Dying for a Lie? - Unpicking a Christian apologist trope

Sometimes the world works in mysterious ways. Every so often an idea or topic will come to mind that I haven't thought about in a long, long time. And then suddenly it will pop up several more times in unconnected ways in a short space of time. This happened to me recently with a common Christian apologetic claim that Jesus had to have been the real deal because why else would the apostles have gone out and died martyrs deaths for this idea. So what follows is an excerpt from a debate on the subject of Jesus historicity where I address this notion. Enjoy!

...the basic idea is that the 12 disciples were close companions of Jesus who would have been right by his side throughout his ministry, death and resurrection. Therefore, if Jesus had been resurrected then these men would have to know it for a fact and not simply believe it. Therefore, the "fact" that these men all died martyr's deaths for their beliefs show that Jesus really was resurrected because someone would not die for a lie.

1. Which 12 disciples?

The first point is that the list of the 12 disciples is not consistent across all books where they are enumerated. To illustrate this I have arranged them in table below:

Mark	Matthew	Luke	John	Acts
Peter	Peter	Peter	Peter	Peter
James, son of Zebedee	James, son of Zebedee	James	The sons of Zebedee	James
John, brother of James	John, brother of James	John		John
Andrew	Andrew	Andrew	Andrew	Andrew
Philip	Philip	Philip	Philip	Philip
Bartholomew	Bartholomew	Bartholomew	Bartholomew	Nathanael
Matthew	Matthew	Matthew		Matthew
Thomas	Thomas	Thomas	Thomas	Thomas
James, son of Alphaeus	James, son of Alphaeus	James, son of Alphaeus		James, son of Alphaeus
Thaddeus	Thaddeus	Judas, son of James	Judas "not Iscariot"	Judas, son of James
Simon	Simon	Simon		Simon
Judas Iscariot	Judas Iscariot	Judas Iscariot	Judas Iscariot	Judas Iscariot

So, already we see there are discrepancies.

1. The introduction of a second Judas, the son of James by the author of Luke-Acts, not mentioned by either Mark or Matthew but mentioned by John.
2. The introduction of Nathanael by John, not mentioned by any other source.
3. The omission of Matthew, James, son of Alphaeus and Simon by John.

If the biographical sources for Jesus and the apostles can't even agree on a coherent list of twelve, this doesn't bode well for the "died for a lie" argument.


In the interests of moving this debate forward, however, I propose the following composite list:

1. Peter (Simon Peter)
2. Andrew
3. James, son of Zebedee
4. John, brother of James
5. Philip
6. Bartholomew/Nathanael, son of Talemai
7. Matthew
8. Thomas
9. James (James the Less, James the Just), son of Alphaeus
10. Thaddeus/Lebbaeus/Jude
11. Simon the Zealot/Cananean (Simeon of Jerusalem)
12. Judas Iscariot (replaced by Matthias)

So, now that we have established a list of apostles, the question becomes what really happened to them?


2. The fate of the apostles

So now that we know who we're talking about, the question is what happened to them? Can we actually be sure that any of them died martyr's deaths? To be clear, according to the apologetic argument the criterion for a martyr's death is to willingly die for their beliefs even when presented with the opportunity to recant.


Peter
Peter according to tradition was crucified in Rome. He was also crucified upside-down so as not to die in the same manner of Jesus. Leaving aside for the moment the fact that prisoners were rarely, if ever, accorded the privelege of choosing their method of execution, let's examine the textual evidence. The bulk of the traditional account of the martyrdom of St. Peter comes from the apocryphal Acts of Peter, an account dismissed as unreliable by historian Eusebius (who isn't exactly reliable himself). Other than that we have early Christian scholars such as Origen and Tertullian describing the method of Peter's death but not the origins. These accounts, however, are a century after the fact and not entirely reliable.

Andrew
According to tradition, Andrew was crucified on a saltire (an x-shaped cross) so as not to die in the same manner as Jesus. However, the source for this tradition is the Acts of Andrew (a work authored sometime between 150 and 200 CE). However, even early Biblical scholars such as Eusebius considered the Acts of Andrew to be unreliable. Modern Biblical scholars such as Francis Dvornik have also questioned the authenticity of Acts of Andrew. We, therefore, don't have any reliable information as to how Andrew died and cannot suggest that he was a martyr.

James, son of Zebedee
James is one of the few apostles who is listed as being killed in the Bible. According to Acts 12:1-3, Herod killed James with a sword. There is nothing in Acts to suggest that this death is anything other than a murder. Clement of Alexandria wrote that James was tried and executed as a martyr but since he was born 106 years after James' death, this account is unreliable.

John
John, even according to Christian tradition, is not considered to be a martyr. He is reported to have died in 100CE of old age.

Philip
Like Andrew, the only suggestion of the martyrdom of Philip is in a later work called the Acts of Philip (dated to the mid-to-late 4th century). However, like John, Catholic tradition holds that Philip was not martyred (or at least that his fate was unknown). The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia describes the Acts of Philip as a "tissue of fables".

Bartholomew
One of the more interesting apostle stories out there. There are many different stories surrounding Bartholomew's fate. One account suggests that he was crucified in Armenia, while another suggests he was beheaded in India. No writings of Bartholomew's fate exist prior to Eusebius and thus there is no reliable account of Bartholomew's death.

Matthew
The accounts of Matthew's fate are even more varied and unreliable than Bartholomew's. Most Christian scholars agree that the fate of Matthew is unknown. The Christian History Institute concludes that "we have nothing but legend about Matthew's death" while Catholic Online states that "nothing definite is known about his later life". Some sources in fact suggest that Matthew died a natural death.

Thomas
Some accounts including the apocryphal Acts of Thomas describe Thomas as having preached in India where he was stabbed to death with a spear. However, Eusebius dismisses the Acts of Thomas as unreliable. Furthermore, modern Catholic consensus holds that "it is difficult to discover any adequate support" to support the death of Thomas in India.

James the Less
The question to answer here is which James are we talking about. James is mentioned differently in different texts. James is identified by some sources with James, brother of Jesus, a tradition not held by Eastern Orthodox churches. This is unlikely since, according to John 7:5

"Even his own brothers didn't believe him."

Some accounts place his death in Egypt as a result of crucifixion while Josephus mentions that James was stoned by Pharisees (more on that later). There are numerous conflicting stories with no evidence to tip the balance in favour of any of them.

Thaddeus
Again it is difficult to know to what real person any of the stories refer. This apostle is named differently in Luke's Gospel than he is in Matthew's. Some accounts report that he was crucified in Armenia with Simon while others describe him being clubbed to death and others still say that he died of natural causes. However, none of these accounts have any corroborating textual evidence to support them and hence we know nothing of the fate of Thaddeus.

Simon the Zealot
No detail of the many conflicting reports of Simon's death seem to agree. His place of death has been reported as Persia, Edessa, Samria, Iberia, Colchis or even Britain. Some reports describe him being crucified while others say he was sawn in half. The source of this uncertainty is again an identity issue with Simon the Zealot being identified with other early Christian figures including Simeon of Jerusalem.

Judas Iscariot
It's nice to finish on an easy one. Judas' death is told twice in the New Testament such that both cannot be true or compatible. In Matthew 27:3-8 we are told that Judas, filled with remorse, gave back the 30 pieces of silver to the Pharisees whereupon he hanged himself. In Acts 1:18-19 Judas, takes the 30 pieces of silver and buys a potter's field and while walking across it:

"and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out"

So, even if we were able to resolve the contradiction in favour of Matthew's account or the one in Acts, neither story would count as a martyr's death.


As far as the apostles go, the only apostle that could even charitably be described as a martyr is Peter. The rest of the apostles were not deemed important enough to merit anything other than passing mentions in history. Even so, if we accept that Peter was crucified (and I'm not suggesting that we do) we only have descriptions of Peter's death. There are a multitude of questions remaining. In particular one question stands out: Did the authorities offer Peter a chance to recant? If Peter, or any of the other apostles for that matter died in circumstances where recanting would have saved them then that would speak to martyrdom but we have no evidence of any such incident.

In conclusion, we don't know how any of the apostles died, and as such cannot say that they died for their beliefs. Without martyrdom, we don't know how the apostles viewed their beliefs, false or otherwise.


3. On the historicity of the apostles.

So we've seen above that the evidence for the deaths of any of the apostles is weak, at best. However, the bigger question which more people are beginning to ask is, were the apostles even real people? In some cases there are apostles named in Paul's authentic writings, leading us to conclude that they were real people such as Peter and John. However, in other cases, there is fairly good evidence that the character is a fictional creation.

3a Judas
Judas is the most prominent fictional character of the twelve. Judas is introduced by Mark, who mentions him by name on just four occasions. His backstory is added to by Matthew who introduces a death story, lifted from the Old Testament in a botched attempt to portray it as a fulfilled prophecy (Matthew quotes from Zechariah 11 while attributing the quote to Jeremiah). However, when we look at the overall story of Judas as a disciple who betrays his leader and is punished, we find that this too is borrowed from the Old Testament. Throughout the New Testament Jesus is portrayed as the spiritual successor to and parallel of Elisha. In the synoptics and John, Jesus and Elisha share numerous biographical details including:

1. Inheriting his ministry from a previous prophet (Jesus from John the Baptist, Elisha from Elijah); John 1:22-28, 2 Kings 2:7-15
2. Healing a leper; Mark 1:40-45, 2 Kings 5
3. Makes something float on water (Jesus makes himself float, Elisha makes an axehead float); Matthew 14:22-33, 2 Kings 6:6
4. Performs a miracle of feeding the multitude; John 6:5-15, 2 Kings 4:42-44
5. Raises a child from the dead; Mark 5:22-42, 2 Kings 4:8-37

In the context of the Judas story we find the parallel story in 2 Kings 5:20-27, where Gehazi, a disciple of Elisha, motivated by greed, betrays Elisha by chasing after someone Elisha had commanded to be spared. When his betrayal is discovered he is punished (with leprosy).


Of course, it's not just the Old Testament that provides material for the story of Judas. There is a strange dichotomy in Mark's gospel surrounding Jesus' ministry and his subsequent arrest and betrayal. Right from the outset of Mark's gospel we are told that Jesus began preaching publicly in the synagogues:

" And He went into their synagogues throughout all Galilee, preaching and casting out the demons."
Mark 1:39


Jesus attracts large crowds through his preaching and even publicly debates the Pharisees, answering questions designed to trap him. So it's strange, therefore, that the Pharisees need someone to identify Jesus for them. This is where Mark's overall plot comes into play. Throughout Mark's gospel Jesus is portrayed as a hidden hero, someone who has a series of adventures where only the reader knows who Jesus truly is. Even when people (or demons) recognise Jesus they are commanded to be silent. So Mark sets up a dramatic irony leading up to Jesus' eventual fate. The framework of this story is borrowed by Mark from the story of Odysseus as found in The Odyssey. Here too, Odysseus has a series of adventures and upon returning home, disguises himself as a beggar to infiltrate his home. Unlike Jesus, Odysseus is disguised and has been away for 10 years, so the suitors who have thought him dead really do need someone to identify him for them. Although Jesus doesn't really need to be identified, Mark keeps the identification of Jesus by Judas as a tip of the hat to his source material.


Ultimately, Judas is a tool, a plot device borrowed from the Old Testament and Greek literature to have Jesus set up as an innocent wrongfully executed.



3b James & John, The Sons of Zebedee
James and John are brothers, sons of Zebedee, fishermen who are recruited by Jesus to be disciples. However, James & John aren't just brothers, they seem to be completely inseparable. In the synoptic gospels (they only receive one mention in John as the sons of Zebedee), James and John are mentioned together 18 times. In the overwhelming majority of these references (16 out of 18), they are referenced as James and John, not the other way around. Further, in only one place in the New Testament (Luke 22:8) is one mentioned without the other. In any story in the gospels where James & John are mentioned as characters, they are always portrayed as a single character.
So what I hear you ask? Well, the portrait of James and John becomes clear in an interaction between them and Jesus:

"James and John, the two sons of Zebedee, came up to Jesus, saying, “Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask of You.” And He said to them, “What do you want Me to do for you?” They said to Him, “Grant that we may sit, one on Your right and one on Your left, in Your glory."

Given the prominence of the right hand being the favoured position in places like Matthew 26:64

"Jesus said to him, “You have said it yourself; nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

it's very odd that neither brother seems to be clamouring to be placed at the right hand side. They seem to be happy with either side. However, when we consider Mark's propensity to borrow material from Greek literature and mythology to construct his gospel, the answer becomes clearer.
In Greek mythology we encounter the story of Castor and Polydeuces (Pollux in Latin) the twin sons of Zeus. As twins, Castor and Pollux rarely feature in stories by themselves. They are known by many names including the Tyndaridae (since Castor was the son of Tyndareus) and the Dioscuri (literally God's boys). Castor and Pollux are born in two eggs by Leda, one egg containing Castor and Clytemnestra fathered by the mortal Tyndareus and the other Pollux and Helen fathered by Zeus. Thus we have a mortal and an immortal brother (like Elrond and Elros in LOTR). Eventually Castor is killed and Pollux decides to share his immortality with his brother. From then on, the brothers really are inseparable (being transformed in Roman myth into the constellation Gemini). In Greek and Roman art, Castor and Pollux are frequently depicted either side of a God as in this depiction of them with Juno:



Similar depictions exist of Castor and Pollux flanking other gods and immortals including Helen, Zeus, Astarte, Serapis, Saturn and Jupiter. The depiction is identical to the request from James and John above in Mark 10:35-37. Mark, as in many other of his borrowed stories can't resist eventually giving his readers a hint as to where the story is borrowed from. In Mark 3:17 Mark makes the following comment:

"and James, the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James (to them He gave the name Boanerges, which means, “Sons of Thunder”);"

As mentioned earlier, one of the names given to Castor and Pollux was the Dioscuri which is literally translated as God's boys but in context is best translated as sons of Zeus or, since Zeus was the God of Thunder, sons of Thunder.

James and John are a tip of the hat to Greek mythology to flesh out the cast of the gospel about whom nothing much seems to have been known.


4. On the unreliability of the gospels

As I have outlined in previous posts on various threads the gospels are not reliable historical accounts for a number of reasons including, but not limited to, internal contradictions, external contradictions, factual errors, anonymity, later additions/changes and the gap between their composition and the events they depict.
However, it bears repeating here that the gospels aren't even intended to be historical or eyewitness accounts. Among the many reasons for this are:

1. The gospels make little or no attempt to identify the sources they draw upon in writing their stories. (e.g. Luke mentions that he draws on sources but does not name them)
2. The later gospel authors make no attempt to resolve contradictions with earlier works (e.g. Luke makes no attempt to reconcile his nativity narrative with Matthew's)
3. The author does not place himself in the story.
4. The gospels are written for the common man rather than the social and literary elite audience of Greek and Roman histories/biographies.
5. The gospels contain far too many hagiographical elements to be historically reliable.
6. There is no attempt to warn the reader that certain events or words may not be recorded clearly. None of the gospel authors make any attempt to identify where they speculate on content.
7. The interdependence of the gospels makes them unlike the historical writings of the time.
8. Unusual events disappear from the wider narrative. The aftermath of the graves opening in Matthew is not discussed in any other text.

Moreover, the layout of the gospels themselves align better with fictional novels that of historical accounts. Mark, for example, employs dramatic irony and an omniscient narrator, uncharacteristic of a historical retelling. The gospels also employ dialogue at a much higher level than historical accounts of the day. Acts reports the highest usage with 51% of the overall text being made up of direct speech. The gospels have a slightly lower but similar proportion. This aligns well with Jewish novels of the day (Judith 50%, Susanna 46%) but stands in marked contrast to historical accounts and biographies: (Josephus’ Jewish War I: 8.8%, Plutarch’s Alexander: 12.1%; Tacitus’ Agricola: 11.5%).

All of this has lead a number of scholars to conclude that the gospels are intended to be theological fictional novels rather than reliable histories:

Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative (Ronald Hock)
Ancient Fiction: The Matrix of Early Christian and Jewish Narrative (Jo-Ann Brant)
The Ancient Novel and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative: Fictional Intersections (Marilia Pinheiro)
Profit With Delight: The Literary Genre of the Acts of the Apostles (Richard Pervo)
The Problem of Markan Genre: The Gospel of Mark and the Jewish Novel (Michael Vines)
What Are the Gospels?: A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (Richard Burridge)
The Homeric Epics and the gospel of Mark (Dennis MacDonald)
Direct Speech in Acts and the Question of Genre


5. The real answer?

So, if Jesus wasn't resurrected then what motivated the apostles at all? The real answer is we don't know. It's more than just we don't know what motivated the apostles it's that we don't know what actually happened either before or after the crucifixion.
If Jesus really existed and really was crucified then the best explanation for the apostles remaining faith is cognitive dissonance management. This topic has been discussed in detail by psychologist Lorne L. Dawson here:

When prophecy fails and faith persists

However, given how little of the gospels contain actual verifiable biographical information about Jesus, the alternate idea, that Jesus was a solely mythical persona, someone who people believed was a celestial being but would eventually be incarnated in the flesh must be considered. This portrays the apostles and their preaching in a different light entirely. Originally a fringe theory, the work of people like Richard Carrier, Robert Price, Earl Doherty and to a lesser extent J.D. Crossan, Mark Goodacre and Denis MacDonald, the theory has started to gain credibility. Don't get me wrong, for every piece of persuasive evidence the theory offers it throws up an unanswered question, but it is at least plausible.


The TLDR is this, we don't really know how any of the apostles died and if many of them existed in the first place. The only accounts of their lives are either anonymous fictional creations or books written hundreds of years after their deaths. The idea that their exploits and lives offer any evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is pure fantasy.   

Evolution, Abiogenesis and Doubt

What follows is part of an exchange between me and a creationist about evolution. Now matter how many times I tried to bring the argument back to the science, the creationist continued to throw red herrings into the mix (like talking about mutation in a discussion on abiogenesis). So I decided to bring the debate right right back to first principles. This is excerpted from a forum post which is now several years old at this point so there may be some broken/missing links. Enjoy!


OK, I think we're going to have to take a step back a bit here because it's clear from the passage above that you clearly don't understand what it is that is under discussion (particularly from your out of place reference to mutagenesis). So what I am going to do is go through step-by-step the mechanism by which genetic material can be formed from plausibe prebiotic compounds. I will, at each step, support my points (as usual) with reference to solid peer-reviewed science.

To begin I am going to briefly outline the steps in the sequence before going into more detail. The sequence that I am proposing is as follows:

1. A primordial earth with abundant hydrothermal activity, containing the following simple organic compounds: cyanamide, cyanoacetylene, glycolaldehyde, glyceraldehyde and also any inorganic phosphate.
2. The formation of activated ribonucleotides through a stepwise process to be detailed below.
3. Montmorillonite clay forms around an air bubble to create a semi-permeable cell wall.
4. Protected from the environment , ribonucleotides undergo polymerisation to form oligomers.
5. At the same time, the montmorillonite bubble acts as a catalyst by promoting the formation of a cell membrane from fatty acids.
6. As the clay cell floats about, shear and thermal stresses cause the clay to fracture releasing the protobiont into the surrounding ocean.
5. The presence of thermal vents on earth leads these protobionts to reproduce through a mechanism similar to the polymerase chain reaction.
6. Voila! Life


Step 1 - Formation of activated ribonucleotides

This step should be the easiest for you to follow because it only involves basic chemistry. The process progresses as follows:

1. Cyanamide and glycolaldehyde form a peptide bond to produce 2-amino-oxazole.
2. 2-amino-oxazole combines with glyceraldehyde to form a pentose amino-oxazoline.
3. Pentose amino-oxazolines combine with cyanoacetylene to form anhydroarabinonucleoside.
4. Anhydroarabinonucleoside undergoes (in the presence of an inorganic phosphate) phosphorylation to become B-ribocytidine-
2',3'-cyclic phosphate (an activated ribonucleotide).

Now before, we continue, here's a graphic illustrating the process and the science supporting it:




Synthesis of activated pyrimidine ribonucleotides in prebiotically plausible conditions


Step 2 - Vesicle formation


The next step is the formation a montmorillonite bubble to act as a temporary cell wall. In 2011 a team from Harvard, Princeton and Brandeis universities showed experimentally that a stable, semi-permeable vesicle can form from natural montmorillonite clay around air bubbles present in the ocean.



Semi-permeable vesicles composed of natural clay

This is an important development for three reasons:

1. The montmorillonite vesicle provides a stable compartment protecting anything in the interior from external reactions.
2. Montmorillonite catalyses the polymerisation of ribonucleotides to form RNA.
3. Montmorillonite catalyses the formation of fatty-acid vesicles leading to the development of a more stable and long-lasting cell wall inside the clay wall.

With regard to the first point, the study above shows the stability of the montmorillonite cells.

As for the second point, it has been demonstrated experimentally:

Oligomerization of ribonucleotides on montmorillonite: reaction of the 5'-phosphorimidazolide of adenosine

that montmorillonite catalyses the formation of oligomers from the activated ribonucleotides which we have already demonstrated above. These oligomers can reach as much as 50-mer lengths



One-Step, Regioselective Synthesis of up to 50-mers of RNA Oligomers by Montmorillonite Catalysis

These ribonucleotides can permeate the vesicle but once formed are trapped within the protocell membrane.

As for the third point, it has also been shown experimentally that montmorillonite catalyses the formation of fatty-acid vesicles.

Mineral Surface Directed Membrane Assembly

Once fatty-acid vesicle is produced the growth of the vesicle is autocatalytic which has also been demonstrated experimentally:

Autopoietic Self-Reproduction of Fatty Acid Vesicles

Once this self-sustaining reaction has begun (sustained by the attraction of nearby lipids), the growing fatty acid vesicle begins to exert an outward pressure on the montmorillonite shell. From basic materials science we know that montmorillonite being a ceramic material has good strength when in compression (hence protection from external forces) but weak in tension. As a result the growing vesicle shatters the montmorillonite shell and the resulting protobiont is free to float in the primordial ocean. So now we have a protobiont consisting of a fatty acid membrane which is permeable to monomers and small molecules but impermeable to the oligomer now trapped within.

The next step in the process is the growth of the oligomer to form RNA and other more complex biological polymers.

The basic reaction sequence that is followed is similar to that used in polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing.



Now, here's where it gets interesting. We have above a mechanism for a reaction by which the oligomer inside the protobiont can form larger and more complex structures. However, what we are currently missing is something to kickstart this reaction. This is where the conditions of the early earth. Given what we know from basic geology, physics and geography, it is likely that the early Earth was populated with a vast number of hydrothermal vents.
Firstly, it has been shown that the protobionts described above are thermally stable at temperatures of up to 100 degrees:

Thermostability of model protocell membranes

At these elevated tempeatures the strands of polymer begin to denature while being trapped inside the vesicle while the vesicle itself expands allowing more monomers to cross into the cell whereby the current carries the cell away to a lower temperature where the nucleotides acquired at high temperature can bond to the denatured polymer backbone allowing for growth of the RNA. It can also lead to copying of the RNA. This is an important development. As the RNA inside the vesicle grows/copies it increases the osmotic pressure inside the cell. This causes the vesicle to attract nearby lipids at an even greater rate thus creating a larger cell. As these membranes grow they develop a tubular branched shape which can be divided by external forces such as shear stresses from thermal differentials in the ocean. Here's a nice little graphic to demonstrate what I mean.



As the authors note in the paper above:

"The strands of encapsulated double-stranded DNA can be separated by denaturation at high temperature while being retained within vesicles, implying that strand separation in primitive protocells could have been mediated by thermal fluctuations without the loss of genetic material from the protocell. At elevated temperatures, complex charged molecules such as nucleotides cross fatty-acid-based membranes very rapidly, suggesting that high temperature excursions may have facilitated nutrient uptake before the evolution of advanced membrane transporters. The thermostability of these membranes is consistent with the spontaneous replication of encapsulated nucleic acids by the alternation of template-copying chemistry at low temperature with strand-separation and nutrient uptake at high temperature. "

So now we have a cell containing RNA which is capable of growth and reproduction using only basic chemistry and relying only on thermodynamics and physical forces. We have a primitive living organism.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave it there for now. Tomorrow I'll continue with the increase in complexity and the introduction of DNA as well as addressing the rest of your points. However, as we can see from above we have already gotten from a simple non-living primordial earth to a primitive cell capable of growth and reproduction with no need for chance or design.

I realise that this post may have been overly long and containing a lot of hard science and citations so for anyone interested I present a more graphical and simplified explanation of the mechanism detailed above:




One final note: You know when you really get down to it intelligent design isn't all that hard to understand and tear apart. It is, at its core, based on two principles: reassurance and doubt. These may seem like contradictory principles but only because one is involved in the conception of ID and the other in its propagation.
The first principle is reassurance. The concept of ID is quite simple, it provides a reassurance mechanism by explaining all the detailed natural processes above with one all sweeping cause an intelligent designer. Moreover this designer has created order, creating animals within distinct kinds. The thing is, we all know, that the overwhelming majority of ID supporters fall into an easily identifiable category, conservative Christians. Moreover, we also know that these people overwhelmingly tend also to be politically conservative. Now, here's where it gets interesting. In 2003 a group of researchers conducted a meta-analysis on 88 studies of political conservatism involving over 22,000 people. The analysis found that:

"A meta-analysis (88 samples, 12 countries, 22,818 cases) confirms that several psychological variables predict political conservatism: death anxiety (weighted mean r = .50); system instability (.47); dogmatism-intolerance of ambiguity (.34); openness to experience (-.32); uncertainty tolerance (-.27); needs for order, structure, and closure (.26); integrative complexity (-.20); fear of threat and loss (.18); and self-esteem (-.09). "

Pretty much everything on that list are things that ID offers in spades, reassurance about death (afterlife), order, uncertainty. For ID supporters and creationists, tackling the surface flaws of ID are not going to have impact because the story is so comforting. To really impact ID we have to undermine its foundation as we have done above.

The second principle above is doubt. In 1969, a now infamous and yet anonymous tobacco company executive penned a memo which has become titled "Manufacturing doubt". In it he says:

"Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the "body of fact" that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing the controversy."

Doubt is the product sold by the ID movement. Through their "Wedge" strategy and their "Teach the Controversy" strategy they attempt to sow doubt and create a space for ID to compete with evolution because it cannot compete on facts alone.

Blowing the dust off

After a ridiculously extended absence I have decided to revive this blog, partly to get back into blogging but also (as a result of recent lessons, I'm looking at you Yahoo Groups) as a repository of some of the more interesting rants, debates and fights that I've had on the internet over the last decade or so. Enjoy!

My kitchen rules

OK, so these aren't really my kitchen rules, they come from the brilliant "Too Many Chiefs Only One Indian" by Sat Bains, chef proprietor of Restaurant Sat Bains in Nottingham. They might as well be mine because there are so many of them that I live by and I believe will improve everybody's cooking and eating for the better.

1. Be the Best. Work hard. Work fast. Work clean.
 
2. Every ingredient we use has to be the best we can afford.
 
3. Seasons have to rule the kitchen.
 
4. Only allow minimal manipulation when necessary.
 
5. Elevate flavors through understanding.
 
6. Cook as if you are eating.
 
7. Waste is poor workmanship.
 
8. Extraction of flavor is our role in life as cooks.
 
9. Balance of menu is our obligation to our guests.
 
10. Health is crucial in menu planning.
 
11. Seasoning is a true skill so taste, taste, and taste again.
 
12. Our goal is to be the best we should act like the best!


One last thing. Sat is currently heading to Everest to set a world record for the world's highest black tie dinner party. They are trying to raise £100,000 for Community Action Nepal. If you buy a copy of the book direct from the publisher here, it will cost you less and the difference will go towards the fund. Win-win.

Mandate for Marriage & Bad religious arguments #marref #yesequality

OK, so just last week I dealt with the religious arguments that might possibly come up in the context of the marriage equality debate. I dealt with those arguments for the sake of completeness. I didn't really expect them to come up in the debate other than as throwaway comments from the NO side. Boy, was I wrong. 

A new website has launched called Mandate for Marriage. It is run by a family of Christian fundamentalists from Mayo lead by Sean Burke. The aim of the website is to defend traditional marriage and to show that:

a)Scripture condemns homosexuality and forbids same-sex marriage

b)Marriage equality threatens religious freedom and will have dire consequences for Christians

c)Legalising marriage equality is bad for parents and children

d)Marriage is a mandate given by God which cannot/should not be altered by the State


None of these four arguments really hold up but it surprised me just how badly defended they are on the website.


1. On scripture and marriage

While a lot of the arguments dredged up by Mandate for Marriage have been dealt with in my recent blog post, there are a few new and really awfully made arguments presented in the Scripture section of the Mandate for Marriage website.

The first problem is that the section opens by arguing that the Bible doesn't present homosexuality as a trait which cannot be changed but rather as a sinful act:

"The Scripture never depicts homosexuality as a trait which one cannot change, such as e.g. skin colour. Homosexuality is never assumed to be a genetic, predetermined condition. Rather, it is presented as a sinful practice which can be forsaken by the grace of God. "

Arguing that the Bible doesn't categorise homosexuality as a genetic condition and therefore it is a sinful practice is idiotic. The Bible is not a scientific text and there are abundant examples that the authors of the various books of the Bible had no idea how genetics or biology actually worked. I mean, if they did, we wouldn't have passages like this:

" Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane treesand made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted."

Genesis 30:37-39

Nobody who knows anything about genetics could possibly think that if you show striped patterns to pregnant cows then you'll get striped offspring.

As it happens, we don't fully understand the actual factors which come together to determined sexual orientation. We have identified genetic factors, epigenetic factors, gestational and otherwise developmental factors which can influence a person's sexual orientation. In fact, pretty much the one thing that science is confident about is that free choice is not likely to be a factor.

Oh, and before anyone decides to point out that the scientific errors in the Bible are an Old Testament problem, don't bother. There are some whopping scientific errors in the NT too. Just like this for example:

"Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches."

Matthew 13:32

Firstly, mustard doesn't grow into a tree, it grows into a shrub with a maximum height of about six feet. Secondly, the mustard seed isn't the smallest seed. It's not even the smallest seed that would have been known to the people of the time. The black orchid would have seeds much smaller than a mustard seed.

The second problem with the Scripture section is the idea that Jesus condemns gay marriage by referring to the destruction of Sodom. There are two problems with this line of argument.

Firstly, as I pointed out in my previous post, the destruction of Sodom had nothing to do with sexual immorality. Ezekiel 16:49 makes it quite clear that Sodom's downfall was caused by inhospitality.

Secondly, the passage in Luke 17:29, used to demonstrate that Jesus approved of Sodom's destruction is equally wrong. If we look at the overall story in Luke 17, we can see that verse 29 is being taken out of context:

"Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”

Then he said to his disciples, “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. People will tell you, ‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’ Do not go running off after them. For the Son of Man in his day[d] will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.

“It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.

“It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything."

Luke 17:20-31

The reference to Sodom in this passage comes from a question from the Pharisees about the coming of the kingdom of God. Jesus uses the examples of both Noah and Sodom to show that when God acts, there is no prior warning. He states that people of Noah's time and people in Sodom carried on about their business oblivious of the impending doom and so it will be with the coming of the son of Man. Not only does Jesus not approve the destruction of Sodom in this passage but nowhere in this passage does it claim that Sodom's destruction was due to sexual immorality.

The only passages which claim this are those written by unknown authors (i.e. 2 Peter, Jude, 1 Timothy) or by Paul, a man who never actually met Jesus. So the idea that we can know whether Jesus would have or ever did actually condemn gay marriage is ridiculous.

Finally, there are two interesting side notes to be made about the Scripture section. Firstly, the section quotes Leviticus 20:13 as a condemnation of homosexuality but conveniently leaves out part of the verse which states that homosexuals should be put to death. Secondly, the last sentence of the section states that Jesus approves of Leviticus through Matthew 19:19, so expect them to call for tattoos, pork, shellfish and astrology to be made illegal any day now.

 2. On marriage equality and religious freedom

The main thrust of the religious freedom section of the website is that the rights and freedoms of Christians will be damaged by marriage equality. Putting aside for the moment that the rights and freedoms of LGBT people are already being infringed, the examples of these persecutions presented are somewhat less than compelling.

a) Brian Barkley, Yorkshire, UK

Brian Barkley, according to the website, is:

" a 71-year-old senior volunteer with the Red Cross, was sacked from his job in November 2014 for holding a placard stating ‘No Same Sex Marriage’

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, for those who don't know is an organisation dedicated to carrying out humanitarian work worldwide. It was originally founded as an organisation for treating wounded soldiers on the battlefield regardless of whose side they are on. Since its inception in 1863 the Red Cross has been dedicated to a mission of aid to all people regardless of their views or backgrounds. As such in 1965, it outlined its core principles which include:

Humanity

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, born of a desire to bring assistance without discrimination to the wounded on the battlefield, endeavours, in its international and national capacity, to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it may be found. Its purpose is to protect life and health and to ensure respect for the human being. It promotes mutual understanding, friendship, cooperation and lasting peace amongst all peoples.

I don't see how holding a one-man protest against same-sex marriage could in any way be construed to be compatible with the principle outlined above, especially those sections highlighted. Neither for that matter is it compatible with this principle:

Neutrality

In order to continue to enjoy the confidence of all, the Movement may not take sides in hostilities or engage at any time in controversies of a political, racial, religious or ideological nature.

It seems quite clear from the principles above that the views of this volunteer were incompatible with the operating principles of the Red Cross. This could lead, not only to damaging the reputation of the Red Cross, but also negatively impact the ability of the Red Cross to carry out their core mission (i.e. loss of funding).

b) State churches, Denmark
Another example of this threat to religious freedom is that experienced by state churches in Denmark:

"All state clergy in Denmark, following a law enacted in June 2014, must now allow their churches to perform same-sex ceremonies, regardless of their objections."

 I shouldn't need to point out why this argument fails. Under Section 4 of the Danish Constitution, the Evangelical Lutheran Church is established as the state church (referred to as the people's church in the document) and receives state support and funding. As such, there isn't a separation of church and state in Denmark and any changes to law in Denmark automatically affect the Churches. There are two reasons why this cannot happen in Ireland. 

Firstly, there isn't a state Church in Ireland. Well, there was, or at least the Catholic church once held a constitutionally recognised special position in Irish society. However, this was removed with the Fifth Amendment in 1972.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the State is constitutionally prohibited from interfering in the running of religious denominations.

44.5 Every religious denomination shall have the right to manage its own affairs, own, acquire and administer property, movable and immovable, and maintain institutions for religious or charitable purposes.

c,d) Beulah Print & Ashers Bakery, Ireland

I've decided to group these two stories together because they have one thing in common, both are business which refused their services on the basis of opposition to marriage equality. While this controversy still rages in the media and the courts at the time of writing, I'd just like to point out one thing.

Firstly, in both cases, the service was refused because of opposition to gay marriage. Let's suppose, for example, that the customers in either case were instead of different races. Would we be even having this discussion? Of course not. If you are offering a service to the public then restricting that service for any reason is discrimination. Now sometimes, this discrimination may be justified (e.g. a pub refusing to serve an unruly customer) but we have laws in place to prevent discrimination where the basis for the discrimination lacks any rational basis such as in these two cases.

e) Brendan Eich, Mozilla, California
Unlike the example of Brian Barkley above and the other cases which get trotted out in certain sections of the media, Brendan Eich was not a lowly employee cruelly laid-off by a large and uncaring employer. Eich was the CEO of Mozilla. When it came to light that Eich had given a donation in support of Prop. 8 there was a public backlash. This backlash began to hurt Mozilla's operations and damage Eich's effectiveness as CEO. Consequently Eich made the decision to resign. Now, most commentators on the NO side make a point of how Eich was "forced" to resign. While the degree of public pressure may have reduced his options somewhat, the decision to resign was Eich's nonetheless. However, the important point here is not whether Eich was forced by publicity to resign, the point is that Eich was not ordered or compelled by legislation to resign. The argument being made by Mandate for Marriage is that legislating for marriage equality would mean more cases like Brendan Eich. How? How could allowing same-sex couples to get married effect the public outcry that followed Eich's revelation? Eich didn't fall foul of any equality legislation, he simply made a choice which the majority of people didn't agree with and they made this disagreement well known.


3. On Parents & Children

The argument made in this section is that gay marriage would be bad for both parents and children. Within this section there are a number of specific and demonstrably false claims.

"In marriage between a man and a woman, as ordained by God, both parents have a biological connection to the child, increasing the likelihood that the parents will identify with and sacrifice for the child. This connection also reduces the likelihood that either parent will abuse the child. God established this pattern and we do well to follow it."

The quote above argues that man-woman marriage reduces the likelihood of child abuse. In a word, no.

The evidence surrounding the perpetrators of child abuse shows that just over half of all male child abusers are biological fathers (51%) with 20% being non-biological parents (stepfathers etc.) and 25% being non-parents (i.e. teachers, relatives, friends etc.). When we look at female abusers, we see that 86% are biological mothers.
The evidence also shows that one third of male perpetrators acted in concert with the child's mother. In these cases, biological fathers were more likely to act in concert with the mother than other males and that when both parents were involved in abuse, the rate of recidivism (i.e. the likelihood of repeated abuse) was increased.

Male Perpetrators of Child Maltreatment: Findings from NCANDS


"Homosexual couples cannot produce children on their own. This raises the prospect of hopeful couples seeking to “rent wombs” and denying children the right to know their biological parents. This will coincide with the increasing possibility of producing, buying, and selling children because, in addition to adoption, this is the only way in which homosexual couples can have children.

The quote above argues that marriage equality should be avoided because gay couples cannot have children and this will lead to an increase in surrogacy and adoption (which are somehow very bad). There are two problems wrong with this argument.
Firstly, the ability or intention to raise children is not a prerequisite for marriage. Straight couples who are either knowingly infertile (infertility where one partner is unaware is grounds for annulment) or have no intention to have children are not prevented from getting married. So why then should an extra restriction be placed on gay couples?
Secondly, there is the scaremongering tactic of adoption and how gay couples, once married will raid the orphanages and take all the children. This argument is, in and of itself, doubly flawed. For a start, adoptions have been in serious decline for the last three decades:

In 2012, there were just 49 adoption orders granted. Of these, 33 were granted to step-parents (i.e. couples where one parent was already a biological parent). This means that just 16 adoptions were granted to couples where no prior relationship with the child existed. Adoptions in Ireland have been in decline for 30 years with the 2012 level just 4% of that in 1984. This means that those on the NO side are either 30 years behind the times or trying to argue a situation completely unconnected with reality. I'll leave the decision as to which it is as an exercise for the reader.
The other flaw in this argument is the Child and Family Relationships Bill which has just recently passed through the Seanad. This act will update the existing Adoption Act so that same-sex couples can apply to adopt as a couple rather than as individuals under the existing legal framework. This makes any debate about adoption in the context of the marriage referendum irrelevant.
Finally, the adoption statistics above make for interesting reading in more ways than one. Just as adoptions have declined over the last 30 years, the figures show that the number of non-marital births have significantly increased from 5,116 to 25,344. In fact non-marital births now make up 35% of the total, representing a shift away from marriage towards cohabitation. Consequently, I can't see how anyone can argue that allowing a group of people who are clamoring to get married to do so will in anyway have a negative impact on marriage. 


"Whether raised by lesbians or by homosexual men, children of same-sex marriages will be denied either a mother or a father. Lesbian mothers say a father is irrelevant to parenting, and homosexual fathers say a mother is irrelevant to parenting. God says both a father and a mother are relevant, however. Two men can never take the place of a mother’s love and two women can never equal a Dad. God intended that every child have a father and a mother who are an example of commitment, care and love. Not only is such a child given a sense of security but s/he sees femininity and masculinity modelled in a complementary relationship. Though separation and divorce are now rampant, and the ideal is becoming less common, society must work towards the ideal rather than work against it.

The quote above while being very careful not to make any explicit declaration, makes the implicit argument that a straight couple is the ideal environment for raising a child and that gay couples lack certain qualities that will result in bad outcomes for the child.
I have dealt with the evidence on this topic in detail in my previous post.

However, there are one further point I want to make about the quote above. 
Firstly, its not gay parents who claim that a father or mother are irrelevant. Science does. Just as with much of quantum physics, research on parenting has given us conclusions that are out-of-sync with common sense, and yet they are demonstrably true.

For example, in his book "The Role of the Father in Child Development", Michael E. Lamb states:

"First, fathers and mothers influence their children in similar rather than dissimilar ways.

Stated differently, students of socialization have consistently found that parental warmth, nurturance and closeness are associated with positive child outcomes regardless of whether the parent involved is a mother or father.

Secondly, as research has unfolded, psychologists have been forced to conclude that the characteristics of individual fathers - such as their masculinity, intellect, and even their warmth - are much less important, formatively speaking, than are the characteristics of the relationships they have established with their children.


Marital harmony is a consistent correlate of child adjustment, whereas marital conflict is a consistent and reliable correlate of child maladjustment."

This is probably as concise a summary of parenting research and repsonse to this argument as I can think of.


4. On Genesis & The nature of marriage

One of the points that is made multiple times throughout the website is that marriage is an institution established by God (the Christian one) and that the current marriage referendum is just a secular/homosexual campaign to "redefine" marriage. This argument fails for a number of reasons.
Firstly and obviously, marriage wasn't established in Genesis. Although traditional Christian views hold that Genesis was written by Moses sometime around 1700 BCE, modern scholarship tells us that Genesis is an edited work, compiled from a number of different sources around 450 BCE. The established modern theory states that Genesis was compiled from at least four sources, the Jawhist, Elohist, Deuteronomist and Priestly. However, new research suggests that the Elohist is really just a rewrite of the Jawhist, while the Priestly source is intended as a companion work to the Jawhist. This just leaves two primary sources, the oldest of which, the Deuteronomist, was begun no earlier than about the 8th century BCE. So already, Genesis is approximately 1000 years newer than most Christians would like to admit.
Secondly, we have evidence of the existence of marriage ceremonies before the dawn of Christianity, or Judaism for that matter. 1000 years before work began on what would eventually become Genesis a Babylonian king named Hammurabi authored a legal code which would be copied and emualted by civilisations in the region for centuries afterwards. In this code marriage was a legal contract with specific codes relating to dowry, divorce, inheritance etc.

e.g. "137. If a man wish to separate from a woman who has borne him children, or from his wife who has borne him children: then he shall give that wife her dowry, and a part of the usufruct of field, garden, and property, so that she can rear her children. When she has brought up her children, a portion of all that is given to the children, equal as that of one son, shall be given to her. She may then marry the man of her heart."

Thirdly, there is this idea of "redefining" marriage. This argument would only hold if the definition of marriage was always "one man, one woman for life for the purposes of raising children." There are several reasons why this is wrong.

With regard to Genesis above, at no point in the OT is marriage restricted to one man and one woman. In Genesis 4:19 Lamech marries two women with no evident condemnation from God. Among the many polygamists in the OT represent both Jesus' ancestors and key players in Biblical history including Abraham, Jacob, David and Solomon (who had no less than 700 wives and 300 concubines). In fact, God, through the prophet Nathan offers David even more wives in 2 Samuel 12:8. Polygamy is never condemned in the OT and is the dominant family type if you survey all cultures both historically and geographically.

As author Stephanie Coontz outlines in her book Marriage, A History, traditionally marriage had very little to do with love and children and those in the marriage had little or no choice in its formation:

"To understand why the love-based marriage system was so unstable and how we ended up where we are today, we have to recognise that for most of history, marriage was not about the individual needs and desires of a man and woman and the children they produced. Marriage had as much to do with finding good in-laws and increasing one's family labour force as it did with finding a lifetime companion and raising a beloved child"

Coontz goes on to show how much marriage has changed over the centuries. For starters, polygamy as mentioned above was the norm until the Catholic Church eventually prevailed over the monarchies of Europe around the ninth century. 
Further, for over 1000 years the early Church didn't even get involved in marriage. Marriage was seen as a private contract between two individuals in which neither the State nor the Church intervened. It wasn't until 1215 that the Church decreed that prospective couples had to post banns or statements of intent regarding future marriages (as a means to cut down on annulments). Up to this point (and indeed for a few centuries afterwards) the word of the couple alone was deemed sufficient evidence of marriage. No ceremony or witnesses required.
Regarding the Catholic Church, what is even stranger about the Church's historical relationship with marriage, given the current debate, is that for a period of about 600 years, the Catholic Church had official same-sex marriage rites.

"Contrary to myth, Christianity's concept of marriage has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has constantly evolved as a concept and ritual. Prof. John Boswell, the late Chairman of Yale University’s history department, discovered that in addition to heterosexual marriage ceremonies in ancient Christian church liturgical documents, there were also ceremonies called the "Office of Same-Sex Union" (10th and 11th century), and the "Order for Uniting Two Men" (11th and 12th century).

These church rites had all the symbols of a heterosexual marriage: the whole community gathered in a church, a blessing of the couple before the altar was conducted with their right hands joined, holy vows were exchanged, a priest officiatied in the taking of the Eucharist and a wedding feast for the guests was celebrated afterwards. These elements all appear in contemporary illustrations of the holy union of the Byzantine Warrior-Emperor, Basil the First (867-886 CE) and his companion John."

When Same-Sex Marriage was a Christian Rite

But, even after we look past the rather fundamental changes in the definition of a traditional marriage we see that, at a practical level, the nature of marriage is constantly changing. As barrister Mark Tottenham points out, the changing legal definition of marriage gives the live to this argument:

Summary

Civil and constructive debate on any topic is good. However, those on any side of a debate should try their best to ensure that their arguments are both logically sound and factual. Mandate for Marriage's arguments are neither of those. Moreover they contain statements which are deliberately inflammatory and of no use in any debate. By all means if someone's got a reasonable argument against same-sex marriage then let's hear it, but you won't find one on Mandate for Marriage's website.