Challenging Dogmatism In Science: David Lorimer in conversation with Dr. Rupert Sheldrake and Dr. Peter Fenwick

After years reflecting upon the controversy between "skeptics" and psi researchers, and given the insights of people like Chris Carter, I've concluded that the debate is ultimately philosophical and even (implicitly) theological: "Skeptics" are explicitly defending a materialistic-atheistic-impersonal worldview and "psi researchers" are defending (consciously or unconsciously) scientific evidence which entails a worldview centered in persons (spirits).

In atheistic materialism, "persons" are the pure by product of blind matter (which has evolved without purpose or direction), and questions like consciousness, psi phenomena, the afterlife, spirituality, intelligent design, objective purposes or values, souls, spirits and whatever other person-relative phenomenon is seen with hostility or at least with skepticism, since the fabric the reality (the ultimate elements of the universe) are impersonal or non-personal (i.e. purely mechanical).

In spiritualistic wordlviews (e.g. in theism), the fabric of reality is ultimately person-relative, namely, the material world is secondary to persons (e.g. to God's creation). The fabric of reality is a person or a bunch of persons (e.g. spirits, a spiritual realm, etc.) and the physical world is, at most, a place to learn and evolve spiritually.

It's essential to understand the above key features, because they explain the posture of "skeptics" and critics of "skeptics".

The "dogmatism in science" shown by skeptics is NOT dogmatism about science itself, but about the materialistic understanding of science which in turns support naturalism (which "skeptics" conflate with science itself). Skeptics see "science" as validating metaphysical naturalism and materialistic atheism, and this is why they hold firmly and agressively to "science". But when science is at variance with atheism, then "skeptics" reject science and adopt dogmatic anti-scientific positions (for example, when the evidence for the beginning of the universe points out to a cause external to the universe, "skeptics" become critics of the big bang model and argue that "science can change in the future", a position that they never would defend in biology regarding Neo-Darwinism, for example).

The ultimate motivation of contemporary "skeptics" is theological: they want to avoid a theistic worldview, and the evidence for person-relative properties (consciousness, causal efficacy of the mind, NDEs, afterlife evidence, intelligent design, spiritual phenomena, etc.) in this universe are too much like theism as to be accepted or countenanced by a metaphysical naturalistic (purely mechanistic and non-personal) understanding of the world.

It's the fear and hostility to theism which motive "skeptics" to attack the evidence provided by parapsychology and other disciplines at variance with atheistic naturalism.

First-rate atheist-naturalistic philosopher Thomas Nagel, in his book The Last Word, has noted this problem and he calls it the Cosmic Authority Problem: " I believe that this is one manifestation of a fear of religion which has large and often pernicious consequences for modern intellectual life.

In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper—namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and wellinformed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.

My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental features of the world"

Note carefully that Nagel is not referring to organized religion (religions doctrines, practiques, etc.), but to THEISM (the worldview based on God's existence).

Most parapsychologists and psi researchers have not fully understood the point made by Nagel, because they're not trained philosophers. They believe (naively) that the scientific evidence for psi alone will destroy the skeptical case and will make the scholarly community convinced that psi is real. As seen in contemporary academy, it is not the case. Most scholars and intellectuals are skeptics of psi, despite the evidence. The reason is that most scholars are metaphysical naturalists, and this worldview (if true) makes antecedently very improbable the existence of person-relative phenomena as part of the fabric of reality (or, as Nagel says, the existence of "purpose, meaning and design as fundamental features of the world").

Most naturalist scholars would agree with Richard Wiseman when he said that the parapsychologist's claims for the existence of ESP "meet the usual standards for a normal claim, but are not convincing enough for an extraordinary claim".

Since naturalism makes claims about the existence of psi and the afterlife "extraordinary", the positive evidence in favor of these phenomena is considered insufficient by the naturalist and he will stick to his skeptical position. Failing to understand this is failing to understand the atheistic-naturalistic mindset and Jime's Iron Law.

The key to destroy organized skepticism is to attack, with evidence and sound arguments, the metaphysical naturalistic and materialistic worldview.

Controversy about the Gracie Diet: Armando Wridt claims that the Gracie Diet was created by Juan Esteve Dulin not by Carlos Gracie

World-renown jiu-jitsu master Rorion Gracie has written a book about the Gracie Diet, which is the diet used sucessfully by several generations of members of the Gracie Family.

According to the usual story, Carlos Gracie (co-founder with Helio Gracie of the martial art known as Gracie Jiu-Jitsu or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) studied nutrition and health for several decades, and based on his studies he developed the Gracie Diet, as described in Rorion's book.

However, according to (9th degree red belt and one of Helio's best students) Armando Wridt (in an interview published in the issue Nº 48 of the martial arts magazine Budo International, which you can read here), the usual story is false. Wridt says that Oscar Santa Maria "convinced Carlos that he needed to have a special diet to spend the whole day on the mat, and gave him the book of Dulin, who was the true creator of what they would call the Gracie Diet" (p.51)

When asked explicitly by interviewer if the Gracie Diet wasn't invented by Carlos Gracie, Wridt reply is straightforward: "No, it wasn't. In fact, that diet was developed by the Argentine author of the book Dr.Juan Esteve Dulin. He said the body is nourished by what it assimilates, not by what you eat, that is the reason why the Gracie spent fortunes in the diet. As Carlos liked to read a lot, he took the diet based on the combination of foods"

It has to be said that the Gracie Diet (regardless of whether it created by Carlos Gracie or not) seems to be a very useful diet. Carlos Gracie died of 92 years old (and attributed his longevity to the diet). Also, Grandmaster Helio Gracie died of 95 years old, being still very lucid and active (and he attributed also his old age to the diet). It is not only the long age that these people reach, but also the high quality of life that they enjoy.

So, I highly recommend the reading of the Gracie Diet book by Rorion Gracie.

A further comment on the history of Gracie Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

As a long time practitioner of martial arts, and hard-nosed fan and student of the history of martial arts in general, I've long admired the Gracie Family, specially Rorion Gracie (who changed the world of martial arts forever with the creation of the UFC), Royce Gracie (who beat all of his opponents in no-rules matches against practitioners of virtually each martial art) and, of course, Grandmaster Helio Gracie, who refined the Japanese version of Judo and Jiu-Jitsu that was taught to his family. The contemporary world of martial arts have to give a lot of credit to the influence of the Gracie Family. They deserve the highest degree of admiration and respect by each practitioner of martial art in the world.

Having said that, and in a more scholarly level, I have to say that the history of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has been constantly misrepresented in martial arts books, articles and magazines.

Let's summarize some of the problems:

1-Mitsuyo Maeda, the Japanese master who taught Carlos Gracie, was a high level practioner of Kodokan Judo, not of traditional forms of Japanese Jiu-Jitsu. As consequence, the art he taught to the Gracies was mostly a modified version of Judo ("modified", because Maeda also fought in Catch Wrestling matches and probably incorporated some of the holds into his personal fighting Judo method). So, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu should be properly called "Brazilian Judo".

Some perhaps will think that it is a pure semantic question. But it doesn't, it is also a technical one. If you compare Judo with traditional forms of Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, you'll find that Judo lacks the lethal techniques typical of traditional Jiu-Jitsu.

Techniques like pressure points, finger locks and other small-joint manipulations, neck breakers, scissors holds, strikes to vital points, throws in which the opponent cannot break the fall, etc. were all left out of Judo (for sporting purposes).

Interestingly, all of these holds and techniques are not emphasized (or just in a very watered down version, or in the "self-defense" category) in BJJ. The standard reply by BJJ students is that these techniques "don't work" and hence they are not trained or used in BJJ.

But this objection is false and unconvincing because some of these techniques (like finger locks or wrist locks to escape chokes) are taught in the self-defense portion of the BJJ curriculum (and "self-defense" is supposed to be the original and main purpose of BJJ, at least in the Helio's branch of it). If these techniques "don't work", then why the hell are they taught in the self-defense standing up techniques of BJJ stressed by Grandmaster Helio Gracie and his sons?

Even some pressure points are taught in the Gracie self-defense program, as seen in the technique Nº 91 of the book by Royce and Charles Gracie entitled "Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Self-Defense Techniques" (p.200), in which a pressure point in the hand is used to release from a handshake grab.

Again, if these techniques don't work, then the Gracies teaching these techniques as effective self-defense against street attacks becomes inexplicable and self-defeating.

2-Point 1 (about BJJ more similarity to Judo than Jiu-Jitsu) is also made evident when you compare self-defense techniques of Japanese Jiu-Jitsu with the Self-Defense repertory of BJJ. In the latter, there is a preference for medium and large joint manipulations (shoulder, elbow, knee) instead of small joint manipulations (finger locks, toe locks, etc.). This is the case also of Judo.

For example, take a look at Gracie self-defense techniques (in which most holds are applied to medium and large joints):

Compare the above video with the following one by experts in Japanese Jiu-Jitsu (like Michael Depasquale Jr., master of the Yoshitsune Ju-Jitsu system, and the late Grandmaster Wally Jay, founder of Small Circle Jujitsu system) in which the manipulations of small joints, like fingers and wrists, are emphasized:

3-The above points are purely descriptive and factual and have nothing to do with effectiveness. I'm not claiming that BJJ is superior or inferior to Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, I'm simply pointing out facts relative to these arts.

4-BJJ is divided into 1)Self-defense; 2)Vale Tudo and 3)Sport grappling.

It is not clear from the current literature available about BJJ exactly what aspect of Maeda's modified Judo was taught by him to the Gracies. Did he teach the self-defense portion of it? Or, since Maeda was a fighter, did he teach the techniques which he used in Vale Tudo? Or both?

Any scholarly history of BJJ should include details about these technical aspects, which are very interesting to practioners and fans of BJJ. It is astonishing that no martial arts scholar has been interested in these technical question and details about the history of BJJ.

5-Exactly what techniques were modified by Carlos and Helio Gracie? As far I've studied the matter and trained the techniques, the main contribution of Brazilians have been in the transitions of a position to another one, but I don't know of ANY technique in the BJJ curriculum which doesn't exist either in Kosen Judo or in traditional forms of Jiu-Jitsu.

Even leg locks and knee on the stomach were used by the ancient masters and experts of Kosen Judo in the Kodokan, as you can watch in some videos:

I'm fortunate to have all the training tapes and videos of Kosen Judo which have been published, and some of them are already available online or in stores. I suggest to martial arts fans and practitioners to take a look at these tapes and compare the techniques with BJJ. You'll be surprised of what you will find.

The historical Jesus of Marcus Borg and the Jesus Seminar is at variance with the fact of Jesus' crucifixion

Jesus' crucifixion is considered by scholars as the most indusputable fact about the historical Jesus. Even a revisionist and radical skeptical, religious pluralist and atheist scholar like John Dominic Crossan of the Jesus Seminar has conceded "That he [Jesus] was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be" (Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 145).

When reading carefully and sympathetically (but critically too) the version of the historical Jesus created by the leading members of the Jesus Seminar (specially of religious pluralist Marcus Borg), one topic always appeared in my mind: If Jesus was like that, how the hell are we going to make sense of his crucifixion?

Just for the record and summarizing: As I've explained and documented in other posts, the version of the historical Jesus of people like Borg is of a non-exclusivistic Jesus, a Jesus compatible with religious pluralism, i.e. a Jesus who (in regards to other spiritual leaders and religious traditions) is essentially nothing special. This "nothing special" version of Jesus is part of the large secularistic agenda of the Jesus Seminar: namely, to undermine and destroy traditional Christianity.

In Borg's own words, his version of Jesus (misleadingly and falsely presented as the version accepted by contemporary mainstream Jesus scholarship) is a version which "undermines a widespread Christian belief that Jesus is unique, which is commonly linked to the notion that Christianity is exclusively true and that ‘Jesus is the only way." ( Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, p. 37. Emphasis in blue added)"

In summary, Borg's version of Jesus is straightforwardly a religious pluralist version of Jesus.

In order to make his pluralistic case, Borg has to evade or misrepresent (with misleading considerations about "metaphors" and "meanings", a tactic used as red-herrings) the clear evidence for the historical sayings of Jesus implying his exclusivistic self-perception and the evidence for the historicity of Jesus' resurrection. Borg is forced to deny the radical sayings of Jesus implying his exclusivistic position regarding God and specially the sayings in which Jesus stood and spoke with divine authority (i.e. in matters in which only God has authority, which again implies his exclusivism and divinity).

It is absolutely crucial to understand why Borg's pluralistic position requires, as necessary condition, to avoid these exclusivistic sayings of Jesus or any fact or saying implying Jesus' divinity or his bodily resurrection. If you understand this point, your understanding of the Jesus Seminar project, and particularly Borg's, become evident and understable. (In future posts, I'll discuss some of these sayings in detail and document how Borg and other pluralists misrepresent them in order to undermine their historicity or the exclusivistic interpretation/reading of them).

Borg's Jesus amounts to a kind of teacher of wisdom, a mere teller of stories and a speaker of great one-liners whose purpose was the transformation of people's perception. At the center of his message was an invitation to see things differently.

Now, if it is essentially what Jesus did and taught, how the hell can we explain his crucifixion?

In the traditional portrait of Jesus, his crucifixion was due to Jesus' radical claims implying his divinity and exclusivism (as the only Son of God, as a divine man who stood and spoke authoritatively in matters which belong only to God, etc.) and therefore his claims were considered blasphemous (= irreverent and offensive to God). In this traditional understanding, Jesus was clearly a threat, specially when he spoke with the authority of God (e.g. changing the Old Testament laws given by God). In this understanding, the crucifixion is the kind of punishment that you would expect to a person who uttered radical blasphemous claims implying divinity and exclusivity.

For any objective researcher, I think, the historical evidence clearly indicates that Jesus' crucifixion was instigated by his blasphemous claims, not by imaginary "invitations" to see differently through a bunch of nice stories and great on-liners.

In Borg's pluralistic and undermined version of Jesus as a nice teacher whose main message was simply to "invite people to see differently", the crucifixion of such a person becomes largely inexplicable. How could such a nice person to be an actual threat deserving so a severe punishment?

The explanations of the crucifixion given by Crossan, Borg and other religious pluralists and atheists in the Jesus Seminar are very weak and implausible, and it is testimony of the extreme weakness of their revisionist case for the historical Jesus. It actually makes me more sure and confident that their portrait of the historical Jesus is largely false (and note that we are not including here the evidence for Jesus' resurrection. If the latter is considered, Borg's pluralistic case is essentially destroyed).

Initially, I thought that I was exaggerating too much the apparent tension of the strongly undermined pluralistic version of Jesus of people like Borg and the fact of the crucifixion. But soon I discoveried that many leading Jesus scholars who don't buy the pluralistic version of Jesus created by Borg (and others) have noted the same problem.

For example, John Meier comments "such a Jesus would threaten no one, just as the university professors who create him threaten no one" (A Marginal Jew, vol. 1: The Roots of the Problem and the Person, p.177)

In conclusion, the undermined and religious pluralistic version of the historical Jesus created by people like Marcus Borg is unlikely to be true given:

1-Jesus' crucifixion

2-Jesus's true historical sayings implying his exclusivity in divine matters (which fits perfectly with and explains point 1).

3-The fact that the early Church considered that Jesus was God (a fact inexplicable given that Jews were hard-core monotheistic believers, i.e. believers in just one God, and it was considered strongly blasphemous to consider that a mere man was God. Contrary to the Jesus Seminar's anti-Christian prejudices and assumptions, it is very unlikely that this divine view of Jesus was a pure invention. Jews had every religious predisposition against Jesus, or any other man, to be God. This fact is best explained by Jesus' actual sayings implying his divinity, and hence its exclusivity regarding God, which in turns explains why his claims were considered blasphemous and in turns explains the fact of his crucifixion).

3-Jesus' resurrection (provided it happened... if it happened, then the arguments of point 2 become stronger and Borg's religious pluralistic case is destroyed).

Borg's religious pluralist understanding of Jesus cannot explain well the 3 points mentioned above, except in a very ad hoc, idiosyncraitc and contrived way. Borg only can evade them or force idiosyncratic interpretations of the evidence (interpretations which only atheists, religious pluralists and people hostile to traditional Christianity would buy. Reseachers or students outside these 3 biased groups would very easily recognize the strongly biased anti-Christian approach of the Jesus seminar and Marcus Borg to the historical Jesus).

David Hume The Theist: A believer in God championed by contemporary atheists and secularists

David Hume is a kind of "hero" for many atheists and secularists, mostly because Hume was a critic of religion, miracles and the classical arguments for God's existence.

But what is not well known is the fact that some of writings of Hume suggests he was actually a theist. (Note that being a theist is perfectly compatible with being critic of religion or of classical arguments for God's existence).

Many of Hume's atheistic fans are wholly ignorant of Hume's theism.

Consider:

In his book The Natural History of Religion, Hume wrote: "The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; and no rational enquierer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion... Were men led into the apprehension of invisible, intelligent power by a contemplation of the works of nature, they could never possibly entertain any conception but of one single being, who bestowed existence and order on this vast machine, and adjusted all its parts, according to one regular plan or connected system . . .All the things of the universe are evidently of a piece. Every thing is adjusted to every thing. One design prevails throughtout the whole. And this uniformity leads the mind to acknowledge one author" (pp. 21, 26, emphasis in blue added).

Philosopher Nicholas Capaldi, a world-renown Hume scholar (and founder of the Hume Society) explaining Hume's position, writes: "Hume believed in the existence of God. He rejected the ontological argument. He accepted in one form the argument from design. God exists, but his properties are unknown and unknowable by us" (David Hume, ch 9)

Hume scholar Kenneth R. Merrill comments "Hume does not reject the design argument out of hand. Indeed, he seems (at least) to accept a scaled-down version of the argument, but he points out weaknesses that significantly diminish its force... At the end of the Dialogues, Hume has Philo (one of the principals) endorse what has been described as an “attenuated deism” (or, sometimes, as an “attenuated theism”); namely, “that the cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence” (Dialogues, 227; italics are in Hume’s text). Whether this represents Hume’s own view is a point of contention." (Historical Dictionary of Hume's Philosophy, pp 91-92)

So, Hume wasn't even agnostic about God's existence, but a theist. Certainly, his theism conceives a God without all the attributes which classical theism consider essential to God, but the point is that Hume was convinced by the evidence, and despite his skepticism, that the most reasonable position for a rational man is theism (over atheism and agnosticism). And he was convinced by the evidence of design in nature.

Interestingly, a version of the same argument from design was what convinced another Hume scholar (and champion of atheism for 5 decades), Antony Flew.

On his change of mind, Flew comments: "There were two factors in particular that were decisive. One was my growing empathy with the insight of Einstein and other noted scientists that there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe. The second was my own insight that the integrated complexity of life itself – which is far more complex than the physical Universe – can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source. I believe that the origin of life and reproduction simply cannot be explained from a biological standpoint despite numerous efforts to do so. With every passing year, the more that was discovered about the richness and inherent intelligence of life, the less it seemed likely that a chemical soup could magically generate the genetic code. The difference between life and non-life, it became apparent to me, was ontological and not chemical. The best confirmation of this radical gulf is Richard Dawkins' comical effort to argue in The God Delusion that the origin of life can be attributed to a "lucky chance." If that's the best argument you have, then the game is over. No, I did not hear a Voice. It was the evidence itself that led me to this conclusion."

Compare Flew's reference to "intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical universe" with Hume's comments that "The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author".

Recent discoveries in cosmology have made the argument from design a lot of stronger than in Hume's times. So, perhaps if Hume were alive today, his theism would be more solid.

In the following videos, you can watch contemporary formulations and defenses of the argument from design:

William Lane Craig on UFOs, Ufology, Extraterrestial Intelligencies and Christianity

Some Christians that I've known and discussed with the topic of UFOs are unsympathetic and even hostile to the whole matter. They seem to assume that human beings are the "locus" of creation and hence, not other beings could exist outside the Earth, what is just dogmatic and unwarranted. (By the way they use the same arguments of atheists and materialistic pseudoskeptics against ufology).

However, in this interesting podcast, Christian philosopher William Lane Craig has commented sympathetically about the possibility of the existence of advanced extraterrestial intelligences, and how it is perfectly compatible with Christianity.

Moreover, I've found very useful Craig's insight that the existence of alien beings is more likely given theism than given naturalistic atheism (so, I think, we have a new but undeveloped argument for God's existence based on alien beings... this argument cannot be developed yet because the existence of aliens is too controversial as to be part of a persuasive argument for God's existence).

But clearly, in a naturalistic worldview, the existence of intelligent beings is just a cosmic accident (and an extremely improbable one). But in theism, the existence of intelligence and spirit is basic and essential to the fabric of reality (since God is supposed to be an intelligent spiritual being) and hence it wouldn't be a great surprise that intelligent (spiritual) beings can be found in other parts of the universe.

Moreover, the conditions necessary for the emergence of intelligent life (including intelligent alien life, if it exists) in the universe are, itself, evidence for theism:



Even though hard-core atheists and pseudoskeptics are enemies of ufology too, they have appealed to the existence of putative alien beings in order to avoid the evidence for theism. A crushing example of this is Michael Shermer's Last Law, which I've discussed here.

Also, it has been reported that atheist Richard Dawkins is sympathetic to the "alien hypothesis" as a substitute for God in order to explain the origin of life, saying that he "was more receptive to the theory that life on earth had indeed been created by a governing intelligence – but one which had resided on another planet.

The best book on Ufology that I've read is Leslie Keen's book UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record

Absolutely a must read!

A further commnent on the implications of Jesus' self-perception as the "Son of God".

In a previous post, we discussed briefly some of the evidence suggesting the historicity of the "Son of God" sayings related to the historical Jesus. Jesus' self-perception was that he was the unique and absolute Son of God.

Implications of this view:

1)If Jesus saw himself as the only son of God, it implies that no other person (teacher, philosopher, spiritual leader, etc.) is the son of God in the exclusivistic sense in which Jesus is using the word. Therefore, all the pluralistic reconstructions of Jesus have to be false (and the question would be which are the motivations of the pluralistic "scholars").

2)Hence, Christians should be exclusivistic, non-pluralists (So-called Christian "pluralists" like Marcus Borg are not Christians at all, and his pluralistic reconstruction of the historical Jesus is largely based upon personal anti-Christian prejudices against the traditional view of Jesus, which cast doubts on the reliability and honesty of their research. After a careful reading the literature of these people, I've lost all intellectual respect for them and consider that their works are extremely misleading, spiritually dangerous, intellectually dishonest and I think they deserve to receive proper evidence-based debunking. This blog will be a space employed to this end).

3)Jesus' exclusivity as the only Son of God implies he saw himself as divine:

-Being the only "son" of God, he saw himself as participating of the ontological nature of the Father. If Jesus saw himself as merely (and uniquely) an human like any other, then his self-perception and condition as the exclusive son of God would be unjustified and purely arbitrary (Why Jesus alone and not other human beings?). Obviously, something in Jesus' specific nature makes him special regarding God (if his self-perception is veridical).

-A further indication of this self-perception of divinity is seen in Jesus modifying some of the laws given by God in the Old Testament. In the Jewish context, no human being has the authority to change God' laws, only God himself. Again, this shows Jesus' self-perception as a divine man. (This point will be discussed in more detail in future posts)

-A further indication of this would be Jesus' resurrection. All major Jesus scholars (of whatever theological persuasion) seems to agree openly that if Jesus' resurrection occured, then this event had some connection essential connection with God's intervention. And this is what we would expect if Jesus was actually the only son of God (i.e. we would expect a special, unique, dramatic vindication of Jesus' authority, nature, condition and teachings with an event without any precedent in human history).

But if Jesus didn't claimed to be God's unique son, and not special or particular divine condition (above all the other spiritual leaders) is particular of Jesus, then the resurrection, if occured, is essentially ambiguous, totally unexpected and even antecedently very improbable. It comes without a proper context for understading or explanation. Why exactly the resurrection would happen to Jesus, and not to the bunch of spiritual leaders of other religions and spiritual movements?

By the way, this clearly shows the superficiality, desperation (and hidden anti-Christian prejudices) of the attempts to explain the resurrection appealing yoga teachings, Buddhist methods, Chi Kung and so forth. Not only there is not solid evidence that these method allows their practitioners to reach the resurrection (in the sense in which it is applied to Jesus), but that no evidence exists that Jesus was a practitioner (let alone, an advanced one) of these methods.

And it would be massively misleading and dishonest of Jesus to preach about the Kingdom of God and his own exclusivistic status, if at the end his amazing deeds and miracles were consequence of a long and hard training in Chi Kung, Yoga, Tai Chi or (the largely atheistic) Buddhistic philosophies and methods (leaving, in addtion, no trace or evidence that these methods were instrumental to his miracles, specially when they were done appealing to the "Father").

The extreme implausibility of this position is obvious, and is the reason why no major Jesus scholar defends it. It only exists in the imagination of anti-Christian non-professionals in Jesus research.

Moreover and more telling, here we see another anti-Christian double standard. The same people who appeal to these (non-evidence based) speculations about Jesus, are the same who denies Jesus' self-perception as "divine" or the "Son of God" appealing to the supposed lack of evidence for these claims (which is false, as we have seen, since the evidence for some of the claims is pretty good).

The putative lack of evidence is used negatively to deny Jesus' divinity (in order to deny the traditional understanding of Jesus), but the same lack of evidence is used positively to make at least plausible or reasonable that God wasn't the cause of Jesus' resurrection (in order to deny the traditional concept of the resurrection as an event caused by God). Note that what determines the negative or positive use of the "lack of evidence" criterion is the way in which such a criterion is useful to undermine the traditional understanding of Jesus.

When the lack of evidence can be interpreted against Christianity, then wild speculations about Yoga, Buddhism, Chi Kung, etc. are sympathetically allowed as "plausible" alternatives to explain the resurrection. But the same criterion is not sympathetically allowed to defend the plausibility of Jesus' divinity or his resurrection caused by God. Clearly, the doble standard is obviously anti-Christain as any objective observer would easily recognize.

Religious pluralistic scholars are more consistent here. This is why they, consistent with their denial of Jesus' claims of exclusivity, also reject the factuality of Jesus' resurrection. Marcus Borg, for example, who has made a pluralistic version of the historical Jesus, denies the historicity of any claim by Jesus implying his divinity (and his exclusive divine connection with God). But in order to fancy himself as a "Christian", he uses the language of the resurrection in a misleading and idiosyncratic way (as an experiencied reality by the disciples and the Christians in general) while denies, evades (with red-herrings about "meanings" and "metaphors") or undermines the importance of, for example, the empty tomb for the historical assessment of the bodily resurrection.

I consider the approach to the Historical Jesus of people like Borg and other pluralists as fraudulent, dishonest and misleading.

Demostrably (and I haven't found any exception yet), the people who are sympathetic to the work of the Jesus Seminar are people who have a very strong animosity and hostility against traditional Christianity. This animosity predisposes them to read the evidence in a way contrary to the traditional concept of Jesus. They have a double standard to judge the evidence, which antecedently favours the liberal position.

But when you read the evidence with objectivity, without prejudices for or against a certain view of Jesus (and not letting that your own opinion about what Jesus is or have to be determine your conclusions), you can eaasily realize that the liberal case of the Jesus Seminar for the historical Jesus is full of anti-Christian assumptions (which in this context is question-begging), atheistic-naturalistic pressupositions and pluralistic prejudices which are contrary to the evidence (The evidence suggests supernatural elements or contexts, like the teaching about God's Kingdom or the resurrection; exclusivistic elements, like Jesus being the only son of God, and claims implying Jesus' divinity like his claims of being the only son of God, which suggests an unique divine nature above mere human nature, and more importantly Jesus' claims of authority in matters which only belong to God).

In future posts, I'll show with concrete examples and solid evidence how the Jesus Seminar favours certain sources (e.g. the Gospel of Thomas) misusing the criteria of authenticity (the criteria used by scholars to determine which sayings by Jesus are likely to be historical) in a way which favours its anti-Christian and pluralistic reconstruction of the historical Jesus.

What part of nothing you don't understand, STUPID? Reflections on 2+2=5 atheist genius Lawrence M. Krauss and evidence for Jime's Iron Law

My personal librery is composed mostly of books written by atheists (just since some recent years, it has become increasingly filled with books by theists, specially Christian theists). As consequence, I'm pretty familiar with atheistic thinking, the main arguments for atheism and the overall atheist minset (which includes a wide spectrum but that you can discern into types when analyzed carefully).

My reading of the atheist literature plus my interaction with online hard-core atheists have lead me to postulate what I've named (inspired by Michael Shermer) Jime's Iron Law, according to which (roughly) hard-core atheists are irrational, in the sense that their thinking is positively illogical, strongly limited and their cognitive faculties are seriously damaged and impaired to track the truth or understand deep questions. I'm seriously convinced that, more or less accurately, this law holds for hard-core atheists in general (I'm sure there are a few exceptions). Note that this law doesn't exclude the irrationality of some non-atheists (my law doesn't say that "only" atheists are irrational; it simply states that, as a rule, hard core atheists are irrational and positively stupid in the literal sense of this word).

A dramatic, irrefutable and devastating confirmation of my law comes from the recent atheistic tendency to conflate "nothing" (=not anything = the absense of existence), with "something which is basic or fundamental" (e.g natural laws, quantum vacuum, quantum particles, entropy, gravity, or any other basic something).

Derek Parfit, a prominent atheist philosopher, wrote:

"No question is more sublime than why there is a Universe: why there is anything rather than nothing" (Derek Parfit, "Why Anything? Why This?" London Review of Books 20/2 (January 22, 1998), p.24.)

Parfit is posing a philosophical question which has been dabated by thousand of years, namely, the question why something exists (instead of not existing at all). Why does being (something) exist instead of non-being (sheer non-existence)?

Do you understand the above question? I've explained this question for children of 10 years old and they grasp it. I must assume that most of my readers understand the question too. So, let's continue.

Philosophers have replied to this question saying that something necessary has to exist (either God or the universe) which contains in its essence the reason of its existence, because it makes no sense saying that something came from absolute non-being (i.e. out of nothing). Some atheists have claimed that the universe has necessary existence (i.e. it cannot not to exist) and hence it is eternal too. But the cosmological evidence has shown that the universe began to exist and hence is not eternal (therefore, it is not necessary either). Hence, the universe is contingent and therefore cries out for an explanation outside itself.

But replying to this question is not my interest in this post. My interest is to reflect in the level of intelligence needed to understand the question (regardless of the answer that we could provide to it).

I submit that any sane, rational, normal intelligent person would understand the question. And I submit too that, in general, hard-core atheists are intellectually unable to fully understand the question, because their minds don't work properly (Jime's Iron Law).

Consider Lawrence M. Krauss's following short video (in which he says that "nothing is unstable"):

Since "unstable" is a property (=a characteristic), it can be only predicated of something. But nothing (in the philosophical sense that Parfit is asking the question) is the DENIAL of something, namely, not anything (=non-being). Now, how the hell can you say that "non-being" is stable or unstable, blue or red, big or small, expensive or unexpensive (adds any property that you want) if, by definition, non-being DOES NOT EXIST? How could you predicate something of absolutely nothing (total non-existence)?

It's very obvious that Krauss has not (and, if Jime's Iron Law is correct, CANNOT) understand the question. The question is simply beyond Krauss' intellectual powers. He BELIEVES he's understanding the question, but actually he doesn't get it at all. This provides a dramatic and painful confirmation of Jime's Iron Law.

But perhaps some of you are thinking that using just one example is not confirmatory at all. But it is not the case. Consider atheist John Loftus' position that "Nothing = Balance of Energy":

Not convinced yet of Jime's Iron Law? Consider leading atheist propagandist Peter Atkins's positive claim "the universe is in fact a big confidence trick. There's truly nothing here":

Still skeptical of Jime's Iron Law? Consider atheist Stephen Hawking (who's considered an intellectual genius, just because most people don't understand quantum mechanics and think Hawking is able to understand profound things that they don't) assertion "Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing" (The Grand Design’, p. 25)

Still unconvinced of Jime's Iron Law? Consider atheist Victor Stenger's claim "Since “nothing” is as simple as it gets, we cannot expect it to be very stable. It would likely undergo a spontaneous phase transition to something more complicated, like a universe containing matter." (Cosmic Evidence’ from "God: The Failed Hypothesis")

I could to continue with tons of further examples, but I think it suffices to prove my point.

Hard-core atheists like Krauss, Stenger, Dawkins, Harris, Hawking, Wolpert, Atkins and many others are fine examples of the solid veracity of my Jime's Law. They're positively stupid, mentally incapable of understanding profound questions and demostrably illogical and irrational. Moreover, their intellectual impairment implies that they CANNOT realize their own limitations and this is why they write entire books defending positions which are obviously absurd, irrational and ridiculous.

Hard-core atheists subjected to Jime's Iron Law will praise these popular books as first-rate scientific contributions and masterpieces by towering intellects, while the rest of the world (rational atheists included) will laugh in their imbecility and the persistent stupidity of "thinkers" like the ones mentioned.

In this recent podcast that I've just heard, philosopher William Lane Craig explains the obvious confusions and fallacies of Krauss's use of "nothing". Craig sympathetically attributes Krauss' use of "nothing" as a product of Krauss' ignorance of philosophy. I think Craig is partially wrong here.

While I agree that Krauss is solidly ignorant of philosophy, I think his use of "nothing" (common among atheists) is not simply a product of ignorance, but that it is a symptom of a deeper phenomenon described by my law: Atheists like Krauss simply cannot (in an intellectual level) understand the actual and philosophically relevant meaning of "nothing".

So, even though Craig is basically correct in his critique of Krauss, he fails to realize the actual cause of Krauss' misleading use of "nothing". This cause has nothing to do with ignorance (even though could be increased by it) but with the hard-core atheist's psychological, intellectual and spiritual structure and limitations.

Only a person armed with Jime's Iron Law will understand what's happening here.