncomfortable with.

In the twilight years of the tradition of myth-making, people today are clinging to religion to quench their thirst for that narrative. Unfortunately, most religions carry huge embarrassing baggage of codified savagery and cruelty and breath-taking bigotry. Despite the sanitising of this baggage (keep "Thous shalt not kill" but omit "God hates fags"), it is increasingly an unwanted side-effect of maintaining a yearning for myth. In nail-clinging desperation, religions are spinning these myths into a myriad of directions.

Thus, we witness the rise and rise of clumsy paradigms driven by spin. Science and religion, cultural cohabitants, are driven into conflict by increasingly shrill voices. You must choose a side. Either you are for the war in Iraq or against. You cannot complicate nor nuance your position. The army of the Lord or the army of the secular horde. Choose now, pilgrim!

Ironically, notable atheists like Sam Harris have enlisted on the side of rank tribalism. Islam is a religion of violence, unmistakably. We should, he posits, profile people for security checks, premised on their religion. Of course, the logical extension is that every Islamic person is suspect and we have good reason, as sensible Americans, to maintain a vigilance that could well justify vigilantism and perhaps even the horror of 84 shot dead on Utoya Island.

The spin that virally infects the WWW is that the average Islamic person actually subscribes to violent jihad. Simply ignore the hundreds of millions of Muslims who daily go about their life with not much more malice than one might reserve for a mother-in-law. Spin, unlike myth, cannot afford to admit either objective investigation nor doubt about the narrative. You are either with us, or against us. You either believe or you don't. It has no positive off-shoot in driving people to science, as myth has so long provided. It plays only on the guilt of betraying one's tribe; it throws the 'traitor' starkly into relief.

We may be in awe of Julia Gillard's recent Canute-like stance against the sea of spin, but, in the end, this bravery may go unrewarded. Rowling's Louis may have stood against an overwhelming enemy and triumphed, despite personal injury, but Julia has no hope. The very viral nature of social media and the WWW has put myth, science and religion firmly into their death-throes. We may be the last of the human myth makers. We may be the last real humans.