Normally, I provide people's papers whole and complete, separate from my comments. However, Ms. Battiest is a special case. She was, frankly, an obnoxious pest in her emails. I told her that her paper wasn't very good and she went off telling me I was too afraid to publish it, I was a "sissy," and my life had no meaning and that kind of crap. Truth be told, she has since apologized. So perhaps I should pull out some of the sarcasm here.
I wrote my commentary while I was still very annoyed with her. But her paper is still bad and deserves every bit of sarcasm that I heap upon it. (Although about the first half isn't too bad, but it gets worse.) Please notice that none of the other article writers on my site have I ridiculed that way I will Mr. Battiest. She got special treatment based on some of her e-mails.
Her paper is included in its entirety, I did not edit it at all. However, my commentary is interspersed in blue italics. Her words are in black.
Intellectually Starved in NKC
Hello. My name is Karen Battiest. Thank you for inviting me to share my thoughts and ideas on this subject.
I have, also, struggled with religion my whole life. I was raised in the Free Will Baptist Church and I really took that free will part to heart. But, not only does it mean that I am free to choose, it also means that I am responsible for the choices I make.
I had just finished reading The Case for Christ and I found it to be so interesting that I went looking for a forum where I could discuss it and hear other’s thoughts on it. That is how I found you. I have not yet read The Case for Faith but I am inclined to. I agree that sometimes the answers provided in The Case for Christ seem a little too pat and sometimes it seems to gloss over some sticky parts but as this book deals with evidence and I am not a theological scholar or historian I will defer to those who are in regards to the weight or value they give a particular item, such as the number of sources, the quality of the sources and reconciling discrepancies between various sources. I am not sure, though, what good it would do to provide interviews with “skeptics” when they are apparently outside the mainstream.
Well, I suppose "skeptics" probably are outside the "mainstream" of Bible scholars. How many skeptics have the interest to be Bible scholars? If you don't interview skeptics then you don't really know if they have valid points or not now do you?
If Lee Strobel can interview eight people who are world-renowned, highly respected, laden with credentials, having written stacks of books on these subjects and taught and lectured at some of the world’s finest universities and who can be classified as experts, I don’t see the point in bringing in some crackpots who don’t know what they’re talking about.
The fact that Ms. Battiest seems to quick to not even bother looking at the skeptic position (and yet assumes they are "crackpots") shows how little depth she is willing to undergo to examine her beliefs.
Of course, everyone is free to interpret the facts as they like, and ultimately, it requires a leap of faith unless you were there and witnessed things with your own eyes. Since The Case for Faith is about faith (belief without need of certain proof) I don’t think you can expect it to answer every question and cover every viewpoint. I suggest to you that as you have stated you read this book with “some dim hope”, that you really expected it to have concrete evidence to dispel the preconceived ideas that you had already formed in your mind. This does not indicate to me that you had a truly open mind or an open heart.
Well, to some degree she is right, everyone has bias. So, did I read Strobel's book with bias? Yes. Everybody reads everything with bias. If I were to give to her a book on evolution (which she attacks later) would she read it with a "truly open mind"? No, of course not. She quotes my saying I read Strobel's book with "some dim hope." When anybody reads any book, they can't help but have some expectations. Should I have had high expectation that Strobel had finally uncovered the answers to the mysteries of faith?
And this brings me to your case for logic. Do you really find everything about your entire existence to be logical? Is there nothing at all about it, when you really think about it, that doesn’t seem to make any sense? Can you really explain away everything around you?
Here, Ms. Battiest makes a broad swipe at "logic". I recently watched a couple of vides by Christian apologist R. C. Sproul of Ligonier Ministries. He, a Christian, notes that logic is the only tool we have to validate that which we know. Without logic, we literally know nothing at all. For example, when a Christian decides not to be a Muslim, they produce logical arguments why they should not believe the Koran and Islam. The only time that Christians seem to want to take a leave from logic is when it encroaches on their religion--not when it encroaches on anybody else's religion.
As I was growing up I had questions about the Bible. There are plenty of things in it that do not make a lick of sense. It is the most copied book known to mankind. It is the most controversial book ever written. It has endured and many, many people do believe it. So, unless you are entirely incurious (like President Bush) you naturally have to wonder. And you begin to examine everything about your existence to see if it stands to reason.
Here, Ms. Battiest actually makes sense. Much of the Bible doesn't make any sense at all. And I liked her "incurious" comment about President Bush...
To begin with, what is it that explains the higher level of consciousness that some human beings possess? In other words, how do we even have the ability to wonder about such things? Where do some of us, anyway, get the drive to seek the truth? What is it that distinguishes us from the animals? That is not a new question. Some people would like nothing better than to devote their entire lives to satisfying their animalistic appetites. I don’t think it takes a genius, though, to realize that that is selfish and a civilized society would not be possible if everyone went along with that. You have to draw the line somewhere or you would be subject to the laws of survival of the fittest. That would turn your world on its logical ear. You probably would not even be here. So, basically, some of us have something that is capable of higher thinking and feeling and we must be left to suffer those dull, selfish people who have fed their appetites but starved their souls.
I would continue along this line except that it overlaps with your first objection, somewhat, and so I will end my introduction here.
The evolution of social norms and morals is really beyond the scope of my expertise. I might recommend as suggested reading material on this subject The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.
Objection 1: Since Evil and Suffering Exist, A Loving God Cannot
First I would like to address your pet simile, along the way I will try to introduce other elements that, hopefully, will help paint a clear picture of what I am trying to say. Keep in mind the viewpoints that I expressed in my introduction, this is the foundation on which I have built my entire belief system. Perhaps it would help you to understand that I have some Native American heritage and so as I was growing up I found the idea that you had to accept Jesus Christ as your savior to get into heaven very disturbing. I could not accept that people who had never heard the word of the Bible would be doomed to hell. And as I truly believed that I had free will, I could hardly deny it, I set about on a journey to find my own spiritual path. I believe in the spirit of the Bible and I do believe there is a God.
Here, Ms. Battiest is quite reasonable. It would indeed be very "disturbing" for God to doom people to hell who had never heard the word of the Bible. Such a God is quite disturbing indeed.
As a child, I felt loved by my family and was well provided for so I was content to play with my dolls, or puppets, and to interact with other children who were like-minded. As I grew older and more mature I began to seek out relationships with people that were on a more personal, intimate level with whom I could enjoy deeper and more meaningful relationships.
Just as you, if you could create the “perfect” woman, would be able to satisfy certain desires you may have, without free will and a mind of her own, the relationship would be pointless and meaningless and could not possibly satisfy your need, if you have one, for a genuine, loving relationship. And too, she would essentially have to be “programmed” to be only “good” and to want only you unless you designed her to be “bad” and to try and wreck your whole life. Where’s the sense in that?
By the way, even some Christians (generally Calvinists) deny the existence of free will. God is (supposedly) omniscient. He has known since before you were born exactly what you were going to do. How can God ever be "surprised" by someone if he has known since the beginning of time what everyone would do? How can God have a "relationship" with that which He has always known exactly what they would do? Relationships involve learning and growing together. How can God learn or grow? How can God possibly ever have a relationship?
For all we know, God could have created the dinosaurs or Neanderthal Man and found them to be…lacking.
For all we know, pink bunny rabbits created the dinosaurs. Saying something is "possible" is to say nothing at all.
Rather than making you with imperfect understanding, God created you with the capacity to grow, spiritually, and yes, to grow through pain and suffering, that is the only way you can even begin to relate to and care for other human beings without actually being programmed to do so.
How do you know this? How do you know there is no other way to learn to "relate to and care for human beings"? After all, how did God learn to "relate to and care for human beings?" He (supposedly...) managed to do so, why can't we? And how do people that die as infants and go to heaven manage to survive in heaven without learning all this good mortal pain and suffering stuff? If they can do without it, why can't we? And why is pain and suffering so unjustly divided? Are those that suffer a lot there so that those that don't can go "gee, that's too bad"?
You have to make a conscious effort throughout life to either let yourself feel for others or not. And yes, there is horrible suffering in the world but have you really ever considered what kind of place this world could be?
That comes nice and easy for you to say, whilst you no doubt are like most Americans who don't have to worry about starvation the next day. That's true for me too, I got it pretty easy in life all things considering. But I'm not so pompous and arrogant to sit here and say, "gee, its really too bad all those people got to have a terrible life but think how much worse it could be... please pass the ketchup." If all the suffering of poor people is so necessary, why don't you volunteer? Why don't you move to a third world country and tough it out with other people who have little food? It really makes me pretty sick to have to listen to people speak about how necessary *other* people's suffering must be while not seeing that their own lack of suffering seems to dispel that notion.
Maybe God created us but he left us to create the world we live in.
Maybe pink bunny rabbits invented the Internet.
If you just accept the fact that everyone must have free will and that God is not up there pulling the strings (as with puppets) you are left with the realization that this world is exactly as human beings have made it, with the exception of naturally occurring conditions, of course.
And who made the "naturally occurring conditions?" Another skeptic noted that the magnitude of the earthquake in San Francisco a decade or so ago was about the same as some earthquake in a third world country. But in San Francisco, relatively few died, most on the freeway that collapsed. But in the third world country, thousands died, their homes could not take the earthquake. Is this God's way of telling the rich: "you don't wanna be poor"? Isn't the meek supposed to inherit the earth, not be trampled by it?
Why not make it interesting?
Yeah, "its interesting when people die." [Don Henley]
Maybe life is supposed to be a challenge, if it weren’t, we would all be spoiled brats living on easy street.
Is everyone in heaven a "spoiled brat living on easy street?"
When speaking of "spoiled brats living on easy street," I suggest you consider looking in the mirror. How much suffering have you experienced? Have you ever known hunger day after day? I haven't either. I'm just not dim-witted enough to try to justify massive suffering of other people as a means to avoid being "spoiled brats". If you really, really, don't want to be a spoiled brat, go move to Africa. Why not experience the "challenge" of missing the next 9 out of 10 meals for yourself. Hey, its a challenge!
(This theory shoots down many common beliefs as it pertains to prayers being answered and blessings being sent, more on that later.) Human beings have accomplished amazing things when their hearts tell them to.
To use the woman and child in Africa as an example, I am acutely aware that the diamonds I wear on my finger probably came from Africa and that the people who worked in the mines were probably treated atrociously and that the indigenous people of Africa received little or no benefit of these vast stores of resources.
Oh, you are "acutely aware" but you bought and wear them anyway. Could you be just any more pompous and arrogant? I'm reading your words and just astonished that someone could actually be as utterly mindless as you are.
I have also read that although Africa does have drought and pestilence, just as we do here, they are capable of producing enough food for themselves what they lack is the basic infrastructure to distribute food and other necessities in a timely manner. And although a lot of the country does seem primitive, think how far we have come in the past 100 years. Perhaps if Africa had had the full benefit of its own natural resources it wouldn’t be in the state it is in today.
What is escaping you is, bottom line, you are admitting the suffering is NOT necessary--if they had better use of resources, they would not have had to endure the suffering. So, that shoots your whole "their suffering is necessary" theory all to hell. And why doesn't God lend a helping hand to help them get "full benefit" of their resources?
Moving on, your rational and logical assessment of absent fathers does little to ease the pain of the child and the family and does not take into account that many people do search, tirelessly, for the missing parent in the hopes that they can establish a loving, meaningful relationship with them despite their mistakes. That is just another one of the intangible, indefinable aspects of life; that people have a basic need to fill these voids in their lives, as long as they don’t shut their hearts to it.
And then, your analogy between a belief in God and the belief that the world was flat doesn’t really work in my view. I believe we are no closer to the truth now than then. In our world everything has a beginning and an end. But we are supposed to be satisfied with the idea that the Earth is floating around and spinning around in space that has no beginning or end and goes on forever and ever.
Actually, the Big Bang theory says that our universe is huge, but specifically limited and not "forever and ever". Many theists use that as evidence for the "Cosmological Argument". I have another paper on that issue.
This is incomprehensible and it is impossible to explain any existence, whatsoever, in this context. They tell us that gravity is what keeps us from spinning off into space but they cannot explain the how or the why of gravity, it just is. And it’s really not logical to expect to find gravity or life here on Earth, but nowhere else in the vast universe that we know of.
??? Gravity certainly exists everywhere in the universe. And life may well be common in the universe. I know that is like saying pink bunnies may win the Kentucky Derby next year, but we just don't have any reason to think life is uncommon in the universe either. We just don't know yet.
If the theory of evolution (which I find extremely repugnant) is true, we evolved from the monkeys.
Strictly speaking, no, that is not true. Humans did not evolve from monkeys or apes. Rather, modern humans, monkeys and apes all evolved from a common primate ancestor. That this common ancestor probably was more similar to modern apes than to modern humans is actually immaterial. Here is what is not generally understood by most anti-evolutionists: everything alive today is just as "evolved" as anything else. All living things have a common ancestor. Here is a good article on the evidence that all known life has a single common ancestor: "The Scientific Case for Common Descent".
Also, remember that earlier, Ms. Battiest was all for skipping interviews with skeptics, saying they "seem to be outside the mainstream"--even had the gall to label them "crackpots". But she is herself a "skeptic" of evolution, and very much "outside the mainstream" of biologists. (And very much a "crackpot"...) Can she be just any more hypocritical?
Where did the monkeys come from? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Well, I would have to go with the chicken, or rather two chickens, one male and one female, based on the assumption that a monkey egg would have little chance of surviving by itself.
I wonder if it has ever occurred to Ms. Battiest the that scientific minds that invented her computer, when applied to biology, probably contemplated some of these issues? Biologists, as a rule, are not generally "incurious," as she might say. And she supposes that the great minds of biology, when reading her questions might say, "well, golly gee Wally, I never thought of that!!" Does she even know that monkeys don't lay eggs? I'm sorry that her education system has done so poorly at educating her on how evolution works, but that doesn't make her commentary any less boneheaded.
A common misunderstanding of how evolution works is exemplified by her example. There had been at one time the "hopeful monster" theory, that something wildly different would be born from its mother, somehow survive (mate with whom?) and form a new species. Well, that idea has long been dispelled. That isn't how evolution works. Here is an article that is worth reading: "Observed Instances of Speciation". A new species is generally imperceptibly different than the species that it evolved from. There is no monkey born to a chicken or anything like that. It takes one small change after another before the species appear to be distinctly different animals.
Now, if you actually read the speciation article, the laymen will likely say something like, "those speciation events of fruit flies isn't too impressive". And they'd be right--speciation events are very trivial events. And I can understand why it can seem hard to believe that such small changes could eventually lead to massive changes. But that is only because humans can't really comprehend time in the millions and billions of years.
If there was a big bang that instead of blowing things apart, miraculously managed to blow all the necessary atoms or molecules together to form two chickens, two monkeys, and everything else around you, then where did the necessary atoms and molecules come from? I think you can get my point. Science can explain the process of an oak tree seed germinating but as with humans it cannot explain what it is, exactly, that breathes the breath of life into anything. If it did I guess they would be making trees and people from scratch.
She is basically asking the question, "why is there something instead of nothing?" This is, indeed, the most imponderable of imponderables. The problem is, even if she is right that God made everything, God is still a "SOMETHING" and so you still are left with the question, "why is there SOMETHING instead of nothing". She will no doubt say that God needs no why, or is eternal, or something like that. But that is just a dodge, you simply cannot answer why is there God instead of nothing. Ultimately, there just is no answer to the question, "why is there something instead of nothing?" and not even God can fix that.
I don’t have all the answers, no one does. But I think I can figure out that intelligent human beings are supposed to find a way to live in harmony with one another, to respect each other, to place a value on human life, exercise tolerance and not want to go around killing off everybody who is not like you.
Well, is God expecting us to figure that out by ourselves? If so, then basically we are "on our own". If so, does it really matter if God exists or not? But then why did God bother to spend all that time talking to people 2,000 years ago, but now just sits around and lets us "deal"?
No one knows what heaven is. But it is a fact that human beings since the beginning of time have felt, not just hoped, that our spirits are not of this world, that there is a higher power.
If I were a true “skeptic” I would say that the Bible was a book of parables, written by some very wise men that tried to do their best at the time and with the knowledge that they had at helping others make some sense out of this world and to try and find the way.
The "very wise" men were the ones that said things like:
The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open." [Hosea 13:16]
I would submit to you this hypothesis: At the beginning of the 1st century life was brutal. [And where was God to help?] And if you were one of those people that I tried to describe in my introduction, that is, someone who had allowed your spirit, or soul, to grow and not just someone bent on survival, but you were oppressed by those people, and you knew and loved someone who was kind and good and loving, who tried to help people, who wanted to change people, have them open their eyes and hearts to others and you saw that person persecuted and tortured [that tortured guy sure comes in handy again and again... sure glad its him and not me or Ms. Battiest...] and put to an agonizing death you could very well have the determination, the willpower and the strength of heart to stand up to your oppressors and tell them they were wrong and you could very well be willing to die for your beliefs in order to make the world a better place for the children; [why didn't God just make it a better place to begin with?] to leave a legacy of hope.
Whatever happened, however it happened, you cannot deny the fact that it has brought about amazing and miraculous changes in people. [What exactly is "it"... the tortured guy from the previous paragraph? Boy, he sure did a lot for everybody!] Maybe not everyone gets it right. Some people will insist on bending it around to their utmost benefit but it does make you wonder. Your intellect is having you go around and around in circles and it won’t let your heart accept what you think you already know. You might as well be banging your head against the wall; [it would be more useful than reading the writing of Ms. Battiest...] the only place you can find the answers you are looking for is in your heart. If you believe, all things are possible.
Oh, brother. I could just barf.
