The gods retain their threefold task: they must exorcise the terrors of nature, they must reconcile men to the cruelty of Fate, particularly as it is shown in death, and they must compensate them for the sufferings and privations which a civilized life in common has imposed on them.and Jung, from Modern Man in Search of a Soul, page 129:
As a physician I am convinced that it is hygenic to discover in death a goal toward which one can strive; and that shrinking away from it is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose. I therefore consider the religious teaching of a life hereafter consonat with the standpoint of psychic hygiene.nevertheless, Lee Strobel has attempted to make the case too.Of course, Mr. Strobel's goal is to make the case for evangelical Christian faith.
Within a story concerning former friends Reverend Billy Grahm and Reverend Charles Templeton, Strobel relates the answers to the questions he formerly entertained on his road to Jesus. These objections are the "Big Eight". The format is like his Case for Christ: a little story about the objection, an interview with an extensively credentialed evangelical, and study questions.
I only read those sections that interested me. I figure, if you're god you can do whatever you please...It's good to be king...so, many of the objections to faith Mr. Strobel discusses simply don't matter to me. In fact, only two objections appealed to me:
Since Miracles Contradict Science, They Cannot Be True
Evolution Explains Life, So God Isn't Needed
After having sat on my notes for over six months, I have decided to admit that I will probably never get around to writing a review of this work...or at least not for another six months...so I'll copy my notes over to HTML and post them. Yes, eventually I'd like to do a better review. But, for now, this is all I can do.
Introduction
On page 11, Mr. Strobel presents two definitions of faith that are supposed to be opposites. Quoting George H. Smith: "faith is belief without, or in spite of, reason" and W. Bingham Hunter: "faith is a rational response to the evidence of god's self-revelation in nature , human history, the scriptures and his resurrected son". These sound like they're in agreement to me, since god's revelation in history is outside of reason.
On the Road to Answers
Page 20:a sales pitch for Case for Christ: "the historical evidences for Jesus resurection" are discussed in his previous book and are pitched again here. In paragraph four of page 21 Mr. Strobel brings out the old lie that too short a time passed to change Jesus into a mythologized Christ. Check out Counterfeit Revival by Hank Hanegraaff for an unitentional rebuttal of this. How does the counterfeit revival grow so many hydra-heads in such a short period of time. Urban myths come out of nowhere and have great staying power, including the never dying urban myths about P&&G's ownership by Satan, Inc. and the FCC's order to remove all religious stations and broadcasts from American airwaves. You guys are soooooo gullible.
Since Miracles Contradict Science, They Cannot Be True
an interview with Dr. William Lane Craig.
Page 62:miracles lie outside science, not contradictory to science; when asked to provide another example of something outside of, but not contradictory to, science Dr. Craig says: "Well, ethics, for instance, lie outside the province of science." This doesn't answer the question, which is "what is outside of, but not contradictory to, science?", he's answered the question "what isn't science?" I wonder if an ethicist would agree that the thing they study and work on cannot be said to be based on repeatable observation and repeatable trials.
Dr. Craig mentions William Dembski and Michael Behe as examples of a "theistic form of science". So, if you believe the Intelligent Design hypothesis it's an example of a science not being contradictory to miracles. Page 63 "natural laws have implicit ceteris paibus conditions - that's Latin for 'all things being equal'. In other words, natural laws assume that no other natural or supernatural factors are interfering..." If things are not equal, if god interferes, the miracle occurs and it is outside of natural law...therefore the Intelligent Design hypothesis shows itself to be not contradictory to miracles. ID, I conclude, does not meet his criteria for an example of something that is outside of, but not contradictory to, science. Dr. Craig offers no examples to compare to miracles.
Page 65: probability offered as a proof that the resurrection cannot be rejected as too extraordinary.
Page 66: offers an historical reason to accept resurrection, the usual things that just don't follow when we look at recent history: appearances of the resurrected Jesus, changed behavior of the apostles, the too-short a time for myth argument; paragraph four is especially strange: if god is how improbable is any event...this can be rephrased as "if someone says it, it must be true"
Pages 66 and 67: supernatural explanations must be in the pool of explanations for events, based on observability, quantifiability, and weight of the evidence; this refers back to page 64, paragraphs 2 through 5: ignorance will "punt to god every time they can't explain something" and "real acts of god won't be squeezed out by the advance of science". On one hand, it seems, he wants god in the explanation before natural reasons and on the other he wants "miracle" to be the final recourse for an explanation.
Page 67:"an honest investigator" looks for miracles using these criteria:
Another note I've made on this: What is the religio-historical context of Intelligent Design?
Page 68:NT critics may not all believe Jesus' miracles are genuine miracles. So the religio-historical context as seen by some scholars of the NT may create the miracle.
Paragraph 4 of page 68 about Bultmann's criticism...I honestly thought that new scholarship supported the role of Greco-Roman mythology and culture in the earliest Jesus cults.
Page 69:Another statement like that made on page 66..."if you beleive god exists, then there's no good reason to be skeptical about these events." Is this really the respons on an "honest investigator" or is this the attitude of someone who'll believe anything?
Page 69: back to page 66, historicity of the resurrection...blah,blah,blah
Page 69, paragraph at top of page that starts at the end of page 68: "There were other Jewish exorcists and miracle workers who proceded Jesus." Why isn't the notion that the stories of these various miracle-workers were combined and elaborated in the story of the historical Jesus and topped off with a resurrection borrowed from Greco-Roman sources pursued here? Because the religio-historical perspective of this book, unlike the perspective of the Jesus Seminar, says so. Now the same could be said of the Seminar, I suppose, but what about the evangelical perspective is superior to the Seminarian perspective and why don't the professionals in the Seminar see it?
Page 70: back to the legend argument
Page 70, paragraph 5, "If he (Mohammad) and both performed similar miracles..." compare page 69. Dr. Craig will reason out why Islamic stories don't count for him, but Jesus' miracle-working contemporaries are part of the religio-historical context of Israel, so they are special.
Page 70 - 71:Compare Joseph Smith and Mohammed: in one case (Mo') it takes centuries to make a myth, in Joseph's case it takes years but the Smith case is impugned because his family was crazy for gold, and finally, in the case of Jesus...you guessed it...too short a time for mythologization and the character change of the participants is proof for their integrity and not held against them. Does this guy have anything like integrity?
Page 72: miracles can happen today but not as frequently...perhaps the religio-historical context has changed? y'know, "miracles" are seen as nature operating not as god operating more frequently (p. 67)
Page 73: personal story of god using disease to form Dr. Craig's personality
Page 74: defining faith "faith is trust or commmitment to what you think is true" whic means faith is
putting your trust in what you think you can trust
Isn't that like saying ketchup is ketchup?
Page 75: Follows reasons to believe in a miracle-working being:
Page 85: The author says he lived in a "mire of immorality as an atheist"; maybe you're just an air head and a jerk?
Evolution Explains Life, So God Isn't Needed
an interview with Dr. Walter L. Bradley
Page 91: Mr. Strobel was happy to embrace evolution so he could be immoral? yeah, he's a jerk
Page 91 - 92:microevolution/macroevolution; paucity of fossils; back to Michael Behe; on one hand evolution happens, on the other is a supposed lack of evidence; see young earth creationist Dr. Sarfetti: macroevolution is limited because 6000 years isn't enough time; also Behe seems to point to a point where irreducible complexity requires a designer...so, inanimate matter to man evolution may not be thinkable to Behe, but bacteria to man evolution may very well be; this argument, and especially citing Behe is disingenuous
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