Saturday, October 8, 2011

The Bible for Skeptics

Many unbelievers think that the Bible is universally opposed to the use of evidence when it comes to religious matters. However, there are a few exceptions. Below I'll summarize three instances where biblical passages actually allow or even endorse the use of skepticism and empirical support.

In 1 Kings 18, Elijah conducts an experiment to determine whether Yahweh or Baal is the true God:
"And Elijah came to all the people, and said, 'How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him. ...Therefore let them give us two bulls; and let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it; and I will prepare the other bull, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it. Then you call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God who answers by fire, He is God.' " (1 Kings 18:20-24)
When nothing happens to Baal's altar, Elijah mocks Baal for his inaction. Then Yahweh sends down fire from heaven to consume the offering to affirm his status as supreme being. Finally, Baal's followers are captured and executed. I just love happy endings, don't you?

Then there are the tests that Gideon conducts to ensure that God will fight for them in Judges 6–7:
"So Gideon said to God, 'If You will save Israel by my hand as You have said— look, I shall put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; if there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that You will save Israel by my hand, as You have said.' And it was so. When he rose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece together, he wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowlful of water. Then Gideon said to God, 'Do not be angry with me, but let me speak just once more: Let me test, I pray, just once more with the fleece; let it now be dry only on the fleece, but on all the ground let there be dew.' And God did so that night." (Judges 6:36-40)
I have to admire Gideon's diligence here. One test isn't enough to convince him that God is on his side; he requires two. The evidence is weak by modern standards, but in that superstition-addled culture this would have been a rare moment of clarity. Gideon goes on to defeat the Midianites and execute its two princes. (I'm beginning to sense a pattern with the endings of these Old Testament stories.)

Finally we have the standard for prophecy that God offers in Deuteronomy 18. How do we determine who is a real prophet and who is a fraud?:
"But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, 'How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?'— when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him." (Deuteronomy 18:20-22)
The standard that God gives via Moses is simple and 100% evidence-based. If the prophecy doesn't come true, the prophet is not of God—no exceptions. The false prophet must then be executed. (That's three for three!)

So what have we learned here? The message of these passages is pretty clear, though it may not be one that the writers originally intended: when it comes to god-related claims, what really matters is the evidence. If you call on your god to do something and nothing happens, that god is a false one worthy only of mockery. If you think your god wants you to do something, ask him to communicate in a substantive, verifiable way to confirm it. And if someone claims to be a divine prophet, they had better have a perfect track record of successful predictions to show for it.

How, then, could anyone fault atheists for their unbelief? If we test God and his representatives and they fail to measure up, our response is exactly the one that the Bible itself endorses—well, minus the capital punishment. It's perfectly acceptable to ask for an impressive, objective, physical demonstration of God's power. It's perfectly reasonable not to put stock in the prophets of the Bible when their prophecies fail. And it's perfectly fine to disbelieve in God (and based on Elijah's response, even mock him) since he makes no demonstrable impact on the world.

Now, one can also point to countless instances where the Bible takes exactly the opposite view: that faith without evidence is a virtue, and skepticism toward extraordinary claims is a vice. One verse decrees that we should completely trust God over our own understanding. Another even specifically says not to test God. It's not surprising that one can find both stances; all this demonstrates is that the Bible is not a particularly consistent or unified book. What I've shown here is that the Bible does endorse a skeptical viewpoint in a few isolated cases—and that's enough to show that God fails to meet his own standard of evidence.

6 comments:

  1. From another skeptic, I honestly have to say this argument comes off as very surface level. I think it is unwise to criticize anything without digging into the context. It's easy to make someone sound like they said something using proof-texts...politicians do this all the time to each other and fox news is pretty horrible about it too. Christians even do it to themselves a lot....Prosperity preachers etc...I mean no harm, or ill will, just urging you to keep following that honesty that has gotten you this far....

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  2. Anon,

    These passages are encouraging skepticism toward extraordinary claims—whether the writers realized it or not. Obviously, that's not the message of the Bible as a whole, but I think that skepticism and experimentation are such massively useful tools that even the superstitious and credulous occasionally gravitate toward them. That's what we're seeing here.

    Simply crying "context" isn't really productive. I don't think the context particularly changes the meaning of the passages I've cited. If you do, then please explain how.

    That said, the blog post has been edited slightly to make it more clear that I think promoting skepticism may have been an unintentional by-product rather than an intended goal of the writers. Thank you for the criticism.

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  3. Hi I'm K

    I think you are correct that these passages encourage human desire for evidence. I think context would be useful in the following sentences.

    Finally, Baal's followers are captured and executed. I just love happy endings, don't you?

    (I'm beginning to sense a pattern with the endings of these Old Testament stories.)

    The first two sentences there seems to be some frustration with killing of baal prophets and the opposing army, but weren't Gideon and Elijah previously in hiding because their lives/crops were threatened. I didn't read about the Baal prophets pleading to stop Ahab from murdering the israeli prophets, or the midianites handing out pacifistic literature...these are complicated situations...

    I think this last paragraph opens up a big can of worms that is poorly argued for, it is more propaganda than empirical. When did God say not to test...wasn't it like at Massah? what happened that God wouldn't want to be tested? wasn't that after a sea was parted, plagues performed, a people freed from an oppressive nation? I don't think they lacked empirical data. Jesus quoted this too, after he had seen the heavens open and God spoke...no lack of empirical data there either. If you read Proverbs 3 the context seems to be in a moral sense and is juxtaposed against the wicked way of doing things, like stealing and robbing people. God wants to be feared but the beginning of that is to cry out for understanding and insight. This sounds rational. Hebrews 11 addresses current believers to persevere what they already believe in...read Hebrews 10. These are some of the reasons I think context is important...


    Now, one can also point to countless instances where the Bible takes exactly the opposite view: that faith without evidence is a virtue, and skepticism toward extraordinary claims is a vice. One verse decrees that we should completely trust God over our own understanding. Another even specifically says not to test God. It's not surprising that one can find both stances; all this demonstrates is that the Bible is not a particularly consistent or unified book. What I've shown here is that the Bible does endorse a skeptical viewpoint in a few isolated cases—and that's enough to show that God fails to meet his own standard of evidence.


    I hope this comes off as respectful, I think context is very important in reading. I encourage you to doubt well... K

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  4. Hi K,

    Regarding my comments on execution: C'mon, don't you recognize snark when you see it? Lighten up a little. ;)

    It's not necessarily about whether every person killed in OT stories is a poor defenseless Dickensian orphan (although plenty do fit that mold). The point is that the OT god seems to solve just about every problem he encounters with violence, violence and more violence. He's just so unbelievably petty and saturated with inexplicably human emotions and tendencies. Remember, he's supposedly a being with infinite power. He could simply exile these rival nations to another dimension if he wanted to. But no, for some reason he prefers to act exactly as we might expect a god invented by a barbaric and primitive Iron Age tribe to act. I wonder why.

    (Hint: That was snark, again.)

    As for the Bible's discouragement of skepticism, I didn't spend much time on it both because I thought it would be fairly uncontroversial and because I plan to examine that issue separately in the future. If you really need more evidence than I gave you, see Richard Carrier's writings on the subject here and here—and that's for the New Testament alone.

    Now, about my two examples. The original verse was "You shall not tempt [i.e. test] the LORD your God as you tempted Him in Massah." I'm reading this as, "You tested God at Massah. Don't do that again." Any claim that this is saying God doesn't want to be tested unnecessarily is pure speculation on your part. And if that really is what God means, then sorry, but I've gotta ask: why doesn't he just come out and say that? Why does he suck so hard at communicating? This is something that apologists consistently fail to answer.

    Now for Proverbs 3. There's some talk about morals, yes, but there are also references to God's commands (v. 1), truth (v. 3), understanding (v. 5) and wisdom (v. 7). Heck, verses 13–24 are basically a love letter to wisdom and understanding. So when verse 6 says "in all your ways acknowledge him", there's no reason to suppose that it means anything other than "all."

    But let's say you're right, and verses 5–6 are just about morals. This is in no way "rational," as you claim. God is a continual source of atrocities in the OT, from massacring innocents to oppressing women to sanctioning slavery. One would have to be ignorant, stupid or evil to say that we should "trust with all our heart" in this monstrous moral standard.

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  5. I'm also a fan of Judges 6:31 - "if he be a god, let him plead for himself" or "If your god is real, let him defend himself."

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  6. Not sure how I missed that. Great find, Anon!

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